Alien Pregnant by Elvis, page 15
Cindy frowned. “Yeah, I had to move Ed’s gun rack to fit that in. Ed wasn’t happy, but wait till we get that first check. . .
“You can make the kids give him his baths and play with him,” Kathy continued. “What more can a parrot need?”
Ptolemy, having satisfied his stomach, knew: he needed to find out how the Dream Team was doing, if the proposed takeover of Save-Big Retail had gone through. He nibbled one last pumpkin seed, then slowly made his way to the printed sheets below.
Immediately, Ptolemy knew something was different. The typeface was not that of ID or the Times or the Globe. It was bigger, and had less copy on the sheet than he was used to. Half the page was a garish photo of a baby with four arms. Around the margins ran little squares—advertisements for hair tonics and fortune tellers. Ptolemy lowered his head and began to read: “Pedro Sanchez is like any other toddler. He lives in a rural section of Mexico, adores his mother’s homemade tortillas, and plays with his big sister. But little Pedro has four arms!”
Ptolemy shook his head. He’d seen lots of people in his life, but none of them had four arms. An image of Gladys came to his mind, smiling sweetly, spreading fresh papers for him. “Now, Ptolemy, don’t believe everything you read in the papers!”
Ptolemy certainly didn’t believe this silliness. He turned another page with his long toes. “Unusual markings in a Nebraska wheatfield were discovered following a terrifying night of bizarre lights in the sky. Residents of Martinsville huddled in their homes during the onslaught, believed to be the result of alien invaders. Hildy Fitzwarren says: ‘It began at midnight. You could see the lights blinking off and on over the wheatfields.’ ”
Ptolemy uncurled his toe, letting the paper drop. What was this drivel? Maybe the other side was better. He expertly flipped the section over, revealing the front page of The Nation’s Eye. ELVIS, JIM MORRISON, JIMI HENDRIX ALL ALIVE AND JAMMING ON REMOTE SOUTH PACIFIC ISLAND screamed the headline. SHOCKING MIX-UP: MAN MARRIES HIS DAUGHTER AFTER DIVORCING HIS SISTER! BABY BORN WITH FOUR ARMS—see page sixteen! Too late; he’d already seen page sixteen.
Ptolemy didn’t know what to make of The Nation’s Eye. He’d certainly never seen anything like it before. Reading it gave him that uneasy feeling, the one he got when he’d read about a failing corporation. Something in this newspaper was not quite right. But he was starved for reading material, so he doggedly went through the whole issue, though he kept worrying about how much of it was true.
Matters did not improve for Ptolemy. For one thing, he was used to going to sleep at eight-thirty, but the Ledbetter family sat in front of the television long past then. Ptolemy couldn’t sleep because of the lights and noise. Cindy began by dutifully cleaning his cage every day, but that slipped to every week before long. The two kids were supposed to bathe him regularly, but they kept putting it off, too, especially after ten-year-old Mitch pulled Ptolemy’s tail and the parrot bit the brat.
The food was adequate, though Cindy did not lavish treats as Ben and Gladys had. But worst of all, in Ptolemy’s view, was the weekly supply of The Nation’s Eye. The more he read, the worse he felt. Nearly every paragraph gave his stomach flip-flops.
The alien stories made him feel worst. Ptolemy was continually amazed at the variety of “aliens”: green faces, strange appendages, glowing bodies, weird helmets; all the details, but no substance at all. His inner sense quivered at each UFO sighting. He much preferred stories about talking codfish in Newfoundland or ghostly pirate ships.
Three months of The Nation’s Eye convinced him it was shit, and he felt a certain satisfaction in defecating on it. But even though Ptolemy didn’t believe a word of it, that didn’t stop him from reading it front page to back. He was, after all, a confirmed print junkie.
“Thanks for taking him, Kathy,” said Cindy. She handed Ptolemy to her neighbor. Ptolemy perched on Kathy’s shoulder, nibbling at the frame of her glasses. He was glad they weren’t nervous around him any more, but he wondered why the Ledbetter brat was taking his cage outside.
“We’ll be back next Friday,” Cindy continued. “Mitch will bring over all Ptolemy’s food and toys. I hope he won’t be a bother.”
“No, it’s no trouble,” Kathy said. “We’re old friends now, huh, bird?”
