The Number of the Beast

by Robert A. Heinlein

  To return to pretty little Mrs. Burroughs: To be enjoying a bath with her a few minutes after she had had me subjected to personal indignity was the second most surprising thing about her. The most surprising thing I was still learning: This fragile little doll with the muscles of a kitten was the toughest bitch kitty I have ever encountered.

  Understand me, I admire her. But I want to be on the side she is on. “What changes in Dora do you want, Ma’am?”

  “Lazarus, I’m ‘Ma’am’ to strangers and on formal occasions. I don’t consider bathing all that formal; my friends call me Hilda. Or by nicknames. Even pet names. But not ‘Ma’am.’”

  My answer got me splashed. She went on, “In attempting to hornswoggle me, you gave me, through your accomplices, a phony command and rank—while retaining control of the computer necessary to make it real. I require that you carry out your contract. Now. By reprogramming Dora to me as her sole boss, with the program locked so that you can’t change it. Me and me alone.”

  She smiled, leaned toward me, and placed a hand on my knee under water. “That’s why I insisted on privacy—for Dora’s sake. She’s self-aware and seems quite vulnerable. Lazarus, I don’t mind anyone in this ship hearing anything I’ve been saying. But I don’t discuss surgery when it is likely to upset the patient.” She leaned forward. “Scratch between my shoulder blades—pretty please?”

  I welcomed time to think, while requiring her to coach me—higher, lower, a little to the left, ah, right there…

  “Hilda, I’m not sure it can be done. I did reprogram Dora so that her loyalty in crisis is to Laz-Lor. But it took me years and was not done by circuitry or by programming. Dora is so thoroughly a self-aware personality that it is necessary to win her love in order to gain her loyalty.”

  “I find that believable. Lazarus, let’s see you pull a hat out of the rabbit.”

  “You mean—”

  “I meant what I said. Any second-rate magician can pull a rabbit out of a hat. Can Lazarus Long pull a hat out of a rabbit? Watch this space next week. It’s your problem, Lazarus; you created it. I won’t make a second contract with a man in default on his first. Do you want your back scratched while you think? You scratched mine deliciously.”

  I accepted by leaning forward. Hilda is telepathic though perhaps not in words. She knew which spots and how hard and how long.

  And when to stop. She dropped her hand as I straightened up…and her hand brushed against me and stopped. “Well! Truly I did not intend to be provocative, old dear.”

  I put an arm around her; she did not pull away but continued, “I won’t refuse you. I have not given a man reasonable cause to call me a tease since I was twelve. But wouldn’t it be sensible to table this until after we have rescued your mother and set up our business structure? If you find—then—that you are interested, you will let me know. If you do, I ask that you cooperate with me in saving my husband’s feelings and face. And… I am…having trouble saying this—Damn it! Please stop and tell me the plans for rescuing your mother.”

  I stopped, allowed a hand’s width to separate us. “Have you forgotten the hat and the rabbit?”

  “I’m afraid I did. Very well, you’ve won this round; we attempt to rescue your mother. I waive the broken contract—but we do no further business. Just the rescue, then we leave.”

  “I thought you promised me a second chance—later?”

  “What? Lazarus, you’re a bastard.”

  “I’m not but the term has no meaning on Tertius. Here’s the ‘hat.’ You designate me your flunky—any title—for this ship. My sole function will be to be in earshot—through Dora or otherwise—to insure that your slightest wish is carried out. Night or day.”

  “Making me a privileged figurehead, still vulnerable to your whim. The hat won’t fit.”

  “Very well—second hat. We ground on Tertius; I move Dora into another ship—she accepts that; it has happened before. I sign this ship over to you with a new computer of the same capacity, programmed for ship’s routine but unawakened. You let it awaken to your personality. You’ll be its mother.”

  “That’s better. Close but not on. Lazarus, you and I are going to be in business together a long time. I won’t take your ship. Instead you’re going to build me a ship, a tender for Gay Deceiver but moved by a Burroughs continua device—the first such ship built by Burroughs & Long, Ltd., a subsidiary of Carter Engineering Company. Another subsidiary is Carter Computers, which may assemble computers but primarily will build Burroughs Time-Space twisters under some innocuous name, and sell them only inside our complex setup—much more complex; we’ll work on it together. But our biggest subsidiary will be Libby & Smith, Real Estate. That one rebuilds solar systems.”

