by E. O. Costello
A Tale of mad science in six movements, with coda
Movement 2 - Con slancio
Spontoon Island
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| “Sinnessteuersymphonie”
A tale of mad science in six movements, with coda © E.O. Costello, 2008 *****
MOVEMENT SECOND: Con slancio My timing was pretty much spot on. Number Four, with one eye on a discreet time-panel at the foot of the stairs, had a set of chimes in his paw. G-C-G-E, E-G-C-G. G-C-G-E, E-G-C-G. “Ah! Of course an aeroplane pilot would be on time! Good evening, Miss Hunter.” I paused, still about a dozen steps from the bottom. L.D. Forrester was, as you could have guessed, in white tie and tails. For some reason, he was wearing his red goggles, which made him into a bit of a cross between a race-car driver and the conductor of the Philharmonic. For all that, it added a bit of spice. Rather more spice was added by Beta, who was on his arm. She was wearing her head-fur up, and her outfit consisted of what looked like two great interleaved lengths of very thin black silk wound around her from top to bottom in a sheath, and pinned in place with a red rose. Went well with her ornate red crystal tag I’ve mentioned before. The only thing spoiling the effect was the look in her eyes. From yards off, I could sense the truth of the old adage that “two’s company, three’s a crowd,” and she was pretty damn sure who the third wheel was. “Good evening, Mr. Forrester. Good evening, Beta.” Sulky nod from the latter. Briefly noticed by Forrester, who furrowed his brow a bit, and gave his companion a gentle tug with his elbow. “We can watch the sunset from the library window. Quite spectacular, and stimulating for the appetite.” A large wheeled cart had been placed in the library, behind which stood a Kerry Blue. Didn’t look much like any Irish bartender I’d ever seen – he sure wasn’t jolly. Not even a facial twitch. But those paws! Forrester’s martini was mixed in a flash. One thing I thought was interesting was the use of lab glassware, something I’ll bet they never thought of at the Oak Bar. Mein Host’s glass was kept chilled in some sort of container that brought forth a vapor that smelled of juniper berries, a touch I bet they wish they’d thought of at the Oak Bar. Beta had her drink ordered for her by her companion. A “Dagenham,” which turned out to be a V-8 and London dry gin. I ordered up a Bronx. Chilled just right, and probably the first cocktail I’d ever had which could be described as “tasty.” I made it last, though. I could see downing a few of these after outdoor tennis, though. I wondered if they had a court? Much small talk about flowers, starting with the arrangement in my room. Orchids, no surprise, were something close to this deer’s heart. And probably his stomach, too. One of the other interesting touches was the music. This was live music, not recorded, and was coming from the Music Room down the hall. This set Forrester off on another tangent when I commented on it, describing an amusing story of an adventure he had had trying to get tickets one night to the Prussian State Opera, and being the only fur in his section not in dress uniform. Beta confined herself to an occasional nod and interjection of “Master,” accompanied by giving me a penetrating and rather nasty stare when her beau wasn’t looking. The hell with her. I gave them both a pleasant smile, and kept up my end of the conversation. I wasn’t going to let any bad-tempered hussy spoil my evening. Hussy? Where the hell did that come from? *****
The dining room, being on the short end of the “L” from the Day Room, carried over the glass theme, though apparently on solid ground. The long table paralleled the skylights above, and the far end looked out over the ocean front, while the right-paw side looked out over where some of the gardens started. From there, in the distance, the estate’s front gate, which must have been metal, glowed in the moonlight. Well, I think it was the moonlight, anyway. I could be wrong. Behind the seat at the head of the table, and behind the seats flanking that one, stood a slave at attention. We were seated with grave courtesy, and the candelabras were lit. Number Four himself waddled in, and showed a bottle to Forrester, who nodded and then supervised its opening. Satisfied with a taste, he permitted each of us a glass. “It’s a beautiful mansion, Mr. Forrester. There are so many nice things in it.” Forrester looked up from his glass and smiled. “Ah?” “It must have been a lot of hard work to reach this point.” “Oh, indeed. But rather prosaic, really. Have you ever read Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds?” I blinked, then smiled. Lucky cat! Thank the Radcliffe reading list. “A question of reading which way the mass of furs investing is going, and then sensing when you’re supposed to do the opposite, like the South Sea Bubble or the wentletrap?” “So you have read it.” “And I remember my father talking about how things were right after the Great War. He knew a fur who’d shot himself betting wrong on Cuban sugar in ‘21.” “Yes, yes. The years after the war were very good for a fur skilled in reading crowds. Of course, there are other things that know no season, and apply the same techniques.” “No limit Texas hold ‘em?” Forrester raised an eyebrow. “I’m afraid that is not in my within my ken, no. But the principle is much the same if you know baccarat.” “Plus, if you count cards, you shave points from the other guy’s advantage.” Forrester raised the other eyebrow. “You know of such things?” “Knew a girl in college who paid her way by busting two of her daddy’s friends in blackjack one night. They do things in a big