The Best of L Sprague De Camp Part 18

At the end of each yell Hithafea flung out his arms with talons spread and leaped three meters into the air on his birdlike legs. He got much more kick out of the rooters' reaction to his yell-leading than the players did, since they were busy playing football. Hithafea himself had had hopes of going out for intercollegiate athletics, preferably track, until the coach had broken it to him as gently as possi ble that n.o.body would compete against a being who could broad jump twelve meters without drawing a deep breath.

As both teams were strong that year, the score at the end of the first quarter still stood o-o. Yale completed a pa.s.s and it looked as if the receiver were in the clear until John Fitzgerald, the biggest of the fourteen right tackles of the Atlantic varsity, nailed him. Hithafea screamed: "Fitzcheralt! Rah, rah, rah, Fitzcheralt!"

A drunken Yale senior, returning to his seat after visiting the gentlemen's room under the stands, got turned around and showed up on the gra.s.s strip in front of the Atlantic side of the stadium. There he tramped up and down and b.u.mped into people and fell over the chairs of the Atlantic band and made a general nuisance of himself.

At last Hithafea, observing that everybody else was too much interested in the game to abate this nuisance, caught the man by the shoulder and turned him around. The man looked up at Hithafea and shrieked: "I got 'em! I got 'em!" and tried to break away.

He might as well have saved his trouble. The Sha'akhfi freshman held him firmly by both shoulders and hissed something at him. Then he let him go.

Instead of running away, the man threw off his hat with its little blue feather, his furry overcoat, his coat and vest and s.h.i.+rt and pants. Despite the cold he ran out onto the field in his underwear, hugging his bottle under one arm and pretending it was a football.

Before he was finally taken away, the man had caused Yale to be penalized for having twelve men on the field during a play. Luckily the Yale rooters were too far away on the other side of the stadium to understand what was happening, or there might have been a riot. As it was, they were pretty indignant when they found out later, feeling that somebody had pulled a fast one on them. Especially as the game ended 2 1-20 favor of Atlantic.

After the game Hithafea went to his mailbox in the Administration Building. All the other frosh were eagerly pus.h.i.+ng around the pigeonholes to get theirs, for this was the day when fraternity bids were distributed. When Hithafea softly hissed: "Excuse me, please," they made plenty of room for him.

He took three little white envelopes from his box and scooted for his room in the freshman dorm. He burst in to find his roommate, Frank Hodiak, studying his one bid. Hithafea sat down on his bed with his tail curling up against the wall and opened his envelopes, slitting them neatly along the edge with his claws.

"Frank!" he cried. "They want me!"

"Hey," said Hodiak, "what's the matter with you? You're drooling on the rug! Are you sick?"

"No, I am cryink."

"What?"

"Sure. That is the way we Sha'akhfi cry."

"And why are you crying?"

"Pecause I am so happy! I am ofercome with emotion!"

"Well for goodness' sake," said Hodiak unfeelingly, "go cry in the sink, then. I see you got three. Which you gonna take?"

"I think the Iota Gamma Omicrons."

"Why? Some of the others got more prestige."

"I do not care. I am takink them anyway, for sentimental reasons."

"Don't tell me a cold-blooded reptile like you is sentimental!"

"Sure. All we Sha'akhfi are. You think we are not pecause we do not show our feelinks in our faces."

"Well," persisted Hodiak, "what are these sentimental reasons, huh?"

"First," (Hithafea counted on his claws) "pecause Herp Lengyel iss one. He was the first man on the campus to treat me like a fellow beirik. Second, pecause the kreat de Camara was an Iota when he attendet Atlantic many years ako."

"Who's this guy de C~mara?"

"Dit you neffer know? My, some of you echucated Earthmen are iknorant of your own history! He was one of the great s.p.a.ce-pioneers, the founter of the Viagens Interplanetarias, and the first Earthman to set foot on Osiris."

"Oh. Another Brazzy, eh?"

"Yes. It wa.s.s de Camara who prought the false teeth of our Chief Inspector Ficesaqha back to Earth from Osiris, and gafe them to Atlantic when they presented him with an honorary degree. Pefore I leat yells at a game, I go up to the museum and gaze upon those teeth. Their sentimental a.s.sociations inspire me. I am fery sentimental apout Senhor de Camara, although some of our people claim he stole those teeth and other thinks as well when he left our planet."

At the first pledge meeting, Hithafea squatted down humbly among his fellow pledges, who looked at him with traces of distaste or apprehension. When the prospective members' duties had been explained to them, Fitzgerald and a couple of the other brothers undertook to have a little fun of the s.a.d.i.s.tic sort a.s.sociated with initiations. They brought out a couple of wooden paddles, like ping-pong racquets but heavier, and fired nonsensical questions at the freshmen. Those who failed to answer glibly were paddled for ignorance, whereas those who answered glibly were paddled for being fresh.

By and by Hithafea said: "Will nopody pattle me?"

"Why, Monster?" said Fitzgerald. "D'you wanna be?"

