Fool on the Hill Read online

  “It implies prejudice against you. Maybe. Me, it doesn’t even consider.”

  “Well then that’s all the more to the point. The Fourth Question is an absolutely marvelous example of reverse cogitation.”

  “Reverse cogitation,” Denmark repeated.

  “Reverse cogitation?” Joshua queried.

  “Yes, yes! Here, let me give you another example. Suppose a dog came up to you and asked, ‘What’s the best way of losing your left foreleg?’ “

  “My leg?” replied Denmark. “I guess any way would be pretty horrible.”

  “It’s a stupid question,” Joshua added.

  “Exactly. And you answer it by attacking the foolishness of the idea behind the question—like the idea of prejudice. That’s reverse cogitation.”

  “It’s still stupid,” observed joshua. “How can you . . .”

  And so on. Luther paid little attention to what was said, although the argument, and the general tension between the mongrels and Purebreds, disturbed him. It had been a long week of discovery, and despite the joy he had felt on encountering George, he had seen a great many other things that shook his faith in what they had found. Blackjack, sensing this, had begun gently to prod him in the direction of reality.

  “Luther . . .” he said now.

  “This is Heaven,” Luther responded automatically. “Moses is here, and sooner or later we’re going to find him and everything will be all right.”

  “I like it here,” the Manx confessed. “The air’s cleaner and I don’t go hungry half as often as I did back in the City. Good scavenging, good hunting. But would it be so awful if it wasn’t exactly what we’d come for?”

  Luther did not answer, and shortly Blackjack gave up . . . for now.

  At quarter of six there was a sudden hush, a stilling of thoughts. An Old English Sheepdog had entered the Quad, led by a pair of Doberman Pinschers. For a moment Luther tensed, unavoidably reminded of Cerberus and Dragon. But these Dobermans did not move in tandem; one of them was attempting to walk and lick his balls at the same time, while the other panted at each bitch he passed. The Sheepdog was even less threatening. With his eyes totally hidden under a veil of fur, he allowed his mouth to hang open and followed the Dobermans blindly, seemingly oblivious to his surroundings.

  “Well,” said the Sheepdog, as they carne to a halt in front of the statue of Ezra Cornell, “have we left yet?”

  “Yes sir,” replied one of the Dobermans. “We’re there.”

  “Really? Jolly good!” He faced a stand of bushes and proudly began: “Welcome, one and all! My name—”

  While the Dobermans were busy reorienting the Sheepdog toward the crowd, Luther asked, “Who is that?”

  A mongrel bitch—a quite elegant dog, really—named Lace told him, “That’s the Head. The boss-stud of education.”

  “Our leader in the pursuit of higher knowledge,” Denmark added with a touch of derision.

  The Collie bitch snorted, and Lace gave her a sharp glance.

  “You got a problem, sister? Something we can do for you?”

  But the Collie made no reply. A moment later the Sheepdog began to address them again: “Welcome, one and all! My name is Excalibur, Excalibur the Third, and I am your Dean of Studies.”

  The crowd howled and barked its approval. The Purebreds did, that is, except for the St. Bernard, Gallant, who tried to maintain an air of decorum and merely gazed respectfully at the Dean. The mongrels too were silent, but their expressions held only reproach. Meanwhile, at the very front of the ranks, there was an intermittent flounce of tail and cars—Skippy the Beagle, leaping for joy.

  “Now,” Dean Excalibur continued as the noise died down, “before we get on to the matter of the Questions, I think it only fitting that we introduce some of the members of our staff. Yes? Yes.” He turned to face the base of Ezra’s statue. “Are the, uh, cats here?”

  “Yes sir,” said one of the Dobermans, turning the Dean around again. “Just a moment.” He gave three short barks, and a group of seven cats padded into view. They all appeared quite bored.

  “For those of you who are new to this place,” said Dean Excalibur, when the Doberman nudged him to go on, “these noble felines serve as our official interpreters and orientation counselors. I’m sure you’ll find that they’re a jolly good bunch of fellows, once you get to know them.”

  One of the cats, a Siamese, stretched and yawned.

