Free Cycle of Nemesis by Kenneth Bulmer Page B

greater than any shark or squid or killer whale.
    “I was thinking about your findings on this globe,” said Pomfret, “when I was entertaining our guest.” He glanced across at Paul Benenson who sat huddled in his misery in a chair, cradling a drink. He hadn’t as yet come out of the shock. His single panicky yell had not been repeated. Lottie sat conspicuously next to Pomfret.
    “A smart piece of work, yes?” inquired Phoebe.
    “Maybe. I just thought it might indicate the place where Vasil Stannard found the clay tablet.”
    He might have dropped another winged bull into our midst. Good old George could always see the obvious.
    “The devil!” exploded Brennan in mock amazement.
    “Sure,” said Phoebe.
    "You’ve saved us the plane fare to Baghdad, anyway, old boy,” I said with a chuckle to Pomfret—who was staring around at us with amazement.
    We explained to him what we had been about to do before the lamassu burst in.
    He screwed up his face and tried to look judicial and succeeded only in making me want to offer him an indigestion tablet. "We-ell, maybe,” he said pontifically. “But I tend to adhere to my original theory—”
    If we hadn’t stopped him, good old George would have pontificated on for some time. Phoebe said, “If we don’t go to Baghdad and then into the desert to try to find this place, what else do we do?”
    Lottie, in her sultry voice, asked, “Do we have to do anything?” She looked around with a bright infectious smile. “I mean. Do we? Wouldn’t it be dangerous?”
    We each left it to the others to say something, so George Pomfret had all the time he liked to lean over, press Lottie’s hand, and say with deep meaning, “I’ll look after you, Lottie.”
    “Yes, but—” she said.
    “Yes but nothing!” snapped Brennan. “I’ve been chasing a way to get to Khamushkei the Undying for a long time. If he’s not shut up tightly in his Time Vault—the whole world will be written off again!”
    Lottie giggled weakly. We’d filled her and Benenson in on essentials. Benenson just hadn’t taken it in. If Lottie did it was only because she had seen the lamassu.
    “And that’s odd,” I said to Brennan, following my own train of thought. “For I’ve always understood the lamassu to be the good genies. They looked after men against evil powers. The evil genies were the utukku and they appeared in terrifying forms of chimerical power—lions and eagles and serpents bodies all mixed up.”
    “That’s so, Bert,” Brennan said shortly. “All this shows is the power of Khamushkei the Undying—he can order fundamentally decent creations into acts of violence against us. It’s all of a pattern.”
    We did not discuss further the moral implications of what we knew. I suppose each of us must have thought that this thing might not have happened to us, that we resented its happening to us at all. Someone else, all must have thought angrily, someone should have been involved, not us. As to going to the authorities , even with the evidence of a headless girl’s naked torso , I did not believe we would have received much of a hearing. Following through that train of thought and confirming my belief in what the others were thinking, Lottie said petulantly, “Well, why don’t you tell the police? I’m sure they’ll know what to do. After all, they are our servants, aren’t they? That’s what we pay taxes to pay their wages for, isn’t it?”
    “You can try if you like,” said Brennan harshly. “I’m more concerned over the next attack.”
    “The next—1”
    “You don’t think that a Time Beast like Khamushkei the Undying will relinquish the struggle after a little preliminary skirmish like this, do you?” Brennan thumped a fist into his palm. “If only we could be sure of where the Time Vault is!”
    “It would be wise,” I said softly, “I think, if we moved on. Those beasts found us by following you, Hall, and we’re still in the same place they last