The Star Beast (17 page)

Much of the book was devoted to an attempt by Johnnie’s grandfather to clear the name of his own grandfather—for the son of General Stuart was no public hero; instead he had sweated out his last fifteen years of life in the Triton penal colony. His wife had returned to her family on Earth and taken back her maiden name, for herself and her son.

But her son had gone proudly into court the day he was of age and had had his name changed from “Carlton Gimmidge” to “John Thomas Stuart
VIII
.” It was he who had fetched Lummox back and he had used his bonus money from the second trip of the
Trail Blazer
to buy back the old homestead. He had apparently impressed on his own son that his son’s grandfather had gotten a dirty deal; the son had made a great point of it in this record.

Johnnie’s grandfather could himself have used an advocate to defend his name. The record stated simply that John Thomas Stuart
IX
had resigned from the service and had never gone into space again, but Johnnie knew that it had been a choice of that or a court martial; his own father had told him…but he had told him also that his grandfather could have got off scot-free had he been willing to testify. His father had added, “Johnnie, I’d rather see you loyal to your friends than with your chest decked out in medals.”

The old man had still been living at the time Johnnie’s father told him this. On a later occasion, while Johnnie’s father was out on patrol, Johnnie had tried to let him know that he knew.

Granddad had been furious. “Poppycock!” he had shouted. “They had me dead to rights.”

“But Dad said your skipper was actually the one who…”

“Your Dad wasn’t there. Captain Dominic was the finest skipper that ever trod steel…may his soul rest in peace. Set up the checkers, son. I’m going to beat you.”

Johnnie had tried to get the straight of it after his grandfather died, but his father’s answer was not direct. “Your grandfather was a romantic sentimentalist, Johnnie. It’s the flaw in our make-up. Hardly sense enough in the whole line to balance a check book.” He had puffed his pipe and added, “But we do have fun.”

Johnnie put the books and papers away, feeling dully that it had not done him much good to read about his forebears; Lummox was still on his mind. He guessed he ought to go down and try to get some sleep.

He was turning away as the phone flashed; he grabbed it before the light could change to sound signal; he did not want his mother to wake. “Yes?”

“That you, Johnnie?”

“Yeah. I can’t see you, Betty; I’m up in the attic.”

“That isn’t the only reason you can’t. I haven’t got my face on, so I’ve got the video switched off. Besides it’s pitch dark in this hallway, since I’m not allowed to phone this time o’ night. Uh, the Duchess isn’t listening, is she?”

Johnnie glanced at his warning signal. “No.”

“I’ll make this brief. My spies report that Deacon Dreiser got the okay to go ahead.”

“No!”

“Yes. Point is, what do we do about it? We can’t sit still and let him.”

“Uh, I’ve done something.”

“What? Nothing silly, I hope. I shouldn’t have been away today.”

“Well, a Mr. Perkins…”

“Perkins? The chap who went to see Judge O’Farrell tonight?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“Look, don’t waste time. I always know. Tell me your end.”

“Well…” John Thomas gave a confused report. Betty listened without comment, which made him defensive; he found himself expounding the viewpoints of his mother and of Mr. Perkins, rather than his own. “So that’s how it was,” he finished lamely.

“So you told them to go climb a tree? Good, Now here is our next move. If the Museum. can do it, we can do it. It’s just a case of getting Grandpa O’Farrell to…”

“Betty, you don’t understand. I sold Lummox.”

“What? You
sold
Lummox?”

“Yes. I had to. If I didn’t…”

“
You
sold
Lummox
.”

“Betty, I couldn’t help my…”

But she had switched off on him.

He tried to call back, got a recorded voice that said, “This instrument is out of direct service until tomorrow morning at eight. If you wish to record a message stand by for…” He switched off.

He sat holding his head and wishing he were dead. The worst of it was, Betty was right. He had let himself be badgered into doing something he
knew
was wrong, just because it had seemed that there was nothing else he could do.

Betty had not been fooled. Maybe what she wanted to try wasn’t any good either…but she had known a wrong answer when she heard it.

