Fun House (14 page)

T
HAT
was a historic dinner we had when we returned to the hunting den. It could only be compared to those great dinners of the past when war was followed by peace. At dinner I concluded a peace pact — so to speak — with Barnum F. alias M. E. Bangani.

But before I go into the details of our agreement, I owe future generations some account of what I learned about this remarkable and sinister figure who, like Hitler and Napoleon, had dreamed of world conquest. His character can be best understood by first describing his relations with his former teacher Dr. Bangani and his daughter Cleo.

The real Dr. Bangani, after his testimony in the You-Too-Can-Be-A-Think-Machine conspiracy, had been seized by magicientists loyal to Barnum F. and secretly murdered. When Barnum F. escaped from prison, he had been surgically altered and metamorphosed into the likeness of his former teacher, thus insuring him against both the L. and O. and St. Ewagiow. At the same time, one of his followers, a low-ranking magicientist by name of Milton Berle Bowling had been reconverted by Garden of Eden Salon techniques into
Barnum Fly
. This false Fly, assisted by the St. Ewagiow, had committed most of the July 4th murders. The real Fly, hidden like a turtle inside the identity of Dr. Bangani, had remained in the background. Unfortunately for Bowling, his continued association with the St. Ewagiow had caused him to become a fanatic death cultist. In fact, somewhere between the fifth and sixth murders, he had reached a point where he was threatening to reveal the true identity of Dr. Bangani-Barnum Fly.

When Bangani (Barnum F.) — and I will use this formulation throughout the remainder of my report — read his daughter Cleo’s advertisement in ‘Magicience-and-You’ he had just about decided to eliminate his double. The second threat to his security was myself. The result was the dual kidnapping. He had another grudge against me. I had made a woman — in line of duty — out of his daughter. “I was tempted to kill you, my friend,” Bangani (Barnum F.) frankly admitted at dinner. is “I spared your life for one reason. I still hadn’t made up my mind whether I should detonate the A-I-D or seek vindication.”

Vindication! He was the kind of egotist who had never wronged anybody. Not his daughter, not his former teacher the late Dr. Bangani. I should mention here that my adventure with that
sleeping beauty
in his Sex Laboratory had certain morbid overtones that will haunt me as long as I live.

“I modeled her after Cleo,” he said at coffee.

“Modeled?” I said.

He chuckled that mean malicious chuckle of his and said, “Yes. She’s a robot. A robot with a limited vocabulary as you discovered, my friend. ‘Help me … I love thee …’ A few appealing phrases like that and an unlimited capacity for love.”

I was horrified as I digested the meaning of this revelation. I will be horrified as long as I live — to have made love — love? — I was raped by a robot!

But I shouldn’t have been surprised. Wasn’t he the creator of Atomic Amusement Park?

He sat there in the hunting den that had once belonged to Dr. Bangani, in the Castle of Dr. Bangani, with Dr. Bangani’s hybrid at his feet as one might say — the conscienceless dog of a professor who was faithful to any master — he sat there wearing the very face and body of Dr. Bangani and bitterly attacked his victim.

“How tired I am of pretending to be that old timid fool. An old fool who never had the courage to rebel against the Rulers he detested as much as I. Full equality of magicientists with the Rulers — that was his senile philosophy! I remember when he was perfecting his Time Stream. I suggested that we really could use it for subversion. ‘Let’s remake the past,’ I urged him. You saw a bit of the Civil War? I suggested a Civil War where the Confederates won the final victory. Or a Civil War where the slaves gained control of the Union Army and elected a Negro president who decreed slavery for all whites, Unionists and Confederates. Brilliant, if I say so myself. It would have planted the seed of revolt in the brains of the people. But the old fool insisted on being faithful to history, and when the Rulers vetoed the Time Stream as being too activist, he agreed immediately. The Cineramours — that sums up the old fool. Cineramours and Drink-Towns
¹
.”

“But Dr. Bangani did support you?” I said.

