The Number of the Beast

  “Deety, they are supposed to be with the sword and saber. Many things were moved into the Land of Oz today; I heard you all talking about it. But no changes were read into my inventory. I’m sorry.”

  “Smart Girl, it’s not your fault. We should have told you.”

  “Deety, I’ve rolled the dice. The curve says that the most probable place is on hooks in Sunbonnet Sue’s wardrobe.”

  They were.

  I was starting to leave, after telling Gay she was a Smart Girl, when she said, “Deety, your father is calling. Dora has him on hold, through me.”

  “Thanks, Gay; thanks, Dora. Pop?”

  “Deety, are you still in Gay?”

  “Just outside the starboard door.”

  “Can you lay hands on my automatic and the web belt that goes with it?”

  “Saw both three minutes ago.”

  “Will you please remove the clip, check the chamber to be sure it’s empty, then bring belt and pistol when you fetch our toadstickers?”

  “Anything for a steady customer.”

  I left with belt and sword slung over one shoulder, saber and belt over the other so that the belts crossed between my teats, and with the web belt with holster and pistol interwoven through the others because it was far too big for my waist. This left my hands free to carry my dress, one hand being almost clean enough.

  Pop said: “What took you so long? I promised Lazarus I’d get this stuff to him on time. Now I’m going to have to dogtrot. In Army blues.”

  I told him I had stopped off at the pool hall and playing off the match game had taken a while. “If you’ll excuse me, sir, I have problems, too.”

  Elizabeth wiped me down with a damp towel, dried and powdered me and drew my eyebrows and touched up my lashes and clucked over me, all in nine minutes, then most carefully put my dress back on me. “Ordinarily one does not take off a washable and put it back on—just wear it until you shower it off. A drop of water will go through this material like acid. Better skip the soup.”

  Place cards showed us where to dine. But at two minutes before the hour the Hillbilly had not arrived, so we were standing. Laz-Lor came in, sat down—in dresses identical with mine and Lib’s, perfect fit, nothing improvised. Their brother spoke quietly to them; they stood up. Lazarus was dressed in a very old-fashioned army uniform, breeches with rolled leggings, a tunic with a stock collar, and Pop’s pistol at his side.

  All but Pop’s stuff looked brand-new; I concluded that Lazarus had had it tailored.

  Just as my head ticked twenty o’clock, a bugle (Dora) sounded attention. At least it had that effect on the men and Libby, so I stood straight. Laz-Lor looked at their brother and did so, too.

  The wardroom has three steps leading down into it from each of its archway doors, with a little platform at the top so that you don’t fall on your face. Pop and Zebadiah marched up those steps, faced each other (and I thought how beautiful Zebadiah looked in dress uniform; I had never seen him in it). Pop snapped, “Draw! Swords!” Instead of coming down, they crossed blades in an arch. Lazarus looked startled and drew pistol, placed it smartly across his chest.

  This archway was closed by drapes; we had come in from the other side. A drum and bugle (Dora again) sounded a ruffle-and-flourish; the drapes lifted from both sides—and here was the Hillbilly, standing tall (for her) and straight, with her perfect ice-cream skin gleaming in flood lights against a background of midnight blue. She was so beautiful I choked up.

  Dora’s invisible band played The Admiral’s March as our tiny Commodore marched proudly down the steps toward us. (It could have been The Admiral’s March; Pop admitted later that he hummed to Dora the march played for generals and told her to fake it.)

  Aunt Hilda did not sit down when she reached the head of the table, she stood near her chair instead. Nor had my father and my husband left their places, they simply brought their swords down. As soon as Hilda stopped and faced in, Pop commanded, “Corporal Bronson! Front and Center!”

  Lazarus jerked as if he had been struck, holstered his pistol, marched to the far end, making sharp corners in passing around the wardroom table. He halted, facing Hilda—she may have given him some sign.

  Dora hit two bugle notes; Aunt Hilda sang:

  “Shipmates, beloved friends, tonight we are greatly honored!”

  Four ruffles-and-flourishes, as the drapes lifted and parted, and again lights picked out bare skin, this time against a forest-green backing: Maureen in opera-length black stockings, green round garters, dark shoes with semi-high heels, her long red hair down her back.

