Fifty Per Cent Prophet

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  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction September 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  FIFTY

  PER CENT

  PROPHET

  By DARREL T. LANGART

  _That he was a phony Swami was beyond doubt. That he was a genuine prophet, though, seemed ... but then, what's the difference between a dictator and a true prophet? So was he...._

  Illustrated by Schoenherr

  * * * * *

  Dr. Joachim sat in the small room behind his reception hall and heldhis fingers poised above the keys of the rather creaky electrotyper onhis desk. The hands seemed to hang there, long, slender, and pale,like two gulls frozen suddenly in their long swoop towards someprecious tidbit floating on the writhing sea beneath, ready to begintheir drop instantly, as soon as time began again.

  All of Dr. Joachim's body seemed to be held in that same stasis. Onlyhis lips moved as he silently framed the next sentence in his mind.

  Physically, the good doctor could be called a big man: he wasbroad-shouldered and well-muscled, but, hidden as his body was beneaththe folds of his blue, monkish robe, only his shortness of stature wasnoticeable. He was only fifty-four, but the pale face, the full,flowing beard, and the long white hair topped by a small blue skullcapgave him an ageless look, as though centuries of time had flowed overhim to leave behind only the marks of experience and wisdom.

  The timelessness of an idealized Methuselah as he approached his ninthcentennial, the God-given wisdom engraved on the face of Moses as hecame down from Sinai, the mystic power of mighty Merlin as he softlyintoned a spell of albamancy, all these seemed to have been blendedcarefully together and infused into the man who sat behind the typer,composing sentences in his head.

  Those gull-hands swooped suddenly to the keyboard, and the agedmachine clattered rapidly for nearly a minute before Dr. Joachimpaused again to consider his next words.

  A bell tinkled softly.

  Dr. Joachim's brown eyes glanced quickly at the image on theblack-and-white TV screen set in the wall. It was connected to thehidden camera in his front room, and showed a woman entering his frontdoor. He sighed and rose from his seat, adjusting his blue robescarefully before he went to the door that led into the outer room.

  He'd rather hoped it was a client, but--

  "Hello, Susan, my dear," he said in a soft baritone, as he steppedthrough the door. "What seems to be the trouble?"

  It wasn't the same line that he'd have used with a client. You don'task a mark questions; you tell him. To a mark, he'd have said: "Ah,you are troubled." It sounds much more authoritative and all-knowing.

  But Cherrie Tart--_nee_ Sue Kowalski--was one of the best strippers onthe Boardwalk. Her winters were spent in Florida or Nevada or PuertoRico, but in summer she always returned to King Frankie's _GoldenSurf_, for the summer trade at Coney Island. She might be a big namein show business now, but she had never forgotten her carnybackground, and King Frankie, in spite of the ultra-ultra tone of the_Golden Surf_, still stuck to the old Minsky traditions.

  The worried look on her too-perfect face had been easily visible inthe TV screen, but it had been replaced by a bright smile as soon asshe had heard Dr. Joachim opening the door. The smile flickered for amoment, then she said: "Gee, Doc; you give a girl the creepy feelingthat you really _can_ read her mind."

  Dr. Joachim merely smiled. Susan might be with it, but a good mitt mandoesn't give away _all_ his little secrets. He had often wished thathe could really read minds--he had heard rumors of men who could--buta little well-applied psychology is sometimes just as good.

  "So how's everything been, Doc?" She smiled her best stagesmile--every tooth perfect in that perfect face, her hair framing thewhole like a perfect golden helmet. She looked like a girl in herearly twenties, but Dr. Joachim knew for a fact that she'd been bornin 1955, which made her thirty-two next January.

  "Reasonably well, all things considered," Dr. Joachim admitted. "I'mnot starving to death, at least."

  She looked around at the room--the heavy drapes, the signs of thezodiac in gold and silver, the big, over-stuffed chairs, all designedto make the "clients" feel comfortable and yet slightly awed by theancient atmosphere of mysticism. In the dim light, they looked fairlyimpressive, but she knew that if the lights were brighter theshabbiness would show.

  * * * * *

  "Maybe you could use a redecorating job, then, Doc," she said. With agesture born of sudden impulse, she reached into her purse and pulledout an envelope and pressed it into the man's hands. He started toprotest, but she cut him off. "No, Doc; I want you to have it. Youearned it.

  "That San Juan-New York flight, remember?" she went on hurriedly. "Yousaid not to take it, remember? Well, I ... I sort of forgot about whatyou'd said. You know. Anyway, I got a ticket and was ready to go whenthe flight was suddenly delayed. Routine, they said. Checking theengines. But I'd never heard of any such routine as that. I rememberedwhat you told me, Doc, and I got scared.

  "After an hour, they put another plane into service; they were stillworking on the other one. I was still worried, so I decided to waittill the next day.

  "I guess you read what happened."

  He closed his eyes and nodded slowly. "I read."

  "Doc, I'd've been on that flight if you hadn't warned me. All themoney in the world isn't enough to pay for that." The oddly worriedlook had come back into her eyes. "Doc, I don't know how you knew thatship was going to go, and I won't ask. I don't want to know. But, ...one thing: Was it _me_ they were after?"

  _She thinks someone blew up the ship_, he thought. _She thinks I heardabout the plot some way._ For an instant he hesitated, then:

  "No, Susan; they weren't after you. No one was trying to kill you.Don't worry about it."

  Relief washed over her face. "O.K., Doc; if you say so. Look, I've gotto run now, but we've got to sit down and have a few drinks together,now that I'm back. And ... Doc--"

  "Yes?"

  "Anytime you need anything--if I can ever help you--you let me know,huh?"

  "Certainly, my dear. And don't you worry about anything. The stars areall on your side right now."

  She smiled, patted his hand, and then was gone in a flash of gold andhoney. Dr. Joachim looked at the door that had closed behind her, thenhe looked down at the envelope in his hands. He opened it gently andtook out the sheaf of bills. Fifteen hundred dollars!

  He smiled and shoved the money into his pocket. After all, he _was_ aprofessional fortuneteller, even if he didn't like that particularlabel, and he _had_ saved her life, hadn't he?

  He returned to the small back room, sat down again at the typer, and,after a minute, began typing again.

  When he was finished, he addressed an envelope and put the letterinside.

  It was signed with his legal name: _Peter J. Forsythe_.

  * * * * *

  It required less than two hours for that letter to end up at itsdestination in a six-floor brick building, a rather old-fashionedaffair that stood among similar structures in a lower-middle-classsection of Arlington, Virginia, hardly a hop-skip-and-jump from thePentagon, and not much farther from the Capitol.

  The letter was addressed to _Mr. J. Harlan Balfour, President, TheSociety for Mystical and Metaphysical Research, Inc._,
but Mr. Balfourwas not at the Society's headquarters at the time, having been calledto Los Angeles to address a group who were awaiting the Incarnation ofGod.

  Even if he had been there, the letter wouldn't have reached him first.All mail was sent first to the office of the Executive Secretary, Mr.Brian Taggert. Most of it--somewhat better than ninety-nine percent--went directly on to Mr. Balfour's desk, if it was so addressed;Brian Taggert would never have been so cruel as to deprive Mr. Balfourof the joy of sorting through the thousands of crackpot letters insearch of those who had the true spark of mysticism which sofascinated Mr. Balfour.

  Mr. Balfour was a crackpot, and it was his job to take care of othercrackpots--a job he enjoyed immensely and wholeheartedly, feeling, ashe did, that that sort of thing was the only reason for the Society'sexistence. Of course, Mr. Balfour never