The Fifth Sally (A), or Trurl’s Prescription
an office that shrinks what it cannot fight
EIGHT LINES
- The Steelypip spokespersonWe made it ourselves, so there is nothing in it to fix.
- NarratorIt did not move. It did not attack either. It just stayed.
- NarratorEach weapon had been bigger than the last. The thing was the same size.
- The Steelypip spokespersonThis has never happened to us before. We do not know what to do with our hands.
- TrurlForce has failed, so we will use forms.
- TrurlOnce it took delivery of the first notice, it belonged to the paperwork.
- The Steelypip spokespersonIt is smaller. It really is smaller.
- TrurlThrow it all out, or the office will start on you.
HOW IT IS MADE
The device is a size. The thing that lands on the Steelypips’ machine is drawn at the top of the picture, and the only way to read it is by how big it is. There is no number. Each weapon the Steelypips build is larger than the last, and the thing stays exactly as large as it was. Then Trurl has one notice delivered and signed for, and from that point the thing gets smaller every time the office gets a new piece of furniture. The office is drawn from nothing: a desk, a typewriter, a stamp, then pigeonholes, cabinets, signs, coffee stains and cobwebs, forty things in all, arriving faster and faster.
The sound runs the same way. The force scenes are blasts, each louder than the one before, followed each time by silence and the tick of cooling scrap. The office is a rhythm made of typing, rubber stamps, paper and the mailman’s footsteps, and it speeds up and thickens as the office grows. Under it there is a low hum that belongs to the thing, and it drops in pitch and in level as the thing shrinks. At the end Trurl throws out the whole office and only the vending machine is left, humming, and then one drop falls.
The timing file tp.json drives picture and sound together. It holds the start time of every spoken line, every cue and the size curve of the thing. The picture code reads those times, and build_sound.py makes all the non-voice sound with numpy and scipy. The voices are Kokoro.
AFTER THE OTHER FILMS
The Sixth Sally, The Demon of the Second Kind, is about a test that lets one kind of thing through. This film is about something that cannot be pushed out by force, and gets smaller when it is given forms to fill in. In the book it sits next to Trurl’s Electronic Bard in the book, and both are in the first experiment of the lineage, with How the World Was Saved.
FOR THE BENCH
Write an Intruder object with a size and a method accept(notice). Each time it accepts a notice, a counter goes up, and its size is a function of that counter. Write a Clerk that sends notices and counts the replies. Make the Intruder shrink only after the first accept and see what happens if the clerk sends a thousand notices to an object that refuses the first one. Then draw the intruder as a circle whose radius is its size, and the office as one rectangle added to the screen each time accept is called. What state does the object keep, and which method changes it?
Narration and dialogue paraphrase Stanisław Lem, “The Fifth Sally (A), or Trurl’s Prescription,” The Cyberiad. The notices are invented. Download the film.
THE SCRIPT
THE MACHINE
Narrator. Beyond a green star, close to a white sun, lived a people called the Steelypips. They had no quarrels and no lessons. They lived on, in, and under one machine.
Narrator. It was a fine machine of gears and springs. They had built it from their own saved atoms.
The Steelypip spokesperson. We made it ourselves, so there is nothing in it to fix.
Narrator. One day a comet came by, in a lace bonnet, with four long tails and a smell of almonds. She said she would burn them to the ground, as a start.
The Steelypip spokesperson. One moment, madam. This machine has no faults. Please leave, or you will be sorry.
Narrator. She filled the sky with fire, until their old moon curled up at both tips. So the Steelypips wrapped their strongest fields around it, and threw the switch.
Narrator. The sky cleared with a bang. All that was left of the comet was a bit of ash. The Steelypips went back to being pleased.
SOMETHING ARRIVES
Narrator. Some time later, something came down from the sky. Nobody knew what it was. It landed on the highest peak, very heavily, and nobody wanted a second look.
The Steelypip spokesperson. Pardon us, but this is a very good machine. Please move along.
Narrator. It did not move. It did not attack either. It just stayed.
Narrator. So, to save money, they sent a small scarechrome to frighten it.
The scarechrome. Fear me. I am terrible. Fear me.
