"But my doctor prescribed those pills," she whimpered, looking down shyly at the hand which Sextus held gingerly. "They never made me dream – before."
He bent and kissed the revolting hand. "You are much too lovely a lady to have escaped from such a predicament as you describe without suffering – shall we say, a more romantic – fate?"
Miss Hafner blushed at the thought and wavered between outrage and ecstasy for a dangerous moment. With time-tested genius, Sextus withdrew quietly and left her to her thoughts.
He must get in touch with Dr. Bradford, atom business or not. This place could blow sky-high any minute.
He slipped the key into his own door and entered his suite. He took two brisk strides into his bedroom, tripped over a lady's overnight case and sprawled into his unmade bed. Even as he landed he realized it had an occupant, a gorgeous, strangely familiar blonde creature, touselled and asleep hugging her pillow with a creamy arm. A crash from the bathroom brought his head bouncing off the silken coverlet even as the girl awakened with a scream and tangled them both with the bed clothes.
Gary Gable charged from the bathroom, face dripping and a tuft of lather under each ear. "What in the Goddam hell – " He leaped for Sextus with his internationally famous shoulders knotted into bunches of muscular menace.
"I'm the hotel manager," Sextus blurted loudly. For once his self-assurance wavered under fire. Even to himself his words explained nothing.
Meanwhile, Gable tripped over one of Sextus' heavy suitcases and joined the pair in bed. Another male voice issued from the bathroom, and as they all thrashed about, Sextus became aware that a second female had somehow appeared between Gable and his brand new bride. They came up together, face to face, the beautiful, sleepy blonde and the very wide-awake, queenly brunette. Now a pot-bellied little man in shorts and undershirt emerged from the bathroom, his mouth a gaping hole in a fully lathered face.
Sextus wriggled free, made for the door and off down the hall. To his horror, the automatic signal light on the vector "H" elevator was flickering and fading. The whole H-vector must be collapsing. He dashed for the stairwell and then reconsidered. He moved to the end of the hall which overlooked the low roof of the adjacent building. He tried the window and remembered that it was sealed. Back in the alcove he seized one of the sand jars and headed back for the window. A growing tide of commotion swelled from behind almost every door now. Grunts, screams and wrestling sounds came over the transoms.
He dashed the sand jar through the window, chipped off the jagged edges with his heel and climbed out. It was a twenty-foot drop to security, and he made it without hesitation. What could a man hope to do with a mess like —
Spang! His feet struck, not with a crunch on gravelled tar, but into a springy fabric that sagged under his 180 pounds, tossed him six feet in the air, caught him on the rebound and then juggled him down with diminishing bounces.
They were waiting for him, as he regained his feet on the quivering surface of a spring-loaded, canvas trampoline. The bright, mid-morning sun blinded him for an instant, but their voices assailed his ears in a mighty roar of approval as he squinted under his hand and peered around him.
"Attaboy, Sexy," a shrill female voice piped. The roof-top was jammed with a pressing throng of – nearly naked people. In the cleared semi-circle about him a cordon of male bodies-beautiful restrained the mob behind a rope from which a long streamer hung with letters reading:
"WELCOME, SEXTUS, TO 2153 A. D."
Reaching over the edge of the canvas platform with outstretched hand was a single, willowy, sun-baked oldster in a purple loin-cloth. His hair and beard were a dazzling white, and his face was wreathed in a silly smile, the kind officials always wear when presenting the keys to the city.
He shuffled his white kid sandals and spoke with an accent: "Welcome to 2153, Sextus Rollo Forsyte! California salutes you!"
Somewhere down on the street a raucous brass band broke into the Stars and Stripes Forever that quickly medlied into California, Here We Come!
Sextus shrank back against the wall and felt ancient bricks crumble into dust against his hands. The magnitude of his disaster crushed in upon shrinking soul, and as his nimble imagination grasped the stunning significance every molecule of his being vibrated with horror. He had been warned not to open a window.
"You have fulfilled the legend," the old man sang joyously. "You are a famous man." How famous, Sextus was forced to acknowledge as a television boom snaked over the heads of the crowd trailing a wisp of cable and cast its baleful, glassy eye full into his face.
"Two hundred years to the day, as my great-great-grandfather predicted. I am Clark Bradford, direct descendent of – "
Sextus stared wildly up at the open window. He bounced once experimentally. It was a fine trampoline, and he flipped a foot off the surface. Next bounce he flexed his knees a little and gained another foot. Now he doubled up purposefully.
The one-man-delegate in purple frowned. "Stop that. We are here to welcome you and start the celebration at the Hollywood Bowl and – Stop that, I say!" Now he sensed Sextus' incredible intent. "Officer, help out here, please!"