Lazarus stood up. “I must greet Isaac. Zebadiah, have you met him? Come with me. You, too, Deety. Hilda? Please, dear. Jake?”
“Just a moment, you!” Zeb looked at the one interrupting them and felt shock. He had seen that face, that uniform, by a rustic swimming pool. The “ranger” addressed Lazarus: “You’re the one they call the Executive Director. Special Agent L. Ron O’Leemy, InterSpace Patrol. I have warrants for Beowolf Shaeffer, Caspol Jones, and Zebadiah John Carter. Director, I require your cooperation. Article Four Six, Section Six Five, Paragraph Six, InterUniversal Criminal Code.”
“Unhorsed! The Black Knight’s lance right through him! Here come the Valkyries. Hoyotoho!”
Hilda reached out, took the warrants, tore them across. “You’re on the wrong planet, Mac.” She grasped Zeb’s arm. “Come along, Alfred; we must meet Isaac.”
They passed the Dorsai, reached the big Corson flatboat. Completely filling it was a very large Venerian Dragon. The dragon turned an eyestalk toward them; his tendrils touched his voder. “Greetings, Doctor Lazarus Long. Greetings, new friends. May you all die beautifully!”
“Greetings, Sir Isaac. Sir Isaac Newton, this is Doctor Hilda Burroughs Long, Doctor Jacob Burroughs Long, Doctor Deety Carter Long, and Doctor Zebadiah John Carter Long, all of my family.”
“I am honored, learned friends. May your deaths inspire a thousand songs. Doctor Hilda, we have a mutual friend, Professor Wogglebug.”
“Wait, wait! Don’t tear up your tickets. The Valkyries are having a problem. Yes, the judges have confirmed it. No contest! The Dane has ‘killed’ a totally empty suit of armor! Better luck next bout, Pou—Holger.”
“Oh, how delightful! Zebadiah and I saw him just this past week in delivering our children to Oz for the duration of this convention. Did I just miss you?”
The dragon answered, with a Cockney lisp, “No, we are pen pals only. He can’t leave Oz; I had never expected to leave Venus again…until your device—perhaps I should Say Doctor Jacob’s device—made it simple. But see what our friend Professor Wogglebug sent me—” The dragon fiddled at a pouch under his voder.
The InterSpace Patrol Agent O’Leemy tapped Zeb on the shoulder. “I heard those introductions. Come along, Carter!”
“—spectacles to fit my forward stalks, that see through the thickest mist.” He put them on, looked around him. “They clarify any—There! Get him! Grab him! That Beast! Get his Number!” Without a lost instant Deety, Hilda, and Lazarus closed on the “agent”—and were left with torn clothes and plastic splints as the thing got loose. The “special agent” vaulted over the bar, was seen again almost instantly at the far end of the bar, jumped up on it, leapt for the canvas top, grabbed hold of the edge of the illusion hole, swung itself up, bounded for Bifrost, reached it.
Sir Isaac Newton played: “Mellrooney! The worst troublemaker in all the worlds. Lazarus, I never expected to find that Beast in your quiet retreat.”
“Nor did I until I heard all of Zeb’s story. This convention was called expecially to entice him. And it did. But we lost him, we lost him!”
“But I got its Number,” Hilda said and held out its shield: “666”
The fleeing figure, dark against the Rainbow Bridge, grew smaller and higher. Lazarus added, “Or perhaps we haven’t lost him. He’ll never get past Sarge Smith.”
The figure appeared to be several klicks high now, when the illusion suddenly broke. The Rainbow was gone, the terraces melted, the clouds were gone, the towers and castles of Asgard could no longer be seen.
In the middle distance, very high up, a figure was tumbling, twisting, falling. Zeb said, “Sarge won’t have to bother. We’ve seen the last of it.”
The voder answered: “Friend Zebadiah…are you sure?”
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ROBERT ANSON HEINLEIN was born in Butler, Missouri, in 1907. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, he was retired, disabled, in 1934. He studied mathematics and physics at the graduate school of the University of California and owned a silver mine before beginning to write science fiction in 1939. In 1947 his first book of fiction, Rocket Ship Galileo, was published. His novels include Double Star (1956), Starship Troopers (1959), Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), and The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966), all winners of the Hugo Award. Heinlein was guest commentator for the Apollo-11 first lunar landing. In 1975 he received the Grand Master Nebula Award for lifetime achievement.
Robert A. Heinlein, The Number of the Beast
(Series: # )
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