Chapter 14:Conversation

We must not go too far, too high

We've lost our wings, we cannot fly

Van Helsing stared at him for such a long time, Carl grew exceedingly twitchy.

"Stop staring at me!" he demanded finally, and Van Helsing blinked slowly and shook his head.

"That's your plan?"

"Yes it is. What of it?"

Van Helsing shook his head some more.

"Will you stop doing that? Why do you always respond negatively to everything?"

"I only respond negatively to things," said Van Helsing heavily, "that are so obviously asinine that even I fear for your sanity. You cannot threaten some unknown man with a weapon powerful enough to bring down the building. Especially if you do not know for certain that it works."

"Of course it'll work," said Carl immediately.

"On what past example of first-time success do you base that judgement?"

"Stop pontificating, Van Helsing, I know what you mean!" Carl thought madely. "Look, I know that it'll work. Theoretically. It'll be a big bang and all over. But— we could try it out."

"Try it out," repeated Van Helsing. "On what? Some poor unsuspecting building down the street?

Carl was quiet for a minute, then said curiously, "What were you going to use it for, anyway?"

"Scouts located a town in the far hills of Scotland," said Van Helsing, sounding as though he were reading from a script. "It had been sqaushed flat, all of it. Following some footprints of truly frightening proportion, they were able to locate an enormous cave from which snoring sounds were coming. Frightened for their lives, they rushed back to civilization and sent the Vatican a message, telling me to get ready to take down something truly huge."

Carl's mind boggled. "A giant?" he asked.

"No," said Van Helsing calmly, "an enormous."

B.R.E.A.K.

"I don't see why you insist on doing everything your way."

"I don't. Usually we do things your way. It's just that, this time, your way is— well, it isn't practical." Van Helsing thought about it, and added, "At all."

"But I still don't see—"

"It doesn't matter what you see, Carl. Just stay in here till I get back with the axitonne and other things. Then we'll talk."

"Why don't I like the sound of that? Van Helsing, when you say 'Talk' you mean 'go home without doing anything,' don't you?"

Van Helsing gave him a look and shut the door.

Carl sighed deeply and wandered into the withdrawing room, where Hannah sat passively pushing a needle through a piece of cloth. Carl looked around him. Every flat surface in the room was covered by a piece of his sister's needlepoint. One of the givens for large unmarried women in their forties, he recalled, was that they be extremely good and extremely productive with their needle and thread.

The thought depressed him, and he started to sink into an uncomfortably overstuffed armchair. His descent was arrested by a shriek from Hannah.

"Don't sit there!"

"Why not?"

"The cat!"

Carl stood all the way up and turned around. A large white cat glared at him with baleful green eyes.

"Terribly sorry," Carl told it, and moved to the sofa.

There followed a period of silence that was about as comfortable as a mallard who's wanderd accidentally into a Duck-Hater's Anonymous meeting. Then Hannah abruptly dropped her needlework into her lap and said, with a sob apparent in her voice, "Brother—"

"Yes?" said Carl, innocently.

"Oh, Brother—"

"What is it?"

She sniffed mightily and wiped her eyes. "I think I'm in love with your friend Mr. Van Helsing."

It was the first time in several hours that Tamerlaine Gentle was knocked entirely from Carl's thoughts, and it was due to shock, surprise, and, ultimately, amusement.

He began to laugh.