"As you wish, sir. Perhaps you would like dinner."
She kept looking at me straight in the eyes, sort of eager and switching her gaze from one eye to another. It kind of scared me. I mean, look, I'd been in the Fat Boy's Club at Westover Field, and I'd put on fifty pounds since leaving the service. I was sort of pudgy. Make that fat. I was completely hairless and my skin was still pretty blotchy. And while I've never been quite sure what the typical American woman wanted, a long series of hard knocks had taught me that whatever it is, it ain't me. Girls just don't look at me like that. And certainly not the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen.
"Yeah. Sure. I could use a bite to eat." I tried grinning back at her and Barb looked ecstatic.
"Very good, sir. The banquet hall is this way."
"Banquet? No. No. Please, Barb, just, just something small and informal."
"As you wish, sir. Anything in particular? Polish? Syrian? Chinese?"
"Chinese, I guess."
"Yes sir. The Confucian Room is this way."
Barb led me through an entrance hall that would have put a Hyatt hotel to shame, and then down a long corridor.
It was obvious that the building had been built with me in mind. All of the doorways were at least eight feet high, and all of the furniture was properly oversized.
She led me into a candle lit room. It was decorated with a lot of jade, Ming dynasty, maybe, and what looked like Shang bronze work. It was all imitation, of course, because it all looked new. The window overlooked an enclosed garden that was more Japanese than Chinese, but the total effect was stunning.
Also stunning was the tiny Oriental girl who was kneeling at my feet undoing my shoelaces. After that she started taking off the rest of my clothes. For a while there I wasn't sure when she was going to stop undressing me, but I was soon led—barefoot, and without my tie or jacket—to a low table.
Barb was still standing at the door, like she was waiting for something.
"Would you, uh, care to join me?" I said.
And Barb was grinning ecstatically again.
Our ninety-pound waitress (maid?) (servant?) was named Ming Po. I let Barb order the meal, since I'd been getting along mostly on Big Macs and Gallo Paisano, which didn't seem to be quite appropriate. I missed the name of the wine Barb picked, but Mr. Gallo has some catching up to do.
Ming Po had this habit of kneeling behind a pierced screen, watching to see if we wanted anything. When she went to get the food, I said to Barb, "You know, she's as pretty as that ballerina on the plane."
"Yes, sir." She was dead cold again. "You must mean Gloria McCluskey."
"I didn't catch her name."
"She's an awful social climber."
That sort of killed conversation until halfway through the meal. I was all out of things to say, and I finally figured out that Barb didn't feel free to speak until spoken to.
"Look, you mentioned a staff. Could you tell me about it?" I said.
"Yes, sir. There are nine personal secretaries. . . ."
"Nine? You mean I have a whole steno pool?"
"No, sir. The steno pool comes under the administrative section of your laboratory. That's not under my jurisdiction. You have nine secretaries."
"Uh, why so many?"
"To maintain continuity, sir. We were told that you preferred to work rather long and irregular hours. With nine, we can offer you three shifts a day, with each woman working four days on and two days off. This allows for two secretaries on duty at all times."
"Like, I need a typist sitting outside my bedroom door?"
"If you wish, sir. Or we can change the schedule if you prefer."
"Uh, no. Let it ride." There have been times when I was hot on the track of something and worked thirty hours straight, and I guess that that's a bit much to ask somebody else to do. Anyway, I'd hate to make some girl lose her job.
"So, who else do I have?"
"In the household staff, there are forty-five each in food services and housekeeping."
"Twenty people on duty all the time? That means that I've got—what—ninety-nine people here?"
"There are a hundred on the inside staff, including myself, sir."
"Wow. And you're the only one who is not available at all hours?"
"But I am, sir. I don't sleep. It's the main reason that I was able to get this position."
I'd heard of people like that, but I'd never met one before. Another thought hit me halfway through the Peking duck.
"Say, you mean to tell me that an hour ago, there were a hundred people spruced up and lined up to shake my hand?"
