

         
        
        
            Table of Contents
            
            Part 1. An Impressive Advertisement.
            Part 2. The Emissary.
            Part 3. King Krool.
            Part 4. The Hunting Trophies.
            Part 5. Brainstorming a Beast.
            Part 6. Fierce Simulations.
            Part 7. The Secret Police.
            Part 8. The Great Hunt.
            Part 9. The Constructors' Demands.
            Part 10. The Release of Krool. 
            
            Part 1. An Impressive Advertisement
            
            The tremendous success of their application of the Gargantius Effect 
            gave both constructors such an appetite for adventure, that they 
            resolved to sally forth once again to parts unknown. Unfortunately, 
            they were quite unable to decide on a destination. Trurl, given to 
            tropical climes, had his heart set on Scaldonia, the land of the 
            Flaming Flamingos, while Klapaucius, of a somewhat cooler 
            disposition, was equally determined to visit the Intergalactic Cold 
            Pole, a bleak continent adrift among frozen stars. The friends were 
            about to part company for good when Trurl suddenly had an idea. 
            "Wait," he said, "we can advertise our services, then take the best 
            offer!" "Ridiculous!" snorted Klapaucius. "How are you going to 
            advertise? In a newspaper? Do you have any idea how long it takes a 
            newspaper to reach the nearest planet? You'll be dead and buried 
            before the first offer comes in!" 
            But Trurl gave a knowing smile and revealed his plan, which 
            Klapaucius--begrudgingly--had to admit was ingenious, and so they 
            set to work. All the necessary equipment quickly thrown together, 
            they gathered up the local stars and arranged them in a great sign, 
            a sign that would be visible at truly incalculable distances. Only 
            blue giants were used for the first word--to get the cosmic reader's 
            attention--and lesser stellar material made up the others. The 
            advertisement read: Two Distinguished Constructors Seek Employment 
            Commensurate with Their Skill and Above All Lucrative, Hence 
            Preferably at the Court of a Well-heeled King (Should Have His Own 
            Kingdom), Terms to Be Arranged. 

        

            Part 2. The Emissary
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            It was not long before, one bright morning, a most marvelous craft 
            alighted on their front lawn. It gleamed in the sun, all inlaid with 
            mother-of-pearl, had three legs intricately carved and six 
            additional supports of solid gold (quite useless, since they didn't 
            even reach the ground--but then, the builders obviously had more 
            wealth than they knew what to do with). Down a magnificent staircase 
            with billowing fountains on either side there came a figure of 
            stately bearing with a retinue of six-legged machines: some of these 
            massaged him, some supported him and fanned him, and the smallest 
            flew above his august brow and sprayed it with eau de cologne from 
            an atomizer. This impressive emissary greeted the constructors on 
            behalf of his lord and sovereign, King Krool, who wished to engage 
            them. 
            "What sort of work is it?" asked Trurl, interested. 
            "The details, gentle sirs, you shall learn at the proper time," was 
            his reply. He was dressed in galligaskins of gold, mink-tufted 
            buskins, sequined earmuffs, and a robe of most unusual cut--instead 
            of pockets it had little shelves full of mints and marzipan. Tiny 
            mechanical flies also buzzed about his person, and these he brushed 
            away whenever they grew too bold. 
            "For now," he went on, "I can only say that His Boundless Kroolty is 
            a great enthusiast of the hunt, a fearless and peerless conqueror of 
            every sort of galactic fauna, and verily, his prowess has reached 
            such heights that now the fiercest predators known are no longer 
            worthy game for him. And herein lies our misfortune, for he craves 
            excitement, danger, thrills...which is why--"
            "Of course!" said Trurl. "He wants us to construct a new model of 
            beast, something wild and rapacious enough to present a challenge." 
            "You are, worthy constructor, indeed quick!" said the King's 
            emissary. "Then it is agreed?" 
            Klapaucius began to question the emissary more closely on certain 
            practical matters. But after the King's generosity was glowingly 
            described and sufficiently elaborated upon, they hurriedly packed 
            their things and a few books, ran up the magnificent staircase, 
            hopped on board and were immediately lifted, with a great roar and 
            burst of flame that blackened the ship's gold legs, into the 
            interstellar night. 

        

            Part 3. King Krool
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            As they traveled, the emissary briefed the constructors on the laws 
            and customs prevailing in the Kingdom of Krool, told them of the 
            monarch's nature, as broad and open as a leveled city, and of his 
            manly pursuits, and much more, so that by the time the ship landed, 
            they could speak the language like natives. 
            First they were taken to a splendid villa situated on a mountainside 
            above the village--this was where they were to stay. Then, after a 
            brief rest, the King sent a carriage for them, a carriage drawn by 
            six fire-breathing monsters. These were muzzled with fire screens 
            and smoke filters, had their wings clipped to keep them on the 
            ground, and long spiked tails and six paws apiece with iron claws 
            that cut deep pits in the road wherever they went. As soon as the 
            monsters saw the constructors, the entire team set up a howl, 
            belching fire and brimstone, and strained to get at them. The coach 
            men in asbestos armor and the King's huntsmen with hoses and pumps 
            had to fall upon the crazed creatures and beat them into submission 
            with laser and maser clubs before Trurl and Klapaucius could safely 
            step into the plush carriage, which they did without a word. The 
            carriage tore off at breakneck speed or--to use an appropriate 
            metaphor--like a bat out of hell. 
            "You know," Trurl whispered in Klapaucius' ear as they rushed along, 
            knocking down everything in their path and leaving a long trail of 
            sulfurous smoke behind them, "I have a feeling that this king won't 
            settle for just anything. I mean, if he has coursers like these..." 
            But level-headed Klapaucius said nothing. Houses now flashed by, 
            walls of diamonds and sapphires and silver, while the dragons 
            thundered and hissed and the drivers cursed and shouted. At last a 
            colossal portcullis loomed up ahead, opened, and their carriage 
            whirled into the courtyard, careening so sharply that the flower 
            beds all shriveled up, then ground to a stop before a castle black 
            as blackest night. Welcomed by an unusually dismal fanfare and quite 
            overwhelmed by the massive stairs, balustrades and especially the 
            stone giants that guarded the main gate, Trurl and Klapaucius, 
            ranked by a formidable escort, entered the mighty castle.
            King Krool awaited them in an enormous hall the shape of a skull, a 
            vast and vaulted cave of beaten silver. There was a gaping pit in 
            the floor, the skul1's foramen magnum, and beyond it stood the 
            throne, over which two streams of light crossed like swords--they 
            came from high windows fixed in the skull's eye sockets and with 
            panes specially tinted to give everything a harsh and infernal 
            aspect. The constructors now saw Krool himself: too impatient to sit 
            still on his throne, this monarch paced from wall to wall across the 
            silver floor, his steps booming in that cadaverous cavern, and as he 
            spoke he emphasized his words with such sudden stabs of the hand, 
            that the air whistled. 

