Without looking at me, Shif said, "I'm sorry. I can't help you."
Oh, was I certain now! Yes, indeed, there was a cover-up! I grabbed the canister and put it back in front of him. He did not touch it.
. This was an emergency. I signalled to the barman for a keg. The barman saw my money, picked one up and put it on the bar in front of Shif.
"That won't help," said the aged reporter. "Young man, as a friendly gesture, all I can tell you is to forget it. You are in Censor territory."
My certainty surged!
I know how these clubs operate. The attitude of that barman clearly showed that old Shif was in debt to the place. I grabbed the young boy usher and gave him a whispered message.
Two minutes later, the manager was standing there, holding an account sheet in his hand. "I don't know what you want with this," he said to Shif. "It was about to be written off fts a bad debt."
Shif pointed at me. "He called for it, I didn't," said Shif.
I grabbed the bill. It was a year overdue. It was for more than I had on me. I grabbed out my identoplate and stamped it.
"No, no!" said Shif. "You're tempting me beyond endurance!"
"Good," I said.
"Bad," said Shif. "This is DANGEROUS!"
I was absolutely positive then that not only the Censor but Heller himself must be behind this Relax Island cover-up!
"Give me an account sheet with his name on it," I told the manager. "Mark it for the next year and leave the amount blank."
The manager stared. Old Shif sat there kind of crumpled. The blank sheet came. I stamped it. But I held onto it.
Seconds ticked by. Then slowly, slowly, old Shif reached out for the sheet. He gripped the corner of it and used it to pull me close to him.
He whispered in my ear. "Don't ever tell anyone it came from me. Go and see Pratia Tayl, Minx Estates, Pausch Hills."
Vll
Because it was late in the Voltar year, Minx Estates was not in bloom. But from the air, as we landed, one could tell it was very prosperous. It had garden walks amongst the shrubs, and statues of naked nymphs peeped forth. The vast house was a mansion of three stories and higher pbles. A small hospital nestled in the trees at the back. A pool, in the shape of a heart, steamed in the late afternoon sun.
We landed on the target and I got out. What seemed to be a bundle of furs in a reclining chair at the pool side suddenly stirred and said, "Oooooooo! What a beautiful young man!"
I advanced cautiously. An old face of at least 150 peered out of the furs. Excessive makeup did not hide her years. "Sit down, sit down!" she cried, indicating a lawn chair beside her. "Tell me all about yourself!"
"I am Monte Pennwell," I said. "Do I have the honor of addressing Pratia Tayl?"
"Oh, my goodness. Not only handsome but also polite. Yes, indeed, I am Pratia Tayl, or at least that name will do. Now you just make yourself at home,"
.Things apparently happened very fast at Minx Estates for all its surface serenity. Pratia began to chatter at three hundred miles an hour, asking all about my family, of which she had heard, and all about my friends and interests. And while she was doing so a young man with bright green eyes and straw-colored hair came up with a tray of canisters and a jug of pink sparklewater and Pratia said, "Thank you, son," without even taking her eyes off me, and then a woman came out of the house with some sweetbuns. She had bright green eyes and straw-colored hair and Pratia said, "Thank you, daughter," and went right on chattering at me.
An elderly dowager, escorted by an elderly man with bright green eyes and straw-colored hair, entered the front gate and parsed us en route to the small hospital at the back, and Pratia, barely halting her chatter at me, said, "Good afternoon, Lady Tig. Good afternoon, son." When they opened the hospital door, I saw the sign on it, Cellobgy Beauty Clinic.
I had no more than read that when a very sporty air-speedster landed and two men got out. They both had bright green eyes and straw-colored hair. When they came over to give her a peck on the cheek, she interrupted her barrage at me long enough to say, "Boys, meet Monte Pennwell, the writer. You know of his family. Monte, my grandsons Jettero and Bis." They shook hands and went off to the house and I cut into Pratia's chatter.
"Good Heavens," I said, "are all these children YOURS?"
"Oh, these are just some of them," said Pratia with a proud simper. "Most of them have married and are in practice. You should see my grandchildren!"
"Do they all have bright green eyes and straw-colored hair?"
"Oh, yes," said Pratia. "Aren't they beautiful? I even have three great-grandchildren already and they have them, too! Adorable. But I was wondering, don't you have an Aunt Bit? I think I went to school..."
A really ancient hag came out of the house and stalked over to us. She cut right across Pratia's chatter. She said, "Will this guest be staying for supper?"
Pratia said, "Oh, I'm sure he will, Meeley. Be certain that you serve something stimulating. And he will be staying the night...."
"No, no," I said quickly. "I have to be home for a family dinner. But... but," I said to the old hag, "she called you Meeley. Are you... well... are you the former landlady of..."
"That (bleep)?" said Meeley. "Hah!" And she stalked off.
