Sirens Of Titan Part 22

"Skip? Kazak?" called Salo. It was unusual for Rumfoord not to be snoozing in his chair, for Kazak not to be snoozing beside it. Man and dog spent most of their time by the pool, monitoring signals from their other selves through s.p.a.ce and time. Rumfoord was usually motionless in his chair, the fingers of one languid, dangling hand buried in Kazak's coat. Kazak was usually whimpering and twitching dreamingly.

Salo looked down into the water of the rectangular pool. In the bottom of the pool, in eight feet of water, were the three sirens of t.i.tan, the three beautiful human females who had been offered to the lecherous Malachi Constant so long ago.

They were statues made by Salo of t.i.tanic peat. Of the millions of statues made by Salo, only these three were painted with lifelike colors. It had been necessary to paint them in order to give them importance in the sumptuous, oriental scheme of things in Rumfoord's palace.

"Skip?" Salo called again.

Kazak, the hound of s.p.a.ce, answered the call. Kazak came from the domed and minareted building that was reflected in the pool. Kazak came stiffly from the lacy shadows of the great octagonal chamber within.

Kazak looked poisoned.

Kazak s.h.i.+vered, and stared fixedly at a point to one side of Salo. There was nothing there.

Kazak stopped, and seemed to be preparing himself for a terrible pain that another step would cost him.

And then Kazak blazed and crackled with Saint Elmo's fire.

Saint Elmo's fire is a luminous electrical discharge, and any creature afflicted by it is subject to discomfort no worse than the discomfort of being tickled by a feather. All the same, the creature appears to be on fire, and can be forgiven for being dismayed.

The luminous discharge from Kazak was horrifying to watch. And it renewed the stench of ozone.

Kazak did not move. His capacity for surprise at the amazing display had long since been exhausted. He tolerated the blaze with tired true.

The blaze died.

Rumfoord appeared in the archway. He, too, looked frowzy and palsied. A band of dematerialization, a band of nothingness about a foot wide, pa.s.sed over Rumfoord from foot to head. This was followed by two narrow bands an inch apart.

Rumfoord held his hands high, and his fingers were spread. Streaks of pink, violet, and pale green Saint Elmo's fire streamed from his fingertips. Short streaks of pale gold fizzed in his hair, conspiring to give him a tinsel halo.

"Peace," said Rumfoord wanly.

Rumfoord's Saint Elmo's fire died.

Salo was aghast. "Skip-" he said. "What's- what's the matter, Skip?"

"Sunspots," said Rumfoord. He shuffled to his lavender contour chair, lay his great frame on it, covered his eyes with a hand as limp and white as a damp handkerchief.

Kazak lay down beside him. Kazak was s.h.i.+vering.

"I- I've never seen you like this before," said Salo.

"There's never been a storm on the Sun like this before," said Rumfoord.

Salo was not surprised to learn that sunspots affected his chrono-synclastic infundibulated friends. He had seen Rumfoord and Kazak sick with sunspots many times before- but the most severe symptom had been fleeting nausea. The sparks and the bands of dematerialization were new.

As Salo watched Rumfoord and Kazak now, they became momentarily two-dimensional, like figures painted on rippling banners.

They steadied, became rounded again.

"Is there anything I can do, Skip?" said Salo.

Rumfoord groaned. "Will people never stop asking that dreadful question?" he said.

"Sorry," said Salo. His feet were so completely deflated now that they were concave, were suction cups. His feet made sucking sounds on the polished pavement.

"Do you have have to make those noises?" said Rumfoord peevishly. to make those noises?" said Rumfoord peevishly.

Old Salo wanted to die. It was the first time his friend Winston Niles Rumfoord had spoken a harsh word to him. Salo couldn't stand it.

Old Salo closed two of his three eyes. The third scanned the sky. The eye was caught by two streaking blue dots in the sky. The dots were soaring t.i.tanic bluebirds.

The pair had found an updraft.

Neither great bird flapped a wing.

No movement of so much as a pinfeather was inharmonious. Life was but a soaring dream.

"Graw," said one t.i.tanic bluebird sociably.

"Graw," the other agreed.

The birds closed their wings simultaneously, fell from the heights like stones.

They seemed to plummet to certain death outside Rumfoord's walls. But up they soared again, to begin another long and easy climb.

This time they climbed a sky that was streaked by the vapor trail of the s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p carrying Malachi Constant, Beatrice Rumfoord, and their son Chrono. The s.h.i.+p was about to land.

"Skip-?" said Salo.

"Do you have have to call me that?" said Rumfoord. to call me that?" said Rumfoord.

"No," said Salo.

"Then don't," said Rumfoord. "I'm not fond of the name- unless somebody I've grown up with happens to use it."

