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  When he had spent and rolled off the now-bleeding little prize, Seos just lay for moments, breathing

  raggedly and allowing the love-sweat to dry on the surface of his skin, while his whole being enjoyed the warm, soft, delicious afterglow of successful coition.

  At length, he rose up on an elbow to look down at the teary brown eyes of the girl beside him and asked, "What is your name? How are you called, little dark one?"

  The girl knew that she must respond to the god's question and, her voice burbling on a gulped-back sob, she said, "Oo-roh-bah, o Sacred One. This one is called Oo-roh-bah, Daughter of the Priest-chief, Tur-ghos of the Two Axes. The mighty Tur-ghos, too, is of the Holy Race, Sacred One."

  Something leaped within Seos at the girl's last words. "Is it then so?"

  "Yes, Sacred One, God of Wild Oxen," she attested, adding a bit sadly, "Tur-ghos even looks like a god, but I, alas, resemble her who bore me by him, a dark woman of the desert, taken by him in war."

  "If the resemblence is marked, little dark one," said Seos, "if the mother looked much like her daughter at the same age, then I well can understand why even a god-descended priest-chief would have felt impelled to take so rare and fair a woman to bear his sons and his daughters.

  "But, Oorohbah, you do not understand; the marks of god-descent lie not in light hair or dark, fair skin or dusky, height or lack of it; no, the marks of god-descent are not visible to the eye. Let me enter your mind and ..."

  She whimpered, then, but he laid a hand upon one trembling shoulder to say, "No, there will be no

  pain to you, not this time . . . and as regards the other," he smiled warmly, "the pain will rapidly lessen and soon there will be none, only the natural pleasure of man and woman."

  Only the briefest of delving into her mind raised his joy to fever-heights. Arising to his knees, he first took the girl into his arms, bade her clasp his neck tightly and close her eyes, not to open them until he so bade, then ascended high into the air and retraced his way to the copse of the slain deer.

  Having finally tired of being a leopard, Ehra too had sent her body floating in the air and, at the edge of a wood, was watching with amusement the play-antics of a litter of striped piglets as they caroused around and over the snoring bulks of several sows, a huge-tushed boar and the rest of the sounder of older swine.

  His voice calling her attention roused the entire herd of wild pigs. The piglets' raucous game broke up at a single grunt from the largest of the shaggy sows and, as they scurried to a place of safety behind her, the old boar and a brace of his almost-mature male progeny trotted forward to the point of danger, snorting, grunting, clashing their tushes, their huge heads down and pure murder glittering from their red eyes.

  Floating higher, to his level, Ehra bitterly reproached Seos, saying, "Now just look what you've done, brother-mine! And I was having so much fun watching those little piglets play. What is so important about a black-haired human female. Her sex-parts are bleeding, you know, you're all running blood from your waist to your toes . . . but if I know

  you and your infamous proclivities, you probably deserve it. Did you take her in your man-form? Of course you did, if you'd taken her as a bull the size of the one you were when you left here, you'd be carrying a corpse, not a living girl."

  Gravely, he said, "I regret that I had to interrupt your diversions, sister-mine, but I think you . . . and our sire . . . will feel it well worth the cost. Enter this child's mind and tell me what you find therein."

  After doing as she was bade, Ehra hissed sibilantly between her white, even teeth, then demanded, "How many like this are there, Seos?"

  He shrugged. "I don't know . . . not yet. She avows that her still-living sire is god-descended, or hybrid heritage—however debased, in other words— and she has brothers and sisters all by the same sire and so, hopefully, sharing her mental talents. But before I or you scout out their settlement and try to enter more minds, it were wise, I think, that we bear this sample to father." *

  target before I shoot, because even big as you are, I don't think one or two of these forty-four magnums would do you a bit of good."

  The Hon, which had turned almost navy blue in fright, was slowly fading back to royal blue as he beamed aggrievedly, "Well, I like thought you meant to like sleep all day, man. The sun's done been up over a hour, now, and f m so hungry I could scarf up cold horse-buns. It's time you went down south, there, and shot me . . . uhh, us, some eatments."

  "No, it's not," replied Fitz, as he reholstered the revolver, "The grey panther, Puss, was here while you were snoring last night. She says that I have to start out today, not tomorrow, so I'll give you that hung pheasant and ..."

