by Brian N Ball
Marvell crouched with his hands on the top of his head; the top hat had rolled to the bottom of the slope, and the hamper of food was slowly following it. Liz was lost in amazement at the appearance of the man who looked out from beyond the embrasure. He even looked like a Primitive! There was no sign of intellect about him—the eyes were suspicious, the forehead small, the skin a blotched red and brown wrinkled mask, the whole posture one of hostility: he might never have been a member of an advanced civilization. At a gesture, Liz raised her own hands.
“Sergeant—” began Marvell.
“Silence! Have done, ye Frog whoreson rogue!”
And Hawk climbed over the stone breastwork, careful to keep his musket ready for use. He crossed to the basket, which had apparently taken his fancy.
“A prize of war!” he announced. “What be in this, eh?”
“Food, Sergeant,” said Marvell.
“Food? No wine? No bottles of ale? No spirits of wine? Or even the damned Dutchy liquor?”
“There’s no alcohol, I’m afraid,” Liz said humbly. “Just tins of meat and vegetables—and fruits.”
“Aaargh! A pox on it!” growled the sergeant, kicking the basket with a hefty boot. “Ye’re not a bad-looking baggage—now, why d’ye come here?”
Liz realized that Hawk’s inspection was predatory. More than the picnic basket might be taken as a prize of war. The startlingly blue eyes peered at her lustfully.
“Hawk, we’re friends of Spingarn’s!” Marvell answered for her. “Don’t you see, we’ve been sent to find you!”
Liz could see Marvell’s dilemma. The madman was enwrapped in his conditioning; but how far was he from reality? And what did he recall of his time at Center? Hawk was sorely confused, Liz could see. Doubts and anxieties struggled on his face. Nevertheless, the musket was quite ready for use.
“Find me?” said Hawk. “Ye’re allies? God’s teeth, what d’ye know of the enemy’s dispositions? Have ye been into the lairs of the monsters? Have ye seen the crocodileys?” He glared at Marvell. “Have ye seen into the Gates of Hell?”
“Ah, yes!” said Marvell, but at the same time Liz called “No!”
“What’s this? Dissensions amongst ye? Ye rogues! Ye’re spies from the legions of the damned, that ye are! Spies to seek out poor old Hawk and drag him back to the nether regions!”
The musket came to the aim, the black hole looked like the eye of a serpent inspecting its victim, and the sergeant’s face was contorted into a frightened snarl. How reach the simple mind, how turn away the fears that held him? And how get him to put up the musket!
“Gates of what?” Marvell asked weakly. “Sergeant, I don’t know what you mean! We came to look for your companion, Spingarn—for Christ’s sake, we don’t mean any harm!”
“No harm!” snarled the thoroughly frightened man. “No harm when ye come spying on poor old Hawk that got free of the beasts and boggarts and comes to rest his old bones in a hot sandy waste—why, ye’re lying! Ye’ve heard of my old Captain Devil and taken his name like the cozening lying whoreson poxy Frogs ye are! Why, I’ll bomb ye, ye rogue! I’ll destroy ye with grenadoes! I’ll have no compassion—” He backed away and took a metal cylinder in one hand. Liz could see the waxy taper sticking out of it and understood what it was.
“Marvell, he’ll blow us up!”
“Stop, Sergeant!” whimpered Marvell. “We’re friends of Spingarn’s—Horace brought us to you! We’re trying to help Spingarn—the robot! You remember! The red robot— it’s here with us!”
Hawk paused in the act of putting the cylinder to a smoldering cord.
“Ye say?” he inquired.
“Yes! Dear Christ, do we look like Frogs, whatever they are?”
“Frogs? No. But they’re desperate cunning rogues! Ye say Horace? The red monkey machine-man?”
“Yes!”
Liz felt relief. Inquisitiveness was next. A most amazing specimen! In his wild brain there must be some connection between what he said about bubbies, genital ailments, what he called the Gates of Hell and the robot: and, of course, Spingarn! A supreme confusion must reign in his poor mind.
“Horace brought us here,” she said. “You know Horace?”
“Aye!” growled Hawk suspiciously. “A befurred reddy creature—ye’re not trying to deceive old Hawk? Eh, ye bold baggage?”
“No!” said Marvell and Liz.
