L. Camp - The Exotic Enchanter

Shea hunted through the lockers until he found a piece of suitable cloth. He said:

“At least on Earth you’d be covered with clothes, which would have to be washed before you wore them again.”

“Perhaps you can explain this curious Earthian custom of covering oneself with textiles, even when the air is warm enough not to need them.”

Shea sighed. “Some of the leading religions insist upon it. I suppose it goes back to primitive times, when our brutish ancestors, up to then as naked as you Barsoomians, first migrated out of Africa, a hot continent, to colder climes. . . .”

Shea was well into a lecture on the anthropological explanation of the nudity tabu prevalent in Judaism and its two offshoot religions, Christianity and Islam, when something flew past with a loud buzz. Ras Thavas uttered a shrill scream and threw himself down on the floorboards.

The flying organism whirled about in a circle and returned. Belphebe cried out and slapped at it. “It tried to sting me!”

“Keep it away from me!” shrilled Ras Thavas, cowering in the bottom of the flier.

Shea started to reach for his revolver, then changed his mind and drew his short sword. When he got a good look at the flying organism, he saw something resembling an Earthly hornet, but several times as large, with a length the span of his hand and a wingspread the length of Shea’s foot.

“There’s another!” yelled Ras Thavas. “Save me, Doctor Shea!”

The first intruder hovered, rising and falling with a bouncing motion. Shea swung his short sword, His blade struck the flier with a click and sent its body whirling away in two pieces The second pseudo-hornet instantly swooped down and stung Shea in his right buttock.

Shea jumped with an angry yell and, with a backhand slash, slew this attacker also. A third buzzed up and was likewise bisected by Shea’s blade.

“We must be near a nest!” wailed Ras Thavas. “Speed up the motor! The smell of dead stiths will fetch more of them!”

Shea stuck the point of his short sword into the floorboards, leaving it standing upright and gently rocking back and forth. He advanced the motor control, and the Banth surged forward. Another stith circled the Banth and swooped toward its passengers, but it tried to fly through the propellor and was hurled away in pieces.

“Are they all gone?” quavered Ras Thavas.

“Seem to be,” grunted Shea, running a hand over his swollen fundament. “Get up, Doctor; you’re not hurt. I’m the one with a sore arse, who’ll have to eat standing up for a while.”

“I — I am sorry that you should behold me in such contemptible shape,” said Ras Thavas. “It is my only weakness.”

“You mean a phobia about creeping things?”

“Yes, I am shamed to say. The mere sight of even a harmless one sends me into a panic. I trust you will not regale the other Barsoomians, as a great joke, with the tale of the downfall of the mighty Ras Thavas.”

“The story is safe with me,” said Shea. “In my trade as psychologist, I come upon all sorts of phobias. Some I can cure, at least in my own species. Do you know how you came to have this phobia?”

“I have a vague notion that a stith must have stun me as a child, but it would have happened a thousand years ago, and I have no clear memory of the incident. Could you cure me?”

“Doubt if I had a chance to by, Doctor. It would take many days of conditioning.”

“How would you do it?”

“By gradually habituating you to the sight of such a bug, let’s say starting with a picture of one, then a mounted dead one, and so on, until you could handle a live one without a shudder.”

“I must try such a cure on myself.” mumbled Ras Thavas. “It were painful but better than the risk of making a fool of myself in public.” The savant cracked a wintry smile. “At least, you can tell the folk back on your Earth that the stith does not grow to the size of a thoat, as that writer would have his readers believe.”

“They couldn’t,” said Shea, “because of having to have soft bodies during times of growth. That doesn’t work when you wear your skeleton on the outside. There are also difficulties with increases in size in getting enough oxygen to the muscles. . . .” V

Vantos Vaz, the Chief Constable of Toonol, said: “Yes, yes, Doctor Shea. I understand that you are an alien on this world. But I must put you down on this form as of a place on this world, not some other. Nobody’s identification is complete without it.”

“All right,” said Shea. “Call me Sir Harold Shea of Zodanga; that’s where we were a few nights ago. I could say ‘of Ptarth,’ but I think Zodanga has a prettier name. Now, how about our fugitive wizard and our daughter?”

“Yes, Doctor Shea, such a person did arrive in Toonol a few days past. A tall, gray-bearded man of alien aspect, with a light-tan skin, wrapped in a robe ornamented with golden thread. He insists on retaining this robe, as if Toonol were in the polar regions. He had with him an unmistakable alien child with yellow hair, whom he kept under control by means of a harness and leash. I must get such an apparatus for my wife, to control our own hatchlings. Why do you wish to know?”

Shea told of Malamhroso’s abduction of Voglinda. Ras Thavas added:

“I have been traveling with Doctor and Mrs. Shea and have found them persons of exceptional faithworthyness.”

The Chief Constable sighed. “If the world-famous Ras Thavas says it is so, it must be so. Mean you to slay this Malambroso person? I warn you, homicides are not permitted save in accordance with the code and through the licensed guild of assassins.”

“No,” said Shea “While Malambroso’s demise would not cause me inconsolable grief, our main objective is to get our daughter hack, unharmed. All else is secondary.”

Belphebe added: “if Malambroso would just go away and leave us alone, we should be satisfied. Where is the scoundrel now?”

“According to the last report from the officer assigned to watch him,” said Vantos Vaz, “he and the little girl have put up at the Purple Apt. Were you going thither forthwith?”

“Not quite, sir,” said Shea. “First we must make arrangements for the repair of our flier. Who gives first-class service in such matters, at reasonable prices?”

Vantos Vaz suggested a repair shop, adding “Do not be surprised if I assign a man to watch you. Since a confrontation is likely betwixt you and this off-world magician, we must make sure that any slaying is done in accordance with the law. Undermanned as we are, we find it hard to make all killers follow the code. Had you a difficult trip through the Toonolian Marsh?”

“Not too hard,” replied Shea, “except that we ran out of food and starved, although we killed and tried to cook a swamp lizard. We’ve been eating like pigs since we arrived to make up.”

“What is a pig?” asked the Chief Constable.

* * *

Ras Thavas, Shea, and Belphebe returned to Van Larik’s Inn after a fatiguing morning of hunting down the machine shop recommended and then waiting while the mechanics disassembled the Banth and examined the buouyancy tanks for signs of a leak.

Shea opened the door to his room and stepped aside to let Belphebe enter. He and Ras Thavas followed her in, when a sound caused all three to whirl.

For a closet, the room had a simple conservatory consisting of a rail curving out from the wall and back to the wall again. From this rail hung a curtain. Now the curtain had been thrust back on its curtain rings, revealing Malambroso in a purple robe, Voglinda in her harness, and a naked red Barsoomian in his caparison of straps and sheaths longsword in hand. Malambroso trained on the Sheas a large black automatic pistol of a common Earthly make.