B402 Glory Road Sec2

Singing birds are better than alarm clocks and Barsoom was never like this. I stretched happily and smelled coffee and wondered if there was time for a dip before breakfast. It was another perfect day, blue and clear and the sun just up, and I felt like killing dragons before lunch. Small ones, that is.

I smothered a yawn and rolled to my feet. The lovely pavilion was gone and the black box mostly repacked; it was no bigger than a piano box. Star was kneeling before a fire, encouraging the coffee. She was a cavewoman this morning, dressed in a hide that was fancy but not as fancy as her own. From an ocelot, maybe. Or from du Pont.

“Howdy, Princess,” I said. “What’s for breakfast? And where’s your chef?”

“Breakfast later,” she said. “Just a cup of coffee for you now, too hot and too black–best you be bad tempered. Rufo is starting the talk with Igli.” She served it to me in a paper cup.

I drank half a cup, burned my mouth and spat out grounds. Coffee comes in five descending stages: Coffee, Java, Jamoke, Joe, and Carbon Remover. This stuff was no better than grade four.

I stopped then, having caught sight of Rufo. And company, lots of company. Along the edge of our terrace somebody had unloaded Noah’s Ark. There was everything there from aardvarks to zebus, most of them with long yellow teeth.

Rufo was facing this picket line, ten feet this side and opposite a particularly large and uncouth citizen. About then that paper cup came apart and scalded my fingers.

“Want some more?” Star asked.

I blew on my fingers. “No, thanks. This is Igli?”

“Just the one in the middle that Rufo is baiting. The rest have come to see the fun, you can ignore them.”

“Some of them look hungry.”

“Most of the big ones are like Cuvier’s devil, herbivorous. Those outsized lions would eat us–if Igli wins the argument. But only then. Igli is the problem.”

I looked Igli over more carefully. He resembled that scion of the man from Dundee, all chin and no forehead, and he combined the less appetizing features of giants and ogres in ‘The Red Fairy Book’. I never liked that book much.

He was vaguely human, using the term loosely. He was a couple of feet taller than I am and outweighed me three or four hundred pounds but I am much prettier. Hair grew on him in clumps, like a
discouraged lawn; and you just knew, without being told, that he had never used a man’s deodorant for manly men. The knots of his muscles had knots on them and his toenails weren’t trimmed.

“Star,” I said, “what’s the nature of the argument we have with him?”

“You must kill him, milord.”

I looked back at him. “Can’t we negotiate a peaceful coexistence? Mutual inspection, cultural exchange, and so forth?”

She shook her head. “He’s not bright enough for that. He’s here to stop us from going down into the valley–and either he dies, or we die.”

I took a deep breath. “Princess, I’ve reached a decision. A man who always obeys the law is even stupider than one who breaks it every chance. This is no time to worry about that local Sullivan Act. I want the flame-thrower, a bazooka, a few grenades, and the heaviest gun in that armory. Can you show me how to dig them out?”

She poked at the fire. “My hero,” she said slowly, “I’m truly sorry–but it isn’t that simple. Did you notice, last night when we were smoking, that Rufo lighted our cigarettes from candles? Not using even so much as a pocket lighter?”

“Well . . . no. I didn’t give it any thought.”

“This rule against firearms and explosives is not a law such as you have back on Earth. It is more than hat; it is impossible to use such things here. Else such things would be used against us.”

“You mean they won t work?”

“They will not work. Perhaps ‘hexed’ is the word.”

“Star. Look at me. Maybe you believe in hexes. I don’t. And I’ll give you seven to two that Tommy uns don’t, either. I intend to find out. Will you give me a hand in unpacking?”

For the first time she looked really upset. “Oh, milord, I beg of you not to!”

“Why not?”

“Even the attempt would be disastrous. Do you believe that I know more about the hazards and dangers–and laws–of this world than you do? Will you believe me when I say that I would not have you
die, that in solemn truth my own life and safety depend on yours? Please!”

It is impossible not to believe Star when she lays it on the line. I said thoughtfully, “Maybe you’re right–or that character over there would be carrying a six-inch mortar as a side arm. Uh, Star, I’ve got a still better idea. Why don’t we high tail it back the way we came and homestead that spot where we caught the fish? In five years well have a nice little farm. In ten years, after the word gets around, we’ll have a nice little motel, too, with a free-form swimming pool and a putting green.”

She barely smiled. “Milord Oscar, there is no turning back.”

“Why not? I could find it with my eyes closed.”

“But they would find us. Not Igli but more like him would be sent to harry and kill us.”

I sighed again. “As you say. They claim motels off the main highway are a poor risk anyhow. There’s a attle-axe in that duffel. Maybe I can chop his feet off before he notices me.” She shook her head again. I said, “What’s the matter now? Do I have to fight him with one foot in a ucket? I thought anything that cut or stabbed–anything I did with my own muscles–was okay?”

“It is okay, milord. But it won’t work.”

“Why not?”

“Igli can’t be killed. You see, he is not really alive. He is a construct, made invulnerable for this one urpose. Swords or knives or even axes will not cut him; they bounce off. I have seen it.”

“You mean he is a robot?”

“Not if you are thinking of gears and wheels and printed circuits. ‘Golem’ would be closer. The Igli is an imitation of life.” Star added, “Better than life in some ways, since there is no way–none that I know of–to kill him. But worse, too, as Igli isn’t very bright nor well balanced. He has conceit without judgment. Rufo is working on that now, warming him up for you, getting him so mad he can’t think straight.”

“He is? Gosh! I must be sure to thank Rufo for that. Thank him too much. I think. Well, Princess, what m I supposed to do now?”

She spread her hands as if it were all self-evident. “When you are ready, I will loose the wards–and then you will kill him.”

“But you just said–” I stopped. When they abolished the French Foreign Legion very few cushy billets were left for us romantic types. Umbopa could have handled this. Conan, certainly. Or Hawk Carse. Or even Don Quixote, for that thing was about the size of a windmill. “All right. Princess, let’s get on with it. Is it okay for me to spit on my hands? Or is that cheating?”

She smiled without dimpling and said gravely, “Milord Oscar, we will all spit on our hands; Rufo and I will be fighting right beside you. Either we win . . . or we all die.”

We walked over and joined Rufo. He was making donkeys ears at Igli and shouting, “Who’s your father, Igli? Your mother was a garbage can but who’s your father? Look at him! No belly button!
Yaaa!”

Igli retorted, “Your mother barks! Your sister gives green stamps!”–but rather feebly, I thought. It was plain that that remark about belly buttons had cut him to the quick–he didn’t have one. Only reasonable, I suppose.

The above is not quite what either of them said, except the remark about the belly button. I wish I could put it in the original because, in the Nevian language, the insult is a high art at least equal to poetry. In fact the epitome of literary grace is to address your enemy (publicly) in some difficult verse form, say the sestina, with every word dripping vitriol.

Rufo cackled gleefully. “Make one, Igli! Push your finger in and make one. They left you out in the rain and you ran. They forgot to finish you. Call that thing a nose?” He said in an aside to me, in English, “How do you want him. Boss? Rare? Or well done?”

“Keep him busy while I study the matter. He doesn’t understand English?”

“Not a bit.”

“Good. How close can I go to him without getting grabbed?”

“Close as you like as long as the wards are up. But, Boss–look. I’m not supposed to advise you–but when we get down to work, don’t let him get you by the plums.”

“I’ll try not to.”

“You be careful.” Rufo turned his head and shouted, “Yaaa! Igli picks his nose and eats it!” He added, “She is a good doctor, the best, but just the same, you be careful.”

“I will.” I stepped closer to the invisible barrier, looked up at this creature. He glared down at me and made growling noises, so I thumbed my nose at him and gave him a wet, fruity Bronx cheer. I was downwind and it seemed likely that he hadn’t had a bath in thirty or forty years; he smelled worse than a locker room at the half.

It gave me a seed of an idea. “Star, can this cherub swim?”

She looked surprised. “I really don’t know.”

“Maybe they forgot to program him for it. How about you, Rufo?”

Rufo looked smug. “Try me, just try me. I could teach fish. Igli! Tell us why the sow wouldn’t kiss you!”

Star could swim like a seal. My style is more like a ferryboat but I get there. “Star, maybe that thing can’t be killed but it breathes. It’s got some sort of oxygen metabolism, even if it burns kerosene. If we held his head underwater for a while–as long as necessary–I’ll bet the fire would go out.”

She looked wide-eyed. “Milord Oscar . . . my champion . . . I was not mistaken in you.”

“It’s going to take some doing. Ever play water polo, Rufo?”

“I invented it.”

I hoped he had. I had played it–once. Like being ridden on a rail, it is an interesting experience–once. “Rufo, can you lure our chum down toward the bank? I take it that the barrier follows this line of furry and feathery friends? If it does, we can get him almost to that high piece of bank with the deep pool under it–you know, Star, where you dunked me the first time.”

“Nothing to it,” said Rufo. “We move, he’ll come along.”

“I d like to get him running. Star, how long does it take you to unswitch your fence?”

“I can loose the wards in an instant, milord.”

“Okay, here’s the plan. Rufo, I want you to get Igli to chasing you, as fast as possible–and you cut out and head for that high bank just before you reach the stream. Star, when Rufo does that, you chop off the barrier–loose the wards–instantly. Don’t wait for me to say so. Rufo, you dive in and swim like hell; don’t let him grab you. With any luck, if Igli is moving fast, as big and clumsy as he is he’ll go in, too, whether he means to or not. But I’ll be pacing you, flanking you and a bit behind you. If Igli manages to put on the brakes, I’ll hit him with a low tackle and knock him in. Then we all play water polo.”

“Water polo I have never seen,” Star said doubtfully.

“There won’t be any referee. All it means this time is that all three of us jump him, in the water, and shove his head under and keep it there–and help each other to keep him from shoving our heads under. Big as he is, unless he can outswim us he’ll be at a terrible disadvantage. We go on doing this until he is limp and stays limp, never let him get a breath. Then, to make sure, well weigh him down with stones–it won’t matter whether he’s really dead or not. Any questions?”

Rufo grinned like a gargoyle. “This is going to be fun!”

Both those pessimists seemed to think that it would work, so we got started. Rufo shouted an allegation about Igli’s personal habits that even Olympia Press would censor, then dared Igli to race him,
offering an obscene improbability as a wager.

It took Igli a lumbering long time to get that carcass moving but when he did get rolling, he was faster than Rufo and left a wake of panicked animals and birds behind him. I’m pretty fast but I was hard pushed to hold position on the giant, flanking and a few paces back, and I hoped that Star would not loose the wards if it appeared that Igli might catch Rufo on dry land.

However, Star did loose the wards just as Rufo cut away from the barrier, and Rufo reached the bank and made a perfect racing dive without slowing down, all to plan.

But nothing else was.

I think Igli was too stupid to twig at once that the barrier was down. He kept on a few paces after Rufo had gone left oblique, then did cut left rather sharply. But he had lost speed and he didn’t have any trouble stopping on dry land.

I hit him a diving tackle, illegal and low, and down he went–but not over into the water. And suddenly I had a double armful of struggling and very smelly Golem.

But I had a wildcat helping me at once, and quickly thereafter Rufo, dripping wet, added his vote.

But it was a stalemate and one that we were bound to lose in time. Igli outweighed all of us put together and seemed to be nothing but muscle and stink and nails and teeth. We were suffering bruises, contusions, and flesh wounds–and we weren’t doing Igli any damage, Oh, he screamed like a TV grunt & groaner every time one of us twisted an ear or bent back a finger, but we weren’t really hurting him and he was decidedly hurting us. There wasn’t a chance of dragging that hulk into the water.

I had started with my arms around his knees and I stayed that way, of necessity, as long as I could, while Star tried to weigh down one of his arms and Rufo the other. But the situation was fluid; Igli
thrashed like a rattler with its back broken and was forever getting one limb or another free and trying to gouge and bite. It got us into odd positions and I found myself hanging onto one callused foot, trying to twist it off, while I stared into his open mouth, wide as a bear trap and less appetizing. His teeth needed
cleaning.

So I shoved the toe of his foot into his mouth.

Igli screamed, so I kept on shoving, and pretty soon he didn’t have room to scream. I kept on pushing.

When he had swallowed his own left leg up to the knee, be managed to wrench his right arm loose from Star and grabbed at his disappearing leg–and I grabbed his wrist. “Help me!” I yelped to Star.

“Push!”

She got the idea and shoved with me. That arm went into his mouth to the elbow and the leg went farther in, quite a bit of the thigh. By, then Rufo was working with us and forced Igli’s left hand in past his cheek and into the jaws. Igli wasn’t struggling so hard by then, short on air probably, so getting the toe of his right foot started into his mouth simply required determination, with Rufo hauling back on his hairy nostrils while I bore down with a Knee on his chin and Star pushed.

We kept on feeding him into his mouth, gaining an inch at a time and never letting up. He was still quivering and trying to get loose when we had him rolled up clear to his hips, and his rank armpits about to disappear.

It was like rolling a snowball in reverse; the more we pushed, the smaller he got and the more his mouth stretched–ugliest sight I ever have seen. Soon he was down to the size of a medicine ball . . . and then a soccer ball . . . then a baseball and I rolled him between my palms and kept pushing, hard.

–a golf ball, a marble, a pea . . . and finally there was nothing but some dirty grease on my hands.

Rufo took a deep breath. “I guess that’ll teach him not to put his foot in his mouth with his betters. Who’s ready for breakfast?”