“Ah! But ye’re not true Christians, I’ll be bound!” Hawk drew off and looked at them carefully. “Woman, ye’re a baggage! Ye come bearing animal skins—ye’re a benighted savage!”
Liz could not restrain a giggle.
“Laugh!” said Hawk, more confused. “Laugh at one of Queen Anne’s soldiers! Laugh at one who carries the Duke’s badge? Why, ye need whipping!”
“Sergeant, we’re friends!” Marvell pleaded. “Friends— we came to help your friend, Spingarn!”
“Ye said that! And who’s to help poor Captain Devil now that His Satanic Majesty’s claimed him for His own? Who’s to help me old comrade-in-arms now he’s in the Pit?”
Marvell groaned loudly.
“Sergeant, I don’t understand what you’re saying!”
“Then damn your eyes for an ignorant foreigner!”
Hawk seemed to have forgotten his dislike of Liz’s costume in the latest cause for dissatisfaction.
“Maybe we can help Spingarn—” began Liz.
“Captain Spingarn, ye baggage! Have ye no respect for rank?”
“Yes, yes! Captain Spingarn then, Sergeant!” she said. “If we only knew where the captain is to be found. Could we perhaps get out of the sun for a while and talk about it?”
Hawk glowered for a while. He put down the small bomb—which Liz assumed the cylinder to be—on the stone embrasure and ran a finger around the gilt collar of his surprisingly smart red uniform coat.
“Ye came with the fur monkey?”
“Fur monkey—” Marvell queried.
“Yes, with Horace!” Liz put in. “He’s our guide.”
“And ye know my old captain?”
“Certainly!” she cried.
“Dear Christ, don’t I!” whimpered Marvell. “Don’t you know me, Sergeant? Marvell—Spingarn’s friend from Center?” Hawk stared hard. “Frames Control!” Marvell pleaded.
“Then ye’re not spies from the boggarts’ lands?”
“Of course not!” Liz cried. “We’re—we’re—” She hesitated, searching for the key to Hawk’s trust. “We’re camp followers! Yes, camp followers,” she said, recalling the customs of the armies of Primitive Europe. “See, we brought provender!”
“Ye did, ye did,” growled Hawk. “But no liquor!”
“Food, though,” Liz pointed out.
“Wretched stuff!” groaned Marvell. “Full of destructive amoeba! Crawling with germs!”
“Sutlers!” said Hawk suddenly. “Sutlers! Aye, I knew ye were vagabonds! Well, a military man can’t war on thieves and rogues. On your feet, make no false move, and bring your goods! Water yourselves and steal naught, or I’ll hang ye both for a pair of whoreson Frog knaves!”
“Christ!” muttered Marvell. “Liz, do something!”
“And Spingarn—Captain Spingarn?”
“Well, what of me old Captain Devil?”
“You said you knew where he was.”
Marvell and Liz Hassell walked to the cool shade of the palms. Hawk followed, saying nothing.
“Leave it, Liz!” begged Marvell quietly. “Let the madman alone! And as for Spingarn, let him rot—”
“Ye said what!” snarled Hawk, whose hearing must have been exceptionally acute. “Let my captain rot?”
He cracked Marvell sharply with the brass butt of the musket, and the large fat man rolled away unconscious.
“Marvell!” shrieked Liz. “Oh, you shouldn’t have done that! He’s here to help!”
“Silence, you Frog whore, or I’ll give ye a bit of the same! Let my captain rot! Why I’ll send ye both to the Pit!”<
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“What?” Liz said.
Her interest disconcerted the enraged madman.
“To the Pit! Both of ye!”
“What Pit?”
“Where the captain and his mistress and all the others went to!” shouted Hawk. “Left poor old Sergeant Hawk alone and naught but crocodileys and monsters there and devils and apes and crawly things ye’d not meet but in dreams!”
The very intensity of the passion in his blue eyes convinced Liz that Hawk had seen what he described. Marvell snored, mouth open and black moustaches splayed out absurdly; his large stomach rose monumentally in the gloom of the shade. Liz was conscious of a cooling of her skin that was disagreeable.
“And where did they all go to?” asked Liz.
Hawk kicked the recumbent Marvell.
