CHAPTER EIGHT: THE LOG BOOK OF LOBSTER-TRAP SMITH
--


People's reactions to Mortimus J. Finkelstein's dramatic announcement were
not what Hieronymous expected. He certainly didn't expect Mrs. Maple to
leap up onto the kitchen table and start dancing vigorously, her dress
flying in all directions as she flung her ancient knees and legs high into
the air.

"Hahahah!" she laughed triumphantly. "I was right, right, right, RIGHT!
There IS an ancient evil!" She jumped off the table and confronted Wilf
with an open hand. "Pay up," she said.

Wilf dug through his pockets and extracted a dubious and dirty-looking
pound note. "Don't 'ave to go bragging about it, Maggie," he replied, and
thrust the bill into Mrs. Maple's hand. "Hope you choke on it," he
muttered under his breath, as the old lady grabbed the note triumphantly
and waved it under his nose.

Louis, on the other hand, simply muttered something about a "bad trip."
The Psychic Apostle drooled.

"Well," said Mortimus J. Finkelstein, "I suggest we retreat into the
parlour." He looked around expectantly. "Er... we do have a parlour, don't
we?"

"We do indeed," replied Mrs. Maple. "If that is where you wish to explain
where you have been for the last three years, I suggest we get a move on."
With a final wave of the ten pound note, she shot off down one of the many
corridors, dragging the Psychic Apostle along by his wrist. Everybody
shrugged and followed her as she headed down one hallway after another,
half running, half skipping, but tremendously excited. The group turned
left, right, went through doors, climbed up and down staircases, and
bustled their way through one secret passage after another.

Hieronymous had never really appreciated how big the Society's base of
operations was. Not for the first time, he was forced to wonder what
lunatic built the building in the first place, and for what purpose. As
the group proceeded down yet another twisting, turning hallway full of
doors at a breakneck pace, he would occasionally get intriguing glimpses
into other rooms of the house. He was particularily intrigued by a room
that appeared to be entirely full of lemons in glass bell jars, but when
he went to take a closer look Louis grabbed his wrist. "I'll show you
round later, man," he muttered, and steered his charge back down the
hallways.

After climbing down a very long and rickety metal ladder and heading
through the most conspicuous secret passage in the world - behind a
bookshelf that was the only piece of furniture in the room - they finally
arrived at their destination.

The parlour was a very dark and musty room, filled with ancient furniture
covered in spider-webs and plastic furniture protectors. The walls were
covered with elderly oil lamps and very bad paintings of fruit. In one
corner was a desolate player piano.

Wilf and Maple fired up the oil lamps, most of which were positioned on
top of highly flammable objects, while Louis and Hieronymous removed the
spider webs and furniture protectors from the furniture. As the room only
had five chairs, the group elected to drape the Psychic Apostle on top of
the player piano. Lying there, propped on one elbow and gazing off into
space, he reminded Hieronymous somewhat of a nude he had seen on a class
trip to the Metropolitan Musem of Art.

Mr. Finkelstein sat down in a chair, and stared at the group. 

They stared back at him.

This continued for a long, long time. Hieronymous amused himself by trying
to knock the oil lamps over with mental power alone.

It was Mrs. Maple who broke silence. "For pity's sake, Finky, would you
kindly stop ogling my chest - "

"Riiight...." said Wilf from his chair, elbowing Hieronymous with a grin.
"Not that there's much to look at, anyways."

Mrs. Maple ignored him. "... and tell us what's going on?"

Mr. Finkelstein sighed. "I hardly know where to begin," he said. "Things
are bad, and I mean bad."

"Well, start at the beginning," snapped Mrs. Maple. "For one thing, did
you or did you not find the book?"

"Well, yes..." replied Finkelstein, "though it took me a long time. Our
information was very imprecise, as you well know, and it took me a great
deal of effort, not to mention a lot of time spent in antiquarian bookstores
seducing elderly spinster librarians..."

"So where's the book?" asked Wilf.

"That's the bad part," replied Finkelstein glumly. "I got the book, I read
the book, but I didn't..." He slumped his head into his hands. "Even with
my pills, there are gaps in my memory," he conceded. "They took the book
from me when I got captured. I know I had read the entire book beforehand,
and had committed it to memory, but for the life of me there are things
that I simply can't remember..."

The room exploded in a cacophony of noise as everybody tried to shout at
once. Hieronymous wanted to know what this book was that everybody was
talking about, but was drowned out by people around him yelling - Mrs.
Maple calling "Finky" a deranged old coot who was well past it, Wilf
telling Mrs. Maple to shut up, and Louis urging people to "stay cool." The
argument was only stopped when the Psychic Apostle fell off the top of the
player piano which immediately started playing "The Yellow Rose of Texas".

