by Jack Vance
"Now they're just looking at him - and now the dragon catches a whiff and man! he says, none of that for me, I'd rather chew bark off of the big trees, and he's away."The view shifted from the odd angle, resumed its normal perspective. The dragon became a blurring dot in the sky.
"The next scene is where the gorilla comes at 'em... There he is." The watchers saw a tall anthropoid with sparse brown fur, red eyes the size of saucers, a row of gland-like sacs dangling under his chin. He dropped out of a tree, came lurching toward the natives, roaring vastly. Again came the shrill squealing, gradually rising and dying, and the silent stare. The gorilla turned, flung his hands in an almost comical gesture of disgust and hurried away.
"Whatever it is," observed Lucky, "it's good."
Magnus Ridolph said reflectively, "Extremely disagreeable, those beasts."
"Humph," snorted Joe. "You haven't seen the sea-beetles yet."
Magnus Ridolph rose to his feet. "I think I've seen enough for tonight. If you'll excuse me, I think I'll try to get a little rest."
"Sure," said Lucky abstractedly. "Wilbur will show you your room."
"Thank you." Magnus Ridolph left the room.
"Well," said Blaine heavily, "there goes your great detective."
"Now Joe," said Mayla, looping an arm around his neck, "don't be mean. I think he's sort of cute. So prim and tidy-like. And that little white beard, isn't it a scream?"
"Magnus Ridolph's got brains," said Lucky, without conviction.
"He looks like an old faker to me," said Joe. "Notice how he jumped when the gorilla dropped out of the tree? Cowardly old goat..."
"Excuse me," said Magnus Ridolph, "may I have that film? I'd like to study it under a viewer."
There was a pause.
"Ah - help yourself," said Woolrich.
Magnus Ridolph removed the cartridge. "Thank you very much. Good night."
Joe watched the door close. Then he turned and blurted, "Lucky, I always thought you had sense. When you said you were bringing out an expert, I had faith in you. Look at him. Senile. A pussy-footer..."
"Now Joe," said Mayla, "don't be hasty now. Remember you thought I was dumb once too; remember? You told me so yourself."
"Ah-h-h-h-h," breathed Joe. "For two cents I'd - "
"Ten million munits," warned Lucky. "Lotsa scratch!"
Blaine pulled himself up in his chair. "You know what I'm gonna do?"
"What?"
"I'm going out to that Mollie hive. I'm going to find out what gives 'em that stink. Whatever it is, we can have it analyzed and maybe treated so that it won't be so vile."
Mayla said, "Honey, do you think it's safe?"
Lucky said, "Do you really think that's what does the trick?"
" 'Think'?" scoffed Joe. "I know it."
Joe's jungle suit was the best money could buy. The metallic fabric mirrored away the sun-glare. The plastic bubble surrounding his head was similarly silvered on top. The boots fitted his feet as comfortably as his own skin. By twisting a valve he could inflate vanes that would enable him to walk across swamp and ooze without sinking. A small pack on his back pumped cool clean air around him, supplied power for the sound pickup, the torch and power-knife at his belt. His pouch contained concentrated food for three days and an air mattress of material so tough and thin that when deflated it could be crumpled up inside his clenched fist. He carried a grenade rifle and a dozen extra clips of ammunition.
Early in the morning he set off, before Magnus Ridolph had arisen. Lucky watched him go with unconcern. The Lord protects fools and drunkards, thought Lucky; Joe was doubly secure. Mayla was not so impassive, and finally Lucky had to hold her until Joe was out of sight. Her cries followed him as he trudged across the sand toward the beetling rampart of vegetation. He found a trail and plunged into the green gloom.
As soon as the forest surrounded him, he halted to take stock. The flying snakes could knock him down and constrict, though the fabric of the suit would protect him from their teeth. He turned his eyes apprehensively into the air. Somehow the expedition seemed less urgent now than it had the previous evening. Magnus Ridolph - there was the man who should be investigating the natives. He was being paid for it! Joe chewed on his pink tongue. No, he couldn't very well go back now. Lucky would never let him forget it.
