Poul Anderson - Operation Chaos

“God!” exclaimed Abercrombie. “The salamander’s loose!”

“Tell me more,” I snorted. “Ginny, you’re a witch. Can you do anything about this?”

“I can extinguish the brute if it’ll hold still long enough for me to recite the spell,” she said. Disordered ruddy hair had tumbled past her pale, high-boned face to the fur-clad shoulders. “That’s our one chance—the binding charm is broken, and it knows that!”

I whirled, remembering friend MacIlwraith and collared him. “Were you possessed?” I shouted.

“I didn’t do anything,” he gasped. His teeth rattle as I shook him.

“Don’t hand me that guff. I saw!”

He collapsed on the ground. “It was only for fu he whimpered. “I didn’t know—”

Well, I thought grimly, that was doubtless true.

There’s the trouble with the Art: with every blindingly powerful force man uses, fire or dynamite or atomic energy or goetics. Any meathead can learn how to begin something; these days, they start them in the third grade with spelling bees. But it’s not always as easy to halt the something.

Student pranks were a standing problem at Trismegistus, as at all colleges. They were usually harmless, like sneaking into the dorms after curfew with Tarnkappen, or chanting female lingerie out through the windows. Sometimes they could be rather amusing, like the time the statue of a revered and dignified former president was animated and marched down town singing bawdy songs. Often they fell quite flat, as when the boys turned Dean Hornsby into stone and it wasn’t noticed for three days.

This one had gotten out of hand. The salamander could ignite this entire city.

I turned to the fireman, who was jittering about trying to flag down a police broom. In the dim shifty light, none of the riders saw him. “What’d you figure to do?” I asked.

“I gotta report back for duty,” he said harshly. “And we’ll need a water elemental, I guess.”

“I have experience with the Hydros,” offered tinny. “I’ll come along.”

“Me too,” I said at once.

Abercrombie glowered. “What can you do?”

“I’m were,” I snapped. “In wolf shape I can’t easily be harmed by fire. That might turn out useful.”

“Wonderful, Steve!” Ginny smiled at me, the old smile which had so often gone between us. Impulsively, I grabbed her to me and kissed her.

She didn’t waste energy on a slap. I collected an uppercut that tumbled me on my stern. “Not allowed,” she clipped. That double-damned geas! I could see misery caged within her eyes, but her mind was compelled to obey Malzius’ rules.

“That’s . . . ah . . . no place for a woman . . . a lady as charming as you,” murmured Abercrombie. “Let me take you home, my dear.”

“I’ve work to do,” she said impatiently. “What the devil is wrong with those cops? We’ve got to get a lift out of here.”

“Then I shall come too,” said Abercrombie. “I am not unacquainted with blessings and curses, though—ha!—I fear that ever-filled purses are a trifle beyond my scope. In any event, the Treasury Department frowns on them.”

Even in that moment, with riot thundering and hell let loose on earth, I was pleased to note that Ginny paid no attention to his famous wit. She scowled abstractedly and looked around. The Campus Queen was huddled near the benches, wearing somebody’s overcoat. Ginny turned and waved her wand. The Campus Queen shucked the coat and ran toward us. Thirty seconds later, three police broomsticks had landed. The fireman commandeered them and our party was whirled-over the stadium and into the street.

During that short hop, I saw three houses ablaze. The salamander was getting around!

We gathered at the district police station, a haggard and sooty crew with desperate eyes. The fire chief and police chief were there, and a junior officer going crazy at the switchboard. Ginny, who had collected her own broom at her lodgings, arrived with Svartalf on one shoulder and the Handbook of Alchemy and Metaphysics under her arm. Abercrombie was browbeating the terrified MacIlwraith till I told him to lay off.

“My duty—” he began. “I’m a proctor, you know.”

I suppose it’s necessary to have witch-smellers on campus, to make sure the fellows don’t ’chant up liquor in the frat houses or smuggle in nymphs. And every year somebody tries to get by an exam with a familiar under his coat whispering the answers from a cribsheet. Nevertheless, I don’t like professional nosy parkers.

“You can deal with him later,” I said, and gave the boy a push out the door. “The salamander can fight back.”

President Malzius huffed into the room. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded. His pince-nez bobbed above full jowls. “I’ll have you know, sir, I was preparing a most important address. The Lions Totem is holding a luncheon tomorrow, and—”

“Might not be any lunch,” grunted the cop who had fetched him. “We got a salamander loose.”

“Sala—No! It’s against the rules! It is positively forbidden to—”

The man at the switchboard looked toward us. It just kindled the Methodist church at Fourteenth and Elm,” he said. “And my God, all our equipment is already in service.”

“Iimpossible!” cried Malzius. “A demon can’t go near a church.”

“How stupid does a man have to be to get your job?” Ginny fairly spat. “This isn’t a demon. It’s an elemental.’ When her temper was again sheathed in ice, she continued slowly: “We haven’t much hope of using a Hydro to put out the salamander, but we can raise one to help fight the fires. It’ll always be three jumps behind, but at least the whole city won’t be ruined.

“Unless the salamander gets too strong, cut Abercrombie. His face was colorless and he spoke through stiff lips. “Then it can evaporate the Hydro.”

“Summon two water beings,” stammered Malzius “Summon a hundred. I’ll waive the requirement formal application for permission to—”

“That possibility is limited, sir,” Abercrombie told him. “The restraining force required is an exponential function of the total embodied mass. There probably aren’t sufficient adepts in this town to control more than three at a time. If we raised four . . . we’d floo4 the city, and the salamander need merely skip elsewhere

“Alan—Ginny laid her handbook on the desk and riffled its pages. Abercrombie leaned over her shoulder, remembering to rest one hand carelessly on hip. I choked back my prize cusswords. “Alan, for starter, can you summon one Hydro and put it to work at plain fire fighting?”

“Of course, gorgeous one,” he smiled. “That is a, ha, elemental problem.”

She gave him a worried glance. “They can be as tricky as Fire or Air,” she warned. “It’s not enough just to know the theory.”

“I have some small experience,” he preened. “During the war—After this is over, come around to my place for a drink and I’ll tell you about it.” His lips brushed her cheek.

“Mr. Matuchek!” yelled Malzius. “Will you please stop growing fangs?”

I shook myself and suppressed the rage which had been almost as potent as moonlight.

“Look here,” said the police chief. “I gotta know what’s going on. You longhairs started this trouble and I don’t want you making it worse.”

Seeing that Ginny and Pretty Boy were, after all, legitimately busy, I sighed and whistled for a cigaret. “Let me explain,” I offered. “I learned a few things about the subject, during the war. An elemental is not the same as a demon. Any kind of demon is a separate being, as individual as you and I. An elemental is part of the basic force involved: in this case, fire, or more accurately energy. It’s raised out of the basic energy matrix, given temporary individuality, and restored to the matrix when the adept is through with it.”