Please tell him that Deety and I are shameless exhibitionists who enjoy being stared at.
Carlos thanks you for letting him know this. He will stare at every opportunity, pretty no-mustard.
Why no-mustard, Worsel?
Each person has his—her unique flavor. Your tang is delicious. Your soul—spirit—life-force is enchantingly beautiful.
It’s not mechanically possible to be seduced by a Velantian dragon—but if it were, Worsel could be an always-successful wolf. Oh, fiddlesticks! I’m selfish and I bully people.
Every person is selfish, beautiful Hilda. But you have no malice. You bully only as needed. As I do. As you saw me do with Sir Austin. He is a bad-tempered child with a brilliant mind. Sometimes he must be disciplined. Few humans can handle his tantrums. But I have the jets to do it and he knows it. I do it without malice and without hesitation. I neither pleasure in it nor dislike doing it. It needed doing; I did it. Kinnison visualized that my force might be needed; I came with speed.
When lunch was over, Worsel said “aloud” to everyone: “Let’s get to work, Sir Austin; I must report to Kimball Kinnison with least delay. Professor Burroughs, will you help us now?”
Sir Austin still looked grumpy but went along without arguing. One of those slide-away platforms came for Jacob and Sir Austin; Worsel slithered after them, his leathery wings folded and the Lens riveted to his neck shining like a Christmas tree. Admiral Haynes smoothly turned us over to Carlos and Ted; he and Dr. Lacy disappeared. Another platform appeared and we were taken sightseeing. My main impression of Prime Base is that it is huge. Yet I don’t know whether we saw five percent or ninety-five; it just went on and on. Once we appeared to be outdoors, a beautiful park. But Zebbie glanced up and said:
“That’s not the Sun and that’s no sky.”
“No, certainly not,” Ted agreed. “Carlos, how far underground are we?”
“Oh, three-quarters of a mile, more or less, at the sky ceiling. Do you want it exact?”
“Close enough. Zeb, most Base personnel, civilians especially, prefer to live on the surface. But they can be evacuated quickly to quarters below the Base. When that is necessary, this park and others give them room to work off claustrophobia—it’s especially nice for kids. Between alerts, it’s a favorite place for lunch; there are a dozen open-air restaurants here and there. Shifts are staggered and restaurants are busy twenty-four hours a day.” Ted suddenly looked thoughtful. “Did you get that, Carlos?”
“Yes, Gray Lensman. Captain Carter, could you spare Master Technician Thorndyke some time?”
“Certainly.”
“The admiral says that Thorndyke would like to see your ship. Shall I send word for him to go to your hangar?”
“Fine. But inspecting Gay Deceiver will take about seven minutes. Most of what I can show him are Kodachrome slides and stereo Polaroid. Is it possible to project them? A hand viewer isn’t too satisfactory in explaining engineering details.”
“Can you describe these slides? I don’t know them by those names.”
“The transparencies are about five centimeters square. The stereos are larger, double frames spaced eye distance apart.”
“No difficulty. Any holographs?”
“Some. I don’t think we’ll need ’em today.”
“Zeb,” said Ted, “may I come along, please?”
His wistful question made the oddness of our situation hit me. Up to that sightseeing ride, everything had been under pressure, and I had been scheming and conniving, trying to help keep our heads above water. Then I heard a Gray Lensman ask my lazy campus chum Zebbie for permission to do something at Galactic Patrol Prime Base … and I suddenly realized that this charming Latin and this shy Midwestern farm boy were Lensmen … and I had had lunch with a Velantian dragon, the famous Worsel himself. It hit me hard.
Carlos asked, “Something troubling you, Dr. Hilda?”
“No. Just swallowed the wrong way. Carlos, will you drop the ‘Doctor’ and call me Hilda?”
“Certainly, Hilda. Thank you.”
Deety and I didn’t wait to be invited; we went along. Worsel was in our hangar, filling a good chunk of it. Gay had her doors open; Jacob was in the passenger compartment. Sir Austin was not in sight. But I heard his voice: “I say, Burroughs, ask Worsel to try to reach me now.”
“Certainly, Cardynge. Worsel, can you reach him?”
