giggled suggestively.
“Computer!” Bill screeched.
“Yes, yes, all right,” the computer said testily. “I guess it must go like this perhaps...”
Captain Dirk swaggered into the room, and Splock minced in beside him. The black-clad soldiers followed carrying the antelope prods and a cauldron of fried chewing gum.
At that instant Bill felt his alligator foot begin to grow. It burst through the few metaphoric rags with which Bill had wrapped it out of a perhaps misplaced sense of common decency. It grew to the size of a cantaloupe, a watermelon, a three-year-old pig, a sheep before shearing, a piano, a one-car garage, and when Dirk and his men beheld it in its atavistic ugliness and menace, they cowered back. Bill couldn't do much except cheer his foot on since at this point it weighed more than he did and seemed to have a will of its own.
“I'll change modalities,” the computer muttered, and Bill's foot rapidly shrank back to its usual dimensions. But something else was happening now. Bill found that he was growing very tall. It was a curious feeling, growing like that, longer and longer and skinnier and skinnier, until he felt himself resembling a sausage an inch in diameter and perhaps ten or so yards in length, like an eccentric model of a roundworm done for laughs.
“Don't just stand there gaping!” the computer said. “Find the wormhole!”
Bill didn't know what the computer was talking about. But he did see, just above his head, a small black hole, or at least very deep gray, and it looked like a tunnel into which he could just fit his head. He did it, and promptly fell into the middle of space. And that he found amazing.
Falling like this was strangely uncomfortable. But at least he wasn't alone, for falling next to him was an elongated green worm which was obviously the attenuated form of a Chinger occupied by the intelligence of an alien computer. Obvious? Things were really getting out of hand when something like this could be obvious.
He was still pondering this imponderable when everything went black, or some color very much like black, and he blacked out as well.
Chapter 6
Consciousness returned, and with it memory. Bill felt pretty good, considering what he had gone through. Not that he was really sure what had happened, other than that his dim memories of the occasion were pretty crappy. He blinked and looked about — and discovered that he was standing on a grassy plain, the grass very much the same color as the Chinger who squatted beside him. There was a dust cloud on the horizon that very quickly resolved itself into a group of men with lances and armor and plumed steel helmets. Bill knew at once that they were Romans. He had seen enough prehistorical movies on Interplanetary Super Feature, the galactic cable network, to know that these were indeed Romans, and not to be confused with the Germans of that period, who wore bearskins and had long mustaches. These men were clean-shaven. In the middle of them, borne on a hammock, and looking puzzled but resolute, was Captain Dirk.
“Hi, Captain Dirk,” Bill said. “Are you a prisoner?”
“No,” Dirk said. “What made you think so? And, in addition, who the hell are you since I have never seen you before?”
“Perhaps I should make the introductions,” the Chinger-cum-computer said. Or maybe it was Illyria. Whichever of them was home in the body at the time.
“That's a Chinger!” Dirk shouted, reaching for his sidearm. Bill, seeing that in another moment Captain Dirk, well-meaning though he might be, would destroy the lizard, thus finishing off Illyria and ending his link with the computer, burst through the armed Romans and grappled with Dirk for his sidearm.
“Don't shoot!” Bill shouted.
“Why not?” Dirk grimaced, struggling to free himself.
“It'll take me too long to explain!”
“Try me. I got plenty of time.” He pulled at the weapon.
The Chinger opened its mouth and said, “I'm not your enemy, Captain
“Computer!” Bill screeched.
“Yes, yes, all right,” the computer said testily. “I guess it must go like this perhaps...”
Captain Dirk swaggered into the room, and Splock minced in beside him. The black-clad soldiers followed carrying the antelope prods and a cauldron of fried chewing gum.
At that instant Bill felt his alligator foot begin to grow. It burst through the few metaphoric rags with which Bill had wrapped it out of a perhaps misplaced sense of common decency. It grew to the size of a cantaloupe, a watermelon, a three-year-old pig, a sheep before shearing, a piano, a one-car garage, and when Dirk and his men beheld it in its atavistic ugliness and menace, they cowered back. Bill couldn't do much except cheer his foot on since at this point it weighed more than he did and seemed to have a will of its own.
“I'll change modalities,” the computer muttered, and Bill's foot rapidly shrank back to its usual dimensions. But something else was happening now. Bill found that he was growing very tall. It was a curious feeling, growing like that, longer and longer and skinnier and skinnier, until he felt himself resembling a sausage an inch in diameter and perhaps ten or so yards in length, like an eccentric model of a roundworm done for laughs.
“Don't just stand there gaping!” the computer said. “Find the wormhole!”
Bill didn't know what the computer was talking about. But he did see, just above his head, a small black hole, or at least very deep gray, and it looked like a tunnel into which he could just fit his head. He did it, and promptly fell into the middle of space. And that he found amazing.
Falling like this was strangely uncomfortable. But at least he wasn't alone, for falling next to him was an elongated green worm which was obviously the attenuated form of a Chinger occupied by the intelligence of an alien computer. Obvious? Things were really getting out of hand when something like this could be obvious.
He was still pondering this imponderable when everything went black, or some color very much like black, and he blacked out as well.
Chapter 6
Consciousness returned, and with it memory. Bill felt pretty good, considering what he had gone through. Not that he was really sure what had happened, other than that his dim memories of the occasion were pretty crappy. He blinked and looked about — and discovered that he was standing on a grassy plain, the grass very much the same color as the Chinger who squatted beside him. There was a dust cloud on the horizon that very quickly resolved itself into a group of men with lances and armor and plumed steel helmets. Bill knew at once that they were Romans. He had seen enough prehistorical movies on Interplanetary Super Feature, the galactic cable network, to know that these were indeed Romans, and not to be confused with the Germans of that period, who wore bearskins and had long mustaches. These men were clean-shaven. In the middle of them, borne on a hammock, and looking puzzled but resolute, was Captain Dirk.
“Hi, Captain Dirk,” Bill said. “Are you a prisoner?”
“No,” Dirk said. “What made you think so? And, in addition, who the hell are you since I have never seen you before?”
“Perhaps I should make the introductions,” the Chinger-cum-computer said. Or maybe it was Illyria. Whichever of them was home in the body at the time.
“That's a Chinger!” Dirk shouted, reaching for his sidearm. Bill, seeing that in another moment Captain Dirk, well-meaning though he might be, would destroy the lizard, thus finishing off Illyria and ending his link with the computer, burst through the armed Romans and grappled with Dirk for his sidearm.
“Don't shoot!” Bill shouted.
“Why not?” Dirk grimaced, struggling to free himself.
“It'll take me too long to explain!”
“Try me. I got plenty of time.” He pulled at the weapon.
The Chinger opened its mouth and said, “I'm not your enemy, Captain
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