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“You make us sound like feral terriers, wild dogs!” I growled savagely,
“You are. Any more questions?”
“Yes. What—happens next?” Sybil said.
“I can answer that,” I answered. “With Professor Coypu’s help we will build a machine to travel to these distant universes. And we will get Angelina back.”
“That is wonderful news. But let us not do any of that until after breakfast,” she added with womanly practicality. “I’m sure that we will need all our strength to do all of that.”
Chapter 9
I waited until James and Bolivar had joined us at the breakfast table, and had eaten their stringy eggs, before I brought them all up to speed.
“Meeting come to order.” They all looked intently at me—with the exception of Professor Coypu who was muttering to himself as he scrawled mathematical equations onto a large scratchpad. “The professor will not mind if I simplify drastically what he revealed to me this morning. Heaven and Hell are in different universes and we can get to them. Plus there are other universes we can reach—and Angelina is in one of them. With a little help from us he can build a machine that we can use to get her back. Understood?”
Everyone nodded and smiled. Except for Coypu, who sniffed miffedly. He could apparently do two things at one time because, while still noodling his equations, he spoke.
“Your simplification is utter nonsense. These equations prove…”
“That you know what you are doing,” I broke in before everything got murky again. “And we know what we are going to do. We are going to find one of the Slakey clones. Unless they used their machine to leave this planet, they must still be here. I had the Special Corps put the pressure on the local military to seal this planet tight. Like a roach motel they can come in but they can’t go out. An intense and thorough search has been going on at this moment…” “Let the Slakeys go,” Sybil said.
Silence descended. Even Coypu stopped writing. Sybil smiled sweetly at her stu
“Ease up, allow for loopholes and human error. Let them test the doors until they find one unlocked. When they get out have them followed.”
“That won’t be easy…”
“Yes it will,” Coypu said. “I have been considering a new and unique theory about the effects of inter—universe travel;” he held up his pages of equations, “that I have now proved to my satisfaction is true. It is called entropic delimitation.”
He smiled with scientific satisfaction, so pleased with himself that he tapped happily on his teeth with his fingernails, looked around at our glazed stares.
“I will elucidate. When you were in Hell you observed that certain changes occurred to people there. Skin color became encarmined, new appendages grew, insanity progressed. These equations prove positively that the changes are not physical in the sense that they are made by chemicals in the atmosphere and so forth. No indeed. These changes are caused by entropic delimitation, the basic incompatibility of material taken from one universe to another. Once I had realized this it was simplicity itself to construct an E—meter. A machine that embodies immense possibilities while remaining simple in construction. Here it is.”
He dug around in his shirt pocket, took out something small and placed it carefully on the table. We all leaned close.
“It looks like a stone tied to a piece of string,” I said.
“It is. When I analyzed your reports and saw the direction in which my researchers were going, I took the precaution of obtaining some Hell—matter. From your discarded clothing, Jim. There were bits of gravel in your pockets, from all that slithering about on the ground I imagine. Now—the proof of the pudding is in the eating.”
He picked up the string by the loose end, stood and walked over towards me. Stopped and held this complicated scientific device out so that the stone was suspended just before my nose. I looked at it cross—eyedly.
“Is it moving?” he asked.
“It seems to be swinging towards me!”
“It is. You were in Hell long enough for entropic delimitation to affect your body, if ever so slightly.” He held the thing out over Sybil’s hand and nodded happily. Then walked to the twins, held it in turn behind one head and then the other. He pointed at James.
“You are the brother who operated the machine and did not pass through to Hell.”
James could only nod in silence. Coypu admired his invention. “If I can get this strong a response after such a brief transit—1ust think how Jiving Justin will light up in the dark! As soon as I have manufactured a few thousand meters, simple enough to do, all the restrictions on free movement will be lifted. No attempt will be made to apprehend the miscreants or stop them from leaving—”
“Great!” I cried aloud gustily. “They can run but they ca
Of course it didn’t happen that easily. Instead of—trying to run, Slakey and Slakey had apparently gone to ground. When they didn’t walk into any of our traps, the good Professor Coypu went back to the workbench and improved upon his original model. Which, all things considered, was pretty crude. He built larger ones with amplifying circuits that would work over greater distances. Then military jets quartered the skies over the islands—and had a trace within hours.
“Here,” the Special Corps technician said, opening up a large map and tapping his finger on a red—marked site. We all leaned close. “The pilot of the search plane took off, circled for altitude—and all the bells went off.”
“That is right in the middle of a city,” I said.
“It certainly is. In fact it is the center of the capital of this planet, Hammar City. The first reading we had almost blew the needle off its bearings. And it hasn’t moved since we spotted it. But there are two other, weaker traces in the city—and one of them is moving.”
“Is it possible that there could be another machine, which would explain the strong trace? And the other contacts might be a couple of Slakeys?”
“Professor Coypu is of the same opinion. He says if you plan to take any offensive actions you must speak to him first.”
“No problem. Where is he?”
“In the nightclub downstairs doing research.”
“Research …?” It was mind—boggling time again. “But which club? There are seven in this hotel.”
“The Green Lizard. Very ethnic.”
I wondered what could be ethnic about lizards; I soon found out. The sound of jungle drums filled the hot, moist air, while the screams of nocturnal animals cut through the semidarkness. I ducked under the low leaves of the trees and almost choked myself on a vine.
“May I be of service, human visitor?” a large green lizard said, smiling faugedly before me. While the head was that of a lizard the green body was human and enthusiastically female. Painted green I realized, this fact was visible even in the dim jungle light. Also visible was the even more interesting fact that paint on skin was all that she was wearing; nothing else. I wondered just what kind of research the professor was doing here. “Coypu,” I said. “I’m joining him. Small man, gray hair, good teeth…” “This way, please, dear human visitor.” She led me through the jungle—a fine figure to follow to a log table. Coypu sat on a chair stump just as naked, though not as attractive, as my leading lizard. He was sucking at the straw of a tall drink in a section of bamboo while he scribbled equations on a large leaf. “I’ll have whatever he has,” I said, then forced my gaze back on the professor when she slithered away. “Ahh, Jim, sit down.” “I don’t want to interrupt your work.” “You’re not. I have just finished with all of my research. So that tomorrow I’ll be able to finalize my scientific paper titled ‘Saunan Substitutions for Reenhancing Subliminal Sexual Inhibitions. ‘” “Sounds fascinating.” “Indeed it does. I’m also writing a shorter and more popular version for the Internet called ‘Chicklist for Hungry Hunters. ‘” “You’re onto a wi