Mission: Earth "Death Quest" (33 page)

He got a scrap of paper and practiced calligraphy from earlier entries.

Then, instead of "Sighted
Sea Skiff 329-478A"
he wrote, "Sighted appalling sea monster-orange wings,

purple horns, flaming breath, 300 feet in length. Speaks Scandinavian."

He made the next entry, "Giving chase. Sea monster travelling at 48 knots."

Then he wrote, "Sea monster has turned on ship. Demanding coffee." Then, with appropriate times, "Has now boarded over bow." "Is melting cannon with flaming breath." "Ate antennas." "Crew fainted, all except me. Good-bye, cruel world."

A roar of engines sounded in the sky.

Heller glanced out.

Three choppers were swiftly overtaking the slow-moving patrol craft.

One in the lead dived close.

Heller put his arm out of the pilothouse and waved.

THE THREE CHOPPERS WENT AWAY!

Raging, I got on to Grumper. "You're being hoodwinked!" I screamed. "That patrol craft is in enemy hands!"

"Oh, come now," said Grumper. "It's as I said. We have the Sea Skiff in tow. And one of the pilots even recognized the chief petty officer that is captain of the craft. Chief Jive, one of the most able blacks we have in service. Please, Mr. Swindle and Crouch, can't you let us get back to our normal duties? The Coast Guard's work is efficient beyond reproach."

The phone dropped out of my hand.

I sat there, stricken.

At first I had thought that the cops hadn't recognized Heller at Hudson Harbor because they had all seen the Whiz Kid on TV and thought they were looking for buckteeth and glasses. And now the truth dawned. He'd done it in the Stockbroker's Bar!

(Bleep) Spurk! With this rig, you couldn't see the

man's own face! Heller had used the same trick he had played in Connecticut! As he was wearing black cotton gloves, I hadn't seen his hands and neither had anyone else.

I watched with great care. And I confirmed it in the pilothouse window reflection at last. Heller was black-faced! And blacks all look alike to whites. No wonder the day had looked so beautifully hazeless! He was wearing tan contact lenses!

(Bleep) Heller! How can you keep up with such a man!

I did the only thing I could do, then. I phoned the harbor master at Atlantic City. I told him, "I am a Fed. I have to advise you that an attempt will be made to board and blow up the
Golden Sunset
sometime later today or tonight."

"Good Christ!" he said. "Blowing up a ship that size would make a harbor obstruction!" He was horrified.

"Precisely," I said. "So alert the ship and put her under arms. Don't let any vessels approach her, particularly the Coast Guard."

"Coast Guard?" he said. "Why not?"

"They're not all they're cracked up to be," I said. "They lose ships right and left and won't listen. But here is the important part: the saboteur is a black man, the most evil and deceptive (bleepard) anyone ever saw. If you catch a glimpse of him, don't even challenge. Just shoot on sight."

He promised faithfully he would.

The afternoon was waning and I could see, as Heller looked at a chart and spotted his position, that he must be doing only ten knots or less and that it would be hours before he came abreast of Atlantic City.

It was just as well. The girls were home as I could hear. Quite a hubbub. They were not alone.

Presently Pinchy or Adora or Mrs. Sultan Bey-or whatever the Hells her name was now-came to my door and peered in. "You can watch TV later," she said. "Come on, you (bleepard), and do your husbandly duties!"

Very mindful they could have me arrested for bigamy and thrown in the clink if I did not please, I put on a robe, patted my face plaster so the edges would not lift, and went out.

Two lesbians were there. Mike, a somewhat sallow woman of thirty-five, dressed in very mannish clothes, was smoking a joint in a long holder and swinging her leg as she sat on the arm of a chair. She was not bad-looking really, though awfully tall. Mildred, the other one, might have been twenty-five: she had a rosy complexion, was soft and round and quite pretty. She was eyeing me with a speculative smile. Neither one of them looked like they were going to perish during the reeducation into sex and I started to feel better.

And then I saw the other one! She was standing back of Candy in a corner. TEENIE! What the Hells was she doing back here?