"Of course! It is part of peink a pletch. It would preak my heart if I were not pattled the same as the others."

The brothers looked at each other with expressions of bafflement. Brother Brown, indicating Hithafea's streamlined stern, asked: "How the h.e.l.l can we? I mean, where's his-uh-I mean, where shall we hit him?"

"Oh, anywhere!" said Hithafea.

Brother Brown, looking a bit unhappy about the whole thing, hauled off with his paddle and whacked Hithafea's scaly haunch. He hit again and again, until Hithafea said: "I do not efen feel it. Are you sure you are not goink easy on me on purpose? It would wound my feelinks if you dit."

Brown shook his head. "Might as well shoot an elephant with a peashooter. You try, John."

Fitzgerald swung his ma.s.sive arm and dealt Hithafea a swat that broke the paddle. He wrung his hand, looked at the other brothers, and said: "Guess we'll have to consider you constructively paddled, Hithafea. Let's get on to business."

The other pledges grinned, evidently glad to escape any further beating. As the brothers had been made to feel a little foolish, the fun seemed to have gone out of paddling for the time being. The brothers sternly commanded the pledges to show up at the house the following night for the Thanksgiving dance, to do the serving and messwork. Moreover they were told to bring three cats each to the next pledge meeting the following week.

Hithafea as usual showed up an hour early for his duties at the dance, wearing a black bow tie around his scaly neck in deference to the formality of the occasion. John Fitzgerald, of course, brought Alice Holm, while Herbert Lengyel came stag and hovered uneasily, trying by an air of bored superiority to mask the fact that he would have liked to bring her himself.

When Hithafea stalked in bearing a fray of refreshments, some of the girls, who were not Atlantic coeds and so had never seen him before, shrieked. Alice, mastering her initial revulsion, said: "Are you dancing, Hithafea?"

Hithafea said: "Alas, Miss Holm, I could not!"

"Oh, I bet you dance divinely!"

"It is not that. At home on Osiris I perform the fertility tance with the pest of them. Put look at my tail! I should fleet the whole floor to myself, I fear. You have no idea how much trouple a tail is in a worlt where peinks do not normally have them. Every time! try to go through a swingink door-"

"Let's dance, Alice," said Fitzgerald abruptly. "And you, Monster, get to work!"

Alice said: "Why John, I think you're jealous of poor Hithafea! I found him sweet!"

"Me jealous of a slithery reptile? Ha!" sneered Fitzgerald as they spun away in the gymnastic measures of the Zulu.

At the next pledge meeting a great yowling arose when the pledges showed up with three cats apiece, for which they had raided alleys and their friends' houses and the city pound. Brother Brown said: "Where's. .h.i.thafea? The Monster's not usually late-"

The doorbell rang. When one of the pledges opened it he looked out, then leaped back with the alacrity if not the grace of a startled fawn, meanwhile making a froglike noise in his throat. There on the doorstep stood Hithafea with a full-grown lioness on a leash. The cats franticafly raced off to other parts of the fraternity house or climbed curtains and mantelpieces. The brothers looked as if they would have done likewise if they had not been afraid of losing face before the pledges.

"Coot evenink," said Hithafea. "This is Tootsie. I rented her. I thought if I prought one cat bik enough it would do for the three I was tolt to pring. You like her, I trust?"

"A character," said Fitzgerald. "Not only a monster, but a character."

"Do I get pattled?" said Hithafea hopefully.

"Paddling you," said Fitzgerald, "is like beating a rhinoceros with a flyswatter." And he set to work with a little extra vim on the fundaments of the other pledges.

When the pledge meeting was over, the brothers went into conference. Brother Broderick said: "I think we'll have~to give 'em something more original to do for next time. Specially Hithafea here. S'pose we tell him to bring-ah-how about that set of false teeth belonging to that guy-that emperor or whatever he was of Osiris, in the museum?"

Hithafea said: "You mean the teeth of our great Chief Inspector, Ficesaqha?"

"Yeah, Inspector Fish-well, you p.r.o.nounce it, but that's what I mean."

"That will be a kreat honor," said Hithafea. "Pefore we go, Mr. Fitzcherald, may I speak to you alone for a moment?"

Fitzgerald frowned and said: "Okay, Monster, but hurry it up. I got a date." He followed the Sha'akhfa out, and the other brothers heard Hithafea hissing something to him in the corridor.

Then Hithafea stuck his head in the doorway and said: "Mr. Lengyel, may I speak to you too, now?" And the same thing happened to Lengyel.

The other brothers did not listen to the conversation between Lengyel and Hithafea because they were more interested in what was happening in the parlor. John Fitzgerald came through, all slicked up in his best clothes, and the lioness tackled him and tried to wrestle with him. The more he tried to get away the more vigorously she wrestled. He finally gave up and lay on his back while Tootsie sat on his chest and licked his face. As having your face licked by a lion is something like having it gone over with coa.r.s.e sandpaper, Fitzgerald was somewhat the worse for wear by the time Hithafea came back into the room and pulled his pet off.

