The Astral Mirror (19 page)

“There aren’t any new ideas,” Al said from up near the office’s padded ceiling. “The whole human race’s creative talents have run dry.” His voice had gotten rather brittle with age. Snappish.

“I know I can’t think of anything new anymore,” Frank said. He began to drift off his desk chair, pushed himself down and fastened the lap belt.

“Don’t worry, ol’ buddy. We’ll be hearing from New Stratford one of these days.”

Frank looked up at his partner. “We’d better. The project is costing us every cent we have.”

“I know,” Al answered. “But the Shakespeare’s World exhibit is pulling in money, isn’t it? The new hotels, the entertainment complex...”

“They’re all terribly expensive. They’re draining our capital. Besides, that boy in New Stratford is a very expensive proposition. All those actors and everything.”

“Willie?” Al’s youthful grin broke through his aging face. “He’ll be okay. Don’t worry about him. I supervised that DNA reconstruction myself. Finally got a chance to use my ol’ college education.”

Frank nodded thoughtfully.

“That DNA’s perfect,” Al went on, “right down to the last hydrogen atom.” He pushed off the ceiling with one hand and settled slowly down toward Frank, at the desk. “We’ve got an exact copy of William Shakespeare—at least, genetically speaking.”

“That doesn’t guarantee he’ll write Shakespeare-level plays,” Frank said. “Not unless his environment is a faithful reproduction of the original Shakespeare’s. It takes an
exact
reproduction of both genetics and environment to make an exact duplicate of the original.”

“So?” Al said, a trifle impatiently. “You had a free hand. A whole damned planet to play with. Zillions of dollars. And ten years’ time to set things up.”

“Yes, but we knew so little about Shakespeare’s boyhood when we started. The research we had to do!”

Al chuckled to himself. It sounded like a wheezing cackle. “Remember the look on the lawyers’ faces when we told ‘em we had to sign the actors to lifetime contracts?” Frank smiled back at his partner. “And the construction crews, when they found out that their foremen would be archeologists and historians?”

Al perched lightly on the desk and worked at catching his breath. Finally he said, more seriously, “I wish the kid would hurry up with his new plays, though.”

“He’s only fifteen,” Frank said. “He won’t be writing anything for another ten years. You know that. He’s got to be apprenticed, and then go to London and get a job with...”

“Yeah, yeah.” Al waved a bony hand at his partner.

Frank muttered, “I just hope our finances will hold out for another ten years.”

“What? Sure they will.”

Frank shrugged. “I hope so. This project is costing us every dollar we take from the tourists on Shakespeare’s World, and more. And our income from reruns is dropping out of sight.”

“We’ve got to hang on,” Al said. “This is bigger than anything we’ve ever done, ol’ buddy. It’s the biggest thing to hit the industry since... since 1616. New plays. New originals, written by Shakespeare. Shakespeare! All that talent and creativity working for us!”

“New dramatic scripts.” Frank’s eyes glowed. “Fresh ideas. Creativity reborn.”

“By William Shakespeare,” Al repeated.

Year: 2059 A.D.

NOBEL PRIZE FOR THINKING: Mark IX of Tau Ceti Computer Complex, for correlation of human creativity index with living space

ALL-INCLUSIVE SHOWBIZ AWARD:
The Evening News

PULITZER PRIZE FOR REWRITING:
The Evening News

Neither Al nor Frank ever left their floater chairs anymore, except for sleeping. All day, every day, the chairs buoyed them, fed them intravenously, monitored their aging bodies, pumped their blood, worked their lungs, reminded them of memories that were fading from their minds.

Thanks to modern cosmetic surgery their faces still looked reasonably handsome and taut. But underneath their colorful robes they were more machinery than functional human bodies.

Al floated gently by the big observation port in their old office, staring wistfully out at the stars. He heard the door sigh open and turned his chair slowly around.

There was no more furniture in the office. Even the awards they had earned through the years had been pawned to the Hall of Fame, and when their creditors took over the Hall, the awards went with everything else.

Frank glided across the empty room in his chair. His face was drawn and pale.

“They’re still not satisfied?” Al asked testily. “Thirty-seven grandchildren, between us,” Frank said. “I haven’t even tried to count the great-grandchildren. They all want a slice of the pie. Fifty-eight lawyers, seventeen ex-wives... and the insurance companies! They’re the worst of the lot.”

