Farmer, Philip Jose - Father Carmody 00.4

by A Few Miles (v2. 1)

  But expediency sometimes dictated the breaking of rules, and the bird-lice biting madly into him demanded that he get rid of them at once before he made a spectacle of himself.

  Brer John went halfway around the lagoon before he found what he was looking for. This was a high bank which was shielded from view by a group of bushes. He pushed through the foliage, and almost put his foot on a couple who must have thought they were alone in the Garden of Eden. He stepped over them and plunged on until he could not see them, though he was still distressed by the sounds.

  Quickly, he slid his robe off and then let himself down the high bank of mud into the water. He shivered as the relatively cold water hit him, then after a moment he felt quite comfortable. Remembering the fable of how the fox rid himself of fleas, he slowly immersed himself. He had a hope that the insects would climb up his body as the water came towards them and that when he had ducked his head, they would be left to shift for themselves.

  His head went under, and he held his breath while he counted one hundred and eighty seconds. Then he lifted his head above the water. He didn't see the collection of insects floating before his nose that he had expected. But the lice must have gone somewhere, for he no longer was being bitten.

  Then he tried to pull the egg away from his skin and allow the water to soften the glue. But he had no success.

  “It's as if it had put out tendrils into my skin,” he said.

  His eyes widened, and he paled. “Good St. Jairus! Maybe that's what did happen!”

  He forced himself to push back the rising panic and to think, if not calmly, at least coherently. Perhaps the horowitz had egg-laying habits analogous to that of the wasp. It might be its instinct to place the egg on a corpse or even living creature. And the egg might send forth small fleshy roots to hook into the bloodstream of its host. And through the roots it would draw the nourishment it needed to grow larger and to develop into an embryo. The horowitz might have taken an evolutionary step which would place it among placental creatures, the difference being that the embryo would develop on the outside of the body of its host instead of inside.

  Brer John didn’t feel much like taking a strictly biological and zoological attitude. This thing attached to his body was a monstrous leech, and it was sucking the blood from him.

  It might not be necessarily fatal. And he could kill the egg now, and, presumably, the roots would dissolve.

  But there was the ethical view to consider. The egg was not his property to dispose of as he wished. It belonged to the zoo.

  Brer John squelched his desire to rip out the thing by the bloody tendrils and to throw it away as far as possible. He must return it to the zoo authorities. Even if that would involve much time while he told the long and complex story of just how he had happened to be in a situation where he could have an egg laid on him.

  He scrambled back up the bank. And stood dismayed. His robe was gone.

  Brer John had always thought of himself as a strong man. But tears ran down his cheeks, and he groaned, “Worse and worse! Every step I take towards Wildenwooly puts me back two steps! How will I ever get out of this mess?"

  He looked up at the sky. No sky, just a blaze of light from a man-made roof. Light but no revelation.

  He thought of the motto of the order of St. Jairus. Do as he would do.

  "Yes, but he was never in such a situation!" he said aloud.

  However, he thought, consideration of the life of St. Jairus did show that he had always taken the lesser of two evils, unless doing so might lead to an evil even greater than the one rejected. In which case one chose the greater evil, if one had to choose.

  "John," he said to himself, "you are not a philosopher. You are a man of action, however ill-advised that action may be. You have never really thought your way out of a mess. Which is why you may be in this particular one. But you have always trusted to the wisdom of your feeling to extricate yourself. So, act!"

  The first thing he had to do was to clothe himself. He could remain nnde while he searched the beach for whoever might have stolen his clothes. But he did not think it likely that the thief, or prankster, would be in evidence. And he had no means for covering the egg on his chest. That would lead to an intense curiosity and probable trouble for him before he had gotten far. The cops might be called, he might go to jail. And he would have much explaining to do, not only to the secular authorities but to his superior.

  No. He must find clothing. Then he must get money to call the director of the zoo and get rid of the egg. Then, somehow, he must get the money for fare to Wildenwooly.

  Cautiously, he pushed back into the bushes. The couple over whom he had stumbled were still there, but they now seemed to be asleep in each other’s arms. Muttering under his breath, "Only a loan. I will see you get it back,” he reached out and took the man’s clothes from the bush on which they hung. Then he retreated to the edge of the bank and put them on.

  He found the experience distasteful for several reasons. One, he was giving the police another reason to look for him. Two, when the man woke up, he would be in Brer John's difficult position of getting off the beach and home without his clothes, though, doubtless, he could send the woman after some. Three, the puffkilt he was putting on was covered with garish mustardyellow circles and pink dots. This was not only an esthetic crime in itself but, four, the puffkilt was soiled and smelly. Five, the dickey which he put on his chest was an electric-blue with crystal sequins.

