(The Eskimo Exterminator Company cleans out an IRS warehouse to save tons of accusatory and incriminating documents from the ravages of insects and rodents. Two Eskimos debate over the merits of ants and roaches as they devour them.)
1ST ESKIMO
Halstu di oyg’n tsu der erd, vestu mer vi verem nisht zen.
2ND ESKIMO
Der vus hot alemen lib, iz gelibt fun keynem.
PI
Them Eskimos get in everywhere.
GRETCHEN
Esquimaux, Pi. Esquimaux.
(In Slammer Sodom’s Rodeo a Chimpanzee rider complains bitterly to the handlers readying the human bronco he is to mount for the competition.)
CHIMPANZEE
Tk-nk-fk-wk-tk-lk-mk-bk-zk!
1ST HANDLER
What’s he beefin’ about now?
2ND HANDLER
Aw, these rodeo stars is always complainin’. He says we tie the barbed wire too tight around the bronc’s balls to make’m buck. Says it takes alla juice outa the stud.
(In the Cryogenic Ice Palace two cannibals are discussing cryo-cuisine.)
1ST CANNIBAL
Gotta like thaw ‘em out, man, before you roast ‘em.
2ND CANNIBAL
Not if’n they beez friz like over hundrid year, man. Get kinda stinksville. Gotta roast ‘em friz.
1ST CANNIBAL
Wha’part you dig most?
2ND CANNIBAL
Guts.
1ST CANNIBAL
Oh man, das d’answer. Guts is delly.
(Night and the Guff. Murk light. Gnome-goons. The frozen corpse of Mr. Rubor-Tumor is being roasted. Salem Burne’s dancers warm themselves around the fire. The PloFather’s spidery hands play on the buttocks of Sheikh Omar ben Omar as he mounts an Unbeliever. In the morgue Gianni Jiki buys the corpse of Droney Lafferty for its piebald skin which will be turned into a wall-hanging. The black eyes of Yenta Calienta have been traded for a hand-powered Mixmaster. The Therpool has discovered that its freak water is also hallucinogenic. Three Hudson Hell Gate Dam engineers have mathematically proved to a Science Convention that bees can fly. Miss Priss is ravished by a robot and takes it to a therapist. The original Scriabin Finkel, aged 97, dies and his stable composes a Scriabin sendoff entitled: SAFE-HIT ME, FINKEL, THROUGH THE OUTFIELD OF DEATH.)
Shima’s Oasis had once been the Spanish Museum. His penthouse was a peak in the sawtooth skyline looming over the fuming Hudson River where flickering will-o’-the-wisps burned and danced above the whorls and eddies.
Gretchen opened the penthouse door and called in a tone of command, “Blaise!”
No answer.
She entered, attended by Pi-girl. They explored lounge, bedroom, bath, kitchen and terrace, still carpeted with Opsday earth. “Blaise!”
“No one here, Miz BB ma’am person.”
“After all I’ve been through, has that son-of-a-bitch gone back to work without even calling me? Withdrawing? Le pauvre petit. Typical!”
She called CCC. No Shima.
“If he’s lost control and gone into fugue again, this is the last time I bail him out. Pi-girl, call the Guff precinct for me. I don’t want them to hear my voice and trace me. I’ll tell you what to say.”
Pi called the Guff precinct, prompted by Gretchen. No. Shima. No A.P.B. on Shima. No Ind’dni. The Subadar had gone home.
“What the hell! I’ve got to quash the coming A.P.B. on myself anyway. Pi-girl, you go back to my place and supervise the restoration. You’re responsible, girl. I’m growing you up. I won’t have children around me. I’m going to Ind’dni’s place. He may know where Shima is. I’ll do a number on both men and get it over with. I am a new breed, by God! Free! Free! It’s a mechia!”
The Pi-girl attended Gretchen to Ind’dni’s residence in what had once been Gramercy Park, and then continued on to the Oasis in “Old Town.” Gretchen mounted to Ind’dni’s apartment and rang.
The door was opened for her by the Subadar, beautifully robed in white. “Ah!” he smiled. “I have been expecting you. Come. Come in. Come in peace and hope. We too have found the way to the primal pinnacle. We have found the ishta devata, the true worship. It is the Lord Siva in His first glorious manifestation as Sveta, the White.”
Gretchen gasped, then managed, “Ind’dni?”
“Once,” Ind’dni smiled. “Come. Come in. You are my beloved friend, Gretchen Nunn.”
“Once also,” Gretchen answered as she entered. “I’ve found the way too, Subadar.”
“Yes,” Ind’dni said quietly as he safed the door. “Yes, I’m fully aware of all that has transpired. I did tell you that I was not without resources. You have reached a new peak, an exalted peak, perhaps even the primal pinnacle which, alas, Dr. Shima could not before he died. Despite all his brilliant assets, he could not cope with the challenge he dreamed of meeting.”
