The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works 1911-1987

by C. L. Moore

"Nearly eight."

  "Eastern Standard Time, old reckoning—and January 10th. We must be at our destination before eleven."

  "Where's that?"

  Smith took out a map, unfolded it and gave an address in Brooklyn. Holt located it.

  "Near the beach. Pretty lonely place, isn't it?"

  "I don't know. I've never been there."

  "What's going to happen at eleven?"

  Smith shook his head but did not answer directly. He unfolded a paper napkin.

  "Do you have a stylo?"

  Holt hesitated and then extended a pack of cigarettes.

  "No, a ... a pencil. Thank you. I want you to study this plan, Denny. It's the ground floor of the house we're going to in Brooklyn. Keaton's laboratory is in the basement."

  "Keaton?"

  "Yes," Smith said, after a pause. "He's a physicist. He's working on a rather important invention. It's supposed to be a secret."

  "O.K. What now?"

  Smith sketched hastily. "There should be spacious grounds around the house, which has three stories. Here's the library. You can get into it by these windows, and the safe should be beneath a curtain about—here." The pencil point stabbed down.

  Holt's brows drew together. "I'm starting to smell fish."

  "Eh?" Smith's hand clenched nervously. "Wait till I've finished. That safe will be unlocked. In it you will find a brown notebook. I want you to get that notebook—"

  "—and send it air mail to Hitler," Holt finished, his mouth twisting in a sneer.

  "—and turn it over to the War Department," Smith said imperturbably. "Does that satisfy you?"

  "Well—that sounds more like it. But why don't you do the job yourself?"

  "I can't," Smith said. "Don't ask me why; I simply can't. My hands are tied." The sharp eyes were glistening. "That notebook, Denny, contains a tremendously important secret."

  "Military?"

  "It isn't written in code; it's easy to read. And apply. That's the beauty of it. Any man could—"

  "You said a guy named Keaton owned that place in Brooklyn. What's happened to him?"

  "Nothing," Smith said, "yet." He covered up hastily. "The formula mustn't be lost, that's why we've got to get there just before eleven."

  "If it's that important, why don't we go out there now and get the notebook?"

  "The formula won't be complete until a few minutes before eleven. Keaton is working out the final stages now."

  "It's screwy," Holt complained. He had another rye. "Is this Keaton a Nazi?"

  "No."

  "Well, isn't he the one who needs a bodyguard, not you?"

  Smith shook his head. "It doesn't work out that way, Denny. Believe me, I know what I'm doing. It's vitally, intensely important that you get that formula."

  "Hm-m-m."

  "There's a danger. My—enemies—may be waiting for us there. But I'll draw them off and give you a chance to enter the house."

  "You said they might kill you."

  "They might, but I doubt it. Murder is the last recourse, though euthanasia is always available. But I'm not a candidate for that."

  Holt didn't try to understand Smith's viewpoint on euthanasia; he decided it was a place name, and implied taking a powder.

  "For a thousand bucks," he said, "I'll risk my skin."

  "How long will it take us to get to Brooklyn?"

  "Say an hour, in the dimout." Holt got up quickly. "Come on. Your friends are here."

  Panic showed in Smith's dark eyes. He seemed to shrink into the capacious overcoat. "What'll we do?"

  "The back way. They haven't seen us yet. If we're separated, go to the garage where I left the cab."

  "Y-yes. All right."

  -

  They pushed through the dancers and into the kitchen, past that into a bare corridor. Opening a door, Smith came out in an alley. A tall figure loomed before him, nebulous in the dark. Smith gave a shrill, frightened squeak.

  "Beat it," Holt ordered. He pushed the old man away. The dark figure made some movement, and Holt struck swiftly at a half-seen jaw. His fist didn't connect. His opponent had shifted rapidly.

  Smith was scuttling off, already lost in shadows. The sound of his racing footsteps died.

  Holt, his heart pounding reasonlessly, took a step forward. "Get out of my way," he said, so deep in his throat that the words came out as a purring snarl.

  "Sorry," his antagonist said. "You mustn't go to Brooklyn tonight."

