Glory Road

Chapter 5

I woke to singing birds.

Her hand was still in mine. I turned my head and she smiled at me. "Good morning, my lord."

"Good morning. Princess." I glanced around. We were still lying on those black couches but they were outdoors, in a grassy dell, a clearing in trees beside a softly chuckling stream—a place so casually beautiful that it looked as if it had been put together leaf by leaf by old and unhurried Japanese gardeners.

Warm sunshine splashed through leaves and dappled her golden body. I glanced up at the sun and back at her. "Is it morning?" It had been noonish or later and that sun ought to DC—seemed to be—setting, not rising—

"It is again morning, here."

Suddenly my bump of direction spun like a top and I felt dizzy. Disoriented—a feeling new to me and very unpleasant. I couldn't find north.

Then things steadied down. North was that way, upstream—and the sun was rising, maybe nine in the morning, and would pass across the north sky. Southern Hemisphere. No sweat.

No trick at all—Just give the kook a shot of dope while examining him, lug him aboard a 707 and jet him to New Zealand, replenishing the Mickey Finn as needed. Wake him up when you want him.

Only I didn't say this and never did think it. And it wasn't true.

She sat up. "Are you hungry?"

I suddenly realized that an omelet some hours ago—how many? -- was not enough for a growing boy. I sat up and swung my feet to the grass. "I could eat a horse."

She grinned. "The shop of La Societe Anonyme de Hippopnage is closed I'm afraid. Will you settle for trout? We must wait a bit, so we might as well eat. And don't worry, this place is defended."

" ‘Defended'?"

"Safe."

"All right. Uh, how about a rod and hooks?"

"I'll show you." What she showed me was not fishing tackle but how to tickle fish. But I knew how. We waded into that lovely stream, just pleasantly cool, moving as quietly as possible, and picked a place under a bulging rock, a place where trout like to gather and think—the fishy equivalent of a gentlemen's club.

You tickle trout by gaining their confidence and then abusing it. In about two minutes I got one, between two and three pounds, and tossed it onto the bank, and Star had one almost as large. "How much can you eat?" she asked.

"Climb out and get dry," I said. "I'll get another one."

"Make it two or three," she amended. "Rufo will be along." She waded quietly out.

"Who?"

"Your groom."

I didn't argue. I was ready to believe seven impossible things before breakfast, so I went on catching breakfast. I let it go with two more as the last was the biggest trout I've ever seen. Those beggars fairly queued up to be grabbed.

By then Star had a fire going and was cleaning fish with a sharp rock. Shucks, any Girl Scout or witch can make fire without matches. I could myself, given several hours and plenty of luck, just by rubbing two dry cliches together. But I noticed that the two short biers were gone. Well, I hadn't ordered them. I squatted down and took over cleaning the trout.

Star came back shortly with fruits that were apple-like but deep purple in color and with quantities of button mushrooms. She was carrying the plunder on a broad leaf, like canna or ti, only bigger. More like banana leaves.

My mouth started to water. "If only we had salt!"

"I'll fetch it. It will be rather gritty. I'm afraid."

Star broiled the fish two ways, over the fire on a forked green stick, and on hot flat limestone where the fire had been—she kept brushing the fire along as she fed it and placed fish and mushrooms sizing where it had been. That way was best, I thought. Little fine grasses turned out to be chives, local style, and tiny clover tasted and looked like sheep sorrel. That, with the salt (which was gritty and coarse and may have been licked by animals before we got it—not that I cared) made the trout the best I've ever tasted. Well, weather and scenery and company had much to do with it, too, especially the company.

I was trying to think of a really poetic way of saying, "How about you and me shacking up right here for the next ten thousand years? Either legal or informal—are you married?" when we were interrupted. Which was a shame, for I had thought up some pretty language, all new, for the oldest and most practical suggestion in the world.

Old baldy, the gnome with the oversized six-shooter, was standing behind me and cursing.

I was sure it was cursing although the language was new to me. Star turned her head, spoke in quiet reproval in the same language, made room for him and offered him a trout. He took it and ate quite a bit of it before he said, in English, "Next time I won't pay him anything. You'll see."

"You shouldn't try to cheat him, Rufo. Have some mushrooms. Where's the baggage? I want to get dressed."

"Over there." He went back to wolfing fish. Rufo was proof that some people should wear clothes. He was pink all over and somewhat potbellied. However, he was amazingly well muscled, which I had never suspected, else I would have been more cautious about taking that cannon away from him. I decided that if he wanted to Indian-wrestle, I would cheat.

He glanced at me past a pound and a half of trout and said, "Is it your wish to be outfitted now, my lord?"

"Huh? Finish your breakfast. And what's this ‘my lord' routine? Last time I saw you you were waving a gun in my face."

"I'm sorry, my lord. But She said to do it...and what She says must be done. You understand."

