Bill 3 - on the Planet of Bottled Brains (21 page)

“What are you talking about? What are you going to do with my foot?”

“Calm yourself,” the Chinger said, his voice calm and reassuring. “I am a doctor.”

“You? A doctor?”

“Didn't you think our culture has doctors? No more nonsense, now. Let me see the foot?”

Something about the Chinger's air of assurance convinced Bill that, whatever else the Chinger might or might not be, a doctor he definitely was. He held out his foot, other hand on the laser pistol he had borrowed from Mr Splock, just in case the Chinger should try anything disgusting.

But the Chinger merely examined the alligator foot in a professional manner, tapped toenails in a delicate but entirely professional manner, and stepped back.

“As fine a case of pseudosaurianism as I've ever seen.”

“What's that?” Bill asked.

“It means that your alligator foot is not a real alligator foot. It is an artificial covering.”

“But why would anyone do that to me?”

“Brace yourself,” the Chinger said. “I will get to the bottom of this at once.”

The Chinger bent once again over Bill's claw. His snout, with its many razor sharp and needle-pointed teeth, ripped open the side of the foot.

“Hey!” Bill cried, blinking with astonishment because the Chinger's action had caused him no pain at all.

“Here we go,” the Chinger said. Taking a firm grip on Bill's toes, with one cunning flick of his tail, and a corresponding movement throughout his body, he tore away the alligator foot.

Bill shouted in alarm and reached for his laser pistol. It wasn't there. The Chinger had taken advantage of his distraction to snatch it away.

Bill looked down at his foot, aghast. The Chinger had ripped away the old foot entirely, revealing, beneath it, a large fist-shaped mass with pink fingernails. The foot mass straightened out, revealing itself as a foot very similar to Bill's other foot but colored pink rather than tan and being clean rather than dirty. As the foot uncurled, Bill could see a little strip of paper wedged between two toes.

“It was merely an oversight,” the Chinger said. “The surgeons who put in your foot bud didn't reveal to you that they had protected the growing foot with a covering of alligator tissue to enable the growing bud to reach full size without being scraped or scratched.”

Bill took the strip of paper from between his toes and read, “Happy walking! Courtesy of your foot implant medical team.”

“That was thoughtful of them,” Bill said. “But they could have told me what they'd done. Well, Chinger, I must admit, you surprise me with your talents. Have you any thoughts as to how we can get out of here?”

“I do indeed,” the Chinger said. “We must keep our wits about us until the military sends in a rescue team.”

“Are you sure they'll do that?”

“I think so,” the Chinger said. “After all, I am a valuable asset. And you have your place in their plans, too, no doubt.”

“Frankly,” Bill said, “I find it hard to believe they'll exert much effort over either of us.”

“That's true, no doubt. But they will go to considerable trouble to get the Disruptor.”

“But we don't have it,” Bill pointed out.

“Don't we?” The Chinger smiled a smug little smile. “Let me show you something.”

The little lizard climbed up Bill's trouser leg and onto his shoulder. “Turn slightly to the left. That's perfect! Now walk in that direction.”

Bill restrained his natural instinct to tell the Chinger to go get stuffed and set off in the indicated direction, limping slightly for a while, then not at all as his new foot hardened nicely.

The sky was darkening now to signal the onset of evening. A blue twilight spread over the land. In the distance, perhaps a mile or so away but directly in line with Bill's direction of travel, was a light. At first it was no more than a faint glow on the horizon between two hunched hills. Then, as Bill came closer, it resolved itself into three different lights, all of them close together.

“What's that?” Bill asked the Chinger.

“It would take too long to explain,” the Chinger said. “Just carry on a little while longer and you will see for yourself.”

Bill carried on. His newly uncovered foot was holding up nicely. The surgeons seemed to have done a good job. For a change. It seemed like everything was going to be all right now. He hoped, and looked around suspiciously. Life had a way of springing repellent surprises on him every time that he relaxed. At last they reached the foremost light. It turned out to be a bonfire of considerable size, with two other bonfires spaced at equidistant intervals from it, the whole forming an equilateral triangle; this argued, to Bill's mind at least, that something with intelligence had built these fires, since nature cares nothing for equilateralism and, as is well known, has trouble making a straight line.

