Golem 100

15

Ah yes, the first wild Opsday of Ops Week, traditional Opalia (the Women’s Movement counter to Saturnalia) dedicated to reckless entertainment… as if the Guff needed any additional excuse for madness. Ops, wife of Saturn, Earth Goddess of Plenty, (she gave her name to “opulent”) in whose honor one touched earth instead of wood for luck, gave earthenware gifts, and fraternized regardless of rank or clout.

No schools, no disciplines, no punishments, no status dress or speech or courtesies; just free-for-all fun, and the best way to begin the carnival was to entertain a woman with her butt firmly pressed against earth, as Blaise Shima had just done.

“Opbless,” Gretchen gasped.

“Opbless, love.”

“But this gravel is killing my back.”

“Gravel? For shame, Gretchen. It’s earth, imported all the way from la belle France. We grudge no expense.”

“Then French-type love is too pebbly. You might at least have sifted it through a screen or something.”

“But I did, through a passoire, French for a colander. Our loving made it lumpy again.”

“And I thank you for that. Opbless. Make me a mattress, please.”

“Climb on top.”

“Ah! That’s better. Thank you again, sir.”

Two minutes, or perhaps twenty, slid by while they drifted and murmured on the terrace.

“You have the nicest bumps, love…”

“Yours is the greatest…”

“Not no more.”

“He’ll be back… That boy’s got strent.”

“The only thing about me that has…”

“Don’t put yourself down.”

“Just facing up to le pauvre petit. I wish I had your strength, Gretchen.”

“I’m no stronger than you.”

“Ten times as.”

“Never.”

“Five times as?”

“No.”

“Two and a half?”

“You’ve got your own kind of power, Blaise.”

“Not me. I feel as soft as Ind’dni.”

“Don’t underestimate him. There’s iron in that man. I can feel it.”

“So long as you don’t feel him…”

“Blaise! You can’t possibly be jealous?”

“Well… Sometimes I catch you looking at him kind of funny-like.”

“Just sizing him up… Feeling for his design. He’s got controlled violence in him, Blaise. If he ever loses control—Look out!”

“That bearded Hindu skog? Never!”

“Funny you should say that, because you’re like Ind’dni.”

“Me!”

“Oh yes. There’s violence in you… Only yours is attack-escape.”

“You’re putting me on.”

“No way. Either you’re le pauvre petit, hiding from tough situations in your lab, or you attempt to escape from a crise by attacking it. And when you do—Look out for Mr. Wish!”

“I couldn’t agree less. I’ve never wanted to hurt anybody or anything. There must be another explanation for the Wish lunacy.”

“Maybe you’re right. I’m too happy to argue. Let’s just go on drifting…”

“Too comfy, you mean.”

“And sleepy. Do we have to do anything today except enjoy Ops?”

“Pay off for our pranks. The Subadar gave me a list of legit claims.”

“Oh… Yes… We’ll split it up.” Gretchen’s yawn tickled his ear. “That shouldn’t take long. My place afterward?”

“Not long for you, maybe. Me, I’ve got another something else to do.”

“My! Aren’t we busy, busy, busy…”

“I’ve got to find a location where I can check out your senses.”

“Oh that. Can’t you do it in a lab?”

“No. It’s got to be a locale completely insulated from all externals.”

“Like empty outer space?”

“Space is far from empty, but that’s the idea. Some place deep and isolated with a power source… It won’t be easy to find…”

“For a genius-type like you? Go on!”

“Opthanks, lady. Would you mind getting off’n me?”

“But I’m so comfy…”

“Off… Off… Off…”

Gretchen got to her feet, grudgingly, and looked around through Shima’s eyes. “I’ll sweep the terrace.”

“Leave it for the end of Ops Week. We’ve too much to do today. What are you going to wear?”

“Plain white coveralls. Nothing fancy. You?”

“Coveralls, too, only blue work-denim.”

“So… Luck, man, and Opbless.”

“Luck, lady, and Opbless.”

* * *

The giant boardroom of CCC was jam-packed with freeloaders in tattered clothes, all shouting, singing, drinking, guzzling. A long trestle stretched the fifty-foot length of one wall. It was heaped with food, drink, and squeams, and behind it stood the eleven distinguished directors of CCC, wearing stained chefs’ costumes, and cheerfully serving all comers. Opsday.