"I thought- as a friend of yours-" said Salo, "I might be ent.i.tled-"

"Shall we just drop this guise of friends.h.i.+p?" said Rumfoord curtly.

Salo closed his third eye. The skin of his torso tightened. "Guise?" he said.

"Your feet are making that noise again!" said Rumfoord.

"Skip!" cried Salo. He corrected this insufferable familiarity. "Winston "Winston- it's like a nightmare, your talking to me this way. I thought we were friends."

"Let's say we've managed to be of some use use to each other, and let it go at that," said Rumfoord. to each other, and let it go at that," said Rumfoord.

Salo's head rocked gently in its gimbals. "I thought there'd been a little more to it than that," he said at last.

"Let's say," said Rumfoord acidly, "that we discovered in each other a means to our separate ends."

"I- I was glad to help you- and I hope I really was was a help to you," said Salo. He opened his eyes. He had to see Rumfoord's reaction. Surely Rumfoord would become friendly again, for Salo really had helped him unselfishly. a help to you," said Salo. He opened his eyes. He had to see Rumfoord's reaction. Surely Rumfoord would become friendly again, for Salo really had helped him unselfishly.

"Didn't I give you half my UWTB?" said Salo. "Didn't I let you copy my s.h.i.+p for Mars? Didn't I fly the first few recruiting missions? Didn't I help you figure out how to control the Martians, so they wouldn't make trouble? Didn't I spend day after day helping you to design the new religion?"

"Yes," said Rumfoord. "But what have you done for me lately?"

"What?" said Salo.

"Never mind," said Rumfoord curtly. "It's the tag-line on an old Earthling joke, and not a very funny one, under the circ.u.mstances."

"Oh," said Salo. He knew a lot of Earthling jokes, but he didn't know that one.

"Your feet!" cried Rumfoord.

"I'm sorry!" cried Salo. "If I could weep like an Earthling, I would!" His grieving feet were out of his control. They went on making the sounds Rumfoord suddenly hated so. "I'm sorry for everything! All I know is, I've tried every way I know how to be a true friend, and I never asked for anything anything in return." in return."

"You didn't have to!" said Rumfoord. "You didn't have to ask for a thing. All you had to do was sit back and wait for it to be dropped in your lap."

"What was it I wanted dropped in my lap?" said Salo incredulously.

"The replacement part for your s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p," said Rumfoord. "It's almost here. It's arriving, sire. Constant's boy has it- calls it his good-luck piece- as though you didn't know."

Rumfoord sat up, turned green, motioned for silence. "Excuse me," he said. "I'm going to be sick again."

Winston Niles Rumfoord and his dog Kazak were were sick again- more violently sick than before. It seemed to poor old Salo that this time they would surely sizzle to nothing or explode. sick again- more violently sick than before. It seemed to poor old Salo that this time they would surely sizzle to nothing or explode.

Kazak howled in a ball of Saint Elmo's fire.

Rumfoord stood bolt upright, his eyes popping, a fiery column.

This attack pa.s.sed, too.

"Excuse me," said Rumfoord with scathing decency. "You were saying-?"

"What?" said Salo bleakly.

"You were saying something- or about to say something," said Rumfoord. Only the sweat at his temples betrayed the fact that he had just been through something harrowing. He put a cigarette in a long, bone cigarette holder, lighted it. He thrust out his jaw. The cigarette holder pointed straight up. "We won't be interrupted again for three minutes," he said. "You were saying?"

Salo recalled the subject of conversation only with effort. When he did recall it, it upset him more than ever. The worst possible thing had happened. Not only had Rumfoord found out, seemingly, about the influence of Tralfamadore on Earthling affairs, which would have offended him quite enough- but Rumfoord also regarded himself, seemingly, as one of the princ.i.p.al victims of that influence.

Salo had had an uneasy suspicion from time to time that Rumfoord was under the influence of Tralfamadore, but he'd pushed the thought out of his mind, since there was nothing he could do about it. He hadn't even discussed it, because to discuss it with Rumfoord would surely have ruined their beautiful friends.h.i.+p at once. Very lamely, Salo explored the possibility that Rumfoord did not know as much as he seemed to know. "Skip- " he said.

"Please!" said Rumfoord.

"Mr. Rumfoord-" said Salo, "you think I somehow used you?"

"Not you," said Rumfoord. "Your fellow machines back on your precious Tralfamadore."

"Um," said Salo. "You- you think you- you've been used, Skip?"

"Tralfamadore," said Rumfoord bitterly, "reached into the Solar System, picked me up, and used me like a handy-dandy potato peeler!"

"If you could see this in the future," said Salo miserably, "why didn't you mention it before?"

