by Jerry
“And you put in the rest?” George asked eagerly. “Sure!”
“That isn’t quite what I had in mind,” Mr. Silverstein said smoothly.
“What I meant was that the firm, a Goldstein, Goldstein, I and Goldstein could buy up notes and mortgages on Mr. Grant’s company! and bring pressure against him. But that would involve risk of capital, and we would have to charge; you considerable for doing it. The five thousand was our fee for doing; so. You would be saving perhaps six to eight thousand dollars by doing things this way, since Mr. Grant and his lawyers can collect ten thousand for slander, a thousand punitive damages, and the eight hundred they originally asked for.”
“I—I’ll have to think it over,” George said, staggering to his feet, his mind reeling. “You’re sure there’s a case of slander?”
“Positive,” Mr. Silverstein said. “There was an identical case in 1946 involving Smith versus Smythe in the lower court at Ann Arbor, Michigan.”
“Okay, Okay,” George said groggily. “I believe you. I’ll let you know tomorrow.”
The first, soft light of early dawn was filtering soundlessly through the Venetian blinds of the bedroom. In one of the twin beds Stella Sanders lay sleeping, her matronly bosom rising and falling gently in the rhythm of deep slumber.
In the other bed George Sanders lay still, his chest convulsing occasionally in a deep sigh, his sleepless! eyes staring at the ceiling.
From somewhere in the house came the creak of a warping boar, but except for George and Stella the house was empty. George’s three living children had long ago married and moved into houses of their own. His other two, dead, reposed in untroubled slumber in urns at the mausoleum, long forgotten by the living.
George rolled over restlessly. He endured the suffocation of the pillow in his face for a minute, then rolled onto his back again.
“Five thousand dollar fee,” his thoughts said. “Or maybe twelve thousand if it gets to court.”
He sighed. The light of dawn crept further into the room.
“The robot renders its decisions according to law,” Mr. Silverstein’s voice spoke in his mind. “No extenuating circumstances.”
“No extenuating circumstances,” his mind echoed. “According to law, according to law, according to law.”
He sighed deeply, trying to still his thoughts. Then, abruptly, he was sitting upright in bed, a startled look on his face.
The startled look remained as he slowly slid out of bed into his slippers. His hand fumbled for his cigarettes on the nightstand.
He inhaled deeply as he left the room. He made a brief phone call, then returned and quietly dressed. A few minutes later he drove his car down the driveway and sped across town.
Twenty minutes later he was arguing with a police officer.
“You have to present your evidence before we can do anything,” the officer objected.
“I don’t have to,” George said. “I know my law as well as you do. Make out the warrant and I’ll sign it.”
“If you can’t make it stick you’re in for real trouble, signing such a warrant,” the officer said warningly.
“I’ll make it stick,” George said. “Make out that warrant.”
“All right,” the officer gave in. “You want it served right away?”
“As soon as you can serve it,” George said grimly.
The clatter of the officer’s typewriter peppered the early morning silence of the police station. Then the warrant was yanked out of the machine. George signed it with a grim smile of satisfaction.
It was close to seven o’clock when he reached home. Stella was just getting up.
The phone rang. George Sanders reached over lazily and plucked it from its cradle.
“Mr. Sanders?” the voice asked. “This is Mr. Silverstein. Have you thought over my—er, suggestion of yesterday?”
“I don’t need to,” George said jovially. “I’ve already solved my difficulty. I won’t need to use your—ah, plan.”
“Oh?” Mr. Silverstein’s voice said questioningly.
“No,” George said. “In fact, I’ve already fixed everything. There won’t even be a suit.”
“You’ve—fixed—everything?” Mr. Silverstein asked doubtfully. “How?”
“Samuel Grant has been arrested for murder,” George said gloatingly. A deep silence answered him. “Of his son,” he added.
“That does cast a different light on things,” Mr. Silverstein’s voice said cautiously. “But you said you fixed everything. You mean you—?”
“That’s right,” George said. “I had him arrested. Maybe you’d like to be at the trial. You might learn a thing or two you didn’t know about law.”
“You can prove he murdered his son in that supposed plane accident?” Mr. Silverstein asked incredulously. “You have positive evidence? How’d you get it?”
“I have it,” George said. “And never mind how I got it. The trial’s at two o’clock. Be there?”
“I certainly will,” Mr. Silverstein said. “And I hope for your sake you can make it stick, because if you don’t you’ll—”
“I know,” George interrupted. “He can sue me for false arrest on top of everything else.”
Sam Grant, his massive head and shoulders showing outraged protest in every line, was ushered into the courtroom between two guards.
George watched Sam’s entrance with a smile concealed behind the palm of his hand. Most of the other seats in the room were vacant.
Mr. Goldstein, Mr. Goldstein, Mr. Silverstein, and Mr. Goldstein occupied the four aisle seats of the two front rows in the audience section. They were there merely to observe.
Mr. Olsen, Mr. Olsen, Mr. Skinner, and Mr. Olsen sat at the defense table.
There was only one other person, the court director, whose office had emerged from the old style court, and was that of bailiff combined with that of court stenographer.
