Business Secrets from the Stars

by David Dvorkin

  “So, Shirley, you really think that what Erskine talks about in this book is true? That he really was contacted by an alien intelligence? That he’s really, er, channeling a being who was one of the vice presidents of an alien business corporation tens of thousands of years ago?” The inimitable half-smile is back.

  “I know it’s true, Johnny. As you know, I’ve traveled extensively on the astral plane myself, and while there I’ve encountered a great range of wonderful beings from many different eras and planes, including some from other parts of our own universe, not to mention many from entirely other universes. Anyway, you see, that’s why I know that Malcolm Erskine’s spirit contact, Lukas of Aldebaran, is real. I’ve met him on the astral plane. Some years ago, on that plane, Lukas and I had a truly heavenly love affair. He’s a very beautiful being, physically very much like us, but spiritually of course far more developed, more evolved.”

  The half-smile has changed to open-mouthed wonder. “An affair? On the astral plane?”

  “Oh, certainly. Did you think that travelers on the higher planes limit themselves to speaking? We can touch, too, you know, while we’re there. Anyway, Lukas taught me so much while we were together. He told me many, many things that Mr. Erskine doesn’t even talk about. I guess Lukas didn’t think Erskine was ready for all the illumination he had to offer. My next book will describe the affair in great detail, and also the revelations Lukas blessed me with.”

  “Your next best-seller, I’m sure, Shirley.”

  Modest, slightly smug smile. “I’ve got my fingers crossed.”

  Malcolm frowned. He pressed the ON/OFF switch on his remote control and watched the big screen click from glaring color to blankness, the Tonight Show setting and Malcolm’s fellow-traveler fading away.

  He supposed he should be glad that his book was so successful that the other purveyors of New Age nonsense saw it as a threat or as a new bandwagon they needed to jump on. Still, it bothered him. This was his inspiration! No one else should be allowed to benefit from it!

  He even felt betrayed that this particular bandwagon jumper was an actress he had once fantasized about, back in the days before his almond-eyed invention had expelled all other fantasy objects.

  Jeez, he thought, why don’t you have an affair with me, instead? Here, on this plane.

  Here on this strange, tricky plane, so filled with the unexpected and disturbing.

  It was a good thing, he thought, that he’d already made his own triumphal television appearance. He was still the first name in the public’s mind with the newest gimmick. So he hoped, anyway.

  * * * * *

  The closing years of the presidency of the Great Confabulator were strange ones.

  For a brief moment, the American public seemed to wake up and ask itself what it had done. How, they asked themselves, could we have put this dolt in charge of the Big Red Button of Destruction? Did someone dose the national water supply with hallucinogenic mushrooms? Are mind-bending waves being broadcast from all of our television sets? What else could explain that we elected this senile nincompoop in preference to a far better man and then reelected him in a landslide over another far better man? What has happened to America? they wept.

  Then they went back to watching television.

  But the strangeness persisted. Even after the Grand Enormity had wandered away from office, grinning and winking and waving his white cowboy hat to imaginary crowds, and had been succeeded by his Vice President, Daddy Longlegs, who had ascended to the Presidency by defeating a far better man in his turn, even then the strangeness persisted.

  Not that Malcolm minded. He was riding that strangeness to wealth and fame. He no longer needed to heave himself out of bed in the morning, groaning and filled with self-pity, when the alarm went off. Instead, he slept till he awoke naturally, and then he lay in bed for a long time, dreamily, comfortably, groaning and feeling sorry for himself. Malcolm could always find a reason to feel sorry for himself.

  For a moment, thinking about the High Defribillator led Malcolm to think about Steve Golden, whom he hadn’t seen in a couple of years. Steve had transferred to another work group and they had lost touch. Malcolm had heard through the corporate grapevine that later Steve had been laid off.

  Malcolm imagined Steve fulminating about the meandering farewell speech from the Great Fog Machine or the latest addled one from President Longlegs, and he chuckled.

  He guessed Steve hadn’t managed to get published, or he would surely have heard about it. Ah, well. Very sad and all too common. Malcolm returned to thinking about himself.

