Death of a B.E.M.

by Berkeley Livingston

  Produced by Greg Weeks and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from Amazing Stories October 1948. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  The B. E. M. purred contentedly as the giant stroked hiseyeballs]

  DEATH OF A B. E. M.

  by BERKELEY LIVINGSTON

  The writer hated to create bug-eyed monsters, but they hated him too!

  "Blast them!" the writer groaned in bitter accents. "How I hate thoseB. E. M's.!"

  "Hang them!" the artist yelled. "How I hate those B. E. M's.!"

  "Darn them!" the B. E. M. moaned. "How I hate those humans!"

  * * * * *

  The artist and the writer sat staring at each other in wordlessmisery, their coffee untasted and their spirits at low ebb. Up above,in the beehive that was the publishing house which gave them theirlivelihood, the word had gone around. _B. E. M'S, B. E. M'S...._

  Sadly, in accents forlorn, the writer said:

  "Bug-eyed monsters! Ye gads! Bug-eyed monsters! Jack, old boy, do yourealize we're setting science-fiction back a hundred years?"

  "I know just how you feel, Harry," the artist replied. "After all, wetoo had presumed that we had been freed of these monsters. So back wego to the drawing board, our minds tortured and twisted ..." He sigheddisconsolately.

  "Oh, well," the writer sighed and blew out his breath. He staredfixedly at his coffee until a something blue slipped into focus. Hisglance traveled upward from the hem of the girl's apron, past thelovely swell of her charms and on past the sweet throat, to the gay,smiling face and sparkling eyes. Forgotten then were B. E. M's. forboth. Diane, the goddess of the restaurant corps of enchantingwaitresses, was at their side....

  * * * * *

  Hiah-Leugh was having his eyeballs massaged. It was a delicate andtedious operation for the one doing the massaging; not every Goman waspossessed of eight eyeballs. But Hiah-Leugh was not an ordinary Goman.Not he! He was chief of all the Gomans, which meant he was head of allthe bug-eyed monsters on the whole of the planet of XYZ268PDQ.

  The four-headed slave, one of the giants Hiah-Leugh's tribe hadcaptured on one of their forays into the terrible forest of EvilContractions, scratched himself with one of his six arms. He was quitebored with this peaceful, though tedious pursuit the tribe ofHiah-Leugh had given to him as his duties. Especially the massaging ofeyeballs. Of course it helped to have six arms. Ooh! His four headsranged themselves in a single line.

  The slave had committed a sin.

  There were three cardinal sins on the planet of XYZ268PDQ. Two of themwere unmentionable and the third was forgetting to massage all of theeight eyeballs of Hiah-Leugh at one and the same time. If it were notfor the massage the giants of the planet would all live in peace. Butit took a man with six arms to do the job. In fact it was to theregret of Hiah-Leugh that the giants did not have eight arms.

  Now one of the eyelids was closing. In a second or two it would beclosed completely and once a single of the eight eyes closed theothers automatically followed suit. There was but a single thing to doin this case. The giant did it.

  He poked his finger into the drooping lid.

  Hiah-Leugh awoke with a suddenness of shock and startled surprise. Hehowled in pain then leaped from the chair, scuttling about theroom-of-massage on his twelve pairs of crablike legs at a great pace.

  "Heavens to Betsy!" Hiah-Leugh screamed. "You _are_ the clumsiestgiant.... But what can a B. E. M. expect? Oh, well! You're excused. Goand see if there are any children to frighten...."

  There were four different expressions on the four heads. One showedpleasure, and another, surprise and a third, gloom and the fourth wasblank completely. This head was the dumb one. It had but oneexpression, blankness. The four heads bent and the great body bowedlow, and slowly, with great effort and with many bumpings into variouspieces of furniture, the giant bowed himself out of the massageparlor.

  Hiah-Leugh was left alone.

