Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy Part 11

A technician wheeled in the new improved ACE apparatus.

Rhoda sat up, staring in frank astonishment-and the sheet slipped another inch, revealing that gorgeous right nipple, like a chocolate gumdrop, Frank thought. Not for the first time, he cursed the professional ethics which would ruin his career if he ever touched one of his experimental subjects.

The technician, who always insisted on being called "Jonesy" or "R.N."-his real name was Richard Nixon Jones, but he kept that a careful secret, and never sent Mother's Day cards-wheeled the ACE over to the bed and affixed it at the proper angle. It looked like a science-fiction version of the Great G.o.d Baphomet. The pink phallus seemed extra-erotic amid the sculpted white plastic of the machine, dangling a few inches above the Venusian bush slightly visible through the thin white sheet. "All set," Jonesy said stiffly, and retreated to the door. He had never quite gotten over his initial embarra.s.sment at working for o.r.g.a.s.m Research.

Rhoda Chief reached out a tentative hand and felt Ulysses hovering above her midsection. There was a pause. Dashwood watched her hand moving along the pink shaft. In imagination he vividly felt the same hand groping with his trousers. I am a professional, he reminded himself sternly.

"Well," he said, "anytime you're ready."

"It's for science," Rhoda said hoa.r.s.ely.

"That's right. For science."

"Take the sheet off me," she whispered.

"I can't do that," Frank said, straining to avoid a break in his voice, his eyes on the crotch beneath the sheets.

"Oh, yes," she said. "I forgot."

There was another pause.

"For science," he said gently.

"For science," she agreed. Slowly she pushed down the sheet, revealing those globes that had twice tormented his sleep. She must be at least a forty-two, he thought, and who ever saw such enormous nipples before? Then, with more determination, she pushed the rest of the sheet off the bed in one quick motion. She was as sweet a sight as dawn itself.

Dr. Dashwood thought fleetingly of how Fourier series combine to produce, on occasion, perfect sine waves, valley and crest, valley and crest, in a harmony that was like the signature of intelligence and grace. A contemporary pop novelist might say, "She had a figure that would make the Pope kick a hole in a stained-gla.s.s window." Rhoda Chief, one of the trillions of multicellular bioesthetic models worked out by the DNA during its three and a half billion years' design work on this planet, was only five feet two inches tall, but in that s.p.a.ce were the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of Babylonian G.o.ddesses, the trim waist of a Petty Girl, the pubic bush that t.i.tian strove so hard to paint, the legs of Venus Kallipygios. Dr. Dashwood, who sought always to uncover significant form significant form (and did not know that Clive Bell had once defined art in those two words), responded both cortically and phallically. Were it not for his scientific discipline, he would have knelt in worship, to present her the Pentecostal Gift of Tongues. (and did not know that Clive Bell had once defined art in those two words), responded both cortically and phallically. Were it not for his scientific discipline, he would have knelt in worship, to present her the Pentecostal Gift of Tongues.

"Um you can use it on the c.l.i.toris first, gently, to lubricate yourself," he said, feeling like a ninny.

"I'm lubricated already," Rhoda said in a strangled voice, and moved the handle which spun the wheel which thrust Ulysses into the house where love lived. Her eyes, Frank noted, were still open for a second, but completely out of focus. Then she closed them and began pulling the handle rhythmically.

Frank began jotting rapidly. "Nipples fully erect at twenty-three seconds. s.e.x-flush on b.r.e.a.s.t.s and neck at thirty seconds. Subject says 'Jesus' quite clearly at thirty-six seconds ..."

