Circus: Fantasy Under the Big Top (25 page)

The headman relit the table lamp, collected his coppers and sapwine, then returned to his place. Pulsit watched all of this, but kept his silence.
The natives are restless. When the time is ripe, I must try to convince them that I am a god.

Raster shook his head. “Even the wild man act of the Tarzak freaks does not compare to your performance, Azongo. If you came back with us to the Central Continent, you could gather coppers by the sackful.”

“Indeed.”

Raster nodded. “But the act is only better, not very different.” He rubbed his chin. “What you need is a victim. Play out a drama of life-and-death.” Raster nodded again. “Yes, that would put the act in the Great Square in Tarzak.”

Azongo sipped at his cup, mulling over Raster’s words.

“It would do me good to make my living with an act again.” He held out his hands. “Since we are mostly all wild men, there is little demand for such an act here. And, there are others better than I. Being headman of this village is the only way I can keep a roof over my head.” Azongo lowered his hands and shrugged. “But, where
would
I find such a victim?”

Raster stuck his thumb in his chest. “Me.” He leaned forward. “I am a strongman with the Sina freaks, but there are many who are stronger, and with better acts. My pitiful performance as a fisher is all that allows me to keep myself in sapwine. But, together we shall become rich.” Raster turned toward Durki. “Durki, do you think your master would devise a story for Azongo and I to act out?”

Durki turned his head and looked at Pulsit. The old storyteller stared with unseeing eyes at the lamp on the table. Durki looked back at Raster and shrugged. “Pulsit is still in the grip of his imagination. If he were well, he could devise a fine story.”

Azongo scratched his head, then pointed a finger at Durki. “There is talk of a doctor two day’s ride from here.”

“Will he treat my master?”

Azongo nodded. “It is said that the doctor treats those who come to him in exchange for plants and animals. It is also said that he has seven fingers on each hand.”

Raster shrugged. “That is nothing. Vorub of the Tarzak freaks has sixteen fingers, yet he cannot make a living at it. “

“You do not understand, Raster.” Azongo lowered his voice. “The talk is that the doctor does not come from the planet Momus.”

“Is he a Vorilian?”

Azongo shrugged. “It is all talk. Still, he may be able to help your master. If Pulsit becomes well and writes Raster and I a story, we can put together a great act.”

Durki nodded. “Perhaps the doctor can do something for my voice as well.”

Azongo laughed. “That I can do. You must exercise your voice by forcing the air out of your body sharply, and growling with your throat, like this.” Azongo took a deep breath, then forced it out. “Hhhoooowaughhhh!” the headman nodded. “It will thicken up your voice if you practice it every chance you get. Try it.”

Durki took a deep breath. “Hoowah.”

Pulsit’s eyes came to life, darting between Durki and Azongo.
What is this? What heathen ritual?

Azongo shook his head. “You must force the air out faster. Hhhoooowaughhhh!”

“Hhoowahh!”

“Hhhoooowaughhhh!”

“Hhooowaugh!”

“Much better.” He nodded toward Raster. “If you are to be my victim, you will need a good scream. Try this.” Azongo took another breath. “Aaaaaah!”

Raster nodded. “Aye, it chills the bones.” He took a deep breath. “Aaaaaaah!”

As the three screamed and growled, a tear trickled down Pulsit’s cheek.
The peasants of the field—listen to them suffer the tortures of the damned! Look. beyond!
A
dragon! What horror!

“Hhhoooowaughhhh!”

“Aaaaaaaaah!”

Pulsit weaved to his feet and placed a hand on Raster’s shoulder. His other hand held an imaginary lance in Azongo’s direction. “Fear not, sweet maiden, for I, the Golden Knight, shall slay yon dragon and lay its carcass at your feet!”

Azongo leaned forward and spoke to Durki. “Is your master well enough to tell us a story?”

Durki sighed. “This is no story to Pulsit’s troubled mind, but reality. He sees the dragon—” He nodded toward Raster. “And the maiden.”

Azongo shook his head. “With the morning’s light, then, we shall set off to find this strange doctor.”

