Takeoff! (13 page)

It was easy to see why they had been able to pass themselves off as dressed-up humans; the “costumes” looked too outré, too artificial to be real. But the dead giveaway was the drummer.

He had four arms.

Try
that
with a costume sometime!

“Frantically cool,” said Cordelia.

Ben scratched thoughtfully at his beard. “I’m hip,” he agreed.

They were Thregonnese, all right. There was no other race in the known Galaxy that could change the shape of their bodies that way.

The bass player stepped out from the others and began chanting in time to the music. At first, it seemed to be nothing but nonsense syllables of the
rooty-ooty-yeek-yeek-boo-da-da
type, then both Ben and Cordelia recognized that he was chanting in a jazzed-up version of Basic Galactic, the
lingua franca
of space.

“Hey,
Observer, give
us
a
buzz!

We’re
in trouble like never was!

Every night
we
sing this bit,

Hoping you’ll
be digging
it.

Listen,
G.O., to
our moan;

Kindly call us
on
the
phone!

Listen
to
our wailing yelp;

What
we
mean is: Man, like—help!”

There was a long wailing note on the trumpet and a little flurry of sobs from the coronet, and the piece ended with a teeth-rattling roll from the drum.

“Cool,” said Cordelia, crushing out her cigarette.

“Frantically cool,” agreed Ben. He looked at his wristwatch. “Time to cut out now, but we will definitely have to make this scene tomorrow.”

They finished their coffee and strolled out. By then, the musicians had left the bandstand and were nowhere to be seen.

Cordelia waited until they were a full block away before she spoke. “Do we give them a buzz? What kind of crazy hassle do you figure they’re hung up in?”

“You got no hunch?”

“Man, like I dig them the least. Can it hurt to phone?”

“Don’t know, chick. Maybe we ought to—”

He thought it over for a minute. Which would be best-to sneak up on them quietly, without letting them know he was anywhere around, and hit all four of them fast-or to take them at their word and call them on the phone?

The trouble was that it was impossible to trust a Thregonnese any farther than you could throw a bonfire by the smoke. The metamorphs of Thregonn weren’t vicious, but they were characterized by a low sense of humor and a way of thinking that was definitely weird by human standards.

He decided he’d chance it. He said, “Come on, chick,” and went into a drug store on the next corner. He got the number of the Venus Club and dialed it.

“Venus Club,” said a voice.

“You are under arrest,” said the Observer in clipped Galactic.

“Are you the Observer?” asked the voice in the same language.

“That’s right. And you know you’re not supposed to be on this planet. It’s still under quarantine.”

“Believe me,” said the other, “I wouldn’t be here at all if I could get away. None of us would. For a while, there, we were afraid maybe you’d never notice us.”

“So far,” said the Observer, “you haven’t attracted the attention of the local authorities, but if you do, I’ll slap a charge against you that will—”

“Hey, now!” the Thregonnese interrupted. “We know the law! This was only a misdemeanor. Landing for refueling without authorization, is all.”

“I’ll
tell
you
what the law is,” the Observer said. “Now, what’s all this fuss about, anyhow?”

“Well, first of all, it started out as a joke. You know?”

“Sure. I know all about it,” the Observer said sarcastically. “That’s why I’m spending my time asking you questions. What the hell happened?”

“Well, there was this bet, see. Lubix, Forbin, Alisnokine, and I had bet some friends of ours that we could come in here, land, pick up a—uh—a souvenir, and come back without your catching us. Without even knowing we’d been here. See?”

“So far, yes,” said the Observer in a very cold voice.

“Well, the guys we were betting against must’ve got cute,” the Thregonnese went on. “They bollixed up our space capsule, and we couldn’t take off again. And now that the U.S. Navy has the capsule, we can’t do anything about it at all.”

“The U.S. Navy? Now wait a minute; you can’t…”

Then he heard sudden loud noises from the phone, a voice in English said, “Chiggers! The cops!” and the line went dead.

Cordelia, who had been standing near the doorway of the drugstore, where she could watch the door of the Venus Club, walked over to the phone booth and said, in a low voice, “Like, some cops just went in. Wonder what they’re bugged about?”

