“Come along!” he shouted, waving the flashlight in his right hand and his penknife in his left.
“Whoa!” hissed Ashbless, putting finger to his lip and shaking his head. “Pipe down, for God’s sake, or we’re both done.”
William lowered the penknife as Ashbless shoved the sap into his coat pocket and strode up toward him looking furtively behind as if fearful of being followed. “I took care of the Oriental,” he said, taking William by the shoulder and hurrying him along.
“Yamoto?” asked William.
“I didn’t ask his name,” Ashbless replied. “I just flattened him. They’ve been onto you since last night. Trying to take a cab to Palos Verdes was foolish. Damn foolish. Everyone knows — Frosticos, the police. I read the article this morning in the Times, then straight off ran into Frosticos and three others in the passage off La Brea. They were onto you then.”
“So they printed the letter!” cried William ecstatically.
“Shhh!” whispered Ashbless, looking around. ‘They paraphrased it, but the spirit of the thing was there. It’s been on the news all morning. What I’m telling you is that they don’t mean to let you out of this tunnel alive.”
“You came down here to tell me that?” asked William, suddenly suspicious again.
“No,” said Ashbless.
William waited for an explanation, ready to bolt. He studied it out. He could twist away to the right, flailing at Ashbless with the light. If he connected and the flashlight was wrecked, he’d run off down the dark tunnel with his penlight. Better yet, he’d take Ashbless’ light. He must have one on him.
“I’ve freed Reginald Peach,” said Ashbless.
“What?”
“Peach. You wouldn’t believe his misery. He escaped twice, but they hunted him down. They won’t find him again, though. He’s agreed to take me to the Earth’s core. Maybe we’ll run into each other there.”
“Reginald Peach,” said William, unbelieving.
“He’s quite an inventor in his own right. And he has certain powers. I think you understand me. Do me a favor if you get topside again. Tell Basil for me that I made an effort to free Giles and that I succeeded with Reginald. I’m afraid he’s misunderstood my motivations.”
“So have I, apparently,” said William, more than half convinced. ‘Thanks for taking care of Yamoto.”
Ashbless waved it off. It was nothing. The least he could do. There was the sound of rushing water ahead, of a subterranean river flowing through a deep channel.
“Where are we?” asked William.
“Nearly under the Palos Verdes Hills. This is as far as I go.” He produced a broad flashlight from under his coat and shined it ahead into the darkness. Vague shapes were outlined in the gray. William could feel cool, fresh moisture off the water. Ahead was an arched bridge, spanning the channel, and tied to it was a long, low craft, almost a gondola, straining to be away in the current. Above the waterline the sides were painted with crocodile men and bird-beaked children and strange Egyptian hieroglyphs, obviously, thought William, produced for some colorful carnival ride.
Sitting in the stern was the strangest apparition William had encountered: a half-naked man with pearly semi-translucent scales and webbed fingers, his head encased in an unbelievable spiral seashell with a porthole window in the front. Bulbous eyes stared out through the glass. The enormous shell, oddly, was filled with water — a helmet aquarium that encased the head of Reginald Peach. Two coiled tubes dangled into the water behind the boat.
William was stupefied. He could think of nothing to say. He’d never, in fact, been introduced to Reginald, hadn’t even seen him. It was true that he had a passing familiarity with some few of his offspring, but it would hardly be decorous of him to mention it.
“William Hastings,” said Ashbless, gesturing, “Reginald Peach.”
Peach dipped his head almost imperceptibly, and to William’s surprise, said “Glad-to-meet-you,” in a bubbly voice that was quite clearly radiated through some sort of machine — an artificial voice box. William said he was happy to meet Reginald too. And in truth he was. The man was fascinating. Imagine the stories he could tell — the filings he’d seen. William had half a mind to induce Ashbless to let him go along.
“Bound for the Earth’s core, eh?” said William, making small talk.
Peach ignored him, directing his gaze at Ashbless. ‘This boat won’t do,” he bubbled pettishly, “and something’s got into my waterline — clogged it up. Wait. There. It’s clear now. Oh, damn!”
A fish the size of a minnow appeared suddenly in his helmet, looking out through the faceplate, baffled. Peach tracked it with one eye. William had always wondered how the dry world looked from the inside of an aquarium. He wished he had the opportunity to ask Reginald — he could sense the core of a short story in it, the thrill of a budding symbol. But again, decorum intervened.
“Nothing ever works right,” complained Peach. “Everything is a mess. And this boat — I don’t trust this boat. It’s too small and there aren’t any cushions on the seats. Someone’s painted it all up, too. I feel like a fool sitting in it.”
Let him complain, thought William, taking the long view. Who has a right to bitch if not Reginald Peach?
Ashbless wasn’t as understanding. “This boat is perfect,” he said. “I’ve sailed farther in worse, on rivers I can’t even mention. And with stranger company too.” He gave William a look, raising his eyes as if to say he was bearing up.
More Ashbless bragging, thought William, who had half a mind to stick up for poor Reginald. But who was to say what Ashbless had and hadn’t done? Here he was, after all, delivering both of them out of the clutches of Frosticos.
Peach piped up before William had a chance to say anything. “Let’s go,” he said. “You’ve rescued this man, apparently. I don’t know why. Here he is, safe as a baby. Quit fooling away my time. Goodbye,” he said to William, tacking it onto the end of his final sentence almost without pause. “Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye!” He wiggled back and forth, nearly capsizing the boat, then made as if to stand on the spindly little thwart.
“Hey!” cried Ashbless, clambering in and untying the painter. He widened his eyes again at William. “It’s going to be a long trip. He won’t talk about anything but medical problems — a list a mile long. He had nothing to read for eighteen years but a waterproof copy of Merck’s Manual. He’s got a whole catalogue of complaints by now, let me tell you.”
“Get this fish out of my helmet,” Peach whined. Ashbless pushed off.
The weird boat with its equally weird crew angled away in the current and in moments was borne into darkness. William Ashbless stood in the stern like some ancient weed-haired sea god, sailing into a river of mystery. William wondered, suddenly, whore the river flowed. Obviously not into the Domin-guez Channel. He hoped Reginald Peach knew what he was doing, that both of them would find the land they searched for. Ashbless, after all, had turned out all right. They’d maligned him unjustly. William saluted with two fingers down the dark chasm where they’d disappeared, then trod across the bridge toward the peninsula and freedom. He hadn’t gone a quarter mile when he heard his name called once again, very softly.
John Pinion’s ice cream shirt and pants woe a wreck. He’d torn and soiled them in the sewers, trying to salvage something from the leviathan. But the sons of bitches hadn’t let him have any of it. They took the perpetual motion engine, worth a fortune. And the magnetic bottle, full of anti-gravity — they’d put it into a paper sack. It was insufferable. Insufferable. He didn’t know what he would do. His life was a wreck. He’d wanted nothing but knowledge, nothing for himself. Gain was foreign to him. But he’d been hounded, used. Allies had become traitors. He’d been accused of being a pervert, a charlatan, a glory seeker, a lunatic. He’d show them, somehow.