Stafford's Last Book.

Stafford’s Last Book

 By Frederick Key

Gerry wasn’t overly fond of neckties, but he wanted to select just the right one to make the proper impression. Everyone wore them—all the men at the university, the club, the computational society—and Jack had said that this would be an important occasion, although not formal.

He never liked the feel of things around his neck, though, and felt like a man choosing the noose for his hanging. Ultimately Gerry selected his gold bow tie, one that would go nicely with his pale blue checked suit on a summer afternoon. If in fact it turned out to be less formal an occasion, more like one of his and Jack’s Science Fiction League meetings, he could always remove the tie and slip it into his pocket.

Before he left his apartment, Gerry gave another flip through the manuscript sitting on his desk. He had been quite honored that Jack had asked him to read it, being that Jack was a successful literary agent and Gerry just an amateur, not even in the publishing field -- although his League newsletter, The Rocket, was complimented in fan groups across the country. Still, he was under a vow of secrecy about the manuscript. It was the last book by Stafford L. Grimes, his final novel before his death, and Jack had wanted Gerry’s opinion.

“When you come to the party,” Jack told him over lunch, “you may meet some people from the publishing house. I’m not sure why, but they have some concerns about this book. They’ll want your opinion.”

“I’m surprised,” said Gerry. “Grimes was a meticulous writer, not one to dash things off. I can’t imagine it is sloppy. Is it controversial?”

    “Doesn’t seem so to me,” said Jack, “but I just glanced through it. Give it a read and be prepared to talk about it if asked. You know”—and here Jack lowered his voice even more—“I heard they may be looking for an acquisitions editor. If you’re sick of university work, you could be a candidate.”

That idea enticed Gerry quite a bit.

Gerry tapped the pages together neatly and slipped the manuscript in a large envelope. He had made a few notes on the pages, but Jack had not said to edit the work, and Gerry was not in fact an editor. The main mark he had made—and it embarrassed him to think of it—was a coffee cup ring on page 198. He hoped he would not have to return the pages as they were. Jack had not said to bring it, so Gerry locked it up in his desk and left the apartment.

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“Gorgeous day for a little shindig, eh?” said Jack as Gerry exited his Falcon. Jack was standing on the deck of his modern house overlooking the enormous driveway, where a few other cars were already parked. Jack’s place was very futuristic, composed geometrically of white swooping lines and large windows, perfect to see the California hills below. Gerry had asked a couple of times how Jack could afford such a spread as a literary man, and the second time Jack admitted, as if it was embarrassing, that he also worked as an agent in the movie industry in some capacity. It was clear to Gerry that books were where Jack’s heart was—but his money was from somewhere else.

Jack, tanned and every hair in place, was wearing tennis whites, making Gerry feel overdressed. But as Gerry joined Jack on the landing, he saw some guests through the window into the central gathering area, and they were a bit more professionally dressed. “What sort of function is this today?” Gerry asked. “I don’t see anyone from the League.”

“No, none of our mutual science fiction friends,” said Jack, clapping him on the shoulder. “This bunch is mostly from business. That’s why I wanted you here today, my friend. Still hoping to lure you out of academics.”

“It can be done,” Gerry conceded with a smile.

“Let’s go inside. Drink?”

“Nothing for me just yet, thanks.”

They passed through the glass doors into the broad space-age area, with a few white sofas and chairs, others in a cozy sunken area, pristine polished floors, and one old-fashioned feature, a massive stone fireplace. Canapés were at one buffet table, a bar set up at another, and guests milled between them. Gerry felt he had definitely been working in the poor end of the intellectual life compared to his friend.

“Well, Jack,” said a woman coming up behind them and sliding her arm under their host’s. “Let me take a flyer here. You said you would introduce me to a brilliant academician with a strong interest in Stafford’s work, and here you are with a smartly dressed chap looking like a university president. Is this the man?”

“Oh, my, Cloris, you are a detective.”

Cloris came around Jack and took Gerry in, and he her. She was a striking woman, quite tall, wearing a kind of dark-blue dress that would be appropriate for an afternoon get-together or a nightclub. Her black hair curled at the shoulders, and her lips were painted a strong red, potent as a bracer of gin. Gerry would reasonably assume that such a woman would be out of his class, but of course if she was genuinely interested in the life of the mind, perhaps she would be interested in him.

