“Huh?” muttered Lincoln, “whazat?”
“I’ve made up my mind,” Percy said. “We’ve been on the defensive long enough. With the hardware we have now we stand a real chance to go on the offensive, to bust out of these mountains and really kill a few wiks.”
“I’ve been thinking the same thing,” Lincoln said sleepily. “As far as these weapons go we’ve hardly scratched the surface.”
“Pass the word along. We want all the new weapons in action, except that Big Daddy up at Summit Cave. I got to admit, goddam it, man, that that thing scares me, even me. I’ll leave one day for preparation, then we hit Swenesgard with everything we’ve got. If we can take his plantation we’ll have all the first-line Gany hardware he’s got on loan from the worms, and plenty of Toms who’ll come over to our side when they see we’re winning.
“With a little bit of luck we might even be able to step on that worm, Mekkis. From what I hear through the network Mekkis doesn’t do anything but lie around reading. He leaves all the work of running the bale of Tennessee to Swenesgard. When we take the plantation we’ll have to keep going, spreading out as fast as we can, so that if the Gany military starts hitting with nuclear missiles we won’t be all bunched up in one place. Everything depends on speed. And,” he finished, half to himself, “on illusion.”
“The Nowhere Girl is coming!” wailed the Oracle.
“Don’t shout at me like that,” Mekkis snapped. “Can’t you see I’m trying to read?” All is illusion, he said to himself. Each of us is a windowless monad, without any real contact with a world outside ourselves. Balkani proves it. Why therefore should I concern myself with meaningless phantoms such as Nowhere Girls and Neeg-parts and the Great Common? The world is a picture and if I wanted to change it, all I would need to do is imagine it to be different.
For instance, if I cared to I could imagine an earthquake and—
A vast tumbling-motion spilled through the room around him, a wave rolling through him and past, leaving a yawning fissure in the floor.
Mekkis gazed down at it with satisfaction while the Oracle babbled meaninglessly, hysterically.
Gus learned about Percy’s planned attack from a defector—two hours before sundown on the night of the attack. He drove at once to the office of Administrator Mekkis and asked to see him.
“Mr. Mekkis,” the wik secretary said with obvious relish, “has left word he does not want to be disturbed. Under any circumstances.”
“The Neeg-parts are attacking in force tonight,” Gus said; he sweated visibly, even though the waiting room in which he stood was air-conditioned.
“Is that all?” the secretary said scornfully. “The Neeg-parts are always attacking something or other. Surely you can handle it.”
Gus opened and closed his mouth, turned red and then, without another word, turned and stomped out. Once in his ionocraft he took firm hold of the microphone, lifted it to his lips and began rapidly to issue orders.
Within an hour the assorted forces of Gus Swenesgard, made up of everything from small nuclear missile launchers to Toms with pitchforks, moved in a jumble of confusion toward the great black shapes that now, in the moonless night, could be seen thundering and rumbling toward them.
The nuclear missiles were fired before the forces met, but they did not go off. The vast rolling masses of blackness seemed to swallow them up. Then the ionocraft scout bombers swept in, and they, too, disappeared.
Gus sat in his ionocraft, hovering over his plantation, and watched what took place through a bank of small TV monitors, mounted on the control panel, which received signals from various units of his motley army. One screen in particular caught his attention; it displayed a transmission from a squad of creech-operated ionocrafts that had moved nearer the enemy than any other of Gus’ units. There on the screen Gus saw, forming out of the blackness, a herd of gigantic African aardvarks as big as dinosaurs with evil, glittering eyes, huge claws and ears like circus tents, and with unbelievably long tongues that lashed out and licked ionocrafts out of the sky.
“Oh, my God,” Gus said, unable to accept the fantastic sight. “Not aardvarks!”
In the wake of the stampeding aardvarks came a battered autonomic ionocraft taxi bearing Percy X and Lincoln Shaw. “You see that?” Percy yelled. “I’ll bet they didn’t expect that.”
“It’s wild,” Lincoln said, more awestruck than enthusiastic.
“What else can you do?” asked the taxi.
“How about something really beautiful?” Percy shouted. “How about a gigantic bird all made of flame? How about a phoenix?”
