The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works 1911-1987

by C. L. Moore

"Fine," Cantrell said, grinning. "I'll see what I can do for you."

  -

  He couldn't do much, as it proved. Almost anyone could wangle an Honorary Badge, but political pull didn't necessarily mean a police in. The machinery of the law, once started, couldn't easily be stopped. Luckily the rights of the individual were sacrosanct in this day and age, but that was chiefly because of the development of communication. A criminal simply couldn't make a getaway. They told Gallegher not to leave Manhattan, secure in the knowledge that if he tried, the televisor system would quickly lay him by the heels. It wasn't even necessary to set guards. Gallegher's three-dimensional photo was already on file at the transportation centers of Manhattan, so that if he tried to book passage on a stratoliner or a seasled, he could be recognized instantly and sent home with a scolding.

  The baffled coroner had superintended the removal of the body to the morgue. The police and Cantrell had departed. Grandpa, the three Lybblas, and Gallegher sat in the laboratory and looked dazedly at one another.

  "Time machine," Gallegher said, pressing buttons on his liquor organ. "Bah! Why do I do these things?"

  "They can't prove you're guilty," Grandpa suggested.

  "Trials cost money. If I don't get a good lawyer, I'm sunk."

  "Won't the court give you a lawyer?"

  "Sure, but that isn't the way it works out. Jurisprudence has developed into something like a chess game these days. It takes a gang of experts to know all the angles. I could be convicted if I overlooked even one loophole. Attorneys have the balance of political power, Grandpa. So they've got their lobbies. Guilt and innocence don't mean as much as getting the best lawyers. And that takes money."

  "You won't need money," the fattest Lybbla said. "When we conquer the world, we'll set up our own monetary system!"

  Gallegher ignored the creature. "You got any dough, Grandpa?"

  "Nope. Never needed much up in Maine."

  Gallegher cast desperate eyes around the laboratory. "Maybe I can sell something. That heat-ray projector—but no. I'd be sunk if anybody knew I'd had the thing. I only hope Cantrell keeps it under cover. The time machine—" He wandered over and stared at the cryptic object. "Wish I could remember how it works. Or why."

  "You made it, didn't you?"

  "My subconscious made it. My subconscious does the damnedest things. Wonder what that lever's for." Gallegher investigated. Nothing happened. "It's fearfully intricate. Since I don't know how it works, I can't very well raise money on it."

  "Last night," Grandpa said thoughtfully, "you were yelling about somebody named Hellwig who'd given you a commission."

  A light came into Gallegher's eyes, but died swiftly. "I remember. A pompous big shot who's a complete nonentity. Terrific vanity complex. He wants to be famous. Said he'd pay me plenty if I could fix him up."

  "Well, why don't you?"

  "How?" Gallegher demanded. "I could invent something and let him pretend he'd made it, but nobody'd ever believe a pot-head like Rufus Hellwig could do more than add two and two. If that. Still—"

  Gallegher tried the televisor. Presently a large, fat white face grew on the screen. Rufus Hellwig was an immensely fat, bald-headed man with a pug nose and the general air of a Mongolian idiot. By virtue of money, he had achieved power, but public recognition eluded him, to his intense distress. Nobody admired him. He was laughed at—simply because he had nothing but money. Some tycoons can carry this off well. Hellwig couldn't. He scowled at Gallegher now.

  "Morning. Anything yet?"

  "I'm working on something. But it's expensive. I need an advance."

  "Oh," Hellwig said unpleasantly, "you do, eh? I gave you an advance last week."

  "You could have," Gallegher said. "I don't remember it."

  "You were drunk."

  "Oh. Was I?"

  "You were quoting Omar."

  "What part?"

  "Something about spring vanishing with the rose."

  "Then I was drunk," Gallegher said sadly. "How much did I hook you for?"

  Hellwig told him. The scientist shook his head. "It just runs through my fingers like water. Oh, well. Give me more money."

  "You're crazy," Hellwig growled. "Show results first. Then you can write your own ticket."

  "Not in the gas chamber I can't," Gallegher said, but the tycoon had broken the beam. Grandpa took a drink and sighed.

  "What about this guy Cantrell? Maybe he can help."

  "I doubt it. He had me on the spot. Still has, in fact. I don't know anything about him."

