Front cover construction:
Don Baum. Photo: Bill
Arsenault
Introduction and notes are Copyright © 1970 by William F. Nolan. All other material is Copyright according to information on
acknowledgments page. All rights reserved. No portion of this work may be
reproduced in any form without prior written permission from Sherboume Press or
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Acknowledgments
The
Ogress is
Copyright © 1970 by Robert F. Young and is printed here by arrangement with the
author's agent, Theron Raines.
Jenny Among the Zeebs is Copyright © 1970 by Frank Anmai and is
printed here with the author's permission.
Earthcoming is Copyright © 1970 by Richard C. Meredith and
is printed here by arrangement with the author's agent, Scott Meredith, Inc.
Belles
Lettres, 2272 is
Copyright © 1970 by Norman Corwin
and is printed here with the author's
permission. A Shape
in Time is
Copyright © 1970 by the estate of Anthony
Boucher and is printed here through special
arrangement
with the author's estate. Damechild is Copyright © 1970 by Dennis Etchison and is
printed here with the author's permission. Toe to Tip, Tip to Toe, Pip-Pop As You Go is Copyright © 1970
by William F. Nolan. A War of Passion is Copyright © 1970 by Tom Purdom and is
printed here by arrangement with the author's
agent, Scott
Meredith, Inc.
Hate
Is a Sandpaper Ice Cube with Polka Dots of Love on It
is Copyright © 1970 by Terry Dixon and is printed here by
permission of the author. Walter Perkins Is Herel is Copyright © 1970 by Raymond E.
Banks and is printed here with his permission.
The Darwin Sampler is Copyright © 1970 by Ray Russell and
printed here with the author's permission. The Whole Round World is Copyright © 1970 by Ron Goulart
and, while based on material by the author,
Copyright ©
1965 by Star Press, Inc., it contains
substantial new material
and appears in this highly altered form.
To
Mousie and Mitter Owl, not to forget:
Mousie, Jr.
Perry Pueblo
Mitter Sun
Warrior Kachina
Wrinkelty Dog
Sidney
Security Blanket
Dudley Duck
and
Mitter Rock (unhatched)
Books
by William F. Nolan
Science
Fiction Impact 20 (1963) The
Pseudo-People (1965)
Man Against Tomorrow (1965) Logan's Run (1967) Three to the Highest Power (1968) A Wilderness of Stars (1969) A Sea of Space (1970) The Future Is Now (1970) Nineteen for the Universe (1971)
The
Bart Challis
Series Death Is for Losers (1968) The White Cad Cross-Up (1969) The Marble Orchard (forthcoming) Sharks Never Sleep (forthcoming)
Biographies
Adventure on Wheels (1959)
Barney OJdfield (1961)
Phil Hill: Yankee Champion (1962)
Men of Thunder (1964)
Sinners and Supermen (1965)
John Huston: King Rebel (1965)
Dashiell Hammett: A Casebook {1969)
Automotive
Collections Omnibus of Speed (1958) When Engines Roar (1964)
Contents
INTRODUCTION 8
THE OGRESS 10
robert f. young
JENNY AMONG
THE ZEEBS 26
frank anmar
EARTHCOMING 41
richard c. meredith
BELLES LETTRES,
2272 67
norman corwin
A SHAPE
IN TIME 72
anthony boucher
DAMECHILD 76
dennis etchison
TOE TO
TIP, TIP TO TOE,
PIP-POP AS
YOU GO 85
william ƒ. nolan
A WAR
OF PASSION 94
torn purdom
HATE IS
A SANDPAPER
ICE CUBE
WITH POLKA
DOTS OF LOVE ON IT 104
terry dixon
WALTER PERKINS
IS HERE! 109
raymond e. banks
THE DARWIN
SAMPLER 119
ray russell
THE WHOLE
ROUND WORLD 122
ron
goulart
Introduction
This book is
fresh proof that the packaging
of science
fiction is changing.
When Robert Hoskins
edited Infinity One, the first
of a
series devoted to all-new,
never-before-printed sci-fi, he
termed the volume "a
magazine ... in book form."
This is as good a label
as any
to describe
the current
direction in which science-fiction publishing is headed. We presently
have the Nova series of all-new sci-fi, being edited
by Harry Harrison; Damon Knight has
already given us several of
his original
Orbit anthologies—and there
are one-shot
nonseries collections of brand-new sci-fi
such as Three
for Tomorrow and Harrison's The Year 2000. All of
these offer the sci-fi short-story writer a greater latitude
in language
and ideas,
as well
as more
permanence than the perishable magazine format.
The idea of
publishing new science-fiction stories directly
between book covers rather
than reprinting them from magazines
is taking
strong hold in an era
when the die-hard sci-fi magazines
face a severe circulation crisis. A careful count
reveals that only 450
new stories
were published during 1969 by a
dozen U.S./British sci-fi magazines (Analog, Galaxy, Amazing, New Worlds, The
Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, et al.).
Compare this total to the
last of sci-fi's peak magazine years,
1953, when no less than
1300 new stories were
printed by 40-plus science-fiction publications.
Of the major
sci-fi magazines being published today,
only two or three might be
considered "healthy" in relation to
paid circulation. The others
fight for newsstand survival; as
their sales figures continue
to decline,
they, too, will drop from sight.
The trend
is evident.
This magazine-book concept is certainly not
a new
one. Most aficionados associate the
beginning of the trend with
Raymond J. Healy's splendid
anthology New Tales of Space and Time, published in
1951—which he followed with Nine Tales of Space and Time, another original
collection, in 1954. However, original
short sci-fi stories were being printed in book format
as early
as 1937,
when J. B. Esenwein edited Adventures to Come. Donald Wollheim's
The
Girl with the Hungry Eyes, released in 1949, was also an all-new
anthology. Following these, Frederik Pohl
launched his critically successful Star Science Fiction series in 1953, which ran to seven
volumes (including his Star Short Novels). August Derleth
got into
the act
with Time to Come in 1954,
and Fletcher
Pratt edited The
Petrified Planet two years earlier.
In England,
starting in the Sixties, John Carnell began editing his
New Writings in SF. And thus it
has continued
into the present era.
In early 1963,
when I became managing editor
of the
sci-fi magazine Gamma, I urged
its publishers
to issue
it in
a book format semiannually. Had they
done so, it might have survived beyond five ill-fated
issues. The magazine was well received
and featured
top sci-fi
writers, but died of newsstand strangulation.
I learned
a sad
lesson from this and returned to
book editing.
In 1965, when
I edited
The Pseudo-People, I decided
to include five never-before-published
sci-fi stories in the anthology.
This wordage comprised a third
of the
book—but I still had not edited
an entire
volume of all-new material.
Now, with
this book, that ambition is
realized.
The
Future Is Now is not part
of a
series; it is an independent
volume containing the latest and
best work of some very talented
sci-fi writers. As editor (and
contributor), I derived a great deal
of creative
satisfaction out of gathering these 12 stories between
covers. Several of them deal
with aspects of a
computerized society, but this is
to be
expected. Whether we like
it or
not, computer living will be
a perfectly natural environmental
state for the citizens of
tomorrow—just as a worldwide
dependence upon the automobile seems natural in our
century. Like sex, computers will always be with us.
And just as
these 12 stories bring the
future to us, so, too, does
the physical
format in which they are
presented: When the last
genre magazine has expired, books
such as this will represent the
only futuristic showcase for new
science fiction.
Indeed, the
future is now.
William
F. Nolan
Brentwood, California
The
Ogress
robert
f. young
Let's
start out this anthology with an old-fashioned adventure yarn which isn't
old-fashioned at all. Not in the hands of Robert F. Young, who has, since 1953,
illumined the science-fiction field with some 110 stories. Two collections of
Mr. Young's work have been published; more are promised.
In
tracing his career, Young acknowledges the early Tarzanian influence of Edgar
Rice Burroughs and credits H. G. Wells's Men Like
Gods for introducing him to future fiction:
"Then I got into O. Henry, Jack London, Galsworthy, Maugham and Sinclair
Lewis—and most of the poets. My everyday work was less poetic: I was pouring
metal in a factory when I sold my first story, and I've worked as a spray
caster, machinist, slagger, mudman, stopper maker and assembler. I'm still a
workingman, but added to my other trades, I assemble stories weekends and
evenings in a house my wife and I own located beside the waters of Lake Erie.
On clear days you can see Canada from our front window. I like opera, cold
weather, trees and roast beef on kiimmelweck."
Young's
classic tales Goddess in Granite
and To Fell
a Tree both dealt with giantism, and in The Ogress
he returns to this
fascinating theme, allowing us to share the dangers of a deadly hunt on another
planet with a shrewd professional who specializes in gigantic kills. Be warned:
It's a chiller with a harrowing climax.
You won't like Dijleha, but you'll remember
her.
The footprint was
an enormous
one. Even though he was
accustomed to the outsized,
Westwood was impressed.
He moved
a little
closer to the depression and scrutinized it with
a professional
eye. As nearly as he
could judge, it had been' made
less than a Nightfall day
ago,
which meant that
his quarry
had passed
this way after her most recent
visit to the plains. Westwood
had been
certain all along that she lived
in the
foothills, but the igneous nature of the wasteland that
had to
be crossed
to gain
them was not amenable to impressions,
and this
was the
first footprint he had
found.
He stood gazing
down at it for some
time, estimating the height and weight
of its
owner. No wonder the plains
people were afraid to
come out of their huts
after dark!
The afternoon sun
was hot
upon his back and a
warm wind was flowing up from
the south.
The naked
wasteland lay behind him, while before
him the
foothills, green and grassy and patterned
with trees, tumbled away to
the slopes
of beard-blue mountains. He had made the
acquaintance of the wasteland early that
morning when Brand, the one-man
staff of the newly
established Nightfall Guidance Center, had ferried him across the
dark river that separated it
from the low and fertile plains
where the plains people tended
their flocks, planted their
crops and reared their offspring.
The five toe
impressions of the footprint pointed
straight toward the hills.
Proceeding in that direction, Westwood presently came
upon a second print. He
counted five more toe marks. Five
and five
made ten. It had gone
without saying that his
quarry would have ten toes,
because that was how many the
plains people had. Gods are
not the
only superbeings man creates
in his
own image.
Pausing long enough
to light
a cigarette
and to
shrug his pack into a more
comfortable position, Westwood went on.
The pack was small
and compact
and contained
a three-day
supply of rations, an
inflatable tent, a small heater,
a blanket
and a
two-way radio. And, at the
last minute, Westwood had jammed some
extra supplies into the pockets
of his
fatigues: water-purifying tablets, pneumocartridges
for the
tent and extra minibatteries
for the
heater. Slung haphazardly across the
pack, long, slim and deadly,
was his
loaded Dammerung.
•
• •
"Harry, you
take this business too lightly,"
George Brand had said after ferrying
Westwood across the river. "Show
me a pro with your experience
and I'll
show you a reckless man whose worst enemy is
his overconfidence."
"You sound
like my mother," Westwood had
said.
"I've seen
some of the things Dijleha
can do,
and you
haven't. And you don't
understand peasants the way I
do, either. Basically, that's what Dijleha
is—a peasant. She behaves like
one, reacts like one and
she thinks like one."
"The hell I
don't understand peasants,"
Westwood had said. "What kind of
people do you think created
some of the other ogres—not to
mention gods—I've killed? Udon, for instance.
Mother Magrab, Trisk, Chitzen, Mimb."
Brand shook his
head. "Peasants in some cases,
nomads in others. But I'll concede
there's very little difference. What I'm trying to say
is, Harry,
that you don't know primitive peoples firsthand. You know
them only through their creations. They're shrewd. They think
differently. We're products of
an affluent
society. They have to work
for a living. As a result,
we can
never accurately predict their
next move."
"If you really
knew anything about primitive peoples,
George, you'd know that
it's their vindictiveness you're talking about, not their shrewdness.
... I
think you're actually afraid of this outsize
cannibal these plains people have brought to life."
At this point,
Brand had lost his patience.
"All right!— let her make a
meal out of you, then!
Not that
you'll make much of a one.
You should
lay off
the booze,
Harry. Christ, you're skin
and bones!"
•
• •
To Westwood's
left, the hills hogbacked away
to the
horizon. To Ms right,
they grew steeper and became
indistinguishable from the
mountains. The sky was blue
above his head.
As he started
up the
first ridge, he saw near
the crest
a number of white splotches that
he at
first mistook for bones. Then he saw the bones
move and knew that the
splotches were members of
a species
of small
white baboons indigenous to this
part of Nightfall. They were
herbivorous and quite tasty, and the
plains people loved to cook
and eat
them. Westwood was tempted
to try
for one
with his Dammerung, but he didn't
because there wouldn't have been enough
of it
left to bother with. They
scattered at his approach, and it
was doubtful
if he
could have got one, anyway.
Dijleha's footprints
guided him as he made
his way
deep into the hills, although, owing to the
greater firmness of the ground, they were much less distinct. But there were
other signs of her passage: a broken sapling, the indentation left by a boulder
she had picked up and playfully tossed into a nearby valley, an elephantine dune of dung.
He began to see occasional bones, too. A sternum with several ribs attached, a clavicle, a femur. In some cases, the bones had been
cracked and the marrow sucked out.
A
cannibal creature indeed. Dijleha, she who devours alive.
At
length, the footprints and the bones led Westwood to a pass. Before entering it, he pulled the butt of his Dämmerung closer to his right shoulder so that he could grab the weapon in a hurry
should a sudden need for it arise. The butt was smooth and familiar to his
touch. It should have been. Unlike some Beowulfs, Westwood never changed guns. This one had been with him since the beginning.
The
beginning . . . that was Trisk, wasn't it? Sometimes he had
trouble remembering his kills in their proper sequence. Yes, Trisk. . . .
• • •
Trisk had lived in the mountains of
Godawful's northern temperate zone. He was a huge Panlike creature with a ballooning belly and a pair of enormous black
hooves on which he thundered down into the valleys and trampled his creators'
crops. Brains he had not, for if he had, he would have realized that in cutting
off his victims' food supply, he was cutting off his own. The situation was
intolerable no matter how you looked at it, and when Galactic Guidance got wind
of it, they dispatched a Beowulf posthaste.
Westwood had been green but he hadn't been afraid. He
took his Dämmerung and went up into the mountains and followed
Trisk to his lair. When Trisk came out, Westwood
saw that the ogre was too tall
for him to get off a good head shot and, to bring the head closer, he
deliberately stepped from behind the boulder he'd chosen for concealment and
flung a rock at the ogre's right knee. Trisk let out a huge howl and bent down
and gripped the knee with both hands. The head was close enough now. Too close.
The face looked like the surface of a meteor-pocked planet. West-wood had to
hold the Dämmerung almost vertically to get off his shot, and, in
his excitement, he forgot that this was something you weren't supposed to do.
In appearance,
the weapon was jet black and
looked like an ancient muzzle-loading
musket that could be fired
from either end. In actuality,
it was
something else. Its trigger, when
squeezed, detonated a hypercartridge that sent a high-velocity
projectile, capable of blowing
up a
small house, spinning through the
big barrel. The recoil
was brutal,
and it
was imperative
to freeze to the weapon at
the moment
of firing,
but you
couldn't freeze to it
when you fired it vertically,
and West-wood's
collarbone cracked; the projectile passed through Trisk's forehead and
exploded in the middle of
his thick
skull. He fell forward
on his
ruined face, and Westwood had to scramble to get
out of
the way.
In the valley
that night, the natives had
feted him and he had filled
himself with native wine, and
after a while the pain of
his broken
collarbone had gone away and
the sickness
in his
stomach had departed. He had
been little more than a boy
at the
time, and he had needed
a mother.
He had
found her in the
wine.
• • •
The pass was
behind him now, and Westwood
halted on a hilltop, detached his
water thermos from his belt
and took
a long, cool draft.
Below him lay a grassy
valley through which a slender stream
unwound like silken thread. There
were trees massed along
the banks,
but not
thickly enough to conceal a being
as huge
as Dijleha.
He made
a mental
note to crawl over
the crest
of the
next ridge instead of silhouetting himself against the sky.
The abode
of the
ogress could not be very far
away, and he wanted to
spot her before she spotted him.
The day was
very nearly done. The trees
bordering the slender stream were throwing
long shadows. Westwood decided to
spend the night in the
valley and resume his search
early the next morning.
Some superbeings could see in
the dark. He didn't think this
one could,
but there
was no
sense taking the chance.
He recapped the
thermos, reattached it to his
belt and descended the hill. Halfway
down, he had to detour
round a sizable tree that had
been torn up by its
roots and cast aside. Since Dijleha
was carrying
at least
a dozen
dead natives, even discounting the ones
she'd already devoured, she must have
uprooted it with one hand.
Impressive— though it went
without saying that a superbeing
as huge
as Dijleha would have the strength
of 50
men. Not that she needed to be huge in
order to be phenomenally strong. A superbeing's strength, like
its other
physical and mental attributes, derived from the collective
imagination of its creators. It was
as strong
as they
believed it to be.
Take Grendel, for
example. Not only had modem
research unearthed evidence of his
existence, it had also unearthed
evidence that he was no
more than eight feet tall.
And yet, on his
first visit to Heorot, Hrothgar's
hall, he had carried off 30
thanes. Beowulf scholars had generally
written off this exploit
as the
hyperbole of a primitive poet,
but modem research had
proved otherwise. Despite his relatively small stature, Grendel could have carried off 30
thanes. Whether he actually
had or
not, no one would ever
know.
Once on the
valley floor, Westwood headed for
the stream. Dijleha, too, had refreshed
herself there. He saw a
pair of large, rounded
impressions made by her enormous
knees when she had
knelt on the bank to
drink. The water was crystal-clear and mountain-fresh; nevertheless, he popped a water-purifying tablet into his thermos
before he refilled it. Then he
washed his face and hands.
Dusk was moving
into the valley. Soon the
coolness of the mountains would sink
into the hills and the
temperature would drop below
50. Westwood
slipped off his pack, opened it and got out
his inflatable
tent. He pulled a pneu-mocartridge
out of
his pocket,
inserted it, squeezed it to
life and watched the tent change
from a compact cube the
size of his fist to a
large rubberoid cabin replete with
a door
that laced shut, two transparent windows and a built-in
bed. Promptly it took on the
hue of
its surroundings
and became
indistinguishable from the shadows.
After activating the heater and setting
it just
within the doorway, Westwood opened a
thermopac and ate a light
meal. He washed it
down with hot coffee from
a second
pac, lit a cigarette
and squatted
Indian fashion in the tent
doorway, letting the warmth
from the heater penetrate his
back. The darkness by
this time was complete, and
a rash
of stars had appeared
in the
heavens. The air was clear
and cold and there was no
wind.
And yet, paradoxically,
he could
hear a wind.
No, not
a wind, but a sound suggestive
of a
wind blowing through heavy foliage. And
presently, from far away, he
heard the crackling sound of breaking
limbs. The ground shuddered beneath him.
From where
he sat,
he had
an almost
unobstructed view of the ridge he
would climb tomorrow. He saw
her as
she came over the crest, and
she was
tree-tall against the stars. She dwindled rapidly as she
descended the nearer slope, then disappeared altogether as she
blended with the dark mass of
the ridge.
The valley
floor trembled with every step
she took; the silence
of the
night fled before her kettledrum
tread.
Westwood killed
his cigarette
and released
the safety
on his Dammerung. He got slowly
to his
feet.
Why was she
retracing her. steps? Had she
already devoured the last of
the victims
she had
carried off the previous night
and was
she setting
out on
another raid? Or had she somehow
divined his presence? He tried
to see
her in
the darkness, but the
black background of the ridge
thwarted him. Her kettledrum
tread crescendoed.
There was another
sound now. A rumbling, as
of thunder.
But it
was too
high-pitched to be thunder, and
it was
broken up into syllables.
It was
the sound
of her
voice.
Westwood was somehow
reminded of a woman calling
a cat. Here, kitty. Here, kitty-kitty-kitty! Even as the simile crossed his mind,
he saw
the white
baboon that was watching him
from the other side of
the stream
and realized
the true magnitude of his danger.
Suddenly the baboon
began to gibber in a
shrill voice. The kettledrums grew silent,
then resumed their rhythmic beat, each note louder than
the one
before.
Westwood did not
move. Immobility was his only
salvation. If only he had
seen the baboon sooner and
guessed it was Dijleha's petl If
only someone had told him
she had
a pet! Damn Brand! Damn the
plains people! Damn all people
who made
up bugbears
to scare
their children and then, unaware of the life-force engendered by their imaginations
en masse, unconsciously transformed fantasy into fact!
Westwood smelled carrion,
stale sweat. A tree crashed,
narrowly missing the tent.
Abruptly a pale pillar with
an elongated base descended from the
sky and
ground into the earth mere inches
from where he stood. Gazing
upward, he saw the mountainous flesh of her, the
huge curvatures and the shaglike hair.
When she stooped to snatch
up her
pet, it was like a building
bending. He glimpsed a massive
countenance, with a pair of
pale eyes set in pudgy
flesh. Then the building straightened and the awesome visage
went away.
He could have
got her
right between the eyes. He
could have, but he hadn't. For
one thing,
she had
taken him too much by surprise;
for another,
he was
a seasoned
Beowulf now and knew better than
to fire
a Dammerung
vertically.
Short hairs the
size of spikes protruded from
the massive
leg. Its surface was
mud-smeared and grimy. The enormous
foot was blackened with
innumerable layers of filth. It
ground deeper into the
earth as she put her
full weight on it; then, with
a sucking
sound, it shot upward and
out of
sight. Another tree crashed;
the ground
shuddered. The beat of the kettledrums
grew slowly softer, finally faded
away. As she recrossed
the crest
of the
ridge, she appeared once more against
the stars;
then she dwindled from view.
Westwood crawled into
the warm
cocoon of the tent, laced the door behind him
and lay
down on the built-in bed. He felt like the
31st thane.
He reactivated the safety on his
Dammerung and set his mental alarm for an early
hour. Tomorrow, when it aroused
him, he would enter
the next
valley and accomplish his assignment. He would center the
projectile right between Dijleha's
eyes and destroy her evil
ogress brain.
He would need
elevation for maximum accuracy. A
tree would do. Judging from the
sounds she had made ascending
the slope, there were
many trees in her valley.
He would
climb the most strategic
one and,
when the moment was exactly right, he would write
finis to this
walking nightmare. Then he would contact
Brand on the two-way radio
and tell
George to pick him
up in
the Guidance
Center's copter. By tomorrow night he
would be on board ship
en route
to Mars. While he was waiting
for the
shuttle, he would get drunk. Very, very drunk.
Sometimes he wondered
why unsophisticated
races such as the plains people
didn't create benevolent rather than
malevolent superbeings. Maybe they would
if they
were aware of the creative energy
their combined imagination was capable of unleashing. But there
was no
way to
make them aware without first educating
them, and if you were
to educate them, you would weaken
the naive
belief which was the source of
the energy
and bring
them prematurely to that sterile plateau
of intellectual
development upon which the creation of
a living
being was possible only through physical union.
Maybe masochism lay
at the
root of their ability. In
any event, even when they came
up with
a god,
he was
almost always a vindictive god. Yahweh
was a
case in point. So was Zeus. But, in a cosmic
sense, superbeings never lived long enough to do very
much harm. Physically, they endured
only as long as their
creators believed in them. Then
they vanished and all
the Up
service in the world was
insufficient to bring them back
to life.
Was it right
for an
institution like Galactic Guidance to destruct a god—with or without the
consent of its creators? It was argued that living
beings like Dijleha should be
permitted to die naturally,
but Westwood
didn't agree. Evil must be dealt
with, in any form, and
he felt
fully justified in his kills.
He put
these thoughts carefully out of
mind—and slept.
When Westwood's
mental alarm jerked frim awake,
a predawn
grayness was seeping through the
tent windows, creeping through
a crevice
between the laced-together door
flaps and the floor. He
unlaced the door and went
outside and washed in
the cold
stream. The impression of Dijleha's foot had filled with
water during the night and
appeared as an elongated
pond. He regarded it thoughtfully
as he ate a meager but
sustaining morning meal; then he
collapsed the tent, reassembled
his pack,
shouldered it and set out, carrying
his Dammerung
at port.
He walked in
a straight
line, across the stream, through
the trees and up
the farther
slope, cautiously now, alert for
the slightest movement, the
faintest sound. Behind him, the
sun edged above the
ridge he had descended the
previous afternoon and light
rushed into the valley, turning
the dew
to gold.
Up the slope,
moving on his hands and
knees, inching his eyes above the
crest. He looked down into
a valley
similar in most
respects to the one that
lay behind
him. It, too, boasted a slender
stream and a grassy floor,
but there
were far more trees, and on
the opposite
side there were cliffs. Limestone, as nearly as Westwood
could make out. Pitted with caves, probably; honeycombed with tunnels. From his
present perspective, the trees
seemed to grow right up
to their feet.
He gave
the Dämmerung a final check, turning it slowly in
his hands.
And he
thought of Chitzen,
The god Chitzen roared when He talked, and He
slept on a great granite mesa in the middle of the Desert of Strange Stones.
His worshipers brought offerings at the beginning of each week and laid them at
the base of a towering outcropping at the foot of his bed—the fattest of their
livestock, the choicest of their crops, the plumpest of their virgins, the
rarest of their wine—but He was never satisfied and eternally demanded more
food, more virgins, more wine. And when it became impossible for his worshipers
to supply Him with more, He arose from his granite bed and strode across the
Desert of Strange Stones to the oases where the villages lay and took what He
wanted and destroyed what He didn't, and before long, dark days came and the
villagers feared to leave their huts, and a famine settled upon the land.
Scattered over
the valley
floor were thousands of small
white objects that gleamed
in the
morning sunlight, and at the base
of one
of the
cliffs, half-hidden by a frescolike
fringe of trees, was
a mound
of similar
objects. Westwood realized that the objects
were human bones.
He made his
way down
the slope,
taking maximum advantage of the
cover afforded by snarls of
little trees. When he was halfway
down, a white baboon bounded
out of
a nearby copse and hotfooted it
to the
valley floor, where it disappeared in the tall grass.
Was it
Dijleha's pet? Why hadn't she eaten
it? No
doubt, being an ogress, she
enjoyed nothing but human flesh.
Reaching the valley
floor, he continued on a
circuitous course toward the
cliffs, keeping out of sight
behind trees, thickets and bushes and—when
no other
cover was available—crawling
belly down through the tall
grass.
After Westwood crossed
the stream,
concealment was less of a chore.
The trees
were closer together and considerably
larger. He made his way
toward the cliff with the
mound of bones at
its base.
He could
smell the bones, even though there was no wind;
mingled with their miasma was
another smell, compounded of body odor and
dung.
When the
Beowulf branch of Galactic Guidance
was first
established, copters were used
exclusively to track down superbeings. Now, however, they were
rarely employed without good reason, for,
as often
as not,
when a super-being saw a
copter, it fled to its
lair and stayed there, complicating
the task
of the
hunter.
• • •
There had been two good reasons for using a
copter on the Chitzen assignment: Chitzen's abode was in the open, and, being a
god, it was unlikely He would flee.
The
weird outcroppings of the Desert of Strange Stones drifted by beneath Westwood
and the pilot as they flew east into the face of rising Antares. They sighted
the granite mesa only to find it empty when they passed above it. Clearly,
Chitzen was an early-rising god. He was also a clever god. Too late, they realized that the humanoid shape before and
below them, which in the blinding light of Antares they had mistaken for
another outcropping, was Chitzen Himself. A hand came up and batted the copter
down.
The
pilot was killed instantly. Westwood's right leg was crushed, caught in the
wreckage of the cabin. He could not extricate it. There was a gaping hole in
the cabin roof through which he could see the blue sky. Presently Chitzen's
face swam into view and his cold and terrible eyes gazed down into Westwood's
own. The massive countenance occulted the sky. Above the plateaulike forehead,
strands of golden hair danced like solar prominences in the morning wind. From
the left ear, a golden earring swung faintly to and fro.
Half
in a dream, Westwood felt for his Dammerung. It should have been at his side.
It was not. It was lying several feet away. Desperately, he tried to reach it.
He could not. Perhaps it was just as well. He did not think he could use it, anyway.
He did not think he could kill a god. As the thought crossed his mind, he saw
the hand come through the hole in the cabin roof and the gigantic fingers close
round the barrel of the Dammerung. He saw the weapon lifted aloft, saw
simultaneously that the impact of the crash had dislodged the safety.
The trees
thinned out and Westwood had to cross a grassy clearing to
reach the fresco forest that
paralleled the cliffs feet. He crawled
through the grass, did not
stand up till he was safe
among the trees. He could
see the
mound of bones. It lay straight
ahead of him. Above and
to the
right of it, pretty much as
he had
figured, was a king-size cave
mouth. Moving in closer,
he found
a large
tree that stood on the inner
edge of the fresco forest
on a
line with and some 70 yards distant from the
mouth.
Standing behind the
trunk, he listened. He heard
the faint
humming of insects, the
scuttering .sound of a small
animal of some kind burrowing in
the dead
leaves. He also heard what he had expected to
hear—a sound
as of
bellows pumping, muted but distinct.
Yes, Dijleha was in her
den. Still gorged, probably,
from yesterday's repast. Gorged and
fast asleep.
He removed his
pack and slung his weapon.
He picked
up several small stones
and pocketed
them. He had to shinny
a good
15 feet before he reached
the first
limb. He went on to the
next and the next. At
length he came to a
crotch that he estimated to be
about the right height, and
he settled himself into it, unslung
his Dämmerung and rested the weapon on
his lap.
Leafy branches hanging down from
above screened him from
sight and at the same
time afforded him an excellent
view of the cliff face
through the interstices in their foliage.
He released the
safety on his Dämmerung; then he took one of the small
stones out of his pocket
and threw
it across
the intervening distance and
into the cave. He heard
it rattle on the rock floor.
• • •
Chhzen straightened to his full height and Westwood could see Him through the hole in the cabin roof, studying the tiny
weapon in his hands. He tried to loop his gargantuan thumb around the trigger,
but the trigger guard thwarted Him. He looked more like a child than a god—a child puzzled by a technological toy that it could not comprehend.
Abruptly, Chitzen vanished
from view.
There
was a silence. Westwood
felt the first throb of
pain as numbness began to leave his injured leg. Had the god gone? Had it been
only the Dämmerung He wanted? Had
He no thoughts of revenge?
Westwood's
two-way radio hung from a cord around his neck. There had been no point in
beeping for a rescue copter before. Now hope trembled in his throat as he
turned the tiny dial.
The
handle of the cabin door turned and the door swung open, and a handsome young
man stepped into the room. He had feathery golden hair, a high, wide forehead
and wide-apart eyes, and from his left ear a golden earring dangled. Westwood's
black and deadly Dämmerung
was cradled in his arms.
The
cold and terrible eyes rested on the hunter, no less cold, no less terrible, in
their new dimension than they had been in their old. A god might not be able to
change the size of a weapon that was too small for it to operate, but it could
change its own size. And within his framework of values, there was no other way
for Chitzen to kill West-wood than the way Westwood had intended to kill Him.
He
raised the Dämmerung
and incorrectly pointed the
butt at Westwood. The god had the unfamiliar weapon reversed;
the barrel was aimed at his own head. He slipped his right thumb through the
trigger guard and began to squeeze the trigger. Westwood smiled thinly as the Dämmerung
thundered, leaping from
Chitzen's grasp onto Westwood's lap. The projectile passed through the god's
head and exploded.
Apparently Dijleha
was a
light sleeper, for no sooner
had the stone that Westwood cast
ceased rattling on the cave
floor than her head
emerged from the cave mouth.
At first,
all he could see was her
hair. It made him think
of a
haystack. Then, as she crawled
on all
fours out into the daylight
and stood
up, Westwood
got a
clear view of her face.
The nose was turned
up slightly
and the
eyes were set close together. The cheeks were full.
She had
a wide
mouth and rather heavy lips. At
the moment,
they were discolored with dried blood. Her chin was
gently rounded. It was the
face of a mischievous—and cruel—young girl.
Westwood was less
interested in her face than
in her
body. The mere weight
of her
breasts caused them to sag
prematurely, but they were
as nothing
compared to her huge and sagging
belly. She had gone to
fat early
in her
career, and as though
her obesity
were not repulsive enough, her face
and body
were covered with the accumulated
grime of her brief lifetime.
The stench
was overpowering.
She was
carrying her pet baboon in
the crook
of her
arm, where it was almost hidden
by the
enormous overhang of her left breast.
The height
of Westwood's
perch put his eyes on a
level with hers. There was
a quality
about her that suggested a self-indulgent
teen-ager rather than an ogress—
a teen-ager who was
unable to put a curb
on her
appetite and slim down so the
boys would go for her.
Now she was
walking straight toward the tree
in which
he was sitting. Probably heading for
the forest
to relieve
herself. Westwood had already
aimed the Dammerung at a spot
midway between her eyes; all
he had
to do
was squeeze the trigger. Let her
get closer.
. .
.
The earth shook
from her footsteps; the leaves
of the
forest trembled. Her face,
vast to begin with, grew
vaster still. When she was almost
to the
tree, she halted and reached out with her free
hand and tweaked off the
two overhanging branches that
screened Westwood from view.
She grinned
at him.
Westwood squeezed
the trigger.
Click!
He squeezed
it again.
Click!
Dijleha's grin became
a gruesome
smile. Her teeth were two tiers
of chiseled
gray rocks.
Westwood lowered the
Dammerung and checked the magazine. It was empty.
The great grimy
hand that had tweaked off
the branches
of his hideaway was now approaching
the crotch
in which
he sat. Westwood gripped
the Dammerung
by the
barrel and brought the heavy weapon
down with all his might
across the ogress's knuckles.
The butt
shattered from the impact, and the
barrel was torn from his
grip as Dijleha snatched the injured
hand away and stepped back.
The howl she let out activated
a small
avalanche on the cliff behind her.
Three facts were
now self-evident:
(1) The white baboons of Nightfall were
not quite
as far
down the evolutionary ladder as
Galactic Guidance assumed; (2) unlike
the barbaric desert dwellers
who had
created Chitzen, the plains people were
familiar with modern firearms and
had endowed their superbeing with a
working knowledge of the Dammerung; and (3) they were
latent telepaths and had passed their gift on to
Dijleha in active form.
Her pet baboon
had "told"
her about
Westwood—probably last
night after she had found
it and
taken it home. And she in
turn had "told" the baboon
to empty
West-wood's Dammerung. Afterward, the baboon
had played
sentinel and informed her
of the
hunter's approach. Their telepathic
rapport, apparently, functioned only at
close range.
She was standing
a giant
step away, sucking her bruised
knuckles and contemplating him with her wicked
eyes. It was her usual custom
to wring
her victims'
necks before she devoured them. In
this respect, she was quite
humane. But the cunning expression on her face told
him that
no such
merciful death lay in
store for him, that he
was going
to have to pay and pay
dearly for what he had
done to her hand.
Precisely how would
she make
him pay?
He shuddered. He did
not even
need to ask himself. He
knew.
In his mind
he heard
Brand's voice. "A
peasant. She behaves like one, reacts like one and she thinks like one."
Dijleha had approached
the tree
again and was reaching into the branches for him.
Just before the terrible fingers
encircled his waist, he
extricated four pneumocartridges from
his pocket
and gripped
two of
them in either hand. Then he was torn from
the crotch
and borne
aloft. The branches ripped his clothing,
stung his skin. The vast
face grew into a foreboding cliff. There was a
cave in this cliff of
flesh, filled with two
horizontal tiers of chiseled gray
rocks.
The tiers separated
at his
approach. She chose his right
hand. He had thought
she would,
because it was her right
hand he had struck
with the na.mmp.ning, but he had taken no chances. She
pinched the elbow between her
thumb and forefinger so that the
arm jutted
straight out The mouth of
the cave came forth
to meet
him; her fetid breath combined
with his terror and
nearly overwhelmed him. But he
managed to retain awareness long
enough to squeeze the two
pneumocartridges to life and
flick them over her tongue
and down her throat
before the terrible tiers came
together.
And
thine eye shall not pity, but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for
tooth, hand for hand. . . .
• • •
Westwood had
fainted. He came to lying
on his
back at the edge of the
fresco forest. Blood was spurting
rhythmically from the stump where
his right
hand had been, but apparently none of his bones
were broken. With immense effort, he fashioned a tourniquet
from his belt and got
the bleeding under control. Nearby, Dijleha
was dying.
From where she had dropped him
at the
edge of the fresco forest,
he watched her great
writhings, the shouting and the
screaming and the thrashing
of the
huge limbs. At last it
was over and the
body lay quietly in the
morning sunlight like a range of
gentle hills.
Westwood crawled to
the base
of the
tree where his pack lay, got
out his
two-way radio and turned the
emergency dial to on. In less than an hour,
Brand would arrive in the
copter. Computerized medical techniques
would have West-wood's stub healed
in a
week, and in less than
another he would be fitted with
a prosthetic
hand superior to the one
he had lost. The pain was
beginning. . . .
Damn, but he
wanted a drink! He wanted
to blot
out the
pain and the stench
and the
images in his mind. Next
time he would bring some wine.
It was
against the rules, drinking on
a hunt—but
to hell
with the rules. Next time.
. .
.
Westwood lay on
his back
in the
Valley of Bones, gazing up through
the foliage
of the
fresco forest at the blue
sky. He managed to get a
cigarette going and blew smoke
at the
morning sun. Hearing a
faint rustle in the grass,
he turned
his head and saw
Dijleha's pet baboon sitting on
its haunches several yards away. It
was looking
at him
forlornly. He reached out with
his good
arm and,
when the little animal came closer,
he patted
its downy
head. The baboon whimpered and snuggled
up against
his chest.
Jenny Among the Zeebs
frank
anmar
The
last time a Frank Anmar science-fiction story appeared in a Nolan anthology (The Fasterfaster
Affair in The Pseudo-People), it was selected for classroom study by American Education Publications
and reprinted in the school magazine Read. The
author has been anthologized in several automotive collections, and his fiction
has appeared in a staggering variety of markets.
When
pressed for biographical data, Anmar replied, "I'm what I write." Taken at his word, therefore, Mr. Anmar must—at the very
least—be irreverent, wild and perhaps a bit mad. Because that certainly
describes his latest story, in which he mixes rock slang, futuristic music and
elements of classic French farce.
The result is
double-bottomed.
What kicked off
the hooley
was, the zeeb contest had
gone sour and that's
when this
zonked-out little chickie wanted to cast
some bottoms. It was the
two coming
together that way, like planets in
a collision
orbit, that kicked off the
hooley.
It begins
with Dirkt
Dirk's our lead
guitar, a tall piece of
mean-talk gristle with long, slidey lizard
lids over his eyes and
loose puff-adder lips that turn
on all
the funky
birds. He ranks large in the
Red Dogs,
and when
he raps,
we listen.
Now he says
to the
rest of us, "It is
mooncrap." And especially to me, "It is
also cowcrap, chickencrap, ratcrap."
"You don't
like it?"
"We don't like
it," he hp-puffs. "None of us."
The four zeebs
are brothers
in blood
as well
as soul,
born and bred on Martian soil—and
when one puts something down, the other three usually
aren't far behind. They give
me the long nod behind Dirk:
Eddie (drums), Dean
(rhythm guitar) and
Royce (who can play anything,
but mainly sings).
I PR for
the boys,
and I
set up
the contest.
Been in publicity since I was
knee-high to a French horn.
I handled
Dust, the first Moon
group, in 1990, and I've
had enough
Martian sand in my
craw to feel like a
native. But I'm not. I'm blond
and blue-eyed
and I'm
no zeeb.
They call me Hoff. Earth blood.
"What's the problem?"
I really
want to know, because I'm fogged out on the
why.
"Everything's the problem," growls Dirk. He
hangs one long peppermint-striped
pants leg over the edge
of my
couch and rides it
like a saddle. "You seen those Earthies?"
He means the
photos of the contest entrants,
and I
admit I've seen them.
"Look," I tell him,
"there's still a couple of
weeks till
deadline. More'll come in
by then.
There's bound to be at
least one you can--------- "
"I'm not Unking
up with
any freebing
Earthie," says Dirk. He angrily pops the
buttons on his lemon metafile
shirt. They make a
sound like popcorn hitting the
hardwood floor.
"Nobody's forcing anything
on you,"
I say.
"You all get together, as a
group, and pick the winner.
Then she picks one
of you."
"From the creepies
I've seen," puts in Royce,
"if one picked me, I'd vomit."
He's a Uthe Uttle character,
with enormous shining teeth, who crouches
over a mike like he's
about to bite it
off. Zeebs are fish eaters,
and I
got some
heavy promo hanging out
on how
Royce lives on raw Martian fish. One of
the rock
rags even printed a special
outer-space raw-fish ish, Usting maybe
a hundred
zeeb recipes. It helped. It all
helps.
"This is a
freak trip, Hoff, and you
know it," says Dirk to me,
still riding my couch. The
others are strung out on
chairs around my Brentwood
pad, looking drained. We've had a
full day cutting tracks for
a new
LP, and
now all
I want to do is get
them out so I can
fold myself into the sack.
"None of
us want
to be
married," says Royce.
"Too late," I say. "Way too
late. The scene's locked in.
We're guaranteed front-page coverage on this right
down the line. The whole "Marry
a Zeeb"
bit means
prime Earth bread for all of
us. Life and Look
are both
hot to
cover the honeymoon—and Buckley
Three, Jr., is condemning us in National Review."
Dean joins the
hassle. He's our stand-up comic,
the one
with flap ears and
that sappy smile, the one
we hoke
with for laughs—still a big Earth
fave with the preteenies—but he's playing it for sour
now. "It was one thing
when you got us the teeny
crowd with that skin-flake routine, but we're past that
now. We don't need to sell our bodies anymore."
Now I'm pissed
off about
what Dean just said, because
that skin-flake idea of
mine put the Red Dogs
over the top. The other groups
were selling their hair and
love beads and dung like that
when I came up with
the flake
bit. Hey, kids! Send in for
your own genuine, certified, medically sterilized bits
of zeebskin,
carefully and painlessly scraped from
the bodies of your four faves!
