The Big Time

by Fritz Leiber

  CHAPTER 4

  De Bailhache, Fresca, Mrs. Cammel, whirled Beyond the circuit of the shuddering Bear In fractured atoms.

  --Eliot

  SOS FROM NOWHERE

  I realized the piano had deserted Erich and I cranked my head up and sawBeau, Maud and Sid streaking for the control divan. The Major Maintainerwas blinking emergency-green and fast, but the code was plain enough foreven me to recognize the Spider distress call and for a second I feltjust sick. Then Erich blew out his reserve breath in the middle of"Door" and I gave myself another of those helpful mental boots at thebase of the spine and we hurried after them toward the center of thePlace along with Mark.

  The blinks faded as we got there and Sid told us not to move because wewere making shadows. He glued an eye to the telltale and we held stillas statues as he caressed the dials like he was making love.

  One sensitive hand flicked out past the Introversion switch over to theMinor Maintainer and right away the Place was dark as your soul andthere was nothing for me but Erich's arm and the knowledge that Sid wasnursing a green light I couldn't even see, although my eyes had plentytime to accommodate.

  Then the green light finally came back very slowly and I could see thedear reliable old face--the green-gold beard making him look like amerman--and then the telltale flared bright and Sid flicked on the Placelights and I leaned back.

  "That nails them, lads, whoever and whenever they may be. Get ready fora pick-up."

  Beau, who was closest of course, looked at him sharply. Sid shruggeduneasily. "Meseemed at first it was from our own globe a thousand yearsbefore our Lord, but that indication flickered and faded like witchfire.As it is, the call comes from something smaller than the Place andcertes adrift from the cosmos. Meseemed too at one point I knew the fistof the caller--an antipodean atomicist named Benson-Carter--but thatlikewise changed."

  Beau said, "We're not in the right phase of the cosmos-Places rhythm fora pick-up, are we, sir?"

  Sid answered, "Ordinarily not, boy."

  Beau continued, "I didn't think we had any pick-ups scheduled. Orstand-by orders."

  Sid said, "We haven't."

  Mark's eyes glowed. He tapped Erich on the shoulder. "An octaviandenarius against ten Reichsmarks it is a Snake trap."

  Erich's grin showed his teeth. "Make it first through the Door nextoperation and I'm on."

  * * * * *

  It didn't take that to tell me things were serious, or the thought thatthere's always a first time for bumping into something from reallyoutside the cosmos. The Snakes have broken our code more than once. Maudwas quietly serving out weapons and Doc was helping her. Only Bruce andLili stood off. But they were watching.

  The telltale brightened. Sid reached toward the Maintainer, saying, "Allright, my hearties. Remember, through this Doorway pass the fishiestfinaglers in and out of the cosmos."

  The Door appeared to the left and above where it should be and darkenedmuch too fast. There was a gust of stale salt seawind, if that makessense, but no stepped-up Change Winds I could tell--and I had beenbracing myself against them. The Door got inky and there was a flickerof gray fur whips and a flash of copper flesh and gilt and somethingdark and a clump of hoofs and Erich was sighting a stun gun across hisleft forearm, and then the Door had vanished like that and a tentacledsilvery Lunan and a Venusian satyr were coming straight toward us.

  The Lunan was hugging a pile of clothes and weapons. The satyr washelping a wasp-waisted woman carry a heavy-looking bronze chest. Thewoman was wearing a short skirt and high-collared bolero jacket ofleather so dark brown it was almost black. She had a two-horned_petsofa_ hairdress and she was boldly gilded here and there and woresandals and copper anklets and wristlets--one of them a copper-platedCaller--and from her wide copper belt hung a short-handled double-headedax. She was dark-complexioned and her forehead and chin receded, but theeffect was anything but weak; she had a face like a beautifularrowhead--and a familiar one, by golly!

  But before I could say, "Kabysia Labrys," Maud shrilly beat me to itwith, "It's Kaby with two friends. Break out a couple of Ghostgirls."

  And then I saw it really was old-home week because I recognized my Lunanboy friend Ilhilihis, and in the midst of all the confusion I got a nicekick out of knowing I was getting so I could tell the personality of onesilver-furred muzzle from another.

  They reached the control divan and Illy dumped his load and the otherslet down the chest, and Kaby staggered but shook off the two ETs whenthey started to support her, and she looked daggers at Sid when he triedto do the same, although she's his "sweet Keftian friend" he'd mentionedto Bruce.

