The best Stone could manage was a coughing laugh. “Touché, baby,” he said.
Her eyes were gleaming. “Why not?” she said.
“Come again?”
“Aren’t you getting a little ahead of things, Major?”
Stone blinked at the three consecutive non-sequiturs. Or were they non-sequiturs? Or was he so hung up and out of practice that he couldn’t pick up on a perfectly good invitation?
“Are you trying to tell me something?” he asked lamely.
“I’m trying to ask you something.”
“Ask me what?”
“Is there someplace nearby where you could, how do you say, make love to me, Major Stone?”
The room was small, cozy you might say if you were thinking that way—a bed, a dresser, a night table, the big bay window, and just enough floor space to walk around in—and it was paneled in ersatz knotty-pine. Tanya rushed inside as if she owned the place as Stone opened the door for her, threw off her jacket, tossed it on the dresser, kicked off her shoes, grabbed his hand and pulled him to the window, where she stared out at San Francisco, wavering through the fog, her face hidden from him.
“Ah, so perfect!” she sighed. “San Francisco, California, United States of America, 1967, the most beautiful city on the North American continent in the period, indeed. And Tanya Grouzenko, here with Major Jase Stone of the Air Force of the United States of America! Ah, it is like…”
She turned to him, laid a warm palm against his cheek. Her eyes were shining, and she looked incongruously like some romantic schoolgirl—which certainly didn’t jibe with the no-nonsense way she had picked him up. On the way to the room, Stone had almost managed to convince himself that she was simply some kind of nympho, a little too kinky maybe, but just what he needed: a nice uncomplicated roll in the hay. But now… there was something at the center of whatever made this girl tick that just didn’t add up; a void, a mystery. And it had a sick, almost sinister smell to it.
“Major,” she said softly, “you have fought in a war, yes? You will fight again?”
“Three weeks’ leave and then back to…” He grimaced, let it hang as visions of refugees and rotten flesh and fireballs flickered through his mind. Screams and dying women.
For some reason, this reaction seemed to be just what she wanted.
“Ah,” she sighed, “so this is but a short moment of calm between battles for you? The water and the sky and the fog to soothe you, and a woman to make you forget and then—the war. Back to the front, no? To kill or be killed! So sad, so tragic, so…”
Stone was about to say something really nasty about sadists and ghouls when—
She ripped open her white blouse (a ludicrously theatrical gesture, even to the sound of tearing cloth simulated by the velcro fastener as it parted), tore it off and threw it to the floor with a florid flourish, hurled herself into his arms, her warm bare breasts pressed against him, began nuzzling his ear and whispering: “Forget, my Major, forget the killing and the danger… Let me give… give… give…”
Stone wavered on the edge of tossing her away and laughing or maybe puking, possibly both—what insane crap filled the head of this crazy chick?—but her hands were moving all over his body and her tongue was in his ear and she was grinding her body against him in almost a caricature of passion, and once she had bowled him over backwards onto the bed, he stopped thinking and let reflexes take over…
It was short and she was very noisy about it and dug her long nails into his back at the climax and he was physically satisfied almost before he knew what had happened.
Afterward, they lay naked on the bed, she utterly sated, her eyes heavily-lidded, languid, he with nerves rubbed raw, having found nothing more than sheer physical relief without a shade of human connection, feeling like some kind of walking dildo and hating the girl without quite knowing why.
“Ah,” she murmured dreamily, “just as I had always imagined…”
“You’re not going to try and tell me you were a virgin!” he snapped.
She propped herself up, stared at him, and there was something somehow incredibly old, decayed, in her eyes that made his stomach twitch. “Virgin!” she laughed. “How quaint! I have tasted… things you cannot even begin to imagine, Major. But yes, you know, in a way, it was as delicious as… losing one’s virginity. Never before have I felt what I felt with you.”
“So now I’m supposed to be Superman?”
“Superman? Super…? Ah, the American folk-hero, no? I don’t understand—the myth started as a children’s story, did it not? You mean it had some sexual implications?”
Shards of a whole were beginning to come together in Stone’s mind. Had sexual implications… fabled Air Force of the United States… Frozen War… I am like you, a… tourist, no…? But from where?
