High Dragon Bump Read online

  Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

  _Illustrated by Paul Orban_]

  High Dragon Bump

  BY DON THOMPSON

  _If it took reduction or torch hair, the Cirissins wanted a bump. Hokum, thistle, gluck._

  A young and very beautiful girl with golden blond hair and smooth skinthe color of creamed sweet potatoes floated in the middle of thewindowless metal room into which Wayne Brighton drifted. The girl wasnot exactly naked, but her few filmy clothes concealed nothing.

  Wayne cleared his throat, his apprehension changing rapidly toconfusion.

  "_You_ are going to _reduce_ me?" he asked.

  "The word is seduce, mister," the girl said. "They told me reduce, too,but they don't talk real good, and I think I'm supposed to seduce you soyou'll tell 'em something, and then they'll let me go. I guess. I hope.What is it they wantcha to tell 'em?"

  Wayne cleared his throat again, striving merely to keep a firm grip onhis sanity. Things had been happening much too fast for him to haveretained anything like his customary composure.

  He said, "Well, they want me to get them a, uh--well, a high dragonbump." He pronounced the words carefully.

  "So why dontcha?" the girl asked.

  Wayne's voice rose. "I don't even know what it is. I told them andthey don't believe me. Now you're here! I suppose if I can't bereduced--seduced--into getting them one, it will wind up with torchhair. Believe me, I never heard of a high dragon bump."

  "Now, don't get panicky!" the girl pleaded. "After all, I'm scared too."

  "I am not scared!" Wayne replied indignantly. But he realized that hewas.

  So far, in the hour or so he'd been a captive of the Cirissins, he'dmanaged to keep his fright pretty well subdued. He'd understood almostat once what had happened, and his first reaction had not been terror oreven any great degree of surprise.

  He was a scientist and he had a scientist's curiosity.

  And at first the Cirissins--or the one that had done all thetalking--had been cooperative in answering his questions. But then, whenhe wasn't able to comprehend what they meant by high dragon bump, they'dstarted getting impatient.

  "What's your name?" he asked the girl. She was making gentle swimmingmotions with her hands and feet, moving gradually closer to him.

  "Sheilah," she said. "Sheilah Ralue. I'm a model. I pose for pitchers.You know--for sexy magazines and calendars and stuff like that."

  "I see. You were posing when--?"

  "When they snatched me, yeah. Couple hours ago, I guess. The flash bulbwent off and blinded me for a second like it always does, and I seemedto be falling. Then I was here. Only I still don't even know where hereis. Do you? How come we don't weigh nothing? It's ghastly!"

  "We're in a space ship," Wayne told her. "In free fall, circling earth athousand miles or so out. I thought you at least knew we were in a spaceship."

  The girl said, "Oh, bull. We can't be in no space ship. How'd we gethere so fast?"

  "They have a matter transmitter, but I haven't the slightest idea of howit works. Obviously it's limited to living creatures or they could justas well have taken whatever it is they want instead of ... You don'thappen to know what a high dragon bump is, do you?"

  "Don't be dumb. Of course I ... well, unless it's a dance or something.I use to be a dancer, ya know. Sort of."

  "With bubbles, I imagine," Wayne said.

  "Tassels. They was my specialty. But there's more money in posing forpitchers, and the work ain't quite so--"

  "I doubt that a high dragon bump is a dance," Wayne said.

  Then he rubbed his chin. High dragon bump? Bumps and grinds? Highlandfling? Chinese dragon dances? Hell, why not?

  The idea of space travelers visiting earth to learn a new dance was nomore fantastic than the idea of them being here at all.

  Wayne turned his face to the door and shouted, "Hey, is that it? Adance? You want us to teach you a dance called the high dragon bump?"

  A muffled metallic voice from the other side said, "Nod danz. Bump.Huguff quig."

  Wayne shrugged and grinned weakly at Sheilah. "Well, we're makingheadway. We know one thing that it isn't."

