Encounters

by Mike Resnick

  “Don't forget Number One,” said Ivor.

  “He simply lacked empirical knowledge,” said the Baron. “I mean, how was he to know that all those people couldn't survive after he threw them off the belltower? He himself was incapable of feeling pain.”

  “I almost hate to ask,” I said, “but what happened to Number Four.”

  “I don't care to discuss it,” said the Baron, and walked over to begin work removing Gustave's brain.

  “He's kind of sensitive about Number Four,” whispered Ivor.

  “How come?” I asked.

  “It ran off with his wife,” said Ivor. “Last postcard we got from them, they were living it up on the Riviera.” He paused. “But this time will be different. This time we've got the brain of a man who spent his whole life with books, who even took literature itself as part of his name.”

  “Done!” announced the Baron after another couple of minutes. “Now we simply transfer the brain to my creation, attach all the ganglia and synapses, and it is accomplished.”

  “What do you plan to call this critter?” I asked, as he placed the brain in a metal pan and carried it over.

  “I really hadn't considered that,” said the Baron. “I just assumed we'd call him The Monster, just like the other four.”

  “Ain't that likely to upset his delicate bookish feelings?” I said.

  “You're quite right, Doctor Jones,” said the Baron. “Ivor, what shall we call him?”

  “Creature Number Five?” suggested Ivor.

  “Why not just call him Gustave?” I said. “After all, that's the name he's responded to all his life.”

  “Gustave?” repeated the Baron distastefully. “What a dreadful name!”

  “What's wrong with it?” I asked.

  “I've only known one Gustave in my life, and if I never see him again, it will be too soon.”

  “Why not wait til you bring him back to life and ask him what he wants to be called?” said Ivor.

  “A capital suggestion!” said the Baron. He turned to me. “I'll be at least half an hour transplanting and connecting the brain, Doctor Jones.”

  “That long, huh?”

  “Well, it is delicate surgery,” he said. “Why don't you freshen up and have Ivor get you some food in the meantime?”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said. “Ivor, where's the kitchen?”

  “Right above us,” said Ivor. “I hope you like apples.”

  “Why?”

  “The Baron is a vegetarian. That's all we have in the house.”

  “Maybe I'll just settle for a quick shave and shower,” I said.

  “Well, that poses another problem,” said Ivor apologetically. “This is an old castle. We don't have any running water.”

  “Perhaps none of that will be necessary,” said the Baron, working away at the top of the monster's head. “If I just take this shortcut, and bypass these two synapses ... Yes! It's done!”

  “You got him all hooked up that fast?” I said.

  “Well, he'll be tone-deaf, and I rather suspect he won't be able to play rugby, but except for that, he should function just perfectly.”

  “I hope so,” said Ivor. “Remember Number Three? He kept smelling colors and stuffing candy bars into his ear.”

  “We learn from our mistakes,” said the Baron, starting to connect a bunch of wires to all these metal bits and pieces that were sticking out of the monster. “That is how we avoid making them again and again.”

  Well, I couldn't see that a batch of brand-new mistakes in a ten-foot-tall monster was all that preferable to the same old ones, but it wasn't none of my business, so I just kept quiet and watched while the Baron finished wiring his creation.

  “All is in readiness,” he said after another minute or two, and walked to a big metal switch on the wall. “Ivor, Doctor Jones—stand back please.”

  He didn't have to ask me twice, and I backed up against the wall, which had a damp and chilly feel to it, and then he pulled the switch and every gizmo in the place started buzzing and whistling, and just about the time I was sure he was gonna blow every fuse in the castle he pushed the switch back to its starting position.

  All three of us walked over to the table, and son of a gun if the monster wasn't breathing. The Baron disconnected all the wires and pulled out a stethoscope and listened to its heart for a while, and the critter's eyelids kind of fluttered a bit and suddenly I was staring into its wide, wondering eyes, one brown and one blue.

  “Where am I?” asked the monster.

