Somewhere along the way I rediscovered sanity, a fair state of bodily well-being, and even fun. Among the vacation visitors to the planet were friendly and needy ladies who looked me over, weren't too repelled by what they saw, and went riding with me in my little old submarine. Some of them also wanted to hire the boat for sport-diving jaunts with their friends. This was a scary idea, dangerously akin to earning a living, but at last I agreed. If I wasn't going to snuff myself, I figured I might as well party.
It wasn't long before the other charter-sub skippers of Manukura, jealous sonsabitches all, threatened to blow the whistle on my rump operation and/or run me off the Big Beach. I cut them off at the knees by getting a commercial license, a laughably simple matter on a wildcat planet, and painting Pernio a vivid buttercup-yellow. The new hue, plus a thirdhand stereo system stocked with appropriate pop classics by the Beatles, Jimmy Buffet, and the Junkanoo Joke-sters, drove the female vacationers into raptures of nostalgia and ensured full bookings for the season.
My accelerating slide uphill toward respectability made me uneasy in more ways than one. Kedge-Lockaby was a long way from Earth, but there was always a chance that one of the visitors would recognize me. Nevertheless I would probably have stayed in Manukura indefinitely, anonymous and unnoticed, if it hadn't been for Superintendent Jake Silver, the head of Kedge-Lockaby's tiny Public Security Force. He found out who I really was when I filed an iris-print at his office along with my application for permanent-resident status.
Jake was an aging, potbellied, pragmatic sort of cop with an air of melancholic disillusion, doing the best he could with minimal resources on a backwater planet far from the center of the Commonwealth. He kept my secret, only now and again picking what was left of my brains when some matter involving Concern sharp practice crossed his desk. I gave him my grudging cooperation for as long as I lived on the Big Beach because I suspected that he was another man who'd been shafted somewhere along the line and tossed into the discard. All the same, it was a relief when I finally earned enough credit to be able to move to Eyebrow Cay in the Out Islands, far away from Jake's well-meaning attempts to make a new man of me and restore my citizenship.
Who needed it? I'd spent nearly a third of my life trying to stem the tide of commercialized corruption in the Human Commonwealth of Worlds and accomplished next to nothing. Every year the elected government got more feeble and the Hundred Concerns got stronger, tightening their grip on the galactic economy. Within another decade Big Business would control every aspect of human civilization, eliminating the last remnants of political opposition as efficiently as it had eliminated me.
Fuck 'em all. Throwaway status suited me just fine.
On Eyebrow Cay, a couple of thousand kilometers west of the Big Beach, I hired Pernio out to the more venturesome sport divers and completed my rehabilitation. The skippers of the local mosquito fleet and the other island denizens were a laid-back lot, and I forged genuine friendships for the first time.
I lived on the sub until I could afford to buy cheapo domiciliary modules, then built myself a neat little house with a really handsome bathroom and kitchen. Its front porch had a beautiful view of the water and invisible screening to keep the jellybugs and stinkmoths at bay. I wove mats for the floors and painted sincere, klutzy seascapes for the walls. Piece by piece I assembled chef-quality cooking equipment, learned how to use it, and achieved a state of domestic competence that would have astounded my long-suffering ex-wife, Joanna.
At night, when the stars of the Perseus Spur winked and twinkled amid the comets, I would sit on the porch in my handmade wicker chair sipping my allocated single highball of the day, now made with genuine bootleg terrestrial corn squeezings, and look for the bright, nearby star that shone on Tyrins, Eve's planet. Sometimes I'd make a stab at finding as many of the other sixty-three Rampart World suns as I could, brooding over what my life might have been if I'd done as my father had demanded, instead of following my own stubborn aspirations and ending up consummately screwed.
The damned sea monster with the perverted appetite started me on the road to finding out.
Chapter 2
I gave Kofi the helm and frantically started punching the phone, trying to raise my neighbor, Mimo Bermudez, to find out what had happened. Unlike most of the shady residents of Eyebrow Cay, Bermudez was a fully enfranchised citizen of the Commonwealth of Human Worlds and a man of considerable substance. He did not advertise the fact. His modest thatch-roofed bungalow, a few hundred meters down the beach from where my own house had once stood, seemed untouched by monsters.
