Tag: F&SF

Count on Me by Ray Vukcevich

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Count on Me by Ray Vukcevich (F&SF, October-November 1995) gets off to a very clever start with this:

It didn’t confuse me that the new occupant of apartment 29A was a woman. The Father of Lies is nothing if not inventive. The number 29A is, of course, the Number of the Beast in base 16, and 16 is the atomic number of Sulfur. Base 16 is commonly called “hex.” It was all too obvious.
Celia Strafford looked to be in her early thirties— 32, to be precise, since 2,3, and 37 are the prime factors of 666, and she looked too old to be 23, and I’m 37, and she looked younger than me, so ergo, as they say, 32. I’m speaking of the age of her body; I couldn’t know the age of the creature inside. She wore her long red hair loose down her back. I watched her closely as she stooped to pick up a box to lug up the stairs to her new apartment. She wore cut-off jeans and an abbreviated yellow halter top. Her legs were that strange golden tan you only see on women. I’ve never been able to figure how they achieve that color. She wore no shoes.  p. 100

The rest of the beginning of the story sees some conversational sparring between the narrator, Palmer (actually Brother Palmer of the Secret Order of Morse), and Celia, the new neighbour, as well as more numerology (at one point she says, when told that he used to be in the Army, that “there are probably 820 things worse”, which Palmer identifies as 666 in Base 9). Eventually Palmer becomes more and more convinced that she belongs to the Army of the Night, something that is repeatedly confirmed by numerology when they meet later on in her apartment. Then, at a climactic moment (spoiler), he leaps away from her and tries to make the sign of the cross. After a couple more fumbled attempts, Celia giggles and makes the sign herself—and reveals that she is Sister Celia of the Divine Order of Symmetry!
At this point the story almost completely deflates, and the second half of the story is a wodge of number and Morse code crunching that leads them to the message, “ONE GOD”, and the realisation that all is well with the world.
A game of two halves (two in any Base from 3 to Infinity).
** (Average). 3,350 words.

The Singing Marine by Kit Reed

Posted on by Paul Fraser

The Singing Marine by Kit Reed (F&SF, October-November 1995) is a surreal fantasy (i.e. it ultimately makes no sense whatsoever) that begins with the titular marine reflecting that he may be singing to take his mind off a recent accident involving his platoon where lives were lost. The marine observes that, if he is court martialled, he cannot now hope to love the General’s daughter.
When the marine goes into a drugstore he is unaware that a woman is following him. She tells him to sit down and, after initially resisting, he does so. The marine then then tells her the story of his childhood, or maybe of the song he is singing, about how he was murdered by his stepmother but rose after being buried under a linden tree.
The next part of the story sees the pair go on a bus to a place she says he will know, and they eventually end up, after a further hour’s walk in the woods, at a cavern. The woman tells the marine she wants him to go in and retrieve a tinderbox, for which she will give him enough money to sort all of his problems:

It is as she told him. At the widest point he finds three little niches opening off the tunnel like side chapels in a subterranean place of worship, but instead of religious statuary or mummified corpses they contain bits of blackness that stalk back and forth inside like furred furies; when the animals see the Marine they lunge for him and are hurled back into their niches as if by invisible barriers. Glowering, they mount their mahogany chests like reluctant plaster saints returning to their pedestals.  p. 85

The first dog tries to tempt the marine with a pile of pennies, and the second with shredded dollar bills, but he ignores them and goes onto the third dog. There, he goes into its alcove and tells the dog that he “didn’t want to come back from the dead” and that “being dead is easier”. The dog approaches him:

Huge and silent, the dog surges into the space between them. Still he does not move. He does not move even when the massive brute pads the last two steps and presses its bearlike head against him. Startled by the warmth, the weight, the singing Marine feels everything bad rush out of him: the violent death and burial, the strange reincarnation that finds him both victim and murderer, song and singer, still in the thrall of the linden tree and the spirits that surround it. The great dog’s jaws are wide; its mouth is a fiery chasm, but he doesn’t shrink from it.
When you have been dead and buried, many things worry you, but nothing frightens you.  p. 86

The marine opens the chest to retrieve the tinderbox but, once he leaves the cavern, he kills the woman and returns to his base, sneaking through the fence and hiding in the grounds. Later, when he is hungry, he strikes the tinderbox three times, and the dog appears with food. Then, as he thinks about how only a goddess can save him now, the dog appears once more with the general’s sleeping daughter on its back. The marine wants her, but leaves her unmolested.
Finally, when the daughter is once again taken by the dog, the General notices her absence and the military police eventually come for the marine. The General later questions him, and then the marine attacks the general so the latter will shoot and kill him.
The writing and the dreamlike progression of this make for an initially intriguing read but, as I said above, it ultimately makes no sense at all. If you don’t mind the inexplicable there may be something in this for you.
** Average. 5,300 words. Story link.

