“Welcome, Space Wanderer,” blatted Rumfoord’s oleomargarine tenor from the Gabriel horns on the wall. “How meet it is that you should come to us on the bright red pumper of a volunteer fire department. I can think of no more stirring symbol of man’s humanity to man than a fire engine. Tell me, Space Wanderer, do you see anything here – anything that makes you think you may have been here before?”
The Space Wanderer murmured something unintelligible.
“Louder, please,” said Rumfoord.
“The fountain – I remember that fountain,” said the Space Wanderer gropingly. “Only – only – “
“Only?” said Rumfoord.
“It was dry then – whenever that was. It’s so wet now,” said the Space Wanderer.
A microphone near the fountain was now tuned into the public address system, so that the actual babble, spatter and potch of the fountain could underline the Space Wanderer’s words.
“Anything else familiar, oh, Space Wanderer?” said Rumfoord.
“Yes,” said the Space Wanderer shyly. “You.”
“I am familiar?” said Rumfoord archly. “You mean there’s a possibility that I played some small part in your life before?”
“I remember you on Mars,” said the Space Wanderer. “You were the man with the dog – just before we took off.”
“What happened after you took off?” said Rumfoord.
“Something went wrong,” said the Space Wanderer. He sounded apologetic, as though the series of misfortunes were somehow his own fault. “A lot of things went wrong.”
“Have you ever considered the possibility,” said Rumfoord, “that everything went absolutely right?”
“No,” said the Space Wanderer simply. The idea did not startle him, could not startle him – since the idea proposed was so far beyond the range of his jerry-built philosophy.
“Would you recognize your mate and child?” said Rumfoord.
“I – I don’t know,” said the Space Wanderer.
“Bring me the woman and the boy who sell Malachis outside the little iron door,” said Rumfoord. “Bring Bee and Chrono.”
The Space Wanderer and Winston Niles Rumfoord and Kazak were on a scaffold before the mansion. The scaffold was at eye-level for the standing crowd. The scaffold before the mansion was a portion of a continuous system of catwalks, ramps, ladders, pulpits, steps, and stages that reached into every corner of the estate.
The system made possible the free and showy circulation of Rumfoord around the grounds, unimpeded by crowds. It meant, too, that Rumfoord could offer a glimpse of himself to every person on the grounds.
The system was not suspended magnetically, though it looked like a miracle of levitation. The seeming miracle was achieved by means of a cunning use of paint. The underpinnings were painted a flat black, while the superstructures were painted flashing gold.
Television cameras and microphones on booms could follow the system anywhere.
For night materializations, the superstructures of the system were outlined in flesh-colored electric lamps.
The Space Wanderer was only the thirty-first person to be invited to join Rumfoord on the elevated system.
An assistant had now been dispatched to the Malachi booth outside to bring in the thirty-second and thirty-third persons to share the eminence.
Rumfoord did not look well. His color was bad. And, although he smiled as always, his teeth seemed to be gnashing behind the smile. His complacent glee had become a caricature, betraying the fact that all was not well by any means.
But on and on the famous smile went. The magnificently snobbish crowd-pleaser held his big dog Kazak by a choke chain. The chain was twisted so as to nip warningly into the dog’s throat. The warning was necessary, since the dog plainly did not like the Space Wanderer.
The smile faltered for an instant, reminding the crowd of what a load Rumfoord carried for them – warning the crowd that he might not be able to carry it forever.
Rumfoord carried in his palm a microphone and transmitter the size of a penny. When he did not want his voice carried to the crowd, he simply smothered the penny in his fist.
The penny was smothered in his fist now – and he was addressing bits of irony to the Space Wanderer that would have bewildered the crowd, had the crowd been able to hear them.
“This is certainly your day, isn’t it?” said Rumfoord. “A perfect love feast from the instant you arrived. The crowd simply adores you. Do you adore crowds?”
The joyful shocks of the day had reduced the Space Wanderer to a childish condition – a condition wherein irony and even sarcasm were lost on him. He had been the captive of many things in his troubled times. He was now a captive of a crowd that thought he was a marvel. “They’ve certainly been wonderful,” he said, in reply to Rumfoord’s last question. “They’ve been grand.”
