The Collected Stories of Frank Herbert (84 page)

“Yeah? I ain't so sure. What about them things?”

“Things?” The Professor peered at Jepson with a puzzled frown.

“She's got four of 'em!” Jepson barked. “I think you're trying to pass off some freak as…”

“Oh,” the Professor said. “Four, yes. That's very curious. About one in fourteen million human female births today demonstrate a condition of more than two mammaries. Heretofore, there've been three major hypotheses: one, mutation, two, absorbed sibling, and three, ahh … throwback. Ob is living proof of the third case. Multiple births were more frequent in her time, you see? It's quite simple: females were required to suckle more infants. A survival characteristic that gradually disappeared as multiple births declined.”

“You don't say,” Jepson growled.

“George was particularly elated,” the Professor said, “since he had maintained the third case.”

“George? Who is George?” Jepson demanded.

“My associate, Professor George Elwin,” the Professor said.

“You didn't tell me about no George,” Jepson said. “When I was sinking all that loot in your stupid machine, there wasn't no George around. Who's he, your new mark?”

“Mark?” The Professor glanced at Swimmer back to Jepson.

Swimmer tried to swallow in a dry throat, sensing how near Jepson was to a violent explosion of rage. Swimmer found it odd that his uncle couldn't see the danger.

“I don't really see where my associate is any concern of yours,” the Professor said. “But if…”

“How many people know about that
time
machine—” Jepson pointed to the large crate in the corner behind him—“and about this Ob dame?”

“Well you know, of course, and…”

“Don't get smart with me, creep! Who knows?”

*   *   *

The Professor stared at him, aware at last of the suppressed rage. Professor Rumel's mouth felt suddenly dry. Criminals such as this could be most violent—murderously so, at times.

“Well, aside from those of us here in this room, there are Professor Elwin and very likely two or three of George's assistants. I didn't impose any special strictures of secrecy other than to suggest we'd wait for the complete investigation before publishing our…”

“How come this George?” Jepson demanded.

“Well, my dear sir,
someone
with the proper training had to go to Northern France and seek the archeological authentication. Inevitably, there will be cries of fraud, you know.”

Jepson screwed his face into a puzzled frown. “Archeo … What's this Northern France bit?”

The Professor's face came alight with the glow of a man launched on his favorite subject. “You may not know it, Mr. Jepson, but paleolithic artifacts bear markings that are, in some respects, as distinctive as the brush-strokes of a master painter. Now, under strictly controlled archeological conditions, we're seeking some of Ob's work in situ—where she originally made it.”

“Yeah?” Jepson said.

“You see, Mr. Jepson, as nearly as we can determine, Ob came from the region just east of Cambrai in Northern France. This is something more than an educated guess. We have several pieces of evidence—a scrap of obsidian which Ob—you see how I got her name … my little joke: Ob for obsidian … well, this piece of obsidian she carried on her when we picked her up is of a type common in the region we've selected. There was also plant pollen on her person, types of clay soil in the mud on her feet and a photograph of the background landscape which we took as we snatched Ob from…”

“Yeah,” Jepson said. “So only a few of us know about her.”

“Quite,” the Professor said. “I'm sure you can see why we decided to delay any publication and prevent idle speculation. Nothing destroys the essential character of scientific endeavor more than Sunday supplement romanticizing.”

“Yeah,” Jepson said. “Just like you tol' me.”

“And there's the ethical problem,” the Professor said. “Some people may question the morality of our bringing this human being out of her natural habitat in the past. I, personally, incline to the theory that Ob's timestream diverted from ours at the moment of her removal from her—and our—personal past. However, if you…”

“Yeah, yeah!” Jepson barked.

Keerist!
he thought.
The old creep could yak all day about nothing. Big words! Big words! Didn't mean a thing.

III

Swimmer looked from one to the other and marveled at the low level of communication between his uncle and Jepson. The Professor might just as well be talking to Ob for all the sense he was making. Swimmer fingered the gill mask in his pocket, thinking of it as a back-door way of escape should things get completely out of hand here.