The Curse of the Mhondoro Nkabele by Eric Norden

Posted on by Paul Fraser

The Curse of the Mhondoro Nkabele by Eric Norden (Starsongs and Unicorns, 1978; F&SF, September 1980) is a very amusing, but now probably politically incorrect, story that begins with a writer called O. T. Nkabele, originally from Senegal, submitting his story Astrid of the Asteroids to F&SF. It is rejected, which brings forth a follow-up letter from the writer:

Esteemed Editor Ferman:
I’m afraid, as is sometimes unavoidable in all great publishing enterprises, that there has been a clerical error on the part of your staff. I have just received a letter, bearing what can only be a facsimile of your signature, returning my manuscript ASTRID OF THE ASTEROIDS, which I know you will be most anxious to publish. At first I was sorely troubled by this misunderstanding, but I soon realized that one of your overzealous underlings, as yet unfamiliar with my name, took it upon himself to reject my work unread. Thus I am resubmitting ASTRID, as well as two more of my latest stories, with instructions that they are for your eyes only. Do not be too harsh on the unwitting culprit, dear Editor Ferman, as such debacles are not unknown in literary history. The initial reception of James Joyce’s Ulysses is but one case in point. . . .
I should appreciate your check to be made out to cash, as I have not as yet opened a banking account in this city.
Hoping to hear from you forthwith, I remain,
Your obedient servant,
O.T. Nkabele, Esq  pp. 84-84

Editor Ferman writes to Nkabele to tell him none of his stories meet the magazine’s requirements, and that manuscripts need to be typed, not hand-written. When the stories are resubmitted (Nkabele has subsequently engaged Ms Rachel Markowitz as a typist), Ferman again rejects the stories, saying that they are entirely unsuitable, pointing out that no-one says “Zut alors!” or “Zounds!” anymore, the Mary Tyler Moore show is unlikely to be broadcast on 31st Century Venus, and Nkabele’s aliens appear to be oversize lobsters who would be uninterested in ravishing Ursula (the love interest of one of the stories). He adds that Nkabele needs to study recent work in the field, such as the Dangerous Visions anthologies, and the annual collections of Nebula Award stories.
Nkabele writes another long letter to Ferman, and we learn about his upbringing in Africa and how he was given access to a missionary’s collection of SF (Father Devlin arrived in 1953 with his 1936 to 1952 collection, but never obtained anything newer than that, hence Nkabele’s dated output). After Nkabele praises various pulp writers—E. E. “Doc” Smith, Nelson Bond, and “the revered” Stanley G. Weinbaum,1 etc.—he resubmits his stories. Nkabele also adds a PS in which he notes the only prominent black writer in the field is Samuel R. Delany, and hopes that Ferman’s obtuseness is not “motivated by racialism”.
The back and forth continues even after another form letter, and then Ferman is ambushed by Nkabele while he is at the hairdresser in Connecticut (Nkabele has travelled from New York). Ferman, after he gets over his surprise, eventually thaws and suggests Nkabele write an essay on how he discovered SF, and also gives him some volumes of current SF writing. Then he finds what looks like a voodoo doll under his pillow, and starts developing headaches. . . .
You can probably guess what happens next and, sure enough, circumstances worsen for Ferman when (spoiler) his dog is eaten (his neighbour sees something that looks like a leopard), and he starts to hear drumming in the night. Then Ferman inadvertently discloses Harlan Ellison’s home address to Nkabele, which draws Ellison into his orbit too (a few rejection letters later Ellison goes bald, and is subsequently eaten by a python—which goes on to attack an old woman as it is “still hungry”—a very funny line).
Finally, Nkabele writes to Ferman dismissing the latter’s superstitious worries in one breath, while explaining how they work and can be ameliorated in another: Ferman takes the hint and finally accepts his stories.
Also included in the same letter is Nkabele’s hilarious response to the modern SF given to him by Ferman (this is an exaggerated version of the Traditionalist/New Wave feuds and other reactionary comment of the time):

