Stalking the Nightmare Part 14

This was the pojar, as the natives called it. The time to stop, the moment to sit down and be killed. So Derr sat down, in the manner he had seen the natives do it... and oddly, the crowd exhaled with relief.

The ristable pawed, snorted, charged.

It came for him... and suddenly Derr was up, thrusting himself from the dirt with the strength of his legs, and the ristable could not stop its movement, and it was past the spot where Derr had sat cross-legged, its horn tearing the air viciously where Derr's chest had been a moment before.

But Derr was not there to die.

He was whirling, clutching, and in a stride and a breath he was on the ristable's back; and the knife hand came up with a slash and the blood, and down with a thud and the blood, and back again with a rip and more blood, and three times more, till the ristable convulsed and tried to bellow, and tipped over, the legs failing in precision step.

Derr leaped free as the ristable collapsed to the dirt. He watched in silence and power, the awe and fury of the triumphant hunter flowing in him like red, rich wine; watched as his trophy bled to death on the sand.

It died soon enough.

Then the natives seized him.

"Hold it! Stop! What are you doing? I won, I killed the thing... I showed you how to do it... let me go!" But they had him tightly by the arms and the waist, without word and without expression. They started to take him away, back to the village.

He struggled and screamed, and had they not taken the blade from him he would no doubt have slashed them. But he was powerless, and screamed that he had done them a favor, showed them how. to kill the ristable.

Then when they had him tied in the hut at the edge of the village, the Headsman told him...

"You have killed the ristable. You will die."

As simply as that. No question, no comment, no appeal, he was to die. The night came all too soon.

When the moons were high overhead he called for the Headsman. He called, and the Headsman thought it was for a final wish, a boon. But it was not, for this was not a Ristabite: this was the Earthman who had not known the way of it, who had killed the G.o.d ristable.

"Look," Derr tried to be calm and logical, "tell me why I'm to die. I don't know. Can't you see, if I'm to die, I have a right to know why!"

So the Headsman drew from tribal legend, from memories buried so deeply they were feelings in the blood without literal word or meaning, but were simply "the way of it."

And this was it... this was the secret behind it, that wasn't really a secret at all, but just the way of it: Who rules who? [the Headsman said.] Take the blood in your veins. How do you know that at one time the blood might not have been the dominant life form of Earth, ruling its physical bodies, using them as tools. Then, as time and eons pa.s.sed, the blood turned its thoughts to other things, maintaining the bodies merely as habitations.

It could be so... if the blood ruled you, and not you the blood, it could be so [the Headsman said. ] The lastthing you would do, under any circ.u.mstances, is spill your blood. Don't you wince when you bleed, when you cut yourself, and you rush to bandage yourself? What if it were so, and you had lost the racial memory that said I am ruled by my blood... but still you would know the way of it.

That was how it was on Ristable. At one time the bulls, the ristable beasts, ruled the natives. They built the cities with what were now atrophied tentacles. Then as the eons pa.s.sed, they turned to higher things; and allowed their bodies to graze in the fields; and let the natives feed them; and let the cities rot into themselves.

As time pa.s.sed, the memories pa.s.sed--oh, it was a long time; long enough for the mountains of Ristable to sink into gra.s.slands--and eventually the natives had no recollection of what they had been, not even considering themselves ruled, so long and so buried was it. Then they took care of the ristables, and one last vestige of caste remained, for the bulls accepted sacrifices. The natives went to die... and one a week was put beneath the sod... and that was the way of it.

So deep and so inbred, that there was not even a conscious thought of it; that was simply the way of it.

But here was a stupid Earthman who had not known the way of it. He had won. He had killed a G.o.d, a ruler, deeper than any rule that ever existed...

That was the secret that Derr learned; the secret that was not even a secret really: just the way of it.

"So if there is anything I can grant," said the Headsman in true sorrow, for he bore this Earthman no malice, "just tell it."

And Nathaniel Derr, the great white hunter from Earth, thought about it.

Finally, as they untied him, taking him to the cleared area outside the village where he had killed the G.o.d ruler, the final twist came to him. Then he made his request, knowing the Mercantile Ship would come months too late, and there was nothing to be done.