  "Horrible taste,” said Brer John, shuddering. He was aware that he made a ridiculous figure.

  “Better than having an egg hanging from our chest," he said, and he set off across the part towards the city.

  He intended to enter a public phone booth and there find out the address of the zoo director. Then he would waJk to the zoo director’s house and tell him about the egg. What would happen then, he told himself, would be up to God and the agile wits of Brer John. But somehow, he must also contrive to get the stolen (borrowed) clothes back to the owner with some recompense.

  Brer John walked swiftly towards the edge of the park. He did not look behind him as he passed the white-fleshed bodies and many-colored legs of the beach-people. But he felt what he had not felt for a long time, the prickling frightening half-exhilarating sensation that at any moment the cry of “Stop, thief!" would ring out. And he would be in full flight ahead of the pack.

  Not that there was much chance of that. The man had been sleeping too deeply.

  “Stop, thief!" rang the cry.

  Automatically, Brer John increased his pace, but he did not start running yet. Instead, he pointed dramatically to one side at a man who was running by a happy coincidence away from those beside him.

  "There he goes!" he yelled. And the crowd surged around him, running after the innocent who fled when every man was pursuing. Unfortunately, the crowd by Brer John ran into the crowd behind the man who was running after Brer John and the stolen clothes. Somebody pushed somebody, and within two seconds a full-scale brawl had spread through this section of the park.

  A cop's whistle blew; a number of men piled upon the cop and bore the metal man under by sheer weight. Brer John decided that now was as good a time as any to run.

  He reached the edge of the park and began running through a narrow alley formed by the fences around the small yards of private houses. It was a twisting labyrinthian alley in which he could easily lose any ground pursuit. But a cop's car was scooting overhead towards the riot in the park, so Brer John vaulted over a fence lithely as a cat despite his round-stomached bulk. He landed easily and crouched against the fence, hugging it to avoid observance from the air.

  The footsteps of a man running went by the fence and faded into the distance. Brer John smiled, then the smile froze as a low growl came from behind him.

  Slowly, he turned his head. He was inside the yard of a typical house. The fence encircled a small plot of grass in the center of which was a roofed patio. The patio held a table and a few chairs and a
chaise-longue and the entrance to the house underneath the ground. No human beings were in evidence, but a dog was very much so. It was a huge Doberman- Pinscher, and it was ready to charge.

  Back over the fence went Brer John, the dog so close to him that he felt its jaws clash at the edge of his puffkilt. Then he was running again.

  However, after he had spurted for a hundred yards and looked behind him to make sure that the dog hadn’t come over the fence after him, he slowed to a fast walk. He saw a public phone booth and made for it. Before he was at its door, a man stepped up to him and seized his elbow.

  “Wanta talk to you,” he said. “Me can solve all your problems for you in a micro.”

  Brer John looked at the man closely. He was small and thin and had a ratty face. His legs were painted barber-pole fashion with red and white stripes, his kilt and dickey were sequined with imitation diamonds, and he wore a tricorne hat with a long plume. These were enough to identify him as one of the lower classes; the plastic imitation bone stuck through the septum of his nose marked him at once as a lower-class criminal.

  “Me got switches,” the man said, meanwhile darting glances from side to side and turning his head like a robin afraid the cat was sneaking up on him. “Heard ‘bout ya quick as ya robe was snatched. Heard 'bout the egg, too That’s what wanta talk ta ya 'bout. Ya sell the egg ta me; me sell the egg to a rich beast in Phoenix. Him’s queer, get it? Eats, uh, rare delicacies, gets his rockets off. Been vine out long time good zoola horowitz egg. Scratch?”

  “Scratch,” said Brer John. “You mean a rich man in Phoenix pays big prices for food hard to get, like the ancient Chinese paid high for so-called thousand year old eggs?"

  “Scratch. Know ya need ticket to Wildenwooly. Can finger.”

  “I'm tempted, friend,” said Brer John. “You would solve my temporal difficulties.”

  “Do? Buzz-buzz. Only drag is, have to go ta Phoenix first. Slice egg off here, no buzz-buzz. Egg rigor mortis; no carry from fat beast.”

  “You tempt me, friend, “ said Brer John. “But, fortunately I remember that I will also have eternal difficulties if I deal with you. Moreover, this egg so fondly clutching my breast is not my property. It belongs to the zoo.”

  The man's eyes narrowed. “No buzz-buzz. Come anyway.”

  He pulled a whistle from a pocket on his puffkilt and blew.

  No sound issued, but three men stepped out from the corner of a tavern. All three held airguns, which doubtless contained darts whose tips were smeared with a paralytic.

