by Robert Adams
"A pally and what?" yelped Arsen. "Man, talk English . . . or at least Armenian, huh? The onliest things I can say in Greek is 'hello,' 'goodbye,' and 'fuck off'—you know that, you taught me."
"Bedros' specialty at the university is the study of the bones and other remains of animals that no longer live in our world and haven't for from thousands to millions of years, Arsen. That's why he's so seldom able to play with the band—he's either out digging something up or at the school studying things already dug up," replied John, adding, "He could tell you a whole lot more about the animals we've seen today than I can. Those cats, for instance. I can say that they're the biggest fucking cats I've ever seen, but that's it, buddy—I don't know if they're spotted lions or tigers or super-king-size jaguars or what, that group we saw on the plain there, I mean. The one with the stubby tail over near the river there, the stocky one, was some kind of sabertooth, but don't ask me exactly what kind, please."
"Those huge, hairy things we couldn't see too clearly under the trees there, I'm sure they were some kind of ground sloths. And that humongous bird that you thought was an oversized eagle, well, I think it was a condor. What I think we've stumbled onto here, Arsen, is a pocket of surviving Pleistocene animals, and you can bet your bottom dollar that we haven't seen all of what's here, only the big, obvious ones. Yeah, Bedros would really go ape here."
"What d'you think about these ruins, John?" asked Arsen.
The dentist shrugged. "I've never had all that much interest in archaeology, you know—that was my old man's bag, although only in a very narrow vein. If it wasn't ancient Greek or at least Macedonian, he wasn't interested in it."
"With regard to this place, well . . . it looks as if it was built at different times by at least two different sets of builders, or that's how it looks to me, anyway. See those round foundations down the hill? They're made of very roughly worked sandstone, the same rock as the mountains to the east are. Some of these stones up here are sandstone, too, though better worked, but most of them are granite. And the tower on that highest hill over there looks like it's all granite and put together by very skilled and careful stonemasons, too. The stones in the low fences dividing the fields haven't been worked at all, and I suspect that they were originally just rocks that were plowed up over the years and piled along the edges of the fields to get them out of the way, mostly."
"Squash Woman says that the Old Ones, who built this place and lived here for one hell of a long time, had tamed the buffalos to pull plows and the mammoths to ride and the big cats to hunt for them. Think the old fuckers could've done it? Any of it?" asked Arsen.
"Hell, Arsen, I don't know, though it all seems pretty farfetched to me. I'd believe it if she'd said these Old Ones had tamed some of those horses, though they all look to be too small and weedy to bear much weight. But other peoples down through history have tamed the various kinds of elephant—still do, in our own world—and some of the Middle Eastern and Mediterranean people tamed lions, too. For that matter, the ancient Egyptians trained baboons to pick fruit and even to clean their houses, and they trained zebras to pull chariots. They or somebody tamed the aurochs to start breeding the first of the domestic cattle. Deer and antelopes of various kinds have been tamed, and a Belgian fellow in Africa trained a rhino for riding, I read somewhere. So, yeah, I guess it's possible that what that old gal says might not all be just myths and legends."
Arsen looked hard at John and said slowly, "Squash Woman said that the reason these Old Ones could do so well with wild animals was because they could talk to them. Well, I figgered that if the helmet could let me speak mind to mind with people—the Indians of both tribes, the Spanish and so on—it might work on animals . . . and John, it does. I came over here yesterday and descended very slowly into the middle of that herd of buffalos, right up alongside of a bull, a big fucker, that was almost black. And I talked to him, John . . . well, rather I read his thoughts and put mine into his head."
"Suurre you did, Arsen," said John, mock-soothingly. "Buddy, you better lay off the locoweed or whatever it is you're on. Or are you just pulling my leg?"
Arsen nodded once, his lips compressed into a thin, tight line. "Yeah, I figgered you wouldn't believe me, you asshole-plugging Greek fucker. So, okay, get back in your frigging carrier and follow mine. I'll show you, mister!"
Sitting in the squad tent a few hours later, John still looked as stunned as he felt. "Lisa, I didn't believe one word of it when Arsen here told me he could talk—I mean, like actually converse—with animals . . . or with bison, at least. But, baby, not only can he do, I can do it, too, for God's sake."
