Malcolm opened his eyes and threw himself into his task with even greater enthusiasm.
At home he pushed aside the novel he had been working on and devoted all of his writing time to Business Secrets from the Stars. When he wasn’t working on the book, he thought about it. When he slept, he dreamed about it, visions of the Andromeda Corporation and Lukas and his fellow Merskeenians drifting through his slumbering mind.
He was following the pathway blazed decades before by L. Ron Hubbard. He hoped, wished, prayed that he would have commensurate success.
For just a moment, Malcolm’s conscience bothered him. He had been a basically honest person all his life, and yet now he was planning to earn a considerable amount of money with what amounted to a confidence game. But it was the work of a moment to rationalize his feelings away and stuff his conscience back into the tiny cranny where it belonged.
* * * * *
CHAPTER TWO
O beloved descendants, never let your history be a barrier to your future success. Old failures are buried in the past. You are blessed to live in the land of infinite personal reinvention and the limitless worship of form over substance. It is presentation that matters, not what underlies or does not underlie the surface. Do not let yourself fear because of what you were or were not. Forget your history. History, as one of your great thinkers told you long ago, is bunk.
— Lukas of Aldebaran, trying to be encouraging
Decades before Malcolm Erskine had his life-altering moment of illumination, indeed before Malcolm was born, young Daddy Longlegs came home from the war.
Daddy’s postwar plans, formulated even before he had shipped out, were quite simple. He would marry Grammy, his fiancée, move from New England to Texas, start an oil company with the help of his daddy’s friends, make a few million dollars with the further help of his daddy’s friends, and live happily ever after.
But when he reached New England, he discovered that his daddy had changed the last part of the plan. Rather than live happily ever after, Daddy’s daddy said, Daddy would have to become President of the United States.
Most immediately, this required that Daddy travel to Africa and murder some animals.
This quest for blood was driven by the careful calculations of his daddy’s advisers, and most especially by the calculations of Mr. Umbral, an old Longlegs family retainer. For despite Daddy’s wartime record, it was obvious to Daddy’s daddy’s men that Daddy gave anyone who met him the immediate impression that he was a wimp. If Daddy was ever to be President, it was imperative that he start working immediately to establish his non-wimphood. The advisers had agreed that Daddy should emulate Teddy Roosevelt. In a few respects, at any rate.
Daddy had another problem. With the possible exception of Grammy, no one who met him liked him. But that wouldn’t matter so much politically, the advisers thought. The time was coming when no voter would ever actually meet a Presidential candidate in any meaningful sense. The image alone would matter, and they wanted Daddy’s image to be that of a virile huntin’, shootin’ kinda guy. A man’s man. A Teddy Roosevelt. Again, in some respects.
Fortunately, Mr. Umbral felt that it wasn’t really necessary for Daddy to do his killing in, say, the Belgian Congo or even British East Africa. Some place safer and more civilized would be much better. So, accompanied by Mr. Umbral, Daddy went to South Africa, spent a few days enjoying Capetown’s old-fashioned pleasures, and then drove up to Southwest Africa in a well-stocked Ford GPW.
Mr. Umbral stayed behind in Capetown to discuss family business with some local oilmen.
Daddy, on his trip into the relative wilderness, was accompanied by a number of South Africans. They were all friends or business acquaintances of his father. All of them worked for Shell Oil. They were all men, of course. They were all white, of course. They were all virile huntin’, shootin’, drinkin’, and cursin’ kinda guys.
It was June, the sky was clear, and except for the roughness of the unpaved roads in “The Southwest,” as his companions called it, and the strange accents of those companions, and the odd shapes of the trees, and the chilly dryness of the air, and the dustiness of the terrain, and the occasional native village, Daddy could have imagined that he was in northern Texas.
“This is the real bushveld,” his companions told him, rolling their r’s and speaking in deep voices with a kind of manly, worldly self-assurance that Daddy envied enormously. Golly, this was the real place for a real man!
