Slowly, she returned to the parked cab.
'Miss,' the cab said, 'can you help me find fuel, please?'
'You won't find any fuel here,' Kathy said. Its obstinate refusal – or inability – to grasp the situation maddened her. 'Unless you can run on sixty octane gasoline, which I very much doubt.'
A passer-by, a middle-aged man wearing a straw hat, frozen in his tracks by the sight of the autonomic cab, called to her, 'Hey lady, what's that, anyhow? A US Marine Corps secret weapon for war games?'
'Yes,' Kathy answered. 'And in addition later on it'll stop the Nazis.' As she boarded the cab she said to the group of people who had cautiously formed around the cab at a safe distance, 'Keep the date December 7, 1941, in mind; it'll be a day to remember.' She closed the cab door. 'Let's go. I could tell those people so much ... but it seems hardly worth it. A bunch of Middle Western hicks.' This town, she decided, lay either in Kansas or Missouri, from the looks of it. Frankly, it repelled her.
The cab dutifully ascended.
The 'Starmen should see Kansas in 1935, she said to herself. If they did they might not care to take over Terra; it might not seem worth it.
To the cab she said, 'Land in a pasture. We'll sit it out until we're back in our own time period.' It probably would not be long, now; she had an impression of a devouring insubstanti-ality here in this era – the reality outside the cab had gained a gaseous quality which she recognized from her previous encounter with the drug.
'Are you joking?' the cab said. 'Is it actually possible that we—'
'The problem,' she said tartly, 'is not in returning to our own time; the problem is finding a way to stay under the drug's influence until something of worth can be accomplished.' The time was just not long enough.
'What drug, miss?'
'None of your goddam business,' Kathy said. 'You nosy autonomic nonentity with your big prying circuits all opened up and flapping.' She lit a cigarette and leaned back against the seat, feeling weary. It had been a tough day and she knew, with acuity, that more lay ahead.
The sallow-faced young man, who oddly enough already possessed a conspicuous paunch, as if physically yielding to the more lush pleasures at this, the planet's financial and political capital, shook Eric Sweetscent's hand damply and said, 'I'm Don Festenburg, doctor. It's good to hear you're joining us. How about an old-fashioned?'
'No thanks,' Eric said. There was something about Festenburg which he did not care for, but he could not put his finger on it. Despite his obesity and bad complexion Festenburg seemed friendly enough, and certainly he was competent; the latter alone counted, after all. But – Eric pondered as he watched Festenburg mix himself his drink. Perhaps it's because I don't think anyone should speak for the Secretary, he decided. I'd resent anyone who holds the job Festenburg does.
'Since we're alone,' Festenburg said, glancing around the room, 'I'd like to suggest something that may make me more, palatable to you.' He grinned knowingly. 'I can tell what your feelings are; I'm sensitive, doctor, even if I'm the pyknic body-type. Suppose I suggested that an elaborate ruse has been carried off successfully, convincing even you. The flabby, aging, utterly discouraged and hypochondriacal Gino Molinari whom you've met and accepted as the authentic UN Secretary—' Festenburg lazily stirred his drink, eyeing Eric. 'That's the robant simulacrum. And the robust, energetic figure you witnessed on video tape a short while ago is the living man. And this ruse must necessarily be maintained, of course, to sidetrack no one else but our beloved ally, the 'Starmen.'
'What?' Startled, he gaped. 'Why would—'
'The 'Starmen consider us harmless, unworthy of their military attention, only .so long as our leader is palpably feeble. Quite visibly unable to discharge his responsibilities – in other words, in no sense a rival to them, a threat.'
After a pause Eric said, 'I don't believe this.'
'Well,' Festenburg said, shrugging, 'it's an interesting idea from the ivory tower, intellectual standpoint. Don't you agree?' He walked toward Eric, swirling the contents of his glass. Standing very close to him, Festenburg breathed his noxious breath into Eric's face and said, 'It could be. And until you actually subject Gino to an intensive physical examination you won't know, because everything in that file you read – it could all be faked. Designed to validate a gross, well-worked-out swindle.' His eyes twinkled with merciless amusement. 'You think I'm out of my mind? I'm just playing, like a schizoid, with ideas for the fun of it, without regard to their actual consequences? Maybe so. But you can't prove what I just now told you is untrue, and as long as this remains the case—' He took a massive swallow of his drink, then made a face. 'Don't deplore what you saw on that Ampex video tape. Okay?'
'But as you say,' Eric said, 'I'll know as soon as I have a chance to examine him.' And, he thought, that will come soon. 'So if you'll excuse me I'd like to end this conversation. I haven't yet had time to set up my conapt here satisfactorily.'
'Your wife – what's her name? Kathy? – isn't coming, is she?' Don Festenburg winked. 'You can enjoy yourself. I'm in a position to give you a hand. That's my department, the land of the illicit, the feral, and the – let's just call it the peculiar. Instead of the unnatural. But you come from Tijuana; I probably can't teach you a thing.'
Eric said, 'You can teach me to deplore not only what I saw on the video tape but—' He broke off. Festenburg's personal life was, after all, his own business.
'But its creator as well,' Festenburg finished for him. 'Doctor, did you know that in the Middle Ages the ruling courts had people who lived in bottles. Spent their entire lives ... all shrunken, of course, put in while babies, allowed to grow – to some extent, anyhow – within the bottle. We don't have that now. However – Cheyenne is the contemporary ranking seat of kings; there are a few sights that could be shown you, if you're interested. Perhaps from the purely medical standpoint — a sort of professional, disinterested—'
'I think whatever it is you want to show me would only make me less pleased with my decision to come to Cheyenne,' Eric said. 'So frankly I don't see what profit it would serve.'
'Wait,' Festenburg said, holding up his hand. 'One item. Just this particular exhibit, all properly sealed hermetically, bathed in a solution that maintains the thing ad infinitum, or, as you probably will prefer, ad nauseam. May I take you there? It's in what we at the White House call Room 3-C.' Festenburg walked to the door, held it open for Eric.
After a pause Eric followed.
Hands in the pockets of his rumpled, unpressed trousers, Festenburg led the way down one corridor after another until at last they stood on a subsurface level, facing two high-ranking Secret Service men stationed at a metal reinforced door marked TOP SECRET, NO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL PERMITTED.
'I'm authorized,' Festenburg said genially. 'Gino's given me the run of the warren; he has great trust in me, and because of this you're going to see a state secret which you normally would never in a thousand years be allowed to view.' As he passed by the uniformed Secret Service men and pushed open the door he added, 'However, there will be one disappointing aspect of this; I'm going to show it to you but not explain it. I'd like to explain it but – very simply I can't.'
In the center of the murky, cold room Eric saw a casket. As Festenburg had said, it was hermetically sealed; a pump throbbed dully, at its task of maintaining at extreme low temperatures whatever lay within the casket.
'Look at it,' Festenburg said sharply.
Deliberately pausing, Eric lit a cigarette, then walked over.