“Cloris, this is Professor Gerald Destry, and yes he is quite brilliant. Won the war all by himself, you know.”

Gerry laughed. “I had a little help.”

“Gerry, meet Cloris Smythe. Her family owns Gravesend Publishers, you know.”

“Do they indeed?” Gerry took her hand; it was warm and dry. “I am quite the fan of your books, especially the Saturn’s Ring imprint.”

“Yes, Jack told me you are the head of the largest science fiction organization in Southern California.”

“You two get acquainted while I shower off,” said Jack. “That’s quite enough tennis in this sunshine for me today. Excuse me.”

“Shall we sit?” said Cloris, gesturing to an unoccupied love seat.

As they did, Gerry said, “Jack is quite the comic. I had little to do with winning the war, although I was helpful in the cryptography department.”

“I’m certain that was crucial to the effort,” said Cloris, crossing her legs.

“Well, er, yes. The president seemed to like it.”

“And is that what you do now? Cryptography?”

“Yes, to a certain extent,” said Gerry. “My primary interest has always been mathematics, but that led to my involvement with codebreaking in the war. Now it’s turning to other pursuits. Why, just last year there was an amazing paper by a fellow named Licklider about what he called 'man-computer symbiosis.' Set off quite the buzz in the university, and not a little among us science fiction nuts.”

“I know so little about computer things,” said Cloris. “I’ve been to IBM, but those strange cabinets and all that tape—seems like more work to keep those things going than to do the thinking ourselves.”

He laughed. “Maybe now,” he said, “but the field progresses apace.”

“Let me ask you something,” she said. “I understand that Jack gave you a copy of the last novel by Stafford Grimes, which of course we are planning to publish. It would have been in raw, unedited form. Is that correct?”

“Yes, indeed Jack did, although he told me to keep it on the Q.T.,” said Gerry. “I assured him that cryptographers are exceptional at keeping secrets.”

“Surely it must be tempting to release tidbits about the book to your followers in the science fiction readership community.”

He shook his head. “I have no need for reflected and false glory from being a squealer,” he said.

She laughed now. “You are too funny, Professor Destry.”

“Oh, please call me Gerry. Only my students call me professor.”

“Very well, then you must call me Cloris.”

“Agreed.”

They shook on it.

“Tell me,” she said, “how did you enjoy the book by Mr. Grimes?”

“Well, it was dazzling, as are all his books,” he began, clasping his knee with his hands, “but most certainly a bleak story. His books, whether the story was set in space in the far future or on Earth in the near-present, generally had a ray of hope even in the darkest settings. You recall, for instance, Devil’s Light. Even in the wake of an atomic war, his heroes find hope in the end. This new book ended on such a sad note, I was worried his illness had colored his writing.”

“Illness?”

“Well, yes, after his coronary failure, I heard a rumor that he had actually been ill for some time.”

She shook her head slowly, sadly. “Stafford had been ill, in a way. He had suffered a head injury in his home a year before, an injury that damaged his brain -- or perhaps it was an existing brain problem that caused him to fall. He was very private, you know, but he apparently it all led to some terrible neuropathic pain, and for the last year he had been taking powerful analgesics. The doctors think he actually died of an overdose, but they kindly recorded his death as a heart attack.”

“Goodness, I had no idea!”

“Naturally he wanted to keep all this quiet. But he was friends with my family, Gerry, so we knew.”

“That certainly could have led to him writing a sorrowful story. I’m surprised he was able to get the book done at all.”

“He had the best work ethic of any writer I know.”

They paused for a moment out of respect for the late Stafford L. Grimes.

“Well,” said Gerry, “I hope he will not be remembered primarily for this last book, good as it is. I think I speak for many of his devotees when I say Comet Wing Five was his fictional masterpiece.”

“That’s just what I was thinking the other day.”

“I’m honored to share your opinion.”

Cloris clamped his arm suddenly. “Gerry, I have an idea. You must come with me to the offices right now, before the editors start shuffling out for the weekend.”

“Now?”

