The Fanciers & Realizers MEGAPACK

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  Another moment, while he must be removing the gag. Then: “Thank you, Frau Doktor,” he said. “But it is play-acting, of course. Of sorts. However seemingly—involuntary. It proves nothing. Concerning your stamp.”

  “It proves much, however, concerning your perceptions. Nicht wahr?”

  “Thank you again. But neither does it change anything.” He was quickly regaining better control of his voice. “Everything I have told you tonight is sincere truth as I perceive it. There are gaps, ja. There may be inaccuracies, unintentional. There have been no deliberate lies.”

  “For now I will accept that, ‘for the sake of argument’ as they say, until it is proved whether Herr Tolliver is alive or dead or vanished.”

  Poe sighed. “If neither you nor your dog have any objection, I’d like to get up and get the first-aid box. This smear of ink appears to be blistering.”

  “I do not have any objection, Gospodin Raven.” She stood. “We go, my Leibstandarte and I, to search for Herr Tolliver.”

  “Or to finish the job?”

  The Obersturmbannfuehrerin held herself very straight and turned her head slowly in the direction of his voice. She hoped there was enough light to glint off her glasses. That always seemed to have its effect.

  His voice came from higher up but a step or two farther away. So he, too, was on his feet now, probably with his hand resting on a chair or some other thing he could swing as a weapon. “It has occurred to me, Obersturmbannfuehrerin, that even though you could not have had anything to do with Herr Tolliver’s being in the bath, you could have been the one to remove him.”

  “Perhaps I pulled the plug and let him go down the drain? Perhaps we will find him in a tank of the recycled water for ballast?”

  “I had pulled him out of the water, if you recall.”

  “Jawohl, I recall. So you would know his weight. Dead bodies, even simply unconscious bodies, are not light, mein herr. That is why we speak of ‘dead weight.’ Do you think that one woman alone, with even the best of dogs, could have done this, removed this dead weight so far and hidden it so well away?”

  “I believe that you, if anyone, would have been capable.”

  She smiled. “Ja. You are perhaps right. And if my Leibstandarte had brought me to him at once, if I were very quick, and if you were occupying yourself very completely with your Frau, then, perhaps, I might have done it. This is a pleasant argument, Herr Raven. I am happy that you have made it first to me while we are alone. You will not leave this stateroom before midnight without my permission. Auf Wiedersehen!”

  Chapter 13

  “Invented early in the 2020s, by someone whose name and gender vary with each account, whether historical or popular, the substance called whammy was legal for a very few years. It had no beneficial effects that could not be provided more safely by other substances, and too many malevolent effects for even that wild third decade of our century. By 2027, it had been outlawed by every government on earth.

  “Yet it is still being manufactured somewhere even in our own generation. The alternative theory would be that a truly humongous amount was secretly stockpiled in the 2020s for present-day mining. Some rumors say it is actually produced on the hush-hush inside certain prisons and correctional institutions, especially of the private type. Others place the manufacturies on the moon or in the New Helver asteroid colonies, where it is said to be unofficially decriminalized, thanks to their scarcity of police and first-hand experience with bleak conditions that may drive anyone to any available intoxicant. Wherever its source, it is still being smuggled to somebody’s considerable financial profit. Both rumor and reason maintain that no matter how many of its synthesizers and retailers may be captured, there is always at least one person somewhere in possession of the original formula or an authentic copy.

  “Its immediate effects vary wildly with every user. One sales-hook is the question: ‘What will it do to me?’ Some experience hallucinations of the deepest sensory color. Others confuse their personal identities, becoming everything from Alexander the Great to a grapefruit with a conviction never dreamed of even by Stanislavsky. In others, the madness resembles mere alcoholic intoxication carried to an extreme beyond that at which the simple boozer would fall down dead drunk. Some few, especially those who have been whammied before, may retain some ability to move about seemingly at will, may even feel that they are still in control, but the self-control is delusion and the seeming mobility at will liable to fail at any moment.”

  —Stith Botkin, “The Worse Than Opium Eater,”

  in The New Blackwood Magazine, October 2063.

