The Cross of Gold Affair - Davies Fredric. Страница 27

“Well, why are we just sitting here?” snapped the girl. “You’re a secret agent, even if you haven’t got all your gim-crack special skeleton keys and decoder badges. Can’t you get us out of here?”

“Out of here? There may not be any way out. Thrush doesn’t usually lock people in cages with exits provided, although Napoleon and I have occasionally made exits where they didn’t expect them.” Illya’s eyes lost their look of intensity for a moment as his mind followed a slippery clue; he focused hard on Mai, then. “You said you met Napoleon on the beach, soaking wet, didn’t you?” She nodded dumbly at him as he turned to look through the room.

A quick scan of the room convinced Illya that it had possibilities. “There’s no telling what the devices on that spaceship’s console can do,” he said. He moved close to the three, speaking quietly.

“Napoleon was locked up in this maze, and found a way

out that dumped him in the water. All we really know is that they had him, and he got away, ending up by swimming ashore, With power on, I doubt he found his way through that Space Maze, so I intend to look for a way out right here. Sit where you are, and don’t set foot into the next room. Ill vouch for the mazes deadliness.”

He turned to the mock-up of a spaceship console, and started spinning the control wheels and pushing levers from position to position. His first achievement was to black out the view of stars in the porthole nearby, and then the stars came back, spinning wildly.

“I think I’ve snapped us through hyper-space” he said, “and flipped into a tailspin, probably heading into the maw of a dead star.” x

Another lever slowed the stars, and made them march grandly past the opening. He pushed a button, and all the stars went away except one, which turned out to be the sun Earth revolves around. Suddenly there were planets around old Sol, and the kids and Illya watched as they seemed to approach the solar system. They flashed past Pluto, Neptune and Uranus quickly, and Illya found a switch to slow down the motion as they came near Saturn. The big ringed planet filled all of visible space, and then they went on, catching Jupiter and Mars, then Venus and Mercury, and skipping across the sun to find Earth. .

“Its like the Planetarium,” said Mai, when the spell was broken by another switch, taking them back to interstellar space.

“It’s like being out there,” said Charlie. Illya looked at him, and saw that the boy was frozen in front of the porthole. He brought back Saturn and Mars-a few times, almost as much by chance as by skill, and then the trio went to sit down while he continued to work. Charlie made up a verse that went, “Where have all the planets gone?” and then the three of them were singing together, harmonizing through folksongs, one-world songs, and low-camp like Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree.

They were building a tricky roundelay around the Batman theme when Illya accidentally triggered a meteor shower outside the porthole. The sudden silent fire, coupled

with the tension of not knowing when Porpoise’s men would return for them, broke up the singing and started Illya’s palms itching.

He brushed sweat off his forehead, wishing he had so much as one U.N.C.L.E. wire-tracing device. Behind him as he bent back to the board, Mai’s clear voice came on strong with her new doggerel, “Where have all the Thrushes gone?” She finished the verse on a high note of fun and confidence, pounding on the floor with both hands.

Illya clapped, and the boys cheered heartily, raising the roof to relax their nerves. Before the noise had died down, Arnold opened the spacelock door and stepped through.

“Pipe down all that,” he said. “If you insist on singing and yelling, we can open up with gas in here. Tear gas, sleepy-drowsy, or vomit fumes.”

“You don’t suppose they’d have anything a little groovier, do you?” said Andy to Charlie, but Mai hushed him and stepped up to the Thrush.

“You aren’t going to tell us we have to give up the right to freedom of expression,” she said. “You aren’t saying we can’t sing, and be free. These are the things souls are made of, and you can kill our bodies, Arnold,” she said, shaking her head mournfully at him, “but you should never try to crush our souls.

“Singing does no harm, anyway. You’ve got good, sturdy walls, and that ugly little fat thing in the water has the best insulation in the world around him. We’re singing for us, and none of you in there has to listen to a note of it. Would you stifle pure, innocent fun? Are you some kind of superior beings, judging us and destroying our kind of art?” Before he could answer, she changed the subject and placed both hands on his shoulders.

“Arnold, what’s really bothering you is your poor nose, and I want to apologize for what I did to you out there on the boardwalk, when you jumped us from behind.” Arnold looked puzzled, trying to figure out why she was apologizing.

“You were just doing your job, protecting Mr. Porpoise’s funhouse from us. I only turned and bit your nose because I was surprised, that’s all. Really, it wasn’t because I was mad at you. You’re another person, with reasons for what you do, and you need food, warmth and love just the same as we do. We aren’t angry with you; in fact, we love you. We need to love you.”

“We do!” said the two boys, catching the rhythm of the spell Mai was weaving. Arnold tried to shrug off her hands, but she kept putting them back on his shoulders. Illya judiciously refrained from comment on the need to love Arnold.

“We love you because we see the real you. Everybody has an inner self that needs to find another person and love them. Were all like that, and were trying to find you right now.” She stepped closer, and Arnold stepped back. She pulled him towards her, trying to kiss his eyes, and he broke and jumped through the circular door.

“Look here. I’m going to lock this door, lock the door on the other side of it, and turn off the monitor in here. Sing anything you like, but lemme alone with that love stuff.” And he was gone, and the three kids hugged each other and Illya in a burst of stifled laughter at the routing of the dangerous little killer.

They rolled into song with new gusto then, singing purely for the sound of their own voices. Mai’s soprano led the others, and Illya added his second tenor whenever he wasn’t concentrating heavily on the switches and knobs of the console. Their exuberance carried through Silver Dagger, Green-sleeves, and more innovations with the verse-form of “Where have all the flowers gone?” before Illya had to concede that the spaceship console probably wasn’t going to show him the way out. He spun the dials one final time and muttered, “Napoleon found a way out of here.”

“You bet,” said Charlie. “Out of here, and into the drink, and all the way to the beach. But he looked like he must have traveled by way of a meatgrinder. Man, I hope you don’t find us the same way out.”

“Don’t knock it,” Andy answered. “If Arnold decides to come back and play some of his gas games we won’t be real happy with the world at all, at all.” The two took up humming the background to the old Greek song Mai was singing. Her fingers deftly rewove the flower coronet that the fight with Thrush had crushed. Of her audience, only Illya understood the words to the song, and as he examined the floor and walk of the Spaceship Room, inch by inch, he found himself joining in on the chorus.

“You’re good, Illya,” Mai said, breaking off the song. “Granted it’s not too swift being prisoners and all, but I’m glad to meet you. You know any more old songs?”

Illya straightened up from his fruitless search; his mind fled back to his childhood in Russia, the warm springs of Georgia, and the old Russian ballads filled his memory. The look of expectant pleasure on Mai’s face filled him with wonder. There was much to be said for a girl who could get excited over learning a folksong while faced with almost sure death.