"Oh ah," said Wilf. He got up out of his chair and shut off the music
while Hieronymous replaced the Psychic Apostle on top of the piano. "This
time," he instructed Hieronymous, removing a tin box of thumbtacks from
his pocket as he did so, "use these - but watch out... thumbtacks are
little soul-eating bastards."

"Have you been hanging around with my father?" asked Hieronymous, but got
no response. Giving up, he sullenly continued attaching the Psychic
Apostle to the piano.

"Now then," said Louis, "I suggest that you tell us what you can remember.
It might be a start."

"Ah, right," said Finkelstein. "Well, let me start with the first
interesting bit, which actually has to do with young Hieronymous here."

"Pardon?" asked Hieronymous.

"Well," said Finkelstein, "it seems that you're not the first Smith to be
a member of this organization. I was sent out in search of a rather
interesting notebook that turned out to be the diary of your great-uncle,
Reciprocating Lobster-Trap Smith."

Wilf stared at Hieronymous for a moment. "Lad," he asked, "was everybody in
your
family named by a madman?"

"Well," said Hieronymous, "let's see..." He started counting off relatives
on his fingers. "There's my father, Incomprehensible Smith, my brother
Militant Smith, Auntie Waffle-Iron, Great-Aunt Cranium-Fungus, ..."

"I'd say that's a yes." Hieronymous ignored Wilf's comments and continued
counting.

"Incorrugible Smith, Badly Peeling Whitewash Smith, ... hmm, I suppose
there's my cousin Sarah, but he always was the black sheep of the
family..."

"I shouldn't have asked," conceded Wilf. "Continue, Mortimus."

"Very well," sighed Mr. Finkelstein. He settled down in his chair and
began to tell his tale.

"Back in those days,..."

"Which days?" asked Hieronymous.

"I'm not sure, Mr. Smith," replied Mr. Finkelstein, "but I am reliably
informed that, and I quote, 'Ah, those were the days.' What this means, I
cannot say. Anyhow, back in those days, your Great-Uncle Lobster-Trap had
recently decided to pursue a career as a Gentleman Adventurer - a
reasonably popular career for a young gentleman of his age, mainly because
it gave them an excuse to grow enormous soup-strainer moustaches - much
like my own." He fingered the specimen fondly.

"Originally a child of a Welsh coal miner and her stay-at-home husband,
your great uncle Lobster-Trap decided to go off and search for gold in the
Yukon. Shortly after his father squandered the family fortunes purchashing
a collection of erotic soap sculptures that eventually turned out to be
clever counterfeits, Lobster-Trap Smith decided that the time was right to
go off and search for gold in the Yukon."

"This was complicated by a few things. First, this was the start of the
nineteenth century and while the Yukon had been discovered at least twice,
nobody was really sure where it was. The common belief at the time was
that it was somewhere near India, and most people didn't know where India
was either."

"Your great uncle was a right nutter," Wilf muttered to Hieronymous.
Finkelstein ignored the interruption and continued:

"After a spectacular series of adventures in Europe that included being
caught in the middle of at least three, maybe four, small land wars - they
were very common in those days - he finally made it to the Russian coast.
In a leap of deductive brilliance, he concluded that he'd completely
buggered up, and that the Yukon was actually on the other side of the
ocean. He decided to continue in pursuit of his dream, and booked passage
on a trans-Siberian ice floe with only a canteen of water and a backpack
full of day-old bagels that he bought at a Jewish deli in St. Petersburg."

"Now, his diary at the time indicated that he was hallucinating for most
of the trip. He fantasized about eating his horse, only to remember that
he didn't have one."

"Hang on a 'mo," said Wilf. "I see a problem in your story - if he set out
with only water and bagels, how'd he end up with the diary?"

"He made it out of bagels," replied Finkelstein. "Hieronymous's uncle was
a great example of pioneer resourcefulness." He twirled his moustache
around his finger and continued:

"The ice floe went off course and crashed into the Arctic. Reciprocating
Lobster-Trap Smith searched in vain for a travel agent, but couldn't find
one. In desperation, he invented the igloo and stayed there for three
years, surviving by clubbing polar bears over the head with increasingly
stale bagels."

"He decided to make the most of his time, and began to explore the Arctic.
Two years into his stay, Lobster-Trap had reached the north pole. To his
great surprise - and now this is where it gets really interesting, so pay
attention - yes, this means you, Wilf - he found a very large tomb, made
entirely out of ice and frozen penguins."

