Here Comes Civilization: The Complete Science Fiction of William Tenn Volume II (65 page)

"Anita Drummond," she said, straightening with a slightly self-conscious giggle and wiping her eyes with her peculiar dress. "Ann. I used to be a ballet dancer. Or, rather, I was still studying to be one, getting a little work here and there. That apartment was a godsend. It just fitted my budget. I plumped myself down in the one chair the place had and gloried in a home at last! Then I notice a piece of parchment on the floor with some poetry on it. I started to read it, stopped, and then began to doze with my eyes on the words. When I woke, I was halfway up a plowed hillside, the chair didn't have any legs, and some old peasant and his wife were saying spells over me to make me vanish before I put a charm on their crops. As soon as they saw me open my eyes, they both jumped on my head, tied me down, and carried me into their hut. And they wouldn't listen to a word I had to say! Uh—by the way, if you want to—to be a little more presentable, there's a pile of cast-off clothes in that corner there."

Percy ambled over and found a half-dozen badly worn sheepskin tunics. He selected one which smelled strongly but seemed to have fewer inhabitants than the others, and came back. Somehow, wearing clothes again helped restore his confidence. He hadn't had much opportunity to think about the various aspects of nudism since his arrival
sans
wardrobe in this thoroughly mad world, but he felt for the first time that there was a possibility of outwitting his captors now that he was dressed almost as well as they.

Ann continued her story. She was describing how all the inhabitants of a village on the far side of the island had been called into a conference on methods of disposing of the witch.

"There was a real tug-of-war going on between the drive-a-stake-into-her-and-be-done-with-it school and the burn-her-and-then-only-then-can-you-be-sure faction, when a seneschal or chamberlain or whatever he was of King Polydectes's court happened to pass by. He was out hunting some small monsters. Furies, I think. Or perhaps they were Sirens. He saw me, and before any of the village could say anything, he—Percy, look!"

He jerked his head around to follow her pointing finger. Dusk had been sliding down over the grating at a steeper and steeper incline. There was little more than the most delicate of rosy glows from a sun which had done more than its share of shining and wanted only to rest.

There was a man's head on the other side of the grating. His fingers pressed hard upon his lips. Percy nodded to show that he understood. Slowly the man faded, like smoke dissipating under a gentle summer breeze. Then he was gone.

But the grate lifted slowly, silently, and closed again in a moment. Percy had the eerie sensation of something very heavy that was floating down in the lazy circles that a feather would assume. Without thinking about it, he covered Ann's mouth with his own hand. Even so, her gasp was almost audible when, abruptly, a man wearing a suit vaguely reminiscent of renaissance Italy appeared before them.

He made an adjustment on the extremely thick metal-studded belt he wore, gave them the slightest inclination of his head by way of greeting, and said: "My name is Hermes."

Ann removed Percy's hand from her mouth. "Hermes!" she whispered. "The messenger of the gods!"

"Exactly."

The smile came and went so fast on that aristocratic face that Percy was not quite sure it had ever been. He stared closely at the man's visible skin in the almost nonexistent light. It looked golden. "Weren't you the fellow in the white mantle who disappeared when Dictys began asking you questions?"

Hermes nodded. "I suspected who you were, but I had to check on the so-called chest before I could be sure. I could hardly ask you questions while you were surrounded by that mob."

"What questions?" Percy asked eagerly.

"Questions which would determine whether you were the rightful Perseus, the legendary hero who is to save the world from the Gorgon race."

"Look, mister, that stuff has me in enough hot water already! My name is Percy S. Yuss. I am not the son of Danae—we never even had a Daniel in the family anywhere. I don't know this Gorgon everyone keeps raving about all the time and, if I did, I certainly wouldn't feel like killing her. I have nothing against any Gorgon, or any man—except for that fat old slob of king—"

"You're speaking too loudly," the other warned. "It's not any Gorgon we sent you against—it's Medusa herself!" His voice dropped almost to inaudibility at the name. "I spoke to Professor Gray and described the articles with which you had arrived, and he agreed that you must be a man of his own time."

