TWO: SUSPECT NUMBER ONE

ALL in all, June 23rd was a full day. The Commissioner had seen the Board and They had evaluated the data concerning Barnum Fly’s colleagues, relatives, wives, children, enemies, grading them as suspects. Top of the list was Cleo Fly, a daughter by his third wife. “He was closest to this girl,” the Commissioner said and picking up a report from his desk he read: “ ‘The probabilities of B.F. being in touch with C.F. are in the ratio of 9.74 x: y.’ ”

“What’s y stand for?” I asked impatiently.

“Filial affection.”

Cleo F. was living in Greater Miami, the old-time playland that had become one of the larger cityurbs in the Pleasure State. It was decided that I go there immediately. The Commissioner accompanied me to the airport. “I have another conference with the Board,” he said. “I promise to meet you as soon as I can. Report to L. and O. Headquarters on the Rue de la Paix¹.”

The next plane out was a huge Tourist Liner whose attraction was low speed, no greater than that of airplanes of a century ago. The slow flight gave the passengers a chance to use the medical facilities on these planes, and thus renew their energies before burning them up in Greater Miami. I had five or six nightcaps in the lounge where forty of fifty couples were sitting about, chattering and joking, while they chewed on various types of pills brought to them by the nurse-hostesses. The women were all illustrations out of the Garden of Eden catalogue. Their escorts had more variety, ranging from tall, skinny men to fat barrel types with noses and ears that were just noses and ears.

As I say, I had a row of nightcaps but they didn’t help much. I still felt suspicious about the Commissioner and his exact relations to the Board. At last I retired to my cabin, and in the dark I saw a shape, faceless but not breastless. The woman on my bed — it could only be a woman — was wearing one of the fashionable Roenfoam¹ brassieres popular that season.

I switched on the light and looked at the sleeping figure of my wife’s double, Gladys Ellsberg. In the light her breasts were no longer visible. They seemed to have vanished behind the black evening dress she was wearing. I stared at her and silently cursed the Commissioner for the cynical and sneaking bureaucrat he was. Disturbed, I took a cigar from my pocket, and when I’d puffed a few times I was amazed at how good I felt. The cigar was one of a handful given to me by Sonata at parting. I examined it suspiciously. On the cigar band, in purple letters, was the name of the make: U-Latus. Damn, I thought, and walking over to Gladys I blew a thick cloud of smoke in her face.

The smoke may have been relaxing when inhaled properly but in a burst it awoke her and threw her into a coughing fit. “Do you know any more childish tricks?” she said, after she’d caught her breath.

“Damn you all!” I said and walked over to the porthole. High in the starry sky the artificial lakes on the moon were silver streaks, the towers of the domed cities shining with a thousand reflections. Moodily, I remembered that in one of those towers in the American enclave, the Supreme Court or S.C.O.S.T. were sitting, if one could think of Machines sitting. The new gods, the Rulers of America.

At a lower altitude there wasn’t much to see, besides an occasional space satellite or sputnik². One in the shape of a giant bottle, familiar, anciently American, floated by. Against the immense starry night two bright words shone, although a little crookedly — evidently the atomic electricity had shorted for the first letters of the two bright words were missing.

O

     C

           A

O

     L

           A

‘We’ll soon be in Paris,” I heard Gladys whispering behind me, and a second later I felt her arms creep around my waist. “I don’t blame you for being angry, darling. But can’t we hiss and make up.” She giggled loudly at her miserable pun. I pushed her away. Smiling, she hurried to the light control and switched it off. In the dark cabin, the roentgenic fibres in her bra came into their own. Guided by her illuminated breasts, so full and voluptuous, the breasts of a woman no longer budding but ripe, the breasts of my own wife, I went over to the control and turned the light on again.

She laughed, and I heard a rustling where she was and guessed she was removing her evening dress. As for the bra, she must have tossed it on a chair for I could distinctly see the molecular structure of the wood.

“I hate police spies,” I said.

“Do I ask you for character references, darling? Suppose I do work for Commissioner Sonata? Aren’t you working for him, too? Don’t you know how to live?”

“The hell with all of you!”

That irritated her. “Why don’t you go back where you come from?” she snapped, and began taunting me with all the anti-Reservation insults she could think of, calling me a New Redskin and a New Zionist¹.

I turned on the light, and a third voice, a comic voice² said: “Make up your mind, lover, do you want me on or off?”

Before me on the bed was an angry and practically naked woman. “You hate police spies, do you, but what are you? Why are we going to Miami?”

“You have an argument there,” I had to admit.

Right away she was all smiles. She held out her arms. (Ruth, forgive me. She looked so much like you.)

The last thing I heard was her yawning voice. “Sleep should be prohibited. A waste of time. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness …”

She woke me when we were approaching Greater Miami. I almost didn’t recognize her, she was so completely dressed, wearing a dark green suit with no stylish roenfoam or other tricky accessories, except for her hat, a small green hat with a gold watch fastened to it, and attached to the watch a long feather, shaped like a writer’s quill, a bright yellow in color, decorated with little dollar signs in green.

I showered and shaved, which among them was a simple matter of applying a fragrant pink whisker-remover called STABB.¹ Then I put on a sky blue Wearitwunce suit. I had left my Reservation homespuns in Washington. The perpetual 70-degree climate was too warm for homespun, and besides, as the Commissioner had argued, it made me too conspicuous.

When I stepped out into the cabin she grinned. “How’s my little Eros²?”

For a second I considered telling her that I could love only one woman, and that in fact, as I saw it, I had made love to my wife even if in absentia. But I kept still. I knew that her reaction would be some cheap off-color remark.

“Isn’t my little sparrow going to kiss me?” she said. I winced, and she laughed. “You’re so moral, darling. Love, love, the basic shove!”

To change the subject I said, “Were you serious about my autobiography?”

“Of course, cock robin.”

It was sickening. “Gladys, please do me a favor,” I said, “and call me by my proper name. This autobiography idea — ”

“How do you like this for an opening, darling?” She half closed her eyes and recited: “ I’d always thought of myself as a down-to-earth type until the day when the Maharajah of Baho called me to his estate and informed me that the great ruby of Phir-Phul given to him by the League of Asiatic Nations for his services in suppressing the St. Ewagiow in Java — ’ ”

“Gladys!” I almost shouted at her.

“Don’t you like it?”

“I’ve never met this Maharajah, I’ve never been to Java — ”

“Am I writing this autobiog or are you?” she retorted. “You’re the writer, the creative person,” I tried to appease her. “But it’s a fact that I’ve never met this Maharajah — ”

“You’ve never met me either!”

“Come, Gladys.” I had to smile.

She smiled also and held up her hands, her white, soft hands. “You’ve only met my hands, darling.” And she burst into laughter that I can only describe as ghastly.

There was nothing to do but light up one of the U-Latu cigars.

It was almost dawn when we reached the airport on the outskirts of Greater Miami. Without landing we transferred to one of the many cabcopters that had flown up to meet us like a swarm of flies. “June 24th,” I said sadly as we left the Tourist Liner.

