The Number of the Beast

  “Sharpie munched a sandwich while she carved that thing?”

  “Aunt Hilda is rugged, Zebadiah—almost as rugged as you are.”

  “More rugged than I am. I could do an autopsy if I had to—but not while eating. I think I speak for Jake, too.”

  “I know you speak for Pop. He saw me feeding her, turned green and went elsewhere. Go look at what she’s been doing, Zebadiah; Hilda has found interesting things.”

  “Hmmm—Are you the little girl who had a tizzy at the idea of dissecting a dead alien?”

  “No, sir, I am not. I’ve decided to stay grown up. It’s not easy. But it’s more satisfying. An adult doesn’t panic at a snake; she just checks to see if it’s got rattles. I’ll never squeal again. I’m grown up at last…a wife instead of a pampered princess.”

  “You will always be my Princess!”

  “I hope so, my Chieftain. But to merit that, I must learn to be a pioneer mother—wring the neck of a rooster, butcher a hog, load while my husband shoots, take his place and his rifle when he is wounded. I’ll learn—I’m stubborn, I am. Grab a hunk of pie and go see Hilda. I know just what to do with the extra hundred kilos: books, photographs, Pop’s microfilm files and portable viewer, Pop’s rifle and a case of ammo that the weight schedule didn’t allow for—”

  “Didn’t know he had it—what calibre?”

  “Seven point six two millimeters, long cartridge.”

  “Glory be! Pop and I use the same ammo!”

  “Didn’t know you carried a rifle, Zebadiah.”

  “I don’t advertise it, it’s unlicensed. I must show all of you how to get at it.”

  “Got any use for a lady’s purse gun? A needle gun, Skoda fléchettes. Not much range but either they poison or they break up and expand…and it fires ninety times on one magazine.”

  “What are you, Deety? Honorable Hatchet Man?”

  “No, sir. Pop got it for me—black market—when I started working nights. He said he would rather hire shysters to get me acquitted—or maybe probation—than to have to go down to the morgue to identify my body. Haven’t had to use it; in Logan I hardly need it. Zebadiah, Pop has gone to a great deal of trouble to get me the best possible training in self-defense. He’s just as highly trained—that’s why I keep him out of fist fights. Because it would be a massacre. He and Mama decided this when I was a baby. Pop says cops and courts no longer protect citizens, so citizens must protect themselves.”

  “I’m afraid he’s right.”

  “My husband, I can’t evaluate my opinions of right and wrong because I learned them from my parents and haven’t lived long enough to have formed opinions in disagreement with theirs.”

  “Deety, your parents did okay.”

  “I think so…but that’s subjective. As may be, I was kept out of blackboard jungles—public schools—until we moved to Utah. And I was trained to fight—armed or unarmed. Pop and I noticed how you handled a sword. Your moulinets are like clockwork. And when you drop into point guard, your forearm is perfectly covered.”

  “Jake is no slouch. He drew so fast I never saw it, and cut precisely above the collar.”

  “Pop says you are better at it.”

  “Mmm—Longer reach. He’s probably faster. Deety, the best swordmaster I ever had was your height and reach. I couldn’t even cross blades with him unless he allowed me to.”

  “You never did say where you had taken up swordsmanship.”

  I grinned down at her. “Y.M.C.A. in downtown Manhattan. I had foil in high school. I fiddled with saber and épée in college. But I never encountered swordsmen until I moved to Manhattan. Took it up because I was getting soft. Then during that so-called ‘research trip’ in Europe I met swordsmen with family tradition—sons and grandsons and great-grandsons of maîtres d’armes. Learned that it was a way of life—and I had started too late. Deety, I fibbed to Hilda; I’ve never fought a student duel. But I did train in saber in Heidelberg under the Säbelmeister reputed to coach one underground Korps. He was the little guy I couldn’t cross steel with. Fast! Up to then I had thought I was fast. But I got faster under his tutelage. The day I was leaving he told me that he wished he had had me twenty years sooner; he might have made a swordsman of me.”

  “You were fast enough this afternoon!”

  “No, Deety. You had his eye, I attacked from the flank. You won that fight—not me, not Pop. Although what Pop did was far more dangerous than what I did.”