  Maureen was not “standing tall”; she was in the oldest and most graceful of sculptor’s poses: left knee slightly bent, weight slightly more on her right foot, chest lifted only a little but displaying her full teats, nipples heavily crinkled. Her smile was happy.

  She held pose while that march concluded, then, in the sudden silence, held out her arms and called: “Theodore!”

  “Corporal Bronson” fainted.

  XLVII

  “There are no tomorrows.”

  Zeb:

  Sharpie shouldn’t have done it to Lazarus. For a veteran of sixteen wars and Koshchei alone knows how many skirmishes and narrow escapes to be placed in a position where he is so shocked that blood drains from his head and he collapses “ain’t fitten.”

  Deety agrees but asks me if I could have refrained from staging Mama Maureen’s return that way, given the chance? Well, no, had I Sharpie’s imagination—but it still would not have been “fitten.”

  Not that he was hurt by it. Sharpie, all forty-three kilos of her, checked his fall. She was watching Lazarus, saw him start to collapse, closed the gap and grabbed him around the waist, did her best.

  Sharpie saved him from hitting his head on the wardroom table. I would bet long odds that everyone was looking at Maureen except Sharpie. Sharpie had staged it—and the producer was interested in the effect on the one for whom it had been staged.

  She had staged it even to the extent of getting Libby to ask Ishtar to obtain costume—shoes, hose, and round green garters to match a photograph, plus a hooded cape to keep our ubiquitous snoop Dora from knowing that we had an extra aboard. Sharpie had figured this way: that “French photo” snapshot of Mama Maureen (yeah, I call her that too—she’s the most motherly person in any world…and the sexiest. Don’t mention the last to Deety) (Deety knows it—Deety)—that snapshot was still in existence unless destroyed by machine-gun fire in 1918, Earth-Prime.

  Which it would not be…because Lazarus “got his arse shot off” as his sisters describe it. Not literally true, it was a belly wound more than bullets in his arse that came that close to finishing him. But all the wounds were low.

  Where does a man in combat carry his most cherished possessions? In a breast pocket, usually the left one. I always have and I’ve never heard a veteran deny this.

  It might be worth it to faint in order to wake up surrounded by Maureen, Hilda, Laz-Lor, Elizabeth, and my own reason for being. Jake and I could have played several hands of gin before anyone bothered with us. So I asked Dora for drinks and snacks for Jake and me, as it seemed uncertain as to when dinner would be served. Or if.

  I heard Sharpie say, “Maureen, we must get this heavy uniform off him. Dora keeps this ship tropical. I should never have ordered uniforms for men while we women are comfortable.” They started peeling him.

  I said, “Jake, school’s out.” I had sweated through my number-one uniform—might never wear it again but I’m sentimental about it. Jake was in as bad shape. Once you get happy with skin any clothes make you feel like Rameses II.

  We peeled down and handed our clothes and swords to one of Dora’s waldoes and told her to hand them to Gay—including Jake’s pistol, belt, and holster, which I retrieved without anyone noticing me. Jake and I were Chinese stage hands; “Corporal Ted Bronson” was getting all the attention.

  Dora pointed out that Gay was locked. I said, “If one of her doors were o
pen, could you lay this gear on a seat?” Yes, she could. “Then do it,” I said. “Let me talk to Gay.”

  We eventually had dinner, with everybody “formal” but Maureen. She retained her “casual” clothing long after everyone else was in formal skin. But not until I got pix of the Four Disgraces. Libby and Deety wanted to go shower, too, when Jake and I decided that, having discarded uniforms, we should shower in fairness to Dora’s airconditioning. I asked them and Laz-Lor please to wait until I staggered down (we had encountered a force-four sea, with white caps) to Gay for Jake’s Polaroid.

  Turned out not to be necessary; Dora could take color and 3-D, still or motion, any angle, and light as needed, just as she had lighted the posing (which she had photographed, too, I learned later).

  Maureen and Jake directed while “Corporal Bronson” and I sprawled Nero-style on lounges intended for Lib and Deety. Sharpie sat between us and dropped grapes into our mouths.

  Jake tried to make the poses “artistic.” Mama Maureen agreed with everything Jake said, then did it her way. The results may have been artistic. But I know that those pix would give a skeleton one last case of raging tumescence.