Shima squirmed through the mob and reached the trestle at last. “Opbless, senator, I—”

“It’s Jimmy J. today, Blaise. Opbless. What can I serve you?”

“I’m looking for the chairman, Jimmy J.”

“You mean Mills? I think he’s handling the Squeamwich department. Down the road apiece.”

Shima fought down the trestle. “Opbless, general.”

“It’s Georgie, Blaise baby. Opbless. Say, I’ve got some ninety-caliber squeams and morwiches. What’ll it be? White? Rye? Fiber? Glass? Poly?”

“I thought the chairman was handling this concession.”

“Millsie? Not now, baby. He’s shifted over to the rotgut counter.”

Shima struggled again. “Opbless, governor.”

“It’s Nelly today, Blaise. Good old reliable Nelly. Say, I got something for you, son. Just what the doctor ordered. That’s a joke, son. It’s my own invention, The Earache. It sends, fella, it sends.”

“How, govern—Nelly?”

The governor pointed to half a dozen grinning supines jumbled in a corner. “All sent by Nelly’s elixir, The Earache.”

“What’s so special about it?”

“You don’t drink it, son. You drop it. In your ear and you have ignition. Now here’s a dropperful and—”

“Not just now, sir—I mean Nelly. I’m really looking for the chairman. I was told he was here.”

“Mills? Oh. No, Millypooh’s taken over soup.”

In his bedraggled chef’s costume the chairman was ranting like a sideshow pitchman, “HURRY! HURRY! HURRY” In one hand he held a soup tureen, in the other an enema bag. “HURRY! HURRY! HURRY! COME ONE! COME ALL! MEET THE BELLYWHOPPER! IT MEETS IN THE MIDDLE! THE ONLY SOUP THAT TASTES FROM THE INSIDE OUT! Hi, Blaise. Opbless.”

“Opbless, Mr. Chairm—Mills: Sir, I—Excuse me. Millie, I came to square the account for my ruined lab.”

“Forget it, Blaise. THE BELLYWHOPPER! THE BELLYWHOPPER! This is the first of Ops Week. All forgiven, and we’ll set your lab up for you again. MEET THE BELLYWHOPPER! BOTH ENDS AGAINST THE MIDDLE! We can afford it. God knows, CCC’s made enough money out of you.”

“Thank you, Mills.”

“Opbless, Blaise.”

“Sir—Millie, something else. I need a very special environment for a very special test I’ve got to run as soon as possible. Does CCC own a deep mine with a power source I could use? I need a place where the subject can be completely isolated.”

“Mine? Mine? My God, we’ve got a dozen exhausted mines all over the world, but not one you could use in a hurrry, Blaise.”

“Why not, Mills?”

“In the first place, all wiring and utilities were ripped out for scrap ages ago. In the second place, they’ve been taken over by squatters. Thousands of them. Would take at least a year to evict them, kicking and screaming. HURRY! HURRY! HURRY! THE BELLYWHOPPER!”

* * *

Gretchen couldn’t assay the mob surrounding the art museum because lifestyle was abandoned by the entire Corridor during Ops Week. Those who didn’t dress badly, faked it. Those who didn’t speak or behave without style, faked it. But she was sure of one thing: most of them had to be art lovers.

Because the museum followed a hallowed Neapolitan New Year’s custom. The Neapolitans save up all their unwanted household furnishings and decorations and on New Year’s Day they throw them out of their windows with hilarious celebrations, and if you’re walking the street, you’d better be on the alert for falling furniture.

The museum, always plagued by storage problems, followed this custom on the first Opsday. Whatever clutter they had occupying precious space, judged unworthy and proven unsalable (for a decent price) was tossed out the top-floor windows.

So down came paintings, prints, etchings, posters, statues, objets d’art and vertu, empty frames, pieces of armor, period costumes, papyrus, Baroque instruments, mummified cats, battered pistols, crumbling pewter.

There were shrieks of laughter from the windows as the mob fought hysterically to catch and possess in fee simple absolute each falling object, and Gretchen knew that getting rid of the museum’s worthless clutter was only half its enjoyment. Although she was out on the fringe of the mob, she found herself surprisingly and massively jostled by a large human object.

