 
On the Nature of the Gods

Louis Shalako

ISBN 978-0-9879723-0-9

This Smashwords edition copyright 2014 Louis Shalako and Long Cool One Books

Design: J. Thornton

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The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person living or deceased or to any places or events is purely coincidental. Names, places, settings, characters and incidents are the product of the author's imagination.

The author owes a debt of gratitude to Marcus Tullius Cicero, quoted in the text.

On the Nature of the Gods

Louis Shalako

Chapter One

The Resting Place

Squirrel slipped through the ancient forest as silent as a wraith. The bundle was clutched close to her chest. Venerable oaks, massive in girth, nodded at her passage, branches heavy with glossy new foliage. The air was soft and warm, with a hint of moisture in the distant blue haze.

Jays and crows dueled for the crown of obnoxiousness, as she sought the place. Sunlight dappled the grass in golden spring light. The shadows slanted across the glade, green and verdant, and bursting forth with wildflowers.

With a catch in her heart, she was upon it, and she fell to her knees.

Opening the bundle, she laid tobacco and a pipe upon the grass, and bowing her head, she began to pray. The grave was unmarked, a secret held in trust to but a few for almost two centuries.

The tears welling from deep within her tortured soul fell to the ground unheeded.

***

"Why do you come here?" asked a voice.

Squirrel leapt to her feet, and stared at the stranger. He was a tall, lithe, athletic figure of a man, a veritable specimen of a man. He was a tawny golden panther of a man, standing tall, relaxed and confident, and poised to leap all at one and the same time. Dressed head to toe in fringed buckskin, beaded with the ancient symbols, he was a picture of what once might have been.

Her heart fluttered in her chest. Licking her lips, she stared in wonder.

He stood in an opening on the far side of the clearing. He stepped forth from the place among the trees where darkness reigned, the only life glimmering hordes of gnats and their kin. Dancing in the brazen shafts of sunlight, they swirled from his coming but were oblivious to it.

His eyes were calm and warm, and she swallowed her momentary fear.

"I come to remember," she said.

The man came closer, and his eyes sought out the offering on the ground. Looking up, he raised an eyebrow.

"May I?" he asked, politely meeting her own eyes with a sardonic twinkle.

Resisting the urge to tremble, she nodded.

"Of course," she agreed. "It is of no good to anyone, really."

"I thank you," he said.

He sank down into a cross-legged position as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She thoughtfully got on her knees again. Before he could reach for them, she had the pipe.

Squirrel began filling it with fine chunks torn from the plug, soft and moist from the molasses in it.

"Thank you," he murmured, but she kept her eyes on the bundle, so humble in its simplicity and longing for understanding.

"It's all right," he said with a touch of humour. "I have my own matches."

Of course! Matches. She felt so innocent in the habits of men.

Then came the snap of a long wooden kitchen match and he sucked the smoke into his lungs.

Squirrel looked up shyly to meet his engaging grin. He blew out smoke and gazed into her somehow, as off in the distance a grouse beat on a hollow log. She trembled at what might happen. She hadn't felt like a virgin in some years.

"This must all seem rather silly to you," she offered with a rueful smile.

"Not at all, Squirrel, not at all," said Tecumseh, the 'Leaping Panther' who fell at the Battle of Moraviantown, and who would never be forgotten for his great but forlorn dream of uniting all the nations. "It is all anyone can really ask, in the end. To be remembered. And, perhaps, to be loved."

She couldn't think of anything to say.

"Sit closer, my little one," he said. "I have something to show you."

She wriggled in towards him.

"More," he said, beckoning with his free hand.

Aware of the hot blood rushing to her cheeks, she edged in closer.

Finally she was close enough to feel the heat of him through her knee-caps, and under her knees where they bent and almost touched his thighs.

"I can't get much closer," she marveled, flushing like a maiden.

Was this some sort of a test?

Leaping Panther put the pipe up to his mouth again, after exhaling deeply, once over her left shoulder and then over her right. Rings of smoke twisted and spun according to their own logic as they widened and drifted past her ears.

He dragged the vapour deep inside, his chest expanding to an impressive degree, and she speculated freely as to the depth and breadth of the pectorals.

His right hand came up now and cupped the back of her head.

"This is a cleansing magic," he said. "You must fight hard to rid yourself of the noxious fumes of indifference and apathy."

"What do you want me to do?" she asked.

Her shining eyes glimmered with unspoken trust—and trepidation.

"Take a deep breath and blow it all out," said Leaping Panther, as his own smoke curled up and out of his lips, enveloping all of his head and hair, with two thick tendrils suddenly sucked back up into the nostrils.

She did as she was asked.

"Again," he said.

Once more she took a deep, long breath, held it a bit and then blew it all out, pushing hard until her diaphragm hit rock bottom.

He took in a big drag from the pipe and pulled her in close.

"Good," he said.

Lips parted in suspense, eyes locked on his in anticipation and awareness, she suddenly realized the significance of his hand on the back of her head, but it was already too late to back down.

He pulled her in tight, locking his mouth on hers, and she felt the roughness of his upper lip.

Leaping Panther, gently at first, but gaining in strength, began pushing the smoke out of his lungs and into hers, and her soft bosom expanded as his contracted.

With her eyes bulging slightly, an unmistakable betrayal of her innermost fears, but otherwise passive and relaxed, Squirrel felt the warm smoke enter her body in the firm but gentle intimacy of his embrace. The hot, moist smoke filled her up inside and her pulse began to climb. With the shock of adrenalin in her guts, she realized that this was danger, and that she shouldn't be doing this. What would her friends think?

Just when her head, spinning dizzily and out of control, seemed to be on the point of exploding, while stars, and comets, and meteors, and coloured lights like the Aurora spun and whirled in her head, he freed her from his control.

"I want to tell you a story," he said. "Please watch and listen closely."

As oxygen seeped back into her tissues, and her mind re-focused to a level where she could once again comprehend the symbols represented by his words and gestures, he began to talk and project things for her eyes to see, her ears to hear, and the grey matter inside her head to consider at its own level and speed.

Chapter Two

The Four Horsemen

"I don't know about you gentlemen, but I'm getting kind of old for this," said Jeb Snead, circling warily to the left with his dukes raised.

It never hurt to try, but, apparently, this wasn't a talking matter.

Neither one said anything. They spread out and then came at him. Two other weather-beaten and dust-covered gentlemen sat astride their horses, not reaching for their guns just yet.

The one on the right jabbed, and Jeb snagged him a nice fast one right on the kisser.

He stood there flatfooted, staring at the sight of fresh blood on his black deer-hide gloves in disbelief. Jeb socked him again and he went straight down and laid flat on his back.

"We're looking for someone, mister," said the tall, bearded man still confronting him.

Telegraphing every move, the bruiser, all of two hundred eighty pounds, came in dead straight and Jeb laid him out flat on his back with one punch to the solar plexus, a foot-plant behind the ankles, and a quick push on the shoulders.

"Keep looking," advised Jeb.

The men on horses reached for their guns, but Jeb held up a hand.

"No need for that," he assured them. "You gentlemen probably just want to borrow a rope, or something."

The two looked at each other for a moment. Jeb focused on the eyes of the older one, sitting with an air of quiet authority upon a fine bay gelding. The man regarded him soberly.

"No, sir," said the young one, avoiding his eyes. "No. We don't want to borrow no rope."

"Do you mind if we help our friends back onto their horses, sir?" the older one inquired.

"Not at all," said Jeb, standing clear.

His own gun-belt hung on Rooster's pommel, as he was just shaving and washing up.

"Was there something I could help you gentlemen with?" he asked as they dismounted, noting an air of something akin to gratitude upon the older one's face.

"We're looking for a special sort of a man, sir," said the younger.

He was about twenty-five years old and had some resemblance in the set of the shoulders and neck to his father.

It took a moment or two, but the other members of the little posse were soon remounted. They were dazed, and hurting, and sullen to some degree, but clearly under the older man's authority.

They kept their mouths shut, but their eyes spoke volumes.

"You're Jeb," said the man. "Jeb Snead!"

"Yeah!" he agreed.

"Our apologies, we should have known right off," said the gentleman. "Sheriff Ackroyd over in La Pierre has been getting a little too big for his britches these days."

"We're the RB ranch," he added after a quick spit to the side.

"No fighting for money prizes within the town limits, without a written permit," said Jeb. "He waited until I could actually pay the fine...or buy a permit, then arrested me and seized all the winnings!"

The other three sat up a little straighter upon hearing it.

"He earned his money," admitted Snead.

"Sooner or later, he will pull that stunt on the wrong fellow," said the mounted stranger with a strange, small grin. "They say you smashed a hole in the wall and just walked out...heh!"

"Poor old Ackroyd just a' sittin' in the saloon bragging," added the son.

The younger went silent upon a slight move of his father's shoulders.

The gentleman thought for a moment.

"The county line is about four miles due west of here," he said, as a visible shock went over the faces of his crew. "The sheriff of Mule Creek, which would be south by south-west about two miles, is probably sitting in his office in town right about now. It is dinnertime, after all. If you run across any mysterious strangers, travelling alone, maybe with some kind of a strange story to tell...I would imagine it's a different story every time...well, you watch yourself, Mister Snead. Listen, very, very carefully to what he...or she, or it, has to say, Mister Snead."

"Hmn!" said Snead. "Has he got a name? What exactly does this hombre look like? What does he, ah, do, exactly?"

"That, is a very good question, Mister Snead," said the owner or head honcho of the RB ranch and he spit again.

He tipped his hat and then they all spurred up, and continued on up the hill. No one looked back. The sounds of their hooves quickly faded from his ken. Jeb listened well for a few minutes, still shaking his head. He planned on a few hours of hard travel. Jeb tucked in his shirt and put away the shaving tackle.

Their business was none of his business, and he was glad enough for it.

"Come on, Rooster," he said.

The horse tipped him a wink.

Mounting up, he carefully walked the big black Antarean barb into the water and down the river for about a mile and a half, then turned up the right bank and picked his way across a stony plain.

It was a good idea to make some ground before nightfall. His own belly rumbled, but the horse had plenty of grass and the water was good. Jeb pulled the brim of his hat down low and rode into the sunset. While the broken hills, winding watercourses and scattered brush gave good cover, he knew enough to listen as well. He made a conscious point of stopping, and waiting, to check the back trail after crossing any big open spaces. He was smart enough not to ride directly over the top of any big hills.

A couple of hours later, Jeb relaxed, riding a little easier in the saddle. He was poor but free, and for the time being, that would have to do.

The gentle tug of Rooster's heartstrings indicated to the intuitive Jeb that the barb was in perfect agreement with these sentiments.

Ever since bringing the wet, suckling colt into the world in an impromptu Caesarian, with a Bowie knife and his own hands, Rooster's dam mortally wounded by a neo-Blackfoot arrow, there had been this special bond. It was an indescribable bond to the normally taciturn Jeb. Gifted with his fists and in the use of his iron-hard noggin, although not the most erudite of men, Jeb Snead knew he was lucky to have Rooster. It couldn't really be described as friendship. It was more of a relationship, in every sense of the word. Intellectually, Rooster had always kept his own counsel, and Jeb respected him for it...

In this life, if you made one good friend and died with your boots on and no big debts, you were doing all right.

In this weird, half-lit and artificial world, a completely plastic planet, illuminated only by the sick and perverted science of the evil Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff, he would need all the help he could get to save the buxom but leggy Miss Kitty from the clutches of pure and unadulterated greed. Jeb had this terrible feeling that she was in trouble, which was another indescribable feeling. There might be some element of lust involved as well, he reckoned, and not just on the part of Doctor S, as he and Rooster had taken to calling him in their unique, telempathic lingua equus. Nothing happens for no reason, in his humble opinion, and he was prepared to go with his gut.

Rooster sighed, blowing big shots of air out through his lips in a language known ever since the Dawn of Time to horses across this fair Galaxy.

The mournful sentiments coming from the horse confirmed that the barb really liked Miss Kitty, however futile that must ultimately be.

Chapter Three

The Lady and the Bandit

Hope Ng baked in the hot sun, rising ever higher in the desert sky. Tied with rawhide thongs at ankles and wrists, scratched, bruised and with her clothes half torn off, the raven-haired Hope prayed for a miracle.

Deep in her heart lurked despair, for persistent struggles in the chill dawn hours had convinced her escape was impossible. Nearby, the thin tendril of smoke and rank smell of the fire was the only trace left behind by the war party.

As the shadows shortened, the first pangs of real thirst came, and she knew dread. She was going to die out here, never mind the carnage that had once been a peaceful train of settlers heading to a better life. It was all gone now, with clumps of bodies, families and individuals still recognizable in the stiffened attitudes of death. Most of the long line of wagons still smoldered.

Overhead, ominous black shapes circled, the long tip feathers trembling, always seeking an easy way. Their bony nostrils would be flaring in excitement, heads craning to take in the scene and the forms below.

It wouldn't be long now, and they would come down. They would land within fifty yards, maybe closer. Then the awkward, half-hopping, half-sideways shuffle would begin. They would screw up their courage. They would look her over carefully. Their desperation for a meal and simple competition against their peers would embolden them. They might start on the dead first, but sooner or later she would be food for the vultures.

It would be better if she died of thirst or starvation first.

Somewhere nearby a hoof clinked against stone, a tiny, insignificant sound, but one out of place in a country still quiet after a windless dawn.

Hope's heart thudded at the thought of them coming back to take care of some unfinished business.

Again it came, the strike of bone on rock, as two small birds in a scraggly bush in her peripheral vision dropped out of the thin foliage and fluttered away, towards the sun and into deeper shadows.

"Who's there?" she called in an agony of suspense.

She prayed they would just kill her quickly and have done with it...

There was a faint but guttural grunt and several thuds came through the sand under her back, but she could hear little over the soughing of a rising breeze. Hot, sharp grains of sand stung her cheek, wet with fresh tears.

A hoarse breath, sounding wet and thick, came from right behind her head where she couldn't see it, no matter how she twisted her neck and shoulders.

"Oh, my God," she said.

Was she to be eaten by a Grizzly or a big cat? Her mind worked frantically to analyze the sounds. She sobbed in fear and frustration, yanking to and fro in fury, in one last forlorn attempt to break free. A horse blew, and a long dark shadow fell over her face, revealing in black silhouette the head and forequarters of the animal, one with a halter and a patch of white on the forehead.

"Ah!" she breathed.

She fell back on the sand exhausted again.

"Howdy, ma'am," said a deep male voice, cultured and somehow unsullied by the twang and drawl of the typical Southern male. It was an honest voice, a good voice.

Leather creaked and another shadow fell across her as she looked up at her saviour in relief and a special kind of pleading humility.

"They give you a rough time, ma'am?" he asked, and she finally got a glimpse of his face.

She gazed breathlessly into kindly blue-black eyes, unusually large and expressive, tall and broad-shouldered as he was. The big fellow took off his hat, revealing a widow's peak, and long dark hair sweeping out like the waves from the front of a windjammer. He mopped his brow with a blue and white paisley bandanna, carefully replacing his headgear.

"It—it was horrid," she said. "Oh, thank God you're here!"

"Indians are smelly, beastly creatures," he advised, kneeling close and raising a canteen to her lips, the canvas cover delightfully cool and wet on her sternum, still heaving with exertion and emotion.

He dribbled cool, cleansing water on her lips and she tasted it greedily.

"They killed everyone, men, women and children," she said in a gush of release. "They tied me up and were fondling me, and kissing me, and touching me. I think I belonged to one of them. Or rather two of them had a share in me, or it might have been a lot worse."

"Yes, the other ones would have to show at least some respect for the property of a chief," he said. "They was probably just funnin' with you, ma'am."

At the time, she was sure they were going to do it. What had gotten into their heads, to make them just break camp like that and go madly riding off was a mystery she had no interest in solving. Her head thudded back down into the sand. She lay there breathing quietly in a state of near-bliss.

"Thank you," she said after a moment.

There was a clink as the man stood and undid his belt. Her jaw dropped open as she contemplated the unthinkable.

"It's that tattoo of yours, ma'am," he advised. "That's an eagle, right? But they don't understand styles in modern art, and yours is highly-stylized. They probably mistook it for a Phoenix or maybe a Thunderbird, which is real bad medicine for them. I watched the whole thing through a telescope from them rocks up yonder."

The stranger dropped down on his knees in between her legs and she gasped in shock.

Strong hands gripped the top of her blouse and ripped it away, a nice calico from Pimpson's. He pulled a knife and cut the sleeves apart, and twitched the remnants out from under her upper body. He pulled her skirt down a safe distance and then cut it off too. She sobbed anew upon recalling the cost.

"Dang you, sir!" she cried indignantly.

He unbuttoned, then yanked and pulled and dragged off her boots.

"Yes, Indians are just plain uncivilized," he said.

"Mister...Mister?" she said.

"Yes?" he said.

"Are—are you going to rape me?"

"Something like that," he said with a small grin.

Those blue-black eyes took on a familiar glint, one she had seen before in her short but eventful life.

"Do you mind if I have another drink of water first?" she begged. "Please, sir?"

Without tearing his eyes off her slender form, again writhing in anticipation of what lay ahead, Hope still attempting to escape a fate worse than death, he reached for the canteen. Calming, she forced herself to drink fully, deeply, until he pulled it away impatiently. Her eyes glared hatred and contempt.

"But why?" she asked. "Haven't I had enough trouble? Haven't I suffered enough?"

"For one thing, you are very beautiful, and I am, after all, a lonely man," he said.

As she bawled in piteous despair, he lowered himself down even further and in a startling move, began lovingly and lasciviously licking her toes, one by one and in great detail.

"Ah! Ah! Ah!" she cried, twisting and turning and howling bitterly in despair.

"Sorry, ma'am," he said, looking up for a moment. "I guess this just ain't your day."

***

Jeb sagged in the saddle as Rooster plodded through the deep alkaline dust. With lips cracked and sore from the sun and wind, Jeb's hands were aching from the long day of holding the reins, and his buttocks were awful sore from hard riding. He reined up.

It looked like a cement factory from the future, one of the hallmarks of the world created by the evil Dr. Schmitt-Rottluff. People often remarked upon the absurdities apparent all around them, but no one ever did anything about it. It was just a part of the weather around here. Jeb reckoned that the reason there were so many weird people in the world was that they really were a product of their environment, a popular beer-hall gag back home in Warsaw. That was in New Ohio, right on the coast by the Big Apple.

He was born there, but then his parents moved.

The pair had been going for over twenty-four hours, and they thought they might have put close to a hundred miles between them and any hopeful posses that might be on their trail. The fast travel took a toll, as they both knew it would, but they figured they were up to it, and the events proved the truth of the assertion.

"You thirsty?" asked Jeb, and Rooster nickered, bobbing his fine-boned triangular head in an enthusiasm that was heartbreaking.

The canteen held about a quarter now, and he would have to share it out carefully.

"Not too long now," he said.

His old friend was suffering more than him, with the burden of the two of them, even with his strong legs. At this slow pace, the labour evident in the mount's breathing foretold disaster if the animal didn't get a proper rest, feed and watering very, very soon. It was about then that they heard a woman's voice. Rooster's ears pricked up.

Jeb sat up straighter, and took a quick look over his shoulder. They were past the cement plant now, having sidled past a rotting guard shack beside a metal gate lying sideways in the opening. Jeb hadn't noticed a rear fence, and neither had Rooster, but that was just one of the quirks of doing business.

It was over the next rise, scattered with sage and creosote bushes, sprinkled with a leavening of salt-bush.

One or two lonely, wind-twisted pines stuck up here and there, but that was about it. It came again, raised in some emotion Jeb didn't immediately recognize. Perhaps it was a quarrel? Out here, where there was a woman, there was bound to be men-folk, whether husband or kin.

It could be a son, Rooster mentally reminded him, or maybe a nephew or a neighbour kid. It was unnecessary. While it was polite to shout, 'Halloo! The Camp!' before riding in, Jeb reckoned that discretion was the better part of valour. On that notion, the impulsive Rooster began sashaying up the rise, angling through the brush, with his sharp eye cocked and head turned to one side, then the other.

Soundlessly Jeb drew the Winchester out of its supple scabbard and slid off the saddle into a patch of deep sand. With a pat on the rump, he gave Rooster the lead. He eased off the safety and cycled a round into the chamber, keeping his hand tight on the breech to deaden the sound. The horse could reasonably stick his head up there, and without some sort of man-shape on top, it might be mistaken for a stray or a wild mustang. It would buy a moment in a pinch. The horse was well-trained, and Jeb was catching on a bit himself, as the saying went.

The big barbarian critter led off by about nine yards, and Jeb hovered there, all ready to line up and squeeze. The hillock, a former dune now colonized by the most hardy of semi-arid plants, was long and narrow, the crest about forty feet higher than the small alluvial plain they were skirting.

Rooster looked back, ears cocked. Their eyes locked.

It was man and a woman. There was one horse, not bad looking. Other than that, the horse's telempathic vocabulary was limited, but the emotional state was one of puzzlement. It wasn't on the threshold of threat, not yet anyways.

Jeb nodded and came up as Rooster kept the pair under surveillance, his tail swooshing an alarm in the man's face. Jeb froze for a moment, and then eased in beside his friend. He pulled back a thin screen of twigs and branches, his new cataract implants ensuring clear vision at the longer ranges.

What the pair of them saw was enough to make a man's blood boil and a horse's too.

***

Rufe Golan was just working his way up to her armpits, which smelled positively delicious up close and personal, when a single shot rang out, neatly removing his black Stetson and shutting the angry Hope up at one and the same time.

She spit in his face and he slapped her carelessly, not doing any real harm but sending a message. Reaching for his hat with an infuriating nonchalance, he put it on. Another quick bullet flicked it away, and he shrugged as if it was of no consequence. He mopped off the spittle with an air of complacence.

"Just a hold on right there, Mister," said Jeb.

Rufe stood up, hearing the click of the weapon on the cool evening breeze.

"Relax, sir! I'm sure this is all a big misunderstanding and, ah, all of this can be cleared up with some introductions and a simple explanation."

The horse kicked him in the testicles as the man covered him with the rifle from ten yards away.

"Next time I shoot them off," advised Snead.

Rufe writhed on the ground as getting kicked in the crotch by a horse was painful at best, and oftentimes fatal.

"Thank you!" croaked Hope. "The jerk's got another gun or two on him, unless I am mistaken! Oh, thank God for one honest man."

"Well..." said Jeb in a hesitant fashion.

She probably didn't want to hear his life story.

"Oh, Jesus, not again," she groaned, but he hastened to reassure her.

"Oh, no, young lady! No, I didn't mean that, ah, ah, it's just that I broke the lease when I left the Big Apple, and I got a judgment against me there," Jeb reassured her. "I, ah, I skipped out on court once or twice too, as I recall. We don't actually have debtor's prison in this country, but failure to comply with a court order is technically a criminal offence. You can do time for it."

He quickly pulled out his seventeen-inch Bowie knife, more like a small sword than any useful cutting utensil, and slashed her bonds in an instant.

"Other than that, and maybe one or two other little things, I'm pretty honest," he concluded.

Turning, he took a look at the other man.

"Are we going to make it?" he inquired with an eyebrow raised.

There was no reply as the gentleman was presently engaged in puking his guts out into the depths of a clump of prickly-pear. Jeb briefly considered a boot in the backside, which seemed fair enough, but thought better of it. If he didn't die, he wanted the man to be able to walk out of there. The matter of any resulting physical pain was of little concern to Jeb. Weakly, the fellow tried to pull up his trousers, still stumbling around fumble-footed and bent at the waist.

Perhaps aware of his gaze, the fellow pointed at his ankle, still convulsing.

"Ah, thank you," said Jeb. "I can wait for it."

The horse watched the man like a hawk, with its lean head lowered and with a rather mean look in the eyes. The man fumbled to remove his gun belt, dropping it at the horse's feet.

Finally Rufe could speak.

"Gun...left boot," he said.

The horse gave Jeb a significant look.

Rooster could read this hombre like a book.

"Where else?" he asked, and the man quickly nodded.

"Both boots," admitted Rufe.

Rooster shook his head and snorted with precision. It was a short blast of hot air. He reared slightly, tapping both fore-feet on the hard grey dirt.

"Oh, yeah? Any others?"

"Belt-buckle derringer," said Rufe, speaking into the little round ear-hole of the Winchester.

"And?" asked Jeb.

"Oh, come on, sir. She's just a lousy Chink whore. I took her from the Indians, as you can plainly see."

"What else you got?" insisted Jeb.

The stranger raised his eyebrows in polite disbelief. Jeb shoved the gun into the fellow's left nostril.

"All right, all right," said the man, his tone rising. "I sure wouldn't want you to make a mistake, partner! I...I...guess there's a stick of dynamite in my cigar case, top left shirt pocket. It's just an itty bitty little one..."

His voice trailed off as Rooster stepped in close. The obvious message was that Rufe couldn't take both of them no matter what he tried, so don't try nothing stupid. In spite of his poor vocabulary—Rooster's counting was much better—the Antarean equine's non-verbal communication skills were quite good. Rufe got the message.

Jeb twitched it out without any trouble. A quick sniff confirmed the contents, both tobacco and dynamite, and premium brands to boot. He forced Rufe to raise his feet, one leg at a time, and shuck various small-caliber pistols off onto the ground.

"Get rid of your trouser-belt," ordered Jeb, eye riveted on the fellow.

"My name's Rufe Golan, and I kind of like the cut of your jib, Mister," the fellow offered by way of explanation for a behaviour that Jeb for one thought frankly atrocious, hastening to comply.

"Rufe Golan! Well, why didn't you say so?" exclaimed Jeb. "Well, doggone! Why, don't that just beat all!"

Jeb tipped his head back and flung his arms out wide with the rifle still in his left hand, eyes all lit up in recognition. The man smiled and nodded in what passed for humility for him, and that's when Jeb punched him straight in the big mushy mouth, thereby rendering the gentleman un-conscious for the time being.

"Who in the heck is Rufe Golan?" he asked Rooster, but it didn't seem to ring any bells.

It's not like the big barb read the society columns...

"Thank you, ever so much," said the lady, and Rooster bobbed his head and snorted in approval as well.

"You ever heard of this Rufe Golan character?" asked Jeb.

"Nope. But then I'm just new around here," said Hope.

She stood at his side, huddling in the rags left to her, shyly turning from one side to another as if that could really help to obscure the sight of her slender legs and a set of the cutest knee-caps Jeb had seen in a long, long time, even on a Chink whore. Come to think on it, he'd never actually met one before, but oh, well.

"I'm not a whore," she told Jeb, staring straight into his eyes, and he flushed in supreme embarrassment.

"Sorry, ma'am," he muttered.

"I'm going to San Francisco to live with my grandfather," she explained, which set Jeb Snead back a bit as that was where he and Rooster were headed.

They planned on raising red wigglers and selling them to miners engaged in panning for molybdenum, the sort of miners who fished on their days off. But before that, he had some personal business to take care of. He'd heard somewhere that the boss of the world lived there. He had a few questions for the gentleman.

"Don't that beat all," he said. "Where're you from?"

"New York," she said.

"Ah," said Jeb."It's a small world, as the people say."

Chapter Four

Why Snead Left New York

"Why did he leave New York?" asked Chapley.

"The police found semen on his blankets," said Dr. Schmitt-Rottluff. "Luckily for him, it wasn't human."

The ominous glare through the vision-tube bathed the doctor's eyes and forehead in a creepy blue light, and Chapley shivered.

"Oh, really," he said. "What...do you mean? Was it, ah, like alien?"

The doctor gave a quick shake of his head.

"Turned out to be his cat," said Dr. Schmitt-Rottluff. "It's just that he lived in a certain neighbourhood, and they rounded up all the drifters, testing their DNA."

"Of course," nodded Chapley. "I sense a fine Italian hand in all of this."

"Mine, Chapley, mine. Haven't you been listening?" glowered the doctor. "But no, actually, all of that was just a simple administrative error. It happens all the time in bureaucracies. As for Mister Snead, he takes himself just a little too seriously, and he found the whole experience rather humiliating, especially the news coverage. Of course, he never got his cat back, either, and that may account for some of the deeply-rooted resentment."

"Yeah, bureaucracies! I've always wondered about that. Why do we need public servants, when you have all these newfangled mechanisms, as you call them?" asked his nephew, who while evil enough for a lackey, as a protégé lacked something of that essential spark that makes a really good villain.

Dr. Schmitt-Rottluff had long hoped to see the boy dare to dream a little bit, maybe even learn to exercise the power of negative thinking a little more. People talked about the power of positive thinking, hah! They never tried negative thinking. It worked extremely well in his experience.

"It's a way of dividing up the power so that it's no longer usable," replied his uncle.

"So I was listening, then," asserted Chapley. "What I don't get is why."

"We do it so that we can step into the breach, dear nephew," said the doctor. "We get to save the planet. Having built a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to our door."

Dawning comprehension broke over Chapley's pale and shapeless visage at a snail's pace.

The doctor was content enough, as the boy was young and he would grow strong if not particularly enlightened.

The ticking of a massive mainspring and ten thousand meticulously-drawn and artfully wrought sprockets filled the oppressive silence with optimism and wonder.

"The world will be your oyster," marveled Chapley.

"I am so proud of you right now," smiled the doctor, revealing an impish set of dimples and gleaming, even white teeth.

His finely-honed pate gleamed in the lackluster light falling from above.

"Why me?' asked Chapley. "I mean, really?"

"Your father was a friend of mine," said Dr. Schmitt-Rottluff in a gruff tone. "And a man is only as good as his word."

Chapley wondered why the room had suddenly grown cold, and the doctor looked so stern.

His eyes were lost in the far-off gaze of some Earthly deity, carved in marble and painted up like a longshoreman's professional tarte-de-nuit.

***

They crowded around, looking at the last of the water from Rufe's canteen. Jeb had poured it into his hat, and then he carefully divided it up into two halves, using Rufe's hat, with two neat holes in the front brim, for the second one.

The two horses, Rooster and Rufe's mount Checkers lapped it up greedily in their turn, tossing their heads and neighing for more.

"Sorry boys," said Jeb. "That's all there is."

Checkers broke wind as if to vent his displeasure.

Hope's face screwed up in disgust.

"Sorry, ma'am," ventured Rufe. "He's been doing that ever since Abilene, where we both indulged ourselves perhaps overly much. I think it might have been the lobsters in shrimp sauce. It affected me badly, although I am over it now."

"What are we going to do now, Jeb?" asked Hope.

It was a far more important question than the source of Checkers' flatulence, and he had an answer all ready to go.

"The reason I wanted to hold off as long as possible, was of course to find more water," he explained. "In my humble opinion, we really couldn't have waited much longer. Anyways, I am delighted to announce our imminent salvation."

God, did they all talk like that out here? Hope buried that unpleasant thought. It was too horrible to contemplate. Hope and Rufe stared around at the broken boulders studding a dry, wandering watercourse, one which fell down the mountainside in a series of jagged clefts and meandering slot canyons, wondering if maybe he saw something they didn't.

"Unless you can control the weather, this stream has been dry for weeks. Maybe even months," suggested Rufe. "Presumably, we dig."

Jeb nodded. Dropping to his knees, he plunged his strong fingers into the rough sand at the bottom of a steep drop. He went down a few inches and stopped.

"Too many rocks," he said, coming upon a big flat one.

Looking around, he chose another likely spot. It was the same again, although this time he got down about two feet. Jeb was un-chastened by his failure.

"Feel that," he said to Hope.

Dropping to her knees, she stuck a hand deep into the pit.

"Hmn. It is slightly damp," she agreed. "Can we get down far enough?"

Jeb re-examined the lay of the land.

"Maybe farther out from the base of the cliff," he muttered.

The slope above them was composed of jagged bedrock, eroded into a thousand nooks and crannies by wind, water and frost, but out from the base of the hill it was all desert sand.

"Here, Mr. Snead?" asked Rufe, trying to be helpful.

"Give it a try," suggested he. "Oh, what the heck. Go another twenty feet."

Jeb and Hope stood watching as Rufe delved into the earth. As he dug, the dirt he flung out was hopelessly dry at first, and several minutes passed in complete silence. Hope's tongue was so desiccated it was sticking to the top of her mouth, and her once ruby-red lips were pale, dry and cracked. Snead, more used to the outdoors and the strong desert sun than her, seemed less affected, while Rufe had been both sweating profusely and complaining bitterly of thirst for some time. Rooster and Checkers seemed fairly content when she looked around, and were engaged in rooting around in the underbrush for what resilient greenery they could find.

Turning back, she saw that Rufe's backside was now higher than his shoulders. He was getting close to the limits of his arm's length, and it seemed to her they would have to enlarge the pit and get right in. She said as much to them, but Rufe kept on digging and Mr. Snead just shrugged and watched him.

When Rufe looked up once more in frustration, Jeb jerked a thumb and he stiffly stood up. Jeb intently examined the hole without Rufe's shadow obscuring the bottom.

"I think this will do," said Jeb, and he dropped to his knees and thrust a hand deep inside the hole. "Ah...give me a sock."

Rufe looked confused as Hope shook her head in bewilderment, and she didn't have any socks anyway.

***

Foot bare, Jeb had one of his socks full of sand, packed in as tight as he could get it, leaving a couple of inches free at the top. He spun a bit of rawhide piggin' string around the top and tied it off carefully. Gripping the sock in both hands, he gave it a twist. This had the desired effect of squeezing the contents. Magically, what looked like two drops of water hung from the toe as he hung it vertically.

"Now all we need is lots of sand," he reckoned.

"Ew," said Hope.

Jeb put the sock to his mouth and sucked up the water.

"It does have a certain unique flavour," he admitted. "But it might keep us alive for another day or two."

Rufe sat down with a thump and began pulling and tugging at his slick black leather boots.

"I'm game if you are, no pun intended," he observed. "As for what we can do for the lady, remains a mystery."

He looked up in inspiration. As if he was a gentleman, regretting his previous misdeed.

"You can use my shirt," he offered to a grim nod from Snead and a bleak look from Hope. "I believe that will suffice."

"That's easy for you to say," groaned Hope. "You're a fuzzy sock-licker to begin with."

This statement brought a pained look, but no immediate response.

Jeb was busy filling four socks with wet sand and tying off the tops of them.

"It's your choice," he told her with a quick appraisal. "But I don't see much chance of getting enough water to fill our canteens, and we'll use up the water in our tissues by digging."

With a deep sigh, she nodded at Rufe, who smiled happily and stood to remove his jacket.

"Coming right up," he said. "Tell you what. Let's not cut the thing up, and maybe I can get it washed if and when we find the next town. I do have a spare in my saddle-bags."

The water from Rufe's shirt was warm, brackish and slightly cloudy looking, and there was a certain hint of Rufe and his expensive aftershave in her nostrils as she greedily licked up the resulting drops. It was bad enough, but it would keep her alive for the time being and sometimes that was the best you could ask for.

"Thank you, Mister Golan," she said, averting her eyes when he nodded with a certain amount of dignity.

The blasted fellow was staring at her toes again...

Naked from the waist up and barefoot like Mr. Snead, he stood there sucking on a sock full of wet sand.

"My pleasure," he replied.

***

Golan was surprisingly helpful when they finally staggered into town. Their first hint of the place was the uplifted emotional emanations of the horses. Checkers' thoughts were nowhere near as lucid as Rooster's. But he had a good heart, even better lungs, and although he lacked the gravitas of his elder equine companion, he more than made up for it in brash, youthful curiousity, closely following every word and nuance of the people around him. Hope clung to Mister Snead. There was no way she would ride with Rufe Golan...

"That horse might actually learn to talk someday," Jeb told Golan, a grudging compliment if there ever was one.

Rufe was intent upon their business, while if truth be told, Jeb was having some second thoughts. Along the trail, Rufe was every bit the gentleman, handy with the shelter-building, happy to haul buffalo-chips, and always cheerful around the fire first thing in the morning. You learned a lot about a person. Three or four days on the trail were often a revelation on human nature. This was just as true with your friends as with a stranger. His only real problem, or vice, or drawback as a person was that overwhelming foot-fetish, mixed in with some kind of armpit-obsession.

"Excuse me," called Rufe to a passerby.

The small group paused while the lady looked over, catching their eyes for the first time.

"Yes?" she asked, clutching her coat together to keep out the wind.

"Can you direct us to the nearest officer of the law?" he inquired.

Checkers pawed and danced in place while she glanced up the street. A kid on a sixteen-inch, original design, garish Bakelite Big Wheel came out of the next street, did a quick hundred and eighty- degree turn, and then vanished again, his place taken by exactly three, no less and no more tumbleweeds.

"Make a left at the fourth or fifth street," she said. "If it's an emergency, and there's no one in, try the bar next door."

Before long, the horses were tied up in easy reach of a watering-trough, and the two men and a woman were stiffly entering the office of the local constabulary.

***

"I'm sorry, Mister Snead, but there's nothing I can do," advised Sherriff Athlone Junkett. "She's not a citizen, for one thing. For another, it happened in Indian Territory, outside of the city and county limits, and I am not empowered to enforce federal law, only municipal by-laws. Admittedly that does include rape, murder and arson—but only within the lawful bounds of my jurisdiction."

He pointed at a sign, or rather a collection of signs, nailed up along the top of the front wall of his office. The room still showed signs of previous occupancy, judging by the mirrors, red and white paint-job, striped barber pole out front, and more than anything by the adjustable recliner-chairs. The Sherriff sat in one as they spoke.

Jeb's eyes took in one sign in particular.

'HOMICIDE PROHIBITED By-law #73-013-A.'

There were a few others as well. Unlike that one, most didn't have a bullet hole in them.

"I'm sorry, Jeb," said Rufe. "But I did try to tell you. What happens in Indian Country stays in Indian Country."

"I'm sure Mister Snead can be forgiven an honest mistake, even though he's not from around here and ignorance of the law is no defense. Mister Golan, do you wish to prefer charges against Mister Snead for kidnapping, unlawful confinement, assault with a deadly weapon, battery, horse-theft, and transporting the fruits of crime over state boundaries?" asked the Sherriff with a long look at Rufe's hat. "Those are all local ordinances. What about unlawful and willful destruction of property?"

"No, that's okay. I don't mind," he said. "I didn't have anything better to do. Anyway, he's a pretty good hombre. He treated me well enough, at least from his own perspective, and it has been kind of fun so far. Besides, most of that happened in Indian Country, and you can hardly take it personal."

A sound or two escaped from Jeb during this most social of intercourses, while Hope clenched her lips and shook her head in disgust at this thinly-veneered display of gentlemanly sycophancy.

Quicker than might be believed possible, Hope swung, and a ringing slap stopped the talk in its tracks.

As the furiously-flushing Sherriff opened his mouth to speak, Rufe raised a hand to head him off, sore as his face was. He blinked back a couple of involuntary tears...

"It's all right, Sherriff, I know the spiel. It's plumb fine with me. She's worth it, and there is more than one way to skin a cat," although he said it with a rueful grin. "Beautiful when she's angry, eh?"

He stared at the tips of her toes in forlorn hope.

The last was said in an aside to a much-chagrined Jeb Snead, who had gone a long way out of his way to help a lady out, and got nothing but trouble for his trouble.

Unthinkingly, Jeb leaned past Rufe to get a better look, and wished he hadn't.

