World of Tiers 04 - Behind the Walls of Terra Page 4

  "Some," Kickaha said. "What about it?"

  She felt the muscles of his thigh and said, "Two can play at that game."

  "You offering me money, too?" he said.

  She drew away from him, her eyes widening and then she said, "You're putting me on! I should pay you?"

  At another time, Kickaha might have played the game out to the end. But, corny as it sounded, the fate of the human race on Earth really depended on him. If the Beller adjusted to this world, and succeeded in making other bells, and then the minds in these possessed the bodies of human beings, the time would come when . . . Moo-Moo herself would become a mindless thing and then a body and brain inhabited by another entity.

  It might not matter, however. If he were to believe half of what he read in the magazines and newspapers, the human race might well have doomed itself. And all life on the planet. Earth might be better off with humans occupied by the minds of Bellers. Bellers were logical beings, and, given a chance, they would clear up the mess that humans seemed to have made of the entire planet.

  Kickaha shuddered a little. Such thinking was dangerous.

  There could be no rest until the last of the Bellers died.

  "What's the matter with you?" Moo-Moo said, her voice losing its softness. "You don't dig me?"

  He patted her thigh and said, "You're a beautiful woman, Moo-Moo, but I love Ann. However, tell you what! If the Gnome King succeeds in turning Ann into one of his Bad Eggs, you and I will make music together. And it won't be the cacophony that radio is vomiting."

  She jerked with surprise and then said, "What do you mean? That's the Rolling Stones!"

  "No moss gathered here," he said.

  "You're not with it," she said. "Man, you're square, square, square! You sure you're not over thirty?"

  He shrugged. He had not cared for the popular music of his youth, either. But it was sometimes pleasant, when compared to this screeching rhythm which turned his teeth in on himself.

  The bus had moved out of the desert country into greener land. It sped along the freeway despite the increasing traffic. The sun was shining down so fiercely now, and the air was hot. The air was also noisy with the roar of cars and stinking with fumes. His eyes stung, and the sides of his nostrils felt needled. A grayish haze was lying ahead; then they were in it, and the air seemed to clear somewhat, and the haze was head again.

  Moo-Moo said something about the smog really being fierce this time of the year and especially along here. Kickaha had read about smog in one of the magazines, although he did not know the origin of the word as yet. If this was what the people of southern California lived in, he wanted no more to do with it. Anana's eyes were red and teary and she was sniffling and complaining of a headache and clogging sinuses.

  Moo-Moo left him, and Anana sat down by him.

  "You never said anything about this when you were describing your world to me," she said.

  "I didn't know anything about it," he said. "It developed after I left Earth."

  The bus had been traveling swiftly and too wildly. It had switched lanes back and forth as it squeezed between cars, tailgating and cutting in ahead madly. The driver crouched over his wheel, his eyes seeming to blaze, his mouth hanging open and his tongue flicking out. He paid no attention to the sound of screeching brakes and blaring horns, but leaned on his own horn when he wanted to scare somebody just ahead of him. The horn was very loud and deep and must have sounded like a locomotive horn to many a startled driver. These usually pulled over to another lane, sometimes doing it so swiftly, they almost sideswiped other cars.

  After a while, the press of cars was so heavy that the bus was forced to crawl along or even stop now and then. For miles ahead, traffic was creeping along. The heat and the gray haze thickened. Moo-Moo said to Baum, "Why can't we get air conditioning on this bus? We certainly make enough money!"

  "How often do we get on the freeway?" the manager said.

  Kickaha told Anana about Baum's proposal.

  Anana said, "I don't know whether to laugh or to throw up."

  "A little of both might help you," he said. "Well, I promised I wouldn't try to argue you out of it if you decided to take him in preference to me. Which, by the way, he seemed one hundred percent sure would happen."

  "You sell me; you worry a while until I make up my mind," she said.

  "Sure. I'll do that," he replied. He rose and sauntered down the aisle and looked out the back of the bus. After a while he came back and sat down again with Anana.

