Chapter XI
.183474028426554628345625423445462456236551236844546235455087017.
Deep, deep in the darkness, where even the cave bats feared to fly, something was stirring in the Mines of Murphy.
In its sleep it snuffled and turned over, its nose twitching. It was still mostly in hibernation. For over three thousand years it had slumbered thus, sprawled across the pitch-black maw of the cavern, undisturbed by light or sound. The Vuebegonian men who worked the mines knew of its presence, for once before their ancestors had delved to far, and too deep, and had met an unhappy end. They took care to let the sleeping thing lie, and would go nowhere near the tunnel into the darkness.
But now, far overhead, the steady tramp, tramp of cleats on stone echoed through the Mines, loosening pebbles set for untold ages and sending the blind cave salamanders cowering into the depths of their subterranean pools. Slider and his umpires were on the move, searching, ever searching for the Seed that their master wanted so desperately. And Slider knew that he was not far away from his goal.
What he didn't know was that there was more than the Seed hidden in the deep places of Vuebegon.
It grunted again in its sleep and flicked its tail. The strip of paper around its neck crinkled as it shifted restlessly, smearing the already-blurry numbers with mud.
Shnibbidy Bob Joe wrote down another number on his paper. How many digits was he into Pi?
He didn't know.
*********
The wind was blowing crisply from the west, the Flying Walkman's sails were billowing like immense pieces of white laundry, and they were clipping along at quite a good pace, considering how slow they had been traveling the past three days. That in itself was something to be glad about, Leia thought, setting down Burning Passionate Flame, as she wasn't sure how much longer she could stand sitting around on deck doing nothing. The Beatles were her only consolation, and she found that, unfortunately, even "Nowhere Man" was losing its power to lift her spirits. There was, after all, only so many romance novels a normal person could read every day without going insane, or, more to the point, only so many an insane person could read before going even more insane. Leia was currently on the threshold of going more insane.
She had gone around the ship earlier that day, asking everyone what they were doing to keep from going more insane. Luke, deeply immersed in War, NOT Peace, had growled at her and told her to bug off. Britney had moaned and sobbed and stared at Aragorn for a little bit before Leia gave up and left. Beatrice had told her to try counting every single wave, Odysseus had asked her to write a heroic speech for him, Han Solo had offered her a solid gold-and-ivory chess set, and Arwen and Aragorn were not in a position to answer. SOS-180 had hummed and muttered something about assassinating the Prince.
So Leia was still bored. She sighed, turned her headset up to full volume, and flopped back against the mast. It was extraordinary how exhausting doing nothing could be.
Then, quite unexpectedly, the Flying Walkman was surrounded in very thick, very dark, very chilly fog. In fact, it could hardly be called fog, seeing as it was pitch black in color, and had a load of little purple lights glinting in it. Suddenly freezing, Leia sat up.
The running figure of Odysseus materialized from the dimness aft, waving its muscled arms.
"This is no normal sea-fog!" Odysseus cried. "Some fell power works against us!"
Then the swearing began, and it became difficult to hear anything.
Great Ringo preserve us, Leia thought, twisting the hem of her T- shirt nervously between her fingers. This is definitely not North Dakota. Oh, yes. What else is new?
******
Thanks to the enchanted fog, they didn't spot the Cyclop's island until they ran into it.
The blinded people on the deck of the Flying Walkman had no idea that there was a large landmass dead ahead of them. Odysseus continued to shout orders at the crew, none of which were obeyed, but it didn't really matter, because they couldn't see anything anyway. Then there had been a decidedly unsettling screech of wood on stone, a tremendous jolt, and then a dead silence.
It took everyone several seconds to realize that the Flying Walkman was no longer moving forward.
When the crew realized it, there was a new storm of swearing.
However, Odysseus, being rather out of the mental league of his crewmen, realized that they had probably reached their destination, and whooped loudly. He was stared at. The crewmen somehow managed to stare and swear at the same time.
"Don't you see what this means, everyone?" he cried, waving his arms enthusiastically. "Be quiet-don't you see?"
"No," someone said testily.
"Come on, people!" Now Beatrice took up the call. "We've reached our goal! We're at the Cyclops's Island!"
"Fame and fortune and all that good stuff!" Odysseus yelled.
The crew paid no attention to their captain.
Judging by the look of exasperation on Aragorn's face, he had gotten it, too. Leia watched, rather hoping he wouldn't blow up like he had in the Yoshimoto Sushi Bar. She didn't think the crewmen would like being whacked at with a sword, no matter how much they liked him now.
