the fifteenth letter, part 6

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"what are you shouting about?" ida moved up beside bessie and sally on the balcony outside the uuu office. "there's wiilie and tex over there - on top of that building" said bessie."see them?" "i see them. i see you're going to get them thrown off the top of the building, you keep screaming like that." 'i just want to be sure tex is taking care of willie, not let him sing that churchy stuff. last time i saw him he was still singing it, like he wasn't wise to the new dispensation." ida looked out at tex and willie and their friend. "willie isn't singing, he's just playing for tex now . and you know tex isn't going to sing any hymns." "no, he sings that old sporting house stuff that is even worse." "so? nobody left in the world understands it anyway." nancy had moved up on the rail on ida's left. she started to laugh. "what are you laughing at?" ida asked her. 'i'm laughing at you. you think you're going to get famous and get on shows with that old-fashioned garbage you sing?" nancy laughed again. "the shows about dinosaurs and three thousand pound grizzly bears, those are the only shows you'll get on." "i'm not going to answer that," said ida. "i disdain you." "you use some pretty big words. what do you do, write them down on that rag you wear on your head?" 'my head doesn't look like i chew dynamite for bubble gum. what are you supposed to be looking like, anyway?" "men like it." 'how would you know?" "i saw it on the news." "oh, you saw it in the news!" "i thought you were going to disdain her," bessie butted in. "so disdain her." nancy's friend beth came over to the rail. "don't fight with her," she told nancy. "you'll get us all arrested and thrown on the chain gangs." "chain gangs!" ida scoffed. "sure," said beth, "everybody who gets arrested breaks rocks on the chain gangs out on jupiter and neptune and stuff. that's what i heard." "there are no rocks on jupiter or neptune, " said edna. "they are all gas." "thank you, edna," bessie leaned over to her. "they're not the only thing that's all gas," ida said to nancy. sally was pinned into the corner of the balcony by all of them. she looked out over the roofs. they were now empty. lulu and loulou had stayed by themselves at the other end of the balcony. now they turned and went inside, and the others, noticing this, followed them. "they don't need any humans to break any rocks", ida told beth, continuing the discussion as they were getting back in their seats. "you think they don't have machines for that?" "do they need humans to do this stuff?" nancy asked loudly, as she started checking a serial number. elizabeth looked up and they all fell silent and plugged away quietly until lunch break. sally usually brought a sandwich and ate it her terminal but since the robot had driven her driven her straight to the office she could either get something from the machines in the lunch room on the thirty-third floor or do without. she put her head on the table in front of her terminal and started to take a nap. chaos and confusion reigned in the campsite on the coast of atlantis. the guard with the komodo dragon head had no sooner resumed his narrative of the tenth question when a fleet of gleaming silver vehicles in the form of pterodactyls had roared down from the sky. chimpanzee