Kronk

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Gabriel and Camilla did not return to 1735, Babscastle Boulevard until shortly before sunrise — drunk, exhausted and modestly rich. They had wined and dined with Dennis Progg and the minions of NaTel. They had watched stars wink into life over Epping Forest and then fade into a pale pre-dawn turquoise. They had laughed and cried at the inane and monstrous joke that Eustace had called P 939.

In the wisdom of the wine, Gabriel knew beyond any shadow of doubt what he and Camilla would have to do. Camilla — bless her — had already made an excellent if involuntary start. But she must not be allowed to bear the brunt of what he had suddenly begun to regard as the great P 939 crusade.

Mercifully, the weakness of the flesh was on the side of the righteous. During the course of events, Gabriel managed to lure successively one NaTel nurse and two hostesses briefly away from the champagne and canapés. The ground was damp, but the nurse did not seem to mind too much. Gabriel, working methodically and quickly, was somewhat discountenanced to find starlight reflected in her vacant eyes. It almost deterred him from orgasm. He took the hostesses, one at a time, into the roomy NaTel chopper. The operations did not take long. He could hardly have been missed from the party.

Dennis Progg talked. He talked the night and the champagne away; and he talked Camilla to sleep. In the end, they had to bring her round with needle-juice; and then, the night’s work accomplished to NaTel satisfaction and protocol, the chopper obligingly deposited the two new involuntary stars of This Is Your World in Hampstead.

Camilla did not place her thumb in the id ring until the chopper had lifted away. She was sufficiently alert not to wish to interest the genius of This Is Your World in house-trained lions and tigers. Tomorrow, she thought, yawning, no, later today, she and Gabriel would have to decide what to do about the poor creatures.

She need not have concerned herself with the problem. There was no problem. Not a single pacifist animal remained in the house.

Camilla and Gabriel were instantly sober, though still tired. They searched the house, but there was no sign of animals or of illegal entry or exit. In theory, and unless otherwise programmed, the outside doors would respond only to the thumbprint patterns of Camilla and Eustace. Therefore, how could a person or persons unknown have entered? The windows, possibly. But both Camilla and Gabriel were too weary to face a detailed examination.

Further, how had the animals been taken away? Though each could have been led docilely on the end of a pink ribbon, it was not a method that had any great recommendation as a reasonable explanation.

Gabriel tried to think, and couldn’t. Camilla tried to think, and couldn’t. The events of recent hours, beginning with the nerve-shattering debacle at St. Paul’s, seemed suddenly to have transformed their brains into masses of quick-setting glue. Wearily, and hand in hand, they went up to the bedroom. The bed was still rumpled from their previous orgy, which seemed now to have taken place millennia ago when the world was young. Camilla was too tired even to take off her NaTel dress. Gabriel tried to help her and failed miserably.

They fell on to the bed and into each other’s arms. But, oddly, sleep was difficult. Gabriel yawned, belched, and broke wind in a dying cadenza.

“What is it, love?” Camilla was semi-consciously solicitous.

“I’ve been thinking.”

“What… what — hokum — have you been thinking?”

“It couldn’t be MicroWar.”

“No. It couldn’t, could it? What couldn’t be MicroWar?”

“The animals,” mumbled Gabriel. “It… it couldn’t be MicroWar because somebody would have been staked to snatch us also. Logic.”

“Logic,” agreed Camilla. She yawned fit to swallow herself. “I love you.”

“I love you, too… We’ll have to go away.”

“Not — haouh — until we have rested… They paid to have me raped. Could there be a link?”

Gabriel thought about it, or thought he thought about it. “They paid to have somebody raped,” he announced at last. “That’s different.”

“What’s… different?”

“Not NaTel.”

Camilla suddenly revived sufficiently to laugh. “What a scream it was at St. Paul’s! What a scream, darling. An absolutely marvellous scream!”

“Ultrasonic,” agreed Gabriel with an eyes-closed grin. “Also a damned close-run thing.

Still, we got the message.”

“What message?”

Gabriel took a deep breath and did his poor best to imitate that final, demented, high-speed gabble from the Depthorama screen. “Go forth and multiply! Go forth and multiply! Go forth and multiply!”

Then they both feel asleep — laughing.