A Feast Unknown

by Philip José Farmer

  “Then he’ll have men waiting at Penrith for us.”

  “He won’t know I’m going there until the last minute, if I have anything to say about it. He’ll be able to send men then, but they’ll be too late then, I hope.”

  “He may have figured out that that’s the only place you can land,” she said. “In which case, his men will be on the way now.”

  “That’s possible. We’ll see.”

  The radio reported that visibility was still zero but that the winds had dropped to 20 miles per hour. The airports in the entire county were closed except for emergency landings.

  The military might be thinking like Noli and also have men waiting at Penrith. I did not tell Trish that; she was nervous enough.

  I went by Keswick city somewhere in the blackness below and over the lower edge of the great Skiddaw Forest and probably over Burnt Horse and then the Mungrisdale Common. The Bowscale Fell (peak height of 2306 feet) was beneath us, if I reckoned correctly and if my own radar was functioning correctly. Then I was over my own estates but could see nothing, of course. I had taken this route instead of going directly to Penrith because I wanted to throw both Noli and the military off.

  I cut in again to the frequency on which my presumed agent had been operating. I said, “Start signaling.”

  He sounded nervous. He said, “Surely, m’lord, you’re not going to land here! It’s impossible! You’ll get killed!”

  Noli and Caliban would say the same thing. Noli would want me alive for the elixir (unless Caliban had told him that the elixir could only be gotten from the Nine, and he was not likely to do that). Caliban would not want his cousin killed (if he knew that she was with me). Nor would he want me killed, since he intended to do that with his bare hands.

  I wondered what the Nine would think if one of us died an accidental death? Would the survivor then have to fight the next candidate? Or did the Nine want one of us dead for some unknown reason?

  I replied to the man whom, by now, I was convinced was pretending to be the agent.

  I said, “What do you advise?”

  “The airport at Penrith is by far your best chance,” he replied eagerly.

  “I think I’ll land on the road into Mungrisdale,” I said. “I’ll get a car there.”

  “You can’t do that, m’lord!” he said. “It’d be suicide! At least Penrith has landing lights!”

  “Mungrisdale it is, anyway,” I said.

  However, I agreed with him. My plan had been to lure Noli or Caliban into sending men down the road from Cloamby to Mungrisdale and detouring them from Penrith until it was too late. If Noli was intelligent, however, he would send men to Penrith anyway, if he had not done so already.

  I realized then that I was convinced that it was Noli down there. Caliban might be close, but he was only on his way to, not in, Grandrith. The time element made this seem likely.

  I put the plane into a steep dive from five thousand feet and did not begin to level out until the radar showed that I was 500 feet above ground level. Actually, we were probably much closer. There was just enough visibility for me to see several hundred feet ahead. Since the topography varied much within a short time, our progress resembled that of a very irregular sine wave. Trish gasped once and then closed her eyes. A moment later, she said, “I’m all right now. I just put my fate in the hands of the great god Old Crow.”

  I did not have much time to indulge in conversation. Nevertheless, I said, “Old Crow?”

  “Yes. When I was very little, I heard my father say, more than once, that the greatest thing in the world was Old Crow. In my child’s mind, I thought that Old Crow must be a great Indian chief, like Sitting Bull or Hiawatha. Then I thought that it must be the Great Spirit of the Indians and that my father had a place reserved for him in the Happy Hunting Grounds. So I started to pray to Old Crow. Later, when I found out that it wasn’t an Indian god but a whiskey, I refused to admit my mistake. A god was created in my mind, and it has stayed there since. And I am especially honored above all humankind, because only I have been admitted to the worship of the great god Old Crow.”

  By the time she had quit talking, we were close to Penrith. The radio was getting hysterical. Apparently the military had picked me up, and both frequencies, the port’s and the military’s, were screaming warnings, threaths, and pleas at me.

  I thought for a moment of crashing the plane on the Penrith golf course, which is a fairly large one, and parachuting in. I abandoned the idea at once, because I did not want to take a chance on killing someone. No, it would have to be the airport.

