contained in the rat liver extract. "We're ready for your mysterious test,"

said Virgil. "Hope you don't mind."

 

"I love working with mad scientists-- never dull. What's that?" "Mostly grain

alcohol. This machine will answer your question, though, if it's fixed."

 

A few hours later they had the results: a strip of paper with a line squiggled

across it by the machine. Virgil compared this graph with similar ones from a

long skinny book.

 

"Shit," said Virgil, showing rare surprise. "I didn't think anything could

live with this much Thalphene in its guts. Thalphene! These things have

incredible immunities."

 

"What is it? I don't know anything about chemistry." "Trade name for

thallium phenoxide." Virgil crossed his arms and looked at the ceiling.

"Dangerous Properties of Industrial Materials, my favorite bedtime reading,

says this about thallium compounds. I abbreviate. 'Used in rat poison and

depilatories ... results in swelling of feet and legs, arthralgia, vomiting.

insomnia, hyperaesthesia and paresthesia of hands and feet, mental confusion,

polyneuritis with severe pains in legs and loins, partial paralysis and

degeneration of legs, angina, nephritis, wasting, weakness ... complete loss

of hair . . ha! Fatal poisoning has been known to occur.'"

 

"No kidding!"

 

"Under phenols we have.. . 'where death is delayed, damage to kidneys, liver,

pancreas, spleen, edema of the lungs, headache, dizziness, weakness, dimness

of vision, loss of consciousness, vomiting, severe abdominal pain, corrosion

of lips, mouth, throat, esophagus and stomach'."

 

"Okay, I get the idea."

 

"And that doesn't account for synergistic effects. These rats eat the stuff

all the time."

 

"So they go through a lot of rat poison, these rats do." "It looks to me,"

said Virgil, "as though they live on it. But if you don't mind my prying, why

do you care?"

 

Casimir was slightly embarrassed, but he knew Virgil's secret, so it was only

fair to bare his own. "In order for Project Spike to work, they have to be

heavy rat-poison eaters. I'm going to collect rat poison off the floors and

expose it to the slow neutron source in Sharon's lab. It's a little chunk of

a beryllium isotope on a piece of plutonium, heavily shielded in paraffin--

looks like a garbage can on wheels. Paraffin stops slow neutrons, see. Anyway,

when I expose the rat poison to the neutrons, some of the carbon in the poison

will turn to Carbon- 14. Carbon- 14 is used in dating. of course, so there are

plenty of machines around to detect small amounts of it. Anyway, I set this

tagged poison out near the Cafeteria. Then I analyze samples of Cafeteria food

for unusually high levels of Carbon- 14. If I get a high reading. .

 

"It means rats in the food."

 

"Either rats, or their hair or feces."

 

"That's awesome blackmail material, Casimir. I wouldn't have thought it of

you.

 

Casimir looked up at Virgil, shocked and confused. After a few seconds he

seemed to understand what Virgil had meant. "Oh, well, I guess that's true.

The thing is, I'm not that interested in blackmail. It wouldn't get me

anything. I just want to do this, and publicize the results. The main thing is

the challenge."

 

A rare full grin was on Virgil's face. "Damn good, Casimir, That's marvelous.

Nice work." He thought it over, taken with the idea. "You'll have the biggest

gun in the Plex, you know." "That's not what I'm after with this project."

 

"Let me know if I can help. Hey, you want to go downstairs to the Denny's

for lunch? I don't want to eat in the Cafeteria while I'm thinking about the

nature of your experiment."

 

"I don't want to eat at all, after what I've just been doing," said Casimir.

"But maybe later on we can dissolve our own livers in ethanol." He put the

beaker of rat potion in a hazardous-waste bin, logged down its contents, and

they departed.

 

And lest anyone get the wrong idea, a disclaimer: I did not know about this

while it was going on. They told me about it later. The people who have

claimed I bear some responsibility for what happened later do not know the

facts.

 

"What makes you think you can just play a record?" said Ephraim Klein in a

keen, irritated voice. "I'm listening to harpsichord music,"

 

"Oh," John Wesley Fenrick said innocently. "I didn't hear it. I guess my ears

must have gone bad from all my terrible music, huh?" "Looks that way."

 

"But it's okay, I'm not going to play a record."

 

"I should hope not."

 

"I'm going to play a tape." Fenrick brushed his finger against an invisible

region on the surface of the System, and lights lit and meters wafted up and

down. The mere sound of Silence, reproduced by this machine, nearly drowned

out the harpsichord, a restored 1783 Prussian model with the most exquisite

lute stop Klein had. ever heard. Fenrick turned on the Go Big Red Fan, which

began to chunk away as usual.

 

"Look," said Ephraim Klein, "I said I was playing something. You can't just

bust in."

 

"Well," said John Wesley Fenrick, "I said I can't hear it. If I don't hear any

evidence that you are playing something, there's no reason I should take your

word for it. You obviously have a distorted idea of reality."

 

"Prick! Asshole!" But Klein had already pulled out one of his war tapes,

the "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" as performed by Virgil Fox (what Fenrick

called "horror movie music") and snapped it into his own tape deck. He set the

tape rolling and prepared to switch from PHONO to TAPE at the first hint of

offensive action from Fenrick.

 

It was not long in coming. Fenrick had been sinking into a Heavy Metal

retrospective recently, and entered the competition with Back in Black by

AC/DC. Klein watched Fenrick's hands carefully and was barely able to squeeze

out a lead, the organist hitting the high mordant at the opening of the piece

before the ensuing fancy notes were stomped into the sonic dust by Back in

Black.

 

From there the battle raged typically. A hundred feet down the hall, I stuck

my head out the door to have a look. Angel, the enormous Cuban who lived

on our floor, had been standing out in the hallway for about half an hour

furiously pounding on the wall with his boxing gloves, laboriously lengthening

a crack he had started in the first week of the semester. When I looked, he

was just in the act of hurling open the door to Klein and Fenrick's room;

dense, choking clouds of music whirled down the corridor at Mach 1 and struck

me full in the face.

 

I started running. By the time I had arrived, Angel had wrapped Fenrick's

long extension cord around the doorknob, held it with his boxing gloves, put

his foot against the door, and pulled it apart with a thick blue spark and

a shower of fire. The extension cord shorted out and smoked briefly until

circuit breakers shut down all public-area power to the wing.

 

AC/DC went dead, clearing the air for the climax of the fugue. Angel walked

past the petrified Ephraim Klein and pawed at the tape deck, trying to get

at the tape. Frustrated by the boxing gloves, he turned and readied a mighty

kick into the cone of a sub-woofer, when finally I arrived and tackled him

onto a bed. Angel relaxed and sat up, occasionally pounding his bright-red

cinderblock-scarred gloves together with meaty thwats, sweating like the boxer

he was, glowering at the Go Big Red Fan.

 

The fugue ended and Ephraim shut off the tape. I went over and closed the

door. "Okay, guys, time for a little talk. Everyone want to have a little

talk?"

 

John Wesley Fenrick looked out the window, already bored, and nodded almost

imperceptibly. Ephraim Klein jumped to his feet and yelled, "Sure, sure,

anytime! I'm happy to be reasonable!" Angel, who was unlacing his right boxing

glove with his teeth, mumbled, "I been talking to them for two months and they

don't do shit about it."

 

"Hmm," I said, "I guess that tells the story, doesn't it? If you two refuse

to be reasonable, Angel doesn't have to be reasonable either. Now it seems to

me you need a set of rules that you can refer to when you're arguing about

stereo rights. For instance, if one guy goes to pee, the other can't seize air

rights. You can't touch each other's property, and so on. Ephraim, give me

your typewriter and we'll get this down."

 

So we made the Rules and I taped them to the wall, straddling the boundary

line of the room. "Does that mean I only have to follow the Rules on my half

of the page," asked Fenrick, so I took it down and made a new Rule saying that

these were merely typed representations of abstract Rules that were applicable

no matter where the typed representations were displayed. Then I had the two

sign the Rules, and hinted again that I just didn't know what Angel might do

if they made any more noise. Then Angel and I went down to my place and had

some beers. Law, and the hope of silence and order, had been established on

our wing.

 

    --November--

 

Fred Fine was trying to decide whether to lob his last tactical nuke into

Novosibirsk or Tomsk when a frantic plebe bounced up and interrupted the

simulation with a Priority Five message. Of course it was Priority Five; how

else could a plebe have dared interrupt Fred Fine's march to the Ob'? "Fred,

sir," he gasped. "Come quick, you won't believe it." "What's the situation?"

 

"That new guy. He's about to win World War II!"

 

"He is? But I thought he was playing the Axis!"

 

Fred Fine brushed past the plebe and strode into the next room. In its center,

two Ping-Pong tables had been pushed together to make room for the eight-piece

World War II map. On one side stood the tall, aquiline Virgil Gabrielsen--

the "new guy"-- and on the other, Chip Dixon shifted from foot to foot and

snapped his fingers incessantly, Because this was the first wargame Virgil had

ever played, he was still only a Private, and held Plebe status. Chip Dixon, a

Colonel, had been gaming for six years and was playing the Allies, for God's

sake! Usually the only thing at question in this game was how many Allied

divisions the Axis could consume before Berlin inevitably fell.

 

At the end of the map, where the lines of longitude theoretically converged

to make the North Pole, Consuela Gorm, Referee, sat on a loveseat atop a

sturdy table. On the small stand before her she riffled occasionally through

the inch-thick rule b k, punched away at her personal computer, made notes on

scratch paper and peered down at Europe with a tiny pair of opera glasses.

Surrounding the tables were twenty other garners who had come to observe the

carnage shortly after Virgil had V-2'd Birmingham into gravel. Many stood on

chairs, using field glasses of their own, and one geek was tottering around

the area on a pair of stilts, loudly and repeatedly joking that he was a Nazi

spy satellite. The attention of all was focused on tens of thousands of little

cardboard squares meticulously stacked on the hexagonally patterned playing

field. The game had been on for nine and a half hours and Chip Dixon was

obviously losing it fast, popping Cheetos into his mouth faster than he could

grind them into paste with his hyperactive yellow molars, often gulping Diet

Pepsi and hiccuping. Virgil was calm, surveying the board through half-closed

eyes, hands behind back, lips slightly parted, wandering around in a world

inside his head, oblivious to the surrounding nerds. A hell of a warrior,

thought Fred Fine, and this only his first game!

 

"Here comes the Commander," shouted the guy on stilts as he rounded the

Japanese-occupied Aleutians, and the observers' circle parted so Fred Fine

could enter. Chip Dixon blushed vividly and looked away, moving his lips as he

cursed to himself. "Very interesting," said Fred Fine.

 

Great stacks of red cardboard squares surrounded Stalin-grad and Moscow, which

were protected only by pitiable little heaps of green squares. In Normandy an

enormous Nazi tank force was hurling the D-Day invasion back into the Channel

so forcefully that Fred Fine could almost hear the howl of the Werfers and

see the bodies fall screaming into the scarlet brine. In Holland, a Nazi

amphibious force made ready to assault Britain. In front of Virgil, lined up

on the edge of the table as trophies, sat the four Iowa-class battleships, the

Hornet, and other major ships of the American navy.

 

Chip Dixon was increasingly manic, his blood pressure Pumped to the hemhorrage

point by massive overdoses of salt and Diet Pepsi, his thirst insatiable

because of the nearly empty Jumbo Paic of Cheetos. Sweat dripped from his brow

and fell like acid rain on Scandinavia. He bent over and tried to move a stack

of recently mobilized Russians toward Moscow, but as he shoved one point of

his tweezers under the stack he hiccupped violently and ended up scattering

them all over the Ukraine. "Shit!" he screamed, dashing a Cheeto to the floor.

"I'm sorry, Consuela, I forget which hex it was on."

 

Consuela did not react for several seconds, and the reflection of the rule

book in her glasses gave her an ominous, inscrutable look. Everyone was still

and apprehensive. "Okay," she said in soft, level tones, "that unit got lost

in the woods and can't find its way out for another turn."

 

"Wait!" yelled Chip Dixon. "That's not in the Rules!" "It's okay," said Virgil

patiently. "That stack contained units A2567, A2668, A4002, and 126789, and

was on hex number 1,254.908. However, unit A2567 clashed with Axis A1009 last

turn, so has only half movement this turn-- three hexes."

 

Cowed, Chip Dixon breathed deeply (Fred Fine's suggestion) and reassembled

the stack. Unit A2567 was left far behind to deal with a unit of about twenty

King Tiger Tanks which was blasting unopposed up the Dniepr. Chip Dixon then

straightened up and thought for about five minutes, ruffling through his notes

for a misplaced page. Consuela made a gradated series of noises intended to

convey rising impatience. "Listen, Chip, you're already way over the time

limit. Done?"

 

"Yeah, I guess."

 

"Any engagements?"

 

"No, not this turn. But wait 'til you see what's coming." Okay, Virgil, your

turn."

 

Virgil reached out with a long probe and quickly shoved stacks of cardboard

from place to place; from time to time a move would generate a gasp from the

crowd. He then ticked off a list of engagements, giving Consuela data on what

each stack contained, what its combat strength was, when it had last fought

and so forth. When it was over, an hour later, there was long applause from

the membership of MARS. Chip Dixon had sunk to the floor to sulk over a tepid

Cola.

 

"Incredible," someone yelled, "you conquered Stalingrad and Moscow and

defeated D-Day and landed in Scotland and Argentina all at the same time!"

 

At this point Chip Dixon, who had refused to concede, stood up and blew most

of the little cardboard squares away in a blizzard of military might. Fred

Fine was angry but controlled. "Chip, ten demerits for that. I ought to bust

you down to Second Looie for that display. Just for that, you get to put the

game away. And organize it right." Chastened, Chip and two of his admirers

set about sorting all of the pieces of cardboard and fitting them into the

appropriate recesses in the injection-molded World War II carrying case. Fred

Fine turned his attention to Virgil.

 

"A tremendous victory." He drew his fencing foil and tapped Virgil once on

each shoulder as Virgil looked on skeptically. "I name you a Colonel in MARS.

It's quite a jump, but a battlefield commission is obviously in order."

 

"Oh, not really," said Virgil, bored. "It's more a matter of a good memory

than anything else."

 

"You're modest. I like that in a man."

 

"No, just accurate. I like that."

 

Fred Fine now drew Virgil aside, away from the dozen or so wargame aficionados

who were still gaping at one another and pounding their heads dramatically

on the walls. The massively corpulent Consuela was helped down from her

eleven-hour perch by several straining MARS officials, and began to roll

toward them like a globule of quicksilver.

 

"Virgil," said Fred Fine quietly, "you're obviously a special kind of man.

We need men like you for our advanced games. These board games are actually

somewhat repetitive, as you pointed out. Want a little more excitement next

time?"

 

Virgil drew away. "What do you have in mind?"

 

"You've heard of Dungeons and Dragons?" A gleam came to Fred Fine's eye, and

he glanced conspiratorially at Consuela. "Sure. Someone designs a hypothetical

dungeon on graph paper, puts different monsters and treasure in the rooms, and

each player has a character which he sends through it, trying to take as much

treasure as possible. Right?"

 

"Oh, only in its crudest, simplest forms, Virgil," said Consuela. "This one

and his friends prefer a more active version." "Sewers and Serpents," said

Consuela, nodding happily. "The idea is the same as D & D, but we use a real

place, and real costumes, and act it all out. Much more realistic. You see,

beneath the Plex is a network of sewer tunnels."

 

"Yeah, I know," said Virgil. "I've got the blueprints for this place

memorized, remember."

 

Fred Fine was taken aback. "How?"

 

"Computer drew them for me."

 

"Well, we'd have to give you a character who had some good reason for knowing

his way around the tunnels."

