Golem 100

11

“And nossing she hoppen, Gretch?”

“Nossing.”

“Damn!”

“No damnation. No demoniac laughter. No Satan.”

Shima cocked an eye at her, then bellowed, “GEWERKSCHAFTSWESEN! OZONHALTIG!”

“What the hell’s that?”

“My notion of demoniac laughter,” he grinned.

“Sounds more like a libretto in search of Richard Wagner. You didn’t really hope I’d tell you that the Devil actually appeared, did you?”

“Certainly not, but I was hoping for something realistic like goon-type geeks hanging around and cashing in. Any heavies in this Winifred Ashley’s apartment house?”

“Impossible. It’s a beautifully protected Oasis.”

“Corrupt servants, maybe?”

“The pie-faced girl’s the only servant, and she’s too timid to be suborned by anyone or anything.”

“The bee-ladies did use Salem Burne’s Promethium incense with the rest of the sorcery?”

“Yep. Nellie Gwyn… that’s your Ildefonsa Lafferty sexpot… kept shooting me funny looks and mugging and Regina was peeved because Nell wasn’t sincere and dedicated enough to Lucifer.”

“Did the bee-ladies get any vibes from the Pm stuff?”

“Nope.”

“You?”

“Nope.”

“Will you kindly tell me how that Pm got from their séance into your goon bones?”

“Easy. Our Golem carried it.”

“Was it there?”

“No.”

“How did it get it?”

“Not known.”

“How did it carry it?”

“Not known.”

“Why did it carry it?”

“Unknown.”

“Will you lucidly tell me what the Hundred-Hander-Golem thing has to do with your bee-ladies and their playtime witchcraft.”

“I haven’t the foggiest.”

“Could it be sort of hanging around, out of sight?”

“Maybe.”

“Why?”

“No idea.”

“Where?”

“Same answer.”

“This is frustrating, Gretch. I thought we were closing in on some kind of answer.”

Shima was so deflated and depressed by the disappointment that the words of his grandfather flashed through her mind. “Ah, le pauvre petit. He will never be able to cope with the hard knocks.”

She tried to comfort him. “Maybe we are, Blaise. Maybe it’s there, only I haven’t spotted it yet. I’m going back to the hive.”

“Will they let you?” he asked indifferently.

“They invited me. I’ve been accepted.”

“D’you actually want to waste your time?”

“As a matter of fact, I do, for two reasons—I must and I want to.”

“Must?”

“Psytech is bugging me, Blaise. My gut is sending up signals that there may be some sort of rotten construct deep down inside these women.”

Shima’s interest kindled. “As rotten as our Golem-Hundred-Hander-Thing?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. That’s what I must find out.”

“Hmmm. And you said you want to?”

“Yes. I really like them, Blaise. On the surface they’re all characters; funny, different, refreshing.”

“All except Ms. Ipanema,” he said gloomily.

“Maybe she isn’t to a schnook who used to be in love with her and keeps the memory locked in a drawer, but women see each other differently. She’s a delicious caricature.”

“Sure, of humanity.”

“No, Nellie’s human, all right; she’s just the schoolgirl’s idea of the femme fatale.” Gretchen did a lightning pastiche of Ildefonsa’s rattle-rattle undulations.

Shima laughed. “But I always thought that type had to be tall, dark, and handsome… like the Yenta Calienta number you described.”

“No way. She’s a dyke.”

“Then what about the actress-manquée? Passionate, you said, with burning blue eyes.”

“Sarah Heartburn. Strictly for laughs. You can’t be a clown and be fatal.”

“The black-and-white twins who look like a pair of succulent Greek slaves?”

“Oodgedye and Udgedye. Too cold-blooded and stubborn. They’re always dissenting and objecting and refusing and recusing.”

“And switching.”

“Miss Priss lisps and stammers. Very fetching, but the Alice in Wonderland bit is far from fatal. Mary Mixup’s just a darling dumb bunny.”

