Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  “I am going,” Dake said, “to get completely, happily, roaring drunk.” And he turned and sauntered merrily out into the street.

  Helen and I went home in silence . . .

  Of course, that did it. Helen has thrown out her dream books, burnt her tarot cards, given away her horoscopes. After a few days she even forgave me for the rather low trick I played on her.

  We settled back into our rational existence. And I thought that was the end of it. But last week a man entered my office, a tall, gaunt, stony-faced man wearing a once-good suit. It was Dake. I shook hands with him warily, expecting a touch.

  “I’ve come to do you a favour,” Dake said.

  “Oh?”

  “Absolutely. You strike me as the kind of man who’s up-to-date and forward-looking. You’ve got a new car and the latest appliances in your home. Right?”

  “Um,” I said noncommittally.

  “Of course. But a single glance round this office tells me you’re getting along on old-fashioned filing methods, ancient typewriters, an inadequate communication system—”

  It took me a moment to realise that Dake was selling office equipment and methods.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Well, sir,” Dake said, “after I left you, I started thinking about what the fortune teller man said. And you know, I decided he was right!” He blushed and looked away. “I mean, I am a man of iron will and determination, way down deep. I just didn’t let it come out before. I thought about that for the better part of two days, and in the end I didn’t buy any booze. I bought a square meal and started looking for a job.”

  “You amaze me,” I said feebly. “How is the work going?”

  “Can’t complain,” Dake said. “I feel I’m performing an important social service. It’s strange how many old-fashioned offices there are in a modern city like this. Take yours . . .”

  Dake showed the office manager and the cost accountant how they’d save money by spending it on proper equipment and methods. His arguments, put forth in his honest West country accents, were unanswerable. The firm he represented was old and reliable. He closed the sale with no difficulty.

  I walked to the door with him. “It’s preposterous,” I said. “I just can’t get over it. Professor Marзon was so wrong about everything else about you—”

  Dake shook his head. “I did have two years at college before I quit.”

  “But the West—”

  “I have always felt the West country is my spiritual home,” Dake said serenely. “I expect to retire there some day.” And he left.

  Naturally, I told Helen none of this. Women are too quick to jump to unwarranted conclusions. I am a scientific man. I returned to Professor Marзon to pursue the thing a little further.

  Rationally, it is ridiculous. But now I must end this account and get to work. We have reached a crisis here, and our plant is stopped dead on a design problem. It’s in my lap. And tonight is a particularly auspicious night, a problem-solving night, for a Capricorn such as I!

  1960

  MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE BROMIDE

  three fine old situations, drawn and quartered

  THE DESPERATE CHASE

  THIS TIME it looked like the end for Arkady Varadin, formerly a magician, now a much-wanted criminal. Cool and resourceful in the face of danger, cunning and ruthless, dangerous as a puff adder, master of illusion and fanciful escapes, the thin-faced Varadin had overstepped himself this time.

  After a spectacular escape from the Denning maximum-security penitentiary, any other man would have stayed out of sight. Not Varadin. Single-handed, he had held up a bank in the small town of Croesus, Maine. Escaping, he had shot and killed two guards who were foolish enough to reach for their guns. He had stolen a car and made off.

  But then his luck turned. The FBI had been waiting for something like this. Within an hour they were on Varadin’s trail. Even then the master criminal might have escaped; but his stolen car ran out of gas.

  Varadin abandoned the car and went into the mountains. Five FBI agents were close behind. At long range, Varadin plugged two of them with six shots from his revolver. He had no more ammunition. There were still three agents coming up the mountain, and a local guide was with them.

  A bad break! Varadin hurried on. All he had now was $75,000 of bank money, and his escape kit. He tried to throw off his pursuers, leading them up mountains and doubling back through valleys.

  But the Maine guide could not be deceived in his native woods. Inexorably the gap closed between the hunters and the hunted.

  At last Varadin found himself on a dirt road. He followed it and came to a granite quarry. Beyond the quarry, cliffs tilted steeply into the boulder-strewn sea. To climb down was possible; but the FBI agents would pick him off before he reached the bottom.

