CHAPTER 3

"'The portions of a woman's anatomy,'" Grundy was singing when Jimmy entered the bar, "'that appeal to man's depravity, are fashioned with considerable care....'" He broke off his song when he saw Comstock. "Buddy boy!"

Bowdler rushed over and threw his arms around Jimmy, "How's the old kid?"

"Fine, just fine. How about a drink?" Comstock found himself asking, just as though he'd been a bar-room habitue all his life.

The corpse revivers served their functions admirably, Jimmy found. In fact in just short of an hour, he was high on a cloud, feeling no pain.

That was when Grundy, whom Jimmy had thought was quite drunk, had drawn Bowdler and Comstock to a quiet table in the back of the saloon. Carrying their drinks they joined him. Jimmy was puzzled, for suddenly Grundy had become very serious. Bowdler seemed to know what was in the wind.

When they were seated comfortably and Jimmy was sipping happily at his drink, Grundy looked around conspiratorially before he whispered, "Jimmy, how old is The Grandfather?"

The question was a double shocker. First because Jimmy was positive that this was the first time that holy name had ever been mentioned in such unhallowed precincts, and second because the veriest infant knew the answer. He said, "The Grandfather was, is and always will be."

Grundy grinned. "How do you know that to be true?"

Comstock's world stopped spinning. His breath froze in his lungs. Then he felt a heart attack coming on. He fell face forward onto the floor.

Bowdler said, "Now see what you've done! You should have led up to it more gradually."

"Let's see if we can revive him." Grundy's normally jolly face was set and strained.

When Comstock opened his eyes and felt consciousness return he found that his friends had him propped up in his chair and were pouring liquor down his throat. Gasping, he spluttered, "All right, all right. I'm okay now."

There was a pause, then Comstock asked, "What happened to me?"

The two other men avoided his eyes. Bowdler said at long last, "I guess you're not quite drunk enough."

He ordered another round of drinks and as they waited for the elderly waitress to bring them to the table Jimmy found himself remembering what had happened.

The only thing that prevented his passing out again was that the s..y waitress returned with their corpse revivers. He took a big slug, considered her bent back as she walked away and said, "I ... seem to remember your asking me something about...."

"I did." Grundy's face was set with determination. "Now hold onto yourself, laddy boy. How do you know that The Grandfather has always been and always will be?"

The traumatic shock was strong again but he had drunk some more and so was able to hold on while all the blood drained out of his head. He finally managed to say weakly, "Because everyone knows that to be true." Life without Grandfather was inconceivable. Who would look after them? Protect them? To whom could a man turn if not to The Grandfather?

Grundy and Bowdler exchanged meaningful glances. "If He always was, how come there's no record of His having made the trip from Earth?"

* * * * *

A trifle drunkenly, Comstock considered the question. Earth? Oh, yes that was the fable, the children's tale that his people had emigrated from some other planet. He had dismissed the whole thing as the usual kind of Father Goose story that kiddies were told. Aloud he asked, "You mean you two think there really is another inhabited planet?"

"Think?" Both men spoke simultaneously, but it was Grundy who continued. "We know it. Look, Jimmy, we're risking a great deal, and before we go on, we'll have to swear you to secrecy. Whether you join us in what we have in mind, or not, you must swear on your father's memory that you will be silent as the grave...."

They waited, poised on the edge of their chairs with nervousness.

When he deliberated so long that their nerves were jangling, Bowdler said, "Look, Jimmy, do you want to have to live and die as a drunk, just because it's the only known cure for your disease?"

Things were popping too fast for Comstock to be able to grapple with them intelligently. He mumbled, "Nothin' wrong with being a drunk. I like it fine."

Grundy sprang to the attack. "That's too bad, old man, because it means the cure won't work. You should know that, the doc should have told you! The vice must be distasteful or the cure doesn't work!"

Looking back on the Comstock of yesterday, Jimmy could see why the doctor had not felt it necessary to make this point. It certainly had been unpredictable that he'd enjoy drinking. But it was his new friends who had made it fun.... Had they done it deliberately? Too much to grapple with ... he'd better wait and see what they had in mind. He said, "I swear to keep silent."

Bowdler said, "Go ahead, Grundy, it's your story." Parenthetically, he explained to Jimmy, "You know, or I guess maybe you don't, that before Bowdler here, got sick, he was Head Genealogist."

"No kidding!" Comstock was amazed. Head Genealogist! Whew ... that was a post that almost ranked with being a Father! Bowdler was ... or had been, a big man!

"As part of my job," Bowdler said, "I went back to the beginning. I checked the passenger list on the Bon Aventure, the space ship that brought the original Thirty to this planet from Earth."

Gulping down his drink, hurriedly Comstock ordered another round. To mention the Thirty ... it was almost as blasphemous as talking about The Grandfather! These two were dangerous men. He'd listen to what they said, but then he must, literally _must_, report them to the authorities! He was sorry for them for he liked them, but blasphemy like this had to be punished.

Bowdler went on, "That was the first time the thought occurred to me to wonder about ole Grandpop!"

Grandpop! Blasphemy piled on blasphemy. Comstock could feel his ears burning.

