Mr.Furnay, who as certainly would not give them; the walls were much toohigh and sheer for climbing; and to make the need for haste even morecritical, it was only too obvious that the Furnay gang was about todepart.
A tremendous saucer-shaped ship had landed by the menagerie building,where it sat with circular peripheral ports aglow and lines of boldenigmatic hieroglyphs fluorescing greenly on its smooth undersurface.Jointed metal figures scurried here and there, chivvying the last ofMr. Furnay's herbivores up a ramp into the belly of the ship; thepredators, in cages drawn by other sleek robot stevedores, followed inorderly procession.
Oliver solved his problem of entry by driving headlong through theiron grillwork.
There was a raucous yelling from the gateman, a monstrous rending ofmetal and jangling of broken glass. Aunt Katisha's car slewederratically down the Furnay drive, turned over twice and pitchedOliver out, stunned for the second time that day, into the greenishglow shed by the saucer-ship's lights.
* * * * *
He struggled back to awareness to find his head pillowed on somethingsoft and wonderfully comfortable. A circle of startled faces, most ofthem dark facsimiles of the putteed Bivins', stared uncertainly downat him. In the near foreground stood Mr. Furnay, wringing his handsand muttering grittily to himself in his own dissonant tongue. Mr.Furnay, seen now for the first time without his too-large Panama,exhibited instead of hair a crest of downy blue feathers and prongedantennae that vibrated softly in the evening breeze.
"Where is she?" Oliver demanded. He scrambled dizzily to his feet, andthe circle of faces melted backward hastily. "What have you done withPearl, you monsters?"
Perrl-high-C-trill-and-A-above, on whose lap Oliver's head had beenpillowed, stood up to move between Oliver and the patentlyapprehensive Mr. Furnay. She wore a light maroon cape over her sunsuitagainst the mild chill of evening, and could not possibly have lookedless like a damsel in distress. She seemed, as a matter of fact, quitehappy.
"I hoped you would come to see me again before blastoff," she said.Her voice skipped, tinkling with pleasure, from octave to octave. "Butso suddenly--so dashing, so impetuous!"
"You're going away _willingly_?" Oliver said dumbly. "Then they're notforcing--you're not a prisoner after all?"
Her laugh was an arpeggiando blending of surprise and amusement. "Aprisoner of these _Tsammai_? No. I am a performer in their company,hired by Xtll--Mr. Furnay--to train and exhibit animals native to myown world."
"But I heard Furnay threaten you in the menagerie building thisafternoon! His tone--"
"The _Tsammai_ tongue sounds dreadful because it is all consonants andnot based on pitch and nuance as mine is," she said. "But the_Tsammai_ themselves are only tradesmen, and are very gentle.Xtll--Mr. Furnay--only feared that I might say too much to you then,when it was important that the natives should not suspect ouridentity."
"It is true," Mr. Furnay nodded, sounding relieved. "We must avoidnotice on such worlds as yours, which are too backward to appreciatethe marvels of our show. We stop here only to scout for new and novelexhibits."
"Show!" Oliver echoed, "You mean all this is--is--"
"What else?" asked Mr. Furnay. He pointed with his antennae to thefluorescent hieroglyphs on the undersurface of the saucer-ship. "See,in our _lingua galactica_ it reads: SKRRFF BROTHERS' INTERSTELLARCIRCUS, THE GALAXY'S GREATEST. It is the best on the circuit."
He indicated the circle of identical Bivinses. "These are the Skrrffbrothers, our owners. I, sir, am business manager."
"But not always a good one," one of the brothers said pointedly. "Thistime he has bought an entire menagerie of such fierceness that ourtrainers cannot exhibit it. It will have to be sold to somefrontier-planet zoo, and our loss will be staggering."
It was left for Perrl-high-C-trill-and-A-above to deal with theproblem, which she did with universal feminine practicality.
"Oliver made your bear well," she pointed out. "And he is afraid ofnothing--nothing! Could he not train his own fierce beasts as well asI train my gentle ones?"
Oliver said, "Huh?"
The Skrrff brothers, of course, implored Oliver on the spot to jointhem at any salary.
Perrl-high-C-trill-and-A-above said demurely, in three octaves and forall the world to hear: "And I'm _lonely_, Oliver!"
Oliver never had a chance.
* * * * *
Life in Landsdale goes quietly on, the ripples made by Oliver'sdeparture long since smoothed away by the years.
Miss Orella Simms has married the Methodist minister who was to havemarried her to Oliver. Aunt Katisha and Glenna have resignedthemselves to Oliver's escape and have taken over the job of assistingOrella to superintend her husband's career, an occupation eminentlysatisfactory to all because the placid cleric never dreams troublesomedreams of adventure, as Oliver did, to try their matriarchal patience.
... But life is never dull for Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Watts, whosebreathtaking performances currently electrify the thrill-hungrycultures of a thousand worlds. They have traveled from Sirius toSagittarius, and at this writing have two children: a golden-haireddaughter of four named Perrl-high-C-trill-and-A-sharp-above, and atow-headed boy of two who has a cowlick like his father's and whosename is Butch.
They are very happy and there has been no talk between them, thoughthey are wealthy enough in galactic credits by now to have bought halfa planet for a home, of settling down to the quiet life. They arequite satisfied to leave such consequential decisions to those wholike change for the sake of change or who, unlike Oliver, never knowwhen they are well off.
One clean break to a lifetime, Oliver maintains, is enough.
--ROGER DEE
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Clean Break Page 4