The Best of Science Fiction 12

"How'd you like to be stuck out there with that broad?" said one.

"Oh yeah, yeah," said the other.

Then they went into a little shack that had been built by the studio for their comfort.

So turbulent evening settled on Jason Briar, Monica Ploy, the old stone castle, the ocean, the beach, the road, the guards, and the little shack.

It was at about this time that the creature moved.

The creature was so big that it really had no exact sense of its parts. In fact, it had no sense of anything at all except hunger and wakefulness. It was awake and hungry so it moved.

For breakfast it had eaten a whale. For lunch some dolphins, porpoises and sharks. Fish, fish, fish. The creature was sick of fish. So it moved itself.

The thing on its head signaled meat. Somewhere, nearby, meat. Yum yum. It moved along the ocean floor, tons and tons of it, smacking thousand pound lips with four whopping tongues. Yum yum. The creature pulled itself toward shore.

" Smart ass is two words," Jay said. "As in the expression nobody loves a smart ass."

"A smartass? said Monica. "You pronounced it yourself. Ha!"

"Negative."

"Positive."

"No. No."

"Churl fink," Monica said, steaming from the ears.

Jay smiled knowingly as Monica came to another moment of truth. He sat nodding his head left to right while she counted up her points for smartass and he saw she was consumed with guilt. He sprung.

"Did you think my performance in Beowulf was solid class A caliber?" he said.

Monica shivered, wet her lips twice and told him.

"You were like walking constipation."

Jay swallowed dry foam. Tears welled in his eyes. He went for a swig of Beefeater .

"You asked me," Monica said. "Who asked you to ask me?"

When Jay came back to the Scrabble arena, the tears had dried to an opalescent wax. Monica though he looked sexy that way, with the eyes of a stuffed moose in a men's bar. She noticed him fastening his wax eyes to a spot on her neck that showed a thin crease and tried not to but couldn't help pulling at the collar of her dress.

A few hundred yards away, still submerged, the creature experienced a sensation of itching in what could be called its nose. It arched, making an island, then rolled, making a wave, then sneezed, bubbling a billion gallons of brine. Inland, one of the studio guards asked the other if he heard a strange noise. The other, absorbed in a magazine, had heard nothing.

The sneeze, a megaton of mucous, refreshed the creature and left it more awake and hungrier. Onward it went, flowing forward in slimy progress. The creature thought vaguely about its mate somewhere in the Red Sea. The thoughts waved like theatre curtains, rippling through its head. The creature had not made love in a decade, a thunderous thump back in the Straits of Magellan. Its scales practically glowed as memory flared and faded. It felt a bit horny.

The creature's instinct interrupted its reverie. "Eat first," the instinct commanded. So the creature sniffed for and found tantalising promise of gratification. It came faintly from the abbey borne on the water-whipping wind. It was Monica's perfume the creature smelled, mingled with Jay's mortification. Mmmmm. Very tasty. Very juicy.

Fifty miles inland Harold Bipley, the Producer-Director of Beowulf, sat beaming behind a massive desk with legs carved like tree roots. Into his office came Harriet Troom on plump legs of her own.

"Pineapple," she said.

"Melon, baby," he said. "Sit down. Rest yourself."

Thirty years before a famous philosopher had gasped and died between the pudgy legs which Harriet Troom crossed neatly. He had just completed his worst book. Her legs were famous in intellectual circles just as her column was beloved by millions of readers on many sides of the Atlantic.

Harriet Troom was big on both ends of the IQ spectrum. Her heart held many secrets involving the living and the departed. Her body had shared heat with a variety of types ranging from old child stars to the famous philosopher. The residue of all that experience gave her terrific poise. Harold Bipley was impressed. But that very morning he had had a warning from his doctor. He went to the doctor because his arms felt tired, like heavy salamies. The doctor took Harold off sex and cuff-links. Harold liked both. Without sex he felt restless and sleepless. Without big cuff-links he felt as if his arms would fly out of the floppy sleeves of his silk shirt and hit a total stranger.

"There better be a story," Harriet was saying. "This is my bridge night and I gave it up for you."

"There is a story," Harold said. "As God is my witness."

"Continue."

"Word follows word, darling. Word follows word. You know about Monnie and Jay in seclusion?"

"Of course."

"That's where they are right now. In seclusion."

"So?"

"In a fat old church house by the water. Desolate. Bare. Empty."

"And?"

"Nobody around. Death to intruders. Get the picture?"

"Sure."

"So everybody is thinking of what's going on inside that seclusion, is that accurate?"

"Proceed."

"So one person emerges from the horizon to tell them. You."

"Ah."

"And it's spontaneous, Harriet. Not even Monnie and Jay have inklings. You go out there with a camera and a pad. Top secret. Peep a little. Bust in on them. Do what you want. It's all yours."

"I like it. I buy it."

"I was so sure you would," Harold said, "I called Hertz. My Rolls is waiting outside."

"I go alone."

"Any way you wish it is the way it will be."

"Where?"

"I happen to have a map."

"When?"

"Better soon. You know what a honey bucket Monnie can be. And Jay has no concentration either. How long will they last without electricity?"

"Tonight."

"It does me good to hear you say that, Harriet. Your readers are a hundred percent lucky to have somebody like you."

Harriet Troom took the map and went for the car. Harold Bipley watched her behind sway while she walked. His son was a navy pilot who landed on aircraft carriers. He felt sorry for the boy. A moving target is nice and challenging. But difficult.

At the moment when Harriet Troom aimed the Rolls down the highway toward land's end, the creature reached land's beginning.

Before assaulting the beach it gathered its parts together. There was a helter-skelter quality to such size. Pincers, legs, feelers, arms, buttocks, ears, etc. had a way of wandering off. The creature had a natural sense of order so from time to time it paused to take inventory and consolidate into a comprehensible lump.

It piled itself half in and half out of the surf. Because of the foggy dark the mountain it made was invisible. Now the creature, which was extremely light sensitive, felt a sting in a secondary eye. The eye detected a pin dot of light from a chink in the abbey wall. At the same moment a hectic spasm of wind wafted a ripe scent of the abbey's human visitors. The creature perked.

At once the entire scene seemed familiar. Of course. Years before the creature had visited that very beach and enjoyed a supper of Dominican Fathers. Bingle, bong. There was a bell. The creature's primitive head remembered the bell which it had nibbled for dessert. Brassy and tart. It jiggled for a year afterwards. The creature grinned, or tried to grin. One grey-green mass separated from another and exposed a slit of flecked orange mush. For the creature, that was a big, broad smile.

Inside the abbey Monica was feeling the empty triumph of the conqueror. She had won the Scrabble game by hook and crook. As she totalled her points she cried.

Jay was still in pain from her dirty remark about his talent. She felt sorry for him and for herself. Victory in the game calmed her. She was now free to be nice. Jay needed some nice. He looked older by firelight.