She glanced down at her firmly anchored feet. "Curses—foiled again!" she cried. She charged him, arms extended.
Norton knew he should hit her with his rod, but three things prevented him. First, she remained the most lusciously curvaceous item of distaff flesh he had ever seen, and it was against his instinct to brutalize that. Second, when he tried to ready the rod, he lost his grip on the case of stored cans of beans that had anchored him, so he could not strike effectively. Third, she was on him before he could do anything.
Her mass carried him right back into the control room. She was naked now, and felt every bit as luscious as she looked. Her hand struck his rod and it flew free. Now he was weaponless!
Bat Dursten was unable to help; he was too busy climbing back into his space suit. "To think—I almost kissed it!" the spaceman muttered, looking sick. "A Bem Femme!"
Norton was unable to gain any purchase, for the Bem Femme had hold of him and lifted him aloft. This was easy enough for her to do, since he weighed nothing at the moment, while she had good sucker purchase on the deck. He found himself captive as the woman's shape melted beneath him. Her pretty face sagged into putty; her lovely breasts became great blisters of flesh. She metamorphosed into a mass of gelatin surmounted by three enormous bug eyes. Her two arms became three tentacles, still holding him tight. Her torso quivered in jelly like ripples, as it had before, but somehow the effect was less aesthetic.
"Just wait till I form some good, hard teeth!" she said from the gaping orifice that was all that was left of her once-human mouth. "I'll chomp you to bits!"
Helpless, Norton stalled for time by engaging in dialogue, hoping Dursten would complete his dressing soon and recover his blaster. "How did you get aboard, Bem?"
"I stowed away while the ship was in port," she said. Already fierce teeth were growing in the orifice.
"Are there many of you in the fleet?"
"Sorry—that information is classified."
How like a military creature! "If you're going to consume me anyway, why can't you tell me?"
She scratched behind a bug eye with the tip of a free tentacle. "I suppose it's because I don't know the answer."
Oh. "Why didn't you kill us before we suspected your identity?" Where was Dursten?
"Too risky to tackle two at once. I planned to eat Dursten first, then do you when I got hungry again. It takes a while to digest a man; go too fast, and you get gas."
Norton could see why a gelatinous creature would not want to get gas. "But you could have eaten him when we were both strapped in our seats!"
The Bem blinked all three bug eyes. "Say, I never thought of that! Why didn't you speak sooner?"
"Why didn't you eat him the moment you got him alone?"
"Well, he is a handsome man, and not too bright—"
"You mean you'd actually—?" Norton asked, shocked.
"Oh, we do it all the time to beautiful Femme humans. I thought it would be a nice change to do it to a handsome Manne human this time."
"But you're a completely different species!"
"True. But space duty does get dull, and novelty is the vinegar of life."
"Spice of life."
"Whatever. Now I'm ready to eat you."
Norton, set back by the dialogue, could not think of another question. This was unfortunate, because now the teeth were thoroughly formed and the orifice was ready to commence consumption. "Help, Bat!" he screamed.
"I can't get my foot into this
[email protected]%!! space boot!" the spaceman swore from the back room.
The Bem's orifice gaped. The huge, gleaming, new saw teeth glistened with saliva. The three tentacles hauled Norton down into the maw. "Bat, forget the boot!" he yelled. "The monster's eating me!"
"Be there in two shakes of a croggle's tail," Dursten called back. "My blaster floated away; got to find it."
Norton struggled, but still had no purchase. He kicked the monster in an eye, shattering the orb. "Oh, you mean thing!" the Bem complained. "Why did you have to do that?"
"All's fair in war," Norton said, trying to kick at another eye, but he could not get correctly aimed.
"Well, no matter," the Bem said philosophically, blinking her two remaining eyes. "I will grow a new one as soon as I digest you." She sprouted several more tentacles to pin his extremities, rendering him completely helpless. The monster was surprisingly strong.
"Bat!" Norton yelled desperately, but heard only a muttered curse as the spaceman still searched for his missing blaster.
