The Steam-Driven Boy (6 page)

The man in the green hat sighed. ‘You’ll do. As the great
n
-tuple agent Waldmir said, “More than anyone else, a spy must look like anyone else.”’ The face was invisible beneath the brim of the green hat; Peter saw only a row of jagged lower teeth. ‘Now here’s the plan: Lumpkin wants war with the U.S., and they’re ready to attack. All they need is for their computer to give the word. When the auspices are right, they’ll launch enough missiles to turn the United States of Earth into a fireball.

‘Your job is to steal the gizmo that programs the computer. It’s a small device, easily concealed in this satchel. You’re to deliver it at the rocket terminal to a man called Adrian. He’ll be wearing a green hat like this, and he runs the postcard concession. Got it?’

‘Where do I get it, though? And how?’

‘It’s locked up in the War Department’s safe.’ The man handed Peter a package of cigarettes. ‘This is in reality a time machine. You’ll simply project yourself into the future, watch yourself open the safe, and thus learn the combination. Then you come back into the present and open the safe. Got it?’

‘Seems to me there’s a paradox there somewhere,’ mused Peter, scratching his unshaven chin. ‘But go on. What happens after I deliver it?’

‘Once we have the gizmo – which closely resembles a rare old phonograph record, they say – we’ll be able to re-program their computer. We’ll fool it into believing the war is over, and that the U.S. has won. Our troops will land at once, and our army of trained tourists will follow, to punish the rebellious Lumpkinites.’ The man ran his tongue over the jagged teeth in a gesture of keen anticipation. ‘But you’d better get started. There isn’t much time.’

The little man in sunglasses was still behind him. Ahead was a sign:

‘A
NNIE’S
E
ARTHSIDE
B
AR
. Your home away from home – No Credit.’ Gratefully Peter ducked into the ill-lit, evil-smelling taproom. How well he knew this derelict retreat – and its lovely proprietress.

Annie came to his table and leaned over him, her raven hair brushing his cheek. Her slender alabaster throat worked with unspoken emotion, as huskily she breathed, ‘No Credit.’

‘Annie, you’ve got to hide me.’

But no, already it was too late! Pressing his package of cigarettes, Peter could see that the little man would find him here. Sighing, he ordered a beer and began telling Annie about the fauna of that exotic planet, Earth.

‘Then there’s the animal
ghosts
. Like the Bansheep. You’re walking alone in Ionia at night, see? Suddenly you hear this awful wail:
Gaaaaa
. You see something big and white moving out there in the darkness –’

‘You told me that one,’ she said. The short, weasel-faced man came in and sat at the next table. He removed his sunglasses, and Peter saw that his eyes never strayed from the satchel in Peter’s hand.

‘Then how about the Grisly Bear? That’s the blood-dripping spirit of a bear that prowls the forests of Iowa. He can’t get back to his body, see, because someone killed it while he was sleeping. Hibernating. He prowls in Ireland –’

‘You said Iowa.’

‘I meant Ireland, of course. Where all bears’ souls go when they are hibernating. That’s why they call it Hibernia.’

The little man drew a laser gun, just as Peter knew he would. ‘What have you got in that satchel?’ he asked, right on cue.

‘Only an old phonograph record.’ It was a desperate move, but the wrong one.

‘Is it the Andrews Sisters, singing “Apple Blossom Time?” If so, then I arrest you in the name of –’

Taking a tighter grip on the satchel, Peter passed out.

He came to his senses in an opulent apartment, where an equally opulent blonde was arguing with the weasel-like man. Waving a saw, the girl exclaimed, ‘It’s the only way! The satchel is made of some impenetrable material, and he refuses to let go of it.’

‘Mmf. You may be right, my dear. But can’t we just search him and get the key to the satchel?’

‘Search him? Ugh! I refuse to touch that filthy creature,’ she replied, giving a ladylike shudder.

‘I’m awake!’ Peter announced. ‘Here, I’ll open the case for you.’

‘Do not try any tricks, my filthy friend,’ the man snarled. ‘Roberta, keep him covered with the saw.’