“Only to betray me,” he answered. “He opposed all my ideas to undermine the Rulers. When I proposed a revival of religion to counteract the almost superstitious awe the people felt for the Rulers, he became frightened. I thought that if we could publicize Christ as a Magicientist — after all He walked on the water and raised the dead — we would in a subtle way infiltrate the people with the concept of revolt. But that old fool again led the opposition to me. True, he supported my plan of subverting the smaller countries of the world by exporting the Pleasure Principle, but he was already plotting to betray me. He was the one who volunteered information about my invention You-Too-Can-Be-A-Think-Machine! Pure envy! I should have guessed it. From the day I received the R-Treatment
²
as a reward for my Atomic Amusement Park, the first magicientist ever to receive this high honor, the old man could never forgive me.”

Before that historic dinner was over, he was asking me to call him Nathaniel — his name on the Reservation — but those burning eyes of his discouraged any feelings of friendship. And when I thought of the conditions he had laid down before returning the A-I-D to the authorities, I felt like chewing a U-Latu. I had promised him a full Presidential pardon, the return of his confiscated wealth, and the position of Assistant to the Secretary of Pleasure, Fun and Miscellaneous Hobbies. It was a tall order but the alternative to what he called ‘Vindication’ was too frightful to think about.

We had agreed that he would return with me to Washington D.C. But
without
the A-I-D. The A-I-D would be entrusted to the professor who would depart for parts unknown. If there was any trickery, the professor would detonate the A-I-D on July 4th. “I can rely on him to do so,” Bangani (Barnum F.) declared. “Remember, my friend, he has no conscience and his biggest pleasure is hunting.”

I tried to argue that a man who loved to reduce living animals to warm meat might be tempted by the prospect of several billion human beings. “It’s the hunt of hunts!” I said. “The hunt to end all hunts.” But all my arguments were useless. Bangani (Barnum F.) insisted that his kept professor could be trusted if we kept our word.

“I want to be vindicated,” he said over and over again. “If I’m not vindicated let the whole world go hang!”

“You will be vindicated,” I promised as the chills ran up and down my spine.

I should add here that no one, including Bangani (Barnum F.) would know where the professor was hiding. His master had deliberately decided to exclude that bit of information from his brain. Not that he was worried about Brain-Confessors or other such similar apparatus which in his case would be useless. “I am putting myself in your power, my friend, and it may be that Commissioner Sonata has a mind-reading device of a really superior sort.”

Late that evening we climbed into Bangani (Barnum F.)’s private Spacecapsul
¹
and flew back towards Washington D.C. There were three of us, Bangani (Barnum F.), myself and a woman whom I’d never seen until the moment of departure. She was a St. Ewagiow from Italy, a blonde beauty with dark eyes who had originally been his liaison to the brotherhood. But after his metamorphosis, he had put her into a state of P.A. or permanent amnesia. “I don’t trust women, old chap,” he confided in me. He still used the speech and expressions characteristic of the deceased Dr. Bangani or Lord Alpha-B. which wasn’t surprising. The metamorphosis had been so successful that in many ways he had become his own victim. The obsession with ancestors — the ancestors
of
Dr. Bangani — the dislike he had shown for the nine-foot beater who resembled Barnum F. — all indicated than even psychologically he had been partially reconditioned into the traumatic image of his former teacher. When I hinted of this he said, “The first thing I’ll do after my pardon is enter a Garden of Eden Salon and have myself restored. I’m bloody well tired of looking like a man of eighty.”

Bloody
— there it was again, a favorite word in the vocabulary of Lord Alpha-B.

He was silent for most of the flight. It was only when we flew over the six hundred mile constellation of lights that was Greater Chicago-Detroit
¹
that he really became talkative. “That’s where I first worked when I left the Reservation, my friend. I was nobody then, a bottler in the Pinkelphin
²
Distillery. I worked my two hour day and went home to my family. I had married again, a girl who worked in the next department, Juliet Lacrosse by name. I was nobody. Then one day I dropped a suggestion in the Suggestion Box and my whole life changed.”

“What was the suggestion?”

“One of the effects of Pinkelphin is a vision of graceful dancing animals. I suggested that there was no reason why animals couldn’t be trained to dance as well as humans. I was transferred to one of the labs. There I worked with animal psychologists, chemists and reflexionists. In a year we had trained thirty monkeys to perform a Swan Lake with human grace.” He sighed, “That’s all life is, my friend. A Human Ballet in which the brains of the dancers have been, to coin a phrase, monkeyfied.”

“I don’t know that I agree,” I said.