  “As for the dogs on our staff—our canine philosophers, as we call them—we have at least one to assist you with each of the Questions you will seek to answer. Why, I was just talking to one of them the other day, Smooth I think his name is—”

  “Ruff, sir,” prompted the Doberman who had been licking himself.

  “Yes, yes, Ruff, of course. Jolly good fellow, as I’m sure you’ll agree when you get to know him. Well, well, we’d better get on to the business at hand, eh? The Questions. Is Yoda here?”

  “Wog, sir. His name is Wog.”

  “Yes, yes, Wog. Wog, come forward!”

  Wog was an Affenpinscher, a small dark-coated dog with a flattened face that would have looked at home on a monkey—that was, indeed, where the breed name had come from. Wog stood a mere nine inches at the shoulder, and did not appear to be the sort of animal who would be entrusted with any authority. Nonetheless he bore himself with dignity as he advanced to stand beside Excalibur, fixed his beady eyes upon the crowd, and yapped once for attention.

  “Listen now,” Wog began. “Listen to the tale of what was, and what came to be. . . .”

  A moth chose that moment to flutter past the Affenpinscher’s face. Wog snapped it up, crunched it briefly between his teeth, and spat it back out again.

  “Listen,” he repeated, directing at least part of the thought at the moth’s remains. “Just listen, and be made knowledgeable . . . a long time ago, in a distant land on a far shore in a really, really hard-to-find country, there lived a dog named Sapientia Stultitia, or ‘Double S’ as he is often referred to. We know not to what breed Double S belonged, but it is said that he was strong and pure-blooded. . . .”

  One of mongrels began to growl. Luther saw that it was Joshua.

  “. . . Now Double S was a good dog, but he was constantly plagued by cats, most of whom had no respect for him or any others of his race. In that age a great enmity existed between canines and felines, far worse than any imagined difficulties of today, and cats used the knowledge they gained from the Masters to practice torment and deceit. . . .”

  The cats, including Blackjack listened passively to this. The sins of their ancestors held no interest or pain of guilt for them.

  “. . . so it came to pass that Double S recognized the need for some sort of education, some grasping of fundamental and philosophical truths among dogs, if only to put them on an equal footing with their persecutors. In his own words: ‘I would found a system by which any dog can learn to match wits with any feline.’ To this end, Double S created The Five Questions.”

  The Affenpinscher paused for emphasis, then went on:

  “This, then, is the purpose for our gathering here today. To inaugurate the annual search for the fabled Answers, a search in which all are invited to participate. And let all be reminded that, as Double S so wisely pointed out, the search shall purely prove as valuable, or more so, than that which is sought, that in the seeking there is as much to be gained as in the finding. . . .”

  “Oh yea, oh yea,” cried Dean Excalibur, inspired by the telling. “Verily, verily. And now, Wog, The Questions. The Questions.”

  “The Five Questions of Ultimate Wisdom,” quoth Wog, and as he listed them he accented the first word of each:

  “Question One: What is the true nature of the Divine?

  “Question Two: What is the meaning of life?

  “Question Three: What is the meaning of love?

  “Question Four: Which is the superior breed of canine?

  “Question Five: What is the best dog food?”


  As tradition dictated, Wog gave the entire list without pause, regardless of the crowd’s reaction. Upon the uttering of the Fourth the mongrels set up a great howling that belied their small number.

  “Rebellion?” Dean Excalibur cried fearfully. “Rebellion?”

  Gallant the St. Bernard looked upon the mongrels with sympathy, though he wished they would find a less vocal way of making their displeasure known; Sergeant Slaughter and his troop of attack Bulldogs and Boxers tensed, ready for trouble; Bucklette the Collie watched the Bulldogs and Boxers anxiously, wishing they’d go ahead and do something instead of just standing there; the other Purebreds ranged in reaction from embarrassment to annoyance. Blackjack, like all the cats, kept a carefully neutral expression, while Luther was quite openly flabbergasted.

  “Now, now,” said Excalibur timidly, trying to restore some semblance of order. “Let’s try to be calm and collected about this. . . .”

  But if anything, the howling grew louder and more angry. Over in Sibley Hall, a very sleepy-eyed janitor paused in the midst of his first morning chores and glanced nervously toward a nearby window, convinced that a monster had gotten loose and begun rampaging on the Arts Quad.

