Pagan Passions by Randall Garrett and Laurence M. Janifer (best novels to read for beginners TXT) 📕

space and hit Alvin Sherdlap squarely on the nose.

The results were eminently satisfactory. Alvin uttered a sharp cry, let go of Gerda and fell over backward. His legs stood up straight in the air for a second, and then came down to hit the ground. He was silent. Gerda stared down at him, too tired and confused to make any coherent picture out of what was going on.

Forrester sighed happily to himself. That, he thought, ought to take care of Alvin for a while.

"Lord Dionysus," Kathy asked in that same innocent tone, "what are you pointing at out there?"

The girl was decidedly irritating, Forrester thought. "Pointing?" he said. "Ah, yes." He thought fast. "My target-tosser. I fear that his religious fervor has led to his being overcome."

The girls all turned round to look but, of course, Forrester thought, they could see nothing at all in the darkness.

"My goodness," Bette said.

"But if he's unconscious," Kathy put in, "why were you pointing at him?"

Forrester told himself that the next time the Sabbatical Bacchanal was held, he would see to it that an intelligence test was given to every candidate for Dionysian Escort, and anyone who scored as high on it as Kathy would be automatically disqualified.

He had to think of some excuse for looking at the man. And then he had it—the game he had planned. It was really quite a nice little idea.

"I hate to see the poor mortal miss out on the rest[115] of the evening," Forrester said, "even if he is asleep now. And I think we may have a use for him."

He gestured gently with one hand.

Gerda and Alvin Sherdlap didn't even notice what was happening. They were much too busy arguing, Alvin claiming that somebody had slapped him on the nose—"and pretty hard, too, let me tell you!"—and Gerda swearing she hadn't done it. The fact that Ed Symes's snores were fading quietly into the distance dawned on neither of them.

But Ed was in flight. He rose five feet above the ground, still unconscious and snoring, and sped unerringly across the air, like a large, fat arrow shot from a bow, in the direction of Forrester and the circle of girls.

He appeared overhead suddenly, and Forrester controlled him so that he drifted downward as delicately as an overweight snowflake, eddying in the slight breeze while the girls gaped at him. Forrester allowed the body to drop the last six inches out of control, so that Ed Symes landed with a heavy thump in the center of the circle. But no harm was done. Ed was very far gone indeed; he merely snored on.

"There," Forrester said.

Millicent blinked. "Where?" she said. "Him?"

"Certainly," Forrester said in a pleased tone. "He's a good deal too noisy, though, don't you think?"

"He snores a lot," Judy offered in a tentative voice, "if that's what you mean, Lord Dionysus."

"Exactly. And I don't see any reason to put up with it. Instead, well just put him in stasis for a little while, and that'll keep him quiet." Again he waved one hand, almost carelessly. Ed Symes's snores vanished immediately, leaving the world a cleaner, purer, quieter place to live in, and his body became as rigid as if he were a statue.

"There," Forrester said again with satisfaction.

"Now what?" Kathy asked.

"Now we straighten him out."[116]

One more pass, and Ed Symes's arms were at his sides, his legs stretched straight out. Only his stomach projected above the rigid lines of his body. Forrester thought he had never seen a more pleasing sight.

Dorothy gasped. "Is he—is he dead?"

Forrester looked at her reprovingly. "Dead? Now what would I do that for, after he's been so helpful and all?"

"I don't know," she muttered.

"Well," Forrester said, "he's not dead. He's just in stasis—in a state of totally suspended animation. As soon as I take the spell off, he'll be all right. But I don't think I'll take it off just yet. I've got plans for my little target-tosser."

He reached over and touched the stiff body. It seemed to rise a fraction of an inch, floating on the tips of the grass. The wind stirred it a little, but it didn't float away.

"I took some of his weight off," Forrester explained, "so he'll be a little easier to handle."

Now Ed Symes was behaving as if he were a statue carved out of cork. With a quick flip, Forrester turned the statue over. The effect was exactly what he wanted. Ed did not touch the grass at any point except one: the point where his protuberant stomach most protruded. Fore and aft, the rest of him was balanced stiffly in the air.

Forrester gazed at the sight, feeling fulfilled. "Now," he said with a note of decision in his voice, "we are going to play Spin-the-Bottle!"

The girls giggled and laughed.

"You mean with him?" Bette said.

Forrester sighed. "That's right," he said patiently. "With him."

He got into position and looked up at the girls. "This one's just for practice, so we can all see how it works." He gave Symes's extended foot a little push.

Whee! he thought. Round and round the gentleman[117] went, spinning quietly on his stomach, revolving in a merry fashion while the girls and Forrester watched silently. At last he slowed and stopped, his nose pointing at Bette and his toes at Dorothy.

"Oh, my!" Dorothy said. "He's pointing at me!"

"He is not!" Bette said decisively. "His head points my way!"

"But he—"

"Temper, temper," Forrester said. "No arguments. That one didn't count, anyhow—it was just to see how he worked. And I do think he works very nicely, don't you?"

"Oh, yes, Lord Dionysus," Kathy said. There was the same undertone in her voice, as if she were silently laughing at everything. She was, he told himself, an extremely unlikable young woman.

The other girls agreed in a chorus. They were still studying the stiff body of Ed Symes. His stomach had made a little depression in the grass as he whirled, and he was now nicely bedded down for a real spin. Forrester rubbed his hands together.

"Fine," he said. "Now, all of you are going to be judges."

"Me, too?" Bette asked.

Forrester nodded. "The head will be the determining factor. If our little Mr. Bottle's head points to any one of you, that is the one I'll choose first."

"See?" Bette said. "I told you it was his head."

