Citizen in Space ssc-2 Page 3

"But I do know this. As long as Morton has that on his mind, he can't give his attention to Thaumaturgy."

  Mr. Dee looked away from the witch's red eyes. It was his fault. He should never have brought home that toy adding machine. And when he first saw Morton playing at double-entry bookkeeping, he should have burned the ledger. But how could he know it would grow into an obsession? Mrs. Dee smoothed out her apron, and said, "Miss Greeb, you know you have our complete confidence. What would you suggest?"

  "All I can do I have done," said Miss Greeb. "The only remaining thing is to call up Boarbas, the Demon of Children. And that, naturally, is up to you."

  "Oh, I don't think it's that serious yet," Mr. Dee said quickly. "Calling up Boarbas is a serious measure."

  "As I said, that's up to you," Miss Greeb said. "Call Boarbas or not, as you see fit. As things stand now, your son will never be a wizard." She turned and started to leave.

  "Won't you stay for a cup of tea?" Mrs. Dee asked hastily.

  "No, I must attend a Witch's Coven in Cincinnati," said Miss Greeb, and vanished in a puff of orange smoke.

  Mr. Dee fanned the smoke with his hands and closed the door. "Phew," he said. "You'd think she'd use a perfumed brand."

  "She's old-fashioned," Mrs. Dee murmured. They stood beside the door in silence. Mr. Dee was just beginning to feel the shock. It was hard to believe that his son, his own flesh and blood, didn't want to carry on the family tradition. It couldn't be true!

  "After dinner," Dee said, finally, "I'll have a man-to-man talk with him. I'm sure we won't need any demoniac intervention."

  "Good," Mrs. Dee said. "I'm sure you can make the boy understand." She smiled, and Dee caught a glimpse of the old witch-light flickering behind her eyes.

  "My roast!" Mrs. Dee gasped suddenly, the witch-light dying. She hurried back to her kitchen.

  Dinner was a quiet meal. Morton knew that Miss Greeb had been there, and he ate in guilty silence, glancing occasionally at his father. Mr. Dee sliced and served the roast, frowning deeply. Mrs. Dee didn't even attempt any small talk.

  After bolting his dessert, the boy hurried to his room.

  "Now we'll see," Mr. Dee said to his wife. He finished the last of his coffee, wiped his mouth and stood up. "I am going to reason with him now. Where is my Amulet of Persuasion?"

  Mrs. Dee thought deeply for a moment. Then she walked across the room to the bookcase. "Here it is," she said, lifting it from the pages of a brightly jacketed novel. "I was using it as a marker."

  Mr. Dee slipped the amulet into his pocket, took a deep breath, and entered his son's room.

  Morton was seated at his desk. In front of him was a notebook, scribbled with figures and tiny, precise notations. On his desk were six carefully sharpened pencils, a soap eraser, an abacus and a toy adding machine. His books hung precariously over the edge of the desk; there was Money, by Rimraamer, Bank Accounting Practice, by Johnson and Calhoun, Ellman's Studies for the CPA, and a dozen others.

  Mr. Dee pushed aside a mound of clothes and made room for himself on the bed. "How's it going, son?" he asked, in his kindest voice.

  "Fine, Dad," Morton answered eagerly. "I'm up to chapter four in Basic Accounting, and I answered all the questions —"

  "Son," Dee broke in, speaking very softly, "how about your regular homework?"

  Morton looked uncomfortable and scuffed his feet on the floor.

  "You know, not many boys have a chance to become wizards in this day and age."

  "Yes sir, I know," Morton looked away abruptly. In a high, nervous voice he said, "But Dad, I want to be an accountant. I really do. Dad."

  Mr. Dee shook his head. "Morton, there's always been a wizard in our family. For eighteen hundred years, the Dees have been famous in supernatural circles."

  Morton continued to look out the window and scuff his feet.

  "You wouldn't want to disappoint me, would you, son?" Dee smiled sadly. "You know, anyone can be an accountant. But only a chosen few can master the Black Arts."

  Morton turned away from the window. He picked up a pencil, inspected the point, and began to turn it slowly in his fingers.

  "How about it, boy? Won't you work harder for Miss Greeb?"

  Morton shook his head. "I want to be an accountant." Mr. Dee contained his sudden rush of anger with difficulty. What was wrong with the Amulet of Persuasion? Could the spell have run down? He should have recharged it. Nevertheless, he went on.