The preteenies
flipped. We got enough orders for
a ton
of flakes—and
the fact
that we used whales, on which
I got
a helluva
buy, was also my inspiration. Takes a medical expert
to tell
whaleskin from zeebskin. So when I
get this
new contest
idea, I know it's ultraheavy: Girls! If you're of
legal age of consent and
wish to be the
Earth bride of a Martian
zeeb, send us your photo and tell us why
we should
choose you in 50 words
or less. The lucky winner will
be able
to pick
out her
new husband and spend a fab
two-week honeymoon in a genuine,
certified, medically sterilized Martian sand
igloo.
With raw
fish, yet!
We'd all rapped
it down
and agreed.
It was
set and
rolling. Now, suddenly, everybody
wants out, and I'm pissed.
I turn
to Pops,
who manages
the boys.
He's cool, he's with it, he's
in the
large scene. Pops has seen
it all,
the full life bag. He doesn't
ruffle. "Look, you tell them,"
I say
to him. "You're their goddamn father!"
Pops has his
shirt rolled up from the
waist, and he's been studying his navel. He looks
up, with
those big black Martian bird
eyes sweeping us. "A man's
navel contains the wisdom of the
universe," he says,
tapping his whale-black stomach.
"It's all here."
"What does your
navel tell us, Pops?" asks Eddie. He's fat, never
says much and falls asleep
a lot,
but he's
a wild
man with the sticks.
Pops walks to
the center
of the
room, eyes us all. We wait.
Pops sighs and goes back
to his
navel. For more study.
Which is when
the envelope
arrives.
It is delivered
by special
messenger, and I ask exactly
who's it from, but
the special
messenger doesn't know, just that it
was some
female and it's for us.
I take the
envelope in to the boys.
There's a card inside. They all look at it.
"What does it
mean?" Royce asks.
The card bears
a single
line of print: the
bottom builders. And under
that, in purple ink, is
written, "I dig your double buns—and I can make
you all
immortal. My name is Jenny. I'm
downstairs. Let me come up
and you
won't be sorry." There was a
purple P.S. "And I'm no
plastic zeebie girl—I'm the
real stuff."
I flip the
card against my thumb and
give them all a grin. "You
mean you haven't heard of
the Builders?"
They look blank.
Having just returned
to L.A.
from Frisco, I caught the
latest rap up there
on these
three females who, I'm told,
are something else. "Believe
me, this
one's for real. See her.
Find out. Live!"
They exchange raised
eyebrows. Pops stays with his
navel. Cool. Finally, Dirk
says, "Buzz her up."
Which we do.
Jenny is maybe
18 to
20. Nice
hair, nice pink Earth skin, nice smile—and with a
better than nice body. The
legs are long and
sleek and golden. Very short
skirt. Very loose blouse, with lots
inside. She's in purple, to
match her ink.
She's the undiscovered
country.
"There used to
be three
of me,"
she says
sweetly. "Three of us, I mean. But
we called
it off
as a
team when I split for L.A.
Marcy is living with a
legless Hindu in Sausalito, and Joan is doing vocals
with the Armpits. We all
learned to do it in high
school." She giggles. "Now I
do it
alone."
The boys are
wigged out. Even Pops has
abandoned his navel.
"What is it?" Dean wants to
know. "I build bottoms," says Jenny.
She opens the
leather traveling bag she's been
carrying and takes out a kind
of folding
pink canvas thing that she
snaps together and sets
on the
floor.
We all
stare at the tiling. Like
a baby's
potty.
"That's to sit
in," she says. "I fill
it up
with plaster and dental alginates and
hot water.
The mixture
has to
be just right. Rick Fedding, one of the
Sub Basements,
got stuck
in there when we were just
learning about bottoms. We couldn't get him loose. It
was awful.
Embarrassing, you know. We had to
kind of hammer
him out.
Rick was such a sport about it, too. His buns were
sore for a week, but
he never hassled us
about it."
As she tells
us all
this, she is laying out
a line
of stuff
on my coffee table: measuring scoops,
a jar
of Vaseline,
some wooden spatulas, three plastic cups—and
a thermometer.
"For testing water temp,"
she says.
"We tried it without the
thermo once and, boy,
did that
cat jump!
It was
too hot,
like scalding.
We had
to rub
in some
banana oil."
She stops messing
with the contents of the
bag, turns, gives us all a
bright, young, innocent smile. "Now,
if you
guys will just drop
your pants."
Dean flaps
his ears.
"Wow."
Royce clicks
his moose
teeth. "What a come-on!"
Jenny frowns. "This
is no
come-on! I told you on
the card that I'd make you
all immortal.
Well, this proves I can. Long
after you're dead—maybe even hundreds
of years from now—they'll still have
your bottoms in the Library of Congress."
"I didn't know
the Library
of Congress
collected bottoms," says Dirk.
"They'll collect
mine," declares Jenny with a
toss of her long hair. "A
bottom can often tell you
more about a person than
any book
about him ever could." Her brows knit. "Don't you guys want to be immortal?"
"I don't want
my butts
roasted," pipes Eddie,
shaking his head. The other zeebs
agree, mumbling darkly about the
inconvenience of having to
have their asses hammered out
and stuff like that.
This is when
I come
in. Strong.
I been
in PR
too long
to miss a Good Thing, and
suddenly I'm onto a Good
Thing. "Hey, knock off
and listen
to me.
This chickie knows how to protect
your precious rumps. She's a
pro. The beauty part is what
we do with the molds. We make chairs
is what we do with them.
Chair bottoms. Bottom bottoms."
The great
thing, considering the situation, about Martian zeebs is that
they are double-bottomed. Two pairs
of buttocks
per zeeb—which
makes them kind of unique.
"We sell plastic
replicas to every lousy furniture
store in the country," I go
on, talking
fast. "We even ship 'em
to the Moonies up in the
colony. Just lay it on
your freebing minds: What we got
here is a fortune in
zeeb bottoms!"
A silence
while they let my words
register.
Pops stands up,
walks to the center of
the room
again. Whenever Pops has
something really heavy to say,
he walks
to the center of the room
to say
it. Now
he says,
solemn-eyed, "Drop your pants."
Royce slowly shakes
his head.
"Whoever casts my bottoms does
it in
the dark.
I don't
go around
having my bottoms cast in
front of anybody."
Jenny considers this,
nods. "There's no reason we
can't do this in the bedroom.
I can
prepare the mixture, douse the lights
and call
you guys
in one
at a
time. When you leave, I turn
the lights
on again
and finish
my work.
All right?"
Royce agrees.
They all figure that will
be all
right. Yeah. The bedroom. In the
dark. With Jenny. The undiscovered country.
Two weeks
after that the letter arrives.
From Jenny, in Kansas.
"What the hell's
she doing
in Kansas?"
Dirk asks me, and I tell
him I
don't know, but I guess
that's her home state and she's
gone back home.
"I thought she
was supposed
to stick
around and deliver our bottoms," Royce says.
I nod. "She
was. That was the agreement.
That's what she promised to do."
"So just
read the letter," says Pops.
So we
read the letter.
Hey, you
Red Dogs!
I've got
a little
confesh to make: I can't
send you your bottoms. I messed
up in
the tagging
and I
got so
mad trying to figure
out which
bottom was which that I broke
the molds—just
tossed them SPLAT! against the wall. So no chairs,
fellas! Sorry.
Got another
little confesh to make: When
I came
to see you guys, I was
virgie. No lie. Can you
feature it? Nineteen and a half
and pure
as the
driven. But at least that's over. Whooie!
They say all cats are
gray in the dark; so I
can't say which of you
did me,
but it
sure was some trip!
My third
and last
confesh: I missed my month—
meaning I'm bound to
be just
a little
bit pregs.
I didn't
use anything. I mean
not the
pill or anything. That's because I want to mother
a zeeb.
Our family
is very,
but very,
fertile—and I'm
sure my own little double-bottomed
zeeb is sleeping inside me
right now.
Isn't that
zappy?
Bottoms up! Jenny
The boys
look poleaxed, all glassy in
the eyes.
We're recording, right in
the middle
of a
tight overdub sesh, but right away
the juice
drains. One thing about zeebs,
there are no half-breeds, ever. The
zeeb blood is so strong
that when a nonzeeb female gets
preggie by a zeeb, the
Martian strain takes over.
When Jen had her baby,
he'd sure as hell have two
bottoms!
Eddie walks away
from his drums and puts
the palms
of both hands flat against the
studio wall. "That's what comes
of going bare-assed for posterity."
Dirk flips the
guitar strap over his head
and puts
down his instrument. He pops his
knuckles, a habit he has
which none of us like. "That
damn little Earthie could sell
her story to the papes and
ruin us," he growls.
"I didn't know
there were any nineteen-year-old Earth virgins," says Dean.
His flap
ears are sagging.
I wind a
mike cord aimlessly around my
wrist like a lasso. Wind it.
Unwind it. I'm thinking. "I
got it,"
I say.
Nobody looks
at me.
I say
it again.
"I got it."
Dirk grunts,
puffs a lip.
Then I give
them my solution. "Jenny wins! She wins the
marry-a-zeeb contest."
"But she
didn't enter it," says Eddie.
"That can be
rigged. The point is, you
guys need a winner, and
all you've
got are
creepies. Jen is no creepie.
She is also no virgin. She
wins, we bring her out,
tell her to pick a zeeb—and
off we
all go
to Vegas
for the
ceremony.
You guys end
up with
a sweet-looking
chick and Jenny has a legit
father for her kid."
"It's a solution," nods Dean. "I diggo."
They all
diggo.
Jenny goes along
with the setup cheerfully. She thinks the idea is
one long
wig-out. We have a special
plane fly her in from Kansas.
Big prewedding
reception at the Whiskey. Tons of
photos. Tons of publicity.
"Dirk, kiss
her!"
Dirk kisses
Jenny.
"Eddie, kiss
her."
Eddie kisses
Jenny.
"Dean, kiss
her!"
Dean kisses
Jenny.
"Royce, kiss
her!"
Royce kisses
Jenny.
And the
photogs go nutcake.
We keep mum
on the
bottom building. Jenny agrees to
drop the whole schmeer,
deny she was ever with
the Builders
in case
one of
the Frisco
crowd remembers. We buy off
her two former teammates
and the
legless Hindu in Sausa-lito. Her makeup is changed,
along with her hair. She's
just a sweet little Kansas Earthie
who grooves
on the
Red Dogs.
I write the "50 words or less"
myself:
I want to
marry a zeeb because in
this awful age of growing unrest, all the peoples
of the
worlds need to unite together in
a true
test of solar solidarity. By marrying a zeeb,
I can
make a personal contribution to racial equality and universal
understanding. Thus, I
offer my everlasting love!
Jenny reads
it, almost
gags. "I can't sign that!" "Why not?"
"I'd never
write star drek like that."
She looks
down at the words and makes
a face.
"Blahah!"
"It's just what
the national
rags will eat up," I
explain. "Full of heavy
sentiment—picks up on
the Martian
racial bag."
"Sign," says Dirk, cracking his knuckles.
"Don't argue." She signs:
Jenny Ann Fingstatter. We all breathe
a sigh
of relief.
"Now you'd
better split," I tell her.
"You've got a Tri-
Planet show to
rehearse, two satellite spots with
Riddle, then a photo sesh at
Sanctuary. They're gonna shoot you
running around some track
they've got set up over
a bank,
to show you getting
in shape
for the
honeymoon."
"Kinky," says
Jen.
She splits.
"OK," I say,
looking over the boys, "it's
time to select the lucky groom."
"Doesn't Jen
just pick one of us?"
asks Eddie.
"Normally she would,
if this
thing was straight," I tell' him. "But with her
pregs, we do the picking."
"How?" This from
Dirk. His lizard eyes are
slitted. He-looks sour, as usual.
If you
handed Dirk a million bucks,
tax-free, and a ticket
to Fame
Junction, he'd look sour.
I hold up
four plastic matches. "The ones
who shagged
her draw, and short
match is the groom. So
who shagged
her?" I look them
over. "All of you,
right?"
"I didn't touch a pink inch of that freebing
little Earthiel" says Dirk.
"Just went in, sat in
her gook
and went
out."
Dirk never
lies; so I shrug and
turn to the others.
Eddie shakes his
curls. "Not me, Hoff. I'm
clean on this run. She turned
me off
with that hot-bottom stuff."
"Same with
me," says Dean. "I never shagged
her."
"Me, either," says Royce. "I just
wanted to get my tender
buns in and out
of that
room."
None of
them. Not one of them.
Which meant....
They get
it when
I do.
"Moonshit!" Dirk says in deep disgust.
"Hoff shagged her. Right?"
I swallow
hard. "Well—sure. ... I mean,
I figured
all of you would ... that
you had
... well,
hell, sure I shagged her."
The four zeebs
are giving
me the
Martian eye. It's incredible, a mind blower. I
can't believe it, but there
it is—
me, ole Hoff, a
father!
"So who
marries her?" asks Royce.
"Not me," I
protest. "I can't marry her.
It's gotta be a zeeb."
"And what about
the kid
she has?"
asks Dean. "How are we going
to explain
a blond-haired
blue-eyed baby with just one bottom?"
I groan, rubbing
my blond
head. "I'll work it out,"
I promise. "We
go ahead
and let
her pick
one of
you, then play it as planned.
As for
the kid—believe
me, I'll
work it out."
"Yeah, Hoff,"
says Dirk, "you just better
do that. You just better the
hell work it out." We are into the hooley
but good.
We don't
tell Jenny anything. We just
let her
pick her zeeb and that is
that. She picks Royce. Which
figures. Eddie is too fat. Dirk
is too
mean. Dean is too ugly.
"Jen's not so
hard to take," Royce tells
us, showing
those big teeth of his in
a wide
grin. "She's a lot better
than raw fish!" I've had Royce
at the
fish again, for a Luna photog, and Royce blames
his stomach
cramps on me.
We're at the
airport, waiting out the jet
to Vegas.
The boys are all sharked out
in wild
threads. A gassy wedding party.
"You'll be
fine in the sand igloo,"
I tell
him. "We've got it heated by
Westinghouse."
"Pops lived in
a sand
igloo once, didn't you, Pops?"
Royce looks at him
for confirmation.
Pops admits he
lived in one for three
days once in his crummy hometown near the Red
Mountains. He didn't like it. Too
cold.
"We got
this one heated by Westinghouse,"
I repeat
again.
We all
begin to fidget some.
"Where the
hell is Jenny?" Dirk wants
to know.
"We're due aboard any
minute."
"She's in the
crapper," Royce says.
"Fixing her hair." "Here
she comes,"
I say.
Jenny is too much.
She is wearing
a gauzy
Moon toga (white for purity)—
with nothing underneath—and California poppies braided into her hip-length hair. A
phony Martian wedding diamond has
been pasted smack in the
center of her forehead, and her sandals are made
of white
yucca blossoms. A gold engagement band glitters on the
little toe of her left
foot. No lipstick, but big purple
circles gooped around her eyes.
"Hi, gang!"
she says.
"How do I look?"
She looks
hip and
bridey and I tell her
so.
We get the
boarding go-ahead. The press boys
are waiting
outside, tongues hanging, by the
jet ramp.
"Everybody ready?" I ask. Nods all round.
"OK, then .
. .
into the lion's ass!"
The wedding sews
it up
for us.
We stage
the whole
ba-zoola at the Space Frontier,
with the boys doing Zeebie Girl at the
reception while all the guests
chew Martian eelcake.
She's just a
little zeebie girl, a sad, slick,
plastic chick,
ballin' all the
heavy names, playin' all the sexual
games, ridin' her plastic cloud, turned on to the cool, cool
crowd.
Groovin' like there's
no tomorrow,
our own little child
of sorrow,
that little plastic zeebie
girl. . . .
Jenny floats
through it all on her
own plastic
cloud, while the photogs snap about
a zillion
pix.
We have the
honeymoon jet painted to look
like a star-ship, and we
run the
two kids
out to
the plane
on a
wheeled sand sled pulled
by half
a dozen
Martian huskies I hired cut-rate from
a studio
flack. It is all way
out.
It is only
later, when I'm alone back
at my
pad in
Brentwood, that I get
the shakes
when I think about Jenny's baby.
Like I promised
the boys,
I have
to do
something. But what?
•
• •
The coverage from
Mars is fantastic.
Look
does an
igloo feature showing the newlyweds
as they leave to go out
on the
sand. We get shots of
them hiking happily through the dunes,
playing with a cute little eight-legged Mars pup, pulling
glowfish from a canal —all that kind of crap.
I try to
figure some way of getting
one of
the rags
to run shots of them coupling
inside the igloo, but this
is nixed by Jenny. She points
out that
up to
now the
whole bazoola has been in good
taste, and why spoil that
for a
few rag shots. I
agree.
Sometimes you
can go
too far.
• • •
A couple
of months
slide by, and we have
our doc
examine Jen. Yeah, she's pregs
and, yeah, she got pregs
before the honeymoon
and, yeah, he'll keep his
mouth buttoned on just when providing
we make
it worth
his while.
Which we naturally do.
Meanwhile, I am
thinking and pondering and working
out the hooley. Ole
Hoff will bust through with
something, I tell the boys. And
I do.
Like wow.
Perfect.
Brilliant.
Foolproof.
"Get Pops in
here," I tell my secretary.
It's late and I'm down at
the studio
going over some album cuts,
trying to figure a new
jacket approach, when I bust
the hooley.
Pops comes in
ten minutes
later. He's sore. He's due
at the Ash Grove.
"Forget it," I
tell him. "You're going home."
"Home?"
"The Red Mountains.
To that
crummy little zeeb village where you were born. The
one you're
ashamed to tell anybody about.
Home."
"Why?"
"To buy
a baby."
Pops is
cool. As always. He nods,
asks me to elaborate.
"Nobody knows anything
about the place except you,"
I tell him. "You fly back
there incognito and you locate
a zeeb couple with a pregnant
wife. The timing has to
be just right. Jen will give
birth in early June; so
that's when the zeeb kid has
got to
be out
of the
hangar. Diggo?"
"Diggo."
"You stay
on the
scene till you hear from
me. I'll
phone from here the minute Jen
goes into labor. Then you
hustle the zeeb kid out here
and we
make the switch. You take
Jen's kid back home
and have
it raised
by the
zeeb couple. Paying them handsomely for their trouble. Jen
never knows about the switch, nor
does her public. She gives
birth to a healthy little zeeb
and the
world rejoices."
Pops looks
at me.
"Hoff ... at times you
approach greatness." This,
from Pops, brings tears to
my eyes.
"When do I leave?"
"I got
you booked
on a
rocket out tonight," I say.
"You've got to begin
scouting for a preggie zeeb
you can
buy off. Fact is,
for safety's
sake, you better set up
another couple in case
the first
pair gives you trouble. We
don't want to be caught in
a squeeze.
So get
going."
Pops got.
And the
hooley was busted.
Like wow.
Perfect.
Brilliant.
Foolproof.
After the
honeymoon, we get all kinds
of offers.
The Dogs are hot, they are
steaming. All the clubs want
us. We gig in St. Louis,
Fort Worth, San Antonio, New
York, Washington and Chicago.
We get
offers to do top gigs
on the Moon.
We sign
a new
contract with Disco Tech and
the boys
cut Robot
Man. It shoots
to the
top of
the charts
and stays
there for ten weeks;
then they follow that one
up with
Hieronymus
Bosch on Sunday, with its funky
cross-rhythm shifts and esoteric
chord progressions. The boys have
prime talent; now they
are able
to showcase
it.
Jen travels with
Royce and the others on
their first road tour, but stays
in L.A.
when they go out again,
pampering herself with gallons
of Tiger's
Milk and raw carrot juice.
She can't
wait to be a zeeb
mother.
The whole world
loves her. She is every
teener's dream come true, living proof
that a simple Kansas farm
girl can marry a famous rock-'n'-roll
zeeb and bear his child.
Jenny is an Event, a one-girl
Happening, and we have to
hire a round-the-clock secretary
to take
care of the mail that
pours in for her. The president
sends her a United Space
Fellowship scroll, and a group
of Moonheads
in Frisco
name her "Dog Mother of the
Year." She gets advice on
childbirth from 16 nations
and a
principality.
Finally, as the
Time approaches, I call a
press confab. "The baby's
due to
be somewhat
premature," I tell
the newsboys, "so Jenny's going to
have it in a private
clinic. We've got a crack medical
staff set up to handle
every detail. But the clinic
is off
limits until after the birth—so
no photos until then.
Sorry, fellas, but we're playing
this one on a closed set."
They don't like
it, but
they have no other option.
So far it's
a slide.
The clinic costs
us a
bundle, but we've like got
nets out to take in all
the new
bread from LPs and concert
dates; so this is no problem.
We bring in
our own
doc to
make the delivery, with strict instructions that no one,
but no one, is to see Jen's baby.
"How do you
feel, chickie?" I ask her.
We are
in Jen's
new pad near the
clinic, and Royce is with
her.
"Not so hot,"
she says
and tries
for a
smile. Doesn't make it. A wave
of pain
hits her. "In fact, you'd
better get me over there. I
think it's started."
Started I
"Oops!" I yelp, giving Royce a
nudge. "I just forgot a
vital engagement. Vital. Can
you get
her over
OK?" "Sure, I'll take
care of it, Hoff." "Check you later,
chickie," I say.
Jenny just groans.
I hot-tail it
downstairs and phone Pops, L.A.
to Mars.
"Red alert! All systems
go!"
"I read you,"
says Pops. "I'm coming in
now." "Don't forget the
goods."
I meet his
jet a
few hours
later at L.A. International and he's there safe—with the goods. I hustle
him out
to the
clinic in a closed
car and
stash Pops and the zeeb
kid in
an emergency wing there,
with a special nurse we've
got to watch over things.
By now
Jen's inside the delivery room,
and the
boys are pacing the hall. They
look worried and they're sweating
a lot. "Cool it," I tell
them. "The fix is in."
They all sit
down. But they keep sweating.
"It's gonna work,"
I say.
"No hitches. It's a lock."
I sit down
with them. Nobody says anything.
We wait.
The delivery-room
door swings open and the
doc comes
weaving out. He's got
a stunned
look on his face. He
flutters both hands in
the air.
I leap up.
"Born?"
"Born," he says.
"Healthy?" "Healthy," he
says.
"Then, we make
the zeeb
switch now, right?"
"Wrong," he says. "Why the hell wrong?"
"Not necessary." He gulps. "Jenny's baby is a zeeb."
"Huh?"
The boys stare
at each
other. Then they stare at
me.
"I don't get
it," I say. "You guys
didn't lie, did you?"
They all shake
their heads. No, they didn't
he.
"Well, then, I've already admitted that
I'm the
only----------------- "
My voice
trails off. I push by
the doc
and rush
into the room where they have
Jenny and her baby. She's
awake and smiling.
"Listen," I say to her, "this
is important.
How many
bottoms did you cast
that night back at my
pad?". .
She frowns, remembering.
"Uh . . . yours—and
the five
doubles. Why?"
"Never mind,"
I say,
nodding to myself. Yeah. Me.
The four Red Dogs. And. .
. .
And Pops.
He's standing by
the door,
and we're
all giving
him the
eye. He walks slowly
past us to the bed,
leans over and pats the kid
on its
cute black double bottom.
For the first
time in my life, I
see Pops
smile.
"Coochy coochy coo!"
he says.
Earthcoming
richard
c. meredith
Among
the newer writers now working the science-fictional vineyards, Richard C.
Meredith has demonstrated a distinctive talent in two recent novels, The Sky
Is Filled
with Ships and We All Died at Breakaway Station.
He has had four strong
sci-fi novelettes in Fantastic and Worlds of Tomorrow—and his first sci-fi story was published in Sir Knight in 1962, when Meredith was in his mid-20s. Nurtured on Buck Rogers,
Planet Comics and Astounding, he built his own chemically fueled rockets as a teen-ager. In the army
he taught microwave-radio theory. He has since worked in electronics, studied
biology in college and tackled free-lance advertising copy and graphic design.
Meredith
respects technical details in science fiction yet is able to create high drama
within a "hard science" framework. In Earthcoming, he deals with the classic alien-takeover theme in which a creature from
another race is able to inhabit the body of a human, but brings to it his own
unique gift for nail-biting suspense and solid scientific believ ability.
Sol was a
disk in the black sky
now, a recognizable object against the backdrop of stars,
something that could almost be called
a sun.
Earth itself was still invisible,
hidden by the glare of Sol,
close to the raging solar
furnace, still millions upon millions
of kilometers
away. And Saturn, glorious, bright-ringed Saturn, was a
bright star off the starboard.
The interstellar cargo train, 1450 meters
long, 14 metallic-looking spheres and
the ungainly
tripod of the Crew Control and Drive Unit, maneuvered
in space.
Tiny puffs of white gas vanished
into the vacuum as the
lateral steering jets oriented the
C&D Unit toward the tiny,
distant disk of Sol. The long,
long trip was nearly over,
the holmium
cargo was now
just a matter of days
from Earth,
Within the C&D
Unit, the three surviving members
of the crew sat at their
stations, expressions of relief on
their faces. The final hyperspace jump was done and
they had come back into space
time almost on top of
Saturn, a mere 27 million kilometers
from the ringed planet, less
than four and a half billion
kilometers from Earth orbit.
"Well, Cal, we
made it,"-said the astrogator, an artificially red-skinned Tatar from the human-colonized
world of Phaethon, Meghito, a technocrat
of Megalon.
'That's old Saturn over there." The scientist-aristocrat
pointed toward the starboard
viewing tank.
"Tanni," said the ship's master, glancing
over his shoulder to the
cargo train's second officer, "see
if you
can raise
Titan."
Ijams c'Tanni
acknowledged her commander's order and
began adjusting the controls
of the
communications console before her.
Outside, on the
C&D's hull, a large antenna
gimbaled into position, guided by the
approximate coordinates of Saturn's
largest moon fed to its
servomotors by the ship's computer. Moments later a powerful
maser transmitter within the ship came
to life,
feeding the coherent energy into the antenna's horn. Splashing
off the
parabolic screen, focused and aimed, the
carrier wave leaped skyward toward
Saturn, toward Titan.
"This is Cargo
Train 394 calling Port Grissom,"
the dark-haired, almond-eyed second officer said into
the microphone
suspended before her. "Cargo Train 394 out of
Con-stantine, bound for Earth, calling
Port Grissom, Titan. Clear us for
passage to Earth and transmit
current Earth coordinates for confirmation."
A little over
three minutes later, the signal
came from Titan. "This is Port
Grissom, Cargo Train 394. Stand
by for IFF."
The second officer
reached over and flipped a
toggle switch that cut in the
cargo train's IFF transceiver. Then she waited a while
longer while the identity of
the ship
was confirmed.
Following hard behind
the words
of the
radioman at Port Grissom was a
carefully coded, carefully modulated identification signal. When
it was
received by the cargo train, when it was fed
into the sealed IFF unit,
a series
of relays clicked, the pulse-phase modulated signals were decoded, analyzed, interpreted, and the
proper answering signal was transmitted back to Titan. Had
the signal
sent back from the cargo train
been anything other than the
exact series of codes
that were transmitted, a barrage
of nuclear-tipped missiles would
have sprung from their silos
deep beneath the frozen
surface of Titan, searched out
and destroyed the "invader."
But the
signal was correct, and four minutes
later Port Grissom acknowledged.
"IFF positive, CT
394," said the voice from
Titan. "Current Earth coordinates will be transmitted. Stand by." Then the voice
relaxed, became less official and
more human. "Is there anything else
we can
do for
you?"
"Yes, there is,"
Tanni said, then hesitated, looked up at her commander
for permission
to relay
the terrible
information that they had brought
with them across the light-years.
The ship's master
shook his head and whispered
so that
his words would not
be picked
up by
the microphone.
"No, not yet. We'll tell Earth
as soon
as we
can, but there's no point in
alarming Titan."
Tanni nodded, turned
back to the microphone, said, "Inform Earth that
we're coming in. They'll probably
want to know. We anticipate arrival in Earth orbit
07:01:36."
"Will do,"
Port Grissom said. "How was
your trip?"
Tanni paused for
a long
moment before answering. "It was OK," she said at
last. "Kind of long."
"I can imagine,"
the distant
radio operator said. "How are things on Constantine?"
"Not too bad
when we left," she told
him. "The druul are still a
long way off."
By this
time, Meghito acknowledged that the
coordinates of Earth had
been received by the ship's
computer and, after correcting for a
displacement of 27 times ten
to the
sixth kilometers, agreed very
well with his own figures.
They could find the
home world fairly easily. He
gave Tanni a nod.
"Coordinates received
and confirmed,"
she said.
"We're all set, Port
Grissom."
After the
three-minute delay, Port Grissom replied,
"Very well, CT 394.
Have a good trip. Port
Grissom out"
"Thank you,"
Tanni said. "Cargo Train 394
out."
"Ought to
be ready
to boost
in about
twenty minutes,
Cal," the astrogator
said.
"Good enough," the ship's master answered.
"I think I'll make a personal
check of the globes before
we do.
Hold tight till I come back."
Three more
days, thought the mind that
inhabited the body of the ship's
master as it ordered its
stolen hands to open the equipment
locker and pull out a
space suit. Three days, four at
the most,
and I
will be on their Earth.
The driil felt a tremendous sense of buoyancy
as he
fitted the body he wore into
the space
suit. The long trip was
nearly over, and in
a very
few more
revolutions of Earth, he would be
there, on the home world
of mankind,
the center of its political, economic and industrial power. Within a month that
power would be in mortal
danger; within a standard
year that power would be
controlled by the druul.
With the space
suit on, sealed and checked
out, the living form of
Lacey c'Calvin, ship's master, walked
to the
end of the C&D Unit, cycled
through the air lock and
began the inspection tour of the fourteen
90-meter spheres that made up the
train's valuable cargo. The inhabitant
of that body was happy at
the thought
that this holmium would never be
used by humans, would never
supply the fusion chambers of Earth's
star fleets, would never carry
her warships to the
worlds of the druul.
Haledon-prasec, for that
is the
name that he called himself
when among his own kind,
knew that the most dangerous
part was ahead. That danger
would come when the cargo train
went into orbit around Earth,
but he
was confident
that he could handle that.
Hadn't he been the first
of his kind to capture a
human body? Wasn't
he the
first to learn the location of
mankind's Earth? With that much
to his credit, how could he
fail? The only danger lay
in the
frailty and weakness of
the body
he wore.
Haledon-prasec, living within
and controlling
the body
of the human form called Lacey
c'Calvin, walked across the taut fabric
of number-one
cargo globe, moving on to
check the couplings that held the
14 spheres
together, making sure that the couplings
were tight, but would release
when the signal was given.
As he
made his tour, the driil continued to feel
a great
sense of satisfaction. His name would go
down in the history of
his kind
as the
conqueror of Earth, as the
one who
had begun the destruction
of the
race of mankind. He would rank
along with Probanth-tanifant,
who was
credited with the beachhead on Rartarburand,
the home
world of those allies of the
humans, the Luntinasel.
There had been
awkward moments, Haledon remembered, moments when he feared
that he might be discovered
by the
human members of the cargo
train's crew. But the first crisis
had been
passed successfully when he, not yet
fully in control of his
new body,
had forced
the still-living mind of
Lacey c'Calvin to shoot down
the ship's
engineer, the Terran Christian
Hombroek. Now the others, the Constantinian female called Tanni
and the
Phaethonese named Meghito, firmly
believed that Hombroek had been
the drill,
believed that
the drill was dead and gone and the
danger was past. Their concern was in getting the information
to Earth
that a driil
had been
able to board the cargo
train at the refueling
point on Hydros.
The parasitic creature
that dwelt within the cranial
cavity of the ship's master, the
organism of nerve tissue that
had entered the human structure, that had created its
own all-pervading
nervous structure while destroying that of its host, that
had stolen
the memories
of Lacey
c'Calvin while it dissolved his brain,
the creature
that man and Luntinasel called driil, was quite
certain that his plan would
prove successful.
All 14
of the
cargo globes were checked and
found to be in good condition,
all 14
of the
coupling pairs operating properly, ready
to disconnect
when Haledon-prasec gave the
command. But, he told himself,
that would have to wait. First
he would
have to reach the atmosphere
of Earth.
The war
was on,
the strange
war that
was sometimes
fought with fleets of
starships, but more often in
the dark,
warm moistness of organic
tissue, where the bodies of
young druul
germinated, grew,
spread, conquered. The war was on,
and when
and where
and how
it started,
no one could say.
The history
of the
druul, as far
as men
knew, began only 120 standard years
before. The Luntinasel, an intelligent
and humanoid
race not greatly unlike mankind
in physical appearance and mentality, had found the druul, or perhaps had
been found by the druul. By the time
the Lennies—as men called
them—knew of the subtle, secret,
insidious invasion of druul, their own home
world was virtually controlled
by the
intelligent parasites, dwelling within
the bodies
of Luntinasel.
Fleeing to their fledgling colonial worlds, the surviving, uninfected Lennies began to
fight back against those
who took
their bodies from them, fought doggedly but hopelessly against the spreading cancer.
Their hope for
survival was nearly gone when
man and
Lennie made first contact,
but mankind,
realizing its own danger, came to
the aid
of the
embattled aliens, sent weapons and
ships and began building a
star fleet to carry the
war back to the
planets from which the druul had come.
That is why
the cargo
ship of refined holmium crossed
the 600-odd light-years from the human colony
on Con-stantine
to Earth,
holmium for use in the
hydrogen fusion chambers of Earth's warships,
the holmium
that was urgently needed in
order that Earth, that mankind,
could begin the fight for its
life.
And that is
why Haledon-prasec
had made
his way
into the cargo train, into the
body of Ship's Master Lacey
c'Calvin—to prevent the cargo
from being used against the druul, to begin
the capture
of mankind's
most powerful world.
• • •
"Everything looks
good," Haledon said as he
seated his stolen body in the
acceleration cot in the C&D
Unit. "I'm ready to boost when
you give
the word."
"Set for boost
in five
minutes from my mark," said the naked aristocrat of Megalon, red-skinned Meghito. There was a pause.
"Now! Begin counting."
The eyes that
had been
those of Lacey c'Calvin looked
at the complex before him. The
chronometer had begun sweeping its dial,
creeping down toward the glowing
red dot five minutes away. Green
light after green light sprang
to life on the
board as the automatics checked and found the ship
ready, though the hands of
Haledon-prasec waited above the controls in case
anything went wrong, waited for
the unlikely event of
the failure
of the
automatics and the computer.
He glanced
over his right shoulder to
Tanni, who sat strapped in her
acceleration cot and peered intently
at the
duplicate panel before her,
the backup
for the
ship's master and the computer.
At this
stage she was a supernumerary,
but one that it
would be dangerous to be
without
Haledon smiled to
himself, finding a certain amount
of satisfaction in being
a human,
despite the frailty of the
structure. He had absorbed
enough of the mentality and
personality of Lacey c'Calvin
to appreciate
the attractiveness
of Ijams
c'Tanni, enough to enjoy the
relationship that his host had had
with her and which he
carried on. Yes, he told himself,
it wasn't
altogether unpleasant being a human,
and he would certainly enjoy it
while he could.
One minute
to go,
the chronometer
said. The artificial gravity of the
ship began to drop toward
zero, preparing to swing negative to
counteract the forces of acceleration
that would arise when the three
fusion chambers of the C&D's
outriggers fired.
"Thirty seconds,"
Meghito said.
"Everything looks
good," Haledon answered.
"Good here,"
Tanni acknowledged.
"Boost in twenty
seconds," Haledon said,
eyeing the chronometer. Pumps in the
reaction tanks of the C&D
Unit began moving liquid hydrogen into
pipes, out toward the fusion chambers on the ends
of the
outriggers. "Fifteen . .. ten.
. .
." Hydrogen, now gaseous, boiled
into the fusion chambers, built pressure,
awaited the nuclear trigger that
would begin the thermonuclear
reaction, the proton-proton chain.
"Five . . . boost!"
There was an
instant of weightlessness as the
contragrav completed its reversal,
then began bucking the forces
of acceleration as the
huge cargo train surged forward.
The contragrav canceled all
but one
gravity of the acceleration; the net force felt by
the crew
was one
gravity toward the rear of the
ship, one g pushing them
down into their acceleration cots, one g that
would remain with them through
boost and deceleration when they approached Earth.
• • •
Hours later,
acceleration was cut and the
cargo train fell sunward, fell toward
mankind's planet, Earth. All was going
well.
• • •
Earth was
a bright
blue-green disk, about one degree
in angular diameter in the unmagnified
forward viewing tank. Luna, Earth's diminutive
sister, now between them and
their destination, was just
a little
less than half a degree,
only slightly smaller than
its size
as seen
from Earth, a distinct disk several
degrees to the left of
Terra.
"Lunaport B, this
is Cargo
Train 394 out of Constantine,
flight 199-3498-58:9. Destination Earth orbit. Cleared by
Titan. Request orbital assignment."
Tanni was speaking slowly, distinctly, into the microphone.
"Hello, CT 394,"
came the reply from Lunaport,
delayed by the speed of
light for nearly three seconds.
'This is Lunaport B. Stand by
for IFF."
Again there was
a wait
while the men and machines
that guarded Earth determined
whether the vessel was, in
reality, the cargo train
it claimed
to be.
It still
was.
"CT 394, this
is Lunaport
B. Clear
and acknowledge.
Stand by for orbital
coordinates and confirmation."
"CT 394
standing by," Tanni replied.
"It is strange,
Cal," Meghito said, waiting for
the coordinates
to be
fed into
his computer.
"As you well know, I
do not like Earthies, nor do
I like
Earth Gov. But, somehow, that is still a beautiful
planet there. Our ancestors did
have a lovely world."
Haledon nodded. The
Lacey c'Calvin component that still remained in his mind somehow agreed
with the astro-gator, but his
true personality did
not see
that beauty. Images of a long-forgotten
world came into his mind,
a world of harsh browns and
ochers and reds, of sand
and wind and twisted flowering plants
and a
double sun in the sky, and
he wondered
if these
were racial memories of the
world that had brought
forth the first of the
druul. Oh, we know
so little
of ourselves,
he thought,
expressing his thoughts in the human
words that he had taken
from the mind of Lacey c'Calvin.
Where did we come from?
How old are we? These were
questions a drill
rarely asked and
were quickly forgotten. They did
not matter,
not really. The past was dead,
was gone,
but the
future. . . . Ah, the
future! The day when the
galaxy was one, when all the
variegated forms of life were
of but
one mind
and that mind was the druul. Yes, that was
what mattered. And to accomplish that—Haledon's stolen eyes looked
at the
blue-green disk in the
tank—to accomplish that, I must
reach Earth.
"Lunaport B," Tanni
was saying,
"this is CT 394. Acknowledge
receipt of orbital coordinates."
"Very good, CT
394," Lunaport replied. "Proceed to establish orbit. Medship will
meet you for examination. You will be notified of
estimated time of arrival of
transport shuttles from Gobi Center."
Tanni looked up
at the
ship's master. "Shall we tell
them now?"
Haledon-prasec shook his
head.
"But, Cal," she said, covering the
microphone with her hand, "we'd better tell Earth before
we get
into orbit. You know they'll want
to know
all about
the drill before they let anyone board."
"I'd rather wait,"
he replied
coldly.
"But why? They'll
have to know."
Haledon shook his
head again and said, "Let's
get into
orbit. There's no reason
to start
a fuss
now and
have our orbit delayed."
"They're sending
a medship,"
the girl
protested. 'They
should------- "
"I said to
wait," Haledon said sternly, thinking
that the longer he prevented Earth
Gov from
knowing that there had. been a drill
on the
ship, the better his chances
were, and knowing that he could
never let the men and
auto-medics of the medship examine
him. He would have to
act before the medship intercepted them.
"CT 394, this
is Lunaport
B," a voice from the
maser receiver's loudspeaker said. "Is anything wrong?"
"You're ship's master,
Cal," Tanni said, her hand
still over the microphone. "I'll do as you say,
but under
protest."
"Enter it in
the log,"
the drill told her, "but do as I
say. I have my reasons."
"Lunaport, this is
CT 394,"
Tanni said, moving her hand
away from the microphone.
"Acknowledge coordinates and arrival of medship. CT
394 out."
"Lunaport B out."
"The computer is
programmed, Cal," Meghito said. "Proceed to orbit," Haledon told
his crew.
• • •
The cargo
train maneuvered, firing steering jets,
then blasting momentarily with fusion engines.
Like a great interstellar snake, the
15 units
of the
train aimed around the huge bulk
of Luna,
aimed toward the blue-green disk of Earth that awaited
them nearly 800,000 kilometers away.
• • •
Four hours
later the distance had been
cut in
half. Off to the side, the
pockmarked face of Luna moved
past them, thousands of kilometers away, but still several
degrees wide. Earth swelled now two
degrees, as large as it
is when
seen from Luna.
The time had
not yet
come to begin deceleration when Haledon-prasec decided
to act.
Til be
back in a minute," he said, rising from
his cot.
Tanni gave him
an odd
look, still slightly angered by
his refusal to inform Earth of
the danger
they had faced, a danger that
Earth herself might face if
another drill were to find
its way
aboard a ship bound for
Earth.
She did not
speak, and Haledon was glad
of that.
His thoughts were sufficiently colored by
the stolen
personality of Lacey c'Calvin
to give
him an unpleasant feeling about
destroying her.
Quickly the dniMnhabited
body moved out of the
control room and down the corridor
to the
arms locker. Haledon unlocked
the cabinet,
carefully removed a hand weapon
from its cradle, checked
its charge.
Full.
He slipped the
weapon inside the folds of
his Terran
uniform blouse, sighed a
very human sigh and started
back up the corridor.
Human beings are
not so
detestable, he thought, realizing that Lacey c'Calvin's memories had impressed themselves
on his
own personality,
his own
ways of thinking. Perhaps it was
unfortunate that they were so
inimical to his own kind. It
would be nice to remain
with them for a while longer.
The human
method of reproduction was very
pleasant when you became
accustomed to it.
But even
then Haledon-prasec could feel the
stirrings within the body
he inhabited,
the tiny,
almost imperceptible movements of
the growing
spores, the maturing of his
children, ready even now to
be released
from the confining sacs within the
body of Lacey c'Calvin. In
another day, when he stood on
the surface
of Earth,
he would
split the sacs, expell them from
the body
he wore,
out into
the air
of man's home world,
flitting like gnats on their
fragile, short-lived wings. Seeking
the warmth
and nervous
complexity of higher, intelligent mammals, the 100 spores would find 100 hosts, hosts which they could enter
and then control, growing to maturity
and then
"reading" the racial memories of their complex,
message-carrying chromosomes, knowing then who and
what they were and why.
