And if it was old and crumbly, perhaps something could be accomplished by main force. Graham grasped two of the iron bars and heaved on them. No, the house wasn’t that far gone; the bars refused to give. He could, however, relieve the stuffiness of the indoor air by inserting his hands between the bars to open the window.
Looking out again, he saw a figure moving quietly around the front of the house. One of the gang on guard, he supposed.
He made another search of the room for some gadget or gimmick to get out of his prison with, when occasion required, but found nothing. The thought occurred to him that, like some old houses, this one might be equipped with glass window panes. But when he rapped experimentally on the window, the dull sound indicated a methacrylate pane. So there was no hope of even getting a sharp sliver of glass to work with.
Not that he wanted to escape yet, before he had found out what the gang was after and whether they had Betty here . . .
At last, lacking anything better to do, he threw himself down on the overshort bed, his head in one corner and his feet dangling off the opposite one. And soon, soothed by the sound of the surf, he slept.
###
The next day, soon after he awoke, they brought him a sandwich and a glass of milk for breakfast and stood over him while he consumed them. To his questions Edwards shrugged his shoulders, saying: “You got to wait till the boss gets here.”
Afterwards they left him alone, except to look in on him every hour or so to make sure he was not up to mischief.
Lunch was the same. The beach filled up to some extent, though this house seemed to be south of the more densely settled section of Bay Head (towards Mantoloking, if he remembered the local geography) and comparatively few bathers resorted to this part. A few went into the nudery.
However, all were too far away for him to risk trying to call for help, now or later. Against the sound of the surf he’d have to scream his lungs out to attract attention, and the gang in the house would probably hear him before the people on the beach did.
Of course it was still pretty early in the season, and the water would still be cold even while the air was balmy. There was the usual man surf fishing all day in hip boots and not, so far as Graham could see, catching anything; and the youth who broke all the flying regulations by buzzing his helicoupe a few meters over the heads of those on the beach.
Gordon Graham, suffering from galloping boredom, napped much of the afternoon. Dinner was a real meal, served, like the previous repasts, in his room. Not long after dinner, however, faint sounds of new arrivals filtered up through the floorboards.
The door opened and Edwards said: “Gome along.”
He followed the small man downstairs to the living room, whose previous occupants were ranged in a circle as though specially to receive him. He recognized the three men whom he had fallen afoul of two nights before: Lundquist, Edwards, and Warschauer, the last with his nose in a plaster cast. And two more men whom he did not know, and finally two extra-terrestrials: a dinosaurian reptile from Osiris, towering over the rest of the company, with its body painted in an elaborate blue-and-gold pattern; and a furry “monkey-rat” from Thoth (the other civilized planet of the Procyonic System) not much over a meter tall, with seven digits on each limb.
“Here he is, boss,” said Lundquist, addressing the Osirian.
“So,” said the reptile. “Come and look at me, Mr. Kraham!”
Graham, listening carefully, could just barely make sense out of the whistling accent that mangled half the sounds almost beyond recognition. Trusting to the helmet under his wig, he complied with the order. Presently he found the animal’s two great green eyes glaring balefully into his own. His scalp prickled under the silver dome, and the room seemed to swim a little.
“Repeat after me,” said the Osirian. “I, Kordon Kraham . . .”
“I, Gordon Graham.”
“Take you, The’erhiya the Sha’akhfa.”
“Take you, The’erhiya the Sha’akhfa.” (To be my wedded wife? thought Graham. My God, what an idea!)
“To pe my absolute master.”
“To be my absolute master.”
“Until released py him.”
“Until released by him.”
“And will faithfully opey his orters.”
“What?” said Graham.
“And will faithfully opey his orters! To you not unterstant, stupit one?”
“I didn’t the first time—”
“Are you criticizing my Enklish?” hissed the being shrilly, showing its crocodilian teeth. “I speak perfect Enklish! Not a trace of accent!”
Graham, thinking it better not to argue a point on which the Osirian was evidently touchy, simply said: “And will faithfully obey his orders.”
“Efen unto teath.”
“Even unto death.”
So that was it! thought Graham. This Osirian must be the one Betty had met at that extra-terrestrial clambake in Boonton, the one who had passed out surrounded by his oil-can-like drinking vessels. The famous speculator and his partner the Thothian—what was the name?—Adzik. Had The’erhiya not drunk himself silly, a lot of things might have been different. The Sha’akhfa would no doubt have been present at the meeting of the Churchillian Society, or at least in the background master-minding the procedure. Then the gang would probably not have committed those blunders that had led to the present situation.
Now what was he supposed to do? How did people act under the Osirian pseudo-hypnosis? All Graham knew was what he remembered of a scene in the movie Perilous Planet, where the heroine, played by Ingrid Demitriou, had been given the works by the villain, played by the eminent Osirian actor Faqhisen.
He therefore put his hands on his head and gave a theatrical groan, as if he had just found a misplaced minus sign at the beginning of a week’s calculations which he had just completed. He said: “Mind if I sit down a minute? I seem to have a slight headache.”
“That iss all right. You will feel petter in a short while,” said the reptile.