There were two figures sitting at the fire. The one nearest to Bill was a large man with a powerfully-sculpted head. He carried himself like a warrior, and, when he moved, there was a wink of light from his shoulders which revealed that he was wearing armor. Bill recognized him at once.

“Hannibal!” he cried. “What are you doing here?”

“A very good question,” Hannibal said. “You'd better ask him.” He indicated with a jerk of the thumb the man sitting beside him. This man was short and plump. He was bald except for five or ten tendrils that stood up straight from his scalp, which was colored orange. Although obviously bipedal — he stood up to greet Bill — he also had the vestiges of an earlier ichthyological form as displayed by the fin down his back.

“Greetings, Bill. I've been expecting you.”

“Who are you?” Bill asked suspiciously.

“My name is Bingtod, but that would mean nothing to you. I am known among your people as the Alien Historian.”

“I know who you are,” Bill shouted. “You're the menace who's trying to wipe out the history of the Earth.”

“You may have heard that interpretation,” the Alien Historian sniffed, “but it isn't true. I am trying to produce a better result in the future for your planet by judicious alteration of its historical nodal points. I have already been able to replace most of the fossil fuels that were only a memory in your day.”

“How did you do that?”

"A trifling addition of three common chemicals administered in the year 1007 BC has resulted in making oil unburnable. I have also saved all of your forests by selecting architects who were unable, for one reason or another, to build wooden houses. There is no greenhouse effect in the new future I am concocting for you, and no nuclear threat. I have done away with those things. Surely work like that cannot be called evil.

“Why don't you just butt the hell out of our affairs?” Bill suggested emphatically.

“Would that I could! I just can't help myself. It is in the nature of intelligence to meddle.”

“But why have you brought me here?” Hannibal asked.

“To produce a sufficiently large anomaly so that the time-changing process can become even more malleable. That way we can run these changes through more quickly. I admit that all my changes haven't worked out quite as planned. The chains of cause and effect are unbelievably difficult to manipulate.”

“Bill,” the Chinger whispered in Bill's ear, “I think the Alien Historian is lying.”

“About what?” Bill asked.

“That's difficult to tell. But he's lying about something. Have you noticed the way his eye always meets yours in a frank and open expression? Only people with guilty secrets do that.”

“Are you sure?”

“Trust me,” the Chinger said. “I've given up everything for the Terran cause — two good homes, a happy sex life, a position in the Odd Chingers Organization, my presidency of the Chinger Anti-Defamation League. What further proof of my loyalty can I give you?”

“All right,” Bill said, “but what do we do?”

“You two,” the Alien Historian said, “please stop mumbling together. You look like conspirators, and conspiracy is the nightmare of history.”

“What do you think?” Bill asked the Chinger in a whisper.

“He sounds crazy as hell to me,” the Chinger said.

“But what do we do?”

“Might as well kill him and get it over with,” the Chinger said.

Bill wasn't sure he was ready to go quite that far. But then, in another instant, Hannibal had lurched to his feet, short sword in hand. His face contorted horribly as he said, “Can't help myself — his mind is controlling mine — watch yourself!”

And he launched himself at Bill with swinging sword, the Alien Historian nodding gravely while saying, as if to himself, “Dialectical materialism — what shall I do with it?”

Bill dodged as Hannibal came at him, fumbled out his laser pistol, but a quick swipe from Hannibal's sword knocked the weapon out of his hand into a nearby weasel hole. Bill leaped backward as Hannibal came on. The Chinger took one look and slithered under Bill's tunic to the small of his back, long known as the place least likely to get injured when the body is under attack by a berserker with an edged weapon.

“Help me!” Bill said to him.

“I'm only seven inches long,” the Chinger said, his voice muffled by the heavy cotton poplin of the shirt at the small of Bill's back. “I suggest you help yourself.”