  “You're perfectly safe,” said the Baron. “You are the late Gustave Book, and I am the Baron Theodore von Steinmetz. I have re-animated you here in the lower recesses of my castle.”

  “I'm not Gustave Book,” said the monster. “I'm Gustave the Book.” It paused while the Baron suddenly turned white as a sheet. “Steinmetz, Steinmetz ... “ it muttered, and suddenly it sat up. “Steinmetz, you owe me three hundred pounds sterling!”

  “What are you talking about?” demanded Ivor.

  “Nobody welches out on a bet with Gustave the Book,” said the monster. “Let's have it.”

  Suddenly the Baron turned to Ivor and started hitting him on the top of his head.

  “Idiot!” he screamed. “Fool! I ask for a dealer in literature, and you bring me the local bookmaker! I thought he looked familiar!”

  “You,” said Gustave to me. “Tell me what the hell is going on around here! Why is my voice different? Why does everyone look so small? Since when does my left hand have six fingers? What has happened to me?”

  “You were dead, and the Baron brung you back to life,” I said.

  “Well, a form of pseudo-life, anyway,” corrected the Baron.

  “I don't believe it.”

  “Maybe we could all sing you a rousing chorus or two of ‘Happy Birthday', to kind of put you in the mood,” I said.

  “Just a minute,” said Gustave. He closed his eyes, then opened them again. “The last thing I remember was seeing a car go by, and then a tommy-gun was pumping bullets into me, and then everything went blank. How come I'm not dead and buried?”

  “Well, actually you were,” I said. “Until we unburied you a couple of hours ago. In fact,” I added, “there's probably them what would say you still are.”

  “Buried?”

  “Dead,” I said.

  “I'm going to need some time to consider all this,” said Gustave.

  “You have all of eternity,” said the Baron. “Being dead already, it is impossible for you to age.”

  “Don't bet on it,” muttered Gustave. “I think I've aged thirty years in the past three minutes.”

  “I must write this up in my journal,” said the Baron. “Ivor, you and Doctor Jones stay with him, and don't let him get excited.”

  He left the laboratory, and Gustave turned back to me.

  “Do I look as terrible as I think I look?” he asked.

  “Well, that all depends,” I said.

  “On what?”

  “On what you think you look like.”

  “Like the ugliest living thing on the face of the earth,” he said.

  “Worse,” I answered.

  “Well, I suppose I haven't got too much to complain about,” he said at last. “I could be back in that grave you dug me out of.”

  “That's the spirit, Brother Gustave,” I said. “Look on the bright side. The ladies may not beat a path to your door, but at least you ain't still pushing up daisies.”

  “But what am I to do with myself?” he asked.

  “Seems to me like you're in prime shape to become a professional rassler,” I said.

  “He could be a weightlifter or a basketball player,” suggested Ivor.

  “Right,” I said. “You been looking at this through jaundiced eyes, Brother Gustave. There's no end of things you can do when you're ten feet tall and weigh six hundred pounds.”

  He shook his head. “I can't let anyone see me looking like this.”

  �
�Actually,” said Ivor, “I believe that the Baron plans to put you on exhibition.”

  “I'm not going to play the freak just to satisfy his ego,” answered Gustave. “I'll kill myself first.”

  “It's too late for that,” said Ivor sympathetically. “You're already dead.”

  “Right,” he said. “I keep forgetting.” He paused. “On the other hand, if I'm already dead, he can't threaten or force me to do anything.”

  “Mighty few people of your particular physical attributes get forced to do anything they don't want to do,” I agreed.

  “Why did he use so many spare parts?” asked Gustave. “Doesn't he realize how much a new wardrobe will cost me?”

  “I don't think that was among his primary concerns,” said Ivor.

  “I might have guessed as much from a man who won't pay off his gambling debts,” muttered Gustave. “He walks into my establishment, loses three hundred pounds playing poker, writes an I.O.U., and then refuses to honor it.”

