Golem 100

14

Subadar Ind’dni entered Interrogation Room One. It was warm and dark. Dr. Blaise Shima glowed faintly in the soft plastic womb, narcotized, naked, curled in the fetal position. There was soothing music incorporating a gentle heartbeat. The examining officers were not shouting questions at him; rather, their maternal voices came quietly out of the dark, blending with the comfort.

“We love you, baby.”

“The whole world loves you.”

“You’re nice and warm and safe.”

“So you can tell us.”

“You can tell mommie.”

“What have you got against the Intra National Cartel Association?”

“And why were you looking for a virgin?”

“What girl would admit it anyway?”

“Tell us.”

“Tell mommie.”

“Where did you get the firecrackers?”

“Did you make them yourself?”

“Tell us, baby.”

“That kite fight must have been fun.”

“Did you talk to those people?”

“Tell us what you said.”

“Tell mommie everything.”

“Didn’t you remember we sold the Statue of Liberty for scrap years ago?”

“We sold Bedloe’s Island, too.”

“What were you really doing?”

“Tell mommie.”

“Did you actually want a skin-join?”

“With ink?”

“What did you really want?”

“Of course you know what naked girls look like.”

“Everybody does.”

“So what did you really want from that dead one?”

“Tell us.”

“Is it because you like girls?”

“Then why try to paint them black?”

“And do you hate your job that much?”

“Or do you hate CCC?”

“Maybe you hate science. Tell us, baby.”

“Maybe he hates himself.”

“Is that why you tried to take off into space, baby?”

“Tell mommie. You don’t have to be afraid. You won’t be punished for anything.”

“That was a fun musical show you put on.”

“But you’re not only color-blind, baby, you’re tone-deaf.”

“Mommie’s proud of you anyway.”

“So tell us why you did it.”

“Baby, you really shouldn’t try to bang a broad in a supermarket.”

“Everybody loves you, but not that much.”

“Or was it a secret message?”

“Tell us.”

“And how could an elephant get into your Oasis?”

“Let alone your bed.”

“Silly baby!”

“You didn’t really think you could push that rain tank over all by yourself, did you?”

“Of course not.”

“So what were you really trying to do? Was it a signal to the P.L.O.?”

“Tell us, baby.”

“Tell mommie.”

“Tell us.”

Shima never responded. He floated in the womb with his head between his knees and his arms wrapped around himself, never moving a muscle. Subadar Ind’dni sighed, turned, and left as quietly as he had entered. He visited Interrogation Room Two. It was identical to Room One with the exception of the paternal voices and the occupant of the plastic womb, Gretchen Nunn.

“We love you, baby.”

“The whole world loves you.”

“So you’re nice and warm and safe.”

“And you can tell us.”

“You can tell daddy.”

“You know we love toys, don’t you?”

“And they love us.”

“So what were you really trying to do in that toy store?”

“Is there a squeam scam we don’t know about?”

“Tell us, baby.”

“Tell daddy.”

“You were naughty in the art museum.”

“Daddy’s told you a hundred times not to touch things that don’t belong to you.”

“Why did you do it?”

“Little girl, you know you’re the wrong color for a tattoo.”

“So what were you really after? Is that man a pusher?”

“And you ought to know that you can’t give the hots to a poster.”

“It didn’t need it anyway.”

“So why try?”

“Or was it an undercover signal to some person or persons unknown?”

“Tell daddy.”

“What made you think you could star in that opera?”

“Or are you sore at the Glacial Army?”

“And you ought to know we need all the perfume we can get these days.”

“So why crunch the source?”

“Or are you sore at CCC? Tell us why.”

“That was our good, sweet little girl to spray Christmas all over the launch pad.”

“But Christmas colors aren’t red and green anymore.”

“They’re black and white. What have you got against black, baby?”

“You’re black yourself. Are you ashamed?”

“Why didn’t you let that funny man catch up with you in the supermarket?”

“You let him catch up with you before.”

“Why not this time? Tell us.”

“Tell daddy,”

“Tell us what you have against star sapphires.”

“Is it because you hate all stars?”

“Or is it a code?”

“Tell us.”

“And wherever did you learn dirty Latin?”

“Or was that code, too?”

“Tell us, baby.”

“Tell daddy.”

