"You mean," Sharp said to the Wheeler, "that the very moment you were standing here and threatening me, you had your bandits out..."
"He works all the angles that there are," said Oop.
"The dragon went home," said Ghost, "to the only home that he could recognize upon this planet. To where the Little Folk reside, so that he could see his fellows once again, flying in the clear moonlight above the river valley. And then the Wheelers attacked him in the air, trying to force him to the ground, so that he could be captured, and the dragon is fighting back most magnificently, but—”
"Wheelers can't fly," protested Sharp. "And you say there were a lot of them. Or you implied there were a lot of them. There can't be. Mr. Marmaduke was the only..."
"Perhaps," said Ghost, "they are not believed to fly, but they are truly flying. And as for the number of them, I am mystified. Perhaps here all the time, hiding from the view. Perhaps many coming in through the transport stations."
"We can put a stop to that," said Maxwell. "We can send word to Transportation Central. We can... "
Sharp shook his head. "No, we can't do that. Transportation is intergalactic, not of Earth alone. We cannot interfere."
"Mr. Marmaduke," said Inspector Drayton, speaking in his best official voice, "or whoever you may be, I think I'd better run you in."
"Leave off this blathering," said Ghost. "The Little Folk need help."
Maxwell reached out and picked up the chair. "It's time we put an end to fooling," he declared. He raised the chair and said to the Wheeler. "It's time for you to start talking, friend. And if you don't, I'll cave you in."
A circle of jets suddenly protruded from Wheeler's chest and there was a hissing sound. A stench hit them in the face, a terrible fetor that struck like a clenched and savage fist, that made the stomach somersault and set the throat to gagging.
Maxwell felt himself falling to the floor, unable to control his body, which seemed tied up in knots from the fearful stink that exuded from the Wheeler. He hit the floor and rolled and his hands went to his throat and tore at it, as if to rip it open to allow himself more air—although there seemed to be no air, there was nothing but the foulness of the Wheeler.
Above him he heard a fearful screaming and when he rolled around so he could look up, he saw Sylvester suspended above him, his front claws hooked around the upper portions of the Wheeler's body, his rear legs clawing and striking at the bulging and transparent belly in which writhed the disgusting mass of roiling insects. The Wheeler's wheels were spinning frantically, but something had gone wrong with them. One wheel spun in one direction and the second in another, so that the Wheeler whirled about in a giddy dance, with Sylvester clinging desperately and his back legs working like driving pistons at the Wheeler's belly. It looked for all the world, thought Maxwell, as if the two of them were engaged in a rapid and unwieldy waltz.
An unseen hand reached out and grasped Maxwell by the arm and hauled him unceremoniously across the floor. His body thumped across the threshold and some of the foulness diminished and there now was a breath of air.
Maxwell rolled over and got on his hands and knees and fought his way erect. He reached up with his fists and rubbed at his streaming eyes. The air still was heavy with the stench, but one no longer gagged.
Sharp sat propped against the wall, gasping and rubbing at his eyes. Carol was slumped upon the floor. Oop, crouched in the doorway, was tugging Nancy out of the fetid room, from which still came the screaming of the saber-tooth at work.
Maxwell staggered forward and reaching down, picked up Carol and slung her, like a sack, across one shoulder. Turning, he beat an unsteady retreat down the corridor.
Thirty feet away he stopped and turned around and as he did, the Wheeler burst out of the doorway, finally free of Sylvester and with both wheels spinning in unison. He came down the hall, wheeling crazily and lopsidedly—staggering blindly, if a thing with wheels could be said to stagger, slamming into one wall and caroming off it to smash into the other. From a great rent in his belly small whitish objects dropped and scattered all across the floor.
Ten feet from where Maxwell stood, the Wheeler finally collapsed when one wheel hit the wall and caved in. Slowly, with what seemed to be a rather strange sort of dignity, the Wheeler tipped over and out of the torn belly gushed a bushel or so of insects that piled up on the floor.
Sylvester came slinking down the hail, crouched low, his muzzle extended in curiosity, taking one slow step and then another as he crept upon his handiwork. Behind Oop and Sylvester came the rest of them.
