The Devil's Mirror (19 page)

‘Then I’m dead,’ he muttered, ‘and all the old stories are true. Fire and brimstone... burning pitch... all true...’

‘
All true!
’ echoed a hideous voice, and John squinted up at a leering, demented creature with horns and a tail, holding a pitchfork. ‘All true!’ this personage repeated, laughing, and poked John playfully on the rump with the giant fork.

‘Ouch!’ yelped John.

‘Glad to meet you. My name is Prong. Get the
point
? Ya-ha-ha-ha-ha!’

‘But—’

‘Come along, you!’ snarled the awful creature. ‘Just because we have an eternity before us doesn’t mean we can waste time. On your feet! Step this way...’

‘But these hot coals!’

‘Child’s play, compared to what’s in store for you!’

They walked, John yipping wretchedly with every step. They passed niches where he saw whipping posts, racks, iron maidens... all most dreadfully engaged.

‘Oh, we’ve been waiting for you, John Stanley!’ gloated Prong. ‘We’ve prepared a...
warm welcome
, my fellow demons and I. You’re
dying
to meet them, aren’t you? My brother Thumbscrew, my charming sister Flagelletta, and many more—a cast of thousands, dear boy!’

‘I don’t understand,’ sobbed John, hopping painfully over the coals. ‘I was a good man... kind... generous...’

‘True enough. Get a move on!’

‘I never harmed anyone...’

‘Not a soul.’

‘Even when others harmed me...’

‘I won’t deny it.’

‘I was mild-mannered...’

‘You were.’

‘Patient...’

‘Yes.’

‘Long-suffering...’

‘Well put.’

‘Unassuming...’

‘I know.’

‘Meek...’

‘Correct.’

‘Obedient...’

‘Right again.’

‘Self-effacing...’

‘That’s a fact.’

‘Even subservient...’

‘Uh huh.’

‘A door-mat... a victim... a loser... put upon... taken advantage of...’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Then
why?
wailed John.

‘Why what?’

‘Why am I here, in Hell?’

The demon Prong stopped and turned. ‘Ah. I see. You think there’s been a mistake. There has been no mistake, I assure you.’

‘But I don’t belong here! This terrible place—’

Prong sighed. ‘Dear boy. You’re not exactly stupid.
Think
. Haven’t you described yourself as meek, long-suffering, self-effacing, a door-mat, and all the rest?’

‘Yes...’

‘Then surely you don’t need
me
to tell you, surely you already
know
you are a thorough masochist?’

‘Are you saying that
this
—’

‘Of course! Cheer up!’ Prong winked wickedly. ‘You’re not in Hell, you’re in Heaven.’

And John Stanley meekly went to his reward.

Corydon Kelley’s Chronomobile was quite frankly modelled after the Time Machine of H. G. Wells in that it, too, was made in the form of a vehicular conveyance—in this case, a i960 Studebaker Lark convertible, revised and edited, standing on blocks in his garage, its wheels and many other parts removed, its yellow paint rather badly scratched by several years of unscheduled contact with Corydon’s garage and other immovable objects during its earlier career as a medium of conventional travel (Corydon could not parallel park to save his soul, usually reversed when he wished to go forward and vice versa, invariably signalled left when turning right, and was generally a lousy driver).

He was one hell of an inventor, though, and his Chronomobile worked. After a couple of short trial runs into last Tuesday and next Friday, he decided to take the big plunge and visit the era that had always fascinated him most: the prehistoric. Packing the trunk of the Chronomobile with a week’s supply of canned fruit cocktail, Cambell’s Chili Beef Soup, saltines, and Diet-Rite Cola, he closed and locked the garage door from the inside, climbed into the driver’s seat, fastened his seat belt, adjusted the tempus lever, slid the key into the converted ignition, and was on his way.

A blur, a swirl, a ringing in the ears, a kaleidoscope of colour; the garage vanished; the gyring images settled and focussed, and the Chronomobile came to rest in the midst of a dense jungle.

Insects buzzed and dived. Far-off animals screamed and roared. Pungent floral aromas flared Corydon’s delicate nostrils. He fearlessly threw open the Chronomobile door and turned to step forth, like stout Cortez, a stranger in a strange land, an adventurer more intrepid than any the world had ever known. But he couldn’t move!

