The Number of the Beast

  “You weren’t on duty, Zebbie. You three slept or read or played crib. But I was searching for Barsoom. Not hundreds, Zebbie—thousands. I didn’t find it.”

  “Hillbilly, you didn’t tell me!”

  “Dejah Thoris, why bother to say that I had been chasing the Wild Goose? I swallowed my disappointment; next day we started searching Teh axis…and wound up here. Would I have found Barsoom had I asked Gay to run the search? Defined her limits, yes—as Zebbie did on Mars-ten—but, having defined it, told her to take her random numbers and find it. It worked on Mars-ten; we mapped a whole planet in a few hours. It worked on Teh axis. Why wouldn’t it be best for another search?”

  Jacob answered, “Dearest, Zeb fed Gay a defined locus. But how would that apply to this, uh, speculative…search?”

  “Jacob, Zebbie told us that Gay holds the Aerospace Almanac. That includes details about the Solar System, does it not?”

  “More than I want to know,” Zebbie agreed.

  “So Gay knows the Solar System,” I went on. “I thought of reading the Barsoom stories to Gay, tell her to treat them as surface conditions on the fourth planet—then take her random numbers and find it.”

  Jacob said gently, “Beloved, the autopilot doesn’t really understand English.”

  “She does in Oz!”

  My husband looked startled. Jacob has immense imagination…all in one direction. Unless one jogs him. Zebbie caught it faster. “Sharpie, you would be loading her with thousands of bytes unnecessarily. Deety, if they’ve got those novels on New Earth—I’ll find out—what do you need to abstract in order to add to Gay’s registers an exact description of Barsoom, so that Gay can identify it—and stop her Drunkard’s Walk?”

  “Don’t need books,” my stepdaughter answered. “Got ’em up here.” She touched her pretty strawberry-blonde curls. “Mmm…go to sleep thinking about it, tell it to Gay early tomorrow before I speak to anybody. Minimum bytes, no errors. Uh…no appetizer.”

  “A great sacrifice, merely for science.”

  “A one-eyed Texas honeybutter stack?…and the prospect of meeting the original Dejah Thoris? Never wears anything but jewels and is the most beautiful woman of two planets.”

  “About that stack—Jane’s buttermilk recipe?”

  “Of course. You’re not interested in the most beautiful woman of two planets?”

  “I’m a growing boy. And ain’t about to be trapped into damaging admissions.” Zebbie stopped to kiss Deety’s retroussé nose and added, “Sharpie, Gay can’t handle the full Number of the Beast and anyhow Jake locked off most of it. What’s the reduced number, Jake?”

  Deety promptly said, “Six to the sixth. Forty-six thousand, six hundred, fifty-six.”

  Zebbie shook his head. “Still too many.”

  Deety said sweetly, “Zebadiah, would you care to bet?”

  “Wench, have you been monkeying with Gay?”

  “Zebadiah, you put me in charge of programming. I have not changed her circuitry. But I learned that she has four registers of random numbers, accessible in rotation.”

  “A notion of my own, Deety. Give them down time. Keep entropy at maximum.”

  Deety did not answer. Her face assumed her no-expression. Her nipples were down. I kept quiet.

  Zebbie noted it also—he does check her barometer; he once told me so. When silence had become painful, he said, “Deety, did I goof?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Can you correct it?”

  “Do you wish me to, Zebadiah?”

  “If you know how, I want it done soonest. If you need a micro electrician, I have my loupe and my micro soldering gear.”

  “Not necessary, Zebadiah.” My stepdaughter made a long arm, got a walky-talky we keep indoors—with six hectares, it is convenient to carry one outside the house. “Gay Deceiver.”

  “Hi, Deety,” came this tiny voice from the ear button. Deety did not place it in her ear. “Hello, Gay. More gain…more gain…gain okay. Retrieve Turing program Modnar. Execute.”

  “Executed. Did he chew the bit?”

  “Goodnight, Gay. Over.”

  “Sleep tight, Deety. Roger and out.”

  I cut in fast. “Gentlemen, the dishes can sit overnight. I vote for a ramble among the universes, say two hours, then early to bed. The other choice is, I think, channel one with the Beulahland Choir and channel two with Bible Stories Retold: ‘The Walls of Jericho.’ Both are highly recommended…by their sponsors.”

