The First Theodore R. Cogswell Megapack

by Theodore R. Cogswell

  Aunt Hester shook her head and stretched out on the bed. “I’m ready,” she said grimly, and shut her eyes.

  There was a moment of whispered conversation among the three men, and then she felt Mr. Higgens’ strong fingers taking hold of her nose. She clenched her teeth and waited. When it came, the pain was not as severe as it usually was.

  “What’ll I do with it?” said the voice of Mr. Higgens.

  “Throw it in the wastebasket,” said the voice of Mr. Montgombery. Aunt Hester heard a dull thud as something thunked into the metal container.

  She bit down on her lower lip and waited. She felt Mr. Montgombery’s fingers working over the place where her nose had been. Wherever they touched, a blessed numbness took place of the searing pain. He seemed to be twisting and molding something.

  At last he stepped back with a grunt of satisfaction.

  “Mr. Montgombery.” said Mr. Higgens in tones of awe, “you are a proboscitory Rembrandt.”

  “You may open your eyes now, Miss Winston,” said the young man.

  She did. The great beak that had cleft the air between her mouth and her eyes for the last forty-eight years was gone. She looked over at the wastebasket.

  “It wasn’t a thing of beauty,” she said, “but it was the only nose I had. I’m going to miss it—especially when I have a cold.”

  The three men grinned at her.

  “You haven’t been ruined,” the young man said. “Go look in the mirror.”

  She did. She blinked as if she couldn’t believe her eyes, and then let out a whimper of delight.

  “Well?” said the young man to Aunt Hester.

  “I’m ready,” she said quietly.

  “What have you learned since you’ve been here?”

  She told him.

  There was a horrible moment of waiting, and then the look on his face told her that she had passed. She ran over and gave Mr. Higgens and Mr. Montgombery each a kiss so long and fervent that she left them breathless and blushing. She was starting toward the young man to do the same to him when suddenly, without warning, and with no period of transition, the hotel room vanished and she found herself standing by her own dining room table with three forks in her hand.

  Across from her stood a pretty young girl, her face set and stubborn and her hands clenched.

  “I don’t care how much money he has!” the girl stormed. “He’s old and he’s fat and he’s nasty and—” her voice broke and she started to wail— “and I love Alan.”

  Aunt Hester went over to her and gave her a little hug. “Look at me, child.”

  Muriel looked…and then looked again. “Aunt Hester! Your nose! What happened!”

  “I had it taken care of, honey. You’re just so used to me that you probably haven’t taken a good look at me in years.”

  “But…you’re beautiful!”

  The older woman looked complacently into the mirror over the sideboard. “Stuff and nonsense,” she said, and started removing one place setting from the table.

  Muriel watched her in surprise. “Isn’t Mr. Keeler coming?” she said hopefully.

  “There’s been a change of plans.”

  The girl let out a tremendous sigh of relief. “Then we can have dinner alone, just like always.”

  “Oh, no, we won’t. You go find your young man and tell him to buy you a hot dog or something.” Her fingers went up and caressed the pert snubness of her new nose lovingly. “And, Muriel, if you ever catch me sticking my nose into somebody else’s business again, give me a good kick where it will do the most good. I’ve learned my lesson the hard way, and I’d hate to have to go back for a refresher course.”

  “Back where?” asked Muriel.

  Aunt Hester put her arms around the girl and drew her close. “I hope you never find out, dear… Now be off with you!”

  Muriel made one last feeble protest: “But I don’t want to leave you alone in this gloomy old house.”

  Aunt Hester smiled a secret smile. “I have a feeling that somebody down at the Athletic Club is sitting by his telephone, waiting for an invitation to dinner. You run along, honey. I won’t be lonely. Not ever again.”

  A SPUDGET FOR THWILBERT

  There was a gloom in the small and dingy office of the Intergalactic Breakfast Food Corporation. Herman Panzel, the president, sat glumly at his desk, staring at the sales chart on the farther wall and the thick red line that had started at zero six months ago and rested there securely ever since. His partner, Reuban Arnot, stood by the dirty window, gazing blankly out over the busy spaceport that linked the third planet of Sol with the rest of the galaxy.

  “Well?” said Panzel at last.

  Arnot turned and gave an expressive shrug. “We might as well face it,” he said, “SNERPSIES has scooped the market with their Bild-a-Bomb kit.”

