by Ron Goulart
“The middle one is the drama critic for the Siltville Bulletin,“ said Bob Phantom, who was standing nearby. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Bob Phantom, the obscure magician.”
Tad said, “I’m Tad . . . in disguise.”
Bob Phantom narrowed his left eye. “Why, so you are. You and the young lady going to be part of the show?”
“We hope not,” said Jana.
“What it is,” Tad told the magician, “we’re sort of in trouble. Mr. Phantom. Quite a few people want to do us harm. So it’s important we get off this boat.”
“Loitering backstage isn’t helping any, is it?”
“We have to wait for my robot.”
“Where is he?”
“Out there on stage, trying to impersonate Mother Zarzarkas.”
“I envy you,” said Bob Phantom with a sigh. “Being associated with someone who has such a yearning to perform, who goes on with the show even when there’s danger. Altadena would never do that. I can hardly drag her onstage most evenings. Even when I use my teleportation gift she—”
“Boo!”
“Lousy!”
“Stinko! Phew!”
“Electro’s not going over very well,” said Jana.
“Rotten!”
“Fooey!”
“Unconvincing and shallow!”
Electro was nearly through his third ballad. He ceased in midsong. “I can see you clunks don’t appreciate sea chanties.”
“Boo!”
“Give us songs of social import!”
“You buffoons don’t know social import from your elbow,” said the robot. “Now hush up while I conclude ‘The Lighthouse Keeper’s Only Daughter.’ Ahum. Rum tiddy turn, rum tiddy tee, I love Lulu Belle and she loves me. Sing along if you like.”
“We don’t like!”
“Mediocre!”
“Inept finger-picking!”
“Toss a cobblestone at him, mate!”
“Good idear!”
Bonk!
“Damn,” said Tad, “that brick bit him smack on the head.”
“Making a telltale metallic thud,” said Jana.
“Rum tiddy tiddle, rum tiddy tawdle, I can tell my Lulu by the way she waddles.”
“Terrible rhyme!”
“An odd sound her old skonce made, mate!”
“Aye, so it was. Give her another one, bucko!”
Kathunk!
“That ain’t no old skwack! That’s a blinking robot in disguise!”
“Somebody swipe my drag gimmick?” inquired Commodore Snow as he came hurrying through the wings. “That goes against the code of the theater.”
“Back, you dimbulbs!” warned Electro. He tossed aside his guitar, rolled up a sleeve. He aimed a hand, fingers wide, at the restive audience. “I’ll stun the first manjack who tries to assault me.”
“Let’s get this blooming gadget, mates!”
“Let him have it!”
A wave of a dozen burly men came scrambling over the footlights.
Zizzle!
Zzitz!
Zzang!
Though several fell stunned, more leaped onto the stage.
“Seems the whole damn audience is in your cousin’s pay.” Jana took hold of Tad’s hand.
That distracted him for a few seconds. “There’s too many of them, they’ll overwhelm Electro.”
“Maybe we can get away while—”
“No, I can’t abandon him.” He turned to Bob Phantom. “Can you really do that teleportation stunt or is it a trick?”
“I can really teleport objects and people. It’s a gift,” answered the magician. “I inherited my telekinetic powers from my maternal grandm—”
“Can you use it now?”
“This seems an unlikely time to want to see me teleport Altadena from the dressing room to—”
“I want you to use it on us. Can you teleport our robot and me and Jana off this damn showboat?”
New dark rings formed under Bob Phantom’s eyes as he considered. “Yes, I believe so. I’ve never done three at once before, nor anyone as bulky as your robot companion. Still, it’s a challenge and I see no reason why I can’t succeed. You want to go right now, I suppose?”
Out on the stage nine men were piled atop the toppled Electro.
“Yes, that would be helpful.”
“You may feel a little initial unease in your stomachs,” said Bob Phantom. “At least Altadena always complains of that, but then she’s a born complainer. Tall, lovely in a cool and distant sort of way and always bitching.” His eyes closed, one hand made lazy circles.
“Can he really . . .” began Jana.
