Five to Twelve (6 page)

“Name and Id?”

“Dion Quern, DQM, I7L, 85B.”

“Cash or credit key?”

“Credit key.”

“Check it, little one.” She indicated the check slot on the pulpit’s side. “You wouldn’t accidentally con a treatment, would you?”

Dion inserted the key as requested and waited patiently for the dom to read off the balance on her meter.

“Ah, so,” she said, somewhat surprised. “Thirty-five thousand plus. How doth the busy bee?”

“Ah, so,” echoed Dion trying not to sound surprised. “Quite moderate, honeywise.”

The dom condescended to smile.
“Scusa.
One has apprehensions.
There are those, you see, who would take treatment without trove.”

“It is a wicked world,” he agreed, “with corruption all around us.”

A tiny bell rang, and the small reception console mounted on the edge of the pulpit ejected a thin piece of plastic containing all the encoded data of Dion’s psychosomatic profile. The Indian gave it to him. “Please insert your key in the debit slot. The rate is now seven see fifty.”

Dion put the key in and twisted, contemplating with less satisfaction than he had expected the dent that seven hundred and fifty lions would make in Juno’s credit. Ten thousand, she had said. Thirty-five thousand in fact. By damn, the big bitch was top heavy with trove.

“Drape yourself, monsieur,” said the Indian, vaguely indicating the lounge with a wave of her shapely arm. “There’s a good time coming.”

“How long?”

She shrugged.
“Quien sabe.
It takes a while to formulate your shot bombs. Have a coffee or a pot of tea until you are called. Contemplate the infinite. Coffee, tea and infinity are on the house.”

Dion took himself to one of the contour chairs by the extraordinarily large picture window. The sports and the night-hawks ignored him, lost in their private limbos. He listened for a while to the squawk-bug in the head rest of his chair, flipping his way through station after station. But after he had heard fragments of the
Marche Militaire
, the absolute version of
Largo
and
‘Dom, dom, take me
_y
the black kick is coming
‘, plus fragments of verbiage in French, German, English and Europarl, he silenced the bug with a briefly increased pressure of his head. The shakes and sweats were on him again, and he stared moodily through the
window. Trafalgar Square looked like a great, vacant stadium.

Where, in Stopes, was that mythic brand of gladiators who were dedicated to death and saluted proudly before each bloody orgasm? Where now were all the killers and the slain in this dom-ridden psychotically balanced limbo of non-life, non-death? Where, oh where was the once fierce joy of living?

No answer to questions such. No, none indeed.

And yet, as he looked, a message came twisting and turning down from the grey morning sky.

It was dreamily slow. He had time for speculation, time in the heightened seconds before impact to determine the sex of the falling body. It was a dom—smooth and graceful as a seal in the standard black one-piece of the jet flipper.

He looked for the jet pack on her back. It wasn’t there. He looked for the chute that should have saved her if the jets died. That, too, wasn’t there.

So she must have jetted up over London and deliberately stepped out of the harness to enjoy her last long dance down the sky.

He had time enough to see that she was indeed dancing.

The dance of death.

Her body hit silently, close by the fountain, scattering a thousand pigeons.

Nobody noticed. Except Dion Quern.

Nobody noticed the dying fall, the cloudy ovation of the birds, the pulped protoplasm on a bed of stone. It was too early to notice such things.

A muted bell tinkled somewhere in the upholstery of Dion’s contour chair, and the voice of the Indian dom said quietly: “DQM, I7L, 85B. Please attend room nine,
corridor A. Your formula is ready to shoot… Happy landing, squire.”

Dion stood up, still gazing through the window. No doubt a Peace Officer or a passer-by would shortly spot the debris and arrange for its removal.

“Send not to know for whom the bell tinkles,” he murmured. “It tinkles incessantly, dear love, for thee and me.”

He turned towards corridor A, unaware that his face was wet with tears.

T
HE
time bombs were set out in neat little rows on a trolley. They were plastic and colour-coded. They looked like surrealist sea-shells.

The nurse was a male, possibly around Dion’s own age, give or take a decade. One never knew, with time shots.

“Dion Quern?”

“Himself.”

“Drape your dear body, friend.” The nurse indicated a wall bunk. “Strip and drape. Pushing back the clock is a wearisome business.”

Dion stepped out of his tunic and lay down.

The nurse yawned. “Ho hum. Where is your data plate?”

