The Second Reginald Bretnor Megapack

by Reginald Bretnor

  As for the alchemist, he was in despair. He found each session more frustrating than the preceding one. Papa Schimmelhorn listened to his recitals and his explanations—then asked him questions that were completely meaningless, or simply sat there playing with his cuckoo watch. Finally, as if that weren’t bad enough, he began asking for the loan of rare old books, some in Greek, others in Arabic, others in ancient versions of the more common modern tongues. At first, Meister Gansfleisch put him off, or spoke hastily of other matters, doing his best not to display resentment. But Papa Schimmelhorn persisted, and one day Gaspar snapped, “It would be useless! You can read neither Greek nor Arabic!”

  Papa Schimmelhorn admitted his ignorance cheerfully. “Nein, I cannodt read der Greek,” he said, closing his eyes dreamily. “Aber Miss Niki can, und she vill read to me in bed. So nice! Und for der Arabic, I send for Ismail.”

  “I-I-Ismail?” sputtered the alchemist. “The—the eunuch? He can’t read!”

  “Ja, ja! He has taught himself. Imachine—vithoudt lead in der pencil, vot else can he do? It vill be chust like Douglas Valentino und der Sheik from Baghdad.”

  He went on to say a great deal more about the imagined joys of harem living, and how sad it was that poor Ismail had been so cruelly deprived of them. Then he related in great detail how, after he and Mama had been kidnapped by a spaceship from a woman-dominated planet, he had managed to restore the lost virility of its downtrodden men, and he wondered sentimentally whether, through the exercise of his genius, he might not be able to perform a similar service for the unfortunate Ismail. At this point, seeing that his remarks were distressing his companion, who was gnashing his teeth and clenching and unclenching his gray, bony hands, he considerately changed the subject. He was, he asserted heartily, becoming deeply interested in alchemy, about which Meister Gansfleisch was so well informed, and now he could hardly wait to get into Herr Paracelsus’s private papers.

  “Maybe ve shtart today?” he said enthusiastically. “If der old langvidge iss too difficult, ve sit right here und you can read aloud to me, und explain eferything so I undershtand.”

  “The papers of the great Paracelsus?” Meister Gansfleisch cried out hysterically. “Never! I—I mean, not yet. You are not yet ready, Herr Schimmelhorn! It would be too—too dangerous. Instead I—I shall let you take some of the books you have requested. Yes, yes.”

  He began pulling books from shelves and loading them into Papa Schimmelhorn’s waiting arms, while Twitchgibbet, from his pocket, glared balefully.

  “You must take great care of them,” he warned, glaring just as balefully. “I will let you have even one in Arabic, and I shall tell Ismail exactly how to handle it. It is a book of power, very rare—a book that frightens even me! There must be certain ceremonies, rituals, before you read it, while you are reading it, even afterwards. I shall tell Ismail.”

  “Don’dt vorry,” Papa Schimmelhorn assured him. “Ve do nodt need. Alvays mein subconscience tells me vot to do. I vill take care, chust like vith die books from der New Hafen library. I efen put avay so Gustav-Adolf does not sit upon. Anyvay, predty soon now—maybe after ve read der Paracelsus shtuff—I shtart building der machine.”

  “The machine?” screamed Meister Gansfleisch.

  “Natürlich, mein machine to make der gold from der lead oudt.”

  “But—but, you—you ignoramus! You can’t make gold with a machine! Look, look, look!” Frantically he waved at the cluttered paraphernalia of his laboratory. “That is how we make gold. The Philosophers’ Stone, the Arcanum, the—the—”

  “Nein,” Papa Schimmelhorn told him pleasantly. “Mein subconscience now iss planning der machine. You cannodt undershtand—it iss too deep for you. But you vill see!”

  Moaning, Meister Gansfleisch hastily finished the loading of the books, dropping two or three of them. Then, muttering to himself in an unknown but vituperative tongue, he hustled his unwelcome pupil to the door. It was late, he croaked, too late to work any more that day.

  “Auf wiedersehen,” said Papa Schimmelhorn, making a cat-face at Twitchgibbet as the door shut behind him; and he walked off jauntily with his load.

