Madonna and the Starship (9781616961220)

by Morrow, James

  “‘And death shall have no dominion.’” Connie smeared butter on her bread. “What shall we discuss first, your Martians or your Bread Alone script?”

  “I’m afraid I’ve lost confidence in my script.”

  “Maybe you can salvage part of it for a Brock Barton episode or an Andromache story,” Connie said with an acerbic grin.

  “Andromeda.”

  “Right.” She took a bite of bread. “Let’s suppose, for the sake of argument, that these crustaceans are exactly what they say they are. Somewhere beyond our solar system lies a planet of logical positivists.”

  “Logical positivists?” I offered Connie a perplexed frown, then swallowed a spoonful of chowder.

  “Look it up in your Britannica. The Vienna Circle of the nineteen-twenties. Verify, verify. No metaphysics allowed. The concept of God is not so much false as incoherent. Eventually the movement reached Cambridge. I hope your Qualimosans aren’t typical of alien races. What could be more boring than a galaxy run by Bertrand Russell?”

  “A galaxy run by Bishop Sheen?” I suggested. “I hear you’ll be announcing tomorrow’s show. How about, after the awards ceremony, you join the lobsters and me for our night on the town? I could use an expert in the care and feeding of logical positivists.”

  “Sure, why not?” said Connie. “Relax, Kurt. They’re a couple of frat pledges, probably from Columbia.”

  “I wonder if Qualimosans die.”

  “Huh? Everybody dies, Kurt.”

  “But then you Christians are rewarded with eternal life,” I noted.

  “I don’t know anything about eternal life. Donna says our job is to steal little pieces of Heaven and smuggle them into this mission. As for death, I’ll defer to a better writer than myself. ‘Do not go gentle into that good night...’”

  “‘Old men should burn and rave at close of day,’” I added. “‘Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.’”

  “Amen,” said Connie.

  The following afternoon, fearful that the IRT might break down—it was known to happen—I splurged on a cab, unaware that a labyrinth of interconnected traffic jams lay between the Village and Rockefeller Center. I reached NBC a mere forty minutes before the final chapter of “The Cobra King of Ganymede” would hit the airwaves. Presiding over the front desk was Claude Moffet, a washed-up actor who’d once played Diet Smith on the old Dick Tracy radio serial. I told him that, come four-fifteen, two actors wearing trench coats and Mardi Gras lobster costumes would arrive for a guest appearance on Uncle Wonder’s Attic.

  My next stop was dressing room B, where a chattering Trixie transformed me into Uncle Wonder. I hurried to Studio One. Stepping onto the attic set, I realized that, in case the Qualimosans failed to show up, I should have a science experiment ready. I rooted around in the steamer trunk, soon finding the stuff I’d once used to build a Galvanic cell on camera: zinc cathode, copper anode, glass salt-bridge, jars of sulfate solution—plus a flashlight bulb to test the battery’s efficacy. Yes, the audience had already seen this demonstration, and, yes, it had nothing to do with today’s episode, but I could address both anomalies by declaring that a good experiment was always worth repeating.

  Stationed in the announcer’s booth, Connie turned in another fine performance, deftly delivering the recapitulation of Wednesday’s cliffhanger, then preparing the audience for chapter three, “Cataract of Fire.”

  Needless to say, the molten lava did not consume Brock, Wendy, and Lance, who escaped its wrath when Cotter Pin cloaked his friends in an antigravity matrix. The Triton’s crew then surveyed the incinerated fortress, seeking proof that they’d dealt a fatal blow to Argon Drakka’s python project. Cut to a commercial: Brock at Galaxy Central eating and endorsing Sugar Corn Pops. Cut back to Ganymede. Suddenly Drakka emerged from the ashes, secure within a spacecraft to which he’d tethered his latest creation, a snake-egg the size of a meteor. The evil madman rocketed away, towing the immense spheroid behind him. The Triton gave chase. As Drakka approached Earth, his cargo doubled in mass and volume, then trebled, quadrupled, quintupled. Abruptly he cut the egg loose, and it plunged into the Pacific Ocean, cracking open on impact. From the organic capsule an enormous serpent emerged and immediately encircled the planet. (Somehow Mike Zipser persuaded a live python to wrap itself around a huge Rand McNally globe borrowed from the New York Public Library.) “People of Earth!” cried Drakka, broadcasting his threat via his ship’s loudspeakers. “Obey me now, or I shall squash your sphere like a tangerine in a chain-mail fist!” At this unnerving juncture, Cotter Pin enacted a daring scheme. Harnessing all his technical prowess, he reversed the Earth’s magnetic poles, thus flinging the serpent into deep space. Fade-out. Cut to Brock doing an Ovaltine commercial. Dissolve to title card, THE PHANTOM ASTEROID.