“Tell us.”

No response from Gretchen Nunn. Subadar Ind’dni sighed again, turned, left, and sauntered to his office in the Precinct Complex.

It was hardly the conventional business office of a high-level executive. Ind’dni had withdrawn from the fevers of the Guff nightmare into Japanese simplicity; uncovered polished teak floor, neutral screens, unobtrusive ebony furniture. There was no conventional conference table; instead there was a tile charcoal firepit in the center of the office. Around this Ind’dni and his conferees sat on the rim with their legs dangling down in the warmth. Quite naturally, the Subadar’s staff loved even the most abrasive sessions with their chief.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the Japanese mystique was the single decoration standing before the screened windows; a four-foot weathered, gnarled and twisted cedar trunk. Its ivory-smooth surface was almost hypnotic. Even Ind’dni could not resist the impulsion to stroke it, which he was doing now.

At last he spoke. “And so, please? Response, if any?”

His office was empty but a disembodied voice answered, “None, sir.”

“Not even customary denials?”

“No, sir.”

“Then what, if anything?”

“Nothing, sir. A complete blank. Both seem to be spacing out.”

“Most strange. You have pursued standard operational procedure in questioning?”

“We’ve not limited it to that, Subadar. We’ve tried every innovation we could invent.”

“And still negative time-lapse?”

“Sorry, sir.”

“No, no, not to regret. Most interesting and unusual challenge compounding excruciating perplexity of Hundred-Hander beast. Please to dress—Do I hear laughter?”

“Sorry, sir. I was remembering their appearance here at the precinct.”

“Yes. To be agreed. Most unexpected and amusing advent. To some. So. Please to dress them, restore to contemporary consciousness, and bring to me.”

Blaise and Gretchen weren’t tottering when they entered Ind’dni’s office but they weren’t exactly jaunty-jolly. They displayed the confusion of someone who has awakened in an alien room without the vaguest recall of who, what, when, where, why.

“Most welcome.” Ind’dni said. “You have led the wicked sheriff a merry chase through the forest of Mr. Sherwood. So kind of you to drop in on me at eventual last.”

They stared at him.

Ind’dni indicated the tiled firepit. “Shall we seat and warm ourselves and confer?”

“Listen—” Shima began.

“Or would refreshment be preferred first? You have both had a busy night.”

“Listen—” Shima tried again, but this time Gretchen cut him off.

“Busy night, Subadar?” she asked. “It isn’t even night yet. It can’t be later than five or six in the afternoon.”

“You think so, madame?”

“I know so.”

“And this is your construct of situation?”

“Of course.”

“Listen,” Shima began for the third time. “I want to know how in hell we got from my lab to the Guff precinct and why. Is this another Ind’dni ploy?”

“Or brutality of police?” Ind’dni smiled. “Most interesting state of confusion. Come, sit down in warmth and tell me why it can’t be later than five or six o’clock post meridian.”

“Because we went to Blaise’s lab not more than an hour ago.”

“Ah yes. At CCC complex. It is permitted to ask where you located Dr. Shima, madame? You will recall that you reported his disappearance to me.”

“I did. Just a few hours ago. And you broadcast an A.P.B. on your quote secret unquote Code Nemo, over my protest.”

“What else could I do? Yet you found him before my staff did. Where?”

“In my apartment.”

“Safe and of sound mind?”

“Why ask that?” Gretchen snapped.

“Is it not conventional condition in which missing persons are hoped to be found?” Again Ind’dni sounded smoothly dangerous. “Safe and sound. No?”

“Safe and sound. Yes.”

“But you did not report discovery to me despite your prior agitation. Why, madame?”

“Because I—Because we had something far more urgent to do.”

“Precise nature of same?”

“A Promethium trip.”

“Ah yes. Hoping to visit the Infraworld of your fanciful imagination.”

“I didn’t believe her either,” Shima broke in. “I was just being polite. But it’s not imaginary, Ind’dni, it’s fact, goddam cold fact. Maybe I should call it hot news because it was out of sight! Wild!”

“And all this when?”

