“Yeah, I guess so.” Case leaned forward. “Here we go,” he said as the walls shimmered with a silvery luster, then seemed to fade to reveal an autumnal forest of great beech and maple trees. An afternoon sun slanted through high foliage. In the distance a bird called shrilly. A cool breeze bore the odor of pines and leaf mold. The scene seemed to stretch into shadowy cool distances. “Not bad,” said Case, dribbling cigar ashes on the rug. “Using all four walls was a great improvement.”
“Careful,” Chester said. “You may start a forest fire.”
Case snorted. “Don’t let it go to your head, Chester. It’s just an illusion, remember.”
“Those look to be quite normally inflammable leaves on the ground,” Chester said. “There’s one right under your chair.”
Case looked down. A dry leaf blew across the rug. The easy chairs and a patch of carpet seemed to be alone in the middle of a great forest.
“Hey, that’s a nice touch,” Case said approvingly. “But where’s the dinosaurs? This isn’t the kind of place . . . ”
Case’s comment was interrupted by a dry screech that descended from the supersonic into a blast like a steam whistle, then died off in a rumble. Both men leaped from their seats.
“What the . . . ”
“I believe your question’s been answered,” Chester croaked, pointing. Half hidden by foliage, a scaly, fungus-grown hill loomed up among the tree trunks, its gray-green coloring almost invisible in the forest gloom. The hill stirred; a giant turkeylike leg brushed against a tree trunk, sent bits of bark flying. The whitish undercurve of the belly wobbled ponderously; the great meaty tail twitched, sending a six-inch sapling crashing down.
Case laughed shakily. “For a minute there, I forgot this was just a—”
“Quiet! It might hear us!” Chester hissed.
“What do you mean, ‘hear us’?” Case said heartily. “It’s just a picture! But we need a few more dinosaurs to liven things up. The customers are going to want to see plenty for their money. How about it, Computer?”
The disembodied voice seemed to emanate from the low branches of a pine tree. “There are a number of the creatures in the vicinity, Mr. Mulvihill. If you will carefully observe to your left, you will see a small example of Megalosaurus. And beyond is a truly splendid specimen of Nodosaurus.”
“You know,” said Case, rising and peering through the woods for more reptiles, “I think when we get the show running, we’ll use this question-and-answer routine. It’s a nice touch. The cash customers will want to know a lot of stuff like—oh, what kind of perfume did Marie Antoinette use, or how many wives did Solomon really have.”
“I don’t know,” said Chester, watching as the nearby dinosaur scrunched against a tree trunk, causing a shower of twigs and leaves to flutter down. “There’s something about hearing a voice issuing from thin air that might upset the most high-strung members of the audience. Couldn’t we rig up a speaker of some sort for the voice to come out of?”
“Hmmm . . . ” Case strode up and down, puffing at his cigar. Chester fidgeted in his chair. Fifty feet away the iguanodon moved from the shelter of a great maple into the open. There was a rending of branches as the heavy salamander head pulled at a mass of foliage thirty feet above the forest floor.
“I’ve got it!” Case said, smacking his fist into his palm. “Another great idea! You said something about fixing up a speaker for the voice to come out of. But what kind of speaker, Chester?”
“Keep it down.” Chester moved behind his chair, a nervous eye on the iguanodon. “I still think that monster can hear us.”
“So what? Now; the speaker ought to be mobile—you know, so it can travel around among the marks and answer their questions. So . . . we get the computer to rig us a speaker that matches the voice!”
“Look,” said Chester, “it’s starting to turn this way.”
“Pay attention, Chester. We get the machine to design us a robot in the shape of a good-looking dame. She’ll be a sensation: a gorgeous, stacked babe who’ll answer any question you want to ask her.”
“He seems to move very sluggishly,” said Chester.
“We could call this babe Miss I-Cutie.”
“He sees us.”
“Don’t you get it? I.Q.—I-Cutie.”
“Yes, certainly. Go right ahead; whatever you say.”
The iguanodon’s great head swung ponderously, stopped with one unwinking eye fixed dead on Chester. “Just like a bird watching a worm,” he quavered. “Stand still, Case; maybe he’ll lose interest.”