 

"Like maybe, uh," said Consuela, eyes rolled up, "maybe he happened to see

a duel between some hero who had just come out of the Dungeon of Plexor"--

"That's what we call the tunnels," said Fred Fine.

 

-- "and some powerful nonsentient beast such as a gronth, and the gronth

killed the hero, and then Virgil's character came and found a map on his body

and memorized it."

 

"Or we could make him a computer expert in TechnoPlexor who got a peek at

the plans the same way Virgil did "Excuse me a sec, but what do you do for

monsters?" asked Virgil Well we don t have real ones We Just have to pretend

and use the official S & S rules, developed by MARS through a constitutional

process over several years. We maintain two-way radio contact with our

referee, Consuela, who stays in the Plex and runs the adventure through a

computer program we've got worked out. The computer also performs statistical

combat simulation."

 

"So you slog around in the shit, and the computer says you're being attacked

by monsters, and she reads it off the CRT and says that according to the

computer you've lost a finger, or the monster's dead, that sort of thing?"

 

"Well, it's more exciting than you make it sound, and the Dungeon Mistress

makes it better by amplifying the description generated by the computer. I

recommend you try it. We've got an outing in a couple of weeks."

 

"I don't know, Fred, it's not my cup of tea. I'll think about it, but don't

count on my coming."

 

"That's fine. Consuela just needs to know a few hours ahead of time so she can

have SHEKONDAR-- the computer program-- prepare a character for you."

 

Virgil assented to everything, nodded a lot, said he'd be getting back to them

and hurried out, shaking his head in amazed disgust. Unlikely as it seemed,

this place could still surprise him.

 

My involvement with Student Government was due to my being

faculty-in-residence. I served as a kind of minister without portfolio,

investigating whatever topic interested me at the moment, talking to students,

faculty and administrators, and contributing to governmental discussions the

point of view of an older, supposedly wiser observer. As I had no idea what

was going on at the Big U until much later, my contributions can't have done

much good. I did visit the Castle in the Air on several occasions, anyway, and

whenever I did I was presented with a visual display in three stages.

 

The first was a prominent mural on the wall of the Study Lounge, clearly

visible through the windows from the elevator lobby. Even if I had been

visiting one of E12's other wings, therefore, I couldn't have failed to

notice that E12S was a wing among wings. Here, as described, the Castle was

painted in yellow-- not a typical color for castles, but much nicer than

realistic gray or brown. The Castle, stolen directly from a book of Disney

illustrations, floated on a cloud that looked like a stomped marshmallow,

not a thunderhead, Seemingly too meager to support its load. Below, more

Disney characters frolicked on an undulating green lawn, a combined golf

course/cartoon character refuge with no sand traps, one water hazard and no

visible greens. The book of illustrations was not large, and each character

was shown in only one or two poses which had to be copied over and over again

in populating this great lawn. Monotony had rendered the painters somewhat

desperate-- what was that penguin doing there? And why had they included that

evil gray wolf, wagging his red tongue at the stiff cloned Bambis from behind

a spherical shrub? But most agreed that the mural was nice-- indeed, so nice

that "nice" was no longer adequate by itself; in describing it, Airheads had

to amplify the word by saying it many, many times and making large gestures

with their hands.

 

The second stage of the presentation was the entryways -- two identical

portals, one at the beginning of each of the wing's two hallways. Here, at

the fire doors by the Study Lounge, the halls had been framed in thick wooden

beams-- actually papier-mâchéd boxes-- decorated with plastic flowers and

welcoming messages. The fire doors themselves had been covered with paper

and painted so that, when they were closed, I could see what looked like a

stairway of light yellow stone rising up from the floor and continuing skyward

until further view was blocked by the beam along the ceiling.

 

Going through these doors, and therefore up the symbolic stair, I found myself

in a light yellow corridor gridded with thin wavy black lines supposed to

represent joints between the great yellow building-stones of which the Castle

was constructed. These were closely spaced in the first part of the hallway,

but the crew had found this work tedious and decided that in the back sections

much larger stones were used to build the walls. Here and there, torches, fake

paintings, suits of armor and the like were painted on the walls.

 

Each individual room, then, was the province of the occupants, who could turn

it into any fantasy-land they wanted. One or two of them painted murals on

paper and pasted them to their doors. These murals purported to be windows

looking down on the scene below, an artistic challenge too great for most of

them.

 

On each visit to Sarah, then, I was introduced to the Castle in the Air in

the manner of a TV viewer. The elevator doors would fade out and there sat

the Castle on its cloud, viewed through a screen of glass. The view would

then switch to a traveling shot of the stairway leading up to the castle--

evidently a long one. Through the magic of video editing, the stair would

flatten, part and swing away, and I would be instantly jump-cut to the halls

of the Castle proper, where to confirm that it had all happened I could pause

at windows here and there and look down at the featureless plains from which I

had just ascended.

 

So much for the opening credits; what about the plot? The plot consisted

almost entirely of parties and tame sexual intrigue with the Terrorists.

The Airheads were not disturbed by the fact that their home was not much of

a castle -- the Terrorists or anyone else could invade at any time-- and

that far from being up in the air, it was squashed beneath nineteen other

Terrorist-infested floors. The Airheads got along by pretending that any man

who showed up on their floor was a white knight on beck and call. Certain evil

influences, though, could not be kept out by any amount of painting, and among

these was the fire alarm system.

 

Early in the morning of November the Fifth, Mari Meegan was ejected from her

chamber by three City firefighters investigating a full-tower fire alarm.

Versions differed as to whether the firefighters had used physical force, but

to the lawyers subsequently hired by Man's father it did not matter; the issue

was the mental violence inflicted on Man, who was forced to totter down the

stairway and join the sleepy throng below with only patches of bright blue

masque painted on her face.

 

This situation had not previously arisen because it usually took at least

half an hour between the ringing of the alarm and the arrival of the firemen

on their tour through the tower. Thirty minutes was time enough for Mari to

apply a quickie makeup job which would prevent her from looking "disgusting"

even during full moons outside, and, as the lawyers took pains to document

and photograph, her emergency thirty-minute face kit was set up and ready to

go on a corner of her dresser. Next to it was the masque container, which was

for "super emergencies"; given a severely limited time to prepare, she could

tear this open and paint a blue oval over her face that would serve partly to

diguise and partly to show those who recognized her that she cared about her

appearance. But on this particular morning, certain Terrorists from above had

demonstrated their mechanical aptitude by disabling the E12S alarm bell with

a pair of bolt cutters. The more distant ringing of the E12E bell had not

overborne the soft nocturnal beat of Marl's stereo, and by the time she had

realized what was happening, and energized the evening light simulation tubes

on her makeup center, the sirens were already wafting up from the Death Vortex

below.

 

The Fire Marshall was not amused. Alter a week's worth of rumors that

portrayed the Fire Marshall as a Nazi and a pervert, it was decreed that

henceforth during fire drills the RAs would go door-to-door with their master

keys and make sure everyone left their rooms immediately. This grim ruling

inspired a wing meeting at which Hyacinth wearily suggested they all purchase

ski masks, since it was getting cold outside anyway, and wear them down to the

street during fire drills. "Stay together and you will be totally anonymous,

by which I mean no one will know who you are, or what you look like at three

in the morning The Airheads appointed Teri, a Fashion Merchandising major to

pick out ski masks with a suitable color scheme.

 

In private Hyacinth came up with an acronym for them: SWAMPers. This meant

that as a bare minimum they found it necessary to Shave Wash Anoint Make up

and Perfume all parts of their body at least once a day. Their insistence

on doing this often made Sarah wonder about her own appearance-- her use

of cosmetics was minimal-- but Hyacinth and I and everyone else assured

her she looked fine. When preparing for the long nasty Student Government

budget meeting in early November Sarah looked briefly through her shoebox of

miscellaneous cosmetics then shoved it under the bed again. She had greater

things to worry about.

 

As for clothes, it came down to a choice between her most businesslike outfit,

a grey wool skirt suit, and a somewhat brighter dress. She picked the suit,

though she knew it would lay her open to accusations of fascism from the

Stalinist Underground Battalion (SUB), wound her hair into a bun, and steeled

herself for madness.

 

The SUB got there an hour before anyone else and had their banners planted

and their rabid handouts sown before the Government even showed up. We met

in the only room we could find that was reasonably private. Behind us came

the TV crews, and then the reporters from the Monoplex Monitor and the

People's Truth Publication, who sat in the first row, right in front of the

Stalinists. Finally Lecture Auditorium 3 filled up with supplicants from

various organizations, all deeply shocked and dismayed at how little funding

they were receiving, all bearing proposed amendments.

 

First we slogged through the parliamentary trivia, including a bit of

"new business" in which the SUB introduced a resolution to condemn the

administration for massive human rights violations and to call for its

abolition. Then we came to the real purpose of the meeting: amendments to the

proposed budget. A line formed behind the microphone on the stage, and at its

head was a SUB member. "I move." he said, "that we pass no budget at all,

because the budget has to be approved by the administration, and so we haven't

got any control over our own activity money." On cue, behind the press corps,

eight SUBbies rose to their feet bearing a long banner: TAKE BACK CONTROL

OF STUDENT ACTIVITIES CAPITAL FROM THE KRUPP JUNTA. "The money's ours, the

money's ours, the money's ours . ."

 

We had expected all this and Sarah was undisturbed. She sat back from her

microphone and took a sip of water. letting the media record the event for

the ages. Once that was done she gaveled a few times and talked them back

into their seats. She was about to start talking again when the last standing

SUBbie shouted, "Student Government is a tool of the Krupp cadre!"

 

Behind him, most of the audience shouted things like "eat rocks" and "shut up"

and "shove it."

 

"If you're finished interfering with the democratic process," Sarah said,

"this tool would like to get on with the budget. We have a lot to do and

everyone needs to be very, very brief." Student Government was made up of the

Student Senate, which represented each of the 200 residential wings of the

Plex, and the Activities Council, comprising representatives from each. of the

funded student organizations, numbering about 150. The distribution of funds

among the Activities Council members was decided on by a joint session, which

was our goal for the evening.

 

The Student Senate was crammed with SUBbies and members of an outlaw Mormon

splinter group called the Temple of Unlimited Godhead (TUG). Each of these

groups claimed to represent all the students. As Sarah explained, no one in

his right mind was interested in running for Student Senate, explaining why it

was filled with fanatics and political science majors. Fortunately, SUB and

TUG canceled each other out almost perfectly.

 

"I'm tired of having all aspects of my life ruled by this administration that

doesn't give a shit for human rights, and I think it's time to do something

about it," said the first speaker. There was a little applause from the front

and lots of jeering. A hum filled the air as the TUG began to OMMMM…at middle

C-- a sort of sonic tonic which was said to clear the air of foul influences

and encourage spiritual peace; overhead, a solitary bat, attracted by the

hum, swooped down from a perch in the ceiling and flitted around, occasioning

shrieks and violent motion from the people it buzzed. "At this university we

don't have free speech, we don't have academic freedom, we don't even have

power over our own money!"

 

At the insistence of the audience, Sarah broke in after a few minutes. "If

you've got any specific human rights violations you're concerned about, there

are some international organizations you can go to, but there's not much the

Student Senate can do. So I suggest you go live somewhere else and let someone

else propose an amendment."

 

Shocked and devastated, the speaker gaped at Sarah as the TV lights slammed

into action. He held the stare for several seconds to allow the camera

operators to focus and adjust light level, then surveyed the cheering and

OMming crowd, face filled with bewilderment and shock.

 

"I don't believe this," he said, staring into the lenses. "Who says we have

freedom of speech? My God, I've come up here to express a free opinion, and

just because I am opposed to fascism, the President of the Student Government

tries to throw me out of the Plex! My home! That's right, if these different

people don't like being oppressed, just throw them out of their homes into

the dangerous city! I didn't think this kind of savagery was supposed to

exist in a university." He shook his head in noble sadness, surveyed the

derisive crowd defiantly, and marched away from the mike to grateful applause.

Below, he answered questions from the media while the next student came to the

microphone.

 

He looked like a male cheerleader for a parochial school football team, being

handsome, well groomed, and slightly pimpled. As he took possession of the

mike the OM stopped. He kept his eye on a middle-aged fellow standing in the

aisle not far away, who in turn watched the SUBbie's press conference in front

of the stage. Finally the older gentleman held up three fingers. The TUGgie

shoved his fist between his arm and body and spoke loudly and sharply into the

mike.

 

"I'd like to announce that I have caught a bat here in my hand, and now

I'm going to bite the head off it right here as a sacrifice to the God of

Communism."

 

Below, the SUBbie found himself in absolute darkness, and tripped over a power

cord. Simultaneously the TUGgie squinted as all lights were swung around to

bear on him. He smiled and began to talk in a calm chantlike voice. "Well,

well, well. I've got a confession. I'm not really going to bite the head off

a bat, because I don't even have one, and I'm not a Communist." There was now

a patter of what sounded like canned TV laughter from the TUG section. "I

just did that as a little demonstration, to show you folks how easy it is to

get the attention of the media. We can come and talk about serious issues and

do real things, but what gets TV coverage are violent eye-catching events, a

thing which the Communists who wish to destroy our society understand very

well. But I'm not here to give a speech, I'm here to propose an amendment. .

." Here he was dive-bombed by the bat, who veered away at the last moment;

the speaker jumped back in horror, to the amusement of almost everyone. The

TUGgies laughed too, showing that, yes, they did have a sense of humor no

matter what people said. The speaker struggled to regain his composure.

 

"The speech! Resume the speech! The amendment!" shouted the older man.

 

"My budget proposal is that we take away all funding for the Stalinist

Underground Battalion and distribute it among the other activities groups."

 

The lecture hall exploded in outraged chanting, uproarious applause, and OM.

Sarah sat for about fifteen seconds with her chin in her hand, then began

smashing the gavel again. I was seated off to the side of the stage, poised to

act as the strong-but-lovable authority figure, but did not have to stand up;

eventually things quieted down.

 

"Is there a second to the motion?" she asked wearily. The crowd screamed YES

and NO.

 

The speaker yielded to another TUGgie, who stood rigidly with a stack of

3- x -5 cards and began to drone through them. "At one time the leftist

organizations of American Megaversity could claim that they represented some

of the students. But the diverse organizations of the Left soon found that

they all had one member who was very strident and domineering and who would

push the others around until he or she had risen to a position of authority

within the organization. These all turned out to be secretly members of the

Stalanist Underground Battalion who had worked themselves in organizations in

order to merge the Left into a single bloc with no diversity or freedom of

thought. The SUB took over a women's issues newsletter and turned it into the

People's Truth Publication, a highly libelous so-called newspaper. In the same

way…"

 

He was eventually cut off by Sarah. SUB spokespersons stated their views

passionately, then another TUGgie. Finally a skinny man in dark spectacles

came to the mike, a man whom Sarah recognized but couldn't quite place. He

identified himself as Casimir Radon and said he was president of the physics

club Neutrino. He quieted the crowd down a bit, as his was the first speech of

the evening that was not entirely predictable.

 

"I'd like to point out that you've only given us four hundred dollars," he

said. "We need more. I've done some analysis of the way our activity money

is budgeted, which I will just run through very quickly here-- " he fumbled

through papers as a disappointed murmur rose from the audience. How long

was this nerd going to take? The cameramen put new film and tape in their

equipment as lines formed outside by the restrooms.

 

"Here we go. I won't get too involved in the numerical details-- it's all

just arithmetic-- but if you look at the current budget, you see that a small

group of people is receiving a hugely disproportionate share of the money. In

effect, the average funding per member of the Stalinist Underground Battalion

is $114.00, while the figure for everyone else averages out to about $46.00,

and only $33.00 for Neutrino. That's especially unfair because Neutrino needs

to purchase things like books and equipment, while the expenses of a political

organization are much lower. I don't think that's fair."

