Kronk

CHAPTER TEN

Dr. Peregrine Perrywit was in heaven — or, at least, he was reasonably near, being in the NaTel guest bar, enjoying drinks and civilized conversation with the Marquis of Middlehampton and his younger brother, the Games, Contests and Prize Programmes Controller. The Marquis, gracious in condescension and the knowledge that he was being given three big healthy cats, required Dr. Perrywit simply to call him Burt. The NaTel Controller, no less great-hearted in cameraderie, indicated that friends — the gesture was to Dr.

Perrywit as a benediction — took some small pleasure in calling him Dirk.

Burt and Dirk — and Peregrine… Intimate, urbane. Also, it was more than gratifying to be in the high reaches of Lulu Tower on a warm summer evening, sipping hock and soda, and gazing idly at framed segments of the whole of London, spread out beneath one’s feet like a toy city ready to be trampled. This, thought Dr. Perrywit, was a moment to savour and remember. This was Contact.

Burt dropped some more ice into his Polish white spirit. Never could get the damn stuff cold enough, he thought sadly. That was the trouble with life — everything got too damn warm.

Take this jumped-up prolly: he was getting so warm at the thought of drinking with the Marquis that presently he would melt into a sticky mess. Still, for a panther, a tiger and a lion one had to make sacrifices.

“Curious, what-what?” Burt fixed Dr. Perrywit with a disconcertingly blank stare.

Dr. Perrywit was nonplussed. “Er — yes. Quite so. I mean definitely… curious.”

“I mean to say,” went on Burt, who based his dialogue on old movie interpretations of peers’ parlance, “whoever heard of a soft tiger and a soft lion and a soft panther?”

“My — ah — assistant assures me they are definitely — ah — soft,” said Dr. Perrywit cautiously.

“How soft?”

“Extremely docile. One might even say timid.”

“I have a thought,” said Dirk. “I might borrow them for the new We Bust Your Nerve series. You see, we could have the cats leaping round this naked prepube who has been carved up a bit and smeared with blood, and then—”

“Piss off,” said Burt evenly. He fixed Peregrine once more. “I say, you MicroWar types haven’t been frigging about with them have you? Couldn’t stand that.”

“Frigging about?” Dr. Perrywit was at a loss.

“Bugs,” explained Burt. “Couldn’t stand that. Dumb animals and all that rot. Thought MicroWar was rather strong on bugs. Wouldn’t want to think there had been any malarky with my soft cats… What do you say, Peregrine, old fella? Has MicroWar been bugging my beasties?”

Heaven had become a degree or two less heavenly; and Dr. Perrywit was feeling just a shade unhappy. Really, the Marquis — Burt — was being almost cavalier in the way he looked a gift-horse in the epiglottis. Who the devil could possibly tell what that idiot Professor Greylaw had been doing over the years? But anyway, Dr. Slink had given her assurance that the animals were clean, healthy and harmless. And Dr. Slink was a conscientious and loyal subordinate. And it would certainly be suicidal at this stage not to give the Marquis — Burt -

every possible assurance.

“The animals were, of course, registered as experimental animals,” said Dr. Perrywit smoothly. “But, Burt, I can definitely state that they have never been — ah — interfered with.

The project for which they were obtained has been terminated. I can assure you absolutely that MicroWar takes the most stringent precautions and would in no circumstances release—”

“Ahoy there, me hearties!” A vast personage in knickerbockers and Norfolk jacket and with a bright red beard slapped the Games, Contests and Prize Programmes Controller on the shoulder just as he was drinking his tomato juice and aquavit. Dirk spluttered and coughed a little but survived. His feelings of murderous hate became instantly translated into a warm smile upon recognizing his assailant as Uncle Dan of Beauties of Mother Nature. Uncle Dan had got himself back in Top T with the Lesbian Witches of Cornwall.

“Well, hello, Uncle,” said Dirk. “Cornwall was great. Really. I mean great. I’m told you got twenty-five mill U.K. and—”

“Thirty-two,” said Uncle Dan. “A registered thirty-two. It’s good to be loved. Now speak me the buddy-boys.”

“This is my brother, the Marquis of Middlehampton.”

“Hi, Mark.”

“And this is Dr. Perrywit.”

“Hi, Perry… Now, what’s this with MicroWar?”

“I beg your pardon,” said Dr. Perrywit. Heaven, despite the illustrious addition of Uncle Dan, was becoming confusing.