  “Join us next week for a brand new adventure, ‘The Phantom Asteroid’!” Connie told the audience. “Until then, remember the code of the Rocket Rangers! ‘Equality and justice for creatures of all races, colors, creeds, tentacle types, and eyeball arrays’!”

  Now Floyd brought up camera three: Uncle Wonder and Andy Tuckerman occupying the attic set as the Motorola displayed the title card, THE PHANTOM ASTEROID. I deactivated the tube, cleared my throat, and glanced at my watch. 4:20 P.M. My crustaceans were five minutes late. Damn.

  I decided I’d better resurrect the original script, telling Andy, “I thought our planet was gonna be crushed! What an exciting climax!”

  “You can say that again!”

  “Hey, Andy, ever wondered how a flashlight battery works?”

  “Not lately,” said the kid, unhelpfully. “We built one last year, remember?”

  “A good experiment is always worth repeating.”

  From the darkness beyond the attic set, a voice rang out. “‘Equality and justice for creatures of all races, colors, creeds, tentacle types, and eyeball arrays’! A most peculiar imperative!”

  I froze. A beguiling scent reached my nostrils. The aliens might look like lobsters, but they smelled like Hershey bars. Lips twitching, feelers trembling, the skinny one ambled onto the attic set, then shrugged off its trench coat and laid its slouch hat atop the Motorola. Facing me squarely, the creature dipped its triclopean head in a deferential gesture.

  “O Uncle Wonder, we apologize for our temporal miscalculation. But as Brock Barton once said, ‘Better late than never.’”

  “Holy mazackers!” exclaimed Andy.

  The broadcast TV image had provided no clue to my visitor’s scale—it was taller than I’d anticipated: an eight-footer at least. A necklace dangled from the seam between its head and thorax, bearing a pendant resembling the golden statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center.

  “I am Wulawand, of the gender you call female.”

  A squeaky-wheeled tea trolley rolled onto the set, pushed by the fat lobster, easily seven feet tall, its slouch hat and trench coat secured in a claw. The conveyance held an object the size of a lampshade, hidden by a gold lamé cloth.

  Flinging down its hat and coat, the fat alien bowed before Andy. “Greetings, Master Andrew. How privileged I feel to make your acquaintance. My name is Volavont, of the male gender.”

  “Am I on camera two or camera three?” asked Wulawand.

  “Three,” I replied. “Note the tally light.”

  Wulawand faced the appropriate lens. “Boys and girls of Planet Earth, you cannot imagine how fortunate you are. Back on Qualimosa, a terrible civil war rages between the regiments of reason and the battalions of irrationality.”

  Andy tugged on my sleeve and whispered, “What’s she talking about?”

  “Alas, you cannot argue with a religious revelation, children,” said Volavont, adding his plump face to the camera-three midshot. “A revelation is always true. Otherwise it would be something else.”

  “It might be a spittoon, for example,” said Wulawand in a caustic tone, “or a stomach pump, or a venereal disease.” She emitted a squonk, squonk, squonk sound that I took to be th
e Qualimosan equivalent of laughter.

  Fearful that the broadcast was about to take a controversial turn, I pointed to the veiled object and proclaimed, “With profound humility and deep appreciation, I accept this award!”

  “But here on Earth revelation has been routed,” Wulawand persisted, “thanks in no small measure to Uncle Wonder, who cleanses your minds of metaphysics every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon!”

  “Maybe we should build that battery now,” Andy suggested.

  “I’ve never received an award before,” I said, whereupon Wulawand seized the gold lamé cloth and pulled it away.

  The Zorningorg Prize was as glorious an alien artifact as any Andromeda writer might ever hope to contemplate. Five triangular mirrors sloped upward from a pentagonal base to form a pyramidal prism. A rotating, spherical gem commanded the apex, furiously ejecting shafts of crimson, violet, and amber light. As I gazed into the nearest triangle, my mind entered a gallery of kaleidoscopic images that made the expressionist sets in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari seem like two-page spreads from Better Homes and Gardens.