“Not more than an hour ago.” Shima was feverish in his excitement. “It’s a discovery that’ll make history when I can get it documented and publish. They’ll call it the Shima Syndrome or maybe the Nunn Effect. We mainlined a milligram of Pm each in my lab. We shot ourselves in matching veins to make sure the effect would hit us at approximately the same time, and the Pm must have taken over within minutes. The effect was fantastic, Subadar. Unbelievable! There is a goddam Phasmaworld. There might even be an entire goddam Phasmaculture buried deep under externals, for all I know. We weren’t wherever we were long enough to do much exploring.”

“You really believe this, Dr. Shima?”

“Believe? Damn it, Ind’dni, I know.”

“You were in madame’s Subworld together?”

“Together, yes; but not in the Ourworld sense.”

“And how long did the visit last?”

“That’s hard to say. Our space-time orientation was wiped out. All our normal everyday senses were wiped. But a milly of Pm couldn’t have lasted very long. I’d say twenty minutes. You, Gretchen?”

“Closer to a half hour.”

“And during all this, where were you in… what did you call it, doctor… in the Ourworld?”

“In my lab at CCC.”

“That is, our bods were,” Gretchen explained. “I told you that we’d leave the Guff without leaving, Subadar, and so we did.”

“You did not,” Ind’dni said quite distinctly.

Gretchen took a breath. Then, “You think we’re lying?”

“No.” Ind’dni was quietly emphatic. “No. I think you’re mad, both of you… Promethium mad. Evidently the chemical is extremely dangerous.”

“What? Why? How do you—”

“Please to listen. Five o’clock in the afternoon was yesterday. It is past six o’clock in the morning of today. Your half hour lasted twelve hours.”

“But—That’s impossible!”

“And I can account for some of them. There was that A.P.B. and an alert on Code Nemo. There was a watch and the reports came in from all points on your insane careering through the Guff.”

“But we weren’t out in the Guff,” Gretchen protested. “We never left Blaise’s lab, physically.”

“But you did, both of you.”

“This is a damned ploy, Ind’dni.”

“On my honor I assure you not, doctor.”

They both knew he was a man of honor and were flabbergasted. They could only stare silent questions.

“Shall I tell you the story of your missing twelve hours?”

Neither could answer.

The story (Ind’dni continued) cannot give accurate times and sequences. It is probable that events have been omitted because staff had great difficulty tracking your madly unpredictable adventures. One, who is precinct chess champion, reported that you both leaped about like the knight’s move in torus chess.

We start at five o’clock yesterday afternoon. Following took place: Madame invaded premises of F.A.O. Noir toy emporium and tried to incite toys to riot against children. She was heard exhorting a stuffed ostrich: “Kill, baby, kill! Kill the kids.”

Meanwhile, the doctor was in the complex of Intra National Cartel Association searching for a virgin. After much perplexity, I realized that the initials of the company form noun, INCA. Apparently Dr. Shima wished to sacrifice to Aztec gods by cutting out the heart of a virgin. His sacrificial knife was a ruler. Metric.

Item: Dr. Shima was discovered in bowels of the Hudson Hell Gate dam with avowed intent of blowing up entire structure which—his quoted words—was a rapacious rape of coastal ecology. His explosive was a ten-foot string of Chinese firecrackers which he ignited and escaped in consequent confusion.

Miz Nunn next manifested in the Guff Art Museum, where she astonished many serious students and scholars by running from statue to statue, grasping the male genitals, and complaining that they were cold. She escaped apprehension by flinging a fig leaf in a guard’s face.

In Central Park Dr. Shima tried to destroy the kites of children and adults by flying a killer kite. Fortunately its tail was not armed with cutting blades, as is the custom, but merely a cordless shaver. He next appeared on Bedloe’s Island resolved to climb to the top of nonexistent Statue of Liberty and relight the lady’s torch. The island, you know, was sold to the Anti-Vivisection League and is maintained as an animal refuge. The league did not take kindly to the flaming combustibles that Dr. Shima was carrying. Neither did the animals.

Together you invaded premises of a respectable tattoo practitioner and demanded that he marry you by tattooing you two into one. When he tried to explain that he was not licensed to marry anyone by any means whatever, you threw him down and tried to tattoo the letters F.I.N.K. on his already completely ornamented body, meanwhile singing, “Walter, Walter, lead me to the altar, and I’ll show you where I’m tattooed.”

