The Ninth Configuration by William Peter Blatty

“Sorry. Any letters?”
    “Your planet has demanded your return,” said Kane.
    “Fuck that. Any packages? When I was on Mars my mother sent a cheesecake every month. She used to pack it in popcorn to keep it moist. All that shit about canals on Mars is a myth. Take my word, Mars is drier than an asshole in hell.”
    Outside, an ambulance siren wailed; Fromme was driving it around the grounds, testing the equipment. He now wore a stethoscope of his own and had a surgeon’s gown and medical bag.
    “Yes, Mars is dry,” said Kane.
    “Nice fungus you got there. Moist. I like things moist.”
    “I’ll check on the cheesecake,” said Kane.
    “Giant Brain, you’re okay,” said Price. “I’d shake your hand, but I can’t make the scene with the tentacles. Jesus, I can’t even eat calamary. Oh, excuse me. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
    “No offense.”
    “You never know what might piss people off on different planets. Once on Uranus I said ‘tomato,’ and I was in jail so goddam fast it made my head swim. The Earth ambassador had to spring me. People are touchy. You brains wear clothes? Never mind. Don’t answer. I don’t want to know. Tabu. That’s a perfume back on Earth. You know what? I’ll tell you: this place is nice.”
    Groper watched and listened in a daze. From outside on the grounds, he heard Fromme honking the ambulance horn at Fairbanks, who was dressed like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape and was zooming about on a motorcycle. He saw Kane walk slowly to a cellar door. When he opened it, the shattering sound of a jackhammer ripped at the naked air from below, where Cutshaw and most of the other inmates had embarked upon a tunneling operation.
    In the basement, Cutshaw yelled, “Cut that thing off for a minute!”
    “Yeah, okay.” An inmate turned off the jackhammer. A loud, creamy hush enveloped the group.
    “Now then, notice,” said Cutshaw. He was lecturing some men who were gathered before him. With a wooden pointer he tapped a blueprint tacked to an easel. “Tunnel One and Tunnel Two are decoys. Three is the big one. Three is a maximum security.”
    “Where does it go, Big X?” asked a redheaded inmate named Caponegro.
    The astronaut beamed. “My son, it goes absolutely nowhere. Incidentally, these tunnels are strictly out of bounds for Reno. If you see him here, chase him immediately; there’ll be slippage enough as it is, without his fucking dogs down here. Let’s be sure that he’s—” Cutshaw broke off as he noticed Kane looking down from the doorway at the top of the stairs. “Heavenly caribou, you are ours!” he shouted up joyously. “Ours alone and no one else’s!” The men began cheering and applauding.
    Groper could not bear it any longer. “Jesus!” he croaked. “Jesus Christ!” He looked down at his hands. They were squeezing the railing and his knuckles were white.
    Groper went searching for Colonel Fell. When he found him in the clinic, Groper was shaking. Fell was at his desk, talking quietly to Krebs, who was sitting on the edge of the examining table.
    “What the hell is happening?” the adjutant cried out, his voice on the verge of cracking. “This is crazy! For Christ’s sake, Fell, what’s going on? Do you know they’re digging tunnels downstairs in the basement? They’re fucking digging down there! They’ve got a jackhammer!”
    “Oh, well, how far can they get?” said Fell. He had a drink in his hand.
    “That isn’t the point!” shouted Groper.
    “What is?”
    “This whole thing is crazy!”
    Groper had entered the service as a volunteer at the age of eighteen. For a man from a slum background, the service meant escape from the constant indignities of poverty. Groper had read and reread Beau Geste, and in the Marines he had expected a life of pursuing the “Blue Water,” a self-esteem based on honor and valor and romantic ideals. The bizarre goings-on at the mansion and his partial custodianship were the ultimate