“That’s the one with fair hair like a helmet and a dancer’s bod?”

“Uh-huh. You’ve got to have a mind to make a man fall down in a dead faint.”

“Regina has a mind.”

“Too dignified and stately.”

“You said she gave you a wink.”

“Oh, she has a sense of humor but it’s evah sew refayned. I’m not putting her down. She’s a gracious and generous queen, and she’s madly in love with Lord Nelson.”

“Lord… ? Oh. The admiral.”

“Horatio, Lord Nelson. He had a wild thing with Lady Hamilton which was a scan. mag. in the seventeen-hundreds. Regina spent an hour reading me Nelson’s love letters to Emma Hamilton.”

“And the pie-faced slavey is out?”

“Absolutely. Now what is all this, Blaise? You couldn’t possibly be interested in the construct of a femme fatale.”

“Just curious about the hive, is all.”

“The hell you’re just curious. Come on, man.”

“You see through me as usual.”

“You’re transparent.”

“I was feeling out the possibility that one of the bee-ladies might have an outside connection with Guff gorills.”

“I see. Yes, one might.”

“Who? Pi?”

“No. Me.”

“You!”

“Sure. I’m a bee-lady now, and I keep pretty rotten, low-down company in my business.”

“Like me?”

“Like Mr. Wish.”

Shima took a deep breath, held it, then let it out in a grunt. “I wish you wouldn’t joke about that.”

“All right, no more funnies, but we can’t escape the fact that there’s a damned incomprehensible network that’s got us all twisted up in it; you, me, Mr. Wish, goons, Promethium, Ind’dni, the beehive, and Golem¹⁰⁰.”

“Golem-one-hundred? Why d’you call it that?”

“Because it seems to be a polymorph and can assume a hundred different forms.”

Shima sighed. “I wish we could take off for Mars, Mother of Men.”

“If you want to run away from the hard knocks, baby, why not Venus, also a very far planet?”

“Ah, le pauvre petit? Yes, you’re right,” Shima acknowledged with a wry smile. He pulled himself together. “So what’s our plan of op.? You go back to the hive for more witchcraft, yes? And I? Ich? Moi?”

“You get cozy with Subadar Ind’dni.”

“Oh I do, do I? Like why?”

“Like for data. I want to find out whether there’s any sort of connection between the hive séances and the Golem¹⁰⁰ atrocities. In time. In space. Even the most doubtful link. Oh, and keep that Pm jazz in your lab under lock and key. And install burglar alarms.”

“Alarms? Why, for God’s sake?”

“Maybe this Golem creep is a junkaroola, too, in its own charming fashion.”

“On Promethium?”

“Only a maybe, Blaise; just hoping for anything. It might get hungry for fresh supplies and visit CCC to tap the till. Turn your Pm into a trap. You might catch something interesting.

Shima shook his head wearily. “If that goddam polymorph thing could get in and out through your safed door, how in hell can I trap it?”

“What? The late, great Blaise Shima, B.A., M.A., Ph.D.? Brilliant inventor of my secret contract weapon which Subadar Ind’dni would give his eyeteeth to prove phony? Not capable of devising an infallible trap for a freak thing that defies all common sense?”

“In a word, no.”

“Damn right you can’t. Nobody can… yet. I seriously doubt whether we can zap it if we’re ever ingenious enough to catch up with it, but we can worry about that when and if we do. Right now we’re looking for connections, any link, and you may trap a Guff geek who—surprise, surprise—may turn out to be a Pm pusher.”

* * *

By the turn of the 21st century the population of Old New York City was nine and a half million. By the turn of the 22nd New York had become the Guff precinct of the Corridor, and its swarming population could no longer be counted; only estimated. The guesses ranged from ten to twenty million.

Every member of those millions entertained the belief that he or she was unique. Subadar Ind’dni’s Computer Section in the Precinct Complex entertained more realistic ideas. In their experience there were hundreds of thousands of look-alikes among the millions, ranging from rather similar to all-fours replication.