Dr. Shima then appeared in the Guff morgue where he engaged in a bitter altercation with a celebrated necrophiliac over the body of a dead girl. It seems that Dr. Shima wished to inspect her internal organs by means of dissection, a discipline which he regretted never having studied at Princeton, M.I.T., or Dhow Chemical. The gentleman had other designs on the body, for which he had already paid. A most unfortunate confrontation.

Staff next reported you, madame, pressing your pelvis in most lascivious manner against a three-sheet 3-D poster. It was an advertisement for “UpMan,” a cantharis, featuring “before” and “after” depictions of a nude man. Your attentions were devoted to the “after” gentleman, who was highly colored and considerably larger-than-lifesize.

Dr. Shima was also rather erotic at this time. He was dashing about, ripping garments off passing ladies and spraying them black, chanting the words, “Black is bangable! Bang is black-able!” Most odd because the ladies were already naturally black.

It has not been reported where you obtained cosmetics, Miz Nunn, but you appeared in studios of Glacial Army’s Station WGA in full clown makeup and attempted to brazen your way into their broadcast of Pagliacci as revised by Scriabin Finkel to demonstrate that jealousy is contrary to God’s will. You kept sounding your high C as proof of your artistry, which same inspired many stray dogs to howling.

Staff located you both together, after another knight’s leap, at CCC complex. You had wrecked Dr. Shima’s laboratory in process of mixing all chemicals and reagents in a gigantic top hat stolen from a peanut advertisement. Resultant odor was most unpleasant. On one wall you had finger-painted in potassium permanganate (KMnO₄) the slogan: KILSTENCH—THE STINKING MAN’S SCENTARETTE!

At Staten Island Dr. Shima tied himself to the nose of a Saturn launch vehicle and urged Miz Nunn to light a match, fire the rocket and launch him into outer space, but she was too busy spraying the concrete pad with Christmas red and green decorations, affirming that the alien inhabitants of distant stars would comprehend Luke, ii, 14 far more readily than E = Mc² or even 1 + 1 = 2.

Our A.P.B. watch next sighted the co-conspirators—staff’s words—intruding on a fully authorized gathering of the Black Ku Klux Klan, where you extinguished their sacred flaming mandala in a most scatological manner and improvised a performance of the classic Porgy and Bess opera which unbiased witnesses describe as merely pathetic.

Still together in unholy alliance—my words—you were observed in a markethon where Dr. Shima pursued the screaming and laughing Miz Nunn with patently carnal intent. You pelted the lady with phallic objects, doctor; asparagus, celery, bananas, mushrooms, and sausages. To make certain that your intent would be understood by all, you had embellished the objects with crude but specific details.

There was some sort of gap here in your knight’s moves, but apparently you split up again. Madame was pursued in the Strøget where she was smashing star-sapphire displays and denouncing conspicuous consumption, proclaiming, “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.” Dr. Shima invaded the Equal Rights maternity hospital and disrupted and endangered several crucial deliveries shouting that he had been impregnated by an elephant and needed an emergency abortion.

You took refuge in the Church of All Atheists, Miz Nunn, where you shocked those few unbelievers who understood Latin by chanting in a loud voice as follows: “O tua lingula, usque perniciter vibrans et vipera. O tuae mammulae, mammae molliculae, dulciter turgidae, gemina poma.” For shame, madame.

And you, Dr. Shima, mounted to the roof of an oasis adjoining the P.L.O. headquarters and tried to topple their two-ton rain tank onto the pinnacle of the P.L.O. pyramid with your bare hands. You were heard howling, “She may enter you but never vice versa.” Really, doctor!

Final act of madness: The two of you burst into this H.Q., sought me out, and tried to stone me to death for being—your words—the wicked sorcerer who had conjured up the Golem¹⁰⁰. Fortunately, you were armed only with magical toadstones, which ancient sorcerers believed resided in the heads of toads and could destroy all evil. They are not lethal. But most unfortunately you had neglected to remove the stones from the toads.

Subadar Ind’dni stopped, smiled, drew a deep breath, and crossed to the tree trunk, which he stroked absently. There was silence.

Then Shima croaked, “We did those insane things?”

“And perhaps more,” Ind’dni murmured.

“For twelve hours?”

“A most provocative drug, your Promethium, doctor. Incidentally, may I suggest that you and Miz Nunn submit to a physical examination in near future. Promethium is radioactive, although no reports were received of your glowing in the dark.”