  Meanwhile Dora was singing and playing, urging us to eat—tasty tidbits eaten with tongs; I was reminded of the best in Oriental cuisines—and plying us with fine wines. Dora seemed to have a vast repertoire, some of which (to my surprise) was familiar. When Judy Garland sings Over the Rainbow, who can miss it?—Dora used Judy’s voice. I recall, too, Enjoy Yourself; It’s Later Than You Think. Most of them I did not know.

  Dora announced Tomorrow’s Song—I thought that was what she said. Lazarus and Maureen held hands all through it and it was not a song that would fit the title I thought I had heard. I got straightened out when the song ended to dead silence and Maureen said to Lazarus, “Theodore, Ishtar was going to rearrange the watch list but Tamara vetoed it. She did it for you, dear man, and for me—but Tamara is anxious to see you.”

  “Tamara always knows what she’s doing,” Lazarus answered.

  “Yes, Tammy always knows what is best,” agreed Mama Maureen. “Tell me, Theodore, do I still make you think of her?”

  Lazarus looked upset. “Uh, I don’t know. You don’t look like her…but you feel like her. And you look more like Nancy than you look like yourself.”

  “Yes, I know. None of our family was willing to wait; you’ve been away from home too long. Be patient, and when I look like me to your eyes, tell us, and Galahad will hold my cosmetic age at that. Are you going to do as you promised me, so long ago, take Tammy and me to bed together? Perhaps I should add, Theodore, I am now wife to your co-husbands. I don’t ask that you marry me. Although I think Tammy will be shocked if you don’t. But I shan’t make it difficult, either way. I will hold to any pretence you wish. I did for Brian; I shall for you.”

  Maureen was neither shouting nor whispering; she was simply bringing him up to date on things he needed to know. Lazarus started to answer, his expression oddly mixed, when Elizabeth cut in: “Lazarus—”

  “Eh? What, Lib?”

  “Message to you from Ishtar. To be delivered when needed, and now is the time. Ish read both your charts with her computer set for maximum pessimism. She also had them read at New Rome without identification other than her own file numbers. She has this message for you…in answer to the answer you will make. She says to tell you that you are an uncivilized primitive, ignorant of science, especially genetics, oversentimental, almost pathologically stubborn, retarded, probably senile, superstitious, and provincial…and that she loves you dearly but will not permit you to make decisions in her area of authority. In vitro or in utero, the cross will take place. Let me add that Maureen was not given a choice, either.”

  “So? You can tell the big-arsed bitch that I agree with every word she says, especially the part about ‘senile,’ and that I gave up all hope of arguing with her tyrannical ways fifty years ago and that I love her just as dearly—outside her clinic—and that Maureen will tell her how such things will be handled; I don’t have a vote.” He turned toward me, looking past Sharpie’s pretty toes. “Zeb, here is the wisdom of the ages: Men rule but women decide.”

  “Elizabeth, do you think I am anything like Tamara?”

  “Mmm—Never thought about it. Yes, you both have that all-mother feeling. Uh, would you mind taking off costume? It distracts me from looking at you.”

  “No trouble, Elizabeth. I don’t like round garters except as advertising.” Mama Maureen kicked off her shoes, took off the garters, carefully rolled down her hose in a manner interuniversal—stood up and stood easily, not posing.

  “Turn around slowly. Mmm—Maureen, you do look like Tammy…or vice versa; it’s probably your genes in her. Am I descended from you? Does anyone here know? Lazarus?”

  “You are, Lib. But not through me. Through my sister Carol. ‘Santa Carolita’ believe it or not—which would surprise Carol as she was no saint. But your descent through Carol was not proved until long after you were killed, when the Families’ records were being revised through computer analysis and a deeper knowledge of genes. No saints in our family, are there, Mama?”

  “None that I know of, Woodrow. Not me, certainly. You were a little hellion; I should have spanked you much oftener than I did. Mmm…your father was as close to being a saint as any in our family. Brian was wise and good—and tolerant.” She smiled. “Do you recall why we separated?”

  “I’m not sure I ever knew. Mama, my recollections of that era are much sharper for my trip there as ‘Ted Bronson’—the other is a long time back.”