  The obersturmbannfuehrerin left through the door to the bath, locking it behind her. Corwin wondered what she proposed to do about the bedroom door between stateroom and corridor, which could be locked only from the inside. Leave her dog standing guard? Surely not. She would need the beast to navigate her through the ship, tonight more than ever, filled as it was with temporary lunatics. A chair beneath the door handle, perhaps. Would the lunatics leave it there?

  In any case, locking him in was a needless precaution. He had not the slightest intention of quitting Angela’s side again until the effects of the drug had worn off. He even barricaded both bedroom doors from his side, using the stateroom’s two duralumin folding chairs and wishing they were stouter.

  Angela still rested easily. After watching her draw several unlabored breaths, he adjusted the room light the least degree brighter and bent to bring the first-aid box up from its compartment beside the sink.

  There was nothing niggardly about the Nostalgic Transport Corporation. It had provided an ivory chest two-thirds of a meter long, one-third wide, and fifteen centimeters deep. Inside was the minimum pack required by law to be readily accessible in each passenger compartment of every vehicle; but this case of stiff rubber, six centimeters by four by three, immediately portable in any emergency and fitted like a Chinese puzzle with basic supplies, rested dwarfed by a veritable treasure trove for the enthusiastic sufferer: strips of genuine cotton and sterile pads of real gauze, glass containers of authentic iodine and petroleum jelly, disposable syringe, splinter-pick, even a suction device and a silver flask of brandy, as if snakebite could be a present danger or alcoholic stimulants difficult to come by in this vessel.

  So, at least, the chest’s contents appeared to him in his present perceptional mode. He remembered, from having dug through them and scanned the accompanying first-aid manual earlier this evening on Angela’s behalf (and finding no help for her therein other than material for cool compresses), that the carved ivory sides and lid were of plain, serviceable plastic, the brandy flask tin, the various glass containers steelglass and rubberplast, and the syringe a small swish injector. The bandages, iodine, petroleum jelly, and so on, however, were authentic, thanks to NTC’s pride in genuine old-fashioned touches.

  Gingerly he washed the back of his hand, and could not see that any ink came off. He dabbed the mark with petrojel and covered it with a square of gauze which he secured using adhesive strips in the style of the early twentieth century. That done, he contemplated the bottle of asprik, even shaking out two of the familiar green-coated caplets into his palm. But asprik and all such pain-deadeners translated into laudanum in his own world. Caught as he was somewhere between the historic detail and futuristic fiction of that world and the standard reality of the twenty-first century, he could not risk the simulation of a laudanum dose. He contented himself with three swallows of brandy.

  All this while Angela had lain in what the uninformed onlooker would have mistaken for natural sleep. Corwin felt vague disappointment that she had failed to sense his pain despite his precautions, and stirred or cried out in mystic sympathy at the critical moment. Recognizing the injustice of the thought, he interpreted her unbroken repose as further evidence that von Cruewell’s brand was in fact a harmless prop, and that the only thing required to stop the tedious throbbing
of his hand was another full relapse into reality perception. The ideal would be an ability to control these changes at will.

  Nevertheless, he regretted having voiced the observation that von Cruewell herself could have disposed of Tolliver’s body.

  She would have had two chances, the first after getting into the bathroom but before proceeding to the Honeymoon Suite, the second after hurrying back to the bath when he told her of finding Tolliver.

  Assuming that the highwayman had been dead or unconscious, she could hardly have dragged him across the chamber from poolside to corridor without Corwin’s becoming aware of some movement. Engrossed though he had been with Angela, the connecting door had been open both times and the total area of stateroom and bath, while spacious for the gondola of a zeppelin, was miniature compared with groundside accommodations.