“Sorry. Opbless,” she muttered, shifting aside.

“Opbless,” said a clear, cultivated voice with no attempt at faking Ops Week commonality.

Gretchen turned curiously. It was the Queen Bee, Winifred Ashley.

“Regina!”

“What? BB? Is it really you, my dear? How unexpected and how very nice. What are you doing here? Touching earth for something?”

“Not really, Regina. I was hoping to apologize and make up for a disturbance I created the other day, but I see it’s quite impossible. And you?”

“Ah! I’m hoping for a secret treasure.”

“Can you tell me?”

“But of course, dear. After all, you are one of us.” Regina lowered her voice. “They have a player-piano gathering dust in a corner. Every year I hope they’ll tire of it and throw it out.”

“But you already have a player-piano in your beautiful Communist apartment, Regina.”

“Yes, BB, but I don’t want the museum’s old pianola. I want what’s in it. I’m the only one who knows. The first pianola roll of the ‘Internationale’ by Pottier and Degeyter, 1871. It will make the focal point of my decor. Can’t you hear it?” Regina sang as mellifluously as she spoke, “Arise, ye prisoners of starvation…” She laughed. “Perhaps only a dream, but still I touch earth. We’ll see you at my place this evening, of course, dear BB? A lahvely Opsparty to entertain our men. Opbless.”

* * *

It was free baths for all in the spillway of the Hudson Hell Gate dam. Fresh water, hot from the breeder cooling system. Slightly radioactive, to be sure, but what the hell, Opsday. Live a little, touch earth, and to hell with the rest. The four-acre spillway was seething with naked bodies, glowing from the heat, foaming with soap, submerging, surging up like porpoises, laughing, shouting, choking, coughing rhapsodically.

“Sooner or later one of them has to drown,” the man alongside Shima murmured. “Maybe on her own or maybe with a little help. I keep hoping. Opbless.”

“Opbless,” Shima answered and inspected the stranger. He was startling; tall, Lincolnesque in face and figure, and markedly piebald. The hair was albino, the beard black, the eyes red, the skin blotched with random black-and-white patches.

“I’m a haploid,” the stranger said casually, almost mechanically, as though he had responded to Shima’s suprised take a thousand times before. “Chromosomes from one parent only.”

“But you are a kind of albino, aren’t you?” Shima asked, much interested.

“Haploid albino,” the stranger said wearily. “Let it go at that, doctor. Don’t try any dissection on me.”

“What! What? You call me ‘doctor’? Are you the—?”

“Yes. Yes indeed. And apparently you have no memory. May I ask what squeam you were shooting?”

“Promethium. The hydride. PmH₂.”

“Never heard of it. I must remember to try it. Now this time, doctor, if one of them drowns, with or without help from me, kindly do not interfere. No rescue. No resuscitation. If there’s any mouth-to-mouth, I will apply it in my own fashion.”

“My God! You’re sick!”

“Don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it.”

“Christ! I’d rather die first.”

“Sorry. I don’t dig boys.”

Shima took a deep breath. “No. I’m sorry. Really sorry. I apologize for losing my head. I’m not here to argue or hassle with anybody, and certainly I’m in no position to pass moral judgments. I beg you to forgive me.”

“Nicely put.”

“So if you’ll excuse me…”

“Where are you off to?”

“I’m trying to get an interview with the dam director.”

“Oh, are you really, now?”

“Yes. Would you know where I might locate him or her, please?”

“Do I owe you favors?”

“No. I owe you.”

“Nicely put. The dam director is a Mr. Lafferty.”

“Thank you. And where might I find him?”

“Here. I’m Lafferty.”

Again Shima lost his poise. He gawked and stammered, “But—But—But—”

“But how?” Lafferty smiled. “Simple. Brilliance. Hard work. And the fact that I inherited fifty-one percent of the Hudson Hell Gate stock.”

“Ildefonsa would,” Shima said under his breath.

“Must you bring her up at the beginning of the fête, doctor?”

“Sorry again. Apologies again. I’m an ass today.”

“Accepted without reserve.”