I also want to thank you for the novels and collections of short stories. I have not as yet read them all, but I must confess I am shocked and depressed at the profound deterioration in our field since my apprenticeship in Africa. It is obvious that I was blessed with exposure to the Golden Age of science fiction, and that the downward spiral towards decadence and decay has accelerated horrendously since the midfifties. Writers like Theodore Sturgeon, whom I remember from an earlier, healthier stage in his career, particularly disturb me, as they must know the birthright they are betraying. (If I may be permitted a note of levity, the eggs Sturgeon lays are far from caviar!) Certainly, his current stories would never have been accepted by Thrilling Wonder Stories in the glorious days gone by. And this Barry Malzberg you suggested I read—my word, dear Edward, surely he is afflicted of the Gods! The man is a veritable pustulence on the face of the universe, a yellow dog barking in the night. We have another saying in my tribe, “The jackal dreams lions’ dreams.” How true! How tragically true. And how a creature such as Malzberg would cringe and whimper if ever confronted with the shade of Stanley G. Weinbaum, the Great Master himself. And these women, Ursula LeGuin and Joanna Russ, they should be beaten with stout sticks! I would not give one hamstrung goat for the pair of them. (It is apposite here to reflect on the words of the good Dr. Johnson, who pointed out that “A woman’s preaching is like a dog walking on his hind legs; it is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all.”) Of all the stories I have read recently, only Kilgore Trout’s Venus on the Half Shell is worthy to bear the mantle of the giants of yesteryear.
Truly, my good friend, the field we love is facing terrible times, and it is indeed providential that I have arrived on the scene to arrest the rot. Perhaps, in fact, there was a Larger Purpose of Father Devlin’s introducing me to science fiction. We shall see.  pp. 94-95

The last part of the story also sees letters from a rational Isaac Asimov to a increasingly superstitious Ferman (one of Asimov’s letters contains a quip that at a recent autograph party he told some “nubile young ladies” that his hobby was “converting lesbians”). Meanwhile, F&SF publishes several of Nkabele’s stories, Ferman becomes an alcoholic, and the circulation of the magazine plummets—it eventually ends up as a mimeographed publication.
This story has some very funny passages and clever lines—and equally as impressive as the writer’s comic ability is his knowledge of SF and the writers involved.
**** (Very Good). 9,700 words. Story link.

1. The story’s original title (it was published in Starsongs and Unicorns, a semi-original short story collection, a couple of years previously) was The Curse of the Mhondoro Nkabele or The Revenge of Stanley G. Weinbaum. The collection’s contents can be viewed at ISFDB (I’ve already reviewed the excellent The Primal Solution here).

A Galaxy Called Rome by Barry N. Malzberg

Posted on by Paul Fraser

A Galaxy Called Rome by Barry N. Malzberg (F&SF, July 1975)1 is a meta-story and a piece of recursive SF where the writer describes a story that that he might write but cannot, because “it partakes of its time, which is distant and could be perceived only through the idiom and devices of that era.”
He goes on to say that the story would be about a spaceship that is trapped in a “black galaxy” (I think he means black hole) that results from the implosion of a neutron star:

Conceive then of a faster-than-light spaceship which would tumble into the black galaxy and would be unable to leave. Tumbling would be easy, or at least inevitable, since one of the characteristics of the black galaxy would be its invisibility, and there the ship would be. The story would then pivot on the efforts of the crew to get out. The ship is named Skipstone. It was completed in 3892. Five hundred people died so that it might fly, but in this age life is held even more cheaply than it is today.
Left to my own devices, I might be less interested in the escape problem than that of adjustment. Light housekeeping in an anterior sector of the universe; submission to the elements, a fine, ironic literary despair. This is not science fiction, however. Science fiction was created by Hugo Gernsback to show us the ways out of technological impasse. So be it.