"You can let me down now," said Carol.
Maxwell let her down, stood her on her feet. She leaned against the wall.
"I never saw a more undignified way to be carried," she declared. "You haven't got a spark of chivalry to pack a girl around in a manner such as that."
"It was all a mistake," said Maxwell. "I should have left you there, laid out on the floor."
Sylvester had stopped now and reaching out his neck, sniffed at the Wheeler, all the while with wrinkles of disgust and wonder etched upon his face. There was no sign of life in the Wheeler. Satisfied, Sylvester pulled back and squatted on his haunches, began to wash his face. On the floor beside the fallen Wheeler, the mound of bugs were seething. A few of them started crawling from the pile, heading out into the hall.
Sharp swung out past the Wheeler.
"Come on," he said. "Let's get out of here." The corridor still was sour with the terrible stench.
"But what is it all about?" wailed Nancy. "Why did Mr. Marmaduke..."
"Nothing but stink bugs," Oop told her. "Can you imagine that? A galactic race of stink bugs! And they had us scared!"
Inspector Drayton lumbered forward importantly. "I'm afraid it will be necessary for you all to come with me," he said. "I will need your statements."
"Statements," Sharp said viciously. "You must be out of your mind. Statements, at a time like this, with a dragon loose and..."
"But an alien has been killed," protested Drayton. "And not just an ordinary alien. A member of a race that could be our enemies. This could have repercussions."
"Just write down," said Oop, "killed by a savage beast."
"Oop," snapped Carol, "you know better than to say a thing like that. Sylvester isn't savage. He's gentle as a kitten. And he is not a beast."
Maxwell looked around. "Where is Ghost?" he asked. "He took it on the lam," said Oop. "He always does when trouble starts. He's nothing but a coward."
"But he said..."
"That he did," said Oop. "And we are wasting time. O'Toole could do with help."
24
Mr. O'Toole was waiting for them when they got off the roadway.
"I knew coming you would be," he greeted them. "Ghost, he said he would get you yet. And badly do we need someone who will talk sense to the trolls, who hide and gibber in their bridge and will listen to no reason."
"What have the trolls got to do with it?" asked Maxwell. "For once in your life, can't you leave the trolls alone?"
"The trolls," Mr. O'Toole explained, "filthy as they are, may be our one salvation. They be the only ones who, from lack of any civilization whatsoever, or any niceties, remain proficient in the enchantments of old times, and they specialize in the really dirty kinds of work, the most vicious of enchantments. The fairies, naturally, also cling to the old abilities, but all of their enchantments are of the gentle sort and gentleness is something of which we do not stand in need."
"Can you tell us," Sharp asked, "exactly what is going on. Ghost didn't hang around to explain much of it to us.”
"Gladly," said the goblin, "but leave us start to walking, and walking, I'll relate to you all the happenstance. We have but little time to waste and the trolls are stubborn souls and vast persuasion they will need to do a job for us. They lurk within the mossy stones of that senseless bridge of theirs and they titter like things which have lost their minds. Although, bitter truth to tell, them stinking troll
s have little minds to lose."
They trudged in single file up the rocky ravine which lay in the notch between the hills and in the east the dawn-light had begun to show, but the path, buried in the trees and flanked by bushes, was dark. Here and there birds woke from sleep and twittered and somewhere up the hill a raccoon was whickering.
"The dragon came home to us," O'Toole told them as they walked, "the one place on Earth left for him to go, to be with his own kind again, and the Wheelers which, in ancient times had another name than Wheelers, have attacked him, like broomsticks flying in formation. They must not force him to the ground, for then they have him caught and can whisk him hence very rapidly. And, forsooth, he has made a noble fight of it, the fending of them off, but he is growing tired and we must hurry rapidly and with much dispatch if we are to give him aid."
"And you're counting," Maxwell said, "on the trolls being able to bring the Wheelers down like they brought down the flier."
"You apprehend most easily, my friend. That's what lingers in my mind. But these befouled trolls make a bargain of it."
"I never knew," said Sharp, "that the Wheelers could fly. All I've seen them do was trundle."
