Flesh Read online

  The guard blanched. “With your permission, sire, I’ll join my friends.”

  “Do that!” Stagg said, laughing.

  The guard trotted away to a group standing about fifty yards off.

  “I’m hungry again,” Stagg said. “Get me some food. Lots of meat.”

  “Yes, sire.”

  Stagg began to prowl around the camp. When he came across a gray-haired fat man snoring away in a hammock stretched between two tripods, he turned the hammock over and dumped the fat man on the ground. Roaring with laughter, he strode around the camp and began shouting in the ear of every sleeper he came across. They sat up, their eyes wide and their hearts beating with shock. He laughed and moved on and seized the leg of a girl and began tickling her on the sole of her foot. She shrieked with laughter and wept and begged him to let her go. A young man, her fiancé, stood by but made no move to free her. His fists were clenched, but it would have been blasphemy to interfere with the Sunhero.

  Stagg looked up and saw him. He frowned, released the girl, and rose to his feet. At that moment the girl whom he’d sent for food came with a tray. There were two pitchers of ale on it. Stagg took one and calmly poured it over the head of the young man. Both girls laughed, and that seemed to be a signal to the whole camp. Everybody howled.

  The girl with the tray took the other pitcher of ale and poured it over the fat man who had been dumped out of the hammock. The cold liquid brought him sputtering to his feet. He ran into his tent and came out with a small keg of beer. Holding it upside down, he drenched the girl with its contents.

  A beer-throwing party exploded across the camp. There wasn’t a person on the meadow who wasn’t dripping with ale and beer and whiskey, except for the girl in the cage. Even the Sunhero was showered. He laughed when he felt the cool liquid and ran for more to throw back. But on the way he got a new idea. He began pushing the tents over so they would imprison the occupants. Howls of anguish rose from the interiors of the collapsed tents. The others began imitating Stagg’s actions, and shortly there was hardly a tent standing on the meadow.

  Stagg seized the girl who had served him and the girl whose foot he’d tickled. “You two must be mascots,” he said. “Otherwise you’d not be half-naked. How did I happen to miss you last night?”

  “We weren’t beautiful enough for the first night.”

  “The judges must be blind,” Stagg roared. “Why, you’re two of the most beautiful and desirable girls I’ve ever seen!”

  “We thank you. It’s not just beauty that enables you to be chosen as the bride of the Sunhero, sire, though I hesitate to say it for fear of what might happen if a priestess overheard me. But it’s true that if your father happens to have wealth and connections, you stand a much better chance of being picked.”

  “Then why were you two chosen to be in my entourage?”

  “We were second-place winners in the Miss America contests, sire. Being in your entourage isn’t as great an honor as having one’s debut in Washington. But it is still a great honor. And we are hoping that tonight at Fair Grace...”

  Both were looking at him with wide eyes. Their lips and nipples were swelling, they were breathing heavily.

  “Why wait until tonight?” he bellowed.

  “It’s not customary to do anything until the rites begin, sire. Anyway, most Sunheroes don’t recover from the previous night until evening...”

  Stagg downed another drink. He drew the empty pitcher as high in the air as he could and laughed.

  “I’m a Sunhero like you’ve never had! I’m the genuine Stagg!”

  He picked up the two girls by their waists, one in each arm, and carried them into the tent.

  6

  Churchill reared back and tried to kick more teeth out of the snaggle-toothed sailor’s mouth. The blow from the brick had taken more than he realized out of him. He could barely lift his legs.

  “Yer would, wouldjer?” Snaggletooth squeaked.

  He had jumped back at Churchill’s threatening move. Now he stepped forward confidently and shoved the knife toward Churchill’s solar plexus.

  There was a screech, and a little man jumped forward and thrust his arm in the path of the blade. The point went through the open palm and came out redly on the other side.

  It was Sarvant, who had taken this clumsy but effective means of keeping his friend from death.

  The knife was stopped for only a moment. Another sailor pushed Sarvant so hard he fell backwards, the knife still protruding from his hand. The sailor drew back to plunge his blade into the original target.