“Okay,” Lincoln said. “One phoenix coming up.” He adjusted the controls on the construct in his lap and concentrated. Out of the clouds of dust that rose in the wake of the aardvarks formed an incredible winged creature, more than a thousand feet in wingspread. It seemed to be made up of burning light or perhaps electricity, and all the colors of the spectrum flickered chaotically over its feathered surfaces. Its eyes consisted of points of blindingly bright blue white light, like twin welding torches, and, as it glided majestically ahead of them, it left in the air a trail of sparks like falling stars. The two men in the ionocraft could smell the ozone caused by its electrical fire, and the wind from its wings blew the ionocraft roughly about, almost overturning it. Now and then it opened its blazing beak and uttered a hoarse cry that sounded, to Lincoln, like the scream of an ignorant and innocent thing being tortured to death.
“Isn’t it great?” Percy yelled.
“De gustibus non disputandum est,” the taxi said philosophically.
“Charge!” shouted General Robert E. Lee as he galloped into battle at the head of a troop of mounted Valkyrie. Their long blonde hair streamed in the wind as they screamed ancient runic oaths and trampled beneath the hooves of their ice cream white horses creech, white and Tom, without discrimination.
A squadron of vampires dripping blood from their fangs and wearing the insignia of Baron Manfred von Richthofen’s Flying Circus flapped by overhead, while Samson, hair and all, strode past, swinging the jawbone of a duckbill platypus.
Through the milling confusion rushed a battalion of Brownie Scouts, cracking skulls right and left with over-baked cookies, while a kosher butcher, with his vorpal meat cleaver, reduced the enemy to meat knish. Red-assed baboons charged in behind him, pushing supermarket carts armed with fifty caliber machine guns. A rock-and-roll group headed by a young long-hair trumpeter named Gabriel played the “jerk” while a team of trained surgeons removed one appendix after another, throwing in an occasional lobotomy to avoid monotony.
Four squealing transvestites in silk evening gowns swung, with deadly accuracy, blue-sequined purses filled with cement, while cavemen and Pygmies hurled poisoned confetti.
A dayglow orange unicorn reared up with seven soldiers impaled on his horn like so many unpaid bills, and a man-eating plant with an Oxford accent sucked dry one spinal column after another with a sound like a rude boy trying to suck up the last drop of a milkshake. Sadistic peacocks circulated among the wounded, tickling to death the unwary with their feathers. A pregnant ten-year-old teeny-bopper, smashed on acid, mercilessly beat all comers at chess, passing the time between moves by painting pictures of her favorite celebrities, Marshal Ky, Marshal Koli and Adolf Hitler, on her naked but flat chest, with purple lipstick.
Little nude lesbians no more than one inch high scampered over the faces of the enemy removing beards one hair at a time. The Wolfman chewed contentedly on a big toe, spitting out the toenail. A brave band of lawnmowers and growling laundromat machines executed a brilliant flanking movement and attacked from the rear. Everywhere the air was filled with the ghastly sound of guttural shrieks, whoops, howls, oily laughter, gasps, grunts, lisps, drawls, yells, croaks, bellows, whines, sensual moans, brays, yaps, meows, tweets, bleats, roars and maundering.
But at the moment when it appeared as if the ordinary forces of Gus Swenesgard would be wiped out to a man, the fantastic hordes of
Percy X began to quarrel among themselves. Frankenstein attacked the Wolfman. Godzilla attacked King Kong. The Boy Scouts criminally assaulted Girl Scouts.
The sabre-tooth tiger was blinded by the needles of shoe-making elves. A spikelet of Meadow Fescue (festuca elatior) was struck down by a cowardly blow from Bucky Bug, anthers, pistil, paleae, glume and all. Suddenly it became a free-for-all. Every apparition for himself.
In an instant Percy realized that if he remained in the midst of the nightmare battle just a moment too long, he and his men would fall victim to their own phantasmagoria. In fact at this very moment a carnivorous vacuum cleaner was attempting to break into the taxi in which he and Lincoln Shaw sat.
“Retreat!” Percy shouted into his mike. “Back to the mountains before it’s too late.”
