Crompton Divided by Robert Sheckley Read Free Book Online

the hostess.
    ‘Excuse me, miss, could you tell me the name of the young man who was sitting here?’
    She said, ‘You must be joking, sir. That seat has been vacant throughout the flight.’
    ‘I was afraid of that,’ Crompton said.
    ‘Would you like another orange juice?’
    ‘I think I’d better,’ Crompton said heavily.
     
     

 
    8
     
     
    Traveler, we welcome you to the planet Aaia, and to its capital city, Cetesphe, and to the Hotel Grandspruinge located in the interesting and historic downtown Nevratidae district, and framed in the distance by the stately Oleonian Alps. We have assembled here a few facts for your greater appreciation and enjoyment of our unique civilization.
    Aaia, as you perhaps know from The Guinness Book of Universal Records , is the oldest planet in the galaxy to be inhabited by a single autochthonous race throughout its history. This rare continuity, plus the fact that Aaia has had no war of any sort for the past 990,000 years, gives this planet an atmosphere of security and down-home coziness not to be equaled elsewhere.
    The Aains are a small civilization, limiting themselves to exactly one billion members. They are considered immortal by some, but themselves claim no more than extreme longevity. The oldest living Aaian, Truch Nivera, is at least thirteen million years old according to carbon-dating techniques carried out on his toenail parings by the unimpeachable Swiss Bureau of Corroborations. (Mr. Nivera can be seen Friday nights at the Kot Krot Club in West Cetesphe, where he has been giving poetry readings for the last seven hundred years.)
    Many people have asked what the Aaians, who have lived so long and experienced so much, do for amusement. This is not an easy question to answer, since Aaians are individualists par excellence. Aaians do many different things and learn many curious and useful facts. This is only to be expected of a race that dispensed with fixed personal form two million years ago; a race that consciously chooses its bodies, emotions, values, concepts, etc. In this way Aaians get to live countless lives.
    Aaians have no fixed ‘self? to refer to. Aaians are only who they happen to have chosen to be for a period of time. When the moment comes to be someone or something else, they shed their former bodies, feelings, values, etc., and take on those appropriate to their new roles and existences. From this it may be imagined that the Aaians are basically a lighthearted race, though races who do not know their ways tend to consider them unreliable in business dealings. (But there is a simple way around this. Before doing any business with an Aaian, ask him for the date of expiration on his current psychosomatic setup. He is bound to honor his commitments during this term by the oldest ethical rule of the race: Say what you do and do what you say , in the words of Amirra Tauba, founder of the Aaian Uniform Code of Ethics for Consciously Sentient Beings.)
    But getting back to the question of amusements: aside from the multifarious complications which they encounter in their consecutive existences, Aaians are brought together by their devotion to the Game. It is outside the range of this brochure to attempt to characterize the Game. Standard works on the subject are Wolfschmidt’s Players of the Galactic Noh Play and Charleroi’s Strategy of Incongruity.
     
    There are many immediate pleasures for the tourist to sample. Of special note is the Gardens of Rui in East Cetesphe. This vast amusement complex, on its own estate of ten million acres of dramatic countryside, borders on the violet waters (made so by the marine organism grunius ) of the Pyrametique Sea, and commemorates the famous space battle of Inferdung Pass in which the armed forces of Aaia broke the power of the mad Asthark Lethume and his hordes of wild Mitsumian tribesmen. The Gardens are laid out to provide maximum pleasure for each of the space-traveling Nineteen Civilized Species. There is much