This was due to the seat belt, which he now unbuckled.
Then
he stepped into the steaming wild world that surrounded him.

A barely human snarl froze him in his tracks and a naked bearded man leaped from a patch of foliage, wielding a murderous wedge of jagged rock.

Corydon nimbly sidestepped just in time, and his crude attacker went sprawling, struck his shaggy head on a tree trunk, and fell unconscious to the weed-choked ground.

Corydon bent over him, studying the man with scholarly interest. ‘Not Neanderthal,’ he mused aloud, ‘some species more advanced, possibly Cro-Magnon...’ He pried the piece of rock from the man’s hand—and, in a moment, began weeping hot tears, for he knew now that his long-awaited journey to the prehistoric world was what is known in theatrical jargon as a bomb. Oh, the Chronomobile worked all right, he could return and start out again but still...

‘How like me,’ he moaned. ‘How typical of me.’ He could have sworn the tempus lever had been in Reverse—but, obviously, it had been in Drive. The weapon in the man’s hand was no rock, but a piece of cornerstone, with A D 1995 clearly stamped on it. He had travelled not into the past, but the future, and he blubbered bitterly, not for the sad destiny of Mankind, but for his own bumbling ineptitude. ‘I always was a lousy driver,’ he sobbed.

At some indeterminate point in the vast and unknown future of Mankind (like next Thursday), the United States Postal Service got much worse than it is now, if you can believe that.

It took five weeks for a letter to get to Staten Island from the Bronx.

Special Delivery took longer.

Registered Mail was lost completely.

By the time this happened, other methods of communication had long since become disaster areas.

Western Union was charging ten dollars extra for hand delivery of telegrams.

And their spelling had not improved. A college boy, wiring home for A HUNDRED BUCKS, threw his dear old dad into a fatal fit of apoplexy when the old man read his son’s request for A HUNDRED BUICKS.

The same message, sent by the same college boy, but to a favourite maiden aunt, distorted BUCKS in an entirely different but no less disastrous way. She dropped dead, too.

So did thousands of other people who developed gangrene while sitting motionless for hours, waiting for a dial tone.

Enter our hero, Rodney Sloat by name.

Dismayed but not discouraged by the breakdown of communications, he came up with the solution—

ESP!

Himself an adept at the telepathic arts, Rodney founded a school to teach ESP to others.

The school’s original name, Sloat Human Intercommunicational Teachings, was soon changed, because of its unfortunate acronym, to R S E S P, the meaning of which was obvious, if unpronounceable.

In less time than it takes to tell, dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of Rodney’s pupils became absolute whizzes at ESP.

They received their diplomas, and immediately started to transmit telepathic messages to friends, loved ones, and business associates across the country.

Only trouble was, the messages weren’t received.

That is, they weren’t received by the intended friends, loved ones and business associates.

They were received Somewhere, by unknown Someones, who, in turn, responded with vivid telepathic messages of their own.

These messages, couched in a language roughly resembling a hybrid of Sanskrit and differential calculus, with random dodecaphonic harmonica cadenzas thrown in for seasoning, were incomprehensible to Rodney’s pupils.

Certain cynics among them accused Rodney of being a charlatan.

The disappointed graduates of the school banded together and descended upon their former teacher. Some carried concealed weapons.

Rodney placated them, and swore he would find out where the strange messages were coming from.

Six days and six nights Rodney laboured, bending the full laser-sharp powers of his mind to the task.

On the seventh day (it coincided with the birthday of Grover Cleveland, to which no significance should be attached), Rodney called together his ex-pupils and announced his findings.

Their telepathic messages had been received somewhere in the neighbourhood of Alpha Centauri. The puzzling replies had emanated from the same place.

The Centaurs (so Rodney named the distant telepaths, for purposes of convenience) had been having one hell of a time with
their
postal service, too.

Could they, wondered the Centaurs, work a deal with their Earthly counterparts?

Why not? thundered the graduates of the Sloat school.

A training programme—conducted telepathically across the deeps of space—was put into immediate operation. Sloat’s people learned the language and geography of the Centaurs; the Centaurs learned ours.

In no time at all, The Great Earth-Centauri Galactic Postal System was established.

