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And his vast regressive babyland had caught on: become a fad. On lesser scales other top industrialists and money-boys – to speak in a brutal and frank way, war profiteers – had made life-size models of their childhood worlds, too; Virgil's now had ceased to be unique. None, of course, matched Virgil's in complexity and sheer authenticity; fakes of antique items, not the actual surviving articles, had been strewn about in vulgar approximations of what had been the authentic reality. But in all fairness, it had to be realized, Eric reflected, no one possessed the money and economic know-how to underwrite this admittedly uniquely expensive and beyond all others – imitations all – utterly impractical venture. This – in the midst of the dreadful war.
But still it was, after all, harmless, in its quaint sort of way. A bit, he reflected, like Bruce Himmel's peculiar activity with his many clanky little carts. It slaughtered no one. And this could hardly be said for the national effort... the jihad against the creatures from Proxima.
On thinking of this, an unpleasant recollection entered his mind.
On Terra at the UN capital city, Cheye
Questions, until recently, had run to a monotonous, baiting uniformity. But now a new interrogation had begun by subtle stages to put in its very ominous appearance – ominous at least from the standpoint of the Establishment. In view of this inquiry the exhibit had abruptly terminated, and for an indefinite time. How can we come to a rapprochement? The reegs, oddly, had an answer. It amounted to: live and let live. Expansion by Terrans into the Proxima System would cease; the reegs would not – and actually had not in the past – invest the Sol System.
But as to Lilistar: The reegs had no answer there because they had developed none for themselves; the 'Starmen had been their enemies for centuries and it was too late for anyone to give or take any advice on this subject. And anyhow 'Star 'advisers' had already managed to take up residence on Terra for the performance of security functions... as if a four-armed, antlike organism six feet high could pass u
The presence of 'Star advisers, however, easily passed u
'Cat got your tongue?' Phyllis Ackerman said to Eric, seating herself beside him in the cramped lounge. She smiled, an effort which transfigured her thin, delicately cut face; she looked, for a moment, appealingly pretty. 'Order me a drink, too. So I can face the world of bolo bats and Jean Harlow and Baron von Richthofen and Joe Louis and – what the hell is it?' She searched her memory, eyes squeezed shut. 'I've blocked it out of my mind. Oh yes. Tom Mix. And his Ralston Straight Shooters. With the Wrangler. That wretched Wrangler. And that cereal! And those eternal goddam box tops. You know what we're in for don't you? Another session with Orphan A
Put by this spectacle in a reasonably good mood, Eric said playfully but cautiously, 'One day we'll jot down the numbers the fake a
'I know,' Phyllis said, and thereupon finished for him, '"It's hopeless, Earthmen. Give up now. This is the Monarch of the reegs speaking; looky heah, y'all: I've infiltrated radio station WMAL in Washington, D.C., and I'm going to destroy you."' She somberly drank from her tall stemmed glass. '"And in addition the Ovaltine you've been drinking—"'
'I wasn't going to say precisely that.' But she had come awfully darn close. Nettled, Eric said, 'Like the rest of your family you've got a sense that requires you to interrupt before a non-blooder—'
'A what?'
'This is what we call you,' he said grimly. 'You Ackermen.'
'Go ahead then, doctor.' Her gray eyes lit with amusement. 'Say your tiny say.'
Eric said, 'Never mind. Who's the guest?'
The great pale eyes of the woman had never seemed so large, so composed; they dominated and commanded with their utter i
'Freneksy's cops,' Eric said, sharing her mood, 'as you pointed out yourself, would swoop down on Wash-35 so dalb fast—'
'I know. It's a fantasy, a wish-fulfilment dream. Born out of hopeless longing. So it hardly matters whether Virgil would decide to mastermind – and try to carry off – such an encounter or not, does it? Because it couldn't be done successfully in a million light-years. It could be tried. But not done.'