Space For Hire (Seven For Space) (11 page)

"Not quite," I said. "Look what's around the bend."

Kane's fire-breathing dragon was sleeping soundly in the road. His huge scaly body filled the road's entire width; there was a sheer drop on either side and no room to wriggle past.

We were effectively blocked.

"That's one hell of a place to take a snooze," I said.

"He won't like it if we disturb him," Esma said. "What are we going to do?"

I was trying to figure an answer to that question when the castle alarm blared: Waaaaa-eeee-waaaaa! Waaaaa-waaaaa!

"Jig's up!" I said. "They must have found our three stiffs in the Tower." I jerked out my .38 and handed it to Esma. "Take this. You'll be needing it."

The drawbridge was beginning to swing down, which meant that the castle guards would be streaming across it at our backs while Kane's pet continued to block the road down to the village.

I figured he must have had a hard night because he was still snoozing despite the siren shrill of the alarm.

"Watch the dragon!" I told Esma. "Yell if he wakes up."

I left her there and scrambled up the road to its edge, hauled out the sawed-off flexbarrel .60-20 laserbeam and took a sight on the half-lowered drawbridge.

I pressed the release stud — and a bright beam sliced into the bridge like a knife through warm cheese. Within moments I'd cut the bridge in half. The two pieces tumbled down into the boiling lava.

Which fixed the castle guards. They could no longer reach us.

Now all I had to worry about was the fire-dragon and the rest of the soldiers in the village below us. Even if we could slip by the dragon how could -

"Sam! Sam, he's waking up!" Esma yelled. "You'd better come quick."

I did just that, and by the time I reached Esma the big scaly devil was up on his feet and plenty mad. It was a cinch he didn't like sirens and falling drawbridges and private ops disturbing his afternoon nap. His boulder-big red-flecked eyes glared down at us, and his long spiked tail swung back and forth like an Earth crane.

"Get back," I warned Esma. "I think he's going to —"

He did.

The huge mouth gaped open like hell's own furnace and a long gout of yellow-white flame lashed out. It seared and blackened the road in front of us.

"I guess he's still a little sleepy," I said. "His aim's off. Missed by a good three feet."

"Oh, Sam, he'll incinerate both of us!"

"No, he won't," I told her. I had the laserbeam and felt confident. If it could slice through a drawbridge it should be able to clobber a dragon.

I aimed at the massive pebbled head and pressed the stud.

Nothing!

I tried again. Still nothing. The gun had jammed on me just when I needed it most.

I tossed the damn thing aside and pulled out the Kid's .20-40 Vickers, a toy next to the laser, but all I had.

Before I could squeeze off a shot another long blast of flame flashed out of the dragon's mouth and I leaped back, stumbling. My left foot struck a rock and twisted under me. I fell, and the Vickers was knocked from my hand. It tumbled over the edge of the road, gone.

The angry dragon reared above me, tall as a rocket, all green and purple scales and glittering pebbled skin and monstrous fire-flecked eyes. Smoke streamed from its cave-wide nostrils.

I was in trouble. In another second I'd be cooked meat; even a groggy dragon couldn't miss three times out of three.

"Sam … here!" yelled Esma. She had retreated to the bend in the road, watching the struggle. Now she sprinted toward me, waving the .38.

"Throw it!" I shouted to her. "Toss it to me!"

She did, and I caught it neatly, swinging to face my scaly friend. I took another split-second to aim; if I missed there wouldn't be another chance. I was convinced of that.

I went for the eyes. Two shots, spaced just far enough apart for me to swing the barrel from left eye to right. One wouldn't do it; I had to shatter them both.

A roar of pain. A trumpeting of anger and surprise. The great blind head swiveled fiercely. Flame roared from the angry upturned mouth.

Now I had the advantage. I fired again — two, three, four times, putting my shots into the head. Until the .38 clicked empty.

The big boy staggered, roaring. His forked tongue danced like a kite. His feet smashed boulders as he stamped out his fury. Smoke was pouring from his eyes and nose.

"You
got
him, Sam!" enthused Esma, helping me stand up. My left ankle was sprained; walking would be murder.

Above us, the giant's body quaked. He wobbled, tail lashing fitfully. We ducked as it swished over our heads.

"Back!" I warned. "He's about to go!"

