” . . . only thing we can do is quarantine the pyramid. Evacuate everybody far enough away that its powers—the Krim call it prukrin, which seems to refer to some kind of psychic energies, which bears some similarities, as near as I can determine, to Jung’s notions concerning the collective unconscious although—”
Blither, blither—damn all scholars, anyway!
” . . . hasten to add that I’m just speculating. But what I do know is that it relies on psychic input from the people it snatches. And it can only snatch people within a certain range. So evacuation—quarantine—is an effective way—”
Tremelo saw Liz De Beer come up behind Jerry, cradling her arm. She was scowling at him. The expression held an odd mixture of fondness and exasperation, almost like that of a wife dealing with one of her husband’s foibles.
“Stop lecturing, Jerry!” she said firmly. “You’re supposed to tell Lamont’s wife about him, remember? And if you blather all day you’ll blow our date.” She planted a kiss on his neck and moved away from the camera.
The scientist on the TV screen jerked to a sudden halt in his logorrhea. A look of surprise and chagrin crossed Lukacs’ face.
“Oh. Sorry. Forgot.” Lukacs leaned forward and peered intently into the camera. “Mrs. Jackson, are you there?”
Marie stiffened. Her hand covered her mouth.
Jerry Lukacs’ face broke into a smile. “Well, I hope so. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that Lamont’s fine. He’s back with the rest of us and in perfect health. In fact—”
Marie sobbed, once. Then, her eyes leaking tears of joy, she pressed her face into Tremelo’s shoulder and began hugging the elderly physicist. He returned the hug with his own, stroking her hair, while he continued to watch Lukacs.
The disheveled, scholarly tough-looking face on the screen turned away for a moment. There seemed to be a lot of noise in the background.
“In fact, I’d say he’s having a run of luck at the casino’s tables. Big run of luck, from the sound of it.”
A balding, shrewd-eyed, managerial face thrust itself into the camera, puffing on a huge cigar. “Made over a million bucks so far. Remember, folks—this is all happening at the Luxor casino. The Luxor. Best casino in the world!”
The face pulled away and Jerry’s visage reappeared from the fading cloud of blue smoke. “Yeah, he’s fine. And as you can see”—his face colored a bit—”Dr. Elizabeth De Beer made it back also, in good shape except for a broken arm. And so did Sergeant Anibal Cruz and Corporal Jim McKenna. Even got new girlfriends.”
The camera panned sideways, catching Liz, Cruz and McKenna sitting at nearby tables. Liz was ignoring the camera altogether, while she practically swigged a large cup of coffee. Corporal McKenna couldn’t really be seen properly, because he was fiercely kissing a young woman perched on his lap wearing nothing but a bathrobe.
Sergeant Cruz, on the other hand, was grinning at the camera. His arm was around a beautiful woman sitting on a chair right next to him. Both he and the woman had children perched on their laps.
“Yeah, that’s right,” he announced. “I’d like to introduce everybody to my new family. The kids are called Priones and Neoptolmeus. My old lady’s name is Medea. That’s the ‘Medea,’ by the way, so if la migra’sgot any wild ideas about deporting them ’cause they don’t got papers, think again.”
A new voice intruded. “Who is this La Migra?” it demanded, booming. A dwarf stepped into the camera’s field of vision and stood by Cruz’s side. For all its short stature, there seemed something enormously powerful about the figure. The fact that the lion-looking face was scowling ferociously added to the effect.
“Someone threatens you, friend Cruz?” the leonine dwarf demanded.
The sergeant shrugged. “Immigration and Naturalization Service. We swarthy types just call it la migra.” Cruz looked back at the camera, grinning widely, and jerked his head at the dwarf. “Let me introduce Bes, also. He’s an Egyptian god.”
Then, to Bes: “La migra are pretty much the world’s champion dwarf tossers.”
The camera seemed to shake a bit and move backward, as if the cameraman was staggered by the incredible roar of fury which erupted from Bes. A moment later, still a bit shakily, the camera followed the dwarf god’s progress as Bes bounded over to a nearby statue of a hieracosphinx and proceeded to . . .
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