"Of abilities they have many," said O'Toole. "From their bodies they can grow devices without number and beyond imagination. Nozzles for the spreading of their nasty gas, guns to shoot the lethal bolt, jets to make them broomsticks that move with amazing speed. And never are they up to any good. Full of anger and resentment after all the ages, lying out there, deep in the galaxy, with rancor eating like a cancer into their putrid minds, waiting for a chance to be what they never can be—for no more than menials they are or ever will be."
"But why bother with the trolls?" asked Drayton, out of sorts. "I could have guns and planes..."
"Don't try to be any more of a fool than you already are," said Sharp. "We can't lay a finger on them. We can't create an incident. The humans can take no part in this. This is something between the Little Folk and their former slaves."
"But the cat already killed—”
"The cat. Not a human. We can—”
"Sylvester," Carol said, "was only trying to protect us."
"Do we have to go so fast?" protested Nancy. "I'm not used to this."
"Here," said Lambert, "take my arm. The path does seem slightly rough."
"Do you know, Pete," said Nancy, bubbling, "that Mr. Lambert has agreed to be my house guest for a year or so and paint some pictures for me. Isn't that a lovely thing for him to do?"
"Yes," said Maxwell. "I am sure it is."
The path had been climbing the hillside for the last hundred feet or so and now it dipped down toward the ravine, which was clogged with tumbled boulders which, in the first faint light of morning, looked like crouched, humped beasts. And spanning the ravine was the ancient bridge, a structure jerked raw from an old medieval road. Looking at it, Maxwell found it hard to believe that it had been built only a few decades ago when the reservation had been laid out.
Two days, he thought—had it been only two days since he had returned to Earth to find Inspector Drayton waiting? So much had happened that it seemed much longer than just two days ago. So many things had happened that were unbelievable, and still were happening and still unbelievable, but on the outcome of these happenings, he knew, might depend the future of all mankind and the federation that man had built among the other stars.
He tried to summon up a hatred of the Wheelers, but he found there was no hatred. They were too alien, too far removed from mankind, to inspire a hatred. They were abstractions of evil rather than actual evil beings, although that distinction, he realized, made them no less dangerous. There had been that other Peter Maxwell and surely he had been murdered by the Wheelers, for when he had been found there had been a curious, repulsive odor lingering, and now, since that moment in Sharp's office, Maxwell knew what that odor was. Murdered because the Wheelers had believed that the first Maxwell to return had come from the crystal planet and murder had been a way to stop him from interfering with the deal with Time for the Artifact. But when the second Maxwell had appeared, the Wheelers must have been afraid of a second murder. That was why, Maxwell told himself, Mr. Marmaduke had tried to buy him off.
And there was the matter of a certain Monty Churchill, Maxwell reminded himself. When this all was finished, no matter how it might come out, he would hunt up Churchill and make certain that the score he owed him was all evened out.
They came up to the bridge and walked under it and halted.
"All right, you trashy trolls," Mr. O'Toole yelled at the silent stone, "there is a group of us out here to hold conversation with you."
"You hush up," Maxwell told the goblin. "You keep out of this. You and the trolls do not get along."
"Who," the O'Toole demanded, "along can get with them. Obstinate things they are and without a shred of honor and of common sense bereft..."
"Just keep still," said Maxwell. "Don't say another word."
They stood, all of them, in the silence of the coming dawn, and finally a squeaky voice spoke to them from the area underneath the far end of the bridge.
"Who is there?" the voice asked. "If you come to bully us, bullied we'll not be. The loudmouthed O'Toole, for all these years, has bullied us and nagged us and no more we'll have of it."
"My name is Maxwell," Maxwell told the speaker. "I do not come to bully you. I come to beg for help."
"Maxwell? The good friend of O'Toole?"
"The good friend of all of you. Of every one of you. I sat with the dying Banshee, taking the place of those who would not come to see out his final moments."
"But drink with O'Toole, you do. And talk with him, oh, yes. And give credence to his lies."
The O'Toole strode forward, bouncing with wrath.