"He opened the door, and..."

"Hang on a 'mo," said Wilf. "I see another problem with your story. There
ARE no penguins in the Arctic!"

"Then obviously they were imported!" snapped Finkelstein. "That's beside
the point!" He stuck his fingers in his ears and continued:

"Amazed at his discovery, Lobster-Trap continued into the tomb. Inside he
found a large coffin that he didn't open, as it was frozen shut, a set of
human footprints and the signs of a campfire, and a tablet made out of
frozen penguins. The place, he noted, had obviously been ransacked - he
notes in his diary that there were probably more tablets, but it looked
like they'd been taken."

"The tablet he found, however, was intact, and had writing on it that was
written in Old English. It said that this tomb was the last resting place
of Berzelius, last of the Monks of History, and also that it contained a
complete record of the Society's research into the nature of the Ancient
Evil."

Reactions to this tidbit, Hieronymous noted, were even more mixed than
last time. Louis, who had been in the process of lighting a joint during
Finkelstein's speech, suddenly forgot all about his efforts. The joint
fell out of his mouth, which was open in shock, and he didn't say anything
until the match burned his fingers.

Mrs. Maple was grinning and rubbing her hands excitedly, and almost - no,
Hieronymous noted, she WAS bouncing up and down in her seat. "Well now!"
she said. "Isn't that interesting?"

"Oh ah," agreed Wilf nonchalantly. He seemed the least fazed by the news.
"What happened after that? And what else was on the tablet?"

"Well," said Finkelstein, "not much. Some stuff about how Berzelius had
been 'granted a vision' during his tenure as a Monk of History, and had
founded the Society as a result of his vision. It talked about some of the
other members...." He turned and looked at Hieronymous. "It's interesting
that the tablet mentioned a member named Wulfrington Smythe, who Berzelius
described as, and I quote from Lobster-Trap's translation here, 'a right
ruddy mad bastard, capable of instilling fear in the stoutest yeoman...'"

"And?" said Wilf. "Is that it? If that, that ... " - he gestured aimlessly
- "contraption is working correctly, then why would it have sent us all
the way after that book? Surely there was something else..."

"I'm not sure," said Finkelstein. "The only other thing I can remember is
that shortly after he read the tablet, Lobster-Trap Smith was nearly
trapped in the tomb. While he was reading and translating, somebody had
started melting the tomb, and the next thing he knew he was surrounded by
hundreds of irate, hastily defrosted penguins."

"Huh," said Wilf. "Well, that's interestin', and I'm sure we'll figure out
what it means later. Now how'd you get captured?"

"I don't know," said Finkelstein. "I'd finished reading the book, and I
had it in my back pocket, when..." He stopped, looked up at the ceiling,
and fiddled with his moustache. "All I know," he sighed, "is that somebody
hit me on the head outside of the bookstore. When I woke up, the book was
gone, my Alzheimer's had returned, and I found myself in that... that
home, on the receiving end of a sponge bath from a nurse with... well,
that part wasn't so bad, actually."

Everybody was silent for a moment, but it was Mrs. Maple who finally broke
the silence. "Louis, did you ever finish lighting that thing?"

"Yeah," Louis admitted.

"Gimme," Maple replied. She snatched Louis's joint, took a very, very
large drag, and hiccoughed. "Better," she rasped, and passed the joint
back to Louis, who accepted it with a certain amount of grudging respect.

"This is no time for you to be discovering your inner beatnik," chided
Finkelstein. "We don't have the book, I can't remember everything in it, and
I still don't know why it's so important. Why would the Grand Prob..."

Finkelstein abruptly shut up. Hieronymous looked around, only for Louis to
get up and pull him out of his chair.

"C'mon, man," said the hippie, "let's go take a look at those lemons,
huh?"

"But I..." muttered Hieronymous, only to be escorted out of the room. He
turned around to see Wilf, muttering at Finkelstein and making very
obvious "Louis-get-Hieronymous-out-of-here" gestures with his hands. The
aged hippie steered Hieronymous out of the parlour, and closed the door
with a slam. From behind the door, he heard the piano player abruptly kick
into the NBC Television theme, and Finkelstein muttering, "Why Louis and
not Margaret? She is SO fried..."

The two of them headed out of the secret passage behind the bookcase, and
climbed up the long, metal ladder; it wasn't until they reached the first
of the many hallways that Hieronymous spoke. "Louis," he asked, "what the
hell was all THAT about?"