  “There was a reason for that,” said a voice from behind us, and we all turned to see that the Baron had reentered the laboratory.

  “Let's hear it,” said Gustave. “I could use a good laugh after the day I've had.”

  “The game was rigged.”

  “I've never run a rigged game in my life!” said Gustave.

  “Do you know the odds on someone beating me in a five-man game with the hand I held?” said the Baron.

  “Yeah,” said Gustave. “32,457 to one.”

  “How did you know that?” asked the Baron.

  “Numbers are my business.”

  “Really? I'm terrible with them myself.”

  “I can tell,” said Gustave, holding his arms out in front of him. One was a good six inches longer than the other.

  “Quick,” said the Baron. “How much is 358 times 409?”

  “146,422,” said Gustave.

  “How are you at calculus?” asked the Baron.

  “I've done my fair share of it in school.”

  “Have you studied any other higher mathematics?”

  “Oh, not really,” said Gustave modestly. “I helped Einstein a bit when he passed through here. And Shwarzchild wanted to call it the Gustave Radius, but I told him that he had done most of the initial work and it should really be the Shwarzchild Radius.” He sighed. “I never could help Schroedinger understand those damned cats, though.”

  “My God, man!” said the Baron, his eyes wide. “Why have you been hiding in a bookie joint?”

  “I haven't been hiding,” answered Gustave. “it's just deadbeats like you who can't find me.”

  “But why aren't you a scientist?”

  “I had to loan Albert rent money last month,” said Gustave. “Does that answer your question?”

  “But think of the inestimable service you could be to humanity!” said the Baron.

  “That didn't interest me even when I was human,” said Gustave. “So why should I care now?”

  “Don't you understand?” said the Baron. “I want you to work with me! I'll make you a full partner!”

  “You mean you'll give me half of a run-down castle?” said Gustave. “Don't make me laugh.”

  “What do you want to come to work with me?”

  “First,” said Gustave, “I want to start my business up again. We'll run it out of Castle Steinmetz.”

  “What else?”

  “I want my three hundred pounds.”

  “Done.”

  “One more thing,” said Gustave. “The next thing we work on is a wife for me.”

  “Certainly,” said the Baron. “With your input, I should be able to create an exact replica of Mary Pickford.”

  “I'll settle for Mabel Normand,” said Gustave.

  “Here,” said the Baron. “Go over my notes while I get your money.”

  He tossed a stack of papers onto the table next to Gustave and raced from the room. Gustave started going over them, making little corrections here and there and muttering to himself. The Baron returned a minute later and handed him three hundred pounds.

  “Well?” said the Baron eagerly. “What do you think?”

  “We have a lot of work to do,” said Gustave.

  “Oh?”

  Gustave pointed to a line on the paper. “Either 5 times 7 equals 38, or Mary Pickford is going to have feathers.”

  “But if you change this notation here,” said the Baron, pointing to another of Gustave's scribblings, “she not only won't have feathers, she'll be bald as an egg.”

  “It's only fitting,” said Gustave, “since this equation will eliminate her arms and legs.”

  Ivor kind of signaled to me, and I walked over to him.

  “I know better than to interrupt the master when he's like this,” he said, “so I will pay you what we owe you.” He slipped me a wad of bills. “Thank you for your help, Doctor Jones.”

  “Any time, Brother Ivor,” I said, counting the money and then putting it away in my pocket.

  “Will you be staying in Bucharest?” he asked.

  “No, I don't think so,” I said. “From what I can see, the Baron's got the god biz pretty well under control without no help from me, so I'd best be off to seek fame and fortune elsewhere.”

  I followed him to the stairs, and was just starting to climb up out of the laboratory when I heard the Baron say, “So what's wrong with giving her three of them?”

  And then Gustave paused for a moment and said, “Not a damned thing, now that I come to think of it.”

  I left the two of them plotting out the shape of things to come, and that was the last I ever saw of Baron Steinmetz and his home-made man ... but I guess they got along pretty well together, because I did hear a couple of years later of a Romanian burlesque dancer who had three of what most women generally settle for two of.