  Inside the laboratory, the alchemist paced frantically up and down for several minutes. He sought the solace of his refilled beaker. He sat, and drank, and paced again. He groaned terribly.

  “A machine!” he kept repeating. “A machine! He is an idiot! A madman! Gold cannot be made with a machine! Why cannot the Princess understand the danger? Twitchgibbet, oh Twitchgibbet, how on earth can I stop him?”

  Twitchgibbet, who had left his pocket as soon as they were alone and climbed up his gown to his shoulder, spoke into his ear.

  “You told me not to give you any real good advice,” he squeaked, “so I’ll just remind you—you’re a sorcerer. Why don’t you fix that cat-lovin’ bastard like them Arabs went and fixed old Ismail? Hey, that’d put a crimp in his subconscience!” Twitchgibbet actually cackled. “Hey, wouldn’t it!”

  Abruptly, his master stopped his pacing. A flicker of hope showed momentarily in his dull eyes. “I—I’m sure I could,” he said. “Perhaps not, well, surgically, but the result would be the same.”

  Then, just as suddenly, the flicker died. “No, no,” he declared dismally. “It cannot be. The—the Princess…”

  Twitchgibbet said something so rude and intimate about the Princess that his master instantly ordered him back into his pocket. Then, despite his deep depression, and without consciously intending to, Meister Gansfleisch began looking over his shelves of jars and bottles, ewers and flagons, seeking some vicious distillation, some subtle essence, that might have the recommended effect on his adversary.

  * * * *

  Actually, Papa Schimmelhorn had been oversimplifying when he described the device now being born in his subconscious as a machine. Certain mechanical elements would, he knew, have to be incorporated in it—gears of brass and steel which he proposed to get out of old washing machines and clocks, strangely shaped eccentrics on which even stranger crystalline structures would be mounted, several large flat springs which could be conveniently wound up, and one or two pumps and pressure tanks whose functions were unclear to him. However, it was also to contain highly sophisticated components derived from Willy Fledermaus’s electronics kit, and any number of indescribable elements having their origin not only in European, but also in Chinese alchemy and thaumaturgy.

  His sessions with Gaspar Gansfleisch had contributed to it; so had his far more pleasant and effective cram sessions with his pussycats. Later that day, as he lolled luxuriously among his cushions with his head on Emmy’s commodious lap, listening to Ismail intoning the Arabic of the ancient volume, then translating it into Turkish for Miss Niki, who did her best to render it in English, he congratulated himself on the unique form his genius had assumed.

  Chust imachine! he told himself. Vithoudt any vork at all, like die Arabian Nights vith der djinn inside der bottle! And for a while he dallied with the notion of putting his subconscious to work on the bottled genii problem. It would be so nice to have a djinn who could bring him pretty pussycats from anywhere without even having to use a time machine….

  Ismail, smiling broadly, read the formulas and incantations in a high, soft, pleasant voice. Chuckling occasionally, he translated them. Niki listened attentively. Once in a while, she blushed; more frequently, she shuddered or uttered exclamations at the ingredients and procedures specified. Still, she did not give up, and even though her English version probably left much to be desired by way of accuracy, it satisfied Papa Schimmelhorn, who had full confidence in the ability of his subconscious to sort out any errors or omissions.

  “Ugh!” She shivered. “I just can’t see how moldy toads brewed in a slave’s skull with spoiled hashish and rats’ brains and—and all the rest of it—can bring the corpse of ‘an unclean infidel’ to life�
��or why anybody’d want to!”

  “I do nodt undershtand it either,” said Papa Schimmelhorn, stroking her thigh consolingly. “But Meister Gansfleisch says reading it maybe helps me in my chob. This efening ve go schvimming und forget all aboudt.”

  He let Ismail continue for perhaps an hour. Then he announced that there was now enough for his subconscious to work on for the day. For a while they just sat around listening to Ismail’s X-rated stories of what went on in the almost-royal harem where he had spent his boyhood and his youth, and to Papa Schimmelhorn’s tales of his adventures, scientific and extra-marital. Poor Ismail was particularly intrigued by his account of how, with mutated catnip, he had restored the lost virility of an entire planetful of men.

  “Effendi,” he asked wistfully, “do you—do you think this magic herb, if I could procure it, could do anything for me?”