"That suits me perfectly. Somebody has to drive. But call me ‘Oscar.' "

Rufo glanced at Star, she nodded. He grinned. "Okay, Oscar. No hard feelings?"

"Not a bit."

He put down the fish, wiped his hand on his thigh, and stuck it out. "Swell! You knock em down, I'll stomp on ‘em."

We shook hands and each of us tried for the knuckle-cracking grip. I think I got a little the better of it, but I decided he might have been a blacksmith at some time.

Star looked very pleased and showed dimples again She had been lounging by the fire; looking line a hamadryad on her coffee break; now she suddenly reached out and placed her strong, slender hand over our clasped fists. "My stout friends," she said earnestly. "My good boys. Rufo, it will be well."

"You have a Sight?" he said eagerly.

"No, just a feeling. But I am no longer worried."

"We can't do a thing," Rufo said moodily, "until we deal with Igli."

"Oscar will dicker with Igli." Then she was on her feet in one smooth motion. "Stuff that fish in your face and unpack. I need clothes." She suddenly looked very eager.

Star was more different women than a platoon of WACs—which is only mildly a figure of speech. Right then she was every woman from Eve deciding between two fig leaves to a modern woman whose ambition is to be turned loose in Nieman-Marcus, naked with a checkbook. When I first met her, she had seemed rather a sobersides and no more interested in clothes than I was. I'd never had a chance to be interested in clothes. Being a member of the sloppy generation was a boon to my budget at college, where blue jeans were au fait and a dirty sweat shirt was stylish.

The second time I saw her she had been dressed, but in that lab smock and tailored skirt she had been both a professional woman and a warm friend. But today—this morning whenever that was—she was increasingly full of Bubbles. She had delighted so in catching fish that she had had to smother squeals of glee. And she had then been the perfect Girl Scout, with soot smudged on her cheek and her hair pushed back out of hazard of the fire while she cooked.

Now she was the woman of all ages who just has to get her hands on new clothes. I felt that dressing Star was like putting a paint job on the crown jewels—but I was forced to admit that, if we were not to do the "Me Tarzan, you Jane" bit right in that dell from then on till death do us part, then clothes of some sort, if only to keep her perfect skin from getting scratched by brambles, were needed.

Rufo's baggage turned out to be a little black box about the size and shape of a portable typewriter. He opened it.

And opened it again.

And kept on opening it—And kept right on unfolding its sides and letting them down until the durn thing was the size of a small moving van and even more packed. Since I was nicknamed "Truthful James" as soon as I learned to talk and am widely known to have won the hatchet every February 22^nd all through school, you must now conclude that I was the victim of an illusion caused by hypnosis and/or drugs.

Me, I'm not sure. Anyone who has studied math knows that the inside does not have to be smaller than the outside, in theory, and anyone who has had the doubtful privilege of seeing a fat woman get in or out of a tight girdle knows that this is true in practice, too. Rufo's baggage just carried the principle further.

The first thing he dragged out was a big teakwood chest. Star opened it and started pulling out filmy lovelies.

"Oscar, what do you think of this one?" She was holding a long, green dress against her with the skirt draped over one hip to display it. "Like it?"

Of course I liked it. If it was an original—and somehow I knew that Star never wore copies—I didn't want to think about what it must have cost. "It's a mighty pretty gown," I told her. "But—Look, are we going to be traveling?"

"Right away."

"I don't see any taxicabs. Aren't you likely to get that torn?"

"It doesn't tear. However, I didn't mean to wear it; I just meant to show it to you. Isn't it lovely? Shall I model it for you? Rufo, I want those high-heeled sandals with the emeralds."

Rufo answered in that language he had been cursing in when he arrived. Star shrugged and said, "Don't be impatient, Rufo; Igli will wait. Anyhow, we can't talk to Igli earlier than tomorrow morning; milord Oscar must learn the language first." But she put the green gorgeousness back in the chest.

"Now here is a little number," she went on, holding it up, "which is just plain naughty: it has no other purpose."

I could see why. It was mostly skirt, with a little bodice that supported without concealing—a style favored in ancient Crete, I hear, and still popular in the Overseas Weekly, Playboy, and many night clubs. A style that turns droopers into bulgers. Not that Star needed it.

Rufo tapped me on the shoulder. "Boss? Want to look over the ordnance and pick out what you need?"

Star said reprovingly, "Rufo, life is to be savored, not hurried."

"We'll have a lot more life to savor if Oscar picks out what he can use best."

"He won't need weapons until after we reach a settlement with Igli." But she didn't insist on showing more clothes and, while I enjoyed looking at Star, I like to check over weapons, too, especially when I might have to use them, as apparently the job called for.

While I had been watching Star's style show, Rufo had laid out a collection that looked like a cross between an army-surplus store and a museum—swords, pistols, a lance that must have been twenty feet long, a flame-thrower, two bazookas flanking a Tommy gun, brass knucks, a machete, grenades, bows and arrows, a misericorde—

"You didn't bring a slingshot," I said accusingly.