“Yes!” she said. “The editor in charge was so upset over Stafford and so bewildered by this last book that he was telling me we shouldn’t publish it. That’s why Jack brought you into this so early in the publishing process. We needed the evaluation of an expert reviewer, someone who didn’t know Stafford as a friend, but someone intricately knowledgeable about his work. Will you come with me? We won’t be gone very long.”

“Well—yes, I would love to help.”

“There will be a stipend—”

“No, no, I wouldn’t hear of it.”

“Then come on!” She rose, holding Gerry’s hand. “Best of all, our running off together will give Jack something to think about, don’t you see?”

He did, wondering if there was something between Jack and Cloris that he didn’t know.

She led him to her car, a stunning blue LeBaron, and had the engine gunned before he even got settled into the passenger seat. With a squeal of tires they were heading down the hills toward the city traffic.

“How fortunate,” she said, putting on her sunglasses, “that we’re not one of those stuffy New York publishers! We can pop right over to the office. It’s very close.”

“Fortunate indeed.”

“So, Gerry,” she said, “I must ask you another question about Stafford, one about which I know you must be especially keen.”

“Oh? Is it the codes?”

“Yes!” She threw a hand in the air like a cheerleader. “Yes, exactly! I know about your newsletter, The Rocket, and Jack told me how you found Stafford’s hidden messages in some of his novels. Isn’t that amazing! How did you even know he was putting them in the text? His editors were shocked to find out about his cipher!”

Gerry laughed. “It was rather a zany thing. But it was not a cipher originally, just something I stumbled upon while reading his book Helios United. I think I’ve just been studying codes such a long time that I happened to notice that the first words of each paragraph on the first page made a complete sentence. This followed for page upon page, so I transcribed it, ultimately discovering an entire second story written within the text of the novel. It caused quite a stir when I published that in The Rocket, as you might imagine.”

“Yes, indeed, and in our offices! I had no idea that unsigned editorial was by you. Stafford never denied or confirmed what he had done, you know, although it was plain once you showed it. It was astonishing! The second story featured the characters by the same names as in the novel, but as very different people!”

“It was quite a bravura performance,” he said, trying not to feel too proud of his discovery. “In his next book, he mixed things up. Another story was published in the book, but this time he knew we were watching. While some were picking up on words here and there, I realized the formula for his code—a mathematical formula for which word in each paragraph would be the next word in the story. It was excellent, if I may say, and for him to do it while writing wonderful and imaginative fiction was simply outstanding.”

“So it was just those two books, right? Helios United and Darkness of the Moon?”

Gerry smiled. She kept glancing at him. Had she or someone else at the publisher guessed? Is that why Jack had really asked him to read the book, as he'd thought? 

Gerry had been saving this information until he could speak with Stafford himself, but the man’s untimely death had left Gerry unsure how to proceed. Perhaps, as Stafford’s publisher, Cloris had a right to know.

“No,” he said. “In his penultimate book, he created something else besides the main story and the story we found. I made note of his plan when the formula in Darkness of the Moon ended in a string of letters and numbers. That told me he was planning to use a book cipher for his next hidden story, and I eagerly awaited the publication of Islands of X to test my theory. Indeed, that cipher did not lead to a hidden story, but rather set up a code within the book that did—a self-referential cypher, meaning there was an extra layer to the code. I had to break the first to find the second but”—he chuckled a little—“I did in the end.”

Cloris chuckled as well. “For goodness’ sake, Gerry!” she said. “Codes within codes? It boggles my mind. Tell me more.”

Gerry did, explaining his methods to her as she skillfully wove through traffic. Stafford has been a math bug himself, and it took another like him to pursue the code. He tried to explain as best he could for the layman. But when Gerry mentioned logarithms, Cloris dropped her jaw. “Now you’re using dirty words, sir!”

“I should say not!”

“Well, they certainly were dirty to me in high school mathematics! Next thing you’ll be wooing me with cosines and tangents!”

That flustered him a little, but in a good way. “Cloris, a mathematician like myself may wish that mathematics were the language of love, but I suspect Edna St. Vincent Millay was mistaken about Euclid.”

“Here we are,” she said, drawing up to the Gravesend building. Despite the brooding name of the publisher, Gravesend was located in a modern structure of steel and glass, some ten stories tall, off the main road. It had a parking lot of its own around the side, into which Cloris effortlessly swept her car, parking in a reserved spot. “This is very thrilling, Gerry,” she said. “I know everyone’s going to be excited, but I don’t know what they’ll do about it. Perhaps have a contest of some sort. ‘Decode the masterpiece, win a thousand dollars.’”

