chapter 21 the Marines march on when old doctor breed with the help of Miss Faust had passed out the Christmas chocolate bars to the girls we returned to his office there he said to me where were we oh yes and that old man asked me to think of United States Marines in a god forsaken swamp their trucks and tanks and howitzers are wallowing he complained thinking and stinking myemasma and ooze he raised a finger and winked at me best suppose young man that one Marine had with him a tiny capsule containing a seed of Ice Nine a new way for the atoms of water to stack and lock to freeze if that Marine threw that seed into the nearest puddle the puddle would freeze I guessed and all the muck around the puddle it would freeze and all the puddles in the Frozen muck they would freeze and the pools and the streams in the Frozen muck they would freeze you bet they would he cried and the United States Marines would rise from the swamp and March on chapter 22 member of the yellow press there is such stuff I asked no no no no no said Dr breed losing patience with me again I only told you all this in order to give you some insight into the extraordinary novelty of the ways in which Felix was likely to approach an old problem what I've just told you is what he told the Marine General who was hounding him about mud Felix ate alone here in the cafeteria every day it was a rule that no one was to sit with him to interrupt his chain of thought but the Marine General barged in pulled up a chair and started talking about mud what I've told you was Felix's offhand reply there there really isn't such a thing I just told you there wasn't cried Dr breed hotly Felix died shortly after that and if you'd been listening to what I've been trying to tell you about pure research men you wouldn't ask such a question pure research men work on what fascinates them not on what fascinates other people I keep thinking about their swamp you can stop thinking about it I've made the only point I wanted to make with the swamp if the streams flowing through the swamp froze as Ice Nine what about the rivers and lakes the streams fed they'd freeze but there is no such thing as Ice Nine and the oceans the frozen rivers fed they'd freeze of course he snapped I suppose you're going to rush to Market with a sensational story about Ice Nine now I tell you again it does not exist and the Springs feeding the frozen lakes and streams and all the water underground feeding the Springs they'd freeze damn it he cried but if I had known that you were a member of the yellow press he said grandly rising to his feet I wouldn't have wasted a minute with you in the rain when it fell it would freeze into hard little hobnails of Ice Nine and that would be the end of the world and the end of the interview too goodbye chapter 23 the last batch of brownies Dr breed was mistaken about at least one thing there was such a thing as Ice Nine and Ice Nine was on Earth Ice Nine was the last gift Felix hotnecker created for mankind before going to his just reward he did it without anyone's realizing what he was doing he did it without leaving records of what he'd done true elaborate apparatus was necessary in the Act of Creation but it already existed in the research laboratory Dr Honaker had only to go calling on laboratory Neighbors borrowing this and that making a Winsome neighborhood nuisance of himself until so to speak he had baked his last batch of brownies he had made a chip of Ice Nine it was blue white it had a melting point of 114.4 degrees Fahrenheit Felix Honaker had put the chip in a little bottle and he put the bottle in his pocket and he had gone to his Cottage on Cape Cod with his three children they're intending to celebrate Christmas Angela had been 34 Frank had been 24. little Newt had been 18. the old man had died on Christmas Eve having told only his children about Ice Nine his children had divided the Ice Nine among themselves chapter 24 what a wampitor is which brings me to the bokananas concept of a wampitor a wampitor is the pivot of a Charis no Karis is without a wampitor boca non tells us just as no will is without a hub anything can be a wampitor a tree a rock an animal an idea a book A Melody the Holy Grail whatever it is the members of its Charis revolve around it in the Majestic chaos of a spiral nebula the orbits of the members of a Charis about their common wampitor Are Spiritual orbits naturally it is souls and not bodies that revolve as bokenon invites us to sing around and around and around we spin with feet of lead and wings of tin and wampeters come and vampires go bokanan tells us at any given time a Keras actually has two wampitors one waxing in importance one waning and I am almost certain that while I was talking to Dr breed in ilium the wampitor of my Charis that was just coming into bloom was that crystalline form of water that blue white gem that seed of Doom called Ice Nine while I was