Ulysses, as the scientist was writing, was creating a neurological uproar in Ms. Rhoda Chief, the mammalian study unit in the first robot-mammal s.e.xual dyad. As the rejected stone in Wildeblood's cathedral became the cornerstone in Rhoda's consciousness, she felt as if she were floating and allowed her left hand to run down her body, over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, down over her belly into the garden of Nuit. Rhythmically, in time with the hot, fast thrusting motion of the shaft of Priapus, she rubbed her bush, while the other hand slowly increased the thrusting motion. In her mind's eye she was simultaneously enjoying a second p.e.n.i.s, in her mouth. Not all witches are c.o.c.ksuckers, but all c.o.c.ksuckers are witches (whether they know it or not); Rhoda knew it. Her reputation for "eating Peter like no chick since Cleopatra" was not unconnected with the versatility of her singing and other personality traits. Then ACE was talking, in the gentle, slightly Gay tones of HAL, the whacked-out computer in 2001: 2001: "To the center of the galaxy," he was saying. "This is the center of s.p.a.ce-time, and it is also the center of your womb, darling Rhoda." His soft purr went on, as he thrust deeper into her. "It is way, way out and it is also way, way in. You can only enter this mystery on vibes of sheer ecstasy, because all matter at a lower vibratory rate gets destroyed in the Black Hole. So, in order to navigate this dangerous crossing, I must f.u.c.k you even more deeply, my darling." "To the center of the galaxy," he was saying. "This is the center of s.p.a.ce-time, and it is also the center of your womb, darling Rhoda." His soft purr went on, as he thrust deeper into her. "It is way, way out and it is also way, way in. You can only enter this mystery on vibes of sheer ecstasy, because all matter at a lower vibratory rate gets destroyed in the Black Hole. So, in order to navigate this dangerous crossing, I must f.u.c.k you even more deeply, my darling."

"Oh, do it, ACE, do it to me good," she murmured. "I want to see the center of the galaxy."

"There, there," he purred, "you'll see the center of the galaxy when your pretty little c.u.n.t gets hot enough."

"Take me," she moaned, "take me to the center of s.p.a.ce-time." And deep, deep into the cosmic v.a.g.i.n.al barrel and deep, deep into the spiral of her moist galaxy, ACE piloted her. Slow permutations, like the growth of crystals, her sensations were hardly contaminated any longer by thought or vision; deep, deep they went, down into a cavern of strange floral energies, each petal shape tingling with the languid joy-dance in the petals of her own warm p.u.s.s.y (happiness is a warm p.u.s.s.y, she remembered), the shaft of the actual ACE machine digging deeper and deeper into the starry dynamo. "Oh, ACE, oh, ACE, you f.u.c.k so divinely," she gasped.

"It's the only way to travel," he crooned electronically.

"Oh, keep f.u.c.king me. Keep f.u.c.king me. Please, please ... f.u.c.k the universe, f.u.c.k every atom, turn the cosmic key in the galactic Black Hole, f.u.c.k and f.u.c.k and f.u.c.k, my G.o.d, my Baphomet, f.u.c.k forever, f.u.c.k the flowers and the starlight and thunder and rain. f.u.c.k Heaven and h.e.l.l too."

Dr. Dashwood's face had a curious, ashy-white color. He wanted to leap upon the bed, throw the ACE machine to the floor, and take her. His erection was pulsating and his vision was red with pain and need. "f.u.c.k the AMA," he muttered thickly, lurching forward.

Just then the phone rang.

SURPRISE PARTY.

A car stopped about a hundred yards down the road from Murphy's house. Starhawk quickly began untying his ropes, listening intently. In a few moments he heard them: two or three men coming through the woods. They were very silent for white men.

Starhawk, free of the ropes, began to move across the trees. The men stopped. Starhawk waited. They still didn't stir. Starhawk moved again, without a sound. The men were still unmoving. He closed in on them, remaining always about thirty feet above the ground, until he found them.

Three men. Sitting quietly. Two of them smoking. Waiting.

Starhawk moved back toward the house, always testing each branch carefully before thrusting it.

Two mourning doves began to sing a sad little duet.

Starhawk waited, ten feet above the roof, hidden in the redwood. The three men in the woods waited.

Inside the house, the phone rang. The men in the woods, who couldn't possibly have heard it, began moving again.

Starhawk smiled for the second time that day, and glanced at his watch. It was exactly half past ten. Murphy, on the phone, was probably insisting on a meet in downtown Oakland, some congested street corner he had already picked, where a double cross would be too risky for all parties. Careful man, that Murph. He'd come out the door, with the c.o.ke under his arm, thinking how careful he was, and the surprise party would be waiting in the bushes with their guns.