“I hope,” Ben said fervently, “that those cats don’t goof now. Otherwise, we’ll all be in the soup!”

Lord Curvert glared at his copy of the New York
Daily News
in a medium dudgeon. There, looking out from the front page with idiotic grins, were four of the most disreputable-looking men his lordship had ever had the misfortune to gaze upon.

“At least,” he said grudgingly, “they managed to metamorphose into reasonably human shape before they were arrested. I hate to think what might have happened if the police had arrested them while they were still in the outlandish shapes they were wearing when we saw them last.”

Lady Curvert sipped at her tea and looked at the headlines.

VENUS CLUB OWNERS NABBED IN

NARCOTICS RAID

$10,000 Heroin Cache Found in Coffee House

“It’s ridiculous,” said her ladyship rather peevishly. “It makes no sense at all! Why should four Thregonnese want to do anything so silly as use or sell heroin? They couldn’t have become addicted to it, could they, Charles?”

“I think not. Incompatible metabolism, eh, Fesswick?”

Fesswick placed more buttered toast on the small tray next to the marmalade pot. “Quite incompatible, my lord. Heroin would kill a Thregonnese within three minutes if injected into the bloodstream. Sniffing it, as I believe is often done by addicts, would cause unconsciousness very rapidly.”

“Then why should they do anything so silly?” her ladyship repeated.

“I confess, my lady, that I am thus far unable to deduce the machinations lying behind these highly peculiar circumstances,” Fesswick admitted.

Lord Curvert poured himself another cup of tea. “All the data we have thus far aren’t worth a ha’penny for the lot. The story they gave me over the telephone was that they had come to Earth on a bet, to pick up a souvenir of some kind, that one of the Thregonnese betting against them had done something to their space capsule, and that somehow—Heaven only knows how!—the United States Navy has gained possession of the capsule. All of which could be a tissue of lies from one end to the other, damn it.” He looked searchingly at his butler. “What’s your opinion, Fesswick?”

“The story as it stands, my lord, is not consistent with the facts as we know them, but that is merely to say that we have no conclusive evidence of any kind.”

Lord Curvert snorted at that and looked at his wife. “ And how is your intuition this morning, my dear?”

“Well, Charles,” she said, smiling rather timidly, “I have a feeling you ought to do
something—
but
I’m not at all sure what.”

“Well, damn it all, we
have
to do something! The family has held the Observership perfectly for eight thousand years—guarded Earthmen from interference, so that they could develop their own civilization. I’m not going to have that record spoilt by four Thregonnese clowns!”

“Couldn’t we just help them to escape with the teleporter?” Lady Curvert asked helpfully. “Then you could put the collars on them and ship them off.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” his lordship growled, staring into his teacup.

Lady Curvert looked hurt.

“It can’t be done, my lady,” Fesswick said quietly. “We used to be able to do such things easily, but, in these days, when the cells of a modern gaol are made of steel, we find ourselves hampered by the fact that a teleporter field is badly distorted if one attempts to project it into a metal-enclosed space.”

“Dear me,” said Lady Curvert. She looked at her husband, saw that he was far too deep in thought to be disturbed, and turned back to Fesswick. “Is there anything at all I can do?”

“Not, I’m afraid, at the moment, my lady ,” said the robot with dignity. “When both Logic and Intuition have failed, we must resort to Action and Ingenuity, and those are in his lordship’s department.” He poured Lady Curvert another cup of tea. “I am quite sanguine, my lady, over the prospect of his lordship’s solving the problem very shortly. He always has.”

The police chemist who took the small package of heroin from the safe to analyze it was very careful with the stuff. His job was to run it through an analysis so that he could testify in court that it really was heroin. He didn’t let the package out of his sight for more than thirty seconds.

Which was plenty long enough.

He was setting up his testing apparatus, so he didn’t see a long-fingered, aristocratic hand appear out of nowhere, take the package, and replace it with an exactly similar one.

When the contents of the package turned out to be sugar, the chemist was surprised. The District Attorney was more than surprised; he was furious.

But there was nothing that either of them could do.

There was even more surprise in Castle Curvert when Fesswick reported his own analysis of the powder to his master .