Colouring slightly, he looked away and straightened up right quick.

She sure was beautiful, now that he thought about it, and holy cow, did she ever look pissed off.

***

"So. What do you folks want to do next?" asked Rufe.

Hope's jaw dropped at the sheer, unmitigated gall of the man. She was trying to find something incredibly rude to say, but it was not to be.

The door of the sheriff's-office-cum-former-barber-shop creaked open with a portentous foreshadowing of something real bad.

"Well, well, well," said Sheriff Junkett, stepping out and blinking in the harsh light of day.

"What?" they all three of them said in unison.

He pointed authoritatively at a sign nailed on a pole, offensively enough facing away from the street. The sign read, 'NO PARKING, 1:00-2:00 p.m. Most weekdays, By-law #74-157-7-Y.'

"Oh," said Jeb.

"It's a two-dollar fine," noted Sheriff Junkett.

Jeb looked at the others. They looked back at him.

"Each," said Junkett. "Per person."

"Huh?" gasped Hope.

"Weren't you a lawful passenger upon one of those animals?" asked Junkett in a righteous tone.

"Yes," she admitted.

That was the great thing about Arizona, they had law and order.

"Um, I'm a little short," Jeb advised, whereupon Rufe reached for his wallet and Hope dug through the estimated forty pounds of junk in her purse.

They found appropriate funds and paid their own respective fines.

"I'm sorry, Jeb," confessed Hope.

"Sorry, partner, I'm all tapped out," so apologized Rufe, who put his fine together from pocket change. "I was on my way to the bank over in Coffee Pot Gulch when I ran into Hope, and the rest as they say is history. But I'll go down to the local branch and see if my father has deposited my allowance yet. I only get a thousand a month, and I have some routine expenses coming up, but I think I can squeeze it."

"Grrr," said Jeb, chin dropping and lower jaw thrusting forth.

Athlone Junkett shook his head.

"You'll have to wait inside," he said, reaching to grab Jeb's elbow.

"Seriously?" asked Jeb, with a heave of his shoulders and a deep sigh.

"Two bucks is two bucks," said the Sheriff. "You, sir, are under arrest."

"How much is homicide worth?" asked Hope, and lucky for her Junkett just grinned amiably and made another quick appraisal of Mister Golan.

"We'll look after Rooster, Jeb," said Rufe with calm dignity. "Don't worry. We'll have you out of there in no time."

***

Hope wasn't all that enamoured with the company of that two-bit shyster, Rufe Golan.

The man kept stealing glances at her grubby bare feet as she shuffled along, looking up at the signs, the pair of them leading the horses on slack reins and wondering what to do about Jeb. One of them crazy Injuns had taken her boots, he probably had a wife and kids back home.

"I feel like the man is a friend, you know?" said Rufe. "You must be just dying for a hot bath after your ordeal, what with the attempted rape by the Indians and all, and I could sure use a drink and a hot meal. But, we'd better go see. I can wire Daddy for the money if it comes right down to it."

Hope would have preferred to have been done with either character, but she was broke and destitute, felt some responsibility for Jeb, her rescuer, and had little choice but to go along with Rufe and ensure that he kept his word and paid the fine.

"You could use some clothes," he said. "How about a pedicure and some light tan open-toe sandals, nothing too radical, maybe a three or five inch or I don't know, maybe like a seven-inch heel?"

Hope had gone back to the wagon train, considering herself lucky to find a battered suitcase with her few belongings still smoldering and smelling frankly of napalm, but otherwise intact.

Even so, the thought of something clean, unsullied and not besmirched to wear was attractive. It was a hard offer to refuse.

"Here it is. It's a Scottish bank, they're always the best," he said. "They smell like money inside. What do you say?"

"Oh, golly, I don't know," she said with an air of resignation.

"Good! It's settled then," said Rufe, who promptly grabbed her hand and led her into the coolish, quiet and very darkish interior.

***

Hope was a little disturbed by how quickly a rich white man could get credit in a strange town hundreds of miles from home. It put her pathetic little existence into its proper perspective though.

The best revenge lay in living well, and when Rufe offered to buy her any outfit she wanted, any hesitation was momentary. As plausibly charming as always, he acted the role of the doting husband, albeit the sort of husband who was honourable and solicitous, and not the perfect chiropodist-lecher she knew him to be. Hope picked out some men's Levi's, a couple of swishing mid-length western skirts, a vest, a rawhide jacket with fringe and beads, several creamy blouses, and tight black boots that went up to her crotch. Just to annoy him, she had the sales-person throw in three pairs of heavy wool work socks.

"We might run out of water again," she explained.

On impulse, she grabbed a low-crowned, wide brimmed leather hat in a nice mottled buckskin colour.

He hid his disappointment well, after a moment, and complimented Hope on her footwear. The bastard reached over and picked up a bottle of the most expensive fragrance, and casually tossed it on the pile...

"They're perfect," he said, as his eyes wandered around the room as if seeing it for the very first time now that her feet were hidden. "Anyhow, we'd better get back and pay Jeb's fine."

"I'm starving, I don't know about you," she warned. "Jeb isn't going anywhere, and we can get the diner to put up a plate for him."

"Yes, you may be right," he muttered. "What do I care? The man shot my hat off!"

There was an odd gleam in his eyes, and she regretted the turn this conversation was taking.

Holding the door wide, Rufe allowed her to pass out onto the hollow-sounding wooden boardwalk. An oasis of shade if nothing more, the glare of the white clay street itself was forbidding. It was hot as heck out there.

"Left or right?" he wondered, touching her gently on the back of the upper arm.

"Right," she said. "The better places will be in the centre of town. A man like you doesn't eat in a shanty with a canvas roof."

"Not necessarily," he reproved. "It really depends more on the cuisine, the reputation of the chef, and the level of service. You'll get used to it, Miss Ng, and if you'll forgive me, don't ever forget that this is the way the West was won."

***

A black bird sat on the peak of a roof across the street and cackled in some sort of tone poem, as if to ridicule their distress. They stood looking at the sign in the window of the sheriff's office as Rufe picked his teeth with a long silver pin he had pulled from a case in his shirt pocket as Hope carefully balanced a large tin plate with beef and beans heaped up under a greasy red and white checkered napkin.

The place was closed, the door was locked and the heavy beige curtains were drawn.

"Well. That's torn it," he said. "We'll have to get a room and wait until tomorrow morning."

Rufe pulled out his heavy gold Rolex pocket compass with sun-dial, examining it as if it had rabies.

"Dang it all, that Sheriff closes up kind of early," he muttered. "Heck. Even the bar is closed!"

Hope's face began to darken.

"I know it seems downright mysterious. But maybe they've all gone off to chase some bad hombres somewhere," muttered Golan.

"Shoot," said Hope with a sidelong glance at Rufe. "There's just no way!"

"Aw, look, I know how you feel about me, and I wouldn't ask...well, I wouldn't mistake my position around here," he allowed a little too fervently for her comfort. "No, we'll get two rooms."

She shook her head. Jeb had promised to take her to San Francisco to her grandfather's place, and while she trusted Mister Snead implicitly, admittedly for no really good reason other than his impromptu rescue, Rufe was an entirely different matter.

"I'll be a perfect gentleman," he insisted. "I swear to God and hope to die!"

"Oh, dang," she said.

"Look, it's not my fault! I would do anything for you! All you have to do is name it. That's just how it is. When you love someone, you will make every sacrifice," he said with a kind of passion she was already too familiar with.

"That's it!" she said. "That is the problem, in a nutshell."

"Well, what do you want me to do, then?" asked a solemn and rather shame-faced Rufe.

Saying things like that at the wrong time was a bad idea, and he should have known better.

Hope took a deep breath and dove in. She kind of hated herself at that moment.

"If you really loved me, you would buy me a couple more horses. Three horses—one for me to ride, and a couple of pack animals, and maybe then we could get out of this stinking, rinky-dink little crap-hole of a town," she suggested as calmly as she could. "I have an idea."

"What do you mean?" he asked in pleasant astonishment.

He was even more surprised when she told him what it was.

Chapter Five

Rufe Was Good With a Plan

Rufe was a pretty good man with a plan. After purchasing three more horses at the livery stable, all good sound creatures with varying levels of intuitiveness, he remembered the dynamite.

"It must be around here somewhere," he muttered, going through Jeb's saddlebags.

She sighed.

"I guess he would probably give your guns back," she said, and he nodded.

"Yes, I like Jeb. He's a really nice guy," said Golan. "He might be a little insecure, maybe."

He re-armed himself, calmly shaking the sand out of his weapons one by one.

Hope watched carefully as a yard-hand saddled her new mount, which she decided to call 'Pony,' more to aggravate the men as much as anything. Announcing the fact had brought a pained grimace to Rufe. Perhaps it would work as well on Mister Snead, as for some reason she thought of him. Tipping the worker a dime, he nodded in some snootiness and sidled away in his crab-like, hunchback fashion. That club-foot must make it difficult to dress in the morning, she reckoned callously. For some reason Rufe called the other ones 'Whitey' and 'Spots.' That was fine with her, as it was nice and easy to remember. All you had to do was to look at them, and you would remember their danged names...

"Oh, that's right, I forgot to mention the fuse," he said, and began going through what must have been a dozen or more inner pockets. "It feels good to put my pistols on again, now that I am no longer Mister Snead's prisoner. I have two or three different sets. Which set I wear depends on whatever outfit I'm wearing, you know?"

If only he wasn't still her prisoner, she thought miserably.

He smiled, captivated by her company and enjoying the break from the dull routine of being a spoiled brat of the Texas intelligentsia, which was actually a bit of a contradiction in terms, at least in his personal experience.

Hope flushed a little at the statement, although in justice, he had been trying really hard to be helpful. She just didn't think it would last, and sooner or later he would revert back to type.

Unfortunately, she didn't think he was her type.

"Yes," she agreed shortly. "It would seem to be the thing to do under the circumstances."

"I'm just hoping Mister Snead cooperates," said Rufe. "Oddly enough, he seems a real stickler for the book."

"Are you saying he might not come out? Oh, Jehoshaphat!" she said.

"I'm saying he might want to think it over," suggested Golan. "Quite frankly, that could take a little time, and time is a luxury we can't afford."

It suddenly struck Rufe that there were some things money couldn't buy. Huh! He never would have thought it.

Hope hadn't really considered it that way. She was silent for a second, worrying about the possibility. Rufe carefully stowed his ordinance back in its respective hiding-places. This sort of confirmed her instinct that all was not right with his basic story. That dynamite would be handy though. She didn't think Jeb carried any.

"Breaking out of jail is probably more than a two-dollar fine," he added. "I shudder to think of what might happen to you if we should fail, Miss Ng."

He was giving her one last chance to back down, but Hope was in no mood to listen as all of this was coming from a self-acknowledged toe-licker and armpit fetishist. Wealth, good looks, strong white teeth, and good old-fashioned country charm only made up for so much. The best option was to use him and then cast him aside like a dirty old sock whose partner had disappeared in the laundry.

***

Waylon entered the laboratory where the Doctor and Chapley were chatting.

Chapley studied Waylon with new eyes, since Schmitt-Rottluff had just upgraded him in the cognitive department. Waylon shuffled along behind the drinks cart, which was wheezing steam and chugging under its own power. While he had to marvel at his uncle's sheer inventiveness, he could not help but wonder why it would be too much just to have a few decanters on the side-board, for starters, and why in the hell anyone would want to create, father, or otherwise generate a race of beings who more than anything resembled the upper half of a man mounted upon the rear half of a donkey?

It was beyond him. While the 'taurs might be useful as soldiers or servants, there was a certain smell. According to his uncle, the 'taurs didn't suffer from incontinence as much as they just didn't care. This bespoke a low level of intelligence, although they were docile yet violent, easily suggestible, stubborn as hell, and good with heavy lifting.

"Ah, thank you," said the doctor in an absent-minded fashion.

He peered once again into the view-tube.

"I fear that Jeb Snead," he muttered. "Among other things, he is goodness personified. And I hate that. He's also an American—which is questionable to begin with."

Schmitt-Rottluff was from a Bohemian mix of Mittel-European types, on all four sides of the family. His pedigree was extensive and confusing.

"And why is that, dear uncle?' asked Chapley, with an accompanying nod from Waylon.

"Because he has a nose for trouble," sighed the other. "And he is a terribly hard man to kill, judging by his performance so far."

Dr. Schmitt-Rottluff waved Chapley over, pointing at the tube.

"Have a look," he said.

"Oh!" said Chapley.

What had once been the back wall of the jail house was now a dark gaping hole, and Jeb Snead could be seen through an expanding pall of smoke, waving his hand around in front of his face. He kicked some loose boards out of the way. As the smoke cleared, he hopped over the heap of rubble and landed heavily in the alley. He rubbed soot from around his eyes, coming up again looking like a dilapidated raccoon. The back part of the rim of his hat smoldered, the back of his jacket was in tatters, and the seat of his pants was somewhat toasted, although not blown up at least. Chapley grinned at the sight and the thoughts it engendered. Snead must sleep on his side, and, being in a jailhouse, he must have had his back up against the wall.

Two people, a man and a woman, galloped up with a small string of horses in tow.

Chapley watched in fascination as they argued momentarily amongst themselves...

"But why, Uncle?' he asked.

"Because he's headed this way, Chapley. And I am, as you may have observed, nothing but trouble. Pure evil in fact, out to destroy the world, or at least to unilaterally remake it in my own image, for no discernable reason at all."

"Yeah! I've always wondered about that. Why do you want to destroy the world?" asked Chapley. "Or, um, unilaterally yadda-yadda-yadda...?"

"Because it's there, Chapley. Because it's there."

Other than that, the evil old bugger would go no further.

His uncle raised a glass.

"To success," he vowed. "Chapley, shake hands with Waylon."

Chapley obeyed, with some reservations. He was hoping that Waylon had washed his hands lately.

"Doctor...is Waylon an equal?" he would have thought an inferior race's social status was not up for debate.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mister Chapley."

"He can talk! He can talk!" gasped Chapley. "Hey, you speak pretty well. How come you never said anything before?"

"Because up until now, the soup's been pretty good," said Waylon with a glint in his beady eyes.

It was a popular vaudeville joke, one that had been around a while.

The doctor laughed outright and Chapley chuckled at the charming roguishness of the critter.

He remembered that revue, now that he thought about it. They toured extensively, hitting all the major stops.

"Run along and get to know each other," suggested his uncle. "Waylon?"

"Yes, Doctor?" the creature inquired.

"Chapley is almost as evil as I am, do you understand? So pay attention," instructed the doctor. "He's your evil friend, you understand?"

"Yes, Doctor," said Waylon with a polite inclination of the massive, person-like head.

***

"Our mission is to kidnap Miss Kitty," explained Chapley, dressed to the nines in a full and very shiny neoprene western outfit, complete with chaps, sombrero, lariat and six-guns on each hip. "Beauty is the bait that makes the hook just a little more tasty."

Waylon nodded sagely at this advice.

The vest was tailored in canary yellow, the trousers were blue, the shirt red, the neckerchief was white and red, and all of this subdued sartorial splendour was topped off with a white hat that after a time began to cause a crick in his neck due to the weight.

Waylon turned, spitting, hissing and chattering to his compadres. Chapley sat astride a tall roan, seventeen hands, bred from three generations of New Brunswick Cup Triple Tiara winners.

"Whoa, Pansy," he muttered as the animal sidestepped, disturbed by the unwelcome smell of nine or ten 'taurs in full battle gear.

Arrayed in a phalanx of indifferent regularity, the 'taurs were nevertheless a brave sight, as they were attired in crash helmets, carried clear neo-Bakelite shields, and armed with glass-like truncheons of highly-flexible material. They were the only regulators in town, and completely unbeknownst to the slightly more official vigilantes and even more slightly official real cops.

Now those guys were said to be the best-organized gang in town, but Chapley figured that was just slightly more official cop propaganda.

Aforesaid gear was already spattered on the haunches and the chaps or leggings, for the 'taurs had thoroughly enjoyed their breakfast of raisins and cabbage, provided courtesy of the International House of Fiber and Anti-Oxidants. He re-gained the necessary ascendancy over the horse, by cuffing it a good one on the left ear.

"She works at a dive on the waterfront," he added. "Move 'em on out!"

Waylon chattered some more to the 'taurs, none of whom were as developed as Waylon himself. As he rode, Chapley marveled anew at the putative life-cycle of the 'taurs, whom according to his uncle, began life either as, or in a pod. Initially, they looked much like a watermelon. When a suitable host stumbled into the nesting area, the pod cracked open, they popped up and clamped themselves onto the posterior of the unwilling victim. Shooting one of their eight deadly testicles into any warm, moist body cavity they could find, they deposited an already-fertilized hermaphroditic egg into the soft tissues of the body cavity. The next part was really odd, although Chapley was prepared to take the evil Doctor's word for it—that was always how he saw his uncle when they weren't in the same room together, and some kind of objectivity had returned.

According to his uncle, the 'taurs exhibited the least attractive attributes that bilateral symmetry and bipedal locomotion could imply, resulting in the upper half of a man being supported by the rear half of a donkey, with no concession whatsoever to societal esthetic values.

The tail made trousers unlikely, to put it in simple terms.

The tiny 'taurians lurked inside the victim, who by this time had recovered enough of their equilibrium to return to normal function. All of this was in spite of a little baby 'taurian living inside of their lungs, or their stomach, or wherever—and then as often as not, they popped out of the victim's chest at the breakfast table. Then they would scoot off and hide somewhere, subsisting according to the doctor's story on lint and dust-bunnies under the couch or bed until they grew up big and strong.

The next part was a bit sketchy, as even the doctor had never observed the legendary mating dances of the 'taurians and had drawn no conclusions as to how the queen 'taur was actually fertilized. While the queen was theoretically female, the doctor was unsure exactly what the other females looked like or if there was some kind of spontaneous fission of cells within the bosom of the queen herself. There were female workers too, and possibly some non-gay, fertile male drones...maybe. Come to think of it, at the time of his uncle's explanation, he hadn't asked too many questions. These thoughts passed through his head as he rode. Hopefully, all of the 'taurs had the plan sufficiently clear in their heads.

They were going to kidnap Miss Kitty, and present her as bait in order to capture Jeb Snead and his companions. After that, his uncle would have further instructions. Why this was so important had no real import to the job at hand. They weren't being well-fed and well-treated to ask, or answer such dangerous questions.

Dr. Schmitt-Rottluff owned the law locally anyhow. The only real danger would come from drunken hot-heads and Miss Kitty's natural disinclination to be taken. She was described in his dossier as, 'probably going to be uncooperative,' although whatever that might actually mean in practice was anybody's guess.

"Have they got all that?" he asked Waylon.

"Not really, came the insipid drawl of his partner in crime. "But they will follow, and they will obey, my good friend and colleague."

Chapley repressed an involuntary shudder.

Waylon proffered him a rack of five-gram glass vials, complete with screw-caps.

"Don't forget the samples of her precious bodily fluids," said his assistant. "Dr. Schmitt-Rottluff was most adamant."

"Good enough for me," nodded Chapley, spurring Pansy up a little as the 'taurs trotted alongside in extended battle formation, heads lowered for action and a grim look upon their face-like snouts. He wished he had a bugle to sound the charge.

The rattle of all those hooves was impressive in its auditory splendour as he considered the import of Dr. Schmitt-Rottluff's statement.

'Waylon's mother is a 'taur," he had said with a far-off look in those glittering faience orbs that doubled as eyeballs of a distinctly analog nature.

Come to think upon it, those eyes were among his uncle's best features.

As for the look in the 'taurs' beady yellow eyes, it spelled trouble for anyone who got in their way.

***

Hope sat bolt upright in bed, galvanized and dang near petrified by the apparition before her. The thudding in her chest was almost audible, as she emitted a short, sharp, "Peep!"

Goggling, she realized it was Rufe. Snapping on the light, she sat up, pulling the covers up around her neck. Almost inadvertently, but when is anything ever vertent, her toes were almost exposed by the sudden motion and she pulled up her knees under the blankets just to keep this civilized. From below came the schizoid patter of the piano, some ragtime rag that sounded vaguely familiar. After a moment she got it, a jimp-jump redub of the theme from 'Exodus.'

They had a pickled pygmy girl in a jar on a shelf over the bar. It was that kind of place.

"Shoot the piano player," she groaned. "I don't know who is worse, him or you!"

"That won't be necessary, Mademoiselle," vowed Rufe, yet his words were belied by the craning of his neck to see if any toe-flesh or foot-meat was exposed by the edge of the threadbare and grass-stained Indian blanket she lay under. "And you've never heard me play the piano."

"What do you want, Rufe?" grated Hope, although she had her justifiable suspicions.

This hotel, well over thirty miles from the scene of the jail-bust, was his idea all along, she recalled dubiously. It's not that she wasn't grateful at the time.

"Jeb's not in his room," he said, which put an entirely different picture on things.

"So you have an actual excuse to come barging in here then," she muttered. "You're smarter than I thought and you look."

"Thank you, my beloved," he smiled in beatitude and without shame as well. "It's probably better if we don't get separated, and I thought possibly we could go looking for him...?"

"Argh," she began, but he hastened to reassure her.

"My intentions are completely honourable," he said. "Besides, I'll turn my back while you put on those long black button-up boots rendered in glossy wet-look alligator hide..."

"Aw," she groaned. "Damn you! Turn around."

There should be a law against men's imaginations, she thought.

She whipped aside the covers when he turned, and hurriedly put on her boots. Rufe was breathing heavily on the other side of the room.

"If you're going to go off in your pants, I will never speak to you again, Rufe," she called in forced gaiety, as his shoulders heaved with some sternly-repressed impulses.

Sometimes cheerfulness in the face of adversity really was best. She was just pulling on her bra and panties when she suddenly realized that the mirror had been turned to just the right angle...

"Ah, dang you!" she cried, but it was already too late.

Rufe had gotten what he came for after all.

***

The pair, with Hope bitter and Rufe in a kind of spiritual bliss, found Jeb with the horses, which was just what she had been saying all along.

"The man's been sleeping with his horse for well over twenty years," she reminded Rufe. "You can hardly expect him to just up and sleep in a bed like that. It's no wonder he couldn't stand the Big Apple."

"Shh!" said Rufe. "What's he saying?"

On that note, the pair craned their ears and that vague intuitive sense located in their primitive fore-brains to eavesdrop on Jeb and Rooster, dutifully limned by the pallid light of the cheerfully-innocuous moon-beams.

***

Miss Kitty, a tall, buxom but leggy blonde feline of indeterminate parentage worked at a bar called the Tight Pussy, whose garish neon sign was hung over the loggia. It consisted of a tall-stemmed cone-shaped cocktail glass, with all of its suggestive sexual connotations, and a drunken cat-whore lolling inside of it, glassy-eyed and all shagged out from a night of fun.

Schizo the Clown sat in his office, night manager here during the carnival's off-season. The truth was he'd been fired for indecent exposure during a charity visit to a local orphanage. He really couldn't say what had come over him. Just one of those things...

Miss Kitty owned the place, and she was going through receipts and trying to estimate future earnings if only everyone paid their tab.

"You have appointments at three-ten, three-fifteen, three-twenty, and three-forty," he reminded her to no noticeable effect. "That last one, Mr. Nisbeth, he's expecting like a life-sized Cabbage Patch Kid with Greek features."

Prep time was always important; he knew that from his role as a clown. Even now, he did a lot of birthday parties under an assumed name.

She raised an eyebrow, feminine white whiskers twitching in disbelief.

"Eighty pounds of steakettes, and a gallon of peanut oil?" she gaped. "I don't remember that one."

"Happy hour, last Friday's free lunch special," he noted. "It's only about eleven bucks, and I ain't feeding them bums forever."

"How many did you have?" she asked, and he flushed insofar as it is possible for a clown to do so.

"I just nibble a bit," he rejoined. "Them guys are bastards. They come in here, they sit around nursing five or ten beers for a couple of hours, and they expect us to feed 'em. It's that danged sign, 'free lunch' in the front window. I'd take that down, if I was you."

He cut the steakettes up into strips and breaded them with Auntie J's pancake mix, and then deep fried them slowly at a very low temperature. The drunks thought it was the finest food money couldn't buy. They were right, too.

"Haw, haw, very funny," acknowledged Miss Kitty.

She sat up a little straighter, with an odd look on her already crafty face as loud thumps, whacks, bangs and booms came through the closed door, although that wasn't saying much as it was thin and had a long vertical crack running through the middle of it. The whole building was a piece of crap, when she thought about it, which she did often as she spent a fair bit of time on her back. It was a constant reminder that they had better get a new piece of sailcloth soon and hopefully, at some point, they could get the danged roof fixed...

"Either I've forgotten what it is to be horny, or I'm having a premonition!"

It turned out to be a premonition.

***

"Well, I guess you two might as well hear this too," it was Jeb's resonant voice, edged with a sardonic humour. "Did you really think you could sneak up on a telempathic horse?"

They heard him return to whispering and chuckling with Rooster, whose sublime beauty was evident even in this light. The mass immediately to the left of man and horse resolved itself into a pair of heads, complete with ears cocked and eyes gleaming. A tail swished, and all doubt was removed. Checkers and Pony were right there by the gate as well, looking out into the gloom in anticipation. Whitey and Spots came up as well, looking for a hand-out.

"Huh? What?" spluttered Hope. "Is he speaking to us?"

Rufe sighed, standing up straight, as he had been hunkered down beside a thin screen of saplings lining the path. With a shrug at Hope, he nodded, and led her over to the side of the corral.

"Hey, Buddy, did you think I forgot about you?" he asked Checkers, patting him on the mane and rubbing his big shoulder.

Pony neighed, and Hope suddenly recognized that Jeb really did have some kind of a gift, as it had never occurred to her that Pony would have felt her coming. There was a flush of guilty acknowledgement, deep in her abdomen. Pony was a living, breathing creature, with feelings of her own, and the animal depended on her for her daily feed, watering, and yes, it had hopes and dreams, seeking what was to her maybe a strange kind of love. Hope had owned the thing for all of two days, and saw it as an encumbrance, whereas Pony might have been in need of a little reassurance...the poor thing looked so sad...gazing at her with those big, brown horsey-eyes.

"Aw," she said, and Pony stuck her head over the rails.

Suddenly the critter's snout was right in her face, and the hot, slimy tongue of the animal, smelling sharp and tangy, slithered up from chin to forehead.

"You do understand," exulted Jeb, but that wasn't exactly her topmost feeling right at that moment.

"Oops! Egads," she said, not unkindly to be sure.

What the heck was that smell?

"So, what's up?" asked Rufe. "You say the horse has something important?"

"Yeah, where are we going with this?" griped Hope, awkwardly trying to rub her face dry with her lacy silk handkerchief, she'd just spent three bucks of Rufe's money on it, while trying to reassure Pony at the same time that it was all right, and her mistress wasn't angry with her. She spat lightly, but the taste was there to stay. Had someone been feeding the animal radishes?

Bleh.

Pony looked at her with something akin to worship in her eyes, and its tongue was half hanging out as the horse made breathing noises in what Hope took for pleasure at her company.

It was more like a big dog than anything.

"Miss Kitty's in danger," Jeb said. "He's really hooked up on her, I'll give you that much. He loves me too, but there's another kind of bond there, and it's real strong."

"Oh, really," muttered Hope, doubtful but trying not to pout.

Jeb Snead was a very handsome man, but she was beginning to wonder if maybe he took himself just a little too seriously.

Rufe stood close, with his forehead almost in Rooster's neck.

"You're right," he said, and now Checkers nickered plaintively in agreement. "He's really worried about her. I'm not too sure I get the reasoning."

"He doesn't have any reasoning," objected Hope. "I'm sure he means well—"

"That bond is very strong," Jeb said. "Before she left the Big Apple, they had quite a thing going. She used to visit him, at the stable, and bring him an apple. Stuff like that."

"Oh. Ah," said Hope. "A thing. They had a thing, the man says. Hah! Well, why didn't you say so?"

Chapter Six

Two Shots Rang Out

"Bang! Bang! Two shots rang out."

"A woman screamed and her guts fell out."

"And there on the floor, with his backside tore,"

"Lay terrible Danny Lepieux..."

Sammy Davis Jarvis Senior leaned back, dark spectacles glaring in the lamplight, a fixed grin on his rigid black features. For some reason blind dudes and even guys faking it always leaned back with their heads on an uncomfortable angle. The goofy grin was hard to sustain, but he had learned young. His fingers, long and thin and knobby in the middle but somehow with ball-like structures on the end—like a tree toad—flew across the black and whites. The aching trill of the arpeggios sought out the ear of the most innocent drinkers and flogged them into renewed efforts. The night was young, but getting older, and no one liked to sleep alone unless suitably anesthetized. It was a local custom.

"There's been many a strange thing done," he sang, more softly now, the tune based on Basie's work but the poetry, pure poetry, was a good skimming of some Klondike poet who hadn't even been born yet, last he heard.

With renewed vigour, he flew into the strong cadence of the musical climacteric, i.e. the chorus of the song.

"Mrs. Kruschev's got a black babushka,"

"She uses it to warm her little pischka,"

"Why she ever went up to Alaska,"

"Under the light of the blazing sun,"

"No one can say no more," although Sammy had toyed from time to time with the ending, 'No one can say for sure.'

In his head the chorus accompanied him, chanting softly, 'no one can say for sure.' He figured that would work well, if only he had a chorus. It went around and around nicely up there.

His hands danced and sang with a delight of their own, winding her up as they say, and he leaned in, playing softer and softer until the voice of the piano was just a whisper. A smattering of applause greeted the end of the song, and several patrons even sighed in relief.

Right about then the sagging plank door was kicked open and the room was flooded with a group of strangers in a strange garb, bearing a rank smell which more properly should have belonged in a stable.

Bang! Bang! Two shots rang out. No one said a danged thing.

"Thank you," noted Chapley as the silence rang, and blue smoke eddied up around the chandelier.

He leapt dramatically up onto a sturdy table near the centre of the room, for no particular reason. He just wanted to get their attention. A half-dozen haggard and weather-beaten and rum-besotted faces stared up at him in pure apathy.

"I like the tune," Chapley told Sammy, frozen in the act of taking a big slug from a tall glass bottle filled with amber fluid. "Do you have that out on a cylinder?"

Sammy just shook his head, although he had been thinking about it.

Chapley took another look at the chandelier, just for good luck. It hung from a chain of linked coat hangers about two feet down from the ridge-pole. But it seemed secure enough for the time being. He just wanted to be sure it wasn't going to fall on his head or anything like that. Right beside it, two brilliantly sunlit bullet holes attested to his poor shooting ability, but no one knew what he had been aiming at, right? Angled blue beams of light came through the holes, struck the assembled peanut skins on the floor and made the light somehow much more jolly in the enclosed space.

"May I have your attention please?" he inquired in a confident and professional tone.

Mary Jane Partridge and Elmer Noffler reluctantly pried their mouths apart, although they still clung together like leeches in a bucket. Oddly enough, a bucket of frozen leeches held a bottle of champagne right beside their intimate little round table, replete with cigar burns and wet rings from their steins. The bottle being frozen in place, they had to lift the whole bucket to pour, but it sure was classy. Mary Jane, after just completing eight years of nursing school with a year in pediatrics and who needed some down-time, glared at the intruders indignantly.

"I'm paying this guy by the hour," she responded in no uncertain terms. "This had better be good."

Elmer Noffler nodded glumly in agreement. As a Chink whore, he needed to put in the hours.

He'd thought about being a Caucasian whore, but the union wouldn't admit him. The other customers muttered and grumped among themselves. One or two of them might have had guilty consciences about something or other, and thus kept their mouths shut and their heads down.

In the main, people exchanged baffled glances, as no one immediately recognized the short, gruffly-grunting strangers or their tall and persuasively-eloquent leader.

Most likely they were from out of town, and Roger Hammersmith said as much.

"Most likely from out of town," he whispered, earning a cuff on the back of his head for his trouble from one of the 'taurs.

"Where's Miss Kitty?" said Chapley, brandishing the pistol. "Yes, that's it. Ahem. I want to speak to the manager."

The 'taurs by this time were fanning out all over the room, in squads of three, beating their batons on their shields and crowding the regular customers. Visors down, helmets strapped, and with the 'taurs looking as mean as all heck in their urban camouflage, no one complained. They made for the back room. This town being without fire and building codes, it seemed unlikely that anyone could escape by the non-existent back door, 'cause none of these places had 'em. There was the possibility that they might cut a quick slit in the roof, and they should keep it in mind.

"What in the blazing fires of Hades is going on here?" came an angry female voice that almost made Chapley cringe.

Dang! The most beautiful feline in the galaxy stood there, womanly bosom heaving in her crotch-less cat-suit. He thought possibly she had been working, as she had on an editor's eye-shield and was waving a set of pince-nez around on the end of a stick. It was called a lorgnette, he recalled. He had been expecting a stinking old whore. With her red stilettos of nine-inch height, and those six pale, gleaming, heaving mammary glands, she made for an impressive figure.

"Ah. This must be the lady in question," he mused rather pointedly to an inattentive Waylon, who was busy scraping something yucky off of one of his hooves. "She fits the profile, anyway."

"Pardon me, sir?" Waylon gaped.

"Grab her!" said Chapley, shoving him forward.

Waylon made quick eye contact with the troops at his disposal, a reserve of four individuals, and pointed pointedly at Miss Kitty, making exaggerated facial expressions and yelling, "It's her—it's her!"

Not the smartest minions in the galaxy, they moved to intercept the stationary woman-cat.

This looked like a tricky situation, and if anyone should get hurt it would be a terrible tragedy, especially if it was him.

***

Her tail, angrily swishing back and forth, was having its no doubt intended mesmerizing effect on the more butch of the 'taurs, and Chapley could not help but notice it himself. The distraction, subtle and momentary as it was, worked beautifully. The lady was every inch a paradigm of feline pulchritude. According to his briefing notes, she was Miss Feline Stockholm 1858, (hard to believe it was so long ago,) and apparently had some talent as a dancer. Chapley could see why. Those big glands were also having their inevitable effect.

Where Miss Kitty had the pistol stashed, Chapley would never know, but she stuck it up to the temple of the nearest 'taur and pulled the trigger. The gun went off with a resounding pop' and what passed for 'taurian brain-goop spattered all over the miners and intellectual property lawyers seated at the tables along the north wall.

"Ew," someone said, but no one else cared, enthralled by the suddenness of it and possibly by the prospect of their own imminent dissolution.

She was just swinging it around to blast the one stiffly holding onto her other arm, when Waylon, stationed behind and slightly to one side of her, swung a beer bottle, connected firmly with the occipital lobe or what passed for one in a half-cat, half woman-thing, and she went down like a sack of genetically-modified oats. The gun clattered to the floor in counterpoint, but luckily it didn't go off again. There was a stunned silence, so Chapley wondered if anyone had noticed. In other words nothing had really changed.

"The doctor isn't going to like that," he muttered, but what did he care? "For some reason he said unharmed."

He had a job to do. Whipping out a glass and cast-iron syringe, he sucked a half-litre of blood from her upper fore-leg.

"Standard operating procedure," he told her inert form. "I don't make the rules. I just have to abide by them."

No one made any comment, but sat watching the proceedings with bug-eyed curiousity. He supposed they would make all the gossip columns later, but no matter.

The price of failure was censure, and when it was Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff doing the censuring, there had to be more to it than a sticky black star and a big 'thumbs-down' on a youthful homework assignment.

"Dang you, sir!" said the assistant manager, Schizo, staring fixedly down at the mess on his long floppy shoes as the offending 'taur nonchalantly snapped the cuffs on the recumbent Miss Kitty.

***

The desert stretched out before them, eternal, wave after wave of white shimmering sand, sand that crunched underfoot and invaded the nasal passages, parching the throat all the way up to the roots of the hair, and all the way down to the tips of the toes. This time they had plenty of water, and the distance was short. The urgency in Jeb's posture could be cut with a knife.

White silica, blown by a thousand years of wind had formed the dunes. The horses were still in good spirits, making heavy going of it but not pissing and moaning too much just yet.

Every so often, Rooster picked up his nose and snorted. He appeared to be staring off at the horizon as best he could, one eye at a time, with Jeb patiently letting him have his head. The horses had good instincts, Hope admitted. Checkers didn't know the lady, as he'd never been to New York, but was willing to follow Rooster, and by the looks of things, Pony was prepared to follow Checkers.

So far, Jeb and Rufe had just let the things navigate on their own, trusting to whatever intuitive impulses drove them. The two men were a lot alike, she confided to herself, pleased at the new-found character analysis. She was growing up, and fast.

Low on both sides stretched the indifferent grey mountains, with only the slightest nuance of distant conifers giving it any soothing emotional colour at all. Waves of heat shimmied and rose in front, with horizontal bands of watery blue all row by row. She knew they were mirages up there, and didn't philosophize about it much. It was a hazard of the trail, but they were in good shape and didn't expect to go mad anytime soon. There was just one thing.

"Jeb?" called Hope.

"Yes," he said, reining up in the hollow between two long, low crests of sand. "What's the problem?"

"Can we stop for a moment?" she asked. "I have to pee."

"Oh! I'm ever so sorry, I should have thought of that," he agreed, only slightly blushing. "All right, we can take a break."

There was a long silence, fraught with moral peril.

"What...here?" she asked.

Jeb and Rufe looked back and forth, and up and down due to the terrain. They raised their eyebrows and shrugged their shoulders.

Nowhere, in any direction, was there so much as a blade of grass to be seen, let alone a poor old tree, just waiting in the hushed silence, broken only by the incessant ululation of the wind, for a passerby in dire straits in terms of bladder-control.

"Sorry," Rufe said with a half-raised lip curling back around on one side.

He figured she might have to take her boots off. Sooner or later, she must pee. The thought drove him half-mad in a comatose sort of way. It had been a long day.

Jeb just stared every which way but at her, which she found disconcerting to no end.

Neither of them two idiots had any idea, and it showed. She couldn't quite decide which was worse, Jeb's feeble blush or Rufe's lecherous leer.

"Argh," said Hope, as nonplussed as all get out.

***

"Help! Help!" screamed Miss Kitty. "Help, help! Somebody, anybody, please save me."

It was all so melodramatic. Chapley couldn't help but smile, although he knew it was rude. One thing about the 'taurs, when they carried out the simplest order, they did it thoroughly. Miss Kitty was encapsulated, cocooned almost by miles of inch-thick Manila. Her still-impressive form, wrapped from chin to toe, was strangely disturbing. It might have been the resemblance to an English mummy, shrouded in acres of gauze, which Chapley had always found sexually stimulating, partly because he was not adverse to a little necrophilia now and again, and a form-man rather than a leg or bust-man, and secondly because of a strong Late Victorian Oedipus complex. As usual, he felt a stirring in his loins at the notion of somebody's dead mother somewhere. Almost anywhere would do, really, although his favourite place was in a clockwork cart or out on a beach in the moonlight and with the soft, gentle sound of the lapping of waves against the shore. Or even the cart, for that matter. Almost anyone's dead mother would do.