The writer then reflects on his personal life in Ridgeway Park (“I would rather dedicate the years of life remaining (my melodramatic streak) to an understanding of the agonies of this middle-class town”) before setting out his notes for the story. These cover various facets of the prospective piece: the characters, which include a female captain and her cargo of “the embalmed”, five hundred and fifteen dead people who will be reanimated at some point in the future; possible sex scenes; data dumps of astronomical physics; a scene where the dead come to life; and, eventually, the open ending of the story—which, as it happens, sees the ship vomited from the black hole after engaging its tachyonic drive, depositing the occupants in Ridgefield Park in 1975 (which neatly ends the story).
It’s very hard to synopsise this as it is much more than a series of events or notes but, perhaps, as well as the passage above, the following will also provide a flavour of what the story is like:

Lena is left alone again, then, with the shouts of the dead carrying forward. Realizing instantly what has happened to her—fourteen thousand years of perception can lead to a quicker reaction time, if nothing else—she addresses the console again, uses the switches and produces three more prostheses, all of them engineers barely subsidiary to the one she has already addressed (Their resemblance to the three comforters of Job will not be ignored here, and there will be an opportunity to squeeze in some quick religious allegory, which is always useful to give an ambitious story yet another level of meaning.)
Although they are not quite as qualified or definitive in their opinions as the original engineer, they are bright enough by far to absorb her explanation, and this time her warnings not to go to the portholes, not to look upon the galaxy, are heeded. Instead, they stand there in rigid and curiously mortified postures, as if waiting for Lena to speak.
“So you see,” she says finally, as if concluding a long and difficult conversation, which in fact she has, “as far as I can see, the only way to get out of this black galaxy is to go directly into tachyonic drive. Without any accelerative buildup at all.”

This is an intense and original piece, but it felt overlong, and I suspect it is a story that people will admire more than enjoy.
*** (Good). 7,650 words. Story link.

1. The story is dedicated to John W. Campbell.

The Time of His Life by Larry Eisenberg

Posted on by Paul Fraser

The Time of His Life by Larry Eisenberg (F&SF, April 1968) opens with the scientist-narrator brooding about his life—not only has his early promise failed to amount to anything, but he is beginning to tire of married life and fatherhood. Added irritation is provided by his Noble Prize-winning father, who not only didn’t acknowledge the son’s contribution to his prize-winning work, but now chides him for not pulling his weight and for having an affair with one of the graduate students who works in the lab.
Later on in the story the father summons the narrator-son to his office, and there follows a conversation about the direction time flows. The father then reveals an artificially aged monkey, and tells the narrator he wants him to slow down the field fluctuations that cause the effect.
While the narrator works on process, there are further arguments between the men about the narrator’s extra-marital relationship. Then the son sees that the monkey is young again and, when he reveals this to his father, and suggests himself as a human test subject (hoping to become the same age as the grad student and restart his life), the father shows that he has already tested the method on himself when he removes a wig and makeup to reveal his younger self. When the narrator says he also wants to be twenty years younger, and that his father can have his wife and children (we are told earlier he is an attentive grandfather), the father mocks the suggestion, if only because of the questions that would be raised when his older self vanished.
The narrator subsequently goes on a multi-day drunk and (spoiler), when he wakes up, discovers he is now as old as his father—he realises they have swapped places but, in a final twist, shows he doesn’t care—he is the one who is now the Nobel Prize winner.
This has a cleverly convoluted plot, but one that doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny (e.g. the makeup scene). However, the warped, almost reverse-Oedipal father-and-son relationship is intense and weirdly fascinating, as is the son’s acceptance of what happens at the end of the story (it would have been easy to have this as a straightforward victim ending).
*** (Good). 3,500 words. Story link.

The Human Operators by Harlan Ellison & A. E. Van Vogt

Posted on by Paul Fraser

The Human Operators by Harlan Ellison & A. E. Van Vogt (F&SF, January 1971) opens1 with the narrator completing a task in space outside what we later find is a generation spaceship. He is the only inhabitant, essentially the slave of the controlling AI, which keeps him in line by the use of electric shocks.
The story later sees the narrator repair one of the modules in the ship’s intermind (where he hears voices—I can’t remember if this is ever adequately explained) so the ship can lower its “defractor shield” (shades of Star Trek) and dock with one of the other ships in the fleet (there is some backstory about a Starfighter revolt before the AIs took over the various ships in the fleet).
After the narrator completes his task, a female from one of the other ships comes on board to mate with him (the humans on the ship only live until their thirties—his father dies when he was fourteen, and his father’s father likewise).
Eventually, (spoiler) the telegraphed revolt occurs when the narrator goes to the control room and fights the AI (which fights back by accelerating and decelerating the ship). He wins—then the woman reveals that she is free too, and they should free the others in the fleet. However, after further discussions, they decide to go and settle on an alien planet instead.
Interesting start but, even though the individual scenes are competently enough done, the rest of the story never really convinces or coheres, especially the intermind/talking voices part. And the final section, where they land on the alien planet and meet the natives, seems like it belongs to a different story.
** (Average). 7,850 words. Story link.

