The Reproductive System (Gollancz SF Library)

by John Sladek

  ‘Another one, Carl?’ Slim poured him another, took the proper amount from the jumbled pile of change in front of Cal, and added another receipt to the neat, squared-up stack. An increase or was it decrease in entropy—or was it enthalpy? Cal tried to remember Dr. Trivian and Appreciation of Thermodynamics, but his thoughts were running into ellipses. …

  He watched the old people along the wall, dozing over cribbage or Monopoly boards and beer. Now and then one would awaken slightly to say something cross, then drift off without waiting for a reply.

  The taller of the two newcomers, who reminded Cal somehow of jock-straps, had turned his back, but the shorter man materialized at Cal’s elbow. ‘Pardon me, sir,’ he said shyly. ‘My friend and I have a little bet going. I say you’re a doctor, and he says you drive a meat truck. I wonder if you’d mind telling me which of us is correct?’

  Cal smiled modestly, if crookedly. ‘Actually, I’m a biophysicist. So I’d say your guess was closer.’

  ‘Very interesting.’ The stranger reamed one ear with a thick finger. ‘I suppose you know a lot about mathematics, eh?’

  ‘Bingo !’ screamed an old person of indeterminate sex, who sat before a cribbage board.

  Reluctantly, Cal admitted that he had a nodding acquaintance with the Calculus.

  ‘I see. Well, thanks for settling our bet.’ The stranger moved off, before Cal could ask him the name of his tall companion. ‘Tennessee’ came to mind, as did ‘tennis shoe’. Cal settled for the moment on something between Dennis Shoe and Jack Strapp. …

  He realized he was shouting all this when Slim turned and smiled at him. ‘Keep it down to a dull roar, now, Carl old buddy.’

  ‘Cheat !’ someone along the wall squeaked. ‘Where did that hotel come from, eh? Tell me that !’

  ‘You watch your mouth,’ came the quavering reply. ‘I own Boardwalk and Park Place, and by the Living God, you’ll pay me my rent !’

  ‘Please,’ said another, an old woman in a scarlet shirt. ‘Andy can take his turn over, can’t he?’

  A glass of beer went over. ‘Now see what you’ve made me do ! All the Chance cards ruined !’

  ‘I’ll show you who cheats !’ screamed a wispy old man in a tall white sombrero and a shirt of distress-signal pink. Above the green neckerchief, his goitre worked convulsively. ‘There !’ He leapt up and whipped the blanket off his opponent’s lap. A number of cards fell out of it. ‘Hah !’ he screamed. ‘Caught with the goods ! So that’s what happened to all the railroads, eh?’

  The culprit, a parrot-like man in blue and orange, picked up a tiny red block of wood and flung it at him. ‘Take your hotel and go to Hades !’ he wailed. Clawing at the board, he upset it, sweeping off hotels, houses, dice and markers. ‘You cheat, yourself !’

  ‘… take his turn over, now, couldn’t he, Edna?’

  ‘Cheat ! Hah ! Sneak !’

  ‘I’ll cheat you, by the Living God !’ shrieked the man in the hat. He brought up a cane suddenly and began laying about him. ‘All of you cheated me. All of you cheated me.’

  There was a stir at the bar, among the group of attendants. One young man spun about on his stool. Above his pocket Cal could make out the name. ‘Dr. Michaels’. He was across the room in three strides, flipping the cane from the old man’s hand.

  ‘Now, Toby. Now, Toby, it’s only a game,’ he said.

  The old man rolled his eyes and whinnied, ‘You’re all cheating me !’

  The doctor drew his black, pearl-handled revolver, pressed the muzzle to Toby’s upper arm, and squeezed the trigger.

  The two swarthy strangers reached inside their jackets.

  Toby visibly relaxed, and his muttering grew faint. Dr. Michaels withdrew the gun. It was, Cal could see, made of black plastic. One might almost take it for a toy, if not for the inch of glittering needle projecting from the barrel. Retracting this, the doctor holstered his weapon.

  ‘Sorry about the disturbance,’ he grinned to the crowd at large. The hands of the two strangers came out of their jackets, and they laughed foolishly. Dr. Michaels and another attendant lowered the unconscious old man into a wheelchair. Cal saw that it had wagon wheels.

