“Cooperation, blah-blah-blah . . .” Dr. Umpmeyer told them. “Conciliation, blah-blah-blah. . . . Communication, blah-blah-blah. . . ." Nobody listened. Dr. Umpmeyer sat down and covered his ears with his hands as Professor Rumpkis started to talk.
“. . . obligation to support the administration one hundred percent. The faculty must set an example to the students if discipline is to be upheld, if anarchy and chaos are not to . . .” Professor Rumpkis turned the air blue with the dual release of his flatulence. But his gaseous advice went unheeded and finally he too sat back down, squelching a belch behind hands which remained clasped in front of his mouth.
See no evil! Hear no evil! Speak no evil! The faculty was as ready for confrontation as it was ever going to be. . . .
Confrontation was also uppermost in the minds of the SDS students sitting-in at the main building of the Science Research Institute. The sun was well up in the sky now, and time was growing short. The hostages were still stubbornly refusing to allow themselves to be removed from the premises. In a quiet comer, Ivan Relevant was listening to Ludmilla Skivar’s reactions to the situation.
“Americans are too soft!” the voluptuous Russian snorted. “In Russia we would use the strongest measures to put down those who dare to question authority as these students are doing. It must be because Americans have so little respect for their institutions that they are afraid to use force to protect them.”
“That’s the difference between America and Russia,” Ivan Relevant granted.
“We can only hope that the difference is narrowing.”
‘Tm very much afraid that it is.”
“When the people of America become the government of America, as in Russia -”
“—then the people will no longer dissent, as in Russia,” Ivan Relevant reasoned.
“Where the proletariat rule, there is no need for dissent!”
“And no room for it!”
“Exactly!” Ludmilla’s eyes shone with zeal. “That’s as it should be! Isn’t it?”
“Don’t ask me,” Ivan Relevant sighed. “Ask Josef Stalin . . . or Spyro Agnew.”
“Stalin is dead.”
“And Agnew was born dead. Never mind. Forget it,” Ivan Relevant told her.
“I don’t understand. Don’t you believe in Marxism?” Ludmilla asked him.
“Marxism is a gas. . . . But Russia is a drag.”
“Can I see you a minute?” Minerva Kaufman interrupted their tête-à-tête. Jonathan Relevant joined her in the hall. “It’s about the hostages,” Minerva explained. “Glover and Pigbaigh are adamant. They won’t leave. But I was wondering about the scientists. They seem to dig you. Maybe you could talk to them.”
“All right. Where are they?”
“Back in their labs. I thought it might soften them up if we didn’t restrict their activities.”
“I’ll go see them.” Jonathan Relevant left Minerva and went to the laboratories.
A young SDS student was on guard at the door. “What do you do for your acne?” he asked Jonathan Relevant as he admitted him.
“I pretend it isn’t there.”
“You’d think those savants in there would come up with a cure for it instead of spending their time figuring out new ways to kill people.”
“That’s how it is when you get older,” Jonathan Relevant told him. “You forget how it is to have skin trouble.”
“Never trust anybody over thirty,” the student said it as if he’d just that moment come up with a profound new truth.
“Unless he’s got lots of pimples.” Jonathan passed inside.
“Gynecocracy!” Dr. Handelquim greeted him.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Gynecocracy. Government by Women. In the land of gynecocrats, the gynecologist is king.”
“I see.” Jonathan Relevant wasn’t sure that he saw at all.
“I could be the power behind the throne.”
“Which, I suppose, would have stirrups on either side of it?”
“Of course, my friend. You see, it’s the only viable program. Only women can deescalate the current world situation. The only hope is for the ladies to take over-with the help of those few men who understand them — like myself. Their day is coming!”
“The day of the Gold Star Mother,” Jonathan Relevant mused.
“Don’t be cynical, my friend.”
“I’m sorry.” Jonathan Relevant got down to brass tacks. “I’ve come to see if I can prevail upon you to leave,” he told Professor Handelquim.
“Absolutely not.”
“But why not?”
“Gynecocracy.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Haven’t you noticed that it is a female who has taken charge of things here? That is very significant! This Minerva Kaufman! She‘s the wave of the future. I want to be around to ride the crest of that wave!”
Dr. Handelquim is the sort of man, Jonathan Relevant decided, whose life won't be fulfilled until he can perforn a hysterectomy on the Pacific Ocean! He continued on into the computer room, where Professor Tektodi was studying a long tape which the main computer had just disgorged.
“Ah, Jan-San Relevant. You are just in time.” Professor Tektodi bowed to him.
“In time for what?”
“The computer has calculated the results of the upcoming confrontation. I have fed all significant data into it, and here are its predictions.”
“What does the computer predict?”
“Disaster. Much blood. Many people hurt. Much destruction of property.” Professor Tektodi didn’t seem too unhappy about the prospects.
“But can’t something be done to avert all that?”
“No. It is inevitable.” Professor Tektodi smiled with Oriental fatalism.
The trouble with Oriental fatalism, and the trouble with modern computer technology are the same, Jan-San Relevant reflected. People accept the inevitable and just stop trying—-even when trying might mean survival.
Who is Jonathan Relevant?
He’s a man who believes in trying!
One more piece of the puzzle . . .
“If it’s going to be that bad,” Jan-San Relevant said aloud, “then why do you want to stay here? Why not get out before things get rough?”
“I have to stay with my computer so that I can feed more data into it as events occur.”
Disaster can be a way of life. Some men are never so happy as when they can stand by and measure the flow of lava while the volcano swallows its victims. Is that what Man calls History?
“That’s what we call scientific detachment,” Professor Tektodi added by way of explaining his position.
“Scientific detachment? Is that another name for Hiroshima?” Jan-San Relevant left Professor Tektodi with the thought and continued on into the laboratory of Dr. Shpritzsvet.
Bubbling caldrons, crackling electricity, steaming beakers, whirring machinery—-the scene was Lugosi camp with decor by Dali, Transylvanian clutter with sound effects by a Warhol werewolf, a setting with the feeling of a busy graveyard at midnight when the vampires disengage the stakes from their heartless hearts. In the center of this grade-C Hollywood phantasmagoria, Dr. Shpritzsvet hunched over his calculations and muttered to himself like a frustrated lycanthrope on the verge of an orgasm he can’t quite attain. He scribbled notes, checked calculations, and spewed wordless, Frankensteinian grunts. It was a moment before he looked up blankly and then focused on Jonathan Relevant.
Steinmetz!
That was who popped into the crippled scientist’s mind as he looked upon Jonathan Relevant. It wasn’t so much that Jonathan Relevant looked like the famous hunch-backed genius as that he appeared to be an exaggerated version—-a sympathetic caricature perhaps—of Steinmetz. It was as if both the massive intellect and the physical torture which had defined Steinmetz were magnified in Jonathan Relevant. Unanticipated and strong feelings of warmth and admiration swept over Dr. Shpritzsvet.