“I see.” Abruptly changing the subject, the Chief Researcher said, “Your friend—is he a chimeric mixture of human and animal genes, like the satyrs? Or is he a genetically modified dog? I ask only out of professional curiosity.”
“His friend is capable of answering your questions for himself,” Surplus said coldly. “There is no need to speak of him as if he were not present. I mention this only as a point of common courtesy. I realize that you are young, but—”
“I am older than you think, sirrah!” the girl-woman snapped. “There are disadvantages to having a childish body, but it heals quickly, and my brain cells—in stark contrast to your own, gentlemen—continually replenish themselves. A useful quality in a researcher.” Her voice was utterly without warmth, but compelling nonetheless. She radiated a dark aura of authority. “Why do you wish to meet our Pan?”
“You have said it yourself—out of professional curiosity. We are government agents, and therefore interested in any new products Her Majesty might be pleased to consider.”
The Chief Researcher stood. “I am not at all convinced that the Scientifically Rational Government of Greater Zimbabwe will want to export this technology after it has been tested and perfected. However, odder things have happened. So I will humor you. You must wear these patches, as do we.” The Chief Researcher took two plastic bandages from a nearby box and showed how they should be applied. “Otherwise, you would be susceptible to the god’s influence.”
Darger noted how, when the chemicals from the drug-patch hit his bloodstream, the Chief Researcher’s bleak charisma distinctly faded. These patches were, he decided, useful things indeed.
The Chief Researcher opened the office door, and cried, “Bast!”
The scientist who had led them in stood waiting outside. But it was not he who was summoned. Rather, there came the soft sound of heavy paws on stone, and a black panther stalked into the office. It glanced at Darger and Surplus with cool intelligence, then turned to the Chief Researcher. “Sssssoooooo…?”
“Kneel!” The Chief Researcher climbed onto the beast’s back, commenting offhandedly, “These tiny legs make walking long distances tiresome.” To the waiting scientist she said, “Light the way for us.”
Taking a thurible from a nearby hook, the scientist led them down a labyrinthine series of halls and stairways, proceeding ever deeper into the earth. He swung the thurible at the end of its chain as he went, and the chemical triggers it released into the air activated the moss growing on the stone walls and ceiling so that they glowed brightly before them, and gently faded behind them.
It was like a ceremony from some forgotten religion, Darger reflected. First came the thurifer, swinging his censer with a pleasant near-regular clanking, then the dwarfish lady on her great cat, followed by the two congregants, one fully human and the other possessed of the head and other tokens of the noble dog. He could easily picture the scene painted upon an interior wall of an ancient pyramid. The fact that they were going to converse with a god only made the conceit that much more apt.
At last the passage opened into their destination.
It was a scene out of Piranesi. The laboratory had been retrofitted into the deepest basement of the monastery. The floors and roofs above had fallen in long ago, leaving shattered walls, topless pillars, and fragmentary buttresses. Sickly green light filtered through the translucent dome overhead, impeded by the many tendrils or roots that descended from above to anchor the dome by wrapping themselves about toppled stones or columnar stumps. There was a complexity of structure to the growths that made Darger feel as though he were standing within a monstrous jellyfish, or else one of those man-created beasts which, ages ago (or so legend had it), the Utopians had launched into the void between the stars in the hope that, eons hence, they might make contact with alien civilizations.
Scientists moved purposely through the gloom, feeding mice to their organic alembics and sprinkling nutrients into pulsing bioreactors. Everywhere, ungainly tangles of booms and cranes rose up from the floor or stuck out from high perches on the walls. Two limbs from the nearest dipped delicately downward, as if in curiosity. They moved in a strangely fluid manner.
“Oh, dear God!” Surplus cried.
Darger gaped and, all in an instant, the groping booms and cranes revealed themselves as tentacles. The round blobs they had taken at first for bases became living flesh. Eyes as large as dinner plates clicked open and focused on the two adventurers.
