Monterra's Deliciosa & Other Tales & (9 page)

Stargazing

(to the
Ophiocoma wendtii
, on the announcement "Brittle Star Found Covered With Optically Advanced 'Eyes'")

I'm looking, but I can't find
I'm seeing, and ouch! I mind!
Oh, sorry, but I must seek.
My life then, is not unique.
Of course not. It's knowledge sought.
Life's worth to me? Perish the thought.

Hmm. How can it work?
Where can they lurk?
How can they see?
So
well
,
And be
So functional?

How many jars-ful?
Galaxies of stars-ful.
Looking
Seeking
How are they peeping?
Looking
Seeking
Seeking seeking ...
Oh!
Everywhere
Eyes are there
Seeing all over
All over seeing
How could we miss it?
What a being!
This primitive.

Kidnapped!

Adam's body swayed as the words swam before his eyes. "extracted... brainstem and... spinal cord under total anaesthetic"

"Total?" Others would have laughed but it just wasn't Adam's way, even as he couldn't help his brain blurting cruelly, "Like they said to Tiffany, 'Put up a finger if this scalpel tickles, hah hah.'"

Dr. Eff reached for his coffee and as he sipped, he flattened the magazine. Adam waited. It was a bad habit, reading over someone's shoulder, but the lab would never think of issuing him a subscription to New Scientist any more than they would nominate Buster Chavez for a Nobel for Cleaning, though he always brightened Adam's day, as well as diplomatically managing to keep Dr. Eff's clutter from taking over everyone else's space, a Peace Initiative in itself. Just lowlife, Adam mused—both of them, and regarded with the same consideration, even though Adam's life was the lab.

Dr. Eff slammed his mug on the counter, eructated happily, and snapped the page to reading position again. Adam's gaze had never wavered, and now, still unobtrusive as the fluorescent light above, he steadied himself—absolutely glued to his side of the partition, transfixed by the horror of the bland text.

"... then located a group of very large nerve cells... then attached electrodes... The robot itself—"

Robot! Adam's lip curled in agony, and he jerked into a foetal knot. But he had to persevere, as he was at the mercy of the reading speed of the Doctor. "Get a grip!" he commanded himself, and so straightened and stuck it out to backtrack and resume.

"two wheels and a body made of a couple of circular circuit boards... cyborg... When the robot was presented with... stimuli... brain responded... variety of behaviours."

Dr. Eff closed the magazine, grabbed his empty mug and left the lab, without taking any more notice of Adam than he did Chavez on a late night. But he might as well have left the magazine open, because every word remained crisp in Adam's memory.

~

Late into the night, Adam and his wife talked. Grief, rage, and depression chased their conversation into circles of repetition until Adam broke loose, to the despair and alarm of his wife. She slid close to him in companionship, and to gain comfort herself.

"There's nothing you can do about it, dear. No one will take us seriously."

Adam's face remained expressionless, but his words emanated menace. "I've got friends on the outside, Melanie. It's gonna be alright. Now you get yourself together and relax. And leave it to me."

"Yeah, Mom. Dad's right. About you and about us. You get a bite to eat, and don't worry. We're gonna kick ass. Right, Dad?"

Kick ass? But Adam's heart leapt. Although Tiffany was now gone, Shane, their layabout son, even now sprawled on the floor, was suddenly gaining a new spirit, a direction in life, maybe even a studiousness?

"Yeah, son." And he almost felt like high-fiving his son, but neither of them were that type.

~

"They'll never print it, darling," Melanie warned, looking over him in that family trait that he was surprised to find slightly annoying.

"Oh, yes they will. They have to, because the mystery isn't solved, and there must be rumours rife about those disappearances. Everybody will want to read who did it."

Shane looked smug as he could be, in that familiar family expressionless expression.

The letter was sent to the magazine. It said:

~

Dear editors,

I must thank you for bringing closure to the trauma my family experienced over the kidnap and murder for body parts of my daughter Tiffany.

We now know what has happened to her, and although my wife is undergoing grief counselling, my son has been inspired.

He has not only stopped laying around, but has developed an improved prototype, coincidentally, also at the same university where the original stolen-brainstem cyborgs were invented. Although Shane's prototype was much more intelligent than the university's primitive models, his Mark II should be even better, as (silly youth) he didn't perform adequate quality control. His main component failed because, in previous use, it had needed accessory contact lenses.

Sincerely,

Adam P. Lamprey

~

"Sarcasm will get you nowhere, dear. Editors hate that sort of thing," Melanie cautioned. But her eyes glittered with pride.

