«And once our tongues have been cut out the grand vizier goes to other storytellers to take our place,» said the Daemon of the Night.
Fareed-al-Shaffa said slowly, «The grand vizier assumes the other storytellers will be too terrified by our example to refuse his starvation wage.»
«He’s right,» Hari-ibn-Hari said bitterly.
«Is he?» mused Fareed. «Perhaps not.»
«What do you mean?» his two companions asked in unison.
Stroking his beard thoughtfully, Fareed-al-Shaffa said, «What if all the storytellers refused to work for a single copper per tale?»
Hari-ibn-Hari asked cynically, «Would they refuse before or after our tongues have been taken out?»
«Before, of course.»
The Daemon of the Night stared at his fellow storyteller. «Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?»
«I am.»
Hari-ibn-Hari gaped at the two of them. «No, it would never work. It’s impossible!»
«Is it?» asked Fareed-al-Shaffa. «Perhaps not.»
The next morning the three bleary-eyed storytellers were brought before the grand vizier. Once again Scheherazade watched and listened from her veiled gallery. She herself was bleary-eyed as well, having spent all night telling the sultan the tale of Ala-al-Din and his magic lamp. As usual, she had left the tale unfinished as the dawn brightened the sky.
This night she must finish the tale and begin another. But she had no other to tell! Her father had to get the storytellers to bring her fresh material. If not, she would lose her head with tomorrow’s dawn.
«Well?» demanded the grand vizier as the three storytellers knelt trembling before him. «What is your decision?»
The three of them had chosen the Daemon of the Night to be their spokesperson. But as he gazed up at the fierce countenance of the grand vizier, his voice choked in his throat.
Fareed-al-Shaffa nudged him, gently at first, then more firmly.
At last the Daemon said, «Oh, magnificent one, we cannot continue to supply your stories for a miserable one copper per tale.»
«Then you will lose your tongues!»
«And your daughter will lose her head, most considerate of fathers.»
«Bah! There are plenty of other storytellers in Baghdad. I’ll have a new story for my daughter before the sun goes down.»
Before the Daemon of the Night could reply, Fareed-al-Shaffa spoke thusly, «Not so, sir. No storyteller will work for you for a single copper per tale.»
«Nonsense!» snapped the grand vizier.
«It is true,» said the Daemon of the Night. «All the storytellers have agreed. We have sworn a mighty oath. None of us will give you a story unless you raise your rates.»
«Extortion!» cried the grand vizier.
Hari-ibn-Hari found his voice. «If you take our tongues, oh most merciful of men, none of the other storytellers will deal with you at all.»
Before the astounded grand vizier could reply to that, Fareed-al-Shaffa explained, «We have formed a guild, your magnificence, a storytellers’ guild. What you do to one of us you do to us all.»
«You can’t do that!» the grand vizier sputtered.
«It is done,» said the Daemon of the Night. He said it softly, almost in a whisper, but with great finality.
The grand vizier sat on his chair of authority getting redder and redder in the face, his chest heaving, his fists clenching. He looked like a volcano about to erupt.
When, from the veiled gallery above them, Scheherazade cried out, «I think it’s wonderful! A storytellers’ guild. And you created it just for me!»
The three storytellers raised their widening eyes to the balcony of the gallery, where they could make out the slim and graceful form of a young woman, suitably gowned and veiled, who stepped forth for them all to see. The grand vizier twisted around in his chair and nearly choked with fury.
«Father,» Scheherazade called sweetly, «is it not wonderful that the storytellers have banded together so that they can provide stories for me to tell the sultan night after night?»
The grand vizier started to reply once, twice, three times. Each time no words escaped his lips. The three storytellers knelt before him, staring up at the gallery where Scheherazade stood openly before them—suitably gowned and veiled.
Before the grand vizier could find his voice, Scheherazade said, «I welcome you, storytellers, and your guild. The grand vizier, the most munificent of fathers, will gladly pay you ten coppers for each story you relate to me. May you bring me a thousand of them!»
Before the grand vizier could figure how much a thousand stories would cost, at ten coppers per story, Fareed-al-Shaffa smiled up at Scheherazade and murmured, «A thousand and one, oh gracious one.»
The grand vizier was unhappy with the new arrangement, although he had to admit that the storytellers’ newly founded guild provided stories that kept the sultan amused and his daughter alive.
The storytellers were pleased, of course. Not only did they keep their tongues in their heads and earn a decent income from their stories, but they shared the subsidiary rights to the stories with the grand vizier once Scheherazade had told them to the sultan and they could then be related to the general public.
Ten coppers per story was extortionate, in the grand vizier’s opinion, but the storytellers’ guild agreed to share the income from the stories once they were told in the bazaar. There was even talk of an invention from far-off Cathay, where stories could be printed on vellum and sold throughout the kingdom. The grand vizier consoled himself with the thought that if sales were good enough, the income could pay for regilding his ceiling.
The sultan eventually learned of the arrangement, of course. Being no fool, he demanded a cut of the profits. Reluctantly, the grand vizier complied.
Scheherazade was the happiest of all. She kept telling stories to the sultan until he relented of his murderous ways, much to the joy of all Baghdad.
She thought of the storytellers’ guild as her own personal creation and called it Scheherazade’s Fables and Wonders Association.
That slightly ponderous name was soon abbreviated to SFWA.
NUCLEAR AUTUMN
The alternative to strategic defenses in space is no defense against nuclear attack, the policy called mutual assured destruction. MAD is essentially a mutual suicide pact between the superpowers: attack is deterred because neither side dares risk the other’s devastating counterattack.
But there might be another way for a ruthless and calculating enemy to launch a nuclear attack and confidently expect no counterstrike at all.
The arguments over Nuclear Winter—the idea that a sufficient number of nuclear explosions in the atmosphere will plunge the whole world into an era of freezing darkness that will extinguish all life on Earth—is being hotly debated among scientists today.
Strangely, very little of this debate is being reported in the media. Even the science press is largely ignoring it. To the media, Nuclear Winter is a Truth. It was revealed through press conferences, a slickly illustrated book, and videotapes. No matter that the basic scientific underpinnings of the idea are under attack by many atmospheric physicists and other scientists. It is now embedded in cement in the mind-sets of the world’s media—and many science fiction writers, too.
Critics of Nuclear Winter claim that its proponents used Joe McCarthy tactics to publicize what, to them, is a political idea rather than a scientific theory. They claim that Carl Sagan, Paul Ehrlich, et al made their publicity splash and «sold» the idea to the media, and only afterward quietly admitted that there are some doubts about the models and calculations they used.
On their side, Sagan, Ehrlich, and their colleagues insist that Nuclear Winter has been verified by extensive computer simulations, and is absolute proof that even a relatively small nuclear war threatens to end not only human life on Earth, but all life.