From that moment on, all letters (or sloats, as the telepathic signals came to be called) went through in three days without a hitch—New York, via Alpha Centauri, to Los Angeles.

Local mail even faster.

Once again, the indomitable spirit of Man had prevailed.

With a little help from his interstellar friends.

Memorable Moments in the Life of an Uncommon Man

CHAPTER ONE

The Mom Bomb

Security Clearance took just thirty-eight seconds to computer-check my fingerprints, voiceprint, and brainprint. Actually, it’s the last one, the E E G, that counts. Those others are nothing more than double-checks, archaic, easily faked these days. But the brainprint is tamperproof. So far, at least. And it guaranteed me to be 100% Gordon W. Popowcer, the genuine article, not a Xerox.

So the magnetic door zanged open and I trotted through. Quick. Before it could zang shut again and chop me in two. I don’t trust magnetic doors. Does anyone?

‘Mr Popowcer?’ asked a terrific redhead in colonel’s gear. ‘Silly question. Of course you’re Mr Popowcer.’

‘If I’m not,’ I replied, ‘the taxpayers have been snookered out of a million bucks worth of useless security gadgets.’

‘Two million five,’ she said, ‘and some odd change. Welcome. It’s an honour to meet you.’

‘I gather
I’m
the one who’s supposed to feel honoured. The first civilian ever permitted within these hallowed halls.’

‘That’s right. Except the President, of course.’

‘I don’t consider the Commander-in Chief a civilian. He’s brass in a pin-stripe suit.’

She laughed. ‘That remark
may
pull down your Security rating a notch or two.’

‘We’re being bugged?’

‘But of course. Won’t you sit down? I’m Colonel Stockton, but you don’t have to call me sir.’

I sat. ‘Does the Colonel have a first name?’

‘Elinor.’

‘Gordon.’

‘Good. Let’s begin.’ She hit a button on her desk and the wall lit up with a full colour picture of the gas works, or an atomic energy plant, or some other gigantic hunk of machinery. ‘This is Mom,’ she said.

‘I’d rather meet her in person.’

‘No way,’ she said with a brisk headshake. ‘Not even
your
Security clearance is
that
good. And it’s not necessary that you see the actual thing.’

‘I’ll be the judge of that, Colonel. Remember, I’m a civilian. You have no authority over me. I’m here because the Government met my fee. A five figure fee. Which I am willing to blow, dear, by getting up and leaving right now.’

‘Negative, Gordon!’ she snapped, and as I started to lift my butt from the chair, a jolt of electricity knocked me right back down again.

‘
What the hell
—’

‘Nobody,’ she said, ‘but
nobody
walks out on a project as top secret as this one. You already know far too much about Mom.’

‘I don’t know a damn thing!’

‘You know it exists. That in itself is rigidly classified information.’

‘
What
do I know exists? All I know is that we’re sitting here in an air-conditioned tomb half a mile under Death Valley, looking at a picture of a pile of hardware called Mom. I don’t know what it is, what it does, or even if it really exists.’

She relaxed a little. ‘If you’ll give me a chance, I’ll explain.’

‘Do I have a choice? I pretty much
have
to sit here and listen to you as long as you’ve got your pinkie near that hot seat button.’

‘Promise to behave?’

‘Sure. I’ll behave.’ She moved her hand away from the button and I shot out of the chair and fed her two mean slaps across the face. ‘I’ll behave like
this.
And
this
!’

Then I turned around and kicked my chair loose of its wiring so I could sit down without fear of being zapped again. I smiled. ‘You were saying, Elinor?’

She rubbed her face. ‘You’re a bastard, Popowcer.’

‘Gordon, please. And you’re right. I’m a bastard. Now do you want to tell me about Mom?’

She turned to the picture wall. ‘Sometimes it’s called The Mom Bomb, but it’s not really a bomb. It doesn’t explode. In fact, its purpose is to prevent a specific type of explosion.’

‘What type?’

‘The Population Explosion,’ she said. ‘Mom stands for Maternity Obstruction Mechanism.’

‘Awfully big for a contraceptive,’ I said. ‘The Pill is much more compact. Even the old-fashioned devices—’

‘The Pill doesn’t work. You know that. Not enough people use it. Same is true of the old-fashioned devices.’

‘How does Mom work?’

‘I’m not a scientist,’ she said.