Maturing, controlling and breeding
again, 100 spores each, his children would begin the conquest of
Earth.
No, the sexless
creature that called itself Haledon-prasec
thought, this way was
better. Forget the slow and
clumsy, though pleasurable, method by which humans
conceive their own kind.
We breed
faster and better. We breed
quickly enough for my
children to control a world
in less
time than it takes
for Earth
to circle
her sun.
Our way
is better.
Haledon now
stood at the hatch. Beyond
it was
the control
room and the two humans
who could,
perhaps, still prevent him from reaching
Earth. He would have to
do it
quickly, before they could
send a message to Lunaport.
And he would have to do
it carefully:
A stray
blast could easily destroy valuable equipment
he would
need to get him to the
surface of the man planet.
Well, then, do it quickly and do it well.
The left hand
that once belonged to Lacey
c'Calvin reached down and
thumbed the release on the
hatch. As the metal door slid
open, the right hand was
on the
butt of the weapon within the
blouse he wore.
"Cal," Tanni said,
turning and looking across the
back of her acceleration cot, "you'd
better. . . ."
I hate to
do this,
Tanni, the human residue in
his mind
said as his hand
came out of the blouse,
holding the weapon, thumb on firing
stud, aiming, depressing.
The bolt of
energy was aimed low, into
the upholstered
fabric of the acceleration
cot. But the cot had
never been designed to withstand a
blast. Fabric melted, burned. Metal
fused, flowed. Energy poured
through—into the body of Ijams c'Tanni.
She fell
backward, clawing at the stump
of her left arm, her voice
a scream
of pain
and terror.
The weapon
was fired
again—and the full Up, upturned
nose, sensual eyes of
the Constantinian
spacewoman no longer existed.
Meghito was on
his feet,
stumbling backward into the computer, horror whitening the redness
of his
harsh face, his body now so
terribly, terribly naked.
"Cal!" he
screamed hoarsely. "You!"
"Get away from
the computer,"
the voice
of Lacey
c'Calvin ordered. "Get away,
Meghito."
"No!" the technocrat
of Megalon
answered. "I'm not moving. You .
. .
you are
the drill, aren't you?
Not Hom-broek,
but you."
"Does it
matter?" Haledon asked. "Move, damn it!"
"No, I won't.
You don't
dare shoot me as long
as I'm
here. You're afraid of
hitting the think tank. You
won't kill me."
"Damn it, you
fool, I wUl," the drill said, taking a
step forward.
Meghito backed
against the computer input controls.
"Stay clear. I can
damage it so that you
wiU never
be able
to repair it."
"You won't," Haledon-prasec said, "not unless
you want
to die very slowly and very
painfully."
"Shoot, Cal—whatever you are—shoot and you'll
never get off this ship. You'll
burn up like a meteor
when you hit Earth's atmosphere."
The driil leaped forward, reached
toward the astrogator.
Meghito, his
feet still in place, leaned
toward the ship's
master's control position, slapped
his hand
down across the
maser transmitter's controls, yeUed
into the microphone,
"Luna, listen, for God's---------------- "
A beam of
energy lashed toward the astrogator,
toward the radio set into which
he spoke.
The blast
seared through the flesh and bone
of Meghito's
hand, struck the microphone, melted the radio's controls.
The astrogator
screamed, pulling back the
smoldering stump of his wrist,
throwing his body against the computer,
hugging it for protection.
Within the body
of Lacey
c'Calvin, adrenaline surged, adrenaline
that affected the mind of
a driil in much the same way it affected
the mind
of a
man, though perhaps more strongly. A
red haze
filmed over the drill's captured eyes; anger took
control for an instant, an
instant that depressed the firing
stud of the weapon still
another time.
Meghito died
whimpering like a child, died
as furious
energy cut through his
chest, through his bones and
lungs and into the metal and
paraglass and silicon and germanium
and ferrite
cores of the computer.
In an instant
it was
over. The red-skinned body, nearly
cut in half, slumped forward, and
Haledon-prasec could see
the computer against which
it had
stood, the computer that would never function again.
"CT 394,
this is Lunaport B," an
urgent voice said from
the receiver at the
second officer's position. "What's hap-
pening, CT 394? Do
you read
me? This
is Luna--------------------- "
Haledon spun toward
the receiver,
an angry,
mindless gesture bringing his
right hand, still holding the
weapon, down against the maser console.
The thin
panel buckled, pilot bulbs burst, electrical
sparks spattered across broken connections. Then it, too, was
silent.
The drill suddenly felt pain and realized what
it had
done. Powerless fingers released
their grip on the weapon
and it fell to the deck.
Haledon slowly raised the hand
to look at it and saw
that the little finger was
hanging at an odd angle, white
bone protruding through torn skin,
blood oozing out, splattering on the
deck.
Carefully, very carefully,
Haledon severed connections with
the agonized
nerves in that hand, cut
off the
pain. Then he took a handkerchief
from his pocket and made
a crude bandage. And while he
did so,
Haledon cursed the feeble, fragile human
body that he wore, cursed
it in
human words and in
the terms
of his
own kind.
Fragile, delicate, so easily
broken, but he wouldn't need
it for
long, just long enough to get
him to
Earth, long enough to spill
his children into the
winds of man's home planet.
That will have
to do,
he thought,
looking at the crude bandage that turned red even
as he
watched. He had no time for
anything else. Lunaport knew that
something was wrong, would investigate. He would have to
act quickly
and without a computer.
But Earth
would still be his.
Awkwardly, Haledon-prasec
strapped himself into the acceleration cot with one hand.
The right
hand was still useful, he told
himself. The thumb and index
and middle
fingers still functioned. He could at least
throw switches with them, and that
was all
that mattered now.
Ignoring the
careful sequence, both hands went
to the
firing controls of the
outrigger fusion chambers. He cut
them on, waited while
the magnetic
fields built, magnetic fields powerful enough
to contain
and enfold
the tremendous,
star-hot temperatures and pressures that
would be created when the fusion
reactions began.
Now Earth was
perceptible, a swelling disk in
the viewing
tank, nearly two degrees in
angular diameter or better, a mere
400,000 kilometers, hardly more than
a second
away at the speed
of light,
but four
hours away at his present speed. Well, his speed
would increase rapidly when the fusion
chambers came to life, and
he would
close that distance quickly.
Three lights winked
green on the control panel
before him. All three fusion chambers
were ready to fire.
For an instant
Haledon wished that he had
not been
so foolish, wished that he had
not smashed
the maser
control panel, shorting out
his external
communications system. But it was out, useless,
and he
had no
time in which to repair it.
So there
was now
no possibility
of radioing
Luna-port and trying to cover
up Meghito's
last screams for help —though he was sure that
Lunaport still had no idea
of what was really happening on
the cargo
train.
As far as
he could
tell, the C&D Unit was
nearly ready to boost. Without the
computer he could not be
absolutely sure, but Cal's
memories, the memories of a
highly trained and experienced
spacer, told him that he
could probably make it. And his
job was
to get
to Earth,
with or without a computer.
Haledon cut the
contragrav to zero. Without the
computer, he would have to
fight the forces of acceleration
manually. That might be
tricky, but except for the
broken hand, his human body was
in good
condition; it could take at least
that much punishment.
He started the
pumps that fed the liquid
hydrogen out of the rear storage
tanks, hydrogen that had been
extracted from the water the
cargo train had picked up
on Hydros, where Haledon himself had
boarded the train. The —254 degrees
C. liquid
moved out through heavily insulated pipes into the fusion
chambers on the ends of
the outriggers. All else
was ready.
The proton-proton
chain was about to begin.
A rather
conventional atomic-fission charge moved into
position, a carefully controlled
atomic explosion that would provide the initial temperatures required to begin the
fusing of hydrogen atoms,
temperatures on the order of
50 million degrees C.
Liquid hydrogen boiled
into the fusion chamber, building
up sufficiently
high pressure of the gas,
atoms of ordinary hydrogen, of
deuterium, of tritium. Haledon fired
the triggers. Hell, atomic hell, came
into being within the chambers, and starlike temperatures were approached, reached,
exceeded. Ordinary 1H1 hydrogen atoms came together, fused, spitting out
positrons and neutrinos. Heavy jH2 hydrogen fused
with 1H1 hydrogen, forming 2He3
helium and discharging photons, burning, searing gamma
rays. And the proton-proton
chain went on, emptying helium and furious energy into
space, propelling the spacecraft forward with the violence
of its
transmutation.
The nearly kilometer-and-a-half-long
cargo train boosted, metric ton after
metric ton of metal and
paraglass and refined holmium moving
forward, picking up speed as
hydrogen became helium and the
forces that built stars pushed it on.
Haledon considered uncoupling the tremendous dead weight of cargo that
the C&D
Unit pulled, leaving all that
mass behind and letting
the fusion
chambers carry only the C&D Earthward.
But, no, he couldn't do
that. They were a part of
his plan,
those cargo globes; they were
necessary when he entered
Earth's atmosphere, when Earth's
surface defenses came into play,
began searching the skies for the
invader, began throwing missiles and
lasers against him. He
would need those globes for
shielding when he reached Earth—if
he could
get past
the orbiting
defenses.
The weightlessness of null g became
a backward
force as the acceleration built. At
one g,
Haledon began to reverse the contragrav, began applying the
antiacceleration forces. As acceleration increased,
he managed
to keep
the repelling
force near one g,
sometimes less, more often greater,
but close enough to standard gravity
to maintain
the use
of his
stolen body.
Earth swelled in
the forward
tank, began to grow perceptibly
as he
watched.
But now Lunaport
knew, he thought. The men
on Earth's
moon would have come
to realize
what was happening.
Their computers would
have analyzed the motion and
direction of the cargo train
and would
have concluded that it was, in
fact, headed for Earth at
speeds in excess of those
authorized. Their masers were
transmitting, he knew, demanding to know what the
master of the cargo train
had in
mind, why the craft
was aiming
toward Earth at that speed.
Oh, yes, he had
been cleared for Earth orbit,
and that
might delay them some, but not
for long.
One doesn't
boost as Cargo Train 394 was
boosting if one is merely
intending to settle into a normal,
comfortable orbit a few thousand
kilometers up.
Soon they would
be radioing
Earth, informing Earth Defense
Command of the train's unusual
behavior, telling EDC of the strange
last message and the fact
that the train no longer answered
their calls. EDC was jumpy
and scared.
EDC lived in mortal
fear of just exactly what
was happening
—a driil
coming to
Earth. EDC would take action.
Orbiting missiles would
be alerted,
fed the
trajectory of the cargo train. Their
own reaction
engines would burst to life; they
would move toward the anticipated
path of the train, scanning, searching,
seeking the invader.
But, Haledon-prasec thought, perhaps it would
be too
late, perhaps the invader
would be too close to
Earth, perhaps they would have
no time
to reach
it and
destroy it before it entered Earth's
atmosphere, flaming like a meteor,
and vanished from their
ken. Yes, perhaps. And not perhaps. It was almost
certain.
A very human
smile came across the face
that had once belonged to a
Constantinian spacer. Haledon had gotten
too close to be stopped now.
Earth swelled larger
and larger
in the
forward viewing tank. At least eight
degrees in angular diameter, at
the very
most 200,000 kilometers. And, according to the
memories of Lacey c'Calvin, Earth's main
orbital defenses lay at a
point about 100,000 kilometers
out. He would soon pass
that point.
The fusion
chambers of a cargo train
were designed to carry it at
speeds approaching that of light
itself, to carry it starward at 270,000 or 280,000
kilometers per second, for such speeds
are necessary,
even with hyperspace warp, to
carry men across stellar
distances within times short enough
to be meaningful. But, of course,
the designers
of the
cargo train's Crew Control and Drive
Unit had anticipated that days or
even weeks would be taken
to build
sufficient acceleration to approach the
speed of light.
Haledon-prasec did not
have days or weeks, but,
then, he did not need speeds
approaching 300,000 kilometers per second. Even a rather small
fraction of that speed would
do nicely, would get him inside
Earth's orbital defenses before they were able to react
to his
coming. And that would be
enough.
•
• •
Earth swelled
majestically before him, burgeoning from a two-dimensional disk pasted
on the
black sky to a sphere,
a globe, a world in space,
a mottled
blue and green and white-clouded
planet rotating on its axis
under a yellow-white sun.
A hundred thousand
kilometers away, almost eight degrees
across the sky, against the
backdrop of stars; gray-white Luna dwindling to his
left rear. The massive cargo
train rushed Earthward.
Manually, Haledon-prasec scanned with the laser
radar, for he had no computer
to do
it for
him. He had no computer
to monitor
the other
functions of the ship: the
heat and magnetic shielding of the
fusion chambers, the life-support systems, the rate of
hydrogen consumption, anything at all!
He did
it manually,
but the
important thing was that he did
it.
He guessed. That's
all it
could have been. He had
few readings, few figures, no computer,
but he
did have
the hand calculator at the ship's
master's control position and he did have the memories of a very
experienced spacer to rely on.
Now, those memories
told him. His hands, or,
rather, one hand and what was
left of the other, fell
across the control boards, slapping down
toggle switches, cutting off the
supply of hydrogen to the
fusion chambers in the outrigger
pods. Chambers two and
three ceased to fire almost
at once
as their hydrogen was
exhausted. But number one—there was something wrong. Somehow, hydrogen
was still
being fed into the chamber, not
much, but enough to keep
the thermonuclear reaction going,
to keep
pushing the C&D Unit forward, off-balance,
threatening to turn, to snap
the kilometer-and-a-half train of
cargo globes like a huge
whip.
There was
a switch,
Haledon-prasec's memories told
him, a switch to which only
the ship's
master had access. There, under that panel. Open it.
Thumb in slot. Wait while
a scanner reads the whorls. Now,
recognition. A relay clicked. The panel opened. The thumb
that had belonged to Lacey
c'Calvin went down into
the opening,
depressing the hidden switch.
For an instant,
the C&D
Unit ceased to function. There
was total darkness. The
power supply of the C&D
was totally,
but temporarily, cut off.
For a
heartbeat, the cargo train was
a derelict.
And then
there was hell!
He hadn't thought
of that.
He had
only wanted to stop the pump,
not. . . .
The magnetic shielding
of number-one
fusion chamber did not exist. It
was only
a moment,
less than a moment, a
fraction of a microsecond,
but that
was enough.
The tremendous
forces that had been contained
within the chamber were loosed, a
tiny sun, yes, a very,
very tiny sun, but nonetheless
a sun.
The fusion
chamber, the pod and half
the outrigger
ceased to be in an
instant of time, metallic vapor
trailing behind the C&D
Unit.
Somehow, still
controlling the body that he
wore, shaken, battered, torn,
Haledon-prasec's thumb withdrew
from the switch. Power returned. A
gyro deep within the heart
of the
C&D screamed, fought against
the unbalancing
forces, righted itself, corrected
the path
of the
ship. Cargo Train 394 fell
Earthward.
Not taking the
time to consider the full
implications of the blunder he had
just committed, Haledon used the
hand calculator to determine his
approximate distance from Earth, his rate of fall.
Now he was
78,000 kilometers from Earth's surface.
And his speed was now about
94 kilometers
per second.
He was
minus one fusion chamber,
but he
could do without it once
he unloaded his string
of cargo
globes; gyros and lateral jets
could compensate. The situation
was bad,
but not
nearly bad enough to cause him
alarm.
Nor did he
feel alarm when his laser
radar picked up a missile following
him.
Well, he thought,
Earth Defense Command has finally
begun to act.
Again at
the hand
calculator, working from the radar's
figures, he estimated the
missile's distance and speed and
probable time of contact.
And he
smiled.
That was the
closest missilel That was the
best that they could do!
He looked back
at the
blip on the radarscope as the gap very, very
slowly narrowed. He calculated again and the answer was the same. He
was safe.
EDC had
acted but not nearly soon enough.
But below, he
knew, on the surface of
man's home world, other missiles were
being readied, others trained to
intercept the craft as it entered
Earth's atmosphere, to blast it
out of
the sky before it
could land.
Well, Haledon-prasec thought, it's going to
be rough.
The C&D was never meant to
take this kind of beating,
but I think it will, even with only
two fusion
chambers.
I wonder how
many bombs EDC will be
willing to set off in their
own atmosphere
to stop
me? How
much fallout will they risk to
destroy me? Will they gamble
on poisoning
their own planet just to prevent
one suspected
driil from landing?
They don't even know
who or
what I am. They can only guess. And how
many lives will they risk
on a
guess, a hunch, a fear?
A lot, Haledon-prasec
answered himself, a lot, but
not enough.
Earth grew—50,000,
then 40,000, then 30,000 kilometers.
Down, down, down, for
now Earth
was a
world and was below.
Down past
the communications
satellites, past the weather stations, past laboratories and observatories,
down, down, down, toward the atmosphere.
Ten thousand
kilometers. Now five.
Haledon-prasec's hands touched
the uncoupling
controls, the switches that would release
the string
of cargo
globes that trailed behind him. Ready.
Wait
Four thousand kilometers.
Three. Two. One. Earth was
but ten seconds away
at this
speed!
Now!
At 1000
kilometers, Haledon-prasec released
the couplings.
The 14 spheres were free, falling
along with, but now independent
of, the
C&D Unit.
Lateral steering jets
came to life under his
hands. Gyros turned. The C&D Unit
crabbed away from the falling
globes, turned 180 degrees
around, nose back skyward. It
fell rear first toward the outer
fringes of the atmosphere.
The massive contragrav
unit, designed for maneuvering the craft within a planetary
atmosphere, came to life. Fields
of gravitational energy, bucking
the pull
of Earth,
sprang into being, enfolding the plunging
craft, attempting to slow it.
Fifteen objects entered
the atmosphere
of Earth,
began to glow with friction as
the thinly
scattered molecules of air rushed past them, battered against
them.
He was going
too fast,
much, much too fast. Even
para-glass could not endure that for long.
Automatic cooling equipment,
independent of the disabled think tank, came into operation;
liquid hydrogen from the reaction mass tanks began to
circulate within the hull, grabbing
the heat
that was formed, cycling it
back and out, but only for
a few
moments. Even liquid hydrogen cannot
carry away that much heat
A spot on
the hull
changed from red to white,
from solid to liquid. A transport
line was heating, despite the
—.254 degrees C. of the
hydrogen it carried. The line
burst. Liquid hydrogen spilled
out, boiled off in clouds
of invisible
vapor.
The fabric of"
the cargo
globes was gone, burned away
seconds before, and the
holmium, fine metallic powder, nakedly met the thin air—but
now at
temperatures above its melting point, more
than 1600 degrees C. The
holmium fused, a thin
liquid sphere around the powder,
enough to hold the falling material
in a
spherical shape, molten metal covering the heating dust. Fourteen
spheres of metal burned away as they fell.
Now! Haledon-prasec cried to himself. Contragrav
was slowing the craft, but not
enough. His hands moved to
the switches that would fire the
two remaining
fusion chambers, cursing while
he did
so the
clumsiness and inefficiency of the human
body that he wore. The
fusion chambers sputtered but fired.
The glowing
C&D Unit, a two-legged tripod now, fought back against
the gravitation
of Earth,
fired off-balance to keep the
craft from being reduced to
light and vapor. Gyros screamed again,
struggled to hold the balance.
Lateral steering jets aided.
Together they won.
Within the C&D,
the heat
continued to rise despite elaborate
shielding. Sweat poured off the
human body within which Haledon-prasec lived, heat rising and
still rising, suffocating him, bringing
the body
he wore
to the
limits of usefulness.
Somewhere, he
seemed to remember, Lacey c'Calvin's
memories told him, there
was still
another switch, one that would fire a ring of
chemical rockets in the tail
of the
craft Where is it? Yes, there.
Haledon-prasec did not
stop to ask himself what
that additional thrust would do
to the
already battered craft, whether it could endure those additional
conflicting forces, whether its structure could
withstand that buffeting. Nor did
he wonder about the body he
wore. They would have to
take it It was that simple.
He was shaken
violently. G forces mounted again,
tried to crush his human body
against the suddenly hard acceleration
cot. A hand that weighed
tons, bones bending under their own weight, struggled to
reach the internal contragrav controls. Found them.
Cut back.
Fought the deceleration.
And the
craft slowed.
By now the
burning spheres of molten metal
had fallen
past, far past, down,
brighdy, into the thicker atmosphere.
Brilliant against the dark
sky, visible to the watchers
on Earth below, visible to the
missiles that must now be
climbing skyward to destroy the
invader. Fourteen spheres fragmented into dozens, then hundreds
of glowing
objects, objects for the nuclear
missiles to chase, to find,
to destroy,
glowing objects that shielded
the battered
but still
operative C&D Unit
The craft still
glowed, but not as brightly.
And it
still fell, but not as fast.
The solid-fuel retro-rockets had burned themselves
out. The fusion chambers still fired.
And the
landing contragrav continued to
operate. The craft slowed even
more. The burning holmium vanished
below.
The viewing tanks
still worked, their cameras buried
deeply below the hull.
Fused screens of paraglass had
been kicked away, allowing the cameras
to "see."
But he
had no
radar. The antennas were
gone; so he could only
guess, purely and simply guess.
Haledon-prasec's mind
functioned. His stolen eyes, blurry
but operative, peered at
the tanks.
Earth was huge below him, huge and still growing.
Where am I
now? he asked himself. That
must be Africa. And that over
there South America. North America
would be there, over the curve
of the
planet. That's it.
Though he
could not see them, had
no radar
to track
them, Haledon knew that
the missiles
must be coming to meet him,
coming at speeds that would
now exceed
his own.
Soon they would begin
blasting the falling objects. And
soon the Earth-based radar would distinguish
the C&D
from the free-falling chunks
of metal
as those
chunks of metal fell away, burned away. He had no
more time.
Canting the craft
slightly, firing a brief burst
of thrust,
he guessed at a new trajectory
that would bring it sweeping
north over the North
American continent. The direction of
travel changed, but the
overburdened gyro stabilizing gear finally gave up the fight,
smoldered, screamed, refused to battle the
laws of nature any longer.
The falling
craft began to tumble crazily.
Haledon forced his
protesting, unwilling body up, out
of the acceleration cot, back toward
the rear
of the
craft and the escape pods. He
would have to leave the
C&D now, as he had planned
from the beginning. Let it
go on
down. Let the EDC's nuclear missiles
blast it out of the
sky. He would not be in
it.
It seemed
like hours, but it could
only have been seconds. He made his way into
the pod,
ignoring the urgent demands of an overworked body. The
hatches sealed behind him. He
strapped himself into the
single seat, administered antiac-celeration drugs, sighed, pressed the
palm of a bleeding hand
against the release switch,
held the breath in his
human lungs, performed a mental exercise
that was his equivalent of prayer, withdrew from the
body he inhabited, waited.
• • •
When his
consciousness returned to the real
universe, the simpleminded automatic
equipment of the pod had
blown it away from the mother
craft. For an instant he
was falling
alongside it. Then the
pod's own retros, estimating the rate of descent, finding
it too
high, far too high, fired.
Haledon-prasec was jolted,
shocked, thrown about, his battered
human vessel battered still more,
brought still closer to its
limits of endurance.
The C&D Unit
fell away from him, turning,
spiraling, plunging toward the
turning planet below.
Haledon caught his
breath, checked for broken bones,
spit blood and broken teeth from
a lacerated
mouth. Two ribs were soft and
spongy to his touch, and
there was a sensation in his viscera that indicated
internal damage, though he could not
tell how serious. But still
he was
satisfied. He would not need this
body much longer. It would
serve him well enough.
The C&D was
invisible below when the missile
found it. Again the
universe exploded around him. Again
the human
body in which he
dwelt was subjected to forces
it never
should have felt. Momentarily
he withdrew
from the sensations and thought
that a mind that could
not draw
back as his did could not
have endured the pain. He
stimulated the heart into action when
it paused,
sent electrical spasms into the muscles
that made the lungs breathe
in and
out. The body of Lacey c'Calvin
continued to live.
When his stolen
eyes could see again, Haledon
was aware
of the sinking fireball off to
his right
rear, though he carefully avoided looking at it,
even through the polarized para-glass.
The C&D
Unit was gone, and he,
in that
tiny escape pod, would be shielded
from the prying eyes of
radar by the radiation storm of
the fireball.
He had passed
the final
test. By the time radar
again picked up the pod, it
would be too late. By
then he would be too close
for them
to stop
him.
Haledon-prasec had no
illusions about how long he
would survive on Earth. A matter
of minutes,
at best.
Then they would cut down the
body in which he dwelt
and his
own being with it. But that
did not
matter. Only a few minutes,
that was all he
needed, a few minutes to
consciously will the bursting of the
spore sacs within the body
he wore.
Scatter the spores into the air.
They would investigate, form a
committee to study the matter,
evacuate the area. But then
it would be
too late
for them.
The almost
microscopic spores of his children would
be fluttering
away from the scene of
the landing, touching human
flesh, burrowing into muscle, seeking the nervous systems of
their hosts, germinating and growing—capturing. By the
time they decided what to
do, it would be too late.
The escape pod
was above
a body
of water.
Haledon searched Lacey c'Calvin's
memory concerning the geography of Earth. This must
be the
Atlantic Ocean. And that body of
land over there, to my
left, North America. But that
up ahead, a white
triangle peering around the curve
of the
planet. It is .
. .
what? Whiteland? No, that's not
it. Some
color in its name.
Oh, yes,
Greenland. How did it ever
come by that name?
The controls
of the
escape pod were next to
nothing. Four lateral steering jets. Several
rings of solid-fuel retro-rockets. Parachutes. But no
gravity controls, very little to
cushion the shock of impact. It
would be a rough landing.
Manned craft were
probably in the air now,
he thought,
scrambling to reach the
pod that
they must have sighted. No
matter. They would have
sighted it too late, shielded
as it
was by the thermonuclear blast that
destroyed the C&D. Yes, he was
going to land.
Haledon looked again
at the
world below him. There was
something in the back
of his
mind about Greenland, but he
did not know what
it was.
Lacey c'Calvin's knowledge of Earth had
been hazy except for the
spaceports and the nearby bars and
brothels. He had had the
colonial's inherent dislike and distrust of
the mother
planet. But, Haledon thought, there was
something special about Greenland, but he couldn't recall it
as being
anything dangerous. No, more like a
place that Lacey c'Calvin had
wanted to visit if he
ever got the chance.
Well, Haledon thought sardonically, now he had the chance.
He hit the
steering jets, giving the pod
what maneuverability it had, swinging
north across the Atlantic, plunging
now toward the white
island that came across the
climbing horizon.
The distance
was now
measured in tens of kilometers,
and the figures were rapidly shrinking.
Greenland grew below him.
He fired
a ring
of solid-fuel
retro-rockets, felt the
backward thrust of deceleration, waited a few moments,
fired another ring.
One after
another, the retros slowed his
fall. Then there was no more
fuel. How high he did
not know,
he released
the first parachute.
Like an angry
giant, the first of the
unfurling chutes shook him. The thin
fibers of white material grabbed
for a
hold on the air,
fought for a moment, then
ripped, tore. The pod still fell,
a little
slower now. One after another,
Haledon released the parachutes
until one held, fighting the
wind, but held. The tiny pod
fell free no longer.
Haledon-prasec laughed aloud.
It was
over now. He had made it.
In a
matter of minutes, he would
be outside,
in the
open air of Earth,
releasing his spores into the
wind. For all practical purposes, Earth
was a
planet of the druul.
Seconds before
striking the hard-packed snow, Haledon
saw a dark speck in the
sky above
him, an aircraft, probably one of the aerospace interceptors
they had sent up to
stop him. But it was too
late. You have lost, you
poor bastards! You have lost.
The pod met
the surface
of Earth
at just
under 50 kilometers per hour.
• • •
The roar of
the interceptor's
drive was fading away when
he was again able to see.
It was
going on. It hadn't spotted
him. The whiteness of
the parachute
and the
pod blended
with the snow. The
pilot was still searching, perhaps unsure that he had
even seen anything fall from
the sky.
Oh, they'd find
him, he knew, but it
would do them no good.
Awkwardly raising an
uncooperative hand, he found his
face wet and warm
and twisted
into an unlikely, grotesque shape. The face had struck
something, or something had struck it on impact. So
what? the human phrase spoke
in his
mind. I don't need
the face
any longer.
Let it
go.
When he fumbled
to release
the straps
that held him in, he discovered
that the arm he was
using was twisted, sprained, perhaps broken. It would work,
but just
barely. He released the strap and
tried to stand up. His
feet pushed against the deck of
the pod.
He came
up awkwardly,
off-balance, feet slipping against the red
moisture that flowed across the
canted deck. Then one
leg slipped
out from
under him. He fell forward, across
the pod's
minuscule control panel, to the deck.
And, as he did so,
he withdrew
his remaining
connections with the body,
drawing back from the pain
of which he was becoming more
and more
aware.
Lacey c'Calvin's body was more abused
than he had realized. It was almost dead.
There were too many broken
bones, too many internal
organs ruptured. There was little
more he could do
to keep
it operating.
Such a frail, useless body these humans have! Are
they even worth the trouble
of taking? But he knew that
they were, and he knew
that he would take them; he
would be the father of
their masters.
He awkwardly pulled
himself across the canted deck,
sensing that the dying
lungs were awkwardly gasping for
air, the heart struggling
fitfully, the remaining eye fogging
out, fading.
A broken
hand fumbled with the hatch,
released the catch that held it
closed, pushed it open. A
breath of arctic cold blew into
his mutilated
face.
With one arm,
Haledon-prasec pulled the
stolen body through the hatch, pushing,
fumbling, then tumbling out onto the
frozen ground.
The heart of
the body
of Lacey
c'Calvin ceased beating, ceased beating forever,
but that
was not
important.
Haledon-prasec was
on Earth.
• • •
A cold arctic
wind blew down from the
pole, down across the white and
barren land of the Greenland
Game Preserve. High pressure
was moving
south, carrying with it tons
of frozen water vapor. The worst
winter storm of several decades
was on
its way.
By tomorrow
the northern
half of North America would be
covered with snow. But the
weather satellites had given
ample warning. North America was
prepared, as were the wardens
and the
rangers of the Greenland preserve. They were all
huddled around the fires in
Sydproven. And only arctic
animals roved across the hundreds
of thousands
of square
kilometers of the uninhabited arctic game preserve.
A caribou,
big and
white and hungry, slowly made
its way
down across the drifts
of snow,
searching for food. Off in
the distance, to the northwest, the animal smelled an
unusual odor, an odor like that
of man,
yet somehow
different. Topping a rise, the
caribou looked down at the
huge egg half-covered with snow,
at the
man who
lay face
first against the ice, surrounded by the redness that
seeped from his body.
The caribou sniffed
the wind
again and did not like
the odor it smelled and went
on its
way, hoping to find moss
in another valley.
Later in the
day, an aircraft swooped low
over the snow, but its pilot
did not
see the
dead, frozen body. Nor did
it matter.
Belles Lettres, 2272
norman
Corwin
Currently
involved in writing and producing a series of television specials, Norman
Corwin is as busy today in films and TV as he was in radio drama three decades
ago. He entered radio as producer/director/writer in 1938 and immediately
established himself as its finest dramatist. Many of his award-winning shows were
later collected between book covers, and his science-fiction novel Dog in
the Sky
was first presented, over
radio, as The Odyssey of
Runyon Jones. Thus,
Corwin spans two worlds—and while he may lament the lost era of radio drama, he
is nevertheless vitally concerned with the wonders of the future. This concern
is delightfully reflected in the following missive, involving a pithy exchange
between computers in which poetry becomes a very exacting and totally obscure
electronic art.
Greater Sausalito North California 15 Reagan, 2272
067-1516
X-B4 School for
Boys South Devizes, Wilts. England
My dear "son":
I write this
letter from a bustling shore
metropolis in North California, the 55th
state of this federation begun some 500 years ago
in a
fit of
colonial petulance over some perfectly reasonable
taxes imposed by a hard-pressed
Parliament back in the waning
centuries of. British monarchy.
No doubt you
have learned in your Middle-American
history class of how
the U.S.
played "musical chairs"
(colorful archaism) with
its states
in the
late 22nd Century, cheerfully permitting Alabama to secede
and giving
oil-depleted Texas back to
Mexico in return for what
had been Upper Baja
(a contradiction
in terms—literally,
"Upper Lower") California.
So now
there are three Californias—North,
South and Upper Baja.
Concerning the above
date of this letter, one
must bear with the peculiarities of the reformed calendar
in this
strange, proud region of
political mavericks. The month that we at home still
call August (after the Roman
emperor Augustus Caesar) has been
locally renamed Reagan in memory of
an adored
statesman of 20th Century history who got his start
in, of
all things,
South California "B pictures."
Have you ever heard of
B pictures?
Get from the facsimile tank at
your school a volume entitled
Archeology
of Kinema by one 2261-84-009,
who, like ourselves, is a test-tube
product on both sides.
Now, my dear
067, knowing your keen interest
in poetry,
I thought you would
like to read a poem
by the
new IBM-177/201, considered the finest computing machine
in literature today. I
found the poem in a
borrowed copy
of ^ * , -where
(what good luck!) it is
followed by
an instantaneous critique of the poem
out of
the RCA-Euclid
VXp-3, reputed to be the
most erudite of the scholarly line of computers built
by QEC
(Quantum Electronic Corp) since
they were established on the
North Slope. In reading
the critique,
I seem
to sense
a tincture of sour grapes, and
I will
be interested
in knowing
if you
agree.
Here is
the poem,
copied out in my own
hand:
»•5
•° oy
hubris p(—) cV
ƒ<*)
— eingraben '
priimimerando cm ••
U O ^ mais
And here is the analysis of the poem by the VXp-3:
When
the poet-machine IBM-177/201 was infused with a new spinkis, amid much
ceremony, we had hoped that the latest improvement on the Sr-irradiated
Mabitron would produce more ardor and
cruxage in the resultant
imagery. But
disappointingly
serves notice that the ardor has apparently been lost somewhere in phased circuitry.
The first two
lines give promise of great
things:
'at i-f ii«
oy
These images are
urgent, incandescent and exhorta-tory as any ever modulated
by a
regenerative feedback. But the banality
of:
S
followed by
the S {}*) ^ eingrabea C!3 is vulgar
to a
degree, and the coarse alliteration
of
^ *7o, ^* v" $i is the sort of
conceit that went
out with
short fursepots back in the 2090s.
Admittedly, the phrase
is beautiful in
thought and feeling; yet it
must be regretted that the sense
of sweeping
cosmic continuity is jarred by
the play
on Fx,
which obviously approximates, in
sound, a verb/noun of coition
much used/abused in the
so-called Sexual Revolution of 1970-80.
Of course,
(^J (*") ^* mais is patently satirical,
the mais representing the archaic French conjunction rather than the Kleptic
word for "sausage."
However, | ^ almost redeems the
faults of
the poem.
The especially recalls
the Murumi lyrics
of 716-16-1199 the Elder, who in turn
was influenced
by Heine.
Altogether, it is an uneven piece,
to which
one can
only say hopefully,
Propter A4
Hoc Andorum
Innewohnend <t> £ est.
Well, that's only
one computer's
opinion, as far as I
am concerned. Incidentally, where did VXp-3
dig up
"Heine"? Who, or what,
on earth
was Heine?
This kind of pedantic obscurantism
annoys me very much.
Do let me
fcnow your reaction, dear 067,
and give
my best to 6294-41-261a (and 261b),
and remember
me to that amiable old fool
7163-32-4801.
Your loving "father,"
067-1515
A
Shape in Time
anthony
boucher
There
is no subtle way to describe the late Anthony Boucher. He was a walking
superlative, a man wholly dedicated to the task of squeezing life dry of its
juices; Tony accomplished more in a day than most of us accomplish in a year.
Novelist
and fictioneer (the author of seven published mysteries and 75 short stories),
he was also an editor (of three magazines and some two dozen books), radio
scriptwriter (of more than 100 of the Sherlock Holmes network dramas), a linguist and translator (who worked comfortably in French, Spanish,
German, Italian, Portuguese—and even Sanskrit!), an opera authority and
personality (who conducted his own opera program featuring selections from his
vast collection of classic discs), a playwright, poet, essayist, grammarian and
teacher, a specialist in Gilbert and Sullivan, a gourmet cook and wine expert,
a fact-crime scholar, an avid sports fan (with encyclopedic knowledge of rugby,
football, basketball, track and gymnastics), a deadly poker player, an enthusiastic
lay reader for his church in Berkeley, a politician (who served two terms on
the State Central Committee as a liberal Democrat) and a loving husband and
father. The first 87 issues of The Magazine of Fantasy
and Science
Fiction, which he edited (early on with McComas, then
solo), are all classics in the field.
Among
his unpublished papers, his wife, Phyllis, discovered this zesty, mischievous,
somewhat bawdy short story, which now takes its rightful place in the Boucher
canon.
Temporal Agent
L-3H is always delectable in any shape; that's why the bureau employs
her on
marriage-prevention assignments.
But this
time, as she reported to
my desk,
she was
also dejected. "I'm a
failure, Chief," she said. "He
ran away—
from me. The first
man in
twenty-five centuries. . . ."
"Don't take
it so
seriously," I said.
She was
more than just another agent to
me; I
was the
man who'd
discovered her talents. "We may be
able to figure out what
went wrong and approach it on
another time line."
"But I'm no
good." Her body went scrawny
and sagging.
Sometimes I wonder how
people expressed their emotions before mutation gave us somatic
control.
"Now, there,"
I said,
expanding my flesh to radiate
con-
fidence, "just tell me
what happened. We know from
the dial
readings that the Machine
got you
to London
in 1880----------------- "
"To prevent the
marriage of Edwin Sullivan to
Angelina Gilbert," she grimaced.
"Time knows why."
I sighed.
I was
always patient with her. "Because
that
marriage joined two sets
of genes
which, in the course of
three generations, would produce----------- "
Suddenly she
gave me one of her
old grins,
with the left
eyebrow up. "I've never understood the time
results of an
assignment yet, and don't
try to
teach me now. Marriage
prevention's fun enough on
its own.
And I
thought it was
going to be extra
good this time. Edwin's beard
was red
and
this
long, and
I haven't
had a
beard in five trips. But
some-
thing went------- The
worst of it is, it
went wrong when I was
naked."
I was
incredulous and said so.
"I don't think
even you really understand this, Chief. Because you are
a man"—her
half smile complimented me by putting
the italics
of memory
under man— "and men never have
understood it. But the fact
is that
what men want naked, in any
century, in any country, is
what they're used to seeing clothed,
if you
follow me. Oh, there are
always some women who
have to pad themselves out or pull themselves, in, but the really
popular ones are built to
fit their clothes. Look at what
they used to call feelthy
peec-tures; anytime, anyplace, the girls
that are supposed to be
exciting have the same
silhouette naked as the fashion
demands clothed. Improbable though it
seems."
"L!" I gasped.
She had
suddenly changed so completely that there was hardly more
than one clue that I
was not
looking at a boy.
"See?" she
said. "That's the way I
had to
make myself
when you sent me
to the
1920s. And the assignment worked;
this was what men
wanted. And then, when you
sent me to
1957_____ "
I ducked
out of
the way
as two
monstrous mammae shot
out at me. "I hadn't quite
realized-------------- "
I began
to confess.
"Or the time
I had
that job in Sixteenth Century
Germany."
"Now you
look pregnant!"
"They all did.
Maybe they were. Or when
I was
in Greece,
all waist and hips.
. .
. But
all of
these worked. I prevented
marriages and improved the
genetic time flow. Only with
Edwin. ..."
She was
back in her own delectable
shape, and I was able
to give her a
look of encouraging affection.
"I'll skip the
buildup," she said.
"I managed to meet Edwin, and I gave him
this. ..." I nodded; how
well I remembered this and its effects. "He began calling
on me
and taking me to theaters, and
I knew
it needed
just one more step for him
to forget
all about
that silly pink-and-white
Angelina."
"Go on,"
I urged.
"He took
the step,
all right.
He invited
me to
dinner in a private room at
a discreet
restaurant—all red plush
and mirrors and a screen in
front of the couch. And
he ordered
oysters and truffles and
all that
superstitious ritual. The beard was even
better than I'd hoped: crisp
and teasing
ticklish and. . . ."
She looked
at me
speculatively, and I
regretted that we've bred out
facial follicles beyond even somatic control. "When he started
to undress
me—and how much trouble that was
in 1880!—he
was delighted
with this."
She had changed
from the waist up, and
I had
to admit
that this
was possibly
more accurate than these. They were as
large as the startling 1957
version, but molded together as
almost one solid pectoral
mass.
"Then he took
off my
skirts and. . . ."
L-3H was as near to tears
as I
had ever
known her. "Then he .
. .
ran. Right out of
the restaurant.
I would've
had to
pay the
check if I hadn't telekinned the Machine to bring
me back
to now.
And I'll bet he
ran right
to that
Angelina and made arrangements to start mixing genes
and I've
ruined everything for you."
I looked
at her
new form
below the waist. It was
indeed extraordinary and hardly
to my
taste, but it seemed correct.
I checked the pictures
again in the Sullivan dossier.
Yes, absolutely.
I consoled
and absolved
her. "My dear L, you
are—Time help me!—perfectly and exactly a
desirable woman of 1880. The failure
must be due to some
slip on the part of
the chronopsychist who researched
Edwin. You're still a credit
to the bureau, Agent L-3H!—and now
let's celebrate. No, don't change back.
Leave it that way. I'm
curious as to the effects of—what was the word
they used for it in
1880?—of a woman's bustle."
Damechild
dennis
etchison
We
met in a UCLA classroom in 1963.1 was there to deliver a guest lecture on
writing. Dennis Etchison, then a 20-year-old student with two short-story sales
to his credit, was there to find out what I knew about science fiction. That
classroom confrontation produced an Etchison sale to Gamma and, in 1965, an impressive contribution to my sci-fi anthology The Pseudo-People. Now he's back with a stirringly poetic and emotionally powerful sci-fi
story for The Future Is
Now. In the interval between, Dennis has sold two
novels, a screenplay based on a Bradbury property and another dozen stories.
His work has been anthologized in three editions of New Writings in
SF, and he is represented in Prize Stories
from Seventeen.
If you've never read Etchison, now's a fine
time to begin— by meeting Damechild and allowing her to transport your mind and
imagination into the far reaches of our star-blazed universe.
. . .
