Madonna and the Starship (9781616961220) (7 page)

Fearful that the broadcast was about to take a controversial turn, I pointed to the veiled object and proclaimed, “With profound humility and deep appreciation, I accept this award!”

“But here on Earth revelation has been routed,” Wulawand persisted, “thanks in no small measure to Uncle Wonder, who cleanses your minds of metaphysics every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon!”

“Maybe we should build that battery now,” Andy suggested.

“I've never received an award before,” I said, whereupon Wulawand seized the gold lamé cloth and pulled it away.

The Zorningorg Prize was as glorious an alien artifact as any
Andromeda
writer might ever hope to contemplate. Five triangular mirrors sloped upward from a pentagonal base to form a pyramidal prism. A rotating, spherical gem commanded the apex, furiously ejecting shafts of crimson, violet, and amber light. As I gazed into the nearest triangle, my mind entered a gallery of kaleidoscopic images that made the expressionist sets in
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
seem like two-page spreads from
Better Homes and Gardens
.

“Boys and girls, I wish you all had color TVs!” I exclaimed, vertiginous with rapture. “If only you could see what I see!”

“The Zorningorg Committee hired three of our planet's most renowned artists to design and build your trophy,” noted Wulawand.

The longer I stared into the triangle, the more entranced I became. “This honor leaves me speechless! I hope that future installments”—my skull became a radiant chalice—“of
Uncle Wonder's Attic
”—my brain spun on its horizontal axis—“will prove worthy”—I feared I was about to faint—“of the Zorningorg Prize!”

“The visor!” cried Wulawand. “Give him the visor!”

The next thing I knew, Volavont had slipped a set of glass-and-rubber goggles over my head. (Though designed for three eyes, they readily shielded my two.) Beyond the border of the attic set, our floor manager frantically waved his hand in a circle. We were out of time. I must wrap it up.

“See you next Monday, kids!” I cried.

Dissolve to end title. Fade-out. Cut to NBC logo.

Intoxicated by my prize, I collapsed on the floor, and everything went black.

I awoke on my back, stretched across a couch, Connie and Floyd leaning over me wearing expressions of solicitous alarm. Haltingly I sat up and assessed my situation. My goggles were gone, likewise my fake beard and eyebrows. I'd been carried to conference room C. Wrapped in the gold cloth, the Zorningorg Prize loomed beside me on its tea trolley. Andy sat in the far corner, experimenting with a yo-yo. Wulawand and Volavont were nowhere to be seen.

“Try some of this,” said Connie, proffering a glass of brown milk. She was beguilingly attired in a silky maroon blouse, its buttons obscured by ruffles.

I took a swallow and licked my lips. Ovaltine was in fact a tasty product. “I'm okay now. Really. Where are the Qualimosans?”

“Back in the shuttle that brought them from their orbiting ship,” said Connie. “They're getting you an elixir.”

“Isn't the shuttle attracting a lot of attention?” I asked, climbing off the couch.

“Our visitors have mastered a technique called sub-molecular shapeshifting. They've replaced the Rockefeller Center statue of Prometheus with a duplicate that happens to be their shuttle.”

“What about the
real
statue?” I asked.

“They shrank it,” said Connie. “Did you notice that pendant hanging from Wulawand's neck?”

“Good heavens, you're talking like they're genuine extraterrestrials,” said a baffled Floyd.

“The jury's still out,” said Connie. “They might be big bruisers in costumes, or they might be the real thing.”

“Of
course
they're big bruisers in costumes,” said Floyd. “This is a television network. We attract starving actors like Charles Atlas draws ninety-pound weaklings.”

Just then both Qualimosans scuttled into the room, dressed in their trench coats and slouch hats, Wulawand fingering her pendant, Volavont clutching a green vial presumably containing the elixir.

“I won't be needing that,” I said, pointing to the potion, even as I wondered whether it might cure Saul's agoraphobia.

“O Kurt Jastrow, how marvelous to see you on your feet,” said Wulawand. “Volavont and I apologize for not giving you the visor before awarding you the trophy.”

“You fellas are the best goddamn Martian act I've ever seen,” said Floyd. “If you like, I'll arrange an audition with Mr. Spalding. You ought to have your own goddamn show.”

“Mr. Cox, you shouldn't swear in front of the boy,” said Connie.

“I've got goddamn sensitive ears,” said Andy.

“We are not an act,” Wulawand averred.

“I'll also take you to see Peggy Hipple, head of wardrobe,” said Floyd. “She'll be bowled over by those suits.”

“They are not suits,” Volavont insisted.

“Please excuse us, O Floyd Cox,” said Wulawand. “We have an urgent matter to discuss with Mr. Jastrow and Miss Osborne. You must leave, too, Master Andrew.”

Floyd shrugged and started away. “A word of advice,” he told the Qualimosans. “When somebody offers to introduce you to a major TV producer, if behooves you to show a little gratitude.”

The director left in a huff, Andy following close behind.

“O Kurt Jastrow,” wailed Wulawand, “a lamentable matter has come to our attention. While heading toward our shuttle to obtain the elixir, we found ourselves in the vicinity of Studio Two, where we eavesdropped on a rehearsal for an imminent installment of
Not By Bread Alone
.”

“The title is ‘Sitting Shivah for Jesus,'” Volavont said, then proceeded to quote the standard introduction. “‘NBC proudly presents stories that dramatize how people of faith, whether residing in ancient Judea or modern America, variously confronting timeless trials and today's tribulations, meet the challenges of daily existence, for men and women live
not by bread alone
.'”

“We are grieved to report that certain writers and actors at this network are in the grip of superstition,” said Wulawand. “In ‘Sitting Shivah,' the characters speak of lepers experiencing miracle cures, bread becoming meat, and crucified rabble-rousers cheating death.”