  XI.

  Sunday, 11:40 P.M.

  The Kay-Fung Specialized Animal Research Lab was located at the far eastern fringe of the campus. Bordered on three sides by the Cornell Plantations, it stood secluded and peaceful, knowing little official business at this time of night. Oh, it had its share of unofficial visitors—when the weather was warm, students with free time would come to make love among the darkened groves of the Plantations, or to drink and watch the stars. But the building itself closed down more or less around nightfall, at least until mid-semester when some of the more involved research projects began demanding round-the-clock attention. With the setting of the sun, the lab was left empty, except for the animals.

  And tonight, the sprites.

  Not ten feet from where two post-graduates ground eagerly against each other in the dark, their academic worries momentarily forgotten, a model biplane lay hidden in the underbrush. Farther along, at the foundation of the lab building, a metal grating had been broken and pried away, uncovering a six-inch-square ventilation shaft. Too small for any human being to even consider entering, the vent led, with many turnings and off-branchings, to an underground storage room where a delivery of animals was being held before dispersal to various research departments. Even now at that far terminus, a second metal grating was weakening under the assault of two tiny sledgehammers.

  “Aye, that’s it!” a voice encouraged above the chittering of various animals. “Aye, laddies, get your backs into it. Get your backs into it, I say!”

  Twists of metal flew outward; the entire grating loosened in its frame. Impatient, two pairs of hands dropped two hammers, and two shoulders slammed hard against the grill. The grating gave way altogether and fell out, followed by two sprites. Fortunately the drop was only about half a foot.

  “Shit,” Puck said, pushing himself up on bruised arms.

  “Very astute comment,” said Hamlet, rubbing his own sores. They looked up to see Macduff shaking his head at them from the lip of the vent opening.

  “Aye,” he told them. “That’s too much back, lads.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said a fourth voice. “I think they look kind of cute, all rough and tumbled like that.”

  Saffron Dey moved into view beside Macduff. She wore a woven maple leaf safari outfit that put a minimal strain on the imagination; even with Cobweb holding her closely from behind, Saffron looked inviting enough up there to make Puck’s heart (and not just his heart, oh no) waver one last time. It was a moment he remembered often after her death.

  Then Cobweb squeezed some or other portion of Saffron’s anatomy to get her attention and Macduff said, “Now, now, let’s have none of that. We have business. Here, let’s have a light.”

  Someone farther back in the vent shaft handed forward a softly glowing piece of quartz hung on a short chain. Macduff rubbed the stone and its glow increased until the full interior of the storage room was visible to them. It was a square, cinderblock-walled space, recently converted. The walls were lined with shelves that held row upon row of tagged cages (the vent opened above one of the highest shelves, which was partially empty). The single door, opposite the wall with the vent, was metal, with three different locks. As if in explanation of the precautions, a sign warned:

  RECENT ACTS OF VANDALISM HAVE FORCED CORNELL’S ANIMAL RESEARCH DEPARTMENT TO RESORT TO EXLREME SECURITY MEASURES. ANYONE FOUND TAMPERING WITH THESE ANIMALS WITHOUT PROPER AUTHORIZATION WILL BE SEVERELY PUNISHED.

  “Recent acts of vandalism,” Macduff chuckled, leaping down onto the shelf beside Puck and Hamlet. “Sure an’ that’s us, lads.” To those still up in the vent he called: “Come on, sluggards! It’s not as if we’ve got all of forever!”

  Quickly the other sprites lowered themselves down, all of them armed with swords, some bearing tools as well: first Saffron; then Cobweb; then Cobweb’s three brothers, Moth, Mustardseed, and Moonshine; adventure-seekers and Macduff-associates Lennox, Ross, Angus, Caith, and Menteith; animal-handler Jaquenetta; and her apprentices, Rosaline, Maria, and Catherine.

  “Well now,” said Macduff, when the last sprite was out. “Any questions before we begin?”

  “I’ve got one,” Hamlet volunteered. “Seems I remember the last couple times we did this we were on the first floor. Now that they’ve moved all this into the basement, how are we going to get the animals out? Herd them through the vent?”

