Jumper Cable (26 page)

“Or you’re hopelessly male, wanting more than you can have.”

“I’m hopelessly male,” he agreed.

They rejoined the others. “Close kisses work,” she reported. “But not completely. He still has control of himself.”

“So noted,” Haughty said.

She had been trying to make him lose control? In the guise of practicing her technique? He would have to be more wary than he had been. After all, that wasn’t the kind of relationship he had with these women.

“My turn,” Olive said.

They resumed traveling, and now Olive rode beside him. “I could summon Angie,” she murmured.

“Is that considered fair play?”

“No, bleep it. I have to figure it out by myself.”

That seemed just as well.

They were making good progress, until they encountered a grazing animal whose dull gray bulk somehow filled the path so that they couldn’t pass. It had four column-like feet, a mobile trunk at one end, enormous floppy ears, and a small tail at the other end. They drew up, got off their bikes, and tried to walk around one side, then the other, but somehow the creature was always in the way despite not seeming to notice them.

“What is it?” Maeve asked, irritated.

Dawn stepped up to touch the huge flank. “It’s an irrelevant,” she reported. “Generally harmless, it doesn’t matter to anyone, but somehow it’s always in the way.”

“Well, we need to pass,” Phanta said. “We don’t have all day, or even an hour, to spare.”

“Maybe we can encourage it to clear the path,” Haughty said. She flew up to its head. “Get your fat rear out of here!” she screeched in one ear. But the irrelevant ignored her.

“Nothing bothers an irrelevant,” Dawn said. “It’s proof against logic or threatening. It ignores everything. Nothing disperses it.”

“Nothing?” Olive asked. “How about this?” And beside her appeared a fiery dragon.

“Not even that,” Dawn said.

The dragon issued a blast of fire to toast the animal’s vast flank. But the irrelevant seemed not even to notice. It continued grazing, ignoring them all.

“Bleep,” Olive swore as the dragon faded.

“Maybe this,” Phanta said. Suddenly she was a big fearsome ghost. She floated up to hover before the creature’s small eye. “Booo!”

The irrelevant continued grazing, ignoring her.

“So it’s like that is it?” Phanta-ghost asked. “Well how do you like this, you big ignorant mass of nothing?” Her ghost form flattened out into a sheet, which draped itself over the irrelevant’s head so that it could not see, hear, or breathe.

The creature melted, becoming a big mound of vile goo that spread all the way across the path and into the forest beyond. A ripening stench rose from it.

“Oh, for pity’s sake!” Phanta exclaimed, floating clear and returning to her human form. “Now it’s polluted the whole region.”

“You can’t get rid of an irrelevant,” Dawn said. “You can only avoid it.”

So it seemed. Highly annoyed, they turned around and rode back along the path. They would not be reaching Castle Roogna today. They drew up at a wayside stop, foraged for supper, washed, and settled in for the night. Jumper and Olive, it turned out, had a shelter to themselves.

She doffed her clothes and snuggled up to him under the blanket. “I just want to sleep,” he said quickly.

“No one’s stopping you. Just ignore me.”

But when he closed his eyes and tried to relax, she set the full length of her bare softness against him. “Admit it,” she murmured. “Wouldn’t you like to do something with me?”

“I’d like to sleep with you.”

There was half a pause. “You were speaking literally,” she said then.

“Yes. We surely have a hard day’s travel tomorrow, and we all need our rest.”

She wrapped her arms and legs about him. “In a moment,” she said. But he suspected she had more than a moment in mind, and if this

continued longer, he would surely succumb. He was supposed to resist as well as he could. So, with a certain regret, he drank a vial, and returned to spider form.

“Bleep,” she said. “I got too obvious, and blew it.” But now she went to sleep.

In the morning Haughty made another note. “Naked seduction is not sufficient.”

They or

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nized and took another path. Jumper resumed human form, so he could ride a bicycle; that actually was easier now than keeping up on spider legs. This time it was Eve who rode beside him.

“What are you girls really up to?” he asked her.

“You already know, so your question is rhetorical,” she said. “We need to find out what makes a girl irresistible to a man. Nothing less will suffice to spring the trap on Pluto.”

She was right, but he remained disturbed. “But I’m not Pluto! I’m just Jumper, trying to be friends with all of you.”