His companions’ capacity for beer added to the north-Texas illusion. As did their attitude toward the natives. Each time they passed a native village or a black walking beside the road, they said something, always in an angry grumble, about “bloody Kaffirs,” which they pronounced “bleddy Keffirs.” As the miles increased and the supply of beer decreased, that changed to “blerrykeffirs.”
Sometimes, Daddy, who did most of the driving because of the effect of the beer on his companions, felt like adding some racial pejorative of his own — not because he felt any animus toward the local blacks, or those back home, in fact he didn’t, but rather as a way of becoming part of the gang, showing that he belonged in this company of older, hard-drinking, worldly-wise, tough, aggressive, virile men. But his nerve failed him and he said nothing.
They stopped a few times to spend the night — always in hotels, to Daddy’s great disappointment, for he had been looking forward to camping out under the ancient African sky. But when he suggested this, his companions said scornfully, “And get robbed by blerrykeffirs? Maybe murdered in our sleep? Or just freeze to death? Man, you’re crazy!”
In general, the driving toward the wilderness was taking far longer than Daddy had anticipated, in part because they stopped at every small town they passed through to buy more beer. Finally, though, the band of hunters found themselves a hundred miles inside Southwest Africa, in a wilderness with no other humans visible, and strange animal roars and cries coming from the surrounding bush.
It was twilight.
“Now we camp!” Daddy said with youthful enthusiasm. “No, er, dangerous blacks around. Real safe.”
His companions laughed raucously. “Man, you think like a blerrykeffir! There’re lions around. Lots of ‘em. We’re safest in here. We’ll sleep in the bleddy car.”
Daddy looked at his companions. He sniffed the air, rank with a combination of unwashed manly men and spilled beer, and he sighed. He said nothing, accepting their decree as he always had accepted the decrees of men of their generation.
But, darn it, he was annoyed!
One of the men waved in a general way. “Over there. Park under that bleddy tree.”
Daddy let the clutch out. A bit too quickly, as it happened. The vehicle lurched forward, hit a huge tree root, and stalled.
Daddy smelled or saw or thought he smelled or saw smoke.
“Fire!” Daddy screamed. “Abandon! Ditch!”
The others laughed at him. “Blerrykeffir!” “Stalled it!” “Stupid boy!” “Worthless. Tell the old man about him.”
Daddy flung his door open and scrambled out. In the rapidly fading light, he stumbled over tree roots and rocks, trying to get as far away from the crippled, doomed craft as he could.
The other men were now silhouettes inside the vehicle, waving their bottles in the air and shouting at him. He couldn’t understand a word they said.
Other silhouettes slipped past him, big animal shapes heading for the noise. Two of the beasts turned their heads toward him. Giant cat’s heads were just visible in the gloom, one with a shaggy fringe of hair.
Daddy had seen lions in a zoo. He froze in place.
The two lions glanced at each other, looked back at him, then dismissed him and joined their companions.
One by one, unhurriedly, the lions entered the vehicle through the door Daddy had left open. The shouts of his companions turned to screams.
Daddy turned and fled into the bush.
Which was a mistake, he realized immediately. He could see almo
st nothing here, and it was close to impossible to make headway. Maybe he’d be safer in the open.
He turned, intending to go back. But then he heard the roars of the lions and what sounded like one last, faint scream from a human throat, and he retreated into the tangled undergrowth.
Too late for them now, anyway, he told himself. Can’t go back. Wouldn’t be prudent. Guy’s gotta save himself.
He thrashed about, hoping he was making some headway and moving away from the car.
He heard a low growl from behind him and the sound of something large moving through the brush.
He screamed, tried to run, crashed into a tree trunk.
By now he could see nothing.
He scrabbled frantically at the trunk. He felt a thick branch a foot above his head, grabbed it, and started to climb.
Lions, he told himself. Can’t climb. I hope.
Daddy climbed until he was exhausted and the branches were too slender for him to pull himself up any further. He sat in a fork, wrapped his long arms and legs around one of the branches of the fork, and tried to stop thinking about lions.
