Fun House (6 page)

And in that immensity where nothing had a shape, it was fantastic to see a ladder looming up ahead of us. I gripped Cleo’s hand tighter. It was a hand, it was a miracle, as she was a miracle in her black suit, a miracle of shape in a white world without shape or dimension. I stared at her with tears in my eyes, and at the other couples, I felt as if we were the last people alive, come in pairs to witness the birth of a new world out of all that shapelessness.

The first couples were already climbing up the ladder — a ladder that seemed to be about twenty times as high as any of us and ending at a round hole, a hole of light, pink light.

“Where does it go, Cleo?”

“To the ion source.”

“And where does that go?”

“To the Rollercoaster
¹
.”

I hesitated when it was our turn to climb. She pulled gently on my hand and smiled for the first time since the Tunnel of Love. “Let’s go, Ion,” she whispered. We went up the ladder to the pink glow. The couples who had preceded us were standing at the base of what appeared to be an endless curved wall, whose top I couldn’t see, made of odd shaped brick.
²
Other couples were coming up the ladder out of the white void we had left, through the pink hole of light.

“Ions!” the Voice said at last. “You are about to board the Rollercoaster. Step this way, step lively! Board the Rollercoaster and move at the speed of one hundred million electric volts
³
! Your entertainment is Our pleasure! Smash the riddle of the universe, the nucleus of the uranium atom!”

I must have balked, for Cleo’s hand, holding mine, tightened as if to calm me. “It will be very pleasant,” she whispered.

“Ready, Ions?” the Voice asked. “Ready now! Steady now! Obey your attendants!”

“Jump!” Cleo said and her eyes were bright, and she was smiling.

“Jump where?” I asked, and again she smiled. I felt myself shivering from head to foot.

“We have to jump from gravity. Like this,” she said, tugging on my hand. I shut my eyes and jumped. Right away, a gentle swinging motion carried us off. It was like being on a combination swing and merry-go-round. I opened my eyes and stared at the ions ahead of us, all of us swinging up and down, the merry-go-round taking us around and around, everything pink like a pink atmosphere, and far away, a million miles away, the towering Dees. I looked at Cleo, and I smiled also, and as we circled I felt a tingle, a nice pleasant tingle. It was the first charge
⁴
. Now, the swing swung us higher. Now, the merry-go-round went faster. The Dees, although still a million miles away, were a little closer, and then there was another tingle. Up we swung higher and faster, and Cleo was smiling with joy as we whirled around the next spiral. There was another tingle, and another, the spirals lengthening, and the next tingle wasn’t so pleasant, and the next was like the shock of death — but we didn’t die. Death changed into life, a swifter life, a swifter speed as the Dees came closer and closer, and the Voice spieling at us. “Ions, you’re on your way at one million electric volts. Two million electric volts. Three million electric volts! On your way to the world of the uranium atom! Uranium 235, one of the lighter isotopes! Your ancestors first released the energy of the uranium atom by splitting the nucleus! On your way at four million electric volts!”

The sensations of the swing and the merry-go-round became one sensation, and I waited for the next shock with fear and delight, knowing now that it wouldn’t kill me, but still fearing it, and when it came and I was accelerated ever faster I laughed with joy. Ever faster, so fast I no longer felt as if I had a body with a body’s parts but had been reduced to a particle of fear and delight, roaring down those infinite spirals, the Dees closer and closer, leaning inwards as if about to collapse. And Cleo was laughing with joy — I couldn’t hear her but I could see her head shaking on her neck.

“You’re on your way to the riddle of the universe!” the Voice boomed. “Five million electric volts! Ten million electric volts! One hundred million electric volts!”

Higher! Faster! And higher still, and even faster, a whir, a whiz, a whoosh and now there was a new sensation, not that of the swing or merry-go-round, but a push. A push building up behind us, pushing so hard, so terrible, that I felt as if I were about to burst and fly apart — and suddenly we shot out into space where there was only the Voice.

“Ions, you have entered a vast theatre of electric-magnetic forces! Between the nucleus of the uranium atom and its nearest orbit there is a gap vaster in proportion than the space between our sun and the orbit of the earth. Ions, ahead of you is the riddle of the universe!”