After a few minutes he answered and I said, "It's Helly. I'm just offshore in Pernio, heading in. What in the name of God is going on?" I thumbed the speaker so Kofi would be able to hear.
"I—I was gonna call you." The old man's usually formal diction was frazzled. "Right after Oren and I finished this pitcher of margaritas."
"I could use one myself. Tell me about it."
"The toad came up out of the sea with no warning at all. About half an hour ago. It—It just licked your house off the stilts and devoured it. Like crunching up a nacho! Nothing Oren or I could do."
"Is the brute dead? I didn't see any movement through the ocs."
"I zapped it with my Claus-Gewitter. Helly, what can I say? That beautiful place you worked so hard to build! All your things! Of course you're welcome to stay with me for as long as you like."
"Yeah. I may take you up on that." Something that I hadn't experienced for a long time began stirring deep inside me. "Listen Mimo. You guys spread the bad news yet?"
"No. We were waiting for the margaritas to take hold."
"Well, I'd like you to keep this to yourselves until I get there."
"If you say so, amigo. I presume you have your reasons."
"Yes."
"Oren thinks we might be able to salvage some of your things if we open up the beast before the corrosive stomach liquids do too much damage. We'll need a heavy-duty cutter and a winch, and probably some protective garb and other stuff. Shall I call Sal?"
"I'll take care of that. But I can sure use a hand if—if—"
I fell silent as a crazy certainty exploded in my mind like a skyrocket. Suddenly I knew what could have caused the sea toad to behave in such a bizarre way.
"Mimo, let me talk to Oren for a second."
I brushed aside the commiserations of Oren Vinyard, another Throwaway friend, and asked him to nip over to his place and fetch a certain piece of equipment, if he had it available.
"I can cobble one together in five minutes once my bloody hands stop shaking," Oren said. "But why in the world do you need it?"
"Indulge the whim of a homeless man," I told him. "I'll be there as soon as I can." I put the handset into my back pocket and met Kofi's eyes.
"Damn shame, Helly. I'll help with the salvage, too. Of all the shitty freak accidents—"
"If it was," I muttered. The small hot knot of anger that had kindled north of my solar plexus was starting to spread, tensing my muscles and quickening my heart.
"What d'you mean—If?" Kofi's mahogany face was skeptical. "You think somebody sent the toadster an engraved invitation?"
I only grunted, took back the wheel, and didn't say another word until we tied up at my slip. With Kofi's boat hauled for repairs, Pernio was the only sub at the docks, a yellow shark shape in the midst of a motley crowd of sailing dinghies, cat-boats, fore-and-aft-rig fishermen, and fusion-motor trawlers belonging to the locals. A few yachts owned by transients were moored at the public dock. Gumercindo Hucklebury, the marina owner, was pumping jewel-fuel into Glasha Ro-manova's classic wooden fishing smack, Katopua. She had on a microscopic scarlet bikini. We exchanged waves. A few male tourists hung around the quay admiring Glasha and watching Seedy McGready mend his nets. Two windsurfers were tinkering with their disassembled sailboards. A little old lady was studying flyspecked souvenir items in the window at Mulhollands Mercantile. A honeymoon couple lounged on the deck in fron
t of Jinj & Peachy's Bed & Breakfast, looking at the sunset.
My five sports, who hadn't been told anything about the sea toad disaster, came topside, gathered their things, and trooped down Pernio's gangplank.
Bronson Elgar had changed into a crisply pressed black jumpsuit with a natty silk scarf at the neck. He bared his teeth in a tight smile. "See you again, maybe, Cap'n Helly." His colorless voice rang no gongs, nor did his walk as he sauntered away, carrying his heavy gear without effort. The only striking thing about him was the odd set of his eyes—the main facial feature that a superficial genplas makeover can't alter.
He'd done it, all right.
And his mocking little promise meant that he'd come back and finish the job someday. Seething with renascent fury, I watched Elgar climb into Kofi's van. If only Pernio had arrived in port a quarter hour later, and the five men had missed the last air shuttle! But there was no way I could detain him now while I checked out my suspicions, short of locking him (and the other four, who might be accessories and were certainly witnesses) in the sub and fomenting a calamitous flap. The sports were all well-heeled citizens and I was nobody. It was Kofi's job to drive clients to the hopper pad, only a kilometer away. He whispered that he'd meet me at the site of my late abode after he put the men on their flight. When his van was gone, I cast Pernio off again and mooched across the harbor basin to Sal Faustino's boatyard.
