Conrad Starguard - Conrad's Time Machine Part 12

"Fiction," Ian said curtly.

We followed her down another hall.

In the fiction room, I found myself in the "H's" and pulled down a copy of Stranger in a Strange Land. It was a first edition, unread, and signed by the master himself. It felt Holy.

I ran to Ian with it, but he'd already found Verne's autograph on 20,000 Leagues Beneath the Sea. He turned to the librarian.

"Are all the books here like this? First editions and autographed?"

"Uh . . . Effectively, sir."

"Effectively?" I smelled a rat. "Exactly what percentage of the books here are autographed?"

"About two point six percent, Tom."

"Then, how is two point six percent 'effectively' all?"

"All of the books that you will touch are first edition autographs, Tom. The rest were regarded as unimportant so we economized."Ian groaned, grabbed an armful of Mark Twain and hobbled out. I stopped to pick up a few books for myself, and caught up to him. He pointed to a heavy oak door.

"I'll have a reading room right there, with two comfortable leather chairs and a fireplace. And I'll have a pot of tea, Twining's Earl Grey."

"And a bottle of Jim Beam," I added.

Ian opened the door and the room was as described, with a cheerful fire, one oversized and one undersized leather chair, with a marble-topped table between them.

There was a bottle of Kentucky sour mash next to the big chair, with a gla.s.s and a full ice chest. A cup and a pot of hot tea stood next to the small one.

"Ian . . . How . . . ?"

"Sheer brilliance and accurate deduction, my son. Only I've changed my mind about the Earl Grey. I've heard that there are some Chinese teas that cost more than their weight in gold. I'd like to try some."

A "French" maid came quietly in and removed the silver English tea pot, and Ming Po came in with a tray of tea-making stuff, bowing a lot.

She was the first of my servants that I'd ever seen twice, and she went through this little ceremony of whipping a tiny amount of green powder into a bowl of hot water.

"The water . . . ?" Ian asked.

"Dew from rose blossoms, sir. I gather this morning." She bowed some more and left the room.

Ian tasted his tea. "Interesting . . . You know, if they were all like that last one, having servants wouldn't be so bad."

"Dammit, if you'll tell me what you're doing, I'll give her to you."

"Give a human being? Shame on you for the thought."

"I mean, I'll have her transferred to your staff. That can't be immoral. Now what gives?"

"You're slow, and here I'd had such hopes for you. Perhaps if we arranged a suitable course of study, starting with John Calvin and . . ."

"Dammit . . ."

"Okay, Tom. Make a wish."

"All right. I'm rich now, so I'll have Beam's Choice instead of his regular sour mash, and make it a ten-gallon bottle."

Within moments, a new bunch of nearly naked women removed the old bottle and rolled in a cart with a huge, pivoted bottle of booze. It was a gorgeous cart, with all sorts of intricate hand carving and fancy inlay work. The women left us alone again.

"Uh . . . They couldn't have had that ready and waiting. I don't think that Jim Beam makes a ten-gallon bottle."

"They probably had a gla.s.s blower do it up special. They had plenty of time, since that cart must have been a year in the making."

"Huh . . . ?"

"If you must be spoon fed, consider the situation of predestination along with the knowledge of future events. They probably have a microphone hidden in this room, andare placing orders far enough in the past so that we get things on request."

"Uh, is that how you knew this room was here?"

"I didn't know that this room was here! I ordered it here and they incorporated it into the architectural plans when they built the place."

"Good G.o.d! But why are they doing all this?"

"A good question! A magnificent question! Another good one is 'How far are they willing to go?' "

I was starting to catch on.

"Look, did you know that just beyond that wall is a scene that would entice the most decadent caliph of the ancient Saracen world? That this very wall, fireplace and all, can be slowly slid downwards, starting now, to expose a vast pleasure garden with a thousand naked odalisques undulating in their pa.s.sion for our tender bodies to the slithering music of a hundred blind musicians. . . ."

The wall was moving downwards. Arabic music was coming in.

"No!" Ian yelled. "d.a.m.n it, Tom, they might do it! Would you have a man blinded?"

"Jesus Christ, you're right! Cancel the blind musicians! Make that a full symphony orchestra, black tie and tails, and they can stare at the girls all they want."

The wall vanished into the floor and there it was, as ordered. Pleasure garden.

Orchestra. A thousand naked dancing girls. At least I think that there were a thousand.

h.e.l.l, I didn't count.

But having ordered it, we felt obligated to watch it, which we did for at least fifteen minutes.

"Bored yet, Tom?"

"Yeah. And embarra.s.sed. For the last ten minutes."

"Then up with the wall. Let's have the fireplace back."

We shortly had the fireplace back, although I never did figure out how that chimney worked. I tried to get interested in my sour mash and a bound ma.n.u.script copy of H.

Beam Piper's Only the Arquebus. Good book. Good booze. But I couldn't get into either one of them. Still, I tried, hoping perhaps that my subconscious could solve the problems that fuddled my rational self. But the words on the paper didn't seem to mean much and mostly I just listened to the hum of the overworked air conditioner, fighting the heat from the fire in a decadent waste of power. After what seemed like a few hours, Ian broke the tension.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it!" Ian slammed a copy of Life on the Mississippi to the table, upsetting his tea cup. "These people have robbed us of all that is worthwhile in life!"