“We write books and hunt criminals,” she sighed. “Let’s forget it, darling. It’s Paris in June.”

We both looked down at Paris-in-Miami¹ with its gabled rooftops and artistic garrets, its sailboats on the Seine, its Eiffel Tower. The sky had been cloudless, but suddenly there was a flare of blinding light, and before us an immense mushroom-shaped balloon² rose up from what I learned later was the Place de l’Opera. As we watched, it swelled and expanded, and in huge letters the words WELCOME ST. EWAGIOW appeared on its sides.

“Gladys!” I said, when I could speak.

“The St. Ewagiow haven’t taken over the city,” she laughed. “It’s only the Board, darling.”

Even today I marvel at the cunning of those Mechanical Brains. They had reasoned that since Greater Miami was a famous convention city, a makebelieve St. Ewagiow carnival featuring that death cult’s philosophy would be a popular novelty certain to attract a horde of visitors. And among these visitors, there would be genuine St. Ewagiows who would welcome the opportunity of playing at legality. Everything on the outside revolved around that corrupt word PLAY.

“You’re kept informed; I’m kept in the dark,” I said bitterly when she was finished with her explanations.

Her eyes were fixed on that hideous mushroom shape. “What a wonderful bit of luck for the Miami Chamber of Commerce. I’d hate to be the Mayor of Greater Reno or Greater Los Angeles! They’ll all be wanting a St. Ewagiow convention now.”

My U-Latu cigar had gone out but I didn’t relight it. I wanted no artificial stimulants to make me forget the ugly truth. I was of no importance. The Commissioner, for all his stories of how he had fought for me, was going along with Them.

When we landed it was plain that the St. Ewagiow, or rather the crowds of extras and would-be-actors and actresses who infested the country, were having a field day. Driving to our hotel, a parade stopped our Shrinkmobile¹. Before us marched hundreds of beautiful woman in black swimming suits, their hair tinted the same shade of gray. A tombstone gray, I suppose, for they were each carrying a miniature skeleton with a sign attached. The skeletons were two-foot affairs about the size of small infants, painted in colors representing human skin, from Swedish blonde to Congo black. Their heads were grotesque chalky white skulls that swayed and bounced with each step of the marching gray-haired woman. The signs carried the following slogan in different languages: THIS IS ME, THIS IS YOU.

And so forth: in French (C’EST MOI, C’EST TOI), in Greek, Russian, German, Japanese, Tagalog, Punjabi, and God only knew what else.

Next was a float with a dozen men holding scythes while above their heads a red banner lettered in many languages flew in the breeze: THE ONE TRUE REVOLUTION IS THE REVOLUTION OF DEATH.

The next float seemed as if it had come straight out of an embalmer’s parlor. It held three glass coffins inside of which lay, respectively, a little girl of six, a young man in his twenties, and an elderly woman. The signs for this one were out of the Bible: THERE IS A TIME TO LIVE AND A TIME TO DIE. ECCLESIASTES.

It all made me shudder. Where I haled from we joked about death, but within decent limits. This parade was horrible, as if the stink of real corpses were rising from it. I was thinking I couldn’t fail! The A-I-D had to be found and hidden away for all time, never again to menace the people of the world.

“Isn’t it clever?” Gladys laughed. “C’est moi, C’est toi.”

“Clever!” I muttered. “The cleverness of self-destruction.”

The driver turned around and smiled. “We have everything in Miami! Last week we had two conventions. Real ones, not like this show. The Descendants of the Good Samaritans — ”

“And on July 4th you’ll have the Society of Unknown Dead!” I said. “And you’ll be through driving a Shrinkmobile!”

“No, sir,” he said. “I like my job. I’ll never forget the day I received my certificate from the B.O.”

“He means the Board of Occupations,” Gladys explained to me.

“Did They pick your job, too?” I asked.

“Who else is better qualified, darling? I’d been playing in the yard when my father called me into the house and said, ‘Gladys, you’re going to be a writer!’ I was so happy, I was only six — ”

“Six?” I said.

“That’s when we’re tested, and it’s just the right age. When you’re six you want to be so many things. What a relief it was not to worry about the future. It makes adolescence so nice.”

“A perpetual adolescence if you ask me.”

She nudged me playfully with her elbow. “What’s so wrong with that? But I forget. Work is sacred on the Reservation.”

“Individualism is sacred. We pick our own jobs. Why, I was a rancher and a storekeeper before I went into police work.”

“What a wasteful method. Here at the age of six¹ you would have entered an L. and O. elementary school.”

The street was now clear. We passed a shopping center where thousands of people in easy chairs sat around a circular rotating window full of goods and gadgets. Now and then they jotted down an order on the pads in their hands. “Perpetual adolescence!” I said. “Two hours’ work, two hours’ window-shopping, and the rest of the day for pleasure.”

“And what have you got, my darling ploughboy? Twelve hours work, no windowshopping, and a frantic grab in bed before you collapse from sheer exhaustion.” She patted my hand. “What you people need is a five-year plan².”

When we checked into our hotel — The Hotel Pompadour on the left bank of the Seine — she danced across the living room and sang. “Paris, Paris, the city of Love.”

“I guess I’ll never understand you people,” I said quietly. “Here it is June 24th and exactly ten days left before the 4th — ”

“What can’t we do in ten days?” she smiled. “The fields of love, ploughboy!”

It was pointless talking to her. I headed for the door, and ten minutes later I was at L. and O. Headquarters on the Rue de la Paix. The Commissioner was waiting for me. He had left Washington by Coastal Rocket a few hours after me but arrived two hours sooner. The first thing I asked him about was Gladys Ellsberg.

“My dear Crockett,” he broke in on me. “A man operates best when his emotional needs are satisfied. Here we have provided you with all the comforts of home — ”

“In the atmosphere of a whore house!” I finished for him. “I don’t like it! I’m kept in the dark about this St. Ewagiow convention while this woman knows everything.”

“That’s Their doing, Crockett. You’re not an alien but still you aren’t one of us. The Board is suspicious of you. Please be reasonable! I’ve gone against the Board to bring you into the country. If you fail I’ll be out of my job.”

“We’ll all be out of our jobs. We’ll all be dead.”

“Let’s not put the hearse before the horse. We hope this St. Ewagiow show will attract Barnum Fly.”

“Is that what the Board predicts?”

“It’s what our agents in the St. Ewagiow predict. If our man comes to town the probabilities are 9.74 x: y that he’ll see his daughter. Let me brief you on Cleo Fly. She’s twenty-four years old, born in 1995. And very beautiful. So beautiful she required only minor treatment at the Garden of Eden Salons. She was lengthened by two inches and a tendency to excessive thinness was corrected.” He paused and shook his head as if considering some astonishing facts. Then he said, “There is no record of any men in her life. It’s her job of course. She’s one of the attendants at Atomic Amusement Park.”

“Her job?”

“Most of the employees there are indifferent to sex. It’s occuptional with them.”

“I don’t understand, Elvis.”

“These thrill jobs! How can I make you understand? It’s like being loved by a giant. The public has a nickname for the Atomic attendants. Fission-proof virgins,” he smiled faintly. “And this is where you come in, Crockett. You’re to make her acquaintance. At least it can begin as an acquaintance.”

