by Fritz Leiber
CHAPTER 6
Maiden, Nymph, and Mother are the eternal royal Trinity of the island, and the Goddess, who is worshipped there in each of these aspects, as New Moon, Full Moon, and Old Moon, is the sovereign Deity.
--Graves
CRETE CIRCA 1300 B.C.
Kaby pushed back at Sid some seconds of bread and olives, and, when heraised his bushy eyebrows, gave him a curt nod that meant she knew whatshe was doing. She stood up and sort of took a position. All the talkquieted down fast, even Bruce's and Lili's. Kaby's face and voiceweren't strained now, but they weren't relaxed either.
"Woe to Spider! Woe to Cretan! Heavy is the news I bring you. Bear itbravely, like strong women. When we got the gun unlimbered, I heardseaweed fry and crackle. We three leaped behind the rock wall, saw ourgun grow white as sunlight in a heat-ray of the Serpents! Natch, wefeared we were outnumbered and I called upon my Caller."
I don't know how she does it, but she does--in English too. That is,when she figures she's got something important to report, and maybe sheneeds a little time to get ready.
Beau claims that all the ancients fit their thoughts into measured linesas naturally as we pick a word that will do, but I'm not sure how goodthe Vicksburg language department is. Though why I should wonder aboutthings like that when I've got Kaby spouting the stuff right in front ofme, I don't know.
"But I didn't die there, kiddos. I still hoped to hurt the Greek ships,maybe with the Snake's own heat gun. So I quick tried to outflank them.My two comrades crawled beside me--they are males, but they havecourage. Soon we spied the ambush-setters. They were Snakes and theywere many, filthily disguised as Cretans."
There was an indignant murmur at this, for our cutthroat Change War hasits code, the Soldiers tell me. Being an Entertainer, I don't have tosay what I think.
"They had seen us when we saw them," Kaby swept on, "and they loosed akilling volley. Heat- and knife-rays struck about us in a storm of windand fire, and the Lunan lost a feeler, fighting for Crete's TripleGoddess. So we dodged behind a sand hill, steered our flight back towardthe water. It was awful, what we saw there: Crete's brave ships all sunkor sinking, blue sky sullied by their death-smoke. Once again the Greekshad licked us!--aided by the filthy Serpents.
"Round our wrecks, their black ships scurried, like black beetles, filththeir diet, yet this day they dine on heroes. On the quiet sunlit beachthere, I could feel a Change Gale blowing, working changes deep insideme, aches and pains that were a stranger's. Half my memories weredoubled, half my lifeline crooked and twisted, three new moles upon mysword-hand. Goddess, Goddess, Triple Goddess--"
* * * * *
Her voice wavered and Sid reached out a hand, but she straightened herback.
"Triple Goddess, give me courage to tell everything that happened. Weran down into the water, hoping to escape by diving. We had hardlygotten under when the heat-rays hit above us, turning all the cool greensurface to a roaring white inferno. But as I believe I told you, I wascalling on my Caller, and a Door now opened to us, deep below the deadlysteam-clouds. We dived in like frightened minnows and a lot of waterwith us."
Off Chicago's Gold Coast, Dave once gave me a lesson in skin-diving and,remembering it, I got a flash of Kaby's Door in the dark depths.
"For a moment, all was chaos. Then the Door slammed shut behind us. We'dbeen picked up in time's nick by--an Express Room of ourSpiders!--sloshing two feet deep in water, much more cramped for spacethan this Place. It was manned by a magician, an old coot namedBenson-Carter. He dispelled the water quickly and reported on hisCaller. We'd got dry, were feeling human, Illy here had shed hisswimsuit, when we looked at the Maintainer. It was glowing, changing,melting! And when Benson-Carter touched it, he fell backward--death wasin him. Then the Void began to darken, narrow, shrink and close aroundus, so I called upon my Caller--without wasting time, let me tell you!
"We can't say for sure what was it slowly squeezed that sweet ExpressRoom, but we fear the dirty Snakes have found a way to find our Placesand attack outside the cosmos!--found the Spiderweb that links us in theVoid's gray less-than-nothing."
No murmur this time. This reaction was genuine; we'd been hit where welived and I could see everybody was scared as sick as I was. Exceptmaybe Bruce and Lili, who were still holding hands and beaming gently. Idecided they were the kind that love makes brave, which it doesn't do tome. It just gives me two people to worry about.
"I can see you dig our feelings," Kaby continued. "This thing scared thepants off of us. If we could have, we'd have even Introverted theMaintainer, broken all the ties that bind us, chanced it incommunicado.But the little old Maintainer was a seething red-hot puddle filled withbubbles big as handballs. We sat tight and watched the Void close. Ikept calling on my Caller."
* * * * *
I squeezed my eyes shut, but that made it easier to see the three ofthem with the Void shutting down on them. (Was ours still behaving? Yes,Bibi Miriam.) Poetry or no poetry, it got me.
"Benson-Carter, lying dying, also thought the Snakes had done it. And heknew that death was in him, so he whispered me his mission, giving meprecise instructions: how to press the seven death's hands, startinglockside counterclockwise, one, three, five, six, two, four, seven, thenyou have a half an hour; after you have pressed the seven, do not monkeywith the buttons--get out fast and don't stop moving."
I wasn't getting this part and I couldn't see that anyone else was,though Bruce was whispering to Lili. I remembered seeing skulls engravedon the bronze chest. I looked at Illy and he nodded a tentacle andspread two to say, I guessed, that yes, Benson-Carter had said somethinglike that, but no, Illy didn't know much about it.
"All these things and more he whispered," Kaby went on, "with the lastgasps of his life-force, telling all his secret orders--for he'd notbeen sent to get us, he was on a separate mission, when he heard mySOSs. Sid, it's you he was to contact, as the first leg of his mission,pick up from you three black hussars, death's-head Demons, daringSoldiers, then to wait until the Places next match rhythm with thecosmos--matter of two mealtimes, barely--and to tune in northern Egyptin the age of the last Caesar, in the year of Rome's swift downfall,there to start an operation in a battle near a city named for Thrace'sAlexander, there to change the course of battle, blow sky-high thestinking Serpents, all their agents, all their Zombies!
"Goddess, pardon, now I savvy how you've guided my least footstep, whenI thought you'd gone and left me--for I flubbed your three-mole signal.We've found Sid's Place, that's the first leg, and I see the three blackhussars, and we've brought with us the weapon and the Parthiandisguises, salvaged from the doomed Express Room when your Door appearedin time's nick, and the Room around us closing spewed us through beforeit vanished with the corpse of Benson-Carter. Triple Goddess, draw themilk now from the womanhood I flaunt here and inject the blackesthatred! Vengeance now upon the Serpents, vengeance sweet in northernEgypt, for your island, Crete, Goddess!--and a victory for the Spiders!Goddess, Goddess, we can swing it!"
The roar that made me try to stop my ears with my shoulders didn't comefrom Kaby--she'd spoken her piece--but from Sid. The dear boy was purpleenough to make me want to remind him you can die of high blood pressurejust as easy in the Change World.
"Dump me with ops! 'Sblood, I'll not endure it! Is this a battle post?They'll be mounting operations from field hospitals next. KabysiaLabrys, thou art mad to suggest it. And what's this prattle of locks,clocks, and death's heads, buttons and monkeys? This brabble, thisfarrago, this hocus-pocus! And where's the weapon you prate of? In thatwhoreson bronze casket, I suppose."
She nodded, looking blank and almost a little shy as poetic possessionfaded from her. Her answer came like its faltering last echo.
"It is nothing but a tiny tactical atomic bomb."