Or when?
He reached out, grabbed her throat between the thumb and forefinger of one hand, pulled her face to within a few inches of his. He reached for the killer inside, painted it across the features of his face. Tanya sighed; the fear that suddenly came into her eyes was overlaid with musky arousal.
“Why—?”
“Take a good look baby,” he said coldly. “I’m a soldier, that means I know how to kill. That means I will kill if I need to.”
Her body undulated towards him; her arms snaked around him; her fingernails lightly raked the skin of his bare back. “Yes,” she crooned, “yes, yes, yes…”
Viciously, he backhanded her across the face with his free hand. She moaned. Her eyes grew hotter. Her synapses were all crossed—no way to turn this crazy chick off!
“When are you from?” Stone suddenly roared, inches from her face.
“Twenty-one fifty—” she blurted, then caught herself. She stared at him in bewilderment. “How did you…?”
“Never mind. I know, that’s good enough. When?”
“Twenty-one fifty-seven,” she said softly. Then a trace of viciousness came into her voice. “From your future, you understand that? A time-tourist, yes. I could tell your fortune, Major. You would not like that at all. Not at all.”
“Try me,” Stone said.
She pulled away from his grasp. He let her go.
“Talk,” Stone said. “So you’re a time-tourist. Why here? Why now? Why me?”
She laughed. “Ah, you think I am some kind of… how do you say, Mata Hari, a temporal spy, yes? How delicious! I wish that my life was that exciting. No, I am a simple tourist, I’m afraid. Why now? Why here? Why you? Because, my Major, this is a romantic city in a romantic era. The World Union of Soviet Socialist States in 2157, that is a dull place in a dull time. Inhabited by dull men. Bureaucrats, party officials like my father, technicians. A sterile, controlled, predictable world order built on the ashes. And you—a man of passion, a primitive, so exciting! And the romance of making love to a Major in the Air Force of the United States of America, soldier of the last great lost cause, so romantic, so tragic, so utterly delicious!”
“Lost cause?” Stone said shrilly.
“Yes, my Major, the cause of your country, of your children, was lost. Over a hundred years before I was born. The Big War, the nuclear holocaust. Ah yes, you Americans fought valiantly! Moscow, Leningrad, Odessa, Kiev, Novosibirsk and a hundred other Russian cities destroyed. A hundred million Russians incinerated! But a hundred and seventy million Americans died in the destruction of your cities—New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, all of them. And here… San Francisco, too. We destroyed you. We won the war. And we built the new world on the ashes of the old. The scars are gone, even in the hearts of the descendants of the Americans that survived. The World Union of Soviet Socialist States is the world, a dull world, passionless, predictable, totally controlled. The World Union of Soviet Socialist Boredom! During the war, time-travel was developed, of a kind: at great expense one can be thrust into the past and held there for a few weeks. Soon I will snap back to my boring world like a bug on the end of a stretched rubber band. I will not horrify you w
ith what I had to do to arrange this trip. But it was worth it. I will remember you always.”
A tremendous killing urge came upon Stone; he grabbed her by the throat and began to squeeze. Abruptly, he stopped, released her. There was something better, more fitting, a foulness to match her own. Lost cause… lost cause…
He bolted from the bed, very conscious of his own muscles moving beneath his skin, rummaged through a dresser drawer and extracted the Congressional Medal of Honor, in its leather-covered case.
He took the medal from its case. She cringed as he threw it at her and it hit her on her beautiful right breast. She picked it up and studied it listlessly. He stood over the bed, said: “Do you know what that is?”
She hesitated, then said: “Your Congressional Medal of Honor, no? The highest decoration your country awarded. I have seen pictures. Impressive, yes, but—”
“Moscow,” he said.
“I don’t understand.”
“They don’t give out those things lightly,” he said. “Not since what’s left of Congress decided that a time-furlough should be part of the deal. As you said, time-travel is very expensive.”
She stared up at him; comprehension was beginning to dawn in her eyes. “You mean you…?”