I stared at him with disgust. His blond, insipid face hardened for a second. “The assignment’s beneath you? I thought you had some ideals? I thought you believed in a future for mankind?”

“Yes,” I said. “But not a future as a studhorse!”

“Crockett, you’ve seen my men! None of them would have the patience, not when the country’s full of women to whom fornication is as natural as a respiration. Neatly put, isn’t it, Crockett? For a situation of this sort we need a man like you.”

“Why don’t you send a member of the Board?”

“An amusing idea, but you and I know the necessities of our profession. We can contact Barnum Fly through his daughter. And one contact leads to another,” he added coarsely.

That last comment was too much for me. I rushed to the door while he called. “You need a rest, Crockett. Have fun.”

I returned to the Hotel Pompadour. Gladys had gone, and since she was one of the natives I could guess what she was up to. I cursed her, the Commissioner and the Board. Then I searched the room for what I wanted — the wall taps that were featured in the hotels of Greater Miami. They were on the wall next to the bathroom door. There was bourbon and rye and five or six drinks I had never heard of. I tried a bourbon but was too excited for it to have any effect. I switched to opgin¹. As soon as I swallowed an inch of the stuff I felt as if I’d been kicked in the head. Then seven or eight black spots floated before me, on each spot a seated Turkish beauty. I guessed they were Turkish for they were wearing veils, only veils. I drank a second opgin and instantly the floor rushed up and hit me. In fact when I stood up I was completely sober.

To hell with a drink like that, I thought. I picked up a chair and heaved it at the mirror. The glass tinkled, a pleasant tinkle and my nerves relaxed. That opgin had its points, I thought and poured myself a third shot. There before me on the couch was my wife or maybe it was Gladys smiling and waving. I hurried over when suddenly the floor seemed to break open and a swarm of those Turkish beauties flew up at me like devils, their veils red as fire …

When I recovered consciousness I was lying on the floor. It was solid, everything a floor should be. I tried to stand up but was too dizzy. My head was pounding and through the pounding I heard a voice saying. “How do you feel, darling?”

It was Gladys, but what I saw were two blurs, one black, the other yellow, and both blurs were vibrating in a sickening biological rhythm with my insides. “I’m sick,” I moaned.

“Serves my little sparrow right for drinking while I’ve been working.”

“Working!” I cried. “You don’t know what work is!” I felt a little steadier. The yellow blur, I realized, was her hair, the black blur her dress. She was wearing one of the shroud-like dresses of the St. Ewagiow, a miniature silver coffin¹ pinned to it for ornament. “Where did you get that awful rag?”

“It’s not a rag. It’s the latest style, darling. I know what you need.” She hurried to the wall taps and returned with a glass full of some violet-colored stuff². “This’ll help you, darling.”

I drank it. I felt it slide down my throat into my stomach and then slide up into my head, and as it slid it scraped. As if there were iron combs inside of me. I hollered and shrieked and sweated and in about a minute I was normal.

“My little sparrow feels better?” she smiled.

“Please don’t sparrow me, I’m still weak.”

“Well, darling, I’ll get back to work.”

“Work!” I hooted. “That’s our word, not yours.”

“Is that so? We can work twice as hard as any dozen of you redskins when we’re inoculated — ”

“Inoculated with what? Opgin?”

“Darling,” she smiled. “You’re slowly acquiring a sense of humor. Congratulations. But to answer your question. When we’re inoculated with Bee-Ambo³ we really do work.”

“I don’t know that one.”

“Bee-Ambo is a derivative made of the hormones of the honey bee.”

“And it makes you work?”

“Like a bee.”

“Why isn’t it injected wholesale?” I said excitedly. “Everybody ought to be injected and told the A-I-D is missing. We could organize the greatest manhunt in history — ”

“There’s no need for a manhunt, darling, or They would have ordered it.”

“They!” I exclaimed. “It’s always They. What we should think of is us. People working for themselves, for their future!”

“Darling, you’ve missed the crux of the matter. In order to work well you have to be able to think well. Bee-Ambo would cause people to think for themselves. Why risk a state of intellectual anarchy when we have such marvelous Thinkers?”

“You’ve surrendered your brains to your Marvelous Thinkers!” I shouted. “It might be all right in ordinary times but not now. Now’s the time for everybody to begin thinking, and I mean everybody. You, me, that man who drove the Shrinkmobile, everybody with a life to lose!”

For a second I thought I had convinced her, particularly since she had been intellectually inoculated as you might say. But then her eyes flashed. “I’m loyal to our form of Government!”

“So am I, Gladys, but don’t you think the Government should call on its people in an emergency like this one?”

“What do you want of me?” she snapped. “You must really think I’m that stupid wife of yours, working from sunrise to sundown in that stupid utopia of yours. No, darling, I may resemble your wife but I’m not! I believe in the American way of life and don’t tell me so do you. You’re playing a childish game out of a past we’ve left behind us. You pitiful work slaves! Atomic power¹ had freed us from slavery, biology from hunger. We alone have realized man’s dream of happiness on earth — ”

“The ant’s dream of happiness. Every ant picked for his job at the age of six!”

“Our jobs aren’t important to us, you pitiful fool. We live for happiness. What else does man want on this earth?”

“Happiness, yes, but man is more than a bundle of flesh made for fun. Man is also a thinking, feeling brain and your Thinkers have taken away your brains!”

“I won’t listen to your talk. It’s traitorous!”

“It’s democratic!”

She was silent, and again I thought I had convinced her. Then she said. “This is no time for political debate. While you’ve been indulging that bundle of flesh of yours, I’ve searched Cleo Fly’s room. You might be interested to know she’s an addict.”

“I know all about that Atomic thrill job of hers.”

“I’m talking of her habits off her job, dear bundle,” she said sarcastically. “I found a box of Sweet Dreams in her room. But we better go now.”

“Go where?”

“The Commissioner has reserved her for you for ten tonight.”

“Reserved her?”

“Not as a soul-mate, darling. That’s my assignment. We’re going to Atomic Park. You can’t go on the horrid little amusements there without a trained attendant along. That’s the law.”

“Horrid little amusements,” I repeated nervously.

“I almost went out of my mind on the Rollercoaster!” She sighed. “It’s a risk, darling, especially for someone with your quiet background. But you can’t meet her when she’s Sweet Dreaming. You have to meet her when she’s more or less conscious.”

Listening to her I felt an odd sensation, as if she were really my wife giving me advice.

We went downstairs for a Shrinkmobile. There were none in sight. We crossed the Seine. It was almost evening. The moon shone in the water, while up in the sky the towers and domes of the moon’s cities gleamed with man-made lights. So far away, this outpost of humanity, I thought, and yet so close by Lunar Rocket.

We passed a sidewalk café. At the tables many of the women wore St. Ewagiow outfits, their roenfoam brassieres glowing dimly in the twilight. “This daughter of Barnum Fly must have been a wild one,” I said, “To be picked for a job like hers at the age of six!”

