Douglas Preston - Mount Dragon

Carson moaned and clutched at her, trying to say something.

She moved back behind the boulder, turning away from Nye, and waited. Waited for the massive blow to the back of her head that would signify the arrival of the bullet. She could hear boots crunching toward them, and she covered her head with her hands, closing her eyes tightly, preparing herself as best she could for death.

A single word appeared on the massive screen before them:

vanity

Scopes thought a moment in silence. Then he cleared his throat. “ ‘No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.’ Dr. Johnson.”

“Very good,” said Levine. “ ‘A man who is not a fool can rid himself of every folly but vanity.’ Rousseau.”

“ ‘I used to be vain, but now I’m perfect.’ W.C. Fields.”

“Wait a minute,” Levine said. “I’ve never heard that one.”

“Are you challenging me?”

Levine thought a moment. “No.”

“Then proceed.”

Levine paused. “ ‘Vanity plays lurid tricks with the memory.’ Conrad.”

Immediately, Scopes replied. “ ‘Vanity was Evolution’s most obnoxious gift.’ Darwin.”

“ ‘A vain man can never be utterly ruthless: He wants to win applause.’ Goethe.”

There was a silence.

“Have you run dry?” Levine asked.

Scopes smiled. “I am merely considering my selection. ‘Every man at his best state is altogether vanity.’ Psalm thirty-nine.”

“I didn’t know you were religious. ‘Surely every man walk-eth in a vain show.’ Same psalm.”

There was another long pause.

Scopes said, “ ‘I only know we loved in vain; I only feel—farewell! farewell!’ Byron.”

“Scraping the bottom of the barrel, I see,” Levine snorted.

“Your turn.”

There was a long silence. “ ‘A journalist is a kind of con man, preying on people’s vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse.’ Janet Malcolm.”

“I challenge you,” said Scopes instantly.

“Are you kidding?” Levine asked. “You can’t possibly know that quotation. I only remember it because I incorporated it into a recent speech.”

“I don’t know it. I do know, however, that to me Janet Malcolm is perhaps best known as a writer for The New Yorker . I doubt their grammarians would have allowed such a phrase as ‘con man.’ ”

“A far-fetched theory,” Levine said. “But if you want to base your challenge on it, be my guest.”

“Shall we see what the computer says?”

Levine nodded.

Using the keyboard, Scopes entered a search string into the computer. There was a pause while the vast databases were scanned. At last, a quotation appeared in large letters beneath the word

vanity

“Just as I thought,” Scopes said triumphantly. “It’s not ‘con man.’ It’s ‘ confidence man.’ The first round goes to me.”

Levine was silent. Scopes instructed the computer to bring up another topic at random. The vast screen cleared, and another word appeared:

death

“Broad enough,” Levine said. He thought a moment. “ ‘It’s not that I’m afraid to die. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.’ Woody Allen.”

Scopes laughed. “One of my personal favorites. ‘Those who welcome death have only tried it from the ears up.’ Mizner.”

Levine said. “ ‘We must laugh before we are happy, for fear of dying without having laughed at all.’ La Bruyère.

Scopes: “ ‘Most people would die sooner than they think; in fact, they do so.’ Russell.”

Levine: “ ‘Misers are very kind people: they amass wealth for those who wish their death.’ King Stanislaus.”

Scopes: “ ‘When a man dies, he does not just die of the disease he had; he dies of his whole life.’ Péguy.”

Levine: “ ‘Everyone is born a king, and most people die in exile.’ Wilde.”

Scopes: “ ‘Death is that after which nothing is of interest.’ Rozinov.”

“Rozinov? Who the hell is Rozinov?”

Scopes smiled. “You wish to challenge me?”

“No.”

“Then proceed.”

“ ‘Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him.’ Forster.”

“How nice. How Christian.”

“It’s not just a Christian idea. In Judaism, the idea of death is meant to inspire one to live a righteous life.”

“If you say so,” Scopes said. “But I’m not especially interested. Don’t you remember?”

“Are you delaying because you’ve run out of quotations?” Levine prompted.

“ ‘I am become Death: destroyer of worlds.’ The Bhagavad-Gita.”

“Very appropriate, Brent, for your line of business. It’s also what Oppenheimer said when he saw the first atomic explosion.”

“Now it sounds like you’re the one running out of quotations.”

“Not at all. ‘Behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death.’ Revelation.”

“ His name that sat on him? That doesn’t sound right.”

“Are you challenging me?” Levine asked.

Scopes was silent for a moment. Then he shook his head. “ ‘Philosophy dies just before the philosopher.’ Russell.”

Levine paused. Bertrand Russell?”

“Who else?”

“He never said any such thing. You’re making up quotations again.”

“Indeed?” Scopes looked back impassively.

“Your favorite trick in school, remember? Only I think I can spot them more easily now. That’s a Scopesism if ever I heard one, and I challenge you.”

There was a short silence. At last, Scopes smiled. “Very good, Charles. One for you, one for me. Now for the final round.”

The screen cleared, and a new word appeared:

universe

Scopes closed his eyes a moment. “ ‘That the universe is comprehensible is incomprehensible.’ Einstein.”

Levine paused. “You’re not foolish enough to start making up quotes already, are you?”

“Challenge me if you like.”

“I think I’ll let that one pass. ‘Either we are the only intelligent life-form in the universe, or we are not. Either possibility is staggering.’ Carl Sagan.”

“Carl Sagan said that? I don’t believe it.”

“Then challenge me.”

Scopes smiled and shook his head. “ ‘It is inconceivable that the whole universe was merely created for us who live in this third-rate planet of a third-rate sun.’ Byron.”

“ ‘God does not play dice with the universe.’ Einstein.”

Scopes frowned. “Is it legal to use the same source twice in a single topic? That’s the second time you’ve done so.”

Levine shrugged. “Why not?”

“Oh, very well. ‘Not only does God play dice with the universe, but sometimes He throws them where they cannot be seen.’ Hawking.”

“ ‘The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.’ Weinberg.“

“Very good,” Scopes said. “I like that one.” He paused. “ True comprehension of the universe is given only to drugged teenagers and senile cosmologists.’ Leary.”

There was a silence.

“Timothy Leary?” Levine asked.

“Of course.”

The silence lengthened. “I don’t think Leary would have said something quite so puerile,” Levine said.

Scopes smiled. “If you doubt it, challenge me.”

Levine waited, thinking. It had been one of Scopes’s favorite stratagems, making up quotations toward the beginning and saving the real ones for later, as a way to play out Levine’s own store of quotations. Levine had known Leary from his Harvard days, and in his gut he felt this quotation sounded wrong. But then, another of Scopes’s tricks had been to use out-of-character quotations as a way to goad Levine into challenging him. He glanced at Scopes, who was staring back, impassively. If he challenged Scopes, and Leary had said it, after all ... He shook the thought from him mind.