“uoy kcuf lliw I kniht I”
“What?”
“uoy kcuf lliw I kniht I”
“Blaise!”
“uoy kcuf lliw I kniht I”
“For God’s sake! What’s this gibberish?”
“uoy kcuf lliw I kniht I”
“You’ve gone out of your mind!”
Gretchen tore herself away from Shima’s clutch, gave him one stupefied look, then dashed out of the Strøget. She careered around a corner, another, and came face to face with Salem Burne, smooth, slender, polished. The psychomancer smiled and held out his arms, grasping and clawing.
“uoy kcuf won llahs I”
“What!”
“uoy kcuf won llahs I”
“Are you insane?”
“uoy kcuf won llahs I”
“You’re mad, Burne. The whole Guff’s gone mad and gibbering!”
“uoy kcuf won llahs I”
She ran again, panting, trembling, and rammed into Dr. F.H. Leuz. The Drogh Director caught and enveloped her massively as she staggered.
“kcuf lamirP”
“For God’s sake, Leuz! Not you!”
“kcuf lamirP”
“First Blaise? Then Burne? Now you? No! No!”
“kcuf lamirP”
“This is a nightmare. It has to be. This garble! I’m asleep somewhere. Why can’t I wake up?”
She fought free of Leuz and reeled back into a doorway. She hid in the darkness in a panic. She was suddenly swept into the arms of the “UpMan” poster’s Mr. “After” who spun her around, beamed, and bruised her crotch with battering ram blows of his larger-than-lifesize.
“kcuF kcuF kcuF kcuF kcuF kcuF”
“Christ almighty! Dear God almighty!”
She stumbled out of the doorway, ran blind, ran hot, ran broken, sobbing, flinching and flailing, and
And as the ponderous metal arms crushed around her, Gretchen fainted.
“No, you have not gone mad, Miz Nunn,” Ind’dni assured her. “What you have experienced was not hallucination. It was a nightmare of quasi-reality; the reality of the polymorphic Golem beast in many guises: Dr. Shima; Salem Burne, the psychomancer; Dr. Leuz, the much-respected Director of Drogh Operations; the ‘UpMan’ poster come to life; the long-ago-scrapped Statue of Liberty.”
“And the gibberish it spoke?”
“Feeble attempts at spoken communication, which it got backwards. The creature is not of intelligence and has no grasp of our reality. It is merely brute passion using what it dredges up from your memory as decoys. I’m surprised that the Hundred-Handed animal did not appear as a computer or transport or anything else in your experience. I have no doubt that it is too primitive to understand that machines cannot speak.”
“And you rescued me, Subadar?”
“Staff was only too happy to oblige.”
“Your staff just happened to be passing by?”
“Not quite, Miz Nunn. After the ominous revelation of last night, I had you followed.”
“What ominous revelation?”
“You and Dr. Shima have private and intimate nicknames for each other, yes? Archaic pejoratives?”
“The Jig and the Jap. Yes.”
“And it never occurred to you that your final perception in the Phasmaworld—the letter ‘double-U’ which transformed into upraised muscular arms and then buttocks, bringing on the threat of death—it never occurred to you that this image was composed of two letters, ‘J,’ facing each other? Jig and Jap. J and J.”
Gretchen was thunderstruck. “And that’s the double implication you were trying to find last night, Subadar?”
“Indeed yes. Your exploration made you aware of the Golem, but it also made the Golem aware of you and your potential menace. I said that the motives of id-creatures are satisfaction and survival. The Golem must survive, so it is now attacking the danger; not Miz Winifred Ashley, no, you. I suspected the possibility and gave instructions, which is why staff was following you to protect.”
“Just me alone or Blaise, too?”
“I anticipated for both, and particularly for Dr. Shima. Please not to resent plain speaking, Miz Nunn, but where you have much strength, the doctor has weakness. You are the New Primal Man. Dr. Shima, despite all brilliance, may be one of the expendables. We cannot know Nature’s standards for her pinnacle.”
“Ummm.” Gretchen thought that over. “Maybe. No matter. He is protected?”
Ind’dni sighed. “Alas, staff has lost him.”
“Lost him? How? Where?”