  2. Doubled and Redoubled

  You know how some people are connoisseurs of fine art or rare books or gourmet food?

  Well, I seem to have become a connoisseur of jails.

  The jailhouse back in Moline, Illinois is kind of a community gathering place on Saturday nights. The Johannesburg jail is pretty friendly, but the food lacks a little something. The Cairo jail is noisy and crowded. The Nairobi jail is hot and stuffy. The jail in Beria, over in Mozambique, is kind of cramped and smells of raw sewage. The Hong Kong jail smells of dead fish. The jail at Poshan is well-appointed, and the jailor's got a weak spot for games of chance, but if you can't eat with chopsticks you're out of luck.

  But the strangest jail I ever spent a night in was unquestionably the jail in Sylvania, a tiny kingdom which probably ain't on any map printed in the past half century. It seems they'd built this particular hoosegow with the thought of filling it to the brim with criminals, but the people of Sylvania were a pretty law-abiding lot, and although the jail had been standing for seven years, I was its first customer. The jailor was so glad to have a little company that he moved a four-poster bed into my cell, and his wife starting fixing me a six-course meal every three hours.

  How I came to be in the Sylvania jail was a matter of some mystery to me, because I was still bound and determined not to break no laws or otherwise impede my progress toward constructing my tabernacle and bringing all these degenerate Europeans back to the straight and narrow path. So when I hit Sylvania, with Baron Steinmetz's money still pretty much intact, I disdained all games of chance, and instead moseyed over to the Royal Hotel and ordered up the biggest suite in the house, intent on washing the dust from my body and grabbing a good night's sleep before I went out looking for donations or shapely female assistants or whatever else I thought the tabernacle might need.

  I probably should have figured something was a little strange when the desk clerk looked at me with wide, staring eyes, gulped a couple of times, and said that of course I didn't have to pay for the room, but I make it a point never to look no gift horses in the mouth. And when a passel of waiters brung up some pheasant under glass and caviar and champagne and
wheeled it into my lounge with compliments of the house, I just assumed they were being polite to a man of the cloth.

  Still, since everyone was being so all-fired nice to me, I decided to test the waters, as it were, and ask one of the waiters to send up a friendly young Sylvanian lady to help me pass the long lonely hours of the night. He just took it right in stride and asked me if I preferred blondes or brunettes or redheads, and I allowed that I was equally fond of all of ’em, and about half an hour later in came one of each.

  And just as the four of us were getting to know each other and I was thinking that Sylvania was about the most hospitable country that I ever did visit, in burst two guys in tuxedos and two more in military uniforms, and they chased the young ladies out and told me to get dressed and carted me off to the calaboose without so much as a by-your-leave.

  But like I said, the jail was well-appointed and the service was better than I'd paid for in a batch of hostelries, so except for lacking a little company of the female persuasion and wondering what particular laws I had broken, I wasn't exactly discommoded at my current situation, and truth to tell I was eating better than I'd eaten since I'd arrived in Europe.

  Then, at about noontime, two of the guys who'd arrested me the night before came to pay me a visit. One of ’em was still in his military uniform, all glittering with medals and sporting a general's insignia, and the other was dressed in a dour gray business suit. They nodded to the jailor, who let them into the cell with me and then left the building.

  “Well, Heinrich,” said the General, “what do you think?”

  Heinrich peered intently at me through a monocle. “It's remarkable,” he said at last. “Absolutely remarkable.”

  “I agree,” said the General. “Even here, in the light of day, no one could tell the difference.”

  “But it's such an audacious scheme,” protested Heinrich.

  “It will work,” said the General adamantly.

  “Excuse me for interrupting,” I said, “but would you gents like to tell me what I'm doing here, a clean-cut God-fearing Christian who ain't never broke a law in his life?”

  “My apologies,” said the General. “But it was absolutely essential that we speak to you before anyone else laid eyes on you.”