“Her job didn’t exist when she was six. Atomic Park is new. Her father had her transferred to it. He had special privileges as a holder of the Supreme Court Medal of Distinguished Pleasure. Don’t forget he created Atomic Park.”

“He wanted her to work in a place like that! Where she wouldn’t want to marry and have children?”

“You’re so wholesome, darling.”

Before I could answer there was a terrific explosion. The A-I-D! I thought in panic and ran for shelter. Flinging myself under a sidewalk table I waited for the end. And heard laughter. It got louder, closer. In the blinding white light that had followed the explosion, I looked at the legs of a crowd surrounding my table. Somebody pulled at my ankle. I was coaxed out by an L. and O. officer in the uniform of a French gendarme¹. He led me away from the crowd and pointed up at the sky, his pointing finger a bright red, for the light had changed. “There will be five fission-fusion blasts tonight, monsieur,” he explained. “It is the convention. Five fission-fusion blasts but harmless as the breath of a mother. Honi soit qui mal il pense²” he said, and in French fashion kissed me on both cheeks before walking off.

“I see a cab,” Gladys called. “Wait here, darling.”

I felt like the biggest fool in the world. The street was flickering with red light. I started walking. I passed a little square where I had a clear view of the huge mushroom I had first seen in the morning. It had been lit up for the evening. But lit-up doesn’t describe that hideous balloon. It was cooking with colors, smoking and boiling, and only its white skull-shaped center remained constant.

I shook my fist at the nightmare in the sky and at all the St. Ewagiows of this world. No, I vowed to myself, they weren’t going to get this country of mine. “Damn you!” I yelled in my emotion.

Again, the tourists began to flock around me, their faces turning orange and black and red in the changing lights. “What’s the matter with him?” I heard somebody asking. “Too much gay Paree,” somebody else said, and the crowd laughed. Just then Gladys came up in a Shrinkmobile and shouted. “Darling, here I am.”

I got into the cab and she said. “That was a perfect introduction to Atomic Park! Fission-Fusion or do you just feel confusion?”

I was still inside the Funhouse, I thought. But I was no longer bitter. I knew that if I was going to save my way of life, I just had to save their way. It was one world.

Atomic Amusement Park was situated on the western edge of the city, and the first sight of it was depressing. In the middle of a great lawn was a walled city bathed in a strange white light that somehow reminded me of heavy white water. The Shrinkmobiles ahead of it seemed to be traveling along the bottom of a sea. As for Gladys, she had become silent, not a joke in her. “Maybe you won’t pass the test,” she whispered.

“What test?”

“The medical. I’m not going in with you, darling, I can’t, I simply can’t! Driver, stop!”

She kissed me and wished me luck. More depressed than ever I drove in alone through a segment of the wall that seemed to have vanished. Another invention of the magicientist Barnum Fly, I thought. Behind the wall, the procession of Shrinkmobiles pulled up in front of a windowless building that was some fifty feet high and approximately a mile long¹. Above its roof, the name of the Park flickered like lightning: ATOMIC AMUSEMENT PARK.

“You ever go?” I asked my driver.

“When I was younger,” he said. “That Atomic Rollercoaster, there’s a thrill!”

“What’s it like?”

“It’s great, great, but I guess I’m too old.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It was two months before I stopped shaking.”

“Some fun,” I muttered.

“It’s great fun. I just can’t take it any more.”

I got out of the cab and followed the crowd into a big waiting room whose walls and ceiling were covered with soft white gauze. It puzzled me a second until I realized it was nothing but bandage. There were no furnishings, no framed medical diplomas on the walls, no chairs. The crowd stood in small groups, whispering excitedly as they waited. Suddenly a Voice² sounded from somewhere. “Welcome to Atomic Amusement Park. Your entertainment is Our pleasure.” It was a deep booming friendly Voice that reminded me of the doctor we had back home.

The whispering stopped and a second later, one of the white walls rolled itself up to the ceiling. Scores of medical objects, each about six foot tall, approached us. There were scissors and scalpels, and bottles of various colored medicines. There were round white pills and narrow blue ones.

“Welcome to Atomic Amusement Park and please follow the nurses,” the Voice instructed us.

The scissors and other instruments made of two or more joined parts, opened and closed as if walking, while the legless bottles and pills slithered along. A pill that was half yellow and half red paused in front of me, and in a calm motherly voice, it said, “This way, please.”

I felt a little dazed, but without any hesitation obeyed. It guided me to a small office. I went inside and was received by a doctor, a human doctor in a white uniform with the letters of the Park, AAP, above his top pocket. He asked me to sit down in a big gleaming chair with elaborate medical apparatus¹ attached to its arms and back. When I was seated, he pressed a button. A theromometer was thrust into my mouth, and at the same time a metal finger dabbed the tip of my finger with a swab of cotton. A second metal finger darted a blood specimen needle into the swabbed spot while the lung-searcher and six or seven other major organ investigators began to examine my lungs, kidneys, liver, heart etc.

The examination or examinations took only a few minutes. Before I knew it, the doctor was saying. “Get up, man. Get up. Don’t look as if you’ve been through torture. You’re in good shape.” He went to a shelf and picked up a badge which he showed me before pinning it on to my jacket. It was engraved with the letter C.

“What does the C stand for, doctor?”

“You in health work?”

“No, I’m just curious, doctor.”

He stared at me with disbelief. “You must be in health work.”

“No doctor.”

“You’re the first patient in months to ask. Your heart, lungs, nerves are in good shape but most important is your collagen. That’s what the C stands for. It’s a fibrous material composed of seventeen different amino-acids and it holds your joints together. Collegen keeps your organs in place, too, I might add. If your collagen ratio isn’t just right, this Park isn’t for you. We had too many accidents when we first opened. Have fun!”

Outside his office my yellow and red pill was waiting. “You’ve passed your medical,” it said in its calm motherly voice. “Isn’t that nice? Now you just follow me, dear, to the attendants.”

We went into a big room lit up with the strange white light I had first seen approaching the Park. The attendants stood in rows like fish in a tank, all dressed alike in skintight black suits. The Park insignia, AAP, gleamed against their chests. In that light they seemed inhuman; their faces were so expressionless, they were so alike, their hair cropped close so that if you only looked at the faces there was no telling the men from the women. And they were all beautiful.

One of those attendants was Cleo Fly, I thought, as the Voice, that friendly Voice, boomed, “Congratulations, all you fortunate wearers of the C. You’ve won your letter. Congratulations.”

I wasn’t the only one excited. Nearly all the C-wearers were chattering or giggling or staring at the attendants who stood silent and motionless as statues.

“Your entertainment is Our Pleasure!” the Voice boomed. “Attendants!”

They walked over to us. A beautiful black-haired girl stood before me. “Are you Cleo?” I asked.

She nodded indifferently and in a cold professional voice said, “Atomic Amusement Park offers two rides, sir. There is the main ride on the Atomic Rollercoaster. And a preparatory ride that you can select. There is the Constant K Ferris Wheel, the Hall of Quantum Mirrors, the Proton-Neutron Tunnel of Love, the Meson Thunderbolt. Select any ride you wish and afterwards we’ll go on the Rollercoaster.”