He looked smug. "Which kind do you like, Oscar? The forked sort? Or a real sling?"

"Sorry I mentioned it. I can't hit the floor with either sort." I picked up the Tommy chopper, checked that it was empty, started stripping it. It seemed almost new, just fired enough to let the moving parts work in. A Tommy isn't much more accurate than a pitched baseball and hasn't much greater effective range. But it does have virtues—you hit a man with it, he goes down and stays down. It is short and not too heavy and has a lot of firepower for a short time. It is a bush weapon, or for any other sort of close-quarters work.

But I like something with a bayonet on the end, in case the party gets intimate—and I like that something to be accurate at long range in case the neighbors get unfriendly from a distance. I put it down and picked up a Springfield—Rock Island Arsenal, as I saw by its serial number, but still a Springfield. I feel the way about a Springfield that I do about a Gooney Bird; some pieces of machinery are ultimate perfection of their sort, the only possible improvement is a radical change in design.

I opened the bolt, stuck my thumbnail in the chamber, looked down the muzzle. The barrel was bright and the lands were unworn—and the muzzle had that tiny star on it; it was a match weapon!

"Rufo, what sort of country will we be going through? Like this around us?"

"Today, yes. But—" He apologetically took the rifle out of my hands. "It is forbidden to use firearms here. Swords, Knives, arrows—anything that cuts or stabs or mauls by your own muscle power. No guns."

"Who says so?"

He shivered. "Better ask Her."

"If we can't use them, why bring them? And I don't see any ammunition around anyhow."

"Plenty of ammunition. Later on we will be at—another place—where guns may be used. If we live that long. I was just showing you what we have. What do you like of the lawful weapons? Are you a bowman?"

"I don't know. Show me how." He started to say something, then shrugged and selected a bow, slipped a leather guard over his left forearm, picked out an arrow. "That tree," he said, "the one with the white rock at the foot of it. I'll try for about as high off the ground as a man's heart."

He nocked the shaft, raised and bent and let fly, all in one smooth motion.

The arrow quivered in the tree trunk about four feet off the ground.

Rufo grinned. "Care to match that?"

I didn't answer. I knew I could not, except by accident. I had once owned a bow, a birthday present. I hadn't hit much with it and soon the arrows were lost. Nevertheless I made a production out of selecting a bow, and picked the longest and heaviest.

Rufo cleared his throat apologetically. "If I may make a suggestion, that one will pull quite hard—for a beginner."

I strung it. "Find me a leather."

The leather slipped on as if it had been made for me and perhaps it had. I picked an arrow to match, barely looked at it as they all seemed straight and true. I didn't have any hope of hitting that bloody tree; it was fifty yards away and not over a foot thick. I simply intended to sight a bit high up on the trunk and hope that so heavy a bow would give me a flattish trajectory. Mostly I wanted to nock, bend, and loose all in one motion as Rufo had done—to look like Robin Hood even though I was not.

But as I raised and bent that bow and felt the power of it, I felt a surge of exultance—this tool was right for me! We fitted.

I let fly without thinking.

My shaft thudded a hand's breadth from his.

"Well shot!" Star called out.

Rufo looked at the tree and blinked, then looked reproachfully at Star. She looked haughtily back. "I did not," she stated. "You know I would not do that. It was a fair trial...and a credit to you both."

Rufo looked thoughtfully at me. "Hmm—Would you care to make a small bet—you name the odds—that you can do that again?"

"I won't bet," I said. "I'm chicken." But I picked up another arrow and nocked it. I liked that bow, I even liked the way the string whanged at the guard on my forearm; I wanted to try it, feel married to it, again.

I loosed it.

The third arrow grew out of a spot between the first two, but closer to his. "Nice bow," I said. "I'll keep it. Fetch the shafts."

Rufo trotted away without speaking. I unstrung the bow, then started looking over the cutlery. I hoped that I would never again have to shoot an arrow; a gambler can't expect to draw a pat hand every deal—my next shot would likely turn around like a boomerang.

There was too much wealth of edges and points, from a two-handed broadsword suitable for chopping down trees to a little dagger meant for a lady's stocking. But I picked up and balanced them all...and found there the blade that suited me the way Excalibur suited Arthur.

I've never seen one quite like it so I don't know what to call it. A saber, I suppose, as the blade was faintly curved and razor sharp on the edge and sharp rather far back on the back. But it had a point as deadly as a rapier and the curve was not enough to keep it from being used for thrust and counter quite as well as chopping away meat-axe style. The guard was a bell curved back around the knuckles into a semi-basket but cut away enough to permit full moulinet from any guard.

It balanced in the forte less than two inches from the guard, yet the blade was heavy enough to chop bone. It was the sort of sword that feels as if it were an extension of your body.