  Brer John leaped like an uncoiling rattler striking. The ratty little man squawked with terror, and his hand darted towards his pocket. But Brer John chopped him into unconsciousness with the edge of his palm, and he thrust the man before him. There was a whacking sound as two darts hit the sagging form. Then Brer John, holding the man into the air before him, managed to run towards the three gunmen. Another dart thwacked into the flesh of his shield, and then he was on them. Or they were on him; it was hard to tell. He went down; he was up; airguns hissed in the air and missed; one man cried out as a dart hit him; another folded as stiff fingers drove into his soft belly; then the butt of a gun came down on Brer John’s temple.

  Stars . . . blackness.

  He woke to find himself lying on a couch in a strange room. And a strange man was looking down at him.

  “I protest against this highhanded misuse of a fellow human being,” said Brer John. “If you think you can get away with this, you’re mistaken. I was once known as John Carmody, the only man who ever gave the famous detective Leopardi the slip. I'll hunt you down and I’ll . - . turn you over to the authorities,” he ended mildly.

  The man smiled and said, “I’m not what you think, Brer John. The crooks who tried to snatch you were caught by a police car immediately after you were knocked out. They were injected, and they made a full confession. And you were injected, too. We know the full story. A most amazing one, too, and I've heard some weird ones.”

  Brer John sat up and felt dizzy. The man said, "Take it easy. Allow me to introduce myself. I'm John Richards, the director of the zoo.”1

  Brer John felt at his chest. The egg was still attached.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “The horowitz has a parrot’s mimicking powers. Just as a guess, you taught it to call you by your name, John? Scratch? I mean, right?”

  “Right,” said John Richards. “And if it’ll make you feel any better, I can solve your problem.”

  “The last time I heard that, I almost got kidnapped,” said Brer John. But he smiled. “All right. What is this solution?”

  “Just this. We have been waiting for a long time for the horowitz to lay its egg; we even had a host animal ready. Your appearance upset everything. But it doesn't necessarily ruin everything. If you would be willing to sign a contract to go to Feral, the native planet of the horowitz, and there allow yourself to be studied until the egg fully develops, then—”

  "You give me hope, Mr. Richards. But there is something about your tone I don’t like. What will this involve? Especially how much time will it take?”

  "We—the Feral Study Grant group—would like you to go to Feral and there live as one of them while—”

  "As one of them? How? They’d kill me!”

  "Not at all. They don’t kill the host animal until after the embryo is—uh — born. But we would step in just before that time. You’ll be under close observance all the time. I wouldn’t try to deceive you into thinking it couldn't involve danger. But if you agree, you’ll be doing science a marvelous service. You can give us a much more detailed, and personal, account than we could get by watching through long-distance scopes.

  "And, Brer John, at the end of your service, we'll guarantee you immediate passage to Wildenwooly. Plus a substantial contribution to your order there.”

  "How long will it be before I get to Wildenwooly?”

  "About four months.”

  Brer John closed his eyes. Richards could not tell if he were praying or thinking. Probably, he decided, it was both.

  Then Brer John opened his eyes, and he smiled. "If I took a job on Earth, I’d have to work two years to pay for the passage. I might be able to do something else, but offhand I can't think of anything. And from the strange course of events, I think I was led into that moat and thence into your hands. At least, I choose to think so.

  "I’ll go to Feral for four months. The best route is not necessarily the straightest one. Success in circuit lies.”

  Brer John was sitting in the waiting room of the spaceport, meditating and also thanking God that the loose robe of his order allowed the egg attached to his breast to be well hidden. Within a few minutes a bell would sound, and it would be time to board the Rousehound.

  A man came in, placed his traveling bag on the floor, and sat down next to him. The man fidgeted a while, looking at Brer John every now and then. Brer John smiled whenever his eye was caught, and he said nothing. He was learning the value of silence. Presently, the man said, "Going frontier, Father?”

  "Call me Brer,” said Brer John. "I am not a priest but a lay brother. Yes, I am going frontier. To Wildenwooly.”

  "Wildenwooly? Me, too! Thank God, I’ll be off Earth! What a dull restricted place! Nothing exciting ever happens here. Same old in-and-out, up-and-down, day after day. Now, you take Wildenwoolyl There's a place calling to every red-blooded freedom-loving adventurous man! Why, I understand you can’t walk more than a mile or two before more strange and wonderful things happen to you than in a life time on this grey globe ”

  "Bless you!" said Brer John. The man looked at the brother and moved away. He never did understand why Brer John’s face turned red and his hand doubled up as if to strike a blow.

 

 

 
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