Like a falling granite mountain the green and purple giant crashed down into the road, expiring in a great hiss of steam. The tail lashed in a final, convulsive movement. And was still.

We approached him. A spreading pool of black was darkening the road around the mountainous carcass.

"Blood!" gasped Esma, putting a hand to one of her mouths.

"No," I said. "Oil."

"You mean he was —"

"A robot, what else? Kane's pet robot dragon. I just ruptured his crankcase."

"Amazing!" exclaimed Esma in hushed admiration. "What a truly amazing creation."

"They don't call Kane the Robot King for laughs," I said. "He knows how to put the wheels and cogs together. I'm sure he designed this baby himself."

Esma peered into one of the shattered eye cavities. "Gears," she said. "I see gears in there. And pipes. Long pipes and hoses."

"For the fire and smoke," I said.

"I just can't get over how lifelike he was!"

"Well, you'd better," I said. "We've got company."

I pulled Esma down behind the dragon's smoking head as a horde of hornet-mad synthetics boiled up the road toward us.

"Can you stop them?"

I sighed. "My ankle's on the fritz. The Kid's gun is gone. My .38's empty. And the laserbeam's jammed. I hate to tell you, sister, but right now the only thing that's gonna save us is a miracle."

We got one. A miracle, that is. At least that's what I thought it was at the time.

One second we were there, crouched behind the leaky robot dragon, with maybe two hundred of Kane's armed guards piling in on us, and the next second we were not there at all.

We were sitting on the floor of Nathan Oliver's lab under the Chicago Art Institute with old Nate dancing a circle around us and clapping his fat pink hands in delight.

"Did it! Did it! Did it! Oh, boy, it worked! It really worked!"

"What worked?" I asked him.

"My timesnapper," Nate told me. "I've been puttering for months trying to get the bugs out of it. Works on the snap-beam principal. You snap-beam things back and forth in time. I snapped a turtle into 3028,give or take a year, but I lost him. The future's pretty foggy. Then I tried to snap up a cop on a horse from Times Square back when cops still rode horses. Well, I got the horse but a 42nd St. wino was riding him. So I gave him a drink and sent him back."

"The horse?" asked Esma.

"No, the wino. I kept the horse."

"Listen, Nate …" I stood up; my ankle throbbed but it was easier to walk on. "How the hell did you know where we were and what was happening to us? How did you know we needed to be snap-beamed out of there?"

"That's not easy to explain in layman's terms."

"Try," I said.

"First," he declared, helping Esma to her feet, "I'm going to fix a drink for this charming young creature." He hesitated, jowls quivering."Or … or should I fix you
three
drinks?"

"One's fine," she said. "I usually switch heads with a drink, giving a sip or two to each."

Nate was fascinated. "And you have three different sets of taste buds?"

"Naturally. Just as I have three brains, three necks, three noses and three sets of eyes and ears."

"That's amazing," said Oliver. "With three brains don't your thoughts get all crossed up? I have a terrible time with one."

"Hey, Nate," I said, grabbing his elbow. "Cut the gab and fix her drink. And one for me while you're at it. Make it potent."

After Nate delivered the booze we all sat down in his crowded liveroom. He'd made chairs out of old famous actors. I sat down on Marlon Brando and Esma sat down on Johnny Weissmuller and Nate sat down on Zazu Pitts.

I slugged the double bourbon like baby's milk. Knocking off giant fire dragons builds a man's thirst. "Okay," I said, as one of Esma's heads sipped at her Scotch and water, "fill me in on just how you found us."

Nate squirmed uncomfortably. "It's complicated, Sam."

"So's life," I snapped. "Give!"

Nate sighed, puffing his red-Santa cheeks. "Well … when did you see me last?"

"I saw one of you when I started this case," I told him. "But that Oliver was in another universe. You — or, rather, the other you — managed to foul up in getting me back here and sent me on another dimensional track. I was plenty steamed over it."

"I guess I wasn't doing too well at that stage," he declared sadly. "The other me, I mean."

"You were a little addlepated," I said. "But your intentions were sound."

"Thanks. That's mighty decent of you."

"So as to when I saw you last … I'd say that was about a year ago when you asked me to check on that missing electronic cow of yours."

