Image of the Beast / Blown

opened and a small ladder let down for Forry while the

  others leaped out onto the road. They were parked on

  Topanga Canyon just outside the entrance to the road

  that ran up to the house of the Ogs. The brown flood

  running off it joined the deep current coming down

  Topanga. Forry was glad that he wore flippers and a

  suit and that the tank gave him more weight to resist

  the current. But he did not think that he could carry it

  up the hill.

  "Sure you can," Hindarf said. "Put on the goggles

  and start breathing through the mouthpiece."

  "Now?" Forry said.

  "Now."

  Forry did so, and at the first breath he felt more ener-

  getic than at any time in his life since she had been a child.

  The air filled his whole body with a strength and a joie de

  vivre that made him want to sing. This was impossible, of

  course, with the piece in his mouth.

  Hindarf said, "We may have a hard fight ahead. The

  vaporized drug in the breathing system will charge our

  bodies. The effect is intense but short-lived."

  They walked up the road, their flippers slop-slopping.

  They looked like Venusians, Forry thought, what with the

  frog feet, the slick black skins of the suits, the humped air

  tanks, the goggles, and the big mouthpieces. Some even

  carried tridents or fishing spears. The rain fell heavily on

  them, and everything was dark and wet, as if they were un-

  der the clouds on the nightside of the second planet from

  the sun.

  Before they came to the turn of the road that would

  have placed them in view of those in the house, they

  started to climb the hillside. This was steep and muddy,

  and they could only get up by grabbing bushes and pulling

  themselves up. He appreciated the suit now, since it kept

  him from getting wet and muddy. The weight of the

  tank seemed negligible, so strong did he feel. His heart

  was chugging along at its accustomed pace, which meant

  that the extra demand for energy was being taken care of

  by the drug in the air system.

  After slipping and sliding and hanging on to the bushes,

  they crawled out onto the top of the hill. Another hill to

  their right hid them from view of those in the house, al-

  though Forry did not understand how they could be seen

  in the dark.

  Hindarf led them around the larger hill and up to a high

  brick wall. This was topped by a barbed wire fence about

  three feet high. Several Tocs unfolded a ladder, a stile,

  really, and put it over the wall and the wire fence. Hindarf

  cautioned everybody not to touch the wires, which were

  charged with high voltage. One by one, they crawled up

  the stile and over the wall and down to the other side.

  They were in an orchard which seemed to run several

  hundreds of yards north and south from where they stood

  and an indeterminate distance west. The stile was taken

  down, telescoped, and placed under some bushes. Hindarf

  led them through the trees until they came to another slope.

  This rose steeply to a low brick wall. There was a flight of

  steps made of some stone which glowed red and black in

  the light that- Hindarf and others flashed on it.

  Forry had been upset by their careless use of this light,

  but Hindarf assured him that it was a form of black light.

  Forry could see it simply because his goggles had a spe-

  cially prepared glass. Hindarf doubted that the Ogs had

  anything which could detect this form of illumination.

  When they got to the top of the steps, they could see the

  black bulk of the house about fifty yards away. It was dark

  except for a slit of light. They went on and then were at

  the end of a long swimming pool. This was brimming over,

  flooding the cement walks, the patio, the yard, and running

  down the steps up which they had just climbed.

  Hindarf gave Forry his instructions again and then went

  down into the pool via the steel ladder. The man assigned

  to watch Forry led him into the pool. For a moment,

  everything was black, and he had no idea which was up or

  down, north or south. Then a light flooded the area

  around him, and he could see his guide just ahead of him,

  holding the lamp. Hindarf's flippers were visible just ahead

  of the globe of illumination.

  They swam the 100-feet-long pool underwater as near

  the floor as they could get. Forry caught glimpses of strange

  figures painted on the cement floor. Griffins, werewolves

  metamorphosing from men to beasts, a legless dragon, a

  penis-beaked flipper-winged rooster, a devilfish with a

  shaven cunt for a mouth, a malignant-faced crab being rid-

  den by a nude woman with fish heads for breasts, and

  something huge and shadowy and all the more sinister for

  being so amorphous.

  Then they were at the deep end of the pool, and Hindarf

  and his guide were removing a plate from the wall. It

  looked like any other section of the wall, but it was thin

  and wide and its removal exposed a large dark hole. Hin-

  darf swam into it, the guide followed, and Forry, after a

  moment's hesitation, and knowing that the honor of Earth

  depended upon him, swam through the hole. The tunnel

  had been dug out of the earth, of course, but it was walled

  up with many small plates screwed together. He wondered

  how long the Tocs had been working on this. It must have

  taken them years, because their time would be limited to

  the early hours of morning before the sun came up.