        

            Part 4. The Hunting Trophies
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            "Welcome, constructors!" he said, skewering them both with his eyes. 
            "As you've no doubt learned from Lord Protozor, Master of the Royal 
            Hunt, I want you to build me new and better kinds of game. Now I'm 
            not interested, you understand, in any mountain of steel on a 
            hundred-odd treads--that's a job for heavy artillery, not for me. My 
            quarry must be strong and ferocious, but swift and nimble too, and 
            above all cunning and full of wiles, so that I will have to call 
            upon all my hunter's art to drive it to the ground. It must be a 
            highly intelligent beast, and know all there is to know of covering 
            tracks, doubling back, hiding in shadows and lying in wait, for such 
            is my will!" 
            "Forgive me, Your Highness," said Klapaucius with a careful bow, 
            "but if we do Your Highness' bidding too well, might not this put 
            the royal life and limb in some peril?" 
            The King roared with such laughter that a couple of crystal pendants 
            fell off a chandelier and shattered at the feet of the trembling 
            constructors. 
            "Have no fear of that, noble constructors!" he said with a grim 
            smile. "You are not the first, and you will not be the last, I 
            expect. Know that I am a just but most exacting ruler. Too often 
            have assorted knaves, flatterers and fakes attempted to deceive me, 
            too often, I say, have they posed as distinguished hunting 
            engineers, solely to empty my coffers and fill their sacks with gems 
            and precious stones, leaving me, in return, with a few paltry 
            scarecrows that fall apart at the first touch. Too often has this 
            happened for me not to take appropriate measures. For twelve years 
            now any constructor who fails to meet my demands, who promises more 
            than he is able to deliver, indeed receives his reward, but is 
            hurled, reward and all, into yon deep well--unless he be game enough 
            (excuse the pun) to serve as the quarry himself. In which case, 
            gentlemen, I use no weapon but these two bare hands..." 
            "And...and have there been, ah, many such impostors?" asked Trurl in 
            a weak voice. 
            "Many? That's difficult to say. I only know that no one yet has 
            satisfied me, and the scream of terror they invariably give as they 
            plummet to the bottom doesn't last quite so long as it used to--the 
            remains, no doubt, have begun to mount. But rest assured, gentlemen, 
            there is room enough still for you!" 
            A deathly silence followed these dire words, and the two friends 
            couldn't help but look in the direction of that dark and ominous 
            hole. The King resumed his relentless pacing, his boots striking the 
            floor like sledge hammers in an echo chamber. 
            "But, with Your Highness' permission...that is, we--we haven't yet 
            drawn up the contract," stammered Trurl. "Couldn't we have an hour 
            or two to think it over, weigh carefully what Your Highness has been 
            so gracious as to tell us, and then of course we can decide whether 
            to accept your generous offer or, on the other hand--"
            "Ha!!" laughed the King like a thunderclap. "Or, on the other hand, 
            to go home? I'm afraid not, gentlemen! The moment you set foot on 
            board the Infernanda, you accepted my offer! If every constructor 
            who came here could leave whenever he pleased, why, I'd have to wait 
            forever for my fondest hopes to be realized! No, you must stay and 
            build me a beast to hunt. I give you twelve days, and now you may 
            go. Whatever pleasure you desire, in the meantime, is yours. You 
            have but to ask the servants I have given you; nothing will be 
            denied you. In twelve days, then!" 
            "With Your Highness' permission, you can keep the pleasures, 
            but--well, would it be at all possible for us to have a look at the, 
            uh, hunting trophies Your Highness must have collected as a result, 
            so to speak, of the efforts of our predecessors?" 
            "But of course!" said the King indulgently and clapped his hands 
            with such force that sparks flew and danced across the silver walls. 
            The gust of air from those powerful palms cooled even more our 
            constructors' ardor for adventure. Six guards in white and gold 
            appeared and conducted them down a corridor that twisted and wound 
            like the gullet of a giant serpent. Finally, to their great relief, 
            it led out into a large, open garden. There, on remarkably 
            well-trimmed lawns, stood the hunting trophies of King Krool. 
            Nearest at hand was a saber-toothed colossus, practically cut in two 
            in spite of the heavy mail and plate armor that was to have 
            protected its trunk; the hind legs, disproportionately large 
            (evidently designed for great leaps), lay upon the grass alongside 
            the tail, which ended in a firearm with its magazine half-empty--a 
            clear sign that the creature had not fallen to the King without a 
            fight. A yellow strip of cloth hanging from its open jaws also 
            testified to this, for Trurl recognized in it the breeches worn by 
            the King's huntsmen. 
            Next was another prone monstrosity, a dragon with a multitude of 
            tiny wings all singed and blackened by enemy fire; its circuits had 
            spilled out molten and had then congealed in a copper-porcelain 
            puddle. Farther on stood another creature, the pillarlike legs 
            spread wide. A gentle breeze soughed softly through its fangs. And 
            there were wrecks on wheels and wrecks on treads, some with claws 
            and some with cannon, all sundered to the magnetic core, and 
            tank-turtles with squashed turrets, and mutilated military 
            millipedes, and other oddities, broken and battle-scarred, some 
            equipped with auxiliary brains (burnt out), some perched on 
            telescoping stilts (dislocated), and there were little vicious 
            biting things strewn about. These had been made to attack in great 
            swarms, then regroup in a sphere bristling with gun muzzles and 
            bayonets--a clever idea, but it saved neither them nor their 
            creators. 
            Down this aisle of devastation walked Trurl and Klapaucius, pale, 
            silent, looking as if they were on their way to a funeral instead of 
            to another brilliant session of vigorous invention. They came at 
            last to the end of that dreadful gallery of Krool's triumphs and 
            stepped into the carriage that was waiting for them at the gate. 
            That dragon team which sped them back to their lodgings seemed less 
            terrible now. Just as soon as they were alone in their sumptuously 
            appointed green and crimson drawing room, before a table heaped high 
            with effervescent drinks and rare delicacies, Trurl broke into a 
            volley of imprecations; he reviled Klapaucius for heedlessly 
            accepting the offer made by the Master of the Royal Hunt, thereby 
            bringing down misfortune on their heads, when they easily could have 
            stayed at home and rested on their laurels. Klapaucius said nothing, 
            waiting patiently for Trurl's desperate rage to expend itself, and 
            when it finally did and Trurl had collapsed into a lavish 
            mother-of-pearl chaise lounge and buried his face in his hands, he 
            said:
            "Well, we'd better get to work." 
            These words did much to revive Trurl, and the two constructors 
            immediately began to consider the various possibilities, drawing on 
            their knowledge of the deepest and darkest secrets of the arcane art 
            of cybernetic generation. 

