"Very?"
"_Very!_" she said emphatically. Then her green eyes strayed over to the
table that held the idealizator. "What crack-brained contraption of
Uncle Haskel's is that?" she asked.
I explained, rather inaccurately, I'm afraid, but no ordinary engineer
can follow the ramifications of a van Manderpootz conception.
Nevertheless, Denise caught the gist of it and her eyes glowed emerald
fire.
"It's fascinating!" she exclaimed. She rose and moved over to the table.
"I'm going to try it."
"Not without the professor, you won't! It might be dangerous."
That was the wrong thing to say. The green eyes glowed brighter as she
cast me a whimsical glance. "But I am," she said. "Dick, I'm going
to--see my ideal man!" She laughed softly.
I was panicky. Suppose her ideal turned out tall and dark and powerful,
instead of short and sandy-haired and a bit--well, chubby, as I am.
"No!" I said vehemently. "I won't let you!"
She laughed again. I suppose she read my consternation, for she said
softly, "Don't be silly, Dick." She sat down, placed her face against
the opening of the barrel, and commanded. "Turn it on."
I couldn't refuse her. I set the mirror whirling, then switched on the
bank of tubes. Then immediately I stepped behind her, squinting into
what was visible of the flashing mirror, where a face was forming,
slowly--vaguely.
I thrilled. Surely the hair of the image was sandy. I even fancied now
that I could trace a resemblance to my own features. Perhaps Denise
sensed something similar, for she suddenly withdrew her eyes from the
tube and looked up with a faintly embarrassed flush, a thing most
unusual for her.
"Ideals are dull!" she said. "I want a real thrill. Do you know what I'm
going to see? I'm going to visualize ideal horror. That's what I'll do.
I'm going to see absolute horror!"
"Oh, no you're not!" I gasped. "That's a terribly dangerous idea." Off
in the other room I heard the voice of van Manderpootz, "Dixon!"
"Dangerous--bosh!" Denise retorted. "I'm a writer, Dick. All this means
to me is material. It's just experience, and I want it."
Van Manderpootz again. "Dixon! Dixon! Come here." I said, "Listen,
Denise. I'll be right back. Don't try anything until I'm here--please!"
I dashed into the big laboratory. Van Manderpootz was facing a cowed
group of assistants, quite apparently in extreme awe of the great man.
"Hah, Dixon!" he rasped. "Tell these fools what an Emmerich valve is,
and why it won't operate in a free electronic stream. Let 'em see that
even an ordinary engineer knows that much."
Well, an ordinary engineer doesn't, but it happened that I did. Not that
I'm particularly exceptional as an engineer, but I _did_ happen to know
that because a year or two before I'd done some work on the big tidal
turbines up in Maine, where they have to use Emmerich valves to guard
against electrical leakage from the tremendous potentials in their
condensers. So I started explaining, and van Manderpootz kept
interpolating sarcasms about his staff, and when I finally finished, I
suppose I'd been in there about half an hour. And then--I remembered
Denise!
I left van Manderpootz staring as I rushed back, and sure enough, there
was the girl with her face pressed against the barrel, and her hands
gripping the table edge. Her features were hidden, of course, but there
was something about her strained position, her white knuckles--
"Denise!" I yelled. "Are you all right? _Denise!_"
She didn't move. I stuck my face in between the mirror and the end of
the barrel and peered up the tube at her visage, and what I saw left me
all but stunned. Have you ever seen stark, mad, infinite terror on a
human face? That was what I saw in Denise's--inexpressible, unbearable
horror, worse than the fear of death could ever be. Her green eyes were
widened so that the whites showed around them; her perfect lips were
contorted, her whole face strained into a mask of sheer terror.
I rushed for the switch, but in passing I caught a single glimpse of--of
what showed in the mirror. Incredible! Obscene, terror-laden, horrifying
things--there just aren't words for them. There are no words.
Denise didn't move as the tubes darkened. I raised her face from the
barrel and when she glimpsed me she moved. She flung herself out of that
chair and away, facing me with such mad terror that I halted.
"Denise!" I cried. "It's just Dick. Look, Denise!"
But as I moved toward her, she uttered a choking scream, her eyes
dulled, her knees gave, and she fainted. Whatever she had seen, it must
have been appalling to the uttermost, for Denise was not the sort to
faint.
* * * * *
It was a week later that I sat facing van Manderpootz in his little
inner office. The grey metal figure of Isaak was missing, and the table
that had held the idealizator was empty.
"Yes," said van Manderpootz. "I've dismantled it. One of van
Manderpootz's few mistakes was to leave it around where a pair of
incompetents like you and Denise could get to it. It seems that I
continually overestimate the intelligence of others. I suppose I tend to
judge them by the brain of van Manderpootz."
I said nothing. I was thoroughly disheartened and depressed, and
whatever the professor said about my lack of intelligence, I felt it
justified.
"Hereafter," resumed van Manderpootz, "I shall credit nobody except
myself with intelligence, and will doubtless be much more nearly
correct." He waved a hand at Isaak's vacant corner. "Not even the Bacon
head," he continued. "I've abandoned that project, because, when you
come right down to it, what need has the world of a mechanical brain
when it already has that of van Manderpootz?"
"Professor," I burst out suddenly, "why won't they let me see Denise?
I've been at the hospital every day, and they let me into her room just
once--just once, and that time she went right into a fit of hysterics.
Why? Is she--?" I gulped.
"She's recovering nicely, Dixon."
"Then why can't I see her?"
"Well," said van Manderpootz placidly, "it's like this. You see, when
you rushed into the laboratory there, you made the mistake of pushing
your face in front of the barrel. She saw your features right in the
midst of all those horrors she had called up. Do you see? From then on
your face was associated in her mind with the whole hell's brew in the
mirror. She can't even look at you without seeing all of it again."
"_Good--God!_" I gasped. "But she'll get over it, won't she? She'll
forget that part of it?"
"The young psychiatrist who attends her--a bright chap, by the way, with
a number of my own ideas--believes she'll be quite over it in a couple
of months. But personally, Dixon, I don't think she'll ever welcome the
sight of your face, though I myself have seen uglier visages somewhere
or other."
I ignored that. "Lord!" I groaned. "What a mess!" I rose to depart, and
then--then I knew what inspiration means!
"Listen!" I said, spinning back. "Listen, professor! Why can't you get
her back here and let her visualize the ideally beautiful? And then
I'll--I'll stick my face into that!" Enthusiasm grew. "It can't fail!" I
cried. "At the worst, it'll cancel that other memory. It's marvelous!"
"But as usual," said van Manderpootz, "a little late."
"Late? Why? You can put up your idealizator again. You'd do that much,
wouldn't you?"
"Van Manderpootz," he observed, "is the very soul of generosity. I'd do
it gladly, but it's still a little late, Dixon. You see, she married the
bright young psychiatrist this noon."
Well, I've a date with Tips Alva tonight, and I'm going to be late for
it, just as late as I please. And then I'm going to do nothing but stare
at her lips all evening.