The only mother Chapley had ever known was a sagging Raggedy Ann doll propped up beside his test-tube, for surely the giant puppet-hand holding a stick with three red dots painted on it for him to peck at didn't count as a parental figure. Although, thanks to his uncle's patient tuition, he did eventually learn to eat with a fork like any other orphaned fledgling. That was where he got all the little holes in his forehead, according to his uncle.

But that sort of thing was for the birds and behavioural scientists, for whom he didn't have much regard.

"You look most fetching, I must say," Chapley informed Miss Muriel Kitty.

His only reward was a shocking torrent of abuse.

"I resemble that last remark," he said.

Waylon chuckled obediently, although Chapley doubted if he had caught all the fine nuances of it.

Miss Kitty wriggled and struggled, possibly due to the concrete-hard nature of the raised central band of reinforced cement that the monorail train ran on. The basic premise was that it would cut her in half, if no one rescued her from near-certain death. Exhausted by her struggle, her head fell back and she dry-wept silently.

"I know it's uncomfortable," he assured Miss Kitty. "But, it's all in a good cause, or perhaps I should say an evil one. Your cheerful sacrifice will not go un-noticed for long."

"Shouldn't we gag her?" asked Waylon, ever helpful when it came to dumb ideas.

"No, I like the effect," he said. "Her screams are most convincing."

Off in the distance came the expensive ticking of a thousand-ton mainspring and a few hundred clockwork gears, meticulously-drafted by the finest artists and carefully rendered in titanium by a team of rocket-machinists from Saginaw, Michigan.

"Ah. Here comes the 9:11 from Yuma," said Waylon with a quick glance at his new toy.

Chapley's 'taurian companion carefully stowed the cheap brass sun-dial back in the fob pocket of his Levi's. Chapley shrugged.

"We'd better get out of here before they see us," Waylon added. "If Mr. Snead should accost us, I would feel extremely threatened, and I don't know how I and the other 'taurs might react, possibly violently, knowing us."

Chapley agreed whole-headedly with this assessment. Waylon was sounding rather pompous lately, a sign of burgeoning confidence. Sooner or later there would be a power struggle, he thought.

"Don't forget the note," said Waylon.

All of this near-violence was a character-building experience for the young 'taur.

"Oh. Thanks to you for reminding me," said Chapley in a snarky tone. "After all, that's why we're here."

He pulled out the long windy letter from Schmitt-Rottluff, his putative blood kin. He was tempted to stuff it in Miss Kitty's mewling maw, but thought better of it. Thoughtfully, he lifted a rope and tucked it under and through, leaving both ends sticking up. The blue ribbon and the officious red wax seal were nice touches.

The two stiffly climbed down the forty-foot aluminum step-ladder to ground level. The 'taurs quickly stowed it in a hole they had dug, and then shoveled in the dirt with their hands, and tramped all over the loose earth to remove all traces. This was quicker than taking it back to the Roma Hardware Store where they had rented it.

"That would be a monkey in the wrenches," Chapley agreed. "We'd better mount up!"

It was with a swelling of pride, that he would lead his little posse back towards 'Frisco with the news that their mission was accomplished, and the knowledge that Snead and his party were just over the horizon.

"Dang it, Waylon, I meant the horses. Get on the horses, and ride away. Comprene? Get on the horse and ride away," but no, Waylon and another 'taur seemed to have a bit of a thing going on over there...

"Not mount your buddy, Waylon," muttered Chapley uncomfortably. "Oh, spare me this."

Chapley had heard of gay ducks before, and in one unusual case, a gay giraffe, but never anything like this. Finally Waylon and the other 'taur were finished. Waylon got on his respective mount, and predictably enough, Waylon pretended not to know what Chapley's fuss was about. So. He had some sense of shame, then.

"It's a naturally-occurring bodily function," insisted Waylon's buddy.

Chapley's climbing eyebrows spoke volumes.

For a brief moment in time Chapley wondered why all the 'taurs were obviously-male, quite well hung in fact, some of them, but then decided it was pointless to worry. He trusted his uncle, for surely he must know what he was doing.

"And now it's up to Mister Jeb Snead to rescue his former platonic lady love, and then come looking for revenge or justice, in Phase Two of my uncle's plan."

"All above my head, I'm afraid," replied Waylon. "All I do is follow orders, kill people or otherwise offer violence to them, and try to get through my busy little day without too many hassles."

Chapter Seven

After a Confab with the Equines Members of the Group

After a confab with the equine members of the party, the two men and Hope went back into the hotel. There were a few bleary-eyed patrons in the wide expanse of barroom, but the piano player was slumped across the keys in an alcohol-induced comatose condition. The bartender was nowhere to be seen and Hope wondered if he was asleep on the floor behind the bar. Either that or out in the privy abusing himself, she thought. Gripping the handrail tightly as they made their way up the narrow stairs, she longed for sleep, the last refuge of the truly unhappy.

Her room was first on the right, and she pointedly slammed the door upon entry.

She flung her clothes off, not caring where they landed, and slumped into her lumpy bed, a straw tick of about two and half inches thick, very itchy as all the ones out here were stuffed with bad hay and unpeeled chestnuts, from the feel of it.

There was still the distant rumble of talk from below, but for the most part silence reigned, and she was just so grateful, no matter how bad the bed. It lasted all of thirty seconds.

A drumming came from the ceiling above. A few seconds later, it came again. After all they had been through! Her first wonder was if someone was trying to get her attention, perhaps it was some kind of emergency? Maybe they had fallen and couldn't get up or something.

There was another drumming sound, it was the thudding of something hard, and resonant, but of course the floor was just planks. She knew the sounding board of a piano was spruce, right? It made sense.

She would never sleep with that ruckus going on.

Grinding her teeth, for they had been days passing the Unpainted Desert, a raw, untamed wilderness of gypsum and silica sand, and that danged racket came again. It was all white, hence the name.

"Oh, God, am I tired," she said aloud in sheer resentment.

Hopefully the idiot could take a hint.

She made a similar observation, only louder this time.

Was it a reporter? Or was it some pimply-faced wannabe pulp fiction author, pounding away at his tripe-writer? Poor fellow! She had some empathy for all of the losers in the galaxy, but she had been averaging three and half hours of sleep per night for about the last ten days or so. The thought that a genetically-modified hammerhead diamondback rattler would sneak under the blankets and then try to crawl up into her puss-puss had kept her tossing and turning all night.

Hopefully, they were a little more scarce here in town, rinky-dink as it was. For some reason it just creeped her out.

Thuds, thuds, thuds...more thuds.

Hope reached under her pillow, and pulled out a 7.63 millimetre German-made Mauser pistol, a long and awkward thing, but deadly enough at close range, and considered shouted up at the ceiling. She had a spare clip or two under there as well. It was the Turkish export version, given to her as a gift by a love-crazed firearms aficionado. She'd had it anodized a pretty royal blue at a little shop in Greenwich Village. The guy lived at home with his mother and after a while the thing clearly wasn't going anywhere...

"Let a lady get some sleep down here," she called in the most commanding voice that a shy, half-naked young mere slip of a woman lying in a bed could generate.

Like the pitter-patter of mules getting at 'er on a hot tin roof, the danged pounding and stomping came again, with the soft moonlight through the windows illuminating her high cheekbones and wide, sensitive mouth. But her eyes were hard and her lips set tight and firm, like concrete.

Hope emptied the magazine, spraying it back and forth, up and down, carefully peppering the ceiling surface above her with little round black holes. Quickly changing clips, she completed the cross-wise sweep. A cloud of pale smoke hung in the air, her ears rang with the concussion, and a thin haze of dust fell slowly down from above. The thuds and jumps seemed different now, more uneven, as something crashed into the far wall up there, and then hit the floor with a resounding thud.

Her door banged open, hitting the wall with a hurried crash and Rufe stood there with a wild look in his eyes.

"No! No, Hope, no!"

"What?" she asked. "I'm tired Rufe, not now, okay?"

"That's Michael Flatus up there," he hissed, tip-toeing up to her bedside and gently prying the gleaming, warm weapon from her reluctant hand, although it was empty now anyway.

"Who? What?" she gasped.

"Yes!" he assured her. "That's Michael Flatus, the Broadway star, and a headliner in Danse of the Mucky Old Creeks."

"That one was off Broadway, so far off Broadway you could say it was in the Bowery," she said doubtfully.

"I don't care if it was Staten Island! He's frickin' famous," Rufe gabbled.

It was quiet up there now. Blood dripped out of some holes over by the corner of the room. Jaw hanging, eyeballs bulging, Rufe turned and stared at the ever-widening pool in the corner.

"Now, if you don't mind, sir, I would like to get some sleep," said Hope, and with firm resolve, she turned over on her side, pulled the blankets up under her chin and closed her eyes.

"But...but..." he said.

"They'll never hang a good-looking woman, Rufe," she said without opening her eyes.

He thought about it for a moment. This was the woman he loved, and would, forever-more.

There was the sound of cautious footsteps, and then her door closed. Her eyes popped open, she craned her neck, and made sure Rufe had really left the room. She leaned over, and checked under the bed. Then a very tired Hope Ng put her head down for good that night. She was snoring in ladylike fashion all of three minutes later, with visions of dumping magazine after magazine of 7.63 ball ammunition into carnival shooting galleries chock-full of sugar-plum fairies dancing in her head. She'd never actually fired the thing before. It was a really nice gun, when you got right down to it, even in that daze-like state between wakefulness and downright dreaming.

***

"Here!" gasped Jeb, as they rounded the top of one last hill and Rooster broke into a dead gallop in spite of the lateness of the day.

Stretching before them was the long thin line of the monorail, which stretched from coast to coast. Like a board fence with only one horizontal runner on top held up by tripods spaced at regular intervals, the stark outline loomed on the horizon.

Rooster bounded along, tail straight out, hooves making a cadence the other animals found hard to match. Taken by surprise, Jeb worked to stay in the saddle. Once the initial burst of speed was over, he settled in with more aplomb, still holding onto his hat though.

He looked around, and saw that the others were fifty yards back as Rooster pounded down onto the flat.

"Where are we going, boy?" he gasped, but Rooster didn't answer and Jeb kind of had a feeling anyway.

A tiny fragment of sound came on the breeze, and Rooster's ears were pointed straight out front. The thudding of all those hooves made it awful hard to make out.

"It sounds like a woman—it sounds like her," he shouted. "Good boy!"

Slowing, Rooster's head twisted around and he gave him a look, as if too say, 'See, I told you so.'

But Jeb by this time didn't care anyway, as he made out the figure of Miss Kitty, tied over the monorail, clearly destined for a grisly death if the sound of the train, hooting for all the world like a tug-boat bound on some ineffable errand in the East Sewer, and as if it wasn't like totally foreshadowing a grim scene if only they hadn't gotten there just in the nick of time.

The only problem that remained was how to get up forty feet in the air and untie her.

The horse, as the others reined up beside them, had that problem solved already.

Zeroing in on the residual psychic emanations at the site, he made a beeline for a certain spot.

Actually, Jeb would have gotten it sooner or later, this despite his total lack of tracking experience, but there was a spot where someone had done a thorough job of stamping around. It was a churned-up soft-looking spot about three or four inches lower than the virgin surface around it. Rufe jumped down, and then briskly helped Hope dismount.

He looked up, to where Miss Kitty's hind feet hung over and her plaintive voice called from.

Off in the distance, a whistle hooted strongly, sending a chill down Hope's spine, but Rufe, fingernails still stained black from previous water-digging efforts, dropped to his knees and plunged his hands into the dirt.

"What?" she called, arms wrapped around herself and shivering in anticipation of a gory outcome, one that might not be averted in spite of their best collective strategy, i.e., with her supervision and them doing the work.

"It is a ladder," Jeb noted with a quick nod at Rooster. "Good boy!"

"That's one smart horse," ventured Hope, but the men just dug, concentrating on getting enough sand cleared so that they could yank it out.

They appeared to be ignoring her, even Rufe, which was unsettling for some reason. Finally they had cleared enough dirt, got their hands under it and kind of broke the suction.

'Smack-smack-smack-smack,' the ladder went as they extended it.

It took the two of them, with Jeb lifting and Rufe stabilizing it, to get the ladder up to the dizzying height above.

"You first," said Jeb. "I'm afraid of heights."

With Jeb Snead holding the bottom of the ladder, one foot out for every four feet up, Rufe Golan set out with a vengeance, as the calls of Miss Kitty rang out on the still evening air with renewed fury.

'Brrrp!' she heard.

"Checkers," groaned Hope.

The animal's flatulence was a thing of beauty of the sort that one never got completely used to.

Pony's thoughts were in perfect congruence with her own, although in some subtle and sublime equine fashion, the horse did think Checkers, with that one long black forelock hanging over his left eye, was kind of cute.

Chapter Eight

Clad in His Warm Embrace

Clad in the warm embrace of his love, they hung in an inconstant void, as his words of mystery formed in Squirrel's head. She struggled to comprehend, but it was a lot to take in all at once...

I feel no pain

I have no thoughts

I have no ambition

No hopes, no wants

No desires

I have no hunger

I have no thirst

I have no fear

I have no needs and no regret

No goals and no aspirations

I have no body

And I have no mind

I have no envy, no pity,

I have no hate

I am empty of all things

I am weightless

Floating in a warm, silvery sea

I am reduced to my essentials

I am pure spirit,

Nothing more

I float, alone

Lost forever in the void

I am spirit flying

I am free for evermore.

Not sure she entirely understood, as the newborn galaxy swirled all about them, they darted about through space and time and an infinite chaos. Specks of matter ghosted past, spinning out bolts of huge energy.

"Is this a dream?" she wondered.

"No," the voice inside her said.

"What...why?" she asked.

"This is what is real," said Leaping Panther, and then they arrived back in the world.

"It is a world of extension, and motion," he said.

There was much to be seen there, and so much to learn.

***

An unpolished gem, unlettered and untutored, endowed with the rough, soldierly eloquence of Ulysses, master of every stratagem, including the winning of the hearts and minds of the people, Jeb Snead was a master of unarmed, physical combat in a world of slightly-skewed perceptions.

Even so, he would never understand women.

"Get your danged dirty paws off me," she barked.

"Sorry, my lady," he said, roughly tumbling her as he pulled up on the now-loose rope and she unwound on the end of it, round and round and round. "We don't have much time!"

"Watch her tail!" warned Rufe.

Rufe shot out a hand from time to time and kept her centered up as the angry lady-feline spun. Some odd-ball and probably irrelevant piece of paper flipped out of the coils or toils and drifted away on the breeze.

"In fact, it may already be too late," huffed and puffed Rufe Golan. "In which case, I'm just going to dive off of here and take my chances on a broken neck and life in an iron lung!"

"Bath-turds!" she snarled as felines often lisped under pressure of events.

"Well, that's gratitude for you," said Snead, grabbing her fore-paw to prevent her headlong plunge from the monorail.

With the raised central magnetic-levitation I-beam running down the middle of it, there was precious little standing room on either side.

Barely three hundred yards up the track, with the wailing of a thousand regular-type cats being rubbed backwards by a two-hundred foot flywheel and a gear-train created by the spiro-graph from Hades, inspired by genius but built by high-school dropouts, thus generating enough electricity to run the thing, came the 3:11 from Yuma, although it was actually much later now.

"Ah! Ah! Ah," said Rufe in sheer frustration, stepping lightly from foot to foot.

It was like he needed to take a quick dump and the outhouse was occupied or something.

Still wearing her danged high-heeled shoes, Miss Kitty labouriously clambered onto the top of the ladder, looking down fretfully and with much doubt evident in her expression.

"One step at a time," said Jeb calmly, with a glance up the track at the expression on the train driver's face. "So you didn't come up here on your own."

By the look on her face, the jibe was unwelcome.

As for the train-driver, whatever the outcome, his day was ruined for sure.

"C'mon, bitch, get moving," yelped Rufe, for the first time showing signs that he might crack under pressure.

She got a half a dozen rungs down, rendered speechless for the first time since they had met twelve years ago, and Jeb beckoned Rufe to get on there even as Miss Kitty halted again.

"After you, sir," he said with a dazzling smile, this despite the fact that he had a sneaking suspicion that the average clockwork magnetic-levitation train packed a lot more punch than the average bear.

He had to admire Rufe's ruthless rhetorical genius at a time like that. Perhaps he had underestimated the value of erudition or even trade-jargon.

Without a moment's hesitation, Rufe made the same gesture.

"On, no," he said. "After you, sir."

And his eyes slid shiftily down to ground level, where Hope Ng, a hand shading her eyes from the blazing sun, looked up fearfully to await the outcome of two out of three of their fates.

First impressions were lasting ones, but Rufe was no quitter. Just for a second, Jeb sort of admired the fellow.

Jeb fumbled a bit but dragged out his gun, which Rufe hadn't really thought of.

He shrugged in resignation, and Jeb tipped his head.

"I'm a slow thinker, but my hands are good when left to themselves," Jeb observed, still the epitome of Western courtesy.

Rufe only needed so much urging.

A few seconds later, Rufe's head was below the level of the platform, and Jeb swung a leg out, looking up into the white-rimmed eyes of Mister Stanley Rubric. That's what it said on the name-tag, anyway. Some sort of gas fizzed out of nozzles in the front of the thing, its front end heaving desperately under emergency breaking. He was the unfortunate engineer of the cross-country express, and surely he would have to write up an incident report, and somehow or other account for the delay, in triplicate, and his spelling and handwriting might not be so good. The biggest problem now, as far as Jeb could figure, was that the ladder stuck up a few feet, and came very close to where the bottom of the train would be in about another two seconds, and he pondered the consequences of riding a falling ladder down to ground level.

It was funny, how all of his thoughts speeded up all of a sudden.

They were cutting it awfully fine.

***

Waylon was upset at not getting to see Miss Kitty chopped in half by the speeding train, snail-like in its structure and shimmering in prismatic colours like petroleum jelly all warmed up and poured on a duck pond.

"Dang nab it!" he blurted gutturally. "Did they get the letter? We went to an awful lot of work for that thing!"

"It's all right, Waylon," chided Schmitt-Rottluff. "Everything is going according to plan."

His uncle twirled his monocle around on the end of its string, his lips making small movements that indicated concentration on something else.

Now in his turn, Chapley was gazing through the tube, watching the companions. Miss Kitty was three steps from the bottom when the front of the train, crawling along under full reverse mode, that was where methane from the Big Establishment's hogs was burnt to produce a lot of thrust in a very short time, struck the top of the ladder, sending it over with anti-climatic finality.

Rufe jumped off, narrowly missing Miss Kitty's head, and Mr. Snead rode the thing down. Perhaps luckily for him, the top caught on something and he spilled off into some low-growing bushes. The ladder crashed to the ground, missing all of them by a hair's breadth. Chapley thought he was all right, until a creature that looked suspiciously like a porcupine dashed out right from under Snead and barreled for the dark shadows under the monorail.

"Ooh," he noted with glee.

It wasn't a total waste of effort after all.

As he zoomed out for an overall view, something odd off in the far distance caught his eye.

"Who in the heck is that?" he muttered.

His uncle shrugged, but then coming back to the present, reached up and threw a lever, cast bronze with Art Nouveau design elements, and steam hissed out from somewhere, and then the big glass tube suspended by a mechanical contraption from the far distant ceiling slowly but surely began to fizz, and crackle, and pop, and then began to glow dimly. It lowered down into position.

Shapes and swirls subsided, and a picture appeared so they all could watch.

***

The four horsemen rode up to a solitary figure leading a heavily-laden donkey, a smallish man in a serape and a sombrero, so intent upon his lonely vigil over the animal that he barely looked up at their arrival.

A heavy young man got off, and the walking man halted and his head tipped up. It looked like words were exchanged, with the fellow gesticulating wildly, as the others pointed their guns at him...

Chapley watched in silent shock.

They strung him up from the nearest yardarm. Plain and simple, they lynched some poor sucker with a pack mule and not much else going for him! The county road and the telegraph poles were side by side. That was bad luck as far as he could see, considering the flatness and total emptiness of that particular stretch of desert. Otherwise, he didn't see how they could have done it at all.

"Huh!" said Chapley. "Who were those hombres? And who was that hombre?"

"I suppose we'll never know," he added thoughtfully after a minute.

"It takes all kinds to make a world," shrugged his uncle. "But it's no concern of ours. We have much work to do."

***

Incoherent shouting came from the cabin, where the engineer hung out of the window, livid with anger.

"There you go," said Rufe, pulling the last of a dozen quills from Jeb's buttocks.

"Argh," said Jeb, who was just dying to pull up his pants but reluctant to begin the process.

"Well, I guess I ought to thank you gentlemen," began Miss Kitty, eyes all lit up, having finally recognized Jeb Snead.

Of all the people she could have run into while tied up over a monorail track!

Jeb was good people and she suddenly realized that she had missed him so. She'd always had a sneaking affection for the divinely attractive but depressingly gentlemanly Jeb.

Hope, standing well back from the wreckage of their descent, flipped off the engine-driver as the sound of clockwork and cats howling rose to a crescendo, steam burst out of the stack at the top of the spiraling, convoluted snail-shell surrounding the gearbox, a useless effect as everyone knew, and the infernal thing began to chug up to its breakneck pace of eleven miles an hour again.

"I'm sorry about your rump, Jeb," said Miss Kitty. "But I really do thank you, with all of my heart."

"Argh, I mean thank you," said Snead. "There was a note or something—didn't anybody see it?"

He gave a significant look to Hope, and then a grimace in the direction of Rufe Golan.

"Oh, yes, there was a note!" nodded Miss Kitty, looking around on the ground for it.

Hope Ng shrugged hopelessly.

"Argh," said Snead, but there was nothing other to do but fasten his belt, unwelcome at it was.

He walked around in little figure eights as it was better than waiting.

Miss Kitty pointed at something white on the ground beside a nearby shrub and Rufe moseyed on over to retrieve it.

Jeb couldn't think of anything else but the pain in his buttocks right now, but even as he thought so, Hope was pointing dramatically off into the shimmering haze on the far side of the track.

"Uh, oh," she said. "That almost has to be trouble—and it's headed our way."

She was referring to an approaching cloud of dust on the horizon.

***

Jeb's jaw dropped a little when the four horsemen rode up at a fast gallop, the mounts covered in thin white foam, and their sides showing bloody red evidence of the spurs. He recognized them instantly.

"What did you do?" he barked as they reined up in a flurry.

Barely two hundred yards back, an even bigger angry yellow cloud resolved itself into a mass of The New Reformed Apaches, colourfully attired, wearing shirts in a rainbow array of cheerful spring calicos, clearly casual wear from the Hudson's Bay catalogue, and the only place to order and receive such merchandise was the United States Post Office. Indians always wanted the best of both worlds, Jeb thought. Some of them had breech-clouts and long-sleeved shirts. Hard to believe, but true. God, one or two even had the nuts to wear grey wool work socks in open-toe sandals. The wave of smell pushing out in front of them, composed apparently of cheap body-wash and even cheaper aftershave, was almost enough to knock a person over...the smell of mangoes was overpowering, what shampoo were they using?

The six white men present dismounted and flung themselves flat on the ground, drawing weapons and taking a bead at individual targets...

Miss Kitty turned her horse and moved back a few yards, then turned to watch the outcome.

Hope had a better idea. Reversing the horse so that her back was to the wall of approaching warriors, all brandishing bows, spears and high-quality bolt-action sporting weapons with telescopic sights, she stood up in the saddle and dropped her skirt.

The sound of them yipping and yelling was horrendous, as she calmly pointed at the tattoo on the back of her right hip.

The Injuns reined up abruptly, and where previously there had been an unholy roar of furious intention, bloodthirsty insults and carefully-worded epithets of one sort or another, there was now only silence interspersed with a little discontented muttering. Quite frankly, they seemed a little disoriented.

One of the chiefs also raised himself in the saddle, looking behind and uttering authoritative commands.

The malcontents were silenced, and then he turned back and spoke. Hope didn't get the lingo, but the relieved grunts from Jeb, and deep sighs of relief from some of the others were reassuring.

"What's he saying?" hissed Miss Kitty.

"He's apologizing, he says he didn't know these men were our friends," translated Rufe. "We're welcome to hang anyone else we like, incidentally."

With a shrug he acknowledged that the others found this impressive to say the least.

"You're quite the cunning linguist, Mister Golan," said Miss Kitty, and Jeb sniggered like a schoolboy.

Wheeling their horses, the natives slapped their heels and casually sauntered off again as if another terrible massacre hadn't just been averted.

"You-all can sit down now, Honey," allowed Miss Kitty.

"And we thank you for that, young lady," said the older man, the leader of the posse.

The younger ones, unable to tear their eyes from her svelte lower middle back, remained silent although the sounds of heavy breathing could be made out as she hurriedly re-dressed her posterior.

Chapter Nine

Silence in the Chamber

There was naught but silence in the chamber as the film-strip, stained and crackled, complete with a bogus effect of black vertical lines simulating age, slowly reeled past the high-intensity light. This was a candle burning inside a hollow tube going up the middle of a globe filled with water. While not optically perfect, it was enough to throw lights and darks upon the white panel Dr. Schmitt-Rottluff had designed for the purpose of 'film projection,' as he pedantically dubbed it.

It was enough to see the lone figure, standing over the manger where a wee 'taur baby slept, totally oblivious to the world around it as sleeping babies do. The camera, with its uneven speed due to the unpredictability of hamsters running at speed in a cage to power it, zoomed in close in fits and starts. The baby looked like a little 'taurian angel, with its middle finger right up by the corner of the mouth where it had been sucking on it when sleep came.

Chapley smiled at the universal meaning of that finger, but it was cute as all hell. It really was.

There was sound, intermittent and reedy to be sure, but everyone jumped when the 'taur sobbed. The sounds of footsteps, and the odd scraping of the feet, were loud in the room, and when the creature turned and closed the door, the latch clicked very clearly, up close and personal after one last longing look...

The 'taur went out into the kitchen as they stared in semi-fascination, or perhaps with a little hint of boredom on the part of Chapley, and then the 'taur opened a cupboard above the sink and took out a pill bottle. The 'taur opened the fridge, and took out a frosted square bottle of London dry gin, and poured a generous slug into a tumbler. The pill bottle was opened, and the 'taur poured out a handful into the palm of the hand...then he, she, or it, popped them into the mouth, and took a big slug of the liquor.

There was a curse and then silence again.

Again, the glass was filled.

The 'taur took the tall drink out into the living room. Over by the far wall, a steam and clockwork radio set, the ultimate in suburban sophistication, muttered away with the sounds of Jai-alai Night In Canada on the CBC. Actually, no one alive knew how a radio worked, they just put that stuff inside for reassurance to show that it wasn't magic or faith involved. Radio was one of the great mysteries of life.

The 'taur thumped heavily into a chair, the one beside a small table set off to one side. It was a sewing table or a place to work on household accounts.

There was a crossbow there. It was loaded with a stout quarrel, one with wide, sharp blades flaring out from the arrowhead. The 'taur drained the glass, already getting groggy by the way the head wobbled from side to side. It was a well-known folk saying that 'taurs couldn't hold their water, let alone their liquor, and it appeared to be true. Also, some sedatives took effect rather quickly. The alcohol helped it to dissolve.

The camera cut away suddenly, to reveal the name on the mailbox outside, by the end of the driveway.

"Ah!"

Waylon gave a sharp nod of recognition, but made no other comment. The three of them sat enthralled by the spectacle. Only his uncle knew what was coming, but Chapley figured there had to be some terrible purpose to this. His uncle hated wasted time above all else, especially with his own imminent demise looming.

The camera came back to the scene again, this time with several gaping lacunae evident in the pseudo-film, and now the 'taur had the crossbow in its hands.

The creature stood up and moved to the centre of the room. Putting the sharp end of the arrow in its mouth, awkwardly trying to hold the thing straight out in the proper position, there was a long pause. The 'taur's eyes went back to the letter on the table.

It hesitated only a moment, deciding there was nothing more to be said or written, and pulled the trigger in finality.

There was a 'ka-chunk' sound, and the hum of the string was clearly rendered on the sound-track. There was some recoil, both of the weapon and the 'taur's head. A long red spike protruded from the back of the 'taurs fairly human-looking skull, as the weapon dropped to the ground from vibrating hands.

The sound was horrendous, the momentary squawk soft and wet. That one would stay with him for a while.

The 'taur stood there quivering for what seemed like an eternity, and Chapley wondered for a second just what it would be like to survive such an attempt! It would be danged painful, for one thing, and rather embarrassing for another.

So quiet, he thought.

The unfortunate parent stumbled back and forth in place, leaned towards the camera, and then accelerated still further, with the bloody head, and the gory bolt, looming large and threatening as it went past the faux camera lens. Chapley felt an involuntary compulsion to step back.

The sound of the body hitting the floor was somehow subdued.

The screen flickered white, and the doctor shut off the system.

"Well," he said.

"Thank you for sharing that with us, doctor," said Waylon.

"Why?" asked Chapley.

"She couldn't deal with the cultural and social consequences of miscegenation between species," explained his uncle. "I should have known, of course, or at least predicted it."

"Well, all right, and thank you once again," said Waylon. "That's good to know."

He was itching to be off.

"I've kept that letter for you," said Dr. Schmitt-Rottluff.

"Um, um...thank you," offered Waylon after some thoughts.

Chapley suddenly recalled that it was Jai-alai Night In Canada on the CBC.

Waylon wouldn't want to miss that for anything. He stalked from the room nonchalantly.

"Is he like my cousin, or something?" marveled Chapley.

"Something like that," murmured his uncle with a faraway look in his eyes.

"Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff," began Chapley in a formal tone. "What's miscegenation?"

His uncle was taken aback by the question.

"Ooh, I can see it's time we had the talk," he muttered. "Of course, I should have foreseen this. As a surrogate parent I have been somewhat remiss! Come over here and sit down...er, my boy."

Their footsteps rang hollow in the stillness, although a murmur of voices would occasionally be heard from below. These old buildings were thrown up in a week and often burned down a week later. There was always the smell of French fries in the air, that smell came from a shop three doors down.

"Miscegenation is when people of the opposite sex but different sentient species get up to a little bit of the old hanky-panky, Chapley."

There was a long pause while Chapley digested this.

"What if it was two members of the same sex but still, um, different species?" he asked in all innocence.

"Oh! Well, ah, that would be just plain weird, Chapley," his uncle said reassuringly.

The doctor picked up the bell and rang for chocolate. He rarely finished a cup, and Chapley didn't remark upon it anymore.

The pair settled into a pair of hefty armchairs, the doctor's face in particular shadowed by the wings and the angle of the light. Once or twice Chapley had wondered why he never did anything about it. Some nice lamps, a rug or two in here and the place would be a lot more homey.

"Waylon's mother and I had a thing," he began, reaching over and patting Chapley's knee, his face all screwed up in remembrance. "She was an angel, really lovely. We were both very young of course, and quite frankly she was also the tallest of her kind."

"Um, yes," agreed Chapley. "I sort of get all that...she was a girl, then?"

"Ah. Yes, something like that," nodded his uncle. "When young people fall in love, the world presents all sorts of barriers and obstacles, but they rarely let that sort of thing stand in their way."

"So Waylon came from an egg?" asked Chapley.

"Yes," agreed his uncle in an avuncular fashion, beaming in pleasure at the aptitude of the pupil. "He came from a fertilized egg. He was one of many, in fact. He has quite a number of siblings."

"So where did I come from?" asked Chapley, which the doctor was sort of expecting.

"You came from an egg from your mommy's innards, which your daddy fertilized, and then a little baby came out of your mommy's tummy nine months later...and that was you," said his uncle, with a dimpled grin and a couple of gentle pokes in the ribs for Chapley. "Right about here. That was twenty-eight years ago next month, as I recall."

His uncle sat there smiling at him, enjoying this rare moment of male bonding between blood kin of the male human sub-species, albeit with minor variations from genetic drift plus a soupcon of experimental elan.

"So, my father, your brother...he was black, right?" asked Chapley in all sincerity. "I thought I came from a tube."

Schmitt-Rottluff inclined his head and nodded vigourously.

"Oh, yes, Chapley," he chortled. "Yes! And your father was as black as the Ace of Spades."

"And what about my mother?" asked Chapley.

"Oh, she's a very nice lady," his uncle informed him, as Chapley's eyes went back and forth and from side to side as he took it all in.

Bur the doctor's not black, he was thinking...

"How long have you been thinking about all of this?" asked his uncle.

There was a short silence, which meant Chapley was literally trying to reproduce exactly the sequence of events leading up to this moment.

"Approximately?" prodded Schmitt-Rottluff.

"Oh, I don't know," said Chapley. "A while, I guess."

***

The sign bolted up high on the ruddy red brick wall had the proper name on it.

'Club Vaquero.'

Below that, there was a sign, consisting of a white-gloved hand pointing an index finger toward the alley at left, embodying a hand-painted white script that advised, 'Enter at rear.'

"Is this a gay bar?" asked a plaintive Hope Ng.

Rufe shrugged and Jeb's jaw dropped apprehensively. He stepped back and took another quick look at the sign on the street. It was black, with pictures of beer mugs, chicken wings and assorted come-ons, plus a larger size of the ubiquitous white text.

It was awful hard to tell, one way or another. He didn't know much about gay bars, so whatever arcane symbolism the various elements might have had escaped him.

"Well, you have to admit, it's a good cover," said Miss Kitty seriously. "I'm surprised that I've never heard of it otherwise, as I try to keep up with the competition. It might be a new place though, they spring up pretty regular around here."

Hope felt a sick kind of despair. She was tiring of Rufe's lecherous fascination with podiatry and that Jeb Snead, unbelievably hunky as he was, over time had impressed her as perfectly asexual—it's like the thought never even crossed his mind. By this time, she wanted so very badly to escape the men, but a gay bar was hardly a good prospect. Sooner or later, she was duty-bound to look up her mangy old grand-dad, but if truth be told—and it is—she wasn't much looking forward to it, now that she had thought about it and was actually on the spot.

What if she arrived shortly after lunch—but had an appointment later, and then she could tell her grandfather she had run into friends. They might have invited her to stay with them...right? As she recalled, her grandfather didn't smell too good, and that was years ago.

"Well, that's where that lady said he hangs out," muttered Rufe.

Some lady had told them upon street-corner questioning that the evil Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff lived around here, and there was the sign...

The letter from the doctor had been signed, but there was no address except, 'San Francisco.'

According to their sources, he lived over the club. Other than the fact that he was an evil genius and dominated the world, the neighbours didn't know much about him. He was polite, paid his taxes, cut the lawn once in a while, and kept to himself. He was quiet, and surprisingly well-liked.

Jeb and Rufe drew their guns.

"You ladies wait here," began Jeb, but Miss Kitty had other ideas.

"I need a drink," she said. "And don't think I can't handle these guys, because I can."

Whipping out a stout cosh from somewhere unknown on her person, she stood there with a gleam in her ovoid eyes, tapping the thing confidently in her other hand.

Jeb and Rufe looked at each other and shrugged in resignation, Jeb giving a quick dismissive flick of the head.

"She's not bad with it, actually," he advised Rufe, who nodded acceptance. "I've seen her in action."

"Well. I'm not standing out here all day," advised Hope. "I've seen both of you in action. Huh. Big deal."

She drew her Mauser from the capacious shoulder-bag, one of the few items salvaged from the massacre.

"Let's do this. I sure wouldn't want Mister Snead to kick in any doors without a backup," she said in an admittedly snarky manner.

She didn't look too lady-like at that exact moment, checking the clip and the safety.

Rufe grinned at Jeb and slapped him on the shoulder.

"That's my girl! And I've seen her in action...she's not bad with it, actually."

"Argh," said Hope.

Without another word to waste, Rufe Golan set off up the alley in his notably tiger-like fashion, his boots making hardly a scrape. It might have had something to do with the life wasted in sneaking up on working mothers, wet-nurses, laundresses, and damsels in distress, trying to get a look at their feet. Jeb Snead, honest as the day is long and good with his hands but not so much with his head, followed along right pronto.

He really didn't have much to lose, at this point, what with his life being ruined by all of the press coverage, and all.

***

"Welcome," came a suave and urbane greeting from a tall, skinny bald man wearing lace-up boots, narrow seersucker trousers and a black gown-like thingy, but he wasn't wearing a mortarboard or anything like that and so they didn't know what to make of it. He sat with his hands comfortably gripping the armrests of a high-end luxury wheelchair, all ash frame and dark leather seating pads.

Jeb wondered if the thing had a heated seat-cushion. Now that would be the cat's bum.

With big circles around his eyes, pallid complexion, attenuated limbs and unnaturally dark lips, it seemed as if Dr. Schmitt-Rottluff, for this could only be him, had been pulled back from the edge of the grave. And none too soon, as it seemed, for he suddenly broke up in a fitful spasm of bronchial coughing. His blue ceramic eyes bugged out as he convulsed, with blood-veined whites sticking out from under thick lids.

The flaming pale virginity of his handkerchief blossomed red, and his body was wracked some more.

"Ugh," muttered Hope.

"As, yes, the Chink whore," nodded the doctor.

His willowy male companion remained silent, which was his human right. He kept looking to the older man as if seeking reassurance.

Carefully easing himself more upright in his steam-powered wheelchair, the gentleman held up a placating hand to Jeb Snead, aiming at the ceiling and frozen in the act of pulling the trigger and waving around a rolled-up missive from Hades.

"I'm not a Chink," began Hope, but stopped abruptly at his guffaw.

"I'm Vietnamese," she insisted to a polite smile from the repulsive fellow, who just waved a limpid vertical hand like royalty on parade. "And I'm not a whore! I'm on my way to visit, well, live with more like, my dear old grand-dad."

'Your secrets are safe with me,' his manner seemed to imply as he rolled his eyes in no uncertain terms.

Jeb looked around at his companions, and then somehow pulled the trigger accidentally, judging by his sudden flinch.

"Oops," he said. "Sorry."

Nodding, Dr. Schmitt-Rottluff coughed some more, this time more gently, with the ghastly sounds of a man drowning in his own fluids.

"Let's try this again," said Rufe.

"What," demanded Snead. "What, oh, what, is the meaning of this?"

And he pulled the trigger again, this time with more grace and aplomb, and not hardly flinching melodramatically at all. Of all the crazy things! He handed the letter over for no real reason other than the fact that he had no idea of what to do with the thing now that they were there. Hope groaned inwardly. This looked like being a long day.

Footsteps sounded loud in the corridor, a lot of them, and suddenly a gang of unknown proportions was shouting outside and pounding on the stout oaken door, which Rufe had thoughtfully locked, barred and bolted, as well as pushing a couch over in front of it.

In spite of these precautions, another door twenty feet away and on a side wall burst open, and then they were in anyway.

No matter, Rufe had them covered with both of his larger side-arms, Colt .44's with pearl handles and the initials 'R.G.' carved in the butts. Hope was slightly startled to see there were several notches on the barrels. It was the mark of a tin-horn reputedly, at least in the eyes of many western pundits, but oddly impressive in spite of all that. The gang of minions and willing dupes came sliding to a stop with decisive suddenness. The two groups stared at each other with equal horror. From one perspective, security had just been breached, and it was their job. From the other perspective, these guys were just plain ugly. There was not an honest face among them. Dr. Schmitt-Rottluff waved a languid hand, and they spread out in a semi-circle, settled in for a wait, shrugging their bare shoulders and looking at each other in a reassuring quorum-building process. In her estimation, it would take them a while either way, although with that crew there was no telling which way it would go.

