Back home at the O.R.G.Y.

The vertigo of one upswing hit me so hard that panic forced my eyes open. They focused on a figure halfway up the mast and climbing fast. On the deck below two pirate corpses testified that Pedro had disposed of his attackers. Now he was on the way to the rescue of his betrothed.

A sword dripping blood was clutched menacingly in one hand. A dagger nestled between his teeth. His beard bristled and his eyes flashed. Call it instinct, but somehow I knew that Pedro wasn’t prepared to be nonviolent. And his hostility could only mount when he realized I’d usurped his bridegroom’s prerogative.

“Pardon me.” I reached under Elena, grasped the fiery plumpness of her derrière, shoved upwards and neatly disimpaled her.

“But you haven’t—” she started to protest.

“It’s better to have loved and leave to live to lust another day.” I mixed up a metaphor for her as I scrambled to my feet.

“Look!” She pointed with wonder. “They’re turning blue!”

“Better a frustrati than a castrati,” I told her as Pedro’s hand appeared over the edge of the crow’s nest. “Ta-ta!” I pole vaulted out the other side, dived for an adjacent mast, missed it, clutched at a billowing sail and flapped in the breeze for an instant.

Then, as if in slow motion, the sail began to rip. Slowly, I descended as the material parted under my weight. Meanwhile Pedro had reversed his direction and was scampering down the mast to intercept me. We reached deck at approximately the same moment. There was about six yards between us. Pedro leaped to close the distance, his blade stretched full length in front of him. I leaped to maintain the margin of safety, my “weapon” also firmly pointed at the ready.

“En garde!” Pedro lunged, the tip of his blade attempting to engage the tip of my manhood.

Shyly, I avoided crossing swords with him. Holding mine by the hilt and retreating rapidly, I managed to keep him from establishing contact. Sensitive to the danger my manhood was in, I turned tail and bolted. In hot pursuit, Pedro slashed wildly.

“Touché!” I exclaimed as he nicked my tooshy. “You drew blood. You win. I concede.”

Still Pedro continued to slash at me.

“Uncle!” I tried again. “I give up.” But he wasn’t reading me. Desperately, I tried to remember what the Spanish for “Uncle” was. As he lunged again I decided it probably wouldn’t help anyway. “You’re not being sporting!” I reprimanded him over my shoulder as I ran. “I don’t even have a rapier.”

His reply was a maddened lunge. I jumped high and his blade passed between my legs, just low enough to miss his target. He shouted a torrent of angry Spanish.

“Sorry, but I didn’t quite get that,” I told him on the run.

“Engleesh pig! Scum of the sea! Son of a whoremonger! Despoiler of virgins!”

“Ah,” I observed, “you speak English. We can communicate. Now then, why don’t we talk this over calmly before somebody gets hurt?”

His response almost lopped off my left ear. I realized it wasn’t enough to surmount the language barrier. And I didn’t have time to explain to him that his aggression was probably a neurotic symptom having to do with his early relationship with his father. I jumped out of range again, sliding haphazardly over the slick of fresh blood spreading over the deck.

My back was to the bulkhead alongside the quarterdeck now. Around me bloodthirsty pirates were finishing off the last of the Spanish crewmen. To starboard a large man-o’-war hovered, its cannons still smoking, the boarding planks still linking it to the Spanish galleon. The three-master flew the skull and crossbones under a British flag, but it was of Spanish design, probably captured from the Spanish Navy and turned into a warship for the pirates. To port some thirty-six other ships strung out over the horizon, each flying the pirate flag, some in combination with national emblems, some with only the outlaw banner. Any one of them would have been more than a match for the Spanish merchant ship on which I found myself. It was a formidable armada. In all history there were only two such fleets which sailed under the pirate flag.

The most famous was the bucaneer flotilla assembled by Jean Lafitte to rout the British at the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812. The pirate Lafitte’s victory was to write a shining page in the history of the Americas. The buccaneer fleet which preceded it wrote one of the blackest.

That force was assembled by Sir Henry Morgan—the infamous Captain Morgan who sailed the Spanish Main preying on ships of every nation. The British—always superb diplomats—solved the problem of Captain Morgan by granting him the status of a privateer in exchange for his allowing British vessels safe conduct. Later they knighted him and he was appointed Governor of Port Royal, the pirate stronghold in Jamaica. From Bermuda to the shores of Central America there was no more feared man than Captain Morgan. He was the Atilla of the Antilles (Greater and Lesser), the terror of the Caribbean, as fearless as he was merciless.

Captain Morgan assembled his pirate fleet in the year 1671 to execute a scheme as bold and daring as it was dangerous. His aim was to sack the city of Panama, the wealthiest city in the New World, the richest jewel in the Americas, the Spanish bastion known as “The Cup of O Gold”.

It was to be the first, last, most horrendous and most successful storming of a city by a pirate force. In addition to the officers and crews, there were two thousand fighting men under Morgan’s command. They included thieves and murderers, the dregs of the criminal world from every nation, ex-slaves -- Carib Indians, African Negroes and English and Portuguese whites—out for revenge on their former Spanish masters. Only such a man as Morgan could have held these cutthroats under control and convinced them to accept his discipline with the promise of a share in the plunder of Panama.

“Captain Morgan!”

It all fell into place as I heard the name shouted from the quarterdeck above me. Still managing to avoid the onslaught of the angry Pedro, the scene slipped into my consciousness peripherally. The shouting of the name had been a warning from one of the buccaneers. It served notice of an attack from the rear.

On the quarterdeck a large man, tall, stout, but powerful rather than fat, responded to the warning. Flowing black moustaches danced in the wind and a small, sharp goatee reversed direction to aim down the curved length of a cutlass. Barely breaking his rhythm, the pirate lopped off the arm of the Spaniard attacking him from the rear and continued to parry the strokes of the two adversaries in front of him. The action was as magnificent as the man. And the man could be none other than the fabled Captain Morgan.

“Well done, Captain Morgan!” The compliment confirmed my guess.

By disposing of the attacker at his rear, Captain Morgan had unknowingly opened an escape hatch for me— and in the nick of time, too. I scampered backwards up the gangway to the quarterdeck, dodging Pedro’s lunging sword all the way. I came up against the immovable back of Captain Morgan and could retreat no further.

“That’s it, man. Back to back! We’ll make these Spaniards eat our steel!” The pirate captain encouraged me over his shoulder.

“Except I don’t have any steel,” I told him as I frantically jumped from side to side to avoid Pedro’s thrusts.

“Then take this, comrade!” Morgan hooked the hilt of the blade held by one of the men he was dueling with his cutlass and sent it spinning high in the air. It practically fell into my hand hilt first. By the time I’d grasped it, Morgan had decapitated one of his two adversaries.

“Gosh, thanks,” I said. But my thanks were premature. No sooner had I held up the weapon in front of me to parry one of Pedro’s vicious stabs than he’d emulated Morgan’s maneuver and the sword went flying out of my hand and over the side.

“Help!” I remarked to Captain Morgan.

“Butterfingers!” He sneered at my plight. “Now hold onto this one.” He disarmed his second opponent, hacked him to the deck and handed me his sword. Then he stood back to watch me duel Pedro.

It took only a few seconds for Pedro to get past my defense and rake my forearm with his blade. My second weapon went clattering to the deck. Captain Morgan snorted with disgust. “Shiver me timbers if you aren’t the worst clod of a swordsman I ever saw,” he informed me.

“I was a fencing class dropout in college,” I panted.

Pedro’s blade shot groin-wards and I leaped into the air to avoid it. Morgan roared with laughter. “That’s one sword you handle not at all badly, bucko,” he complimented me.

I had no chance to reply. I was kept too busy swinging my weapon this way and that to keep from having it sliced apart by Pedro’s rapier. Morgan doubled over with laughter as he watched my mad dance. And the more I danced the more infuriated Pedro became and the louder Morgan roared.

Finally he leaped for me with a vengeance and I ran around behind Morgan to avoid being impaled. Pedro lunged again and when I ducked his blade nicked the Captain’s posterior. From Pedro’s point of view that was a serious mistake. Morgan roared with rage, brushed me aside with one sweep of his powerful arm and descended on Pedro like an angry bull.

“En garde!” Pedro saluted with his sword.

“En garde!” Morgan replied and ripped him up the middle with one mighty chop that split him like a chicken in a butcher shop.

“May you rot in hell, Engleesh peeg!” Pedro gasped as he flopped to the deck and died.

“Sore loser,” Morgan grumbled, kicking the remains aside. His eyes lit on me and a smile broke over his face. He started chuckling and soon he was roaring with laughter again. “Never—” he gasped. “Never have I seen a man duel with that before!” He pointed.

Self-consciously, I folded my hands in front of me.

“Where are your clothes?” he asked, still guffawing.

“A lady—” I started to improvise an explanation.

“Say no more.” He held up a hand. “I understand. But that should teach you never to neglect the battle for the reward. It’s the first rule of piracy. If you weren’t so funny, I should discipline you for breaking it. As it is, we are comrades in arms.” He clapped a hamhock of an arm about my shoulders. “Round up the prisoners!” he shouted over the heads of the buccaneers on the deck below. “And bring out the plank!”

I started to edge away.

“You stay with me, bucko.” He stopped me. “You can see the show better from here.”

“I thought I might find some clothes.”

“Nonsense. Stay here where the Spaniards can have one last look at buccaneer manhood before they die. Magnificent!” He eyed me and shook his head in wonder. “To maintain it under such stress—”

“It’s the fear reaction Kinsey noted in—”

“I take my hat off to you, bucko!” He swept the plumed, wide-brimmed cavalier’s hat from his head and bowed low with good-natured mockery.

“Thanks,” I muttered, blushing.

“They’re blue,” he noticed before he straightened up.

“It’s chilly.” I didn’t know what else to say.

“Then you shall be shielded from the wind.” With another sweeping gesture Captain Morgan hung the hat on my appendage and stood back to survey me. “A loose fit. No offense intended,” he assured me. “But it will have to do for now.”

Turned into a lusty hatrack, I stood beside the fabled pirate and watched the Spaniards walk the plank. A school of sharks, scenting blood, churned up the water around each plunging victim. Soon the briny beneath the plank was red with Spanish plasma.

“Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!” Captain Morgan chortled. He was enjoying the spectacle.

“Yo-ho-ho . . . ” I echoed. As the fear left me Captain Morgan’s hat slid slowly to the deck, deprived of its support.

“You’re out of uniform,” he told me sternly.

I picked up the hat and covered myself as best I could.

“Yo for the life of a buccaneer, hey, bucko!” Captain Morgan slapped me on the back.

“Yo-ho-ho . . . ” I agreed weakly.

“What’s the matter, lad?”

“Nothing.” I gulped.

“Your face is turning green.”

I opened my mouth to answer. I couldn’t quite make it. I dove for the rail and upchucked mightily. Yo-ho-ho for the life of the bounding main. I clung to the rail. I was seasick as hell . . .

Chapter Seven

MEANWHILE, BACK IN TIBET . . .

Dudley Nightshade had his palsied hands full. First, all the pressure had brought on a relapse. In Dudley’s case it might have been diagnosed as a sudden attack of death which he just managed to ward off.

He recovered to find I’d been twice bounced by Papa Baapuh who didn’t know (and didn’t seem to care) where I might have landed in time and space. Papa was still more interested in tinkering with his washing machine than in bringing me back. A grudge holder, he was also still smarting over my relations with his daughter, Ti Nih.

The only reason Papa Baapuh had fixed the short circuit in the time machine had been technical curiosity as to what had gone wrong. The jolt which dropped me in Syria was the result of his testing to see if the repair worked. The second jump occurred while Dudley was still sick when the Red Guard troop arrived and the cornmander demanded that Papa Baapuh demonstrate his equipment.

The Red Guard and their leader constituted Dudley’s second headache. They were convinced that he and I were engaged in some sort of espionage mission. Their orders from on high were not to harass us, but on the local level they were crowding both Dudley and Papa Baapuh. My disappearance had been reported to their masters and now they were simply awaiting word to fall on the operation like a ton of bamboo. Sure that permission would come, they were already starting to lean on Dudley.

The worst of it was that they might indeed be turned loose. Another aspect bugging Dudley was his communication with Charles Putnam. Putnam had strained his influence to the outer limits and now he was telling Dudley that he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to protect us any longer. The word from Putnam was for Dudley to instruct me to return immediately and for the two of us to get out of Tibet. Besides being on the spot with his Red Chinese contacts, Putnam was also catching it from the U.S. State Department, which wanted to know why I hadn’t checked in with the American Embassy in whatever country I’d gone to. And it would be no good telling the State Department or Putnam that there was no U.S. consul on board Captain Morgan’s pirate flagship.

As if all this wasn’t enough to wash out Dudley’s last ailing kidney, there was another complication. During his illness the head-woman of the village had nursed him. In the course of her ministrations, she’d developed a head-over-sandals crush on her patient. As soon as he showed signs of recovery, the wrinkled but still game old harridan had attempted to slide into bed with him. From Dudley’s point of view she’d built him up only to knock him down again. He put it to me this way: “Sex is suicide for me, Steve. My heart can’t take it; my kidney can’t take it. But I can’t get it across to the old bag. When I try to explain she just smiles and nods and croons the local argot and tries to pull my pants off. She’s got six husbands. Isn’t that enough? Why can’t she leave me alone?”

“She must be the motherly type,” I told him. “And nothing turns on the maternal instinct like a sickie.”

The conversation took place some three days after my initial encounter with Captain Morgan. It was that long before I had the privacy necessary to put through my call to Dudley. It was an interesting three days.

I found favor with Captain Morgan. My dudsless dueling had tickled his vulgar fancy. I became something of a pet with him and when the plank had dropped its last victim he took me back to his flagship to show me off to his officers. He refused to let me dress and told the tale of my untogged antics repeatedly, guzzling rum, gesturing at my “sword” and whooping over my seasickness for the benefit of his audience.

I kept my ears open and the scuttlebutt confirmed what I had already suspected. I was on board the flagship of the infamous Panama expedition all right. And its second phase was about to be launched with a confusion it took me awhile to realize was calculated.

Thirty-seven ships dropped anchor in a wide curve that spanned the horizon of the shoreline. Longboats were lowered and then flatboats to be towed behind them. The flatboats were laden with cannon, ammunition and provisions. It took all that day and half the night to disembark. A makeshift camp was set up at the mouth of the River Chagres. Here the two thousand odd freebooters under Captain Morgan snatched a few hours sleep.

The next morning, logy from lack of sleep, but fired by the enthusiasm of Morgan, the expedition set out up river. Morgan’s plan was to attack the city of Panama from the landward side. It was well known that the coastal walls of the city bristled with Spanish cannon capable of sinking a flotilla before it could get far past the mouth of the Gulf. So Morgan floated his army up the River Chagres, after which he would march his men and supplies across the Isthmus of Panama through some of the most rugged, disease-ridden jungle terrain in the world.

Still a source of amusement to Morgan, I sailed in the lead flatboat with him. Like the other boats, this one was weighted down to its limit with men and supplies. The pirates lahored mightily to pole them against the current into the interior of the jungle. I did my share and my shoulders and back ached with the activity and burned under the merciless tropical sun.

When we made camp for the second night on the River Chagres, l managed to creep off into the jungle by myself and call Dudley on my wrist radio. This was when he brought me up to date on all that had happened since our last conversation.

“By the way, where and when are you?” Dudley asked after he’d caught me up on his troubles.

“In the year sixteen seventy-one on the way to sack Panama with the pirate Morgan,” I told him. “And I wish you’d get me out of here and back to Tibet,” I added. “A fellow could get killed playing with these bozos.”

“You’re complaining! I could drop dead any minute! A man in my condition-- Oh, Lord, here she comes again!”

“What’s the matter?”

Dudley spoke, but he wasn’t answering me. “Leave me alone! I don’t want— Don’t grab me like that!” There was a female cackle. “Button up now!” Dudley again, sounding even more desperate. “Don’t you have any modesty?” An aging female voice chattered unintelligibly. The tone managed to be both merry and cajoling. “No!” Dudley’s voice went up a few notches. “I’m not a well man! And we’re both too old! Where’s your sense of propriety? Go pick on one of your husbands -”

“Fight the good fight, Dudley,” I advised him. “And remember that virtue is its own reward. Goodbye for now.” I broke the connection.

Thinking of Dudley’s plight and how it affected my own, I drifted off to sleep on the banks of the River Chagres. A casual boot in my ribs woke me at dawn and I joined the other picked men aboard the lead flatboat. Soon we were poling our way up the winding river again, frying under the sun, lumpy and bloody from the constant assault of the ever-present, ever-droning mosquitoes.

It went like that for the next few days. Then the river veered away from the route Morgan had planned and we pulled the boats up on its banks and left them there while we set out to breach the jungle. We carried no food, only weapons. It was Morgan’s idea for the privateer-army to travel as lightly as possible, to cross the Isthmus by forced march and to live off the land.

Within two days the fallacy of this idea became obvious. The thick jungle was lush with fruit all right, but it was impossible to distinguish between the edible berries and the poisonous ones. After two men died in horrible agony, the rest of us refused to try to make the distinction. Having left the banks of the Chagres, there were no fish to be caught either. This left only the jungle animals to provide sustenance for the band. The problem was that there wasn’t too much small game in the jungle and what there was usually fell prey to the larger predators. The Caribs went out by twos and threes to hunt with spear and arrow, but they couldn’t supply the whole band. Most of what they caught they ate themselves.

We're all going to die here, I thought to myself, although I knew history well enough to be sure it wouldn’t happen. I ate jungle roots and cooked bits of leather from the Spanish boots I was wearing, hacked pieces from them until nothing was left and I trod the jungle with my feet bare and bloody. Finally we reached the banks of the winding River Chagres again and we were on the last lap of the trek to Panama City.

It was two days before we reached a Spanish plantation. The Spaniards left plenty of food behind for the conquerors. The starving men fell on it and glutted themselves. As much authority as Morgan packed, he couldn’t get any of them to pursue the fleeing Spaniards and catch them before they could alert the city of Panama that we were on our way.

The result was that the Spaniards had time to prepare their defenses. They chose a plain within sight of the city, arranged their artillery to rake the jungle edge and massed their cavalry to counterattack the invaders. Two ranks of foot soldiers marched in front of the cavalry.

This force was commanded personally by Don Juan Perez de Guzman, the Spanish governor of Panama. A stickler for appearances, Don Juan had seen to it that his troops were turned out in a manner worthy of a parade. Not a button was out of place. Muskets were held rigidly in a straight line across the plain. Every one of the well-trained horses stood still and straight and proud. It was a full-dress-review army. Unfortunately it had never seen action before and was ill prepared for it.

Morgan had word of the Spanish army from his scouts the night before we reached the plain. The next morning he had his men fan out at the edge of the jungle before attacking the Spaniards. When the pirates emerged onto the plain, the line of Spaniards held their fire until Don Juan gave the command.

But every buccaneer sprawled to the ground as the Spanish militiamen fired in unison. Not many were hit. They rose as the Spaniards were reloading and charged across the plain. The Spanish cavalry countered the maneuver with a charge of its own.

Morgan had foreseen this. His men broke and turned tail before the cavalry charge, as he’d known they would. The cavalry drove the advance force back to the edge of the jungle and here Morgan’s main army suddenly charged forward to envelop the horsemen. Out of range of the Spanish riflemen now, the pirates massacred the cavalry to the last man.