I was, by now, not only tense, but dizzy. That strange white light seemed to be sinking into my eyes, changing my outlook on things. I mean my mental outlook¹. All about me I saw the attendants pairing off with the thrill-seekers. “The Thunderbolt!” I heard one of them saying. A woman giggled hysterically and said, “I guess I’ll try the Hall of Quantum Mirrors — ”

It was only with a powerful effort that I recalled the Commissioner’s instructions. This cold-voiced attendant waiting for my answer was an assignment. ‘The Tunnel of Love,” I said.

She took my hand as if I were a child. We went into a dimly lit corridor that expanded and contracted like a giant worm. On its rounded walls, murals unrolled — moving murals that were like dreams, the secret dreams of the passions and orgies that sometimes haunt us when we sleep — and shadowy naked man and women did naked things. They shocked me and they fascinated me.

“Nature is a pairing!” the Voice said suddenly. “Magic pairs, magic numbers. Why does the helium nucleus have two protons and two neutrons? The oxygen nucleus eight protons and eight neutrons? Two, the magic number two. Magic pairs, Magic numbers! Nature is a pairing of proton-males and neutron-females that between them create the family of particles. Magic numbers, magic pairs!”

The corridor, this expanding and contracting corridor, suddenly went black, and I felt myself moving with Cleo as if we were being blown round and round by some force outside ourselves, and as we circled, the Voice seemed to circle with us. “You are now in the Proton-Neutron Tunnel of Love! Men, think of yourselves as electrically charged protons! Women, think of yourselves as negatively charged neutrons¹. Mysterious nature …”

There was no glimmer of light anywhere, and yet I sensed that we were all circling together as if in a dance whose music was the Voice.

“Why does the neutron emit an electron to become a proton? Why does the proton emit a positron to become a neutron? Sublime swap of opposites! Proton-Males and Neutron-Females, would you like to exchange your sex in the Tunnel of Love?”

To someone like me it sounded positively immoral, but as we swung through the blackness, I thought, Crockett, this is an assignment. An assignment. Cleo is suspect number one. Number one, number one, I kept thinking and squeezed her hand that I was holding. It was limp and cold like the hand of a ghost. “Cleo,” I said with determination. “You’re beautiful, Cleo.”

“Don’t call me Cleo,” she whispered.

“What shall I call you?”

“Neutron.”

“Neutron?” I almost gagged, but gritting my teeth I said, “Dear Neutron.”

“Dear Proton,” she whispered but even her whisper was cold.

The blackness was no longer complete. Blue and red spots of misty light¹ appeared for an instant and then vanished. I could see the face of the neutron I was with, and the more distant faces of the other couples. Now and then we collided but there was no sensation of impact. We had all become lighter than feathers, small as particles of dust whirling around in limitless space where only the Voice was constant.

“Mystery of nature! Energy is matter, and matter is energy. Proton-Males and Neutron-Females, are you ready to surrender your energy? Surrender, surrender, emit your positrons and electrons, surrender, surrender …”

Cleo’s face, now bluish, now reddish, floated dreamily close to me and there was a little smile on her lips. As there were little smiles on all their faces, on all the bluish and reddish faces. I had forgotten about the Commissioner. I felt as if I were fainting, a pleasant fainting, oh so pleasant and wonderful, and the Voice seemed inside of me. Cleo’s eyes had closed like a woman asleep in her bed and a distant memory of my sleeping wife stirred in my mind. I could see my wife asleep, and responding in sleep to my caresses.

“Surrender, surrender,” the Voice was saying. “Surrender in the Tunnel of Love, the Ultimate Sex Pool, protons into neutrons and neutrons into protons …”

And then I no longer heard any words, only sound, a roaring steady sound as if all the winds of the world were blowing, the blue and red lights swinging like dying lanterns in an immense blackness, and the sensation I felt was no longer gentle. For I was caught up in those winds and I was no longer holding Cleo’s hand but was paired with her, mouth to mouth, body to body, trembling and shaking, the blue and red lanterns like shooting stars, the blackness burning. Yes, burning itself, for all about were streaks and jags of green and yellow and purple². The trembling and shaking became more and more violent, and it was wonderful, the lights fusing, a rainbow of color that only lasted a second, and with a bursting sensation of relief I watched the rainbow colors die out in the blackness, and there was only blackness, and with it came a feeling I had never known before, the feeling of being a woman.

A woman! Made like a woman, a woman….

And then the ride was over. That strange heavy white light poured in on us. Cleo pulled free from my hold and joined the other attendants. Again they stood in a row, emotionless and passionless in their black skintight suits. Not so the rest of us. Some stumbled as if drunk. Others laughed. One woman who had just felt herself to be a man strutted about like a crazy rooster while two or three protons who had been changed into neutrons fingered their chests as if astonished at their lack of neutron breasts. I controlled myself. What I felt I will omit since it has no bearing on the events of this history.

And clear and friendly, the Voice sounded. “Did you enjoy the Proton-Neutron Tunnel of Love? And now for the biggest thrill of all — The Atomic Rollercoaster. Remember, the Atomic Rollercoaster helps condition you for space travel! A human being in space must exert sufficient internal pressure to drive oxygen into and carbon dioxide out of the blood stream. You are all physically fit and your collagen ratios are excellent. But you must be just as fit psychologically. You must know what is ahead of you in order to retain your mental balance! A trip on the Atomic Rollercoaster lasts thirty-one minutes but it will feel like eternity. Thirty-one minutes of sensational pleasure. Your entertainment is Our Pleasure! Attendants!”

Again, they stepped forward, and Cleo took my hand. I stared at her cold face, and I couldn’t believe she had ever smiled, or that I had ever kissed her in the Tunnel of Love. At the end of the corridor we entered a room built of glass. Ceiling floor, walls were all glass, and above us and below and on all sides, other glass rooms stretched to what seemed infinity. Oh, the feeling. As if I were inside the very inside of things.

“Illusion!” the Voice said. “These glass chambers reproduce the ion glass-microscope with which the first pictures of atoms were taken. Pictures, 20,000,000 times in magnification! Illusion equals eternity! Eternity equals illusion! Be prepared to be reduced in size. How else can man enter the tiniest of all worlds where billions of atoms can fit on the point of a pin? Illusion equals eternity! The Atomic Rollercoaster will take you on a trip to the atom of uranium whose nucleus has a diameter of of a centimeter. Don’t be alarmed, folks! Remember that after exactly thirty-one minutes you will return to your normal size and weight. Some day when man completely controls his biology, he will truly enter the atom, but in this twenty-first century your Management can only create the illusion. Do you understand? Are there any questions?”

There was a moment of silence but nobody spoke up.

“If any of you wish to turn back please say so,” the Voice boomed.

Again, there was silence and the Voice said. “Illusion equals eternity. I=E, and E=I.”

And there before us as if materialized out of the Voice stood a dozen automatons¹, their bodies black metal like the black skintight suits of the attendants, their arms and legs white metal. They had white metal faces or rather slightly curved surfaces without features on which the letters² E=mc2 were elevated and so designed that they seemed to be two spectacles joined together by the = sign.