  “In my sixties I stopped having babies. About the same time your brother Richard was killed. War. His wife, Marian Justin of the Hardy family, was with us, with their children, and Brian was back in uniform, a recalled colonel, on a desk job in San Francisco. When Richard was killed in 1945 we all took it hard but it was easier in that so many of us were together—Brian, and my youngest children, and Marian, and her children—five; she was thirty-one.”

  Mama Maureen, free of stockings and shoes, sat in lotus across from Hilda and accepted a plate from Dora’s helpers. “Woodrow, I encouraged Brian to console Marian the only way a widow can be helped; she needed it. When that war was over, Marian needed a visible husband; her waistband and the calendar could not be reconciled. When we moved from San Francisco later that year, it was easy for Marian Justin Smith to become Maureen J. Smith while I became, with the aid of hair dye, her widowed mother—no one knew us in Amarillo and females were not yet compelled to have I.D.’s. So Marian had the baby as “Maureen,” and only with the Howard Families Trustees was the correct genealogy recorded.” Maureen smiled. “We Howards were easy about such things as long as it was kept inside the Families—and I am happy that we are even easier about it now.

  “On our next move I moved out and became Maureen Johnson again, fifteen years younger since I did not look late seventies, and a Meen-ah-sotah Yonson, Woodrow, rather than a southern Missouri Johnson. A grass widow with round heels.” Mama Maureen chuckled. “Howards married only to have babies. My production line had shut down but the equipment was there and the urge. By the time you darlings”—Maureen’s eyes swept the wardroom—“rescued me, I had trimmed thirty-five years from my age and added thirty-five men to my memories. In fact, when you picked me up, I was on my way to a motel rendezvous, a widower of sixty who was willing to believe that I was sixty when in fact I expected to reach my Century Day in a fortnight.”

  I said, “What a dirty shame! I wish you had been coming back from the motel when we picked you up.”

  “Zebadiah, that’s sweet of you but it’s not a shame. We were getting bored with each other. I’m sure he read my obituary with as much relief as grief. I’m just glad you got me—and I’m told that you did most of it.”

  “Gay Deceiver did most of it. The car you rode in both ways. But we almost didn’t pick you up. Things went wrong, badly. I knew that it was going to—Deety, can you tell her?”
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  “Mama Maureen, Zebadiah has forerunners of dangers. They are not long range; they are always just barely in time. I don’t know what happened this morning but—”

  “‘This morning?’” Maureen looked extremely puzzled.

  “Oh.” My wife went on, “It was ‘this morning’ to us. You arrived here at eighteen-forty and a few seconds, ship’s time. During that instant we spent fifteen hours on another planet, we made two trips to your native planet, two more trips to your new home planet, and you spent seventeen months on Tertius and we brought you back here—and it all happened today. Not just today but at that exact instant: eighteen-forty and thirteen point three seconds. Laz and Lor didn’t know that we were gone; even the ship’s computer didn’t know we were gone.”

  “I did so!” Dora objected. “Gay was disconnected for nineteen microseconds. You think I don’t notice a gap like that? I asked what happened and she told me that it was a power fluctuation. She fibbed to me! I’m sore at her.”

  Deety looked thunderstruck. “Dorable, Dorable! It wasn’t Gay’s fault. I asked her to keep our secrets. I made her promise.”

  “Mean!”

  “I didn’t mean to be mean to you, Dorable—and we did let you in on it as quickly as we could. We couldn’t have staged the tableaux if you hadn’t helped. Be angry with me if you must…but don’t be angry with Gay. Please kiss and make up.”

  I don’t know how computers hesitate, but I think I caught the briefest split second. “Gay?”

  “Yes, Dora?”—the Smart Girl’s voice through Dora’s speakers.

  “I don’t want to be mad. Let’s forget it, huh? Let’s kiss and make up. I will if you will.”

  “Yes, yes! Oh, Dorable, I do love you.”

  “You’re both good girls,” said Deety. “But you are both professional women, too, and work for different bosses. Dora, you are loyal to your family; Gay is loyal to her family. It has to be that way. Dora, if your sister, Captain Lor, asked you to keep a secret, you wouldn’t tell Gay, would you? Because she might tell me…and I would tell Zebadiah…and then the whole world would know.”