“I want to wash my hands first,” I said.

We all bathed, using plenty of soap, then Star took care of our wounds and had Rufo treat hers, under her instructions. Rufo is right; Star is the best medic. The stuff she used on us did not sting, the cuts closed up, the flexible dressings she put over them did not have to be changed, and fell off in time with no infection and no scars. Rufo had one very bad bite, about forty cents’ worth of hamburger out of his left buttock, but when Star was through with him, he could sit down and it didn’t seem to bother him.

Rufo fed us little golden pancakes and big German sausages, popping with fat, and gallons of good coffee. It was almost noon before Star loosed the wards again and we set out for our descent down the cliff.

The descent beside the great waterfall into Nevia valley is a thousand feet and more than sheer; the cliff overhangs and you go down on a line, spinning slowly like a spider. I don’t advise this; it is dizzy-making and I almost lost those wonderful pancakes.

The view is stupendous. You see the waterfall from the side, free-springing, not wetting the cliff, and falling so far that it shrouds itself in mist before it hits bottom. Then as you turn you face frowning cliff, then a long look out over a valley too lush and green and beautiful to be believed–marsh and forest at the
foot of the cliff, cultivated fields in middle distance a few miles away, then far beyond and hazy at the base but sharp at the peaks a mighty wall of snow-covered mountains.

Star had sketched the valley for me. “First we fight our way through the marsh. After that it is easy going–we simply have to look sharp for blood kites. Because we come to a brick road, very nice.”

“A yellow brick road?” I asked.

“Yes. That’s the clay they have. Does it matter?”

“I guess not. Just don’t make a hobbit of it. Then what?”

“After that we’ll stop overnight with a family, the squire of the countryside there. Good people, you’ll enjoy them.”

“And then the going gets tough,” Rufo added.

“Rufo, don’t borrow trouble!” Star scolded. “You will please refrain from comments and allow Oscar to cope with his problems as he comes to them, rested, clear-eyed, and unworried. Do you know
anyone else who could have handled Igli?”

“Well, since you put it that way . . . no.”

“I do put it that way. We all sleep in comfort tonight. Isn’t that enough? You’ll enjoy it as much as anyone.”

“So will you.”

“When did I ever fail to enjoy anything? Hold your tongue. Now, Oscar, at the root of the cliff are the Horned Ghosts–no way to avoid them, they’ll see us coming down. With luck we won’t see any of the Cold Water Gang; they stay back in the mists. But if we have the bad luck to encounter both, we may have the good luck that they will fight each other and let us slip away. The path through the marsh is tricky; you had best study, this sketch until you know it. Solid footing is only where little yellow flowers
grow no matter how solid and dry a piece looks. But, as you can see, even if you stay carefully on the safe bits, there are so many side trails and dead ends that we could wander all day and be trapped by darkness–and never get out.”

So here I was, coming down first, because the Horned Ghosts would be waiting at the bottom. My privilege. Wasn’t I a “Hero”? Hadn’t I made Igli swallow himself?

But I wished that the Horned Ghosts really were ghosts. They were two-legged animals, omnivorous. They ate anything, including each other, and especially travelers. From the belly up they were described to me as much like the Minotaur; from there down they were splayfooted satyrs. Their upper limbs were short arms but without real hands–no thumbs.

But oh those horns! They had horns like Texas longhorns, but sticking up and forward.

However, there is one way of converting a Horned Ghost into a real ghost. It has a soft place on its skull, like a baby’s soft spot, between those horns. Since the brute charges head down, attempting to impale you, this is the only vulnerable spot that can be reached. All it takes is to stand your ground, don’t flinch, aim for that one little spot–and hit it.

So my task was simple. Go down first, kill as many as necessary to insure that Star would have a safe spot to land, then stand fast and protect her until Rufo was down. After that we were free to carve our way through the marsh to safety. If the Cold Water Gang didn’t join the party-

I tried to ease my position in the sling I was riding–my left leg had gone to sleep–and looked down. A hundred feet below the reception committee had gathered.

It looked like an asparagus patch. Of bayonets.

I signaled to stop lowering. Far above me, Rufo checked the line; I hung there, swaying, and tried to think. If I had them lower me straight into that mob, I might stick one or two before I myself was
impaled. Or maybe none–The only certainty was that I would be dead long before my friends could join me.

On the other hand, besides that soft spot between the horns, each of these geeks had a soft underbelly, just made for arrows. If Rufo would lower me a bit-

I signaled to him. I started slowly down, a bit jerkily, and he almost missed my signal to stop again. I had to pull up my feet; some of those babies were a-snorting and a-ramping around and shoving each other for a chance to gore me. One Nijinsky among them did manage to scrape the sole of my left buskin, giving me goose flesh clear to my chin.

Under that strong inducement I pulled myself hand over hand up the line far enough to let me get my feet into the sling instead of my fanny. I stood in it hanging onto the line and standing on one foot and then on the other to work pins and needles out. Then I unslung my bow and strung it. This feat would have been worthy of a trained acrobat–but have you ever tried to bend a bow and let fly while standing in a bight at one end of a thousand-foot line and clinging to the line with one hand?

You lose arrows that way. I lost three and almost lost me.

I tried buckling my belt around the line. That caused me to hang upside down and lost me my Robin Hood hat and more arrows. My audience liked that one; they applauded–I think it was applause–so, for an encore, I tried to shift the belt up around my chest to enable me to hang more or less straight down–and maybe get off an arrow or two.

I didn’t quite lose my sword.

So far, my only results had been to attract customers (“Mama, see the funny man!”) and to make myself swing back and forth like a pendulum.

Bad as the latter was, it did give me an idea. I started increasing that swing, pumping it up like a playground swing. This was slow wore and it took a while to get the hang of it, as the period of that
pendulum of which I was the weight was over a minute–and it does no good to try to hurry a pendulum; you have to work with it, not against it. I hoped my friends could see well enough to guess what I was doing and not foul it up.

After an unreasonably long time I was swinging back and forth in a flattish arc about a hundred feet fang, passing very fast over the heads of my audience at the bottom of each swing, slowing to a stop at the end of each swing. At first those spike heads tried to move with me, but they tired of that and squatted near the midpoint and watched, their heads moving as I swung, like spectators of a slow-motion tennis match.

But there is always some confounded innovator. My notion was to drop off at one end of this arc where it just missed the cuff and make a stand there with my back to the wall. The ground was higher there, I would not have so far to drop. But one of those horned horrors figured it out and trotted over to that end of the swing. He was followed by two or three more.

That settled it; I would nave to drop off at the other end. But young Archimedes figured that out, too. He left his buddies at the cliff face and trotted after me. I pulled ahead of him at the low point of the swing–but slowed down and he caught up with me long before I reached the dead point at the end. He had only a hundred feet to do in about thirty seconds–a slow walk. He was under me when I got there.

The odds wouldn’t improve; I kicked my feet clear, hung by one hand and drew sword during that too-slow traverse, and dropped off anyway. My notion was to spit that tender spot on his head before my feet touched the ground.

Instead, I missed and he missed and I knocked him sprawling and sprawled right after him and rolled to my feet and ran for the cuff face nearest me, poking that genius in his belly with my sword without stopping.

That foul blow saved me. His friends and relatives stopped to quarrel over who got the prime ribs before a clot of them moved in my direction. This gave me time to set my feet on a pile of scree at the base of the cliff, where I could play “King of the Castle,” and return my sword and nock an arrow.

I didn’t wait for them to rush me. I simply waited until they were close enough that I could not miss, took a bead on the wishbone of the old bull who was leading them, if he had a wishbone, and let that shaft go with every pound of that heavy bow.

It passed through him and stuck into one behind him.

This led to another quarrel over the price of chops. They ate them, teeth and toenails. That was their weakness: all appetite and too little brain. If they had cooperated, they could have had me in one rush when I first hit the ground. Instead they stopped for lunch.

I glanced up. High above me, Star was a tiny spider on a thread; she grew rapidly larger. I moved crabwise along the wall until I was opposite the point, forty feet from the cliff, where she would touch ground.

When she was about fifty feet up, she signaled Rufo to stop lowering, drew her sword and saluted me. “Magnificent, my Hero!” We were all wearing swords; Star had chosen a dueling sword with a 34″ blade–a big sword for a woman but Star is a big woman. She had also packed her belt pouch with medic’s supplies, an ominous touch had I noticed, but did not, at the time.

I drew and returned her salute. They were not bothering me yet, although some, having finished lunch or having been crowded out, were milling around and looking me over. Then I sheathed again, and nocked an arrow. “Start pumping it up. Star, right toward me. Have Rufo lower you a bit more.”

She returned sword and signaled Rufo. He let her down slowly until she was about nine feet off the ground, where she signaled a stop. “Now pump it up!” I called out. Those bloodthirsty natives had forgotten me; they were watching Star, those not still busy eating Cousin Abbie or Great-Uncle John.

“All right,” she answered. “But I have a throwing line. Can you catch it?”

“Oh!” The smart darling had watched my maneuvers and had figured out what would be needed. “Hold it a moment! Ill make a diversion.” I reached over my shoulder, counted arrows by touch–seven. I had started with twenty and made use of one; the rest were scattered, lost.

I used three in a hurry, right, left, and ahead, picking targets as far away as I dared risk, aiming at midpoint and depending on that wonderful bow to take those shafts straight and flat. Sure enough, the crowd went for fresh meat like a government handout. “Now!”

Ten seconds later I caught her in my arms and collected a split-second kiss for toll.

Ten minutes later Rufo was down by the same tactics, at a cost of three of my arrows and two of Star’s smaller ones. He had to lower himself, sitting in the bight and checking the free end of the line under both armpits; he would have been a sitting duck without help. As soon as he was untangled from the line, he started jerking it down off the cliff, and faking it into a coil.

“Leave that!” Star said sharply. “We haven’t time and it’s too heavy to carry.”

“I’ll put it in the pack.”

“No.”

“It’s a good line,” Rufo persisted. “We’ll need it.”

“You’ll need a shroud if we’re not through the marsh by nightfall.” Star turned to me. “How shall we arch, milord?”

I looked around. In front of us and to the left a few jokers still milled around, apparently hesitant about getting closer. To our right and above us the great cloud at the base of the Tails made iridescent lace in the sky. About three hundred yards in front of us was where we would enter the trees anjust beyond the marsh started.

We went downhill in a tight wedge, myself on point, Rufo and Star following on flank, all of us with arrows nocked. I had told them to draw swords if any Homed Ghost got within fifty feet.

None did. One idiot came straight toward us, alone, and Rufo knocked him over with an arrow at twice that distance. As we came up on the corpse Rufo drew his dagger. “Let it be!” said Star. She eemed edgy.

“I’m just going to get the nuggets and give them to Oscar.”

“And get us all killed. If Oscar wants nuggets, he shall have them.”

“What sort of nuggets?” I asked, without stopping.

“Gold, Boss. Those blighters have gizzards like a chicken. But gold is all they swallow for it. Old ones ield maybe twenty, thirty pounds.”

I whistled.

“Gold is common here,” Star explained. “There is a great heap of it at the base of the falls, inside the loud, washed down over eons. It causes fights between the Ghosts and the Cold Water Gang, ecause
the Ghosts have this odd appetite and sometimes risk entering the cloud to satisfy it.”

“I haven’t seen any of the Cold Water Gang yet,” I commented.

“Pray God you don’t,” Rufo answered.

“All the more reason to get deep into the marsh,” Star added. “The Gang doesn’t go into it and even the Ghosts don’t go far in. Despite their splay feet, they can be sucked under.”

“Anything dangerous in the swamp itself?”

“Plenty,” Rufo told me. “So be sure you step on the yellow flowers.”

“Watch where you put your own feet. If that map was right, I won’t lose us. What does a Cold Water Gangster look like?”

Rufo said thoughtfully, “Ever seen a man who had been drowned for a week?” I let the matter drop.

Before we got to the trees I had us sling bows and draw swords. Just inside the cover of trees, they jumped us. Horned Ghosts, I mean, not the Cold Water Gang. An ambush from all sides, I don’t know how many. Rufo killed four or five and Star at least two and I danced around, looking active and trying to survive.

We had to climb up and over bodies to move on, too many to count.

We kept on into the swamp, following the little golden pathfinder flowers and the twists and turns of the map in my head. In about half an hour we came to a clearing big as a double garage. Star said faintly, “This is far enough.” She had been holding one hand pressed to her side but bad not been willing to stop until then, although blood stained her tunic and all down the left leg of her tights.

She let Rufo attend her first, while I guarded the bottleneck into the clearing. I was relieved not to be asked to help, as, after we gently removed her tunic, I felt sick at seeing how badly she had been gored–and never a peep out of her. That golden body–hurt!

As a knight errant, I felt like a slob.

But she was chipper again, once Rufo had followed her instructions. She treated Rufo, then treated me–half a dozen wounds each but scratches compared with the rough one she had taken.

Once she had me patched up she said, “Milord Oscar, how long will it be until we are out of the marsh?”

I ran through it in my head. “Does the going get any worse?”

“Slightly better.”

“Not over an hour.”

“Good. Don’t put those filthy clothes back on. Rufo, unpack a bit and well have clean clothes and more arrows. Oscar, well need them for the blood kites, once we are out of the trees.”

