Edmund Cooper - Kronk

Professor Greylaw was dedicated, conscientious and painstaking — which is to say dangerous. So he had been given an impossible task simply to keep him out of trouble.

Eustace Greylaw still had enough grip on the external world to realize why he had been removed from the plum project of irreversible brain damage and consigned to the limbo of anti-aggression. So, determined to spite everyone by achieving the impossible, he had conducted his work in grim secrecy. Apart from the fact that he used up a lot of animals, no one knew what progress he was making. After a time, when O.C. MicroWar was promoted to NaTel’s Uncle Dan, nobody even knew what he was supposed to be doing. Naturally, he neglected to inform anyone of his success. Naturally, after Dr. Perrywit had discovered that, over the last nine years, Professor Greylaw’s annual budget had averaged ninety thousand pounds, Eustace was fired.

The only remaining problems, as far as Dr. Perrywit was concerned, were how to account for the loss of various animals and how to dispose of the occupants of what was left of the Greylaw zoo, a ramshackle collection of huts and cages which, until the Perrywit era, had enjoyed a maximum security rating.

He had an idea. He pressed the toe stud under his desk.

In imagination, he saw a tall busty blonde goddess in a white cat-suit enter his office. He sprang round the desk and locked the door, secure in the knowledge that the office was completely soundproofed. The goddess whirled with a look of alarm on her face. But he was too quick for her. He leaped towards her, whipping the freezair pencil from his pocket.

One brief squirt and the goddess froze. He lowered her rigid body gently to the carpet.

Then he gave her the merest whiff of relaxant, so that her muscles slackened, though she still could not move.

Her eyes were open and she had to look at him. Yes, that was good. She had to look at him.

He kissed her savagely. He bit her lips, her ears, her neck. He crushed beautifully inert mountains of female tissue in his cruel fingers. He tore at the cat-suit, flinging himself upon her in an ecstasy of brutal frenzy. How the strength was upon him! He thrust savagely — once, twice, three times. Always she had to look. Was that a moan? Please let her be relaxed enough to be able to moan!

The only question left was should he strangle her at the point of orgasm…

His daydream was shattered as the door opened and a tall busty goddess in a white cat-suit entered his office.

“Good morning, Dr. Perrywit.”

“Ah, good morning, Dr. — ah — Slink.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead and tried to control his breathing. Heart still racing. That was bad. He opened a drawer and fumbled for the tiny pink pills.

“Was there something, sir?”

“Yes — yes, there was.” He found the pills and swallowed one. “The Greylaw matter. I delegated it to you. All satisfactory? He — ah — he took it well?”

“I never actually saw Professor Greylaw. I don’t think anybody now here has actually seen him. Though I’m told he did attend a seventieth level conference eighteen years ago… I think there is something you ought to know, Dr. Perrywit. A few days after his retirement, the Professor died rather sadly.”

“How?”

“He — he fell under a Circle Line train.”

There was a moment’s silence, then Dr. Perrywit — still disconcerted by recent non-events -

briefly lost control. “Bastard!” he shrieked. “Lazy, deceitful bastard! Why couldn’t he have done it ten days ago and saved us that massive severance fee?”

Dr. Slink looked at him, shocked. One of these days he really would squirt her and savage that proud voluptuous body; and she would have to look at him while he was doing it, and…

With an effort Dr. Perrywit shook himself out of it. “I didn’t mean it that way, Dorothea.

But, responsible as I am for MicroWar’s money — oh, hell, what are we going to do about the animals, the ones that are left? At least we can lose the feed bill.”

“We could have them put down, Dr. Perrywit. It is standard procedure for MicroWar experimental animals on project termination.”

“Waste! Think of the waste. Squirrels, yes, but cats are worth a lot these days…

Experimental animals indeed! What did Greylaw do? No records, no anything. No project specification even. Only the code-name Tranquillity. The old footler just fed his pussies for nine years at the expense of MicroWar, Insect Race and the great British Public… Last time I saw the inventory there were elephants. What happened to them?”

“One broke out and got killed.”

“How?”

“It derailed the London-Brighton hovertrain. The other one died of a broken heart.”

“Hm. We really will have to trace those missing cats. The records you know. I need my records absolutely perfect.”

“Yes, Dr. Perrywit.”

“Perfection, symmetry, balance, order, economy — these, Dr. Slink, are vanishing ideals in an age of chaos. But while I live I will strive to attain…” He was suddenly struck by a brilliant thought. “You needn’t worry about the surviving animals, I think I have a solution, an elegant solution. Meanwhile, see they get enough to eat. They are your responsibility.”

“Yes, Dr. Perrywit. Thank you.” She turned to go.

“Oh, and Dr. Slink.”

She half turned back. Those proud and living mountains stared disdainfully at him with their hidden X-ray eyes of nipples.

“You look,” he croaked, “you look, you look very — ah — efficient this morning.”

“Thank you, Dr. Perrywit.” Her nostrils quivered, an eyebrow ascended one point five millimetres, then she turned and opened the door. She closed it quietly behind her.

Dr. Perrywit took another pill. Then he began to contemplate his elegant solution.

Upon succeeding, the Marquis of Middlehampton had been saddled with death duties of about three mill. So he had sensibly turned Middle Acres into a combined tourist centre and natur reserve. What would he not say to the magnificent no-strings-attached gift of three big cats?

And the younger brother of the Marquis was no less than the Games, Contests and Prize Programmes Controller of NaTel. The only question was: could one — in these days of crumbling values — rely upon the noblesse to oblige?

darling… And then there were two.”

The bed looked like a battlefield — as, in some respects, it had been. Gabriel, naked, lay back against the pillow with a smile of satisfaction on his lips and dark rings of exhaustion round his eyes. Camilla had not overstated when she claimed to be in the promiscuous phase.

The last couple of times he had not been able to make it — which was annoying, because he had wanted to.

Camilla, also naked, rested her chin on her hands and gazed through the window at treetops in the late morning sunlight. The energy of the child was astounding. Almost at dawn, when Gabriel was thinking sorrowfully in terms of knock-out drops and/or a blood transfusion, she had risen from the bed of frenzy to round up the animals which had been enjoying a brief interval of discreet freedom in the garden. She had locked them in the cellar, turned the autovac loose on the ground floor, made a life-saving pot of tea, and had then given herself and Gabriel their badly needed anti-hangover shots.

After that, there was more ecstasy. Now, Gabriel was utterly limp; but Camilla still looked fresh enough for another round or two. Fortunately, P 939 prevented her from being aggressive about it.

“I think I shall ask a God Machine,” she said.

Gabriel, whose thoughts — such as they were — had been in various elsewheres, looked at her in bewilderment. “A God Machine? What were we talking about?”