Blue positrons, purple mesons, orange photons, green gravitons whirled on journeys of their own, streaking up and down and sideways like a colored rain defying gravity — and through that rain I could see the core of this universe, the nucleus of the atom becoming larger and larger. We roared through the last of the seven orbits and suddenly the nucleus had become immense, and it was vibrating, alive, its protons and neutrons — ninety-two protons and one hundred and forty-six neutrons — looming up like continents under clouds of purplish mesons, and between the continents strange islands formed and vanished, creation and annihilation in a single breath, the life and death of worlds within a world. And now, for the first time I felt that our furious momentum forward was being opposed, that some huge force within the world ahead of us was pushing out at us, stronger and stronger the closer we came, and I didn’t want to be pushed away, for there before me was the riddle of the universe, birth into death and death into birth, genesis. Forward we rushed against the force repelling us, and the continents were no longer separate, but merging, swallowing up the strange islands, and I felt that I, too, would be swallowed up, but I no longer cared, for the riddle of the universe was so close, so close, so close …
When suddenly we whizzed off our path like an arrow bent in midair, and with a dizzying sensation, I stared at the first of the electron orbits, the second orbit beyond it, and the third, and furthest away the seventh orbit with its circling dead moons. Through the seven orbits we traveled, and the Voice that had been silent was saying: “Your entertainment is Our pleasure, folks! Your entertainment is Our Pleasure, folks!”
Slower and slower we moved, and in my disappointment I turned towards Cleo. She was smiling, her eyelids fluttering. I watched them open and almost by the second they began to glaze, her smile vanishing, her face hardening into the cold face of the professional attendant she was.
“The ride’s over, folks. Step off the Rollercoaster, folks. Step lively, folks. The decelerating chamber is straight ahead.”
Folks, I thought numbly. We were folks! Human beings, only human beings. We had lost space and mystery, come back into our own bodies.
Cleo led me into what seemed to be the first of the glass rooms. As we entered we rose up from the glass floor like balloons. “Relax,” she said in her professional voice. “Close your eyes and relax.”
“Relax,” all the other attendants were saying. I felt brokenhearted at what I had lost, but I closed my eyes.
“The universe is made up of fundamental particles,” she whispered.
“Fundamental particles …” I heard the other attendants like a chorus.
And Cleo. “They combine to make iron or hydrogen, bone or muscle.”
“Bone or muscle,” I heard the other attendants.
“Their interactions make suns or mountains, grass or blood. What would you like to be? Think of something soothing? Would you like to be a star? A blade of grass?”
Floating in that decelerating chamber, I felt something of what had been mine as an ion, but without the speed or fury, the fear or delight, the overwhelming forces of nature or the joy of discovery.
“Relax,” she kept urging me.
I thought of the grass back home, the first grass of summer, and I wept, watering myself and my lost dreams with my own tears.
I was lucky. Three of the other C-Wearers had to be hospitalized. We, the survivors, as you might say, were escorted by our attendants to the exit. “Goodbye, come again,” Cleo said professionally.
“Can’t I see you?”
“I have another tour of duty.”
“I mean when you’re through working.”
She shrugged and walked off. I decided to wait for her, and when she saw me again she yawned. I couldn’t blame her. After a second thirty-one minute spin on the Rollercoaster, not to mention the preliminary ride through the Tunnel of Love, or the Hall of Quantum Mirrors, her emotions were well taken care of.
She had removed her skintight Park uniform and was wearing a St. Ewagiow dress. As we stepped into a Shrinkmobile I said, “I didn’t think you would be interested in the latest style.”
“Oh, leave me alone,” she said, cuddling up in a corner of the cab. She was beautiful, yes, a beautiful neutron, and the assignment I had was impossible, I thought. I only persisted because this thrill addict happened to be suspect number one.
She yawned at my advances, yawned at my compliments, and finally in disgust as we neared Greater Miami I said. “All you love is that damned job of yours!”
“Oh, go away,” she yawned.
“I’ll see you in my dreams. A box of Sweet Dreams and you,” I said bitterly.
