“That is the best plan yet,” said Ero Shan.
“I don’t like the idea of going off and leaving you two,” demurred Duare.
“It is our only chance,” I told her; “but if Vik-yor doesn’t come back, we’ll not have even this chance.”
“Vik-yor will come back,” said Duare. It’s amazing how well women know males—even male amoebae—for Vik-yor did come back. It was a couple of days before he came—two days of agonizing uncertainty. I could almost have hugged him when I saw him sidling in our direction. He was pretending to be deeply interested in some other exhibits. I don’t know why I keep calling it he; but I suppose that when you know something has fallen in love with your wife, you just naturally don’t think of it as it.
Anyway, it finally reached us. Paying no attention to Ero Shan or me, it hesitated before Duare. “Oh, you’re back, Vik-yor!” she exclaimed; “I am so glad to see you. You’ve changed your mind, haven’t you? You’re going to let us all go away with you, out into that beautiful world I have told you about.”
“No,” said Vik-yor. “I will take you, but not the others; and if you will not come willingly, I intend to poison these two at the same time that I poison the guards; then you’ll have to come with me alone, or be killed; for when Vik-vik-vik discovers that the effects of the poison have worn off, he will have you destroyed.”
“Go with him, Duare,” I said; “never mind us.”
Vik-yor looked at me in surprise. “Maybe I have been mistaken in you,” it said.
“You certainly have,” Duare assured it. “Carson is a very nice person, and we really should have him along in case we get into trouble; he’s an excellent swordsman.”
“No!” snapped Vik-yor. “I know why you want him along; you like him better than you do me. That is why I was going to poison him anyway before we left, but now I may change my mind.”
“You’d better,” exclaimed Duare, vehemently, “for if you harm him in any way, I’ll kill you! Do you understand that? I’ll go with you, but only on condition that no harm comes to Carson of Venus or Ero Shan.”
“Very well,” agreed Vik-yor. “I want you to like me; so I’ll do all that I can to please you—except take these two with us.”
“Is the anotar all right?” she asked him. “Have the people damaged it in any way?”
“It is all right,” replied Vik-yor; “it stands in the plaza just where you left it.”
“And the part that fell off—do you know where that is?”
“Yes, and I can get it any time I wish; all I have to do is take poisoned wine to the home of the one who found it.”
“When will you come for me?” asked Duare.
“Tonight,” replied Vik-yor.
XXXV
“Your boy friend is the de’ Medici of the amoebae,” I remarked after Vik-yor had left us.
“It is horrible!” exclaimed Duare. “I shall feel like a murderess myself.”
“You will be an accessory before the fact,” I twitted her, “and so, equally guilty.”
“Please don’t joke about it,” she begged.
“I am sorry,” I said, “but to me these creatures are not human; poisoning them would be the same to me as spraying oil on a stagnant pond to kill off mosquito larvae.”
“Yes,” added Ero Shan; “don’t let it depress you; think of what they have done to us; they deserve no consideration nor pity from us.”
“I suppose you are right,” admitted Duare; “but, right or wrong, I’m going through with it.”
The remainder of that day dragged on like a bad dream in clay up to one’s knees. When no sightseers or guards were near us, we went over our plans again and again. I urged on Duare the advisability of attempting to make at least a crude map of the country she would cover while searching for Sanara. She could estimate distances rather closely by the ground speed of the anotar, and her compass would give her direction at all times. By noting all outstanding landmarks on her map, she would be able to turn over to Taman some very valuable data for the rescue expedition.
Of course we had no idea of the distance to Sanara. Anlap, the land mass on which it was located, might be a relatively small island, or it might be a continent; I was inclined to think that it was the latter; Sanara might be three thousand or five thousand miles from Voo-ad. Even were it close, it might take Duare a long time to find it; you can’t land any old place on Amtor and ask directions, even when there is any one to ask. Duare would have to find Sanara and recognize it before she would dare land. She might be a year finding it; she might never find it. As she would have to come down occasionally for food and water, there would always be the risk of her being captured or killed—and then there was Vik-yor! I certainly was going to be in for a lot of worrying—maybe for years; maybe for the rest of my life—worry and vain regret.
At long last night fell. More hours passed, and Vik-yor did not come. Only the guards remained in the museum—the guards and the living dead. A basto bellowed. How the dickens they ever got some of the big beasts they had on exhibit, I’ll never know. A basto stands fully six feet tall at the shoulder and weighs twelve hundred pounds or more. Singing and dancing around one of them and throwing flowers at it wouldn’t get you anything but a goring; then it would eat you.
The bellowing of the basto started off the rest of the lower animals, including the nobargans, which growl and roar like beasts. We were treated to a diapason of savage discord for fully an hour; then they stopped as unaccountably as they had started.
“Your boy friend must have got cold feet,” I remarked to Duare.
“Why would cold feet keep him from coming?” she wanted to know.
“I keep forgetting that you’re not from the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
“Where’s that?” asked Ero Shan.
“It is bounded on the north by Canada, on the south by the Rio Grande, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, and on the west by the Pacific.”
“That must be in deepest Strabol,” said Ero Shan, “for I never heard of one of those places.”
“Here comes Vik-yor!” exclaimed Duare, excitedly.
“Your gigolo comes!” I said, rather nastily I’m afraid.
“What is a gigolo?” asked Duare.
“A form of life lower than an amoeba.”
“I am afraid that you do not like Vik-yor, my darling,” said Duare.
“I am glad that there was a comma in your voice at the right place,” I said.
“Don’t be silly,” said Duare.
I am inclined to believe that every one as much in love as I am with Duare waxes silly occasionally. Of course, I knew that Duare loved me; I knew that I could trust her to the ends of the world—but! That is a funny thing about love—that but. The thought that that pussy, amoebic neuter was in love with her, or as nearly so as the thing could understand love, and that it was going to be with her for an indefinite time, while I hung on a wall, dead from the neck down, got my goat. If you are a man and if you are in love, you will know just how I felt.
Vik-yor was carrying a jug. Knowing what was in the jug would have given me a strange sensation, if I could have felt any sensations; but I did fell disgust for the sneaking thing that would take the life of its own fellows.
He came up to Duare. “Is it all arranged?” she asked—“the anotar? the propeller?”
“Yes,” it replied; “and we are very fortunate, for tonight Vik-vik-vik is giving a banquet; and every one will be so drunk that we can get away without being detected.”
“You have the antidote?”
It withdrew a small vial from one of its pocket pouches and held it up to her. “This is it.”
“Give me some right away,” begged Duare.
“Not yet; I must remove the guards first;” then he raised the jug to his lips and pretended to drink.
One of the guards drew near. “Oh,” said the guard, “you are Vik-yor! I thought some one had come in that was not permitted after closing hours. We are always glad to see royalty interested in the exhibits.”