here were two neighboring kingdoms, the constructors held a brief council of war before landing.
“With two kingdoms,” said Trurl, “it’s best you take one, and I the other. That way nobody’s feelings get hurt.”
“Fine,” said Klapaucius. “But what if they ask for military aid? Such things happen.”
“True, they could demand weapons, even superweapons,” Trurl agreed. “We’ll simply refuse.”
“And if they insist, and threaten us?” returned Klapaucius. “This too can happen.”
“Let’s see,” said Trurl, switching on the radio. It blared martial music, a rousing march.
“I have an idea,” said Klapaucius, turning it off. “We can use the Gargantius Effect. What do you think?”
“Ah, the Gargantius Effect!” cried Trurl. “I never heard of anyone actually using it. But there’s always a first time. Yes, why not?”
“We’ll both be prepared to use it,” Klapaucius explained. “But it’s imperative that we use it together, otherwise we’re in serious trouble.”
“No problem,” said Trurl. He took a small golden box out of his pocket and opened it. Inside, on velvet, lay two white beads. “You keep one, I’ll keep the other. Look at yours every evening; if it turns pink, that’ll mean I’ve started and you must too.”
“So be it,” said Klapaucius and put his bead away. Then they landed, shook hands and set off in opposite directions.
The kingdom to which Trurl repaired was ruled by King Atrocitus. He was a militarist to the core, and an incredible miser besides. To relieve the royal treasury, he did away with all punishments except for the death sentence. His favorite occupation was to abolish unnecessary offices; since that included the office of executioner, every condemned citizen was obliged to do his own beheading, or else—on rare occasions of royal clemency—have it done by his next of kin. Of the arts Atrocitus supported only those that entailed little expense, such as choral recitation, chess and military calisthenics. The art of war he held in particularly high esteem, for a victorious campaign brought in excellent returns; on the other hand, one could properly prepare for war only during an interval of peace, so the King advocated peace, though in moderation. His greatest reform was the nationalization of high treason. As the neighboring kingdom was continually sending spies, he created the office of Royal Informer, who, through a staff of subordinate traitors, would hand over State secrets to enemy agents for certain sums of money. Though as a rule the agents purchased only outdated secrets—those were less expensive and besides, they were held accountable to their own treasury for every penny spent.
The subjects of Atrocitus rose early, were well-behaved, and worked long hours. They wove fascines and gabions for fortifications, made guns and denunciations. In order that the kingdom not be flooded with the latter (which in fact had happened during the reign of Bartholocaust the Walleyed several hundred years before), whoever wrote too many denunciations was required to pay a special luxury tax. In this way they were kept at a reasonable level. Arriving at the Court of Atrocitus, Trurl offered his services. The King— not surprisingly—wanted powerful instruments of war. Trurl asked for a few days to think it over, and as soon as he was alone in the little cubicle they had assigned to him, he looked at the bead in the golden box. It was white but, as he looked, turned slowly pink. “Aha,” he said to himself, “time to start with Gargantius!” And without further delay he took out his secret formulae and set to work.
Klapaucius meanwhile found himself in the other kingdom, which was ruled by the mighty King Ferocitus. Here everything looked quite different than in Atrocia. This monarch too delighted in campaigns and marches, and he too spent heavily on armaments—but in an enlightened way, for he was a most generous lord and a great patron of the arts. He loved uniforms, gold braid, stripes and tassels, spurs, brigadiers with bells, destroyers, swords and chargers. A person of keen sensibilities, he trembled every time he christened a new destroyer. And he lavishly rewarded paintings of battle scenes, patriotically paying according to the number of fallen foes depicted, so that, on those endless panoramic canvases with which the kingdom was packed, mountains
Ferocitus rejoiced to see his people in such good spirits. Whenever he drove by in his destroyer-shaped carriage, crowds in the street would cheer, and whenever he graciously waved his royal hand, those up front would cry: “Wow!'—'Hallelujah!'—'Terrific!” A democrat at heart, he liked to stop and chat awhile with old soldiers who had been around and seen much, liked to hear tales of derring-do told at bivouacs, and often, when some foreign dignitary came for an audience, he would out of the blue clap him on the knee with his baton and bellow: “Have at them!'—or: “Swiggle the mizzen there, mates!'—or: “Thunderation!” For there was nothing he loved so much or held so dear as gumption, crust and pluck, roughness and toughness, powder, chowder, hardtack, grog and ammo. And so, whenever he was melancholy, he had his troops march by before him, singing: “Screw up yer courage, nuts to the foe'—'When currents lag, crank out the flag'—'We’ll scrap, stout lads, until we’re nought but scrap'—or the rousing anthem: “Lock, stock, and barrel.” And he commanded that, when he died, the old guard should sing his favorite song over the grave: “Old Robots Never Rust.”
Klapaucius did not get to the court of this great ruler all at once. At the first village he came to, he knocked on several doors, but no one opened up. Finally he noticed in the deserted street a small child; it approached him and asked in a thin, high voice:
“Wanna buy any, mister? They’re cheap.”
“What are you selling?” inquired Klapaucius, surprised.
“State secrets,” replied the child, lifting the edge of its smock to give him a glimpse of some mobilization plans. This surprised Klapaucius even more, and he said:
“No, thank you, my little one. But can you tell me where I might find the mayor?”
“What’cha want the mayor for?” asked the child.
“I wish to speak with him.”
“In secret?”
“It makes no difference.”
“Need a secret agent? My dad’s a secret agent. Dependable and cheap.”
“Very well then, take me to your dad,” said Klapaucius, seeing he would get nowhere with the child. The child led him to one of the houses. Inside, though it was in the middle of the day, a family sat around a lighted lamp—a gray grandfather in a rocking chair, a grandmother knitting socks, and their fully grown and numerous progeny, each busy at his own household task. As soon as Klapaucius entered, they jumped up and seized him; the knitting needles turned out to be handcuffs, the lamp a microphone, and the grandmother the local chief of police.
“They must have made a mistake,” thought Klapaucius, when he was beaten and thrown in jail. Patiently he waited through the night—there was nothing else he could do. The dawn came and revealed the cobwebs on the stone walls of his cell, also the rusted remains of previous prisoners. After a length of time he was taken and interrogated. It turned out that the little child as well as the houses—the whole village, in fact—all of it was a plant to trick foreign spies. But Klapaucius did not have to face the rigors of a long trial; the proceedings were quickly over. For attempting to establish contact with the informer-dad the punishment was a third-class guillotining, because the local administration had already allotted funds to buy out enemy agents for that fiscal year, and Klapaucius, on his part, repeatedly refused to purchase any State secrets from the police. Nor did he have sufficient ready cash to mitigate the offense. Still, the prisoner continued to protest his innocence—not that the judge believed a word of it; even if he had, to free him lay outside his jurisdiction. So the case was sent to a higher court, and in the meantime Klapaucius was subjected to torture, though more as a matter of form than out of any real