The spot that had once been occupied by the judge now contained merely a microphone and a loudspeaker. At various strategic spots were scanners—at one time known as television cameras.
The preliminary routine slid smoothly into the past, with Sam Grant declaring himself not guilty, his lawyers moving for a postponement until they could prepare a defense, and George Sanders speaking into the microphone on the prosecution table that the nature of his evidence was such that the defense that had been outlined could not stand.
Somewhere in the vastness of the maze of wires, coils, condensers, and tubes that occupied several large buildings somewhere in the city, relays clicked. The motion for delay was denied. The trial proceeded.
At George’s whispered request the loudspeaker called for Samuel Grant as the first witness. When he had taken the stand and been sworn in, the loudspeaker asked George to question him for the prosecution.
The defense objected. The loudspeaker pointed out that the trial was George Sander’s responsibility, and its outcome would either result in Samuel Grant’s conviction or in? George Sanders’ liability for false arrest, and that therefore Mr. Sanders would be permitted to conduct the questioning for the prosecution, since he was, in effect, the prosecution.
George stood up and walked with dramatic slowness to the foot of the witness stand. He asked just one question.
“Mr. Grant,” he said. “When your son, Fred, was born, was it because you wanted a child, or because you couldn’t avoid having one?”
“Why I—” Sam started. He paused while his lawyers objected, George assured the court the question was relevant, and the defense’s objections were overruled. Then Sam went on: “Of course I wanted him. My wife and I had planned on having a child. It was our greatest wish.”
“That’s all,” George murmured. “The defense may have the witness.”
He sat down and hid another smile behind his hand, conscious of the mystification he had created.
Olsen, Olsen, Skinner and Olsen whispered hastily among themselves, then Mr. Olsen muttered, “No questions.”
&
nbsp; Goldstein, Goldstein, Silverstein and Goldstein looked at one another, a mixture of puzzlement and admiration in their eyes. George Sanders, to their knowledge, was the first man who had ever succeeded in mystifying Olsen, Olsen, Skinner and Olsen under any circumstances.
Samuel Grant was led from the witness chair to the defense table where he sat down. George Sanders then stood up and faced the loudspeaker.
“If it pleases the court,” he said dramatically. “I would like to make a request of the court before proceeding further.”
“You may do so,” the loudspeaker said.
“I object,” Mr. Skinner said.
“Objection overruled,” the loudspeaker said almost before he had finished.
“Proceed, Mr. Sanders,” the loudspeaker added.
“I would like the court to define what constitutes first degree murder,” George said.
“First degree murder,” the loudspeaker said. “Is the causing of the death of a person by deliberate intent. It consists of committing an act, or setting in motion a series of acts, which will and does directly or indirectly lead to the death of the deceased, and with the certain knowledge beforehand that such committing, or setting in motion, of said act or acts will result in the deceased’s death.”
“Then,” George said, pausing and looking around at Mr. Silverstein triumphantly, “I wish to present as evidence the fact that Mr. Samuel Grant is aware that all men are mortal, and every person born must surely die, and that it is a matter of record in this court that he has admitted having deliberately and premeditatedly caused the deceased to be born, with the knowledge that by being born he must die. And that therefore, under the law, he did deliberately and with design commit an act or acts which he knew would inevitably lead directly or indirectly to the death of the deceased—”
There was a bedlam of voices that stilled only at the autocratic “Quiet!” shouted by the loudspeaker.
“I rest my case,” George concluded.
In the vacuum of sound that settled abruptly over the courtroom there was not a movement as the loudspeaker came to life.
“Defendant found guilty as charged,” it said unemotionally. “The defendant, Samuel Grant, will rise and face the court.”
In the stunned silence that followed, the loudspeaker pronounced sentence: immediate execution in the gas chamber. It then pronounced court adjourned and ordered the prisoner away.
George Sanders walked down the center aisle past his paralyzed lawyers, opened the double doors to the anteroom, and stepped out into the hall.
In the hall on the way to the elevators he passed open doors where court employees were erupting to frantic activity.
On the street all was serene and calm as he made his way to his parked car. Climbing in, he glanced at his watch. It was too late to go to the office. He turned toward home. Suddenly he was very tired. He hadn’t had any sleep the night before.
Here and there as he drove toward home he heard the wail of sirens, some close at hand, others far away.
And when, twenty minutes later, he drove his car into the garage in back of his house, there was a police car parked at the curb in front of the house.
He opened the kitchen door and went in.
“Oh, Martha,” he called. “I’m home early.”
“Oh! George!” his wife cried, running into the kitchen from the living room. “The police are here.”
“George Sanders?” a grim voice asked from the doorway.
“Yes!” George said, puzzled.
“You are under arrest for murder,” the officer said, handing him a warrant. “And I must warn you that anything you say will be used as evidence.”
Dazed, George looked at the warrant. It stated that he was wanted for the murder of—Harry Sanders.
“But Harry died of cancer!” he exclaimed. “He’s been dead for five—”
He stopped, realization dawning in his eyes.
Three days later he entered the long line waiting on the way to the gas chamber. When his turn came, he was pushed in and the door closed after him.