  A remarkable variety of charlatans flourished during those strange days. The number of them was high even by historical American standards.

  One of the more successful was Atlantica. Based in, of course, California, she was a con artist of great wealth and wide influence. For more information about Atlantica, let’s listen in on Oprah as, with slightly overdone wide-eyed credulousness, she introduces the hot psychic of the month to her audience, on an episode of Oprah’s show that Malcolm somehow managed to miss:

  “Attie, as her followers call her, is the channel for an ancient Atlantean warrior. Presidents have been known to consult her so that her spirit guide, Mellabenth, can advise them on international affairs. Her mass audiences are attended by enormous crowds, who pay large sums to hear Mellabenth speak through her. Can I call you At?”

  Laughter from the audience.

  Oprah’s guest was a slight, rather pretty blonde woman in her thirties, dressed in what might have been white pajamas with long, wide sleeves. At this familiarity, she began to tremble slightly, and spittle appeared at the corners of her mouth. She no longer seemed so slight. Oprah drew back, and the audience’s laughter grew nervous, uncertain. Finally, Atlantica managed to get herself back under control. “You may call me Miss Atlantica,” she said coldly.

  “Right, right. Of course, Miss Atlantica. Now, we’ve wanted to have you on the show for a long time so you could tell us about your fascinating work channeling Mellabenth from Atlantis and the consulting with presidents, and so on, but today, I’d like to ask you about this new book that’s just come out about —”

  “The Andromeda Corporation,” Atlantica said scornfully. “Yes, yes, everyone asks me about it. I haven’t read it, but I know all about it. Mellabenth gave me a summary. It’s a con game. Mellabenth told me that, too.”

  “It’s selling very well, so I understand.”

  “A con game!” Atlantica shouted. “That guy — what’s his name? The author? I said, what’s his name?”

  “Malcolm Erskine,” Oprah said quickly, moving still further away.

  Atlantica waved her hand. “Right, him. Anyway, you know he’s not really a channeler. It’s all made up. If he’s a channeler, I’d like to see him do this.”

  The trembling returned, and so did the spittle — much more of it, this time, long strings of drool looping from the corners of her mouth down to her chest. Oprah turned pale and her audience turned green. Again, Atlantica seemed to grow in size. She frowned deeply, then opened her mouth and spoke in a voice two octaves deeper than her normal tone, a husky growl that could only have come from the massive chest of a long-dead warrior king of ancient Atlantis. “Aye, I say to you that Malcolm Erskine is conducting a scam.”

  Instantly, Atlantica returned to normal size and facial expression. Calmly, she wiped the drool away with her copious sleeves. “See?” she said smugly.

  “Er, yes. But, you know, Miss Atlantica, even though I’ve only read the first couple of chapters of Business Secrets, I found it very interesting. Especially the second chapter, where Erskine talks about the origins of mankind and how we’re related to the star-people, the, um, Merskeenians, who built the Andromeda Corporation.”

  Oprah turned to her audience. “See, apparently our ancestors evolved somewhere out in interstellar space, on another world. Then, about thirty thousand years ago, they were attacked by a terribly evil race of catlike creatures,
all females and very human looking, called the Marlinga. Our ancestors were rescued only because of the incredible bravery of a man named M’lersk. They became refugees, traveling in space, and eventually ending up on Earth, in Atlantis, where M’lersk became the father of a race of kings. Some of the other people, though, other Merskeenians, they stayed behind and managed to fight the Marlinga and defeat them, and they’re the ones who built the civilization Malcolm Erskine is in contact with. Claims to be in contact with, I mean,” she added hastily, having noticed a faint trembling beginning again in her guest.

  “Hmph,” Atlantica said. “Yes, I know all about that. Mellabenth summarized that, too. After all, Mellabenth and Lukas were both in corporeal form at coincident points in our own plane of existence at very much the same time. Mellabenth says that there is an essential truth to that story, as indeed there always is to all stories, even yours.” She said this to Oprah. She turned to the audience. “And yours. But the with-all is not the be-all. Nor is the other.”

  Tune in tomorrow, when Oprah’s very special guest will be a man who married a parking meter.