Galaxy Milky Way, via lactea, galaxias kyklos, Horse-head Nebula,
Orion, the Pegasus,
nursery, cradle
A: Damechild,
floating in her sac, felt
the sound,
the tiny
insect arcing of current between a
set of
worn contact points, in her skin,
in the
bottoms of her feet and
in the
whorls of her fingers before she
heard it through the amnifluid,
so that
when the programmed thought finger probed that
area of her cortex, she was
wide awake and quivered to
sit up.
The tingle in
her skin
subsided with the ebbing of
the fluid, the blood pumping back
to the
skeletal muscles as she spidered her arms, her legs,
over the molded edge, worn
smooth by countless such
risings. She slid out to
the once-polished
floor.
She drew on
her threadbare
robe, touched it with a
trembling finger down the front,
blankly watched it seam shut.
She padded slowly
past the gastronautics chamber, the
driver chamber, the view
chamber, on her way to
the central
rec chamber. She paused. She focused
with some difficulty on the rec
door ahead. No sound—that meant nothing, of course, with the walls baffled.
She wondered;
she sighed.
She noticed that the air from
the recirculator
drifted out of the vents now
heavier and even more fetid
than the period before, when
its quality
had undercut
the period
before that. A single bead of
perspiration streaked down between her
small breasts, and by
its course
she was
made aware of the rapid beating
of her
heart.
She stumbled her
toes over the opendisk and
entered the view chamber.
Stars greeted her
in endless
profusion. She felt toward the
center. There she let
the chair
take her and adjust and
adapt to her and begin to
knead her, whirring and clicking.
She exhaled as
if her
breath had been held for
centuries, smiling out of
a nameless
melancholy, slowly and sadly and
for no particular reason.
Thought, however, would
not come
this time, as ever in
recent memory, it seemed.
So she
sat, surrounded by a bubble
beyond which wheeled the immutable
lights, here chalk powder, there milk
swirl, and there, down there—or
was it
up?—a double sun's blaze,
a red
dwarfs silent conflagration. Yes,
they do wheel, do move,
she prodded
herself at last; they must, for
the tapes
say they
do.
And at that,
she was
stabbed by something genuine and
unmistakable which was deeper
than melancholy.
—Damechild?
She started.
—Yes, I am here.
I am
always here. A low-slouched form stepped
forward from the shadows into more shadows. —Chris? Is that
you?
She picked out
his face
among the black shadows and
the gray shadows and the sharply
reflected phosphor light between. His
thin bones were brighdy outlined,
each light hair on his close-cropped
head tipped with silver in
a near-spectral
brilliance. His cheeks traced descending
planes void as ever of any
defining expression; his nose and
mouth were still invisible, and only
his eyes
shone bright pinpoints, two unmoving stars cold and deep
in the
face.
—Where is
your sensy, Chris?
He glided
closer to her with surprising
agility, and the shadows shifted over
him, and she saw all
of him
now in
brightness. His straight, set
teeth were moon white.
—Well, where
is yours?
—You know I
don't have to wear mine
all the
time, she lied quickly, watching her
pallid, angular hands fumbling over her robe.
—You never wear
yours at all anymore, do
you? Because you are eldest, he
cursed.
—Come here
to me,
Christopher.
He raised his
arms at the elbows, then
let them
fall back to his sides.
—Don't say
my name!
There are people
who know
how to
ask for
the reasons
for another's pain in such a
way that
their need seems suddenly to be so much the
greater that no one can
deny them answers any longer;
there are people who, instead,
will feel all of you with
their eyes, deeper into parts
of the
hurt than words can go, and
to the
place, once penetrated, from where
answers can no longer
be withheld.
She did
both and simultaneously; this was
her way.
—Please, she breathed.
At that, he
turned away and stopped his
ears spastically. He teetered
into the shadows again and
retrieved the sensory cap from
where he had abandoned it,
pressed it tightly on his skull
and bent
his fingers
pale on the buttons.
She saw
this and sighed.
—Come, Christopher.
Come with me for now.
She padded to
the door,
knowing nonetheless that he did
not, could not, hear
her.
At the rec
door, something prevented her from
entering at once, a feeling that
what was about to happen
was a
foregone conclusion somehow, that it
had already
happened, was still happening and would
always happen. It seemed to
take all the strength
she could
muster to finally toe the
opendisk.
A wall
of silence
slid open to her, a
hushed, palpable presence turned
inward toward many centers. She
saw them
in bucket corners, hunched
against curved walls, swaying in
the perpetual illumination. They touched fingertips to one stud, another, another,
and not
the computer-bank
inlet, no; not once had she
seen Maya or Djuna or
Buck or Chip or any of
the others
in her
care but Chris activate the
I-input, or at least not in
memory recent enough to challenge
the present moment. The sexual stimulator,
the sleep
stimulator, the visual stimulator,
the auditory
stimulator, the hunger-satiety stimulator. The electrodes had all
but grafted
themselves to the skulls of
each of them, attached by
now with
the tenaciousness of mechanical
leeches. —Leave us.
At first
she was
not sure
she had
heard it.
—Go away. We don't
need you. Go into the
airlock
and-----
Maya, momentarily between artificial epiphanies, dropped her fat hands from
her head
and shuffled
to the
middle of the rec floor. The
game boards, unlighted for years,
were glazed over and gray on
the walls;
the 4-D
chess and the music-composition
facilities were long forgotten; and the closed-circuit vidcorder theater
was an
anachronism. She moved in a sleepwalk
to the
center, a few paces from
Damechild, and crouched there, vibrating
almost imperceptibly to the memory of
some recent surrogate ecstasy.
—Maya, I think
you have
had enough
rec for
now. Why don't you go to
the library
to prepare?
—For what?
Idris came up
alongside Maya, lowering her hands
from her head.
—Why, for the
landing, of course. You have
to be
ready for the landing when the
time comes.
—What landing is
that? asked Idris, but lapsed
again without waiting for an answer.
Damechild strained to
make contact with their eyes,
but found it too unbearably like her own endless
ritual explorations of the impenetrable,
abandoned steel corridors of the
ship.
—The landing
on the
New World.
Ours is a sacred
trust-------
Idris turned
away, began singing tonelessly to herself.
Damechild let her
conditioned reflexes take over; immediately
and without
bidding, an explanation was gathering
in her. She held to an
image of the quarter-mile Pegasus lifting up the
skies of Earth through the
circle of the northern lights, while, below, festering honeycombs
crumbled and collapsed—a picture
implanted by the memory stylus
and the
microtapes, to be sure,
but played
and replayed
so many
times that the experience
had grown
into her synapses as part of
her. In actuality, of course,
she had
been nothing more than a concept
between ovum and sperm, like
the others, frozen suspended across the
1600 light-years and summoned
automatically into conception at last
only in time to grow into
adolescence strong and ready for
the contact
in Orion. Like the
others, the dying dream of
a putrifying
world, its final desperate
spawn, Damechild was in one
sense the same age as all
of them,
though she had been called
to birth ten years before the
others in order that 25,000
years of human history would not
be done
and finished
on Earth
without the propagation of one gift: that
of human
nurture, of the earliest touch of
living flesh on flesh.
—Time for
sleep period, she said as
gently as possible.
She crossed the
chamber and started to use
her manual
key on the lights in order
to lead
them out more easily to
the nursery and the cradles.
A sound:
insect buzz.
She did not
let it
penetrate her consciousness, the membrane
now stretched
so thin.
Then, quite suddenly, she knew
something and, by the
dull pulse quickening in her
ears, knew it was a thing
she did
not want
to know.
A smell of
electric current burning oxygen, of
copper and nitrogen and sharp, pungent
smoke, slicing up her nostrils.
She spun.
Starla, one of
the unnoticed
ones, the gray ones, who
stared into places and
saw nothing
anymore, who lived inside the magic
circle of the sensy and
tried to fade into shadows that should have been
there—Starla was up and standing at the console, her
back to the rest, shorting
out her
electronic cap in one
of the
wall inputs. Apparently she had
worked a wire, two
wires, loose from the electrodes,
had recalled in a strange, lucid
second the science lessons, had
schemed alone and finally
moved to do it here
and now.
And she did
more, a jerk and a
decisive touching not seen, and everyone
froze, stopped in their underwater
movements as the old fabric of
her tunic
ignited and caught flame.
It happened
too fast.
Damechild saw
a spark
of yellow
white strike and shoot the length
of Starla's
body. Panic? Hysteria? Movement?
Damechild moving toward
her, blinking once, unable to
breathe, yet detached, watching
this. She blinked again, was
there.
She fell
on her,
rolling on her, a sudden
flare of heat fanning her throat
for an
unbearable instant. Then it was
over.
Agitation? Chaos?
Screaming?
Starla's raw head
lolled blindly up at Damechild.
The face
now less than a
face screamed alone, the only
sound in the chamber, resounding, and it was a
terrible, awesome, shattering scream, and
it said,
/ am even now, and it
said, / feel,
and it
was a
sound close to a madness
groping in the midst of a
long night, and it said,
Now I know, and it
said, and much later Damechild would
hear it again and again
and would be unable to stop
hearing it and would know
that it had said, / am alive.
Unaided, Damechild covered
her with
local cloth and dragged her to
the automedic
and ran
into the corridors, a hand clutched
to her
fevered face, past Chris, who
stood in the doorway mutely watching,
his head
bare and the mechanism dangling forgotten from his
hand, while behind her, Maya and
Djuna and Buck and Chip
and the
rest slowly and almost imperceptibly resumed their timeless stance,
their disinterested hands autonomically
brushing ever more de-mandingly the controls crowning their
tortured, mindless heads.
She sealed
Library & Communications and fell
onto stiff arms over the communicator
keyboard, lungs wrenching for air, body
rocked by convulsive sobs. Time
passed that was the same as
no time
for her,
and when
she finally
turned her eyes down, she saw
her fingers
trembling across the keys.
She turned
a key
down.
The first print-out
covered the history of communications
recorded on Earth from
the beginning,
late in the 20th Century.
Faint and incredibly protracted but unmistakable in Manchester, in Cambridge, in Australia,
at Ozma.
From Mills Cross had come the
first decisive confirmation. They were
not pulsars or anything
else previously known. They came
from the Horsehead. More important, they were
voices from mankind's oldest, now most
urgent dream.
Her fingers strained
at her
weight, depressing the next key.
Print-outs from a
hundred signals, signals which were
messages, arriving as Earth
strangled.
Her supporting fingers concaved, sprang back.
She tossed
her head, trying to
clear her senses.
Another key.
A print-out
of impulses
received by the Pegasus through roughly 5000
years, up to the time
of the
first incubation. It had taken that
long to traverse nearly 1600
light-years to the source, the single
and unique
source, the spark living, shining unbelievably in the otherwise
hopeless void.
Her eyes watered
and her
lids separated farther; she saw
her fingers on another
key, and the record was
reduced instantaneously to a
series of simple binary print-outs,
a sheet swarming with l's and
0's followed
by the
alphabetical translations which her
trained eyes did not need,
had not
needed for years.
At Birth +
4.7 years,
the interval
check signals from the planet OM-6371 had ceased.
The Pegasus had broadcast a
probe, an ID and a
query.
At Birth
+ 7
years, the probe had been
answered.
She had seen
it, put
it away
decades ago along with years
of nightmares through seemingly
endless sleep periods and through waking periods. But now
here it was again, resurrected
and feeding
through her fingers. One final
message from what was to have
been the promised land.
She had not
told the children of it
then, had not told them
at any time through the long
years since, and she would
not tell them now. She would
never tell them, for it
was indeed
the last; she understood
that too well. For even
if life
were to shudder forth again one
dim day
on the
cracked lands of Earth, from whence
might come another such contact?
And what machine come to be
built on what inconceivable physics could ever cross
such a sea as would
have to be crossed? No, she had not told
them that this was their
world and their only world, and
she would
not—she clung to that. The
message had described a
condition that taxed the translating
capabilities of the computer,
something having to do with
an ecology gone atavistic
and unlivable
forevermore and at the same time
with a conflict between intelligent
species, though to describe
it in
these words both distorts and
diminishes the complexity of it.
And she
had held
it wrapped
and hidden inside her in a
place by itself which was
now long
beyond pain. So the
drive chamber would continue its
superbly efficient conversion of hydrogen
into helium and the Pegasus would continue
on its
way past
that doomed, canceled rendezvous
point and on ahead, uselessly,
toward the next nearest possibility of a life-support world, which might be in
Andromeda Galaxy, because such a
course was the least unreasonable of any. The hull
of the
starship might tip such shores one
day, perhaps, or at least
a fragment
that would not have fallen by
then into some alien sun.
Ahead lay 175,000 impossible light-years; and behind, Earth, now
long since picked clean
like a skull somewhere in
a vast
desert.
And at the
end of
the simplified
binary print-out was the last message,
repeated over and over. Part
of it
looked like this:
100000001110 A 1000000011100011100110
01 A
001111011000011011 A 100010011000 011110 A 100000001110 A 10000000111000
1110011001 A 001111011000011011 A 100010011000011110 A 100000001110 A 100000001110001110011001 A 0011110110000110
She allowed her
eyes to close mercifully, but she read it
still through lowered lids. It said:
WE WEEP FOR
YOU WE
WEEP FOR YOU WE WEEP FOR
YOU WE
WEEP FOR YOU WE WEEP
FOR YOU WE WEEP
FOR YOU
WE WEEP
FOR YOU WE WEEP FOR YOU
WE WEEP
FOR YOU
WE WEEP FOR YOU
WE WEEP
FOR YOU
WE WEEP FOR YOU WE WEEP
FOR YOU
WE WEEP
She sat
in the
view chamber feeling empty and
at the
disposal of the night.
The door slid
open and she saw Chris's
outline coming to her.
They faced each
other, two who knew each
other best of all in the
universe.
She saw his
stooped body shaking. —What is it?
—Nothing. She asked again.
—I—I thought I
heard something moving in the
air lock.
But no one's there.
—Shh. It
was nothing.
He came
closer, his bones unsteady.
—They're all still
in there.
I thought
rec was
supposed to be over.
—Don't worry,
she said.
I'm going
to give
them a while longer.
The ship
had altered
its position
so that
now the
bubble was turned full into the
ghostly glare of the Horsehead
Nebula. The clouds and
stars were beautiful beyond description
and almost
beyond belief.
—You don't know
my name.
—Christopher.
—No, that's
not my
name. You can never say
my name.
—Yes, the fathers wanted
it to
be so.
—I am—I am Bellerophon.
—No--------
—I will cut
off the
head of madness and cast
it in
the sea
of stars. Cut, slash,
cut, slice, cut, cut! I
will---------------------
—Shh, now. Shh,
shh. She rocked him. —Christopher.
Chris. She touched his forehead.
—A mark against
evil. You are my Chris.
You are
my Chris. You are my Chris
Cross.
She laughed at
herself for saying that.
And then Damechild
began to sing, the sound
of her
voice like a glass bell in
water. She soothed his forehead
for what
seemed like a very
long time, trying to ease
out the
marks left in his skin. She
saw the
tired lines, the sagging throat,
the skin stretched paper-thin
over his old, brittle skeleton,
his hair, like her
own, long ago blanched completely
white. Tears rilled the worn, wrinkled
leather of his face for
a time
and then dried. Still
her gnarled
hand smoothed his dry hairline, his weary head. And
she was
reminded just then that she would
not go
mad, would never step into
the air
lock and key open the release.
There was so much pain
aboard and someone had to be
here to bear as much
of it
as possible
for the others. She
had all
of them
to go
on living
for, as much longer as it
would last.
Eventually his fingers
crept up slowly, as if
moving underwater, and tried without
enthusiasm to toy with the
sensory buttons or at
least the scarred imprints left
by them.
View chamber, the
Pegasus, Orion, Horsehead
Nebula, galaxias kyklos, via láctea, Galaxy Milky
Way. . . .
Time zero.
Toe
to Tip, Tip to Toe, Pip-Pop As You Go
William
f. nolan
Nolan the writer to Nolan
the editor: "You dig me, right?"
"I'll
have to admit you're one of my favorites." "And you need new stories
for your anthology, right?" "I'm open for quality submissions."
"OK,
then ... ƒ got this idea for a takeoff on the old
sex-and-alienation theme, only done wild. Kind of a 'nutso' approach."
"Uh-huh."
"It's
all about a guy named Joerdon who works for an egg-shaped boss. His boss is
shaped exactly like an egg. He may even be an egg. That's not important,
whether he's an egg or not."
"Go
on."
"This guy Joerdon loves a girl named Ellena Nubbins who
suddenly disappears, and he tries to find out what happened
to her, but no one tells him anything; so the guy---------------- "
"Don't
give me the whole damn plot! You're a writer. Go write it."
So
he did.
I
did.
We
did.
And
here it is.
Nothing was happening.
It was
no good,
simply no damn good.
Hendy Joerdon grumpily
untangled himself from the erot-icizer's
silken grasp and palmed the
lustkill switch.
"Well, we all
have our off nights," sighed the inflatagirl as she brightly folded herself
back into the unit. "Even
Gable did."
Joerdon didn't know
who the
hell Gable was and said
so. "Gable, Clark. Public
lust symbol. Twentieth Century," 85
supplied the eroticizer.
The girl
was completely
folded away by now and couldn't
supply anything. "How about a
nice oily back rub instead?" The fat red machine
eased closer to Joerdon's bed, visor
plates gleaming. "Release
all those
taut muscles. Loosey goosey!"
"Keep your damn
rubberoids off me," Joerdon told
it. He
suspected the machine of
deviant behavior and was in
no mood to wrestle with it
tonight. "I need sleep."
"You're out of
shape, in my opinion," the unit told him.
"Way out, I'd say."
"Brass off,"
said Joerdon.
The unit retired
noiselessly as Hendy's bed rocked
and soothed and babied him. "Yum,
yum, yum," said the bed.
"Sleepums good."
The next
morning, at Deepfizz, Joerdon's desk
told him he looked frettled.
"That's gollywop!" Joerdon snapped. He. jogged
a quick
circle around the office.
"Just check those leg reflexes!"
"Boss wants you,"
said a voice behind him.
It was
McWhirter, the officious ferret-faced
pill brother in charge of moon
popping.
"I'm having
water," Hendy growled, moving to
the cooler.
"My, aren't we
tense and testy," grinned McWhirter.
He peered closely at Joerdon. "Have
a sour
night?"
Joerdon shrugged.
"It's the eyes,"
said McWhirter. "They always give
you away. The eyes go puffy.
Fatty tissue buildup. Sad .
. .
really sad."
And he
moused away.
"I hate that
ferret-faced son of a bitch,"
Joerdon said to the water cooler.
• • •
"Open wide,"
directed the boss.
Hendy opened his
mouth, lolled his tongue, feeling
puppylike and vulnerable.
"Yes. Grayish. Not
pinkish." The boss
clucked. "And it's got a wrinkle
in the
middle."
"What does
that mean?"
"Constriction. System's all bunched
up and
constricted." The boss rolled
to and
fro across
the desk.
He was
entirely egg-shaped and featureless,
which made it hard to
tell what his mood was. After
an unhappy
experience at Surestop, Joerdon had vowed
never again to work for
an egg-shaped
boss. But progress had
caught up with him. The
old affable
cube-shaped boss who'd hired
him at
Deepfizz had been replaced and there
was nothing
Joerdon could do about that.
Or about a lot
of other
things.
"You're frettled, Joerdon.
Sit down
and tell
me what's
frettling you."
Joerdon sat down
in a snugglechair. He
sighed, shaking his head. "Just a passing mood, sir."
Executing a neat
figure-eight pattern, the boss looped
over to a saucer-shaped
depression in his desk and
egged into it. "You're a popper
five now, with a lot
of responsibility.
I don't need to
tell you that Deepfizz wants
its poppers
un-frettled."
"Yes, sir." The snugglechair pressed Hendy's
left buttock reassuringly.
"We didn't
pull ahead of Dizzdrop point
one forty-six
to point one forty-five in national
ratings last month by accident,
Joerdon. Dizzdroppers are now becoming
Deepfizzers at the rate
of one
every fiftieth centisecond—and
we're proud of that statistic. Aren't you proud
of that
statistic, Joerdon?"
"I certainly am,
sir," said Hendy. The snugglechair
squeezed his other buttock.
It didn't
help. Actually, Joerdon found
it irritating.
The boss rolled
leisurely back over the desk,
stopped at the edge, tilted toward
Joerdon. His tone became conspiratorial.
"Son . . . have
you popped?
We'll find out soon enough, you know. Can't be
hidden. If you have popped, just admit it."
"Oh, no, sir! I'd never-------------- "
"Good! Delighted to
hear it," said the boss.
"One cannot continue to help guide
society when one loses one's
self-guidance. A popping popper
is a
public disgrace!"
"Yo, yo!" Hendy
said with alacrity, using the
official form of affirmation.
"Maybe you
ought to have a medcheck,
just to be sure everything's acey," suggested the boss.
Hendy agreed.
"Visit Doc Sidge
at the
end of
your work sesh. Get a run-through. Then come
see me
in the
morn. We'll fab more then." The egg-shaped boss rolled
over to his basket slot
and dropped abruptly out of sight.
• • •
Working with
his pill
brothers in the huge, pink
Deepfizz adlab, Joerdon told
himself that he was basically
acey—that he had a right to a bout of moodiness after
losing Ellena. They had been set
for a
procreation sesh when she suddenly
vanished. Here one day,
working next to him, radiant
and fresh. Gone the next. Zap!
When Joerdon asked what had
become of her, the
ferret-faced McWhirter had smirked. "Maybe she popped!"
"Not on your
bizzle!" Hendy had snapped back.
"Not Ellena!"
But he'd given
it a
lot of
thought. Had she popped? That would explain her disappearance. Popped poppers were banished, sent outside. A nasty
end to
public service.
Joerdon knew he
hadn't been pulling his weight
at Deep-fizz
over the past week since
Ellena vanished. Most of his
Mars-pop copy had ended
in deadwaste.
Flushed with sudden guilt, Joerdon
stared morosely at the huge
wallglow trimural of Hately
Hately. Spade-bearded and rock-nosed, Hately of Deepfizz—the true giant
of the
21st Century. And beneath, carved in
letters of bronze, his fabled
words, "a stoned nation is a
happy nation." The big habit had solved all problems. War was
eliminated, and sex, as removed
from lust—which was properly
supplied by the eroticizer— was now a strict religious
rite, reserved, at specified intervals,
for vital procreation among Deepfizz-Dizzdrop
personnel. Which was, Joerdon
knew, as it should be.
He attempted to
concentrate on his work, but
found himself thinking dismally of
Ellena for the remainder of
his data-pop period.
• • •
"Ouch," said
Joerdon as he was thumped
and pumped,
tapped and grasped and
twisted and analyzed by the
med-check run-through unit. "Ouch," he said several more
times.
"Nothing," said the unit, hopping back
in a
birdlike motion. "Nothing,
nothing, nothing, nothing. You have
nothing wrong with you."
"You sound
disappointed."
"And why not?
My job
is to
find things wrong with people
so I can send them to
Doc Sidge."
"Where is
he? I
think I should talk to
him."
"Sidge only sees
sickos," the unit told him.
"You are not a sicko. All you
have is a temporary psychological
imbalance caused by mild
emotional multistress. And that, sadly
enough from my viewpoint, will pass.
Good tubing."
"Good tubing,"
Joerdon said to the unit.
He left carrying
a medstamped
diskslip which certified that he was
in ideal
physical condition.
Naturally, there
was no
trace of Deepflzz in his
blood.
The boss
would be pleased.
"Psssst!"
"What did you
say?" "I said, 'Psssst!'
"
"Nobody ever says,
'Psssst!' anymore," Joerdon explained to the crouching tube rider
next to him.
"I'm attempting to be secretive. I'm sure some people
still say, 'Psssst!' when they are
attempting to be secretive."
"I won't
argue the point," said Joerdon.
The tube rider
was small
and dark
and furry.
He smelled
odd. "I've been outside,"
he whispered.
Joerdon stared at
him. He'd never seen an
outsider inside. "But that's not
legal. None of us go
outside unless we pop. Then we're
sent outside. There are no outside insiders,
nor inside outsiders."
The furry little
tube rider snorted. "That's just the poddle-cock they feed you industry
people. I know things you
don't."
Joerdon glanced nervously
around the humming tuber. No
other riders this early.
And luckily,
on this
model, the seats couldn't talk. "Why
tell me this?"
"A lady
wants you."
"What lady?"
"Lady Ellena
Nubbins, who else?"
Joerdon gripped the
man's furry front. "What do you know of Miss
Nubbins? Where is she?"
"Outside," the unflustered tuber replied, "and
she wants
you with her."
Joerdon shuddered. He knew what it
was like
out there.
Unstable. Odd-smelling. Full of
goofy pill poppers. He'd seen
them on the scope,
mooning in the streets, popping
their hours away. And now Ellena—sober,
dedicated, hardworking Ellena Nubbins—was
one of
them. His worst suspicions had been verified. It was
obviously no use going out
to her.
Once a popped popper, always a
popped popper. Addiction was immediate.
"Tell her that
I still regard
her with
considerable affection, that her leaving has
severely upset my work, but
that I shall never join her."
"Is that final?"
"Indeed it is,"
nodded Joerdon. "Then, let's
try a
blitz on the bizzle." Joerdon was astonished
when the furry man tried
exactly that.
Joerdon woke up
inside a zebra-striped anachronism.
"Wok!" he said,
clearing his throat. His head
swam, settled; he blinked rapidly.
"Wok!" he said
again, unsteadily.
"You'll be acey
soon," said a furry voice.
The little
tube man was cradling Joerdon's head
in his
odd-smelling lap. Hendy pushed himself into
a sitting
position.
He looked out
a window.
They were moving over the
streets of New York.
That's when he found out
he was
riding inside an anachronism:
a 1971
Cadillac, zebra-striped.
"Our movement
supervisor is responsible," said the
ex-tube rider. "He restored this
old Caddie
right down to her last lug
nut. Even the exhaust fumes
are properly
poisonous. It's the work
of a
craftsman."
"I didn't know
they allowed automobiles in New
York," said Joerdon. "Aren't
these things against the law?"
He squinted at the driver in
the forward
seat, but the man was
hatted and swaddled and
Hendy couldn't make out any
physical details.
"Puddlecod!" said his furry friend. "With
the lawboys
stoned, nobody's left to
tell anybody anything. Cities are
falling apart. Last week
the Empire
State Building fell down flat and
nobody said foof about it."
"I didn't scan
that on the scope."
"There's lots you
don't scan on the scope.
You insiders
are bizzle-cleshed. You see
only what the industry wants
you to
see."
Joerdon asked, "Where
are we
going?" "To clan HQ,"
said the furry one. "Just
sit back
and enjoy
the ride."
A classic
.45-caliber slug smashed through the
Cadillac's rear window, barely
missing Joerdon's bizzle.
"Ooops!" said the muffled driver. He
stopped the car, quickly leaped out
and sprayed
a noisily
advancing crowd with concentrated
laser-beam fire. Then he hopped
back in and resumed driving.
"Who were
they?" Joerdon wanted
to know.
"Zealots. Bishops, cardinals,
ex-nuns, and the like. Bothersome.
They fire classic slugs from
restored museum pistols at you. We
have to show them who's
boss. They can get pesky.
Nothing unusual, though. All
part of the general civic
breakdown."
The car swerved
to avoid
a sleeping
Deepfizzer in the center of Fifth
Avenue. Others, along the walks,
chanted at the Cad, "Toe to
tip, tip to toe, pip-pop
as you
go!"
The furry man
ignored them. "We headquarter at Tiffany's," he said.
"Lends a little class to
the operation."
They parked directly
in front
of the
famous jewelry store. The driver heh-heh'd
under his swaddle. "I always get
a kick out of parking in
the red
zone." He led them inside.
Joerdon still couldn't
make out the man's face,
but the
tips of his ears looked vaguely
familiar.
"Where's Ellena?"
"Here, Hendy!"
She ran toward
him across
a marbled
floor, arms extended, aglitter
in diamonds
and emeralds
and pearls
and sapphires.
They rubbed groins
happily, and Joerdon felt the
old procreation urge welling
up. Suddenly
he pushed
her back.
"You want me
to pop,
but I
won't. Not even for you.
I won't. Won't.
Won't. Won't. Will not."
She giggled, dislodging
a diamond
tiara from her hair. It
clattered unnoticed to the
veined marble.
"Meet the chief."
The furry
man and
the still-swaddled
driver gripped Hendy's elbows
and quick-marched
him into
a large, deep-carpeted office at the rear
of the
building. A paneled side door slid
open and the chief stepped
into view.
Joerdon gasped. "McWhirterl"
"No other," said McWhirter.
"You're an outsider!"
McWhirter smirked. "Have
been for the past couple
of years."
"What. ..
where . . . why
... how?"
"Good questions—but
first"—he gestured expansively—
"let me introduce the
principal members of the movement.
My furry, odd-smelling assistant is Fedor Bandlecliff
Bump-ums, a biochemist of marked
brilliance. And doubtless you already know the swaddled gentleman
who drove
you here."
The swaddled
driver unswaddled.
Joerdon gasped.
"Doc Sidge!"
"No other,"
said Sidge.
"I thought I recognized your distinctive ear tips."
McWhirter put one
arm around
Ellena. "And Miss Nubbins is
a pivotal
member. She joined our movement
quite recently, as you
know."
"And you've kidnapped
me to
become part of your illegal,
subversive, clandestine group, is
that it?"
"More or less,"
replied McWhirter. "Eventually
we would
have kidnapped you anyway,
but we
kidnapped you now because dear
Ellena wanted you outside, with
her. I thought Fedor B. Bumpums
told you that inside the
tuber."
"I simply won't
pop. Not for all the
drickle in New York. Do with
me what
you will,
but I
shall not betray my heritage."
"But," said Ellena,
"nobody wants you to. None
of us
pop. We're artn'poppers."
"I don't--------- "
"You don't
understand," said Doc
Sidge.
McWhirter sighed. 'Tell
him, Ellena, while I go
put on
some rubies. I love
wearing rubies in the afternoon."
He loped away over the thick
carpet.
Ellena smiled patiently.
"We are building a drug-free
movement to overthrow the
Deepfizz-Dizzdrop industry."
"Great hobble!"
"Naturally, you're surprised."
She removed
her outer
garments as she talked. Then
her inner
garments. Then her inner-inner outer garments
and, finally, her outer-inners.
Ellena was
stark-naked and looked particularly appealing.
"You're . .
. particularly
appealing, you know," Joerdon could not help saying.
"That's the whole
smidge," she said, swaying toward
him. Doc and the furry biochemist
slyly skittered from the room.
"Is—is this
an unofficial
procreation sesh?" asked Hendy.
"Not exactly, but
it may
end up
that way. The purpose is
just to jizz."
"I begin
to see
your point," said Hendy, shucking
his outer
garments.
"What we
do is
stay straight and help other
people kick the big habit," she husked in a smoky tone. "Also,
we kidnap bizzle-cleshed industry
insiders and turn them into
straight wn-bizzle-cleshed outsiders. Pretty soon, when enough
insiders become outsiders—all jizzing each other for
the good of mankind—then people slowly
rediscover the joys of the movement
and the
industry breaks down and we
have a truly free society. Isn't that wonderfully
simple?"
"It's simply wonderful,"
declared Hendy, squeezing a deftly weighted breast. "It's
also a hell of a
lot of
fun."
And, without further
urging, Hendy Joerdon enthusiastically joined the movement.
A
War of Passion
torn
purdom
First
anthologized in Fred Pohl's Star Science Fiction series, Tom Purdom's thoughtful, politically
oriented contributions have achieved a solid degree of critical success: Cited
three times by Judith Merril on her sci-fi honor roll, his work has also been
chosen for World's Best Science
Fiction. Two Purdom sci-fi novels are in print, and
he's averaged publication of one new short story a year within the sci-fi field
since 1957. Among his primary interests, Purdom lists "urban planning,
arms control, wines, politics and the city of Philadelphia."
Despite
the heavy emphasis on sexual freedom in today's literature, the subject of
physical lovemaking has seldom been explored within a science-fictional
context. As man, with the aid of science, learns to extend his life-span
indefinitely, love-making may well become a critical problem. Tom Purdom
examines this problem with both frankness and dramatic conviction.
Can
a virile 1200-year-old man sexually satisfy a beautiful 268-year-old woman?
Read this story and find outl
Vostok was worried
about the assignment involving Larina
Makaze. He had known
it was
going to be difficult and
he had been fully aware it
might be impossible. He had
been able, thus far, to spend
a total
of eight
hours talking with the girl in
the week
she had
been living with him; if
he had
attempted more than an
hour with her at any
one time,
she probably would have attacked him.
It had been
ten standard
months since Vostok had last
possessed a woman—a dangerously
long period between sexual encounters, but this was not
of his
choosing. His brain capacity had been
enlarged for the seventh time
in his
life, and the necessary increase in
his body
size had made him aesthetically unacceptable to most women.
In spite
of all
the
improvements that had
been made in nerve cells
in the
last few centuries, his head was
nearly twice as large as
it had
been originally and he
was more
than 250 centimeters tall. Larina had been his only
hope. If Vostok had rejected
her and turned down this assignment,
Daniel Fuchida and the rest of
the normals
would have decided he was
ready to discard his sex glands
and join
Hamanaka and the elders. He
had retained their confidence
over these last months only
because they needed him.
A 1200-year-old
man who
kept his sex glands and used them was a
valuable ally; a 1200-year-old man who kept his
sex glands
and didn't use them was,
in their
eyes, a spy and a
traitor.
Larina was lying
naked on a couch in
the big
roof garden outside her bedroom when
Vostok approached. She watched him come down the path
with the same friendly, cheerful
smile she had greeted
him with
every time he had visited
her. She was 268
years old and she had
the complete
physical self-control most humans acquired
long before they finished their
second century. Only a man
as experienced
as Vostok could have spotted the
tension in her body.
Larina Makaze had
been a major weapon in
Victor Hamanaka's undeclared war against
the normals.
To men
in their middle hundreds, she had
been an irresistible temptation—an oval-faced, golden-bodied
invitation to rejuvenate their fading interest
in sex
by trying
the commonest
of the
perversions. For 37 standard
years, men had whipped, chained, caged and humiliated her. And when Daniel
Fuchida had finally realized Hamanaka
was using
her to
spy on normals in key power
positions, to lure them into
traps, he had the best of
his interrogators
in Security
put her
under drugs—and made her
tell them about every perverted
moment.
"Larina's last so-called
lover used to give her
laser shocks when they were having
intercourse," Daniel Fuchida
had told Vostok. "He wanted to
condition her so she'd suffer
all the way through the sex
act. Our best psychotherapists have been working on her,
but you
can't destroy the effect of
memories like that just
by putting
her in
a pleasant
environment and being kind to
her. There's only one way
we can
really decondition Larina—somebody's got to keep working
on her until she can think
about sex again without screaming.
Either that or we'll
just have to go in
and start
burning out memory cells."
Vostok dropped
his cloak
on the
ground so he would be
naked, too—and a robot
cart rolled down the path
and picked up the garment. Nothing
in his
face or manner could have told her the open
sky above
his head
frightened Vostok more than he frightened her. He'd built good defenses
around his mansion, but
he knew
he couldn't
filter out the kind of spy
devices Fuchida could field against
him. He had been vidscreened ever since he'd left
his office;
Fuchida's people were monitoring
his every
move. They might be his
allies now, for the
moment, but if he failed
this assignment, if he seemed to
hesitate too long or to
be incapable
of altering
her condition—Fuchida
would order his death. He
could not fail. And he could not wait
. .
. not
any longer.
Larina was still
smiling as he sat down
on the
couch next to her. He began
to talk,
softly, soothingly—and she listened politely, sipping her drink, while
he talked
about some of the odd things
he had
seen during the centuries he
had been
wandering the worlds. She
didn't reveal the real emotions
behind her mask until
he told
her he
had been
haunted by her face all morning
and had
decided he wished to enjoy
her now after all these days
of talk.
She must
relax, he told her. She must
trust him; he would give
her rare
pleasure—and he would not hurt her.
There would be no pain.
. .
.
Vostok eased himself
from the couch to kneel
beside her, but she cringed back,
away from him, and looked
up with
wide, suddenly terrified eyes.
Even on
his knees
he towered
over her.
He grabbed her
shoulders and quickly threw himself
across her. Her hands
pushed against the massive chest
pressing down on her
and he
overpowered her and buried his face in the hollow
of her
neck.
Nails raked his
sides. Knees beat against bis
thighs. A wild animal screamed I-hate-yous
in his
ear.
He raised his
head. He took his hands
off her
shoulders and she threw herself from
the couch
and ran
across the garden toward her bedroom.
A glass
door slid open in front
of her and she ran inside.
Loudspeakers switched on
inside Larina's apartment. Vos-tok's calm,
conversational voice followed
her everywhere
she turned.
"I'm sorry I
tried something so clumsy," he said. "I should
have told you what
the problem
is. I
think you'll want to help me
when you understand. You may
not be
able to, but I think you'll
want to. Daniel Fuchida and
a few
hundred other normals are so angry
at Hamanaka
because of what he did to
you, they're about to do
exactly what Hamanaka wants them to do. They plan to
launch an open attack on
Hamanaka right away. I've
told them they can't win,
but they won't listen to me.
They're too inexperienced to follow
my logic—and they won't
trust me because it's been
ten standard months since I've enjoyed
a woman.
Some of them are ready to
move in on me right
now. This is the last
chance I'll have. If I don't
show them I'm still sexually
active, that I am still on
their side, they'll put me
out of
the way—then
go to war with the only
competent tactical brain they've got
out of action."
He gave an
order. A cart rolled forward
with a brain-machine link resting
on the
upper deck, thin wires trailing
behind it. Vostok put
the link
on his
head.
"Plug in," he
told the girl. "I can't
simulate the entire
eco-political-military situation
on the
planet for you, but I
think I can show
you enough
of it
to convince
you that
I'm right."
A three-dimensional map of the inhabited
worlds of the galaxy floated into
his mental
mind screen and stared at
him as bleakly as a skull.
For 400
standard years, he had watched
people order bodies without
sex glands
as they
entered their late hundreds—watched
them put away the roots
of their
personality as if they
were putting away a toy.
And everywhere
open war had broken out,
the elders
had always
won. The two groups could coexist
indefinitely, but when it came
to open war, with
all the
sexless elders lined up against
all the sexual normals, the normals
would be destroyed. Elders had the wealth, position and
ruthlessness of people who had
reduced their personalities to the presexual passions
of survival
and power.
Vostok had been studying social
dynamics since he had
first become interested in politics
900 years
ago on the second planet of
82 Eridani,
and by
now he
was one
of the leading experts in the
field; no one on Shuguro
could equal the precision and subtlety
of his
numerical estimates of emotional states or
his grasp
of the
thousands of relevant factors he had
to keep
in mind
simultaneously as he
worked on a problem.
He put the
link on the cart. "I'll
make it as easy for
you as I can," he said.
"You don't have to do
a thing—just
let me work on you. There's
only one way we're ever
going to free you—we've got to
make your associations with pleasure
stronger than your associations
with pain."
She slid open
the bedroom
door, stood facing him. "What
kind of pleasure can
you give
someone who finds you totally
repulsive?" she asked bitterly.
"You're huge and ugly just
like they
are—and to
me you're
just as perverted as they
are, too. Every time I look
at you,
I see
time eating away at you.
You're barely human, Vostok!"
'Think what you
will," he said, "but this
is a
simple doctor-patient relationship. I need you because
I must
prove I am still sexually potent—and
you need
me because
I'm probably the only
person on
Shuguro who can make you
a normal woman again. And we
both want to live."
"I hate you.
/ hate you. Don't you
care? Are you just as
unfeeling as they are?"
"What difference does it make? Think
about yourself. Think about the effects
this will have on Hamanaka.
This is the only way you'll
ever hurt him. Run away
now and
someday he'll be ruling
all of
us the
way he
ruled you."
He listened with
a blank
face while she called him
the worst names in the vocabulary
of their
time. Hysterical sobs ended the tirade.
It had been
400 standard
years since he had done
anything this dangerous. He had
survived 1200 standard years of violence
and intrigue
because he had never forgotten
the basic doctrine of the Age
of the
Indefinite Life-Span: Always retreat
to a
safe place when the computers
tell you the odds you will
survive are less than 20
to 1
in your
favor. You always got a second
chance when you were going
to live
forever. There were enough
tomorrows for all the rematches
anyone could want.
Resigned, drained of
hate, she walked calmly toward
him, stopped in front of the
couch and looked down on
him. His eyes moved up the
curve of her thighs and
her hips
to her
face, and she held
out her
hand. "All right, then .
. .
take me. Show me what an
expert you are. Give me
my medicine."
He pulled her
to the
couch and knelt beside her.
He spoke
into the microphones and a dark plastic
dome slid across the garden. The smells of a
summer night on Earth surrounded
the couch. Night birds
sang. An ancient thrill touched
the pit of his stomach.
A serving cart
whispered up behind them with
its upper
deck crowded with glasses.
They drank a preparatory drug with their arms intertwined,
and he
bent over her face and
kissed her eyes.
A mask settled
over her face as he
manipulated her body with the skill
of a
craftsman who has been practicing
his trade for 12 standard centuries.
She kept
her eyes
closed, but her legs began squirming
restlessly and she now moaned
every time he touched
her thighs.
It was a
physical reaction, not an emotional
one, but a physical reaction at
this stage was all he
needed. No woman he had entered
in the
last half millennium had been
disappointed with him. Women in
their late hundreds had told
him he made sexual pleasure as
exciting as running a government
or trying
out a
new art
form.
He took a
second pair of drinks off
the cart—two
heavy glasses containing the strongest aphrodisiac
men had
developed in a thousand years
of experimentation
with sex drugs. He held Larina's
drink to her lips while
he drank
his, and then he put the
glasses on the cart and
climbed back on the couch.
He moved inside
her at
once. Her muscles pinched him
once gently and he
moved again and waited.
Waves of sensation
broke on the pleasure centers
of his
brain. Their bodies writhed
under the onslaught of sensations
that would have killed them
if these
sensations had been experienced with the
hearts, nerves and sex organs
they had been bom
with. Sight and sound disappeared
in a
white haze. Thought and
time vanished. Eyes closed, face
twisted, Vostok moved inside
her with
every cell of his body
burning. Each wave of
pleasure stimulated a stronger desire
that drove him forward
and made
him reach
for the
next wave as if he were
reaching for oxygen.
