Hour of the Gremlins

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "Why," demanded Rolf, "are you so set against me reporting them?"

  "Yes," rumbled Mr. Sheperton. "Answer that, will you? You're not telling everything you know. No more gremlin trickery, Baneen. Who are these men, and what are they up to?"

  "And what makes you think I'd know?" Baneen said.

  "I know you know," the dog answered.

  "Do you now?"

  "Yes I do."

  "Hmp! These English and their superior airs."

  Mr. Sheperton growled, low and menacing. Baneen danced away from him and skipped behind Rolf.

  "Well now . . . I'm not saying that there's anything I know for certain. But—well, sure and it'll do no harm to show you something."

  Baneen trotted out toward the far edge of the Hollow, and Rolf followed him up the slope, across a couple of sandy little hillocks, and out toward the beach.

  Padding along beside Rolf, Mr. Sheperton grumbled, "That little green rascal knows far more than he's told us."

  "But," Rolf said, squinting against the glare of the dazzling sun that beat off the white sand, "If he really knew what was going on, would he have let the bulldozer get so close to nearly burying the Hollow?"

  Mr. Sheperton seemed to shake his head. "There's no telling what a gremlin will do—except that it will be bad for any humans nearby."

  Rolf turned to stare at Baneen, just ahead. The boy could hear the hissing boom of the surf now, and felt the tangy salt breeze on his face. He started to run up toward where Baneen was, but the gremlin turned and put a finger to his lips, waving at Rolf to get down.

  Bursting with curiosity, Rolf crawled on his stomach up to the top of the dune. Laid flat out, he peered through the grass. Mr. Sheperton lay beside him, panting wetly in his ear.

  At first glance, the beach looked perfectly ordinary. But then Rolf saw that someone had dug a narrow channel into the beach, and put a sort of bridge over it. The bridge was covered with a thin layer of sand. The surf was breaking far out in the water, at least a hundred yards before the channel.

  "Somebody's built a breakwater out there, like an underwater sandbar," Rolf said.

  "Yes," agreed Mr. Sheperton. "And a place to bring in a boat and hide it under that sand bridge."

  "Camouflage."

  The putt-putting of an engine made Rolf turn his head toward the right. A boat was puffing through the sea, heading straight for the disguised channel. As the three of them watched, the boat came in and two grimy looking sailors in tattered shirts and shorts leaped from its deck and tied it securely to the posts that held up the bridge.

  "They're the villains that sent the mechanical beast at us," Mr. Sheperton muttered. "They wanted more sand to cover their bridge and dump into their breakwater."

  Another man appeared on the ship's deck. He was chunky and fat-faced. He wore a blue jacket and white slacks, and even had a perky little captain's hat perched on his head. He squealed orders at the two sailors, who were now back on the boat, sweating and struggling with heavy boxes.

  "Come on, come on," the captain piped at them in a nasty nasal, high-pitched voice. "I want all the telescopes and binoculars stored away here so we can use all our space to carry people on the day of the launch. Move it, move it!"

  "So that's it," Mr. Sheperton said. "He's the one that your father was worrying about. Bringing in tourists to watch the launch from here on the beach."

  "There must be more to it than that, though," said Rolf. "They wouldn't go to that much trouble for a boatload of tourists two or three times a year."

  "Quite right! How about that, you gremlin?" Mr. Sheperton demanded of Baneen.

  "Ah well," said Baneen uncomfortably, "sure and the one in the sailor hat there does bring in people with guns to hunt and fish, now and then."

  Rolf felt suddenly sick—in his mind's eye he saw images of the brown pelican and the young piglets, bloody and slaughtered.

  "But this is a Preserve!" he said, fiercely. "It's the one little piece of the environment around here that's protected! And you say I shouldn't report someone like that?"

  "But we've never let them harm the wee beasts and birds," said Baneen, hastily. "Not since we've been here has one of his hunters gained a single prey—"

  "That doesn't make any difference!" said Rolf. "I don't care what you've been doing. I'm reporting this man and his crew."

  "No lad, you can't!" said Baneen. "Listen to me, now. We mustn't have police and rangers and suchlike stamping up and down the beach here and tramping all over our Hollow."

  "I'm sorry," said Rolf. "But this is one thing I just have to do."

