"Excuse me," Mishkin said. "Who are you?"
"Duke of Melba," said the Duke of Melba. "But call me Clarence. I don't hold with all of that title nonsense. I don't believe I caught your name."
"That's because I didn't throw it," Mishkin said.
"Oh, I say, that's rather good. Original?"
"It was, once," Mishkin said.
"Very good!"
"My name is Mishkin," Mishkin said. "I don't suppose you happened to see a robot anywhere around here?"
"I didn't actually."
"Strange. He just vanished."
"Nothing strange about that," the Duke of Melba said. "Just a minute ago my wife remarked that she didn't believe in me, and lo and behold, I just vanished. Strange, isn't it?"
"Very strange," Mishkin said. "But I suppose it does happen."
"I suppose it does," Clarence said. "After all, it just happened to me. Damned funny feeling, vanishing."
"What does it feel like?"
"Hard to put your finger on it. A sort of insubstantial thing, if you know what I mean."
You're sure you didn't see my robot?"
"Reasonably sure. I suppose you were fond of him?"
"We've been through a lot together."
"Old war buddies," the Duke said, nodding and untwisting his moustaches. "Nothing quite like old war buddies. Or old wars. I remember a time outside of Ypres…"
"Excuse me," Mishkin said. "I don't know where you came from, but I think that I must warn you that you have vanished or been vanished into a place of considerable danger."
"It's uncommonly kind of you to warn me," the Duke said. "But, actually, I'm in no danger at all. The danger number is your movie, whereas I am in an entirely different and much less satisfactory sequence. Projection doth make mockery of us all, as the poet said. Whimsical anachronism is more my line of country, old chap. Now, as I was saying…"
The Duke of Melba interrupted himself by stopping. A shadow of discontent had just crossed his mind. He was unsatisfied with his delineation of himself. All that he had presented so far was the fact that he had long blond moustaches, sounded vaguely English, and seemed a little silly. This seemed to him insufficient. He decided to rectify the situation at once.
The Duke of Melba was a large and impressive individual. His eyes were a frosty blue.
He bore a resemblance to Ronald Colman, though the Duke was handsomer, more bitter, and possessed more cool. His hands were finely shaped with long tapering fingers.
Noticeable also were the little crow's-feet at the corners of his eyes. These, together with the feathering of grey at his temples, did nothing to detract from his attractiveness; quite the contrary, they gave him a bold, brooding, weather-beaten appearance that the opposite sex (as well as many members of his own sex, not all of them gay) found distinctively attractive. Taken all in all, he was the man you would pick to advertise your oldest scotch, your best line of clothing, your most expensive motorcars.
The Duke thought that over and found it good. A few things were missing. So he gave himself the faintest suggestion of a limp, just for the hell of it and because he had always considered a limp to be mysterious and attractive.
When he was through, the Duke of Melba was fair pleased. The only thing that galled him was the fact that his wife had caused him to vanish. That seemed to him a very castrating thing to do.
"Do you know?" he said to Mishkin, "I have a wife. The Duchess of Melba, you know."
"Oh. That's nice," Mishkin said.
"In a way it is, I suppose. But the thing is, I don't believe in her."
The Duke smiled to himself: an attractive smile. Then he frowned: an attractive frown, for his wife appeared suddenly in front of him.
The Duchess of Melba took one good look at the Duke, then swiftly changed her appearance. Her hair went from grey to chestnut brown with red highlights. She became tall, slender, with medium-large boobies and a delicious ass. She gave herself delicate bones in her wrists, a faint, blue vein that throbbed in her forehead, a beauty mark shaped like a star on her left cheek, fantastic legs, a Pierre Cardin outfit, a Hermes handbag, shoes by Riboflavin, a tantalizing smile smiled by long, slim lips that didn't need any lipstick because they were naturally red (it ran in the family), a solid gold Dunhill lighter, emaciated cheeks, raven black hair with blue highlights, and a big sapphire ring instead of a gold-plated wedding band.
The Duke and the Duchess looked at each other and found each other admirable. They strolled away arm and arm into the nowhere they had made each other vanish into.
"All the best," Mishkin called after them. He looked around the parking lot but he couldn't find his car. It was one of those days.
At last a parking lot attendant came ambling up to him — a short fat man in a green jumper with the words AMRITSAR HIGH SCHOOL ALL-STARS embroidered over his left breast pocket. The attendant said, "Your ticket, sir? No tickee, no caree."
"Here it be," said Mishkin, and from the transverse pocket of his slung pouch he removed a piece of red pasteboard.
"Don't let him take that ticket!" a voice called out.
"Who is that?" Mishkin asked.
"I am your SPER robot presently disguised as a 1968 Rover TC 2000. You are under the influence of a hallucinating drug. Do not give the attendant that ticket!"
"Give ticket," said the attendant.
"Not so fast," said Mishkin.
"Yes, fast," said the attendant, and reached out.
It seemed to Mishkin that the attendant's fingers split into a mouth. Mishkin stepped back. Very slowly the attendant came towards him. Now he could be seen as a kind of large snake with wings and a forked tail. Mishkin avoided him without trouble.
Mishkin was back in the forest (That damned forest!) The robot was standing beside him. A large, winged snake was advancing very slowly on Mishkin.
13
The snake had a mouth that secreted fantasies. His very breath was illusion. His eyes were hypnotic, and the movement of his wings cast spells. Even his size and shape were matters of illusion, for he was capable of changing himself from gigantic to infinitesimal.
But when the snake had made himself tinier than a fly, Mishkin deftly captured him and shut him up in an aspirin bottle.
"What will you do with him?" the robot asked.
"I will keep him," said Mishkin, "until it is the proper time for me to live in fantasies."
"Why is that time not now?" the robot asked.
"Because I am young now," Mishkin replied, "and it is time for me to be living adventures and to be making actions and suffering reactions. Later, much later, when my fires have dimmed and my memories have lost their bright edge, then I shall release this creature. The winged snake and I will walk together into that final illusion that is death.
But that time is not now."
"Well spoken," the robot said. But he wondered who was speaking with Mishkin's mouth.
So they kept going across the forest. The aspirin bottle was sometimes very heavy, sometimes light. It was evident that the creature had power. But it was not enough to dissuade Mishkin from the work that lay ahead of him. He didn't know what this work was, but he knew that it didn't lie in an aspirin bottle.
14
Mishkin and the robot came to a ravine. There was a plank across the two sides of the ravine. Looking down, one could see a tiny thread of water thousands of feet below.
This was noteworthy, for the ravine had a natural grandeur and attractiveness. But more striking by far was the plank across the two sides of the ravine. There was a table on the plank, near the middle. There were four chairs at the table, and four men sat in the chairs. They were playing a game of cards. They had full ashtrays beside them. There was an unshielded light, suspended by nothing visible, burning palely above their heads.