A Whiff Of Madness Part 3

Palma rubbed at the salad dressing which had spilled over his scalp when the salad went by.

"With a place as popular as Churl's people don't expect to be treated as humans ... or lizards or whatever the case may be."

Summer asked, "What have you found out about the two names Mayhew gave us?"

Licking his fingers, Palma said, "This is vinegar dressing and I ordered thousand island You'd think-"

"What about those names?"

"OK," said Palma. "First Dr. Ferrier. He's a middle-aged catman, one of the leading biochemists on Peregrine., Teaches right here in Laranja East, at King Waldo University."

"Hey, I forgot your garlic bread." Their waiter, at the kitchen door, tossed half a loaf, sliced, toward their table.

Palma caught three out of the five slices. "Did better with this than with the salad."

The other two slices had bonked the lizard banker on the sconce. He shoved back in his chair, waving a green fist "I've had, I'll have you know, more than enough of this disgraceful behavior. I happen to be Edgar Allan Boop, and I demand to see the manager at once.""Garlic bread?" asked Palma.

"No, thanks," said Summer. "What's Ferrier's specialty? Is he tied in with the War Office, helping the government in some way?"

"Far as I can discover, nope. He's simply a highly thought-of professor."

"And Tully Keep?"

Palma said, "He's even more remotely connected with King Waldo and the phantom strangler.

Keep heads up a band of guerrillas over near the East-West border someplace."

"Hot plate, hot plate! Watch out!" The catman waiter was das.h.i.+ng around the close-packed tables with a steaming dish held at arm's length. "Yike!" He dropped it a half yard short of their table.

"I was betting you'd make it." Palma studied his spattered boots. "Was that the Grout Stew Churl or my friend's Soyloaf Scallopini?"

"Search me," said the catman. "We got one of them new robot chefs, you know, land runs on steam. Makes the kitchen hotter to work in than a Turkish bath. On top of that he gets the orders all mixed up." The waiter took a few careful steps back. "Try not to step in any of that till I get a busboy to mop it up."

After running a plyonap over his boots, Palma said, "It may be Mayhew was incoherent by the time we got to him, Jack. The names may not have anything to do with the phantom."

"Even so, well check them both out," decided Summer. "Any preferences?"

"Yeah, you'd best take Dr. Ferrier. I have a feeling some of those religious zealots are still skulking around the capital here in search of me or a portion thereof," said Palma. I'll feel safer out on the road, communing with the wilderness. You encounter a more interesting brand of people the farther you go from the urban milieu. I recall once at an oasis on Jupiter I met a lady anthropologist with a truly overwhelming set of mambos. They were, I swear, absolutely conical and gave one the impress-"

Bam! Blam!

Their waiter, arms outflung, ran from the kitchen, pursued by billows of smoke. "The chef's exploded! The chef's exploded!"

"That's too bad, he seemed a pretty good chef," remarked Palma, "judging from the food samples I've wiped off myself."

I'll head out to the university tomorrow to see Ferrier," said Summer. "It's going to take you longer to make a trip to the border and back."

"I've checked with some people already. I can make it from here, through the fighting zone, to the border in a couple of days," said the photographer. "I should, if all goes well, return triumphantly to the capital in a week."

"If all goes well," said Summer.

CHAPTER 6.

"I hope this one don't go exploding," said Summer's steamcab driver.

The cab, with much chuffing and banging, was climbing the hill that led to the campus of King Waldo University. "Your cabs have a tendency to explode?" asked Summer, alone now.

"Last one surely did. Blew up twice, in point of fact, and me in it both times and once the d.u.c.h.ess of Westlake my pa.s.senger, and her toting a bushel basket of muskmelons. What a mess it did make."

The midday sky was a clear thin blue. The nearer they got to the university the more trees there were on each side of the broad road.

"Same thing happened to my horse," continued the driver.

"He exploded?"

"Into a million pieces, as the saying goes. Told them at the yard I didn't want a steamhorse, but they gave me a lot of folderol about making a gradual transition from horse-drawn cabs to steam-drivencabs and I, like the b.o.o.by I oftimes am, went along. Well, sir, one moment I'm sitting in the driver's seat staring a robot horse square in the bung and then Bam! Blam! he ups and explodes. And do you know who I happened to be hauling in my cab that day?"

"Not the d.u.c.h.ess of Westlake with more melons?"

"Nay, someone much more important than that, sir. It was none other than Princess Joline herself."

"She'd be ... the king's daughter?"

"That she would, the poor la.s.s. No fun having a goofy dad. I know; my own pa was not all s.h.i.+pshape upstairs, a good deal bonkers he was. Rather a tough burden to bear, having your old pa tossed into St. Charlie's while you're hardly less than a lad."

"What's St Charlie's?"

"Never heard of it, have you? Why, it's the St Charles Public Lunatic Home. Wouldn't be a bit surprised if King Waldo himself didn't end up there."

"Figure he's the Phantom of the Fog?"

"No doubt about it, to my way of thinking. See him on the TV last night? 'I'm not a killer,' says he. Try to pin that in your cap. These are not the best of times .,. what with the war and the king barmy.

Enough to make a man ... Well, sir, here we are."

Viewed from the gilded entrance gates, the campus seemed to be all rolling hills and shady glades. Very few buildings were visible. Students there were, several hundred of them roaming the paths and byways. Just as Summer pa.s.sed through the huge gates bells started chiming. In all the many trees birds took up their songs.

"Shoot, I'm going to get another headache." A slim green girl in a lycra singlet and shorts was standing beneath an oak which was especially thick with chirping bluebirds. She held several bookspools and a battered talkwriter pressed to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Summer slowed. "Don't enjoy warbling?"

