The Pursuit of the Pankera: A Parallel Novel About Parallel Universes Page 10

  “Good news! The fund was blue chips and triple-A bonds and, at that time, speculative stocks were rising. So the current cash value of the fund was down, even though income was up. And two more of my cousins and one uncle had qualified, again reducing the pro-rata … so, Glory Be!—I was within reaching distance. I had brought with me all that I had saved, swore before a notary that it was all mine, nothing borrowed, nothing from my father—and left it on deposit in Zurich, using the trustees as a front. And I told them about my stamp and coin collection.

  “Good stamps and coins never go down, always up. I had nothing but proof sets, first-day covers, and unbroken sheets, all in perfect condition—and had a notarized inventory and appraisal with me. The trustees got me to swear that the items I had collected before I left home had come from earned money—true, the earliest items represented mowed lawns and such—and agreed to hold the pro-rata at that day’s cash value—lower if the trend continued—if I would sell my collection and send a draft to Zurich, with businesslike speed as soon as I returned to the States.

  “I agreed. One trustee took me to lunch, tried to get me liquored up—then offered me ten percent over appraisal if I would sell that very afternoon, then send it to him by courier at his expense (bonded couriers go back and forth between Europe and America every week).

  “We shook hands on it, went back and consulted the other trustees. I signed papers transferring title, the trustee buying signed his draft to me, I endorsed it to the trustees to add to the cash I was leaving in their custody. Three weeks later I got a cable certifying that the collection matched the inventory. I had qualified.

  “Five months later I was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, summa cum laude. And that, dear ones, is the shameful story of my life. Anyone have the energy to go swimming?”

  “Son, if there is a word of truth in that, it is indeed a shameful story.”

  “Pop! That’s not fair! Zebadiah used their rules—and outsmarted them!”

  “I didn’t say that Zeb had anything to be ashamed of. It is a commentary on American higher education. What Zeb claims to have written is no worse than trash I know is accepted as dissertations these days. His case is the only one I have encountered wherein an intelligent and able scholar—you, Zeb—set out to show that an ‘earned’ Ph.D. could be obtained from a famous institution—I know which one!—in exchange for deliberately meaningless pseudoresearch. The cases I have encountered have involved button-counting by stupid and humorless young persons under the supervision of stupid and humorless old fools. I see no way to stop it; the rot is too deep. The only answer is to chuck the system and start over.” My father shrugged. “Impossible.”

  “Zebbie,” Aunt Hilda interjected, “what do you do on campus? I’ve never asked.”

  My husband grinned. “Oh, much what you do, Sharpie.”

  “I don’t do anything. Enjoy myself.”

  “Me, too. If you look, you will find me listed as ‘research professor in residence.’ An examination of the university’s books would show that I am paid a stipend to match my rank. Further search would show that slightly more than that amount is paid by some trustees in Zurich to the university’s general fund … as long as I remain on campus, a condition not written down. I like being on campus, Sharpie; it gives me privileges not granted the barbarians outside the pale. I teach a course occasionally, as supply for someone on sabbatical or ill.”

  “Huh? What courses? What departments?”

  “Any department but education. Engineering Mathematics. Physics One-Oh-One. Thermogoddamics. Machine Elements. Saber and Dueling Sword. Swimming, and—don’t laugh—English poetry from Chaucer through the Elizabethans. I enjoy teaching something worth teaching. I don’t charge for courses I teach; the chancellor and I understand each other.”

  “I’m not sure I understand you,” I said, “but I love you anyhow. Let’s go swimming.”

  X

  Zebadiah

  Before heading for the pool, our wives argued over how Barsoomian warriors dress—a debate complicated by the fact that I was the only one fairly sober. While I was telling my “shameful story,” Jake had refreshed his Scotch-on-rocks and was genially argumentative. Our brides had stuck to one highball each but, while one jigger gave Deety a happy glow, Sharpie’s mass is so slight that the same dosage made her squiffed.

