GOLEM 100

by Alfred Bester

  “I understand.”

  Twisting trails straggled out from the star toward the boundary circle in all directions. “I got this from the Skip-Trace report. This is how their ops tailed your Dr. Shima.”

  “Most ingenious, but I see nothing serious about this, Miz Nunn.”

  “Look closely at the trails I’ve plotted, sir. What d’you see?”

  “Why… Each ends in a red cross.”

  “And what happens to each trail before it reaches the cross?”

  “Why nothing. Nothing at all except that they’re rather corkscrewed. Wait… They start as dots coming from the star and then change to dashes.”

  “And that’s what makes it serious.”

  “I don’t understand, Miz Nunn.”

  “I’ll explain, sir. Each cross represents the scene of a Lethal-One.”

  “What! Murder?”

  “The dashes represent Homicide’s backtracking of the actions and whereabouts of the murder victim just prior to death.”

  “Murder!”

  “They could trace the victim’s actions back just so far and no further. Those are the dashes. Skip-Trace could tail Dr. Shima from his Oasis just so far and no further. Those are the dots. The trails join up. The dates match. What’s your conclusion, sir?”

  “It must be coincidence! It has to be!” the chairman shouted. “This brilliant, charming young man, with everything in the world that anyone could wish for… Lethal crime? Murder? Impossible!”

  “D’you want more factual data?”

  “No I do not, madame. I want the truth. Proof positive without farfetched inferences from dots and dashes.”

  “Very well, Mr. Tinsmith. You’ll get your proof poz.”

  5

  So Gretchen Nunn began assembling proof poz. She rented the professional beggar’s pitch alongside the Oasis entrance for a week. Shima seen twice a day but no contact. She hired the Glacial Army Revival Band and sang hymns with it before the Oasis. No success, and the Army complained that her rendition of “Where You Beez Come God’s Big Freeze?” had cost them a thirty percent drop in contributions.

  She finally made the connection after she’d promoted a messenger job with the Organic Nursery. The first three dinners she delivered to the penthouse, she came and went unnoticed. Shima was entertaining a series of girls, all scrubbed and sparkling with gratitude and luxuriating in the welcome warmth. When she made the next delivery he was alone, and he noticed her for the first time.

  “Well, well, well,” he smiled. “And how long has this been going on?”

  “Sir?”

  “Since when has the Nursery been using girls for delivery boys?”

  “I am a delivery person, sir,” Gretchen answered with dignity. “I’ve been working for the Organic Nursery since the first of the month, sir.”

  “Strike that ‘sir’ bit, will you? I’m no dignitary.”

  “Thank you s— Doctor Shima.”

  “How the devil d’you know I’ve got a doctorate?”

  She’d slipped. He was listed at the Oasis and the Nursery simply as, B. SHIMA—PENTHOUSE, and she should have remembered. The man was lightning-quick. As usual, she made the mistake work for her. “I know all about you, sir. Dr. Blaise Shima, Princeton, M.I.T., Dhow Chemical. Chief Scent Chemist at CCC. Publications: Aromatic Hydrocarbons, Volatile Oils and Dye Chemis—”

  “Have a heart,” he broke in. “You sound like Who’s Who.”

  “That’s where I read it, Dr. Shima.”

  “You looked me up in that dumb catalogue? Why, for God’s sake?”

  “You’re the first famous person I’ve ever met.”

  “What gave you the lunatic idea that I’m famous, which I’m not?”

  She gestured around. “I knew you had to be famous to live like this.”

  “Very flattering, but it’s my decorator who’s famous. So you can read, can you?”

  “And write, sir.”

  “Unusual for the Guff. What’s your name, love?”

  “Gretchen, sir.”

  “Watch that ‘sir,’ Gretchen. What’s your last name, love?”

  “People in my class don’t have last names, s—doctor. It doesn’t seem fair.”

  “And a social philosopher, too. Most unusual. Will you be the delivery b—person tomorrow, Gretchen?”

  “Tomorrow is my day off, doctor.”