This high up, the tree swayed slowly, gently. It was hypnotic. Daddy had had a very long and tiring day. Astonishingly, he fell asleep. Fortunately, he held on even in his sleep.
* * * * *
Daylight woke Daddy from a delightful dream in which Grammy was searching through his hair for lice.
Something was searching through his hair for lice. Daddy froze in terror. Lions? Did they torment their prey this way before killing it? He kept his eyes squeezed shut and played dead.
No, that pleasant gibbering sound couldn’t be a lion.
Slowly, Daddy opened his eyes. He was still in the tree, with his arms and legs still locked around the branch of the fork, but now he could see that he was at most fifteen feet above the ground. Lions could probably jump that high, he thought, annoyed at himself.
Cautiously he looked around. The movement elicited a louder gibbering and a rustling sound. Three little faces stared at him.
“Monkeys!” he exclaimed.
The sound startled them, and they leaped away, landing on more distant branches.
“Hey, it’s okay! My, aren’t you cute little monkeys?” Lowering his voice, Daddy spoke to them. “Look just like each other. Are you brothers? I bet you are.”
Actually, they were brothers. Also cousins. All the little creatures in their small, isolated clan were simultaneously first cousins and second cousins and third cousins and so on. Incest was their way of life. Fortunately, they neither understood such concepts nor would they have been able to communicate the facts to Daddy if they had, which was just as well, for he probably would have been overwhelmed by a profound Republican disgust and fallen out of the tree.
In any case, they had no idea what he was saying. They liked the sound of his voice, though. Inch by inch, they crept closer to him.
By the time rescue arrived, some time around noon, Daddy had won the three little creatures over. The rescuers — all employees of Shell Oil — found him back on the ground with one of the little simians on each shoulder and the third one atop his head. Even in the presence of strange humans, they clung to Daddy.
“You’ll have to leave them behind,” one of the rescuers told him. “I think there are laws about that.” The man stared at the three little creatures, who stared back at him. The man said, “I’ll say this for them, though. They certainly are cute little monkeys.”
“Sure are. Named ’em Jibber, Jabber, and Jebber. Going home with me.”
It took numerous telephone calls to Pretoria and the intervention of the U.S. ambassador at the request of Mr. Umbral on behalf of Daddy’s daddy, but of course the laws were bent. Laws are always crafted so that the rich and powerful are exempt from them. If that were not the case, how could we call ourselves civilized?
For a while, it seemed there might be a problem. A government biologist who happened to be in the area cataloging primates caught a glimpse of Jibber, Jabber, and Jebber and instantly declared them an unknown type of Greater Bush Baby. They were thus a national scientific treasure, he insisted, and must never be allowed to leave South Africa.
Fortunately for Daddy, the troublesome biologist, having returned to the bush to search for more of the new primates, disappeared. Once the biologist was out of the way, Mr. Umbral and Daddy’s daddy’s friends were able to produce a local biologist of their own who testified before a hastily assembled Crown commission that Jibber, Jabber, and Jebber were not Bush Babies at all. Rather, they were a branch of those mysterious Great Apes, native to the central west coast of Africa, that had famously adopted the infant Lord Greystoke in the romances of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Their possession of a language, albeit an indecipherable language, was sufficient proof of this assertion. As such, while they were certainly African treasures, they could hardly be said to be South African treasures. Therefore, if it was up to anyone to decide whether they could be removed from their native soil, it was up to, the biologist sniffed, the Belgians, and they were notorious for their lack of concern for native species. Anyone who doubted his conclusions, he added, delivering the rhetorical coup de grâce, clearly had the intellect of a bleddy keffir.
* * * * *
By August, Daddy, his new bride, and Jibber, Jabber, and Jebber were settling into their new home in Texas, which the three little brothers seemed to find satisfactorily primitive. Grammy Longlegs had loved them on sight, declared them almost unbearably cute little monkeys, and assured Daddy she’d raise them like her own children.