The evil one handed the letter back to Jeb.

"You are literate, aren't you Mister Snead?" Hope surprised herself with that one.

She never knew she could be so cool, icy even, under severe social pressures, the source of so many conflicts.

Jeb flushed beet red, staring deeply into her disappointed and slightly-jaded eyes for a long second. Holding it up in front of him, catching the light on the waxen-looking parchment, Jeb Snead read off from somewhere about in the middle of it, as she recalled, and he had a good voice. It was commanding, confident, and in a nice timbre, one that caused little butterflies to walk around on her labia. Dang; this power he had over her, and for no good reason that she could see. She could see no hope in sight, at least not for today.

"The body is a temple in which I worship the god stomach," snarled Snead, darting glances at Hope as he went. "It is appeased only by offerings of wine, incense, and well-burnt meat....is this some kind of manifesto, what, like a filibuster? No one gets whatever allegorical meaning you have contrived at. It's a puerile rant! Who in the heck are you? Why risk Miss Kitty's life, and why put us to all this trouble, to make us come all this way, when you are clearly suffering something. I don't know what, and I'm not referring to the freaking lung ailment either."

The evil doctor looked a little more serious after this outburst, nodding with heavily-lidded eyes and attempting to placate the gentleman with his courteous attention. He sat with his hands politely clasped in his lap, the epitome of calm. He seemed oddly happy to see them, and that wasn't what they were expecting. Maybe they should have just knocked, instead of coming up the stairs quietly and letting themselves in, which was bound to be some sort of illegal offence...

"That's quite a little speech for you, Jeb," muttered Hope.

"What," demanded Snead in the most obnoxious of tones. "What, in the blasted heck do you want?"

"Ah, yes. I was hoping someone would get around to asking that question," began Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff. "Boys and girls, gather around, please? Chop-chop, people!"

Schmitt-Rottluff waved his gaggle of hench-beings to take seats in a set of high-school gym bleachers set up on the long side of the ominously clean room opposite the loft-style windows.

Schmitt-Rottluff looked at Chapley.

"This guy reminds me of my Uncle Ed, nice enough guy and everything, he was the sort of guy who wouldn't say poop if he had a mouthful," he cracked, and Chapley and Waylon, who gave a quick and gruesome translation to the others, tittered and sniggered through their noses like a bunch of sneaks caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

Chapter Ten

"God, I admire you."

"God, I admire you," sneered Rufe Golan, realizing the pistols were useless with this many potential assailants, so he stowed them away now. "If you wanted to offer Mister Snead a job, why in the bloody blue Hades didn't you simply write the man a letter?"

"It's cheaper this way," said Schmitt-Rottluff with a diminutive shrug and a piquant frown. "Also, I wanted to test his abilities. Thanks to me, he has also had time to hone them—you're undefeated, Mister Snead, in a hundred and thirty-eight bare-knuckle fights. That is remarkable. Do you even keep track?"

"Whoa," said Snead, but otherwise content to let the tall Texan from just south of the Pecos do much of the palavering.

"That's outrageous!" goggled Miss Kitty. "Think of his accommodation and, and, meals! Think of all the oats and hay him and Rooster burned getting out here. The nerve of some people's kids. Think of all them porcupine quills in his butt!"

"What do you mean, keep track?" mumbled Snead.

That wasn't such a bad idea, although it might scare off potential opponents. He'd have to think on that one.

Even Hope was shocked, this in spite of her increasingly dispassionate view of Jeb. It's not like the poor guy hadn't had it rough, in some ways. The choice was unskilled labour or rustling, or whatever else a man could get. Or even a single and unskilled young woman with no education and a bit of a bad reputation, for that matter.

"Mister Snead," said the doctor. "You seem to have made a good friend. He's willing to take risks for you, and I admire that in a side-kick. Normally I don't tolerate insults. What if I made the journey worth your while? You're under no obligation. Just hear me out. Please?"

Rufe looked at Jeb, and then he shrugged his shoulders, as if to say, 'You're on your own, buddy.'

"Please?" asked the doctor again. "I so very rarely use that word. It is a measure of my need, perhaps even of my desperation."

He reached into an inner coat pocket and pulled out a buff envelope with the flap unsealed and showing a stack of fifties a good half inch thick...

Jeb held the evil envelope as if it was a rattlesnake, like it might turn around and bite him.

"What sort of a name is Golan, anyway?" wheezed the doctor in genial fashion, just trying to keep the conversation going and filling up dead time while Snead goggled at the money.

"It's Dutch," said Rufe. "My mother was half Pauite."

"Ah," said Schmitt-Rottluff.

Chapley and Waylon now flanked Schmitt-Rottluff, one on each side of his chair, trying to look confident and relaxed, although Chapley was making a hard go of it. That Snead looked like a mean customer if you crossed him and none too bright either. Who knows what might set him off? He tried to focus just slightly over to the side of the bruiser's head and breathe in a relaxing rhythm. He was tempted to break into 'El Comparsita,' humming a bar or two, but then realized it was maybe a little too much.

Jeb stood silent, simply unable to comprehend his good fortune. He seemed unable to get in touch with his true feelings, or more probably he was struggling with the contradiction. The money would make up for a lot, but he badly wanted to beat the bejeebers of him. All of them, really.

Rufe looked over.

"Name your price," he advised. "But there are other matters. What if Miss Kitty had been killed or injured? Even though you claim that was never your intention? Arguably? Is that what I'm getting here?"

"Good for you, Mister Golan! Name your price," beamed the evil Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff, who turned and spoke directly into the feline's glistening opalescent orbs. "Arguably."

Miss Kitty was taking her time with the offer.

Hope had the impression she was trying to come up with a reason to get more than Jeb...

"What the heck's this?" gasped Jeb, as he noticed that something sticky was stuck on the sole of his boot.

Reaching down and lifting the foot, he peeled off a smelly plastic fast-food ketchup wrap.

"You don't seem so sick all of a sudden," he said accusingly.

"I don't know, Jeb. What he says, ah, does make a weird kind of sense—and you are unemployed, after all."

Rufe was aware that Jeb didn't see bare-fisted bar matches as much of a prospect in terms of a long-term plan or career. A couple years at most, maybe, and he was more interested in either raising mushrooms or some kind of bait supply operation. Along the trail, they'd had some quite good talks, which was one of the true compensations of Western life.

Without a whole lot of background information to go on, Rufe was trying to be objective on behalf of his less sophisticated compadre. His friend's higher cognitive powers might have become a little addled, what with all of them short, sharp blows to the head, not just over the years, but also on the way out here. Now that he thought about it, from time to time poor old Jeb seemed to suffer from some concussion-like symptoms.

"So you had to have me in particular," accused Miss Kitty. "Otherwise it might not work. You knew Jeb would come for me!"

Dr. Schmitt-Rottluff's eyes were on the floor, this despite an unrepentant smirk upon his lips.

Hope felt a douche of ice-water right in the uterus as the vile import of these few key words struck home.

The bastard! Why hadn't he said something about this other woman? And here was stupid Hope all itching for him to take some notice of her, and right about then the doctor's eyes came up and met hers in hidden understanding, ending her private thoughts in mid-stride.

As for the doctor, there was a right bastard of another sort.

***

"No doubt you are wondering what all this is about," began the doctor again.

"Yes!" pretty much all four of them blurted in unison and impatience.

The murmuring audience looked around at each other and nodded in agreement. A sharp look from Chapley stilled them.

"I would like to employ Mister Snead, and you too, Mister Golan, if you are agreeable. My nephew is taking a trip—"

Here Chapley seemed surprised, and Waylon with him, eyeballing the doctor and each other with confusion.

"Ahem," said the doctor. "And we need proper security, a kind of bodyguard detail."

The room grew very silent now. The doctor heaved himself out of the chair with sincerity and began to pace confidently about the room, all eyes upon him. His voice rang out, strong and clear.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it has been clear to me for some time that I am no longer a young man and that in fact I am ailing. Like many an old man facing the truth of his own mortality, I have been doing some thinking. Have you ever noticed anything strange about me?"

At this poor Chapley gave a short, sharp hoot, but ceased abruptly. Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff waved a hand and grinned at his nephew in indulgence.

"You know me a little too well," he joked.

No one else had anything to say.

"Have you ever noticed anything strange, or odd, about the world around you?"

Friend and foes alike, they pretty much all exchanged glances of puzzlement, and on some of the more 'taurian visages, something akin to despair.

"Um...it's weird?" ventured Hope Ng.

"That's right, young lady!" he said with a light opening up somehow in his face. "It's weird. And do you know why it's weird? Because it's only half-finished, that's why. Somehow, I could never, ever really finish anything I started. It's like I would get so far and then just stop. I don't know why. Something else just came along, I guess. When I was a little younger, it didn't seem to matter so much—I thought I could just come back and finish it later. At some point, I saw, I realized what was happening. But I couldn't stop it if I wanted to. And now it's too late, of course."

The doctor broke into yet another of his spasms of coughing, with Jeb for one watching intently for evidence of any sleight-of-hand with the ketchup packets, but it seemed genuine enough. He might be kind of a dummy, but now his suspicions were in a state of arousal. He would try and keep up.

"So what do you want us to do?" asked Rufe, because he didn't know and wanted to find out.

"I want you to shut it off, Mister Golan," came the simple answer, sounding surprisingly candid in spite of who they were dealing with. "Mister Snead. My power will die with me, and my nephew and people like Waylon and yourselves can grow up in a better world. I simply can't think of a better legacy for a bitter old man with way too much money. Think of it as a kind of atonement for my failures...which have been several over the years."

The doctor gestured to Chapley and Waylon.

"Drinks all around?" he suggested to a covey of people who were highly-suspicious of him and yet potential employees.

On behalf of the rest of them, Rufe spoke up.

"Sure, why not?" he said.

***

"Shut what off?" asked Jeb, setting a little easier now that he had a stiff shot of some thin fluid with just a hint of amber colour to it.

He took a cautious sip. It wasn't whiskey, it wasn't rum. It wasn't gin or vodka. Sure as tarnation wasn't much but pure grain alcohol, possibly even hay alcohol.

"That's not bad," he managed after a time.

The doctor looked at Chapley and made a significant gesture. Chapley rose and went to the wall where he pulled out a drawer on a deeply-polished Chinese cabinet, all gnarly walnut and banana wood, finished with ormolu work and Classical Greek Rococo décor.

"Oh, that reminds me, Waylon. We should have some music," suggested Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff.

Waylon went over and labouriously began running in place on a wide roller-belt in order to kick-start the record-player. For reasons unknown to Chapley, his uncle had forgone his usual steam-power for a more elegant kinetic solution, although once energy was stored in the system, it was still governed by little balls flung out as counterweights, allowing a highly-polished cat-gut and graphite clutch to slip so as to maintain a constant speed of rotation, putting power through a set of smooth-running constant-velocity joints, which ultimately drove the gleaming brass mechanism, and elegantly enough, the whole thing riding on seven of the finest of neo-Swiss ruby jewels.

"Vivaldi," said the doctor. "That 'Summer' thing."

He pursed his lips as a look of beatitude came over the homely visage. The music swelled up and his eyes popped open. Schmitt-Rottluff had a very wide face, thought Hope.

"Down, just a little bit," he pantomimed to Waylon.

"That's better," he said when he could hear himself think.

Waylon fiddled with it.

Chapley rummaged around in the cupboard, cussing softly and heartlessly pushing loose items to and fro inside.

"Dang!" he exulted. "Gotcha."

He pulled out a deep black box and brought it over. Setting it on the coffee table between the empty wheelchair and the seated guests, he unsnapped the latches and lifted the lid. Then he spun the box around so Mister Snead and the others could have a look.

With his hands behind his back, the doctor gazed out the windows for a moment, and then came back to the table, standing there while Chapley enjoyed the wheelchair for a moment or two.

Nestled inside that big old box, lying in state on a soft, white velvet swag, was a big, clear green glass egg, cut with a thousand facets and glowing with some inner fire of its own.

"Uh, oh," said Rufe. "This looks like big trouble."

"What is it?" asked Jeb, with eyes as big as saucers, and a solemn look on his face.

He still had the envelope in his hands, almost forgotten now.

"You're the only man I can trust, Jeb," said the doctor in sadness, watching the man's face intently. "This is a little too big of a job for my nephew, and Waylon, and they can't really be trusted with anything anyway. You're honest as the day is long and tougher than whale-poop."

"That's true," chuckled Chapley, slapping his thigh.

This was a big job!

"All right, so what's the big deal?" asked the ever-cynical Rufe Golan.

Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff started at the beginning and patiently explained what he wanted.

***

"Let me see if I have this right," recounted Jeb Snead. "We take this, uh, egg, or orb, or whatever up to this place. Then we sneak past the alien guards, who you say work for you, only it's been so long since you've been around there, they may not remember. They haven't been paid in some time. They might have even gone feral by now. Well, that seems fair enough! Oh, yeah. Open up the cabinet, pop in the 'ethereal key,' in your words, and then push the big red button, therefore shutting down the generator. It's like terra-forming, only it's designed for aliens, and that's why it doesn't work so well here on Earth. Possession of the orb is what gives you all those weird powers. Powers which you say another shall never have. Well, that seems simple enough."

"I'd say you have it," agreed the doctor.

"And all the weird effects you say this 'effects generator' creates, by some elusive force, will all go away? And then everything can get back to normal around here?" asked Rufe. "And then what?"

"Yep! Then you come back here, you ah, you redeem your hostages, and my precious nephew attests to a job well done. You get paid, it's quite a nice pile, incidentally, and then we all get to live happily ever after, in some brave new world of the future. We will be frozen in time, at about 1958 by my calculations. We will all be Canadians—surely the most peaceful and inoffensive race of all—and in fact the whole globe will be one big Canada. Mind you, I will be dying, um, fairly soon I should think."

"What do you think, gentlemen?" asked Chapley to an approving nod from his uncle. "It sure doesn't sound too hard to me!"

"Hostages?" Jeb's voice and face were hardening, his posture rigid.

"Well, it's only going to take you a day or so," explained the doctor in an attempt at openness. "The ladies can stay and keep me company, just for a day or so, or until you get back. I will be providing you with the latest in high-tech transportation, by the way."

Jeb was thinking of the snail-like monorail trains crisscrossing the planet, thinking that he and Rooster might just pass on this job offer. Take what money he had and just go. There was more to it, of course. Starting a business was tough. A little grub-stake was one thing, an angel investor with a ton of cash was quite another. Then there were the headaches—and the blurred vision that occasionally hit him...

"Keep talking," he said. "By the way, how much do you know about red wigglers? It's the finest bait an angler can buy. The wind-up Cadillac of worms, some people say."

"You're an entrepreneur. That was one of the things that stood out about you, as opposed to some of the other candidates," nodded Schmitt-Rottluff. "You're a no-nonsense, practical hombre. I like that in a man. I don't know if you've ever seen me around, but my latest airship is a real cupcake. I mean, she's sweet. Handles like a dream and goes like stink—I'm using the latest methane-powered jet thrust, although the duration of that system is limited. What you'll be doing, with Chapley's help, is to drift on the wind and then use power to break off to your destination. It's a simple job for a man of your caliber—I mean, really."

Rufe had more doubts than ever as he watched Jeb wrestle with it. Unfortunately, the decision wasn't his to make, being more of the kind of fellow who just drifted through life, letting the current take him where it may. While he sort of recognized the perils in this, there wasn't much that he thought he could do about it. What he needed was some kind of character-building experience. That's what he'd been thinking lately. This might just be it!

"I don't know about no airship," said Jeb Snead. "Besides, I don't think Rooster would stand for it. Checkers neither, in fact no horse, I'll bet."

He said this with a quizzical look at Rufe, who for reasons unknown suddenly wasn't being much help. The decision was Jeb's.

"I have a solution," announced Chapley. "Uncle, why don't we just give them some more money—maybe even a lot more?"

"There's hope for you yet," grunted his uncle, waving one of the 'taurian lackeys over. "Get the combination to the safe. It's in the top drawer in my desk, a little slip of paper. And tell Sergei to start whomping up a big mess of vittles. These people must be getting hungry. Am I right?"

Chapter Eleven

Jeb Took Some Convincing

Jeb took some convincing, although the spread the doctor put on was a real hum-dinger.

It was Rufe who kept pestering the doctor with obscenely relevant questions which he sometimes found difficult to answer.

"What about the horses?" he asked. "We have five of them."

"Oh, yes! The horses," gasped the doctor. "Shoot! Well, that's torn it. I don't even have a yard out back—we use chamber pots around here, and a lot of free labour by beings of inferior status."

"By the way, if anyone does need to go, it's in the closet over there," said Waylon as he attentively kept on with the 'taurian translation duties.

The audience snickered and wheezed bad jokes amongst themselves for a while.

That Jeb was stubborn, noted Rufe with at least some caution of his own. Rufe could be objective, but not Jeb. Once he got a little sniff of more cash, more money to be made. As the son of a rich man, it was an attitude Rufe found hard to fathom. He'd found the poor were quite greedy under certain circumstances. It was like they thought it was their last tomorrow. The notion that they would have to get up and go to work six and a half days a week for the rest of their lives, ten or twelve hours a day, until they literally dropped dead in their tracks, was often what drove a man like Snead to seek greener pastures elsewhere. This was the engine that drove the American dream in many ways, he concluded. Everyone wanted early retirement.

"You could try a livery stable," suggested Miss Kitty. 'Quite frankly, those horses could use a rest, and maybe a mudpack-facial and pedicure, too. A little pampering never hurt anyone."

Hope wondered how much Miss Kitty would expect to be paid for all of this cooperation.

As for Jeb Snead, he could go off and do this stupid little job for the weird old doctor if he wanted.

Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff was quite charismatic in his own consumptive fashion. A man like that should have some idea of where a girl's erroneous zones were located.

***

"Uh, oh," said Chapley, peering off into the sky through a long brass telescope. "I knew this would happen!"

"Uh, oh, what?" asked Rufe.

Slumped up against the coaming of the dirigible, Jeb and Waylon snored quietly, in order to be fresh and alert when their shift came.

"Shoot! Nazi gryphons!" shouted Chapley, startling the other two awake.

He grabbed at the handle of the weapons-locker as they gasped in confusion and struggled to their feet.

"They're on us!" shouted Chapley in stark, naked fear as even now the first booming reports of Rufe's Navy Colts stung the soft and effervescent evening air with their bark and their bite.

Snead, a mite slow on the uptake, and still groggy from his nap, dragged his unfamiliar .45-caliber six-shooter out and took a look at the back of the cylinder. He fumbled with the safety-catch, but then his hands were oddly stiff and painful first thing upon awakening, a fact he had never told anyone. Although Rooster might have his suspicions, it was hard to keep anything from his old friend.

His gun boomed out at a looming form, half lion, and half harpy eagle, bearing the red, white and black emblems of the Fourth Reich in the New World, who from news-papyrus reports and other accounts were a militant splinter group of the extreme right-wing branch of the hippie movement of the late 1860's.

Rufe, stunned somewhat by the loud concussion upside of his head, took a quick glance over at his partner, catching sight of Chapley and Waylon desperately trying to put a Browning .30-caliber machine gun into a kind of socket. This was on a swivel mount that slid along a tube, his glance revealed.

The gryphon peeled off at the last minute, more out of sheer fright than anything, and the element of surprise was lost. Its grating calls reminded Rufe of the mutant grunion gasping on the beach at San Luis Obispo, a dull croaking sound with overtones of asthmatic breathing and a dull muttering. The ghastly noise receded as the gryphons circled at height, re-organizing for another attempt.

"They'll rush us all at once," yelled Chapley.

They had the gun in the mount. Now all they had to do was to figure out exactly where the ammunition belt went in, and just how it was supposed to go through the breech.

"Sorry," said Chapley. "This is my first time."

"Me too," said a sheepish Waylon, standing there with a dopey look on his face and the familiar 'taurian shrug of hopelessness.

There was a momentary glimpse, where it was possible to see where heredity did play a role, for there was just a hint of what a younger and so very much softer Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff might have been like if he had been 'taurian. It really wasn't much of an improvement, thought Rufe, not in either one of them, for surely Chapley bore some squash-headed and bug-eyed resemblance to his uncle as well.

"Mind your work!" said Jeb, searching the sky for any loners trying to take them from an unexpected direction.

He raised his gun, but Rufe grabbed his arm.

"He's too far away...and slightly to the left," he said gently. ""He's just trying to draw fire. Jeb, do you, ah, sort of have a pair of glasses tucked away somewhere in them there saddlebags, by any chance?"

Jeb gave him a sharp look, but then ignored it.

With the tip of the big dark gun raised to the sky, the four strange bedfellows waited for the next attack. It was almost lunchtime, and Nazi gryphons were known to be punctual and well-disciplined.

***

During the break, Rufe turned to Chapley.

"I've been meaning to ask you something," he shouted.

"What?" asked Chapley in no less of an Elizabethan stage voice.

"How come the gas-bags on these frickin' things are always so frickin' small?" asked Rufe.

"It gives a better field of fire," explained Chapley, perhaps unfamiliar himself, with the perverted physics of this particularly singular version of reality, and with that, Rufe would have to be content.

Rufe's jaw dropped as Chapley began to speak in a majestic tone. In spite of his total incompetence as a man of action, he seemed to be enjoying himself.

"Brothers will fight, and kill each other, sisters' children, will defile kinship. It is harsh in the world, whoredom rife, —an axe age, a sword age, —shields are riven—a wind age, a wolf age—before the world goes headlong."

There was a dramatic pause, and then it came.

"No man will have mercy on another."

Waylon patted him on the back, wiping tears from his eyes.

"The Poetic Edda, Mister Golan," noted Chapley with a flourish of his narrow shoulders.

"Here they come again," blurted Waylon lugubriously, for 'taurs were notorious for being easily demoralized in the absence of quick victory, and lately he had been imitating Tommy Chong quite a bit, a hard habit to break as people said.

Succinctly put, victory with honour anytime soon seemed unlikely in Waylon's estimation.

"A sex age," blurted Jeb and they all laughed hysterically for some reason except him.

It sure felt good, though.

Rufe peppered one right in the face, and it shrieked at a much higher pitch now, and fell

away into the hazy air below them. It spiraled down, smoke trailing from its back end, and going around and around, clutching its face, but Rufe had other problems.

'Boom! Boom!' thus came the sound of Jeb blazing away near to, and in the general direction of, some indistinct things that approached on that side.

Rufe still had three shots in the left gun and four in the right. Why he did that, he couldn't really explain, but he tried to take one shot at a time, on one side at a time. There was no time to reload or even think, and he emptied the weapons at another pair of gryphons. One of them had a rider, who leveled a seventeenth-century dueling piece at his head. Rufe thought he was going to die for sure, but right about then, an explosion went off beside his ear and he ducked away.

Chapley blew the rider right off the mount with a double-barreled elephant gun that looked to be about a four-gauge...the gryphon, telempathically confused by his rider's painful and frantic emotions, turned and bolted.

Panic spread, and the retreat of one led to a general rout, at least for the moment. Rufe for one had little doubt they would be back—maybe after lunch—and he set about re-loading his guns.

"Thanks," he told Chapley.

"Not a problem, Mister Golan," said Chapley. "The way I see it, it's all for one and one for all."

"Who said that?" asked Jeb.

"Why, I did, Mister Snead," advised Chapley. "Are you as deaf as you are blind? Mister Golan has several kills, and you didn't even seem to hit one of them."

"Huh. Just when I was starting to like you," and with that, Jeb would say no more, although the blood darkening his neck and face might have been a subtle clue as to his mood.

"It's all right, Jeb," Rufe allowed. "They're gone for the time being, and that's all that's important."

Chapley cuffed Waylon on the back of the head.

"Waylon," he sighed as the 'taur struggled with the machine-gun.

"That's a nice weapon," said Rufe, now that there was a lull in the action and he had a moment to think—and to intervene. "Do you mind? My daddy gave me one of those for Christmas when I was about six."

Stepping in at Chapley's nod of resignation, he opened up the top of the gun, cleared the breech and re-installed the ammo belt.

"Here we go," he crooned, firing off a quick burst of about twelve rounds just to make sure everything was copasetic.

"Man, oh, man. That sure does bring back some fond memories," he said. "Which reminds me. I propose that Waylon or somebody find the key to that liquor cabinet, and don't forget that those Fascist nutcases will probably be back after lunch. The very thought gives this southern boy a powerful thirst."

Chapley tipped his head over and took another look at Golan.

"You know what? That's not such a bad idea, and I do hereby and thusly concur whole-heartedly."

Waylon moved to obey, and as for Snead, he really was digging around in his saddlebags, securely fastened to the tie-down rings which were scattered strategically around the gondola.

Maybe he had a pair of spectacles in there after all, thought Rufe.

***

A black pigeon landed on the ledge of the gondola and strutted into the coop for a quick drink of water as they waited expectantly.

Shortly thereafter it came out of the door on the nearer side and flapped over to the plotting table. Coughing up a red stone and then holding it up in a moment of triumph in its beak, it carefully placed it on a set of coordinates on the map grid. Looking up, its beady little red eyes challenged them to do any better. They thought about what they had just seen, with Jeb and Rufe exchanging a long and silent look...

"Hmn," said Chapley. "It looks like we're right on schedule."

Waylon was in perfect agreement with everything anybody said, although he had no idea his opinion was redundant.

***

Hope peered awkwardly through the view-tube at the plate of glowing light inside. Upon it, according to the doctor, were projected images gathered by remote eyes and ears and fed to him here at his command centre. He claimed to be using real bat's ears, and apparently the eyes from certain species of hawks and owls.

It was a tall tale, although she was enjoying it immensely, as the doctor was quite a randy-talking old flirt in his way. It was nice to be paid some attention once in a while. The notion that wild animals were his servants, held in thrall by some indescribable process was pretty derivative, when she thought about her own girlish book collection. Alas! Now they were all burnt to a crisp.

The view was awkward because the position was awkward, balanced precariously as she was in his lap, with the wheelchair under them chugging softly in parking mode, and with his poor partially-withered legs jammed under the 'science bench,' as he pedantically explained it.

"So your friends escaped the Fascist Flyers," he assured her. "Nothing to worry about, in fact with them guys, I think it's really more of an excuse to dress up in the uniforms. Which as you have to admit, are simply divine."

He waved an attenuated hand around, letting it hang limp on the end of his wrist and rolling his head, neck and eyes, lisping convincingly, like some kind of highly-trained Thespian.

She grinned deeply into his eyes in appropriation.

"Forget about them," she said, wondering just how far the old fart would try to go.

It might be interesting to find out. The real hurdle was first base, in her objective analysis. If you couldn't see yourself kissing someone, the rest was all academic.

His hand was already on her bum. Maybe if she just closed her eyes and let it happen.

Hopefully, the old bastard wasn't all talk and no action, all show and no go.

"How long does a cat-nap actually last, anyway?" she whispered in his ear.

Miss Kitty had made her excuses, shortly after the launch of the airship bearing Jeb and Rufe and the others on their errand.

The doctor's eyebrows rose a little as he considered what his attitude should be towards that question as Hope squirmed in place at the thought of his firm resolve. It was something Jeb lacked for some reason.

"Were those vultures really going to eat me?" she asked softly, nuzzling up to his chin and lips.

"Oh, yes, young lady," he said. "Every little bit of you. Them guys wouldn't let nothing go to waste!"

She sighed at the symbolism.

"Miss, I'm afraid I haven't been entirely forthcoming with you," began the doctor in an ominously-firm, but apologetic tone.

"I thought that was just a roll of quarters in there!" she gasped in some heat. "Of all the danged luck."

Chapter Twelve

They Were Going Down

They were going down. It was only a matter of time before they hit something, anything, really. They had already lost at least half of their height, Rufe estimated, clapping Jeb on the shoulder.

"Dang! Did you shoot a hole in our envelope?" he wondered.

Looking up, his eyes sought out a hole or puncture, but the vulcanized fabric was a dark sepia coloured, like much of this old world, and with the now-wrinkled envelope billowing and swelling with the currents of gusty wind, the search was either hopeless or pointless, one or the other.

Steadily the dirigible descended.

"And now maybe your typical average steam-punk airship designer will begin to see the value of a slightly-larger gas-bag," muttered Rufe.

The tree tops, looking miserably like knitting needles, stuck up from a beaver-swamp, but that looked a lot softer than the mountainside they were heading for...

The gondola swept through the topmost branches of a growth of screw-pine, with their oddly threaded grooves running up in a dead white, bone-like spiral. Twigs and branches snapped and cracked, and then they were really in it for sure.

"Hang on! Assume crash positions!" shouted Chapley, and on that note Waylon curled up in a ball in one of the forward corners.

Jeb was considering joining him in this sensible precaution, but the sight of Chapley holding onto a stanchion and calmly watching out front for the imminent crash convinced him, insofar as that was possible to do. It might be safer to say he had no real thoughts at that exact moment in time.

As the ground rose up precipitously, they were looking at the sides of trees and then solid charcoal-grey trunks, some of them absolutely three or four feet thick. The gasbag, which might have been expected to cushion the impact, had the reverse effect, as the nose hit first and then the gondola swung forwards on its own momentum, the ropes slashing through the odd lower branch with more cracks and snaps. The impact spilled them all out sideways as the basket twisted and turned, onto what was unfortunately revealed to be a slope of about seventy degrees. A jet-thruster broke off with a loud snap and tumbled down into the underbrush with a convincing whump.

"Argh, ah!" Jeb disappeared down-slope, tumbling end over end. Waylon still hung from some ropes along the rim of the basket. Chapley's head was stuck in a marmot burrow or something, his legs kicking and his hands grasping for holds that weren't there, and poor old Rufe clung for his life to a sapling growing out from the base of a rock.

He wondered just how well-developed the roots on the thing were. A quick inventory convinced him his body parts were all still attached, and he could worry about the pain later.

"Waylon!" called Chapley, his voice muffled by a foot of gravely topsoil. "Waylon, Buddy?"

"He's still here," called Rufe weakly. "Give us a minute. Can you breathe? We'll get to you as soon as we can!"

"I can breathe, gentlemen," assured Chapley. "For how much longer, I just don't know. There is one angry marmot in here and she's like giving me the evil eye! Ah, whatever you're, ah, fixing to do, ah, please hurry."

"Perhaps if you spoke in a soothing tone of voice," suggested Waylon, who was awful reluctant to let go, now that he had seen Mister Snead's fate.

There was nary a sound to be heard from below, and now that the dust was settling a bit, that didn't seem like a very good sign.

Now carrying a much smaller load, and encouraged by a strong gust of wind from the updrafts common in these here parts, the airship shrugged and lifted perceptibly.

"It's now or never, pal," called Rufe. "That's about as close to the ground as she's going to get. You should try climbing in, and see if you can tie her off."

Waylon shook his head.

"Oh, no. Not with these hooves," he advised, and then swung his feet back and forth, as far as he could, getting ready to make the big drop for better or worse.

Sure enough, as soon as he let go, the balloon took off up the hillside with a sigh of what sounded like relief but was probably just the noise of the friction of fabric on wood, taking all of their supplies and some personal belongings with it, and then they were rid of the accursed thing.

***

"Havin' any luck, Honey?"

There was a strange, musky, sensual scent in the room and it could only be coming from one place...

Miss Kitty sat in front of the vanity mirror, combing out her long blonde hair. Their room on initial assessment had impressed the pair as being a very comfortable prison-cell. Luckily, the bed was a big double, rather than a rack bolted to the wall. Hope had one or two thoughts about sharing a bed with the vixen. Although that wasn't the right word for Miss Kitty, it would have to do.

"What are you getting at?" Hope's voice was clipped and flat. "He's a sexy old man! Besides, I thought you were having a nap."

"No, I said I was going to my room," chided Miss Kitty. "I am getting sick of listening to him. Anyway, you're doing good. Keep at 'em. Guys like that are old softies—in more ways than the merely obvious."

She picked up a small glass bottle, and spritzed it around on her neck and shoulders. Hope thought maybe a little in the crotch would help, but no.

"Yeah, tell me all about it," muttered Hope Ng, looking around and trying to decide which of several options might be the best chair.

The one farthest from her feline companion was a hard-bottomed thing in dark maple stain.

If anyone deserved the name 'whore' it was her cell-mate.

She sighed deeply in resentment at her failure to really engage the doctor's lust or even his unnatural nurturing instincts, of which he obviously had several. Who knows? It might be a problem with her acting! She reckoned she should be beautiful enough for anybody. A lot of men were obsessed with the staid virginal look, although Rufe Golan clearly had other problems. She'd never really wondered if someone's feet could have virginity or not. They probably could, she decided.

As for Snead, he seemed like a lost cause. Maybe it just wasn't that easy. That was not the impression she had gotten from reading up on the subject of romance, true romance, and not all this drooling debauchery from pretty much everyone she had met so far. Except Snead. Maybe she was too beautiful for that one—maybe that was it.

Men were intimidated by her beauty. It made them realize what smelly, hairy, and disgusting creatures they actually were, and how lucky there were to have the love of a good woman.

"It's awfully hard to be good," she observed.

"Dang it, Honey!" cussed Miss Kitty, who as Hope had learned, went by the first name of Muriel when among friends. "It's got to be hard to be good."

As Hope nodded ruefully and grinned reluctantly, Muriel stood up and took one last quick glance in the mirror.

"All right," she said, giving a much-bemused Hope a frank, open and honest look.

All women were sisters under the skin, the look seemed to imply. They had to stick together.

There lurked intelligence in those eyes, an intelligence Hope hadn't really noticed before. Up until now, her impression of blondes was that looking into their eyes revealed the back of their heads and not much more...

"Looks like I take the second shift," said Muriel with a nod. "Wish me luck."

And she exited the room with a swish of her luxuriant tail, wafting the aroma of a very expensive kerosene-based cologne that Hope quite frankly couldn't afford on her own limited budget. Off-hand, she couldn't think of a likely place to steal any either.

The sound of Muriel tap-tapping down the hall in those ridiculous shoes was a lonely sound, in spite of some mutual antipathy. That little situation could wait a while under the present circumstances. And where in the hell did she manage to carry it all? Did Muriel have a pouch in her belly or something? She stood lost in thought for a moment, and then the significance of Muriel's words sank in deeper.

Of course! Why hadn't she thought of it?

They could blind the old man with their seductive womanhood, and then maybe they could try and escape! It was brilliant.

***

"Jeb! Jeb!" called Waylon as Chapley and Rufe rooted around in the underbrush, looking for any signs of Snead.

"Here's his hat," called Chapley. "I thought the Winchester sort of followed him down."

"I don't see it," said Rufe. "Maybe it's hung up somewhere a little higher."

He shaded his eyes from the glare of the milky sky, so much harsher than its normally cool blue serenity. The hillside was a real drop, once a man got out of the woods and onto the slope. There were still plenty of trees, shrubs and bushes, and Jeb's body might be anywhere. They were lucky to have some weapons, although no water or food, no bedrolls, no axe. It was a bad business. Oblivious to their plight, jays and crows called and cackled, going about their routine in a manner that Rufe found downright irritating. Rufe was just praying the soft humus of the heavy forest above had saved Jeb. The fact that he wasn't here was almost hopeful, considering the marks from where he had obviously landed on his head, hopefully.

"I'm all right," they heard Snead's voice coming weakly from slightly further down and off to the right of where Waylon was standing.

"I'll be up in a minute," Jeb added as a joyful Waylon, crashing down the talus slope and tearing at bushes to slow his descent, almost tripped over him.

Jeb was squatting in the short brush, looking distinctly embarrassed. He also had a few abrasions and contusions, judging by the blood trickling down his forehead. Waylon turned and waved at his compatriots.

"It's okay," he called in cheerful tones, his mood undeterred by the minor injuries, cuts and scrapes that he had sustained in a somewhat better-planned and therefore shorter tumble. "He's just taking a dump."

That danged black bird showed up about then, roosting on a barren leafless branch, and eyeballing first Waylon and then Chapley. It seemed to make up what passed for a mind inside of its nagging, ball-like little head. It sure looked smart, at least in Waylon's opinion. He wondered what the critter thought about all of this.

"Coo, coo," it said, and then dropped a smooth round pebble just in front of the pointed toes of Chapley's red alligator-skin boots.

"Well, well, well," he marveled. "I think he's trying to tell us something!"

"Maybe he thinks you're his mother," suggested Waylon. "It's like bringing home a bouquet of dandy-lions."

"Oh, Lordy," guffawed Chapley. "Knowing my uncle, I probably am!"

There was a big loud farting sound as they sort of thought this over.

"You gonna be okay, Jeb?" called Rufe with a snort and a wink at the others. "Because we still need to find that stupid egg! I mean orb. Whatever that crazy thing is."

"All right, all right," they heard.

Jeb would still be a minute or two yet.

"Hey, little friend," crooned Rufe, speaking to the bird. "By any chance, did you see where that nasty old balloon went?"

The bird fluttered from its perch, flew up, and landed dramatically on a larger branch, and as this was unfortunately sort of straight up the hill from where they stood, it was as good a guess as any, and pretty much confirmed their own observations.

***

"What!" bellowed Miss Kitty, balking at the sight of Rooster, Jeb's horse, and all the other animals lined up alongside the underground quay.

This evil prospect was located off a side-tunnel leading from behind the fireplace in the doctor's recreation room. He woke them up in the middle of the night, with a crew of 'taurs packing their things in a hurry and then pushing them out and down the hall.

Two big hatches behind the tall, looming cabin were open, and a pair of thick planks led up from the dock to the deck of the vessel...with the usual crowd of 'taurs hustling about looking disorganized. Even as she spoke a crew of them half-dragged and prodded Rooster to get him on the planks, but he didn't want to cooperate with the foul-smelling creatures.

"I'm sorry," breezed Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff. "Oh, that's right. I did ask you to come watch the submarine races with me...but that wasn't exactly what I had in mind. Quite frankly, Madam—Oh, ho-ho! It was just a trick...ah-ha-hah-ha!"

Miss Kitty's already heavily-rouged cheeks flushed even redder in the realization that not only had they been duped, but they had also been made fools of. If eyes could have darted lightning bolts, hers would have done so at that moment. Insults were the ice-cream on the cake, as far as she was concerned.

As for the most recent remark...

Whirling, she batted him about the head and shoulders with her tiny black cocktail purse as Hope Ng struggled in the firm grip of several 'taurs, cussing and hurling epithets with abandon and some strong passion. While she managed to hook one in the snorkel with a hard jab of her left elbow, it didn't seem to make much of an impression, and the pained expression on her face indicated a funny-bone impact.

"Oh, gee, ah, ooh," she gasped, with tears springing up unbidden, and she rubbed her elbow emphatically when she got a hand free.

More 'taurs rushed forward to the doctor's defense and quickly got the big feline babe under control. It sounded like the stampede of a herd of elephants, so much so that even the evil doctor winced at the sound, but they were effective enough.

"Naturally, I understand your feelings," said Schmitt-Rottluff. "It's tough when you find out that your new boyfriend's a real stinker."

"Dang you!" cursed Miss Kitty, struggling for breath and freedom. "Jeb Snead is going to kill you."

"Yeah! So is Rufe," added Hope somewhat illogically. "Me too, if I get the chance!"