She took Ptolemy into the house next door where Mitch was setting up the cage. “Here, Ptolemy, you’ll be staying with me for a while.”
Ptolemy looked around. The living room was similar to the Ledbetters’, but he noticed one difference right away: two bookshelves! Gladys and Ben had had lots of those. He perked up, feeling better than he had before. He tried reading the names on the spines: Stephen King, Sidney Sheldon, Danielle Steel. They didn’t jog Ptolemy’s memory, but they didn’t upset his tummy, either.
He felt happier still when Kathy’s daughter, a kind-hearted seventeen-year-old, came home and offered to play with him and bathe him. She did it very well, to Ptolemy’s surprise. Kathy looked on with pride. “You’ll be a great vet, kid. Why don’t you change his papers, too?”
“Okay, Mom.” She put Ptolemy on his t-stand. He watched her disappear, then return with several sheets of newspapers. His eyes widened. Real newspapers!
When the girl put him back, he hopped down faster than he had in months, indulging himself in the Chicago Tribune.
Even learning the Red Sox were in fifth didn’t dampen his joy at reading true stories, not lies that made him ill.
“Hey, Mom, that parrot’s reading the paper!”
“No, he’s not. Cindy says he likes to look at the pictures. Does it all the time. It just looks like he’s reading it. Can you feed him tomorrow morning?”
“Uh-uh. I’m sleeping over at Michelle’s; won’t be back till lunch.”
Kathy sighed. “Okay, I’ll do it. The things we do for our friends . . .”
Kathy Plotkin was trying a new facial mask—avocado oatmeal—when the parrot squawked early Saturday morning.
Her husband, still in bed, grumbled, “Shut that damn bird up, or we’re having Thanksgiving dinner early!”
“I’m going, I’m going.” She pulled on her slippers and hurried out into the living room.
Ptolemy had to squawk with happiness. The Tribune was still there. He’d feared it might have been a pleasant dream. He looked up when he heard a scuffling sound. What he saw in the doorway paralyzed him with fright.
Toward him came a humanlike being with a green face, strange pink devices on its scalp, and huge, fuzzy, blue feet.
Ptolemy stared, then fluttered his wings in horror and panic. The stories in The Nation’s Eye were true! There were aliens! One was coming right up to his cage—and if there were aliens, then all those other stories Ptolemy never believed must also be true.
His universe crumbled around him.
The alien reached out a hand with long red claws. It touched the door of the cage. Ptolemy shrieked and fell from his perch. He landed on the box scores, thrashed once, lay still.
Kathy stared at the dead bird in dismay. “Oh, Christ. What am I going to tell Cindy?”
Hitler Clone in Argentina Plots Falklands Reprise or
Hitler Clone in Argentina
Plots Falklands Reprise
or
Death and Transfiguration
by John DeChancie
John DeChancie writes some very funny fantasy books, such as Castle Perilous and others in the Castle series. However, that’s not all there is to the man, who has also written such critically acclaimed SF novels as Starrigger and Paradox Alley, as well as this haunting, poignant tale.
In a funny vein again, he claims he wrote it because “I was ordered to . . . by Friesner, who, in concert with hamsteroid aliens, has established mind control over key cultural figures in the Earth’s population. . .” Sorry, John, but you’re not going to blame Madonna’s Truth or Dare on me.
A sunny calm lay over the South Atlantic that afternoon. The water sparkled and shimmered, a lacework of silvery light playing across it. The sea had taken on a strange color, the artificial blue-green of a swimming pool. The sky, almost the same hue, though of a deeper shade and having less green, was mostly clear, a few lonely clouds drifting close to the horizon like cotton sailboats.
A frost-haired, rime-bearded old man in a wheel chair sat on a veranda high above the sea, meditating, his wrinkled skin waxlike, almost translucent in the bright sunlight. The face was set sternly, defiantly, its lines forming a perpetual pout. The eyes were pale brown. His jaw muscles worked, as though he were chewing over what was on his mind. He seemed on the verge of making an important decision.
The villa stood on a steep hill overlooking the sea. From the edge of the veranda, stone steps zigzagged through the rocks to the beach, where a few bathers waded in the surf or lounged under umbrellas.
From close above came the cry of a gull, like a question. The old man did not look up. The same cry, the same question sounded again. Then again; and once more. At length, tired of hovering and entreating, the gull stooped toward the beach and crossed the old man’s field of vision. The old man took no notice.