He made his request, and they tied him between the posts, and finally the new ristable came, with its snow-white horn lowered, and fire in its eyes..

He watched the ristable pawing and snorting and charging, and he knew his request would be carried out.

How strange, he thought, as the tip of the horn plunged deep to the softness that lies within all hard men. Of all the trophies I've gathered...

Then there was no thought of trophies.

So there it is, hanging between the hartebeest and the szlygor in the Trottersmen's trophy room. There was no choice about hanging it; after all, thirteen million dollars is thirteen million dollars. But it does give the members a chill from h.e.l.l.

Still, there it hangs, and usually the room is closed off. But occasionally, if drinks are too many, and wit is abundant, the tale will be told. Perhaps not always with accuracy, but always with wonder.

Because it is a marvelous job of taxidermy.

There are even members who are willing to pay to find out how the Ristabite natives who did the job were able to retain the clean white color of the hair...

...and that d.a.m.ned watchfulness to the eyes.

!!!The!!Teddy!Crazy!!Show!!!

They hotted-up the studio audience with fifteen minutes of rock by Fred Nietzsche & The ubermenschen and another five minutes of second-string witticisms by the announcer, an ex-m.c. named Rollin Jacoby who had lost his own network game show when the FCC had received reports he was shtupping female contestants in exchange for the right answers.

By the time ON THE AIR hit, the gallery was electric with the barely-subdued atmosphere of a Roman arena, the voyeurs and s.a.d.i.s.ts waiting for the Christians to be thrown to the Protestants.

Everyone's eyes went to the monitors as the musical theme swelled in the studio, and the credits began to roll.

"Here it is! Eleven o'clock, Pacific Standard Time, Now, Today, This minute, the time for THE TEDDY CRAZY SHOW!" Jacoby hyped the announcement into his chest-mike, and the crawl card rolled !!!THE!!TEDDY!CRAZY!!SHOW!!! in Cyrillic script. Then, PRODUCED BY HOBIE PLEEN, and DIRECTED BY GRANT WHITSEN, and then Jacoby came in over once more: "And here he is, awakened America... the man who won't back off, the man who gets it said, the man who pulls their covers and dumps their mud... the man of the Now..."

And he came out of the wings as cameras 2 & 3 caught him in double-exposure...

"Teddy...Crazeeee...!"

The applause was deafening. The chimpanzees did not even need a cue card telling them to bang their sweaty palms together. The sight of him was enough. They clapped, and screamed, and yowled, and laughed, and whistled, and stomped, and howled and Jan Breebnick (known to Awakened America as Teddy Crazy) walked in stately fashion across the small stage. Just before he sat down, he did a little dance-step, his famous little dance-step, loose-jointed as an epileptic, and the studio mob went wild again. And then Teddy Crazy took his seat behind the desk, behind the water pitcher, behind the sheets of flimsies on his guests, behind the microphone, and began his three thousand, nine hundred and fifty-fifth show on late night television.

"Who's the first yo-yo, Rollin?" Teddy Crazy demanded.

From the empty air came the reply, "Your first guest tonight is a winner, Teddy. It's Professor Heinrich Tessler, who just received a government grant of half a million dollars to explore his theory that there is an entrance to the hollow interior of the Earth somewhere near the North Pole."

The audience waited a split-second for Teddy to get "his face." Teddy could let the viewing audience know whether he was going to believe a guest or debunk him, merely by using one of two "faces" he kept in a drawer of the desk. One face was the drooling, imbecilic countenance of a hydrocephalic child, and the other was the studious and informed expression of a Renaissance man.

Teddy pulled out the moron face, and the audience clapped wildly, screamed and beat at the air with their voices as a stooped, septuageneric old man of gray features and weary eyes plodded onto the stage, and took a seat across from Teddy Crazy behind the desk.

Teddy stared at the old man.

Professor Tessler's beard was as ineffectual as the old man seemed to be. It was gray, and it was hanging from his chin, but it was spa.r.s.e, stringy, great empty patches of bare skin showing through, as though the face had given up halfway through its growth.

"Boy, you really look like a lunatic mad scientist," was Teddy Crazy's opening shot.