“Mr. Lafferty, I—”

“Opsday. Droney.”

“Droney. Thank you. Opbless. I… I came to ask a favor of the HHG director…”

“Ask it.”

“I need a very special environment for a very special sensory test. It must be completely isolated from all sight and sound. I was hoping that the dam depths might—”

“No way,” Lafferty interupted. “If you hadn’t been so busy with your silly firecrackers down there, you’d have noticed that the depths are filled with rumblings and water-wooshings. Speaking of which, there goes a charming young girl under for the third time. She needs tender care. Excuse me.”

Shima could not reply.

The celebrated necrophiliac gave him a benign smile. “We will discuss your landing Subadar Ind’dni on my back another time.” As he plunged into the spillway, Lafferty declaimed, “Strong as an eagle! Swift as a vulture! Go! Go! Go! Go! Necro culture!”

* * *

Gianni Jiki’s tattoo parlor was by no means a hole in the wall. It was virtually a hospital with a central reception hall hung with display charts and a dozen side clinics with a dozen assistants working on the assembly-line principle. If, say, a Guff buck desired the prized (and rather expensive) cobra tattoo, the snake was first outlined around his waist in one surgery, detailed in the next, colored in a third, and the fanged head finalized in a fourth after a most respectful and tactfully induced erection. The lady who desired her labia majora converted into the lids of a roguish eye received the same respectful and tactful assembly line attention.

But on this first Opsday it was not business as usual, it was the mendicants’ carnival. In addition to decorative and erotic tattooing, Gianni Jiki also contrived magnificent injuries; bruises, contusions, livid scars, fresh wounds, and malignant skin eruptions for the larcenous accident “victims,” the blackmailing beggars, the deadbeats of the Guff. Consequently, his hospital was the informal clubhouse of the Guff’s professional panhandlers.

A joyous prosthetic dance was in progress in the main hall when Gretchen Nunn arrived. Synthesizers screamed. The professional cripples had removed their prosthetic arms, legs, hands, feet, and even half a neck and a shoulder. They were sitting in a circle, laughing and keying their tiny hand controls, while their detached prosthetic parts danced and cavorted in response to the radio commands. Lone legs kicked or tapped or soft-shoed. Single arms entwined with others in a prosthetic square dance. And some manipulators were clever enough to turn the fingers of their detached hands into chorus lines.

A jolly man, four-by-four-fat, stark naked, tattooed from head to toe, came up to Gretchen, beamed and greeted her. “Buon giorno. Opbless. Never, I thought, mai, never would you return.”

“Opbless,” Gretchen answered. “You—You’re Mr. Jiki, of course?”

“Si. Gianni. You were pazza the other night, eh? Too much wine?”

“I’ve come to apologize and make it up to you, Gianni.”

“To apology? Grazie. Most gentile. Grazie. But to make up? What? A joke only, eh? Molto cattiva, but yet only the joke. You have come, and my Opsday is made. That is enough.”

“But I must do something for you.”

“You must, eh? So.” Gianni considered, then beamed even broader. “Bene! You will dance with us.”

Gretchen stared at him. He met her look and nodded toward the floor. “Pick your partner, gentile signora.”

She was not the one to cavil or hesitate. Gretchen stepped onto the main floor, cased the cavorting prosthetics, and at last tapped the shoulder of a shoulder-and-arm.

“Sigfried,” Gianni called to three-quarters of a beggar. “La signora will waltz with you.”

Gretchen danced. Gianni Jiki sang, “Gualtiero! Gualtiero! Condurre mi per altare…”

* * *

They had this wretched hull of a Mississippi paddle wheeler for a barge and were holding their KKK Bar-B-Q on it. Shima found the celebration impossible to believe. There was a bed of glowing coals. There was a gigantic rotisserie revolving over it. And on the massive steel spit roasted a trussed form that was unmistakably humanoid.

“Dear God!” Shima whispered. “A cannibal barbecue.”

A seven-foot Watusi king, carrying all the accouterments of African royalty, greeted Shima. “Opbless, Dr. Shima, and welcome to our Honkfeast.”

“Opbless,” Shima replied faintly. “So you remember me?”

“Who could forget your rendition of that quaint Porgy and Bess with Miz Nunn? It is to be treasured.”