“I know,” Shima muttered. “It was a calculated risk.”

Gretchen said, “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

“Neither will help, madame. More important is to learn how and why you did what you did.”

“Then you believe we have no knowledge or recollection, Mr. Ind’dni?”

“I watched your facial expressions whilst recounting. Yes, I do. Now, are you willing to discuss an impasse with me?” Ind’dni returned to the charcoal pit and seated himself on the rim. “Before you answer, permit me to assure you that I make no official threats. Your absurd acts were mischief, merely, which may easily be healed by fair payments to victims which I know you will do. The precinct will not advise Legal to prosecute. In any event you could not be immediately punished because tomorrow is the first Opsday of Ops Week. No, my entire concern is the Hundred-Hander beast and I am convinced that you are deeply and secretly involved with that obscene creature. Do you insist on keeping your secret? It is your privilege, and that is the impasse.”

At length Gretchen said, “I think we’ll have to open up, Blaise.”

“I wanted to before but you stopped me.”

“The timing was wrong then. Now is the moment of trust.”

“Reserving what?”

“Nothing.”

“Your phony weapon? My Mr. Wish?”

“Both.”

“There go our careers.”

“Not if the Subadar can be trusted.”

Ind’dni called quietly, “You are taping?”

The disembodied voice answered, “Yes, sir.”

“No longer, please. This consultation is now for my ears only, on my sole responsiblity. You will end record on these words.”

“Yes, sir. Ten-four.”

Gretchen gave Ind’dni a grateful look. “Yours the grace, Subadar.”

“Mine the honor, madame. Now then… ?”

And they told him everything. Ind’dni gave them the courtesy of unmasking his face as he listened; he registered suprise, exasperation, anger, incredulity, and even occasional amusement, but not once did he express sympathy. In fact, when they had finished the long recital, he spoke with the severity of a father. “For two distinguished persons, educated and expert, among the elite of the Guff, you have behaved like silly children playing—what was that antique game?—playing Cops and Robbers.”

“We were only trying to meet a strange problem with a strange solution,” Shima muttered.

“No.” Ind’dni was emphatic. “You were trying to answer strength from weakness. If I am to believe your analysis, madame, I—”

“Do you?” Gretchen cut in.

“I am strongly tempted for a reason you have given me quite unaware. Perhaps I will manifest it later. According to your analysis, this Golem monstrosity knows none of the logic of human behavior. It is undiluted passion. It is savagery. Then how meet it with rational reasoning? Can we anthropomorphize a cyclone? And this maleficent is a cyclone tearing apart the Guff. You say you saw it in your Subworld?”

“We think so.”

“Describe same. No, not yet. First describe the subterranean continent as you saw it.”

“We didn’t see it at first,” Shima said. “Our senses were merely echoing.”

“Then describe echoes.”

“But it was just silly nonsense, not worth repeating.”

“You think so? But I have reason to ask. Do not underestimate my cerebral intelligence, I beg. Please to answer.”

Ind’dni listened intently to the description of their fantastic sensory flashes during the Promethium trip. When they were finished he nodded with satisfaction.

“And now the lunacy of your twelve-hour peregrinations is explained,” he said. “Can you not link up parallels between the real world—the Ourworld, Dr. Shima calls it—and your Phasma adventure?”

Shima seemed angered by the Subadar’s grasping something he had missed. “You tell us,” he growled.

Ind’dni’s face flickered; he had noted Shima’s annoyance. “No need for exhaustive detail,” he said smoothly. “I am sure you will construct all for yourselves after I have given a few clues… signposts to guide you. Did you not, doctor, appear to Miz Nunn as an Aztec god? And your search for a virgin at Intra National Cartel Association?

“At another point, attempting to perceive Miz Nunn, you saw figure of a nude woman with internal organs displayed. Does this not tie in with your event at the Guff morgue? Madame, attempting to see you, saw a tattooed Japanese samurai. And what of the happening in the real tattoo parlor?

“You saw yourself, doctor, as a grotesque man with an elephant head. No connection with your invasion of E.R. maternity hospital claiming to have been impregnated by an elephant?