soldiers in red uniforms and orangutan soldiers in gray uniforms piled out of them brandishing swords and pikes. most of those assembled in the clearing fled into the bush but were quickly apprehended by the soldiers. it became apparent that the main target of the invaders was not any living creatures but the three giant abaci. ropes and sleds were taken from the vehicles and the soldiers, under the animated direction of the emperor william i, quickly hauled them on board three of the larger vehicles. poor mr alfred russel wallace was beside himself and alternately wept like a child and thundered like a sergeant of dragoons. all those who had fled and been recaptured - mr wallace, vanslyperken, ida, the tiger-headed guard and the squid-headed guard, were hustled aboard the vehicles, which roared back into the sky, leaving only sally, the komodo dragon headed guard, and vanslyperken's little sabertoothed dog. bessie had fled but not been caught. when the last vehicle had disappeared, the komodo headed guard turned into a handsome young prince in a gold trimmed blue uniform. the little dog then turned into an even handsomer young prince in a silver trimmed red uniform. "well, prince akhnaton," the young prince in blue addressed the prince in red. "we meet again." and none too soon, prince pythagoras my dear brother," the prince in red replied. "shall we awandering go?" they headed down the path away from the beach, in what sally had assumed was the direction of the kitchen. "hey," sally called after them, "aren't you going the wrong way?" they stopped. "did you hear something, brother?" prince pythagoras asked. prince akhnaton turned and looked at sally without speaking. "shouldn't we go back toward the beach and tell lord beaconsfield and lord salisbury?" asked sally. "tell them what, my dear young lady" asked prince pythagoras. "what happened." "but what happened? who can say?" prince akhnaton laughed at this response from his friend. "what about the tenth question? aren't you going to finish it?" prince pythagoras looked down at sally. "do you really care about the tenth question?" "no." "an excellent answer. well then, we bid you farewell." they headed back down the path. sally turned and walked up the path back toward the beach. there was no sign of life. she began to wonder if she should turn back toward the kitchen, when she rounded a bend and ran into the empress maria theresa, carrying a basket like mother goose, and mr gladstone, who greeted her as an old friend. "my dear young lady, how nice of you to come to meet us." he reached into the empress' basket and took out a piece of paper. he began reading the tenth question, picking up where the guard had left off. "it has been discovered that the welsh schoolteacher miss diana jones is actually a dummy , apparently smuggled aboard the train - " sally noticed that the empress mara theresa had turned into the big bad wolf. the brush on the right side of the road parted and bessie emerged, carrying a sandwich. "where did you get that?" sally asked. mr gladstone paused in his reading. he and the big bad wolf both looked at bessie's sandwich. "indeed," mr gladstone rumbled. "where did you get that?" sally woke up. she sat up. bessie and ida were looking at her. bessie had half of a sprout sandwich in her hand. " you want this, champ?" she asked.