        

            Part 5. Brainstorming a Beast
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            First of all, they agreed that victory lay neither in the armor nor 
            in the strength of the monster to be built, but entirely in its 
            program; in other words, in an algorithm of demoniacal derivation. 
            "It must be a truly diabolical creature, a thing of absolute evil," 
            they said, and though they had as yet no clear idea of what or how, 
            this observation lifted their spirits considerably. Such was their 
            enthusiasm by the time they sat down to draft the beast, that they 
            worked all night, all day, and through a second night and day before 
            taking a break for dinner. And as the Leyden jars were passed about, 
            so sure were they of success, that they winked and smirked --but 
            only when the servants weren't looking, since they suspected them 
            (and rightly, too) of being the King's spies. So the constructors 
            said nothing of their work, but praised the mulled electrolyte which 
            the waiters brought in, tail coats flapping, in beakers of the 
            finest cut crystal. Only after the repast, when they had wandered 
            out on the veranda overlooking the village with its white steeples 
            and domes catching the last golden rays of the setting sun, only 
            then did Trurl turn to Klapaucius and say:
            "We're not out of the woods yet, you know." 
            "How do you mean?" asked Klapaucius in a cautious whisper. 
            "There's one difficulty. You see, if the King defeats our mechanical 
            beast, he'll undoubtedly have us thrown into that pit, for we won't 
            have done his bidding. If, on the other hand, the beast...You see 
            what I mean?" 
            "If the beast isn't defeated?" 
            "No, if the beast defeats him, dear colleague. If that happens, the 
            King's successor may not let us off so easily." 
            "You don't think we'd have to answer for that, do you? As a rule, 
            heirs to the throne are only too happy to see it vacated." 
            "True, but this will be his son, and whether the son punishes us out 
            of filial devotion or because he thinks the royal court expects it 
            of him, it'll make little difference as far as we're concerned." 
            "That never occurred to me," muttered Klapaucius. "You're quite 
            right, the prospects aren't encouraging . Have you thought of a way 
            out of this dilemma?" 
            "Well, we might make the beast multimortal. Picture this: the King 
            slays it, it falls, then it gets up again, resurrected, and the King 
            chases it again, slays it again, and so on, until he gets sick and 
            tired of the whole thing." 
            "That he won't like," said Klapaucius after some thought. "And 
            anyway, how would you design such a beast?" 
            "Oh, I don't know...We could make it without any vital organs. The 
            King chops the beast into little pieces, but the pieces grow back 
            together." 
            "How?" 
            "Use a field." 
            "Magnetic?" 
            "If you like." 
            "How do we operate it?" 
            "Remote control, perhaps?" asked Trurl. 
            "Too risky," said Klapaucius. "How do you know the King won't have 
            us locked up in some dungeon while the hunt's in progress? Our poor 
            predecessors were no fools, and look how they ended up. More than 
            one of them, I'm sure, thought of remote control--yet it failed. No, 
            we can't expect to maintain communication with the beast during the 
            battle." 
            "Then why not use a satellite?" suggested Trurl. "We could install 
            automatic controls--"
            "Satellite indeed!" snorted Klapaucius. "And how are you going to 
            build it, let alone put it in orbit? There are no miracles in our 
            profession, Trurl! We'll have to hide the controls some other way." 
            "But where can we hide the controls when they watch our every step? 
            You've seen how the servants skulk about, sticking their noses into 
            everything We'd never be able to leave the premises ourselves, and 
            certainly not smuggle out such a large piece of equipment. It's 
            impossible!" 
            "Calm down," said prudent Klapaucius, looking over his shoulder. 
            "Perhaps we don't need such equipment in the first place." 
            "Something has to operate the beast, and if that something is an 
            electronic brain anywhere inside, the King will smash it to a pulp 
            before you can say goodbye." 