Consciousness broke through
the haze.
The expanded
intelligence that had given him
the body
of a
mythical god took control once again,
as it
always did sooner or later.
He looked down on himself from
the top
of the
dome and the old disgust rose
through the sensations racking his
body. He pushed forward and their
bodies writhed again, but it
was too late.
He felt like
a machine.
He could
have given himself the same sensations
with a wire stuck in
the pleasure
centers of his brain. He had
a certain
set of
buttons on his body, and
now the buttons were
being pushed and he was
jerking back and forth like a
robot actor and calling it
pleasure.
Quickly now,
he needed
a change
of pace—or
there was the danger he'd pull
back entirely. And he couldn't allow that to happen!
Quickly!
He picked
a third
drug off the cart and
drank it down.
They moved together
slowly, in a new rhythm.
His muscles
relaxed. His skin felt
cool and pleasant; the calming
darkness surrounded him.
The drug he'd
chosen for this stage had
two necessary
effects: It made every
sight, sound, smell, touch and
taste more intense—and it varied the
sensation in each stroke.
Vostok raised himself
to look
down at Larina's face. He
could still read tension
in her
body. She was still anticipating
the pain that, for
her, had always accompanied pleasure.
"You're fighting the
same battle I'm fighting," he told her. "You want to be a
whole human being." He moved
inside her gently, caressing her slowly
with his fingers.
Larina opened her
eyes, probed him, studied him.
He moved again and she gasped.
Pleasure broke across her face.
He chuckled and
moved again. Warm and cool,
soft and hard, moist and dry,
bright and dark played over
his body
in complicated rhythms. He
could keep this up indefinitely
if he wished. When the final
spasm ended the act, it
would be because he had decided
the moment
was right,
not because
an animal reflex had
been triggered off by physical
stimulus. He would choose the moment,
not his
body.
Centuries of memories
mingled with the sensations flowing through his senses.
The first
time he had enjoyed a
girl had been in a garden,
too—1199 standard years ago on
Earth, in the country
they had still called Poland.
It had
been summer, and he
and the
girl had been chosen for
each other by the instructor in their sex class
and prepared
for weeks beforehand. There had been
no need
for drugs.
The sensations were tamer
but the
emotions were stronger. Her breasts had been less full
than Larina's, but when they
had rolled up to meet his
lips, he had felt as
if life
itself were being offered to him.
He hadn't known
he was
going to live forever then.
A few
hundred years had been
the most
he had
dared hope for. It had been
another standard century before the
first successful brain transfer was
completed and men had realized
that death was no longer a
necessary evil. If anyone had
predicted that a 900-year-old man would eliminate the
sex drive
from his personality merely because normal sex
was too
simple and repetitious to be truly enjoyable,
Vostok would have admitted it was
a possibility,
but he
wouldn't have believed he was
going to see it happen.
As the brain
and the
personality became more complex, pleasure also had to become
more complex. Eventually it became a
compulsion that was more nuisance
than joy. For half a millennium
now, men had been trying
to keep
their interest in sex
alive by making it more
complex and varied. The sensations Vostok was experiencing now were nothing like the sensations he had
first experienced a thousand standard years ago.
Complex pictures of
the political-economic-military
situation flowed across his mind.
There was no way the
normals could win the war once
it started.
Right now there was an
uneasy balance of power,
an undeclared
war that
could go on indefinitely. Once the
normals started an open war,
however, most of the elders
would decide to support Hamanaka.
There was only one
way he
could save the situation if
he didn't stop the initial attack
on Hamanaka's
estate: set up a third force.
Diagrams, symbols and
equations moved around his brain
like pieces on a
game board. He had thought
about setting up a third force
when he had talked to
Hamanaka, but there hadn't been time
to examine
the idea
in detail.
Bribe one, threaten another, lure a
third into a trap and
surround him with robot weapons. .
. .
How many
people would it take? What kind of resources did
he need?
Suppose he began by playing on Sanna Sundeen's notorious
weakness for water pleasures. . .
.
He couldn't
work it out without a
computer, but he could make preliminary estimates. He could
outline the program; he could select
some of the lines he
should follow when he plugged in.
Larina abruptly pulled
away from him. His hands
tightened reflexively on her shoulders
and she
hunched forward under him and kneed
him in
the groin.
Pain knifed into his brain before
he could
cut it
off, and she rolled out
from under him and stood up
in front
of the
couch with her eyes blazing.
"You're deader than
Hamanaka," she screamed.
"I'd rather be whipped. At least
they paid attention to me
while they were doing it. He
turns it off and you've
got it
and don't
care about it. What difference does it make?"
Vostok crouched
on all
fours on the couch. He
was a
fool if he didn't get under
cover. If he didn't get
a brain-machine
link on his head
right away and take command
of his
defenses, Daniel Fuchida's men would
smash right in.
He raised his
hand. "I was thinking about
the best
way to
defend myself. I've been
fighting to keep something alive
for four hundred standard years and
now it's
probably doomed. I may be
doomed myself. Do you think
you could
keep your mind on pleasure?"
Hate twisted her
face. "If I had a
weapon, I'd burn your sex glands
out myself.
I don't
care who wins the stinking
war. I hope they fight until
every man on the planet
is dead.
You're dead already. You're
a corpse.
You're a cancer. You're worse than Hamanaka."
He glanced at
the brain-machine
link lying on the cart.
All the cautious attitudes
he had
developed in the centuries since he had first learned
he was
potentially immortal were screaming
at him
to forget
her and
start defending himself. In all the
centuries he had lived, he
had never
before been forced to face an
attack standing naked and unarmed
under an open sky.
Vostok threw her
on the
ground. He pinned her under
his body and she shrieked at
him and
struggled against his weight.
His hand
leaped from her shoulder to
her loins.
He pressed
the right nerve and
she gasped
as he
forced his way into her.
He drove forward as
hard as he could and
she moaned
and tried to throw herself on
her side.
Her shoulders
rocked back and forth under his
hands and he held on
and moved
again.
She stiffened. He raised his shoulders
and she
looked up at him defiantly. She had cut off
the sensations
reaching the pleasure centers of her
brain.
He shouted orders
at the
microphones. Thick, starless night engulfed the garden.
Her body shuddered.
She screamed
at him
and her
fists beat on his chest. No
human could cut off her
senses in complete darkness. And with
the drug
still working in her body, she
couldn't keep him from reaching
her by
cutting off a localized, purely sexual
sensation.
His fingers
dug into
her shoulders.
"I'm
risking my life," he yelled. "I'm risking my life. I should be manning my defenses. They
may be
attacking me right now. I'm risking
eternity so we can both
go on
being human."
He moved
again and she shuddered. Waves of drug-heightened sensual pleasure mingled with
terror and determination in a
crazy kaleidoscope of emotion and
sensation. Fear ate at
his stomach.
The leaves
of the
bush in front of his
head glowed like green
jewels. The smell of her
flesh mingled with an urgent
voice reminding him he could
still run, he could still hide
inside the mansion with a
brain-machine link on his
head and fight off anything
they could throw at him.
Her arms squeezed
his back.
She pressed
her face
against the lower half of his
chest and screamed. Her body
rolled underneath him and
he held
on, held
her down.
"I can still
feel the shocks. I can't
forget the shocks. Don't leave me alone. I can't make it if you leave
me alone."
Vostok fought back
the urge
to glance
at the
sky. The agony in her voice
stabbed at him as if
the laser
shocks were pounding through his own
body. "I won't leave you
alone again," he said.
"I've made up my mind.
I don't
care if they kill me. I
won't leave you again."
The war between
the normals
and the
elders no longer mattered. Fuchida and
Hamanaka no longer mattered. Only
the war to survive,
to remain
human—only that war mattered. And now
they were fighting it and,
finally, winning.
Her nails dug
into his back. He moved
again and she sobbed. He pressed
her against
the couch
and held
her while
she writhed.
Hate
Is a Sandpaper Ice
Cube with Polka Dots of Love on It
terry
dixon
Terrence
Eugene Dixon is an explosive young college student, presently living in
Berkeley, whose ultrarevolutionary proclivities are exhibited in his attitude
toward New Wave science fiction. Mr. Dixon's lengthy, caustic, colorful and
scholarly observations on this, his first published story, do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of your editor:
"It's
a put-on and put-down of certain undesirable elements in the New Wave, a small
band of charlatans best synthesized in the form of a composite or hypothetical
New Raver I'll call Mr. Phew (an acronym for Paranoid Harangues Emulating
Writing). Mr. Phew is a prolific purveyor of poshlost (that untranslatable Russian word defined by Nabokov as 'not only the
obviously trashy but also the falsely important, the falsely beautiful, the
falsely clever" and further described by Alfred Appel, Jr., as 'an amalgam
of pretentiousness and philistine vulgarity'). Phew saturates the
science-fiction scene by sheer quantity, self-promotion and puerile antics at
conventions. A major element in his very offensive offensive is copycatting the
style tricks of contemporary mainstream iconoclasts (running the gamut, and
the gauntlet, from Barth to Barthelme). He chews them up and regurgitates them
upon unsuspecting scienceficionados who, because they traditionally read very
little outside 'the field,' greet his hand-me-down motley as new and daring
gear. The hallmarks of Phew's work are noise, petulance, thyrotoxic hysteria,
current slang cliches, secondhand 'revolutionary' ideas (safely popular),
typographical gewgaws stuck on like junk jewelry, a predilection for pseudo
poetry, an addiction to what Joanna Russ calls the 'falsely profound,' a
pathological obsession with violence and the sickest kind of sex. Saul Bellow
unwittingly described Phew in his latest novel, Mr. Samrnler's
Planet: 'All this confused sex-excrement-militancy,
explosiveness, abusive-ness, tooth-showing, Barbary ape howling. . . . Like the
spider
monkeys
in the trees . . . defecating into their hands, and shrieking, pelting the
explorers below. . . . Perhaps when people are so desperately impotent they
play that instrument, the personality, louder and wilder.' "
He was a
scrawny little loser with sweaty
hands and bleeding piles; so
how was
he to
know he had been diddled
by Destiny? When your name is
Nostril and you were left
in a
garbage can by your
slut mother at the age
of two
weeks, you just naturally figure it's
unlikely you're slated to be
bigger than Buddha, jazzier than
Jesus, groovier than Gilgamesh, zingier than Zoroaster.
But Nostril had been
Chosen to
be Allmen
for Alltime.
For
thus moveth the Big Bowel in the Sky, baby, and no man knoweth the true j er kings of the Master Baiter.
And so it
was that
Nostril, on a day like
any other
day, threw back the yellowed bed
sheets of his sour-smelling sack and—mirabile
dictu!—arose.
•3S0JB SI 9SOIB SI SSOiy
Arose to glumly
greet another grimy day. But
this was not an ordinary day,
despite anything said to the
contrary a couple of paragraphs ago.
Contradicted
myself, you say? Man, when I rap, I rap my way—because I'm a cat who CAN'T and WON'T be
fenced in by the silly rigid hang-ups of the bitching ESTABLISHMENT! No
smart-ass professor is gonna tell ME what's right!! I make my OWN images. It's
MY bag, baby, I'm doing MY thing—if I wanna say I kissed the chick on the
pain-pricked checkerboard of her soul, then I SAY it! GO, MAN, GO! If I wanna
say hate is a sandpaper ice cube with polka dots of love on it . . . then, WAIL, baby, WAIL!
So this
Nostril (you remember him) stepped
into a very funky Thursday, to
meet . . .
[Her was
Her's name, all the name
Her ever
had or
ever knew or ever needed. In
a shimmer
of warplight,
Her had
appeared in Nostril's squalid
room, bringing with Her a
wafting of ultimate incenses
and much
Meaningfulness and a crashing
of symbols.]
"Hi, Her,"
said Nostril, since it was
Given unto him that he should
know Her's name, although he
had never
heard it spoken in This World.
(For there
are Worlds
within Times within Substances, and all of these are
grooving in the crash pad
of God's
Great Armpit. Do I
gotta tell you everything???)
Her had
come, in all Her's radiant
girlgold, from Vast-nesses that lie
beyond the black Deepnesses of farthest Space-time and infinite Energymass, defying laws older than
tomorrow, to keep a rendezvous
with He, whom we have
known as Nostril.
% O greasy brown immensities %
% of AU-That-Was and All-That-Is
% and All-Dark-Dreams-Now-Twitching-%
% in-the-Testicles-of-Time! O frightened
%
% naked Now, spread-eagled on the
%
% torture rack of Then, too soon to
%
% be dismembered by the
grinning %
% ghouls of Whyl O
gangrene-%
% green Reflection of an
Echo %
% of a Shadow of a Fear born
%
% hairy as a spider from
%
% the oddly tintinnabulating
%
% Crotch of Mother Death!
And
when. Her spoke, it was the Music of the
T'Verily," said the pulsating Presence, "I
have kept myself virgin all these
vortexing eons, awaiting that Moment
when the continuum would turn in
upon itself, eating its own
tail like unto the salamander, Eternity and Infinity soixante-neufing each other like unto shameless Pisces
of the
zodiac, our parallel Paths finally intersecting
as 'twas
foretold and written in the Sacred
Graffiti on the wall above
the urinal
in that Mighty Comfort
Station of the Stars!"
Her had begun
to slip
out of
the twmkling
fire that was Her's only garment,
revealing roundnesses and warmnesses and softnesses beyond compare.
Nostril could only
mutter, "Wow," through
rotted black stumps of teeth. Then,
with a cackle of long-unslaked
DESIRE, he felt
himself visited by hardnesses and stiffnesses and longnesses. Breathing heavily, he moved
toward Her. . . .
yWait!"
cried Her.
"We are of Different Worlds!
Can we
defy galactic bigotry and
commit the act of Monumental
Miscegenation?"
"Well, live
and let
live, I always say," snickered Nostril. T'O brave He!"
So saying,
Her opened
all Her
several nakednesses to He.
. .
.
And so the
Deed was Done, for in
a blinding
flash that proved too true the
thing that some have called
The Big-Bang
Theory Of Creation, they cleaved
together, merged and melded by Forces
far beyond
their understanding, quite unaware
that He was Matter and
Her was
Antimatter. . . .
And when their
perilous and proscribed substances twined and twained in the
gritty gasp of Love—at that
moment— everything, but everything
—for when
Matter and Antimatter are brought
into contact, they annihilate
one another
in a
burst of Energy! And a
pair of Happenings Happened:
All Things
Known ceased to be.
All Things
Unknown were created.
The Universe died
in shrieking,
bleeding childbirth, spawning another Universe.
But there
is a
thing we will never know.
AnditistEfjte:
Was it our Universe that died?
Or is
ours the one that was born?
(3m.11 UM thorny lute cf SUeneetl
Out there
in the
Somewhen, just around the corner
from the Nevernow, echoing forever in
the darknesses
and coldnesses
and nothingnesses
like a cosmic Breaking of
Wind, is the welded Voice of
He/Her, screaming the Question that
will never be Asked
and the
Answer that will never find
its Question.
Walter
Perkins Is Here!
raymond
e. banks
Ray
Banks refers to himself as "den mother for 13,000 engineers."
Translation: He's an executive secretary in a large West Coast electronics firm
and is the publisher of an electronics magazine. He is also the author of two
hard-boiled mystery novels—limning the adventures of private op Sam King—and
some three dozen bright science-fiction stories published over the last 17
years. Ray's work has appeared in If, Galaxy and The Magazine of Fantasy
and Science
Fiction, and he's been anthologized in several
"Best' anthologies. When, as editor, I read the first page of this
submission, I thought, "Oh-oh—Ray's into one of the hoariest ideas in
sci-fi: Hero refuses to conform to life by computer." Then, as I kept
reading, I relearned an old rule: The extraordinary is often achieved by
freshly utilizing the ordinary.
So grab hold of a
cliche—and let Walter Perkins take you for a very fresh, straightforwardly
insane ride into tomorrow. This one's a surreal delight.
"But you
must belong to
a computer,"
said my father. "Everybody does. Our family has
been associated with Computer West for three generations."
"Even the president
of the
United States belongs to a
computer," said my uncle.
He burped
and frowned.
"Of course,
if he
wants to belong to Computer
East----------------------- "
started my
mother.
"Pure snobbery!"
cried my father.
My younger sister,
Enid, who had just completed
college, raised a graceful
hand. "I see his point.
Lots of the girls at
school are transferring to Computer South. It's
the latest
thing."
"My great-grandfather
did not
belong to a computer," I said. There was a
stunned silence. I got up
and left
the house. It was a sunny
late afternoon in Los Angeles.
A man
walked by me,
concentrating on the computer button
in his
ear. No doubt a
self-correction walk. Farther
along the sidewalk, a young
couple murmured soft words to
each other. From data fed to
its sensory
components, the computer would read heartbeat,
perspiration, electrical resistance over the skin
areas and decide for them
when their passion should reach an appropriate peak. The
computer had handled a billion such
romances and would handle a
billion more. Actually, there are about
400 million
people west of the Mississippi, and they posed no
problem to Computer West, located in Phoenix, Arizona.
My school
had been
chosen by Computer West. It
had helped me in my tough
courses. It had suggested several
types of jobs and
located one for me (as
an accountant)
with a medium-sized Los Angeles firm,
and it
periodically took care of
my problems
with office politics, office raises
and, in one case,
an office
romance.
It had faithfully
stood by my side through
three romances which had not resulted
in marriage,
and yet
Computer West had not despaired, even though I was
now 30
years old, not in love, out
of sorts
with my job and going
through a period of revolt.
Computer West
handled about two million revolts
a year
and it was most understanding. Since the student uprising
100 years ago, Computer
West and its sister numbers
in the
East and the South
had been
quite careful not to represent
an establishment point of
view. Computer West seemed to
like
the challenge
of revolt.
My computer connection
was in
my pocket.
I took
it out
and hung it on
my ear
in a
gesture familiar since childhood. There was that same warm
mother-father feeling about the slight weight of the bug
at the
right ear. In a complicated,
vexing modern world where
very many people had to
live close, to one another, Computer
West was needed to keep
lives straight, simple, honest
and satisfactory.
It did
a good
job.
So why
was I
revolting?
Henry was
the only
man in
Los Angeles
I knew
who didn't use the computer. He
ran a
blacksmith shop in Santa Monica a little ways out
on the
ocean; so I took a
flying circle out there.
Henry had
just finished shoeing a tall,
beautiful mare, which stood there twitching
and flicking
her flanks
against flies or sand fleas, I
couldn't tell which.
"Horses are fairly
stupid," said Henry, "but this
gal's smarter than most. She belongs
to the
Ford Livery Stable Franchise
Line." He gave her a
pat on
the rump
and she
dutifully trotted down into
her floating
circle, which would carry her back
to her
stable on the mainland and
a generous
portion of hay, after
which she could join the
plodding evening traffic of
the other
million horses in L.A. Since
the abolition of surface cars, horses
had become
as important
as they had been in the
early West.
"I still don't
like the smell," I said.
I noticed
that Henry's computer bug lay next
to his
box of
horseshoe nails on the counter. "How come you don't
wear it?"
Henry rubbed his
dark hands on his leather
blacksmith apron, sat down
with a sigh, picking up
his pipe.
"You listen to the computer for
forty years, you know most
of the
answers," said Henry.
"Old men don't have to
wear the bug so much. How
come yours is turned off?"
"I'm quitting
the computer,"
I said.
"I don't know why."
Henry puffed
quietly on his pipe.
"I just
can't turn the thing on,"
I said.
I reached
up, let
my hand drop. I felt empty,
listless. "Health?"
"Excellent. Computer checked
it out
last week." There was a silence
while Henry continued to suck
on his
pipe.
"So what
do I
do?" I asked.
Henry sighed, got
up, knocked
ashes from his pipe, took
off his leather apron.
"Let's go see Jensen," he said.
• • •
Jensen sat
behind a highly polished desk,
with a large Scotch and water
located to his right. A
beautiful nude blonde stretched lazily on
his office
sofa, toying with a dictating machine. Jensen frowned at
us. He
had the
sleek-rat look of his profession,
the Institute
for Democratic
Criminal Studies.
"Let me
guess," he said. "Some of your customers' horses have been rustled and
you want
to know
which Mafia chapter did it."
Henry shook
his head.
"This is Walter Perkins. He's
quit the computer and he doesn't
know why."
The girl jumped
up. "I
haven't worn my bug for
three days!" she said.
Jensen made
a motion
as if
to slap
her; she stepped back.
"Put on some
clothes," he told
her. "Your body half interests
me. I
can't stand to be half-interested
in a
woman."
She glared
but left
the room.
Jensen jerked his thumb.
'Tell you what!"
he said.
"We'll go up to San
Francisco. I got a friend there."
He waved
a long,
thin arm. "We'll take plenty of booze and some
women. You like to have
a teen-age
creamo for your chum,
Henry?"
Henry smiled but
shook his head. "Just a blacko, same as
usual, Jensen."
• • •
In San
Francisco we found State Senator
Wallich, a gray-haired, serious man
who lived
in the
penthouse on top of New Telegraph
Hill, the only 100-story building in the
whole Bay Area. Jensen and Henry
and I
and the
girls had picked up another couple
that Jensen knew, in San
Luis Obispo, and I had brought
along a couple I knew
in King
City. It was now after midnight,
but everybody
was walking
around and talking about my problem
with Computer West. The state senator
served some drinks and put
on some
music. His wife was a lively
dancer, and Diana, Jensen's blonde
secretary, turned out to
be a
fair singer, and we had
a pretty
good time.
I felt tired;
so I
found an empty bedroom and
went to sleep with a curious,
weightless feeling inside my head.
When I came
out for
breakfast on Tuesday morning, feeling
sheepish, a shout went up.
"HERE COMES
WALTER PERKINS!"
The party was
still going. There were a
lot of
new faces
I didn't recognize. I felt like some
bacon and eggs; so State
Senator Wallich ordered breakfast.
"There are about
a hundred
people up here," said Henry,
sliding into the breakfast
nook with his blacko girlfriend.
"They're trying to help
with your problem." He had
a long
strip of paper like
they use for petitions to
influence legislators on important issues.
Upon this paper were all
sorts of suggestions and reasons why
I could
not tune
in to
Computer West. Some of the
handwriting was shaky.
Jensen and
Diana joined us, both a
little seedy-looking from lack
of sleep.
The eggs
and bacon
sent savory smells around the room,
the coffee
was delicious,
the tablecloth
and silverware gleamed in
the morning
San Francisco
sun. I had never felt so
good, after an aching, doubt-ridden
Monday, a gray day at
work yesterday.
"Quite a few parties
going in the building," said Jensen.
"People kept asking
what all the excitement was about," said Diana, "so
we told
them, 'Walter Perkins is here!'
That seemed to cheer up the
whole building."
"Well, I am here," I said.
The senator brushed
his way
through the crowd and sat
down on an edge
of the
breakfast booth. "This thing seems
to be spreading up and down
the street
outside," he said.
By noon someone
had designed
a large banner
to hang
from the penthouse balcony:
Walter perkins is here! and the
party had spread down to
Market Street. Senator Wallich was interviewed on TV. I
thought he was going to
tell them about my problem, but
instead he merely stated that
Walter Perkins had flattered
his penthouse
with a personal visit and he could assure his
friends and followers that things
would go along much better now
that Walter Perkins was here.
I noticed that
everyone at our party had
put aside
their computer plugs; so
I didn't
say anything.
They had me go to the
window and smile and wave.
I could
see Jensen
on the telephone yelling into it,
while Diana came by from
time to time to press my
shoulder warmly and smile at
me. I
began to like her.
It was very
noisy that Tuesday night, with
what seemed like most of San
Francisco corning to my party.
Only they all couldn't fit; about
200 at
a time
crowded into the penthouse. I wore a little
sign Diana had lettered identifying
me as Walter Perkins.
At first they
put me
in a
small alcove and strangers would
come up and shake
my hand
and congratulate
me. At
first I tried to tell them
about my problem with the
computer, but Senator Wallich frowned and
shook his head. After that
I would simply smile, say, "Hello,"
and, "Glad you could come."
Around two in
the morning,
Jensen put on my sign
for a while, and then Henry wore it
for a
while, and when things got loud, Diana put on
the sign
stating she was Walter Perkins. Nobody seemed
to care.
It was
fantastic from the balcony: miles
and miles
of lights, people swaying, swinging and
dancing on the sidewalks, climbing out of apartments
to shout
up to
the party
above and the party
below. There was a sort
of benevolent
glow over the whole
city.
I had never
heard Jensen giggle, but when
we crowded
into the breakfast nook
for a
steak dinner after a long,
people-filled day, he giggled.
"They're partying in Palo Alto,
Monterey and up in
Portland," he said.
"It's gone as far south as
Santa Barbara, and it's even
reached parts of Los Angeles."
"You're on all
the TV
stations," Diana said
to me.
She was
digging into a tender
filet mignon. "There's a difference
of opinion as to what it
is all
about, but it seems most
important to people to know
that Walter Perkins has reached
San Francisco."
"The governor and
the state
officials are due here about
ten p.m.," said State Senator Wallich. "They
want you to make some sort
of public
statement. Whatever nerve you've touched—it seems to have gotten
hold of people."
"Your mother is
on the
phone," said Henry, bringing me
the extension.
"Hello, mother,"
I said,
peering at her anxious features.
"Are you all
right, Walter?" she asked. "We
thought that was you
on TV."
"What the
hell are you doing up there?" shouted my
father.
"I'm not
doing anything," I said.
My sister came
into the conversation. "Boy, you should see it down
here, Walt! Parties are breaking
out all
along the Sunset Strip and down
Wilshire Boulevard. The police are
going crazy and the
mayor is issuing hourly statements.
We hear the governor may call
out the
National Guard." Her
finishing-school accent was almost
gone. Her eyes glowed. "Old folks are waltzing around
on the
sidewalks; kids are shooting water pistols
and breaking
balloons. It's fantastic!"
"The computer will
deal with this," snapped my
father. "What have you
done up there,
Walter?"
I felt
pretty foolish, but I looked
him in
the eye.
"I've studied the situation
carefully," I said,
"from all angles. In my considered
opinion, we have reached a
watershed. ..." I didn't really
know what I was saying,
but it
sounded right.
This left
my father
speechless; so I hung up
gently. After all, they could see
I was
alive and well and about
to enjoy
a tasty filet
in the
Wallich apartment.
The governor and
his staff,
who came
in at
midnight, were quite upset with me.
"Whatever you've
started—whatever has started," said
the governor, "has got
to stop.
I've called out the Fortieth
Division--------- "
"They're having a helluva party at the armory," murmured an aide.
"Denver, Chicago and
New York,"
said the governor, "they've
all started
partying."
"You have an
invitation to come to Memphis!"
cried Jensen, coming into the
room and waving a telegram.
There was silence
as they
all looked
at me.
"You will stay
in San
Francisco," said the
governor firmly. "You will issue
a statement telling
people that this party must
end at
once."
"Can't Computer
West handle it?" I asked.
"Apparently not," said the governor. "It
will take a statement from you to end
this madness."
Again the
uneasy silence, the strained faces.
Diana looked scared; the governor and
his people
looked grim; Jensen looked hangdog. Only
State Senator Wallich seemed friendly
and unperturbed. "Senator Wallich will speak for
me," I said. I got up. "I'm tired.
I'm going
to bed."
After all, my
party had been going on
here in the Teletop Apartments for some 24 hours.
• • •
I didn't
think I could sleep, but
I did.
When I woke up, Diana was
stretched out comfortably beside me.
"What's the score?" I asked.
She smiled at
me dreamily.
"San Francisco still solid, fogged in with your party
from North Beach all the
way down the peninsula. Los Angeles
is reaching
crescendo level; all other
Coast cities solid with parties.
Even the small towns."
I yawned
and stretched
and gave
Diana a kiss on her
pink tummy. She giggled
like Jensen.
Wednesday morning was
gray outside. But the sounds
of the party through the bedroom
walls were still bright. I turned on
the TV
and the
scene was like New Year's
Eve. I judged it to be somewhere in
Nevada, probably Las Vegas.
The announcer tried
to be
serious, but he was laughing.
"Since the mysterious
Perkins statement to his father
on 'watershed,' the party
keeps growing," he said. "My
advice —if you can't lick 'em,
join 'em." He waved a
full martini glass at his audience
and winked.
I turned
off the
TV and
went back to bed.
Henry brought
us lunch
on trays.
"You can't go out," he said. "There's maybe four
or five
thousand people trying to get in
here, get a glimpse of
you. Somebody down on the
street is selling tickets
to come
up here
for twenty
dollars a shot."
"Senator Wallich's
daughter," said Diana
and made
a face.
Jensen tiptoed into
the room.
"Well, boy, you've done it!" he said. "You've made everybody happy.
They all love Walter Perkins."
"My God,
the computer
will have me shot!" I moaned.
Henry handed me
a small
slip of paper silently. It
said, "happy birthday,
Walter Perkins!" Signed,
Computer West.
"I don't
think it has circuits to
quite handle this," Henry said blankly. "You've got it
worried."
Senator Wallich entered
the room.
"You've got the U.S. solid," he said. "My people
call it rock
solid, from
Florida to Maine. All the way
across. It's hit Canada, you're
getting England, and I
think you'll have France and
the Scandinavian
countries by nightfall."
"Southern Europe?"
"Hours ago,"
said the senator.
I sighed.
"I'm wrecking civilization!"
The senator shook
his head.
"The robots and the computers
can keep
on making
food, sweeping the streets, doing
the important jobs. Best
thing to do—don't back up—go
on through. You don't want to
make a statement, do you?"
"You handle it,"
I said.
"All my life I've wanted
to really
learn how to play
bridge. I'm curious about it.
I'm staying
right here with a
deck of cards."
That's how Wednesday
ended. From time to time,
the door would open and a
head would peek into the
room.
"Senator Wallich's son
is selling
room peeks to important people for one hundred dollars
a peek,"
said Jensen when he came in
to bring
some Cokes. "It's important to
people to be able to honestly
say they
saw the
most important man of the
moment in person. You understand
that."
"Thoroughly," I said, bidding poor Diana
down to a thousand-point loss
in no-trump,
which I did not yet understand.
When the
governor and the senator finally
got me
on TV,
I couldn't think of
a good,
solid reason for the party
to end,
not one. "Computer West and all of
the machines
it controls
are doing a good
job of
running things," I pointed out.
"The automatic farms get
harvested, the food gets to
our homes,
the garbage gets collected.
Clothes get spun, houses get
built. I see no
reason why the party should
end tonight.
Maybe tomorrow, maybe Friday
or Saturday.
I will
let you
know."
"Are you ready
to go
back to Computer West?" Henry asked me.
"Not yet,"
I said.
He shrugged.
Diana took my hand. "Whatever
you decide,
Walter, will be all
right with me—and a lot of other people.
Even the computer. After
all, it could
have had
the robot
police arrest you." She giggled. "I think
it knows
who's boss."
• • •
That was
ten years
ago. The party is still
going on. I don't mean at fever pitch; nobody
could sustain a party at
fever pitch for that long. But
the good
fellowship and fun of the
original Walter Perkins party
is still
in effect.
The party
moves from house to
house and building to building.
People have gotten used to moving
from one party to another,
and they like this sort of life: You find
a party
that fits your personality and just
barge in, no questions asked.
It's that way all over the
world.
Maybe some day
the party
will stop. But now that
Diana and I have returned from
our latest
worldwide trip—where I visited 5000 Walter
Perkins parties over the past
six months—I am inclined to believe
that it will not stop. Ever.
As I sit
here in the mellow glow
of Wallich's
penthouse with Diana, enjoying
my party
(Wallich is president of the
U.S.A. right now), there
is a
pleasant babble and murmur in the
other apartments in the building.
No doors
are locked,
no face is sad.
All over
San Francisco,
the mellow
glow goes on.
The collapse
of mankind
has been
predicted. But wouldn't it be strange
if it
went on just like this?
A continuous
party until the end of time.
All I know is,
I am
Walter Perkins and I am
here.
The
Darwin Sampler
ray
russell
To
most readers, Ray Russell is the author of mainstream novels (The Colony
and The Case
Against Satan), a
dabbler in Gothic grue (Sardonicus) and—as Ted White of Amazing-Fantastic has said—"playboy's first, and perhaps best, editor." In science fiction, Russell's
output has been relatively small but of high literary quality. His best has not
always appeared in sci-fi publications, but rather in multimillion-circulation
magazines, such as the aforementioned playboy. Stories published outside the circle of genre
publications tend to be overlooked by hard-core sci-fi readers; yet Publishers' Weekly ranks him as "a science-fiction master" alongside Bradbury,
Clarke and Sheckley; his sci-fi film X received
an award from the Festival Internazionale del Film di Fanta-scienza (Trieste)
and has been included in the New York Museum of Modern Art Film Library
programs; and such stories as his Comet Wine, Sagittarius and Here Comes John
Henry rank
with the finest sci-fi and fantasy being written today.
A Russell specialty is the hypercondensed
short-short. Into these, as into white dwarf stars, tons of substance are
packed into a tiny space ("infinite riches in little room," as Christopher
Marlowe put it). The quick, deadly one-two punch of the story which follows is
uniquely Russellian.
It hung on
the apartment
wall, in an old-fashioned frame, the letters stitched on
cloth in that bless our
home way they used
to call
a sampler.
I guess
it was
supposed to be funny. What it
said, though, was perfectly straight,
the same
thing you'd find on
anybody's wall:
ADAPT OR DIE
—Darwin
The landlady
had called
us when
she couldn't
get any
response by knocking on
her tenant's
door. We broke in and
sized up the situation
at a
glance. The landlady screamed. My partner, Sergeant Fred Nagel,
told her to go on
about her business; so she left
us there.
"Too bad he
didn't pay more attention to
it," I said, nodding first
to the
sampler and then to the'stiff
on the
floor.
Fred said, 'That
damned thing gets to be
invisible after a while. You don't
really see it anymore."
"Like the pictures
of Lenin
that used to hang everywhere
in the Soviet."
"I guess. Upon
the wall
in every
home, every office, every public place . . .
but I
feel sorry for poor bastards
like this. They just can't accept,
can't adjust. . . ."
"The dinosaurs couldn't
adjust, either," I said, "and
look what happened to them."
"If he'd been
an old-timer,
I'd understand
it better.
But he
was just a young
fellow." Fred fingered the desk
calendar that was turned to December
31, 1999.
"Not much of a happy new
year for him," he said.
Outside, the sounds of celebrating had already started.
"The young ones
are the
worst," I said. "They don't remember the way
it was—they
only know the stories, and,
of course, they think of themselves
as rebels.
This kid was probably a member
of GOD,
want to bet?"
"Good Old Days?
That collection of nuts? No
bet. He probably was. But I
still feel sorry for him."
"I don't."
"You're a tough
customer," Fred said,
but I
think he was being sarcastic. "Why do they do
it?" he added, not necessarily
to me.
"Is it curiosity? A yen
to know
what it was like way back
when? Or is there a
death-wish thing mixed up in
it? What a lousy
shame. What a waste."
I asked
him if
he wanted
me to
call the coroner's boys.
'That's all right,
I'll do it," he said
and walked
over to the phone. He was
taking it hard. Fred's like
that. Sort of a bleeding heart, but not a
bad guy
to work
with.
While he made
the call,
I looked
at the
sampler again and thought about Darwin
and dinosaurs
and those
adapter injections we've all been
required to take at birth
for the
past couple of generations. Instead of
being grateful, nuts like this dead
kid resent
them, think they're evil or
sinister. Don't they know they're for
their own good? Don't they
realize the
The
Darwin Sampler 121
shots just give
the adaptive
process a helping hand? It's
something that would have happened
naturally, anyway, in time. But time
was the
one thing
we didn't
have. Things had snowballed and there was no
other way out of the
mess. No, I didn't feel sorry
for that
kind of malcontent. . .
.
Fred was finishing
up his
phone call to the coroner's
office: "Yeah, we'll stick around,
but try
to hurry
it up.
I'd prefer to spend New Year's
Eve with
my wife."
He hung up.
Then he bent over and
took the inhalation mask and tank
from the dead sniffer's body.
He shook
his head sadly, looking like a
big St.
Bernard. "Pure oxygen,"
he said. "Might just as well
have put a bullet through
his brain.
Hard to believe we
actually used to breathe this
stuff. Open a window, will you?
Let's get some air in
here."
I did and
took a big, deep lungful.
It was
thick as minestrone—rich in the
pollutants on which we had
made ourselves thrive. A drunk
down on the street looked
up at
me and yelled, "Happy new year!"
I corrected
him. "Happy new century, you
mean."
ron
gou-lart |
The Whole Round World
When
Ron Goulart mailed in The Whole Round
World, he stated, "This one is a complete short
novel and more or less ties in with my other two future-revolutionary novels, After Things Fall
Apart and The Gadget Man. It takes place during the last days of the
century, a couple of years before the U.S. collapses."
Goulart, with wife, children and a rented
horse, lives amid the winding roads and red barns of Connecticut. He has published
five books and lists "seven more sold and in progress," including a
history of the pulps, two collections of his wacky short stories and at least
three more novels. His work is highly individualistic, as sharply stylized as
the prose of a Bradbury or a Hemingway. Avram Davidson has said of him,
"Like a totally sane Jonathan Swift, Ron Goulart kills more cliches and
pretensions than Carter has pills; and no
facet of our right, left or center, way in or far out, sexual, political,
ethnical . . . escapes the mordant skillfulness of his magical and deadly
camera."
And who can top that?
The robot
looked at his watch again.
"Well, yes or no?"
Tim McCarey's boss
was facing
the Pacific
Ocean, a plyo-wrapped vegeburger on his lap. "Let's
see more
of the
Hunneker test film," he said, starting to
work the sandwich out of its
blue-tinted wrapper.
"This will be
for the
interim season on CBS," said the robot. "I should
get on
the vidphone
today and confirm the pending availability of the show,
Harvey."
Harvey Dirks was
a dark,
sizable man of just over
40. He
continued unraveling the sandwich.
"A sixty-two-year-old jungleman ...
I don't
know. Tim, push monitor six
on."
Tim McCarey left
his tin
butterfly chair beside the view
windows and crossed toward
his boss's
boomerang-shaped
121
desk. "The
Hunneker reel is on monitor
five," he said. He was a
lean young man, nearing 30,
with short-cropped sandy hair.
Dirks said, "Leave
the technical
end of
things here at Conglobe Facilities to me and this
mechanical prick."
"You don't like
me because
I'm Japanese,"
said the robot, who was copper-plated
and tank-shaped.
Tim pushed the
six button
on the
wall panel behind his boss's desk.
The sixth
tray-sized television screen in the
wall bank of a
dozen popped on and
a man
in a
gray herringbone jump suit
appeared. He had his
left pant leg rolled up
to the
knee and
was whacking at his
metal leg with a silver-headed
hammer.
"I didn't get this
fake leg sitting around on
a guaranteed
income. No, it was
down in the fetid and
noisome jungles of
Brazil back in 1984,
friends. A band of leftist
sons of bitches
shot my real leg
off from
ambush while we were down
there
defending the swell junta
of liberal
and agrarian-reform-
minded generals against a
maddened rabble of sloganeering
lefties. Now, friends, if
you watch
my news
marathon daily,
around the clock, as
I know
ten million
of you
in the
Greater
Los Angeles area sincerely
do, then
perhaps you've heard
this little leg yarn
before. No matter, it bears
repeating.
Friends, when I trudged
into those repulsive and putrid
jungles of Brazil, I
was known
as Major
General Harold
Mintosh. But I came
out of
there Peg Leg Mintosh. And
Peg Leg Mintosh I'm
going to stay until every
no-good,
low-down, smellful, socioeconomically cockeyed, mother-
humping------- "
"Push monitor seven,"
suggested Dirks. He had the
vege-burger free of its wrapping
and was
looking under the top slice of
soy bread.
Tim pushed
seven.
"Come on, try
it this
way," said the naked blonde.
"No, I mean, don't take your boots off
at all,
Ranch."
"She-it, Marcy, let
me leastwise
take my spurs off. Else
I'll slash up that
there bed canopy. That's real
antique rayon, ain't it,
now?"
"Harvey'U pay for it,"
said the blonde. "Come on, try it my way,
Ranch. Now what's the matter?"
"Well, I can't
rightly seem to get the
old whacker
up, Marcy. Standing on my head
like this and with my
boots on and all."
"Maybe you're right,
Tim," said Dirks. "Try five."
"Wasn't that," asked the robot, "your sweetheart,
Harvey?"
Dirks took a
bite of his sandwich. "Yes,
that's Marcy. She's got a lot
of spunk.
She knows
damn well I've got our
suite bugged." He frowned
at Tim.
"Is that cowboy the cowboy
we're thinking about using
in one
of our
Saturday-morning kid shows?"
"I'm not sure,"
said Tim. "I never saw
him upside down and naked before."
"Ranch Keene, that's
him," said Dirks. "I don't
know if we want the six-year-olds
of the
entire country to watch a
show starring a guy who screws
upside down with his boots
on."
Tim shrugged. "It's
not the
whole country, Harvey. Only the West
Coast."
"Maybe," said Dirks. On the fifth
screen, a giant gray-haired man dived
out of
a palm
tree and toward an alligator-infested
stream. "He still looks old
to me.
I don't
know . . . an ape-man
with gray hair."
The robot said,
"We didn't find him until
day before
yesterday. This is only
a very
rough screen test you're seeing."
"Why's he sinking
under the water?"
"They told
him to
hold in his stomach," explained the talent-agency
robot. "He's not used to
that and it affects his
breathing when he swims."
"What's that alligator
doing to him?"
"We stuck
a little
rug on
Hunneker—a small hairpiece to cover the
scars—and the alligators liked the
taste of the glue."
"What kind
of jungle
thrills do you call that?
An alligator
eating this prick's wig."
Dirks slapped the unfinished sandwich on his desk
and grabbed
up a hard-boiled egg. "You sure the survey computers
aren't going goofy? You know,
everybody goes goofy in
this town sooner or later.
Marcy used to be a convent
girl and now she's screwing
cowboys upside down."
The robot's
chest swung open and a
sheaf of fax copies flipped out. Tim caught them
as the
machine explained, "Has Conglobe
Facilities ever put together a television-show package that
didn't get a place among
the top
shows in any one season segment?
Have we?"
"The Hardware Hour," said Tim,
leafing through the charts and maps.