  In a low voice, he said, "There's a big black Lincoln Continental, I believe, behind us. I recognized one of the men in it. I saw him through the binoculars when I looked down from the cave."

  "How could they have found us?" she said. Her voice was steady but her body was rigid.

  "Maybe they didn't," he said. "It might be just a coincidence. They may have no idea they're so close to us. And then, again. . ."

  It did not seem at all likely. But how had they caught up with them? Had they been posted along the road and seen them go by in the bus? Or did Orc have such a widespread organization that someone on the bus had reported to him?

  He dismissed this last thought as sheer paranoia. Only time would show whether or not it was coincidence.

  So far, the men in the car had not seemed interested in the bus. They were having a vigorous dispute. Three of them were dark and between forty and fifty-five years old. The fourth was a young man with blond hair cut in a Julius Caesar style. Kickaha studied them until he had branded their features on his mind. Then he returned to the seat near the front.

  After a while, the traffic speeded up. The bus sped by grim industrial sections and the back ends of run-down buildings. The grayish green-tinged smog did not thicken, but its corrosive action became worse. Anana said, "Do your people live in this all the time? They must be very tough!"

  "You know as much as I do about it," he said.

  Baum suddenly rose from his seat beside Moo-Moo and said to the driver, "Jim, when you get near Civic Center, pull off and look for a hamburger stand. I'm hungry."

  The others protested. They could eat at the hotel when they got there. It would only take about a half hour more. What was his hurry?

  "I'm hungry!" he shouted. He looked wide-eyed at them and stomped his foot hard. "I'm hungry! I don't want to wait any longer! Besides, if we got to fight our way through the usual mob of teeny-boppers, we may be held up for some time! Let's eat now!"

  The others shrugged. Evidently they had seen him act this way before. He looked as if he were going to scream and stamp through the floor, like in a tantrum, if he did not get his way.

  It was not a whim this time, however. Moo-Moo rolled her eyes and then came up to Kickaha and said, "He's letting you know it's time to bow out, Red. You better take your worldly goods and kiss your girlfrend goodbye."

  "You've been through this before?" Kickaha said, grinning. "What makes you so sure Ann'll be staying?"

  "I'm not so sure about her," Moo-Moo said. "I sensed something weird about you two, and the feeling hasn't gone away. In fact, it's even stronger."

  She surprised Kickaha by saying, "You two are running away, aren't you? From the fuzz. And from others. More than the fuzz. Somebody close behind you now. I smell danger."

  She squeezed his arm, bent lower, and whispered, "If I can help you, I'll be at the Beverly Hilton for a week, then we go to San Francisco. You call me. I'll tell the hotel to let you through. Any time."

  Kickaha felt warmed by her interest and her offer of help. At the same time, he could not keep from considering that she might know more than any would-be friend of his should. Was it possible that she was tied in with Red Orc?

  He rejected that. His life had been so full of danger, one perilous situation after another, and he had gotten into the prosurvival habit of always considering the worst and planning possible actions to avoid it. In this case, Moo-Moo could be nothing more than a psychic, or, at least, a very sensitive person.

>   The bus pulled off the freeway and drove to the Music Center. Kickaha would have liked to study the tall buildings here, which reminded him of those of Manhattan, but he was watching the big black Lincoln and its four occupants. It had turned when the bus turned and was now two cars behind. Kickaha was willing to concede that its getting off the freeway here might be another coincidence. But he doubted it very much.

  The bus pulled into a corner of a parking lot in the center of which was a large hamburger stand. The bus doors opened, and the driver got out first. Baum took Anana's hand and led her out. Kickaha noted this out of the corner of his eye; he was watching the Lincoln. It had pulled into a parking place five cars down from the stand.

  Baum was immediately surrounded by five or six young girls who shrieked his name and a number of unintelligible exclamations. They also tried to touch him. Baum smiled at them and waved his hands for them to back away. After a minute's struggle, he and the older men succeeded in backing them off.