  “What!!”

  “Talk to Zebbie and Jacob. We’ll organize Black Hat Safaris, Pty., too, but it may be a dummy for a while. We’ll have an emporium in New Rome, imports from many universes. Uh… The Pawnshop, of course, with the Hook Joint above it. Ultra expensive imported styles up there, modelled by New Rome’s most beautiful hetaerae. Private rooms for private viewings. This one is a gift to Laz-Lor, save for the ten percent that is voting stock of which I vote my usual control, through you. The twins can do as they please with it; our leash will be slack. Probably they will do their own importing, with a resident manager. But they might work in it some, just to know the business.”

  “Which business?”

  “Both. They are grown women, Lazarus; you must not try to run their lives. The overall holding company, run by you and me, usual split with my one percent advantage, is a nonprofit corporation supporting Ishtar’s clinic. We funnel whatever is needed into the clinic, holding down the book profits elsewhere, but paying whopping salaries and consulting fees. My husband is chief scientist in one part while consultant by fee elsewhere, with Elizabeth—Lib—his mirror image elsewhere. Lazarus, we must have Deety work on it; she has the finest head in our family for manipulation of this sort—I’m just her awed pupil.”

  “And I’m just your awed pupil!”

  “Piffle again. Lazarus, from what I’ve read of you, your sole weakness lies in a delight in cheating for its own sake; Deety treats it as an intellectual art. One thing more—No, two things. Can you persuade Dora, as a favor to Ol’ Buddy Boy, to go along with the hoax until we deliver your mother to Ishtar? Make it a mammoth joke, under which she takes orders from me because she wants to be in on the fun. Take you out of arrest, of course; wipe it from her memory.”

  “It was never in her memory; Lor put her in non-recording mode while the hooraw was on.”

  “Good! Can you persuade her to call me ‘Commodore’ while you use some fancy title?”

  “Hilda, I’m your chief of staff for this ship; Zeb is chief of staff, flagship. Dora doesn’t really understand ranks; I can tell her that ‘chief of staff’ is one notch senior to God. No problem. As long as she can see that you and I are buddy-buddy.”

  “And we are!”

  “It’s reassuring to hear that. Hilda, I underestimated you so badly that I’m still in a state of shock. What’s the last item?”

  “Rejuvenation for all of us for as long as you—Ishtar—can stretch non-Howards.”

  “I can promise that; I’m Board Chairman of the Clinic. But—Ishtar is not a magician. What’s the average age of death for your parents, grandparents, any ancestors you know about?”

  “My family, both sides, are considered long-lived—although I lost my parents in a car crash. The others I don’t know about except that Deety’s mother died of cancer, much too young.”

  “We can handle that.”

  “Is longevity on Earth—our Earth, not yours—of interest? Same length of year as Old-Home-Terra; Deety and Lor checked.”

  “Of course!”

  “These figures apply to North America. Some other places are higher, some lower, some no data. Females. Menarche at thirteen plus-or-minus nine percent. Menopause at fifty-six to sixty-seven plus-or-minu—”

>   “Stop there! Average age of death, female?”

  “One hundred seventeen. But males average eight years less. Sad. My own family averages higher, but only a few years. I don’t know about Jacob but he mentioned once that his great-grandfather got himself killed, in an odd fashion, at ninety-seven. He—”

  “Enough. I must report this. By definition, all of you are ‘Missing Howards.’”

  “But, Lazarus, that’s simply the average on Earth—our Earth, now that I know that there are thousands of analogs.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Different universe, different time line—not my problem. Here you are a Howard. You four and all your descendants.”

  Hilda smiled happily. “That’s cheerful news to a woman six weeks pregnant.”

  “You?”

  “And Deety. Same time and doesn’t show yet. Lazarus, I was tempted a while ago to tell you…because I was tempted. Now, now! Down, Rover! Outline to me how we rescue a woman dead for many centuries.”

  “Hilda, someday I’m going to get you drunk.”