Meanwhile, Don Juan was urging his foot soldiers to advance across the plain and go to the rescue of the cavalry. They were too slow. The cavalry had already been destroyed when their advance was greeted by a barrage of musket fire from the concealment of the trees at the edge of the jungle. The neat line of soldiers broke. Some fell and didn’t get up. Others bolted only to be run down by the pursuing musketeers and slaughtered in their tracks. Only Don Juan himself and a few of his officers were able to retreat quickly enough to reach the city. Here Don Juan tried in vain to reverse the cannon guarding the harbor so that he might shell the pirates. The buccaneers had already captured the artillery abandoned by the Spaniards on the plain and were turning it on the city. And the main pirate force was charging so rapidly towards the city walls that they were in danger of being shelled by the captured cannons.

Don Juan gave up on the seawall cannons and rushed to rally a defense of the landward side of the city. Here he came up with one last stroke of genuine genius that came very close to defeating Morgan’s attack.

When a massive pirate force battered at one of the huge gates, Don Juan gave the order to open the gate and let them charge into the city. Simultaneously, he ordered the release of a herd of bulls from the paddocks ringing the bullring in the center of the city. Indian slaves, obeying their Spanish masters, ripped out the nose rings and prodded the bloody-snouted beasts towards the pirate horde. The enraged animals stampeded towards us like some elemental force of nature gone out of control.

I was in the midst of the group of pirates which had charged through the city gates, not too far from Morgan himself. As the bulls charged, the buccaneers panicked. Fighting men was one thing; being trampled or gored to death by wild bulls another. For a brief moment the victory was turned into a rout and the pirates ran screaming back towards the gate by which they’d just entered Panama.

It was at this moment that Captain Henry Morgan displayed the mettle that had justly earned him his reputation. Grabbing a spear from one of the fleeing Caribs, he leaped to the low balcony of one of the stucco Spanish houses. He poised there carefully until the lead bull passed under the balcony. Then he leaped.

He could easily have run the bull through with the spear, but such was not his intention. Instead, he landed neatly on its back and proceeded to ride it as easily as if it were a well-broken saddle horse. With his cutlass he prodded its side to make it change direction. With the spear he stabbed out at the other bulls in the van of the charge to make them follow suit. A large, burly man, overweight by our standards, he balanced on that mad bull’s back as effortlessly as a ballet dancer. And soon he had managed to lead the entire herd of bulls around in a wide circle so that they were charging back towards the Indian slaves and their Spanish masters.

The pirates cheered their leader’s feat and rallied. By the time he’d leaped lightly from the bull’s back to another balcony they were streaming back towards the center of the city again, following in the wake of the angry bulls. “Go to it, me hearties!” Morgan roared from the balcony. “Panama is ours!”

It was the richest prize in the New World and it had indeed fallen to the pirates. Over a hundred years old, the city was a storehouse for the wealth of a continent. Enslaved Indians labored in deep mines until they died to fill the warehouses of Panama with gold. The precious metal was added to the treasure of the Mayans seized by the Spaniards over the past century. Pizarro had looted millions of dollars worth of gold artifacts from the Incas and brought the booty to Panama and then established the law of the whip by which the Incas were forced to gouge still more riches from the earth to add to the wealth of their Spanish masters. And now, in 1671, as always happens in history, all the jewels and the gold had passed from the hands of the initial conquerors to the white, pudgy, uncalloused hands of the merchants and politicians who came in the wake of these first conquering armies. Only now these soft men of commerce were to lose their city of gold to pirates who had no more compunction about them than the first Spanish army had for the Indians. There was some ironic justice in this.

But I lost track of it as the sack of Panama took place before my eyes. It was one of the most brutal and complete destructions of a city in history. Most of this was due to the zeal of Morgan and his buccaneers—but not all of it. The finishing touch was put to Panama by the slaves the Spaniards had held—-men and women of all races—-freed now by the invasion of the pirates. These slaves set the torch to the city. They poured crude oil over the most magnificent mansions and set them afire and cheered as the city burned to the ground.

It took three days before all was reduced to ashes. During this time the pirates engaged in an orgy of looting and rape. All of the booty was brought out of the city and gathered on the plain where the battle had taken place. The countless rapes took place in the city itself.

Like animals the pirates had at the Spanish women. Morgan made no move to stop it. His men had been a long time without sex. It was necessary to let them let off steam. And besides, he was busy formulating other plans.

Some of the pirates banded together in small groups to round up the women. Flames crackling over their heads, they drove the girls through the streets like cattle, whipping the clothes from their bodies as they ran. Then, in the still smoldering ashes of what had once been a cathedral, they would fall on the screaming females, taking turns ravishing them, turning them on their bellies and on their backs, and back on their bellies again until their orifices were soaked with blood from the constant, tireless rape. Finally, when the ravishment had reduced a girl to no more than an unattractive hunk of meat, some kindly buccaneer would slit her throat and the men would descend on another girl. When all were disposed of, they would storm back through the city, gorging themselves on food from the houses left standing, guzzling the Spanish wine from the cellars of those which had already been burned down, relieving themselves on priceless tapestries which had somehow survived the flames, vomiting into handmade, golden Inca urns and hand-carved, jewel-covered Mayan vases, and rushing onward to another part of town to round up more terrified maidens to sate their lust.

Others among the buccaneers preferred to function as individuals. One such would lay claim to a building before it was burned down, drag a woman into it and force her to feed him and pour his wine and suffer all manner of indignities according to his sexual whim before finally bashing her skull in and seeking another partner. But whether one alone, or part of a group, each pirate was consumed with lust for blood and sex and booty—and more blood, always more blood until the dust of the streats of Panama was transformed into a sticky scarlet mud.

I tried to stick close to Morgan. It seemed safest, and he didn’t seem to mind. As I’ve said, his mind was on the immediate future.

Morgan stayed aloof from the drunkenness, the carousing, the rape, the murder for the sake of murder. There was some comment on this, for he’d never before stayed temperate when wine and women were available. So the men who’d served under him in the past said, anyway. But they shrugged it off, thinking that he was only concerned with the arduous trip back to the coast where the ships were anchored and the problems of transporting the immense booty of Panama.

When he was finally satisfied with the toting of the plunder from the city, his hungover band dragged themselves to the treasure-laden plain and looked back to see the center of the city being consumed by flames in their wake. The pirates camped on the plain at the jungle edge for the night and by morning there was nothing to be seen of the vision that was Panama but a drifting cloud of smoke dissipating to reveal smoldering ashes. Then, with Morgan shouting commands, they loaded the treasure on their backs and on the backs of mules stolen from the city and started through the jungle for the trip back to the boats.

Thanks to the mules and the food they’d taken, the journey back, while arduous, was not as hellish as the first trek had been. The rafts were waiting where they’d been dragged up on the banks of the River Chagres and the pirates poled them eagerly down river, each man looking forward to a life of ease to be provided by his share of the spoils. They were exhausted when they reached the beach, but nevertheless they summoned up the energy for a cheer at the sight of the fleet of thirty-seven pirate ships lying offshore and awaiting their return. Captain Morgan ordered that all the treasure be loaded on his galleon so that none among the buccaneers might be tempted to filch more than his rightful share. It would be divided up when the fleet reached Port Royal in Jamaica. Since no pirate trusted any other pirate, Morgan’s order was generally applauded among them.

When the loading was completed, Morgan issued generous rations of rum to the sweating men to relieve the ache and fatigue of the journey and the labor. He passed among the men himself, good-humoredly, urging them to drink up, to relax and contemplate the life of luxury awaiting them. His most trusted lieutenants remained on board the galleon, presumably guarding the treasure. His own crew was also aboard. But the rest of the pirates were all on the beach, swilling rum, singing, occasionally picking fights with one another. Captain Morgan had rolled out forty kegs of rum and the pirates tried to match his generosity with their intake.

The journey had fatigued them and the labor of loading the galleon on top of it had been a great weariness pressed down on them. Now the rum finished the job. The revelry was shortlived and one after the other the men fell in their tracks, lying in deep drunken sleep like stones strewn about the dunes. When the last of them was beyond stirring, Captain Morgan strode to his waiting longboat. His most trusted oarsmen were waiting for him there. He didn’t know it, but so was I.

I was there because of a suspicion that was unfolding in my mind. Henry Morgan was not a temperate man. Neither was he a man to do things for no reason. Yet he hadn’t himself touched any of the rum issued to the men. And he’d encouraged them to get drunk despite the fact that it would interfere with their effciency in manning the ships when we set sail on the morrow. Plus one other fact I’d noticed in the darkness: The men in the longboat, who hadn’t been drinking either, had taken off their shirts and wrapped them around the oars. There could be only one reason for this—to muffle the sounds of the boat as it moved through the water. I couldn’t be sure just what form it would take, but there was definitely some chicanery afoot. When a couple of the men at the stern of the boat got out and walked off a few feet to stretch their legs, I crept up to the craft, crawled into it and pulled a tarpaulin over me so that I wouldn’t be seen.

Some time later Morgan climbed into the boat and quietly issued an order. The crewmen pushed the boat into the surf and climbed aboard. A moment later we were gliding silently through the night.

After awhile the boat stopped moving and stayed in one place, rocking gently from side to side. I peeked out of my hiding place. We’d tied onto the anchor chain of one of the ships of Morgan’s fleet. It was not the galleon he commanded.

Silently, two of the men climbed the anchor chain, knives between their teeth. Only one sailor stood watch on board. The rest of the crew and officers, including the captain, were sleeping it off on the beach. Like cats, the two-man boarding party crept up on him and slit his throat, one holding him from the rear, the other running the blade neatly to carve a crimson curve joining his ears. The victim died without a murmur.

Immediately the other crewmen swarmed from the long-boat to the decks of the vessel, Captain Morgan leading them. Under his direction the sails were quietly lowered and slashed to ribbons. The mast was sawed off at its base and lowered by rope, slowly and quietly, into the lapping sea. The waters closed over it just as silently.

Quickly, Morgan and his men reboarded the longboat and made for the next ship. Here the maneuver was repeated. Only instead of bothering with the sails on this vessel, Morgan’s men went down into the hold and took an axe to the keel. Water rushed into the great, gaping hole and as the longboat pulled away the ship was already listing badly to one side.

In its turn, each of the thirty-six vessels Morgan had recruited for the pirate expedition to Panama was rendered unseaworthy. Rudder cables were hacked in two, masts were chopped off their roots, great holes were gauged into keels, sails were shredded to ribbons, some of the captains who’d stayed with their ships were silently murdered, crewmen aboard were killed—and all was done silently and with great dispatch. It was a full night’s work. Dawn had already broken when the longboat returned to Morgan’s treasure-laden flagship and was hauled aboard.

I huddled under the tarpaulin, still undetected. Only when I heard the distant angry rumble and the hearty, loud laughter closer at hand did I take the chance of peeking out again. In the distance, on the beach, the pirates had awakened and seen what Morgan had done. I couldn’t distinguish their individual curses, but the total sound was like thunder swearing vengeance. And above my hiding place, on the quarterdeck, Morgan stood roaring with laughter at his coup and literally thumbing his nose at his former comrades. As the wind took the sails and the ship moved inexorably away from the shores of Panama, Morgan poised like some Olympian god given to overindulgence, one hand on the tiller, the other resting casually on the hilt of his sword in its scabbard, his teeth bared to release gales of triumphant mirth louder than the sea wind, loud enough to reach the men on the shore—the echo of a con man’s victory, the final insult tormenting their ears as they shook their impotent fists and watched their hard-won treasure sail out of their grasp. I pulled the tarp back over my head and wondered what the hell I was going to do now.

A few hours later the problem was taken out of my hands. One of the flagship’s crewmen pulled the tarp aside and discovered me hiding there. A sword playing dominos with my spinal discs, I was ushered up to the quarterdeck where Captain Morgan was laying out the course for his helmsman.

“Stowaway, Cap’n.” The pirate who’d discovered my presence shoved me forward.

“I’ll be blowed!” Of course Morgan recognized me immediately. “It’s the naked swordsman! How the devil did you get on board?”

“I found him hiding in the longboat, Cap’n.”

“Now that’s too bad.” Morgan looked at me and shook his head sadly.

“Friendship, Captain,” I reminded him desperately.

“I can’t afford to have any more friends. My men wouldn’t like it. There’s just enough slices of the pie to go around. No man aboard is ready to shave his share any more than necessary.”

“I don’t want any of the treasure,” I told

“But you’ve got a mouth. We can’t have you running around loose telling what happened back there. If word got around my fellow privateers would lose faith in me.”

“I’ll be silent as a corpse!” I told him desperately. “I promise you!”

“No, laddie. I promise you.” Morgan smiled grimly. “You’ll be silent as a corpse because that’s what you’ll be.” He tinned to the crewmen watching the scene. “Throw him to the fishes,” he commanded.

I was hustled over to the railing. A plank was thrust through the gunwale and I was forced to mount it. I turned for one last, pleading look at Morgan. “I’m a lousy swimmer,” I told him plaintively.

“Don’t worry about it,” he counseled. “You won’t have to swim for long.” He pointed. A school of sharks was trailing lazily along in the wake of the ship.

Before I could answer, one of the pirates had jumped up teeteringly behind me on the plank. He slid his kerchief neatly over my eyes and blindfolded me. A second later the plank dipped as it was relieved of his weight. I balanced there stubbornly, refusing to budge, too terrified to move.

A swordpoint pierced my pantaloons and I inched forward despite myself. “Nervous bastard, ain’t he?” Scattered guffaws followed the remark. Again the blade prodded me forward. When the maneuver was repeated a third time, I ended up at the very edge of the plank. I knew that, even though I was blindfolded, because I’d had to pull back from the last of my cautiously balanced steps when my foot dipped into thin air. “Now dance for us, matey!” a Limehouse voice ordered. The heel of one foot was pricked by a sword point. I lifted the foot. Immediately my other foot was pierced. I lowered the first foot and raised the second one. I danced. “Don’t get your skirts wet!” More guffaws. “Get it over with, you sea scum!” Captain Morgan’s voice. A sharp pain in the rear and I took one last step forward.

I’d walked the plank and now there wasn’t any more plank left to walk. I plunged into darkness towards the waiting jaws of the sharks below. My ears rang with one last laugh from Captain Morgan, scourge of the seven seas. I flicked my wrist radio frantically and screamed for help.

What I got was an announcer’s voice oiling into a commercial: “And now,” he intoned, “a word from Charley the Tuna . . .”

Chapter Eight

TI-IE BLINDFOLD WAS RIPPED FROM MY EYES AND I FOUND myself looking down the snout of a Russian bear. The Russian bear said something to me in a language I didn’t understand. It might have been any bear lingo, but I presumed it was Russian. I didn’t answer. I was speechless.

With reason. The Russian bear was dressed in an evening gown from the neck down. Her companions were equally amazing. Beside her stood a devil in full evening dress, a pitchtork in his hand, a forked red tail protruding from his rear. Crowding around this ill-matched pair were the Greek god Pan, an Arabian shiek in full regalia, a tigress, Joan of Arc, two Vikings, a caveman, three harem dancers and a whole slew of other disparate personalities. They were all chattering the bear language, which I didn’t understand.

I didn’t even try. I was too busy trying to orient myself. I’d walked the plank, but instead of landing in the briny, I’d evidently come to roost on a plush sofa in the middle of a dimly candle-lit, but equally plush room. In the course of my blindfolded leap, I’d knocked over a coffee table. I deduced this because the table was still lying on its side and my shin smarted where I’d barked it. Also, I must have hit my wrist because the switch had flicked off and the radio wasn’t operating. I could only hope it hadn’t been permanently put out of commission.

The bizarre company in which I found myself didn’t seem as surprised at my appearance as they might have been. Part of this was due to the dim lighting, part to the fact that some sort of masquerade party was obviously in full swing and a pirate was no more out of place than a Norse god or an American Indian, and part to the great amount of liquor which had obviously been consumed prior to my arrival. When I didn’t reply to any of the babbling directed at me, the Russian bear simply shrugged and tied the blindfold over the eyeholes of the devil’s mask. He began floundering about the room with the others in his wake and the party flowed away from my vicinity.

I had a chance to catch my breath. The questions in my mind were the same old questions: where was I and in what time? The costumes around me weren’t much help in answering them. They said I might be anywhere from ancient Babylon to Spain during the Inquisition.

Rising from the couch, I sidled over to a window, hoping a view of the outdoors might provide a clue. It was a large door-window and there was a balcony outside it. A large courtyard fell away from the balcony. Many carriages, horses and some men were congregated there. It was defined by a high brick wall. Beyond the wall, as far as the eye could see, was a flat plain covered with rolling drifts of snow. The balcony was piled knee high with the snow. In the courtyard it was tamped so solidly it was turning to ice. Wherever and whenever I was, something told me the climate was cold.

Having made that brilliant deduction, I studied the men in the courtyard. They were obviously servants—- coachmen, footmen, whatever—since their garb was poor and pretty much all the same and since they were on the outside of the party. Most of them were huddled around a small fire in the courtyard, trying to keep warm while they waited for their masters and mistresses to finish their revels. The clothes these lackeys wore was of a style found only in Russia. The terrain and what I could see of the architecture confirmed the locale.

All right. So I was in Russia. But when?

It was not to be long before I pinpointed the time. Skirting the edges of the party, I wandered, trying to decide on some course of action. The masquerade wouldn’t last forever. When it ended, then what?

I happened into a small room beside the one where the festivities were in swing. It was dark. Draperies hung on the far wall, concealing another window. I slipped between them for another look outside. It was unedifying. Only more snow. Before I came out from behind them, I heard two people enter the room and start to talk in whispers.

I stayed put. They were speaking German. I was able to understand what they were saying.

“I tell you he is here, Grigori!” A female voice.

“But why? How would he know—?” Deep, male, agitated, speaking German with a pronounced Russian accent.

“I don’t know. But it’s very dangerous. Do you think he suspects—-?”

“Our love? Yes, Sophie. I think he suspects that. We have not been as circumspect as we should have been. Palace gossip.”

“I don’t mean that, Grigori.” Her tone was impatient. “He wouldn’t care about that. But his life. That’s another matter.”

“He is the Tsar after all, Sophie. He must always walk in fear of his life. He must always be suspicious of those who are closest to him, of those who would have the most to gain from his death. And who would have more to gain than you, Sophie? You are his wife. You are the Tsarina.”

“But his being here. That might be more than ordinary suspicion. It’s almost as if he knows we’re plotting to depose him in the next few days.”

“Are you sure he’s here, Sophie? Then how is it that I haven’t recognized him?”

“You danced with him!”

“I? You’re mad!”

“You forget yourself, Grigori!”

“I most humbly beg your pardon, my Tsarina, mly beloved Sophie, my revered Catherine, Mother of all the Russias!” There was the thud of knees hitting the floor, of lips apologetically smacking at a royal hand. “But how could I have danced with Tsar Peter and not have known it?”

“Do you remember the wood nymph with the head of a goat?”

“The slender young girl with the bare legs?” he reflected. “Yes. But those legs! They were slender and curved and feminine!”

“So this is how you demonstrate your passion for your Tsarina, my little Grigorivitch! By admiring the legs of another woman!” Her voice was cold.

“Sophie—-Catherine-Tsarina mine—-” A few more garbled words and some loverlike, subjectlike slobbering. “But those legs were hairless,” Grigori remembered after his abjectness had mollified her. “Surely no man could have such legs!”

“My husband, Peter, the Tsar of all the Russias, the Emperor of half of Europe and all Siberia shaves his legs,” she said with irony. “Also, in the privacy of the palace, he puts on my gowns and uses my perfume and poses in front of a mirror wearing one or another of my wigs. That’s how I recognized him tonight. The wig atop the goat’s head is one of mine.”

“Appalling!” Grigori’s voice quivered. “That such a passionate woman as you should have a degenerate like Peter for a husband!”