        

            Part 6. Fierce Simulations
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            They were silent. Night had fallen and the village lights below were 
            flickering on, one by one. Suddenly Trurl said: 
            "Listen, here's an idea. We only pretend to build a beast but in 
            reality build a ship to escape on. We give it ears, a tail, paws, so 
            no one will suspect, and they can be easily jettisoned on takeoff. 
            What do you think of that? We get off scot-free and thumb our noses 
            at the King!" 
            "And if the King has planted a real constructor among our servants, 
            which is not unlikely, then it's all over and into the pit with us. 
            Besides, running away--no, it just doesn't suit me. It's him or us, 
            Trurl, you can't get around it." 
            "Yes, I suppose a spy could be a constructor too," said Trurl with a 
            sigh. "What then can we do, in the name of the Great Comet?! How 
            about--a photoelectric phantom?" 
            "You mean, a mirage? Have the King hunt a mirage? No thanks! After 
            an hour or two of that, he'd come straight here and make phantoms of 
            us!" 
            Again they were silent. Finally Trurl said: 
            "The only way out of our difficulty, as far as I can see, is to have 
            the beast abduct the King, and then--"
            "You don't have to say another word. Yes, that's not at all a bad 
            idea...Then for the ransom we--and haven't you noticed, old boy, 
            that the orioles here are a deeper orange than on Maryland IV?" 
            concluded Klapaucius, for just then some servants were bringing 
            silver lamps out on the veranda. "There's still a problem though," 
            he continued when they were alone again. "Assuming the beast can do 
            what you say, how will we be able to negotiate with the prisoner if 
            we're sitting in a dungeon ourselves?" 
            "You have a point there," said Trurl. "We'll have to figure some way 
            around that...The main thing, however, is the algorithm!" 
            "Any child knows that! What's a beast without an algorithm?" 
            So they rolled up their sleeves and sat down to experiment--by 
            simulation, that is mathematically and all on paper. And the 
            mathematical models of King Krool and the beast did such fierce 
            battle across the equation-covered table, that the constructors' 
            pencils kept snapping. Furious, the beast writhed and wriggled its 
            iterated integrals beneath the King's polynomial blows, collapsed 
            into an infinite series of indeterminate terms, then got back up by 
            raising itself to the nth power, but the King so belabored it with 
            differentials and partial derivatives that its Fourier coefficients 
            all canceled out (see Riemann's Lemma), and in the ensuing confusion 
            the constructors completely lost sight of both King and beast. 
            So they took a break, stretched their legs, had a swig from the 
            Leyden jug to bolster their strength, then went back to work and 
            tried it again from the beginning, this time unleashing their entire 
            arsenal of tensor matrices and grand canonical ensembles, attacking 
            the problem with such fervor that the very paper began to smoke. The 
            King rushed forward with all his cruel coordinates and mean values, 
            stumbled into a dark forest of roots and logarithms, had to 
            backtrack, then encountered the beast on a field of irrational 
            numbers (F1) and smote it so grievously that it fell two decimal 
            places and lost an epsilon, but the beast slid around an asymptote 
            and hid in an n-dimensional orthogonal phase space, underwent 
            expansion and came out, fuming factorially, and fell upon the King 
            and hurt him passing sore. But the King, nothing daunted, put on his 
            Markov chain mail and all his impervious parameters, took his 
            increment to infinity and dealt the beast a truly Boolean blow, sent 
            it reeling through an x-axis and several brackets--but the beast, 
            prepared for this, lowered its horns and wham!!--the pencils flew 
            like mad through transcendental functions and double eigen 
            transformations, and when at last the beast closed in and the King 
            was down and out for the count, the constructors jumped up, danced a 
            jig, laughed and sang as they tore all their papers to shreds, much 
            to the amazement of the spies perched in the chandelier--perched in 
            vain, for they were uninitiated into the niceties of higher 
            mathematics and consequently had no idea why Trurl and Klapaucius 
            were now shouting over and over, "Hurrah! Victory!!" 

        