“I need not point out the finesses of our mutual profession, Miz Nunn. You do know that whilst tailing a subject half the art lies in recognition of customary behavior patterns so that one is never at total loss.”
“Yes, I know that. And?”
“Dr. Shima abruptly broke usual, familiar patterns, and staff was at total loss.”
“How did Blaise break his usual patterns?”
“I am saddened to suggest that he has probably gone into fugue again.”
“Mr. Wish?”
Ind’dni nodded.
“Did the Golem bring it on?”
Ind’dni shrugged helplessly.
“Who’s Mr. Wish following?”
Ind’dni shrugged again.
“My God! My God! It’s all falling apart. Those damned bee-ladies… Everything’s falling apart.”
“We must not despair, madame.”
“No. No, you’re right. We’ve got to act.” Gretchen took a deep breath of resolution. “Yes. Act hard and fast.”
“Staff is doubling energies.”
“Thank you, Subadar, but I mean me.”
“Ah? What do you contemplate?”
“Is this being taped?”
“Recording can be ended immediately if you so desire.”
“No. I’m going to do something rotten brutal and I want to go on record.”
“Yours the honor, Miz Nunn.”
Gretchen firmed her lips. “I’m going to the P.L.O. pyramid for a meeting with the PloFather. I’m going to negotiate a contract on Winifred Ashley, the Queen Bee who’s holding the hive together and providing the Golem with a home. I’ll be accessory to murder.”
“Say, rather, an instigator?”
“Then both, and I’ll take what’s coming to me—with honor, at least. The only way to destroy that damn horror is destroy the Queen and her hive.”
Ind’dni sighed again. “You know, of course, that I cannot permit.”
“I know, but you cannot stop. By the time you and Legal have me gagged in the slammer, the contract will be signed and nobody can stop the P.L.O. soldiers. Christ Jesus, Subadar!” Gretchen shouted. “The wolf on the fold. Your words. The wolf! The wolf!”
She was headlong out of the office before he could answer.
“The name is Wish, dear lady. You may call me Mr. Wish.”
Regina inspected Mr. Wish. “You seem to be a harmless young man, and quite attractive. May I ask why you’re foolish enough to follow me?”
“But I’m not following you, dear lady. I’m following something else, something extraordinary, and our paths happen to coincide.”
“What are you following?”
“Ah!” Under his glassy exterior Mr. Wish was excited. “You seem to be a harmless lady and quite attractive, so I’ll confide in you. I’m drawn by something new. I play a private game, a fun sort of paper chase or treasure hunt, and suddenly I find myself drawn by a novel trail of clues. They magick me. They beckon me. They hypnotize me.”
“What are these mysterious magic clues?”
“Double death; given and received.”
“Good heavens, Mr. Wish!”
“Merely poesy, dear lady.”
“Oh, you’re a poet, are you?”
“A poet of destruction. A singer of the re-establishment.”
“The Establishment? I find that a contradiction in terms, Mr. Wish. No poet of any merit was ever reconciled to the Establishment.”
<
br /> “You misheard me, dear lady. I am a poet of the RE-establishment. I am a singer of the thanatatic.”
“And what, pray, is the thanatatic?”
“It is the deep, basic human urge to re-establish the state of the universe as it was before it was disrupted by the emergence of life.”
“Disrupted? You are anti-life?”
“I am the enemy of disruption, of anything that mars the pristine logic of nature, and whenever life attempts to end its intrusion on the perfection by destroying itself, I’m drawn to help. That is my treasure hunt.”
“You must be an unusual poet, Mr. Wish, and I should like to hear your verse. Will you read for me? Here is my card. I receive Thursday afternoons. There will be other guests and, to be sure, refreshments. Now, au revoir. I must be getting along. I have an appointment.”
“So have I, and it seems in the same direction. Shall we?”
They continued together through the malignant streets and alleys of the Guff, casually detouring around rubbish, trash, and rotting forms that once were alive. All this they accepted as, indeed, did everyone. This was the advanced twenty-second century and a price must be paid for progress. Regina chatted graciously about poesy and the decorative arts, but seemed almost as excited as Mr. Wish.