While he pretended to ply the lock, Peter stalled for time. ‘Have I ever told you about the Were-hen? In eastern Iceland, when the hen-bane blooms and the Moon looks like a big devilled egg, the peasants all lock their doors … ’

In a blur of motion Peter was up, leaping out of the window.

To his astonishment, he found himself back in the same room. ‘What happened?’ he asked, as Roberta once more aimed the saw at him.

‘You cannot escape,’ the ferret-faced man chuckled, ‘for the simple reason that there is nowhere to escape to. Mmmf. You see, we are in a re-oriented universe, bounded by the walls of this room. There is no outside.’

The blonde moved closer, exuding an odour of musk. ‘For that matter, darling, why try to escape?’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t you rather stay here with me – always?’

‘If this is a closed universe, what would we have to eat and drink?’ asked Peter warily.

‘We could live on love. Now put down your satchel and kiss me.’

‘Nope. There’s something phoney about you, woman. For one thing, your teeth look too real. And that musk. You seem to be exuding it through a single pore on your lovely alabaster neck.’

At that moment, Roberta’s whole body began throwing off a deadly, high-voltage corona.

‘A robot!’ he exclaimed, leaping back. ‘I should have known. Only robots call everybody darling.’

Her arms outstretched, she stumbled about the room after him. ‘… darling … ’ she murmured. With all escape cut off, with her fire-crackling, million-volt arms reaching for him, Peter stumbled over a curiously-carved buddha, and the room disappeared!

He found himself seated under a blinding white light, while shadowy figures moved about him.

‘Who are you? What are you doing here? What is in the – mmmf – the satchel?’ asked the ferret’s voice, full of scary echoes. Peter did not reply.

‘A lovely girl you have. It would be a pity if anything happened to spoil her loveliness … ’

‘You wouldn’t dare!’ Peter shouted, struggling to rise.

‘Wouldn’t I? What is your name?’

‘Rumplestiltskin is my –’ Something cracked him across the side of the head, a stunning blow that made bells ring and stars whirl.

The bells and stars were real. In the control room of the space ship, the alarm signalled a meteor swarm dead ahead. Why isn’t the ship automatically veering off? Peter wondered.

The answer was a shadowy figure hunched over the controls, keeping the steering wheel locked on course. It leered round at him, a ferine face with beady eyes and a cruel, mad smile.

‘Unless you give me that satchel this instant I shall – mmmf – send us both to our deaths,’ the little man chortled.

‘Speaking of death,’ said Peter, ‘I have heard tales from the West Indies of animal zombies. For example, the Undead Duck.’

Deftly, Peter swung the satchel at the preoccupied face. The weasel was slapped to the floor, and the ship began to veer – but too late!
Already the meteors were there, patiently boring into the hull!

At once, Peter shifted into reverse, minus the speed of light. Hurtling across the universe, his ship met its counterpart, moving at plus the speed of light. POW! Matter met anti-matter, and both exploded in a flash of light and anti-light! Zungg! Off went Peter at sidewise the speed of light, pursued by residual matter in the form of a slimy alien. It was all mush, with two beady antennae.

‘Wait fill I get my mandibles on you. Mmmf!’ the alien thought at him.

‘You’ve got another think coming,’ Peter’s mind shot back. ‘I’ve been pursued by worse.’

‘Really? Put down your satchel and tell me about it.’

Peter did not slacken his pace, but he began to spin his tale. He spoke of a time in India when he had been pursued by a giant, lumbering beast that was totally invisible – the Cellophant!

But now the slimy alien was fast closing the gap between it and its prey! Seeing a lump of inert matter by the roadside, Peter dodged behind it and let the clumsy alien blunder on past.

‘Whew!’ he said, glancing at the lump of inert matter.

On closer inspection, it proved to be really a fast, late-model car. Peter leaped in and wheeled the machine down the road.

A speck appeared in the rear-view mirror, and grew to a taxi. ‘It follows, that cab,’ Peter said grimly. He speeded up, but the taxi continued to gain; now he could make out the driver’s sharp nose and beady eyes. Peter knew he could never outrun the taxi, for it was no doubt a disguised ground-effect machine.

