Five to Twelve Read online

  Dion looked at him. “What the hell is your name ?”

  No Name scratched his head for a moment or two. “James Flamingo Bond,” he said. “Now what the hell is yours?”

  Five

  BLOOD brotherhood waxed gaily with the frequent appearance of Löwenbrau Specials. The three sports, slightly-built, cadaverous creatures who looked as if they might all have been extruded from the same consignment of flesh-coloured plastic, Were named Pando, Harvil and Tibor. None of them were productively employed. They lived by scavenging, petty larceny and prostitution. Despite the fact that Dion had descended to squirearchy, they magnanimously forgave him. The colour of his trove was inherently beautiful.

  “All we need,” said Pando, disposing of his fourth, “is just one mad bad drainbrain, male.”

  “All drainbrains are doms,” protested Tibor. “You know that. No big tits, no I.Q.E.D.”

  Pando burped. “Dinosaurs we are not, yet,” he announced. “There has got to be a drainbrain, m., somewhere—even if hiding in the sewers and operating with beer bottles and coke straws.”

  “So we have the drainbrain, hypotheoretically, then what?” demanded Harvil. “One drainbrain maketh not a multiplicity of sports.”

  “Nein, non and nyet. One drainbrain maketh an anti-dom bug, streptococktail of some perception. Both bug and manufacturer being, of course, fully programmed. Then we slip the bug in the reservoirs, casting much upon the waters, and sit back while the doms pop balloonwise and preferably with some discomfort.”

  “Dreams,” said Dion in exasperation. “Chronomyths of the illiterate. What the Stopes would you do with the world on a silver plate? The doms will stay for ever if it depends on sports droning bee features in a million drowning bars. The need is not for bugs, bombs or bludgeons. The need is only for men. Stand up, sports. Stand three feet taller and be counted.”

  There was a brief silence. Finally it registered with Pando that he might possibly have been insulted. “What’s with you, squire?” he sneered. “The spiel comes big from a hired hole filler. Climb a ladder and count yourself.”

  “Gents,” said Dion patiently, “the point I make is that jackal v. lioness is grotty stone cold. If there were men aplenty the doms would keel in rows. Ergo rethink.”

  “Square one point five,” agreed Harvil solemnly. Then, recollecting his basic loyalty, he added: “Your face affords some slight offence.”

  “Oh dear and lovely fellows,” said No Name, coming suddenly to life, and with tears in his eyes, “I drink to the universal brotherhood of man… Christ Jesus, a war party!”

  Dion and the three sports followed his gaze.

  Seven large and physically magnificent doms had just entered the bar. They were a little grimy and carelessly dressed. Three of them wore battered fibreglass helmets.

  “Irish Sea cows,” whispered No Name. “The big bitches came here last week. Five hundred lions damage, and they pay from waist belts. Live gently, sports. These red hot mammals don’t care like zero cubed.”

  “Gas?” enquired Dion, observing the doms with interest. “Oil? Minerals?”

  “No. Submarine hotels and suchlike. They tell me there are doms and high-spirited squires who like to lie double and gaze up at the naughty little fishes through carbon glass.”

  The doms arranged themselves noisily around a table in one of the bar’s semi-oubliettes. Evidently they had already had much to drink, for their actions and verbiage were larger and louder than life.

  One of them, a tall and startlingly masculine brunette, slammed the table with her fist. “Vino! Vin! Vinho!”

  “Attending, dear doms.” Expertly, No Name vaulted over the top of the bar and went to take their orders.

  At the same time, one of the doms detached herself from the group and sauntered a trifle unsteadily over to the bar. She surveyed Dion and his companions critically.

  “One for loneliness,” she said, “two for companionship, three plus for conspiracy. Have at you, sports. The night needs no shots.”

  “No shots, indeed,” said Tibor, sticking out his chest. “Have at you, dear dom, now and hereafter.”

  She looked him up and down, then flung five lions on the bar. “You’d never make the second round, infant. Have a glass of milk.”