  "Well, I'm going back to Maine," Grandpa said.

  Gallegher sighed. "Running out on me?"

  "Well, if you've got more liquor—"

  "You can't leave, anyway. Accessory before the fact or something of the sort. Sure you can't raise any money?"

  Grandpa was sure. Gallegher looked at the time machine again and sighed unhappily. Damn his subconscious, anyway! That was the trouble with knowing science by ear, instead of the usual way. The fact that Gallegher was a genius didn't prevent him from getting into fantastic scrapes. Once before, he remembered, he'd invented a time machine of sorts, but it hadn't worked like this one. The thing sat sullenly in its corner, an incredibly complicated gadget of glistening metal, its focus of materialization aimed somewhere in the backyard.

  "I wonder what Cantrell wanted with that heat ray," Gallegher mused.

  The Lybblas had been investigating the laboratory with interested golden eyes and twitching pink noses. Now they came back to sit in a row before Gallegher.

  "When we conquer the world, you won't have to worry," they told the man.

  "Thanks," Gallegher said. "That helps a lot. The immediate need, however, is dough, and lots of it. I must get me a lawyer."

  "Why?"

  "So I won't be convicted for murder. It's hard to explain. You're not familiar with this time sector—" Gallegher's jaw dropped. "Oh-oh. I got an idea."

  "What is it?"

  "You told me how to make that heat ray. Well, if you can give me an angle on something else—something that'll bring in quick money—"

  "Of course. We'll be glad to do that. But a mental hookup would help."

  "Never mind that. Start talking. Or let me ask questions. Yeah. What sort of gadgets do you have in your world?"

  The doorbell sang. The visitor was a police detective, Mahoney, a tall, sardonic-looking chap with slick blue-black hair. The Lybblas, undesirous of attracting attention before they'd worked out a plan for world conquest, scuttled out of sight. Mahoney greeted the two men with a casual nod.

  "Morning. We ran into a little snag at Headquarters. A mix-up—nothing important."

  "That's too bad," Gallegher said. "Have a drink?"

  "No, thanks. I want to take your fingerprints. And your eyeprints, if you don't mind."

  "Okay. Go ahead."

  Mahoney called in a lab man who had accompanied him. Gallegher's fingertips were pressed against sensitized film, and a specially lensed camera snapped the pattern of rods, cones and blood vessels inside his eyes. Mahoney watched, scowling. Presently the lab man showed the result of his labors to the detective.

  "That tears it," Mahoney said.

  "What?" Gallegher wanted to know.

  "Nothing much. That corpse in your backyard—"

  "Yeah?"

  "His prints are the same as yours. And his eye-pattern, too. Even plastic surgery couldn't account for that. Who was that stiff, Gallegher?"

  The scientist blinked. "Jumping tomcats! My prints? It's crazy."

  "Crazy as the devil," Mahoney agreed. "Sure you don't know the answer?"

  The lab man, at the window, let out a long whistle. "Hey, Mahoney," he called. "Come over here a minute. Want to show you something."

  "It'll keep."

  "Not long, in this weather," the lab man said. "It's another corpse, out there in the garden."

  Gallegher exchanged horrified glances with Grandpa. He sat motionless even after the detective and his compa
nion had tumultuously rushed out of the laboratory. Cries came from the backyard.

  "Another one?" Grandpa said.

  Gallegher nodded. "Certainly looks like it. Come on. We'd better—"

  "We'd better make a run for it!"

  "No soap. Let's see what it is this time."

  It was, as Gallegher already knew, a body. It, too, had been killed by a narrow hole burned through the fabricloth vest and the torso beneath. A heat-ray blast, undoubtedly. The man himself gave Gallegher a poignant shock—with good reason. He was looking at his own corpse.

  Not quite. The dead man looked about ten years older than Gallegher, the face was thinner, the dark hair sprinkled with grey. And the costume was of an extreme cut, unfamiliar and eccentric. But the likeness was unmistakable.

  "Uh-huh," Mahoney said, looking at Gallegher. "Your twin brother, I suppose?"

  "I'm as surprised as you are," the scientist said feebly.

  Mahoney clicked his teeth together. He took out a cigar and lit it with trembling fingers.