            Part 7. The Secret Police
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            Well after midnight, the Leyden jug from which the constructors had 
            on occasion refreshed themselves in the course of their labors was 
            quietly taken to the headquarters of the King's secret police, where 
            its false bottom was opened and a tiny tape recorder removed. This 
            the experts switched on and listened to eagerly, but the rising sun 
            found them totally unenlightened and looking haggard. One voice, for 
            example, would say: 
            "Well? Is the King ready?" 
            "Right!" 
            "Where'd you put him? Over there? Good! Now--hold on, you have to 
            keep the feet together. Not yours, idiot, the King's! All right now, 
            ready? One, two, find the derivative! Quick! What do you get?" 
            "Pi." 
            "And the beast?" 
            "Under the radical sign. But look, the King's still standing!" 
            "Still standing, eh? Factor both sides, divide by two, throw in a 
            few imaginary numbers--good! Now change variables and 
            subtract--Trurl, what on earth are you doing?! The beast, not the 
            King, the beast! That's right! Good! Perfect!! Now transform, 
            approximate and solve for x. Do you have it?" 
            "I have it! Klapaucius! Look at the King now!!" 
            There was a pause, then a burst of wild laughter. 
            That same morning, as all the experts and high officials of the 
            secret police shook their heads, bleary-eyed after a sleepless 
            night, the constructors asked for quartz, vanadium, steel, copper, 
            platinum, rhinestones, dysprosium, yttrium and thulium, also cerium 
            and germanium, and most of the other elements that make up the 
            Universe, plus a variety of machines and qualified technicians, not 
            to mention a wide as sortment of spies--for so insolent had the 
            constructors become, that on the triplicate requisition form they 
            boldly wrote: "Also, kindly send agents of various cuts and stripes 
            at the discretion and with the approval of the Proper Authorities." 
            The next day they asked for sawdust and a large red velvet curtain 
            on a stand, a cluster of little glass bells in the center and a 
            large tassel at each of its four corners; everything, even down to 
            the littlest glass bell, was specified with the utmost precision. 
            The King scowled when he heard these requests, but ordered them to 
            be carried out to the letter, for he had given his royal word. The 
            constructors were thus granted all that they wished. 
            All that they wished grew more and more outlandish. For instance, in 
            the files of the secret police under code number 48ggg/llK/T was a 
            copy of a requisition for three tailor's mannequins as well as six 
            full police uniforms, complete with sash, side arm, shako, plume and 
            handcuffs, also all available back issues of the magazine The 
            Patriotic Policeman, yearbooks and supplements included--under 
            "Comments" the constructors had guaranteed the return of all items 
            listed above within twenty-four hours of delivery and in perfect 
            condition. In another, classified section of the police archives was 
            a copy of a letter from Klapaucius in which he demanded the 
            immediate shipment of ( 1 ) a life size doll representing the 
            Postmaster General in full regalia, and (2) a light gig painted 
            green with a kerosene lamp on the left and a sky-blue sign on the 
            back that said THINK. The doll and gig proved too much for the Chief 
            of Police: he had to be taken away for a much-needed rest. During 
            the next three days the constructors asked only for barrels of red 
            castor oil, and after that--nothing. 
            From then on, they worked in the basement of the palace, hammering 
            away and singing space chanteys, and at night blue lights came 
            flashing from the basement windows and gave weird shapes to the 
            trees in the garden outside. Trurl and Klapaucius with their many 
            helpers bustled about amid arcs and sparks, now and then looking up 
            to see faces pressed against the glass: the servants, as if out of 
            idle curiosity, were photographing their every move. One evening, 
            when the weary constructors had finally dragged themselves off to 
            bed, the components of the apparatus they had been working on were 
            quickly transported by unmarked balloon to police headquarters and 
            assembled by eighteen of the finest cyberneticians in the land, who 
            had been deputized and duly sworn in for that very purpose, 
            whereupon a gray tin mouse ran out from under their hands, blowing 
            soap bubbles and dropping a thin trail of chalk dust from under its 
            tail, which spelled, as it danced this way and that across the 
            table, WHAT, DON'T YOU LOVE US ANYMORE? Never before in the 
            kingdom's history did Chiefs of Police have to be re placed with 
            such speed and regularity. 
            The uniforms, the doll, the green gig, even the sawdust, everything 
            which the constructors returned exactly as promised, was thoroughly 
            examined under electron microscope. But except for a minuscule card 
            in the sawdust which read JUST SAWDUST, there was nothing out of the 
            ordinary. Then individual atoms of the uniforms and gig were 
            thoroughly searched--with equal lack of success. 

        