"I'm sorry you can't stay the night," said Pratia. "My bed is awfully soft."
It just shows you the menaces which surround the profession of an investigative reporter! You should be impressed with the dangers I ran getting this material for you, dear reader.
Swiftly, I said, "I only came to find out about Relax Island."
Her bright blue eyes went round. She was suddenly silent. She stared at me.
Hastily, I explained, "I heard a rumor you could tell me. You see, it's no longer there."
She nibbled at a sweetbun. Then she said, "Prahd wouldn't like it if I told you."
"Prahd?" I said. "Prahd Bittlestiffender?"
"Are there any other Prahds? He is still the King's
Own Physician, but he runs this little beauty clinic here when he isn't busy at Palace City." Suddenly she looked brighter. She raised her voice and called, "Ske!"
A man in a butler's uniform came out of the house shortly. "One of the girls said you called, Mistress. I didn't quite hear. I'm getting pretty deaf."
"Ske?" I said. "By any chance, you aren't the onetime driver of... of... ?"
"That (bleep)?" said Ske. "I'll have you know I've been butler here ever since old Bawtch died. I'm respectable."
"Bawtch?" I said. "The chief clerk of..."
Pratia cut me off. She said, "Ske, Prahd won't be here tonight, will he?"
Ske shook'his head and went off to do whatever butlers do.
"Oh, goodie!" said Pratia. "He won't be here at the clinic so he wouldn't know you'd been here listening. I can tell you after all!"
I sat forward on the edge of my seat.
"So that's settled," said Pratia. She didn't say anything else.
"Well?" I said. "Well?"
"Oh, Monte," she said, "you amaze me. Don't you know that a girl can't possibly impart secrets unless it's in bed?"
I gawped.
"Don't look so prim," she said. "It's a long story. I couldn't possibly tell you unless you spent the night."
Then I smiled. I nodded. I knew I had nothing to fear from a woman who was 150 or 160 years old. After all, I DID have to get the story.
I sent Shafter and the air-speedster home.
Little did I know what I was letting myself in for!
Oh, Gods, what I have been through and how I have suffered, dear reader, getting you this vital tale!
I did not have the least inkling of the shocking experience that awaited me!
I should have read it from the smile on the face of Pratia Tayl when I helped her to rise and go in to dinner, a smile which stayed there all through the meal.
PART
NINETY-ONE ENVOI II
• • •
Vlll
Feeling pleasantly
full of a delicious dinner, I was led by Pratia into an imposing bedroom. It had floating chairs. It nad an enormous floating bed. The place was all white and gold and was decorated with natural-color cupids on the walls and in the cloudy ceiling. I suddenly looked again. The cupids, in singles, doubles and clusters all were leering!
Pratia sat down in a soft and ample chair. She picked up a bag which had been lying there. Out of it she took a needle and some long strings, then she shook out a pile of tiny, colored hoops. I knew what all that was: ladies of quality often make circular mats of different designs and thread small hoops of various colors on strings by the thousands. I was reassured. I started to sit down on a couch.
"No, not there," said Pratia. "On the bed!"
I sat down on the huge bed: it was wondrously soft and fleecy but strangely it did not sink, keeping one supported.
Pratia put a needle through a hoop. "You are really a nice young fellow," she said. "So, take off your clothes."
I flinched.
"No take-off-the-clothes, no story," said Pratia.
Well, she wasn't attacking me. With considerable reluctance, I kicked off my shoes and socks, removed my jacket and my shirt.
Pratia had stopped threading. "All of them," she said.
Unwillingly, with my back to her, I removed the rest.
"Now lie down on your back," she said. "If you're so modest, you can cover yourself with the sheet."
Although she was watching, she was still in the chair. It made me brave. I lay down on my back. I pulled the sheet over me.
Pratia let out a sigh. And then she said, "All right, girls, you can come in."
Through the door, giggling, came two girls!
I instantly pulled the sheet up to my throat!
"These are my great-granddaughters Asa and Lik," said Pratia.
Asa was about twenty-one. She was quite thin. She was quite pretty. She had green eyes and straw-colored hair.
Lik was about nineteen. She was plumper. She was very pretty. She, too, had green eyes and straw-colored hair.
"Girls," said Pratia, "this is a real, live author named Monte Pennwell. Isn't he nice?"
The girls promptly began to get out of their clothes, shedding them with an alarming speed.
I hysterically pulled the sheet up over my head!
"Now, don't get alarmed," Pratia said to me. "They are both virgins. I wouldn't dream of letting them indulge in actual sex. I am just making sure I am bringing them up right. We're very proper people: I wouldn't condone letting them touch their brothers and it's almost never that we get a nice young man to practice on."
"No," I said in a panic, surging up. "I'd better go!"
Pratia smiled that strange, intense smile. "No practice, no story," she said. "And it's some story, I assure you."