  "But you'll listen to me for a moment before doing it, won't you?" pleaded Baneen. "Wait, Rolf, just a second whilst I bring you one who can plead our desperate case better than myself. . . ."

  "Don't listen to him, boy," growled Mr. Sheperton.

  "I don't see how they've managed to avoid being seen, anyway, before this," said Rolf. "You ought to be able to see that oil slick and boat smoke from a ranger plane pretty easily."

  He turned to look suspiciously at Baneen.

  "Now, now!" cried the gremlin. "It was just the slightest touch of magic we've used in their favor, to be sure—just enough to keep them from being seen. Nothing invisible, mind you. Just a wee distraction or two to make the patrol rangers look the other way as they fly past the noise and dirt. But just a minute. Wait right here—"

  He disappeared with a popping noise.

  "Let's not wait for him, Shep—Mr. Sheperton, I mean," said Rolf.

  "Quite right!" rumbled Mr. Sheperton. "Enough of the blackguard's lies and evasions—"

  Baneen popped back into existence, pulling along with him another gremlin—also wearing green, it was true, but with a long, sad, greenish blue cloak around his shoulders, long dark hair hanging down under his hat, and a violin case under his arm.

  "Rolf, let me—" puffed Baneen, breathlessly, "introduce that grand—gremlin musician— O'Kkane Baro."

  The other gremlin took his hat off his head and swept it before him as he bowed gracefully. He had a handsome, if tragic, face.

  "Glorious to acquaint you!" he cried, in a rich, full voice, "Glorious! If my heart was not breaking, I would dance with joy. But who dances in a world like this? I ask you!"

  He sat down mournfully in the sand, laying the violin case aside. Rolf stared at him.

  "Hist!" whispered Mr. Sheperton in his ear. "Don't let this rascal fool you, either. He's a gypsy gremlin. Do you know what Hokkane Baro means, in the Romany tongue?"

  "Ah, but the heart of our poor friend is indeed breaking," said Baneen sorrowfully. "All these thousands of years that he has lived, now, only in the hope of seeing Gremla again—"

  "Ah, Gremla, my sunshine, my beautiful!" exclaimed O'Kkane Baro resonantly, covering his eyes with one hand. "Never to see you again. Never . . . never!"

  "Hokkane Baro means," whispered Mr. Sheperton severely, "the big trick, a con game they used to play on gullible peasants."

  Rolf nodded. He had no doubt that Mr. Sheperton was right. But O'Kkane Baro's unhappiness was so convincing he began to feel a twinge of guilt in spite of himself.

  "You'll see it," he said to the dark-haired gremlin. "Don't worry."

  "Ah, but will he?" said Baneen. "Now that you're determined and all to report what you've seen. Sure, and it's only a matter of minutes after the authorities come prowling around here that our magic will be spoiled and our last chance at Gremla lost for good."

  "Ah . . ." said O'Kkane Baro, unshielding his eyes. "But, why should we weep?" he spread his arms. "Let us laugh . . . ha, ha!" Rolf thought he had never heard such mournful laughter in his life.

  "Yes, laugh!" cried O'Kkane Baro, rising to his feet. "Laugh, dance, be gay—sing! Music!"

  He clapped his hands; at the sound, the lid of his violin case opened and a gremlin-sized violin floated out and up into the air. A gremlin-sized bow floated after it and poised itself over the strings.

  "Play, gypsy!" comma
nded O'Kkane Baro, stamping his foot on the sand. The violin began to play, a wild, thrilling air. "Weep, gypsy—" The violin switched suddenly to wailing chords. Tears began to run down O'Kkane Baro's cheeks.

  "Gremla . . . lovely Gremla . . . nevermore shall we set eyes upon thee . . ." he sobbed.

  The music was overwhelming. Baneen was also crying. Tears were running as well out of Mr. Sheperton's nose and Rolf was blinking desperately to keep from joining them in tears.

  "Wait . . ." begged Rolf. "Wait. . . ."

  "Why wait?" keened Baneen. "All is over. And just because someone could not go two days before reporting some scoundrels. Ah, the whole gremlin race, robbed of its last, last chance! Didn't I say we'd see none of the animals or birds would come to harm? But did that soften the hard heart of someone I need not name? No—"

  "Wait!" gulped Rolf. "All right. Two days. I can wait two days—but stop that violin!"