“And succeeding beautifully,” Eve agreed. “So if one of us can seduce you despite your determination to remain neutral, we will know we have found the secret.”

“I just want to accomplish my mission, so I can return to my own realm.”

“And to do that, we will need to neutralize Pluto. Somehow. Reversing his own ploy seems our most promising approach.”

The newest path meandered uncertainly, but Eve assured them that it did eventually lead to Castle Roogna. A path, as an inanimate thing, fell within her purview.

“Do you know, I am coming to like cycling,” Eve remarked. “But I’m getting tired of constantly leaning forward.”

Jumper glanced across at her. She was indeed leaning forward, and her blouse fell open so that he could see inside. Whereupon he crashed into the brush.

She dismounted and came to help him up. In the pro cess she leaned even farther forward. He felt his eyes glazing over. “Are you all right?”

she asked, putting her hands on his human shoulders. That gave him the most awesome view yet.

“Oh, stop it!” Dawn snapped. “Try this instead.”

That was when Jumper realized that none of Eve’s exposure had been accidental. She had been showing him ever-deeper visions of her unbound breasts, though they were not her specialty. “Make a note,” he gasped. “Accidental partial exposure is more effective than full nudity. Even if it’s not accidental.”

“So noted,” Haughty said.

Now he saw that Dawn had found another kind of cycle. This one was low set, with the pedals in the front, so that the rider lay on her back to make it move. That would mean that Eve’s blouse would remain completely closed.

But she seemed undismayed. “A recumbent bike,” Eve said, touching it. “This should be interesting.” She got on it and pedaled. And her knees lifted as her legs moved, showing everything under her skirt in shifting flashes. This was her specialty. Jumper came perilously close to freaking out once more. Angie had not prepared him for this approach.

“Noted again,” Haughty said. “I think we have something here. Partial exposure, by seeming coincidence.”

“But we do need to keep moving,” Dawn said sharply. They found a pair of slacks for Eve, and she cycled in them. That enabled Jumper to focus on his own riding. But whenever he blinked, he saw those animated bare legs. Had it not been for the obstruction of the bicycles, and their need to keep traveling, Eve could have seduced him right then.

Would it work on Pluto? Jumper thought it should. Pluto obviously liked women, and Eve was the hottest girl yet.

“Oh, there’s a cocoa nut tree,” Wenda called. She was always the first to spy woodland artifacts.

They drew up at the tree, and had hot cocoa from its sturdy nuts. It was a nice refreshment.

A man appeared, walking along the path. He paused when he saw the girls. “Hello.”

“Have some cocoa,” Maeve said, bringing him a cup.

“Thank you. I am Zach. I have a problem.”

Maeve stepped close to him. Jumper realized that she was practicing her seduction technique, seeing whether she could fool this stranger into believing she was a normal girl. “I am Maeve. Can I help?”

Zach glanced down as he accepted the hot cup, and blinked as he saw into her décolletage. The cocoa started to slop. “Uh—”

“He’s freaking out,” Eve murmured. “Decrease the view.”

Maeve, pleased, closed her neckline with one hand. Zach recovered.

“I am cursed to be unable to settle down until I solve a riddle,” he said, unaware of his pause.

“A riddle?” Maeve breathed.

“Any law has an exception. I have to find one that is the exception. That is, that has no exception. So far I have been stymied, and so I can’t settle down.”

This was obviously beyond Maeve’s intellectual expertise. Her eyes flicked to Jumper in mute appeal.

It was beyond his expertise too, but he had to try to help. So he said the first thing that came into his mind, irrelevant as it might be. “I think, therefore I exist.”

Zach stared at him. “That’s it! How can there be any exception to that? Nobody can think without existing.”

“Yes,” Maeve agreed, relieved.

“Now I can settle down!” His gaze embraced Maeve. “Would you—”

“Sorry,” she said quickly. “I’m a maenad.” She removed her wax teeth and showed her points.

Zach backed away so quickly he almost fell. “Thank you! Adieu!”

He fled.

“Well, at least you solved his problem,” Eve remarked.

“Jumper did,” Maeve said.

“But he lacks the décolletage,” Eve said. “Well played, Maeve. You freaked him out without even trying.”

“I was trying. I just didn’t think it would work.”