"One hundred twenty-nine, sir. There are thirty more on the gardening staff. Would you like me to call them back?"
"Uh, no. No. I'll meet them all eventually. I'm just not used to this kind of attention. I can't understand why it was decided to blow so much money on these palaces."
"I suppose it's relative, sir. The cost of constructing, furnishing and maintaining these three 'palaces' was less than one percent of our total budget for your facility."
I didn't know what to say to that, so I kept quiet.
Toward midnight, Barb showed me the way to the Master's bedroom. Catch that? Not the master bedroom. Apostrophe Ess. There were two more women in the bedroom. One was my adolescent dream. The other was better looking.
"Sir, these are Michelle and Carolyn," Barb said.
More embarrassing bows, handshakes and inane words.
"I think that that will be all for tonight, girls," Barb said.
As they went out, Michelle gave Barb a look that would have flattened a boar hog.
I was sitting on the frame of the massive waterbed, taking my shirt off, when I noticed Barb standing in the doorway, like she was waiting for something.
I figured that she couldn't leave without permission. We might as well get it over with. Best to let the girl leave and get some rest. I was used to being rejected.
"Would you, uh, care to join me?" I said.
And Barb was all ecstatic-looking again.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A Surfeit of Ladies
That night was indescribable, and I'm going to leave it that way except to say that I'd been celibate for a year and I darned nearly made up for it in one night.
I woke up the next morning with Barb sleeping on my arm. On an ordinary bed, that would have meant a numb arm, but waterbeds have their good points.
There was a glorious smile on Barb's face. It was as if she was in the middle of a beautiful dream, so I didn't want to wake her. Hell, I was the one who had to be dreaming. Then I remembered that Barb said that she didn't sleep.
"Uh, Barb."
Eyes open. "Yes, Tom."
Last night I'd told her to knock off that "sir" stuff and to spread the word about it.
"Uh, I guess I should have asked you last night. Are you safe?"
"I suppose so, Tom." Somehow, she made my name sound like "sir." "Why? Are we under attack?"
"Uh, no. I mean with contraceptives."
"Oh. No. I just went off the pill and I'm at the peak of my cycle." She stretched her arms and looked unbelievable happy. "I was so glad that you wanted me last night. There's a sixty percent chance that I've conceived your child."
Shit.
I'm rich one day and already I've got a gold digger on my hands. Christ, I'm dumb. Like, why else would a chick who was this beautiful, this intelligent, and this classy want a bald, oversized jelly belly like me?
"Damnit, don't you think that you should have told me?"
"But, you didn't ask!" She looked surprised, then her face started to crumble.
"Dammit! That's one hell of a low-rent stunt!"
She laid on the bed, quietly crying. I rolled out of the waterbed, got up, and tried to find my clothes. Damn. Somebody had snuck in while I was sleeping and swiped my clothes. They'd swiped my wallet and keys and sword and everything. My driver's license and calculator and everything.
Somebody had hid my stuff on
top of the dresser. Sneaky bastards, anyway. I rummaged through an oversized chest of drawers hunting up the socks and undershorts I was sure they would have put there.
I turned to the closet and nearly tripped over my majordomo. She was kneeling, still naked, at my feet. And still sobbing.
I guess I'm a born sucker, because I softened up quite a bit.
"Hey, take it easy, kid." I touched her shoulder and she looked up.
"I'm sorry, sir. I should have known that you wouldn't have wanted a child by me."
I lifted her to her feet. She looked so tiny.
"Easy, Barb, easy. It'll be okay." Hell. Probably time I got married, anyway.
"I'll kill him if you want me to."
"Huh? Kill who?"
"Our son. I'll have him aborted," Barb said.
"Oh, no need for anything like that."
Shit. I probably wouldn't ever find a woman brighter or more attractive. There likely wasn't one, anywhere.
"I can keep him?" I never saw a woman change so quick. She was smiling before the last tear hit the ground. And I swear it wasn't phony.
