Fritz Leiber - The Green Millennium

Phil was enjoying himself thoroughly, especially while romping hand in hand with a cute red head from the “Visit Vicious Venus” show, but every now and then the thought of neglected dangers and duties returned to nag him. On one of these occasions, Juno threw a big arm around his neck, almost knocking his head off, and said, “Got troubles, Phil? Give ’ em to Mama Juno and she’ll throw ’ em away. Oh boy, do I love that green monkey! He’s got the best little formula for living there is. Hey, looka that!”

She was pointing at Carstairs and Buck, who had discovered a concession titled in flaming red phospho-flare KICK THE LOVELY LADY INTO YOUR ARMS and were happily struggling for the possession of a very large mallet which apparently had something to do with the game. After some puzzling, Phil understood. The game was the age old one of striking a target on the ground which caused an indicator to jump up a pole – with the typical late twentieth-century addition that, if the indicator reached the top of the pole, not only did a bell ring and lights flare, but a huge hinged lower leg with a cushioned boot swung down and rudely lifted a lovely lady off a perch some three feet above the winner and into his arms, if he were ready to catch her.

This last couldn’t have been any too sure, since the lovely lady was one of the glamor girls pushing fifty rather than forty. At present she was glowering cynically at Carstairs and Buck, as if certain they were infinitely more interested in the mallet than in her. She wasn’t yet under Lucky’s influence, as the green cat had momentarily romped off with the black panthers to the tail end of the procession.

The two happy hep-jerks got things settled between them and took many mighty thumps at the target. The indicator jumped high but always hesitated just heartbreakingly short of the top. The onlookers sighed sympathetically. By this time most of the bacchanalian procession had gathered around the “kick the lady” concession. It was strategically located between two bars and opposite the “Mind Clearers,” as they chastely labeled themselves in blinking red fluorescents, and a dismal cavern mouth called “Pluto’s Palace,” beside which was an inaccurate model of the solar system with the planets revolving jerkily.

Moe Brimstine was refreshing himself with a pitcher of beer his attendant nymphs had rushed him from one of the bars. Two black shapes came undulating in from the outskirts in pursuit of a green flash, as Lucky returned to his proper position, bringing the other felines with him.

Then, as Carstairs started to toss aside the mallet with an amiable grin of defeat, Dion da Silva came charging up and grabbed it. He stripped off his jacket and shirt, revealing an extremely hairy chest and back.

“That Dion man is sure male looking,” Mary murmured to Phil appreciatively, eyeing her hero “With those cute ears, he’s just like a little old satyr.”

Dion flexed his impressive muscles, took up the mallet, and crashed it down with a force which the spectators felt with their back teeth. The bell clanged, the light flashed and the big foot started its descent.

At the same time, Dora Pannes pushed out of the crowd from the direction of Pluto’s Palace and walked haughtily past Dion with never a glance at him or anyone else. She was moving toward Lucky with the single-purposeness of a sleep walker.

Disregarding the kicked lovely lady, Dion sprang upon Dora Pannes, crushed her to his hairy chest, and started suffocating her with kisses. Phil gallantly stepped forward and caught the lovely lady. His knees sagged. She was now within range of Lucky’s influence and pursed her lips invitingly at Phil, but he quickly set her down, aghast at something else.

With a sudden howl of furious anger, Dion had pushed Dora Pannes away from him, so that she fell down heavily. Before anyone could stop him, Dion snatched up the mallet and brought it down with a titanic crash on the head of the gorgeous violet blonde.

“I in love with thing like that!” he screamed. “Aah!” And he continued to batter the beautiful head and body so that it bounced up and down on the rubber.

Phil was doubly shocked because this was occurring in Lucky’s presence. In fact, the green cat, sitting calmly in front of Phil, seemed to be looking on with approval.

Dora Pannes began to writhe crippledly and lasciviously between blows and to sing “Slap Me Silly Honey” in a hideously gay voice. Then her head, flattened by repeated blows, split open. But instead of brains there spilled out fragments of glass, plastic and metal, some of them with wires attached. Her voice rose in a final meaningless duck quack and she stopped moving.

A number of realizations fitted themselves together in Phil’s mind at this proof that Dora Pannes was not a human being, but the most advanced of mannequins operating by scanners and instruction tapes. Why, even her name was a pun from Greek mythology, a rough anagram of Pandora, the metal maiden constructed, if Phil remembered Dr. Romadka correctly, at the command of Zeus.

As Dion finally put down the mallet, a girl in slacks broke out of the crowd and grabbed Phil’s arm. It was Mitzie Romadka, panting and disheveled. Behind her darted Sacheverell Akeley.

“Jack and Cookie managed to slug Llewellyn,” she panted, “and tried to do the same to us. We got away from them, but they’ve gone to warn Billig.”

Looking around quickly, Phil realized that they had. Standing in the gloomy entrance to Pluto’s Palace was Mr. Billig, flanked by a half dozen gleaming sales robots. Only these sales robots had gun muzzles jutting from their gleaming turrets. Billig had a box slung to his chest.

“Any funny business from anyone and they mow down the crowd,” he called, his fingers poised over the box “Dora, stun that cat and bring it here.”

The crowd sucked back to either side and showed Billig the wreckage of Dora Pannes, with Lucky sitting serenely beside it. Phil could see the horror come into Billig’s face as he sensed the golden wave of peace coming from Lucky. Billig jerked up the ortho and fired.

The blue beam splattered molten rubber a dozen feet from Lucky and did no other damage before it winked out. But as the dazzle died, Phil saw that the beam’s back fire had found a target. Billig pitched forward with a large hole in his head.

Then, as if Billig’s fall had been a cue, a small, fattish man stepped out through the curtains of the Mind Clearers. Although he was wearing some sort of partial gas mask, Phil recognized Dr. Romadka. He pointed a stun-gun, Lucky collapsed and was still, and the night’s eerie peace shifted in a finger snap to a churning terror which seemed to Phil to take the form of a palpable vibration, a wailing roar.

Romadka darted forward toward Lucky. Beside Phil, Mary Akeley jerked something from the pocketbook and waved it in the air. “Anton!” she screamed menacingly, and when the psychiatrist looked her way, she swung the doll of him sharply against her foot, so that its head snapped against her heel.

For a moment Phil believed she was a genuine witch, for Romadka pitched forward on his face.

But then he saw that the wailing roar had been that of a dozen squad cars, converging on the spot from all directions and rocket braking so close to the crowd that there were singed legs and screams. Men uniformed and in plain clothes piled out and barked and pummeled the crowd into a semblance of control. The man who’d jumped from the foremost car lowered the stun-gun with which he’d knocked out Romadka. It was Dave Greeley.

For a moment Phil wondered bleakly whether Billig mightn’t have made arrangements with the government for a deal involving the cat, naming this place as a rendezvous. Then out from behind the FBL man stepped Morton Opperly, peering about with great interest, and Phil decided that this was a world in which you couldn’t even trust noble looking old scientists pretending to be great liberals and babbling government top secrets in order to win your confidence.