The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens

by L. Sprague De Camp

  “Could you not come out every night and dig a little?”

  “That would be just as bad, and they’d probably catch me in the act sooner or later. In fact the man on watch now ought to be prowling around the front of the house again any minute.”

  “What, then?”

  They were silent for many seconds. Finally Graham said: “If I could get you into my room, we could both go out my window. I wonder if you could get one of the gang to bring you around?”

  “I do not know. That Edwards is not what you call very sympathetic.”

  “Well, maybe—tell him I’m your lover and you’re going crazy because you haven’t—uh—seen me for days, now. P-pour it on thick. Offer him your beautiful alabaster body if need be.”

  “Offer him my what? I thought alabaster was a mineral.”

  “Never mind; just use your feminine wiles to the utmost. You know what they are, don’t you?”

  “I think I do. When should I do all this?” she said.

  “The best time would be the middle of the afternoon, when there’s a crowd on the beach. If we get out my window, we’ll jump off the roof and make a run for the nudery over there.”

  “What is a nudery?” she asked.

  “An enclosure for folks who prefer to swim without suits. Every beach has one. I hope we can phone for help from there, and that there’ll be enough people around so they won’t dare try to chase us or shoot at us.”

  “Very well. I will try.”

  Now, Graham might have seized the opportunity to grasp Jeru-Bhetiru’s hand, press it to his lips, and swear his undying love in the Romeo manner. But it occurred to him that neither his love nor anything else about him would be undying for long if the gang’s watchman caught him at his tryst. Therefore he contented himself with saying simply: “S-swell. Night.”

  He crawled back into his own room without incident. He was just heaving the windows back into place when he heard his door being unlocked. He gave the window a quick heave, driving it home with a resounding thump, and leaped into his chair just before the door opened. When Warschauer put his head into the room, Graham was poring over his calculations as studiously as could be.

  “You all right?” asked Warschauer.

  “Uh—yes, sure,” said Graham.

  “I thought I heard something . . .”

  “Maybe you did, but it wasn’t in here.” Graham became uncomfortably aware of the plaster dust that had fallen on the floor below the window as a result of his latest foray, and that he had not had time to clean up. Surely, Warschauer must see it too; to Graham’s overstimulated imagination it stood out like a ton of coal on a snowbank. He avoided looking in that direction.

  “Well, okay, then,” said Warschauer vaguely, and disappeared.

  Graham’s scalp itched worse than ever, but he did not dare take off the helmet to get at it. Not having any of the goo that Sklar had glued it on with, he was not sure he’d be able to replace it properly. At least, however, he could take out the splinters that his person had acquired from the roof shingles.

  ###

  The next day crawled along like all the others. After lunch, Gordon Graham began cocking his ear for signs that Jeru-Bhetiru had sold Edwards on the idea of letting her visit her supposed lover. (Supposed? Hell, in the older and purer sense of the word he was her lover.)

  The day, as luck would have it, was overcast, drawing few people to the beach. Shortly after lunch a brief shower drove even these few away. But during the next hour the cessation of the rain and a few wan sunbeams lured some of them back. Graham would have preferred to wait another day, but had no way of getting word to his fellow prisoner during the daylight hours. He regretted that he had not made the escape attempt contingent on good weather. But then they might hit a rainy spell and delay too long . . .

  The hours crawled past. Still no sign of Jeru-Bhetiru, daughter of Jeré-Lagilé of Katai-Jhogorai.

  Then the lock clicked and in came the girl, with Edwards right behind her.

  “D-darling!” cried Graham, holding out his arms. They went into a clinch, and Graham found that the reports to the effect that Krishnans had taken up the Earthly custom of kissing were not at all exaggerated. Graham found that he didn’t have to pretend, and from the warmth of her reaction he hoped she didn’t either. If it were not for more urgent matters he could go on like this all afternoon . . .

  He finally forced himself to look up from the last lingering kiss and said to Edwards: “Why don’t you—uh—just wait outside the door for a while?”