1. There is a short note before the story:

[To be read while listening to Chronophagie, “The Time Eaters’’: Music of Jacques Lasry, played on Structures Sonores Lasry-Baschet (Columbia Masterworks Stereo MS 7314).]

Pretentious twaddle like this doesn’t improve your clunky space opera.

This World is Made for Monsters by M. Rickert

Posted on by Paul Fraser

This World is Made for Monsters by M. Rickert (F&SF, September-October 2020) starts with an alien spaceship landing at a farm near a town and all the children rushing out to see it. The alien family come out of the ship and the farmer’s dog bounds towards them: one of the larger aliens reaches down to give it a pat.
Shortly after this (and other initial encounters), the first alien Fest begins:

It was the first annual Alien Fest, which grew so popular that the local economy has come to rely on it, and the recent sharp decline in attendance is worrisome. Revelers dress in green costumes, drink from alien cups, throw balls at alien targets, and eat fried dough dyed to look like green fingers. It is good old-fashioned fun, which apparently no one wants any more.
The mothers made sandwiches while the fathers set up tables quickly fashioned from planks of wood and sawhorses found in the Beltens’ barn. Mr. Ellreidge went back to town with the men to open his store. He kindly offered to start a tab for the various supplies such as cases of soda and paper plates and, as the day wore on, charcoal, beer, hot dogs, and condiments.
“Charge it all to the town,” the mayor said, but waited until after his reelection that November to send a bill to every household, the “alien tax” as it has come to be called.
I don’t know why this isn’t taught in our schools. I used to page through my children’s history books, and it took me a long time to stop being surprised it wasn’t there. Now, when I ask my grandchildren what they know about the genesis of Alien Fest, they have most of the details right but deliver it all in jest and laugh when I say I remember it well.
Recently, after trying to explain this to Tess, my youngest granddaughter, stranger than anyone in our family has ever been, she looked up at me with sad brown eyes then slipped her small hand into mine and I realized, with a shock, how old I am, so old that no one believes I know what I am talking about.  p. 222

Events go well at the first Alien Fest until (spoiler) the mother of one of the girls thinks that the aliens have abducted her: the mother shakes and interrogates one of the alien children, which causes her to be levitated by the displeased alien parents. Then the other alien child and her unhurt daughter appear, but the atmosphere has soured and the aliens go back to their ship. They leave (but not until after the dog runs onto the ship and is put back outside and given a tummy rub) and never return.
The story ends with the narrator saying the annual Alien Fests are becoming less popular with the young before she launches into an impassioned defence of the day, people’s memories of it, and how the aliens would be pleased at the commemorative event if they ever returned. The narrator concludes with the comment, “This world is made for monsters”, at which point Tess, the granddaughter, starts crying.
This has a readable narrative style (it feels like a 1950s SF story in some ways) but I’m perplexed as to what message the story is trying to deliver.1 Is it that that previous generations have different memories and values from the young? Is it that older generations are unaware that some of the memories they revere are monstrous? Is it that the young take a reflexively antagonistic and/or overly-sensitive response to the memories and values of the old? Or all of the above? I have no idea.
** (Average). 2,400 words.

1. A handful of us read this one in a recent Facebook group read. Two of us were mystified, and two didn’t comment about the meaning of the story. I think someone on Goodreads (where the point of the story is either not mentioned in reviews or seems to have gone over readers’ heads) suggested it was an “okay, Boomer” story.
I’m reminded of the old movie quote: “If you want to send a message, use Western Union”.