At dawn the battlefield lay silent.
A mist hung over the scene, hiding the incredible carnage left behind by the night’s orgy of destruction. As the sun rose higher in the sky the mist began to evaporate, and with it the multitude of fantastic shapes and forms which the mist had hidden. Ghostly dead elephants and ruined tanks melted together, became translucent, then transparent, then faded away. Heaps of corpses, wearing the uniforms of every age and nation, blurred and shimmered and became one with the fog. Ionocrafts and creeches and Toms and Neeg-parts…they, too, faded and turned to a fog, the real and the unreal meeting and blending and then vanishing together.
By noon the mist and what the mist had hidden had both disappeared without a remnant, and in the shuddering mid-day heat nothing remained but weeds and the bent, upward-poking stalks of grass.
XII
PAUL RIVERS did not face the man; instead he stood gazing out the hotel room window at the seamy side of Knoxville, Tennessee, as it baked in the afternoon heat. Everything he says is true, Paul thought to himself. And yet—
“There are only two possible outcomes to the situation up there in the hills,” Dr. Martin Choate, Paul’s immediate superior in the World Psychiatric Association, said. “Percy will not use the hell-weapon, and he will lose his pelt and the ego of the human race will be lost with him, or Percy will use the hell-weapon and that will be the end for all of us. Don’t you see that?”
Paul did not speak; he only nodded. Yes, he thought, I see that. But I can’t accept it.
“Then you must also see,” Dr. Choate said, “that we have no choice but to kill him and to burn his body, making it look as if he died in action—heroically. Our organization has already begun to make its move. Seven high-ranking wik officials have already killed themselves under hypnotic suggestions implanted by their psychotherapists. Other more complex plans have already been set in motion, but we must have a martyr; we must have our John Brown, our crucified Christ, if we hope to gain the support of the broad masses of people. Isn’t the freedom of most of the human race more important to you than the life of one man, one murderous fanatic?”
Paul said, “Why me?”
“Because he trusts you. You saved him from Balkani. We don’t have anyone else who could get near him.”
“That’s the problem,” Paul said. “He trusts me. That’s why I can’t do it.”
“He won’t be able to probe you telepathically. We can hypnotically implant a cover story in your mind, a story you’ll believe yourself until the moment comes to strike. He’ll never know.”
But, Paul thought, I’ll know. “I’ve got to have time to think,” he said aloud.
Choate hesitated, then said, “All right. We can let you have a few days.”
They shook hands and Dr. Choate left without a backward glance. Everyone says “we” these days, Paul thought absently. Nobody says “I.” Everyone represents some formless, irresponsible group and nobody represents themselves.
Stepping out of the bedroom, Joan Hiashi said, “I want some growing things.” She smiled at him uncertainly. “May I?”
“Okay,” he answered, and then experienced a sudden upsurge of spirit, a sudden sense of freedom. “Let’s go out and buy up a whole garden.”
Ed Newkom met them in the hall as they were going out. “What’s up?” he asked, surveying their faces.
“We’re going to do a little shopping,” Paul said; he glanced over his shoulder and saw Ed gazing after them in bewilderment. It was Dr. Rivers who thought with pleased satisfaction, Joan is showing signs of returning to the world of common experience. She wants something. It was, however, just plain Paul who, as he and Joan emerged from the hotel entrance, glanced up at a white cumulus cloud that towered like a god over the dirty slum and thought, Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
“Joan?” Dr. Balkani said.
“Yes, Rudolph,” said the robot Joan Hiashi, sitting on the analyst’s couch in Balkani’s poorly-lit office. Every day contained the same elements, now; Balkani could see no more change in his patient that he could in his massive bronze bust of Sigmund Freud. Except that sometimes he received the impression that the bust smiled at him. It was in no respects a pleasant smile.
Balkani said, “Joan, is there anything you want?”
“No, Rudolph.”
Eyeing her, he said, “Then you must be happy. Are you happy?”
“I don’t know, Rudolph.”