Professor Tessler began to tremble. "I haf come here to talk aboudt... "

"You talk about what we want you to talk about, Prof ole nutso buddy!" Teddy Crazy interrupted the thick Bavarian accent." And you know why, sweetheart?"

It was rhetorical. Teddy didn't even wait.

"I'll tell you why: it's because you've just been given a half a million of United States of America's taxpayers' hard-earned money to go off into the Arctic to follow up some coocoo idea you got in a hash dream one night! And how that money is spent, money we all worked like dogs to make, is the concern of the folks who tune in every weekday night at eleven to find out the truth about weirdos like you, who can fleece our corrupt, pinko-loving government out of. that much dough... that's why!"

Applause. Stomping. Hooting. A lynch tenor in the mob.

"Now. Whaddaya got to say for yourself, Prof?"

Tessler fidgeted. He wrung his hands together, out of sight below the desk. His rheumy little eyes darted back and forth. "I vas told py your broducer dot if I game on your schow I gould tel1 aboudt my theory vithoudt there beink vun made uff me..."

Teddy Crazy got a mean look on his ruggedly handsome features. "Oh... now you're gonna sit there and lie at us, right, Professor? Wel1, there's my Producer, Mr. Hobie Pleen, standing right there... would you turn Camera # Ion him, please." The camera was revolved and the red light went on. "Hobie," Teddy Crazy asked him, "did you promise this man some sort of immunity from honest constructive questioning?"

Hobie Pleen, a frightened man whose greatest dream was a renewal pickup at the end of thirty-six weeks, spread his hands with obvious disbelief at Tessler's comment, and shook his head at Teddy Crazy. The camera revolved, and the monitors picked up Teddy Crazy once more looking at Tessler.

Save now he was looking at the old man as though he was a pus-pocket of evil. "No, Professor... now that we've proved you're not only a quack, a fraud, a charlatan and probably an embezzler of government funds, we've proved you're a common garden-variety liar as well. Now, whaddaya have to say to that?"Tessler summoned up strength. "My theory iz gorrect!"

"Oh yeah? Wel1, lemme ask you, the audience... do you believe this old loon? Do you believe there's an entrance to a hollow Earth at the North Pole? Lemme HEAR IT!"

The screams were thunderous. They beat against the walls, and they showered down like broken gla.s.s, and they sliced through the air like shards of steel, and little old Professor Tessler cringed behind the desk. It was what the law courts called res ipsa loquitur--a thing that speaks for itself. No one believed him. Before millions of eyes, Tessler was--that quick, snap!--discredited.

Now slumped hideously, as the screams died away, Tessler could only nod dumbly as Teddy Crazy said {with the uncommon softness one used in addressing a dog one has just whipped into servility), "Now Professor, let's talk about your theory... "

It took Teddy Crazy only fifteen minutes--one segment of his show--to demolish Tessler and send him away trembling with hopelessness and frustration. And all across America, no one, but no one, believed the Professor was onto anything more significant than a bad case of too much cheap whiskey.

Teddy Crazy took a taping break for commercials, four of them, plus two piggybacks, and came back to greet his second guest, Miss Anita DeStyre, topless dancer supporting a fatherless family of seven.

She came onstage to wolf whistles, the rumbling of unbridled libidos and a round of applause usually reserved for Ministers of State. She was quite tall, almost six feet, wearing white knee-length patent leather boots, a mini-skirt that just reached below her b.u.t.tocks, and flowing long blonde hair. Her bust was immense. But there was an undeniable sweetness about her; something very close to innocence in the face. Laugh-lines and a directness that belied both her occupation and the moron mask Teddy Crazy wore as she approached his desk.

"Good evening, Miss DeStyre," Teddy Crazy said.

"Good evening, Mr. Crazy," she replied.

"What kind of an evening is it for s.l.u.ts, Miss DeStyre?"

The audience dropped back into fitful silence. It had thought for a moment Teddy Crazy would play pomo-word games, double-entendre, with this pretty thing. But apparently he knew something...

"What's that supposed to mean?" She looked blank.