“What? Blaise dead?” Gretchen was shocked.
Ind’dni nodded.
“But how?”
“Ah, you do not remember. You have left your old life behind, as I have mine. He was torn apart by you in your new role of queen.”
“I killed him?”
“Tore him apart.”
Gretchen was speechless.
“What? Guilt? Grief? Come, love, we are both of us beyond that, so let us speak frankly as equals, and we are equals, you know. I too have reached a pinnacle and am, perhaps, the only primal equal you can have. So let us befriend and support each other.”
“Y-You— You’re only trying to comfort me.” She was shaken. “I tore Blaise… tore him apart?”
“We must comfort each other. We’re alone on the heights and have only each other.”
“B-But you all said I was born to it… The New Primal Man… Not you, Subadar. How have you reached your pinnacle?”
“I was reborn through the Black Hole.”
“In the contra-universe? It had that effect?”
“Or perhaps the new colony, your new hive, has raised me to the heights?”
“My God! My God! My God!”
“Rather call Him by His true name, Siva, the Divine Generator of Life. We shall enter the universe of Siva together. You have much to teach me and I shall teach you to procreate the all-embracing spirit of the Soma. We shall worship the twelve sacred Lingas together.”
“Ind’dni, this can’t be you. You sound insane, and I think I’m mad, too. What’s happened to us?”
And he taught her to worship the twelve sacred Lingas for three mad erotic hours that left her gasping and incredulous and melting into the universal Soma.
“Oh my God…” she whispered. “Oh my God… My God! My God! My God! I’ve never been loved like this before. Never! No woman ever was. I’ve never loved love like this before. Never! Is this the pinnacle?”
He nodded.
“I knew you weren’t the fag you pretended to be to Shima. You’re a man. You’re more than a man; you’re ten times ten any man I ever knew. My God! Dear God! I love you. I love you. I love you. And you? Me? Is it the same with you?”
Ind’dni smiled to her, then arose, went to a mirror and on it printed with a crimsoned forefinger:
UOY EVOL I
It took a long moment for Gretchen to understand what she’d just seen.
“But— B-but that was your left hand,” she whispered. “You’re writing with your left hand, and that’s backward mirror-writing. I— You— He never came back from the contraworld. Oh Jesus! Dear Jesus God…” Her voice broke. “He… He was left behind. He’s trapped in that contrabedlam forever. You came back in his place. Didn’t you? Didn’t you?” Her voice rose hysterically. “And you’ve been masquerading as the real Ind’dni… My dear, sweet, wonderful Ind’dni. That explains why you did and said everything backwards after the return. You’re his contraself, the reversed Ind’dni, remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless… the negative Ind’dni that my real Ind’dni saw.”
He smiled. “I’m Golem101.”
A.D. 2280<
br />
So?dis?Candida?
N.
Dishere Souse Amourica?
Nn.
Zit Jewropey?
Nnn.
Wherjeez?
Guff!Guff!Guff!
Blessya.
N’achoo, man. She’s his name. Guff. Dig? Gay-you-ffuck. Guff. You beez inna Guffa Viewnitey Status. Lassitude 101001 degrades norse.
! Whajeer?
Anus Domino 100011101000
!! I beez friz feisty year??
Y. Gotta cure fwattailsya now .·. us move youse S fom Lasky to Guff.
Gone telly esplainment what I up agin inna dishere mod Guff?
Shoe. Where fom original?
Afro.
Oak. But Ifirsth gotta putyouse inna pitcher. How happenny. She’s all happyning!strong! ago, inna twemmy onus hungries, 2175.
Whakine rap izzat? 2175?
Wazza talktypus ago then. Youse ear me close, man, and me—
GIRLman!
Oop! Scuze! No notice tits. Lissen, girlman, &me input whahap while youse cryøgens friz in coughins. Tell how + why hole Guff change fom = peoples to ≠. Tell how oletypus mans go aus-out, exstink like dinnersours, and N*E*W breed primal poisons like us we make quantum jump & replace her inna Guff. Y’gotta dig ifn wanna beez = to us.
I think I go back inna coughin.
Nnnn! Lissen!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alfred Bester began writing science fiction stories for Thrilling Wonder Stories in the 1930s. Twenty years later, his novels The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination were hailed as vital new contributions to the field, and have since become classics. From his start in science fiction, Bester got into scripting comics, and then radio series like “Nick Carter,” “Charlie Chan,” and “The Shadow.” He became a successful TV scriptwriter, then spent some years in Europe; on his return to the U.S. he was offered a column in holiday magazine, for which he rode on the maiden flight of the first Boeing 747, interviewed luminaries like Sophia Loren and Sir Laurence Olivier, and finally became a senior editor of the magazine.
As one friend put it, “Alfie Bester lives as though the whole world was made for his entertainment.” Bester currently divides his time between a farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and New York City.
GOLEM 100 Page 25