the fifteenth letter, part 7

the fifteenth letter, part 5

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"this is it." said sally. the same robot that had driven sally to the police headquarters was driving her to work. she sat in the cab with him. they had had a nice conversation about doctors and wives and other shows. now the robot pulled up in front of a tall faceless building. sally thanked him and got out. sally's employer, universal upkeep underwriters, occupied the thirty-second and part of the thirty-third floor. she got in one of the elevators, which always worked perfectly, and went up to the thirty-second floor. she was early. none of the other humans in her crew had arrived yet. she was part of a crew of seven humans and five robots, with a robot supervisor. universal upkeep underwriters was a company that specialized in insuring vacuum cleaners and garbage disposal units. sally's crew checked the serial numbers on the insurance applications against the databases of cleaners and units sold. the vacuum cleaners had 27-digit serial numbers and the garbage disposals units 31-digit numbers. elizabeth, the robot supervisor, was at her little desk behind the row of fourteen terminals (two were for backup, in case one of the regular twelve broke down). agatha, the most industrious robot, was busy at her terminal. "good morning, sally," said elizabeth. if she was surprised at sally's early arrival she didn't show it. "would you like to pass out the work?" "sure." sally answered. passing out the work was a break from actually checking the numbers, but mostly the robots did it. the robots had no objection to the humans doing it, but the humans thought volunteering for it was sucking up to the robots, so the robots usually did it by default. sally picked a big pile of applications from elizabeth's out basket. she looked through them. although there were no written rules, the passer-out was expected to distribute the numbers fairly, so that no operator got too many "hard" numbers. a "hard' number was one with a lot of repetition of numbers and letters. this caused them to blur together. an "easy" number was one with few repetitions, or with easily spotted blocks of one repetition, like "7777777". sally made a sincere effort to do this. she didn't want to listen to complaints from the other humans. ( the robots never complained.) the other crew members began to trickle in. beth, the first human to arrive, raised an eyebrow at sally passing out the work, but said nothing. beth's friend nancy was next to arrive, followed by edna, the friendliest of the robots, and sarah, the politest. sally finished passing out the numbers. "thank you, sally", said sarah. "you really did an excellent job." beth and nancy smirked at each other. patricia and roberta, two older model robots who hardly spoke to the humans at all, showed up next. then lulu and loulou, two humans who hung together. bessie and ida arrived with a minute to spare, as they did most mornings. they all settled into the routine. elizabeth tolerated talking, as long as they weren't too loud and kept up with the required pace. the conversations were usually as predictable as the work. lulu and loulou talked about winning the lottery, and their dreams of starring as actresses. loulou had the looks for it. ida and bessie talked about singing and singing contests, and sometimes even sang, if elizabeth seemed especially easygoing. beth and nancy talked about men, and their prospects of marrying one, preferably a famous one. sally and the robots didn't talk much. on this morning lulu introduced another subject. she had visited madame, a card reader, the night before, and was eager to share her experience. "i didn't get home until four o'clock," she said to her friend loulou sitting on her right but loud enough for most of the others to hear her. "but i couldn't get to sleep anyway. madame is wonderful." loulou held up a finger to indicate she was inputting a particularly hard number. "ok, go ahead," she said when she finished it. "madame's system is derived from the ancient lemurian," said lulu. "she has no use for the atlantean or egyptian systems." "cool." loulou replied. "the beauty of madame's system is that it has no numbers. no numbers at all." loulou laughed. 'i guess we can all relate to that." bessie, sitting on lulu's left, chipped in. "i always liked the gondwanan sysyem myself." "really?" lulu answered politely. "yes, my ancestors were from gondwana." the reference to ancestors was improper and some glances were cast elizabeth's way but she gave no indication of hearing it. "listen to this knucklehead," said ida. "you don't even know where gondwana is." 'sure i do. it was between atlantis and lemuria. but it sunk a million years ago." "it was one and a half million years ago," edna the friendly robot said. "thank you, edna," lulu called down to her. "hey," nancy asked lulu, from loulou's right. "how many cards in madame's deck?" "seventy-seven." "that's a number." "who asked you!" loulou snapped at nancy. nancy had a somewhat bullying manner, but of the whole crew only lulu was even slightly intimidated by her. elizabeth looked up and touched a little bell on her desk. they all fell silent and stayed that way until break time. the seven humans and the two older robots were considered to need breaks, and edna often joined them, leaving agatha and sarah at their terminals. there was a small balcony on one side of the thirty-second floor overlooking the city and they usually went out there if the weather was all right. sally stood at the rail of the balcony. bessie came over and stood beside her. ''hey champ, you feeling all right?" "champ" was bessie's nickname for sally because she was the most efficient of the humans. "sure, why wouldn't i be?" sally answered without looking at bessie. "you know what?" "no, what?" "i had a dream last night, you were in it." sally turned and looked at her. "that's nice," she said, "did you dream about me?" "no, i never dream." "not even about numbers?" sally smiled a little. "no." bessie looked out over the balcony. the next three buildings were only about twenty-four stories each and on the roof of the third building over they could see what looked like three human males, two dark and one very pale, sitting on boxes. the pale man and one of the dark ones were strumming on instruments. the other dark man, a little fireplug shaped fellow, was clapping his hands and seemed to be singing. "hey tex! tex!' bessie called. despite the distance her voice carried easily. "how you doing, tex? you taking good care of willie?" the little man waved at her. "who's your new friend?", bessie called.

