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 agenuine prophet, though, seemed ... but then, what's thedifference between a dictator and a true prophet? So washe....
Illustrated by Schoenherr
r. 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—née 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 theGolden Surf, still stuck to the old Minsky traditions.
The worried look on her too-perfect face had been easily visible inthe T