  Tibor gazed at the lions and swallowed the jibe. “Largesse and loveliness. Let us drown what might have been in Löwenbrau.”

  Harvil looked at the dom and tried to make his eyes smoulder. “Five rounds at least,” he said softly. “Genuine, vintage, bona fide, guaranteed.”

  The dom smiled. “Conviction and courage,” she said. “A possible combination. You are thin, but no matter. I’ve seen better and I’ve seen worse.” She threw out a hand and efficiently arrested No Name on his way back to the bar to fulfil orders received. “A bed-chamber, minion. Your little jack presumes to be a giant killer.”

  “Number three,” said No Name, fishing a key from his pocket. “Seven fifty the hour.”

  “Oh, the high price of sin!” She turned to Harvil. “Can you last an hour, brave one?”

  Harvil licked his lips. “For twenty a throw, I can last till close of play.”

  She laughed. “Delusions gratis. For your sake, the deeds should match the words.” She took the key, threw an arm round Harvil in proprietory fashion, and called to her companions. “Sayonara, briefly, bosom friends. I go to test a little steel. Don’t drink the well dry till I get back.”

  “In about ninety seconds,” prophesied a rich contralto voice.

  “Go ride yourself! At least three minutes!”

  The captive and docile Harvil was led towards the bedchamber level.

  No Name carried drinks across to the doms. There was a burst of laughter, then two or three of them glanced meaningly at the bar. Presently one of them—a handsome and obviously bouncy specimen—came across to the bar.

  She looked at Dion. “Care to?”

  “It would be a privilege, but no,” he said carefully. “My fish fries elsewhere.”

  “It was not so much a question,” the bouncy dom explained. “More of a regal invitation.”

  “Abjectly declined,” responded Dion, “with profuse stereophonic apology.”

  Her voice became hard. “Jack, when I invite, only a brave sport declines.”

  “Felicitations. In this case a coward also declines. May I offer you a drink?”

  There was a roar of derision from the watching doms.

  “I am ugly, deformed, persona non grata?” demanded the bouncy dom in a hard voice.

  “Not any. Eminently desirable, etcetera. But, alas, I prefer to drink.”

  “Fifty lions should inhibit your thirst”

  “It doesn’t. Please join me.”

  There was a sudden silence.

  Surprisingly, the dom laughed. “Courtesy, it seems, is the new vice of the peons. I’ll join you indeed, my courteous coward. Name the mental block.”

  Dion signalled to No Name. “Löwenbrau, twice.”

  The drinks appeared with some rapidity.

  “Grüs Gott,” said Dion, raising his glass.

  “Salaam aleikum,” responded the dom with a smile. Then she poured the Löwenbrau over his head. “And may God bless all who sail in her.”

  Dion spluttered. Everybody laughed.

  While he was vainly trying to mop up the mess with a kerchief, the dom—spurred, doubtless, by general approval—took the other glass and repeated the process. His discomfort seemed to be out of all proportion to the quantity of liquid that had been poured over him.

  “The duality of mercy is twice blessed,” explained the dom. “It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven.”

  Through a veil of Löwenbrau, Dion gazed at the mocking woman. The sounds of hilarity increased on all sides. Pando and Tibor were killing themselves with mirth.

  “Ho, ho,” said Tibor. “Stand three feet taller and be counted. How now, brown squire?”

  Dion shook his head and took a deep breath. He gazed at
the dom who had humiliated him and who now stood obsering his discomfort with immense satisfaction.

  “That,” she said, “may teach you to be more of a man.”

  “And this,” retorted Dion, striking wildly at her throat with the hard edge of his hand, “may teach you to be more of a woman.”

  The dom was not expecting retaliation. The chop connected with her throat, and she grunted. Dion followed the blow with a straight finger thrust to her stomach. As she doubled, he hit the back of her neck for good measure.

  She fell to the floor and lay there, twitching and groaning.

  “Any more for the skylark?” enquired Dion savagely. “Any number can play.”

  Again, briefly, there was silence. Pando and Tibor gazed at him in awe.