  And Papa Schimmelhorn had promised him that indeed it could—even though, considering the gross nature of his handicap, it might take longer than it usually did.

  “But don’dt you vorry, Izzy. Vhen I go home to New Hafen I send you some. Ho-ho-ho! I tell you, I think efen on a shnake mein catnip vould grow balls like a bull!”

  Ismail looked disturbed. Glancing apprehensively over his shoulder, he assured his would-be benefactor that he would be quite satisfied with much more modest equipment. Then he bowed himself from the room, pausing only to whisper that, if Papa Schimmelhorn could indeed repair the damage, he would willingly be his slave for life.

  “How stranche!” Papa Schimmelhorn exclaimed. “Vy vas he shcared vhen I talk aboudt der bull? Sometime I ask Herr Zorba, who maybe knows.”

  And at dinner he did indeed put the question to Mavronides—to his astonishment evoking a very similar reaction. Stuttering nervously, Mavronides replied that perhaps a bull had attacked poor Ismail when he was small—who could say? Or maybe, having taken Papa Schimmelhorn too literally, he was just frightened at the prospect of having his lost organs replaced by anything so enormously conspicuous—what man would not be dismayed at the idea? Then, hastily, he changed the subject, muttering that there were more important things to talk about. Did Herr Schimmelhorn and his young ladies like the cooking? Were they comfortable? Was Meister Gansfleisch now being more cooperative? And so on.

  Papa Schimmelhorn did not press the point, but his curiosity was piqued. At his next session with the alchemist, he brought the subject up, he thought, quite subtly.

  “Vhy iss, Meister Gassi,” he enquired, “dot eferybody here iss maybe shcared of bulls? I say to Ismail only—”

  He had no chance to finish. It was as though he had without warning administered a stiff drink containing a small depth bomb.

  The alchemist leaped up, his thin hair flying, his eyes widening hideously. With Twitchgibbet squeaking from his pocket, he stood there tense and trembling, waving an angry forefinger under Papa Schimmelhorn’s nose.

  “Never! Never! Never mention bulls again in my presence!” he screeched. “This is the castle of the Princess, the priestess! I am her servant! You—you baboon! You simpleton! Here nobody dares to speak of bulls so lightly!”

  Panting, suddenly exhausted, he sat down again; and Papa Schimmelhorn wisely dropped the subject. Ach, he told himself, so maybe dot iss vhy he has no vinegar! Maybe somebody cuts off, like vith poor Ismail, und so he is chealous of die bulls. Only—he frowned thoughtfully—dots iss nodt der trouble vith mein friend Zorba. Vell, maybe it does nodt matter….

  * * * *

  As a matter of fact, Mavronides’s nervousness had not been due solely to Papa Schimmelhorn’s question about bulls. For several days, he had been getting more and more worried about Meister Gansfleisch. Various members of the Fräulein’s staff had reported seeing the alchemist pacing up and down on the castle parapets, making dramatic gestures of defiance and despair, and talking—sometimes pleadingly, sometimes with an unwonted ferocity, and always in an alien tongue they could not understand—either to himself or to Twitchgibbet. He had also been observed standing in an embrasure of his turret and shaking his fist at the turret opposite, occupied by Papa Schimmelhorn and his pussycats.

  Sarpedon Mavronides was in a quandary. He was, of course, intensely loyal to the Fräulein; he had also become fond of Papa Schimmelhorn, to say nothing of being indebted to him for saving his grandson’s life. Meister Gansfleisch’s behavior had always been eccentric; now, in his opinion, it had become nothing less than dangerous. For another day he fretted over it, trying to decide what to do. Then he phoned Fräulein von Hohenheim in Zürich, gave her a brief but detailed résumé of events, stated that he simply didn’t know what to do next, and begged her to return to Little Palaeon right away.

  The Fräulein was annoyed, for she had hoped to stay in Switzerland, where she had more than enough business to keep her occupied, at least for a few more days. However, Mavronides had served her all her life; she knew that his judgment usually could be trusted. She promised him that she would arrive early on the morrow, and that she would promptly put an end to any nonsense Meister Gansfleisch might be contemplating.

