by Robert Adams
"Tell me, Fitz! Tell me one more time that that gold ain't hot. Tell me that you come by it all legal and proper. Tell me, misterl"
It was not in any way, shape or form a request. The long years of command—in peace and in war, in garrison and in combat—were conveyed in that steely stare, in the suddenly unequivocal tone that demanded an answer—a thoroughly truthful answer.
"Gus," said Fitz, "you have my solemn word of honor that each and every one of the gold coins I've entrusted to you have been a part of the legacy of a man long dead that passed to me and that, so far as I know, my possession of them was and is entirely legal."
Tolliver showed every yellowed tooth in a wide grin then, and unclasped his powerful hands from Fitz's shirt. "That's all I needs to hear, Fitz, boy. Let them sticky-fingered Guvamint mammyjammers pry 'round all they wants to, then, if that's what it takes to help the frigging bastards to get their rocks offl
"G'night, Fitz."
The coin dealer had sounded more than mollified, but Fitz himself slept little and poorly the rest of that night, and on many a succeeding night. His mind churned through the hours of darkness with scores of discomfiting "What ifs?" Were someone to really pin him down on the
identity and death date of the "uncle" from whom he supposedly had inherited the golden coins, he knew that he would be deep in the shit, for he had had no uncles . . . not so far as he knew, at least.
Although neither his mother or his father ever had even once broached upon the subject, Fitz—who always had differed in so very many ways, both physically and emotionally, from his parents and from all his siblings, as well—-had for most of his life felt certain that die man and the woman who had reared him as their own, firstborn son had actually, in truth, been his adoptive parents, had both lived and died hiding that truth from him ... for whatever reasons.
"Hell!" he muttered, savagely pounding a pillow into a shape hopefully comfortable, then sinking bade upon it. "I could have, could conceivably have umpteen zillion uncles and aunts, if only I knew, could ever find a way to find out for sure just who I really am. But I've just got to face it: I started out lying to Gus ToUiver and I have no way of ever proving that falsehood true, now or ever.
"As for trying to back up, at this late date, and tell them all—Gus, his lawyer, those Government types, the folks whove bought pieces of the gold—the real, unvarnished truth . . .? Nobody, not a one of them, would ever believe it, because, hell, I don't believe it myself, sometimes. So I'd be well advised to start getting myself a bolt hole ready for the day that will certainly come—the day that those eager-beaver, bloodsucking, Government busybodies finally run me to ground, for keeps."
But affairs proceeded very tranquilly for the next six weeks. No more break-ins were attempted or accomplished, either at his house or Gus's or the coin shop, nor did Gus's banker friend report any further government inquiries on his level. However,
Gus took the elementary precaution of moving the bulk of their profits—by now grown to quite a considerable sum—out of the United States of America, informing Fitz well after the fact.
"Switzerland?" asked Fitz.
"Aw, naw." Gus shook his head. "Fellers I talked to said the Swiss ain't too reliable no more, these days. Not for the kind of game we're having to play here, they're not. Naw, Fitz, boy, all the smart money's either going to the West Indies or to South Africa, anymore. We, you and me, got some in both places now, mostly thanks to one of our bestest customers, feller what goes by the name of Piet Bijl. . . though I got some reasons to suspect that's not the name he was christened with ... if you get my drift."
With a raised eyebrow and a tilted head, Fitz eyed Gus Tolliver as the paunchy old soldier sat and swigged his beer. "Question, Gus: just how many of our local merchants are likely to honor a check drawn against an account in a South African bank, do you think; or a West Indian one even, for that matter?"
The older man grinned expansively, chiding, "Aw, now don't you fret yourself none, Fitz, boy. I made damn sure it was enough left in your account and at least two of mine to handle things day to day here."
But Fitz still frowned, saying hesitantly, "I still don't know. I'm still not sure that I like the idea of having so much of my money so far away. It's not as if we—you and I—were living under some kind of totalitarian dictatorship with confiscatory tax laws and tactics."
