The Goblin Reservation Read online

  "Thank you," Maxwell said.

  "There are those who seem to think," said Oop, "that Homo sapiens neanderthalensis can be nothing other than a stupid brute. After all, he became extinct, he couldn't hold his own—which in itself is prime evidence that he was very second-rate. I'm afraid that I'll continue to devote my life to proving—”

  The waiter appeared at Oop's elbow. "It's you again," he said. "I might have known when you yelled at me. You have no breeding, Oop."

  "We have a man here," Oop told him, ignoring the insult, "who has come back from the dead. I think it would be fitting that we should celebrate his resurrection with a flourish of good fellowship."

  "You want something to drink, I take it."

  "Why," said Oop, "don't you simply bring a bottle of good booze, a bucket of ice and four—no, three glasses. Ghost doesn't drink, you know."

  "I know," the waiter said.

  "That is," said Oop, "unless Miss Hampton wants one of these fancy drinks?"

  "Who am I," asked Carol, "to gum up the works? What is it you are drinking?"

  "Bourbon," said Oop. "Pete and I have a lousy taste in liquor."

  "Bourbon let it be," said Carol.

  "I take it," said the waiter, "that when I lug the bottle over here, you'll have the cash to pay for it. I remember the time—”

  "Whatever I may lack," said Oop, "will be forthcoming from Old Pete."

  "Pete?" the waiter glanced at Maxwell. "Professor!" he exclaimed. "I had heard that you..."

  "That's what I been trying to tell you," said Oop. "That's what we're celebrating. He came back from the dead."

  "But I don't understand."

  "You don't need to," said Oop. "Just rustle up the booze."

  The waiter scurried off.

  "And now," said Ghost to Maxwell, "please tell us what you are. You are no ghost, apparently, or if you are, there's been a vast improvement in procedure since the man I represent shuffled off his mortal coil."

  "It seems," Maxwell told them, "that I'm a split personality. One of me, I understand, got in an accident and died."

  "But that's impossible," said Carol. "Split personality in the mental sense—sure, that can be understood. But physically..."

  "There's nothing in heaven or earth," said Ghost, "that is impossible."

  "That's a bad quotation," said Oop, "and, besides, you misquoted it."

  He put a hand to his hairy chest and scratched vigorously with blunt fingers.

  "You needn't look so horrified," he said to Carol. "I itch. I'm a brute creature of nature, therefore I scratch. And I'm not naked, either. I have a pair of shorts on."

  "He's housebroken," said Maxwell, "but just barely."

  "To get back to this split personality," said the girl, "can you tell us what actually did happen?"

  "I set out for one of the Coonskin planets," said Maxwell, "and along the way somehow my wave pattern duplicated itself and I wound up in two places."

  "You mean there were two Pete Maxwells?"

  "That's the way of it."

  "If I were you," said Oop, "I'd sue them. These Transportation people get away with murder. You could shake them down for plenty. Me and Ghost could testify for you. We went to your funeral.

  "As a matter of fact," he said, "I think Ghost and I should sue as well. For mental anguish. Our best friend cold and rigid in his casket and us prostrate with grief."

  "We really were, you know," said Ghost.

  "I have no doubt of it," said Maxwell.

  "I must say," said Carol, "that all three of you take it rather lightly. Here one good friend of three—”

  "What do you want of us?" demanded Oop. "Sing hallelujahs, perhaps? Or bug out our eyes and be filled with the wonder of it? We lost a pal and now he's back again and—”

  "But one of him is dead!"

  "Well," said Oop, "as far as we were concerned, there was never more than one of him. And maybe this is better. Imagine the embarrassing situations that could develop if there were two of him."

  Carol turned to Maxwell. "And you?" she asked.

  He shook his head. "In a day or two, I'll take some serious thought of it. Right now, I guess, I'm putting off thinking about it. To tell you the truth, when I do think about it, I get a little numb. But tonight a pretty girl and two old friends and a great big pussy cat and a bottle of liquor to get rid of and later on some food."

  He grinned at her. She shrugged.

  "I never saw such a crazy bunch," she said. "I believe I like it."