But instead of going into battle mode, Aragorn stood up, waved his arms and bellowed, "Hey! You heard them, everybody! Shut up!"
The crew instantly shut up, every man standing stiffly at attention, eyes fixed on Aragorn. They could have been a bunch of topless Marines in lionskin underwear.
Oddly enough, at this display of discipline Aragorn blanched-why couldn't he learn to stop doing that; it looked awful with the beard stubble-and swallowed hard.
"Thank-thank you," he stammered, sitting down again. "I'm sure your leader appreciates it."
Several people in the crowd grumbled. Aragorn gulped again, but Odysseus seemed totally oblivious.
"Yes, thank you all," he said. "My fellows, my soldiers, my mighty heroes! The time has come to prove your mettle! Beyond this wall of mist, there waits an island populated by unimaginable terrors! Honor and death and glory at every hand! Together, my men, we will wrest this root vegetable from the hand of Polyphemus, the vile Cyclops! The bards shall sing of us!"
Muttering. Han looked skeptical, Luke looked seasick, Aragorn was trying to hide from the crew behind Arwen. Leia felt slightly queasy herself; minus the "death" that list of things might be all right, but even honor and glory tended to be chancy things.
"So, what are you waiting for?" Odysseus roared, worked up to his full heroic fervor. "Lower the gangplank, lads! To battle we go!"
The lads looked at each other skeptically, then nodded. Someone in the back kicked open the trapdoor that led to the hold.
"Goodbye, great leader," Urgos grunted, bowing low.
Then everyone scrambled for the trapdoor at once, leaving the Walkers alone on deck.
Odysseus snorted.
"Heroes! And all the kings said they were giving me their heroes. What a load of loonies. I couldn't make a proper fighting band out of them if I tried." He turned to the people remaining on deck. "Well, I suppose we'll just have to make do, then. Heroic sacrifice and all that good stuff. By Gods, I'll have that vegetable from Polyphemus before he knows what's hit him! All, ashore, mates!"
With the others reluctantly trailing along behind him, Odysseus strode to the bow of the ship, where Leia assumed the gangplank was.
Or maybe not. Instead, Odysseus hopped up on the ship's rail, spread his arms wide, and cried, "Gods be with me!"
Then he jumped off the prow of the ship.
A second later there was a very dull thud, and a yelp of, "Ow! Oh, there I've gone and scraped my blasted shins again."
Odysseus's violently orange head appeared over the edge of the ship. Then his torso appeared, down to his waist.
"It's all right," he said solemnly. "The fall isn't too great. I only suffered minor bruises. Nothing a hero can't take."
"How far is it, exactly?" Arwen sounded genuinely interested. Leia wondered if the strange pointy-eared woman was suicidal, or just very, very stupid. She seemed to talk about jumping off high things a great deal, as well as giving quite a lot of tips on ways to knock out mountain trolls. The lads spent most of their time listening to her stories.
Odysseus bent over and quickly measured the distance with his eyes.
"Oh, it's.about two feet, I should say." He turned a little red round the ears. "No, wait, on this side it's more like three.and if you took away all the rocks it would be almost five..."
"Okay, thanks," said Arwen hurriedly.
For a minute or so the Walkers stood around, looking uncomfortable and wondering what they were supposed to do next. If Leia could use her own feelings as a judge, she would say that most of the people were wondering if they really had to burst in on Polyphemus and demand something from him. No one knew how a Cyclops would react to a demand.
Britney started to hum a little. Even the smallest sound from her unfortunate mouth had the effect of large bricks on Leia's brain. Leia instantly desired a large brick, that she might inflict the same effect upon Britney's brain, but the nearest thing to her was a water barrel, which might be difficult to throw.
Then,
"Well, what are you waiting for?" exclaimed Odysseus. "Come on out and we'll face the Cyclops like men-and women-and.bird...things."
"Oh, poo," Luke grumbled. But they all went, and took the two-foot plunge from the Flying Walkman's railing, and scraped their shins because they misjudged the distance. And then they were all on the Cyclops's Island.
The last thing Leia saw before stepping forward into the fog was Gruntos, peeking out of the top hatch and waving one meaty hand at them. Then it was all dark, completely dark, and the enchanted fog all around chilled her to the bone. Leia reached out blindly in front of her, searching for something to grab onto, and found an angora sweater. Han yelped, "Hey! You're choking me!" but she wasn't about to let go. If she got lost in this, she could wander around for weeks without any food or water, and that would stink.
