The Ninth Configuration (5 page)

March 23. Kane was sitting at his desk when Groper burst in upon him, a letter in his hand.

“Look at this, sir.” Groper handed Kane the letter, retaining the envelope. “Colonel, read that. Would you read that?”

Kane looked down at the typewritten letter. He read:

To my darling, my dearest, my flaming secret love: How I’ve hungered for this moment when I might tear away the mask and unburden my aching, bleeding heart. My sweetest, I saw you but an instant; a semi-instant; yet I knew I was your slave. Wondrous creature, I adore you! You are

sandalwood from Nineveh, you are truffles from the Moon! In my dreams I am a madman! Yes! I rip away your dress, and then your bra, and then your glasses, and I-

Kane looked up from the letter. “What is the point of this, Major Groper?”

“Look at the signature, sir,” said Groper, quelling his uneasiness in

Kane’s presence. The signature was “Major Marvin Groper.” Beneath it was a postscript that stated: “You know where to find me, baby.” There followed the telephone number of the center.

“Sir, I got phone call after phone call this morning from broads who got letters like this one,” Groper ranted.

Kane held up the letter. “Where did you get this?” he asked.

“Well, some of them—”

“Some of whom?”

“Well, I mean, these women, sir.”

“Which women?”

“Well, they happened to come by here today and they—”

“ ‘Happened’?”

“Well, no, sir; I asked them-the ones with nice voices- and—”

“Groper?”

“They’re ugly, sir! Ugly as sin!” erupted Groper in a sudden release of frustration and anger. “And I think that the bastard who wrote all those letters needs some kind of punishment and restriction!”

“Who wrote them?”

“Look at the envelope, Colonel.” Groper set it down in front of him.

“There’s only one mind here that would have done this!”

The address on the envelope looked carbonish and blurred and it gave the impression of being part of a mass commercial mailing. The addressee was designated simply as “Occupant.”

“Sir, you’ve got to talk to him!” Groper was extremely distraught.

Kane said, “All right. I’ll see him. Bring him to me.”

Both sides of the inmates’ dormitory were neatly lined with wash basins, cots and footlockers. In the aisle between them, Cutshaw paced back and forth nervously while some of the men wrote more letters. Fairbanks approached him, holding one in his hand. “This is a classic,” he said. “Does the best one get a prize?”

“Leslie, heaven will reward you,” Cutshaw said moodily.

“I think we should have some kind of incentive.”

“Leslie Morris, I just gave you one.”

“Your incentive reeks of socialism. Freaking creeping socialism.”

Fairbanks’ hand flew swiftly to his sword.

“You’d draw your sword on Captain Billy?”

“I am merely holding the hilt.”

A breathless Reno had burst into the dormitory and now irrupted between them. “Captain Billy, I saw it again!”

“Saw what again?”

“The owl that talks to Groper. It wears a party hat; you can’t miss it.”

“Go to Titus Andronicus, “ Cutshaw growled. “Star in it. Bake yourself in a pie.”

“That’s blasphemy!”

Reno saw Groper bearing down on Cutshaw from behind, and pointing imperiously at Cutshaw, he demanded of Groper: “Guard! Seize him!”

“The Man in the Iron Mask,” snapped Cutshaw. When he turned and saw Groper, he beamed with pleasure. “Damn well about time,” he said.

Groper led Cutshaw to the office and Kane confronted him with the letter addressed to “Occupant.” “Did you write it?” he asked.

“Are we going to have a scene, Hud?” Cutshaw spread-eagled his arms in a sacrificial gesture, a forearm striking Groper’s face. “Yes! I wrote the letter! Now shoot me for giving the spinster hope! Love to the loveless! Depravity to the deprived! Never mind the space race, Hud! Feed me to the giant ants! Go ahead! Make widows of five hundred pen pals!”

“Purely a pleasure,” breathed Groper.

Cutshaw leaned in closer to Kane, and lowered his voice to a whisper.

“Sir, I’ve noticed an exotic odor in here, and being as you’re a colonel, sir, it’s got to be Major—”

Groper moved in to him menacingly and Cutshaw leaped behind Kane, shouting, “Don’t let him touch me! I’m crazy!”

