The Number of the Beast Read online

  “Never that sleepy.”

  “Aunt Hilda!”

  “Deety, I stowed Aunt Jemima mix. And powdered milk. And butter. Zebbie, no syrup—sorry. But there is grape jelly in a tube. And freeze-dried coffee. If one of you will undog this bulkhead door, we’ll have breakfast in a few minutes.”

  “Chief Science Officer, you have a duty to perform.”

  “I do? But—Yes, Captain?”

  “Put your dainty toe to the ground. It’s your planet, your privilege. Starboard side of the car, under the wing, is the ladies’ powder room—portside is the men’s jakes. Ladies may have armed escort on request.”

  I was glad Zeb remembered that. The car had a “honey bucket” under the cushion of the port rear seat, and, with it, plastic liners. I did not ever want to have to use it.

  Gay Deceiver was wonderful but, as a spaceship, she left much to be desired. However, she had brought us safely to Barsoom.

  Barsoom! Visions of thoats and beautiful princesses—

  XVII

  The world wobbled—

  Deety:

  We spent our first hour on “Barsoom” getting oriented. Aunt Hilda stepped outside, then stayed out. “Isn’t cold,” she told us. “Going to be hot later.”

  “Watch where you step!” my husband warned her. “Might be snakes or anything.” He hurried after her—and went head over heels.

  Zebadiah was not hurt; the ground was padded, a greenish-yellow mat somewhat like “ice plant” but looking more like clover. He got up carefully, then swayed as if walking on a rubber mattress. “I don’t understand it,” he complained. “This gravity ought to be twice that of Luna. But I feel lighter.”

  Aunt Hillbilly sat down on the turf. “On the Moon you were carrying pressure suit and tanks and equipment.” She unfastened her shoes. “Here you aren’t.”

  “Yeah, so I was,” agreed my husband. “What are you doing?”

  “Taking off my shoes. When were you on the Moon? Cap’n Zebbie, you’re a fraud.”

  “Don’t take off your shoes! You don’t know what’s in this grass.”

  The Hillbilly stopped, one shoe off. “If they bite me, I bite ’em back. Captain, in Gay Deceiver you are absolute boss. But doesn’t your crew have any free will? I’ll play it either way: free citizen…or your thrall who dassn’t even take off a shoe without permission. Just tell me.”

  “Uh—”

  “If you try to make all decisions, all the time, you’re going to get as hysterical as a hen raising ducklings. Even Deety can be notional. But I won’t even pee without permission. Shall I put this back on? Or take the other off?”

  “Aunt Hilda, quit teasing my husband!” (I was annoyed!)

  “Dejah Thoris, I am not teasing your husband; I am asking our captain for instructions.”

  Zebadiah sighed. “Sometimes I wish I’d stayed in Australia.”

  I said, “Is it all right for Pop and me to come out?”

  “Oh. Certainly. Watch your step; it’s tricky.”

  I jumped down, then jumped high and wide, with entrechats as I floated—landed sur les pointes. “Oh, boy! What a wonderful place for ballet!” I added, “Shouldn’t do that on a full bladder. Aunt Hilda, let’s see if that powder room is unoccupied.”

  “I was about to, dear, but I must get a ruling from our captain.”

  “You’re teasing him.”

  “No, Deety; Hilda is right; doctrine has to be clear. Jake? How about taking charge on the ground?”

  “No, Captain. Druther be a Balkan general, given my druthers.”

  Aunt Hilda stood up, shoe in hand, reached high with her other hand, patted my husband’s cheek. “Zebbie, you are a dear. You worry about us all—me especially, because you think I’m a featherhead. Remember how we did at Snug Harbor? Each one did what she could do best and there was no friction. If that worked there, it ought to work here.”

  “Well…all right. But will you gals please be careful?”

  “We’ll be careful. How’s your E.S.P.? Any feeling?”

  Zebadiah wrinkled his forehead. “No. But I don’t get advance warning. Just barely enough.”

  “‘Just barely’ is enough. Before we had to leave, you were about to program Gay to listen at high gain. Would that change ‘just barely’ to ‘ample’?”

  “Yes! Sharpie, I’ll put you in charge, on the ground.”

  “In your hat, Buster. Ole Massa done freed us slaves. Zebbie, the quicker you quit dodging, the sooner you get those hot cakes. Spread my cape down and put the hot plate on the step.”

  We ate breakfast in basic Barsoomian dress: skin. Aunt Hilda pointed out that laundries seemed scarce, and the car’s water tanks had to be saved for drinking and cooking. “Deety, I have just this dress you gave me; I’ll air it and let the wrinkles hang out. Panties, too. An air bath is better than no bath. I know you’ll divvy with me but you are no closer to a laundry than I am.”

  My jump suit joined Hilda’s dress. “Aunt Hilda, you could skip bathing a week. Me, right after a bath I have a body odor but not too bad. In twenty four hours I’m whiff. Forty-eight and I smell like a skunk. An air bath may help.”

  The same reasoning caused our men to spread their used clothing on the port wing, and caused Zebadiah to pick up Hilda’s cape. “Sharpie, you can’t get fur Hollanderized in this universe. Jake, you stowed some tarps?”

  After dishes were “washed” (scoured with turf, placed in the sun) we were sleepy. Zebadiah wanted us to sleep inside, doors locked. Aunt Hilda and I wanted to nap on a tarpaulin in the shade of the car. I pointed out that moving rear seats aft in refitting had made it impossible to recline them.

  Zebadiah offered to give up his seat to either of us women. I snapped, “Don’t be silly, dear! You barely fit into a rear seat and it brings your knees so far forward that the seat in front can’t be reclined.”

  Pop intervened. “Hold it! Daughter, I’m disappointed—snapping at your husband. But, Zeb, we’ve got to rest. If I sleep sitting up, I get swollen ankles, half crippled, not good for much.”

  “I was trying to keep us safe,” Zebadiah said plaintively.

  “I know, Son; you’ve been doing so—and a smart job, or we all would be dead three times over. Deety knows it, I know it, Hilda knows it—”

  “I sure do, Zebbie!”

  “My Captain, I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

  “We’ll need you later. Flesh has its limits—even yours. If necessary, we would bed you down and stand guard over you—”

  “No!”

  “We sure would, Zebbie!”

  “We will, my Captain.”

  “But I doubt that it’s necessary. When we sat on the ground to eat, did anyone get chigger bites or anything?”

  My husband shook his head.

  “Not me,” Aunt Hilda agreed.

  I added, “I saw some little beasties but they didn’t bother me.”

  “Apparently,” Pop went on, “they don’t like our taste. A ferocious-looking dingus sniffed at my ankle—but it scurried away. Zeb, Gay can hear better than we can?”

  “Oh, much better!”

  “Can her radar be programmed to warn us?”

  Zebadiah looked thoughtful. “Uh…anti-collision alarm would wake the dead. If I pulled it in to minimum range, then—No, the display would be cluttered with ‘grass.’ We’re on the ground. False returns.”

  I said, “Subtract static display, Zebadiah.”

  “Eh? How, Deety?”

  “Gay can do it. Shall I try?”

  “Deety, if you switch on radar, we have to sleep inside. Microwaves cook your brains.”

  “I know, sir. Gay has sidelookers, eyes fore and aft, belly, and umbrella—has she not?”

  “Yes. That’s why—”

  “Switch off her belly eye. Can sidelookers hurt us if we sleep under her?” His eyes widened. “Astrogator, you know more about my car than I do. I’d better sign her over to you.”

  “My Captain, you have already endowed
me with all your worldly goods. I don’t know more about Gay; I know more about programming.”

  We made a bed under the car by opening Zebadiah’s sleeping bag out flat, a tarpaulin on each side. Aunt Hilda dug out sheets: “In case anyone gets chilly.”

  “Unlikely,” Pop told her. “Hot now, not a cloud and no breeze.”

  “Keep it by you, dearest. Here’s one for Zebbie.” She dropped two more on the sleeping bag, lay down on it. “Down flat, gentlemen”—waited for them to comply, then called to me: “Deety! Everybody’s down.”

  From inside I called back, “Right with you!”—then said, “Hello, Gay.”

  “Hi, Deety!”

  “Retrieve newest program. Execute.”

  Five scopes lighted, faded to dimness; the belly eye remained blank. I told her, “You’re a good girl, Gay.”

  “I like you, too, Deety. Over.”

  “Roger and out, sister.” I scrunched down, got at the stowage under the instrument board, pulled out padding and removed saber and sword, each with belt. These I placed at the door by a pie tin used at breakfast. I slithered head first out the door, turned without rising, got swords and pie plate, and crawled toward the pallet, left arm cluttered with hardware.

  I stopped. “Your sword, Captain.”

  “Deety! Do I need a sword to nap?”

  “No, sir. I shall sleep soundly knowing that my captain has his sword.”

  “Hmm—” Zebadiah withdrew it a span, returned it with a click. “Silly…but I feel comforted by it, too.”

  “I see nothing silly, sir. Ten hours ago you killed a thing with it that would have killed me.”

  “I stand—sprawl—corrected, my Princess. Dejah Thoris is always correct.”

  “I hope my Chieftain will always think so.”

  “He will. Give me a big kiss. What’s the pie pan for?”

  “Radar alarm test.”

  Having delivered the kiss, I crawled past Hilda and handed Pop his saber. He grinned at me. “Deety hon, you’re a one! Just the security blanket I need. How did you know?”

  “Because Aunt Hilda and I need it. With our warriors armed, we will sleep soundly.” I kissed Pop, crawled out from under. “Cover your ears!”

  I got to my knees, sailed that pan far and high, dropped flat and covered my ears. As the pan sailed into the zone of microwave radiation, a horrid clamor sounded inside the car, kept up until the pan struck the ground and stopped rolling—chopped off. “Somebody remind me to recover that. Good night, all!”

  I crawled back, stretched out by Hilda, kissed her goodnight, set the clock in my head for six hours, went to sleep.

  The sun was saying that it was fourteen instead of fourteen-fifteen and I decided that my circadian did not fit Barsoom. Would the clock in my head “slow” to match a day forty minutes longer? Would it give me trouble? Not likely—I’ve always been able to sleep anytime. I felt grand and ready for anything.

  I crept off the pallet, snaked up into the car’s cabin, and stretched. Felt good!

  I crawled through the bulkhead door back of the rear seats, got some scarves and my jewelry case, went forward into the space between seats and instrument board.

  I tried tying a filmy green scarf as a bikini bottom, but it looked like a diaper. I took it off, folded it corner to corner, pinned it at my left hip with a jeweled brooch. Lots better! “Indecently decent” Pop would say.

  I looped a rope of imitation pearls around my hips, arranged strands to drape with the cloth, fastened them at the brooch. I hung around my neck a pendant of pearls and cabochon emeralds—from my father the day I received the title doctor of philosophy.

  I was adding bracelets and rings when I heard “Psst!”—looked down and saw the Hillbilly’s head and hands at the doorsill. Hilda put a finger to her lips. I nodded, gave her a hand up, whispered, “Still asleep?”

  “Like babies.”

  “Let’s get you dressed…‘Princess Thuvia.’”

  Aunt Hilda giggled. “Thank you…‘Princess’ Dejah Thoris.”

  “Want anything but jewelry?”

  “Just something to anchor it. That old-gold scarf if you can spare it.”

  “Course I can! Nothing’s too good for my Aunt Thuvia and that scarf is durn near nothing. Baby doll, we’re going to deck you out for the auction block. Will you do my hair?”

  “And you mine. Deety—I mean ‘Dejah Thoris’—I miss a three-way mirror.”

  “We’ll be mirrors for each other,” I told her. “I don’t mind camping out. My great-great-great-grandmother had two babies in a sod house. Except”—I ducked my head, sniffed my armpit—“we’d better find a stream.” I added, “Hold still. Or shall I pin it through your skin?”

  “Either way, dear. We’ll find water—all this ground cover.”

  “Ground cover doesn’t prove running water. This place may be a ‘dead sea bottom of Barsoom.’”

  “Doesn’t look dead,” Aunt Hilda countered. “It’s pretty.”

  “Yes, but this looks like a dead sea bottom. Which gave me an idea. Hold up your hair; I want to arrange your necklaces.”

  “What idea?” Aunt Hilda demanded.

  “Zebadiah told me to figure a third escape program. The first two—I’ll paraphrase, Gay is awake. One tells her to take us back to a height over Snug Harbor; the other tells her to scoot back to where she was before she was last given the first order.”

  “I thought that one told her to place us over the Grand Canyon?”

  “It does, at present. But if she got the first order now, that would change the second order. Instead of over the Grand Canyon, we would be back here quicker’n a frog could wink its eye.”

  “Okay if you say so.”

  “She’s programmed that way. Hit the panic button and we are over our cabin site. Suppose we arrive there and find trouble, then use the ‘C’ order. She takes us back to wherever she last got the ‘T’ order. Dangerous or we would not have left in a rush. So we need a third escape program, to take us to a safe place. This looks safe.”

  “It’s peaceful.”

  “Seems so. There!—more doodads than a Christmas tree and you look nakeder than ever.”

  “That’s the effect we want, isn’t it? Sit down in the copilot’s seat; I’ll do your hair.”

  “Want shoes?” I asked.

  “On Barsoom? Dejah Thoris, thank you for your little-girl shoes. But they pinch my toes. You’re going to wear shoes?”

  “Not bleedin’ likely, Aunt Nanny Goat. I toughened my feet for karate—I can break a four-by-nine with my feet and get nary a bruise. Or run on sharp gravel. What’s a good escape phrase? I plan to store in Gay an emergency signal for every spot we visit that looks like a safe hidey-hole. So give me a phrase.”

  “Your mudder chaws terbacker!”

  “Nanny Goat! A code-phrase should have a built-in mnemonic.”

  “‘Bug Out’?”

  “A horrid expression and just what we need. ‘Bug Out’ will mean to take us to this exact spot. I’ll program it. And post it and others on the instrument board so that, if anyone forgets, she can read it.”

  “And so could any outsider, if she got in.”

  “Fat lot of good it would do her! Gay ignores an order not in our voices. Hello, Gay.”

  “Hello, Deety!”

  “Retrieve present location. Report.”

  “Null program.”

  “Are we lost?”

  “Not at all, Aunt Hilda. I was sloppy. Gay, program check. Define ‘Home.’”

  “Cancel any-all transitions translations rotations inertials. Return to zero-designated latitude longitude two klicks above ground level hovering.”

  “Search memory reversed-real-time for last order execute-coded Gay Deceiver take us home.”

  “Retrieved.”

  “From time of retrieved order integrate to time-present all transitions translations rotations inertials.”

  “Integrated.”

  “Test check. Report summ
ary of integration.”

  “Origin ‘Home.’ Countermarch program executed. Complex maneuver inertials. Translation Tau axis ten minimals positive. Complex maneuver inertials. Translation Ell axis two-two-four-zero-nine-zero-eight-two-seven point zero klicks. Negative vector Ell axis twenty-four klicks per sec. Negative vector Ell axis four klicks per sec. Complex maneuver inertials. Grounded here-then oh-eight-oh-two-forty-nine. Grounded inertials continuing eight hours three minutes nineteen seconds mark! Grounded inertials continue running real-time.”

  “New program. Here-now grounded inertial location real-time running to real-time new execute order equals code-phrase bug-out. Report new program.”

  Gay answered: “New program code-phrase bug-out: Definition: Here-now grounded inertials running real-time to future-time execute order code-phrase bug-out.”

  “Gay, I tell you three times.”

  “Deety, I hear you three times.”

  “New program. Execute-coded Gay Deceiver Bug Out. At execute-code move to location coded ‘bug-out.’ I tell you three times.”

  “I hear you three times.”

  “Gay Deceiver, you’re a smart girl.”

  “Deety, why don’t you leave that big ape and live with me? Over.”

  “Good night, Gay. Roger and out. Hillbilly, I didn’t give you that answer.” I tried to look fierce.

  “Why, Deety, how could you say such a thing?”

  “I know I didn’t. Well?”

  “I ’fess up, Deetikins. A few days ago while you and I were working, you were called away. While I waited, I stuck that in. Want it erased?”

  I don’t know how to look fierce; I snickered. “No. Maybe Zebadiah will be around the next time it pops up. I wish our men would wake, I do.”

  “They need rest, dear.”

  “I know. But I want to check that new program.”

  “It sounded complex.”

  “Can be, by voice. I’d rather work on paper. A computer doesn’t accept excuses. A mistake can be anything from ‘null program’ to disaster. This one has features I’ve never tried. I don’t really understand what Pop does. Non-Euclidean n-dimensional geometry is way out in left field.”

  “To me it’s not in the ball park.”

  “So I’m itchy.”