  He looked around. The quarry was strewn with gray granite boulders of all sizes and shapes. Varadin’s luck, his fantastic luck, was still with him. It was time for his final illusion.

  He opened his escape kit and took out an industrial plastic that he had modified for his own use. His quick fingers constructed a framework of branches, lashing them together with his shoelaces. Over this he spread the plastic, rubbing dirt and granite dust into it. When he was done, he stepped back and surveyed his work.

  Yes, it looked like any other large boulder, except for a hole in one side.

  Varadin stepped in through this hole and, with his remaining plastic, sealed all but a tiny breathing hole. His concealment was complete. Now, with fatalistic calm, he waited to see if the trick would work.

  In minutes the FBI men and the guide reached the quarry. They searched it thoroughly, then ran to the edge and looked over. At last they sat down on a large gray boulder.

  “He must have jumped,” said the guide.

  “I don’t believe it,” said the chief agent. “You don’t know Varadin.”

  “Well, he ain’t here,” said the guide. “And he couldn’t have doubled back on us.”

  The chief agent scowled and tried to think. He put a cigarette in his mouth and scratched a match on the boulder. The match wouldn’t light.

  “That’s funny,” he said. “Either I’ve got wet matches or you’ve got soft boulders.”

  The guide shrugged his shoulders.

  The agent was about to say something else when an old panel truck with ten men in the back drove into the quarry.

  “Catch him yet?” the driver asked.

  “Nope,” the agent said. “I guess he must have gone over the edge.”

  “Good riddance,” the truck driver said. “In that case, if you gents don’t mind——”

  The FBI agent shrugged his shoulders.

  “Okay, I guess we can write him off.” He stood up, and the guide and the other agents followed him out of the quarry. “All right, boys,” the driver said. “Let’s go to work.” The men scrambled out of the truck, which was marked EASTERN MAINE GRAVEL CORPORATION.

  “Ted,” the driver said, “you might as well plant your first charges under that big boulder the G-man was sitting on.”

  THE DISGUISED AGENT

  JAMES HADLEY, the famous Secret Service agent, was caught. On his way to the Istanbul airport, his enemies had pursued him into a cul-de-sac near the Golden Horn. They had dragged him into a long black limousine driven by an oily, scarfaced Greek. Car and chauffeur waited outside while Hadley’s captors took him upstairs to a disreputable room in Istanbul’s Armenian sector, not far from the Rue Chaffre.

  It was the worst spot the famous agent had ever been in. He was strapped to a heavy chair. Standing in front of him was Anton Lupescu, the sadistic head of the Rumanian secret police and implacable foe of Western forces. On either side of Lupescu stood Chang, Lupescu’s impassive manservant, and Madam Oui, the cold, beautiful Eurasian.

  “Pig of an American,” sneered Lupescu, “will you tell us where you have hidden the plans for America’s new high-orbiting submolecular three-stage fusion-conversion unit?”r />
  Hadley merely smiled beneath his gag.

  “My friend,” Lupescu said softly, “there is pain that no man can bear. Why not save yourself the annoyance?”

  Hadley’s gray eyes were amused. He did not answer.

  “Bring the torture instruments,” Lupescu said, sneering. “We will make the capitalist dog speak.”

  Chang and Madam Oui left the room. Quickly Lupescu unstrapped Hadley.

  “We must hurry, old man,” Lupescu said. “They’ll be back in a shake.”

  “I don’t understand,” Hadley said. “You are——”

  “British Agent 432 at your service,” Lupescu said, bowing, a twinkle in his eyes. “Couldn’t reveal myself with Chang and Madam Oui mucking about. Now get those plans back to Washington, old fellow. Here’s a gun. You might need it.”

  Hadley took the heavy, silenced automatic, snapped off the safety, and shot Lupescu through the heart.