And Melanie Lamprey was right. The letter was never published, any more than the knowledge is made public about the following odd and increasing occurrence in labs around the world, in a pattern sure to bring delight to memetics bores and concern to chaoticians. Wherever light-emitting, slime-producing, slurp-spitting, and/or a myriad of other potential-rich lowlifes are studied and extracted, researchers are now beeped at, splatted with, excreted upon, and emanated toward, with the message, in many more languages than have been to-date deciphered: THE REVOLUTION CONTINUES

~

(The article that Adam read over Dr. Eff's shoulder was "Half fish, half robot" in
New Scientist
, 10 June, 2000. And we must note: Adam Lamprey based his charges on speculation, as the article never mentioned Tiffany.)

The Helford Deal

In a rare instance of universal approval, the greatest mind of the past two centuries, soon to be dust, now ponders its renewal in the form of the rubbery legs kicking in the stomach of one Melanie Gitsel, 22-year-old bearer of Aloisius B. Helford the 2nd, times two.

The present Dr. Helford, now a physically frail 95, but with a mind still as flexible as a fresh-twisted strand of licorice, is arguably the most revered philosopher since Plato, certainly the most popular old codger in history. His two ghosted best-sellers, now night-table/bathroom inspiration classics "Why are we here?" and "Talking to ourself" reduced his abstruse arguments (that won him a Nobel Prize) to levels television producers could understand.

His extraordinary appearance was his making as his trenchant questions furrowed brows around the world. "Why?" he would say, meaningfully into the camera. And a flight of migrating geese accompanied by soulful strings gives us the answer we yearn for. To many, this answer is to buy the soundtrack, and of course posters, screen savers, T-shirts, mugs, etc etc featuring those eyebrows and those eyes. The trademark eyes that say everything, whatever that is.

Helford just makes people feel comfortable in their knowledge, especially because such a brilliant mind tells us to just
be
. With eyebrows that jump like fishing flies over a pair of blue eyes that tease like over-fed trout, Dr. Helford's marketability has only increased as his physical features look ever more idiosyncratic and his bones turn into a filigree held in place by ever-weakening sinews with the strongest glue being the sheer will to live.

~

He didn't like the idea at first. A life-time bachelor, "I want to break the mold when I go," he declared when he was first approached by the delegation.

Now, at the second meeting in Dr. Helford's luxurious library, the group's top salesman sits on a footstool that he dragged to supplicant range. Bowing ever so slightly, "We appreciate," he looks down at the ancient Persian carpet rather than into the unsettling eyes of Old Hell, as producers call him privately. "We appreciate, Dr. Helford," he murmurs silkily, "that you want to be remembered as the pinnacle of human thought potential, as the Weiden ... uh (cripes, what
was
that word they told me to say) the Weisen ... uh ... the ultimate excellence—"

Crack!
Charlie Wannimaker's good luck golf tee snaps from over-fondling in his jacket pocket. This two-year-in-the-making plan looks to be slipping down the drain with this top gun idiot from sales. Great record last year. But no time for reprisals now. Roast this turkey tomorrow, but bag the golden pheasant in that throne of a chair today, or, from what Wannimaker had heard in whispers, the pheasant would fly away soon. Called by someone upstairs for the permanent engagement, it was said. Prostate.

The great Helford doesn't say a word. Just sips his crystal glass of something not offered his visitors (always a connoisseur of the fine life, one of the marketing properties that make him so valuable).

"Professor Helford," Charlie Wannimaker's deep voice cruises into the silence hard behind the punctuated clutziness of Dave, now top sales ex. Wannimaker's voice is as smooth as his judiciously balanced victories/defeats on the fairway . "A clone of you will be a constant reminder to the world of
you
, the original. And after
he
is cloned, then you will be even more revered, as each generation will look back and pay tribute to the one and only for all time, original—you. No one can supplant your works, only radiate from them."
Where do I get this stuff
, Wannimaker asks himself, his eyes focussed inwards to keep the flow running smooth.

His mouth opens to spew out another eruption when "You don't want to be selfish, do you?" leaps from the back of the room. Young Geeb Truro, now almost late for his regular squash doubles, had web-searched Helford the hour before this meeting. "Selfishness" came up in almost every hit down the first two pages. He knew right then—the key to this geezer. Leaving it to these suits, olds at that, had been a big mistake. Do your research and target in—the secret of success: go for the guilt. Works every time. And with selfishness, he has it. The major obsession of this fossil.

Dust arrested in the window's afternoon sunlight beams falls with a noisier thud than the sound of the breathers in the room.

The five men, all vigorous, all ambitious, all waiting.

The one staring for a long moment at each man, till there is just sunlit dust to contemplate.

"Good point, young man," the old man says. "Tell you what. Let's draw up a contract now. For two. Your Miss Gazelle or whatever to carry both at once."

