Donald A. Wollheim (ed) (16 page)

The dictionary defined love, and the
encyclopedia gave an excellent medical and psychological version of it; but
none of the sober, rational phrases gave any key to the idiocies
Ignatz
associated with that emotion. Other books bore gaudy
tides that hinted at possibilities. He selected three at random, waded through
pages here and there, honking and snorting loudly. They only served to confirm
his preconceptions on the subject, without making things any clearer. Compared
with the men in the books, Jerry was a rational being.

Still, books had their uses.
Ignatz
sniffed them over thoughtfully and found the usual
strong glue had been used in binding them. Since the dictionary and
encyclopedia were useful, he put them back with some difficulty. Then he tipped
down half a dozen other books whose titles indicated they were on the same
subject and began ripping the covers off methodically.
A most
excellent glue, well-flavored and potent; of course, the paper insisted on
coming off with it, but that could always be spit out. What was left, he pushed
into the incinerator closet.

With his stomach filled and the sleep out of
his system, there was nothing left to do but explore. Sometimes these human
habitations proved most interesting. He sampled a jar of
vaseline
, examined the workings of an electric mixer
with some interest, and decided to satisfy his curiosity on another matter
which had bothered him for months.

Jerry Lord awoke with
Ignatz's
doleful bellow
in his ears, mixed with sundry
threshings
and
bumpings
, and the jangling of an uncertain bell. He rubbed
the sleep out of his eyes with hands that were sure and steady again, and
looked down, to grin suddenly. "I told you to let those spring alarm
clocks alone, fellow. Suppose they do go
tick-tick
instead of purring like the electrics—do you have to see why?"

Ignatz
had found out why—with details. Jerry
untangled the
zloaht's
tail from the main spring and various brass
wheels, and unwrapped the alarm spring from his inky body. Once that was done,
they both prowled around until satisfied that escape from the apartment was
completely impossible.

Jerry tried the
stereovisor
while eating
breakfast, but there was no news; only the usual morning serials and music came
over. He dug out a book on rocket motors to kill time, while
Ignatz
succeeded in turning on the hot water in the
bathroom and crawling into the tub. If the O.M. ran true to form, he'd show up
when it suited his own convenience.

It was noon when Barclay unlocked the door
and came in, leaving a couple of guards outside. "Crazy young
fooll
"

Jerry grinned ruefully. "A nice trick,
your fake data;
I
actually
I was landing at Minerva's Breasts. Well,
I
didn't ruin your darned freighter."

"Didn't even wreck the radio.
Sweetest tail landing I ever
saw,
and I made a couple myself." He chuckled as the
Master stared. "Sure, I used to pilot them, back when it took men. But I
never tried a horizontal, though I've heard of it."

He fished out an envelope.
"Here, I keep my word. Deposit book, Prospectors Commercial, one million
dollars. And the deed to the house in New Hampshire, if you ever get back
there—which you won't on any of my ships. You can save your thanks."

Jerry took it calmly. "I didn't intend
to thank you;
I
earned
it." He stuffed the envelope in the prospector's kit he'd brought with
him. "What word from Anne? And when do I get out of here?"

"I've made arrangements to have you
leave today." Seeing Jerry's look, he shook his head. "Not to jail,
exactly—just to the new detention house they've erected since you were here
last; they use it for drunks and weed-chewers. I've booked you as a stowaway to
be held for convenient deportation, and I'll make the charge stick. Judging
from last night, I don't want you in any of my employees' quarters; they get
hit by sudden bad luck." "Well?"

"Herndon
got married and left me in the lurch last night— when I most need him."

"That
looks like your bad luck, not his," Jerry pointed out.
"Though
I suppose you fired him."

"He
quit—
to lead
the glamorous life." The O.M. smiled
wryly. "His bad luck was that he married that woman who dances at the
casino with a Martian sand-eel."

Jerry
nodded; he'd seen her act, and there was no answer. Instead, he steered the
conversation back to Anne. "You know I could locate the
Burgundy
in a couple of hours if you'd let me out of
here. I didn't spend two months in Despondency for nothing. And
Ignatz
is supposed to bring good luck out there."

Barclay
shrugged. "Good luck for you; that's what I'm afraid of. It so happens
we've located the
Burgundy
already, without your help.
Now we've been sending out searching parties on mud hooks for Anne and Pete;
the captain had to take orders from her and let them go." His face was
momentarily bitter. "I thought
Durnall
had
better sense than to go lugging her around the swamps where even the compass is
cockeyed."

"I
was afraid of that. You made a mistake, sir, in making me land at Hellas
instead of the Breasts."

Barclay
grunted, and let it pass. They all knew there was about as much chance of one
man finding her in the steaming swamp jungle as the proverbial needle.
"If I thought you could find her, I'd probably be fool enough to let you
go. Better pack up your luggage. These men will take you over to detention
house."

The detention ward was comfortable enough,
and Barclay had arranged for all the Master's ordinary wants. But it was no
nearer Anne. He paced the room endlessly until Slim, the flunky, brought his
supper. Bribery had failed before, but he tried it again.