"n.o.body likes to think he's being used," said Rumfoord. "He'll put off admitting it to himself until the last possible instant." He smiled crookedly. "It may surprise you to learn that I take a certain pride, no matter how foolishly mistaken that pride may be, in making my own decisions for my own reasons."

"I'm not surprised," said Salo.

"Oh?" said Rumfoord unpleasantly. "I should have thought it was too subtle an att.i.tude for a machine machine to grasp." to grasp."

This, surely, was the low point in their relations.h.i.+p. Salo was was a machine, since he had been designed and manufactured. He didn't conceal the fact. But Rumfoord had never used the fact as an insult before. He had definitely used the fact as an insult now. Through a thin veil of n.o.blesse oblige, Rumfoord let Salo know that to be a machine was to be insensitive, was to be unimaginative, was to be vulgar, was to be purposeful without a shred of conscience- a machine, since he had been designed and manufactured. He didn't conceal the fact. But Rumfoord had never used the fact as an insult before. He had definitely used the fact as an insult now. Through a thin veil of n.o.blesse oblige, Rumfoord let Salo know that to be a machine was to be insensitive, was to be unimaginative, was to be vulgar, was to be purposeful without a shred of conscience- Salo was pathetically vulnerable to this accusation. It was a tribute to the spiritual intimacy he and Rumfoord had once shared that Rumfoord knew so well how to hurt him.

Salo closed two of his three eyes again, watched the soaring t.i.tanic bluebirds again. The birds were as big as Earthling eagles.

Salo wished he were a t.i.tanic bluebird.

The s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p carrying Malachi Constant, Beatrice Rumfoord, and their son Chrono sailed low over the palace, landed on the sh.o.r.e of the Winston Sea.

"I give you my word of honor," said Salo, "I didn't know you were being used, and I haven't the slightest idea what you-"

"Machine," said Rumfoord nastily.

"Tell me what you've been used for- please?" said Salo. "My word of honor- I don't have the foggiest-"

"Machine!" said Rumfoord.

"If you think so badly of me, Skip- Winston- Mr. Rumfoord-" said Salo, "after all I've done and tried to do in the name of friends.h.i.+p alone, there's certainly nothing I can say or do now to change your mind."

"Precisely what a machine would would say," said Rumfoord. say," said Rumfoord.

"It's what a machine did did say," said Salo humbly. He inflated his feet to the size of German batb.a.l.l.s, preparing to walk out of Rumfoord's palace and onto the waters of the Winston Sea- never to return. Only when his feet were fully inflated did he catch the challenge in what Rumfoord had said. There was a clear implication that there was something Old Salo could still do to make things right again. say," said Salo humbly. He inflated his feet to the size of German batb.a.l.l.s, preparing to walk out of Rumfoord's palace and onto the waters of the Winston Sea- never to return. Only when his feet were fully inflated did he catch the challenge in what Rumfoord had said. There was a clear implication that there was something Old Salo could still do to make things right again.

Even if he was a machine, Salo was sensitive enough to know that to ask what that something was would be to grovel. He steeled himself. If the name of friends.h.i.+p, he was going to grovel.

"Skip-" he said, "tell me what to do. Anything- anything at all."

"In a very short time," said Rumfoord, "an explosion is going to blow the terminal of my spiral clear off the Sun, clear out of the Solar System."

"No!" cried Salo. "Skip! Skip!"

"No, no- no pity, please," please," said Rumfoord, stepping back, afraid of being touched. "It's a very good thing, really. I'll be seeing a lot of new things, a lot of new creatures." He tried to smile. "One gets tired, you know, being caught up in the monotonous clockwork of the Solar System." He laughed harshly. "After all," he said, "it isn't as though I were dying or something. Everything that ever was always will be, and everything that ever will be always was." He shook his head quickly, and cast away a tear he hadn't known was on his eyelid. said Rumfoord, stepping back, afraid of being touched. "It's a very good thing, really. I'll be seeing a lot of new things, a lot of new creatures." He tried to smile. "One gets tired, you know, being caught up in the monotonous clockwork of the Solar System." He laughed harshly. "After all," he said, "it isn't as though I were dying or something. Everything that ever was always will be, and everything that ever will be always was." He shook his head quickly, and cast away a tear he hadn't known was on his eyelid.

"Comforting as that chrono-synclastic infundibulated thought is," he said, "I should still like to know just what the main point of this Solar System episode has been."

"You- you've summed it up far better than anyone else could- in your Pocket History of Mars," Pocket History of Mars," said Salo. said Salo.

"The Pocket History of Mars," said Rumfoord, "makes no mention of the fact that I have been powerfully influenced by forces emanating from the planet Tralfamadore." He gritted his teeth. said Rumfoord, "makes no mention of the fact that I have been powerfully influenced by forces emanating from the planet Tralfamadore." He gritted his teeth.