  ‘What are you supposed to be?’ a woman in purple demanded of Cal. ‘Little country doctor? What’s the white coat for?’

  ‘In Japan,’ he tried to say, ‘white is for mourning.’

  ‘In Jamp,’ he said distinctly, ‘wise firm? Awning.’

  Her empurpled lips took a sip of cocktail. With obvious enjoyment she sneered, ‘Don’t hand me that crap ! You ain’t no doctor ! You’re just some monkey from the meat market. Why don’t you get back to your pig’s feet?’

  Cal shook his head, then looked at his feet, trying to puzzle out her meaning. ‘Why don’t I—?’

  ‘You’re a mess !’ she screamed, spraying spittle. ‘A mess ! Just like my old man. Boy, he was a real bastard. Used to rub grime deliberately into his shirts. Used to come home in his filthy shoes and walk all over the floors. Put his filthy ashes into every ashtray in the house. Well I had enough of that rotten bastard, and I had enough of you !’

  Her cocktail was cold and frothy with cream. It’s impact drove him back a few blind steps. Rebounding from a table, he fell. Angry red faces looked down at him. Four or five voices gabbled at once about that man bothering you ma’am, about drunken young snot ought to be in the army, about impersonating a doctor. Hands dragged Cal to his feet.

  ‘About time you were shoving off, old buddy Carl,’ chortled Slim, steering him towards the door.

  ‘It’s Cal,’ he pleaded. ‘You wouldn’t like it if I called you Slime, would you?’

  ‘Is that the way you’re gonna be?’ Slim rabbit-punched Cal and seized his collar. The other hand twisted in the back of his belt. ‘I knew you was gonna be trouble when you come in here.’

  The door flew towards them.

  ‘But I only meant—’

  Cal shot through the door, bounced on all fours, and rolled to rest against a brick wall.

  Moonlight streamed down into the alley. Cal lay there awhile, getting his bearings. He saw a number of garbage cans, a poster announcing a Wheelchair Squaredance at the Golden Sunset Ranch, and his own shoeless foot.

  Rising painfully, he limped about till he found the missing shoe. When he had finished being sick into it, he put it on.

  It was difficult to walk on two legs, so he progressed on four to the alley entrance. The two strangers in Palm Beach suits were waiting for him. Without a word, they picked him up and dumped him in the back of a car. Though it was too dark to tell, Cal felt sure it was a black Cadillac sedan. The shorter man climbed in beside him, while the other slid behind the wheel. He certainly reminded Cal of someone in his graduation class, now two weeks past. But who? Not Barthemo Beele. Not Mary Junes, either. …

  ‘Where we going?’ he asked, struggling to sit up. The stranger pushed him back in the seat and drew a gun.

  ‘You’re being kidnapped, actually, sir. “The Professor” has given orders to kidnap a mathematician.’

  ‘What professor? I wanta see the squealchair wheredance.’

  ‘Put this over your eyes, please.’ He was handed a band of black cloth.

  ‘Does that gun have needle in it, too?’

  The others laughed richly. ‘That’s right,’ growled the driver. ‘A needle to put you to sleep with—for a long time. Unless you want to take the big sleep, you better do as we—like we say. In this racket, we play for keeps, odd man out, loser take nothing, see?’

  There was something familiar about that voice, Cal thought, but by now the blindfold was in place. They drove off.

  Five minutes later, after a complicated series of turns, they stopped and hustled him into a building.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ boomed a hearty voice. ‘Company already, eh? I suppose this is our mathematician.’ Cal imagined a cigar-smoking executive gangster rubbing his hands. ‘Take off the mask and let’s have a look at the face of him.’


  The blindfold was removed, and Cal found himself facing a buxom, pleasant-faced blonde wearing a ruffled mobcap and flannel nightie. She might have stepped out of a Dutch genre painting, but for the fact that she held, not a candle, but a bottle

  of scotch and a glass. ‘Welcome to Castle Rackrent !’ she boomed. ‘Care for a drink?’

  His stomach contracted. ‘I don’t—think so. Are you—the Professor?’

  ‘Me? Haha, bless you, no, I’m Daisy, the Professor’s fiancée and former secretary. This is the Professor.’