The guard grinned. "Here's your supper,
such as it is. We found the food's mostly turned sour since you moved in this
noon. And your check's no good; Prospectors Commercial closed its doors until a
new shipment of gold can come through from Earth."

Ignatz
grunted, but the Master refused to give up.
"But the check will be good when it opens."

Slim hunched his shoulders. "Not with
your money in it; it won't open."

"You don't believe that superstition, do
you?" Jerry's voice was not particularly convincing.

"Huh? Look, mister, since you come here,
I got word my wife just had triplets—and me a poor
manl
I don't want nothing to do with you or
youm
."
He shoved the food in and swung on his heel.

Jerry swore,
then
called after the jailer. "Hey,
waitl
Can you get
a message to Manager Barclay? Tell him I know how he can find his daughter.
Tell him I want to see him tomorrow
morningl
"

Slim nodded glumly and went on. Jerry turned
to his meal, refusing to answer
Ignatz's
inquiring
grunts. The
zloaht
watched his Master finish and begin the
endless pacing again, smoking
incessandy
on the
pungent
Venusian
cigarettes. He picked up a butt and
honked curiously.

"Nerves, fellow," Jerry answered.
"They're supposed to calm you when something bothers you—like my pipe that
I
left back on Earth. Want to try one?" He
placed one between
Ignatz's
sharp lips, and lit it.
"Now, you puff in, take the smoke into your lungs,
then
blow it out. Sure, like that."

Ignatz
coughed the smoke out and bellowed hoarsely,
swearing heatedly at the Master. An odd sensation stirred in him somewhere,
however, and he regarded the cigarette thoughtfully; sometimes a thing was
better after a time or two. Dubiously, he picked it up with his antennae and
tried again, with slightly better success. It didn't taste so nauseous that
time. And the third try was still better.

"Better go easy on it, fellow," Jerry advised. "I don't
know how it'll affect your metabolism; alcohol had no results with you, but
this might."

Ignatz
heard vaguely, but didn't trouble his head
about it. There was a nice warm feeling stealing along his nerves and down
toward his tail. He'd been a fool to think life was hard—it was ducky—that's
what. And this room was beautiful, when it stood still. Just now, it was
running around in circles; he pursued the walls in their crazy rotation, but
gave up—they were too fast for him.

Jerry giggled for no reason
Ignatz
could see. "
Ignatz
,
you're acting drunk. And that butt's going to bum you if you don't spit it
out."

"
Hwoonk
!"
said
Ignatz
.
Still, it was a little warm; laboriously he removed the burning thing and
tossed it away.
"
Hwulp
!"
Now why did his tail insist on jerking him up like that?
"
Hwuppl
"
If it insisted, he'd be the last one to stop
it. He gazed up at the moon that had mysteriously sailed away from Earth and
was gliding across the ceiling of the room.
Such a lovely
night.
Must make a song about the lovely night.
Lovely song.

His fog-
hom
voice creaked out in a quivering
bellow, rose to a crescendo wail, and popped out with a sound like a starting
rocket. Lovely song—
lovelyl
Jerry stuffed him in a
pillow and tried to silence him, but without immediate success.
If the men in detention wanted to sleep, what of it?
Anyway,
they were making too much noise themselves.

Who wanted to sleep?
Too nice a night to sleep.
He executed a remarkable imitation of a steam buzz-saw. Jerry gave up and
crawled in beside him, growling unhappily.
Ignatz
honked reproachfully at the Master, rolled over and snored loudly.

The next morning he awoke
to see the guard let the O.M. in, and tried to climb down from the bunk.
Something lanced through his head, and he fell back with a mournful bellow. He
hadn't felt like that last night.

Jerry grinned at him. "Hangover—what'd
you expect?" He turned to Barclay. "The flunky delivered my message,
then?"

"He did." The O.M. hadn't been
doing much sleeping, from the look on his face. "If your plan involves
letting you out, don't bother telling me."

"It doesn't. I've found from experience there's no use trying to
change your mind." He jerked back the package of cigarettes as
Ignatz
dived for it. "But the semiannual mud run is
due any day now, and Despondency is hell then. You've got to get her out."

The O.M. nodded; he'd been thinking the same.
Jerry went on.
"All right.
A man can't locate
anything smaller than a
rocketship
up there
But
a
zloaht
can. Well, thirty miles north of Minerva's Breasts—the compass points
south by southeast, in that neighborhood—there's a village of
Ig-natz's
people built out in a little lake. They've damned
up Forlorn River there, and built their houses on rafts, working with their
antennae and practically no raw materials. They grow food along the shores and
they've got a mill of sorts to grind it with. Of course, they're not human, but
they'll be up alongside us yet, if we don't kill them off first.
Highly civilized now."

The O.M. snorted, glanced at
Ignatz
hunting for butts.
"Civilized!
Sounds more like beavers to me."

"Okay, have it your way." Jerry was
used to man's eternal sense of divine descent—or maybe the word was ascent.
"Anyway, they've developed an alphabet of sorts and have tame animals.
What's more important, I taught them some English, and they'll do almost
anything for chocolate and peanuts."

Barclay caught the idea. "You mean
,
I'm to
send up there, get in touch with them, and have them look for Anne? Sounds
pretty farfetched, but I'm willing to try anything once."