the fifteenth letter, part 6

the fifteenth letter, part 4

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the outer rings of the universe consisted of prisons and interrogation centers. after finding his way to unspeakable crimes headquarters and reporting tania's disappearance, larry had been swiftly transported to an interrogation center in the third from outermost ring. now he sat in a well lit but windowless room. he was not handcuffed or bound, and he had been provided with a can of cool strawberry and guava drink, which he sipped as he stared at the wall and waited for his first interview. interrogations were usually conducted by teams of seven, but he suspected his team might have more . in the standard system, the first team member, the recorder, often a robot, would just take a statement from the prisoner, with few or no interrupting questions. but a statement had to be made and the questions, if any, had to be answered. the second team member, the confessor, gave the prisoner the chance to confess to any and all charges. if this offer was refused, a token appeal to the prisoner's better nature was made to come clean, and if this was also refused , the prisoner then faced the third member, the reminder, who brought in the prisoner's complete dossier and softened the prisoner up by recalling every humiliating and compromising detail of the prisoner's wretched existence. the reminder laughed a lot, either snidely or uproariously as the occasion seemed to warrant. the fourth member, the expander, filled out the incidents of the prisoner's life with pointed questions on their most minute details. attitudes of impatience and simmering rage were standard for this interrogator. these were the preliminaries. things got serious with the fifth member, the pounder. with high ranking prisoners, and prisoners who were themselves police, the pounding was on the table with the interrogator's fist. if it could be arranged (and it usually could) the pounder was a colleague or superior or someone known to the prisoner. in any case, the prisoner's imagination and weaker nature were uncompromisingly appealed to. the sixth member, the searcher, actually asked questions about the prisoner's offense. the searcher never got tired, and did not recognize the terms "innocent" or "alleged". the seventh member, the closer, did whatever it took. larry sipped his drink. he didn't know when he would get another one. finally the door opened and a robot came in. "interrogation postponed, boss." the robot said. "i am taking you back to holding." "cool." larry was surprised but didn't show it. "back to the holding cell," the robot repeated. "you get to bond with your siblings." "that's great." there were nineteen other prisoners in the long and narrow holding cell, all police. they sat on two long padded benches chained to the wall and facing each other. there was plenty of room and nobody had to actually sit across from anybody else. larry counted thirteen women and six men, including two people from his class at police academy. no acknowledgments or recognitions were made by anybody. there was a little table with croissants and sandwiches on it at the far end of the cell and larry walked down to it. he picked up a sandwich and looked at it. "what is this?" he asked a thin dark woman sitting head down at the end of the bench. 'it isn't even watercress." "motormouths at the other end," she answered without looking up. larry looked down the cell. he realized that there was a kind of spectrum by noise, with the most talkative prisoners at the other end, less talkative ones in the middle, and the completely silent ones down by the sandwiches. of course none of them would actually be talking about their cases or about themselves. the ones who were talking just liked to talk. so they made things up, or talked about sports or shows. larry took his sandwich and moved down to an empty space in the middle. he sat down across from and to the left of an attractive young woman with a small rose in her long dark hair. she had translucent skin that continually changed from pale to dark and back again. as he leaned back it occurred to him that she might be a plant, but he didn't care. "you a football fan?'' he asked her, after swallowing the first bite of his sandwich. she gave him a pitying look, but didn't answer. "it looks like south delhi 33 has got it together again," larry continued. a heavyset blonde woman further to his right laughed at him. "you sure you're in the right place? the dumbbells are in a cell downstairs." larry ignored her and took another bite of his sandwich. "hey sib, come on down here with the friendly people," a man from the far end called to him. larry recognized him as the notorious elephant man, a big faced and big footed classmate from the police academy, and a member, or former member, of strike force 2, the kind of unit that was probably out looking for tania. was he a plant too? larry shook his head and waved at him with a smile. "i'm comfortable here," he called. he leaned back and closed his eyes. he stole occasional glances at the young woman with the rose and the shifting skin. finally she caught him. she stared back at him, this time with less pity than before. he gave up. he really closed his eyes and tried to sleep. he dreamed he was the waiter in a small waterfront restaurant specializing in spicy olive and grape dishes and anchovies. mr alfred russel wallace was the headwaiter and he was standing at the door looking anxiously down the dark street and across the water for a party of popes and their friends who had made reservations. sancho panza was the cook and busy in the kitchen. st james was the bus boy, sitting at the back door looking out at an endless desert. lord salisbury and lord palmerston were the only customers, seated together at a small table just inside the front door. "waiter!" lord palmerston shouted to larry. larry adjusted the towel on his arm and turned from the door. "sir?" "my colleague and i have a dispute we would like you to settle, if you would." "i'll do my best, sir." "there are thirty-four passengers on a train traveling from marseilles to moscow..."

