Papa Schimmelhorn pinched the two Balinese girls as they went by, but Mr. Peng, thoroughly briefed by Little Anton, was in no way annoyed. “Putting it roughly,” he declared, “our own universe has become primarily a yang universe; otherwise Black Holes could not exist in it. At the other extreme, we would find yin or anti-matter universes. Yang and yin, the male and female principles, are the fundamental principles of all creation. Always they must balance; neither must preponderate too greatly over the other. When they are unbalanced, there is all sorts of trouble, from social unrest to Black Holes.”
“How nice!” marvelled Papa Schimmelhorn.
“Zo now I am der yang und maybe die lidtle topless pussycats und Miss Kittikool vill be die yin. Und I haff used my yang to make der dingus vork, efen if I don’t know vhy?”
“Precisely,” said Mr. Plantagenet. “Very neatly put, old chap. Couldn’t have phrased it more delicately myself.”
“You have indeed used your yang to make it work,” Mr. Peng went on. “You have used it to capture a Black Hole, conveniently a very small one, which now appears to be perfectly controlled within that Klein bottle affair in your car. This cannot safely give us access directly to a yin universe, but it may enable us to build a portal into another continuum, one which in ancient days was in constant communication with us and with which Richard and I are most anxious to reestablish contact, for in it yang and yin are in perfect balance. This portal we will ask you to design—”
“Okay,” said Papa Schimmelhorn, “I vill try.”
“But before I continue—” Mr. Peng paused portentously. “—I want your firm assurance that no word of our project shall get out, either to the world at large, or to your wife, and most especially—and this I cannot emphasize too strongly because in due course you will meet them—either to Mrs. Plantagenet or Mrs. Peng. They are—well, they’re not in full sympathy with what Richard and I have in mind. What I am about to tell you, you may find very difficult to believe. You have heard of dragons, have you not?”
“St. Cheorge und Fafnir und die chewels und die predty Rheinmeidchen?”
Mr. Peng suppressed a shudder. “Ah, yes,” he said. “But those are not dragons as we in China knew them. You see, dragons came to us from the special universe of which I spoke, a virtual mirror-image of what ours used to be. They are beneficent and very wise, and while they lived with us, in the days of the great Yellow Emperor, all China flourished. Then the decline of virtue, and especially the coarse anti-dragon sentiment in Europe, caused their complete withdrawal. You have only to look at the state of the world today to understand the consequences. I most especially am concerned. You see, Richard and I are not merely conglomerate taipans. For more than two millennia, my ancestors have been mandarins of the highest rank, and Hereditary Keepers of the Imperial Dragon Hatchery. For more than two millennia we have maintained our tradition, with all the appropriate ceremonies and sacrifices, in the hope that our dragons would return to us. You do believe me, don’t you?”
“Vhy nodt?” said Papa Schimmelhorn. “If gnurrs come from der voodvork out, vhy nodt dragons?”
“Good. That explains my interest in the project. As for Richard, whom I met during our Oxford days, his motivations is quite as strong as mine. He is descended directly from another Richard Plantagenet, known as the Lion Hearted, and he is the rightful King of England—”
“Your Machesty—” murmured Papa Schimmelhorn politely.
“Thank you,” said His Majesty. “Yes, after we became friends Horace explained the influence of dragons on our history. All that dreadful St. George nonsense, and the other horrible myths and fairy tales. I at once saw the role they’d played in enabling the unsurpation of our throne. Not that I have anything against the present usurper, who seems to be a very decent sort of woman, but I do want to set the matter right, you know. That’s simple justice, isn’t it? Besides, Horace and I have all sorts of plans. We shall reestablish the Chinese and British Empires. No one will be able to stand against us. My dear Papa, we shall rule the world!”
“Very much to its advantage,” said Mr. Peng. “But that’s beside the point. We’ve scheduled seminars for you with our foremost scientists and scholars—seminars which, I assure you, will not interfere with your—er, relaxation. They’ll work with you until your intuition tells you you have the problem solved. In the meantime, Mr. Fledermaus and our Chief of Security, Colonel Li, will see that you have everything you want.” He and Mr. Plantagenet stood up just as a tall and very military Chinese strode into the room. “Here’s Colonel Li now.”
The Colonel was middle-aged, but there was nothing soft about him.