  "I like it, too," said Oop. "Say whatever you will of it, this civilization of yours is a vast improvement over the days of yore. It was the luckiest day of my life when a Time team snatched me hence just at the point when some of my loving brother tribesmen were about to make a meal of me. Not that I blame them particularly, you understand. It had been a long, hard winter and the snow was deep and the game had been very scarce. And there were certain members of the tribe who felt they had a score or two to settle with me—and I'll not kid you; they may have had a score. I was about to be knocked upon the head and, so to speak, dumped into the pot."

  "Cannibalism!" Carol said, horrified.

  "Why, naturally," he told her. "In those rough and ready days, it was quite acceptable. But, of course, you wouldn't understand. You've never been really hungry, I take it. Gut hungry. So shriveled up with hunger—”

  He halted his talk and looked around.

  "The thing that is most comforting about this culture," he declared, "is the abundance of the food. Back in the old days we had our ups and downs. We'd bag a mastodon and we'd eat until we vomited and then we'd eat some more and—”

  "I doubt," Ghost said warningly, "that this is a proper subject for dinner conversation."

  Oop glanced at Carol.

  "You must say this much for me," he insisted. "I'm honest. When I mean vomit, I say vomit and not regurgitate."

  The waiter brought the liquor, thumping the bottle and the ice bucket down upon the table.

  "You want to order now?" he asked.

  "We ain't decided yet," said Oop, "if we're going to eat in this crummy joint. It's all right to get liquored up in, but—”

  "Then, sir," the waiter said, and laid down the check.

  Oop dug into his pockets and came up with cash. Maxwell pulled the bucket and the bottle close and began fixing drinks.

  "We're going to eat here, aren't we?" asked Carol. "If Sylvester doesn't get that steak you promised him, I don't know what will happen. He's been so patient and so good, with the smell of all the food... "

  "He's already had one steak," Maxwell pointed out. "How much can he eat?"

  "An unlimited amount," said Oop. "In the old days one of them monsters would polish off an elk in a single sitting. Did I ever tell you—”

  "I am sure you have," said Ghost.

  "But that was a cooked steak," protested Carol, "and he likes them raw. Besides, it was a small one."

  "Oop," said Maxwell, "get that waiter back here. You are good at it. You have the voice for it."

  Oop signaled with a brawny arm and bellowed. He waited for a moment, then bellowed once again, without results.

  "He won't pay attention to me," Oop growled. "Maybe it's not our waiter. I never am able to tell them monkeys apart. They all look alike to me."

  "I don't like the crowd tonight," said Ghost. "I have been watching it. There's trouble in the air."

  "What is wrong with it?" asked Maxwell.

  "There are an awful lot of creeps from English Lit. This is not their hangout. Mostly the crowd here are Time and Supernatural."

  "You mean this Shakespeare business?"

  "That might be it," said Ghost.

  Maxwell handed Carol her drink, pushed another across the table to Oop.

  "It seems a shame," Carol said to Ghost, "not to give you one. Couldn't you even sniff it, just a little?"

  "Don't let it bother you," said Oop. "The guy gets drunk on moonbeams. He can dance on rainbows.
He has a lot of advantages you and I don't have. For one thing, he's immortal. What could kill a ghost?"

  "I'm not sure of that," said Ghost.

  "There's one thing that bothers me," said Carol. "You don't mind, do you?"

  "Not at all," said Ghost.

  "It's this business of your not knowing who you are the ghost of. Is that true or is it just a joke?"

  "It is true," said Ghost. "And I don't mind telling you, it's embarrassing and confusing. But I've just plain forgotten. From England—that much, at least, I know. But the name I can't recall. I would suspect most other ghosts—”

  "We have no other ghosts," said Maxwell. "Contacts with other ghosts, of course, and conversations and interviews with them. But no other ghost has ever come to live with us. Why did you do it, Ghost—come to live with us."

  "He's a natural chiseler," said Oop. "Always figuring out the angles."

  "You're wrong there," Maxwell said. "It's damned little we can do for Ghost."

  "You give me," said Ghost, "a sense of reality."

  "Well, no matter what the reason," said Maxwell, "I am glad you did it."