Once more he searched the fronds and foliage, golden-green where the light struck, dark rich green in the shadow. Moths flitted across the open spaces, in and out of the slanting beams of sunlight. Up, up, up - big green leaves, clots of red, yellow and black flowers, trailing chalk-blue vines. A snake could just about pick his time, thought Joe. A gorilla now, would make a noise crashing through the brush. Hm, Blaine thought, noise. He dialed up the power on his head phone until he could hear the hum of the insects. The crash of each of his footsteps was like a tree falling.
He continued, more at ease. The thrum of the snake's short wings should reach him long before the snake.
The trail wound without apparent direction here and there around the giant boles and up and down slopes. Joe became confused almost at once. Twice he heard the throb of wings and once a far thrashing, but he progressed a mile before he was molested. It was a gorilla.
Joe heard the snapping and the grunting as it climbed through the trees, then silence as it sighted him. There was a sliding sound, not too stealthy, as if the gorilla were confident. He glimpsed the mottled hide, aimed. He stopped in time. Golly! the amplifier!
He turned it down. The sound would have beat a hole in his head. He aimed again, pulled the trigger. A section of the jungle became a globe of empty space, with seared, bruised boundaries.
Joe turned the volume of the amplifier back up and continued. He walked three hours, killing five snakes with his torch and two more gorillas. At times he had to turn loose his power-knife, so thick was the tangle of shoots and vines. And after three hours the jungle looked no different from the jungle where he had set out.
Thud, thud, thud, sounded in his ear. Blaine stood still, waited. The Molly appeared, halted, looked at him with blind-looking pink eyes. Blaine could see no expression or sign of surprise.
"Skeek," said Joe. "Hello."
"Keek, keek" returned the native. It stepped around Blaine, continued down the path. Joe shrugged, moved on.
A moment later he broke out into a clearing a hundred yards wide. In the center, a conical gray mound built of woven twigs and plastered with mud like a wasp's nest rose an amazing two hundred feet. It had been built around a living tree; from the apex the trunk extended and held an umbrella of foliage out into the sunlight.
Joe Blaine halted. The five hundred Mollies ambling around the clearing paid him no heed. And Joe had no interest in their simple occupations other than the source of the stench. Cautiously he opened the gate in his head-dome. He reeled, slammed it shut, eyes swimming. An odor so ripe, so putrid, so violently strong, it seemed impossible that the air could remain clear.
Where did it come from?
Across the clearing he glimpsed a depression, a wallow, where several dozen Mollies lay, moving languidly. Blaine approached, watched. A dozen Mollies appeared from the shadows of the forest, bearing crude baskets. About half held pulpy black balls; others, gray-green slugs six inches long; others, pink cylinders that looked as if they were cut from watermelon hearts.
The Mollies turned the baskets over into the wallow. Then they stood back, looked intently at the piles. And the black balls burst, the green slugs melted, the red cylinders spread out like oil. A moment later they were a mixture homogeneous with the rest of the wallow.
So, thought Joe, here it is. Food and chemical warfare from the same trough. He went to the depression, inspected it. The occupants gave him no heed. He dipped a quantity of the thick green-black ooze into a jar, sealed it. This would be enough for a test. Fast work, he thought. Now back to the hotel.
He looked across the clearing - stared. Through a gap in the trees gleamed a patch of brilliant white and, beyond, a bright
blue. Could it be ... He crossed the clearing, looked through the gap. It was the beach, the ocean. A half-mile to his right the hotel rose. Joe beat his head-dome with furious fists. Three hours of plodding through the jungle!
Blaine found Woolrich in the office. Lucky looked up in surprise.
"Hello. Didn't expect you back so soon." He wrinkled his nose. "You don't smell so good, Joe."
"I got it," Blaine said. "Here it is, the real magoo. If that don't keep them away, my name's not Joe Blaine."
"Get it out of here," said Lucky in a stifled voice. "I can smell it through the bottle."
"Must have got some on the outside," said Blaine. And he told Lucky his adventures.
Lucky's thin face still looked skeptical. "And now?"
"Now we test the stuff. One of us paints himself with it, wanders around the beach. The other stands guard with a grenade-rifle just in case. If the dragons come down, and shy off, we'll know for sure."
Lucky tapped his fingers on the desk. "Sounds good. Well," he said carelessly, "since you already got some of the stuff on you, you might as well be the decoy."