“Oh – they’re a grand bunch,” said Rumfoord. “No mistake about that. I’ve been racking my brains for the right word to describe them, and you’ve brought it to me from outer space. Grand is what they are.” Rumfoord’s mind was plainly elsewhere. He wasn’t much interested in the Space Wanderer as a person – hardly looked at him. Neither did he seem very excited about the approach of the Space Wanderer’s wife and child.
“Where are they, where are they?” said Rumfoord to an assistant below. “Let’s get on with it. Let’s get it over with.”
The Space Wanderer was finding his adventures so satisfying and stimulating, so splendidly staged, that he was shy about asking questions – was afraid that asking questions might make him seem ungrateful.
He realized that he had a terrific ceremonial responsibility and that the best thing to do was to keep his mouth shut, to speak only when spoken to, and to make his answers to all questions short and artless.
The Space Wanderer’s mind did not teem with questions. The fundamental structure of his ceremonial situation was obvious – was as clean and functional as a three-legged milking stool. He had suffered mightily, and now he was being rewarded mightily.
The sudden change in fortunes made a bang-up show. He smiled, understanding the crowd’s delight – pretending to be in the crowd himself, sharing the crowd’s delight.
Rumfoord read the Space Wanderer’s mind. “They’d like it just as much the other way around, you know,” he said.
“The other way around?” said the Space Wanderer.
“If the big reward came first, and then the great suffering,” said Rumford. “It’s the contrast they like. The order of events doesn’t make any difference to them. It’s the thrill of the fast reverse – “
Rumfoord opened his fist, exposed the microphone. With his other hand he beckoned pontifically. He was beckoning to Bee and Chrono, who had been hoisted Onto a tributary of the gilded system of catwalks, ramps, ladders, pulpits, steps and stages. “This way, please. We haven’t got all day, you know,” said Rumfoord schoolmarmishly.
During the lull, the Space Wanderer felt the first real tickle of plans for a good future on Earth. With everyone so kind and enthusiastic and peaceful, not only a good life but a perfect life could be lived on Earth.
The Space Wanderer had already been given a fine new suit and a glamorous station in life, and his mate and son were to be restored to him in a matter of minutes.
All that was lacking was a good friend, and the Space Wanderer began to tremble. He trembled, for he knew in his heart that his best friend, Stony Stevenson, was hidden somewhere on the grounds, awaiting a cue to appear.
The Space Wanderer smiled, for he was imagining Stony’s entrance. Stony would come running down a ramp, laughing and a little drunk. “Unk, you bloody bastard – ” Stony would roar right into the public address system, “by God, I’ve looked in every flaming pub on bloody Earth for you – and here you’ve been hung up on Mercury the whole bloody time!”
As Bee and Chrono reached Rumfoord and the Space Wanderer, Rumfoord walked away. Had he separated himself from Bee, Chrono, and the Space Wanderer by a mere arm’s length, his separateness might have been understood. But the gilded system enabled him to put a really respectable distance between himself and the three, and not only a distance, but a distance made tortuous by rococo and variously symbolic hazards.
It was undeniably great theater, notwithstanding Dr. Maurice Rosenau’s carping comment (op. cit.): “The people who watch reverently as Winston Niles Rumfoord goes dancing over his golden jungle gym in Newport are the same idiots one finds in toy stores, gaping reverently at toy trains as the trains go chuffa-chuffa-chuffa in and out of papier-m�ch� tunnels, over toothpick trestles, through cardboard cities, and into papier-m�ch� tunnels again. Will the little trains or will Winston Niles Rumfoord chuffa-chuffa-chuffa into view again? Oh, mirabile dictu! … they will!”
From the scaffold in front of the mansion Rumfoord went to a stile that arched over the crest of a boxwood hedge. On the other side of the stile was a catwalk that ran for ten feet to the trunk of a copper beech. The trunk was four feet through. Gilded rungs were fixed to the trunk by lag screws.