He exploded inside the red-haired ass of the creature.
The intensity of the orgasm was such that, afterwards, he feltalmost forgiving. Almost but not quite.
Panting, he lay for a while on top of the wet and hairy body.
Then he got off the bed and seized its neck between his hands. Itwas as tall and almost as heavy as he, but it was terrified. Its brown eyesbulged outas its air was squeezed off, and its paws flailed.
Childe turned, swinging it off its feet, and then dragged it byits ears to the door. He shouted until the door was opened and then he shoved thething outwith a kick just under its long bushy tail. The three who received itlooked shocked.
"That'll be the last trick you play on me!" he shouted. "Where ismy wife? You had better produce Sybil, and quick, or you'll get nothing out ofme anymore! No matter what you do!"
The thing got off the floor, rubbing its spine with a paw, andwhined. It said something, but the shape of the mouth was not appropriate forhuman speech.
"Kill it!" Childe shouted. "Kill it and prove to me that you did! And then bring me Sybil, my wife, alive and well!"
The door was swung inwards and locked. He raged around the roomfor a while. Finally, he burst into tears and wept for a long time. Then he got upand took a shower and dressed again. Pao and the big Swedish-type blond, O'Brien, entered.
CHAPTER 40
At nine that evening, Forry Ackerman and four Tocs, includingAlys Merrie, set out for their rendezvous. Forry had had to exercise hisimagination to therupture point to explain to Wendy why he wasn't going to the monthlysoiree with her and to the host and hostess why he couldn't make it. He didn'tthink he satisfied anybody with his excuses, but certainly they were far moresatisfactory than the truth.
The rain had stopped for several hours after five o'clock, andsome of the clouds overhead thinned out. Then darkness and lightning had movedback in and thunder had come. A half hour later, it began raining savagely.
Every TV channel was filled with news of the damage done by thefloods and the lives lost. The radio seemed to talk of little else between bursts of rock music. Over two thousand homes had had to be abandoned. At least that number were in danger of sliding down a hill or being floated away. Most ofthe canyonswere closed even to those who lived in them. The rivulets and brooks roaringdown from the hills had become small rivers and frighteningtidewaters. The Basin and the San Fernando Valley were sometimes knee-deep in water. Business was at a standstill; most of the bus lines had quit running. Thegovernor hadfinally declared the three counties a disaster area. Citizens werescreamingabout flood control, and an insurance man was gunned down by anenraged citizenwho had lost his home under an avalanche of mud.
The grocery stores were beginning to run short of supplies. Therewas water contamination and a backing up of the sewers. Despite the almostcontinuous rains, fires were numerous, and one fire truck, answering thetwentieth call that day, dropped into a tremendous hole created by the torrentsslamming downfrom the hills. No one was drowned, but the truck was lost.
Just before he left, Forry received a call from Wendy. The partyhad been called off, even though most of the guests lived within a few milesof the house where the monthly party of science-fiction people and normals wasbeing held. Itshould have been canceled days before, but the hostess was unusuallystubborn.
He sighed with relief. Telling the lies had burdened him down, and at the same time he resented the burden. Why should he worry about breakingan engagement for a party when the fate of the world depended on what heand the Tocs did tonight? Nevertheless, he did worry.
Hindarf drove a pickup truck which was several times in waterhigher thanthe wheels. At Sunset and Beverly Drive, he pulled to the curb. Asemi with a big van came along five minutes later and stopped with a hissing ofair brakes. They got down out of the pickup and waded through water halfway uptheir thighsto the van. They had to hold on to each other to keep from beingswept off theirfeet by the current. A piece of timber, which looked as if it hadbeen a postfor a billboard, swept by them. If it had struck a leg, it would havecracked the bone.
There were twenty others in the van. The back doors were closed, and the truck pulled away. With its high body and its power, it should getthrough waterwhich would drown out an automobile.
On the way, Hindarf gave them instructions. Apparently, everybodyexceptForry had heard these before, but he was making sure that theyunderstood them. The instructions took about fifteen minutes, and the putting on ofthe divingsuits, flippers, tanks and goggles about ten. Forry objected that hehad never been scuba diving but was told that he would be underwater for only aminute. The main reason they were wearing the suits was to keep from gettingcold while they went through the water.
The truck stopped on a steep slope. The doors were opened and asmall ladder let down for Forry while the others leaped out onto the road. Theywere parkedon Topanga Canyon just outside the entrance to the road that ran upto the house of the Ogs. The brown flood running off it joined the deep currentcoming downTopanga. Forry was glad that he wore flippers and a suit and that thetank gavehim more weight to resist the current. But he did not think that hecould carryit up the hill.
"Sure you can," Hindarf said. "Put on the goggles and startbreathingthrough the mouthpiece."
"Now?" Forry said. "Now." Forry did so, and at the first breath he felt more energetic than
at anytime in his life since she had been a child. The air filled his whole body witha strength and a joie de vivre that made him want to sing. This wasimpossible, of course, with the piece in his mouth.
Hindarf said, "We may have a hard fight ahead. The vaporized drugin the breathing system will charge our bodies. The effect is intense butshort-lived."
They walked up the road, their flippers slop-slopping. Theylooked like Venusians, Forry thought, what with the frog feet, the slick blackskins of the suits, the humped air tanks, the goggles, and the big mouthpieces. Some even carried tridents or fishing spears. The rain fell heavily on them, and everything was dark and wet, as if they were under the clouds on thenightsideof the second planet from the sun.
Before they came to the turn of the road that would have placedthem in view of those in the house, they started to climb the hillside. This wassteep andmuddy, and they could only get up by grabbing bushes and pullingthemselves up. He appreciated the suit now, since it kept him from getting wet andmuddy. Theweight of the tank seemed negligible, so strong did he feel. Hisheart was chugging along at its accustomed pace, which meant that the extrademand for energy was being taken care of by the drug in the air system.
After slipping and sliding and hanging on to the bushes, theycrawled out onto the top of the hill. Another hill to their right hid them fromview of those in the house, although Forry did not understand how they couldbe seen in the dark.
Hindarf led them around the larger hill and up to a high brickwall. This was topped by a barbed wire fence about three feet high. Several Tocsunfolded a ladder, a stile, really, and put it over the wall and the wire fence. Hindarf cautioned everybody not to touch the wires, which were charged withhighvoltage. One by one, they crawled up the stile and over the wall anddown to the other side.
They were in an orchard which seemed to run several hundreds ofyards northand south from where they stood and an indeterminate distance west. The stile was taken down, telescoped, and placed under some bushes. Hindarf ledthem through the trees until they came to another slope. This rose steeplyto a low brick wall. There was a flight of steps made of some stone whichglowed red andblack in the light that Hindarf and others flashed on it.