The grip was honest sharkskin, molded to my hand. There was a motto chased onto the blade but it was so buried in curlicues that I did not take time to study it out. This girl was mine, we fitted! I returned it and buckled belt and scabbard to my bare waist, wanting the touch of it and feeling like Captain John Carter, Jeddak of Jeddaks, and the Gascon and his three friends all in one.

"Will you not dress, milord Oscar?" Star asked.

"Eh? Oh, certainly—I was just trying it on for size. But—Did Rufo fetch my clothes?"

"Did you, Rufo?"

"His clothes? He wouldn't want those things he was wearing in Nice!"

"What's wrong with wearing Lederhosen with an aloha shirt?" I demanded.

"What? Oh, nothing at all, milord Oscar," Rufo answered hastily. "Live and let live I always say. I knew a man once who wore—never mind. Let me show you what I fetched for you."

I had my choice of everything from a plastic raincoat to full armor. I found the latter depressing because its presence implied that it might be needed. Except for an Army helmet I had never worn armor, didn't want to, didn't know how—and didn't care to mix with rude company that made such protection desirable.

Besides, I didn't see a horse around, say a Percheron or a Clydesdale, and I couldn't see myself hiking in one of those tin suits. I'd be slow as crutches, noisy as a subway, and hot as a phone booth. Sweat off ten pounds in five miles. The quilted longjohns that go under that ironmongery would have been too much alone for such beautiful weather; steel on top would turn me into a walking oven and leave me too weak and clumsy to fight my way out of a traffic ticket.

"Star, you said that—" I stopped. She had finished dressing and hadn't overdone it. Soft leather hiking shoes—buskins really—brown tights, and a short green upper garment halfway between a jacket and a skating dress. This was topped by a perky little hat and the whole costume made her look like a musical corner version of an airline hostess, smart, cute, wholesome, and sexy.

Or maybe Maid Marian, as she had added a double-curve bow about half the size of mine, a quiver, and a dagger. "You," I said, "look like why the riot started."

She dimpled and curtsied. (Star never pretended. She knew she was female, she knew she looked good, she liked it that way.) "You said something earlier," I continued, "about my not needing weapons just yet. Is there any reason why I should wear one of these space suits? They don't look comfortable."

"I don't expect any great danger today," she said slowly. "But this is not a place where one can call the police. You must decide what you need."

"But—Damn it. Princess, you know this place and I don't. I need advice."

She didn't answer. I turned to Rufo. He was carefully studying a treetop. I said, "Rufo, get dressed."

He raised his eyebrows. "Milord Oscar?"

"Schnell! Vite, vite! Get the lead out."

"Okay." He dressed quickly, in an outfit that was a man's version of what Star had selected, with shorts instead of tights.

"Arm yourself," I said, and started to dress the same way, except that I intended to wear field boots. However, there was a pair of those buskins that appeared to be my size, so I tried them on. They snuggled to my feet like gloves and, anyway, my soles were so hardened by a month barefooted on l'Ile du Levant that I didn't need heavy boots.

They were not as medieval as they looked; they zipped up the front and were marked inside Fabrique en France.

Pops Rufo had taken the bow he had used before, selected a sword, and had added a dagger. Instead of a dagger I picked out a Solingen hunting knife. I looked longingly at a service .45, but didn't touch it. If "they," whoever they were, had a local Sullivan Act, I would go along with the gag.

Star told Rufo to pack, then squatted down with me at a sandy place by the stream and drew a sketch map—route south, dropping downgrade and following the stream except for short cuts, until we reached the Singing Waters. There we would camp for the night.

I got it in my head. "Okay. Anything to warn me about? Do we shoot first? Or wait for them to bomb us?"

"Nothing that I expect, today. Oh, there's a carnivore about three times the size of a lion. But it is a great coward; it won't attack a moving man."

"A fellow after my own heart. All right, we'll keep moving."

"If we do see human beings—I don't expect it—it might be well to nock a shaft...but not raise your bow until you feel it is necessary. But I'm not telling you what to do, Oscar; you must decide. Nor will Rufo let fly unless he sees you about to do so."

Rufo had finished packing. "Okay, let's go," I said. We set out. Rufo's little black box was now rigged as a knapsack and I did not stop to wonder how he could carry a couple of tons on his shoulders. An anti-grav device like Buck Rogers, maybe. Chinese coolie blood. Black magic. Hell, that teakwood chest alone could not have fitted into that backpack by a factor of 30 to I, not to mention the arsenal and assorted oddments.

There is no reason to wonder why I didn't quiz Star as to where we were, why we were there, how we had got there, what we were going to do, and the details of these dangers I was expected to face. Look, Mac, when you are having the most gorgeous dream of your life and just getting to the point, do you stop to tell yourself that it is logically impossible for that particular babe to be in the hay with you—and thereby wake yourself up? I knew, logically, that everything that had happened since I read that silly ad had been impossible.

So I chucked logic.