  Jake and I agreed to wear sidearms. Our princesses had buckled them on; we would wear them. But Deety wanted me to take off the grease-stained shorts I had worn while working. “Captain John Carter never wears clothes. He arrived on Barsoom naked, and from then on never wore anything but the leather and weapons of a fighting man. Jeweled leather for state occasions, plain leather for fighting—and sleeping silks at night. Barsoomians don’t wear clothes. When John Carter first laid eyes on Dejah Thoris,” Deety closed her eyes and recited: “She was as destitute of clothes as the Green Martians … save for her highly wrought ornaments she was entirely naked ….” Deety opened her eyes, stared solemnly. “The women never wear clothes, just jewelry.”

  “Purty shilly,” said her father, with a belch. “ ’Scuse me!”

  “When they were chilly, they wrapped furs around them, Pop. I mean, ‘Mors Kajak, my revered father.’ ”

  Jake answered with slow precision. “Not … ‘chilly.’ Silly! With a clash of blades and flash of steel, man doesn’t want family treasures swinging in the breeze ’n’ banging his knees. Distracts him. Might get ’em sliced off. Correc’, Captain John Carter?”

  “Logical,” I agreed.

  “Besides, illustrations showed men wearing breechclouts. Pro’ly steel jockstrap underneath. I would.”

  “Those pictures were painted early in the twentieth century, Pop. Censored. But the stories make it clear. Weapons for men, jewelry for women—furs for cold weather.”

  “I know how I should dress,” put in Sharpie. “Thuvia wears jewels on bits of gauze—I remember the book cover. Not clothes. Just something to fasten jewels to. Deety—Dejah Thoris, I mean—do you have a gauze scarf I can use? Fortunately I was wearing pearls when Mors Kajak kidnapped me.”

  “Sharpie,” I objected, “you can’t be Thuvia. She married Carthoris. Mors Kajak—or Mors Kajake, might be a misspelling—is your husband.”

  “Cer’nly Mors Jake is my husband! But I’m his second wife; that explains everything. But it ill becomes the Warlord to address a princess of the House of Ptarth as ‘Sharpie.’ ” Mrs. Burroughs drew herself up to her full one hundred and fifty-two centimeters and tried to look offended.

  “My humble apologies, Your Highness.”

  Sharpie giggled. “Can’t stay mad at our Warlord. Dejah Thoris hon—green tulle? Blue? Anything but white.”

  “I’ll go look.”

  “Ladies,” I objected, “if we don’t get moving, the pool will cool off. You can sew on pearls this evening. Anyhow, where do pearls come from on Barsoom? Dead sea bottoms—no oysters.”

  “From Korus, the Lost Sea of Dor,” Deety explained.

  “They’ve got you, son. But I either go swimming right now—or I have another drink … and then another, and then another. Working too hard. Too tense. Too much worry.”

  “Okay, Pop; we swim. Aunt H—Aunt Thuvia?”

  “All right, Dejah Thoris. To save Mors Jacob from himself. But I won’t wear Earthling clothes. You can have my mink cape; may be chilly coming back.”

  Jake wrapped his sarong into a breechclout, strapped it in place with his saber belt. I replaced those grimy shorts with swim briefs, which Deety conceded were “almost Barsoomian.” I was no longer dependent on Jake’s clothes; my travel kit, always in my car, once I got at it, supplied necessities from passport to poncho. Sharpie wore pearls and rings she had been wearing at her party, plus a scarf around her waist to which she attached all the costume jewelry Deety could dig up. Deety carried Hilda’s mink cape—then wrapped it around her. “My captain, someday I want one like this.”

  “I’ll skin the minks personally,
” I promised her.

  “Oh, dear! I think this is synthetic.”

  “I don’t. Ask Hilda.”

  “I will most carefully not ask her. But I’ll settle for synthetic.”

  I said, “My beloved princess, you eat meat. Minks are vicious carnivores and the ones used for fur are raised for no other purpose—not trapped. They are well treated, then killed humanely. If your ancestors had not killed for meat and fur as the last glaciation retreated, you would not be here. Illogical sentiment leads to the sort of tragedy you find in India and Bangladesh.”

  Deety was silent some moments as we followed Jake and Hilda down toward the pool. “My captain—Zebadiah—”

  “Yes, Deety?”

  “I am proud that you made me your wife. I will try to be a good wife … and your princess.”