  "Now look," he said, "I don't know what kind of funny business is going on here, but I don't like it. I got goose bumps. If this stiff's eyeprints and fingerprints tally with yours, I... won't... like... it. I'll hate it like hell. I don't want to feel that I'm going nuts. See?"

  "It's impossible," the lab man said.

  Mahoney shepherded them into the house and televised Headquarters. "Inspector? About that body that was brought in an hour ago—Gallegher, you know—"

  "Found it?" the inspector asked.

  Mahoney blinked. "Huh? I mean the one with the funny fingerprints—"

  "I know what you mean. Have you found it or haven't you?"

  "But it's in the morgue!"

  "It was," the inspector said, "up to about ten minutes ago. Then it was snatched. Right out of the morgue."

  Mahoney let that soak in briefly, while he licked his lips. "Inspector," he said presently, "I've got another body for you. A different one, this time. I just found it in Gallegher's backyard. Same circumstances."

  "What?"

  "Yeah. A hole burned through the chest. And it looks like Gallegher."

  "Looks like him—What about those prints I told you to check?"

  "I did. The answer is yes."

  "It couldn't be."

  "Wait'll you see the new corpse," Mahoney growled. "Send the boys over, will you?"

  "Right away. What sort of crazy business—"

  The connection broke. Gallegher passed drinks and collapsed on the couch, manipulating the liquor organ. He felt giddy.

  "One thing," Grandpa said, "you can't be tried for murdering that first body. If it's been stolen, there's no corpus delicti."

  "I'll be—That's right!" Gallegher sat up. "Isn't that so, Mahoney?"

  The detective hooded his eyes. "Sure. Technically. Only don't forget what I just found outside. You can be gassed for his murder, once you're convicted."

  "Oh." Gallegher lay back. "That's right. But I didn't kill him."

  "That's your story."

  "Okay. I'm sticking to it. Wake me up when the fuss is over. I've got some thinking to do." Gallegher slipped the siphon into his mouth, adjusted it to a slow trickle, and relaxed, absorbing cognac. He shut his eyes and pondered. The answer eluded him.

  Abstractedly Gallegher realized that the room was filling, that the routine was gone over again. He answered questions with half his mind. In the end, the police left, bearing the second body. Gallegher's brain, stimulated by alcohol, was sharper now. His subconscious was taking over.

  "I got it," he told Grandpa. "I hope. Let's see." He went to the time machine and fiddled with levers. "Oh-oh. I can't shut it off. It must have been set to a definite cycle pattern. I'm beginning to remember what happened last night."

  "About foretelling the future?" Grandpa asked.

  "Uh-huh. Didn't we get in an argument about whether a man could foretell his own death?"

  "Right."

  "Then that's the answer. I set the machine to foretell my own death. It follows the temporal line, catches up with my own future in articuto mortis, and yanks my body back to this time sector. My future body, I mean."

  "You're crazy," Grandpa suggested.

  "No, that's the angle, all right," Gallegher insisted. "That first body was myself, at the age of seventy or eighty. I'm going to die then. I'll be killed, apparently, by a heat ray. In forty years from now or thereabouts," he finished thoughtfully. "Hm-m-m. Cantrell's got that ray projector—"

  Grandpa made a face of distaste. "What about the second corpse, then? You can't fit that in, I bet."

  "Sure I can. Parallel time developments. Variable futures. Probability lines. You've heard that theory."

  "Nope."

  "Well—it's the idea that there are an infinity of possible futures. If you change the present, you automatically switch into a different future. Like throwing a switch in a railroad yard. If you hadn't married Grandma, I wouldn't be here now. See?"

  "Nope," Grandpa said, taking another drink.

  Gallegher went ahead, anyway. "According to pattern a, I'm going to be killed by a heat ray when I'm seventy or so. That's one variable. Well, I brought back my dead body along the temporal line, and it appeared in the present. And, naturally, it altered the present. Originally, in pattern a, there was no place for the eighty-year-old dead body of Gallegher. It was introduced and changed the future. We automatically switched into another time track."

  "Pretty silly, eh?" Grandpa mumbled.

  "Shut up, Grandpa. I'm working this out. The second track—pattern b—is in operation now. And in that track I'm going to be killed by a heat ray when I'm about forty-five. Since the time machine's set to bring back my body the minute it's killed, it did just that—materialized my forty-five-year-old corpse. At which the eighty-year-old corpse vanished."