They must have whirled up, faster than sight, out of the glass floor, for when they moved, they changed into blackish-whitish streaks. The next thing I knew, one of them was attaching a black belt around Cleo’s waist. Its white metal hand whizzed towards its own middle, and from it a second black belt was in its hands and around my waist. All in a flash! I saw now that Cleo’s belt and my belt, all the black belts were lettered in white; ION.³

“Are you ready, IONS?” the Voice asked. “Are you ready to bomb the nucleus of the uranium atom?”

I thought of the Tunnel of Love, and the Atomic Rollercoaster ahead of us, and lucky for me my collagen ratio was in tip-top shape. I fingered my black belt with nervous fingers. “Is it steel?” I whispered to Cleo.

“Can’t you enjoy yourself without asking questions?”

“Is it steel?”

“Yes, for the Dee-magnets⁴, and now please keep still.”

“Ions, march!” the Voice ordered.

Led by our attendants, we entered a second glass room, but this one was much larger, and the two magictomatums inside it seemed four or five times bigger than those in the first glass room. They waved us on into the next room, and the next, so many that I lost count. And each time, the glass rooms became more and more immense, the magictomatums so tall that I had to lift my head to see them. It was like trying to see the tops of trees. Far up, I could see their black faces and white E=mc2’s gleaming under the distant glass of the ceilings. And we came to a room where I couldn’t see their faces, only the ever rising blackness of their bodies, only the whiteness of their legs, and even the Voice began to sound distant.

“Ions, you are getting smaller and smaller! But remember — Illusion equals eternity, I=E.”

Glass room after glass room, and now the feet of the magictomatums no longer had the shapes of feet but seemed to stretch for miles and miles, a white wall, and although I remembered what the Voice had said about illusion, and told myself it was nothing but a series of distortions in a series of mirrors, still the terrible fear went through me that I was actually shrinking down and down and down. Smaller than an ant, a hundred times smaller, a thousand times smaller, a million times smaller, for in the next room the white wall was no longer a wall but like all the snow in the world, a white eternity. And only the Voice like the voice of God saying. “Ions, you are approaching the ladder to the ion source!”

And in that immensity where nothing had a shape, it was fantastic to see a ladder looming up ahead of us. I gripped Cleo’s hand tighter. It was a hand, it was a miracle, as she was a miracle in her black suit, a miracle of shape in a white world without shape or dimension. I stared at her with tears in my eyes, and at the other couples, I felt as if we were the last people alive, come in pairs to witness the birth of a new world out of all that shapelessness.

The first couples were already climbing up the ladder — a ladder that seemed to be about twenty times as high as any of us and ending at a round hole, a hole of light, pink light.

“Where does it go, Cleo?”

“To the ion source.”

“And where does that go?”

“To the Rollercoaster¹.”

I hesitated when it was our turn to climb. She pulled gently on my hand and smiled for the first time since the Tunnel of Love. “Let’s go, Ion,” she whispered. We went up the ladder to the pink glow. The couples who had preceded us were standing at the base of what appeared to be an endless curved wall, whose top I couldn’t see, made of odd shaped brick.² Other couples were coming up the ladder out of the white void we had left, through the pink hole of light.

“Ions!” the Voice said at last. “You are about to board the Rollercoaster. Step this way, step lively! Board the Rollercoaster and move at the speed of one hundred million electric volts³! Your entertainment is Our pleasure! Smash the riddle of the universe, the nucleus of the uranium atom!”

I must have balked, for Cleo’s hand, holding mine, tightened as if to calm me. “It will be very pleasant,” she whispered.

“Ready, Ions?” the Voice asked. “Ready now! Steady now! Obey your attendants!”

“Jump!” Cleo said and her eyes were bright, and she was smiling.

“Jump where?” I asked, and again she smiled. I felt myself shivering from head to foot.

“We have to jump from gravity. Like this,” she said, tugging on my hand. I shut my eyes and jumped. Right away, a gentle swinging motion carried us off. It was like being on a combination swing and merry-go-round. I opened my eyes and stared at the ions ahead of us, all of us swinging up and down, the merry-go-round taking us around and around, everything pink like a pink atmosphere, and far away, a million miles away, the towering Dees. I looked at Cleo, and I smiled also, and as we circled I felt a tingle, a nice pleasant tingle. It was the first charge⁴. Now, the swing swung us higher. Now, the merry-go-round went faster. The Dees, although still a million miles away, were a little closer, and then there was another tingle. Up we swung higher and faster, and Cleo was smiling with joy as we whirled around the next spiral. There was another tingle, and another, the spirals lengthening, and the next tingle wasn’t so pleasant, and the next was like the shock of death — but we didn’t die. Death changed into life, a swifter life, a swifter speed as the Dees came closer and closer, and the Voice spieling at us. “Ions, you’re on your way at one million electric volts. Two million electric volts. Three million electric volts! On your way to the world of the uranium atom! Uranium 235, one of the lighter isotopes! Your ancestors first released the energy of the uranium atom by splitting the nucleus! On your way at four million electric volts!”

The sensations of the swing and the merry-go-round became one sensation, and I waited for the next shock with fear and delight, knowing now that it wouldn’t kill me, but still fearing it, and when it came and I was accelerated ever faster I laughed with joy. Ever faster, so fast I no longer felt as if I had a body with a body’s parts but had been reduced to a particle of fear and delight, roaring down those infinite spirals, the Dees closer and closer, leaning inwards as if about to collapse. And Cleo was laughing with joy — I couldn’t hear her but I could see her head shaking on her neck.

“You’re on your way to the riddle of the universe!” the Voice boomed. “Five million electric volts! Ten million electric volts! One hundred million electric volts!”

Higher! Faster! And higher still, and even faster, a whir, a whiz, a whoosh and now there was a new sensation, not that of the swing or merry-go-round, but a push. A push building up behind us, pushing so hard, so terrible, that I felt as if I were about to burst and fly apart — and suddenly we shot out into space where there was only the Voice.

“Ions, you have entered a vast theatre of electric-magnetic forces! Between the nucleus of the uranium atom and its nearest orbit there is a gap vaster in proportion than the space between our sun and the orbit of the earth. Ions, ahead of you is the riddle of the universe!”

Far far away, oh so far away like a far away star, was the world we were speeding to, on its outskirts a host of dead little moons circling on seven orbits.

“Ahead of you are the electrons, the ninety-two electrons of the uranium atom!”

I felt as if I had wings, wings of voltage immeasurable, winging through space to this distant solar system. I felt I had wings, and when we passed through the outermost of the seven orbits, oh, God, who can describe the feeling of wonder, a wonder Columbus must have felt when he sighted the new world — and a new world it was, blazing with color.

“The riddle of the universe where energy is changed into matter and matter into energy! The spectacle of the ages! Look at those particles of mass ahead of you! Those blue comets are positrons. Those purple meteors are mesons. Look at those particles of energy. Those orange asteroids are photons. Those green rays are gravitons. The spectacle of the ages! Matter into energy, energy into matter!”