After a few timeless minutes of tramping through the darkness, Leia was nearly re-blinded by a burst of white Aegean sunlight. Beatrice's lovely blond head was suddenly lit up until it looked almost like a halo; Odysseus's head looked like it had been set on fire. One by one the group stepped into the beautiful sunshine, until even Leia, the very last, felt it warming her face. If this had been a corny adventure movie, they would have started shouting for joy, and dancing, and leaping into the air like they were twenty years younger. This is not a corny adventure movie. They started shouting and leaping and dancing anyway.
Then, somewhere along the line, some intelligent person remembered that they were on the Cyclops' Island, and that intelligent people generally do not rejoice loudly when trapped on a small island with a giant. A sudden hush fell over them as they once again remembered what they were here for.
"I wonder where the Cyclops' cave is," Luke whispered. Now everyone was being extremely quiet.
"Use your eyes, lemonhead," Han whispered. "Behind you."
Leia looked where Han was pointing. It was a wonder she had missed it before, seeing as it wasn't exactly hard to miss. An immense set of double doors were set into the hillside behind them, with circular handles mounted two feet above the head of Beatrice, who was the tallest of the group. How the Cyclops possibly found enough oak to make his doors, they didn't know, but they certainly looked sturdy enough. The stone of the cliff walled off the rest of the fortress: it didn't look like it was going to be an easy place to barge into. Besides, without the help of Odysseus's lads, they were probably going to have to steal the Root Vegetable. An all- out assault would be suicide, and Leia wasn't going to place any bets on Polyphemus giving up the vegetable for free.
Yeah. Especially since, above the giant doors, there hung a banner that
read: POLYPHEMUS WELCOMES LORD DARTH VADER AND COHORTS TO HIS 4125th
BIRTHDAY BASH!
Arwen had noticed the sign, too.
"Well, that's wonderful," she said. "Not only are we going to have to face a Cyclops, we're going to have to face the Dark Lord and a lot of hand-picked minions as well. Life just likes keeping things interesting for us, doesn't it?"
"Well, it will certainly be an experience!" SOS-180 chirped, then, "Reasons to kill, she-Elf."
Arwen looked at him askance. She hadn't gotten used to SOS's odd spells yet. Even Leia, who'd known him right off, was only just adjusting. It was a little creepy to wake up in the middle of the night and hear someone hiss, "Yes, we will kill the king, kill the king." But hey. Everyone had their little issues. God knew she had hers.
And then, as if the situation couldn't get any more uncomfortable, a loud, nasal voice barked from behind them, "Halt! Who goes there?"
Instead of halting, everyone in the group spun around on their heels to look behind them. Chugging up the slope was a group of six men, all of them tall and beefy, all of them dressed in the same dull potato-colored uniform. On the left arm of each jacket there was emblazoned a scarlet turnip within a circle. Judging by the emblems and the banner above the door, Leia guessed that they were Imperial troopers.
"Hard Day's Night" was playing on her perpetual Beatles headset right now. It was her favorite song. This had the effect of making her much bolder, and more idiotic, than she would ordinarily have been.
"Hello, people!" she said brightly, walking forward with her hand outstretched. The troopers ground to a confused halt. Was this the way enemy agents usually acted? "I'm Leia the Local Beatles Freak, or Princess Leia, or just Leia. Whichever is easiest. Do you like the Beatles? I do, very much; they don't call me the Beatles freak for nothing, you see. You know, your boss had me in prison for a while, and it wasn't much fun. He force-fed me canned beets-"
"Not canned beets!" the leader of the platoon broke in with a gasp.
"Not canned beets!" the platoon echoed.
Leia nodded impressively, deciding that if she said random things at random times, she might put them so off balance that they would give in without a fight.
"Yes. Canned beets. Not very nice of him, do you think. Anyway, the Beatles kept me from going insane in prison. You see my shirt? Yeah, those are the Beatles. Quite a bunch, they were."
Shirt. Shirt. Leia suddenly had a stroke of genius. Everyone was looking at her as though she'd had an actual stroke.
"I come from North Dakota. Where are you from? Oh, by the way, we've got laser pistols hidden up our sleeves, and we're going to use them on you if you don't do exactly as we say."
We are? Luke mouthed. Han elbowed him.
"Right. We need your uniforms. Quickly now. We don't have much time; God knows when the banquet will be over. Out."
"But.but I'm wearing my-" Mimble-wimble, the rest of the soldier's sentence sounded like. He was rather young, and decidedly mousish, mouse- brown hair, pointed mousey nose, and shaking like a scared mouse.
"What?" Leia smiled pleasantly and put her hand to her ear.
