"What--a--_boat_!" gasped the man from the past.
"Boat? No, that's my car."
Barlow surveyed it with awe. Swept-back lines, deep-drawn compound
curves, kilograms of chrome. He ran his hands futilely over the
door--or was it the door?--in a futile search for a handle, and asked
respectfully, "How fast does it go?"
The psychist gave him a keen look and said slowly, "Two hundred and
fifty. You can tell by the speedometer."
"Wow! My old Chevvy could hit a hundred on a straightaway, but you're
out of my class, mister!"
Tinny-Peete somehow got a huge, low door open and Barlow descended
three steps into immense cushions, floundering over to the right. He
was too fascinated to pay serious attention to his flayed dermis. The
dashboard was a lovely wilderness of dials, plugs, indicators, lights,
scales and switches.
The psychist climbed down into the driver's seat and did something with
his feet. The motor started like lighting a blowtorch as big as a silo.
Wallowing around in the cushions, Barlow saw through a rear-view mirror
a tremendous exhaust filled with brilliant white sparkles.
"Do you like it?" yelled the psychist.
"It's terrific!" Barlow yelled back. "It's--"
He was shut up as the car pulled out from the bay into the road with
a great _voo-ooo-ooom_! A gale roared past Barlow's head, though the
windows seemed to be closed; the impression of speed was terrific. He
located the speedometer on the dashboard and saw it climb past 90, 100,
150, 200.
"Fast enough for me," yelled the psychist, noting that Barlow's face
fell in response. "Radio?"
He passed over a surprisingly light object like a football helmet,
with no trailing wires, and pointed to a row of buttons. Barlow put
on the helmet, glad to have the roar of air stilled, and pushed a
pushbutton. It lit up satisfyingly and Barlow settled back even farther
for a sample of the brave new world's super-modern taste in ingenious
entertainment.
"TAKE IT AND STICK IT!" a voice roared in his ears.
* * * * *
He snatched off the helmet and gave the psychist an injured look.
Tinny-Peete grinned and turned a dial associated with the pushbutton
layout. The man from the past donned the helmet again and found the
voice had lowered to normal.
"The show of shows! The super-show! The super-duper show! The quiz of
quizzes! _Take it and stick it!_"
There were shrieks of laughter in the background.
"Here we got the contes-tants all ready to go. You know how we work it.
I hand a contes-tant a triangle-shaped cut-out and like that down the
line. Now we got these here boards, they got cut-out places the same
shape as the triangles and things, only they're all different shapes,
and the first contes-tant that sticks the cutouts into the board, he
wins.
"Now I'm gonna innaview the first contes-tant. Right here, honey.
What's your name?"
"Name? Uh--"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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