33. Spread and Proliferation of Subassemblies
Orchidius had observed everything. Mishkin asked him what he thought about it all.
"There's only one part I didn't understand," said Orchidius.
"What part was that?"
"That was when the three leaves fell. Why did they do that just at that particular moment?"
"Coincidence," suggested Mishkin.
"I have heard machines speak and animals answer," said Orchidius. "People come and go mysteriously, yet with definite signs of hidden purpose. There is a meaning in everything. But three leaves falling, just then, just there! Who ever heard of such a thing?"
"Personally, I'm more interested in marvels," Mishkin said.
"I am, too," said Orchidius. "We simply disagree on what a marvel is."
"What are you looking for?" Mishkin asked.
"I really don't know," Orchidius said. "But I expect to know intuitively when I find it.
What are you looking for?"
"I can't remember," Mishkin said. "But I think I'll know it when I see it."
"Perhaps it's best not to know," Orchidius said. "Knowing what you're looking for interferes with your looking for it."
"I don't think that can be so," Mishkin said.
"Do you think it's a delusion?" Orchidius asked eagerly. "I've always wanted to have a genuine delusion."
The robot was unable to keep silent any longer. "I've never heard such frivolity in my life."
"I suppose that frivolity is also a permissible path to salvation?" Orchidius said mildly. "Whether it is or not, it is the path I'm on. And now my search leads me elsewhere. Good day, gentlemen."
At the edge of the forest Mishkin and the robot came to a hut with a crude sign over the door reading, INN OF THE FOUR WINDS. And there to greet them, wearing a shirt of homespun and leather bells, was Orchidius.
Mishkin expressed amazement at seeing his friend in this place, the evident owner of an inn; but Orchidius told him that it was the most natural thing in the world. He told how he had come to this place, tired and thirsty, but above all hungry. He had gathered herbs and vegetables and made a soup, and then he trapped a rabbit and made a stew.
People came by, tired and thirsty, but above all hungry. Orchidius shared his stew with them, and they helped him to build a hut. Others came by and Orchidius fed them, and sometimes they would not, or could not, pay, but usually they could and would, in one way or another. It seemed quite natural to them that there should be an inn here, at this place and no other, and that Orchidius should be running it. It never occurred to them that Orchidius was just passing through, like them, and that perhaps he, too, had other places to go to and other duties to attend to. They thought that he was a natural and necessary part of the scenery, since they believed that inns should be found wherever people needed them and that, according to universal law, every inn had to be equipped with an innkeeper.
After a while Orchidius came to accept this view. He advertised for a chambermaid. He complained that the quality of rabbits had fallen off. He suspected everyone of being an inspector from the Guide Michelin. He planned to expand his inn, to buy a soft ice-cream maker, to get a franchise from Howard Johnson's, to plant palm trees and illuminate them with hidden lights. He began to worry about fuel bills and taxes. He raised his prices for high season and offered specials for low season.
"But how did you get into all of that?" Mishkin asked.
"It seemed plausible at the time," Orchidius answered. "It still seems plausible."
"I want a single room with a bath," Mishkin said. "And a tank of gas for my robot."
"Regular or special?" Orchidius asked. Then he burst into tears. He wrote a note that read, "This inn is closed while its owner continues his Trip." He nailed the note to the door and left at once for parts unknown, taking nothing with him but a battery-operated television set and a pair of gold clubs.
34
Mishkin and the robot also resumed their journey. They passed a tree upon which were carved the words, "Orchidius was here in person on his Trip".
Carved on another tree: "This Trip is the property of Orchidius".
And on another: "Everybody is a bit player in the movie of Orchidius's life".
"We seem to meet quite often," Mishkin said. "Do you suppose that we are the same person?"
"Definitely not," said Orchidius. "You are logical and realistic and goal-oriented, and you have a personality and a history and even a few character traits, whereas I am an abstraction who just slips in and out of things for no reason and no purpose."
"My trip is overdetermined," Mishkin said. "It's also freaky. Too much is happening to me. I can't stand the changes."
"I can't stand them, either. Maybe we're going about things in the wrong way."
The robot said, "You are both going about things in the right way and you're both simultaneously the same person and different people and you're both on the same trip even though your trips aren't the same."
"Can you explain what all of that means?" Mishkin asked.
"No, I can't," the robot said. "Robots are allowed only a small supply of wisdom, and I have used up all of mine for at least a week."
All that week the robot could barely put one foot after another. He was incapable of oiling himself, couldn't finish the simplest task, and his answers to even the simplest questions were ridiculous in the extreme.
At the end of the week he was recovered and ready to explain what all of that had meant. But Mishkin didn't ask him. Mishkin liked to have his meals cooked properly and his clothes washed promptly. He thought it was no bargain to exchange a good servant for a sage of dubious qualifications. The robot himself offered no protest.
35. The Doctor of Juxtapositions
"Great Scott, MacGregor, I believe that in some unaccountable fashion we have passed through an obverse transverse of the space-time continuum and have actually returned to Earth and that we are now viewing everything through altered topological ratios, thus causing subtle changes in our perception of received reality!!!"
36. Festival of the Mind
Special techniques, reawaken!
Hypnotize yourself into becoming yourself. Energize your Receptive Centre. Shut off signals from the uptight old Censor. Give yourself suggestions. Give yourself autosuggestions. Give yourself automatic autosuggestions. New technique of «flagging» the subconscious allows you to give yourself automatic subconscious autosuggestions without your even knowing about it!
Go beyond drugs into experiences that simulate the drug simulations of experiences that can be achieved only by Higher Consciousness.
Enjoy sexual intercourse in your sleep without a partner.
Process the computer power in your mind: you can do it/it can do you.
READOUT IS INSIGHT. READOUT IS INSIGHT. READOUT IS INSIGHT.
Magi for sale or rent: plump Hindu Master, speaking incomprehensible prehensile English, has turban, will travel. Chinese Master with inscrutable smile and acupuncture kit never believed in communism, must travel. British Master specializing in discipline — "mental restraint is the road to freedom" — doesn't believe in socialism, listens to acid rock. American Master, AC-DC, doesn't believe in anything for very long — teaches the communal road to rugged individualism — has large supply of mandalas, mantras, yantras — uses rational mysticism to achieve mind-blowing pragmatic effects — disarming, boyish smile — wears fringed leather pants — doesn't believe in law of cause and effect but pays taxes anyhow — rates 35.2 on the schizophrenia machine — sexually liberated, except when anxious…