The little black box filled most of the clearing before it was unfolded enough to let Rufo get out clothes and reach the arsenal. But clean clothes and lull quiver made me feel like a new man, especially after Rufo dug out a half liter of brandy and we split it three ways, gurglegurgle! Star replenished her medic’s pouch, then I helped Rufo fold up the luggage.

Maybe Rufo was giddy from brandy and no lunch. Or perhaps from loss of blood. It could have been just the bad luck of an unnoticed patch of slippery mud. He had the box in his arms, about to make the last closure that would fold it to knapsack size, when he slipped, recovered violently, and the box sailed out of his arms into a chocolate-brown pool.

It was far out of reach. I yelled, “Rufo, off with your belt!” I was reaching for the buckle of mine.

“No, no!” screamed Rufo. “Stand back! Get clear!”

A corner of the box was still in sight. With a safety line on me I knew I could get it, even if there was no bottom to the pool. I said so, angrily.

“No, Oscar!” Star said urgently. “He’s right. We march. Quickly.”

So we marched–me leading. Star breathing on my neck, Rufo crowding her heels.

We had gone a hundred yards when there was a mud volcano behind us. Not much noise, just a bass rumble and a slight earthquake, then some very dirty rain. Star quit hurrying and said pleasantly, “Well, that’s that.”

Rufo said, “And all the liquor was in it!”

“I don’t mind that,” Star answered. “Liquor is everywhere. But I had new clothes in there, pretty ones, Oscar. I wanted you to see them; I bought them with you in mind.”

I didn’t answer. I was thinking about a flame-thrower and an M-1 and a couple of cases of ammo. And the liquor, of course.

“Did you hear me, milord?” she persisted. “I wanted to wear them for you.”

“Princess,” I answered, “you have your prettiest clothes right with you, always.”

I heard the happy chuckle that goes with her dimples. “I’m sure that you have often said that before. And no doubt with great success.”

We were out of the swamp long before dark and hit the brick road soon after. Blood kites are no problem. They are such murderous things that if you shoot an arrow in the direction of one of their dives, a kite will swerve and pluck it out of the air, getting the shaft right down its gullet. We usually recovered the arrows.

We were among plowed fields soon after we reached the road and soon the blood kites thinned out. Just at sundown we could see outbuildings and the lights in the manor where Star said that we would spend the night.

Milord Doral ‘t Giuk Dorali should have been a Texan. I don’t mean that the Doral could have been mistaken for a Texan but he had that you-paid-for-the-lunch-I’ll-pay-for-the-Cadillacs xpansiveness.

His farmhouse was the size of a circus tent and as lavish as a Thanksgiving dinner–rich, sumptuous, fine carvings and inlaid jewels. Nevertheless it had a sloppy, lived-in look and if you didn’t watch where you put your feet, you would step on a child’s toy on a broad, sweeping staircase and wind up with a broken collarbone. There were children and dogs underfoot everywhere and the youngest of each weren’t housebroken. It didn’t worry the Doral. Nothing worried the Doral, he enjoyed life.

We had been passing through his fields for miles (rich as the best Iowa farmland and no winters; Star told me they produced four crops a year)–but it was late in the day and an occasional field hand was all we saw save for one wagon we met on the road. I thought that it was pulled by a team of two pairs of horses. I was mistaken; the team was but one pair and the animals were not horses, they had eight legs each.

All of Nevia valley is like that, the commonplace mixed with the wildly different. Humans were humans, dogs were dogs–but horses weren’t horses. Like Alice trying to cope with the Flamingo, every time I thought I had it licked, t would wiggle loose.

The man driving those equine centipedes stared but not because we were dressed oddly; he was dressed as I was. He was staring at Star, as who wouldn’t? The people working in fields had mostly been dressed in sort of a lava-lava. This garment, a simple wraparound tied off at the waist, is the equivalent in Nevia of overalls or blue jeans for both men and women; what we were wearing was equal to the Gray Flannel Suit or to a woman s basic black. Party or formal clothes–well, that’s another matter.

As we turned into the grounds of the manor we picked up a wake of children and dogs. One kid ran ahead and, when we reached the broad terrace in front of the main house, milord Doral himself came out the great front door. I didn’t pick him for lord of the manor; he was wearing one of those short sarongs, was barefooted and bareheaded. He had thick hair, shot with gray, an imposing beard, and looked like General U. S. Grant.

Star waved and called out, “Jock! Oh, Jocko!” (The name was “Giuk,” but I caught it as “Jock” and Jock he is.)

The Doral stared at us, then lumbered forward like a tank, “Ettyboo! Bless your beautiful blue eyes! Bless your bouncy little bottom! Why didn’t you let me know?” (I have to launder this because Nevian idioms don’t parallel ours. Try translating certain French idioms literally into English and you’ll see what I mean. The Doral was not being vulgar; he was being formally and gallantly polite to an old and highly respected friend.)

He grabbed Star in a hug, lifted her off her feet, kissed her on both cheeks and on the mouth, gnawed one ear, then set her down with an arm around her. “Games and celebrations! Three months of holiday! Races and rassling every day, orgies every night! Prizes for the strongest, the fairest, the wittiest–”

Star stopped him. “Milord Doral–”

“Eh? And a prize of all prizes for the first baby born–”

“Jocko darling! I love you dearly, but tomorrow we must ride. All we ask is a bone to gnaw and a corner to sleep in.”

“Nonsense! You can’t do this to me.”

“You know that I must.”

“Politics be damned! I’ll die at your feet, Sugar Pie. Poor old Jocko’s heart will stop. I feel an attack coming right now.” He felt around his chest. “Someplace here–”

She poked him in the belly. “You old fraud. You’ll die as you’ve lived, and not of heartbreak. Milord Doral–”

“Yes, milady?”

“I bring you a Hero.”

He blinked. “You’re not talking about Rufo? Hi, Rufe, you old polecat! Heard any good ones lately? Get back to the kitchen and pick yourself a lively one.”

“Thank you, milord Doral.” Rufo “made a leg,” bowing deeply, and left us.

Star said firmly, “If the Doral please.”

“I hear.”

Star untangled his arm, stood straight and tall and started to chant:

“By the Singing Laughing Waters

“Came a Hero Fair and Fearless.

“Oscar hight this noble warrior,

“Wise and Strong and never daunted,

“Trapped the Igli with a question,

“Caught him out with paradoxes,

“Shut the Igli’s mouth with Igli.

“Fed him to him, feet and fingers!

“Nevermore the Singing Waters . . .

It went on and on, none of it lies yet none of it quite true–colored like a press agent’s handout. For example, Star told him that I had killed twenty-seven Horned Ghosts, one with my bare hands. I don’t remember that many and as for “bare hands,” that was an accident. I had just stabbed one of those vermin as another one tumbled at my feet, shoved from behind. I didn’t have time to get my sword clear, so I set a foot on one horn and pulled hard on the other with my left hand and his head came apart like snapping a wishbone. But I had done it from desperation, not choice.

Star even ad-libbed a long excursus about my father’s heroism and alleged that my grandaddy had led the chaise at San Juan Hill and then started in on my great-grandfathers. But when she told him how I had picked up that scar that runs from left eye to right jaw, she pulled out all the stops.

Now look, Star had quizzed me the first time I met her and she had encouraged me to tell her more during that long hike the day before. But I did not give her most of the guff she was handing the Doral. She must have had the Surete, the FBI, the Archie Goodwin on me for months. She even named the team we had played against when I busted my nose and I never told her that.

I stood there blushing while the Doral looked me up and down with whistles and snorts of appreciation. When Star ended, with a simple: “Thus it happened,” he let out a long sigh and said, “Could we have that part about Igli over again?”

Star complied, chanting different words and more detail. The Doral listened, frowning and nodding approval. “A heroic solution,” he said. “So he’s a mathematician, too. Where did he study?”

“A natural genius, Jock.”

“It figures.” He stepped up to me, looked me in the eye and put his hands on my shoulders. “The Hero who confounds Igli may choose any house. But he will honor my home by accepting hospitality of roof . . . and table . . . and bed?”

He spoke with great earnestness, holding my eye; I had no chance to look at Star for a hint. And I wanted a hint. The person who says smugly that good manners are the same everywhere and people are just people hasn’t been farther out of Podunk than the next whistle stop. I’m no sophisticate but I had been around enough to learn that. It was a formal speech, stuffed with protocol, and called for a formal answer.

I did the best I could. I put my hands on his shoulders and answered solemnly, “I am honored far beyond any merit of mine, sir.”

“But you accept?” he said anxiously.

“I accept with all my heart.” (“Heart” is close enough. I was having trouble with language.)

He seemed to sigh with relief. “Glorious!” He grabbed me in a bear hug, kissed me on both cheeks, and only some fast dodging kept me from being kissed on the mouth.

Then he straightened up and shouted, “Wine! Beer! Schnapps! Who the dadratted tomfoolery is supposed to be chasing? I’ll skin somebody alive with a rusty file! Chairs! Service for a Hero! Where is everybody?”

That last was uncalled for; while Star was reciting what a great guy I am, some eighteen or fifty people had gathered on the terrace, pushing and shoving and trying to get a better look. Among them must have been the personnel with the day’s duty because a mug of ale was shoved into my hand and a four-ounce
glass of 110-proof firewater into the other before the boss stopped yelling. Jocko drank boilermaker style, so I followed suit, then was happy to sit down on a chair that was already behind me, with my teeth loosened, my scalp lifted, and the beer just starting to put out the fire.

Other people plied me with bits of cheese, cold meats, pickled this and that, and unidentified drinking food all tasty, not waiting for me to accept it but shoving it into my mouth if I opened it even to say “Gesundheit!” I ate as offered and soon it blotted up the hydrofluoric acid.

In the meantime the Doral was presenting his household to me. It would have been better had they worn chevrons because I never did get them straightened out as to rank. Clothes didn’t help because, just as the squire was dressed like a field hand, the second scullery maid might (and sometimes did) duck back in and load herself with golden ornaments and her best party dress. Nor were they presented in order of rank.

I barely twigged as to which was the lady of the manor, Jocko’s wife–his senior wife. She was a very comely older woman, a brunette carrying a few pounds extra but with that dividend most fetchingly distributed. She was dressed as casually as Jocko out, fortunately, I noticed her because she went at nce to greet Star and they embraced warmly, two old friends. So I had my ears spread when she was presented to me a moment later–as (and I caught it) the Doral (just as Jocko was the Doral) but with the feminine ending.

I jumped to my feet, grabbed her hand, bowed over it and pressed it to my lips. This isn’t even faintly a Nevian custom but it brought cheers and Mrs. Doral blushed and looked pleased and Jocko grinned proudly.

She was the only one I stood up for. Each of the men and boys made a leg to me, with a bow; all the gals from six to sixty curtsied–not as we know it, but Nevian style. It looted more like a step of the Twist. Balance on one foot and lean back as far as possible, then balance on the other while leaning forward, all the while undulating slowly. This doesn’t sound graceful but it is, and it proved that there was not a case of arthritis nor a slipped disk anywhere on the Doral spread.

Jocko hardly ever bothered with names. The females were “Sweetheart” and “Honeylamb” and “Pretty Puss” and he called all the males, even those who seemed to be older than he was, “Son.”

Possibly most of them were his sons. The setup in Nevia I don’t fully understand. This looked like a feudalism out of our own history–and maybe it was–but whether this mob was the Doral’s slaves, his serfs, his hired hands, or all members of one big family I never got straight. A mixture, I think. Titles didn’t mean anything. The only title Jocko held was that he was singled out by a grammatical inflection as being THE Doral instead of just any of a couple of hundred Dorals. I’ve scattered the tag “milord” here and there in this memoir because Star and Rufo used it, but it was simply a courteous form of address paralleling one in Nevian. “Freiherr” does not mean “free man, and “monsieur” does not mean “my lord”–these things don’t translate well. Star sprinkled her speech with “milords” because she was much too polite to say “Hey, Mac!” even with her intimates.

(The very politest endearments in Nevian would win you a clout in the teeth in the USA.)

Once all hands had been presented to the Gordon, Hero First Class, we adjourned to get ready for the banquet that Jocko, cheated of his three months of revelry, had swapped for his first intention. It Split me off from Star as well as from Rufo; I was escorted to my chambers by my two valettes.

That’s what I said. Female. Plural. It is a good thing that I had become relaxed to female attendants in men’s washrooms, European style, and still more relaxed by Southeast Asia and l’Ile du Levant; they don’t teach you how to cope with valettes in American public schools. Especially when they are young
and cute and terribly anxious to please . . . and I had had a long, dangerous day. I learned, first time out on patrol, that nothing hikes up that old biological urge like being shot at and living through it.

It there had been only one, I might have been late to dinner. As it was, they chaperoned each other, though not intentionally, I believe. I patted the redhead on her fanny when the other one wasn’t looking and reached, I thought, an understanding for a later time.

Well, having your back scrubbed is fun, too. Shorn, shampooed, shined, shaved, showered, smelling like a belligerent rose, decked out in the fanciest finely since Cecil B. deMille rewrote the Bible, I was delivered by them to the banquet hall on time.

But the proconsul’s dress uniform I wore was a suit of fatigues compared with Star’s getup. She had
lost all her pretty clothes earlier in the day but our hostess had been able to dig up something.

First a dress that covered Star from chin to ankle–like plate glass. It seemed to be blue smoke, it clung to her and billowed out behind. Underneath was “underwear.” She appeared to be wrapped in twining ivy–but this ivy was gold, picked out in sapphires. It curved across her beautiful belly, divided into strands and cupped her breasts, the coverage being about like a bikini minimum but more startling and much more effective.