 

The SUB howled at this preposterous reasoning but everyone else listened

respectfully.

 

"So I move we cut SUB funding to the bare minimum, say, twenty bucks per

capita, and give Neutrino its full request for a scientific research project,

$1500.00."

 

The rest of the evening, anyway, was bonkers, and I'll not go into detail.

It was insignificant anyway, since the administration had the final say; the

Student Government would have to keep passing budgets until they passed one

that S. S. Krupp would sign, and the only question was how long it would

take them to knuckle under. Time was against the SUB. As the members of the

government got more bored, they became more interested in passing a budget

that would go through the first time around. Eventually it became obvious

that the SUB had lost out, and the only thing wanting was the final vote.

The highlight of the evening came just before that vote: the speech of Yllas

Freedperson.

 

Yllas, the very substantial and brilliant leader of the SUB, was a heavy

black woman in her early thirties, in her fifth year of study at the Modern

Political Art Workshop. She had a knack for turning out woodblock prints

portraying anguished faces, burning tenements, and thick tortured hands

reaching for the sky. Even her pottery was inspired by the work of wretched

Central American peasants. She was also editor and illustrator of the People's

Truth Publication, but her real talent was for public speaking, where she had

the power of a gospel preacher and the fire of a revolutionary. She waited

dignified for the TV lights, then launched into a speech that lasted at least

a quarter of an hour. At just the right times she moaned, she chanted, she

sang, she reasoned, she whispered, she bellowed, she just plain spoke in a

fluid and hypnotically rhythmic voice. She talked about S. S. Krupp and the

evil of the System, how the System turned good into bad, how this society

was just like the one that caused the Holocaust, which was no excuse for

Israel, about conservatism in Washington and how our environment, economic

security, personal freedom, and safety from nuclear war were all threatened

by the greedy action of cutting the SUB's budget. Finally out came the names

of Martin Luther King, Jr., Marx, Gandhi, Che, Jesus Christ, Ronald Reagan,

Hitler, S. S. Krupp, the KKK, Bob Avakian, Elijah Mohammed and Abraham

Lincoln. Through it all, the bat was active, dipping and diving crazily

through the auditorium, divebombing toward walls or lights or people but

veering away at the last moment, flitting through the dense network of beams

and cables and catwalks and light fixtures and hanging speakers and exposed

pipes above us at great smooth speed, tracing a marvelously complicated path

that never brushed against any solid object. All of it was absorbing and

breathtaking, and when Yllas Freedperson was finished and the bat, perhaps no

longer attracted by her voice. slipped up and disappeared into a corner, there

was a long silence before the applause broke out.

 

"Thank you, Yllas," said Sarah respectfully. "Is there any particular motion

you wanted to make or did you just want to inject your comments?"

 

"I move," shouted Yllas Freedperson, "that we put the budget the way it was."

 

The vote was close. The SUB lost. Recounting was no help. They took the

dignified approach, forming into a sad line behind Yllas and singing "We Shall

Overcome" in slow tones as they marched out. Above their heads they carried

their big black-on-red posters of S. S. Krupp with a target drawn over his

face, and they marched so slowly that it took two repetitions of the song

before they made it out into the hallway to distribute leaflets and posters.

 

Sarah, three members of her cabinet and I gathered later in my suite for wine.

Alter the frenzy of the meeting we were torpid, and hardly said anything for

the first fifteen minutes or so. Then, as it commonly did those days, the

conversation came around to the Terrorists.

 

"What's the story on those Terrorist guys?" asked Willy, a business major who

acted as Treasurer. "Are they genuine Terrorists?"

 

"Not on my floor," said Sarah, "since they subjugated us. We're living in...

the Pax Thirteenica."

 

"I've heard a number of stories," I said. Everyone looked at me and I

shifted into my professor mode and lit my pipe. "Their major activity is

the toll booth concept. They station Terrorists in the E13 elevator lobby

who continually push the up and down buttons so that every passing elevator

stops and opens automatically. If it doesn't contain any non-students or

dangerous-looking people, they hold the door open until everyone gives them

a quarter. They have also claimed a section of the Cafeteria, and there have

been fights over it. But nothing I'd call true terrorism."

 

"How about gang rape?" asked Hillary, the Secretary, quietly. Everything got

quiet and we looked at her.

 

"It's just a rumor," she said. "Don't get me wrong. It hasn't happened to

me. The word is that a few of the hardcore Terrorists do it, kind of as an

initiation. They go to big parties, or throw their own. You know how at a big

party there are always a few women-- typical freshmen-- who get very drunk.

Some nice-looking Terrorist approaches the woman-- I hear that they're very

good at identifying likely candidates-- and gets into her confidence and

invites her to another party. When they get to the other party, she turns

out to be the only woman there, and you can imagine the rest. But the really

terrible thing is that they go through her things and find out where she

lives and who she is, then keep coming back whenever they feel like it. They

have these women so scared and broken that they don't resist. Supposedly the

Terrorists have kind of an invisible harem, a few terrified women all over the

Plex, too dumb or scared to say anything."

 

I was sitting there with my eyes closed, like everyone else a little queasy.

"I've heard of the same thing elsewhere," I said. "I wonder if it's happened

to any Airheads," murmured Sarah. "God, I'll bet it has. I wonder if any of

them know about it. I wonder if they even understand what is being done to

them-- some of them probably don't even understand they have a right to be

angry." "How could anyone not understand rape?" said Hifiary. "You don't know

how mixed up these women are. You don't know what they did to me, without

even understanding why I didn't like it. You can't imagine those people--

they have no place to stand, no ideas of their own-- if one is raped, and not

one of her friends understands, where is she? She's cut loose, the Terrorists

can tell her anything and make her into whatever they want. Shit, where are

those animals going to stop? We're having a big costume party with them in

December."

 

"There's a party to avoid," said Hillary.

 

"It's called Fantasy Island Nite. They've been planning it for months. But by

the time the semester is over, those guys will be running wild."

 

"They've been running wild for a long time, it sounds like," said Willy.

"You'd better get used to that, you know? I think you're living in the law of

the jungle." That sounded a trifle melodramatic, but none of us could find a

way to disagree.

 

Sarah and Casimir met in the Megapub, a vast pale airship hangar littered

with uncertain plastic tables and chairs made of steel rods bent around

into uncomfortable chairlike shapes that stabbed their occupants beneath

the shoulder blades. At one end was a long bar, at the other a serving bay

connected into the central kitchen complex. Casimir declined to eat Megapub

food and lunched on a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich made from overpriced

materials bought at the convenience store and a plastic cup of excessively

carbonated beer. Sarah used the salad bar. They removed several trays from a

window table and stacked them atop a nearby wastebasket, then sat down.

 

"Thanks for coming on short notice," said Sarah. "I need all the help I can

get in selling this budget to Krupp, and your statistics might impress him."

 

Casimir, chewing vigorously on a big bite of generic white bread and generic

chunkless peanut butter, drew a few computer-printed graphs from his backpack.

"These are called Lorentz curves," he mumbled, "and they show equality of

distribution. Perfect equality is this line here, at a forty-five degree

angle. Anything less than equal comes out as a curve beneath the equality

line. This is what we had with the old budget." He displayed a graph showing

a deeply sagging curve, with the equality line above it for comparison. The

graph had been produced by a computer terminal which had printed letters at

various spots on the page, demonstrating in crude dotted-line fashion the

curves and lines. "Now, here's the same analysis on our new budget." The new

graph had a curve that nearly followed the equality line. "Each graph has a

coefficient called the Gini coefficient, the ratio of the area between the

line and curve to the area under the line. For perfect equality the Gini

coefficient is zero. For the old budget it was very bad, about point eight,

and for the new budget it is more like point two, which is pretty good."

 

Sarah listened politely. "You have a computer program that does this?"

 

"Yeah. Well, I do now, anyway. I just wrote it up."

 

"It's working okay?"

 

Casimir peered at her oddly, then at the graphs, then back at her. "I think

so. Why?"

 

"Well, look at these letters in the curves." She pulled one of the

graphs over and traced out the letters indicating the Lorentz curve:

FELLATIOBUGGERYNECROPHILIACUNNILINGUSANALINGUSBESTIALITY....

 

"Oh," Casimir said quietly. The other curve read:

CUNTFUCKSHITPISSCOCKASSHOLETITGIVEMEANENEMABEATMELICKMEOWNME.... Casimir's

face waxed red and his tongue was protruding slightly. "I didn't do this.

These are supposed to say, 'new budget' and 'old budget.' I didn't write

this into the program. Uh, this is what we call a bug. They happen from time

to time. Oh, Jeez, I'm really sorry." He covered his face with one hand and

grabbed the graphs and crumpled them into his bag.

 

"I believe you," she said. "I don't know much about computers, but I know

there have been problems with this one."

 

About halfway through his treatise on Lorentz curves it had occurred to

Casimir that he was in the process of putting his foot deeply into his mouth.

She was an English major; he had looked her up in the student directory to

find out; what the hell did she care about Gini coefficients? Sarah was still

smiling, so if she was bored she at least respected him enough not to show.

He had told her that he'd just now written this program up, and that was bad,

because it looked-- oy! It looked as though he were trying to impress her, a

sophisticated Humanities type, by writing computer programs on her behalf as

though that were the closest he could come to real communication. And then

obscene Lorentz curves!

 

He was saved by her ignorance of computers. The fact was, of course, that

there was no way a computer error could do that-- if she had ever run a

computer program, she would have concluded that Casimir had done it on

purpose. Suddenly he remembered his conversation with Virgil. The Worm! It

must have been the Worm. He was about to tell her, to absolve himself, when he

remembered it was a secret he was honor bound to protect.

 

He had to be honest. Could it be that he had actually written this just to

impress her? Anything printed on a computer looked convincing. If that had

been his motive, this served him right. Now was the time to say something

witty, but he was no good at all with words-- a fact he didn't doubt was

more than obvious to her. She probably knew every smart, interesting

man in the university, which meant he might as well forget about making

any headway toward looking like anything other than an unkempt, poor,

math-and-computer-obsessed nerd whose idea of intelligent conversation was to

show off the morning's computer escapades.

 

"You didn't have to go to the trouble of writing a program." "Ha! Well, no

trouble. Easier to have the machine do it than work it out by hand. Once you

get good on the computer, that is." He bit his up and looked out the window.

"Which isn't to say I think I'm some kind of great programmer. I mean, I am,

but that's not how I think of myself."

 

"You aren't a hacker," she suggested.

 

"Yeah! Exactly." Everyone knew the term "hacker," so why hadn't he just

said it? She looked at him carefully. "Didn't we meet somewhere before? I

could swear I recognize you from somewhere." He had been hoping that she had

forgotten, or that she would not recognize him through his glacier glasses.

That first day, yes, he had read her computer card for her-- a hacker's

idea of a perfect introduction! "Yeah. Remember Mrs. Santucci? That first

day?" She nodded her head with a little smile; she remembered it all, for

better or worse. He watched her intensely, trying to judge her reaction.

"Yes," she said, "sure. I guess I never properly thanked you for that, so--

thank you." She held out her hand. Casimir stared at it, then put out his

hand and shook it. He gripped her firmly-- a habit from his business, where

a crushing handshake was a sign of trustworthiness. To her he had probably

felt like an orangutan trying to dislocate her shoulder. Besides which, some

apple-blackberry jam had dripped out onto the first joint of his right index

finger some minutes ago, and he had thoughtlessly sucked on it.

 

She was awfully nice. That was a dumb word, "nice," but he couldn't come up

with anything better. She was bright, friendly and understanding, and kind to

him, which was good of her considering his starved fanatical appearance and

general fabulous ugliness. He hoped that this conversation would soon end and

that they would come out of it with a wonderful relationship. Ha.

 

No one said anything; she was just watching him. Obviously she was! It was his

turn to say something! How long had he been sitting there staring into the

navy-blue maw of his mini-pie? "What's your major?" they said simultaneously.

She laughed immediately, and belatedly he laughed also, though his laugh was

sort of a gasp and sob that made him sound as if he were undergoing explosive

decompression. Still, it relaxed him slightly. "Oh," she added, "I'm sorry. I

forgot Neutrino was for physics majors."

 

"Don't be sorry." She was sorry? I'm an English major."

 

"Oh." Casimir reddened. "I guess you probably noticed that English is not my

strong point."

 

"Oh, I disagree. When you were speaking last night, once you got rolling you

did very well. Same goes for today, when you were describing your curves. A

lot of the better scientists have an excellent command of language. Clear

thought leads to clear speech."

 

Casimir's pulse went up to about twice the norm and he felt warmth in the

lower regions. He gazed into the depths of his half-drained beer, not knowing

what to say for fear of being ungrammatical. "I've only been here a few weeks,

but I've heard that S. S. Krupp is quite the speaker. Is that so?"

 

Sarah smiled and rolled her eyes. At first Casimir had considered her just

a typically nice-looking young woman, but at this instant it became obvious

that he had been wrong; in fact she was speilbindingly lovely. He tried not to

stare, and shoved the last three bites of pie into his mouth. As he chewed he

tried to track what she was saying so that he wouldn't lose the thread of the

conversation and end up looking like an absent-minded hacker with no ability

to relate to anyone who wasn't destined to become a machine-language expert.

 

"He is quite a speaker," she said. "If you're ever on the opposite side of a

question from S. S. Krupp, you can be sure he'll bring you around sooner or

later. He can give you an excellent reason for everything he does that goes

right back to his basic philosophy. It's awesome, I think."

 

At last he was done stuffing junk food into his unshaven face. "But when he

out-argues you-- is that a word?"

 

"Well let it slip by."

 

"When he does that, do you really agree, or do you think he's just outclassed

you?"

 

"I've thought about that quite a bit. I don't know." She sat back pensively,

was stabbed by her chair, and sat back up. "What am I saying? I'm an English

major!" Casimir chuckled, not quite following this. "If he can justify it

through a fair argument, and no one else can poke any holes in it, I can't

very well disagree, can I? I mean, you have to have some kind of anchors for

your beliefs, and if you don't trust clear, correct language, how do you know

what to believe?"

 

'What about intuition?" asked Casimir, surprising himself. "You know the

great discoveries of physics weren't made through argument. They were made in

flashes of intuition, and the explanations and proofs thought up afterward."

 

"Okay." She drained her coffee and thought about it. "But those scientists

still had to come up with verbal proofs to convince themselves that the

discoveries were real."

 

So far, Casimir thought, she seemed more interested than peeved, so he

continued to disagree. "Well, scientists don't need language to tell them

what's real. Mathematics is the ultimate reality. That's all the anchor we

need."

 

"That's interesting, but you can't use math to solve political problems-- it's

not useful in the real world."

 

"Neither is language. You have to use intuition. You have to use the right

side of your brain."

 

She looked again at the clock. "I have to go now and get ready for Krupp." Now

she was looking at him-- appraisingly, he thought. She was going to leave! He

desperately wanted to ask her out. But too many women had burst out laughing,

and he couldn't take that. Yet there she sat, propped up on her elbows-- was

she waiting for him to ask? Impossible.

 

"Uh," he said, but at Lhe same time she said, "Let's get together some other

time. Would you like that?"

 

"Yeah."

 

"Fine!" With a little negotiation, they arranged to meet in the Megapub on

Friday night.

 

"I can't believe you're free Friday night!" he blurted, and she looked at him

oddly. She stood up and held out her hand again. Casimir scrambled up and

shook it gently.

 

"See you later," she said, and left. Casimir remained standing, watched her

all the way across the shiny floor of the Megapub, then telescoped into his

seat and nearly blacked out.

