He nodded at shelves that ran six feet up the window wall. The shelves were beautifully made. Over the shelves was a driftwood plank that had written on it in blue paint: SKIP’S MUSEUM.
Skip’s Museum was a museum of mortal remains — of endoskeletons and exoskeletons — of shells, coral, bone, cartilage, and chiton — of dottles and orts and residua of souls long gone. Most of the specimens were those that a child — presumably Skip — could find easily on the beaches and in the woods of Newport. Some were obviously expensive presents to a child extraordinarily interested in the science of biology.
Chief among these presents was the complete skeleton of an adult human male.
There was also the empty suit of armor of an armadillo, a stuffed dodo, and the long spiral tusk of a narwhal, playfully labeled by Skip, Unicorn Horn.
“Who is Skip?” said Constant.
“I am Skip,” said Rumfoord. “Was.”
“I didn’t know,” said Constant.
“Just in the family, of course,” said Rumfoord.
“Um,” said Constant.
Rumfoord sat down in one of the wing chairs, motioned Constant to the other.
“Angels can’t either, you know,” said Rumfoord.
“Can’t what?” said Constant.
“Reproduce,” said Rumfoord. He offered Constant a cigarette, took one himself, and placed it in a long, bone cigarette holder. “I’m sorry my wife was too indisposed to come downstairs — to meet you,” he said. “It isn’t you she’s avoiding — it’s me.”
“You?” said Constant.
“That’s correct,” said Rumfoord. “She hasn’t seen me since my first materialization.” He chuckled ruefully. “Once was enough.”
“I — I’m sorry,” said Constant. “I don’t understand.”
“She didn’t like my fortunetelling,” said Rumfoord. “She found it very upsetting, what little I told her about her future. She doesn’t care to hear more.” He sat back in his wing chair, inhaled deeply. “I tell you, Mr. Constant,” he said genially, “it’s a thankless job, telling people it’s a hard, hard Universe they’re in.”
“She said you’d told her to invite me,” said Constant
“She got the message from the butler,” said Rumfoord. “I dared her to invite you, or she wouldn’t have done it. You might keep that in mind: the only way to get her to do anything is to tell her she hasn’t got the courage to do it. Of course, it isn’t an infallible technique. I could send her a message now, telling her that she doesn’t have the courage to face the future, and she would send me back a message saying I was right.”
“You — you really can see into the future?” said Constant. The skin of his face tightened, felt parched. His palms perspired.
“In a punctual way of speaking — yes,” said Rumfoord. “When I ran my space ship into the chrono-synclastic infundibulum, it came to me in a flash that everything that ever has been always will be, and everything that ever will be always has been.” He chuckled again. “Knowing that rather takes the glamour out of fortunetelling — makes it the simplest, most obvious thing imaginable.”
“You told your wife everything that was going to happen to her?” said Constant. This was a glancing question. Constant had no interest in what was going to happen to Rumfoord’s wife. He was ravenous for news of himself. In asking about Rumfoord’s wife, he was being coy.
“Well — not everything,” said Rumfoord. “She wouldn’t let me tell her everything. What little I did tell her quite spoiled her appetite for more.”
“I — I see,” said Constant, not seeing at all.
“Yes,” said Rumfoord genially, “I told her that you and she were to be married on Mars.” He shrugged. “Not married exactly — ” he said, “but bred by the Martians — like farm animals.”
Winston Niles Rumfoord was a member of the one true American class. The class was a true one because its limits had been clearly defined for at least two centuries — clearly defined for anyone with an eye for definitions. From Rumfoord’s small class had come a tenth of America’s presidents, a quarter of its explorers, a third of its Eastern Seaboard governors, a half of its full-time ornithologists, three-quarters of its great yachtsmen, and virtually all of its underwriters of the deficits of grand opera. It was a class singularly free of quacks, with the notable exception of political quacks. The political quackery was a means of gaining office — and was never carried into private life. Once in office, members of the class became, almost without exception, magnificently responsible.