Hal shook his head to clear himself of such thoughts and bent over the motor to watch Zugu work on it. Zugu seemed to know what he was doing. He should, since he was the inventor and builder of the only – as far as the Terrans knew – Ozagenian vehicle driven by an internal combustion motor.
Zugu used a wrench to unscrew a long narrow pipe from a round glass case. Hal remembered that this was a gravity feed system. The fuel ran from the tank into the glass case, which was a sediment chamber. From there it ran into the feed pipe, which in turn passed the fuel on to the carburetor.
Pornsen called harshly, 'Beloved son, are we going to be stuck here all day?'
Though he wore the mask and goggles which the Ozagenians had given him as windbreakers, his tight lips were enough expression. It was evident that unless events improved, the gapt would turn in a report unfavourable to his ward.
The gapt had wanted to wait the two days that would be needed until he could requisition a gig. The trip to the ruins could then have been made in fifteen minutes, a soundless and comfortable ride through the air. Hal had argued that driving would give more valuable espionage in this heavily forested country than surveying from the air. That his superiors had agreed was another thing that had exasperated Pornsen. Where his ward went, he had to go.
So, he had sulked all day while the young Terran, coached by Zugu, wheeled the jalopy down the forest roads. The only time Pornsen spoke was to remind Hal of the sacredness of the human self and to tell him to slow down.
Hal would reply, 'Forgive me, cherished guardian,' and would ease his foot off the accelerator. But, after a while, he would slowly press down. Once again, they would roar and leap down the rough dirt road.
Zugu unscrewed both ends of the pipe, stuck one end in his V-shaped mouth, and blew. Nothing, however, came out of the other end. Zugu shut his big blue eyes and puffed his cheeks out again. Nothing happened, except that his lightly tinged green face turned a dark olive. Then, he rapped the copper tubing against the hood and blew once more. Same result.
Fobo reached into a large leather pouch slung from a belt around his big belly. His finger and thumb came out, holding between them a tiny blue insect. Gently, he pushed the creature into one end of the pipe. After five seconds, a small red insect in a hurry dropped out of the other end. Behind it, hungrily crossing its mandibles, came the blue insect. Fobo deftly snared his pet and replaced it in the pouch. Zugu squashed the red bug beneath his sandal.
'Behold!' said Fobo. 'An eater of alcohol! It lives in the fuel tank and imbibes freely and unmolested. It extracts the carbohydrates therein. A swimmer upon the golden seas of alcohol. What a life! But now and then it becomes too adventurous, travels into the sediment chamber, eats and devours the filter, and passes into the feedpipe. See! Zugu is even now replacing the filter. In a moment, we will be on our way down the road.'
Fobo's breath had a strange and sickening odor. Hal wondered if the wog had been drinking liquor. He had never smelled it on anybody's breath before, so he had no experience to go on. But even the thought of it made Hal nervous. If the gapt knew a bottle was being passed back and forth in the rear seat, he would not allow Hal out of his sight for a minute.
The wogs climbed into the back of the car. 'Let's go and depart!' said Fobo.
'Just a minute,' said Pornsen in a low voice to Hal. 'I think it's better that Zugu drive this thing.'
'If you ask the wog to drive, he'll know you lack confidence in me, your fellow Terran,' said Hal. 'You wouldn't want him to think it was your belief that a wog is superior to a human being, would you?'
Pornsen coughed as if he had trouble swallowing Hal's remarks, then sputtered, 'Of-of-of course not! Sigmen forbid! It was just that I had your welfare in mind. I thought you might be tired after the strain of piloting this primitive and dangerous contraption all day.'
'Thank you for your love for me,' said Hal. He grinned and added, 'It is comforting to know you are always at; my side, ready to direct me away from the peril of pseudofutures.'
Pornsen said, 'I have sworn by The Western Talmud to guide you through this life.'
Chastened by the mention of the sacred book, Hal started the car. At first, he drove slowly enough to suit the gapt. But, inside five minutes, his foot became heavy, and the trees began whizzing by. He glanced at Pornsen. The gapt's rigid back and set teeth showed that he was again thinking of the report he would make to the chief Uzzite back in the spaceship. He looked furious enough to demand the 'Meter of his ward.
Hal Yarrow breathed deeply of the wind battering his face mask. To H with Pornsen! To H with the 'Meter! The blood lurched in his veins. The air of this planet was not the stuffy air of Earth. His lungs sucked it in like a happy bellows. At that moment, he felt as if he could have snapped his fingers under the nose of the Archurielite himself.
'Look out!' screamed Pornsen.
Hal, out of the corners of his eyes, glimpsed the large antelope-like beast that leaped from the forest onto the road just ahead of the right side of the car. At the same time, he twisted the wheel to swing the vehicle away from it. The vehicle skidded on the dirt. Its rear swung around. And Hal was not grounded enough in the elements of driving to know that he should turn the wheels in the direction of the skid to straighten the car out.