 

She did not have to wait long amid the marble-and-mahogany splendor of

Septimius Severus Krupp's anteroom. She would have been happy to wait there

for days, especially if she could have brought some favorite music and maybe

Hyacinth, taken off her shoes, lounged on the sofa and stared out the window

over the lush row of healthy plants. The administrative bloc of the Plex was

an anomaly, like a Victorian mansion airlifted from London and dropped whole

into a niche beneath C Tower. Here was none of the spare geometry of the rest

of the Plex, none of the anonymous monochromatic walls and bald rectangles and

squares that seemed to drive the occupants bonkers. No plastic showed; the

floors were wooden, the windows opened, the walls were paneled and the honest

wood and intricate parquet floors gave the place something of nature's warmth

and diversity. In the past month Sarah had seen almost no wood-- even the

pencils in the stores here were of blond plastic-- and she stared dumbly at

the paneling everywhere she went, as though the detailed grain was there for

a reason and bore careful examination. All of this was an attempt to invest

American Megaversity with the aged respectability of a real university; but

she felt at home here.

 

"President Krupp will see you now," said the wonderful, witty, kind, civilized

old secretary, and the big panel doors swung open and there was S. S. Krupp.

"Good afternoon, Sarah, I'm sorry you had to wait," he said. "Please come in."

 

Three of the walls of Krupp's office were covered up to about nine feet

high with bookshelves, and the fourth was all French windows. Above the

bookshelves hung portraits of the founders and past presidents of American

Megaversity. The founding fathers stared sullenly at Sarah through the gloom

of a century and a half's accumulated tobacco smoke, and as she followed the

row of dignitaries around to the other end of the room, their faces shone out

brighter and brighter from the tar and nicotine of antiquity until she got to

the last spaces remaining, where Tony Commodi, Pertinax Rushforth and Julian

Didius III gleamed awkwardly in modern Suits and designer eyeglasses.

 

The glowing red-orange wooden floor was covered by three Persian rugs,

and the ceiling was decorated with three concentric rings of elaborate

plasterwork surrounding a great domed skylight. A large, carefully polished

chandelier hung on a heavy chain from the center of the skylight. Sarah knew

that the delicate leaded-glass skylight was protected from above by a squat

geodesic dome covered with heavy steel grids and shatterproof Fiberglass

panels, designed to keep everything out of S. S. Krupp's office except for

the sunlight. Nothing short of a B-52 in a power dive could penetrate that

grand silence, though a ring of shattered furniture and other shrapnel piled

about the dome outside attested to the efforts of C Tower students to prove

otherwise.

 

Krupp led her to a long low table under the windows, and they sat in old

leather chairs and spread their papers out in the grey north light. Between

them Krupp's ever-ready tape recorder was spinning away silently. Shortly the

secretary came in with a silver tea service, and Krupp poured tea and offered

Sarah tiny, cleverly made munchies on white linen napkins embroidered with the

American Megaversity coat of arms.

 

Krupp was a sturdy man, his handsome cowboy face somewhat paled and softened

by the East. "I understand," he said, "that you had some trouble with those

playground communists last night." "Oh, they were the same as ever. No unusual

problems." "Yes." Krupp sounded slightly impatient at her nonstatement. "I was

pleased to see you disemboweled their budget."

 

"Oh? What if we'd stayed with the old one?"

 

"I'd have flushed it." He grinned brightly.

 

"What about this budget? Is it acceptable?"

 

"Oh, it's not bad. It's got some warts."

 

"Well, I want to point out at the beginning that it's easy for you to make

minor adjustments in the budget until the warts are gone. It's much more

difficult for the Student Government to handle. We almost had to call in the

riot police to get this through, and any budget you have approved will be much

harder."

 

"You're perfectly free to point that out, Sarah, and I don't disagree, doesn't

make much difference."

 

"Well," said Sarah carefully, "the authority is obviously yours. I'm sure you

can take whatever position you want and back it up very eloquently. But I hope

you'll take into account certain practicalities." Knowing instantly she had

made a mistake, she popped a munchie into her mouth and stared out the window,

waiting.

 

Krupp snorted quietly and sipped tea, then sat back in his chair and regarded

Sarah with dubious amusement. "Sarah, I didn't expect you, of all people, to

try that one on me. Why is it that everyone finds eloquence so inauspicious?

It's as though anyone who argues clearly can't be trusted-- that's the

opposite of what reasonable people ought to think. That attitude is common

even among faculty here, and I'm just at a loss to understand. I can't talk

like a mongoloid pig-sticker on a three-day drunk just so I'll sound like one

of the boys. God knows I can't support any position, only the right position.

If it's not right, the words won't make it so. That's the value of clear

language."

 

This was the problem with Krupp. He assumed that everyone always said exactly

what they thought. While this was true of him, it was rarely so with others.

"Okay, sorry," said Sarah. "I agree. I just didn't make my point too well. I'm

just hoping you'll take into account the practical aspects of the problem,

such as how everyone's going to react. Some people say this is a blind spot of

yours." This was a moderately daring thing for Sarah to say, but if she tried

to mush around politely with Krupp, he would cut her to pieces.

 

"Sarah, it's obvious that people's reactions have to be accounted for. That's

just horse sense. It's just that basic principles are far more important

than a temporary political squabble in Student Government. To you, all those

mono-maniacs and zombies seem more important than they are, and that's why

we can't give you any financial authority. From my point of view I can see a

much more complete picture of what is and isn't important, and one thing that

isn't is a shouting match in that parody of a democratic institution that we

call a government because we are all so idealistic in the university. What's

important is principles."

 

Suddenly Sarah felt depressed; she sat limply back in her chair. For a while

nothing was said-- Krupp was surprisingly sensitive to her mood.

 

"Student Government is just a sham, isn't it?" she asked, surprised by her own

bitterness.

 

"What do you mean by that?"

 

"It has nothing to do with the real world. We don't make any real decisions.

It's just a bunch of imaginary responsibilities to argue about and put down on

our résumés."

 

Krupp thought it over. "It's kind of like a dude ranch. If you lose your

dogies, there's someone there to round them up for you. But on the other

hand, if you stand behind your horse you can still get wet. My Lord, Sarah,

everything is real. There's no difference between the 'real' world and this

one. The experience you're gaining is real. But it's true that the importance

ascribed to Student Government is mostly imaginary."

 

"So what's the point?"

 

"The point is that we're here to go over this budget, and when I point out

the warts, you tell me why they aren't warts. If you can justify them, you'll

have a real effect on the budget." Krupp spread the pages of the budget out on

the table, and Sarah saw alarming masses of red ink scrawled across them She

felt like whipping out Casimir s graphs but she didn't have them with her and

couldn't risk Krupp's seeing what she had seen.

 

"Now one item which caught my eye," said Krupp half an hour later, after Sarah

had lost five arguments and won one, "was this money for this little group,

Neutrino. I see they're wanting to build themselves a mass driver."

 

"Yeah? What's wrong with that?"

 

"Well," said Krupp patiently, "I didn't say there's anything wrong-- just hold

on, let's not get adverserial yet. You see, we don't often use activities

funds to back research projects. Generally these people apply for a grant

through the usual channels. You see, first estimates of the cost of something

like this are often wildly low, especially when made by young fellows who

aren't quite on top of things yet. This thing is certain to come in over

budget, so we'll either end up with a useless, half-completed heap of junk

or a Neutrino floundering around in red ink. It seems kind of hasty and

ill-considered to me, so I'm just recommending that we strike this item

from the budget, have the folks who want to do this project do a complete,

faculty-supervised study, then try to get themselves a grant."

 

Sarah sighed and stared at a small ornament on the teapot's handle, thinking

it over.

 

"Don't tell me," said Krupp. "It's my blind spot again, right?" But he sounded

humorous rather than sarcastic.

 

"There are several good reasons why you should pass this item. The main factor

is the man who is heading the project. I know him, and he's quite experienced

with this sort of thing in the real world. I know you don't like that term,

President Krupp, but it's true. He's brilliant, knows a lot of practical

electronics-- he had his own business-- and he's deeply committed to the

success of this project."

 

"That's a good start. But I'm reluctant to see funds given to small

"organizations with these charismatic, highly motivated leaders who have

"pet projects, because that amounts to just a personal gift to the leader.

"Broad interest in the funded activity is important." This is not a personal

"vendetta. The plans were provided for the most part by Professor Sharon. The

"organization is already putting together some of the electronics with their

"own money." Professor Sharon. What an abominable thing that was." Krupp

"stared into the light for a long time. "That was a load of rock salt in the

"butt. If my damn Residence Life Relations staff wasn't tenured and unionized

"I'd fire 'em, find the scum who did that and boot 'em onto the Turnpike.

"However. We should resist the temptation to do something we wouldn't

"otherwise do just because a peripherally involved figure has suffered. We all

"revere Professor Sharon, but this project would not erase his tragedy."

 

"Well, I can only go on my gut feelings," said Sarah, "but I don't think what

you've said applies. I'm pretty confident about this project."

 

Krupp looked impressed. "If that's the case, Sarah, then I should meet this

fellow and give him a fair hearing. Maybe I'll have the same gut reaction as

you do."

 

"Should I have him contact you?" This was a reprieve, she thought; but if

Casimir had been so obviously nervous in front of her, what would he do under

rhetorical implosion from Krupp? It was only reasonable, though.

 

"Fine," said Krupp, and handed her his card.

 

Their other differences of opinion were hardly worth arguing over. Halving the

funding for the Basque Eroticism Study Cluster was not going to make political

waves. The meeting came to a civil and reasonable end. Krupp showed her out,

and she smiled at the old secretary and maneuvered the scarlet carpets of the

administration bloc and dawdled by each painting, finally exiting into a broad

shiny electric-blue cinderblock corridor. By the time she made it back to her

room she had adjusted to the Plex again, and taught herself to see and hear as

little of it as possible.

 

Ephraim Klein and some of his friends occasionally gathered in his room to

smoke cheap cigars, if only because they detested them slightly less than John

Wesley Fenrick did. Fenrick set the Go Big Red Fan up in the vent window and

blew chill November air across the room, forcing perhaps eighty percent of

the fumes out the door. A defect of the Rules was that they made no provision

for exchange of air pollution, unfortunately for Fenrick, who despite his

tradition of chemically induced states of awareness was fanatically clean.

 

Caught in a random eddy blown up by the Fan, a cigar resting in a stolen

Burger King tinfoil ashtray fell off one evening and rolled several inches,

crossing the boundary line into Fenrick's side of the room. It burned there

for a minute or two before its owner, a friend of Klein's, made bold to reach

across and retrieve it. The result was a brief brown streak on Fenrick's

linoleum. Fenrick did not notice it immediately, but after he did, he grew

more enraged every day. Klein was obligated to clean up "that mess," in his

view. Klein's opinion was that anything on Fenrick's side of the room was

Fenrick's problem; Klein was not paying fifteen thousand dollars a year

and studying philosophy so he could be a floor-scrubber for a rude asshole

geek like John Wesley Fenrick. He pointed to a clause in the Rules which

tentatively bore him out. They screamed across the boundary line on this issue

for nearly a week. Then, one day, I heard Ephraim yelling through their open

door.

 

"Jesus! What the hell are you-- Ha! I don't believe this shit!" He stuck his

head outside and yelled, "Hey, everybody, come look at what this dumb fucker's

doing!"

 

I looked.

 

For reasons I do not care to think about, John Wesley Fenrick kept a

milkbottle full of dirt. When I looked in, he had pulled its lid off and was

scattering red Okie loam over the boundary line and all over Ephraim's side of

the room. Ephraim appeared to be more amused than angry, though he was very

angry, and insisted that as many people as possible come and witness. Fenrick

sat down calmly to watch television, occasionally smiling a small, solitary

smile.

 

Again the question of my responsibility comes up. But how could I know it

was an event of great significance? I had also seen lovers' quarrels in the

Cafeteria; why should I have known this was much more important? I had no

authority to order these people around. Moreover, I had no desire to. I had

done as much as I could. I had shown them how to be reasonable, and if they

could not get the hang of it, it was not my problem.

 

The next time I spectated, Ephraim Klein was alone, studying on his bed with

Gregorian chants filling the room. I had come to see why he had borrowed my

broom. He had used it to make a welcome mat for his roomie. Right in front of

the Go Big Red Fan-- the movable portion of the wall that served as a gate--

he had swept all the dirt into an even rectangle about one by two feet and

half an inch thick. In the dirt he had inscribed with his finger:

 

    GET A BUTT

 

    FUCK JOHNNIE-WONNIE

 

When Fenrick got home I followed him discreetly to his room, to keep an eye on

things. When I got to their doorway he was staring inscrutably at the welcome

mat. He bent and opened the fan-gate, stepped through without disturbing the

dirt and closed it. He turned, and looked for a while at the smirking Ephraim

Klein. Then, with quiet dignity, John Wesley Fenrick reached down and set the

Fan to HI, creating a small simulation of Oklahoma in the 1930's on the other

side of the room.

 

Once I was satisfied that there would be no violence, I left and abandoned

them to each other.

 

Septimius Severus Krupp stood behind a cheap plywood lectern in Lecture Hall

13 and spoke on Kant's Ethics. The fifty people in the audience listened or

did not, depending on whether they (like Sarah and Casimir and Ephraim and I)

had come to hear the lecture, or (like Yllas Freedperson) to see the Stalinist

Underground Battalion Operative throw the banana-cream pie into S. S. Krupp's

face.

 

I had come because I was fascinated by Krupp, and because opportunities to

hear him speak were rare. Sarah, I think, had come for like reasons. Ephraim

was a philosophy major, and Casimir came because this was the type of thing

that you were supposed to do in a university. As for the SUBbies, they were

getting edgy. What the fuck was wrong with the plan, man? they seemed to say,

looking back and forth at one another sincerely and shaking their heads. The

first phases had gone well. Operative 1 had gone out to the stageleft doorway,

twenty feet to Krupp's side, opened the door and propped it, then made a

show of smoking a cigarette and blowing smoke out the door. It was obvious

that she had severe reality problems by the way she posed there, putting on

a casual air so weirdly melodramatic that everyone could see she must be a

guerilla mime, a psycho or simply luded out of her big spherical frizzy-haired

bandanna-wrapped head. It was also odd that she would show so much concern

for others' lungs, considering that her friends were making loud, sarcastic

noises and distracting gestures, but unfortunately S. S. Krupp's aides were

too straight to tell the difference between a loony and a loony with a plan,

and so they suspected nothing when she returned to her seat and forgot to shut

the door again.

 

Ten minutes later, right on time, Operative 2 had arrived late, entering via

the stage-right doorway and leaving it, of course, propped open. He moved

furtively, like a six-foot mouse with thallium phenoxide poisoning, jerking

his head around as if to look for right-wing death squads and CIA snipers.

 

But Operative 3 did not appear with the banana-cream pie. Where was he?

Everyone knew about Krupp's CIA connections, and it was quite possible--

don't laugh, the CIA is everywhere, look at Iran-- that he might have been

intercepted by fascist goons and bastinadoed and wired to an old engine block

and thrown into a river. Perhaps the death squads were waiting in their rooms

now, test-firing their silenced UZIs into cartons of Stalinist pamphlets.

 

In fact, Operative 3, when making his plans for the evening, had forgotten

that once he bought the banana-cream pie at the convenience store it would

have to thaw out. There is little political relevance in bouncing a rock-hard

disc of frozen custard off S. S. Krupp's face-- the splatter is the point--

and so for half an hour he had been in a Plex restroom, holding the pie

underneath the automatic hand dryer as unobtrusively as possible. Whenever he

heard approaching steps, he stopped and dropped the pie into his knapsack, and

held his hands nonchalantly under the hot air; hence he had succeeded only in

liquefying the top two millimeters of the pie and ruffling the ring of whipped

cream. He then repaired to a spot not far from the lecture hail where he

rested the pie on a hot water pipe. There should be plenty of time left in the

lecture, though it was hard to judge these things when stoned: Krupp's voice

droned on and on, incomprehensible as all that logic and philosophy.