way in Beaumont.” “Perhaps Beaumont thinks so. I prefer Cairo, myself. The casino proprietors make the introductions, and from then on, it is player beware. Losses are to be paid promptly, and without threats.” Forrester turned slightly, and gave a soft, tuneful whistle, which made one of the slaves march from the room. In a few minutes, chamber music could be heard from the hall outside. Soft horns and cellos. This was a sort of signal too, since one of the other slaves came in with a large silver tray. With a silver tongs, he served oval shaped pieces of bread laced with tomato, cheese and herbs. Obviously a favourite of Beta’s, since I saw her eyes light up for the first time. Good. Keeps her busy, I thought. “There were two things that allowed me to retire from trade, Miss Hunter. One was the Crash, of course. That was predictable. The other involved a rather reckless Chinese warlord who did not believe in the standard odds on baccarat when standing with a four. It was quite fortunate that he had so many hard-working peasants in his realm.” “And so you could take up your experiments full time.” “Indeed.” I thought I would be clever, so I chanced it. “On criminal detection?” Forrester shook his head. “A worthy effort, Miss Hunter, no doubt gleaned from the selection in my library. Crime does not interest me nearly as much as criminals interest me.” One of the slaves came in to clear the hors d’oeuvres plates. He was followed in by a slinking form that was quite familiar. Forrester scowled, but he pointed to a spot behind his chair and to the left, and threw a bread crust there. Omega hungrily reached for the scrap, and crammed it into her mouth. “Do you believe in nature or nurture, Miss Hunter?” “You mean, what makes a criminal a criminal?” “Yes.” “Some are born criminal, some achieve criminality, and some have crime thrust upon ‘em.” My host leaned back with a smile, while the table was set for soup. Another Beta-driven choice: cream of asparagus. Well, maybe that’s not fair, because Forrester was eating his with vim. “Well, what I mean is, you can have the raw material for a criminal, and what the trigger is to make them a bad guy…I guess it could vary, depending on the bad guy and what he faces.” “An interesting starting point. Indeed, that was the first question I asked myself. To what extent could one predict a fur turning to crime?” “It wouldn’t be easy, would it? The same fur could have his nine-to-five job one day with his kids, and something out of the blue could upset the whole thing. And you don’t know what.” “Yes, quite.” Forrester nodded. “So if the nature versus nurture thing doesn’t work, what do you do? Look at what turns out?” “Ah!” It must have taken a bit for him to turn his attention away from the soup, but I managed to do it. “You’ve touched it with a needle, Miss Hunter. Yes. If you can’t correlate the input, perhaps you can correlate the output. Which required a whole new angle. The study of the criminal brain.” “Talking to criminals?” “No, examining their brains.” I stopped, spoon half-way. Beta was looking at me with interest, seeing if I was going to get sick. I wasn’t going to give her the pleasure. I had the mouthful, and asked the obvious question. “How did you get…well, the raw material?” “Well, fortunately, there are those jurisdictions who believe in the ultimate sanction, providing a ready source to study. Some nations, of course, used the sanction for other ends, which spoiled my data.” Here, Forrester turned, and scowled at Omega, who cringed. Beta curled her lip. She liked that. So far, dinner was fun for her. “With world conditions being what they were, a certain…honorarium…was sufficient to acquire what you gracefully put as the raw material for my studies. It was not long, however, before I realized I was at another dead end, scientifically speaking.” I had some more soup, and thought it over. The topic was a bit gruesome, and yet…hey, let’s face it, it’s no worse than you see in some of the Hearst papers on a Sunday. “But all that study of the brain would have told you a lot of things, you know, about how every fur’s brain works.” “Yes-s-s, indeed. But further data was necessary, which required observations that were, unhappily, not possible at home.” “What kind of observations?” “Oh, of the live brain, of course.” Forrester looked at me closely when he said this, and I could even see his eyes through the goggles. My stomach gave a flip, but after fighting the urge to shiver, I got a lot calmer. “So, you needed a place where furs didn’t ask questions, or write their Congressfur?” Forrester leaned back, satisfied. Beta scowled, unsatisfied. “Yes. It took a great deal of research, time and trouble, but I found a satisfactory venue at last. Here, on Cranium Island.” Cranium Island?! Jiminy, that’s where I ended up? They’ve got a big red border around that part of the charts of the Nimitz Sea. Yeah, he’s right. Communication with other islands is “erratic.” And a lot of furs like it that way. “Folks don’t ask questions, and if they do bother, they’re friendly ones, right?” “In a way. For the most part, few here study quite the same thing. Science is such a broad realm that one can quite happily embark on a course of study, and never cross paths with a colleague. Unless one wishes to, of course.” The soup was finished, and there was a soft whine from behind the buck. He gave a quick, sharp series of whistled notes, and the noise stopped, pronto. The slaves were able to clear the soup plates. I saw, with some interest, that the room had a dumb-waiter connected down below. That must be where the kitchen was, and all the other support areas. Not bad to