The Repairman | Page 7

they tried to open it.
When they had given up, I boomed orders at them through a speaker in

the crate. They spent most of the day sweating the heavy box up
through the narrow temple stairs and I enjoyed a good sleep. It was
resting inside the beacon door when I woke up.
* * * * *
The repairs didn't take long, though there was plenty of groaning from
the blind lizards when they heard me ripping the wall open to get at the
power leads. I even hooked a gadget to the water pipe so their Holy
Waters would have the usual refreshing radioactivity when they started
flowing again. The moment this was all finished, I did the job they
were waiting for.
I threw the switch that started the water flowing again.
There were a few minutes while the water began to gurgle down
through the dry pipe. Then a roar came from outside the pyramid that
must have shaken its stone walls. Shaking my hands once over my head,
I went down for the eye-burning ceremony.
The blind lizards were waiting for me by the door and looked even
unhappier than usual. When I tried the door, I found out why--it was
bolted and barred from the other side.
"It has been decided," a lizard said, "that you shall remain here forever
and tend the Holy Waters. We will stay with you and serve your every
need."
A delightful prospect, eternity spent in a locked beacon with three blind
lizards. In spite of their hospitality, I couldn't accept.
"What--you dare interfere with the messenger of your ancestors!" I had
the speaker on full volume and the vibration almost shook my head off.
The lizards cringed and I set my Solar for a narrow beam and ran it
around the door jamb. There was a great crunching and banging from
the junk piled against it, and then the door swung free. I threw it open.
Before they could protest, I had pushed the priests out through it.

The rest of their clan showed up at the foot of the stairs and made a
great ruckus while I finished welding the door shut. Running through
the crowd, I faced up to the First Lizard in his tub. He sank slowly
beneath the surface.
"What lack of courtesy!" I shouted. He made little bubbles in the water.
"The ancestors are annoyed and have decided to forbid entrance to the
Inner Temple forever; though, out of kindness, they will let the waters
flow. Now I must return--on with the ceremony!"
The torture-master was too frightened to move, so I grabbed out his hot
iron. A touch on the side of my face dropped a steel plate over my eyes,
under the plastiskin. Then I jammed the iron hard into my phony
eye-sockets and the plastic gave off an authentic odor.
A cry went up from the crowd as I dropped the iron and staggered in
blind circles. I must admit it went off pretty well.
* * * * *
Before they could get any more bright ideas, I threw the switch and my
plastic pterodactyl sailed in through the door. I couldn't see it, of course,
but I knew it had arrived when the grapples in the claws latched onto
the steel plates on my shoulders.
I had got turned around after the eye-burning and my flying beast
hooked onto me backward. I had meant to sail out bravely, blind eyes
facing into the sunset; instead, I faced the crowd as I soared away, so I
made the most of a bad situation and threw them a snappy military
salute. Then I was out in the fresh air and away.
When I lifted the plate and poked holes in the seared plastic, I could see
the pyramid growing smaller behind me, water gushing out of the base
and a happy crowd of reptiles sporting in its radioactive rush. I counted
off on my talons to see if I had forgotten anything.
One: The beacon was repaired.

Two: The door was sealed, so there should be no more sabotage,
accidental or deliberate.
Three: The priests should be satisfied. The water was running again,
my eyes had been duly burned out, and they were back in business.
Which added up to--
Four: The fact that they would probably let another repairman in, under
the same conditions, if the beacon conked out again. At least I had done
nothing, like butchering a few of them, that would make them
antagonistic toward future ancestral messengers.
I stripped off my tattered lizard suit back in the ship, very glad that it
would be some other repairman who'd get the job.
--HARRY HARRISON

Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Galaxy February 1958. Extensive
research did