  “My Captain, I will not let you disparage yourself! I cannot hear you!”

  Women, bless their warm hearts and strange minds—Deety had appointed me her hero; that settled it. I would have to try to measure up. I cut a piece of apple pie, ate it quickly while I walked slowly through the passage into the garage—didn’t want to reach the “morgue” still eating.

  The “ranger” was on its back with clothes cut away, open from chin to crotch, and spread. Nameless chunks of gizzard were here and there around the cadaver. It gave off a fetid odor.

  Hilda was still carving, ice tongs in left hand, knife in her right, greenish goo up over her wrists. As I approached she put down the knife, picked up a razor blade—did not look up until I spoke. “Learning things, Sharpie?”

  She put down her tools, wiped her hands on a towel, pushed back her hair with her forearm. “Zebbie, you wouldn’t believe it.”

  “Try me.”

  “Well…look at this.” She touched the corpse’s right leg, and spoke to the corpse itself. “What’s a nice joint like this doing in a girl like you?”

  I saw what she meant: a long, gaunt leg with an extra knee lower than the human knee; it bent backwards. Looking higher, I saw that its arms had similar extra articulation. “Did you say ‘girl’?”

  “I said ‘girl.’ Zebbie, this monster is either female or hermaphroditic. A fully developed uterus, two-horned like a cat, one ovary above each horn. But there appear to be testes lower down and a dingus that may be a retractable phallus. Female—but probably male as well. Bisexual but does not impregnate itself; the plumbing wouldn’t hook up. I think these critters can both pitch and catch.”

  “Taking turns? Or simultaneously?”

  “Wouldn’t that be sump’n? No, for mechanical reasons I think they take turns. Whether ten minutes apart or ten years, deponent sayeth not. But I’d give a pretty to see two of ’em going to it!”

  “Sharpie, you’ve got a one-track mind.”

  “It’s the main track. Reproduction is the main track; the methods and mores of sexual copulation are the central feature of all higher developments of life.”

  “You’re ignoring money and television.”

  “Piffle! All human activities including scientific research are either mating dances and care of the young, or the dismal sublimations of born losers in the only game in town. Don’t try to kid Sharpie. Took me forty-two years to grab a real man and get myself knocked up—but I made it! Everything I’ve done up to the last two weeks has been ‘vamp till ready.’ How about you, you shameless stud? Am I not right? Careful how you answer; I’ll tell Deety.”

  “I’ll take the Fifth.”

  “Make mine a quart. Zebbie, I hate these monsters; they interfere with my plans—a rose-covered cottage, a baby in the crib, a pot roast in the oven, me in a gingham dress, and my man coming down the lane after a hard day flunking freshmen—me with his slippers and his pipe and a dry martini waiting for him. Heaven! All else is vanity and vexation. Four fully developed mammary glands but lacking the redundant fat characteristic of the human female—’cept me, damn it. A double stomach, a single intestine. A two-compartment heart that seems to pump by peristalsis rather than by beating. Cordate. I haven’t examined the brain; I don’t have a proper saw—but it must be as well developed as ours. Definitely humanoid, outrageously nonhuman. Don’t knock over those bottles; they are specimens of body fluids.”

  “What are these things?”

  “Splints to conceal the unhuman articulation. Plastic surgery on the
face, too, I’m pretty sure, and cheaters to reshape the skull. The hair is fake; these Boojums don’t have hair. Something like tattooing—or maybe masking I haven’t been able to peel off—to make the face and other exposed skin look human instead of blue-green. Zeb, seven-to-two a large number of missing persons have been used as guinea pigs before they worked out methods for this masquerade. Swoop! A flying saucer dips down and two more guinea pigs wind up in their laboratories.”

  “There hasn’t been a flying saucer scare in years.”

  “Poetic license, dear. If they have space-time twisters, they can pop up anywhere, steal what they want—or replace a real human with a convincing fake—and be gone like switching off a light.”

  “This one couldn’t get by very long. Rangers have to take physical examinations.”

  “This one may be a rush job, prepared just for us. A permanent substitution might fool anything but an x-ray—and might fool even x-ray if the doctor giving the examination was one of Them…a theory you might think about. Zebbie, I must get to work. There is so much to learn and so little time. I can’t learn a fraction of what this carcass could tell a real comparative biologist.”

