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"That'd take a pretty good shot," Grimp admitted.
"And who then," continued the policeman, "dropped pepper in his trail, so the
pank-hound near coughed off his head when we started to track him. The
Guardian," he added significantly, "would like to have a clue about that
culprit, all right."
"Sure, sure," said Grimp, bored. The policeman, the Guardian, and probably
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even the pank-hound, knew exactly who the culprit was; but they wouldn't be
able to prove it in twenty thousand years. Runny just had to realize first
that threats weren't going to get him anywhere near a record werret.
Apparently, he had; he was settling back for another bout of thinking. Grimp,
interested in what he would produce next, decided just to leave him to it. . .
.
Then Grimp jumped up suddenly from the rock.
"There they are!" he yelled, waving the slingshot.
A half-mile down the road, Grandma Wannattel's big, silvery trailer had come
swaying out of the woods behind the rhinocerine pony and turned up toward the
farm. The pony saw Grimp, lifted its head, which was as long as a tall man,
and bawled a thunderous greeting. Grandma Wannattel stood up on the driver's
seat and waved a green silk handkerchief.
Grimp started sprinting down the road.
The werrets should turn the trick but he'd better get Grandma informed, just
the same, about recent developments here, before she ran into Runny.
* * *
Grandma Wannattel flicked the pony's horny rear with the reins just before
they reached the policeman, who was waiting at the side of the road with the
Guardian's check-list unfolded in his hand.
The pony broke into a lumbering trot, and the trailer swept past Runny and up
around the bend of the road, where it stopped well within the boundaries of
the farm. They climbed down and Grandma quickly unhitched the pony. It
waddled, grunting, off the road and down into the long, marshy meadow above
the hollow. It stood still there, cooling its feet.
Grimp felt a little better. Getting the trailer off community property gave
Grandma a technical advantage. Grimp's people had a favorable opinion of her,
and they were a sturdy lot who enjoyed telling off the Guardian any time he
didn't actually have a law to back up his orders. But on the way to the farm,
she had confessed to Grimp that, just as he'd feared, she didn't have anything
like thirty-four licenses. And now the policeman was coming up around the bend
of the road after them, blowing his nose and frowning.
"Just let me handle him alone," Grandma told Grimp out of the corner of her
mouth.
He nodded and strolled off into the meadow to pass the time with the pony.
She'd had a lot of experience in handling policemen.
"Well, well, young man," he heard her greeting his cousin behind him. "That
looks like a bad cold you've got."
The policeman sneezed.
"Wish it were a cold," he said resignedly. "It's hay-fever. Can't do a thing
with it. Now I've got a list here "
"Hay-fever?" said Grandma. "Step up into the trailer a moment. We'll fix
that."
"About this list " began Runny, and stopped. "You think you got something that
would fix it?" he asked skeptically. "I've been to I don't know how many
doctors and they didn't help any."
"Doctors!" said Grandma. Grimp heard her heels click up the metal steps that
led into the back of the trailer. "Come right in, won't take a moment."
"Well " said Runny doubtfully, but he followed her inside.
Grimp winked at the pony. The first round went to Grandma.
"Hello, pony," he said.
His worries couldn't reduce his appreciation of Grandma's fabulous
draft-animal. Partly, of course, it was just that it was such an enormous
beast. The long, round barrel of its body rested on short legs with wide, flat
feet which were settled deep in the meadow's mud by now. At one end was a
spiky tail and at the other a very big, wedge-shaped head, with a blunt, badly
chipped horn set between nose and eyes. From nose to tail and all around, it
was covered with thick, rectangular, horny plates, a mottled green-brown in
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color.
Grimp patted its rocky side affectionately. He loved the pony most for being
the ugliest thing that had ever showed up on Noorhut. According to Grandma,
she had bought it from a bankrupt circus which had imported it from a planet
called Treebel; and Treebel was supposed to be a world full of hot swamps,
inexhaustibly explosive volcanoes, and sulphurous stenches.
One might have thought that after wandering around melting lava and under
rainfalls of glowing ashes for most of its life, the pony would have
considered Noorhut pretty tame. But though there wasn't much room for
expression around the solid slab of bone supporting the horn, which was the
front of its face, Grimp thought it looked thoroughly contented with its feet
sunk out of sight in Noorhut's cool mud.
"You're a big fat pig!" he told it fondly.
The pony slobbered out a long, purple tongue and carefully parted his hair.
"Cut it out!" said Grimp. "Ugh!"
The pony snorted, pleased, curled its tongue about a huge clump of weeds,
pulled them up, and flipped them into its mouth, roots, mud, and all. It began
to chew.
Grimp glanced at the sun and turned anxiously to study the trailer. If she
didn't get rid of Runny soon, they'd be calling him back to the house for
supper before he and Grandma got around to having a good talk. And they
weren't letting him out of doors these evenings, while the shining lights were
here.
He gave the pony a parting whack, returned quietly to the road, and sat down
out of sight near the back door of the trailer, where he could hear what was
going on.
" . . . so about the only thing the Guardian could tack on you now," the
policeman was saying, "would be a Public
Menace charge. If there's any trouble about the lights this year, he's likely
to try that. He's not a bad Guardian, you know, but he's got himself talked
into thinking you're sort of to blame for the lights showing up here every
year."
Grandma chuckled. "Well, I try to get here in time to see them every summer,"
she admitted. "I can see how that might give him the idea."
"And of course," said the policeman, "we're all trying to keep it quiet about
them. If the news got out, we'd be having a lot of people coming here from the
city, just to look. No one but the Guardian minds you being here, only you
don't want a lot of city people tramping around your farms."
"Of course not," agreed Grandma. "And I certainly haven't told anyone about
them myself."
"Last night," the policeman added, "everyone was saying there were twice as
many lights this year as last summer.
That's what got the Guardian so excited." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]