            Part 8. The Great Hunt
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            At last the day came when the work was completed. A huge vehicle on 
            three hundred wheels, looking something like a refrigerator, was 
            drawn up to the main entrance and opened in the presence of 
            witnesses and officials; Trurl and Klapaucius brought out a curtain, 
            the one with the tassels and bells, and placed it carefully inside, 
            in the middle of the floor. Then they got in themselves, closed the 
            door, did something, then went and got various containers from the 
            basement, cans of chemicals, all sorts of finely ground 
            powders--gray, silver, white, yellow, green--and sprinkled them 
            under and around the curtain, then stepped out, had the vehicle 
            closed and locked, consulted their watches and together counted out 
            fourteen and a half seconds--at which time, much to everyone's 
            surprise, since the vehicle was stationary and there could be no 
            question of a breeze inside (for the seal was hermetic), the glass 
            bells tinkled. The constructors exchanged a wink and said: 
            "You can take it now!" 
            The rest of the day they spent blowing soap bubbles from the 
            veranda. That evening Lord Protozor, Master of the Royal Hunt, came 
            with an escort and politely but firmly informed them that they were 
            to go with him at once to an assigned place. They were required to 
            leave all their possessions behind, even their clothes; in exchange 
            they were given rags, then put in irons. The guards and police 
            dignitaries present were astounded by their perfect sang-froid: 
            instead of demanding justice or trembling with fear, Trurl giggled 
            as the shackles were being hammered on, saying he was ticklish. And 
            when the constructors were thrown into a dark and dismal dungeon, 
            they promptly struck up a rousing chorus of "Sing Sweet Software." 
            Meanwhile mighty Krool rode forth from the village on his mighty 
            hunting chariot, surrounded by all his retinue and followed by a 
            long and winding train of riders and machines, machines that 
            included not only the traditional catapult and cannon, but enormous 
            laser guns and beta ray bazookas, and a tar-thrower guaranteed to 
            immobilize anything that walked, swam, flew or rolled along. 
            And so this grand procession wended its way to the royal game 
            preserve, and many jokes were made, and boasts, and haughty toasts, 
            and no one gave a thought to the two constructors, except perhaps to 
            remark that those fools were in a pretty pickle now. 
            But when the silver trumpets announced His Majesty's approach, one 
            could see a huge vehicle-refrigerator coming up in the opposite 
            direction. Its door flung open, and for one brief moment there gaped 
            the black maw of what appeared to be some sort of field gun. Next 
            there was a boom, a puff of yellow smoke, and something came 
            rocketing out, a form as blurry as a tornado and with the general 
            consistency of a sandstorm; it arced through the air so fast that no 
            one really got a good look at it anyway. Whatever it was flew a 
            hundred paces or more and landed without a sound; the curtain that 
            had been wrapped around it floated to the earth, glass bells 
            tinkling oddly in that perfect silence, and lay there like a crushed 
            strawberry. 
            Now everyone could see the beast clearly--though it wasn't clear at 
            all, but looked a little like a hill, rather large, fairly long, its 
            color much like its surroundings, a clump of dried-up weeds. The 
            King's huntsmen unleashed the whole pack of automated hounds (mainly 
            Saint Cybernards and Cyberman pinschers, with an occasional 
            high-frequency terrier); these hurled themselves, howling and 
            slavering, at the crouching beast. The beast didn't rear back, 
            didn't roar, didn't even breathe fire, but only opened its two eyes 
            wide and reduced half the pack to ashes in a trice. 
            "Oho! Laser-eyed, is it?" cried the King. "Hand me my trusty 
            duralumin doublet, my bulletproof buckler, my halberd and arquebus!" 
            Thus accoutered and gleaming like a supernova, he rode out upon his 
            fearless high-fidelity cyber steed, came nigh the beast and smote it 
            such a mighty blow that the air crackled and its head tumbled neatly 
            to the ground. Though the retinue dutifully hallooed his triumph, 
            the King took no delight in it; greatly angered, he swore in his 
            heart to devise some special torment for those wretches who dared to 
            call themselves constructors. The beast, however, shook another head 
            out of its severed neck, opened its new eyes wide and played a 
            withering beam across the King's armor (which, however, was proof 
            against all manner of electromagnetic radiation). "Well, those two 
            weren't a total loss," said the King to himself, "though this still 
            won't help them." And he recharged his charger and spurred it into 
            the fray. 
            This time he swung full and cleaved the beast in twain. The beast 
            didn't seem to mind--in fact, it positioned itself helpfully beneath 
            the whistling blade and gave a grateful twitch as it fell. And small 
            wonder! The King took another look: the thing was twinned instead of 
            twained! There were two spitting images, each a little smaller than 
            the original, plus a third, a baby beast gamboling between 
            them--that was the head he had cut off earlier: it now had a tail 
            and feet and was doing cartwheels through the weeds. 
            "What next?" thought the King. "Chop it into mice or little worms? A 
            fine way to hunt!" And with great ire did he have at it, hewing with 
            might and main until there were no end of little beasts underfoot, 
            but suddenly they all backed off, went into a huddle, and there 
            stood the beast again, good as new and stifling a yawn. 
            "H'm," thought the King. "Apparently it has the same kind of 
            stabilization mechanism that--what was his name 
            again?--Pumpington--that Pumpington tried to use. Yes, I dealt with 
            him myself for that idiotic trick...Well, we'll just wheel out the 
            antimatter artillery..." 
            He picked one with a six-foot bore, lined it up and loaded it 
            himself, took aim, pulled the string and sent a perfectly silent and 
            weirdly shimmering shell straight at the beast, to blow it to 
            smithereens once and for all. But nothing happened--that is, nothing 
            much. The beast only crouched a little lower, put out its left hand, 
            long and hairy, and gave the King the finger. 
            "Bring out our biggest!" roared the King, pretending not to notice. 
            And several hundred peasants pulled up a veritable giant of a 
            cannon, all of eighty-gauge, which the King aimed and was just about 
            to fire--when all at once the beast leaped. The King lifted his 
            sword to defend himself, but then there was no more beast. Those who 
            saw what happened next said later that they were sure they had taken 
            leave of their senses, for as the beast flew through the air, it 
            underwent a lightning transformation, the grayish hulk divided up 
            into three men in uniform, three policemen, who, still aloft, were 
            already preparing to do their duty. 
            The first policeman, a sergeant, got out the handcuffs, maneuvering 
            his legs to keep upright; the second held on to his plumed shako 
            with one hand, so it wouldn't blow off, and with the other pulled 
            out a warrant from his breast pocket; the third, apparently a 
            rookie, assumed a horizontal position beneath the feet of the first 
            two, to cushion their fall--after which, however, he jumped up and 
            carefully dusted off his uniform. Meanwhile the first policeman had 
            handcuffed the dumbfounded King and the second slapped the sword 
            from his hand. Feebly protesting, the suspect was then summarily 
            trotted off the field. 
            The entire hunting procession stood rooted to the spot for a minute 
            or two, then gave a yell and followed in hot pursuit The snorting 
            cybersteeds had practically caught up with the abductors, and swords 
            and sabers were unsheathed and raised to strike, but the third 
            policeman bent over, depressed his bellybutton and immediately the 
            arms grew into two shafts, the legs coiled up, sprouting spokes, and 
            began to turn, while the back formed the seat of a green racing gig 
            to accommodate the other two policemen, who were vigorously plying 
            the now harnessed King with a whip, to make him run faster. The King 
            obliged and broke into a mad gallop, waving his arms frantically to 
            ward off the blows that descended upon his royal head; but now the 
            huntsmen were gaining again, so the policemen jumped on the King's 
            back and one slipped down between the shafts, huffed and puffed and 
            turned into a spinning top, a dancing whirlwind, which gave wings to 
            the little gig and whisked it away over hill and dale till it 
            disappeared altogether in a cloud of dust. 
            The King's retinue split up and began a desperate search with Geiger 
            counters and bloodhounds, and a special detachment came running up 
            with shovels and flame-throwers and left no bone unburned in all the 
            neighboring cemeteries--an obvious error, occasioned most likely by 
            the trembling hand that hastily telegraphed the order from the 
            observation balloon that had monitored the hunt. Several police 
            divisions rushed here and there, searched the grounds, every bush, 
            every weed, and both x-rays and laboratory samples were diligently 
            taken of everything imaginable. The King's charger was ordered to 
            appear before a special board of inquiry appointed by the Prosecutor 
            General. A unit of paratroopers with vacuum cleaners and sieves was 
            dropped on the royal game preserve to sift through every last 
            particle of dust. Finally, the order was issued that anyone 
            resembling a policeman was to be detained and held without bail, 
            which naturally created difficulties--one half of the police force, 
            as it turned out, had arrested the other, and vice versa. At dusk 
            the huntsmen and soldiers returned to the village dazed and 
            bedraggled with the woeful tidings that neither hide nor hair of the 
            King's person was anywhere to be found. 

