Behind the Walls of Terra

The important thing was to get to Los Angeles as swiftly as possible, with as little chance of being detected by Orc's men as possible. This bus was a lucky thing for him, and as soon as they reached a suitable jumping-off place in the metropolitan area, they would jump. And hail and farewell to the Gnome King and His Bad Eggs.

He inspected the rest of the bus. The three older men playing cards looked up at him but said nothing. He felt a little repulsed by their bald heads and gray hair, their thickening and sagging features, red-veined eyes, wrinkles, dewlaps, and big bellies. He had not seen more than four old people in the twenty-four years he had lived in the universe of Jadawin. Humans lived to be a thousand there if they could avoid accident or homicide, and did not age until the last hundred years. Very few survived that long, however. Thus, Kickaha had forgotten about old men and women. He felt repelled, though not as much as Anana. She had grown up in a world which contained no physically aged people, and though she was now ten thousand years old, she had lived in no universes which contained unhandsome humans. The Lords were an aesthetic people and so they had weeded out the unbeautiful among their chattels and given the survivors the chance for a long long youth.

Baum walked down the aisle and said, "Looking for something?"

"I'm just curious," Kickaha said. "Is there any way out other than the door in front?"

"There's an emergency inside the women's dressing room. Why?"

"I just like to know these things," Kickaha said. He did not see why he should explain that he always made sure he knew exactly the number of exits and their accessibility.

He opened the doors to the two dressing rooms and the toilet and then studied the emergency door so that he would be able to open it immediately.

Baum, behind, said, "You sure got guts, friend. Didn't you know curiosity killed the cat?"

"It's kept this cat alive," Kickaha said.

Baum lowered his voice and came close to Kickaha. He said, "You really hung up on that chick?"

The phrase was new to Kickaha but he had no trouble understanding it.

He said, "Yes. Why?"

"Too bad. I've really flipped for her. No offense, you understand," he said when Kickaha narrowed his eyes. "Moo-Moo's a real doll, but a little weird, you know what I mean. She says you two are weirdos, and there is something a little strange about you, but I like that. But I was going to say, if you need some money, say one or two thousand, and you'd just, say, give me a deed to your chick, in a ma

Kickaha gri

"Two thousand doesn't grow on the money tree, my friend, but for that doll... !"

"Your business must be very good, if you can throw that much away," Kickaha said.

"Man, you kidding!" Baum said, seemingly genuinely surprised. "Ain't you really heard of me and my group before? We're famous! We've been everybody, we've made the top ten thirty-eight times, we got a Golden Record, we've given concerts at the Bowl! And we're on our way to the Bowl again. You don't seem to be with it!"

"I've been away for a long time," Kickaha said. "So what if I take your money and A

Baum seemed offended. He said, "The chicks offer themselves to me by the dozens every night. I'm not jesting. I got the pick! You saying this A

Baum's features were not only unharmonious, he had several pimples, and his teeth were crooked. "Do you have the money on you?"

Baum's voice had been questioning, even wheedling before. Now it became triumphant and, at the same time, slightly scornful.

"I can give you a thousand; maybe Solly, my agent, can give you five hundred. And I'll give you a check for the rest."

"White slavery!" Kickaha said. And then, "You can't be over twenty-five, right? And you can throw money around like that?"

He remembered his own youth during the Depression and how hard he had worked to just survive and how tough so many others had had it.

"You are a weirdo," Baum said. "Don't you know anything? Or are you putting me on?"

His voice was loaded with contempt. Kickaha felt like laughing in his face and also felt like hitting him in his mouth. He did neither. He said, "I'll take the fifteen hundred. But right now. And if A

Baum glanced nervously at Moo-Moo, who had moved over to sit with Anana.

He said, "Wait till we get to L.A. We'll stop off to eat, and then you can take off. I'll give you your money then."

"And you can get up your nerve to tell Moo-Moo that A

Baum turned a little pale and his undershot jaw sagged. He said, "You slimy... ! You got a nerve!"

"And I want a signed statement explaining why I'm getting the money. Any legitimate excuse will do."

"You think I'd double-cross you, turn you in to the fuzz?"

"That possibility did cross my mind," Kickaha said, wondering if the "fuzz" was the police.

"You may have been out of it for a long time, but you haven't forgotten any of the tricks, have you?" Baum said, not so scornfully now.

"There are people like you every place," Kickaha said.

He knew that he and Anana would need money, and they had no time to go to work to earn it, and he did not want to rob to get it if he could avoid doing so. If this nauseating specimen of arrogance thought he could buy Anana, let him pay for the privilege of finding out whether or not he could.

Baum dug into his jacket and came up with eight one-hundred dollar bills. He handed these to Kickaha and then interrupted his manager, a fat bald-headed man with a huge cigar. The manager gestured violently and shot some hard looks at Kickaha but he gave in. Baum came back with five one-hundred dollar bills. He wrote a note on a piece of paper, saying that the money was in payment for a debt he owed Paul J. Fi

Kickaha left Baum and sat down on a seat on which were a number of magazines, paperback books, and a Los Angeles Times. He spent some time reading, and when he had finished he sat for a long time looking out the window.

Earth had certainly changed since 1946.

Pulling himself out of his reverie, he picked up a road map of Los Angeles, which he'd noticed among the magazines. As he studied it, he realized Wolff and Chryseis could be anywhere in the great sprawl of Los Angeles. He was certain they were headed in that direction, though, rather than Nevada or Arizona, since the nearest gate was in the L.A. area. They might even be in a bus only a few miles ahead.

Since Wolff and Chryseis had taken the gate to Earth from the palace in Wolffs universe as an emergency exit to avoid being killed by the invaders, they were dressed in the clothes of the Lords. Chryseis may have been wearing no clothes at all. So the two would have been forced to obtain clothes from others. And they would have had to find some big dark glasses immediately, because anyone seeing Chryseis' enormous violet eyes would have known that she was not Earth-born. Or would have thought her a freak, despite her great beauty.

Both of them were resourceful enough to get along, especially since Wolff had spent more time on Earth as an adult than Kickaha had.