On the Planet of Bottled Brains Read online

  "I'm not really sure I can take over the brain of a mythical beast," Illyria vacillated.

  "The computer said it was real!" Bill gasped, dodging as the goat-lion-serpent reared above him, ready to strike downward with fangs that dripped green poison.

  "Bill, there's something I haven't had a chance to tell you yet —"

  "Get into that chimera!" Bill roared.

  "Yes, darling," Illyria said. In the next instant the chimera had halted itself in mid-flight and flung itself at Bill's feet. Its eyes rolled upward and its long forked tongue came out to lick Bill's feet.

  "How am I doing?" Illyria asked through the chimera's throat and tongue and soft palate.

  "Fine," Bill said. "Just don't overdo it."

  And the crowd, of course, was going wild. Bill's triumph was complete, though there was one complication. After the congratulations for quelling the chimera, there were throaty shouts of "Kill! Kill!" and, "Let's see some green blood!" That sort of thing. As well as, "Save me a bit of the sirloin!" It was then Bill realized that he was supposed to slay the heraldic beast. It is customary in this sort of affair to feast everybody after the killing on broiled chimera steaks and other choice tidbits. The flesh tastes like a combination of goat, serpent and lion, and there's just a faint hint of turkey, although nobody knows where that came from. Another virtue of chimera steaks is the fact that, since the chimera is a flame breather, its steaks can be cooked in its own internal heat, as long as you do that in the first hour or two after it has been dispatched. "No way," Bill said. "No way."

  His point of view was not appreciated. This was carefully explained to him by Hannibal's chamberlain, a fat and unctuous individual who kept rubbing his hands together, and, when he thought that no one was looking, he pinched his sallow cheeks to give them a little color.

  "No," Bill says, "you can't have the chimera. No way. This is my chimera."

  "But sir, it is customary for the victor to sacrifice the chimera for the public good. That's what all the other victors do. In fact, chimeras are becoming rare in these parts."

  "All the more reason," Bill said, "not to sacrifice this one."

  "The chimera must be killed," the chamberlain says. "Otherwise it means ten years bad luck, and that is the last thing in this world Carthage needs."

  "I won't kill the chimera, and that's that."

  "I will confer with Hannibal and the City Elders," the chamberlain said. "They will have to make the final decision."

  "OK by me," Bill said. "And on the way out would you tell Mr Splock that I need to see him right away?"

  "Impossible," the chamberlain said, rubbing his hands together. "He has returned to his own time. He left this for you."

  He handed Bill a note and exited, bowing low and smiling unctuously. Bill opened the note, which was folded thrice, and read: Congratulations on your well-deserved victory. Have returned to put Dirk into the picture. Tell Hannibal to assemble his forces; we will be back soon with suitable transport.

  "That's a hell of a note," Bill said. "Just when I need him! Why couldn't he have used the telephone?"

  "Because it hasn't been invented yet," Illyria, within the chimera, said.

  "I know that. But time travel hasn't been invented yet, either, and he's doing it."

  "Oh, Bill," Illyria the chimera said, "what are we going to do?"

  "Could you take over some other body for a while? That way we could let them have the chimera and get ourselves out of here."

  "I told you I had trouble controlling mythological beasts," Illyria said. "It was hard taking over this one. It is going to be very difficult indeed to get out again. What I need, Bill darling, is a suitable host body."

  "Where can we find one? How about one of those dancing girls we saw earlier? The one on the left end of the line was kind of healthy-looking in a very plumpish way," Bill finished, because he noted a frown crossing the chimera's leonine face.

  "She's not at all suitable," Illyria said. "First of all, because you're interested in her. I will not be a party to perversity."

  "What are you talking about, perversity?" Bill asked. "She'd be you!"

  "Or I'd be her," Illyria Said. "That would suit you nicely, wouldn't it?"

  "Illyria! I've never heard you talk like this!"

  "Oh, Bill, I don't want to sound jealous. It's just that I'm so crazy about you. You and your darling alligator foot with shining claws. It's little things like that that strike a woman's fancy. But I couldn't take over your charming little dancing girl even if I wanted to. A suitable host can only be found back on my own planet in my own time. Please, don't let them kill me!"

  "They'll kill you over my dead body," Bill said gallantly.