“Gott in Himmel!” exclaimed Papa Schimmelhorn, as they shook hands. “Vot iss? Anoder Chenghiz Khan?”
“I do my best,” Colonel Li answered modestly. Then, to Papa Schimmelhorn’s surprise, he grinned. “My friend Anton tells me you’re a man after my own heart. I too am fond of cats.”
“That’s right,” declared Little Anton. “He knows every pretty little pussycat in Hong Kong, and believe me, Papa, you’ll be safe as long as he’s around, no matter where, no matter what.”
* * * *
For the next two weeks, Papa Schimmelhorn enjoyed himself tremendously. In the late mornings and early afternoons, usually with the two pretty little Balinese on his lap, he endured lectures by a Swedish physicist, a Brazilian physicist, an impatient Nobel Prize winner from an unidentified Balkan country, two Taoist philosopher-historians, a Tibetan lama, a Hindu mystic in whose title the honorific sri was repeated one hundred and eight times, an eminent British archaeologist especially interested in dragons, and a rather puzzled science fiction writer imported from Southern California expressly for the purpose. As almost all the lecturers spoke either English, French, or German, only a few sessions had to be translated for his benefit. Occasionally, he would request works of reference which seemed irrelevant to everybody else, the Book of Mormon, the Eleventh Edition of the Britannica, the collected works of Alfred North Whitehead, of Herr Doktor Jung, and of Mary Baker Eddy, the Bluejacket’s Manual, translations of the Mahayana and Hinayana Buddhist scriptures, and any number of others—and these he would scan rapidly. Occasionally, too, Mr. Peng and Mr. Plantagenet would drop in on him, enquire as to his progress, and go away quite satisfied when he replied that eferything vas fine; he could feel it vorking inside der subconscience. He sent a picture postcard to Mama Schimmelhorn almost every day, views of Hong Kong Harbor and of museums and ecclesiastical edifices, to illustrate the cultural aspects of his visit, which he declared took up what little time remained after his arduous workday developing special cuckoo-clocks with ethnic overtones for Peng-Plantagenet’s Southeast Asian trade. But from twilight on, he and Colonel Li and Little Anton devoted themselves to chasing pussycats. He and the Colonel became boon companions, and he was able to relax so completely that he never noticed such minor incidents as the occasional abrupt disappearance of some Slavic or Oriental or Middle Eastern type who apparently had been following them. At some of these, Little Anton simply crossed his eyes, gave them a push—and they were gone. No fuss, no muss. A few others were taken care of by friends of Colonel Li’s, who employed less subtle, but no less effective, methods.
Papa Schimmelhorn’s yang flourished, and his researches prospered. Among Hong Kong’s profusion of pretty pussycats, he eventually almost forgot Miss Kittikool and Miss MacTavish, neglecting them shamefully except when, hours after midnight, he came home to renew his energies with a few hours of sleep. Then suddenly he announced that he had solved the problem, and that the applied technology, costing only a few hundred dollars, could be completed in no more than another week.
Mr. Peng and Mr. Plantagenet were, of course, delighted. They announced that the completion of the task would be properly celebrated by a splendid banquet at the Peng mansion. Little Anton and Colonel Li were pleased, partly because
commendations and rewards would be coming to them, and partly because the strenuous pace he had been setting was getting wearing. Only Miss Kittikool and Miss MacTavish, their noses badly out of joint at his faithlessness, failed to rejoice.
Five days went by, and every day Papa Schimmelhorn worked hard, with the dismayed assistance of Peng-Plantagenet’s engineers and scientists, assembling a very strange contraption. All sorts of seemingly unrelated gadgets went into it: the private parts of an old Singer sewing machine, a curiously interlaced webbing of copper wire and nylon fishing line, a spiral neon tube fabricated to his orders and filled with a semi-liquid, semi-gaseous substance he himself had brewed in the Peng-Plantagenet laboratories. The net result began to look like a Japanese temple gate, or torii, made partly out of metal, partly or iridescent plastics, and partly of ectoplasm; and when Mr. Plantagenet commented on its smallness, for it was four feet wide and scarcely large enough, as he pointed out, to accommodate even a little dragon, Papa Schimmelhorn slapped him jovially on the back and said, “Dickie, Your Machesty, don’t worry! Ve hook it up to der anti-grafity machine und vith my yang, then—ho-ho-ho!—chust vatch it grow!”