  But not for long. Suddenly a whole section of the wall slid backshowing another room. This was the famous Gloating Chamber ofHiah-Leugh. Here were brought all the victims the tribe captured. Andhere it was that their chief was supposed to spend his time in_Gloating_ over the tortures his torturers were supposed to spendtheir time in devising. But business had been very bad lately. Notonly was there not a single victim in the Gloating Chamber, there wasnot a single torturer available. Hiah-Leugh suddenly remembered.Something about a picnic.... Then why had the wall slid back?

  "_Hiah-Leugh! Hiah-Leugh!_" it was the clarion call of his ninthconcubine, the lovely and charming Sally Patica. But what in the nameof all that was unmentionable was she doing in the Gloating Chamber?Of course she too could be _Gloating_!

  He moved slowly toward the room, hoping against hope she was not in abad mood. The last time she had called in that tone of voice he hadsuffered greatly. She had made him go without an eyeball massage for awhole week....

  * * * * *

  She was pacing back and forth on the long, raised platform. Hiah-Leughskirted the Iron Maiden, the Pallid Pulley, the Bronze Beater, theCopper Conker, and Giant Mas-Mixer, which was a fake. Nothing was evermixed in it except the noxious weed Hiah-Leugh used in his pipe. Atthe sound of his approach Sally stopped her pacing and fixed him witha baleful glance out of eyes, four and five. Eyes, two and three werebusy seeing if her coiffure was right and eyes one, six and seven werehaving their lids tweezed. After all, she had twelve pairs of legswhich were also used for hands. A heck of a lot could be done with somany appendages.

  She started in even before he quite reached her side:

  "Where is everybody? Do I have to sit by myself every day? _Must_ youhave your eyeballs massaged _everyday_? Where are the torturers? Whereis everybody...?"

  "I think there's a picnic scheduled for today, dear," Hiah-Leugh said.

  "Why wasn't I told about it?" Sally demanded.

  She had very probably _been_ told about it but knowing his ninthconcubine and the limits of her memory, she had very surely forgotten.

  "Hiah-Leugh!" she broke in on him before he could frame a reply. "I'mso terribly, terribly bored! There hasn't been a good torture since,since ... when _was_ the last time there was a torture party?"

  "The time Gin-Pad was caught stealing wokkerjabbies from his youngestchild," Hiah-Leugh said. "We put him in the Pallid Pulley andstretched four of his legs until they were longer than the rest. Andto this day Gin-Pad walks like he's looking for something between hisforelegs...."

  Six of Sally's seven pairs of eyes crossed suddenly, a sign she wasin thought. Hiah-Leugh had the wishful hope that the seventh pairwould cross. When that happened Sally would be ex-concubine. She wouldalso be ex-living but that didn't bother him. We all have to diesometime, he thought. But why does she have to live so long? Thethought processes of Sally Patica wound their weary way and came totheir proper end. Life was boresome. And she had to think of somethingto make it less so. She did.

  "Y'know, Hiah," she said as she uncrossed her eyes, "I have anidea...."

  The chief of all the Gomans rolled all eight pairs of his eyesceiling-ward. Not another of her ideas. Oh no! Not that! The last timeshe had one of her ideas it was for a treasure hunt, a treasure huntfor a five-headed giant, despite Hiah-Leugh's insistence there were nosuch beings. But she wanted one dead or alive. She got it, dead. WhatSally didn't know was that her mate gave orders to have one killed andhave a fifth head sewn on his shoulders.

  Love, however, was as strong on plane
t XYZ268PDQ as it was on anyother planet, and as burdensome, and though Hiah-Leugh felt his heartsink, he also knew he would give in to her wishes.

  "... What do you think of this; bring some humans up here and we'llrun a torture party for our fiends?"

  The male's jaw dropped, all three feet of it. This was even worse thanhe had imagined. _Bring some humans up here_, she said. Had she anyidea of what that entailed? No. _NOO!_

  He tried to reason with her:

  "Darling. Wait. Don't be hasty. Let me explain. In the first placehave you ever met a human?"

  "What difference does that make?" she pouted. "I've heard about them."

  "But sweetheart," he went on in his pleading. "They're quite horrible.They have but one head, and a single pair of arms and legs. They walkupright and they can only bear