Fun House (9 page)

The old magicientist waved the almost-rose at the sleeping man. “There’s Barnum Fly. A brilliant student, too brilliant,” he murmured. “The brain-picker,” he added spitefully.

Our eyes met, and I sensed a fatal web of betrayals in the center of which, like a sinister atomic spider, was the A-I-D. I couldn’t speak, I was stunned. Then I cried out. “The A-I-D!”

“Ah, if only I had the A-I-D, my friend,” he chuckled.

“Where — Where is it?”

“Only Barnum knows that.”

“The Trans-rec!” I gasped with excitement.

“It wouldn’t work on a magicientist, my friend.”

“The Brain-Confessor!”

“Effective with the herd, not with a man like Barnum.” He glanced at the sleeping man. “There is the greatest of our magicientists. Don’t you agree, Professor Fleischkopf?”

The giant in the hydrogen hat shrugged. “Master, I prefer not to answer that question until I can evaluate the
x
of heredity as against the
y
of environment. And if the
y
factor includes you, master, his guide and mentor — ”

“These professors and their everlasting quibbling!” the old magicientist exclaimed impatiently.

“Nevertheless, the
y
factor — ”

“Fleischy!” the old magicientist called in a sharp tone like a man to a dog. As I wondered why he had abbreviated the professor’s name, something amazing happened. The professor’s high forehead wrinkled like an ape’s and he began to change into a different person. As if the lower part of his face, the brutal below-the-nose part of him, the pithycantelope erectus if I remember my schooling, were dominating his personality. Those intelligent eyes of his were fawning, full of slavish love like a dog’s. He walked over to M. E. Bangani and his nose twitched.

Dr. Bangani plucked a leafcumber and tossed it to the monster who snatched it in mid-air and gulped it down. “An interesting hybrid,” the old magicientist said to me, smiling at the fear he saw in my face. “Far more advanced than the original psycho-muscles
¹
that I first perfected years ago.” He nodded at the sleeping man on the couch. “It was Barnum’s idea to apply the psycho-muscle principle to scientists who had become unhappy in the service of the State. “Let’s cauterize their conscience,” he said. “Simple, isn’t it? The simplicity of genius! Professor Fleischkopf was one of our leading biophysicists. You wouldn’t believe it but he was a foot shorter before I pressurized his genes. I like my hybrids strong. There you see him, half scientist and half beast, and no unsettling conscience. But the original idea was Barnum’s. The student surpassed the master, and now in turn I have mastered him.”

I was frightened as never before in my life by this rambling old man, whose every word was dusty with regret and poisoned with envy. “What do you want?” I asked.

“Life!” he answered. “I am not a Barnum aspiring to become supreme dictator. I don’t want to rule the world. All I want is equality for our magicientists with the Rulers. Equality!” he said, his deep voice rising. “A revolutionary I am not! But I have always believed that an elite class like us magicientists are entitled to more recognition than we have received. That is why I need your help. As a Reservation man you must share some of my feelings about the Rulers. I need your help to win over the Commissioner and the L. and O. I talk to you as an equal, Crockett Smith.” He chuckled that mean little chuckle of his. “I could hybridize you, my friend, but I prefer to talk to you as an equal.”

An unreasoning fear overcame me. I bolted for the door, but I never reached it. Something stunned me and a second later I realized I was on the floor. Then M. E. Bangani or rather two M. E. Bangani’s seemed to stand over me. Luckily it was only an optical illusion, for when the two Banganis kicked me — not a hard kick but more of a contemptuous poke — I felt glad that it was only one foot after all. “He’s not unconscious,” I heard him saying. “Professor Fleischkopf please attend to it …” That was the last thing I heard for suddenly I felt the jab of a needle. And my senses began to spin, faster and faster — a spin into darkness.

When I first heard the distant beat of drums I was sure I was dreaming. I had to be dreaming. Not only were there drums, but before me stretched a tremendous moonlit window extending the length of a room that must have been close to sixty feet long. All this in the rear room of the Venus wine shop was unlikely. I noticed now that I seemed to be lying on some sort of long polished platform. I stroked its surface experimentally, but it stayed hard. It didn’t change into a thigh.
¹
No dream women materialized, not Cleo F. or Gladys E. or even my dear wife Ruth who although far away was still completely eligible as a siren of my subconscious. Could it be that I wasn’t dreaming? Was I the victim of another magicientifical amnesia?