  She moved to one side, revealing a thin, wispy man sitting on the sofa. His sparse hair, the colour of pounce, lay in dusty streaks across his baldness. He seemed to be engrossed in writing with a quill pen in an old, battered book so huge it hid most of his body, though Cal could see gaitered legs below it. They did not reach to the floor.

  ‘How do you do?’ Cal said.

  ‘How do you—?’ creaked the other. But Daisy moved in front of him like a curtain once more, and he fell silent.

  ‘His real name is Brian Gallopini,’ she said, pouring herself a glass of liquor. ‘But in the Underworld everyone with a college education gets called “Professor”, you see.’

  ‘Then he isn’t one, really?’

  She drank off the gill and poured herself another. ‘Oh yes, he’s a professor, all right. Of eighteenth-century literature. Or was. I was his secretary. We decided to run away and be gangsters, when he got his idea—but that’s another story. My name is Daisy le Due, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll resist the temptation to call me “Daisy Duck”.’ The mirth went out of her smile for a moment, then returned full-strength. ‘I’ll finish up these introductions now, then you can go clean the dirt and blood off your face so we can have a good look at you.

  ‘These are the Professor’s associates in crime, Mr. John Beaumains, known as Jack the Ripper (for no good reason that anyone can think of), and “Harry the Ape”, whose real name is—’

  ‘Harry Stropp !’ The exclamation burst from Cal, who just that moment had turned and recognized his kidnapper.

  Harry, for it was indeed he, peered in bewilderment at the blood-and-dirt-encrusted face. ‘Calvin Potter !’ he cried. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I might ask you the same question. Harry, have you gone in for a life of crime?’

  From behind Daisy came a creaky voice. ‘It is just such coincidences that prove there is a thing called Destiny, presiding over our so-called “chance” universe. I’ll make a note of that in my

  journal.’ The goose-quill scratched.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Harry said in a low, confiding tone, ‘about taking Mary Junes away from me. Oh, it upset me for a while, I’ll admit, but I’m all over that, now. There’s plenty of other apples on the tree.’

  ‘Well now,’ Daisy chuckled, ‘let’s not keep Mr.—Potter, is It?—Mr. Potter up all night. We’re all getting an early start in the morning, for Las Vegas. So I guess I’d better explain why we kidnapped you.

  ‘The Professor has devised an elaborate and foolproof system for beating the wheel. We are going to—figuratively speaking—take Las Vegas by storm. This system can’t fail. By this time next week, we should have the key to the city—literally speaking.’

  ‘But where do I come in?’

  ‘Exactly !’ piped the Professor. ‘Where do you come in? It seems my system is perfect in theory—that is, the whole of it is perfect—but the calculations involved in placing any one bet are too complex for any of us. That is where you, our Mathematical Genius, come in.’

  ‘I’m flattered, of course, but—’

  ‘Take him away, Harry,’ Daisy said, making an imperious gesture. ‘Lock him in the bathroom for the night, and guard the door.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Come on, you.’ Harry dragged Cal to the bathroom, flung him in, and turned the key on him.

  There were no windows. Cal walked up and down, thinking, examining fixtures, waiting for the others to get to sleep. Then he got down and whispered at the keyhole.

  ‘Harry ! Sssst ! Why not let me out of here? Do me a favour, will you?’

  Harry laughed, one hoarse bark. ‘Do you a favour? That’s really rich. After all you’ve done to me.’

  ‘Look, Harry, I’m sorry about—’

  ‘Oh, don’t get me wrong. I don’t care about Mary Junes any more. Not at all. I forgot all about her. I mean, there’s plenty other cookies in the jar. But—do you a favour ! That’s really rich.’

  Cal curled up in the tub and tried to sleep. From time to time, Harry emitted another strangled bark. ‘Boy ! That really is rich. Do him a favour !’

  In the morning the five of them started out for Las Vegas. Cal’s blindfold was left off, and he was able to see that the motel in which he’d spent the night was right across the street from The El Cantina Bar.

  While he nursed his hangover, the other four began a spirited conversation about the nature of the universe, as perceived through the working of coincidence.

  Daisy maintained that in coincidence we see no other hand but the Deity’s. She related numerous instances of simultaneous birthdays, albinism, people’s being struck by lightning or meteors, and the odd results of Dr. Rhine’s experiments.

  Jack owned she had a point. Harry agreed that coincidences did seem to happen.