His senses reeled. Squids! And by his quick estimation, there were at a minimum several score of the creatures!
The Chief Researcher slid off her feline mount, and waved the inquiring tentacles away. “Remove Experiment One from its crypt,” she commanded, and the creature flowed across the wall to do her bidding. It held itself upon the vertical surface by its suckered tentacles, Darger noted, but scuttled along the stone on short sharp legs like those of a hermit crab’s. He understood now why the Chief Researcher was so interested in chimeras.
In very little time, two squids came skittering across the floor, a stone coffin in their conjoined tentacles. Gracefully, they laid it down. In unison, they raised their tentacles and lowered them in a grotesque imitation of a bow. Their beaks clacked repeatedly.
“They are intelligent creatures,” the Chief Researcher commented. “But no great conversationalists.”
To help regain his equilibrium, Darger fumbled out his pipe from a jacket pocket, and his tobacco pouch and a striking-box as well. But at the sight of this latter device, the squids squealed in alarm. Tentacles thrashing, they retreated several yards.
The Chief Researcher rounded on Darger. “Put that thing away!” Then, in a calmer tone, “We tolerate no open flames. The dome is a glycerol-based organism. It could go up at a spark.”
Darger complied. But, true though the observation about the dome might be, he knew a lie when he heard one. So the creatures feared fire! That might be worth remembering.
“You wanted to meet Dionysus.” The Chief Researcher laid a hand on the coffin. “He is here. Subordinate Researcher Mbutu, open it up.”
Surplus raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.
The scientist pried open the coffin lid. For an instant nothing was visible within but darkness. Then a thousand black beetles poured from the coffin (both Darger and Surplus shuddered at the uncanniness of it) and fled into the shadows, revealing a naked man who sat up, blinking, as if just awakened.
“Behold the god.”
Dionysus was an enormous man, easily seven feet tall when he stood and proportionately built, though he projected no sense of power at all. His head was either bald or shaven but in either case perfectly hairless. The scientist handed him a simple brown robe, and when he tied it up with a length of rope, he looked as if he were indeed a monk.
The panther, Bast, sat licking one enormous paw, ignoring the god entirely.
When Darger introduced himself and Surplus, Dionysus smiled weakly and reached out a trembling hand to shake. “It is very pleasant to meet folks from England,” he said. “I have so few visitors.” His brow was damp with sweat and his skin a pallid grey.
“This man is sick!” Darger said.
“It is but weariness from the other night. He needs more time with the physician scarabs to replenish his physical systems,” the Chief Researcher said impatiently. “Ask your questions.”
Surplus placed a paw on the god’s shoulder. “You look unhappy, my friend.”
“I—”
“Not to him,” the dwarfish woman snapped, “to me! He is a proprietary creation and thus not qualified to comment upon himself.”
“Very well,” Darger said. “To begin, madam—why? You have made a god, I presume by so manipulating his endocrine system that he produces massive amounts of targeted pheromones on demand. But what is the point?”
“If you were in town last night, you must know what the point is. Dionysus will be used by the Scientifically Rational Government to reward its people wi
th festivals in times of peace and prosperity as a reward for their good citizenship, and in times of unrest as a pacifying influence. He may also be useful in quelling riots. We shall see.”
“I note that you referred to this man as Experiment One. May I presume you are building more gods?”
“Our work progresses well. More than that I cannot say.”
“Perhaps you are also building an Athena, goddess of wisdom?”
“Wisdom, as you surely know, being a matter of pure reason, cannot be produced by the application of pheromones.”
“No? Then a Ceres, goddess of the harvest? Or a Hephaestus, god of the forge? Possibly a Hestia, goddess of the hearth?”
The girl-woman shrugged. “By the tone of your questions, you know the answers already. Pheromones cannot compel skills, virtues, or abstractions—only emotions.”