  “Perfect. Bring dinner for two.”

  So the affair began, and Gretchen Nunn discovered, much to her astonishment, that she was enjoying it tremendously. This was not the first time she had ever used pleasure for business, but this was the first time that she herself had been genuinely pleasured. She made a mental note to examine the psychodynamics of her reaction at some future date.

  Blaise was indeed a brilliant, charming young man; always entertaining, always considerate, always generous. With affection and gratitude for the novelty she was giving him he gave her (remember, he believed she came from the dregs of the Guff) one of his prized bijoux, the five-carat diamond he’d synthesized for his doctoral dissertation at Dhow. She responded with equal style; she wore the cabochon in her navel and promised that it was for his eyes only.

  Quite as a matter of course he insisted that this Guff flower scrub up each time she visited, which was a bore. In her income bracket, she could afford more black-market water than CCC’s generous allowance to their pet. However, one convenience was that she could quit her job at Organic and attend to other contracts while she was investigating the Shima problem.

  She usually left his penthouse before midnight and always staked out across the road from his Oasis until two. She picked him up this night as he was leaving a half hour after her. She’d studied the Salem Burne report and knew what to expect. She overtook him quickly and spoke in an agitated voice, using the lowest Guff diction which is blurted without pause or punctuation, “Hey man mistuh mistuh man mistuh!”

  He stopped and looked at her kindly, completely without recognition. He was almost unrecognizable himself. The bright, alert, playful Shima was gone. This was a glassy creature who moved and spoke with the phlegm of a tortoise.

  “Yes, my dear?”

  “If yuh gone this way man kin I come too man mistuh I scared out late mistuh.”

  “Certainly, my dear.”

  “Thanks mistuh I gone home yuh gone home man?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Where yuh gone to nothin’ bad is yuh man I doan want no part a bad mistuh.”

  “Nothing bad, my dear. Not to worry.”

  “Then what yuh doin’ man I like mean what huh?”

  He smiled secretly. “I’m following something.”

  “Yuh follow somebody who?”

  “No. Something.”

  “Like what kine something mistuh?”

  “Inquisitive, aren’t you. What’s your name?”

  “Gretch like for Gretchen how they Guff say you man?”

  “Me?”

  “Got a name mistuh?”

  “Name? Of course. I—I’m— Yes, I’m Wish. You may call me Mr. Wish. That’s my name.” He hesitated for a moment and then said, “I must turn left here.”

  “Thas dig Mistuh Wish I left here too man.”

  She could see that under the glassy exterior all his senses were prickling, so she reduced her prattle to a low background. She stayed with him as he turned and twisted through streets, alleys and lanes, always assuring him that this was her way home, too. She doubted whether he was really aware of her until, at a rather sinister-looking refuse dump, he surprised her by giving her a fatherly pat and cautioning her to wait while he explored its safety. Mr. Wish disappeared and never reappeared.

  “I replicated this experience with Dr. Shima seven times,” Ms. Nunn reported to the CCC board. “They were all significant. Each time he revealed a little more to diagnosis without realizing it. Burne was right. It is a case of fugue, and a classic one.”

  “And the cause, Miz Nunn?”

  “Phe
romone trails.”

  “What? Pheromone? What’s that, please?”

  “I’d thought you gentlemen would be acquainted with the term, being in the chemistry business, among others.”

  “But we’re not scientists, Miz Nunn.”

  “Quite. I see I’ll have to explain. It’ll take some time so I beg that you do not require me to describe the induction and deduction that led to my conclusion.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Copeland. Now surely you’ve all heard of hormones, the internal secretions which excite other parts of the body into action. Pheromones are external secretions which excite other individuals into action. It’s a mute chemical language.”

  “Could you be a little more explicit, Miz Nunn? This is rather difficult for us.”

  “Certainly. The best example of the pheromone language is the ant. Place a lump of sugar somewhere outside the nest. A forager will come across it, feed, and return to the nest. Within an hour the entire ant colony will be single-filing to and from the sugar, following the pheromone trail first laid down by the discoverer.”