Blue positrons, purple mesons, orange photons, green gravitons whirled on journeys of their own, streaking up and down and sideways like a colored rain defying gravity — and through that rain I could see the core of this universe, the nucleus of the atom becoming larger and larger. We roared through the last of the seven orbits and suddenly the nucleus had become immense, and it was vibrating, alive, its protons and neutrons — ninety-two protons and one hundred and forty-six neutrons — looming up like continents under clouds of purplish mesons, and between the continents strange islands formed and vanished, creation and annihilation in a single breath, the life and death of worlds within a world. And now, for the first time I felt that our furious momentum forward was being opposed, that some huge force within the world ahead of us was pushing out at us, stronger and stronger the closer we came, and I didn’t want to be pushed away, for there before me was the riddle of the universe, birth into death and death into birth, genesis. Forward we rushed against the force repelling us, and the continents were no longer separate, but merging, swallowing up the strange islands, and I felt that I, too, would be swallowed up, but I no longer cared, for the riddle of the universe was so close, so close, so close …

When suddenly we whizzed off our path like an arrow bent in midair, and with a dizzying sensation, I stared at the first of the electron orbits, the second orbit beyond it, and the third, and furthest away the seventh orbit with its circling dead moons. Through the seven orbits we traveled, and the Voice that had been silent was saying: “Your entertainment is Our pleasure, folks! Your entertainment is Our Pleasure, folks!”

Slower and slower we moved, and in my disappointment I turned towards Cleo. She was smiling, her eyelids fluttering. I watched them open and almost by the second they began to glaze, her smile vanishing, her face hardening into the cold face of the professional attendant she was.

“The ride’s over, folks. Step off the Rollercoaster, folks. Step lively, folks. The decelerating chamber is straight ahead.”

Folks, I thought numbly. We were folks! Human beings, only human beings. We had lost space and mystery, come back into our own bodies.

Cleo led me into what seemed to be the first of the glass rooms. As we entered we rose up from the glass floor like balloons. “Relax,” she said in her professional voice. “Close your eyes and relax.”

“Relax,” all the other attendants were saying. I felt brokenhearted at what I had lost, but I closed my eyes.

“The universe is made up of fundamental particles,” she whispered.

“Fundamental particles …” I heard the other attendants like a chorus.

And Cleo. “They combine to make iron or hydrogen, bone or muscle.”

“Bone or muscle,” I heard the other attendants.

“Their interactions make suns or mountains, grass or blood. What would you like to be? Think of something soothing? Would you like to be a star? A blade of grass?”

Floating in that decelerating chamber, I felt something of what had been mine as an ion, but without the speed or fury, the fear or delight, the overwhelming forces of nature or the joy of discovery.

“Relax,” she kept urging me.

I thought of the grass back home, the first grass of summer, and I wept, watering myself and my lost dreams with my own tears.

I was lucky. Three of the other C-Wearers had to be hospitalized. We, the survivors, as you might say, were escorted by our attendants to the exit. “Goodbye, come again,” Cleo said professionally.

“Can’t I see you?”

“I have another tour of duty.”

“I mean when you’re through working.”

She shrugged and walked off. I decided to wait for her, and when she saw me again she yawned. I couldn’t blame her. After a second thirty-one minute spin on the Rollercoaster, not to mention the preliminary ride through the Tunnel of Love, or the Hall of Quantum Mirrors, her emotions were well taken care of.

She had removed her skintight Park uniform and was wearing a St. Ewagiow dress. As we stepped into a Shrinkmobile I said, “I didn’t think you would be interested in the latest style.”

“Oh, leave me alone,” she said, cuddling up in a corner of the cab. She was beautiful, yes, a beautiful neutron, and the assignment I had was impossible, I thought. I only persisted because this thrill addict happened to be suspect number one.

She yawned at my advances, yawned at my compliments, and finally in disgust as we neared Greater Miami I said. “All you love is that damned job of yours!”

“Oh, go away,” she yawned.

“I’ll see you in my dreams. A box of Sweet Dreams and you,” I said bitterly.

Suddenly she almost seemed to become human. “Do you use Sweet Dreams?”

“I do,” I said.

“Know what I dream of?”

“The Rollercoaster.”

“How did you guess? I dream that some day the magicientist at the controls will make a mistake.”

“That would mean death, wouldn’t it?”

“We’d smash into the world of Urania 235 and die!” she exclaimed. “Oh, what a wonderful thrill.” She was smiling like an angel.

After I had left her and reported to the Commissioner, I couldn’t forget that smile. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s really sympathetic to the St. Ewagiow,” I said. “She’s a death addict!”

And that was the lead we worked on. The next day, with the Park’s chief magicientist, Dr. Lawrence¹ Quipper, I called on Cleo Fly. There was no answer to my knock. The doctor smiled and rearranged the molecular structure of the lock with a pocket-size cyclotron². We went inside and found Cleo asleep on a couch, a box of Sweet Dreams on the floor.

“One second,” the doctor said and he took out a tiny rod from his pocket, explaining that it was the latest model of Consciousness-Exhilarator, or Con-Ex. He touched her breast with it, above her heart, and in less than a minute she sat up on the couch, her face confused and unhappy.

She stared at the doctor in his black and purple cape and black hat with purple feather¹. She gasped. “Dr. Quipper,” she said in a shaky voice. “This is a great honor.”

“Cleo,” he said softly. “We’ve been thinking of an experiment where the Rollercoaster, instead of being deflected at the last minute, will actually penetrate Urania 235. But we haven’t as yet solved the problem of the safety factor. Do you understand?”

She nodded, and her black eyes began to glow.

“An experiment is necessary: Science demands it, Cleo. Such an experiment could mean death at the first venture. Would you want to volunteer?”

In her baggy St. Ewagiow dress with its miniature silver coffin, she had looked about as lifeless as a piece of beautiful mortuary. But now she was trembling with excitement. “I’m dreaming,” she whispered. “I must be dreaming.”

“Cleo, submit your application tonight when you report for duty!” and without another word the doctor left the room.

“It’s a dream!” she cried, getting to her feet and staring at me with frightened eyes. “Who are you?”

“I can make your dream come true,” I said.

She was trembling, but like any addict, her longing was stronger than her fears and doubts. She wanted to believe me. And this was the moment for me to make love to her. I couldn’t. I was sorry for that poor girl, and I was repelled by her, too. I cursed the Commissioner, I cursed the spoiled L. and O. operatives so accustomed to their roenfoam sweethearts and One-Shot Animateds that they wouldn’t go near a Silver-Corder². I simply couldn’t touch that poor miserable trembling creature.

“Cleo, I’m from L. and O.,” I said on the impulse. “Please listen to me. I know your father has joined the St. Ewagiow. But I can get him a full Presidential pardon. Believe me, that’s the truth! Your father only became a St. Ewagiow when he lost all he had. Cleo, he has the A-I-D! I shouldn’t tell you this, but I will. He has the A-I-D, and if he turns it over to us, he’ll be pardoned, reinstated as a master magicientist! Believe me, that’s the truth, and you must help me.”

“It’s a dream,” she murmured fearfully. “A dream.”