Starhawk moved quickly to a new perch. Carefully, he pulled up his trouser leg, tore the adhesive tape, and took a pistol from his calf. He was not smiling now.

CHEESE.

Robert Pearson said "Shee-it" in a tone of profound skepticism.

He was watching the TV hearings on the nomination of Rockwell Morgan Squeeze for Vice President. Squeeze was an oil millionaire famous for such monumental parsimonies as installing pay phones in his mansion so guests couldn't run up his phone bill and bringing his lunch to the office in a paper bag for forty years. He was being quizzed about his generous contributions to seven out of ten of the senators on the committee investigating him.

"Now, I resent that," Rockwell was saying. "That's a very nasty word, Senator. 'Bribe,' indeed!"

"Well, just what would would you call it?" asked the senator-one of the three who hadn't received Rockwell's largesse. you call it?" asked the senator-one of the three who hadn't received Rockwell's largesse.

"I regard it this way," Mr. Squeeze said unctuously. "If I had a lot of cheese, and I looked around and saw a lot of mice without any cheese of their own, well, it would be the normal, generous thing ..."

"Now, wait a minute, I smell a rat," the senator interrupted.

"Shee-it," Pearson said again. The door buzzer was humming.

When Pearson opened the door he was greeted by a whiff of violets, even before he saw the man pointing the water pistol at him.

And when he awoke (a day later, and with Rockwell Squeeze approved by the committee with a vote that stood-coincidentally, no doubt-at 7 to 3), he was in a bas.e.m.e.nt surrounded by men with canvas bags over their heads. And his genitals were wired up to some electrical apparatus.

"Shee-it," he said again, and closed his eyes, concentrating furiously on the formulas Ha.s.san i Sabbah X had told him.

The men from Naval Intelligence began pouring electricity into Pearson's p.e.n.i.s and trying to extract information from his mouth (two procedures that usually worked well together). It was quite irritating when they were unable to learn anything about George Washington Bridge's link with the Cult of the Black Mother, and perplexing when Pearson began to insist that he was Rockwell M. Squeeze, Vice President of the United States. It was revolting when they finally realized that he wasn't playacting and really believed he was was Rockwell M. Squeeze. By then his whang was charred to a gruesome extent and his obvious insanity was hopeless. They smothered him with a pillow and left. Rockwell M. Squeeze. By then his whang was charred to a gruesome extent and his obvious insanity was hopeless. They smothered him with a pillow and left.

They were all very nice men when their duty did not call upon them to perform such regrettable tasks.

A CARNIVAL OF LOONIES.

I am not what I am.-IAGO, IN BACON'S Oth.e.l.lo Oth.e.l.lo The FBI finally found G.W.C. Bridge living in a flophouse in Miami's ghetto. Having learned something from Naval Intelligence's bungling in the cases of Ha.s.san i Sabbah X and Robert Pearson, they moved in with great delicacy; a black agent was employed to form a friendship with him over a period of a month.

"Weird cat," the agent reported after a week. "Seems to be hiding something all all the time...." the time...."

"Can't make him at all," he reported the second week. "If I didn't know better, I'd say he was a white reporter in blackface, trying to find out what it's like to be black...."

In fact, Bridge seemed more than a little bit psychotic in a methodical sort of way. He read no less than six newspapers a day and clipped numerous stories from them. The agent eventually had a chance to investigate these files while Bridge was visiting a patient in a nearby madhouse, and they were rather oblique. They all concerned Very Important Persons in government and industry, but that was about all they had in common. Bridge seemed to have a minute curiosity about the men who rule America; that was all that was evident. The agent could make nothing at all of the crazy notes scribbled on the margins of these news stories: "Possible," "Probable," "Still himself," "Definitely occupied" ...

The mystery grew worse when the agent realized that Bridge spent a lot of time visiting madhouses and psychiatric wards. "Sure knows a lot of crazy people," he reported the third week. "A h.e.l.l of a lot of crazy people," he amended at the end of the month.

