Every so often, I get the idea for a story, usually one with such arcane allusions that it would be totally unsaleable. This is one of those. It’s dedicated respectfully to one of the finest women on this board, one with a very unusual history, and to one of my favorite science fiction writers, in homage to whom I entitle it:
** “All You Dopers…”**
She left the Golden Screen editorial offices in a disgusted mood. Pwincess Pwecious had been just a bit more unbearable than usual, and copyediting puff pieces about Hollywood stars stuck in her throat a bit more than usual today. The weather matched her mood, a cold breeze and a light drizzle. She hummed a snatch of “Bleecker Street” to herself as she began the walk down to the lounge. A blast of angsty teenage rock from a club’s open door confirmed her decision to discard her boyhood journals.
Chilled a bit despite her outerwear, she entered the lounge, finding her accustomed table empty as she’d expected. Ike had family matters, she knew, that would mean he couldn’t join them. But Greg had sent an e-mail just before closing: a major customer’s abrupt change in directions would prevent him from joining. In his honor, she ordered herself a Manhattan. In the background, Phil Collins was singing quietly on the sound system about a woman who a woman with blisters on the soles of her feet, embarrassed to be there. The melancholy of the song matched her mood.
Lost in introspection, she didn’t see the man approach her table, and his quiet words startled her. “I thought I recognized you from your picture. May I buy you a drink and join you?”
“Certainly,” she replied.
An obvious fan, he soon had her at her ease, surprisingly knowledgeable about the wide variety of topics that interested her. His Lillian Hellman anecdotes, for example, were nothing short of scandalous, but matched her own researches. And his quip about which letter it was best to commit suicide from, playing off her account of the book that didn’t work out, made her chuckle despite her mood.
“But I must confess,” he said rather abruptly, “that I have been chatting with you with an ulterior motive. I gather you feel your present career and life are going down a bit of a dead end. Would you be willing to listen to a proposition about a possible career change?”
Wariness clashed with hope within her. “Yes, I’d certainly be willing to listen,” she responded.
“It would be best if I showed you,” he answered. “Would you come with me, on my word of honor that I’ll bring you back here, or where you choose, promptly if you refuse?”
After a moment’s thought, she agreed. He helped her on with her coat, and escorted her through the door and into a limo waiting outside, one with heavy tint on the windows.
“To the Foundation,” he commanded to the unseen driver. The driver entered traffic smoothly, but nothing was visible through the windows. There was an abrupt lurch, and the car came to a stop. “We’re there,” he said.
Assisting her from the car, he led her inside a rather Gothic-looking building quickly, but she noticed grounds that looked nothing like New York in winter.
“The Foundation has a wide range of interests – almost limitless,” he said. “But what I;m prepared to offer is something I think you’ll be interested in. We have need of someone with your particular history and talents in the earliest phases of an experiment we believe will literally change the world. And we can offer inducements that you cannot find elsewhere.”
“Say on,” she said, intrigued by what appeared to be an obvious con job.
“Well, what we have in mind is to have you do some field research, in a rather pleasant area in the Middle East – not a place any of the present hostilities will affect!” he hastened to add, as she reacted to the location. “But before that you’ll receive a rather extreme makeover, a part of our special resources which makes up part of the inducements I mentioned.
“We can take a cell sample from you and clone a fully functional woman’s reproductive system from it, then implant it in you by surgery. Yes, I know about your history, of course – we simply suppress the Y chromosome and cause the X to duplicate itself. And we have an excellent rejuvenative therapy – you’ll seem to be a young adult woman when we’re done, and with the equipment to function fully as one. I know you’re well versed in human physiology – you’d have to be – and our therapists will answer all your questions fully.
“But I certainly don’t expect you to buy a pig in a poke,” he continued, responding to her expression. “We’ll take the cell sample first, if you don’t object, then you can observe another client beginning her rejuve. treatment to satisfy yourself that we’re on the up and up here. Be our guest and check things out before you decide.”
“Well, I can see you were honest with me,” she said two weeks later. “That woman –Sarah? – looked like she was ninety years old when you began her treatment, but she left here today with a spring in her step, ready to trip up her husband! I’m ready to begin treatment. But tell me a little about what you expect me to do afterwards.”
“Well,” he said, “we need to get a handle on the deepest of human motivations, both male and female. And you’re someone who’s been on both sides of that fence. I think the field research we have in mind will provide someone with your background with the sort of insight we’re looking for. And we’re planning a book that you’ll be a major contributor to – a multi-author work, of course, but we expect it to be the best-seller of all time. We have confidence that your experiences on this field work will be remembered as, if you’ll forgive the pun, a Golden time by all who read them.”
Another two weeks passed quickly for her, as she underwent the “makeover” therapy and had the promised surgery. “I cannot tell you how wonderful this feels,” she told him afterwards. “I feel like the young woman I always wanted to be.”
He smiled and said, “That’s the way I hope you’ll always be remembered, Eve. It’s what we were hoping for.
“Are you prepared to start your field work now?”
“Of course,” she responded, amazed at her own enthusiasm, the sardonic wit she’d cultivated still there but suppressed by a sense of youthful vivacity.
“Then come with me down to the limo and we’ll be off.”
After her previous experiences with him, it did not surprise her unduly that a very short limo. ride, with accompanying jolt, brought her to the supposed Middle East destination. And it was, as advertised, a lovely setting. Across a small meadow she saw what appeared to be an orchard.
“I must drop you here,” he said, “as I do have other duties pending. You’ll find that your every need is available here, and I expect you’ll have some interesting experiences.”
Stepping from the car, she walked vibrantly across the meadow and approached the orchard – apple trees, she saw as she came closer to it. She came up to the nearest tree and started – a large green snake had wrapped itself around an eye-level limb.
The snake looked up at her. “Hey, babe, glad to see ya!” it said. “C’n I interest you in an apple?”
