living creatures or they could just as well have taken whatever it is they want instead of… You don’t happen to know what a high dragon bump is, do you?”
“Don’t be dumb. Of course I… well, unless it’s a dance or something. I use to be a dancer, ya know. Sort of.”
“With bubbles, I imagine,” Wayne said.
“Tassels. They was my specialty. But there’s more money in posing for pitchers, and the work ain’t quite so —”
“I doubt that a high dragon bump is a dance,” Wayne said.
Then he rubbed his chin. High dragon bump? Bumps and grinds? Highland fling? Chinese dragon dances? Hell, why not?
The idea of space travelers visiting earth to learn a new dance was no more fantastic than the idea of them being here at all.
Wayne turned his face to the door and shouted, “Hey, is that it? A dance? You want us to teach you a dance called the high dragon bump?”
A muffled metallic voice from the other side said, “Nod danz. Bump. Huguff quig.”
Wayne shrugged and grinned weakly at Sheilah. “Well, we’re making headway. We know one thing that it isn’t.”
The girl had drifted so close to him now that he could feel the warmth of her body and smell the overwhelming fragrance of her perfume.
She put one hand on his arm, and Wayne found that he had neither the strength nor the inclination to jerk away.
But he protested weakly, “Now, listen, there’s no point in you—I mean—even if we did, I couldn’t produce a high dragon bump.”
“What kind of work do you do, mister?” Sheilah asked softly, drawing herself even closer. “You know, you ain’t even told me your name yet.”
“It’s Wayne,” he said, fumbling in an effort to loosen his tie so he could breath more easily. “I’m an instructor. I teach physics at Kyler College, and I’ve got a weekly science show on TV. In fact I’d just finished my show when they got me. I was leaving the studio, starting down the stairs. Thought at first I’d missed a step and was falling, but I just kept falling. And I landed here, and… Now, don’t do that!”
“Why, I wasn’t doing nothing. Whaddya do on your TV show?”
“I talk. About science. Physics. Like today, I was discussing the H-bomb. How it works, you know, and why the fallout is dangerous, and… Oh, good Gawd! Seduce, reduce! High dragon bump!”
He shoved her away from him abruptly and violently and he went hurtling in the opposite direction.
“Well, hey!” Sheilah protested. “You don’t need to get so rough. I wasn’t going to—”
“Shut up,” Wayne said. “I think I’ve figured out what the Cirissins want!
“Hey! Hey, open the door,” he shouted. “I’ve got to talk to you.”
The door opened and a Cirissin floated in.
Sheilah turned her head away, shuddering, and Wayne found it wise to close his eyes and open them little by little to grow re-accustomed to the sight gradually.
The only thing he could think of with which to compare the Cirissins was the intestinal complex of an anemic elephant.
It was not an entirely satisfactory comparison; but then, from his point of view, the Cirissins were entirely unsatisfactory creatures.
Each of the four he had seen was nearly twice his size. They had no recognizable features such as eyes, ears, nose, head, arms or legs.
Tentacle-like protrusions of various size and length seemed to serve as the sensory and prehensile organs. Wayne had identified one waving, restless flexible stalk as the eye. He suspected another of being the mouth, except that it apparently wasn’t used for talking. The voice came from somewhere deep inside the convoluted mass of pastel-streaked tissue.
“Wand tog?” the Cirissin rumbled.
Wayne said, “Yes. Do you mind telling me what you want a high dragon bump for?”
“Blast away hearth,” the Cirissin replied unhesitatingly.
Wayne swallowed and found it unnaturally difficult to do so.
“To blast away earth?” he said. “You can do that with just one high dragon bump?”
“Certificate. Alteration energy maguntoot. Compilated, though. Want splain?”
Wayne said, “Never mind. I believe you. Just tell me this: Why? Who do you feel it’s necessary to do it?”
“Cause is necessary,” the Cirissin explained. “Hearth no good. Whee dun lake. Godda gut red oft.”
Sheilah gasped, “Why the inhuman beasts!”
Wayne expended one sidelong silencing glance on her and then said, “I see. And just suppose now that I don’t give you a high dragon bump? What do you do then?”
“Use hot tummy ache your arnium fishing bumps. Got them us elves. Tooking longthier, more hurtful, but can. Few don’t gives high dragon bump tweddy far whores, thin godda.”
Wayne was silent for a while, staring at the alien creature, aware of Sheilah staring at him.
“Twenty-four hours,” he muttered. “Then they use uranium fission bombs. Oh, hell!”
Finally he shrugged. “All right, I’ll do it. Anyway, I’ll try. I’ll do what I can.”
Sheilah said, “Hey, listen mister, you can’t…”
“Shut up!” Wayne snapped. “How do you know what I can do? You just let me handle this.”
“No sea juicing?” the Cirissin asked, waving his eye stem at Sheilah.
“No. No sea juicing, and no torch hair either, please. I just didn’t understand what you wanted at first. Now, if I could talk to your captain—or, are you the captain?”
The Cirissin replied, “I spoke man. Name Orealgrailbliqu. Capitate nod sparking merry can languish. I only earning languish. Gut, hah? Tree whacks.”
“Uh, yeah, very good indeed,” Wayne said. “And in only three weeks! Now, Mr.—you don’t mind if I call you O’Reilly, do you? Well, then, O’Reilly, do you have any suggestions as to how I should go about getting you a high dragon bump? You want me to make you one? Or—”
“Yukon mike?” O’Reilly asked.
Wayne shrugged modestly. “Of course. With proper materials and equipment—and enough time.” He wondered if there was any chance at all of convincing O’Reilly of that.
“Nod mush timeless,” O’Reilly said doubtfully. “God gut lab tarry, few wand lug.”
Wayne hesitated, partly to translate O’Reilly’s rumblings and partly to marvel at an audacious idea taking shape in his mind.
He said, “Uh, yes, by all means. I do want to look at your laboratory. Let’s go.”
The Cirissin offered no objections to Sheilah accompanying them, so they followed him, pulling themselves along the tubular corridor by means of metal rings set in the walls, apparently for that specific purpose.
It was the same means of propulsion employed by their guide, except that he used tentacles instead of hands.
They were more awkward than he, and so they fell behind.
“Listen, mister,” Sheilah said. “You’re not really gonna help these creeps, are ya? Cause, I mean, if you are I’m gonna stop you—one way or another.”
Wayne looked at her, feeling a deep sadness that anything so gorgeous could be so stupid. Stirred to self- consciousness by her near-nudity, he glanced quickly away.
“Why don’t you quit trying to think?” he advised her. “I may not be able to make a high dragon bump, but so help me I’m going to do my damnedest to see that they get one. And don’t you get any stupid patriotic ideas. You just keep out of it. Understand?”
O’Reilly had thrown open a door and was waiting for them.
Wayne looked inside.
“Smatter? Dun lake lab tarry?” the Cirissin asked after waiting nearly a minute for some comment.
The laboratory probably wasn’t adequate to produce a hydrogen bomb, Wayne realized; but he wasn’t at all sure. It was the most complex, complete and compact laboratory he had ever seen. Its sheer size forced him to