My eyes had become used to the moonlight. The polished platform, I realized, was really the top of a huge table. It was fantastic. Then I remembered the sting of the needle that Professor Fleischkopf had jabbed into me as I lay on the floor of the Venus. I began to tremble, not because I’d been knocked out by a needle. The career of a law enforcement officer in a territory that has its share of outlaws like the Reservation is full of unconscious moments. But usually when I recovered my senses I’d find myself in the sort of place that goes with the profession, as you might say. Never before had I ended up on a banquet board. It is the unexpected that worries a man. And when I thought of M. E. Bangani and his hybridized scientist Fleischy — Fleischkopf I felt complete defeat.

The drums were still beating. I listened intently and then I heard another sound. Faint, steady, humming. I got off the table and went to the great window. It was semi-transparent, made of one of their plasto-alumino-crystals. I located its operational buttons and pressed the LIFT. The window slid up and out of sight, and the humming became very loud. Before me a swarm of insects fluttered, fluttering and dropping dead, all seemingly in one blow. None were coming into the room although there was no window to keep them out.

Carefully I extended my finger towards the window that wasn’t. As I had anticipated, even without touching it, I felt an unpleasant shock.
¹
Thoughtfully I stared at those insect hordes winging out of the night and dying on the wing. Large sized specimens too. They had to be large. Down below were the tops of big trees.

I pulled out my Aag
²
, opened the tiny sighting rod and held the phosphorescent gleaming bead straight before me. I pressed the illuminator and read the measurement — 96.82. I was exactly ninety-six feet and eight inches above ground. My all-Emergency Thread could have gotten me down but I was afraid to try. The Shocko, at its center, might be strong enough to knock me out or even kill me.

I stood there a beaten man, staring at those doomed insects. That Shocko was their A-I-D. I thought of humanity fluttering its wings on July 4th, of swarms of mothers calling to their children “Where are you?” and the children answering with their last radioactive breaths, “I don’t know mother … I don’t know mother …”

How long I stood there brooding, I’ll never know. A new sound, violent and unmistakable made me gasp.

Down below among those trees was an elephant. Greater Miami had everything, I knew. I myself had seen camels and toy-size elephants. But this beast wasn’t toy-sized. Above the beating drums and buzzing insects, it was bellowing wildly. It was either hungry or mating or maybe both. I listened numbly, no longer caring. Then I thought of the words of the man who had been a second father to me, Boone Truckley, my predecessor as Reservation Chief of Police. “When in doubt take inventory, my boy.”

I did so. There was:
1.
A banquet hall 96.82 feet above ground. 2. Drums. 3. Window protected by Shocko.
4.
An elephant that sounded berserk.

It added up — to madness if I’d been back home. But here on the Outside, who could tell? Grimly I searched through my pockets, and thank God, there was one last U-Latu. I chewed on it and began to cheer up. So much so that I went to the door of the banquet room. It was locked. I kicked and pounded it and I felt a definite pleasure in making as much noise as I could.

There was no response. Only the primeval sound of the drums, the buzzing of the insects, and in the deeper part of the jungle the faint but recognizable answering trumpet of a second elephant. Then I heard footsteps outside the door.

It opened, and the great room was flooded with light. Before me was Fleischkopf. The scientist and not the caveman, for when he spoke it was in his gentle voice. “Would you like to know where you are?” he asked and smiled that gentle academic smile of his.

“Africa-in-Miami.”

“No, we flew here after I applied the M. N.
¹
You will forgive us, won’t you? The flight was a short one. We traveled by Atomo-Jette — ”

“Atomo-Jette!” I exclaimed. “This is Africa then, the real Africa!”

“More or less. We haven’t left the country,
²
really.”

“Where are we? Nevada? New Mexico?” I felt miserable thinking of how close I was to the Reservation and yet so far, separated by a million miles of principle.

“We took good care of you,” he said. “We removed your beard while you slept. You had an unusually bad reaction to the M. N. You’ve been sleeping for two days.”

