Reward for Retief (19 page)

            "Quiet, Red," Retief
ordered. "It'll just be you and me for now."

            "You nuts, or
what?" Red demanded, but in a more moderate tone. "Old Worm's like to
slip up on us any time. What we done," he went on, sounding as proud as a
five-year-old reporting how he has just used the fingernail scissors on his
baby sister's face, "we waited till old Worm come out, then we poured in a
couple drums o' high octane we found and lit her off and she's burning what I
mean
hot\
Old Worm's ice'll all melt and he won't have no place to go. Have
to listen to reason, then."

            "Just what would you
call reasonable, in this context?" Retief asked. Red gave him a puzzled
look and dug at his scalp with a blunt, black-crescented fingernail.

            "He's the one got all
the stuff, ain't he?" he whined. "Jest want it to hand it over. No
use it setting on all the stuff.
It
cain't use it!"

            Just then, Magnan arrived,
breathless and disheveled. "I
heard
that!" he declared indignantly.

            "You're losing me,
Red," Retief told the unhappy fellow. "What 'stuff are you talking
about?"

            Before Red could frame a
reply, Bill came into view. Retief rose and signalled. Bill came over,
frowning.

            "Where's
Jacinthe?" Magnan and Retief asked together.

            Bill jerked his head.
"She'll be along, I guess," he told them off-handedly. "She
knows how to take care of herself. What's going on?" Bill demanded.
"Seen two o' these crumbums coming outta the church or whatever, with a
case o' Scotch."

            "Twelve-year-old
plus," Red said dreamily. "Smooth as a angel's wing."

            "That ain't
right," Bill told the red-head. "Storing yer booze in a church."

            "Ain't no church,"
Red protested. "Jest a kinda shed over the entrance to the cave."

            "How do you know?"
Retief asked.

            "I guess we seen it go
in there to get the stuff it hands out, ain't we?" Red demanded.

            "This Worm gives you
things?" Magnan wanted reassurance.

            "Sure; extra stuff
it
cain't use—like duds and eats only fit fer humerns," Red confirmed.

            "It bestows largesse on
you, but you want it all, is that it?" Magnan persisted.

            "Guess we got a right
to it," Red deduced, sullenly now. "Don't know what that there large
S is," he added.

            "Never mind, Ben,"
Retief suggested. "The rationalizations of those who want everything free
are beyond logic."

            "What else you got in
there?" Bill demanded.

            "
I
ain't got
nothing in there," Red contradicted sharply. "Old Worm got it all.
That's why we come over to roust it."

            "Sounds nutty,"
Bill told the now-cocky captive. "I seen that dragon; a hunnert foot long
if it's a inch, big as a beer truck, and got these like colored scales all
over. It never seen me, or I wouldn't be standing here gabbing when we oughta
be hiking for the tall timber, hey, Mr. Retief?"

            "Not yet, Bill,"
Retief countered. "The Worm, as the locals call it, seems to be perfectly
peaceable, as long as nobody comes along and starts a fire in its lair."

            "These slobs done that,
eh?" Bill said thoughtfully. "What for? Just meanness?"

            " 'Meanness,' the kid
says," Red jeered. "We figger that critter got no use for
our
supplies,
so it was up to us to liberate 'em! Nobody else had the guts to try, but
we
did!"

            "What supplies he
talking about, Mr. Retief?" Bill wanted to know.

            Red answered eagerly:
"I'll tell you what supplies, punk! The eats and booze and duds and
sneakers and all!
That's
what supplies! How long'd we last in this here
Central Park withouten no supplies, hah?"

            "You appear
sufficiently well-nourished," Magnan pointed out.

            "That ain't the
pernt!" Red protested. "It's jest, well, with all that stuff stored yonder,
we could set up a like retail operation and clean up a pile. Wouldn't be no
competition. Too bad yer too late to get cut in fer a slice o' the action;
corporation's closed."

            "No one of civilized
sensibilities would for a moment consider participation in such a scheme!"
Magnan snorted indignantly. "Grand larceny, monopoly, and doubtless
price-gouging into the bargain!"

            "Yeah, it's a real
professional operation," Red agreed dreamily. "Got to hand it to old
Eddie, planned it all out—but first we got to fox this here Worm. Tell ya
what," he continued in a confidential tone, "way old Eddie figgers
it, old Worm's got a back entrance to his cave. We go around there and hit him
from behind."

            "Are you mad?"
Magnan demanded.

            "Naw, I'm a
good-natured kind of slob," Red pointed out modestly. "Even if the
big feller here
did
clobber me some, I don't hold no grudge."

            Bill blocked him as he
attempted to slide casually off the path into the underbrush. "Mr. Magnan
don't mean that kinda mad," he told Red. "He means 'nuts'-mad. And I
say ya must be, tryna louse up a nice deal like you got here."

            "Hey, look," Red
protested in an attempt at a reasonable tone. "What we gotta do, we gotta
get around back and sneak up behind, afore old Worm takes a notion to come back
in head-first. Then we'd have them jaws and all to deal with, see? Come
on." He darted past Bill, who looked to Retief for advice, but Magnan
spoke first.

            "Don't just stand
there," he commanded sharply. "Follow him!" He trailed after
Bill as the Marine fell in on Red's heels. "Coming, Retief?" Magnan
addressed the latter.

            "I might as well,"
Retief agreed. He paused to listen. "The boys are still busy," he
commented. "It seems they haven't missed Red."

            "They've set fire to
that lovely little Doric temple," Magnan complained. "Sheer
vandalism! And in this idyllic setting, too."

            * "Something strange
going on up ahead," Retief told Magnan. "Over this way." He
angled off to the right, between the mossy boles of giant trees. A faint
murmuring was audible, coming from somewhere ahead.

            "Why, it's a faint
murmuring sound," Magnan announced, "coming from somewhere
ahead." He mimed Puzzlement over the Treachery of Physical Law (3-V).
"Whatever can it be?"

            There were sounds as of a
brief struggle from the slightly divergent direction in which Bill had followed
Red, concluding with a
smack!
like a ball bat striking a gourd.
"Don't try that one again!" Bill's voice said sternly, followed by
inelegant expostulation from Red.

            "I'm onney tryna show
ya a short-cut, ain't I?" he whined.

            "Hadn't we better ...?"
Magnan proposed uncertainly, his attention again on the murmuring sound, now
more like a roar.

            "I think not,"
Retief vetoed the idea. "Just a little further now."

            "It's louder,"
Magnan said. "It sounds like Pookapoo Falls, that I saw as a boy, back in
New Peoria. There was this yacht, wrecked on the rocks just above the Falls;
and a little farther upstream, a derelict barge. Fascinating stories! And once
a man named Fred Heisenwhacker gained immortality, at least in the New Peoria
area, by going over the cataract in a barrel. Fred was never the same after
that: used to stop and pound his ear at odd intervals, whatever he might happen
to be doing. Oh, here we are!" He concluded his reminiscences abruptly as
they emerged on a rocky slope adjacent to a foaming torrent issuing, wreathed
in a mist, from a cleft in the rock-face. At the same moment, Red, followed
closely by Bill, appeared on the opposite side of the turbulent stream.

            "Hey!" Red yelled.
"How'd—? Never mind! What we got, we got a foul-up on our hands here! We
can't go in, 'cause somebody done flooded the whole place! We got to keep a
sharp lookout and get the good stuff when it washes out! Old Eddie ain't gonna
like this!"

            "If old Eddie sets a
petrol fire in an ice-cave," Retief pointed out, "it's to be expected
that ice will melt, and inevitably the resultant water will flow
downhill."

            "Me and old Ed never
thought o' that," Red confessed. "But well salvage what we can, and
maybe Eddie won't take it out on me, which I was just follering orders, up till
you fellers come along." He gave Bill a resentful look.

            "Fascinating!"
Magnan burbled, pointing to the exposed strata in the rock-face. "Look
there, Retief! A layer of fossil ice, doubtless the remnant of an ice cap laid
down during an era of glaciation, then covered with insulating sediments and
preserved here in the shade of the ridge! What's that you said about an
ice-cave? Have you noticed? Those confounded midges aren't so thick here."

            "Red tells me the Worm,
which he says looks like an overgrown 'pillar—lives in one," Retief
explained. "Eddie and his crew baited it out and then poured highly
inflammable fuel in, and ignited it. So the melt-water is running out the back door.
But I don't see any of the goodies Red expected to loot."

            "I don't hardly
unnerstan," Red grieved. "Place gotta be full o' good stuff, but none
of it ain't washing out! Must be another way out," he concluded.

            As they watched, the torrent
diminished to a modest flow, on which bits of trash, paper, leaves, and charred
wood fragments floated gently past.

            "Huh! Musta burnt up
all the stuff!" Red mourned. "Shunt never of let Eddie take over from
Bimbo. Bim had the right idea: sneak in quick and grab a load while old Worm
was out." He reeled back as a horde of gnats swarmed from the cave.

           
go away
, the Voice demanded abruptly.

            "No,
you
go
away!" Red yelled, looking astonished.

            The flow from the hole had
dwindled to a trickle, wreathed in pale smoke; the midges had dissipated as
quickly as they had appeared.

            Red stared into the orifice,
now dry; he kicked idly at a stone, then halted in his tracks, his mouth open.

           
it is better that you withdraw now,
the Voice Spoke gently,
but disturbingly as always. Magnan looked about wildly but said nothing.

            Red yelped and blurted:
"I'm getting in outa this!" and lunged for the shelter of the cavern.

            "Better wait until the
fumes clear, Red," Retief advised the terrified fellow, taking a
restraining grip on his arm. "That was Number Three you burned in
there," he reminded him. "The gas is carbon monoxide. Bad for the
health." Retief released him. Red clapped his hands over his ears and
backed off, babbling:

            "—go away! Tole you, go
away! Say, Mister, let's get outa here!" He came lurching down the slope
and made a grab for Retief, not as one who attacks, but as one seeking refuge.
Retief caught him by the arm, and spoke gently:

            "It's all right. The
voice won't hurt you!"

            Red jerked at Retief s
restraint. "Guess I know what'll hurt me," he protested.
"Anyways, I don't wanna be left out when the loot's divided up," he
explained, shaking his head as if to free it of fumes.