“The substance, my lord,” he said in his precise voice, “is not heroin.”

“Not heroin?” said his lordship.

“No, my lord. It is Varesh powder.”

“Ah-hah!” his lordship expostulated. ‘I And they brought plenty of it, didn’t they?”

“Yes, my lord. Enough, shall we say, to hypnotize every government official on Earth, if that became necessary. It only needs to be activated.”

“Things are beginning to fall into place, Fesswick.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Lost their equipment, didn’t they, Fesswick?” he said, grinning.

“It would appear so, my lord,” said Fesswick, returning the grin.

“The next step, Fesswick, is to appear to fall in with their nefarious plan.”

“Yes, my lord. I shall begin preparation immediately.”

Omboser, Lubix, Forbin, and Alsnokine stepped out of the court building and walked down the imposing-looking steps toward the sidewalk.

“It’s about time they let us out,” Omboser snarled in Thregonnese. “I knew that as soon as they analyzed the Varesh powder they would realize that it was not one of their local drugs-but I didn’t know it would take the primitive fools that long to analyze it.”

Lubix patted the pocket of the suit he was wearing. “Well, we got it back, and that’s what’s important.”

“You idiots!” Forbin hissed, “cease your chatter! The Galactic Observer could be anywhere around.”

They all glanced around apprehensively. Alsnokine whispered, “Do you think he can speak or understand Thregonnese?”

“Probably not,” said Forbin, “but there’s .no need of talking loud enough for everyone to hear.”

“What I want to know ,” Lubix said as they headed toward the subway entrance, “is, who’s the creep who called the cops on us?”

“That character from the Musician’s Union, obviously,” said Omboser. “If Alsnokine hadn’t acted so guilty when he came into the office, nothing would have happened.”

“What was I supposed to do? Leave it out there for him to look at?” Alsnokine asked defensively. “How could I know he wasn’t the Observer himself?”

“Quit arguing, you two!” Forbin snapped. “We haven’t lost anything but a little time. Let’s get back to the club and hope that the Observer will contact us again.”

“If Omboser hadn’t been such a blockhead,” Alsnokine began, “we wouldn’t…”

“Ahh,
shut up!
” said Forbin.

When they reached the Venus Club, a little more than a mile north of the station at Centre Street, Omboser produced his key, unlocked the front door, and went in, followed by his three coconspirators. They stopped suddenly at the sight of a tall, rather handsome, impeccably dressed gentleman who was seated at a table in the middle of the room, sipping at a small cup of espresso.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” he said with utter aplomb. “That machine of yours makes quite excellent coffee.” He was speaking very cultivated Galactic.

“The Observer,” the four Thregonnese said in a ragged chorus.

“Exactly,” said Lord Curvert. “You may refer to me as Mr. Smith. Not as original an alias, perhaps, as, say, ‘Sebastian Tombs,’ but it will suffice. Now, to which of you was I speaking when the local constabulary so precipitately interrupted?”

“That was me,” said Omboser.

“Then pray sit down, make yourselves comfortable, and tell me all about your troubles. Consider me your Father Confessor, and tell all.”

They sat down slowly, all four pairs of eyes focused steadily on the intruder.

Finally, Omboser smiled. “Well, sir, as I was saying,” he began, “we had this little bet, you see. We knew it was illegal, but it was just a harmless prank. We were to come here, and then go back, that’s all. Nobody would be hurt, nobody would be the wiser, and we would win our bet. See?”

“I understand so far,” Lord Curvert said agreeably. “Then what happened?”

“Well...” Omboser began very hesitantly.

“This idiot,” said Forbin, pointing a thumb at Omboser, “was supposed to stay behind with our capsule. Instead, he went swimming.”

“It gets pretty boring, doing nothing,” said Omboser pettishly.

“He went swimming,” Forbin repeated. “We had the capsule underwater, in a little bay at Lukiuni Atoll, out in the Pacific.”

“There was nobody on the atoll at all,” Omboser said. “It looked perfectly all right to go swimming.”

“Nevertheless,” Forbin continued, “while Omboser was out cavorting-he’d changed himself into a porpoise for the purpose -a United States Navy patrol plane spotted the capsule from the air.”