Her shoes were sandals in an S-curve of something transparent and springy. Nothing appeared to hold them on, no straps, no clips; her lovely feet, bare, rested on them. It made her appear as if she were on tiptoe about four inches off the floor.

Her great mane of blond hair was built up into a structure as complex as a full-rigged ship, and studded with sapphires. She was wearing a fortune or two of sapphires here and there on her body, too; I won’t itemize.

She spotted me just as I caught sight of her. Her face lit up and she called out, in English, “My Hero, you are beautiful!”

I said “Uh–”

Then I added, “You haven’t been wasting your time, either. Do I sit with you? I’ll need coaching.”

“No, no! You sit with the gentlemen, I sit with the ladies. You won’t have any trouble.”

This is not a bad way to arrange a banquet. We each had separate low tables, the men in a row facing the ladies, with about fifteen feet between them. It wasn’t necessary to make chitchat with the ladies and they all were worth looking at. The Lady Doral was opposite me and was giving Star a run for the Golden Apple. Her costume was opaque some places but not the usual places. Most of it was diamonds. I believe they were diamonds; I don’t think they make rhinestones that big.

About twenty were seated; two or three times that many were serving, entertaining, or milling around. Three girls did nothing but see to it that I did not starve nor die of thirst–I didn’t have to learn how to use their table tools; I never touched them. The girls knelt by me; I sat on a big cushion. Later in the evening Jocko lay flat on his back with his head in a lap so that his maids could pop food into his mouth or hold a cup to his lips.

Jocko had three maids as I did; Star and Mrs. Jocko had two each; the rest struggled along with one apiece. These serving maids illustrate why I had trouble telling the players without a program. My hostess and my Princess were dressed fit to kill, sure–but one of my flunkies, a sixteen-year-old strong contender for Miss Nevia, was dressed only in jewelry but so much of it that she was more “modestly” dressed than Star or Doral Letva, the Lady Doral.

Nor did they act like servants except for their impassioned determination to see that I got drunk and stuffed. They chattered among themselves in teen-age argot and me wisecracks about how big my muscles were, etc., as if I had not been present. Apparently heroes are not expected to talk, for every time I opened my mouth something went into it.

There was always something doing–dancers, jugglers, recitations of poetry–in the space between the tables. Kids wandered around and grabbed tidbits from platters before they reached the tables. One little doll about three years old squatted down in front of me, all big eyes and open mouth, and stared, letting dancers avoid her as best they could. I tried to get her to come to me, but she just stared and played with her toes.

A damsel with a dulcimer strolled among the tables, singing and playing. It could have been a dulcimer, she might have been a damsel.

About two hours along in the feast, Jocko stood up, roared for silence, belched loudly, shook off maids who were trying to steady him, and started to recite.

Same verse, different tune–he was reciting my exploits. I would have thought that he was too drunk to recite a limerick but he sounded off endlessly, in perfect scansion with complex inner rhymes and rippling alliterations, an astounding feat of virtuosity in rhetoric.

He stuck to Star’s story line but embroidered it. I listened with growing admiration, both for him as a poet and for good old Scar Gordon, the one-man army. I decided that I must be a purty goddam hot hero, so when he sat down, I stood up.

The girls had been more successful in getting me drunk than in getting me fed. Most of the food was strange and it was usually tasty. But a cold dish had been fetched in, little frog-like creatures in ice, served whole. You dipped them in a sauce and took them in two bites.

The gal in the jewels grabbed one, dipped it and put it up for me to bite. And it woke up.

This little fellow–call him “Elmer”–Elmer rolled his eyes and looked at me, just as I was about to bite him.

I suddenly wasn’t hungry and jerked my head back.

Miss jewelry Shop laughed heartily, dipped him again, and showed me how to do it. No more Elmer-

I didn’t eat for quite a while and drank more than too much. Every ime a bite was offered me I would see Elmers feet disappearing, and gulp, and have another drink.

That’s why I stood up.

Once up, there was dead silence. The music stopped because the musicians were waiting to see what o improvise as background to my poem.

I suddenly realized that I didn’t have anything to say.

Not anything. There wasn’t a prayer that I could adlib a poem of thanks, a graceful compliment to my

host–m Nevian. Hell, I couldn’t have done it in English.

Star’s eyes were on me. She looked gravely confident.

That did it. I didn’t risk Nevian; I couldn’t even remember how to ask my way to the men’s room. So I ave it to ’em, both barrels, in English. Vachel Lindsay’s “Congo.”

As much of it as I could remember, say about four pages. What I did give them was that compelling rhythm and rhyme scheme double-talking and faking on any fluffs and really slamming it on “beating on a table with the handle of a broom! Boom! Boom! Boomlay boom!” and the orchestra caught the spirit and we rattled the dishes.

The applause was wonderful and Miss Tiffany grabbed my ankle and kissed it.

So I gave them Mr. E. A. Foe’s “Bells” for dessert. Jocko kissed me on my left eye and slobbered on my shoulder.

Then Star stood up and explained, in scansion and rhyme, that in my own land, in my own language, among my own people, warriors and artists all, I was as famous a poet as I was a hero (Which was true. Zero equals zero), and that I had done them the honor of composing my greatest work, in the jewels of my native tongue, a fitting thanks to the Doral and house Doral for Hospitality of roof, of table, of bed–and that she would, in time, do her poor best to render my music into their language.

Between us we got the Oscar.

Then they brought in the piece de resistance, a carcass roasted whole and carried by four men. From the size and shape it might have been roast peasant under glass. But it was dead and it smelled wonderful and I ate a lot of it and sobered up. After the roast there were only eight or nine other things, soups and sherbets and similar shilly-shallying. The party got looser and people didn’t stay at their own tables. One of my girls fell asleep and spilled my wine cup and about then I realized that most of the crowd had gone.

Doral Letva, flanked by two girls, led me to my chambers and put me to bed. They dimmed the lights and withdrew while I was still trying to phrase a gallant good night in their language.

They came back, having shucked all jewelry and other encumbrances and posed at my bedside, the Three Graces. I had decided that the younger ones were mama’s daughters. The older girl was maybe eighteen, full ripe, and a picture of what mama must have been at that age; the younger one seemed five years younger, barely nubile, as pretty for her own age and quite self-conscious. She blushed and dropped her eyes when I looked at her. But her sister stared back with sultry eyes, boldly provocative.

Their mother, an arm around each waist, explained simply but in rhyme that I had honored their roof and their table–and now their bed. What was a Hero’s pleasure? One? Or two? Or all three?

I’m chicken. We know that. If it hadn’t been that little sister was about the size of the little brown sisters who had scared me in the past, maybe I could have shown aplomb.

But, hell, those doors didn’t close. Just arches. And Jocko me bucko might wake up anytime; I didn’t know where he was. I won’t say I’ve never bedded a married woman nor a man’s daughter in his own house–but I’ve followed American cover-up conventions in such matters. This flat-footed proposition scared me worse than the Horned Goats. I mean “Ghosts.”

I struggled to put my decision in poetic language.

I didn’t manage it but I put over the idea of negative,

The little girl started to bawl and fled. Her sister looked daggers, snorted. “Hero!” and went after her. Mama just looked at me and left.

She came back in about two minutes. She spoke very formally, obviously exercising great control, and prayed to know if any woman in this house had met with the Hero’s favor? Her name, please? Or could I describe her? Or would I have them paraded so that I might point her out?

I did my best to explain that, were a choice to be made, she herself would be my choice–but that I was tired and wished to sleep alone.

Letva blinked back tears, wished me a hero’s rest, and left a second time, even faster. For an instant I thought she was going to slap me.

Five seconds later I got up and tried to catch her. But she was gone, the gallery was dark.

I fell asleep and dreamt about the Cold Water Gang. They were even uglier than Rufo had suggested and they were trying to make me eat big gold nuggets all with the eyes of Elmer.

Rufo shook me awake. “Boss! Get up! Right now!”

I buried my head in the covers. “Go way!” My mouth tasted of spoiled cabbage, my head buzzed, and my ears were on crooked.

“Right now! She says to.”

I got up. Rufo was dressed in our Merry Men clothes and wearing sword, so I dressed the same way and buckled on mine. My valettes were not in sight, nor my borrowed finery. I stumbled after Rufo into the great dining hall. There was Star, dressed to travel, and looking grim. The fancy furnishings of the night before were gone; it was as bleak as an abandoned barn. A bare table was all, and on it a joint of meat, cold in congealed grease and a knife beside it.

I looked at it without relish. “What’s that?”

“Your breakfast, if you want it. But I shall not stay under this roof and eat cold shoulder.” It was a tone, a manner, I had never heard from her.

Rufo touched my sleeve. “Boss. Let’s get out of here. Now.”

So we did. Not a soul was in sight, indoors or out, not even children or dogs. But three dashing steeds were waiting. Those eight-legged tandem ponies, I mean, the horse version of a dachshund, saddled and ready to go. The saddle rigs were complex; each pair of legs had a leather yoke over it and the load was distributed by poles flexing laterally, one on each side, and mounted on this was a chair with a back, a padded seat, and arm rests. A tiller rope ran to each armrest.

A lever on the left was both brake and accelerator and I hate to say how suggestions were conveyed to the beast. However, the “horses” didn’t seem to mind.

They weren’t horses. Their heads were slightly equine but they had pads rather than hoofs and were omnivores, not hayburners. But you grow to like these beasties. Mine was black with white
points–beautiful. I named her “Ars Longa.” She had soulful eyes.

Rufo lashed my bow and quiver to a baggage rack behind my chair and showed me how to get aboard, adjust my seat belt, and get comfortable with feet on foot rests rather than stirrups and my back supported–as comfy as first-class seats in an airliner. We took off fast and hit a steady pace of ten miles an hour, single-footing (the only gait longhorses have) but smoothed by that eight-point suspension so that it was like a car on a gravel road.

Star rode ahead, she hadn’t spoken another word. I tried to speak to her but Rufo touched my arm. “Boss, don’t,” he said quietly. “When She is like this, all you can do is wait.”

Once we were underway, Rufo and I knee to knee and Star out of earshot ahead, I said “Rufo, what in the world happened?”

He frowned. “We’ll never know. She and the Doral had a row, that’s clear. But best we pretend it never happened.”

He shut up and so did I. Had Jocko been obnoxious to Star? Drunk he certainly was and amorous he might have been. But I couldn’t visualize Star not being able to handle a man so as to avoid rape without hurting his feelings.

That led to further grim thoughts. If the older sister had come in alone–If Miss Tiffany hadn’t passed out–If my valette with the fiery hair had showed up to undress me as I had understood she would–Oh hell!

Presently Rufo eased his seat belt, lowered his back rest and raised his foot rests to reclining position, covered his face with a kerchief and started to snore. After a while I did the same; it had been a short night, no breakfast, and I had a king-size hangover. My “horse” didn’t need any help; the two held position on Star’s mount.

When I woke I felt better, aside from hunger and thirst. Rufo was still sleeping; Star’s steed was still fifty paces ahead. The countryside was still lush, and ahead perhaps a half-mile was a house–not a lordly manor out a farmhouse. I could see a well sweep and thought of moss-covered buckets, cool and wet and reeking of typhoid–well, I had had my booster shots in Heidelberg; I wanted a drink. Water, I mean. Better yet, beer–they made fine beer hereabouts.

Rufo yawned, put away his kerchief, and raised his seat. “Must have dozed off,” he said with a silly grin.

“Rufo, you see that house?”

“Yes. What about it?”

“Lunch, that’s what. I’ve gone far enough on an empty stomach. And I’m so thirsty that I could squeeze a stone and drink the whey from it.”

“Then best you do so.”

“Huh?”

“Milord, I’m sorry–I’m thirsty, too–but we aren’t stopping there. She wouldn’t like it.”

“She wouldn’t, eh? Rufo, let me set you straight. Just because milady Star is in a pet is no reason for me to ride all day with no food or water. You do as you see fit; I’m stopping for lunch. Uh, do you have any money on you? Local money?”

He shook his head. “You don’t do it that way, not here. Boss. Wait another hour. Please.”

“Why?”

“Because we are still on the Doral’s land, that’s why. I don’t know that he has sent word ahead to have us shot on sight; Jock is a goodhearted old blackguard. But I would rather be wearing full armor; a flight of arrows wouldn’t surprise me. Or a drop net just as we turned in among those trees.”

“You really think so?”

“Depends on how angry he is. I mind once, when a man really offended him, the Doral had this poor rube stripped down and tied by his family jewels and placed–no, I can’t tell that one.” Rufo gulped and looked sick. “Big night last night. I’m not myself. Better we speak of pleasant things. You mentioned squeezing whey from a rock. No doubt you were thinking of the Strong Muldoon?”

“Damn it, don’t change the subject!” My head was throbbing. “I won’t ride under those trees and the man who lets fly a shaft at me had better check his own skin for punctures. I’m thirsty.”

“Boss, Rufo pleaded. “She will neither eat nor drink on the Doral’s land–even if they begged her to. And She’s right. You don’t know the customs. Here one accepts what is freely given . . . but even a child is too proud to touch anything begrudged. Five miles more. Can’t the hero who killed Igli before breakfast hold out another five miles?”

“Well . . . all right, all right! But this is a crazy sort of country, you must admit. Utterly insane.” “Mmmm . . .” he answered. “Have you ever been in Washington, D.C.?” “Well–” I grinned wryly. “Touche! And I forgot that this is your native land. No offense intended.”