  “Don’t worry about it, Sarpedon,” she ordered. “That damned Gaspar needs stepping on, and hard. Obviously, he is jealous of Herr Schimmelhorn—and for more than one reason, I imagine. Well, I’m going to tell him he has one more chance—and only one. Otherwise—to the Labyrinth.”

  Her tone, as she said it, sent shivers down Mavronides’s back.

  “Yes, my lady. Thank you, my lady,” he said meekly.

  She hung up. She phoned Gottfried Rumpler, told him that next morning she would set off on her first Schimmelhorn inspection, and requisitioned his jet for the flight to Athens. He did not question her, merely expressing the polite hope that everything was progressing satisfactorily, and when she said good night he drifted off into a daydream in which he and she disported themselves like the less restrained sort of classic nymphs and shepherds by the blue Aegean….

  When she arrived in Crete next day, Mavronides and Ismail were waiting for her. Papa Schimmelhorn, they explained, was still abed, studying with his—well, his young ladies. By the time she reached the castle, her many questions had been answered and her picture of people and events filled in. It was not favorable to Meister Gaspar Gansfleisch. Papa Schimmelhorn, she was informed by both of them, was a tremendously cheerful, invariably kind old man, who was polite to everyone, especially nice to children, good to cats, and strong as an ox, his only fault being his ardent and wonderfully active interest in Miss Niki and Miss Emmy.

  At the castle, her retinue waited ceremoniously to welcome her. She smiled at them, singled out her two personal maids, and, with Ismail carrying her hand-luggage, went up to her own apartments.

  “I shall change into something more suitable,” she proclaimed as she left. “Then I shall have my lunch. Afterwards, Sarpedon, I shall transact business over the phone. Then, at four o’clock, bring Gansfleisch to me in the Great Hall.”

  “Shall I prepare the Throne?” asked Mavronides.

  “Do so,” she commanded. “And be sure to have your two burliest footmen next to it. Oh yes, and have them go with you when you fetch him down. Tell them to frown at him and to ignore anything he may try to say.”

  “Yes, Highness,” whispered Mavronides, bowing deeply.

  Promptly at four, having obeyed her orders to the letter, he and the two glowering footmen led Meister Gansfleisch before the Throne which, gilded, carved, and canopied appropriately in cloth of gold, stood on a dais at the far end of the Great Hall, where she let him wait, mumbling, twitching, and shuffling his feet, for more than twenty minutes.

  Finally, she swept in. She was indeed suitably attired. Her gown, of cobalt blue adorned with pearls and intricate gold lace, had been fashioned by one of Italy’s foremost and most expensive couturiers, very much after the fashion of the sixteenth century; Lucr
ezia Borgia might have worn it. It displayed an amazing décolletage, allowing her beautiful Minoan breasts a perilous degree of freedom; its cinctured waist emphasized the flowing lushness of her hips. Around her perfect throat, she wore the golden necklace that had caught Dr. Rumpler’s eye, and on her head, above her great, glowing Minoan coils of hair, a severe tiara of emeralds, diamonds, pearls, and platinum.

  Having taken everyone’s breath away, she ascended to the Throne. Holding up a hand for silence, she frowned down at the unfortunate alchemist. Lucrezia herself could not have done it better.

  “Speak,” she said.

  His mouth working, he looked at her fearfully, hungrily. “P-Princess,” he croaked. “Wh-who has denounced me?”

  She said nothing. Her expression did not change.

  “Princess!” he shrieked. “I have been several years in your service. Never, never, have I given you cause to doubt me. Have I? Have I?”

  She only regarded him contemptuously.

  “Princess! Princess!” There was desperation in his voice. “I have done my best to teach this—this person Schimmelhorn alchemy’s most precious secrets. It is impossible! He is a moron! He—he thinks you can make gold with a machine. Look! Look!” He pulled a paper from his pocket and waved it wildly. “This he has given me—a shopping list! He wants me, Meister Gaspar Gansfleisch, to shop for him—to buy this—this trash! It is unbelievable! Listen—‘the gears from a seven-speed French bicycle, a small, X-ray device of the kind once used in shoe stores, eight square meters of copper wire netting (the finest possible), a Swedish sewing machine with electric motor (used is okay), three mercury-vapor lamps (used also is okay), and—and—’”