Chapter 18
GRIMES DRIFTED SLOWLY up from deep unconsciousness.
He opened his eyes, had difficulty in getting his bearings. On the ceiling, at which he was at first looking, was a painting in explicit detail of a pale-skinned naked god about to make love to an equally pale-skinned and enthusiastically receptive goddess. It reminded him of the erotic carvings in a cave near Bombay, in India, on far away Earth.
A cave . . .
He remembered then.
“You are awake, Captain Grimes?”
The voice was a pleasant one, speaking with only the slightest of accents. Grimes turned his head, stared at an elderly native man with wrinkled skin, with protuberant horns over his crimson eyes, dressed in a sort of scarlet sarong on the material of which, in gold, the motif of copulatory deities was repeated over and over. In one hand this individual held a lantern, with pressurized gas hissing incandescently in a mantel, in the other a wooden tray. He set the tray down on a low table beside the wide bed, hung the lantern from a hook protruding from the drapery covered wall.
Grimes turned over, then back again.
“Where is Tamara?” he demanded. “Where is my . . . companion?”
“Do not concern yourself, Captain Grimes. She was taken to her own . . . chamber. At this moment her hand-maidens will be awakening her, as I am awakening you. It is the custom of your people, I believe, to start the day with a cup of tea . . .” A very prosaic looking metal teapot was poised over an earthenware mug; the steam from the dark amber fluid issuing from the spout was fragrant and on any of Man’s worlds would not have been exotic. “Sugar, Captain? Milk?”
It was real tea all right. Grimes sipped the hot fluid gratefully.
“A smoke, Captain? Or is it too early in the day?” Grimes stared at the packet being extended by a three-fingered hand. Caribbean Cublets . . . The trade name of the cigarillos was offensive but their quality could hardly be bettered. He took one, struck it on his thumbnail, inserted the unlit end into his mouth. He inhaled deeply. It was not as good as his beloved pipe, but it was much, much better than nothing.
“Now,” he said, “please tell me . . . What is all this about?”
His visitor made himself comfortable on a three-legged stool. He lit a cigarillo, began to smoke with obvious enjoyment. He said, “My name is Lennay Torith Lannanen.” “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Lennanen.” “Mr. Lennay, please, Captain Grimes. Lennay is my father’s family name, Torith that of my mother’s family. But no matter. For many years now I have been the Agent on this world for the ships of the Dog Star Line. It is not a frequent service that they maintain—our exports are few and our imports fewer—but I have become a man of moderate wealth. Also I have acquired tastes for essentially Terran luxuries . . .” He waved his cigarillo towards the tea tray. “But not only am I a successful businessman. I am also . . . High Priest? Yes, High Priest of the Old Religion, Deluraixsamz.
“For at least three generations the devotees of Deluraixsamz have been persecuted, driven underground. But still we meet in secret, in temples such as this. We are . . . qualified to form the nucleus of resistance to the Shaara invaders, just as you and your companion are qualified to be our figureheads.”
“Do your people love Earth so much, then?” asked Grimes.
“To most of the population Terrans are no more than not very pleasant aliens. But have you looked closely at the pictures on the walls and ceiling?”
“Mphm?”
“Delur, you will observe, is depicted as being white-skinned, not blue-skinned. Also—as is not the case with our women—she has a full head of hair, although elsewhere she is hairless. Her eyes are a most unnatural green, not red. She has only one pair of mammary glands. Need I continue?”
“Mphm.”
“And now, her consort. The Lord Samz. He is exceptionally well-endowed.”
Grimes looked down at himself. “I’m not.”
“But, sir, you are—compared to our men. Even in repose you are a veritable giant.”
Grimes could sense what the other was driving at and didn’t like it. “But,” he demurred, “I have a beard.” He fingered his unsightly facial growth. “Your god Samz does not.”
Lennay laughed. “Captain Willard of Sealyham honored me by staying at my home when his ship was last here. Inadvertently he left behind him a tube of the cream that you Earthlings use to remove unwanted hair. When I was obliged hurriedly to vacate my premises—as you can well imagine, almost the first act of the Shaara was to destroy my sun-powered Carlotti transceiver—I swept valuables into a carrying bag before fleeing. By mischance—as I at first thought—the depilatory was among the contents of a drawer that I emptied into the sack.”
“The whole idea is crazy,” snapped Grimes.
“But it is not, Captain. Insofar as our common enemy is concerned it will be a case—as your great playwriter Shakespeare has observed—of the engineers being hoist with their own petard. You were paraded and humiliated as proof that Earthmen are only—as Captain Wong Kuan Yung of Lucky Star would say—paper tigers . . .”
“Lucky Star?”
“A very small tramp vessel. She was chartered to the Dog Star Line. Her crew were interesting people, somehow different from you others. But you obliged me to digress. The Shaara paraded you, degraded you. They put it about that you had been captured in battle and that you might not have been captured had not you been deeply involved in an orgy of unbridled fornication. After the exhibition of that most excellent film the devotees of Darajjan will associate Earthmen with the proscribed Deluraixsamz and will hesitate to ask for the aid of such depraved beings even if they should find the means to do so.
“Mphm.”
“But there is more, Captain Grimes. There is more. There is the prophecy.” Until now Lennay had been talking quietly but now a note of fanaticism was creeping into his voice. “Is it not written in the Elder Chronicle that it shall come to pass that monsters shall fly over the land and the people be sore afflicted? Is it not written that in those times the mighty Delur and her consort Samz shall return, and shall be mocked and stoned by the unbelievers? Is it not written that Delur and Samz shall be succored by the faithful and will then arise in their burning wrath to scatter the demons from the sky?”
There was a silence, on Grimes’ part an embarrassed one. He asked at last, “Do you really believe all that?”
“Of course,” came the simple reply.
“May the Odd Gods of the Galaxy save us all!” said Grimes.
“Amen,” said Lennay.