“You are,” he said. Puffing angrily on his pipe, he paced the floor. Joan did not follow him with her eyes; she continued to stare straight ahead. Abruptly he stopped pacing; he seated himself beside the robot and put his arms around it. “What would you do if I kissed you?” he said. It did not respond. “Put your arms around me,” he barked at it, and it obeyed. He kissed its lips for a lengthy time, but it was boring; up on his feet again he said, “That was boring!”
“Yes, Rudolph.”
“Take off your clothes!”
The robot disrobed, quickly and without wasted motion. Balkani also disrobed, almost falling on his face when he got his feet caught in his pants.
“All right, now kiss me again.”
They kissed again.
After a few moments Balkani shouted. “It’s still boring!” He pushed her roughly down on the couch and kissed her one more time, but it was still boring. Untangling himself from the robot’s arms he sat with his back to her at the foot of the couch. He felt old. Why do I love her so much? he asked himself. I never loved anybody so much. Getting to his feet he rummaged in his clothing until he found his pill-box; opening it he shook out all the pills, the entire assortment of all colors and shapes—without water he gulped them down. “You see?” he said to the robot Joan. “I don’t care whether I live or die. And neither do you; right?”
“Yes, Rudolph.” Tonelessly she spoke, as before. Emptily.
“There’s one emotion I’ll bet you can still feel. Fear.” He lurched over to the bookcase and, with a harsh, labored grunt, hauled down the bust of Freud. “I’m going to kill you. Don’t you even care about that?”
“No, Rudolph.”
Balkani, in anguish and fury, lifted the massive bronze bust high over his head; he moved back toward the couch. She did not flinch; she did not, in fact, even seem to notice. He brought the bust down on her skull with all his strength. Her cranium burst.
“I only meant to—” he began numbly as the robot Joan Hiashi slid from the couch and fell, sprawling, onto the floor. And then he saw within her head—not formless organic tissue—but a crumpled turret of printed microminiaturized circuits and solid-state cerebro-spinal axis components, as well as delicate sweep-range surge gates, low-temp liquid helium battery conduits, homeostatic switches—with portions of the circuitry grotesquely still functioning, including the standard feedback networks for the master turret which, though it hung out of her skull and dangled down her cheek, continued ticking like some debrained reflex-arc crayfish-thing. And he recognized the handiwork which had gone into the building of the thing as his own.
“Joan…?” he whispered.
“Yes, Rudolph?” answered the robot faintly, and then its power failed.
“Joan?” Paul River
s said.
Sitting on the bed of their Knoxville hotel room, in the hot red light of sunset, Joan Hiashi said, “Yes, Paul.”
“Is there anything you want?”
“No, Paul.” She studied the windowbox that now rested just inside the window of their room, and at the tropical plants that grew there. Then she smiled, and Paul Rivers smiled, too.
The therapy may be slightly unorthodox, he reflected, but it’s working. Now if she can only start caring about—not only plants—but people and the world of a common, shared reality.
“They want you to kill Percy X, don’t they?” she said. “I overheard. I wanted to hear.”
He said, “That’s right.” And did not look at her directly.
“Are you going to do it?” she asked, without emotion.
“I don’t know.” He hesitated, then said, “What do you think I should do?” A new twist, he thought acridly; the doctor asking the patient for advice.
“Be happy,” Joan said. Getting up, she walked over to her newly purchased windowbox of plants, where she knelt and played in the dirt with her fingers. “All these political movements and philosophies and ideals, all these wars—only illusions. Don’t trouble your inner peace; there’s no right and wrong, no win or lose. There’s only individual men and each one is completely—completely!—alone. Learn to be alone; watch a bird fly without telling anyone about it or even storing it up to tell someone about it in the future.” She turned toward him, her voice low and intense. “Let your life remain the secret it is. Don’t read the homeopapers; don’t watch the newscasts on TV. Don’t—”
Escapism, he thought as he listened to the hypnotic voice. I’ve got to be on my guard; it’s compelling but false. “Okay,” he said to her, breaking into the flow of her words, “while I sit here staring stupidly at the back of my hand, what happens to my patients? What happens to the people I could have helped?”
“They go on in their insanity, I suppose,” Joan said. “But at least you don’t join them in it.”
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