There were a few minutes while the water began to gurgle down through
the dry pipe. Then a roar came from outside the pyramid that must have
shaken its stone walls. Shaking my hands once over my head, I went down
for the eye-burning ceremony.
The blind lizards were waiting for me by the door and looked even
unhappier than usual. When I tried the door, I found out why--it was
bolted and barred from the other side.
"It has been decided," a lizard said, "that you shall remain here
forever and tend the Holy Waters. We will stay with you and serve your
every need."
A delightful prospect, eternity spent in a locked beacon with three
blind lizards. In spite of their hospitality, I couldn't accept.
"What--you dare interfere with the messenger of your ancestors!" I had
the speaker on full volume and the vibration almost shook my head off.
The lizards cringed and I set my Solar for a narrow beam and ran it
around the door jamb. There was a great crunching and banging from the
junk piled against it, and then the door swung free. I threw it open.
Before they could protest, I had pushed the priests out through it.
The rest of their clan showed up at the foot of the stairs and made a
great ruckus while I finished welding the door shut. Running through the
crowd, I faced up to the First Lizard in his tub. He sank slowly beneath
the surface.
"What lack of courtesy!" I shouted. He made little bubbles in the water.
"The ancestors are annoyed and have decided to forbid entrance to the
Inner Temple forever; though, out of kindness, they will let the waters
flow. Now I must return--on with the ceremony!"
The torture-master was too frightened to move, so I grabbed out his hot
iron. A touch on the side of my face dropped a steel plate over my eyes,
under the plastiskin. Then I jammed the iron hard into my phony
eye-sockets and the plastic gave off an authentic odor.
A cry went up from the crowd as I dropped the iron and staggered in
blind circles. I must admit it went off pretty well.
* * * * *
Before they could get any more bright ideas, I threw the switch and my
plastic pterodactyl sailed in through the door. I couldn't see it, of
course, but I knew it had arrived when the grapples in the claws latched
onto the steel plates on my shoulders.
I had got turned around after the eye-burning and my flying beast hooked
onto me backward. I had meant to sail out bravely, blind eyes facing
into the sunset; instead, I faced the crowd as I soared away, so I made
the most of a bad situation and threw them a snappy military salute.
Then I was out in the fresh air and away.
When I lifted the plate and poked holes in the seared plastic, I could
see the pyramid growing smaller behind me, water gushing out of the base
and a happy crowd of reptiles sporting in its radioactive rush. I
counted off on my talons to see if I had forgotten anything.
One: The beacon was repaired.
Two: The door was sealed, so there should be no more sabotage,
accidental or deliberate.
Three: The priests should be satisfied. The water was running again, my
eyes had been duly burned out, and they were back in business. Which
added up to--
Four: The fact that they would probably let another repairman in, under
the same conditions, if the beacon conked out again. At least I had done
nothing, like butchering a few of them, that would make them
antagonistic toward future ancestral messengers.
I stripped off my tattered lizard suit back in the ship, very glad that
it would be some other repairman who'd get the job.
--HARRY HARRISON
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Galaxy_ February 1958. Extensive research
did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication
was renewed.