“MicroWar? MicroWar?” boomed Uncle Dan. “Snotty little output in Insect Race. Ran the show myself when I was still slumming. Jesus God, I was the only exobiologist they had…

You in MicroWar, Perry?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Drink up and call me Uncle.”

Dr. Perrywit received what felt like a karate execution blow between his shoulder blades.

The hock and soda poured back into his glass. Heroically, he reversed the process and gasped for air.

“The good old days,” sighed Uncle Dan nostalgically. “We had fun. In my last year we developed the asphyxiator virus, disseminant ataxia, and selective leprosy. I had a good, strong team. Except for Greylaw, of course. You know Greylaw, Perry? A droll fellow, but negative.”

“He fell under a train a few days ago.”

“Ah, yes. He would. Droll, very droll. But negative. And, of course, accident prone. Once made coffee in the lab with a flask of water containing botulinus toxin. Fortunately, somebody then saw him add oxide of arsenic instead of the powdered milk. Yes, a droll fellow. In the end I had to get him out of the way. So I gave him Project Ninety T.”

Dr. Perrywit has a sixth sense. It sensed disaster.

“What,” he asked in a very small voice, “was Project Ninety T?”

“Call me Uncle.”

“Yes, Uncle.”

“Project Ninety T — well, I suppose it’s before your time. It was the big non-starter, the footsteps on the face of the water lark, the old tranquillity caper. Some fool prollytician on the G bench once asked us to develop a micro-organism to inhibit the aggressive instinct. It can’t be done, you know. Endocrine system won’t allow it. Anyway, this prollysquawk dreamed his little dreams of knocking war psychology on the head; and MicroWar got its budget boosted.

We took the project seriously at first, of course. Turned a few good men loose on it. But no dividend. Not even with simple animals. As I say, you can’t go mucking about with endocrine balance without some eventual kick-back. But the G prolly wasn’t satisfied. Said Rome wasn’t prefabricated in half an hour. Also threatened to reduce budget if we didn’t keep the treadmill rolling. So in the end we just used the project as a pension scheme to keep batty boyos like Greylaw from doing any real damage… Fell under a train, you say. Droll… How did we get started on MicroWar?”

Dr. Perrywit meant to say: “We were just talking about some experimental animals I’m presenting to the Marquis.” But then all the implications suddenly hit him and he only managed to gibber vaguely, while sweat formed into tiny cold beads on his forehead. Rot Greylaw, rot Uncle Dan, rot the Marquis, rot NaTel, rot God and rot the entire cosmos! But, most of all, rot Greylaw! Because the stupid, cretinous doddering fool had ruined everything.

By succeeding.

Uncle Dan, the Marquis and the Games, Contests and Prize Programmes Controller gazed at Dr. Perrywit with concern. He gibbered some more, trying incoherently to apologize for everything, including his existence, while at the same time willing himself to die instantly and painlessly.

“Fella’s pissed,” said the Marquis, wondering how it was possible on hock and soda.

“Ill perhaps,” suggested the Games, Contests and Prize Programmes Controller charitably.

“Most likely a bug,” remarked Uncle Dan jovially. “Sometimes these MicroWar bodies get careless.” He noted the shaking of Dr. Perrywit’s limbs and the rolling of his eyes. “Symptoms remind me of accelerating locomotor ataxia. I think we ought -” he stopped, confused. The Marquis and his younger brother were already leaving the guest bar.

“Never mind, laddie,” said Uncle Dan, as he, too, retreated. “Just hold the fort while I get a couple of meds to trolley you.”

With an effort, Dr. Perrywit approached the outer limits of coherence. “Omigod, omigod, omigod!” he said weakly. He needed the tiny pink pills badly, but they were in his office. He spun round twice and fainted.

When he returned to consciousness, he was in a beautifully cool bed in a beautifully cool room. And a beautifully cool Dr. Slink was sitting by his bedside.

“At last, at last,” she said cheerfully. “There is nothing to worry about, Dr. Perrywit, nothing at all. The doctors say you have simply been working too hard.” She gave him a warm, encouraging smile; while at the same time wondering if, as Peter had almost suggested, he really was an agent working for Dostoievsky and the Mongol hordes. Perhaps, while he was off guard, it would be a good time to test his reaction to a recent and possibly Significant event.

“Now,” she said briskly, “you are not to worry about MicroWar. I can run things for a few days. But perhaps there is just one matter you ought to know about. Professor Greylaw’s animals in Sussex — they have simply disappeared. Security thinks it may be a student prank and—”

“Omigod!” shrieked Dr. Perrywit. “Omigod, omigod, omigod!”

Mercifully, he lost consciousness once more.