  “Can I help?” (I was not anxious to.)

  “Well—”

  “I haven’t much to do until Jake and Deety finish assembling the last of what they are going to take. So what can I do to help?”

  “I could work twice as fast if you would take pictures. I have to stop to wipe my hands before I touch the camera.”

  “I’m your boy, Sharpie. Just say what angle, distance, and when.”

  Hilda looked relieved. “Zebbie, have I told you that I love you despite your gorilla appearance and idiot grin? Underneath you have the soul of a cherub. I want a bath so badly I can taste it—could be the last hot bath in a long time. And the bidet—the acme of civilized decadence. I’ve been afraid I would still be carving strange meat when Jacob said it was time to leave.”

  “Carve away, dear; you’ll get your bath.” I picked up the camera, the one Jake used for record-keeping: a Polaroid Stereo-Instamatic—self-focusing, automatic irising, automatic processing, the perfect camera for engineer or scientist who needs a running record.

  I took endless pictures while Hilda sweated away. “Sharpie, doesn’t it worry you to work with bare hands? You might catch the Never-Get-Overs.”

  “Zebbie, if these critters could be killed by our bugs, they would have arrived here with no immunities and died quickly. They didn’t. Therefore it seems likely that we can’t by hurt by their bugs. Radically different biochemistries.”

  It sounded logical—but I could not forget Kettering’s Law: “Logic is an organized way of going wrong with confidence.”

  Deety appeared, set down a loaded hamper. “That’s the last.” She had her hair up in a bath knot and was dressed solely in rubber gloves. “Hi, dearest. Aunt Hilda, I’m ready to help.”

  “Not much you can do, Deety hon—unless you want to relieve Zebbie.”

  Deety was staring at the corpse and did not look happy—her nipples were down flat. “Go take a bath!” I told her. “Scram.”

  “Do I stink that badly?”

  “You stink swell, honey girl. But Sharpie pointed out that this may be our last chance at soap and hot water in quite a while. I’ve promised her that we won’t leave for Canopus and points east until she has her bath. So get yours out of the way, then you can help me stow while she gets sanitary.”

  “All right.” Deety backed off and her nipples showed faintly—not rigid but she was feeling better. My darling keeps her feelings out of her face, mostly—but those pretty pink spigots are barometers of her morale.

  “Just a sec, Deety,” Hilda added. “This afternoon you said, ‘He didn’t react!’ What did you mean?”

  “What I said. Strip in front of a man and he reacts, one way or another. Even if he tries to ignore it, his eyes give him away. But he didn’t. Of course he’s not a man—but I didn’t know that when I tried to distract him.”

  I said, “But he did notice you, Deety—and that gave me my chance.”

  “But only the way a dog, or a horse, or any animal, will notice any movement. He noticed but ignored it. No reaction.”

  “Zebbie, does that remind you of anything?”

  “Should it?”

  “The first day we were here you told us a story about a ‘zaftig co-ed.’”

  “I did?”

  “She was flunking math.”

  “Oh! ‘Brainy.’”

  “Yes, Professor N. O’Heret Brain. See any parallel?”

  “But ‘No Brain’ has been on campus for years. Furthermore he turns red in the face. Not a tattoo job.”

  “I said this one might be a rush job. Would anyone be in a better position to discredit a mathematical theory than the head of the department of mathematics at a very prominent university? Especially if he was familiar with that theory and knew that it was correct?”

  “Hey, wait a minute!” put in Deety. “Are you talking about that professor who argued with Pop? The one with the phony invitation? I thought he was just a stooge? Pop says he’s a fool.”

  “He behaves like a pompous old fool,” agreed Hilda. “I can’t stand him. I plan to do an autopsy on him.”

  “But he’s not dead.”

  “That can be corrected!” Sharpie said sharply.

  XII

  “They might fumigate this planet and take it.”