The chief of the section was cynical. “Take any Guff turkey and program him for the machine, and his software would match at least a hundred others.”

“Ah,” Ind’dni replied gently. “Perhaps en gros, but it is our function to discover the small uniquedoms that distinguish one look-alike from all her others.”

He was nettled and dismayed by seven fantastic outrages perpetrated against seven look-alikes by the polymorphic Golem¹⁰⁰.

* * *

No one knew how or when this new troubleshooter first appeared or who had hired him. The Wall Street Complex was so convoluted with management dissociation that pretenders had been known to draw payment vouchers without having been hired for any job. It took months for Accounting to catch up with them “through channels.”

He could cure any and all of the ills that plagued the Big Board think-tanks. (When the computers stop real-time thinking, fortunes can be imperiled in minutes.) He was no electronic genius. He was simply a mechanic who worked out of an uncanny intuition, a sort of symbiotic sympathy with the tantrums and foibles of the temperamental electronic brain trust that controlled the market. He had foibles of his own.

Example: He would appear without request or complaint (through channels) carrying his complicated toolbox, and everybody judged that a thunderstorm was approaching. Lightning can throw computers into fits.

Example: You could chalk a line tracing the 440-volt input cables under the Exchange floor from the course he habitually walked. He was drawn to the field generated by the high voltage.

Example: Without knowing it, he generated a strange field of his own. Anyone who came into physical contact with him had his or her I.Q. quadrupled while they remained in contact. He spread temporary genius like a plague. The irony was that he was never infected himself. He was always and forever a nice, slow, intuitive maintenance man.

Her roomie told her about this new freak and she was intrigued. She was a dumbbell and knew it, but it had never bothered her because no one seemed to mind. Yet once, just once, she wanted to experience what it would be like to have the kind of giant intellect that could absorb whole tapes, one after the other, remember them, and talk about them afterward.

She took to dropping in on her roomie for lunch at the Exchange Buffet, and on this forenoon with purply clouds looming in from the west and half the Guff racing to set containers on rooftops, he was already in the Exchange. He had the front fascia of a particularly hysteric IBM modulus removed and was buried half inside, silently soothing it before the storm broke.

She tapped the small of his back for attention and what she thought would be a vampire stare or a thrilling laying-on of hands. There was a lightning flash out in the Guff and a lightning echo inside herself, followed by a strange thunder in her head. She heard her voice murmur, “Vengon’ coprendo l’aer di nero amanto e Lampi, e tuoni ad annuntiarla eletti…”

She was frightened. An alien intruder had taken possession of her mind. All this while her first tap was still on his back. Then: “Sumer is icumen in, lhude sing cuccu! Groweth sed, and bloweth med, and springeth the wude nu—Sing cuccu!”

And: “Not until after artists had exhausted the possibilities of the ukiyo-e portrait did Japanese print designers begin to try their hand at natural scenery.”

And, “In einer Zeit des Professionalismus und des brillanten Orchesterspiele hat die—”

And then he pulled out of the IBM unit and grinned at her. He was entangled with affectionate electric cables and looked like a one-man Laocoön Group: “Laocoön. (lā ok a wän) n. Gk. Legend. A priest of Apollo at Troy who warned against the Trojan Horse and, with his two sons, was killed by serpents sent by Athena…”

He grinned again, pulled her into the IBM with him, and enjoyed her screaming spasms as he introduced himself and the leads of 220 volts into her body. “Volt. A unit of electrical potential difference, abbreviation V or…”

* * *

She saw him just behind her as she walked into Theaterthon for the performance of “Total-Twenty.” He was vivid. “My God!” she thought. “He could play John What’s-His-Name who shot that old president, Abe What’s-His-Name. Fascinating type. Must be an actor.”