“Ye’ll see, ye raggedy whore! Now, lie on your belly and quick about it!”
“Why?”
“Be damned to ye, move!” And, to emphasize his order, Hawk jabbed her with the heavy musket. Liz moved as fast as she could, very much aware of the snorting, blotched unshaven features of the sergeant, and the mad confusion in his blue eyes. Rape was the least of what she expected.
In fact, Hawk trussed her up with a cord so that she could scarcely move a muscle; he did the same to Marvell, who snored still. It worried Liz when Hawk resumed his position behind the stonework he had built, but it was some time before she judged him sufficiently calm to ask what he intended.
He was not forthcoming.
“Lie still, ye doxy! Them as is going to the Pit needn’t hurry the hour! Ye’ll see soon enough!”
* * *
CHAPTER SEVEN
Liz Hassell awoke to find that her limbs were cramped and her mouth dry. Sand flies clustered on her nose. At once she heard the gentle sound of water bubbling from a stream into the lake; she knew the sound and it was a worse torment than the scratching of the flies on her peeling nose; Marvell snored and she shouted out in sudden remembrance of what had passed.
“Sergeant! Sergeant Hawk! I’m thirsty! Please, Sergeant!”
There had been no physical assault, she was sure; the crazy Time-outer had left her alone while she slept. How long had she lain here? Liz looked at the sun. It was not much changed in position. An hour? Two hours? She tried to kick out at Marvell.
“Wake up!” she yelled at him. “Marvell!”
She had to inch her way uncomfortably toward him by jerking her buttocks and shoulders over the sand and stones; using both legs she kicked out with some force.
Marvell groaned in his sleep. She kicked again. He snorted, gasped and tried to move. His eyes opened and he looked about him blearily.
“Liz! Christ—it’s true!”
“Hawk’s gone—I’m thirsty. And the bloody flies are eating me alive!”
Marvell discounted her complaints.
“I was dreaming we were on Talisker—we’d landed and there was Horace too. And that mad Time-outer, Hawk! I dreamed about slimy monsters, Liz! Christ, we’re here and it’s true! I’m thirsty! And these ropes—look, I’m bleeding!”
“Can’t you get the ropes off?”
“No!” Marvell said, shuddering with pain. Liz could see dried blood at his wrists. “What’s he going to do with us?” He closed his eyes. “My head! He hit me!”
“If you hadn’t said you’d leave Spingarn to rot, he’d have helped us—or at least he wouldn’t have clubbed you and tied us up,” Liz pointed out. “Try to get your hands free!”
“You try!”
“My wrists are raw!”
“And I’m in danger of bleeding to death!”
“Try!”
“No! Horace is supposed to be back, isn’t he?” Marvell said. “Where is the bloody robot? Horace!”
“Horace!” echoed Liz. “Oh, Marvell, I don’t like it— what’s Hawk doing!”
“Christ knows,” groaned Marvell. “As long as he doesn’t hit me again! Liz, you always know everything, what’s it all about? He was raving about Spingarn and crocodiles—and what was that he called you? Christ, Liz, what’s he trying to do with us?”
“Do?” said Liz. “He’s got some kind of eschatological vision—”
“What? A what?”
“Some kind of concept of things like death and the after life, things like heaven and hell. He said he was going to send us through some kind of gates which he called the Gates of Hell. Oh, he’s confused and his overlaid persona is a very strong conditioning indeed— otherwise he wouldn’t be calling me a diseased whore. Whore,” she repeated, seeing Marvell’s incredulity. “But there’s a strong vein of consistency in his ramblings.”
“You should have come on your own, Liz,” Marvell said. “You don’t need me.”
“No,” said Liz. “You’ve been useless so far.”
“Then do something!”
“Such as?”
They relapsed into silence for a while, but Marvell could not dismiss the indignities Hawk had heaped upon him.
“What’s it for?” he snarled. “Why does he want us through these bloody Gates of Hell? And what’s it got to do with Spingarn?”
Liz was silent. The plan she had been preparing had collapsed. Or, rather, events had overtaken it. She would know what to do when the robot returned. Marvell distrusted and disliked her silence.
“Liz!” he croaked. “Try to reason with the old bastard! Try to make him see sense—offer him anything he wants. Liz?”