"I'm wearing my Superman underwear today." The answer was barely audible.
"That's okay." Leia smiled again, wondering where she was getting the inspiration for this. "All the girls will turn around. We'll have one person watch to make sure you don't run off, but he'll promise not to laugh. Right, Beatrice."
Beatrice's eyebrows were level with his hairline. He still looked gorgeous, but Leia was glad she'd gotten used to that astronomical level of gorgeousness a bit, so she wasn't all over him all the time.
"Ok..ay. If. you say so, Leia. Er."
"Right. If you're sure he won't laugh."
Flustered out of their wits, the Imperial Guards turned around and began unbuttoning their jackets. Leia motioned for the Walkers to turn around, pulling Britney's head by the hair, since she had no guarantee her orders would be followed. Britney shrieked, but Leia had the height advantage, so she couldn't do much more than curse.
After a couple of minutes, Leia heard Beatrice say, "All right, guys. Thank you very much. You may run off into the wilderness now."
There was a hasty scramble of footsteps. Then, "Okay, you can turn around."
Leia turned around. Lying on the rocky slope were six potato-brown uniforms, complete down to the pointy hat and the boots. Leia was rather pleased with her handiwork. Now, in the press of the crowd, they might be mistaken for ordinary Imperial soldiers. She explained this to the group, who looked blank for a moment and then emitted a collective, "Ohh."
Han tapped her on the head.
"Lucky we got the North Dakotan," he said solemnly. "Quite the brain she's got in here, quite the brain."
Then he stole her enameled hairclip. Leia grabbed his hand halfway down and forced it open.
"Oh dear, sorry, must have come off in my hand.don't know how it could have."
"Oh, lay off it, kleptomaniac." She awkwardly repinned her hair. "Everyone knows your habits but you."
"Oh, thanks," he sniffed. "And when I'd just given you a compliment, too."
"Lay off it, kleptomaniac," Luke grumbled. "And might I point out there are more of us than there are uniforms. We're going to have to draw straws to find out who get to be the human sacrifices."
"I will go!" Odysseus said instantly. "Honor and death and fame and all that good stuff! What captain would I be if I took upon myself a mission and were to cowardly to see it finished.then again, you do need a person to navigate on the way home, don't you? Perhaps it would be better if I.er-hem.withdrew. Provided you don't speak of it to the lads."
"Mum's the word," Leia promised. "SOS, no one will think you're a human soldier, no offense, of course. And Britney will stand out no matter what she's wearing, so I think it had better be me, Luke, Han, Aragorn, Arwen, and Beatrice. Okay?"
"Rats," Arwen muttered. "I'll have to hide my ears somehow. Rather discouraging being a mutant in a normal human world."
"You can say that again," Britney snapped.
"Okee-dokee." Leia clapped her hands briskly. "Everyone into uniforms, and then we'll get them to let us in somehow." She strode to the pile, selected the one that looked smallest, and headed for the nearest large rock.
Three minutes later, their group was composed of one red-headed hero, one half-human, and six Imperial Guardsmen, one of which was nervously fussing with her ears.
"Very nice." Leia admired her handiwork with a lopsided smile. "We all look like walking turds. Arwen, if you can keep your ears covered- Aragorn, you aren't going to carry that sword into the hall, are you, its sort of a giveaway-okay, barring those things, we're all right. Lets just see if they'll let us in now."
"Fair fotunes, noble warriors!" Odysseus raised a hand in farewell. "May all the Gods cast their blessings upon you. Give Polyphemus a good whack, and say that I sent it to him. I'll-I'll be going now."
"Be careful, Aragorn!" Britney wailed. "Don't get yourself killed!"
"Oh, do watch your backs!" SOS tried to sound sorrowful against his programming, and failed. "I hope you have an experience kill, kill, kill you all."
Then the three of them trundled into the mists.
Side by side the six Walkers stepped up to the immense wooden doors.
Beatrice picked up a rock and banged on the door three times.
"Let us in!" he called. "Polyphemus! We're late! Let us in!"
Silence. Distant sounds of revelry filtered through the door.
Beatrice knocked again.
"Let us in, by the Universe! Or we'll huff and we'll puff, and we'll blow the hillside in!"
More silence. Leia wondered if they hadn't heard at all, or if they were simply choosing to ignore the pounding.
A very old commercial from her childhood in Dakota crossed her mind for no reason at all.
Leia grabbed a rock of her own, banged, leaned in as close as she could to the door, and bellowed, "Get the door! It's Dominoes!"
There was a scuffle and a grating of stone as the heavy wooden door swung open.