know. “Of course, it doesn’t do to foul one’s own nest, so I had to import my experimental subjects. You know of Krupmark Island?” “Lively place, only the strong and the quick survive.” “A cogent summary. The weak and the slow, however, provide for a ready source of material, provided that one trains one’s hunters to bring them back alive, as it were.” There was a smell that made my nose twitch and my ears perk. The slave who was serving me placed a covered dish in front of me, and whisked off the lid. It was a poached salmon, a pretty pale pink. The vegetarians were served something that was moulded in the shape of a fish, for appearences’ sake. “You said you weren’t a doctor, though, so you probably had some help?” “Yes, indeed. Fine gentlefur, trained in Budapest. They were not appreciative of some of his more revolutionary theories, and there was the matter of certain peasants on his estate disappearing. No matter. It was he, in the course of my initial researches here, who helped me map the anthrop brain. I flatter myself to say that I know more about that little collection of tissue and nerve than any fur alive today.” “How much of the map is “here there be tigers and monsters?”” “Far too much for my taste, Miss Hunter. Terra Incognita vexes me. I continue to push my researches to this day. Nevertheless, I can tell you, with a fair degree of accuracy, what part of your mind stores what kind of memory. For example, the different parts where you retain your skills as a pilot, and the part that evidences your table manners were instilled in you by somefur who knew her business.” That caused a blush. It’s lucky Mom was a stickler on that point. Rough living grabbing sandwiches and coffee, I guess, hadn’t knocked it completely out of me. Even with fish, which I had done justice to, very quickly. Forrester tossed a large spoonful of his mold toward Omega, who lapped it from the floor. Beta looked like she wanted to toss a spoonful too. At me. “Well, wait a minute. Then your earlier research…you know, looking at the brains of bad guys… wasn’t really a dead end, was it? I mean, if you knew where criminal skills were located in the brain, couldn’t you do something about it?” Forrester turned from Omega, and gave me a crafty smile. “Yes, you anticipate my story. That was my next hypothesis. Locate what made a criminal, a criminal. And then, eliminate it. But how?” Each of us was served a small chilled silver cup, in which a perfect sphere of sorbet nestled on a bed of ice. “I’ll bet you can’t operate on it. No room for error.” “As I found out in my first efforts. Can you think of what else I might have tried?” My host leaned back, forming a tent with his paws. Pop quiz time. It had been a long time since freshman biology, and it took nearly the entire serving of sorbet, before I could answer. “There are a lot of nerve cells in the brain, and nerve cells require electricity. So, somehow, you’d have to use electricity to override the areas you don’t want, and target only those areas.” Forrester took up his spoon with a smile. “For somefur standing outside of science, an admirable answer, which I will accept. Yes, indeed, one requires electricity to override the nervous system. And it must be done well, ere you end up with a palimpsest.” “The criminal underwriting still detectable on the parchment.” Crossword maven, that’s me. “Correct.” He sounded just like one of my professors. “So, naturally, I had to find the starting point. How much of the brain to completely and safely, so to speak, erase. Alas, the methods I had were crude, and required most of the higher functions of the brain to be wiped clean. The result was a fur that was alive, but only biologically speaking.” “So you had to find the missing building blocks to rebuild what you wiped clean.” Forrester looked up as the sorbet was cleared. “I find it interesting that you are making these guesses, Miss Hunter. What was your major in college – you are clearly a college graduate.” “Major in Engineering. Minor in Fine Arts.” The deer thought long about that answer, rubbing his chin. “Intriguing,” he muttered. “Most intriguing.” He was still lost in thought, and Number Four had to present the bottle of red wine twice. It passed muster, and I was given a glass for the meat course, which was thinly sliced, even shaved pieces of filet mignon on a bed of rice. “The building blocks, as you say, would have taken me years to develop, were it not for my colleagues here on the Island. Many of them had undertaken researches, for their own purposes, on the anthrop brain, and they were willing to share.” “Not academics.” “Oh, no. Here on Cranium Island, Progress and Science go paw in paw. We do not let petty selfishness get in the way of Discovery. In any event, it was an eclectic series of data I was given. Most were the practical things, such how to walk, move arms, process visual and aural stimuli, and so forth. The late Dr. Schwarztush had developed a highly useful database of knowledge useful in the practical arts. He was attempting to develop a series of robots that could perform routine work. Unhappily, they were susceptible to electrical storms, which caused their programming to…well. It was fortunate, I think, his death was a quick one. But I was allowed to copy the relevant sections of his lab books. The final piece of the puzzle. It was then that I embarked on Treatment A.” Beta at this point put her fork down, and stopped eating. Omega was a little reluctant to eat, but a tossed baby carrot overcame any fears she had. “A modest success, but sufficient to show that I was on the right track. The subject lived for four weeks, and could weave