  It was possible, however, that this tunnel had been built

  by the Ogs as an escape route. The Tocs, having dis-

  covered it, were taking advantage of it.

  He did not know how long they swam through the tun-

  nel. It seemed like a long time. It led downward, or at least

  he got that impression. Then they were popping up in a

  chamber illuminated by a bright arc light hanging from a

  chain set into the cement ceiling. A ladder gave access to a

  platform at the end of which hung row on row of suits.

  Shelves held many goggles and air tanks.

  His second speculation was correct. This had been made

  by the Ogs for escape. But then, wouldn't they have set

  up guards or alarms?

  Hindarf explained that they could go no farther in that

  direction. The door in the end of the chamber was locked

  and triggered to alarms. So, they would go through another

  tunnel, which they had dug and walled themselves.

  They dived again, and Forry plunged to the bottom of

  the tunnel. He saw Hindarf go through a hole which was so

  narrow that the air tank on his back scraped against the

  plates. The tunnel curved rapidly and took them at a

  course that he estimated would bring them about even with

  the ending of the Og tunnel but about forty feet westward.

  He came up in another chamber, much smaller than the

  first. There was a raft made of wood and inflatable pon-

  toons. It was near the wall, which held a ladder that ran to

  the ceil
ing, twelve feet up.

  Hindarf pulled Forry onto the raft. A man handed Hin-

  darf a paper in a sealed package. He opened it and took

  out the paper and spread it out. Under the lights they had

  brought, with the only sound the slight splashing of the

  men and heavy breathing, they studied the plates which

  constituted the ceiling of this chamber. The plates were

  being removed by two men standing on the ladder.

  There was a great boom from above them.

  The shock was sudden and savage. The platform rose

  into the air above the water and the men on it went with it.

  Dirt fell in on all sides, striking the men and sending up

  gouts of water and chunking into the raft, which was

  tilting to one side and then to the other.

  But the walls did not fall in, though the plates were

  bellied out or buckled and broken here and there. The

  booming noise had come and gone, like an overhead ex-

  plosion. All was quiet except for the loud slap-slap of the

  seesawing water against the sides of the pit and the

  groaning of the platform moving up and down.

  Hindarf was the first to break the silence. He said, "That

  was either an earthquake or the house is starting to slide.

  In either case, we go ahead as planned. We'll be out of

  this place and into the house in a few seconds."

  The two men on the ladder had clung to it as it had

  threatened to topple over. Now they went to work and re-

  moved plates to make a wide opening above them.

  Forry wondered why they worked so slowly. He felt like

  clawing the plates out and anything else that stood between

  him and the open air. But he managed to subdue the

  panic. After all, as he had already told himself, he was

  upholding the honor of Earth.

  Hindarf climbed the ladder and began to chip away at

  the dirt with a small pick. Forry moved to one side to

  avoid the falling matter, which came down in big chunks.

  His guide, pointing at the diagram, said, "We are directly

  below the floor of the room where Childe should be

  held."

  "How did you get hold of the diagram?" Forry said.

  "From the city archives. The Ogs thought that they had

  removed all of the plans of the house, which was built

  long ago. But there was one plan which had been misfiled.

  We paid for a very expensive research, but it was worth

  it."

  "Why do you think Childe is in the room above?"

  "The Ogs have held important prisoners there before,

  both Toc and Earthling. We could be wrong, but even so

  we'll be inside the house."

  Hindarf quit scraping away the dirt and was listening

  through a device, one end of which was placed against the

  stone. Then he put the device in a pocket of his suit and

  began to work on the stone with a drill. Forry listened

  carefully but could hear no sound from it. His guide told

  him that it used supersonic waves.

  The removal of several blocks of stone took some time.

  Hindarf and another man stood side by side on the narrow

  ladder and eased the block down between them, and this

  was passed slowly between men standing together on the

  ladder.

  Then Hindarf listened again. He looked puzzled as he

  put the device away.

  "There's a strange swishing and splashing noise," he

  whispered.

  He took the large square of metal which a man handed

  him and screwed it to the underside of the floor. A wire

  led from one side of the metal square to a small black

  metal box held by a man on the raft.

  Everybody except Hindarf got off the ladder and stood

  to one side. Hindarf nodded to the man holding the box,

  who pressed a button on its top.

  The metal square and the section of floor within it fell

  down past Hindarf.

  A solid column of water roared through the opening. It

  knocked Hindarf off the ladder, struck the small platform,

  sprayed out over the raft, and swept those standing on the

  platform into the well or onto the raft.

  Forry Ackerman was one of those swept off.

  41

  Pao said, "Your wife died three months ago."