Narrator. It hissed and spat and frightened itself a little. The thing stayed. It tried a second frequency, but its heart was not in it.
FORCE
The Steelypip spokesperson. Something heavier, then. Hydraulic, with plenty of muscle, and a scarechrome on top for luck.
Narrator. The great engine rolled out. It wound itself up, and counted down from four.
Narrator. Oil bubbled and gears rattled. Not a scratch.
Narrator. The Steelypips held a council of war. They built a machine to build a machine to build a machine so large that the nearest stars stepped back, with a servospook at its heart.
The servospook. I am the servospook. I mean business.
Narrator. It gathered all its strength, and let go.
Narrator. When the dark cleared, there was only scrap metal, ticking as it cooled.
Narrator. Each weapon had been bigger than the last. The thing was the same size.
THE VINE
The Steelypip spokesperson. Then we must be patient. We will send a cyberivy, to creep up quietly and take its time.
Narrator. The ivy crept up as if it had nothing on its mind. It sent out a root, then another, and closed in from behind. It went exactly as planned, and when it was over, it was not over.
Narrator. They made nets and glues, lassos and screws, traps and walls, and turned the machine upside down. Nothing helped.
The Steelypip spokesperson. This has never happened to us before. We do not know what to do with our hands.
TRURL ARRIVES
Narrator. Then someone came along on a vehicle nobody could name. It had a horse’s head, one bicycle wheel and a rocket’s tail. The rider was Trurl, out on one of his trips.
The Steelypips. We tried everything. It is still there.
Trurl. Did you try anything that was not a weapon?
The Steelypip spokesperson. What else is there? We have gears, springs, and force.
Trurl. I can stay a little while, as an adviser. Is that agreeable?
The Steelypip spokesperson. Of course! Shall we bring hammers, artillery, dynamite? Coffee or tea? The vending machine makes both.
Trurl. Coffee. Not for me, for the job. The rest, no.
Trurl. Force has failed, so we will use forms.
Trurl. I need paper and ink, stamps and seals, a teller’s window, a zinc spoon, a saucer, coffee, and a mailman. And something to write with.
The Steelypips. We will fetch it!
THE NOTICE
Narrator. Trurl sat down, and dictated the first notice.
Trurl. Regarding the obstruction of these premises, under Form Four, subsection Q: all services to the occupant are withdrawn, pending review. Appeals must be in writing, on the correct forms.
Narrator. He sealed it, stamped it, entered it in the ledger, and checked the register. Then he sent for the mailman.
Narrator. The mailman took it away. They waited.
Trurl. Was it delivered?
The mailman. It was.
Trurl. And the receipt?
The mailman. Signed, on this line. And here is its appeal.
Trurl. Once it took delivery of the first notice, it belonged to the paperwork.
Narrator. Without reading the appeal, he sent it back. Across the front he wrote, in a hurry, wrong forms, and signed with a scrawl no one could read.
Trurl. Now, to work.
THE OFFICE
Narrator. The mailman ran all day. Trurl stamped and filed. The typewriter chattered, and an office grew out of nothing: stamps and rubber bands, paper clips, pigeonholes, filing cabinets, signs, coffee rings, cobwebs.
Narrator. Notices went out, then reminders, then final demands.
The Steelypip spokesperson. It is smaller. It really is smaller.
Trurl. Next, please. The window is closed. Come back in an hour.
Narrator. The coffee went cold. An official was offered a bribe, and filed it. New cabinets arrived, and cobwebs reached from wall to wall.
Narrator. The typewriter typed an order that the occupant must leave, and may not appeal.
CLEARING OUT
Narrator. Then Trurl stood up and threw it all out into deep space: the desks, the chairs, the stamps, the seals, the pigeonholes. Only the vending machine stayed.
The Steelypip spokesperson. What are you doing? We had grown used to it!
Trurl. Take a look instead, friends.
Narrator. They looked, and the thing was gone. It had shrunk and shrunk, until they needed a magnifying glass. All they could find was one small damp spot, where something had dripped.
The Steelypip spokesperson. But why throw out the papers, and pour out the coffee?
Trurl. Throw it all out, or the office will start on you.
Narrator. He nodded to them kindly, climbed onto his odd vehicle, and flew away, smiling.