“That would certainly move more copies,” said Gerry, getting out of the car.

“But you must tell me,” she said to him across the car’s roof. “What does the code say? Was it another story?”

“Oh, it’s much too long to have memorized,” he said.

“The gist then.”

She led him toward the rear of the building, rather than the front entrance. There was a door marked Private, which she unlocked. Nevertheless, he held the door for her, and she entered first.

“Islands of X is a peculiar book,” he said as they walked a short corridor to an unmarked elevator. “You know the premise? Alien invasion?”

“No bug-eyed monsters, I assume,” she said. “That would be unlike Stafford.”

“No, you’re right. Quite human-looking, his aliens, very intelligent. But for one thing.” The elevator pinged and the door slid open. She pushed one of the two buttons on the inside. It was a small elevator and her perfume was quite intoxicating in the closeness. “This thing was perhaps the clue to what he had been working toward with his own codes. Because, you see, in Stafford’s book, the aliens do not use language in their normal forms, so the idea of coded English was beyond their ability to grasp. That was Stafford’s caprice. These humanoids could mimic human communication but not really understand it, and so word codes were beyond them. Humanity’s only hope was in the use of codes, and many in the novel are book ciphers based on Stafford’s favorite writers of the Renaissance. Alas, the end of Islands of X was bleak, humanity’s future uncertain. Frankly, the story I found within it was more of the same. It was about how the aliens, despite this limitation, had managed secretly to take over the world's institutions within a generation without firing a shot. I did not think much of it as a story. But how clever, to have a code buried within a novel about codes.”

The elevator stopped; the door slid open. “Too bad you did not get to know Stafford,” said Cloris with a sigh. “You two would have gotten on like old friends.”

“I fancy you may be right.”

The elevator let them off on another small corridor, one with only three doors—left, right, and center. “Do me a favor, would you, Gerry?” she said. “Just have a seat in that room on the left and I’ll call you in. Want to get the bunch together. After we meet, perhaps we can go out to dine. One of the better spots, not the Hollywood tourist trade.”

He laughed and said, “That would be delightful. With you, I’d even go to the Brown Derby.”

She smiled and waved as he opened the door on the left. It seemed dark in the room; his eyes needed to adjust. But as the door closed softly behind him, he realized no, it was very dark in this room.

Gerry groped on the wall near the door, thinking about Stafford. Brain problem, Cloris said. Was that what inspired Stafford? A problem in his brain inspiring him to create aliens with something lacking in their own cerebra, aliens who otherwise were secretly subjugating Earth, disguised as humans?

He found the light switch just as he was thinking, Perhaps the poor man was becoming paranoid due to a tumorous growth.

The room was completely white with the light on. It was barely larger than the elevator had been. There was a plain white chair and a plain white table next to it. The table had a drawer. There was nothing else in the room, not even a knob or hinges on the door. In fact, the light was not coming from any source he could see. It was simply there. There were no shadows. 

A chill began at the top of Gerry’s head, flushing his face as it cascaded down his body, leaving him weak. He was glad for the chair, because he needed to sit down.

Surely this was some science-fiction related prank. Gerry patted his forehead with his handkerchief. Was there a book or story that had such a room?

He reached for the knob on the drawer. He hesitated—he couldn’t have said why—then pulled the drawer open. There was a manuscript inside, and he sighed. This was some kind of publishing gimmick, no doubt. A test.

He took the manuscript out of the drawer and saw the title: The Islands of X, by Stafford L. Grimes. There were handwritten marks on the pages. 

Shaking now, he flipped to page 198. There was his coffee cup ring.

Then, from the corner of his eye, he noted something moving, or rather, moving away. It was the line that marked the edge of the door. As if being erased, the line moved up the wall, across the top of the door, and down the other side. The door was gone as if it had never been.

Then a voice came from nowhere, or anywhere, or everywhere. It sounded like Cloris’s cadence of speech—but it did not sound like her otherwise.

“Very well, Professor Destry,” said the voice. “Why don’t you take us through the code in this manuscript so we may understand it, hmm?”

 

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