 

Operative 3 snapped to attention. How long had he been spacing off? Only one

way to tell. He stuck his finger in the pie: still kind of stiff, but not

stiff enough to break a nose and wet enough to explode mediagenically.

 

The time was now. Operative 3 pulled on his ski mask, stole to the open

stage-left door, and waited for the right moment. Shit! One of Krupp's CIA

men had seen him! One of the Frosted Mini-Wheat types with the three-piece

suits who ran Krupp's tape-recorder during speeches. No time to wait; the stun

grenade might be lobbed at any moment.

 

To us he looked like a strange dexed-out bird, not running across the front of

the hall so much as vibrating across at low frequency. He was tall, skinny,

pale and wore an old Tshirt; he never seemed to plant any part of his nervous

body firmly on the ground. He entered, bouncing off a doorjamb and losing his

balance. He then caromed off a seat near a CIA man, who had not yet reacted,

hopped three times to regain balance and, gaining some direction, scrambled

toward S. S. Krupp, chased all the way by four bats driven into a frenzy by

the aroma of the banana-cream pie.

 

"This means that the current vulgar usage of the word 'autonomous' to mean

independent, i.e., free of external influence, sovereign, is not entirely

correct," said Krupp, who glanced up from his notes to see what everybody was

gasping at. "To be autonomous, as we can readily see by examining the Greek

roots of the word-- autos meaning self and nomos meaning law"-- here he paused

for a moment and ducked. The pie flew sideways over his head and exploded on

the blackboard behind him. He straightened back up-- "is to be self-ruling,

to exercise a respect for the Law"-- Operative 3 tottered out the door as the

SUB groaned-- "which in this case means not the law of a society or political

system but rather the Law imposed by a rational man on his own actions." in

the hallway there was scuffling, and Krupp paused. With much grunting and

swearing, Operative 3, sans ski mask, was dragged back into the room by three

clean-cut students in pastel sweaters, accompanied by an older, smiling man in

a plaid flannel shirt.

 

"Here's your man, President Krupp, sir," said an earnest young Anglo-Saxon,

brushing a strand of hair from his brow with his free hand. "We've placed this

Communist under citizen's arrest. Shall we contact the authorities on your

behalf?" Their mentor beamed even more broadly at this suggestion, his horsey,

protruding bicuspids glaring like great white grain elevators on the Dakota

plain.

 

Krupp regarded them warily, walking around to the other side of the lectern as

though it were a shield. Then he turned to the audience. "Excuse me, please.

Guess I'm the highest authority here, so just let me clear this up." He

looked back at the group by the doorway, who watched respectfully, except for

Operative 3, who shouted from his headlock: "See, man? This is what happens

when you try to change the System!" Several SUBbies began to come to his aid,

but were halted by Krupp's aides.

 

"Who the hell are you?" said Krupp. "Are you from that squalid North Dakotan

cult thing?"

 

They were shocked, even Operative 3, and stared uncomprehendingly. Deep

concern showed in the lined, earnest face of the man in the plaid flannel.

Finally he stepped forward. "Yessirree. We are indeed followers of the Temple

of Unlimited Godhead, and proud of it too. With all due respect, just what do

you mean by 'squalid'?"

 

"It's like a dead dog in the sitting room, son. Look, why don't you all just

let that boy go? That's right."

 

Regretfully, they released him. Operative 3 stood up, shivering violently. He

could not exactly thank Krupp. Alter hopping from foot to foot he spun and

continued his flight down the hail as though nothing had happened.

 

"Look," Krupp continued. "We've got a security force here. We've got organized

religions that have been doing just fine for millennia. Now what we don't need

is a brainwashing franchise, or any of your Kool-Aid-- stoned outlaw Mormon

Jesuits. I know times are hard in North Dakota but they're hard everywhere and

it doesn't call for new religions. Of course, you have some very fine points

on the subject of Communism. Now, this does not mean we will in any way fail

to extend you full religious and political freedoms as with the old-fashioned

nonprofit religions."

 

The SUB hooted at Krupp's wicked intolerance for religious diversity while the

rest of the audience applauded. The TUGgies were galvanized, and spoke up for

their renegade sect as eloquently as they knew how.

 

"But that man was a Communist! We found his card."

 

"Look at it this way. If TUG brainwashes people, how do you explain the great

diversity of our membership, which comes from towns and farms of all sizes all

over the Dakotas and Saskatchewan?"

 

"TUG is fully consistent with Judeo-Christo-Mohammedan-Bahaism."

 

Communism is the greatest threat in the world today." "The goals of Messiah

Jorgenson Five are fully consistent with the aims of American higher

education."

 

"Our church is noncoercive. We believe of our own free, uh, pamphlet.. .

explains our ideas in layman's language." "Visit North Dakota this summer for

fun in the sun. Temple Camp."

 

"Who is the brainwasher, our church, which teaches that we may all be

Messiah/Buddhas together, or today's media society with its constant emphasis

on materialism?"

 

"If you'll accept this free book it will reveal truths you may never have

thought about before."

 

"I couldn't help noticing that you were looking a little down and out, kinda

lonely. You know, sometimes it helps to talk to a stranger."

 

"Do you need a free dinner?"

 

Krupp watched skeptically. The older man was silent, but finally touched each

student lightly on the shoulder, silencing one and all. They left, smiling.

 

Lookir disgusted, Krupp returned to the microphone. "Where was I, talking

about autonomy?"

 

He surveyed his notes and concluded his lecture in another twenty minutes.

He paused then to light his cigar, which he had been fingering, twiddling,

stroking and sniffing exquisitely for several minutes, and was answered

by exagerrated coughing from the SUB section. "I'm free to answer some

questions," he announced, surveying the room and squinting into his cigar

smoke like a cowboy into the setting sun.

 

Nearly everyone in the SUB raised his/her hand, but Yllas Freedperson,

Operatives 1 and 2 and two others arose and made their loud way up to the

back of the hall for an emergency conference. They were deeply concerned;

they stopped short of being openly suspicious, a deeply fascist trait, but

it occurred to them that what had just happened might strongly suggest the

presence of a TUG deep-cover mole in the SUB!

 

Meanwhile, question time went on down below. As was his custom, Krupp called

on two people with serious questions before resorting to the SUB. Eventually

he did so, looking carefully through that section and stabbing his finger at

its middle.

 

By SUB custom, any call for a question was communal property and was

distributed by consensus to a member of the group. This time, Dexter Fresser,

Sarah's hometown ex-beau, number 2 person in the SUB and its chief political

theorist, got the nod. Shaking his head, he pushed himself up in his seat

until he could see Krupp's face hovering malevolently above the dome of the

next person's bandanna. He took a deep breath, preparing for intellectual

combat, and began.

 

"You were talking about autonomy. Well, then you were talking about Greek

words of roots. I want to talk about Greek too because we have our roots

in Greece, just like, you know, our words do-- that is, most of us do, our

culture does, even if our ethnicity doesn't. But Rome was much, much more

powerful than Greece, and that was after most of the history of the human

race, which we don't know anything about. And you know in Greece they had

gayness all over the place. I'm saying that nice and loud even though you hate

it, but even though. uh, you know, fascist? But you can't keep me from saying

it. Did you ever think about the concentration camps? How all those people

were killed by fascists? And also in Haiti. which we annexed in 1904. And did

you ever 1 think about the socialist revolution in France that was crushed

by D-Day because the socialists were fighting off the Nazis single-handedly.

Where's the good in that? Bela Lugos! was ugly, but he had a great mind. I

mean, some of the greatest works of art were done by Satan-worshipers like

Shakespeare and Michelangelo! And the next time your car throws a rod on 1-90

between Presho and Kennebec because you lost your dipstick you should think,

even if it is a hundred and ten in the shade forty-four Celsius and there are

red winged blackbirds coming at you like Bell AH-64s or something. Put the

goddamn zucchini in later next time and it won t get so mushy! I know this is

strong and direct and undiplomatical, but this is real life and I can't be

like you and phrase it like blue tennis-shoe laces hanging from the rear-view

mirror. See?"

 

Here he stopped. Krupp had listened patiently, occasionally looking away

to restack his notes or puff on his cigar. "No," he said. "Do you have a

question. son?"

 

Emotionally wounded, Dex Fresser shook his head back and forth and gestured

around it as though tearing off a heavy layer of tar. While his companions

supported him, another SUBbie rose to take his place. She was of average

height, with terribly pale skin and a safety pin through her septum. She rose

like a zeppelin on power takeoff and began to read in a singsong voice from a

page covered with arithmetic.

 

"Mister Krupp, sir. Last year. According, to the Monoplex Monitor, you, I

mean the Megaversity Corporation ruling clique, spent ten thousand dollars on

legal fees for union-busting firms. Now. There are forty thousand students at.

American Megaversity. This means that on the average, you spent… four thousand

million dollars on legal fees for union-busting alone! How do you justify

that, when in this very city people have to pay for their own abortions?"

 

Krupp simply stared in her direction and took three long slow puffs on his

cigar without saying anything. Then he turned to the blackboard. "This

weather's not getting any better," he said, quickly drawing a rough outline of

the United States. "It's this low pressure center up here. See, the air coming

into it turns around counterclockwise because of the Coriolis effect. That

makes it pump cold air from Canada into our area. And we can't do squat about

it. It's a hell of a thing." He turned back to the audience. "Next question!"

 

The SUB wanted to erupt at this, but they were completely nonplused and hardly

said anything. "I've taken too many questions from the kill-babies-not-seals

crowd," Krupp announced. He called on Ephraim Klein, who had been waving

his hand violently. "President Krupp, I think the question of adherence to

an inner Law is just a semantic smokescreen around the real issue, which is

neurological. Our brains have two hemispheres with different functions. The

left one handles the day-to-day thinking, conventional logical thought, while

the right one handles synthesis of incoming information and subconsciously

processes it to form conclusions about what the basic decisions should be--

it converts experience into subconscious awareness of basic patterns and

cause-and-effect relationships and gives us general direction and a sense of

conscience. So this stuff about autonomy is nothing more than an effort by

neurologically ignorant metaphysicists to develop, by groping around in the

dark, an explanation for behavior patterns rooted in the structure of the

brain."

 

Krupp answered immediately. "So you mean to say that the right hemisphere is

the source of what I call the inner Law, and that rather than being a Law per

se it is merely a set of inclinations rooted in past experience which tells

the left hemisphere what it should do."

 

"That's right-- in advanced, conscious people. In primitive unconscious

bicameral people, it would verbally speak to the left hemisphere, coming as a

voice from nowhere in times of decision. The left hemisphere would be unable

to do otherwise. There would be no decision at all-- so you would have perfect

adherence to the Law of the right hemisphere voice, absolute autonomy, though

the voice would be attributed to gods or angels."

 

Krupp nodded all the way through this, squinting at Klein. "You're one of

those, eh?" he asked. "I've never been convinced by Jaynes' theory myself,

though he has some interesting points about metaphors. I don't think an

ignorant carpenter like Jesus had all that flawless theology pumped into the

left half of his brain by stray neural currents." He thought about it for

a moment. "Though it would be a lot quieter around here if everyone were

carrying his stereo around in his skull."

 

"Jesus," said Ephraim Klein, "you don't believe in God, do you? You?"

 

"Well, I don't want to spend too much time on this freshman material, uh--

what's your name? Ezekiel? Ephraim. But you ought to grapple sometime with the

fact that this materialistic monism of yours is self-refuting and thus totally

bankrupt. I guess it's attractive to someone who's just discovered he's an

intellectual-- sure was to me thirty years ago-- but sometime you've got to

stop boxing yourself in with this intellectual hubris."

 

Klein nearly rocketed from his chair and for a moment I said nothing. He was

bolt upright, supporting his weight on i one fist thrust down between his

thighs into the seat, chewing deeply on his lower lip and staring, to use a

Krupp ~ phrase, "like a coon on the runway." "Non sequitur! Ad hominem!" he

cried.

 

"I know, I know. Tell you what. Stick around and I'll listen to your Latin

afterward, we're losing our audience." Krupp began looking for a new

questioner. From the back of the hall came the sound of a fold-down seat

bounding back up into position, and we turned to make out the ragged figure of

Bert Nix.

 

"Krupp cuts a fart! The sphinxter cannot hold!" he bellowed hoarsely, and

sat back down again Krupp mainly ignored this, as his aides strode up the

aisle to show Mr. Nix where the exit was and turned his attention to the next

questioner, a tall redheaded SUBbie who accused Krupp of accepting bribes to

let wealthy idiots into the law school. Red added, "I keep asking you this

question, Septimius, and you've never answered it yet. When are you going to

pay some attention to my question?"

 

Krupp looked disgusted and puffed rapidly, staring at him coldly. Bert Nix

paused in the doorway to shout: "My journey is o'er rocks & Mountains, not in

pleasant vales; I must not sleep nor rest because of madness & dismay."

 

"Yeah," said Krupp, "and I give you the same answer every time, too. I didn't

do that. There's no evidence I did. What more can I say? I genuinely want to

satisfy you."

 

"You just keep slinging the same bullshit!" shouted the SUBbie, and slammed

back down into his seat.

 

Casimir Radon listened to these exchanges with consuming interest. This was

what he had dreamed of finding at college: small lectures on pure ideas from

the president of the university, with discussion afterward. That the SUBbies

had disrupted it with a pie-throwing made him sick; he had stared at them

through a haze of anger for the last part of the meeting. Had he been sitting

by the side door he could have tripped that bastard. Which would have been

good, because Sarah Jane Johnson was sitting there three rows in front of him,

totally unaware of his existence as usual.

 

Sarah's entrance, several minutes before the start of the lecture, had thrown

Casimir into a titanic intellectual struggle. He now had to decide whether

or not to say "hi" to her. After all, they had had a date, if you could call

stammering in the Megapub for two hours a date. Later he had realized how

dull it must have been for her, and was profoundly mortified. Now Sarah was

sitting just twenty feet away, and he hated to disrupt her thoughts by just

crashing in uninvited; better for her not to know he was there. But in case

she happened to notice him, and wondered why he hadn't said "hi," he made up a

story: he had come in late through the back doors.

 

He also wanted to ask Krupp a question, a dazzling and perceptive question

that would take fifteen minutes to ask, but he couldn't think of one. This

was regrettable, because Krupp was a man he wanted to know, and he needed to

impress him before making his sales pitch for the mass driver.

 

At the same time, he was working on a grandiose plan for gathering damaging

information on the university, but this seemed stupid; seen from this

lecture hall, American Megaversity looked pretty much the way it had in the

recruiting literature. He would continue with Project Spike until it gave him

satisfaction. Whether or not he released the information depended on what

happened at the Big U between now and then.

 

Sarah's voice sounded in one ear. "Casimir. Earth to Casimir. Come in, Casimir

Radon Shocked and suddenly breathless, he sat up, looking astonished.

 

"Oh," he said casually. "Sarah. Hi. How're you doing?" Fine," she answered,

"didn't you see me?"

 

Eventually they went into the hallway, where S. S. Krupp was down to the

last inch of his cigar and having a complicated discussion with Ephraim

Klein. His aides stood to the sides brushing hairs off their suits, various

alien-looking philosophy majors listened intently and I leaned against a

nearby wall watching it all, "Well, why didn't you say so?" Krupp was saying.

"You're a Jaynesian and a materialistic monist. In which case you've got no

reason to believe anything you think, because anything you think is just

a predetermined neural event which can't be considered true or logical.

Self-refuting, son. Think about it."

 

"But now you've gotten off on a totally different argument!" cried Klein.