“Sure you’re crazy!” Groper moved on Cutshaw again.

“Groper!” Kane said firmly.

Groper halted. “Yes, sir!”

Cutshaw bent over in the posture of a hunchback and croaked in a coarsened, Slavic voice, “Hah! Dey try to kill Igor! But Igor still live and now dey dead!” The astronaut swayed a bit.

Groper advanced again.

“Major Groper!”

“Yes, sir!” Groper stopped. He was quivering visibly. His eyes were scarlet streaks.

“Have you been drinking?” Kane asked quietly.

Groper shouted, “Yes!” He was hysterical.

“Try to control yourself, Major.”

“But my God, you should have seen those broads! Ugly! Ugly! Jesus Christ!”

Kane stood up. “Major Groper—”

The room trembled with the vibration of a hammer blow and Groper turned pale. “Where did he get it?” he yipped. He turned fiery eyes on Cutshaw. “You! You got it for him!” Groper saw the look in Kane’s eyes, the force. He quivered with helplessness and frustration, then verged on tears. “He can keep it!” he quavered, backing out of the room. “You hear? He can keep the fucking thing! He can keep it!” Groper fled from the office.

Cutshaw stared after him, eyebrows furrowed. “Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch,” he said softly. He turned, hearing Kane on the phone with Fell.

“Do what you can with him,” Kane was saying. He was sitting down. “A sedative, perhaps. But watch him.” He paused, then said, “No-not an ice pack.” He hung up the phone.

Cutshaw prowled over to the desk. “Are you Gregory Peck?” he demanded.

“What’s the story?”

Kane did not answer.

Cutshaw’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Proud ox, we will teach you the error of false pride.” He whipped a document out of his pocket and pressed it flat on the desk in front of Kane, and demanded: “Here, sign this confession, Hud! Or Greg! Or Tab! Or whoever you are!”

Kane looked at the paper and remarked, “This is blank.”

“Of course it’s blank,” growled Cutshaw. “I’m still not certain who you are. Look, I’m doing this for Reno,” he explained. “Just sign and we’ll fill it in later. Go ahead,” he advised. “Plead the mercy of the court. Kangaroos can be kind. Kangaroos are not all bad. Just sign it so we can show it to Reno and then maybe we can all get a little bit of peace.”

“If I sign it, will you make a confession too?”

“I’m listening.”

“Why won’t you go to—”

Before he could finish the question, Cutshaw roared, “Silence when you’re speaking to me!” Then he took a step back and looked portentous. “I know who you are,” he warned.

“Who am I?”

“You’re an unfrocked priest.” Cutshaw flung himself onto the couch and sprawled on his back. He said, “I want you to hear my confession, Father No-Face.”

Kane said softly, “I’m not a priest.”

“Then who the hell are you?”

For a moment Kane stared like a man recollecting something unexpected.

He touched his collar lightly.

“I’m Colonel Kane.”

“You’re Gregory Peck, you dumb ass; don’t let anyone talk you out of it! See, if you’re captured they’ll try to do that brainwashing crap and make you think that you’re Adolphe Menjou or maybe even Warren Beatty. Now me, I would love to be Warren Beatty!”

“I don’t see why,” said Kane.

“Of course you don’t see why! You’re Gregory Peck!”

“I see.”

“Like hell. You patronizing snot.” Abruptly, Cutshaw sat up on the couch. “You aren’t Gregory Peck at all; you’re an unfrocked priest,” he accused with contempt. “Incidentally, old padre, I’ve got some rather disquieting news for you: I can prove that there’s a Foot…. Would you like me to do it for you now or would you prefer to wire the Pope before I talk to Associated Press? Because once that happens, Hud, I warn you, there won’t be frocks to go around. Better put yours on now so they’ll think you’re sincere.”

“I would like to hear your proof.”

“Put on the frock, Hud. I don’t want to see you hurt.”

“Let me hear the proof.”

“You crazy, stubborn kid, Hud. Don’t come sniveling to me later when you can’t get a job cleaning altars.” Cutshaw stood up and began to pantomime tennis serves. “Have you ever heard of ‘entropy’? Say it’s a race horse and I’ll maim you.”