Gus lowered his voice to conspiratorial levels and leaned forward in his chair. "Fitz, most folks don't have them no idea just how damn close to broke the Guvamint of the U.S. of A. really is these days. It's a
goddamn shame, too, when half or more of the other countries in the whole damn world owes the U.S. of A. money they ain't never even made a try at paying back, some the fuckers sincet World War One. And it seems it ain't been one frigging pres'dint or congress we's had is ever had them the guts to get up on they hind legs and get as hardnose with all these furrin deadbeats as they all of the time gets with they own hardworking, taxed to death folks here in the U.S. of A., neither.
"But, enyhow, cain't nobody—individuals or guva-mints—keep living on next year's money for too long at time. If you don't b'lieve that, just look at how them dumbasses runs New York City has fucked they selfs up trying to run a fucking welfare state and tax all the businesses to death to give the money to bums that mostly won't even try to work for a living and has got so broke now they can't even pay salaries to the folks he works for them. Naw, Fitz, if you or me or enybody elst tried running their affairs like the Guvamint's been doing, off and on, for the last near-forty years, sincet Roosevelt started it all, we'd be bankrupted and most likely in jail, to boot.
This here shit they calls deficit financing' has done brought a country that was the biggest and bestest and strongest and richest in this whole wide world less then twenny year ago damn near into the fucking poorhouse. So whin them Treasury boys sees a way they can maybe lean down hard on some little feller, who ain't incorporated and with a whole damn pisspot full of high-priced lawyers hired on just to keep guys like the I.R.S. off of him, well then, they just gets as hard and horny as a quarn'tined stud bull. Their hot little hands gets to itching and their sticky fingers gets to twitching, and they swallers
whole bottles full of nasty pills three times a day, too.
"And whin that time comes for you and me, Fitz— and I got me this here feeling that it's damn close to that time for us!—unless you's made up some way to perfect what's really yours and not really theirs or the frigging Guvamint's to take, all you can do is just lay down and spread your legs whin the legal-robbers tells you to, because eny way you turn, your ass is gonna be grass and the I.R.S. is gonna be the fucking lawn mower, see. If it's enything that crew really hates and despises, Fitz, it's folks that is self-employed and don't work for somebody elst what will take chunks out their pay ever month and send it off to Washin'ton to keep the fat-cat politicians and all the perfessional leeches they calls bewreaucrats stocked up on plenty of French cheese and wine and Russian caviar and all." The coin dealer sounded exceedingly bitter.
He drained off the last of his liter of dark beer and demanded, "You got you a passport, Fitz, a current one?" At a nodded silent answer, he went on, "Well, you keep her on you all the time, hear? What money is left in this country, aside from the penny-ante local funds, I've done got spread out in four diffrent banks—one in New York, one in Frisco, one in Illinois and one more in Texas—that ought to keep the bloodsuckers busy long enough for you and me to get out and away, when it comes down to that, see. Oh, and keep a suitcase packed up, too. Chances is good that whin you has to move, you gonna have to move some kind of damn fast, for sure."
After Gus had departed for the drive back to the city, Fitz fretted and tossed and turned for some hours on his bed before he finally gave over trying to sleep. He arose, showered, dressed, burdened him-
self with another weighty, bulky load and made his way into the sand world. In the relatively commodius, rearmost cabin-cum-bedroom-cum-workshop, h
e spent the next couple of sand world hours in first assembling, then in fitting onto the bigger, more powerful, faster, more rugged and longer-ranging trail bike he had bought and brought in three weeks before, the steel and fiberglass cargo sidecar he had had custom-made for it. Then, exhausted, he got some sleep.
A half day was required to reach the near edge of the coarse-grassed, sandy-soiled plain. To cross it and continue on inland would necessitate an overnight trip and probably several days, was he to even approach a full exploration of those dark, mysterious, but ever beckoning hills beyond.
He had discovered in a hard, painful way that a full pack, a sleeping bag, air mattress and weapons not only made his bike top-heavy, but dangerously hampered his general agility on it . . . and a broken leg or worse, here in the sand world, could only presage a certain death by way of loss of blood, shock, thirst or all three in a deadly combination.
Not until he had sufficiently mastered the attachment and disattachment procedures to quickly accomplish both blindfolded, on the bike and off, did he finally disassemble the arrangement and stow it all away in the side cabin.