.183474028426554628345625423445462456236551236844546235455087017.
Deep, deep in the darkness, where even the cave bats feared to fly, something was stirring in the Mines of Murphy.
In its sleep it snuffled and turned over, its nose twitching. It was still mostly in hibernation. For over three thousand years it had slumbered thus, sprawled across the pitch-black maw of the cavern, undisturbed by light or sound. The Vuebegonian men who worked the mines knew of its presence, for once before their ancestors had delved to far, and too deep, and had met an unhappy end. They took care to let the sleeping thing lie, and would go nowhere near the tunnel into the darkness.
But now, far overhead, the steady tramp, tramp of cleats on stone echoed through the Mines, loosening pebbles set for untold ages and sending the blind cave salamanders cowering into the depths of their subterranean pools. Slider and his umpires were on the move, searching, ever searching for the Seed that their master wanted so desperately. And Slider knew that he was not far away from his goal.
What he didn't know was that there was more than the Seed hidden in the deep places of Vuebegon.
It grunted again in its sleep and flicked its tail. The strip of paper around its neck crinkled as it shifted restlessly, smearing the already-blurry numbers with mud.
Shnibbidy Bob Joe wrote down another number on his paper. How many digits was he into Pi?
He didn't know.
*********
The wind was blowing crisply from the west, the Flying Walkman's sails were billowing like immense pieces of white laundry, and they were clipping along at quite a good pace, considering how slow they had been traveling the past three days. That in itself was something to be glad about, Leia thought, setting down Burning Passionate Flame, as she wasn't sure how much longer she could stand sitting around on deck doing nothing. The Beatles were her only consolation, and she found that, unfortunately, even "Nowhere Man" was losing its power to lift her spirits. There was, after all, only so many romance novels a normal person could read every day without going insane, or, more to the point, only so many an insane person could read before going even more insane. Leia was currently on the threshold of going more insane.
She had gone around the ship earlier that day, asking everyone what they were doing to keep from going more insane. Luke, deeply immersed in War, NOT Peace, had growled at her and told her to bug off. Britney had moaned and sobbed and stared at Aragorn for a little bit before Leia gave up and left. Beatrice had told her to try counting every single wave, Odysseus had asked her to write a heroic speech for him, Han Solo had offered her a solid gold-and-ivory chess set, and Arwen and Aragorn were not in a position to answer. SOS-180 had hummed and muttered something about assassinating the Prince.
So Leia was still bored. She sighed, turned her headset up to full volume, and flopped back against the mast. It was extraordinary how exhausting doing nothing could be.
Then, quite unexpectedly, the Flying Walkman was surrounded in very thick, very dark, very chilly fog. In fact, it could hardly be called fog, seeing as it was pitch black in color, and had a load of little purple lights glinting in it. Suddenly freezing, Leia sat up.
The running figure of Odysseus materialized from the dimness aft, waving its muscled arms.
"This is no normal sea-fog!" Odysseus cried. "Some fell power works against us!"
Then the swearing began, and it became difficult to hear anything.
Great Ringo preserve us, Leia thought, twisting the hem of her T- shirt nervously between her fingers. This is definitely not North Dakota. Oh, yes. What else is new?
******
Thanks to the enchanted fog, they didn't spot the Cyclop's island until they ran into it.
The blinded people on the deck of the Flying Walkman had no idea that there was a large landmass dead ahead of them. Odysseus continued to shout orders at the crew, none of which were obeyed, but it didn't really matter, because they couldn't see anything anyway. Then there had been a decidedly unsettling screech of wood on stone, a tremendous jolt, and then a dead silence.
It took everyone several seconds to realize that the Flying Walkman was no longer moving forward.
When the crew realized it, there was a new storm of swearing.
However, Odysseus, being rather out of the mental league of his crewmen, realized that they had probably reached their destination, and whooped loudly. He was stared at. The crewmen somehow managed to stare and swear at the same time.
"Don't you see what this means, everyone?" he cried, waving his arms enthusiastically. "Be quiet-don't you see?"
"No," someone said testily.
"Come on, people!" Now Beatrice took up the call. "We've reached our goal! We're at the Cyclops's Island!"
"Fame and fortune and all that good stuff!" Odysseus yelled.
The crew paid no attention to their captain.
Judging by the look of exasperation on Aragorn's face, he had gotten it, too. Leia watched, rather hoping he wouldn't blow up like he had in the Yoshimoto Sushi Bar. She didn't think the crewmen would like being whacked at with a sword, no matter how much they liked him now.