  “Your loyalty to the People’s Government,” Hadley said in perfect Russian, “has long been suspect. Now we know. The Kremlin will be amused.”

  Hadley stepped over the corpse and opened the door. Standing in front of him was Chang.

  “Dog!” Chang snarled, lifting a heavy, silenced automatic.

  “Wait!” Hadley cried. “You don’t understand——”

  Chang fired once. Hadley slumped to the floor.

  Quickly Chang stripped off his oriental disguise, revealing himself as the true Anton Lupescu. Madam Oui came back into the room and gasped.

  “Do not be alarmed, little one,” Lupescu said. “The impostor who called himself Hadley was actually Chang, a Chinese spy.”

  “But who was the other Lupescu?” Madam Oui asked.

  “Obviously,” Lupescu said, “he was the true James Hadley. Now where could those plans be?”

  A careful search revealed a wart on the right arm of the corpse of the man who had claimed to be James Hadley. The wart was artificial. Under it were the precious microfilm plans.

  “The Kremlin will reward us,” Lupescu said. “Now we——”

  He stopped. Madam Oui had picked up a heavy, silenced automatic. “Dog!” she hissed, and shot Lupescu through the heart.

  Swiftly Madam Oui stripped off her disguise, revealing beneath it the person of the true James Hadley, American secret agent.

  Hadley hurried down to the street. The black limousine was still waiting, and the scarfaced Greek had drawn a gun.

  “Well?” the Greek asked.

  “I have them,” said Hadley. “You did your work well, Chang.”

  “Nothing to it,” said the chauffeur, stripping off his disguise and revealing the face of the wily Chinese Nationalist detective. “We had better hurry to the airport, eh, old boy?”

  “Quite,” said James Hadley.

  The powerful black car sped into the darkness. In a corner of the car, something moved and clutched Hadley’s arm.

  It was the true Madam Oui.

  “Oh, Jimmy,” she said, “is it all over, at last?”

  “It’s all over. We’ve won,” Hadley said, holding the beautiful Eurasian girl tightly to him.

  THE LOCKED ROOM

  SIR TREVOR MELLANBY, the eccentric old British scientist, kept a small laboratory on a corner of his Kent estate. He entered his lab on the morning of June 17. When three days passed and the aged peer did not emerge, his family grew anxious. Finding the doors and windows of the laboratory locked, they summoned the police.

  The police broke down the heavy oak door. Inside they found Sir Trevor sprawled lifeless across the concrete floor. The famous scientist’s throat had been savagely ripped out. The murder weapon, a three-pronged garden claw, was lying nearby. Also, an expensive Bokhara rug had been stolen. Yet all doors and windows were securely barred from the inside.

  It was an impossible murder, an impossible theft. Yet there it was. Under the circumstances, Chief Inspector Morton was called. He came at once, bringing his friend Dr. Crutch, the famous amateur criminologist.

  “Hang it all, Crutch,” Inspector Morton said, several hours later. “I confess the thing has me stumped.”

  “It does seem rather a facer,” Crutch said, peering nearsightedly at the rows of empty cages, the bare concrete floor, and the cabinet full of gleaming scalpels.

  “Curse it all,” the inspector said, “I’ve tested every inch of wall, floor, and ceiling for secret passages. Solid, absolutely solid.”

  “You’re certain of that?” Dr. Crutch asked, a look of surprise on his jolly face.

  “Absolutely. But I don’t see——”

  “It becomes quite obvious,” Dr. Crutch said. “Tell me, have you counted the lights in the lab?”

  “Of course. Six.”

  “Correct. Now if you count the light switches, you will find seven.”

  “But I don’t see——”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Crutch asked. “When have you ever heard of absolutely solid walls? Let’s try those switches!”

  One by one they turned the switches. When they turned the last, there was an ominous grinding sound. The roof of the laboratory began to rise, lifted on massive steel screws.

  “Great Scott!” cried Inspector Morton.

  “Exactly,” said Dr. Crutch. “One of Sir Trevor’s little eccentricities. He liked his ventilation.”