  “Want to bet?”

  “Never with you. There is mystery about my mother’s death. She appears to have been killed accidentally at a relatively young age, for a Howard. Just short of a hundred. I was notified as her purse I.D.’s named me as ‘next of kin’—and I bawled like a baby for I had been planning to pay her a visit on her century day, July 4th, 1982. Instead I attended her funeral, flying to Albuquerque two weeks early.

  “Nobody there but me. She was living alone under her maiden name, she and my father having separated thirty years earlier. But apparently she hadn’t listed her last address change with the Howard Foundation, hadn’t notified her other children. Howards are like that; they live so long that kinship is not enough reason to stay in touch. Closed casket and cremation—authorized by stuff in her purse; I never saw her body.

  “But there was no doubt as to her I.D.’s and so forth. In my world, 1982 was a time when you couldn’t sneeze without carrying a thick pack of cards all, in effect, saying that you were you. I was feeling it because I was seventy later that year and looked thirty-five. Embarrassing. I had plans to drive south from Albuquerque, cross the border, and not come back until I had bought a new passport to match a new name.

  “Hilda, it was over two thousand years later, in preparing for my first time trip, that I learned that my mother was not listed in the Archives as dead but simply as ‘record missing.’

  “The matter troubled me. A few years ago—my time—Laz-Lor took me back. Didn’t ground; a missile chased us and scared Dora silly. But I got a motion picture that seems to show the accident. There is a blur on the frames just before the first one that shows what I think is the corpse. Can you guess the size and shape?”

  “Shan’t try, Lazarus.”

  “As near as I can measure on a film a centimeter square, shot with a telephoto lens from too high because Dora was crying and wanting to go home, it is the size of that berth Gay Deceiver is in. Hilda, I think I photographed you rescuing my mother before you did it.”

  “What? Lazarus, that’s—”

  “Don’t say impossible. The Land of Oz is impossible. You’re impossible. I’m impossible. Who invented pantheistic multiperson solipsism? You did.”

  “I wasn’t going to say ‘impossible.’ Now that you know that I’m pregnant, you will realize why I want to try to rescue your mother right away, before my belly starts growing where the seat belt crosses it. Her name was Marian? Marian Johnson Smith?”

  “Maureen Johnson.”

  “That proves that the real Lazarus Long stood up. It bothered me that there might be a series of analog-Lazarus-Longs like analog-Earths.”

  “Wouldn’t bother me. That’s their problem.”

  “But it would destroy the theory I worked out that would account for my sitting here in a pool of water in a time-travelling flying saucer with a fabulous man—both ways!—when I know he’s a fictional character in a book I read years back. That makes me a fictional character, too, but that doesn’t trouble me as I can’t read a novel with me in it, any more than you could read the one I read about you.”

  “I came close to doing just that.”

  “Don’t be mysterious, Lazarus.”

  “I like wild stories. Used to read every one I could find in the Kansas City Public Library. On another time trip I picked up a magazine of a type you may never have seen. Read one installment of a serial. Ridiculous. Four people traveling in space in an airplane. At the end of that installment they are hailed by a flying saucer. Continued next month. Hilda, how do you think Dora was able to be at the right place at the right time when Gay Deceiver popped out of nowhere?”

  “Where is that magazine?”

  “Down the same destruction oubliette that recently received my best fake Scottish chief costume. If I had not learned long ago to dispose of casual fiction once I had read it, Dora would never be able to lift. Hilda, you explained it yoursel—”

  “Hilda? Do you hear me”—her husband’s voice.

  Her face lit up. “Yes, Jacob?”

  “May I see you? I have a problem.”

  I barely whispered, “I’ll get out,” and started to stand up. She pulled me back down. “Of course, Jacob dearest. I’m in the flag cabin. Where are you?”

  “In our suite.”

  “Come straight here.” She whispered to me, “Do we have a deal?” I nodded; she stuck out her hand; we shook on it. “Partners,” she whispered. “Details later. Maureen first.”

  Her husband answered, “Hilda, I don’t know my way. And it’s a private matter.”