She received her cue-bead and plugged it into her ear. First Overture was playing. She didn’t care for music without light and was tempted to unplug the cue-bead, but she was afraid she might have an early entrance, so she suffered. She looked around for another glimpse of the grabby John Wilkes Somebody, but he had disappeared in the crowd. “Full house tonight,” she thought. “Should be an exciting performance. Can’t wait to see the total tape.”

First Overture ended. The cue-bead announced, “Second Overture. Places and beginners, please. Places and beginners, please.” This was in the ancient English tradition and was meaningless. There were no places and no beginners simply because no one in the house knew when his part would begin, and there certainly were no places. There was no stage; just a great soundproofed hall milling with the performing audience, now silent, awaiting their computer cues as “Total-Twenty” began, but still circulating in a gentle minuet, nodding, smiling, murmuring to friends.

She knew that the script dialogue was being spoken by the scattered performing audience. As often as not, an intimate two-scene was being played by audactors separated by a hundred feet and a hundred people. Once there was a shout raised by audactors all over the hall, but she had not been cued for that. There were no sound effects. That and the music was sync’d onto the tape along with the visuals.

The computer spoke sharply through her cue-bead, “Line coming. You are accosted by a flash-gimp. You tell him in level tones. ‘Juck off, geek.’ Repeat. In level tones. ‘Juck off, geek.’ On cue. Three. Two. One…”

The cue-bleep sounded. She delivered the line, wondering who and what she was, who the geek was (that John Wilkes actor?) and what “Total-Twenty” was all about. But that was the fun and games of Theaterthon, that and the delight of discovering what visuals were being sync’d to your voice on the total tape.

She was cued for a confident “Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.” Then (passionately): “The show MUST go on!” Then (frightened): “But why are you looking at me like that?” Then a long scream followed by: “Oh, you beast! You BEAST!” Later a groan. Much later (broken-voiced): “It was horrible. I don’t want to talk about it.”

John Wilkes What’s-His-Name came out of the crowd to her. He said nothing, but his vivid actor’s face told her that he had been drawn by the melody of her voice and the perfection of her performance. He smiled and put his hand on her shoulder. She understood what he was saying. She smiled back, magnetically attracted, and put her hand on his.

Then, still silent, still smiling, most theatrically, he ripped her naked. She tried to struggle, to scream, to beg help from the flabbergasted spectators, but he took her, most dramatically, most thoroughly, there on the floor of Theaterthon.

* * *

She had done something worse than criminal; she had done something stupid. This well-bred virgin from one of the best families, easily passed into the Strøget by the cautious guards, tried to shoplift a bijou which she could have bought. It was an exquisite teardrop of limpid amber. Enclosed in it was a tiny, glinting dragonfly. She had never stolen anything in all her life, and the strange surging in her loins was thrilling. She had never stolen anything in all her life, so of course she was clumsy.

The safe system nailed her immediately and she lost her head. She didn’t try to brazen it out, talk her way out, protest that it was a silly mistake, offer to pay. No. She ran. The Strøget guards didn’t bother to chase her. They merely broadcast an alert and her description. She would never be passed out of the boulevard. She would never get out of the criminal courts.

And in her panic she did what comes natural to a well-bred virgin; she took refuge in the Church of Jude, Patron Saint of Impossible Causes. It was empty except for a tall priest in a black gown standing before the altar. He might have been St. Jude himself. He turned as she tore past the nave imagining a hundred armed guards in hot pursuit. She fell to her knees before the priest in prayer for sanctuary and concealment. Jude blessed her with the sign of the cross, lifted the skirt of his cassock, and dropped it over her. Then she discovered that her face was pressed against an enormous nakedness, and her loins surged again.

* * *

The one good thing that the Guff aristocracy had to say for Industry was that it had turned New York’s stepchild, Staten Island, into a free port. It’s true that this had been swindled in order to receive energy conglomerates from the solar with a minimal ripoff by customs, but there were wonderful consumer side benefits. One of them was the Freeport Restaurant offering an exotic cuisine.