“Appalling that our mighty Russia should have such a pervert for its ruler!” She agreed with him.

“It is right that he must die and you should be Empress,” Grigori said grimly.

“He must die!” she concurred.

By this time I was sure I had identified them and the identification narrowed down the time period in which I found myself. There was only one Russian Empress that I knew of who might be called both Sophie and Catherine, who would speak German with no trace of accent as one speaks one’s native tongue, whose husband was a Tsar named Peter. Only Catherine, the Great could fit the picture.

Catherine the Great spent her first fifteen years on earth as Sophie Augustus, daughter of Christian Augustus, Prince of Anhalt—Zerbst, one of the smallest and most obscure of the Prussian states. Shortly before her sixteenth birthday she was married to the Russian Tsarevitch Peter who would one day ascend the throne as Peter III, Emperor of Russia. The marriage was arranged between the Empress Elizabeth of Russia and Frederick II, ruler of Prussia, for reasons of state. In January of 1762 Peter succeeded to the throne. In June of the same year he was deposed and then murdered. This was accomplished by a group of conspirators headed by Grigori Orlov, Catherine’s lover, one of the earliest and one of many to follow. The plot was hatched by Catherine, née Sophie, and it succeeded in making her Tsarina.

So I was in Russia in the year 1762. And a few feet away from where I was hiding behind the drapes, Catherine the Great and Grigori Orlov were conferring. My curiosity would have been less than human if I hadn’t wanted a look at one of the most fabulous sexpots in all history. I peeked out from behind the tapestry.

In the dim light from the open doorway leading to the next room I could see the couple. Catherine was dressed as an Arabian dancing girl. She wasn’t built for the part. She was tall rather than petite, voluptuous rather than lithe, ample of bosom and hip rather than slight, fair and Germanic rather than dark and Arabic. She held a dark wig in her hands and the flaxen coiffure it had concealed was piled high on her head and glinted like a mound of gold in the candlelight flickering from the next room. The domino mask she’d been wearing was pushed up over her high forehead. Clear blue eyes shone out of a strong face with high cheekbones, the visage of a Valkyrie. And while her body wasn’t that of a dancer’s, nevertheless it was impressively feminine, desirable, a body made for love, a body destined to fulfill its promise in the arms of one lover after another. Catherine the Great, Empress to be, was all woman!

Her current lover, Grigori Orlov, was half lost in the shadows. There was bulk to him, a lot of very black beard, eyes that burned with zeal. He wore a Roman toga and his legs were stoutly muscled and covered with a thick growth of black hair like the limbs of the black bear of the Urals. His demeanor too, while respectful to his love, was bearlike.

“It would be best to leave immediately,” Catherine was saying. “I don’t know how Peter got wind of this party. It was supposed to be for a very select group with the Tsar definitely excluded. But his being here just might mean that he’s compiling a dossier on me, a dossier to prove my infidelity with you, a dossier that could be used by him to divorce me—or worse. The best thing would be for us to go now.”

“All right,” Orlov agreed. “Get your coat. I’ll call to the driver to get the horses ready.”

Catherine left the room. Grigori Orlov started straight for the drapery covered windows, obviously intending to issue his instructions from there. I was too slow. He spotted me before I could get away.

He didn’t shout. Still, there was no mistaking his surprise, his concern, and his anger. The torrent of words he snarled were a well-controlled roar. They were Russian words. That much I could tell. But I couldn’t understand them. I could only guess that they comprised an oath and a threat.

I didn’t hang around to wait for a translation. He was coming on me like thunder and he’d fumbled a dagger out of the folds of his Roman toga. A shower of broken glass accompanied me as I dived out the window. Grigori gathered his toga skirts and leaped behind me.

I came up huffing frostbite. Caribbean pirate garb isn’t made for diving into Russian snowbanks. It was small consolation to know that Orlov’s toga probably wasn’t fur-lined either. There was only one way to fight the freezing cold: exercise. It was also the only way to remove my jugular from Orlov’s wildly swinging dagger. So I hotfooted it for a lap around the courtyard, hoping to lose him somewhere in the shadows.

My breath sent up smoke signals of panic as I ran. They mingled with Orlov’s furious clouds; that’s how close he was on my heels. But I had one thing going for me. For his own reasons, Orlov was no more anxious to kill me publicly than I was to be killed. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself and his royal date. I found that the closer I came to the group of lackeys around the fire, the less threatening his pursuit became. When I saw that he’d allowed a little cautious distance to get between us, I put on a burst of speed, skirted the small knot of men, and raced for the stables in the shadows of the house. Here I lost him.

I crouched behind a bale of hay, teeth chattering, and watched him search for a few minutes. Finally he couldn’t take the cold any more and he gave up. I stayed there, waiting for icicles to form on the tip of my nose, until I was sure Orlov was safely back in the house.

My knees were knocking and my teeth were going like castanets when I finally got to my feet. I didn’t dare risk going back to the house. But if I stayed where I was, I’d turn into a Russian popsicle. I glanced around me, seeking warmth and shelter. I spotted at large sled—the kind they called a troika because it’s drawn by three horses -- parked under the eave of the stable. Several fur robes were piled up at the rear of it for the benefit of the passengers who would ride there. I crawled in the back end of the troika and huddled under the furs, luxuriating in the warmth and marveling at the pins and needles telling me the blood in my veins hadn’t permanently turned to ice. My plans went no further than pinching my frostbitten earlobes to start the plasma circulating again.

After a little while, the troika suddenly began to move. I poked my head out and peered around towards the front. I saw half-a-dozen men pulling the sled out toward the middle of the courtyard where three horses had been lined up and were waiting to be hitched up to it. The cold pinched my nose and I stuck it back under the fur robes again. A few moments later the sleigh started moving again. I risked another look and saw that the horses had been hitched up and the driver was perched behind them on whatever the Russian equivalent of a buckboard is. He was guiding them around to the front of the mansion. Bells jingled on the reins as we moved.

The sleigh was drawn to a standstill again. The driver climbed down and stood holding the tethers of his three horses, waiting for his passengers. I huddled under the furs at the bottom of the sleigh, the driver’s seat above and in front of me, the long sleigh itself angling slightly upwards to my rear.

Suddenly the fur robes were raised at the foot of the sleigh. I caught a quick glimpse of the pretty face and bosomy figure of a young girl before they were lowered again, shutting out the light. The girl had slipped under the robes and hidden herself just as I had done. Like me, she was huddled at the foot of the sleigh. Our bodies were almost touching. She was breathing very quickly, as if with fear.

Slowly, surreptitiously, she started to change position. Her hand fell on my thigh and clenched momentarily. I heard a sharp intake of breath. I didn’t give her a chance to expel it as a scream. I rolled over and quickly covered her mouth with my hand.

For a long moment we lay like that, frozen, face to face. A chink of light coming through the furs illuminated her eyes. They were wide and brown and staring. I held my hand over her mouth until her eyes became more perplexed than fearful. Slowly, carefully, I took my hand away, ready to clap it back over her lips if she started to scream.

But she was evidently as anxious to avoid discovery as I was. When she did speak, it was in a hoarse whisper and directly into my ear. The words had an urgency to them, but they were Russian and I didn’t capisce.

“Do you speak English?” I asked her.

She looked blank, more puzzled than ever.

“Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” I tried.

No sale.

“Habla Español?”

She shook her head.

“Parlez-vous Français?”

“Un peu.”

It was something.

“I was maid to a noble lady who thought it chic to speak French to her lovers,” she explained in French. “I picked up enough to make myself understood.”

“What’s your name?” I asked her.

“Olga. And yours?”

“Steve. What are you doing here, Olga?”

“I might ask you the same question.” She was regaining some of her confidence.

“And there are others around who might like the answers to both questions,” I pointed out. Still, there was no reason not to tell her why I was hiding there. “There’s an angry Russian in a toga who wants to kill me,” I explained. “Add the fact that it’s cold outside and this seemed as good a place to hide as any.”

“That would be Orlov.” She chuckled without humor. “This is not the place for you to be then. This is the Empress’ sleigh and he’s sure to accompany her.”

“The Empress sleigh!” I cursed the luck. “Then I’d better get out.” I started to move.

“No!” She grabbed me. “You’re sure to be seen. Then you will be killed. And so will I if they find me here with you.”

“Just what are you doing here?” I asked again.

Olga looked at me speculatively, as if deciding just how much she could trust me. “This is the only way I can smuggle myself into the palace of the Tsar,” she told me finally.

“But why?” I persisted.

Now her look said she was trying to decide to just what extent I might be useful. “He is the fulcrum of injustice in Russia,” she said obscurely.

“Yes?” I waited.

“Many peasants die every day because of the Tsar and his tax collectors and his Cossacks. If he were to die it would mean life for many of the oppressed.” She stared hard at me, trying to gauge my reaction.

I fit the pieces together in my mind. They added up to a second plot to assassinate Tsar Peter III. Many similar plots aimed at Peter, and then at Catherine the Great, would be hatched during the next ten years. They would culminate in the great Peasant Revolt led by Pugachev in 1773. It would take Catherine two years to put down that uprising and Russia would never be the same. The Mother of all the Russias was to have her hands full.

Just now, the Mother of all the Russias was being helped into her sleigh by her lover, Grigori Orlov. Both wore long fur coats over their masquerade costumes. Olga and I stayed quiet, trying not to breathe, as the couple propped themselves against the backrest of the sleigh and stretched their bodies full length under the fur lap robes. One of the Empress’ boots lodged against my armpit. As the sleigh began to move she used her other foot to kick it off altogether. We picked up speed and she also managed to wriggle free of the other boot. She rubbed her feet together, seeking the warmth from the fur, her toes wiggling right under my nose.

Soon we were on the open road and the troika was traveling at a fast clip. Orlov had relaxed by spreading his legs wide. Olga had been forced to position herself between them to keep from crowding him. Catherine reached under the robes and groped for Orlov’s hand. She almost grabbed Olga’s ear. Quickly, to keep her from discovering us, I took the royal palm in my own. The Empress squeezed and her fingers trailed over the surface of my hand ticklingly, insinuatingly.

“Ahh, Grigori,” Catherine sighed. “Is there time for love when one is to be Tsarina?” she asked in German.

“There is always time for love.” He patted my head. “Your coat must have gotten wet,” he observed. “The fur is bristly.”

“It is too bulky anyway.” Catherine wriggled free of the garment under the robes and pulled my hand up to her breast. It was very soft and warm under the thin harem costume. She was breathing quite heavily.

“Mine too.” Orlov turned on his side and unbuttoned his coat. Olga was caught up in the folds of his toga. She looked at me helplessly. I shrugged and squeezed the Empress’ breast again. The nipple hardened and quivered under my palm.

Orlov fumbled under the robe. Olga anticipated him. She grasped his hand and pulled it down. Unbuttoning the bodice of her dress and pushing it down, she pressed his hand against it.

“Ahh, so soft,” Orlov sighed. “Is it not amazing,” he added, “how not being able to see what one is doing confuses one’s sense of anatomy. My sense of touch tells me I am caressing your glorious, Imperial breast, but it seems somehow placed differently on your glorious Imperial body.”

“Never mind that,” Catherine panted. “Don’t stop!”

I pushed aside the gauzy fabric and gave both my hands freedom to roam over her bosom. Orlov squeezed Olga’s bare breast enthusiastically. It had its effect. She bit her lip to keep from responding audibly.

The sleigh went over a bump in the road and we were all four jostled. My hand slid from Catherine’s breast, under the gauze to her naked belly. The material ripped with the movement.

“Impetuous boy,” she murmured. “That tickles!” Her smooth belly undulated beneath my fingertips.

“It is because you set me afire!” Orlov stroked my bare forearm, his fingers drifting higher with each motion. I signaled to Olga and shifted position slightly. She intercepted his fingers and now they stroked her thigh. Olga was positioned like a jackknife now, her skirts pulled up over her waist, the bloomers covering her derrière brushing against my cheek.

“Kiss me!” the Empress commanded.

They turned on their sides and kissed. Catherine’s lush hips writhed as her belly strained for contact with her lover. Orlov pulled up his toga and his manhood probed like a bloodhound on the scent for the body of his mistress. Caught between them, Olga and I improvised as best we could.

I pressed my elbow against Catherine’s thighs and they parted. Exquisite, white, quivering flesh gripped at my elbow. Doubtless she thought it was her lover’s knee. She pressed down against it with the fulcrum of her body and her belly twitched with an eager rhythm.

Still doubled over, Olga contrived to pin Orlov’s tumescent passion between her breasts. “Amazing!” he exclaimed as he and Catherine ended their kiss. “And yet there is a strange thrill to this disorientation.”

“Don’t talk so much,” Catherine panted. She was beating against my elbow now, her desire surging. “Your knee is driving me mad,” she gasped.

“My knee—?” Orlov’s puzzlement was drowned in another passionate kiss.

Their bodies tossed and twisted again. Olga and I reacted accordingly. When the mass of flesh had settled, Olga was drawn up like a foetus with her knees tucked under her chin. Somehow she’d contrived to wriggle out of her garments. Her bare derrière was pressed against my forehead. Just on the other side of it her hand was grasping Orlov and guiding him to a substitute target. Her other hand was under his toga in back of him, slapping his nether cheeks in a way calculated to ally his confusion by encouraging his desire.

Meanwhile I had worked my way out of my pants. The Empress’ nails raked my fundament and I angled my body to do her bidding. My face was buried now in Olga’s protruding roundness. Fortunately for me, Catherine was too far along the road to fulfilling her desire to question the unusual position her lover had presumably assumed. The honeyed lips of her womanhood drew me in eagerly and the first flutter I encountered quickly changed to a pulsating demand.

Thus we all four had at it, I taking the cue for my timing from the movements of the burning nether cheeks pressed against my face, Olga tying herself into knots to keep from being displaced by Orlov’s maddened assault, Catherine thrashing about in a way that threatened to upset the delicate balance, Orlov sealing her cries of ecstasy with kisses as he unknowingly assaulted Olga. The horses’ hooves pounded out the rhythm of our passion. The runners of the troika screeched an ever higher pitch over the tight-packed snow like the wail of Eros rising to the stars.

Catherine screamed and tore at my flesh, bouncing like an erotic sledgehammer. “Now! Now! Now!” she screamed. I bit deeply into Olga’s plump derriére, signaling the moment. She twisted like a corkscrew, urging Orlov to his release. Orlov uttered a triumphant cry simultaneously with my own release and for a moment I was almost suffocated as he slammed against Olga with all of his might.

And then it was over. But not quite . . .

Due to the awkwardness of my position, at the very moment of release I had developed an agonizing charley horse²² . The result was that now I was afraid to move for fear of crying out aloud with the pain. So I stayed frozen at the height of our ecstatic release and frantically pushed against Olga with my face so that she would prolong it.

“How delightful!” Catherine cried out.

“You are holding me prisoner,” Orlov responded, sounding a little disconcerted.

“Stubborn boy!” Catherine’s voice was teasing. “You are merely staying to prove your strength!”

“So long as you want it, it is your willing subject, Empress mine. But I confess I do grow weary.”

At this point, fortunately, the muscle spasm passed. I withdrew.

“Ahh,” Catherine wriggled her hips. “Delightful as it was, just now I appreciate the relief.”

Olga had picked up her cue and disengaged from Orlov.

“I thought I would never reclaim it,” he sighed.

They both stretched and moved slightly away from each other, content to have comfort rather than contact in the aftermath of love. This gave Olga and me more breathing space. She managed to straighten her body halfway. I was able to breathe.

“It was wonderful,” Catherine sighed, yawning luxuriously. “You have never been so masterful, Grigori, nor so accomplished.”

“And you, my Tsarina, have never shown me such passion before. Never before have you been possessed with such fire!”

Olga suppressed a giggle.

“Perhaps it’s the troika,” Catherine mused. “It’s certainly never been this good in bed.”

“Perhaps it is the outdoors, nature itself, which so inspired you,” Orlov suggested.

I had to bite my own lip to keep from laughing. Olga winked at me and made a cautious motion as if she was pinning a medal on herself. Then she repeated the movement as if she were decorating me. I held up a hand to caution her to stop fooling around. Inadvertently the hand grazed Catherine’s leg.

“Oh, no, Grigori!” she protested. “Not again! I’m much too tired.”

“Huh? What? What’s that you say, Sophie, my Empress?” His voice sounded like he’d been on the brink of dozing.

“I said let’s go to sleep,” Catherine told him.

“Your wish is my command.” He spoke through a yawn.

They fell silent and soon their regular breathing testified that they had indeed gone to sleep. Olga likewise had drifted off to dreamland. Fatigued by my exertions, I soon followed suit.

The sleigh pulled to a halt and the sudden lack of motion awakened me. Olga also opened her eyes. We lay quietly as Catherine and Orlov disembarked. We stayed that way as the sleigh was pulled inside a large barn and the horses were unbridled and led away to their stables. Now it was very dark and very quiet. We let more time pass that way before we finally dared to creep out from under the fur robes.

We adjusted our clothes in the darkness. Then Olga took my hand and led me. “Where are we going?” I whispered to her in French.

“To the servants’ quarters,” she told me.

We left the barn and slipped across a wide courtyard. Olga proceeded to a door leading to the cellar of the pal- ace. As soon as it had been closed behind us, a match was struck in the darkness and a man’s face appeared.

“Comrade Olga?” he said.

“Da,” Olga replied.

He embraced her and kissed her on both cheeks. Then we followed him through the cellar darkness until we reached another door. The room beyond it was bright with light and half a dozen palace servants waited there. They greeted Olga effusively. She was passed from one to the other, male and female alike, to be hugged and kissed and gushed over in torrents of Russian.

For the first time I noticed that she was carrying a small package. The first man who’d greeted her relieved her of it gingerly and set it down on the table. Silence fell as the others gathered there stood around the package and looked at it almost reverently. Olga nodded once, proudly, and a strange sigh escaped the lips of the group.

One of them turned and pointed to me and jabbered something in Russian. Olga answered him. There was a lot more conversation with glances thrown my way. Finally Olga came to my side and spoke to me in French.

“They want to know who you are and why you are here,” she told me. “I said you were fleeing an aristocrat who wanted to kill you. They are suspicious, but I’ve persuaded them to let you stay. I only hope I’m not making a mistake,” she added. “But the only alternative would be to kill you and I can’t quite bring myself to let them do that after all we’ve been through together.”

“You’re right,” I replied. “After all, we have established a relationship. Alienation’s a big problem in the world,” I babbled with gratitude. “Being killed would definitely alienate me more than I already am. And it would alienate you from me too, if you see what I mean. Communication would be impossible. It’s really much healthier this way. I think you’ve made a wise decision.”

Olga’s French wasn’t up to my mouthings. She shrugged them off and motioned to one of the men. He lit a candle and led me‘ back through the cellar to a bin. It was filled with straw. He indicated that I should climb into it and cover myself with the straw. I did.

When I was alone, I started fumbling with the wrist radio in the darkness. My fall from the pirate’s plank to the Russian sofa had jarred it into silence. The question was whether or not it was irreparably broken.

I took the back plate oil it and my fingers traced the tiny, delicate connections in the darkness. I fumbled for a long time before I located a badly bent transistor. I took it out, straightened it and replaced it. A sliver of dawn was poking through one of the cellar windows when I replaced the plate and tried twisting the dial.

There was the crackle of static. I flicked the switch and spoke into the dime-sized mouthpiece. “Hello Tibet,” I whispered hoarsely. “Hello Tibet. Dudley, do you read me?”

“Is that you, Steve?” Dudley’s voice sounded very old and tired.

“No, it’s my Aunt Tillie,” I told him sarcastically. “Dudley, the last jump was only about a hundred years. Can’t you speed things up and get me home again?”