“You saw yourself as a Christmas ornament, madame, and meanwhile in physical life you were covering Staten Island launch pad with Christmas red and green, insisting that aliens on distant stars would understand Luke ii, ‘On earth peace, good will toward men.’ Enough signposts? Need I continue?”

Shima whistled. “By God, he’s right! Everything ties in. When I saw you as a beautiful black nude… that must have been when I was spraying women black.”

“Yes. And when I saw myself dancing with you, that’s when I was seducing the poster.”

“But why didn’t we realize it?”

“You had not time for reflection,” Ind’dni interposed. “Do not feel chagrin. From your last lunacy here in the Center, you went directly into narcotic examination.”

“And we told you what?”

“Nothing, doctor. You have no memory of those twelve hours. You were completely spaced out and timed out because apparently you were functioning entirely as somatic entities… naughty animals, prankish but not—Yes, madame?”

“I want to apologize, Subadar. I did underestimate you; not your intelligence, your instincts. I felt contemptuous because you seemed to brush off my analysis of the Golem¹⁰⁰ too lightly. Now I know why you did. I’d ignored the soma factor, and your instinct told you that. Mine did not. I’m sorry. I do apologize.”

“Most courteous and generous, Miz Nunn, although I confess I do not yet understand.”

“Me neither,” Shima grunted.

“My gut understands. The trouble is, our bods are on speaking terms with our minds, but not the other way around. It’s a one-way street.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Gretch?”

“About my mistake, which the Subadar sensed. I was so obsessed with exploring the Phasmaworld concept that I ignored the reality of the human physical world. I’m a traitor to psychodynamics. But let’s drop the psytech jive and talk plain housekeeping, shall we?”

“A pleasure, lady.”

“We’ve got a mind and body. Are they separate?”

“No, they’re one.”

“Who’s in charge?”

“Both.”

“Can you have a living bod without a mind?”

“Yes, a vegetable.”

“Can you have a living mind without a bod?”

“No, unless you believe in ghosts.”

“So the mind, the psyche, has got to have a home, and the soma is the house for the psyche. The bod’s the lodging house; the pysche’s the tenant. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“And whatever the psyche produces—art, music, science, logic, ideas, love, hatred—is really a product of the whole house.”

“I’ll concede that.”

“You better concede it. The Golem is a quasi-living entity. It must be the product of a house.”

“You said it’s the product of the bee-ladies.”

“And their hive is its house. That’s my point. The hive is the hearth and home of the Golem.” Gretchen turned to Ind’dni. “Am I making sense, Subadar?”

Ind’dni smiled. “You omit the soul, madame.”

“No, I merely omit mention. The soul is the tonus of the soma. It’s metabolic music.”

“The hell it is,” Shima broke in. “Not that I buy the concept of a soul. But if there is one, it belongs to the mind… to the psyche. It’s the thinking part of us.”

“Not to me, Blaise. I believe it’s a resonance of the soma, the flowering of a million years of evolution, the cultural unconscious in all animals.”

“Animals! All animals?”

“All,” Gretchen said firmly. “Do you think a tiger has a soul?”

“A lot of religions say no.”

“Saint Francis of Assisi didn’t. The tiger has a soul. It can’t compute. It doesn’t pray. You never hear a tiger say, ‘What did the Polack do when he got lost in the jungle?’ His soma and psyche are purely reflexive, dedicated to survival and satisfaction, but I say the tiger has a soul, all the same, and I rest my case.”

“Yes, but what is your case, counselor?” Shima was in deadly earnest.

“That the ladies’ hive is the body and soul of the Golem, its house. Do you agree, Subadar?”

“Most unusual construct, as is your wont, Miz Nunn. But does not the Golem have a body of its own… a hundred bodies? Most unhappily I do not know whereabouts of its soul, if any. Shall I issue an A.P.B.?”

Gretchen laughed. “Using Code Nemo?”

“Perhaps a Code Credo would be more à propos.”

“Damn it! If you two are going to start clowning—!” Shima burst out.

“Cool it, baby. Just relieving the tension, is all,” Gretchen soothed. To Ind’dni, “It’s a quasi-body, Subadar; a projection, along with its primal drives, of the hive. That’s why it’s polymorphic. Think of water in free fall. Without gravity the water can be shaped into anything. The Golem has no real form of its own. The hive is its generator and shapes it ad lib.”