Suddenly she almost seemed to become human. “Do you use Sweet Dreams?”
“I do,” I said.
“Know what I dream of?”
“The Rollercoaster.”
“How did you guess? I dream that some day the magicientist at the controls will make a mistake.”
“That would mean death, wouldn’t it?”
“We’d smash into the world of Urania 235 and die!” she exclaimed. “Oh, what a wonderful thrill.” She was smiling like an angel.
After I had left her and reported to the Commissioner, I couldn’t forget that smile. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s really sympathetic to the St. Ewagiow,” I said. “She’s a death addict!”
And that was the lead we worked on. The next day, with the Park’s chief magicientist, Dr. Lawrence1 Quipper, I called on Cleo Fly. There was no answer to my knock. The doctor smiled and rearranged the molecular structure of the lock with a pocket-size cyclotron2. We went inside and found Cleo asleep on a couch, a box of Sweet Dreams on the floor.
“One second,” the doctor said and he took out a tiny rod from his pocket, explaining that it was the latest model of Consciousness-Exhilarator, or Con-Ex. He touched her breast with it, above her heart, and in less than a minute she sat up on the couch, her face confused and unhappy.
She stared at the doctor in his black and purple cape and black hat with purple feather1. She gasped. “Dr. Quipper,” she said in a shaky voice. “This is a great honor.”
“Cleo,” he said softly. “We’ve been thinking of an experiment where the Rollercoaster, instead of being deflected at the last minute, will actually penetrate Urania 235. But we haven’t as yet solved the problem of the safety factor. Do you understand?”
She nodded, and her black eyes began to glow.
“An experiment is necessary: Science demands it, Cleo. Such an experiment could mean death at the first venture. Would you want to volunteer?”
In her baggy St. Ewagiow dress with its miniature silver coffin, she had looked about as lifeless as a piece of beautiful mortuary. But now she was trembling with excitement. “I’m dreaming,” she whispered. “I must be dreaming.”
“Cleo, submit your application tonight when you report for duty!” and without another word the doctor left the room.
“It’s a dream!” she cried, getting to her feet and staring at me with frightened eyes. “Who are you?”
“I can make your dream come true,” I said.
She was trembling, but like any addict, her longing was stronger than her fears and doubts. She wanted to believe me. And this was the moment for me to make love to her. I couldn’t. I was sorry for that poor girl, and I was repelled by her, too. I cursed the Commissioner, I cursed the spoiled L. and O. operatives so accustomed to their roenfoam sweethearts and One-Shot Animateds that they wouldn’t go near a Silver-Corder2. I simply couldn’t touch that poor miserable trembling creature.
“Cleo, I’m from L. and O.,” I said on the impulse. “Please listen to me. I know your father has joined the St. Ewagiow. But I can get him a full Presidential pardon. Believe me, that’s the truth! Your father only became a St. Ewagiow when he lost all he had. Cleo, he has the A-I-D! I shouldn’t tell you this, but I will. He has the A-I-D, and if he turns it over to us, he’ll be pardoned, reinstated as a master magicientist! Believe me, tha
t’s the truth, and you must help me.”
“It’s a dream,” she murmured fearfully. “A dream.”
“No, it’s not, Cleo. You heard Dr. Lawrence Quipper — ”
“A dream!” she screamed and ran into her bedroom, slamming the door.
I knocked on the door, and when there was no answer I went inside. She was stretched out on the bed and next to her was a newly-opened box of Sweet Dreams. Even as I watched her, the frightened expression on her face was changing. A little smile came to her lips, and that was how I left her, dreaming sweet dreams of cosmic death.
I was too ashamed to report my failure to Commissioner Sonata. I returned to my hotel, where Gladys greeted me excitedly. “Darling, we’ve got our first good news. Barnum Fly’s in town!”
“How do you know?”
“There’s been another murder, the ninth murder, with that cute little slip of his, ‘Everybody Dies on July 4th’. Isn’t that wonderful news?”
I thought of how stupid I had been, and walked to the wall taps.