Logic is a feeble reed, friend. "Logic" proved that airplanes can't fly and that H-bombs wont work and that stones don't fall out of the sky. Logic is a way of saying that anything which didn't happen yesterday won't happen tomorrow.

I liked the situation. I didn't want to wake up, whether in bed, or in a headshrinker ward. Most especially I did not want to wake up still back in that jungle, maybe with that face wound still fresh and no helicopter. Maybe little brown brother had done a full job on me and sent me to Valhalla. Okay, I liked Valhalla.

I was swinging along with a sweet sword knocking against my thigh and a much sweeter girl matching my strides and a slave-serf-groom-something sweating along behind us, doing the carrying and being our "eyes-behind." Birds were singing and the landscape had been planned by master landscape architects and the air smelled sweet and good. If I never dodged a taxi nor read a headline again, that suited me.

That longbow was a nuisance—but so is an M-l. Star had her little bow slung, shoulder to hip. I tried that, but it tended to catch on things. Also, it made me nervous not to have it ready since she had admitted a chance of needing it. So I unslung it and carried it in my left hand, strung and ready.

We had one alarum on the morning hike. I heard Rufo's bowstring go thwung! -- and I whirled and had my own bow ready, arrow nocked, before I saw what was up.

Or down, rather. A bird like a dusky grouse but larger. Rufo had picked it off a branch, right through the neck. I made note not to compete with him again in archery, and to get him to coach me in the fine points.

He smacked his lips and grinned. "Supper!" For the next mile he plucked it as we walked, then hung it from his belt.

We stopped for lunch one o'clockish at a picnic spot that Star assured me was defended, and Rufo opened his box to suitcase size, and served us lunch: cola cuts, crumbly Provencal cheese, crusty French bread, pears, and two bottles of Chablis. After lunch Star suggested a siesta. The idea was appealing; I had eaten heartily and shared only crumbs with the birds, but I was surprised. "Shouldn't we push on?"

"You must have a language lesson, Oscar."

I must tell them at Ponce de Leon High School the better way to study languages. You lie down on soft grass near a chuckling stream on a perfect day, and the most beautiful woman in any world bends over you and looks you in the eyes. She starts speaking softly in a language you do not understand.

After a bit her big eyes get bigger and bigger...and bigger...and you sink into them.

Then, a long time later, Rufo says, "Erbas, Oscar, ‘t knila voorsht."

"Okay," I answered, "I am getting up. Don't rush me."

That is the last word I am going to set down in a language that doesn't fit our alphabet. I had several more lessons, and won't mention them either, and from then on we spoke this lingo, except when I was forced to span gaps by asking in English. It is a language rich in profanity and in words for making love, and richer than English in some technical subjects—but with surprising holes in it. There is no word for "lawyer" for example.

About an hour before sundown we came to the Singing Waters.

We had been traveling over a high, wooded plateau. The brook where we had caught the trout had been joined by other streams and was now a big creek. Below us, at a place we hadn't reached yet, it would plunge over high cliffs in a super-Yosemite fall. But here, where we stopped to camp, the water had cut a notch into the plateau, forming cascades, before it took that dive.

"Cascades" is a weak word. Upstream, downstream, everywhere you looked, you saw waterfalls—big ones thirty or fifty feet high, little ones a mouse could have jumped up, every size in between. Terraces and staircases of them there were, smooth water green from rich foliage overhead and water white as whipped cream as it splashed into dense foam.

And you heard them. Tiny falls tinkled in silvery soprano, big falls rumbled in basso profundo. On the grassy alp where we camped it was an ever-present chorale; in the middle of the falls you had to snout to make yourself heard.

Coleridge was there in one of his dope dreams:

And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover

A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething—

Coleridge must have followed that route and reached the Singing Waters. No wonder he felt like killing that "person from Porlock" who broke in on his best dream. When I am dying, lay me beside the Singing Waters and let them be the last I hear and see.

We stopped on a lawn terrace, flat as a promise and soft as a Kiss, and I helped Rufo unpack. I wanted to learn how he did that trick with the box. I didn't find out. Each side opened as naturally and reasonably as opening up an ironing board—and then when it opened again that was natural and reasonable, too.

First we pitched a tent for Star—no army-surplus job, this; it was a dainty pavilion of embroidered silk and the rug we spread as a floor must have used up three generations of Bukhara artists. Rufo said to me, "Do you want a tent, Oscar?"

I looked up at the sky and over at the not-yet-setting sun. The air was milk warm and I couldn't believe that it would rain. I don't like to be in a tent if there is the least chance of surprise attack. "Are you going to use a tent?"

"Me? Oh, no! But She has to have a tent, always. Then, more likely than not. She'll decade to sleep out on the grass."

"I won't need a tent." (Let's see, does a "champion" sleep across the door of his lady's chamber, weapons at hand? I wasn't sure about the etiquette of such things; they were never mentioned in "Social Studies.")

She returned then and said to Rufo, "Defended. The wards were all in place."