"Yeah!" added Miss Kitty.

"Rooster will kill you!" said Hope.

"Yeah," said Miss Kitty and the doctor in unison, he with a grin and an impish gleam in his eyes and her with fading heat.

"Yeah," he said on Muriel's silence.

She hissed, long and loud and mean.

It was just that she was so danged angry at being fooled yet again by a smooth-talking bastard with a pretty face. When, oh, when, would she ever learn that men just couldn't be trusted?

"We can still have our fun little threesome, ladies, if you're still interested," said Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff, but this just brought on more verbal abuse.

The torrent eventually ran dry.

He shrugged philosophically, like Aristotle might have done all those thousands of years ago.

"Or not," he said.

***

"Your navigation is for the birds," grunted Jeb, heaving himself up yet another four-foot ledge. "All we have so far is your dratted night-scope, and what lousy good that will do, when it's broad daylight around here, most of the time, at this time of year, and at this elevation, is beyond me."

Half-bent at the waist, he got out of the way and looked for a spot to rest.

Rufe painfully drew himself up the ledge. Not bothering to rise, he crawled over and put his back up against a six-inch tree trunk, one of the few growing out of cracks and crevices in the rocks, whipped by the incessant wind into the most burlesque bonsai shapes. He mopped his brow with a sunshine-yellow bandanna.

Jeb was under a broken-off tree stump twelve or so feet away, sheltering from the intensity of the sun. Waylon leapt up onto the horizontal stone bench where they were taking a brief respite from climbing in one fell swoop. He clacked and stamped around in delight, much to the impatience of the observers.

"Hey, guys! Did you see that?" he exclaimed in sheer half-animal delight.

"You're like a freaking mountain goat," grunted Chapley, standing well clear below in case Waylon muffed it and fell back upon him.

While the other men enjoyed the sighing of the breeze on their soaking armpits, shirts heavy with perspiration, he eyed up the next little climb.

"Big deal," he added as he reached for whatever handholds he could find.

Right about then the bird came back, and perched on a branch, from where he patiently looked around.

"Coo?" he asked.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, coo to you too," said Rufe. "We see you."

"Coo!" said the bird.

It flew over and sat on a twig sticking out of the trunk about five feet above Jeb's head.

"I think he likes you better, Jeb," said Waylon.

The bird opened up its grinning beak and dropped a pebble on the ledge beside the reclining Jeb Snead.

"Marvelous. It's a red one this time," he said.

The last pebble had been green.

"Port green, starboard red," puffed Chapley. "We must have that orb. Without it, we're just wasting our time. Although, I have simply no idea of what else we might be doing! Just sitting around the house, most likely, not doing too much, probably, not much of anything, except for you, Mister Snead."

"What do you mean by that?" flushed Jeb.

"Why, only that you'd be pursuing your dream of owning and operating your own small business," said Chapley in a neutral manner.

"I think he's just tired," said Rufe with a grimace.

The bird seemed to be working on a good spit...

Turning aside to an attentive Waylon, who was lightly dancing in place with all the exuberance of a youthful steer jumping around in the warm sunlight of spring, Chapley spoke in a quiet aside.

"He's going to be a worm-farmer," he noted. "He'll be competing with people who are willing to stay up all night, bent over at the waist, picking them up for free on a hundred different golf courses, and then selling them to a broker for eighteen cents a thousand."

Waylon had a good snicker at that one.

By this time the bird had disgorged another red pebble. It perched there, looking extremely pleased with itself.

"So we're ten degrees off course then," said Rufe. "Shit! And with no real idea of what to expect when we get there."

"Are you sure you aren't getting nothing off of him, Mister Snead?" asked Waylon hopefully. "Is he not dreaming in Technicolour?"

"No," admitted Jeb. "It's like we're somehow lacking in any common terms of reference—ah, most likely, he isn't really capable of defining his with any clarity."

That sounded almost intelligent, thought Rufe. Of course, he had that horse to teach him.

Chapley finally managed to clamber up and over and slumped into position beside Golan.

"I wouldn't mind some kind of cool nickname," he hinted.

"Huh?" asked Jeb as Waylon peered around, wondering what the hold-up was.

"Oh, you know. You're the New Ohio Slugger, and Mister Golan admitted a while back that people call him 'the Rich Bastard,' at least when he's at home. I wouldn't mind a handle like yours, although I'm sure it does take some earning."

"Duh, yeah," allowed Snead with a small grin at Rufe, who grimaced and kept silent.

"Slow-hand," suggested Jeb, thinking of the machine-gun incident. "Butter-fingers."

"No! Something good," insisted Chapley, flushing slightly.

This might not be so easy, now that he thought about it.

"The Purple Marauder," gasped Waylon. "I thought of it first!"

The reasons for Rufe's chuckle might best be kept to himself.

"How about 'the Albatross?'" asked Jeb and Rufe grinned again.

Maybe this was why Jeb was always getting in trouble: no diplomacy.

"I'm sure we can do better than that," said Chapley in a prim and proper voice. "Who knows, maybe something will come up."

There was a companionable silence, which was shared by some members of the group perhaps a little more than others.

"I don't care so much about the orb anymore," said Rufe in a philosophical tone. "But I'd give my left testicle for a good old can of pork and beans right about now."

"And a can opener. Otherwise how would you open it, Mister Golan?" asked Waylon, hoping to get the intellectual upper hand on the tall, handsome stranger from just east of the Panhandle.

Wordlessly Rufe patted the butt of his left-hand six-shooter. Waylon's eyebrow rose in disbelief, but he felt it wise to drop the matter there. His expression seemed to imply that he wouldn't mind seeing such a thing, and if by any chance there were some of those aforesaid beans left over, he wouldn't mind sticking a spoon in there himself.

Beans were good for the heart.

Chapter Thirteen

Hope Pounded On the Door

Hope pounded on the door or hatch with the heels of her fists, shouting at the top of her lungs. It was useless, for the doctor sure didn't care. There was nothing but silence from the other side. She didn't even think there were guards out there. Normally, they could see shadows out there through the slats of the slow-turning ventilator fan in the wall beside the door. She was terrified, and throwing a childish tantrum out of sheer frustration. After a time, she became incoherent. She finally slumped to the floor, going down on her knees. Then she bawled her eyes out.

"You're wasting your time, Honey," drawled Miss Kitty from the bed. "Besides. We're in a submarine. I recognized it as such the instant I laid eyes on it. It's an enclosed capsule. There's no place to go, essentially. On the other side of that door there's just a lot more doors. And then there's them bath-turds!"

The last bit was spoken in more of a hiss.

Hope's hysteria subsided slowly, the paroxysms and spasms of her fears and despair wracking her bosom and causing her breath to come in ragged gasps. Miss Kitty wasn't all that impressed.

She kept her silence for a moment. The kid was sure to open up to an older woman-cat.

"I'm claustrophobic!" said Hope eventually, scraping up the breath and the coherence to do it. "I know what a frickin' submarine is! It's a machine for living in underwater. Speculation from sources who prefer anonymity says it might be adaptable for purposes of war. But not in a desert. It kind of has to be in an ocean and stuff like that."

"Okay, Honey, we get it," said Miss Kitty.

She reclined on yet another vast bed. This cabin might even be the captain's own quarters.

She thought this due to the ovoid shape and heavily-brocaded and tasseled bedspread and pillowcases, all in navy blue with gold rope for the trim. The whole thing was a little too outre, for a veteran, or perhaps even semi-glazed madam like herself. Gazing out through a porthole on the far side, she guessed there must be two or three decks on the boat at least. They had been taken forward, and down some steep stairs. The end walls of the long, skinny room were curved from floor to ceiling. There was no real reason for the doctor or a captain to sleep on a single bed of course, but her professional eye noticed the sporting equipment as a matter of course, and this was good-quality stuff, capable of taking quite a pounding.

The door was a ring of steel frame and plating, studded with rivets and bolted and cranked down securely. She could see a heavy cork gasket sticking out in places from where the widely-flanged 'hatch assembly,' as the proud doctor called it on a quick tour of the boat. This was stuck into the flat plate of the wall. The whole thing seemed well thought-out, although its power source was 'top secret' according to Schmitt-Rottluff. He had been remarkably cheerful, in spite of everything the pair had said to him. Their combined vocabulary turned out to be exhaustive.

"Might as well get used to it," said Muriel Kitty, who, in the final analysis, was just another single working girl trying to make her way in a sometimes unpleasant world. "Logically, we're either going to cruise the ocean forever, in which case it is a lost cause."

"Or?" asked Hope, looking up but still with a tremor in her voice.

"Or he's taking us somewhere," said Miss Kitty. "And that means land. And that means another chance to escape. Maybe even kill the silly old basket-case, and maybe even sooner rather than later. I can't imagine what would happen if the horses actually got out!"

Hope thought about that one for a while. Angry horses in enclosed quarters could do a lot of damage, to themselves not least of all.

Miss Kitty spoke in a soft, cool tone, with a nice even cadence carefully calculated to reassure the sweet young thing, who was clearly out of her psychological and emotional depth. Muriel was made of sterner stuff, and she might need an ally or even just a pawn. More than anything, when it came to being a woman, Muriel Kitty was a real pro. This Chink girl-kid just lacked experience, which is an effective builder of true character and grit.

Hope Ng was still theatrically displayed, as if youthful narcissism was going to achieve anything, half-collapsed and panting on the floor as she listened to the calming words. She resolutely pushed herself up to arm's length, tears still glistening on her cheeks, with her long black hair stuck to her face all over the place. She pushed it back out of her eyes, and looked at Muriel.

Muriel gave an encouraging nod. Hope looked down at herself for a moment. It was like she had a second of shame. There was water on the floor from her crying...she shook her head in anger.

"Grrr," she said.

The look she gave Muriel said it all. She ground her jaws back and forth.

"That's right, Honey. Grrr!"

"Grrr!" said Hope.

"Now you're getting it," said Muriel with a yawn.

There was a moment of silence while Miss Kitty made a point of looking away, almost anywhere but at the kid would do. She heard a noise, and it was a good noise, a hopeful noise.

Hope got up and went to a small settee which was on an angle sort of kitty-corner from the bed. She was very still. She sat there, pensively gazing out the window at the green sunlit shafts of the sea outside, and shuddered delicately. Strings of shining bubbles angled back. They rose up in a thin steady stream as the boat progressed through the pristine glassy environment. Hope took a few long deep breaths. She sat straight up with her legs crossed at an elegant angle, and had her hands calmly folded in her lap. Her breathing settled down. She pulled out a soiled and bedraggled hanky and dried her tears. Now that it was quiet, the background noises began to come through the metal bulkheads. She blew her nose thoroughly, to an approving nod from Muriel.

There was the muffled sound of voices, and then a clang or clatter, like someone had dropped a hammer. She caught a faint hissing, intermittent, and the expensive rumble of well-oiled gears, all devised by the finest minimum-wage engineering staff money could buy, all rows and rows of clean-cut but massive rotary teeth, meshing together, each in its turn and over and over and over again. There was a small squeak which seemed to have a pattern of its own.

"Could use a little three-in-one oil on there," she muttered.

"Good girl," murmured Muriel. "We'll just sit back and think about things for a little ole while, right?"

Hope nodded dumbly, knowing deep in her soul that to scrape up some thing, some shred of optimism, would be a very useful asset right about then. As for a shred of real inspiration, now that would be priceless.

Chapter Fourteen

Serenity Is Mine

"Serenity is mine," said Leaping Panther.

"What is this place?" asked Squirrel.

"It is another aspect of reality," he said.

"Why are we here?"

"Conflict, and resolution," he said. "It is a theoretical construct, nothing more."

"Like good and evil, I suppose. But is all of this really necessary?" she asked.

"We must all learn," he told her. "Shh! He comes now."

"Who?" she asked. "What's it all about?"

"My friend. He comes now. It is about life, and death, rebirth and renewal. It's about love."

He had returned her body and her mind back to her. They stood together in the clearing, looking back the way she had first come. A big black bird flew in on a curving series of arcs, wings beating strongly until he saw them. Coming closer, his flapping increased but with rapidly-varying changes in pattern and configuration, and then he pulled up abruptly, and landed at their feet.

"Hey, how's it going?" asked Leaping Panther.

"Coo, coo, cool," said the bird.

It took three steps forward and then turned sideways to regard them more easily.

Leaping Panther pulled a small pebble out from the pocket of his buckskin jacket.

"There you go," he said, flipping it straight up into the air, where it turned about after a while and came back down to the ground again.

The bird caught it in its beak and swallowed it greedily down.

"Brawk!" it said, and then turning, it leapt into flight again.

"Why are we doing this, again?" she asked.

"We have a cameo appearance, and we can't miss our cue," he said.

"Who are we playing?" she asked. "Am I real or am I nothing?"

He took her into his arms and they launched into the night sky, in amongst warm and fuzzy white clouds, and then breaking through into the prescient moonshine. Words formed in her head as they moved forwards...

No, we are thought, faster than light, leaping through barriers, going beyond all things.

We are spirit, never dying, never quite alive.

We are the soul in action

We are youth, ever looking forward, and always ready for anything.

We are irrepressible

We are alive,

We are life itself.

Chapter Fifteen

"Uh, oh."

"Uh, oh," muttered Chapley, but the remark was completely superfluous, perhaps even unnecessary.

The trio of men and one 'taur found themselves surrounded by tall, brown-skinned aliens. Worse, they were surrounded by tall, brown-skinned aliens with spear-guns.

"Spear-guns!" gasped Waylon. "Why, that's purely based on kinetic energy. It's barely out of the stone age."

He would have thought aliens were much more technologically evolved than that. Otherwise, what was the point of being an alien? Think of coming all that way with nothing but a spear-gun.

"Look again, Waylon," said Chapley. "They're operated by bungee cords of one-hundred percent all-natural Louisiana rubber. That's state of the art."

It was true, but hardly helpful to see they weren't steam-powered, or discharged by a cylinder full of air pumped up labouriously by hand to provide chamber pressure. It was disappointing indeed, not to see them using crank-ratchets and drop-forged, stainless-steel tubular-spring arbalest-type mechanisms.

Their amber eyes and expressionless faces gave no clue as to their intentions or desires, but the spear-guns spoke a language all their own. They had a way of jerking the tip like they were trying to communicate with it...

"This is the true face of democracy," spat Waylon. "They've gotten out the voting machines."

"I think we're better off to cooperate," said Rufe. "If only, oh! If only we knew what they wanted!"

"Jeb?" asked Chapley. "Any help?"

Chapley had already concluded Snead was the most intuitive of the bunch, and if these aliens were as dumb as he thought they were, Jeb was the only one who stood any real chance of getting anything out of them.

"Take me to your leader," Snead pronounced in a majestic fashion, waving in benediction like the Pope of Chicago. He stood there with arms wide open, a big smile on his face, and looking like Methuselah personified, only clean-shaven, better looking, and wearing trousers.

The strange thing was he appeared to be deadly serious about this act.

The mouths of the two nearest ones moved, their lips trembled all but imperceptibly, although no real sound came out. The heads shifted a tad from side to side...

"All right, gentlemen, step right this way," said Snead with an arm extended towards the two-legged, erect but not otherwise mammalian critters.

"Are you sure, Jeb?" quavered Waylon.

"This may be a bit of a stretch for you folks," muttered Snead. "But that there over there is a trail. And they came down this-away, from up that-a-way, on the aforesaid path."

"He's right of course, no matter how inelegantly put," said Chapley, mulling it over for a second. "Why not? It's easier than killing them all right where they stand, and who knows? Maybe they know something about the orb, or egg, or celestial key, or whatever the heck it is."

"There's only one way to find out, although they smell abominably," said Rufe, holding his nose with one hand and his right-hand gun-butt with the other.

"That won't be necessary, Mister Golan," said Chapley.

Where he was finding all the courage all of a sudden was a bit of a mystery, no more so than to the man himself. But it was better than standing around all day waiting to be massacred, or worse, the proverbial colorectal exam, which the ET's were notorious for.

***

The aliens rounded up the tall, gross-looking strangers, 'honkiis' as they called them in their unique hyper-sonic contextual codicils. This consisted of clicks, clacks, quacks and smacks of the lips, which while insensible to the human auditory system, conveyed quite a bit of information. There was also a guttural glottal stop, deep in the throat, also imperceptible to men, but that's neither here nor there.

"Take your hand off me, sir," said Chapley, and to his surprise, the creature did just that.

It stepped away slightly and then, placing the right hand in its midriff, proceeded to do a courteous bow while pointing upslope towards the trail.

"They don't talk much, but maybe they lip-read," suggested Rufe.

"Ask them about the orb!" blurted Waylon.

"Shush! Not now, Waylon," said Chapley.

"After you," said Rufe.

"Oh, no! After you, sir," began Waylon but Chapley cuffed him one upside of the head and he desisted.

"You hombres are all knuckleheads," snarled Jeb, and he strode off towards the opening in the thicket of grub-stake bushes or something that Chapley couldn't immediately identify as he wasn't a neo-plastic endo-botanist, which, as logic would dictate, was the opposite of exo-botany. Not even close.

Snead's powerful stride was hard to match, even for the aliens, with their lighter, bean-like bodies and long bandy legs.

***

There was a clump and a clatter just on the other side of the wall. There was a screech and a clang, and then the round wheel in the centre of the door began to turn.

Hope sat bolt upright on the bed as Muriel was in the biggest chair, calmly regarding the scene and awaiting what fate held in store for them. The door swung open and an anonymous 'taur came in wordlessly and gruntlessly. It went over to a closet in the darkest corner and stuck a key in a lock. Swinging the pair of doors open, it clamped the bottoms of the doors to the deck with small brass hooks. It reached up and snapped open a tiny round hatch-cover in the ceiling, admitting a dim greyish-green light from above.

Then it left the room. Although the door was shut again, they didn't hear any locks clicking into place.

"Huh," said Miss Kitty. "It would appear that we are to dress for dinner."

"What in the name of Moses is that awful sound from the next room?" asked Hope.

She felt a bit of a migraine coming on.

Muriel went over to the forward bulkhead and stuck one of her erect ears up against it.

She listened for a moment.

"Ah," she said. "It's a bellows. My uncle was a blacksmith, and I'm sure I'm not mistaken."

"Hmn," said Hope. "But I suppose those bubbles have to be coming from somewhere."

Miss Kitty nodded shortly in total agreement.

"Yes, he very much impresses me as that sort," a kind of mystifying remark to Hope, but it must have meant something to the other.

"So we have a choice, do we?" said Hope, indicating the propped-open wardrobe, a veritable sea of silk, velvet, brocade, embroideries, and other lacy-frothy things.

"Ha!" said Muriel. "Methinks he's done this before, but what's your point, girl?"

Hope had an odd look on her face.

"In the absence of any plan B," she muttered.

"We had a plan A?" or so joked Muriel Kitty, although of course she knew what Hope meant.

"Ah," Muriel said, a little light going off in her head. "Plan A!"

Hope met her eyes in humour.

"If nothing else, we can give him the gears, and make him suffer for it!"

It was something to look forward to, a way of striking back.

"Which one of these has the most cleavage?" she asked, as Miss Kitty ambled on over to have a look for herself.

Hope looked down at her bedraggled and wrinkled outfit. She'd taken such pride in it when she bought it, and then there was the added satisfaction of making Rufe pay for his pleasure.

"You know what? I hope we're having spaghetti tonight," she said cheerfully, and Muriel gave a howl of derisive approval and a quick slap on the back.

"Now you're catchin' on, Honey," she said. "Maybe we could eat some bananas, eh? Ha!"

"Who knows? Maybe some day, when I grow up, I'll like, ah, get to be a Chink whore," and so Muriel grinned again. "Earn an honest living, and then maybe run for city council, that sort of thing."

The kid had a lot going for her, at least when she was thinking.

"This could be fun. Make sure you pay attention, you may have to do this on your own someday," advised Muriel. "And keep your chin up. That's where it belongs."

From somewhere way off in the distance, through many bulkheads and around numerous corners, came the sound of Schmitt-Rottluff playing some obscure melody on a massive old pipe organ that he had in the upper salon. The two girls exchanged a long look, including some lifted eyebrows, for words were unnecessary.

***

In company with the aliens, as no one was really sure if they were prisoners or honoured guests, Jeb and Rufe and the others were conducted to a series of geodesic domes built far above the tree-line. While there was nothing that looked like the popular imaginary illustration of a space-ship on the scene, there was nothing to stop the aliens from having a secret underground station for them, so they kept their eyes peeled. A big obvious cave entrance or a hatch on the ground would have been a dead giveaway, Chapley whispered to an impatient Jeb Snead.

Jeb didn't care too much for alien transportation systems.

After calmly entering a larger dome in the centre of the alien town, rather than refuse outright and appear impolite, the majority of the aliens left them. The door closed, as three of the beings set about pulling out chairs and looking at the men.

"Might as well be comfortable, gentlemen," said Chapley, although Waylon could barely settle down long enough to listen to anyone.

"This must be the community centre," said Waylon, noting an upright piano against one wall.

"Either that, or the local kindergarten," grunted Snead.

Waylon moved about the room, ignored by the men and the aliens, closely examining the furnishings, the cupboards, and the closets. He lifted a table-cloth and looked underneath the table...

"Aliens must like the cold," said Rufe. "Brrr."

"That's enough, Waylon," said Jeb.

"Just testing, Jeb," said an eager Waylon "So far they haven't said nothing."

"That's because they have manners, Waylon," said Chapley, while Rufe looked idly around.

There was nothing in there that stood out from the ordinary—aliens clearly used local materials and resources in their colonization attempts. Simple household furnishings might be better provided on-planet, thus avoiding shipping costs. He'd heard his old man cuss and swear something awful over the rail-freight rates once or twice, although at the time he hadn't taken much notice. That was the trouble with being a rich kid. Nothing much mattered to you once you had it figured out that cattle stank and raising them involved sustained effort.

Getting their stuff here from another planet would be expensive, even if it wasn't controlled by a monopoly, a trust or merely a gang of robber-barons. He'd heard his old man say something like that once or twice as well! There were times when he wished he'd paid a little more attention to the old fart.

"As long as they're not killing and torturing us, maybe they're fixing to feed us," said Rufe. "I've been meaning to try that alien goulash with eggplant chips, mayonnaise, cheese and horse-radish in a fermented fish sauce. They say it's heavenly."

"Always thinking about your stomach, Mister Golan, although I applaud the notion," agreed Chapley. "It has been a while. I admit that."

The place was chill inside, but nowhere near as cold as the air outside. At this altitude, snow could be found in cracks and crevices all year round. It could snow in July up here.

"What is up with them aliens?" muttered Chapley, looking incongruously at his sun-dial, which everyone knew didn't work too well indoors.

"They're probably just sitting back, on the other side of an itty-bitty hole in that little ol' wall right over there," suggested Rufe. "They're listening to every word we say. They want to see how we react."

"I don't believe in information obtained through torture," said Waylon.

Jeb snorted and shook his head. He was sort of losing patience with Waylon, who couldn't sit still for thirty seconds, or keep his mouth shut for ten.

"It's unreliable," said Waylon, and Jeb laughed out loud in spite of himself.

"Shucks! And how in the heck would you know?" he asked in disbelief. "You were born like yesterday, the way I hear it."

"It's in all the text-books," said Waylon, and the other three smiled tiredly.

The door opened up again and a pair of aliens, whom they took to be the leaders of the little posse that had found them, came in bearing a black painted wooden box about the size of a breadbox. The second alien carried its empty velveteen bag casually in one hand.

Chapley's jaw dropped open.

"That's it!" he gasped. "That's our box!"

It only took a few seconds for the alien beings to cross the intervening floor space, and then they simply handed it over to Chapley. The others didn't particularly jump up and grab it, and he was the ostensible commander of the expedition according to the written orders from Dr. Schmitt-Rottluff.

He gave it a shake, hefting it to feel the weight of the thing, his expression easily readable and speaking volumes in terms of hope and trepidation.

With shaking hands, Chapley undid a couple of buttons, reached under his shirt, and pulled out a small brass key. Inserting it in the lock, he turned it and then lifted up the lid.

A weird green glow emanated from the box, although the orb or egg or cosmic generator itself, or whatever it actually was, was hidden by the lid. Rufe was momentarily distracted by the sight of a half a dozen aliens doubling up in what must be their strangely silent laughter. No one had said anything particularly funny for several minutes, so he just assumed it was some private, other-worldly inside joke, arguably about the humans, which seemed fair as no one had much good to say about them either.

He turned back to more immediate concerns.

"Well?" asked Rufe. ""Are we happy now?"

Chapley tore his eyes away and nodded into their stares, meeting their three pairs of eyes one by one.

"Yes," was all he said.

***

A series of thumps against the wall of the building broke through the trance imposed by Chapley's words. All of the aliens in the room grabbed their heads in unison and looked at each other in a fine panic, with their thin lips trembling. Chapley could have sworn that one of them even made an audible sound, although he didn't think it came from his mouth. It sounded suspiciously like the otherworldly hombre had crapped in his drawers. Then they scrambled to hide in closets, under the table, and even under the carpeting!

"What in the tarnation's going on, Jeb?" asked Chapley in just plain amazement.

Jeb was already on his feet. He strode to the nearest front window and had a look out.

"Injuns!" he shouted, pulling his big gun out, getting a little faster everyday, and making ready to smash out the glass.

"What? At this altitude?" said Rufe, with a quick glance at his extremely expensive kinetically-wound wrist-chronometer and altimeter, a gift from a former fiance. "And at this hour?"

It seemed like a reasonable question, as Injuns didn't get time and a half for overtime, and it was way past six-o'clock in the evening. It didn't seem fair, somehow. They must have had nothing better to do, ran out of booze in their own village, most likely. But that was sheer speculation. The twanging discharge of the defenders' spear-guns was heavily out-weighed by the yip-yip-yipping of the tribesmen, the thudding of a hundred sets of hooves, the neighing of their mounts, the crack of their rifles and the thunk of arrows and bullets hitting the domes. Even as he thought the thought, an arrow popped a neat little hole in the pane beside him and the bolt dropped to the floor disappointedly, sounding for all of the world like a big yellow pencil on a brightly-tiled and polished classroom floor. That was the benefit of education. Odd thoughts came to you, at all the worst times.

Jeb wondered what all the fuss was about, although it was certainly possible that the aliens had maybe stolen some of their horses or taken their frickin' ugly women for brides, or who knows, maybe even had them for dinner.

"Hey, Chapley," called Rufe in some confusion.

"Yes?" asked Chapley.

He answered politely enough, in spite of all the distractions.

Rufe had drawn his guns and was standing at the other front window waiting for the inevitable.

"Any ideas as to why they gave that thing back to us?" and when he heard that, Chapley's jaw dropped open in sheer surprise.

He hadn't thought of that! Just goes to show you what happens when a hombre ain't paying attention. And if a hombre doesn't pay attention, he ended up paying through the nose.

"Shouldn't we shoot somebody?" asked Waylon in hopefulness and all the crushing optimism of youth.

"We're just trying to figure that out," said a slightly-deflated Chapley in a kind of brotherly impatience.

Why in the heck would the aliens just give it back? Wasn't it the celestial orb, or cosmic egg, or something devilishly important like that? But why would his uncle lie? To him? Chapley? His much-beloved nephew? The one in charge of the mission?

Waylon, cutting right to the core of the issues, and impressing the heck out of poor old Rufe, who really didn't know what to do just this once, pulled out his own ponderous buffalo-handgun and shot a big hole in the nearest closet door.

"Well, I know who's side I'm on," he said with no regrets and no real thought process neither.

"What?" gaped Jeb.

Waylon took careful aim. He methodically fired into closets, dresser drawers, the broom cupboard, and at a big lump in the rug.

Right about then the door crashed open and the room was flooded with big, surly braves all covered in green gore and other alien bodily fluids. The sort of looks they gave them were riveting, and they sort of froze in whatever posture they were in...except for Waylon.

Waylon took a good long gaze at the vague mental image he had of the floor plan, and then he shot his own hole right in the middle of that little bitty wall right over there...Bang!

There was another big thump sauteed into the mix.

The foremost Injun, a big, strapping fellow, grinned happily and pointed a finger at the white men.

"Ugh," he said, jerking a thumb at the door and drawing out a shiny obsidian scalping knife to take care of some minor details.

Aliens didn't have a whole lot of hair, but there's no accounting for taste.

"Brevity is king," observed Rufe, heading for the door without another look backwards...

Waylon pointed at the lump under the perforated and blood-stained rug and the warrior nodded in gratitude, moving in to take his little trophy. He lifted the edge of the rug and peered under it hopefully, but the alien was already dead. The 'taur stood watching in fascination, calmly re-loading his own gun and seemingly proud of his achievements thus far today.

Another Injun, who had the latest model of Hasselblad steam-camera complete with a static-electricity powered flash attachment hanging around his neck, who also had a little white card with something written on it displayed prominently in his feathered headband, stepped closer and began to take a series of photos that with a little luck might one day grace the cover of Injun Life Magazine.

"Dipthong, primus, Rumplestiltskin," said the photo-popping warrior, at least that's what it sounded like to Jeb, as the snick-snick of the film-advance gears crunching the inevitable extraneous bits of sand echoed around and around in the eerily dome-like interior.

The press-Injun grabbed them each by the arm in turn and pushed and prodded them into a row, taking a moment to set it up, and then standing back to look at the pose.

He gave a big goofy grin.

"Chiiz!" he called, which was their way of pronouncing it.

They straightened up self-consciously with great dignity and flashed him the old ivories.

The flashes obliterated the ambient light from the ring of sky-lights up there. Hopefully that one would turn out, as there really wasn't time for too many more.

"Sure. Whatever you say, compadre," allowed Jeb Snead, who was sort of reluctant to just stick his weapon back into its holster now that he had the thing out with no major hang-ups.

He was wondering if anyone would notice if he put his glasses on. Either there were a hell of a lot of Chapleys and Rufes and Waylons and anonymous Wahoos running around the room, or he was seeing double again. This was something he didn't feel comfortable talking about with anybody. That was one of the reasons he had been thinking of a career change, and he would clearly never make it as a gunfighter.

Or a sheriff, no matter how glamourous it all might sound.

Chapter Sixteen

"What Makes You So Smart?"

"What makes you so smart?" asked Hope in an acid tone.

The cleavage thing wasn't working at all, dang nab it.

Vitriol dripped from her voice, or perhaps it was just a little sauerkraut juice, which was how she had learned to eat frankfurters such a very short time ago.

"I'm just some boy who growed up in a holler," he replied in an absent manner.

Schmitt-Rottluff was doing his duty towards a row of hot-dogs lined up on an oval plate. Like many of the other plates and utensils, it was securely clamped in place. While there were no waves underwater according to him, the thing obviously had to come up from time to time. Apparently there were windows in the front of it and couple of 'the boys,' as Schmitt-Rottluff called them, drove from there. The notion that the 'taurs were in charge of their underwater navigation was quite another concern.

He had all kinds of insurance coverage. Hope, who had briefly interned as a co-op student at an insurance office before leaving the Big Apple, wouldn't have minded getting a look at that application form. The doctor just told them where he wanted to go, and once they'd been there once or twice, he figured they shouldn't have any problems. He still hadn't dropped any sort of a hint as to where their destination might be. The basic premise so far was that the two women might be able to overpower the entire crew, keep them in captivity, and drive the thing successfully home or somewhere on their own. If he could keep his cards close to his chest, then so can we, or so thought Hope and Muriel. They had sort of schemed it out in advance.

First they had to drive him mad with their beauty, which was like forcing an error in baseball.

"How did you find the flied lice, Miss Ng?' he asked.

"Are you really having trouble pronouncing 'fried rice,' or are you just being somewhat of a plick?" she replied demurely, and this was pretty much the conversational high point of their two-course meal so far.

Muriel's nod of approval was reward enough.

The evil Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff had what must be the world's record for really long dinner tables on a submarine. There were one or two problems that Hope could see with this, one of which was that there was just the three of them, and no one would seriously sit down to dinner with 'taurs anyway, and also it was kind of a waste when it was just hot dogs, and boiled ones at that—not barbecued, which as the doctor patiently explained, would have required surfacing and some dry charcoal briquettes. The rice was a humiliating concession to her, charming as that might be in his opinion. As everyone knew, briquettes were finicky and hard to light. According to the doctor, Hurricane Peter up above was whipping the surface into a froth, and so they just couldn't do it.

"Do you mind if I ask a dumb question?" asked Hope.

"Not at all, young lady," replied the doctor.

"What's with all the steam coming up from the frickin' floorboards?" she grumped. "Is that strictly necessary? And couldn't you just buy a frickin' Flintstones record player? They're not expensive. I mean, it's not like they eat a lot."

"I guess I just kind of like the look, and I've always been a music lover. It's one of my nicer traits," he said. "Or even the only one! What did you think of the ventilation fans, with all of them big blades turning so slowly you could almost count the revolutions? Isn't that spooky? They're all over the ship, and I got lots more of them where we're going."

Hope didn't know if he was kidding or what.

"What do you think?" asked the doctor, stuffing one end of a sausage, hanging out of the pathetically-short bun, into his gaping maxillofacial orifice. "Is your meal all right? Or would you prefer fried chicken and Kool-Aid, Muriel?"

Hope was about to reiterate her remarks about surfacing and firing up the barbecue, but Miss Kitty had other thoughts.

"You could suck on a broomstick, for all we care," she said, and the doctor gagged a little, but then pretended the meat was just a little too hot.

"Don't you worry your purty little heads," he finally said. "Your smashing hero, Jeb Snead, and the Dufus character—oh, I'm so sorry, of course I meant Rufus—will never find you, not where we're going."

"Then nothing you say makes any sense at all," said Miss Kitty. "You're settin' a danged trap for him, ain't you?"

"Yeah," said Hope. "If Rufe is supposed to rescue me...sorry, I meant Jeb and Rufe rescue us. Or maybe Jeb rescue me, and Rufe rescue her...anyhow! You must want trouble, real bad."

For a moment she met Muriel's eyes and flushed a little, but then soldiered on with her improbable statement. The facts, her hopes, dreams and desires really didn't matter here. What mattered was the effect, but unfortunately she wasn't having any. The doctor was as sexually- imperturbable as ever. No matter how hard she leaned forward and waggled her shoulders, it just wasn't working. And this was the lowest top they could find.

"If this is about a foiled rescue attempt and then the murder of your chief complaint in life, why not just kill him when you had us all together?"

"Oh, I don't want to kill Mister Snead," said Schmitt-Rottluff. "But you're right. Leaving a few witnesses has never bothered me before."

"So you're in love with him too, then?" shot back Muriel Kitty.

He just smiled at this attempt as he focused on shoving more hot-dog into his mouth.

"Whoever would have thought?" he smiled, and she reddened under the short fur of her facial features.

Her tail flicked back and forth furiously, as Hope could hear it rustling and feel the thump of it, so near to her own feet. She was keeping them flat on the floor, like a real lady. But it wasn't working too well. As for Muriel, Hope could almost see her thoughts without looking over. She was one hopping mad feline-woman-thing, but still able to keep it relatively under control.

"Didn't you have a nasty cough when we first met? Whatever happened to that?" asked Muriel.

He ignored her.

She's done this sort of thing before, concluded Hope Ng. If only she had a pad and pen so she could take notes! At this rate, she would never know what it was to be a real woman, all grown up now and full of herself. She'd never indulged herself in true bitchiness, although tempted quite often. But the big lady-feline had the act down pat. Her disdain seemed ultra-sophisticated to the younger woman.

"Before I die, I want to see Mister Jeb Snead suffer a little. I want to present him with certain irreconcilable choices...choices that he will find very uncomfortable, to my way of thinking."

"Like what?" demanded Hope. "He'll never give up on that danged worm-farm, or the mushroom-growing operation, or whatever else he decides."

Miss Kitty's appraising eyes took in her lithe and youthful companion.

"So it's like that, is it?" she muttered, and Hope flushed beet red.

"No, it's just a character assessment, and a reasonably good one," said Hope.

"I won't take lover-boy's little hobby away from him, if it comes down to all of that," said the doctor. "No, I have something far more evil in mind. Would you please pass the mustard?"

Miss Kitty gave the bottle a shove and it slid majestically down the table like an ice-skater on heroin. His hand shot out to stop it from going over the edge and smashing on the shiny metal-coloured checker-patterned boiler-plate deck.

"That's not nice," he said with a look.

Then he proceeded to squirt a big wavy S-shaped smear of yellow goop onto his eighth hot-dog of this particular meal.

"Keep eating," advised Hope, with a glance at Miss Kitty. "There's a chance he'll choke on it. It's no wonder he got lung cancer. It's like he inhales them."

Miss Kitty nodded approval.

"Hang onto that thought," she said.

"Rooster and Pony are going to whup your backside," said Hope. "Checkers, too! Whitey and Spots might even join in, just on general principles."

"Hmn," said Schmitt-Rottluff. "But that's why I have all the 'taurs, don't you know!"

Hope and Miss Kitty exchanged another silent look. Their attempt at flirting and cajoling with the crazy old basket-case had somehow gone awry. It was time to renew their focus, but the anger kept getting in the way.

"You're so smart," sighed Muriel, at which he simpered outrageously.

Hope ground her jaws in frustration. It was one thing to fail, but it was quite another to be mocked by their captor. Hot dogs, for crying out loud. You'd think an evil genius with all that money lying around would have some decent food available, even on a submarine.

"Yes, and so good-looking, too," said Miss Kitty without much enthusiasm.

Come what may, they must continue to try and resist, however which way they could.

It was their duty, among other things, although Hope had expected it to be a little more effective.

***

"What's going to happen now, Jeb?" asked Waylon.

"I don't know," said Snead.

Waylon had sort of latched onto Snead as a father figure, but in Rufe's opinion Jeb seemed a little different lately.

"Bend like the reed, rather than snap like a twig," said Rufe, which in spite of his lightning-fast reflexes with those big black hogs-legs at his sides, he was pretty good at.

Them reflexes had gotten him into more trouble. The guns were not wholly responsible. It was just that he was a physical coward with the wrestling and fisticuffs. It was like he would rather die than get all beaten up, all bruised and dirty. Especially if he lost, which he expected to do most of the time. And sometimes winning comes at too high a price, like if he mussed up his hair.

Chapley had a mount, Rufe had a mount, it was only then that they realized the Injuns weren't really equipped for large numbers of prisoners or even refugees. No more horses.

"Ugh," said the warrior as Jeb grabbed his hand and tried to leap up onto the back of the piebald pony, small enough for one man, but definitely not intended for two.

Forgetting his strength as he often did, Jeb must have given quite a yank.

The native gasped and slid off towards Jeb, and Jeb had to grab onto him to keep the fellow from winding up in the dirt.

"Don't you have a bigger animal?" he asked in disgust.

"Ugh," said the fellow with a nonchalant air about him, but then he knew the lingo and what was going on.

He dusted himself off and took another appraising look at the situation. The others watched the performance with patient calm, which was kind of hard to fake.

"That's one of the reasons that I prefer to walk," Waylon said.

The red man put his hand on the animal's shoulder and as quick as a wink was re-mounted.

"Ugh," he said, beckoning for Jeb to try again.

"Aw, dang nab it," muttered Snead.