There is a frigid Venusian glowworm about the size of an eel. It glows even brighter at Terran temperatures and when poached and served in a mirepoix bordelaise moistened with Pouilly wine, the entire platter emits a frozen light and neon fragrance. Anguille Venerienne tastes like a Siberian snowball.

There is a Martian mold which must be scraped up from below the frostline. (And who was the blessed idiot who first dared taste it?) Terfez Martial is served like caviar and is so fabulous that the Black Sea sturgeons are protesting, and the U.S.Q.R. (formerly the U.S.S.R.) is denouncing Staten Island.

Did you know that stones can make an exotic seasoning? Yes indeed. Take one pound of Widmanstaetten asteroids. Grind to the size of cracked pepper; sprinkle on roasted fresh corn. (Butter, salt, pepper, &tc. should be forsworn.) There is a marriage with the sugar in the corn that produces a remarkable taste salmagundi which organic chemists are still trying to puzzle out. Curiously enough, it doesn’t work with ordinary refined sugar, which makes Kansas very happy. Cuba is also denouncing Staten Island.

The Freeport Restaurant is enormous, of course, and its exotic kitchen is larger than most conventional restaurants, but there is a smallish club room for the discerning gourmets which is more difficult to enter than the vaults of the Bank of England. Here Madame brought her guests and was disturbed to discover that her customary waiter was not in attendance. This one was a new and strange person. She did not deign to speak to him, but summoned the mâitre d’hôtel.

“Where is my Isaac?”

“I am so sorry, madame. Isaac is at another station tonight.”

“But where? I am accustomed to Isaac. A dinner could be only a meal without Isaac.”

“He is stationed out in the main dining salon this week, madame.”

“He is out with the mere! But why? Has he disgraced himself and earned punishment?”

“No, madame. He has lost a bet.”

“Lost? A bet? Explain yourself, sir.”

“With reluctance, madame. The waiters were playing vingt-et-un in the kitchen…”

“Gambling!”

“Oui, madame. Isaac lost everything to the new man. Then he bet you.”

“Me!”

“Oui, madame. For a week. And he lost again. So Isaac is outside, and the new man has you.”

“Outrageous!”

“But it is a compliment, madame.”

“Compliment? How?”

“Your gracious generosity is well known.”

“It will not be known to this new person.”

“Certainly, madame, as you wish. Nevertheless you will find him the quintessence of courtesy. Now, may I piquer your palate with a tour de force created only this day by our superb chef?”

“What is it?”

“Queue de Kangourou aux Olives Noires.”

“What?”

“Which is to say, stewed kangaroo tail with black olives. Olive oil. Brandy. White wine. Stock. Bouquet of bay leaves, thyme, parsley, orange peel, much crushed garlic and stoned black olives. It is flamed with the brandy to burn off excess fat and to strengthen the flavors. It is unique and magnificent.”

“Good heavens! We must try it.”

“You will not regret it, madame, and you will be the very first to be served. If you approve and consent, it will be honored with your name.”

The maître d’hôtel bowed, turned and snapped his fingers. The quintessence of courtesy appeared. He did have a most refined and elegant bearing, Madame thought.

“Clear for the Queue de Kangourou,” the maître d’hôtel ordered, pointing to the table centerpiece.

The new man who had won her bowed apologetically to Madame, stood close alongside her and cleared the center of the table with quick, graceful hands. He made just enough room for her body which he lifted, placed prone on the table and embarked on a refined and elegant retrorape the while he filled the stunned guests’ wine glasses with quintessential courtesy.

* * *

There was a vintage streetcar rallye at the Sheep Meadow racetrack and the pits were gaudy with trolleys, charabancs, trams, and even beautifully restored United Mine Workers’ coal and ore carts. The pits were also decorated with the hundreds of women attracted to racing and death. They were all of a type; dressed pour le sport and sporting a to-hell-with-everything-else look.

