“I’d allowed for the extra. They’re good dogs.”
“I suppose you haven’t…”
“Do you want it now?”
“I think I’d better.”
“Look under the skin nearest you.”
Jerry pulled back the wolfskin and there was a little replica of one of his webs. He switched it on and it began to pipe. He buried his head in it. “That’s more like it.”
“It was the best I could do,” said the woman in the white furs. “But it’s the last. You’ll be on your own soon.”
Jerry straightened up.
The sun had started to move again.
2. I’M SO GLAD
The sled slid away across the cricket pitch.
Behind it Mitzi and Bishop Beesley sat slumped in the ash. Mitzi had pulled up her skirt and seemed to be inspecting her inner thigh. Her father was unwrapping a Milky Way.
“You seem very fit,” Jerry said to his companion as she whipped up the dogs.
“Fitter than ever.” They gathered speed. “I took the opportunity of diverting some of the energy to myself while that chap was trying to do whatever it was he was trying to do.”
“So that’s what happened to it. I couldn’t understand…”
“It turned out for the best, I think you’ll agree.”
“You can say that again.”
“Where to now?”
“Oxford, I think.”
“Okay. I suppose it was wise, was it, to leave that pair where they are?”
“Oh, I don’t think they’ll be much trouble now. Poor things—if we succeed, they’ll hardly survive the transformation.”
“Quite.”
The runners scraped the ash and they rode in silence for a few miles until they reached the outskirts of London and the ash gave way to the asphalt of the M40. The dogs were cut from their traces and lay down panting.
Una Persson pushed back her hood and pointed to an intersection and a hotel called the Jolly Englishman which stood beside a garage. “That’s where I left the car.”
Pulling the sled behind them, they made for the Jolly Englishman, followed by the pack of dogs.
Jerry checked his watches. They were ticking perfectly. He was relieved, though there were still a great many uncertainties. It was difficult to work out in his head what side effects Beesley’s attempts had initiated.
A counter-revolution, after all, was a counter-revolution.
They carried the equipment to the big Duesenberg and stowed it down by the back seats. Una Persson got into the car and started the engine. Jerry sat beside her and slammed the door.
The dogs began to howl.
“Faithful buggers,” said Una. “But there’s nothing else for it, I’m afraid.” She turned the car onto the M40 and drove towards Oxford.
“It does you good to get out of London occasionally,” said Jerry as the evening sunlight touched the red leaves of the elms lining the road.
“Especially at this time of the year,” agreed Mrs Persson.
“Have all the Americans gone home now?”
“I think so. Your mum’s a bit fed up about it. Beesley’s messing about didn’t help matters, of course. A general panic over there, by the sound of it. Just as things were settling down nicely, too.” Una turned on the tape machine and got John, George, Paul and Ringo doing ‘She’s Leaving Home’.
Jerry relaxed.
3. I DON’T LIVE TODAY
Una Persson pulled off her furs and stretched herself out on the yellow silks of the bed in the Oxford underground pied-à-terre.
“This is a bit more like it. Hasn’t changed much, has it?”
“Some things don’t. Not very often, at any rate.” Jerry poured two glasses of Pernod. “You’re still fond of this, I hope.”
She extended an arm that glowed with energy. “You can bet your life. Thanks.” She sipped the Pernod. “I’m not particularly thirsty, but it’s nice just to taste. I think I could go off martyrdom.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Could I have a last look at Catherine, Jerry? Would you mind?”
Jerry felt a pang of jealousy. “Of course not.”
They walked down the corridor together, entered the morgue, opened Catherine’s drawer and looked down at her lovely face. “As beautiful as ever,” murmured Una. “It’s been a long time.”
Jerry patted her shoulder.
“I wish…” Mrs Persson turned away. “Still, I shouldn’t be here at all. Maybe it wasn’t wise…” She walked swiftly from the morgue, leaving Jerry to put the drawer back and close the door.
When Jerry returned to the room, Una Persson had taken off all her clothes and was sitting on the edge of the bed staring at the console and tapping her knees.
“Can we get it over with now?” she said.