  “Boys and girls, I wish you all had color TVs!” I exclaimed, vertiginous with rapture. “If only you could see what I see!”

  “The Zorningorg Committee hired three of our planet’s most renowned artists to design and build your trophy,” noted Wulawand.

  The longer I stared into the triangle, the more entranced I became. “This honor leaves me speechless! I hope that future installments”—my skull became a radiant chalice—“of Uncle Wonder’s Attic”—my brain spun on its horizontal axis—“will prove worthy”—I feared I was about to faint—“of the Zorningorg Prize!”

  “The visor!” cried Wulawand. “Give him the visor!”

  The next thing I knew, Volavont had slipped a set of glass-and-rubber goggles over my head. (Though designed for three eyes, they readily shielded my two.) Beyond the border of the attic set, our floor manager frantically waved his hand in a circle. We were out of time. I must wrap it up.

  “See you next Monday, kids!” I cried.

  Dissolve to end title. Fade-out. Cut to NBC logo.

  Intoxicated by my prize, I collapsed on the floor, and everything went black.

  I awoke on my back, stretched across a couch, Connie and Floyd leaning over me wearing expressions of solicitous alarm. Haltingly I sat up and assessed my situation. My goggles were gone, likewise my fake beard and eyebrows. I’d been carried to conference room C. Wrapped in the gold cloth, the Zorningorg Prize loomed beside me on its tea trolley. Andy sat in the far corner, experimenting with a yo-yo. Wulawand and Volavont were nowhere to be seen.

  “Try some of this,” said Connie, proffering a glass of brown milk. She was beguilingly attired in a silky maroon blouse, its buttons obscured by ruffles.

  I took a swallow and licked my lips. Ovaltine was in fact a tasty product. “I’m okay now. Really. Where are the Qualimosans?”

  “Back in the shuttle that brought them from their orbiting ship,” said Connie. “They’re getting you an elixir.”

  “Isn’t the shuttle attracting a lot of attention?” I asked, climbing off the couch.

  “Our visitors have mastered a technique called sub-molecular shapeshifting. They’ve replaced the Rockefeller Center statue of Prometheus with a duplicate that happens to be their shuttle.”

  “What about the real statue?” I asked.

  “They shrank it,” said Connie. “Did you notice that pendant hanging from Wulawand’s neck?”

  “Good heavens, you’re talking like they’re genuine extraterrestrials,” said a baffled Floyd.

  “The jury’s still out,” said Connie. “They might be big bruisers in costumes, or they might be the real thing.”

  “Of course they’re big bruisers in costumes,” said Floyd. “This is a television network. We attract starving actors like Charles Atlas draws ninety-pound weaklings.”

  Just then both Qualimosans scuttled into the room, dressed in their trench coats and slouch hats, Wulawand fingering her pendant, Volavont clutching a green vial presumably containing the elixir.

  “I won’t be needing that,” I said, pointing to the potion, even as I wondered whether it might cure Saul’s agoraphobia.

  “O Kurt Jastrow, how marvelous to see you on your feet,” said Wulawand. “Volavont and I apologize for not giving you the visor before awarding you the trophy.”

  “You fellas are the best goddamn Martian act I’ve ever seen,” said Floyd. “If you like, I’ll arrange an audition with Mr. Spalding. You ought to have your own goddamn show.”

  “Mr. Cox, you shouldn’t swear in front of the boy,” said Connie.

  “I’ve got goddamn sensitive ears,” said Andy.

  “We are not an act,” Wulawand averred.

  “I’ll also take you to see Peggy Hipple, head of wardrobe,” said Floyd. “She’ll be bowled over by those suits.”

  “They are not suits,” Volavont insisted.

  “Please excuse us, O Floyd Cox,” said Wulawand. “We have an urgent matter to discuss with Mr. Jastrow and Miss Osborne. You must leave, too, Master Andrew.”

  Floyd shrugged and started away. “A word of advice,” he told the Qualimosans. “When somebody offers to introduce you to a major TV producer, if behooves you to show a little gratitude.”

  The director left in a huff, Andy following close behind.