baskets. Treatment B produced a subject that lived for two months, and could do simple carpentry. Treatment C produced a subject that lived for three months, and could read simple instructions. Each of these treatments ran concurrently, until I reached…Treatment I.” Omega, upon hearing this, gave a prolonged whimper, causing a sharp retort from Forrester. “By sacrificing the skills needed to write and speak coherently, which are among the most sophisticated skills in the brain, and by judiciously arranging the skills vital for the sustaining of life, enough room was created so that a concentrated skill could be implanted into an anthrop mind.” I thought about this. “So you could make somefur an expert, even a genius, in their field, if you had the right building block and data to go into it.” “Exactly.” “And more to the point, you’d have gotten rid of whatever building blocks made them bad. The perfect reformed criminal. And so you’re full circle.” My host paused, and smiled broadly. “Yes, Miss Hunter. You have seen my circle of thought. The perfect reformed criminal. Incapable of recidivism, because their criminal tendencies no longer exist. And yet, productive members of society.” “But you’d have to keep them from developing new criminal tendencies. Sort of like weeding a garden. How do you keep new weeds from sprouting up?” “An interesting image. To use it, the same way a gardener uses herbicide to keep an area clear of weeds, and not incidentally, to allow desired growth without competition. Something that can be done constantly, yet with subtlety.” Something clicked in my head when I heard that word. I put my fork down. “The melody.” Forrester leaned in. “Go on.” “I’ve heard it. There’s a constant, faint melody that you can hear throughout the house. And you must have some way to broadcast it where you want, for when furs are outside of the house. It sounds…well…like this…” I hummed a few bars of it. Beta hissed and put her paws to her ears, and Omega howled. Forrester quickly whistled the melody, loudly, and the noise stopped. “Very close, Miss Hunter, in execution. And correct in theory. Bravo!” He clapped his paws softly, and smiled. “One must be careful with the Control Melody, as it must be precise to achieve the desired effect.” Beta furrowed her brows, and scowled. “But doesn’t that mean, Mr. Forrester, that all of these furs…” I indicated in particular the fur who was clearing the meat course, and the one setting things up for what looked like a fruit mousse. “Criminals all, Miss Hunter. Criminals all. Pardon me for a moment, will you?” He got up and went over to a small cabinet, and removed a file folder and what looked like a photo album. “Number Four is the first entry there.” Number Four had a very nasty-looking mug shot, which featured prominently in a wanted poster. Chicago Mob, thought to have killed a dozen furs with his bare paws. And I’d seen those paws hand me an envelope as meek as you please. Number Eleven, the meek little tailor? So that’s what happened to Moe the Needle, labor racketeer and terror of the Lower East Side. There was a bit of poetic justice. I flipped through the rest of the album, my rice pudding untouched. Arsonists, bank robbers, a pair of Irish bombers (maybe that setter I’d seen in the library), the Muncie Strangler (the canine gardener I’d seen, it seems), and one ex-Fillydelphia City Council President, who was in charge of the septic system. Quite a collection. But not complete. “These furs are all numbered. But you have two lettered furs, don’t you? And one of them can speak.” Beta proved this, by turning to Forrester. “Master!” The voice was urgent and pleading. Her master ignored her. “My experiments continue, as I try to refine the process and eliminate wastage. Beta, here, is my most successful experiment to date in slaves that can vocalize. Alas, she can only speak one word, which limits conversation. But it is a start. For the record, by the way, she killed three husbands for the insurance money.” Lovely. Given the way he treats her, though, I wondered if he was running some sort of risk for #4. It looks like he had her on a tight leash, though. She understood what was said, and looked down at her rice pudding, before shoving it away with her paw. “She remembers?” “The gravity of her crime, yes. A refinement for Treatment J. One should not, after all, wipe all evidence of the crime away. If you did, there would be no penance. I could sense movement behind me. So did Forrester. “Omega!” I turned. Omega, tail between legs, was trying, it seemed, to crawl under the floor. At least that’s how it looked. “Come!” Omega shivered, but otherwise stayed put. “Omega…I command you to come!” Omega swallowed, and turned to face her master, who was leafing through his file. “Do you know what the OGPU is, Miss Hunter?” “Russian secret police, aren’t they?” “Past tense. The name has changed, in part owing to purges of personnel. Such as Olga Petrovna Vilkov. Or, I should say, Colonel Vilkov, should I not, Omega?” The wolf was shivering violently, eyes closed. “Her Treatment J was special. She was not to forget her crimes. How many of those you called “kulaks” did you send to the camps to die, Omega? How many boxcars of Ukrainians died before the final destination was reached, Omega?” Omega turned her head away. “She has not had that portion of her mind wiped, Miss Hunter. Nor should it be. She has been conditioned to remember it, with the same screams that she had ignored with such disdain. Omega! Look!” The buck removed a photograph from the file, and held it in front of Omega, who kept her eyes shut. “Omega! You are commanded to look! Obey!”  