“As I was about to say,” the Professor said, “if you consider the equation of historical interference as one element of your total…”

“Yeah!” Jepson exploded. “That's very interesting. But what I wanna know is why can't I show this Ob dame a rock and say I want some other rock cut likewise and such and so? She could do the thing like that, ain't it?”

The Professor sighed and threw up his hands. He'd thought he'd penetrated Jepson's strange jargon, conveyed some of the problems to the man, but not a bit of it appeared to have gotten through.

“Din't you say she was an expert?” Jepson demanded.

“Given time,” the Professor said in a patient, long-suffering tone. “I do believe Ob could make one of the finest diamond cutters in the world. We've a few industrial diamond chips in the lab and part of our examination of her involved seeing what she could do with them. She needed no more than a glance to see the natural cleavage lines. No fumbling or mistakes. Just one practical glance. But I wish to warn you—the measure of her understanding may be seen in the fact she thought the diamonds too hard for practical purposes.”

“But she worked them rocks okay?”

“If that's what you want to call it.”

“Did she have any better tools than we got here?” Jepson motioned to the rack at the rear of the bench, the cutter's vice clamped to one end.

“Not as good.”

“She know how to use them tools?”

“She has a natural tool sense and she's quite awed by our equipment. She's an intuitive worker. You might say she
lives
the stone. Indeed, she appears to project ideas of life and animism into the stones she works.”

“Yeah,” Jepson said. “So let's get busy.” He turned and studied Ob.

*   *   *

She lowered her gaze under the pressure of that stare from the angry devil-god. Ob felt she understood what was wanted of her. She had a much better grasp of the language than she had permitted the devil-gods to suspect. The training imparted by her Cave Mother fitted well here:
“When dealing with devil-gods and spirits, give them the obedience and subservience they demand. But dissemble, always dissemble.”

A pang of homesickness shot through her and her lower lip trembled, but she suppressed the emotion. A female trained to the cave-motherhood and the creation of living tools did not give way, even before devil-gods. And there was work to do here, creation for which she had been trained. Beyond her understanding of the devil-gods' words, there were much more direct ways of divining their desires. They had brought her into the presence of their wondrous tools and they had set up the stones as for a sacrifice. The stone was one of the difficult, very hard ones, and its grain had been criss-crossed and twisted by unimaginable forces. But Ob could see the points of entry and the manner in which the work should progress.

“Tell her what she should do,” Jepson said.

“I refuse to have any more to do with this,” the Professor said.

Swimmer blanched.

“Nobody,” Jepson said in a low, cold voice, “but nobody refuses what I say do. You, Uncle Professor, will get across to your cutter dame what it is she should do. You will do this or I will permit you to watch my boys cut up your creep nephew here into exceedingly small pieces. We wouldn't want the fishes should choke while they are disposing of him. Do I make myself plain?”

“You wouldn't dare,” the Professor said. But even as he spoke he sensed that Jepson would indeed dare. The man was a criminal monster … and they were at his mercy.

Swimmer stood trembling. Now, he regretted ever having started this exploit. The gill mask in his pocket was useless. Jepson would never let him get off this island alive if there were the slightest upset in his plans.

Grudgingly, the Professor said: “Just what is it you want me to do, Mr. Jepson?”

“We been through all that!” Jepson snarled. “Get your dame started on this rock. The big-domes say it can't be cut. So let's see her cut it.”

“It's on your head,” the Professor said.

“Yeah,” Jepson said. “So do.”

*   *   *

Swimmer took a deep breath as the Professor turned toward Ob. It was obvious to Swimmer now that Jepson had plans of his own concerning the cutter dame. The Mars diamond was merely a preliminary. Swimmer suspected he shortly would have no place in Jepson's plans. And people who had no place in Jepson's plans sometimes disappeared.

As these thoughts went through Swimmer's mind. Ob looked at him with such a weight of shared understanding that he wondered if the ancients had possessed a telepathic faculty which had been lost in the genetic ebb and flow of the ensuing eons. And he wondered suddenly at the terrors this poor creature must be undergoing—and hiding so well. She'd been snatched from her place and time, taken forever from her friends. There could be no sending her back; the time machine couldn't be controlled that well. And here she was now, in Jepson's hands.