“Don’t worry, ol’ buddy. They can’t take anything more from us. We’re bankrupt.”

“But they still...” Frank’s voice trailed off. He looked away from his old friend.

“What? They still want more? What else is there? You haven’t told them about Willie, have you?”

Frank’s spine stiffened. “Of course not. They took Shakespeare’s World, but none of them know about Will himself, and his personal contract with us.”

“Personal
exclusive
contract.”

Frank nodded, but said, “It’s not worth anything, anyway. Not until he gets some scripts to us.”

“That ought to be soon,” Al said, forcing his old optimistic grin. “The ship is on its way here, and the courier aboard said he’s got ten plays in his portfolio. Ten plays!”

“Yes. But in the meantime...”

“What?”

“It’s the insurance companies,” Frank explained. “They claim we’ve both exceeded McSwayne’s Limit and we ought to be terminated.”

“Pull our plugs? They can’t force...”

“They can, Al. I checked. It’s legal. We’ve got a month to settle our debts, or they turn off our chairs and... we die.”

“A month?” Al laughed. “Hell, Shakespeare’s plays will be here in a month. Then we’ll show ‘em!”

“If...” Frank hesitated uncertainly. “If the project has been a success.”

“A success? Of course, it’s a success! He’s writing plays like mad. Come on, ol’ buddy. With your reproduction of his environment and my creation of his genes, how could he be anybody else except William goddam’ Shakespeare? We’ve got it made, just as soon as that ship docks here.”

The ship arrived exactly twenty-two days later. Frank and Al were locked in a long acrimonious argument with an insurance company’s computer-lawyer over the legal validity of a court-ordered termination notice, when their last remaining servo-robot brought them a thick portfolio of manuscripts.

“Buzz off, tin can!” Al chortled happily and flicked the communicator switch off before the computer could object.

With trembling hands, Frank opened the portfolio. Ten neatly bound manuscripts floated out weightlessly. Al grabbed one and opened it. Frank took another one.
“Henry VI, Part One.”

“Titus Andronicus!”

“The Two Gentlemen from Verona...”

Madly they thumbed through the scripts, chasing them all across the weightless room as they bobbed and floated through the purified air. After fifteen frantic minutes they looked up at each other, tears streaming down their cheeks.

“The stupid sonofabitch wrote the same goddam’ plays all over again!” Al bawled.

“We reproduced him exactly,” Frank whispered, aghast. “Heredity, environment... exactly.”

Al pounded the communicator button on his chair’s armrest.

“What... what are you doing?” Frank asked.

“Get me the insurance company’s medics,” Al yelled furiously. “Tell ‘em to come on up here and pull my goddam’ plug!”

“Me too!” Frank shouted with unaccustomed vehemence. “And tell them not to make any clones of us, either!”

Nosing the car through the growling traffic down Memorial Drive, autos clustered thick and sullen as Bombay thieves, the Charles River looking clear in the morning sunlight, the golden dome of the Capitol sparkling up on Beacon Hill, the sky a perfect Indian blue.

The temple of gold.

—What?—

Charlie’s a perfect Higgenbottom type: capable in a limited way, self-centered, basically stupid.

The golden temple, I repeat.

—Oh, the Capitol. It’s a wonder the goddam politicians haven’t stolen
that
yet—

A Fiat bulging with bearded Harvard Square types cuts in front of us. I hit the brakes and Charlie lurches and grumbles—goddam hippies. They oughtta get a job—

They’re in the morning traffic. Maybe they have jobs.

—Yeah. Undercutting some guy who’s been working twenty years and has a family to support—

It was on the Late Show again last night, did you see it?

—See what?—

Gunga Din.
The movie. Cary Grant. Doug Fairbanks, Jr., Victor McLaglen...

—What? They have that on again?—

It’s the best movie Hollywood ever made. It has everything: golden temple, elephants, cavalry charges, real heroes. They don’t make movies like that any more. Can’t.

—They must have it on the Late Show every week—

No, it’s been months since they showed it. I check
TV Guide
every week to make sure.

Charlie looks a little surprised, startled. Just like Higgenbottom when Cary Grant dropped that kilted Scottie corporal out the window.

I’ll bet I’ve seen that movie thirty times, at least. I know every line of it, just about. They cut it terribly on television. Next time there’s a Cary Grant film festival in New York I’m going down to see it. All of it. Without cuts.

