Image of the Beast / Blown

by Philip José Farmer

not natural to the human universe. The humans do not

  absolutely reject him; it is the nature of humans to try to

  explain every phenomenon or, I should say, describe it,

  classify it, fit it into the order of natural things.

  "And so the alien is given his form, and a certain part

  of his nature, by the humans. There is a process of psy-

  chic imprinting, you understand. And so, willynilly, the

  alien becomes what the human believes him to be. But the

  alien still retains some of his otherworld characteristics, or

  I should say powers or abilities, and these he can use un-

  der certain circumstances. He can use them because they

  are part of the structure of this universe, even though

  most humans, that is, the educated, that is, the recondi-

  tioned, deny that such powers, or even such beings, can

  exist in this universe."

  "You were enjoying your filet mignon and your salad,"

  Childe said. "I thought vampires lived only on blood?"

  "Who said I was a vampire?" the baron replied, smil-

  ing. "Or who said that vampires live on blood only? Or,

  who, saying that, knew what he was talking about?"

  "Ghosts," Childe said. "How does this theory explain

  ghosts?"

  "Le Garrault said that ghosts are the results of imper-

  fect psychic imprinting. In their case, they assume,

  partially assume, the form of the human being first en-

  countered or, sometimes, they result from the belief of a

  human being that they are the ghost of a departed. Thus,

  a man who believes in ghosts sees something he thinks is

  the ghost of his dead wife, and the alien becomes that

  ghost. But ghosts have a precarious off-and-on existence.

  They are never quite of this world. Le Garrault even said

  that it was possible that some aliens kept shuttling back

  and forth between this world and the native world and

  were actually ghosts in both worlds."

  "Do you really expect me to believe that?" Childe said.

  The baron puffed again and looked at the smoke as if

  it were a suddenly realized phantom. He said, "No. Be-

  cause I don't believe the ghost theory myself. Not as Le

  Garrault expounded it."

  "What do you believe then?"

  "I really don't know," the baron said, shrugging.

  "Ghosts don't come from any universe I am familiar with.

  Their origin, their modus operandi, are mysterious. They

  exist. They can be dangerous."

  Childe laughed and said, "You mean that vampires

  and werewolves, or whatever the hell they are, fear

  spooks?"

  The baron shrugged again and said, "Some fear them."

  Childe wanted to ask more questions but decided not to

  do so. He did not want the baron to know that he had

  found the room with the cameras and the Y-shaped table.

  It was possible that the baron intended to let him go, be-

  cause he could dispose of the incriminating evidence be-

  fore Childe could get the police here. For this reason,

  Childe did not ask him why Colben and Budler had hap-

  pened to be his victims. Besides, it seemed obvious that

  Budler had been picked up by one of this group as a vic-

  tim of their "fun." Magda or Vivienne or Mrs. Kraut-

  schner, probably, had been the woman Colben had seen

  with Budler. And Colben, following Budler and the

  woman, had been detected and taken prisoner.

  The baron rose and said, "We might as well rejoin the

  others. From the sounds, I'd say the party is far from

  dead."

  Childe stood up and glanced at the open doorway,

  through which laughter and shrieks and hand-clapping

  spurted.

  He jumped, and his heart lurched. Dolores del Osorojo

  was walking by the doorway. She turned her head and

  smiled at him and then was gone.

  15

  If the baron had seen her, he gave no sign. He bowed

  slightly and gestured Childe to precede him. They went

  down the hall—no Dolores there—and were back in the

  dining room. O'Faithair was playing wildly on the grand

  piano. Childe did not recognize the music. The others

  were sitting at the table or on sofas or standing by the

  piano. Glam and the two women had cleared off the table

  and were carrying off the dishes from the sideboards. Mrs.

  Grasatchow was now drinking from a bottle of cham-

  pagne. Magda Holyani was sitting on an iron skeletal

  chair, her formal floor length skirt pulled up around her

  waist to expose her perfect legs to the garter belt. Dark-red

  hair stuck out from under the garter belt. A half-smoked

  marijuana cigarette was on the ashtray on the table by her

  side.

  She was looking through an old-time stereoscope at a

  photograph. Childe pulled her skirt down because the

  sight of her pubic hairs bothered him, and he said, "That's

  a curious amusement for you. Or is the picture … ?"

  She looked up, smiling, and said, "Here. Take a look

  yourself."

  He placed the stereopticon against his eyes and ad-

  justed the slide holding the picture until the details became

  clear and in three-dimensions. The photograph was inno-

  cent enough. It showed three men on a sail boat with a

  mountain in the distant foreground. The photograph

  had been taken close enough so that the features of the

  men could be distinguished.

  "One of them looks like me," he said.

  "That's why I got this album out," she said. She

  paused, drew in deeply on the marijuana, held the smoke

  in her lungs for a long time, and then puffed out. "That's

  Byron. The others are Shelley and Leigh Hunt."