  "I would much prefer they didn't do it at all."

  "That's what I meant. Come on, Illyria, I think we'd better get out of here."

  "Perhaps they'll listen to reason," Illyria said wistfully.

  "I doubt it," Bill said. He had heard the sound of marching and turned to see a squad of ten or so Carthaginian soldiers, heavily armored and armed, with Hannibal himself at their head, looking grim and purposeful, the way people look just before they kill a chimera.

  "Come on," Bill said, grabbing Illyria by her lion's ruff, and tugged her toward the exit.

  "I'm coming," Illyria said. "But where are we going?"

  "Away!" he shouted leading the way as they fled. Out the exit and across a busy street, dodging between the pedestrians and horses, the squad right behind them, into a tall building and, huffing and puffing, up the stairs. Behind them he could hear the soldiers in the lower part of the building. They were already mounting the stairs with measured tread. They reached the top floor which was very interesting. Particularly since all of the doors were locked.

  "Eeek!" Bill gurgled. "We're trapped like rats."

  "Don't give up, Bill! Try the window," Illyria advised.

  Bill threw the window open and looked out at the straight drop below. Then at the rain gutters. Leaning out he tested the nearest one that ran above the window. They seemed strong enough; they were bronze and half an inch thick, and fastened to the side of the building with heavy copper rivets. They really knew how to build in these days.

  "We're going over the roof," Bill said, climbing out.

  "Oh dear," Illyria said, pausing irresolute in the window. "I don't think I can climb. I have hooves, you know."

  "But you also have a snake's body. For your life, Illyria, slither!"

  The brave Tsurisian girl in the mythological disguise backed out of the window and wrapped her tail around a stanchion conveniently located some five feet away. Trembling but resolute, she followed Bill onto the roof.

  The rooftops of Carthage presented a multi-colored display of levels and angles. The hot African sun beat down, because it was summer, and the cold African sun had gone to the underworld to rest and revive himself, or so it was claimed in the ancient annals of the city. Bill raced across the rooftops, scrambling up the higher levels and jumping down the lesser ones. Behind him came armed soldiers, running clumsily in their heavy armor, lances at the ready. As Bill raced along, with Illyria close behind and staying up, he felt a tickling sensation under his tunic next to his ribs. He realized that it was the Chinger lizard that had formerly been Illyria.

  "Can you go back into the Chinger?" Bill asked, his breath coming in painful pants.

  "I forgot about the Chinger!" Illyria asked. "I don't know, but I can try!"

  "No time like the present," Bill said, because some of the soldiers had unbuckled their heavy armor and were coming along quickly now, gaining on him. And ahead, directly in his path, Bill saw a high wall of polished marble. The theater of Dionysus! The god of abandon was now blocking his way.

  The lizard crawled out onto Bill's shoulder, took one look at the pursuing soldiers, and started to duck back to shelter. Bill grabbed it before it could go out of sight.

  "Now, Illyria!" Bill cried.

  "Just a moment," the Chinger said. "
There's something I'd better explain. This is Illyria, speaking to you from within this alien Chinger. It's a little strange in here. What's that? No, it couldn't be! Oh, Bill, you'll never guess what's happened!"

  "So tell me," Bill panted. The soldiers now had him backed against a wall. The chimera was looking around groggily, unused to being back within its own body again. The Chinger, meanwhile, had gone glassy-eyed and limp. It was still alive, but seemed to be in a semi-comatose state, or perhaps an entirely comatose state; it was difficult to tell.

  "Illyria? Speak to me!"

  No answer from the somnolent lizard, lying with its four arms crossed peacefully on its green chest.

  A soldier prodded Bill with his spear. The others moved in. And at that moment the chimera, released from Illyria's control, resumed its existence as a deadly and dangerous beast. It breathed out twin gouts of flame, like dragons do, and melted several shields. Then it turned to attack Bill.

  "All right!" Bill cried. "Kill it, since you want to so badly!"