Omega opened her eyes for a fraction of a second, enough to take in the photograph held an inch from her face. Tears flowed, and she began to yelp. I reached over, and closed the file. Forrester looked at me, eyebrow raised. “You disagree with the treatment?” Truth be told, I had mixed feelings about the demonstration. “You have made your point, Mr. Forrester. Very clearly. She will never forget what she has done, and how it has made her what she is today.” The chamber music, which had been played throughout the meal, quietly came to a stop. Forrester furrowed his brow, and then took the photograph and replaced it in the file. Retrieving the album from me, he got up, and put both of them back where they came from. “We shall take our coffee in the Music Room, Number Four. Have the full orchestra present in five minutes.” He assisted first Beta, and then myself, out of our chairs, and led us down the hall, as the slaves cleared the last of the plates, and extinguished the candles. I could hear Omega whimpering and crying as the dining room doors were closed behind us. *****
The walk down the hallway was carried out in silence, save for the click of hooves and heels against the marble floor. Looking up ahead, though, I could see a number of the slaves filing into the Music Room, some of whom I recognized and some of whom I didn’t. Turning into the room, I stopped at the doorway, awestruck. The far wall, the one opposite the door to the Music Room, was yet more glass. The lawn and gardens outside were lit by dozens of soft, glowing glass spheres that I hadn’t noticed during the day, giving a vivid splash of colour in the background. In front of the window, on a raised platform, stood row upon row of seats on tiers. What seemed like the entire complement of slaves in the house were seated, each with an instrument in front of them. There must have been nearly eighty seated there, staring straight ahead, muzzles expressionless masks while they tuned their instruments. The floor was highly polished parquet, and there were a few isolated plush sofas that faced the orchestra from some distance. In between, there was a broad space that must have served as a dance floor. But what really stopped me in my tracks was against the right-paw wall. It was an electric organ, one of the biggest I had ever seen, and I’d been at Radio City and the Roxy any number of times. Massive, shining brass pipes, some as thick as battleship cannon, some as slender as a reed, stretched from the console skyward. And I’m not joking. Those pipes were easily three stories tall, so big there was a glass dome above to take it all, lit by rings of small white lights. The console itself was glowing, the light from it fading and getting brighter. The light was synced up to what Forrester called the Control Melody. You could hear it more clearly in this room than in any of the other rooms I’d been in. The keys, dials and levers of the organ were all lit softly from a lamp hanging above the console. “Magnificent.” “Ah. You have a keen eye, Miss Hunter.” Forrester had padded over to where I was standing, probably slack-jawed and glassy-eyed. “It is quite different from what you are used to, is it not?” “I…I’ve felt it.” “Hmm?” “The music. When you play it every so often. It’s how you give orders to your slaves, isn’t it?” “Quite so.” “It’s…it’s like a code machine. That’s how you do it. You’ve got a stereotyped opening for each slave, like a “to” line in a memo. That’s why what you played when I was going down to the tailor’s, and what you played just before my clothes were delivered…that’s why they started off the same. You were addressing the tailor, and then giving him instructions.” Now, the obvious question is: how the hell did I know this? I wouldn’t know a code machine from an Underwood. But going on what I’d known, and what I’d seen and heard…and just looking at the machine, I felt it. I could even feel it through my shoes, beneath me. I could feel it inside my body, inside my head. Forrester strode over to the console. He placed his paws over the keys, and played a series of notes. Number Eleven, the tailor, lifted his head and turned it toward the organ. A short series of notes were played, and the beaver set aside his oboe, stood up, and bowed to me. He then sat down, and readied his oboe again. Yes! I was right! It’s so simple! “Bravo, Miss Hunter. You are very sensitive.” It took me a bit to realize he was talking to me. “That’s how I fly a plane. You have to listen to the engines, the way the engines sound. After a while, you can tell if an engine is out of tune, or if it needs oil, or if it’s about to fail. It becomes second nature. You don’t even have to think about it.” My host’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Intriguing. And yet, perfectly logical.” I managed to turn away from the console, and its softly fading and glowing lights. “Oh! I’m sorry, you must have had some other reason for bringing me here.” “Indeed, Miss Hunter. Shall we dance?” I looked at him. He bowed to me, and offered me a paw. A quick glance over at Beta, who was seated on the sofa, showed the surprise, hurt and anger in her eyes. I was clearly treading on her turf, and both of us knew it. “Come now, you are my guest. It is your privilege to have the first dance of the evening. What do you wish?” I looked down at myself. I sure wasn’t dressed for the Roseland Ballroom. Daddy would have known the answer, of course. He sent me to charm school to learn good posture, how to set a table, and how to dance. I could even hear his voice. No young femme should go through life without knowing how to waltz. But the other boys step on my feet. Why do