“No, it’s not, Cleo. You heard Dr. Lawrence Quipper — ”

“A dream!” she screamed and ran into her bedroom, slamming the door.

I knocked on the door, and when there was no answer I went inside. She was stretched out on the bed and next to her was a newly-opened box of Sweet Dreams. Even as I watched her, the frightened expression on her face was changing. A little smile came to her lips, and that was how I left her, dreaming sweet dreams of cosmic death.

I was too ashamed to report my failure to Commissioner Sonata. I returned to my hotel, where Gladys greeted me excitedly. “Darling, we’ve got our first good news. Barnum Fly’s in town!”

“How do you know?”

“There’s been another murder, the ninth murder, with that cute little slip of his, ‘Everybody Dies on July 4th’. Isn’t that wonderful news?”

I thought of how stupid I had been, and walked to the wall taps.

“Not now, darling!” she cried. “To quote the St. Ewagiow — there’s a time to live and a time to die, a time for opgin and a time for optimism.”

“Gladys, I’ve messed up everything!” I confessed, and told her what a stupid moralistic fool I was.

She listened to me quietly. Then she sighed. “You are a fool but I like you for it. So you couldn’t make love to her?” She patted my hand. “That’s flattering to me, darling. But you better go back to Cleo, darling.”

“Why?” I groaned.

“Historical necessity, my little Eros.”

“Why can’t someone else — ”

She laughed. “I’ve heard you call our men butterflies. And that’s what they are. Butterflies flitting from flower to flower in the hothouse that is the Funhouse.”

I stared at her. “You’re the subversive now!”

“It must be that Bee-Ambo,” she sighed and rubbed at her forehead. “Damn it, I’m thinking too much for my own good. You must go back, darling.”

“No,” I said.

“Barnum Fly’s in town! The A-I-D is here! You must go back. It’s your duty to mankind, that mankind of yours about whom you’re always preaching so tiresomely.” She glanced at me quickly and her blue eyes were so serious they reminded me of my wife’s. “I had some other news from the Commissioner. Cleo is a bonafide member of the St. Ewagiow. That father of her’s did a good job of ruining her life.”

“I have an idea,” I said. “The man to make love to her is Dr. Quipper! He’s the man to make her dream come true. Why, she’d do anything for him.”

“You don’t understand, darling. We all have our assignments and Cleo Fly is your assignment, not Dr. Quipper’s.” She stared at me for a second and then hurried to her closet. Swiftly, she took off her white Formfitte and pulled a black St. Ewagiow dress out of the closet. She put it on, turned towards me and touched the attached silver skull pin. “Death the Glorious!” she said in a low sad voice. “Death, the Victorious!”

“Are you mad?” I exclaimed.

Her blue eyes, the eyes of my wife Ruth, flashed angrily. “Let’s not waste time. I’ll prove you can make love to a skeleton if you have to.”

“Assignments!” I shouted. “Whose assignments? The Board’s! They’re so damned rigid, so damned inflexible — ”

She lifted her head towards the ceiling, and it was amazing how she had managed to transform her round plump face so that it seemed thin and hollow-cheeked, “I have seen the light!” she exclaimed as if talking to that infernal mushroom. “Death, the Glorious, the Victorious! Oh, to die in victorious fusion!”

She carried on in this way for another minute like a genuine St. Ewagiow. It was as if she were inside some sheath, some embalming fluid that sealed her in from anything I could say.

“Gladys!” I begged her. “Let’s see Sonata!”

Suddenly, she became herself again. “You fool, do you want to get us all into trouble? We have our instructions from the Board. Make love to me! Pretend I’m Cleo! See if you can memorize these lines. They’ll impress her.”

“Please, Gladys, darling — ”

“Don’t darling me! Memorize these lines.” And she recited:

“We will soon drink from eternity

Where we will discard all infirmity …”

“Who wrote them?” I muttered.

“R. Night Bauden, the poet laureate of the St. Ewagiow. The British Government put him in prison after the St. Ewagiow bombings in London in 1991.”

I memorized the lines and she recited two more:

“There is no help this side of the grave

Who says otherwise is prophet false and knave …”

“Damn!” I shouted. “Gladys, this is mad, mad, mad!”

She slapped my face. “I’m trying to help you do your duty, you fool.” She put her arms around my waist and in that low sad voice she whispered. “Kiss me, skeleton. For what are we but skeletons temporarily paroled to life?”

I tried to push her away, and she became angry. “How many days do you think there are to the 4th? You simply have to make love to that St. Ewagiow.”

“I guess you’re right,” I said gloomily.

“Let’s have those lines of R. Night Bauden.”

But I had forgotten them, and she looked at me with disgust. “You simply have no head for cultural things!” she said. “You better try a system, some quantitative system. You might try kissing her fifteen times in succession. Can you remember that, my stupid little sparrow?” She seized me and began kissing me and between kisses she said, “I love you!” Fifteen times, she said it, and when she was finished I didn’t want to let go. She laughed and wriggled out of my arms.

“Damn!” I said.

“Compliment her eyes. Maybe you can remember these lines?” And she recited:

I shook my head, and she said. “When you see her take along some of R. Night Bauden’s pamphlets. He’s written one on the subject of Universal Redemption. His argument is that since the earth is doomed eventually to become a frozen planet, time is on the side of the St. Ewagiow. They can fail in their historic mission, but Death, the last kind Mother, will eventually grant mankind Universal Redemption.”

“Gladys, must I?”

“You must, darling,” she sighed. “You better go now, I think you’ll acquit yourself with sextinction.” But despite the inevitable humor her face was unsmiling.

“You don’t want me to go, Gladys.”

“Go, go!” she shouted angrily.

Well, what could I do? (Ruth, forgive me. I did it for you and our children, for everybody’s children.)

I went back to suspect number one and convinced her she hadn’t been dreaming. That evening at the Atomic Amusement Park she filled out the application Dr. Lawrence Quipper had promised. The doctor excused her from her tour of duty, and when we drove back to Greater Miami, I again applied the fifteen-times technique. Later, in her room, as she lay quietly in my arms, I asked her how I could contact her father. She wept. I reminded her of the application and again promised that her father would receive a full Presidential pardon. It was another half hour before she whispered her secret. Whenever she wanted to reach her father she inserted an advertisement in “Magicience-and-You’.¹ Now that she had told me, she wept hysterically. “I’ve betrayed my own father!” she kept on saying. I could only soothe her by reminding her that she would be on the first experimental trip into Urania 235. Gradually, she quieted down and began kissing me. At the sixth or seventh kiss I was suspicious. Maybe imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but there should be some kind of decent interval. I broke away from that feverish addict. My mission was accomplished, and I wanted an advertisement in the very next edition. A special edition, if necessary, could be ordered by the Commissioner.

Downstairs in the lobby, I went into an Airwave² booth and, when I had the Commissioner, I said in the code we had agreed upon. “Operation love successful. Radiation recommended for protection from Martians now that she has given us Formula Minus X³.”

Or, decoded: “Cleo F. is a woman after all. L. and O. protection recommended against St. Ewagiow now that she has given us information we wanted.”