  Edwards glanced at the bed with a slight smirk, then back at Graham. “Nope, gotta stay with you. The boss wouldn’t like it. Anything you want to do, you can do it in front of me.”

  O yeah? thought Graham, remembering the ancient joke about the Frenchmen who were arguing over the definition of sang-froid. While wondering what to do next, he felt Jeru-Bhetiru stiffen in his arms. She was looking towards the window with an expression of terror.

  “What is that?” she whispered, pushing Graham aside and running to the window. “Surujo adhiko! What is happening?”

  “What’s that?” snapped Edwards, crowding after her.

  Graham took in the scene with one all-inclusive glance, then snatched up his drawing board. Holding it edgewise to lessen its air resistance, he brought the edge down with all his strength on Edward’s red head. Edwards saw it coming out of the tail of his eye and started to whirl and reach for a shoulder holster, but too late. The wood met the man’s cranium with a sharp splintering sound. As Edwards folded up on the floor, Graham saw that the tough board was split by the force of the blow.

  He pulled the body out of the way, without bothering to see whether there was still life in it, and seized the window bars. A straining heave, and the window came out.

  “Come on,” he said softly. “Move quickly but quietly.” He slid over the sill of the opening and began crawling down the shingles.

  “D-don’t jump off the edge. Take hold of the gutter with your hands like this, lower yourself to arm’s length, and let go. You’ll only have about a meter to drop.”

  From the sandy yard of the Aurelio house, he caught her as she dropped. Then hand in hand, they ran down the walk to the beach. On the beach they turned left and raced for the stockade of the nudery.

  At the entrance to the nudery they paused to draw a breath and look back at the Aurelio house. There was no sign of pursuit.

  “I’m sure somebody in here has a phone,” Graham said. “Come on.”

  The entrance to the enclosure consisted of a passage between two parallel board fences. The passage made an L around the corner of the nudery so that nobody standing outside could see in. They made the turn and found that the inner fence ran on a couple of meters beyond the corner and ended in a counter and a row of lockers. Behind the counter they could see a few sunless sunbathers sitting sadly on the sands.

  “Hey,” said the man behind the counter. “You can’t go in there with clothes on! That’s indecent non-exposure! Gotta leave ’em in these lockers.”

  “That’s all right,” said Graham. “I just wanted to fuff—to fuff—”

  “You wanted to what?” said the man.

  “To telephuff—”

  He broke off and he and the man stared at one another in mutual recognition. The man was the member of The’erhiya’s band whom he knew so far only as “Hank.”

  Before Graham could even tense his muscles for flight, Hank’s hand swooped down below the counter and came up again with a pistol. He held this pointed at the runaways, in such a position that his back hid it from the nuders.

  “Not a move,” he said. “Just stay where you are.” Then he dialed in his own wristphone and spoke swiftly: “. . . well go look . . . yeah . . . got ’em . . . bring a trulp . . .”

  Five minutes later, Gordon Graham and Jeru-Bhetiru were being marched back to the Aurelio house by Lundquist and Warschauer, each pointing a scarcely hidden weapon.

  Back in the house th
ey were conducted into the living room where The’erhiya and Adzik and the other man whose name Graham didn’t know awaited them.

  “Well?” said Lundquist. “What about Jim?”

  “He iss det,” said The’erhiya.

  “Huh,” said Lundquist. “Well, we’ll take it out on these two.” He put his pistol on safety, and took hold of it by the barrel.

  “No,” said The’erhiya, “we still neet him . . .”

  But even as the reptile spoke, the pistol butt whipped through the air and hit Graham’s head with a muffled but distinctly metallic bonk. Graham saw stars and staggered, though the helmet and the thin layer of sponge rubber inside it saved him from the worst of the blow.

  “Stop it!” said The’erhiya sharply. “Later, perhaps, but not now!”