  “But look at the customers they are losing,” growled Panzel. “A splattered child doesn’t send in box tops.”

  “Maybe so, but SNERPSIES are selling and SQUIGGLES aren’t.” Arnot gestured sadly toward the sales chart. “The distributors won’t touch our stuff until we come up with something special in the way of a premium, and that takes cash we haven’t got.” He leveled an accusing glance at his partner. “You and your big ideas of going legit! If we’d hung on to our take from that last sucker we could be out on one of the pleasure satellites right now really living it up.”

  “All right, so I was wrong,” said Panzel defensively. “But you’ll have to admit that a completely automatic breakfast food factory for only 25,000 U’s looked like a real deal.”

  Arnot sneered. “It was a real deal all right. Especially when it turned out that every box we produce has to be stamped UNFIT FOR HUMANOID CONSUMPTION.”

  “So what? Nobody ever eats the stuff anyway. And speaking of eating, don’t forget that if I wasn’t roping in a patsy on that phony off-planet franchise deal once in a while, you wouldn’t be!”

  Further discussion was interrupted by a timid knock at the door.

  “More trouble,” said Panzel.

  “Maybe not,” said Arnot and yelled, “Come in.”

  There was a scrabbling noise at the knob and then the door swung open slowly and a sad-faced, lizard-like creature came waddling in. Rearing himself up on his hind legs until he stood his full three foot four, he blinked nearsightedly at the two through mild protruding eyes.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said in a meek voice that had strange whistling overtones to it, “but is this the office of the Intergalactic Breakfast Food Corporation?”

  “Yeah,” growled Panzel, obviously not impressed by the shabby appearance of the little reptile. “So what?”

  “I am Count Whutzle, Count Thwilbert Whutzle, Hereditary War Lord of Hun.” He paused for effect and then said proudly, “Licensed Galactic Trader. But I haven’t got a family. Does that disqualify me?”

  “From what?”

  “From a BIG INCOME and a PERMANENT POSITION?” The little creature fished a crumpled news-facsimile sheet out of the worn pouch that hung at his side, smoothed it out, and began to read.

  “‘You owe it to yourself and your family to give us the opportunity to talk to you and let us prove that we can put you in the 6,000-15,000 a year bracket. Valuable distributorships now available. Spaceship required.’”

  “You can say that again,” said Arnot.

  Thwilbert’s protruding, lackluster eyes blinked in bewilderment. “Pardon, but what?”

  “Spaceship required.”

  The little reptile let out a burbling hiss of relief. “This I have. It isn’t of the latest production but it does have many holds.”

  Arnot started to let out a snort of disbelief and then caught himself.

  “Let’s see your papers.”

  Obediently Thwilbert fished a green card out of his pouch and held it out. Panzel took it, examined it, and then let out a surprised whistle.

  “He’s got a Mark-61!”

  “Clear title?”

  “Ye
ah. What’s more, he paid cash!”

  With no transition, winter turned to spring. Thwilbert suddenly found himself hoisted in the air and tenderly deposited in the softest chair in the office.

  “I hope you’ll excuse the seeming lack of warmth in your reception,” cooed Panzel. “We’re just not used to being visited by celebrities…especially Hereditary War Lords.”

  Thwilbert’s stubby tail gave an embarrassed twitch. “It isn’t very much to be War Lord on Hun. I was third hatched, that’s all. In fact, it’s less than very much to be War Lord because on Hun we never have any wars. Everybody’s too run-down to do any fighting. And anyway, there’s nothing worth fighting over. On Hun there’s just the sand and the spudgets and the whortle trees and us. There’s enough whortle so that everybody can have all they want to eat and enough sand so that anybody who wanted any could have miles and miles all for himself.” He sighed like a leaky teakettle. “There just wasn’t much future to being Hereditary War Lord. That’s why I volunteered.”

  Both Panzel and Arnot were somewhat confused at this point but they didn’t let it show. The provocative scent of a liquefiable asset was titillating their nostrils.

  “Volunteered?” said Panzel brightly.

  “To be a galactic trader. All the other planets import and export so the Egg Father figured we’d better too. So he took part of the planetary treasury to buy a ship and gave the rest to me to buy additional trade goods.”

  “Additional trade goods?” said Arnot hungrily. “What did you start with?”

