Somebody knocked on the door. It was faint because the door wasof such thick metal, but he was aware of it. His sense of hearing seemed tobe sharperafter last night's experiences. He rose, noting that he was naked andnot caring, and went to the door. He rapped on it, and the door swungoutward. Vivienne was standing there with Pao behind her.
"You people are so technologically advanced, you could find someeasier wayto get my attention," he said.
"You indicated you wanted privacy in your room," Vivienne said. "So we polarized the one-way windows and turned off the TV monitor and theintercom."
"That's nice of you," he said, thinking that they were reallytrying to sellhim on how extremely nice they were. "Show me where this intercom is, and I'll contact you when I want you. And be sure to keep the other devicesoff."
"What the Captain wishes..." Pao murmured. "What I wish now, after a good breakfast, are answers to myquestions."
Pao said, "Of course," as if he was amazed that Childe could have any reasonto think otherwise.
"I'll see you in ten minutes," he said. "You'd better tell mewhere the breakfast room is. And leave the door unlocked."
Pao looked embarrassed. He said, "I'm sorry indeed, my Captain, but you'llhave to stay in here. It's for your own safety. There are evil peoplewho want to hurt you. You cannot leave this room. Except for the Grailing, ofcourse."
"The Grailing?" "Growing that goblet. The Grail." "There is to be more of that?" "There is." "Very well then," Childe said. "I'm a prisoner." Pao bowed slightly and said, "A ward, Captain. For your own
protection."
Childe closed the door in their faces and woke up Sybil. She didnot want to get out of bed, but he told her he wanted her to hear everything thatwould be said. He started towards the bathroom but stopped when he saw a hairypointedhead sticking out from under the bed. It looked vaguely like asleeping blackdog about the size of a Great Dane. He rapped it on its wet doggynose, and itopened its eyes wide.
"What the hell are you and what the hell are you doing under mybed?" he said.
The eyes were a dark brown and looked familiar. But the animalthat crawled out from under the bed was unfamiliar. Its front part resembled agiant waterspaniel, and the back part was monkeylike. It stood up on its semi- human feet and staggered over to a chair and sat down. It leaned its shaggyfloppy-earedhead on its two paws. The monkey part was hairy but not so hairy itentirelyconcealed a pair of human testicles and a warty penis.
"I was hungry," Childe said aloud. "But seeing you, whatever youare..."
He felt repulsed but not scared. The thing did not lookdangerous, not, atleast, at the moment. Its weariness and its big wet gentle eyes addedup toharmlessness.
One thing its presence did for him. It reaffirmed the sense ofalienness, ofunhumanity, about these people.
Sybil did not seem frightened; he would have expected her to bescreamingwith hysteria.
He said, "Was this your bed partner last night, Sybil?" "Part of the time," she said. "There was more than one?" The only one missing from the ceremony, as far as he knew, was
Plugger.
"I don't think so," she said. "He seemed to have changed intothis about a half hour before we quit."
He did not have to ask her what they had quit doing.
"He said he was almost emptied," Sybil said. "He had been to thethree Toc prisoners before he came to me. I suppose he buggered them, I mean, he appliedhis limp prick to their anuses and shocked them with the onlypleasant shockthat I know of. Then he came to me."
Childe did not feel that he was in a position to rebuke her. Whatgood wouldit do, anyway? She took sex where she found it and enjoyed it. And all the time professing that he was her only true love. The truth was, sex was heronly truelove. Impersonal sex.
The unbelievable element in this was not so much the metamorphosis ofPlugger into this dog-monkey thing as it was her calm acceptance ofthe metamorphosis. She should have been in a deep state of psychic shock.
"Why did Plugger feel it necessary to stimulate the prisoners?" he said.
"He told me that everybody in the house had to be hooked into theGrailingand that only if the prisoners and I had sex with an Og could this bedone."
A voice spoke from a jade statuette on a table against the wallnear the bed: "Captain, is there anything you want?"
"Yes!" he said, facing the statuette. "Get this thing out ofhere! Pluggeris making me sick!"
A moment later, the door swung out, and the blond man who hadbeen first in the line entered. Behind him came two women holding trays. The mantook one of Plugger's paws and led him out while the women served the food. Thecoffee was excellent, and the bacon and eggs and toast and cantaloupe weredelicious.
While he ate, he looked steadily at Sybil. She chattered on as ifunaware of his scrutiny. She had certainly acquired a set of stainless steelnerves duringher long imprisonment.
After breakfast, she went into the bathroom to fix herself up forthe day, as she put it. Pao and Vivienne entered. The first thing she did wasto get ontoher knees before him, murmuring, "Your permission, Captain!" Shekissed the head of his penis.
He did not object. When in Rome, and so on. The custom certainlybeat that of kissing the hand of royalty.
Pao touched his penis with one finger, also murmuring, "Yourpermission, Captain."
That was where the power and the glory were stored, Childethought. Nowonder that Igescu and Grasatchow and Dolores del Osorojo and MagdaHolyani hadbeen unable to resist using him sexually. The Ogs were supposed tohave left him alone to develop into something, according to what he had garneredfrom the brief conversation between Vivienne and the leader of the three who had rescued him from her.
He wondered if the two werewolves had intended to kill him, as hehad thought when they attacked. Maybe they had only meant to herd himback to his prison. And when he had been jumped by that wereleopard while he waskilling
Igescu in his oak-log coffin, she may have just been trying to drivehim away.
It was obvious now that he was supposed to develop into aCaptain. But therewere a number of questions to which he required answers. For onething, whatabout those abandoned cars in front of his house?
Vivienne said, "Several years ago, we had about half of a grailin our possession. It was the result of several thousands of yearscollecting thematerials needed to make the metal. Then the Tocs stole it. We pursued them andcornered the one with the grail after killing his two companions. Hehad run into a railroad yard to get away from us, and when he saw he couldnot escape, he threw the grail into a gondola full of junk. At that time, we didnot know that. Later, we got the information from him."
"I can imagine," said Childe, closing his eyes and shuddering.
"By then, the grail and the junk had gone into a steel millfurnace. We had to do some very intense detective work, very expensive, too, and wefound that that particular load had ended up as metal in a certain number ofcars of a certain make and model. So..."
"But you did not know which cars exactly?" Childe said. He wasbeginning tounderstand.
"Luckily, they were cars which were transported to this area. Wehad narrowed the number to about three hundred. And so we started to steal them and leave them in front of your house. We were lucky, very lucky. Threeof the cars contained traces of the metal in the grail. They activated when youwent near them, but you couldn't see that because the paint hid the glow, whichwas extremely feeble, anyway.