Two days ride from Mbwebwe, deep in the Donniker Basin, stood a compound surrounded by tall, vine-hung saptrees. Surrounding the compound were tall metal fences, the enclosed area being divided again and again into smaller areas containing representatives of Momus’s peculiar life forms. In its center stood a blue metal building from which curious apparatus bristled, giving the structure the appearance of a bowl-cut porcupine. Inside, Doctor Shart clasped his seven-fingered hands together and groveled before an image on his laboratory’s telescreen.

“All I need is a little more time, Ambassador Inak. If I can have just a little more time—”

“Enough!” The image scowled, then pointed a couple of fingers at Shart. “I don’t know what halfwit approved the funding for your project, Shart, but when the Council of Warlords receives my report, someone is in for a roasting!”

Shart wrung his hands together. “Inak, the experiments are very complicated, and I am the only one at the station. If you could see your way clear to approving my request for an assistant—”

The image raised its thin yellow brows. “You astound me! You expect the Tenth Quadrant to expend
more
monies in support of your demented theories? Fantasy. Utter and complete fantasy!”

“Inak, just think of the benefits to the government if I am successful. Think of being able to control the entire animal population of a planet. Think of it—being able to spread diseases at will using specially adapted carriers—”

“Think of it?” Inak’s brows dropped into a frown. “That’s all we can do, Shart, is think about it. We certainly haven’t seen any results.”

Shart smiled and held his hands out at his sides. “If the Ambassador will remember, the Warlords looked favorably upon my project. It would place a great weapon in their hands, and—”

“Only if you begin getting results, Shart. No more of this—when will you have something positive that I can report?”

Shart shrugged. “Perhaps . . . thirty days. My experiment on the virus is almost completed. After that, it’s just a matter of tuning and adjusting the control banks.”

Ambassador Inak rubbed his pointed chin, then nodded toward Shart. “Perhaps, then, we will be able to send a very glowing report to the Warlords. Yes, that will be just about right.”

“If I might inquire, Inak, right for what?”

“The commission from the United Quadrants will be here soon, and then there will be a long period of investigation and negotiation. Allenby, the puppet of the Ninth Quadrant, refuses to consider our proposal . . . ” Inak leaned forward. “But, if I can show the Great Statesman of Momus that not accepting our proposal would bring disaster to his people . . . Do you get my meaning?”

“I will do my best, Inak—”

“No, Shart! You will succeed!” The image faded and the screen went blank.

Shart placed the thumb of his right hand against the tip of his nose and wiggled the remaining six fingers in the direction of the screen. “Yaaaaaaaah!” He dropped his hand and half turned away when the automatic sensor alarm began to buzz. “What now?” He sighed, then switched the function selector on the screen control. Four figures, riding in one of the clumsy Moman lizard carts, were approaching the station. “Not another patient.” Shart shook his head, then remembered toying with the idea of training a Moman to handle the multitude of simple tasks around the laboratory that ate up his time. Now that Inak had turned down his latest request for an assistant, and had stepped up the timetable, what choice had he?

Shart deenergized his screen, then turned and entered a corridor leading to the side of the compound facing the road. At the end of the corridor, he opened the door and stepped outside. Immediately, his sense of hearing was assaulted by screams and growls. He narrowed his eyes and examined the travelers. In the rear of the cart, one of the local wild men, a large man in yellow-and-green stripes and a short, fat man in purple, screamed and growled at each other. Off to one side, a quiet old man, also in purple, seemed to be nodding off. Shart rubbed his hands together. “Excellent!”

The cart pulled to a stop in front of the doctor, and the huge lizard that provided the vehicle’s motive power sat down and held out its right front foot, palm up. “Anow here. Payup.”

The wild man jumped from the cart, then caught a sack thrown to him by the large man in green and yellow. The sack was handed to the lizard, and Shart watched as the lizard reached into the sack and began stuffing fat cobit roots into its mouth. The wild man kicked the lizard. “Look, you wait. Understand?”

The lizard nodded without looking up from the sack. “ ’Stand.”

The wild man walked around the lizard and came to a stop in front of the Vorilian. “Doctor? I understand that you will treat patients for a fee.”

Shart looked from the wild man to the pair screaming and growling in the cart, then back to the wild man. “What seems to be their trouble?”

The wild man looked confused, then he laughed. “There is nothing wrong with them, doctor. They practice their acts. Your patient is the old one. His name is Pulsit. The two in the back are Durki and Raster, and I am Azongo of the Mbwebwe wild men, also headman of that village.”