talking to Dr breed and ilium Angela Franklin and Newton Honaker had in their possession seeds of Ice Nine seeds grown from their father's seed chips in a manner of speaking off the old block what was to become of those three chips was I am convinced a principal concern of my carers chapter 25 the main thing about Dr Honaker so much for now for the wampitor of my Charis after my unpleasant interview with Dr breed in the research laboratory of the general Forge and Foundry Company I was put into the hands of Miss Faust her orders were to show me the door I prevailed upon her however to show me the laboratory of the late Dr Honaker first in route I asked her how well she had known Dr Honaker she gave me a Franken interesting reply and a pequent smile to go with it I don't think he was knowable I mean when most people talk about knowing somebody a lot or a little they're talking about Secrets they've been told or haven't been told they're talking about intimate things family things love things that nice old lady said to me Dr Honaker had all those things in his life the way every living person has to but they weren't the main things with him what were the main things I asked her Dr breed keeps telling me the main thing with Dr Honaker was truth you don't seem to agree I don't know whether I agree or not I just have trouble understanding how truth all by itself could be enough for a person Miss Faust was ripe for Boca non-ism chapter 26 what God is did you ever talk to Dr Honaker I asked Miss Faust oh certainly I talked to him a lot do any conversations stick in your mind there was one where he bet I couldn't tell him anything that was absolutely true so I said to him God is love and what did he say he said what is God what is love um but God really is love you know said Miss Faust no matter what Dr Honaker said chapter 27 men from Mars the room that had been the laboratory of Dr Felix Honaker was on the sixth floor the top floor of the building a purple cord had been stretched across the doorway and a brass plate on the wall explained why the room was sacred in this room Dr Felix Honaker Nobel Laureate in physics spent the last 28 years of his life where he was there was the frontier of knowledge the importance of this one man in the history of mankind is incalculable Miss Faust offered to unshackle the purple cord for me so that I might go inside and traffic more intimately with whatever ghost there were I accepted it's just as he left it she said except that there were rubber bands all over one counter rubber bands don't ask me what for don't ask me what any of all this is for the old man had left the laboratory a mess what engaged my attention at once was the quantity of cheap toys lying around there was a paper kite with a broken spine there was a toy gyroscope wound with string ready to wear and balance itself there was a top there was a bubble pipe there was a fishbowl with a castle and two turtles in it he loved 10 cent stores said Miss Faust I can see he did some of his most famous experiments were performed with equipment that cost less than a dollar a penny saved is a penny earned there were numerous pieces of conventional laboratory equipment too of course but they seemed drab accessories to the cheap gay toys Dr honaker's desk was piled with correspondence I don't think he ever answered a letter mused missed Faust people had to get him on the telephone or come to see him if they wanted an answer there was a framed photograph on his desk its back was toward me and I ventured a guess as to whose picture it was his wife no one of his children no himself no so I took a look I found that the picture was of in Humble little war memorial in front of a small town courthouse part of the memorial was a sign that gave the names of those villagers who had died in various Wars and I thought that the sign must be the reason for the photograph I could read the names and I half expected to find the name Honaker among them it wasn't there that was one of his Hobbies said Miss Faust what was photographing how cannonballs are stacked on different Courthouse Lawns apparently have they got them stacked and that picture is very unusual I see he was an unusual man I agree maybe in a million years everybody will be as smart as he was and see things the way he did but compared with the average person of today he was as different as a man from Mars maybe he really was a martian I suggested that would certainly go a long way towards explaining his three strange kids chapter 28 mayonnaise while miss Faust and I waited for an elevator to take us to the first floor Miss Faust said she hoped the elevator that came would not be number five before I could ask her why this was a reasonable wish number five arrived its operator was a small and ancient negro whose name was Lyman Enders Knowles Knowles was insane I'm almost sure offensively so in that he grabbed his own behind and cried