"I mean, it's not like really talking with a person, you know. His mind was . . . was . . . well, different from people's. He doesn't see all that well, either, and then only in black and white and shades of gray, and I think he was convinced that we, Arsen and me, were just some other kind of animal that had filtered in to graze with the bison herd."
Lisa smiled. "I know exactly the feeling, John. I haven't told either of you, or anyone else, for that matter, but I've communicated with two deer and one river otter, early mornings when I went down to bathe in the shallows of the river. Their minds are quite a bit different from ours."
"Whew!" whooshed John. "At least if I have gone bonkers, two other people are around the bend with me. Can you do it without a helmet on Lisa?"
She shook her head. "No, without the helmet, I can't even understand much of what Squash Woman or Swift Otter or Soaring Eagle say, though I'm slowly learning both those Indian languages."
"Well," commented Arsen, "the carrier worked it out for me, or just about worked it out. I think I can make helmets that, while they won't do everything that these will, will at least give the wearer the abilities to understand and make people speaking other lingo understand and, maybe, animals, too. So if I disappear for a while tonight, you'll know where I am and what I'm doing there. Any orders for anything from that world, Lisa, John?"
Lisa grimaced. "I can't say, offhand, Arsen." She stood up. "But I'll go back over to the crypt and check the drug lockers. Be back in a few minutes."
"Arsen," said John hesitantly, after Lisa had left the tent, "look, I know you're generally pretty damn busy whenever you make any of these trips back into our world . . . well, our old world, the one we came from, originally. But my wife, Bobbi, she must be half nuts with worry about what happened to me. You said you . . . that the carrier showed you what to do so your mother and your father didn't worry and fret about you anymore, you know. Do you think you could find time to . . . I mean, man, I don't want to . . ."
Arsen smiled. "It's already been done, John, weeks ago. Not just Bobbi, but your kids, too. I went to the wives and husbands of all the band members that have them and to the parents of those that don't."
"Thank God!" breathed John fervently. "Damn, thank you, Arsen, you don't know how much of a load you've just taken off my mind. But dammit, man, why the hell didn't you tell me before this?"
"Because," said Lisa, from the tent's front flap, "Arsen is a sly, sneaky, oily, shrewd, crooked, conniving Armenian bastard who means to make damned certain that his personal fish are fried to just the right degree of crispness before he bothers to tell anyone else some truths that he has known for a long time and I just recently found out. Tell him, Arsen. Tell him, now . . . or I will."
Arsen sighed. In a low voice, leaning close to the other man, he said, "John, if you want to go back to that other world, you can. I can send you back right now, without a carrier, put you down anyplace you say. The only thing is, John, if you do go back, you're going to be put through a fucking wringer by every fucking agency that you can think of—cops, FBI, Secret Service, you name it, like as not even the fucking CIA and God knows who else. You try telling them lies, they'll know right off, because you just aren't that good of a liar."
"On the other hand, you try getting the fuckers to believe any part of the real truth, the fuckers will have your ass in a soft room giving yo
u shock treatments so fast it'll make your fucking head spin. So you make up your mind, right here and now. Do I send you back? Or do you stay here and help me get these poor fucking Indians all squared away and set up so no fucking Spanish and Moors can come along and grind them down to the sad shape they all were in when we got here?"
"That's why you kept it a secret, huh?" asked John. "So you'd have help with what you want to do for Squash Woman's people? Yeah, well, I can see why you did it, Arsen, though it was wrong."
"Look, after you get the Indians set up the way you want them, will the offer still be open? Look, since the kids got big, Bobbi and I . . . well, we've been sort of drifting apart, you know. She's all the time off with the Girl Scouts or some kind of selling party at some neighbor's house or working down at the church or going someplace with that big dumbass poodle she bought. She doesn't give a good shit about ethnic background, except where religion is concerned, and she hates me playing and singing with the band, says I wouldn't do it if I didn't have the hots for the belly dancers. So maybe me being away for a while will help, buddy; it sure as hell can't hurt any."
"After what I saw and . . . well, experienced today, yes, I think I want to stay here for a while. Not forever, understand, just until Squash Woman and all the rest are safe and secure and all. Okay?"
