GRAVITY RAINBOW (54 page)

"There, there, my man," begins Ian Scuffling, by which point hostile faces have begun to close in. Hmm… Oh, that's right, escape-

he sloshes beer at the head nearest, heaves the empty shell case at another, finds a gap in the crowd, slithers through and flees, across florid faces of drunks asleep, vaulting khaki paunches festooned with splashes of vomit, away down the deep cross-tunnel, among the pieces of Rocket.

"Reveille you hammerheads," Marvy's screaming, "don't let that 'sucker git away!" A sergeant with a boy's face and gray hair, dozing with a grease gun cradled against him, wakes up crying, "Krauts!" lets loose a deafening burst from his weapon straight into the beer barrel, which destroys the bottom half and sends a great gush of wet amber and foam surging among the pursuing Americans, half of whom promptly slip and go down on their ass. Slothrop reaches the other end of the Stollen with a good lead, and goes sprinting up a ladder there, taking rungs two at a time.
Shots
- Terrific blasts in this soundbox. Either Marvy's Mothers are too drunk, or the darkness is saving him. He hits the top out of breath.

In the other main tunnel now, Slothrop falls into a jog down the long mile to the outside, trying not to wonder if he has the wind to make it. He hasn't gone 200 feet when the vanguard comes clambering up on
⁷
of that ladder behind him. He dodges into what must be a paint shop, skids on a patch of wet Wehrmacht green, and goes down, proceeding through big splashes of black, white, and red before coming to rest against the combat boots of an elderly man in a tweed suit, with white, water-buffalo mustaches. "Grass Gott."

"Say, I think they're trying to kill me back there. Is there someplace-"

The old man winks, motions Slothrop through the Stollen and on into the other main tunnel. Slothrop notices a pair of coveralls streaked with paint, and thinks to grab them. Past four more Stollen, then a sharp right. It's a metal storage area. "Watch this." The old man goes chuckling down the long shop among blue racks of cold-rolled sheets, heaps of aluminum ingots, sheafs of 3712 bar stock, 1624,
723.
…
"This is going to be
good."

"Not
that
way, man, that's the one they're coming
down.
" But this oversize elf already has set about hitching cable from a hoist overhead to a tall bundle of Monel bars. Slothrop climbs into those coveralls, combs his pompadour down over his forehead, takes out a pocketknife and saws off pieces of mustache on both sides.

"You look like Hitler now. Now they will
really
want to kill you!" German humor. He introduces himself as Glimpf, Professor of Math-

ematics of the Technische Hochschule, Darmstadt, Scientific Advisor to the Allied Military Government, which takes a while. "Now-we bring them this way."

I am in the hands of a raving maniac-"Why not just hide out in here, till they forget it?" But here comes dim shouts up-tunnel now: "All clear in 37 and 38, Chuckie babes!" "O.K., old hoss, you guys take odds we'll take evens." They are not going to forget it, they are making a tunnel-by-tunnel search instead. It's peacetime, they can't shoot you in peacetime… but they're drunk… oh boy. Slothrop is scared shitless.

"What do we do?"

"You will be the expert in idiomatic English. Say something provocative."

Slothrop sticks his head out in the long tunnel and hollers, in his most English accent, "Major Marvy sucks!"

"Up this way!" Sounds of galloping GI boots, nailheads smacking the concrete and a lot of other ominous metal too going snick… snick…

"Now," beams mischievous Glimpf, setting the hoist in motion.

A fresh thought occurs to Slothrop. He puts his head back out and hollers "Major Marvy sucks NIGGERS!"

"I think we should hurry," sez Glimpf.

"Aw, I just thought of a good one about his mother." Slack has been disappearing inch by inch from the bight of cable between the hoist and the bar stock, which Glimpf has rigged to topple across the doorway, hopefully about the time the Americans show up.

Slothrop and Glimpf light out through the opposite exit. About the time they reach the first curve in the tunnel, all the lights go out. The ventilation whines on. The phantom voices inside it gain confidence from the dark.