  "Ah yes, stop the instrument, O'Kkane Baro!" sobbed Baneen. "It's myself can barely stand the sorrow of it, either."

  Weeping, O'Kkane Baro waved at the violin, which stopped playing and packed itself, with its bow, back into its case. In the silence, a high-pitched voice, the voice of the boat captain came clearly to their ears.

  " . . . there! Right over the ridge there. Don't just stand there, get over after them! You heard the music coming from there until just a second ago!"

  Rolf leaped to his feet and stared over the crest of the dune. The two sailors they had seen, the boat captain right behind them, were coming toward the dune. They all shouted when they saw Rolf.

  "They spotted me!" Rolf cried. "What'll we do now?"

  "Try an old gremlin trick, lad," advised the voice of Baneen behind him. "Run!"

  7

  Rolf took a fast look at the two burly sailors climbing the dune toward him. He started running down the other side of the dune, but the loose sand slowed him down.

  He glanced over his shoulder and saw that the sailors had topped the rise and weren't far behind him. And they were gaining fast.

  Baneen was dithering around, running in excited circles, waving his hands helplessly.

  And Mr. Sheperton?

  Rolf heard the dog barking furiously, the way he barked at automobiles that went down their home street too fast. Turning slightly, Rolf saw Mr. Sheperton charging at the two sailors, his bared teeth looking ferocious, even in his fuzzy mop of a head.

  The sailors backed off for a moment. Mr. Sheperton surprised them, maybe even scared them. Then one of them pulled something long and menacing from his belt. Rolf couldn't tell whether it was a knife or a club.

  "Shep . . . no!"

  But Mr. Sheperton wasn't backing away. As long as Rolf was in danger, and he himself was conscious, the dog would attack the sailors.

  "Baneen . . . do something!"

  Suddenly Mr. Sheperton's open mouth started to spout foam. His barking began to sound more like gargling.

  The sailor with the club, or whatever it was, went round-eyed.

  "Mad dog!" he yelled. Spinning around, he raced back toward the safety of the boat. His friend went with him.

  Mr. Sheperton raced after them, nipping at their heels, until they got to the top of the dune. Then he stood his ground and barked at them several more times. Rolf knew what Mr. Sheperton was saying:

  "And don't come back! Blackguards! Cowards!"

  Satisfied that everything was in proper shape, Mr. Sheperton trotted back down the sandy hill to Rolf and Baneen. Only then did Rolf realize that if the dog was really foaming at the mouth, it meant he was seriously ill.

  "Shep . . . are you . . . ?"

  "I don't know how many times it will be necessary to tell you," the dog said, a bit cross and out of wind, "that my name is Mr. Sheperton. And you, Baneen, if you don't mind, would you kindly remove this ridiculous shaving lather you've put on my face? Tastes of lime. Ugh."

  "Ah, for such a grand hero as yourself, Mr. Sheperton, it was hardly necessary for me to do anything at all." Baneen wiggled his fingers and the foam instantly dried into crystal flakes that were carried away by the wind.

  And suddenly Rolf dropped to his knees and hugged the shaggy old dog. "Shep, Shep . . . I thought you were sick."

  For once, Mr. Sheperton didn't correct the boy. He sat there and let Rolf hold him. His tail even wagged once or twice. Sounding rather embarrassed, he said at last, "Well, harumph . . . I suppose we'd better get away from here before those rascals work up the nerve to come back."

  On the way back to the Hollow, Baneen kept talking about O'Rigami's space kite and how wonderful it would be to return to Gremla.

  "And the most wonderful part of it all," the gremlin said, dancing lightly over the sand, "is that yourself will be in complete charge of the entire launching of the great, powerful rocket. The most important man of all, that'll be you, Rolf me bucko. Er. . . once you've attached the kite to the rocket properly, of course."

  Rolf nodded. But inwardly he was wondering how he could possibly get to his father's rocket and attach the kite, even if O'Rigami made it invisible. Gremlin magic wasn't going to be enough for that job.

  Mr. Sheperton stayed strangely quiet as they approached the Hollow. Rolf could see gremlins scurrying about, busy with a thousand unguessable tasks. Lugh stood in the middle, as usual, in a small mound of sand, pointing here, shouting there, his tiny bulldog's face red with scowling, his chin whiskers bristling.