  "You killed her!" Childe raged. "You killed her! Did

  you torture her before you killed her?"

  "No," Pao said. "We did not want to hurt her, because

  we meant to bring her to you when you were ready for us.

  But she died."

  "How?"

  "It was an accident. Vivienne and Plugger and your

  wife were forming a triangle. Plugger was stimulating

  Vivienne with his tongue in her mouth, your wife was being

  stimulated with Plugger's cock in her mouth, and Vivienne

  and your wife had their cunts almost touching each other,

  face to face as it were. Gilles was up your wife's cunt or

  alternating between her cunt and her asshole, I believe."

  "I can believe that Sybil might engage in some daisy

  chains," Childe said. "But I can't believe that she'd let

  Vivienne even get near her. That snake-thing would

  horrify her."

  "When Plugger is charging you, you get excited enough

  to do a lot of things you wouldn't otherwise do," Pao

  said. "I have no reason to lie to you. The truth is that

  Gilles was driven out of his mind—he doesn't have much,

  anyway, just a piece of brain tissue in that little skull, he

  doesn't even know his own name and his talking is auto-

  matic and unintelligible even to him … Anyway, he

  went out of his head, too stimulated by Plugger, I suppose,

  and bit your wife's rectum. He tore out some blood

  vessels, and she bled to death. She kept moving and

  responding to Plugger's electric discharges even after she

  died, which was why neither Plugger nor Vivienne knew

  what was going on."

  Childe felt sick. He sat down on the edge of the bed,

  his head bent. Pao stood silently.

  After a few minutes, Childe looked up at Pao. The

  man's face was smooth and expressionless. His yellow

  skin, thin-lipped down-drooping mouth, thin curved nose,

  high cheekbones, slanting black eyes, and black hair with

  its widow's peak made him look like a smooth-shaven Fu

  Manchu. Yet the man—the Og, rather—must be very

  anxious behind that glossy sinister face. He could not use

  the usual methods to force cooperation from Childe.

  Even the worst of tortures could not extract the power

  for Grading or star voyaging from a Captain. Under pain,

  the Captain was incapable of performing his duties.

  Childe thought of Vivienne, Plugger, Gilles de Rais,

  and the creature that had metamorphosed itself to look

  like Sybil. What was its name? Brueghel?

  O'Brien had left. Had he gone out to kill Breughel?

  Pao swallowed and said, "What can I do to make this

  up to you?"

  What he meant was, "What kind of revenge do you

  wish?" And he was thinking, must be thinking, that

  Childe would hold him responsible for Sybil's death.

  Childe said, "I only require that the snake-thing be

  killed."

/>   Pao looked relieved, but he said, "Vivienne will die,

  too!"

  Childe bit his lip. The revenge he was planning did

  not involve killing anybody except the snake-thing, and

  that thing could not be called an entity. Not a sentient

  entity, anyway. He wanted the thing killed, but he

  wanted Vivienne alive to appreciate what had happened

  to her and the other Ogs.

  "Bring Vivienne in," he said.

  Pao left and a few minutes later returned with Vivi-

  enne behind him. O'Brien and several others also entered.

  "I need a butcher's cleaver and bandages and ointment

  and morphine," Childe said.

  Vivienne turned pale. She alone seemed to grasp

  what he intended to do.

  "Oh, yes, and bring a wooden stool and a pair of long

  pliers," he said.

  Trembling, Vivienne sat down in a chair.

  "Stand up and take your clothes off," Childe said.

  She rose and slowly removed her clothing.

  "Now you can sit down there," he said.

  O'Brien returned with the tools ordered.

  Childe said, "I saw the film where you bit off Colben's

  cock with your false iron teeth. So don't plead with me."

  "I am not pleading," she said. "However, it was not

  I who bit his cock off."

  "I won't argue. You are capable of doing it; you

  probably have done that, and far worse, to others."

  He wished that she would weep and beg. But she was

  very dignified and very brave. What else could you expect

  from the woman who had once been Joan of Arc?

  "Hold on to her," he said to the others.

  Pao and O'Brien pulled her legs apart. They were

  beautiful, perfect legs, with flawless white skin. The bush

  on the mound of Venus was thick and auburn. She

  probably had the most attractive pussy that he had ever

  seen. There was no hint of the horror that lived coiled

  inside it.

  Childe felt like ordering one of the men to take the

  next step, but if he had the guts to order this, then he felt

  obliged to have the guts to do it himself.

  Carefully, he inserted the pliers. Vivienne started and

  began quivering, but she did not cry out.

  He pushed the pliers in and felt around. His original

  intention to close the jaws of the pliers around the head

  now seemed foolish. He could not get them open enough,