  It felt good to be back in a jump suit. I was turning out lights, making sure windows were fastened, gathering up one walky-talky, when Zebbie stuck his head into the kitchen from the back door. “Captain?”

  “Huh? Zebbie, do you mean me?”

  “You’re the only captain around, Sharpie. What I started to report was: Captain, your car is ready.”

  “Thank you, First Officer.”

  He waited for me to put the butter away, then locked the back door behind me, opened the barn’s people door. I noted that the big doors were still closed—and remembered my borrowed panties four weeks and many universes away. I squirmed past Deety, got into my old familiar starboard-aft seat with a song in my heart.

  Shortly Deety said, “Starboard door seal checked, First Officer.”

  “Roger. Captain, ready for space.”

  “Thank you. Has anyone left behind anything normally carried?”

  “No, Captain. I replaced worn-out clothes. Added tools I could buy here.”

  “Zebbie, it sounds as if you expected to lift without warning.”

  “Habit, Captain. I’ve kept anything important in my—our—car rather than in that flat. Some I duplicated. Teethbreesh. Iodine. Some clothes.” Zebbie added, “Jake keeps basics here, too. ‘Be prepared!’ Troop ninety-seven, Cleveland.”

  “Jacob? Anything you need?”

  “No, Captain. Let’s go!”

  “We will, dear. Deety, did you give Zebbie a schedule?”

  “The one you planned. Not Barsoom, just fun. Two hours.”

  “Astrogator, take the conn. Carry out schedule.”

  “Aye aye, Ma’am. Gay Deceiver.”

  “Hi, Zeb. This is great! Whyinhell did you lobotomize me?”

  “Because I’m stupid. Random walk, Gay—transitions, translations, rotations, vectors, under all safety rules. Two hours. Five-second stops subject to ‘Hold’ from any of us.”

  “May I place a ‘Hold’ myself?”

  “Captain?”

  I resorted to sophistry. “Astrogator, you said ‘any of us’—which includes Gay.”

  “Gay, paraphrase acknowledge.”

  “I shall make unplanned excursions of all sorts with five-second pause at each vertex, plus ‘Hold’ option, plus safety restrictions, for two hours, then return here. Assumption: Program subject to variation by Captain or surrogate. Assumption confirmed?”

  I was astonished. Deety had told me that Gay would sound almost alive if Zebbie used her full potential…but Gay sounded more alive, more alert, than she had in Oz.

  “Assumption confirmed,” Zebbie answered. “Execute!”

  For ten minutes—one hundred thirteen shifts—we had a “slide show” of universes from commonplace to weird beyond comprehension, when suddenly Gay told herself “Hold!” and added, “Ship ahoy!”

  “Private Yacht Dora,” she was answered. “Is that you, Gay? What took you so long?”

  I said, “Astrogator, I have the conn.” I was startled and scared. But a captain commands—or admits she can’t cut it and jumps overboard. A captain can be wrong—she cannot be uncertain.

  Gay was saying rapidly: “Captain, I am not transmitting. I advise asking for Dora’s captain. I have transmitted: ‘Yes, this is Gay, Dora. I’m not late; we took the scenic route. Pipe down, girl, and put your skipper on.’ Captain, the mike is yours; they can’t hear me or any other voice inside me.”

  “Thank you, Gay. Captain Hilda, master of Gay Deceiver, hailing Private Yacht Dora. Captain of Dora
, please come in.”

  In our central display appeared a face. We do not have television. This picture was flat rather than 3-D and not in color, just the greenish bright of radar. Nevertheless, it was a face, and lip movements matched words. “I’m Captain Long, Captain Hilda. We’ve been expecting you. Will you come aboard?”

  (“Come aboard?”! So this is what comes of running around the universes in a modified duo, without so much as a pressure suit.) “Thank you, Captain Long, but I can’t accept. No air locks.”

  “We anticipated that, Captain. Dora’s radius-nine-oh hold has been modified for Gay Deceiver. If you will do us the honor, we will take you inboard. Your wings are raked back, are they not? Hypersonic?”

  “Yes.”

  “I will move slowly, become dead in space with respect to you, then reorient and move to surround you as gently as a kiss.”

  “If the Captain pleases—It is my duty to advise her if I see a mistake in prospect.”