I have to learn it, Daddy? You’ll find out when the time comes, kitten. Those mels won’t always be awkward. Daddy was a Wall Street lawyer. He had all the answers, and damned if he wasn’t right again. “A waltz, please.” This was met with a broad smile. Turning to the orchestra, he gave a simple command: “Lava-Ströme, Opus 74.” With that, he held me, and we started to dance to an explosion of music. Forrester was evidently well-trained. I didn’t even have to think about the steps. They simply happened. Or so it seemed to me, anyway. Superb! To think that such an orchestra exists here, and for one’s own amusement! It’s funny. Even when I’ve danced with good-looking mels to the beat of a really hot swing band, I’d never been caught up in the moment. Forrester knew his stuff. Host with the most. “Miss Hunter?” Oh. The music. It had stopped. I was standing in the middle of the dance floor.. Forrester was looking over me with an amused expression. More slack-jawed wonder. Very swift, Allie. Way to show your sophistication. “I…need to sit down, Mr. Forrester.” “Of course, Miss Hunter. You are obviously moved by the music.” In ways that I couldn’t begin to describe. I had to find the sofa with a shaking paw. “Beta, will you have this dance with me?” There was a long silence, and I looked over. Beta had not moved from her sofa, and she had her paws firmly in her lap. “I am sorry, Beta, I must not have spoken clearly. Please have this dance with me.” Beta was staring straight head. “Beta, do not be stubborn. Come here.” No movement. Forrester put his paws behind his back and frowned. “Beta, come here at once. I command it.” The rabbit looked up briefly, as if acknowledging the order, but stayed seated. “I am growing impatient with you, Beta. This is no way to act in front of a guest. I command you to come.” Beta folded her paws across her chest. “Command 7246.” Beta stood straight up, and then fell to her knees, her lepine ears flattening. Her eyes quivered, but held steady. “Command 7246.” She began to shake and she threw back her shoulders, but she still didn’t move. Forrester drew in his breath. “Command 7246.” With a gasp, Beta staggered to her feet. “Master!” She stumbled over to where the deer stood. “You embarrass me, Beta. I am greatly displeased. Begone. We shall discuss this in the Day Room tomorrow morning.” “Master…” “I hear you, Beta. But we shall discuss this tomorrow. Until then.” Beta turned away from her master, and padded softly from the room. I think it was the first time I’d seen her anything but proud. Forrester walked over to the console, and played a few short notes. The orchestra members put away their instruments and filed out. In a few minutes, we were all alone. “You played the dismissal. Please, I’m sorry, Mr. Forrester. I didn’t mean to upset Beta and…” Forrester held up a paw. “Your conduct has been without reproach, Miss Hunter. I am sure your family would have been pleased. I am pleased.” Wonderful! Yeah, but…why do I feel like that? Call it the gear-jockey in me, but I couldn’t stop looking at the console. “What do those pipes, the ones leading down to the floor, do?” “Ah! Those lead down to the Babbage Engine and the Tesla Sphere. Come, have a look.” There was a trap door in the floor, and Forrester turned on a worklight and lifted the panel. Peering down, I could see that the pipes ran down the wall, and then connected to some tall brass boxes. The boxes had glass fronts, and inside, I could see huge steel gears turning slowly, surrounded by smaller steel gears and flywheels. From the top of the box, thin glowing wires that pulsed like the console snaked away to the ceiling. I could see all of this clearly, because there was a large blue, spinning globe that cast a brilliant light. Hey! I wonder if I could rig one of those up in a plane! A paw was laid gently on my shoulder. “Do be careful how far you lean in. And mind your dress.” Oh. Yeah. More sophistication from the great Allie. Good thing there wasn’t a wrench to paw, I’d have been down there taking things apart to see how they work. “You have never seen a Babbage Engine?” “Not like that, no. How small can you make one of those…what is it, Tesla Sphere, you said?” “Oh, one as small as an orange will power a motor car. Though a dampener would be required. Knowledge from a failed experiment that I saw earlier this year. Not far off shore, you will find a rather damp Dusenberg. My colleague was frightfully upset by the matter. It’s very hard to get a quality Tesla Sphere that small. $2 million, and that’s if you can find the materials. But I disappoint you.” “No, no. I’m just, well...” “You are intrigued by machinery. And, I think, have an innate grasp of their mysteries. Here, come and have a seat at the console. Don’t be afraid. Come. There.” “This brings back memories. There’s even a metronome.” “Sentimentality on my part.” He set it in motion. “I promise I won’t rap your knuckles.” I looked at the various layers of keys, and the multiple pedals and knobs. They bore labels, all right, but most of them were abstract symbols. “You hesitate.” I looked up at Forrester. He was looking at me keenly through his tinted goggles. “Something I was taught in flying school. If you don’t know how a machine works, don’t operate it. This…well, it’s hooked up to everything and everyfur in the mansion, isn’t it?” “All but two, Miss Hunter. The two of us.” I paused again. Go on, a few bars won’t hurt you. “You’re afraid you might hurt a slave, even accidentally.” I nodded. Couldn’t look him in the eye, even if it was the truth. He put a paw on my shoulder. “It is quite all right, Miss Hunter. It is a just motive. Will you move