I felt sick. June 28th — only six days to July 4th! I rubbed at my clean-shaven chin and thought of the beard M. E. Bangani had supplied me with in my hotel room in Paris-in-Miami. A hundred miserable thoughts went through my head, and I cursed myself for listening to M. E. Bangani, and for the temptation to play the hero. At least I could have consulted Gladys …

To keep from thinking, I looked about this banquet hall. It was furnished simply, except for dozens of portraits on the walls. A strange collection, for they were all portraits of very old men with dark intense eyes. They all semed alike, and when I looked closer I realized that they were alike. From all those dozens of portraits, M. E. Bangani was staring at me. “My God!” I cried.

“The master calls this his ancestor room,” the professor explained seriously. “Have you ever considered the significance of ancestors, the factor
x
of heredity? At his noblest, Man can be defined as the one mammal who has ancestors, and I do not mean his immediate parents and grandparents. I am talking spiritually of the great men of the past, the great scientists, the great astrologers and alchemists.”

He walked to the nearest portrait, and I followed him. I’d last seen that hybrid in a black magicientist cape and hydrogen hat. Now he was wearing African-style tan shorts, sandals, and only his shirt of megaton blue
¹
indicated his scientific inclinations. He nodded at the portrait, that of an ancient man with a white pointed beard, wearing a pointed hat out of the middle ages. “A genius!” he lectured me in his heavy professorial manner. “Do you recognize him?”

When I could control my trembling I said, “No.”

“That’s Merlin, the magician of King Arthur’s Court.” He walked to another portrait and said. “And here is Amen-Khat-Re, the Egyptian sorcerer, who taught Moses the technique of dividing a large mass of water. I refer of course to the Red Sea. And here is a man much closer to us in time, the physicist Albert Einstein.”

“The clothes they wear are different,” I couldn’t help saying. “But their faces, their eyes are like those of Dr. Bangani!”

“You Reservation people are stupid, aren’t you? Merlin, Amen-Khat-Re and Einstein? What are they in the last analysis but the spiritual ancestors of the master? The master honors them in his name, M. E. Bangani — Merlin Einstein Bangani. Don’t you think that even our spiritual ancestors ought to have some resemblance to us?

“That’s a very good point,” I said.

“And isn’t it natural to honor the pioneers in any field? I’ll concede that up to the age of Einstein they were all a trifle crude. But where would we be without a beginning? Progress doesn’t come by itself. But what would a Reservation man know about Progress? Come!”

I followed him out of the ancestor room into a corridor whose walls were covered with formulas out of the scientific disciplines:
1550 Angstroms in diameter. Four cats designated as Group A compete for food under controlled conditions until Cat A-1 emerges as dominant
. 2HR
₂
+CO
₂
bacte-riochlorophyll/light C (H
₂
O)
₂
+2R.
The Red Shift in Non-Dopplerian Terms
.

At the end of the corridor he stopped in front of a closed door and said confidentially. “We are what we think we are. Remember that when you see the master.”

“Who does Dr. Bangani think he is?” I asked fearfully.

“Remember this is Africa, primitive Africa where an individual need account only to himself. And the master sometimes gets tired of being himself.

“Who does he think he is?”

“The master doesn’t
think
he is, as you so ineptly phrased it. He
is
what he thinks.” He stared at me with pity. “You Reservation people! Dull work has deadened your imagination. No, we better not go in to the master just now. Your psyche needs stimulation.”

“Please!” I pleaded. “Please, professor.”

But, gripping me by the arm, he propelled me forward down the corridor to a door that carried a little sign:
TIME STREAM
. We went into a room that was completely black except for a shining white screen in the ceiling. “Aren’t you curious?” he asked me. “No questions?”

“No,” I muttered.

“The Time Stream,” he lectured me. “Or, Spectacles of the Past! A great man, the master. By re-examining the relativity formulas of Einstein, he has succeeded in reversing time.” From the white screen overhead, a dim light illuminated his hybridized face. His jaws seemed heavier and more brutal. “Now, let’s see. You people on the Reservation prohibit inventions after the year 1879. Perhaps you would like to return to the Civil War?” Before I could reply, he walked to one of the black walls. I heard him pull a panel for there was a metallic sliding sound, and in bright light, rows of instruments appeared, “Watch the screen!” he said.