  I dropped down fast, banked, and came in at the port as if I intended to strafe it. The lights suddenly became visible; I was coming in at the correct location and angle, though too swiftly. The lights along the strip were blurs, and the big lights on top of the control tower were diffused stars. I dropped the plane in from too great a height, not caring if I drove the wheels up through the wings. We struck hard but the wheels and gear held, and the tires did not blow. On the second bounce, I straightened her out and cut the engine speed and feathered the props more. The end of the runway still came up too swiftly, and I went past it, across the grass, and was able to stop it only just short of the parking lot fence.

  There was no time to sit and gasp in air and take time to unjangle our nerves. We scrambled out with our bundles in our arms, opened them, put on the raincoats, stuck the automatics in our pockets, and ran towards the gate with the rest of the weapons in our arms.

  The doors to the control tower and the passenger buildings were open; figures were running through them towards us, wildly waving their arms. The parking lot held six cars, none of them military or police. Perhaps they did not really think we would try to land there after all the foofaraw, or perhaps they had been delayed for some reason.

  Trish used her pencil flashlight to light our path as we ran. We got to the cars well ahead of the people from the buildings. Moreover, these at first ran towards the plane; they did not know we were in the parking lot until a few minutes later. The six cars were a Hillman Minx, two Volkswagens, an MG, a Facel-Vega, and an Aston-Martin DB4. All were locked and none had keys in the ignition locks.

  I smashed in the window of the Aston-Martin and reached in and unlocked the door. Then I raised the hood and, while Trish held the flashlight, went to work with screwdriver and pliers. It took only a minute to jump the wires, but by then we could hear voices, muffled by the wind and the rain. I completed the connections, put the hood down gently, and we scrambled into the car. At that moment, a pair of headlights swung around the corner of a building at the far end of the street which ended at the gates of the airport.

  A man yelled, “Here! I say! What do you think you’re doing there?”

  Five men ran towards us. I put the car into gear and took off with a squealing of tires. Wet as the pavement was, the rubber burned. There was a pinging sound as we went through the open gates. A hole appeared in the windshield between us. I shifted to second. A second car had appeared behind the first down the street. In my rear view mirror I could see a pair of headlights come on in the parking lot.

  Trish was busy taking the automatic from my pocket and laying it on the seat beside me, breaking open the .22, and assembling it.

  Flames spurted from alongside the first auto heading for us. I began swerving but had little room to maneuver because the hundred-yard gap between us was narrowing swiftly. I was doing 60 mph by then, and the oncoming cars were probably doing 40 mph. It swerved away when I did. The driver had acted defensively; he must have thought I intended to crash him or was playing “chicken” and he did not want a head-on crash with an impact of 100 mph.

  In any event, we both skidded. I compensated properly but the Aston-Martin continued to turn, moving forward also and spinning around its vertical axis. The other also turned. Like two waltzers, or ice-skaters, we passed each other, our fronts missing by an inch or so. As we did so, Trish fired her automatic three times.

&n
bsp; She said, “I think I got one! A hand flew up and dropped a gun out the window!”

  Our car ended its whirl pointed in the right direction, so I just kept on going.

  33

  The second car must have put on its brakes. It was skidding but the driver apparently got off the brakes in time to regain control. Jets of fire leaped from its side as it went by. And then we were past each other.

  Trish, looking through the rear window, said, “The first car has stopped; it’s headed away from us. So’s the other one. They’ll have to turn around. But the one that was in the lot—it’s coming. Watch out!”

  The warning was not for me but for the third car. Its driver had tried to stop it when he saw the roadway blocked by the two vehicles. He skidded and slammed into one of the cars, their two sides, right and left, colliding, according to Trish. The lights of one went out.