  "Morton," he said in a husky voice, "I'm only a Third Degree Adept, you know. My parents were very poor. They couldn't send me to The University."

  "I know," the boy said in a whisper.

  "I want you to have all the things I never had. Morton, you can be a First Degree Adept." He shook his head wistfully. "It'll be difficult. But your mother and I have a little put away, and we'll scrape the rest together somehow."

  Morton was biting his lip and turning the pencil rapidly in his fingers.

  "How about it, son? You know, as a First Degree Adept, you won't have to work in a store. You can be a Direct Agent of The Black One. A Direct Agent! What do you say, boy?"

  For a moment, Dee thought his son was moved. Morton's lips were parted, and there was a suspicious brightness in his eyes. But then the boy glanced at his accounting books, his little abacus, his toy adding machine.

  "I'm going to be an accountant," he said.

  "We'll see!" Mr. Dee shouted, all patience gone. "You will not be an accountant, young man. You will be a wizard. It was good enough for the rest of your family, and by all that's damnable, it'll be good enough for you. You haven't heard the last of this, young man." And he stormed out of the room.

  Immediately, Morton returned to his accounting books.

  Mr. and Mrs. Dee sat together on the couch, not talking. Mrs. Dee was busily knitting a wind-cord, but her mind wasn't on it. Mr. Dee stared moodily at a worn spot on the living room rug.

  Finally, Dee said, "I've spoiled him. Boarbas is the only solution."

  "Oh, no," Mrs. Dee said hastily. "He's so young."

  "Do you want your son to be an accountant?" Mr. Dee asked bitterly. "Do you want him to grow up scribbling with figures instead of doing The Black One's important work?"

  "Of course not," said Mrs. Dee. "But Boarbas —"

  "I know. I feel like a murderer already."

  They thought for a few moments. Then Mrs. Dee said, "Perhaps his grandfather can do something. He was always fond of the boy."

  "Perhaps he can," Mr. Dee said thoughtfully. "But I don't know if we should disturb him. After all, the old gentleman has been dead for three years."

  "I know," Mrs. Dee said, undoing an incorrect knot in the wind-cord. "But it's either that or Boarbas."

  Mr. Dee agreed. Unsettling as it would be to Morton's grandfather, Boarbas was infinitely worse. Immediately, Dee made preparations for calling up bis dead father.

  He gathered together the henbane, the ground unicorn's horn, the hemlock, together with a morsel of dragon's tooth. These he placed on the rug.

  "Where's my wand?" he asked his wife.

  "I put it in the bag with your golfsticks," she told him.

  Mr. Dee got his wand and waved it over the ingredients. He muttered the three words of The Unbinding, and called out his father's name.

  Immediately a wisp of smoke arose from the rug.

  "Hello, Grandpa Dee," Mrs. Dee said.

  "Dad, I'm sorry to disturb you," Mr. Dee said. "But my son — your grandson — refuses to become a wizard. He wants to be an — accountant."

  The wisp of smoke trembled, then straightened out and described a character of the Old Language.

  "Yes," Mr. Dee said. "We tried persuasion. The boy is adamant."

  Again the smoke trembled, and formed another character.

  "I suppose that's best," Mr. Dee said. "If you frighten him out of his wits once and for all, he'll forget this accounting nonsense. It's cruel — but it's better than Boarbas."

  The wisp of smoke nodded, and
streamed toward the boy's room. Mr. and Mrs. Dee sat down on the couch.

  The door of Morton's room was slammed open, as though by a gigantic wind. Morton looked up, frowned, and returned to his books.

  The wisp of smoke turned into a winged lion with the tail of a shark. It roared hideously, crouched, snarled, and gathered itself for a spring.

  Morton glanced at it, raised both eyebrows, and proceeded to jot down a column of figures.

  The lion changed into a three-headed lizard, its flanks reeking horribly of blood. Breathing gusts of fire, the lizard advanced on the boy.

  Morton finished adding the column of figures, checked the result on his abacus, and looked at the lizard.

  With a screech, the lizard changed into a giant gibbering bat. It fluttered around the boy's head, moaning and gibbering. Morton grinned, and turned back to his books. Mr. Dee was unable to stand it any longer. "Damn it," he shouted, "aren't you scared?"

  "Why should I be?" Morton asked. "It's only grandpa." Upon the word, the bat dissolved into a plume of smoke. It nodded sadly to Mr. Dee, bowed to Mrs. Dee, and vanished.