“I’m here to make amends for that. I’d like very much to square it with you; courtesywise, moneywise, anywise. You name it.”

“On Opsday? Impossible. Forget it, doctor. We have. Now come and join the feast. Dinner is about to be served.”

“I’d really like to do something for you,” Shima persisted, “because I want something from you.”

“Oh? What?”

“An estimate.”

“Yes? Of what?”

“I must conduct a sensory test which requires absolute isolation of the subject. I was considering some sort of small, thick concrete bunker.”

“Yes. And?”

“You people have a lock on the construction industry. How quickly could you put a bunker together and for how much? Can you give me a time and cost estimate?”

The Watusi king shook his head sadly. “Alas, impossible to gratify you, Dr. Shima. We are out on strike protesting management’s use of P.L.O. guards for security. They are not genuinely black, despite all P.L.O. claims. It will probably last another three months, and we are preparing for bloodshed. So sorry. Now come and join our feast.”

Shima waved queasily. “So sorry, but I have no appetite for long pig today.”

The Watusi lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Please do not disillusion our other guests, doctor, but we would not demean the KKK by roasting a mere Honk. We’re celebrating with a delicacy far more rare and expensive.”

“Than a man? My God! What?”

“A gorilla.”

* * *

Opsday! Opsday! Opsday! And in the Church of All Atheists they were crowning Christ “King of Fools” while the organ thundered sardonically. It was live, not a recording, Gretchen noted with surprise. There was a raving maniac on the organ bench, feet pounding the pedal bass, hands mangling the four keyboard manuals, and he was singing, groaning and growling a running continuo to his Satanic music.

She couldn’t appraise his class or status from his Ops rags, but he seemed to be an Iroquois Indian from his face and head. Swarthy complexion. Jutting nose. Wide, thin lips. Heavy ears. And a shaven skull, with the exception of a stiff black crest running from brow to nape.

“All he needs is a war bonnet,” she thought as she stole into the loft for a closer look.

Evidently he had wide side-vision. “What the hell are you doing here? Opbless.”

“Opbless,” Gretchen called over the roar of the organ. “I came to cool a scandal I created in the church the other day.”

“Oh. R. Like wow. You’re the bije babe who sang Orff’s Catulli Carmina. Forget it. The church has. Got a credit line of your own?”

“Credit?”

“Stay with it, babe. Credit. I.D. Name.”

“Oh. Gretchen Nunn. You?”

“Manitou-Win-Na-Mis-Ma-Bago.”

“Wh-what?”

“In your language means, He-Who-Charms-Manitou-Out-of-Sky.”

“You’re an Indian?”

“Most of me.”

“Like Opbless and wow and what do I call you? Mannie? Mr. Bago?”

“Hell no. That don’t go down. Call me Finkel.”

“Finkel!”

“R on. Scriabin Finkel.”

* * *

“The Right to Life” ballet of unborn children was being danced by twenty naked midgets in the Equal Rights maternity hospital. Each of them was connected to the tip of a phallic maypole by an umbilical cord, and all were mewing a fetal chorus to the muted orchestral accompaniment conducted by a savage Cossack who snarled at Shima in B-flat minor, “Get the hell out of the act, dude. Opbless.”

“Opbless. Sorry. Don’t mean to intrude. I’m just looking for someone in charge.”

“I’m in charge.”

“I want to apologize for the fuss I kicked up the other day, and square it.”

“Oh. R. You’re the joker that said he got banged by the elephant?”

“Yes.”

“Got a name?”

“Shima. Blaise Shima. Yours?”

“Aurora.”

“What?”

“Yeah. I was named after the battleship that backed the Red Revolution. R. Apology accepted. No hard feelings and Opbless. Now get the hell out, Shima. We’ve got to transpose, and these clowns can’t hack it.”

“Guff thanks, Mr… What do I call you? Aurora? Orry?”

“Hell no. It’s Finkel. Scriabin Finkel.”

“What? Then you wrote that great Glacial Army anthem, ‘Where You Beez…’ I’m impressed.”

“We all did, turkey—A-MINOR, YOU GODDAM BUMS! A-MINOR! The whole Finkel stable.”