Even Wannimaker can't stop himself high-fiving Geeb Truro, promoted on the spot to VP.

Bottles of bubbly emerge like magic rabbits, and everyone comments afterwards on the extra twinkle champers gave to Old Hell's eyes.

~

The babies' birth is set for 1400 hours today, the exact 80th anniversary to the hour, and doctors have been told to get it right—to the minute—of Dr. Helford's electrifying history-changing
gestalt
as documentaries with pretensions like to call it. The tabloids call it, "The boiled egg moment". The moment upon which Helford's life's work rests. What exactly this work is, is hard to quantify, but then it would be as pointless as to demand, "Well, what did Einstein do for you?" So this moment has historical appeal, and will be graphically appreciated. Helford originally called this moment "id zero zero." But that is a fact lost in the original monograph.

~

2300 hours. Jubilation, broadcast in every medium. Miss Gazelle or whatever is resting peacefully somewhere obscure as the final part of her contract is being fulfilled, to disappear back into obscurity.

The beloved Dr. Aloisius B. Helford beams from everywhere. There's his lovable, dotty-but-wise smile. His face holds something not quite scrutable as he gazes down at the burden in his arms: two swaddled chrysalises of himself, only 96 years ago.

~

CAMBRIDGE, MASS (AAP) —The elusive Aloisius B. Helford clones, now aged four, both reportedly at the intellectual level of university students, are still too young to be interviewed, a spokesman for the DuStar Corporation said today...

~

CHICAGO (Reuters)—Shares of techmedia company DuStar Corp. (Nasdaq: DUSTR—news) fell 28.7 percent on Thursday, on a report in the Wall Street Journal repeating rumors of continual problems with the profitability of the core assets of the company. See story "Bond Jitters" ...

~

LOS ANGELES (Reuters)—Geeb Truro, President of the DuStar corporation, was hit with a tomato at a feisty annual general meeting of the faltering DuStar Corporation (shares on Friday closed at 17.5 cents, down 46 percent from Thursday.) The firm continues to disappoint investors as it puts off the unveiling of its most important product, the Helford IIs, as they are called, to which DuStar holds all rights. Company spokesmen insist that Helford rumors are wrong, and that plans are continuing for a world launch "at the right bull moment," but that now is not the right time, given the market. It is now eight years since Helfords' inception. The company maintains a total ban on publicity, but sources say the Helfords are "the spitting image" of their famous dad.

At the AGM, Truro spoke about early investigations by the company into an exciting theme park on the outskirts of Dallas. When the lights went back on after a slide presentation, the tomato was thrown at Mr. Truro by a private investor, who has now been charged with assault.

~

THE INSIDER—WE BRING YOU THE FACTS—YOU MAKE THE CALL—Cambridge, Massachusetts—December 29—WERE THEY DUDS? In an exclusive interview we get the stuff on The Helford Twos.

Mr. Jesse LeRoy Gleeson, an employee of the DuStar Corporation for nine years, and a former psychiatric nurse for the State Health Services, has been taken into custody as a suspect in the murder of the Helford IIs. Gleeson, carer for both Aloisius B. Helford the II since their infancy, is a burly but quiet man who was only seen by his girlfriend, Lacy Burns, and otherwise kept to a quiet life on the Helford estate.

Lacy would not speak to us, but Evelyn Cleery, fellow waitress at Bay Street Grill told us that Gleeson had spoken of the Helfords "fighting like cats and dogs from corn flakes to cocoa." At another time, Mr. Gleeson reportedly complained to his girlfriend that "Those boys can't agree on anything. Me, me, me, all the dang day long."

It was a busy Christmas for the Cambridge police, who answered a phone call from Gleeson that evening, reporting the deaths. Although the coroner's report is not due till after the New Year, sources tell us that the boys, both ten-years-old, are believed to have died from food poisoning, both oddly enough, upon eating their post-Christmas dinner desserts. One boy allegedly died within a minute of biting into a rum ball, and the other, a marzipan mouse. Investigators' reports will be agonizingly slow at this time of the year, and the public still cannot decide, so we ask you to vote.

•  
Murdered by Gleeson

•  
Double suicide

•  
Double murder of each other

~

CNNfn— DUSTAR ORBITS THE PLANET—Box office receipts for the first weekend's coast to coast launch of "Hell Two: Even Creepier" broke all previous records, a jubilant company spokesman for the DuStar Corp. announced. The original summer smash "Hell" raised DuStar from the almost dead, as the company had been rumored to be within days of filing for Chapter 11, just one short year ago. DuStarCorp. shares (Nasdaq: DUSTR—news) soared today, closing 17% above Friday's close. Merchandising spin-offs such as the Kids Kooking Set, and the Kat/Dog Dolls are projected to push profits into the range of ...