"Even if we presume dualism, you've got to admit that intellectual processes

reflect neural events in some way." "Well, sure."

 

"Right! And since the bicameral mind theory explains human behavior so well,

there's no reason, even if you are a dualist, to reject it."

 

"In some cases, okay," said Krupp, "but that doesn't support your original

proposition, which is that Kant was just trying to rationalize brain events

through some kind of semantic necromancy."

 

"Yes it does!"

 

"Hell no it doesn't."

 

"Yes it does!"

 

"No it doesn't. Sarah!" said Krupp warmly. He shook her hand, and the

philosophy majors, seeing that the intelligent part of the conversation was

done, vaporized. "Glad you could come tonight." "Hello, President Krupp. I

wish you'd do this more often." "Wait a minute," yelled Klein, "I just figured

out how to reconcile Western religion and the bicameral mind."

 

"Well, take some notes quick, son, there's other people here, well get to it.

Who's your date, Sarah?"

 

"This is Casimir Radon," said Sarah proudly, as Casimir reflexively shoved out

his right hand.

 

"Well! That's fine," said Krupp. "That's two conversations I have to finish

now. If we bring Bud here along with us to keep things from getting out of

hand we ought to be safe." "Look out. I'm not the diplomat you're hoping I

am," I mumbled, not knowing what I was expected to say.

 

"What say we go down to the Faculty Pub and have some brews? I'm buying."

 

Our party got quite a few stares in the Faculty Pub. The three students were

not even supposed to be in the place, but the bouncer wasn't very keen on

asking Mr. Krupp's guests to show their IDs. This place bore the same relation

to the Megapub as Canterbury Cathedral to a parking ramp. The walls were

covered with wood that looked five inches thick, the floor was bottomless

carpet and the tables were spotless slabs of rich solid wood. Enough armaments

were nailed to the walls to defend a small medieval castle, and ancient

portraits of the fat and pompous were interspersed with infinitely detailed

coats of arms. The President ordered a pitcher of Guinness and chose a booth

near the corner.

 

Ephraim had been talking the entire way. "So if you were the religious type,

you know, you could say that the right side of the brain is the 'spiritual'

side, the part that comes into contact with spiritual influences or God or

whatever-- it has a dimension that protrudes into the spiritual plane, if you

want to look at it that way-- while the left half is monistic and nonspiritual

and mechanical. We conscious unicamerals accept the spiritual information

coming in from the right side mixed in subtly with the natural inputs. But a

bicameral person would receive that information in the form of a voice from

nowhere which spoke with great authority. Now, that doesn't contradict the

biblical accounts of the prophets-- it merely gives us a new basis for their

interpretation by suggesting that their communication with the Deity was done

subconsciously by a particular hemisphere of the brain."

 

Krupp thought that was very good. Sarah and Casimir listened politely.

Eventually, though, the conversation worked its way around to the subject of

the mass driver.

 

"Tell me exactly why this university should fund your project there, Casimir,"

said Krupp, and watched expectantly. "Well, it's a good idea."

 

"Why?"

 

"Because its relevant and we the people who do it will learn stuff from it."

 

"Like what?"

 

"Oh, electronics building things practical stuff."

 

"Can't they already learn that from doing conventional research under the

supervision of the faculty."

 

"Yeah, I guess they can."

 

"So that leaves only the rationale that it is relevant, which I don't deny but

I don't see why it's more relevant than a faculty research project."

 

"Well, mass drivers could be very important someday!" Krupp shook his head.

"Sure, I don't deny that. There are all kinds of relevant things which could

be very important someday. What I need to be shown is how funding of your

project would he consistent with the basic mission of a great institution of

higher learning. You see? We're talking basic principles here." Casimir had

removed his glasses in the dim light, and his strangely naked-looking eyes

darted uncertainly around the tabletop. "Well…"

 

"Aw, shit, it's obvious!" shouted Ephraim Klein, drawing looks from everyone

in the pub. "This university, let's face it, is for average people. The

smart people from around here go to the Ivy League, right? So American

Megaversity doesn't get many of the bright people the way, say, a Big Ten

university would. But there are some very bright people here, for whatever

reasons. They get frustrated in this environment because the university is

tailored for averagely bright types and there is very little provision for

the extra-talented. So in order to fulfill the basic mission of allowing

all corners to realize their full potential-- to avoid stultifying the best

minds here-- you have to make allowances for them, recognize their special

creativity by giving them more freedom and self-direction than the typical

student has. This is your chance to have something you can point to as an

example of the opportunities here for people of all levels of ability."

 

Krupp listened intently through this, lightly tapping the edge of a potato

chip on the table. When Klein finally stopped, he nodded for a while.

 

"Yep. Yeah, I'd say you have an excellent point there, Isaiah. Casimir, looks

as though you're going to get your funding." He raised an eyebrow.

 

Casimir stood up, yelled "Great!" and pumped Krupp's hand. "This is a great

investment. When this thing is done it will be the most incredible machine

you've ever seen. There's no end to what you can do with a mass driver."

 

There was a commotion behind Krupp, and suddenly, larger than life, standing

on the bench in the next booth down, Bert Nix had risen to his full bedraggled

height and was suspending a heavy broadsword (stolen from a suit of armor by

the restroom) over Krupp's head. "O fortunate Damocles, thy reign began and

ended with the same dinner!"

 

After Krupp saw who it was he turned back around without response. His two

aides staggered off their barstools across the room and charged over to

grab the sword from Bert Nix's hand. He had held it by the middle of the

blade, which made it seem considerably less threatening, but the aides didn't

necessarily see it this way and were not as gentle in showing Mr. Nix out as

they could have been. He was docile except for some cheerful obscenities; but

as he was dragged past a prominent painting, he pulled away and pointed to it.

"Don't you think we have the same nose?" he asked, and soon was out the door.

 

Krupp got up and brought the conversation to a quick close. After distributing

cigars to Ephraim and Casimir and me, he left. Finding ourselves in an

exhilarated mood and with what amounted to a free ticket to the Faculty Pub,

we stayed long enough to close it down.

 

Earlier, however, on his fifth trip to the men's room, Casimir stopped to look

at the plaque under the portrait to which Bert Nix had pointed. "WILBERFORCE

PERTINAX RUSHFORTH-GREATHOUSE, 1799-- 1862, BENEFACTOR, GREATHOUSE CHAPEL

AND ORGAN." Casimir tried to focus on the face. As a matter of fact, the

Roman nose did resemble Bert Nix's; they might be distant relatives. It was

queer that a derelict, who couldn't spend that much time in the Faculty Pub,

would notice this quickly enough to point it out. But Bert Nix's mind ran

along mysterious paths. Casimir retrieved the broadsword from where it had

fallen, and laughingly slapped it down on the bar as a deposit for the fourth

pitcher of Dark. The bartender regarded Casimir with mild alarm, and Casimir

considered, for a moment, carrying a sword all the time, a la Fred Fine. But

as he observed to us, why carry a sword when you own a mass driver?

 

"Casimir?"

 

"Mmmmm. Huh?" "You asleep?"

 

"No."

 

"You want to talk?"

 

"Okay."

 

"Thanks for leting me sleep here."

 

"No problem. Anytime."

 

"Does this bother you?"

 

"You sleeping here? Nah."

 

"You seemed kind of bothered about something."

 

"No. It's really fine, Sarah. I don't care."

 

"If it'd make you feel better, I can go back and sleep in my room. I just

didn't feel like a half-hour elevator hassle, and my wing is likely to be

noisy."

 

"I know. All that barf on the floors, rowdy people, sticky beer crud all over

the place. I don't blame you. It's perfectly reasonable to stay at someone's

place at a time like this."

 

"I get the impression you have something you're not saying. Do you want to

talk about it?"

 

The pile of sheets and blankets that was Casimir moved around, and he leaned

up on one elbow and peered down at her. The light shining in from the opposite

tower made his wide eyes just barely visible. She knew something was wrong

with him, but she also knew better than to try to imagine what was going on

inside Casimir Radon's mind.

 

"Why should I have something on my mind?"

 

"Well, I don't see anything unusual about my staying here, but a lot of people

would, and you seemed uptight."

 

"Oh, you're talking about sex? Oh, no. No problem." His voice was tense and

hurried.

 

"So what's bothering you?"

 

For a while there was just ragged breathing from atop the bed, and then he

spoke again. "You're going to think this is stupid, because I know you're

a Women's Libber, but it really bothers me that you're on the floor in a

sleeping bag while I'm up here in a bed. That bothers me."

 

Sarah laughed. "Don't worry, Casimir. I'm not going to beat you up for it."

 

"Good. Let's trade places, then."

 

"If you insist." Within a few seconds they had traded places and Sarah was

up in a warm bed that smelled of mothballs and mildew. They lay there for an

hour.

 

"Sarah?"

 

"Huh?"

 

"I want to talk to you."

 

"What?"

 

"I lied. I want to sleep with you so bad it's killing me. Oh, Jeez. I love

you. A lot."

 

"Oh, damn. I knew it. I was afraid of this. I'm sorry." No, don't be. My

fault. I'm really, really sorry."

 

"Should I leave? Do you want me out?"

 

"No. I want you to sleep with me," he said, as though this answer was obvious.

 

"How long have you been thinking about me this way?" Since we met the first

time."

 

"Really? Casimir! Why? We didn't even know each other!" "What does that have

to do with it?" He sounded genuinely mystified.

 

"I think we've got a basic difference in the way we think about sex, Casimir."

She had forgotten how they were when it came to this sort of thing.

 

"What does that mean? Did you ever think about me that way?" Not really."

 

Casimir sucked in his breath and flopped back down.

 

"Now, look, don't take it that way. Casimir, I hardly know you. We've only had

one or two good conversations. Look, Casimir, I only think about sex every one

or two days-- it's not a big topic with me right now."

 

"Jeez. Are you okay? Did you have a bad experience?" "Don't put me on the

defensive. Casimir, our friendship has been just fine as it is. Why should I

fantasize about what a friendship might turn into, when the friendship is fine

as is? You've got to live in the real world, Casimir."

 

"What's wrong with me?"

 

The poor guy just did not understand at all. There was no way to help him;

Sarah went ahead and spoke her lines.

 

"Nothing's wrong with you. You're fine."

 

"Then what is the problem?"

 

"Look. I sleep with people because there's nothing wrong with them. I don't

fantasize about relationships that will never exist. We're fine as we are. Sex

would just mess it up. We have a good friendship, Casimir. Don't screw it up

by thinking unrealistically." They sat in the dark for a while. Casimir was

being open-minded, which was good, but still had trouble catching on. "It's

none of my business, but just out of curiosity, do you like sex?" "Definitely.

It's a blast with the right person."

 

"I'm just not the right person, huh?"

 

"I've already answered that six times." She considered telling him about

herself and Dex Fresser in high school. In ways-- especially in appearance--

Casimir was similar to Dcx. The thing with Dex was a perfect example of what

happened when a man got completely divorced from reality. But Sarah didn't

want the Dex story to get around, and she supposed that Casimir would be

horrified by this high school saga of sex and drugs.

 

"I think I'll do my laundry now, since I'm up," she said. I'll walk you home."

 

A few minutes later they emerged into a hall as bright as the interior of a

small sun. The dregs of a party in the Social Lounge examined them as they

awaited an elevator, and Sarah was bothered by what they were assuming. Maybe

it would boost Casimir's rep among his neighbors.

 

An elevator opened and fifty gallons of water poured into the lobby. Someone

had filled a garbage can with water, tilted it up on one corner just inside

the elevator, held it in place as the doors closed, and pulled his hand out at

the last minute so that it leaned against the inside of the doors. Not greatly

surprised, Sarah and Casimir stepped back to let the water swirl around their

feet, then threw the garbage can into the lobby and boarded the elevator.

 

"That's the nice thing about this time of day," said Casimir. "Easy to get

elevators."

 

As they made their way toward the Castle in the Air, they spoke mostly of

Casimir's mass driver. With the new funding and with the assistance of Virgil,

it was moving along quite well. Casimir repeatedly acknowledged his debt to

Ephraim for having done the talking.

 

They took an E Tower elevator up to the Castle in the Air. A nine-leaved

marijuana frond was scotch-taped over the number 13 on the elevator panel

so that it would light up symbolically when that floor was passed. In the

corridors of the Castle the Terrorists were still running wild and hurling

their custom Big Wheel Frisbees with great violence.

 

Casimir had never seen Sarah's room. He stood shyly outside as she walked into

the darkness. "The light?" he said. She switched on her table lamp.

 

"Oh." He entered uncertainly, swiveling his bottle-bottom glasses toward the

wall. Conscious of being in an illegally painted room, he shut the door, then

removed his glasses and let them hang around his neck on their safety cord.

Without them, Sarah thought he looked rather old, sensitive, and human. He

rubbed his stubble and blinked at the forest with a sort of awed amusement. By

now it was very detailed.

 

"Isotropic."

 

"You saw what?"

 

"Isotropic. This forest is isotropic It s the same in all directions. It

doesn't tend in any way. A real forest is anisotropic thicker on the bottom

thinner on the top This doesn t grow in any direction it just is She sighed

Whatever you like "Why? What's it for?"

 

"Well-- what's your mass driver for?" "Sanity."

 

"You've got your mass driver. I've got this."

 

He looked at her in the same way he had been staring at the forest. "Wow," he

said, "I think I get it."

 

"Don't go overboard on this," she said, "but how would you like to attend

something dreadful called Fantasy Island Nite?"

 

    --December--

 

So nervous was Ephraim Klein, so primed for flight or combat, that he barely

felt his suitcases in his hands as he carried them toward his room. What

awaited him? He had left a week ago for Thanksgiving vacation. He had waited

as long as he could-- but not long enough to outwait John Wesley Fenrick and

three of his ugly punker friends, who leered hungrily at him as he walked out.

The question was not whether a prank had been played, but how bad it was going

to be. Hyperventilating with anticipation, he stopped before the door. The

cracks all the way around its edges had been sealed with heavy grey duct tape.

This prank did not rely on surprise. He pressed his ear to the door, but all

he could hear was a familiar chunka-chunka-chunk. With great care he peeled

back a bit of tape.

 

Nothing poured out. Standing to the side, he unlocked the door with surgical

care. There was a cracking sound as the tape peeled away under his impetus.

Finally he kicked it fully open, waited for a moment, then stepped around to

look inside.

 

He could see nothing. He took another step and then, only then, was enveloped

in a cloud of rancid cheap cigar smoke that oozed out the doorway like a

moribund genie under the propulsion of the Go Big Red Fan.

 

Incandescently furious, he retreated to the bathroom and wet a T-shirt to put

over his face. Thus protected he strode squinting down the foggy hallway into

the lifeless room.

 

The only remaining possessions of John Wesley Fenrick's were the Go Big Red

Fan and most of a jumbo roll of foil. He had moved out of the room and then

covered his half of the room with the foil, then spread out on it what must

have been several hundred generic cigars-- it must have taken half an hour

just to light them. The cigars had all burned away to ash, which had been

whipped into a blizzard by the Go Big Red Fan on its slow creep across the

floor to Ephraim's side. The room now looked like Yakima after Mount Saint

Helens. The Fan had ground to a halt against a large potted plant of Ephraim's

and for the rest of the week had sat there chunk-ing mindlessly.

 

He checked a record. To his relief, the ash had not penetrated to the grooves.

It had penetrated everything else, though, and even the Rules had taken on a

brown parchmentlike tinge. Ephraim Klein took little comfort in the fact that

his ex-roommate had not broken any of them.

 

He cranked open the vent window, set the Go Big Red Fan into it, cleared ash

from his chair, and sat down to think.

 

Klein preferred to live a controlled life. He never liked to pull out all the

stops until the final chord. But Fenrick had forced him to turn revenge into a

major project and Klein did not plan to fail. He began to tidy his room, and

to unleash his imagination on John Wesley Fenrick.

