“We know now they were right, though I fought them at the time. Psych won the fight and we programmed the whole trip over on their say-so. I doubt if you appreciate it, but we went to a tremendous amount of work to convince you two that you were still in the training program.”
“Sorry to put you to all that trouble,” Hal said coldly. The colonel flushed a little, not at the words but at the loosely reined bitterness that rode behind them. He went on as if he hadn’t heard.
“Those two conversations you had over the emergency phone were, of course, taped and the playback concealed in the ship so there would be no time lag. Psych scripted them on-the basis of fitting any need and apparently they worked. The second one was supposed to be the final touch of realism, in case you should start being doubtful. Then we used a variation of deep freeze that suspends about ninety-nine per cent of the body processes; it hasn’t been revealed or published yet. This along with anticoagulents in the razor cut on Tony’s chin covered the fact that so much time had passed.”
“What about the ship?”
Hal asked. “We saw it — and it was only half-completed.”
“Dummy,” the colonel said. “Put there for the public’s benefit and all foreign intelligence services. Real one had been finished and tested weeks earlier. Getting the crew was the difficult part. What I said about no team finishing a practise exercise was true. You two men had the best records and were our best bets.
“We’ll never have to do it this way again, though. Psych says that the next crews won’t have that trouble; they’ll be reinforced by the psychological fact that someone else was there before them. They won’t be facing the complete unknown.”
The colonel sat chewing his lip for a moment, then forced out the words he had been trying to say since Tony and Hal had regained consciousness.
“I want you to understand … both of you … that I would rather have gone myself than pull that kind of thing on you. I know how you must feel. Like we pulled some kind of a ….”
“Interplanetary practical joke,” Tony said. He didn’t smile when he said it.
“Yes, something like that,” the colonel rushed on. “I guess it was a lousy trick — but don’t you see, we had to? You two were the only ones left, every other man had washed out. It had to be you two, and we had to do it the safest way.
“And only myself and three other men know what was done; what really happened on the trip. No one else will ever know about it, I can guarantee you that.”
Hal’s voice was quiet, but cut through the room like a sharp knife.
“You can be sure Colonel, that we won’t be telling anybody about it.”
When Colonel Stegham left, he kept his head down because he couldn’t bring himself to see the look in the eyes of the first two explorers of Mars.
AT LAST, THE TRUE STORY OF FRANKENSTEIN
And here, before your very eyes, is the very same monster built by my much admired great-great grandfather, Victor Frankenstein, built by him from pieces of corpses out of the dissecting rooms, stolen parts of bodies freshly buried in the grave, and even chunks of animals from the slaughterhouse. Now look!”
The tailcoated man on the platform swung his arm out in a theatrical gesture and the heads of the close-packed crowd below swung to follow it. The dusty curtains flapped aside and the monster stood there, illuminated from above by a sickly green light.
There was a concerted gasp from the crowd and a shiver of motion.
In the front row, pressed against the rope barrier, Dan Bream mopped his face with a soggy handkerchief and smiled. It wasn’t such a bad monster, considering that this was a cheapjack carnival playing the small town southern circuit. It had a dead white skin, undampened by sweat even in this steam bath of a tent, glazed eyes, stitches and seams showing where the face had been patched together. Plus the two metal plugs projecting from the temples just like in the movie.
“Raise your right arm!”
Victor Frankenstein the fifth commanded, his brusque German accent giving the words a Prussian air of authority. The monster’s body did not move but slowly-with the jerking motion of a badly operating machine — the creature’s arm came up to shoulder height and stopped.
“This monster, built from pieces from the dead, cannot die, and if a piece gets too worn out I simply stitch on a new shtick with the secret formula passed down from father to son from my great-great grandfather. It cannot die nor feel pain, as you can see.”
This time the gasp was even louder and some of the audience turned away while others watched with eager eyes. The barker had produced a foot long and wickedly sharp needle-which he then pushed firmly through the monster’s biceps until it protruded on both sides. No blood stained it and the creature made no motion, as though completely unaware that anything had been done to its flesh.
“… impervious to pain, extremes of heat and cold, possessing the strength often men ….”
Behind him the voice droned on, but Dan Bream had had enough. He had seen the performance three times before, which was more than enough times for him to find out all he needed to know. It was incredibly hot; if he stayed in the tent another minute, he would melt. The exit was close by and he pushed through the gaping, pallid audience and out into the humid dusk. It wasn’t much cooler outside. Life borders on the unbearable along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico in August; Panama City, Florida, was no exception. Dan headed for the nearest air-conditioned beer joint and sighed with relief as the chill atmosphere closed around his steaming garments. The beer bottle frosted instantly with condensation, as did the heavy glass stein, cold from the freezer. The first big swallow cut a path straight down to his stomach. He took the beer over to one of the straight-backed wooden booths, wiped the table off with a handful of paper napkins and flopped onto the bench. From the inner pocket of his jacket he took some folded sheets of yellow copy paper now slightly soggy, and spread them before him. After adding some lines to the scribbled notes he stuffed them back into his jacket and took a long pull on his beer.
Dan was halfway through his second bottle when the barker, who called himself Frankenstein the Fifth, came in. His stage personality had vanished along with the frock coat and monocle; the Prussian haircut now looked like a common crewcut.
“You’ve got a great act,” Dan called out cheerfully as he waved the man over. “Will you join me for a drink?”
“Don’t mind if I do,’ Frankenstein answered in the pure nasal vowels of New York City, the German accent having disappeared along with the monocle. “And see if they have a Schlitz or a Bud or anything else beside local swamp water.”
He settled into the booth while Dan went for the beers and groaned when he saw the labels on the bottles.
“At least it’s cold,” he said, shaking salt into his to make it foam, then half drained the stein in a long deep swallow.
“I noticed you out there in front of the clems for most of the shows today. Do you like the act or you a carny buff?”
“It’s a good act. I’m a newsman, name’s Dan Bream.”
“Always pleased to meet the Press, Dan. Publicity is the life of show business, as the man said. I’m Stanley Arnold: call me Stan.”
“Then Frankenstein is just your stage name?”
“What else? You act kinda dim for a reporter, are you sure?”
He waved away the Press card that Dan pulled out from his breast pocket. “No, I believe you, Dan. But you gotta admit the question was a little on the rube side. I bet you even think that I have a real monster in there!”
“Well, you must admit that he looks authentic. The skin stitched together that way, those plugs in his head.”
“Held on with spirit gum and the embroidery is drawn on with eyebrow pencil. That’s show business for you, all illusion. But I’m happy to hear that the act even looked real to an experienced reporter like yourself. What paper did you say you were with?”