The dwarf made a mournful snuffling sound. Clive came and squatted before Finnbogg. "What's the matter, old fellow?" he asked. He could not decide whether to treat the creature as a man or as a beast—or as a child.
Finnbogg muttered in his throat.
Folliot shook his head. "What's that? Couldn't quite make it out, old boy. What say there, my good Finnbogg?"
The creature moved his head slightly, cocking it to one side. The gesture made him look more than ever like a giant mastiff. "Finnbogg pups, ooh, ooh, tempoid. Boypups, girlpups. Sire and dam. Ooh, Finnbogg want home. Ooh, home, home, home." Clive patted him on the shoulder. "You want your home, eh? Can't blame you a bit, Finnbogg. Who wouldn't, eh?"
"Tain't quite that simple, I don't think, Major, sah." Sergeant Horace Hamilton Smythe had joined the circle around Finnbogg.
"What do you mean, Sergeant?"
"I think the fellow's trying to tell us more than that he's homesick, Why, every raw recruit cries for his ma'am and his little trundle bed the first night. But brother Finnbogg here, why, he's been away from the family hearth a mighty long time, I warrant."
"Have you, Finnbogg? You weren't born on Q'oorna, were you? Who brought you here? How long ago, eh? How long have you been here? And—where is your home?"
Finnbogg raised a massive limb. It might have been a canine's paw, modified by some mad surgeon to simulate the hand of a man. "Finnbogg home," he wailed. He pointed his pad-and-claw-tipped finger at the sky, indicating a bright star. "Finnbogg home," he repeated. "Boypups and girlpups, sire and dam. Oh, on, Finnbogg wants to go home."
"When did they bring you to Q'oorna, Finnbogg? How long have you been on this world?" Even as he asked the question, Folliot realized that Finnbogg would probably be unable to answer it.
Everywhere that Clive Folliot had traveled, whether in England or Europe or Africa, there had been a common experience of time. Even to people without calendars and clocks there was the daily turning of day and night, there was the slower turning of the seasons. Hours and weeks and months were human concepts, human inventions. But days and years were part of the natural order, and everyone understood them because everyone experienced them. Everyone on Earth.
But the mystical du Maurier, with his interest in interplanetary communication, had made a study of Mars and Venus, Jupiter and Saturn and Mercury. He had lectured Folliot to the point of boredom on the subject. Folliot's boredom, that was—not du Maurier's; the cartoonist could have gone on endlessly on the subject, or so it had seemed to Clive.
Du Maurier had said that the length of the day and of the year varied on all the worlds. Was the year of Mars not twice as long as that of Earth? And that of tiny Mercury far shorter? Finnbogg might answer, but what would his answer mean?
"Oh, many years," Finnbogg moaned. "Many, many years."
"How many years?" Clive persisted—but he wondered, now, if even the concept of numbers had meaning for the creature. He'd seen horses trained to count, although some skeptics insisted that the alleged · mathematical skill was really just a conditioned response to a cleverly planned cue. Could dogs count? Was Finnbogg really a dog?
Clive Folliot's head whirled.
"Ten thousand years," Finnbogg moaned.
Clive stared and saw tears actually coursing down
Finnbogg's bristly cheeks. Ten thousand years? Surely the creature could not understand what he was saying. Perhaps this was simply his way of saying he'd been on, Q'oorna for a long time—longer than he could express, or even recall.
Or maybe he had truly been on Q'oorna for ten thousand years.
"Annie home," Finnbogg was saying now. He kept his face pointed skyward, while with his paw-hand he indicated a star nowhere near the one he claimed as his own home.
"Annie home." Finnbogg repeated. Then he added, "Clive home, Horace home, Sidi Bombay home." All the while he pointed at the same glittering object. Perhaps he knew what he was talking about.
"Could that be?" Clive asked. "Does Q'oorna in truth circle a sun other than our own?"
User Annie looked surprised that he even asked. "Bubble failure, anthro? Not our sun. Not other sun. Dual negation. No sun. Q'oorna has no sun."
She was right, of course. Somehow the mental habit of a lifetime had persisted in Clive's outlook. He knew that Q'oorna had no sun of its own, else the planet's "day" would have revealed it. "And you believe that is truly our own sun? That tiny star to which Finnbogg is pointing?"
Annie nodded.