  I took the corner with a minor skid, straightened out, and was on my way for a straight shot for six blocks. I had to go through the “Square.” I was on A66, my immediate destination was A594, leading westward out of town. The six blocks were traversed with no sign of pursuit. Since I slowed down before taking the corner, I did not skid much. Several cars honked angrily as I flew by. I was splashing water on both sides as if I were a motorboat trying for a speed record. Pedestrians, hearing me at a distance, raced for the sides of buildings, against which they flattened themselves. Their efforts to avoid getting hit were successful but they could not dodge the spray. I could imagine the fists and the curses. They were lucky they did not get run over. And, for all I knew, the pursuing cars would hit some.

  Just before I turned the next corner for a shot at the central part of town, two cars came in sight behind us. One had only a single headlamp working.

  A policeman stepped out of a pub and blew his whistle hysterically. I kept on, and he jumped back into the doorway as a blanket of water rose to cover him. I almost lost control again rounding another corner and then I was two blocks away from Market “Square.” Trish, leaning out of the window, emptied a clip at the pursuers. The lead car swerved, and she exclaimed that she must have shot the driver. But it straightened out and flames jetted in reply from both sides of the car. As far as I knew, no bullets struck our vehicle.

  Then I was roaring into the “Square“ but double-clutching to gear down. At the end of the “Square” a large white board sign with the word ARNISONS shone in my beams. I swung left and, again, could not keep from skidding. Fifty miles an hour was too much for wet pavement and such an abrupt movement. As the car’s rear end described its arc, my headlights passed across the black letters on the white plate. A594 KESWICK. This sign was on a black and white pole on a triangle of cement between three roads. A watchtower stood on the triangle behind the signpost.

  The beams swung past that and illumined the front of the Midland Bank, and the car’s rear went over the curbing of the triangle and struck the road sign. The pole bent with a crash; the car slid off it and continued on down A594, past the bank and headed westerly.

  I was lucky not to blow a tire or overturn. The pole must have damaged the side of the car, and I had been thrown against my seat and shoulder belt towards the right. She had been pressed against the door.

  The first car to follow us was not as lucky. It was about 40 feet behind us and going, I estimated at 60 mph. I don’t think the driver was familiar with this town, otherwise, he would have been more cautious. It skidded, too, and went up over the curb of the island, completely bent the pole under it, and smashed broadside into the tower. Its lights went out, and I did not see it again.

  The car behind it did not try to turn. It put on its brakes and skidded on down the street past the tower and out of sight behind the bank. However, it must have turned around swiftly, because a minute later I saw its lights a half-mile behind me.

  The third car, which I presumed was driven by some of the airport personnel, did not appear again.

  A594 bent slightly southwest out of Penrith and then, near the Greystoke Pillar, a monument, turned northwesterly. Between Penrith and the village of Greystoke was a stretch of five miles with only farmhouses on either side of the road and not many of them. The road was excellent, a Minister of Transport motorway. Despite the driving rain and wind, I was going at 80 mph and occasionally at 90. I traveled this fast only because I knew the road well. I was hoping that my pursuers had no local men among them.

  Although I kept most of my mind on the driving, I could spare some for thinking about the situation. Those men had fired at me with intent to kill, not just to warn. It did not seem likely that Caliban’s men would shoot at me if he knew his cousin was with me. Moreover, Caliban wanted to handle me personally.

  Noli knew where the gold was, or where it had been. He wanted the elixir, however, and he needed me alive to tell him how to get it. Or did he? If he had Clio—I felt cold then he could get the secret out of her. And so there was no reason for him to keep me alive except for personal vengeance. But he knew how dangerous I was and may have decided to let the torture go for an assurance that I was no longer a threat to him.

  If I was right about Noli, then he was double-crossing Caliban. Noli was not only trying to frustrate Caliban’s plans for me, he was trying to kill Trish.

  I began to think that Noli was not so intelligent after all. Didn’t he realize that Caliban was extremely dangerous? Noli’s actions were those of a man who lets two tigers out of a cage, both of whom want to do nothing but kill him.