The descent into the maw resumed. In her natural shape, the Bem seemed larger; she really could consume him entire. He continued to think of the monster as female, because of the Femme form it had assumed. Was this the end?
The teeth closed on his boots and began to crunch through them. Saliva washed over the leather. Apparently the Bem could digest these, too.
Then Norton had an inspiration of sorts. "Sning!" he cried. "What should I do?"
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
So much for that. "Well, save yourself, anyway," he said to the little snake. "Get out of here before the maw reaches my hands and chews them and you up."
Sning uncoiled and slid from Norton's finger. He floated a moment in air, also being subject to free-fall, then wriggled forward, using the air itself to slide against. He moved to Norton's pocket where the compressed Hourglass was and tapped it meaningfully with his nose.
The Hourglass! Of course! Would it work when folded away? According to Lachesis, it was unchanged, merely seeming different. Norton willed its sand to turn red. Travel! In time! he thought fiercely.
Suddenly he was in space, alone. He had traveled, but the ship had not. He realized that the ship was not a planet; the spell did not align him with it automatically. The other way! he thought, hoping this command sufficed.
Evidently it did. In a subjective moment, he was back in the ship, homing in on his prior situation. Stop.
He stopped. He was floating in the control room, behind the two pilot seats. Dursten and Norton himself were discussing the mechanism for controlling the ship. Neither saw the new Norton. Neither robot nor Femme was in evidence; this must be the time right between their appearances.
The prospect of paradox overwhelmed him for the moment. Could he interfere with the events of his past self and change events he had already experienced? He had been told he was an entity apart, in control of time—but he had never consciously tested paradox. He might change the lives of other people—but how could he change his own? Yet if he did not, he would be consumed by the Bem. This did not appeal any more than the prospect of paradox did.
Now he saw the Femme approaching. Hastily he willed the sand and slid forward a few minutes, managing to keep his place within the ship. He floated behind the Bem as she held his former self aloft. This was what he had come to undo.
He remembered how he had been wrenched when he turned over the Hourglass, because that reversed his own timeline. Would it do that now, returning him to this point, or a point before the Bem had grabbed him? He had to try!
He turned the glass—and found himself moving backward, along with the scene. The Bem retreated with her burden to the back room, while he—
He turned the Hourglass over again, and forward progress resumed. The Bem returned.
This wasn't getting him anywhere, because it wasn't changing reality, just his present perception of it. Reality was like a holo he could run forward or backward but could not change. But change was what he needed.
Still, if he could affect reality one way, he could affect it another. He concentrated on the Hourglass, turning the sand black.
The scene froze, except for himself. The Bem held the prior Norton aloft, both of them like statues.
Funny—he didn't remember being frozen before. But, of course, the objects were not aware of that, and his prior self was now an object. When they resumed action, they thought it had proceeded uninterrupted. So he could have been frozen...
Norton stepped forward, win
dmilling in air when his feet lacked traction, grabbed a tentacle, and wrenched it off his other self's arm. The tentacle was cold, slimy, and repulsive, but he was able to unwind it. Then he tackled the others. Soon he had his former self free. They were floating, the now-self animate, the then-self a statue.
Very well. He had rescued himself from the Bem. But how could he recombine?
One way to find out. He concentrated on the Hourglass, turning the sand white again. Normal time resumed.
The Bem waved her tentacles. "Hey, where'd you go?" she exclaimed indignantly.
"I'm not sure," the then-Norton said.
"Don't worry about it," the now-Norton said. "We've got to get rid of this monster before she eats us both!"
"My thought exactly," the other Norton agreed. "No sense giving her gas." He floated to the drifting rod, grabbed it, and tried to stalk the Bem. This wasn't very successful.
Then the Bem helped. She shot out a tentacle and grabbed the other Norton around the waist. Thus anchored, then-Norton raised the rod with both hands and brought it down on what passed for the Bem's head. An eye shattered; now-Norton wasn't certain whether it was the one he had kicked in before, a new one, or whether this was happening before he had kicked that eye.