Clive was struck by an idea. "Can your, ah, Baalbec A-nine make a map of the sky, Miss Annie, as it does of the planet's surface?"
She nodded affirmatively.
"Please, then. As quickly as you can."
Annie obtained another, larger leaf. "Input Q'oorna," she muttered, her hand invisible as she manipulated the hidden controls of her wonderful mechanism. "Input Q'oorna, input Earth, input Finnbogg's world." She looked at Clive. "Potential temporal displacement indicator available."
Clive said, "Pardon me, Miss Annie. I have no idea what you mean."
She smiled, and he would have given a kingdom to fathom the subtleties and complexities that underlay that simple expression. "My Baalbec can map time routes as well as space. If I want it to. But for now—run complete." She pointed at the black leaf. At first nothing happened, then gradually a chart of the heavens began to appear.
Folliot took Finnbogg by the elbow and directed his attention to the map. "Can you understand this, Finnbogg? Do you see?" He pointed at the heavens, then at the map. "This is a picture of the sky. You see?"
He pointed at the star that Finnbogg had claimed as home, then at the map. "You see, they are the same. The real star. The picture. Do you understand?" Finnbogg looked between the map and the heavens. Slowly comprehension dawned in his eyes. "Finnbogg home." He pointed at the map, then at the sky. "Girlpups, boypups. Finnbogg want his home."
"Yes." Folliot nodded. "We all want our homes, don't we?" He cast a glance at Sergeant Smythe. "At least, I think we all do."
They had stopped their forward progress. Clive got them started again. As soon as they were under way, he asked Finnbogg if he could remember how he had come to Q'oorna.
The massive being shook his head lugubriously. "Finnbogg boypup. Ah, Folliot, long time ago. Ten thousand years ago, right, Folliot?" He grinned at Clive even though the paths of tears glistened on his bristly cheeks. He was desperate to please his new friends.
"Just boypup," Finnbogg repeated. "Remember home, ah, sire and dam. Smell so nice. Sire smell like wood, like dogsweat, like sky and grass. Dam smell so sweet, smell like milk, smell like love, sweet Finnbogg dam." He stopped speaking long enough to blow his nose, a great honking sound in proportion with the rest of this massive, simple, good-hearted fellow.
"Q'oornans come, I guess."
Finnbogg did not often use the personal pronoun, but he was catching some of the speech habits of the humans. That at least was a sign of progress. Even User Annie seemed to be breaking into coherence.
"Q'oornans steal whole litter. Ah, where Finnbogg's litter mates? Where boypups? Where girlpups? All sweet dogs and bitches."
"If you please, sir!" Clive interrupted. "In the presence of a lady—"
Simultaneously, User Annie burst into laughter and Finnbogg cringed as if he had been scourged.
"If the major permits, sah," Sergeant Smythe interjected, "the term, I believe, is quite proper, sah. If Finnbogg is truly of a canine derivation, which I believe the major will agree is likely the case, then the genders of his kind are properly referred to as dogs and bitches. Sah!"
Clive pursued his lips. "I suppose you're right, Sergeant. Still and all ... well, very well. Do carry on, Finnbogg. The Q'oornans came to your planet, did they? It was a world, like earth?"
Finnbogg looked baffled.
"Hmm. You wouldn't know Earth, of course. Well, it was a world like, ah, Q'oorna, then. Was that it? Sky and seas and hills and lakes and such? Forests and cities and farmlan
d?"
"Earth like that, then Earth like Finnbogg home, yes, Folliot," Finnbogg agreed.
"And how did these Q'oornans come to your world? Did they arrive through some sort of spirit mediumship? Do you know what I'm talking about, Finnbogg?" The great shaggy head swept up and down, up and down. "Spirits, yes. Come by spirits,"
"Then how did they bring you back to the Dungeon? To Q'oorna? Do they have a means of bringing you astrally?"
"Astrally, yes," Finnbogg agreed. "Bring astrally. Bring Finnbogg, bring littermates."
"Hah! And what of your sire and dam? Did the
Q'oornans bring them also? Are they in the Dungeon?"
Great tears rolled down Finnbogg's face. He ignored them, and they fell from his great jowl jaw and made a trail of tiny puddles on the ground as he plodded stolidly on. "Not in Dungeon, Folliot. Sire dead. Dam dead. Littermates—"
He paused and made a strangely human gesture, a shrug of helpless resignation, the palms of his pawlike hands tilted upward, his muscular shoulders elevated, his shaggy head tilted to the side.