"Well, I couldn't tell before anybody said so," Dorothy said. "And anyhow, I—"

"Now, now, girls," Forrester said, feeling momentarily like a Girl Scout troop leader. "Let's listen to the rules, shall we? And then we can get down to playing the game." He took a deep breath. "Isn't this fun?"

The girls giggled.

"Good," Forrester said. "If Mr. Bottle's head ends up between two of you, then the other five girls will have to decide which girl the head's nearer to. The two girls[118] involved will remain absolutely quiet during the judging, and if the other five can't come to a unanimous agreement, we'll spin Mr. Bottle again. Understand?"

"You mean if the head points at me, I get picked," Bette said. "And if the head goes in between me and somebody else, all the other girls have to decide who gets picked."

It was a masterly summation.

"Right," Forrester said. "I'm going to give Mr. Bottle a spin. This one counts. We'll have the second spin, and the rest of them, later."

"Gee!" Millicent whispered. "Isn't this exciting?"

Forrester ignored the comment. "And remember, I give you my word as a God that I will not interfere in any way with the workings of chance. Is that clearly understood?"

The girls murmured agreement.

"Now," Forrester said, "all you girls get into a nice circle. I'll stand outside."

The girls took a minute or two arranging themselves in a circle, arguing about who was going to sit next to whom, and whose very proximity was bound to bring bad luck. The argument gave Forrester a chance to check on Gerda again. She was whispering softly to Alvin, but they weren't touching each other. Forrester turned up his hearing to get a better idea of what was going on.

They had progressed, in the usual manner, from argument to life-history. Gerda was telling Alvin all about her past.

"... but don't misunderstand me, Alvin. It's just that I was in love with a very fine young man. An Athenan, he was. A wonderful man, really wonderful. But he—he was killed in a subway accident some months ago."

"Gosh," Alvin said. "I'm sorry."

"I—I have to tell you this, Alvin, so you'll understand. I still love him. He was wonderful. And until I get over it, I simply can't ..."[119]

Feeling both ashamed of himself and pleased, as well as sorry for the poor girl, Forrester quit listening. The Gods had arranged his simulated death, which, of course, had been a necessity. His disappearance had to be explained somehow. But he didn't like the idea of Gerda having to suffer so much.

My God! Forrester thought. She still loves me!

It was the first time he had ever heard her say so, flatly, right out in the open. He wanted to bound and leap and cavort—but he couldn't. He had to go back to his seven beautiful girls.

He had never felt less like it in his life.

But at least, he consoled himself, Gerda was keeping Alvin at arm's length. She was being faithful to his memory.

Faithful—because she loved him.

Grimly, he turned back to the girls. "Well, are we all ready now?"

Kathy looked up at him brightly. "Lord Dionysus, it's so dark I can't even see for sure what's going on. How can we do any judging, if we can't see?"

Forrester cursed Kathy for pointing out the flaw in his arrangements. Then, making a nice impartial job of it, he cursed himself for forgetting that what was perfectly visible to him was dark night to mortals.

"We can clear that up," he said quickly. "As a matter of fact, I was just getting around to it. We will now proceed to shed a little light on the subject—said subject being our old friend Mr. Bottle."

The trick had been taught to him by Venus, but he'd never had a chance to practice it. This was his first real experience with it, and he could only hope that it went off as it was supposed to.

He stepped into the middle of the circle, near Ed Symes's stiff body and held his right hand above his head, thumb and forefinger spread an inch apart and the other three fingers folded into his palm.[120]

Then he concentrated.

A long second ticked by, while Forrester tried to apply even more neural pressure. Then ...

A small ball of light appeared between his thumb and forefinger, a yellow, cold sphere of fire that shed its radiance over the whole group. Carefully, he withdrew his hand, not daring to breathe. The ball of yellow fire remained in position, hanging in mid-air.

The muffled gasp from the circle of girls was, Forrester told himself, a definite tribute.

"Now don't worry about it, girls," he said. "That light's only visible to the eight of us. Nobody else can see it."

There was another little series of gasps.

Forrester grinned. "Can everybody see each other?"

A murmur of agreement.

"Can everybody see Mr. Bottle here?"

Another murmur.

"In that case, let's go." He stepped outside the circle of girls, reached in again for Ed Symes's foot, and set the gentleman spinning once more.

Symes spun with a blinding speed, making a low, whistling noise. Forrester watched the body spin dizzily, just as anxious as the girls were to find out who the first winner was going to be. He thought of Millicent, who chewed gum and made it pop. He thought of Bette, the inveterate explainer and double-take expert. He tried to think of Dorothy and Jayne and Beverly and Judy, but the thought of Kathy, irritating and uncomfortable and too damned bright for her own good, got annoyingly in the way.

He was rather glad he had promised not to use his powers on the spinning figure. He was not at all sure which one of the girls he would have picked for Number One.

And he had, after all, given his word as a God. True, he wasn't quite a God, only a demi-Deity. But he did feel that Dionysus might object to his name being used[121] in vain. A promise, he told himself sternly and with some relief, was a promise.

After some time, Mr. Ed (Bottle) Symes began to slow perceptibly. The whistling died as Symes began rotating about his abdominal axis at a more and more leisurely rate. Seconds passed. Symes faced Bette ... Millicent ... Kathy ... Judy ... Bette again ...

Forrester watched, fascinated.

Finally, Symes came to a halt. All the elaborate instructions in case the Bottle ended up pointing between two girls had been, Forrester saw, totally unnecessary. Symes's head was pointing at one girl, and one girl alone.

She gave a little squeal of delight. The others began chorusing their congratulations at once, looking no more convincing than the runners-up in