  “Consciously?”

  “Not known. It may be as deliberate as the bee-dance, which indicates direction and distance of food, or it may be quite unconscious. All we do know is that the pheromone is a compelling stimulant.”

  “Remarkable! And Dr. Shima?”

  “Is compelled to follow human pheromone trails.”

  “What? You mean we leave them as well?”

  “Indeed yes. It’s accepted that women leave unconscious pheromone trails which excite and attract men.”

  “Amazing!”

  “It’s been established for some time. So now, perhaps, you can understand that your Dr. Shima goes into fugue and is forced to follow certain pheromone trails.”

  “Ah! An outré aspect of The Nose. It makes sense, Miz Nunn. It really does. What trails is he compelled to follow? Women?”

  “No. The death wish.”

  “What!”

  “The death wish.”

  “Miz Nunn!”

  “Why the surprise, sir? Surely you’re all aware of this aspect of the human psyche. Many people suffer from an unconscious but powerful urge to self-destruct. Some psychiatrists claim that we all do. Apparently this leaves a pheromone trail which Shima senses… I would guess only in certain cases… and is forced to follow.”

  “And then?”

  “Apparently he grants the wish.”

  “Impossible!”

  “Preposterous!”

  “What’s she saying?”

  “That the gook grants the death wish. He kills the ones that want to die. Lethal-One.”

  “I do, gentlemen.”

  “Apparently! Apparently!” the chairman stormed. “Dr. Shima? Murder? Ridiculous! I demand proof positive of such a monstrous accusation.”

  “Very well, you’ll get it, sir. There are one or two things I must wrap up with him before I close the contract, and in the course of that, I’m afraid he’s in for a shock.”

  “This is cruel and unusual punishment to my hands,” Mary Mixup complained. “Did they really have to push needles with their finners in ancient days?”

  “Aye, they DID! But the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense. Hamlet. ACT V, sc. 1. Let’s quit.”

  “I’m with you, Sarah. I’m fed up with this number.”

  “Me too, Yenta. Let’s take a vote. All in favor of dropping the quilting bee? Hands, please. Not you, Pi. Six out of eight. Carried.” Nellie Gwyn grinned. “Oodgedye and Udgedye recusing, as usual.”

  “We’re not recusing. We’re dissenting.”

  “So now what, Regina?” Priss asked.

  “Oh dear. I’m out of entertainment ideas. Perhaps another call to Lucifer?”

  “Why not?” Yenta grumbled. “Maybe we can get him to finish this dreary quilt.”

  “Regina. Ladies. Attention. Red-hot news. My Droney says we’re calling up the Devil all wrong.”

  “We are? How, Nell?”

  “Droney says we’re in the twenty-second century. We have to drop the medieval schtik and communicate in a modern language.”

  “After all our memorizing! Why?”

  “He says maybe Lucifer hears us but when he tries to return our call, he goes to the wrong century.”

  “That’s an idea. Fiends can make mistakes, too.”

  “Sure. They’re only human.”

  “What language does he suggest, Nell?”

  “Computer binary. Droney programmed the whole bit for us. I’ve got it here. Look…”

  2,047

  1,799

  2,015

  1,501

  1,501

  1,025

  1,501

  1,501

  2,015

  1,799

  2,047

  “What in the name of— He has to be guffing.”

  “No, ladies, this is madly modern magic. The computer automatically translates the decimal into binary oneses and zeroses which form a sinister, evil, dirty rotten cross which no self-respecting demon can resist.”

  “What do you think, Regina?”

  “It’s worth a try, but I don’t think we should just sit around cold. Let’s give it the full treatment. We’ll put the kitchen computer in the pentacle and kneel around and really want it to happen. Pi-girl! Bring the lights and the smells and the computer.”