"Shoot, the singing isn't half so bad as the explosions," said the pretty green girl. "I usually try not to be aboveground when they're scheduled to go off, except today I was kept late in Soccer Appreciation. The're not real birds, you know, they're teenie-weenie steam robots. When they're not twittering they're-"

Tang!

A robot bird exploded directly above them. Blue feathers, cogs, twists of wire, and plastic eyes came dribbling down through the thick branches.

"Shoot, it's going to take me half an hour to comb this little tin b.u.g.g.e.r's innards out of my hair."

She shook her head, dislodging most of the remains of the tiny robot. "You're too old to be a student, aren't you?"

"That I am," admitted Summer.

"Yet you're too rational seeming and aggressively masculine to be an instructor. What does that leave?"

"I'm a reporter. Right now I'm searching for Dr. Ferrier."

"Shoot, is he the cryptic one! I swear he has the most labyrinthine thought processes I've ever seen," said the girl. "Wouldn't you rather have an ice-cream soda at the malt shop?"

"I would, but at my age I must put duty first."

"Shoot. Well, you'll find Dr. Ferrier down in the Bio Wing, in Building Twenty-three-B. The entrance is by those oak trees on yonder hill. It's a shame, rather, to replace your sense of fun and adventure with a single-minded devotion to routine, but I suppose you know what you're doing." She smiled and left him.

"Shoot," murmured Summer as he climbed to the indicated entrance. There was an oval opening in the ground, showing a ramp that wound downward.

There was everything under here. Wide walkways, tranquil lagoons, steamswans, many-storied teaching buildings of neogla.s.s and bright metal, bookspool-shops, soda fountains, cafeterias, burgerpits, at least three hospitals, tennis courts, airball fields, used steamcar dealers, robot repair shops. All lit,gently, with a Crosshatch of floating lightstrips. The air was filtered and comfortable.

Near the entrance to building 23B a small rally, involving roughly a hundred students and six watching campus cops, was taking place.

"King Waldo is a killer!" a young catman in a candy-striped two-piece studysuit was shouting from the makes.h.i.+ft platform. "When fog-ridden night falls upon our great capital King Waldo dons the sinister garb which is now infamous across the length and breadth of the universe. He lurches forth, his maddened brain goading him to further b.e.s.t.i.a.l acts, and-"

"I don't wish to interrupt my opponent's flow of argument," cried a chunky lizard girl who'd jumped up from a chair on the platform. "Yet I am compelled to point out that his facts are all wrong. In the first place, King Waldo is not a killer. Secondly, he does not even own, let alone don as day deserts our fair capital, the garb which-"

"Lies! Propagandist lies!" said the catman youth.

Summer made his way up the ramp into 23B.

A very old robot, most likely an Earth System retread, sat at a lucite desk in the foyer. "How ...

how ... can ... we ..." The words, having a rusty sound, came slowly out of the robot's mouth. "How can we ..."

"Help me?"

"Yes, how can we help you, sir?"

"I'd like to see Dr. Ferrier."

Clang!

The robot had brought a hand up to his chest, harder than he'd intended apparently. He knocked himself off his lucite stool. "Would ... would ... you ... be ... would you be ... would you be so kind as to ...".

"Help you up?"

"Help me up, yes."

Summer lifted the dented old robot reception man back onto his perch. "You seemed unsettled by my mention of Dr. Ferrier. Is something wrong?"

"Oh ... no ... ha ... ha ... ha ..." said the robot. "Nothing wrong ... I was thinking ... thinking of something else. Mind ... often wanders ... wanders off at... at my ..."

"At your age?"

"Mind often wanders off at my age."

"As to Dr, Ferrier?"

"He's in .. "

This time Summer couldn't supply the end to the robot's sentence. He waited. "He's in ... Who were we talking about?"

"Ferrier, Dr. Ferrier." Clang! "Easy there, you almost fell off again. How about simply giving me the number of Dr. Ferrier's office?"

"Ah, yes. He's in office ... office three-oh-two. Our steam escalator ... unfortunately ... escalator unfortunately ... unfortunately ... "

"Exploded?"

"It exploded. You'll have to walk."

Summer walked up a purple ramp to the third floor. For some reason there was ivy growing in the corridor. It was all over the pale walls, twining around the light mobiles and voicegrids, clogging the water alcove.

Summer knocked at 302 and waited. He knocked again after a moment A moment more and he went in.

A large man with an unevenly trimmed red beard was leaning, hands in pockets, against the bare wall of the bare room. "Sorry, I didn't hear your knock, pal." Summer got the impression the big man's voice was coming from someplace other than his mouth, "Can I help you?"

"I'd like to talk to Dr. Ferrier "

"Who might you be, pal?""Jack Summer."

"Not the same Jack Summer who writes those incisive articles for Muckrake?"

"Yeah, the same. You aren't Ferrier, are you?"

The red-bearded man shook his head. "Naw, I'm Dr. Alex Brownlove, Jr. Perhaps you've read my book, Fun With Your Brain?"

"I haven't, but I'm certain it's incisive. Is Ferrier around?"

"We have arrived at the sad part of the tale, pal." Brownlove ceased leaning, to come closer to Summer.

"It's a truly tragic thing. Dr. Ferrier has gone completely blooey in the head. He's completely coocoo, nuttier than a seedm.u.f.fin. We had to haul him away only a matter of hours ago. I'm here to gather up the last of his belongings."

"Where was he taken?"

"Anxious to interview him?"