  "Hah!"

  "It had to. It was nonexistent in pattern b. When pattern b jelled, pattern a simply wasn't there any more. Likewise, the first corpse."

  Grandpa's eyes lit up suddenly. "I get it," he said, smacking his lips. "Clever of you. You're going to plead insanity, eh?"

  "Bah," Gallegher snarled, and went to the time machine. He tried vainly to turn it off. It wouldn't turn off. It seemed to be fixed irrevocably in its business of materializing Gallegher's future probable corpses.

  What would happen next? Temporal pattern b had taken over. But the b corpse wasn't intended to exist in this particular present. It was an x factor.

  And b plus x would equal c. A new variable, and a new cadaver. Gallegher cast a harried glance into the backyard. As yet, it was empty. Thank God for small mercies.

  At any rate, he thought, they couldn't convict him of murdering himself. Or could they? Would the law about suicide hold? Ridiculous. He hadn't committed suicide; he was still alive.

  But if he was still alive, he couldn't be dead. Utterly confused, Gallegher fled to the couch, gulped strong drink, and longed for death. He foresaw a court battle of impossible contradictions and paradoxes—a battle of the century. Without the best lawyer on Earth, he'd be doomed.

  A new thought came, and he laughed sardonically. Suppose he were to be convicted of murder and gassed? If he died in the present, his future corpse would instantly vanish—naturally. No corpus delicti. Inevitably—oh, very inevitably—he would be vindicated after he died.

  The prospect failed to cheer him.

  Reminded of the need for action, Gallegher yelled for the Lybblas. They had got into the cookie jar, but responded guiltily to his summons, brushing crumbs from their whiskers with furry paws. "We want milk," the fattest one said. "The world is ours."

  "Yes," said another, "we'll destroy all the cities and then hold pretty girls for—"

  "Leave it," Gallegher told them tiredly. "The world will wait. I can't. I've got to invent something in a hurry so I can get some money and hire a lawyer. I can't spend the rest of my life being indicted for my future corpses' murders."

  "You
talk like a madman," Grandpa said helpfully.

  "Go away. Far away. I'm busy."

  Grandpa shrugged, donned a topcoat, and went out. Gallegher returned to his cross-questioning of the three Lybblas.

  They were, he found, singularly unhelpful. It wasn't that they were recalcitrant; on the contrary, they were only too glad to oblige. But they had little idea of what Gallegher wanted. Moreover, their small minds were filled, to the exclusion of all else, with their own fond delusion. The world was theirs. It was difficult for them to realize that other problems existed.

  Nevertheless, Gallegher persevered. Finally he got a clue to what he wanted, after the Lybblas had again referred to a mental hookup. Such devices, he learned, were fairly common in the world of the future. They had been invented by a man named Gallegher, long ago, the fat Lybbla said stupidly, not grasping the obvious implication.

  Gallegher gulped. He had to make a mental hookup machine now, apparently, since that was in the cards. On, the other hand, what if he didn't? The future would be changed again. How was it, he wondered, that the Lybblas hadn't vanished with the first corpse—when pattern a had switched to variable b?

  Well, the question wasn't unanswerable. Whether or not Gallegher lived his life, the Lybblas, in their Martian valley, would be unaffected. When a musician strikes a false note, he may have to transpose for a few bars, but will drift back into the original key as soon as possible. Time, it seemed, tended towards the norm. Heigh-ho.

  "What is this mental hookup business?" he demanded.

  They told him. He pieced it out from their scatterbrained remarks, and discovered that the device was strange but practical. Gallegher said something about wild talents under his breath. It amounted to that.

  With the mental hookup, a dolt could learn mathematics in a few moments. The application, of course, would require practice—mental dexterity must be developed. A stiff-fingered bricklayer could learn to be an expert pianist, but it would take time before his hands could be limbered up and made sufficiently responsive. However, the important point was that talents could be transferred from one brain to another.

  It was a matter of induction, through charts of the electrical impulses emitted by the brain. The pattern varies. When a man is asleep, the curve levels out. When he is dancing, for example, his subconscious automatically guides his feet—if he's a sufficiently good dancer. That pattern is distinctive. Once recorded and recognized, it can be traced later—and the factors that go to make up a good dancer traced, as by a pantograph, on another brain.