I found her at supper in her open-air kitchen shack, dressed in a paint-splattered coverall and devouring a great bowl of frutti di mare. She dropped her fork with a howl of dismay when I told her my bad news. Her sublimated maternal instincts kicked in and she clapped me to her pneumatic bosom, crooning comfort, cursing my misfortune, and demanding to know what she could do to help. I pulled free of her embrace with some effort. I'm no middleweight, but Sal's square form outweighs mine by over ten kilos of solid muscle. She is the best marine engineer in the Out Islands, with a heart sweeter than rozkoz, a temper to melt diamond drill bits, and an outstanding arrest warrant for manslaughter on Farallon-Zander.
I said, "Can you let me borrow some halide lamps, a port-a-winch, an antigrav toter, and a Randall torch? Mimo and Oren and Kofi are ready to help me open the toad up and save what we can. We could also use some envirosuits and a couple of Scott Air-Paks. The critter's guts will be awash with hydrochloric acid and God knows what else."
"Take anything, boy! The hazmat soakers, too, if you want 'em.-How about I come over myself with the tugboat, help you tow the remains out to sea?"
"I'd appreciate that. Give us a few hours to salvage whatever hasn't been digested."
And also let me check out my suspicions.
Sal took hold of my face, pulled it down and planted a wet smack on my forehead. "Don't you fret, Helly. Eyebrow Cay takes care of its own. I'll organize a gang to rebuild your house, scrounge up furniture and whatever else you need. Count on it."
I thanked her sincerely. The flip side of free, easygoing Kedge-Lockaby is that nobody in authority would give a good goddamn about my little catastrophe. Any relief would have to come from the charity of my friends.
After I had loaded the necessary salvage items into Pernio, I puttered over to my cove. En route I used the phone to get in touch with Jake Silver. "Do me a big favor," I said, "and find out whatever you can about one Bronson Elgar, guest at the Nikko Luxor. He'll be returning to the Big Beach starport within the half hour."
"Why should I?" The Superintendent was ever gracious.
"Because I think he just tried to kill me."
"Kill who?" the tired voice inquired with testy irony. "The fish-flickin' fool who calls himself Helmut Icicle ... or the picture that's turned to the wall in a certain stately hacienda back on Earth?"
"Take your choice."
"Tell me about this attempted homicide."
When I did, Jake broke into derisive chortles.
"Enjoy yourself, Superintendent," I said. "Then remember who showed you how to deal with those redskin sharpshooters from Infinitum Concern who were ready to take over the Kedgeree Kasino last year. If that pair had clinched the deal, the budgets of half the schools on K-L would've gone down in flames."
"Yeah, yeah. But if this Elgar is staying at the Luxor, he's nobody to play games with. He could even be connected. I'm not laying my department open to Concern intervention. Especially not for the likes of you, Hell-Butt."
"I'm not asking you to collar him. Just discreetly run his name and his credit card code through the sifter. This is no joke, dammit!"
Jake gave a conciliatory growl. "I'll do what I can and get back to you."
I brought the sub as close to the beach as I dared, set out a couple of anchors, and went ashore in the inflatable. The stranded monster was the size of a small warehouse, a glistening mound in the dusk. Inland, the snapped-off pilings that had formerly held my house stuck up from the sand like broken teeth. The porch steps were still there, leading nowhere. There was slimy mucus all over the place, and a pungent stench filled the air. I recalled that sea toads liked to give their captured prey a preliminary spritz of corrosive, enzyme-laden saliva.
Mimo Bermudez was waiting, his seamy Don Quixote face contorted by indignation and his white hair flying in all directions like an electrified sheepdog. He handed me a large mug of tequila and citrus and clapped me on the shoulder in silent sympathy. His full name is Guillermo Javier Bermudez Obregon, and he is a long-retired, long-widowed transport captain who likes to soak up rays on the beach and sip tropical distillations while plugged into transgalactic soccer games. He keeps his astrogational skills honed by flying contraband from Earth and the Concern planets into Perseus Spur worlds. He is also my closest friend on K-L.
