The Computer Connection Page 4

  Sequoya pulled off her spectacles and perched them on one of her boozalums, which were recent and a source of great pride. “That one’s a little cockeyed,” he said. “What kind of name is Fee?” he asked me. “Short for Fee-Fie-Fo-Fum?”

  “Short for Fee-mally.”

  “Short for female,” Fee corrected with great dignity.

  The Chief shook his head. “I think I’d better go back to JPL. At least the machines make sense there.”

  “No, no. It makes sense. When she was born—”

  “In the orchestra of Grauman’s.” Very proud.

  “Her dumb mother couldn’t think of a name, so the demographer listed her as Female. The mother liked it and called her Fee-mally. She calls herself Fee-5.”

  “Why the five?”

  “Because,” Fee explained patiently, “I was born in the fifth row. Any fool would understand that, but against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain. Gas!”

  A capsule floated down on top of the bods with its jets spraying fireworks. A blue-eyed blond astronaut stepped out and came up to us. “Duh,” he mumbled in Kallikak. “Duh-duh-duh-duh… .”

  “What’s this thing selling?” Uncas asked.

  “Duh,” Fee told him. “That’s about all the honks can say, so they named the product after it. I think it’s a penis amplifier.”

  “How old is this squaw?” Sequoya demanded.

  “Thirteen.”

  “She’s too young for her frame of reference. Next you’ll be telling me she can count.”

  “Oh, she can, she can. She can do anything. She picks it up from the bug broadcasts. This brat is picking all the brains on Earth. By ear.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. She doesn’t either.”

  “Probably some sort of interface.” The Chief produced an otoscope from the interior of his tutta. I had a glimpse and the interior looked like a portable laboratory. “Let me have a look, Fee-Fie-Fo.” She presented an ear obediently and he had his look. He grunted. “Fantastic. She’s got a wild canal circuitry and there’s an otolith in there that looks like a transponder.”

  “When I die,” Fee said, “I’ll leave my ears to science.”

  “What’s the Fraunhofer wavelength of calcium?” he shot.

  She cocked her head. “Well?” he asked after a pause.

  “I’ve got to find somebody who’s talking about it. Wait for it… . Wait for it… . Wait for it… .”

  “What do you hear when you listen?”

  “Like the wind in a thousand wires. Ah! Here it is. 3968 Angstroms, in the extreme violet.”

  “This kid is a treasure.”

  “Don’t flatter her. She’s vain enough as it is.”

  “I want her. I can use her at JPL. She’ll make an ideal assistant.”

  “You’re not bugged,” Fee told him, “and you’re not being monitored. Did you know?”

  “Yes, I know,” he said. “I suppose you are.”

  “No,” I said. “Fee and I aren’t bugged because we’ve never been in a hospital. She was born in a movie house and I was born in a volcano.”

  “I’m going back to JPL,” he muttered. “You’re all scrambled around here. Will you let her come and work for me?”

  “If you can stand her, but she’s got to come home nights. I’m raising her old-fashioned. You’re not really serious about this, are you, Geronimo?”

  “Damn serious. I won’t have to waste time teaching her the things an assistant ought to know. She can pick everything up reading the bugs. The people I’ve had to fire for illiteracy! Education in Spangland! Pfui!”

  “So where were you educated that makes you so literate?”

  “On the reservation,” he said grimly. “Indians are traditional. We still revere Sequoya and we’ve got the best schools in the world.” He groped inside the inexhaustible tutta, produced a silver medallion, and handed it to Fee. “Wear this when you come to JPL. It opens the front gate. You’ll find me in the Cryonics Section. Better wear something. It’s damned cold.”

  “Russian sable,” Fee said.

  “Does that mean she’s going to come?”

  “If she wants to and if you pay my price,” I said.

  He took the spectacles off her chest. “Oh, she wants to. She’s been batting her cockeyed boozalums at me without success and she never gives up.”

  “I’ve been rejected by better men than you,” Fee said indignantly.

  “So what’s your price, Ned?”

  “Sell me your soul,” I said brightly.

  “Hell, you can have it for free if you can get it back from United Conglomerate.”

  “Let’s have dinner first. The only question is do we feed the girls before or after?”