The bundle of Monel falls with a great crash. Slothrop touches rock wall, and uses the wall then for guidance through this absolute blackness. Glimpf is still someplace in the middle of the tunnel, on the tracks. He is not breathing hard, but he
is
chuckling to himself. Behind are the hollow staggerings of the pursuit, but no light yet. There is a soft clang and sharp "Himmel" from the old professor. Sounds of yelling have grown louder and now here are the first flashlights, and it's time to get out of the bathtub-

"What's happening? For Christ's sake…"

"Come here." Glimpf has collided with some kind of miniature train, just visible now in outline-it was used once to show visitors

from Berlin around the factory. They climb aboard the tractor in front, and Glimpf fiddles with switches.

Well here we go, all aboard, lights must've been all that Marvy cut, sparks are crackling out behind and there's even a little wind now. Good to be rolling.

Ev'ry little Nazi's shootin' pool or playin' potsy

On the Mittel-werk Ex-press!

All the funny Fascists just a-twirlin' their mustaches

Where we goin'? Can't you guess?

Headin' for the country just down the tracks,

Never heard o' shortages or in-come-tax,

Gonna be good-times, for Minnie and-Max,

On the Mittel-werk Ex-press!

Glimpf has switched on a headlamp. From side-tunnels booming by, figures in khaki stare. Whites of eyes give back the light for an instant before flicking past. A few people wave. Shouts go dopplering
Hey-eyyy-y-y-y
like car horns at the crossings going home at night on the Boston and Maine… The Express is rolling at a fair clip. Damp wind rushes by in a whistle. In the lamp's backscatter, silhouettes of warhead sections can be made out, stacked on the two little flatcars the engine's towing. Local midgetry scuttle and cringe alongside the tracks, nearly out of the light. They think of the little train as their own, and feel hurt whenever the big people come to commandeer it. Some sit on stacks of crates, dangling their legs. Some practice handstands in the dark. Their eyes glow green and red. Some even swing from ropes secured to the overhead, in mock Kamikaze attacks on Glimpf and Slothrop, screaming, "Banzai, banzai," before vanishing with a giggle. It's all in play. They're really quite an amiable-

Right behind, loud as megaphones, in massed chorale:

There once was a fellow named Slattery "Oh, shit," sez Slothrop.

Who was fond of the course-gyro battery.

With that 50-volt shock,

What was left of his cock

Was all slimy and sloppy and spattery.

Ja, ja, ja, ja, In Prussia they never eat pussy, u.s.w.

"Can you get back and uncouple those cars?" Glimpf wants to know. "Reckon so…" But he seems to fumble at it for hours. Meantime:

There was a young fellow named Pope,

Who plugged into an
oscilloscope.

The cyclical trace

Of their carnal embrace

Had a damn nearly infinite slope.

"Engineers," Glimpf mutters. Slothrop gets the cars uncoupled and the engine speeds up. Wind is tearing at all Irish pennants, collar-points, cuffs, buckles, and belts. Back behind them there's a tremendous crash and clank, and a few shouts in the dark.

"Think that stopped 'em?"

Right up their ass, in four-part harmony:

There was a young fellow named Yuri,

Fucked the nozzle right up its venturi.

He had woes without cease

From his local police,

And a hell of a time with the jury.

"O.-K., Jocko babes! Got that old phosphorus flare?"

"Stand by, good buddy!"

With only that warning, in blinding concussion the Icy Noctiluca breaks, floods through the white tunnel. For a minute or two nobody in here can see. There is only the hurtling on, through amazing perfect whiteness. Whiteness without heat, and blind inertia: Slothrop feels a
terrible familiarity here,
a center he has been skirting, avoiding as long as he can remember-never has he been as close as now to the true momentum of his time: faces and facts that have crowded his indenture to the Rocket, camouflage and distraction fall away for the white moment, the vain and blind tugging at his sleeves
it's important
… please… look at us…
but it's already too late, it's only wind, only g-loads, and the blood of his eyes has begun to touch the whiteness back to ivory, to brushings of gold and a network of edges to the broken rock… and the hand that lifted him away sets him back in the Mittelwerke-

"Whoo-wee!
There's
'at 'sucker now!"

Out of the flare, inside easy pistol
range,
emerges a lumbering diesel engine, pushing ahead of it the two cars Slothrop uncoupled, itself stuffed with bloodshot, disheveled, bloated Americans, and at an

apex, perched lopsided on their shoulders, Major Marvy himself, wearing a giant white Stetson, and clutching two.45 automatics.