He chuckled. “You hate to call me Nathaniel, don’t you?” He got up from his seat and nodded at the blonde P.A. “Excuse us, my friend. The jungle calls.”

They retired to the Spacecapsul’s private compartment. As the craft steered itself, I sat there thinking of this renegade’s ambitions and of the professor who had gone off somewhere with the A-I-D. God, I prayed, let it work out for the best.

A few minutes later, the Capitol appeared below, or, rather, the two Capitols. Old Washington was a mass of lights, but across the Potomac River in New Washington, the lights were few and scattered. There, in windowless skyscrapers, the highest Government officials — the Think Machines — were housed with Their non-human cerebral staffs, Their secretarial calculators and lesser computors, as well as the vast bureaucracy of human technicians and engineers who serviced Them.

I glanced up at the moon where the Supreme Rulers whose life blood was atomic current, looked down upon the earth and upon the nation that proudly called itself the Pleasure Republic. I thought of Bangani (Barnum F.) and the vindication he wanted and tried to tell myself that after all, the Rulers, even if not human, desired their Own Continuance. Yes, They would agree to Bangani (Barnum F.)’s conditions. Yes, why not? I began to feel hopeful. The A-I-D would be returned to international custody in India. The St. Ewagiows and other death-cultists of this world would be immobilized. Yes, why not?

We landed in Old Washington. I parted from my fellow passengers and within ten minutes I was at L. and O. Headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue. “I’d given you up for dead!” Commissioner Sonata said happily. “It’s good to see you, Crockett!” And when I reported my great news, he smiled with speechless joy. Then his blond face twisted and he wept. Sobbing he asked me to repeat my news and when I did, he hugged me. “We’ll see the President in the morning. I always knew I hadn’t made a mistake in you. You’re a genius!”

He was overwhelmed with emotion. He wanted to entertain me, babbling incoherently about One-Shot Animateds and opgin parties. He suggested a ski party in Antartica-in-Miami and even a trip to the moon, “I can get the authorization!”

“No thanks, Elvis,” I said quietly. “All I want is some old-fashioned sleep.”

“Shall I airwave Gladys?”

“No, Elvis,” I said, thinking of that
sleeping beauty
in the Sex Lab.

(It was the hardest no I had ever said. Ruth, forgive me, but after my recent experiences, Gladys E., to me, was like a wife. I wanted to go to her as I would to you, Ruth, and perhaps I would have if not for Bangani (Barnum F.). When I thought of that renegade who had once lived among us, I found the resolution to say no.)

The Commissioner studied me curiously. “Crockett, I guess you are a hero. An absolutely genuine hero. But no sleep for me tonight. I’m celebrating. Everything is bound to work out for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Barnum Fly’ll get his pardon and life will go on as before.”

“Do you think They will raise any objections?”

“No. It’ll go through channels of course, and it may even go as far as the moon. Stop worrying, Crockett! You can go to sleep with — what’s that quaint expression you have on the Reservation? Oh, yes, you can go to sleep with a clear conscience. I propose to sleep without it.”

When I went to see the Commissioner in the morning I found the city crowded with delegations from all over the country. It was June 30th or National Lobby Day. Before the final vote on the Budget, Congress was commanded by law to receive and listen to its citizens. I had almost forgotten.

Tears of homesickness filled my eyes when I saw a delegation from the Reservation, the men in homespun, the women in gingham dresses. During the last ten years we had always sent a delegation to Washington on June 30th. Territory was what we wanted. With a rapidly expanding population we had for years been petitioning Congress for the remainder of Montana. Montana, I thought with a surge of pride. I would get it for them, I thought.

I was happy to see my own people, but since I had left the Reservation in secrecy, I didn’t want to be recognized. Still, I was so homesick I paused on the edge of the crowd that had surrounded the Reservation delegation. It was a typically noisy and joking crowd.

“Do you cowboys still want Montana?” some fool shouted.

“Montana for the cowboys and their cowbabies!” another fool declaimed, and pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. “Resolution Number 1,457,457,” he read. “Whereas the United States of America, a land founded by pioneers and inspired by the old-fashioned pioneer spirit, and spirits, hereby awards, donates, gives, grants and aggrandizes the remainder of the State of Montana to the Reservationists so that they and their descendants, herein to be described as settlers, cowboys, and Indians, can weave wool and spin sheep …”