  “Me! Me! Me!” Fee cried. “I want to be one of the girls.”

  “Virgins are so pushy,” I said.

  “I was raped when I was five.”

  “The wish is father to the thought, Fee.”

  “Who said that?” Montezuma shot at her. “Well?”

  “Shush. Shush. Shush. Nobody’s talking about—Ah! Got it. Shakespeare. Henry IV.”

  “It’s the Jung caper,” Guess said in awe. “She can tap the collective conscious of the world. I’ve got to have her.”

  “If I come to JPL will you pay my price?” Fee asked.

  “What is it?”

  “Criminal assault.”

  He looked at me. I winked at him.

  “All right, Fee, and I’ll make it real criminal; inside the centrifuge at 1,000 rpm, in the vacuum chamber at half a millimeter of mercury, in one of the cryonics coffins with the lid on. It’s a promise.”

  “There! See?” she threw at me, as triumphant as she was eight months back when her boobs jumped up.

  “I never thought you were such a conformist, Fee-doll. Now go to the hospital and comfort Jacy. He’s registered as J. Kristman. Tell them you’re the confidential assistant of Dr. Guess and they’ll sink to their knees.”

  “Eight o’clock tomorrow morning, Fee-Fie. If it’s a deal.”

  She stuck out a paw and slapped hands. “It’s a deal,” she said and walked out through Louis Pasteur, who was waving test tubes and selling a mugging repellent.

  We picked up a couple of girls who claimed they were coeds and might well have been; one of them could recite the alphabet all the way to L. The only problem was how to stop her from reciting. A show-off. We took them to Powhatan’s pad, which really was impressive, an enormous tepee guarded by three very unfriendly timber wolves. When we got inside I understood the reason for the security; it was decorated with some of the most beautiful art I’ve ever seen in my life, all museum pieces.

  We swopped the girls a couple of times and then Guess cooked us a traditional Cherokee dinner in a huge thermal stewpot: rabbit, squirrel, onions, peppers, tomatoes, corn, and lima beans. He called it msiquatash. I took the girls home. They were living in the fuselage of a Messerschmitt in a TV prop dump, and then I called Pepys in Paris.

  “Sam, it’s Guig. All right if I project?”

  “Come on in, Guig.”

  So I projected. He was having breakfast in the bright morning sun. You’d think that being the Group historian he’d identify with someone like Tacitus or Gibbon, but no, it was Balzac, complete with monk’s drag. We’re all a little loose.

  “Good to see you, Guig. Sit down and join me.” Joke. When you project you’re only two-dimensional and you ooze through furniture and floors if you don’t keep moving, so I kept moving. It was like walking through slush.

  “Sam, I’ve got another candidate, a beauty this time. Let me tell you about him.”

  I described Sequoya. Sam nodded appreciatively. “Sounds perfect, Guig. What’s the problem?”

  “Me. I don’t trust myself anymore; I’ve failed too often. I swear if I fail with Rain-in-the-Face I’m going to quit for good.”

  “Then we must make sure you don’t fail.”

  “Which is why I’m here
. I’m afraid to try it on my own. I want the Group to pitch in and help me.”

  “Murder a man. Hmmm. But what’s your plan?”

  “I haven’t got any. I’m asking the Group to come up with horror suggestions and then come out and work with me.”

  “Watch yourself, Guig. You’re knee-deep in the fireplace. Now let me get this straight. You want to use the Grand Guignol technique on Guess and you’re asking the Group for ideas, aid, and comfort.”

  “That’s it, Sam.”

  “Some don’t approve.”

  “I know.”

  “And some don’t believe.”

  “I know that, too, but some have an open mind. They’re the ones I want to tap.”

  “You’re sliding into the piano, Guig. Then this is going to be your final superergon, and we can’t let you down. God knows, a man of the stature of Dr. Guess would be a tremendous asset to the Group. I’ve always agreed that we need new blood. I’ll pass the word on the grapevine. You’ll be hearing from us.”

  “Thanks, Sam. I knew I could depend on you.”

  “Don’t go yet. I’m a month behind on your shenanigans. What have you been up to?”

  “I’ll beam you a printout from my diary. The usual channel?”

  “Yes. And what about that remarkable young lady, Fee-5? Should we plan a recruitment for her?”

