Untouched By Human Hands Part 11

h.e.l.lman punctured the seal with his fingernail and set the bottle on the floor. An evil-smelling green froth began to bubble out.

h.e.l.lman looked dubiously at the froth. It was congealing into a glob and spreading over the floor.

"Yeast, perhaps," he said, gripping the burner tightly.

"Come, come. Faint heart never filled empty stomach."

"I'm not holding you back," h.e.l.lman said.

The glob swelled to the size of a man's head.

"How long is that supposed to go on?" Casker asked.

"Well," h.e.l.lman said, "it's advertised as a Plugger. I suppose that's what it does-expands to plug up holes."

"Sure. But how much?"

"Unfortunately, I don't know how much two cubic vims are. But it can't go on much-"

Belatedly, they noticed that the Plugger had filled almost a quarter of the room and was showing no signs of stopping.

"We should have believed the label!" Casker yelled to him, across the spreading glob. "It is dangerous!"

As the plugger produced more surface, it began to accelerate in its growth. A sticky edge touched h.e.l.lman and he jumped back.

"Watch out!"

He couldn't reach Casker, on the other side of the gigantic sphere of blob. h.e.l.lman tried to run around, but the Plugger had spread, cutting the room in half. It began to swell towards the walls.

"Run for it!" h.e.l.lman yelled, and rushed to the door behind him.

He flung it open just as the expanding glob reached him. On the other side of the room, he heard a door slam shut. h.e.l.lman didn't wait any longer. He sprinted through and slammed the door behind him.

He stood for a moment, panting, the burner in his hand. He hadn't realized how weak he was. That sprint had cut his reserves of energy dangerously close to the collapsing point. At least Casker had made it, too, though.

But he was still in trouble.

The Plugger poured merrily through the blasted lock, into the room. h.e.l.lman tried a practice shot on it, but the Plugger was evidently impervious...as, he realized, a good plugger should be.

It was showing no signs of fatigue.

h.e.l.lman hurried to the far wall. The door was locked, as the others had been, so he burned out the lock and went through.

How far could the glob expand? How much was two cubic vims? Two cubic miles, perhaps? For all he knew, the Plugger was used to repair faults in the crusts of planets.

In the next room, h.e.l.lman stopped to catch his breath. He remembered that the building was circular. He would burn his way through the remaining doors and join Casker. They would burn their way outside and....

Casker didn't have a burner!

h.e.l.lman turned white with shock. Casker had made it into the room on the right, because they had burned it open earlier. The Plugger was undoubtedly oozing into that room, through the shattered lock...and Casker couldn't get out! The Plugger was on his left, a locked door on his right!

Rallying his remaining strength, h.e.l.lman began to run. Boxes seemed to get in his way purposefully, tripping him, slowing him down. He blasted the next door and hurried on to the next. And the next. And the next The Plugger couldn't expand completely into Casker's room!

Or could it?

The wedge-shaped rooms, each a segment of a circle, seemed to stretch before him forever, a jumbled montage of locked doors, alien goods, more doors, more goods. h.e.l.lman fell over a crate, got to his feet and fell again. He had reached the limit of his strength, and pa.s.sed it But Casker was his friend.

Besides, without a pilot, he'd never get off the place.

h.e.l.lman struggled through two more rooms on trembling legs and then collapsed in front of a third.

"Is that you, h.e.l.lman?" he heard Casker ask, from the other side of the door.

"You all right?" h.e.l.lman managed to gasp.

"Haven't much room in here," Casker said, "but the Plugger's stopped growing. h.e.l.lman, get me out of here!"

h.e.l.lman lay on the floor panting. "Moment," he said.

"Moment, h.e.l.l!" Casker shouted. "Get me out. I've found water!"

"What? How?"

"Get me out of here!"

h.e.l.lman tried to stand up, but his legs weren't cooperating. "What happened?" he asked.

"When I saw that glob filling the room, I figured I'd try to start up the Custom Super Transport. Thought maybe it could knock down the door and get me out. So I pumped it full of high-grain Integor fuel."

"Yes?" h.e.l.lman said, still trying to get his legs under control.

"That Custom Super Transport is an animal, h.e.l.lman! And the Integor fuel is water! Now get me out!"

h.e.l.lman lay back with a contented sigh. If he'd had a little more time, he would have worked out the whole thing himself, by pure logic. But it was all very apparent now. The most efficient machine to go over those vertical, razor-sharp mountains would be an animal, probably with retractable suckers. It was kept in hibernation between trips; and if it drank water, the other products designed for it would be palatable, too. Of course they still didn't know much about the late inhabitants, but undoubtedly....

"Burn down that door!" Casker shrieked, his voice breaking.

h.e.l.lman was pondering the irony of it all. If one man's meat-and his poison-are your poison, then try eating something else. So simple, really.

But there was one thing that still bothered him.

"How did you know it was an Earth-type animal?" he asked.

"Its breath, stupid! It inhales and exhales and smells as if it's eaten onions!" There was a sound of cans falling and bottles shattering. "Now hurry!"

"What's wrong?" h.e.l.lman asked, finally getting to his feet and poising the burner.

"The Custom Super Transport. It's got me cornered behind a pile of cases. h.e.l.lman, it seems to think that I'm its meat!"

THE KING'S WISHES After squatting behind a gla.s.sware display for almost two hours, Bob Granger felt his legs begin to cramp. He moved to ease them, and his number ten iron slipped off his lap, clattering on the floor.

"Shh," Janice whispered, her mashie gripped tightly.

"I don't think he's going to come," Bob said.

"Be quiet, honey," Janice whispered again, peering into the darkness of their store.