  A whistle sounded shrilly almost in his ear. He stopped. The whistler reached out a long shepherd’s staff and crooked the end around Snaggletooth’s scrawny neck.

  The whistler was dressed in light blue, and he had light blue eyes to match. They were as cold as eyes could get.

  “These men are protected by Columbia Herself,” he said. “You men will disperse at once, unless you want to be strung up by the neck inside ten minutes. And you will not attempt to take revenge on these two later on. Do you understand?”

  The sailors had turned pale under their deeply tanned skins. They nodded, gulped, and then ran.

  “I owe you my life,” Churchill said, shakily.

  “You owe the Great White Mother,” the man in blue said. “And She will collect as it pleases her. I am merely Her servant. For the next four weeks, you are under Her protection. I hope you will prove yourself worthy of Her consideration.”

  He looked at Sarvant’s dripping hand. “I think you owe this man your life, too. Though he was only the tool of Columbia, he served Her well. Come with me. We will fix up that hand.”

  They followed him down the street, Sarvant moaning with the pain, Churchill supporting him.

  “That’s the man who was tailing us,” Churchill said. “Lucky for us. And—thanks for what you did.”

  Sarvant’s face lost its look of pain and became ecstatic.

  “I was glad to do it for you, Rud. It’s something I’d do again, even knowing how it would hurt. It made me feel justified.”

  Churchill didn’t know how to reply to that statement, so he said nothing.

  Both men were silent until they walked out of the dock area and came to a temple set far back off the street. Their guide led them into the cool interior. He spoke to a priestess in long white robes, who, in turn, led them to a small room. Churchill was asked to wait while Sarvant was taken away.

  He didn’t object. He was certain they had no evil intentions against Sarvant—at the present.

  He paced back and forth for an hour by a huge sandglass on a table. The chamber was quiet and dark and cool.

  He was just in the act of turning the big sandglass over when Sarvant reappeared.

  “How’s the hand?”

  Sarvant held it up for Churchill to see. There was no bandage on it. The hole had been glued together, and a transparent film of some substance covered the wound.

  “They tell me I can use it at this very moment for hard work,” Sarvant said wonderingly. “Rud, these people may be backwards in many respects, but when it comes to biology, they bow to no one. The priestess told me this thin stuff is a pseudoflesh that will grow and make the wound as if it had never been. They gave me a blood transfusion, and then made me eat some food that seemed to charge me with energy at once. But it wasn’t for nothing,” he concluded wryly. “They said they’d send me the bill.”

  “The impression I get is that this culture just doesn’t tolerate freeloaders,” Churchill said. “We’d better get a job of some kind, and fast.”

  They left the temple and resumed their interrupted journey toward the docks. This time they passed without incident to the Potomac River.

  The docks extended along the banks for at least two kilometers. There were ships tied up alongside the wharves and many anchored in the river itself. “Looks like a picture of an early nineteenth-century port,” Churchill said. “Sailing ships of every size and type. I didn’
t expect to find any steamships, though it’s unreasonable to suppose that these people don’t know how to build one.”

  “The coal and oil supplies were exhausted long before we left Earth,” Sarvant said. “They could burn wood, but the impression I have is that, while there’s no scarcity of trees, they aren’t chopped down except for the utmost necessity. And it’s evident they either have forgotten the techniques of making nuclear fuel, or else are suppressing the knowledge.”

  “Wind power may be slow,” Churchill said. “But it’s free for the taking, and it’ll get you there in time. Man, here comes a beautiful ship!”

  He gestured at a single-masted yacht with white keel and scarlet sail. It was tacking to come into a slip just below the wharf on which they were standing.

  Churchill, motioning to Sarvant, walked down the long steps running down the bank. He liked to talk to sailors, and the people on this yacht looked as if they were the type he had worked for during his college summers.