At the end of his minute, Graham found them all standing around them expectantly. Then the Osirian squatted in front of him, extended its clawed hands, and caught him by the shoulders. The’erhiya said: “You are Korton Kraham, the cheophysicist of the Kamanovia Prochect, are you not?”
Careful, now. “Yes, master. One of the geophysicists, that is.”
“Ant you know where these maggots haff been planted in the ocean bet, to you not?”
That was public information, spread out before the populace in a hundred popular articles and news releases. “Yes,” said Graham.
“Well then, I want to know which maggots to fire, ant in what orter, to raise Kamanovia apuff the surface pefore Nofember twenty-ninth of this year!”
So this was it? But why, why? It still made no sense. November twenty-ninth was the date on which the World Federation’s contract with Teófilo March became effective. So there was no doubt some connection. If the continent were raised before the contract date, that would no doubt cause some confusion, but nothing the W.F.’s lawyers couldn’t straighten out.
Anyway, he couldn’t answer this question offhand. Therefore he said: “I don’t know.”
“O yes you to,” insisted The’erhiya. “You must talk or we shall fint means to make you.”
Still Graham shook his head. Lundquist remarked: “I guess he means that, boss. He couldn’t hold out on you after you’d given him the treatment.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Warschauer, the damage to his nose still de-nasalizing his speech. “Sometimes when an order contradicts the subject’s compulsions and inhibitions too strongly, you’ll get resistance to a post-treatment order.”
Lundquist said: “I don’t know as I follow Artie’s fancy language, but we can soon enough find out. Just let me give his arm a good twist . . .”
The’erhiya waved a claw. “No, I haff a better methot. Ko ket our other guest.”
“Oh, I get it,” said Lundquist with w
hat Graham took to be a grin of sadistic delight.
Lundquist and Edwards went out and in a few minutes returned, bringing with them a handcuffed Jeru-Bhetiru.
“Gorodon!” she cried. “What is this? What are they going to do to us?”
“I don’t know, Betty,” said Graham. “They want me to give ’em some—uh—dope I haven’t got.”
“You mean you say you ain’t got it,” said Lundquist. “Now, you two mursils hold her good and tight. You two, go get that old table out of the kitchen. And the hatchet.”
When these articles had been brought, Lundquist said: “Okay, my friend, now see if you can’t remember how to wuik those maggots. Because every minute you don’t I’m gonna chop off one joint of this dame’s pretty little fingers, until there ain’t none left. Ready?”
They mashed her hand down flat on the old table. She screamed. The men paid no attention. Lundquist, a glint of amusement in his eyes, glanced upward. Following his glance, Graham saw that the ceiling was sound-proofed. One of the men had quietly brought a pistol out of his pocket in case of emergencies.
Lundquist raised the hatchet.
V.
“Wait,” said Gordon Graham.
“Yes?” said The’erhiya.
Graham’s mind had been working furiously. If there had been reason to believe that these gloops were out to blow up the Earth or conquer the Solar System or something fantastic like that, maybe he should be willing to sacrifice both himself and Jeru-Bhetiru. On the other hand there would be no point in letting her be mutilated to prevent some mere swindle or theft, which he suspected this of being. Of course if he were wrong . . . He put that thought away with an internal shudder. He’d have to use what judgment he could bring to bear upon the situation.
Stall, that was the trick. His next statement would have the advantage of being almost true.
“I said I didn’t know,” he said, “but I didn’t say I couldn’t find out. You wouldn’t expect me to carry around thirty pages of equations in my head, would you?”
“Ko on, tell us what you mean,” said The’erhiya.
“I mean that if you’ll g-get me my textbooks and log tables and things, I could figure this out in a few days. After all, you’re asking me for data that took me and a dozen other men a year to work out in the first place.”
The Osirian persisted: “Why can you not simply gif us the firing plan of the maggots? What difference does it make whether the firing is started now or next Octoper?”
“A lot of difference,” said Graham. “You have to take the lunar and solar tides into account, and the periodicity of the magmatic vortices, and a lot of other things. That is, if you don’t want your continent to sink down again, or if you don’t want to drown the coasts of Brazil and West Africa with earthquake waves.”
“Fery well,” said The’erhiya. “Gif him a paper and pencil, Warschauer, so he can make out a list of the things he will neet.”
Graham made his list a good one, including not only all the reference books he might need, and his slide rule, but also his contour map of the South Atlantic and his complete set of drawing instruments.
“Get them out of my apartment,” he told them. “Be sure you’re there in the middle of a working day when my brother won’t be in. Here’s my key.”
“Goot,” said The’erhiya. “Take our guests pack to their rooms, now.”
Watching closely, Graham observed that Jeru-Bhetiru had a room two doors down the hall from his.
###
It was next noon when Warschauer and a man whom Graham had heard referred to only as “Hank” came in with the supplies he had ordered. Lundquist followed, saying: “There you are, my friend. Now get to wuik like a good little boy and don’t give us no more trouble, or we may have to liquidate you after all.”
They stood around as he spread his papers and books out on the table they provided, and went through learned-looking manoeuvers. After an hour they got bored and went out, locking the door as usual.