  "No, man," put in the Hon, "it ain't no pheasant no more. After you like sacked in, I got so hungry I like chewed through the rope and scarfed that bird up, 'cause I like figgered you could shoot some more this morning, after you'd like shot me a whole bunch of them little antelopes, see."

  "Thanks a whole lot, Cool Blue," said Fitz disgustedly, "I'd already told you last night that that bird was my breakfast. Some kind of trustworthy buddy you are!"

  "Man, be cool," expostulated the lion, defensively, "Man, I was like starving you dig? I was like almost as hungry then as I am now."

  "Then why didn't you go off and hunt?" demanded Fitz. "That's what hungry lions are supposed to do, isn't it?"

  "Now, how was I s'posed to hunt grub and watch over you while you was sleeping at the like same

  time, man?" the lion answered. "That's like my job, man, like taking good care of you ... or at least, like trying to. if I'd of left here and a real lion or a bear or something had got you, that weird grey cat would of seen to it. I stayed in this lion getup like forever."

  "Thank you for your entirely unselfish solicitude for my safety and well-being, Cool Blue," beamed Fitz sarcastically.

  The sarcasm was completely missed by the blue lion. "Aw, hell, man, it's no need to like thank me; like I said, it's my job, man. You gonna shoot us some antelopes now? Just three, four'U last me most of the day . . . and maybe that dumb Norman dude in the steel T-shirt'll be back by then."

  As he began to dress, Fitz beamed, "No, Cool Blue, I am not. Since you saw fit to purloin my planned breakfast, I'll eat out of my supplies this morning. That done, I am gong to crest this hill, go down into the glen just north of us and start hiking west.

  "You, because with your lion nose you can trail by scent, are going to set off after Sir Gautier. Once you find him, you'll bring him back to this cache long enough for him to take this pack that will be waiting here for him, then you and he and any of his men he could locate are going to set off on my trail at top speed. I'll be moving as slowly as I can and blazing trees at intervals along my path. Understand?"

  "Man," exclaimed the baby-blue Hon, "you've like flipped your everlovin' wig! You know that? You go around like setting trees on fire, you gonna burn down the whole, fucking woods!"

  Fitz sighed. Yet another failure to adequately com-

  * 99

  municate with the hipster-trumpeter become lion. He asked, "Were you ever in the Boy Scouts, back in the world you came here from, Cool Blue?"

  "Aw, hell no, man," was the reply, "f m like a city dude, man. I like concrete under my feet and flush toilets and showers and all and I have since I was like a little kid, too. I lived in a fucking leaky tent in the stinking mud and slush and snow and all and froze my balls like almost off crapping in a hole in the ground long-side of the bush-niggers in the Army in Korea cause the fucking Government gimme like no damn choice. But even before then, when I was just a little kid, I wouldn't of like lived like that could I of helped it, and that's the kinds of living the fucking Boy Scouts thinks is the best fucking thing since sliced bread! Like, why, man?"

  "Because, Cool Blue," Fitz informed him, while rolling his sleeping bag tightly enough to fit it into its case, "if you had been a scout you would have understood what I said about leaving a well-marked trail to gui
de you and Sir Gautier when you follow me west. Now, watch."

  Taking a machete, he left the rock-overhang and paced across the minuscule clearing to the largest of the nearby trees. With a light, glancing swipe of the sharp blade, he took a strip of bark two inches wide and about six long off the trunk at the level of his chest. A few seconds of whittling at one end of the barked area with the point of the blade gave a reasonable representation of an arrow, its sharp tip pointing uphill.

  Turning to the lion, he beamed silently, "That is how you blaze a tree, Cool Blue. Til be doing that

  along the way west that I take. All you and Sir Gautier have to do is follow the direction pointed out by the blazes. Okay?"

  "But, man," pled the lion, piteously, "I'm like starving! I kept by you all night and now I'm so empty I just like got to have some meat before I can go do anything, you know. What you going to eat?"

  Fitz shrugged. "A can of beans, I guess, while I hike; I don't want to take the time to start a fire. I slept longer than I meant to. Why, do you want a can, too?"