        

            Part 9. The Constructors' Demands
            Back to: TOC | Lem 
            By torchlight and in the dead of night, the chained constructors 
            were taken before the Great Chancellor and Keeper of the Royal Seal, 
            who addressed them in the following way: 
            "Whereas ye have falsely conspired and perversely plotted against 
            the Crown and Life of Our Beloved Sovereign and Most Noble Ruler 
            Krool and therewith dared to raise a treacherous hand and vilely 
            devise his demise, not to mention impersonating an officer, a great 
            aggravation of your crimes, so shall ye be quartered without 
            quarter, impaled and pilloried, disemboweled, buried alive, 
            crucified and burnt at the stake, after which your ashes shall be 
            sent into orbit as a warning and perpetual reminder to all would-be 
            regicides, amen." 
            "Can't you wait a bit?" asked Trurl. "You see, we were expecting a 
            letter..." 
            "A letter, thou-most scurrilous and scurvy knave?!" 
            Just then the guards made way for the Postmaster General 
            himself--indeed, how could they bar that dignitary's entrance with 
            their poleaxes? The Postmaster approached in full regalia, his 
            medals jingling impressively, pulled a letter from a sapphire 
            satchel and handed it to the Chancellor, saying, "Mannequin though I 
            be, I come from His Majesty," whereupon he disintegrated into a fine 
            powder. The Chancellor could scarcely believe his eyes, but quickly 
            recognized the King's signet impressed there on the purple sealing 
            wax; he opened the letter and read that His Majesty was forced to 
            negotiate with the enemy, for the constructors had employed means 
            algorithmic and algebraic to make him captive, and now they would 
            list their demands, all of which the Great Chancellor had better 
            meet, if he wished ever to get his Mighty Sovereign back in one 
            piece. Signed: "Krool herewith affixes his hand and seal, held 
            prisoner in a cave of unknown location by one pseudoconstabulary 
            beast in three uniforms personified." 
            There then arose a great clamor, everyone shouting and asking what 
            it all meant and what were the demands, to which Trurl said only, 
            "Our chains, if you please." 
            A blacksmith was summoned to unfetter them, after which Trurl said: 
            "We are hungry and dirty, we need a bath, a shave, massage, 
            refreshment, nothing but the best, plenty of pomp and a water ballet 
            with fireworks for dessert!" 
            The court, of course, was hopping mad, but had to comply in every 
            particular. Only at dawn did the constructors return from their 
            villa, each elegantly pomaded, arrayed and reclining in a sedan 
            chair borne by footmen (their former informers); they then, deigning 
            to grant an audience, sat down and presented their demands--not off 
            the top of their heads, mind you, but from a little notebook they 
            had prepared for the occasion and hidden behind a curtain in their 
            room. The following articles were read: 
            First, A ship of the finest make and model available shall be 
            furnished to carry the constructors home. 
            2nd, The said ship shall be laden with various cargo as here 
            specified: diamonds--four bushels, gold coin--forty bushels, 
            platinum, palladium and whatever other ready valuables they happen 
            to think of, eight bushels of each, also whatever mementos and 
            tokens from the Royal Apartments the signatories of this instrument 
            may deem appropriate. 
            3rd, Until such time as the said ship shall be in readiness for 
            takeoff, every nut and bolt in place, fully loaded and delivered up 
            to the constructors complete with red carpet, an eighty-piece 
            send-off band and children's chorus, an abundance of honors, 
            decorations and awards, and a wildly cheering crowd--until then, no 
            King. 
            4th, That a formal expression of undying gratitude shall be stamped 
            upon a gold medallion and addressed to Their Most Sublime and 
            Radiant Constructors Trurl and Klapaucius, Delight and Terror of the 
            Universe, and moreover it shall contain a full account of their 
            victory and be duly signed and notarized by every high and low 
            official in the land, then set in the richly embellished barrel of 
            the King's favorite cannon, which Lord Protozor, Master of the Royal 
            Hunt, shall himself and wholly unaided carry on board--no other 
            Protozor but the one who lured Their Most Sublime and Radiant 
            Constructors to this planet, thinking to work their painful and 
            ignominious death thereby. 
            5th, That the aforesaid Protozor shall accompany them on their 
            return journey as insurance against any sort of double dealing, 
            pursuit, and the like. On board he shall occupy a cage three by 
            three by four feet and shall receive a daily allowance of humble pie 
            with a filling made of that very same sawdust which Their Most 
            Sublime and Radiant Constructors saw fit to order in the process of 
            indulging the King's foolishness and which was subsequently taken to 
            police headquarters by unmarked balloon. 
            6th and lastly, The King need not crave forgiveness of Their Most 
            Sublime and Radiant Constructors on bended knee, since he is much 
            too beneath them to deserve notice. 
            In Witness Whereof, the parties have hereunto set their hands and 
            seals this day and year, etc. and so on. By: Trurl and Klapaucius, 
            Constructors, and the Great Chancellor, the Great Chamberlain, the 
            Great Chief of Secret Police, the Seneschal, Squadron Leader and 
            Royal Balloonmaster. 