  Hilda:

  By the time I was out of my bath, Jacob, Deety, and Zebbie had Gay Deceiver stowed and lists checked (can opener, cameras, et cetera)—even samples of fluids and tissues from the cadaver, as Zebbie’s miracle car had a small refrigerator. Deety wasn’t happy about my specimens being in the refrigerator but they were very well packed, layer on layer of plastic wrap, then sealed into a freezer box. Besides, that refrigerator contained mostly camera film, dynamite caps, and other noneatables. Food was mostly freeze-dried and sealed in nitrogen, except foods that won’t spoil.

  We were dog tired. Jacob moved that we sleep, then leave. “Zeb, unless you expect a new attack in the next eight hours, we should rest. I need to be clearheaded in handling verniers. This house is almost a fortress, will be pitch black, and does not radiate any part of the spectrum. They may conclude that we ran for it right after we got their boy—hermaphrodite, I mean; the fake ‘ranger’—what do you think?”

  “Jake, I wouldn’t have been surprised had we been clobbered at any moment. Since they didn’t—Well, I don’t like to handle Gay when I’m not sharp. More mistakes are made in battle through fatigue than from any other cause. Let’s sack in. Anybody need a sleeping pill?”

  “All I need is a bed. Hilda my love, tonight I sleep on my own side.”

  I said, “Can’t I even cuddle up your back?”

  “Promise not to tickle?”

  I made a face at my darling. “I promise.”

  “Zebadiah,” Deety said. “I don’t want to cuddle; I want to be held…so I’ll know I’m safe. For the first time since my twelfth birthday I don’t feel sexy.”

  “Princess, it’s settled; we sleep. But I suggest that we be up before daylight. Let’s not crowd our luck.”

  “Sensible,” agreed Jacob.

  I shrugged. “You men have to pilot; Deety and I are cargo. We can nap in the back seats—if we miss a few universes, what of it? If you’ve seen one universe, you’ve seen ’em all. Deety?”

  “If it were up to me, I would lam out of here so fast my shoes would be left standing. But Zebadiah has to pilot and Pop has to set verniers…and both are tired and don’t want to chance it. But, Zebadiah…don’t fret if I rest with my eyes and ears open.”

  “Huh? Deety—why?”

  “Somebody ought to be on watch. It might give us that split-second advantage—split seconds have saved us at least twice. Don’t worry, darling; I often skip a night to work a long program under shared time. Doesn’t hurt me; a nap next day and I’m ready to bite rattlesnakes
. Tell him, Pop.”

  “That’s correct, Zeb, but—”

  Zebbie cut him off. “Maybe you gals can split watches and have breakfast ready. Right now I’ve got to hook up Gay Deceiver so that she can reach me in our bedroom. Deety, I can add a program so that she can listen around the cabin, too. Properly programmed, Gay’s the best watch dog of any of us. Will that satisfy you duty-struck little broads?”

  Deety said nothing so I kept quiet. Zebbie, frowning, turned back to his car, opened a door and prepared to hook Gay’s voice and ears to the three house intercoms. “Want to shift the basement talky-talk to your bedroom, Jake?”

  “Good idea,” Jacob agreed.

  “Wait a half while I ask Gay what she has. Hello, Gay.”

  “Howdy, Zeb. Wipe off your chin.”

  “Program. Running new retrievals. Report new items since last report.”

  “Null report, Boss.”

  “Thank you, Gay.”

  “You’re welcome, Zeb.”

  “Program, Gay. Add running news retrieval. Area, Arizona Strip north of Grand Canyon plus Utah. Persons: all persons listed in current running news retrieval programs plus rangers, Federal rangers, forest rangers, park rangers, state rangers. End of added program.”

  “New program running, Boss.”

  “Program. Add running acoustic report, maximum gain.”

  “New program running, Zeb.”

  “You’re a smart girl, Gay.”

  “Isn’t it time you married me?”

  “Good night, Gay.”

  “Good night, Zeb. Sleep with your hands outside the covers.”

  “Deety, you’ve corrupted Gay. I’ll run a lead outdoors for a microphone while Jake moves the basement intercom to the master bedroom. But maximum gain will put a coyote yapping ten miles away right into bed with you. Jake, I can tell Gay to subtract acoustic report from the news retrieval for your bedroom.”

  “Hilda my love, do you want the acoustic subtracted?”

  I didn’t but didn’t say so; Gay interrupted: