Pratia had stopped threading. “All of them,” she said.
Unwillingly, with my back to her, I removed the rest.
“Now lie down on your back,” she said. “If you’re so modest, you can cover yourself with the sheet.”
Although she was watching, she was still in the chair. It made me brave. I lay down on my back. I pulled the sheet over me.
Pratia let out a sigh. And then she said, “All right, girls, you can come in.”
Through the door, giggling, came two girls!
I instantly pulled the sheet up to my throat!
“These are my great-granddaughters Asa and Lik,” said Pratia.
Asa was about twenty-one. She was quite thin. She was quite pretty. She had green eyes and straw-colored hair.
Lik was about nineteen. She was plumper. She was very pretty. She, too, had green eyes and straw-colored hair.
“Girls,” said Pratia, “this is a real, live author named Monte Pennwell. Isn’t he nice?”
The girls promptly began to get out of their clothes, shedding them with an alarming speed.
I hysterically pulled the sheet up over my head!
“Now, don’t get alarmed,” Pratia said to me. “They are both virgins. I wouldn’t dream of letting them indulge in actual sex. I am just making sure I am bringing them up right. We’re very proper people: I wouldn’t condone letting them touch their brothers and it’s almost never that we get a nice young man to practice on.”
“No,” I said in a panic, surging up. “I’d better go!”
Pratia smiled that strange, intense smile. “No practice, no story,” she said. “And it’s some story, I assure you.”
I steeled myself. I was an investigative reporter, I told myself. If I were going to be true to my craft, I must not flinch at the little bumps in the road. I lay back down.
Suddenly, Asa’s face was looming over me. “Now, all I’m going to do,” she said, “is just give you a nice kiss. Boys and girls kiss all the time, so there’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”
I shook my head, not really knowing if I was agreeing with her or telling her not to do it.
She put her palms on my cheeks and gave me a nice, gentle kiss. At least it seemed so. But an electric thrill went through me.
Asa drew back. She was sitting on her heels beside me. “Now you see? Just a simple, innocent kiss.”
Pratia had stopped knitting. Her blue eyes were very intense. Her tongue was playing along her upper lip.
Asa leaned over me again. I could not see much through the screen of her straw-colored hair. She was kissing me on the cheek.
I felt my toes clench. My heels straightened out with a jerk.
Asa was sitting back, looking down at me, grinning.
I raised my head and looked around, startled. Where was Lik?
The girl’s bare feet were visible on the floor, heels up, on the other side of the bed.
I felt my eyes roll right up into the top of my skull as a shuddering groan filled the room.
Asa giggled.
Pratia smiled happily.
Lik, kneeling on the other side of the bed, pulled her head out from under the sheet. “Oh, boy!” she panted. “That was goooooooood!”
Pratia began threading hoops again. “You’ve been a nicely behaved boy, Monte Pennwell. So you just lie still and I will tell you the story of Relax Island.”
IX
It all begins,” said Pratia, threading small rings with her needle, “about five years after the ascension of Emperor Mortiiy to the throne.
“Things were very calm in the whole Confederacy. There was prosperity. A great deal of building was in progress. Practically everyone had forgotten all about Hisst and certainly, since it had had no publicity in the first place, Relax Island was the furthest thing from anybody’s mind.
“Then one day, right here at the gate, a fisherman showed up from the Western Ocean shore. He was an old man and very brown, very ragged and poor. He had walked all the way from the village of Wayl, a distance of nearly five hundred miles.
“He wouldn’t talk to anybody but me, so they brought him out to the summerhouse where I was and he stood there twisting his shade hat around and around and he said he had a message for me. And would I pay?
“I told him that depended. He fished into a straw bag he had and brought out a sealed glass canister. He held it near me but wouldn’t let go of it.
“I looked through the glass and read, ‘If whoever finds this message will take it to Pratia Tayl, Minx Estates, Pausch Hills, she will give him two hundred credits.’
“That’s a lot of money. He said that he had found the bottle floating off the breakwater at Wayl. My curiosity got the better of me. I paid him and he gave me the canister and went away.
“I cut the seal and spilled the whole roll of paper into my hand. I spread it out. It said:
Tell Papers Headline
HUGE PLAGUE WIPING OUT RELAX ISLAND
POPULATION DYING LIKE FLIES
The exile colony of Queen Teenie, Hostage Monarch of Flisten, not only imperiled but doomed!
Unburied dead littering the roads are making an unbearable stench.
The piteous moan of infants rends the air.
Death stalks from the crown of Mount Teon down to the southernmost cliff, planting its crushing hooves into the guts and brains of this defenseless and shuddering population.
No medical supplies exist.
Unless immediate help is received, there is no hope.
PS: For God’s sakes, get this to the papers, Pratia!