  I stared at him, absolutely speechless. It had never occurred to me, and my instantaneous reaction was to shake my head.

  “But why not, Guig? She sounds as tremendous as Dr. Guess.”

  “I don’t know,” I mumbled. “Revoir, Sam.” And I retrojected.

  Confusions and upsetments. I went to her room to have a look at her. She was sleeping in a white coverall, scrubbed and polished, her hair skinned back, and she had a lunch packed and waiting. All set for the big new job. I inspected the lunch; enough for two including a kilo of my private caviar from the St. Lawrence hatcher. Hmmm.

  Her bed was murmuring. “The vacuum-insulated cryogenic tank at the United Conglomerate JPL Space Center contains nine hundred thousand gallons of liquid hydrogen for fueling the Pluto Mission rockets. In terms of energy its contents are equivalent to… .” Usw. Boning up to make herself worthy of Sitting Bull. Hmmm.

  I went to the study for a rap with my diary. I had to know what was wrong with me. Was I overprotective? Was I afraid of her? Did I hate her? Did she hate me? Was I rejecting the prospect of knowing her forever?

  TERMINAL READY?

  READY. ENTER PROGRAM NUMBER.

  NEW PROGRAM. CODE 1001.

  DESCRIBE PARAMETERS.

  USE ALL RELATIONS BETWEEN FEE-5

  AND TERMINAL AS FIXED POINT AND

  FLOATING POINT VARIABLES.

  STATE ARGUMENT MODE.

  ARE FEE-5 AND TERMINAL MEMBERS

  OF SAME SET?

  CODE 1001 HAS BEEN LOADED.

  LOC. + CODE. START COUNT.

  It took like ten minutes, and when you translate that into nanoseconds there aren’t enough zeros to go around.

  CODE 1001 HAS FINISHED RUN.

  MCS, PRINT. W.H. END.

  The printout cackled: WITHIN MATHEMATICAL PARAMETERS FEE-5 N = TERMINAL. WITHIN EMOTIONAL PARAMETERS FEE-5 = TERMINAL.

  “Emotional!” I hollered at the goddamn diary. “What’s that got to do with it?” and I went to bed (mad).

  I chopped her down to JPL next morning where they wouldn’t let me through the main gate and she gave me a triumphant look as she sashayed in. I looked around. I remembered it from the days when it was just a scrubby hill scarred with a few burns where Cal Tech under-graduates had been playing with baby rockets. Now it was a complex so gigantic that JPL was threatening to secede from Mexifornia and go into business for itself.

  After a few hours with Jacy at the university hospital (doing fine) and watching the campus (Antipleasurehood) I got home just in time to open the door for an enormous figure in an antique rubber diver’s suit. “I’m not buying anything today,” I said and started to shut the door. It opened the face plate of the helmet and about a gallon of seawater gushed out. “Guig! I’m here to help you,” the bod said in XX.

  It was Captain Nemo, who’s been cracked on marine biology so long that he prefers to live in water. He turned and waved his arms. “Bring her in, lads,” he shouted in Spanglish and a little more water squirted out of his helmet. Three goons appeared lugging an enormous vat which they carried into the house. “Set her down easy,” Nemo admonished. “Easy, lads. Easy. That’s it. Avast. Belay.” The goons left. Nemo took off the helmet and beamed at me, his whiskers dripping. “I’ve got all your problems solved, Guig. Meet Laura.”

  “Laura?”

  “Look in the tank.”

  I took the lid off and looked. I was face-to-face with the goddamn biggest octopus in history.

  “This is Laura?”

  “My pride and joy. Say hello to her.”

  “Hello, Laura.”

  “No, no, Guig. She can’t hear you from out here. Stick your head under the water.”

  I stuck. “Hello, Laura,” I bubbled.

  Damn if the beak didn’t open and I heard “Herro” and the eyes stared at me.

  “Can you say your name, love?”

  “Raura.”

  I pulled out and turned to Captain Nemo, who was bursting with pride. “Well?”

  “Fantastic.”

  “She’s brilliant. She has a vocabulary of a hundred words.”

  “She seems to have a Japanese accent.”

  “Yes. I had a little trouble with the mouth transplant.”