"Sure, Barb, sure. You just sort of took me by surprise. We'll work something out."
She was pure joy again.
"Look, we'll talk about it at breakfast," I said. "For now, just point me toward the bathroom."
There were two new women in the bathroom. Tammy and somebody else. One to suds me down and the other to dry me off. I think Tammy was planning to brush my teeth before I took the toothbrush away from her. They were both nude and both used any excuse to touch me or brush their bodies up against me.
Actually, it was kind of annoying. I mean, here I was, trying to think seriously about the possibility of marriage, and there they were, trying to get me involved in adultery before I'd proposed matrimony in the first place!
Just where did Hasenpfeffer find these chicks? They were all knockouts! Playmate quality and above! And what did he do? Brainwash them? Even the very, very rich couldn't live like this without people finding out.
Anyway, it got my mind off Barb. Just as well, because when I was led to the breakfast room—passed more scantily clad women in the halls—was the whole staff female?—Ian was already there working on a stack of pancakes.
"Ian, about all these women . . ."
"You too?" He sounded downright hostile.
Hasenpfeffer walked in. He looked haggard.
"Uh, me three, from the looks of it." I said.
"Gentlemen, I think that a conference is in order." Hasenpfeffer made hand signals to a waitress wearing the shortest skirt and the lowest top I'd ever seen this side of a go-go bar. She understood that she was to bring us more of everything that Ian was eating.
"Yeah. And you broads clear out of here," Ian grumbled.
"Right after bringing us our breakfast and coffee." Hasenpfeffer smiled.
Service was quick and the women evaporated.
"Now, you are probably curious why we have, collectively, some four hundred attractive and eager women running around us."
"Talk about an understatement," I said.
"Yeah. I'm no prude, Jim, but this time you've gone way too damn far."
"Gentlemen, in the first place, I refuse to take full credit"—looking at me—"or blame"—looking at Ian—"for our present situation. This city, indeed this country is the result of something that we all will do. No. That's not right, it's already here. 'Have done'? Absurd. 'Will did?' I think that might correct, but it certainly sounds strange. You know, we will have to modify the English tense structure to accommodate both the subjective and the objective aspects of time travel. Perhaps if we adopted the convention of—"
"Cut the damned English lesson!" Ian shouted. "I was raped last night!"
"Ian, it is physiologically impossible for a woman to rape a male Homo Sapiens. You must have been at least subconsciously eager for the liaison in order—"
"Cut it!"
"Well, whatever else these women are, they are at least extremely obedient. I believe that if you gave direct orders as to how you want your household to behave, you would be obeyed."
"Bet?"
"Stop being childish. You do not look physically damaged, and I'm sure your libido had a marvelous time. Now then. As to how we will managed all this, the answer is that I do not know, but I do have a hypothesis. Consider that none of our household staffs have had any experience as domestic servants. They are all very bright and well educated, but not as servants. Consider my people at Hasenpfeffer Investments. Because of distractions, I did not realize it until last night, but every one of my employees there—and there are over two hundred of them—is intelligent, hard working, physically fit, competent, honest, and attractive. I never had to terminate a single one of them. And yet I hired all of them by placing a few newspaper ads."
"Back up a bit," I said. "What distractions?"
"In the first place, I did not have any experience in running a large organization, so I had nothing to compare the staff's level of competence with. As to attractiveness, well, my first employee was Angela Haskins. She was simply the first person to answer my advertisement and I hired her. We were soon involved in an affair of such intensity that I really did not notice any other women."
"So, go on with your hypothesis."
"Have you noticed that all of the people here at Morrow and at Hasenpfeffer Investments speak perfect Midwest Standard English, the language of Walter Cronkite. That alone should have tipped me off months ago. Consider that they adamantly refuse to say anything about their origins. And consider that their value systems are not American."
"You mean the Russians, or . . ." Ian said.