“Nuts.” Case stepped forward. “Who’s scared of a picture?” He stood, hands on hips, looking at the towering reptile. “Not a bad illusion at all,” he called. “Even right up close, it looks real. Even smells real.” He wrinkled his nose, came stamping back to the two chairs and Chester. “Relax, Chester. You look as nervous as a bank teller at the fifty-credit window.”
Chester looked from Case to the browsing saurian. “Case, if I didn’t know there was a wall there . . . ”
“Hey, look over there.” Case waved his cigar. Chester turned. With a rustling of leaves a seven-foot bipedal reptile stalked into view, tiny forearms curled against its chest. In dead silence it stood immobile as a statue, except for the palpitation of its greenish-white throat. For a long moment it stared at the two men. Abruptly, it turned at a tiny sound from the grass at its feet and pounced. There was a strangled squeal, a flurry of motion. The eighteen-inch head came up, jaws working, to resume its appraisal of Chester and Case.
“That’s good material,” Case said, puffing hard at his cigar. “Nature in the raw; the battle for survival. The customers will eat it up.”
“Speaking of eating, I don’t like the way the thing’s looking at me.”
The dinosaur cocked its head, took a step closer.
“Phewww!” Case said. “You can sure smell that fellow.” He raised his voice. “Tone it down a little, Computer. This kid has got halitosis on a giant scale.”
The meat-eater gulped hard, twice, flicked a slender red tongue between rows of needlelike teeth in the snow-white cavern of its mouth, took another step toward Chester. It stood near the edge of the rug now, poised, alert, staring with one eye. It twisted its head, brought the other eye to bear.
“As I remember, there was at least six feet of clear floor space between the edge of that rug and the wall,” Chester said hoarsely. “Case, that hamburger machine’s in the room with us!”
Case laughed. “Forget it, Chester. It’s just the effect of the perspective or something.” He took a step toward the allosaurus. Its lower jaw dropped. The multiple rows of white teeth gleamed. Saliva gushed, spilled over the scaled edge of the lipless mouth. The red eye seemed to blaze up. A great clawed bird-foot came up, poised over the rug.
“Computer!” Chester shouted. “Get us out of here!”
The forest scene whooshed out of existence.
Case looked at Chester disgustedly. “What’d you want to do that for? I wasn’t through looking at them.”
Chester took out a handkerchief, sank into a chair, mopped at his face. “I’ll argue the point later—after I get my pulse under control.”
“Well, how about it? Was it great? Talk about stark realism!”
“Realism is right! It was as though we were actually there, in the presence of that voracious predator, unprotected!”
Case sat staring at Chester. “Hold it! You just said something, my boy: ‘as though we were actually there . . . ‘”
“Yes, and the sensation was far from pleasant.”
“Chester”—Case rubbed his hands together—”your troubles are over. It just hit me: the greatest idea of the century. You don’t think the tax boys will buy a slice of show biz, hey? But what about the scientific marvel of the age? They’ll go for that, won’t they?”
“But they already know about the computer.”
“We won’t talk to ’em about the computer, Chester. They wouldn’t believe it anyway: Crmblznski’s Limit, remember? We’ll go the truth one better. We’ll tell ’em something that will knock ’em for a loop.”
“Very well, I’ll ask: What will we tell them?”
“We tell ’em we’ve got a real, live time machine!”
“Why not tell them we’re in touch with the spirit world?”
Case considered. “Nope, too routine. There’s half a dozen in the racket in this state alone. But who do you know that’s got a time machine working, eh? Nobody, that’s who! Chester, it’s a gold mine. After we pay off the Internal Revenue boys, we’ll go on to bigger things. The possibilities are endless.”
“Yes, I’ve been thinking about a few of them: fines for tax evasion and fraud, prison terms for conspiracy and perjury. Why not simply tell the computer to float a loan?”
“Listen, up to now you’re as clean as a hired man catching the last bus back from the fair. But once you start instructing the machine to defraud by mail for you, you’re on the spot. Now keep cool and let’s do this as legal as possible.”