"You can mount me, Jeb," said Waylon. "I've carried Chapley and even Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff for miles, well, quite a distance, anyway."

Jeb's eyes slid back and forth, his face reddening as he contemplated what was to him a fate worse than death or even full-time employment.

"No, no, that's all right," he said.

Jeb pointed at the place where the trail led on over to a notch in the edge of the small plateau.

"Let's go," he said, and started walking.

"I don't know, Jeb," said Rufe. "There might be more aliens out there—and they will be hopping mad."

"You're riding ponies, bareback, downhill," Jeb called over his shoulder, with Waylon already at the cliff's edge, looking back for signs of approval or even notice. "How fast do you plan on going?"

No one really cared, Waylon concluded, and so he waited for Jeb to catch up.

"They don't appreciate me," said Waylon when Jeb got there.

"I sure don't," said Jeb in a rare moment of cruelty.

"You're just jealous," said Waylon. "I am as sure-footed as a mountain goat, and substantially better-looking."

"Yeah, I'll grant you that—you are, ah, sure-footed, but I still ain't mounting you," advised Jeb, regretting the need to put Waylon down, for surely he was an innocent in everything but non-deviant sexuality, and maybe certain other types of crime.

Guys like Waylon were easy meat for someone like the doctor. Lacking in self-esteem, they were always seeking approval and deficient in that devil-may-care attitude that makes a man independent of the world around him. The doctor could wind a certain type of person or other being dependably and reliably around his finger and get them to do just as he pleased.

"When I grow up, I want to be just like you," said Waylon.

"Great," said Jeb with a pat on his shoulder.

In spite of himself, Jeb found some time for the kid.

"Those strong legs will be your best asset in the ring," he said. "But honestly, get yourself a good suit and learn how to dance. Move down to Florida and hook up with some rich old lady."

Waylon looked down in blissful contemplation, watching his feet take in the rocky and uneven trail. It was true, and he'd never really looked at it that way...

"I bloats like a flutter-by and blings like a stee..." he sang in what might have been an outrageous falsetto if only it didn't actually belong to him.

Jeb found what he had a hunch he would find, a ledge or boulder sticking out of the mountain-side. He clambered up on it.

"Hey—hey you," he called to his alleged rescuer. "I can get on now."

Standing on the tip of the boulder while the brave cautiously approached on the steep and narrow trail, he looked at Waylon.

"Aw, seriously man, don't do that," he said.

He kind of regretted now, what was his first act of kindness to a 'taur in his whole short and miserable life. But that singing was driving him nuts, and it wasn't a very good idea either. With no real hope of speed on the mountainside, stealth was the best strategy. Jeb was lost in thought momentarily...

Waylon looked confused for a moment, and then his face lit up in a grin.

"Don't be so hard on yourself, Jeb," he said. "You've been under a lot of stress lately. Anyway, it was pure rhetoric, not meant to be taken literally."

Jeb wondered for a moment. Either he had missed something or Waylon was truly screwy in the head. Who cared? Not Jeb Snead. However, for no particular reason Waylon had lost the train of music in his head. He paid a little more attention to his surroundings now. With his eyebrows climbing up his forehead like a squirrel going up a tree with a bag of fresh peanuts, Jeb shook his head at the mysteries of life and 'taurian psychology. Seeing the Injun there, Jeb finally got on the horse.

As Chapley and then Rufe rode past, both of them nodded at his elegant solution to the problem of mounting, but Waylon wasn't finished with him yet. The youthful 'taur hopped and skipped around, jumping from level to level and inevitably spooking the ponies and in a general sense getting in everyone's way. He playfully shadow boxed against a convenient vertical face.

"Jeb?" asked Waylon.

"Yes?" asked Jeb as patiently as he could, slightly disturbed in a physical sense by the warmth of the warrior's butt rubbing up against his loins and the movement of the animal under them.

It was sort of like when you wake up first thing in the morning, he told himself. It was totally innocent and beyond his rational control, although on that thought the problem thankfully began to subside. Perhaps it was a false omen. Due to the steepness of the terrain and the roughness of the trail, he had no choice but to cling to the Injun like any blushing maiden, another thought that made him distinctly uncomfortable, especially considering that partial but one hundred percent totally involuntary erection he had just experienced.

"Oh, Lord," said Jeb.

"Will you teach me how to fight?" called Waylon, the distraction welcome for once.

In a moment of weakness, and without any real thought of the future, Jeb shrugged.

"Sure," he said.

In some ways it worked. Waylon was ecstatic, and showed his emotions plainly by the way he skipped and hopped his way down the mountainside. Hopefully he would go way out in front, or stay way out behind...

While he was still a little bit disruptive to the otherwise silent war party, for a time he was well behaved, clearly contemplating an outcome that was rosy and bright. Also, Jeb's little problem was gone now, hopefully for good. For that, he was grateful.

"Kids these days," muttered Jeb to another grunt from his host.

***

"What's wrong with them?" asked Hope, as first Checkers and then Rooster were winched in slings out of the back of the sub.

None of the horses looked very happy, but Rooster was in really bad shape. Whitey and Spots were next. Overall, the surface trip, taken at night through the Sulu Sea had been a rough one, although the waves calmed once they got into the Bungo Straits.

Miss Kitty stood watching with veiled eyes, making sure to get the lay of the land and take in any useful landmarks.

A couple of minutes later, Checkers hung his head, and listlessly flicked his tail back and forth in a small corral built right beside the dock. Rooster had laid on the ground immediately, as soon as the sling hit the grass, and Hope wondered if that was normal. Both animals ignored the feed and water brought by the 'taurian henchmen. Three of the nefarious critters struggled and pulled, trying to unbuckle the sling and pull it out from under him.

When Pony was brought out last, her ears were flat, but she perked right up when she lifted her head and saw Hope.

The low nickering of Pony brought it home to Hope with a jar, that the animal had missed her intensely during what they figured was a journey of several days to their destination. While from time to time her thoughts had turned to their equine companions in the hold, she had sort of assumed the doctor knew what he was doing. It was like he had stalls and hay back there for them. But something was clearly wrong with Rooster, and Checkers didn't look much better.

"Aw," she said, running over to the gate. "Be careful!"

The 'taurs probably understood her, although the way they set Pony down in the sling caused the animal's knees to buckle slightly, and then she took the weight on all fours. The sling was quickly unfastened and removed by docile and obedient servants. Hope clambered up and over the gate to see what she could do for the poor and bedraggled-looking animals as the crane swung away to unload further cargo.

***

"What is this?" asked Squirrel.

"It is the mirror of eternal truth," said Leaping Panther. "From Chaos, all things emanate."

"Truth is an illusion," she said.

"Yes," he said.

"Time is the great storyteller," she said.

"Yes, again," said Leaping Panther.

She shook her head at the contradictions.

Chapter Seventeen

The Skin House Was Quiet

The skin-house was quiet as the semi-attractive one muttered to herself on the bed. She seemed a little indignant about something...

Rufe Golan was curiously examining the Injun feller's bookshelves when something caught his eye. While most of the titles were in an unfamiliar Injun pictographic font, a few were clearly more main-stream. There was even some erotica. Maybe one or other of the ladies understood English. In which case why not speak? Maybe it was just booty. He took them for items looted from unfortunate wagon trains. One or two others were obviously alien texts, which apparently came in a kind of charcoal-grey Bakelite casing with a half a dozen small buttons on it. It was roughly the same size as a hundred-dollar store paperback. Since he couldn't find any way of winding one up, or putting steam pressure into it, he politely put it back in order, which he assumed was Injun-alphabetical. Almost anything had to make more sense than Nazi particle physics; the old 'I am an atomic particle and you are a sub-atomic particle,' that sort of stuff, or worse, conservative economic theory. Those books were here too, he noted by the lurid cover art, many of them familiar from the bestsellers lists, but it was the next one that solved his problem of communication. His new friend the Injun, had been nice enough to send the old woman out for some buffalo-pate, what they called pemmican in these here parts. He also provided a rather comely young wench to do his laundry, but anyhow the guy had gone out for a moment.

Much of this was sheer speculation on Rufe's part, but she must have taken his clothes for some reason. Maybe they had run out of soap or something. Of course there was no way to ask if the brave was simply running down to the store. The older lady snored in her own corner, being satisfied and gratified with seeing him eat the box lunch she had provided.

He wished he had his toothpick, though. That was just one of many things that had gone missing in the crash. They could have pounded that meat a little more, in his opinion.

He pulled the books out to have a closer look.

'De Senectute,' he marveled. "Ha! De Oratore."

Looking further, he found more books with similar covers, all in Latin. It was like he had subscribed to a book club.

"De Natura Deorum!"

Cicero's 'On the Nature of the Gods,' for crying out loud.

He pulled it out, half afraid it would be all tiny little pictures with dots and snowflakes and painted beans and stuff like that, but it was in actual Latin.

"Nice," he said, opening it up to look at the end-plates. "Holy!"

It was a Caxton first edition, and worth a few bucks in his experience. This one cost somebody some money. It had clearly been read a few times as well. It was dog-eared, quite a few corners were turned over, and if that wasn't a chocolate stain, he was clearly mistaken. No signs of boogers though, and that was all very well. It bespoke a kind of literary maturity.

He wandered over to a Lazy-Injun recliner, pulled the lever and laid back to have a closer look at the thing. As a smooth-talking bastard, it was a matter of professional curiousity as well as a guilty pleasure, although what else you were supposed to do when stuck in an Injun village for a few days, with nothing better to do, was beyond him.

He'd read it as a boy, of course. Some kind of dialogue between a couple of old Greeks, but that was about all he really got out of it at the time. Or maybe that was another one. He'd soon find out.

***

'De philosphi de Graecia...repeto suum mores ex vis de vir quinymo ex ut de Deus. Theoricus, vero, et Divinus Vis ut a valde curiosus, quod maximus theoricus, quod et profundus percunctor et propono vires quod infirmitas de humanus cogitum. Vero, eram ut recipero ut divinus verum situs fabula poeta, quod institutio de priscus, vel ut adore, ut filiolus, illud trunco res quos contemptus ut homo.'

With no upper and lower case, and no punctuation, the thing was awful hard to read, but he thought he had most of it.

"The philosophers of Greece deduced their morals from the nature of man rather from that of God. They meditated, however, on the Divine Nature as, ah, very curious, and important speculations, and in the profound inquiry they displayed the strength and weakness of human understanding," muttered Rufe, lost in a far-off place and time.

He could almost taste the dust and smell the air of the Forum. He looked down again at the familiar and yet unfamiliar text, recalling the glory days of his youth, and how he had loved those old books. Fourteen year-old boys were deadly with theological speculation.

Hell, even Jesus as a kid had stumped the priests at the temple. The words rang down through the millennia, as if Cicero was right here in his head.

"How indeed, was it possible that a philosopher should accept as divine truths the idle tales of the poets, and the incoherent traditions of antiquity, or that he should adore, as gods, those imperfect beings whom he must have despised as men?"

That was true—they used to elevate dead Caesars to the ranks of the gods. Ha! You wouldn't do that these days, would you?

There was a cough, and his warrior friend was right there. He even smelled nicer, and Rufe noted the fresh paint job and a shiny white bone in his hair.

"Ah," said Rufe.

"Operor vos lego?" asked his host, or something that sounded an awful lot like it.

"Sic! I mean, etiam," said Rufe, his eyes lighting up at the discovery of a fellow-traveler.

At last! Now they were getting somewhere.

***

Jeb was feeling out of sorts, and while Chapley was content to just let him go, Waylon seemed to have no choice but to tag along. Snead left the council house where the three of them had elected to go for a really good cup of chicory. Although to be fair or rather unfair, Waylon's ballot didn't count for much and in many aspects of life he would be getting either the short straw, or the dirty end of the stick. The fact that Jeb was thinking almost exclusively in cliches said a lot about his state of mind, but it was the emotional side, the sensitive side of Snead that they were seeing now. It was a side rarely displayed by a man like Snead, but of course it only made him even more fascinating to the impressionable youngster that was apparently Waylon.

With the 'taur prancing along in front, behind and beside him, Jeb stooped to pluck a blade of grass from a small, dried up hummock and stuck it in his teeth. He grabbed a handful of gravel, here in abundance compared to the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and absently shucked pebbles off in various directions. First he threw left, then right, and then maybe right again, at whatever targets caught his passing fancy. Waylon's flatulence hung on the breeze for a moment, but it had become unremarkable to Snead after a while. It was nothing he hadn't smelled before.

"What's up, Jeb?' asked Waylon with all the un-crushable worship of a youngster.

Jeb sighed, but said nothing, his eyes taking in the band of pale yellow light and the scarlet rim of a low cloud that stretched to the ground behind, right and left and almost to the ground in the west. The sunset lay over there somewhere, but it might be above the edge of the clouds for a while yet. An ineffably dull day, the dark clouds had rolled in many hours ago. It was the soaring white tops and the reflections that illuminated them now with a lurid, half-weird glow. There were a few dark holes up there, rimmed in scarlet but otherwise not very helpful.

"I don't know," he said. "Something's just not right."

He stopped, standing more slumped than slouched, the most usual posture for him, and just sort of breathed for a while, not really looking at nothing at all. Mister Snead was awful lanky for a fighter, thought Waylon. You would sort of expect more bulk, but of course Jeb was possibly more like a coiled spring...? Or maybe a cobra? Something like that?

His hero was struggling, if only he could help Jeb!

Jeb felt like he was floundering lately. His struggle to make something of himself, to grab the brass ring as people said, just hadn't been working out. Life itself had lost its luster. The blush had gone from the rose, and along with that sort of thought, it almost seemed as if Jeb's face had gone all stiff and wooden so that he couldn't even smile anymore. Something was dragging him down. This was completely new to Jeb. He knew what depression was, of course, but he thought it was something somebody else ended up catching. Looking back, he didn't recall sharing a canteen with anybody...a dipper! That must have been it. It must have been a dipper at a well, somebody's canteen, or maybe or a poorly-washed bar glass. He'd caught a bad dose of depression.

Why had he been so mean to Waylon a while back? Was it frustration, because he simply couldn't beat up everyone who bothered him? This was an unlucky thought in his present state of mind.

Jeb went down so fast Waylon didn't even notice for a few seconds, but when he did realize and looked around, Mister Snead was sitting on a bare patch, cross-legged on the ground. He was studying something small in his fingers. It was a stone, maybe. Unusually perceptive for him, Waylon just turned around wordlessly and circled back. While 'taurs weren't too swift, there must have been some basic intuitive sense that told Waylon to just shut up for a while.

Snead was oblivious to his surroundings, although his face was sort of glued to the horizon.

He chewed on the blade of grass, throwing it aside and picking another one after a time.

Finally he spoke. Maybe it was better than listening to his thoughts.

"What in the heck is going on, Waylon?" he asked.

Waylon crouched at his side, watching his idol through his peripheral vision, although the thought that he might have done something wrong never even crossed his mind.

"What do you mean, Jeb?" asked Waylon. "We have the orb again. And now, ah, ah, now..."

"Yeah! Now we're supposed to find a cave-temple guarded by aliens, assuming they're still hanging around after all these years, and stick the thing back where it belongs," muttered Snead. "And then everything will be all right with the world again."

"That's what the doctor ordered," agreed Waylon.

"So. Why did the aliens give it back then? If it's so all-fired important, why didn't they hang onto it?" muttered Snead. "I don't trust that crazy son of a gun one little bit. Although I admit at the time the money seemed good."

Waylon sorely wished he had something to offer.

***

Not being much of a horse-doctor but feeling the need to do something, Hope Ng held a cool wet washcloth to Rooster's forehead. Would an enema do him any good? It was hard to say, but she felt sure she could borrow some surgical tubing from the doctor, who had a well-equipped lab in the house. He probably didn't want the horse to die, not after kidnapping them and bringing them all the way here for whatever reason.

The poor thing. Rooster's eyes were dead and lifeless, his breathing slow and laboured. He seemed to lack the will to go on.

"Oh, Jeb," cried Hope.

The animal's nearest eye flicked over in her direction, upon hearing the sound of its friend's name.

"Oh, Rooster! Please don't die."

Rooster wouldn't eat, and he ignored the bowl of water she had put on the ground in front of him. His mane was limp, and his tail didn't even wag. She reckoned it was a bad sign when a horse laid on the ground like that in daylight hours. He hadn't had a BM since they got here, now that she thought about it. Her grandma use to give her these hot sulphur and molasses enemas. As a girl, she had fought like hell for her dignity. She always lost of course. That's not to say the danged things didn't work, because they did. They worked very well indeed. Taking another look at the sheer size and bulk of animal, she reluctantly set that one aside as a last resort. What would her grandma do, she wondered?

Wait a minute! Psychology! Surely a woman who had gone to high school could outsmart a horse, right? She doubted if he even had grade four.

"Jeb's going to come for us," she promised, balancing on her knees and giving the horse a big hug around the neck. "I swear he will, I just frickin' swear it."

The horse blew softly through the lips, and that sound, once so cheerful, was forlorn and without emphasis. It just blew, the effort sounding almost too much for it.

Checkers stood a few feet away, head low. Although he wasn't in quite such a bad way as Rooster, clearly he was suffering as well. These boys missed their riders something fierce.

"Rufe and Jeb are coming," Hope assured them with tears streaming down her face.

Pony sidled up closer nuzzling at her hair, her breath atrocious as usual, but Hope no longer cared about such superficial things, and something new touched her heart in the most profound way. She reached up and put her left arm awkwardly around Pony's neck too, in a kind of human-equine group hug.

"I can't do this alone," she said. "Pony, Checkers, you have to help him. Talk to him and tell him it's going to be okay. Everything's going to be all right."

Then Miss Kitty was there at her side. She had something in her hand. She cooed softly to the big black barb.

"Hey, Rooster, old fella. Look what I got," she said, holding out a shiny red apple.

She must have stolen it from the breakfast table. That was good thinking.

The horse neighed disconsolately, the first real peep he had uttered since being winched from the sub, but he just sort of shook his head and refused to even look at it. His head, bent at the neck at a despairing angle, turned away from them all. Being ripped away from his master for no good reason that he could see, and then the whole ordeal on the submarine...it was just too much. What did he ever do to deserve this? It was like God hated him, or something.

Checkers stepped closer. Lifting his head, he whinnied, just a short one, in a questioning tone, as if seeking something, maybe not even knowing what it was that he sought. In his own way, he was trying to help his friend. But it had little effect.

Rooster blew again, head shaking, his broken heart tearing the insides out of him and it was almost more than he could do to go on living.

Checkers nudged Rooster's shoulder with his muzzle, and whinnied softly again. Pony echoed whatever sentiments were being communicated.

"Come on Rooster," said Miss Kitty. "You can't give up now. Your friends need you too much. We all need you."

"Yeah, we love you, Rooster. And we need you. You know that," Hope's voice took on a new strength as the horse turned and with its dark, sad eyes watering, took another look at her and Muriel. "Whatever happens, you must never doubt that Jeb Snead loves you...and he will come looking for you, and us, and whatever else happens, he will take care of that nasty old man, that crazy old Schmitt-Rottluff."

The horse looked deep into Hope's eyes, as she bit back tears and stroked its wide, flat skull.

"You remember me, don't you?" asked Miss Kitty. "I remember you, Rooster. And you were never like this. Are you sick? I mean, are you really sick?"

"Never forget one thing, Rooster. Jeb Snead will always love you, Rooster," cried Hope.

The horse made another little snuffling sound, and then without warning the thing stood up, tumbling poor Hope almost over backwards, but she didn't care. She got up, made a quick grab, and held Pony in close, still crooning to Rooster.

"That's better," she said. "We ain't giving up, Rooster. I will guarantee you that much."

Muriel was carefully polishing the apple one handed against the front of her blouse.

As Hope Ng was scrambling to her feet, Miss Kitty had stepped in close to the fine old stallion and clutched his neck with one strong cat-like arm. She pulled him in tight and whispered a lot of sweet nothings in his ear. Hope stood there hopefully, Pony at her side, arms across her chest and nodding in a firm fashion as he looked at her with something, maybe not renewed interest, but something in those soft, round, puppy-dog eyes with the two spinnakers of blood-veined whites fore and aft. He stood quiet for Muriel, awkwardly eyeballing her, looking near to getting a crick in his neck.

"You're a stallion, Rooster," Miss Kitty reminded him. "You're a magnificent animal, and there are times when I sure do wish I was a purty little mare, and I would just be so in love with you, Rooster!"

He just looked at Hope, but his ears moved and he seemed to take it all in. He turned to look at Muriel again. He'd always loved Miss Kitty, or so it seemed at that exact moment. Deep in his heart he had always known it could never be. But it was something that had kept him going through some dark times...maybe he could let go. Maybe it was necessary, or maybe he was just ready. Even so, she sure was a nice lady. No one would ever take that away from her, or him. They would always have that much, and no more. The memory of her and how she was just then, the smell of her hair up close, the sound of that voice just then, would haunt him forever, and the other little lady wasn't bad either. Muriel gave him the apple and he chomped once, and it was gone...just gone.

Hope Ng got in close now too, and put her forehead up as tight to his brain-bucket as she could get. She proceeded to think as hard as she could about how easy it would be for a big strong horse like him to leap that nasty old fence, or smash down the gate, and go on up to the bungalow on the hill and kick the living crap out of that crazy old coot. Heck, even Whitey spooked all of a sudden, and Spots pulled his head up out of the grass and stared at her!

Rooster started, and they had trouble hanging on to him.

"That's it, that's it, you just listen up here, boys," said Miss Kitty. "And don't you worry—if I know one thing about Jeb Snead, is that he will never rest—never rest I tell you, until he finds you, ah, ah, us, I mean. You guys too. Don't you worry about one single danged thing, Rooster—he's coming. He's coming. I think I can safely promise you that much!"

Rooster broke free in spite of their best efforts. He seemed to come alive again, and coursed three times around the corral, bucking a little bit, and then neighing out a clarion call of challenge and authority. The other animals watched him, stamping their feet up and down but remaining in place. He had a bone to pick with somebody! The funk, that deep pit of depression, had turned to white-hot anger, as it so often does.

Rising up on his hind legs, Rooster pawed the air, with that terrifying call ringing out again and again. Whitey and Spots split apart, each bucking, going around in circles, and shaking their heads. They were getting into it!

Finally, Rooster put his head down and galloped up into the higher part of the enclosure. He stood there pawing the ground and panting like an enraged Brahma bull...

He took about twelve big bounds, accelerating strongly, and sailed over the fence as if he could fly and would never come down, but when he did, soft black clods lifted up and hung in the air behind him. It would take a while for that stuff to come down again. He headed straight for the house without a backwards look.

"Don't just stand there, go after him," bellowed Muriel, and she ran over and gave Checkers a smack on the rump.

The shocking sound rang out on the still evening air even as Rooster scattered 'taurian guards in a fine panic, the little jerks running for their lives in all directions, and then Checkers made his bid for freedom. Muriel savoured the sight, as it was truly a fine animal, way more than Rufe Golan ever deserved. He cleared the lower fence by a good six feet! The trouble with money is that all the wrong people have it.

"Look!" said Hope, as Whitey sailed over the fence, and now Spots was going for it...he made it over too and chased off after the others.

"Yay! Yay! Go, boys!" she shouted so hard her dentures almost flew out, but this was one time she just didn't give hoot. "Yee-hah!"

She just shoved them back into place and kept on shouting.

Turning to take Hope into the scene, she was just in time to hear Hope speak and give Pony a little pat on the backside.

"If the boys can do it, so can you," said Hope with a fountain of tears coming down out of her eyes and a smile to light up all of tomorrow.

She wrung her hands and bit her lip, saying a little prayer inside.

To say that Pony hesitated a moment would be an understatement, but Hope finally convinced her. She didn't seem to have much confidence, and of course she was right bonded onto Hope by now.

"Trust me, please," said Hope. "This is the best plan for right now."

Even though it wasn't a plan but pure impulse and surely the horse was smart enough to see it, Pony went up to the high end of the little paddock and took one last look back. Their eyes locked, and she nodded firmly, Hope too. Then, she tucked in and made ready for a running start...

Muriel's own eyes watered, and then the two of them waved, and then to the accompaniment of Rooster's and Checkers' war-cries, the more inarticulate neighing of the other mounts, and the shrieks of 'taurs and the already poor and downtrodden island natives being trampled underfoot, Pony spurted up and headed for the jump at breakneck speed.

They held their breath and watched her go over...with nary a pause in her step she joined the other animals in a frenzy of vengeance against the unfortunate minions. It was too bad about the natives, who were probably just trying to eke out some sort of a decent living off the strange foreigners, and had drawn no moral conclusions about their island guests.

Hope Ng and Muriel Kitty clung to each other, laughing and crying and babbling like a couple of old Harvard Alumni women on straight scotch and LSD.

"Screw you, Doctor!" shouted Muriel Kitty, waving the appropriate finger in the general direction of the house.

"Yeah! Screw you," yelled Hope and then laughed all the harder.

They were laughing so hard they could no longer stand, and so, clinging and clasping each other in joy, they collapsed together in a heap, with Hope for one still saying, 'go...go...go,' over and over and over again. The battle cries were over. The horses, in some collective wisdom, turned as one and headed for the hills as Hope laughed herself sick.

Whatever happened next, this moment was totally worth it.

Chapter Eighteen

They Spun in an Endless Vortex of Space

They spun in an endless vortex of space, of time, of matter and energy. Every thing, every form, was related to everything else, and it hung together so beautifully. Everything buzzed, or vibrated, or spun, or trembled, or shot along on its infinitely-curved vector. He had explained what it was all about, and how everything worked to her satisfaction. It was the singing of the celestial spheres. It was a crawling physical sensation, to experience the universe in this way.

It was like the back of her head was filled with buzzing insects, the ones on top still living, and the ones underneath dying, and the layers beneath them decaying and decomposing right back into the rich warm humus of the earth...

"Aren't you afraid?" she asked.

"Never," he said.

It felt as if their love-making had gone on for a thousand years, and they were only just beginning. It was a way of killing time, and a way to get to know more about each other's inner essence. Their minds blended together, and at times, it was comforting, and yet to remain true to oneself was the way of survival. It was the way of life itself.

He was neither cruel, nor was he kind. He was indifferent, and yet somehow he still cared deeply. He wanted to see what happened next, nothing more.

He was involved, and perhaps that was all that really mattered. He would be there when you needed him. He was the bringer of rain. She marveled at the fortune, to bring her to this stark revelation. She hoped he would share this with others. But in the meantime, in a universe where anything is possible and the only constant is change there would be time enough for all things.

***

"Jeb! Jeb!" called Chapley, blundering out into the sunshine in front of the council place, with Rufe tagging along behind, covering his eyes from the brilliant sunburst on top of yonder mountain and wondering where Jeb went.

"That tarnation 'taur is with him, too," he advised.

The Injun that Rufe had sort of adopted called out to a passerby. They spoke with animated tone and gestures.

Turning back, his strangely-familiar incantation in Latin sort of stunned Chapley, it was just so perfect.

"Inquit es per pradus," said the big red hombre.

"Down by the meadow!" said Rufe, nodding thanks to his friend.

"Come on," he added, grabbing the fellow by the elbow and jerking his head at Chapley.

It didn't take long to find them, as the small plateau was limited in scope and size, then fell down the mountainside in serried clumps and rows of jagged treetops with the odd vertiginous outcropping to break the monotony. It was a darkening sky now, and the scene viscerally dramatic.

Jeb was laying flat on his back and watching the clouds with a solemn look on his face, and Waylon had wandered off and found himself a grassy place to kneel down. Inevitably for a 'taur, he had quickly nodded off, in that peculiar half-crouched, back bent, head hanging pose with the arms curled up like a curious ground-squirrel standing up on its hind legs.

"Jeb! Jeb!" said Rufe upon finding them. "We got news!"

Jeb rolled his eyes over to take them in, hanging upside down over him as it were, and it was like he was just laying there enjoying the disoriented, or reoriented, view. He didn't say a word.

He blinked up at them. Maybe he had gone off to some happy place, a world of his own, and was having trouble getting back.

"Waylon," called Chapley, and the young 'un's neck jerked a little and shortly thereafter his eyes flickered back into life.

A hand twitched, his back straightened and then Waylon was stupidly looking down at the ground as if wondering how it got there.

"Dang it! Listen up, Jeb, this is important," Rufe insisted.

Jeb rolled and twisted his way back up into the cross-legged position, habitually reaching for a pocket, patting it and then stopping as if he had remembered something. Rufe wondered if maybe he used to chaw terbaccy as the term went. He'd never heard of anyone successfully quitting what was a pretty filthy and disgusting habit.

It was a completely unconscious mannerism.

"What's up?' asked Jeb in a careless manner.

"According to my friend here, the whole thing's just a hoax," began Rufe.

"What? What is?" said Jeb.

"The whole orb thing," said Rufe, with Chapley nodding emphatically along beside him.

"Whoa," said Jeb. "Why in the heck would he want to do that? That's just nuts, and Chapley's his nephew!"

Chapley shrugged with an odd look on his face.

"Are you sure, Jeb?" he asked softly, and then a really wild look passed over his broad and homely visage. "It seems to me that the doctor can tell people pretty much anything he wants to, Jeb."

Jeb stared at the somber grifter that was poor old Chapley. He gave the impression of being a whole lot older and wiser all of a sudden. Chapley was genuinely confused, he wasn't faking it. Body language and a kind of physical intuitiveness was Jeb's specialty. One thing Jeb knew for sure by now, the man couldn't act his way out of a wet paper bag.

"Wait a minute, wait a minute. I don't take no one's word for nothing, and that's something I learned once or twice, maybe even a few times, a long, long time ago," said Jeb Snead, who was not just getting defensive, but possibly even feeling the first tingling of angst. "Who says? He says? And how in the danged bloomin' tarnation would he know?"

Rufe pointed at Jeb and spoke to the big Injun, and they exchanged a few brief lines. This didn't impress Jeb too much, as he had no way to tell Latin from Chiricahua or even Dutch. Even so, when they looked at him expectantly, he got up from the ground and spat with authority. He really didn't look to be the same guy, Rufe noted with a sense of shock. Jeb's demeanour was careless and his expression slack. His posture was lackluster and his visage loose and ill-defined. It was like his face was somehow sagging under its own weight. He'd always perceived of Snead as having a kind of rock-like quality. Jeb didn't seem angry though, and when he thought about it, this whole thing had been kind of dragging him down too. For one thing, it was a fair amount of work, and neither one of them was really used to it. The only party member who seemed to thrive on all the exercise was Waylon. Up until now, Chapley had remained unaffected at least in a mental way, but the climbing had been hard on him too. At least those two had the benefit of youth, as Rufe was forty and Jeb maybe a couple of years younger. All of this passed through Rufe's mind as Jeb sorted through what were clearly conflicting emotions. The trouble with being with a whole bunch of people all of the time was the lack of privacy. Jeb was an introspective single male without a whole lot of sexual outlets, while Rufe was of course rich and handsome. When he wanted something, he just took it, and wrote a cheque for the consequences later. It was a new perspective, to look upon a buddy as a sexual being, but there you have it. For whatever it's worth.

"Oh, wow," Jeb said. "Lately I've been lower than a sidewinder's belly at the bottom of Death Valley, ah, so go slow and try and explain things to a hombre."

"Once more from the top," began Rufe Golan, speaking in a clear and authoritative, yet morally neutral tone.

Someone had to show some leadership around here.

Anyway, what did he care if the stone or orb or whatever got put back or not? From his own, personal point of view, the world really wasn't such a bad place to begin with. Without any knowledge of what had gone before, Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff's modifications were seamless enough to a man of any faith at all, and maybe even more so to a man of none at all.

Off on the other side of the big clearing, small and lucid puffs of smoke began to rise in quick succession. It was almost as if someone had sent out for a pizza. One of the questions Rufe asked his Injun buddy was about the smoke signals. While the Latin language didn't have a proper corresponding word for pizza, it turned out the Injuns had sent out for some kind of fast food.

It's not like the Injuns didn't like pizza, or so he was informed, but there really wasn't too many places like that around here, and to hear his friend using the word 'pizza' in a sentence otherwise constructed in an immaculate Classical Latin, complete with all the proper genders and inflections was sort of surreal, even though he wasn't sure that word had even been invented yet.

***

"I suppose you thought you were being smart," said Schmitt-Rottluff. "You really ought to think it through before doing anything impulsive."

Lurid gaslight flares warmed or rather heated the room, causing the steel walls to sweat profusely. It was like that, on a tropical island in the middle of summer. Still, the doctor didn't skimp on the details. The man was mad enough to have a steel bungalow, all hammered together with round black rivets. Presumably this made it bulletproof. The sub had emerged inside the lagoon, and when they stepped out on deck they were inside of an extinct volcano, surrounded by looming cliffs, and with the inner ring sloping inwards and covered in thick steaming jungle. The trauma had worn off and now the girls had some time to think. The ultramarine waters and clear depths were impressive enough in a touristy sort of way, as Hope saw it. One little postage-stamp sized clearing and that was pretty much all of it except for the house, corrals and a few smaller outbuildings. These included what were clearly dormitories for the hired hands, or impressed domestic help. Frankly, the dark-skinned human servants were much better trained than the 'taurs. They were at least trainable! She had to give them that much. He must have a cook off in the background somewhere. The macaroons weren't bad.

Seated before the gleaming pipe-organ, he went into a riff, which as it happened was the opening bars of 'An American In Paris,' which while normally played on an accordion, sounded pretty lush the way the doctor did it. He definitely used both hands and feet when playing. There was little doubt the man had talent, the problem was that lifetime of willful and unlawful misapplication, in all things. The jerk was bigger than life in some ways.

He apparently believed in excessive hedonism and narcissism in every aspect of his life, which kind of tossed the Golden Rule right out the outhouse window, nineteen times out of twenty, plus or minus three percent. That's was Hope's impression. The conversation was fascinating, scintillating, even. She planned on telling him that before the night was over.

Muriel had never considered whether a man could be born evil. Up until now, she had never really believed it, but this guy took the cake.

He stopped abruptly, spinning the seat around to stare at them in regret. Tonight he had dressed in a Don Cherry style tuxedo. This was luxuriantly tailored in Merlin-type astrological symbols and psychedelically-coloured paisleys. That tall, cone-shaped collar, tightly clamped up around his ears, looked like sheer murder, but there is no accounting for taste. For some odd reason she thought of Rufe Golan at that exact moment.

She shrugged him off as best she could.

"There's no place for them to go," he informed them in a kind of courtesy, with his usual air of casual indifference laced with a quirky sense of humour and a total lack of honour. "They're just going to be more a lot more uncomfortable out there, poor wittle horseys."

"At least they're free," shot back Hope Ng and even Miss Kitty winced at that one.

"It's an island. Even if they did get out of the crater, which they probably can't," he said. "I've never tried it myself, is what I'm saying, but then I just use the tunnel out front."

"At least they don't have to look at your ugly face anymore," Hope said.

"Seriously, the only way in or out is the tunnel, although somebody comes to the edge of the crater once a year and throws a virgin over," he said.

Hope's face tightened up considerably, for she hated it when he made fun of her like that.

"Ha!" he barked after a short pause, slapping his thigh with a loud report. "That's a joke. Oh, I made a funny."

The emotional letdown was profound, and a sense of futility began to creep into her thoughts.

"No, seriously, there are pumas and leopards and stuff like that in the hills," said Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff. "They might fall down a creek embankment. You really should have thought this out. I mean, they're going to want to have a drink of water sooner or later. At least here, they would have nice, fresh straw to sleep in, right, ladies?"

"No one cares what you think," said Muriel Kitty. "You know what?"

"There are big snakes out there," he said, and he gave Hope a strange look.

She shuddered inwardly, trying not to show her disgust and curiousity. All of this bizarre juxtaposition of psycho-sexual elements was really starting to get to her.

"When God talks to me, I just laugh," he said and the doctor giggled hysterically.

"Argh," said Hope.

Muriel was not to get an answer to her question, as the doctor now spurted up with 'Good Night Irene,' or some such thing, and he wasn't having any problems of focus or concentration, as he seemed prepared to go through a good few minutes of it.

They looked at each other and ground their jaws. The threat to their lives, or even the sheer inconvenience was one thing. But to be in the power of one such as he, was incredibly irritating. They had such common goals and common thoughts. At this point if felt like they might as well have been twin sisters. In some ways it felt like they might have literally grown up in the same household. In fact, Hope had one or two personal-type questions for her, only this didn't seem like a very good time. At one time, way back when she was about three, her parents had taken in foster kids, mostly for the money, although they were kind enough in their own way, like setting them out to canvas for the Kidney Association and stuff like that. Her mother had bathed the whole lot of them in the laundry tubs, two and three at a time, depending on size. She was wondering if they had maybe met before, almost like in some kind of previous life. Was it too much of a coincidence? What with all the trouble she was having lately with these secret yearnings and earnest inner queries, the older woman might be able to teach her many things. If only someone would give a straight answer to a simple question, instead of answering it with another. To hell with men, anyways. Only women completely understood the mysteries of life, which was something she had read somewhere. It might have been in a magazine.

During a momentary pause in the music, Miss Kitty cleared her throat loudly. He quit and gave her a look.

"You need to learn how to give up a grudge, Doctor," she said and that danged smile lit up his features which could be both charming, and alarming at the same time.

"Touche, ma petit," he nodded, eyes boring into hers, and then it was back to the keyboard, where he sat thinking for a second or two.

The doctor swept into another piece after downing a tall tulip glass of pink champagne. It looked like being for a long night in the old bungalow, and what with all the bugs around here and the primitive dry-ice air conditioning unit, going outside was a bad idea after dark. The heat was oppressive at the best of times. According to him, they were free to roam his island, the point being pretty obvious.

"Oh, God, bring us another drink," moaned Hope. "How much more of this are we expected to take?"

An obedient 'taur quickly moved to comply, as if grateful to move after standing at attention half the night.

Miss Kitty arched her back and carefully re-crossed her finely-muscled legs. She caught Hope's eye and shrugged. Did Hope have any other suggestions? Her attitude seemed to imply much, although she was saying little.

***

"So he knows where the balloon is?" asked Snead. "And maybe even the frickin' cave?"

"Yes," said Rufe with strong emphasis on the first syllable.

"He's willing to take us there," added Chapley. "Has anyone got a better idea?"

Jeb stood there thinking, which with him was a process that involved much chewing of the lip and some head-scratching.

"Well, no," he admitted.

"Anything I could come up with is likely to be pretty danged stupid, Jeb," said Waylon.

Jeb's head cocked in acknowledgement of the truth of that assertion.

"Yeah," he admitted. "That's true. No offense."

"None taken, Jeb," beamed Waylon.

Finally, Jeb was taking him seriously. Maybe there were other ways he could help, too.

"Why don't we take our danged orb, stick the danged thing in its danged socket, and earn our danged pay, Jeb?" suggested Chapley. "We've come all this way, and we are men of danged honour. And you're right—how in the heck would this gentleman, meaning no disrespect, know what for about anything? It just don't figure. Right?"

Jeb looked at Rufe, Chapley and the Injun. That much was true, in that you could never really trust an Injun. You just never knew with an Injun, although he seemed friendly enough. The mental picture of Rufe's new hatchet-wielding pal yanking a big chunk of skin from an alien's bald and bony skull held its own logic and you would be a fool to deny it.