The others laughed appreciatively. This was progress. Then they resumed traveling— and encountered a chasm that severed the path. It dropped way deep into darkness, and was about fifty feet across. “It’s a new offshoot from the Gap Chasm,” Eve said after

touching her finger to its brink. “Fostered by Pluto to balk us. No way around it. We’ll have to cross it.” Then she paled.

“What’s the problem?” Haughty asked.

“I just remembered,” Eve said. “I’m afraid of heights.”

“But this isn’t a height,” the harpy said. “It’s a depth.”

“Not exactly. Crossing it by means of a bridge or floating means I’ll see the bottom far below. That will freak me out, and I don’t mean pantywise.”

“She’s right,” Dawn said. “I’m afraid of depths. We discovered it in the past couple of years. We simply can’t go some places.”

“For p*ty’s sake,” Haughty said. “We’ll lose at least another day if we have to detour again.”

“We may have to anyway,” Olive said. “I can ghost over, Haughty can fly over, but how will the rest of you cross?”

“There’s a way,” Jumper said. He swallowed a vial and assumed his natural form. “I will spin a stout line, which you can carry across, Haughty, and anchor on the far side. Then we’ll be able to ferry the others across.”

“Go without me,” Eve said, looking faint.

“But we need our whole party,” Jumper reminded her. “According to the Prophecy, the loss of any member will prevent us from completing the mission. I can carry you across.”

“I’d go crazy wild and cause us both to drop into the void. I’m not being coy; I can’t do it.”

“I’ll make a cocoon.”

“I tell you, I can’t—” She paused. “A cocoon?”

“You won’t be able to see the gulf at all.”

“Let’s do it,” Haughty said.

They did it. Jumper spun his stout line, Haughty carried it across the chasm and tied it around a stout ironwood tree, and he anchored it around another tree on the near side. Then he spun a basket, and a smaller line. He fastened the line to the basket, and hung the basket over that main line. Then he clambered along the line himself, needing no basket, carry ing the light cord.

“Someone get in the basket,” he called.

Wenda got in. “Dew knot drop me,” she said, smiling. Then Jumper pulled on the thin line, hauling the basket along while the harpy hovered beside it.

“Ooo, fun!” Wenda cried, thrilled. “I wood like to travel this way all the time.”

Soon she reached the brink, and Jumper helped her out of the basket. “Yew are wonderful!” she exclaimed, kissing him.

“Honest appreciation,” Jumper said to Haughty. “Make a note.”

“Noted,” Haughty agreed.

“Yew mean that works better than all my effort before?” Wenda asked.

“Yes. Your impulsive emotion makes me want to kiss you back. Because it wasn’t calculated.”

“Why knot try a calculated one, to compare?”

Oh. He embraced her and kissed her. It was wonderful. So did that mean it didn’t have to be impulsive? No, it was because he knew she really liked him. Then Jumper moved back across, carry ing the empty basket. One by one he hauled them across, until only Eve was left.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I may go wild anyway.”

“It won’t matter. The cocoon will be tight, except porous so that air can pass through. You can be as wild as you want.” He got busy spinning it. When it was done, it was a thimble-shaped bag with a flap on the top. Eve got in, and he drew the flap over and sealed it closed. Then he picked up the cocoon and set it in the basket, sticking it in place. He went across the gulf, and hauled the basket along as before. There was no sound from it; Eve had not gone wild. He brought it to the brink and lifted the cocoon and basket clear, setting them beside the tree. He opened the flap.

Eve was there, unconscious. She had made it, but freaked out in her fashion.

“Kiss her,” Haughty said, laughing.

Of course Jumper was in spider form. They all laughed, mostly with relief.

Jumper returned to manform. Then he did kiss her. Eve revived in midkiss, and kissed him back. “Thank you,” she murmured. “Let’s not do that again.”

Now Jumper resumed spider form and swung back across the line with the basket. He packed two bicycles into it and hauled them across. He continued until all of them were recovered. Only then did he cross one more time, sever the line, and swing back across the gulf while the girls watched ner vous ly. There was half a scream, no more than two E’s in the eek. He struck the wall, then clambered up it to the surface.

“We forgot yew were a spider,” Wenda said apologetically. He returned to manform. “I am glad to be useful.”

They mounted their cycles. This time Dawn accompanied him. “I think we’re making progress,” she said. “We are finding ways to seduce you despite your re sis tance. I think this will help us achieve our goal.”