"I am fery sorry," he told them. "She is playful."

The night before the next pledge meeting, shadows moved in the shrubbery around the museum. The front door opened and a shadow came out-unmistakably that of a big, broad-shouldered man. The shadow looked about, then back into the darkness whence it had come. Sounds came from the darkness. The shadow trotted swiftly down the front steps and whispered: "Here!"

Another shadow rose from among the shrubs; not that of a man, but of something out of the Mesozoic. The human shadow tossed a package to the reptilian shadow just as the museum's watchman appeared in the doorway and shouted: "Hey, you!"

The human shadow ran like the wind, while the reptilian shadow faded into the bushes. The watchman yelled again, blew on a police whistle, and ran after the human shadow, but gave up, puffing, after a while. The quarry had disappeared.

"Be G.o.dd.a.m.ned," muttcred the watchman. "Cotta get the cops on this one. Let's see, wh' came in late this afternoon, just before closing? There was that little Italian-looking girl, and that red-haired professor, and that big football-type guy. .

Frank Hodiak found his roommate packing his few simple belongings, and asked: "Vhere you going?"

"I am gettink retty to leave for the Christmas vacation," said Hithafea. "I got permission to leafe a few tays aheat of the rest." He shut his small suitcase with a snap and said: "Goot-pye, Frank. It is nice to have known you,"

"Good~bye? Are you going right now?"

"Yes."

"You sound as if you weren't coming back!"

"Perhaps. Some tav. Sahacikhthasef, as we say on Osiris."

Hodiak said: "Say, what's that funny-looking package you put in

But before he finished, Flithafea was gone.

Vhen the next pledge meeting was called, Hithafea, hitherto the outstanding eager beaver among the pledges, was absent. They called the dormitory and got in touch with Frank Hodiak, who said that Hithafea had shoved off hours previously.

The other curious fact was that John Fitzgerald had his right wrist bandaged. When the brothers asked him why, he said: "d.a.m.n'f I know. I just found myself in my room with a cut on mv wrist, and no idea how it got there."

The meeting was well underway and the paddles were descending, when the doorbell rang. Two men came in: one of the campus cops and a regular munic.i.p.al policeman.

The former said: "Is John Fitzgerald here?"

"Yeah," said Fitzgerald. "I'm him."

"Get ~our hat and coat and come with us."

"Vhaffor?"

wanna ask you a few questions about the disappearance of an exhibit from the museum."

"I don't know anything about it. Run along and peddle your papers."

That was the wrong line to take, because the city cop brought out a piece of paper with a lot of fancy printing on it and said: "Okay, here's a warrant. You're pinched. Come-" and he took Fitzgerald by the arm.

Fitzgerald cut loose with a swing that ended, splush, on the cop's face, so that the policeman fell down on his back and lay there, moving a little and moaning. The other brothers got excited and seized both cops and threw them out the front door and b.u.mpety-b.u.mp down the stone steps of the fraternity house. Then they went back to their pledge meeting.

In five minutes four radio patrol cars stopped in front of the frathouse and a dozen cops rushed in.

The brothers, so belligerent a few minutes before, got out of the way at the sight of the clubs and blackjacks. Hands reached out of blue-clad sleeves toward Fitzgerald. He hit another cop and knocked him down, and then the hands fastened onto all his limbs and held him fast. When he persisted in struggling, a cop hit him on the head with a blackjack and he stopped.

When he came to and calmed down, on the way to the police station, he asked: "What the h.e.l.l is this all about? I tell you, I never stole nothing from a museum in my whole life!"

"Oh yes you did," said a cop. "It was the false teeth of one of them things from another planet. O'Riley, I think they call it. You was seen going into the museum around closing time, and you left your fingerprints all.over the gla.s.s case when you busted it. Boy, this time we'll sure throw the book at you! d.a.m.n college kids, think they're better than other folks. . .

Next day Herbert Lengyel got a letter:

Dear Herb:

When you read this I shall be enroute to Osiris with the teeth of Chief Inspector Ficesaqha, one of our greatest heroes. I managed to get a berth on a s.h.i.+p leaving for Pluto, whence I shall proceed to my own system on an Osirian interstellar liner.

When Fitzgerald suggested I steal the teeth, the temptation to recover this relic, originally stolen by de Camara, was irresistible. Not being an experienced burglar, I hypnotized Fitzgerald into doing the deed for me. Thus I killed three birds with one stone, as you Earthmen say. I got the teeth; I got even with Fitzgerald for his insults; and I got him in Dutch to give you a clear field with Miss HoIrn.

I tell you this so you can save him from being expelled, as I do not think he deserves so harsh a penalty. I also gave you the Osirian hypnosis to remove some of your inhibitions, so you shall be able to handle your end of the project.

I regret not having finished my course at Atlantic and not being finally initiated into Iota Gamma Omicron. However, my people will honor me for this deed, as we admire the refined sentiments.

Fraternally, Hithafea