  The girl had drifted so close to him now that he could feel the warmthof her body and smell the overwhelming fragrance of her perfume.

  She put one hand on his arm, and Wayne found that he had neither thestrength nor the inclination to jerk away.

  But he protested weakly, "Now, listen, there's no point in you--Imean--even if we did, I couldn't produce a high dragon bump."

  "What kind of work do you do, mister?" Sheilah asked softly, drawingherself even closer. "You know, you ain't even told me your name yet."

  "It's Wayne," he said, fumbling in an effort to loosen his tie so hecould breath more easily. "I'm an instructor. I teach physics at KylerCollege, and I've got a weekly science show on TV. In fact I'd justfinished my show when they got me. I was leaving the studio, startingdown the stairs. Thought at first I'd missed a step and was falling, butI just kept falling. And I landed here, and ... Now, don't do that!"

  "Why, I wasn't doing nothing. Whaddya do on your TV show?"

  "I talk. About science. Physics. Like today, I was discussing theH-bomb. How it works, you know, and why the fallout is dangerous,and ... Oh, good Gawd! Seduce, reduce! High dragon bump!"

  He shoved her away from him abruptly and violently and he went hurtlingin the opposite direction.

  "Well, hey!" Sheilah protested. "You don't need to get so rough. Iwasn't going to--"

  "Shut up," Wayne said. "I think I've figured out what the Cirissinswant!

  "Hey! Hey, open the door," he shouted. "I've got to talk to you."

  The door opened and a Cirissin floated in.

  Sheilah turned her head away, shuddering, and Wayne found it wise toclose his eyes and open them little by little to grow re-accustomed tothe sight gradually.

  The only thing he could think of with which to compare the Cirissins wasthe intestinal complex of an anemic elephant.

  It was not an entirely satisfactory comparison; but then, from his pointof view, the Cirissins were entirely unsatisfactory creatures.

  Each of the four he had seen was nearly twice his size. They had norecognizable features such as eyes, ears, nose, head, arms or legs.

  Tentacle-like protrusions of various size and length seemed to serve asthe sensory and prehensile organs. Wayne had identified one waving,restless flexible stalk as the eye. He suspected another of being themouth, except that it apparently wasn't used for talking. The voice camefrom somewhere deep inside the convoluted mass of pastel-streakedtissue.

  "Wand tog?" the Cirissin rumbled.

  Wayne said, "Yes. Do you mind telling me what you want a high dragonbump _for_?"

  "Blast away hearth," the Cirissin replied unhesitatingly.

  Wayne swallowed and found it unnaturally difficult to do so.

  "To blast away earth?" he said. "You can do that with just one highdragon bump?"

  "Certificate. Alteration energy maguntoot. Compilated, though. Wantsplain?"

  Wayne said, "Never mind. I believe you. Just tell me this: Why? Who doyou feel it's necessary to do it?"

  "Cause _is_ necessary," the Cirissin explained. "Hearth no good. Wheedun lake. Godda gut red oft."

  Sheilah gasped, "Why the inhuman beasts!"

  Wayne expended one sidelong silencing glance on her and then said, "Isee. And just suppose now that I don't give you a high dragon bump? Whatdo you do then?"

  "Use hot tummy ache your arnium fishing bumps. Got them us elves.Tooking longthier, more hurtful, but can. Few don't gives high dragonbump tweddy far whores, thin godda."

  Wayne was silent for a
while, staring at the alien creature, aware ofSheilah staring at him.

  "Twenty-four hours," he muttered. "Then they use uranium fission bombs.Oh, hell!"

  Finally he shrugged. "All right, I'll do it. Anyway, I'll try. I'll dowhat I can."

  Sheilah said, "Hey, listen mister, you can't ..."

  "Shut up!" Wayne snapped. "How do you know what I can do? You just letme handle this."

  "No sea juicing?" the Cirissin asked, waving his eye stem at Sheilah.

  "No. No sea