  Kickaha, carrying the instrument case, followed Moo-Moo off the bus and across the lot to the picnic table under a shady awning, where Baum and Anana were seated. The waitress brought hamburgers, hot dogs, milk shakes, and cokes. He salivated when he saw his hamburger.

  It had been, God, over twenty-four years since he had tasted a hamburger! He bit down and then chewed slowly. There was something in the meat, some unidentified element, that he did not like. This distasteful substance also seemed to be in the lettuce and tomato.

  Anana, grimaced and said, in the language of the Lords, "What do you put in this food?"

  Kickaha shrugged and said, "Insecticide, maybe, although it doesn't seem possible that we could detect one part in a million or whatever it was. Still, there's something."

  They fared better with the chocolate milk shake. This was as thick and creamy and delicious as he remembered it. Anana nodded her approval, too.

  The men were still in the Lincoln and were looking at him and Anana. At the group, anyway.

  Baum looked across to Kickaha and said, "OK, Finnegan. This is it. Take off!"

  Kickaha glanced up at him and said, "The bargain was, I take off if she agrees to go with you."

  Baum laughed and said, "Just trying to spare your feelings, my Midwestern rustic. But have it your way. Watch me, maybe you'll learn something."

  He leaned over Anana, who was talking with Moo-Moo. Moo-Moo glanced once at Baum's face, then got up, and walked off. Kickaha watched Baum and Anana. The conversation was short; the action, abrupt and explosive.

  Anana slapped Baum so hard across the face that its noise could be heard above the gabble of his fans and the roar of the traffic. There was a short silence from everybody around Baum and then a number of shrieks of anger from the girl fans. Baum shouted angrily and swung with his right fist at Anana. She dodged and slid off the bench, but then the people around her blocked Kickaha's view.

  He scooped off some change on the table, left by customers. Putting this in his pocket, he jumped into the fray. He was, however, almost knocked down by the press of bodies trying to get away. The girls rammed into him, clawed at him, shrieked, gouged, and kicked.

  Suddenly, there was an opening. He saw Baum lying on the cement, his legs drawn up and his hands clenching his groin. A girl, bent over, was sitting by him and holding her stomach. Another girl was leaning over a wooden table, her back to him and retching.

  Kickaha grabbed Anana's hand and shouted, "Come on! This is the chance we've been looking for!"

  The instrument case in his other hand, he led her running toward the back of the parking lot. Just before they went down a narrow alley between two tall buildings, he looked back. The car containing his shadowers had pulled into the lot, and three of the men were getting out. They saw their quarry, and ran toward them. But they were not stupid enough to pull out weapons before they caught up with them. Kickaha did not intend that they should catch up with them.

  And then, as he ran out of the alley and into the next street, he thought, Why not? I could spend years trying to find Red Orc but if I can get hold of those who work for him . . . ?

  The next street was as busy as the one they had just left. The two stopped running but did walk swiftly. A police car, proceeding in the same direction, suddenly accelerated, its lights coming into red life. It took the corner with squealing tires, pursued by the curses of an old man who looked like a wino.

  He looked behind him. The three men were still following but making no effort to overtake them. One man was talking into something concealed in his hand. He was either speaking to the man in the car or to his boss. Kickaha understood by now that radio sets were much smaller than in 1946 and that the man might be using a quite common miniature transceiver. On the other hand, he might be using a device unknown on Earth except to those who worked for Red Orc.

  They continued walking. He looked back once more when they had covered two blocks. The big black Lincoln had stopped, and the three men were getting into it. Kickaha halted before a pawn shop and looked through the dirty plate glass window at the backwash of people's hopes. He said, "We'll give them a chance to try to pick us up. I don't know that they'll have guts enough to do it in broad daylight but if they do, here's what we do. . . ."

  The Lincoln drew up even with them and stopped.