"You mean there's someone else here from the twentieth century?" Ann asked eagerly.

"Where is he? In trouble, too?" Percy inquired. He was slightly bitter.

The stranger smiled. This one was long and slow, and Percy decided he didn't like it any better than the fast take. "No, he's not in trouble. He's waiting for you to give you advice on how best to conquer the Gorgon."

"Well, he'll have to run pretty far and awfully fast. I don't like the way everyone jumps when they mention that character. I don't feel like a hero, and I don't intend to be one. I've been a sucker all my life, always taking somebody else's falls, but this is one that my mother's favorite son is not going to take."

"Not even to avoid the stew-pot tomorrow?"

Percy swallowed. He'd forgotten the trial according to the laws of Seriphos since he had met Ann. Yes. There'd be another evening like this one, and then he'd be led out—

Could any risk he'd run be greater than the horrible certainty he faced in twenty-four hours? He'd seen enough of these ancient Greeks to have developed a very healthy respect for their deadly efficiency in the prosecution of what they considered to be criminal cases. It was very doubtful, for example, that these people had developed the institution of appeal, or parole...

"Not even," Hermes went on, picking each word up carefully with his teeth and holding it out for them to see, "not even for the chance to return to your own time?"

Ann squealed, and the messenger of the gods sternly told her to be quiet. He jerked at his belt, went invisible. After a while, he turned back on. When he rematerialized, he was staring anxiously up at the grating, one hand poised over his belt.

It struck Percy that this fellow was pretty nervous for a supposed deity. It also struck him that he was being offered just what he needed immediately and most desperately wanted. Did the price he had to pay sound too high? That was silly. Whatever he had to do would be worth the risk and difficulty, if somehow he could find himself back in his own era. Not to mention the desirable aspects of getting out of his present surroundings before supper-time tomorrow.

"I'll do it," he said finally. "Whatever it is you want done, I'll do it. Only listen. Any bargain I made applies to this girl as well as to me."

"Done!" The golden one held out a thin pouch. "Take this. When they lead you to execution tomorrow—"

"Hey! I thought you were going to get us out of this jam. Why can't you just take us with you?"

Hermes shook his head violently. He seemed to be extremely interested in moving on as soon as possible. "Because I can't. You don't have the—the powers. Do what I tell you, and you'll be all right."

"Listen to him, Percy!" Ann urged. "This is our only chance. Let's do it his way. Besides, he's a god. He must know his way around this mythological world."

Again Hermes smiled that quick-flitting smile. "When they take you out, make a long speech—as long as you can—about how sorry they are going to be. Whatever it is they're going to have you fight—"

"I'm not going to fight anything," Percy insisted. "I'm going to be—"

"Cooked over a slow fire. I know! But believe me, trust me, you will be led out to fight somebody or something. You make your speech and while you're talking, without anyone seeing you, you dip your hand under your garment and into this pouch. Start fondling the kernels you find there, squeeze them, rub them back and forth between the palm of your hand and the fabric of the pouch. When they start to squirm and move about of their own, get sent in, and start fighting as soon as possible! All you do then is to scatter them on the ground all around you—and stand back! Get back as far as—"

He stopped and ripped at the switch on his belt. A torch appeared on the other side of the grating and two heavily whiskered men peered in.

"Could have sworn I saw something," one of them said.

"Well, you can call the guard out and go down to look into it," the other one announced. "Me for the party."

The torchbearer straightened. "Me, too. If I saw what I thought I did, I don't want to look into it! Let the morning watch do it."

Out of the darkness came the pouch and pushed itself into Percy's hand. "Remember," they heard the whisper ascending slowly. "Don't start rubbing those kernels too early—and don't wait too long either. Once they begin moving, you've got to get into the fight fast."

The grate lifted briefly, came down again. There was a final whispered injunction: "And don't look into the pouch tonight! Don't even think of touching it until just before you have to!"

They felt a presence departing stealthily above them. Ann moved closer to Percy, and he squeezed her reassuringly.