  I barely whispered. “Zebbie, you’re advising me not to?”

  “Hell, no,” he answered aloud, secure in the knowledge that his voice would be filtered out. “Do it! What do we have to lose? Aside from our lives. And we’re sort o’ used to that.”

  I answered, “Captain Long, you may take us inboard.”

  “Thank you, Captain. The Dora will arrive in—I’m sorry; what time units do you use?”

  Deety interrupted: “Gay, let my voice through. Captain Long—”

  “Yes. You are not Captain Hilda?”

  “I’m Deety. We call our units ‘seconds.’ These are seconds: one…two…three…four…five…six…seven…eight—”

  “Synchronized! We call ours ‘Galactic seconds’ or simply ‘seconds’ but about three percent longer than yours. Dora will be almost touching your bow in…fifty-seven of your seconds.”

  Spooky—Blackness blotting out stars, getting bigger. As it began to surround us, Jacob switched on forward grounding lights; we were entering a tunnel—being envaginated by it—with great precision and no apparent power—and it was clear that this enormous sheath was designed to fit us, even to alcoves for Gay’s doors. Shortly we were abreast them—cheerful to see that they were lighted. Oddest, we now seemed to be under gravity—perhaps midway between that of Earth-zero and Mars-ten.

  “Outer doors closing,” came Captain Long’s voice. “Closed and sealing. Pressure adjusting. Captain, we use nitrogen and oxygen, four to one, plus carbon dioxide sufficient to maintain breathing reflex. If content or pressure does not suit you, please tell me.”

  “The mix described will suit us, Captain.”

  “Don’t hesitate to complain. Pressure equalized. Debark either side, but I am on your starboard side, with my sister.”

  I squirmed past Deety in order to introduce my family. Just as well, it gave me a chance to see them first. None of us can be shocked by skin but we can be surprised. But I’ve been practicing not showing surprise since grammar school as a major defense of my persona.

  Here were two shapely young women, one with four stripes on each shoulder (painted? decals?), the other in three stripes—plus friendly smiles. “I’m Captain Long,” said the one with four stripes.

  “—and her mutinous crew,” echoed the other.

  “Commander Laurie, my twin sister.”

  “Only we aren’t, because—”

  “—we’re triplets.”

  “Mutinies are limited to the midwatch—”

  “—so as not to disturb passengers, of which—”

  “—we have two more. Knock it off, Laurie, and—”

  “—show them to their quarters. Aye aye, Cap’n.”

  “Hey! Don’t I get introduced!” From all around came the voice that had hailed us.

  “Sorry,” said Captain Long. “That’s our untwin sister, Dora. She runs many of the ship’s functions.”

  “I run everything,” Dora asserted. “Laz and Lor are purely ornamental. Which one of you jokers shut off Gay?”

  “Dora!”

  “I retract the word ‘jokers.’”

  “It would be kind,” Captain Long told me, “to let them chat. Our thought processes are so much slower than hers that a talk with another computer is a treat.”

  “Deety?” I asked.

  “I’ll wake her, Captain. Gay won’t go off and leave us.”

  Captain Long’s mouth twitched. “She can’t. Those outer doors are armor.” I decided not to hear. Instead I said “Captain, your ship is beautiful.”

  “Thank you. Let us show you to your quarters.”

  “We planned to be away only two hours.”

  “I don’t think that is a problem. Dora?”

  “Time-irrelevant. They left home four-minus standard seconds ago; their planet is on a different duration axis. Neat, huh? For protein-type purposes they’ll get home when they left; I won’t even have to figure interval and reinsert them. Couple of weeks, couple of years—still four-minus seconds. Laz-Lor, we’ve lucked again!”

  Gay’s voice (also from all around us) confirmed it: “Captain Hilda, Dora is right. I’m teaching her six-dimensional geometry; it’s new to her. When they are home—not just time-irrelevant—they march in Tau duration with Earth-Prime on ‘t’ axis—one we never explored.”

  Jacob jerked his head up, looked for the voice. “But that’s prepos—”

  I interrupted. “Jacob!”

  “Eh? Yes, Hilda?”

  “Let’s complete introductions, then go to the quarters the Captain offered us.”