  I topped a hill then and looked across the dip to the top of the next hill. I saw, fuzzily through the rain, lights on or near the top of the hill. And, at that moment, the rain ceased. The wipers cleared the windshield, and I saw that there must be more than one car on the other side of that hill. Two sets of beams turned sidewise, briefly shone out past the hill, and were turned off. If it hadn’t been for the rain suddenly quitting, I might not have known that two cars were turned broadside to block the motorway.

  The car behind me speeded up. Either the men in it felt more confident now that they could see better of they were in radio contact with those ahead. I suspected that both were true.

  I did not increase my speed more than 5 mph going down the hill. The pursuer drew up behind me, doing approximately 95 mph. When about 30 feet away, its occupants fired six shots, one of which put a hole in the window behind me and in the windshield. I jerked because the bullet burned the top of my shoulder. I asked Trish to feel under my shirt, and she said that I was welted but there seemed to be no blood.

  After that, the car dropped away. This convinced me that they were in radio contact. By the time I was almost to the crest of the hill, the car was only halfway up and still slowing down.

  I took my foot off the gas pedal as I came over the hilltop. The hill ran at a 45-degree angle at this point. Bright in the glow of my lamps were the two barricading cars, only 180 feet ahead. They were in tandem with the rear of one off the road and the nose of the other sticking over the edge of the pavement. A hundred yards down, a third car was parked half on the road, facing us.

  Nine men stood by the two broadside cars. Three were on the left beyond the ditch and holding submachine guns. Six were by the ditch to the right and holding pistols and rifles.

  They began firing immediately. Trish crouched down but fired with her automatic at the men on the right. The hand grenades lay on the floor at her feet, ready for use.

  Events happened so swiftly there was time only to react. I took the left side because there was more room on the wet clayey ground between the car and the ditch. Also, because there were only three weapons on that side, even if they were rapid-firing.

  Gearing down, I ran at the left-hand car with my left wheels on the mire and my right on the pavement. I was crouched down as far as I could get and still see.

  At this close range, we should have been riddled. But in the excitement and uncertainty, as almost always happens, the firing was anything but accurate. And the men must have been conc
erned about my crashing into them. Holes did appear in the plastic just above my head. Bullets whistled by. Something burning hit my neck. It was, I think, a deflected bullet that just touched the skin with its hot metal and then dropped onto my shoulder.

  The three men with the submachine guns scattered because I could easily have slid across the mud and into them. They realized, too late, that I was not going to stop and let them shoot me and that I might be intent on running over them even if I got killed in the process. It was well for us that they broke, because if they had stood their ground they could have blasted us at point-blank range. I swung off the road onto the shoulder, there was a slight bump as my skidding rear struck the nose of the blocking car, and we were in the mud.

  Just before that, Trish, with a coolness and precision that I had no time to admire then, tossed a grenade. She did not see where it struck, of course, but it must have been stopped by the wheels or some part of the car.

  Our vehicle shot through the mud, towards the ditch. I geared down to first and we straightened out and slid close enough to the road for my right-side wheels to get back upon the pavement. I got back onto the road completely just as the grenade blew up. Trish said it exploded under the right-hand car, not the left-hand one, under which she had thrown it. It did not matter. Both cars went up in flames and smoke as their gas tanks exploded. Three of the men on the right side and run across the ditch to fire at us. They were caught by the outgush and set afire.

  The third car, parked down the road on the right side, protected three men firing at us. Two men were on the other side of the hood, shooting rifles. A third was stationed behind the car and firing with a tommy. This, unlike the others, had tracer bullets.

  We should have been skewered. But the explosions of the two cars must have shaken them up, even if they were hardened professionals. I further unnerved them by angling across the road, accelerating swiftly, as I aimed directly at them. The tracers hit the pavement to my right and behind us and then swung up towards us. I turned the front of the car away at the last moment, skidding again, while Trish continued firing with my .38. Just before the headlamps swung away from them, I saw one man behind the hood throw up his hands and fall backwards. The man with the tommy, thinking I was going to ram the car, which I almost did anyway, ran to the left, and my rear, skidding around, knocked him into the air and against his car.