Century of the Manikin

by E.C. Tubb

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Space Opera

Synopsis

Peaceful, happy, non-violent . . . the perfect society? Or was it? As chief of Propaganda and Emotional Control, Joseph P. Lincoln had experience in coping with every potential threat to the system. But even he was ill-prepared to deal with the amazing woman from the past, whose arrival soon threw Lincoln's carefully ordered world into total chaos. CENTURY OF THE MANIKIN is wise, witty and a unique treatment of the problems of cryogenesis.

Release date: September 29, 2011

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 144

Sample

Neatly dressed in an embroidered jacket, velvet trousers, ruffled shirt, cummerbund, a tarboosh, and pointed slippers of rare delicate leather, Dale Orson Nelson Tulliver sat at an ormolu desk, picked up a quill, dipped it into a pot of ink and, on a virgin sheet of high-grade vellum, wrote:

We hanged Old Joe in the morning

Hooking him high on a wall

It was good to see him kicking

And better to hear him bawl

I got an ear for a souvenir

And Krell, he got an eye

We hanged Old Joe in the morning

But ’twas night ’fore we let him die.

Reaching for the pounce pot, he dusted the wet ink, and shaking off the surplus powder, leaned back to study his creation. Not bad, he thought smugly. Not bad at all. He hummed to himself reflectively. A little polishing, perhaps? Firmly he decided against it. Original creation held a certain spontaneity, a subtle essence which polishing could all too easily eradicate. And folk art was supposed to be crude. Crude, rough, and forceful, something with a swing which could be easily remembered, chanted, and sung.

Dropping the completed work into a drawer of the desk, he reached for a fresh sheet of vellum, reloaded the quill, and paused, staring over the desk to where heavy drapes hung beside the serried spines of books bound in red and lettered in gold. Inspiration was strong tonight. He could almost feel the words bubbling inside his head, thrusting themselves into ordered form, bursting to be set free and immortalized with ink and paper.

There was trouble in the twilight and the tantalizing taste …

He had it! Quickly now, before delay could blunt the razor edge of original thought. The quill moved toward the vellum, halting as the reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa said, “A communication for you, sir.”

“Damn! Tell them I’m out.”

“It is an official call, sir.” The voice of the painting held reproof. “From the office of Joseph P. Lincoln.”

Dale glowered, hesitating, but, damn it, not even the director himself was important enough to interfere at a time like this. “I’m still out.”

“I have acknowledged receipt of the call, sir.” The voice became even more reproving. “Had your absence been genuine I would have relayed the information without delay. As it is, your dissembling will be obvious. And I should not have to remind you, sir, that it is your duty to take the call. As an employee of PAEC you should at all times be willing to defer to the demands of your superior, and—”

“Shut up!”

“—it betrays clear evidence of emotional instability that you should take this line of action. I strongly advise that you accept the communication without further delay.”

“Shut up!” yelled Dale again. “You sour-faced cow! When I want your advice I’ll ask for it!”

“I’m only trying to be helpful,” said the painting coldly. “My advice is based purely on a desire to safeguard your welfare, but you are under no obligation to follow my suggestions. If you want to wreck your career that is solely your concern. Shall I inform Joseph P. Lincoln that you refuse to accept his call?”

Savagely Dale flung down the quill, careless of the damage spattering ink did to the sheet of vellum. To defy the director would be an act of madness, pointless too, now that inspiration had fled, but Lisa’s lack of cooperation was the thing that really hurt. The damn thing was just like his mother with her “don’t do this” and “don’t do that.” Don’t, don’t, don’t all the time!

“Well, sir?”

“You bitch,” he said thickly. “I’m going to really fix you one of these days.”

“As you wish, sir. The call?”

“Damn you, you grinning slut! Put it through!”

The painting dissolved to be replaced by a round head topped with a carefully arranged mane of snowy hair. Joseph P. Lincoln had always reminded Dale of a dog, a mournful St. Bernard, with sagging lower lids and drooping jowls, a sad face with deep-etched lines flanked with oddly delicate ears. Around his neck, instead of a keg of brandy, he wore the high collar of a rainbow-hued Russian blouse, the wide sleeves ending in soft, pudgy hands.

“Dale.” The mournful eyes blinked a little. “Did I interrupt something?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry, Dale. I know how it is when you get deep into something, but it can’t be helped. Something’s come up and I need you right away.”

“I’m off duty.”

Joseph was apologetic. “I know that, Dale, and I hate having to ask you, but there’s no help for it. Springer crossed his medicinals and has relapsed into a shock-state which will take all of a week to snap him clear. Braine is chasing a hot lead and Lomash is down with appendicitis. You’re the only man in the area I’ve got free and available.”

“But—”

“It’s the job, Dale.” The mournful eyes remained soft and appealing, the voice was as pleasant as before, but Dale wasn’t fooled. The pathetic, somehow appealing dog face was a deception. Behind it lurked the mind and determination of a cobra.

“All right,” said Dale, surrendering. “It was just that I was working on something important, but as you say, the job comes first. Do you want me to come in for briefing?”

“There’s no need for that.” Joseph glanced down at something before him. “We had a tip and I want you to follow it up. An apartment in District eight.” He gave the address. “The password is ‘Bullring.’ Got it?”

Dale nodded. “Anything else?”

“There’s a woman, Sandra Elinor Xanthis, she’s connected with it somehow.”

“Sandra?”

“That’s right. You know her?”

“I think so,” said Dale slowly. “But this could be a waste of time. She dabbles, sure, but only on the fringe. Piquancy for parties—that sort of thing.”

“It still has to be checked out, Dale. You’ve got a couple of hours and I know that you’ll do a good job. Report in the morning. Right?”

“Sure,” said Dale.