“Oh, but it’s not. What made you think so?”

“Why–” I tried to think. Neither Rufo nor Star had said so, but–“You know the customs, you speak the language like a native.”
“Milord Oscar, I’ve forgotten how many languages I speak. When I hear one of them, I speak it.”

“Well, you’re not an American. Nor a Frenchman, I think.”

He grinned merrily. “I could show you birth certificates from both countries–or could until we lost our baggage. But, no, I’m not from Earth.”

“Then where are you from?”

Rufo hesitated. “Best you get your facts from Her.”

“Tripe! I’ve got both feet hobbled and a sack over my head. This is ridiculous.”

“Boss,” he said earnestly, “She will answer any question you ask. But you must ask them.”

“I certainly shall!”

“So let’s speak of other matters. You mentioned the Strong Muldoon–”

“You mentioned him.”

“Well, perhaps I did. I never met Muldoon myself, though I’ve been in that part of Ireland. A fine country and the only really logical people on Earth. Facts won’t sway them in the face of higher truth. An admirable people. I heard of Muldoon from one of my uncles, a truthful man who for many years was a ghostwriter of political speeches. But at this time, due to a mischance while writing speeches for rival candidates, he was enjoying a vacation as a free-lance correspondent for an American syndicate specializing in Sunday feature stories. He heard of the Strong Muldoon and tracked him down, taking train from Dublin, then a local bus, and at last Shank’s Mares. He encountered a man plowing a field with a one-horse plow . . . but this man was shoving the plow ahead of himself without benefit of horse, turning a neat eight-inch furrow. ‘Aha!’ said my uncle and called out, ‘Mr. Muldoon!’

“The farmer stopped and called back, ‘Bless you for the mistake, friend!’–picked up the plow in one hand, pointed with it and said, ‘You’ll be finding Muldoon that way. Strong, he is.’

“So my uncle thanked him and went on until he found another man setting out fence posts by shoving them into the ground with his bare hand . . . and in stony soil, it’s true. So again my uncle hailed him as Muldoon.

“The man was so startled he dropped the ten or dozen six-inch posts he had tucked under the other arm. ‘Get along with your blarney, now!’ he called back. You must know that Muldoon lives farther on down this very same road. He’s strong.’

“The next local my uncle saw was building a stone fence. Dry-stone work it was and very neat. This man was trimming the rock without hammer or trowel, splitting them with the edge of his hand and doing the fine trim by pinching off bits with his fingers. So again my uncle addressed a man by that glorious name.

“The man started to speak but his throat was dry from all that stone dust; his voice failed him. So he grabbed up a large rock, squeezed it the way you squeezed Igli–forced water out of it as if it had been a goatskin, drank. Then he said, ‘Not me, my friend. He’s strong, as everyone knows. Why, many is the time that I have seen him insert his little finger–‘ ”

My mind was distracted from this string of lies by a wench pitching hay just across the ditch from the road. She had remarkable pectoral muscles and a lava-lava just suited her. She saw me eyeing her and gave me the eye right back, with a wiggle tossed in.

“You were saying?” I asked.

“Eh? ‘–just to the first joint . . . and hold himself at arm’s length for hours!”

“Rufo,” I said, “I don’t believe it could have been more than a few minutes. Strain on the tissues, and so forth.”

“Boss,” he answered in a hurt tone, “I could take you to the very spot where the Mighty Dugan used to perform this stunt.”

“You said his name was Muldoon.”

“He was a Dugan on his mother’s side, very proud of her he was. You’ll be pleased to know, milord, that the boundary of the Doral’s land is now in sight. Lunch in minutes only.”

“I can use it. With a gallon of anything, even water.”

“Passed by acclamation. Truthfully, milord, I’m not at my best today. I need food and drink and a long siesta before the fighting starts, or I’ll yawn when I should parry. Too large a night.”

“I didn’t see you at the banquet.”

“I was there in spirit. In the kitchen the food is hotter, the choice is better, and the company less formal. But I had no intention of making a night of it. Early to bed is my motto. Moderation in all things. Epictetus. But the pastry cook–Well, she reminds me of another girl I once knew, my partner in a legitimate business, smuggling. But her motto was that anything worth doing at all is worth overdoing–and she did. She smuggled on top of smuggling, a sideline of her own unmentioned to me and not taken into account–for I was listing every item with the customs officers, a copy with the bribe, so that they would know I was honest.

“But a girl can’t walk through the gates fat as a stuffed goose and walk back through them twenty minutes later skinny as the figure one–not that she was, just a manner of speaking–without causing
thoughtful glances. If it hadn’t been for the strange thing the dog did in the night, the busies would have nabbed us.”

“What was the strange thing the dog did in the night?”

“Just what I was doing last night. The noise woke us and we were out over the roof and free, but with nothing to show for six months’ hard work but skinned knees. But that pastry cook–You saw her, milord. Brown hair, blue eyes, a widow’s peak and the rest remarkably like Sophia Loren.”

“I have a vague memory of someone like that.”

“Then you didn’t see her, there is nothing vague about Nalia. As may be, I had intended to lead the life sanitary last night, knowing that there would be bloodshed today. You know:

‘Once at night and outen the light;

‘Once in the morning, a new day a-borning’

“–as the Scholar advised. But I hadn’t reckoned with Nalia. So here I am with no sleep and no breakfast and if I’m dead before nightfall in a pool of my own blood, it’ll be partly Nalia’s doing.”

“I’ll shave your corpse, Rufo; that’s a promise.” We had passed the marker into the next county but Star didn’t slow down. “Bye the bye, where did you learn the undertakers trade?”

“The what? Oh! That was a far place indeed. The top of that rise, behind those trees, is a house and that’s where we’ll be having lunch. Nice people.”

“Good!” The thought of lunch was a bright spot as I was again regretting my Boy Scout behavior of the night before. “Rufo, you had it all wrong about the strange thing the dog did in the night.”

“Milord?”

“The dog did nothing in the night, that was the strange thing.”

“Well, it certainly didn’t sound that way,” Rufo said doubtfully.

“Another dog, another far place. Sorry. What I started to say was: A funny thing happened to me on the way to bed last night–and I did lead the life sanitary.”

“Indeed, milord?”

“In deed, if not in thought.” I needed to tell somebody and Rufo was the sort of scoundrel I could trust. I told him the Story of the Three Bares.

“I should have risked it,” I concluded. “And, swelp me, I would have, if that lad had been put to bed–alone–when she should have been. Or I think I would have, regardless of White Shotgun or
jumping out windows. Rufo, why do the prettiest gals always have fathers or husbands? But I tell you the truth, there they were–the Big Bare, the Middle-Sized Bare, and the Littlest Bare, close enough to touch and all of them anxious to keep my bed warm–and I didn’t do a damn thing! Go ahead and laugh. I deserve it.”

He didn’t laugh. I turned to look at him and his expression was piteous. “Milord! Oscar my comrade! Tell me it isn’t true!”

“It is true,” I said huffily. “And I regretted it at once. Too late. And you complained about your night!”

“Oh, my Cod!” He threw his mount into high gear and took off. Ars Longa looked back inquiringly over her shoulder, then continued on.

Rufo caught up with Star; they stopped, short of the house where lunch was to be expected. They waited and I joined them. Star was wearing no expression; Rufo looked unbearably embarrassed.

Star said, “Rufo, go beg lunch for us. Fetch it here. I would speak with milord alone.”

“Yes, milady!” He got out fast.

Star said to me, still with no expression, “Milord Hero, is this true? What your groom reports to me?”

“I don’t know what he reported.”

“It concerned your failure–your alleged failure–last night.”

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘failure.’ If you want to know what I did after the banquet . . . I slept alone. Period.”

She sighed but her expression did not change. “I wanted to hear it from your lips. To be just.” Then her expression did change and I have never seen such anger. In a low almost passionless voice she began chewing me out:

“You hero. You incredible butter-brained dolt. Clumsy, bumbling, loutish, pimple-peeked, underdone, over-muscled, idiotic–”

“Stop it!”

“Quiet, I am not finished with you. Insulting three innocent ladies offending a staunch–”

“SHUT UP!!!”

The blast blew her hair back. I started in before she could rev up again. “Don’t ever again speak to me that way. Star. Never.”

“But–”

“Hold your tongue, you bad-tempered brat! You have not earned the right to speak to me that way. Nor will any girl ever earn the right. You will always–always!–address me politely and with respect. One more word of your nasty rudeness and I’ll spank you until the tears fly.”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“Get your hand away from that sword or I’ll take it away from you, down your pants right here on the road, and spank you with it. Till your arse is red and you beg for mercy. Star, I do not fight females–but I do punish naughty children. Ladies I treat as ladies. Spoiled brats I treat as spoiled brats. Star, you could be the Queen of England and the Galactic Overlord all rolled into one–but ONE MORE WORD out of line from you, and down come your tights and you won’t be able to sit for a week. Understand e?”

At last she said in a small voice, “I understand, milord.”

“And besides that. I’m resigning from the hero business. I won’t listen to such talk twice, I won’t work for a person who treats me that way even once.” I sighed, realizing that I had just lost my corporal’s stripes again. But I always felt easier and freer without them.

“Yes, milord.” I could barely hear her. It occurred to me that it was a long way back to Nice. But it didn’t worry me.

“All right, let’s forget it.”

“Yes, milord.” She added quietly, “But may I explain why I spoke as I did?”

“No.”

“Yes, milord.”

A long silent time later Rufo returned. He stopped out of earshot, I motioned him to join us.

We ate silently and I didn’t eat much but the beer was good. Rufo tried once to make chitchat with an impossibility about another of his uncles. It couldn’t have fallen flatter inBoston .

After lunch Star turned her mount–those “horses” have a small turning circle for their wheelbase but t’s easier to bring them full circle in a tight place by leading them. Rufo said, “Milady?”

She said impassively, “I am returning to the Doral.”

“Milady! Please not!”

“Dear Rufo,” she said warmly but sadly. “You can wait up at that house–and if I’m not back in three days, you are free.” She looked at me, looked away. “I hope that milord Oscar will see fit to escort me. But I do not ask it. I have not the right.” She started off.

I was slow in getting Ars Longa turned; I didn’t have the hang of it. Star was a good many bricks down the road; I started after her.

Rufo waited until I was turned, biting his nails, then suddenly climbed aboard and caught up with me. We rode knee to knee, a careful fifty paces behind Star, Finally he said, “This is suicide. You know that, don’t you?”

“No, I didn’t know it.”

“Well, it is.”

I said, “Is that why you are not bothering to say ‘sir’?”

“Milord?” He laughed shortly and said, “I guess it is. No point in that nonsense when you are going to die soon.”

“You’re mistaken.”

“Huh?”

” ‘Huh, milord,’ if you please. Just for practice. But from now on, even if we last only thirty minutes. Because I am running the show now–and not just as her stooge. I don’t want any doubt in your mind as to who is boss once the fighting starts. Otherwise turn around and I’ll give your mount a slap on the rump to get you moving. Hear me?”

“Yes, milord Oscar.” He added thoughtfully, “I knew you were boss as soon as I got back. But I don’t see how you did it. Milord, I have never seen Her meek before. May one ask?”

“One may not. But you have my permission to ask her. If you think it is safe. Now tell me about this ‘suicide’ matter–and don’t say she doesn’t want you to give me advice. From here on you’ll give advice any time I ask–and keep your lip buttoned if I don’t.”

“Yes, milord. All right, the suicide prospects. No way to figure the odds. It depends on how angry the Doral is. But it won’t be a fight, can’t be. Either we get clobbered the instant we poke our noses in . . . or we are safe until we leave his land again, even if he tells us to turn around and ride away.” Rufo looked very thoughtful. “Milord, if you want a blind guess–Well, I figure you’ve insulted the Doral the worst he has ever been hurt in the course of a long and touchy life. So it’s about ninety to ten that, two shakes after we turn off the road, we are all going to be sprouting more arrows than Saint Sebastian.”

“Star, too? She hasn’t done anything. Nor have you.” (Nor I, either, I added to myself. What a country!)

Rufo sighed. “Milord, each world has its own ways. Jock won’t want to hurt Her. He likes Her. He’s terribly fond of Her. You could say that he loves Her. But if he kills you, he has got to loll Her. Anything else would be inhumane by his standards–and he’s a very moral bloke; he’s noted for it. And kill me, too, of course, but I don’t count. He must kill Her even though it will start a chain of events that will wipe him out just as dead once the news gets out. The question is: Does he have to kill you? I figure be has to, knowing these people. Sorry . . . milord.”

I mulled it over. “Then why are you here, Rufo?”

“Milord?”

“You can cut the ‘sirs’ down to one an hour. Why are you here? If your estimate is correct, your one word and one bow can’t affect the outcome. She gave you a fair chance to chicken out. So what is it? Pride? Or are you in love with her?”

“Oh, my God, no!”

Again I saw Rufo really shocked. “Excuse me,” he went on. “You caught me with my guard down.” He thought about it. “Two reasons, I suppose. The first is that if Jock allows us to parley–well. She is quite a talker. In the second place”–he glanced at me–“I’m superstitious, I admit it. You’re a man with luck. I’ve seen it. So I want to be close to you even when reason tells me to run. You could fall in a cesspool and–”

“Nonsense. You should hear my hard-luck story.”

“Maybe in the past. But I’m betting the dice as they roll.” He shut up.