“It is related,” said Kane, “to a law of thermodynamics.”

“Pretty slick there, Hud. Maybe too slick for your own damn good. Now where am I heading?” demanded Cutshaw.

“You tell me.”

“To where the universe is heading. To a final, final heat death. Do you know what that is? Well, Hud, I’ll tell you. I am Morris the Explainer. It’s a basic foos of physics, an irreversible basic foos, that one of these days, by and by, the whole damn party will be over. In about three billion years every particle of matter in the entire universe will be totally disorganized. Random, totally random. And once the universe is random it’ll maintain a certain temperature, a certain constant temperature, that never, never changes. And because it never changes, the particles of matter in the universe can never hope to reorganize. The universe can’t build up again. Random; it’ll always stay random. Forever and ever and ever. Doesn’t that scare the living piss out of you, Hud? Hud, where’s your frock? Got a spare? Let me have it. I shouldn’t talk like this in front of me. I swear, it gives me the willies.” Cutshaw stopped pantomiming serves and flopped on the couch, where he curled up in the fetal position.

“Please continue,” Kane prodded.

“Do you accept my foos of physics?”

“Yes, I accept it.”

Cutshaw scowled, looking up. “Don’t say ‘it,’ okay? Say ‘foos.’ Say, ‘I

accept your basic foos.
’ ”

“I accept your basic foos,” said Kane.

“Good. Now follow.” Cutshaw’s speech became slow and measured. “It’s a matter of time before it happens, before we reach that final heat death. And when we reach that final heat death, life can never reappear. If that seems clear, Hud, paw the ground twice.”

“That’s clear.”

“Okay. Now, let’s take a simple disjunction. Either matter- matter or energy-is eternal and always existed, or it didn’t always exist and had a definite beginning in time. So let’s eliminate one or the other. Let’s say that matter always existed. And bear in mind that the coming heat death, Hud, is purely a matter of time. Did I say three billion years? Let’s say a billion billion years. I don’t care what the time required is, Hud. Whatever it is, it’s limited. But if matter always existed, you and I aren’t here-do you see? We simply don’t exist! Heat death has already come and gone!”

“I don’t follow.”

“Of course. You’d rather confess. Give me the frock and I’ll let you confess. Let no one write ‘Obdurate’ on my tombstone. Call me flexible, Hud, and confess.”

“Captain—”

“Warren, then. Call me Warren.”

“I’ve missed a connection,” said Kane, “in the argument.”

“My next impression: a human fly.” Cutshaw shot up from the couch, flew at a wall and made a number of earnest attempts at running straight up its side. After his fifth abortive try, he stood and glowered at the wall. “Fairbanks is right,” he muttered, vexed. “Something is wrong with these fucking walls.” Then he glared at Kane. “You’ve been missing connections the whole of your life. Foot! You are dumber than a prize dauphin. Look: if matter has always existed and if heat death is a matter of time- like, let’s say, a billion billion years-then, Hud, it’s got to have already happened! A billion billion years have come and gone a trillion times, an infinite number of times! Ahead of us and behind us is an infinite number of years in the case of matter always existing. So heat death has already come and gone! And once it comes, there can never be life! Never again! Not for eternity! So how come we’re talking, huh? How come? Though notice that I am talking sensibly while you just sit there drooling. Nevertheless, we are here. Why is that?” Interest quickened in Kane’s eyes. “Either matter is not eternal, I’d say, or the entropy theory is wrong.”

“What? You reject my basic foos?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then there can be only one alternative, Greg: matter hasn’t always existed. Which means that at one time-or before time began-there was absolutely nothing-nothing-in existence. So how come there’s something now? The answer is obvious to even the lowliest, the meanest, of intelligences, and that, of course, means you. The answer is that something other than matter had to make matter begin to be. That something other I call Foot. How does that grab you?”

“It’s very compelling.”

“There’s only one thing wrong,” said Cutshaw. “I don’t believe it for a minute. What do you take me for, a lunatic?” The astronaut walked up to the desk. “You’re so dumb, you’re adorable,” he said. “I copied that proof from a privy wall at a Maryknoll Mission in Beverly Hills.”