“Papa Baapuh says he has to be careful and jump you just a little at a time, or he‘s liable to take you too far into the future. The machine isn’t really perfected and he doesn’t have absolute control over it.”

“Well how about pushing him so I can move up again?”

“He won’t be pushed. He’s more interested in the blender he’s trying to develop. It was all I could do to get him to take time off long enough to arrange your last jump. And besides, I’ve been busy. You know, I do have a life of my own to live, Steve.”

“Dudley, you’re a dying man,” I reminded him.

“I’m going to live before I die,” he croaked.

“But you can’t live only for yourself. Don’t be selfish, Dudley! What about me?” I reminded him.

“It’s dog-eat-dog, Steve.” There was a low female murmur in the background and then Dudley squealed. “Coming, my sweet.” His voice was muffled and I could barely discern the words.

“Dudley!” I was struck by a sudden suspicion. “Have you succumbed to that harridan?”

“Don’t you call her a harridan,” he said hotly. “You’re talking about the woman I love.”

“Love! That beat up old bag? You’ve gone mad, Dudley. And you know how weak your constitution is. She’ll kill you!”

“But what a way to go!” he croaked happily.

“What about me, Dudley? What’s going to happen to me if you kick the bucket‘? I’ll be stuck in Russia in the eighteenth century for the rest of my life!”

“Just let me get my breath, sweetie.” His voice was muffled again. “I’ll brush this call off and be right with you.” The voice became clear again. “I’m sorry about that, Steve, and I’ll do what I can. But I have to take some time out for recreation. So long for now, Steve.”

“Recreation! Now you listen to me, Dudley— Dudley! -- Dudley?” It was no use. He’d broken the connection. Days went by, and nights, and I failed in my efforts to reestablish it. I hid in the bin and every so often one of the palace servants would bring food to me. Olga came to see me periodically. She brought me changes of clothing, and she spoke to me in French.

Our rapport grew with these conversations. Slowly, she opened up to me. Finally, she revealed to me the plot in which she was involved.

Olga belonged to a group which was plotting to assassinate Tsar Peter. She had smuggled into the palace a bomb by which this was to be accomplished. The servants I had met were her coconspirators. Like Olga, they were members of a peasants’ group dedicated to the overthrow of the government.

One of the members of this group—since deceased-— had developed the bomb to be used in the plot. This bomb intrigued me. The reason for my fascination was basic. As far as I knew, self-exploding weaponry would not be introduced to the World until 1863, one hundred years from now.

In that year Alfred Nobel would patent a mixture of nitroglycerine (a chemical compound to be discovered by Ascanio Sobrero in 1846) and gunpowder. Three years later, after many fatalities resulting from experimentation, Nobel would perfect this process and give it the name of “dynamite.” Nobel, a native of Sweden, would choose to conduct these researches in St. Petersburg.

Why St. Petersburg? History afforded no explanation, unless-— unless Nobel, who had been educated in St. Petersburg as a boy, had stumbled across the revolutionary legend of a peasant who had developed a method of detonating gunpowder by packing it tightly in a metal casement, attaching a fuse of hemp and igniting it.

So simple! It had been a thousand years or more since the Chinese developed gunpowder. Marco Polo had brought the discovery to Europe. But somehow a basic principal that the Chinese had stumbled upon had never been used to its full potential by the Europeans. This was the simple precept of the firecracker. Tamp gunpowder tightly enough into any container—even paper—ignite it, and it will explode. The explosion is the result of the pressure caused by lack of oxygen. Jenghiz Khan had utilized this principal in the Twelfth Century to blow up a portion of the Great Wall of China. Early cannons and musketry used in European warfare had operated on the idea of placing gunpowder at the bottom of a gun-barrel, tamping it down and then filling the rest of the weapon’s barrel with metal shot or cannonballs so that when the gunpower was ignited the shot would be expelled with the force of the explosion. But until after the time of Nobel nobody conceived of a “missile” which might be fired by one explosion and then detonate another explosion when it landed. Nobody conceived of a missile which might be hurled and detonate on contact. Nobody conceived of a bomb. Almost nobody—-

The anonymous peasant-inventor in Olga’s revolutionary group was evidently an exception. He had come up with a weapon to fit the circumstances. According to Olga, he had served as an artillery man in the Russian Army. This experience had provided the germ of an idea. A cannonball was simply a piece of solid iron which had been forged into a missile the size and shape of a round melon. Of itself it was useless as a weapon. It was only when propelled by the blast of gunpowder that it could wreak havoc on the enemy. A secondary damage it performed came from occasional shatterings from the force of impact. This flying metal was called shrapnel.

The unknown Russian revolutionary came up with the idea of hollowing out the cannonball and packing the inside with gunpowder. He refined this by putting layers of sharp metal fragments around the tightly packed gunpowder. The whole was held together by the shell of the cannonball. A short length of rope—soaked in oil like a lantern wick—extended outside the shell. Inside it led to the core of gunpowder. The metal was packed loosely around the rope so that there would be enough oxygen to allow it to burn. At the core it was packed more tightly so that only the spark necessary for detonation would act through and the explosion itself would be maximum strength.

This obscure ex-artillery man created two of these homemade weapons. They were really crude hand grenades, forerunners of anti-personnel fragmentation bombs. The first bomb was for testing purposes. The second was to be used to kill the Tsar.

The first one exploded prematurely and killed its inventor. The second was his legacy to his revolutionary comrades. It had to work, for there was no one who had the know-how to re-create it. This was the bomb Olga had smuggled into the palace.

There was one slight hitch to the plan. The genius of the bomb’s inventor had not extended to the development of a time fuse. It would be but an instant from the igniting of the bomb to the explosion. This meant that the perpetrator of the act of violence must be prepared to go up in smoke with the intended victim. If the plot was to succeed, there would be no time for any alternative.

Olga was to be the martyr. That was why her coconspirators had greeted her so effusively. She was about to die, and those who were to go on living saluted her.

The selection of the beautiful Slav siren to make the sacrifice had not been by chance. Her sensual appeal was an integral part of the plot. It was necessary to enable her to get close enough to the Tsar to detonate the bomb that was to seal their mutual doom.

Tsar Peter’s weaknesses were well known to the palace servants. Pretty serving wenches were only one of them. Drunkenness was another. Dressing up in women’s clothes was a third. There were others. Boredom was the Tsar’s enemy; all sorts of perversions and debaucheries were his weapons against it.

The more I learned of all this, the more I decided not to get involved. It wasn’t my world and its battles weren’t my battles. All I wanted to do was hang on long enough to be transported out of it. But before that could happen, despite myself, I was plopped down right in the middle of all the plots and counterplots and intrigues. I was discovered in my hiding place by a Captain of the Palace Guard.

This Captain was a coconspirator in the other plot against the Tsar. Of all places that he had to pick to meet a fellow assassin, he selected the cellar bin in which I was hiding. There was much hushed murmuring in Russian before the second man left. The Captain was about to follow suit when he dropped his snuffbox and while bending to retrieve it spotted my leg sticking out of the straw.

I can only guess what went through his mind. He knew that I must have overheard him and he couldn’t have guessed that I didn’t understand Russian. From the sword point at my throat, I know it must have crossed his mind to kill me immediately. Probably the only reason that he didn’t is that it occurred to him that I might be part of a counterplot and therefore have some information that might be useful to his group, I’m only guessing at all this. Still, it seems logical, because what he did was escort me at sword’s point to the quarters of Grigori Orlov, from whom he evidently took his orders.

Orlov was no more disposed to spare my life than his underling. This was obvious from his attitude, although again I couldn’t understand their conversational exchange. What saved me was my own quick thinking—- that and the appearance on the scene of the Tsarina.

Catherine slipped into Orlov’s quarters while he and the Captain were conferring. There was an awkward moment when she appeared in a negligee that was sheer to the point of being scandalous. Orlov recovered enough to order the Captain to leave immediately. But in the confusion he momentarily forgot about me, I was left behind, Orlov casually holding a sword at my throat. When the Captain was gone he remembered me and explained to Catherine what I was doing there. She glanced at me curiously and it was then that I had an inspiration.

“My beloved fellow countrywon1an—-” I addressed her in German as I fell to my knees in front of her. She and Orlov both looked surprised to hear me speak in her native tongue. “Word has reached your homeland of your predicament in having been inadvertently married to a Russian madman,” I improvised.

“He must come from Frederick of Prussia!” Catherine exclaimed.

“Indeed I do!” I latched onto her supposition desperately. “My master bids me convey his sympathy and willingness to cooperate-—albeit, for reasons of state, which I’m sure Your Highness understands, his sympathy must be kept secret. And he asks how his humble servant—myself -—can be of help to you.” I was babbling, not clear myself on what I was saying, feeling my way, sure only that the way to stay alive was to keep talking.

“Frederick has sent us an assassin!” Catherine leaped to the conclusion and clapped her hands.

“Are you an assassin?” Orlov demanded, his tone surly.

“Well, not exactly—”

“He’s a spy!” Orlov concluded. “The safest thing would be to kill him!” '

“What I meant was that I’m not an assassin by profession,” I told him quickly. “But these are special circumstances and so I am an assassin for the time being——if you see what I mean.”

“I don’t!” Orlov growled. He peered at me closely. “I have the feeling I’ve seen you before,” he remarked.

“I have one of those faces that’s very common, I told him. “People are always mistaking me for someone else.” I held my breath for fear he’d remember finding me eavesdropping behind the draperies at the masquerade.

Catherine nudged him off the track. “How can you have seen him before if he just came from Prussia?” she asked logically.

“I guess not.” Orlov’s suspicions were not entirely assuaged. “If he did indeed come from Germany,” he said. “How do we know?”

“There’s one way of making sure,” Catherine suggested. “If he kills my husband the Tsar, then we’ll know he is what he claims to be.”

“And if he fails, we can always kill him anyway,” Orlov agreed.

Very sporting! There was some more conversation and the upshot of it was that I was supplied a sharp knife by Orlov and conducted to the Tsar’s apartment. The sentry on guard duty was obviously in collusion with Orlov. He admitted us without question. Orlov assured me that the other sentries guarding the Tsar were likewise part of the plot. If the Tsar was still alive when I decided to leave, they would see to it that my egress was feet first. The beautiful thing about it from the point of view of Orlov and Catherine was that even if I was caught, there would be nothing to tie me in with them. Indeed, I guessed that I would probably be killed no matter which way it went since a dead scapegoat was better than a live conspirator who might be made to talk. My prospects didn’t look good since all the entrances and exits to the Tsar’s apartment were guarded by men loyal to Catherine.

I mulled this over while Orlov took his leave of me. He’d led me into the Tsar’s boudoir and suggested I hide myself behind the draperies. The Tsar was still downstairs lapping up vodka and the idea was for me to wait until he came up and went to bed and then to plunge my dagger into his sleeping form. It was one hell of a situation, I reflected as I waited, nervously paring my nails with the point of the dagger. What the blazes was I going to do?

As it happened, the decision was taken out of my hands. The Tsar finally entered the bedroom flanked by half-a-dozen servants. He was very drunk. He kicked out at them and threw a couple of vases by way of dismissing them. When he was alone he reeled over to a large wardrobe closet and flung open its doors.

Mumbling incoherently to himself, he tore off his clothes, stepped out of them and flung them aside. He stood naked, surveying the contents of the closet. Finally he made a selection.

He was a long time redressing. When, at last, he was through, he sat down at a dressing table and began to apply cosmetics. When he was finished, he stood up and surveyed himself in the mirror.

A not unpretty Russian belle in an evening gown stared back at him. The gown was cut low, stuffed at the bosom, pushed-up flesh presenting an acceptable décolletage. The chest hairs had been powdered over and rendered invisible. The Tsar raised his skirts and studied his legs encased in white stockings. He nodded in appreciation, his artificially darkened lashes crinkling, his rouged lips smiling daintily, the curls of the dark wig he’d donned bobbing as he nodded to himself with satisfaction.

He sat on the edge of the bed, posturing himself coquettishly as he faced the mirror. Slowly, he raised his skirts over his knees. His hand slid under them and soon a more genuine flush darkened his already rouged cheeks. He rocked back and forth on the bed, his eyes far back in their sockets.

Suddenly a voice murmuring in Russian broke the silence. The Tsar broke his rhythm and his head turned, eyes refocusing to determine its source. From my hiding place, my gaze followed his.

It fastened on Olga emerging from the recesses of the wardrobe closet. She had dressed herself in one of the sheer women’s nightgowns the Tsar kept there. In her hands, held out prettily like a box of candy or some other present, was a gift-wrapped package. A short length of hemp protruded from the wrapping.

The Tsar spoke, evidently asking her what the hell she was doing there. His voice was imperious, but not altogether angry. It revealed a certain amount of interest in this delectable creature who had so unexpectedly popped into his presence. Nor did he seem embarrassed at her finding him in female garb. I guess when one is a Tsar, all circumstances are a matter of noblesse oblige.

Since he’d spoke in Russian, I couldn’t understand what he said. Nor could I savvy Olga’s reply. But from her tone I gathered she was riding her sex appeal for all it was worth. From the smug expression her words produced on the Tsar’s cosmeticized face, I could guess she was coming on like a simple peasant girl come to offer her all to her beloved ruler. He beckoned to her to come closer.

Damn democratic of him, I thought to myself. He wasn’t at all rigid about his hermaphrodite activities. Evidently he didn’t mind making a switch in midstroke as it were. It seemed the girl’s appearance didn’t threaten him enough to make him call for the guards. And it could be that while he didn’t mind her catching him in drag, he didn’t want them to see him. In any case, he did motion her toward him.

It was an error in judgment. Olga looked innocent— from the point of view of violence, if not sex—but she wasn’t. When she was about six feet away from him she paused beside a lit candelabra and leaned slightly to one side. The hemp dangling from the package she carried dipped into the flame. Immediately, the action was speed- e up.

Olga lobbed the package at him with both hands-like a basketball player taking an easy lay-up shot. Tsar Peters reflexes took over. He caught the package with outstretched hands. But some instinct of danger made him get rid of it the instant he touched it. He threw it up in the air and it went neatly between the drapes to land in my surprised grasp. Like the Tsar, I’d caught it automatically.

My mouth dropped open. The fuse sputtered. Foolishly I stared at the bomb about to go off in my hands. All this in a split instant. Time froze! And then, as quickly, it thawed!

I’d been left holding the bomb!

Chapter Nine

“GOLD!”

The cry went up before the smoke from the explosion had time to clear. Sourdoughs poured forth from bars and barbershops, dance halls and dime-a-night fleabags, gambling halls and grubstake loan shark offices, sin palaces and stables as the cry spread like wildfire. They scrambled through the muck and slush of the spring thaw like a horde of hopped-up ants on the scent of a discarded Hershey bar. And the fevered cry became an obsessed chant that merged into one mighty voice echoing and reechoing the magic word-—

“GOLD!”

I was damn near trampled into the mire as the crowd stampeded towards the explosion. Up to my tailbone in mud, I managed to sludge-foot my way out of their path. There was a series of wooden planks, sort of a makeshift sidewalk, lining the rickety frame buildings to one side of the street of mud. I sought sanctuary there and watched the mob plop past.

Still shaking from my narrow escape, I stood there and tried to reconstruct what happened. Olga had lit the bomb and tossed it to Tsar Peter. The Tsar had immediately lobbed it in my direction and I’d found myself catching it. Then, appalled, I too had hurled the lethal package. But there had been that instant before I’d thrown it. And that was the instant when I must have made another time jump. It must have been that very instant, for the bomb was still in my grasp and in the next split second I’d flung it away. It hadn’t landed in the Tsar’s palace in St. Petersburg in the year 1762. And neither had I.

I surveyed my surroundings, trying to get some kind of fix on where and when I’d come to roost. I seemed to be at the very end of a sort of main street— if the river of mud in front of me could be called a street—down which the mob was rushing. Back in the direction from which they were coming was a town of sorts. It looked very ramshackle, like it had been thrown together in a hurry. In front of the mob the street came to an end. There was a sort of wooden fence there and the throng fanned out around it.

Most of them milled near a gate set in the fence. It was a high gate in the same rough-hewn style as the pickets marking the boundary of the stockade—or whatever the enclosure was. A sign was nailed to the top of it. Crudely lettered, it proclaimed the entrance to the “LUCKY SEVEN” mine. It also bore the warning: “CLAIM JUMPERS BEWARE!”

Under the sign, behind the gate, two men stood with shotguns. Their clothes were in tatters. They were covered with soot and dust and mud. Their faces and hands were sprouting blisters. Their eyebrows had been completely singed away. One of them had a beard which seemed to have been torn from one side of his face. It wasn’t hard to figure that they must have been very close to where the bomb I’d hurled had exploded. Yet, despite their disastrous appearance, despite the guns they pointed at the crowd, both men were grinning broadly.

The one with the half-beard waved in my direction. “Strike!” he called happily. “The whole creek blew out from under us, but it was worth it. It’s the mother lode! Richest I ever saw! Nuggets the size of your fist!”

“Wahoo!” The voice came from right behind me.

I turned and found myself looking at a shimmering vision of red hair and black sparkle. After a few seconds I realized that the reason her curvy form was wavering was that the sun was bouncing off the sequins covering her dress and distorting my view of her. I squinted and she popped into perspective.

There was a pert face with a peaches and whipped cream complexion under the red hair. The girl was of average height and her figure was a neat arrangement of concave and convex arcs that snuggled revealingly against the dance hall costume she wore. The gown was black, low cut, reaching to just above her knees. There were matching ruffs of black fur at the top and bottom of it. Her legs were long and very shapely in black net stockings. A red garter peeked out from under the ruff. It was halfway up her thigh and it disappeared as she shifted her weight from one high heel to the other.

“Wahoo!” she repeated, yelling. She waved at the two men with shotguns standing in the gateway to the Lucky Seven. Then her eyes met mine and she cocked her head and looked at me quizzically. The lids narrowed a little over the deep green irises, and then she spoke to me in a husky voice.

“You threw that dynamite.” It was a statement of fact, not a question. “I saw you throw it,” she added. She wasn’t accusing, or judging, only relating what she’d seen.

“Yes,” I admitted.

“Why?” It was a natural question.

I didn’t have any really sensible answer. “It was an accident,” I muttered.

“I hope so.” Her voice was still flat. “I’m a partner in the Lucky Seven. It seems you did us a favor, but my partners and I don’t usually cotton to having lit dynamite thrown at our mine.”

I could see her point, even though it wasn’t dynamite. I didn’t bother correcting her. “It really was an accident,” I improvised. “It caught accidentally and I had to get rid of it. So I just flung it away without looking.”

She shrugged noncommittally. I couldn’t tell whether she bought it or not. “Why are you dressed so funny?” she asked.

I looked down at my hundred-year-old Russian togs. Now it was my turn to shrug. I couldn’t think of an explanation.

“Aren’t you cold?”

I nodded.

“You are an odd one.”

“Aren’t you?” I asked.

“Aren’t I what?”

“Cold?”

“Yes. But I just stepped out for a minute when I saw you throw that dyno. Just for some air between numbers.”

We were standing in front of a dance hall and I realized she must work there. She started to go back inside and I blurted out a question before she could leave me.

“What town is this?” I asked.

“Dawson City.” She looked at me curiously.

“Dawson City where?” I persisted.

“The Klondike. In the Yukon.” Her eyes were narrowing.

“What time is it?”

“About five o’clock.”

“I don’t mean that. I mean what year?”

“Eighteen-ninety-eight. Say, do you have that amnesia or something?”

Well, why not? “I guess so,” I told her. “Anyway, I don’t remember what I was doing with that dynamite.”