Far far away, oh so far away like a far away star, was the world we were speeding to, on its outskirts a host of dead little moons circling on seven orbits.

“Ahead of you are the electrons, the ninety-two electrons of the uranium atom!”

I felt as if I had wings, wings of voltage immeasurable, winging through space to this distant solar system. I felt I had wings, and when we passed through the outermost of the seven orbits, oh, God, who can describe the feeling of wonder, a wonder Columbus must have felt when he sighted the new world — and a new world it was, blazing with color.

“The riddle of the universe where energy is changed into matter and matter into energy! The spectacle of the ages! Look at those particles of mass ahead of you! Those blue comets are positrons. Those purple meteors are mesons. Look at those particles of energy. Those orange asteroids are photons. Those green rays are gravitons. The spectacle of the ages! Matter into energy, energy into matter!”

Blue positrons, purple mesons, orange photons, green gravitons whirled on journeys of their own, streaking up and down and sideways like a colored rain defying gravity — and through that rain I could see the core of this universe, the nucleus of the atom becoming larger and larger. We roared through the last of the seven orbits and suddenly the nucleus had become immense, and it was vibrating, alive, its protons and neutrons — ninety-two protons and one hundred and forty-six neutrons — looming up like continents under clouds of purplish mesons, and between the continents strange islands formed and vanished, creation and annihilation in a single breath, the life and death of worlds within a world. And now, for the first time I felt that our furious momentum forward was being opposed, that some huge force within the world ahead of us was pushing out at us, stronger and stronger the closer we came, and I didn’t want to be pushed away, for there before me was the riddle of the universe, birth into death and death into birth, genesis. Forward we rushed against the force repelling us, and the continents were no longer separate, but merging, swallowing up the strange islands, and I felt that I, too, would be swallowed up, but I no longer cared, for the riddle of the universe was so close, so close, so close …

When suddenly we whizzed off our path like an arrow bent in midair, and with a dizzying sensation, I stared at the first of the electron orbits, the second orbit beyond it, and the third, and furthest away the seventh orbit with its circling dead moons. Through the seven orbits we traveled, and the Voice that had been silent was saying: “Your entertainment is Our pleasure, folks! Your entertainment is Our Pleasure, folks!”

Slower and slower we moved, and in my disappointment I turned towards Cleo. She was smiling, her eyelids fluttering. I watched them open and almost by the second they began to glaze, her smile vanishing, her face hardening into the cold face of the professional attendant she was.

“The ride’s over, folks. Step off the Rollercoaster, folks. Step lively, folks. The decelerating chamber is straight ahead.”

Folks, I thought numbly. We were folks! Human beings, only human beings. We had lost space and mystery, come back into our own bodies.

Cleo led me into what seemed to be the first of the glass rooms. As we entered we rose up from the glass floor like balloons. “Relax,” she said in her professional voice. “Close your eyes and relax.”

“Relax,” all the other attendants were saying. I felt brokenhearted at what I had lost, but I closed my eyes.

“The universe is made up of fundamental particles,” she whispered.

“Fundamental particles …” I heard the other attendants like a chorus.

And Cleo. “They combine to make iron or hydrogen, bone or muscle.”

“Bone or muscle,” I heard the other attendants.

“Their interactions make suns or mountains, grass or blood. What would you like to be? Think of something soothing? Would you like to be a star? A blade of grass?”

Floating in that decelerating chamber, I felt something of what had been mine as an ion, but without the speed or fury, the fear or delight, the overwhelming forces of nature or the joy of discovery.

“Relax,” she kept urging me.

I thought of the grass back home, the first grass of summer, and I wept, watering myself and my lost dreams with my own tears.

I was lucky. Three of the other C-Wearers had to be hospitalized. We, the survivors, as you might say, were escorted by our attendants to the exit. “Goodbye, come again,” Cleo said professionally.

“Can’t I see you?”

“I have another tour of duty.”

“I mean when you’re through working.”

She shrugged and walked off. I decided to wait for her, and when she saw me again she yawned. I couldn’t blame her. After a second thirty-one minute spin on the Rollercoaster, not to mention the preliminary ride through the Tunnel of Love, or the Hall of Quantum Mirrors, her emotions were well taken care of.