Worsel broadcast, “It seems to cut off precisely at the skin of the ship. I can neither see him nor talk to him. Ask him to come slowly back into Gay Deceiver. Hello, pretty little Hilda. Hi, Deety!”
“Hi, Worsel! What’s cooking?”
“I’m trying to check your space discontinuity. Regrettably I am too big to go inside your ship. My perception doesn’t see your washroom wing and I can’t hear thoughts from it or project thoughts into it. Most fascinating!”
“Of course you can’t,” said Deety. “It’s in the Land of Oz. Another universe.”
Sir Austin was coming back out. “What, what? What were you saying, Dr. Deety?”
“I said our bathrooms are in another universe. I don’t remember the axes but my father has it on his schedule. Pop, how many axes do we share with Oz?”
“Two. Different time axis, however.”
“Burroughs, it obviously has to be in another continuum. I can see a fact when it’s shoved under my nose. But what’s this about a different duration axis?”
“Deety?”
“Pop, I think you had better check your schedule. Duration in our bathrooms matches duration here. It didn’t matter out in space. But here we would notice it. Can we rig a periscope so that Worsel can see, too?”
The ensuing days were as delightful as Helium and utterly different. Jacob spent his time with Sir Austin, who became quite pleasant in a cold-fish way. He and Jacob became cronies, with mutual respect, and spent endless hours talking mathematics far over my head—but I wasn’t expected to join in and I let them be, happy as two Boy Scouts working on a merit badge together. Sir Austin often stayed for dinner, then the two would talk far into the night.
When Sir Austin ate with us, he made a brave effort to be sociable, but the poor dear had no talent for it. He was meticulously polite to me, always addressing me as “Dr. Hilda,” holding my chair for me, standing whenever I entered a room. Deety he treated with abrupt friendliness—she became a junior colleague, one he respected in a minor way because she could do something he could not: lightning calculation. At first he just used her talent as Jacob did … until one day (I happened to be present) when Deety corrected him on some point—“entropy” and “Shannon’s Law” were mentioned.
Sir Austin started to swell up; Jacob interrupted, “Cardynge, dear chap, I suggest that you be very careful in disputing with my daughter about information theory. You’ll come a cropper.”
Sir Austin deflated at once, actually listened to Deety—and from then on treated her with more respect. Mental arithmetic was merely a convenience that avoided the nuisance of calculation … but Deety had turned out to be more skilled than he was in one branch of mathematical theory. He stopped calling her “Doctor” and quit treating her as a “lady”—an inverted compliment, his way of acknowledging that she was a mathematician, entitled to the same warm rudeness that Jacob and he used to each other.
But this followed his capitulation to Jacob. Sir Austin had implicitly agreed to an armistice the day he saw our magic bathrooms. He was still puzzling over them when Zebbie said to Jacob, “Doctor, both Thorndyke and Ted want to ride in Gay. How about it? Advice, please.”
“What does Admiral Haynes say?”
Ted answered seriously, “I no longer require his permission … and I’m not going to consult him; he might object.”
“My sentiments exactly,” LaVerne Thorndyke agreed. “Hey, Worsel, you overfed crocodile, we’re going to play hooky. Keep it under your hat—QX?”
“QX, LaVerne … if I’m offered the proper bribe”
“What do you w
ant? The pound of flesh nearest my heart?”
“Old friend, you don’t have flesh there, just transistors. I looked. As you noted, I am much too overfed to ride in Gay Deceiver. So I require that you install your first model in a ship large enough to hold me … and take me along on your test flight.”
Ted laughed. “He’s got you cornered, Thorndyke.”
“He’s got us both cornered … because you’ll have to see to it that I get a ship that size … instead of the little speedster the admiral would assign to me.”
“It’s a deal.”
Zebbie said, “Deety, will you whop up a ‘B, U, G, O, U, T,’ program for this spot? Jake, how about a short schedule, one we can do in an hour? Leave out the four we classed as dangerous, especially that hollow world. We won’t ground anywhere.”
Deety had Gay wipe “B, U, G, O, U, T,” and substitute “Prime Base,” using wording that had already been debugged, when a hitch ensured ….