the fifteenth letter, part 5

the fifteenth letter, part 3

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francis farqhuar hurried through the streets to his grandmother's apartment. he had to be there before sunrise. farqhuar had been living in his grandmother's apartment since being banned and blacklisted from every magicians organization in the universe, many of which no longer existed. but he feared that many of those that survived were looking for him. despite this, he spent his nights in the streets because his grandmother, a fortune teller with her own card reading deck and system, would not tolerate his presence in the apartment while she entertained her clients. he waited in a doorway across the street from his grandmothers apartment building and watched her twenty-eighth floor light. he had to wait until she signaled him by blinking the light twice before he could go up. he watched as a little pearshaped woman he recognized as a regular client came out of the apartment building and walked away. but he waited patiently for the blinking light before crossing the street and entering the building. when he entered the building he turned himself into a mouse to scurry up the twenty-eight flights of steps. he didn't like to waste the magic, but he was just too tired to walk up. the apartment was tiny - one room with a table and two chairs for the readings, and a small couch on which the grandmother slept. farqhuar slept in a cupboard, in a glass or cup after shrinking himself - a terrible waste of magic, but what else could he do? his grandmother was seated at her table still looking at a spread of cards when he entered - usually she had put them away. "ah,"she said, "empty-handed again, i see." she quickly palmed the cards and put the deck together and squared it on the table in front of her. chief among the reasons madame - for the grandmother used the professional name of "madame" - just "madame" - for her readings - had for sheltering farqhuar was his ability in his nocturnal ramblings to occasionally procure for her some outlawed delicacies - cookies, of which chocolate chip and lemon were her favorites, and sometimes even a brownie. but it had been a while since farqhuar had been able to bring her a brownie. cowering under the sibyl's pitiless gaze, farqhuar lowered himself gently on to the couch. "i'm doing what i can. there just isn't much out there. and i am bound round by all these hexes my enemies laid on me - i'm afraid to turn around or put one foot in front of the other." "stop whining. if you had my troubles you'd cry to get yours back." she turned her gaze back to the cards in front of her and began laying them out. " you know, i can't remember the last time i had a really good brownie or torte - especially one with good austrian chocolate." "i was talking to this guy tonight - i might have a line on something - but it's italian." "the italians don't know anything about chocolate." farqhuar changed the subject. "i saw your client coming out - " "i hope she didn't see you." "don't worry. as i was saying, you don't seem to be getting the class of clients you used to." "lulu's a nice girl. i won't have you slandering her. her payment is as good as anybody's these days. why shouldn't she have the ancient wisdom explained to her, as much as any duchess or doctor's wife. eh?" "whatever." "she works hard for her payment. she works in some dreadful office where they look at numbers on screens all day." at the word "numbers" they shuddered in unison and fell silent. a horror of numbers was one thing they had in common. madame had devised her deck of cards to avoid them. her deck had no suits or numbered cards, just 77 cards with names and pictures like "the wind" or "the martyr" and no orders or connections between them except those she chose to give them. farqhuar, even in his heyday, had avoided all numbers in his spells and incantations - one of the many singularities that aroused the suspicion of his fellow magicians. "speaking of payment," said farqhuar, "did your client leave you any?" "of course, i told you, she always pays. would you like some?" "yes, please, i'm starving." things weren't what they used to be, and the interpreter of the ancient wisdom was accepting payment in barter, usually food. she reached into the cupboard behind her. "would you like some watercress jerky?" "again!" "deal with it, sonny boy. you're the magician - why don't you use some of your all-powerful spells to conjure up something tasty - like a burger." "a burger!" farqhuar laughed. "when you talk like that i can believe you never go out of this apartment. a burger! here i am, with the coils of the universe winding around me, and you want me to use what magic i can spare to get you a burger! what next, some fish and chips?" "now you're tempting me." farqhuar slumped lower on the couch. "if i didn't have to squeeze myself into that cupboard every morning, maybe i could spare a little magic to try to get you something." "try sleeping on the roof." "on the roof - in broad daylight? why not just turn myself in to the lowest dungeon of the departments?" there was a gentle tapping at the door. farqhuar got up and opened it. madame's next door neighbor looked up at him. "good morning, francis." "good morning to you, mrs nelson." "may i come in?" "of course." "let mrs nelson sit on the couch, francis." "nonsense, i will just sit here." mrs nelson sat at the card table across from madame, and farqhuar slumped back on the couch. this was a time-honored ritual. "you know," said mrs nelson, "not that i listen at people's doors, but i couldn't help noticing that you two have the same conversations over and over." "these aren't sparkling times," farqhuar answered with a smile. "unsparkling times make for unsparkling conversation." "i had a most interesting visitor last night," said mrs nelson. "he kept me up half the night and then i couldn't sleep, so that's why i am here." "one of your pope friends?" farqhuar asked politely. madame grimaced slightly. she didn't care much for popes. farqhuar, of course, tried to get along with everybody. "no, a detective, a police detective. about my picture," "of course, your picture." farqhuar had only been staying in the apartment long enough for a couple of the pictures to appear at their 103 day intervals. he professed little interest in them. "i was telling the detective the most interesting story," said mrs nelson, "but he didn't stay to hear the end." "we love your stories, mrs nelson," replied farqhuar. "why don't you tell it to us?"