“Well, you can imagine the shock I went into! I instantly got on the viewer-phone. I showed the message. I called editor after editor, publisher after publisher.
“Some reporters came out and I showed it to them along with the canister.
“And then you know what happened?
“NOTHING!
“The next day, there wasn’t a single mention of it in the papers, not ONE line! Oh, I was upset.
“Now, you know that by this time Prahd, although he was the King’s Own Physician, didn’t have too much to do. Mortiiy was very healthy and Prahd had finished cleaning up the removed Lords long since. Cling was still alive but he had special nurses. So Prahd, to while away the time, opened the little hospital here as a cellology beauty clinic for the dowagers and women of Pausch Hills. He was here three days a week and when he next came, I showed him the message.
“He scratched his head. He looked at the date on the message and saw it was only two weeks old and he said there might yet be time. He viewer-phoned Palace City to try to get hold of that BEAUTIFUL man, Jettero Heller—Duke of Manco is his right name now, but I always think of him as dear Jettero, such a LOVELY man. Such grace . . .Where was I? Oh, yes.
“But dear Jettero—I certainly would love to talk to him someday. I have to worship him from afar. You have connections, Monte. Someday could you introduce me?”
“It’s possible,” I said, lying there naked between the two girls. “But please, please, tell me!”
“Oh, goodie. Anyway, dear Jettero was on some kind of a tour to way off at the other end of the Confederacy and nobody knew when he’d be back. The Grand Council was meeting only once a month and that was three weeks off.
“Prahd didn’t dare approach Mortiiy about it, of course, but he has lots of influence. And he contacted the Lord of Health who, in view of the emergency, cleared it with Planetary Defense.
“Prahd didn’t want to go right in with a big medical team and cause a stir, so he got a Royal ambulance and, when I volunteered, he disguised me as his nurse and . . . What’s the matter, Asa?”
X
Asa had been sobbing quietly for some time but I had not given it much attention. Now she said, brokenly, “Lik had some and I didn’t. I’m all hot and frustrated and I think I’m going to have a nervous breakdown. I’m lying here next to him and I ACHE!”
“Oh, dear,” said Pratia in quick sympathy. “By all means, go ahead: I co
uldn’t live with myself if I tortured children.”
Asa moaned her thanks.
Lik popped up and looked down into my face. “I also feel deprived. I didn’t get a chance to give him a nice kiss.”
I turned my head away from her.
“Oh, come now, Monte Pennwell,” said Lik. “Certainly a kiss never hurt anyone, especially from a girl who prides herself on being chaste.”
Pratia grinned expectantly and sat forward in her chair.
I turned my head back, offering my cheek.
Pratia was beginning to pant.
My eyes went round! Asa’s groan filled the room.
Pratia’s needle and hoops were crushed between her quivering hands.
Lik gave me a gentle pat upon the cheek. “Now, you see?” she said, “It didn’t hurt a bit. You are a good boy, Monte.”
“Oh, he is that,” said Asa, panting.
“Gran-gran, can’t we hear this story another time?” said Lik.
“No, no!” I said. “Please, please. What happened on the island?”
Pratia blinked her eyes a few times and then got back to putting her needle through hoops once more.
She sighed. “So we got passed by Planetary Defense and we landed on the island.
“You never saw such a peaceful scene. The flowers were blooming and beautiful, the air was very soft. The palace steps were burnished, the paths were swept. And here and there in the little nooks, catamites were making love to each other.
“They hadn’t even noticed that we landed! Thinking it was because we were at the palace back door and that no one had spotted the ambulance—since Prahd had driven quietly—we rushed in through the palace.
“We rushed up a stairs and down a hall.
“Five officers were sitting there outside Queen Teenie’s bedchamber. Their senior saw us and held up his hand. He frowned.
“‘No, no’ he said, ‘you can’t go in. We’re just now changing the guard.’
“There was a shuffling sound on the other side of the door. It opened and five officers marched out adjusting their clothes.
“The senior in the corridor saluted the senior coming out. He said, ‘We are here to relieve you, sir. Is there anything we should know?’
“The officer who had been in charge of the watch finished buttoning his tunic. ‘It’s warmer than usual. My advice is to advance to the attack at once.’
“Before the relieving officer could answer, Prahd swept him aside and we rushed into the room.
“Teenie was lying on her bed. Five years hadn’t changed her much and she still wore her ponytail. A beautiful smile was on her mouth and she was stretching lazily. Then she saw us!
“She leaped up and rushed over. She was in total alarm!
“‘You’re from the mainland!’ she cried. ‘What’s wrong? You’re in doctor’s clothes. Is somebody sick?’
“We showed her the message and she blew up. She swore for a full two minutes without stopping. Then she went into action.