A bit later I said, “You stay here.” I speeded up and joined Star. “Here are the plans,” I told her.

“When we get there, you stay out on the road with Rufo. I’m going in alone.”

She gasped. “Oh, milord! No!”

“Yes.”

“But–”

“Star, do you want me back? As your champion?”

“With all my heart!”

“All right. Then do it my way.”

She waited before answering. “Oscar–”

“Yes, Star.”

“I will do as you say. But will you let me explain before you decide what you will say?”

“Go on.”

“In this world, the place for a lady to ride is by her champion. And that is where I would want to be, my Hero, when in peril. Especially when in peril. But I’m not pleading for sentiment, nor for empty form. Knowing what I now know I can prophesy with certainty that, if you go in first, you will die at once, and I will die–and Rufo–as soon as they can chase us down. That will be quickly, our mounts are tired. On the other hand, if I go in alone–”

“No.”

“Please, milord. I was not proposing, it. If I were to go in alone, I would be almost as likely to die at once as you would be. Or perhaps, instead of feeding me to the pigs, be would simply have me feed the pigs and be a plaything of the pig boys–a fate merciful rather than cold justice in view of my utter degradation in returning without you. But the Doral is fond of me and I think he might let me live . . . as a pig girl and no better than pigs. This I would risk if necessary and wait my chance to escape, for I cannot
afford pride; I have no pride, only necessity.” Her voice was husky with tears.

“Star, Star!”

“My darling!”

“Huh? You said–”

“May I say it? We may not have much time. My Hero . . . my darling.” She reached out blindly, I took her hand; she leaned toward me and pressed it to her breast.

Then she straightened up but kept my hand. “I’m all right now. I am a woman when I least expect it. No, my darling Hero, there is only one way for us to go in and that is side by side, proudly. It is not only safest, it is the only way I would wish it–could I afford pride. I can afford anything else. I could buy you theEiffelTower for a trinket, and replace it when you broke it. But not pride.”

“Why is it safest?”

“Because he may–I say ‘may’–let us parley. If I can get in ten words, he’ll grant a hundred. Then a thousand. I may be able to heal his hurt.”

“All right. But–Star, what did I do to hurt him? I didn’t! I went to a lot of trouble not to hurt him.”

She was silent a while, then–“You are an American.”

“What’s that got to do with it? Jock doesn’t know it.”

“It has, perhaps, everything to do with it. No, America is at most a name to the Doral for, although he has studied the Universes, he has never traveled. But–You will not be angry with me again?”

“Uh . . . let’s call a King’s-X on that. Say anything you need to say but explain things. Just don’t chew me out. Oh, hell, chew me out if you like–this once. Just don’t let it be a habit . . . my darling.”

She squeezed my hand. “Never will I again! The error lay in my not realizing that you are American. I don’t know America , not the way Rufo does. If Rufo had been present–But he wasn’t; he was wenching in the kitchen. I suppose I assumed, when you were offered table and root and bed, that you would behave as a Frenchman would. I never dreamed that you would refuse it. Had I known, I could have spun a thousand excuses for you. An oath taken. A holy day in your religion. Jock would have been disappointed but not hurt; he is a man of honor.”

“But–Damn it, I still don’t see why he wants to shoot me for not doing something I would expect, back home, that he might snoot me for doing. In this country, is a plan forced to accept any proposition a gal makes? And why did she run and complain? Why didn’t she keep it secret? Hell, she didn’t even try. She dragged in her daughters.”

“But, darling, it was never a secret. He asked you publicly and publicly you accepted. How would you feel if your bride, on your wedding night, kicked you out of the bedroom? ‘Table, and roof, and bed.’ You accepted.”

” ‘Bed.’ Star, inAmerica beds are multiple-purpose furniture. Sometimes we sleep in them. Just sleep. I didn’t dig it.”

“I know now. You didn’t know the idiom. My fault. But do you now see why he was completely–and publicly–humiliated?”

“Well, yes, but he brought it on himself. He asked me in public. It would have been worse if I had said No then.”

“Not at all. You didn’t have to accept. You could have refused graciously. Perhaps the most graceful way, even though it be a white lie, is for the hero to protest his tragic inability–temporary or permanent–from wounds received in the very battle that proved him a hero.”

“I’ll remember that. But I still don’t see why he was so astoundingly generous in the first place.”

She turned and looked at me. “My darling, is it all right for me to say that you have astounded me every time I have talked with you? And I had thought I had passed beyond all surprises, years ago.”

“It’s mutual. You always astound me. However, I like it–except one time.”

“My lord Hero, how often do you think a simple country squire has a chance to gain for his family a Hero’s son, and raise it as his own? Can you not feel his gall-bitter disappointment at what you snatched from him after he thought you had promised this boon? His shame? His wrath?”

I considered it. “Well, I’ll be dogged. It happens inAmerica , too. But they don’t boast about it.”

“Other countries, other customs. At the very least, he had thought that he had the honor of a hero treating him as a brother. And with luck he expected the get of a hero for house Doral.”

“Wait a minute! Is that why he sent me three? To improve the odds?”

“Oscar, he would eagerly have sent you thirty . . . if you had hinted that you felt heroic enough to attempt it. As it was, he sent his chief wife and his two favorite daughters.” She hesitated. “What I still don’t understand–” She stopped and asked me a blunt question.

“Hell, no!” I protested, blushing. “Not since I was fifteen. But one thing that put me off was that mere child. She’s one. I think.”

Star shrugged. “She may be. But she is not a child; in Nevia she is a woman. And even if she is unbroached as yet, I’ll wager she’s a mother in another twelvemonth. But if you were loath to tap her, why didn’t you shoo her out and take her older sister? That quaint hasn’t been virgin since she’s had breasts, to my certain knowledge–and I hear that Muri is ‘some dish,’ if that is the American idiom.”

I muttered. I had been thinking the same thing. But I didn’t want to discuss it with Star.

She said, “Pardonne-moi, mon cher? Tu as dit?”

“I said I had given up sex crimes for Lent!”

She looked puzzled. “But Lent is over, even on Earth. And it is not, here, at all.”

“Sorry.”

“Still I’m pleased that you didn’t pick Muri over Letva; Muri would have been unbearably stuck-up with her mother after such a thing. But I do understand that you will repair this, if I can straighten it out?” She added, “It makes great difference in how I handle the diplomacies.”

(Star, Star–you are the one I want to bed!) “This is what you wish . . . my darling?”

“Oh, how much it would help!”

“Okay. You’re the doctor. One . . . three . . . thirty–I’ll die trying. But no little kids!” “No problem.

Let me think. If the Doral lets me get in just five words–” She fell silent. Her hand was pleasantly warm. I did some thinking, too. These strange customs had ramifications, some of which I had still shied away from. How was it, if Letva had immediately told her husband what a slob I was-

“Star? Where did you sleep last night?”

She looked around sharply. “Milord . . . is it permitted to ask you, please, to mind your own business?”

“I suppose so. But everybody seems to be minding mine.”

“I am sorry. But I am very much worried and my heaviest worries you do not know as yet. It was a fair question and deserves a fair answer. Hospitality balances, always, and honors flow both ways. I slept in the Doral’s bed. However, if it matters–and it may to you; I still do not understand Americans–I was wounded yesterday, it still bothered me. Jock is a sweet and gentle soul. We slept. Just slept.”

I tried to make it nonchalant. “Sorry about the wound. Does it hurt now?”

“Not at all. The dressing will fall off by tomorrow. However–Last night was not the first time I enjoyed table and roof and bed at house Doral. Jock and I are old friends, beloved friends–which is why I think I can risk that he may grant me a few seconds before killing me.”

“Well, I had figured out most of that.”

“Oscar, by your standards–the way you have been raised–I am a bitch.”

“Oh, never! A princess.”

“A bitch. But I am not of your country and I was reared by another code. By my standards, and they seem good to me, I am a moral woman. Now . . . am I still your darling’?”

“My darling!”

“My darling Hero. My champion. Lean close and kiss me. If we die, I would my mouth be warm with your lips. The entrance is just around this bend.”

“I know.”

A few moments later we rode, swords sheathed and bows unstrung, proudly into the target area.

Three days later we rode out again.

This time breakfast was sumptuous. This time musicians lined our exit. This time the Doral rode with us.

This time Rufo reeled to his mount, each arm around a wench, a bottle in each hand, then, after busses from a dozen more, was lifted into his seat and belted in the reclining position. He fell asleep, snoring before we set out.

I was kissed good-bye more times than I could count and by some who had no reason to do it so thoroughly–for I was only an apprentice hero, still learning the trade.

It’s not a bad trade, despite long hours, occupational hazards, and utter lack of security; it has fringe benefits, with many openings and rapid advancement for a man with push and willingness to learn. The Doral seemed well pleased with me.

At breakfast he had sung my prowess up to date in a thousand intricate lines. But I was sober and did not let his praises impress me with my own greatness; I knew better. Obviously a little bird had reported to him regularly–but that bird was a liar. John Henry the Steel-Drivin’ Man couldn’t have done what Jocko’s ode said I did.

But I took it with my heroic features noble and impassive, then I stood up and gave them “Casey at the Bat,” putting heart and soul into “Mighty Casey has struck OUT!”

Star gave it a free interpretation. I had (so she sang) praised the ladies of Doral, the ideas being ones associated with Madame Pompadour, Nell Gwyn, Theodora, Ninon de l’Enclos, and Rangy Lil. She didn’t name those famous ladies; instead she was specific, in Nevian eulogy that would have startled Francois Villon.

So I had to come up with an encore. I gave them “Relic’s daughter,” then “Jabberwocky,” with gestures.

Star had interpreted me in spirit; she had said what I would have said had I been capable of extemporizing poetry. Late on the second day I had chanced on Star in the steam room of the manor’s baths. For an hour we lay wrapped in sheets on adjacent slabs, sweating it out and restoring the tissues. Presently I blurted out to her how surprised–and delighted–I was. I did it sheepishly but Star was one to whom I dared bare my soul.

She had listened gravely. When I ran down, she said quietly, “My Hero, as you know, I do not know America. But from what Rufo tells me your culture is unique, among all the Universes.”

“Well, I realize that the USA is not sophisticated in such things, not the way France is.”

” ‘France!’ ” She shrugged, beautifully. ” ‘Latins are lousy lovers.’ I heard that somewhere, I testify that it is true. Oscar, so far as I know, your culture is the only semicivilized one in which love is not recognized as the highest art and given the serious study it deserves.”

“You mean the way they treat it here. Whew! ‘Much too good for the common people!’ ”

“No, I do not mean the way it is treated here.” She spoke in English. “Much as I love our friends here, this is a barbarous culture and their arts are barbaric. Oh, good art of its sort, very good; their approach is honest. But–if we live through this, after our troubles are over–I want you to travel among the Universes. You’ll see what I mean.” She got up, folding her sheet into a toga. I’m glad you are pleased, my Hero. I’m proud of you.”

I lay there a while longer, thinking about what she had said. The “highest art”–and back home we didn’t even study it, much less make any attempt to teach it. Ballet takes years and years. Nor do they hire you to sing at the Met just because you have a loud voice.

Why should “love” be classed as an “instinct”?

Certainly the appetite for sex is an instinct–but did another appetite make every glutton a gourmet, every fry cook a Cordon Bleu? Hell, you had to learn even to be a fry cook.

I walked out of the steam room whistling “The Best Things in Life Are Free”–then chopped it off in sudden sorrow for all my poor, unhappy compatriots cheated of their birthright by the most mammoth hoax in history.

A mile out the Doral bade us good-bye, embracing me, kissing Star and mussing her hair; then he and his escort drew swords and remained at salute until we passed over the next rise. Star and I rode knee to knee while Rufo snored behind us.

I looked at her and her mouth twitched. She caught my eye and said demurely, “Good morning, milord.”

“Good morning, milady. You slept well?”

“Very well, thank you, milord. And you?”

“The same, thank you.”

“So? ‘What was the strange thing the dog did in the night?’ ”

” ‘The dog did nothing in the night, that was the strange thing,’ ” I answered with a straight face. “Really? So gay a dog? Then who was that knight I last saw with a lady?” ”

‘Twasn’t night, ’twas brillig.”

“And your vorpal blade went snicker-snack! My beamish boy!”

“Don’t try to pin your jabberwocking on me, you frolicsome wench,” I said severely. “I’ve got friends, I have–I can prove an alibi. Besides, ‘my strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure.’ ”

“And the line before that one. Yes, I know; your friends told me about it, milord.” Suddenly she grinned and slapped me on the thigh and started bellowing the chorus of “Reilly’s Daughter.” Vita Brevis norted; Ars Longa pricked up her ears and looked around reprovingly.

“Stop it,” I said. “You’re shocking the horses.”

“They aren’t horses and you can’t shock them. Have you seen how they do it, milord? In spite of all those legs? First–”

“Hold your tongue! Ars Longa is a lady, even if you aren’t.”

“I warned you I was a bitch. First she sidles up–”

“I’ve seen it. Muri thought it would amuse me. Instead it gave me an inferiority complex that lasted all afternoon.”

“I venture to disbelieve that it was all afternoon, milord Hero. Let’s sing about Reilly then. You lead, I’ll harmonize.”

“Well–Not too loud, we’ll wake Rufo.”

“Not him, he’s embalmed.”

“Then you’ll wake me, which is worse. Star darling, when and where was Rufo an undertaker? And ow did he get from that into this business? Did they run him out of town?”