"What it means is, you're as phony as d.i.c.kie Nixon's nighty-night prayers. It means you go around telling everyone your measurements, when the truth of the matter is that you're all puffed out with silicone!"

"That's a dirty lie!"

"Yeah, well, dolly in for a closeup, Camera #3, because this piece of paper I'm holding in my right hand is a sworn affidavit from Dr. Kenneth J. Opatoshu, a plastic surgeon of Beverly Hills, who swears that on July 17th of last year he operated on you for bust expansion, using silicone and--"

Anita DeStyre grabbed the neck of her dress in both hands and ripped down, suddenly. There was the sound of tortured cloth, and then, before the protruding eyes of millions of Americans in the Great Wasteland, Miss DeStyre was naked to the waist. "How about those, buddy," she demanded of her host, "do those look like phonies?"

They were cut off the air instantly. Or rather, the taping was stopped. Miss DeStyre was re-clothed, in a topcoat loaned by a man in the third row of the audience, and they started taping again.

Teddy Crazy sat with folded hands, looking calm and as though he had swallowed something that would enrich him. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "what you have just seen... one of the grossest demonstrations of the debas.e.m.e.nt of the female mystique... is a living demonstration of the unfittedness of this woman to retain legal motherhood of seven defenseless children. I had no affidavit on that piece of paper... it was merely an attempt on my part to provoke this woman into an act of such ugliness that her true nature would reveal itself. I urge everyone out there to write to the juvenile authorities here in Los Angeles to have those seven small children removed from the custody of a woman who is even less than an honest prost.i.tute... "

Anita DeStyre began to cry.

It took fifteen minutes for that segment, and by the time it aired, three days later, the representatives of the juvenile court had already moved in to take Anita DeStyre's seven children from her. That they had been happy with their mother, that she had worked endlessly to provide a good home for them, made no difference. Teddy Crazy had done his job well. Using a broken Coca-Cola bottle, Anita DeStyre killed herself, the night the show aired.

But that was only one-third of the ninety minutes allotted to Teddy Crazy. As the show progressed he destroyed a promising novelist (accusing him of being a rank p.o.r.nographer), the manufacturer of a new drug purported to cure cancer (with a barrage that insinuated side-effects of the drug produced something more hideous than thalidomide babies), and a woman seeking her long-lost husband (by proving to the audience's satisfaction that the man being sought had been in charge of the gas ovens at Dachau).

Teddy Crazy's show was nearing its end for that night.

It had been a typical, average, interesting show. What Hobie Pleen would have called "a good show, Teddy."

"And who's our last guest, Rollin?" Teddy Crazy asked.

There was no answer from Rollin Jacoby.

But there was a flash of light and the distinct smell of something that should have been flushed.

And onto the stage walked His Satanic Majesty, the Prince of Darkness, Satan.

Or at least it looked like him.

His long tail protruded from the seat of his Brooks Bros. suit, and the triangular end of it whipped and thrashed as he stalked across to the desk. His cloven hoofprints were burned into the Formica of the studio floor. Hishorns were ramlike and curved upwards from the thatch of bloodred hair that covered his head. His eyes were burning coals, his fingernails were black, and the expression on his face even startled Teddy Crazy. For a moment.

"The Fallen Angel is your last guest, Mr. Crazy," the visitor said. And he seated himself, pulling the black crimson-lined cape around himself.

Teddy Crazy stared. For a moment. Then he whipped out his moron mask and stared back at the audience.

They got the message. Another weirdo!

They applauded and demanded Teddy take this jerk apart, piece by horn by tail by piece.

Teddy returned the mask to its drawer, and turned to his guest. "Well, Your Majesty," and the words oozed loathing and ridicule, "to what do we owe the special privilege of your presence here on my humble show?"

"To be precise, Mr. Crazy, I'm here tonight to offer you a reward."

"Oh? And what might that be, you silly goose?"

"A rare delight. A special potion that my imps in the lowest recesses of h.e.l.l have concocted just for you."

"And, uh, might I be accurate in calling it some sort of hallucinogenic crutch that other, less-fortunate folks might use to delight themselves?"

"Not strictly speaking, no. You can call it a psychedelic if you choose, but it's much more ancient a recipe than that."