"Recharged?" he fretted.

She tweaked his ear. "I am not senile." She added, "Soap, Rufo. And come along, Oscar; that's Rufo's work."

Rufo dug a cake of Lux out of that caravan load and gave it to her, then looked at me thoughtfully and handed me a bar of Life Buoy.

The Singing Waters are the best bath ever, in endless variety. Still pools from footbath size to plunges you could swim in, sitz baths that tingled your skin, shower baths from just a trickle up to free-springing jets that would beat your brains in if you stood under them too long.

And you could pick your temperature. Above the cascade we used, a hot spring added itself to the main stream and at the base of this cascade a hidden spring welled out icy cold. No need to fool with taps, just move one way or the other for the temperature you like—or move downstream where it evened out to temperature as gently warm as a mother's kiss.

We played for a while, with Star squealing and giggling when I splashed her, and answering it by ducking me. We both acted like kids; I felt like one, she looked like one, and she played rough, with muscles of steel under velvet.

Presently I fetched the soap and we scrubbed. When she started shampooing her hair, I came up behind her and helped. She let me, she needed help with the lavish mop, six times as much as most gals bother with these days.

That would have been a wonderful time (with Rufo busy and out of the way) to grab her and hug her, then proceed ruggedly to other matters. Nor am I sure that she would nave made even a token protest; she might have cooperated heartily.

Hell, I know she would not have made a "token" protest. She would either have put me in my place with a cold word or a clout in the ear—or cooperated.

I couldn't do it. I couldn't even start.

I don't know why. My intentions toward Star had oscillated from dishonorable to honorable and back again, but had always been practical from the moment I laid eyes on her. No, let me put it this way: My intentions were strictly dishonorable always, but with utter willingness to convert them to honorable, later, as soon as we could dig up a justice of the peace.

Yet I found I couldn't lay a finger on her other than to help her scrub the soap out of her hair.

While I was puzzling over this, both hands buried in heavy blond hair and wondering what was stopping me from putting my arms around that slender-strong waist only inches away from me, I heard a piercing whistle and my name—my new name. I looked around.

Rufo, dressed in his unlovely skin and with towels over his shoulder, was standing on the bank ten feet away and trying to cut through the roar of water to get my attention.

I moved a few feet toward him. "How's that again?" I didn't quite snarl.

"I said, ‘Do you want a shave?' Or are you growing a beard?"

I had been uneasily aware of my face cactus while I was debating whether or not to attempt criminal assault, and that unease had helped to stop me—Gillette, Aqua Velva, Burma Shave, et al., have made the browbeaten American male, namely me, timid about attempting seduction and/or rape unless freshly planed off. And I had a two-day growth.

"I don't have a razor," I called back.

He answered by holding up a straight razor.

Star moved up beside me. She reached up and tried my chin between thumb and forefinger. "You would be majestic in a beard," she said. "Perhaps a Van Dyke, with sneering mustachios."

I thought so too, if she thought so. Besides, it would cover most of that scar. "Whatever you say. Princess."

"But I would rather that you stayed as I first saw you. Rufo is a good barber." She turned toward him. "A hand, Rufo. And my towel."

Star walked back toward the camp, toweling herself dry—I would have been glad to help, if asked. Rufo said tiredly, "Why didn't you assert yourself? But She says to shave you, so now I've got to—and rush through my own bath, too, so She won't be kept waiting."

"If you've got a mirror, I'll do it myself."

"Ever used a straight razor?"

"No, but I can learn."

"You'd cut your throat, and She wouldn't like that. Over here on the bank where I can stand in the warm water. No, no! Don't sit on it, lie down with your head at the edge. I can't shave a man who's sitting up." He started working lather into my chin.

"You know why? I learned how on corpses, that's why, making them pretty so that their loved ones would be proud of them. Hold still! You almost lost an ear. I like to shave corpses; they can't complain, they don't make suggestions, they don't talk back—and they always hold still. Best job I ever had. But now you take this job—" He stopped with the blade against my Adam's apple and started counting his troubles.

"Do I get Saturday off? Hell, I don t even get Sunday off! And look at the hours! Why, I read just the other day that some outfit in New York—You've been in New York?"

"I've been in New York. And get that guillotine away from my neck while you're waving your hands like that."

"You keep talking, you're bound to get a little nick now and then. This outfit signed a contract for a twenty-five hour week. Week! I'd like to settle for a twenty-five hour day. You know how long I've been on the go, right this minute?"

I said I didn't.

"There, you talked again. More than seventy hours or I'm a liar! And for what? Glory? Is there glory in a little heap of whitened bones? Wealth? Oscar, I'm telling you the truth; I've laid out more corpses than a sultan has concubines and never a one of them cared a soggy pretzel whether they were bedecked in rubies the size of your nose and twice as red...or rags. What use is wealth to a dead man? Tell me, Oscar, man to man while She can't hear: Why did you ever let Her talk you into this?"

"I'm enjoying it, so far."

He sniffed. "That's what the man said as be passed the fiftieth floor of the Empire State Building. But the sidewalk was waiting for him, just the same. However," he added darkly, "until you settle with Igli, it's not a problem. If I had my kit, I could cover that scar so perfectly that everybody would say, ‘Doesn't he look natural?' "

"Never mind. She likes that scar." (Damn it, he had me doing it!)

"She would. What I'm trying to get over is, if you walk the Glory Road, you are certain to find mostly rocks. But I never chose to walk it. My idea of a nice way to live would be a quiet little parlor, the only one in town, with a selection of caskets, all prices, and a markup that allowed a little leeway to show generosity to the bereaved. Installment plans for those with the foresight to do their planning in advance—for we all have to die, Oscar, we all have to die, and a sensible man might as well sit down over a friendly glass of beer and make his plans with a well-established firm he can trust."

He leaned confidentially over me. "Look, milord Oscar...if by any miracle we get through this alive, you could put in a good word for me with Her. Make Her see that I'm too old for the Glory Road. I can do a lot to make your remaining days comfortable and pleasant...if your intentions toward me are comradely."

"Didn't we shake on it?"

"Ah, yes, so we did." He sighed. "One for all and all for one, and Pikes Peak or Bust. You're done."

It was still light and Star was in her tent when we got back—and my clothes were laid out. I started to object when I saw them but Rufo said firmly, "She said ‘informal' and that means black tie."

I managed everything, even the studs (which were amazing big black pearls), and that tuxedo either had been tailored for me or it had been bought off the rack by someone who knew my height, weight, shoulders, and waist. The label inside the jacket read The English House, Copenhagen.

But the tie whipped me. Rufo showed up while I was struggling with it, had me lie down (I didn't ask why) and tied it in a jiffy. "Do you want your watch, Oscar?"

"My watch?" So far as I knew it was in a doctors examining room in Nice. "You have it?"

"Yes, sir. I fetched everything of yours but your"—he shuddered—"clothes."

He was not exaggerating. Everything was there, not only the contents of my pockets but the contents of my American Express deposit box: cash, passport, I.D., et cetera, even those Change Alley Sweepstakes tickets.

I started to ask how he had gotten into my lockbox but decided not to. He had had the key and it might have been something as simple as a fake letter of authority. Or as complex as his magical black box. I thanked him and he went back to his cooking.

I started to throw that stuff away, all but cash and passport. But one can't be a litterbug in a place as beautiful as the Singing Waters. My sword belt had a leather pouch on it; I stuffed it in there, even the watch, which had stopped.

Rufo had set up a table in front of Star's dainty tent and rigged a light from a tree over it and set candles on the table. It was dark before she came out...and waited. I finally realized that she was waiting for my arm. I led her to her place and seated her and Rufo seated me. He was dressed in a plum-colored footman's uniform.

The wait for Star had been worth it; she was dressed in the green gown she had offered to model for me earlier. I still don't know that she used cosmetics but she looked not at all like the lusty Undine who had been ducking me an hour earlier. She looked as if she should be kept under glass. She looked like Liza Doolittle at the Ball.

"Dinner in Rio" started to play, blending with the Singing Waters.

White wine with fish, rose wine with fowl, red wine with roast—Star chatted and smiled and was witty. Once Rufo, while bending over to me to serve, whispered, "The condemned ate heartily." I told him to go to hell out of the corner of my mouth.

Champagne with the sweet and Rufo solemnly presented the bottle for my approval. I nodded. What would he have done if I had turned it down? Offered another vintage? Napolean with coffee. And cigarettes.

I had been thinking about cigarettes all day. These were Benson & Hedges No. 5...and I had been smoking those black French things to save money.

While we were smoking, Star congratulated Rufo on the dinner and he accepted her compliments gravely and I seconded them. I still don't know who cooked that hedonistic meal. Rufo did much of it but Star may have done the hard parts while I was being shaved.

After an unhurried happy time, sitting over coffee and brandy with the overhead light doused and only a single candle gleamed on her jewels and lighting her face. Star made a slight movement back from the table and I got up quickly and showed her to her tent. She stopped at its entrance. "Milord Oscar—"

So I kissed her and followed her in—

Like hell I did! I was so damned hypnotized that I bowed over her hand and kissed it. And that was that.

That left me with nothing to do but get out of that borrowed monkey suit, hand it back to Rufo, and get a blanket from him. He had picked a spot to sleep at one side of her tent, so I picked one on the other and stretched out. It was still so pleasantly warm that even one blanket wasn't needed.

But I didn't go to sleep. The truth is, I've got a monkey on my back, a habit worse than marijuana though not as expensive as heroin. I can stiff it out and get to sleep anyway—but it wasn't helping that I could see light in Stars tent and a silhouette that was no longer troubled by a dress.