over, slightly?” I did, and the buck sat down next to me. I could feel his bulk a fraction of inch from me. He flicked a few switches, and placed his paws on the console. The massive pipe system, far from deafening me, produced a soft thrumming noise. It took only a few bars to recognize the tune. “Tea for Two.” Somewhere, a Red Sox fan is screaming. Forrester had such a delicate touch. He hardly seemed to press down on the keys, and they sprang to life. A mere flex of the knee, and the pedals did his bidding. No hesitation, no pauses. No missed notes. The last time I’d felt this way was a party I was at, where a fur passed around some rare old cognac. Funny, though. The music went straight to my head, and not anywhere else. It was gentle and warm, and I could feel my body relax. My brain was whirring. I could even see the notes spinning in front of me. How…that’s it. Just like the news “zipper” on the Times Building. One note after another, following in logical progression. Naturally. Logical. Orderly. Unlike so much. Too much. As the notes died away, I opened my eyes. I was holding out my paws just as my piano teacher had taught me years ago. Old reflex action. Very old, I hadn’t done that in years. My host smiled, and flipped the switches again. Soon, the only sound was the Control Melody murmuring in the background. “I am glad, Miss Hunter, that you will able to join us for dinner tomorrow night. I have every reason to believe my companions will find you…fascinating. As much as I do.” Where I expected a blush, only a smile and a slight toss of the head-fur. “Likewise, Mr. Forrester. I have much to learn from you and your companions.” Wait, what? “Perhaps. You will excuse me, Miss Hunter. I must update my log books with some fresh data.” “Of course, I would not dream of detaining you. Tomorrow morning, then?” “Indeed.” We both got up, and I held out my paw. Forrester kissed it, smiled, and then walked away, leaving the room. I used the same paw he kissed to caress the gleaming metal and wood of the organ. Warm to the touch, just as if it were alive and breathing. No one had touched the biscuits left with the cheese and wine, so I took a few with me. As I left, the room automatically darkened, leaving only the pulsing, living glow of the mighty instrument, watching me. *****
The little panel at the base of the stairs showed this it was about half-past ten. Well, I didn’t want to find out if my gown would turn into rags. No glass slippers, either. The lights had been turned off, except for some indirect lighting along the base of the wall. From where I stood, far down the hall, I could see the Day Room. Locked, I remembered. Pity. I wonder what Cranium Island looks like at night? It was actually pretty lonely, with the only sound being the Control Melody that I could hear. I’d gotten a lot better at picking it out. It was actually quite pleasant. If I focused on it, I got a little burst of warmth. And it was getting easier and easier to focus on it. I paused mid-way up the Grand Staircase, and looked up at the skylights. It was amazing, the sheer amount of glass that Forrester had put in his mansion. It cut against every stereotype of Mads that you see in the movies, with dark, gloomy mansions. This place, on the other paw, was like a magnificent ocean liner, and I’ll bet the boys at Canard would absolutely kill for the chance to show off something like this. Was Forrester lonely? He certainly let me talk a lot at dinner. But he also talked a lot, and about things that would have gotten him sent up the river in a shot had he been home in Hartford. Not even Daddy’s firm would have been able to get him off. But I knew a lot, now. It’s like the Weimerarner Bros. pictures. “She knows too much…take her…for a ride.” That made me shiver all over. I had to focus on the Melody to take the chill away. A party. In a way, it sounds like fun. And I have pretty things to wear, too. Maybe if I’m nice, he won’t hurt me. Right? The top of the Grand Staircase was a little bit dark, so it took me a second to pick out the form that was there. There, in the hallway corner, was a bright yellow eye-shine, catching the light from the skylight up and away. There was probably only one fur that would be here at this hour, and crouched like that. “Hello, Omega.” Omega backed into the corner. I could just make out that her hackles were up, but her teeth weren’t bared. I crouched down a little. “It’s all right, I won’t yell at you.” Her ears flattened, and she turned her head a little away, but she could still see me quite clearly. I had the biscuits I’d taken from the Music Room in my paw, and I held out one. “Are you hungry, Omega? Here…” I could definitely pick out an intake of breath, and her nostrils did flare. She could see the biscuit, and smell it. But she still didn’t go for it. “Look, it’s good. See?” I broke off a corner and ate it in front of her. She watched me swallow it, and lifted a paw from the floor, hesitantly. “I have a few of these. Come on, it’s all right…” Omega raised her ears and swiveled them around, trying to detect any sounds other than the ones the two of us were making. I guess she didn’t hear any, because she raised her paw slowly. At the last second, she snatched the biscuit from my paw, and crammed it into her mouth, gobbling it. I waited until she was finished, and held out a second biscuit. She didn’t sniff at this, but merely lifted a paw and looked at me. “Sure, you can have it. It’s okeh.” The second biscuit went the way of the first, at speed. I moved in a step or two closer, and offered a third biscuit. This time, she didn’t grab it, but reached out for it. I put it in her paw, and