Bone-weary by then, he sacked out on the cot and drifted quickly into sleep, despite a very strong return of that tingly sense of some unseen presence, some something there in the cabin with him, regarding him.
At some time during that night, Fitz thought he awoke and opened his eyes. Silvery moonbeams, slanting down through a break in the high, surrounding dunes, thence through the centermost of the trio
of stern openings, made the cabin of the ancient, beached warship almost as bright as would one of the now-extinguished gas lanterns, though the moonlight was softer, easier on the eyes.
The sensation of a warm, once-familiar weight and of a soft, also once-familiar sound brought his wandering, sleepy gaze from the wooden beams that supported the deck above, down to his own supine body as it lay on the folding cot. There, on his chest and abdomen, lay a very large, grey, domestic cat The cat's broad head rested on his big forepaws, around which paws and his chin was wrapped the last few inches of his thick tail. His notched and somewhat tattered ears were cocked forward and his eyes regarded Fitz's face, returning his startled look with an unwinking, but obviously nonmalignant stare.
"Tom?" Fitz thought that he then croaked, aloud. But then he thought that he thought, "But . . . but Tom is dead. I know, I buried him.
"Puss . . .? Good puss."
But just how the hell had a cat gotten into the cabin, anyway? A quick, sidelong glance showed him that the wire-mesh screen across the stern ports were all intact and screwed solidly in place. Both of the inner doors were locked and barred, as too were the outer doors and the trapdoor in the ceiling that let onto the quarter-deck, above.
At the sound of his voice, his spoken words, the cat's deep-throated purring became louder and, lifting his head and twitching aside his tail, he extended his left, black-padded forepaw to lightly stroke Fitz's bristly chin, then let the paw just rest on the cleft of the chin, while he slowly extended and retracted the claws in obvious contentment.
And Fitz felt a cold prickling along his spine, felt gooseflesh rising on his forearms. Of all the many
cats with whom he had shared his life and his fortunes over the years, only Tom—old, now dead and months-buried Tom—had had that particular, very peculiar habit of displaying his affection for his human companions. Fitz had accepted, more or less blindly, many a certain and patent impossibility from the very beginning, from the first time he ever had entered—rather, had quite literally fallen into—this sand world, but this last, now, here, tonight—this was just too much. This was the one impossible thing that he simply could not credit, could not blind himself into believing. His cat, Tom, was dead, dead and buried and moldering in the black earth of the old mound, high above this place, and that was that.
Or was it . . . ? If it was, then how . . . ? A dream, that was it. That had to be it, was he to retain any shred of his sanity. It was all just an especially vivid, real-seeming dream.
He raised one trembling hand and very hesitantly touched the warm, furry feline head just behind the ragged-edged ears, his fingertips feeling the bumps and hard ridges of scar tissue that lay thickly all over that head under the covering fur. And, arching up to meet the petting hand, just as old Tom always had done, the strange but familiar blue-grey cat pushed its head up into Fitzs cold-sweaty palm.
Then, for a long while, Fitz just lay there and stroked the cat's head and back, feeling beneath the short, but dense and velvety fur the bumpy line of vertebrae and the twin banks of hard muscle flanking the spine, feeling the movements of the highly mobile scapulae as the big cat treaded in a transport of feline pleasure.
Nor was the cat the only one enjoying the contact. To Fitz, it felt so very, very good to once more stroke a warm, gentle, loving and furry creature. In
the months since Tom's murder, he had forgotten until now, consciously, at least, just how soothing and relaxing and deeply satisfying it was to him just to lie or sit and stroke a cat.
"Such a good dream," thought Fitz, aloud. "Such a pleasant dream."
Pushing farther up onto the man's chest, the big cat, careful to keep his claws sheathed, placed one big paw low on either cheek and began to lave the stubbly chin with his wide, deep-pink tongue.
"Tom!" croaked Fitz from a throat suddenly constricted tight. "Oh, Tom, good old Tom, boy. God, how I've missed you, Tom."
And then . . . and then, he knew for certain that he was only dreaming. He knew because then the cat, always much loved, but still only a dumb beast for all of that, because then the cat spoke to him.