  Brian Gallopini replied that it would be blasphemy to blame the Deity for mine cave-ins, for midair plane crashes maiming children, for widows losing their compensation cheques.

  Harry clung to the notion that accidents would happen.

  Daisy pointed to the fiction of the eighteenth century. She cited coincidences in Tom Jones and Humphrey Clinker. If such were the work of authors (Fielding and Smollet), why could not coincidences in Life have an Author (God)?

  ‘By thunder !’ Brian swore. ‘Are you trying to tell me, woman, that you and I are naught but puppets, jerked about at the whim of some buffoon of a novelist? Pish ! You may believe as you please, but know you that I am a free agent. I command my hand to move; it moves. See?’ He demonstrated.

  Daisy laughed. ‘Only because you were destined to command it to move. You were commanded by the Author of All.’

  But the Professor lapsed into a moody silence and would not answer. Some of the taller buildings and larger signs of Las Vegas were coming into view.

  Offering Cal a pinch of Bergamot snuff, the Professor then began to explain to him his own ingenious betting system.

  ‘Each time the bettor loses a bet,’ he said earnestly, ‘he doubles his next bet. Since every run of luck must needs obey the immutable laws of Destiny, the first winning bet must needs more than make up for all his previous losses at one stroke !’

  Cal groaned inwardly, but said nothing, reminding himself that he was a guest—and a prisoner.

  ‘It is a complex system, but foolproof, as you can see,’ concluded Gallopini. ‘Yet it shews forth the orderly working of the universe. And the universe is orderly. To say it is not is to believe

  in magic. One might as well say that the man in that sign could go walking across the desert.’

  The sign he indicated was a giant representation of a prospector atop one casino. In one hand he held a pan of nuggets, while the other moved up and down, as if beckoning. It was one of the more famous signs of the city, and could be seen for miles at night.

  Now, as the horrified group watched, it did seem to take a step. Daisy screamed, a rich baritone scream, while the professor went as white as a periwig.

  ‘Ah, it is all right. It is only falling. Perhaps being demolished,’ he said. They watched the sign buckle and disintegrate with some relief. An upsetting coincidence, but not supernatural. The others relaxed, but Cal remained rigid, still staring at the skyline.

  ‘I think I know what this is all about,’ he breathed. In the distance another sign tumbled, as little grey boxes swarmed over it like ants. ‘We’d better turn around and head the other way at once.’

 
; ‘Don’t be an ass,’ said the Professor. ‘I’ve come here to make my fortune, and demme, I’m not turning around on your command. Hold your tongue, sir !’

  ‘Turn around ! Please !’ Cal said to Harry, who was driving.

  ‘As a favour to you, I suppose,’ he sneered.

  ‘Listen. There is something loose in that city—a secret weapon—and it’s out of control. I don’t know how it got here, but it looks like it has taken over Las Vegas. I’m sure of it. Believe me, our lives are in danger if we enter the city.’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense !’ snapped the Professor. ‘I do not believe you, sir. But—so that I cannot be accused of being unfair—we might stop at a telephone and call ahead. We could reserve rooms at the same time that we prove your nonsensical theory has no foundation. Stop at that phone ahead, Harry. Stop, I say !’

  But the car continued on past the phone. In fact, it picked up speed. ‘I can’t control it,’ said Harry. ‘It’s like something has hold of it. The steering is locked, and there’s some kind of—cable thing—reeling us in.’

  They were close enough to the city to see destruction, now, and swarms of boxy shapes moving over the broken faces of buildings and signs.

  ‘What shall we do?’ Daisy screamed.

  ‘There is nothing we can do,’ said her fiancé quietly, tapping on the lid of his snuffbox. ‘It seems as if we shall go on accelerat-

  ing until we hit something and probably die. You may prepare to meet your Author, my dear. Now, since we have perhaps a minute or two, I suggest that Mr. Potter tells us more about this fascinating machine.’

  CHAPTER X

  CALLING DR. SMILAX

  ‘Let us, however, look more closely at the facts.’

  A. J. AYER

  Shortly before he was to address the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dr. Smilax stepped into the men’s room adjoining the NORAD conference room and began briskly combing his hair. On such occasions, tension seemed to tighten his scalp and make it itch furiously, unless he could give it a quick, vigorous raking.