  She could, however, have opened a window and tipped the body out. As a safety precaution, every window in the airship could be opened to give ready exit in case of emergency. Corwin tested by closing his eyes and feeling for the catch on one of the stateroom windows. It flipped back easily at the second tug. Eyes still shut, he angled the steelglass sheet by about an inch. It swung outward at the bottom, inward at the top. Aboard an airplane, flying at far higher altitudes and greater speeds, such opening of windows, could it be done at all, would have had drastic and possibly deadly results. Aboard the slow, low-flying Melon, what resistance of air pressure he met seemed to come chiefly from storm winds whipping in. He hoped they were leaving the actual tempest behind them now—assuming that von Cruewell had told the truth about who was flying the ship—but fantasy perception in full working order could influence even impressions of the weather.

  Up until now, his consideration of what Obersturmbannfuehrerin von Cruewell might have done with Tolliver had been more or less an intellectual exercise. But suddenly the image of a jauntily clad body hurtling down through the bleak storm into the ocean wilderness below creased his imagination with more than the force of a thunderclap. His eyelids sprang apart and he slammed the window back into place, refastening the catch with fingers that trembled anew. The more plausible von Cruewell’s theoretical feat appeared, the more appalled he was at the perverse impulse that had made him utter his suspicion to her face.

  * * * *

  From Poe’s reaction to her entrance, Ilna thought that Laplace-Rougier bolts would hold him where they failed to hold her. Notwithstanding, she sealed the bathroom as well as the passage door with lines of Schottisch tape from lintel to floor carpet. Excellent tape it was, thin as appleskin but reinforced with spiderweb strands of spacethread. No scorner of the technological advances made during the Reich’s first century and a half, Ilna kept a spool of Schottisch in her beltcase at all times. For securing prisoners, it was superior to cord, even to handcuffs.

  The young man might defeat even Schottisch tape by throwing his weight sharply against the door, by wiggling a thin blade or wire through the crack, or by taking the door off its hinges; but then she would know. He would not be able to reproduce the looped patterns she made.

  So. With the Fraulein Firebird, who lay comfortably taped on Herr or Frau Olympian’s bed in the VIP Suite, that made three of them safe and snug. The poor Firebird, she had exhausted her body but not her compulsion to dance and leap. That first time they collided, she had been up again on her feet and away down the promenade deck before Ilna could hold her; and it was better to keep Valkyrie close beside her mistress. But when this Fraulein Petrovka comes back once more, staggering in her leaps—Ilna knows her both times, by her Chanel No. 17 perfume made tangy with exertion, and by the feel of her raysilk blouse and loose trousers—then it is easy enough to leave the Laplace-Rougier lock for the moments needed to subdue, secure, and deposit the worn-out flesh.

  Catstep, Carstairs, Nkima, and Braniff, the crew woman and three crewmen whom the Obersturmbannfuehrerin had recruited, should be guarding the rest of them secure in the main passenger lounge. Except Herr Tolliver. Ilna must direct the guards to watch for him. She must not leave loose ends. Catstep, Carstairs, Nkima, and Braniff were steady, but stupid. When she chose them, she had not wanted to complicate her night’s work with underlings who might think for themselves. But she had not expected the Raven to be so difficult. The only other persons of intelligence in the main gondola were either whammied or engaged in flying the zeppelin. Other reasonably clever people there must be among the crew, but to recruit them she must either leave this level again or else interview them by means of intercom or personal phone, and that would cause more talk in the crew’s quarters. They would be talking like dilettantes up there already. No, for these next few hours she would have no one else save Valkyrie.

  She returned to the lounge, stopping Valkyrie in the doorway. Around the passenger areas Ilna knew her way perfectly, needing her dog only to avoid collisions with other people or with moved pieces of furniture. She thought that every piece of furniture in the lounge would have been moved by now, except perhaps the harp, which still sang from its usual corner. The melody was erratic, but even when whammied Ariella Celeste gave the strings her distinctive touch. Yes, the woman who spoke of having chlorophyll sap in her veins might survive this ordeal better than most of her companions.

  Ordeal it was, even if they did not yet recognize it as such. The cacophony could be likened to that of the famous Last Orgy scene in Hart Cineastique’s decadent comedy “The Sack of Rome.” Like Cineastique’s drunken, sex-crazed Romans, these drugged rioters would not have known friend from enemy, nor cared. Some of them might be little worse than drunk. Like all such substances, whammy affected different personal chemistries in different ways, and there was the chance that one or more of this group was already a secret addict and therefore in need of stronger doses for peak mindshut. But many of them would not have seen it, in their present condition, as a catastrophe if the zeppelin took fire around them.