We stood side by side in the fading sunset, staring up at the revolting corpse of the sea toad. Its clawed flippers, over two meters long, had dug broad trenches in the sand as the animal hauled itself onshore. Delicate knob-studded antennae on jointed stalks were almost retracted back into the creature's warty, barnacloid-encrusted head. The protruding eyes, big as watermelons and uncomfortably human in structure, were wide open and glassy in death. Just above them were two oozing burn-holes a centimeter wide. Captain Bermudez— handy in repelling interstellar hijackers—had neatly drilled both brains with shots from a photon beamer. The thing's incredible mouth, through which two subs the size of Pernio could have cruised abreast, was held slightly open by the crumpled mast and sponsons of Mimo's red Hobie catamaran. I had been rerigging the little boat for him in the area behind my house, and the toad must have snapped it up for dessert. Maybe it thought the poor cat was a deformed ruby prawn, its legitimate nocturnal prey.
"You want to give me the whole story?" I asked.
"Oren and I were taking it easy in hammocks on my veranda. I was linked into Uruguay versus Vonnegut-Two and he was listening to my Charlie Barnet collection. There was a jumongo splash. I fell out of my hammock. The creature was there, as you see it now, half out of the water. I lay like a paralytic and watched while its tongue tentacles took hold of your home and swallowed it. Oren was screaming like a madman. He said it would come for us next. At last my senile brain rebooted. I ran into the house, grabbed a long gun, and shot the damned thing dead. Oren puked his guts out and I nearly lost it myself."
"Christ."
Mimo lifted his bony shoulders in a fatalistic shrug. "Thank him for your deliverance. As I recall, the vomeropalatine bone in the roof of the sea toad's mouth is studded with hundreds of sharp spikes the size of baseball bats. You would have surely died inside your crushed house if you had come home at the usual time."
"Yes," I agreed quietly.
A clapped-out old Toyota four-wheeler swung off the marl road and rattled down the beach toward us. Oren Vin-yard was at the wheel, looking as though he'd just stuck his head under the tap. Water dripped from his fair hair and his face was still greenish. "I got the ultrasound detector. Where shall I set it up?"
Oren's ramshackle dwelling is crammed with defunct and sporadical
ly operational high-tech gadgets. These are scavenged from Big Beach sources by impoverished Dumpster-divers, who are paid a pittance by Oren for each piece of junk. The stuff is shipped back to the islands as ballast in the holds of local fishing boats, and Oren repairs and sells what he can and survives on the proceeds. He was born in a British hamlet called Nether Wallop ("Not to be confused with Middle Wallop or Over Wallop"), and once upon a time he was a top energen physicist for Sheltok Concern on Erytheia. His wife came down with Percival's syndrome, and Sheltok's CMO refused to authorize an expensive experimental treatment. After she died, mild little Oren punched the Concern medical evalu-ator to a bloody pulp and fatally fritzed the fusion generator prototype his unit had been working on. He served his prison term, paid his whopping fine, was Thrown Away, and ended up on Kedge-Lockaby with the rest of us flotsam-and-jetsamites.
"Get close to the toad," I told him, "and do the sweep pronto. I think there's a sonic generator inside this beast—if it hasn't already melted into slag. Look for emissions about 120 kilohertz."
Oren powered up a dirty black box with a tiny dingus on top, poked a few of its control pads, and aimed it at the dead monster.
"Ah. There you are, Helly! Intermittent modulation at 122 to 131, with complex harmonics at higher frequencies. You want to hear it? Let me bring the noise down into human auditory range." He tickled the controls again.
Kofi Rutherford came trotting up just as the black box let off a series of ear-splitting stuttering whoops. A flock of elvis-birds exploded out of the nearby mint palms, wailing like singed cats. Mimo Bermudez flinched. Oren turned the gain down hastily.
"What the hell was that?" Kofi yelped.
"The sea toad's dinner bell," I said. The box warbled on, pianissimo. "What we're hearing is the song of some kind of large and undoubtedly very tasty marine life-form, being broadcast from a portable transmitter now in the toad's tummy. I had a hunch that was the way the critter got lured ashore. See those knobby things above the eyes? Antennae for hunting pelagic prey—the kind that floats on the surface and gives off ultrasonic music. Like giant peacock eels or pink elephant slugs."