Dark trees rose up all around them. High, straight trees stretching up into the black night sky.
“Hey, this is terrific.” Laughing, Jana hugged him. “We got away.”
Tad reluctantly eased away from her. “But,” he said, “where’s Electro?”
Chapter 17
Thump!
Thunk!
“That sounds familiar.” Tad spun toward the distant noise. “It’s him.”
“How many times have you heard Electro fall over in a wilderness?” inquired Jana.
“I know the sound a robot makes landing hard.” He was heading into the dark rows of trees, aimed at the spot the metallic thumps had come from.
“But this could be something else.” The slim girl caught up with him, taking hold of his hand. “We better proceed carefully.”
“Suppose you’re right.”
After a moment Jana said, “Any idea what part of the country we’re in?”
“The outskirts of Siltville, probably.”
She said, “I visited Siltville several times with my husband. This doesn’t look like the outskirts.”
“I should have asked Bob Phantom where he was planning to send us,” said Tad. “At the time, though, I was more concerned—”
“Stop a minute,” cautioned Jana.
“What?”
“Listen.”
The drumming of hoofbeats was growing nearby.
“We must be close to a roadway,” whispered Jana.
Eyes narrowed, Tad glanced all around. He saw nothing but the high dark trees.
The sounds of riders increased.
“Death to smut!”
“Repress bawdy stuff!”
“Burn all filth vendors!”
Angry sounds came rolling across the night forest from somewhere on their left. Soon the cries died, the hoofbeats faded.
“Odd hour for a parade,” remarked the girl.
“Well, we’re not smut vendors so it hasn’t anything to do with us. Let’s find Electro.”
As they resumed hiking Jana said, “Wonder who those fellows were.”
“Long as they’re not from RI, I don’t care.”
“I only hope we didn’t land in the middle of a skirmish or a—”
“Slow and then halt, folks.” A lightrod had all at once blossomed directly in their path. The beam sought and locked in on Tad and the girl. “We usually don’t find lizes with them, especially two so young.”
“Actually we’re not lizards at all.” Tad brought up his scaly green hand to wipe away some of the makeup from his face. “It’s only—”
“No swift moves, lad,” warned the unseen man beyond the glaring light. “Let the hand return to your side. Very good.”
Jana asked, “Who are you?”
“You ought to know that, lass. Seeing as how you’ve come here to hunt us down and set us afire.”
“We have no intention of setting anyone on fire,” said Tad. “We’re hunting for my robot who— “
“Ha, so now you’re using mechanized attackers on us, eh? Not bad enough you come galloping through fields and forest on great ugly grouts and powerful horse. No, now you must send mechanisms—”
“Listen, we’re more or less lost in this woodland,” Tad tried to explain. “Whoever you may be, we don’t contemplate doing you any harm. As soon as we locat
e Electro and get our bearings we— “
“Are you claiming,” asked the unseen man, “you never head of Swill?”
Tad shook his head. “Some sort of animal food?”
“Come, come, lad, you’re feigning too much stupidity. Since near everyone knows about Swill, the Magazine of Disgusting Sex.”
“Oh, that Swill. Sure, I saw copies in our dorm back on Barnum but—”
“Your hidden printing plant,” said Jana. “It’s around here somewhere, isn’t it?”
“As you already well know, lass.”
Tad turned to the girl. “Swill has some sort of hidden presses?”
“Since the whole Swill chain of magazines is outlawed on most of the planets in the Barnum System,” she answered, “they have to use a secret setup. Apparently we’ve wandered into its vicinity.”
“They’ve mistaken us for some of those guys who went by yelling slogans.”
“Not convincing,” said the man with the lightrod, “Ugo, herd them onto the path.”
Tad hopped forward when an unexpected blaster barrel prodded him in the back. “We really have to find our robot, and we don’t have—”
“Move it,” urged Ugo in a husky voice.
“The publisher wants to talk to you two vigilantes.” Their captor, who was a thin catman of forty, returned to the tile-walled room he had deposited them in an hour earlier.