Jerry lifted the box and put it between them. He slid back the slot covering and with his red silk handkerchief he wiped it carefully. Then he stared straight into her eyes. “Cheerio. Thanks for everything. I’ve been Harlequin for long enough.”
“Cheerio, Jerry.”
She put her hands together and shoved them quickly into the slot. Her lips parted over clenched teeth, her body began to sag, her complexion to dull, her hair to lose its lustre. She breathed more and more slowly until she stopped, but her hands still remained in the slot until her flesh shrank and her skin turned yellow and there was little more than a skeleton lying beside the machine.
Jerry picked the corpse up and carried it in one hand to the morgue, filing it in the spare drawer furthest from Catherine’s. Then he went back and inspected the machine.
Una had been carrying a huge supply of energy and the machine was charged to capacity, but the energy in itself wouldn’t be enough to bring Catherine back for more than a few minutes. Much more energy had to be released and then channelled to give Catherine the life Jerry wanted her to have.
It would require a massive build-up and release of energy and this meant speeding up the time cycle (or what was left of it). Only those with their identities firmly established would survive the spin.
He felt lonely as he prepared the machine. But then he forgot his loneliness in his anticipation.
He brought Catherine in and laid her on the bed. He bolted the box to the bench he had assembled. He ran a thin pipe from the box to Catherine’s throat and secured it with a piece of surgical tape.
He checked his instruments carefully.
Then he turned on.
RESPIRATION CHECK
Mind you, this is in Brisbane, well south in Queensland. Melbourne, 1200 miles further down, gets very variable weather and can get nippy days even in the middle of summer. Shocking place. Unreliable. But 1200 miles to the north, up past the Tropic of Capricorn, lies Cairns—beaches, palm trees, Great Barrier Reef, free coconuts, tropical paradise, the coming tourist Mecca of the Pacific. And still in Queensland, which is over 22 times as big as Texas. How about that? And contains perhaps two million people—how about that? Away from the cities a man can often drive for miles without sighting another human being. Smog? What smog? Colour problem? What colour problem? Population explosion? Jesus, you have to be kidding!
—Jack Wodhams,
letter to SFWA Bulletin
1. THE STRANGER ON THE WHOLE ROAD
Jerry increased the power and checked that all dimensions could be phased in at the right moment. He synched Jimi Hendrix in. He began to sing ‘Third Stone from the Sun’ very loudly. It was all part of the ritual; all part of the spell.
And it was a tense moment.
He twisted his head to look at Catherine, and set the pointer to Automatic.
Things began to hum.
Swiftly Jerry increased the entropy rate to maximum, preparing himself for the ensuing dissipation.
He began to feel dizzy as he gave the universe a whirl. For all the shielding in his lab, he wondered if he were safe after all. He blinked and could see the leaping cord that led to Catherine’s throat, saw Ca
therine’s body tremble.
He adjusted the identity stabilisers and locked in the co-ordinates. There was now a golden mist swirling everywhere and the box had become very hot.
When everything was on Full he fell backwards and onto and then through the bed and continued to fall.
He pulled himself together as best he could. It didn’t matter about the extent of the dispersal so long as he kept everything in the right order. He began to flood through the universe and then through the multiverse, to the sound of the Beatles singing ‘A Day in the Life’, throbbing in time to the cosmic pulse. Universe upon universe; dimension upon dimension; they spread out together and the extraneous energy released in the explosion poured into the box and into Catherine’s body.
Faster and faster flew the particles and Jerry hung on. Framed against the spreading gases he saw other human shapes and he knew that some of the transmogs were managing to resist the conversion of the universe.
He looked about him and waited as ‘Helter Skelter’ echoed through the infinite. It was quite a nice trip.
At last maximum diffusion was reached and everything became a little unreal. He felt a moment’s concern before the switch clicked over, Jimi Hendrix started to play ‘Are You Experienced?’, and things began to come together again.
Soon he would know if the experiment had paid off.
Or was it all an illusion? Or a model?
2. A SWEET LITTLE SCHOONER
Jerry took a deep breath, opened his eyes and saw springs moving. He was under the bed. He rolled out and there was his machine steaming on the bench. Its circuits appeared to have fused. He activated the TV monitors and got the surface.