  “Transplant?”

  “Well, you don’t think I found a thinking, talking octopus, do you? I created her with transplants.”

  “Nemo, you’re a genius.”

  “I admit it,” he admitted modestly.

  “And Laura’s going to help me put the squeeze on Sequoya Guess?”

  “She can’t miss. We tell her what to do and your man will die so horribly that he’ll never forgive you.”

  “What’s your plan?”

  “Have you got a pool? I’m beginning to dry out.”

  “No, but I can fake one.”

  I sprayed the little drawing room with transparent perspex, about six feet up the walls; the floor and furniture too, of course, making the coat two inches thick, and there was a drawing-room-shaped pool including the decor. I filled it from the main pump. Nemo got out of his suit, went into the living room, and came back with Laura in his arms. They got into the pool and Nemo sat down on the couch and breathed a bubble of relief while Laura explored curiously. Then Nemo motioned for me to join them. I joined. Laura wrapped her arms around me affectionately.

  “She likes you,” Nemo said.

  “That’s nice. So what’s your hideous plan?”

  “We take your man aqualung diving. We take him deep. He’ll have a closed atmospheric system with a high-pressure helium-oxygen gas mixture. The helium is for the bends.”

  “Yes?”

  “Laura attacks. The monster from the deep.”

  “And drowns him?”

  “No, no, no, lad. More fiendish than that. Laura has been briefed. She cuts off the helium input while he’s struggling.”

  “So? He’s getting pure oxygen.”

  “That’s what makes it fiendish. Oxygen, under high pressure, produces symptoms of tetanus, strychnine poisoning, and epileptic spasms. It exaggerates the excitomotor power output of the spinal cord and creates violent convulsions. Your man will go under in slow agony.”

  “It sounds ghastly enough, Nemo, but how do we save him?”

  “Chloroform.”

  “With what?”

  “Chloroform. That’s the antidote for oxygen poisoning.”

  I thought it over. “It sounds kind of complicated, Nemo.”

  “What d’you want, a volcano?” he asked angrily.

  “Sorry. Sorry… . I just want to be sure it’ll work this time. We’ll try it, Nemo. We—Wait a minute
. I hear a godawful pounding on the front door.”

  I climbed out and went to the front door, forgetting I was naked. When I irised it open, there was Scented Song, looking as ever like a Ming Dynasty princess. There was an elephant behind her hammering at the door with its trunk.

  “The vision of your godlike presence lends celestial light to these concave and unworthy eyes,” she said. “All right, Sabu, knock it off.”

  The elephant stopped hammering. “Hi, Guig,” she said. “Long time no see. Don’t look now, but your fly’s open.”

  I kissed her. “Come in, princess. It has been a long time, hasn’t it? Too long. Who’s your friend?”

  “About as close as I could come to a mastodon.”

  “You don’t mean—”

  “What else? If it was good enough for Hic-Haec-Hoc it ought to be good enough for your prospect.”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “I seduce your jewel of a thousand facets. While we’re in the act we’re caught flagrante by Dumbo who, in a mad passion of insensate jealousy, sl-o-w-ly crushes us to death. I scream, but it’s no use. It’s mad, do you hear? Mad. Your guy fights heroically, but the massive forehead presses down and down and down… .”

  “Jeez,” I said appreciatively.

  “And speaking of Sabu’s massive brain, we’d better bring him in. He’s not very bright and he may get himself into trouble. Iris a little wider for him, Guig.”

  I opened the door wider and the princess motioned the road-company mastodon in. He in and I have to admit he couldn’t be very bright. In the few minutes that he’d been left alone he’d permitted himself to be covered with spray can graffiti, all unmistakably obscene. Sabu chirped a little, touched Scented Song with his trunk to reassure himself, and then disappeared as the living room floor collapsed under him with a roar. There he was, down in the basement, trumpeting his fool head off. There were more roars from the drawing room.

  “They don’t build houses like they used to,” the princess said. “What’s all that hollering?”

  I didn’t have to explain. Captain Nemo came charging out with his fly open. “Goddamn it, what the hell’s going on? Ahoy, princess. You’ve scared the living daylights out of Laura, Guig. She’s in a red panic. She’s a very sensitive girl.”