CHAPTER THE NINTH
Dr. Bedros Yacubian showed no surprise when he looked up from the mass of books and papers on his desk to see Arsen Ademian standing beside the softly glowing carrier. "Oh, hello, Arsen, how are you? How is my wife?"
"You don't miss her, then?" inquired Arsen.
"Of course I miss Rose, man," Bedros rejoined. "But it's strange—since that last night you were here and talked with me, it . . . it's as if I don't really miss her in the same way. I mean, I know she's gone, but I know she'll be back, and . . . hell, I don't really know how to explain it."
"Never mind that," said Arsen, "How would you like to go see Rose, tonight?"
Not at all desiring the kind of brouhaha that had attended the disappearances of the band members, months back, Arsen had Bedros pack the sort of clothing and associated gear that he would need for his field work, had him inform various colleagues by telephone that he was driving to an unnamed spot out west to check on an unnamed something, then had him drive his car to a secluded spot and projected it and him to a rear corner in the six-car garage at the mansion of Kogh Ademian. Then he projected the man and his baggage into the squad tent in Squash Woman's stockade, where Rose and Lisa awaited him. That done, he got down to the primary reason for his return this night.
In the longhouse shared by Mike Sikeena, Mikey, Greg, Al, and Haigh, the evening card game had wound down and the five now were carefully sipping from the last few cans of warm beer and carrying on their usual discourse.
"Man," said Greg, "it was this Nip whore I had in Japan, you know, and she took this silk cord 'bout as thick as my thumb and she tied all these knots in it and then she jammed it up my grommet, see. She'd left enough hanging out of me to grab on to, and all the time I was banging her, she would ever so often jerk that thing and pop one them knots out of me. Then, when I was just about to shoot my fucking wad, that Nip give it a good tug and pulled ever one of the knots that was left out. Man, I thought I'd keep coming till my fucking toenails come out of my pecker, and I shit all over me and her and the mat we was on, too. But, man, I never forgot that fucking night!"
"Yeah?" said Haigh. "Well, I met this broad in . . ."
"Aw, why don't you fucking bastards just shut the fuck up?" snarled Mikey Vranian. "Why the fuck you got to be all the time talking about cunts and fucking and all? If I don't get my fucking wick dipped soon, I'm gonna fucking explode. And you all know it and you tell all those fucking lies just to make me so horny I hurt. You sadistic motherfuckers, you!"
Haigh snickered. "Mikey, you're just a hard-luck guy. Prob'ly you couldn't get yourself laid in a whorehouse with a credit card."
Vranian flushed dark with anger. "What the fuck's that s'posed to mean? You trying to fucking say I'm queer or something, you fucker? You better not fuck with me, man, I'll knock your fucking ass up between your fucking shoulder-blades, you shithead."
Al sighed and said tiredly, "Mikey, you know what I'll do to you if you try anything against any of the others, so just lay off the blustering, huh?"
"So far as getting laid is concerned, there are Indian girls running all over this place, young ones, and older widows, and none of us has had any trouble getting cozy with some of them. Hell, that's why Simon isn't living with us anymore, he's got a shack job going. You could get laid, too, if you'd treat women like human beings instead of like a piece of meat. That's always been your problem, though—you don't give a shit about anybody but yourself. Mikey has to always come first, and people—female-type people in particular—don't like being treated like that."
"Hell," snapped Mikey, "I don't want to hump no fucking Indian. All of the fuckers stink like shit, they're all greasy, and God knows what kind of VD they got, too. You guys stick your meat in any of them, you deserve whatever kind of clapped-up you get."
"You feel like that," said Mike Sikeena, holding up a spread hand, "then you better get to know Madame Minnie Fingers, then, 'cause won't any of the girls go anywhere near you . . . or hadn't you noticed? They all remember what you tried to do to Rose, back in that chateau, in England."
"Aw, that goddam dirty prick-teasing cunt!" Mikey responded. "Making eyes at me and carrying on about how much she missed laying in the bed with a man and all, leading me on, and then . . ."