  "Goodbye, Granpa," Morton called. He got up and closed his door.

  "That does it," Mr. Dee said. "The boy is too cocksure of himself. We must call up Boarbas."

  "No!" his wife said.

  "What, then?"

  "I just don't know any more," Mrs. Dee said, on the verge of tears. "You know what Boarbas does to children. They're never the same afterwards."

  Mr. Dee's face was hard as granite. "I know. It can't be helped."

  "He's so young!" Mrs. Dee wailed. "It — it will be traumatic!"

  "If so, we will use all the resources of modern psychology to heal him," Mr. Dee said soothingly. "He will have the best psychoanalysts money can buy. But the boy must be a wizard!"

  "Go ahead then," Mrs. Dee said, crying openly. "But please don't ask me to assist you."

  How like a woman, Dee thought. Always turning into jelly at the moment when firmness was indicated. With a heavy heart, he made the preparations for calling up Boarbas, Demon of Children.

  First came the intricate sketching of the pentagon, the twelve-pointed star within it, and the endless spiral within that. Then came the herbs and essences; expensive items, but absolutely necessary for the conjuring. Then came the inscribing of the Protective Spell, so that Boarbas might not break loose and destroy them all. Then came the three drops of hippogriff blood —

  "Where is my hippogriff blood?" Mr. Dee asked, rummaging through the living room cabinet.

  "In the kitchen, in the aspirin bottle," Mrs. Dee said, wiping her eyes.

  Dee found it, and then all was in readiness. He lighted the black candles and chanted the Unlocking Spell.

  The room was suddenly very warm, and there remained only the Naming of the Name.

  "Morton," Mr. Dee called. "Come here."

  Morton opened the door and stepped out, holding one of his accounting books tightly, looking very young and defenceless.

  "Morton, I am about to call up the Demon of Children. Don't make me do it, Morton."

  The boy turned pale and shrank back against the door. But stubbornly he shook his head.

  "Very well," Mr. Dee said. "BOARBAS!"

  There was an ear-splitting clap of thunder and a wave of heat, and Boarbas appeared, as tall as the ceiling, chuckling evilly.

  "Ah!" cried Boarbas, in a voice that shook the room. "A little boy."

  Morton gaped, his jaw open and eyes bulging.

  "A naughty little boy," Boarbas said, and laughed. The demon marched forward, shaking the house with every stride.

  "Send him away!" Mrs. Dee cried.

  "I can't," Dee said, his voice breaking. "I can't do anything until he's finished."

  The demon's great horned hands reached for Morton; but quickly the boy opened the accounting book. "Save me!" he screamed.

  In that instant, a tall, terribly thin old man appeared, covered with worn pen points and ledger sheets, his eyes two empty zeroes.

  "Zico Pico Reel!" chanted Boarbas, turning to grapple with the newcomer. But the thin old man laughed, and said, "A contract of a corporation which is ultra vires is not voidable only, but utterly void."

  At these words, Boarbas was flung back, breaking a chair as he fell.- He scrambled to his feet, his skin glowing red-hot with rage, and intoned the Demoniac Master-Spell: "vrat, hat, ho!"

  But the thin old man shielded Morton with his body, and cried the words of Dissolution. "Expiration, Repeal, Occurrence, Surrender, Abandonment and Death!"

  Boarbas squeaked in agony. Hastily he backed away, fumbling in the air until he found The Opening. He jumped through this, and was gone.

  The tall, thin old man turned to Mr. and Mrs. Dee, cowering in a corner of the living room, and said, "Know that I am The Accountant. And Know, Moreover, that this Child has signed a Compact with Me, to enter My Apprenticeship and be My Servant. And in return for Services Rendered, I, the accountant, am teaching him the Damnation of Souls, by means of ensnaring them in a cursed web of Figures, Forms, Torts and Reprisals. And behold, this is My Mark upon him!" The Accountant held up Morton's right hand, and showed the ink smudge on the third finger.

  He turned to Morton, and in a softer voice said, "Tomorrow, lad, we will consider some aspects of Income Tax Evasion as a Path to Damnation."

  "Yes sir," Morton said eagerly.

  And with another sharp look at the Dees, The Accountant vanished.

  For long seconds there was silence. Then Dee turned to his wife.

  "Well," Dee said, "if the boy wants to be an accountant that badly, I'm sure I'm not going to stand in his way."