  Then there was the sound of a chair being moved. It seemed to reverberate like thunder. One of the doms in the oubliette stood up and walked towards him. She was one of the most beautifully proportioned human beings he had ever seen. A full negress. About six foot six, but slender and feline. Her dark, muscular arms seemed to ripple with power.

  “I’m afraid,” she said, in perfectly modulated English, “you have hurt my friend. That is a shade unsociable. I’m sure you must now be most unhappy.”

  “Get her away,” said Dion, indicating the dom at his feet. “She has had too much to drink.”

  “Certainly,” said the tall negress. “We have all had too much to drink. But first, without prejudice and if you will allow me, I’m going to break you in two.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Dion saw that two of the other doms had also left the oubliette. He glanced desperately at Pando and Tibor. “Now is the time for all good men to come to the party of the first part.”

  “Nix,” called Pando. “Retroactive resignations effective instantly. Happy touch down, squire. Unto them that hath shall be given.”

  In desperation, Dion snatched a bar stool. He held it with the legs pointed towards the tall negress. “Come one step nearer,” he threatened, bracing himself against the bar, “and I’ll teach you to stand on a barrel and sing God Save the Queen.”

  The negress smiled, and continued to advance.

  With an expert movement, No Name, who was immediately behind Dion, on the other side of the bar, snatched a loaded plastic truncheon apparently from nowhere and brought it down forcibly on the back of Dion’s skull. The world exploded, and he fell soundlessly to the floor.

  “Good night, sweet prince,” said No Name gently. “The sentiment may be sublime, but a fracas is definitely bad for trade.”

  Everybody laughed, and drinks appeared on the bar as if by magic.

  Eventually, since Dion perversely refused to return to consciousness, No Name called for an ambulance.

  Six

  THE domdoc looked down at him disapprovingly. “Making inflammatory statements, creating a fracas, assaulting citizens with bric-à-brac and felonious intent—you’ve had quite a concerto, haven’t you?”

  “Who neutralized me?” asked Dion, sitting up in bed too rapidly, then lying down again as the throbbing started.

  “The bartender,” said the domdoc, “in a moment of divine afflatus. He possibly saved you from racism, first degree murder and a grade one. Give the man a cigar.”

  “How fares the target area?” Dion felt his head gingerly. There was one hell of a bump.

  “You’ll live,” said the domdoc despondently. “Regrettable, but someone up in orbit has an addiction for mysterious ways… You’re a critical mess, Dion Quern. I’ve checked your heart, brain and record. You were born for a grade one; if not now, then before you run out of time-shot programme.”

  “Get stuffed.”

  “Playback?”

  “Get stuffed. It’s an archaic exhortation,” he explained patiently. “It suggests that the addressee should have recourse to a phallic symbol.”

  She frowned. “You offering?”

  “With concussion and a hangover? It would be unethical.”

  “I see… Well, my clever little sport, it depends on me whether you are recommended for treatment or not. I shall think about it—while looking for a phallic symbol.”

  “Squire,” he corrected gently. “I’ve been downgraded to respectability.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Who the Stopes would be so sickinky?”

  “Juno Locke, Peace Officer, London Seven.”

  The eyebrows receded further. “Elaborate hoaxwise?”

  “Sorry to disappoint. Quasi-legit. Suck it and see.”

  “It isn’t registered.”

  “You’re so right. Informal, recent and definitely protem.”

  The domdoc sighed. “I’ll call her and see if she wishes to claim the body. Stopes help you, if negative. I wouldn’t offer you squiredom if you were the last man with a Y-chromosome.”

  “We all have our funny little ways,” conceded Dion. “For the great non-love you bear me, please make the call.”

  “I’ll be back,” said the domdoc. “If it fits, you can be out of hospital pronto. If it doesn’t fit, we may even have to get acquainted.” Surprisingly, she smiled. “Incidentally, don’t try the window. It’s laser linked. I’m sure you wouldn’t like a nasty blister on your psyche, would you?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” responded Dion. “There is a death-wish that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.”

