Margaret St. Clair: The Best of Margaret St. Clair

The Reverend gave her a look.

“Then we’ll have to make a break for it.

“While you were in the washroom, I called the Temple copter.” She indicated the short wave radio on the other side of the little stone fireplace. “It’ll be here any minute. I think—well, we’ll try to get through.”

The Reverend looked at her in silence for a moment. Fatigue had made shadows under her eyes, but they only made her look glamorous and desirable. She had never been more beautiful. She had betrayed her company for him; he loved her more than ever. He gave her a hug.

“Nix, my dear,” he said. “Nix.”

“N-n-n-n—”

“Nix. Never.” His voice rang out, booming and resonant. “Run away from those devils and their ravens? Flee from those pagan night-lighters? Never! I will not.” He advanced toward the radio.

“What are you going to do?” Mazda squeaked.

“I’m going to contact the TVA,” he said without turning. “You have to fight fire with fire.”

“Public power?” Mazda breathed. Her face was white.

“Public power! Their line will be open all night.”

He turned his face toward the rafters. “O Lord,” he boomed reverently, “bless this radio message. Please, Lord, grant that in contacting a radical outfit like the TVA I’m doing right.”

The noise of prayer died away in the ceiling. He pressed a key and turned a switch. For a moment the room was utterly quiet. Then there was a soft flurry and plop at the window. The ravens, after all, were not deaf. They too had heard the Reverend’s prayers.

Mazda spun round toward the sound. Before she could decide what to do, there was a series of tinkles from the chimney. It ended in a glassy crash. Something had broken on the stone hearth.

Mazda screamed

“Keep back!” she yelled at the Reverend, who had turned from the radio and was leaning forward interestedly. “Keep back! Don’t breathe! Damn those birds!” She was fumbling wildly with the wooden bracelet on her left wrist.

“What is it?” he asked. He advanced a step toward the shards of glass on the hearth.

“Get back. It’s a germ culture bomb. Parrot fever. I’m going to purify it. Stand back!”

The Reverend Adelburg discounted most of this warning as due to feminine hysteria. He drew back a fraction of an inch, but still remained leaning forward, his eyes fixed on the glass.

Mazda gave a moan of desperation. “I’ve got to do it!” she yelled. She slid her bracelet toward her elbow and gave it a violent twist.

A strictly vertical flash of lightning appeared between the ceiling and the hearth. It was very bright and accompanied by a sizzling noise. A second later a sharp chlorine-like smell filled the air.

Mazda’s artificial lightning died away. The room returned to its normal dim illumination. A faint curl of smoke floated above the pieces of broken glass on the hearth of the fireplace. There was no doubt that Mazda had purified the germ culture effectively. But the Reverend Clem Adelburg was stretched out on the floor flat on his back.

Mazda ran to him. She tore open his white shirt front and laid her head on his chest. His heart was still beating, and his hands and feet were warm. But he was completely out—out more than any of the neon lights he had been trying to put out.

Mazda got up, rubbing her hands. She couldn’t move him, and she didn’t know what she ought to do for him. She hoped he’d be all right. She knew he had a strong constitution. She went into the kitchen and got a towel.

She came back with it and tied it to the poker. Carrying this homemade flag of truce in front of her, she opened the door and went out into the night.

It was a dark night. From under the Joshua tree a darker shadow detached itself. ‘“Io, Mazda,” a harsh voice said.

“Hello,” she replied. There was a glitter of beady eyes in the darkness around her. “Listen here, you birds,” Mazda said slowly, “we’ve always been on good terms, haven’t we? We’ve always got on together well. Are you really trying to do me and my boy friend in?”

A bird cleared its throat. There was a noise of talons being shifted uneasily. “Well… no, Mazda. We like you too,” somebody said.

“Oh, yes? Is that why you dropped the parrot fever bomb? Were you going to drop a dead parrot down the chimney and make it look as if we’d died a natural death? I wouldn’t call that bomb exactly a friendly thing.”

“The bomb was just a warning,” said the harsh voice that had spoken first. “We knew you’d purify it. We have confidence in you. We don’t want to do you any harm personally. You can always get another boy friend.”

“I want this one.”

“You’ve had better ones.”

“Yes, I know. But this is the one I want.”

There was a silence. Then a bird said, “We’re sorry, Mazda. We only do what we’re sent out to do.”

Mazda drew a sharp breath. “Hell’s canyon,” she said deliberately. “Rural electrification cooperatives. Public power.”

There was a sound as of somebody’s tail feathers being plucked distractedly. “Mazda, I do wish you wouldn’t,” said the chief raven in a wincing voice.

“I will, though. I’ll get in touch with the public power people. I don’t care about the ethics of it. I’m in love.”

“Haw!” the raven jeered harshly. It seemed to have regained its aplomb. “That lightning flash of yours burned out every tube in the radio. You couldn’t sent a message to Parker to ask for a stick of chewing gum. You’re through.

“We’ll give you half an hour. During any of that time you can come out unhurt. But after that you’re in for it too. This time we’re serious.”

“What are you going to do?” Mazda cried.

“You’ll find out.”

Mazda went back to the house.

The clock on the mantlepiece read twenty minutes to three. The ravens would probably give her a few minutes’ grace, so she had until ten or twelve minutes after the hour. Mazda knelt down by her consort and began to chafe his hands. When that didn’t help, she ran to the kitchen, got a handful of red feathers from the chicken they had had for lunch yesterday, and began burning them under the Reverend’s nose.

At seven minutes to three the Reverend’s eyelids fluttered and the noise of a copter was heard in the sky. Mazda listened with strained attention, her eyes fixed on her consort. She longed to run to the window, but she was afraid of alerting the ravens. She could only wait.

The copter appeared to be having difficulties. The whoosh of its helix changed pitch, the motor stuttered and coughed. Once the noise seemed to recede; Mazda was afraid the plane was going away entirely. She fingered her wooden blast bracelet nervously. But the copter returned. It landed with a thump that was almost a crash.

The copter door opened and somebody jumped out. There was a sound of squawks, caws and rapid fluttering. A vigorous male voice said, “Ouch! Ouch! What the bloody hell!” More fluttering, then sandalled feet thudded rapidly along the path. Somebody pounded at the door.

Mazda ran to open it. The man who stumbled across the threshold was a dark, stocky Indian who wore white duck pants and red glasses, and carried a three foot bow slung across his back. He was bleeding freely from half a dozen peck marks on his shoulders and breast. “Lord Mithras,” Mazda said prayerfully, “it’s Joe Buel! Joe!”

“Mazda! Why didn’t you show a light? What are you doing here? What is all this?”

Mazda told him. Joe listened intently, frowning more and more. “My word, what a mess,” he said when she had finished. He pushed his red glasses up on his nose. “Has the Reverend come to yet?”

They turned around. Clem’s eyes were open, but he was still lying on the floor. As they watched, he slowly closed his eyes again. “I guess he’s not ready yet,” Mazda said.