The aged hippie looked somewhat apologetic, and clawed at his beard - did
everybody in this house play with their facial hair, Hieronymous wondered?
- before answering. "Err... man," he started, before giving up and
returned to playing with his beard and hair.

Finally he sighed. "Look, I'd tell you if I could, but ... well, it's...
well, if I ran the world I would tell you, you'll find out eventually, but
Wilf's the boss and he doesn't want to..."

"Doesn't want to what?" asked Hieronymous, who was getting more than a
little annoyed.

"Er, uh...." muttered Louis. He erred and ummed for a few minutes longer,
before reaching into his trouser pocket, pulling out a Zip-Loc bag of
little brown things and waving it at Hieronymous. "Mushrooms?"

"No thanks," muttered Hieronymous.

Louis sighed again, and shoved the bag back in his pocket. "I suppose we
should take a look 'round, then," he said. "You've never been down here,
have you?" Hieronymous shook his head. Louis suddenly looked very
thoughtful, as if he had come to some sort of a decision, then grinned and
wiggled his eyebrows.

"Interesting stuff, down here," he continued as they walked. "I don't
think even Wilf knows what's down here, and if he doesn't, nobody does....
now where is it..." He turned and opened a door. "Think this is the room,"
he said cheerfully as they walked in. "Wonderful what you can do with
lemons, even get high off 'em if you take en.... oops."

Hieronymous looked around the room. Instead of a small closet filled with
lemons in bell jars, the room was very large and filled with ancient
computers. Circuit boards and large vacuum tubes filled the room, sprawling
in every direction, and spliced together with various sorts of
cables. In one corner was a large filing cabinet, surrounded by boxes of
punch cards. Here and there were giant metal boxes that reminded
Hieronymous of washing machines; some of them even had glass doors,
through which he could see reels of tape, spinning madly. In one corner
was a small terminal, complete with a decidedly unergonomic operator's
chair, an ancient typewriter hooked up to the massive computer by some
sort of cable assembly, an elderly black-and-white television screen, an
elderly dot-matrix printer, and a punch card reader.

The floor was covered with large printouts and books. Hieronymous idly
picked one of them up and skimmed its contents. Entitled "The Transistor
Diaries", it was about the many advantages of vacuum tubes as opposed to
their inferior brethren, the transistor. It advocated a violent and bloody
revolution, including the destruction of silicon wafer factories, and
reminded Hieronymous of white supremacist propaganda.

Putting the book back on the floor, he turned his attention to the sign
that was attached to the television screen by a large piece of duct tape.
It read:

	If you dare touch my equipment, I will see to it that you are
forcibly sodomized by large, horny badgers.

and was signed with nothing more than a giant splat of ink.

"Damn," said Louis, "this is.... oh man, he's going to have a fit..." He
grabbed Hieronymous by the shoulder and hastily propelled him out of the
room, then locked the door from the inside, ran out of the room, and
slammed the door shut behind him. Exhaling slowly, he leaned on the wall
and wiped his forehead with a tie-dyed handkerchief.

"What was all that about?" asked Hieronymous, more confuse than ever.

"Ehh..." said Louis, looking sheepish. "Look, are you sure you don't want
any mushrooms? They're fresh..."

"Quite sure," said Hieronymous. He turned and faced the aging hippie. "Now
please give me a straight answer."

Louis sighed, and slumped down against the computer room door. "I saw
things I don't understand," he murmured, "but I guess in time we will..."

"What?"

"Nothing important," replied Louis, "just something a friend of mine once
wrote. Not important... but, and I want to make this perfectly clear, that
was a total accident." He waggled his eyebrows at Hieronymous and grinned
happily, as if accidentally walking into a room full of vacuum tubes was
the funniest thing in the world.

"I see," said Hieronymous slowly. He didn't know, but he thought he had
been told something he shouldn't have, although he wasn't sure exactly
what, and felt fairly sure he ought to do something to return the favour.
"You know," he began hesitantly, "perhaps... we could listen to some
bootlegs?"

Louis's face lit up with pleasure. "Thought you'd never ask!" he
exclaimed. "Let me think... we could start with the Cornell show, that's
always good, then move onto some of 91, or 73, or even 68, I think I've
got an old show from.... and I've got just the treat to go with the shows,
you'll never have tried anything like this, man, I tell ya, it's some
really potent stuff I made up last month, didn't know you could ferment
LSD in oak barrels,..." He rambled on happily as they proceeded down the
corridor. "... plus there's that new stuff I've got growing in the
greenhouse, ... and hey, you ever tried peyote?"

Then again, mused Hieronymous inwardly, perhaps I should have just kept my
mouth shut.