He sat there, flailing himself but not knowing what to do. The more he thought, the angrier he got. He had let himself be talked into something that wasn’t
right
…just because it was reasonable…just because it was logical…just because it was common sense.

The deuce with common sense! His ancestors hadn’t used common sense, any of ’em! Who was he to start such a practice?

None of them had ever done the sensible thing. Why, take his great great great grandfather…he’d found a situation he hadn’t liked and he had turned a whole planet upside down through seven bloody years. Sure, they called him a hero…but does starting a revolution come under the head of common sense?

Or take… Oh, shucks, take any of ’em! There hadn’t been a “good” boy in the bunch. Would granddad have sold Lummox? Why, granddad would have torn down the courthouse with his bare hands. If granddad was here, he’d be standing guard over Lummox with a gun and daring the world to touch one spine.

He certainly wasn’t going to take any of Perkins’ dirty money; he knew that.

But what could he
do?

He could go to Mars. Under the Lafayette Law he was a citizen and could claim land. But how could he get there? Worse, how could he get Lummox there?

The trouble with that, he told himself savagely, is that it almost makes sense. And sense is no use to me.

At last he hit on a plan. It had the one virtue of having no sense to it at all; it was compounded of equal parts of folly and of risk. He felt that granddad would have liked it.

CHAPTER IX

Customs and an Ugly Duckling

HE
went down to the upper hallway and listened at his mother’s door. He did not expect to hear anything as her bedroom was sound-proofed; the action was instinctive. Then he returned to his own room and made rapid preparations, starting by dressing in camping clothes and mountain boots. His sleeping bag he kept in a drawer of his desk; he got it out, tucked it in a side pocket of his coat and shoved its power pack in a breast pocket. Other items of hiking and camping gear he distributed among other pockets and he was almost ready to go.

He counted his cash and swore softly; his other assets were in a savings account and now he would have no chance to draw from it. Well, it couldn’t be helped…he started downstairs, then remembered an important matter. He went back to his desk.

“
Dear Mum
,” he wrote. “
Please tell Mr. Perkins that the deal is off. You can use my college money to pay back the insurance people. Lummie and I are going away and it won’t do any good to try to find us. I’m sorry but we have to
.” He looked at the note, decided that there was no more to be said, added “
love
,” and signed it.

He started a note to Betty, tore it up, tried again, and finally told himself that he would send her a letter when he had more to say. He went downstairs, left the note on the dining table, then went to the pantry and picked out supplies. A few minutes later, carrying a large sack crammed with tins and packages, he went out to Lummox’s house.

His friend was asleep. The watchman eye accepted him; Lummox did not stir. John Thomas hauled back and kicked him as hard as possible. “Hey, Lum! Wake up.”

The beast opened his other eyes, yawned daintily, and piped, “Hello, Johnnie.”

“Pull yourself together. We’re going for a hike.”

Lummox extended his legs and stood up, letting a ripple run from head to stern. “All right.”

“Make me a seat—and leave room for this.” Johnnie held up the bag of groceries. Lummox complied without comment; John Thomas chucked the sack up on the beast, then scrambled up himself. Soon they were on the road in front of the Stuart home.

Almost irrational as he was, John Thomas nevertheless knew that running away and hiding Lummox was a project almost impossible; Lummox anywhere would be about as conspicuous as a bass drum in a bathtub. However there was a modicum of method in his madness; concealing Lummox near Westville was not quite the impossibility it would have been some places.

Westville lay in an open mountain valley; immediately west the backbone of the continent shoved its gaunt ridges into the sky. A few miles beyond the city commenced one of the great primitive areas, thousands of square miles of up-and-down country almost the same as it had been when the Indians greeted Columbus. During a short season each year it swarmed with red-coated sportsmen, blazing away at deer and elk and each other; most of the year it was deserted.

