“Slavery is mental health!” Luh Lin echoed zealously.
“The slave has nothing to lose and everything to gain.”
“Everything!” she repeated.
“And so we have chosen to become slaves.”
“Freedom is frightening,” Luh Lin opined.
“It’s even more frightening when you’re a master and you think about your slave getting his freedom,” Wah Lees said. “Because you know that the first thing he might do is murder his master. Yes,” he added with conviction, “it’s much better to be a slave!”
“Better to be a slave!” Luh Lin concurred.
On that note they nodded politely and left us.
We continued walking about the American Quarter for an hour or so. Then we returned to her hole-in-the-ground home. She fixed me up on the couch and then went into her bedroom to sleep by herself.
As soon as I was alone, I began trying to contact Tibet. For quite awhile now my efforts had failed, but this time was different. Charles Putnam answered immediately.
“That you, Victor?” he asked.
“Hell, this isn’t a party line,” I reminded him. “Of course it’s me.”
“No need to be insubordinate.” Despite the words, he sounded surprisingly mild, almost mellow. “Where are you?” he wanted to know.
“I’m not sure. Some place far in the future. I can’t be sure of the time. But the place is Saigon.”
“Saigon! There’ll be the devil to pay. You know you need special clearance to go to Saigon, Victor. Why do you always have to land in such questionable locales? Why couldn’t you go to Bermuda, or some nice quiet spot like that?”
“I didn’t pick it,” I reminded him. “And what I’d like to know is why the hell I was pushed way into the future anyway? Why couldn’t you have just had me brought back to 1967?”
“Sorry. I guess that was my fault,” Putnam admitted. “Remember, I told you I wasn’t hitting it off with the old man too well. At first he refused to do anything about moving you up. Then something happened and he lost his temper and he turned on his gismo full blast for spite. That Papa Baapuh is a very spiteful man. That’s how come you went right past ’67.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Well, umm, it’s a little hard to explain,” Putnam hedged.
I heard a low giggle in the background. I recognized it as belonging to Ti Nih Baapuh. Suspicion began firming up in my mind. “Putnam,” I accused, “have you been playing house with that Tibetan Lolita?”
“I’m a man just like you, Victor. I’m not made of wood, you know.”
“And Papa Baaphu caught you with her,” I guessed. “Right?”
“Check.”
“And that’s why he got mad and shot me into the future.”
“I’m afraid so, old boy.” Putnam’s voice rose. “Now stop that,” he said, his voice still high, but muffled now. “Can’t you see I’m busy? Can’t you wait? Lord, you’re insatiable!”
“Putnam!” I reminded him. “Don’t forget what happened to poor Dudley Nightshade!”
“Happiest corpse I ever saw. . . . Ooooh! That tickles! . . . Now stop playing like that or I’ll—”
“Putnam! Remember your responsibilities! If you keep kanoodling with his daughter, Papa Baapuh will never agree to get me back.”
“It doesn’t matter, old chap. He can’t get you back anyway. . . . Now you just stop bouncing like that!” Putnam giggled.
“What do you mean?” I was filled with foreboding.
“According to Papa Baapuh, the time machine can’t be worked in reverse in the future. It’s strictly a one-way operation. He can’t bring you back. You can’t get here from there.”
“You mean I’m stranded?” I felt myself getting panicky.
“Evidently. It seems that’s one of the bugs he can’t get straightened out. . . . All right! I’ll hang up in just a minute, Ti Nih!”
“But he has to get the bugs out!” I protested.
“That’s what I told him. ‘Back to the drawing board,’ I said. But instead he went back to the Lama temple to seek guidance about his daughter.”
“Maybe if you’d stay away from her, he’d come back from the temple and get down to the drawing board.”
“Maybe. But that’s asking a lot, Victor. And there’s no guarantee of any results. As thing stand now, he hasn’t the vaguest idea of how to bring you back. . . . Mmmmm! That feels very nice! . . . . Well, so long, Victor. Don’t call me. I’ll call you. That is if there’s any change, which seems unlikely. Ahhh! . . .” Putnam’s voice trailed off.
“Putnam?” No answer. The line was dead.
So there it was. I was stuck in the future. And the odds were I was permanently stuck! I lay there and brooded over my fate. I was still brooding when something happened that made me see that perhaps this future wasn’t all ashes.
Denise Thang entered. She was wearing a shortie nightgown advertising the fact that women of the future could be even more pulchritudinous than the females of the 1960s. Staring at her standing in the doorway, my troubles receded to the back of my brain.
She was a slender girl, her features delicate and Oriental. Long black hair cascaded over milk-white shoulders. Her lips were naturally red in contrast to the ivory of her high cheekbones and finely rounded jawline. Her eyes were very black, very deep, very inviting.
But it was her figure which attracted most of my admiration. Her legs were long and curved, the thighs flushed faintly with pink as if in embarrassment at their nakedness. Round hips, very full, were revealed under the loose gauzy material of the nightgown she wore. Her breasts were very large for such a slim girl. The half-moons of their tops rose from the bodice of the nightie. The outline of their tips pushed out against the flimsy chiffon, revealing large aureoles and sharp nipples.
Denise posed there in the doorway a long moment. I filled my eyes. Finally, she spoke. “I thought you might let me see it again,” she said.
“See it? Oh!” I understood. “All right.” I unveiled the object of her curiosity.
“But it’s different from before!” she exclaimed. “Then it was like a carrot that’s been cooked in the soup too long. Now it is formidable, like a cucumber.”
“The transition is strictly due to your charms.” I complimented her.
“May I touch it?”
“Since you’ve been so kind to me, Denise, by all means touch it.”
“It’s alive!” She pulled her hand back, startled.
“You’ve given it life.” My eyes bobbled in their sockets, following her bouncing breasts. “Honestly now, haven’t you ever seen one before?”
“No. I don’t know anybody else who has either. That’s why the women were clustering around you and staring before.”
“What about newborn male infants?” .
“Oh!” A light seemed to dawn on her. “I see what you mean. But that’s cut off right after birth, just like the umbilical cord.” She thought a moment. “You mean that—” She pointed. “-—is the same thing? But it’s so large and looks so strong—not at all like the growth we remove from newborn male babies. Is it really a secret weapon?”
“No.”
“Then what is it used for?”
“Making babies.”
“You’re putting me on.”
“No I’m not. It has many uses, one of which is making babies.”
“That seems hard to believe. What has a man to do with making babies? All it takes is a baby packet with the right ingredients and a cauldron and a woman to stir.”
“Where I come from it’s done differently,” I told her.
“Really? You mean women don’t stir the cauldron to make babies? How is it done then?”
“I can’t exactly explain. I’d have to show you.”