'That was one
incident out of a hundred,"
said the robot. "I grant you,
there was a case where
a computer
had an
exaggerated ego and kept
suggesting shows built around nuts and bolts. He's long
since been replaced."
Dirks pointed at
the screen,
which now showed a stretch
of unrippled jungle stream.
"Where'd Hunneker go?"
"This is the
part where he got a
cramp. They'll be fishing him out in a second."
"Where'd you say
the old
prick was living when they
finally located him?"
"Well, after our
show-projecting and audience-anticipation
computers determined that the public,
mingling nostalgia and a burgeoning
new interest
in the
still-emerging nations of Africa,
wanted a Hunneker jungleman sort
of show, our talent operatives got on the job,"
said the robot. "Hunneker
hasn't made an ape-man film or TV show
since 1979. His last known agent
was a
time-share computer in a real-estate office down near Laguna Beach. Eventually we tracked him down in a
ghetto up in Oakland."
"You mentioned
he's got some scars," said Tim.
"Yes, he's
been trying to earn a
living as a free-lance exhibition swimmer," said the robot. "Usually
he'd simply crash a swimming event
and dive
for pennies.
Naturally, he had to move fast,
and now
and then
he'd slip and crack his
head on the tiles."
"I don't know,"
said Dirks. "Audiences still want
him, huh?"
"According to
the audience-anticipation
machines," said Tim, who
was studying
the robot's
report.
Dirks said, "I suppose our
cosmetic-surgery department could do something with him."
"Yes," said
the robot,
"once he's cured."
"Cured of
what?"
"He's become
a headache-capsule
addict," said the robot. "Also, he's hooked on vitamin-enriched
toothpaste."
"His teeth
don't look all that good,"
said Dirks.
"He doesn't use
it—he eats the stuff," said the copper-plated robot. "Those aren't his
teeth, anyway."
"A toothless,
fat, overage, junkie ape-man," said Dirks. "Jesus,
back in the Seventies I could still operate on hunches. If this
was then,
my hunch
would be, forget it."
The robot's
chest flicked open once more.
"No more reports,"
said Dirks. 'Tim, turn that
Hunneker off."
Tim blacked
the screen.
"Want to package the show?"
"I don't know."
Dirks finished his egg, then
asked the robot, "What can you
promise?"
"Audience Anticipation predicts—and this was double-checked
by two
of our
live sociologists—that a Hunneker ape-man show will reach eighth
place within its first two
weeks on the network
web and
then make it up to
three before leveling off. The show
should be good for at
least three season segments and ought
to gross
Conglobe"—the robot reached into
his side
and unfurled
a streamer of adding-machine tape—"four million, six hundred thousand
dollars."
Dirks said,
"OK, we'll do it."
The robot said,
"Now, our only other problem
is a jungle."
"Which jungle?" "That's the problem."
Tim sat back
down in the tin chair
and looked
out at
the ocean and the single white
gull skimming toward the
horizon. "How come we can't
use the
jungle where the demonstration film was shot?"
The robot replied,
"That was the Wheelan lot
It burned
down."
"Burned down?"
said Dirks. "Since yesterday?"
"Some black militants,"
explained the robot, "still don't like jungleman shows."
"I thought
the public
wanted Hunneker."
"A significant
portion—not all."
"And some
spades burned down the Wheelan
lot?"
"All the jungle,
part of Dodge City and
the left
side of the Great Pyramid."
"How'd those
pricks know Hunneker was there?"
"They saw him swinging through
the trees,"
replied the robot.
"The Wheelan
lot has
low walls,"
said Tim.
"OK, we better
put a
security team to watching Hun-necker,"
said Tim's boss. "Now, what other jungles are
available?"
"Well," said
the robot,
"there is an acre of
jungle over at.
the McNamara-International studios. Except
it's developed some kind of blight."
"Jesus, a fat
ape-man swinging from a sick
tree. I suppose we can't afford
to fly
this fat-ass Hunneker to Africa?"
"Not and
gross five million," said Tim.
Dirks asked,
"How about India, then?"
The robot blinked.
"There isn't any India anymore.
Didn't you know?"
"Since when?"
Tim said, "The
Chinese blew up India last
winter, Harvey, testing some
new missiles."
"No kidding!" Dirks rubbed his left
cheek. "I don't have time to
keep up with events anymore.
Where does this leave us so
far as
jungles are concerned?"
"We're running
a computer
trace now," put in the
robot.
Tim's head tilted
up as
the gull
far over
the ocean
glided up and out of sight.
"Isn't there," he said, "an
old Hunneker
movie location down the
coast someplace?"
"You're right," said Dirks. 'The Belgraf
estate. Yes, old Vincent Belgraf has
several hundred acres inland from
the beach, around San Amaro. The
old prick's
hobby is jungle flora and fauna.
His whole
spread is transplanted jungle." He picked up a mock-carrot
stick. "There could be something
wrong there, though, Tim. Old
Belgraf has refused to rent it
for years—not
since 1984 or thereabouts. Go down there, anyway."
"Me?"
"Yes," his boss
told him. "Get one of
my secretaries
to fix
you up with an appointment with Belgraf. Today, if
possible. This calls for in-person
handling, and you're the most
affable assistant I've got
right now. When do we
have to start production?"
The robot
replied, "Next Wednesday, at the
latest."
"So you've got
less than a week to
sign up that jungle for
Conglobe, Tim."
"How much
can I
offer Belgraf?"
The robot reached
beneath himself and tugged some
papers out. "Wait a sec.
Yes, here. A thousand per
week is the top figure we
can afford."
"Go as high
as two
thousand," Dirks said.
"And he'll have to throw in
other concessions. We'll need to
tie in
on his power lines, and so
on. Take
a car
when you go down there, Tim. As I recall,
old Belgraf
doesn't like aircraft."
"Wasn't his
nephew, Clement Belgraf, a stock-plane
racer?" Tim got up
again.
"Don't ask me.
I don't
keep up with sports, either.
You can get there by land
car in
three hours if you hook
on to
the slot highway at
Santa Monica. Oh, before."
"What?"
"Punch on that
monitor seven again."
"OK." Tim did and
turned for the door. "Jesus," said Dirks,
"she's finished with the cowboy
and now it's that guy with
the puppets."
Tim left.
The mechanized
highway unhooked Tim's land car
and snapped him onto an off
ramp leading inland. A soft
late-aftemoon fog was spilling up
from the ocean and drifting
across the scrubby countryside.
Tim took
over control of. his electric car and headed for
the bypass
road that he could use for
the last
ten miles
to San
Amaro.
He was
one block
into the outskirts of a
low stucco-and-tile
town named Cadella when the
street blew up about 300 feet
in front
of him.
His car seemed
to slap
the road
and swing
out of
his grip,
zigzagging for the curb.
Tim caught
back control just short of the
sidewalk and swung into a
space. Motorcycle parts and tatters of
cloth were spattering down out
of the
fog. A lead-tipped nightstick
thwacked against his front window.
Tim eased across
the front
seat and ducked out on
the sidewalk side. "What's wrong?" he asked toward the
three scattered pedestrians.
A black man
in a
purple jump suit said, "It's
only those kids again."
"Which kids?"
"One of those
anarchist groups," replied the Negro.
"They're blowing up policemen
again. Look out!"
A plastic elbow
dropped out of the fog
and hit
Tim on
the top of his
head. "Android cops?"
"Usually."
A pale fat
man in
a dark
two-piece suit was wiping at
his perspiring face with
a stiff
white napkin. "Anybody care for
a cup of coffee? After an
incident of terrorism, lots of
people like to relax
with a hot cup." He nodded at Tim,
then at the narrow
whitewashed building at his wide
back. "My place."
Antique tubes
of neon
spelled out academy of motion picture
arts & sciences all-night coffee shop. Tim
was early for his seven-in-the-evening appointment at the Belgraf estate. "OK," he said. There
were no more explosions, and he followed the fat
man inside.
"Young people nowadays
have more spunk," said the
heavy proprietor. "When I was young—and I'm
only thirty-eight now, but no
longer a youth, as I'm
the first
to admit—
we wouldn't have dreamed
of blowing
up law
officers."
"Oh, so?"
"Once in a
great while, we might take
a live
cop's gun away from him and
shoot at him with it,"
admitted the fat man.
There were six
tables and a counter in
the place.
At each
checkered table sat motion-picture
celebrities of the past. "Androids?" asked Tim.
"Don't I wish
they weren't," said the fat
owner. "I run this place
on a
franchise from the Motion Picture
Academy, but I happen to be
a real
movie buff on top of
it. This
little place here is more than
a coffee
shop, it's a shrine. You
probably didn't expect to
find a shrine in a
crumbum town like this, but here
we are."
"I'll sit
at the
counter."
"You can sit
with the androids and it
doesn't cost anything extra," said the fat man.
"You might like the cowboy
table, for instance. It
contains William S. Hart, Gene
Autry, Tim McCoy, John Wayne and
Ranch Keene."
Tim said, "The
last time I saw him,
he was
standing on his head."
"Really? I don't
go to
many movies nowadays. I only
took Ranch Keene, if
you want
the honest
truth, to try to lure the
youth market in. No such
luck. They're too busy blowing up cops."
Tim chose
the table
with comedian androids. "Coffee."
"Want to
see a
menu?"
"No, coffee'll
be enough."
"How about some
stills from famous films of
yesteryear?" The fat man
reached under his coat. "I
have a whole bin of
them out back. Here's
a classic
scene. Remember the great moment in If I Were King where Ronald
Coleman bends
over to
buckle his shoe?"
"No."
"There it is."
He left
the glossy
photo with Tim and moved into
the kitchen.
Tim recognized three out of the
four androids at his table: Buster Keaton, Harry Langdon
and Oliver
Hardy. The fourth, a thin, freckled
young man in a canvas
suit, puzzled him.
"I'm a living
person," said the young man
after a moment. Tim asked, "You
work here?"
"No, I simply
fled in here in much
the same
manner as yourself, only a bit
earlier, when those Pallbearers started carrying on."
"Pallbearers?"
"A local
leftist white destructionist group. In
most quarters they are as yet
unknown. My name is Audie
Sayers." "Tim McCarey."
Sayers licked his
thin lips. "Would you be
heading farther inland?"
"As far
as San
Amaro."
Sayers looked
quickly around. "Ah,"
he said.
At the cowboy
table, the William S. Hart
android stood up, wobbling, and slapped
his sombrero
against his chaps. "The grandeur of
it all."
John Wayne
rose up and punched him.
'They're badly
kept up," said Sayers.
"You from
around here?"
"No, Altadena. I
know all sorts of things,
though," replied the freckled young
man. "Intelligence work
is sort
of a hobby with me. My
mother gave me a toy
parabolic mike when I was nine
and I've
been at it ever since."
"Know anything
about the Belgraf estate?"
"My, don't
tell me you're a recruit,
too?"
"I'm not.
Recruit in what?"
"I've already
spoken too much."
Oliver Hardy tugged
at his
tie. "Another fine mess," he remarked and tipped over.
He landed
with his derbied head in Sayers's
lap.
"What a shabby
world we've made for ourselves,"
said Sayers, sighing. "Mad young anarchists
and defective
androids and little love anywhere.
Well, with Clement Belgraf there is hope."
"Vincent Belgraf
s nephew,
the sports-plane
flyer?"
"Clement Belgraf
is no
longer that," said Sayers. "He's
quite a bit more
now. I'm afraid I've talked
much too much. If there's one
thing intelligence work teaches, it's
that too much talking can be
dangerous." He uprighted
Oliver Hardy. "All I'll say beyond
what I've blurted out is
that I've made up my mind
to join
up."
Tim nodded. "What
exactly is going on at
the Belgraf
estate?"
"My hps are
sealed," said Sayers. "And why
are you
bound there, McCarey?"
"A business deal.
I have an
appointment with Vincent Belgraf."
"Business?"
"Show business,"
answered Tim.
The fat owner
said, "Did I hear you
correctly?" He set
down two cups of
coffee and a soy éclair.
"You didn't mention you were
in show
business."
"I sometimes
don't."
The proprietor
lifted Harry Langdon out of
his chair
and took his place. "We don't
get much
of the
show-business crowd here anymore;
so this
is an
especially rare treat for me."
"Another fine
mess," said Oliver Hardy, falling
over.
The television
set in
the back
seat was saying, "Now, friends, there's no one can
pretend that Peg Leg Mintosh
is unfair. No, I see to
it that
on my
twenty-four-hour news marathon you get a chance
to listen
to every
kind of opinion there is. Some
of you
write in to me and
ask, 'Peg Leg, how come you
let those
wild-eyed, web-footed, radical bums on
the same show with
you?' Friends, the lowest of
wild-eyed, web-footed, radical bums
has his
right to free speech. Isn't
that what this America
business is all about? Friends,
that's why we fought in the
nauseant jungles of Brazil."
Tim asked,
"Did he just bang his
leg with
a hammer?"
Sayers, who was
in the
rear seat of the land
car, said, "No."
"Must be
the engine,
then."
"This buggy is
in a
lot better
shape than my poor car,"
said the freckled young
man. "What an ordeal. I'm
certainly glad I had
that chance meeting with you.
Imagine coming out of that nostalgic
cafe and finding the torso
of an
android cop imbedded in my engine.
And his
brass buttons had pocked the trunk
and rear
window. These radical kids." He sighed. "You're
very kind to give me
a lift."
"I'm heading there;
so it's
no trouble,"
said Tim. "They told me to
report to gate E. Is
there a fence around the Belgraf place?"
"Are you
sure you're not a spy?"
"You've been a
counterspy since childhood—can't you tell?"
"You seem too
flippant to be a secret
agent. Spies tend to be dour
fellows, sobersided."
Peg Leg Mintosh
was saying,
"You folks in the audience
can boo and catcall
at our
guests, but don't fire guns.
You'll have to turn in all
your handguns to the ushers
right away and put your rifles
down under your seats. And
you there,
you sweet-faced little granny,
you're not kidding me with
that fake purse. Give
it to
the usher.
OK. So,
friends, here's our next guest on
the news—Josh
Mambert, a colored boy who has
quite a following among lefties.
His latest
book is titled Screw You, White Folks! and it's doing very well on
the best-seller charts despite
its web-footed,
punk point of view. Good evening,
Josh."
"Hello, you
crippled mother jumper."
"Now, let's see,
Josh, are you ready to
answer some of the questions we
solicited from our studio audience?"
"Ask away,
shithead."
"First, where do
you get
your ideas? And do you
have a regular work schedule?"
Sayers clicked
the set
off. "Clement Belgraf is right."
"About what?" They were climbing uphill
now and
the fog was thinning some.
"Militants on the
left," sighed Sayers. 'Too much
talk and not enough action. Not
much exercise, either. We're nearly there."
The road was
narrow and made clattering sounds beneath the car. Black
oaks and thick willows grew
on all
sides. Suddenly, a male
peacock stepped into their path.
Tim swerved the machine and the
peacock went fluttering back in among
the trees.
"One of Belgraf s."
"You'll notice, if
you get
the chance,
that there's a great difference between the old man
and Clement
Belgraf. Old Vincent is of an
era where
the material
object was still pursued."
"Is it materialistic
to own
a peacock?"
"There it is," exhaled
Sayers, "up at the crest
of the
incline."
"That blank wall,
you mean."
"It keeps the
curious back. That's the Belgraf
estate."
Tim pulled off
the road
and parked
under a willow tree. The ten-foot-high
brick wall stretched for a
good quarter mile. "There
was a
gate a few yards back,"
Tim said,
getting out of the car.
Catching up his
canvas suitcase, Sayers followed Tim
to the solid wood gate. "Here
at last."
There was a
large E whitewashed on the gate. No knocker or bell showed. "Well,"
said Tim.
"We'll have to
find gate J. That's the
recruit gate."
A flashlight came on above them
and shone
on Tim
and then swung over to Sayers.
Sitting on top
of the
wall was a heavyset man
in white
flannels and a loose
sweater. His legs were dangling
and swinging slightly. "Tourist
season ended many years ago,
folks," he said, tilting
his rifle
to point
at them.
"Isn't there broken
glass on top of that
wall?" Tim asked.
"Not if you
know where to sit" "I'm a recruit," said Sayers.
"That makes a
difference. Get on down to
gate J. Recruits we always let
in." He turned the gun
and the
light on Tim. "How about you?"
"Where do I
sign up?"
"Follow your buddy
down to gate J."
Once Tim got
inside on the estate grounds,
he could
explain. Right now, pretending to be a recruit
was easier
than getting shot
Gate J opened onto
a long
arbored-over path that led to
what looked like a
large enclosed band pavilion. The
guard at gate J wore khaki
Bermuda shorts and a blue
Wind-breaker.
"I suppose
they don't wear uniforms where
the public
might see them," said Sayers.
"You were expecting
uniforms?" Tim said.
Beyond the laths of the arbor
there was, sure enough, a
jungle thick and shadowy.
"You're not
sympathetic," said Sayers.
"In my gratitude for getting directly
here, I may have spoken
out of
turn."
"Will Clement
Belgraf meet us in the
pavilion there?"
"Certainly not. We'll
no doubt
be taken
charge of by one of his
assistants."
The doors of
the pavilion
were open. Up where a
gas chandelier had once
hung, someone had strung a
line of Christmas-tree bulbs.
These provided the room's only
light.
On the bandstand
there was a card table,
and sitting
behind it was a
small middle-aged man in a
flannel bathrobe.
"Why, that's Colonel
Granger," whispered Sayers
as they
entered.
"Out of
uniform, too."
The colonel stood
up. "Men,
welcome aboard. On behalf of our
commander, I welcome you." He cleared his throat
and motioned them forward.
"As a result of some
good-natured horseplay in the officer's
mess, I cannot greet you
in my usual attire."
Tim was trying
to place
the colonel.
"Aren't you Joe Granger, the character
actor?"
"I might be.
We'll cover that in a
future lecture. Now, then, men, I
think we'll all admit that
there's no use going over our aims and goals,
since they are by now
well known to us. It is
enough to say, Keep 'em
flying."
"Sir," said
Sayers.
"Yes, recruit?"
"Mr. McCarey here
isn't actually a recruit. He's
really here to see Mr. Vincent
Belgraf and is only in
this room because none of the
other gates were open."
'This true,
McCarey?"
"I'm from
Conglobe Facilities in L.A."
"Oh, Conglobe?" said the colonel. "Well,
now that
you're here, wouldn't you care to
be sworn
in? Seems
wasteful to run through the whole
ceremony for one recruit."
"I've come all
the way
from Altadena," said Sayers, hold^
ing up his suitcase.
"We'll do it,"
said Colonel Granger. "I was
hoping for a bigger audience."
"If you can
tell me how to get
to the
main house," said Tim, "I'lrget on with my job."
The colonel looked
at his
watch. "No, not tonight. It's
already twilight, much too
late. You'd have to cross
quite a stretch of jungle to
get there.
It's too late."
"Just past
seven."
"After dusk,
no one
is allowed
to roam
about." The colonel retied the cord
on his
robe and looked at Sayers.
Then he said, "McCarey,
you go
to the
barracks. There are some empty bunks in barracks C,
upstairs. In the morning I'll
get you an escort to the
big house."
"There's no
chance of----------- "
"None. Now,
hightail it out the back
door and down the path there
to the
barracks. Carry on."
Tim nodded and
went out the back of
the pavilion.
He stood in the darkness and
waited until the colonel started
talking again. When the
ceremony seemed under way, Tim
started into the jungle.
The moonlight dropped
down harsh and thin through
the trees. Tim pushed by yards
and yards
of dark
silhouettes as he tried to keep
on one
of the
paths. The bright colors of
the jungle were grayed
and there
was a
moist quiet all around him.
He passed under
what looked like drooping stalks
of bananas. Stumbling, he bumped into
a thicket
of dry
bamboo and set it to
clattering.
Tim stopped and
tried to get a fix
on the
main house. He was certain he
had seen
it earlier,
seen its lights through the
jungle.
A swirl of
wind shook fat, dead orchids
down on him. Slapping the sticky
flowers off his coat, Tim
started for a path that led
off the
one he
was on.
And then, far
ahead and dead white, the
great three-story Victorian house
showed. Tim could see patches
of twisted
gingerbread and poised gargoyles.
There were lights on, windows filled with yellow. He
halted among spiky ferns and brushed
the last
of the
orchids off his sleeve.
Behind him, distantly,
a crashing
started. It sounded as though a
piece of heavy machinery had
broken loose and was rolling down
at him.
Tim turned.
He spotted
no sign
of anything behind him, but the
crashing and shaking grew louder.
"Get over
here," said a girl's voice.
Tim spun
and saw
her. "Beg pardon?"
The girl caught
his arm.
"This way, and be quiet."
She pulled him off the path
and then
through a stretch of thorny
brush. She brought him
finally to a small clearing
circled by a dozen alpine-style cottages. The girl ran
across a cobblestone path and
into the nearest cottage. Tim
followed her.
The girl shut
the thick
door as soon as he
was inside,
locked it and bolted
it. She
was a
slim brunette, wearing a short blue
robe. "There, now."
Tim noticed the
fire in the narrow fireplace
and moved
nearer to it. "I
guess you saved me from
something."
"Yes," she
said. "Hold it for a
minute."
A heavy
object thanked at the door,
then another.
The girl grinned
a quirky
grin and leaned back against
the bolted cottage door.
"He's only throwing rocks tonight;
so that won't be
much of a problem." The door rattled under another smack. "My name
is Carrie
Conner. I'm a private secretary here.
Are you
a trespasser
or a
poacher?"
"Nope, I'm Tim
McCarey. I work for Conglobe
Facilities, and I came
down to see about renting
the jungle.
I'm supposed
to have
an appointment.
Which Belgraf are you secretary
to?"
Carrie ran
her slender
fingers through her dark hair
and grinned once again. "Clement Belgraf." One more rock
hit the door. "Like a cup
of coffee
while you're waiting?"
He noticed a
fringe of white lace under
the edge
of the
robe. "Could you tell
me first
why I'm
waiting?"
"Your appointment
is with
Vincent Belgraf, isn't it?"
"Right," said Tim, "and it was
originally for seven tonight."
She crossed
to an
eagle-footed phone table and punched
on the vidphone. It whirred, but
the saucer-sized
screen stayed blank. Then, for a
moment, a blurred picture of
Peg Leg Mintosh swinging his now-detached
metal leg at a black man
flashed on. "Things go blooey
often here,". observed Carrie. "He's
probably ripped down something again.
You won't be able
to get
through to the house from
here tonight."
"I'll just
go on
up there,
then."
"It's not safe.
May not
be for
several hours," said the girl.
"Depends on his mood."
"Who? Was that
some kind of wild animal
I almost
ran into?"
"Something like that,"
she said.
"Do you know much about dreams?"
"I've had them,"
said Tim. "Look, is it
always this difficult to keep an
appointment with Vincent Belgraf?"
"It's usually impossible
to even
get an
appointment," answered Carrie.
"I'd bet they have another
reason for letting you in. You'll
find out when you see
them."
"And why
it's not safe to go
outside at night?"
She grinned. "Probably.
Do you
absolutely have to get back to
L.A. tonight?"
"No."
Going into
the kitchen,
she said,
"Good, come along and I'll tell
you about
this dream I had this
morning." She flipped on the lights. "I
was dreaming
I'd rented
a bicycle.
I didn't have the right change,
and then
the rental
office blurred—you know the
way they
do—and I was playing tennis with a traffic cop.
He was
an android
but he
played a great game. I never
know what these things mean."
She dialed a pot of coffee
on the
cooking unit.
"Are you
under orders to keep me
here?"
"Quite the antithesis,"
she answered.
"That's an old movie line. No,
I'm not
supposed to be out after
twilight, either. I had
a feeling
I should
open the door and look
around. Good thing I
did." She had high cheekbones,
faint shadows beneath her eyes. She
gave him a small, careful
smile now.
"You're not
going to tell me any
more about what is going
on here?" "No."
"OK."
"How old are
you, Tim?" 'Twenty-nine."
"You're not a
young boy flash or anything,
then. Probably only an assistant to
somebody."
"To Harvey
Dirks at Conglobe Facilities."
"I thought so,"
said Carrie. The wall handed
her the
pot of fresh coffee and she
carried it out of the
kitchen. "You're too easy to put
off—not that that's a bad
thing, maybe even around here. You're
not in
charge of anything?"
"Nope."
"My advice
is," said the pretty girl,
"don't let these bastards get
you down."
"I was planning not
to." "So was I
once."
He watched her
pour the coffee into two
heavy tan mugs. "An uncle of
mine used to have a
dream book. But that was only
to help
him predict
the future."
"Did it
work?"
"The only
thing he was infallible on was television soap operas. He sometimes could
predict the story lines three
weeks in advance."
"Not the kind
of talent
you can
immediately turn a buck with."
She handed him
his coffee.
"You can stay here tonight,
OK?"
Tim watched
as she
sat in
a vinyl
morris chair. "OK."
"Out here,
though."
"Where?"
"On the
window seat. It's really quite
spacious," she said.
"Would you like to
sit by
the fire
and tell
ghost stories?" "No."
"We'll talk,
then."
Tim asked, "Look,
is there
any possibility
that Belgraf will rent us his
jungle?"
"Ask them." She gave a left-sided
shrug. "You ask a lot
of questions."
"Part of
my job."
"Let's talk and
not ask
questions." She sat
on the
round rug near the fireplace.
A final rock
tapped at the cottage door
and then
there was the sound of something
going away.
•
• •
The orange-and-blue
macaw squawked up off the
window-sill, and Tim rolled over
to see
Carrie standing in the kitchen
doorway. She was wearing
a short
black skirt and a white
blouse. She was holding
a glass
of tomato
juice.
"Good morning,"
Tim said.
"Do you
always sleep with your coat
and tie
on?"
"I thought we
might be attacked again." He blinked his eyes, stood
up, taking
the glass
of juice
she held
out to
him.
"You'll have to
see Laura
before you can get in
to talk
to Vincent Belgraf," Carrie said.
"Who's she?"
"Laura Belgraf, Clement's
sister. Mr. Belgraf is their
uncle."
Tim looked
over his shoulder. The macaw
was back
on the
sill watching him. "What
time could I see her?"
"Right now. I
made an appointment while you
were sleeping." Carrie
moved to the front door.
"The John's off to the
left there. I'm going
on up
to the
house. I'm sure I'll run
into you later in the day."
The jungle
outside was brightening in the
morning sun, red and yellow flowers
sparkled in among the palm
trees.
The path to
the big
white house was paved with
flagstones which gave a little
underfoot.
The transplanted jungle stretched high all
around Tim. Not watching, Tim almost
stepped on a peacock. He
dodged as the bird galloped away.
From some distance
behind him came a vague
tramping sound. Not something
following him. Maybe something doing down at the barracks.
Around a turn
in the
path, there was a little
old man
spread-eagled on a patch
of moss.
"Hey," said Tim,
running and kneeling
by the
white-suited man.
"Playing dead,"
the old
man said.
He had
a pink
face and tightly curling white hair.
"Don't be alarmed." Tim helped him
up. "You
OK?"
"Yes, more's
the pity.
I'm Dr.
Leonard Jackstone." He grunted
to his
feet. "How are you?" 'Tim McCarey."
"No, I said
how are you. Coming down with something,
perhaps?"
"I don't
think so. Do I look
sick?"
"Unfortunately not." He shook
his round
head. "Perhaps if I gave you
a thorough
examination, something would turn up—a nice
complex disease."
"I'm only
here for the day."
"You wouldn't care
to have
your appendix out, on spec?"
"I've had it out.
Tonsils, too."
"I get restless,"
said the old doctor. "Are
you going
up to
the main house?"
"I'm supposed
to see
Laura Belgraf."
The doctor bobbed
and smiled,
taking Tim's arm. "That's good news." He squinted one
eye and
studied Tim's head. "Haven't
had a
good fracture to work on
in over
a year."
"You expect Miss
Belgraf will fracture my skull
in the
course of our interview?"
"She has a
fondness for projectiles. She once
threw a complete set of Thackeray
at me.
And he
was a
prolific writer." He laughed
softly. "It was a lark
patching myself up."
"How about
the men
at the
barracks?"
"Once in a
while we get a case
of food
poisoning. Mostly they go in for
sprains and bruises."
"How many
men are
there down at the barracks?"
The doctor
shook his head. "Here we are, at the
house."
Directly in front
of them
was the
house—big and white, loaded down with
gingerbread, gargoyles, stained glass, ironwork.
And in the
shadows of the wide front
porch, an old striped swing was creaking slowly back
and forth.
"That's Laura," the doctor whispered. He tapped Tim's arm. "I'll be in cottage
seven if you need me."
He touched
his forehead and bowed toward the
dark figure on the swing.
Then he hurried back
into thé jungle.
"McCarey?"
"Miss Belgraf?"
Tim came
to the
foot of the wooden steps.
She didn't
answer.
"I'm from
Conglobe Facilities."
"Come up
here, McCarey."
"OK."
The girl on
the swing
was younger
than he'd expected. Not more than
20. She
was wearing
white tennis shorts, a black jersey
sweater and Japanese sandals. Her
long blonde hair was tied back
with a black ribbon. "What
sort of work do you do
for those
people?"
"Junior-agent stuff,
some public relations, publicity."
"Like a beer, McCarey?"
"Not at
this time, no, ma'am."
"How about
a Spanish omelet?"
'Thanks, I'm
not hungry,
Miss Belgraf."
The girl jumped
up and
stretched her arms over her
head. Her jersey slid up and
a band
of smooth,
tanned skin showed. "My office is
inside, McCarey."
The front
door of the house was
open a few inches and Laura Belgraf
pushed inside.
A deep-brown hallway stretched clear through
the house,
lost in dim sunlight
and drifting
dust at its end. Just
inside the door was an umbrella
rack held up by four
plaster figures that resembled
the Hearst
Puck. A tarnished silver hat rack was thick with
dusty bowlers and homburgs and
one checkered golf cap with a
union button stuck on the
brim.
Laura stepped through
a beaded curtain, clacking green
and blue glass beads.
Following, Tim
found her seated in a swivel chair with
her feet up on
a closed
rolltop desk. "What was it
you wanted to see my uncle
about, McCarey?"
There was
a set
of six
television screens mounted in the
wall above her desk.
One showed
two dozen
men in
unfamiliar green uniforms, made tiny
by their
distance from the camera, marching in
what looked like another part
of the
Belgraf jungle. On the
only other lighted screen, Peg
Leg Mintosh, wearing a vinyl nightshirt
and sitting
on the
edge of an aluminum cot, was
interviewing two young men who
were hefting opposite ends
of a
large case of dynamite.
"I assume you
know already, Miss Belgraf," Tim said, "I'm with Conglobe Facilities and we'd
like to rent part of
your jungle for filming. The project
is a
television series featuring Hunneker,
the ape-man.
Most of this was explained
to somebody
here by my boss's secretary."
Laura kicked one
foot so that the sandal
flipped off and somersaulted into her
hand. "We might rent a
portion of the jungle, though there
are quite
a few
obstacles."
"Quite a bit else
seems to be going on
here now."
"You're very observant,
McCarey," she said.
"Have you ever heard of my
brother?"
"Clement Belgraf,
yes. He used to participate
in air
races."
Laura stood. Hopping,
she tugged
the sandal
back on. "A long time ago,
McCarey, that was. He doesn't
do that
anymore." She was
near a shuttered window and
she rested
her left hand lightly on the
pane and stroked at the
thin lines of sunlight that got
through. "Clem is a very
bright person. He's a first-rate political thinker. You probably
haven't heard of his books."
"Does he
write under bis own name?"
"Yes. I'll give
you a
copy of one of them."
She crossed
to a glass-doored cabinet. After a
moment she said, "Dam, dam." She dropped
down on a flowered hassock
and tapped
one fist just below
her small
breasts. "I can't find the
dam books."
"I can
ask at
the public
library."
"Not for Clem's
books. You can't get them,
or even
film-spool copies, at any of
the so-called
public libraries in south-em California.
There's a conspiracy." She hunched
and tossed her blonde hair once.
"If you want to rent
some of our jungle, you'll have
to do
us a
favor. Frankly, McCarey, that's
why we
agreed to this interview at
all. You are good at public
relations and publicity and related
areas."
"Especially related
areas."
"Yes, I'm
sure you're very good at
publicity and propaganda. You'd have
to be.
We've just been thinking of
trying to hire someone down from
L.A. and then your call
came."
"Wait, now," said Tim. "A job
I already
have, and I'm relatively happy with
it."
"Still, you
could spend a day or
so here
and give
us some
advice and help," said the girl. "Otherwise,
McCarey, I'm
afraid_____ "
"Yes, I could do
that."
Laura laughed and
returned to her desk. "I'm
glad." She handed him a large
silver-plated key. "Use cottage six
while you're here. I have to
handle some things for Clem
now, but I'll set up some
meetings for you later in
the day."
"OK," said Tim.
"Can I call Conglobe from
here?" He pointed at the vidphone
near the window.
"Use the
phone in your cottage, McCarey."
"It's in
working order?"
"Of course." She turned and left
the room
through a doorway beyond the TV
wall. The marching men were
gone and the jungle field was
empty. Peg Leg Mintosh was
smacking a stick of
dynamite against his knee.
Tim left
the big
old house.
Tim tried
his cottage
phone again. Nothing happened. He
watched the parade of
elves that decorated the base
of the
table, then stood up.
Outside, he crossed
over to the cottage he
figured must be Dr. Jackstone's. He knocked on the
door and waited.
Carrie's cottage was
number three, across the clearing.
She was still up
at the
main house.
The door of
the doctor's
cottage snapped open and someone
in a
green uniform pushed Tim out
of the
way and
ran across the clearing. The bright-gold
epaulets flashed as the uniformed figure caught a low-hanging
vine and pulled itself up. There were gold spurs
on the
slick boots.
But instead
of hands,
there were paws.
"A gorilla
in a
soldier suit," Tim said.
Inside the doctor's
place, there were magazines scattered
across the living-room floor. "Dr. Jackstone?"
"Over here,"
said the doctor dimly.
Tim found Jackstone
behind a rolltop desk, with
his head
pinned in the lid.
"Here." Tim forced
the desk
carefully open and pulled
the flushed
doctor out. "You all right?"
Dr. Jackstone
felt his neck and the
back of his head. "I'm
afraid so."
"Was that
a gorilla
I saw
rushing out of here?"
The doctor nodded.
"He got mad. These weekly
examinations are upsetting him more
and more."
"They shouldn't let
that thing run around loose
if it's
dangerous."
The doctor
smiled. "Indeed?"
"Can I get you
a glass
of water
or something?"
"No, no." The
doctor reached into a white
cabinet and took out a fistful
of small
pill bottles. "I'll try some
of these."
Tim bent and
gathered up the magazines. They were all at least
four years old. "I'm going
to be
staying here in cottage seven—for a
while."
"I imagined you
might," said the doctor, shaking
some round yellow pills into his
cupped palm. He brought them
up close to his
left eye, then shook out
three capsules from another bottle.
"What are my
chances of getting to talk
to the
old Mr.
Belgraf?"
"I can't
say. You never know."
"Well," said Tim, "they all seem
to feel
that Clement has a lot to
say about
what goes on around here.
Will I get a chance to
see him?"
Dr. Jackstone tilted
his hand
and let
the assortment
of pills slide onto his tongue.
He swallowed
twice and said, "You just did.
That was him—the gorilla in
the uniform."
Tim lowered himself
to the
leather-cushioned window seat. "I had the notion
Clem Belgraf was a tall,
skinny guy."
"He was,"
replied Dr. Jackstone, "before the operation."
"That's some
side effect. What operation?"
The round
little doctor raked his fingers
through the stiff
white curls at his
temples. "It all began---------------- " he
said.
His vidphone gave
a raspy
series of buzzes, and before
the doctor reached it, Laura's face
appeared on the screen. "Is
McCarey there with you,
Jackstone?"
"Yes, he
is."
"I want
to talk
to him."
Tim came
to the
phone. 'Yes?"
"I've been trying
to contact
you at
your own cottage, McCarey."
"Speaking of breakdowns
in communication,
I can't
seem to get a call out
to Conglobe."
"Really? I can't imagine
why not,"
said the blonde girl. She was
rubbing one hand absently across
her breasts,
the tops of which just showed
on the
phone screen. "Listen, if you can
get up
here in ten minutes or
so, you
can talk
to uncle. Please do." She clicked
off.
"Going to
dash up to the main
house now?"
"Yes. Am
I likely
to run
into that gorilla again?"
"No, he's
certain to be with his
troops by now."
"Fine." Tim stepped out onto the
bright-afternoon flagstones. "We'll have the rest
of our
talk later, Doctor."
"Yes. And if
you go
crazy with the heat, be
sure and send for me." Jackstone
waved and closed the door
of his
Cottage.
Tim heard the
porch swing creak, and then
Laura was up and standing at
the top
step. She was wearing a
pair of gray tapered slacks now
and a
sleeveless gold-colored blouse. Her blonde hair was still tied
back with the black ribbon.
"You have a funny
idea of what ten minutes
is, McCarey."
"Yes, several scientists
are interested
in the
idea, and I'm planning to read
a paper
on it
soon."
The girl wrinkled
her nose.
"You seem to grow surlier
as the day progresses, McCarey."
"Sorry, ma'am,"
he said,
reaching her side.
Laura gripped
his elbow.
"Inside."
They went farther
down the dim brown hallway
this time, stopping in front of
a highly
polished oak door.
Knocking, Laura called
out, "It's McCarey, finally, Uncle
Vincent."
The door snapped
open inward. "As to the
jungle . . ." said Vincent Belgraf. He was
a small,
thin man, his shoulders dipped forward and his chest
curved in. He had fine-spun
white hair and was
wearing a loose black suit.
While Tim and Laura were coming
into the room, he began
pacing on the flowered throw rug
in front
of the
empty fireplace. "There is,"
he continued,
"just barely, the distinct possibility
that a portion of the jungle
might be rentable."
Laura put Tim
into a brown leather armchair.
"Providing certain conditions are fulfilled," she said.
The room seemed
all filing
cabinets, old wooden ones, and
framed photos. The photos
were old, too, and Tim
couldn't make out who the people
grouped in any of them
were. 'The condition being that I
help you folks in some
sort of PR way?"
Vincent Belgraf widened
the circle
of his
pacing until he brushed against a
ball-footed wooden desk. "A day
or so,
almost certainly. We sincerely
trust the period of extreme
crisis will not exceed
a day
or so."
"Usually we don't,"
said Laura, putting her back
flat against a tower of file
drawers, "have visitors at all.
We are
able to keep out
strangers."
"Tight security," said Vincent Belgraf. "Who
is your
boss at Conglobe?"
"Harvey Dirks."
Belgraf tapped the
desktop and found a memo
pad. "We'll add that name to
this wire."
"It turns out
our vidphone
system is fouled up," said
Laura.
"I'd noticed,"
said Tim. "What's the wire
say?"
Belgraf read it.
"Negotiations rolling merrily
along. Belgraf in jolly mood.
Need a wee bit more
time. Will report again in not
too many
days."
"You've captured
my style."
Tearing off the
memo sheet, Belgraf handed it
to Laura.
"See that that message
gets on the bakery wagon
this afternoon."
Laura folded
the note
and slipped
it into
a slash
pocket of her slacks. "We've decided to admit a
few things,
McCarey." Tim sat up.
"Well, good."
Old Belgraf edged
around behind his desk. "First
off," he said, "our public relations
are bad.
The public
has little
or no
idea about our ideals,
our aims
and goals."
"That stone
wall probably discourages them," said Tim.
"Secondly," continued Belgraf, "our
propaganda isn't having as much
of an
effect as it should." He shook his head
and his milk-white hair fluttered. "We have to step
things up in the public-relations line."
"In the coming
days," said Laura, "with your expert advice to
help us, McCarey, our publicity
and propaganda
should shape up just
fine."
Belgrafs freckled hands
were flapping, shuffling papers. "Expenses, expenses," he said. "Was there
ever a great movement in
history that didn't cost?"
"About tonight,"
Laura said.
"The price
of liberty
is high,"
said Belgraf. "Come to dinner tonight."
"At seven," said Laura. "Cocktails first. We've sent clothes
and such over to
you."
"Money," said
Belgraf, sinking low into his
swivel chair.
"Thank you for
your time, uncle," said Laura,
motioning Tim up.
"Yes," said
Tim.
Outside in
the hallway,
Laura said, "Be on your
toes tonight, wear a dark
suit and try not to
be too
surly." "OK," he said.
"Why?" "You're going to
meet Clem."
• • •
It was
the first
time Tim had seen a
gorilla in a dinner jacket. He looked from Laura
to her
uncle, then reached out and shook
hands with the gorilla. "Glad
to meet
you,. Mr. Belgraf."
"Clem," said the gorilla in a
deep, slightly burred voice. "We're all friends here."
Clement Belgraf seemed
real. The hand was harsh
and furry and the head didn't
look like a prop. Tim
hadn't been able to talk to
Dr. Jackstone
again, since the doctor had
gone off to tend to the
troops. And Carrie didn't seem
to be
around anywhere. So Tim
hadn't been able to find
out exacdy why he appeared to
be a
gorilla. "Clem it is," he
said.
The living room
was large,
with a high, beamed ceiling.
There were Navajo rugs
on the
buff-colored plaster walls and a fringed
Spanish shawl hung on the
closed grand piano near the French
windows. In the center of
the room,
there were three sofas, old and
fat, set at angles around
a clear
spot of hardwood floor.
"A Beefeater martini?"
asked old Vincent Belgraf, sitting on
the green
sofa.
Clem took the
black sofa. "Just a little
Cutty Sark for me, Laura, with hardly any ice."
Laura moved
to a
portable bar near Tim. "McCarey?"
He was watching
Clem, trying to spot any
seams or zippers.
"Beg pardon?"
"To drink?"
"Scotch is
fine."
Laura stepped
to the
automatic portable bar and depressed
the proper
drink-ordering keys. The
copper-plated unit lurched suddenly
to the
left and began singing, "Roll
out the barrel, we'll
have a barrel of fun."
It rolled
away from the girl and wheeled
twice around the piano. It
bounced over a throw
rug, and Scotch began to
spout straight up from one of
its spigots.
"This is table number one,
number one," it sang.
Then it stopped spouting and
came to a stop beside Laura.
"Would you mind repeating that
order?"