For the time being, he had nothing more to say.
Not long after, they encountered a herd of grazing beasts. They were clustered at a waterhole. Magnificent, graceful things like ibexes, with long, curving necks and straight horns a yard long. They were jet black. The air was cold and moist, and when their lookout spotted the party he gave a piercing squeal of alarm. The herd bolted and disappeared across the plain in astonishing bounds fifteen or twenty feet in length.
They found a patch of vegetation that sported fruit trees and berry bushes. Finnbogg claimed to recognize the food and insisted that it was tasty and nourishing. Clive had deduced that Finnbogg's metabolism was enough like their own that his food would be at least harmless to them, and possibly nourishing.
They paused for another rest and meal. Clive— and Finnbogg—were right. The berries were tart but edible. They reminded Clive of wild blackberries that he'd found on his cousin's estate when visiting as a boy. The other fruit was also good. There was water, too, which Clive found more than welcome.
"All right," Folliot addressed Horace Hamilton Smythe. "Now that we've had our repast and a chance to rest our wearies, I think it's time for your story, Sergeant. Let's have it."
"My story, sah? You mean, like Finnbogg's? Good Lor', Major—I got here along with your majorship and Sidi Bombay. We wandered in together, doesn't the major remember? We 'ad our little tub in the Sudd, pokin' around after the major's dear brother, and we blundered into the Dungeon. That's all there was to it, sah!"
Clive cleared his throat. "First of all, Sergeant Smythe, by no means do I believe that was all there was to it. Oh no! There's a lot more to it than that, indeed."
He stood up and began to pace, his hands locked behind his back. He halted and stared at the sky. A great cloudy nebulae filled the center of his vision, and off to the right of it, the star that User Annie had said was Earth's own sun.
Are you there, du Maurier? Have you been in touch with Carstairs? Did my reports reach him? I'm sure the recent ones have not done so. Would you forward this to him, please? I am walking across the surface of a black world in company of a woman from the future and a strange creature from a remote planet. We have encountered and defeated a beast to defy the lexicon of Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace himself....
"Yes, sah?" Smythe interrupted his communion with the distant du Maurier—if indeed there had been communion. If there had in fact been any communication between the two men, it had been entirely one-sided. Clive had sent out his thoughts—or had endeavored to do so. He had received no message of reply, nor evidence that his transmission had been received.
"Yes, Smythe." Back to the moment, Clive Folliot. "I don't for a moment believe that you and Sidi Bombay were the innocents that you claimed to be when we entered the Bahr-el-Zeraf. But you still owe me an explanation of your pistol."
"My Navy Colt, sah. Fine piece. Picked it up aboard a paddle-wheel steamer on the Mississippi just before the Americans fought their War between the States. Wish I had it on my hip again, sah. It's back there, now." He gestured vaguely in the direction they had come from.
Of course. Smythe's pistol was lost in the great hall beneath the Tower of Q'oorna. If only Clive had been able to speak with the ruler of the city! If only Neville's journal had given more information about those people. Where had they come from? How had the black gong summoned them? Were they merely hiding, awaiting a signal to make themselves known to the strangers, or had they been summoned in some more mysterious, even mystical, manner?
Perhaps the Q'oornans were possessed of psychic powers. Surely Finnbogg's description of his trip from his home world to the Dungeon smacked of such forces, rather than of purely physical ones. Were the Q'oornans normally dwellers on some alien astral plane, who manifested themselves to ordinary mortals only when summoned by the gong?
But the battle that Clive and his companions had fought had been real enough, and quite physical. He still carried the bruises to prove that! And this world through which they moved seemed a very real and physical place, albeit a very peculiar one.
Clive whirled upon Horace Hamilton Smythe. "What about the swirl of stars? What does it mean?"
"Sah, it was there already, when I came into possession of the weapon. It don't mean nothing, sah! Leastwise, as far as I know. The, ah, the gentleman from whom I, ah, obtained the Colt said as much. It was a fine weapon. I wish I had it back, sah."