  “Some,” Macduff agreed. “Some. And then there’s the door, lad. Sure an’ you don’t mind barebackin’ on a rabbit up a flight of stairs?”

  “That door over there? What, you’re going to blow the locks off with cherry bombs?”

  “Anythin’ more?” Macduff asked, tired of the discussion.

  “Just a word of caution,” Jaquenetta spoke up. “I know most of you have done this before, but I want to remind you: unless you’re trained in animal control, don’t free anything that’s bigger than you. Stick to frogs and small rodents.”

  “Aye,” nodded Macduff. “Well said, well spoken. And now . . . let’s to it!”

  With a shout the sprites set to work, scattering to various corners of the room, lowering themselves to various levels on the shelves. The first cage that Puck stopped at contained guinea pigs, earmarked for use in a Freshman Biology class. It put him in mind of one of the main arguments against Lab Animal Freedom Raids, the argument that, released in the wild, the typical lab animal would die of starvation or exposure very quickly. The counterargument, of course, was that the animal would die even more quickly—and perhaps more painfully—if given a live dissection in front of an auditorium full of undergraduates.

  “Hey-ya!” Puck cried, knocking free the cage latch. He opened the gate, and the guinea pigs, sleepy and sluggish at first, began filing out onto the shelf. Puck reached out and stroked one of them as it passed him, using the low-level telepathy that all sprites possessed. All he got was a mindless repetition of Mother-mother-mother-mother—Guinea pigs were not known for great intelligence; perhaps they did have deeper thoughts, but these were beyond Puck’s ability to read.

  Caith and Ross were hip-deep in white mice. The mice’s surface thoughts had nothing to do with Mother; rather they contemplated cheese, treadmills, and sex, pretty much in that order. So preoccupied were they with these notions that a number of them walked right off the edge of the shelf, plummeting.

  “So,” said Caith, trying to prevent the rodents from high-diving en masse, “how are we going to get all these guys out of here?”

  “Through the vent, I guess,” Ross replied. “Maybe Jaquenetta can play pied piper, or something. Or we can get them all pissing mad at Macduff and let him run on ahead. . . .”

  Jaquenetta was busy with things other than piping at the moment. At floor level she had found a cage of kittens, and was trying to decide
what to do with them. Cats, even newborn, were extremely dangerous and unpredictable. They could see sprites, but due to their practical nature they invariably perceived them as something else—as rodents, leaves in the wind, mere shadows—anything but as tiny magical beings, the existence of which would defy feline logic. Given this, no sprite could hope to control them, no matter how skilled at animal-training. The cat would either see the sprite as a threat and attack, or completely ignore it.

  But these kittens, according to the tag on their cage, had been reserved for neurological experiments and Jaquenetta was not sure she could leave them to such a fate. While she ran over the pros and cons in her mind, the other sprites continued the task of releasing the less dangerous animals. Menteith used a firecracker to blow the latch on a glass case, then laughed as a cascade of frogs tumbled out, catching Angus in the avalanche.

  “Ya fookin’ ass!” Angus sputtered, fighting his way out of a pile of amphibians.

  On one of the highest shelves, Cobweb was showing off for Saffron Dey. To be quite frank about it, since she had already taken a fancy to him it was pretty much inevitable that he would wind up having his way with her by the end of the night—whatever way that might be—but Cobweb believed in hedging his bets to the fullest. With an eye toward impressing her, he engaged in a series of daring somersaults, bouncing perilously close to the shelf’s edge, then springing back and raising cage latches with his feet.

  “That’s really amazing how you do that” Saffron said vapidly at some point or other, “but why don’t you save some energy for later on? Who knows, you might need it for something. . . .”

  She winked at him; Lennox, close enough to overhear her words, grimaced at the absolute lack of subtlety.

  “Whoo-pee!” Cobweb cried victoriously Gerbils milled all about them, but still he managed another series of somersaults. He bounded back, back, back, coming to rest beside a particularly large cage. Macduff still had his glowing chip of quartz, which shined brighter than ever, but he was far below them and the contents of the cage were hidden in shadow. Not even bothering to check the tag, Cobweb high-kicked the latch, keeping his eyes glued to Saffron.