The Star Beast (14 page)

Mr. MacClure met the occasion. “How do you do, Doctor? Or should I say ‘Excellency’?” He had the grace not to stare.

“‘Doctor’ will do nicely, Mr. Secretary. I am well, thank you. May I enquire as to your health?”

“Oh, good enough, good enough…if everything didn’t pop at once. Which reminds me…can you spare me my chief assistant? I’m awfully sorry but something urgent has come up.”

“Certainly, Mr. Secretary. Your pleasure is my greatest wish.”

Mr. MacClure looked sharply at the medusoid but found himself unable to read his expression…if the thing had expressions, he amended. “Uh, I trust you are being well taken care of, Doctor?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Good. I really am sorry, but… Henry, if you please?”

Mr. Kiku bowed to the Rargyllian, then left the table while wearing an expression so masklike that Greenberg shivered. Kiku spoke in a whisper to MacClure as soon as they were away from the table.

MacClure glanced back at the other two, then answered in a whisper that Greenberg could catch. “Yes, yes! But this is crucially important, I tell you. Henry, what in the world possessed you to ground those ships without consulting me first?”

Mr. Kiku’s reply was inaudible. MacClure went on, “Nonsense! Well, you will just have to come out and face them. You can’t…”

Mr. Kiku turned back abruptly. “Dr. Ftaeml, was it your intention to return to the Hroshii ship tonight?”

“There is no hurry. I am at your service, sir.”

“You are most gracious. May I leave you in Mr. Greenberg’s care? We speak as one.”

The Rargyllian bowed. “I shall count it an honor.”

“I look forward to the pleasure of your company tomorrow.”

Dr. Ftaeml bowed again. “Until tomorrow. Mr. Secretary, Mr. Under Secretary…your servant.”

The two left. Greenberg did not know whether to laugh or cry; he felt embarrassed for his whole race. The medusoid was watching him silently.

Greenberg grinned with half his mouth and said, “Doctor, does the Rargyllian tongue include swear words?”

“Sir, I can use profanity in more than a thousand tongues…some having curses that will addle an egg at a thousand paces. May I teach you some of them?”

Greenberg sat back and laughed heartily. “Doctor, I like you. I really like you…quite aside from our mutual professional duty to be civil.”

Ftaeml shaped his lips in a good imitation of a human smile. “Thank you, sir. The feeling is mutual…and gratifying. May I say without offense that the reception given my sort on your great planet is sometimes something that one must be philosophical about?”

“I know. I’m sorry. My own people, most of them, are honestly convinced that the prejudices of their native village were ordained by the Almighty. I wish it were different.”

“You need not be ashamed. Believe me, sir, that is the one conviction which is shared by all races everywhere…the only thing we all have in common. I do not except my own race. If you knew languages… All languages carry in them a portrait of their users and the idioms of every language say over and over again, ‘He is a stranger and therefore a barbarian.’”

Greenberg grinned wryly. “Discouraging, isn’t it?”

“Discouraging? Why, sir? It is sidesplitting. It is the only joke that God ever repeats, because its humor never grows stale.” The medusoid added, “What is your wish, sir? Are we to continue to explore this matter? Or is your purpose merely to stretch the palaver until the return of your…associate?”

Greenberg knew that the Rargyllian was saying as politely as possible that Greenberg could not act without Kiku. Greenberg decided that there was no sense in pretending otherwise…and besides, he was hungry. “Haven’t we worked enough today, Doctor? Would you do me the honor of having dinner with me?”

“I would be delighted! But…you know our peculiarities of diet?”

“Certainly. Remember, I spent some weeks with one of your compatriots. We can go to the Hotel Universal.”

“Yes, of course.” Dr. Ftaeml seemed unenthusiastic.

“Unless there is something you would like better?”

“I have heard of your restaurants with entertainment…would it be possible? Or is it…?”

“A night club?” Greenberg thought. “Yes! The Club Cosmic. Their kitchen can do anything the Universal can.”

They were about to leave when a door dilated and a slender, swarthy man stuck his head in. “Oh. Excuse me. I thought Mr. Kiku was here.”

Greenberg remembered suddenly that the boss had summoned a relativity mathematician. “Just a moment You must be Dr. Singh.”

“Yes.”

“Sorry. Mr. Kiku had to leave, I am here for him.”