  "The three of you," said Carol, "have been friends for a long, long time."

  "And it seems strange to you?" asked Oop.

  "Well, yes, maybe it does," she said. "I don't know really what I mean."

  Sounds of scuffling came from the front of the place. Carol and Maxwell turned around in their chairs to look in the direction from which the scuffling came, but there wasn't much that one could see.

  A man suddenly loomed on top of the table and began to sing:

  Hurrah for Old Bill Shakespeare;

  He never wrote them plays;

  He stayed at home, and chasing girls,

  Sang dirty rondelays

  Jeers and catcalls broke out from over the room and someone threw something that went sailing past the singer. Part of the crowd took up the song:

  Hurrah for Old Bill Shakespeare;

  He never wrote them...

  Someone with a bull voice howled: "To hell with Old Bill Shakespeare!"

  The room exploded into action. Chairs went over. There were other people on top of tables. Shouts reverberated and there was shoving and pushing. Fists began to fly. Various items went sailing through the air.

  Maxwell sprang to his feet, reached out an arm and swept it back, shoving Carol behind him. Oop came charging across the tabletop with a wild war whoop. His foot caught the bucket and sent the ice cubes flying.

  "I'll mow 'em down," he yelled at Maxwell. "You pile 'em to one side!"

  Maxwell saw a fist coming at him out of nowhere and ducked to one side, bringing his own fist up in a vicious jab, hitting out at nothing, but aiming in the direction from which the fist had come. Over his shoulder came Oop's brawny arm, with a massive fist attached. It smacked into a face with a splattering sound and out beyond the table a figure went slumping to the floor.

  Something heavy and traveling fast caught Maxwell behind the ear and he went down. Feet surged all around him. Someone stepped on his hand. Someone fell on top of him. Above him, seemingly from a long ways off, he heard Oop's wild whooping.

  Twisting around, he shoved off the body that had fallen across him and staggered to his feet.

  A hand grabbed him by the elbow and twisted him around.

  "Let's get out of here," said Oop. "Someone will get hurt."

  Carol was backed against the table, bent over, with her hands clutching the scruff of Sylvester's neck. Sylvester was standing on his hind legs and pawing the air with his forelegs. Snarls were rumbling in his throat and his long fangs gleamed.

  "If we don't get him out of here," said Oop "that cat will get his steak."

  He swooped down and wrapped an arm around the cat, lifting him by the middle, hugging him tight against his chest.

  "Take care of the girl," Oop told Maxwell. "There's a back door around here somewhere. And don't leave that bottle behind. We'll need it later on."

  Maxwell reached out and grabbed the bottle.

  There was no sign of Ghost.

  6

  "I'm a coward," Ghost confessed. "I admit that I turn chicken at the sight of violence." "And you," said Oop, "the one guy in the world no one can lay a mitt on." They sat at the rude, square, rickety table that Oop once, in a moment of housekeeping energy, had knocked together from rough boards. Carol pushed away her plate. "I was starved," she said, "but not any more."

  "You're not the only one," said Oop. "Look at our putty cat."

  Sylvester was curled up in front of the fireplace, his bobbed tail clamped down tight against his rump, his furry paws covering his nose. His whiskers stirred gently as his breath went in and out.

  "That's the first time in my life," said Oop, "I ever saw a saber-toother have more than he could eat."

  He reached out for the bottle and shook it. It had an empty sound. He lumbered to his feet and went across the floor, knelt and raised a small door set into the floor, reaching down with his arm and searching in the space underneath the door. He brought up a glass fruit jar and set it to one side. He brought up a second fruit jar and set it beside the first. Finally he came up triumphantly with a bottle.

  He put the fruit jars back and closed the door. Back at the table, he snapped the sealer off the bottle and reached out to pour drinks.

  "You guys don't want ice," he said. "It just dilutes the booze. Besides, I haven't any."

  He jerked a thumb back toward the door hidden in the floor. "My cache," he said. "I keep a jug or two hid out. Some day I might break a leg or something and the doc would say I couldn't drink..."

  "Not with a broken leg," said Ghost. "No one would object to your drinking with a broken leg."