  “O Kurt Jastrow,” wailed Wulawand, “a lamentable matter has come to our attention. While heading toward our shuttle to obtain the elixir, we found ourselves in the vicinity of Studio Two, where we eavesdropped on a rehearsal for an imminent installment of Not By Bread Alone.”

  “The title is ‘Sitting Shivah for Jesus,’” Volavont said, then proceeded to quote the standard introduction. “‘NBC proudly presents stories that dramatize how people of faith, whether residing in ancient Judea or modern America, variously confronting timeless trials and today’s tribulations, meet the challenges of daily existence, for men and women live not by bread alone.’”

  “We are grieved to report that certain writers and actors at this network are in the grip of superstition,” said Wulawand. “In ‘Sitting Shivah,’ the characters speak of lepers experiencing miracle cures, bread becoming meat, and crucified rabble-rousers cheating death.”

  Connie and I exchanged glances of mutual bewilderment and tacit understanding: don’t contradict the lobsters—at least, not yet.

  “By consulting our shuttle’s onboard computer,” said Wulawand, “we learned that Not By Bread Alone is broadcast regularly to television receivers throughout the continental United States. A secret society, two million strong, watches the program every Sunday morning, beginning at ten o’clock Eastern Standard Time.”

  “Respectable ratings,” I said.

  “Do not despair, O Kurt Jastrow,” said Wulawand. “Take heart, O Connie Osborne. Follow us back to Studio One, where we shall demonstrate a quick and simple antidote to televised irrationality.”

  “An antidote we shall provide free of charge,” added Volavont. “Praised be the gods of logic!”

  “Logic is a girl’s best friend,” said Connie, grimacing.

  “Couldn’t get through the day without it,” I said, biting my tongue.

  Taking hold of my veiled trophy, I headed for the door, distressed by my certainty that a Qualimosan antidote to televised irrationality would have nothing to recommend it.

  Ten minutes later Connie and I stood together in Uncle Wonder’s attic. The lights were dark, the cameras inactive, the Motorola’s tubes inert. After setting my award beside the steamer trunk, I fixed on the dressmaker’s dummy, which now seemed monstrous to me, the vanguard of an alien invasion.

  “Qualimosa’s engineers strive incessantly to keep the torch of reason burning,” said Wulawand. “Recently they discovered that the scanning-gun of an ordinary cathode-ray tube can be appropriated to exterminate viewers of any philosophically problematic narrative borne by the electromagnetic spectrum.”r />
  In all my years of reading science fiction, I’d never encountered a sentence quite like that one. “You’re not serious,” I said, feeling faint for the second time that day.

  “Exterminate them?” said Connie through clenched teeth.

  “If you prefer, we shall annihilate them,” said Wulawand. “Contrariwise, we could perpetrate a massacre.”

  From her trench coat the female lobster withdrew two devices, the first suggesting a swivel-necked vegetable peeler, the second a dispenser of cellophane tape. She attached the peeler, blade pointed downward, to one of the rabbit ears, then switched on the Motorola. Gradually the picture tube warmed up. Visual static danced across the glass. Wulawand changed channels. More static.

  “You won’t get a strong signal,” I explained. “That monitor’s wired to receive title cards only.”

  “So the rabbit ears are merely decorative?” said the female crustacean. “We can fix that.”

  Wulawand nonchalantly pulled a screwdriver-like device from her coat, detached the spade lugs securing the cable to the Motorola, and connected the rabbit ears, thereby causing the Cisco Kid to gallop across the screen. The male Qualimosan, meanwhile, waded into the bric-a-brac and retrieved the dressmaker’s dummy. Wulawand changed channels. Static. Again she rotated the dial. The Howdy Doody Show popped onto the tube.

  “Before we sought you out in conference room C, I used this transceiver to contact Yaxquid, the navigator of our orbiting spaceship.” From beneath her carapace Wulawand produced an object suggesting a green ocarina. “Acting on my orders, he placed our X-13 death-ray projector on standby alert. Come Sunday morning, shortly after the Bread Alone cult has gathered around their television sets—”

  “Somewhere in the temporal vicinity of ten minutes after ten,” interrupted Volavont.

  “After the cult has gathered,” Wulawand continued, “I shall call Yaxquid again, telling him to piggyback the death-ray onto the carrier wave of every NBC affiliate station in North America.”