Under Two Moons

VII

It took a bit of doing, but the girl did it. She returned from a series of cryptic telephone conversations and looked at Gull with great fearful eyes. “I ‘ave arranged it,” she said somberly. “You will be allowed in. But to get out again—”

Gull laughed and patted her hand. He was not worried.

Still, he admitted to himself a little later, things could get a bit difficult. Security precautions for the Black Hats were in no way less stringent than those of Gull’s own headquarters in Marsport. He allowed himself to be seated in a reclining chair while a gnomelike old dentist drilled a totally unneeded filling into a previously healthy tooth; and when he rose, the exit through which he left the office brought him to a long, dark tunnel underground.

The girl was waiting there silently to conduct him to his destination. She placed a finger across her lips and led him away. “Wait a minute,” Gull whispered fiercely, looking about. For there were interesting things here. Off the corridor were smaller chambers and secondary tunnels filled with all sorts of objects shadowy and objects small. Gull wanted very much to get a look at them. Those tiny disjointed doll-shapes! what were they? And the great gleaming disk section beyond?

But the girl was pleading, and Gull allowed himself to be led away.

She conducted him to a door. “Be careful,” she whispered. And she was gone, and Gull was face to face with the chief of the Black Hats in Heliopolis.

He was a tall, saturnine man. He sat at a desk that reflected gold and green lights into his face, from signals that Gull could not see. “Oodgay evenway,” he said urbanely. “Ah, I see you are perplexed. Perhaps you do not speak Solex Mai.”

“Afraid not. English, French, Cretan Linear B, Old Ganymedan’s about the lot.”

“No matter. I am familiar with your tongue as we speak it all the time in Clarion.” He leaned forward suddenly. Gull stiffened; but it was only to hand him a calling card. It glittered with evil silver fires, and it read:

T. Perlman

Clarion

“Clarion’s a planet? I never heard of it.”

Perlman shrugged. Obviously what Gull had heard of did not matter. He said, “You are a troublemaker, Mr. Gull. We space people do not tolerate troublemakers for long.”

“As to that,” said Gull, stroking his goatee, “it seems to me you had a couple of shots at doing something about it. And I’m still here.”

“Oh, no, Mr. Gull,” said Perlman earnestly. “Those were only warnings. Their purpose was only to joint out to you that it is not advisable to cause us any trouble. You have not as yet done so, of course. If you do—” He smiled.

“You don’t scare me.”

“No, Mr. Gull?”

“Well, I mean, not much anyway. I’ve been lots more scared than this.”

“How interesting,” Perlman said politely.

“And anyway, I have my job to do and I’m going to do it.”

Perlman pursed his lips and whispered into a microphone on his desk. There was a stirring of draperies at the back of the room. It was shadowed there; Gull could see no details.

But he had a moment’s impression of a face looking out at him, a great, sad, mindless long face with teeth like a horse and an air of infinite menace; and then it was gone. He cried, “You’re up to some trick!”

Perlman smirked knowingly.

“It won’t do you any good! You think you know so much.”

“Ah, if only I did, Mr. Gull! There are forces in this universe which even we of Clarion have not yet understood. The straight-line mystery, to name one. The Father’s plan.”

Gull took a deep breath and carefully, inconspicuously, released it. He was doing no good here. And meanwhile there were matters just outside this room that urgently required investigation—and attention. He said steadily, “I’m going to go now, Mr. Perlman. If you try to stop me I’ll shoot you.”

Perlman looked at him with an expression that suspended judgment for a moment .Then it came to a conclusion and broke into a shout of laughter. “Ho!” he choked. “Hah! Oh, Mr. Gull, how delicious to think you will be allowed to leave. As we say in Solex Mai, otway ustcray!”

Gull did not answer. He merely moved slightly, and into his hand leaped the concealed 3.15-picometer heat gun.

Perlman’s expression changed from fire to ice.

“I’ll leave you now,” said Gull. “Next time you have a visitor, search his goatee too, won’t you?”

Ice were Perlman’s eyes. Icy was the stare that followed Gull out the door.

But he was not safe yet, not while the horse-faced killer was presumably lurking somewhere about. The girl appeared silently and put her hand in his.

Gull gestured silence and strained his hearing. These tunnels were so dark; there were so many cul-de-sacs where an assassin could hide—

“Listen,” he hissed. “Hear it? There!”

From the shadows, distant but approaching, came the sound of an uneven step. Tap, clop. Tap, clop.

The girl frowned. “A man with one leg?” she guessed.

“No, no! Can’t you recognize it? It’s a normal man— but with one shoe hanging loose.”

She caught her breath. “Oh!”

“That’s right,” said Gull somberly, “the old shoelace trick. And I haven’t time to deal with him now. Can you draw him off?”

She said steadily, “If I ‘ave to, I can.”

“Good. Just give me five minutes. I want to look around and—effect some changes, I think.” He listened, the step was closer now. He whispered, “Tall, long-faced man with big teeth. I think that’s him. Know him?”

“Certainly, dear Meesta Gull. Clarence T. Reik. ‘E’s a killer.”

Gull grinned tautly; he had thought as much. The partner of Harry Rosencranz, of course; one had attacked him at the hotel, the other was stalking him with a sharpened shoelace in the warrens under the city. “Go along with you then,” he ordered. “There’s a good girl. Remember, five minutes.”

He felt the quick brush of her lips against his cheek. “Give me ‘alf a minute,” she said. “Then, dear Meesta Gull, run.”

And she sprang one way, he another. The approaching tap, clop paused a split-second’s hesitation.

Then it was going after her, its tempo rapid now, its sound as deadly as the irritable rattle of a basking snake.

Gull had his five minutes. He only prayed that it had not been bought at a higher price than he wanted to pay.

There in the Black Hat warrens under Heliopolis Johan Gull fulfilled the trust .5 placed in him. He had only moments. Moments would be enough. For almost at once he knew. And he leaned against the nitered stone walls of the catacomb, marveling at the depth and daring of the Black Hat plan. Before him a chamber of headless, limbless mannikins awaited programming and assembly. They were green and tiny. In another chamber six flying saucers stood in proud array. Each of them held a ring of leather-cushioned seats. Behind him was a vast hall where signpainters had left their handiwork for the moment: Read the OAHSPE Bible, cried one sign; Five Minutes for $5. And another clamored, Welcome to UFOland.

Gull nodded in unwilling tribute. The Black Hats had planned well…

A sound of light, running footsteps brought him back to reality. The pale shadow of the girl raced toward him. “Well done!” he whispered, urging her on. “Just one more time around and I’ll be through.”

“It’s ‘ot work, dear Meesta Gull,” she laughed; but she obeyed. He froze until she was out of sight, and the lumbering dark figure that followed her. And then he set to work.

When she came by again he was ready.

Quickly he leaped to the center of the corridor, gestured her to safety. She concealed herself in a doorway, panting, her eyes large but unafraid. And the pounding, deadly sound of her pursuer grew louder.

Fourteen semester hours of karate, a seminar in le savate and a pair of brass knuckles. All came to the aid of Johan Gull in that moment, and he had need of them. He propelled himself out of the shadows feet first, directly into the belly of the huge, long-faced man who was shambling down the dimly lit corridor. The man’s eyes were dull but his great yellowed teeth were bared in a grin as he moved ferally along the stone floor, a thin, lethal wand in one hand, dangerous, ready.

Ready for a fleeing victim. Not ready for Johan Gull.

For Gull came in under the deadly needle. Even as he was plunging into the man’s solar plexus he was reaching up with one hand, twisting around with the other. It was no contest. Gull broke the weapon-bearing arm between wrist and elbow, butted the man into paralysis, kicked him in the skull as he fell, snatched the weapon and was away, the girl trailing behind him.

“Hurry!” he called. “If he comes to, they’ll box us in here!” As he ran he worked one tip of the stiffened shoelace. Ingenious! Twisted one way, it slipped into limpness; twisted the other, it extended itself to become a deadly weapon. Gull chuckled and cast it away. Up the stairs they ran and through the cover dentist’s office. The gnomelike dentist squalled in surprise and ran at them with a carbide drill, hissing hatred; but Gull chopped him down with the flat of a hand. They were free.

And the final battle was about to be fought.