The Computer Connection

Then we got a break. We passed an abandoned dump. I explored the rusting, moldering rubbish and, hallelujah! produced cooking and eating tools from forgotten automobile parts; two deep old fenders, eight hubcaps (for plates), and a gasoline tank which I had to hammer loose from the remains of a chassis. That was for water storage. I hammered one of the fenders flattish for a frypan, and raised the sides of the other for a stewpot. We were in business.

Now we really foraged. Natoma taught me how to catch rabbits, Indian-style. When she spotted a big jack sitting up and surveying the terrain, she’d give me the sign and I’d sort of meander past, not getting within spooking distance. The jack would keep his eyes on me suspiciously while I wandered about aimlessly. Meanwhile Nat was creeping up on him from behind. A quick grab and she had him. Not always, but often enough.

We had a windfall once. We’d just crossed a dry arroyo when I noticed black clouds laced with lightning many miles to our left. I stopped the party, pointed to the distant storm, then to the arroyo, and lastly to the gas tank. We waited. We waited. We waited. Then there was a distant ramble followed by a growing roar, and a foaming flash flood torrented down the arroyo. I washed the gas tank repeatedly and finally filled it. The water was full of sediment but it was potable. Then came the windfall; a thrashing, kicking sheep was borne down to us by the tumbling water. I grabbed a leg. Natoma grabbed the other. We hauled it out. I now draw the curtain on the godawful business of butchering and ski

Curiously enough, Twink didn’t seem to need any food, and that’s when I first began to suspect that it was feeding on something outlandish like high-tension wires. It had intelligence. After a week of watching Hic and me foraging it got a piece of the idea. It would blink at Fearful Leader — I wish I knew what language they were speaking — and take off. It would return with all sorts of junk clutched to its plasm; rocks, sage, dead branches, bleached bones, a bottle turned purple by the sun… But one glorious evening it brought back a thirty-pound peccary. More hatchetwork.

Ozymandias crashed in on us the night we’d caught a twenty-pound armadillo and were wondering how to cook it. I don’t exaggerate his advent. It was heralded by approaching bangs, crunches, breakage, flounderings; it sounded like a blind brontosaurus blundering through a jungle. Then he appeared in the firelight, threw his arms wide, knocking over a cactus, and nearly tripped into the fire.

Merlin nicknamed him Ozymandias, from the last sentence of Shelley’s poem: Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare the lone and level sands stretch far away. Oz was colossal. He stood two meters high and weighted 150 kilos. (That’s 6'8" × 330 lbs.) He was a wreck. He’s eaten and drunk his way around the entire system hundreds of times, leaving lone and level sands where once fine food flourished. He was also a wrecker. Oz can’t go anywhere or do anything without breaking something, including himself. Hardly an asset for our expedition, but I was grateful to him for rallying ‘round.

He’s strictly a metropnik — you never find him outside of a Center City — and his idea of action clothes for the wilderness was hilarious: heavy mountaineering boots, tasseled wool stockings, leather shorts, canvas safari coat, and a Tyrolean hat, including the shaving brush. But the dear maladroit had an impressive hunting knife hung from his hip, and that would come in handy. He had a rucksack slung over one shoulder, and from the bulges I could tell it was filled with wine bottles. From the spreading stain and steady red drip I could also tell that at least one of them had been wrecked already.

Ozymandias opened his mouth for a hearty roar of greeting but I signed him off. He shut his mouth, winced, and felt his tongue. Bit it, no doubt. From then on our conversation was conducted written on banknotes, like a couple of deaf Beethovens. I won’t reproduce our shorthand, and anyway Oz broke my stylus. What it got down to was this: The Group knew I was fetching Hic-Haec-Hoc, and Pepys told them Hic was on Titan. Oz did something v. brilliant, he thought. He sent a reply-paid telex to the Titan authorities requesting the return date and destination of Edward Curzon and wife. But — clever, clever — Oz used an alias. The information was sent, and that’s how the network knew. Oz picked up our trail of smashed electronics — he’s not altogether a nudnik — and followed. He surmised that others might do the same.

He greeted us all the same way; hugged, kissed, and tossed us into the air. Oz is a tosser. You have to be prepared to land on your feet; he misses his catch as often as not. He fell in love with Natoma at first sight; he’s always falling in love at first sight. He was taken aback by Twink but tossed it anyway. No kissing. When I asked his advice about the armadillo he was assured and brief. Roast it in the shell, he wrote. Then he inspected the rucksack, pulled out a broken bottle, and wept, pointing to the label. Vosne-Romanée Conti, the finest and rarest of burgundies. However, he cheered up the next moment, shrugged, laughed, tossed the broken bottle in the air, and threw it away, cutting himself in the process.

We had a transport difficulty with Ozymandias. He couldn’t ride a horse; he’d break its back. Natoma got out of the wagon to ride the horse I’d been on (the other two were hitched to the wagon) and Oz got in. He overturned it, scattering our gear. We put it all together and Oz tried again. This time I made him crawl over the tail and sit. It worked. We were now a lost army of four, on the march.

We proceeded to Obregon where Hillel picked us up. He was in a hover, took one look at our scene, and didn’t stop. Acute and fast. He’d no doubt smashed the instrumentation and I couldn’t understand his exaggerated caution. He went straight on over the horizon as though he’d seen nothing. We heard an explosion and a half hour later Hilly came ru

The Jew nodded and smiled.

The Rajah?

Y.

How?

Too complicated for writing. It was brilliant.

But you escaped.

At a price. Poulos was the warning.

Regeneration?

Perhaps. You’re the next candidate. Be careful.

W me?

He’s killing in descending order.

Hilly spoke a greeting to the horror-struck Natoma with his eyes, popped a handful of candy into Hic’s mouth, patted Ozymandias on the cheek, and examined Twink with fascination. Twink had never come across a three-limbed Terran before and had to explore the Hebe. Hilly twitched through the examination as though he were receiving electric shocks. Then he took off and was gone for a few hours while we rested and I tried to stop Natoma from crying. Oz produced a flute d’amour from his rucksack and played sweet, mellow sounds.

Hilly rode back on a vintage bicycle which he’d promoted somehow, and the army continued on to Chihuahua where M’bantu joined the party. Five deaf Beethovens. M’b left us and returned, riding a donkey, his long legs scraping the ground. Twink was bewildered by M’bantu’s color and had to examine, naturally. The Zulu understood and immediately stripped. He twitched and jerked through the inspection and finally went over in a dead faint. We pulled Twink off his head and hovered over the Zulu, doing things, until he recovered consciousness. When he’d regained some strength I wrote, Suffocated?

N. Brain drain. Lost brain energy.

Sucked out by it?

Y.

Electro nerve charge?

Y. Don’t let it come near you naked.

W naked?