Slothrop ducks down behind a cylindrical object at the rear of the tractor. Marvy starts shooting, wildly, inspired by hideous laughter from the others. Slothrop happens to notice now that what he's chosen to hide behind, actually, seems to be another warhead. If the Amatol charges are still in-say, Professor, could the shock wave from a.45 bullet at this range succeed in detonating this warhead here if it struck the casing? e-even if there was no fuze installed? Well, Tyrone, now that would depend on many things: muzzle velocity, wall thickness and composition-

Counting at least on a pulled arm muscle and hernia, Slothrop manages to tip and heave the warhead off onto the track while Marvy's bullets go whanging and crashing all over the tunnel. It bounces and comes to rest tilted against one of the rails. Good.

The flare has begun to die. Shadows are reoccupying the mouths of the Stollen. The cars ahead of Marvy hit the obstacle a solid WHONK! doubling up in an inverted V-diesel brakes screech in panic
yi-i-i-i-ke
as the big engine derails, slews, begins to tip, Americans grabbing frantically for handholds, each other, empty air. Then Slothrop and Glimpf are around the last curve of the integral sign, and there is another huge crash behind them, screaming that prolongs, echoing, as they see now the entrance ahead, growing parabola of green mountainslopes, and sunlight…

"Did you have a car when you came?" inquires the twinkling Glimpf.

"What?" Slothrop recalls the keys still in that Mercedes.
"Oh
____________________
"

Glimpf eases on the brakes as they coast out under the parabola into daylight, and roll to a smooth and respectable stop. They flip salutes at the B Company sentries and proceed to hijack the Mercedes, which is right where that rail left it.

Out on the road, Glimpf gestures them north, watching Slothrop's driving with a leery eye. They wind snarling up into the Harz, in and out of mountain shadows, pine and fir odors enveloping them, screeching around curves and sometimes nearly off of the road. Slothrop has the inborn gift of selecting the wrong gear for all occasions, and anyhow he's jittery, eye in the mirror and out the back of his head aswarm with souped-up personnel carriers and squadrons of howling Thunderbolts. Coming around a blind corner, using the whole width of the pavement to make it-a sharp road-racing trick he happens to know-they nearly buy it from a descending American

Army deuce-and-a-half, the words
fucking idiot
clearly visible on the mouth of the driver as they barely scoot past, heartbeats slamming low in their throats, mud from the truck's rear tires slapping over them in a great wing that shakes the rig and blots out half the windshield.

The sun is well past its zenith when they pull up, finally, below a forested dome with a small dilapidated castle on top, hundreds of doves, white teardrops, dripping from its battlements. The green breath of the woods has sharpened, grown colder.

They climb a switchbacking path strewn with rocks, among dark firs toward the castle in the sunlight, jagged and brown above as a chunk of bread left out for all its generations of birds.

"This is where you're staying?"

"I used to work here. I think Zwitter might still be around." There wasn't enough room in the Mittelwerke for many of the smaller assembly jobs. Control systems mainly. So they were put together in beerhalls, shops, schools, castles, farmhouses all around Nordhausen here, any indoor lab space the guidance people could find. Glimpf's colleague Zwitter is from the T.H. in Munich. "The usual Bavarian approach to electronics." Glimpf begins to frown. "He's bearable, I suppose." Whatever mysterious injustices spring from a Bavarian approach to electronics now remove Glimpf's twinkle, and keep him occupied in surly introspection the rest of the way up.

Mass liquid cooing, damped in white fluff, greets them as they slip in a side entrance to the castle. Floors are dirty and littered with bottles and scraps of papers. Some of the papers are stamped with the magenta GEHEIME KOMMANDOSACHE. Birds fly in and out of broken windows. Thin beams of light come in from chinks and erosions. Dust motes, fanned by the doves' wings, never stop billowing here. Walls are hung with dim portraits of nobles in big white Frederick the Great hairdos, ladies with smooth faces and oval eyes in low-necked dresses whose yards of silk spill out into the dust and wingbeats of the dark rooms. There is dove shit all over the place.

By contrast, Zwitter's laboratory upstairs is brightly lit, well-ordered, crammed with blown glass, work tables, lights of many colors, speckled boxes, green folders-a mad Nazi scientist lab! Plas-ticman, where are you?