"Ooooh, that smarts!" the Bem exclaimed, retreating toward the control panel.
Then another strange thing happened. Norton's position jumped. He found himself in the other body, the tentacle around his waist, the rod in his hands.
He had recombined! Time had progressed beyond the point at which he had commenced his time travel, so now there was only one of him. His experience had combined, too; he remembered being mysteriously freed from the clutch of the Bem, as well as remembering doing it while time was frozen. He had been in two halves, and now was whole again. One half was longer than the other, having never been frozen in time, but both were himself. That slight difference in the experience of the two selves gave him a special perspective, like binocular vision, providing a new perception of the depth of reality.
The Bem, however, was righteously angry about her shattered eye. "You struck me!" she screamed. She shot out another tentacle to grab the rod and wrest it from Norton's grasp.
"I bashed your head in," Norton said. "How come you aren't unconscious?"
"I have no head," the Bem explained. "You hit my apex."
Norton brought up his foot and kicked the monster in the crotch. But the Bem did not react. "Why aren't you doubled over in pain?" he asked. "Male or female, that should hurt!"
"I have no crotch," the Bem said, gesturing with the rod. "That's merely a nether bifurcation."
Norton grabbed the rod back. The tentacles did not let go, so he wrestled the rod about until it was endwise and shoved it violently through the jellylike central mass of the monster. Still there was no reaction.
"But I just stabbed you through the heart!" he cried.
"I have no heart," the Bem said.
Three more tentacles whipped forward. One of them grabbed the Hourglass, which was now floating next to Norton. "Hey, that's mine!" he shouted. "Give it back!"
"Make me!" the Bem sneered.
But Norton couldn't make her, for she dangled the Hourglass just out of his reach. He couldn't change time, because he didn't have the Hourglass. He was in trouble again.
The Bem slid her maw forward until it intersected the rod that was still stuck through her body. Then she used the maw to spit out the rod. Being gelatinous certainly had its advantages!
"Now it's your turn," the monster said, focusing a bug eye on Norton and hauling him in toward the maw again.
He kicked her in the teeth. Ouch! His whole foot felt numb from the shock. Furthermore, the maw caught his boot again and the teeth crunched into it.
There was a blast of terrible heat. "Ooooh, you shouldn't have!" the Bem gasped, collapsing against the control panel.
Norton pulled his boot free of the crumbling teeth and twisted out of the failing grasp of the tentacles. Now he saw Bat Dursten, blaster in hand. The spaceman had finally gotten his boots on, his weapon back, and had blasted the Bem!
"In the nick o' time, as usual," Dursten said, blowing the smoke from his muzzle and bolstering his weapon with practiced flair.
"I should have finished you when I had the chance mphnn," the Bem said, trailing off into gibberish as her mouth melted. In fact, the entire monster was dissolving, her substance bubbling across the control panel and dripping to the floor.
"Nonsense," Dursten said briskly. "The good guys always win. It's in the script." He glanced carelessly at Norton. "You okay, Nort?"
"I think so." Norton decided not to comment on the spaceman's inordinate delay in appearing.
"Well, let's get back into action," Dursten said briskly. Then he looked at the control panel. "Yaup! The cussed critter's melted into it! That gook'll ruin the wiring!"
The Bem marshaled enough animation to form a small mouth in the dribble near the floor. "That's what happens, you klutz, when you blubb-drip-popple-ugh." The rest of her plopped to the floor inertly.
"What did you call me?" the spaceman demanded ferociously.
One more bubble popped from the subsiding mass. "Gludz!" it breathed, and was no more.
"Why, you sidewinding bugger!" Dursten shouted, stomping the gook with his boot. "You take that back, hear?" But the muck only squished under his boot with the sound of a chuckle.
"How is it that the Bem falls to the floor, while we drift in free-fall?" Norton asked.
"Forget that!" Dursten snapped, drifting. "The fool stuff's shorted the wiring! We're out of control! We'll crash on the dang alien planet!"
"But we're in deep space!" Norton protested. Then, as he peered out the front viewport, he saw that there was indeed a planet rushing up below.