“You’ve confided in me, sir,” she said at last, “and I will reciprocate by confiding in you. I’m reaching the end of a treasure hunt, too. A friend, or rather the husband of a friend, attended a party at my place on the first Opsday. He is a collector of oddments and he revealed something that thrilled me. He owns a treasure I’ve yearned for, an original pianola roll of the ‘Internationale’ by Pottier and Degeyter. He was generous enough to offer it as a gift, and I accepted. The gentleman lives here. Goodbye again, sir.”
Regina turned into a magnificent Oasis and Mr. Wish followed. She regarded him. He smiled. “My trail ends here, too, dear lady. Another odd coincidence.”
She was flustered as she was passed through by Security, but not too badly. Yet she was rattled enough not to notice that Mr. Wish had been passed under her aegis. They entered the express elevator together and were shot skyward.
“I’m for thirty-one,” Regina said.
“So am I, but not to be alarmed, dear lady. There are four apartments to the floor. Coincidence once more, and I shall compose an epic on the coincidence of Thanatos for your next Thursday afternoon.”
But when Droney Lafferty opened the door for Regina, he stared and exclaimed, “What? You too, doctor?”
Mr. Wish smiled into the piebald face. “The name is Wish, sir. You may call me Mr. Wish. I’ve come to help you.”
He glided past them into the apartment. Lafferty lifted an arm to block him, suddenly smiled raffishly and permitted him to pass. Mr. Wish gazed glassily at the illuminated vitrines displaying Lafferty’s curious collections; sundials, ear trumpets, walking sticks, matchbook porn, lurid French letters, and death masks of Lucrezia Borgia, Eleanor Gwyn, Catherine II, Pauline Borghese, Emma Hamilton, Lola Montez, Elizabeth I, and Elizabeth III.
“Now don’t let’s have another awkward scene, doctor. Sit down and behave. An audience may add something extra.”
“The name is Wish, sir. You may call me Mr. Wish,” Shima said and sat down obligingly, his eyes fixed on infinity.
“Do come in, Miz Ashley,” Droney said. “And be welcome. I didn’t know you were acquainted with Dr. Shima, but then I know very little about either of you.”
“But he says his name is Wish.” Regina was bewildered. “A poet named Wish.”
“Yes, I’ve experienced Dr. Shima’s fantasies before. It’s not one of his more attractive attributes. Now let me parade my collections before I give you your pianola roll.”
Mr. Wish unobtrusively removed a hangman’s noose from his pocket and set it on the floor alongside his chair.
“I adore my death masks of these divine ladies of Easy Virtue. Now you may object that a mask was never taken from Eleanor Gwyn, say, or Pauline Borghese, or Catherine the Great, and you would be quite right. But the ingenuity of the collector can always triumph over mere reality. I assembled all existing portraits of these lascivious ladies and then commissioned a plastic surgeon to mold duplications onto the faces of bodies in the morgue. The masks were taken from them. I may add that there would have been no need to re-create Emma Hamilton if only I had known you then. You are a reincarnation of that magnificent demirep.”
A laser burner and 8-mm. palm-pistol joined the noose.
“I’m extremely proud of these erotic matchbooks which took years to assemble. The constraint of the collector’s matchbook is that it must be virgin; the matches unused, the striking surface unscratched. These are from India and each displays one of the mystic love-positions from the Kama Sutra. Inspiring, don’t you think, Miz Ashley?”
A pressure bulb labeled (CN)2 was placed on the floor.
“I was showing this collection to a guest once and before I could stop him he pulled a match out of a book and struck it. When he saw the horror on my face he asked, ‘Is anything wrong?’ and I said, ‘Oh no, nothing at all,’ and then I fainted. Fortunately I was able to replace the matchbook with another virgin. Are you a virgin, Miz Ashley? I think so. They have a magnetic attraction, as do you.”
A scalpel glittered down to the floor.
“Now this is my collection of dog collars. Some are fascinating reflections of their times. The spiked German for giant Great Danes, reminiscent of the spiked steel ball-on-chain, der Morgenstern, used by mounted knights to smash the heads of foot soldiers. Here is an original Saint Bernard collar with miniature cask of brandy attached. I’ve never dared sample the brandy. A harness for a twentieth-century ‘Seeing Eye’ dog. French jeweled collars for toy terriers. That strange thing is an Eskimo husky sled harness. And this beauty is a silver curb-link choke collar.”