  “Then you must come here, Jacob; this is the only private place in the ship. I’ve been talking business with Lazarus Long—business so private we had to talk here. No more trouble, dearest man, and we each get what we want. Come join us, we need you.”

  “Uh…can he hear me?”

  “Certainly. We’re having a bath together. Come join us. I want you to know all about the deal before we tell the children. I may need support on parts where we traded quid pro quo.”

  Silence—“I’d better call back later.”

  I said, “Doctor Burroughs, you want to talk privately with your wife; I will get out. But please understand that social bathing is as commonplace on my world as offering a friend a drink is on yours. I am here because the Commodore invited me and I assure you she is quite unharmed.”

  Burroughs replied in a pained voice, “I know that custom and have utter faith in Hilda’s social judgment. Yes, I do need to speak to her…but I don’t mean to be surly. I’ll come up, or down, or across, and say hello. Please don’t leave before I get there. I’ll ask my way.”

  “Dora will show you. Step into the corridor and wait. She’ll find you.”

  “Very well, sir.”

  “Dora, special.”

  “Yes, Pappy?”

  “Find Professor Burroughs. Lead him here. By the longest route. Slow march.”

  “Aye aye, Pappy.”

  I said hurriedly to Hilda, “I may know what this is; let me check. Lib?”

  “Yes, Lazarus?”

  “Are you alone?”

  “In my stateroom alone. And lonely.” Lib added, “And upset.”

  “So? Did you put the question to Professor Burroughs?”

  “Yes. Lazarus, I had perfect opportunity. The one place Dora can’t see or hear. Inside Gay Deceiver’s space warp and—”

  “Chop it, Lib! Did he turn you down?”

  “No. But he didn’t say Yes. He’s gone to discuss it with his wife. That’s why I’m jittery.”

  “Turn on the soother. I’ll call you back. Off.”

  Hilda asked, “What’s the matter with Elizabeth?”

  “I’ll make it short as even the longest route can’t take long. Lib is terribly anxious to have a child by the mathematician—your husband—who formulated the equations for six-dimensional positively-curved space. She thinks—and so do I—that they might produce a mathematician
equal to, or even greater, than Lib or your husband. But she should have let Ishtar arrange it. She jumped the gun; I don’t know why—”

  “I do! Elizabeth!”

  Lib was slow in answering. “This is Elizabeth Long.”

  “Hilda Burroughs here. Elizabeth, you come straight here. Flag cabin.”

  “Commodore, are you angry with me? I meant no harm.”

  “Dear, dear! You come to Mama Burroughs’ arms and let me pet you and tell you that you’re a good girl. Now! How far away are you?”

  “Just around the curve. A few meters.”

  “Drop everything and hurry. Lazarus and I are in the ’fresher. In the pool. Come join us.”

  “Uh, all right.”

  “Hurry!”

  Hilda asked, “How do I let them in? Run dripping and do it by hand? I noticed that our door lets anyone out but can’t be opened from the outside without help.” She added, “For that matter how do I get back in?”

  “Dora knows you belong here. For the rest—Dora, admit Libby Long and Professor Burroughs.”

  “Aye aye, Pappy. Lib—here she comes. Dr. Jacob Burroughs I’m fetching. How soon?”

  Hilda said, “Two minutes.”

  Lib hurried in, still unsmiling. Did smile when Hilda put her arms around her, smiled and cried at the same time. I heard Hilda crooning, “There, there, dear! It’s a wonderful idea; she’ll be the world’s greatest mathematician. A cute baby—something like Deety, something like you. Jacob! In here, darling! If you are wearing anything, chuck it; we’re in the pool.”

  Seconds later the pool was filled to its rated capacity, Hilda with arms around both of them—kissed her husband, kissed Lib, said sternly to them, “Stop looking as if you were at a funeral! Jacob, this is what Jane would want—and it is what I want. Elizabeth, you aren’t crowding me out; I’m pregnant now. I’ll have my baby six weeks before you have yours. I’ve decided to ask Doctor Lafe Hubert to deliver my baby. Who are—”

  “Hilda! I haven’t delivered a baby for over a century.”

  “You have seven months in which to brush up. Doctor Lafe, are you refusing to attend me?”