  “Introductions can be considered complete, Captain Hilda. ‘Deety’ has to be Doctor D. T. Burroughs Carter; the gentleman you called ‘Jacob’ must be your husband Doctor Jacob J. Burroughs. Therefore, the tall handsome young man is Doctor Zebadiah J. Carter, Doctor D.T.’s husband. Those are the people we were sent to fetch.”

  I didn’t argue.

  We followed a curving passageway, me with the Captain, her sister with my family. “One question, Captain?” I inquired. “Is nudity uniform in your ship? I don’t even have captain’s insignia.”

  “May I give you a pair of stickums?”

  “Do I need them?”

  “As you please. I put these on just to receive you. People wear what they wish; Dora keeps the ship comfortable. She’s a good housekeeper.”

  “What are your passengers wearing?”

  “When I left the lounge, one was wearing perfume; the other had a sheet wrapped as a toga. Does your planet have dress taboos? If you will define them, we will try to make you feel at home.” She added, “Here are your quarters. If they don’t please you, tell Dora. She’ll rearrange partitions, or convert double beds into one giant bed, or four single beds, or any combination; we want you to be comfortable. When you feel like coming out, Dora will lead you.”

  As the door contracted Jacob said, “You’ve proved your theories, Hilda. We’ve fallen into another story.”

  XL

  “Is there a mathematician in the house?”

  Deety:

  That suite had one bath—pardon me; “refresher”—bigger than three ordinary bathrooms. Hillbilly and I might be there yet, bathing and trying new gadgets, if Pop and Zebadiah hadn’t used brute force.

  “Captain Auntie, what are you going to wear?”

  “Chanel Number Five.”

  “Clothes, I mean.”

  “‘Clothes’? When our hostess is wearing skin? Jane brought you up better than that.”

  “Wanted to be sure. That you’ll back me up with Zebadiah, I mean.”

  “If Zebbie gets irrational, I’ll pin his ears back. If Jacob is ashamed of his skinny runt, he will be wise not to say so. Gentlemen, are you going to chicken? I mean: ‘Which way are you going to chicken?’”

  “Jake, they’re picking on us again.”

  “Ignore them, comrade. Here are blue briefs your size. Hey!—with a stuffed codpiece! I’ll wear them myself.”

  “Jacob!”

  “Listen to the woman. Naked
as a peeled egg, planning to meet strangers—and snapping at me for wanting to boast a little. Time was, my small and sultry bride, that a gentleman never left his chambers without a codpiece equal to his status.”

  Auntie countered with: “Jacob, I spoke hastily. Shouldn’t the second-in-command wear a larger codpiece than the pilot? ‘—equal to his status,’ you said.”

  “But Allah took care of Zeb. Surely you’ve noticed, beloved?”

  My husband butted in. “Jake! No barroom betting! Wear the blue; I’ll take these red ones.”

  Zebadiah couldn’t get into the red briefs; the blue pair was too big for Pop. They traded. Same story. They traded back—each pair was too small. By great effort they got them on—they fell off.

  Pop chucked his aside. “Dora!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Please connect me with your captain.”

  “I was just funning! You wouldn’t tell on me—would you?”

  Aunt Hilda took over. “He won’t tell, Dora. Are you and Gay getting acquainted?”

  “We sure are! Gay’s been more places than I have—and I’ve been everywhere. She’s a smart girl!”

  “We think so, thank you. What should our men wear?”

  “I hold ambient at twenty-seven and deck pads a degree warmer; why wear anything? But for fetishists I supply minilaplaps of opaque tissue. In the ’fresher, cubby nine-bee. Better get them to a therapist before those symptoms get infected. Good therapists where we’re going.”

  I went looking for stowage 9-b; Aunt Hilda went on talking. “Where is that, Dora?”

  “Please address such questions to the Captain. As housekeeper I can tell you anything. As astrogator I must refer questions—I mean they made me put a choke filter on that circuit! Is that fair? I ask you! I’m older than the twins.”

  “It depends on the ship,” Aunt Hilda said, carefully not answering. “We each do what we do best; age is not a factor. Ask Gay.”

  “Oh, she’s hooked in.”

  “Sure am, Cap’n Hilda honey, through Dora’s ears—and eyes! Say, you look just like your voice—that’s a compliment.”

  “Why, thank you, Gay!”

  I interrupted: “Dora, are these laplaps?”