she closed her grasp. This one went more slowly. “Last one, Omega, I’m sorry. I wish I had brought more for you.” I was close enough to see Omega’s face now, and her eyes turned a little moist. I handed her the biscuit, and she turned away from me while eating it. I reached out with my paw, and she started, suddenly. I think it’s one of the few times in my life that I’ve seen real terror and fear in an anthrop. It told me a lot about what she’d gone through. I had mixed emotions. Even if everything that Forrester had told me was true about her past – and let’s face it, the Soviet Secret Police isn’t like our guys back home with their silly campaign hats and white gloves – it seemed a pretty miserable existence. Not just going around with nothing on but a collar, and a slave collar at that, but being bullied by even another slave, like I’d seen that morning in the Day Room, when Omega had been yanked out by her collar. It didn’t take much to imagine what had prompted the yelps I’d heard. I’d known a lot of types like that, having gone to boarding school and Radcliffe. Give somefur on the low end of the totem pole a little power, and just watch what happens to those at the bottom. Beta probably takes everything she gets, whatever humiliation she feels, and gives it to Omega, probably in spades. Don’t get me wrong. Sob-sister stuff bores me stiff. But you know, I hated those little bitches that I saw swaggering around, and whacking furs from lower forms with hockey sticks just because they could. Beta was starting to remind me of them, down to the nasty little glares and petty jealousy. What would she have thought of me giving Omega a little sympathy and comfort? Who cares? I didn’t move my paw, just held it there. Omega, after looking at the paw, realized it wasn’t going to reach out and slap her, or grab her collar and yank. She didn’t move a muscle when my paw stretched out slowly, and reached for her headfur and ears. And stroked them. God only knows when was the last time she had had that feeling. My guess was between Beta, Forrester and her ex-employers, it had been years, and pretty hellish ones at that. This place had more marble, brass and mahogany, but it was still a Lubianka for all that. Omega closed her eyes as I moved my paw. She leaned in a little, trying to get everything she could out of it. Sort of like a fur dying of thirst lapping up every drop. It may have been only two or three minutes out of my evening, but who knows how long it felt for her? I got up, and moved toward my room. Looking back after a few steps, I could see Omega looking at me. She was, of course, on all fours, with one paw slightly in the air, as if she wanted to take a step toward me, but was hesitating. I stopped, and waited. Omega put her paw down, and crawled a step. I continued to wait, and she crawled another step. Only when she was at my heels, did I start walking again, slowly, so she could keep up. Thirty-Four A and Thirty-Four B were seated patiently in my room when I entered. They stood, and curtsied to me. If they noticed Omega, or were able to notice her, they didn’t give any evidence of it. Thirty-Four B went to heat some water, and I stood in front of Thirty-Four A, who began to unzip my dress and remove it. I looked over and saw Omega, who was all curiousity, head tilted and ears perked. That caused a blush, from ear tip down to throat. I started to cover myself. Omega lowered her head on her paws and closed her eyes. Which proved that perhaps the borders of her conditioning were a bit elastic…or had never been tried. Thirty-Four A removed the rest of my things, and I was given a sponge-bath by Thirty-Four B, which actually felt very nice. God, how many nights I wish I had had this, after dealing with some damn infernal THING out of Pratt & Whitney. Of course, listening to the Control Melody in the background helped, too. I was as warm on the inside from that, as the sponge bath from the outside. I barely noticed as one of the Thirty-Fours slipped my negligee on, and the other started brushing my head-fur. I was feeling very good when I opened my eyes, so when I saw that Omega was still lying on the hard floor (but peeking with one eye), I could do only one thing: I laughed. “Thirty-Four A, fetch two spare blankets and a spare pillow, and spread them on the floor there.” Omega looked up, startled, to hear that. Thirty-Four A merely curtsied, left the room, and returned a minute later with the things I had ordered. She spread them mechanically. Maybe she thought I was going to sleep there, I don’t know. The two setters stood, paws folded in front of them, feathery tails swishing slowly. “Thank you. Your work was satisfactory. You are dismissed.” Say…hunh? I don’t think Mom ever talked like that, and we did have a maid or two… The two curtsied in unison, and left, closing the door behind them. Omega had gathered the blankets about, making a sort of bunched nest. Her neck was slightly stretched out and rested on the pillow. The bed itself was quite inviting, having been turned down just so. I thought about reading a little more Wodechuck, but the evening had been a pretty eventful one. I kept coming back to the point where I was sitting next to Forrester while he played the organ. Beautiful, delicate fingers. And how they moved across the keys so gently, pressing softly… I realized Omega had lifted her head, and was staring at me curiously. I thought it best to reach my paw out toward the small sphere that was shedding light. Just as I reached it, it slowly faded, putting the room in soft darkness. “Good night, Omega. Sleep well.” *****
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