Clive advanced upon Smythe. He reached down and held his hands beside the sergeant's- face, the palms of his hands parallel to the sergeant's stubble- tinted cheeks. "Stand up, Sergeant." Folliot raised his hands slowly, as if they were attached to the sergeant's jawbone.
And as if those hands were attached to his jawbone, Sergeant Horace Hamilton Smythe rose to his feet.
"You will tell me right now, Sergeant, and without evasion, how you obtained that weapon, and from whom you obtained it."
Smythe looked at his toes. In the faint light that passed for high noon on Q'oorna, it was impossible to be certain, but Clive Folliot thought that he detected the enlisted man actually blushing.
"I met a young lady in America, sah. I was traveling on the John C. Calhoun, sah. From Memphis to New Orleans. I met a very fetching young lady, traveling with her brother on the riverboat. We, ah, became engaged in a very friendly game of poker. I'm afraid that I lost a great deal of money, sah. A very great deal."
"Don't tell me you lost more than you could pay, Sergeant! Not a responsible noncommissioned officer of Her Majesty's military service!"
"No, sah. I wouldn't do such a thing, Major Folliot! Never!"
"I'm relieved to hear that. Well, then?"
"Sah, I was, as they say in America, cleaned out, sah. Well, we reached New Orleans and I was without funds, and the gentleman and lady invited me to share their hotel suite, sah. They were most hospitable. They both said they were very sorry they had won all my money from me. They said they would like to return it, but they couldn't do that, sah. They needed the money to meet obligations of their own." He was twisting his hands in anguish. "This is most distressing, Major. Is it really necessary?"
"Continue!"
"Yes, sah."
Clive could sense both User Annie and squat Finnbogg listening to Smythe's narrative. How much did either of them understand, she a woman with an incomprehensible mind, a tempoid, and he a creature from an alien planet?
"They were a brother and sister traveling together, did I tell the major that? He was a businessman, a very successful businessman. And the lady was a widow. Very young and beautiful she was, but a widow already. I felt dreadfully sorry for the lady, I did, sah. And since the gentleman had one room and the lady another, I assumed that I would put up in the gentleman's room. I hoped to leave the hotel the next morning, sah, and find an Englishman and explain my plight and perhaps borrow some funds." He shook his head sadly.
"We assembled in the evening for a few drops of
their American beverage, something that they call bourbon whiskey for a reason I could never learn, sah. We had a couple of little rounds of bourbon and then the gentleman said that he was very sleepy and retired to his bed in the other room, leaving me in the very pleasant company of his sister."
Smythe's eyes darted this way and that.
Folliot said, "Continue."
"Yes, sah. Well, sah, I don't rightly know what happened. The lady was quite lovely. The bourbon was very pleasant. I remember the lady was wearing a delightful perfume. The next thing I knew it was the following morning, sah. The gentleman came bursting into the lady's room and, ah, and, ah...."
"All right, Smythe. Never mind the scene. I can imagine. If I had a sister—if you had one— Never mind that. What happened next?"
"I'm afraid that the gentleman challenged me to a duel, Major Folliot."
"Good God, no! This is getting worse and worse! What then?"
"We fought the duel with pistols. In a clearing beside the river. The Mississippi River, sah. I'm afraid that I killed the gentleman, sah. Everyone agreed that it was an affair of honor. No charges were brought by the local authorities. The gentleman provided the weapons. I didn't want to do it, sah. The gentleman fired first, sah, and his shot just grazed me. See the mark it left, sah, right here."
Smythe held out his hand to show Clive the scar. It was the same mark that Clive had previously taken to be a miniature representation of the spiralling stars. He blinked, studied the scar. Perhaps the resemblance was happenstantial. Or, perhaps . . . He simply could not tell.
"I wanted to call it off right then, sah. But the gentleman insisted that I fire my weapon. He said his honor would not be satisfied until I did."
Smythe managed to raise his eyes and look Clive fully in the face. "I pointed my revolver at the ground and pulled the trigger, sah. It was the worst bit of luck I've ever had, sah. The ball struck a rock and ricocheted straight at my opponent and struck him in the heart. He was killed instantly, sah."
"The lady, sah, she said that I had acted nobly. She insisted that I keep the dueling pistol. That's what she called it, sah, but actually it was a Navy Colt. The one you've seen, sah. With the swirl of stars in the grip, sah. A fine piece. I wish I had it back again, sah."
The Black Tower Page 18