She sat on an empty drum between the Madison & Fourth Avenue and the Étoile Place Blanche Bastille pits, giving equal time and attention to the Guff and Parisian crews who passed her constantly as they borrowed gear and advice from each other. They were oddly alike in their soiled tutas and really only to be distinguished by a favorite tool carried in a back pocket; spanner, S-wrench, maul, pliers, a Stillson, a monkey. The pit foremen were above carrying tools. The drivers’ tutas were white and immaculate.

She was amused by the one with the pinch bar dragging down his back pocket. Pinch bar was either Paris or Guff—he spent so much time in both pits that she couldn’t decide—young enough to be smooth-faced, yet obviously fully matured in frame and muscle. She was amused because each time he passed he didn’t give her a “Très jolie,” or a “Bije babe, doll.” He banged the drum with his pinch bar. It emitted a resounding bass boom and sent tingles up her spine.

It was a Le Mans start. The streetcars were in position on the track. The drivers and seconds (now in traditional motormen and conductors’ uniforms) lined up opposite. The starting gun cracked. The motormen and conductors dashed to their trolleys, scrambled in and took off in a frenzy of clanging bells while the pit crews and the women cheered and screamed. Then came the bass boom and the tingle, and there he was, pinch bar in hand, smiling silently at her. She smiled back.

He dubbed her shoulder lightly with the bar and drew her to the backup Étoile Place Blanche Bastille car and took her inside. She was delighted until he revealed that he was a woman and proceeded to ravish her, using the pinch bar as a dildo. Her screams merged with the cheering and screaming and clangor of the race.

* * *

GoFer was the camera test-pattern for “Studio Twenty-Two-Twenty-Two” at WGA. She sat patiently on a stool while the cameras dollied in and out on her skin and adjusted their color correction to its glowing tones. She was a crow, but her red hair and skin were magnificent. When she wasn’t posing for the cameras, she ran errands for the Studio 2222 staff, so naturally she was called Miz GoFer. No one outside the WGA accounting department knew her real name.

She sat quietly on her stool waiting to go for coffee, food, props, costumes, anything. She was bored. She wasn’t particularly interested in any of the 2222 shows. WGA was owned and operated by the Glacial Army Revival Movement and its programming was devoutly Judgment Day. “Where You Beez Come God’s Big Freeze?” (Copyright 2169 by Scriabin Finkel Music Company, a division of Glacial Music Corporation.) All the Good Guys were trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. All the Bad Guys got shot down in flames by God, and died, bitterly regretting their rotten Guff behavior.

There was an animal trainer on the set. She assumed that because he had a King Charles spaniel cradled in his arm, and anyway Studio 2222 was heavy on animals, pets, and the pure love of a boy for his dog. Only this man looked like he should have had a tiger cradled in his arm. He was gigantic and powerful enough to give an orangutan second thoughts about tangling with him.

The powerhouse came over to her stool and gave her a deadpan nod. She nodded back. High as she was perched, her head barely came up to his chest. She could hear the slow roar of his breathing, and it sounded like surf. The King Charles spaniel yapped. From the controls the 2222 director screamed at the floor manager over the talk-back, “For Christshit’s sake will you cue the goddam fuckin’ nuns!”

Twelve pure and demure nuns were hustled onto the set by the floor manager where they formed a pure and reverent circle for God to shoot down the dirty, rotten Guff amorals. The powerhouse picked up the stool, with GoFer teetering on it. She was forced to throw her arms around his neck, and she giggled. Then he carried it to God’s mark in the center of the circle, put it down with GoFer still on it, spread her astonished knees, and proceeded to horrify GoFer, the studio, and the entire Glacial Army into a gasping silence with an enormity while the cameramen (no fools they) dollied in and out on the glowing skin tones. The only sound was the yapping of the King Charles spaniel and the director.