Sir Austin demanded to go along. “Gray Lensman Smith, on this project I am chief of theory, just as Thorndyke is chief of technology. There being only two seats it is obvious that you should withdraw.”
I could see Ted struggling with his conscience and about to be noble, so I butted in. “Cap’n Zebbie, all three are trim in the waist—whereas Hal Halsa and Thuvia are both a bit broad in the beam. Huh?”
Cushions from our apartment and straps LaVerne Thorndyke supplied and our back seat held all three—crowded! LaVerne brought along a tiny motion picture camera when he got the straps.
I was much relieved when Cap’n Zebbie cited standing order number one: we four must never be separated—and ordered Deety and me to get in back and strap down. He reminded me to get out Bonine pills and asked who, if anyone, was unaccustomed to freefall?
Jacob, LaVerne, Sir Austin, and I took pills. Worsel placed his mighty body against the hangar doors, his head against the passageway door, and assured Zebbie that our parking spot would be undisturbed. “Friends, I will not move until you return. I will think. Clear ether!”
Then it was the homey sound of: “Copilot,”—“Captain!”—“set to transit h-axis, positive, one billion kilometers.” “Short range, h-axis positive, one hundred million minimums, vernier setting eight—set, Captain!”
“Immediately after transit, set first rotation by schedule.”
“Aye aye, Captain!”
“Execute!”
I heard them gasp, then I took a nap. We weren’t going to ground, I had been all those places before, and we couldn’t see out without violating Cap’n Zebbie’s rules … and if Deety cheated a little, Aunt Sharpie didn’t want to know it. It had been a short night and a wearing day; it was restful to be back home in Gay Deceiver.
The next I knew Deety was poking me in the ribs and we were back. Zebbie was saying, “You’re a Smart Girl, Gay.”
“I take after my old man, Zeb. Wait ’til you see his shotgun. Over.”
“Over and out, Gay.”
Worsel was broadcasting: “Welcome back, friends! Your departure and return were spectacular. But you are back sooner than I had anticipated.”
LaVerne glanced at his watch. “Fifty-seven minutes. About what Captain Carter said it would be.”
“May I suggest that you check time with Base Observatory?”
“Eight minutes thirteen seconds,” said Deety. “Right, Worsel? Pop, I said that Oz was on this time axis, I said. Fifty-seven minutes four seconds by ship’s time; Prime Base duration equals seven minutes forty-one seconds spent touring the Land of Oz, plus two short maneuvers in this universe.”
“Imposs—” Sir Austin said, and choked it off. The poor man was sluggy.
“My astrogator does not make mistakes,” Cap’n Zebbie said firmly. “In traveling the universes, we can’t afford mistakes.”
Ted Smith said, “Klono’s claws! She’s precisely right. I’ve just checked with the Observatory.”
“Gray Lensman Ted, no doubt you noticed that I was able to stay with you?”
“I wasn’t sure, Worsel. I thought I had lost you on the first rotation.”
“Not quite. I had a dazzling impression of superimposed spaces, then a delightful ride over a lovely countryside—Oz, I know it to be. But I didn’t distract you, for I experienced something else. Dr. Burroughs, your washroom annex suddenly was open to me. It still is. Having located that universe, I will not lose it. Deety, your friend Glinda the Wise and Beautiful and Good sends you her love.”
“Zebadiah, we should have grounded!”
“Glinda understands why it was not prudent. She says to tell Captain Zebadiah that it would be well not to linger here too long. This saddens me but Glinda is right. This is not your final resting place. Hilda no-mustard, if you step into your dressing room, I think I will be able to receive your thoughts.”
“At once, Worsel!” I hurried back into the car while telling Jacob, “Be right back, dear!”
“Worsel, are you there?”
“Yes, Pretty Hilda. Thank you. I have much to think about.”