* * *

They call the fine debris of jewelry manufacture “findings.” Workshop floors absorb a dusting of precious stone and precious metal residues in the course of a year, and on Opsday the Strøget throws open its workshops to an eager multitude equipped with brooms, dustpans-and-brushes, and containers. To this date of writing it is not yet known whether any of the scavengers has ever profited by his recovery of “findings” dust.

It was inevitable that as Gretchen walked the Strøget, apologizing to and punching checks for the proprietors whose displays she had smashed—the luxury trade is never in the forgiving business—it was inevitable that she should recognize a familiar bod in the mob of panting, sweeping scavengers; Yenta Calienta, armed with a battery vacuum cleaner. Yenta was spending as much time protecting the machine from resentful broom-wielders as she was sucking up dust.

* * *

Damn if half of them weren’t in peanut drag, complete with monocle and top hat. The advertising manager was in costume, too, but that didn’t prevent him from accepting Shima’s apology and check. Then he conducted Shima to an enormous transparent top hat filled with a magenta hellbrew. It was three times the size of the bronze hat which Blaise and Gretchen had stolen. The advertising manager pointed proudly.

“A square yard of Demerara rum. Fifty gallons of grenadine. Juice of one hundred reconstituted lemons. Fifty pounds of confetti sugar. One thousand maraschino cherries. Planter’s Punch. Help yourself, doctor. Enjoy. Opbless.”

He waddled off. Shima looked at the awesome top hat doubtfully, then shrugged and mounted the scaffolding leading to the ten-foot-high brim. He received a frosted earthenware mug and was told to take it home as a gift. He took his place on line and spoke to the tall, vivid young woman ahead of him. She held a stained mug in her hand.

“Opbless. I see you’ve tried this punch before. How is it?”

She turned and raked him with clever eyes. “Opbless. This is my fifth time around.”

“Is it that good?”

“It doesn’t matter. This firm is one of my clients. It’s my job to flatter them.”

She scooped up a mugful of punch and made way for Shima. As he bent over the rim to fill his mug, he was suddenly seized by the ankles and upended.

“You son of a bitch! This’ll pay you back for the Therpool!”

He was plunged, head foremost, into the Planter’s Punch, joining rum, grenadine, lemon juice, sugar, and a thousand cherries. She held her grip on his ankles while he thrashed and strangled. Just as he was on the verge of losing consciousness, his ankles were released. He managed to flip and upend. There she was at the hatbrim, glaring down at him while she struggled with the advertising manager.

“Wasn’t me in the Therpool, lady,” Shima gasped.

“The hell it wasn’t! I’d know you anywhere.”

“But Guff thanks anyway, lady. You’ve solved my insulation problem. Opbless.”

* * *

When the exhausted Gretchen at last got back to her apartment, she found a few of her staff there, holding the fort. Their Ops Week clothes were so stylishly bedraggled that she had to smile. Shima? No sign of him. “Has anything happened?” she wondered. “Has he gone on the attack-escape again?” But a messenger just delivered this tape from Shima. “From his penthouse?” No, from the Precinct Complex. “Oh God! The idiot is in trouble.” But her fingers did not tremble as she switched on.

* * *

I’m taping this to you, Gretchen love, because I’m completely wiped. I can’t face another human being; not even you.

I encountered an event, a Golem coda, when I was squaring it for that stolen top hat, which clued me into the modus operandus for your sensory tests. A bathysphere. It’s already equipped with communications, life-support systems and power—which were some of the problems of complete insulation—and at ocean depths nothing external can penetrate except maybe some slight radiation from the earth’s mantle, and maybe a stray neutrino or two.

So I went over to the Oceanography Center to beg the loan of a bathysphere from Lucy Leuz, an old buddy from M.I.T. That’s Friedrich Humboldt Leuz, Ph.D. and DODO, in caps. Not the extinct bird; Director of Drogh Operations. I know he has a baby bathysphere.

They were celebrating the advent of Ops Week with a raw fish festival, using their aquarium surplus for the feast. Gretchen, you haven’t known guilt until you’ve had an Alaska king crab look you in the eye while you’re breaking off one of its legs. Anyway, Lucy gave me an Opbless and the go-ahead, so we’re all set for tomorrow—and we’d better be—because I know now that Ind’dni is right. Time is of the essence. I think you’ll agree by the time I’m finished.