"Well, what do you want to do?" he asked Rufe.

"Let's go have a look at the thing," said Rufe as Chapley nodded his concurrence.

"It can't do any harm, and it sure beats walking," said Chapley.

"Fine. Be that way," said Jeb Snead with a mournful sigh.

"Are you all right, Jeb?" asked Rufe, glad that they had that settled that and could move on with other priorities.

He gave Rufe a long look.

"I don't know! I'm not sick or anything..." said Jeb. "Uh, at least I don't think I am?"

It was like a ton of bricks had settled on his chest in the middle of the night, and something beyond description or even comprehension was not right with the world.

"Yeah. I hear you, pal," said Rufe. "I keep thinking that Checkers must be missing me something awful..."

"Oh! And the girls, too," he added in an impulsive afterthought.

"I know," muttered Snead in sadness. "Rooster and I haven't been separated for any length of time for quite a few years. Actually, he was sick and stayed at the vet for two days. That was a few years ago. But it wasn't so traumatic that time."

Rufe accepted that a man's love for a horse could be a pretty profound thing, but it was surprising that a real tough feller like Snead had this sensitive, vulnerable streak. Rooster had somehow fulfilled a need for Jeb that Rufe had never felt, at least not on those sort of deeply emotional terms.

"Checkers is maybe a little more used to sleeping in his own bed," said Rufe. "But seriously, people, let's get this show on the road."

He turned to his new-found intellectual brother-in-spirit and began to speak some kind of foreign mumbo-jumbo in a rapid yet sonorous voice.

The Injun nodded agreeably, and pointed back the way they had come.

"He's going to rent us some horses," said Rufe. "And he says he knows the way. What I'm getting, at least I think I am, is that it's like about a half-hour ride."

"And then we'll know for sure," said Chapley.

"I wouldn't go so far as to say that!" said a still-glum Jeb Snead.

Waylon started to dance from side to side and from foot to foot, anticipating that his compelling need for constant stimulation was about to be rewarded with some more mindless action of a physical and non-cerebral nature.

***

Their host soon had a small party of men and horses put together, and in view of the present tense political situation with the local aliens, the armed escort would be as welcome as the guidance of the trail-savvy warriors.

The Boss Injun led off, with Rufe a close second. Jeb liked his horse well enough. It was a good-looking animal and everything. Riding the thing bareback didn't bother him as much as he expected, but it sadly reminded him of his old friend Rooster. The thing didn't seem all that bright or enthusiastic, and Jeb might have put the spurs to him a little more forcefully than he otherwise would have. The animal had never felt them before, but it gave no argument. Grabbing his seat, he hung on as best he could as it lunged forward. His black mood hadn't dissipated much, but he had to admit the love of action had always been strong in him. It was one of the most common sins of the age, when he thought about it. It was just that simple act of moving across a landscape had its own therapeutic effect, or at least he hoped so. Normally the very act would set him at peace. He really couldn't say what was so wrong with life right now—it just was.

He caught up with Rufe and Chapley, surrounded by five or six braves and carefully picking their way along a wider section of the boulder-strewn trail. It would be too easy for the horses to turn an ankle, possibly throwing a rider or going down the hill. Narrowing ahead, a dark gap in the forest loomed. The trail went over, down and to the right, and now they went on in single file.

Overhead, a turkey vulture circled, and somewhere off in the trees came a screech that Rufe couldn't immediately place. An owl maybe, he thought. Squirrels squawked and small things scuttled around in the brush to each side. Birds chirped and Rufe thought it would never be completely silent out here until the end of the world. He had the momentary thought that he might like to come back here sometime under better circumstances. He took another look at his new friend. He wondered how long it would take to pick up the local lingo. Surely fifty bucks would be enough to purchase a mobile home in this cultural milieu.

The ground here was softer, carpeted with pine needles on dirt. They waded over a small falling stream, and then the path narrowed further. Rufe turned and exchanged a look with Jeb, taking in the miss-matched pair. He'd never seen Jeb look so uncomfortable. He looked massive on the Injun pony, with his feet hanging so low to the ground.

"It's okay, Jeb, you'll get used to it," he said.

Jeb stared into his eyes as if searching for a word and it wouldn't come, and then he shook his head.

"It ain't the same," said Jeb. "I don't know if I can do it...this is really weird..."

Rufe turned away, sitting up straight and looking cross for a brief moment before he regained the natural inclination to diplomacy. Then he looked back.

"Sure you can," he said, and then just tried to ignore Jeb's sort of silent but visible pissing and moaning. "He said it wasn't far."

"Half an hour in this terrain can't be more than a mile and a half," said Chapley. "Just grin and bear it, Jeb."

Waylon was looking grim too, but then he was probably just trying to be as much like Jeb Snead as he possibly could in the way that young people do sometimes. He plodded along in silent dignity, his face pulled in tight and expressionless, although there was something funny around the eyes, like maybe he was trying just a little too hard to be calm and cool and tough-looking.

It wouldn't last, unfortunately. That's what Rufe figured as they rode along.

The warriors chatted among themselves, and every so often Rufe would tilt his head and prick up his ears a little and try to pick up a few words. The basic pattern was familiar, but the local vocabulary was quite distinct. It was some obscure dialect of the Athapascan linguistic family, but that was about all he got out of it. They weren't unhappy, at least he could tell that much. In fact the highly-bronzed and rather colourfully-garbed men seemed to be enjoying themselves. It must be nice to get out of the house once in a while, he thought, recalling the dim interiors of their typical shelter and their total lack of gas-flares, candlelight or whale-oil lamps.

That was reassuring, as he nodded and grinned at the men around him. Hopefully, they would find the thing in the gathering evening gloom. He was gratified to see an 'X' on the ground composed of two long saplings of white birch about two inches in circumference and maybe five feet long.

Their leader turned and said something, and then spoke to Rufe in a calm tone of authority.

"It's got to be right around here, gentlemen," translated Golan.

He said a couple of words in some sort of mumbo-jumbo to their guide and Chapley looked over.

"Awesome," loosely translated Rufe in answer to the unspoken query.

They slowed up briefly as they went over the trail marker. Then the whole danged bunch of them craned their necks and kept a close watch on the treetops around them.

"There it is," called a sharp-eyed Waylon, pointing off uphill and to the right, where the bun-shaped wicker basket of the gondola could clearly be seen hanging two or three feet off the ground by a shroud of fine spider-silken cords, conceived by highly-trained free-lance aerospace architects and built by nine year-old university-trained engineers in China making eight cents a day.

The lengthening shadows through the trees and along the sloping forest floor told Rufe they'd better get busy. They would be lucky to get another hour, or an hour and a half of light, almost any kind of light, at best.

Chapter Nineteen

Silver Moonlight Splashed Over the Lagoon

Silver moonlight splashed over the blackness of the lagoon, the far side rimmed with trees hanging out from the slope and above that, there was the dark wall of their prison. Above that, countless stars gazed down in a cold, careless indifference. A thin crescent of moon hung low over the west, for that was where the sun had gone down. Rooster mentally corrected, it was more likely quite a ways to the north-west at this time of year. Or was he thinking of the sunrise? It was so hard to remember sometimes. It really wasn't his thing.

Rooster relieved Pony, who gratefully walked back to their bivouac under the palm trees. The group had found one or two spots where it looked possible to scramble up the escarpment, although Checkers insisted it was a 'rim.' They had chosen this place, just up from the edge of the lagoon because of the grass, the pools of cool, clear water under the triple-canopy jungle and its proximity to the best escape route. This was a narrow chute going up on a forty degree angle, switching back and forth a few times. A part of the cliff wall had broken free of the main body, and it leaned forward from the base. A spattering waterfall drowned out their small noises. Over the millennia, it must have filled up with dirt and broken boulders. It was wide enough for Rooster, and it was mostly shelving ground to walk on. The crack in the earth could have been formed by an earthquake or other seismic activity, its smoothly rounded breaks and cracks indicating vast age. This was according to Checkers, who seemed well-educated and very knowledgeable to Pony. She was taking a bit of a shine to the boyish but polite equine, especially now that his earlier flatulence was in abeyance, possibly due to their rough and ready diet lately.

While Rooster had turned out to be something of the equine equivalent of Sun Tzu, with all of this tactical and strategic knowledge, it was Checkers she found more enticing as the big black was a little too powerful in his emanations for the young and impressionable female. Rooster was a bit threatening, or at least she had the impression of pure alpha dominance, which she wasn't sure that she liked so much, as a girl likes to be consulted once in a while. But Checkers was just cute.

The other pair were okay, but didn't exactly set her heart and groin on fire.

Even so, the thought of being alone with him in the dark glade for any period of time was deliciously disturbing, even though Checkers and in fact all of her companions had behaved with perfect manners and sensibility. Anyone could see she was scared, but no one made any mention of their own fears or concerns, and she realized that was probably for her sake. They were just being boys. She got that much, and didn't take the patronization too personal. It was like they couldn't help it, bless their poor masculine souls. Checkers looked up on her arrival but otherwise it was all peaceful thoughts of sleep and refreshment from him. Spots dozed nearby, and Whitey stood off a ways, asleep on his feet by the feeling she got.

She sensed Rooster's alert vigil from where she stood, and while it was reassuring, it was also a little intimidating. Ashamed of his previous breakdown, Rooster's firm resolve was what had kept them all going so far, and Checkers' feelings of admiration for the older, wiser animal came through pretty clearly. He really looked up to him, although Pony wondered if Rooster wasn't overcompensating somewhat. He might have some inadequacies known only to himself. But Checkers was brave enough in his own way, she thought. It wasn't the highest ranking criteria or anything like that, not to her at least.

He moved over and nuzzled her neck to assuage her fears, but it went no further than that. Her tail flicked softly and she rubbed against him with her shoulder for a minute, her own eyes feeling like dry radishes and mind dulled by the need for sleep. Checkers moved away slightly and looked at the hummocks of lush grass for a moment, then off up towards the calling brook, deep in the dark woods above. Making up his mind, he stepped away and relieved himself, fairly noisily but there was nothing they could do about it. He must have been dozing at shift change, she realized, although nothing much had happened anyhow, not in the last couple of days. It was their turn to sleep, but sometimes she found it hard, and sometimes she found herself jolted awake with a wrench of adrenal juices in the abdomen...

Rooster watched far off up the curving seashore in between big mouthfuls of the succulent native grass. He really wasn't interested in speculating as to whether it was indigenous or a colonial species, but he did sort of wonder why he had never heard of it before. The grass of the endless American prairie could be dry and tough enough at the best of times, although at other times it was thick and sweet with clover. Even the hay back in the Big Apple had something going for it, although it did get a little monotonous sometimes. Of course that's what oats were for.

But this tropical island stuff was really good. It was kind of a shame that their present circumstances spoiled much of the enjoyment. They weren't going to go hungry, anyhow.

Somewhat to his disappointment, the routine pattern of life up at the house, its lights visible from here, had gone right back to normal as far as they could cautiously observe. Without any real insight into the mind of the mean old doctor, it was a matter of some concern that their escape might have either been predicted, or was of such minor importance to the doctor's plans that he just didn't think it important enough to try and recapture them. Either way, what to do next was a bit of a tough call. So far, gathering intelligence about the enemy hadn't really paid off, but the thought of escaping the valley, and then being cut off from all sources of information wasn't too attractive either. Also, the few places to get in and out would be all too easy to keep under surveillance, and getting back in there if the time came might present some challenges. He had one or two little thoughts on that score. Intermittent stomping-raids had their allure! It was best to observe things for a while, and just wait for developments. The urban footprint of the native village was a little too busy to scout properly, with a big spider-web network of trails going to and fro, but at least now they knew where it was. It could be avoided in future, unless they had some good reason to go there. They might scout it once a week—that sort of thing. They had the impression there were no more horses on the island, which complicated things as there was no way to impersonate anyone. While this hadn't been confirmed, if a native saw a horse they were going to report it to somebody, and talk gets around pretty quick sometimes.

That doctor just pissed poor old Rooster off more than he could safely express, what with the young 'uns around. Stuck here in the relatively small bowl that was the lake and crater wall, so far Rooster had not been able to be alone with his thoughts. He was sort of afraid to line all the game pieces up in a row so that he could see exactly what they were dealing with. The others were all too intuitive in their own right, and he had their morale to consider...

Having gotten over his unaccustomed funk earlier, he knew his old friend would surely come looking for him. There was no doubt about that, in fact if they could get off of this island, he definitely planned on going looking for Jeb, no matter how long it took to find him. He would dedicate the rest of his life to the search, if it came right down to it.

There was no way they could operate the sub, even if they could capture it. Their hooves were simply too maladapted for the controls and so closing the hatches would be impossible. Everybody agreed on that much and he reckoned some consultation was essential to group dynamics. The fact that Jeb would never consider such a thing wasn't his problem right now—now Rooster was in charge and they were going to do things by the frickin' book.

A man's horse knows him very well indeed, and Jeb Snead was not a perfect human being, not by anyone's standards. It's not that Rooster didn't love him, but he also understood him just a little too well.

Jeb would never consider that thought either, and this did not tend to his personal betterment.

Whatever happened next, no matter what the evil doctor had in store for them all, he sure hoped Jeb would be careful. The more Rooster thought about it, the worse the whole thing looked, and that sort of thought was contagious. He was responsible for these people, and maybe that was how it should be. He was grateful that they listened, more than anything. It could have been so much worse. Whitey and Spots were useful animals. They listened well and were at least capable of being quiet when asked. They represented two more sets of eyes and ears.

Looking back at their camp, he sensed their unconscious minds and caught a brief snatch of Pony's dream, which involved a naïvely romantic and totally non-physical encounter with Checkers. Their faces nuzzled up close and intimate. Perhaps Checkers shared a small portion of the dream as well, as he shook his head slightly and nickered softly in his sleep. They would make a cute couple, and he grinned at his friend's good fortune, both of them actually.

There was a lot of necking and cuddling involved in Pony's dream, as well as some long conversations, one or two gallops on the beach, but nothing really sexual. Still smiling slightly, Rooster re-focused his eyes, ears and that ineffable sixth (or was it the seventh sense?) on their surroundings.

It didn't pay to get too comfortable when you were on the lam, a thought which reminded him of Jeb again. His tail drooped in sadness, but he forced himself to keep packing that old grass right in there...

That wasn't the way winners thought, Jeb had taught him, and it was true, too. Jeb had taught him so many things.

He had to eat, and to keep up his strength. He had to look after himself, or he would be of no use to the others. While the nobility of this thought eluded his personal awareness, it was just one more of those things he didn't know about himself, a stirring of profound grit and determination echoed through his guts under a slight prodding from his proud stallion's glands.

One of these days, he was going to kick the living crap out of that mean old man, and such self-promises are not made lightly.

***

Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff, alone in the salon, watched the ladies from the comfort of his wheel-chair. A big-panel view tube had been arranged by a small crew of bumbling 'taurs. It leaned back, sitting just so on its folding wooden easel, and while it wasn't ideal, with a sigh he reckoned that a good hideout takes a little development time. While the sardonic ticking of a grandfather clock assuaged his senses, it was also a reminder of his time left on this earth. The smell of fresh paint still lingered in his bedroom, and the adjoining toilet had an unfortunate habit of plugging up at least once a day, an event fraught with all kinds of personal angst, considering the quality of the 'taur's knowledge of plumbing. He had never thought of himself as fastidious, but there were limits, and an outdoor latrine would have been better sometimes. At least it wasn't adjoining your bedroom.

He wasn't all that interested in what they were saying, although that was a factor in his personal excuse-making. He just wanted to watch them undress, as many of his thoughts revolved around mature or immature themes of incest, bestiality and rape. It was just something he had always wanted to try, again. It wasn't even all that physical—he just wanted to try them all out in a test-tube, to experiment endlessly with the cloning and hybridization of disparate species.

It was his oeuvre, his bete noir, his raison d'etre, and his Kama Sutra all sort of rolled into one.

A voice, thin and reedy but not lacking in expression and emotional overtones came through loud and clear, as the ladies didn't know about the miniature speaking-tube, complete with hyperbolic venturi amplification, which was hidden in the vase of fake coloured Bakelite flowers, a new product, standing on their side-table. They were sitting right there, or might as well have been. The effect was like a bad pair of sunglasses on the ears, and the view-tube wasn't too clear either, its lens being hidden in a bad Venetian waterscape on the wall. He was sort of looking out from the window of a palace along the Grand Canal...

"Pony is doing all right," Hope told Miss Kitty, barely suppressing a sob. "It's amazing, it's like I can just feel her out there."

She wondered if they came in close at night, trying to sneak food and catch a glimpse of her.

"Don't worry, they'll be fine," Muriel Kitty assured the younger one, although she didn't say exactly where she was getting her information. "There is grass out there, and water, I'm sure."

The doctor looked up at the clock on the wall.

"Come on, ladies, come on," he muttered, but they appeared to be in no mood for sleep and in fact were clearly settling in for a long bout of girlie-talk. "Argh."

His nipples were erect in anticipation, rubbing up against the soft silken texture of his clean white shirt. Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff had even put fresh rouge on around his eyes, a dull, almost swollen looking orangey-red colour that emphasized his cadaverous good looks. With his head freshly shaved, and his new lace-up calf-length boots, and black corduroy pants, he was ready for anything the night had to offer, as long as it didn't involve actual physical contact with another type of being. The very thought was icky, and made him feel unclean. He could have a hot shower later. But would he ever like some fresh samples to play with.

What the ladies offered was of course novelty. It was something different. It was something to do. Being the only honky dude in a town like this—real white-bread, comparatively speaking—and while he had a kind of suburban setting, and while the natives did have a permanent settlement nearby—it meant that he always felt awkward and out of place when they had a dance, or threw one of their infamous beach blow-outs. That Muriel Kitty was spectacular, in a six-point bustier with stockings and garter belt, while 'Pretty Panties,' for that was his little nickname for Hope Ng, looked pretty danged good in the shower all wet and covered in nice frothy soap...

"Argh," he said, punching the pneumatic switch to change outputs.

What in the heck were the boys up to, he wondered? There was only one way to find out, and by now it must be evening over there. Slowly the snow cleared and a picture began to form.

"Ah, yes," he muttered.

It looked like they were ready for some kind of action, and while homoeroticism was kind of out of his league, the comic aspects of their adventure were also compelling. That was one of the worst parts of this job—he often developed a real affection for his victims. It made it kind of hard to let go sometimes.

***

"We'll never get this thing fixed," said Chapley.

Right about then that danged black bird fluttered to a perch on a branch off to one side. It watched the activity for a moment, and then it cackled in its own bid for attention.

"Aw, shut up," said Jeb.

"What, are you all out of rocks?" said Rufe with a grin at the cheerful critter.

Their airship had come down real hard in a stand of tall conifers, and there was just no way that a few patches of birch-bark and pine-tar were going to do any good, even if it took the others a while to figure that one out. Sewing up the gashes with thread stripped from cedar roots would take too much time, and they had to eat and sleep once in a while. Luckily, much of their equipment was still stowed in the lockers, and he was already pulling things out and stacking it up in some semblance of order. They thought he was just lightening ship at this point, and he never said otherwise.

He'd wait for someone else to make the call, but the airship looked like a write-off.

In some ineffable way he was relieved by the extensive damage to the gas-bag, as he had lost any faith in the mission. Part of that was the deflation of Chapley, who had somehow fallen into a blue funk at the notion that it was a hoax of unknown proportions, and without any clue as to why. But even worse for him was the notion that Schmitt-Rottluff might not be his uncle.

Something like that would have made Rufe ecstatic, but he had enough grace and wit not to say so to the unfortunate fellow. No, Rufe's own emotions were not good either, and that had its own effect. It was hard to think of poor old Checkers waiting for him at home, waiting, worrying, wondering...this was something confusing to Rufe, as it had never happened to him before.

Was this selfishness, he wondered? Or no, it was a kind of revelation...right?

Everyone has to have someone, he thought, yet Jeb was apparently an orphan, and he didn't seem to let it bother him, did he? Or maybe he did—all that manly aggression had to stem from some deep well of emotional pus inside. He tried not to show it, or to let it get him down when other people were around, but when he was alone, who knew what went through a man's mind?

And of course Jeb had always had Rooster, going back years now. At that thought, Checkers again came to mind, as he had often enough over the last few days. Rufe had a stab of something in the guts, call it regret or loneliness, call it what you will. But he really missed the animal, something that obviously never happened when he was at home, or hanging out in bars in town.

Normally he saw Checkers everyday, and they had a lot of fun together, now that he thought about it. The black bird dropped off of the branch and made straight for Rufe.

"Huh?" he said in astonishment as it flapped around his head a couple of times and then hovered in front of his face.

As he called to the others, all of them intent upon staring dumbly at the shredded silk, the danged bird took off down the mountainside, neatly dodging between boles of trees, and giving one last, sardonic look backwards. Then it was gone, leaving one bough swaying gently as it brushed by in passing...

"What?" said a cross looking Jeb Snead.

"It's that danged bird, Jeb," said Rufe. "He showed up right on schedule. Yeah, he did."

His chronometer confirmed it.

"He's trying to tell us something," he said.

"Rufe, we could use a thousand feet of strong twine. Got any suggestions?" said Chapley, and Waylon stupidly looked around as if he might find some just laying there.

"Did he leave you a rock?" said Chapley, trying to be the leadership type, and the only role models he had were the real snarky types from comic books like Flash Masterson.

"No!" said Rufe.

"Aw, dang it, boys," said Jeb Snead, with Waylon as ever hanging half over his shoulder. "We ain't ever going to get this thing fixed."

"Well, I wasn't the one driving it," said Rufe, turning and repeating it for the benefit of the audience, which had grown considerably in the last fifteen minutes or so.

He repeated the remark as best he could in Latin.

His buddy translated it onwards, in their own language, to appreciative chuckles from the gathered onlookers.

Speaking of which, here came another couple now, and his host straightened up with a grunt of perplexity.

"Who in the hell is that?" asked Rufe, for these two were in a completely different tribal garb than their hosts.

They weren't screaming and brandishing tomahawks, so that was okay.

In any case, they were about to find out. The man and woman, dressed from head to toe in a buckskin coloured outfit, hers a mid-length skirt, and he in a long hunting jacket, beaded and profusely sewn in patterns of dyed porcupine quills, approached with calm visages and friendly expressions on their faces. The woman's hand came up and she made certain gestures and pronouncements. Looking over at his tall host, literally dwarfed by the golden stranger, the expression was focused and he looked slightly puzzled.

These folks were clearly strangers in these here parts, Rufe got that much just from the body language. Some of the gestures looked familiar, but not all of them.

"Can you translate for me?" his host asked in Latin. "She says they speak English, and it would be helpful."

"What? Sure!" said Rufe, with a smile and a nod at the girl, who was on closer examination, stunning, even though her feet were obscured by a trim pair of deer-hide moccasins. Her ankles and lower calves were still visible between the moccasins and the lower fringe of her skirt, and that was at least something.

***

Rooster went first. With his ears cocked for any noise out of place, he carefully picked his way up the chute, which was broken and angled in places, with the wall on either side towering over them in mute threat. The up-ended slabs on the right covered them from view from below. Every so often a ledge of rock stuck out of the turf, and he made sure to gauge the height, for even a nick or a scratch on the leg could slow them down, and of course the horses found it easier to watch forelegs as opposed to the hind legs.

He could hear them coming up behind, first Pony, then Spot, then Whitey, and then an alert and nervously-eager Checkers bringing up the rear. Almost more important than his friend's sheer physical strength would be his ability to communicate in an emergency, but anyways Pony was too small, although her thoughts almost always had a clarity that Checkers sometimes lacked. It was perhaps a question of maturity. He thought she was a little older than him actually.

It was the best tactical formation he could devise with the available personnel...

He stopped for a moment to let them catch up. At this point, he could look out through a crack, and over a broken-off tumble of cliff-chunks...the lagoon was stunning in its tropical aquamarine, surrounded by a ring of golden sand, with the strange feather-duster looking trees hanging over on delicate and elegant curves, their trunks black and ringed with strange markings and the glossy fronds a warm yellow-green.

His jaw dropped, as the sight of the rusting black hull of the submarine tied up at the dock in front of the doctor's rambling bungalow took him by surprise. Viewed from down low, against the backdrop of the house and barn complex, it was all but invisible, although of course he had known it was there.

But from up here...wow.

Pony and the others came up beside him, while Checkers dawdled with a kind of sinister purpose, always turning and staring aggressively back down the slot when he got the chance. No one said anything, all of them aware of the need for silence.

She gasped a little at the scene laid out before her.

He sensed a moment of real fear, but she got it under control. Whitey snorted and nodded in glee. Spots looked unimpressed, and said nothing, but Rooster noted his eyes taking it all in calmly enough.

It's all right, he thought, and she seemed to respond well to the novelty and his calm dignity. But it did look a long ways down, when he thought of it. He was even more grateful for the slot now. She might have balked at an exposed trail with nothing to block the view. While his career had been rich and varied, mountain climbing was too prominent on the old resume.

She turned and looked upwards, the first thing in her mind an immediate zigzag in the trail and a sort of shoulder, the sticking out edge of the outer mass of stone.

Rooster estimated their height above the valley floor at about the length of a race-track, but then the land spilled away in gentler slopes into the water. From their starting point at the base of the cliff, it was much less than that. It was incredible how some of the features of the land were extended below in the cool, blue depths. There were black marks under the water, and it took him a while to decide they were the trunks of dead trees. Far off across the water, there were white shapes like grains of rice, and he thought those might be boats drawn up on shore and laid upside-down...

The half-dozen golden specks he saw over there might be the roofs of houses or shacks...

He had his breath now, and they seemed to be doing well. Checkers came up and had a long look out over the ledge, craning his neck and trying to catch a clear look at the trail below. While the only sound was their own breathing, when they were climbing the sound of their hooves covered up other noise. A human being could be quiet when they tried, and even quieter if they were well-taught and had paid attention.

With a little consultation, the horses figured they were only about a third of the way up, and it looked like it might get a little steeper here. Yet there was no denying the wide, v-shaped tree-choked notch in the rim of the crater. From below, it was the most inviting place they had found to make the attempt. And sooner or later, an attempt had to be made. What if it wasn't even an island? It could be a piece of mainland somewhere. There were times when you didn't believe a word, not one word of anything anyone said. They had picked up a few tidbits of intelligence on the way, for even though they were confined in the hold of the boat, some bits of talk had been overheard from the crew, and Dr. S was a garrulous old fool at times. He was also untrustworthy.

Pony gave Rooster a touch on the shoulder with her own shoulder, and he reluctantly broke away from their secure balcony. With senses thrown out as far as he could in all directions, seeking any sort of mental touch, especially from above, he led them off again. He was pretty sure there was no one around though.

The five of them were soon streaming with sweat in the humid heat of the day. The sun climbed ever higher, and so did they. While the next little stretch was narrow enough to cause concern without actually squeezing them psychologically, it opened up again, and Rooster perfectly understood the significance of being screened from above and below by the dark masses of stone. So far they didn't have to crawl, and that was good. As far as they had agreed, they were going to get out of this danged crater if they had to hold on with their lips and their bun-holes.

***

In the end, it was decided that they would all go. This even included the two new Injuns, Leaping Panther and Squirrel, but not Taffy Bear, which he now knew to be the name of their host. He agreed to show them where it was, nothing more. Rufe had the impression the others were tourists, perhaps slumming on their summer vacation. They came from somewhere up north, he figured.

There must have been two dozen people on the slope, traipsing straight down the hillside, slipping and sliding on the loose detritus of the forest floor, and getting hung up on roots, branches and occasionally falling flat on their butt. Half a dozen small boys were holding the horses, for which Rufe was grateful. There was no way to get an animal down the hillside.

"This is nuts," said Rufe for the second or third time. "It's almost pitch-black out here."

"I agree," said Chapley. "Stick together, people."

He was almost certain that if he personally got separated, he would never find his way back to the trail, let alone the village, without a serious intervention from somebody.

"Why are we all going?" complained Waylon, reaching up a helping hand so Jeb wouldn't slip.

"It's a free country," grunted Snead, lowering his way down a mossy bank.

He was trying not to get too many stains on his trousers, which were the only decent pair he had. The boots, with their slick bottoms, all moist on the bottom from crushed plant materials, and then the high heels, were suitable enough for riding and walking about town. They were almost useless, in this sort of environment, and that was a big word for Jeb.

He barely caught a noise that sounded familiar.

"Shh," hissed Rufe, holding up a hand as he slid to a halt.

Rufe overbalanced, and then he went down with a distinct 'crack' as his head hit a rock.

He cussed softly in the gathering gloom, scrambling to his feet and rubbing the back of his head. Reaching down, he found his hat.

The noise came again, from down the slope.

"It's that danged bird," said Waylon. "You have to admire his persistence."

Chapley winced at the new-found vocabulary, and also in some ways found that he was a bit jealous at Mister Snead's influence with Waylon. It was something he never, ever thought would happen, and so he didn't know how to deal with it. It was an unfamiliar concept.

A dark shape arced across between two trees a few yards below them, and perched there again. The Injuns, standing there waiting, looked at each other, the bird and at the white men. Some of them even looked at Waylon! But of course, they didn't speak the lingo, and had no idea of his true...his true...his true something. His true ability, that was it.

"Coo?" it said. "Coo? Coo?"

"Yes, that's right, we're all cuckoo," said Chapley with a frown, acting like he had a bit of a headache coming on.

There was a dim light coming from somewhere down below a bulge in the hillside. Chapley looked up at Rufe.

"On the bright side, I think we have arrived," he said. "On the other hand, the danged orb, or cataclysmic punch-card, or whatever you folks want call that thing, is back at the village."

"All right," said Rufe and then stood there for moment, still rubbing the back of his head with a lugubrious look on his face.

"I know! I could go back for it," suggested Waylon.

"Why not," said Snead. "Nothing really matters anyway."

***

"And how are you ladies this morning?" asked Schmitt-Rottluff, who appeared to have lavished much of his repressed lust and sordid attention on the breakfast setting this morning.

They had full staff service, complete with liveried 'taurs standing behind their chairs. The aroma of an English breakfast, all fried kidneys, eggs, toast and muffins, saturated the air.

A loud and persistent growl gurgled through Muriel's stomach, as she eyed up the fixings, as cup she hadn't tasted good old Limey marmalade in years. Keeping any sign of anticipation out of her manner, she was careful not to overload the plate too obviously. She could always have seconds.

"Fine, doctor," she murmured with a decisive look.

He wasn't fooled, apparently, as he just smiled into his coffee and slurped at it noisily.

"They got away, doctor," said Hope. "I can feel it in my bones. They made it out!"

She just couldn't help herself, she blurted it out like a danged fool and it sounded so smug somehow, and also a wee bit immature. Yet it was also truth personified, or at least impersonated. They really had made it out, no matter how ethereally she knew it or felt it.

"Who? The animals? Big deal," he said. "It's still an island, Miss Ng. They're not going anywhere."

They would work well as bait either way, of course. Assuming that was part of his plan, and they both agreed it was. It was either the women or the horses, they agreed.

"I don't care," she said. "As long as they got away from you, that's all I care."

Muriel kicked her ankle under the table just as Schmitt-Rottluff put down his spoon, with which he was eating a hard-boiled egg in a dainty stoneware cup, and dabbed at his lips with a napkin. He ate things in the oddest order, she noted, another sign of his affliction, of which she assumed he must have one.

"Ah," he said. "But I still have those little vials with the samples of their precious bodily fluids. Oh! And yours too, young lady."

"So what? It's not like I can afford to ransom it," said Hope and he gave her a sharp look.

And their mouths dropped open at the sheer unmitigated gall of it, for it sounded incredibly creepy when he put it that way. Although they had no idea of what was implied in that remark, the very way he said it meant that he was up to no good and the milk of human kindness wasn't exactly dripping from his breasts.

"You'll never get away with this!" said Hope, and then felt the urge to kick herself again.

Why, oh, why, did she always have to be so lame?

His narrow shoulders shook in silent laughter, but then he broke into another of his fake fits of coughing. It was a crashing bore at the best of times, and this of course was the worst of times.

Hope thought it might be a good idea to just ignore the man as much as possible, although hunger held its own compulsion. Turning to Muriel, she tried to engage her in some line of conversation that the doctor would find mysterious, disturbing, and annoyingly feminine.

"So," she said. "How long have you and Jeb known each other?"

It was just one of those things. It's not like they had anything in common except their present predicament. But as Miss Kitty opened up her perpetually-grinning mouth to answer, the doctor's hoot brought a flush of crimson to her cheeks. She had to say something, and yet she had had no idea that would come out...

And of course they were both still thinking about those precious bodily fluids and Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff's penchant for experiment.

"Oh, yes," said Miss Kitty. "Jeffrey and I go way back."

This was not exactly what Hope wanted to hear, but she had asked for it, and now she had to take it with as much aplomb as she could mustard.

She had an inspiration.

"Doctor?" she inquired, reaching for a plate of scones.

"Yes?" he responded politely.

"Would you please pass the mustard?"

The look on his face, the mere knowledge that they could really shake him if they tried, was worth all of the day's trials put together. The funny thing was, it really didn't taste that bad. And it was still morning, yet.

Chapter Twenty

"He Says He's Not Going in There."

"He's says he's not going in there," advised Rufe Golan, translating from Latin to English for Leaping Panther, Squirrel, and the others on behalf of Taffy Bear. "There's a big tribal taboo. He says it's more than your soul is worth to go in there, in his carefully considered opinion."

Leaping Panther looked at Taffy Bear speculatively, but said nothing. Squirrel stood there listening carefully and looking absolutely ravishing without half trying. Rufe was finding her to be a bit of a distraction.

"Where is that danged light coming from?" asked Waylon, even though anyone could see it came from strips embedded in the ceiling.

His trip back to the village for the orb had taken the energetic and enthusiastic youngster about eight minutes, and it was a little disappointing to find that no one really cared about this remarkable athletic achievement.

They clustered about the entrance. The mouth of the cave was little bigger than a regular doorway, although far from rectangular. It was more of an uneven and shallow 'S' shaped aperture, with a spill of discoloured gravel sloping off down the hill and making the footing uncertain. Why in the heck aliens would make the doors so badly was anyone's guess.

"We can't all go in anyway," muttered Snead.

Looking around, there must have been fifty people all standing there looking like they had nothing better to do, which was a rational conclusion and in fact was probably the truth.

Rufe turned to Taffy Bear and they chattered back and forth.

"I've asked him to send back to the village for some torches," he told his companions.

"Torches!" said Waylon in scorn. "There's light in there already. And I'll bet I know who gets volunteered!"

"No, he's right, Waylon," said Chapley. "If this is a trap—and it oh, so obviously is a trap—then we have little choice but to set the thing off and sort of see what happens..."

"What? Whoa? A trap?" gasped Snead.

"He's right, Jeb."

Rufe's words came flat and hard and very clearly enunciated.

"But if it is a trap—and it doesn't necessarily have to be—then this may be our one and only chance to figure out what this guy actually wants," said Rufe Golan, rubbing his stubble with his oddly beautiful surgeon-like right hand and looking very doubtful indeed.

"And?" said Waylon, making a desperate bid not to look quite so dumb all the time.

"Knowledge is power," said Golan. "And when you think about this guy, power is his thing. It's what he's all about. Maybe we could use a little bit of power."

"So what are we getting at?" asked Jeb Snead as Chapley nodded affirmation to the question.

Chapley was as much at a loss as anyone right then.

"I want to see exactly what's in there," said Rufe. "And then I might have one or two questions for your uncle."

This last with a thoughtful glance at good old Chapley, who might not be quite as big of a fool as he pretended to be...

There was no guarantee that Waylon was stupid either. He just acted like it. To say that Rufe was becoming a bit of a paranoid would be a factual understatement. More than anything, he would like a few facts, and there was really only one way to get them.

It was quickly decided to take a torch each. Rufe asked Taffy Bear what would happen if they didn't come out for like a whole hour or something. The gist of his response was that they would be presumed to be dead, and their souls burning in eternal torment in some kind of Injun purgatory...endlessly scourged in the shades of eternal hellfire, is what Rufe thought he said.

"So we're on our own, then," said Jeb, interpreting correctly the animated expression and forceful words of their host before Rufe could even speak. "All right, boys. Nothing we can't handle."

"Yep," said Rufe.

While a complacent man at the best of times, he seemed unnaturally calm, by which status Chapley interpreted a state of high excitement.

He said as much, and Rufe just shrugged, while Snead seemed almost incapable of fear, which explained much of his career when you thought about it.

"It's just that I've never been in an underground alien lair," said Rufe. "So who's all going?"

Chapley looked around.

"I'll go," said Squirrel, and Leaping Panther nodded in the affirmative.

"Wild horses couldn't drag me away," said the tall and tawny foreign Injun girl.

"I love aliens," said Leaping Panther. "But if anyone gives us any trouble, I'll just whack 'em on the head a couple of times, and they'll shut up."

Patting his trusty tomahawk, which hung from his belt on a jaunty angle, he looked like he was more than capable of keeping his word on such things, not that Rufe or anyone had much doubt. Injuns loved three things, drinking, fighting, and something else, although he couldn't quite recall what it was. Anyhow, everybody knew that much. Taffy Bear spoke up now and yet he was looking at Leaping Panther...

"He says he got a couple the other day," translated Rufe, and the big red fella nodded in comradely approval, like they were anglers or something.

With a deep breath, Rufe stepped forwards and paused in the entrance. He crossed himself in silent prayer.

"What's all this? I thought you were Jewish, Mister Golan," said Waylon, crowding up in beside to be nearer to Snead.

"Spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch," explained Golan. "Just a primitive superstition of my own, I guess!"

Then he put his chin down and moseyed on in.

***

Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff snorted, coming awake for a moment, as he had suffered from sleep apnea for many years, but found the nasal strips, Bakelite nostril tubes, and other quack remedies to be ineffective at anything but providing a ready revenue stream to the quack remedy makers.

Not finding them on the view-screen, he tapped buttons and brought other images up until he located them. The tunnel they were in sloped downwards, and twisted and turned, as if the aliens didn't have a string-line or any sort of even the most primitive surveying tools. Yet apparently their ancestors had helped build the Pyramids, and the Sphincter and a plethora of other great tourist attractions in the Egyptian desert.

He sat up straighter and pushed the button to ring for a glass of cold gravy with a hair in it.

They were getting to the nub, the crux, the nexus of the matter, and boy, oh boy, were they in for a big surprise...

Reaching for the bottle of laudanum, he took a quick gulp and then went on working.

***

Ahead, Snead saw the tunnel widen out, and a starker, brighter light beckoned from beyond.

While the floor had the imprints of itty-bitty alien feet, who for some reason never wore shoes, they hadn't seen nor heard a thing of those dirty and despicable denizens of deep space.

It was so quiet he wished he had a pin to drop, just to see if that really worked or not. Not for the first time, Waylon rammed into him from behind, and Jeb realized he was going to have to have a little talk with the boy.

"Sorry, Jeb," breathed Waylon, sounding for all the world like he needed a good nose-cleaning.

