Stairway to the Stars by Larry T. Shaw (paper ebook reader .TXT) 📗

I had to learn it and become [74]accustomed to its use through analyzing what you just said. I really didn’t mean to puzzle you or make you feel inferior by mimicking you.”

Farmer’s mind worked chaotically. This was puzzling, he decided, and did make him feel inferior—that is, it did if the man in the red scales had really picked up English so quickly. And if not, why lie?

The fishman came forward. His step was bouncy, as if he were used to a higher gravity or greater pressure (that, Farmer complimented himself on his cleverness, made sense at least), but he extended his hand and said “Put ’er there!” like any ladies’ wear buyer at an annual convention. Ray and Farmer shook with him in turn. His hand was damp and webbed, but felt fairly human for all that.

“My name is Garf,” he said cheerfully. John Andrew tried not to stare at him too noticeably, but Ray made no bones about it; apparently the fishman thought nothing at all of his state of nudity. Farmer shivered.

It was Ray who brought the conversation back to earth—or sea—again. He asked Garf, directly, exactly where he did come from.

Garf looked hesitant, then waved the two to the rail with him. “See those?” he asked. They looked, and saw what seemed to be a flight of steps, carved from stone, old, and worn, starting abruptly just below the water level and leading downward. There was nothing on either side of the steps, or underneath them as far as could be seen, but ordinary ocean. “I came up those,” Garf said.

Farmer stared, and Ray stared. The stairway shouldn’t be there—it certainly hadn’t been there before. Garf’s explanations, it seemed, only compounded the confusion caused by his presence.

Farmer, muddled, looked again at the nonapus, which had apparently gone to sleep. Even so, it looked deadly.

Something bit him on the arm. He discovered Ray’s fingers, in the diving glove, digging into his flesh in an amazingly powerful grip. Farmer hunched his shoulders, trying to break loose, and then he saw what Ray was staring at.

Garf had left them, and was strolling around the launch as if he had just bought it—looking down his nose at it; at the same time, acting as if he could afford not to give a damn how badly he’d been stung. But the startling thing was that he had picked up the boathook and was twirling it unconcernedly. He had not only picked it up, however—he had also tied it in a knot.

It should have splintered in his hands, assuming he was strong enough to bend it at all. It hadn’t; it was in perfect shape, except for the knot. Or so it seemed, at least, for even as Ray started forward with outstretched hand, obviously hoping to examine the thing, Garf gave it a final twirl and scaled it carelessly overboard.

John Andrew began to feel quick-frozen again. Being alone at sea in a rickety craft with a possible madman had been bad enough. To have a weird creature with superhuman powers, and an impossible pet monster, added to the crew was a little too much.

Garf turned his attention to the television set, which was still presenting its hysterical vaudeville. “Great-uncle’s gills!” he exclaimed, and lapsed into a fascinated silence. He studied the proceedings carefully, holding the arms-crossed pose again. Finally he turned to Ray.

“Weren’t you saying something about civilization a while ago, finless?” he asked. His voice was sneering.

Ray frowned, and said something about mass-appeal. “Pay no attention to that,” he continued. “Just listen to [75]me. I’ll tell you about our civilization, and our science, and....”

His voice broke off as if he had been struck in the face. In a way, he had; Garf had deliberately turned his back on the old fellow. The Judge’s bloodshot little eyes darted about as if he wanted to pick up something heavy and hit Garf on the crest with it.

John Andrew’s brain had finally resumed normal operations; he was thinking slowly, but clearly. He examined the evidence with care. He decided that Garf’s superior attitude and powers boded no good; that if the fishman once became slightly irritated he would sic the nonapus on Ray and himself. (Probably, in fact, Garf would try to conquer the world anyway; that was how it went in stories as corny as this situation.) Farmer further decided that Ray was too egocentrically eccentric to be trusted to get them out of this fix; he decided he’d have to do something himself.

Having decided all this, Farmer went back over the territory to see if he could find any flaws in it—or any other way out. It still made sense, and he added a decision to get the boat back to shore as fast as possible. He approached the engine.

As he did so, the engine melted into a solid, irregular lump of metal. John Andrew gulped, and put out a tentative hand toward the fused mess. It was not particularly warm—but it had melted.

Farmer looked at Garf again with fear and awe, and the fishman looked back with cold amusement. But not for long. Garf turned to the Judge’s invention—and started to show some genuine interest for the first time since he had showed up.

He stood over the thing, webbed hands on scaly hips, peering at it intently. After a long silence, he knelt, and started feeling over the machine with his webbed hands. Finally he placed his fingers on the largest of the control switches—then changed his mind and gestured imperatively to Judge Ray.

“You—the ‘intelligent’ one,” he said. The quotes around ‘intelligent’ were clear in his intonation. “Explain this to me. It’s obviously what reactivated the gate—but whoever made it did a screwball job. There are all sorts of things that don’t seem to belong, and even the parts that should be there seem wrong, somehow....”

He paused. “Of course,” he added, smugly, “I’m not a transportation expert. If I were, I’d have made my own activator long ago, and done some visiting on the closed worlds before this. Not that they’d have kept me from getting bored for long, but yours looks as if it’s going to be slightly amusing, at least.”

A struggle showed in Ray’s face. Farmer saw insulted anger, hurt pride, a desire to brag about his gadgetry, a question about Garf’s last words, and a caution that was not too far from fear. John Andrew had stopped trying to hide his own fear, and though he had plenty of questions of his own, he was mainly concerned with looking for a means of escape.