"Ah, yes," sighed Nate. "I feared she'd been stolen by another would-be electronic cow-inventor. But it turned out she'd simply wandered away. A loose hoof connection was responsible for her erratic behavior."

"A drunk was half-electrocuted trying to milk her in the middle of Michigan Avenue," I reminded him.

"Yes." A fresh sigh. "My inventions seem to attract inebriates. The wino on the horse, for example."

"Where's all this leading?" I wanted to know.

"To my explanation, of course. I merely wanted to fill you in on what's been happening since last we met."

"Then snap to it."

Nate laced and unlaced his pudgy fingers. There was no way of rushing him, so I built me another double bourbon and settled back into Brando's stomach to hear Nate out. Esma seemed amused — and Oliver's having time-yanked us out of KublaKane had put her in a good mood. Besides, since her father was one, she was used to nutty scientists.

"After the unfortunate Michigan Avenue incident with the startled drunk," Nate said, "I turned away from electronic cows to more exacting forms of creative endeavor. I tentatively entered the area of time and parallel universes, getting my toes wet, one might say, in the great cosmic stream."

"I'd heard you were into the schmazz," I said.

"Indeed I was." He removed a huge Irish linen handkerchief and blew his nose like a trumpet. Then he continued. "My ultimate achievement was the snap-beam device which I employed in your rescue." Heave us a smirk. "It is a sort of spy hole into past and future. When the charged neutron isoten energy vibrations are in their proper cohesive sonic sequence I have, in effect, a window through which I may peer at past and future events. It's no cinch to set up, however."

"And that's what you used to spot us with?" I was on my third bourbon, feeling mellow and relaxed. My ankle had quit aching. Just for the hell of it, I switched chairs and sat down on Veronica Lake. Esma stayed with Weissmuller.

"Yes," Nate answered my question with a fresh smirk. "I was doing a bit of poking about in the near-present and picked up your energy pattern on Mercury."

"Were you in on the whole scene?" I asked. "Did you see me stiff the dragon?"

"Indeed I did. And a fine display of cool nerve and superb marksmanship it was!"

I gave him smirk for smirk. "Nothing to it."

"In fact," Oliver went on, "I became so deeply engrossed in your dramatic battle for survival I almost forgot about time-snapping you to safety."

"You got us out and that's what matters," said Esma. "We're very much in your debt, Mr. Oliver."

Nate flushed with pleasure. "It is always gratifying to a creator when his inventions benefit those who may need assistance."

I waved my glass at him. "Got to find out something, Nate."

He inclined his fat head toward me, waiting.

"Where are we, right now, in relation to where we were in KublaKane?"

Oliver laced his hands again. "As precisely as I can determine, you are about an Earth-day in front of yourself."

"Meaning we picked up twenty-four hours?"

"About that. Give or take a squidge."

"Ok," I said, putting my empty glass on a coffee table shaped like Alan Ladd. "That gives us a little leeway on Kane. If we'd ended up a day behind ourselves he might have been able to make another attempt on Dr. Umani's life."

"We'd better contact father and tell him we're safe," declared Esma.

"Nope," I said, shaking my head. "Kane might have his vid tapped. We're better off just popping back unannounced. He'll be safe enough till we get there." I shook hands with Nate. "Thanks for the free buggy ride!"

"My pleasure, Sam."

Esma gave him a kiss on the check with each pair of lips. He twittered. "Care for another drink?"

"We gotta cut out for Bubble City," I told him.

"But I have more inventions to show you. I'm working on a method in which I may painlessly turn pigs inside out."

"Whatever for?" Esma wanted to know.

Nate looked confused. "I'm not sure, to be entirely truthful. There's really no demand for inside-out pigs, is there?"

"We'll take a raincheck on the porkers," I said. "But you could do one more thing for us."

"Simply name it."

"Esma can't hop all the way back to Mars in a guardsman's cape. Got anything else she could wear?"

"I would imagine so," he said, leading us to the bedbooth. He thumbed open a wall, sifted through racked clothing. "How's this?" He showed us a ladies' fullsuit, waist-ribbed with slashcut sleeves. "My late wife was quite fond of it."

"I didn't know you'd been married," said Esma.

"Yes. Dorothy worked with me in some of my earlier experiments. She was carried off and strangled by a mechanical ape. I wasn't much good with my apes in those days. They kept going haywire on me."