the fifteenth letter, part 4

the fifteenth letter, part 2

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edwin couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, and couldn't concentrate on his job at the supermarket because of his continued obsession with samantha. finally he went to a counselor and confessed his plight. he was immediately put under arrest and spent five days in a holding cell while his case was reviewed. because of the overcrowding in the jail, the size of the investigating officer's caseload and his status as a first offender at his advanced age, he was probationally released. he was reassigned to the midnight shift at the supermarket. his mates on the midnight shift were almost all men also on probation or parole for suspicion of similar tendencies. because of the relative quiet of the time, the microphones installed to record their conversations were thought to be more efficiently employed. edwin found himself working an aisle with hongwu, moctezuma, and crispus. hongwu and moctezuma were tight. they were both grizzled offenders who had fantasized about dozens of women. they were lifers. they would never be released from probation - they would only be remanded to prison if space opened for them or they were suspected of new offenses. hongwu and moctezuma were always happy to welcome a new mate to their aisle and were friendly to edwin on his first night. edwin found them a little scary. hongwu was tall and lean and moctezuma of average size and build, but they didn't do much on their off time but work out in gyms and were muscular and powerful looking. "what's your preference, sibling?'" hongwu asked edwin, when a new batch of cartons were ready to be opened. "carrots, peas, lima beans, mixed vegetables?" "i was always a lima bean guy," edwin answered. "cool. lima beans it is," hongwu nodded. "i'll take the carrots, moc will take the peas and mixed vegetables. right, moc?" "sure," moctezuma answered, looking at edwin. "how about beets? we might get some beets later." "beets were my number two thing, my road game, " edwin answered. "that's good, sib. we will consider that." despite his five days absence, edwin quickly got back in the rhythm of stacking the cans of lima beans. since there were no customers in the aisles, he could work faster than he was used to, though not as fast as hongwu and moctezuma. the cans of carrots and peas fairly flew out of their powerful fists. crispus, the fourth member of the group, mostly assisted the robots in bringing them new cartons. he was different from hongwu and moctezuma and didn't chat with them. he had fantasized about one woman, the lovely rosa lee, and had never admitted any guilt. he spent his off hours in a library, appealing and fighting what he considered an unjust accusation. but handling the heavy full crates had made him powerful looking too. he avoided edwin's gaze. as the night moved on, and edwin listened to hongwu and moctezuma, he realized that their chat consisted mostly of a code used to disguise the fact that they were talking about women. hongwu frequently looked over at edwin with nods and winks and raised brows, to cue him in and apparently invite him to join in. edwin was perplexed. how much could they be fooling the listeners on the other side of the microphones? was anybody actually listening? were the microphones just there for show? "so i was over at mike's gym," hongwu was saying, "and i 'm working on the heavy bag, wailing away, thinking, this is the day, this is the day i get a really good session in, and i see eddie and frank looking out the window. they are looking, you know, like there is something real interesting out there. so i give the bag one really good jab and walked over. and i see a bus, a big private bus has pulled up outside joey's deli. and a couple of robots in uniform get out and they are carrying this picture, a big old painting in a big old gold frame. and this frame, sibling, is the most perfectly executed thing you ever saw - it's got curves, and curlicues, and curves and curlicues on the curves - " "like a mandelbrot generation," said moctezuma. "exactly. it was the most mandelbrotian thing i ever saw." "what was in the picture?" asked edwin. "what was in the picture?" hongwu's eyebrows shot up. "the picture was strongly influenced by addonizio's "triumph of diana over alcibiades" with echoes of romero's "the muses confront the seven deadly sins". it portrayed the welcome of tamerlane into byzantium by the empress irene, and in acknowledgment of the magnificence of the conqueror and the splendor of his conquest, the empress had spared nothing , neither from her people nor herself. in the upper left corner of the picture a host of angels with blue gowns and crimson wings have lent themselves to the occasion by playing on golden harps. in the lower left the four virtues, clad in softest white, are softly playing on silver flutes. in the center, above the flowing locks of the empress, helen of troy and mary magdalen are playing tennis with the head of the defeated general belisarius - the head is tastefully delineated with only a few drops of golden blood - " crispus and a robot deposited a crate of cans of carrots at hongwu's feet. "that is a lot of gold," said the robot to hongwu. "make sure the empress' flowing locks aren't golden too." it seemed to edwin that the robot was used to such descriptions and was good-naturedly needling hongwu. "the crimson-tinged raven locks of the empress," hongwu continued, "float in the air as the arch of her right foot, clad in a bejewelled golden boot, signals the beginning of a swoon beneath the bronze chariot of tamerlane - " he looked at edwin. "should i go on?" "i get the picture," said edwin. the robot and crispus moved off. crispus gave edwin a look clearly indicating that he had, by bonding with hongwu and moctezuma, joined the legion of the damned. the morning was foggy when the shift was over and they left by the back door. the lot behind the supermarket was deserted except for a little ragamuffin wearing a flat black hat and carrying a small satchel over his shoulder. when he saw them, he approached, taking a small packet out of the satchel. "love potions, gentlemen!." he cried softly. "guaranteed to soften your dream woman's soul!" crispus seemed particularly annoyed by his presence and hurried off without a word. "jojo!," hongwu addressed him. "get out of here. sib, with your knuckleheaded nonsense." he turned to edwin. "he always shows up on a guy's first night on the shift." "is that any way to talk to the god of love?" asked jojo.