“Not now, darling!” she cried. “To quote the St. Ewagiow — there’s a time to live and a time to die, a time for opgin and a time for optimism.”
“Gladys, I’ve messed up everything!” I confessed, and told her what a stupid moralistic fool I was.
She listened to me quietly. Then she sighed. “You are a fool but I like you for it. So you couldn’t make love to her?” She patted my hand. “That’s flattering to me, darling. But you better go back to Cleo, darling.”
“Why?” I groaned.
“Historical necessity, my little Eros.”
“Why can’t someone else — ”
She laughed. “I’ve heard you call our men butterflies. And that’s what they are. Butterflies flitting from flower to flower in the hothouse that is the Funhouse.”
I stared at her. “You’re the subversive now!”
“It must be that Bee-Ambo,” she sighed and rubbed at her forehead. “Damn it, I’m thinking too much for my own good. You must go back, darling.”
“No,” I said.
“Barnum Fly’s in town! The A-I-D is here! You must go back. It’s your duty to mankind, that mankind of yours about whom you’re always preaching so tiresomely.” She glanced at me quickly and her blue eyes were so serious they reminded me of my wife’s. “I had some other news from the Commissioner. Cleo is a bonafide member of the St. Ewagiow. That father of her’s did a good job of ruining her life.”
“I have an idea,” I said. “The man to make love to her is Dr. Quipper! He’s the man to make her dream come true. Why, she’d do anything for him.”
“You don’t understand, darling. We all have our assignments and Cleo Fly is your assignment, not Dr. Quipper’s.” She stared at me for a second and then hurried to her closet. Swiftly, she took off her white Formfitte and pulled a black St. Ewagiow dress out of the closet. She put it on, turned towards me and touched the attached silver skull pin. “Death the Glorious!” she said in a low sad voice. “Death, the Victorious!”
“Are you mad?” I exclaimed.
Her blue eyes, the eyes of my wife Ruth, flashed angrily. “Let’s not waste time. I’ll prove you can make love to a skeleton if you have to.”
“Assignments!” I shouted. “Whose assignments? The Board’s! They’re so damned rigid, so damned inflexible — ”
She lifted her head towards the ceiling, and it was amazing how she had managed to transform her round plump face so that it seemed thin and hollow-cheeked, “I have seen the light!” she exclaimed as if talking to that infernal mushroom. “Death, the Glorious, the Victorious! Oh, to die in victorious fusion!”
She carried on in this way for another minute like a genuine St. Ewagiow. It was as if she were inside some sheath, some embalming fluid that sealed her in from anything I could say.
“Gladys!” I begged her. “Let’s see Sonata!”
Suddenly, she became herself again. “You fool, do you want to get us all into trouble? We have our instructions from the Board. Make love to me! Pretend I’m Cleo! See if you can memorize these lines. They’ll impress her.”
“Please, Gladys, darling — ”
“Don’t darling me! Memorize these lines.” And she recited:
“We will soon drink from eternity
Where we will discard all infirmity …”
“Who wrote them?” I muttered.
“R. Night Bauden, the poet laureate of the St. Ewagiow. The British Government put him in prison after the St. Ewagiow bombings in London in 1991.”
I memorized the lines and she recited two more:
“There is no help this side of the grave
Who says otherwise is prophet false and knave …”
“Damn!” I shouted. “Gladys, this is mad, mad, mad!”
She slapped my face. “I’m trying to help you do your duty, you fool.” She put her arms around my waist and in that low sad voice she whispered. “Kiss me, skeleton. For what are we but skeletons temporarily paroled to life?”
I tried to push her away, and she became angry. “How many days do you think there are to the 4th? You simply have to make love to that St. Ewagiow.”
“I guess you’re right,” I said gloomily.
“Let’s have those lines of R. Night Bauden.”
But I had forgotten them, and she looked at me with disgust. “You simply have no head for cultural things!” she said. “You better try a system, some quantitative system. You might try kissing her fifteen times in succession. Can you remember that, my stupid little sparrow?” She seized me and began kissing me and between kisses she said, “I love you!” Fifteen times, she said it, and when she was finished I didn’t want to let go. She laughed and wriggled out of my arms.