“Then reassure me, madam, that you are not building a Nemesis, goddess of revenge? Nor an Eris, goddess of discord. Nor an Ares, god of war. Nor a Thanatos, god of death. For if you were, the only reason I can imagine for your presence here would be that you did not care to test them out upon your own population.”
The Chief Researcher did not smile. “You are quick on the uptake for a European.”
“Young societies are prone to presume that simply because a culture is old, it must therefore be decadent. Yet it is not we who are running experiments upon innocent people without their knowledge or consent.”
“I do not think of Europeans as people. Which I find takes care of any ethical dilemmas.”
Darger’s hand whitened on the knob of his cane. “Then I fear, madam, that our interview is over.”
On the way out, Surplus accidentally knocked over a beaker. In the attendant confusion, Darger was able to surreptitiously slip a box of the anti-pheromonal patches under his coat. There was no obvious immediate use for the things. But from long experience, they both knew that such precautions often prove useful.
The journey back to town was slower and more thoughtful than the journey out had been. Surplus broke the silence at last by saying, “The Chief Researcher did not rise to the bait.”
“Indeed. And I could not have been any more obvious. I as good as told her that we knew where the bronzes were, and were amenable to being bribed.”
“It makes one wonder,” Surplus said, “if our chosen profession is not, essentially, sexual in nature.”
“How so?”
“The parallels between cozening and seduction are obvious. One presents oneself as attractively as possible and then seeds the situation with small deceits, strategic retreats, and warm confidences. The desired outcome is never spoken of directly until it has been achieved, though all parties involved are painfully aware of it. Both activities are woven of silences, whispers, and meaningful looks. And—most significantly—the Chief Researcher, artificially maintained in an eternal prepubescence, appears to be immune to both.”
“I think—”
Abruptly, a nymph stepped out into the road before them and stood, hands on hips, blocking their way.
Darger, quick-thinking as ever, swept off his hat and bowed deeply. “My dear miss! You must think me a dreadful person, but in all the excitement last night, I failed to discover your name. If you would be so merciful as to bestow upon me that knowledge and your forgiveness…and a smile… I would be the happiest man on earth.”
A smile tugged at one corner of the nymph’s mouth, but she scowled it down. “Call me Anya. But I’m not here to talk about myself, but about Theodosia. I’m used to the ways of men, but she is not. You were her first.”
“You mean she was a…?” Darger asked, shocked.
“With my brothers and cousins and uncles around? Not likely! There’s not a girl in Arcadia who keeps her hymen a day longer than she desires it. But you were her first human male. That’s special to a lass.”
“I feel honored, of course. But what is it specifically that you are asking me?”
“Just—” her finger tapped his chest—“watch it! Theodosia is a good friend of mine. I’ll not have her hurt.” And, so saying, she flounced back into the forest and was gone.
“Well!” Surplus said. “Further proof, if any were needed, that women remain beyond the comprehension of men.”
“Interestingly enough, I had exactly this conversation with a woman friend of mine some years ago,” Darger said, staring off into the green shadows, “and she assured me that women find men equally baffling. It may be that the problem lies not in gender but in human nature itself.”
“But surely—” Surplus began.
So discoursing, they wended their way home.
A few days later, Darger and Surplus were making their preparations to leave—and arguing over whether to head straight for Moscow or to make a side-trip to Prague—when Eris, the goddess of discord, came stalking through the center of town, leaving fights and arguments in her wake.
Darger was lying fully clothed atop his bed, savoring the smell of flowers, when he heard the first angry noises. Theodosia had filled the room with vases of hyacinths as an apology because she and Anya had to drive to a nearby duck farm to pick up several new eider-down mattresses for the inn, and as a promise that they would not be over-late coming to him. He jumped up and saw the spreading violence from the window. Making a hasty grab for the box of patches they had purloined from the monastery, he slapped one on his neck.
He was going to bring a patch to Surplus’s room, when the door flew open, and that same worthy rushed in, seized him, and slammed him into wall.