But instead of going into battle mode, Aragorn stood up, waved his arms and bellowed, "Hey! You heard them, everybody! Shut up!"
The crew instantly shut up, every man standing stiffly at attention, eyes fixed on Aragorn. They could have been a bunch of topless Marines in lionskin underwear.
Oddly enough, at this display of discipline Aragorn blanched-why couldn't he learn to stop doing that; it looked awful with the beard stubble-and swallowed hard.
"Thank-thank you," he stammered, sitting down again. "I'm sure your leader appreciates it."
Several people in the crowd grumbled. Aragorn gulped again, but Odysseus seemed totally oblivious.
"Yes, thank you all," he said. "My fellows, my soldiers, my mighty heroes! The time has come to prove your mettle! Beyond this wall of mist, there waits an island populated by unimaginable terrors! Honor and death and glory at every hand! Together, my men, we will wrest this root vegetable from the hand of Polyphemus, the vile Cyclops! The bards shall sing of us!"
Muttering. Han looked skeptical, Luke looked seasick, Aragorn was trying to hide from the crew behind Arwen. Leia felt slightly queasy herself; minus the "death" that list of things might be all right, but even honor and glory tended to be chancy things.
"So, what are you waiting for?" Odysseus roared, worked up to his full heroic fervor. "Lower the gangplank, lads! To battle we go!"
The lads looked at each other skeptically, then nodded. Someone in the back kicked open the trapdoor that led to the hold.
"Goodbye, great leader," Urgos grunted, bowing low.
Then everyone scrambled for the trapdoor at once, leaving the Walkers alone on deck.
Odysseus snorted.
"Heroes! And all the kings said they were giving me their heroes. What a load of loonies. I couldn't make a proper fighting band out of them if I tried." He turned to the people remaining on deck. "Well, I suppose we'll just have to make do, then. Heroic sacrifice and all that good stuff. By Gods, I'll have that vegetable from Polyphemus before he knows what's hit him! All, ashore, mates!"
With the others reluctantly trailing along behind him, Odysseus strode to the bow of the ship, where Leia assumed the gangplank was.
Or maybe not. Instead, Odysseus hopped up on the ship's rail, spread his arms wide, and cried, "Gods be with me!"
Then he jumped off the prow of the ship.
A second later there was a very dull thud, and a yelp of, "Ow! Oh, there I've gone and scraped my blasted shins again."
Odysseus's violently orange head appeared over the edge of the ship. Then his torso appeared, down to his waist.
"It's all right," he said solemnly. "The fall isn't too great. I only suffered minor bruises. Nothing a hero can't take."
"How far is it, exactly?" Arwen sounded genuinely interested. Leia wondered if the strange pointy-eared woman was suicidal, or just very, very stupid. She seemed to talk about jumping off high things a great deal, as well as giving quite a lot of tips on ways to knock out mountain trolls. The lads spent most of their time listening to her stories.
Odysseus bent over and quickly measured the distance with his eyes.
"Oh, it's.about two feet, I should say." He turned a little red round the ears. "No, wait, on this side it's more like three.and if you took away all the rocks it would be almost five..."
"Okay, thanks," said Arwen hurriedly.
For a minute or so the Walkers stood around, looking uncomfortable and wondering what they were supposed to do next. If Leia could use her own feelings as a judge, she would say that most of the people were wondering if they really had to burst in on Polyphemus and demand something from him. No one knew how a Cyclops would react to a demand.
Britney started to hum a little. Even the smallest sound from her unfortunate mouth had the effect of large bricks on Leia's brain. Leia instantly desired a large brick, that she might inflict the same effect upon Britney's brain, but the nearest thing to her was a water barrel, which might be difficult to throw.
Then,
"Well, what are you waiting for?" exclaimed Odysseus. "Come on out and we'll face the Cyclops like men-and women-and.bird...things."
"Oh, poo," Luke grumbled. But they all went, and took the two-foot plunge from the Flying Walkman's railing, and scraped their shins because they misjudged the distance. And then they were all on the Cyclops's Island.
The last thing Leia saw before stepping forward into the fog was Gruntos, peeking out of the top hatch and waving one meaty hand at them. Then it was all dark, completely dark, and the enchanted fog all around chilled her to the bone. Leia reached out blindly in front of her, searching for something to grab onto, and found an angora sweater. Han yelped, "Hey! You're choking me!" but she wasn't about to let go. If she got lost in this, she could wander around for weeks without any food or water, and that would stink.