L’Enfant Terrible by Mark H. Huston

Posted on by Paul Fraser

L’Enfant Terrible by Mark H. Huston (F&SF, May-June 2022)1 begins by describing the plight of a creature who finds light painful and who isn’t used to time flowing in a linear fashion. After some more description about her attempts to orientate herself in this strange world, she is caught while hunting for rats in the area around her den:

Around her came entanglement. The light still assaulted her; the entanglement remained. She struggled. This was not like the hold of the Old Ones, or the gentle arms of the nest, these were tiny, strong entanglements, they smelled like the traps from yesterday/tomorrow.
Cage.
She remembered the word cage. How did she know that word? She was scooped up, she reached out to touch a mind and failed. She felt the cage confine her. Bite! Tear. But the cage was too strong. It smelled like the cage should smell, and she despaired.
The light went out, and the pain stopped.
Time made its way to tomorrow.  p. 189

She is questioned by a wizard, the master of the apprentice who claims to have caught her at the docks, and, after a brief interrogation, the wizard leaves through a portal to seek expert advice on what kind of creature she is (the claws suggest a sea creature but she has vestigial wings as well). After the wizard leaves the apprentice speaks to her and we learn, after he takes down a book from the shelves to show her a portal spell, that he was responsible for her arrival in this world. Then, as he approaches her cage to show her the book (spoiler), she uses a hooked claw to catch him by the nose. She discovers she can easily control his mind, and forces him to recast the spell. Eventually, after several failed attempts, he manages to open a huge portal that slices through the wizard’s rooms:

She looked through the portal and saw an Old One, floating nearby. She called to it, and she could see it responding. It came to the portal. Since her world was gray and featureless, there was nothing to reference the size of the Old One. It grew and grew and then grew more, still not making it to the opening. When it finally arrived, it dwarfed the circular portal. A tentacle reached, but hesitated. Instead, its body moved closer, and it placed its eye to the opening. She knew that from the Old One’s perspective, this looked like a tiny circle of light and strange vibrations suddenly appearing in its world. The Old One attended her request, responded to her call, and peered into the opening like a human looking into a telescope.
She was so happy that she briefly loosened her grip on the human, and of course he began to scream as his fear rose, unrestrained by her power.
“It’s a monster, it is huge! By the Gods and Goddess, I swear I will never perform a forbidden spell again!”
The eye of the Old One moved as it peered into the room. It shifted to the screaming boy, the books and bookcases, the table with the cage, and finally to her. “CTHYLLA!” Its voice shattered everything in the room. Glass bottles burst, their contents spilling out, bits of strange creatures and foul smelling fluids tumbling to the floor. The windows shattered, wood splintered, and the Earth itself shook. The human cried out, louder and louder.  pp. 196-7

At this point the wizard returns and launches a spell at the Old One that appears to use all his energies. Blinded, the creature retreats, and Cthylla then attempts to control the exhausted wizard. But, as she grapples with him, the apprentice kicks her back through the portal.
The story concludes with Cthylla talking to the gigantic Old Ones about what she has found, and how tasty the flesh and thoughts of the creatures on the other side of the (now closed) portal are. Then, as the story cuts to the wizard berating his apprentice and summoning a killing spell, a portal opens and an Old One looks in. . . .
This is a well told story, and I particularly liked the way that it goes from an intriguing, small-scale beginning to a titanic end (and one suggestive of a vastness that lies beyond the immediate world portrayed in the story).
***+ (Good to Very Good). 5,300 words.

1. This appears to be the first story that Huston has published outside Eric Flint’s 1632 alternate world franchise since he first staring writing in 2006. See ISFDB for further details.

The True Meaning of Father’s Day by John Wiswell

Posted on by Paul Fraser

The True Meaning of Father’s Day by John Wiswell (F&SF, May-June 2022) is a short-short that starts off at an annual lunch for time travellers:

They only ever had it in 1984, always traveling to meet each other in the same place and the same time. Pele, Jordansko, Marissa, and Merc sat at their own table. Plentiful versions of the foursome sat at plentiful versions of their own tables; they occupied every table in the Filipino restaurant, and all the tables on the curb outside. Rumor had it that their final party from the farthest flung future was having brunch on the rooftop.  p. 254

The shenanigans start when Pele pays for brunch, and the others then try to retrospectively beat him to the check with their time-travel tricks. Jordansko tells him Pele he wired the money to him ten years ago; Marissa says she loaned the family who own the restaurant the money to buy it in 1939; Merc shows them photos of a trip back to the dawn of civilization where he invented the idea of the dining industry.
Pele has the last word, however, when (spoiler) he asks them why they think they meet at the restaurant on Father’s Day.
An amusing conclusion to a clever idea.
*** (Good). 850 words.