"And I have missed you, too, my good old friend. I often have been very lonely without you, missing the loving touch of your hands upon me. Why do you not leave this hot, dry, shadeless place and come to where I now live, among wooded hills and cool valleys and sparkling little streams of fresh, cold water, all filled with tasty fish and frogs?"
Fitz sat up then, violently, with a strangled scream bubbling from between his cold, numb lips. The moon was long since set, the first rays of the rising sun were illuming this strange world and his body was sticky, tacky with the sweat of ... of fear? No, he could never fear old Tom, alive or dead. No, fear that he might be losing his sanity, more likely. Might be going mad, as the woman he had known as "mother" had, shortly before her death.
Preoccupied with his chaotic jumble of thoughts and half-thoughts and suppositions, he did not take out either of the bikes to bear him down to the sea
for his regular morning swim, but simply walked, barefoot and naked, over the dunes and down the beach to where the gentle surf broke lazily upon the shore. He did not really fully awaken until he felt the shock of the night-chilled water. Then he swam about for as long as he could tolerate the cold, at which point he allowed the roller to bear him with it and deposit him in a place shallow enough to stand with the returning sea water swirling and tugging at his legs, even while the ever-constant, warm, dry beach breeze began to dry his body. It was while he stood there, some mile up the coast from the spot at which he had entered the water, that he noticed the strange large tracks leading from the surf-line mark off inland, toward the nearer range of dunes.
They were not bird tracks; even at the distance he could tell that immediately, or if they were, he had no faintest desire to meet the bird that had impressed them so deeply in the damp sand. Nor did they look at all like the tracks or trails of the occasional pinnipeds of various species or the huge sea turtles that came ashore on rarer visits.
No, the beast that had made these particular tracks had feet like wide, long, five-fingered hands with no discernible thumbs and marks that looked to have been left by long, broad nails or claws out beyond each "fingertip." There looked to be the marks of two pairs of the handlike feet and a scuffing between the digits that could have been left by webbing. There also was a wide, rather deep furrow inscribed between the right and the left sets of tracks. He faintly recalled hav
ing, at some time and place in his past, seen tracks very much akin to these, though he remembered those as being quite a good bit smaller.
Most sagaciously, as it later transpired, he resisted his initial impulse to trail the thing, whatever it was,
on foot. He returned, rather, to the ship at a tast trot. There he dressed, got out the old, lighter, short-range bike, and armed himself with the carbine and the heavy-caliber revolver. Nor did he have the slightest cause to regret the elapsed time when, from the crest of a dune, he spotted just what a monster he had been blithely trailing.
Half at the least as long as the wrecked ship looked the thick-bodied, armor-plated, dragon-like beast, which had earlier scooped out a hole in the sand between the dunes and now was depositing in it a profusion of slimy-looking, yellow-brown eggs, each as big as the egg of a turkey, but more round than truly oval in shape.
It was then, as he sat the bike on the crest of that seaward dune, scrutinizing this newcomer to the stretch of coast he was already beginning to consider his, that he finally recalled where and when he had seen similar tracks. It had been on a beach on one of the Solomon Islands, early in World War Two. The tracks had been those of what were called estaurine or saltwater crocodiles.
Superficially, the leviathan he was studying through his binoculars did resemble to a large extent an alligator or a crocodile of his other world, but Fitz knew that he had never before seen or even heard of a crocodilian of that other world that was—at a very conservative estimate—between thirty and forty feet in overall length, stood between four and five feet at the shoulders and mounted four parallel rows of two-to-three-inch, yellow-white teeth in the ten-foot jaws of a head that had to be at least twelve feet long.
All at once, one of the vertically slitted, moss-green eyes detected the watching man atop the low dune and, with a loud explosion of sound that was half roar and half hiss, it began what appeared at first
to be a lumbering shuffle in his direction. But the creature's progress was deceptive. She abruptly raised her weighty body up onto legs that were much longer than they had seemed to be when she had been crouched, laying her eggs, and in fleeting moments was at the very foot of the dune—close enough for Fitz to whiff her rank, fetid, squamous stench as she started up the inland face of the dune, headed directly for him and hissing like the safety valve of an overheated steam boiler.