And as the days passed, the lines grew longer and longer, then shorter and shorter until finally there were no more lines waiting at the entrance! to the gas chamber.
Justice had been administered there was no one left except old maids, and a very few bachelors.
And children.
THE END
TELEPORTED INVASION
Carter T. Wainwright
IN THE low, grim, grey, concrete building the work went on apace. Huge electrical generators, an automatic steam generating plant, weird electrical apparatus—all were poured into the building, to be incorporated into the Machine.
For Doctor Grainlee was building a teleporter.
Irascible, erudite, exotic in his ways, Professor Grainlee, had the money and the talents to indulge himself. And this was to be the culminating experiment of his life. How often had he stood lecturing before his classes in physics and mathematics, expounding to the receptive graduate students, his scientifically untenable, unshakable belief in the theory of teleportation.
“Subject a material object,” he had often said, “to extremes of currents or magnetic fields, or pressures, and I know—my mathematics shows it—it will vanish out of our time and our space—but not out of our ken!” In spite of some half humorous attitudes on the part of his colleagues, he only affirmed his passion more fanatically and intensively.
And gradually Dr. Grainlee drifted from the circle of university activity . . .
Time passed and fewer things went into the building. Aided by assistants, the good professor worked night and day, spending countless hours, and incredible effort on his pet project.
Jim Clarman, looking for a story with an unusual twist happened to wander by the building. And in his enthusiasm, he decided that an interview with the recluse and eccentric would be just the thing.
He let himself in the building after no one answered his buzzing. The floors were dusty and an aura of dis-use hung over the corridors. It was easy to find the main labs.
Jim walked in. The place was empty and all in silence. The gigantic generators did not move; only the shuffle of Jim’s feet in the concrete disturbed the silence.
Near the wall hung a fantastic array of equipment, whose most prominent feature was a metal tube about three feet in diameter. Jim approached it and looking into the tube was like looking into interstellar space itself. It was dark and cavernous, and seemed to have no bottom.
Beside the apparatus was a placard, now faded and dusty. Inscribed thereon were the words: “I am gone into hyperspace through the tube you see before you—I am seeking the source of the things. H.K.G.” That was all.
Jim stood in front of the large tube and gingerly reached out his hand. As he did so something brushed against it and a distinctly cold and clammy feeling assailed it I Again he ventured to reach, and like a series of invisible tennis balls, some things were coming from the tube.
Jim ran shrieking from the hall . . .
DOCTOR HANRAY’S SECOND CHANCE
Conrad Richter
Perhaps when you were young you underestimated your father. What would you give to live in the past for an hour and try to make amends?
IF he had known it would be like this, he wouldn’t have come, he told himself. Here he was, back in his native valley at last. He had driven more than a thousand miles to see it again, this triangle of river and long blue mountains that shut in the rich brown farming land. This was where he had been born and bred. Why, he used to know every field and patch of woods. Here if anywhere, he felt, he could find himself again.
And yet, now that he had come, it didn’t mean anything. It seemed hollow and dead, like every other place he had been since these spells had come over him. It was true then, he told himself. Something must be seriously wrong with him, something different perhaps and yet quite as deadly in its way as the burns of atomic radiation he had at first suspected. But exactly what it could be, neither the
doctors nor himself had as yet been able to find out.
He drove slowly along the black-top road. A large board announced: ROSE VALLEY MILITARY RESERVATION. U.S. ARMY. NO ADMISSION. Ahead to the right and left he could see the high steel fence topped with strands of barbed wire. At the little house in the center of the road, he obeyed the sign that said, Stop!
“I would like permission to go into Stone Church,” he requested.
“What for?” the guard wanted to know.
“Just to look around. I was raised here.”
“You can’t do that. It’s too late in the day. Besides, no civilians allowed. This is a restricted area. Very secret and highly dangerous.”
“I know about that,” the man in the car said. Then, after a moment, “I believe I have a right to visit the graves of my parents.”
“You’ll have to prove who you are.” The guard went in for a moment and came back with a sheaf of dirty papers, evidently a list of the dead in the reservation. “What’s the name?”
“My father’s name was Doctor John Hanray. My name is Peter Hanray. Here are some identification papers.”
The guard stared. His tanned face flushed. His lean, hard features altered with respect.
“I’m sorry I didn’t know you, Doctor Hanray. I can see it’s you now, sir, from your pictures. I’ll phone Colonel Hollenbeck you’re here. You’ll find him in his office. He’s in Building A.”
“I didn’t come to see Colonel Hollenbeck,” Hanray declared quietly. “I just want permission to go in and look around. By myself.”
The guard stirred uneasily. “Yes, sir. I’ll speak to the colonel, sir.” He hurried back into the little house, and the visitor thought he could make out an occasional phrase: “Yes, sir; it’s him, sir . . . the one who made the A-bomb. . . . He don’t want to come up . . . No, alone; all alone! . . . Yes, sir, I’ll tell him.” The guard appeared. “The colonel’s coming down,” he said with satisfaction, as of a victory he had part in, and went on talking eagerly of the valley, as if his job in the reservation had made them fellow natives.