  * * * * *

  Malcolm didn’t see the man-who-married-a-parking-meter show either because he was in the air, headed west, accompanied by a very large Secret Service man.

  It was an interesting day, and it started early.

  Malcolm was still asleep when the pounding on his condominium door began. The racket shattered his dream of a stunningly, exotically beautiful young woman with shoulder-length black hair, olive skin, and, of course, almond-shaped eyes.

  Malcolm awoke halfway and stared around him wildly, sweating, panting, terrified. It was the Marlingas! They’d come for him, come to tear him to shreds with their talons and teeth, to castrate him, to demean him, to drive him crazy before they killed him and took away all his possessions!

  No, he realized, waking the rest of the way, it was just a loud knocking at the door.

  Malcolm rolled out of bed and staggered around, finding his slippers and robe. The exquisitely expensive liqueurs and wines and brandies he’d never been able to afford before seemed to cause a sleep fully as uneasy and a hangover fully as fierce as their cheap cousins, especially when mixed in the stomach.

  He found slippers, robe, and finally, after a panicky search, the door, and opened it.

  Standing in the opening was a suited, gimlet-eyed young man eight feet in height and six feet across the shoulders. He looked tough, mean, and ready to do violence. Before Malcolm could tell him he must have the wrong address — sorry, no Mafiosi on this floor — and slam the door, the young man said, basso profundo, “Mr. Malcolm Erskine?”

  There seemed no reason to deny it. “That’s me. Malcolm Erskine. I write books.”

  “Yes, sir. I know that, sir. That’s why I’m here, sir.”

  Well, well! There was a definite tone of respect, almost of subservience, in the large man’s voice. Malcolm drew himself up and said condescendingly, “What can I do for you, young man?”

  The young man reached into his inside jacket pocket, looked up and down the hallway quickly, and then drew out a wallet, which he flipped open to show Malcolm, briefly, an ID card with a governmental eagle on it. “Zip Muchley, sir. Secret Service. What you can do for me, sir, is accompany me to the West Coast. California.”

  Didn’t the Secret Service have any agents who were stunningly, exotically beautiful young women with shoulder-length black hair and olive skin whom Malcolm could wittily offer to follow anywhere? “Now?”

  Zip Muchley nodded. “Now, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “Sort of a personal services deal, sir. Someone wants to get some advice from your, er, spirit guide. One on one, like.”

  “Are you joking? And I’m supposed to go to the Fruitcake State just for that? Who is this person?”

  Zip looked up and down the hallway again, then bent at the waist and leaned down, so that his mouth was close to Malcolm’s ear, and then he whispered the still potent name.

  Malcolm’s eyes widened and filled with dollar signs. The magic endorsement! “I haven’t shaved or showered or eaten breakfast or any of that. And it’s an hour earlier out there. Won’t my client still be asleep?”

  Zip hesitated. At last, he said reluctantly, “Yes, sir, he will. For quite a while, yet, in fact. But not his wife. She never sleeps. And she’s the one who really wants to see you.”

  “Grumble, grumble,” Malcolm grumbled, for the sake of appearance.

  “Oh, and I should tell you, sir, that you’ll be able to shower and shave and eat on the plane. It’s very well equipped.”

  Yeah, Malcolm thought. I’ll bet. Thanks to my tax dollars. “Okay, er, Zip. Let me at least get dressed, and I’ll be ready to go. By the way, you have a remarkable voice. Ever thought of going into opera?”

  Zip frowned. “‘Opera,’ sir? What’s that?”

  The airplane Malcolm was taken to was indeed the famous airliner with the famous seal on its famous tail assembly. That was perhaps why it was parked far out at the end of a runway at an Air Force base outside Piketon. It was too famous to be flown into Piketon International Airport without arousing the local press from their wonted slumber. Had it been sent all this way just to ferry Malcolm Erskine the fifteen hundred miles to Southern California? A personal favor, he assumed, from the incumbent to his predecessor. Your tax dollars at work.

  But Malcolm had to admit that the airplane’s well appointed bathroom with shower and new-just-for-him electric razor and new-just-for-him electric toothbrush, all installed with the help of his tax dollars, were pleasant to use, and the breakfast that his tax dollars provided for him afterward, while simple, was very tasty.