Shima demanded, “Then you mean destroy all the bee-ladies to zap the Golem? I can just see our good friend here standing by and permitting that.”

“Hardly likely,” Ind’dni murmured. “I permit no destruction whatever.”

“I don’t mean destroy the women,” Gretchen explained. “It’s a collective act, remember? Break up the colony and you destroy the Golem’s home.”

“Scatter them?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not sure whether the beehive parallel goes that far.”

“Let’s suppose it does.”

“Then it’s still iffy. The life of an insect colony can go on whether there’s a queen or not. Only the beehive must have a queen.”

“You mean what’s-her-name… Winifred Ashley?”

“And that’s the big ‘if.’ Is she really a queen in the bee sense, holding the colony together? Is she the prime factor in the generation of the Golem? Damn it, I don’t know, and I don’t know how to find out.”

“There’s an obvious solution, another Pm trip.”

“But I’m afraid of that, Blaise. We can’t trust our senses because they panic and short-circuit. And certainly we can’t trust our somas when the rest of us vacate.”

“If I may make a suggestion?” Ind’dni spoke from the cedar trunk.

“Please.”

“The next Promethium trip may be made under controlled environment. The bodies can be restrained.”

“That’s true, Subadar, but it doesn’t solve the problem of our unreliable senses.”

“Not Dr. Shima’s, perhaps, but yours alone, madame?”

“Mine? Alone?”

“I have begged not to be underestimated. Yes, I knew all about your seeing at second hand before your confession. You are a lusus naturae. You did sense this Hundred-Hander?”

“I think I did.”

“Appearance, please.”

“An unformed, man.”

“Actions?”

“None.”

“You perceived the beast with your own senses or through Dr. Shima’s?”

Gretchen was thunderstruck. “My God! I never thought—I honestly don’t know.”

“Do you know whether its behavior in your Phasmaworld might reveal its prime source?”

“It might. Maybe. Does this mean you believe me now?”

“Maybe. Your word. But does it not occur to you that your second-handery will enable you to visit the Phasmaworld with virgin senses and perceive what truly transpires?”

“By God!” Shima exclaimed.

“The expedition can come only after planning and careful preparation. Now you must go and rest. You both need it.” Ind’dni was firmly in control. “Next, doctor, you will test madame’s senses. We know about her sight, but sound must also be examined. That, too, may be crucial.”

“What about the other three; smell, taste, and touch?”

“But I already know from confession of true events. That was your unaware reason for my belief, madame, which I told you I would manifest later.”

“What did she confess that tells you so much?”

“Touch, doctor? Did she not feel sensation of cold when the creature invaded?”

“She did, by God!”

“Wait,” Gretchen said. “I might have gotten that secondhand from the Golem itself.”

“How, madame? Does the creature have senses in human terms? And would it be aware of the cold it exuded? No. That sense was your very own.”

“He’s right, Gretch. But smell and taste, Ind’dni? They’re linked, of course.”

“Ah! That was clincher, as Legal would say. Miz Nunn, of herself, with her own senses, smelled the typical odor the Hundred-Hander emits, the bouquet de malades, the aroma of the mad. I have smelled it myself and that was what convinced my belief. The Bombazine mind is most often enforced by subtleties.”

“This smartass skog really is something, Gretchen,” Shima growled, again angered.

Ind’dni’s face flickered in response to the pejorative. “Please not to delay testing, doctor. There is time urgency. ‘The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold.’ For ‘Assyrian’ read the Hundred-Hander Golem. Of course you will make redress to victims of your escapades. My staff will assist.”

“How?” Shima demanded. “With money?”

“With knowledge.” Ind’dni arose to escort them out. “What then, doctor? You are unacquainted with scandal of Mount Everest ski lift?”

“Certainly I’m acquainted. It collapsed.”

“Plunging fifty misfortunates to injury and death. That was not the scandal I refer to. When rescuers arrived at scene of disaster there were not fifty, there were one hundred and five victims, in quotes, writhing in the snow crying for medical and legal. That was the scandal and it must not happen to you.”

Ind’dni opened the door, smiled them out with a soft, “Opbless,” and closed the door. He pressed a button and called to no one, “Please to resume recording and send in Mr. Droney Lafferty.”