  “You do. You have. You always will. Dejah Thoris, my princess and only love, until I met you, I was a boy playing with oversized toys. Today I am a man. With a wife to protect and cherish … a child to plan for. I’m truly alive, at last! Hey! What are you sniffling about? Stop it!”

  “I’ll cry if I feel like it!”

  “Well … don’t get it on Hilda’s cape.”

  “Gimme a hanky.”

  “I don’t even have a Kleenex.” I brushed away her tears with my fingers. “Sniff hard. You can cry on me tonight. In bed.”

  “Let’s go to bed early.”

  “Right after dinner. Sniffles all gone?”

  “I think so. Do pregnant women always cry?”

  “So I hear.”

  “Well … I’m not going to do it again. No excuse for it; I’m terribly happy.”

  “The Polynesians do something they call ‘Crying happy.’ Maybe that’s what you do.”

  “I guess so. But I’ll save it for private.” Deety started to shrug the cape off. “Too hot, lovely as it feels.” She stopped with the cape off her shoulders, suddenly pulled it around her again. “Who’s coming up the hill?”

  I looked up, saw that Jake and Hilda had reached the pool—and a figure was appearing from below, beyond the boulder that dammed it.

  “I don’t know. Stay behind me.” I hurried toward the pool.

  The stranger was dressed as a federal ranger. As I closed in, I heard the stranger say to Jake, “Are you Jacob Burroughs?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Are you or aren’t you? If you are, I have business with you. If you’re not, you’re trespassing. Federal land, restricted access.”

  “Jake!” I called out. “Who is he?”

  The newcomer turned his head. “Who are you?”

  “Wrong sequence,” I told him. “You haven’t identified yourself.”

  “Don’t be funny,” the stranger said. “You know this uniform. I’m Bennie Hibol, the ranger hereabouts.”

  I answered most carefully, “Mr. Highball, you are a man in a uniform, wearing a gun belt and a shield. That doesn’t make you a federal officer. Show your credentials and state your business.”

  The uniformed character sighed. “I got no time to listen to smart talk.” He rested his hand on the butt of his gun. “If one of you is Burroughs, speak up. I’m going to search this site and cabin. There’s stuff coming up from Sonora; this sure as hell is the transfer point.”

  Deety suddenly came out from behind me, moved quickly and placed herself beside her father. “Where’s your search warrant? Show your authority!” She had the cape clutched around her; her face quivered with indignation.

  “Another joker!” This clown snapped open his holster. “Federal land—here’s my authority!”

  Deety suddenly dropped the cape, stood naked in front of him. I drew, lunged, and cut down in one motion—slashed the wrist, recovered, thrust upward from low line into the belly above the gun belt.

  As my point entered, Jake’s saber cut the side of the neck almost to decapitation. Our target collapsed like a puppet with cut strings, lay by the pool, bleeding at three wounds.

  “Zebadiah, I’m sorry!”

  “About what, princess?” I asked as I wiped my blade on the alleged ranger’s uniform. I noticed the color of the blood with distaste.

  “He didn’t react! I thought my strip act would give you more time.”

  “You did distract him,” I reassured her. “He watched you and didn’t watch me. Jake, what kind of a creature has bluish-green blood?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Sharpie came forward, squatted down, dabbed a finger in the blood, sniffed it. “Hemocyanin. I think,” she said calmly. “Deety, you were right. Alien. The largest terrestrial fauna with that method of oxygen transport is a lobster. But this thing is no lobster, it’s a ‘Black Hat.’ How did you know?”

  “I didn’t. But he didn’t sound right. Rangers are polite. And they never fuss about showing their IDs.”

  “I didn’t know,” I admitted. “I wasn’t suspicious, just annoyed.”

  “You moved mighty fast,” Jake approved.

  “I never know why ’til it’s over. You didn’t waste time yourself, tovarishch. Drawing saber while he was pulling a gun—that takes guts and speed. But let’s not talk now—where are his pals? We may be picked off getting back to the house.”

  “Look at his pants,” Hilda suggested. “He hasn’t been on horseback. Hasn’t climbed far, either. Jacob, is there a Jeep trail?”

  “No. This isn’t accessible by Jeep—just barely by horse.”

  “Hasn’t been anything overhead,” I added. “No chopper, no air car.”