the fifteenth letter, part 3

the fifteenth letter, part 1

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the guardsman with the komodo dragon head finished the tenth and last question and looked expectantly at sally. "would you mind repeating that?", sally asked. "oh bother!" cried mr alfred russel wallace. "can't we just get on with it?" "it was a long question," said sally. "indeed it was," mr wallace agreed wearily. "repeat it, young man, but a little quicker this time." "oh but sir, i so wanted to make it a good one!" "on with it." "very well. a train with seventeen passengers is traveling from marseilles to istanbul. the first passenger, mr patel, a student at trinity college dublin, has just discovered a new means of time travel and is scheduled to arrive in zurich in two hours to present his paper on the subject. the second passenger, sharing a compartment with him, is the aging but still beautiful princess de queiroz, on her way to bayreuth for the annual wagner festival. the third and fourth members of their compartment are jake and jacob jaspers, two american train robbers who don't care where they are going, so long as they escape from theodore roosevelt. in the next compartment we find deedee and desiree daniels, two ruddy cheeked english girls on their way to vienna to audition for the famed vienna ballet, whose director, franz-josef marx, is, unknown to them, in the third compartment with his protege, mlle pauline psochomorpha, and her friend betty-lou, who have already been promised the parts deedee and desiree have studied and practiced for and dreamed of all their young lives. also in the second compartment the young comte de gobineau-richelieu, the famed astrologer, numerologer and actor, on his way to monte carlo to try to mend his broken heart, and his valet, a young street urchin named hoho whom the comte is instructing in classic astrology and numerology, in return for which hoho is instructing the comte in the nouveau alchemy and alchemy of his old master ,master lee, and in martial arts, a discipline the comte is curiously deficient in. unknown to the comte and hoho, master lee is in the fourth compartment, disguised as a laotian tea salesman on his way to ankara. master lee is sharing the fourth compartment with three schoolteachers from wales on their way to monte carlo - miss thomasina williams, miss diana williams, and miss diana jones. the trio have been going to monte carlo on their vacation for years - this year miss jones wanted to go to macao instead, but was overruled by the two miss williamses. in the fifth and final compartment we find the abbot von brun, custodian of the artworks at the cathedral of salzburg, miss flora nesbit- st jude, a retired postmistress from wessex, and lord aubrey astragoth-martin, the worlds greatest expert on salamanders and a champion fencer. although at first glance these three would seem to have little in common, all three are famous detectives, whose exploits have been widely chronicled and distributed wherever thrilling stories are appreciated. in fact , they are on their way to a conference of famous detectives to be held in - " "wait a minute," said sally. "that's eighteen people." "it's seventeen," answered the komodo man. "the valet doesn't count. please don't interrupt." "he's a passenger , isn't he?" sally looked to mr wallace for support. "he is taking up space, isn't he? does he get to ride for free?" "the young lady has a point," said mr wallace. "just change it to eighteen people and move along," "but sir, that ruins the whole puzzle." "i know." said sally. "it's a trtck question -eighteen people is the answer, right? did i get it right?" "no, young lady, it is not the answer. i do not traffic in such easy trickery." mr wallace sighed. "then then just get rid of the valet - or one of the schoolteachers." "hey," interrupted bessie. 'what do you have against schoolteachers? i had a teacher named miss williams and she was a nice lady." "wake up! wake up!" sally opened her eyes. she was lying on tania's desk and jeanne d'arc was shaking her. she put her legs over the side of the desk and sat up. jeanne stared at her with her big green eyes. "you were twitching. were you dreaming?" "no," said sally. "i never dream." "i was dreaming. you were in my dream. was i in yours?" "i just told you. i don't dream." "you mean you don't remember them." "whatever. it's the same thing, isn't it?" jeanne kept her gaze on sally. "something terrible has happened. detective kelly has disappeared and detective lyndon is under arrest. we will have to assign two new detectives to your case. we will have to assign new detectives to all their cases!" sally shrugged. "that's not -" she stopped. "not your problem. i know,"jeanne answered. "your problem is getting yourself home." "no, that's your problem too. you brought me here." sally looked at the clock on the wall. it was five o'clock in the morning. "you might as well just take me to work" "all right. but first let me get you two new detectives." "who is this and what is she doing here?" sally looked up and saw a tall slender young woman wearing an enormous top hat. sally could hardly see her eyes from under the hat. this was jeanne's immediate superior, charlotte corday. "charlotte, this is sally johnson, the subject of the multiplying love letters case." "ah yes, the multiplying love letters case." charlotte looked at sally. "kelly and lyndon left her here. she was sleeping on kelly's desk." "wonderful." "i am sure they expected to be back on time to take her home." "i don't want any excuses for them any more than i want any for yourself." jeanne turned to sally. "she was in my dream, too. are you sure you don't recognize her?" "what are you running on about. jeanne?" charlotte snapped. "dreams? let's get back to reality." "i thought i would assign two new detectives - maybe torquato and st teresa - and then have them take her home - or to work, that's where she wants to go." "i will make the new assignments," said charlotte. "as for letting her go - i don't know about that." she continued to stare at sally from under her hat. sally stared back. charlotte laughed. "she looks like she has a little backbone. 1H, right?" "you always remember the important details, charlotte." "all right, take her where she wants to go." charlotte looked at sally. "we will meet again. prepare yourself mentally for some serious interrogation."