After a few timeless minutes of tramping through the darkness, Leia was nearly re-blinded by a burst of white Aegean sunlight. Beatrice's lovely blond head was suddenly lit up until it looked almost like a halo; Odysseus's head looked like it had been set on fire. One by one the group stepped into the beautiful sunshine, until even Leia, the very last, felt it warming her face. If this had been a corny adventure movie, they would have started shouting for joy, and dancing, and leaping into the air like they were twenty years younger. This is not a corny adventure movie. They started shouting and leaping and dancing anyway.
Then, somewhere along the line, some intelligent person remembered that they were on the Cyclops' Island, and that intelligent people generally do not rejoice loudly when trapped on a small island with a giant. A sudden hush fell over them as they once again remembered what they were here for.
"I wonder where the Cyclops' cave is," Luke whispered. Now everyone was being extremely quiet.
"Use your eyes, lemonhead," Han whispered. "Behind you."
Leia looked where Han was pointing. It was a wonder she had missed it before, seeing as it wasn't exactly hard to miss. An immense set of double doors were set into the hillside behind them, with circular handles mounted two feet above the head of Beatrice, who was the tallest of the group. How the Cyclops possibly found enough oak to make his doors, they didn't know, but they certainly looked sturdy enough. The stone of the cliff walled off the rest of the fortress: it didn't look like it was going to be an easy place to barge into. Besides, without the help of Odysseus's lads, they were probably going to have to steal the Root Vegetable. An all- out assault would be suicide, and Leia wasn't going to place any bets on Polyphemus giving up the vegetable for free.
Yeah. Especially since, above the giant doors, there hung a banner that
read: POLYPHEMUS WELCOMES LORD DARTH VADER AND COHORTS TO HIS 4125th
BIRTHDAY BASH!
Arwen had noticed the sign, too.
"Well, that's wonderful," she said. "Not only are we going to have to face a Cyclops, we're going to have to face the Dark Lord and a lot of hand-picked minions as well. Life just likes keeping things interesting for us, doesn't it?"
"Well, it will certainly be an experience!" SOS-180 chirped, then, "Reasons to kill, she-Elf."
Arwen looked at him askance. She hadn't gotten used to SOS's odd spells yet. Even Leia, who'd known him right off, was only just adjusting. It was a little creepy to wake up in the middle of the night and hear someone hiss, "Yes, we will kill the king, kill the king." But hey. Everyone had their little issues. God knew she had hers.
And then, as if the situation couldn't get any more uncomfortable, a loud, nasal voice barked from behind them, "Halt! Who goes there?"
Instead of halting, everyone in the group spun around on their heels to look behind them. Chugging up the slope was a group of six men, all of them tall and beefy, all of them dressed in the same dull potato-colored uniform. On the left arm of each jacket there was emblazoned a scarlet turnip within a circle. Judging by the emblems and the banner above the door, Leia guessed that they were Imperial troopers.
"Hard Day's Night" was playing on her perpetual Beatles headset right now. It was her favorite song. This had the effect of making her much bolder, and more idiotic, than she would ordinarily have been.
"Hello, people!" she said brightly, walking forward with her hand outstretched. The troopers ground to a confused halt. Was this the way enemy agents usually acted? "I'm Leia the Local Beatles Freak, or Princess Leia, or just Leia. Whichever is easiest. Do you like the Beatles? I do, very much; they don't call me the Beatles freak for nothing, you see. You know, your boss had me in prison for a while, and it wasn't much fun. He force-fed me canned beets-"
"Not canned beets!" the leader of the platoon broke in with a gasp.
"Not canned beets!" the platoon echoed.
Leia nodded impressively, deciding that if she said random things at random times, she might put them so off balance that they would give in without a fight.
"Yes. Canned beets. Not very nice of him, do you think. Anyway, the Beatles kept me from going insane in prison. You see my shirt? Yeah, those are the Beatles. Quite a bunch, they were."
Shirt. Shirt. Leia suddenly had a stroke of genius. Everyone was looking at her as though she'd had an actual stroke.
"I come from North Dakota. Where are you from? Oh, by the way, we've got laser pistols hidden up our sleeves, and we're going to use them on you if you don't do exactly as we say."
We are? Luke mouthed. Han elbowed him.
"Right. We need your uniforms. Quickly now. We don't have much time; God knows when the banquet will be over. Out."
"But.but I'm wearing my-" Mimble-wimble, the rest of the soldier's sentence sounded like. He was rather young, and decidedly mousish, mouse- brown hair, pointed mousey nose, and shaking like a scared mouse.
"What?" Leia smiled pleasantly and put her hand to her ear.