Charlie says nothing.

We inch along, crawling down the Drive as slowly as the waterboy himself. I can see him, old Sam Jaffe all blacked over, heavy goatskin waterbag pulling one shoulder down, twisting his whole skinny body. White turban, white breechcloth. Staggering down the grassy walk alongside the Drive, keeping pace with us. If they made the movie now, they’d have to use a real Negro for the part. Or an Indian. For the guru’s part, too. No Eduardo Cianelli.

We turn off at the lab. There are guards at the gates and more guards standing around in the parking lot. The lab building is white and square and looming, like Army headquarters—an oasis of science and civilization in the midst of the Cambridge slum jungles.

Even in uniform the guards look sloppy. They ought to take more pride in themselves. We drive past them slowly, like the colonel reviewing the regiment. The regimental band is playing
Bonnie Charlie.
The wind is coming down crisply off the mountains, making all the pennants flutter.

—Stockholders’ meeting today. They’re worried about some of these student protesters kicking up a rumpus.—

McLaglen would straighten them out. That’s what they need, a tough sergeant major.

This time Charlie really looks sour.—McLaglen! You’d better come back into the real world. It’s going to be a long day.—

For you, I say to myself. Accountant, paper shuffler. Money juggler. The stockholders will be after you. Not me. They don’t care what I do, as long as it makes money. They don’t care who it kills, as long as it works right and puts numbers in the right columns of your balance sheets.

The air-conditioning in my office howls like a wind tunnel. It’s too cold. Be nice to have one of those big lazy fans up on the ceiling.

—Got a minute?—

Come on in, Elmer. What’s the matter, something go wrong downstairs?

—Naw, the lab’s fine. Everything almost set up for the final series. Just got to calibrate the spectrometer.—

But something’s bothering you.

—I was wondering if I could have some time off to attend the stockholders’ meeting—

Today? I didn’t know you were a stockholder.

—Five shares.—

He’s black. He’s always seemed like a good lab technician, a reasonable man. But could he be one of them?

—I never been to a stockholders’ meeting.—

Oh sure. You can go. But... we’re not allowed to talk about PMD. Understand?

—Yeah, I know.—

Not that it’s anything we’re ashamed of—military security.

—Yeah I know.—

Good military form. Good regimental attitude. We’ve got to stand together against the darkness.

Elmer nods as he leaves, but I don’t think he really understands. When the time comes, when the Thugees rise in rebellion, which side will he join?

I wonder how I’d look in uniform? With one of those stiff collars and a sergeant’s stripes on my sleeves. I’m about as tall as Grant, almost. Don’t have his shoulders, though. And this flabby middle—ought to exercise more.

Through my office window I can see the world’s ugliest water tower, one of Cambridge’s distinguishing landmarks. Mountains, that’s what should be out there. The solid rock walls of the Himalayas. And the temple of gold is tucked in them somewhere. Pure gold! Din was telling the truth. It’s all gold. And I’m stuck here, like Cary Grant in the stockade. Get me out of here, Din. Get me out.

—Please, sahib, don’t take away bugle. Bugle only joy for poor
bhisti.—

He only wants to be one of us. Wants to be a soldier, like the rest of us. A bugler. McLaglen would laugh at him. Fairbanks would be sympathetic. Let him keep the bugle. He’s going to need it.

—Tonight, when everyone sleeping. I go back to temple.—

Not now, Din. Not now. Got some soldiering to do. Down in the lab. Test out the new batch of PMD. A soldier’s got to do his duty.

The phone. Don’t answer it. It’s only some civilian who wants to make trouble. Leave it ringing and get down to the lab. Wife, sister, mother, they’re all alike. Yes, I’m a man, but I’m a soldier first. You don’t want a man, you want a coward who’d run out on his friends. Well, that’s not me and never was... No, wait—that’s Fairbanks’ speech. He’s Ballantine. And who was the girl? Olivia de Haviland or her sister?

The halls are crawling with stockholders. Fat and old. Civilians. Visiting the frontier, inspecting the troops. We’re the only thing standing between you and the darkness, but you don’t know it. Or if you do, you wouldn’t dare admit it.

The lab’s always cold as ice. Got to keep it chilled down. If even a whiff of PMD gets out...