“You remember your name?”

“Sure. Steve Victor.” I stuck my hand out by way of introduction.

“I’m Flame Boyant.” She patted her red curls.

“Apt.” I grinned.

“It’s a stage name,” she confided. “I thought it up myself. My real name’s Euphremia.”

“No kidding?” I grinned. “That was my grandmother’s name.”

“That’s a coincidence. It’s not a very common name. But then neither is Victor.” She studied my face thoughtfully. “Do you have a brother?” she asked.

“No. Why?”

“Well, of course, you wouldn’t know if you did.”

“Why not?”

“You have amnesia. Don’t you remember?”

“It’s coming back to me now. Wait . . . That’s right.”

“What is it?” Flame asked.

“I remember now. I have amnesia!”

“Are you pulling my leg?”

“I wouldn’t mind.” I admired her legs openly.

“You’d better come inside,” she said. “You’ll catch pneumonia out here dressed like that.”

I followed her into the dance hall. There was a stage at the far end, but it wasn’t in use at the moment. Girls dressed like Flame were dancing with tough-looking men. Other men were congregating around a bar. We crossed the dance floor and Flame led me up a flight of stairs. She turned into one of the rooms at the top and closed the door behind us.

“You need a bath,” she told me bluntly.

She was right. Yukon mud was caked all over me. I smelled like a shovel following in the wake of a team of unhousebroken sled dogs.

“You can take one here,” Flame offered. “This is my room. There is a tub in that closet and I’ll have some hot water sent up to you. You got some other clothes?”

“No.” I shook my head.

“You sourdoughs are all the same. Never a pot to rinse a kidney. Well, I’ll see what I can scrounge up for you.”

“Thanks. But why are you going to all this trouble?” I wondered.

“Maybe because when you threw that dyno you made me a wealthy woman. Maybe because I got the same name as your Grandma. Or maybe just because I’m a soft-hearted slob and you got amnesia and you look like something the puppy upchucked.”

She shrugged and left then, closing the door behind her. Somehow, I didn’t buy any of her reasons. Something in the speculative way she looked at me—almost as if she was trying to see through my clothes-—told me that Flame had some other interest in me. Perhaps I was being conceited, but it crossed my mind that it might be as simple as her finding me attractive.

My conceit was fueled further awhile later. Water had been brought, the tub filled, and I was just peeling out of my comic opera Russian duds when I happened to glance up and saw that the door to the room was ajar. A pair of eves was peeking through the aperture. They were deep green and I recognized them as belonging to Flame. Startled, I dropped my trousers and hastily lowered myself into the tub with a splash.

Everybody gets their kicks different ways, I mused. Maybe the redhead was a voyeur. I’d known other girls who got more jollies from peeping than participating.

Once I was in the tub, the door silently closed all the way. I lolled there a long time, alternately scrubbing the grime from my skin and luxuriating in the warmth of the bath. Finally I stood up and reached for a towel. Immediately, the door opened. I was facing it as Flame entered. Hastily, I covered myself with a towel.

“Real modest, ain’t you?” There was disappointment in her sharp eyes.

“You could have knocked.”

“It’s my room,” she reminded me.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. You just startled me.” I stood in the tub, dripping, feeling awkward, waiting for her to leave.

After a long pause, instead of leaving, Flame abruptly started circling the tub. I turned where I was so that I kept facing her. I had no idea what she was up to, but it was making me nervous. Whatever it was she was after, my maneuvering with her seemed to make her frustrated.

“Get dressed,” she said finally. “Come on downstairs and I’ll buy you a steak.”

She was waiting for me when I came down. We picked our way through the mud from the dance hall to a nearby saloon that served food. I was halfway through a tough chunk of beef when two men pulled a couple of chairs up to our table and sat down without waiting to be asked.

I recognized them. They were the pair who’d been guarding the gate of the Lucky Seven. Flame performed the introductions. The one with the half-beard was called Grubby. He could have been anywhere from forty to seventy years old. What was left of his beard was streaked with grey. That, plus the fact that his eyebrows were gone, gave him the look of a lopsided walrus. He was a stocky man and he attacked his steak like he was afraid it might bite back if he didn’t chew it to death first.

His partner was younger, around thirty, I guessed. He was called Belch. It was more of a definition than a name. Burping was part of his conversational pattern, and part of his silences as well. He expressed it as an inalienable human right and he expressed it proudly. He was a big man, tall and rangy, and he wore a Colt .45 strapped low on his hip like an old-time Western gunfighter.

“Had them nuggets assayed,” he told Flame. “Close on ninety percent pure strain.” Belch belched happily.

“Smartest thing you ever did was to grubstake us, Flame.” Grubby cackled. “You’re gonna be rich. We re all gonna be rich.” He chomped his steak ferociously.

“What I don’t get,” Belch belched suspiciously, “is why you threw dyno at the Lucky Seven anyway.” Hard eyes cased me.

“He did us a favor,” Flame pointed out.

“But maybe he didn’ mean it that way,” Grubby opined. “Chuckin’ dyno at a feller’s mine—now there’s some might say that ain’t right friendly even ifn it did come up gold dust.”

“It was an accident,” I told them.

“You got mighty careless ways, stranger.” Belch belched disbelievingly. “A feller hadn’t oughta go around blowin’ up folks’ mines lessen he got a reason. A feller could get hurt bein’ that careless. Might blow hisself up for one. Or might be folks take it unkindly an’ figger a feller that careless a reg’lar menace better off in a pine box.”

“It was an accident,” Flame interjected firmly. “He’s sick. Amnesia. Didn’t know what he was doin’.”

“You swallow that?” Grubby asked her.

“Yes. I tell you he’s okay.” Flame shot me a look that said she wasn’t as sure as she was trying to sound, but that she was protecting me for reasons of her own. “Now you two jus’ lay off him,” she ordered.

“Okay, Flame. We owe you a lot. You grubstaked us; If this feller’s a friend of your’n, he’s okay with me. Grubby held out his hand to me and I shook it.

“Me too.” Belch belched a comradely belch and wrung the blood from my hand. “I gotta get back to the mine and stand guard,” he added. “See you later, Grubby. He stood up, burped mightily and while the sound was still echoing around the room he left.

“I have to go too,” Flame said. “I’m due onstage. When you finished feeding your belly, see me over to the dance hall, Steve.” She followed Belch out the swinging doors.

A moment later they swung back the other way and a man’s bulk almost blotted them out altogether. He was a bear of a man, huge, legs like tree trunks, a chest like a keg stuffed with nails, hands like grappling hooks. A great black moustache that could have been used to steer a motorcycle bisected his face. It was a mean face, all scowling fangs and craggy jaw at the bottom, a nose that looked more like a fist separating tiny red eyes under a slaglike brow at the top. The brow continued up and around in a series of bald, bony ridges tinged with blue veins etching angry red patches of skin dipping to stretch over the valleys of his scalp. He stood there a moment, looking around the saloon. Then his eyes lit on Grubby and his bear face became even meaner.

“Uh-oh, here comes trouble.” Grubby picked up the shotgun he’d parked beside his chair, laid it across his lap and pulled back both hammers. Grubby kept his eyes on the burly newcomer as he marched across the barroom and up to the bar. It was mutual; the man didn’t stop glaring at Gubby either.

“Who is he?” I asked.

“Dangerous Dagwood,” Grubby replied. “The terror of the Yukon, the meanest, most ornery cuss in the Klondike. He got the claim right above our’n. Tried to jump us three times already. Now, after us’n hit today, he’ll be gunnin’ for real.”

“Whiskey!” Dangerous Dagwood’s voice wasn’t loud in volume, but nevertheless it boomed out over the saloon with the timbre of a foghorn.

The bartender gave him a bottle and a glass and backed away. The saloon became very quiet. A few of the patrons slipped out. The others got their backs against something, getting out of the way of whatever trouble was coming. A clear path was left between Dangerous Dagwood and our table.

Dangerous Dagwood picked up the glass. A sneer crossed his ugly face. He dropped the glass to the floor and then ground it into the sawdust with his boot. The grating sound was followed by another, the audible sound of gurgling as Dangerous Dagwood raised the whiskey bottle to his lips and sucked at it until it was empty. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, tossed the bottle over his shoulder to the bartender, and pulled a very large pistol from the holster at his hip. Bouncing it casually in the palm of his hand, he strode over to Grubby.

“Big strike today, hey Grubby?” His voice was a grunt in an ice cave.

“Yep.” Grubby stroked the trigger of the shotgun.

“That stream you hit with the mother lode—that thar stream’s milkin’ my vein.” Dangerous Dagwood was still coming on icy mild.

“Shame.” Grubby kept his voice even, but he was sweating.

“Ain’t it the truth? Now, Grubby, fair’s fair, and I reckon as how the fair thing’d be for you an’ Belch an’ Flame to cut me in as a full partner seein’ as how the Lucky Seven’s hit into my lode. Whaddaya say?”

“I’ll pass it on to ‘em.”

“You tell ’em that’s how it’s gonna be, Grubby.” He looked thoughtful. “ ‘Course, gen’rally speakin’, a four-way split ain’t near as good as a three-way split. You’d allow that’s true, now wouldn’t you, Grubby?”

“I reckon, Dangerous Dagwood.”

“A sight better. Question is which one of the four’s gonna bow out. You got any idea, Grubby?”

“Some idea, Dangerous Dagwood.”

“Grubby!” It was a reproach. “You wouldn’t be thinkin’ I’m the one should be cut out, now would you?”

Grubby made no reply.

“That’d be plumb eye-ronic. ’Cause truth is I was think- in’ it’d be easier all ’round if’n you was the one. ’Member what they say, Grubby, it’s a sight better to give than to receive.”

Grubby raised his shotgun and pointed it straight at Dangerous Dagwood’s mammoth chest. “I grubbed too many years to be givin’ anything away now that I hit,” he told him.

“Grubby! What for you pointin’ that weapon at me? That ain’t friendly. It could go off and hurt me. That’d make rne plumb angry. I got a mighty foul temper when I get riled, Grubby.”

“Just move off now, Dangerous Dagwood. Just put up your gun and move off ’fore we have any trouble.”

“That what’s worryin’ you? This here peashooter?”

Dangerous Dagwood bounced the pistol in the palm of his hand. “Shucks, I fergot I even had it. Ain’t no cause for alarm, Grubby. It be makin’ you nervous, I’ll just put it away.” Dangerous Dagwood holstered his gun and started walking away from the table. The path he chose took him right past Grubby’s left elbow.

Grubby relaxed his hold slightly as Dangerous Dagwood seemed to be willing to depart in peace. That was his mistake. As he passed Grubby, Dangerous Dagwood slapped down hard on the barrel of the shotgun. Reflex made Grubby pull the trigger as the muzzle was forced upwards. The blast came so close to the top of my head that it almost parted my hair. It blew out a large chunk of the ceiling and a rain of plaster fell over the table.

“Why, Grubby, you went and shot at me,” Dangerous Dagwood said in an injured tone. “Now you all saw that.” He addressed the room at large. “And the law of the Klondike is a man’s ’title to defend hisself.” He wrenched the shotgun from Grubby’s hands easily. He clubbed Grubby over the head with it—one mighty blow that left the sourdough unconscious. “A man can use any force necessary to save his life,” Dangerous Dagwood observed. He stuck the muzzle of the gun in Grubby’s mouth, propped the barrel against Grubby’s lap, and wedged Grubby’s fingers against the trigger. “Now I got just cause to kill this man in self-defense, but you all know how chicken-hearted I am. I believe in forgiveness. I ain’t gonna kill him even if’n he did try to kill me. No sir!” Dangerous Dagwood stepped away a pace and stood with his back to Grubby. “I forgive this man,” he announced, reaching behind him and clapping Grubby on the shoulder. Grubby’s arm jerked downward under the impetus of the hand on his shoulder. His fingers were yanked against the trigger. The shotgun blasted a second time and the top of Grubby’s head sailed through the hole in the ceiling. Other bits and pieces of his brain splattered around the saloon. “Ain’t that the saddest?” Dangerous Dagwood mused. “Pore Grubby musta been so overwrought with conscience ’counta his tryin’ to kill me he just up an’ did his own self in. Or mebbe it’s on’y that his success was too much for him. It just plain went to his head!” Dangerous Dagwood chortled briefly. Then he shook his head sadly. “Pore Grubby a suicide,” he sighed. “You go tell Miss Flame she done lost a partner,” he instructed me. “But tell her not to fret. I consider it my rightful duty to be takin’ his place. Move now!” He gave me a shove.

I moved. I hotfooted it over to the dance hall and told Flame what had happened. “That Dangerous Dagwood has a mean streak in him,” I concluded.

“Environmental.” Flame dismissed my comment. “Poor Grubby. Spent his whole life grubstaking on a shoestring and now when he finally hits pay dirt, he swallows a mouthful of hot lead. That’s the Klondike for you.”’ She eyed me appraisingly. “You want a job?” she asked.

“Not particularly.”

“How you gonna eat? How you gonna pay for a room? How you gonna pay me back for the clothes on your back? You want a job!” She was telling me now, not asking me.

“Okay, so I want a job.”

“Then you’re hired. You’re working for the Lucky Seven.”

“What are my duties?”

“That depends what comes up. First thing is for you to get over to the mine and tell Belch what happened to Grubby. Warn him to keep a weather eye peeled for Dangerous Dagwood. Tell him I said he should shoot that critter on sight. While you’re gone, I’ll arrange for you to have a room of your own here. I’ll pay the rent and take it outa your first week’s salary. If you live out the first week,” she added blithely.

On that cheerful note, I made tracks for the Lucky Seven. Belch stuck his Colt under my chin as I entered the gate. I stammered through the story of what had happened to Grubby once again. When I finished, Belch put the Colt away, implying his acceptance of the fact that I was on his side.

“That polecat!” Belch belched with outrage. “I’m gonna blow his guts out!” Belch belched murderously. “I was right fond of Grubby.” Belch belched mournfully.

“Don’t take it so hard.” I patted him on the back.

Belch belched responsively, childishly, and dabbed at his eyes.

I left him and went back to the dance hall again. Flame had made the arrangements and a room was waiting for me. I fell into bed wearily. The mating calls of the timber wolves lullabied me to sleep.

A pronounced chill creeping down my fundament awoke me. My brain unfogged slowly to consider it. I’d been sleeping on my stomach. Someone had quietly removed the blankets covering me. That same someone had unbuttoned the flap of the long red woolen underwear I’d been using as a substitute for pajamas. Hence the cold wind on my posterior.

Managing to be very still about it, I craned my neck. An oil lamp, with the wick turned very low, was being lowered towards the area bared by the unbuttoning of the flap. A shadowy figure was bending over to see what was being illuminated.

I turned over and sat up indignantly. Hell, my privacy was being invaded. The figure straightened with a jerk, and the lantern was raised. The face that appeared in the glow above it belong to Flame.

“What the hell are you doing?” I demanded.

“Just checking the size.” Despite the long pause before she spoke, Flame’s voice was calm.

“Huh?” Her answer didn’t make any sense, but more than that her composure rattled me.

“You’ll need more than one set of long johns,” she explained. “I figured to buy you some in the morning, but I forgot the size.”

“So you came in here in the middle of the night and undressed me to find out?” I was flabbergasted.

“A man should change his underwear regularly,” Flame insisted. “If he don’t, he’s no better ’n a bear.”

“Personal hygiene is good citizenship,” I granted. “But couldn’t you have waited until morning and just asked me the size?”

“I s’pose. But I was afraid I’d forget. Just like I forgot the size. I’m always forgettin’ things. So I just figured I’d take a peek while I thought on it.”

“I’ll remind you in the morning,” I told her. “And I’ll tell you the size.”

“I reckon that’ll do.” She started out the door. “Sony if’n I disturbed you,” she said blithely. The door closed behind her.

I lay awake, puzzled, for a long time. Had I missed the boat? Had Flame really sneaked into my room with amorous intent? I’m a sex investigator by profession, and I guess it was only natural that my suspicions should lean toward the erotic. Now, I confess, they dipped toward the bizarre.

There is a type of voyeur—-extremely rare, it’s true -—who is obsessed by the anal. Where the run-of-the-window peeper ogles at large, focusing indiscriminately on mammaries, groins, navels and any other flesh that pops into view, the anally oriented voyeur eschews all save the posterior. Remembering how Flame had kept trying to get behind me when I rose naked from my bathtub, and putting that together with her baring of my derrière while I slept, I was beginning to strongly suspect that she might fall into this rare category of obsession. Thoughtfully scratching the object of her scrutiny, I mused that this was the first time in my experience that I’d encountered this fixation. I owed it to my profession, I decided, to observe Flame carefully.

Still sleep eluded me. I decided not to try to force it, but rather to take advantage of my wakefulness by putting in a call to Tibet and trying to find out how soon my future might be removed from the past and restored to the present-—which at the moment was about seventy years in the future. I activated the wrist radio and buzzed Tibet.

“How do. How do.” Ti Nih Baapuh answered. “Who is call please?”

“It’s Steve, Ti Nih.” Who else did she think it could be?

“Hello-hello, Steve. Is nice you call. What new?”

“Nothing’s new. Everything’s old. That’s how it is when you get bogged down in history. Listen, let me talk to Dudley.”

“Sorry. Him no can come to talk with radio.”

“Why not? Is he sick?”

“Oh, yes. Him be very sick. Him no can get up.”

“What’s the matter with him?” I wanted to know.

“Him no can move. Him so sick he very dead.”

“What!!!” I was stunned. As the implications hit me I began to feel pretty sick myself. “Are you telling me that Dudley Nightshade died?” I asked.

“Is so. Him all dead. Too much humpty-humpty head lady, him go poof. Her desolate. Say him best even sick. Say she try cure him. Not know cure very fatal. Now him no move no matter how she sex-sex.”

“When did this happen?”

“Few hour ago. Him happy ’cause he get Papa jump you again. Him celebrate with head lady. She notice him not move much. She think first it because him American. Then she look and him very dead. Big smile. Him go with joy.”

Damn you Dudley! I cursed him savagely to myself. I hope you rot in hell, you lecherous louse! Why did you have to die now when I was almost home free? Couldn’t you control your libido until you brought me all the way back? Now I could be stranded in the Klondike forever!

“Listen, Ti Nih,” I said desperately. “Can’t you get your father to jump me one more time?”

“Him no very willing,” she told me. “Him upset because you friend die immoral. Him no approve. Also Papa no like Chinese what come. Them ask questions and chop-chop body-—-call autopsy-—to see what capitalist American doing. Them give Papa hard time. And Papa no like you other friend Put-Put-man.”

“Charles Putnam? Is he there?”

“Him get here right after Dudley die."

“Let me talk to him.”

“Him arguing with Papa now. I see he talk to you.”

There was a short silence and then I heard Putnam’s voice. “Steve? What are you up to now?” Crisp and official and not too friendly.

“I’m stranded in the Klondike gold rush,” I told him.

“Hell, I never authorized that!”

“Sorry about that, Chief,” I told him drily.

“You better get your tail back here, Victor. I’m catching all kinds of hell from State and Central Intelligence about your shenanigans. The Chinese are about at the end of their tether. They don’t buy any of this. It’s boiling down to where I can’t shield you any more. So you just get your tail back here and no excuses!”

“I’m willing,” I told him. “But it’s up to your end. With Dudley dead, you’re the only one who can pressure Papa Baapuh into getting me back.”

“The old man and I don’t hit it off very well,” Putnam admitted. “He’s stubborn as hell. Keeps muttering about his daughter. Doesn’t seem to want you back because of her. You pull one of your usual flubs with the kid, Victor?”

“I was seduced.” It was no time to be gallant.

