Memoirs Found In a Bathtub Read Online Free Page B

was unable to pay proper attention to this procedure; the unexpected turn of events had left me quite numb. General Kashenblade’s cryptic remarks clearly indicated matters so secret that one could only hint at them. Though sooner or later I would have to be apprised of their substance. How else could I accomplish my Mission? Did the Mission have anything to do with my original pass? But that question was utterly insignificant in the light of this new, all-too-sudden career of mine.
    My musings were interrupted by the arrival of a young officer who introduced himself as the Chiefs undercover aide, Lieutenant Blanderdash. This Lieutenant Blanderdash shook my hand, told me he had been assigned to my person, led me to an office across the hall, offered me some coffee, began to extol my extraordinary abilities (they had to be extraordinary indeed for Kashenblade to have given me such a tough nut to crack), and also marveled at the naturalness of my face, particularly the nose—then I realized he assumed it was false. I stirred my coffee in silence, deciding that reticence was the best policy. After some fifteen minutes he took me through an officers’ passageway to a service elevator. We broke the seal and rode it down.
    “Incidentally,” he said as soon as we stepped out, “do you yawn much?”
    “Not that I know of. Why?”
    “Oh, nothing. When a person yawns, one can look inside, you know. You don’t snore, by any chance?”
    “No.”
    “Wonderful. You can’t imagine how many of our people have come to a bad end by snoring.”
    “What happened to them?” I was reckless enough to ask. But he only smiled and fingered his insignia. “Perhaps you would like to see the displays? They’re right on this level—over there by the columns. Our Department of Collections.”
    “Sure,” I replied, “but do we have the time?”
    “No problem,” he said, steering me in the right direction. “Anyway, this is not to satisfy an idle curiosity. In our profession the more one knows, the better.”
    Blanderdash opened an ordinary white door, behind which was solid steel. He worked a combination lock and the steel slid away, revealing an enormous, windowless but brightly lit hall. The coffered ceiling was supported by pillars; the walls were covered with tapestries and hangings in black, gold and silver. I had never seen anything so magnificent before. Between the columns across the highly polished parquet stood the showcases, cabinets, vitrines on slender metal legs, chests with their lids open. The one nearest me was filled with small items that gleamed like jewels. They were cuff links, and there must have been a million of them. From another chest rose a mound of pearls. Blanderdash led me to the glass cases: on velvet cushions lay artificial ears, noses, bridges, fingernails, warts, eyelashes, boils and humps, some displayed in cross section to show the gears and springs inside. As I stepped back, I stumbled against the chest of pearls and shuddered: they were teeth—snaggleteeth and tiny teeth, buck teeth, teeth with cavities and teeth without, milk teeth, eye teeth, wisdom teeth…
    My guide smiled and pointed to the nearest tapestry. I took a closer look: beards, goatees, sideburns, muttonchops, all sewn onto a nylon base in such a fashion that the blond ones represented, against a brunette background, the national seal. In the next room, even more spacious than the first, were more glass cases. These contained artifacts and keepsakes such as cheeses or decks of cards. From the pine ceiling-beams hung artificial limbs, corsets, clothing. There were artificial insects too, crafted with a precision that only a great and wealthy power could have summoned the means to achieve. The insect display alone filled several shelves. Blanderdash did not intrude with explanations, certain that the corpora delicti assembled here would speak for themselves. But now and then, whenever he thought I might overlook some particularly