Bill's attention was entirely taken up trying to dodge Hannibal's short sword, of bronze, and sharpened to a razor edge. The short stocky Carthaginian was foaming at the mouth as he swung his sword like a buzz-saw gone berserk, and the force of his swings created microclimates that boiled up into tiny whirlwinds before being absorbed into the torpor of the quiet Tsurisian landscape. Bill looked around desperately for a weapon. There was nothing close to hand. They were in a clearing in the woods, and scavengers had been at work earlier. The land hereabouts had been stripped of sticks, stones, rusty tie rods, bronze cannon balls with verdigris left over from Gustavus Adolphus's campaign in Pomerania. In short, the region had been picked clean, and even the dust had been finely sifted. Bill had to throw himself backward to avoid being decabezized by the murderous swinging sword. He landed on the small of his back and heard a yelp from the Chinger. The massive Hannibal, his face a mask of torment and passion, was standing overhead; the sword was going backwards in his double-handed grip; there would be no way to avoid the murderous downstroke that was sure to cleave Bill in twain, and, with a little luck, perhaps the Chinger, too.

At this extremity, Bill remembered that he had one thing and one thing only that he might use. It was a forlorn hope, perhaps useless, but what else was there to do? His mind ran through the alternatives in nanoseconds and rang up a dismal No Sale. Bill pulled open his pouch, reached in, and removed the withered alligator foot which had been pulled from over his own foot so recently. He had some vague intention of throwing it in Hannibal's face, and then figuring out his next move after that. But the very removal, or the very display, of the foot had had an instantaneous and unexpected effect on the berserk Carthaginian warrior. Hannibal stopped in his tracks, sword arrested at the mid-point of its downswing. His eyes became round and glaucous, and for a moment the breath stopped in his throat.

“Come on, get killing!” the Alien Historian shouted. “I am giving you a mental command which you cannot fail to follow to destroy that sucker!”

“I cannot, Master,” Hannibal said. “He bears the symbol of that which commands my loyalty beyond even yours. Behold, he has the Alligator's Foot!”

“Well, damnation,” the Alien Historian said. “You know, you're right. The alligator was the secret god of the Carthaginians, and he who bears the Alligator's Foot is to be obeyed in all things. I had not thought it would come to this! History is full of surprises, I would surely say.”

“Yeah,” Bill said. He picked up Hannibal's sword and advanced on the Alien Historian. “What do you make of this?” he said, raising the weapon to strike.

“Another beautiful theory,” the Alien Historian said, “ruined by a silly little anomaly. Well, it's been nice doing business with you. Now I must be on my way.”

The Alien Historian drew a circle in the dust, having previously set in the logical probabilities that made this both a convenient means of transportation and a class way of exiting.

Just as he was finishing the circle, the figure sitting by the third fire rose and walked over to them.

“What in hell are you doing here?” Bill asked.

Many reasons have been given, some of them less than ingenious, to explain Ham Duo's presence at that third campfire dressed in the rough brown hooded cloak and high soft leather boots of a trinket salesman from Aphrodisia IV. Whatever the true case may be, Ham was there, and he rose now without undue haste and seized the Alien Historian by the collar of the Nehru-style jacket which the alien affected.

“Let go of me at once,” the Alien Historian said. “Nobody can interfere with the processes of history.”

“Not even you,” Ham said. “You've overstepped yourself this time.”

“What do you intend to do?” the Alien Historian asked, suddenly worried.

“I think I'll bring you back in a cage,” Ham said. “The authorities can make up their own minds about you.”

“I'll make you an offer you can't refuse,” the Alien Historian said.

Ham smiled grimly. “Try me.”

“What if I gave you the Disruptor?”

“Refused,” Ham said. “Are you going to come along peacefully or do I have to get the Kookie to sing in your ear?”

“Not that,” the Alien Historian said. “But consider, Ham Duo! Can you afford so easily to pass up on the Disruptor, which would make you master of space and time?”

Ham thought about it. “Master of space, that I can understand. But how does time get into it?”

“The Disruptor is able to work miracles with time, too. Didn't you know that?”

“Miracles I can live without. I don't like to get mixed up with theology.”

“Not literal miracles, you cretin. Figuratively speaking of course. If you will just let me loose for a moment and I'll show you.”

“No tricks?”

“No tricks.”

Ham loosened his grip. The Alien Historian reached into the pouch that hung around his waist on the left side, and pushing into it, removed a large object with a gunmetal color, which Bill recognized at once as the Disruptor.