He didn't smell very good either. To be anywhere near him was like being next to a rotten tooth, although his breath was no more atrocious than usual. This was more of a body odor. Jeb put his arm out crosswise and gently shoved the youth away, bearing in mind the creature worshiped him and really wasn't such a bad 'taurian dude in his own way. This Squirrel lady smelled much better, he learned, as the six of them crowded in the opening.

They were looking at an ovoid chamber, with a soaring vault of a roof, all grey lumpy stone, and with a lit-up but otherwise narrow hallway going off left and right. Directly in front of them was another doorway. This one had the oval door propped open and with a much more rational room visible through the portal, deep in a stone alcove of its own.

"You were right," allowed Chapley. "Someone was right! But if the lights went out now, we'd be pooched without them back-up torches."

Someone pushed him, giving him a hard knuckle in the ribs and Snead looked back into the innocent eyes of Chapley with a query.

"You're the one getting paid the big bucks for this," said Chapley, which wasn't exactly an apology, and neither was it an admission.

Still, Snead reckoned he was the one who did it. He handed over his torch, just to make sure Chapley did his fair share of the work.

Taking his life in his hands, but also pulling out his six-shooter in a determined fashion, Jeb boldly stepped out into where presumably no man had gone ever before...

Nothing really bad happened to him, and there was no other sound but his own slightly-ragged breath. He listened, for while the aliens didn't really talk, their footsteps should be audible from some distance away. Nothing. The place was as quiet as the graveyard at three a.m.

They weren't bad places to sleep, when he thought about it. He'd thought he heard a sound earlier, but now he wasn't so sure. There were too many in their party for accurately judging extraneous sounds and their meaning. His own boots rang loud and clear. It was the imagination more than anything...

Feeling their hot eyes upon him, he glanced back, but then kept scanning visually. The hallways at the ends of the chamber seemed to go off forever into eternity, diminishing to pinpoints in the distance, and they were deserted as far as he could make out. Unlike the entrance, these looked to be dead straight. Ah! The entrance was meant to keep out the breeze, maybe. Assuming you had the resources it seemed to work very well, as the air was dead still in there. The obvious choice, and for a man like Snead the only one, was to check out the door across from them. It was closer. There was no sense in going around exploring without first securing their avenue of retreat. If there was anyone in there, he could try shooting them. It wasn't even the last resort. It was maybe more like resort number three.

His first impression of the next room was that it reminded him of some industrial process, a big steam-kettle, like maybe a pressure-cooker or something. The danged thing looked like a big boiler, or maybe a silo on a dairy farm...

"This thing's weird," called Jeb, and to his relief Rufe walked over now. "It's like a still, or maybe what, I don't know."

He wasn't sure if aliens drank whiskey or not, presumably they did, but you never knew. He wouldn't trust a man who wouldn't drink with him and danged few of them even.

The pressure-vessel or whatever it was, was painted a lovely fire-engine red, maybe even a little redder than that, thought Rufe. It was a kind of Chinese cherry colour. Like something lacquered a dozen times by unskilled labour working for peanuts. The contrast between the inner chamber and the outer oozing rock walls, coated with algae and muck, was stark. There was even a gap between metal and stone of at least a foot. That would be for air-flow, or maybe for insulation, Rufe thought. He supposed it was better than living in a cave. Then there was the whole question of what an alien space-ship actually looked like, now that he thought about it. With that beautiful paint-job, no one in their right mind would build a fire under it, so that was sort of interesting.

"What in the heck do we have here?" breathed Rufe to a shrug from his partner.

Someone had said they kept them goofy bowl-shaped space-flying machines in underground chambers, but this room was like a tuna can. He had the impression the shape was all wrong for a 'flying saucer.' Their ignorance was going to get them killed.

"Let's be careful here, Jeb," said Rufe but explained no further.

Jeb squeezed in through the door that looked suspiciously like a hatch, and had a look. The only really odd or alien thing about it was the gap between the door's framing and the actual living stone of the cave. It was like an elevator, in that he could sort of look down, or up, in between the metal and the stone, where shadows reigned supreme, and he wondered if this was like a vessel, some giant still, for this room had a metallic look to the walls and ceiling, although the floor seemed to be covered in a thick carpet.

"Well, it's a room, and not just a big kettle," decided Rufe. "Chapley!"

He turned and stared out the door and across the foyer.

Chapley lifted his head inquiringly, but reluctant to move just yet.

"Yes?" he asked politely, a nonchalant cowardice written all over him in big fancy script.

"Bring that danged orb, or Galactic Inseminator, or whatever that danged thing is," called Rufe. "I think I see something over here. It might just be the key-hole that bun-hole of an uncle of yours was going on about."

Speaking of bun-holes, Waylon chose that exact moment to take a dump, and so wordlessly, to a man, (and one woman,) and without consultation, the whole gang came on over and then went inside.

***

With shaking hands Chapley unbound the knots in the golden cord that secured the top of the blue velveteen bag and pulled out the box. He pulled the key out from under his shirt on its stout chain and carefully inserted it into the lock. The green glow that lit his face from below made him look weird and undeniably evil in an erudite and pedantic milquetoast, cucumber-sandwich eating sort of way.

"Did that glow get brighter?" asked Rufe, or was it just plain dimmer in this room? "Sometimes magic varies inversely with the square of the distance. And it's home, now."

He'd read that somewhere.

"Huh?" asked Waylon, but the others just shook their heads in dull wonder.

"Yeah, it's glowing pretty strongly," admitted Jeb.

He had nothing more to say, although he took a quick glance up at the lights above and around the room, and then shrugged hopelessly.

They stood on the far side, opposite the doorway, and peered at a receptacle on a sloping cabinet front that stuck out from the wall. Two small door panels stood wide open. There was a round hole inside of it, which was about the right size as far as anyone could see.

"Jeb. Would you like to do the honours?" asked Chapley, taking out the glowing thing and looking up into Snead's eyes.

"Can't much say as I do," said Jeb.

"Can I do it?" offered Waylon, but Chapley just shook his head as even his own hands were trembling slightly and he didn't trust the 'taur not to drop it and smash the thing into a dozen bits.

"Rufe?" asked Chapley on a rising tone and Rufe stepped forwards.

"Sure," he said. "Why not?"

Taking a deep breath, he stepped up and took the orb, or egg, or whatever it was and then turned to see if it fit. He poked the end of it into the hole. There was nothing special about it, he could see the bottom end and it was featureless to his view.

"It doesn't seem to fit very well," he grunted, as the end of it clunked and bumped unsteadily about the perimeter of the hole.

In truth, maybe he was shaking a little bit. He tried again but it just didn't seem to be right.

"Aw," said Waylon, slapping himself upside of the head. "It doesn't fit."

Snead just shook his head, at a complete loss as to what to suggest now. Maybe look for another receptacle? Maybe they should look in a different room? But this place fit the description given.

It was Chapley who came up with the answer. While it was sort of ovoid, and sort of foot-ball shaped, there was a distinct egg shape to it, and in fact they had all sort of called it an egg once or twice...

"Try the other end," he told Rufe.

"It fits! It fits," said Rufe, as the thing sunk home and hit bottom with an audible 'clunk' sound.

He stepped back, looked around, then up at the ceiling, and held up his hand for quiet.

Snead made proper eye contact.

"So what's supposed to happen now?" he asked. "Everything goes back to whatever normal was supposed to be?"

"That's what he said," muttered Rufe, and Chapley hissed at the thoughts going through his own mind.

Chapley had one or two issues related to trust now, regarding his relationship with the old man. Because that's all he was really, in the final analysis—just some crazy man, albeit an enormously talented man, an ambitious man, a man driven by the dynastic impulse. He was the sort of man who dedicates his entire life to controlling the world—that sort of guy.

He stood there biting his lip, and they all remained dead quiet while waiting for something to happen. At least thirty seconds or even a minute passed, and their perceptions revealed no flaws in the actually fairly mundane reality surrounding them—floor, walls, ceilings, admittedly studded with the mysterious strips of light that provided the illumination in there.

"Well, that's a bust," began Waylon, always trying to impress Snead, and right about then there was a thin squeak from the wall nearby.

There was another, louder squeak and a faint rumbling came up through the floor. The piercing note of metal on metal hit them with an urgency beyond denial and they looked about wildly. Things were starting to happen!

"Eww," said Squirrel, stepping away, for Waylon had just crapped himself again...

Pieces of the wall began to come inwards, like they were hinged at the bottom, and they all straightened up, and hissed and gasped and cussed.

Panels in the circular walls were leaning out and down, and small legs were unfolding from the ends farthest from the pivot-point. Waylon pulled Snead out of the way of a descending assembly. The panels began to fold along lines and made shapes that looked half familiar, thickly padded panels with oddly anthropomorphic forms.

"What the...?" began Jeb Snead, as Rufe grabbed his hat for no particular reason but sheer unmitigated panic. "Chapley? Any big ideas, buddy?"

Chapley stood there shuffling from one foot to the other, shaking his head and chewing on his lip for all that it was worth, i.e. not very much.

"Whoa!" gasped Chapley as the vibration in the floor built up to a brief crescendo and then subsided, although a shaking could still be felt through the feet and once or twice it seemed as if the far doorway became blurred...

"Those look like seats," said Waylon, and then looked in shock up at the ceiling when the lights wavered momentarily.

"Oh, bejeebers," moaned Chapley in some kind of revelation. "Holy, frijoles! Holy, frickin' meatballs. Oh, no!"

"What? What, you idiot?" shouted Rufe Golan, and he grabbed Chapley by the shoulders and gave him a good shake. "What in the heck is going on?"

There was a long and consternated-type look exchanged between them as Chapley struggled in Rufe's grasp, desperately trying to speak in spite of being all verklempt.

Finally the dam broke loose.

"Get in the seats! Get into the seats!" yelled a wild-eyed Chapley, bits of saliva going every which way, and he broke free from Rufe's grip and raced towards the nearest one. "We'll never make it out in time!"

As they gazed at each other in numbed panic, his hurried hands scrabbled for the wide fabric straps that appeared to be dangling from certain areas on each side of the dentist-chair like contraptions.

"Get in the danged seats," ordered Chapley as the first buckle snapped into place. "It's a rocket! A gol-durned rocket! And it's going to take off, unless I am mistaken! Get in the danged seats."

His pleading look in no way interfered with the speed or accuracy of his hands, as another metal tongue plunged into the slot of another metal buckle. The outer hallway door started to move, it was closing fast and Squirrel shrieked in sheer surprise. Rooted to the spot, clinging to his strength, she looked up at Leaping Panther who just shrugged as if to say, 'What next?'

"A rocket!" blurted Rufe.

It just seemed so unbelievable, so danged far-fetched. And yet...they really couldn't put it past him either, bearing in mind what a mad and evil genius that Schmitt-Rottluff was. It didn't take much thinking or a whole lot of believing. No one said a thing for a second. Everyone not busy strapping themselves down was looking at him...

"Go! Go! Go, people," shrieked Rufe in stark naked fear, and he gave Jeb a quick shove, but the sheer physical inertia of the man was intense.

It was like they couldn't move for a second, it was as if they were cemented in place by the effects of some mysterious force, but then their collective terror turned into actual signals from their individual brains, running down ganglia into their legs and then as one man, or one man and one 'taur, (and a woman,) they bolted to find a place before all heck broke loose—presumably. Assuming it was true and everything.

***

"Ladies?" came a polite voice crackling from the grille beside their bedroom-prison door.

It was the crack of dawn, judging by the soft blue and amber light entering through the fancy wrought-iron scrollwork and the thin gauze mosquito netting that passed for curtains.

They had agreed that you might do something with the scrollwork, although it was clearly meant to provide security one way or another, sort of keeping one thing out and another kind of thing in, but those curtains! Ugh.

"Er," mumbled Hope Ng, asleep still, face down and with one arm hanging down over the side of the bed, and Muriel was in the bathroom performing her morning toilette, and grooming herself extensively.

"Ladies," he called again, sounding more insistent this time but with that note of sardonic humour that simply grated on one.

"Go, to, heck," mumbled Hope Ng, shaking her head against the pillow a bit and with her one visible hand curling up closer near her face now.

The bathroom door popped open and Muriel was there.

"What do you want, you crazy old varmint?" she bellowed. "It's five in the morning for heaven's sakes!"

"I just thought you might want to see this," he purred.

"See what?" she demanded, as it was obviously more of his usual nonsense.

"Your rescuers are on their way," he advised, and Hope Ng's eyes opened at this statement.

"Nuts," said Miss Kitty, worried sick now that she had that little piece of information.

Hope grunted and rolled over, and then she hitched herself up to sit up in bed, back propped up by a couple of pillows.

"No, seriously," he said engagingly. "They're on their way—and I really couldn't be happier for you ladies."

"Argh," said Hope, reaching for a pillow to throw at the peephole or even just the speaking-tube aperture, a cheap tin horn bolted up on the wall. "One of these days!"

"They're about to take off now," he said, giggling like a drunken banshee with a big wad of cash in port after a three-year whaling cruise in the northern Pacific. "Would I lie to you?"

Hope grabbed a box of tissues, and threw it as hard as she could at the far wall.

Reluctantly, her feet dropped to the floor and she began to think about dressing and what to wear, and all that sort of a thing.

"Dang that man," said Muriel Kitty with a cross look on her foxy feline face. "If you were to pull the stick out of that man's backside, there really wouldn't be much left of him."

Hope paled at this shocking statement, for Miss Kitty had impressed her more for her ladyish qualities, and at times it was even possible to forget that she was a whore. That cool, edgy sophistication had slipped for a moment. Hope Ng gave her a sidelong look. Her education in the ways of the world continued apace, if only she could keep up with it all. She'd never heard that one before.

"Come on, ladies, it's not like I haven't watched you dress before," he chided them, or more specifically Hope, in light of her hesitation.

"Argh," she said.

Chapter Twenty-One

"If You Know Something..."

"Chapley, if you know something, now might be a danged good time to spit it out," blurted Rufe in uncontrollable fury.

This being at the whim of some awfully danged capricious gods was starting to get the best of him. While he knew himself not to be one of the best of men, he was fairly certain he wasn't among the worst of men either, in fact that was his guiding principle in life—not to be so bad that people really noticed, and remarked upon it, and eventually complained about it. In his opinion, 'no complaint,' means no crime has been committed.

"It's a rocket," said Chapley.

He looked awfully scared. Either he had no idea of what was supposed to happen next, or he had a very good idea of what was going to happen next.

"Chapley!" ground out Rufe through tightly-clenched teeth. "I'm going to kill you."

"Ah, ah, it's a reaction motor! And, and, it, it, it's going to shoot us up into the sky," called Chapley in some fright as the thing went through another quick cycle of stronger vibrations.

"What's it doing?" yelled Jeb. "What's going on?"

Waylon looked positively pale compared to his previous skin tones. The light coming in through their one and only porthole suddenly blazed with renewed intensity, in other words, it had just gotten a lot brighter out there for some reason.

"It's building up pressure," explained Chapley, as white as a sack of flour spilled on the ground. "When she's ready to pop, then we'll go. The launch doors just opened up, that's what just happened there...I'm pretty sure."

Sweat poured down Chapley's brow as the temperature seemed to have gone way up in there, although it probably hadn't.

"You mean like dynamite?" gaped Rufe. "You mean, like gunpowder?"

The others gasped but Chapley shook his head decisively. They had an ominous loud fizzing noise, with rumbles and quakes to explain, but a series of thrusts from side to side overruled their conversation for a moment.

"No! Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff has developed a better system," shouted Chapley over the increasing noise levels. "Assuming the pressure bottle doesn't burst, we're going ballistic in the next minute or so! Hang on!"

Clutching the hand-grips at the sides of their seats, the people on board awaited an uncertain, perhaps even a bleak fate, but one thing they could agree on later, if there was to be a later—as whatever happened would be a surprise to all of them, no matter how anticipated it might be.

Oddly enough it was Waylon who asked the most obvious but also the most intelligent question of the day.

"What makes it go?" he called in a moment of relative quiet, yet still subject to the tremors coming from somewhere below by the feel of the seat-bottoms.

"Vinegar and baking soda," yelled Chapley as the thing let go with a resounding 'pop,' and just as predicted, the thing took off. "That's the simple explanation..."

To human beings unused to such unplanned adventures, or even just a whole lot of sensory stimulation, the next few minutes were a confusing blur of mixed and terrifying impressions.

He might have misheard that last bit, or at least that was what Waylon thought he said. But he would never know, as there was an incomprehensible buzzing sound, like the biggest and wettest fart in all of Creation, an invisible hammer hit with incredible force all over the place, seeming to pound him down into the seat. His body shook so much his vision went all funny and blurry, and then he must have fallen asleep, for when he next realized his own existence, and became aware of anything again, it was all over and everything was quiet. Waylon stared, slack-jawed, as the sky outside turned colour.

Then the deep black of space was visible through the six-inch porthole in the door, their only view of the outer reality. All sense of motion had now stopped, and everything was so very, very quiet. The silence in the room lasted a long time.

"I think I just crapped myself," Waylon said, which was no big surprise to Jeb Snead, unlucky enough to be sitting right next to him.

Rufe's lips were working in silent cusses, but the big Injun hombre appeared to be enjoying the view, Squirrel looked around at the room in wonder. Chapley wondered why his mind seemed so dull and uncomprehending. He must have been unconscious. That was it—he must have been unconscious.

"Uh, um," he began. "Don't get out of your seats just yet, please, lady and gentlemen."

Rufe glared from the opposite side of the room.

"Maybe Waylon's not the only one who needs to go to the privy," he snarled. "Where does a guy go to take a dump around here?"

He silenced at the sight of Jeb's hat floating calmly past, completely unsupported by anything Rufe could see. This put the fine point on their situation. Theorists had propounded that there was no gravity in space due first and foremost to the lack of heat, but also the fact that there was probably a vacuum on the other side of their one and only window...

"While I'm sure my alleged uncle thought of everything, I don't think it's very wise to be out of the chair when the machine initiates re-entry," explained Chapley with a sigh of resignation. "And surely the rocket must, sooner or later, re-enter the atmosphere, and return to the Earth. The only question, I think, is where...and when. To ask why of someone like my uncle, would be almost nonsensical, and in fact it might just cause more problems..."

Talking became pointless for a while even though some screaming occurred when an insane red light danced around like flames on the window, and there was a new source of shaking and vibration. It seemed to go on for an awfully long time, and then there came a couple of sensational jerks. It was like being yanked around on the end of a string, or some kind of a giant yo-yo. Something white momentarily obscured the port-hole and then it was all indigo sky for second. Their guts lurched in unison as they went around and around and around...

Chapley's arm was raised to point at the porthole. It was the sea, brilliant and gleaming in beaten blue and shimmering gold highlights, and the intervening air was studded with the frothy white of clouds and below that the gunmetal of their shadows...and those shadows were looking closer and closer with every second that went by. Angry as he was, the sudden sight of a small green patch of land out there cut Rufe's acute moaning and groaning short. It was an island with a half a dozen tall peaks, clad in jungle, swaying and bobbing in the porthole for less than a second. It was all he really needed to know.

It looked like they had arrived, and the pale amber and aquamarine waters brought a new complication, as it looked like they were about to crash into the ocean. Much renewed screaming did little to help the situation, although it was understandable enough.

***

They made it to the beach just in time to see the big red rocket explode like a Romanesque candle or even a Hong-Kong-built cherry bomb, but when the puff of smoke cleared, there was a pair of parachutes visible, one at each end, which seemed to balance the thing fairly level. While it swung and bobbed to some degree, it appeared the rocket would come down in some semblance of a horizontal orientation. The massive splash it made, coming to Earth in the middle of the lagoon, obscured the far side of the crater, which appeared to be several miles away. Her heart went out to the passengers. The doctor said Jeb and the others were in there. While one couldn't put it past him, it was almost inconceivable.

Subsiding with a cracking roar, echoing over the water, there was a ring of white foam and the slender shape of the machine floating high for its size and bulk. It bobbed aggressively and then settled down.

"Oh, my word," gasped Muriel Kitty, and Hope was forced to agree.

"What in the blue blazes—" asked Hope.

"Your salvation is at hand," said Schmitt-Rottluff. "The 'taurs will fish them out and recover the rocket. We'll have them up at the house in a half hour or so and then it'll be just about time for lunch..."

"Oh," said Hope, hand covering her mouth in shock and startling comprehension.

She gave Muriel a stark look.

"It's true," she said. "They're in there—don't ask me how I know it, but I do, I just do."

Turning to the evil doctor, she had the meanest look on her face when she made him a promise.

"If you have harmed one single hair on his head," and the rest was kind of unladylike so it was better left unsaid.

Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff smiled with the beatitude of a recently-canonized saint, which is not exactly the same thing as firing one out of a howitzer.

"All in good time, Miss Ng, all in good time," he assured her and Muriel.

She strongly resisted the urge to say, 'argh,' and tried to model herself for all she was worth after Miss Kitty. As far as role models went, she was the best available at the moment, and Hope had to acknowledge that it had indeed been helpful.

***

They clustered near the hatch, unsure if the space-rocket would fill up and sink when Jeb opened it. With a grim look at the others, he gave it a twist. The thing popped open, fell outwards and then the end of it splashed into the stillness. The water was lower than the doorway, he was grateful to see.

There was a collective gasp.

"Oh! It's heavenly," said Squirrel, and Rufe took another look at her feet.

In some embarrassment, he found himself meeting Jeb and Waylon's eyes on the way back up, and then there was Leaping Panther himself, who was grinning sardonically but said nothing.

Rufe tore his eyes away from the most intimidating glimpse into another person's thought processes he had ever experienced. He focused desperately on their surroundings.

The clear depths hinted at underwater growths, white coral and green weeds, and below the ship small shapes twisted and turned, as if their curiousity had been piqued by the new arrival. Something leapt from the surface, and then a thousand more, glittering in the sun as their sail-like fins guided them here and there. Splashes and small ripples showed where they hit and returned to the depths, and then they were gone as quickly as they had come.

"Flying fish," advised Waylon. "No big thing."

He'd probably read a book on it, he sounded like a real expert on something all of a sudden.

"Really?" said Jeb, in all sincerity.

One thing he knew about Waylon, this wasn't subtlety, which Jeb feared above all else.

"So..." ventured Rufe, peering across to the shoreline, which was visible maybe a mile off. "Who's the best swimmer?"

"Yeah!" said Chapley. "Just for the record, I've got this crazy idea as to where we are."

"What?" asked Jeb.

"Really?" asked Leaping Panther. "Somewhere in the tropics? The South Seas?"

Chapley looked appraisingly at the tall Injun and nodded firmly.

"If this isn't my alleged uncle's Polynesian hideaway, kind of a winter pied a terre, then I will eat my hat," said Chapley.

"He's the only hombre I know who would build a house in a volcano," muttered Rufe.

That one silenced all the rational members of the group.

"So now what?" asked Waylon. "Incidentally, that looks like a half a dozen canoes or so, coming off the beach over there...listen!"

"Thanks for sharing that with us, Mister Golan," said Waylon with a real disdain in his voice.

He was probably just scared witless, even more so than normal, and it made him bold.

With elevated pulse-rates in varying degrees according to individual personalities, they stared off into the distance, and indeed the thump of paddles against gunwales, and the excited chatter of the natives, colourfully attired in glow-in-the-dark fluorescent g-strings and some kind of barbaric S & M battle harness in the doctor's distinctive black and gold livery, could be made out between the gentle lapping of the waves against the outer hull.

What it all meant was anybody's guess. But they had to admit it was kind of forbidding, spooky even, how well-planned it was.

"I've got one or two questions for that hombre," said Jeb Snead in a neutral tone that nevertheless did not obscure some underlying tension and resentment.

"It seems that we were expected," added Rufe with a significant look.

Chapley just shrugged in sheer helplessness, with an odd expression on his mug. It was like his eyebrows were trying to escape.

***

Hope, Muriel, the doctor and a gaggle of village people and 'taurs not busy on other duties watched patiently from the shade of the palms. The beach came right up to the front lawn of the doctor's villa, if a heavily-fortified and rusting steel bungalow could be described as such, and the view across the lagoon was stunning. She had asked him if it was an 'atoll,' and the doctor indulged her by explaining the difference, as an atoll was formed by coral, and correspondingly did not achieve any great heights above the surface, whereas a volcano piled up a big cone of 'magma,' when it exploded.

"Hopefully, mine won't do that again for a while," he had added with a humble grin. "Not in what's left of my lifetime, anyway."

"I can't wait..." gasped Hope.

"Yes, neither can I," agreed Muriel.

There was a hint of inner strength, perhaps even a little bit of a mean streak in there with her friend, in Hope's perception. It looked like the boats, long huddled by the red shape in the water, had turned back this way again. An odd cadence of bongo-drum music came rolling across the water.

"Ah," said Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff. "That's the signal. They're all safe and secure. It will be just a few more minutes now, ladies."

Hope wondered if he planned to kill the whole danged bunch of them then, having achieved whatever nefarious purpose he had in mind, or if he might have a worse fate in mind for them—some kind of fate worse than death. For some reason, there was always that vial of precious bodily fluids hovering in the back of her mind. It bugged her for some reason she couldn't put a name to.

The earth shook under their feet, and while things trembled several times, they heard no crashing in the background.

"It's that danged volcano," said Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff affably.

And then he said the dangedest thing, as Hope and Muriel listened in awe.

"There is, then, an element which holds together and maintains the entire universe, an element, moreover, which is not without sensation and reason. For it is necessary that every element which is not isolated or simple, but which is joined and linked with something else, should have in itself some ruling principle, as, for instance, mind in the case of man, and in the case of animals something similar to mind, which prompts their desires. In trees, and in things which spring from the earth, the ruling principle is supposed to be placed in their roots. By ruling principle I mean the principle which the Greeks call ἡγεμονικόν, which cannot but hold, and which ought to hold, the highest place in each genus. Consequently the thing in which the ruling principle of the whole of nature is contained, must in the same way be the most perfect of all, and the most worthy of power and dominion over all existence. Now we see that in parts of the universe (for there is nothing in the entire universe which is not a part of the whole), sensation and reason exist. These qualities must therefore exist, and exist more vividly and to a greater extent, in that part in which the ruling principle of the universe resides. Consequently the universe must be intelligent, and the element which holds all things in its embrace must excel in perfection of reason; the universe, therefore, must be divine, and so must the element by which the whole strength of the universe is held together. This fiery glow which the universe possesses is also far purer, clearer, and nimbler, and on that account better fitted to arouse sensation, than this heat of ours, by which the objects known to us are preserved and made strong. Since, then, men and animals are maintained by this heat, and through it possess motion and sensation, it is absurd to say that the universe is without sensation, when it is maintained by a burning heat which is unmixed, and free, and pure, and at the same time in the highest degree vivid and nimble, especially considering that the heat which belongs to the universe is moved by itself and its own action, and is not stirred by anything distinct from itself, or by impact from outside. For what can be mightier than the universe, so as to act upon and set in motion the heat by which the universe is to be held together?" and he smiled, nodded and then added in explanation; "Cicero. De Natura Deorum...On the Nature of the Gods, ladies. Such ignorance! But, the poor fellow was just doing the best he could with what he had."

***

To their relief, he would say no more, but only pointed to where their friends approached, barely fifty yards off in the surf by this time. Hope and Muriel waved gaily at the men-folk and their new companions, overcome by the emotional aspects of the moment. Their tears must have blinded them, and yet they couldn't tear their eyes off of them. Jeb fell face-first in the surf, but Rufe waded ashore like a conquering hero and the others followed in quick succession. A couple of strangers had also come along, by the look of it. No doubt it was all part of a plan.

When they looked back, Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff, slightly-hunched and with his hands clasped behind his back in contemplation, wearily wended his solitary way back up to the house and the cooling shade of its fully screened-in veranda and the thumping clatter of his state-of-the-art 'air conditioning' system.

***

They had a heart-rending reunion right there on the beach, as off in the distance, out in the centre of the lagoon, the 'taurs and natives set about recovering the doctor's space-rocket, working from small boats and rafts pressed into service for the duration.

"Oh, Jeb," said Miss Kitty, as she clung to the big dumb bruiser, with the usually humourous set to his lips much in evidence.

"You've known all along!" Jeb grunted, and she blushed like a schoolgirl, insofar as it was possible for a half-cat, half-female human being to do so. "Haven't you!"

She smiled knowingly.

"That was quite a ride, although I sort of miss the point of it," he said, catching Rufe's eye for a second, but the other man just shrugged hopelessly, and reached for Hope Ng's dainty white hand. He gulped a couple of times...

"Oh, Rufe," sighed Hope in solemn counterpoint to the obvious happiness immediately adjacent to her.

"Please...hear me out," he begged.

Hope looked about helplessly. It was to no avail. All that happened was that she kept catching somebody else's curious and encouraging gaze...smiles all around, oh, haw, haw. What in Hades was she supposed to do now?

"Aw, what the hell," she managed, with a slump of her shoulders at the inevitability of it all, and suddenly they all cheered!

She was a goner for sure.

Waylon, Chapley, they would never understand. Jeb, damn him, was oblivious to the whole by-play. Leaping Panther just nodded in understanding and shrugged his broad shoulders. The Injun girl stared, grinning and nodding at her in a kind of communication. What did she know, anyways? They were sticking their hands out to congratulate them...

"Honestly, Rufe," she said, and that was about it.

The whole danged bunch of them looked at each other, pleased as punch with all of these outcomes, and then chattering profusely amongst themselves. They followed Chapley in a more leisurely fashion, as he strode up to the house, looming in surly silence under some low-hanging black rain clouds, which no one had noticed up until now.

Jeb Snead and Muriel came last, clinging to each other and lost in the mind-stunning revelation that was them, the two of them, finally together after all these years and nothing else really mattered anymore. Suddenly everything made sense. They were made whole again.

What was really strange is that they were sure—really sure about this. It was the first thing Jeb Snead had been sure about in many years, maybe even his entire life. Oh, and why was he always the last one to find out?

Chapter Twenty-Two

A Stunned Group Clustered by the Body

It was a stunned group of friends who clustered about the body of Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff, slumped over in his wheelchair. He was parked in front of what appeared to be a lovely old Regency oaken desk. There was a note, of course; but also a wax cylinder for the gramophone, and a briefcase which would no doubt be carelessly stuffed with cash for Jeb. The doctor's face was almost unrecognizable, as he had shot himself in the mouth with a double-barreled sawed-off brass blunderbuss loaded with goose-shot. To say it had made a mess would be a wee bit of an understatement. And yet in some ways, it came as a relief. No one really wanted to talk to the crazy old coot, and asking him questions would always be an exercise in sheer frustration. It didn't take an industrial process designer or a stationary engineer to see that much.

Chapley handed the heavy leather case over wordlessly, and Jeb accepted it just as wordlessly. He was fain to open it, but Muriel took it from him and unsnapped the lock. She lifted the lid and drank in the smell. There was just a whole heck of a lot of money in there, and it appeared to be real, not fake or Canadian money, or anything really weird like that...

"Goodness, gracious, me," she purred.

Rufe stood at Hope's elbow, and she decided to let him. One of the things Muriel had told her, during one of their intimate little talks after the lights were out but before the Sandman came, was that they key to good sex was of course foreplay—'even when you're alone,' as Muriel jokingly put it, and it had occurred to Hope that maybe Rufe was just into a unique and hopefully more thorough kind of foreplay...right? You never knew until you tried, right?

That was the nice thing about marrying a rich man. It took some of the risks out of the equation. It's not like the fellow couldn't afford alimony. It's just that that whole briefcase full of cash had set her to thinking...and she was definitely lose her virginity, one way or another.

Right?

"What's in the note, Chapley?" asked Waylon in youthful curiousity.

One thing about the 'taurs, they weren't sentimentalists.

"I...I think I'd like to be alone for a while, people," mumbled Chapley, big crocodile tears welling up in humble homage to the only father-like figure he had ever known since the day he was hatched.

"Of course," said Rufe, and grabbing Hope by the elbow, he had a suggestion that might suffice.

He bent over and whispered something in her ear as her eyebrows rose into the clouds...

"All right, you're on," she said.

"What was it all about, then?" cried Jeb Snead, frustrated beyond measure by his inability to understand the infuriatingly cryptic Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff.

"Oh, heck. Maybe he just wanted to see it go," said Chapley, shaking his head at the madness that might lurk within him as well, if bloodlines ran as true as people said they did.

It was all in the blood.

"What, the rocket?" gaped Jeb, but on reflection, it did make some kind of sense...

"Dang, maybe the man just wanted to see the rocket go!" he marveled.

That was probably it. If asked to do such a thing, no normal man would have agreed, right? Hence the subterfuge, if that was the proper word. Jeb had it figured now. Not that it still wasn't pretty reprehensible, because it was...right?

"Maybe we could go for a walk," Rufe asked Hope. "I've been doing a lot of thinking, and I don't know—maybe thinking of making a few little changes, uh, in my attitude towards certain things, ah, and stuff like that—"

"Okay, Mister Golan," she said it surprisingly calmly, knowing now what it was that she had to do next.

He was good material, according to Muriel. She could change him—make him a better man in spite of himself. At least that was the theory.

"Ahem!" said Waylon.

"What?" said Rufe.

"Isn't she maybe just a little too young for you, Mister Golan?" asked Waylon in a gruff and disapproving tone.

"Not in my religion," smiled a determined Rufe Golan, and as everyone knows, nothing can stop a determined man, right?

Hope took his hand, and they turned away to discuss the incomprehensible.

While her breasts weren't exactly apocalyptic, and while empires might not exactly crumble before they withered, they were certainly nice enough. Waylon shrugged effortlessly. Easy come, easy go. She was all right, and everything.

"Oh, well, that makes it all right then!" said Squirrel, looking up at Leaping Panther who just grinned at his observations and the conclusions he was drawing from them.

"Chapley, would you marry me?" asked Waylon and they all laughed, with Leaping Panther and the girl joining right in even though they really didn't know these people very well and had sort of come into it all right near the end.

"Which one of us is the girl?" asked Chapley in all seriousness, which resulted in nothing more than more jollity.

It was all very amusing. But as Chapley reached for the wax cylinder, giving them one more look of sadness, they thought it better to leave him alone with his dead uncle for a while.

At some point, someone would have to start thinking about some supper.

***

The living, breathing, healthy being that was the newly-reborn Doctor Emile Schmitt-Rottluff stared sardonically at his small view-tube. His most ultra-secret lair was in the wall of the canyon, barely fifty yards back from the house and screened from view from below by a grove of coconut palms. While other parts of the inner crater had wider margins, he had picked this spot for a reason. He liked to keep an eye on things. No one had even thought to ask what would happen to the rocket. They had no idea, didn't even care! That was fine with him, an unanticipated but welcome development nevertheless.

When people thought about success, and he certainly considered himself to be a successful person, they thought about the obvious rewards.

They never thought of the sacrifices that were required. But it was time to shed his skin.

His old self, the dead one, had outlived its uselessness. He was a younger, more agile, even thinner self now—one that was so much more virile, filled with a kind of cosmic sexual energy, but even that wasn't what it was all about. It wasn't about immortality or resurrection. It wasn't even about power. It was all just a deception plan. Mister Golan, he had potential. One like that might figure it out in twenty or thirty years...but of course by then it would be too late. Snead would never get it.

Chapley might figure it out. Chapley knew him better than anyone, although that streak of narcissism would blind him to the truth. A truth too unpalatable for words, a truth that cried out to be stopped. The truth was that the doctor had experimented with clones, hybrids, androgynous androids, replicants, every kind of bot imaginable, and had created pseudo-beings all of his adult life, and it was all to one purpose. He wanted to begin anew. He wanted to change, and to reform. He wanted to go straight—and for that he needed to kill the old Doctor Emile Schmitt-Rottluff, and bury him six feet under.

The really neat thing was that he had his case of samples, all stowed individually in sockets lined with crushed velvet, in a big black briefcase. All of those samples of precious bodily fluids...just waiting to be tampered with, and now, in the fullness of time and the perfection of his plan, no one would ever suspect, not even those pesky aliens. Those little buggers had dogged his footsteps for the last half a century, or so it seemed. One thing he knew, and when he knew it, he knew it for sure.

He would do things a little bit differently next time.

***

It was an unforgettable scene, with the lagoon in the background, the native throng, the wedding couples, the soft wind through the palms, and the bongo drum flourishes whenever Chapley, dressed up as a ship's captain, said something profound, which he was about to do again. Leaping Panther was best man to the both of them, and Squirrel was 'double maid-of-honour.' Waylon was the ring bearer...

It was a lucky thing they had couple of witnesses, or the thing wouldn't have been legal, according to Chapley, whether anyone else cared was a moot point.

"Dearly beloved: We have come together in the presence of God to witness and bless the joining together of this man and this woman in Holy Matrimony. The bond and covenant of holy matrimony was established by God in creation, and our Lord Jesus Christ adorned this manner of life by his presence and first miracle at a wedding in Galilee. It signifies to us the mystery of the union between Christ and his Church, and Holy Scripture commends it to be honored among all people. The union of husband and wife in heart, body and mind is intended by God for their mutual joy; for the help and comfort given one another in property and adversity; and, when it is God's will, for the procreation of children and their nurture in the knowledge and love of the Lord. Therefore marriage is not to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly; but reverently, deliberately, and in accordance with the purposes for which it was instituted by God."

He looked up over his bifocals and putting the book away, then reached for a pen and some contracts, some pre-nuptial agreements, and a marriage license from the local native village's business office.

"Into this holy union _________ (insert names,) and __________ (insert names,) now come to be joined. If any of you can show just cause why they may not lawfully be married, speak now; or else forever hold your peace...(he waited briefly,) then the Celebrant says to the persons to be married, I require and charge you both here in the presence of God, that if either of you know any reason why you may not be united in marriage lawfully, and in accordance with God's Word, you do now confess it..." and right about then the wild clarion call of a stallion, one who had missed his old friend pretty badly by the sounds of it, interrupted the kissing and hugging that had suddenly broken out all over the place, which also resounded with the cheers and ribald commentary of the onlookers.

Clinging together as one, laughing and crying all at the same time, they turned to see five very happy horses galloping towards them up the beach...

"Yay! Yay!" cried the wedding party and many of the 'taurs.

In spite of the fact they had no idea of what was actually going on, the natives cheered at the brave sight. With a quick look into the shining eyes of Miss Kitty, Jeb broke free and spurted off towards his old friend Rooster. The emotional outburst of man and animal was so intense that it infected everyone with a tender mass-consciousness reaction, and there was nary a dry eye in the house, or on the beach to be more accurate.

The reunion of man and horse was heartwarming to watch, as they tumbled and rolled around on the dirt like a couple of little kids while the men grinned knowingly and the women wept in the most romantic kind of joy. All's well that ends, well, or so they say.

Other than the fact that they were planning to use the submarine to get back to the good old U.S. of A., that was pretty much all anyone ever wrote on that particular subject, and the misty veil of human decency will now descend like a curtain and obscure their hymeneal pomp and celebrations.

The End

Louis Shalako began writing for community newspapers and industrial magazines. His stories appear in publications as diverse as Perihelion Science Fiction, Bewildering Stories, Aurora Wolf, Ennea, Wonderwaan, Algernon, Nova Fantasia, and Danse Macabre. He lives in southern Ontario and writes full time.

http://shalakopublishing.weebly.com

