Conrad Starguard - Conrad's Time Machine Part 9

"But you can't do that, Jim! We don't have it working for short time periods yet!"

"Of course not," they said in unison again. Then the bandaged Hasenpfeffer, who had been there before, stopped talking. "But you will."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Arizona by the Sea

Ian and I quickly signed the remaining two deeds and the bank's courier ran out with the checks. Then we drove the bleeding Hasenpfeffer to the hospital and got his broken nose fixed up. He promptly ducked out of the side door of the hospital lobby.

"I'll see you genlemen shortly," Hasenpfeffer said through his bandages.

"Hey! Hold on!" Ian yelled. "I want to see this gadget I'm going to invent!"

"I would advise agains tha. Seeing i migh hamper your creaive processes," he said from the doorway. And then he left.

And came in the front door six seconds later with his suit more crumpled and wearing a bigger bandage.

"Am I gone yet? Excellent! Come! Onwards! On to the airport, and a glorious future!"

"Is he drunk?"

"h.e.l.l, he's more likely stoned," I said, but it turned out to be just high spirits. We were hustled into a chauffeured stretched Cadillac that raced us to the airport, abandoning our old Chrysler in the process. I have no idea what became of it.

On the way to Detroit Metro, I pretty much convinced myself that having a couple of guys around who understood soldering irons and printed circuit layouts might speed things up a bit.

In front of the first terminal, a gorgeous airline stewardess flagged us down, hopped in the car, slithered in tight beside me, and directed us to a smaller terminal for private aircraft.

What none of us realized was that about the time we were boarding the plane, a fair- sized horde of police and government types was descending on our facility outside of Ann Arbor. All they found was a couple of very empty buildings. Even the overhead cranes were gone from the shop.

We took off in our own plane, a big wide-bodied jet no less, with a KMH corporate logo on the tail. It had things like showers and a sauna and six of the most magnificent stewardesses I'd ever seen this side of an Alfred Hitchc.o.k movie. Like, any one of these women could have made it big in Hollywood.Ian was embarra.s.sed at first when one of them joined us in the sauna. I guess she was some sort of dancer, because after a bit, she went through a most amazing series of stretching exercises.

"It's almost like she's displaying for us, the way a bird does during a courtship ritual,"

I whispered to Ian.

"I think that that's exactly what she's doing," Ian whispered back. "I've never seen anything quite like it. Have you?"

"No, I haven't, my son. But I have looked on it, and found it to be good."

Hasenpfeffer just took it all in and acted smug.

I was still trying to get up my nerve to ask the dancer out to dinner some night when the plane landed at our own airport.

Ian and I had found a bunch of suits and things-all of which fit!-in the closets of our bedrooms on the plane, so we didn't feel grubby entering the terminal building.

"Gentlemen," this big fellow said as we stepped into the airport lobby. "It is certainly a great personal pleasure to meet you all personally at last. I am Bradford Jenkins, and I have the personal honor of being the mayor of your city of Morrow."

My mind had been blown totally away by the plane we flew in on, and Ian was standing there silent with his eyes unfocused, so it was kind of fun to see Hasenpfeffer get fl.u.s.tered.

"Mayor?"

"Yes, sir. In the first few years there were some minor problems with lost tourists and fishermen. Some representative of civil authority was needed to greet them and shoo them away. So, while it wasn't in your original instructions, I was elected."

First few years? Hold on now.

"Uh, how long did this take to build?" I asked.

"Six years, of course, sir. And we were able to stay exactly on schedule the entire time."

All I could think of to say was, "Sure. That's uh, very good. You did a nice job."

"Why, thank you, sir!" Jenkins' smile was too big to be anything but genuine. He acted like a suburban teenager being given his first car.

Ian came out of his daze long enough to say, "And how much did it cost?"

"Less than thirty billion, sir. I can get you the exact figure from accounting, but I can personally a.s.sure you that we are well within budget."

"Of course." Hasenpfeffer was looking at a long line of people in the lobby, all of whom were looking at us. "We would not have put you gentlemen in charge if we did not have absolute confidence in your abilities. Naturally, we will want a complete tour of the facilities, but for right now, we should not keep these people waiting."

You had to admit that Hasenpfeffer was pretty quick when it came to people situations.

"Yes sir. I've taken the liberty of arranging your itinerary for the next few days, but for now I would like the personal honor of introducing some of my colleagues."

That was my first-and last, d.a.m.n it!-experience with a reception line. I wasintroduced to well over a hundred men and women, all of whom looked as though they had spent hours grooming themselves for the glorious occasion of meeting yours truly.

All I could think of to do was to imitate Hasenpfeffer, who was smiling, shaking hands and saying things like "How are you?" and "It is so good to meet you at last!"

Most of them were in suits and dresses, but there were a dozen towards the middle in bright green military outfits. I'd spent four years as a second cla.s.s airman-or worse- and it was kind of strange having a bird colonel clicking his heels and saying "Thank you, sir!"

It wasn't until I got near the end of the line that I noticed that there was a certain sameness to all of them. All of the men were big and athletic looking. That's to say, big as ordinary people go. Not my size, of course. The women were all healthy and remarkably pretty.

Why pretty? I mean, these ladies weren't decorations or somebody's second wife.

They were all officials of one sort or another. Hasenpfeffer had always loved the ladies, but he wasn't the sort of guy who would promote a woman on the basis of her s.e.x appeal.

Anyhow, everybody seemed to know who we were, as if they'd seen photographs or something. It was only when we were being ushered into a waiting private subway car that I realized that I hadn't remembered one single name.

