"Well, anyway," Simon said, "even if all these new imprints made with dope are more or less accidental and the people doing it don't know what they're doing actually, it sure has stirred up a lot of the creative energy we were talking about. New combinations-bizarre, unthinkable, taboo combinations-are forming in brains all over the world every few minutes. Maybe that's why the Libertarian Immortalist Party could come out of nowhere and win the election by a landslide. 'No more death and taxes.' My God, who would have thought of it, twenty years ago?"
After the meeting broke up Clem Cotex hung around the office awhile, bringing the files up to date, dusting the Venetian blinds, wondering why Dr. Hugh Crane, the most brilliant mind in the whole society, had been so quiet during this meeting, and also speculating idly about how the novel he was in was going to end.
There was a knock on the door.
"Come," said Clem. He had picked that up from his hero, Captain (now Admiral) James T. Kirk, and he thought it was much classier than "Come in."
A small, brown, charismatic Puerto Rican opened the door. "Hugo de Naranja," he said, introducing himself Continental fashion.
"Clem Cotex," Clem said. "What can I do for you?"
"You investigate the impossible, not so?"
"Have a seat," Clem said. "We investigate the Real," he added, "especially those parts that the narrow-minded and mentally constipated regard as impossible, yes."
Hugo sat down. "I am initiate," he said, "in Santaria. Also in Voudon. I am poet and shaman. I am also-how you say?-goan bananas over one meestery all my training in Magicko cannot explain. I theenk the Novelist play a treek on me."
"Oh, ah," Clem said thoughtfully, "you're aware that we're living in a novel?"
"Oh, si, is it not obvious?" Hugo smiled, one weathered quantum jumper to another. "You look at the leetle details, you see much treekery, no?"
"Remind me to study this Santaria sometime," Clem said. "It's given you a broad perspective, I can see. Now, what's your problem?"
"Poetry, it earns no much the dinero," Hugo said. "I work nights as watchman, to keep body and soul together. You know? So one night at the warehouse I see thees cat-thees son-of-a-beetch of a cat-and it is there and it is not there. You know?"
"Oh, certainly," Clem said. "You should take Blake Williams' course on quantum physics and neuropsychology."
"Son-of-a-beetch," Hugo said. "I took that course, but I no pay attention much. Just to get the credit to get the degree. You know? I mees something important?"
"Every modern poet and shaman should know quantum physics," Clem said sternly. "Specialization is old-fashioned. You see, Senor de Naranja, what you encountered was Schrodinger's Cat, and Schrodinger's Cat is only in this novel part of the time."
NO LIMITS ALLOWED
No limits allowed, no limits exist.
–john lily, The Center of the Cyclone
"The man from the FBI is here again," Ms. Karrig said, "with a man from the District Attorney's office."
Dr. Dashwood breathed deeply. "Send… them… in," he said as calmly as he could, clicking off the intercom.
He stared at the door for one frozen moment, still breathing deeply, relaxing every muscle; and then the door opened, and the two men came in.
I could jump out of the window, Dashwood thought. But then he controlled himself.
He recognized Tobias Knight at once, but the man from the D.A.'s office-who looked like a young Lincoln, or Henry Fonda playing young Lincoln-was a stranger.
"Dr. Dashwood," Knight said cordially, "this is Cotton DeAct, from the District Attorney's office."
"Named after Cotton Mather?" Dashwood asked inanely.
"Named after Cotton Hawes, the detective," DeAct said, looking embarrassed. "My mother was a great mystery-story fan."
"Oh," Dashwood said. There didn't seem to be any other appropriate comment.
There was a pause, and Dashwood noticed that Tobias Knight looked a bit embarrassed also.
"Well, gentlemen," he said heartily, "what can I do for you?"
"Hrrrmph!" DeAct cleared his throat. "Dr. Dashwood," he said formally, "there are two detectives from the Vice Squad waiting outside. They have a warrant for your arrest um for violating Section 666 of the revised criminal code ah Bestiality." He was actually blushing.
"I see," Dashwood said. He realized that his breath had become shallow and his muscles were tensing; with an effort, he relaxed. "I've known this day might come," he said with icy calm. "Why don't they just come in and arrest me, then?"
DeAct took a chair; Knight remained standing-between Dashwood and the window, although not being conspicuous about how he got himself there.
"Well, ah," DeAct said, lighting a cigarette nervously. "You are ah um an International Celebrity in a sense um people say Freud Kinsey Masters Johnson and Dashwood almost in one breath you might say. Ah there are questions of Scientific Freedom at stake here. Ah there is the matter of our national image ah we don't want you to be called the American Sakharov or anything like that ha-ha right?"
"Do you mean," Dashwood cried, "you might offer me a deal?"
"Well, I can't speak with any authority on that," DeAct said quickly. "What we have in mind is having you ah fill us in on the background details."
"You mean you want me to inform on my colleagues," Dashwood said, not quite making a question of it.
"No, no nothing like that," DeAct said. "It's hardly necessary, anyway. We know who they are and where they are, all sixty-seven of them." He noted Dashwood's reaction. "Yes," he went on, "there is very little we don't know about Project Pan, as you called it."
"Oh, Burger," Knight said suddenly. "Let's stop fiddle-Stewarting around. We've been on this investigation for over a year, Dashwood. We know that you and your friend Blake Williams somehow or other induced sixty-seven top scientific brains to get embroiled with you in this, this, this…" He blanched, and then went on brutally, "We know you've been Lourding animals, dammit! Lourding donkeys and Lourding goats and Lourding God-knows-what-else-whatever your Rehnquists would fit into, evidently. Jesus Christ," he added, "I never heard of such a thing."
"That's enough, Tobias," DeAct said sharply. "You see our problem, Dr. Dashwood. Even in this age of sexual permissiveness and Free Scientific Inquiry, you seem to have crossed a line into very ah controversial territory, as well as being in violation of Section 666, the Bestiality law. What we want to know is"-he paused for a deep breath-"why did you do it, Doctor? And how in hell did you get so many important people involved?"
"My God," Dashwood said. "You really want to know the idea behind it all."
"Yes," DeAct said. "Certainly. That's our problem in a nutshell."
"I don't go along with any of this, DeAct," Knight said. "It's just a case of degeneracy and perversion, and who cares what rationalizations they have?"
"That'll be enough, Tobias," DeAct repeated.
"I always say," Knight went on, " 'Scratch a scientist and you'll find an atheist, and scratch an atheist and you'll find a goddamned Commie.' "
"That will be enough, I said."
Dashwood was thinking. This was the old Mutt-and-Jeff routine: the tough, dumb cop who terrified you, and the smart, sympathetic cop who encouraged you to explain yourself. Still…
"Very well," he said. "I will attempt to explain Project Pan."
"You can call your lawyer before talking to us," DeAct said hurriedly. "You can call a psychiatrist, too, if you want," he added.
"I am a psychiatrist," Dashwood reminded him. Was DeAct worried about the Supreme Court and the international repercussions of putting sixty-eight top scientists on trial, or did he have some intuitive sense of the magnitude of what Project Pan was all about?