Pleasant Journey

Excerpt

"What do you call it?" the buyer asked Jenkins.

"I named it 'Journey Home' but you can think up a better name for it if you want. I'll guarantee that it sells, though. There's nothing like it on any midway."

"I'd like to try it out first, of course," Allenby said. "Star-Time uses only the very best, you know."

"Yes, I know," Jenkins said. He had heard the line before, from almost every carnival buyer to whom he had sold. He did not do much business with the carnivals; there weren't enough to keep him busy with large or worthwhile rides and features. The amusement parks of the big cities were usually the best markets.

Allenby warily eyed the entrance, a room fashioned from a side-show booth. A rough red curtain concealed the inside. Over the doorway, in crude dark blue paint, was lettered, "Journey Home." Behind the doorway was a large barnlike structure, newly painted white, where Jenkins did his planning, his building, and his finishing. When he sold a new ride it was either transported from inside the building through the large, pull-away doors in back or taken apart piece by piece and shipped to the park or carny that bought it.

"Six thousand's a lot of money," the buyer said.

"Just try it," Jenkins told him.

The buyer shrugged. "O.K.," he said. "Let's go in." They walked through the red curtain. Inside the booth-entrance was a soft-cushioned easy-chair, also red, secured firmly in place. It was a piece of salvage from a two-engine commercial airplane. A helmet looking like a Flash Gordon accessory-hair drier combination was set over it. Jenkins flipped a switch and the room became bright with light. "I thought you said this wasn't a thrill ride," Allenby said, looking at the helmetlike structure ominously hanging over the chair.

"It isn't," Jenkins said, smiling. "Sit down." He strapped the buyer into place in the chair.

"Hey, wait a minute," Allenby protested. "Why the straps?"

"Leave everything to me and don't worry," Jenkins said, fitting the headgear into place over the buyer's head. The back of it fitted easily over the entire rear of the skull, down to his neck. The front came just below the eyes. After turning the light off, Jenkins pulled the curtain closed. It was completely black inside.

"Have a nice trip," Jenkins said, pulling a switch on the wall and pushing a button on the back of the chair at the same time.

Currents shifted and repatterned themselves inside the helmet and were fed into Allenby at the base of his skull, at the medulla. The currents of alternating ions mixed with the currents of his varied and random brain waves, and the impulses of one became the impulses of the other. Allenby jerked once with the initial shock and was then still, his mind and body fused with the pulsating currents of the chair.

Suddenly, Roger Allenby was almost blinded by bright, naked light. Allenby's first impression was one of disappointment at the failure of the device. Jenkins was reliable, usually, and hadn't come up with a fluke yet.

Allenby got out of the chair and called for Jenkins, holding on to the arm of the chair to keep his bearings....