The fact is I am a compulsive reader. Thirty-five cents' worth of Gold Medal Original will put me right to sleep. Or Perry Mason. But I'll read the ads in an old Paris-Match that has been used to wrap herring before I'll do without.

I got up and went around the tent. "Psst! Rufo."

"Yes, milord." He was up fast, a dagger in his hand.

"Look, is there anything to read around this dump?"

"What sort of thing?"

"Anything, just anything. Words in a row."

"Just a moment." He was gone a while, using a flashlight around that beachhead dump of plunder. He came back and offered me a book and a small camp lamp. I thanked him, went back, and lay down.

It was an interesting book, written by Albertus Magnus and apparently stolen from the British Museum. Albert offered a long list of recipes for doing unlikely things: how to pacify storms and fly over clouds, how to overcome enemies, how to make a woman be true to you—

Here's that last one: "If thou wilt that a woman bee not visions nor desire men, take the private members of a Woolfe, and the haires which doe grow on the cheekes, or the eye-brows of him, and the hairs which bee under his beard, and burne it all, and give it to her to drinke, when she knowethe not, and she shal desire no other man."

This should annoy the "Woolfe." And if I were the gal, it would annoy me, too; it sounds like a nauseous mixture. But that's the exact formula, spelling and all, so if you are having trouble keeping her in line and have a "Woolfe" handy, try it. Let me know the results. By mail, not in person.

There were several recipes for making a woman love you who does not but a "Woolfe" was by far the simplest ingredient. Presently I put the book down and the light out and watched the moving silhouette on that translucent silk. Star was brushing her hair.

Then I quit tormenting myself and watched the stars, I've never learned the stars of the Southern Hemisphere; you seldom see stars in a place as wet as Southeast Asia and a man with a bump of direction doesn't need them.

But that southern sky was gorgeous.

I was staring at one very bright star or planet (it seemed to have a disk) when suddenly I realized it was moving.

I sat up. "Hey! Star!"

She called back, "Yes, Oscar?"

"Come see! A sputnik. A big one!"

"Coming." The light in her tent went out, she joined me quickly, and so did good old Pops Rufo, yawning and scratching his ribs. "Where, milord?" Star asked.

I pointed. "Right there! On second thought it may not be a sputnik; it might be one of our Echo series. It's awfully big and bright."

She glanced at me and looked away. Rufo said nothing. I stared at it a while longer, glanced at her. She was watching me, not it. I looked again, watched it move against the backdrop of stars.

"Star," I said, "that's not a sputnik. Nor an Echo balloon. That's a moon. A real moon."

"Yes, milord Oscar."

"Then this is not Earth."

"That is true."

"Hmm—" I looked back at the little moon, moving so fast among the stars, west to east.

Star said quietly, "You are not afraid, my hero?"

"Of what?"

"Of being in a strange world."

"Seems to be a pretty nice world."

"It is," she agreed, "in many ways."

"I like it," I agreed. "But maybe it's time I knew more about it. Where are we? How many light-years, or whatever it is, in what direction?"

She sighed. "I will try, milord. But it will not be easy; you have not studied metaphysical geometry—nor many other things. Think of the pages of a book—" I still had that cookbook of Albert the Great under my arm; she took it. "One page may resemble another very much. Or be very different. One page can be so close to another that it touches, at all points—yet have nothing to do with the page against it. We are as close to Earth—right now—as two pages in sequence in a book. And yet we are so far away that light-years cannot express it."

"Look," I said, "no need to get fancy about it. I used to watch ‘Twilight Zone.' You mean another dimension. I dig it."

She looked troubled "That's somewhat the idea but—"

Rufo interrupted. "There's still Igli in the morning."

"Yes," I agreed. "If we have to talk to Igli in the morning, maybe we need some sleep. I'm sorry. By the way, who is Igli?"

"You'll find out," said Rufo.

I looked up at that hurtling moon. "No doubt. Well, I'm sorry I disturbed you all with a silly mistake. Good night, folks."

So I crawled back into my sleeping sills, like a proper hero (all muscles and no gonads, usually), and they sacked in too. She didn't put the light back on, so I had nothing to look at but the hurtling moons of Barsoom. I had fallen into a book.

Well, I hoped it was a success and that the writer would keep me alive for lots of sequels. It was a pretty nice deal for the hero, up to this Chapter at least. There was Dejah Thoris, curled up in her sleeping silks not twenty feet away.

I thought seriously of creeping up to the flap of her tent and whispering to her that I wanted to ask a few questions about metaphysical geometry and like matters. Love spells, maybe. Or maybe just tell her that it was cold outside and could I come in?

But I didn't. Good old faithful Rufo was curled up just the other side of that tent and he had a disconcerting habit of coming awake fast with a dagger in his hand. And he liked to shave corpses. As I've said, given a choice. I'm chicken.

I watched the hurtling moons of Barsoom and fell asleep.