“Choke collar?” Regina asked.
“Why yes. It was used in the days before vets devised implanted radio controls. It restrained the animal when it was on the leash. Let me show you. Here, put it around your neck— You know, it would make a fabulous necklace, and I’m almost tempted to give it to you— That’s it. Now, the leash was attached, and the collar was loose and comfortable so long as the dog accompanied its master dutifully; but if it tried to explore or wander or run away? One pull on the leash would strangle it into submission— Like this!”
Lafferty’s huge fist twisted the chain until it disappeared into the skin of her neck. Regina’s eyes started and she flailed as Droney maintained his grip on the silver garrote and thrust her supine on a couch with his body on top of hers. “Kommt Hure! Herunter! Sitz! Liege! Bleib!” His lips were on her distorted mouth. “Yes. Speak French to your mistress, Italian to your wife, English to your horse, German to your dog. Sterb Hund! Yes. Sterb Hure! The moment I met you I knew you would die passionately and give passion to me. Yes. I knew— Ah!”
As Regina shuddered into death spasms, he penetrated her while gazing expectantly at Mr. Wish. Then he screamed into the orgasm which her last contractions produced, and slowly collapsed.
At length he arose from the dead body and disentangled the buried chain, meanwhile regarding his audience wistfully.
“No response, Mr. Wish? No reaction? Shock? Horror? Disgust? Fear? Nothing? No, nothing. Too bad. I’d hoped for your extra added fillip, Mr. Wish. This was no better than the necrolovelies in the morgue.”
“The name is Shima,” Mr. Wish said. “Blaise Shima.”
He reached down, picked up the laser, and burned Droney Lafferty through the head.
19
Subadar Ind’dni appeared absorbed in Droney Lafferty’s bizarre collections while the Ghoul Squad hauled out the wrapped bodies, the Molecular Squad hypo’d their print readouts and left, the Telly Squad left, the Media Team left, and the Polizei and Hommie Squad left, carrying with them the noose, laser, pistol, scalpel and (CN)2 bulb, all eternalized in plastic. When they were at last alone, Ind’dni turned from the v
itrines and spoke to the stunned Wish-Shima.
“Merely going through motions for Legal,” Ind’dni said. “Legal is obsessed with evidence factual which they add and subtract and compute. They are accountants at heart. It is my belief they are all failed IRS candidates.”
“I killed him,” Shima-Wish muttered.
“It will never come to trial,” the Subadar continued casually, “unless I press for speedy action. Calendar at present is back-logged seventy-nine years. Judges are appointed, serve, retire, die, and never have tried a case that initiated during their term on the bench. I myself have seen in court grandchildren of accusers and accused, perpetrators and victims, standing before grandchildren of judges. You must now regain control, Dr. Shima. Strength is required. You must strive for the beckoning primal pinnacle, and I’m sure you will achieve it along with Miz Nunn. I envy you.”
“I killed him.”
“So you did. It is permitted to ask: as Dr. Blaise Shima or as Mr. Wish?”
“I won’t plead insanity.”
“Most honorable but please to answer question. Did you burn the brain of our celebrated necrophiliac as Dr. Shima or as Mr. Wish? Can you remember?”
“As both.”
“Bravo! Good news indeed. Then your moieties are on speaking terms at last. They are aware of each other and reconciled to each other. Result of witnessing shocking outrage perpetrated against Winifred Ashley, no doubt. Most fortunate disaster for you, doctor; it has welded you together. I doubt very much whether your fugues will ever again occur.”
“I burned him in cold blood,” Shima persisted.
“And now you want luxury of repentance? You were raised French Catholic in a place called Johnstown, yes? Tsk! Their floods have washed them back into the Medieval. This is the enlightened twenty-second century after Christ, doctor. If Johnstown cannot think in modern terms, Jesus surely would if He returned to the Guff. The spirit of that sage is always in touch with the times.”
“I killed him in cold blood.”
“And you need no longer feel guilty about Mr. Wish. He was instrumental in destroying the Queen Bee and the hive-home of the Golem. Discontinue your pauvre petit obsession, I beg.”
GOLEM 100 Page 20