I steeled myself. I was an investigative reporter, I told myself. If I were going to be true to my craft, I must not flinch at the little bumps in the road. I lay back down.
Suddenly, Asa's face was looming over me. "Now, all I'm going to do," she said, "is just give you a nice kiss. Boys and girls kiss all the time, so there's nothing wrong with that, is there?"
I shook my head, not really knowing if I was agreeing with her or telling her not to do it.
She put her palms on my cheeks and gave me a nice, gentle kiss..At least it seemed so. But an electric thrill went through me.
Asa drew back. She was sitting on her heels beside me. "Now you see? Just a simple, innocent kiss."
Pratia had stopped knitting. Her blue eyes were very intense. Her tongue was playing along her upper lip.
Asa leaned over me again. I could not see much through the screen of her straw-colored hair. She was kissing me on the cheek.
I felt my toes clench. My heels straightened out with a jerk.
Asa was sitting back, looking down at me, grinning.
I raised my head and looked around, startled. Where was Lik?
The girl's bare feet were visible on the floor, heels up, on the other side of the bed.
I felt' my eyes roll right up into the top of my skull as a shuddering groan filled the room.
Asa giggled.
Pratia smiled happily.
Lik, kneeling on the other side of the bed, pulled her head out from under the sheet. "Oh, boy!" she panted. "That was goooooooood!"
Pratia began threading hoops again. "You've been a nicely behaved boy, Monte Pennwell. So you just lie still and I will tell you the story of Relax Island." ix
"It all begins," said Pratia, threading small rings with her needle, "about five years after the ascension of Emperor Mortiiy to the throne.
"Things were very calm in the whole Confederacy. There was prosperity. A great deal of building was in progress. Practically everyone had forgotten all about Hisst and certainly, since it had had no publicity in the first place, Relax Island was the furthest thing from anybody's mind.
"Then one day, right here at the gate, a fisherman showed up from the Western Ocean shore. He was an old man and very brown, very ragged and poor. He had walked all the way from the village of Wayl, a distance of nearly five hundred miles.
"He wouldn't talk to anybody but me, so they brought him out to the summerhouse where I was and he stood there twisting his shade hat around and around and he said he had a message for me. And would I pay?
"I told him that depended. He fished into a straw bag he had and brought out a sealed glass canister. He held it near me but wouldn't let go of it.
"I looked through the glass and read, 'If whoever finds this message will take it to Pratia Tayl, Minx Estates, Pausch Hills, she will give him two hundred credits.'
"That's a lot of money. He said that he had found the bottle floating off the breakwater at Wayl. My curiosity got the better of me. I paid him and he gave me the canister and went away.
"I cut the seal and spilled the whole roll of paper into my hand. I spread it out. It said:
Tell Papers Headline
HUGE PLAGUE WIPING OUT RELAX
ISLAND
POPULATION DYING LIKE FLIES
The exile colony of Queen Teenie, Hostage Monarch of Flisten, not only imperilled but doomed!
Unburied dead littering the roads are making an unbearable stench.
The piteous moan of infants rends the air.
Death stalks from the crown of Mount Teon down to the southernmost cliff, planting its crushing hooves into the guts and brains of this defenseless and shuddering population.
No medical supplies exist.
Unless immediate help is received, there is no hope.
PS: For God's sakes, get this to the papers, Pratia!
"Well, you can imagine the shock I went into! I instantly got on the viewer-phone. I showed the message. I called editor after editor, publisher after publisher.
"Some reporters came out and I showed it to them along with the canister.
"And then you know what happened?
"NOTHING!
"The next day, there wasn't a single mention of it in the papers, not ONE line! Oh, I was upset.
"Now, you know that by this time Prahd, although he was the King's Own Physician, didn't have too much to do. Mortiiy was very healthy and Prahd had finished cleaning up the removed Lords long since. Cling was still alive but he had special nurses. So Prahd, to while away the time, opened the little hospital here as a cello-logy beauty clinic for the dowagers and women of Pausch Hills. He was here three days a week and when he next came, I showed him the message.
"He scratched his head. He looked at the date on the message and saw it was only two weeks old and he said there might yet be time. He viewer-phoned Palace City to-try to get hold of that BEAUTIFUL man, Jettero Heller—Duke of Manco is his right name now, but I always think of him as dear Jettero, such a LOVELY man. Such grace... Where was I? Oh, yes.
"But dear Jettero—I certainly would love to talk to him someday. I have to worship him from afar. You have connections, Monte. Someday could you introduce me?"
/> "It's possible," I said, lying there naked between the two girls. "But please, please, tell me!"
"Oh, goodie. Anyway, dear Jettero was on some kind of a tour to way off at the other end of the Confederacy and nobody knew when he'd be back. The Grand
Council was'meeting only once a month and that was three weeks off.
L Ron Hubbard - ME10 Doomed Planet Page 23