  Rolf picked up his bike and said farewell to Baneen. The gremlin, jigging happily, reminded him:

  "Don't be forgetting tomorrow, now. Tomorrow O'Rigami will have the grand kite finished, and tomorrow night you'll be helping us to attach it properly to the rocket. Ah, Gremla, land of me youth! Soon we'll be back enjoying your dusty delights."

  "Sure," Rolf said as he got on the bike. "Tomorrow."

  He pedaled up and away from the Gremlin Hollow and got back on the road that led to the highway. But when he thought of the men with the boat and his own promise not to report them, he was conscious of an ugly, hollow feeling inside him.

  Rolf's father wasn't home for dinner again that night. After helping his mother clean up the kitchen, Rolf went outside for a walk. The sun was low in the southwest, the breeze already had a bite of evening's coolness.

  Mr. Sheperton came padding up to him, but Rolf said. "No, Shep. Stay. I want to think, not argue."

  The dog muttered something about calling people by their proper names, as he trotted stiffly back toward the house.

  Rolf walked out on the narrow sidewalk that fronted the lawn, and headed down the street slowly. "How deep am I getting myself into this?" he whispered to himself. "It all seems so crazy. For one thing, suppose something goes wrong when I'm helping the gremlins and I get caught?"

  There was only one tree in this part of town worth climbing, a sturdy old live oak that had been growing for maybe fifty years before the houses had been built and the streets put in. Miraculously, it had escaped the bulldozers and builder, probably because it looked too big and tough to knock over easily.

  The tree happened to be right next to the Amaros' old two-story house, close to Rita's window. Rolf hesitated in the dark at the foot of the tree, remembering all the times he had climbed up there for secret talks with her, back when they both had been real young kids. But now he needed to talk to her again, and the tree looked as climbable as ever.

  He climbed up easily, but found that he'd gotten too big to crawl out on the limb that practically brushed her window. And the window was closed, because the house had recently been air conditioned.

  Can't use our old signal, Rolf knew, remembering the way he'd whistle like a bobolink. How can I call her?

  While he sat there hunched up on the big branch near the tree trunk, Rita opened the window. Over her shoulder she called, "Okay, Momma. I've got my window open. Tell me when the air conditioner is working again, and I'll shut it."

  Rolf thought he could hear Baneen giggling in the shadows of the tree.
<
br />   "Hey, Rita!" he whispered.

  She jerked back a little in surprise. "Rolf? What are you doing there?"

  "I wanted to talk with you."

  She smiled, and it looked better than moonlight to Rolf. "Just the way we used to," she said. "Wait a minute."

  She ducked inside for a moment, then crawled out on the window ledge.

  "Hey, no . . . the branch can't hold . . ."

  But Rita already had one bluejeaned leg on the branch. "I'm not as heavy as you are."

  Or as careful, Rolf thought. But she crawled out on the branch. It dipped and swayed under her weight, but Rita calmly shinnied up until she was sitting safely next to Rolf.

  "We haven't done this in ages," she said happily.

  "Yeah," Rolf nodded. It was fun. Almost, it took him back two years, to before he had started going out to the Preserve, alone.

  More seriously, Rita said, "I was beginning to think you didn't like me anymore. You've stayed away so much lately. . . . I'm sorry I said you were weird."

  Rolf had forgotten that. "Oh, that's okay."

  "You really have been acting strange. You know?"

  "I guess so. . . ." He didn't know where to begin, how to tell her.

  For a moment they just sat there, bare feet dangling in the cool evening air.

  "Rita?" Rolf said. "Listen. There is uh . . . something I need your help for."

  "Sure Rolf. What is it?"

  "Your father's still on the night shift, isn't he?"

  "Yes." Then she added proudly, "He's been promoted to sergeant. He's got a whole shift of guards under him now."

  "But he's still working right at the launch pad, isn't he?"

  "Yes."

  Hesitating for a moment more, Rolf finally decided to take the plunge. "Look . . . I need to get up close to the rocket. Up onto the top platform of the checkout tower. Tomorrow night."

  "Tomorrow night?" Rita's voice sounded shocked. In the darkness it was difficult to make out the expression on her face. "But that's the night before the launch! Nobody's allowed . . ."

  Slowly, and as carefully as he could, Rolf explained to Rita about the gremlins and how they wanted to use the Mars rocket to help the return to Gremla.