Inside Man and Other Science Fiction Stories Part 13

WHAT PRICE WINGS?.

"But you promised!" said Liz Blackwell. "You swore up and down that you'd have them amputated."

"Amputated!" said Dr. Jonas in horror. "I never heard of such a thing."

"You never heard of anyone with wings, either," she said. "Please, Harvey you promised!"

"That was when you were so upset because I attracted so much attention," said Harvey Leeds. Standing in shoes and trousers, with his wings spread to their full magnificence, he looked like a modern Winged Victory, male division. "Liz, if G.o.d hadn't wanted me to fly, He wouldn't have given me wings."

Dr. Jonas put away the measuring tape he had been working with. "From top to bottom, they're five feet six inches. Wing span is eleven feet four. Subtracting what you used to weigh from what you weigh now, they're fifty-three pounds. They grow out of the shoulder blades and are connected directly with your skeletal, muscular and circulatory systems. I've never seen wings on a human before, but these look perfectly sound to me. Amputating them would be exactly like taking off a healthy leg an unforgivable piece of malpractice, young lady."

"But he's so embarra.s.sing to go out with now," she said. "Why did they have to grow? They were heavenly when they were the size of cherub wings."

"You asked for a checkup," said Dr. Jonas to Harvey, "and I've done my best, though I still think you should have gone to a veterinarian. Growing those wings must have taken a lot out of you. Drink lots of milk to replace the calcium you've lost. Get plenty of sleep, and eat lots of green vegetables. In other words, I have togive you the same advice I would give a new mother."

Harvey put on his s.h.i.+rt and jacket backwards so they could be b.u.t.toned by Liz.

They gave him an angelic and somehow clerical look, with his wing tips almost touching the floor.

"I'll have to study the old statues," he said, "to see how the clothing problem was solved."

"A good idea," said Dr. Jonas. "It's amazing how accurately the old sculptors get them. They must have been working from life. If so, you're not unique, just rare.

How did the wings start growing?"

"I don't know," Harvey confessed.

"Well, I do," said Liz. "It's all because he's so d.a.m.ned good. He hasn't got a single vice, which, let me tell you, is unnerving to a normal girl like me. The first change was when he checked his records for one thing and found something else-he had cheated the government out of something like two dollars. He tried to pay it, but they said the books were closed and to forget about it. So he sent in the money anonymously. And that night I noticed he kind of glowed, as if he had some sort of halo all over."

"It was only right to send in the money," said Harvey defensively.

"But what about the wings?" Dr. Jonas persisted.

"Would you believe it he's actually a virgin-at his age! I wanted to see if we were really good for each other, but he said that we should save ourselves for ourselves till we're married. And that, Harvey Leeds, is when your back started to p.r.i.c.kle, and a few days later the wings began to sprout."

"That's right," said Harvey, modestly. "I'd forgotten."

There was silence for a moment. Then Dr. Jonas said slowly: "What you're saying is that there is a critical point to goodness; once it's reached, there are profound physiological changes. It may be the same with evil. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde might have been based on a real-life model. It's a fascinating bit of speculation."

"But what's Harvey to do with his job?" cried Liz. "He hasn't worked the whole time his wings were growing."

"Haberdashery isn't the only job in the world, you know," said Harvey.

"That's the ticket," said Dr. Jonas. "There must be hundreds of things a winged man can do."

"If you don't get those silly wings cut off and become normal, you can forget all about me," said Liz.He found his wings bristling like an eagle's, he imagined. "If that's all I mean to you, Miss Blackwell, you obviously aren't the person for me." He wished he could use stronger language, but he had never been able to, which, of course, partly accounted for his present situation.

"Then this is good-by." Liz snapped her pocketbook shut and went out the door.

Harvey stood uncomfortably for a while. "I guess it's good-by for me, too. I have to go out and make these wings of mine support me."

"Good luck," said Dr. Jonas. "Let me know if there is any change."

The bishop admiringly looked Harvey Leeds over from every angle. "No question of it, they're authentic wings, feathers and all. As your doctor suggested, it is quite astonis.h.i.+ng how well the old sculptors got the wings indeed, they must have been working from life. Quite astonis.h.i.+ng."

"Clothes are a problem." Harvey put his s.h.i.+rt and jacket on again in reverse.

"Togas are the answer, my boy same as the statues wore. A bit anachronistic-looking, but so is a man with wings." The bishop sat down behind his desk and lighted a cigar. "Now tell me just what you had in mind in coming to see me."

"Why, it's obvious." Harvey leaned against a wall; he could not sit down for lack of wing clearance. "Am I an angel or am I not?"

"I'm not qualified to pa.s.s on such theological matters, but the superficial resemblances are there. I'll even accept, for the sake of argument, your doctor's theory about the critical ma.s.s of goodness. But what can I do for you specifically?"

"I want a job as an angel," said Harvey.

"Doing what?" the bishop asked, when he had finished coughing.

"I don't know what an angel does. But that's for the church to torture out, not me."

The bishop leaned forward on his desk. "My good man, if the church took in every anomaly, it would be quite crowded, indeed. You are unusual, but in a medieval sort of way."

"There must be some way I could fit in."