“I’ll bet! Well, I’m working on him, but it looks like it’s going to take awhile. Try and see if you can’t stay out of trouble while you’re waiting, will you?”

I promised I would and we broke the connection.

Brooding, I went back to sleep again. It was mid-morning before I awoke. I got dressed and went downstairs. Flame was waiting for me to go out and have breakfast with her.

“Well, Boss, what do you want me to do today?” I asked her over coffee.

“Go over to the mine and help Belch. He’ll find something to keep you busy.”

I finished my coffee and walked over to the Lucky Seven. Belch was in the little shed behind the gate which served him as an office. A shotgun was propped up on his desk pointing out the window and covering the gateway.

“Good you come.” Belch belched a friendly belch. “I was gettin’ hungry. You can stand shotgun whilst I go grab a bite.”

I replaced him behind the desk and watched through the window as he strolled up the street to the saloon. No sooner had the swinging doors flapped shut behind him than another figure appeared and started sloshing through the mud towards the entrance to the mine. As he came closer, I saw that it was Dangerous Dagwood.

Conscious of my responsibility, I picked up the shotgun, walked out of the office and stood behind the gate to guard it. Dangerous Dagwood walked straight up to me, leaned over the gate so that his nose was just above mine and almost touching it, and smiled from one cauliflower ear to the other. The grin was about as reassuring as the first fissure of a major earthquake.

“Mornin’,” he greeted me.

“Good morning.” I held the shotgun at the ready.

“Iffen you’ll open this here gate, I reckon I’ll mosey on in so’s we can have a chat,” he suggested politely.

“About what?” I made no move to open the gate.

“Shucks, be friendly ’n lemme in and I’ll tell you ’bout what.”

I shook my head.

“Wal then, I’ll just have to open it myself.” He reached behind the gate and started to lift the latch.

I fired the shotgun from my hip. The shot creased the back of his hand and shattered the latch. He sucked at the scratch and looked at me with mock amazement.

“You bein’ hostile, boy?” Dangerous Dagwood asked mildly. “Naw. I can’t believe that. You just helpin’ me open the gate. Right?” He swung the gate open with a flick of his hand. “But Belch ain’t gonna like you blowin’ off his latch like that. Your ’ployer a big un for property values. Don’t you worry none though. I’rn gonna see to it personally that Belch don’t be too harsh with you.” He took a step through the opened gateway.

“That’s far enough.” I pointed the shotgun at his chest.

Dangerous Dagwood moved like greased lightning. His pistol leaped out of its holster and the shotgun exploded out of my hands before I could pull the trigger. I dived to retrieve it, but he was too fast for me.

He grabbed me by my collar and the seat of the pants and lifted me off the ground. In his powerful grasp I felt as fragile as a glass yo-yo being bounced by an overly aggressive kid. Dangerous Dagwood lifted me high and hung me from the top of the gatepost by my shirt collar. He loosened my belt, stood off a few paces, and leveled his pistol at me. “Now dance!” he commanded.

I felt the heat of his first shot grazing my instep. I danced, flapping my arms futilely, wildly. He fired again and I redoubled my efforts. My pants dropped down around my knees. Two more shots and they were bunched around my ankles, pinning my feet together.

Chortling, Dangerous Dagwood paused to reload. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that he’d soon tire of his sport and finish me off. It would be one helluva way to go—hanging there in my long underwear like laundry on a clothesline. It lacked dignity, if you see what I mean.

What saved me was that Dangerous Dagwood’s sport had attracted attention. Belch and Flame had come out of the saloon and seen what was happening. Belch pulled out his gun and started to my rescue just as Dangerous Dagwood inserted the last bullet and spun the chamber closed. I had a dangling seat right on the fifty yard line for what followed.

“You stay outa this, Belch!” Dangerous Dagwood turned to face him.

“Dangerous Dagwood, you trespassin’ on my turf!” Belch belched angrily. “Git off, or slap leather!”

There was a scramble in the mud as the onlookers got out of the line of fire.

“What the hell you mean ‘slap leather’? I already got my gun out.” Dangerous Dagwood twirled the weapon.

“Then this here’s a showdown!” Belch twirled his gun and dropped it in the slush.

“Then draw!”

“Just you wait a minute now, Dangerous Dagwood. Don’t be rushin’ me. You kin see for yourself I can’t draw lessen I pick my gun outa the mud first.”

“Well, get a move on, Belch. I ain’t got all day.”

“Just hold your hawses. I can’t find it. Wait. Here it is.” Belch gingerly picked up a large lump of mud and began skimming it. Finally he wiped his hands on his pants and held the gun out. “I’m comin’ for you, Dangerous Dagwood. Git off my property, or slap leather, you bastard!”

“Again with the ‘slap leather’ bit?” Dangerous Dagwood shook his head sadly. “Smile when you say that, podner,” he added. He fired casually and Belch jumped as the bullet pinged into the mud at his feet.

“Close. But not close enough.” Belch belched with relief. He held out his gun to fire. But the barrel was slimy with mud and it popped out of his hand. “Damn!” Frustrated, he squelched the belch.

“You sure the sloppiest gun in the Northwest,” Dangerous Dagwood observed.

“Ain’t my fault. It’s slippery,” Belch belched whinily. “ ’Sides, I ain’t had too much experience. I’m just a beginner. Be a mite charitable an’ have patience.”

“All right. I’m a fair-minded man,” Dangerous Dagwood allowed. “You all wiped off an’ ready to get killed now?”'

“Just a minute.” Belch belched the mightiest belch of all. “Reckon I’m ready now,” he told Dangerous Dagwood.

“Look out behind you!”‘ Dangerous Dagwood yelled to Belch .

Belch whirled around, pistol at the ready.

Dangerous Dagwood shot him in the back.

“You shot him in the back!” I protested indignantly from my hang-up.

“Pshaw! Wha’d you ’spect from the meanest, most ornery cuss in the Klondike?” Dangerous Dagwood wondered aloud. “They don’t call me Dangerous Dagwood for nothin’!”

Belch was still swaying. “That wasn’t fair!” He belched with outrage over his shoulder at Dangerous Dagwood. He fell on his face in the mud.

Flame ran over and knelt beside him. “I think he’s dead,” she said. A loud belch bubbled up from the slush. “Maybe not,” she hoped. She turned Belch over on his back. “Nope, he’s dead all rght,” she announced. “That was just a death belch.”

“S’posed to be a death rattle,” someone reminded her from the sidelines.

“Not for Belch!” Flame was firm. “He died the way he lived.” She brushed away a tear and got to her feet. “He who lives by the belch dies by the belch.” She pronounced the eulogy.

“It was a dirty trick,” I told Dangerous Dagwood. “You broke the Code of the Klondike. You shot him in the back.”

“You’re right,” he replied. “I’m real ’shamed of myself. But I’m gonna reform. I promise you. An’ just to prove it, I ain’t gonna shoot you in the back nohow. I’m gonna shoot you face to face.” He raised his gun and drew a bead on me.

“Oh no you’re not!” Flame leaped into action. Grabbing a horsewhip from the hands of a man who’d pulled up his buggy to watch the excitement, she charged Dangerous Dagwood.

She was on him before he could gather his wits. The lash snapped viciously around his wrist and the gun went flying from his grasp. The whip cracked again and a streak of blood appeared on the length of his cheek: Dangerous Dagwood threw his hands up in front of his face to protect himself and backed away from the gateway to the mine. But Flame’s fury was too much for him to retreat with dignity. When the whip struck again, he gave up altogether. He turned tail and bolted.

“Curse you!” he called over his shoulder, shaking his fist in the air and running for the hills.

“We haven’t seen the last of him,” Flame said as she returned to the gateway and looked up at me. “Pull up your pants and git down from there,” she added.

“Yep.” A man had come up beside her. “Git down afore I arrest you.”

“Arrest me? For what?” I Wanted to know.

“I’m the law in these here parts.” He flashed a marshal’s badge. “An’ Dawson’s a respectable community. We got laws ’bout menfolk droppin’ their jeans in public. They’s women an’ kids hereabouts an’ we got to perteck their morals.” He spat, catching the wind so that he narrowly missed the corpse of Belch stretched out in the mud.

A couple of sourdoughs helped me down from my perch. I pulled up my pants and secured the belt. Flame walked over and told me she had to get back to the dance hall. She asked me to stand guard at the mine for the rest of the day.

“I don’t reckon Dangerous Dagwood’ll be back today,” she opined.

She was right. The day passed quietly. After nightfall Flame sent a friend of hers to relieve me. I ate a solitary dinner, had a few drinks at the bar, and went back to the dance hall and up to my room. My nerves still jangled from my narrow escape, I decided to go straight to bed. Perhaps it was also nerves, but my long underwear itched me and so I shucked it off to sleep in the nude.

In some ways it was a repeat of the previous night. In others it wasn’t. For one thing, I was still awake when I heard the key in the lock and saw the door to my room silently opened and closed. The figure tiptoeing across the room was a blur in the darkness. Only when it stood over me was the wick of the lantern the intruder carried turned up slightly to reveal that Flame Boyant was back again.

She lowered the lantern and her face bent with it. This time I was on my back, but she hadn’t determined that yet. Gingerly, she pulled back the blankets and bent over still further. But instead of the derrière she was seeking, because of my position, it was an even more intimate part of my anatomy which her pert little nose grazed.

“Surprise!” I clamped my hand over the back of her neck so she couldn’t rise to make her escape.

“You’re awake!” Her tone said it was unfair.

“Just what is it about my butt that fascinates you so?” I asked conversationally, maintaining my grip so she couldn’t pick up her head. .

“That’s not your butt,” she reminded me.

Could I have been wrong? “You have a point there,” I granted.

“So do you.”

“And is that what you came in here to investigate?”

“Would your nose be out of joint if it was?” she asked softly.

Well, anyway, her nose sure wasn’t out of joint! On the contrary! Its proximity was having an effect on me. “Not at all,” I told her. “But why sneak in here like this? I’m not gun shy.”

“I just don’t like to be blatant,” she purred. “But you are an awfully attractive man, Steve.”

I didn’t buy it for a minute, but what the hell! I let up the pressure on her head and pulled her face to mine. I kissed her, and the way she kissed back made me shelve the questions running through my mind. Her dance-hall dress rustled in the darkness as she set down the lantern and settled in my arms.

I could barely make out her red hair in the dimness of the glow from the floor. It brushed against my cheek as we kissed again. I slipped my hand under the phony fur ruff at her bodice. Her breasts were very warm and they swelled as she gasped at my touch.

Reaching behind her, I undid the clasps at the back of her frock. The maneuver released her breasts altogether and I buried my face in the deep cleavage between them. Her flesh smelled of lilacs and it was very warm under my lips.

“Wait.” Flame stood up and took the dress off. A moment later she was completely nude. She stretched out beside me, her eyes glittering. “It’s been a long time,” she told me.

It must have been! Once she let herself go, Flame’s passion knew no bounds. She was as fiery in lovemaking as her name! She was as whimsically inventive as an underground pornographer. She was a tiger, and it was all I could do to hold onto the tail!

That tail was a writhing plumpness of sheer energy. It was the axis on which she whirled while the rest of her -- lips, hands, breasts, hips, mons veneris—assailed my body. She was an absolute bloodhound at locating my erogenous zones. Sharp teeth nipped my earlobe. Nails dug into my posterior. Full breasts swept over me, hard nipples tickling the hair on my chest and on my legs. Generous hips ground into my own somewhat bony ones. Her love lips kissed my aroused manhood teasingly -- pulled away—then kissed again. Her clitoris was like a tongue laving at my groin sac.

Strange as it may seem, all this activity aroused me. I guess I just have no character. I took advantage of the situation, flung the poor, innocent maiden on her back and pierced her to the quick.

Flame thrashed wildly, finally fastening her legs around my neck and keeping them there for leverage. “Now! Now! Now!” I had my hands underneath her and her gloriously round bottom bounced insistently against the palms, muscles rippling as if it had a life of its own. The nipples of her breasts strained straight up in the air and I kissed each in turn, caressing the wide aureoles with my tongue. Her nails dug into my backside with increased urgency and she repeated her demand. I plunged with increased excitement and each time she rose to meet me as if bent on swallowing me up entirely.

We hit the peak together. It lasted a long time. But even when it was over Flame wouldn’t release me. She began moving again, slowly, sensually, and her insistence fired me once again. Then she pushed me away and shifted position so that her red hair was a mantle covering my naked thighs. Her lips were maddening, her teeth sweet torture, her tongue an aphrodisiac I couldn’t resist. Almost, her avid mouth received the fruits of its activity. Almost, but not quite. Flame’s timing was perfect. She abandoned her oral pursuits at precisely the right moment and straddled me. Laughing with joy, she galloped madly, bending low so that her breast tips grazed my face. Once again we found joyous release together.

After that, I dozed off. A tickling sensation on my back awoke me. At first I thought Flame was trying to rekindle my desire again. But I was wrong. She was a girl with a one-track mind, but at the moment the track wasn’t erotic. What she was doing was trying to remove the blankets covering me so that she could focus on the object that so obsessed her. The hell with it, I decided sleepily. Let her look.

But once again Flame was frustrated-—-this time not by me. Just as she was raising the lantern to view my rear end, the window was raised and a man lowered himself into the room. I heard her gasp and I turned over, half-rising in the bed. Flame was holding the lantern high now and the man’s face was clearly visible in its glow. It was Dangerous Dagwood!

“What are you doing here?” Flame found her voice.

“I come to finish what I begun.” Dangerous Dagwood waved a large knife in my direction. “What are you doing here?” he asked Flame. “Oh, I see!” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “Well now, ain’t that cozy!” He took a long look at Flame, who was still naked, and licked his lips. “I’ll have a spoonful of that,” he decided. One giant paw grabbed her waist and he nicked her breast with the tip of the knife to forestall her struggles.

In the grip of his sudden lust, he’d neglected to keep an eye on me. His back was half-turned to me and I took advantage of his being distracted and jumped him. I landed on his shoulders and grabbed for the knife with both hands. He let it drop and put his foot on top of it. Then, his hand free, he reached around behind him and pulled me off the way someone might remove a kitten from their shoulder. He held me up in front of him for a moment. My arms flailed wildly, but my fists couldn’t reach him. I saw his fist coming, but I couldn’t avoid it. The next thing I saw was stars. Blackness blotted them out.

Not too much time could have elapsed before I was able to focus again. What I saw was Dangerous Dagwood standing in front of the bed with his pants off and his shirttail flapping over his bare posterior. Flame was lying on the bed where he must have thrown her, cowering away from him. Dangerous Dagwood was weighing his endowments in his hand, showing off before he embarked on the rape. Flame cried out with fear at the sight.

“I’ll never be able to—— It’s too— You’ll kill me!” she protested incoherently.

“When I laid this thing on ol’ Joe’s bar, I’ll sw’ar it stretched from thar to thar.” Dangerous Dagwood held his hands apart like a bragging fisherman and chortled mightily. Then he lowered them and fell on Flame.

Dizzily, I was trying to get to my feet to come to her aid when Dangerous Dagwood screamed and fell backwards, both hands groping behind him. He tell face up on the floor. By the time I reached him, it was plain he was dead.

It wasn’t until I turned him over that I saw what killed him. Flame had latched onto his knife and when Dangerous Dagwood embraced her, she’d plunged it into his back. Now she came up beside me with the lantern and stared down at his back with the blade protruding from it.

“Ohmigod!” she whispered. Her face was very white.

“You couldn’t help it,” I soothed her. “He had it coming.”

“Not that.” She dismissed the killing. “That!” She pointed.

I followed her gaze to the corpse’s hairy buttocks. Among the tendrils on the left one I made out a large strawberry mark about the size of a half-dollar. “It’s a birthmark,” I said, not comprehending.

“Yep.” Flame shook her head. “I thought you had it,” she said.

“That’s what you were looking for.” I began to see daylight. “But why didn’t you just ask me?”

“I couldn’t.”

“Look,” I told her, “why don’t you just tell me what this is all about.”

She thought a moment and then sat down on the edge of the bed. “All right.” She took a deep breath and began.

It seems that Flame had a beau back home in the Midwest. This beau had a brother, a black sheep. This brother had gotten into one scrape after another and finally left town one jump ahead of the sheriff. The last that had been heard of him, he’d gone to the Klondike to prospect for gold. All this had occurred before Flame and her beau had met. But he’d told her about the black sheep brother and he’d also told her about the brother’s having a large birthmark on his left buttock.

Subsequently, Flame and her beau had had a lover’s quarrel. Angry words had been exchanged, and Flame had left town in a huff. Some three years had passed while she bounced around the country, finally landing in Dawson City. Here a letter from her former beau had reached her. She replied to it and the romance was revived by mail. A little shamefacedly—because of our love- making—Flame told me she’d been saving her money to return home and marry the guy.

“Believe it or not,” she said, “up until tonight I’ve been faithful to him.”

“I believe you. Go on.”

She picked up the threads of her story. Between the vows of undying love they’d exchanged by mail, her fiancé had mentioned his wayward brother. He was sure the black sheep was in the Yukon and he wanted Flame to keep an eye peeled for him. If she located him, she was to write immediately and let him know. The brother had money belonging to Flame’s intended husband and if he was in Dawson City, her fiancé intended to come there and beat it out of him.

“Of course the last thing I wanted was for him to come here,” Flame told me.

“Why?”

“He don’t know I’m a dance-hall girl. I don’t want him ever to find out. He mightn’t marry me.”

“That’s a pretty stuffy attitude.”

“Well, that’s the way he is. So you see, I was trying to find out if you was his brother ’thout lettin’ you in on who I was. I was afraid if you was his brother, you’d tell him ’bout me workin’ in the dance hall.”

“But what made you think it was me?”

“Your last name. My intended’s monicker is Victor too.”

“Oh.” I thought about it. “Just a coincidence,” I decided. “Victor’s a pretty common name. And I don’t have any brothers.”

“You ain’t got no birthmark either. But he does.” She pointed at Dangerous Dagwood with her foot.

“That doesn’t prove anything. Lots of people do.”

“Still, I’m wonderin’ what his last name might be. I never heard him called nothin’ save Dangerous Dagwood.”

“Let’s look through his pockets,” I suggested.

We did. Flame came up with a crumpled letter. The name on the envelope was “Mr. Algernon Victor.”

“Algernon!” Flame exclaimed. “That was his name all right. Oh, Lordy! I done went and did in my own future brother-in-law!”

I convinced her that she hadn’t been able to help herself. I told her she’d probably done her fiancé a favor. I reminded her that he’d never have to find out she’d killed his brother anyway.

It was dawn before Flame left my room. A couple of the men who worked for her at the mine appeared an hour or so later and removed the body without comment. After they’d gone I finally got to sleep.

When I woke up, I tried to get Putnam on the wrist radio. There was no answer. Maybe he couldn’t answer. Maybe he just didn’t want to be bothered. Maybe nobody vas standing by for my calls.

Whatever it was, it didn’t change. One day went by and then the next and still I couldn’t raise Tibet. The days added up to a week-—still no results. The weeks turned into one month and were creeping on towards two and it began to look like I was permanently stranded in the year 1898.

Meanwhile, Flame had been making arrangements to sell the Lucky Seven and return home to marry her fiancé. I continued to work for her, but once she’d made her decision, she gave me a wide berth at night. Obviously she was trying to revirginize herself before the wedding and I respected her decision.

Then one night she did come to my room after the dance hall closed. “There’s somethin’ I gotta tell you,” she announced.

I waited.

“I’m gonna have a baby!”

My mouth opened and closed. Like most fellows, it was the last thing I wanted to hear. There were no freight trains to hop out of the Klondike and the river steamer wasn’t due for another week.

