To the crowd, evidently, it was one of nature’s finest efforts. Alvah swallowed bile and raised his voice again. “Clear a space now, friends―all the way around!”
It took time, but eventually self-appointed deputies began to get the crowd moving. Alvah descended, carrying two bright marker poles, and, followed by the inquisitive redhead, set one up at either side of the enclosure, a few yards short of the boundary.
“This will be the course,” he told Swifty. “Around these markers and the floater―that thing I was standing on. We’ll do ten laps, starting and finishing here. Is that all right?”
“All right with me,” said the redhead, grinning more widely than before.
There were self-appointed time-keepers and starters, too. When Alvah, in the runabout, and the redhead, on his monster, were satisfactorily lined up, one of them bellowed, “On y’ marks ―Git set …” and then cracked a short whip with a noise out of all proportion to its size.
For a moment, Alvah thought Swifty and his horrid mount had simply disappeared. Then he spotted them, diminished by perspective, halfway down the course, and rapidly getting smaller. He slammed the power bar over and took off in pursuit.
AROUND the first turn, it was Swifty, with Alvah nowhere. In the stretch, Alvah was coming up fast on the outside. Around the far turn, he was two monster lengths behind and, in the stretch again, they were neck and neck. Alvah kept it that way for the next two laps and then gradually pulled ahead. The crowd became a multicolored streak, whirling past him. In the sixth lap, he passed Swifty again―in the eighth, again―in the tenth, still again―and when he skidded to a halt beyond the finish post, fluttering its flags with the wind of his passage, poor old Swifty and his steaming beast were still lumbering halfway down the stretch.
“Now, friends,” said Alvah, triumphantly mounting the platform again, “in a moment, I’m going to tell you how you, yourselves, can own this wonderful runabout and many marvels more ―but first, are there any questions you’d like to ask?”
Swifty pushed forward, grinless, looking like a man smitten by lightning. “How many to a get?” he called.
Alvah decided he must have misunderstood. “You can have any number you want,” he said. “The price is so reasonable―but I’m going to come to that in a―”
“I don’t mean how many will you sell. How many to a get?” Alvah looked blank. “How many calves, or colts, or whatever, is what I want to know.”
There was a general murmur of agreement. This, it would seem, was what everybody wanted to know.
Appalled, Alvah corrected the misapprehension as quickly and clearly as he could.
“Mean to say,” somebody called, “they don’t breed?”
“Certainly not. If one of them ever breaks down―and, friends, they’re built to last―you get it repaired or buy another.”
“How much?” somebody in the crowd yelled.
“Friends, I’m not here to take your money,” Alvah said. “We just want―”
“Then how we going to pay for your stuff?”
“I’m coming to that. When two people want to trade, friends, there’s usually a way. You want our products. We want metals―iron, aluminum, chromium―”
“Suppose a man ain’t got any metal?”
“Well, sir, there are a lot of other things we can use besides metal. Natural fruits and vegetables, for instance.”
The slack-faced yokel in the first row, the one with the basket under his arm, roused himself for the first time. His mouth closed, then opened again. “What kind?”
“Natural products, friend. You know, the kind your great-granddad ate. We use a lot every year for table delicacies, even―”
The yokel came halfway up the platform stair. His gnarled fingers dipped into the basket and came up with a smooth redgold ovoid. He shoved it toward Alvah. “You mean,” he said incredulously, “you wouldn’ eat that?”
GULPING, Alvah backed away a step. The Muckfoot came after him. “Raise ’em myself,” he said plaintively, holding out the red fruit. “I tell you, they’re just the juiciest, goodest ― Go ahead, try one.”
“I’m not hungry,” Alvah said desperately. “I’m on a diet. Now if you’ll just step down quietly, friend, till after the―”
The Muckfoot stared at him, holding the fruit under Alvah’s nose. “You mean you won’t try it?”
“No,” said Alvah, trying not to breathe. “Now go on back down there, friend―don’t crowd me.”
“Well,” said the Muckfoot, “then durn you!” And he shoved the disgusting thing squashily into Alvah’s face.
Alvah saw red. Blinking away a glutinous film of juice and pulp, he glimpsed the yokel’s face, spread into a hideous grin. Waves of laughter beat about his ears. Retching, he brought up his right fist in an instinctive roundhouse swing that clapped the yokel’s grin shut and toppled him over the platform rail, basket, flying fruit and all.
The laughter rumbled away into expectant silence. Alvah fumbled in his kit for tissues, scrubbed a wad of them across his face and saw them come away daubed with streaky red. He hurled them convulsively into the crowd and, leaning over the rail, shouted thickly, “Lousy stinking filthy Muckieet!”
Muckfoot men in the front ranks turned and looked at each other solemnly. Then two of them marched up the platform stair and, behind them, another two.
Still berserk, Alvah met the first couple with two violent kicks in the chest. This cleared the stair, but he turned to find three more candidates swarming over the rail. He swung at the nearest, who ducked. The next one seized Alvah’s arm with both hands and toppled over backward. Alvah followed, head foremost, and landed with a jar that shook him to his toes.
The next thing he knew, he was lying on the ground surrounded by upward of twenty thick seamless boots, choking on dust, and getting the daylights methodically kicked out of him.
Alvah rolled over frantically, climbed the first leg that came to hand, got his back against the platform and, by flint of cracking skulls together, managed in two brisk minutes to clear a momentary space around him. Another dim figure lunged at him. Alvah clouted it under the ear, whirled and vaulted over the rail onto the platform.
His gun popped out into his hand.
For just a moment, he was standing alone, feeling the pistol grip clenched hard in his dirtcaked palm and able to judge exactly how long he had before half a dozen Muckfeet would swarm up the stair and over the rail. The crowd’s faces were sharp and clear. He saw Artie and Doc Either and Jake, his mouth open to howl, and he saw the girl, B. J., in a curious posture-leaning forward, her right arm thrust out and down. She had just thrown something at him.
ALVAH saw the gray-white blur wobbling toward him. He tried to dodge, but the thing struck his shoulder and exploded with a papery pop. For a bewildering instant, the air was full of dancing bright particles. Then they were gone.
Alvah didn’t have time to wonder about it. He thumbed the selector over to Explosive, pointed the gun straight up and squeezed the trigger.
Nothing happened.
There were two Muckfeet half over the rail and three more coming up the stair. Incredulous, still aiming at the air, Alvah tried again―and again. The gun didn’t work.
Three Muckfeet were on the platform, four more right behind them. Alvah spun through the open door and slapped at the control button. The door stayed open.