"Mind you, I'm not an authority, but I can't think of a thing you could do to help the church or vice versa. There was a time when the church had a use for miracles, but that was in the Middle Ages, a time of ignorance and superst.i.tion."

"But not now?" asked Harvey."The church is enlightened now. It is as far beyond the Middle Ages as our computers are from the abacuses they used to count their simple t.i.thes. The church needs good, sound, hardheaded businessmen who know the difference between a bond and a common stock, how to raise funds and what to do with them in short, exploiting every modern ma.s.s medium calls for expert know-how to put our modern religion message across."

"You mean"

"That there simply no place in the church for a medieval relic like yourself."

Harvey was silent for a long moment. Then he said: "Well, that's that. It seemed like such a good idea, though."

The bishop came around the desk and put a fatherly hand on Harvey's shoulder.

"You'll find something, my boy. It's just a matter of turning a disadvantage to an advantage that will pay off. If life hands you a lemon, make lemonade. We do that every day in the church."

"Thanks for the audience," said Harvey with mixed feelings, "and good-by."

"Good-by," said the bishop with no mixed feelings whatever, "and G.o.d be with you."

Sam Grubel finished his skeptical examination of Harvey's wings. "So they're for real. So what have you got in mind?"

"A job," said Harvey. "There must be people willing to pay to see a man with wings."

"In sideshows, maybe. I got a cla.s.sy booking agency. I don't touch sideshow people."

"But there's TV. And the nightclubs. And movies."

"Look," Grubel said patiently. "All you got is wings. No act. One or two guest shots and that's it. The only place you can stand still is sideshows."

Harvey paused. "I hadn't thought of that. Of course I'd need an act. How do I go about putting one together?"

Grubel opened the door to a large, bare room with rings and mirrors around the walls. "There," he said. "That should give you plenty of room to fly around in. You can fly, can't you?"

"I'm not very good at it," said Harvey reluctantly. "There's no s.p.a.ce in my apartment, and outside I just couldn't get up the nerve.""There's no excuse here. There are only the three of us to watch you.

"Three?" said Harvey. He looked around the room and saw a short, squat man sitting beside a short, squat woman on cane chairs. They had been waiting to see Grubel, but now they were watching Harvey with great interest.

"Don't let them bother you," said Grubel. 'They're only a couple acrobats... So fly,"

he said, a trifle impatiently.

Harvey took off his jacket and s.h.i.+rt and went to one end of the rehearsal room. He spread his wings to their full magnificence and began to run. Trying hard to synchronize wings and legs, he was almost to the opposite end of the room before he became airborne. He wheeled heavily to avoid cras.h.i.+ng into the mirrored wall.

"Not much of a start," said Grubel. "What else can you do?"

"I don't know."

"How about a loop the loop?"

Harvey considered the idea. "You know what?"

"No. What?"

"I think I've got a touch of motion sickness up here."

"Oh, great. If you can't think what else to do, come on down."

Harvey brought his feet down to a landing position. He was only doing about ten miles an hour, but the momentum made him gallop into a closed door. He folded his wings and turned around sheepishly.

"That was lousy," said Grubel, opening the door against which Harvey had landed.

"Come back when you got something we can use."

"Like what," cried Harvey.

Grubel stopped with his hand on the k.n.o.b. "I sell acts. I don't create them."

Harvey noted the acrobatic team nodding with great emphasis. "I'll go home and see what I can whip up."

"There's always the sideshows. Lotsa luck."

"Thanks for the interview" said Harvey.

"Don't mention it." Grubel closed the door on Harvey and the acrobats, then opened just wide enough to say: "Sorry, Lombinos. I don't have a thing for you."

They grunted politely and left. Harvey put on his s.h.i.+rt and jacket and took the elevator in an abstracted way. He had not a notion in his head of how to put an acttogether.

Turning the key in his lock, Harvey Leeds felt a touch on his elbow. He looked behind him. A woman and a man, both of them short and squat, stood there, grunting politely.

"We follow you home," explained Mr. Lombino.

"You very easy to follow," apologized Mrs. Lombino.

"We want to talk to you about your act."

"That's nice of you," said Harvey. "Come on in."

When they had uncomfortably seated themselves, Mr. Lombino said: "We follow you because you mean a million dollars to us."

"I do?" said Harvey, leaning against a wall. "How? You want to manage me?"

"Unfortunately, no. We are the Great Lombinos acrobats of the very best but work we can't find."

"I'm sorry to hear that. I'm in that fix myself."

"Who needs acrobats? n.o.body. But a team with wings"

"A team?" asked Harvey, puzzled.

"You can't do an act. You're built all wrong."

"He mean for acrobatics," said Mrs. Lombino apologetically.

Mr. Lombino grunted politely. "For acrobatics, sure. For the women" He made a little seated bow. "How much exercise do you do a day?"

"Not as a regular thing," confessed Harvey.

"There, you see?" Mr. Lombino sat back in triumph. "My wife and me, we work out every day, all day long, stay in condition and add new tricks to our already very good act. Could you?"

"I could try. I have to."

"It take maybe years to get you in condition. Then you first start working up an act.

With us, we could start right away."

Harvey frowned. "I'm sorry, I got lost somewhere."

"Simple. With wings, we could make a fortune, and you could get a quarter no, half of everything we make."