“I know that, 99. It’s pretty obvious that it’s a Whitestone trick.” He touched a finger to the sign, then held it up. “See? The paint is still wet.”
“Then the thing for us to do is to go the other way,” 99 said.
“I disagree, 99. If we continue in this direction, I think we’ll find more signs. Whitestone is undoubtedly trying to lead us into a trap.”
“That’s why we ought to go in the other direction, Max. We don’t want to get caught in Whitestone’s trap.”
“But we do, 99. There’s an old saying: Where there’s a trap, there’s also a trapper. When we find that trap, we’ll find Whitestone. And, once we find him, I have every confidence that we can outwit him and take him prisoner. When we do that, it will be much simpler for us to complete our mission. We won’t have these illusions to contend with.”
“But, Max,” 99 argued, “if Whitestone has gone off in that direction, we can avoid him and his illusions simply by going in the opposite direction. And there wouldn’t be any danger of falling into a trap.”
Max sighed. “You explain it to her, Hassan,” he said.
“In my country,” Hassan said to 99, “there is an expression that, I think, will answer your questions. It goes: ‘When the voice of the turtle is heard in the land, it’s time to have your ears examined.’ ”
“That doesn’t help much,” 99 said.
“Let me explain it another way, 99,” Max said. “If we go in the other direction, in the direction you want to go, we’ll be going away from Dr. Livingstrom-right? And the object of our mission, remember, is to find Dr. Livingstrom.”
“Max, how do you know we’ll be going away from him?”
“Because he’s in this direction.”
“How can you be so sure of that, Max?”
“99, it’s obvious. Just look at the sign.”
99 drooped. “All right, Max,” she said, resigned. “We’ll do it your way.”
With Max now in the lead they set out in the direction indicated by the sign. Soon they came to a second sign, which said:
Don’t you
“That’s interesting,” Max said. “I wonder what it means?”
“It’s a teaser, Max,” 99 explained. “It’s intended to lure you on to the next sign to see what it says.”
“That is interesting,” Max said. “Let’s go.”
“But, Max, now we know it’s a trap. Whitestone is doing this deliberately to lead us on.”
“I know, I know, 99. Hurry.”
After a while, they reached a third sign, which said:
think it’s
“Fascinating,” Max said. “Onward.”
And, moments later, they reached a fourth sign, which read:
silly to spread this message out over four signs when we could have put it on one and saved the cost of three signs, which, according to our bookkeeper, would have amounted to $12.68; a sum that, if put in the bank, and kept there for twenty-five years, earning five per cent interest, wouldn’t do us any good, anyway, because, by then, we would probably be too old to enjoy it.
“The tag line is a little disappointing,” Max said. “But I think the idea has a lot of merit. They probably could have got the whole message on one sign.”
“The reasoning is off, though,” Hassan said. “Nobody is ever too old to enjoy $12.68. For instance, $12.68 would make a down-payment on a chain-driven saxophone. What’s nicer for old folks than making music?”
“Max, what I don’t understand,” 99 said, “is why we’re not in a trap.”
“The trap is a few yards on, 99,” Max said. “See? Right over there,” he added, pointing.
99 looked and saw a spectacular sight. Rising out of a filmy cloud bank were the majestic white spires of a cluster of medieval castles. And then, listening, she heard the sounds of laughter and singing.
“Max! It’s Paradise!” 99 gasped.
“At least, that’s what Whitestone wants us to think,” Max said.
“Of course! It’s an illusion. It has to be an illusion. Paradise wouldn’t be stuck away out here in the middle of the jungle, would it?”
“Naturally not,” Max replied. “It would be somewhere on a main highway. Nobody wants to live in a place that’s more than an hour’s drive from town. But, this Paradise, illusion though it clearly is, does have one advantage. Somewhere within those walls, I think we’ll find Whitestone. And once we do that, and take him prisoner, completing our mission will be much easier.”
“I’m with you, Max,” 99 said.
“I’ll wait here,” Hassan said.
“No, you better come with us,” Max said to him. “We may need you to pull off another miracle.”
“They won’t let me in,” Hassan said. “I’m too flat.”
“Nonsense. There is no discrimination in Paradise, Hassan.”
The three followed the high wall that surrounded the illusion, and finally came to a gate. A tall, white-haired, distinguished old man, dressed in a flowing white robe, greeted them with outstretched arms and a gentle smile on his face.
“Welcome, welcome, welcome,” the old man said. “I am your host. Come in, come in.”
“Thank you,” Max said. “This is Paradise, isn’t it?”
“That’s the technical term,” their host replied. “We have our own word for it, though. We have named it after its founder-the Caliph of Phornia.”
“Max. .” 99 whispered. “Have you noticed our host’s looks-tall, white-haired and distinguished-looking. .”
“Of course, 99. Do you think I’m blind? Now, I’ll show you what I’m going to do about it.”
Max clipped the old man with a karate chop, dropping him to the ground.
“Why did you do that?” the old man asked puzzledly.
“Because you’re tall, white-haired and distinguished-looking,” Max replied. “That means that you’re Whitestone, the ex-vaudeville magician, now a KAOS agent.”
“You must be out of your head,” the host said, rising. “Everybody in my family is tall, white-haired and distinguished-looking. But I forgive you. There is no hate here-only love.”
“Gee, I’m sorry about that karate chop,” Max said contritely.
“It is forgotten,” the host smiled. “Now, let me show you our Paradise.”
Max, 99 and Hassan started to enter. But the host put out a hand, halting Hassan.
“Not you, fella,” he said. “You’re too flat.”
“You mean there’s discrimination even here?” Max said.
“What discrimination?” the host replied. “Your friend is welcome, too. But he’ll have to use the special entrance for flat people. It’s around in back.”
“But isn’t that discrimination, having a special entrance?” Max said.
“Not a bit,” the host replied. “It’s a simple matter of efficiency. See this entrance here-how wide it is? If a flat person passed through here, he wouldn’t use all the space. The space, in other words, would go to waste. So, we built a special, skinny entrance for flat people. That’s all-discrimination has nothing to do with it.”
“You can’t argue with the reasoning,” Max said to Hassan. “So maybe you better go around to the back.”
Hassan ambled off, following the wall.
“Where will we meet him?” Max said to the host.
“You won’t,” the host smiled. “The special entrance for flat people is closed.”
“Closed?”
“Yes. You see, it’s so skinny that not even a flat person could get through it. So, since it was never used, we decided to close it.”
“Oh. Well, that makes sense,” Max said.
The host led them through the gate, into Paradise. The inhabitants, all dressed in flowing white robes, were singing and dancing in the streets.
“Is this all you people do here, just dance and sing?” Max asked.
“Yes. It’s what our founder, the Caliph, wanted. No toil. No violence. No hate. Only love. Eternal dancing and singing.”
“Constantly?”
“Of course not. We’re a modern society-we have the eight-hour day.”
“I see. What do you do then, after the eight hours?”
“Well, the singers and dancers switch to dancing and singing, and the dancers and singers switch to-”