"Robbed us? They've smothered us under tons of everything we always thought we wanted."

"That's just it, Tom! By giving us everything, these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds have taken from us every reason for doing anything. I'm a builder, a designer, an engineer. My role in G.o.d's world is to make things to better myself and to better humanity, and you're not much different!

What's to become of us now? Are we to lose ourselves in mindless carnal pleasure like the first-century Roman patricians? Or spend our only lives in stupid mind games like thedecadent Russian aristocracy? We'd be better off in prison!"

"Well, it's a very nice prison."

"Too d.a.m.ned nice! Tom, what I can't figure out is why they are doing what they are doing. What do they want of us?"

"Well, what ever it is, they're willing to pay one h.e.l.l of a price for it."

"If they want something, why are they paying without bargaining first?" His face was red and tight.

"So maybe they're as ignorant of us as we are of them."

"They have pre-knowledge and Hasenpfeffer says they have high intelligence."

"Well, intelligence and knowledge don't necessarily make you smart. Look at your typical college professor. All I know is that whatever is happening, we're not in the driver's seat, but it's a pleasant enough trip. Let's ride with it for a while. Maybe it's just a colossal joke we're playing on ourselves. We're smart. In time, we'll figure it out. Until then, I say we should take the Chinaman's advice, relax and enjoy it."

"Tom, that's a disgusting att.i.tude!"

"So what's so disgusting about a vacation on a tropical island? We've been busting b.a.l.l.s for two years without a break, let alone a proper vacation. Let's lay back for a few weeks. We can always leave if things get sticky."

"Are you sure that we can leave?"

"h.e.l.l, they've done everything we've asked so far."

"Except answer certain basic questions."

"So if push comes to shove, we're still American citizens. We can call in the Coast Guard, if we need them, or the Marines, for that matter. They owe us something for all the taxes we've paid."

"And just how do you plan to contact them?"

"Well, I think I'd start by making a phone call."

"Good luck. I tried that last night. There are no outside lines."

"So, if we need to, we'll think of something else. I could build us a radio transmitter out of a broken stereo, if I had to. Look, all that's happened so far is that we've got a whole lot of people who say they'll do anything we want. Fine. Let's see what develops. I haven't noticed anything like violence, but if it gets rough, I have this gut-level feeling that we're a whole lot rougher than they are."

"Tom, it isn't violence I'm afraid of . . . it's ennui!"

"Well, that can't hit us for at least three weeks. Look, there's got to be a good beach here, with palm trees and a gra.s.s hut. We could take a picnic lunch."

"With McDonald's hamburgers and Colonel Sanders' chicken?"

"You're on. Some Gallo Paisano for me and we'll have Ming Po make some tea for you. We'll take Barb along in case we need anything else."

"What the h.e.l.l, Tom. It beats just sitting here. One thing, though. I'm not going to do one d.a.m.n thing for these people until such time as I have figured out what's going on!"

"Seconded and be it so moved!"

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Uses of Time

We got to the beach in a converted VW dune buggy, with Ian driving and Ming Po respectfully apologizing while giving directions. Ian's right foot being what it wasn't, accelerator control was pretty haphazard. I wasn't troubled. If Ian flipped us, these people would likely arrange it so that we fell safely into a few tons of marshmallows.

The sky was a clear blue, the palm trees grew in profusion, and the beach was glistening white and clean. I even saw a few rake marks; nature's little unpleasantries had been removed. The gra.s.s hut was right where I expected it to be. Everything looked suitably primitive except for a line of buoys a half mile out. Barb told me that they supported shark screens.

The girls seemed to have never heard of a nudity taboo, and Ian and I had often taken saunas together, so we soon dispensed with bathing suits.

It was an idyllic afternoon, complete with friends, sun, wine, food, and s.e.x. At one point, Barb and I went swimming, leaving the others on the beach. Afterward, we walked arm and waist back to the hut. Suddenly Barb stopped.

"Perhaps we shouldn't intrude," she said.

Through the doorless doorway, I caught flashes of rhythmically moving flesh.

"Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned. That just might be his first time, a.s.suming that he wasn't really raped last night. Ming Po's persona must really appeal to him."

"Persona?"

"You know, the character she's portraying. Hey, I know that this is all an act, some kind of game you people are playing."

"An act?"

"Look, I'm just saying that if you want Ian on your side, have all his girls be like Ming Po."

"We don't have that many Orientals."

"Well, I don't think it's the race that matters. Just tell them not to get pushy. Give him some s.p.a.ce, and he'll probably start chasing them."

"I'll do that, Tom. Do you really think that we're just playing a game?""You're all as phony as a pile of forty-cent pieces."

"We're not phony, you know. We're really very deadly serious."

"Fine. So tell me what you're so deadly serious about."

Barb didn't answer, and I knew enough about her to know that she wasn't going to answer until she was ready to. But circ.u.mstances were pleasant and I can be patient.