“From 1993, baby. It wasn’t easy to get these three weeks. I’m a big hero back there. A lone flight over enemy territory, one fifty-megaton bomb—and pow! Give my regards to Moscow! That’s me, old Jase Stone, the man who got Moscow. Eight million Russians died so I could have a vacation in 1967, so you could have the pleasure of making it with the romantic hero of a lost cause. How’s that grab you, baby?”
She looked up at him, her eyes like saucers. “You hate me, is that it?” she said. “And you want me to hate you.”
“Don’t you understand what I’m saying?” he screamed. “Eight million people, your people! I killed them! I’m soaked in their blood! Every minute that you’ve spent with me was bought with a thousand Russian lives! Doesn’t that mean anything to you, you bloody bitch? Can’t you feel anything?”
In her eyes, a stinking madness. She sat up on the bed, leaned her face up at him, began to stroke her own body with her long, supple hands. “Like Genghis Khan,” she purred, “like some glorious barbarian bathing in the blood of his enemies… Oh, oh, I feel, my Major, I feel, I feel! Burn and pillage and rape! We defeated you! You’re doomed! Hate me! Hate me! Hate me! Show me how much you hate me! Burn and kill and rape! Burn and kill and rape! Hate me! Hate me! Hate me! Hate me to death!”
A fireball exploded behind Stone’s eyes, a nuclear inferno of rage and hate surged through his muscles and he began to slap her, again, and again, and again, the sting of his palms against her flesh shooting up his arms into his brain, roiling images of shattered skys, screaming women and her face, her stinking ghoulish face as she moaned and writhed under his blows in infuriating ecstasy.
She began to curse and scream in Russian, clawed at him with her long nails. Then, with an amazingly athletic movement, she wrapped her legs around him, pulled him down on top of her, and he couldn’t stop himself, every thrust of his body against hers was a sword-thrust, every moan of passion a cry of agony—damn you! damn you! damn you!
Afterward, just before he kicked her out of the room, she had told him: “You were magnificent, my Major. You hate so fiercely!”
He stood, still naked, staring out the window at the shimmering lights of San Francisco, peaceful and serene under the crystal dome of the black night sky—like an old picture postcard.
The sky, like a fragile bowl of black glass, about to shard into a million brittle fragments.
Its a Bird! Its a Plane!
Dr. Felix Funck fumblingly fitted yet another spool onto the tape recorder hidden in the middle drawer of his desk as the luscious Miss Jones ushered in yet another one. Dr. Funck stared wistfully for a long moment at Miss Jones, whose white nurse’s smock advertised the contents most effectively without revealing any of the more intimate and interesting details. If only x-ray vision were really possible and not part of the infernal Syndrome…
Get a hold of yourself, Funck, get a hold of yourself! Felix Funck told himself for the seventeenth time that day.
He sighed, resigned himself, and said to the earnest-looking young man whom Miss Jones had brought to his office, “Please sit down, Mr…?”
“Kent, Doctor,” said the young man, seating himself primly on the edge of the overstuffed chair in front of Funck’s desk. “Clark Kent!”
Dr. Funck grimaced, then smiled wanly. “Why not?” he said, studying the young man’s appearance. The young man wore an archaic blue double-breasted suit and steel-rimmed glasses. His hair was steel-blue.
“Tell me… Mr. Kent,” he said, “do you by some chance know where you are?”
“Certainly, Doctor,” replied Clark Kent crisply. “I’m in a large public mental hospital in New York City!”
“Very good, Mr. Kent. And do you know why you’re here?”
“I think so, Dr. Funck!” said Clark Kent. “I’m suffering from partial amnesia! I don’t remember how or when I came to New York!”
“You mean you don’t remember your past life?” asked Dr. Felix Funck.
“Not at all, Doctor!” said Clark Kent. “I remember everything up till three days ago when I found myself suddenly in New York! And I remember the last three days here! But I don’t remember how I got here!”
“Well then, where did you live before you found yourself in New York, Mr. Kent?”
“Metropolis!” said Clark Kent. “I remember that very well! I’m a reporter for the Metropolis Daily Planet! That is, I am if Mr. White hasn’t fired me for not showing up for three days! You must help me, Dr. Funck! I must return to Metropolis immediately!”