There was no sign of the burglar yet. He had come every night in the past week, mysteriously removing generators, refrigerators, and air conditioners. Mysteriously-for he tampered with no locks, jimmied no windows, left no footprints. Yet somehow, he was able to sneak in, time after time, and slink out with a good part of their stock.

"I don't think this was such a good idea," Bob whispered. "After all, a man capable of carrying several hundred pounds of generator on his back-"

"We'll handle him," Janice said, with the certainty that had made her a master sergeant in the WAC Motor Corps. "Besides, we have to stop him-he's postponing our wedding day."

Bob nodded in the darkness. He and Janice had built and stocked the Country Department Store with their army savings. They were planning on getting married, as soon as the profits enabled them to. But when someone stole refrigerators and air conditioners- "I think I hear something," Janice said, shifting her grip on the mashie.

There was a faint noise somewhere in the store. They waited. Then they heard the sound of feet, padding over the linoleum.

"When he gets to the middle of the floor," Janice whispered, "switch on the lights."

Finally they were able to make out a blackness against the lesser blackness of the store. Bob switched on the lights, shouting, "Hold it there!"

"Oh, no!" Janice gasped, almost dropping her mashie. Bob turned and gulped.

Standing in front of them was a being at least ten feet tall. He had budding horns on his forehead, and tiny wings on his back. He was dressed in a pair of dungarees and a white sweatshirt with EBUS TECH written across it in scarlet letters. Scuffed white buckskins were on his tremendous feet, and he had a blond crew cut.

"d.a.m.n," he said, looking at Bob and Janice. "Knew I should have taken Invisibility in college." He wrapped his arms around his stomach and puffed out his cheeks. Instantly his legs disappeared. Puffing out his cheeks still more he was able to make his stomach vanish. But that was as far as it went.

"Can't do it," he said, releasing his stored-up air. His stomach and legs came back into visibility. "Haven't got the knack. d.a.m.n."

"What do you want'" Janice asked, drawing herself to her full slender five foot three.

"Want? Let me see. Oh yes. The fan." He walked across the room and picked up a large floor fan.

"Just a minute," Bob shouted. He walked up to the giant, his golf club poised. Janice followed close behind him. "Where do you think you're going with that7"

"To King Alerian," the giant said. "He wished for it."

"Oh he did, did he?" Janice said. "Better put it down." She poised the mashie over her shoulder.

"But I can't," the young giant said, his tiny wings twitching nervously. "It's been wished for."

"You asked for it," Janice said. Although small, she was in fine condition from the WACs, where she had spent her time repairing jeep engines. Now, blond hair flying, she swung her club.

"Ouch!" she said. The mashie bounced off the being's head, almost knocking Janice over with the recoil. At the same time, Bob swung his club at the giant's ribs.

It pa.s.sed through the giant, ricocheting against the floor.

"Force is useless against a ferra," the young giant said apologetically.

"A what?" Bob asked.

"A ferra. We're first cousins of the jinn, and related by marriage to the devas." He started to walk back to the center of the room, the fan gripped in one broad hand. "Now if you'll excuse me-"

"A demon?" Janice stood, open-mouthed. Her parents had allowed no talk of ghosts or demons in the house, and Janice had grown up a hardheaded realist. She was skilled at repairing anything mechanical; that was her part of the partnership. But anything more fanciful she left to Bob.

Bob, having been raised on a liberal feeding of Oz and Burroughs, was more credulous. "You mean you're out of the Arabian Nights?" he asked.

"Oh, no," the ferra said. "The jinn of Arabia are my cousins, as I said. All demons are related, but I am a ferra, of the ferras."

"Would you mind telling me," Bob asked, "what you are doing with my generator, my air conditioner, and my refrigerator?"

"I'd be glad to," the ferra said, putting down the fan. He felt around the air, found what he wanted, and sat down on nothingness. Then he crossed his legs and tightened the laces of one buckskin.

"I graduated from Eblis Tech just about three weeks ago," he began. "And of course, I applied for civil service. I come from a long line of government men. Well, the lists were crowded, as they always are, so I-"

"Civil service?" Bob asked.

"Oh, yes. They're all civil service jobs-even the jinni in Aladdin's lamp was a government man. You have to pa.s.s the tests, you know."

"Go on," Bob said.

"Well-promise this won't go any farther-I got my job through pull." He blushed orange. "My father is a ferra in the Underworld Council, so he used his influence. I was appointed over 4,000 higher-ranking ferras, to the position of ferra of the King's Cup. That's quite an honor, you know."

There was a short silence. Then the ferra went on.

UI must confess I wasn't ready," he said sadly. "The ferra of the cup has to be skilled in all branches of demonology. I had just graduated from college-with only pa.s.sing grades. But of course, I thought I could handle anything."

The ferra paused, and rearranged his body more comfortably on the air.

"But I don't want to bother you with my troubles," he said, getting off the air and standing on the floor. "If you'll excuse me-"He picked up the fan.

"Just a minute," Janice said. "Has this king commanded you to get our fan?"

"In a way," the ferra said, turning orange again.

"Well, look," Janice said. "Is this king rich?" She had decided, for the moment, to treat this superst.i.tious ent.i.ty as a real person.

"He's a very wealthy monarch."

"Then why can't he buy this stuff?" Janice wanted to know. "Why does he have to steal it?"

"Well," the ferra mumbled, "there's no place where he can buy it."

"One of those backward Oriental countries," Janice said, half to herself.

"Why can't he import the goods? Any company would be glad to arrange it."

"This is all very embarra.s.sing," the ferra said, rubbing one buckskin against another. "I wish I could make myself invisible."