  Hunting Problem

  It was the last troop meeting before the big Scouter Jamboree, and all the patrols had turned out. Patrol 22 — the Soaring Falcon Patrol — was camped in a shady hollow, holding a tentacle pull. The Brave Bison Patrol, number 31, was moving around a little stream. The Bisons were practicing their skill at drinking liquids, and laughing excitedly at the odd sensation.

  And the Charging Mirash Patrol, number 19, was waiting for Scouter Drog, who was late as usual.

  Drog hurtled down from the ten-thousand-foot level, went solid, and hastily crawled into the circle of scouters. "Gee," he said, "I'm sorry. I didn't realize what time —"

  The Patrol Leader glared at him. "You're out of uniform, Drog."

  "Sorry, sir," Drog said, hastily extruding a tentacle he had forgotten.

  The others giggled. Drog blushed a dim orange. He wished he were invisible.

  But it wouldn't be proper right now.

  "I will open our meeting with the Scouter Creed," the Patrol Leader said. He cleared his throat. "We, the Young Scouters of planet Elbonai, pledge to perpetuate the skills and virtues of our pioneering ancestors. For that purpose, we Scouters adopt the shape our forebears were born to when they conquered the virgin wilderness of Elbonai. We hereby resolve —"

  Scouter Drog adjusted his hearing receptors to amplify the Leader's soft voice. The Creed always thrilled him. It was hard to believe that his ancestors had once been earthbound. Today the Elbonai were aerial beings, maintaining only the minimum of body, fueling by cosmic radiation at the twenty-thousand-foot level, sensing by direct perception, coming down only for sentimental or sacramental purposes. They had come a long way since the Age of Pioneering. The modern world had begun with the Age of Submolecular Control, which was followed by the present age of Direct Control.

  "… honesty and fair play," the Leader was saying. "And we further resolve to drink liquids, as they did, and to eat solid food, and to increase our skill in their tools and methods."

  The invocation completed, the youngsters scattered around the plain. The Patrol Leader came up to Drog.

  "This is the last meeting before the Jamboree," the Leader said.

  "I know," Drog said.

  "And you are the only second-class scouter in the Charging Mirash Patrol. All the others are first-class, or at l
east Junior Pioneers. What will people think about our patrol?"

  Drog squirmed uncomfortably. "It isn't entirely my fault," he said. "I know I failed the tests in swimming and bomb making, but those just aren't my skills. It isn't fair to expect me to know everything. Even among the pioneers there were specialists. No one was expected to know all —"

  "And just what are your skills?" the Leader interrupted.

  "Forest and Mountain Lore," Drog answered eagerly. "Tracking and hunting."

  The Leader studied him for a moment. Then he said slowly, "Drog, how would you like one last chance to make first class, and win an achievement badge as well?"

  "I'd do anything!" Drog cried.

  "Very well," the Patrol Leader said. "What is the name of our patrol."

  "The Charging Mirash Patrol."

  "And what is a Mirash?"

  "A large and ferocious animal," Drog answered promptly. "Once they inhabited large parts of Elbonai, and our ancestors fought many savage battles with them. Now they are extinct."

  "Not quite," the Leader said. "A scouter was exploring the woods five hundred miles north of here, coordinates S-233 by 482-W, and he came upon a pride of three Mirash, all bulls, and therefore huntable. I want you, Drog, to track them down, to stalk them, using Forest and Mountain Lore. Then, utilizing only pioneering tools and methods, I want you to bring back the pelt of one Mirash. Do you think you can do it?"

  "I know I can, sir!"

  "Go at once," the Leader said. "We will fasten the pelt to our flagstaff. We will undoubtedly be commended at the Jamboree."

  "Yes, sir!" Drog hastily gathered up his equipment, filled his canteen with liquid, packed a lunch of solid food, and set out.

  A few minutes later, he had levitated himself to the general area of S-233 by 482-W. It was a wild and romantic country of jagged rocks and scrubby trees, thick underbrush in the valleys, snow on the peaks. Drog looked around, somewhat troubled.

  He had told the Patrol Leader a slight untruth.

  The fact of the matter was, he wasn't particularly skilled in Forest and Mountain Lore, hunting or tracking. He wasn't particularly skilled in anything except dreaming away long hours among the clouds at the five-thousand-foot level. What if he failed to find a Mirash? What if the Mirash found him first?