At long last he said to himself, “Ja.” He nodded his hoary head; the hair atop it was as thick as the beard. He still groomed it, as was his long habit, slicked down with oil. “Ja, ich muss.”
Slowly, painfully, he turned the chair around and wheeled himself through tall French doors and into the library.
It was a spacious room, lined with glassed shelves holding thousands of books, many bound in leather. Some looked of antiquarian interest. In one comer stood an ancient Victrola playing a scratchy old recording of Tod und Verklarung, by Strauss. He wheeled himself to the far wall and reached for the bell pull. He yanked once, twice. Then he moved toward the farther of two oaken library tables. The nearer was covered with a maritime map on which were arranged a number of tiny model ships—cruisers, aircraft carriers, and such like. Red and blue plastic markers picked out the positions of land units on the group of islands represented in the middle of the map. Dust covered everything on the table.
On the far table sat heaps of yellowing magazines and newspapers. He took a haphazard stack and began to sort through it, searching. Not finding much to his liking, he dumped the papers back on the table, took another stack, and searched again. This time he turned up the newspaper he wanted. He scanned the headlines, opened the tabloid, and began to read.
Presently a servant, in white jacket, wing collar, and black tie, entered the room and came up behind the old man. He coughed discreetly.
The old man turned his head. “Ah, Raul,” he said.
“Excelencia?”
“El telefono.”
“El telefono?”
“Ja. Si. ”
Raul hesitated. “Pero, Excelencia . . .”
The old man’s eyes suddenly caught fire. In them was something frightening, the first glimmerings of an anger that seemed capable of assuming monstrous proportions. “Raul! Haz lo que se te mande!”
Chastened, the tiniest bit afraid, Raul took a step back. He bowed stiffly. “Si, Excelencia!”
The old man watched the servant retreat, a look of sullen indignation still on his wrinkled face. Then, faintly, an ironic grimace curled one comer of his pale lips. He resumed reading.
Soon Raul returned with a cordless telephone. He withdrew the instrument’s shiny aerial before handing it to the old man.
The old man took the gadget and waited until Raul left the room. Then he searched the table top for a notebook. Finding it, he opened it and placed it in front of him, then began to punch out a long series of numbers on the phone, numbers he had painfully traced down months before but had not had the nerve to dial until now.
A long time had passed since he had called anyone long distance. In fact it had been years since he had called anyone at all. The last time had been before the advent of telecommunications satellites. Reaching anyone overseas used to be an arduous struggle, a fight through ranks of dunderheaded Spanish-speaking operators, then foreign ones, mostly English-speaking. Now, one merely tapped out numbers directly.
He worried about his English. It was better than his Spanish, but he had learned it very late in life. He had almost daily practice here; many of the guests spoke nothing but the tongue of the Englander: However, he had doubts about making himself understood to strangers across vast distances.
“Yes, hello? Hello? Yes, I would like to speak with a Mr.—” He consulted the notebook. “—a Mr. Barrett Sacks. Yes. Yes, I will wait.”
The old man waited, listening to the swelling, ethereal chords of the finale of the Strauss piece.
“Hello? Yes, I—Oh, he is on another line? I see. Well, I am calling long distance . . . Yes, it is very urgent. Yes, but you see . . . No, I cannot call back later. It is of the utmost urgency that I speak to Mr. Sacks. . . Certainly! Very well, I will wait.”
He waited for what seemed like fifteen minutes, growing ever impatient. His bony, stick-figure body quivered, first with nervousness, then with mounting frustration and anger.
His rage quickly subsided when he heard a male voice on the other end.
“Mr. Sacks? Ah, yes, Mr. Sacks, very good. Thank you very much for answering my call . . . You are very kind. If I could have a moment of your time, sir? . . . Thank you very much. I shall try to be brief. I wish to congratulate you on your article in the April seventh issue of your newspaper, last year. No! Two years ago. Which? The one about Adolf Hitler being alive in Argentina. And that he is planning another assault on the Malvinas? Excuse me, the Falkland Islands. Yes, that one. Hitler’s clone, yes. That is very funny, you see. No, I will explain. In principle, most of your facts are completely accurate, Mr. Sacks. However, you have some of the details wrong, and I would like to correct them. Yes. . . Yes . . . Who am I? Well, I will tell you who I am, Mr. Sacks, though you might have some trouble believing me. But I assure you, I am who I say I am . . . I beg your pardon? . . . Yes, I will tell you . . .”
