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Updated: May 6, 2025
I wasn't five feet from Tweel, and it took a terrific struggle, but I managed to raise my revolver and put a Boland shell into the beast. Out came a spurt of horrible black corruption, drenching Tweel and me and I guess the sickening smell of it helped to destroy the illusion of that valley of beauty.
'A tait o' woo' would be scarce amang us, said the goodwife, brightening, 'if ye shouldna hae that, and as gude a tweel as ever cam aff a pirn. I'll speak to Johnnie Goodsire, the weaver at the Castletown, the morn. Fare ye weel, sir! and may ye be just as happy yoursell as ye like to see a' body else; and that would be a sair wish to some folk.
"Tweel saw it, too, and let out a screech of anger, and the creature rose on two pencil-thin legs and scuttled off with a half-terrified, half defiant squeak. It darted past us into the darkness too quickly even for Tweel, and as it ran, something waved on its body like the fluttering of a cape. Tweel screeched angrily at it and set up a shrill hullabaloo that sounded like genuine rage.
"Yeah: Tweel's people reproduce just like the barrels in the mud cities; two individuals grow a third one between them. Another proof of Leroy's theory that Martian life is neither animal nor vegetable. Besides, Tweel was a good enough host to let him poke down his beak and twiddle his feathers, and the examination convinced Leroy." "Oui," confirmed the biologist. "It is true."
Well, we were a little shaky about going in there, but Tweel twittered and trilled and kept saying, 'Yes, yes, yes! so we followed him, staring nervously about for the thing that had watched us. However, that hall was just like the others, full of murmurs and slithering noises and shadowy things slipping away into corners.
No breet'! Well, those were the words he used to describe the silicon monster; they were also the words he had used to tell me that the image of Fancy Long, the one that had almost lured me to the dream-beast, wasn't real. I remembered that, but it meant nothing to me then! "Right after that, Tweel said, 'You one-one-two, he one-one-two, and then I began to see.
Sometimes Tweel would show us through a hall that would have housed an ocean-liner, and he'd seem to swell with pride and we couldn't make a damn thing of it! As a display of architectural power, the city was colossal; as anything else it was just nutty! "But we did see one thing that registered. We came to that same building Leroy and I had entered earlier the one with the three eyes in it.
When I scrambled up, that particular image was gone, and Tweel was in a twist of black ropey arms, just as when I first saw him. He'd missed a vital point in the beast's anatomy, but was jabbing away desperately with his beak. "Somehow, the spell had lifted, or partially lifted.
"Anyway," he continued, "Tweel was squeaking and pointing at the figure, and saying 'Tick! Tick! so he recognized the resemblance and never mind any cracks about my nose!" he warned the captain. "It was Leroy who made the important comment; he looked at the Martian and said 'Thoth! The god Thoth!" "Oui!" confirmed the biologist. "Comme l'Egypte!" "Yeah," said Jarvis.
What was the one other thing you did before returning here?" Jarvis looked diffident. "Oh that." He hesitated. "Well I sort of felt we owed Tweel a lot, so after some trouble, we coaxed him into the rocket and sailed him out to the wreck of the first one, over on Thyle II. Then," he finished apologetically, "I showed him the atomic blast, got it working and gave it to him!"
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