  1__1__1__1__1__1__1__1__1__1__1

  1__1__1__0__0__0__0__0__1__1__1

  1__1__1__1__1__0__1__1__1__1__1

  1__0__1__1__1__0__1__1__1__0__1

  1__0__1__1__1__0__1__1__1__0__1

  1__0__0__0__0__0__0__0__0__0__1

  1__0__1__1__1__0__1__1__1__0__1

  1__0__1__1__1__0__1__1__1__0__1

  1__1__1__1__1__0__1__1__1__1__1

  1__1__1__0__0__0__0__0__1__1__1

  1__1__1__1__1__1__1__1__1__1__1

  “My goodness! Will you look at that tape!”

  “Better make that ‘My badness,’ Priss.”

  “But all I see is ones and zeros.”

  “Yes, that’s the binary, Mary, but look at the design the zeros are making.”

  “Why! It’s the wicked cross from the Seal of Solomon; the one we started to quilt.”

  “Right. My Droney’s a genius.”

  “Will it really summon Satan?”

  “If a computer can’t, nothing can.”

  “Shush, ladies. We must be worshipful. No whispering, please.”

  “The computer can’t hear us, Regina.”

  “But perhaps Lucifer is listening. Now be devout, you witches. Want! Yearn! Will!”

  6

  When Gretchen Nunn told the CCC board that she had one or two things to wrap up with Blaise Shima before she closed the contract, that was a half-truth from a woman half in love. She knew she had to see him again, but her motives were confused.

  Q: To discover whether she really could love him despite what she knew about him?

  Q: To find out whether he really loved her or was merely playing with a Guff flower?

  Q: To tell him the truth about herself?

  Q: To tell him the truth about himself?

  Q: To close her contract with Mr. Tinsmith in cool, professional style, and to hell with the personal relationships involved?

  A: She didn’t know. Certainly she didn’t know that while she was preparing a shock for Mr. Wish, she was due for a bombshell herself, delivered quite casually by Shima.

  “Were you born blind?” he murmured that night.

  She sat bolt upright in bed. “What? What?”

  “You heard me, Gretchen.”

  “Blind? Me blind? You must be mad. I’ve had twenty-twenty all my life. Better.”

  “Ah-so. Then you didn’t know. I suspected that might be it.”

  “You’re not making sense, Blaise.”

  “Oh, you’re blind all right,” he said calmly. “Only you’ve never known because you’re blessed with something far more e
xtraordinary than sight; you have extrasensory perception of other people’s senses. You see through other people’s eyes. For all I know, you may be deaf and hear through their ears, and so on through all the senses. It’s a fantastic faculty. Absolutely fascinating. We must explore it sometime.”

  “I never heard anything more absurd in all my life!” she said angrily.

  “I can prove it if you insist, darling.”

  “Go ahead, Blaise. Prove it.”

  “Come into the lounge.”

  In the living room, he pointed to a vase. “What color is that, Gretchen?” “Pearl, of course.” A carpet. “What color is that?” “Elephant-grey.” “And that lamp?” “A sort of ice color with a black shade.”

  “Q.E.D.,” Shima smiled. “It has been demonstrated.”

  “What’s been demonstrated?”

  “That you’re seeing through my eyes.”

  “How can you say a ridiculous thing like that?”

  “Because I’m color-blind. That’s what gave me the clue in the first place.”

  “No!”

  “Yes.”

  “Blaise, if you’re guffing me I swear I’ll—”

  “This is no guff, love, it’s a fact.”

  “No!”

  “But yes.” He took her in his arms to quiet her trembling. “It’s a fact. The vase is green. The rug is amber and gold. The lamp is crimson with a burgundy shade. I can’t see the colors, but the decorator told me and I remember.”

  She let out a little moan.

  “Now why the terror, love? You’re blind, yes, but you’re blessed with something far more miraculous than sight. You see through the eyes of the entire world. I envy you. I’d change places with you anytime.”

  “It can’t be true!” she cried. “It’s too horrible! Blind? A cripple? A freak? No!”

  “It’s true, darling, but don’t think of yourself as a cripple.”

  “But when I’m alone I can see.”