She had removed her skintight Park uniform and was wearing a St. Ewagiow dress. As we stepped into a Shrinkmobile I said, “I didn’t think you would be interested in the latest style.”

“Oh, leave me alone,” she said, cuddling up in a corner of the cab. She was beautiful, yes, a beautiful neutron, and the assignment I had was impossible, I thought. I only persisted because this thrill addict happened to be suspect number one.

She yawned at my advances, yawned at my compliments, and finally in disgust as we neared Greater Miami I said. “All you love is that damned job of yours!”

“Oh, go away,” she yawned.

“I’ll see you in my dreams. A box of Sweet Dreams and you,” I said bitterly.

Suddenly she almost seemed to become human. “Do you use Sweet Dreams?”

“I do,” I said.

“Know what I dream of?”

“The Rollercoaster.”

“How did you guess? I dream that some day the magicientist at the controls will make a mistake.”

“That would mean death, wouldn’t it?”

“We’d smash into the world of Urania 235 and die!” she exclaimed. “Oh, what a wonderful thrill.” She was smiling like an angel.

After I had left her and reported to the Commissioner, I couldn’t forget that smile. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s really sympathetic to the St. Ewagiow,” I said. “She’s a death addict!”

And that was the lead we worked on. The next day, with the Park’s chief magicientist, Dr. Lawrence
¹
Quipper, I called on Cleo Fly. There was no answer to my knock. The doctor smiled and rearranged the molecular structure of the lock with a pocket-size cyclotron
²
. We went inside and found Cleo asleep on a couch, a box of Sweet Dreams on the floor.

“One second,” the doctor said and he took out a tiny rod from his pocket, explaining that it was the latest model of Consciousness-Exhilarator, or Con-Ex. He touched her breast with it, above her heart, and in less than a minute she sat up on the couch, her face confused and unhappy.

She stared at the doctor in his black and purple cape and black hat with purple feather
¹
. She gasped. “Dr. Quipper,” she said in a shaky voice. “This is a great honor.”

“Cleo,” he said softly. “We’ve been thinking of an experiment where the Rollercoaster, instead of being deflected at the last minute, will actually penetrate Urania 235. But we haven’t as yet solved the problem of the safety factor. Do you understand?”

She nodded, and her black eyes began to glow.

“An experiment is necessary: Science demands it, Cleo. Such an experiment could mean death at the first venture. Would you want to volunteer?”

In her baggy St. Ewagiow dress with its miniature silver coffin, she had looked about as lifeless as a piece of beautiful mortuary. But now she was trembling with excitement. “I’m dreaming,” she whispered. “I must be dreaming.”

“Cleo, submit your application tonight when you report for duty!” and without another word the doctor left the room.

“It’s a dream!” she cried, getting to her feet and staring at me with frightened eyes. “Who are you?”

“I can make your dream come true,” I said.

She was trembling, but like any addict, her longing was stronger than her fears and doubts. She wanted to believe me. And this was the moment for me to make love to her. I couldn’t. I was sorry for that poor girl, and I was repelled by her, too. I cursed the Commissioner, I cursed the spoiled L. and O. operatives so accustomed to their roenfoam sweethearts and One-Shot Animateds that they wouldn’t go near a Silver-Corder
²
. I simply couldn’t touch that poor miserable trembling creature.

“Cleo, I’m from L. and O.,” I said on the impulse. “Please listen to me. I know your father has joined the St. Ewagiow. But I can get him a full Presidential pardon. Believe me, that’s the truth! Your father only became a St. Ewagiow when he lost all he had. Cleo, he has the A-I-D! I shouldn’t tell you this, but I will. He has the A-I-D, and if he turns it over to us, he’ll be pardoned, reinstated as a master magicientist! Believe me, that’s the truth, and you must help me.”

“It’s a dream,” she murmured fearfully. “A dream.”

“No, it’s not, Cleo. You heard Dr. Lawrence Quipper — ”

“A dream!” she screamed and ran into her bedroom, slamming the door.

I knocked on the door, and when there was no answer I went inside. She was stretched out on the bed and next to her was a newly-opened box of Sweet Dreams. Even as I watched her, the frightened expression on her face was changing. A little smile came to her lips, and that was how I left her, dreaming sweet dreams of cosmic death.