Tad indicated his face with both hands. “Look, we’re not lizards any longer. It was only a disguise to—”
“Makes no diff what your species, lad. We get rid of spies and vigilantes of all kinds and categories,” replied the catman. “Otherwise we couldn’t maintain the spirit of press freedom which is so essential to us.”
“My name is Tad Rhymer. You must have heard of Rhymer—”
“We have that, yes.” The catman’s yellow eyes slitted down. “Joshua Rhymer’s put a good deal of capital and effort into wiping us out. He claims Swill and our sister magazine, Bilge, the Magazine of Depraved Lust, must be squelched. We didn’t realize he was sending members of the clan directly against us.”
“His Cousin Joshua loathes him,” put in Jana. “That’s why we’re running, to get away from the old codger.”
The catman moved to the magazine rack which was the single piece of furniture in the white room. “You didn’t even look at any of our mags,” he said, disappointed. “We’ve got advance copies of Lewd here and Swill Forum, the Magazine of Disgusting Confessions. You have to admit, even if you are fanatically opposed to free expression of sexual standards differing from your own, that this is a socko cover on Swill Forum. Am I right?”
“Socko,” said Jana. “Though it could have been a shade more disgusting.”
“You think so?” The catman plucked the magazine off the rack, held it at arm’s length, whiskers flickering. “No, I think this is one of the most completely disgusting covers we’ve ever done. If it were any more disgusting we’d cross the boundaries of good taste.” He rolled the magazine up, tapped against his thigh with it. “You see, despite our underground operations, we put a good deal of effort into market research. With this particular Swill Forum cover we did considerable testing. We smuggled advance proofs into the Home For The Sexually Goofy on Murdstone, the Retired Rapists Retreat on Malagra—and there, by the way, a single swift glance at the cover inspired three of the old boys to resume their careers. We even, and this is quite a coup, tracked down the notorious Bert the Slasher, better known as the Unspeakable Crimes Man, to his lair on Esmeralda and Bert gave us a rave reaction. You notice we feature a direct quote from him smack across the cover. ‘Aargh . . . lemme hold it . . . aiee . . . it does strange things to me . . . grrr . . . blood . . . lace pants . . . kill kill kill! (Signed) Berton “The Slasher” Plaut, AKA The Unspeakable Crimes Man.’ A true smasher of a cover.” He arranged the magazine back in its place in the rack. “Enough publishing gossip, let’s keep our appointment with the publisher.”
Outside the white room was a white corridor. This corridor led to another white corridor.
“Do you know who the publisher is?” Tad asked the girl.
“Nope, never heard of him.”
The catman said, “The publisher of all our magazines and books is Dr. Donald ‘Dirty Mind’ Denslow. I’d better caution you now that if you laugh at him when you first encounter him he’s likely to kill you on the spot.”
Chapter 18
They didn’t laugh, neither Tad nor Jana.
“Ironic,” said Dirty Mind Denslow. “No doubt that’s what you’re thinking. Go ahead, snicker, chortle and laugh.”
“We’d rather not,” said Tad, nodding at the blaster pistol in one of the publisher’s hands.
“It is ironic,” went on Denslow. “Something my many critics delight in twitting me about. Would you like to wash your hands?”
“No, thanks,” said Tad.
“Take your picture? Three poses for a buck.”
“Why,” inquired Jana, “have you assumed this . . . persona?”
“Fate,” replied the publisher. “Like a towel?” Another of his white metal arms rose, a fresh white towel waving from it. “Up until three years ago I was a perfectly normal, strikingly handsome purveyor of degrading filth. If you don’t need a towel, how about thrusting your hands under my hot air nozzle for a few seconds? It’s free.”
“We’ll pass,” Tad said.