Graham at once began examining his drawing instruments. Stupid gloops; having once carefully searched him and taken away anything that might be used as a tool, they had then willingly given him a whole other set at his own request . . .
Careful, he told himself; maybe they’re not so stupid at that. Maybe they hope to pop in and surprise me. In any case they are assuming that The’erhiya’s pseudohypnotic treatment and the fact of their holding Jeru-Bhetiru as a hostage would between them render me harmless.
He went to the window, reached through the bars, and began feeling around outside. The house had been finished in stucco so old as to have become crumbly. Maybe if he could dig enough of it away he could remove the entire window frame: window, bars, and all. At least it was worth trying.
He began pecking at the stucco with the sharp point of a drawing compass. A thin little cascade of pale gray dust sifted down from the scene of his operations to fan out on the roof below. Graham hoped the gang were not so fussy about the appearance of Aurelio’s house as to notice it.
He had been hacking at the stucco for an indefinite time when it occurred to him that his guards might put their noses into his room any time to check up on him. Since they had taken his watch he couldn’t be sure, but in any event he’d better quit for a while—which he was not sorry to do, as his arm ached from the strain and the awkward position. Next time he’d count his pecks to give himself a rough idea of the time that had elapsed.
He went back to his calculations until one of the men looked in on him again, then resumed his pecking. He now had a deep slot, a span long, in the stucco alongside the window frame. If he could get that much done each time . . . He got to work again. Thank God for his long arms!
###
Two days later, the slot ran all the way round the window frame. Graham grasped the bars and heaved. The whole thing rocked towards him a couple of centimeters with crunching sounds. As it came, plaster dribbled down below the inside of the window frame. However, the frame refused to come any further. By feeling around outside, Graham, who had never before concerned himself with the construction of windows, discovered that the pieces of wood that ran around the outside of the frame would prevent the window from coming any further towards him. They would therefore have to be removed.
Graham, going over his instruments again, decided that his T-square offered the most promising possibilities. The titanium crosshead had fairly sharp ends. Of course the square wouldn’t be worth much as a drawing instrument after being used as a pry bar, but that couldn’t be helped. He got to work.
By the next day, all four sections of the outer frame had been pried loose, twisted off, and drawn back through the bars to be hidden under Graham’s mattress. He hoped that the denuded condition of the window frame would not be too obvious from the outside.
Then he pulled on the bars again. This time the frame came in as far as he wanted it to.
He’d better not go out now, though. He had been thinking hard what to do when he got the window loose: to make a dash for liberty, trying to find the nearest public telephone to call Sklar; to reach Jeru-Bhetiru to warn her of what he was doing, or to try to get her out too; to make a clean getaway, or to phone Sklar and then to sneak back into his room before they discovered his absence . . .
He finally decided to make at least an effort to get Jeru-Bhetiru out at the same time he escaped himself. For, if he went alone and they discovered his escape before he succeeded in bringing the forces of the law down on the place, almost anything might happen. They might kill the girl for the hell of it; or she might be killed in the battle; or they might, on learning of his absence, flee, taking her with them as they had done from the house in the Bronx.
Graham therefore cleaned up the plaster dust on the floor and waited until Edwards came for his dinner tray. Edwards said: “How you coming along with those figures, huh? The boss is getting a little impatient.”
“I should have the answers in a couple of days,” replied Graham.
<
br /> ###
Late that night, Graham waited until the man on watch had appeared and then disappeared from in front of the house. Then he heaved cautiously on the bars until the window came out completely. The combination of window, frame, and bars was heavier than he expected, so much so that his muscles stood out in knots from the strain of lowering the assembly gently to the floor. Fortunately, the soundproofing of the house helped him here; if it muffled sounds on their way to his room from elsewhere in the house, it also muffled sounds headed in the opposite direction.
Then he pocketed his drawing compass and swung a leg over the window sill. Luckily for him, the slope of the lower roof was a mere thirty degrees so he felt he could crawl around on it without a lifeline.
Next to his own window another gaped blackly. Was that room inhabited by one of the gang, and if so would the fellow be watching for him?
There was no way of telling short of putting his head into the room or calling out a challenge, neither of which acts struck Graham as the sort of thing a sensible young scientist would do. Therefore he crawled down towards the lower edge of the roof, sprawled like a spider on the shingles, and inched his way past the window.
Still no sound. His scalp itched from the several days’ growth of hair under the helmet, but there was no possible way of scratching it through the silver.
He crept back up the slope to Jeru-Bhetiru’s window and rapped softly on the glass.
“Gorodon?” came a sharp whisper.
“Yes. T-take this.” He passed her the compass. “D’you think you can reach out with it and dig at the plaster when they’re not watching, enough to loosen the whole window?”
“I do not know,” she said. “Let me try.” And she reached out and began pecking as he had done.
It soon became obvious, however, that she had neither the strength nor the reach to do as quick a job as he had done. Moreover the point of the compass had been worn down from the previous operation. Graham said: “At that rate, it’ll take six months to get the window loose, and I can’t stall these bleeps that long.”
The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens Page 24