The convention had been called by the terrestrial Devil precisely to demonstrate his new city, for Slippage City had originality, it had facets of devilry which he felt sure would be instructive to his interstellar colleagues. On the whole, the convention gave him a good hearing, but the Devil from α Serpentis was not convinced, and it was Serpens himself whom our terrestrial Devil wanted most to convince. The two of them had still been arguing the matter while they walked down the stairs from the mezzanine floor, they had been arguing as Polly had smiled on them.
“There, look at that,” exclaimed Serpens. “That’s a good-looker for you, and can you have her when you want her, will she come running at the snap of your fingers? Will she my fanny. Let me tell you, Earth, my boy, your system is a washout. That girl will get herself married. Someone else, not you, will work on her exactly the way he feels like working. Okay, so she’ll be divorced, so what? She’ll get married again, twice, three times, maybe. Then, at the end of it all, she’s yours, spoiled goods. I like ’em young and fresh myself, same as vegetables.”
At this the terrestrial Devil became a little angry. He could have one little girl for the taking, he pointed out, anytime he wanted. What his system did was to give quantity, hundreds of thousands, soon millions. The Devil from α Serp replied that, while he must acknowledge it to be largely a matter of taste, he himself preferred one tasty dish to a veritable mountain of indigestible stuff. Then he broke off the conversation in a rather pointed way and went over to chat with the Devil from β Orionis.
After this there was no other alternative, of course, but for the terrestrial Devil to give an open demonstration to the whole of his convention of all that could be done in Slippage City to a girl like Polly Warburg, in fact, to Polly Warburg herself. Wheels were made to revolve. Polly received a communication the following day from a glamour agency, one she had tried to interest in the first place. The offer from the agency was a distinctly good one, in fact, a really excellent one, as a thoroughly well-established independent agent confirmed to her.
Polly was naturally elated to find her talents so worthily, if tardily, recognized. Her agent pointed out a possible hitch in the fine print attached to the contract which Polly signed, to the effect that the agreement would become null and void should a certain wealthy backer of the glamour project withdraw his support. The clause was quite a normal one, the agent said, not to worry about it.
The following day the rather attractive young man who was handling the matter “from the other side” told Polly, in the strictest confidence, that he saw no prospect of support being withdrawn if she could see her way to affording the wealthy backer a few slight favors, in fact, a weekend of slight favors. The backer, he said, was a splendid, jolly fellow, generous and openhanded, humorous and gay, indeed, a girl could do worse.
Polly, in her innocence, had been deceived before, but always by verbal promises, never after an actual contract had been signed. She was now of a divided mind. In the past she had given of her person without receiving the promised reward. Was it sensible to stint a wealthy backer who surely must produce a real reward? On the other hand, once bitten, twice shy. Polly was suspicious now about all men and their motives. In a divided mind, she went to see the older girl, the girl from her hometown. The older girl told her the people she was dealing with had a “good name in the business.” As for the wealthy backer, what of it? Wasn’t it done every day? She’d be a little fool to pass up such an opportunity.
So it came about that Polly agreed to meet her backer, for a weekend’s assignment at a pleasant house on the best of the City’s beaches.
The Devil, our own terrestrial Devil, turned up for the assignment in a well-groomed condition. He turned up in human shape, for there was no point in frightening the girl out of her wits, not right at the beginning. For the first hour or so Polly was nervous, but the Devil’s conversation was so well judged to the level of her intellect that soon she felt quite at her ease. She didn’t like to drink too much in the circumstances, of course. When the Devil pressed her in a jocular way, she accepted “a small one.” In volume it may have been small. In impact it had a mule’s kick.
The Devil then went about his business with a characteristic skill and efficiency. In a flash he had the clothes off the girl, burned to a cinder, they were, and without harming the girl. She giggled as he tumbled her into bed. She giggled louder and louder as the affair prospered. Indeed, it suddenly occurred to the Devil how very very warm this girl was, temperature-wise. Her nether quarters were heating up far too much for his liking. It was all a little like the outburst of some enormous star, a supernova, up to fantastic temperatures in the twinkling of an eye. The girl had him now in an iron grip, just where he could least afford an iron grip. Too late, the Devil realized he’d been tricked. It had all been done in the drink, the replacement of Polly Warburg by this ultraviolet-hot she-bitch. He knew exactly who had planned it, α Serp, of course, the Dean of Devils.
There was just time for the Devil to regret bitterly his decision to come in human shape before the thing went beyond all bounds. With the shriek of a tornado, he broke the iron grip. His momentum took him out through the house window. To cool off a bit, he drove himself like a mighty blast through the air, his lower quarters aglow like the jet of a rocket. Hollering and screaming, he careered like a jumping firecracker over the thronged streets and boulevards of the city of his creation. People looked up in wonderment, thinking there was no telling where progress would lead to next.
Polly Warburg saw nothing of all this, the real Polly, for she awoke only some hours later, to find herself sleeping in the old bed in the old house in the old hometown. She had no memory of what had happened in Slippage City. Nor was she aware that they’d better like it hot, the folks on α Serpentis.
The Ax
The weather was good, the skies clear, the air temperature not too high for uphill walking. A party of four young people, two men and two girls, approached the top of the mountain. The summit cairn was already tenanted by a brown-faced man, who seemed almost infinitely old to those young people. They passed the time of day, and the brown-faced man made the obvious joke about getting himself a lady companion. Then he set off down the gently sloping northern side, leaving the young people to laugh at a still better joke—the ice ax dangling across his back. Was the old boy really expecting snow in the middle of the summer?
Soon the young people were running down the same northern side of the mountain. It was good going, so they made a fast pace, gaining ground on the old man. Five hundred feet down from the summit, a subsidiary, twisting rocky ridge branched off to the right. It led down through the northern cliffs to the floor of the magnificent corrie below. It was not a difficult route by real climbing standards, but it needed constant care. The young people, as they charged down the more gentle upper slopes, were surprised to see the old man turn off the easier main ridge onto the subsidiary ridge. This was the route they intended to take themselves.