"Bullshit!" snapped Greg Sinclair. "That's bullshit and you know it, too, Mikey, and so do we. Who the hell you trying to fool, you lying fucker? Ever man here heard her turn you down cold, and not just one time, either. And what you did that afternoon . . ."
"Man, yes, you're my buddy and all, we two have been together a longass time, but if somebody else hadn't of got to you first that day, I'd of beat you half to death myself. Mikey, when a man gets turned down by a woman and then waits until she's asleep and jumps on her and tries to hold her down long enough for to get his wang into her, that's not just horsing around and playing grab-ass, man, that's what they call forcible rape. And fuckers like you have been shot and hung and fried and beat to death for that, or at least sent to jail for more years than you even want to think about pulling."
"In Arabia," put in Mike Sikeena, "the penalty for such a crime is penectomy, Mikey. They cut your prick off and leave you a tube to piss through."
"Aw, who asked you to fucking open your fucking Ayrab mouth, you son of a bitch?" growled Mikey. "Go suck off a fucking camel!"
Haigh snickered again, nastily. "Mikey, why don't you go over and ask Helen to loan you John for a while, huh? He could get some grease and give you a Greek massage. This pogue told me and my buddy once that . . ."
"I'm no fucking goddam pogue!" shrieked Mikey, coming abruptly to his feet and lunging toward the slighter Haigh, froth on his lips and murderous rage shining out of his eyes, so enraged that he no longer could talk, only growl bestially.
But Al had stood up too, just as fast, and before Mikey could reach Haigh with his hands, Al had expertly applied such pressure to a point on the berserk man's side that his growls were become howls of pain and he stood frozen, unable to move a muscle.
When Al released his finger-hold, Mikey sank down weakly onto his haunches, gasping and sobbing, shuddering all over.
"I'm sorry, Mikey," said Al, softly and with patent sincerity. "But if you can't or won't learn to control yourself, man, somebody is going to have to do it for you. You're strong as a fucking ox, man, and someday your fucking temper is going to get you eyebrows deep in some really bad shit, if you don't watch it." Then Al turned to Greg, saying tiredly, "Well, do you and I go round and round this time?"
Greg shook his head curtly and, exasperation in his voice, said, "No, Al, you did the right thing. Mikey had it coming. Hell, he had it coming the last time, too, re
ally, and the time before that . . . but, hell, he is my buddy, after all."
Draining off the last of his beer, he addressed the other three men, saying, "Look, all of you, and you in partic'lar, Haigh, lay to hell off Mikey. He's never been really what you'd call strung together too tight anyhow. He damn near didn't even get into the Corps, and the onliest reason he didn't get his ass bounced out a couple of times was because of his good combat record and all."
"Mikey, he doesn't get along good with women, never has, but, hell, all you fuckers knows that, I don't have to tell you. He just never did learn how to treat a girl nice, is it, see; his idea of making out has always been to say something like 'Hi, I'm Mikey and I'm horny, so let's fuck.' And like you guys know, that don't work much. So back home, he had got used to going down to a massage parlor and getting his rocks off a couple times a week, that and banging this here weird old bird-woman must be fifty, if she's a fucking day, her tits look like a couple of big prunes, all wrinkled up—who teaches at the city college and loves to be treated like shit by a man."
"Well, it ain't no massage parlors or screwy college teachers here, where we been and are now, and Mikey is really and truly suffering, bad, so all of us is just going to have to try and make it easier on him, see. Otherwise, he's going to really flip out and maybe hurt somebody bad or even kill them . . . or one of us is going to have to do it to him to stop him. And no matter how fucked up he is, he's still my buddy and I don't want to have to see him hurt bad or dead, see."
"Well, look, Greg," said Haigh, "there's this girl I know was one of the ones came up from down the river, Red Doe. She's not too pretty in the face, but she's got a first class body, and man, can she hump, too, she goes like a bunny rabbit, she does. I think if I gave her the right buildup and some presents, she'd lay Mikey for me."
Greg just shook his head resignedly. "Thanks, Haigh, but Mikey wouldn't lay her. See, back in Nam, he got clapped up some kind of bad by this whore. They didn't think they was going to be able to fucking cure him, for a while, there; pumped him so full of drugs and penicillin and all that he got the kind of shits you don't even want to imagine, see."