Joe stared unbelievingly. "Are you crazy, Lucky? I got to run the camera. You know that. It's got to be you."
After a half-hour's debate, they finally selected Magnus Ridolph to serve as the guinea pig.
"He won't like it," said Woolrich doubtfully.
"He's got to like it. What are we paying him for? He hasn't turned a hand so far. He ought to be glad we've solved the problem for him."
"He might not see it that way."
Joe opened a drawer in the desk, pulled out a metal can.
"See this? It's a somnol spray, to be used on drunks and roughnecks. We'll give him a dose, and he won't even know what's happening. Where is he now?"
"In the engine room. He's been puttering around all morning, working on the lathe."
Blaine sneered. "Now, isn't that the limit? He's supposed to be the brains, the trouble-shooter, and he leaves it to us. Well, we'll fix that. He'll earn his money, whether he wants to or not."
Lucky reluctantly rose to his feet. "Maybe if we asked him - "
"Better this way," said Joe. "It's not as if there's any danger. We know the stuff works. Don't the Mollies run around scot-free? And besides, we'll be standing right there with guns."
They found Magnus Ridolph in the workshop, polishing a metal tube with a piece of crocus cloth. As they entered he looked up, nodded, and fitted the tube through a hole in a metal cup. He coupled a hose to the tube, set the apparatus in a jig, turned a valve. There came a hiss of air, a thin blowing sound.
Magnus Ridolph gazed at the pattern on an oscillograph. "Hm," he muttered. "That's about right, I should say."
"What are you doing, Mr. Ridolph?" asked Blaine jocularly, one hand close behind his back.
Magnus Ridolph gave him a cool glance, then returned to his apparatus and detached it from the jig.
"I'm refining a certain musical principle..."
S-s-s-s, went the somnol bomb. A fine mist surrounded Magnus Ridolph's distinguished head. He gasped, stiffened, slumped.
"Did you hear him, Lucky?" Joe kicked at the metal tube Magnus Ridolph still clutched in his hand. "Fooling around with music, when we're in a jam."
Lucky said, "I guess that musical kaleidoscope sort of went to his head. He used to be a good man, so I've heard."
"You must have heard wrong," said Joe. "Well, let's take him out on the beach. Here's a wheelbarrow. That should do the hick."
They trundled the supine body out into the white blaze of the sun, two hundred yards down the beach.
"This is far enough," said Blaine. "Let's douse him and get back under the trees. It makes me nervous, being in the open like this. Those dragons are like flies this time of day."
They lifted Magnus Ridolph from the wheelbarrow, stretched him on the sand, and Joe poured the black liquid liberally across his chest.
"Gad!" coughed Lucky. "It even comes upwind!"
"She's rich," said Joe complacently. "When I go after something, I get it. Now come on, let's get out of the way. Hurry up, there's a dragon out there now."
They ran up to the edge of the jungle and waited/ The speck low on the horizon expanded, became a flapping monster. Joe held his rifle ready.
"Just in case," he told Lucky.
The dragon bulked large in the sky. It saw Magnus Ridolph's prone figure, circled.
Lucky said, "Golly, I just thought of something!"
"What?" snapped Joe.
"If that stuff doesn't work, we won't know until the dragon's pretty close. And then - "
"Rats!" said Joe bluffly. "It'll work. It's got to."
The dragon made a sudden swoop to the beach, waddled forward.
Twenty yards - "It don't faze him!" cried Lucky.
Ten yards. Blaine raised the gun, lowered it again.
"Shoot, Joe - for Pete's sake, shoot!"
"I can't!" cried Blaine. "I'll blow Ridolph to pieces!"
Lucky Woolrich ran out on the beach, yelled, jumped up and down. The dragon paid no heed.
Five yards. Magnus Ridolph stirred. Perhaps the odor of the black liquid had aroused him, perhaps some sensation of danger. He shook his head, propped himself on his elbow.
It was a rude awakening for Magnus Ridolph. Eye to eye he stared at the dragon.
The dragon opened its maw, darted its head forward, snapped. Magnus Ridolph rolled over, escaped by an inch.
Blaine shook his head. "That stuff doesn't work at all!"
