Robert Heinlein: The Number of the Beast

The InterSpace Patrol Agent O'Leemy tapped Zeb on the shoulder. "I heard those introductions. Come along, Carter!"

"-spectacles to fit my forward stalks, that see through the thickest mist." He put them on, looked around him. "They clarify any- There! Get him! Grab him! That Beast! Get his Number!" Without a lost instant Deety, Hilda, and Lazarus closed on the "agent"-and were left with torn clothes and plastic splints as the thing got loose. The "special agent" vaulted over the bar, was seen again almost instantly at the far end of the bar, jumped up on it, leapt for the canvas top, grabbed hold of the edge of the illusion hole, swung itself up, bounded for Bifrost, reached it.

Sir Isaac Newton played: "Mellrooney! The worst troublemaker in all the worlds. Lazarus, I never expected to find that Beast in your quiet retreat."

"Nor did I until I heard all of Zeb's story. This convention was called expecially to entice him. And it did. But we lost him, we lost him!"

"But I got its Number," Hilda said and held out its shield: "666"

The fleeing figure, dark against the Rainbow Bridge, grew smaller and

higher. Lazarus added, "Or perhaps we haven't lost him. He'll never get past Sarge Smith."

The figure appeared to be several klicks high now, when the illusion suddenly broke. The Rainbow was gone, the terraces melted, the clouds were gone, the towers and castles of Asgard could no longer be seen.

In the middle distance, very high up, a figure was tumbling, twisting, falling. Zeb said, "Sarge won't have to bother. We've seen the last of it."

The voder answered: "Friend Zebadiah... are you sure?"