  "Why not?" Holt was listening for sounds that would mean more of the enemy. But as yet he heard nothing, only distant honking of automobile horns and the low mingled tumult from Times Square, a half block away.

  "I'm afraid you wouldn't believe me if I told you."

  There was the same accent: the same Castilian slurring of consonants that Holt had noticed when Smith spoke. He strained to make out the other man's face. But it was too dark.

  Surreptitiously Holt slipped his hand into his pocket and felt the comforting coldness of the brass knuckles. He said, "If you pull a gun on me—"

  "We do not use guns. Listen, Dennis Holt. Keaton's formula must be destroyed with him."

  "Why, you—" Holt struck without warning. This time he didn't miss. He felt the brass knuckles hit solidly and then slide, slippery on bloody, torn flesh. The half-seen figure went down, a shout muffled in his throat. Holt looked around, saw no one, and went at a loping run along the alley. Good enough, so far.

  Five minutes later he was at the parking garage. Smith was waiting for him, a withered crow in a huge overcoat. The old man's fingers were tapping nervously on the cane.

  "Come on," Holt said. "We'd better move fast now."

  "Did you—"

  "I knocked him cold. He didn't have a gun—or else he didn't want to use it. Lucky for me."

  Smith grimaced. Holt recovered his taxi and maneuvered down the ramp, handling the car gingerly and keeping on the alert. A cab was plenty easy to spot. The dimout helped.

  He crept south and east to the Bowery, but, at Essex Street, by the subway station, the pursuers caught up. Holt swung into a side street. His left elbow, resting on the window frame went numb and icy cold.

  He steered with his left hand till the feeling wore off. The Williamsburg Bridge took him into Kings, and he dodged and alternately speeded and back-tracked till he'd lost the shadows again. That took time. And there was still a long distance to go, by this circuitous route.

  -

  Holt, turning right, worked his way south to Prospect Park, and then east, toward the lonely beach section between Brighton Beach and Canarsie. Smith, huddled in back, had made no sound.

  "So far, so good," Holt said over his shoulder. "My arm's in shape again, anyhow."

  "What happened to it?"

  "Must have hit my funny bone."

  "No," Smith said, "that was a paralyzer. Like this." He exhibited the cane.

  Holt didn't get it. He kept driving till they were nearly at their destination. He pulled up around the corner from a liquor store.

  "I'm getting a bottle," he said. "It's too cold and rainy without a shot of something to pep me up."

  "We haven't time."

  "Sure, we have."

  Smith bit his lip but made no further objection. Holt bought a pint of rye and, back in the cab, took a swig, after offering his fare a drink and getting a shake of the head for answer.

  The rye definitely helped. The night was intensely cold and miserable; squalls of rain swept across the street, sluicing down the windshield. The worn wipers didn't help much. The wind screamed like a banshee.

  "We're close enough," Smith suggested. "Better stop here. Find a place to hide the taxicab."

  "Where? These are all private houses."

  "A driveway ... eh?"

  "O.K.," Holt said, and found one shielded by overhanging trees and rank bushes. He turned off lights and motor and got out, hunching his chin down and turning up the collar of his slicker. The rain instantly drenched him. It came down with a stea
dy, torrential pour, pattering noisily, staccato in the puddles. Underfoot was sandy, slippery mud.

  "Wait a sec," Holt said, and returned to the cab for his flashlight. "All set. Now what?"

  "Keaton's house." Smith was shivering convulsively. "It isn't eleven yet. We'll have to wait."

  They waited, concealed in the bushes on Keaton's grounds. The house was a looming shadow against the fluctuating curtain of drenched darkness. A lighted window on the ground floor showed part of what seemed to be a library. The sound of breakers, throbbing heavily, came from their left.

  Water trickled down inside Holt's collar. He cursed quietly. He was earning his thousand bucks, all right. But Smith was going through the same discomfort, and not complaining about it.

  "Isn't it—"

  "Sh-h!" Smith warned. "The—others—may be here."

  Obediently, Holt lowered his voice. "Then they'll be drowned, too. Are they after the notebook? Why don't they go in and get it?"

  Smith bit his nails. "They want it destroyed."