She looked puzzled. “Undertaker? Rufo? Not Rufo.”

“He was most circumstantial.”

“So? Milord, Rufo has many faults. But telling the truth is not one of them. Moreover, our people do ot have undertakers.”

“You don’t? Then what do you do with leftover carcasses? Can’t leave them cluttering the parlor. Untidy.”

“I think so, too, but our people do just that: keep them in the parlor. For a few years at least. An overly sentimental custom but we are a sentimental people. Even so, it can be overdone. One of my great aunts kept all her former husbands in her bedchamber–a dreadful clutter and boring, too, because she talked about them, repeating herself and exaggerating. I quit going to see her.”

“Well. Did she dust them?”

“Oh, yes. She was a fussy housekeeper.”

“Uh–How many were there?”

“Seven or eight, I never counted.”

“I see. Star? Is there black-widow blood in your family?”

“What? Oh! But, darling, there is black-widow blood in every woman.” She dimpled, reached over and patted my knee. “But Auntie didn’t kill them. Believe me, my Hero, the women in my family are much too fond of men to waste them. No, Auntie just hated to let them go. I think that is foolish. Look forward, not back.”

” ‘And let the dead past bury its dead.’ Look, if your people keep dead homes around the house, you must have undertakers. Embalmers at least. Or doesn’t the air get thick?”

“Embalming? Oh, no! Just place a stasis on them once you’re sure they are dead. Or dying. Any schoolboy can do that.” She added, “Perhaps I wronged Rufo. He has spent much time on your
Earth–he likes the place, it fascinates him–and he may have tried undertaking. But it seems to me an occupation too honest and straightforward to attract him.”

“You never did tell me what your people eventually do with a cadaver.”

“Not bury it. That would shock them silly.” Star shivered. “Even myself and I’ve traveled the

Universes, learned to be indifferent to almost any custom.”

“But what?”

“Much what you did to Igli. Apply a geometrical option and get rid of it.”

“Oh. Star, where did Igli go?”

“I couldn’t guess, milord. I had no chance to calculate it. Perhaps the ones who made him know. But I hink they were even more taken by surprise than I was.”

“I guess I’m dense. Star. You call it geometry; Jocko referred to me as a ‘mathematician.’ But I did what was forced on me by circumstances; I didn’t understand it.”

“Forced on Igli, you should say, milord Hero. What happens when you place an insupportable strain on a mass, such that it cannot remain where it is? While leaving it nowhere to go? This is a schoolboy problem in metaphysical geometry and the eldest proto-paradox, the one about the irresistible force and the immovable body. The mass implodes. It is squeezed out of its own world into some other. This is often the way the people of a universe discover the Universes–but usually as disastrously as you forced it on Igli; it may take millennia before they control it. It may hover around the fringes as ‘magic’ for a long time, sometimes working, sometimes failing, sometimes backfiring on the magician.”

“And you call this ‘mathematics’?”

“How else?”

“I’d call it magic.”

“Yes, surely. As I told Jocko, you have a natural genius. You could be a great warlock.”

I shrugged uncomfortably. “I don’t believe in magic.”

“Nor do I,” she answered, “the way you put it. I believe in what is.”

“That’s what I mean, Star. I don’t believe in hocus-pocus. What happened to Igli–I mean, ‘what ppeared to happen to Igli’–could not have happened because it would violate the law of conservation of mass-energy. There must be some other explanation.”

She was politely silent.

So I brought to bear the sturdy common sense of ignorance and prejudice. “Look, Star, I’m not going to believe the impossible simply because I was there. A natural law is a natural law. You have to admit that.”

We rode a few rods before she answered, “May it please milord Hero, the world is not what we wish it to be. It is what it is. No, I have over-assumed. Perhaps it is indeed what we wish it to be.

Either way, it is what it is. Le voila! Behold it, self-demonstrating. Das Ding an sich. Bite it. It is. Ai-je raison? Do I speak truly?”

“That’s what I was saying! The universe is what it is and can’t be changed by jiggery-pokery. It works by exact rules, like a machine.” (I hesitated, remembering a car we had had that was a hypochondriac. It would “fall sick,” then “get well” as soon as a mechanic tried to touch it.) I went on firmly, “Natural law
never takes a holiday. The invariability of natural law is the cornerstone of science.”

“So it is.”

“Well?” I demanded.

“So much the worse for science.”

“But–” I shut up and rode in huffy silence.

Presently a slender hand touched my forearm, caressed it. “Such a strong sword arm,” she said softly.

“Milord Hero, may I explain?”

“Talk ahead,” I said. “If you can sell me, you can convert the Pope to Mormonism. I’m stubborn.”

“Would I have picked you out of hundreds of billions to be my champion were you not?”

” ‘Hundreds of billions?’ You mean millions, don’t you?”

“Hear me, milord. Indulge me. Let us be Socratic. I’ll frame the trick questions and you make the tupid answers–and we’ll learn who shaved the barber. Then it will be your turn and I’ll be the silly stooge. Okay?”

“All right, put a nickel in.”

“Very well. Question: Are the customs at house Doral the customs you used at home?”

“What? You know they aren’t. I’ve never been so flabbergasted since the time the preacher’s daughter took me up into the steeple to show me the Holy Ghost.” I chuckled sheepishly. “I’d be blushing yet but I’ve burned out my fuses.”

“Yet the basic difference between Nevian customs and yours lies in only one postulate. Milord, there axe worlds in which males kill females as soon as eggs are laid–and others in which females eat males even as they are being fructified–like that black widow you made cousin to me.”

“I didn’t mean that, Star.”

“I was not offended, my love. An insult is like a drink; it affects one only if accepted. And pride is too heavy baggage for my journey; I have none. Oscar, would you find such worlds stranger than this one?”

“You’re talking about spiders or some such. Not people.”

“I speak of people, the dominant race of each its world. Highly civilized.”

“Ugh!”

“You will not say ‘ugh’ when you see them. They are so different from us that their home life cannot atter to us. Contrariwise, this planet is very like your Earth–yet your customs would shock old Jocko out of song. Darling, your world has a custom unique in the Universes. That is, the Twenty Universes known to me, out of thousands or millions or googols of universes. In the known Twenty Universes only Earth has this astounding custom.”

“Do you mean “War”?”

“Oh, no! Most worlds have warfare. This planet Nevia is one of the few where lolling is retail, rather than wholesale. Here there be Heroes, killing is done with passion. This is a world of love and slaughter, both with gay abandon. No, I mean something much more shocking. Can you guess?”

“Uh . . . television commercials?”

“Close in spirit, but wide of the mark. You have an expression ‘the oldest profession.’ Here–and in all ther known worlds–it isn’t even the youngest. Nobody has heard of it and wouldn’t believe it if he did. We few who visit Earth don’t talk about it. Not that it would matter; most people don’t believe travelers’ tales.”

“Star, are you telling me that there is no prostitution elsewhere in the Universe?”

“The Universes, my darling. None.”

“You know,” I said thoughtfully, “that’s going to be a shock to my first sergeant. None at all?”

“I mean,” she said bluntly, “that whoring seems to have been invented by Earth people and no thers–and the idea would shock old Jocko into impotence. He’s a straitlaced moralist.”

“I’ll be damned! We must be a bunch of slobs.”

“I did not mean to offend, Oscar; I was reciting facts. But this oddity of Earth is not odd in its own context. Any commodity is certain to be sold–bought, sold, leased, rented, bartered, traded, discounted, price-stabilized, inflated, bootlegged, and legislated–and a woman’s ‘commodity’ as it was called on Earth in franker days is no exception. The only wonder is the wild notion of thinking of it as a commodity. Why, it so surprised me that once I even–Never mind. Anything can be made a commodity. Someday I
will show you cultures living in spaces, not on planets–nor on fundaments of any sort; not all universes have planets–cultures where the breath of life is sold like a kilo of butter in Provence. Other places so crowded that the privilege of staying alive is subject to tax–and delinquents are killed out of hand by the
Department of Eternal Revenue and neighbors not only do not interfere, they are pleased.”

“Good God! Why?”

“They solved death, milord, and most of them won’t emigrate despite endless roomier planets. But we were speaking of Earth. Not only is whoring unknown elsewhere, but its permutations are
unknown–dower, bridal price, alimony, separate maintenance, all the variations that color all Earth’s institutions–every custom related even remotely to the incredible notion that what all women have an endless supply of is nevertheless merchandise, to be hoarded and auctioned.”

Ars Longa gave a snort of disgust. No, I don’t think she understood. She understands some Nevian but Star spoke English; Nevian lacks the vocabulary.

“Even your secondary customs,” she went on, “are shaped by this unique institution. Clothing–you’ve noticed that there is no real difference here in how the two sexes dress. I’m in tights this morning and you are in shorts but had it been the other way around no one would have noticed.”

“The hell they wouldn’t! Your tights wouldn’t fit me.”

“They stretch. And body shyness, which is an aspect of sex-specialized clothing. Here nakedness is as unnoteworthy as on that pretty little island where I found you. All hairless peoples sometimes wear clothing and all peoples no matter how hirsute wear ornaments–but nakedness taboo is found only where flesh is merchandise to be packaged or displayed . . . that is to say, on Earth. It parallels ‘Don’t pinch the grapefruit’ and putting false bottoms in berry boxes. If something is never haggled over, there is no need to make a mystery of it.”

“So if we get rid of clothes we get rid of prostitution?”

“Heavens, no! You’ve got it backwards.” She frowned. “I don’t see how Earth could ever get rid of whoring; it’s too much a part of everything you do.”

“Star, you’ve got your facts wrong. There is almost no prostitution in America.”

She looked startled. “Really? But–Isn’t ‘alimony’ an American word? And ‘gold digger’? And ‘coming-out party’?”

“Yes, but prostitution has almost died out. Hell, I wouldn’t know how to go about finding a whorehouse even in an Army town. I’m not saying that you don’t wind up in the nay. But it’s not commercialized. Star, even with an American girl who is well-known to be an easy make-out, if you offered her five bucks–or twenty–it’s ten to one she would slap your face.”

“Then how is it done?”

“You’re nice to her instead. Take her to dinner, maybe to a show. Buy her flowers, girls are suckers for flowers. Then approach the subject politely.”

“Oscar, doesn’t this dinner and show, and possibly flowers, cost more than five dollars? Or even twenty? I understood that American prices were as high as French prices.”

“Well, yes, but you can’t just tip your hat and expect a girl to throw herself on her back. A tightwad–”

“I rest the case. All I was trying to show was that customs can be wildly different in different worlds.”

“That’s true, even on Earth. But–”

“Please, milord. I won’t argue the virtue of American women, nor was I criticizing. Had I been reared in America I think I would want at least an emerald bracelet rather than dinner and a show. But I was leading up to the subject of ‘natural law.’ Is not the invariability of natural” law an unproved assumption? Even on Earth?”

“Well–You haven’t stated it fairly. It’s an assumption, I suppose. But there has never been a case in which it failed to stand up.”

“No black swans? Could it not be that an observer who saw an exception preferred not to believe his eyes? Just as you do not want to believe that Igli ate himself even though you, my Hero, forced him to?

Never mind. Let’s leave Socrates to his Xanthippe. Natural law may be invariable throughout a universe–seems to be, in rigid universes. But it is certain that natural laws vary from universe to
universe–and believe this you must, milord, else neither of us will live long!”

I considered it. Damn it, where had Igli gone? “Most unsettling.”

“No more unsettling, once you get used to it, than shifting languages and customs as you shift countries.

How many chemical elements are there on Earth?”

“Uh, ninety-two and a bunch of Johnny-Come-Latelies. A hundred and six or seven.”

“Much the same here. Nevertheless a chemist from Earth would suffer some shocks. The elements aren’t quite the same, nor do they behave quite the same way. H-bombs won’t work here and dynamite won’t explode.”

I said sharply, “Now wait! Are you telling me that electrons and protons aren’t the same here, to get down to basics?”

She shrugged. “Perhaps, perhaps not. What is an electron but a mathematical concept? Have you tasted one lately? Or put salt on the tail of a wavicle? Does it matter?”

“It damn well would matter. A man can starve as dead from lack of trace elements as from lack of bread.”

“True. In some universes we humans must carry food if we visit them–which we sometimes must, if only to change trains. But here, and in each of the universes and countless planets where we humans live, you need not worry; local food will nourish you. Of course, if you lived here many years, then went back to Earth and died soon after and an autopsy were done with fussiest microanalysis, the analyst might not believe his results. But your stomach wouldn’t care.”

I thought about this, my belly stuffed with wonderful food and the air around me sweet and good–certainly my body did not care if there were indeed the differences Star spoke of.

Then I recalled one aspect of life in which little differences cause big differences. I asked Star about it.

She looked blandly innocent. “Do you care, milord? You will be long gone before it matters to Doral. I thought your purpose these three days was simply to help me in my problem? With pleasure in your work, I realize–you threw yourself into the spirit of the occasion.”

“Damn it, quit pulling my leg! I did it to help you. But a man can’t help wondering.”

She slapped my thigh and laughed. “Oh, my very darling! Stop wondering; human races throughout the Universes can crossbreed. Some crosses fruit but seldom and some mule out. But this is not one of them. You will live on here, even if you never return. You’re not sterile; that was one of many things I checked
when I examined your beautiful body in Nice. One is never sure how the dice will roll, but–I think the Doral will not be disappointed.”

