“Indeed?” said the professor. “You understand, then, about Leveled Personality Interflow?” He was beaming.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Leveled Personality Interflow!” he barked. “Chapter Nine!”
“Oh. In your book, of course. Well, as a matter of fact I skipped—”
“Another one,” muttered the professor, leaning back.
The Duchess chattered on: “Dear Miss Bancroft, of course, swears by your book. But you were asking— no, it wasn’t what you said. I cast her horoscope and it turned out that she is the Twenty-Seventh Pen-dragon!”
“Scheissdreck,” the professor mumbled, too discouraged to translate.
“So naturally, professor, she incarnates Taliesin spiritually and”—a modest giggle—”you know who incarnates it materially. Which is only sensible, since I’m descended from the high priestesses of Mu. Little did I think when I was running the Wee Occult Book Shoppe in Carbon-dale!”
“/a,” said the professor. He made an effort. “Madame, tell me something. Do you never feel a certain thing, a sense of friendliness and intoxication and goodwill enveloping you quite suddenly?”
“Oh, that,” she said scornfully. “Yes; every now and then. It doesn’t bother me. I just think of all the work I have to do. How I must stamp out the dreadful, soul-destroying advocates of meat-eating, and chemical fertilizer, and fluoridation. How I must wage the good fight
for occult science and crush the materialistic philosophers. How I must tear down our corrupt and self-seeking ministers and priests, our rotten laws and customs—”
“Lieber Gott,” the professor marveled as she went on. “With Norris it is spiders. With me it is rats and asphyxiation. But with this woman it is apparently everything in the Kosmos except her own revolting self!” She didn’t hear him; she was demanding that the voting age for women be lowered to sixteen and for men raised to thirty-five.
We plowed through flies and mosquitoes like smoke. The flies bred happily on dead cows and in sheep which unfortunately were still alive. There wasn’t oil cake for the cows hi the New Lemuria. There wasn’t sheep-dip for the sheep. There weren’t state and county and township and village road crews constantly patrolling, unplugging sluices, clearing gutters, replacing rusted culverts, and so quite naturally the countryside was reverting to swampland^ The mosquitoes loved it.
“La Plume,” the Duchess announced gaily. “And that’s Miss Phoebe Bancroft’s little house right there. Just why did you wish to see her, professor, by the way?”
“To complete her re-education . . .” the professor said in a tired voice.
Miss Phoebe’s house, and the few near it, were the only places we had seen hi the Area which weren’t blighted by neglect. Miss Phoebe, of course, was able to tell the shambling zombies what to do in the way of truck-gardening, lawn-mowing and maintenance. The bugs weren’t too bad there.
“She’s probably resting, poor dear,” said the Duchess. I stopped the car and we got out. The Duchess said something about Kleenex and got hi again and rummaged through the glove compartment.
“Please, professor,” I said, clutching my briefcase. “Play it the smart way. The way I told you.”
“Norris,” he said, “I realize that you have my best interests at heart. You’re a good boy, Norris and I like you—”
“Watch it!” I yelled, and swung into the posture of defense. So did he.
Spiders. It wasn’t a good old world, not while there were loathsome spiders in it. Spiders—
Arid a pistol shot past my ear. The professor fell. I turned and saw the Duchess looking smug, about to shoot me too. I sidestepped and she missed; as I slapped the automatic out of her hand I thought confusedly that it was a near-miracle, her hitting the professor at five paces even if he was a standing target. People don’t realize how hard it is to hit anything with a hand-gun.
I suppose I was going to kill her or at least damage her badly when a new element intruded. A little old white-haired lady tottering down the neat gravel path from the house. She wore a nice pastel dress which surprised me; somehow I had always thought of her hi black.
“Bertha!” Miss Phoebe rapped out. “What have you done?”
The Duchess simpered. “That man there was going to harm you, Phoebe, dear. And this fellow is just as bad—”