  * * * * *

  She leaned straight-armed on the divan and took two gasping breaths sodeep that the ridges of her spine showed through her brown-skinnedwaist, and then she threw up her head and commanded, "Wine!"

  While Beau was rushing it, Sid tried to take her hand again, saying,"Sweetling, I'd never heard you call before and knew not this prettylittle fist," but she ripped out, "Save your comfort for the Lunan," andI looked and saw--Hey, Zeus!--that one of Ilhilihis' six tentacles waslopped off halfway.

  That was for me, and, going to him, I fast briefed myself: "Remember, heonly weighs fifty pounds for all he's seven feet high; he doesn't likelow sounds or to be grabbed; the two legs aren't tentacles and don't actthe same; uses them for long walks, tentacles for leaps; uses tentaclesfor close vision too and for manipulation, of course; extended, theymean he's at ease; retracted, on guard or nervous; sharply retracted,disgusted; greeting--"

  Just then, one of them swept across my face like a sweet-smellingfeather duster and I said, "Illy, man, it's been a lot of sleeps," andbrushed my fingers across his muzzle. It still took a littleself-control not to hug him, and I did reach a little cluckingly forhis lopped tentacle, but he wafted it away from me and the littlevoice-box belted to his side squeaked, "Naughty, naughty. Papa will fixhis little old self. Greta girl, ever bandaged even a Terra octopus?"

  I had, an intelligent one from around a quarter billion A.D., but Ididn't tell him so. I stood and let him talk to the palm of my hand withone of his tentacles--I don't savvy feather-talk but it feels good,though I've often wondered who taught him English--and watched him use acouple others to whisk a sort of Lunan band-aid out of his pouch and caphis wound with it.

  Meanwhile, the satyr knelt over the bronze chest, which was decoratedwith little death's heads and crosses with hoops at the top andswastikas, but looking much older than Nazi, and the satyr said to Sid,"Quick thinkin, Gov, when ya saw the Door comin in high n soffened upgravty unner it, but cud I hav sum hep now?"

  Sid touched the Minor Maintainer and we all got very light and mystomach did a flip-flop while the satyr piled on the chest the clothesand weapons that Illy had been carrying and pranced off with it all andcarefully put it down at the end of the bar. I decided the satyr'sEnglish instructor must have been quite a character, too. Wish I'd methim--her--it.

  Sid thought to ask Illy if he wanted Moon-normal gravity in one sector,but my boy likes to mix, and being such a lightweight, Earth-normalgravity doesn't bother him. As he said to me once, "Would Jovian gravitybother a beetle, Greta girl?"

  * * * * *

  I asked Illy about the satyr and he squeaked that his name was Sevenseeand that he'd never met him before this operation. I knew the satyrswere from a billion years in the future, just as the Loonies were from abillion in the past, and I thought--Kreesed us!--but it must have beena real big or emergency-like operation to have the Spiders using thosetwo for it, with two billion years between them--a time-difference thatgives you a feeling of awe for a second, you know.

  I started to ask Illy about it, but just then Beau came scampering backfrom the bar with a big red-and-black earthenware goblet of wine--we tryto keep a variety of drinking tools in stock so folks will feel more athome. Kaby grabbed it from him a
nd drained most of it in one swallow andthen smashed it on the floor. She does things like that, though Sid'stried to teach her better. Then she stared at what she was thinkingabout until the whites showed all around her eyes and her lips pulledway back from her teeth and she looked a lot less human than the twoETs, just like a fury. Only a time traveler knows how like the wildmurals and engravings of them some of the ancients can look.

  My hair stood up at the screech she let out. She smashed a fist into thedivan and cried, "Goddess! Must I see Crete destroyed, revived, and nowdestroyed again? It is too much for your servant."

  Personally, I thought she could stand anything.

  There was a rush of questions at what she said about Crete--I asked oneof them, for the news certainly frightened me--but she shot up her armstraight for silence and took a deep breath and began.

  "In the balance hung the battle. Rowing like black centipedes, theDorian hulls bore down on our outnumbered ships. On the bright beach,masked by rocks, Sevensee and I stood by the needle gun, ready to givethe black hulls silent wounds. Beside us was Ilhilihis, suited as a seamonster. But then ... then ..."

  Then I saw she wasn't altogether the iron babe, for her voice broke andshe started to shake and to sob rackingly, although her face was still amask of rage, and she threw up the wine. Sid stepped in and made herstop, which I think he'd been wanting to do all along.