Bill 4 - on the Planet of Tasteless Pleasure by Harry Harrison Page A
Authors: Harry Harrison
Ads: Link
need a blaster!”
“Afraid that modern technology doesn't work in this particular dimensional grid, Rick,” Dr. Delazny shouted through the shrinking portal. “Bye bye now, folks. We'll be monitoring you!”
“Ixnay, ixnay!” said Rick, slogging forward. “This wasn't the deal!”
But before he could reach the portal, it clashed shut with a frizzle and a flash and Rick stumbled forward past where it had been, through misty air, tripped, and fell head first into a grayish green puddle.
Just then a horrendous, semi-human screech seared the atmosphere, like a skeleton's fingernails on a squeaky blackboard.
“I got idea,” said Ottar, picking up the broadsword as though it were merely a particularly long toothpick and glowering about through his bushy eyebrows. “I going to like this place. What I kill first?”
CHAPTER 11
BILL CRAPS OUT
Bill looked up, screamed hysterically, tried to run. There was no escape. The dragon's jaws dropped down neatly over the head and body of Missionary Position, the Cattlelick priest. Teeth clamped shut like a turbo-steam shovel, snapping off the priest's legs at mid-calves. The elongated neck reared up — leaving priestly boots wobbling on the ground — the mouth crunching and smacking.
Blood squirted out upon the party of adventures like the jet of a sanguine lawn sprinkler just cutting on.
“Maybe the dragon won't be so hungry now,” Rick commented through chattering teeth, as the Supernal Hero cowered behind Clitoria the Amazon.
“Better yet, maybe a bellyful of religion will poison the monster!” sagely observed Hyperkinetic, who was cowering behind Rick.
Bill, who in his precautionary, some would say cowardly, turn was hiding behind Hyperkinetic, took the remaining few guzzles of drink from his wineskin and stared back at the creature, who was in the act of swallowing his meal noisily and messily.
Bill had never seen a bigger dragon in his entire life. This was a true and logical observation since, of course, Bill had never seen a dragon before.
And this one was a particularly nasty looking mother-bowber. Gigantic bats' wings fanned out from its side, their purplish, veiny membranes tattered at the edges, shot through with holes here and there. Its body was a scaly horror of reptilian revulsion, reddish green and revolting, glistening and raw. From four long, well-muscled limbs scythelike claws protruded, hung with strips of the skins of its victims. But it was the thing's head that was a particular abomination; bug eyes bloodshot and rolling, nostrils scabrous and flaring, great fangs depending from its hideous mouth, above which a thick black mustache-like growth dangled.
In short it could be said that it looked like the dear departed Deathwish Drang in one of his gentler, kinder moments of recruit destruction.
“Beast!” cried Clitoria, her broadsword swishing erect before the heinous monster. “Prepare to have thy legs dismembered and jammed piece by bloody piece down thy frightful, stenchy maw!”
“Javel!” cried Ottar, his own broadsword stabbed up toward the low, rumbling clouds as though questing for the power of the lightning. “And double from me, too!”
The dragon raised its heavy, hairy eyebrows high on its forehead. “Hey guys, have a care with those toothpicks,” it said, reaching back and picking up its lit cigar from the hole in the ground where the dragon had carefully placed it, then took a deep puff. “I'm a bleeder.” It tapped ash on Clitoria's blade. “Say you'all, did you know that I shot an elephant in my pajamas the other day. What it was doing in my pajamas, I'll never know.”
It burped mightily and its smoky foul breath, redolent of disgusting items best left unmentioned, as well as alcoholic drink, and rump of priest, which can be mentioned, wafted down to the questers.
Bill realized that he should have seen this thing with the dragon coming. After all, the day's worth of trek across the hellish panorama of this
“Afraid that modern technology doesn't work in this particular dimensional grid, Rick,” Dr. Delazny shouted through the shrinking portal. “Bye bye now, folks. We'll be monitoring you!”
“Ixnay, ixnay!” said Rick, slogging forward. “This wasn't the deal!”
But before he could reach the portal, it clashed shut with a frizzle and a flash and Rick stumbled forward past where it had been, through misty air, tripped, and fell head first into a grayish green puddle.
Just then a horrendous, semi-human screech seared the atmosphere, like a skeleton's fingernails on a squeaky blackboard.
“I got idea,” said Ottar, picking up the broadsword as though it were merely a particularly long toothpick and glowering about through his bushy eyebrows. “I going to like this place. What I kill first?”
CHAPTER 11
BILL CRAPS OUT
Bill looked up, screamed hysterically, tried to run. There was no escape. The dragon's jaws dropped down neatly over the head and body of Missionary Position, the Cattlelick priest. Teeth clamped shut like a turbo-steam shovel, snapping off the priest's legs at mid-calves. The elongated neck reared up — leaving priestly boots wobbling on the ground — the mouth crunching and smacking.
Blood squirted out upon the party of adventures like the jet of a sanguine lawn sprinkler just cutting on.
“Maybe the dragon won't be so hungry now,” Rick commented through chattering teeth, as the Supernal Hero cowered behind Clitoria the Amazon.
“Better yet, maybe a bellyful of religion will poison the monster!” sagely observed Hyperkinetic, who was cowering behind Rick.
Bill, who in his precautionary, some would say cowardly, turn was hiding behind Hyperkinetic, took the remaining few guzzles of drink from his wineskin and stared back at the creature, who was in the act of swallowing his meal noisily and messily.
Bill had never seen a bigger dragon in his entire life. This was a true and logical observation since, of course, Bill had never seen a dragon before.
And this one was a particularly nasty looking mother-bowber. Gigantic bats' wings fanned out from its side, their purplish, veiny membranes tattered at the edges, shot through with holes here and there. Its body was a scaly horror of reptilian revulsion, reddish green and revolting, glistening and raw. From four long, well-muscled limbs scythelike claws protruded, hung with strips of the skins of its victims. But it was the thing's head that was a particular abomination; bug eyes bloodshot and rolling, nostrils scabrous and flaring, great fangs depending from its hideous mouth, above which a thick black mustache-like growth dangled.
In short it could be said that it looked like the dear departed Deathwish Drang in one of his gentler, kinder moments of recruit destruction.
“Beast!” cried Clitoria, her broadsword swishing erect before the heinous monster. “Prepare to have thy legs dismembered and jammed piece by bloody piece down thy frightful, stenchy maw!”
“Javel!” cried Ottar, his own broadsword stabbed up toward the low, rumbling clouds as though questing for the power of the lightning. “And double from me, too!”
The dragon raised its heavy, hairy eyebrows high on its forehead. “Hey guys, have a care with those toothpicks,” it said, reaching back and picking up its lit cigar from the hole in the ground where the dragon had carefully placed it, then took a deep puff. “I'm a bleeder.” It tapped ash on Clitoria's blade. “Say you'all, did you know that I shot an elephant in my pajamas the other day. What it was doing in my pajamas, I'll never know.”
It burped mightily and its smoky foul breath, redolent of disgusting items best left unmentioned, as well as alcoholic drink, and rump of priest, which can be mentioned, wafted down to the questers.
Bill realized that he should have seen this thing with the dragon coming. After all, the day's worth of trek across the hellish panorama of this
Similar Books