        

            Part 10. The Release of Krool
            Back to: TOC | Lem 
            All the ministers and dignitaries turned blue, but what could they 
            do? They had no choice, so a ship was immediately ordered. But then 
            the constructors unexpectedly showed up after a leisurely breakfast, 
            to surprise the work, and nothing suited them: this material, for 
            instance, was no good, and that engineer was an absolute idiot, and 
            they had to have a revolving magic lantern in the main hall, one 
            with four pneumatic widgets and a calibrated cuckoo clock on 
            top--and if the natives here didn't know what a widget was, so much 
            the worse for them, considering that the King was no doubt most 
            impatient for his release and would (when he could) deal harshly 
            with anyone who dared to delay it. This remark occasioned a general 
            numbness, a great weakness about the knees, and much trembling, but 
            the work continued apace. 
            Finally the ship was ready and the royal stevedores began to stow 
            the cargo in the hold, diamonds, sacks of pearls, so much gold it 
            kept spilling out the hatch. Meanwhile the police were secretly 
            running all about the countryside, turning everything upside down, 
            much to the amusement of Trurl and Klapaucius, who didn't mind 
            explaining to a fearful but fascinated audience how it all happened, 
            how they had discarded one idea after another until they hit upon an 
            altogether different kind of beast. Not knowing where or how to 
            place the controls--that is, the brain --so that they would be safe, 
            the constructors had simply made everything brain, enabling the 
            beast to think with its leg, or tail, or jaws (equipped with wisdom 
            teeth only). But that was just the beginning. 
            The real problem had two aspects, algorithmic and psychoanalytic. 
            First they had to determine what would check the King, catch him 
            flatfooted, so to speak. To this end, they created by nonlinear 
            transmutation a police subset within the beast, since everyone knows 
            that resisting or interfering with an officer who is making an 
            arrest lege artis is a cosmic offense and utterly unthinkable. So 
            much for the psychology of it--except that the Postmaster General 
            was utilized here on similar grounds: an official of lower rank 
            might not have made it past the guards, the letter then would not 
            have been delivered, and the constructors would have very literally 
            lost their heads. Moreover, the Postmaster mannequin had been given 
            means to bribe the guards, should that have proved necessary. Every 
            eventuality had been anticipated and provided for. 
            Now as far as the algorithms went: they had only to find the proper 
            domain of beasts, closed, bounded and bonded, with plenty of laws 
            both associative and distributive in operation, throw in a constable 
            constant or two, some graphs of graft, squadratic equations and 
            crime waves and the thing took over from there, once activated by 
            the expedient of writing a document-program (behind the curtain with 
            the bells) in castor oil ink, rendering it thereby sufficiently hard 
            to swallow to serve as a red-tape generator. We might add here that 
            later on the constructors had an article published in a prominent 
            scientific journal under the title of "Recursive B--Metafunctions in 
            the Special Case of a Bogus Polypolice Transmogrification Conversion 
            on an Oscillating Harmonic Field of Glass Bells and Green Gig, 
            Kerosene Lamp on the Left to Divert Attention, Solved by Beastly 
            Incarceration-Concatenation," which was subsequently exploited by 
            the tabloids as "The Police State Rears Its Ugly Head." Obviously 
            none of the ministers, dignitaries or huntsmen understood a single 
            word of what was said, but that hardly mattered. The loving subjects 
            of King Krool knew not whether they should despise these 
            constructors or stand and gape in awe and admiration. 
            Now all was in readiness for takeoff. Trurl, as stipulated in the 
            agreement, went through the King's private chambers with a large 
            sack and calmly appropriated whatever object he took a fancy to. 
            Finally, the carriage arrived and took the victors to the spaceport, 
            where a crowd cheered wildly and a children's chorus sang, then a 
            charming little girl in local costume curtsied and presented them 
            with a ribboned nose gay, and high-ranking officials took turns to 
            express their undying gratitude, bidding them both a fond farewell, 
            and the band played, several ladies fainted, and then a hush fell 
            over the multitude. Klapaucius had pulled a tooth from his mouth, 
            not an ordinary tooth but a transmitter-receiver, a two-way 
            bicuspid. He threw a tiny switch and a sandstorm appeared on the 
            horizon, growing and growing, whirling faster and faster, until it 
            dropped into an empty space between the ship and the crowd and came 
            to a sudden stop, scattering dust and debris in all directions. 
            Everyone gasped and stepped back--there stood the beast, looking 
            unusually bestial as it flashed its laser eyes and flailed its 
            dragon tail! 
            "The King, if you please," said Klapaucius. But the beast answered, 
            speaking in a perfectly normal voice: 
            "Not on your life. It's my turn now to make demands..." 
            "What? Have you gone mad? You have to obey, it's in the matrix!" 
            shouted Klapaucius. Everyone stared, thunder struck. 
            "Matrix-schmatrix. Look pal, I'm not just any beast, I'm 
            algorithmic, heuristic and sadistic, fully automatic and autocratic, 
            that means undemocratic, and I've got loads of loops and plenty of 
            feedback so none of that back talk or I'll clap you in irons, that 
            means in the clink with the King, in the brig with the green gig, 
            get me?" 
            "I'll give you feedback!" roared Klapaucius, furious. But Trurl 
            asked the beast: 
            "What exactly do you want?" 
            And he sneaked around behind Klapaucius and pulled out a special 
            tooth of his own, so the beast wouldn't see. 
            "Well, first of all I want to marry--"
            But they never learned whom in particular the beast had in mind, for 
            Trurl threw a tiny switch and quickly chanted: 
            "Eeny, meeny, miney, mo, input, output, out--you--go!" 
            The fantastically complex electromagnetic wave system that held the 
            beast's atoms in place now came apart under the influence of those 
            words, and the beast blinked, wiggled its ears, swallowed, tried to 
            pull itself together, but before it could even grit its teeth there 
            was a hot gust of wind, a strong smell of ozone, then nothing left 
            to pull together, just a little mound of ashes and the King standing 
            in the middle, safe and sound, but in great need of a bath and 
            mortified to tears that it had come to this. 
            "That'll cut you down to size," said Trurl, and no one knew whether 
            he meant the beast or the King. In either case, the algorithm had 
            done its job well. 
            "And now, gentlemen," Trurl concluded, "if you'll kindly help the 
            Master of the Royal Hunt into his cage, we can be on our way..." 
            