He introduced the two and explained the problem. Dr. Singh looked over the Rargyllian’s scroll and nodded. “This will take a while.”

“May I help you, Doctor?” asked Ftaeml.

“It won’t be necessary. Your notes are quite complete.” Thus assured, Greenberg and Ftaeml went out on the town.

The floor show at the Club Cosmic included a juggler, which delighted Ftaeml, and girls, which delighted Greenberg. It was late by the time Greenberg left Ftaeml in one of the special suites reserved for non-human guests of DepSpace at Hotel Universal. Greenberg was yawning as he came down the lift, but decided that the evening had been worth while in the interest of good foreign relations.

Tired though he was, he stopped by the department. Dr. Ftaeml had spilled one item during the evening that he thought the boss should know…tonight if he could reach him, or leave it on his desk if not. The Rargyllian, in an excess of pleasure over the juggler, had expressed regret that such things must so soon cease to be.

“What do you mean?” Greenberg had asked.

“When mighty Earth is volatilized…” the medusoid had begun, then stopped.

Greenberg had pressed him about it. But the Rargyllian insisted that he had been joking.

Greenberg doubted if it meant anything. But Rargyllian humor was usually much more subtle; he decided to tell the boss about it as quickly as possible. Maybe that strange ship needed a shot of paralysis frequencies, a “nutcracker” bomb, and a dose of vacuum.

The night guard at the door stopped him. “Mr. Greenberg…the Under Secretary has been looking for you for the past half hour.”

He thanked the guard and hurried upstairs. Mr. Kiku he found bent over his desk; the incoming basket was clogged as always but the Under Secretary was paying no attention. He glanced up and said quietly, “Good evening, Sergei. Look at this.” He passed over a report.

It was Dr. Singh’s rework of Dr. Ftaeml’s notes. Greenberg picked out at the bottom the geocentric coordinates and did a quick sum. “Over nine hundred light-years!” he commented. “And out in that direction, too. No wonder we’ve never encountered them. Not exactly next door neighbors, eh?”

“Never mind that,” Mr. Kiku admonished. “Not the date. This computation is the Hroshii’s claim as to when and where they were visited by one of our ships.”

Greenberg looked and felt his eyebrows crawl up toward his scalp. He turned to the answer machine and started to code an inquiry. “Don’t bother,” Kiku told him. “Your recollection is correct. The
Trail Blazer
. Second trip.”

“The
Trail Blazer
,” Greenberg repeated foolishly.

“Yes. We never knew where she went, so we couldn’t have guessed. But we know exactly
when
she went. It matches. Much simpler hypothesis than Dr. Ftaeml’s twin races.”

“Of course.” He looked at his boss. “Then it is-Lummox.”

“Yes, it’s Lummox.”

“But it
can’t
be Lummox. No hands. Stupid as a rabbit.”

“No, it can’t be. But it is.”

CHAPTER VII

“Mother Knows Best”

LUMMOX
was not in the reservoir. He had got tired and had gone home. It had been necessary to tear a notch in the reservoir to get out comfortably, but he had damaged it no more than was needful. He did not care to have any arguments with John Thomas over such silly matters—not any more arguments, that is.

Several people made a fuss over his leaving, but he ignored them. He was careful not to step on anybody and their actions he treated with dignified reserve. Even when they turned loose hated spray things on him he did not let them herd him thereby, the way they had herded him out of that big building the day he had gone for a walk; he simply closed his eyes and his rows of nostrils, put his head down and slogged for home.

John Thomas met him on the way, having been fetched by the somewhat hysterical chief of safety. Lummox stopped and made a saddle for John Thomas, after mutual greetings and reassurances, then resumed his steady march homeward.

Chief Dreiser was almost incoherent. “Turn that brute around and head him back!” he screamed.

“You do it,” Johnnie advised grimly.

“I’ll have your hide for this! I’ll—I’ll—”

“What have
I
done?”

“You—It’s what you haven’t done. That beast broke out and—”

“I wasn’t even there,” John Thomas pointed out while Lummox continued plodding.

“Yes, but… That’s got nothing to do with it! He’s out now; it’s up to you to assist the law and get him penned up again. John Stuart, you’re getting in serious trouble.”