Frowning, he turned from the reassembling features of the Mona Lisa, wondering if there could be any secret motive behind the director’s call. He was too high in PAEC to be sent on such a routine assignment; his job was in statistical analysis of the means of Propaganda And Emotional Control, not acting as ear and eye at some sleazy gathering of frustrated perverts.

To the Mona Lisa he said, “What did you make of that?”

“On the basis of available information,” she said primly, “there are three logical deductions. One, the situation is exactly as depicted. Two, there is an undisclosed complexity which requires delicate handling and intelligent appraisal.”

“And the third?”

“Your efficiency has been held to question. This could be a test assignment to determine your prime loyalty.”

“Your advice as to action?”

The painting made no reply.

“Damn it,” he snapped. “Don’t start getting temperamental with me. I’m asking your advice.”

“Which has not always been received graciously in the past,” reminded the painting. “However, there is only one course of action you can take. Do exactly as ordered.”

Which, he thought, was the best he could expect from something wearing a vacuous grin.

Returning to the desk, he swept aside the ruined sheet of vellum, jerked open a drawer, set the quill inside and piled the ink and pounce pot after it before slamming it shut. A touch of a button, and the desk swung back to become a form-fit chair. Another, and the illusion of draped windows, serried books, candelabra, and somber paintings in ornate frames vanished, to be replaced by the normal walls of his utiliflat. Only the Mona Lisa remained as it was, the gift of his mother, smiling as if she had imparted a private jest to the depicted face.

One day, he promised himself, he would do something about that smile. About the whole machine if it came to that. Tear it out and junk it all, replace it by another adjusted to his mood, a jovial, merry, willing-to-lie companion with a deep masculine voice and a store of jokes instead of homilies.

“I hesitate to remind you, sir,” said the painting with artificial deference, “but your time is not limitless. I suggest that you begin to change.”

“Switch off,” he said, but the advice was sound. It would be a bad mark if he were under surveillance and failed to reach the party on time.

He stripped, taking a mist bath, pausing before the row of phials in the medcab. First the neutralize, which had little effect aside from the final extinction of his creative urge. Then for the selection. His finger passed Artistry, Romance, Stoicism, Loquacity, Mysticism, pausing at Taciturnity and again at Aggression. He swallowed the pills dry, waiting, feeling them accentuate those facets of his normal character, the ones, he guessed, which would be most useful in the hours to come. Back in the bedroom he dressed in outdoor gear, donning jackboots, breeches, a zip-up jacket heavy with studs, a thick belt bright with savage-pointed stars. Squinting into a mirror, he combed his hair forward, narrowing his forehead, sweeping his sideburns back over his ears. With a stick of cosmetics he drew a scar on his left cheek, an ugly cicatrix which plucked at the corner of his mouth and dragged at the edge of his eye, giving his face a sinister look of brooding violence. Heavy rings and a crested cap added to the overall picture. A squirt of odorant and he was ready to leave.

“Dale!” He heard the voice as he locked the door of his apartment. “Dale Tulliver!”

He turned and sighed as Melinda Orme came sweeping toward him down the passage, arms extended, red lips parted to reveal glistening teeth, body bouncing beneath the diaphanous robes she affected. She owned three beauty parlors, which gave her enough time and money to indulge in her favorite pastime—sticking her nose into other people’s business.

“Dale,” she said again as she drew close. “You’re just the man I’ve been hoping to see.” She halted before him in a cloud of floral perfume, eyes wide, hands plucking at his sleeve. “My,” she breathed. “You look so savage. So wonderfully brutal.”

Without answering he headed toward the elevators.

“I’ve always admired strong, silent men,” she babbled, trotting at his side. “Especially when they’re tall and wide at the shoulders and narrow at the waist. I’m having a little party tomorrow night. Just a few friends for canapes and drinks. Can I hope to see you? You know the number, five-one-one-eight, shall I expect you at about midnight?”

She wasn’t annoyed at his grunt.

“There’s someone I want you to meet. A really charming person, Olga Franklin, about twenty-five, a little younger than you but not much and with the most wonderful hair you’ve ever dreamed of, thick and dark and falling right down to her waist. She’s a model and I’ve seen some of her poses, honestly her figure is something to make poems about, but she’s really quite moral, only been married three times and she hasn’t any children and no desire to have any so she would make an ideal companion for a man who lives too much alone and stays away from too many parties because he doesn’t see anything attractive in immediate company.” Her fingers dug into his arm. “I’m right, aren’t I? You don’t really find me attractive, do you? Maybe if I wore leather and boots and things and got myself all scarred up the way the young girls do you’d take time off to look at me twice, but there it is, I’m what I am and I can’t help it and it’s too late to change now.”

But not too late to stop taking the wrong kind of personality accentuator, he thought. Natural chatterboxes should stay away from loquators, but from the sound of her she must have taken a double dose.

“And there’s another thing,” she burbled as they halted before the cages. “I don’t want to be thought a spoilsport or gossip, but some things are really going too far and we don’t want to get Highcrest a bad name, do we? I mean, a lot of nice people live here and you know what they say about mud, how it sticks, and once the place gets the wrong kind of reputation all sorts might move in and then where would we all be. That’s really why I wanted to see you. Olga is real, of course, and I’d like to get you two close together, but this other thing, well, I don’t quite know how to say it, but I honestly think someone, you perhaps, should have a word with that Elgar Brown in five-three-eight-nine. Just a discreet word, you understand, at first anyway, but if he keeps on doing what he’s doing perhaps we should call a floor meeting and decide on a course of action.”

Tightly he said, “Too much.”

“How’s that?” She blinked, surprised. “Too much what?”

“Wrong stuff. Take neutralizers. Better still see doctor.” The words were like tufts of cotton s. . .