  “Continua craft,” said Deety.

  “Huh?”

  “Zebadiah, the ‘Black Hats’ are aliens who don’t want Pop to build a time-space machine. We know that. So it follows that they have continua craft. QED.”

  I thought about it. “Deety. I’m going to bring you breakfast in bed. Jake, how do we spot an alien continua craft? It doesn’t have to look like Gay Deceiver.”

  Jake frowned. “No. Any shape. But a one-passenger craft might not be much larger than a phone booth.”

  “If it’s a one-man-one-alien job, it should be parked down in that scrub,” I said, pointing. “We can find it.”

  “Zebadiah,” protested Deety, “we don’t have time to search. We ought to get out of here! Fast!”

  Jake said, “My daughter is right but not for that reason. Its craft is not necessarily waiting. It could be parked an infinitesimal interval away along any of six axes, and either return automatically, preprogrammed, or by some method of signaling that we can postulate but not describe. The alien craft would not be here—now … but will be here—later. For pickup.”

  “In that case, Jake, you and I and the gals should scram out of here—now to there—then. Be missing. How long has our pressure test been running? What time is it?”

  “Seventeen-seventeen,” Deety answered instantly.

  I looked at my wife. “Naked as a frog. Where do you hide your watch, dearest? Surely, not there.”

  She stuck out her tongue. “Smarty. I have a clock in my head. I never mention it because people give me funny looks.”

  “Deety does have innate time-sense,” agreed her father, “accurate to thirteen seconds plus or minus about four seconds; I’ve measured it.”

  “I’m sorry, Zebadiah—I don’t mean to be a freak.”

  “Sorry about what, princess? I’m impressed. What do you do about time zones?”

  “Same as you do. Add or subtract as necessary. Darling, everyone has a built-in circadian. Mine is merely more nearly exact than most people’s. Like having absolute pitch—some do, some don’t.”

  “Are you a lightning calculator?”

  “Yes … but computers are so much faster that I no longer do it much. Except one thing—I can sense a glitch—spot a wrong answer. Then I look for garbage in the program. If I don’t find it, I send for a hardware specialist. Look, sweetheart, discuss my oddities later. Pop, let’s dump that thing down the septic tank and go. I’m nervous, I am.”

 
“Not so fast, Deety.” Hilda was still squatting by the corpse. “Zebbie. Consult your hunches. Are we in danger?”

  “Well … not this instant.”

  “Good. I want to dissect this creature.”

  “Aunt Hilda!”

  “Take a Miltown, Deety. Gentlemen, the Bible or somebody said, ‘Know thy enemy.’ This is the only ‘Black Hat’ we’ve seen … and he’s not human and not born on Earth. There is a wealth of knowledge lying here and it ought not to be shoved down a septic tank until we know more about it. Jacob, feel this.”

  Hilda’s husband got down on his knees, let her guide his hand through the “ranger’s” hair. “Feel those bumps, dearest?”

  “Yes!”

  “Much like the budding horns of a lamb, are they not?”

  “Oh—‘And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon’!”

  I squatted down, felt for horn buds. “Be damned! He did come up out of the earth—up this slope anyhow—and he spake as a dragon. Talked unfriendly, and all the dragons I’ve ever heard of talked mean or belched fire. Hilda, when you field-strip this critter, keep an eye out for the Number of the Beast.”

  “I shall! Who’s going to help me get this specimen up to the house? I want three volunteers.”

  Deety gave a deep sigh. “I volunteer. Aunt Hilda … must you do this?”

  “Deety, it ought to be done at Johns Hopkins, with X-ray and proper tools and color holovision. But I’m the best biologist for it because I’m the only biologist. Honey child, you don’t have to watch. Aunt Sharpie has helped in an emergency room after a five-car crash; to me, blood is just a mess to clean up. Green blood doesn’t bother me even that much.”

  Deety gulped. “I’ll help carry. I said I would!”

  “Dejah Thoris!”

  “Sir? Yes, my captain?”

  “Back away from that. Take this. And this.” I unbuckled sword and belt, shoved down my swimming briefs, handed all of it to Deety. “Jake, help me get him up into fireman’s carry.”