Greased head to toe with heavy sunblock and shaded with amber sunglasses that filtered blue and ultraviolet light, Jack lay stretched on a folding chaise, getting as much suntan as he dared, conscious of all the current global worries about degrading ozone and increasing UV . . . Wait a minute. Was too much sun dangerous because of the ozone thing, or was it because of the greenhouse effect? Both? He really didn’t know. Years ago he had acquired the habit of keeping a close eye on the world situation. Religiously and with great attention to detail, he had daily devoured reams of newspapers, magazines, and journals of opinion. Of late, though, as he eased into his eighties, he had tapered off considerably. Now he was pushing it if he read two newsmags a month. If it weren’t for the funnies, he would rarely scan a newspaper. He didn’t even read spy novels any more. (Were they still writing spy novels?) He had ceased to care about current events. Besides, the issues were practically the same as they had been when he’d taken office, give or take a few. True, the East-West thing had changed radically. Things were the same in Cuba, though . . .
And Jack really didn’t give a damn. At one time, he’d been obsessed with that island-nation’s frizz-bearded dictator. Now? Well, actually, he had expected Old Fuzzy to show up at Estancia-del-Mar long before this. But the aging Cuban firebrand was still hanging on, fighting a losing battle. The bastard had balls. That much Jack would give him.
He yawned. Then he raised himself on one elbow and looked at Marilyn, who, in a black one-piece bathing suit, sat in a nearby deck chair underneath a yellow and pink sun umbrella, reading a book. Having just passed the milestone of 60, she was still a handsome woman, though she had long ceased to bleach her hair or be overconcerned about her weight. She was now prettily plump.
“What are you reading?” he asked.
“Nietzsche.”
Jack was impressed. “Heavy stuff. Zarathustra?”
“No, Beyond Good and Evil.”
Jack shook his head. “Never read it. Good?”
Annoyed, she frowned at him.
“Oh. Guess it’s not exactly light reading.”
“You should read more, Jack, instead of just sitting around.”
“Yeah? Why, exactly?”
“Why does anyone read?” Marilyn said with a lift of her pale shoulders. “To improve the mind.”
“I was never an intellectual, though the press liked to characterize me as one. I seemed to attract eggheads like shit does flies, but I never had any use for them. Too impractical.”
“Jack, no one ever accused you of being an egghead.”
“Maybe not. Just a realistic altruist, or something like that. Actually, I was never anything but a politician. Like my granddad.”
“Or your dad?”
“Nah, he was a hard-bitten son of a bitch, like all businessmen.”
“What are politicians?”
Jack chuckled. “Weasels.”
“Not all, surely.”
“It may be ungracious to malign one’s own profession, but I met my share of weasels on Capitol Hill. Still, you’ve got to face the fact that man is a political animal. He’s got to do politics, or it’s the club, or the knife, or the gun.”
“Politicians seem to wave around most of the guns in the world,” Marilyn commented sardonically, eyes still on her book.
“I won’t argue with you,” Jack sighed as he lay back down.
A breeze came in from the sea. A gull’s cry sounded above, receding. A few minutes passed.
“Well, enough of this,” Jack said, rising. It took some effort. When he was up on two feet he faced the sea and took a few deep breaths, then stood watching the surf, scratching his belly.
Despite his years, he still retained something of his former athletic build. He kept active, got regular exercise, and stuck to a spartan diet. And of course Dr. Cabeza de Vaca’s longevity drugs helped immensely.
“Here comes King,” Jack said.
The man who had been America’s most popular pop singer at mid-century came jogging in from the water. He was younger than Jack—about Marilyn’s age—and his years as one of Dr. Cabeza de Vaca’s guests here at the villa had done him wonders. On arrival he had been a physical wreck, swollen with premature middle-age bloat, addicted to a dozen drugs, his arteries clogged like silted rain sewers. In the relatively short time of his stay at Estancia-del-Mar, however, his body had recaptured its youthful slimness and his face had remolded itself nearer to the heartthrobbing desire of his female fans. Jack knew that he and Marilyn had been having an on-and-off extended fling since shortly after his check-in.