Five days went by, and every night Papa Schimmelhorn went out on his yang-renewing mission, much to the disgust of Miss MacTavish and Miss Kittikool. Then, on the afternoon of the fifth day, the device was activated on a trial basis, but without being permitted to expand. Papa Schimmelhorn went up to it and peered through. He saw a different China and a different world. The fields were lush, the forests thick and green. Among the pure white clouds that adorned the sky, two handsome scarlet dragons were disporting themselves. And, on a boulder beside a waterfall, an ancient white-bearded gentleman in silken robes sat quietly reading. Obviously, he was a sage.
“Chust look!” cried Papa Schimmelhorn.
Mr. Peng and Mr. Plantagenet crowded in to look. They gasped in amazement and delight.
The sage looked up. He stood. Gravely he smiled upon them. Just as Papa Schimmelhorn flipped the switch turning the device off, he seemed to bow a welcome.
“Papa, you’ve done it!” Mr. Peng cried out.
“Of course I do it,” answered Papa Schimmelhorn. “Tomorrow I haff it open all der vay, und you can drife through vith maybe a horse und carriage.”
Thoughtfully, Mr. Peng observed that a horse-drawn carriage might be the very thing, just in case that other China had avoided mechanization, and Mr. Plantagenet remembered an elegant carriage and pair owned by a wealthy Dutch gentleman of his acquaintance, which he was sure he could borrow for a day or two. These arrangements were promptly made, and the balance of the afternoon was devoted to selecting appropriate gifts for whatever authorities might greet them: a Faberge Easter Egg that had belonged to a Czarina, a nice copy of the Gutenberg Bible, carved emeralds from Ceylon, an original Titian, two Manets, a Gainsborough and a Turner, a tea service in Platinum by the court jeweler to the late King Farouk, a one-minute repeater with two stop-second hands by Audemars-Piguet cased in the same metal, and a traditional cuckoo-clock featuring a whole choir of yodeling cuckoos, which Papa Schimmelhorn had thoughtfully brought with him in his carpetbag.
Regretfully, Mr. Peng explained that his wife and Mrs. Plantagenet had, a day or two before, decided to take off on a shopping spree in London, Rome, Paris, and New York, in their own private jet. He and Mr. Plantagenet promised, however, that their absence would not be allowed to dampen the festivities that evening; and certainly it did not seem to, for everyone at the banquet was in excellent spirits and, as course followed rare Chinese course, many a toast was proposed to their success upon the morrow, to the triumphs that success was sure to bring, and to the genius who had made it possible.
The genius, who felt as though his yang had never been in finer fettle, divided his attention quite impartially between the dinner, the toasts, and the two extremely pretty pussycats who sat cuddled up against him. Colonel Li and Little Anton contributed to the general merriment by pressing innumerable drinks upon the sober scientist and scholars who had served as Papa Schimmelhorn’s consultants, until even they became positively uproarious. Even Miss Kittikool and Miss MacTavish, though seated somewhat apart from the center of attention, appeared to have regained their good humor, giggling and whispering to each other vivaciously. The unfortunate absence of Mrs. Peng and Mrs. Plantagenet was soon forgotten, even by their husbands, and a glorious time was had by all.
In New Haven, on the day of Papa Schimmelhorn’s disappearance, Mama Schimmelhorn had returned from the church social much later than she usually did. She was quite tiddly, Little Anton’s vodka having worked its wonders, and in a mellow frame of mind, almost—but not quite—ready to forgive her husband. Humming Down By Der Old Mill Shtream, she unlocked the front door. “I’m home, Papa!” she called out.
She listened. Her only answer was a hoarse “Mrreow!” from the basement. Maybe Papa has gone to shleep? she thought as she went down the stairs.
She unlocked the workshop door, and Gustav-Adolf, meowing loudly, rubbed against her legs to tell her he was starving. She turned the light on. Papa Schimmelhorn was nowhere to be seen. The Stanley Steamer too was gone. She frowned terribly. Her black dress rustling, she strode to the garage door. It was securely locked.
“Zo!” she cried out. “Again you run avay. To shleep vith naked vomen vhen you should be thinking how maybe you do nodt go to Heafen vhen you die! Dirty ol—”
Then she spied the note Little Anton had left pinned to the wall above the workbench. She pulled it down.