 

"Sarah?"

 

"Huh?"

 

"Did I wake you up?"

 

"No. Hi."

 

"Let's talk."

 

"Sure." Sarah rolled over on her stomach and propped ~ herself up on her

elbows. "I hope you're comfortable sleeping down there." "Listen. Anyplace is

more comfortable than my room when a party's going on above it."

 

I don't mind if you want to share a bed wlth me Hyacinth. My sister and I

slept together until I was eleven and she was twelve." "Thanks. But I didn't

decide to sleep down here because I don't like you, Sarah."

 

"Well, that's nice. I guess it's a little small for two." There was a long

silence. Hyacinth sat up on her sleeping bag, her crossed legs stretching

out her nightgown to make a faint white diamond in the darkness of the room.

Then, soundlessly, she got up and climbed into bed with Sarah. Sarah slid

back against the wall to make room, and after much giggling, rolling around,

rearrangement of covers and careful placement of limbs they managed to find

comfortable positions.

 

"Too hot," said Hyacinth, and got up again. She opened the window and a cold

wind blew into the room. She scampered back and dove in next to Sarah.

 

"Comfy?" said Hyacinth.

 

"Yeah. Mmm. Very."

 

"Really?" said Hyacinth skeptically. "More than before? Not just physically.

You don't feel awkward, being tangled up with me like this?"

 

"Not really," said Sarah dreamily. "It's kind of pleasant. It's just, you

know, warm, and kind of comforting to have someone else around. I like you,

you like me, why should it be awkward?" "Would it be any different if I told

you I was a lesbian?" Sarah came wide awake but did not move. With one eye she

gazed into the darkness above the soft white horizon of Hyacinth's shoulder,

on which she had laid her head.

 

"And that I was hoping we could do other nice things to each other? If you

feel inspired to, that is." She gently, almost imperceptibly, stroked Sarah's

hair. Sarah's heart was pumping rhythmically.

 

"I wish you'd say something," said Hyacinth. "Are you not sure how you feel,

or are you paralyzed with terror?"

 

Sarah laughed softly and felt herself relaxing. "I'm pretty naive about this

kind of thing. I mean, I don't think about it a lot. I sort of thought you

might be. Is Lucy?"

 

"Yes. Nowauays we don't sleep together that much. Sarah, do you want me to

sleep on the floor?"

 

Sarah thought about it but not very seriously The room was pleasantly cold now

and the closeness of her friend was something she had not felt in a very long

time. "Of course not. This is great. I haven't slept with anyone in a while--

a man, I mean. Sleeping with someone is one of my favorite things. But it's

different with men. Not quite as... sweet."

 

"That's for sure."

 

"Why don't you stay a while?"

 

"That'd be nice."

 

"Do you mind if we don't do anything?" At this they laughed loudly, and that

answered the question.

 

But we are doing something you know added Hyacinth later. "Your nose is in my

breast. You're stroking my shoulder. I'm afraid that all counts."

 

"Oh. Gosh. Does that make me a lesbian?"

 

"Oh, I don't know. I guess you're off to a promising start."

 

"Hmmm. Doesn't feel like being a lesbian."

 

Hyacinth squeezed Sarah tight. "Look, honey, don't worry about it. This is

just great as it is. I just wanted you to know the opportunity was there.

Okay?"

 

"Okay."

 

"Want to go to sleep?"

 

"Take it easy, what's your hurry?"

 

Last Night was the night of the blue towers. A week before, the towers had

glowed uniformly yellow as forty-two thousand students sat beneath their desk

lamps and studied for finals. The next night, blue had replaced yellow here

and there, as a few lucky ones, finished with their finals, switched on their

TVs. This night, all eight towers were studded with blue, and whole patches of

the Plex flickered in unison with the popular shows The beer trucks were busy

all day long down at the access lot, rolling kegs up the ramps to the Brew

King in the Mall, whence they were dispersed in canvas carts and two-wheelers

and Radio Flyers to rooms and lounges all over the Plex. As night fell and

the last students came screaming in from their finals, suitcases full of dope

moved through the Main Entrance and were quickly fragmented and distributed

throughout the towers for quick combustion. By dinnertime the faucets ran

cold water only as thousands lined up by the shower stalls, and the Caf was a

desert as most students ate at restaurants or parties. After dark, spotlights

and lasers crisscrossed the walls as partying students shone them into other

towers, and when the Big Wheel sign blazed into life, bands of Big-Wheel--

worshiping Terrorists all over the Plex launched a commemorative fireworks

barrage that sent echoes crackling back and forth among the towers like bumper

pool balls, punctuating the roar of the warring stereos.

 

By 10:00 the parties were just warming up. At 10:30 the rumor circulated that

a special police squad sent by S. S. Krupp was touring the Plex to bust up

parties. At 11:06 a keg was thrown from A24N and exploded on the Turnpike,

backing up traffic for an hour with a twelve-car chain-reaction smashup. By

11:30 forty students had been admitted to the Infirmary with broken noses,

split cheeks and severe inebriation, and it was beginning to look as though

the official estimate of one death from overintoxication and one from accident

might be a little low. The Rape/Assault/Crisis Line handled a call every

fifteen minutes.

 

Precisely at 11:40:00 an unknown, uninvited, very clumsy student walked behind

John Wesley Fenrick's chair at the big E31E end-of-semester bash and tripped,

spilling a strawberry malt all over Fenrick's spiky blond hair.

 

John Wesley Fenrick was in the shower with very hot water spraying onto his

head to dissolve the sticky malt crud, dancing around loosely to a tune in

his head and playing the air guitar. He wondered whether the malt had been

the work of Ephraim Klein. This, however, was impossible; his new room and

number were unlisted and you couldn't follow people home in an elevator. The

only way for Klein to find him was by a freak of chance, or by bribing an

administration person with access to the computer-- very unlikely. Besides,

a malt on the head was a bush-league retaliation even for a quiet little

harpsichord-playing New Jersey fart like Klein, considering what Fenrick had

so brilliantly accomplished.

 

What made it even greater was that the administration had treated it like

a hilarious college prank, a "concrete expression of malfunction in the

cohabitant interaction, intended only as nonviolent emotional expression."

Though they were after him to pay Klein's cleaning bills, Fenrick's brother

was a lawyer and he knew they wouldn't push it in court. Even if they did,

shit, he was going to be pulling down forty K in six months! A small price for

triumph.

 

With a snarl of disgust, Fenrick dumped another dose of

honey-beer-aloe-grub-treebark shampoo on his hair, finding that the tenacious

malt substance still had not come off. What's in this crap? Fenrick thought.

Fuck up your stomach, for sure.

 

Throughout E Tower, scores of Ephraim Klein's friends sat in the great

shiny microwave bathrooms watching the Channel 25 Late Night Eyewitness

InstaAction InvestiNews. Even during the most ghastly stories this program

sounded like an encounter session among five recently canceled sitcom actors

and developmentally disabled hairdressers' models. The weather, well, it

was just as bad, but was relieved by its very bizarreness. The weatherman,

a buffoon who knew nothing about weather and didn't care, was named Marvin

DuZan the Weatherman and would broadcast in a negligee if it boosted ratings;

his other gimmick was to tell an abominable joke at the conclusion of each

forecast. After the devastating punchline was delivered, the picture of the

guffawing pseudometeorologist and his writhing colleagues would be replaced

by an animated short in which a crazy-looking bird tried to smash a tortoise

over the head with a sledgehammer. At the last moment the tortoise would

creep forward, causing the blow to rebound off his shell and crash back into

the cranium of the bird. The bird would then assume a glazed expression and

vibrate around in circles, much like a chair in Klein's room during the

"Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor," finally to collapse at the feet of the

smiling turtle, who would then peer slyly at the audience and wiggle his

eyebrow ridges.

 

During Marvin DuZan's forecast on Last Night, Ephraim Klein was standing

outside his ex-roomie's shower stall, watching a portable TV and squirting

Hyper Stik brand Humonga-Glue into the latch of the stall's door. He had

turned down the volume, of course, and it seemed just as well, since from the

reactions of the InvestiNews Strike Force (and the cameramen, who were always

visible on the high-tech News Nexus set) it appeared that the joke tonight was

a real turd. As the camera zoomed in on the goonishly beaming face of Marvin

DuZan, Ephraim Klein's grip on the handles of two nearby urinals tightened

and his heart beat wildly, as did the grips and the hearts of a small army of

friends and hastily recruited deputies in many other E Tower bathrooms. Bird

and Tortoise appeared, the hammer was brandished, and smash!

 

As the hammer rebounded on the bird's head, scores of toilets throughout

E Tower were flushed, causing a vacuum so sharp that pipes bent and tore

and snapped and cold water ceased to flow. There was a short pause, and

then a bloodcurdling scream emanated from Fenrick's shower stall as clouds

of live steam burst out the top. After some fruitless handle-yanking and

Plexiglass-banging, the steam was followed by Fenrick himself, who fell

ungainly to the floor with a crisp splat and shook his head in pain as Ephraim

Klein escaped with his TV. In his haste Fenrick had lacerated his scalp on the

steel showerhead, and as he pawed at his face to clear away suds and blood he

was distantly conscious of a cold draft that irritated his parboiled skin, and

a familiar chunka-chunka-chunk that could be heard above the sounds of gasping

pipes and white water. Finally prying one eye open, he looked into the wind to

see it: the Go Big Red Fan, complacently revolving in front of his stall, set

on HI and still somewhat gray with cigar ash. Unfortunately for John Wesley

Fenrick, he did not soon enough see the puddle of water which surrounded

him, and which was rapidly expanding toward The base of the old and poorly

insulated Fan.

 

This was also quite an evening for E17S. Ever since joining the Terrorists as

the Flame Squad Faction, this all-male wing had suffered from the stigma of

being mere copies of the Big Wheel Men, Cowboys and Droogs of E13. Tonight

that was to change. The Christmas tree had been purchased three weeks ago,

left in a shower until the fireproofing compound was washed away, and hung

over a hot-air vent in the storage room; it was now a lovely shade of

incendiary brown. They took it up to E3 1, the top floor, seized an elevator,

and stuffed the tree inside. Someone pressed all the buttons for floors 30

through 6 while others squirted lighter fluid over the tree's dessicated

boughs.

 

Only one match was required. The door slid shut just as the smoke and flames

began to billow forth, and with a cheer and a yell the Flame Squad Faction

began to celebrate.

 

Twenty-four floors below, Virgil and I were having a few slow ones in my

suite. I had no time for partying because I was preparing for a long drive

home to Atlanta. Virgil happened to be wandering the Plex that night, looking

in on various people, and had paused for a while at my place. Things were

pretty quiet-- as they generally had been since John Wesley Fenrick had left--

and except for the insistent and inevitable bass beat, the wing was peaceful.

 

The fire alarm rang just before midnight. We cursed fluently and looked out

my door to see what was up. As faculty-in-residence I didn't have to scurry

out for every bogus fire drill, but it seemed prudent to check for smoke.

The smoke was heavy when we opened the door, and we smelled the filthy odor

of burning plastic. The source of the flame was near my room: one of the

elevators, which had automatically stopped and opened once the fire alarm was

triggered. I put a rag over my mouth and headed for the fire hose down the

hall. Meanwhile Virgil prepared to soak some towels in my sink.

 

Neither of us got any water. My fire hose valve just sucked air and howled.

 

"God Almighty," Virgil called through the smoke. "Somebody pulled a Big

Flush." He came out and joined the people running for the fire stairs. "No

'vators during fires so Ill have to take the stairs. I've got to get the

parallel pipe system working."

 

"The what?"

 

"Parallel pipes," said Virgil, skipping into the stairwell. "Hang on! Find a

keg! The architects weren't totally stupid!" And he was gone down the stairs.

 

I locked my door in case of looting and went off in search of a keg.

Naturally there was a superabundance that night, and with some help from the

too-drunk-to-be-scared owners I hauled it to the lobby and began to pump

clouds of generic light into the flaming Christmas tree.

 

Casimir Radon was in Sharon's lab, washing out a beaker. This was merely the

first step of the Project Spike glassware procedure, which involved attack by

two different alcohols and three different concentrated acid mixtures, but he

was in no hurry. For him Christmas had started the day before. With Virgil's

help he could get into this lab throughout the vacation, and that meant plenty

of time to work on Project Spike, build the mass driver and suffer as he

thought about Sarah.

 

He was annoyed but not exasperated when the water stopped flowing. There was a

gulp in the tapstream, followed by a hefty KLONK as the faucet handle jerked

itself from his grasp. The flow of water stopped, and an ominous gurgling,

sucking noise came from the faucet, like an entire municipal water system

flushing its last. He listened as the symphony of hydraulic sound effects grew

and spread to the dozens of pipes lining the lab's ceiling, the knocks and

gurgles and hisses weaving together as though the pipes were having a wild

Christmas party of their own. But Casimir was tired, and fairly absentminded

to boot, and he shrugged it off as yet another example of the infinite variety

of building and design defects in the Plex. The distilled water tap still

worked, so he used it. Despite the drudgery of the task and his problems with

Sarah, Casimir wore a little smile on his long unshaven face. Project Spike

had worked.

 

He had been sampling Cafeteria food for three weeks, and until tonight had

come up with nothing. Turkey Quiche, Beef Pot Pies, Lefto Lasagne, Estonian

Pasties, and even Deep-Fried Chicken Livers had drawn blanks, and Casimir had

begun to wonder whether it was a waste of time. Then came Savory Meatloaf

Night, an event which occurred every three weeks or so; despite the efforts

of advanced minds such as Virgil's, no one had ever discerned any reliable

pattern which might predict when this dish was to be served. Today, of course,

the last of the semester, Savory Meatloaf Night had struck and Casimir had

craftily smuggled a slice out in his sock (the Cafeteria exit guards could

afford to take it easy on Savory Meatloaf Night).

 

Not more than fifteen minutes ago, as he had been irradiating the next batch

of rat poison, the computer terminal had zipped into life with the results

of the analysis: high levels of Carbon- 14! There were rats in the meatloaf!

That was a triumph for Casimir. It seemed likely to be a secret triumph,

though. Sarah would never understand why he was doing this. Casimir wasn't

even sure he understood it himself. S. S. Krupp had funded his mass driver,

so why should he wish to damage the university now? He suspected that Project

Spike was simply a challenge, an opportunity to prove that he was clever

and self-sufficient in a sea of idiocy. He had accomplished that, but as a

political tactic it was still pretty dumb. Sarah would certainly think so.

 

Sarah had also thought it was dumb when he had decided to work in the lab all

night instead of going to Fantasy Island Nite. She was right on that issue

too, perhaps, but Casimir loathed parties of all sorts and would use any

excuse to avoid one. Hence he was here on the bottom of the Plex, washing out

rat-liver scum, while she was far above, dancing in the clown costume she had

shown him-- probably having a wonderful time as handsome Terrorists salivated

on her.

 

He observed he was leaning on the counter staring at the wall as though it

were a screen beaming him live coverage of Sarah at the party. Maybe he would

leave now, retaining a lab coat as a costume, and go up and surprise Sarah.

 

Meanwhile water was squirting out of the wall, forcing its way through the

cracks between the panels, running out from under the baseboards and trickling

through the grommets in the sides of Casimir's tennis shoes. Abruptly brought

back into the here and now, he looked around half-dazed and started unplugging

things and moving them to higher ground. What the hell was happening? A broken

pipe? He figured that if there was enough water pressure on the 31st floor to

run a fire hose, the pressure down here must be phenomenal. This was going to

be a hell of a mess.

 

Water was now trickling through old nail holes high on the wall. Casimir

covered the computer terminal with plastic and then ran out to search for

B-men. They were not here now, of course-- probably spreading rat poison or

celebrating some Crotobaltislavonian radish festival.