"I'm wearing my Superman underwear today." The answer was barely audible.
"That's okay." Leia smiled again, wondering where she was getting the inspiration for this. "All the girls will turn around. We'll have one person watch to make sure you don't run off, but he'll promise not to laugh. Right, Beatrice."
Beatrice's eyebrows were level with his hairline. He still looked gorgeous, but Leia was glad she'd gotten used to that astronomical level of gorgeousness a bit, so she wasn't all over him all the time.
"Ok..ay. If. you say so, Leia. Er."
"Right. If you're sure he won't laugh."
Flustered out of their wits, the Imperial Guards turned around and began unbuttoning their jackets. Leia motioned for the Walkers to turn around, pulling Britney's head by the hair, since she had no guarantee her orders would be followed. Britney shrieked, but Leia had the height advantage, so she couldn't do much more than curse.
After a couple of minutes, Leia heard Beatrice say, "All right, guys. Thank you very much. You may run off into the wilderness now."
There was a hasty scramble of footsteps. Then, "Okay, you can turn around."
Leia turned around. Lying on the rocky slope were six potato-brown uniforms, complete down to the pointy hat and the boots. Leia was rather pleased with her handiwork. Now, in the press of the crowd, they might be mistaken for ordinary Imperial soldiers. She explained this to the group, who looked blank for a moment and then emitted a collective, "Ohh."
Han tapped her on the head.
"Lucky we got the North Dakotan," he said solemnly. "Quite the brain she's got in here, quite the brain."
Then he stole her enameled hairclip. Leia grabbed his hand halfway down and forced it open.
"Oh dear, sorry, must have come off in my hand.don't know how it could have."
"Oh, lay off it, kleptomaniac." She awkwardly repinned her hair. "Everyone knows your habits but you."
"Oh, thanks," he sniffed. "And when I'd just given you a compliment, too."
"Lay off it, kleptomaniac," Luke grumbled. "And might I point out there are more of us than there are uniforms. We're going to have to draw straws to find out who get to be the human sacrifices."
"I will go!" Odysseus said instantly. "Honor and death and fame and all that good stuff! What captain would I be if I took upon myself a mission and were to cowardly to see it finished.then again, you do need a person to navigate on the way home, don't you? Perhaps it would be better if I.er-hem.withdrew. Provided you don't speak of it to the lads."
"Mum's the word," Leia promised. "SOS, no one will think you're a human soldier, no offense, of course. And Britney will stand out no matter what she's wearing, so I think it had better be me, Luke, Han, Aragorn, Arwen, and Beatrice. Okay?"
"Rats," Arwen muttered. "I'll have to hide my ears somehow. Rather discouraging being a mutant in a normal human world."
"You can say that again," Britney snapped.
"Okee-dokee." Leia clapped her hands briskly. "Everyone into uniforms, and then we'll get them to let us in somehow." She strode to the pile, selected the one that looked smallest, and headed for the nearest large rock.
Three minutes later, their group was composed of one red-headed hero, one half-human, and six Imperial Guardsmen, one of which was nervously fussing with her ears.
"Very nice." Leia admired her handiwork with a lopsided smile. "We all look like walking turds. Arwen, if you can keep your ears covered- Aragorn, you aren't going to carry that sword into the hall, are you, its sort of a giveaway-okay, barring those things, we're all right. Lets just see if they'll let us in now."
"Fair fotunes, noble warriors!" Odysseus raised a hand in farewell. "May all the Gods cast their blessings upon you. Give Polyphemus a good whack, and say that I sent it to him. I'll-I'll be going now."
"Be careful, Aragorn!" Britney wailed. "Don't get yourself killed!"
"Oh, do watch your backs!" SOS tried to sound sorrowful against his programming, and failed. "I hope you have an experience kill, kill, kill you all."
Then the three of them trundled into the mists.
Side by side the six Walkers stepped up to the immense wooden doors.
Beatrice picked up a rock and banged on the door three times.
"Let us in!" he called. "Polyphemus! We're late! Let us in!"
Silence. Distant sounds of revelry filtered through the door.
Beatrice knocked again.
"Let us in, by the Universe! Or we'll huff and we'll puff, and we'll blow the hillside in!"
More silence. Leia wondered if they hadn't heard at all, or if they were simply choosing to ignore the pounding.
A very old commercial from her childhood in Dakota crossed her mind for no reason at all.
Leia grabbed a rock of her own, banged, leaned in as close as she could to the door, and bellowed, "Get the door! It's Dominoes!"
There was a scuffle and a grating of stone as the heavy wooden door swung open.