“You’re the father for sure,” Flame added. “Hasn’t been nobody but you.”

“You want me to marry you?” I asked helplessly.

“Not likely!” She snorted. “Wouldn’t marry you if’n you was the last man in the Yukon. Never did meet a feller so bad at so many things. You ride like you got a glass rump. You shoot like the worst thing could happen is you hit somethin’. You play poker like as if you was one of them philanthropists tryin’ to give his money away. An’ you ain’t much use in a fight neither. Nope! I sure ain’t gonna marry you.”

“Well, if that’s the way you feel about it—-” I started breathing again.

“I’m goin’ back to Columbus, Ohio and marry up with Egbert. I sold the mine an’ I’m leavin’ by dogsled tonight. So long, Steve.” She paused in the doorway. “If it’s a boy, I reckon I’ll name it after you.” Flame closed the door behind her.

I stared at it a long time. Slowly, uncomfortably, I began to realize that I was finding something out about myself that I’d never known before. Aghast, my numbed brain struggled to put together the pieces. They fell into place all too well!

First-—Columbus, Ohio! That was where I’d been born. My family had lived there for two generations before me.

Second—Egbert! That was my grandfather’s name!

Third-—Euphremia! That was what Flame had said her real name was. That was my grandmother’s name!

Fourth-—Steve Victor! That was what Flame said she’d name the baby. That was my father’s name! And my father had been born in 1899!

Concidence? I couldn’t let myself off the hook that easily. I had to face the fact I’d learned about myself—

I’m my own Grandpa!

Chapter Ten

THEIR TANGLED GENEALOGY DROVE THE HAPSBURGS dotty. I wasn’t going to let that happen to me. I refused to blow my cool over the bark of incest blighting my branch of the family tree. The Jukes²³ learned to live with it, and so would I. Besides, my immediate predicament took precedence over other concerns.

After Flame departed, my immediate predicament was that I was alone and friendless in the Klondike and unable to raise any response from Tibet as to the measures being taken to bring about my return to my own time. Maybe it wasn’t the best of all possible worlds, but it was my world and I missed it. A man out of his own time never really becomes oriented.

Still, disoriented as I was, the Klondike in the 1890s was close enough to my own life experience so that I could relate to it. Given the scope of history, there were worse situations in which I might have found myself. Given the possibilities of the future, the past might indeed be a featherbed by comparison. Or vice versa. The future might have its compensations, as I was to find out shortly.

It happened -- as usual—at a most disconcerting moment. Cold weather affects the bladder and it had grown mighty cold in Dawson City. So I’d stepped out to the little shack behind the Lucky Seven which was used as an outhouse. Bundled against the cold as I Was, it had taken quite a bit of fumbling before I was in position to relieve my kidneys. That done, I was just starting to fumble again -- to rebutton, as it were—-when the force field picked me up, bounced me over umpteen or so centuries and dropped me on the instant into an all new environment. I was dizzy and trying to catch up with myself when I finally remembered I was still exposed. By then it was too late.

Three or four Oriental women were clustering around me and pointing. More were approaching, drawn by the commotion. All were chattering in a language I didn’t understand. Nevertheless, there could be no mistaking the object of their curiosity.

One reached out tentatively as if to touch me to satisfy her curiosity. I blocked her with my hand. But before I could button my fly, a second girl, young and pretty, grabbed me by the arm and addressed me in English.

“What is it?” she asked.

“You speak English.” I was relieved. One thing my time travels had shown me was the importance of getting around the language barrier.

“We all do.” She said it as if I should have known. “You must be one of the new reinforcements,” she decided, as if that explained my ignorance. “We have all had to become bilingual,” she told me. “After all, there are more Americans here now than Vietnamese.”

So I was in Vietnam! But when? The question went out of my mind as more women arrived on the scene, pointing and chattering.

“Is it some sort of growth like a wart?” The girl who had spoken to me in the first place persisted. Her mini-skirt hiked up her shapely thighs as she fell to her knees in front of me to make a closer examination.

“No, it’s not a wart.” I backed away, trying to reach for the buttons, but being stopped repeatedly by one or another of the girls tugging at my arms.

“Did you grow it yourself?” the cute one persisted.

“Uh . . . You might say that.” I blushed.

“But what is its purpose?”

Hell! With all those women clustered around me, hadn’t one of them ever seen a man’s machinery before? They couldn’t all be virgins! Or could they? “Its purpose? Well, it’s twofold. Very complicated. Too complex to explain on the spur of the moment.”

“You make it sound like it’s one of those new weapons you Americans are always trying out here. Is that what it is?”

“Umm . . . Well, maybe . . . In a way . . ”

“What does it do? Does it spray?”

“Sometimes.”

“Germs? Is it another one of those germ warfare things? Does it spread germs?”

“Certainly not!” First humiliation, now insult. What next?

“Does it shoot?” she wanted to know.

“Sometimes,” I mumbled, feeling myself getting very red.

The other women had fallen silent during this interrogation. Now a sort of murmur of understanding passed among them.

“How does it work?” my questioner persisted. “Is there an ejector mechanism? Does it detach?”

“Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“Then you’re an American kamikaze,” she concluded. “You die with your weapon.”

“Damn right!”

“Why can’t I touch it? I just want to see how it works.”

“It’s top secret,” I told her.

“Oh, you Americans! Everything is always top secret! But we always find out about your new armaments in the end. When we are killed by them.” She shook her head sadly. “That pouch with the two round gismos in it—-” She pointed. “Is that the firing mechanism?”

“Yes.”

“Won’t you demonstrate it for us?” she cajoled.

“No. I told you, it’s top secret.” Somehow I managed to push the interfering hands away and button my fly to cover myself. “Just forget you ever saw it,” I instructed the crowd of women.

Slowly, they dispersed. Finally I was left with only the girl who’d been questioning me. She got to her feet and smiled at me. “Top secret!” She laughed aloud. “You must be a new replacement. How naive can you get? The Viet Cong²⁴ is probably already arranging to get the blueprints for your weapon.”

“The Viet Cong?”

“I recognized at least two women among those who Just left who are member of the Viet Cong.”

“What! Which two? Why don’t you report them? After all, they’re the enemy!”

“I’m not political. I don’t get involved. It’s the law of survival here in Saigon. But you can be sure your weapon isn’t top secret any more. The Cong will have one before long.”

“Not mine they won’t!” I said firmly.

“They’ll steal the blueprints and figure it out.”

“If they spend time on that,” I reflected, “I’ll have struck a blow against Asian Communism.”

“You Americans are fantastic! A blow against Asian Communism indeed! You keep striking blows like the crazy man banging his head against the wall because it feels so good when he stops. Only you Americans never stop.”

“I’m not political either.” I grinned at her. “And I don’t get into political arguments.”

“Only wars.” She sighed. “Where is your insignia?” she asked after a moment.

“Huh?”

“The insignia for your uniform.”

“This isn’t a uniform.”

“It’s not? Then why are you wearing such heavy clothing in such a warm climate?”

“Why would the army issue such a heavy uniform?” I countered.

“That’s a silly question. Who knows why the American Army does anything? Last week they shelled their own munitions storehouse. The week before they hung a guerrilla and then discovered he was one of their own CIA men assigned to infiltrate the Viet Cong. They issued K rations with chocolate bars to a whole platoon and by the time they found out the chocolate was Ex-Lax, the Cong was shooting them up like squatting ducks. How many times have they issued the wrong calibre ammunition to your riflemen? How many times have they bombed the wrong villages by mistake? How many times have they issued raincoats during the dry season and salt tablets during the rainy season? So why shouldn’t they issue winter uniforms in the summer? By their standards, it’s logical.”

“I guess so. But this isn’t a uniform,” I told her again.

“Then you’re not a soldier?”

“No.”

“American civilian personnel?”

“I guess so.”

“Then what are you doing in this neighborhood? You’re miles from Tu Do Street.”

“Tu Do Street?”

“The American Quarter,” she explained. She looked at me curiously. “Are you a deserter?” she asked.

“Of course not.”

“Are you sure‘? You don’t have to be afraid. You can tell me. I won’t turn you in. I know lots of deserters and I never squeal.”

“Thanks. But that won’t be necessary. I’m really not a deserter.” I smiled to show her I wasn’t offended. “What’s your name?” I asked.

“Denise Thang.”

“Denise? Are you French?”

“Somewhere way back there was a Frenchman who married into my family. Or perhaps didn’t marry.” She shrugged. “Anyway it is the custom to name the children with French names. But I am Vietnamese.” She said it with a note of pride. “What’s your name?” she added.

I told her. After that we walked for a little while in silence. I was glad to have Denise’s company, her friendliness. She seemed content to stroll with me as I appraised this future city of Saigon in which I’d landed.

My appraisal didn’t say much for the future. Rubble was everywhere. Fragments of bombs and shells littered the streets. We walked through a heavy smog of dust, which seemed to both rise from under our feet like some damp miasma and to descend upon us from the sky as if its grayness were a part-of the very sunbeams. There was a strange odor which seemed ever present; it was a while before I identified it as the aroma of decaying flesh.

In the distance, viewed through the film of smog, I could see trees, the lush vegetation of the tropical jungle. At the edge was visible an occasional rice paddy swimming in water, patches of muck, which I knew must be fetid. Off to one side I made out tail, modern apartment buildings and the outlines of unlit neon signs glinting in the sunlight, shimmering in the swirls of smog. The whole combined to form a picture of future glitter sinking into an age-old and inevitable bog.

Saigon!

Closer at hand, the people we passed seemed mostly to be women. There was an occasional male toddler, or a very old man dragging himself along as if plodding toward the graveyard, but nowhere did I see any young men. I commented on this to Denise.

“They’re all in the jungle.” She shrugged.

“In the jungle?”

“Yes. Most of them hiding from the draft. Some of them fighting.”

“For us?” I wondered.

“For the Americans, yes. And for the Viet Cong. And sometimes for both. Because sometimes the only way to stay alive is to switch sides at the right time.”

“Draft dodgers and traitors,” I mused. “It doesn’t say much for Vietnamese patriotism.”

“Patriotism is a luxury most of us Vietnamese can’t afford,” she told me drily. “Only the Americans are rich enough to afford Vietnamese patriotism.”

“So we die fighting for your country!” Back where I’d come from, I’d never been a hawk. Nevertheless I didn’t like to think that American boys were dying as patsies.

“It’s very sad.” Denise nodded gently. “It would be good if you would stop dying. It would be good if you would stop killing too. But that’s the way it is. That’s the way it’s always been. How can we make you understand that a Vietnamese has the right to survive? It’s your right too, but you don’t choose to exercise it. That is sad. We do exercise it. Perhaps that is sad, but not quite so sad. Not quite, because that is survival.”

“Peace!” I held up my hand to stop her tirade. She was becoming quite excited and I wanted to calm her.

“Exactly!” Denise fell silent again. Moodily, she continued to walk alongside me.

We’d walked some distance now and I’d noticed one sight that seemed to recur every block or two. It consisted of a large cauldron with a fire beneath it. In each case there was a woman standing over the cauldron and stirring the contents. I assumed that the contents must be some sort of food and that the cauldrons constituted some sort of street corner soup kitchens for the benefit of the population. I couldn’t have been more wrong. But it was awhile before I discovered the nature of my error.

Meanwhile, Denise Thang led me in to a hole in the ground. I don’t know how else to describe it. From the street it looked like just another pile of debris. Inside it turned out to be a sort of cellar apartment, modestly furnished, not too uncomfortable except for the dankness and lack of natural light. This was Denise’s home. She told me to make myself comfortable, lit a couple of oil lamps and put up some coffee. Drinking it, we talked at length.

From this conversation I got a picture of the period. The year, according to Denise, was One Fourteen. I spent a lot of time trying to get that straight, but I wasn’t too successful. Evidently there had been some sort of holocaust a hundred and fourteen years ago-probably nuclear—and the period since was dated from then. There was no way I could relate it to 1967²⁵ . It was at least a hundred and fourteen years from my time; it might have been la few hundred years; it might have been a few thousand.

I tried to pinpoint it in terms of American involvement in Vietnam. No soap. “The Americans have always been here,” Denise told me. “The Americans will always be here. Here is their testing ground, their training field, for the other wars.”

“The other wars?”

“There are always other wars. Big ones. Some not so big. They don’t concern us here in Vietnam. Our war is all our life. Other places they have peace sometimes, but not here.”

Dismal! I dropped it and turned the conversation in other directions. As delicately as I knew how, I asked her why the women had been so intrigued by my sex organs before. Her answer sent chills up my spine.

The wars, it seemed had not solved the overpopulation problem in the world. During however long had elapsed since the 1960s, the world population had doubled itself -— not just once, but from what I could gather, many times. The problem had finally become so acute that it had become necessary to take radical action on a worldwide scale.

Birth control hadn’t worked. The nonwhite races had objected to its being applied to them as a means of perpetuating their subjugation. Caucasians had become fearful that if they practiced it while others didn’t, the white race would soon become extinct. The impasse persisted and the earth took on the aspects of one gigantic rush-hour traffic jam. The governments of the world were forced to turn to science for a solution.

Science combined two practices already known and extended them to their ultimate implications. The first of these was the policy of sterilization. The second was artificial insemination.

The scientists reasoned that if natural birth procedures could be curtailed and artificial ones substituted, population levels might be stabilized and maintained. From this had evolved the policy in effect in the time period in which I now found myself. It was simple. All males were castrated at birth. Females obtained permission from the government to “make” babies. These infants were created bio-chemically. Not only was sex a thing of the past, but so was pregnancy. There was no gestation period for infants and they were not carried in the womb of the mother. Babies were created artificially, but—motherhood still being sacred—-the bio-chemical process was carried out by individual women rather than on an assembly-line basis. This was what the women stirring the cauldrons on the street corners had been doing-—making babies!

The castration of the males had a useful psychological side effect from the point of view of the authorities. Deprived of sex, or even any desire for it, men became more pliable cogs in the military machine. War had become an emotional outlet on a scale never before known. Most men were content with the replacement of sex by violence. The men of Vietnam were an exception. Regardless of religion, culturally they were Zen-oriented and content with the contemplation of violence as opposed to participation in which one might suffer pain, or death. In a strange way, these Vietnamese of the future had reached practicality through mysticism while the rest of the world was being tactically practical and skipping along the edge of brinksmanship towards destruction.

All this I learned from my conversation with Denise. It was night when we finished talking. She suggested taking a walk over to the American Quarter of Saigon. Curious, I readily assented.

Take an extreme Park Avenue, modernistic and plush, bordering an extreme Harlem, a devastated ultra-pocket of poverty, and that was how the American Quarter struck me in contrast to the rest of Saigon. Neon sparkled everywhere and black market lushness filled the stalls of Tu Do Street. Glass and steel architecture by Buck Rogers²⁶ stretched to the sky and the night hummed with the buzz of air conditioners. Still defined by Washington as a “hardship post,” the streets smelled of gasoline from Caddys and Mercedes and Rolls and Lincolns. The aroma was mixed with the headiness of prime booze coming from the many night clubs catering to American personnel. Back in my own time it had been said that Saigon was “the only city in the world where acute alcoholism passes for social drinking” and from what I could see it was true.

Beyond the Quarter were bomb craters and shell holes and the debris of war. But on the American side of Tu Do Street were elaborate apartment hotels and the festive atmosphere of a U.S. resort city. I wondered at the discrepancy. “How come this part of the city never catches it?” I asked Denise.

“There are no military targets here. The Viet Cong used to raid just to damage morale, but they don’t any more. The area is heavily defended and Cong casualties in such raids were high. More important, the Cong is convinced that the Americans here will destroy themselves through their own dissipations. By leaving it alone, the Cong has a powerful propaganda tool. The way the Americans behave here is worth three divisions to the North Vietnamese in convincing the countryside of the rightness of the Cong cause.”

“Hold it a minute.” I had noticed a brightly lit store selling TV sets. One of them was turned on in the window and a news broadcast was in progress.

“President Hawkbird announced today that while no immediate increase in the draft is anticipated, one million more troops must be sent to Vietnam by September in order to counter recent troop infiltrations into South Vietnam via the demilitarized zone,” the news commentator said.

“The announcement drew an immediate reaction from Congress,” the commentator continued. “Louisiana Senator Strom Borgia proposed the immediate nuclear bombing of Paris and Rome on the grounds that the President of France and the Pope were giving aid and comfort to the enemy by following the Commie-neutralist cease-fire line in their speeches. As might have been expected, Senator Fullbile, head of the Armed Services Committee, took issue with both Senator Borgia and the President, insisting as he has throughout his tenure that the traditional Tonkin Gulf Resolution does not give the President authority for either action. Senator Fullbile was backed up by the junior Senator from New York who commented that while the war must certainly be fought and Communism contained in Southeast Asia, nevertheless it must be remembered that Congress had not declared war and technically the nation is at peace despite the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. The junior Senator added that regardless of family tradition he had no personal ambitions to become President and would of course support President Hawkbird in his bid for reelection even though he and the President have minor disagreements over a war currently costing the nation fifty billion dollars and one hundred thousand lives per month. When the junior Senator from New York added that this money might perhaps better be spent on urban renewal, the chair reminded him that since the destruction of America’s cities urban renewal is no longer a matter of concern. The junior Senator apologized and withdrew his remarks. Here in Washington it was the general opinion that Senators opposing the war are putting their political careers in jeopardy because the labor unions have persuaded their members to support the war as the only way of maintaining the current level of employment and wages. Practically, the continuance of the war is necessary to the economy of the nation.

“Not directly related to this,” the commentator eased into another topic, “but relevant, is the most recent statement released by the leaders of the Black Power Movement. This long awaited statement defines Black Power vis-a-vis Vietnam. Claiming to be neither hawks nor doves, the Black Power leaders deplore the numbers of blacks on the firing line in Vietnam and at the same time raise the question of why so few blacks are participating in the economic benefits derived from the war effort here at home. A pointed demand was added to the effect that the heavyweight title be restored to draft evader Cassius Aly and there was an implication of more riots if this demand was ignored. This was met by accusations of treason from a coalition of Southern Senators formed to act as a watchdog committee over the Black Power Movement. Privately, Black Power leaders confessed that if the title was returned to Aly, his position might prove untenable since he is far past the age where he would be able to defend it. A dissenting statement to the Black Power attitude was issued by the Organization of Non-Violent Negroes against the War in Vietnam.

“Meanwhile, in Vietnam itself, American observers issued a statement to the effect that they detected no irregularities in the recent elections. Noting that because of the nature of the country elections there could not of course be compared to the American democratic process, the team of observers went on to say that despite the ruling out of any but military pro-war candidates, the legislative body elected was doubtless representative of the Vietnamese people. Only eleven percent of these people were eligible to vote in the election since the remainder of the population is disenfranchised by confessed neutralist, or pro-Cong sentiments. It should be remembered, however, that these voters are truly dedicated to the democratic principle and the fight against Communism.”

History may not necessarily repeat itself, I reflected as Denise and I walked away from the storefront TV. It may only stand still.

“Hello, Denise.” A middle-aged couple, a man and a woman, stopped alongside of us and greeeted my companion.

“Oh, hello. Steve Victor meet Luh Lin,” she introduced the woman. “And this is her husband, Wah Lees. Long time no see.” Denise turned back to the couple. “What have you two been doing with yourselves?”

“We’ve both become volunteer slaves,” Wah Lees replied proudly.

“What’s a ‘volunteer slave’?” I wondered aloud.

“Self-imposed servitude,” Wah Lees explained, explaining nothing. “It’s wonderful.”

“Wonderful.” Luh Lin backed him up.