Then I went to the Glacial Army H.Q., thinking you might be there cooling your Pagliacci rap. You weren’t so I settled up for you, and those saints are real greedy. They were mounting a hysterical revival to counter the Ops Week debut—Naturally the Army hates the false goddess Ops and her dirty, rotten, sinful Opalia.

There must have been a thousand there, led by another clown from the Scriabin Finkel stable, a crazed Cockney calling herself Sabrina Finkel. They were howling “Where You Beez…” and spasming with the jerks, smashing things, rolling over and fainting in ecstasies. The fervor was terrifying; they acted like a lynch mob. A girl took refuge behind me and I couldn’t blame her for being frightened. I was, too.

“You look like a gent, even in that filthy coverall,” she said. (I was blotched with Planter’s Punch, which I’ll explain another time.) “Will you for Jesus sake get me the hell out of here. This is sick.”

“Where’s the geek what brung you?”

“Don’t Op-talk me. I know you’re a gent. He’s fainted dead away with his head through a throne.”

So we left the fête choreatique, grabbed transport, and set out for my Oasis. She sat in her corner and I sat in mine. Neither of us said anything. She was sulky; I was pooped. But when we got to the Oasis, I had to go through the motions of the gent. I offered her the choice of keeping the transport and going on to wherever it was, me paying, or coming up to the penthouse for a drink.

“Baby, do I ever need a drink,” she said. “That damn Army is desert dry. R. But no hots.”

“For Christ’s sake!” I was disgusted. “Who d’you think I am, Casanova? So come on. I’m freezing.”

We went up to the penthouse. I started a fire in the lounge and she watched me fussing with the kindling.

“You’ve got cherries sticking inside your collar,” she said. “Did you know?”

“I should have guessed. I had a run-in with a bowl of Planter’s Punch.”

She wandered around, exploring. “Gee, I’ve never been in a high-class place like this before. You sure got class. I knew it, even in that dirty coverall with those crazy cherries sticking to your neck.”

“I’m a walking whisky sour,” I said. “So come have your drink, and we’ll figure out how to get you home-free through the Guff.”

We sat at the fire and drank. She was a redhead with exquisite skin but was no looker by any stretch of charity. She talked, but not about getting home. She had a kind of naïve, prattling charm. She worked for the Glacial Army, job unspecified, but it sounded like running errands. She enjoyed reporting the secret sins of their saints.

Suddenly she said, “I’ve got to call Philly.”

“Philly who?”

“Philadelphia. It’s where I live with my folks.”

“You don’t have to call. The pneumo’ll shoot you there in twenty minutes.”

“I know that. I have to tell them I’m not coming home tonight.”

Which was all I needed. “The phone’s out of order,” I said.

“Don’t guff,” she said. “What kind of rip do you think I am? I wouldn’t lay a call on you.”

“You really should go home, Miz—” I still didn’t know her name.

“I’m staying. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt. This is first Opsday, and I’m going to start your Ops Week for you, touch earth.”

“The phone’s in the bedroom.”

“I know, and it works. I tried it. I’ll call from the public CB down in the lobby. I don’t want to take anything off you, dude, except your clothes. Maybe you don’t know there are girls like me. Maybe you’ll find out, touch earth.”

She left. I sat at the fire, trying to figure out how I’d gotten into this tsimmis and how in hell I was going to get out of it without hurting feelings. No attack-escape; I just prayed. There was a knock on the door.

“It’s open,” I called.

The door opened. It was Ind’dni. My prayers were answered. There is a God.

“Bless you, Subadar,” I said.

“Alas, I have no pleasant greeting for you, Dr. Shima.”

“Is it a bust, I hope?”

“Please to come downstairs, doctor.”

“I’ll go quietly, but I—”

“Come, please.”

So I come please. Ind’dni was silent and despairing. I was completely bewildered. In the lobby, the hommy squad stood around the glass CB booth. There were spectators staring; some vomiting. The glass door was shut tight. A body’d been jammed into the booth, head down, the veins torn open, and she’d drowned in her own blood to begin my carnival for me.