“No.”
“Then a departure how and to where?”
“To a reality that no culture has ever recognized or even acknowledged. To a world that is the invisible eight-ninths of human history’s iceberg; a Subworld, a Sous-monde, eine Unterwelt, an Infraworld, a Phasmaworld…”
“Ah yes. From the Greek, phainein, to make appear. You mystify me in several languages, madame.”
“And I’ll mystify you even more.” Gretchen was trembling with excitement. “I think this submerged, hidden Phasmaworld has finally broken through to the top of the iceberg and made an appearance.”
“And now you want to return the visit? That is your departure?”
“Yes.”
“How depart?”
“With a Promethium passport.”
“Ah yes, the radioactive salt discovered in those bones resulting from… your ‘contract’ weapon?” Ind’dni turned to Shima before Gretchen could respond to the irony. “My forensic staff was most impressed by your expertise, doctor.” He had never seemed more softly dangerous.
“If you want more expertise,” Shima said wearily, “it’s 145Pm2O3 with a half-life of thirty years.”
“Thank you.” Ind’dni smiled, nodded, and returned to Gretchen. “And I am requested to collaborate in this nebulous venture with you?”
“No. Only to give us your hukm.”
“Will there be danger?”
“Possibly.”
“To whom?”
“Us alone. No one else.”
“Then why try to levant to this mystic Phasmaworld of your imaginings, Miz Nunn? What do you hope to gain by the delay?”
“So you don’t believe me, Subadar?”
“Sadly and most firmly, no.”
“Then you won’t believe this either. I’m convinced that’s where the Golem-Hundred-Hander lives.”
12
Gretchen looked at the stunned cipher with amused pity. “My place is no place for you,” she said. “I’m schlepping you back to your own saloon. You’ll regroup better there.”
“Le pauvre petit,” Shima muttered.
“Maybe, but you’ve got to cope now, baby. We’re involved in something tremendous. So let’s move it.”
In Shima’s penthouse, she stripped him and shoved him into the mirrored Roman tub. She ran the water as hot as her elbow could stand.
“Courtesy of CCC clout,” she said. “It’s jaunty-jolly to be loved by the Establishment.”
“You getting in too, please?” he asked.
“No time for funny business. I’m going to slug you with my coffee-cognac prescription which it could win the Nobel Peace Prize if I’d reveal the secret formula.”
“After what Ind’dni made me swallow I don’t know if I can get anything else down.”
“Wait until I give you my Golem scam. You’ll wish you were in a brain-damage slammer.”
“Are you trying to scare me more?”
“Just trying to prepare you. Soak. Enjoy. Relax. Back soon.”
When she returned with the slugged coffee, she knew he was recovering because he was sitting up in the tub with a washcloth covering his crotch. Shima, who was completely uninhibited in bed, was curiously modest out of it.
“French. Jap. Irish,” she thought. “They all caught the fig-leaf hang-up from Eve. Funny the old Bible doesn’t mention a bra.” Aloud she said, “Drink this.”
“Your secret formula?”
“Accept no substitutes.”
“It’ll ruin me for the lab.”
“You won’t be doing any smelling around. I won’t be doing any work either. We’ve got to tackle one hell of a hassle.”
She sat down on the loo facing him. “Can you listen?”
He nodded and sipped.
“And understand? This is going to be a mind-stretcher of fact and Freud.”
“I heard of him.”
“And did you hear me tell the Subadar that the key to the Hundred-Hander-Golem thing lay in the primary psychic process?”
“Yes, but I didn’t understand.”
“From the way he gave it a smooth slough I don’t think he did either. Now pay attention, Blaise. It’s one of Freud’s fundamental concepts. He called it the Psi-system. Short form, P-system.”
“Psi? You mean ESP?”
“No. The twentieth-century cats took over Psi for extrasensory perception. They probably never heard of Father Freud’s nomenclature. Anyway, the Old Man laid it down that the P-system, the primary psychic process, was at the bottom of every human being and it aimed at only one thing, the free outflow of the quantities of excitation.”
“Jeez!”
“Yeah.”
“You could explain a little.”
“Look at it this way. We all have the erotic excitation, the libido. That’s the P-system and it’s the source of all creation; literature, love, the arts, you name it.”
“Science?”
“Of course, science too. It’s a powerhouse of driving energy and it’s always trying to collect life together into larger unities. That’s the way a shrink describes the creative process. Boy meets girl and they collect to create love and a family. Scientist like you collects chemicals to create perfumes. I collect data to create solutions. All this is libido… psychic energy in action. Tremendous! Now dig this, man: the bee-ladies pool their energies to create a larger entity, a collection of the hive libido, the Golem100.”
“How?”
“How? Well… think of it like… Yes, like a pastry bag for icing. You mix all the ingredients, beat and cook ‘em, transfer to the forcing bag and squeeze. The icing comes out of the spout end. Well, mix the ladies’ libidos, beat and cook, transfer to the ritual forcing bag, and squeeze. Out comes the Golem.”
“But I—Wait. Is the Golem real or just a shadow projection?”
“What’s real? If a tree falls in a forest and no one’s around to hear it, does it make a real sound? In other words, must reality be reciprocal?”
“Damn if I know.”
“Nobody does.”
“But look, Gretchen, the Golem made those ghastly attacks. That makes it real. Only it was a different thing each time. That makes it unreal.”
“Only in our terms.”
“Then which is it?”
“Both. It’s a quasi-reality; Adam in the second hour of creation; shapeless and without a soul. We need a brand-new vocabulary to describe it. It’s a protean that can assume any shape it wants.”
“Then what makes it want a particular shape?”
“Ah! I was hoping you’d get around to that. Now we get down to the nitty-gritty which has to be described in terms of personality and persona profiles. You know the difference?”
“I think so. Personality is what you really are inside. Persona is how you show yourself to the world.”
“Right on. Persona is the mask we wear. Like this.” She snatched up the washcloth cover and dropped it back before Shima could holler. As he adjusted it, he grumbled, “Women! Let them get intimate with you, and they lose all sense of decency.”
“No, we just drop the persona mask, is all. If you’re strong enough to beef, you must be feeling better. Let’s get down to the facts. I’ll take the horrors in sequence.”
“No details, I beg. Once is enough for a sissy.”
“No details; just personality profiles; what was inside the victims. That girl in the stock exchange and the Golem computer mechanic…”
“The girl who wanted to be infected with genius?”
“Yes. Who was she?”
“How should I know? Ind’dni didn’t give names. He didn’t even give descriptions.”
“But in personality she was a look-alike for another girl. Can you think who?”
“Well… She was dumb and didn’t want to be.”
“Exactly. And who’d I tell you about that was dumb and didn’t want to be?”
“Who’d you tell me that… ?” Shima thought hard and at last twigged. “My God! The hive. Yes. That blonde dancer with her hair like a helmet.”