“You false friend!” Surplus growled. “You smiling, scheming…anthropocentrist!”
Darger could not respond. His friend’s paws were about his neck, choking him. Surplus was in a frenzy, due possibly to his superior olfactory senses, and there was no hope of talking sense into him.
To Darger’s lasting regret, his childhood had not been one of privilege and gentility, but spent in the rough-and-tumble slums of Mayfair. There, perforce, he had learned to defend himself with his fists. Now, for a silver lining, he found those deplorable skills useful.
Quickly, he brought up his forearms, crossed at the wrists, between Surplus’s arms. Then, all in one motion, he thrust his arms outward, to force his friend’s paws from his throat. Simultaneously, he brought up one knee between Surplus’s legs as hard as he could.
Surplus gasped, and reflexively clutched his wounded part.
A shove sent Surplus to the floor. Darger pinned him.
Now, however, a new problem arose. Where to put the patch. Surplus was covered with fur, head to foot. Darger thought back to their first receiving the patches, twisted around one arm, and found a small bald spot just beneath the paw, on his wrist.
A motion, and it was done.
“They’re worse than football hooligans,” Surplus commented. Somebody had dumped a wagonload of hay in the town square and set it ablaze. By its unsteady light could be seen small knots of townsfolk wandering the streets, looking for trouble and, often enough, finding it. Darger and Surplus had doused their own room’s lights, so they could observe without drawing attention to themselves.
“Not so, dear friend, for such ruffians go to the matches intending trouble, while these poor souls…” His words were cut off by the rattle of a wagon on the street below.
It was Theodosia and Anya, returned from their chore. But before Darger could cry out to them, several men rushed toward them with threatening shouts and upraised fists. Alarmed, Theodosia gestured menacingly with her whip for them to keep back. But one of their number rushed forward, grabbed the whip, and yanked her off the wagon.
“Theodosia!” Darger cried in horror.
Surplus leaped to the windowsill and gallantly launched himself into space, toward the wagonload of mattresses. Darger, who had a touch of acrophobia and had once broken a leg performing a similar stunt, pounded down the stairs.
There were only five thugs in the attacking group, which explained why they were so pe
rturbed when Darger burst from the inn, shouting and wielding his walking stick as if it were a cudgel and Surplus suddenly popped up from within the wagon, teeth bared and fur all a-hackle. Then Anya regained the whip and laid about her, left and right, with a good will.
The rioters scattered like pigeons.
When they were gone, Anya turned on Darger. “You knew something like this was going to happen!” she cried. “Why didn’t you warn anybody?”
“I did! Repeatedly! You laughed in my face!”
“There is a time for lovers’ spats,” Surplus said firmly, “and this is not it. This young lady is unconscious; help me lift her into the wagon. We must get her out of town immediately.”
The nearest place of haven, Anya decided, was her father’s croft, just outside town. Not ten minutes later, they were unloading Theodosia from the wagon, using one of the feather mattresses as a stretcher. A plump nymph, Anya’s mother, met them at the door.
“She will be fine,” the mother said. “I know these things, I used to be a nurse.” She frowned. “Provided she doesn’t have a concussion.” She looked at Darger shrewdly. “Has this anything to do with the fire?”
But when Darger started to explain, Surplus tugged at his sleeve. “Look outside,” he said. “The locals have formed a fire brigade.”
Indeed, there were figures coming down the road, hurrying toward town. Darger ran out and placed himself in front of the first, a pimply-faced young satyr lugging a leather bucketful of water. “Stop!” he cried. “Go no further!”
The satyr paused, confused. “But the fires…”
“Worse than fires await you in town,” Darger said. “Anyway, it’s only a hay-rick.”
A second bucket-carrying satyr pulled to a stop. It was Papatragos. “Darger!” he cried. “What are you doing here at my croft? Is Anya with you?”
For an instant, Darger was nonplused. “Anya is your daughter?”
The Postutopian Adventures of Darger and Surplus Page 6