Connie and I exchanged glances of mutual bewilderment and tacit understanding: don't contradict the lobsters—at least, not yet.

“By consulting our shuttle's onboard computer,” said Wulawand, “we learned that
Not By Bread Alone
is broadcast regularly to television receivers throughout the continental United States. A secret society, two million strong, watches the program every Sunday morning, beginning at ten o'clock Eastern Standard Time.”

“Respectable ratings,” I said.

“Do not despair, O Kurt Jastrow,” said Wulawand. “Take heart, O Connie Osborne. Follow us back to Studio One, where we shall demonstrate a quick and simple antidote to televised irrationality.”

“An antidote we shall provide free of charge,” added Volavont. “Praised be the gods of logic!”

“Logic is a girl's best friend,” said Connie, grimacing.

“Couldn't get through the day without it,” I said, biting my tongue.

Taking hold of my veiled trophy, I headed for the door, distressed by my certainty that a Qualimosan antidote to televised irrationality would have nothing to recommend it.

Ten minutes later Connie and I stood together in Uncle Wonder's attic. The lights were dark, the cameras inactive, the Motorola's tubes inert. After setting my award beside the steamer trunk, I fixed on the dressmaker's dummy, which now seemed monstrous to me, the vanguard of an alien invasion.

“Qualimosa's engineers strive incessantly to keep the torch of reason burning,” said Wulawand. “Recently they discovered that the scanning-gun of an ordinary cathode-ray tube can be appropriated to exterminate viewers of any philosophically problematic narrative borne by the electromagnetic spectrum.”

In all my years of reading science fiction, I'd never encountered a sentence quite like that one. “You're not serious,” I said, feeling faint for the second time that day.

“Exterminate them?” said Connie through clenched teeth.

“If you prefer, we shall annihilate them,” said Wulawand. “Contrariwise, we could perpetrate a massacre.”

From her trench coat the female lobster withdrew two devices, the first suggesting a swivel-necked vegetable peeler, the second a dispenser of cellophane tape. She attached the peeler, blade pointed downward, to one of the rabbit ears, then switched on the Motorola. Gradually the picture tube warmed up. Visual static danced across the glass. Wulawand changed channels. More static.

“You won't get a strong signal,” I explained. “That monitor's wired to receive title cards only.”

“So the rabbit ears are merely decorative?” said the female crustacean. “We can fix that.”

Wulawand nonchalantly pulled a screwdriver-like device from her coat, detached the spade lugs securing the cable to the Motorola, and connected the rabbit ears, thereby causing the Cisco Kid to gallop across the screen. The male Qualimosan, meanwhile, waded into the bric-a-brac and retrieved the dressmaker's dummy. Wulawand changed channels. Static. Again she rotated the dial.
The Howdy Doody Show
popped onto the tube.

“Before we sought you out in conference room C, I used this transceiver to contact Yaxquid, the navigator of our orbiting spaceship.” From beneath her carapace Wulawand produced an object suggesting a green ocarina. “Acting on my orders, he placed our X-13 death-ray projector on standby alert. Come Sunday morning, shortly after the
Bread Alone
cult has gathered around their television sets—”

“Somewhere in the temporal vicinity of ten minutes after ten,” interrupted Volavont.

“After the cult has gathered,” Wulawand continued, “I shall call Yaxquid again, telling him to piggyback the death-ray onto the carrier wave of every NBC affiliate station in North America.”

“An instant later,” said Volavont, “your planet will be cleansed of all two million irrationalists.”

“I see,” I said, hyperventilating.

“My, my,” gasped Connie, pale as cottage cheese.

“If for some reason Yaxquid hasn't heard from me by twenty minutes after ten,” said Wulawand, “the death-ray will fire automatically.”

“What a technologically advanced civilization you are,” I said, squeezing both fists: heartless aliens, promiscuous death-rays, casual slaughter—this was science fiction at its worst.

“For the present demonstration, the X-13 is not needed,” said Wulawand, pointing to the vegetable peeler. “We shall use this compact model, the X-2. Behold!”

Leaning toward the rabbit ears, Wulawand rotated the axis of the peeler. The device glowed violet and begin whining like a theremin. An instant later a rapier of light shot from Howdy Doody's left eye and skewered the dummy, setting it on fire.

“Jesus!” cried Connie.

“Good Lord!” I yelled.

Wulawand touched the handle of the peeler, causing the death-ray to vanish and the whine to fade, while Connie and I pulled a quilt from the steamer trunk and wrapped it around the burning dummy, smothering the flames. We looked into each other's frightened eyes: somehow we must outfox these homicidal lobsters—though just then they seemed to hold all the aces.

“This is all very impressive,” I said as the glimmer of an idea illuminated a normally obscure region of my brain, “but I'm afraid you misinterpreted that ‘Sitting Shivah' rehearsal.”

“Misinterpreted, exactly,” Connie chimed in, obviously wondering what I would say next, which was a mystery to me as well.

“In point of fact,
Not By Bread Alone
is a
satiric
program,” I asserted. “It
mocks
belief in the supernatural.”

“We didn't see much mockery today,” said Volavont. “Against all reason, a political dissident returned from the dead.”

“What you witnessed was the first of six or seven rehearsals,” I said, improvising madly. “The actors always work with the irrational material
first
, so they'll be able to deliver it with conviction. The most valuable satire does not burn straw men. It melts mighty icons.”

“That makes sense,” Volavont conceded.

“Even a
child
can burn a straw man,” added Connie.

Striding toward the rabbit ears, I unfastened the X-2, then handed it to the skinny lobster. “So you see, Wulawand, you won't be needing this after all.”

“Not so fast, O Kurt Jastrow! How do we know that what you say is true?”