  "That's what the guy in the alley said, come to think of it." Holt nodded, startled. "Who are they, anyhow?"

  "Never mind. They don't belong here. Do you remember what I told you, Denny?"

  "About getting the notebook? What'll I do if the safe isn't open?"

  "It will be," Smith said confidently. "Soon, now. Keaton is in his cellar laboratory, finishing his experiment."

  -

  Through the lighted window a shadow flickered. Holt leaned forward; he felt Smith go tense as wire beside him. A tiny gasp ripped from the old man's throat.

  A man had entered the library. He went to the wall, swung aside a curtain, and stood there, his back to Holt. Presently he stepped back, opening the door of a safe.

  "Ready!" Smith said. "This is it! He's writing down the final step of the formula. The explosion will come in a minute now. When it does, Denny, give me a minute to get away and cause a disturbance, if the others are here."

  "I don't think they are."

  Smith shook his head. "Do as I say. Run for the house and get the notebook."

  "Then what?"

  "Then get out of here as fast as you can. Don't let them catch you, whatever you do."

  "What about you?"

  Smith's eyes blazed with intense, violent command, shining out of the windy dark. "Forget me, Denny! I'll be safe."

  "You hired me as a bodyguard."

  "I'm discharging you, then. This is vitally important, more important than my life. That notebook must be in your hands—"

  "For the War Department?"

  "For ... oh yes. You'll do that, now, Denny?"

  Holt hesitated. "If it's that important—"

  "It is. It is!"

  "O.K., then."

  The man in the house was at a desk, writing. Suddenly the window blew out. The sound of the blast was muffled, as though its source was underground, but Holt felt the ground shake beneath him. He saw Keaton spring up, take a half step away and return, snatching up the notebook. The physicist ran to the wall safe, threw the book into it, swung the door shut and paused there briefly, his back to Holt. Then he darted out of Holt's range of vision and was gone.

  Smith said, his voice coming out in excited spurts, "He didn't have time to lock it. Wait till you hear me, Denny, and then get that notebook!"

  Holt said, "O.K.," but Smith was already gone, running through the bushes. A yell from the house heralded red flames sweeping out a distant, ground-floor window. Something fell crashingly—masonry, Holt thought.

  He heard Smith's voice. He could not see the man in the rain, but there was the noise of a scuffle. Briefly Holt hesitated. Blue pencils of light streaked through the rain, wan and vague in the distance.

  He ought to help Smith—

  He'd promised, though, and there was the notebook. The pursuers had wanted it destroyed. And now, quite obviously, the house was going up in flames. Of Keaton there was no trace.

  He ran for the light window. There was plenty of time to get the notebook before the fire became dangerous.

  From the corner of his eye he saw a dark figure, cutting in toward him. Holt slipped on his brass knuckles. If the guy had a gun, it would be unfortunate; otherwise, fair enough.

  The man—the same one Holt had encountered in the Forty-second Street alley—raised a cane and aimed it. A wan blue pencil of light streaked out. Holt felt his legs go dead and crashed down heavily.

  The other man kept running. Holt, struggling to his feet, threw himself desperately forward. No use.

  The flames were brightening the night now. The tall, dark figure loomed for an instant against the library window; then the man had clambered over the sill. Holt, his legs stiff, managed to keep his balance and lurch forward. It was agony: like pins-and-needles a thousand times intensified.

  He made it to the window, and, clinging to the sill, stared into the room. His opponent was busy at the safe. Holt swung himself through the window and hobbled toward the man.

  His brass-knuckled fist was ready.

  The unknown sprang lightly away, swinging his cane. Dried blood stained his chin.

  "I've locked the safe," he said. "Better get out of here before the fire catches you, Denny."

  Holt mouthed a curse. He tried to reach the man, but could not. Before he had covered more than two halting steps, the tall figure was gone, springing lightly out through the window and racing away into the rain.

  Holt turned to the safe. He could hear the crackling of flames. Smoke was pouring through a doorway on his left.

  He tested the safe; it was locked. He didn't know the combination—so he couldn't open it.