“Well then you should just hop the next plane for home,” suggested Dr. Funck.
“There don’t seem to be any flights from New York to Metropolis!” exclaimed Clark Kent. “No buses or trains either! I couldn’t even find a copy of the Daily Planet at the Times Square newsstand! I can’t even remember where Metropolis is! It’s as if some evil force has removed all traces of Metropolis from the face of the Earth! That’s my problem, Dr. Funck! I’ve got to get back to Metropolis, but I don’t know how!”
“Tell me, Mr. Kent,” said Funck slowly, “just why is it so imperative that you return to Metropolis immediately?”
“Well… uh… there’s my job!” Clark Kent said uneasily. “Perry White must be furious by now! And there’s my girl, Lois Lane! Well, maybe she’s not my girl yet, but I’m hoping!”
Dr. Felix Funck grinned conspiratorially. “Isn’t there some more pressing reason, Mr. Kent?” he said. “Something perhaps having to do with your Secret Identity?”
“S-secret Identity?” stammered Clark Kent. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Dr. Funck!”
“Aw come on, Clark!” Felix Funck said. “Lots of people have Secret Identities. I’ve got one myself. Tell me yours, and I’ll tell you mine. You can trust me, Clark. Hippocratic Oath, and like that. Your secret is safe with me.”
“Secret? What secret are you talking about?”
“Come, come, Mr. Kent!” Funck snapped. “If you want help, you’ll have to come clean with me. Don’t give me any of that meek, mild-mannered reporter jazz. I know who you really are, Mr. Kent.”
“I’m Clark Kent, meek, mild-mannered reporter for the Metropolis Daily Vianet!” insisted Clark Kent.
Dr. Felix Funck reached into a desk drawer and produced a small chunk of rock coated with green paint. “Who is in reality, Superman,” he exclaimed, “faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings at a single bound! Do you know what this is?” he shrieked, thrusting the green rock in the face of the hapless Clark Kent. “It’s Kryptonite, that’s what it is, genuine, government-inspected Kryptonite! How’s that grab you, Superman?”
Clark Kent, who is in reality the Man of Steel, tried to say something, but bef
ore he could utter a sound, he lapsed into unconsciousness.
Dr. Felix Funck reached across his desk and unbuttoned Clark Kent’s shirt. Sure enough, underneath his street clothing, Kent was wearing a pair of moth-eaten longjohns dyed blue, on the chest of which a rude cloth “S” had been crudely sewn.
“Classic case…” Dr. Funck muttered to himself. “Right out of a textbook. Even lost his imaginary powers when I showed him the phony Kryptonite. Another job for Supershrink!”
Get a hold of yourself, Funck, get a hold of yourself! Dr. Felix Funck told himself again.
Shaking his head, he rang for the orderlies.
After the orderlies had removed Clark Kent #758, Dr. Felix Funck pulled a stack of comic books out of a desk drawer, spread them out across the desktop, stared woodenly at them and moaned.
The Superman Syndrome was getting totally out of hand. In this one hospital alone, there are already 758 classified cases of Superman Syndrome, he thought forlornly, and lord knows how many Supernuts in the receiving ward awaiting classification.
“Why? Why? Why?” Funck muttered, tearing at his rapidly thinning hair.
The basic, fundamental, inescapable, incurable reason, he knew was, of course, that the world was full of Clark Kents. Meek, mild-mannered men. Born losers. None of them, of course, had selfimages of themselves as nebbishes. Every mouse has to think of himself as a lion. Everyone has a Secret Identity, a dream image of himself, possessed of fantastic powers, able to cope with normally impossible situations…
Even psychiatrists had Secret Identities, Funck thought abstractedly. After all, who but Supershrink himself could cope with a ward full of Supermen?
Super shrink! More powerful than a raving psychotic! Able to diagnose whole neuroses in a single session! Faster than Freud! Abler than Adler! Who, disguised as Dr. Felix Funck, balding, harried head of the Superman Syndrome ward of a great metropolitan booby-hatch, fights a never-ending war for Adjustment, Neo-Freudian Analysis, Fee-splitting, and the American Way!
The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde Page 19