 

Across from Sharon's lab was a freight elevator closed off by a manually

operated door. When he looked through its little window Casimir saw water

falling down the shaft, and sparks spitting past. He got insulated gloves from

the lab and hauled the door open. Several gallons of pent-up water rushed past

his ankles and fell into the blackness. From below rose the-harsh wet odor of

the sewers.

 

The sparks issued from the electrical control box on the shaft wall. Once

Casimir was sure there was no danger of fire or electrocution he left, leaving

the doors open so that water could drain out of this bottom level of the Plex.

 

Oh, God. The rat poison. It was only supposed to stay in the radiation source

for a minute at a time! Casimir had put it in an hour ago, then simply

forgotten about it once the results of the analysis had come in. The damn

stuff must be glowing in the dark. He sloshed back into the lab.

 

Water poured and squirted from the walls and ceiling everywhere he looked. He

shielded his face from spray and walked through a wall of water toward the

neutron source, a garbage can full of paraffin with the plutonium button at

its center. Stopping to listen, he sensed that the slow ticking noise which

had been coming from one wall had sped up and was growing louder. He stood

petrified as it grew into a rumble, then a groan. then a scream-- and the wall

crashed open and a torrent rushed through the lab. An adjacent storage room

had filled with water from a large broken pipe, and Casimir was now knocked to

the floor by a torrent of Fiberglass panels, aluminum studs, and janitorial

supplies. He rolled just in time to see the neutron source, buoyed on the rush

of water, bob through the doorway and across the hall.

 

Taking care not to be swept along, he made his way to the shaft and looked

down. All was dark, but from far below, under the waterfall sound, he thought

he heard a buzz, or a ringing: the sound of an alarm. Maybe his ears were

ringing, and maybe it was a fire alarm above. Nauseated, he returned to the

lab, sat on a table and awaited the B-men.

 

Fantasy Island Nite was turning out to be not such a bad thing after all.

Those Terrorists upstairs in their own lounge were making a lot of noise,

but those down here on 12 were making an admirable effort to behave, per

their agreement with the Airheads. Only this agreement had persuaded Sarah

and Hyacinth to show up. It was potentially interesting, it was nice to be

sociable once in a while and they could always leave if they didn't like it.

Sarah wore a clown costume. This was her way of making fun of the fantasy

theme of the party-- most Airheads came as beauty queens or vamps-- and

had the extra advantage of making her totally unrecognizable. Hyacinth put

together a smashing Fairy Godmother costume, as a joke only Sarah would get.

Their plan was to drink so much it would become socially acceptable for them

to dance together.

 

While Sarah was working on the first stage of this plan she began g a lot

of attention from three Terrorists. These three-- ,a Cowboy, a Droog and a

Commando-- were obvious jerks, each one incensed that she would not reveal her

name, but as long as they danced, fetched drinks and didn't try to converse

they seemed like harmless fun. After a while she got a little boogied out, and

withdrew from the action to look out over the city. Hyacinth had gone to visit

another party and was expected back soon.

 

Time twisted and she was no longer at the party; she was watching it from a

place in her mind where she had not been for many years. She slid backward

like an air hockey puck until she was high up in one corner of the room. The

walls of the Plex fell away so that she could see in all directions at once.

 

One of the picture windows had been replaced by a gate that opened to the

sky. The gate was gaily festooned with shining pulsing color-blobs. All the

other party-goers had lined up in front of it. On one side of the gate stood

Mitzi, taking tickets; on the other, Mrs. Saritucci, checking off their names

on a clipboard. Each Airhead-Terrorist who passed through stepped out and sat

down on a long slippery-slide made of blue light, and squealed with delight

as they zoomed earthward. Sarah could not see all the way to the slide's end,

but she could see that, below, the Death Vortex had turned into a whirlpool of

multicolored fire. Forests and towns and families whirled around and around

before gurling down the center to disappear. The Vortex was ringed with

hundreds of fire trucks whose crews haltheartedly sprayed their tiny jets of

water into its middle.

 

When Sarah looked beyond the whirlpool she saw in its light a shattered

landscape of rubble and corpses, where bawling dirty people scrabbled about

aimlessly and squinted into the fire-glow. Nothing more than dust, solitary

bricks, cockroaches and jagged glass was there, though Sarah's vision swooped

across it for a thousand miles and a thousand years.

 

Beyond its distant edge was a nonlandscape: a milky white vacuum where choking

black clouds of static grew, split, re-formed, hurled themselves against

one another, clashed with horrible dry violence and abated to grow and form

again. Its slowness and its dryness made it the most awful thing Sarah had

ever seen. Alter five millennia, when she thought she was entirely lost and

crazy, she saw a piece of broken glass. then a rivulet of blood. Following

them, she found herself in the terrible landscape again, with the Plex on the

horizon erupting like a volcano. Blue beams of light shot from its top and

wrapped around her and sucked her back through the air into the building. But

she could no longer find herself there. She was no longer in the Lounge. The

Lounge had been vacant for centuries and only dust and yellowed party favors

remained. Following footprints in the dust she came to the hallway-- brightly

lit, loud, filled with shouting students and bats. She flew straight down

the hail until four dots at its end grew into four people and she could slow

down and follow them. There were three men: a Cowboy and a Commando held the

arms of a woman dressed as a clown, hurrying her down the hall, while a Droog

walked ahead of them carrying a paper punch cup which glowed with a green

light from within. Sarah closed her eyes to the glow and shook her head, and

when she opened them again she was the clown-woman-- though she did not want

to be.

 

They were in an elevator filled with black water that rose and crept warmly up

Sarah's thighs. Swimming in the water were bad hidden things, so she kicked as

well as she could. Her hands were held up above her head by men ten feet high,

lost in the glare of the overhead light where it was too bright to look.

 

Then they were on a floor that reminded Sarah of the broken landscape. On the

wall a giant mouth was chewing vigorously, drooling on the floor and smacking

its disgusting lips. The men threw her through it and followed behind.

 

"I won't go down the slide," she protested, but they did not really care.

Inside all was red and blue; a neon beer emblem burned in the window and

licked her with its hot rays. There stood a giant in a football costume who

wore the head of Tiny, leader of the Terrorists.

 

"Is Dex here?" she said, more out of habit than anything. It would be like

Dex to slip her some LSD. But then she knew this was a stupid question. She

felt the door being locked behind her and saw the music turned up until it

was purest ruby red, causing her body to turn into fragile glass. To move now

would be to shatter and die.

 

"Handle with care," she murmured, "I'm glass now," but the words just dribbled

down the front of her costume. They were ripping her costume away. She

squirmed but felt herself cracking horribly. The beer sign cast grotesque red

and blue light on the transparent flesh of her thighs.

 

She knew what was going to happen next. Somehow her mind connected it all in a

straight line, before the idea was swept away by the internal storm. The worst

thing in the world. She should have gone down the slide.

 

She made an effort of will. The sound and the light went away, it was spring;

grass and flowers and blue sky were all around and she was not about to be

raped. She was eating raspberries on the banks of a creek. Out of curiosity

she scratched at the air with her fingernail. Red and blue rays stabbed out

into her skin again, and peeking all the way through for a moment she could

see that they had not yet started.

 

No wonder; they were moving in slow motion. Sarah would have to spend many

hours waiting on the banks of the creek. She drew back into the sunshine.

Perhaps she could live here forever and have a perfect life.

 

When she slept, she dreamed of those dry, unending wars in the land of milky

white. She knew it was all an illusion. She tore it away and came back to

the room. She was not going to sleep through anything. She was not going to

imagine anything that didn't exist.

 

The sign was wavy and upside down now, reflected in a puddle of water on the

floor.

 

A Terrorist was in the corner twisting a faucet handle. Sarah stood up. Tiny

turned toward her and smashed her across the face. She was on the floor again,

and over there a Terrorist groped in the scintillating ocean of red and blue

for the sign's power cord. He was screaming like an electric guitar now. He

was trying to swim in the shallow lake of blood and bile.

 

Sarah was thrown onto a bed. Her arms and legs flailed, and one heel found a

Terrorist's kneecap. The Droog got on top of her, and because he was in slow

motion she kicked him in the nuts. He curled up on top of her and she looked

through his hair at the ceiling, which sputtered in the failing sign-light.

Tiny was unwinding a long piece of rope and its thin tendrils floated around

him like black smoke. She rolled half out from under the Droog and curled

into a fetal position so he could not take her arms and legs. As she did she

peered down through the transparent floor and saw the Airheads, plastered with

grotesque makeup, drinking LSD from crystal goblets and cheering. But where

was Hyacinth?

 

Hyacinth was standing in the doorway. An extremely loud explosion seeped

into her ears. Smoke filled the room, catching the hallway light and forming

hundreds of 3-D images from Sarah's past life.

 

Hyacinth's fairy godmother costume was changed, for now she wore heavy leather

gloves over her white cloth gloves, and bulky ear protectors under her conical

hat, and a pair of goggles beneath her milky-white veil. In her hands she

carried a giant revolver. Sarah knew that under her dress, Hyacinth was made

of strong young oakwood.

 

Hyacinth took one step into the room and shrugged on the main light switch.

Tiny stood in the center, staring. The man who had been swimming on the floor

was dead. Another clasped his knee and screamed at the ceiling. Sarah laid her

head down restfully and put her hands on her ears.

 

Cones of fire were spurting from the front and back of Hyacinth's gun and her

hands were snapping rhythmically up and down. Tiny had his hands on his chest,

and as he walked backward toward the window the back of his football jersey

bulged and fluttered like a loose sail, darkness splashing away from it. The

electrical cord was between his legs. His steps shortened and he fell backward

through the picture window. The cord and plug trailed slowly behind him and

snapped out room and were gone. The noise was so immense that Sarah heard

nothing until much later. The blasts were synchronized with the music's beat:

 

WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM

 

with each WHAM followed by a high whine that shrieked through until the next

WHAM, so that when Tiny was gone there remained a terrible high tone that

resonated between the walls of the room, far too loud for Sarah to stand,

filling her awareness like the blowing of the Last Trumpet and tormenting the

injured Terrorists, who cried out in it and wrapped their arms around their

heads. The Droog on, top of Sarah was pulled slowly away and Hyacinth yanked

Sarah to her feet. Sarah did not even move her legs as the smoky doorway

twisted past her, the corridor walls with their Big Wheels rolled on by, the

landings of the fire stair rushed up toward her from blackness and her soft

bed drifted up to envelop her face. Hyacinth was above her, probing, rubbing,

kissing her. She would not stop until Sarah was well again.

 

Virgil used his master key eight times before attaining a dark, stained

sub-sublevel of the Plex, where great water mains from the City entered from

the depths and fed the giant pumps that pressurized the plumbing system

overhead.

 

In an uncharacteristic flash of foresightedness, the Plex's architects made

allowances for the certainty that, once in a while, one group or another would

flush hundreds of toilets simultaneously and damage the cold water system. So

they installed two parallel, independent systems of main pipes to feed the

distribution systems of the wings; to switch between them one need only close

one set of valves and open another. This Virgil accomplished by grunting and

straining at a few red iron wheels. Satisfied that things were settling back

toward normal, he set out for Professor Sharon's old lab to see if Casimir

Radon was still there.

 

* * *

 

The Computing Center was not far away. Though it had many rooms, its heart

was a cavernous square space with white walls and a white floor waxed to a

thick glossy sheen. The white ceiling was composed of square fluorescent light

panels in a checkerboard pattern. Practically all of the room was occupied by

disc memory units: brown-and-blue cubes, spaced in a grid to form a seemingly

endless matrix of six-foot aisles. At the center of the room was an open

circle, and at the center of that area stood the Central Processing Unit of

the Janus 64. A smooth triangular column five feet on a side and twelve feet

high, it would have touched the ceiling except that above was a circular

opening about forty feet across, encircled by a railing so that observers

could stand and look into the core of the Computing Center.

 

Around the CPU were a few other large machines: secondary computers to

organize the tasks being fed to the Janus 64, array processors, high-speed

laser printers, a central control panel and the like. But closest of all was

the Operator's Station, a single video terminal, and tonight the operator was

Consuela Gorm, high priestess of MARS. She had volunteered to do the job on

this night of partying, when the only people still using the computer in the

adjacent Terminal Room were the goners, the hopelessly addicted hackers who

had nothing else to live for.

 

The only sounds were the whine of the refrigeration units, which drew away the

heat thrown off by the tightly packed components of the Janus 64; the high

hum of the whirling memory discs, miltiplied by hundreds; and the pitter-pat

of Consuela's fingertips across the keypad of the Operator's Station. She was

hunkered down there, staring hypnotized into the screen, and behind her Fred

Fine stood thin and straight as the CPU itself. Tonight they were testing

Shekondar Mark V, their state-of-the-art Sewers & Serpents simulation program.

Now, at a few minutes before midnight, they had worked out the few remaining

bugs and they stood transfixed as their program did exactly what it was

supposed to.

 

"Looks like a routine adventure," mumbled Consuela.

 

"But it looks like Shekondar might have generated a werewolf colony in this

party's vicinity. I'm seeing a lot of indications of lycanthropic activity."

 

"You'd want plenty of silver arrows on this campaign." "With this level of

activity, you'd want a cleric specialized in lycanthropes," scoffed Consuela.

 

Fred Fine was perfectly aware of that. He was merely making conversation so

Consuela would not realize he was thinking intently about something, and try

to beat him to the punch. Yes, the werewolf colony was obvious-- it was a

large one, probably east-northeast in the Mountains of Krang. Only large-scale

organization could account for the lack of wolfsbane and garlic, which were

usually abundant in this biome. But Fred Fine was concerned with observations

on a far grander scale. Though nothing was catastrophically wrong, something

was very strange, and Fred Fine found that he was covered with goosebumps. He

tapped a foot nervously and scanned the descriptions scrolling past on the

screen.

 

"Listen for birds!" he hissed.

 

Consuela ordered an Aural Stimuli Report, specifying Avians as field of

interest.

 

NO AVIAN SOUNDS DETECTABLE, said Shekondar Mark V.

 

"Damn!" said Fred Fine. "Let's have the alchemist test one of his magical

substances-- say, some of the fire-starting fluid." MAGICAL COMBUSTIBLES AND

EXPLOSIVES FAIL TO FUNCTION.

 

"Uh-oh! All characters jettison all magical items immediately!" SMALL FIRES

AND EXPLOSIONS IN ALCHEMICAL SUBSTANCES.

 

"Good. We'll get farther away."

 

LARGE EXPLOSIONS. NOXIOUS SMOKE. NO INJURIES DUE TO WIND DIRECTION.

 

"Lucky! Forgot even to check for that. My character will try turning on his

pocket calculator."

 

ELECTRONIC DEVICES FAIL TO FUNCTION.

 

"Wait a minute," said the astonished Consuela. "What is this? I don't know

of anything that can cause disruption of magic and technology at the same

time! Some kind of psionics, maybe?" "I don't know. I don't know what it is.,,

"We wrote this thing. We have to know what's in it." "Aural Stimuli Report,

General. Quick!"

 

DEEP RUMBLING CONSISTENT WITH TEMBLOR OR LARGE SUBTERRANEAN MOVEMENT.

 

"Can't be an earthquake. We'll head for solid rock, that should protect us.

Head uphill!"

 

MOVEMENT SPEED HALVED BY TEMBLOR. ROCK OUTCROPPING REACHED IN SIX TURNS.

EXTREMELY LOUD HISSING. GASEOUS ODOR. GROUND BECOMES WARM.

 

"It's almost like a Dragon," said Consuela in a constricted, terrified voice,

"but from down in the earth."

 

"God! I can't think of what the hell this is!"