  The man at the wheel was a gray-haired, heavily built man of about fifty-five. The other two looked like his son and daughter. The son was tall, well-built, handsome, a blond of about twenty; his sister was a short girl with a well-developed bust, slim waist, long legs, extremely beautiful face, and long honey-blond hair. She could have been anywhere from sixteen to eighteen years old. She wore loose bell-bottomed trousers and a short blue jacket. Her feet were bare.

  She stood in the prow of the boat, and, seeing the two men waiting on the slip, she flashed white teeth and called, “Catch this rope, sailor!”

  Churchill caught it and pulled the yacht alongside the slip. The girl leaped down onto the boards and smiled. “Thanks, sailor!”

  The blond youth reached into the pocket of his kilt and tossed Churchill a coin. “For your trouble, my man.”

  Churchill turned the coin over. It was a Columbia. If these people could tip so generously for such a small service, they must be worth making acquaintance.

  He flipped the coin back at the youth, who, though surprised, deftly caught it with one hand.

  “I thank you,” Churchill said, “but I am no man’s servant.”

  The eyes of the girl widened, and Churchill saw that they were a dark blue-gray.

  “We meant no offense,” she said. She had a rich throaty voice.

  “No offense taken,” Churchill said.

  “I can tell by your accent you’re not a Deecee,” she said. “Would it offend you if I asked what your native city is?”

  “Not at all. I was born in Manitowoc, a city that no longer exists. My name is Rudyard Churchill, and my companion is Nephi Sarvant. He was born in Mesa, Arizona. We are eight hundred years old and remarkably well preserved for our advanced age.”

  The girl sucked in her breath. “Oh, the brothers of the Sunhero!”

  “Shipmates of Captain Stagg, yes.” Churchill was pleased that he was making such a strong impression.

  The father held out his hand, and by that gesture Churchill knew he and Sarvant were accepted as equals, at least for the time being.

  “I am Res Whitrow. This is my son, Bob, and my daughter, Robin.”

  “You have a beautiful ship,” Churchill said, knowing that was the best way to stimulate a flow of talk.

  Res Whitrow at once began explaining the virtues of his craft, and his children added their enthusiastic comments. After a while, there was a brief pause in the conversation, and Robin said, breathlessly, “Oh, you must have seen so many things, so many wonderful things, if it’s true that you have been out to the stars. I wish I could hear of them!”

  “Yes,” Whitrow said, “I’m eager to hear of them too. Why don’t you two become my guests for the evening? That is, unless you’ve an engagement for tonight?”

  “We would be honored,” Churchill said. “But I’m afraid we’re not dressed to sit at your table.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Whitrow said, heartily. “I shall see that you are dressed as a brother of the Sunhero should be!”

  “Perhaps you can tell me what has happened to Stagg?”

  “You mean you don’t know? Ah well, I suppose not. We can talk about that tonight. Evidently there are some things you do not know about the Earth you left behind such a fantastically long time ago. Can it be true? Eight hundred years! Columbia preserve us!”

  Robin had taken off her jacket and stood stripped to the waist. She had a magnificent bust but seemed no more selfconscious about it than she would have been about any other attribute of hers. That is, she knew she was worth looking at, but she wasn’t going to let the knowledge interfere with her grace of movement or impose any coquettishness upon her.

  Sarvant seemed quite affected, since he would not allow his gaze to rest upon her except for very brief intervals. That was strange, thought Churchill. Sarvant, despite his condemnation of the dress of Deecee virgins, had not seemed to be bothered when they were walking through the streets. Perhaps it was because he could look at the other girls impersonally, as savage natives of a foreign country, until acquaintanceship made a personal relationship.

  They walked up the steps to the top of the bank, where a carriage waited. It was drawn by a team of two large reddish deer, and had, besides a driver, two armed men who stood on a little platform at its rear.

  Whitrow and his son sat down and invited Sarvant to a place beside them. Robin placed herself without hesitation beside Churchill and very close to him. One breast was against his arm. He felt heat radiate from it up his arm to his face and he cursed himself for showing how she affected him.