  "Cold canned beans?" queried the lion, "Oh, God, man, like don't even think gaggy things like that! That's as bad to think about as fucking Yew Ess Army fucking C-Rations is. Like if I wasn't so empty, I'd be like puking my guts out, you know that, man? That's as bad as a gook's been scarfing up stinking kim-chi"

  Fitz grinned. "I rather liked kim-chi, myself, Cool Blue—hot peppers, celery-cabbage, white radishes, plenty of garlic, all nicely fermented in a stone crock ..."

  The baby-blue hue had lightened into almost an ice-blue; the lion looked really ill. "Oh, Christ, man, like stop it. . . pleasel All right, I'll go after your pet Norman dumblock for you. We'll look for them chops in the trees, too, you know. Just promise me you won't never again talk about barfy things like that, 'specially not if I got a full stomach. Like I can't take it, man. You know?"

  Fitz nodded. "Fine, Cool Blue. You get going, then, I'll do all that's needful here, then hit the trail myself. Be certain to bring Sir Gautier back here to pick up this pack, this belt and the things that are

  fastened to it, okay? They'll be in front of the motorcycle, just behind the brush and rocks I'll use to close the front of the opening. I hope to see you soon. Good hunting."

  "Oh, sure; that's like easy for you to say." Grumbling, his belly rumbling, the big, blue beast set off up the rocky trail toward the hillcrest, but slowly, maned head low, tufted tail barely clearing the ground.

  "You like better be careful out there alone, man," he beamed back. "Because if it is some of oF Saint Germaine's pets is loose is why the big game is all hiding or bugged out for safer stompin' grounds, the fucking monsters is gonna be hungry as me and you're gonna look like a nice snack to them and I don't think all the bullets in that humongous rod of yours could stop one of the big ones 'til after it was way too late for you, man. Like 'til I get up to you with the Norman, you better like bed down in trees— big trees, too, thirty feet up in them, anyway, so's them buggers can't just like rear up on their hind legs and sink their choppers in you, man—don't none of them like to climb trees, maybe they can't, I figger. ^

  "Ain't you got nothing I can eat before I go? No meat at all, man?"

  "How about a can of lima beans and ham chunks, Cool Blue?" offered Fitz magnanimously, maliciously adding, "Or real GI spaghetti in meat sauce?"

  The color of the still departing lion paled briefly and he made a noise that the man could not identify —it could have been a growl or a groan. Then the beast was out of sight among the brush and tree-boles and rocks.

  As was his gallant way, Pedro Goldfarb walked Danna Dardrey to the place wherein her car was parked in the cavernous, echoing, near-empty parking-garage. Squinting through the ill-lit gloom, he asked, "Where did you stash your Jag, Danna? Are you sure this is the right level? All I can see is a Pontiac wagon with a flat and that Mercedes sedan over there."

  "That's die car I'm driving now, Pedro: the Mercedes, Fitz's Mercedes. The Jaguar needs a new alternator, it had to be ordered from England and the service manager—that slimy little creep—at Gouge and Robb wouldn't even agree to place the order unless I left the car there."

  "Ridiculous!" snorted Pedro in disgust. "You should change shops."

  With a wry smile, she shook her head. "No such luck. Gouge and Robb are the only game in town. Not too many folks around here drive Jags anyway, you know, and that set of chauvinistic, unhung thieves and lechers own the only authorized repair franchise in this part of the state. I had this same problem every other time I've needed work on it; I guess my vaunted, female masochism is the only reason I hang onto the albatross . . . aside of course from the humble feet that, when everything in it is working right, it's the most responsive and dependable car I ve ever driven in my life."

  The dark-haired man nodded in sympathy. "I understand, it's your money-hole, like that sailboat I had—when she was good, she was very, very good, but when she was not, which it seemed was most of

  the time, she was more expensive than you could possibly believe. Well, at least you now have two or three replacement vehicles—the Mercedes and , . . what is it out there, a Jeep wagon?"

  "At Fitz's?" she answered. "Yes, a Jeep Wagoneer, this sedan and his Mercedes 450, too."