  "Oh, really," Childe said, still looking at the picture.

  "But I thought ... I know it … the camera wasn't

  invented yet."

  "That's true," Magda said. "That's not a photograph."

  He did not get a chance to ask her to explain, because

  two enormous white arms went around him from behind

  and lifted him off his feet. Mrs. Grasatchow, shrieking

  with laughter, carried him to a sofa and dropped him on

  it. He started to get up. He was angry enough to hit her,

  and had his fist cocked, when she shoved him back down.

  She was not only very heavy; she had powerful muscles

  under the fat.

  "Stay there, I want to talk to you and also do other

  things!" she said.

  He shrugged. She sat down by him, and the sofa sank

  under her. She held his hand and leaned against him and

  continued the near-monologue she had been maintaining

  at the table. She told him of the men who had lusted

  after her and what she'd done to them. Childe was begin-

  ning to feel a little peculiar then. Things were not quite

  focused. He realized that he must be drugged.

  A moment later, he was sure of it. He had seen the

  baron walk to the doorway and looked away for a second.

  When he looked back, he saw that the baron was gone. A

  bat was flying off down the hallway.

  The change had taken place so quickly that it was as if

  several frames of film had been spliced in.r />
  Or was it a change? There was nothing to have kept the

  baron from slipping off around the corner and releasing a

  bat. Or it was possible that there was, objectively, no bat,

  that he was seeing it because he had been drugged and

  because of the suggestions that Igescu was a vampire.

  Childe decided to say nothing about it. Nobody else

  seemed to have noticed it. They were not in shape to

  have noticed anything except what they were concentrat-

  ing upon. O'Faithair was still playing madly. Bending

  Grass and Mrs. Pocyotl were facing each other, writhing

  and shuffling in a parody of the latest dance. The red-

  head beauty, Vivienne Mabcrough, was sitting on an-

  other sofa with Rebecca Ngima, the beautiful Negress.

  Vivienne was drinking from a goblet in one hand while

  the other was slipped into the front of Ngima's dress.

  Ngima had her hand under Vivienne's dress. Pao, the

  Chinese, was on his back, his legs bent to support

  Magda, who was standing on his feet and getting ready

  to do a backward flip. She had taken off her shoes and

  dress and was clad only in her garter belt, stockings, and

  net bra. She steadied herself and then, as Pao shoved up-

  wards, soared up and over and landed on her feet. Childe

  thought that her unshod feet would have broken with the

  impact, but she did not seem to be bothered. She laughed

  and ran forward and did a forward flip over Pao and

  landed in front of a sofa on which Igescu's great-

  grandmother sat. The old woman reached out a claw and

  ripped off Magda's bra. Magda laughed and pirouetted

  away across the floor.

  The baron had sauntered over to behind the baroness

  and had leaned over to whisper something to her. She

  smiled and cackled shrilly.

  And then Magda ended her crazy whirl on Childe's lap.

  His head was pressed forward against her breasts. They

  smelled of a heady perfume and sweat and something in-

  definable.

  Mrs. Grasatchow shoved Magda so vigorously that

  she fell off Childe's lap and onto the floor. She looked up

  dizzily for a moment, her legs widespread to reveal the

  red-haired slit.

  "He's mine!" Mrs. Grasatchow shrilled. "Mine! You

  snake-bitch!"

  Magda got to her feet unsteadily. Her eyes uncrossed.

  She opened her mouth and her tongue flickered in and out

  and she hissed.

  "Stay away!" Mrs. Grasatchow said in a deeper voice.

  Had she really grunted?

  Glam entered the room. He scowled at Magda. Evi-

  dently he did not like to see her in the almost-nude and

  making a play for Childe. But the baron froze him with a

  glare and motioned for him to leave the room.

  "Stay away, huh?" Magda said. "You have no author-

  ity over me, pig-woman, nor am I afraid of you!"

  "Pigs eat snakes," Mrs. Grasatchow replied. She

  grunted—yes, she grunted this time—and put one flesh-

  festooned arm over his shoulders and began to unzip his

  fly with the other hand.

  "You've eaten everything and everybody else, but you

  haven't, and you aren't going to, eat this snake," Magda

  said, spraying saliva.

  Childe looked around and said, "Where are the cam-

  eras?"

  "Everything's impromptu tonight," Mrs. Grasatchow

  said. "Oh, you look so much like George."

  Childe presumed that she meant George Gordon, Lord

  Byron, but he could not be sure and he did not care to

  play her game, anyway.

  He pushed her hand away just as she closed two fingers

  on his penis, which, to his chagrin, was swelling. He felt

  nothing but repulsion for the fat woman, yet a part of

  him was responding. Or was it seeing Magda and also

  sharing in the general atmosphere of excitement? The

  drug, which he was sure he had been given, was basically

  responsible, of course.