Garf was rising again, looking impatient. Ray reached a decision, said “Go to hell!” , and turned his back on the fishman. Garf looked astonished, then angry, and raised a hand. Ray jumped, not very far because of the heavy diving suit, stumbled on oddly twisted legs, and collapsed on the deck, writhing, moaning, and turning red in the face. The diving helmet clattered on the planks.

Farmer got mad. He started to charge across the deck at Garf, but his own feet went out from under him and he landed flat on his nose. There were waves of fire chasing each other around his body, and his stomach was trying to turn itself inside out.

As instantaneously as it had come, the pain left him. It left him weak and quivering, and John Andrew Farmer lay on his back [76]waiting for his strength to seep back. As the red haze drifted from before his eyes, he realized that the launch had acquired another occupant.

In appearance, she could easily have been Garf’s sister—or his wife. Her figure was lithe and nicely curved. Her scales stopped in eye-catching points just above her distinctly mammalian bosom; from there on up she looked almost completely human. She wasn’t wearing anything either. The over-all effect was oddly beautiful. Farmer blushed hotly, and tried to keep his eyes on her face.

Not that it made any difference to her. She ignored everyone and everything but the fishman. Glaring at him angrily, she snapped out his name in an icy voice. “Garf!”

“Dor!”

Garf was a changed fishman; he looked faintly frightened, moderately worried, and definitely embarrassed. This passed, and he started to smile in a placating manner.

“Garf!” Dor snapped again. She followed it up, this time, with a string of intricate, foreign-sounding words that even Farmer could tell were hot and stinging.

The fishman backed away. He seemed to be growing angry himself now under the whiplashing woman’s tongue. Finally he spoke, in English. He called Dor a puddle-snake. That wasn’t all of what he said, by any means; the name was preceded by several adjectives and followed by an obscene command. Dor blanched slightly.

“Oh, yes?” she said, her voice dripping danger. “I can speak this language too, you know—I learned it years ago, before the gate to this world was closed! And let me tell you something else....”

She told him something else. John Andrew blushed furiously again, and covered his ears with his hands.

Little Ray was on his feet, trying to get a word in edgewise, but not succeeding at all. He too started to get angry. Farmer hauled himself upright, hoping to approach Ray, calm him, and get him to figure a way out of this madhouse.

Garf yelled an expletive and gestured with his hand. A wave of pure heat swept over the boat, blistering what paint it still boasted. The blow had been directed at Dor, and she showed that she had absorbed most of it by wilting visibly—but Farmer felt as much of it as he wanted. It was as if a blast furnace had suddenly opened beside him; sweat popped out on his brow and filmed his eyes. He wondered how uncomfortable he could get.

A deadly silence descended.

John Andrew was wishing that he could swim when Dor smiled, and he began to be interested in living again in spite of himself. The girl, he thought, was somehow radiant—really lovely, in spite of her scales and fins. It was peculiar; he’d never liked women at all, and had certainly never thought he’d like a mermaid, but....

Anyway, he decided, he wasn’t going to take sides if the two aliens were going to fight it out. His first interest was in saving his own hide; his second, in getting back to shore to give warning of the invasion. As for Dor—John Andrew had lived this long without going to the aid of a damsel in distress—without, in fact, ever seeing one that he could remember, who wasn’t obviously more capable of helping herself than he was. He wasn’t going to start rescuing fair maidens now—even if she needed rescuing. Still, there was something awfully attractive.... Damn, but he was confused!

Dor’s smile didn’t really last that long; Farmer’s thoughts were going fast now, somehow. He had finished those just described before Dor said, “All right, Garf. Fun’s fun; now let’s kiss and make up. After all, it’s illegal for us to be here—not only our own cops, but the Galactic Federation, would be on our necks if they knew. [77]Let’s see if we can close up the gate ourselves or if this needs to be reported. And then let’s go home.”

Garf grinned. “Whatever you say, my dear.” He dipped an eyebrow in a wink. Behind Dor, the nonapus stirred sluggishly, extended a tentacle, opened a claw, and nipped Dor neatly on the behind. She screeched.

There was an explosion in Farmer’s brain. This was too much—Garf had gone too far! The burly editor plunged across the deck, swinging a fist. To his surprise, Garf did nothing to stop him; probably, John Andrew figured later, the fishman expected no further trouble from the humans after the treatment they’d had.

Farmer’s haymaker connected.

Garf staggered across the deck until he brought up against the rail, holding his jaw and shaking his head muzzily. Farmer braced himself for retaliation, hoping it would be something less than a bolt of barbed lightning. But Garf remained unpredictable. He mumbled something that wasn’t “Oh the hell with it” but sounded like it, and softly and silently slid overboard. He disappeared under water with scarcely a ripple.

“Good!” Dor said, briskly. “Now, I’ll just.... Ah!” She strode directly to Ray’s invention, and Farmer wondered why both the aliens were so interested in a gadget that didn’t work.

Dor wasted no time. She bent over, picked up the machine, yanking wiring loose carelessly, straightened up, turned a beaming smile on Farmer and Ray, said “Goodbye,” and headed for the rail.

Ray yelped. He started after her, but his progress in the diving suit was waddling and slow. She reached the rail first and went over. Ray was not too far behind, and he slammed his helmet down angrily as he reached the rail. Farmer, galvanized belatedly, gave chase as well.

Dor was picking her way slowly down the stone