"Bought secondhand from a bankrupt caterer,"
said old Belgraf. "An economy measure
and perhaps
a mistake."
"We can always
afford," observed the gorilla, "to
go first-cabin."
Laura, who was
wearing a simple black cocktail
dress that pushed her breasts slightly
together, ordered the drinks a
second time. The machine
produced them. Handing two to
Tim, the girl said,
"It's the butler's night off.
Mind taking that one to Clem?"
"Sure, fine."
Clem Belgraf s
left paw was coarse and
furry, too. "Thank you,"
he said,
taking the drink. The hand
was warm,
which a gorilla suit wouldn't be.
The living-room door opened. Tim turned,
hoping Carrie might be coming to
dinner, too. It was a
tall, thick paratrooper in a
green uniform. The uniform consisted
of green
paratrooper pants with silver
jump boots, a green shirt
and black tie and a green
blouse with silver piping. The
man's cap was silver-visored and he
wore it crushed down on
the back of his round, crew-cut
head. "How do you work
the crapping oven?" he asked.
Clem dropped
his glass
and jumped
up. An
odd rumble
sounded in his chest.
"Corporal Wilkie, your
manner of entry is far from
correct"
Wilkie saluted and
came nearer. "Sorry, chief, but
the crapping oven won't light. It's
not like
the mess
stove." He noticed Tim and smiled
tentatively at him. "I've got a lovely roast, but it won't do
any good
if the
oven is on the fritz."
Standing, Vincent Belgraf
said, "Come along, Wilkie. I'll
straighten it out." He moved between Clem
and the
corporal and backed Wilkie toward the
door.
"I'll see you
at my
office at oh seven hundred
tomorrow," Clem said, his
arms arching out at his
sides and his nostrils enlarging.
"Not if
you want
breakfast," said Wilkie.
"You get rid of the cook
and rush
me into
the gap,
you've got to make allowances."
'To the kitchen,"
said Vincent Belgraf quietly and
nudged Wilkie out through the doorway.
Clem spun around
and glared
at Tim.
His eyes
were yellow and bloodshot. They narrowed
and he
brought a paw up in front
of them.
"Sit down, Clem,"
said Laura, "and I'll get
you a
new drink."
The gorilla noticed
the unbroken
glass on the slick floor
and kicked it away
with his opera-slippered foot. He
dropped to the black
sofa. "We have something of
a servant
problem," he said finally
to Tim.
Laura brought a
new glass
of iceless
Scotch to Clem, patting his arm.
"That's just Wilkie's way."
"It's a question of
discipline."
"You'll adjust him
in time,"
the girl
said. She knelt and wiped up
the spilled
Scotch with a bar towel.
The gorilla rested
a paw
on her
bare back and tilted his
large head to one
side. "Laura's a lovely girl,
isn't she?"
"Well, yes,"
agreed Tim.
"Well, thank you,
McCarey," said Laura
as she
rose. Clem made a coughing sound
and jiggled
his head.
He poked
at his black bow tie with
a thick
finger. "It goes on quietly
even while we sit here," he said. "The invisible
conquest. They've gotten to more cooks
and domestics
than you think."
"They?" asked
Tim.
Laura seated
herself next to Tim. "Certain
elements."
"Do you realize,"
said Clem, "that they control
sixty-five percent of all
outdoor swimming pools. Not to
mention nearly all Jewish
delicatessens and at least one
large toothpaste company."
Tim said,
"Who?"
"You see how
simple it will be," continued
Clem, rocking, "when the
order is given. Missiles, bombs,
rockets." He laughed suddenly. "Forget bombs and
planes and radar. Forget food-supply stockpiles and tin hats.
They control seventy percent
of our
five-and-ten-cent stores already,
and their control creeps increasingly. They own
two or
perhaps, more frighteningly, three motorcycle companies. Our do-nothins government knows it, too.
They also won a major
frozen-food company. They simply
won't need open warfare.
They can skulk
on cat
feet." Clem's giant fingers scurried
off his lap and around the
sofa cushions. "When the order
is given, and given it -will be, they simply put their
plan into effect. They may well
be, unheeded
by our
ostrichesque government, putting it
into effect right now. Germs,
brainwashes, little tricks. That's them.
You dive
into the pool and come up
a hopeless
slave. You bite into a
seemingly innocent hot pastrami sandwich and
your mind is no longer
your own. You jump up in
the morning
and brush
your teeth with their insidious toothpaste and it attacks
your gums and, before you know it, you've lost
your patriotism and, if they
use a
certain formula long since
perfected, your virility as well."
"This is some
Communist movement you're talking about?"
Tim asked.
Clem laughed again.
"You, too," said the gorilla.
"You believe exactly what
they want you to. The
poor, simple Commies, a lot they know." He rocked
with laughter now and fell back
with his hairy hands flapping
and his
wide, flat feet thumping the hard
floor. "You poor, simple man.
The Commies are dupes like the
rest of our so-called politicians."
"I wanted McCarey
to read
some of your books," Laura said.
"I had
to rip
up many
of them,"
said Clem, his laughter fading. To Tim he added,
"They've gotten to the printers.
I noticed, on
rereading, that they'd made them
put in
a great
number of typographical errors that did grave
damage to the logical development of my exposé." Clem's paws became large black fists. "Logic,
logic, damn them, is all
they'll listen to. You have to
think, use your intellect, make them think in
turn." He paused. "By
them, in this
context, I mean the so-called public, the
self-styled masses."
"We've just installed
our own
printing press," Laura said. "There shouldn't be any more
trouble."
"If they
don't get to Rasmussen," said Clem.
"Rasmussen is
our printer."
"Now," said
Tim, "how is it exactly
you'd like me to help?"
"Laura's been getting
up a
dossier on you and she
says you're ninety percent clean, which
is all
we can
hope for. They've got control of
a good
part of Hollywood, too. But
Laura says you're OK."
"Thanks," said
Tim.
Laura smiled
along the rim of her
glass. "We don't have to
go into specifics tonight,
Clem. McCarey will be getting
together with me in
the morning."
Clem chuckled.
"I feel confident, Laura."
Vincent Belgraf came
quietly back and resumed his
sofa. "It may take
some time for dinner. Wilkie
insists on the roast."
"I wonder,"
said the gorilla, "if they've
gotten to Wilkie." He steepled his
fingers and closed one eye
thoughtfully.
•
• •
At the head
of the
dinner table, the gorilla rested
his elbows on the bright white
cloth. His lips flared up
over his teeth and he said,
"Everybody is willing
to concede
that democracy has had
its chance."
Old Vincent Belgraf
rotated his wineglass between his
palms and glanced toward
the swing
door to the kitchen. 'The notion that this is
a republic
we live
in is
outmoded as well."
The gorilla's head
bobbed positively. "An empire," he said, beaming down at
Tim. "I see," said Tim. "Virility," said Laura.
"Beg pardon?"
"An emperor must
have virility," the girl explained.
"He must be an image of
forcefulness and masculinity."
"Events," said Clem, leaning back in
the chair.
"Events are on the
move and the new leader
must step forth."
"People want
answers," said Belgraf.
He asked
Tim, "Do you think we should
include television in our propaganda
plans? It's costly."
Clem waved a
paw in
Tim's direction. "Yes, what's your
feeling on that?"
"You mean,
you'd appear on TV?"
"I'd insist on
a full
half hour to myself," said the gorilla. "Commercials are too
restrictive."
Tim studied his
fork. "Yeah, a whole show
would be more effective."
"You're coming up
with some good suggestions already," said Belgraf.
He made
a low
sighing sound and slid his
chair sideways, rising up
carefully. "It's been a half
hour since the chicken gumbo soup.
I'll see what's delaying Wilkie."
He shuffled into the kitchen.
"You're not getting
a good
impression of the efficiency of our setup," Laura said,
smiling across the wide table.
Clem's teeth
clicked and his eyes grew
wide. His head ticked and he
grunted. "I'm losing my patience.
I'm losing
my patience."
The kitchen door
swung loudly open and Wilkie
appeared. He was in uniform
still but had added a
chefs hat with chief cook and bottle
washer embroidered on it.
"This needling of me
has got
to knock
off," he said. "I can't
cook with people always
looking over my shoulder."
Laura inhaled
sharply. "It's all right, Clem."
His chair somersaulted
away and landed on its
side at the temporary chefs feet.
The gorilla
raised his arms high and
then, lunging, loped for
Wilkie.
"Oh, boy," said Wilkie. He dodged
into the dining room, heading for the French windows.
Clem roared and
dived. He caught Wilkie, knocked
him down and jumped on his
back.
Wilkie said,
"Oof."
The gorilla snatched
the man
up, hugged
him and
bounced him harshly up
and down,
then spun him overhead and nipped him. Wilkie was
briefly on the table, his
limp body made a C and then he thudded onto the
floor.
Clem raised his
arms again, threw his black
tie at
Laura, smashed through the
French windows and went crashing
away into the darkness.
Vincent Belgraf stepped
in from
the kitchen.
"He's very excitable," he
said calmly. "Many great men
are."
Laura shook her
head, her face was pale
and she
kept swallowing. "You really
aren't getting a good impression
of our household operations, McCarey."
"I'll call Dr.
Jackstone," said Tim,
dropping down next to Wilkie.
Corporal Wilkie
seemed to be still breathing.
•
• •
Two privates
in green-and-silver
fatigues carried the stretcher into the
dark jungle. Dr. Jackstone watched,
perched on the porch
rail. He rocked roundly back
and forth, absently depressing his tongue
with a thumb-shaped wooden stick and
humming, "Ah, ah, ah, ah,
ah."
Tim and the
doctor were alone on the
shadowy porch of the Belgraf house.
"So how is Wilkie?"
"A little shock,"
said Jackstone, sliding the depressor
into his coat pocket. "The wind's
been knocked out of him,
that's about all. More's the pity."
"Is it a
good idea to send him
down to the infirmary tonight?" Tim asked,
swinging himself up on the
rail next to the doctor. "Clement
is still
out there
someplace, roaming around."
"There is the
possibility that he'll do something
drastic to the other two fellows,"
said Dr. Jackstone. "There's always that hope. Anyway, Laura
doesn't think it's a good idea to leave Wilkie
here tonight. Clem will eventually
calm down and come back home.
She doesn't
want him to get upset
all over again."
Glancing back at
the closed
front door, Tim said, 'That
gorilla really is Clement
Belgraf?"
Jackstone fished his
stethoscope out of an inside
pocket of his white suit and
hooked it over his plump
neck. "Clem is my greatest medical
triumph," he said.
"But not one medical journal has ever written it
up. Remember
Dr. Dafoe—-the
bundle of money he
made just for delivering five little French-Canadian
girls? Nothing to that."
"But Clem?"
"You remember him
from his racing days?" "Vaguely," said Tim.
"Some four years
ago, Clem, as a result
of a
discussion with his Uncle
Vincent over the communistic nature of income tax,
got interested
in politics.
At first
he contented
himself with the wide
variety of groups that the
Los Angeles
area has to offer."
Jackstone listened to his own
chest for a moment. "The main
thing wrong with these other
groups was that they already had
leaders. Clem Belgraf, you know,
is a born leader. Thus, with
Vincent Belgraf s backing, he
began to recruit his
own group.
Simple political agitation wasn't
enough, and the army idea
followed. Barracks were erected here and
the wall
built around the estate."
"That was about
the time
Belgraf stopped renting out the
jungle."
"They never
really needed the rental fees,"
said Dr. Jack-stone. "With Clem and his army,
there was excitement around all the
time, not just on the
occasions when Hollywood came down
and Hunneker
or somebody
was swinging
from limb to limb."
"OK," said Tim,
"I understand about the army now. Not
the gorilla."
"Oh, this
is a
new army,"
Jackstone said. "The original,was only a few dozen fellows
Clem gathered up from unemployment
lines—race bums, garage hangers-on, surfers. The problem was that
Clem, the old Clem, was
a stubborn
and violent sort of person. One
evening his army gave up
on the
whole idea. Back at
that juncture, I was simply
the family
doctor, having a practice
of my
own on
the outside."
"These guys
turned on Clem? Jumped him?"
The doctor spun
the listening
piece of the stethoscope by its tube. "That's right. He looked like
the residue
of a
street rumble when I got here.
The troops
had, by that time, scattered to the winds. They
even burned part of the
old barracks. Clem himself was dying."
"Where'd the
gorilla come from?"
"Yes, the gorilla,"
said Jackstone. "As part of
his jungle
collection, Vincent Belgraf had
a small
zoo. It consisted, at the period
of Clem's
accident, of a leopard, two
elderly lions, four ostriches,
a zebra
and a
gorilla. Plus a few tailless
monkeys and an anteater."
The doctor
smiled, his eyes nearly closing. "I'd
always had a hankering to
transplant a brain. It was a
hobby I'd fooled with for
decades, ever since my student days
at Stanford
Medical. Here, then, at last,
was the opportunity. Clem couldn't possibly
survive, even by rushing him the
twenty-two miles to the nearest
hospital. I therefore suggested saving at
least his brain, which, happily
enough, was in tip-top
shape."
"They agreed,
just like that?"
"Of course," said Jackstone. "They admired his intellect as
much as the rest
of him.
Laura was just seventeen then.
Clem was twenty-five. He was her favorite
heroic figure, her favorite philosopher as well. Yes, both
Uncle Vincent and Laura agreed to
let me
try a
transplant. I'd hoped for a
human being. The troops,
as I've
said, were off and running.
The butler was in
his late
sixties and hardly the leader
type. That left the animals. A
gorilla isn't the best bet
for a
brain transplant, you know."
The doctor
shrugged. "But Clem as a
leopard or a zebra
was absolutely
out of
the question.
A gorilla it had to be."
"How come
he can
talk and all?"
Jackstone's eyes widened
and he
grinned. "All due to my
work. This little medical
trick here is one of
the wonders
of modern science." He sighed. "But
not one
journal or popular big-circulation
magazine will ever know of
it."
"How'd he
get the
new troops?"
"While Clem
was adjusting
to his
new self,
he began
writing, putting his views
into book form. His point
of view,
having an answer for
every current problem, attracted some.
The rest have been
recruited by the Belgrafs. The
pay is
very good."
"Do you think
the present
army will be more loyal
than the last batch?"
The doctor pressed
his chubby
fingers in among his stiff
white curls. "There could be more trouble.
Clem, as you must realize by
now, has not mellowed with
the years.
He is,
in fact, becoming more
and more
like the darned gorilla, if
not worse."
The front
door creaked, swung in. "McCarey?"
Tim dropped
from the rail onto the
porch.
"I'll be getting
to my
new patient,"
said Dr. Jackstone. "Good
night, all."
Tim said
good night and went in
to see
what Laura wanted.
• • •
There was
no moonlight,
and the
shortcut path to the cottages grew narrower and narrower.
"You have to admit, McCarey," said Laura,
up ahead
of him on the dark
trail, "that it's thoughtful
of me."
"Yes," said
Tim.
Somehow, there
was an
iron-grillwork bench a
little off the overgrown path, nudged
back in among flat-leaved bushes. When Tim caught up,
Laura was sitting on the
bench, her legs crossed and one
black shoe swinging from her
toe.
"How many other
clients," she said,
"would show you a quick way
home after a business dinner?"
"You're the first
client who's ever guided me
through a jungle at eleven o'clock
at night,"
said Tim, stopping. "I don't know
much about woodlore, but shouldn't
you keep
your shoes on?"
The girl
shrugged one shoulder, and the
shoes arced free and fell into
the high
grass. "McCarey," she
said, "something really
funny."
"What?"
"I actually like
you, McCarey." Tim watched
her, nodding.
"Not this
surface personality you have," Laura continued,
"which I imagine
is applied
to you
by your
Hollywood bosses."
"Two coats
of personality
and one
of varnish."
"It's the you
underneath I like, McCarey." She cupped her hands over
her knee
and smiled.
"I like the shape of
your head, too. McCarey, as soon
as we
get the
propaganda off the ground, we'll have
more spare time."
A ripe orange
hit the
free side of the bench,
and rind
fragments splashed Laura and
Tim. Tim spun around but
could see no one.
After the orange came a
banana and five papayas.
Laura had
jumped up. Finding her shoe,
she said,
"He's watching us." Her
ponytail flicked at her bare
shoulders as she shook her head.
"He gets very excited meeting
new people sometimes. It means you
made a good impression on him."
"That's Clem
out there?"
"He'll calm down,"
Laura said. She braced herself
against him with one hand and
tugged on her black shoe.
"Wilkie angered him. Clem
has to
work out his anger and
excitement." She stood
free and called, "Clem, it's all right." To Tim she said, "Go
on down
the path.
You'll find your cottage with no trouble."
"You're staying
here?"
"I'll talk to
him and
he'll come home eventually." She touched Tim's arm. "Be
at the
house at nine in the
morning. And don't forget what I've
said, McCarey."
"No, ma'am."
Tim started away.
A mushy
orange hit him hard in
the back, but he didn't turn
around.
Tim had sponged
Clem-flung orange from the back
of the
suitcoat and hung it
over the shower-curtain rod. From
his overstuffed chair in
the main
room of the cottage, he
could see one dark sleeve hanging.
He lunged
up and
closed the bathroom door.
All the framed
prints on the cottage walls
were of alpine scenes. Tim wandered
around and looked at each
one and
then hunkered down in
the chair
again. He lit a new
cigarette from the old one
and started
counting the roses in the
painted trim that circled
the room
a foot
from the floor. There were dark
old books
in the
bookcase, which was rose-colored with simulated
knotholes. Tim didn't feel like
reading. It
was 12
o'clock midnight Someone tapped
lightly on the door. "Friend or gorilla?" he said,
not moving.
"Tim," said a girl's
voice, "you still up?" Tim grinned and went to
the door.
It was Carrie.
She had
a coffeepot
in one
hand. "Like a cup of coffee?"
"I was thinking
about it. Come in." She
did and
he closed
the door.
"You have a
kitchen here, you know," said Carrie, walking toward a door with spiraling
twining flowers painted all over it.
"Right in there."
"Yeah," said Tim, "but all the
pots have rosebuds on them
and there're elves and
gnomes all over the walls."
"Suspecting you might
feel that way, I brought
coffee in from the outside." She went into the
kitchen. "All the coffee cups have Tyrolean landscapes on them," she called.
"Is that going to bother you?"
"I'll put
up with
it," he said. "Where were you all day?"
"I have my
own Utile
office up on the second
floor of the house."
"You didn't
come to dinner."
"I don't
eat with
the family."
"Neither did
I, as
it turned
out."
Carrie brought in
two cups
of coffee.
"I heard Clem dismissed another cook, huh?"
"Thanks," said Tim, taking a cup
and nodding
at a rattan chair. "Something
I'm wondering,
Carrie."
She seated herself,
straight, with her knees tight
together. "I know—what's a nice girl like me doing in
a place
like this?"
"Yes, that's
it."
"I knew Clem
before," she said. "So?"
"He knows
some things about me," Carrie
said. "They need a good secretary
here. I'm one. That's all."
"Is Clem forcing you
to stay?"
"Sometime we'll talk
about it. Not tonight, not
now," she said.
Tim stayed standing.
"They never mention that he's
a gorilla," he
said finally.
"He isn't to
them," said Carrie. "Clem is the answer to'
too many of their problems. They
have to see him differently."
"I still don't
know why you stay." "And what's keeping
you here?"
"It's my job to
get the
jungle if I can," Tim said. "That's everybody's favorite reason," the girl
said. "I only work here."
'Tonight, right after
Clem pitched an orange at
me, I
thought of walking out
on this.
Back in L.A., though, I'd
have to tell them something."
"You like the
job?"
Tim said, "I
don't like people who tell
you about
their childhood the first
time they meet you. Still,
I'm considering
doing it."
"This is
the second
or third
time you've met me," said
Carrie. "Go ahead."
"Well, I had
an uncle—on
my mother's
side—Uncle Norman," said Tim. He
drank some coffee, paced. "He
had a
job in an ornamental-iron shop until
the 1940s
and then
he quit.
He was going to be a
professional ballplayer. He was thirty-three
and weighed
two hundred
pounds. For a ballplayer only five feet, five inches
tall, that's a little too
much weight."
'They could have
nicknamed him Slim or something,"
said Carrie. "Ballplayers go in for nicknames
a lot."
"They didn't nickname
him anything.
He never
made it and he kept drifting
around. To drift for something
like twenty-two years, that's
an accomplishment.
He died
in 1976. He was living in
San Francisco,
in a
hotel room in the Tenderloin. My father paid for
the funeral."
Tim stopped
behind Carrie's chair.
"Your father probably
always said something like 'If
you don't watch out, you'll end
up like
your Uncle Norman,' huh?"
"Sure, everybody
with an Uncle Norman has
heard that. I know it's not
a code
to live
by. 'Yes,
boys and girls, I've always lived by this simple
principle: Don't end up like
your Uncle Norman.' Still, here I am doing PR for a gorilla."
Carrie reached down
and placed
her coffee
cup on
a jigsaw table. She turned in
her chair
until she was kneeling in it facing him. "My
principle is much simpler: You've
got to watch out so the
bastards don't get you."
Tim's shoulders ached
suddenly and he reached out
and rested his hands on the
girl's. "That's sound advice."
"It tops Uncle
Norman."
He kissed her,
letting go her hands, gently
resting his
palms flat on
her back.
• • •
On one
of the
screens above Laura's desk, Peg
Leg Min-tosh
was sitting
on an
inflated sofa next to a
black man with a guitar. "Not
all colored
boys are troublemakers, friends," Mintosh was saying.
"Here's one who isn't a
member of any terrorist group, and
he's hardly a leftie at
all. You regular viewers of our
little news marathon should already
know this fellow. He is no
less than Blind Sunflower Slim,
the last
of the great darky bluesmen. How's
your infirmity today, Slim?"
"Can't complain,
Mr. Peg
Leg."
"Slim here,
friends, was born with his
handicap and didn't
acquire it by defending
the rights
of the
many against the
distorted dreams of a
few in
the pestilential
jungles of re-
mote Brazil. Nevertheless, he's no slouch. Before
we get
to
talking about the news,
let's have a tune, Slim." ^
"Glad to oblige,
Mr. Peg
Leg," said Blind Sunflower Slim.
He began to sing,
"I had a dream last
night that the whole round world was mine. Yes,
baby, I had a dream
last night about the whole round
world was mine. But when
I woke
up this morning, mamma, well, I
still didn't have a dime."
The sound shut
off as
Laura entered the room. "Good
morning," Tim said.
"As to the
Negro . . ." said
Laura Belgraf, letting the rainbow
sunlight that came through the
stained-glass window of her office fall
across the lower half of
her body.
"Which Negro?" asked Tim. Laura placed
him in
a coarse-materialed
morris chair and gave him
a thick
yellow legal tablet and six highly
sharpened pencils.
The blonde girl
stretched her arms up, made
a yawning
sound. She was wearing
lemon-yellow shorts and a pale-blue
jersey, and the stretching
brought her navel into view.
"The Negro," Laura
said. "I mean the Negro
in general,
McCarey."
He watched the
navel until Laura lowered her
arms and it disappeared. "Negroes in general?"
"Clem hasn't decided
what to do with them
when he takes over the country,"
she said.
Sidestepping out of her sandals,
she slid barefoot across
the rug
to her
rolltop desk. "You know about his
plan to solve unemployment once he's in control?"
"Nope."
"He's going to
put all
the unemployed
to work."
"Say," said Tim, "that'll
do it,
won't it?" Laura frowned.
"It's how Clem's going to
do it
that's the brilliant part, McCarey." "OK, how?"
"He's going
to put
them to work building concentration
camps." "Oh, so?"
Laura swiveled in
her chair
and spread
her left-hand
fingers out. She ticked
them off one by one,
saying, "The Jews, of course. You
really can't have a concentration
camp without them."
Tim reminded himself
that he was here to
rent a jungle.
"Then the Chinese,"
said Laura, touching another fingertip.
"They're all Communists, anyway. Then
probably the Japs, though we might
need them to keep gardens
up and
things like that." Laura smiled some. "The
Russians, naturally. I guess that's
it so
far. The Negro we're not
decided on yet."
"These you-know-who people," Tim said, "the
'they' Clem refers to—who, exactly, are
they?"
The girl shook
her head.
"That's classified, McCarey. The details are, I mean." Tapping the side of
her head,
she said,
"Clem carries a good
deal of that top-secret material in his mind. Don't
worry, you don't need all
the details
in order
to write stuff for us. Shall
I get
on about
the Negro?"
"Sure," he said.
"Well, Clem is
torn between putting them in
concentration camps or eliminating
them," Laura said. "See, none of the other inmates
would want to be in
the same
concentration camp with Negroes.
You can't
blame them for that. Building
separate but equal concentration
camps may prove too costly."
She added sharply,
"Take a few notes, McCarey."
"Yes, ma'am." He chose a pencil
from the batch fanned out
on the table next to him,
held it up to her.
The girl turned
and leaned
forward, tugging at the roll-top.
The desk
opened and Laura said, "I'll
give you copies of our most
recent propaganda, and then you
can get
a better
idea of our general
philosophy."
"Would Carrie Dormer
have any files I should
see?" he asked.
"No." Laura stood,
fists filled with small pamphlets
of many colors. "That's right. It
was Carrie
who set
up your
first meeting
with me. You spent the
night with her." "Not
exactly."
"I can imagine.
Have you been seeing her?"
"We nod on the
way to
work."
She crossed and
flipped the booklets and pamphlets
into his lap. "If I think you should
talk to Carrie, I'll tell
you about it. Right now, remember,
I'm in
the process
of growing
fond of you."
"I know," said Tim.
"You still do
want the jungle, don't you?"
She snapped
her fingers. "Oh, that reminds me."
She slid
her hand
flat into the waist of her
shorts and drew out a
folded telegram. "From your
boss. I'll read it to
you. 'Sounds good, Tim. Be
positive and enthusiastic and you'll win out.
Know you can. Counting on you.
(Signed) Harvey.'" She tucked the
refolded wire away. "Be enthusiastic,
McCarey, and you'll get just what
you want."
Tim gathered the
booklets and pamphlets together and
slapped them inside the
notebook. "Fine."
Laura swung down
and rested
her palms
on the
arms of his chair. "I really
do like
the shape
of your
head, McCarey. You must have a
wonderful skull."
"Well, I have
gotten rather fond of it
myself."
Laura sighed. "Darn,
I have
to go
confer with Uncle Vincent now. I'll
be getting
back with you this afternoon,
McCarey." She kissed him
on the
forehead. "Yes, I'm very fond of
you."
After she'd
gone out the side door
between the bookcases, Tim rose up
quietly. He moved to the
bead-screened doorway to the hall
and listened.
If it
looked clear, he'd try to
get upstairs and see Carrie. She'd
told him her office was
someplace up there.
One step into
the hall
and a
paw grabbed
him.
"Just who I'm
looking for," said Clem. "Come
along."
Tim went along.
•
• •
Abruptly, the
path became paved with flagstones.
The jungle thinned and the sounds
of marching
grew louder.
Clem loped ahead
of Tim
and stopped
at a
rise. He swept his silver-visored cap off and beckoned
to Tim
with it "Come and look. You're
here during a splendid week."
Tim stopped
at the
gorilla's side and looked down.
In a
clearing below were,
at the
farthest edge, a half-dozen two-story army-style barracks, plus
three Quonset huts and a
recreation hall. On a
parade ground, some 60 men
in green
and silver were being
drilled by a man who
seemed to be Colonel Granger. Nearer
to Tim
and Clem,
some 50 yards away, was a
half-built review stand. "Going to be a parade?"
Tim asked the gorilla.
"Exactly," said Clem with a deep
chuckle. "Day after tomorrow.
I've arranged for you to
be seated
right on the reviewing stand with
the officials
and dignitaries."
"Will there
be guests
coming in?"
Clem put his
high-peaked cap back on. "A
few sympathetic
political figures from the
surrounding areas, yes."
"How many
troops do you have here
in all?"
The gorilla's head
turned. "Exact figures are classified.
I'll tell you what sort of
numbers to use in our
publicity." He grimaced. "How's the campaign coming?"
"Right along,"
said Tim.
"Good. We'll have
a big
conference tomorrow." The gorilla's lips puckered and he
rolled his eyes. "Do you
think we can run off a
pamphlet in time for the
parade?"
"If your
printer will cooperate."
"Rasmussen will
cooperate."
"I was
wondering," said Tim,
watching the troops do a
to-the-rear march. "Would it be OK for
me to
check things out with your secretary?
It might
speed the work up in
case I can't locate something."
"With Carrie,
you mean?"
"Yes."
"No," said
the gorilla.
"There's a great load of
correspondence. Carrie has
to devote
all her
time to that. You've met
my secretary, have you?"
"When I first got
here."
"She's too busy
for much
social conversation," said
Clem. "She's a very
complex girl, Carrie is. I've
known her a long time."
"I see,"
Tim said.
"I wanted
you to
see the
work in progress," said Clem,
extending one paw, palm
up, toward
the uncompleted
stand. "That's going to
be an
inspiring place to watch a
parade from, isn't it?"
"It is."
"Good," said
the gorilla.
"I have to join my
men now.
Can
you get
on back
to the
house on your own?" "No trouble," said Tim.
Clem held out
his right
paw. "Damn glad you're aboard."
He shook hands and
clicked his heels. Then he
pivoted and galloped downhill toward the
marching troops.
Tim turned away.
Despite the gorilla's polite warning,
Tim wanted to look in on
Carrie.
Near the
big Victorian
house, a voice called him.
"Come into my office
for a
moment and take a look
at some
charts and graphs." It was old
Vincent Belgraf, waving from his
study window.
"Belgrafs, Belgrafs everywhere,"
Tim said
to himself,
returning the wave.
The dusty
grandfather clock made a gear-shifting
sound and chimed once. Vincent Belgraf
cocked his head, pronging his
silver watch out of its
pocket and studying it. "What
say to some lunch?" he asked
Tim.
Tim blinked and
sat up.
He was
half-buried in blueprints and charts. He
said, "Yes, if we're finished
here." He stood slowly, the charts
falling away from him and
rustling like giant dead leaves.
"No, no," said
Belgraf. "Nevertheless, we have to
keep ourselves in good
condition. We'll break, therefore, for lunch." He rested a
thumb against Tim's shoulder. "You
won't mind potluck in
the kitchen?
We're in transition between cooks,
you know."
"Sure, that's
OK."
Moving down
the brown
hallway, Belgraf said, "Listen to this." He stopped and
jumped in the air, landing
flat-footed. "This house is
over a hundred years old.
Yet it's
still sturdy and solid. They built
them to last in Sanford
Belgrafs day. Ever wonder why houses
aren't built like this in
our so-called
modern times?"
"No," said
Tim.
"They didn't have
income taxes then"—he bit his
thin, dry lower lip—"that's
the reason."
He tried
another leap. "Not a creak. This
house is solid." He massaged
his ribs.
"It unsettles me a little,
though."
Tim rested back
against a dark wood wall,
to watch
in case
Belgraf did any more
jumping. "Sanford Belgraf,"
he said,
"he was in the
railroad business, wasn't he?"
"They called
him the
Jack Harkaway of railroading," said Belgraf. "Jack
Harkaway was a famous old-English
highwayman. Yes, Sanford Belgraf was
one of
California's favorite robber barons.
People love tycoons, you know,
despite what today's crybaby government says." The old man
exhaled sadly and moved on.
Laura was already
in the
long, cool, pale-blue kitchen. The kitchen was bright and
new, with everything built into
the walls. Laura was
still wearing the lemon-colored shorts, but she'd gotten rid
of the
jersey and was wearing a
vinyl halter. "I started without you
two," she said. "Thought you'd be holed up all
afternoon." She was
hunched on a chrome-and-blue-Ieather kitchen stool,
eating a sandwich.
Old Vincent Belgraf
smiled at his niece. "I
believe I'll have some of my
canned figs," he said. He
shuffled to a door with the
word pantry
lettered on
it in
illuminated script. He opened the door
and then
his steps
sounded on wooden stairs.
"Pantry's way down
under the house," said Laura.
"What would you like
for lunch?"
"Sandwich will be
OK," Tim said, noticing a
plate of them on the kitchen
table.
"Take one. It's
tuna and mustard, which I
like. Is that OK with you,
McCarey?"
He took
a sandwich.
"Sure."
Laura straightened
and stretched
her legs
out in
front of her. "Would you believe
it, McCarey?"
"Believe what?"
"In the few
hours since I last saw
you, I've grown even fonder of you." She finished
her sandwich
and touched
her fingertips to her
hps.
Down in the
pantry there was a scuffling
and tottering
and a muffled crash. "What the hell?" Tim moved
to the
pantry door.
"It's just
Uncle Vincent falling off his
ladder," Laura said. "Come back here,
McCarey." "I'll go help
him."
"No, no," said
Laura, "he's always falling off
things. Helping him up only
wounds his pride. The Belgrafs
are a
proud, fierce race, McCarey. It will
take him a few minutes
to right
himself. Come here."
Tim's thumb was
sinking into the bread of
the tuna
sandwich. He went back toward
the girl.
"You seem
reluctant to spend time near
me, McCarey."
Laura crossed
her legs
and reached
one hand
out to
him. "I thought you might like
to kiss
me until
Uncle Vincent comes back."
"Wait till I
set down,
my sandwich."
He dropped
the thing
back on the plate
and stood
watching the girl.
Laura smiled, her
tongue flicking at her upper
lip. "Well, McCarey?"
"I guess
I'm not
used to spending my lunch
hours this way."
"I thought in
Hollywood that's all they did
at noon."
"I only get an
hour for lunch."
"I should think
that would be more than
enough time."
"Well," said Tim, "by the time
the girl
gets her whip and boots and
I get
into my lion suit, a
good lot of time has
gone past."
Laura dropped
to the
floor. "OK, McCarey, kid me
if you
want to."
Belgraf came slowly
up the
stairs and wavered into the
kitchen. "I'd do anything
for these
figs," he said. "Eat something
now. Then it's back to
work we go."
Tim picked up
the sandwich
again.
• • •
In the
darkness outside Tim's cottage, grasshoppers
were mating. Tim scowled at the
half-finished sandwich on the plate on
his knee.
He'd made this one himself.
It was after
seven and he still hadn't
seen Carrie. All afternoon he'd rotated
from Belgraf to Belgraf, gathering
bundles of propaganda, rolls of charts, folders
of clippings.
Out of it all he was
supposed to invent a unified
campaign, to help eventually sell Clem
to the
country.
Fortunately for the
Belgrafs, Carrie was in this
business now. It was added incentive
for Tim
to stay.
A faint knock
on the
door.
Tim grinned. He
sprinted the few feet to
the door
and yanked it open to let
in Carrie.
"I don't know
if you
remember me or not, but
I'd like
to talk to you." It was
Audie Sayers, the recruit Tim
had given
a lift to.
"Sure, Sayers, what
is it?"
The young man
licked his lips. "May I
come in?" "I'm expecting
someone." "Not Clem?"
"No," said
Tim. "OK, come in for
a minute."
Once inside the
cottage, Sayers said, "Oh, Mr.
McCarey, I may have made a
mistake." He had
on green-and-silver
fatigues. His left eye
was yellow
around the edges.
"Clement hit
you?"
"Yes, for not
knowing my manual of arms,"
said the recruit. He noticed the
half sandwich. "Have you any
further use for that?"
"No, didn't
you eat
tonight?"
"I'm supposed to
be in
the stockade,"
said Sayers, grabbing the sandwich.
"A friend let me out
to slip
over here. Food, though, he couldn't
get any
of."
"You're disappointed with the setup?" Tim asked, starting for the kitchen. "Cup of
coffee?"
"If I might,"
said Sayers. "Yes, I'm bitterly
and terribly
disheartened."
Tim reached
into, the kitchen. "How so?"
"Mr. McCarey, I'm
an idealist."
He shook
his head.
"I was so certain that a
man with
Clement Belgrafs beliefs would be the
nearest thing to a saint
this jaded old century could
offer."
Pointing at the
pamphlets, Tim asked, "You've read that stuff?"
"Of course. Over
and over.
The thinking
is beautiful—so
logical, providing an answer
for every
problem, even acne," said Sayers. "However,
the man
himself...."
Tim narrowed one
eye. "You weren't expecting a
gorilla, perhaps?"
"I knew he
had been,
well, disfigured as the result
of an
accident," said Sayers, finishing
the sandwich.
"Frankly, Mr. McCarey, I find his present
appearance rather virile and heroic. It's simply that he's
so mean
and disagreeable."
Tim poured a
cup of
coffee and handed it to
him. "What do you plan on
doing?"
"I heard scuttlebutt
to the
effect that you were staying
on for a few days." He clutched the cup
in both
hands. "I was hoping that when
you left,
you might
conceal me in your car—
if you leave."
"If?"
"I'm hoping you'll
be allowed
to leave,"
said Sayers. "After all,
the Belgrafs
supposedly like you. Still, they
also like Dr. Jackstone, and he
can never
set foot
beyond these walls."
"Well, if
I make
it through
the walls,
you can
come, OK?"
"I'll have
my friend
contact you. I may be
in the
stockade for quite some time." Sayers gulped all of
the hot
coffee down. "Now I must slip
away."
"Take it
easy," said Tim, opening the
door.
"Bless you."
Sayers ducked out into the
night
"Hello," said
a voice.
Tim squinted.
"At last."
Carrie, in a
skirt and blouse, with a
short tan coat hooked on her
forefinger and hanging over her
shoulder, was standing a few
feet away. "I understand you're having one of
your famous at-home evenings. Are visitors
welcome?"
"Come in
and browse,"
he said,
reaching out to her.
She came
in. "What
did you
learn today?" she asked Tim.
He dumped all
the Clem
propaganda on the floor to
make room so she could sit
in the
chair. He poked the stuff
with his foot. "Is his mail
and correspondence
in the
same vein?"
"Yes," the girl
said. She rested the fingers
of one
slender hand against her cheek, and
it heightened
the sharp
line of her cheekbone. "Though some of the letters
that come in aren't as articulate
as that."
"You don't-------- " began Tim.
"Share Clem's
point of view?" She grinned.
"Do you suspect that I
do?"
"No," said
Tim, "but, damn it, I
wish you'd tell me."
"Tell you
what—my political outlook?"
"No, what it
is that
he knows
about you. Why he can
hold you here."
Carrie shook
her head.
"I can tell you about
a dream
I had
when I finally got home last
night."
"Carrie------------ " he
said.
"In the dream,
I was
traveling across the Midwest with
an educated bear. We both had
bicycles and one of them
was named Kafka. It was the
bear's bike that had a
name, and I remember I felt
very envious. That's what I
dreamed."
Tim turned
away. "OK, fine."
"Aren't things
unsettling enough already without trying
to unearth my screwed-up past?" He faced her again.
Carrie's head swung
once from side to side.
"I'm sorry, Tim, but let's drop
it."
He said, "My
automatic icebox has Tuborg beer.
Want one?"
"Yes, please," said Carrie. Her eyes
had narrowed,
her mouth grew thin and small.
Then, suddenly, she smiled, laughed. "It's a mean old
world. I really like you,
Tim. I'm sorry I seem such
a screwball."
Tim went
in and
dialed two bottles of beer.
"They put eight tins of Plumrose
deviled ham in here and
two loaves
of rye bread. Want a sandwich?"
"No," said Carrie.
She had
risen and come into the
kitchen to watch him.
He looked
at the
girl. "Wait a second."
"What?"
He moved
to her,
kissed her. "First things first."
Carrie smiled. "This
is really
some setting for an office
romance, isn't it?"
"Now, now, Miss
Dormer. You're more than just
a typist
to me, I assure you, my
dear young lady."
"You'll get the
jungle and sneak off without
leaving so much as a forwarding
address."
"Hey," Tim
said.
"Yes?"
"Let's not
kid for
a minute,
OK?"
Carrie widened
her eyes.
"OK."
"No, really."
The phone
buzzed.
"I'll answer
it," said Tim.
"Be serious
with them."
Tim ran
in and
jerked up the receiver. "Hello?"
"Put her
on the
line, McCarey." Laura was on
the screen.
"Whom?"
Laura's voice was
low and
even. "Carrie Donner. Don't stall around, McCarey. I know
she's with you. Tell her
if she
values her job, she
had better
get up
here now. Clement has some urgent
dictation."
"Fine."
"And it may
take all night, McCarey," said Laura and cut
off.
"They want
me?" asked Carrie.
"Yeah, that was
Laura. They want you back
at the
house."
"Swell," she
said, gathering up her coat.
"I can
call in and say you've
broken something."
"Laura knew
I was
here, huh?"
"She did."
"I'll go," Carrie
said. She took his hand
for a
second and then left.
Tim kicked
the propaganda.
A dry,
hot wind
blew all the next day.
It scattered
leaves, fronds and dust.
It whacked
bamboo stalks together and toppled cockatoos off trees.
The birds kept
banging, squawking, against the leaded
panes of the parlor
in the
big house,
where Tim was pretending to be putting together
a new,
improved Clement Belgraf campaign.
Whenever Tim looked up from
his desk,
which was often, he saw a
solid wall of oval-framed Civil War generals. Actually, there
was one
World War One aviator in
among the whiskered generals—a
slim young guy with leather helmet and flapping neck
scarf, smiling and waving alongside a black biplane.
He had tried
to spend
some time with Carrie, but
the Belgrafs kept waylaying him. He
passed her in the hallway
once, but old Vincent
Belgraf had him by the
arm that
time. Carrie looked fresh and bright,
except her guarded smile turned into a yawn.
Late in
the afternoon,
the sky
blurred and the wind died.
Night came on at
once and a heavy, hard-hitting
rain began to fall. Tim rocked
back once in his chair
and put
the eraser
end of a pencil in his
ear.
"Tim," said
a soft
voice. A hand touched his
shoulder.
He got
the pencil
free and turned. "Yes?"
It was Laura.
She was
wearing a pair of black
Levi's and gray-striped shirt.
She had
two butterfly-sized
black bows in her hair. "I'm
sorry if I was rather
salty to you last evening."
She put the tip
of her
forefinger where the eraser had
been, rotating it clockwise.
Tilting hi« head
and freeing
his ear,
Tim stood
up. The
rain throbbed against the
window. "Is Carrie going to
have to work tonight, too?"
Laura's face tightened
slightly. "That's really up to
Clem. He and Uncle Vincent are
caught up in the preparations
for the parade and the attendant
ceremonies." She flattened
the fingers of one hand across
her stomach.