The towers of the cathedral were white against the white sky. It was snowing. It was only to be expected. Otherwise Oxford looked pretty much as it had always looked.
With a sigh, he looked down at the bed. Catherine turned uncomfortably in her sleep, her long-fingered hands at her throat.
Jerry ripped off the surgical tape and threw the cord aside. “Catherine?”
She sniffed and moistened her lips. Then she woke up. “Jerry? Are you all right?”
“I think so. I had a bit of a turn a moment ago, but I’m fine now. How about you?”
“I thought I was dead.”
“What’s death? An absence! I’ve been experimenting for months.”
“It was nice of you, Jerry.”
“Frank, by the way, won’t be bothering us.”
“Oh, good. I was wondering about that.” She got up. They were very much alike. “You’ve turned quite pale, Jerry.”
“It’s for the best, I suppose.”
OPERATION SUCCESSFUL
Infant Stars
Each year two or three new stars are born within the Milky Way. They appear to condense out of dark globules of dust. Knowledge of how this happens would reveal much about the way galaxies—and the universe itself—were formed.
Science Journal, July 1968
1. THE OLFACTORY CODE
Apart from a tendency from time to time to imagine he heard various forms of audiosignals together with the voices of Karen von Krupp, of Bishop and Mitzi Beesley and of Frank, Jerry felt no ill effects. There was a touch of his old paramnesia, too, but, if anything, that was reassuring.
He and Catherine wandered hand in hand through Holland Park. Harlequin and Colombine.
It was their last day together.
Jerry was wearing his green silk suit, yellow silk shirt and red boots. Catherine’s outfit, with its full-length skirt, matched his.
* * *
Holland Park was covered in snow. Long, glassy white icicles hung on the columns of the fountain and there was thick ice on the pond. The tropical evergreens sheltered the peacocks and guinea fowl while pigeons, sparrows, robins and blackbirds flew about looking for food. It was a peaceful day.
Over on the cricket pitch Catherine noticed two new statues. “I haven’t seen those before.”
As she led Jerry across the pitch they left black footprints in their wake.
They reached the statues.
Mitzi and Bishop Beesley had been transformed into the purest grey marble.
“Who are they, Jerry? There isn’t a plaque.”
“I’ll get one fixed up. They’re two people who achieved their hearts’ desires. There’s no looking back for them now. They look pretty permanent don’t they?”
“They do indeed. So natural.”
Jerry ran his hand over Bishop Beesley’s marble paunch and stroked his marble Mars bar. Affectionately he patted Mitzi’s cool brow. “It’s what they would have wanted.”
In the middle distance they saw the sharp outlines of Holland House. The light was very clear; the sky pure blue and the trees casting clean, black shadows on the white ground. They began to return, strolling past wooden benches piled high with snow, through the orangery, down the covered walk and stopping to look at the clock-tower that stood among the chimneys and the spires of the house.
“I feel very warm,” said Catherine.
“You are very warm,” said Jerry.
She lay down in the snowdrops and Jerry slowly took off her clothes and then his own. They made love for a long time until the snow had melted for several yards in all directions and the grass beneath was fresh and bright.
The sun got low and Catherine died again.
Jerry stood up shivering. He looked down at her with affection but without sorrow. He climbed into his own clothes and folded hers up and put them beside her. Love could conquer all.
Then he walked away from there, leaving her lying surrounded by the snow. It had all been worthwhile. He felt a new person.
There was still work to be done. He had to find a new way to get back on the job.
And then there was the baby to consider. He could feel it stirring already. He would have to relax, to rest.
Jerry left the park. He stood by the gates and looked across the vast plain of ice to where he could see his sled. He trudged towards it, breathing in the crisp air.
At his approach the eager dogs scrambled up panting. He assembled them in their positions, patted the head of the leader, a Great Dane, and shoved the sled so that its runners broke from the ice and it slid easily, gathering speed.
He jumped in, cracked his whip, grinned at the sun as the wind rushed past. The dogs leaned in their traces.
There had to be a method of maintaining equilibrium without this constant shifting of weights. Guilt was what did it, he supposed.
He said: “Mush.”
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