  The domdoc, brightly efficient and on the right side of her century, departed from the room. She returned in a couple of minutes.

  “You’re so right. Juno Locke, Peace Officer, London Seven. Now will I believe in Father Green Shield.”

  Seven

  FROM the balcony, Juno gazed out over London. It was a warm, sunny afternoon. Half a mile below, autumn leaves were spiralling gently down to earth from colonies of semi-disrobed trees. The blue sky, though slashed with vapour trails and occasionally outraged by the dull distant crack of a strato-rocket on re-entry, was hung with a sad and tranquil blueness. To the east, it was possible to see where the great snake of the Thames became lost in the bleak stretches of the North Sea.

  Sitting in the comparative darkness of the room, Dion looked out through the french window at Juno. She was wearing a blue and white sari. The blue matched the sky; the white matched the vapour trails. He was intensely interested in whether it was by accident or by design.

  Juno turned to him. “I talked to the Quasimodo who neutralized you at the Vive le Sport,” she said evenly.

  “No Name? I’ll talk to him myself in a day or two,” said Dion, touching the still large bump on his head. “We’ll see whether his a priori argument is as good as his a posteriori line. The bastard wields a mean instrument of sweet reason.”

  “You’ll let him ride,” retorted Juno,

  “Suppose I don’t want to?”

  “I’ll persuade you. There can be no joy in squashing a vegetable.”

  “This vegetable has spikes.”

  “Avoid the spikes. You were an idiopath to go there in the first place.”

  “I love you,” said Dion.

  “Playback?”

  “I love you. This grade one vegetable hits me over the memory bank, and you expect me to turn all metaphorical.”

  “I interviewed him officially as a Chief Peace Officer. He claims you were conspiring with three itinerant sports to do fearful injuries to all doms. He further claims you inflicted grievous bodily harm on one dom and threatened another. Assuming a forty per cent truth quotient, your evening’s work shortlists you for a grade two.”

  Dion roired with laughter. “If that’s the score when I’m an innocent bystander, Stopes help me when I really go to travail.”

  Juno sighed, “Well, then, stripling, what is your story-board?”

  Dion told her all that had happened. But, to his surprise, she hardly appeared to be listening. The air was still, and his voice carried clearly through the open french window. But she gazed towards the horizon without a flicker of expression on her semi-profile. When he had fi
nished, she remained silent for a while. Then she took a scrap of paper from the top fold of her sari and read from it,

  “Windswept wards of brown and bronze

  whisper in avenue and lane

  of subterranean midnight suns

  and broken journeys of the brain.

  “Whisper of archaic lunar seas

  and pools of interstellar space

  that whirl behind the frozen mask,

  the stamped medallion of the face.”

  Dion gazed at her appalled. Then he dashed into the bathroom, unlatched the grille over the warm air duct and felt behind it. The antique writing pad was still there. So was the pencil. In a towering rage, he went out on to the balcony.

  “You bloody great bitch! What do you do-search the box every night?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Juno humbly. “I’m sorry. I hoped –”

  “Don’t hope,” he snapped savagely. “You’ve got enough lions to rent my body, but I’m damned if you’ll ever even see enough to pay the rent for my psyche… That was no part of the bargain.”

  He was gratified to see the watery brightness in her eyes. Impulsively, he snatched the slip of paper, tore it into tiny pieces and scattered them over the side of the balustrade. Presently, they mingled with the convoys of falling leaves.

  “They were such strange and lovely words,” she said softly.

  “Archaic doggerel in a worn-out style.”

  “Lovely, regardless.”

  “Crap. Verbal excreta—the sick imaginings of a vagrant sport.”

  She turned to him. “You see, Dion, that’s why I don’t want you to walk into a grade two… Those kind of words will die. You know that. You must know it.”

  He hit her. She didn’t move. The mark showed on her cheek.

  He hit her again. Still she didn’t move.

  For several appalling seconds they stood staring at each other.

  Then suddenly he put his arms round her and kissed her on the lips. It was only about the third time he had ever kissed a woman because he really wanted to in his entire life.