yes yes whenever he felt that he made a point hello fellow anthropoids and lily pads and paddle Wheels he said to miss Faust and me yes yes first floor please said Miss Faust coldly all Knowles had to do to close the door and get us to the first floor was to press a button but he wasn't going to do that yet he wasn't going to do it maybe for years man told me he said that these here elevators was Mayan architecture I never knew that till today and I says to him what's that make me mayonnaise yes yes and while he was thinking that over I hit him with a question that straightened him up and made him think twice as hard yes yes could we please go down Mr Knowles begged Miss Faust I said to him said Knowles this here's a research laboratory research means look again don't it means they're looking for something they found once and it got away somehow and now they got to research for it how come they got to build a building like this with mayonnaise elevators and all and fill it with all these crazy people what is it they're trying to find again who lost what yes yes that's very interesting side Miss Faust now could we go down only way we can go is down barked Knolls this here's the top you ask me to go up and wouldn't be a thing I could do for you yes yes so let's go down said Miss Faust very soon now this gentleman here been paying his respects to Dr Honaker yes I said did you know him intimately he said you know what I said when he died no I said Dr Ho nicker he ain't dead oh just entered a new dimension yes yes he punched a button and down we went did you know the whole nicker children I asked him baby's full of rabies he said yes yes chapter 29 gone but not forgotten there was one more thing I wanted to do in ilium I wanted to get a photograph of the old man's tomb so I went back to my room found Sandra gone picked up my camera hired a cab sleet was still coming down acid and gray I thought the old man's Tombstone and all that sleep might photograph pretty well might even make a good picture for the jacket of the day the world ended the custodian at the cemetery gate told me how to find the Honaker burial plot can't miss it he said it's got the biggest marker in the place he did not lie the marker was an alabaster phalus 20 feet high and three feet thick it was plastered with sleep by God I exclaimed getting out of the cab with my camera how's that for a suitable Memorial to a father of the atom bomb I left I asked the driver if he'd mind standing by the monument in order to give some idea of scale and then I asked him to wipe away some of the sleet so the name of the deceased would show he did so and there on the shaft in letters six inches high so help me God was the word mother Chapter 30 only sleeping mother asked the driver incredulously I wiped away more sleep and uncovered this poem mother mother how I pray for you to guard us every day Angela Honaker and under this poem was yet another you are not dead but only sleeping we should smile and stop our weeping Franklin Honaker and underneath this inset in the shaft was a square of cement bearing the imprint of an infant's hand beneath the imprint were the words baby newt if that mother said the driver what in the hell could they have raised over father he made an obscene suggestion as to what the appropriate marker might be we found father close by his memorial as specified in his will I later discovered was a marble Cube 40 centimeters on each side father it said chapter 31 another breed as we were leaving the cemetery the driver of the cat worried about the condition of his own mother's grave he asked if I wouldn't mind taking a short detour to look at it was a pathetic little stone that marked his mother not that it mattered and the driver asked me if I would mind another brief detour this time to a tombstone sales room across the street from the cemetery I wasn't a bokan honest then so I agreed with some peevishness as a book Anonymous of course I would have agreed gayly to go anywhere anyone suggested as bokanon says peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God the name of the tombstone establishment was Abram breed and Sons as the driver talked to the salesman I wandered Among The Monuments blank monuments monuments in memory of nothing so far I found a little institutional joke in the showroom over a stone Angel hung mistletoe Cedar bows were heaped on her pedestal and around her marble throat was a necklace of Christmas tree lamps how much for her I asked the salesman not for sale she's a hundred years old my great-grandfather avram breed carved her this business is that old that's right and you're a breed the fourth generation in this location any relation to Dr oza breed the director of the research laboratory his brother he said his name was Marvin breed It's a small world I observed when you put it in a cemetery it is Marvin breed was a sleek and vulgar a smart and sentimental man