“Yes, yes, yes,” came the hiss. “I am pleased with you. Much pleased. I will arrange for us to meet again, and you will be pleased, too. You may go now, Gretchun Nunn.”
After Sheikh Omar ben Omar had seen her out of the Oasis with much courtesy and many compliments, Gretchen took a deep breath and shuddered.
“My God! That woman makes me feel like a child again.”
* * *
Shima thought he knew every practicing pharmacy, chemist’s and drug dispensary in the Guff—after all, that was part of his profession—but this grotesque was a surprise to him.
It was a tottering brownstone in Canker Alley plastered with “Bldg Condemned” stencils as old as the Emancipation Proclamation. A corroded sign, well-hung on a crazed gallows arm, read: RUBOR TUMOR. The letters were bordered with explicit and exaggerated erogenous zones. A small crowd of street-geeks loafed around the shop window which was a rear-projection screen displaying blurry hard-porn action that must have been at least a century old. Some of the geeks were wearily trying to get a gig going and not succeeding. Shima entered RUBOR TUMOR, serenaded by a shrill voluntary of catcalls. He took a lightning survey.
“Gloryosky!” he exclaimed. “This place has to like date from the twenty-hundreds. It’s a damned museum.”
There were vats, casks, carboys, volumetric flasks, alembics, retorts, beakers, graduates. “Not ripped yet?” he wondered. “Why? How?”
There were honeycombs of antique nostrums in their original glass bottles with the original labels. The empty bottles alone were worth a fortune as Collectors’ Items: 2-Propynyl Pepsi; New Improved Oxy-Shasta+; Nova Tab; 7-CH3·S·C3H7-Up; Club (K° + hv) Soda; Frescathiol; Dr. Brown’s Phenylene Tonic; 1,3-Hexadine-5-yne Sprite; 4-n-hexyl-resorcinol Dr. (Pepper3)2; Coca (R·N+) Cola;
There was a bottle of Ultra-Wink-Erektall, its glass interestingly purpled by light and time. Shima tried to pull it out of its comb cell to examine it for evaporation (glass does evaporate), and his hand was instantly zapped by a charge a hell of a lot more painful than a slap on the wrist.
“And that explains the No-Rip bit,” he muttered, rubbing his hand. “If I tried to grab through the warning, I make it six-two-and-even it’d cost my arm. Whoever runs this pharmacy isn’t going to lose anything, wherever he is.” Shima raised his voice. “Hello, the pharm! Anyone home? Mr. Rubor? Mr. Tumor? Or Miz?”
A faint reply oozed out of the walls. “Hello. This is your Pharman. How can I serve—FLAP-RRR-FLAP—This is your Pharma-FLAP-RRR-FLAP-RRR-an RRR Phar FLAP RRR erve you FLAP RRR Hello—”
“Christ Almighty!” Shima swore in amazement. “This is a goddam twenty-hundred computerized drugstore, and it’s still functioning.”
“Arman-FLAP-Pharman-RRR—Hello. This RRR—”
“Well, sort of functioning, but it’s still a miracle. I wonder how it generates its power.”
“Pharma-RRR—”
“I want a prescription,” Shima shouted, “if you can respond. Can you respond, Pharman?”
“Shillings ten cash in-put slot-FLAP-RRR—”
“Shillings? My God, that coin hasn’t been around since the I.R.A. quit back in—”
“FLAP-RRR-ten cash RRR-slot.”
A sort of turnstile coin slot was flickering in a spasmodic signal, demanding payment. Shima inspected it perplexedly. There was no coin in use in A.D. 2175 that could possibly fit it. He was about to turn away in disgust when inspiration suddenly visited him. He lifted a foot and smashed the payment slot with his heel.
“Advantages of higher education,” he grinned. In undergraduate days a mallet was hung from the dormitory pay CB phone to save wear and tear on the feet.
“FLAP-RRR-FLAP- Not programmed to give change. You may RRR two prescriptions. FLAP. This is your RRR Man. How can I FLAP you?”
“I want a special prescription.”
“Name Remedy FLAP Narcotic Physic RRR Nostrum RRRRR Salve Poultice FLAP Bane Poison RRR Toxicant—”
“I want the same prescription ordered from Rubor Tumor before.”
“Name FLAP person client.”
“I can’t but I can tell you that the prescription was special. It contained PROMETHIUM. P-R-O-M-E-T-H-I-U-M.”
“Contained PROMMMMMium.”
“Yes. A lanthanide rare-earth metal.”
“Group FLAP of periodic table. Atomic number G1. Atomic weight RRR. Fission product of uranium. FLAP FLAP FLAP Request prescription profile records.”
“I request prescription profile records.”
After a pause, a new clear woman’s voice spoke briskly. “Prescription profile records. Shillings ten in-put.”
Shima kicked again. “Got you coming and going,” he mused.
“Beginning year two one hundred, profiles—”
“No,” Shima broke in. “Start with current profiles and report in retro.”
“Shillings ten in-put.”
“Got to install a mallet,” he growled and kicked.
The brisk records voice began reporting filed prescriptions in retro by date, number and ingredients. Shima listened patiently to the long recital, somewhat surprised that this ancient, demented pharmacy did so much business, and wondering what the customers used for shillings. “They couldn’t all use the kick trick,” he thought. “The coin slot wouldn’t be standing.” At last he heard the magic abracadabra: “PROMETHIUM CHLORIDE. Fifty grams.”
“Stop! That’s it,” he shouted and kicked before he could be requested for another shillings ten. “Name and address of person client.”
Pause. Then: “Burne, Salem. The Number of the Beast. Hell Gate.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Shima said slowly. “I. Will. Be. Damned.”
* * *
What idealistic Ibet (industry Building a Better Tomorrow) had done was construct the equivalent of the Zuider Zee dam across the Hell Gate channel and continue it across the Hudson River. (Also known as the North River because it was west of ancient New York City. Either early cartographers had rotten compasses, or else they hated Henry Hudson.)
The dam had a threefold purpose: (1) Block the salt water tiding in from the Atlantic and keep the fenced Hudson sweet; (2) Reserve the Hudson’s waters for industrial use; (3) Provide a spillway into upper and lower New York harbor for the boiling wastes from the nuclear power plant built on top of the dam.
Those exasperating eco-dreamers had demanded why the water life of the harbor was being destroyed for an energy never granted to the public, and why the heat couldn’t at least be used to warm the chilly Guff. Patient Ibet kindly explained that the cost made it impractical, and what the hell did the destruction of all littoral and oceanic life for a few hundred square miles matter when a Better Tomorrow would solve everything?
One interesting side-effect of the Hudson–Hell Gate dam was that the reservoir had raised the water level by ten feet, drowning thousands of homes and creating a scattering of tiny islands and hillocks around its shores; a sort of artificial Venice. There were a few hundred private homes still standing or newly built on these island hillocks. No. 666 Hell Gate was one of these privileged homes.
It was no Venetian palazzo, but more of a stone fortress rather like a miniature castle with window-slits suitable for defending archers. As Shima sculled up to the landing pier he was impressed and oppressed by the implicit menace. Gretchen was, too.
“I can easily see our Golem-Hundred-Hander-Thing coming out of this place, Blaise.”
He nodded. “All it needs is a hunchback calling Burne ‘Master’ and bringing him the wrong brain.”
She smiled. “Pity it’s such a lovely day. There ought to be thunder and lightning.”