Dear, dear Great-aunt, (she read)
I am so sorry that I missed you after coming all the way from Hong Kong, especially as I am taking Papa back with me.
My employers want him to design some very special cuckoo-clocks. They’ll pay handsomely and give him a huge bonus, and he’ll be gone only a short time. He told me that when he gets back he’s going to take you shopping for some new dresses and a new umbrella!
Affectionately,
Your Little Anton
And scrawled below this was the simple message, I luff you, Mama!! signed, Papa xxxxxXXXX!
She read the note twice. “Hmph!” she sniffed. “Zo dot’s how der door opens und shtill iss locked. Lidtle Anton! Der new umbrella I do nodt beliefe. But maybe this time iss different. Lidtle Anton iss a goot boy now. Die Chinesers haff taught him all about Confucius und how to be nice to old people. Okay, I vait und see.” Her mind more at ease, she went upstairs again, fed Gustav-Adolf liver, and settled down to drink a cup of tea and phone Mrs. Hundhammer; and during the next couple of weeks, whenever her suspicious were reawakened they were lulled again by the arrival of a cultural postcard from her husband or from Little Anton. It was not until a few days after Papa Schimmelhorn announced his solution of the problem that her tranquility was again shattered.
Her doorbell rang shortly after breakfast, and she opened up eagerly, looking forward to a pleasant theological disputation with her two usual Jehovah’s Witnesses. Instead, on the front stoop stood a pair of the most elegant elderly ladies she had ever seen. Each was fairly tall; each was ramrod straight; each—despite her age—was still attractive. One was Chinese; the other, by the way she dressed and held herself, could only have been English. At the curb behind them stood a gleaming Imperial yellow Rolls-Royce with a chauffeur and liveried footman, and Hong Kong license plates.
“I beg your pardon,” said the Chinese lady, speaking very softly. “Are you Mrs. Schimmelhorn?”
Mama Schimmelhorn took in the situation at a glance. “Ja,” she said, “I am Mama. Vot hass he done now?” She stepped back so they could enter. “Come in und haff a seat, und right avay I bring der tea.” Her black dress crackling, she bustled back and forth. “Always vhen he gets loose iss trouble vith naked vomen, sometimes vith only vun like Dora Grossapfel, sometimes vith four oder maybe fife. Only this vunce, vith Lidtle Anton who h
as been taught about Confucius—”
The elderly ladies exchanged glances.
“—this vunce I thought maybe he vill be goot. Veil, ve liff und learn—”
Reciting part of the long list of Papa Schimmelhorn’s carnal sins, she served tea and biscuits, settled down with Gustav-Adolf on her lap, and permitted Mrs. Peng and Mrs. Plantagenet to introduce themselves and tell their tale.
Only a day or so before, they informed her, they had been visited by two young women in the employ of their husbands’ firm, Miss Kittikool and Miss MacTavish, both of whom felt that—they were dreadfully sorry they had to tell her this—that they had been taken advantage of by Papa Schimmelhorn. So upset had they been that they had revealed the nature of the project for which he had been hired—Mrs. Peng did her best to explain the technicalities of Black Holes and anti-gravity and yang and yin—to engineer a breakthrough into another universe, where there were dragons and the Chinese Empire still flourished.
Mama Schimmelhorn stood up. “Donnerwetter! Die yang und yin I do nodt undershtand, also Black Holes except like maybe in Calcutta. But Papa—dot iss different. Vhen it iss nodt naked vomen, it iss time-trafel, und gnurrs, und sometimes dirty cuckoo-clocks. Such monkey business. Veil, now I put a shtop!”
“We were hoping you could,” Mrs. Plantagenet said fervently. “I assure you that I have no desire to become Queen of England. I couldn’t possible cope with that dreadful Labour Party at my age. Besides, Richard keeps talking about crusades against the Saracens, and though I dare say they deserve it, it does seem a bit late in the day for that sort of thing, doesn’t it?”
“Primula’s quite right,” declared Mrs. Peng. “I myself certainly do not want to be Empress of China, surrounded by eunuchs and slave girls and palace intrigues and all that rubbish. Of course, Horace has promised me that he doesn’t want the throne, but there aren’t any other candidates, and—well, you know how men are.”
The Second Reginald Bretnor Megapack Page 20