  Kickaha turned around and grinned at the men in the Lincoln. The front and back doors on the right side opened, and three men got out. They walked toward the couple, their hands in their coat pockets. At that moment, a siren wailed down the street. The three jerked their heads to look at the police car which had suddenly appeared. It shot between cars, swerved sharply to cut around the Lincoln, and went on through the traffic light just as it was turning red. It kept on going; evidently it was not headed for the trouble around the corner.

  The three men had turned casually and walked back toward the Lincoln. Kickaha took advantage of their concern over the police car. Before they could turn around again, he was behind them. He shoved his knuckles into the back of the oldest man and said, "I'll burn a hole through you if you make any trouble."

  Anana had her ring finger against the back of the young man with the tangled blond hair. He stiffened, and his jaw dropped, as if he could not believe that not only had their hunted turned against them, they were doing so before at least fifty witnesses.

  Horns started blaring at the Lincoln. The driver gestured at the three to hurry back, then he saw that Kickaha and Anana were pressed up closely against the backs of two of the men. The third man, who had overheard Kickaha, waved at the driver to go on. The Lincoln took off with a screeching and burning of tires and swung around the corner without coming to a stop first.

  "That was a smart move!" Kickaha said to the man just in front of him. "One up for you!"

  The third man began to walk away, Kickaha said, "I'll kill this guy if you don't come back!"

  "Kill him!" the man said and continued walking.

  Kickaha spoke in Lord language to Anana. "Let your man go! We'll keep this one and herd him to a private place where we can talk."

  "What's to keep the others from following us?"

  "Nothing. I don't care at this moment if they do."

  He did, but he did not want the others to think so.

  The blond sneered at them and swaggered off. There was something in his walk, however, which betrayed him. He was very relieved to have gotten away unhurt.

  Kickaha then told the remaining man just what would happen if he tried to run away. The man said nothing. He seemed very calm. A genuine professional, Kickaha thought. It would have been better to have kept the blond youth, who might not be so tough to crack. It was too late to do anything about that, however.

  The problem was: where to take the man for questioning? They were in the center of a vast metropolis unfamiliar to either Kickaha or Anana. There should be some third-rate hotels around here, judging by the appearance of the buildings and many of the pedestrians. It might be possible to rent a room and interr
ogate their captive there. But he could ruin everything if he opened his mouth and screamed. And even if he could be gotten into a hotel room, his buddies would have trailed them there and would call in reinforcements. The hotel room would be a trap.

  Kickaha gave the order and the three started walking. He was on one side of the man and Anana was on the other. He studied his captive's profile, which looked brutish but strong. The man was about fifty, had a dark sallow skin, brown eyes, a big curved nose, a thick mouth, and a massive chin. Kickaha asked his name, and the man growled, "Mazarin."

  "Who do you work for?" Kickaha said.

  "Somebody you'd better not mess around with," Mazarin said.

  "You tell me who your boss is and how I can get to him, and I'll let you go scot-free," Kickaha said. "Otherwise, I burn you until you tell. You know everybody has their limits, and you might be able to take a lot of burning, but you'll give in eventually."

  The man shrugged big shoulders and said, "Sure. What about it?"

  "Are you really that loyal?" Kickaha said.

  The man looked at him contemptuously, "No, but I don't figure you'll get the chance to do anything. And I don't intend to say anything more."

  He clamped his lips shut and turned his eyes away.

  They had walked two blocks. Kickaha looked behind him. The Lincoln had come around and picked up the two men and now was proceeding slowly on the lane nearest the sidewalk.

  Kickaha did not doubt that the three had gotten into contact with their boss and were waiting for reinforcements. It was an impasse.

  Then he grinned again.

  He spoke rapidly to Anana, and they directed Mazarin to the edge of the road. They waited until the Lincoln drew even and then stepped out. The three were staring from the car as if they could not believe what they were seeing. They also looked apprehensive. The car stopped when Kickaha waved at them. The two on the right side of the car had their guns out and pointed through the window, although their other hands concealed the barrels as best they could.