She leaned toward me. “Would you give your physician data more accurate than that which Jocko sang? I might offer a statistical probability. Or even a Sight.”

“No, I would not! Nosy.”

“It is a long nose, isn’t it? As you wish, milord. In a less personal vein the fact of crossbreeding among humans of different universes–and some animals such as dogs and cats–is a most interesting question. The only certainty is that human beings flourish only in those universes having chemistries so similar that
elements that make up deoxyribonucleic acids are so alike as not to matter. As for the rest, every scholar has his theory. Some hold to a teleologic explanation, asserting that Man evolves alike in all essential particulars in every universe that can support him because of Divine Plan–or through blind necessity, depending on whether the scholar takes his religion straight or chases it with soda.

“Some think that we evolved just once–or were created, as may be–and leaked across into other universes. Then they fight over which universe was the home of the race.”

“How can there be any argument?” I objected. “Earth has fossil evidence covering the evolution of man. Other planets either have it or not, and that should settle it.”

“Are you sure, milord? I thought that, on Earth, man’s family tree has as many dotted lines as there are bastards in European royal lines.”

I shut up. I had simply read some popular books. Perhaps she was right; a race that could not agree as to who did what to whom in a war only twenty years back probably didn’t know what Alley Oop did to the upstairs maid a million years ago, when the evidence was only scattered bones. Hadn’t there been hoaxes? The Piltdown Man, or some such?

Star went on, “Whatever the truth, there are leakages between worlds. On your own planet disappearances run to hundreds of thousands and not all are absconders or wife-deserters; see any
police department’s files. One usual place is the battlefield. The strain becomes too great and a man slides through a hole he didn’t know was there and winds up ‘missing in action.’ Sometimes–not often–a man is seen to disappear. One of your American writers, Bierce or Pierce, got interested and collected such cases. He collected so many that he was collected, too. And your Earth experiences reverse leakage, the ‘Kaspar Hausers,’ persons from nowhere, speaking no known language and never able to account for themselves.”

“Wait a minute? Why just people?”

“I didn’t say ‘just people.’ Have you never heard of rains of frogs? Of stones? Of blood? Who questions a stray cat’s origin? Are all flying saucers optical illusions? I promise you they are not; some are poor lost astronauts trying to find their way home. My people use space travel very little, as faster-than-light is the readiest way to lose yourself among the Universes. We prefer the safer method of metaphysical geometries–or ‘magic’ in the vulgar speech.”

Star looked thoughtful. “Milord, your Earth may be the home of mankind. Some scholars think so.”

“Why?”

“It touches so many other worlds. It’s the top of the list as a transfer point. If its people render it unfit for life–unlikely, but possible–it will disrupt traffic of a dozen universes. Earth has had its fairy rings, and Gates, and Bifrost Bridges for ages; that one we used in Nice was there before the Romans came.”

“Star, how can you talk about points on Earth ‘touching’ other planets–for centuries on end? The Earth moves around the Sun at twenty miles a second or such, and spins on its axis, not to mention other motions that add up to an involved curve at unthinkable speed. So how can it ‘touch’ other worlds?”

Again we rode in silence. At last Star said, “My Hero, how long did it take you to learn calculus?”

“Why, I haven’t learned it. I’ve studied it a couple of years.”

“Can you tell me how a particle can be a wave?”

“What? Star, that’s quantum mechanics, not calculus. I could give an explanation but it wouldn’t mean anything; I don’t have the math. An engineer doesn’t need it.”

“It would be simplest,” she said diffidently, “to answer your question by saying ‘magic’ just as you answered mine with ‘quantum mechanics.’ But you don’t like that word, so all I can say is that after you study higher geometries, metaphysical and conjectural as well as topological and judicial–if you care to
make such study–I will gladly answer. But you won’t need to ask.”

(Ever been told: “Wait till you grow up, dear; then you will understand”? As a kid I didn’t like it from grownups; I liked it still less from a girl I was in love with when I was fully grown.)

Star didn’t let me sulk; she shifted the talk. “Some crossbreedings are from neither accidental slippages nor planned travel. You’ve heard of incubi and succubi?”

“Oh, sure. But I never bother my head with myths.”

“Not myths, darling, no matter how often the legend has been used to explain embarrassing situations. Witches and warlocks are not always saints and some acquire a taste for rape. A person who has learned to open Gates can indulge such vice; he–or she–can sneak up on a sleeping person–maid, chaste wife, virgin boy–work his will and be long gone before cockcrow.” She shuddered.

“Sin at its nastiest. If we catch them, we kill them. I’ve caught a few, I killed them. Sin at its worst, even if the victim learns to like it.” She shuddered again.

“Star, what is your definition of ‘sin’?”

“Can there be more than one? Sin is cruelty and injustice, all else is peccadillo. Oh, a sense of sin comes from violating the customs of your tribe. But breaking custom is not sin even when it feels so; sin is wronging another person.”

“How about ‘sinning against God’?” I persisted.

She looked at me sharply. “So again we shave the barber? First, milord, tell me what you mean by

‘God.’ ”

“I just wanted to see if you would walk into it.”

“I haven’t walked into that one in a mort of years. I’d as lief thrust with a bent wrist, or walk a pentacle in clothes. Speaking of pentacles, my Hero, our destination is not what it was three days ago. Now we go to a Gate I had not expected to use. More dangerous but it can’t be helped.”

“My fault! I’m sorry, Star.”

“My fault, milord. But not all loss. When we lost our luggage I was more worried than I dared show–even though I was never easy about carrying firearms through a world where they may not be
used. But our foldbox carried much more than firearms, things we are vulnerable without. The time you spent in soothing the hurt to the Doral’s ladies I spent–in part–in wheedling the Doral for a new kit, almost everything heart could wish but firearms. Not all loss.”

“We are going to another world now?”

“Not later than tomorrow dawn, if we live.”

“Damn it, Star, both you and Rufo talk as if each breath might be our last.”

“As it might be.”

“You’re not expecting an ambush now; we’re still on Doral land. But Rufo is as full of dire forebodings as a cheap melodrama. And you are almost as bad.”

“I’m sorry. Rufo does fret–but he is a good man at your back when trouble starts. As for me, I have been trying to be fair, milord, to let you know what to expect.”

“Instead you confuse me. Don’t you think it’s time you put your cards face up?”

She looked troubled. “And if the Hanging Man is the first card turned?”

“I don’t give a hoot! I can face trouble without fainting–”

“I know you can, my champion.”

“Thanks. But not knowing makes me edgy. So talk.”

“I will answer any question, milord Oscar. I have always been willing to.” “But you know that I don’t know what questions to ask. Maybe a carrier pigeon doesn’t need to know what the war is about–but I feel like a sparrow in a badminton game. So start from the beginning.”

“As you say, milord. About seven thousand years ago–” Star stopped. “Oscar, do you want to know–now all the interplay of politics of a myriad worlds and twenty universes over millennia in arriving at the present crisis? I’ll try if you say, but just to outline it would take more time than remains until we must pass through that Gate. You are my true champion; my life hangs on your courage and skill. Do you want the politics behind my present helpless, almost hopeless predicament–save for you! Or shall I concentrate on the tactical situation?”

(Damn it! I did want the whole story.) “Let’s stick to the tactical situation. For now.”

“I promise,” she said solemnly, “that if we live through it, you shall have every detail. The situation is this: I had intended us to cross Nevia by barge, then through the mountains to reach a Gate beyond the Eternal Peaks. That route is less risky but long.

“But now we must hurry. We will turn off the road late this afternoon and pass through some wild country, and country still worse after dark. The Gate there we must reach before dawn; with luck we may sleep. I hope so, because this Gate takes us to another world at a much more dangerous exit.

“Once there, in that world–Hokesh it is called, or Karth–in Karth-Hokesh we shall be close, too close, to a tall tower, mile high, and, if we win to it, our troubles start. In it is the Never-Born, the Eater
of Souls.”

“Star, are you trying to scare me?”

“I would rather you were frightened now, if such is possible, than have you surprised later. My thought, milord, had been to advise you of each danger as we reached it, so that you could concentrate
on one at a time. But you overruled me.”

“Maybe you were right. Suppose you give me details on each as we come to it, just the outline now. So I’m to fight the Eater of Souls, am I? The name doesn’t scare me; if he tries to eat my soul, he’ll throw up. What do I fight him with? Spit?”

“That is one way,” she said seriously, “but, with luck, we won’t fight him–it–at all. We want what it guards.”

“And what is that?”

“The Egg of the Phoenix.”

“The Phoenix doesn’t lay eggs.”

“I know, milord. That makes it uniquely valuable.”

“But–”

She hurried on. “That is its name. It is a small object, somewhat larger than an ostrich egg and black. If I do not capture it, many bad things will happen. Among them is a small one: I will die. I mention that because it may not seem small to you–my darling! –and it is easier to tell you that one truth than it is to explain the issues.”

“Okay. We steal the Egg. Then what?”

“Then we go home. To my home. After which you may return to yours. Or remain in mine. Or go where you list, through Twenty Universes and myriad worlds. Under any choice, whatever treasure you fancy is yours; you will have earned it and more . . . as well as my heartfelt thanks, milord Hero, and anything you ask of me.”

(The biggest blank check ever written–If I could cash it.) “Star, you don’t seem to think we will live through it.”

She took a deep breath. “Not likely, milord. I tell you truth. My blunder has forced on us a most desperate alternative.”

“I see. Star, will you marry me? Today?”

Then I said, “Easy there! Don’t fall!” She hadn’t been in danger of falling; the seat belt held her. But she sagged against it. I leaned over and put my arm around her shoulders. “Nothing to cry about. Just give me a yes or a no–and I fight for you anyway. On, I forgot. I love you. Anyhow I think it’s love. A funny, fluttery feeling whenever I look at you or think about you–which is mostly.”

“I love you, milord,” she said huskily. “I have loved you since I first saw you. Yes, a ‘funny, fluttery feeling’ as if everything inside me were about to melt down.”

“Well, not quite that,” I admitted. “But it’s probably opposite polarity for the same thing. Fluttery, anyhow. Chills and lightnings. How do we get married around here?”

“But, milord–my love–you always astound me. I knew you loved me. I hoped that you would tell me before–well, in time. Let me hear it once. I did not expect you to offer to marry me!”

“Why not? I’m a man, you’re a woman. It’s customary?”

“But–Oh, my love, I told you! It isn’t necessary to marry me. By your rules . . . I’m a bitch.”

“Bitch, witch, Sing Along with Mitch! What the hell, honey? That was your word, not mine. You have about convinced me that the rules I was taught are barbarous and yours are the straight goods. Better blow your nose–here, want my hanky?

Star wiped her eyes and blew her nose but instead of the yes-darling I wanted to hear she sat up straight and did not smile. She said formally, “Milord Hero, had you not best sample the wine before you buy the barrel?”

I pretended not to understand.

“Please, milord love,” she insisted. “I mean it. There’s a grassy bit on your side of the road, just ahead. You can lead me to it this moment and willingly I will go.”

I sat high and pretended to peer. “Looks like crab grass. Scratchy.”

“Then p-p-pick your own grass! Milord . . . I am willing, and eager, and not uncomely–but you will learn that I am a Sunday painter compared with artists you will someday meet. I am a working woman. I haven’t been free to give the matter the dedicated study it deserves. Believe me! No, try me. You can’t know that you want to marry me.”

“So you’re a cold and clumsy wench, eh?”

“Well . . . I didn’t say that. I’m only entirely unskilled–and I do have enthusiasm.”

“Yes, like your auntie with the cluttered bedroom–it runs in your family, so you said. Let it stand that I ant to marry you in spite of your obvious faults.”

“But–”

“Star, you talk too much.”

“Yes, milord,” she said meekly.

“We’re getting married. How do we do it? Is the local lord also justice of the peace? If he is, there will be no droit du seigneur; we haven’t time for frivolities.” “Each squire is the local justice,” Star agreed thoughtfully, “and does perform marriages, although most Nevians don’t bother. But–Well, yes, he would expect droit du seigneur and, as you pointed out, we haven’t time to waste.”

“Nor is that my idea of a honeymoon. Star–look at me. I don’t expect to keep you in a cage; I know you weren’t raised that way. But we won’t look up the squire. What’s the local brand of preacher? A celibate brand, by choice.”

“But the squire is the priest, too. Not that religion is an engrossing matter in Nevia; fertility rites are all they bother with. Milord love, the simplest way is to jump over your sword.”

“Is that a marriage ceremony where you come from, Star?”

“No, it’s from your world:

‘Leap rogue, and jump whore,

‘And married be forevermore–‘

“–it’s very old.”

“Mmm–I don’t care for the marriage lines. I may be a rogue but I know what you think of whores. What other chances are there?”

“Let me see. There’s a rumormonger in a village we pass through soon after lunch. They sometimes marry townies who want it known far and wide; the service includes spreading the news.”

“What sort of service?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t care, milord love. Married we will be!”

“That’s the spirit! We won’t stop for lunch.”

“No, milord,” she said firmly, “if wife I am to be, I shall be a good wife and not permit you to skip meals.”

“Henpecking already. I think I’ll beat you.”

“As you will, milord. But you must eat, you are going to need your strength–”

“I certainly will!’

“–for fighting. For now I am ten times as anxious that we both live through it. Here is a place for

lunch.” She turned Vita Brevis off the road; Ars Longa followed. Star looked back over her shoulder and dimpled. “Have I told you today that you are beautiful . . . my love!”