"And you know something," Bowdler lowered his voice to the veriest whisper of communicable sound, "There was no record of His having made the trip! None at all!"

* * * * *

The silence dragged itself out. Comstock was in a condition bordering on insanity. Although he managed to keep his face still. The temerity of these two ... apostates!

"As a matter of cold brutal fact," Bowdler said broodingly, "there is no record of The Grandfather at all until about five hundred years ago! I checked, I read books that no one, absolutely no one has even looked at for centuries ... and by Grandpop himself, there's not even a mention of Him, till about a hundred years after they killed off the last scientists."

No one had ever before discussed these things openly, or covertly, with Comstock. A new emotion was beginning to make itself felt. He was becoming interested. The last scientists ... he remembered all about them from school. The monsters! It was a good thing they had been wiped out. But even so it was exciting hearing it talked about. He leaned forward on the table and sipped his drink more slowly. There was plenty of time to report Bowdler and Grundy. After all, the authorities would want as much information as he could get.

Grundy spoke for the first time in a long time. He said, "That's where I come in. I used to be custodian of the hall of records."

Jimmy felt a little better. After all, a janitor! His job before he'd become ill had been better than that. He had been a law clerk at the Bureau of Commandments ... it didn't compare with the office that Bowdler had held, and yet it was certainly a lot better than.... But Grundy was speaking. He said, "Bowdler got his heart attack when he began to wonder about where The Grandfather had come from. I got mine when I was ordered by the Board of Fathers...." "Oops," Comstock thought, a janitor working for the Fathers was nothing to be sneezed at, he'd better wait and see what was coming.

Grundy went on, "The only reason I even looked at the record I was supposed to burn was because I had glanced at it and had seen a G. I wondered if it had something to do with my family...." He put his hands to his forehead. "If only I hadn't ... I'd still be happily at work ... with no heart trouble ... and with no need to drink this stuff...." He gulped down some of his drink.

"Buck up, old man," Bowdler said. "What's done is done."

"You're right. I must be a man." He shook his head dolefully. "It wasn't about my family at all. It was about the Gantrys ... and you know how powerful that blood line is. I don't have to tell you! Ever since Elmer the First, they've been on top of the heap!"

Comstock nodded. As if any sane person would even question the qualifications of the Gantrys to be leaders! These two men were even more dangerous than he had suspected. It was up to him to keep his mouth shut and his ears open, by The Grandfather it was!

* * * * *

The furrows in Grundy's forehead were deeper now. His elbows on the table, his head in his hands, he looked off into the middle distance. He said, and he was almost speaking to himself, his voice was so low, "It was only when I examined the records that I began to wonder if it was truly ordained that the Gantrys were the leaders and would be the leaders, under The Grandfather's eagle eye. Funny," he mused, "all it takes is the tiniest notion to question these eternal verities, and then without your even being aware of it, the questions begin to demand answers...."

Bowdler broke in. "That was the mood Grundy was in when he and I met here in the saloon. Two men, both possessed of a tiny bit of knowledge not shared by anyone else on New Australia, and by chance we met here...."

Jimmy drained his glass and the action of tilting his head back brought the level of his eyes higher than it had been. That was the only reason he saw the face that was framed in a little window at the back of the bar-room.

His breath shot out of his lungs as though he had been hit by the hind legs of an astrobat. He gulped, "Grundy! Bowdler!"

Their heads swivelled and they too saw what had frightened him.

"One of the Father's Right Arms!" Bowdler said. Then, with a visible attempt to keep his voice down and his face from showing the fear that gripped all three of them, he said, "This is what we had to be prepared for; are you with us, Comstock?"

Now was the moment for decision. If, Jimmy thought, he were to act bravely, throw himself on the two apostates and wait for the R.A. to get to them, he could then explain what horrors the two evil men had been discussing. But, and the canker of indecision gnawed at him, but, what after all had he really learned? Only that these two men were questioning the eternal verities. There was more to it, much more, of that he was convinced.

There was perhaps an inch of liquor left in Jimmy's glass. Draining it, he made the decision which he was instantly to regret. He said, "I'm with you two. What shall we do?" Better, he had decided, to go along with Grundy and Bowdler and pretend to be part of their horrid scheme, that was the only way that later on he could report fully to the Fathers.

Grundy and Bowdler smiled at each other. Grundy said, "He's with us! Let's go!"

* * * * *

All this time the R.A. had been watching them, his little eyes preternaturally alert, his gaunt hand steadily holding the gun that pointed straight at them, his attention completely focussed on the trio.

Bowdler leaned forward on the table till his head was close to Jimmy's. He whispered, "When I say three, duck to the floor. Stay there till I grab you."

All around the three men the life of the saloon went on blithely. The other heart disease patients were drinking; some solemnly, some gaily, the aged waitresses were busy with their Hebe-like duties, the bartenders were mixing drinks, but to Jimmy, the whole of life ... and perhaps death were contingent upon the next three seconds.

"One." Bowdler's voice whispered.

Jimmy could see Grundy bunching his heavy muscles for some kind of action.

"Two."

Watching the R.A. out of the corner of his eyes, Jimmy wondered if it was just his imagination or if he had really seen the R.A.'s trigger finger tighten on the stungun's trigger.

"Three!"