the fifteenth letter, part 2

the fourteenth letter, part 8

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larry and tania were almost back to the office. larry dropped the two-seater down one level and as he did a larger vehicle that had been just ahead of them ejected something and it splattered on larry and tania's windshield, almost completely covering it. "what did we do to deserve this?" asked larry. "what is that - a lemon pie?" "no, i think it's a lettuce sandwich with extra mayonnaise:" larry looked out the back window. there was nothing behind him so he slowed down. "where are we? i'm going to have to land." "no, don't do that. just turn around and go back in reverse - we're close enough. and it will still be quicker than landing." "yes, but then people will laugh at us." larry dropped the small craft, looking down through the floor for a roof to land on. "oh, we can't have that." "where are we, anyway?" tania looked at some coordinates on the dashboard. "darwin country, i think." "erasmus or charles?" "i don't know?" the two-seater landed on a roof with a slight thump. they got out. it was dark. the roof looked empty. tania stared into the shadows. "well?" "well what?" "was it a lemon pie or lettuce with extra mayo?" "neither, boss," came a voice from the dark edge of the roof. a tow-headed ragamuffin emerged from the shadows, accompanied by two small clumsy-looking robots. "that's no sandwich, boss, that's the concentrated essence of the foul and false dogmas of the erasmists - we sent those suckers packing just now." the ragamuffin came closer and they saw it was female, and wearing a ragged blue jumpsuit with a decal "charles rules" on the breast pocket. one of the robots looked hotwired and the other was obviously homemade. the decal and the reference to the "erasmists" made it clear that they were in darwin country, where a fierce rivalry between two factions prevented the darwinists from being the largest religion in the universe certified as redeemable. the leaders of the darwin party had successfully argued that they were not a political party, and thus had escaped the fate of such organizations. but the implicit admission that it was a religion had caused a violent schism, with the followers of erasmus accepting the designation of "religion", and the followers of charles attempting to downplay or dismiss it. neither tania nor larry had any interest in these wranglings, but knew that both sides were reputed troublemakers and disturbers of the peace. larry had been looking in the two seater for something to clean the windshield with. now he came over to the little ragamuffin, who was trying to stare tania down. "hey kid, you got a rag or something that we can clean up with here? if you do, we will just be on our way - we will forget we ever saw you." "what!" tania was shocked. "what are you talking about? we have to report everything - we have to get their names and numbers, and what they are doing at this time of night - of the morning." "we don't have time for that. they are just darwinists, doing what they do. don't they even have their own police assigned?" tania ignored him and pulled out her pad. "name and number - yours and theirs," she addressed the small girl. "olivia. olivia twist," the girl answered. "number 2H-870ht-74963j-549dw34." "2H?" tania raised her eyebrows. "that's right." she kept up her stare. "what about them? can they talk?" "when i'm not talking for them. this is fagin," she jerked her head toward the slightly taller of the two, an old gray model that wobbled on its old round feet. his number is 1R-8865-9hgrek- 539yrk." "that's a pretty old number," said tania. "is he hotwired? he sure looks it" "take him in and check him out - if you can." "if we can? you have some mouth on you, little 2H." the girl pointed to the smaller robot, an almost faceless brute. "this is bill. he doesn't have a number. i made him myself." "i suppose you have a permit to make robots." "maybe." this was too much for larry. he stepped in front of tania. "what is this maybe? i was ready to give you a break but now i'm glad i didn't. we are the police, after all. so what's maybe?" "maybe is maybe we don't care so much for the police down here," the girl answered. "what!!" tania was so shocked she almost fainted. larry took a step back. suddenly dark forms rushed at them from the four corners of the rooftop. larry was knocked on his face at the feet of little olivia. the last thing he remembered was the picture on her left boot, which showed the emperor tilgath-pileser iv of assyria playing chess with king nebuchadnezzar ix of babylon on the great wall of china. charles aznavour and bobby darin, in white dinner jackets, were crooning a tune behind them. they were backed by lavrenty beria playing bongos, yagoda the dwarf shaking castanets, and harold macmillan thumping a bass. lassie sat at the feet of tilgath-pileser, the little rca dog at the feet of nebuchadnezzar. a message flashed across jeanne d'arc's screen: we have detective kelly, 80H-49y52-4086fs-39672p -(signed) siblinghood 78 but she didn't see it. she had fallen asleep at her desk, with her face in the open laura poll file. larry woke up. his head hurt. it was starting to get light. the rooftop was deserted. he saw at a glance that the two-seater had been smashed up and probably wouldn't fly. the windshield had been cleaned off. in her dream, jeanne d'arc was walking with laura poll up a steep dirt trail in a thick woods. they reached the top of the rise and looked down at a clearing where mr alfred russel wallace was wringing his hands impatiently as a soldier in the uniform of king frederick william ii's royal guard, and with the head of a basset hound, was reading aloud from a thick green book. two other members of the guard, with the heads of a warthog and a flamingo, stood at rigid attention behind their fellow. as jeanne and laura descended the hill and came around a corner they saw sally, bessie, ida and charlotte corday sitting on a hollow log from which streamed endless thousands of ants and beetles of every color. ida looked up as jeanne and laura approached. she pointed at jeanne, "i know you. you used to sell chili dogs outside sportsmans park in st louis." "chili dogs?" jeanne answered. "it was cracker jack."

the fifteenth letter, part 1