Dion indicated the trolley on which he had placed the thin piece of plastic given him by the Indian receptionist. “I dropped it by the sea-shells… So men are still allowed to work here, then?”

The nurse gave him a thin smile. “I squire the club’s top domdoc, Diogenes. For which, as a special treat, I am allowed to extend the purgatory of others.” He picked up the data plate, dropped it into the slot of a small decoder built into the wall, and examined the information. He made a disapproving noise with his tongue. “Three threes. You have been a naughty boy. Next time it will be a two.”

“If there’s a next time,” said Dion.

“There’s always a next time. Finagle’s Second Canon…
Now let’s start you off with the base shots and dispose of the shakes.”

“I’m not shaking,” said Dion.

“You have been. You will be. Also Finagle’s Second Canon.”

The nurse selected five green time bombs, deftly taped one to each of Dion’s legs, one to each of his arms, and the remaining one on his chest above the heart. “My name is Smith, a fact which so far may fail to interest you. I am Leander of that fraternity… You ought to know who to curse when you collect your grade one.”

“This is one hell of a
non sequitur
,” complained Dion irritably. “I’ve just seen a dom fall out of the sky, and I am in no mood for quippery. So programme the needles and plug the hole in your head.”

Leander Smith smiled. “Rest tranquil, Dion,
man ami
. You may wish to volunteer your sanity away-in which case you will doubtless require to glance at the scoreboard… Do you enjoy living in this great domdoctored world?”

“Not wildly.”

“Do you ever feel that you, too, could make some mild contribution to human regress-providing your life wasn’t being sucked out of you by big-breasted bitches with high I.Q.’s, wide appetites, low morals and a monopoly of lions?”

“Shove it and start the time shots.” Dion was feeling oddly tired.

“I stand reproved.” Leander Smith pressed a stud, and a control console shot out of the wall behind Dion’s head. He heard the sound of switches being thrown, then almost immediately became aware of a brief stinging sensation in his left leg. It was followed by a similar feeling in his right leg, both arms and finally the chest.

Meanwhile, Leander Smith was taping a series of yellow
capsules to various parts of his body. As he worked, he talked.

“I’m Mephistopheles, Dion. Some bastard sport up there sent me to tempt you. Don’t think of funny ploys, for Stopes sake. The room is not wired for playback; and if it were, I’d have more to lose than you.”

The euphoria-always attendant on the first shots-was beginning to take effect.

“What coprolitic bifurcation are you expounding?” he demanded drunkenly.

“Rebellion,” said Leander. “Disruption of the status quo. Sexual anarchy. Universal suffrage for men. Motherhood for doms, and all manner of obscenities. You name it, I’m for it-along with a few other maladjusted psychos. Live now, take your grade one later. Want to join? It’s a real fun thing.”

Dion lay on the wall bunk, naked, with green and yellow time bombs taped all over him and watched Leander reset the radio trigger on the control console. Once again the pricking and tingling sensations started. He felt decidedly drunk.

“Are you-hie-pumping me full of Happyland?” he asked suspiciously.

“I cannot tell a lie. Yes, dear friend of my youth, along with the time shots I am pumping you full of Happyland. It’s easier that way.”

“Cowsy lunt,” mumbled Dion. “I’ll smash your cant-cant-cantaloupe faecal face.”

“Try it,” advised Leander. “All things are possible in this best of all possible nightmares.”

Dion tried to stand up. The room began to spin and he fell back. “Buffoon,” he murmured weakly, “bastard, bungling buffoon. Baffling bustard bassoon… Wait till I—wait—wait…” He began to giggle.

Unperturbed, Leander continued to strap the blue sequence of time bombs to his body.

“Listen, hop-head. I’ll straighten you out when I’ve had my speak. Meanwhile let the words filter through the sewage between your ears. You’ve already had three grade threes, so you are clearly not the goodest of good fairies. You pine a little, you live longer and you die a lot. Put the dying to some use, friend. Join the Lost Legion. We guarantee to fix it so you can transport a few doms with you.”

Dion hiccupped. “Lost Legion. Last lusty Lost Legion… What lachrymose lampoonery is this, dear Judas? Stand still while I kick your artful artefact up your alley.”