"No. They would not and could not be behind it. One Mata Hari, perhaps. But four hundred of them? I doubt if there are four hundred women in the world who could approach our staffs on attractiveness alone, not to mention intelligence."
"You mean . . ." Ian was gesturing upwards with his thumb.
"Extraterrestrials? Possible, but improbable. What would be their motivation? From what you gentlemen tell me, time travel is relatively simple from a mechanical and electronic standpoint. Any race that had star travel would certainly have time travel. Why would they want to steal the idea from us?" Hasenpfeffer said.
"But, if they already had it, and wanted to stop us . . ." I said.
"Had they wished us ill, they could have quite easily stopped us with three small caliber bullets. After all, they found us with no difficulty. No. The conclusion is inescapable. These people are superior human beings, obviously the result of a culture that places considerable emphasis on eugenics. The men are eager to help us and the women are anxious to conserve our genes. I suggest that they are the results of a culture that we ourselves will create."
We were all quiet for a while. Then some of it seeped in.
"So, the women are out for breeding?" I said.
"Certainly. You are one of their founding fathers, one of their great patriarchs. If their culture places a high value on finding the best possible father for one's children, you would be a perfect catch."
So much for marital bliss.
"So you didn't let your affair with the angel upset your stud work last night," Ian said.
"Not once I had deduced their cultural parameters. Actually, I indulged in one of my teenage fantasies and took four of them to bed at once. Not that I recommend the practice, or intend to repeat it myself. It was a classic example of one trial extinction. What I do recommend is that you spread yourselves as evenly as possible among your household staffs. Tell your majordomos to set up an optimal breeding program, and I'm sure they'll oblige. Mine did."
"But, what about love and affection and . . ." I said.
"I am sure that they will be as affectionate as you want them to be. But as for lovers and life partners— Did you take a good look at the men in that reception line? They made the three of us look like diseased Neanderthals. No. I expect that everyone on our staffs has a lover or husband or bo
yfriend or whatever they do here. They merely want our genes, and I think that we should oblige them."
"Fuck 'em," Ian said.
"That is precisely what I am encouraging you to do."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Rebellion
A woman in an abbreviated French maid's outfit (a frilly see-through apron, a black microskirt, high heels, mesh stockings and very long legs) announced that Mayor Jenkins had arrived to escort us on our tour of the city.
My watch said 9:00:01. "Well, tell him to wait. I'm having breakfast."
The maid nodded, started to leave and stopped abruptly when Ian added, "Better still, tell him to wait at his office. We'll call him if we need him. Later."
"Yeah, much later," I said.
"As in perhaps next month."
She started to leave again when Hasenpfeffer yelled, "Stop! Just what is the matter with you two? There are probably thousands of people awaiting us!"
"So let them wait," Ian said.
"Yeah, or tell 'em to get back to work."
"Or give them the day off."
"Good idea," I seconded. "I hereby declare a national holiday until further notice."
"You are both being preposterous!"
"So, how do you figure?" I asked. "If I'm the boss, I can give my people a day off if I feel like it, or a month off for that matter."
"At full pay," Ian added.
"Uh, time and a half. I made it a holiday."
"That makes it double time."
"Well, be it so moved." I resumed work on my blueberry pancakes.
"You guys can't be serious!"
"Can't we?" Ian poured more hot Vermont maple syrup on his last Famo Buckwheat pancake.
"But . . . But why?"
"Jim, I can't speak for Tom, but personally I'm getting a little ticked off about being pushed around."
"Hell, you can speak for me. People have been pushing me around for the past twenty years, first at that damned orphanage and then at the damned university and then at the double damned Air Farce. But this is the first goddamn time that people have told me that I'm in charge, but they want to push me around anyway."
"But . . ."
"Jim, have you thought it out?" Ian asked. "Does it make any difference what we do? We're going to be successful. Whether we do it today, or tomorrow or next year, we are predestined to get this city—and doubtless a lot more—accomplished. This place is an accomplished fact, and it is futile to try to change facts."
Conrad's Time Machine Page 10