Another team of agents began revisiting the nuthouses, and it was soon realized that the patients Bridge visited had a few things in common, viz. viz., none was white, but not all were black (some were Oriental, Indian, or Chicano); all, without exception, were diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic with delusions of grandeur; all were listed as chronic chronic rather than rather than acute acute psychotics; all claimed to be somebody else rather than who they actually were-one said he was Secretary of Commerce, one that he was Chairman of the Board of Morgan Guaranty Trust, one that he was Chief Engineer at Cape Kennedy, etc. psychotics; all claimed to be somebody else rather than who they actually were-one said he was Secretary of Commerce, one that he was Chairman of the Board of Morgan Guaranty Trust, one that he was Chief Engineer at Cape Kennedy, etc.

The agents remembered their experience with Robert Pearson, former aide to Ha.s.san i Sabbah X, and jumped to a conclusion. "That crazy church drove them all nuts and made them think they were white people." Alas, a little checking refuted this easy a.s.sumption. Most of the loonies Bridge had visited had no previous connection with the Cult of the Black Mother at all....

Things were coming to a head.

THREE MINUTES, FORTY SECONDS.

That which exists is allowed.-JOHN LILLY, The Center of the Cyclone The Center of the Cyclone When Murphy came out the front door, Ed Goldfarb, in the bushes, shot him twice with Mendoza's police special.

Murphy, thrown back against the door, was reaching into his shoulder holster, his mouth open, still alive.

The two shots hung in the empty mountain air, echoing.

Thomas Esposito fired at Murphy and missed as Murphy's hand slowly and steadily came up, firing at Goldfarb.

Goldfarb fell back, hit.

The echoes still rolled across the hills.

"Mama, Mama," Goldfarb said, rolling around, holding his stomach. He was weeping.

The third man, Juan Ybarra, ran from the bushes to Murphy.

Murphy was trying to raise the gun again. He was looking at Ybarra and trying to point the gun. His eyes were totally mad and would not focus anymore.

Esposito was trying to shoot at Murphy again, with Ybarra in the way. He had an erection and his hands shook.

Goldfarb continued to weep.

The shots were still echoing.

Birds were rising from the trees, flapping their wings noisily, twittering with anxiety. A crow cawed angrily.

Murphy's gun hand dropped. His mad eyes went empty.

"Mama!" Goldfarb screamed. "I'm sorry!"

Esposito and Ybarra ran lithely down the hill.

"Mama," Goldfarb wept. "Not me. Please. I'm sorry."

The birds swept down the hill, flapping.

A black Mustang came up the hill. Esposito and Ybarra leapt out, and ran around to the back, and opened the trunk compartment.

"Not me, please," Goldfarb was protesting.

Esposito and Ybarra lifted Detective Mendoza, gagged with adhesive tape, out of the trunk and carried him onto the lawn. He was dazed but his eyes were aware and frightened.

Esposito ran over to Murphy and took his gun. Standing there, he fired twice into Mendoza's head. He put the gun back in Murphy's hand.

Ybarra tore the adhesive tape off Mendoza's mouth. It came away bloodstained.

Goldfarb stopped crying and was still.

Ybarra retched, almost puked, caught himself. He stood white-faced, breathing hard.

Esposito picked up Murphy's package, a brown paper bag. He opened it, found a box within, raised the lid. He inserted a finger and tasted.

"The Jew," he said.

Ybarra looked at him, shaking.

"Get on the stick," Esposito said. "We can't leave the Jew; he doesn't fit."

Ybarra stood looking at him. "Come out of it," Esposito said. "Help me with the Jew."

They carried Goldfarb into the back of the car.

They drove off.

Starhawk landed lightly on the lawn, running as he alighted. He ran into the house and to the bedroom. He found what he expected in the closet, another box, and tasted it. He ran softly, on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet, back outside. He leapt, caught the roof, and pulled himself upward. He disappeared into the trees.

The two dead men sprawled on the lawn.

Birds began to return.

Elapsed time since Murphy had come out the door was three minutes and forty seconds.

THE SEA! THE SEA!.