"I came to suggest that you have dinner with
me. I
haven't had a reason to
do some real gourmet cooking in
a long
while. I'll turn off the
gadgets and do it
all by
hand."
"Well..." said
Tim.
"You can be
sure Carrie will be busy
till long after dinner." Laura eased her hand across
her stomach
so that
her upright thumb brushed the bottom
of her
breasts. "I'm very good at lobster
bisque." Her hands interlocked and she moved closer to
Tim, her sneakered feet sliding
on the
rug. "Or mulligatawny."
"I was never
quite sure what's in mulligatawny
soup," said Tim, leaning back against
the rain-wracked
window.
"Chicken, veal bouillon,
carrots," said Laura,
transferring her hands from
her stomach
to his,
"onions, cloves, leek, celery, mushrooms, mace, cardamom, cinnamon, butter"—the
tips of her breasts
touched his chest—"cornstarch,
curry and heavy cream."
"No kidding."
"It's a meal
in itself.
For the
entrée, I'm thinking of sweetbreads
à la lyonnaise," said the
girl. She caught his ears
in her hands and pulled his
head down, kissing him.
"Though sometimes I
just pick up something frozen
at the
supermarket," Tim said.
A sopping
macaw slammed against the glass.
"Well," said
Laura, kissing him again.
Tim felt
like a kaleidoscope.
"Where are my
maps of the Greater Los
Angeles freeway system?" called
Clem outside the door.
Like a motion
picture running down, Laura undid
one final button, the one nearest
his belt
buckle, and then, gritting her teeth,
she stepped
back. She gave a wet-cat
shake and said, "I'll
get in
touch with you later."
After she left
the room,
Tim shoved
all the
papers on his desk into a
scuffed briefcase Laura had given
him. Stuffing the thing under his
coat, he left the house.
He made
himself stroll back to
his cottage.
The rain
didn't help any.
The swaybacked
horse was eating the bunting
on the
left side of the review stand.
At the
edge of the parade ground,
Laura Belgraf hunched down
in her
lynx coat and said to
Tim, "I wish that
horse would lay off the
decorations."
The morning was
cold, streaked with mist. Tim
kept his hands in his pockets.
"Why don't you ask the
old guy
riding the horse to knock it
off?"
"You just
don't do that with Jack
Moog."
Tim stared at
the brittle,
lanky old man on the
ancient horse. He had
a lock
of dead-white
hair hanging across his forehead. The big, high-crowned stetson was splotched, and there was a patch
on the
sleeve of the checkerboard shirt. But now Tim recognized
the old
cowboy. "That's Jack Moog?
I thought
he vanished
with half-hour TV."
"He had the
right kind of investments. He's one of Clem's
most ardent supporters and backers. He comes
to all
our rallies and parades."
"Can you
be ardent
at eighty-five?"
"He's barely eighty,"
said Laura, shaking her head
as the
horse swallowed the last
of a
poster. "That's Fred the Wonder
Horse."
"If that's Fred
the Wonder
Horse from old-time TV, he
must be forty years
old," said Tim. "That's pretty old for a
horse."
"Fred's partly
automated now," explained the blonde.
Jack Moog had
spotted Laura. He rested one
sharp old elbow on his saddle
hom and
spun his big white hat
in the
air. Tim remembered from a documentary that this was the
way Jack Moog opened
all his
shows. The horse took three
tentative steps in their
direction and then toppled over.
"Dam," said
Laura.
"The horse
must be dead," said Tim.
"No, he's napping,
right on the parade ground.
I hope
it doesn't anger Clement."
"Wahoo, wahoo,"
called Jack, giving his hat
another spin.
Sucking her cheek,
Laura gestured to some of
the soldiers
who were loitering around
the review
stand. They hustled over to drag
the semiautomated
horse into the underbrush. Moog supervised and then gave
one of
his famous
running jumps and landed up on
the review
stand. He'd gone over the stand
rail the same way he
used to leap over saloon
bars to get at the tinhorns.
If he
hadn't landed spread-eagled between
two folding
chairs, it would have been
a perfect
moment of recaptured past.
"Yucky, yucky, yucky,"
said someone behind Tim. He
turned and saw a
trio of middle-aged people: a
round, cherubic man and a
round, cherubic woman in a
fur-trimmed cloth coat. Her
hair was white, tinged with
light blue. With this couple was
a soft,
handsome man with a beautiful
blond hairpiece and grinning
false teeth.
"Yucky, yucky, yucky,"
said the woman again. ,
"Mr. and
Mrs. Friesen," said Laura, "you're
early."
"We always
are," said Mr. Friesen, "first
ones here."
"Except for
Jack Moog. The parade won't
start for an hour," said Laura,
"though you're welcome to go
up on
the stand."
Mrs. Friesen
smiled at Tim. "We don't
know you. Yucky, yucky, yucky."
"I'm Tim
McCarey. And you folks are
the famous
Friesens who have all those educational
cartoon shows on TV." A
rival talent agency handled
Win Friesen.
"Sure we
are," said Mr. Friesen, shaking
hands. "And right here with us
is Bryan
Spoiner himself."
"Oh?" said
Tim.
"My radio
show is heard on four
hundred and twenty-six radio stations across
the land,
and I
have supporters in the halls of
government and the shadow of
the pulpit,
in the
penthouse and in the marketplace,"
said Spoiner. His voice was
deep and well thought
out.
"Yeah," said Tim, remembering, "you do
something called Alarm."
'The Paul Revere
of radio,"
said Mrs. Friesen. "Yucky, yucky, yucky."
"Rather, the
Peg Leg
Mintosh of radio," corrected Spoiner.
"I'm trying," said Tim, "to place
that catch phrase, Mrs. Friesen."
"Mommy is the
voice of our best-known cartoon character,"
said Mr. Friesen. He waited
for Tim
to supply
the name, then finally said, "Alex
Ant."
Tim snapped his
fingers. "Sure, I should have
got it
at once."
"Yucky, yucky, yucky,"
said Mrs. Friesen, "that's what Alex Ant says."
"Mommy is Benny
Bird, too." "Tweetle twee,"
said Mrs. Friesen. "And
Doctor Dog." "Bowwow, bowwow."
"I'll escort you
to your
seats," said Laura, getting both
the Friesens by an elbow.
"A dedicated couple,"
said Spoiner. "They earned twenty-six
million last year." He shook
hands and headed for the
review stand.
Tim put his
hands back in his pockets
and watched
the fog thinning away over the
parade ground. "Arf,"
he said.
Clement Belgraf arrived
about a half hour later.
His green-and-silver
uniform seemed brand-new. He had
a splendid
gold-lined cape over his
shoulders and his helmet was
gold-plated.
Tim was
in a
folding chair toward the back
of the
stand. He had looked over his
shoulder for Carrie so often
that his neck was stiff. The
girl hadn't shown up.
"Tell them
to drag
it farther
away," Clem was saying to
Laura. Moog's horse was
still asleep and it had
moved some out of the jungle
as it
tossed and snorted.
Two dozen people
were on the stand now.
There was even the acting mayor
of a
small beach town. Among the
other visitors was Handy
"Call Me Cousin" Hotch, who
ran a religious robot crusade out
of Tijuana,
Mexico. When he'd introduced himself to
Tim, he'd given him a
free transistor radio with decal pictures
of the
12 android apostles on it. Tim
counted and could find only
nine of them. Sitting next to him was Sonny
Boy Baylight,
the former
child star. He told Tim he
had created
a special
tap dance
in honor
of Clem. Sonny Boy was about
40, still
curly-headed and freckled. He was a
greeter in a Hawaiian delicatessen
in Orange County, his movie career
long behind him.
The parade itself
began smoothly, only four minutes
behind schedule. First on the
field was Clement Belgraf's marching band. It had 20-some
members, and for some reason,
half of them played French
horns, but the march tune,
which Sonny Boy Baylight
whispered he'd contributed some notes to, sounded not too
bad. As the band marched
around, a float rolled out of
the jungle.
This consisted of a heroic-sized
representation of Clem
himself, with one paw shielding
his eyes, looking vigilantly
to the
future, and his other on
a large cannon. It was all
modeled out of California poppies and red carnations. Jack Moog's horse woke
up when
the band passed him. He raised
his head
and gave
a high-pitched
neigh, then galloped for
the float.
The jeep
that was pulling the thing swerved.
Tim saw
now that
the jeep
driver was Audie Sayers. Everybody had
been sprung from the stockade
to participate in the
festivities.
Sayers was
watching Fred the Wonder Horse,
and this
caused him to drive
straight into the first wave
of marching
infantry. Two privates cartwheeled
upward as Sayers hit the
brakes. The float accordioned
into the jeep, and Jack
Moog's
horse attacked it. .
"Yucky, yucky,
yucky," said Mrs. Friesen.
Clem rose
up. Laura
caught at his arm. He
roared and ripped off bis cape.
Laura got tangled in it.
Clem was on the rail now.
He jerked
off his
boots and threw them and
his helmet at the confusion of
troops and flowers. "Spoiled, spoiled," he shouted.
Clem went through
the musicians
first. The air was filled
with French homs and
plumed hats. The audience had
fallen silent and you
could hear bones breaking. Clem
paused halfway into the
band and chucked his uniform.
He was bellowing now. "Spoiled it all, spoiled it
all."
He got Sayers
at last
The freckled
young man had tried to climb
up onto
the flower
cannon for protection. Clem leaped up on the ruined
float and gripped Sayers's shoulders.
He flapped him in
the air
like a dusty rug and
then sent him whirling out over
the parade
ground. Sayers made a loud
oofing sound when he
hit and
then didn't move.
"You, too," said Clem. Fred, the
horse, was nibbling poppies off
the figure
of Clem.
The gorilla
roared again and jumped on the
horse's back.
Jack Moog leaped
to his
feet and reached for his
gun belt.
He wasn't wearing it,
and he
cursed and jumped over the
rail.
Fred gave a
whinny and began to gallop
in tight
circles. Clem was pummeling the horse.
Fred stopped still and started to buck. The gorilla
and the
saddle shot free.
"Hold off, mister,"
shouted Moog as Clem laughed
again at the bucking Fred.
Clem spun, waved
both hairy arms. He wasn't
using words anymore.
"I ain't got
much use for a man
who mistreats
a horse,"
said the cowboy.
Clem hesitated.
"You're getting too
ornery," said Moog. "I reckon
I'd best
stop payment on that
last check I contributed."
The gorilla fisted
his paws
and brought
them up in front of his
muzzle. Then he growled and
ran off,
bounding across the parade ground and
into the jungle.
"My God,"
said Laura, "he'll never come
back."
• • •
"Over here,"
called Laura. She was pacing
the low
diving board at the end of
the glass-enclosed
room.
The pool was
official size, its water rocking
gently, a pale silver blue. The
roof was made up of
hundreds of panels of green-tinted glass. The glass and
the thick
border of palms, fems and large-petaled
flowers around the water gave
the place a hothouse look and
smell.
"Your brother back
yet?" Tim asked, walking carefully
on the mosaic-tile flooring.
Laura had her
hair tied back and was
wearing a short candy-striped robe. Flicking
a cigarette
butt into the water, she said, "No." She swayed
at the
very edge of the board.
"That's not unusual, really.
He was
quite upset by the fiasco
of the parade review. It's likely
he simply
wants to be alone to think."
"Uh-huh," said
Tim. He sat on the
footrest of a white wicker lounge chair. "Why'd you send for me?
Do you
have some more work you'd like
me to
handle?"
Wind rattled the
glass panes and the shadows
of large
leaves hit the glass
roof. "Swimming helps me unwind,
Tim. I hoped you'd join me.
If you
want trunks, there's a bathhouse
back in the hall there."
She pointed
at a black alcove.
"Suppose Clem
doesn't come back?"
Laura wound her
hands around the cord of
her robe
and pulled it tighter. "I told
you he
was very
temperamental. Don't get the
idea he's going to stay
out in
the jungle
running wild forever."
"Isn't that
what you're afraid of?"
Laura undid the
cord and the robe swung
open. "Fm beginning to think that
the mess
on the
parade ground wasn't entirely an accident."
Tim watched her
moonlit stomach. "You think Moog's
horse was a dupe?"
Laura slipped out
of the
robe, bounced once on the
board and knifed into the water.
A cockatoo
walked across the roof.
Laura surfaced at
the other
end of
the pool,
tossing her head and sputtering. She vanished again and
in a
moment was climbing out, up the
brass ladder. "Are you wondering
whom I suspect of sabotaging the ceremonies?"
"No," said
Tim.
Laura hugged her
slick stomach and sucked her
cheek. She walked by Tim and
moved, very straight, onto the
board. She bent and
retrieved the robe, which was
hanging with its arms almost in
the shimmering
water. Tossing her head again, she
said, "I've almost got you
figured out, McCarey."
Metal groaned.
Tim glanced
up and
saw a giant shaggy cross on the
glass. "Clem's watching,"
he said.
"He is back," said Laura, hurrying into the
robe. She tied it with a
lopsided bow. Cupping her hands,
she called,
"Clem, Clem, meet me
in my
room. I'll be there in
a minute."
The gorilla hesitated,
then snaked slowly across the
roof and was gone. "Think he'll meet you?"
Laura ran back
onto the tiles. "Yes, he's back to stay
now. Whenever he comes looking for
me, I
know he's back to stay.
He can get right into my
bedroom window from the roof
here. I'll see you
tomorrow, Tim." She ran into
the dark
alcove.
A square of
glass toppled from the ceiling
and immel-manned
down to the water. It
balanced on the surface for
an instant and then sank.
On his way
back to the cottage, Tim
stopped to watch a marmoset. The
small woolly monkey was sitting
on a
black wrought-iron chair. It
gave Tim a sad grin,
revealing that most of its teeth
were gone.
"He's quite
old."
Tim turned and
Carrie caught up with him.
"Not as old as Moog's horse,"
Tim said,
taking the girl's hand.
"I heard
about all that." She smiled.
"How come
they didn't let you come
to the
parade?"
"Laura seemed to
think there was lots of
work to get out of the
way. They just turned me
loose now."
"Clem finally came
back," said Tim. "Want to leave with me? Right
now?"
"I told
you, I can't."
When they reached
the door
of her
cottage, Tim said, "Tell me why."
"Questions, questions," Carrie said.
"Sorry."
She pushed into
the cottage.
"Tim." He stepped into
the dark
room. "Yes?" Pressing close
against him, holding hard, she
finally said, "This is one of
those nights when I get
frightened." "I'll stay."
Carrie laughed.
"I was hoping you would."
•
• •
Her knees
were drawn up, warm against
his side.
Her hands were cupped on his
shoulders. "We were about to
be married," Carrie was
saying in a husky, early-morning
voice. "It was a
cathedral, sort of, except much
smaller and covered with vines and
hollyhocks. I remember a gargoyle
all tangled
in honeysuckle." He felt
her smile
against his ear. "It really
is handy being able
to tell
you these
dreams almost as they happen."
His eyes
were still partly closed. "Get
to the
wedding gifts. What did
we amass?"
The day
outside the girl's cottage was a pale, cold white.
"In the middle
of the
wedding, the San Francisco earthquake
of 1906
happened. I thought it was
a lousy
time for that."
Out among
the birdcalls
and animal
cries, there was the jangle of spurs, and booted
feet. Tim swung out of
bed. "Troops coming this
way."
Carrie stretched and
shrugged. "They're probably practicing for the next parade."
A fist pounded
on the
outside door of Carrie's cottage.
"Are you awake, Miss
Donner?" called one of Clem's
soldiers.
Carrie looked
at Tim.
"Am I?"
"Better check out
what they want." He dressed
fast, fireman fashion.
"Yes," said
Carrie, searching the bedroom for
a robe.
She raised her voice. "Yes, I'm awake. It's nice
of you
to ask."
"We've come to arrest
you."
Carrie was half
into a lace-trimmed robe. "Too
fancy for getting arrested in." From
a closet
she reached
down a faded terry-cloth kimono. "What
for?" she said to the
door of the next room.
"Treason, Miss
Donner. Better hurry up, now."
"Let's not
stall anymore," said another, angrier
voice.
"Even if
it is
treason, Jay, we still have
to be
polite."
A harsher pounding
started on the door. "Come
on out—
now."
"Damn it," said
Tim. He moved to the
bedroom door. "I'll stop them."
"No," said Carrie,
"this is probably just some
prank of Laura's. Stay in here."
"And hide
under the bed?"
"It's all
hatboxes under there," she said.
"Please relax." Somebody began
kicking the front door in.
"Coming," said Carrie. She
ran from
the bedroom,
closing the door between her and
Tim.
He hesitated
against it, listening.
"I have
to read
this to you, Miss Donner."
"Well, OK."
"I bet you
deliberately opened the door while
my foot
was stuck through it," said the
angry soldier.
"Stop hopping
around, Jay, so I can
read."
"Let's just
drag her off. The hell
with formality."
"You should
really get your foot loose
first," said Carrie.
"Shut up," said
Jay. Wood splintered. "There goes my best boot."
"To whom it
may concern,"
began the other soldier. "That's me, I
guess," said Carrie.
"You keep
interrupting and I'll knock you
down," said Jay.
Tim tightened
his hand
over the bedroom doorknob.
"To whom it
may concern,"
repeated the first soldier. "It
is hereby and henceforth declared, taking
into consideration due process
of civil
procedures, that the following person,
Carrie Jane Donner, is
to be
taken into custody at once.
The charges against said Carrie
Jane Donner being treason in
the form of deliberate sabotage against an important
parade and its attendant ceremonies."
Tim hadn't
known Carrie's middle name until
now.
"That's silly," said Carrie. 'Tell Laura
I'll be up for work
after I have some
breakfast."
"This is
serious, Miss Donner."
"I warned you,"
cried Jay. There was the
sound of a harsh slap.
Tim yanked
the door
open and ran for Carrie.
Jay, a wide, close-cropped blond young
man, hit her across the
face again, then ducked and bent
her over
his shoulder.
"Hey," said Tim.
His voice
was low
and calm,
not at
all his. "Hey, you son of
a bitch."
He made
a dive
for Jay.
On the cottage doorstep, just into
the warming
morning air, a rifle butt slammed into Tim's face,
once in his chin and
again, as he tottered, against the
side of his head.
• • •
Several macaws
were picketing him. Tim lifted
his head
and they scattered.
From across
the way,
a voice
said, "Feeling better?"
Tim felt his
face. There was dried blood
on the
left side, a swelling on the
right. "I suppose, Dr. Jackstone.
Have you examined me while I
was knocked
out?"
"Haven't had
a chance,
Tim," said the plump doctor.
He was hefting a large packing
case through the doorway of
his cottage. "You were not dead
or seriously
hurt; I knew that from the
way you
were sprawled." He dropped the
case inside.
"Aren't you
eager for patients anymore?" Tim rolled over from his
stomach to his back.
'The hassle
yesterday was a bonanza. Besides,"
said Dr. Jackstone, gesturing
at the
five large cardboard cartons reigning in his doorway, "I've
got all
this to uncrate. As a
matter of fact, I
may have
ruptured myself lifting that last
one. That would be
interesting."
"How many
were injured yesterday?"
Tim dug
in with
his elbows and managed to sit
up, his
stomach whirring.
"A good half
dozen." Jackstone trotted over to
Tim. "I dashed over here from
the infirmary
to get
these samples out of the way."
"Samples?" Tim masked his eyes for
a moment,
taking deep breaths.
"Brought in
yesterday. One of Clem's supporters
is in
the wholesale-drug line. Now
and then
I get a wonderful array of new drugs."
He studied
Tim a
moment. "Any history of malaria in your family?"
"No," said
Tim, "why?"
"A shame," said the doctor. He
scratched his crinkly white hair. "Being in the jungle
like this, I keep hoping
for a
malaria case. Breaks my
heart to think that I
now have
a whole gross of candy-flavored malaria pills and no
one to
use them on."
"You could
talk a mosquito into biting
you."
"They shun me,
the rascals."
Dr. Jackstone
tugged Tim to his feet. He
gasped, then chuckled. "Yes, I think I do
have a nice rupture coming along."
"Congratulations." Tim blinked. "Do you know
where they took Carrie?"
'To the big
house, I imagine. I was
in my
office unpacking syringes when
the troops
carried her off." He shook
his head.
"Don't be discouraged. Many romances have impediments
strewn in their paths."
"How many of
those troopers do you think
I could
tackle in the shape I'm in?"
"About as many
as you
could before," said the doctor.
He crossed and sat on a
carton. "My advice is to
go through
channels." He fogged his
stethoscope with his breath and
rubbed it on his
left buttock.
"Was it
Clem's idea to arrest Carrie?"
"I would imagine
Laura had something to do
with it," Dr. Jackstone
said. He spread his legs
so that
he could
read the lettering on the crate
he was
sitting on. "She's taken a
liking to you. Look at this,
a whole
case of children's vitamin pills
shaped like biblical animals.
That's fascinating."
"I don't have
a concussion
or anything,
do I?"
said Tim. It was easier to
stand now.
"Do you feel
as though
you did?"
Dr. Jackstone's
eyes lit hopefully.
"No," said
Tim, "but, then, I've never
had one
before."
"Take it easy
today. See me tomorrow if
you think
you're really in serious trouble physically."
The doctor
slapped his knees and jumped off
the box.
"I have to get back
to work,
Tim. If you should
develop a severe cough, which
I hate
to admit isn't too likely, I
got in
some nice fruit-flavored
codeine."
"Thanks," said
Tim. He walked into the
jungle. "P^st!"
Tim jumped
back.
A figure detached
itself from the shadows. "It's
me, Audie
Sayers."
"I thought
you were
a snake,"
Tim said.
"What's up?"
"I've found a
way out
of here,"
Sayers said. "Part of the
wall is broken, and
I'm leaving
tonight. I thought you might
want to go with
me."
"I can't," Tim said. "Would you deliver a message
for me though?"
"Sure. Where?"
"To Conglobe. I
can't seem to reach the
outside world, probably because
the Belgrafs
don't want me to. Do
you have a pencil?"
Sayers fished in
his jacket
and produced
a ball-point
pen and some paper. Tim hesitated
briefly, then began writing as
fast as he could.
"Harvey: Better start looking for
another jungle. Will explain
when I see you."
Finishing, he
folded the paper and addressed
the outside.
"Sure you don't
want to come along?" Sayers asked, putting the
message in his jacket.
"I've got
some unfinished business here. Good
luck."
Sayers melted
into the shadows and Tim
waited until the sounds of his
retreat had faded.
• • •
Carrie was
being kept in one of
the attic
rooms of the main Belgraf house.
At least
that was where the half-dozen
green-and-silver-uniformed men
who had
carried her off were standing guard. The ceilings were
sharply pitched here and the men
had to
hunch. When one of them
shuffled, his bayonet made a dusty
arc on
the plaster.
The sparsely chinned
lieutenant who had led the
arresting group shook his
head when he noticed Tim
approaching. "Sorry about the
roughhouse," the soldier
said.
Tim had been
roaming the house for several
minutes. He hadn't gotten around to
cleaning up his face and
clothes. "I want to see Miss
Dormer."
Jay, the wide,
blond one, started to lunge.
His bayonet
inscribed a line on
the wallpaper
and then
entangled with a defunct gas lamp.
"You and your aspersions," he said, bobbing his
head out of the way
of the
scattering glass fragments of the
lamp.
"No visitors,"
said the lieutenant, blocking Tim's
way, "without written permission."
Jay quivered and
the lamp
debris fell away from him.
He scooted around the lieutenant and grabbed at Tim.
"Interloper," he said.
Tim stepped carefully
back and then swung his
foot up and kicked Jay, a
technical sergeant, in the crotch.
"That's not--------- " began Jay. Then
he gave
a half
spin and
sat down on
the Persian
rug.
"I didn't expect
so much
violence when I joined this
army," said the lieutenant.
"You'd best go seek out
Miss Belgraf or Mr. Belgraf if
you want
to talk
to the
prisoner, sir."
"Comer boy,
street arab!" said Jay.
"Nobody'd better touch
Miss Donner again," said Tim,
"at all." He turned
and went
back downstairs.
• • •
"Permission denied,"
said Laura.
Tim had found
her on
the second-floor
landing. She was wearing a pair
of green
jodphurs, black boots and a
green silver-trimmed blouse. "Where's
your riding crop?" Tim asked after
she'd refused to let him
talk to Carrie.
"I broke
it over
someone's head."
He leaned back
against an eagle-head newel post.
"Look, I'm being helpful,
working on the propaganda with you. Let Carrie loose, huh?"
"A lot of
people think treason can't happen,"
said Laura. Her nostrils were flaring.
"It does, though."
"You know there
wasn't any treason involved yesterday.
Clement lost his temper.
The rest
of it
was a
simple result of his troops not
being very well trained," Tim said. "He's getting more and more
violent. It has nothing to
do with
Carrie —or with any conspiracy."
The girl looked
away from him, brought her
hand down against her thigh as
if she
were still carrying the riding
crop. She descended to the first
floor. "That isn't so."
"I want
to see
her," Tim repeated, following.
"You can't." She spun to face
him. "You'll find out, McCarey, that sleeping with somebody
doesn't give you any proprietary rights over her."
"Oh, so?"
"And if you
continue in this negative mood,
I really
think you won't be of
much use to us"—she grinned a sharp-edged grin—"nor we to
you, as far as the
jungle goes."
"Come on,
Laura," said Tim, "turn her loose."
"There will be
a trial,"
she said.
"Uncle Vincent is mapping it
out right
now. It is rolling on
inexorably. You'll see, McCarey."
"Where's your
uncle, in his study?"
"I won't
tell you."
Tim took
her arm.
"Where?"
"He moved outside
because things were so hectic
with prisoners and all.
He's in Clem's old playhouse.
That's out back some quarter of
a mile,"
she said.
Pulling free, she added, "You won't
stop it, I guarantee you
that, McCarey."
Tim stepped back.
"Yes, ma'am," he said. He
left the house.
A brass Humpty
Dumpty teetered on the thatched
roof of the old playhouse. The sharp wind nudged
Tim toward
the redwood door. He knocked on
it just
under the rabbit-head knocker as
a swirl
of eucalyptus
leaves rattled against the cottage. Looking
out of
the unshuttered
part of the nearest window was
a giant
stuffed panda. "Mr. Belgraf," Tim called, knocking again.
"I'm in
conference." The old
man seemed
to be
right
behind the
gingerbread grille on the door.
"By yourself?"
"There's no precedent
as to
the number
who can
attend a conference," said
Vincent Belgraf. "Shuttlecock
v. Bales proved that."
"I want
to talk
to you
right now."
The wind gave
Humpty Dumpty another shaking. After
a moment, the playhouse door creaked
inward. "I'm becoming quite
an expert
on jurisprudence,"
said Belgraf.
Tim stepped inside
and a
shepherd's crook fell over in
front of him. "It's
about Carrie," Tim said.
"Bopeep," said
the old
man, stopping.
"What?"
Belgraf retrieved
the staff
and leaned
it against
a giraffe-shaped
hat rack.
"This was part of Clement's
Bopeep set. It's hard to imagine
him with
long golden hair and a
dozen stuffed sheep, isn't it?"
"I've never tried."
Tim followed
Belgraf into a low, octagonal
room. In the center was
a short-legged,
round chil-dren's-size table piled with
papers and law books. Around
the edges of the
room were tumbles of toy
cars and planes and stuffed animals:
lemurs, rabbits, bears, elk, marmosets,
dalroations, kangaroos, lady bugs
and bats.
"I think this trial idea has to stop."
"You can't simply
stop a trial," said Belgraf,
pushing a velvet teddy bear off
a wicker
chair and sitting down in
it. "They tried that
in the
case of Boatwright
v. Boatwright. Look what happened
to Boatwright."
"Which Boatwright?"
'That's immaterial," said the old man.
'Treason is trea-son.
"And law
is law.
You can't
hold a trial here."
"I hope you're
not suggesting
we hold
it someplace
else," said the old
man. "No, no, they're always
up to
something on the outside."
"I'm talking about
Carrie Donner. I want her
turned loose now."
"People aren't turned
loose in treason cases, McCarey.
Was Roger Casement turned
loose? No, he was stuck
in the
Tower of London. Never
trust a queer Irishman, anyway."
"Mr. Belgraf," said Tim—he had to
squat down to be on
eye level with the
old man
in his
children's chair—"you aren't really
a judge
or even
a lawyer.
No one
is, here."
"Don't have
to be,
in a
military trial," said Belgraf. "Did
you know, McCarey, that
the court
of Ogadai
Khan was rife with treason? To
say nothing
of the
situation with Kuyuk Khan and Mangu
Khan." He pointed one thin
finger upward. 'Thirteenth Century China
can teach
us many
things."
"Let me suggest,"
said Tim, holding on to
himself, "a change of venue. Hold
the trial
someplace else."
"I haven't come
to that,
whatever it is, yet in
my reading.
But, I repeat, anything that suggests
going outside is not apt
to turn my fancy."
Tim straightened
up and
moved back. The wind slammed
a shutter, and a
stuffed plush rat fell at
Tim's feet He
stepped over it. "Listen------------ " he began.
"I really have
to get
going on the floor plan
for the
courtroom. We're going to do
over the spare ballroom—I don't recall you've ever been
there, since we haven't had
a ball
since your arrival—for the occasion." He lifted
a felt
marking pencil off a marble-covered
book.
Taking two
deep breaths, Tim said, "OK,
fine."
He strode into
the hallway.
He heard
the shepherd's
staff fall over again as he
slammed the door and ran
into the jungle to see Clem.
•
• •
Steam spun
out of
the not
quite closed bathroom door. "Clem," said Tim,
stopping in the center of
the gorilla's
bedroom. "Clem," he said
again, louder.
The shower was
running high and made hail
sounds on the stall panels. Clem
was singing,
Rodgers and Hart songs, it sounded
like. The steam fogged the
bedroom windows, graying the day outside.
Tim kicked the
door open and said, "I want to talk to you."
'Thou witty, thou
grand," Clem sang. His voice
slowed down into silence. The shower
stopped. The part of the
stall door with dolphins etched on
it slid
open. "Well, Tim, you're really getting to be one
of the
family." His big mouth made
a wide grin. "A general always
has time
for his
people, though. Yes?"
Tim dropped the
lid down
on the
toilet and sat. The seat
cover had appliqued tulips
on it.
"Very simple," he said, "I
want you to let
Carrie go."
The gorilla
stayed in the shower, dripping,
his eyes
watching Tim through the opening.
"That's always a possibility," he said. Steam
was rising
from his damp fur.
Tim said, "Meaning
... ?"
There was a thick smell
of pine
cones in the white-tiled
room.
"There is
a possibility
Carrie will be acquitted. Not that treason trials come
out that
way much.
Still, it could happen." He hunched one shoulder,
shivered. "Hand over my robe, will
you?"
Tim glanced
at the
terry-cloth robe hanging from the
handle of the medicine cabinet.
Steam had brought out a
large, flat handprint on the mirror.
"You know damn well that
not you or anyone else here
is qualified
to pass
judgment on Carrie."
"To lead
an army,
to rule
a nation,"
said Clem, "requires a lot more
ability and chutzpah
than handing
down a verdict on one untrustworthy
secretary." He swung
out a
paw and
grabbed the bathrobe. "Carrie
isn't even a very good
typist, if you come right down
to it.
Did you
know that?"
Tim said,
"You knew her before, didn't
you?"
The gorilla hopped
out of
the stall,
making a breast-stroke motion as he
got the
robe on. His teeth slowly
grew more visible. "Before
what?"
"Before she
came to work here."
Clem tied
the cord.
"I'd have to check personnel
records."
Tim noticed now
that the gorilla was wearing
a red
rubber shower cap on the
back of his head. "You
knew her in Los Angeles or
someplace. You do have some
kind of hold on her."
Clem started for
the medicine
cabinet. His wet feet made
a squeegie sound and
he began
to fall.
He grunted
and caught at the sink. The
sink grated and came halfway
off the
wall. Clem grunted once
more, righted himself. "I'm tired
of being a nice guy with
you. Go away. There's going
to be
a trial and Carrie is going
to be
taken care of, Tim." He snapped the cabinet door
open and pawed out a
green squeeze bottle of deodorant. "She'll more than likely
sink. Don't get pulled down with
her."
Tim lowered his
head for a second. He
stood then. Not speaking, he left
the bathroom.
The deodorant
bottle hissed twice.
Tim crossed
the bedroom
carefully.
In the hallway,
he said
quietly, "God damn." He nodded
to himself.
Out in
the late
afternoon, he headed for the
arsenal.
Tim found it
difficult to sneak up on
the arms
supplies. Several dozen men
were gathering around the plain
board shack. Halting, Tim was about
to backtrack
when a soldier called to him,
"Hey, McCarey."
"Huh?" It looked
like Corporal Wilkie, the one
who'd gone through the window at
the dinner
party.
"Want to join
a revolt?"
asked the corporal, moving through the twilight to Tim.
"What's your
first move?"
Wilkie narrowed an
eye. "You haven't said you're
on our
side yet."
"I came down
here," said Tim, "to steal
a rifle.
They've got Carrie Donner locked up
in the
big house.
I want
to get
her out."
Wilkie nodded. 'That's
as good
a place
to start
as any.
We'll save her. A
nice girl, I think, though
cold in some of her
dealings with the noncommissioned.
After that, we'll roust Clement."
A group around
the arms-shed
door gave a cheer. The
room had been successfully
broken into. "How about the
guys who are loyal
to Clem?"
asked Tim.
"The officers mostly
and a
couple of dozen bleeding hearts. That's why we have
to hurry.
By now,
they've sneaked up to the big
place to warn everybody."
Rifles and ammunition
were passed around. The rifles
ran out before Tim's turn came
up. He
got a
.45 automatic,
but
no ammunition.
During the
first moments of the siege,
Vincent Belgraf manned a machine gun
on the
front porch. After Wilkie's army shot away most of
the gingerbread
trim several yards around him, old
Belgraf ducked inside. For all
the shooting,
no one had hit him.
Wilkie tried to
convey their request for the
release of Carrie under a flag
of truce.
From a second-floor window, Colonel Granger shot the flagpole
out of
the corporal's
hands with a squirrel gun, causing
Wilkie to discard the conventional
rules.
"We'll have to
seize the place and drag
everybody out," said Wilkie.
"Carrie could
get hurt."
"You can't
call all the shots in
a war."
After 15
minutes, most of the men
who'd made it to the big
house to defend Clem and
the Belgrafs
had given
up. Wilkie's side wasn't
accurate in its marksmanship but the soldiers were all
persistent.
Dusk blacked
down to night. Firing was
not being
returned from the old Victorian
house much at all now.
Tim had spotted Laura up in
one of
the towers.
She had
a revolver but only used it
intermittently.
A roar of
triumph went up and two
score of Wilkie's men stormed the front steps.
"Come on,"
said Wilkie.
"Hey," called a
private, "he's ducking out the
back." "I'll get Clem,"
said Wilkie, not joining the main
charge on the house.
Tim hesitated.
He heard
Carrie's voice cry out from
around the side of
the house.
He trotted
along with Wilkie.
• • •
Fragments of
stained glass blossomed from the
attic. Clem came shooting out onto
the shingles
of the
pitched roof and went skittering along the ridge of
the highest
gable. His spurs and the ornamental
stock of his rifle sparkled
in the
harsh moonlight.
"Now we'll get
the bastard,"
said Wilkie, swinging his rifle
upward.
Tim said, "He's
got Carrie,"
and chopped
down with the flat of his
hand against Wilkie's arm.
The girl was
unconscious, apparently. Clem held her
casually in the crook of
his arm.
As they
watched, he went sailing into the
darkness. He thudded onto a
lower roof, danced a spinning dance
across it and then leaped
again.
"It's like a
damn jungle movie," said Wilkie,
lowering his gun.
Clem jumped again,
this time from a cupola
straight into the jungle. "Damn," said Tim. He began
running along the flagstone path that
skirted the house.
Wilkie and two
dozen other soldiers followed. "Don't
shoot the girl," Wilkie told them.
Tim hesitated at
the jungle
edge. He listened and then
heard Clem crashing off
to the
right. "The playhouse,"
Tim said.
Tim didn't
notice he was winded until
he had
dropped behind a cluster
of bamboo
to watch
the cottage.
Taking a deep breath made him
dizzy and he had to
catch hold of a spiked bush
to keep
from tumbling down.
"That's him
on the
roof," said one of Wilkie's
men.
"No," said the
former chief, "that's Humpty Dumpty.
Don't get twitchy."
"He's inside,"
said Tim, catching a flash
of silver.
Clem smashed out
a window
pane. A stuffed animal fell
out with the broken
glass. He began firing.
"Hold off shooting,"
whispered Wilkie. To Tim he
said, "Come on." They
began crawling, moving quietly for
the back of the playhouse. "This jungle-warfare
stuff comes in handy sometimes, huh?"
When they were
behind the gingerbread house, they
heard Carrie's voice say,
"What the hell is going
on? Why'd
you drag me here?"
Clem's reply was
a low
growl. "I might need a
hostage. You were handiest." His rifle
sounded once more.
Wilkie had selected
a thin
vine and cut off a
length. "I've been curious
to see
if this
works or not," he said.
He was
much more adept in
the underbrush
than he was in the
kitchen. Soundlessly, he located
the rear
door to the little house. Getting it open, he
eased inside.
By the time
Tim got
into the dark room, Wilkie
was spinning
over Clem's head. He'd tried
to garrote him from behind and it hadn't
worked. Clem roared anger. "Get
in here," shouted Wilkie.
Clem threw him
against the wall, but the
stuffed animals cushioned the impact.
Tim hurdled the
round table and caught Carrie
up. "Come
on. Let's get out
of here."
Clem's paws
got a
grip on Wilkie and the
corporal yelled.
The front door
shattered and a dozen soldiers
made for Clem. One of them
had grabbed
up the
hat rack,
and he
walloped the gorilla over
the skull
with it. Clem roared and
clawed out at the
men.
More soldiers had
found the place now and
they shattered windows and shivered shutters,
forcing their way into the
playroom. It looked like
a lopsided
football game as Tim and
Carrie left.
He led Carrie
away, back toward their cottages.
"Do you know where they've stowed
my car?"
"There's a garage down
near gate F for visitors'
cars and such," said the girl.
"They probably brought it in
off the
road and stuck it there."
"We're going
to leave.
Got much
to pack?"
"I can't,"
began Carrie.
Coming toward them
on the
path was Laura Belgraf. 'They're hurting Clem, aren't they?"
she asked.
In her
right hand she had a .38
revolver.
Tim and Carrie
stopped. "Clem seemed to be
on the
losing side when we
left the playhouse."
"All of them
have deserted now. They all
went over. Except for Jay, and
the others
roughed him up." Laura gestured with the pistol. Then,
looking beyond them, she brightened. "Clem."
Tim pushed
Carrie out of the way
and turned.
The gorilla was
weaving, swaying into tree trunks,
stumbling over vines and branches.
He shuffled
to a
halt a few feet away.
"Clem," said
Laura, "where's your uniform?"
The gorilla wasn't
wearing anything. He put his
arched paws on his chest for
a moment,
his big
head cocked at his sister.
"Don't bother to
explain now," said Laura. "We'll
get you
hidden where they can't
find you. I'll bandage up
your hurts and you'll be fine.
Clem?"
Clem flinched and
then made a gutteral sound.
He repeated
it twice.
He leaned,
and his
hands swept at the path.
Glowering, he made the
noise again and then loped
off the
trail and into the
jungle.
"He's crossed
over for sure," said Tim.
"No," said Laura,
"he's simply upset." She bit
the knuckles
of the
hand that wasn't holding the
gun and
then started after the gorilla.
From the direction
of the
playhouse drifted Wilkie's voice.
"Get some torches."
"The barracks,"
someone shouted.
Carrie said,
"He really is just a
gorilla now? Finally."
"I think
so."
"I suppose we
can leave,
then," she said. "Yes, we can leave, Tim."
Far-off flames
began to crackle.
Tim swung two
suitcases into the trunk of
his car;
Carrie added a hatbox and three
coats.
Smoke was
rising above the barracks area;
cinders flickered up into the
night sky. Carrie slid into
the front
seat.
Tim pushed the
ignition. Nothing happened. "Damn it. Car's been sitting here
too long."
He jumped
out of
the car.
"Will it start
with a push?" asked Dr.
Jackstone, who was hurrying along the
path that wound by the
garages.
"I imagine,"
said Tim.
The doctor dropped
his black
bag against
a passion
vine. "We'll roll it
out of
the garage
and then
down that way to gate F."
"Great," said
Tim. "This isn't going to
mess up your hernia?"
"I'm betting
it will."
As they
worked the car slowly out
of the
garage, Tim asked, "You going to
be staying
on here?
I can
give you a ride out."
"Not now,"
replied the doctor, straining. "I've got a smorgasbord
of contusions,
gunshot wounds, minor bums and
breakages to look after
right here. Plus the unique
challenge of Clement Belgraf himself."
"He's just
about completely a gorilla now,
isn't he?"
"Perhaps," said Dr. Jackstone, "though there is always hope."
The car began
rolling downhill. Tim leaped in
beside Carrie, and in
a few
yards, the engine whirred on.
"Thanks, Dr. Jackstone."
They moved down
the jungle
road toward the gate in
the wall, the sounds of the
now-burning main house dropping away behind them. There were
no guards
now, no sign of anyone as
Tim stopped
and threw
the switch
that made the high, thick gate
swing inward.
"Eventually . .
." said Carrie when they
were on the roadway outside.
"Eventually what?"
"I'll tell you
everything in detail," the girl
said. "I knew Clement Belgraf before.
Before he was this way,
back in Los Angeles. He had
some things, hidden away, that
he sort
of used to persuade me to
stay on—pictures, actually."
"Later you can
tell me," said Tim. He
touched her hand. "We'll have to
figure something for you to
do from
now on."
"Besides staying
relatively close to you?"
"Besides that,
yes," he answered. "And I
still have to find
another damn jungle by-------- Hey, what day is
this, anyway?"
"I've lost
track, too. I'll check the
news." Carrie reached over into the
back seat of the land
car and
turned the television set on.
"And this bulletin
just now in," said Peg
Leg Mintosh.
"A very big fire over in
San Amaro
at the
secluded estate of patriot Vincent Belgraf.
No word
yet as
to cause
of the
fire, but, friends, if you want
my opinion...."