“Three years ago I made the fatal mistake of attending a Swillcon,” said Denslow out of the voicebox in his white metal chest. “All around the known universe, on every habitable planet, there are fans of my publications. Do you have any notion, by the way, what a challenge that is? To have to arouse the lowest, most rotten sexual urges in everybody from the owlmen of Murdstone to the snakemen of Jupiter, Have you ever considered how difficult it is to come up with a pinup centerfold which will disgust a lizard man, a carman and a humanoid? Yes, and you still have to be artistic about it. Few besides your humble servant, Dirty Mind Denslow, have consistently achieved any measure of success.”
“How come you ended up as a washroom attendant robot?” asked Jana.
Behind them the carman gasped. “Thin ice,” he murmured.
“A very bright young woman,” said Denslow, chuckling inside his mechanical self. “Perhaps we can use you as a Degraded Sex Object of the Month before we exterminate you. Or possibly after. We’ll see.” He steepled the fingers of a few of his white hands. “As I was saying, I had been cajoled into appearing as a GOH at a Swillcon. That’s Guest of Honor, in case you weren’t aware. It was the big 10th Annual Swillcon on the planet Malagra, sometimes known as the pesthole of the universe. We have our biggest concentration of fans there. So I broke my cardinal rule and surfaced long enough to attend. Quite naturally all Swillcons are held on the sly. In spite of very efficient security measures a large faction of smut hunters got wind I was going to make the keynote speech at the Swillcon luncheon. When I rose to speak, following the traditional Unspeakably Vile Lingerie Fashion Show, I was rudely set upon by well over two dozen brutal anti-intellectuals armed with clubs.”
The catman guard was softly sobbing now, sniffling into his paw. “A sad day for publishing,” he said.
“Before my devoted admirers could pull off my attackers, dismember them and dice them into chunks, I was already cruelly damaged,” continued Denslow. “Most of my body was in ruined shape, all that was still functioning at all was my magnificent brain, the same brain which had conceived the entire Swill empire. Remind me to gift you with a pair of disgusting cufflinks, young man. For the young lady a Repuslive Sex Object locket and matching earrings. To continue. Fortunately for the cause of a free press, one of my most devoted fans at that luncheon happened to be the noted transplant whiz, Dr. John ‘Thumbs’ Fairfield. He leaped to my aid, as soon as he had pulled up his trousers and detached all the chains, leather thongs and barbed wire from about his person. A brilliant man, Thumbs assured me that, if we worked fast and were very lucky, he could tra
nsfer my brain into another body.”
“A miracle it was,” muttered the catman.
Denslow said, “Strangely enough there was a lack of volunteers. I must admit I was disappointed, since I’d made considerable effort and taken great risks to be their GOH. We almost got a young fellow who specialized in tattooing obscene pictures on his flesh to donate his body, such as it was, but his mother, a striking woman with a knee fetish, wouldn’t sign the necessary papers. Time was running out, my life was ebbing, my great brain drew ever closer to being stilled forever.”
“Tragic,” said the catman.
“Then Thumbs came up with the inspired suggestion that if we couldn’t rope in a human host, a robot would do. This didn’t initially appeal to me, being as I was a man much given to lewd fleshly pleasures and degrading and demeaning physical acts. However, I decided I owed it to myself and my myriad admirers to keep the most enlightened publishing mind in the universe going. Thus I agreed with my last conscious words to having my brain placed in the body of a robot.”
“Couldn’t you,” asked Jana, “have picked a better looking robot?”
“My thought exactly when I awoke to find Thumbs Fairfield had entrusted my brain to the skull of the robot washroom attendant from the convention hotel,” said Denslow. “Remind me to squirt you with perfume later. I contain three different scents. Apparently the hotel management, reluctant about the Swillcon to begin with and not put in a better mood by my near murder at the hands of crazed purity vigilantes, was quite uncooperative when Thumbs attempted to purchase one of their robot staff. If my fans hadn’t threatened to commit acts of incredible sexual malice on the entire human staff, the hotel wouldn’t even have parted with the washroom robot. It became a case of, as I’ve often told people since, any port in a storm.” He gestured with three of his hands. “Which is why you see me before you in this unfortunate state.”
“You have to admit it’s disgusting,” said Jana. “That ought to appeal to someone of your tastes, Mr. Denslow.”