  "Nonononononono!" said Pedro, shaking his head while shaking a finger at her. "You must watch what you say, Danna, Blutegel would be overjoyed to try to hang a perjury rap on you . . . me too, for that matter. The house and property out there, and everything on or in them, are yours, including all the motor vehicles! Fitz signed them over to you quite properly and, more important, quite legally, in payment for services rendered. Everything is all duly signed, sealed, adequately witnessed and recorded in all the proper places. Remember what we used to say back during World War Two about loose lips."

  "But Pedro," she protested, "just you and me, talking alone in an absolutely deserted place like this at whatever godawful hour of the morning this is? Aren't you getting a little bit paranoid on the subject?"

  "Not at all, Danna," he assured her in his normal conversational tone. "Have you read a book called The Privacy Invaders? No? Then by all means buy a copy and do so. It's frightening the amounts of state-of-the-art equipment various governmental agencies have at their disposal whenever they want it. . . and they don't always have to have a court order to put the stuff into use. They can sometimes just use it for fishing expeditions against law-abiding citizens they for one reason or another want to get."

  She sighed. "Pedro . . . ? Look, I know you're

  very tired, just now, but . . . but, Pedro, you're beginning to sound too much like Gus Tolliver used to sound in his endless diatribes against the Department of the Treasury. Coming from him, it was, as Hamill says, just one of Tolliver's lanky quirks; but when I hear the same things from you . . . well, it's scary."

  "Sorry, Dana, I didn't mean to frighten you, just to alert you that we two are not really on firm footing in all of this Fitz-business, despite appearances to the contrary, and we have to exercise exceeding caution every waking minute. You know, much of all that Tolliver used to bitch about was correct, pure and unadulterated truth; both you and I and any other tax attorney or CPA worth his or her salt knows that the tax laws of the United States of America are in no way or means fair to the vast majority of the taxpayers. But those unfair laws are on the books and only Congress can change them. And with most if not all of the Congress in hock up to their bushy eyebrows to lobbies and vested interest groups who all profit from the existing laws and situations, don't try holding your breath until anyone up in D.C. does the fair, decent, moral thing and changes the status quo.

  "Now, get in your car and warm it up. Ill stay here until you pull out."

  "Oh, Pedro," she protested, "y° ure tired, you need to get home too. Inside the car with the doors all locked, I'll be okay the few minutes ..."

  "No, we'll compromise and do it my way, if you please ... or even if you don't, Mrs. Dardrey," he

 
stated in no-argument tones. "You are of value to my firm and I always take good care of items of value/'

  Later, on her drive home through the light drizzle and lighter traffic, she again shivered and took alternate hands from the wheel to lay the gooseflesh on her arms. Should she have told the rest of Mr. Haras weird tale to Pedro? After all, she did not represent the wizened oriental gentleman, so what he had told her was not privileged information; nor had he asked that she not impart his recountal to anyone else. Could what the aged man had said and—her probings of his mind had proven—truly believed, be true? Not too long ago she would have written Mr. Hara off as an elderly, gentle nut, possibly senile, but that was before she had met Fitz and had, herself, experienced so many utterly impossible things, before she had learned how to use her mind to enter the minds of others and determine whether or not they were lying, whether or not they believed what they were speaking aloud.

  And speaking of weird, impossible, unexplainable things, no one had taught her how to silently probe minds. Yes, Fitz it was who had showed her how to converse silently, telepathically, but she had come up with the idea of probing for truth or, at least, belief, entirely on her own, as she had lain, thinking and reading in the cabin of the wrecked ship they called their "sand yacht" after the sound of the engine of Fitz's motorcycle had faded into the far distance.

  Up there in the office tonight (this morning? whatever), she had rationalized it in her conscious mind that her employer, her dear friend, Pedro, was clearly

  very tired, despite his apparent animation and energy, and so it would be better to cut the recountal short to possibly be completed at another time. That was what she had told herself up there, then, but now, alone, she admitted the truth to herself. Until she had more proof, more substantial evidence that. . . ?

  "That what, Danna?" she spoke aloud in the empty sedan. "That an old, Japanese Buddhist monk or friar or whatever they call them believes—really and truly believes—you and Pedro and even Fitz, a man he hasn't even met yet, to be some kind of gods, real gods, for God's sake? Try getting solid proof of that, Mr. Ripley! I can just see the headlines screaming out now: Danna Dardrey proved god . . . no, I guess that would be goddess, in my case.