Five minutes later, Jenkins led the three of us up an escalator into a tastefully lighted park. In the distance, I could see the moon glinting off the ocean, I could hear the surf and smell the salt air. The park was flanked on three sides by palaces. "Mansions" would have been a derogatory term applied to these places.

"We've arranged these quarters for you," Jenkins said. "I hope that they will prove adequate. You are doubtless tired from your journey, so, with your permission, I will leave you now. Would it be convenient if I personally picked you up at nine tomorrow morning?"

"That would be excellent." Hasenpfeffer turned and started walking towards a huge free-form concrete and gla.s.s structure that he had apparently claimed for his own.

Ian and I just stood there.

I had spent the morning in my lab in the bas.e.m.e.nt in Michigan, burning my fingers on a soldering iron. Now, it was quiet for the first time in twelve hours. Silence, with just the hiss of the surf and the smell of salt air in a manicured park in front of my palace in my city by the sea in Arizona . . .

"HASENPFEFFER!" I yelled when he was two hundred yards away. "GET YOUR a.s.s BACK HERE!".

He trudged back to us. "Gentlemen, it has been a long day. It has been four hours longer for me than it has for you. My nose hurts. We apparently have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow. Please, let's get some sleep."

"Dammit, not 'til you do some explaining!"

"Yeah." Ian said. "The office I could believe, and maybe the airplane, Jim. But this . .

. this city is flat s.h.i.t impossible!"

"It should be obvious that your technical endeavors will be quite successful, and that some time in the future-our subjective futures, that is-we are going to fund a group tobuild this facility for us. Yes. It should be perfectly obvious."

"Look, what about the G.o.dd.a.m.n ocean in Arizona?" I said.

"I a.s.sume that we will decide to build this in some place other than in Arizona."

"Other place? . . . You mean you've never been here before either?" I tried to point at him but my hand was shaking.

"I decided this morning that we needed something better in the way of a physical plant, since we could now afford it, and that if I was sending newspapers back to myself, why not letters and money so as to get us a facility when we needed it? Then, when it became obvious that you would solve the problem of transporting people, I realized that it would be more convenient to go back and do it personally, rather than bothering with clumsy correspondence."

"So you just went to the plane and a.s.sumed that the pilot would know where to go?"

Ian was staring wide-eyed.

"True. Although I didn't expect such an elaborate aircraft."

"You didn't even know about the f.u.c.king airplane!" For a Christian, Ian sure swears a lot.

"I a.s.sumed that I would arrange something. It is really quite amusing. You see, the Ann Arbor facility is called Hasenpfeffer Investments. I have been buying and selling KMH Corporation stock for months without realizing that KMH must stand for Kolczyskrenski, McTavish and Hasenpfeffer."

"How come Tom's name comes first?"

"We will probably flip a coin about it. I am perfectly content with my name being last. Please, gentlemen, let us get some sleep." Hasenpfeffer headed back to the concrete and gla.s.s thing.

"Well, take your pick." I pointed to the other two palaces.

"It's already been decided, I think. I like the Taj Mahal, so you must want Camelot."

"Yeah. I guess so. See you in the morning."

"Wait. Tom, do you have a quarter?"

"Huh? Yeah." I said.

"Flip it. Let it fall on the ground. Heads your name comes first, tails mine."

"h.e.l.l, that's ridiculous. After a day like today you're worried about the company logo?"

"No. It's important."

"Christ." I dug out the quarter I had in my right pocket. I'd been carrying the two of them around for over a year, waiting for the right opportunity. I flipped it and of course it came up heads.

"So much for predestination and free will." Ian limped over to his palace.

Making a two-headed coin is fairly simple once you have access to a Browne and Sharp surface grinder and a soldering gun. You just grind the tails off two quarters and solder them neatly together. I ask you, would it really be sensible to repaint the airplane, change all the signs on all the buildings, and print up new letterheads and stock certificates? And just because Ian has this religious hangup?Anyway, KMH sounds better than MKH, and one must never underestimate the importance of esthetics.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

My Princess in My Palace

My palace wasn't so much an English castle as it was Germanic with heavy Slavic overtones. It had lots of gold leaf and curlicues, and I liked it. I found myself grinning as I walked towards the place. A huge ornamental drawbridge was lowering on ma.s.sive iron chains, while a heavy portcullis was rising. So, if there is a G.o.d, and he wants to smile at you, wouldn't it be sacrilegious not to smile back?

G.o.d wasn't standing in the entrance way, but a G.o.ddess was. An amazing woman who was wearing a sideless, backless outfit that I maybe saw once on Star Trek, where the girls are all s.e.xy. She walked over and came close, much closer than women normally come to me. I caught a slight whiff of burning autumn leaves.

She looked up at me with these huge violet eyes.

"Good evening, sir. I'm Barbara Prescott, your majordomo."

By this time, of course, I didn't have much mind left to be blown away, so I said, "Hi."

"h.e.l.lo, sir." Barb had this intense, eager look.

"Uh, Barb, where are we?"

"At your home, sir."

"No. I mean this place."

"We're on the outskirts of Morrow, in San Sebastian, sir."

"Better. Now what and where is San Sebastian?"

"San Sebastian is an independent island nation in the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles."

"Yeah. Where are the Lesser Antilles?" I wasn't doing much to impress her, but heck, I'd never make it with a woman this good looking anyway.

"North of Venezuela and east of Cuba, sir."

"Okay, got it. This is some sort of banana republic?"