  Afterward, as their heads cleared, most of them would remember enough to feel shame, defilement, degradation. Then Ariella Celeste would have less to suffer, for having spent the debauchery at her harp. And the pretty bride, for having lain in her nightmare with only her loving bridegroom to guard her. And the Russian Firebird, for having been bound away fairly early.

  Ilna turned to the hard breathing to the left of the doorway. “Herr Braniff.”

  “Major!”

  “So you enjoy the spectacle, nein? Who is coupling, and where?”

  “Uh ... M. Olympian and Peachie, middle of the floor.”

  “So. If you hope for a chance at Miz Ming after Herr Jove is done, Braniff, you will put all such thoughts from you at once. The whammy excuses their actions. It does not excuse yours. And you will continue to speak their names with respect. What else is going on?”

  “Uh ... Aye, aye, Major. But it’s the lady Olympian with Peachie—with Miz Ming now. M. Jove’s over in the corner…that is, at one o’clock, with Doc—Doctor—Caduceus. The madre and what’s-his-name—the floater in black—down in the five o’clock corner. The captain and Officer Airborne at eight o’clock.” He could not quite suppress a silly giggle in reporting this last.

  “After it is all over, you will repeat nothing whatever about what your offiziers did when they were not responsible for their actions. Nor about what these unfortunate paying passengers did. Without them, you would not be honored with employment on a zeppelin. You are in this lounge tonight to serve as my eyes, not your own. You will not forget that, Herr Braniff. Now, the others?”

  Braniff coughed and cleared his throat. “M. Celeste’s just been playing her harp the whole time, in the ten o’clock corner.”

  “I can hear.”

  “The others ... Officer Flier, M. Stewart, Garson, that feisty l’l sweetheart—sorry, Major, I can’t remember her name—and the roly guy—”

  “The Dungeon Chessite,” said Ilna, choosing not to use the woman’s chosen name of “Ribald”
to this crewman, “and M. Gillikin, with Offizier Flier, M. Stewart, and M. Garson. Ja, what is it that they do?”

  “They ... uh, just all keep moving around in a bunch between everybody else. But they aren’t ... That is, they seem to be trying to play London Bridge. Just moved around to the port windows—Watch out! ... No, it’s okay, Nkima headed ’em off.”

  “Nkima is at his post, then. Carstairs and Catstep also?”

  “Check. Carstairs at the door to the bridge, Catstep at the starboard windows. Uh ... Major, how did you know it was me standing here?”

  She smiled. “By the stench of the Old Copenhagen tobacco which you chew when you are off duty, Herr Braniff, which lingers still on your breath.”

  His descriptions sufficed to help her sort out the sounds of riot. Her ears followed the progress of Flier, Stewart, Garson, Gillikin, and Belladonna the Ribald as they moved counterclockwise about the lounge, apparently circling Juno and Miz Ming. “And Herr Tolliver,” she went on. “The stowaway, the so-called highwayman. Where is he?”

  A pause. “I ... uh…don’t see him anywhere in the lounge here, Major.”

  “So he went out, either through this corridor or through the one to the bridge. When?”

  “Not while I was standing here, Major.”

  “Not while you were standing here alert, Herr Braniff. Ach, so he is missing and unaccounted for. We will not say anything more about it at present. Frau Lightouch is still in her galley?”

  “Passed out cold, last time Carstairs checked.”

  “Breathing?”

  “Snoring.”

  “Gut.” The Obersturmbannfuehrerin favored Braniff with an unsmiling nod. “What of the furniture? Have you cleared it away as I instructed you?”

  “Aye, aye, Major. One of the tables and a couple chairs were already bent pretty bad, but we got ’em all folded and shoved back in their slots.”

  “And the dishes? They still bestrew the floor, nicht wahr?” she said, hearing a crunch as of glass.