His lack of knowledge was not fatal, except to the beast, for its bulk struck the vehicle's right side. Its long horns caught in Pornsen's jacket and ripped open the sleeve on his right arm.
The car, its skid checked by the big bulk of the antelope, straightened out. But it was going in a straight line that angled off the road and led it up a sloping ridge of earth. Beaching the end of the ridge, it leaped out into the air and landed with an all-at-once bang of four tires blowing.
Even that impact did not halt it. A big bush loomed before Hal. He jerked on the wheel. Too late.
His chest pushed hard against the wheel as if it were trying to telescope the steering shaft against the dashboard. Fobo slammed into Hal's back, increasing the weight on his chest. Both cried out, and the wog fell away.
Then, except for a hissing, there was silence. A pillar of steam from the broken radiator shot through the branches that held Hal's face in a rough, barky embrace.
Hal Yarrow stared through steamshapes into big brown eyes. He shook his head. Eyes? And arms like branches? Or branches like arms? He thought he was in the grip of a brown-eyed nymph. Or were they called dryads? He couldn't ask anybody. They weren't supposed to know about such creatures. Nymph and dryad had been deleted from all books including Hack's edition of the Revised and Real Milton. Only because Hal was a linguist had he had the chance to read an unexpurgated Paradise Lost and thus learn of classical Greek mythology.
Thoughts flashed off and on like lights on a spaceship's control board. Nymphs sometimes turned into trees to escape their pursuers. Was this one of the fabled forest women staring at him with large and beautiful eyes through the longest lashes he'd ever seen?
He shut his eyes and wondered if a head injury was responsible for the vision and, if so, if it would be permanent. Hallucinations like that were worth keeping. He didn't care if they conformed to reality or not.
He opened his eyes. The hallucination was gone.
He thought, It was that antelope looking at me. It got away after all. It ran around the bush and looked back. Antelope eyes. And my dark self formed the head around the eyes, the long black hair, the slender white neck, the swelling breasts... No! Unreal! It was my diseased mind, stunnedby the shock, momentarily opened to that which has been festering, seething all that time on the ship without ever seeing a woman, even on the tapes...
He forgot about the eyes. He was choking. A heavy nauseating odor hung over the car. The crash must have frightened the wogs very much. Otherwise, they would not have involuntarily relaxed the sphincter muscles which controlled the neck of the 'madbag.' This organ, a bladder located near the small of the back, had been used by the presentient ancestors of the Ozagenians as a powerful defensive weapon, much like that of the bombardier beetle. Now an almost vestigial organ, the mad-bag served as a means of relieving extreme nervous tension. Its function was effective, but its use presented problems. The wog psychiatrists, for instance, either had to keep their windows wide open during therapy or else wear gas masks.
Keoki Amiel Pornsen, assisted by Zugu, crawled out from under the bush into which he had been thrown. His big paunch, the azure color of his uniform, and the white nylon angel's wings sewn on the back of his jacket made him resemble a fat blue bug. He stood up and removed his windmask, showing a bloodless face. His shaking fingers fumbled over the crossed hourglass and sword, symbol of the Haijac Union. Finally, they found the flap for which he was searching. He pulled the magnetic lips of the pocket loose and took out a pack of Merciful Seraphim. Once the cigarette was in his lips, he had a shaky time holding his lighter to it.
Hal held the glowing coil of his own lighter to the tip of Pornsen's cigarette. His hand was steady.
Thirty-one years of discipline shoved back the grin he felt deep inside his face.
Pornsen accepted the light. A second later, a tremor around his lips revealed that he knew he had lost much of his advantage over Yarrow. He realized he couldn't allow a man to do him a service – even one as slight as this – and then crack the whip on him.
Nevertheless, he began formally, 'Hal Shamshiel Yarrow...'
'Shib, abba, I hear and obey,' replied Hal as formally.
'Just how do you explain this accident?'
Hal was surprised. Pornsen's voice was much milder than he had expected. He did not relax, however, for he suspected that Pornsen meant to take him off guard and lash out at him when he was not mentally braced for an attack.
'I – or, rather, the Backrunner in me – departed from reality. I – my dark self – willfully precipitated a pseudofuture.'
'Oh, really?' said Pornsen, quietly but with a note of sarcasm. 'You say your dark self, the Backrunner in you, did that? That is what you have said ever since you were able to talk. Why must you always blame someone else? You know – you should, for I have been forced to whip you many times – that you and you alone are responsible. When you were taught that it was your dark self that caused departures from reality, you were also taught that the Backrunner could cause nothing unless you – your real self, Hal Yarrow – fully cooperated.'