The dragon made a quick hop, darted its head forward again. Magnus Ridolph again stumbled back, and the fangs clanged past his ribs. He still clutched his metal tube. He frantically put it to his lips, puffed out his cheeks, blew, blew, blew.
The dragon pulled its head back like a turtle. It jerked its legs, its wings. Magnus Ridolph blew. The dragon gave a great belching roar, in almost comical haste lumbered away. The tremendous leather pinions flapped; it sluggishly took the air, departed across the ocean.
Magnus Ridolph sat down on the sand. For a long moment he sat limply. Then he looked down at his tunic, once crisp and white, now befouled with a black viscosity. As the wind changed, Joe and Lucky felt the odor. Joe coughed, and Magnus Ridolph slowly looked in their direction.
And slowly Magnus Ridolph got to his feet, threw aside his tunic, and slowly marched back to the hotel.
Magnus Ridolph appeared at dinnertime scrubbed, polished, in clean clothes. His white beard was brushed till it shone like angelical floss, and his manner was unusually affable.
Lucky and Joe were relieved to find him in such good humor. They had expected angry accusations, threats and demands. Magnus Ridolph's genial attitude came as a glad surprise, and they vied with each other in cordiality. Mayla, in bed with a headache, was not present.
Blaine explained the circumstances which had led to the experiment, and Magnus Ridolph seemed genuinely interested.
Lucky went so far as to be jocular, " - and Lord, Magnus, when you looked up at that dragon, I swear your beard stuck out from your face like it was electrified!"
"Of course we had you covered all the time," said Joe. "We had a bead on that dragon every instant. One false move and he'd have been a goner."
"Just what was that tube, Magnus?" asked Lucky. "It sure did the trick. Marvelous." He nudged Blaine. "I told you he had brains."
Magnus Ridolph held up a deprecatory hand. "Simple application of what I learned from the movies you showed me."
"How's that?" asked Joe, lighting a cigar.
"Have you noticed the voice-box on the Mollies? It's a paraboloid surface, and the vibrator is at the focus. It gives them exquisite control over sound. By moving the vibrator they can concentrate a node at any given point; I wouldn't doubt but what they see the pressure patterns in some peculiar manner. In other words, they can use their voices as men use an air-hammer, especially in the supersonic ranges. I suspected as much when I saw them excavating those foundations. The
y were not blowing the sand out with air, they were blasting it out with appropriately applied pressure waves."
"Why, of course!" said Joe, disgustedly spitting a bit of tobacco to the side. "That's how they mixed up the mess in that terrible wallow. Just dumped it in, looked at it, and it all seemed to melt and stir in by itself."
Lucky reproached Joe with a look; best to keep Magnus Ridolph's mind away from wallows and vile black ooze.
Magnus Ridolph lit a cigarette and puffed a thoughtful gust into the air.
"Now when one of the native beasts attacked them, they projected a supersonic beam in a frequency to which the creatures were most sensitive. Probably aimed for a tender spot - the eye, for instance. A study of the sound track proved my theory. I found a clear record of strong inaudible sounds. I calculated the rate of what seemed the most effective frequency, and this morning built a suitable projector."
Joe and Lucky shook their heads in admiration. "Don't see how he does it."-"Beats everything I've ever heard of."
Magnus Ridolph smiled. "Now for the hotel, I recommend several large oscillators, mounted permanently, and arranged to project a curtain of the most effective frequency around the property. Any competent sonic engineer can set up such a dome for you."
"Good, good," said Lucky.
"I'll get a man out here right away," said Blaine. "Sure lucky we got you."
Magnus Ridolph made a courteous acknowledgment. "Thank you; perhaps the association will prove of equal value for me."
Blaine stared curiously into Magnus Ridolph's calm countenance.
Lucky said hurriedly, "Now Joe, as to Magnus' fee, I originally mentioned the figure of five thousand munits - "
"Make it ten," said Joe heartily, reaching for his pen. "I think we owe Mr. Ridolph a bonus."
"Gentlemen, gentlemen," murmured Magnus Ridolph. "You make me uncomfortable with your generosity. I'm well content with my stipulated fee."
"Well, now, look here - " stammered Joe, making feeble gestures with his pen.
"Surely you can't believe that I'd accept five thousand munits for the - hm, inconsequential events of this afternoon?"