“I don’t see how you figure. You took him away from me. You got him condemned and you say he doesn’t belong to me any longer. You tried to kill him…you know you did, without waiting to see if the government would okay it. If he belongs to me, I ought to sue you. If he doesn’t belong to me, it’s no skin off my nose if Lummox climbs out of that silly tank.” John Thomas leaned over and looked down. “Why don’t you climb into your car, Chief, instead of running along beside us and getting yourself winded?”

Chief Dreiser ungraciously accepted the advice and let his driver pick him up. By the time this was done he had somewhat recovered his balance. He leaned out and said, “John Stuart, I won’t bandy words with you. What I have or have not done hasn’t anything to do with the case. Citizens are required to assist peace officers when necessary. I am demanding officially—and I’ve got this car’s recorder going while I ask it—that you assist me in returning that beast to the reservoir.”

John Thomas looked innocent. “Then can I go home?”

“Huh? Of course.”

“Thanks, Chief. Uh, how long do you figure he will stay in the reservoir after I put him in it and go home? Or were you planning on hiring me in as a permanent member of your police force?”

Chief Dreiser gave up; Lummox went home.

Nevertheless Dreiser regarded it as only a temporary setback; the stubbornness that made him a good police officer did not desert him. He admitted to himself that the public was probably safer with the beast penned up at home while he figured out a surefire way to kill him. The order from the Under Secretary for Spatial Affairs, permitting him to destroy Lummox arrived and that made Dreiser feel better…old Judge O’Farrell had been pretty sarcastic about his jumping the gun.

The cancellation of that order and the amended order postponing Lummox’s death indefinitely never reached him. A new clerk in the communications office of DepSpace made a slight error, simply a transposition of two symbols; the cancellation went to Pluto…and the amended order, being keyed to the cancellation, followed it.

So Dreiser sat in his office with the death order clutched in his hand and thought about ways to kill the beast Electrocution? Maybe…but he could not even guess at how much of a jolt it would take to do it. Cut his throat like butchering a hog? The Chief had serious doubts about what sort of knife to use and what the brute would be doing in the meantime.

Firearms and explosives were no good. Wait a minute! Get the monster to open its mouth, wide, then shoot straight down its throat, using an explosive charge that would blow his innards to bits. Kill him instantly—yes, sir! Lots of animals had armor—turtles, rhinos, armadillos, and things—but always outside, not inside. This brute was no exception; Chief Dreiser had had several looks down inside that big mouth the time he had tried poison. The beast might be armor plate outside; inside he was pink and moist and soft like everybody else.

Now let’s see; he’d have the Stuart boy tell the brute to hold its mouth open and…no, that wouldn’t do. The boy would see what was up and like as not would order the beast to charge…and then some cops’ widows would draw pensions. That boy was going bad, no doubt of it…funny how a good boy could take a wrong turn and wind up in prison.

No, the thing to do was to get the kid downtown on some excuse and carry out the order while he wasn’t around. They could entice the brute into saying “ah!” by offering him food…“tossing it to him,” Dreiser amended.

He glanced at his clock. Today? No, he wanted to choose the weapon and then rehearse everybody so that it would go like clockwork. Tomorrow early…better have the boy picked up right after breakfast.

Lummox seemed contented to be home, ready to let bygones be bygones. He never said a word about Chief Dreiser and, if he realized that anyone had tried to harm him, he did not mention it. His naturally sunny disposition displayed itself by wanting to put his head in Johnnie’s lap for cuddling. It had been a long time since his head was small enough for this; he merely placed the end of his muzzle on the boy’s thigh, carrying the weight himself, while Johnnie stroked his nose with a brickbat.

Johnnie was happy only on one side. With the return of Lummox he felt much better, but he knew that nothing had been settled; presently Chief Dreiser would again try to kill Lummox. What to do about it was an endless ache in his middle.

His mother had added to his unhappiness by raising a loud squawk when she saw “that beast!” returned to the Stuart home. John Thomas had ignored her demands, threats, and orders and had gone ahead stabling his friend and feeding and watering him; after a while she had stormed back into the house, saying that she was going to phone Chief Dreiser. Johnnie had expected that and was fairly sure that nothing would come of it…and nothing did; his mother remained in the house. But Johnnie brooded about it; he had a life-long habit of getting along with his mother, deferring to her, obeying her. Bucking her was even more distressing to him than it was to her. Every time his father had left (including the time his ship had not come back) he had told Johnnie, “Take care of your mother, son. Don’t cause her any trouble.”