  "Well, then, something else," said Oop.

  They sat contentedly with their drinks, Ghost staring at the fire. Outside a rising wind worried at the shack.

  "I've never had a better meal," said Carol. "First time I ever cooked my own steak stuck on a stick above an open fire."

  Oop belched contentedly. "That's the way we did it back in the Old Stone Age. That, or eat it raw, like the saber-toother. We didn't have no stoves or ovens or fancy things like that."

  "I have the feeling," said Maxwell, "that it would be better not to ask, but where did you get that rack of ribs? I imagine all the butcher shops were closed."

  "Well, they were," admitted Oop, "but there was this one and on the back door it had this itty bitty padlock.... "

  "Someday," said Ghost, "you'll get into trouble."

  Oop shook his head. "I don't think so. Not this time. Primal necessity—no, I guess that's not the phrase. When a man is hungry he has a right to food anywhere he finds it. That was the law back in prehistoric days. I imagine you still might make a case of it in a court of law. Besides, tomorrow I'll go back and explain what happened. By the way," he said to Maxwell, "have you any money?"

  "I'm loaded," Maxwell told him. "I carried expense money for the Coonskin trip and I never spent a cent of it."

  "On this other planet you were a guest," said Carol. "I suppose I was," said Maxwell. "I never did figure out our exact relationship."

  "They were nice people?"

  "Well, yes, nice—but people, I don't know."

  He turned to Oop. "How much will you need?"

  "I figure a hundred ought to settle it. There is the meat and the busted door, not to mention the bruised feelings of our friend, the butcher."

  Maxwell took his billfold from his pocket and, counting out some bills, handed them to Oop.

  "Thanks," said Oop. "Someday I'll pay you back."

  "No," said Maxwell. "The party is on me. I started out to take Carol to dinner and things got somewhat upset."

  On the hearth, Sylvester stretched and yawned, then went back to sleep, lying on his back now, with his legs sticking in the air.

  Ghost asked, "You're on a visit here, Miss Hampton?"

  "No," said Carol, surprised. "I work here. What gave
you that idea?"

  "The tiger," said Ghost. "A bio-mech, you said. I thought, naturally, you were with Bio-mech."

  "I see," said Carol. "Vienna or New York."

  "There is a center also," said Ghost, "somewhere in Asia. Ulan Bator, if my memory is. correct."

  "You've been there?"

  "No," said Ghost. "I only heard of it."

  "But he could," said Oop. "He can go anywhere. In the blinking of an eyelash. That's why the folks at Supernatural continue to put up with him. They hope that someday they can come up with whatever he has got. But Old Ghost is cagey. He's not telling them."

  "The real reason for his silence," said Maxwell, "is that he's on Transport's payroll. It's worth their while to keep him quiet. If he revealed his traveling techniques, Transport would go broke. No more need of them. People could just up and go anywhere they wished, on their own—a mile or a million light-years."

  "And he's the soul of tact," said Oop. "What he was getting at back there was that unless you are in Bio-mech and can cook up something for yourself, it costs money to have something like that saber-toother."

  "Oh, I see," said Carol. "I guess there's truth in that. They do cost a lot of money. But I haven't got that kind of money. My father, before he retired, was in Bio-mech. New York. Sylvester was a joint project of a seminar he headed. The students gave him to my dad."

  "I still don't believe," said Oop, "that cat's a bio-mech. He's got that dirty glitter in his eyes when he looks at me."

  "As a matter of fact," Carol told him, "there is a lot more bio than mech in all of them today. The name originated when what amounted to a highly sophisticated electronic brain and nervous system was housed in specific protoplasms. But today about the only mechanical things about them are those organs that are likely to wear out if they were made of tissue—the heart, the kidneys, the lungs, things like that. What is being done at Bio-mech today is the actual creations of specific life forms—but you all know that, of course."

  "There are some strange stories," Maxwell said. "A group of supermen, kept under lock and key. You have heard of that?"

  "Yes, heard of it," she said. "There are always rumors."

  "The best one that I've heard in recent days," said Oop, "really is a lulu. Someone told me Supernatural has made contact with the Devil. How about that, Pete?"