Noting that I still looked puzzled, Wah Lees continued. “For a long time my family was made up of masters,” he told me. “Do you know what being a master means? Responsibility!”

“Responsibility, that’s what!” Luh Lin nodded.

“When you own something, you have to take care of it, make sure it’s in working order,” Wah Lees pointed out. “If your property is another human being, you’re obligated to see to its health, morals and welfare. Also, if the property is human, you have to recognize its instinct to rebel against its master and this recognition invariably creates a great anxiety complex in the master. Between the anxiety and the responsibility, the weight of neurosis has made many a master crack.”

“Masters can’t take it,” Luh Lin interjected.

“There’s a constant pressure to convince yourself that you’re worthy to be a master. There’s always the nagging suspicion that the slave may have more manhood, or womanhood, or just plain human worth than you do. Also, the master is constantly being put on by the slave. He can never be sure that the s1ave’s obedience is sincere. He’s always afraid that the slave sees through him.”

“Masters are transparent,” Luh Lin agreed.

“One day we realized that it was the slaves who had all the best of it,” Wah Lees said. “They were superior just because they never had to worry about being superior. They were immune to responsibility because it was out of their hands. They didn’t have to prove their worth, and so they were free from anxiety. When we saw that, we came to recognize a great truth. Slavery is mental health!”

“Slavery is mental health!” Luh Lin echoed zealously.

“The slave has nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

“Everything!” she repeated.

“And so we have chosen to become slaves.”

“Freedom is frightening,” Luh Lin opined.

“It’s even more frightening when you’re a master and you think about your slave getting his freedom,” Wah Lees said. “Because you know that the first thing he might do is murder his master. Yes,” he added with conviction, “it’s much better to be a slave!”

“Better to be a slave!” Luh Lin concurred.

On that note they nodded politely and left us.

We continued walking about the American Quarter for an hour or so. Then we returned to her hole-in-the-ground home. She fixed me up on the couch and then went into her bedroom to sleep by herself.

As soon as I was alone, I began trying to contact Tibet. For quite awhile now my efforts had failed, but this time was different. Charles Putnam answered immediately.

“That you, Victor?” he asked.

“Hell, this isn’t a party line,” I reminded him. “Of course it’s me.”

“No need to be insubordinate.” Despite the words, he sounded surprisingly mild, almost mellow. “Where are you?” he wanted to know.

“I’m not sure. Some place far in the future. I can’t be sure of the time. But the place is Saigon.”

“Saigon! There’ll be the devil to pay. You know you need special clearance to go to Saigon, Victor. Why do you always have to land in such questionable locales? Why couldn’t you go to Bermuda, or some nice quiet spot like that?”

“I didn’t pick it,” I reminded him. “And what I’d like to know is why the hell I was pushed way into the future anyway? Why couldn’t you have just had me brought back to 1967?”

“Sorry. I guess that was my fault,” Putnam admitted. “Remember, I told you I wasn’t hitting it off with the old man too well. At first he refused to do anything about moving you up. Then something happened and he lost his temper and he turned on his gismo full blast for spite. That Papa Baapuh is a very spiteful man. That’s how come you went right past ’67.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Well, umm, it’s a little hard to explain,” Putnam hedged.

I heard a low giggle in the background. I recognized it as belonging to Ti Nih Baapuh. Suspicion began firming up in my mind. “Putnam,” I accused, “have you been playing house with that Tibetan Lolita?”

“I’m a man just like you, Victor. I’m not made of wood, you know.”

“And Papa Baaphu caught you with her,” I guessed. “Right?”

“Check.”

“And that’s why he got mad and shot me into the future.”

“I’m afraid so, old boy.” Putnam’s voice rose. “Now stop that,” he said, his voice still high, but muffled now. “Can’t you see I’m busy? Can’t you wait? Lord, you’re insatiable!”

“Putnam!” I reminded him. “Don’t forget what happened to poor Dudley Nightshade!”

“Happiest corpse I ever saw. . . . Ooooh! That tickles! . . . Now stop playing like that or I’ll—”

“Putnam! Remember your responsibilities! If you keep kanoodling with his daughter, Papa Baapuh will never agree to get me back.”

“It doesn’t matter, old chap. He can’t get you back anyway. . . . Now you just stop bouncing like that!” Putnam giggled.

“What do you mean?” I was filled with foreboding.

“According to Papa Baapuh, the time machine can’t be worked in reverse in the future. It’s strictly a one-way operation. He can’t bring you back. You can’t get here from there.”

“You mean I’m stranded?” I felt myself getting panicky.

“Evidently. It seems that’s one of the bugs he can’t get straightened out. . . . All right! I’ll hang up in just a minute, Ti Nih!”

“But he has to get the bugs out!” I protested.

“That’s what I told him. ‘Back to the drawing board,’ I said. But instead he went back to the Lama temple to seek guidance about his daughter.”

“Maybe if you’d stay away from her, he’d come back from the temple and get down to the drawing board.”

“Maybe. But that’s asking a lot, Victor. And there’s no guarantee of any results. As thing stand now, he hasn’t the vaguest idea of how to bring you back. . . . Mmmmm! That feels very nice! . . . . Well, so long, Victor. Don’t call me. I’ll call you. That is if there’s any change, which seems unlikely. Ahhh! . . .” Putnam’s voice trailed off.

“Putnam?” No answer. The line was dead.

So there it was. I was stuck in the future. And the odds were I was permanently stuck! I lay there and brooded over my fate. I was still brooding when something happened that made me see that perhaps this future wasn’t all ashes.

Denise Thang entered. She was wearing a shortie nightgown advertising the fact that women of the future could be even more pulchritudinous than the females of the 1960s. Staring at her standing in the doorway, my troubles receded to the back of my brain.

She was a slender girl, her features delicate and Oriental. Long black hair cascaded over milk-white shoulders. Her lips were naturally red in contrast to the ivory of her high cheekbones and finely rounded jawline. Her eyes were very black, very deep, very inviting.

But it was her figure which attracted most of my admiration. Her legs were long and curved, the thighs flushed faintly with pink as if in embarrassment at their nakedness. Round hips, very full, were revealed under the loose gauzy material of the nightgown she wore. Her breasts were very large for such a slim girl. The half-moons of their tops rose from the bodice of the nightie. The outline of their tips pushed out against the flimsy chiffon, revealing large aureoles and sharp nipples.

Denise posed there in the doorway a long moment. I filled my eyes. Finally, she spoke. “I thought you might let me see it again,” she said.

“See it? Oh!” I understood. “All right.” I unveiled the object of her curiosity.

“But it’s different from before!” she exclaimed. “Then it was like a carrot that’s been cooked in the soup too long. Now it is formidable, like a cucumber.”

“The transition is strictly due to your charms.” I complimented her.

“May I touch it?”

“Since you’ve been so kind to me, Denise, by all means touch it.”

“It’s alive!” She pulled her hand back, startled.

“You’ve given it life.” My eyes bobbled in their sockets, following her bouncing breasts. “Honestly now, haven’t you ever seen one before?”

“No. I don’t know anybody else who has either. That’s why the women were clustering around you and staring before.”

“What about newborn male infants?” .

“Oh!” A light seemed to dawn on her. “I see what you mean. But that’s cut off right after birth, just like the umbilical cord.” She thought a moment. “You mean that—” She pointed. “-—is the same thing? But it’s so large and looks so strong—not at all like the growth we remove from newborn male babies. Is it really a secret weapon?”

“No.”

“Then what is it used for?”

“Making babies.”

“You’re putting me on.”

“No I’m not. It has many uses, one of which is making babies.”

“That seems hard to believe. What has a man to do with making babies? All it takes is a baby packet with the right ingredients and a cauldron and a woman to stir.”

“Where I come from it’s done differently,” I told her.

“Really? You mean women don’t stir the cauldron to make babies? How is it done then?”

“I can’t exactly explain. I’d have to show you.”

“Then show me.”

“All right.” I took Denise in my arms and kissed her. Her response was hesitant, as if she’d never been kissed before—which was probably the case. But after a moment her lips grew warm and clung to mine. Her breathing quickened and her breasts rose and fell against my chest. Instinctively, her lips parted and she gasped when she felt the tip of my tongue touching hers.

The first kiss over, I buried my lips in the crevice between her neck and shoulders. I shifted position and cupped one of her breasts. It overflowed the palm of my hand. I pushed down the material of her nightie and stroked the bare tip of the breast. The large pink aureole darkened and the maroon nipple started to pulsate and grow rigid.

Denise gasped again and her lips found mine. Her hand closed over my wrist and urged on the caresses inflaming her bosom. With my other hand I stroked her thigh. It burned under my touch.

I bent and covered the deep cleft of her bosom with a series of kisses. She writhed and urged my lips to one of her nipples. When my tongue touched it she pushed harder as if trying to squeeze the whole of her large, soft breast into my mouth. I guided her hand to my manhood and she exclaimed at the way passion had increased its girth. Her grip on it was tight and eager and it inspired me to remove her nightie and dig my fingers into the plump flesh of her nether cheeks.

She emulated the caress with her free hand and her sharp nails provoked me to press against her until the tendrils of her pubic triangle were tickling my groin. I reached down and found the exquisitely sensitive flesh stick nestling in the curls at the entrance to her womanhood. When I touched it Denise moaned aloud. I stroked it and her sharp little teeth bit my shoulder. “Show me now!” she panted.

I did as she asked. I clambered over her, noting the way the nether mouth was pulsating, and then filled it with the full length of my ardor. She cried out, and then her hips heaved upwards, her buttocks tensed and she wrapped her limbs around me as if afraid I would withdraw. Soon we were moving together in perfect rhythm, an ever increasing tempo that raised us high towards the ultimate joy. Finally we attained it and broke apart, sated.

I lay panting a moment. My mind was a hodgepodge of disconnected and inconsistent thoughts. The future is what a man makes it, I mused. No, I decided, the future’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there! Only I have no choice, I remembered.

“It’s really much nicer than stirring a cauldron,” Denise remarked.

“I think so,” I agreed.

“You’ll really have to show the other girls. They don’t know what they’ve been missing.”

The future was looking brighter all the time! There was something to be said for being the only man in the world with the equipment to make love to women. I was stuck in the future, but it might not be so bad after all. Except that there was just a hint of possible drawbacks to come in the next remark Denise made.

“One thing puzzles me,” she said. “Why did you stop stirring?”

How long would I be able to last under these conditions? I saw a long line of women demanding satisfaction stretching out in front of me. Would I be able to survive with that question confronting me time after time? Right now, reaching for Denise again, I felt quite capable of negating the question.

“Why did you stop stirring?” she repeated, murmuring. I set about proving that I had not yet begun to stir. But even as I did so, I knew that question might come to haunt me as I continued to live in the future. Age would catch up with me and I would only be able to remain mute in the face of the pouting female lips framing the words:

“Why did you stop stirring?”

WILL STEVE BE PRISON OF THE FUTURE IN SAIGON?

FIND OUT IN THE SEQUEL

COME BY MY O.R.G.Y.

Notes

[←1 ]

H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, XIX century novelists delving into time travel fantasy.

[←2 ]

Credibility gap is a term that came into wide use with journalism, political and public discourse in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. At the time, it was most frequently used to describe public skepticism about the Lyndon B. Johnson administration's statements and policies on the Vietnam War. It was used in journalism as a euphemism for recognized lies told to the public by politicians.

[←3 ]

Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968) was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. She was the first deaf-blind person to earn a bachelor of arts degree.

[←4 ]

Rinso is a brand name of laundry soap and detergent marketed by Unilever.

[←5 ]

Tuesday Weld (born Susan Ker Weld; August 27, 1943) is an American actress. She began acting as a child, and progressed to mature roles in the late 1950s.

[←6 ]

The three Rs refers to the foundations of a basic skills-oriented education program in schools: reading, writing and arithmetic. It appeared in print as a space-filler in "The Lady's Magazine" for 1818, although it is widely quoted as arising from a phrase coined in a speech given by Sir William Curtis, Member of Parliament, in about 1795.

[←7 ]

Authentic.

[←8 ]

Himyaritic or Al-Himyariah is a Semitic language that was spoken in Yemen, according to some by the Himyarites . Others consider it to have existed after the demise of the Himyarite period. It was a Semitic language, but did not belong to the Old South Arabian languages. The precise position inside Semitic is unknown because of the limited knowledge of the language.

[←9 ]

In stating this, Ted Mark is grossly misinformed. Yiddish is a jargon that emerged in the 9^th century in central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a High German-based vernacular fused with elements taken from Hebrew and Aramaic as well as from Turkic languages, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages. Sheba is dated to between 1200 BCE until 275 CE. Therefore Yiddish cannot have been known by anyone there.

[←10 ]

If Steve Victor speaks Yiddish fluently then it is somewhat astonishing that het (at least) does not understand German. However, in a preceding adventure he was fluent in German, while in a later he claimed not to be.

[←11 ]

David Dean Rusk (February 9, 1909 – December 20, 1994) was the United States Secretary of State from 1961 to 1969 under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. As Secretary of State he believed in the use of military action to combat communism

[←12 ]

To be precise, after the battle of Actium and the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra, in 30 BC, Octavian, adopted son of the murdered Julius Caesar and not yet having taken the name of Augustus, was in a position to rule the entire Roman Republic under an unofficial principate. After courting the Roan Senate an some political maneuvers, on 16 January 27 BC the Senate gave Octavian the new titles of Augustus and Princeps. Augustus next styled himself as Imperator Caesar divi filius, "Commander Caesar son of the deified one".

[←13 ]

A Lex Julia (or Iulia) is an ancient Roman law that was introduced by any member of the Julian family. Most often, "Julian laws", Lex Iulia (or Leges Iuliae) refer to moral legislation introduced by Augustus in 23 BC, or to a law from the dictatorship of Julius Caesar. One of them was the Lex Iulia de Adulteriis Coercendis (17 BC): This law punished adultery with banishment. The two guilty parties were sent to different islands, and part of their property was confiscated. Fathers were permitted to kill daughters and their partners in adultery. Husbands could kill the partners under certain circumstances and were required to divorce adulterous wives. Augustus himself was obliged to invoke the law against his own daughter, Julia (relegated to the island of Pandateria) and against her eldest daughter (Julia the Younger).

[←14 ]

The Ars amatoria (English: The Art of Love) is an instructional elegy series in three books by the Roman poet Ovid. It was written in 2 AD. It teaches basic gentlemanly male and female relationship skills and techniques.

[←15 ]

Former Governor of Alabama George Wallace ran in the 1968 United States presidential election as the candidate for the American Independent Party. Wallace's pro-segregation policies during his term as Governor of Alabama were rejected by the mainstream of the Democratic Party. The impact of the Wallace campaign was substantial, winning the electoral votes of several states in the Deep South. In his inaugural speech as governor of Alabama (1963), Wallace said: “In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” In 1963, President John F. Kennedy's administration ordered the U.S. Army's 2nd Infantry Division from Fort Benning, Georgia, to be prepared to enforce the racial integration of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. In a vain attempt to halt the enrollment of black students Vivian Malone and James Hood, Governor Wallace stood in front of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama on June 11, 1963. This became known as the "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door". In September 1963, Wallace attempted to stop four black students from enrolling in four separate elementary schools in Huntsville. After intervention by a federal court in Birmingham, the four children were allowed to enter on September 9, becoming the first to integrate a primary or secondary school in Alabama. Wallace desperately wanted to preserve segregation. In his own words: "The President (John F. Kennedy) wants us to surrender this state to Martin Luther King and his group of pro-communists who have instituted these demonstrations.”

[←16 ]

Erich Oswald Hans Carl Maria von Stroheim (born Erich Oswald Stroheim; September 22, 1885 – May 12, 1957) was an Austrian-American director, actor and producer, most noted as a film star and avant garde, visionary director of the silent era.

[←17 ]

Pun on the musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart). It was based on the the farces of the ancient Roman playwright Plautus (251–183 BC). It was made into a 1966 movie, directed by Richard Lester, with Zero Mostel and Jack Gilford reprising their stage roles. It also features Buster Keaton in his last motion picture role.

[←18 ]

Konstantin Sergeievich Stanislavski (17 January 1863 – 7 August 1938) was a seminal Russian theatre practitioner. He was widely recognised as an outstanding character actor and the many productions that he directed garnered a reputation as one of the leading theatre directors of his generation. His principal fame and influence, however, rests on his 'system' of actor training, preparation, and rehearsal technique.

[←19 ]

Realpolitik is politics or diplomacy based primarily on considerations of given circumstances and factors, rather than explicit ideological notions or moral and ethical premises. It is often simply referred to as "pragmatism" in politics, e.g. "pursuing pragmatic policies". The term Realpolitik is sometimes used pejoratively to imply politics that are perceived as coercive, amoral, or Machiavellian. The term Realpolitik was coined by Ludwig von Rochau, a German writer and politician in the 19th century.

[←20 ]

Make love, not war is an anti-war slogan commonly associated with the American counterculture of the 1960s. It was used primarily by those who were opposed to the Vietnam War, but has been invoked in other anti-war contexts since. The "make love" part of the slogan often referred to the practice of free love that was growing among the American youth who denounced marriage as a tool for those who supported war and favored the traditional capitalist culture.

[←21 ]

The prase was by New York Senator William L. Marcy, referring to the victory of Andrew Jackson in the presidential election of 1828, with the term spoils meaning goods or benefits taken from the loser in a competition, election or military victory.

[←22 ]

Charley horse (or charlie horse) is a popular colloquial term in Canada and the United States for painful involuntary spasms or cramps in the leg muscles.

[←23 ]

The Jukes family was the pseudonym of a New York "hill family" studied in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The studies are part of a series of other family studies, including the Kallikaks, the Zeros and the Nams, that were often quoted as arguments in support of eugenics, though the original Jukes study, by Richard L. Dugdale, placed considerable emphasis on the environment as a determining factor in criminality, disease and poverty. In a jail in Ulster County Dugdale found six members of the same "Juke" family, though they were using four different family names. On investigation he found that, of 29 male "immediate blood relations", 17 had been arrested, and 15 convicted of crimes. His book claimed Max Juke, a frontiersman who was the descendant of early Dutch settlers and who was born between 1720 and 1740, had been the ancestor of more than 76 convicted criminals, 18 brothel-keepers, 120 prostitutes, over 200 relief recipients, and 2 cases of "feeble-mindedness".

[←24 ]

The Việt Cộng, also known as the National Liberation Front, was a mass political organization in South Vietnam and Cambodia with its own army – the People's Liberation Armed Forces of South Vietnam (PLAF) – that fought against the United States and South Vietnamese governments during the Vietnam War (from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975), eventually emerging on the winning side. It had both guerrilla and regular army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized peasants in the territory it controlled. – In view of what Mark writes some paragraphs further, in 1967!, he doesn’t know that the Vietnam war ended in 1975, and goes with a narrative that prolongs it (and the USA’s involvement) a century further. This is in line with a general fear during the late 60’s and early 70’s that the war would be endless.

[←25 ]

The present, for this novel.

[←26 ]

Buck Rogers is a fictional space opera character created by Philip Francis Nowlan in the novella Armageddon 2419 A.D., subsequently appearing in multiple media. In Armageddon 2419 A.D., published in the August 1928 issue of the pulp magazine, Amazing Stories, the character's given name was "Anthony". Philip Nowlan and the National Newspaper Syndicate, were contracted to adapt the story into a comic strip. After Nowlan enlisted editorial cartoonist Dick Calkins as the illustrator, Nowlan adapted the first episode from Armageddon 2419, A.D. and changed the hero's name from "Anthony" to "Buck". The strip made its first newspaper appearance on January 7, 1929, under the title Buck Rogers in the 25th Century A.D.

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