  He was digesting the last of the smoked pork chops with the help of a cup of coffee as they passed over the Grand Canyon. If, he wondered, looking down into the shadowed chasm, he could drop Marlene into it from this altitude, would he be able to see the dust raised by the impact? It was a fantasy that went well with hot coffee and the aftertaste of smoked pork chop.

  Zip Muchley had been by his side all along, except during his shower, during which the Secret Service man had waited patiently just outside the bathroom. He was an extremely large hovering presence and impossible to ignore. Was he there to prevent an attack upon his charge or an escape by him? Under the circumstances, either was unlikely.

  Malcolm turned from contemplation of the canyon, now sliding out of sight behind them. “Are you married, Zip?”

  Muchley looked from side to side, up and down the passenger cabin, which was empty except for them and the lone steward who had served Malcolm his breakfast and who now waited patiently beside the door to the cockpit, certainly well out of earshot. Satisfied, Muchley said in a low voice, “Yes, sir.”

  “Happily?”

  Muchley smiled suddenly, unexpectedly. “Very, sir.”

  “Children?”

  The smile disappeared. “Five, sir.”

  “You, um, have pictures of them, I suppose?”

  Muchley shook his head. “Not one, sir.”

  “Too bad,” Malcolm said. Thank God, he thought.

  “I do have a picture of my wife, though, sir,” Muchley said, smiling again in soft, reflective pleasure.

  Is she exotically beautiful with shoulder-length black hair and olive skin? “I’d love to see that.”

  Muchley took out the same wallet he had flipped open earlier to show Malcolm his ID card. This time, he opened it so that a picture encased in plastic showed instead. It was of a blonde bimbo who looked no more than sixteen. Not Malcolm’s type, if he had had the luxury of being choosy, but certainly not bad. “Very pretty, Muchley. Congratulations.”

  “That was taken before she had any of the kids,” Muchley said sadly. “She’s... changed a bit since then. But she’s a terrific gal,” he added quickly. “Woman, I mean. A wonderful woman. Just like the great lady we’re going to see.” His tone had turned reverent at the end.

  “You really respect he
r, do you? The great lady we’re going to see, I mean.”

  “Oh, yes, sir! Finest First Lady in the history of the United States, sir.”

  “Hmm. I voted for the other First Lady, myself.”

  Muchley was confused. “But — but then why did you agree to make this trip, Mr. Erskine?”

  Malcolm smiled. “Can’t hurt the sales of the book, can it?”

  Suddenly, Zip Muchley lost his charming little-boy earnestness and assumed in its place a focused seriousness that was altogether more unsettling. He leaned forward, narrowed his already narrow eyes, lowered the pitch of his already low-pitched voice, frowned, and said, “You’re not allowed to mention anything about any of this to anyone. No publicity at all. Not a word.” He glared at Malcolm, waiting for his response.

  Malcolm laughed nervously. “Airplanes are so cold at these altitudes, aren’t they?” He held up his hands. “You bet. Whatever you say, Zip. Zip, Zip. Not a word.”

  Muchley leaned back again, but he kept glaring at Malcolm.

  Malcolm sighed and wondered why he had always had such an amazing ability to transform pleasant conversations into emotional cliffs. He turned his attention to the window, to the flat, brown landscape below, and tried to watch for the Hoover Dam and the Salton Sea, wondering if he’d be able to see them from this altitude.

  They landed at another Air Force base, this one in southern California, and then they were helicoptered into the mountains, ending up at a helicopter landing strip on private land. A black limousine was waiting for them, bearing small U.S. flags on its fenders. Malcolm wondered if that was legal when transporting a private citizen. He shrugged and climbed in. Probably this whole trip was illegal. Probably there was a regulation somewhere against spending money to transport a private citizen on the presidential jet for private purposes. But power tends to be abused, and absolute power tends to be abused absolutely. Power’s siren song: Use me, abuse me. Oh, that feels so good! President Longlegs seemed at least as susceptible to that song as any other President.