She licked her dry lips and tried to think of anything but the flies that were clustering around the sweat-beads all over her body. The sun crept slowly around the bright sky. Pit? What Pit? Frogs? A strange appellation! But it was quite customary for the Primitives to label others by derogatory terms; an animal of repellent aspect could easily become the name one called one’s enemies. Frogs, though? They were such harmless little reptiles. She had said there was an element of consistency in Hawk’s wild expostulations, but it was such a tenuous thing! Spingarn a devil: a Pit: and boggarts in Hell! There was the connection, but how these references built up into an ordered whole was beyond Liz. She fell asleep again, lips parched, limbs stiff, eyes sore.
This time it was Marvell who woke her.
“Liz! Liz, you idle bitch, wake up! Here’s the bloody robot! Horace! Horace!”
“Sir?” came the concerned voice of the robot.
“Over here, you red fool!”
Liz caught herself snorting and realized that she must present an unattractive sight. She thought of cool water and clean clothes.
“Horace!” she yelled with Marvell. “Get these ropes off me! Quick!”
Horace sped over the rock-strewn sand toward the shaded hollow where Hawk had left them. Liz thought how absurd it was to be grateful for the sight of an arrogant and conceited automaton; nevertheless, she was. Her relief changed to puzzlement as the red-furred automaton stood beside the two bound humans.
“Horace!” yelled Marvell. “Hurry up! I’m aching in every bone—get these ropes off and find where that madman keeps his beer! I need a drink! And if he comes back, use full restraint procedures!”
The robot did not speak.
“Horace!” snarled Liz. She watched for a sign of movement. “Horace!”
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Marvell said, his voice cracked with the effort of bawling commands. “Me first, you clown! Horace?”
“No,” whispered Liz, truly afraid now.
Marvell turned to her.
“No? What do you mean?”
“Horace,” said Liz, ignoring Marvell. “You’ve seen the Alien?”
“No, Miss Hassell,” the robot said immediately. “I carried out a full inspection of the remains of the Genekey, for such I take it to be now, and I found no sign of an extra-Universal presence, apart from the indications which you and Mr. Marvell had already witnessed.”
“Cut me free!” screamed Marvell. “Now!”
Liz knew she was right to be afraid.
“What else?” she sai
d to the robot, again ignoring Marvell. “Any other information? Any theory?”
“I formed the theory, from the extrapolation of events witnessed and information in my possession, that some kind of Frame-Shift factor is present hereabouts,” said the robot. “I detect the presence of certain energy-bands that combine to make Frame-Shift a probability.”
“Now!” screamed Marvell. “Now, or I’ll have you melted down and your brain used as a domestic cleansing unit!”
It was a powerful threat. The robot did not respond. It stood, tall and red-gold in the shade, quite impassive. It might not have heard Marvell.
Liz shuddered.
“You’re not going to cut us loose?” she said quietly.
“No, miss.”
Marvell was almost beside himself with rage. His large face was purple, the black moustaches stood out stiffly; he could not speak, so enraged was he. Almost soundless explosions of wrath came from his lips. Liz suppressed a giggle. A rebellious robot was too much. Her fit of giggling hurt, for the sand would slide into already tender places, and her limbs were terribly cramped. Finally, she wept.
“What!” stuttered Marvell at last. “You red buffoon! You bag of aborted electronics! You conceited collection of parts! I’ll— I’ll—”
“We can’t do anything!” Liz wept since she couldn’t laugh. “It won’t lift a finger to help us!”
“Horace!” Marvell roared. “Why—won’t—you—release —us!”
“Oh, I can tell you that, sir!”
“Then tell me!”
“I’m afraid, sir, my instructions are that I must not alter—”
“—the Probability Quotients!” Liz completed, her voice loud and shrill. “It’s what they told him, Marvell! He isn’t allowed to interfere on Talisker!”
“Well!” roared Marvell.
“Miss Hassell is, as usual, quite right, sir.”
“But I’m hurting! Hungry! I’m dying of thirst!”
“I note that you are distressed, sir.”
“Note it? Note it! You bastard, I’ll note that you’re sent for reprogramming! I’ll—”
“Shut up!” cried Liz. “I’m sick, sick, sick of hearing you! Try to think of some way of persuading it to intervene!”