Leander was amused. “This alliterative syndrome is a nice new quirk, laddie. But don’t let it fuzz your thinking. The Lost Legion I will paraphrase. Call it the Tong of Frustrated Sub-Men. Call it Male Minorities Anonymous. It’s a rose by any other
nom de guerre
. Just a bunch of bright lads who are out to bust the big busts or bust themselves busting. Do I make myself lambent?”

“Pel-pellucid… Down with the doms and up yours.”

“That’s it-in a nutshell. Want to play?”

“Where do I sign?”

“You don’t-and
we’ll
call you. Some time… This is one Stopes of a way of recruiting…” He went to the control and triggered the blue bombs. Dion felt as if his limbs, independent of his trunk, were dancing a variety of out of phase fandangos. The trunk was merely oscillating-like a snake with cramp.

“The thing is,” went on Leander, “we’re guerillas. We have to be. Not enough of us for a real stand up and spit party.”

“Baboons,” corrected Dion blearily.

“No, just anthropoid guerillas with delusions of manhood… Where do you live, guerilla?”

“In a cage called London Seven.”

“Who do you squire?”

“Juno Locke, the female lemur with the female femur.”

“What is she?”

“Peace Officer to big-busted bandicoots and frightened flunkeys with flawed flutes.”

“What an acquisition! And for Stopes’ sake stop alliterating. It’s not the Happyland. There is no Happyland. It’s the cockeyed euphoria.”

“Euphoria Quern, spinster of this parish,” agreed Dion solemnly.

“Zip it, blabbertrap,” said Leander, taping on the red bombs, the last sequence of the time shots. “This final salvo is going to sober you somewhat. And God bless all the rejuvenated mini-bugs in your overloaded tissue.” He went to the console and triggered all the red bombs simultaneously.

Dion moaned, shuddered and fainted.

By the time he came round, all the gaily coloured shells had been removed and Leander was rubbing him down with some colourless fluid that burned, cooled, soothed and invigorated all at the same time.

“So I lived through it,” said Dion unsteadily.

“Maybe. Do you remember it?”

They looked at each other. With a shout of rage, Dion leaped off the wall bunk, his arm raised, his fist feeling like the hammer of Thor. And fell flat on his face.

Leander turned him over gently with his foot. “I forgot to tell you. Don’t make any sudden movements for a while… Do you remember it?”

“Yes, bastard.”

“Don’t forget it, then. You are hereby elected to the suicide squadron. One of these dark nights you’ll get a call. Take a short sharp shot and do what the voice says.”

“I could denounce you to the doms.”

“Joke. You’ve got three threes. I’ve got nothing. My story is the same as yours—except that my first person doesn’t have a psychorecord. Who wins?”

“Bastard.”

“You said that before. Now let us decently cover the flesh that drives all doms to sexstasy.” He helped Dion up. “I think you’re steady enough to walk, laddie. So push back to your dom and give her the customary ration of spelaeology. But remember—you’re now a latent guerilla. You may not get a call till next week. You may not get one—if you’re lucky—till next year. But when you get one, you operate at Mach five. And remember also—guerillas sometimes bleed.”

“Cut the drama. I’m trying very hard to believe you believe it yourself.”

“Try harder, Dion. Otherwise you could die laughing—hysterically.”

Dion fingered the credit key in his reticule. Thirty-five thousand, less seven see fifty. It gave him a great sense of well being. And security.

He could hop to Bogota or Samarkand and sit tight till all the Leanders in London collected their grade ones and the moon jumped over all the cows who ran this great big cud-chewing world.

Then he thought of Juno with sudden senseless affection. She trusted him with the trove. Stupid bitch.

“One question.”

“Well, Master Dion?”

“You squire a domdoc. How do you feel about her?”

Leander laughed. “You squire a Peace Officer. How do you feel about her?”

“That’s no answer.”

“It wasn’t much of a question. Listen, Dion, a dom is just a face in the crowd. And the crowd is too damn loud and crowded… Weaken for one and you weaken for all.”

Dion smiled. “Now that we’re down to slogans I’ll bid you a very good morning. For ever.”

Leander opened the door. “Don’t be afraid you’ll miss the second part of the show. For ever is shorter than you think.”

A
FTER
a night of mild lesbian frolics and occasional heterosexual interludes, the ambassadors of the United States of North and South America, the Neo-Soviet Union and the Sino-Indian Empire, together with the Proconsul of the Grand Federation of Europe and Queen Victoria the Second, sat soberly in the private suite at New Buck House taking their morning coffee and energy rolls.