  But Holt tried. He searched the desk, hoping Keaton might have scribbled the key on a paper somewhere. He fought his way to the laboratory steps and stood looking down into the inferno of the cellar, where Keaton's burning, motionless body lay. Yes, Holt tried. And he failed.

  Finally the heat drove him from the house. Fire trucks were screaming closer. There was no sign of Smith or anyone else.

  Holt stayed, amid the crowds, to search, but Smith and his trackers had disappeared as though they had vanished into thin air.

  -

  "We caught him, Administrator," said the tall man with the dried blood on his chin. "I came here directly on our return to inform you."

  The Administrator blew out his breath in a sigh of deep relief.

  "Any trouble, Jorus?"

  "Not to speak of."

  "Well, bring him in," the Administrator said. "I suppose we'd better get this over with."

  Smith entered the office. His heavy overcoat looked incongruous against the celoflex garments of the others.

  He kept his eyes cast down.

  The Administrator picked up a memo-roll and read: "Sol 21st, in the year of our Lord 2016, subject, interference with probability factors. The accused has been detected in the act of attempting to tamper with the current probability-present by altering the past, thus creating a variable alternative present. Use of time machines is forbidden except by authorized officials. Accused will answer."

  Smith mumbled, "I wasn't trying to change things, Administrator—"

  Jorus looked up and said, "Objection. Certain key time-place periods are forbidden. Brooklyn, especially the area about Keaton's house, in the time near 11:00 p.m., January 10, 1943, is absolutely forbidden to time travelers. The prisoner knows why."

  "I knew nothing about it, Ser Jorus. You must believe me."

  Jorus went on relentlessly, "Administrator, here are the facts. The accused, having stolen a time traveler, set the controls manually for a forbidden space-time sector. Such sectors are restricted, as you know, because they are keys to the future; interference with such key spots will automatically alter the future and create a different line of probability. Keaton, in 1943, in his cellar laboratory, succeeded in working out the formula for what we know now as M-Power. He hurried upstairs, opened his safe, and noted down the formula in his book, in such a for
m that it could very easily have been deciphered and applied even by a layman. At that time there was an explosion in Keaton's laboratory and he replaced the notebook in the safe and went downstairs, neglecting, however, to relock the safe. Keaton was killed; he had not known the necessity of keeping M-Power away from radium, and the atomic synthesis caused the explosion. The subsequent fire destroyed Keaton's notebook, even though it had been within the safe. It was charred into illegibility, nor was its value suspected. Not until the first year of the twenty-first century was M-Power rediscovered."

  Smith said, "I didn't know all that, Ser Jorus."

  "You are lying. Our organization does not make mistakes. You found a key spot in the past and decided to change it, thus altering our present. Had you succeeded, Dennis Holt of 1943 would have taken Keaton's notebook out of the burning house and read it. His curiosity would have made him open the notebook. He would have found the key to M-Power. And, because of the very nature of M-Power, Dennis Holt would have become the most powerful man in his world time. According to the variant probability line you were aiming at, Dennis Holt, had he got that notebook, would have been dictator of the world now. This world, as we know it, would not exist, though its equivalent would—a brutal, ruthless civilization ruled by an autocratic Dennis Holt, the sole possessor of M-Power. In striving for that end, the prisoner has committed a serious crime."

  Smith lifted his head. "I demand euthanasia," he said. "If you want to blame me for trying to get out of this damned routine life of mine, very well. I never had a chance, that's all."

  The Administrator raised his eyebrows. "Your record shows you have had many chances. You are incapable of succeeding through your own abilities; you are in the only job you can do well. But your crime is, as Jorus says, serious. You have tried to create a new probability present, destroying this one by tampering with a key-spot in the past. And, had you succeeded, Dennis Holt would now be dictator of a race of slaves. Euthanasia is no longer your privilege; your crime is too serious. You must continue to live, at your appointed task, until the day of your natural death."

  Smith choked. "It was his fault—if he'd got that notebook in time—"

  Jorus looked quizzical. "His? Dennis Holt, at the age of twenty, in 1943 ... his fault? No, it is yours, I think—for trying to change your past and your present."