"That down your throats I'll stuff," he screamed. "Let me get my paws but once upon their filthy guzzles—”
His words broke off abruptly as Sharp reached out and, grabbing him by the slack of his trouser-seat, lifted him and held him, gurgling and choking in his rage.
"You go ahead," Sharp said to Maxwell. "If this little pipsqueak so much as parts his lips, I'll find a pool and dunk him."
Sylvester sidled over to Sharp, thrust out his head and sniffed delicately at the dangling O'Toole. O'Toole batted at the cat with windmilling arms. "Get him out of here," he shrieked.
"He thinks you're a mouse," said Oop. "He's trying to make up his mind if you are worth the trouble."
Sharp hauled off and kicked Sylvester in the ribs. Sylvester shied off, snarling.
"Harlow Sharp," said Carol, starting forward, "don't you ever dare to do a thing like that again. If you do, I'll—”
"Shut up!" Maxwell yelled, exasperated. "Shut up, all of you. The dragon is up there fighting for his life and you stand here, wrangling."
They all fell silent. Some of them stepped back. Maxwell waited for a moment, then spoke to the trolls. "I don't know what's gone on before," he said. "I don't know what the trouble is. But we need your help and we're about to get it. I promise you fair dealing, but I also promise that if you aren't reasonable we're about to see what a couple of sticks of high explosives will do to this bridge of yours."
A feeble, squeaky voice issued from the bridge. "But all we ever wanted, all we ever asked, was for that bigmouthed O'Toole to make for us a cask of sweet October ale."
Maxwell turned around. "Is that right?" he asked.
Sharp set O'Toole back upon his feet so that he could answer.
"It's the breaking of a precedent," howled O'Toole. "That is what it is. From time immemorial us goblins are the only ones who ever brewed the gladsome ale. And drink it by ourselves. Make we cannot more than we can drink. And make it for the trolls, then the fairies will be wanting—”
"You know," said Oop, "that the fairies would never drink the ale. All they drink is milk, and the brownies, too."
"Athirst you would have us all," screamed the goblin. "Hard labor it is for us
to make only what we need and much time and thought and effort."
"If it's a simple matter of production," suggested Sharp, "we certainly could help you."
Mr. O'Toole bounded up and down in wrath. "And the bugs!" he shouted. "What about the bugs? Exclude them from the ale I know you would when it was brewing. All nasty sanitary. To make October ale, bugs you must have falling into it and all other matters of great uncleanliness or the flavor you will miss."
"We'll put in bugs," said Oop. "We'll go out and catch a bucket full of them and dump them into it."
The O'Toole was beside himself with anger, his face a flaming purple. "Understand you do not," he screamed at them. "Bugs you do not go dumping into it. Bugs fall into it with wondrous selectivity and—”
His words cut off in a gurgling shriek and Carol called out sharply, "Sylvester, cut that out!"
The O'Toole dangled, wailing and flailing his arms, from Sylvester's mouth. Sylvester held his head high so that Mr. O'Toole's feet could not reach the ground.
Oop was rolling on the ground in laughter, beating his hands upon the earth. "He thinks O'Toole's a mouse!" Oop yelled. "Look at that putty cat! He caught hisself a mouse!"
Sylvester was being gentle about it. He was not hurting O'Toole, except his dignity. He was holding him lightly in his mouth, with the two fangs in his upper jaw closing neatly about his middle.
Sharp hauled off to kick the cat.
"No," Carol yelled, "don't you dare do that!"
Sharp hesitated.
"It's all right, Harlow," Maxwell said. "Let him keep O'Toole. Surely he deserves something for what he did for us back there in the office."
"We'll do it," O'Toole yelled frantically. "We'll make them their cask of ale. We'll make two casks of it."
"Three," said the squeaky voice coming from the bridge.
"All right, three," agreed the goblin.
"No weaseling out of it later on?" asked Maxwell.
"Us goblins never weasel," said O'Toole.
"All right, Harlow," said Maxwell. "Go ahead and belt him."
Sharp squared off to kick. Sylvester dropped O'Toole and slunk off a pace or two.
The Goblin Reservation Page 17