* * *

The Therpool was new, astonishing, miraculous; the latest novelty and entertainment of the lunatic Guff. It was filled with a freak bond of hydrogen and oxygen into H₂Oⁿ, which meant that the hybrid water could actually be breathed. It was typical of the Guff that this metabolic miracle should first be used for amusement. The pool was dazzled with a laser symphony and you swam in a consortium of son et lumière. You paid the equivalent of a hundred gold pieces for the luxury.

She could easily afford it, and she needed the therapy of the thermal null-G relaxation very badly. She had two dozen advertising accounts, all of them demanding and exasperating, and yet paying such exorbitant fees that she could never bring herself to dump any one of them. So instead she dumped herself into the liquid light and drifted and dreamed, drifted and dreamed.

She was alone in the Therpool (she’d paid a high premium for the privilege), but he came out of the depths to her like a languorous saffron shark and courted her as gently and quaintly and gracefully as only sea-creatures can. She was enchanted and responded, and their floating pas de deux was lovely. But then he took possession of her nude body with the savage urgency which the females of the species endure with a mixture of drifting and dreaming, pleasure and pain, fulfillment and rage.

* * *

“I do not advantage myself with the insolence of office to visit you in your apartment unannounced, madame,” Subadar Ind’dni said, “but rather depend upon the simpatico between us. And you, too, Dr. Shima.”

“You’re very kind, Subadar,” Gretchen smiled.

“And very devious,” Shima smiled.

“As are we, all three,” Ind’dni smiled. “And that is the basic of our understanding. We know where we stand and unstand with each other. And on one issue we collaborate in fear and hatred.”

“The Golem.”

“So you call it, madame. I think of it as the Hundred-Hander, the mad thing that stinks of cruelty and takes a hundred forms to execute.”

“The Subadar knows something we don’t, Gretch.”

“More outrages, Mr. Ind’dni?”

“I will answer that question when I know why it is asked, Miz Nunn.” He was quoting her reply to the PloFather.

Gretchen shot a look at Ind’dni who returned it quizzically. “Oh yes. I know all about your visit to the P.L.O. oasis. I did tell you that I do not lack resources.” He turned to Shima. “And the visit to Salem Burne. I am most admiring of your efforts to conceal and protect. My confidence in you both is much compounded.”

“He wants something from us, Gretchen.”

“Only to tell you that, yes, there have been new outrages, atrocious acts which can assuredly be attributed to the Hundred-Hander.”

“What acts?”

“Tortures and Lethals. And we have some strange witness-verbal descriptions of the forms the Hundred-Hander took whilst perpetrating.” Here Ind’dni paused, then continued smoothly. “Perhaps most interesting was the description of a vicious attacker in the new Therpool.”

“Yes?”

“It was of Dr. Shima.”

“What!”

“It was you, Dr. Shima.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Alas, you must. The victim’s description of the criminal assaulter was unmistakable. To make certain, she was shown lineup faxes in the round. She picked yours without the slightest doubting hesitation.”

“This is a damnable ploy, Ind’dni.”

“No, assuredly. She described you.”

“But that’s impossible! Criminal assault! I’ve never been near the Therpool. I wouldn’t know how to find it. What’s the date of the attack? I can prove that I—”

“Cool it, Blaise,” Gretchen cut in. “Easy, man, until we know exactly how it stands. Subadar, this was one hell of a mess to start with, and it seems to be getting worse. Now play fair with us. Give us a full report of these new horrors. All of them.”

“They are not yet of public record.”

“Can that matter? If Dr. Shima is in some way connected with the Hundred-Hander, as I’m sure you suspect, then you’ll be telling him nothing that he doesn’t already know.”

Ind’dni gave her the fencer’s salute, acknowledging a hit. “And Dr. Shima called me devious. I bow, madame. Here is what has happened.”

When the Subadar had finished his detailed report there was a long silence while they digested the data. Then Shima whispered, “Dear God,” and at last found his voice. “Gretchen, I think it’s time for us to—”

“Clam it!” she snapped. Ind’dni’s painful account had first shocked her, then electrified her, and now she was assured and driving. “Subadar, I’m almost positive that you have the key to the Golem¹⁰⁰. You don’t know it. Blaise might fit it together when he comes out of shock. I know now, not because I’m smarter than you two; simply because I have access to personality and persona profiles which you don’t. The psytech instinct. I believe I see the construct.”

