Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut [15]
For another thing, a genuinely bearded young man named Martin Koradubian had identified himself as the bearded stranger who had been invited into the Rumfoord estate to see a materialization. He was a repairer of solar watches in Boston, and a charming liar.
A magazine had bought his story for three thousand dollars.
Sitting in Skip’s Museum under the spiral staircase, Winston Niles Rumfoord read Koradubian’s magazine story with delight and admiration. Koradubian claimed in his story that Rumfoord had told him about the year Ten Million A.D.
In the year Ten Million, according to Koradubian, there would be a tremendous house-cleaning. All records relating to the period between the death of Christ and the year One Million A.D. would be hauled to dumps and burned. This would be done, said Koradubian, because museums and archives would be crowding the living right off the earth.
The million-year period to which the burned junk related would be summed up in history books in one sentence, according to Koradubian: Following the death of Jesus Christ, there was a period of readjustment that lasted for approximately one million years.
Winston Niles Rumfoord laughed and laid Koradubian’s article aside. Rumfoord loved nothing more than a thumping good fraud. "Ten Million A.D.—" he said out loud, "a great year for fireworks and parades and world’s fairs. A merry time for cracking open cornerstones and digging up time capsules."
Rumfoord wasn’t talking to himself. There was someone else in Skip’s Museum with him.
The other person was his wife Beatrice.
Beatrice was sitting in the facing wing chair. She had come downstairs to ask her husband’s help in a time of great need.
Rumfoord blandly changed the subject.
Beatrice, already ghostly in a white peignoir, turned the color of lead.
"What an optimistic animal man is!" said Rumfoord rosily. "Imagine expecting the species to last for ten million more years—as though people were as well-designed as turtles!" He shrugged. "Well—who knows—maybe human beings will last that long, just on the basis of pure cussedness. What’s your guess?"
"What?" said Beatrice.
"Guess how long the human race will be around," said Rumfoord.
From between Beatrice’s clenched teeth came a frail, keen, sustained note so high as to be almost above the range of the human ear. The sound bore the same ghastly promise as the whistle of fins on a falling bomb.
Then the explosion came. Beatrice capsized her chair, attacked the skeleton, threw it crashing into a corner. She cleaned off the shelves of Skip’s Museum, bouncing specimens off the walls, trampling them on the floor.
Rumfoord was flabbergasted. "Good God—" he said, "what made you do that?"
"Don’t you know everything?" said Beatrice hysterically. "Does anybody have to tell you anything? Just read my mind!"
Rumfoord put his palms to his temples, his eyes wide. "Static—all I get is static," he said.
"What else would there be but static!" said Beatrice. "I’m going to be thrown right out in the street, without even the price of a meal—and my husband laughs and wants me to play guessing games!"
"It wasn’t any ordinary guessing game," said Rumfoord. "It was about how long the human race was going to last. I thought that might sort of give you more perspective about your own problems."
"The hell with the human race!" said Beatrice.
"You’re a member of it, you know," said Rumfoord.
"Then I’d like to put in for a transfer to the chimpanzees!" said Beatrice. "No chimpanzee husband would stand by while his wife lost all her coconuts. No chimpanzee husband would try to make his wife into a space whore for Malachi Constant of Hollywood, California!"
Having said this ghastly thing, Beatrice subsided some. She wagged her head tiredly. "How long is the human race going to be around, Master?"
"I don’t know," said Rumfoord.
"I thought you knew everything," said Beatrice. "Just take a look at the future."
"I look at the future," said Rumfoord, "and I find that I shall not be in the Solar System when the human race dies out. So the end is as much a mystery