“She got on some clothes—something they call a bikini top—and she grabbed a piece of chain and she assembled five real guards. We got into the ambulance and at her direction went roaring down to the south end of the island.
“Apparently Madison and a gang he’d had lived in a village there, miles and miles from the palace and on the edge of a cliff. It was very picturesque; the houses had thatched roofs and tile floors. We stopped in front of the biggest one: it had a sign on it that said “Press Office,” but it was where Madison lived.
“A woman came out whose name, I gathered, was Flip. She tried to kneel but Teenie went right by her.
“Madison was lying on the bed. Teenie threw the message at him. He looked at it and then at her. He tried to get up!
“WHAM! She hit him with the chain and knocked him right back in bed!
“‘You son of a (bleepch),’ she screamed at him. ‘Are you trying to get us evacuated out of here?’ And she hit him again. Then she started hitting the furniture and she nearly wrecked the place!
“The woman Flip was wailing at Prahd and it was an awful row.
“And you know what the plague was? Madison had a cold!
“When the scene calmed down a little, Prahd, as long as he was there, examined him. ‘The cold,’ he said, ‘is just an allergy. You’re allergic to something here.’
“And Madison said, talking in a whisper to Prahd, ‘I’m allergic to no headlines.’
“Teenie heard him and sailed in again. ‘That’s all you ever talk about, you (bleepard)! I’ll give you a headline!’ and she hit him across the skull with the chain, slashing it open.
“That seemed to satisfy Teenie and she went outside and started lambasting some of Madison’s crew for letting Madison make trouble.
“Madison broke down and wept. ‘All my genius is gone,’ he said. ‘Ever since I began to sleep with Flip, I am deserted by real ideas. I started to PR the governor and almost got him executed and then Teenie found out and put me in a dungeon for three awful weeks. I’m a failure. I can’t even get a minor revolt going! She won’t even let me start up a paper!’
“Well, Prahd sewed up his head and consoled him and he even gave him some gas he could sniff so he wouldn’t be so impotent with Flip and that was the end of the plague.
“But you know Prahd. Or maybe you don’t. But he can always find something wrong with people’s cells. Here we were with an ambulance chock-full of medical supplies and an estimated week to handle a plague and no plague to handle. But there were five thousand people or maybe six with warts and such and their staff doctor was nowhere near as good as Prahd, so they started going through the villages shaping people up.
“They didn’t need my help so I moved in with Teenie and we had a great old time gossiping. I was younger then, you know, and I really enjoyed myself.
“I’d lie on one bed and Teenie would lie on the other and we talked and talked about everything under the sun, moon and stars.”
Pratia let out a deep sigh of fond nostalgia. “Ooooh! Those officers!”
“Wait a minute,” I said, propping myself up between the two girls, “Didn’t Prahd get jealous?”
“Prahd? Oh, Monte, you are so naïve. Prahd has never touched me. He’s a cellologist and it’s against his professional ethics to (bleep) his patients. And I’ve been a patient of his for ages!”
“But all your children have green eyes and straw hair,” I protested. “I know from the record that your first child by Gris had green eyes and straw hair. . . .”
“And so did the second,” said Pratia. “Oh, I see. You didn’t know that I conceived on my nuptial night at the Royal prison.” She smiled in fond memory. “What a night! And two months later, there I was, pregnant. Wonderful.”
Asa murmured, “Go on and finish telling him the story, Gran-gran. I always love to hear it.”
Lik was playing with the hair on my chest. “Yes, go ahead, Gran-gran. You’re just getting to the good part.”
“Oh, yes,” said Pratia. “Well, anyway, I suddenly noticed I was using up my quota of officers much, much faster than Teenie. I have always been a believer in conservation, so one night when we took a break for dinner, I asked her what that was all about.
“And she said, ‘It’s spots.’
“And I said, ‘What spots?’
“And she said, ‘The spots you touch.’
“And I said, ‘Well, I never! Tell me more!’
“Now, it seems she’d been trained by somebody called Hong Kong whore, some professor at some high institute of learning, and she could make her body do the wildest things internally and she knew all the nerves in somebody else’s body and all the spots to touch. She showed me and it was absolutely marvelous! I’d never heard of such a thing.
“So I got to thinking and I asked around and I found out they were short of fuel bars and would run out in a few months. They were cut off from all communication with the outside, but Teenie wasn’t too worried until I pointed out tha
t the little rods she used to train the women with wouldn’t work anymore.
“So I made a deal with her. I would get her twenty tons of fuel bars, enough for fifty years at least, if she would teach me all these tricks.
“Prahd was straightening teeth and ingrown toenails and he’d found that some of the inhabitants were descendants from the Teon sea people of ages back, so it wasn’t too hard to get him to report that the plague was under control but would take another couple weeks.