Poul Anderson - Operation Chaos

A fire-blast rushed before the ape. He whirled, screamed, and shinnied up a steam pipe. The salamander arched its back and howled with laughter.

“You would use your tricks on Me? Almighty Me, terrible Me, beautiful Me? Ha, they bounce off like water from a hot skillet! And I, I, I am the skillet which is going to fry you!”

Somehow, the low-grade melodrama of its speech was not in the least ridiculous. For this was the childish, vainglorious, senselessly consuming thing which was loose on earth to make ashes of men and the homes of men.

Under the Polaroids, I switched back to human and rose to my feet behind a bench. Griswold turned on a water faucet and squirted a jet with his finger. The salamander hissed in annoyance-yes, water still hurt, but we had too little liquid here to quench it, you’d need a whole lake by this time—It swung its head, gape-mouthed, aimed at Griswold, and drew a long breath.

All is vanity....

I reeled over to the Bunsen burner that was heating a futile beaker of water. Ginny looked at me through scorched bangs. The room roiled with heat, sweat rivered off me. I didn’t have any flash of genius, I acted on raw instinct and tumbled memories.

“Kill us,” I croaked. “Kill us if you dare. Our servant is more powerful than you. He’ll hound you to the ends of creation.”

“Your servant?” Flame wreathed the words.

“Yeah ... I mean yes . . . our servant, that Fire which fears not water!”

The salamander stepped back a pace, snarling. It was not yet so strong that the very name of water didn’t make it flinch. “Show me!” it chattered. “Show me! I dare you!”

“Our servant ... small, but powerful,” I rasped. “Brighter and more beautiful than you, and above harm from the Wet Element.” I staggered to the jars of metal samples and grabbed a pair of tongs.

“Have you the courage to look on him?”

The salamander bristled. “Have I the courage? Ask rather, does it dare confront Me?”

I flicked a glance from the corner of my eye. Ginny had risen and was gripping her wand. She scarcely breathed, but her eyes were narrowed.

There was a silence. It hung like a world’s weight in that room, smothering what noises remained: the crackle of fire, Abercrombie’s simian gibber, Svartalf s indignant yapping. I took a strip of magnesium in the tongs and held it to the burner flame.

It burst into a blue-white actinic radiance from which I turned dazzled eyes. The salamander was less viciously brilliant. I saw the brute accomplish the feat of simultaneously puffing itself up and shrinking back.

“Behold!” I lifted the burning strip. Behind me, Ginny’s rapid mutter came: “O Indra, Abaddon, Lucifer —

The child mind, incapable of considering more than one thing at a time . . . but for how long a time? I had to hold its full attention for the hundred and twenty seconds required.

“Fire,” said the salamander feverishly. “Only another fire, one tiny piece of that Force from which I came.”

“Can you do this, buster?”

I plunged the strip into the beaker. Steam puffed from the water, it boiled and bubbled—and the metal went on burning!

“ —abire ex orbis terrestris —”

“Mg plus H20 yields Mg0 plus H2,” whispered Griswold reverently.

“It’s a trick!” screamed the salamander. “It’s impossible! If even I cannot—No!”

“Stay where you are!” I barked in my best Army manner. “Do you doubt that my servant can follow you wherever you may flee?”

“I’ll kill that little monster!”

“Go right ahead, chum,” I agreed. “Want to fight the duel under the ocean?”

Whistles skirled above our racket. The police had seen through these windows.

“I’ll show you, I will!” The roar was almost a sob. I ducked behind the bench, pulling Griswold with me. A geyser of flame rushed were I had been.

“Nyaah, nyaah, nyaah,” I called. “You can’t catch me! Scaredy-cat!”

Svartalf gave me a hard look.

The floor trembled as the elemental came toward me, not going around the benches but burning its way through them. Heat clawed at my throat. I spun down toward darkness.

And it was gone. Ginny cried her triumphant “Amen!” and displaced air cracked like thunder.

I lurched to my feet. Ginny fell into my arms. The police entered the lab and Griswold hollered something about calling the fire department before his whole building whiffed off in smoke. Abercrombie scampered out a window and Svartalf jumped down from the shelf. He forgot that a Pekingese isn’t as agile as a cat, and his popeyes bubbled with righteous wrath.

“Keek-eek-eek!” said Abercrombie. “Yip-yip-yip!” said Svartalf.

Outside, the mall was cool and still. We sat on dewed grass and looked at the moon and thought what a great and simple wonder it is to be alive.

The geas held us apart, but tenderness lay on Ginny’s lips. We scarcely noticed when somebody ran past, us shouting that the salamander was gone, nor when church bells began pealing the news to men an Heaven.

Svartalf finally roused us with his barking. Gin chuckled. “Poor fellow. I’ll change you back as soon I can, but now I’ve more urgent business. Come on Steve.”

Griswold, assured that his priceless hall was safe followed us at a tactful distance. Svartalf merely where he was . . . too shocked to move, I guess, at idea that there could be more important affairs than turning him back into a cat.

Dr. Malzius met us halfway, under one of the campus elms. Moonlight spattered his face and gleamed in the pince-nez. “My dear Miss Graylock,” he began, “is it indeed true that you have overcome that menace to society? Most noteworthy. Accept my congratulations. The glorious annals of this great institution of which I have the honor to be president—”

Ginny faced him, arms akimbo, and nailed him with surely the chilliest gaze he had ever seen. “The credit belongs to Mr. Matuchek and Dr. Griswold,” she said. “I shall so inform the press. Doubtless you’ll see fit to recommend a larger appropriation for Dr. Griswold’s outstanding work.”

“Oh, really,” stammered the scientist. “I didn’t—”

“Be quiet, you ninnyhammer,” whispered Ginny. Aloud: “Only through his courageous and farsighted adherence to the basic teachings of natural law- Well, you can fill in the rest for yourself, Malzius. I don’t think you’d be awfully popular if you went on starving his department.”

“Oh . . . indeed . . . after all—” The president expanded himself. “I have already given careful consideration to the idea. Was going to recommend it at the next meeting of the board, in fact.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Ginny said. “Next: this stupid rule against student-faculty relationships. Mr. Matuchek will shortly be my husband—”

Whoosh! I tried to regain my breath.

“My dear Miss Graylock,” sputtered Malzius, “decorum . . . propriety . . . why, he isn’t even decent!”

I realized with horror that somehow, in the hullabaloo, I’d lost Ginny’s coat.

A pair of cops approached, dragging a hairy form that struggled in their arms. A third man carried the garments the chimp had shed. “Begging your pardon, Miss Graylock.” The tone was pure worship. “We found this monkey loose and—”

“Oh, yes.” She laughed. “We’ll have to restore him. But not right away. Steve needs those pants worse.”

I got into them like a snake headed down a hole.

Ginny turned back to smile with angelic sweetness at Malzius.

“Poor Dr. Abercrombie,” she sighed. “These things will happen when you deal with paranatural forces. Now I believe, sir, that you have no rule against faculty members conducting research.”