On a Sunday, the new family went to services at the local Church of the Moneyed Classes. Jibber, Jabber, and Jebber were dressed in little suits, custom made for their not-quite-human proportions, and the congregation was enchanted. After the service, Reverend Gregory descended to mingle with the crowd and get a closer look at the three brothers. He bent over and gravely shook hands with each of the three little simians.
This was Jibber, Jabber, and Jebber’s first encounter with this human custom, and it delighted them. They would practice it with each other later in private for hours.
“My, my,” said Reverend Gregory, “aren’t they cute little monkeys?” He stared at the three of them for a few minutes, then said, “But they’re not really the same as each other, are they? At first I thought they were, but the more I look at them, the more different they look.”
Aware of the attention of a large and friendly crowd of humans, the three little simians, who were rapidly losing what fear they still had of these strange creatures, began to perform. Jebber covered his eyes and then spread his fingers so that he could look through them and gauge the crowd’s reaction. Jabber covered his ears and crooned softly, a sweet and charming and meaningless sound. Jibber jumped up down, ran around trying to shake everyone’s hand, and gibbered, making sounds that closely resembled but weren’t quite English words.
“Kinda reminds me of the Big Three at Potsdam,” Reverend Gregory said.
The congregation laughed appreciatively. Even though there was in fact no resemblance between the three little simians and the three big statesmen, the comparison could be taken as insulting to the Democrat in the White House, and that delighted this crowd.
“So which one’s Truman?” someone asked.
Gregory pointed at Jibber. “Him. He’s a gladhander, he’s teeny, and he talks a lot but makes no sense.”
The congregation applauded, but Daddy Longlegs looked at his three little boys and stroked his chin thoughtfully.
* * * * *
Many, many years later, probably at about the time Malcolm sold his third novel and was still feeling hopeful about his literary career and his marriage, Daddy had the family retainers assemble a family for Jibber.
On that fateful day when Reverend Gregory had pointed at Jibber and said he resembled Truman, Daddy had decided that after Daddy himself became President, Jibber would become President in his turn.
There were practical difficul
ties associated with this plan.
Daddy had an impressive pedigree and education and, increasingly, political experience. Jibber was some kind of animal. He had not been born in America. He couldn’t speak any human tongue. He was short. He still occasionally forgot himself and defecated on the carpet. But Daddy knew that other Republicans had overcome even worse obstacles on the way to the White House. A paper trail could be manufactured. Jibber could be trained, or at least restrained when necessary. Speeches could be written for him and handed to the appropriate sycophants in the press beforehand.
The most serious lack was a family. A politician had to have one, and nowadays, they had to be photogenic and, increasingly, telegenic.
As always in moments of distress and doubt, Daddy consulted Mr. Umbral.
Daddy hadn’t spoken to Mr. Umbral in a couple of months. The upward curve of one corner of Umbral’s mouth seemed more noticeable than before. As always, Daddy tried not stare at it, and as always he spent much of the conversation thinking desperately about not staring at it and therefore kept snatching surreptitious glances at it. “He needs a family,” he said abruptly. “Jibber. Political career. Requires a family.”
Mr. Umbral nodded slightly. He pretended not to notice Daddy staring at his mouth. “We could bring one over from the area where you found him, but that wouldn’t do.”
“Wouldn’t do,” Daddy agreed. His gaze wondered around the room, came to light on Mr. Umbral’s mouth, and skittered away again. “Wouldn’t do at all. Has to be a human woman. And human kids. Gotta face it, though. Human woman would probably run away screaming.”
“He’s a cute little monkey.”
“Even so.”
“Well. I’ll see what I can do.”
At that, Daddy relaxed. When Mr. Umbral said he’d do something about a problem, something got done. The problem went away. It had always been that way, even before Daddy was born, judging by some photographs he had seen from his own father’s youth. Daddy stole one quick glance at Umbral’s twisted mouth as the old family retainer floated from the room. Yep, everything was okay again in the Longlegs world. Good old Umbral. Mr. U. Always there, always the same — well, except for the ever more twisted mouth — always reliable. Where would the family be without him?
Business Secrets from the Stars Page 4