  Lundquist paused, staring intently at Graham. Finally the man muttered: “Something funny about this wunk’s head.” He stepped closer and rapped Graham’s skull with his knuckles. “Thought so.” He began digging around the edge of the epidermoid with his fingernails until he had pried up enough to get a good grip. After much tugging the helmet came off with sucking sounds.

  Graham put a hand to his head. Now at least he could scratch. His scalp bore a short growth of stiff bristly hair, perhaps half a centimeter long, and all gooey from the adhesive Sklar had glued the helmet on with.

  “So,” said The’erhiya. “Now we know why he has not giffen us any results. Now we have the information from One, he could only giff us a last-minute check. Not worth the risk. Kill them.”

  Lundquist said: “You mean right now? Why not save ’em and have some fun out of it?”

  “I do not wish to risk more delay. This man iss dancherous. Stronger than he looks. Shut the wintows and shoot them right now. If it makes you unhappy, I will get you a rabbit to torture.”

  Graham exchanged an agonized glance with Jeru-Bhetiru. Before he let them simply execute him, he’d throw something or sock somebody, even if they killed him in the act. He tautened himself for a spring.

  As the men moved to obey, the taciturn Adzik piped up: “Wait.” Then the Thothian engaged in a rapid conversation in a language unknown to Graham with its reptilian partner.

  Finally, The’erhiya said: “We haff a better itea. Now he does not have hiss helmet, we can use him.” The Osirian thrust his scaly muzzle into Graham’s face. “Kraham!”

  “Yes?” said Graham. Those great green eyes really had hold of him now. It was as though everything else in the world had dissolved into gray mist, leaving only those eyes glaring through their slit pupils.

  “Repeat after me: I, Korton Kraham . . .”

  They went through the whole rigmarole again, but this time with a difference. As he repeated each phrase, Graham felt as though invisible but unbreakable handcuffs were being snapped shut on his spirit. He had committed himself morally to help these beings, and could no more disobey them than an ordinary man could shoot his mother.

  “Now,” said The’erhiya, “hit her. Hart.”

  Although Graham wanted nothing less, he could no more help himself than one can help blinking at a strong light. He stepped over to Jeru-Bhetiru, drew back his fist, and, disregarding her horrified expression, let her have a strong right to the jaw. Smack! Down she went, out cold.

  “You see,” said The’erhiya.

  “He might still be pretending,” said Lundquist sourly.

  “No, I can tell.” The’erhiya tapped a claw against the scales that covered his bulging cranium. “Now, Kraham, tell us who sent you to us with that thing on your het.”

  “Reinhold Sklar, World Federation Constable.”

  “Very well. You will ko with my men, who will put you out near the city. Then you will ko into the city, fint Sklar, and kill him. To you unterstant?”

  “I understand.” And the worst of it was, he did. Given the order, he knew he’d kill Sklar the first chance he got, that he’d use whatever stealth or deception needed, and that he’d be unable to warn his victim in any way.

  “And when you haft killed Sklar,” continued the Osirian, “you will immediately kill yourself. Iss that clear?”

  “Yes,” said Graham.

  They led him out. He did not even look back at the crumpled heap on the floor that was the girl he loved.

  VI.

  Gordon Graham climbed out of the subway and walked like a remote-controlled robot towards Sklar’s hotel in the west fifties. The dominant half of his mind thought of plans for killing Sklar. He must be careful, for instance, not to get excited and pump the entire magazine into the constable, because then he would have no shots left to kill himself with. And when he did kill himself, he must remember to shoot himself well back, over the ear. People sometimes shot themselves in the temple and blinded themselves without killing . . .

  Meanwhile the rest of his mind, like a prisoner in a cage, raged futilely in vain efforts to regain control of his body, and was carried along, a helpless spectator, to witness whatever crimes the body had been ordered to commit. Whatever the Osirian pseudo-hypnosis was, it certainly seemed to work. Fool-proof. Could it be that the other men of the gang were under The’erhiya’s control in the same fashion? He knew from what Ivor Graham had told him that Osirians had to promise not to use this uncanny ability of theirs before they were allowed on Earth. But if they broke their promise, there was no way of physically sealing up this faculty.