Something would have to be done about Jepson, Swimmer thought. He shivered with fear of what he had to do … and the fear of what would happen if he failed in any step.

“Ob,” the Professor said.

Ob looked at Gruaaack, trying to convey by her waiting silence the almost frantic desire to please. Thank whatever benign spirits might hover near this place, the devil-gods were through fighting, she thought.

“Ob,” the Professor repeated, “look at this stone.” He pointed to the Mars diamond on its bed of black velvet.

Ob looked at the stone.

The Professor spoke slowly and distinctly: “Ob can you work this stone?”

Such a difficult stone,
Ob thought.
But there was a way. The devil-god Gruaaack must know this. It was a test then. The devil-god was testing her.

“Ob. Work. Stone,” she said.

Swimmer marveled at the throaty quality of her voice.

“First, you must cut off a small piece of the stone,” the Professor said.

Yes, it is a test,
Ob thought.
Everyone knows the work progresses a small chip at a time. This was such a difficult stone, though. The first cut would be somewhat larger than usual. Still, the cut would remove a small enough piece.

“Small. Piece,” she agreed.

“Do you have the tools you need?” the Professor asked. He indicated the vice, jeweler's mallet and wedges on the bench.

Another test,
Ob thought.

“Need. Wa. Ter,” she said. “Need. Ongh-ongh.”

“What the devil's an ong-ong?” Jepson asked. “I never heard no cutter ask for an ong-ong.”

“I've no idea,” the Professor said. “She's never used the term before.” He turned a puzzled frown on Jepson. “Surely you must see now how limited our communication really is. There exists such a wide gap in…”

“So get 'er an ong-ong!” Jepson barked.

Ob looked from one devil-god to the other. They must have ongh-ongh, she thought. Wherever there was fire there was ongh-ongh. She looked at Swimmer, seeing only the fear in him. He must be another human like herself. She turned her attention to Gruaaack. Could this be another test? It was very puzzling. She picked up the Mars diamond in one horn-calloused hand, drew a finger along it. “Ongh-ongh.”

The Professor shrugged. “Ob, you get ongh-ongh,” he said.

Ob sighed.
Another test.

She clasped the Mars diamond in both hands headed for the chalet's living room. There was a fire-hole in the living room; she had smelled it and seen it.

The living room had been furnished with heavy rustic furniture and Mexican fabrics. The colorful upholstery filled Ob with awe.
What manner of animal could have produced such skins?
she wondered.
Devil-god land must possess many terrors.

Two of Jepson's boys sat at a round table near the windows overlooking the lake. They were eating and playing poker. A fire had been layed in the stone fireplace and Ob headed directly toward it, trailed by Jepson, the Professor and Swimmer.

The boys looked up from their game and one said: “Get a load of that shape. Gives me the creeps.”

“Yeah,” his companion said, and looked at Jepson. “What's she doin' with the rock, boss?”

Jepson spoke with an offhand, casual tone, keeping his attention on Ob. “Sharrup.”

The boys shrugged and went back to their game.

Ob knelt at the fireplace, scooped out a small handful of ashes. “Ongh-ongh,” she said. She rested the diamond on the hearth, spat into the ashes, kneaded a bit of black mud which she transferred to the diamond. Her horny hands worked the mud into the stone's surface.

“What's she doon?” Jepson demanded.

“I'm sure I don't know,” the Professor said. “But ongh-ongh appears to be ashes.”

Jepson fixed his attention on the diamond which was now a black-streaked mess. Ob picked it up, walked to the room's east windows. She lifted the diamond to the sun, studied it.

Yes,
she thought,
the light of Mighty Fire passed through this stone and was dimmed and cut into strange patterns by the ongh-ongh.
She rubbed the stone, removing some of its black cover, wiped her hands on the brown dress, again held the diamond to Mighty Fire. It was as she had expected, the technique taught her by the Cave Mother. Lines of ongh-ongh on the stone's surface betrayed tiny flaws and these lines provided a fixed reference against which to study the interior contours.