  It was a tricky moment for Bill. The soldiers had to defend themselves against the onslaught of the chimera, returned to itself and filled with mythological fury. It attacked in a manner not seen since the days of Homer, and it emitted loud goat-like bleatings as it charged. These unnerving sounds mounted the scale into the supersonic, set the soldiers' teeth on edge, and set their swords to chattering against their shields. The Chinger opened its eyes and took one look at what was going on and scampered back for safety within Bill's shirt, seeking the snug haven of Bill's left armpit, where it was sure harm would not befall it. The soldiers finally managed to pin the chimera to the wooden planking of the roof with their sharp spears. The chimera's sound output redoubled as it found itself wounded. Black dots appeared in the sky and quickly resolved themselves into long-nosed bare-breasted women with bat wings, all of them clad in snaky black evening gowns. These were the Harpies, called out of their mythological slumber by the wounded cries of their fellow fabulous creature. They dived onto the soldiers, whose ranks had just been redoubled by the arrival of a double platoon of Varangians, sent, as Bill was to learn later, by Splock, who had anticipated this situation and had rushed back to the future to get some help. The Varangians were Swedish Russians, or possibly Russian Swedes, depending on whose history book you're reading, and they cared not a fig for the menace of effete Graeco-Roman mythology. They laid about them with mighty strokes, swinging their long battleaxes in shining circles, cutting down the Carthaginian soldiery who couldn't get out of the way quickly enough.

  "Go to it, boys!" Bill shouted, his built-in translator putting out his words in middle Varangian, which none of these fellows understood since they were Finnish Varangians from the marshlands around Lake Uũ. But they liked the sound of his voice and laid about them with renewed vigor. The chimera was definitely bested. It gave one last shriek, which started a minor earth tremor in the city walls, and expired.

  Before they could congratulate themselves and pass the beer, however, there was a splatter of rain and then within moments a raging storm had sprung out of nowhere complete with hailstones and hundred-mile-an-hour winds. Great bulging clouds with ominous purple-black bottoms rode across the sky like galleons of doom. This, as Bill learned later, was the arrival of Typhon, the spirit of the hurricane. The Harpies balanced lightly on the screaming winds and redoubled their attack. They too were creatures of the storm. When they came close Bill could see that they had hag faces and the ears of bears, and the bodies of birds with long hooked claws. Like birds, they were shameless about defecation, and like humans, they were purposeful about directing it. The Varangians gagged as a torrent of excrement was heaved at them.

  Bill fought free of the reeking melee and looked for a place to run to. The only way off the rooftop was the way he had come, and that way was now choked with masses of Carthaginian soldiery, Hannibal urging them on and pointing to him. Bill suspected he had lost his guest status and looked around desperately for another way out. Fighting free of the fighting men who surrounded him, and laying about him mightily with a big broadsword he had picked up during the fight, he cut his way to the opposite wall. There a quick glance showed him a ladder leading down over the side. It was a rickety old ladder, just pieces of bamboo tied together with vines, but it would have to do. He put one foot over the side and started down.

  It was at this precise moment that the new thing happened.

  Chapter 7

  At first it was no more than a shimmering of light. Then it resolved itself into an incandescent ball about the size of a medicine ball, or slightly larger. Bill, hanging onto the rickety ladder, with the Chinger gnawing at his armpit (out of panic rather than malice, he learned later), did not take kindly to the fiery thing that swooped up close to him and hung just in front of his face, changing colors and giving off ear-torturing harmonics.

  "What the bowb do you want?" Bill snarled testily. "Can't you see that I'm busy trying to save my life?"

  "You just listen, dummy. I'll do the talking," a gravelly voice issuing from the glowing sphere said. "Just in case you hadn't noticed, you are up the creek with a broken paddle. Want a lift?"

  In other times, Bill might have been suspicious of an offer for help from a shining sphere of lambent energy that just happened to be going his way, but at the moment he was not inclined to be fussy. Already the ladder was starting to collapse, undermined by the sacred termites of Artemis, whom Bill had unwittingly insulted by suggesting that the dancing girl, a servant of the goddess, be supplanted by Illyria, an outsider and unbeliever. Not only was the bamboo ladder collapsing, but also soldiers had brought to its base a series of big wooden platforms covered with bronze spikes pushed up through them. They were all shouting at Bill, "Jump, jump!" It was an unseemly exhibition and it is little wonder that the Carthaginians have ceased to exist as a people and are perpetuated now only by a cluster of unseemly attitudes. "Yes! I don't know who you are," Bill said, "but if you can get me away from here, I'd be plenty grateful."