  Magda sat down on his lap again and put her arms

  around his neck. Mrs. Grasatchow, snarling, raised her

  hand as if to strike Magda, but she let it drop when the

  baroness called shrilly across the room. At that moment, a

  pair of large doors swung open. Childe, catching the

  movement at the corner of his eyes, turned his head. The

  baron was standing in the doorway. Behind him was the

  billiard room or a billiard room. It looked much like the

  first one he had seen. The blond youths, Chornkin and

  Krautschner, were playing.

  The baron advanced across the room and, when a few

  paces behind Childe, said, "The police don't know he's

  here."

  Childe erupted. He came off the sofa, tossing Magda

  away and then leaping over her and running toward the

  nearest door. He got to the hallway and was jerked vio-

  lently off his feet, swung around, and pressed close to

  Glam. The great arms made him powerless to do anything

  except kick. And Glam must have been wearing heavy

  boots under his pants legs. Certainly he acted as if he did

  not feel the kicks. Perhaps he didn't. Childe may have

  had little strength.

  As if he were a small child, he was led into the room,

  Glam holding his hand. The baron said, "Good. Good for

  him and good for you. You restrained your impulse to

  kill him. Very commendable, Glam."

  "My reward?" Glam said.

  "You'll get it. A share. As for Magda, if she doesn't

  want you, and she says she doesn't, she can continue to

  tell you to go to hell. My authority has its limits. Besides,

  you aren't really one of us."

  "You're lucky I haven't killed you, Glam!" Magda

  said.

  "You have depraved taste, Glam," Mrs. Grasatchow

  said. "You'd fuck a snake if someone held its head,

  wouldn't you? I've offered you help ..."

  "That's enough of that," Igescu said. "You two can

  play dice or a game of billiards for him. But the winner

  saves a piece for me, understood?"

  "Dice won't take so long," Magda said.

  The baron nodded at Glam, who clamped a hand on

  Childe's shoulder from behind and steered him out of the

  room. Magda called, "See you soon, lover!"

  Mrs. Grasatchow said, "In a pig's ass, you will!" and

  Magda laughed and said, "He'll be in a pig's ass if you

  win!"

  "Don't push me too far!" the fat woman shrilled.

  Then Childe was being steered down the hall to its end

  and around the corner and down two flights of stairs. The

  hall here was of large gray blocks of stone. The door be-

  fore which they halted was of thick black wood with

  iron bosses forming the outline of an archaic and grinning

  face. Glam shifted his grip from the shoulder to the neck

  and squeezed. Childe thought the blood would be pushed

  out of the top of his head. He went to his knees and

  leaned his head against the wall while his senses, and the

  pain in his neck, returned. Glam unlocked the door,

  dragged Childe into the room by one hand, and dropped

  the hand when he came to the far wall. He completely un-

&nbs
p; dressed the feebly resisting Childe, lifted him up and

  snapped a metal collar shut around his neck. Glam picked

  up the clothes and went out, locking the door behind him.

  There was a single unshaded light in the center of the

  ceiling. The floor was covered with straw and a few

  blankets. The walls and ceilings were painted a light red.

  When his strength came back, Childe found that the

  metal collar was attached by a four-foot-long lightweight

  chain to an eyebolt sunk into the stone of the wall. He

  looked around but could see nothing to indicate that

  cameras or eyes were on him. The walls and ceiling

  seemed to be unbroken. However, it was possible that

  one or more of the stones was actually a one-way win-

  dow.

  There was a rattle at the door. A key clicked in the

  lock. The door swung open. Magda entered. She wore

  nothing—unless you could count the key in her hand. She

  stood there smiling at him. Suddenly, she whirled. She

  said, "Who is that?" and he got a glimpse of her back, of

  the egg-shaped hips, as she went swiftly into the hall.

  There was a thump and a gasp. Then, silence.

  Childe had no idea of what was happening, but he sup-

  posed that Glam or Grasatchow had attacked Magda. He

  had not thought that they would dare, since the baron

  had made it plain exactly how far they might go.

  He waited. A sound as of a bare body being dragged

  along the stone floor came to him. Then, more silence.

  Then, a whispering. This sound was not that of a human

  voice but the friction of silk against silk.

  He jerked with fright.

  Dolores del Osorojo entered the doorway. With a swirl

  of skirts, she turned and closed the door. She faced him

  then and advanced slowly toward him, her white arms

  held out to him. She was not transparent or semiopaque.

  She was as solid as young flesh could be. Her black hair

  and white face and red lips and white swelling bust were

  solid. And sweet.

  Childe was too scared to respond to the arms around

  him and the breasts and lips pressed close to him. He was

  cold, although her breath was hot and the tongue she slid

  back and forth over his tongue was hot. Warm saliva

  leaked from her mouth over his chin and down his chest.

  She was panting.

  Childe tried to back away. The wall stopped him. She