  They drove at a fast clip through the streets, the driver taking it for granted that the pedestrians would get out of his way or suffer the consequences. In fifteen minutes, they had passed the government buildings and were in a district reserved for the wealthy and the powerful. They turned into a long gravel-strewn driveway and then stopped before a large white house.

  Churchill jumped down and held out his hand to help Robin down. She smiled and said, “Thank you,” but he was examining the huge totem pole in the yard. It bore stylized heads of several animals, the most numerous of which was the cat.

  Whitrow recognized what Churchill was doing. He said, “I am a Lion. My wife and daughters belong to the Wood Cat sorority.”

  “I was just wondering,” Churchill answered. “I know that the totem is a powerful factor in your society. But the idea is strange to me.”

  “I noticed you were wearing nothing to identify you with a frat,” Whitrow said. “I think that perhaps I can do something to get you into mine. It is better to belong to one. In fact, I know of no one, besides you two, who doesn’t belong.”

  They were interrupted by five youngsters who burst out of the front door and threw themselves affectionately upon their father. Whitrow introduced the naked boys and girls and then, as they reached the porch, he introduced his wife, a fat middle-aged woman who had probably once been very beautiful.

  They went into a small anteroom, then stepped into a room that ran the length of the house. This was a combination living room, recreation room, and dining hall.

  Whitrow charged his son Bob to see that his guests were washed. The two went into the interior of the house, where they took a shower and then put on the fine clothes that Bob insisted were theirs to keep.

  Afterwards, they went back to the main room, where they were handed two glasses of wine by Robin. Churchill intercepted Sarvant’s refusal to drink.

  “I know it’s against your principles,” he whispered, “but turning it down might offend them. At least take a little sip.”

  “If I give in on a little thing, I’ll give in later to the big things,” said Sarvant.

  “All right, be a stubborn fool,” Churchill whispered savagely. “But you can’t get drunk on one glass, you know.”

  “I’ll touch the glass to my lips,” said Sarvant. “That’s as far as I’ll go.”

  Churchill was angry but not so angry he couldn’t appreciate the exquisite bouquet of
the wine. By the time he was down to the bottom of the glass, he was called to the table. Here Whitrow directed them to sit on his right, the place of honor. He seated Churchill next to him.

  Robin sat across the table from him. He was happy; it was a joy just to look at her.

  Angela sat at the other end of the table. Whitrow said prayers, carved the meat, and passed it to his guests and family. Angela talked a lot, but she did not interrupt her husband. The children, though they giggled and whispered among themselves, were careful not to annoy their father. Even the twenty or so house-cats that prowled around the room were well behaved.

  The table was certainly no indication of a land where food was rationed. Besides all the customary fruits and vegetables, there were venison and goat steaks, chicken and turkey, ham, fried grasshoppers and ants. Servants kept the glasses full of wine or beer.

  “I certainly intend to hear of your journey to the stars,” Whitrow boomed. “But let us talk of that later. During the meal, we will have small talk. I will tell you of us, so that you may feel you know us and will be at ease.”

  Whitrow shoved large gobs of food into his mouth, and while he chewed, he talked. He was born on a small farm in southern Virginia, he said, not too far from Norfolk. His father was an honorable man, since he raised pigs, and as everybody except possibly the starmen knew, a pig raiser was a highly respected man in Deecee.

  Whitrow did not cotton to pigs, however. He had a liking for boats, so, as soon as his schooling was over, he left the farm and went to Norfolk. The schooling apparently was equivalent to the eighth grade of Churchill’s time. Whitrow implied that education was not compulsory and that it had cost his father a respectable sum to send him. Most people were illiterate.

  Whitrow shipped out on a fishing vessel as an apprentice seaman. After a few years, he saved enough money to go back to school in Norfolk, where nautical navigation was taught. From the anecdotes told about his stay there, Churchill knew that the compass and the sextant were still used.

  Whitrow, though a seaman, had not been initiated into any of the sailor’s frats. Even at that early age he was looking far ahead. He knew that the most powerful frat in Washington was the Lions. It was not an easy frat for a relatively poor youth to get into, but he had a stroke of luck.