  The sphere rapidly expanded, engulfing Bill. He felt his hold loosen on the bamboo ladder. Then the ladder collapsed, and Bill felt himself dropping through the air for a frightening moment, until the energies within the sphere caught him up and shielded him as the sphere moved away at great speed, leaving behind the sullen and unpleasant Carthaginians and their secondhand borrowed Greek deities.

  After things settled down, Bill found himself inside a small but well-appointed spaceship. There appeared to be but one person aboard: a square-shouldered man, handsome but with a dour expression born of having seen too much human folly, sitting at the controls in a big command chair with a plaque on it that read; "Ham Duo — the buck stops here."

  "Commander Duo," Bill said, in his most formal and grateful manner, "I want to thank you for doing this for me. I don't know what I would have done without your timely intervention."

  "Hell, don't thank me," Duo said out of the side of his mouth. "Sure, I like to save the odd sentient being now and then, when it isn't too much trouble and I'm in the mood, but there's no need to make a fuss about it. A lot of other people would have done the same if they'd had my guts and expertise."

  "I really appreciate it."

  "Hell," Duo said, "I didn't do it for you so don't go getting all weepy."

  "Who did you do it for?"

  "The Freedom Fighters of Earth. I happen to know that you are helping them in your own simple-minded way, and I couldn't let you fall into the clutches of the Evil Empire."

  "I didn't know Carthage had an Evil Empire," Bill said.

  "They don't. The Evil Empire set up simulation techniques so they could loose those mythological creatures on everyone. You bet I had to put a stop to that. So don't go thinking that I was doing it just for you."

  "Sorry about that," Bill said.

  "It's a natural enough error, I suppose," Ham said.

  "I didn't know you were able to operate in the past," Bill said. "How did you do that? The Gumption
got here by putting her engines into oscillation."

  "I know all about that," Duo said "It's a dumb trick. They'll have to reseat all the bolts before their ship is space-worthy again. Much better to use a temporal displacer that I just happen to have."

  Duo gestured. Bill saw, on the port side of the spaceship, not far from the bow but not far from midships, either, a black box with a plaque on it. The plaque read, Temporal/Spatial Displacer — Patent Pending.

  Bill stared at it. Then stared even closer as he realized that this was the very secret that his own Space Navy had sent him to Tsuris to find out about. If he could get his hands on another like it — or even on this one...

  "Where are we going?" Bill asked coyly.

  "Rathbone."

  "Beg pardon?"

  "The planet Rathbone."

  "What's there?"

  "A little unfinished business," Duo grated, his voice grim, his large, attractively hairy hands clutching grimly to the controls of his ship.

  "Do you suppose you could drop me off somewhere?" Bill asked. "Space Trooper Headquarters, for example?"

  "Sure," Duo said. "I'll just take care of this Rathbone matter first. It's on the way, and it won't take long."

  Illyria the Chinger seemed to be asleep inside his shirt — and Bill could easily understand why. He heaved a tired sigh and sat down heavily on the ship's sofa. He found a magazine, a comic book magazine featuring ducks in full armor and a camel dressed up to be Charlemagne. There was the sound of distant quacking and screaming when he turned the pages. Soon he was absorbed in the story. He only hoped the business on Rathbone wouldn't take up too much time.

  "Bill," Duo said, then shouted since he saw that he wasn't getting through. "You, trooper! Get your nose out of that revolting comic for five minutes and get below and clean yourself up — I can smell the blood and gore from here. There are plenty of spare uniforms left over from the masquerade party I had. Then haul your butt into the galley and grill us up a couple of mastodon steaks."

  The thought of food was a winner and Bill gurgled happily as saliva spurted into his mouth from every dusty salivary gland. After tossing out his torn uniform, and pulling on a new one with admiral's insignia, he found the galley, and a freezer full of mastodon steaks that Duo had picked up on a previous adventure. He grilled one of these in the turbomicrowave, which went so fast that the steak burst into flame and turned into charcoal as he closed the door. He played with the controls until he got it right. He promised himself that he would cook the next one for Duo. Looking around the galley for something to wash it down with he found a cabinet filled with brown bottles. One of them had a hand-written label that read; "Homemade Ophiuchian Rum — not for Human Consumption."