I said to Adora, "WHAT THE HELLS IS SHE DOING BACK HERE?"

"Oh, pish, pish and tush, tush," said Adora. "She felt she didn't have it right. As an adult, dear husband, one has certain responsibilities, as you should learn. These consist of making sure the young are properly educated. How would you feel if you let her grow up to womanhood with totally wrong conceptions and conditionings in the field of sex?"

"I'd feel great!" I said, eyeing this bony, scrawny specimen with her proclivity for sinking nails in faces at the slightest (bleep).

"Well, that may be, dear husband," said Adora, "but Teenie is an opportunity. During her slack time in licking stamps for Rockecenter's office, who knows? He might proposition her and (bleep) her on his desk when Miss Peace isn't looking. And if Teenie knew her business and Rockie had a real (bleep), it might cure him of this God (bleeped) determination to push Psychiatric Birth Control. So it is of vital necessity that we educate the young, whatever you may think. Besides, she's just here to watch and take pictures so she can develop the knack."

"Ignore me," said Teenie, her huge hazel eyes entreating. "I promise to be very quiet and very good. I love spectator sports but I won't even cheer. I promise."

There was no arguing with five women. I opened my robe and Mike, the tall one, went kind of white. "Jesus!" she said.

Right away the others saw she was going to pull a last minute sales rejection and say she did not want the item

after all. They grabbed her. They pulled off her oxfords. They turned her upside down and shucked her out of her pants. Her shirt went flying through the air, followed by her very masculine BVDs. Her breast compressor hit the wastebasket. "After tonight," Adora told her, "you won't want that again, ever."

Adora got behind me and gave a mighty shove. "Have at her, dear husband."

The clamshell top of the bed vibrated and Candy hastily grabbed it as it shook, preventing it from falling down.

Mike's face, close under me, showed wonder as she said, "Oh, it isn't a falsie after all! Oh, you're wonderful!"

Here was appreciation! She was...

For an instant I thought we had been hit with spaceship landing-preparation blueflash and got all ready to go unconscious. I didn't. I stared around.

Teenie! That Gods (bleeped) kid had a flash camera! She had just taken a picture.

To Hells with her. With determination I got back at it.

Adora was smiling indulgently as Mike crooned, "Oh, you honey baby!"

Mildred was bobbing her head in expectant rhythm as Mike cried, voice throbbing with passion, "I have never, never, never felt anything so wonderful. A real MAN!"

I grinned with the compliment and concentrated as she moaned.

There it was again! Gods (bleep) it, it took my mind off it utterly!

I gritted my teeth. I got going again.

Teenie was struggling with her camera.

I kept one eye on her. I must beat her to the draw!

The whole bed quaked and the clamshell top tried to come down but Candy grabbed and held it.

I rested for a moment, panting, and then gave Teenie a sneer. I'd beaten her!

Adora was in there with her usual pitch as soon as Mike had come around. And Mike said, yes, oh, yes indeed! Emphatically! That was the end of biting and scratching. And using Polish sausages for dildos.

Now it was Mildred's turn. But frankly, I felt sort of under a strain. Nerves.

Candy was very nice. She took me into the shower and turned it on and it did help a little. A few minutes later I came back. Mildred was lying on the bed, sheet held up under her chin, looking at me speculatively.

Teenie was having trouble with her camera. Adora was fixing it for her. My restored ardor deflated.

"No more of that!" I said angrily. "Send her home and right now, at once!"

"But her education," said Adora.

"I don't give a (bleep) if she's a dropout," I said. "Get her out of here!"

"Oh, pish, pish and tush, tush," said Adora. "You have no feeling for the young."

But I was having trouble. Adora got a joint. She shoved it into my mouth and lit it. I took a puff. She hit me in the stomach and I exhaled violently. She jammed the joint into my mouth and when I pulled my breath back in, a whole city of smog came with it. I coughed but the stuff was in my lungs. The walls began to recede and draw near.

Adora sat me down and got me to smoking quietly.

Mike stumbled over and sat down beside me. Her

eyes were filled with wonder as she petted my shoulder. It did marvelous things for my morale and I began to take confidence.