Ind’dni gave her another quizzical look. “Do you, madame? And?”

“It’s based on Freud’s primary psychic process.” Her words came like blows. “Instinct eruption! Energy thrust! Erotic libido and death libido. Eros! Thanatos!”

“Yes, our professions require a familiarity with psychiatry. And?”

“First I must know Dr. Shima’s status. Is he to be charged and arrested on that victim’s I.D.?”

“He claims innocence.”

“I do, God help me!” Shima burst out.

“Then what did Miz Nunn stop you from telling me? Too late now. Do you believe him, madame?”

“I do.”

“Then you object to his arrest?”

“Most certainly.”

“On what grounds? Personal?”

“No, professional. I’ll need his help.”

“You are most difficult collab-person colleague, Miz Nunn.” Ind’dni smiled ruefully while he considered. Then, “Dr. Shima is charged in your category, with Felony-Five. He is placed under Guff-arrest.”

“Thank you.”

“And now I will thank you to return the courtesy. How is he to help you?”

“Don’t ask me,” Shima muttered. “I’m wiped out. A cipher. Criminal assault! Rape! Dear Christ help me…”

“How do you intend to act, Miz Nunn? What is this key which you alone know?”

Gretchen shook her head. “As subtle and sophisticated as you are, Subadar, you would never understand the psychodynamics of intuition.”

“Please to try me, nevertheless.”

“You would never believe.”

“The Hindu culture is capable of fantastic beliefs.”

“And ‘The Murder Mavin of the Guff’ could never approve.”

Ind’dni winced. “Most unkind of you to use that label, Miz Nunn,” he said reproachfully. “Do you intend to act illegal?”

“That would depend on your definition of illegality, Subadar. Let me put it this way: we’re forbidden to leave the Guff precinct without your knowledge and consent. Yes?”

“My hukm. Yes. That is the constraint of the invented Felony-Five category.”

“But what if we were to leave without leaving?”

“That is paradox.”

“No. It can be done.”

“Leave? Without leaving? Surely you do not mean departure through suicidal self-ending?”

“No.”

“Then a departure how and to where?”

“To a reality that no culture has ever recognized or even acknowledged. To a world that is the invisible eight-ninths of human history’s iceberg; a Subworld, a Sous-monde, eine Unterwelt, an Infraworld, a Phasmaworld…”

“Ah yes. From the Greek, phainein, to make appear. You mystify me in several languages, madame.”

“And I’ll mystify you even more.” Gretchen was trembling with excitement. “I think this submerged, hidden Phasmaworld has finally broken through to the top of the iceberg and made an appearance.”

“And now you want to return the visit? That is your departure?”

“Yes.”

“How depart?”

“With a Promethium passport.”

“Ah yes, the radioactive salt discovered in those bones resulting from… your ‘contract’ weapon?” Ind’dni turned to Shima before Gretchen could respond to the irony. “My forensic staff was most impressed by your expertise, doctor.” He had never seemed more softly dangerous.

“If you want more expertise,” Shima said wearily, “it’s ¹⁴⁵Pm₂O₃ with a half-life of thirty years.”

“Thank you.” Ind’dni smiled, nodded, and returned to Gretchen. “And I am requested to collaborate in this nebulous venture with you?”

“No. Only to give us your hukm.”

“Will there be danger?”

“Possibly.”

“To whom?”

“Us alone. No one else.”

“Then why try to levant to this mystic Phasmaworld of your imaginings, Miz Nunn? What do you hope to gain by the delay?”

“So you don’t believe me, Subadar?”

“Sadly and most firmly, no.”

“Then you won’t believe this either. I’m convinced that’s where the Golem-Hundred-Hander lives.”