  The hotel lay in the next block.

  And why hadn’t they done the same to Jeru-Bhetiru? Then he remembered reading somewhere that of all the civilized species, human beings were the most susceptible to this influence. Krishnans could be influenced for only a short time . . .

  “No,” said the clerk at the desk of the Baldwin, “Mr. Sklar isn’t in.”

  “I’ll wait,” said Graham, and sat down in the shabby lobby.

  Hours passed.

  Still the autonomous part of Graham’s mind lunged against the walls of its psychic prison, while the other half resigned itself with unwonted calm to waiting for his victim. Although darkness had fallen outside, and his stomach was protesting its lack of sustenance, he sat there in the moth-eaten old plushy armchair, waiting as quietly as a statue.

  Then in came Reinhold Sklar. He saw Graham as quickly as the latter saw him, raised an eyebrow, and stepped forward with a hand out.

  “Hello there!” he said. “I didn’t expect you back so soon. Come on up to my room for a tuck, huh?”

  Graham smiled, replied with a mechanical, “Hello,” and followed the constable to the elevator. This was going to be easy. As soon as the elevator started on its way he would simply take out his pistol and shoot Sklar—several times. As the magazine held nineteen shots, each with enough power to tear a limb off a man, a few shots should do a good job. Then the muzzle to his right ear, a pull on the trigger, and his brains would be spattered all over the inside of the elevator to finish a good job well done.

  Stop! Wait! Watch out! shrieked the other part of his mind—but silently. This part of his consciousness could no more affect events than a spectator at a movie could, by wishing, alter the course of the plot.

  The door of the elevator stood open. Graham remembered that he must do nothing to arouse the suspicions of Sklar.

  Sklar stood aside and waved Graham in, then stepped in after him and punched the No. 9 button. The doors slid quietly closed, and the elevator started up.

  Graham drew his right hand, clutching the pistol, out of his pants pocket.

  And, just before it hit, he was aware of the blurred movement of a blackjack in Sklar’s hand, swinging towards his own head with the speed of a striking snake . . .

  ###

  He woke up with a terrific headache, as if somebody had sent a miniature Gamanovian maggot boring into his head and then touched off its atomic pile. He also had a taste in his mouth something like the waste from an oil refinery. He was lying on his back on a cot. When he tried to move his head he became aware of a gadget attached to it by means of wire
s that limited its motion.

  “Now just you lie still,” said a female voice, and a motherly nurse called: “Mr. Sklar!”

  “Comink,” said the brisk familiar voice.

  The nurse continued: “Just hold still, Mr. Graham, so we can get the psycho-integrator off you.” There were metallic sounds, and the cap was pulled off his head.

  He sat up, almost falling over onto the floor with dizziness. “Wh-what—” he mumbled.

  One of Sklar’s hairy, muscular hands was gripping his shoulders to steady him.

  With great effort, Graham said: “How—How did you know—”

  “That crew haircut of yours. I knew right away you didn’t have your wig on no more, so I expected somethink like what happened.”

  “I n-never thought I’d be glad to have somebody bop me on the bean. Am I suss-safe now?”

  “Sure; that’s what for is the psycho-integrator. Wonderful machine. You’re in the hospital of the Division of Investigation Headquarters on Lunk Island. But quick, now, tell me what happened to you and where the gank is now hidink out?”

  Graham furrowed his brow in an effort to think. It all seemed so long ago and far away.

  “Let me see—Joseph Aurelio’s house, something Atlantic Avenue, Bay Head, New Jersey . . .” and he told his tale.

  Before he had gotten out more than a few sentences, Sklar had dialed his phone and was rattling orders into it.

  “G-going to raid the place?” said Graham.

  “Yes, sure.”

  “Let me come too.”

  “Not you. You’re still an invariable; you ain’t up to it.”

  “O yes I am. You forget they’ve still got my girl.”

  “Oho. Okus-dokus, come alunk then.”