[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

and looked at himself in the nearest mirror. The bishop didn't take half
enough exercise, he thought, looking at the waistline. He'd soon fixthat . No
excuse for a man's getting out of shape that way.
He strolled out, feeling a bit exposed with his white skin among all these
bronzed people, but not showing it in his well-disciplined face. A few stared.
Maybe it was his whiteness; maybe they thought they recognized the bishop. He
plunged in and headed out. He swam like a porpoise, but shortness of breath
soon reminded him that the bishop's body wasn't up to Allister Park's
standards. He cut loose with a few casual curses, since there was nobody to
overhear, and swam back.
As he dripped out onto the sand, a policeman approached, thundering: "You!
You're under stoppage!"
"What for?"
"Shameful outputting!"
"But look at those!" protested Park, waving at the other bathers.
"That's just it! Come along, now!"
Park went, forgetting his anger in concern as to the best method of avoiding
Page 92
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
trouble. If the judges were MacSvensson men, and MacSvensson was out to expose
him . . . He dressed under the cop's eagle eye, thanking his stars he'd had
the foresight to wear non-clerical clothes.
* * *
The cop ordered: "Give your name and address to the bookholder."
"Allister Park, 125 Isleif Street, New Belfast."
The clerk filled out a blank; the cop added a few lines to it. Park and the
cop went and sat down for a while, waiting. Park watched the legal procedure
of this little court keenly.
The clerk called: "Thane Park!" and handed the form up to the judge. The cop
went over and whispered to the judge. The judge said: "All women will kindly
leave the courtroom!" There were only three; they went out.
"Allister Park," said the judge, "you are marked with shameful outputting.
How do you plead?"
"I don't understand this, your honor I mean your ærness," said Park. "I
wasn't doing anything the other people on the beach weren't."
The judge frowned. "Knick Woodson says you afterthockly exposed uh " The
judge looked embarrassed. "You afterthockly output your uh " he lowered his
voice. "Your navel," he hissed. The judge blushed.
"Is that considered indecent?"
"Don't try to be funny. It's not in good taste. I ask you again, how do you
plead?"
Park hesitated a second. "Do you recognize the plea ofnon vult ?"
"What's that? Latin? We don't use Latin here."
"Well then a plea that I didn't mean any harm, and am throwing myself on the
mercy of the court."
"Oh, you mean a plea of good will. That's not usually used in a freerighter's
court, but I don't see why you can't. What's your excuse?"
"You see, your honor, I've been living out in Dakotia for many years, and
I've rather gotten out of civilized habits. But I'll catch on quickly enough.
If you want a character reference, my friend Ivor MacSvensson will give me
one."
The judge's eyebrows went up, like a buzzard hoisting its wings for the
takeoff. "You ken Thane MacSvensson?"
"Oh, sure."
"Hrrrmph. Well. He's out of town. But uh if that's so, I'm sure you're a good
burger. I hereby sentence you to ten days in jail, sentence withheld until I
can check your mooding, and thereafter on your good acting. You are free."
* * *
Like a good thane's thane, Eric Dunedin kept his curiosity to himself. This
became a really heroic task when he was sent out to buy a bottle of soluble
hair dye, a false mustache, and a pair of phoney spectacles with flat glass
Page 93
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
panes in them.
There was no doubt about it; the boss was a changed man since his
reappearance. He had raised Dunedin's salary, and except for occasional
outbursts of choler treated him very considerately. The weird accent had
largely disappeared; but this hard, inscrutable man wasn't the bishop Dunedin
had known.
Park presented himself in his disguise to the renting agent at 125 Isleif. He
said: "Remember me? I was here this morning asking about a room." The man said
sure he remembered him; he never forgot a face. Park rented a small two-room
apartment, calling himself Allister Park. Later in the evening he took some
books, a folder of etchings, and a couple of suitcases full of clothes over.
When he returned to the bishop's house he found another car with a couple of
large watchful men waiting at the curb. Rather than risk contact with a
hostile authority, he went back to his new apartment and read. Around midnight
he dropped in at a small hash house for a cup of coffee. In fifteen minutes he
was calling the waitress "sweetie-pie." The etchings worked like a charm.
* * *
Dunedin looked out the window and announced: "Two wains and five knicks,
Hallow. The twoth wain drew up just now. The men in it look as if they'd eat
their own mothers without salt."
Park thought. He had to get out somehow. He had looked into the subject of
search warrants, illegal entry, and so forth, as practiced in the Bretwaldate
of Vinland, and was reasonably sure the detectives wouldn't invade his house.
The laws of Vinland gave what Park thought was an impractically exaggerated
sanctity to a man's home, but he was glad of that as things were. However, if
he stepped out, the pack would be all over him with charges of drunken
driving, conspiracy to violate the tobacco tax, and anything else they could
think of.
He telephoned the "knicks' branch," or police department, and spoke falsetto:
"Are you the knicks? Glory be to Patrick and Bridget! I'm Wife Caroline
Chisholm, at 79 Mercia, and we have a crazy man running up and down the halls
naked with an ax. Sure he's killed my poor husband already; spattered his
brains all over the hall he did, and I'm locked in my room and looking for him
to break in any time." Park stamped on the floor, and continued: "Eeek! That's
the monster now, trying to break the door down. Oh, hurry, I pray. He's
shouting that he's going to chop me in little bits and feed me to his cat! . .
. Yes, 79 Mercia. Eeeee! Save me!"
He hung up and went back to the window. In five minutes, as he expected, the
gongs of the police wains sounded, and three of the vehicles skidded around
the corner and stopped in front of No. 79, down the block. Funny hats tumbled
out like oranges from a burst paper bag, and raced up the front steps with
guns and ropes enough to handle Gargantua. The five who had been watching the
house got out of their cars too and ran down the block.
Allister Park lit his pipe, and strode briskly out the front door, down the
street away from the disturbance, and around the corner.
* * *
Park was announced, as Bishop Scoglund, to Dr. Edwy Borup. The head of the
Psychophysical Institute was a smallish, bald, snaggle-toothed man, who smiled
with an uneasy cordiality.
Park smiled back. "Wonderful work you've been doing, Dr. Borup." After
handing out a few more vague compliments, he got down to business. "I
Page 94
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
understand that poor Dr. Noggle is now one of your patients?"
"Umm uh yes, Reverend Hallow. He is. Uh his lusty working seems to have brock
on a brainly breakdown."
Park sighed. "The good Lord will see him through, let us hope. I wonder if I
could see him? I had some small kenning of him before his trouble. He once
told me he'd like my spiritual guidance, when he got around to it." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

zanotowane.pl

doc.pisz.pl

pdf.pisz.pl

razem.keep.pl