Shart frowned, then nodded. “What is the old one’s trouble?”

Azongo whirled a finger next to his head. “He sees things.”

Shart waved a hand at the cart. “Bring him down from there, and let me look at him.”

Azongo held up a hand. “One moment, doctor. What is your charge? We were told by the villagers at the base of the plateau that you desire plants and animals.”

Shart shrugged. “I have no need of such things now. But, I will look at him all the same.”

Azongo frowned. “You mean you will treat him for
nothing?”

Shart remembered that, in the curious reaches of the Moman mind, a service not charged for is worthless. If he charged nothing, he would lose his patient—and, possibly, his head. “Of course not. I must have money—those little copper things.”

“How many?”

Shart rubbed his narrow chin. “Twenty-five.”

On the cart, the one called Durki reached into the old one’s robe and withdrew a small sack. He turned to Azongo. “Pulsit has only twenty-three coppers on him.”

Shart nodded. “That will do.”

Azongo backed up and rubbed his own chin. “Well, Doctor, what
is
your price? I expect such haggling in the market, but from a doctor, I expect a firm price for a specific service.”

Shart sighed. “Of course. My price is twenty-five, but surely between the three of you, another two coppers can be produced.”

Azongo shook his head. “Buying roots for the lizard cleaned us out. Can Pulsit owe you the remaining two coppers?”

“Of course.”

“At what rate of interest?”

“N-n-n . . . ” Shart stopped himself from saying “none.”

“What was that, Doctor?”

“Nine.”

“Nine! Nine percent!” Azongo pulled on his lower lip, then shrugged. “Very well.” The wild man motioned to the others in the cart. “Lower him down.”

Shart and the wild man steadied Pulsit as he came down, and immediately the doctor began examining Pulsit’s head. Well above the old man’s hairline, he found a large, dark bruise. Azongo folded his arms. “How long will it take? Should we wait?”

“No. It will take some time. You and your friends go back. I’ll send him along when he is well.”

Azongo shook his head. “How will he pay for the return trip?”

Shart’s black eyes bugged. “By the spirits!” He turned toward Azongo. “By then he will be well enough to negotiate his own loan!”

The wild man nodded and held out his hand. “Here.”

“What’s that?”

“Your coppers.”

Shart held out his hand, took the coppers and watched while the wild man climbed back up into the cart, picked up a plank, and swatted the lizard. “On to Mbwebwe!”

The lizard lifted an eyebrow, checked the sack to make sure it was empty, then tossed it aside and began moving the cart around. As the cart pulled out of sight, Shart threw the twenty-three coppers into the grass, then led the old man into the corridor.

Pulsit awakened and found himself in a small room containing only a cot and a small table cluttered with medical-looking things. Images of pirates, cannibals, and dragons flashed through his mind, but he could distinguish them from the world of fact. He assigned the images to his story mill, sighed at his new feeling of well-being, then swung his legs to the floor and sat up.

“Ah! I see you are awake.”

Pulsit’s eyes widened as he looked around at the empty room.
The ghost of Harvey Marpole leered at the new victim, seated helpless, alone—trapped. Cold, rotting, unseen hands reached for William’s throat. Fingers of ice closed around vessels of pulsing blood, stemming their flow. They pressed against the path that air must take to feed William’s lungs, ending it . . .

Pulsit jumped as the door opened and Doctor Shart entered. “It is good that you are better. Come, we have much work to do.”

Pulsit frowned. “Eh?”

Shart pushed seven-fingered hands into the pockets of his lab coat and looked down his pointed nose at the Moman. “It is my fee for making you well. You are to work for me.”

“Work for you? I agreed to this?”

“Yes.”

The storyteller frowned, then nodded. “Well, if I agreed.” He looked up at the Vorilian. “What kind of work is it?”

Shart pulled a hand from his pocket and motioned toward the door. “Come.”

After being brought to the laboratory, Pulsit was introduced to his tasks, which consisted of operating the automatic glassware cleanser, changing and cleaning the complex’s air filters, monitoring the vector-escape alarm system, laundry, and assorted tasks from filing to emptying the trash. Pulsit observed, listened, then nodded at the Vorilian. “Doctor, I can see that you are a great scientist with many important responsibilities. How is it that you have no assistants to perform these insignificant tasks?”