"A big list of don'ts," he grumbled. "Time it just right, but don't try to find out what it is! It's like taking a Frenchman up to a row of medicine bottles labeled in Chinese and warning him to take some aspirin before his fever goes up any further, but not to touch the sleeping tablets because they're strong enough to kill him. What does he think I am?"

Ann leaned on him, chuckling with a slight edge of hysteria. "Do you know, Percy, this is the first, absolutely the first ray of hope I've seen since coming to this awful world? And you're grumbling because the directions aren't so clear!"

"Well, after all," his mind said logically—but privately!—"I'm the one who's going to have to fight the Gorgon!"

"I'm not really complaining," he said aloud as they sat down. "But confused directions irritate me. I always feel I'm being taken for a ride."

"Think of sitting in a restaurant," she murmured dreamily. "Or a hairdresser's. Think of going to those chic little dress shops along the Avenue and feeling all those wonderful fabrics and imagining yourself in all those lovely new styles. And all the time making believe that you're really fooling the sales girl into believing you have enough money to buy them. And any time a man you don't like makes a pass at you, you can make him stop. And if he doesn't stop, you yell, and when you yell, you get help instead of him. Oh, civilization,
civilization
!"

She was asleep in his arms. Percy patted her tenderly and prepared to go to sleep himself. He'd had a long, tiring day. Long? Just three thousand years or so!

Unfortunately, he hadn't fallen completely asleep when the execution started. Being underground somewhat and a good distance away, he couldn't see very much. But a good deal of the noise carried...

—|—

It was quite a few hours before he finally dozed off and stopped thinking about the man who had come charging down a hillside insisting he was Perseus. How many Perseuses were there in this world? It looked almost as if someone wanted the Gorgon killed very badly indeed and was sending in a good many pinch-hitters.

Who was the real Perseus? He didn't know, but it struck him then that he did know he wasn't. And he was the only one committed so far to killing the Gorgon. What, exactly, was the Gorgon? That was another good question...

Their cell had a third occupant by morning. Agesilaus.

"What did you do?" Percy asked him as he stretched painfully.

"Nothing," the old man said. He sat against the wall hunting for lice in his beard. Every time he caught one, he grinned and cracked it noisily between his teeth. "I'm here because of my brother."

"What do you mean because of your brother?"

"He committed high treason last night and had his brains knocked out according to the law the king made up a few minutes after he committed it. The king was still pretty sore, though, so he passed another law making all blood relatives co-responsible in cases of high treason. I was the only blood relative, so here I am. I'm due to get my brains knocked out today."

"Good old 'waste not, want not' Polydectes," Percy mused. "What kind of high treason did your brother commit that the king had to pass a law covering it?"

Agesilaus pored through the bottom tattered fringes of his beard. From the obvious disappointment with which he put them aside, it was clear that he considered them devoid of life. "Well, sir, my brother was the royal chef. So of course he was also the public executioner. Somewhere along the line, he must have made a mistake last night. He probably forgot to grease it properly. Because after the execution, the great cooking pot cracked."

"Cracked? You mean they can't use it any more?"

"That's just what I do mean. Broke open like a nut. Ah, you can smile, but let me tell you—that pot was the pride of Seriphos! It wasn't made of bronze or silver or gold, but—and I don't ask you to believe this—of pure
iron
! Yes, sir, this whole island wouldn't be wealthy enough to buy another pot like that. Years and years it took, in my great-grandfather's day, melting down those little meteors that our people had been collecting for generations. And at that they say it was one of the walking reptiles that finally did the casting. Do you blame King Polydectes for getting mad at my brother and all his kith and kin? I don't. Why, his predecessor, King Aurion—the one Polydectes stabbed in the back at the feast of the summer solstice—Aurion would have extended the penalties to relatives by marriage and most of the criminal's close friends."

Percy sat musing on Hermes's prediction of the night before. In all probability, it was not so much an example of accurate prophecy as a clear case of sabotage. He chuckled. Well, at least that particular fear was no longer to be lived with!

"What were these walking reptiles?" Ann asked. She'd been sitting quietly by Percy's side all through his interrogation of the old man, and had pressed his hand when he chuckled to show that she too was hoping that the rest of Hermes's promises would be realized.