“Damn!” I said.
“Compliment her eyes. Maybe you can remember these lines?” And she recited:
“The eyes of a woman are her glorious prize
Until the worms make the final seize …”
I shook my head, and she said. “When you see her take along some of R. Night Bauden’s pamphlets. He’s written one on the subject of Universal Redemption. His argument is that since the earth is doomed eventually to become a frozen planet, time is on the side of the St. Ewagiow. They can fail in their historic mission, but Death, the last kind Mother, will eventually grant mankind Universal Redemption.”
“Gladys, must I?”
“You must, darling,” she sighed. “You better go now, I think you’ll acquit yourself with sextinction.” But despite the inevitable humor her face was unsmiling.
“You don’t want me to go, Gladys.”
“Go, go!” she shouted angrily.
Well, what could I do? (Ruth, forgive me. I did it for you and our children, for everybody’s children.)
I went back to suspect number one and convinced her she hadn’t been dreaming. That evening at the Atomic Amusement Park she filled out the application Dr. Lawrence Quipper had promised. The doctor excused her from her tour of duty, and when we drove back to Greater Miami, I again applied the fifteen-times technique. Later, in her room, as she lay quietly in my arms, I asked her how I could contact her father. She wept. I reminded her of the application and again promised that her father would receive a full Presidential pardon. It was another half hour before she whispered her secret. Whenever she wanted to reach her father she inserted an advertisement in “Magicience-and-You’.1 Now that she had told me, she wept hysterically. “I’ve betrayed my own father!” she kept on saying. I could only soothe her by reminding her that she would be on the first experimental trip into Urania 235. Gradually, she quieted down and began kissing me. At the sixth or seventh kiss I was suspicious. Maybe imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but there should be some kind of decent interval. I broke away from that feverish addict. My mission was accomplished, and I wanted an advertisement in the very next edition. A special edition, if necessary, could be ordered by the Commissioner.
Downstairs in the lobby, I went into
an Airwave2 booth and, when I had the Commissioner, I said in the code we had agreed upon. “Operation love successful. Radiation recommended for protection from Martians now that she has given us Formula Minus X3.”
Or, decoded: “Cleo F. is a woman after all. L. and O. protection recommended against St. Ewagiow now that she has given us information we wanted.”
1 Situated in the Paris section of Greater Miami. Greater Miami prided itself on its slogan “Come to Miami and see the world.” Spreading over a 200-mile area, it included the facsimiles of the world’s most interesting cities. Paris-in-Miami, Rome-in-Miami, Tokyo-in-Miami, etc.
1 These brassieres were made of roentgenic fibre that had been X-Ray powered. Especially popular at summer hotels, tourist cruises, etc.
2 So-named after the first space satellites launched by the Russians in the year 1957. See Appendix.
1 There were still a few Americans who enjoyed their anti-Semitism.
2 Tourist Liners were equipped with all sorts of gadgets whose sole function was to get a laugh.
1 STABB — Smoother than A Baby’s Bottom. It will be noted that even in their products they were fond of a humorous approach.
2 One of their terms of affection. See Appendix for full list.
1 Paris-in-Miami, that season, was a reproduction of the Paris that had existed prior to the first World War 1914-1918.
2 An imitation of the mushroom clouds that had followed the series of A-Bomb and H-Bomb tests in the period after the second World War of 1941-1945.
1 A fourwheeled conveyance made of rubber that could contract in heavy traffic and expand on the open road to vanity or limousine size.
1 The B.O. Think Machines had wanted to allocate all jobs at the age of one because a child’s reactions then — bedwetting, feeding, crying, etc. — were most significant of his future character development. But the nation’s mothers, unwilling to give up Smile-At-Mother Pills, etc., could not be convinced to cooperate.
2 She was boasting of their planned entertainment. One of their cabinet officials, human, was the Secretary of Fun, Pleasure and Miscellaneous Hobbies.
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