The Haunted Earth

myth figure, Ityitsil the Reptile Master.'

'Fascinating,' Tesserax said.

'EmRec,' Brutus said, 'you can describe me as awe-stricken, too.'

'Proceed,' EmRec said.

Tesserax said, 'How do you propose to locate this beast, this cross-bred monster?'

'It will locate us,' Jessie said. 'Part of the myth of the storm goddess is that she knows what transpires in every nook and cranny where her breezes blow. If the child inherited this mythical omniscience, it has known about all our comings and goings today. It will seek and destroy us. It knows we're here, just as it knew to avoid those traps your people set for it in the past.'

'But if it knows we're here,' Tesserax said, 'it also knows we might be able to destroy it. It knows that you've plumbed its secret.'

'It can't know that,' the detective said. 'It can't, because its many breezes do not reach inside four walls; indoors, it has no powers of observation, no ears and eyes.'

Helena said, 'Then, if it's on its way, we should be looking for some way to deal with it.'

Jessie smiled, started to speak, turned to EmRec and said, 'Yes, my ego is showing. I am smugly satisfied with myself.'

'I thought you were,' EmRec said. 'I already commented to that effect, on my inner tapes.' It waved one stubby hand again. 'Proceed.'

Jessie said, 'I cracked my mythology books and found out how to destroy, how to disintegrate the souls, of each of the monster's parents.'

'But they're already dead,' Tesserax said.

It was Helena who was smiling smugly now. 'Yes, they are, Tessie. But what Jessie means is — if we go through the rituals for dissipating both the mother and the father, the combination ought to dissipate the child — the beast.'

'Exactly,' Jessie said. 'Now, to destroy the storm goddess, one has only to repeat this voodoo chant—' he tapped an open book, ' — and throw a few drops of fresh human blood into her winds. To dissipate a Reptile Master, one must merely repeat a certain maseni prayer and pierce him with a silver shaft.'

'Therefore,' Helena continued, 'when we confront this beast, one of us will say the voodoo thing and throw blood into the wind, while someone else repeats the maseni prayer and fires a silver shaft into the creature's hide.'

Tesserax got to his feet, patting the top of his head excitedly. 'Two questions come to mind, straight off. First, where will we obtain this silver shaft, on such short notice?'

Jessie said, 'I have a dip of silver narcotics darts which I use in my pistol on Earth when I know I might have to shoot werewolves as well as human beings. There's not enough silver in the darts to kill a supernatural like a werewolf, but it stings them badly and keeps them back. And, judging from what I've read of your Reptile Masters, a few silver pins should turn the dissipation trick.'

'And what about the human blood?' Tesserax asked.

'The service robot operates a roboclinic out of one of these trunks he brought along, doesn't he?' the detective asked.

'Yes. On any dangerous mission, a roboclinic—'

Jessie interrupted: 'We can have him take a blood sample from me, and I can throw that into the air.'

'Will that be sufficient quantity of blood to meet the myth requirements?' the maseni asked.

'Yes, according to this UN text of mine.'

Excitedly, Tesserax said, 'Then we are ready for it — or nearly so! If it should come after us tonight—'

He was interrupted by a long, blood-curdling scream, a roaring, a thundering voice that shook the windows in their panes and made the mythical inn tremble violently on its mythical foundation.

'Already?' Tesserax asked.

Jessie said, 'We had best move fast.'

EmRec said, 'Excuse me, gentlemen, but would you say that scream was merely one of rage — or was it touched by madness? I think maybe my audio receptors were jarred a bit, in transport, in addition to my scanners.'

Chapter Twenty-Three

The home world's two large moons shone down on the detective, the woman, the hell hound, Tesserax, the service robot, EmRec, Hogar the Poisoner, and a couple of giant, loin-clothed maseni gods as the group gathered behind the inn, facing the dark snow forests on, the higher slopes of Piotimkin. The booming, inhuman voice came from that direction. Soon, the thing would appear.

'Anyone like a cookie?' Hogar asked. He passed a box of them around; the box came back to him, still full.

EmRec said, 'Mr. Hogar, sir, is that some form of mad expectancy on your face, or do you suffer from indigestion?'

'Drop a bolt,' Hogar snarled.

The stubby robot said, 'I wouldn't have to ask if my sight circuits and interpretation nodes hadn't been badly jarred in transport.'

'Strip your threads,' Hogar said, meaner than before.

Now, from upslope, came the sound of the giant conifers splitting apart like tiny saplings to make way for the monster. Trees crashed down, colliding noisily with other trees. Frightened woodland animals called out and rushed forth into the open meadow that separated the inn from the trees.

'There!' Helena cried.

Something enormous reared out of the last of the pines. Trees fell before it, revealing it in the pale moonlight.

'Ugly bastard, isn't he?' Brutus asked.

A core of violent winds, churning like beater blades on a mixmaster, whipped the trees and tore up the meadow sod and hurled it skyward in fist-sized chunks. The animals that had run into the meadow now ran out again, screeching shrilly, bellowing in terror. At the center of the maelstrom lay the more concretized aspect of the beast: a thirty-foot lizard which looked much like its father but was twice as large as a Reptile Master and a thousand times meaner. It turned green eyes on them and ran a pebbled tongue over rows of sabrelike teeth, started lumbering in their direction. Each of its six feet left barrel-sized depressions in the earth.

'I can't interpret the monster's facial expressions at all,' EmRec said. 'And considering that its bellows really convey no meaning, I should really get something down here, I don't suppose one of you gentlemen is in the mood to assist?'

'Pop a rivet,' Hogar snapped, still holding his big boxful of poisoned cookies.

'I didn't think you'd be in the mood,' the metal dwarf said.

Helena had begun the voodoo chant, while Brutus began to read the maseni prayer that would help dissipate the father's heritage. Jessie held both the vial of blood and the narcotics dart pistol loaded with silver pins.

'Blood,' Hogar said, sarcastically. 'Everyone derides me. But I'll tell you one thing — poisoning is at least neat.'

The gargantuan had crossed a third of the meadow and was picking up speed, bearing down on them with the determination of a wounded bear and the momentum of a freight train.

The maseni gods began to nonchalantly back away from the scene, their eyes wide in terror but not yet terrified enough to soil their godly reputations with a display of cowardice.

'Hurry with the chants!' Tesserax cried.

'That was raw fear,' EmRec said, smugly. 'That was the clearest expression of naked terror that I have ever seen, Mr. Galiotor.'

Tesserax did not respond. Indeed, he had not even heard the dwarf, for his own loud screaming.

The earth shook with the dragon's approach. The force of the winds hit them and pasted their clothes tight