If he could get Lummox there without being seen, it was barely possible that they could avoid being caught—until his food supplies ran out. When that time came—well, he might live off the country just as Lummox would…eat venison, maybe. Or maybe go back to town without Lummox and argue it out again from the strong position of being able to refuse to tell where Lummox was until they listened to reason. The possibilities were not thought out; he simply intended to get Lummox under cover and then think about it…get him somewhere where that old scoundrel Dreiser couldn’t try out ways to hurt him!

John Thomas could have turned Lummox to the west and set off across country toward the mountains, Lummox being no more dependent on pavement than is a tank…but Lummox left a track in soft earth as conspicuous as that of a tank. It was necessary to. stay on paved road.

Johnnie had a solution in mind. In an earlier century a transcontinental highway had crossed the mountains here, passing south of Westville and winding ever higher toward the Great Divide. It had long since been replaced by a modern powered road which tunneled through the wall of rock instead of climbing it. But the old road remained, abandoned, overgrown in many places, its concrete slabs heaved and tilted from frost and summer heat…but still a paved road that would show little sign of Lummox’s ponderous progress.

He led Lummox by back ways, avoiding houses and working toward a spot three miles west where the expressway entered the first of its tunnels and the old highway started to climb. Ht did not go quite to the fork, but stopped a hundred yards short, parked Lummox in front of a vacant lot, warned him not to move, and scouted the lay of the land. He did not dare take Lummox onto the expressway to reach the old road; not only might they be seen but also it would be dangerous to Lummox.

But John Thomas found what he thought he remembered: a construction road looping around the junction. It was not paved but was hard-packed granite gravel and he judged that even Lummox’s heavy steps would not leave prints. He went back and found Lummox placidly eating a “For Sale” sign. He scolded him and took it away, then decided that he might as well get rid of the evidence and gave it back. They continued while Lummox munched the sign.

Once on the old highway John Thomas relaxed. For the first few miles it was in good repair, for it served homes farther up the canyon. But there was no through traffic, it being a dead end, and no local traffic at this hour. Once or twice an air car passed overhead, party or theater goers returning home, but if the passengers noticed the great beast plodding on the road below they gave no sign.

The road meandered up the canyon and came out on a tableland; here was a barrier across the pavement:
ROAD CLOSED
…
VEHICULAR PASSAGE FORBIDDEN BEYOND THIS POINT
. Johnnie got down and looked it over. It was a single heavy timber supported at the chest height. “Lummie, can you walk over that without touching it?”

“Sure, Johnnie.”

“All right. Take it slowly. You mustn’t knock it down. Don’t even brush against it.”

“I won’t, Johnnie.” Nor did he. Instead of stepping over it as a horse might step over a lower barrier Lummox retracted pairs of legs in succession and flowed over it.

Johnnie crawled under the barrier and joined him. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Neither did I.”

The road was rough ahead. Johnnie stopped to lash down the groceries with a line under Lummox’s keel, then added a bight across his own thighs. “All right, Lummie. Let’s have some speed. But don’t gallop; I don’t want to fall off.”

“Hang on, Johnnie!” Lummox picked up speed, retaining. his normal foot pattern. He rumbled along at a fast trot, his gait smoothed out by his many legs. Johnnie found that he was very tired, both in body and spirit. He felt safe, now that they were away from houses and traveled roads, and fatigue hit him. He leaned back and Lummox adjusted his contours to him. The swaying motion and steady pounding of massive feet had soothing effect. Presently he slept.

Lummox went on surefootedly over the broken slabs, He was using his night sight and there was no danger of stumbling in the dark. He knew that Johnnie was asleep and kept his gait as smooth as possible. But in time he got bored and decided on a nap, too. He had not slept well the nights he had spent away from home…always some silliness going on and it had fretted him not to know where Johnnie was. So now he rigged out his guardian eye, closed his others and shifted control over to the secondary brain back in his rump. Lummox proper went to sleep, leaving that minor fraction that never slept to perform the simple tasks of watching for road hazards and of supervising the tireless pounding of his eight great legs.

John Thomas woke as the stars were fading in the morning sky. He stretched his sore muscles and shivered, There were high mountains all around and the road crawled along the side of one, with a sheer drop to a stream far below. He sat up. “Hey, Lummie!”