And dead ahead was Hairpin Turn. This spot had received its colourful name from the fact that one could throw a hairpin over its edge, and never hear it hit bottom. Often women came to toss bobby pins into the abyss, and listen in vain for their clatter. Just now, in fact, a lone woman stood at the brink, jettisoning
objets de coiffure
over the precipice, and unsuccessfully endeavouring to ascertain their collision with the ground. Disengaging a pin from her lovely auburn hair, she precipitated it into the chasm, and strained her ears without avail, to perceive its impact. She wore a trench coat.

As the taxi drew abreast of him, Peter cramped the wheel sharply, then braked to a halt. The taxi plunged into space and tumbled end over end, finally bursting into flames.

‘Want a lift?’ said Peter, eyeing the girl. Without a word she was in his arms, sobbing and pressing her burning lips to his.

As they drove away, he switched on the radio.

‘– and partly cloudy. The most sensational news story of the day is the escape of condemned criminal Peter O’Hare, alias Jean Pierre Lapin, slated to die this noon by the guillotine. Police say the notorious satchel-thief made his escape this morning, from the midst of an interrogation. He is believed hiding out in parallel universes, other dimensions or the Paris sewers.’

The glove compartment popped open, and out stepped a small, stoat-like
man holding an ugly automatic.

‘Mmmf. Would you be so good as to hand over that satchel?’ he said, his beady eyes regarding it hungrily. ‘I shall reward you, of course – with death.’

‘Have I told you about the Octicorn?’ asked Peter. ‘He is that strange beast of Idaho, having the body of a unicorn and the head of an octopus. He runs madly about, utterly harmless and annoying no one, waving his big flabby head about –’

‘I do not care for animal jokes,’ said the man coldly. ‘Greta here and I are ingeniously mutated, carefully trained foxes. Rather, I am a fox, and she is a vixen. I forget whether our children are called pups or cubs. While she stopped your car, I hid myself in your glove compartment. Sly, was it not?’

‘A vixen!’ Peter exclaimed. ‘Why, the little minx!’ He pinched Greta’s cheek, and she bit his finger. ‘Ow. This reminds me of an Arab I once knew, who ran a flea circus in Iran. Perhaps you’ve heard of the 1,001 Arabian Mites? No? Well, one day, one of them escaped. To make sure, the Arab had to count them. One mite, two mites, three mites … ’

Peter worked loose two wires from the dashboard. These he led back to the gas tank, while his story created the necessary diversion. Fishing a copper and a zinc penny from his pocket, he spit upon a piece of paper and placed it between theni.

‘Nine hundred ninety-eight mites, nine hundred ninety-nine mites…’ Pressing the two wires to his pennies, Peter flung himself from the car. He felt a blast of heat at his back, and a moment later, heard the distant roar, as the vehicle blew up.

‘The old penny-battery trick always works,’ he mused, watching a column of smoke rise from what once was Kansas City. Great clouds of locusts swept by him, on their way to devastate wheat fields and dominate the planet.

Peter rushed to his anti-grav machine, which opened to the image of his ear-print. As he lifted off, he felt he was not alone in the cabin. Keep calm, he thought, and continued to adjust the huge steam valves as if nothing were wrong. All the same he knew he was being watched by someone – or something. He turned.

And gasped. A Horrible Spore was rolling toward him, seeking food.

‘Mmmf,’ it roared.

There was no time for escape. Already the Spore’s pseudopods were reaching for him. Peter’s entire life passed before his eyes. Then, for the pseudopods had not yet clutched him, he speculated on the sort of life he could have had.

Roping steers. Reading billboards. Trading in my car, he thought, bitterly. Eating a hotdog, and throwing the wrapper into the Grand Canyon. Taking home movies of the wife and kids. For that matter, a wife and kids.

The Horrible Spore surrounded him, and began its peculiar pattern of
digestion, a fission process. Peter was split into two duplicates of himself, and these fissioned in turn. Shortly there were inside the Spore a hundred thousand tiny hims.

Peter knew a bit of mob psychology. He knew that by nature they are quarrelsome and arrogant, wilful and dissatisfied. Mobs long to plunder and burn; are terrible when frustrated, and in general, cowards. He keenly felt all these qualities within himselves.