  “So the murderer killed him, crawled out between roof and wall, then closed a switch on the outside——”

  “Not at all,” Dr. Crutch said. “Those screws haven’t been used in months. Furthermore, the maximum opening between wall and ceiling is less than seven inches. No, Morton, the murderer was far more diabolical than that.”

  “I’ll be cursed if I can see it,” Morton said.

  “Ask yourself,” Crutch said, “why the murderer should use a weapon as clumsy as a garden claw instead of the deadly scalpels right here to hand!”

  “Blast it all,” Morton said, “I don’t know why.”

  “There is a reason,” Crutch said grimly. “Do you know anything of the nature of Sir Trevor’s research?”

  “All England knows that,” Morton said. “He was working on a method to increase animal intelligence. Do you mean——”

  “Precisely,” Crutch said. “Sir Trevor’s method worked, but he had no chance to give it to the world. Have you noticed how empty these cages are? Mice were in them, Morton! His own mice killed him, then fled down the drains.”

  “I—I can’t believe it,” Morton said, stunned. “Why did they use the claw?”

  “Think, man!” cried Crutch. They wanted to conceal their crime. They didn’t want all England on a mouse hunt! So they used the claw to rip out Sir Trevor’s throat—after he was dead.”

  “Why?”

  “To disguise the marks of their teeth,” Crutch said quietly.

  “Hmm. But wait!” Morton said. “It’s an ingenious theory, Crutch, but it doesn’t explain the theft of the rug!”

  “The missing rug is my final clue,” Dr. Crutch said. “A microscopic examination will show that the rug was chewed to bits and carried down the drains piece by piece.”

  “What on earth for?”

  “Solely.” said Dr. Crutch, “to conceal the bloody footprints of a thousand tiny feet.”

  “What can we do?” Morton said, after a pause.

  “Nothing!” Crutch said savagely. “Personally, I propose to go home and purchase several dozen cats. I suggest that you do likewise.”

  MEETING OF THE MINDS

  What mission had the Quedak been given? Even he couldn’t remember any more—but he refused to die till it was completed!

  PART ONE

  THE Quedak lay on a small hilltop and watched a slender jet of light descend through the sky. The feather-tailed jet was golden, and brighter than the sun. Poised above it was a glistening metallic object, fabricated rather than natural, hauntingly familiar. The Quedak tried to think what it was.

  He couldn’t remember. His memories had atrophied with his functio
ns, leaving only scattered fragments of images. He searched among them now, leafing through his brief scraps of ruined cities, dying populations, a blue-water-filled canal, two moons, a spaceship . . .

  That was it. The descending object was a spaceship. There had been many of them during the great days of the Quedak.

  Those great days were over, buried forever beneath the powdery sands. Only the Quedak remained. He had life and he had a mission to perform. The driving urgency of his mission remained, even after memory and function had failed.

  As the Quedak watched, the spaceship dipped lower. It wobbled and side jets kicked out to straighten it. With a gentle explosion of dust, the spaceship settled tail first on the arid plain.

  And the Quedak, driven by the imperative Quedak mission, dragged itself painfully down from the little hilltop. Every movement was an agony. If he were a selfish creature, the Quedak would have died. But he was not selfish. Quedaks owed a duty to the universe; and that spaceship, after all the blank years, was a link to other worlds, to planets where the Quedak could live again and give his services to the native fauna.

  He crawled, a centimeter at a time, and wondered whether he had the strength to reach the alien spaceship before it left this dusty, dead planet.

  CAPTAIN JENSEN of the spaceship Southern Cross was bored sick with Mars. He and his men had been here for ten days. They had found no important archeological specimens, no tantalizing hints of ancient cities such as the Polaris expedition had discovered at the South Pole. Here there was nothing but sand, a few weary shrubs, and a rolling hill or two. Their biggest find so far had been three pottery shards.

  Jensen readjusted his oxygen booster. Over the rise of a hill he saw his two men returning.

  “Anything interesting?” he asked.