"Hang on, pardner!" Dursten cried, grabbing onto the pilot's seat and hauling himself into it.
Norton followed suit, though a dribble of Bem had splatted across his chair. In a moment they were both securely buckled in, watching the ground rush up. Norton caught a glimpse of seas, continents, mountains, jungles, and shining prismatic cities. It looked very much like the kind of planet he'd like to visit—but not at this velocity.
There was a jolt that flung them forward against the restraints. "The retros," Dursten explained. "They're on automatic, to brake us so we don't crash so hard."
"That's nice," Norton gasped. Indeed, they were no longer falling as fast—but the descent remained harrowing.
Then the ship crashed, and everything went up in smoke.
Norton shook his head, clearing it. He was hung up on the branch of a giant, serpentine, purple tree, miraculously unhurt. Bat Dursten was strewn over another branch. The wreckage of their needleship was below, sinking slowly into a bubbling gray-green bog. This was obviously a Bem landscape!
Dursten hauled himself upright. "Looks like the Bem planet we came to raid," he remarked. "It's the scum of the Glob! Well, let's get going."
"Get going where?" Norton asked.
"To hijack a Bemship and go home, of course."
It seemed to Norton that would be easier said than done. On the other hand, he had no better suggestion.
They climbed down the tree to the ground. A giant antlike thing rushed up, its mandibles clacking menacingly. Dursten's hand was a blur as he drew his blaster and blasted the thing. It exploded, and pieces of it splatted into the trunk of the tree. "Guess I fixed that creep," the spaceman remarked, holstering his weapon.
"But how do you know it wasn't friendly?" Norton asked, appalled at the wanton killing.
"You kidding? Ain't nothing friendly on a bugger planet," the spaceman assured him. He led the way away from the tree, scouting for a suitable enemy to hijack.
Norton followed. There still wasn't much else to do. He wished he could linger long enough to study the exotic alien wilderness, but Dursten wasn't waiting. Spacemen, it seemed, had no interest in wilderness.
They skirted an arm of the bog. T
he gray-green gook hissed, menacing them. Eyeballs sprouted all over it. Instantly Dursten's blaster was in his hand.
"Don't—" Norton warned.
He was too late. The spaceman had hair-trigger reflexes. He fired. The gook puffed into noxious fog that spread out, threatening to envelop them. The eyeballs were hazier now, but still managed to focus on the prey.
Dursten backed off. "That thing ain't dying!" he exclaimed. "It's worse'n it was! Why didn't you say something, Nort?"
"I tried to warn—"
"Well, let's mosey on. We got a long way to go afore night."
"But there's no night, here in the Glob," Norton pointed out. "Too many close stars—"
The spaceman scratched his head with the muzzle of his blaster. "There is that," he opined. "We'd better eat something so we don't get hungry." He grabbed a rich red fruit from a nearby tree.
The fruit hissed and squirted brown juice at him. Dursten jumped back, but got some on his space suit. There was a sizzle, and smoke curled up as the acid etched channels in the material. "Then again, I reckon I ain't that hungry yet."
They came to a large, clear, glassy crystal standing on a block in the jungle. "Wonder what this bauble is?" Dursten said, reaching out to tap it with the butt of his blaster.
"Don't—" Norton cried.
Too late, of course. His protective reactions were just not as fast as the spaceman's whims. Dursten's butt touched the side of the crystal. The crystal vibrated. Light emanated from it. A humming sound developed, waxing and waning rhythmically as the light pulsed.
"Better get on out of here!" Dursten cried.
Norton's sentiments exactly! The two men fled as a Bem spaceball came into sight on the horizon.
"It was a signal station!" Norton gasped. "Now they know we're here!"
Ahead loomed a huge saurian shape. It looked somewhat like a green carnivorous dinosaur with a toothache and somewhat like a twenty-ton grasshopper with teeth on its knees. It opened its ponderous and marbled jaws.
This time Norton did not cry warning. He grabbed Dursten by the collar and hauled him around behind the bright yellow trunk of a tree.