Adora gave me a persuasive pull toward the bed.

Mildred watched me approach, expectantly.

Candy made sure the bed-top shell was hooked more solidly to the wall but it had already begun to move. She looked down at the bed appreciatively.

Mike smiled as she watched in dreamy knowingness as the moans started up.

I came straight off the bed!

It took me a moment to see again that it was not a spaceship landing.

Teenie's oversize lips were smiling sweetly. "That was a good one," she said. "She looked just like she was dying!"

"Kill this kid," I said bitterly to Adora.

"Oh, why should you be upset with a little thing like that? After all, it was only the artistry in the girl. Education and art go hand in hand. She saw something she wanted and she took it."

"I'm going to kill her," I said.

Adora got me back on the sofa. She lit another joint. Candy found some champagne. I drank it between puffs and started to calm down.

Mildred was threshing around, moaning on the bed.

"Not one more picture!" I said.

"I won't do it again," said Teenie.

Soothingly, Adora led me back toward the bed.

Candy was steadying the top of the clamshell as it began to move once more.

Mike, still in dreamy appreciation, began to bob her head in rhythm as she watched.

I was gritting my teeth with effort.

Candy hastily grabbed the top of the bed as a seeming earthquake threatened to collapse it.

I sat up triumphantly with a sneer at Teenie. In spite of her I had made it!

When Mildred came around, Adora was in there with her sales pitch. There was no sales resistance. "Men, men, men," whispered Mildred. "Give me
men
every time!" It was a pretty good testimonial. She was lying there dreamy-eyed and purring like a cat.

Candy gave me another glass of champagne and I raised it as a toast to myself. I was swallowing the bubbly brew and had half a glass to go when I heard a voice.

"Now Teenie wants some more pictures."

When I was through coughing and wheezing and trying to get the champagne out of my lungs, I hoarsed, "Where did you put the duelling pistols? I am going to kill that kid!"

Adora said, "Look at that poor child! You have frightened her half to death!" And then she put her face close to my ear and said in a deadly voice, "You're going to do what you're told, bigamist."

I said weakly, "But there's nothing else to take pictures of! The two girls are satisfied."

"I need demonstration shots," said Teenie. "How can I do my homework without accurate and detailed examples? If I have nothing to study, I won't make it at all!"

"You hear?" said Adora to me. "Just tell us what you want, Teenie."

"Well, ice skaters have to have pictures of themselves to perfect their technique. You said so yourself, Pinchy. I don't have those pictures yet."

"Of course," said Adora indulgently.

"Could you operate the camera?" said Teenie, parking her bubble gum on the head of an Aphrodite statuette.

"Of course," said Adora. And she accepted it. "Now what do you want exactly?"

Instantly, Teenie's dress flew through the air.

I was still sitting on the sofa.

She came over and stood in front of me. She looked down critically at me and shook her head. "This will never dp," she said.

Teenie turned to Adora.

"What we need is some music," said Teenie. "I have just bought the latest Neo Punk Rock record by the Naughty Boys. It's right here in my purse. Do you mind if I play it?"

She would have put the 45 straight onto the stereo but I took it from her hand. Anything to do with Teenie was pretty deadly stuff. One had to be cautious. The label said:

NEO PUNK ROCK

MORAL

For Grade-school Kiddies

International Psychological

Association Approved

Educational Ditty

The Naughty Boys:

Biffer, Poker, Slider and Wowie.

Oh, well, Hells, it was just some childish gibberish and if the psychologists approved it, it must be quite all right. "Go ahead," I said.

She expertly set the stereo on 45 rpm and fixed it so the record would repeat over and over. She turned the volume high and around it went. The needle came down.

Six crashing tom-tom beats followed by three thundering tympani strokes.
POW, POW, POW, POW, POW, POW! BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!
And then it repeated. And then it kept right on repeating! Forceful, compelling, savage, primitive!

All the people in the room began to jerk in rhythm to those drums. Teenie was wide-eyed, beating time with her hips and heels.