Sir Austin was a true scientist. After that demonstration, he surrendered horse and foot; chucked his assumptions, and studied carefully what Jacob could teach him. But LaVerne Thorndyke was better company at the table and with us about as often, as he was not only learning how to build Burroughs continua apparatus for the Patrol; he was designing and building, or having built, many improvements for Gay. Zebbie wouldn’t let her shell be touched but there were instruments she needed: much more accurate aiming than was possible by gunsight, truly long range and accurate measurement of distance—such things the Galactic Patrol had and gave us happily for what we could give them. For many of these new instruments Deety wrote new voice programs so that Gay could help Zebbie and Jacob.
But I, the perennial butterfly, didn’t have much to do. No cooking—we could have a dozen to dinner and the delivery cubby in our suite would provide. House cleaning? Fussbudgety little automatons took care of our suite, never got in the way, never asked for “Maid’s Day off.”
I spent much time with Worsel.
He could barely get his head inside our apartment, so I went to his—a large austere place that supplied his needs though I was never sure what they were. He always seemed to have time for me. His current duty, he told me, was liaison for Kimball Kinnison; he could follow everything that LaVerne was doing and assist him through Worsel’s own sense of perception, keep in touch with Admiral Haynes, and report to the Gray Lensman, without leaving his quarters, and still have more mind than most people to share with me.
He was studying me—with my permission; I let him go as deeply into my mind as was possible for me. But he told me, not sadly, but with deep interest, that unlike other minds, even with my cooperation, he could perceive only what I thought about and consciously remembered.
I opened to him as widely as possible, sitting quietly in lotus and trying for total recall. I hadn’t lived a very useful life and I’ve done many things frowned upon by the church I was reared in but I did not think I had done anything I would mind a wingety dragon knowing. I invited him in and relived in my mind as much experience as possible, all forty-two years. I tried especially hard to let Worsel experience what it means to be a woman and in love—mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically.
But first I told Jacob that I wanted to do this. He kissed me and told me to go ahead—he valued privacy but he saw no reason not to admit a Velantian into our lives. Jacob had talked with Worsel enough to know that he was a friend who could be trusted … and our races were so unlike that it would be silly to feel shy with Worsel.
Was it possible for a woman to fall in love with a dragon? It was … but it did not diminish my love for Jacob; it enhanced it. This old nanny goat tried so hard to relive for her dragon her most intense experiences that more than once I flashed back into total recall with Worsel as deep into my mind as I could hold him. If my beloved dragon does not now know the inner truths of being a woman—this woman—then i
t’s not possible to convey them.
Those sessions left me feeling wrung out, refreshed, and spiritually cleansed.
He told me that he shared my experiences. We discussed them, mind-to-mind, and it was like musing to myself—but joyful.
I think Worsel lived my life, all the important parts, good and bad, and filed it away for meditation in that great brain of his.
But I will never truly know.
He took me flying. Real flying, up in the air, riding his back, with his great wings beating. Jacob fretted more over this than over my opening to Worsel—I don’t think that fretted him at all or I wouldn’t have done it. But Dr. Lacy assured Jacob that Worsel was so fast that I could jump off Worsel in the air—and Worsel would be under me at once and catch me like a juggler catching an egg on a plate. Dr. Lacy said “jump off” because, as he told Jacob, I could not fall off because Worsel would guard me every second unless I intentionally shut my mind. But then, shutting my mind to Worsel was the last thing I wanted; I kept trying to open it wider.
But that block always remained; I had to try every time to let him in at all.
XLIII
Jake
Hilda is the perfect mate for me—always there when I needed her, didn’t bother me when I was working, didn’t fuss when I worked long hours, didn’t attempt to “share” mathematics beyond her training, didn’t expect me to “share” interests of hers that were not mine. We were complements, not twins.
So great is her empathy that she consulted me before trying a daring experiment with Worsel. I said, “My love, quo animo? If you wanted to climb on the confession couch to Carlos, I might wonder about the other uses of couches. I would not try to stop you and I trust that I am mature enough that it would not dismay me. But with Worsel the question ‘Quo animo?’ answers itself; Worsel’s spirit is benign. He won’t hurt you, you can’t hurt him—and you both may learn. I’m terribly tied up with work and neglecting you; I’m delighted that you aren’t bored. Go ahead!”
The Pursuit of the Pankera: A Parallel Novel About Parallel Universes Page 51