  “Spudget eggs,” said Thwilbert. “Spudgets are all we’ve got on Hun besides us. We sort of hoped that maybe someplace, somebody would be able to find a use for them. We’ve never been able to.”

  He reached into the pouch that hung at his side and took out a glittering jewel-like object.

  “Here’s one. Hold it up to the light and look through it. Spudgets are kind of pretty.”

  Panzel did. Within the transparent sphere was suspended a tiny green dragon with gauzy golden wings.

  “It’s beautiful,” he said in an awed voice. He turned the egg slowly between his fingers. “It looks almost alive.”

  “It is,” said Thwilbert. “Carry it around in your pocket for a couple of weeks so it gets a little of your body heat and one morning you’ll wake up to find a beautiful little spudget flying around the room. They make wonderful pets. Especially for children. They love each other on first sight.”

  Arnot grabbed the egg from his partner and examined it feverishly. “How many of these you got?” he demanded, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice.

  “A couple of million,” said Thwilbert. “They don’t take up much space.”

  “And they eat…?”

  “Whortle leaves. I got my aft hold full of it.”

  Arnot grabbed his partner and hustled him off to the far corner of the office. There was a moment of whispered consultation and then Panzel rushed over to his desk, picked up his com set, and dialed.

  “Central Information,” said a tiny voice.

  “I want to find out something about a small reptile called the spudget.”

  “Planet of origin?”

  “Hun.”

  “One moment, please,” said the voice, and then a second, obviously recorded, voice came on.

  “The spudget, sometimes known as the dwarf huxle, is a small herbivorous reptile found only on the planet Hun. Its eggs, prized throughout the planet for their beauty, remain dormant until exposed to a heat of eighty degrees for about two weeks.

  “The spudget is an extremely affectionate creature that is constitutionally incapable of violence. Of special interest is its beautiful song. The spudget subsists on a variety of cannabis sativa known as whortle. Its dwarfed size is believed to be due to the absence of an essential—”

  There was a sudden click as Panzel reached forward and turned the speaker off. He turned to Thwilbert. “Mr. Thwutzle,” he said and then hesitated. “What do they usually call you at home?”

  “Well,” said Thwilbert thoughtfully, “sometimes they say ‘hey you’ and sometimes they say ‘hey you over there’ but mostly they don’t bother saying anything.”

  Panzel’s genial smile stiffened.

  “As Hereditary War Lord you must have a title.”

  Thwilbert thought for a moment. “Well, if somebody was to write me a really official letter I suppose they’d start out with Your Malignancy. Only nobody writes really official letters on Hun, and even if they did, knowing me, they’d probably begin with Hey You.”

  “Your Malignancy…” Panzel had trouble getting the title out but somehow he managed to keep a straight face while he was doing it. “Your Malignancy made a casual reference to part of the planetary treasury being left over after your ship was bought?”

  “It wasn’t much of a treasury,” said Thwilbert. “There was only about five thousand left. When I saw your advertisement about how H.P. of Arcturus made four hundred univs his first day out without any previous experience, I thought I might invest part of it in your product”

  “Part of it?” Panzel frowned and then said severely, “Really, Your Malignancy, I don’t think you realize the scope of our operations.”

  Thwilbert quailed at the stern tone and let out a squeaky little sigh as he hopped down and started for the door on all fours.

  “I was afraid big executives like you wouldn’t be interested in a little operation like mine.” He reached up for the doorknob but he didn’t quite make it. Somehow he was back in the soft seat again. Panzel bent over him, stabbed an index finger into the dusty scales of his hollow chest, and roared:

  “ARE YOU A QUITTER!”

  Thwilbert found himself involuntarily shaking his head in denial.

  “Of course not! There is power within you, Whutzle—tremendous power just waiting to be released. You know it and I know it. Your chance is here! The time is now!”

  The office seemed to ring with a flourish of invisible trumpets.

  “Let me be the first to shake hands with our newest franchised dealer.”

  The little lizard looked slightly dazed as first Mr. Panzel and the Mr. Arnot pumped his right paw vigorously.

  “And now,” said the president smoothly, “to the matter of the necessary capital investment.”

  Thwilbert’s throat pouch began to twitch nervously. “But that five thousand is all I’ve got and…”

  “That’s all right,” interrupted Arnot. “I realize that you realize that it isn’t enough but I’m sure that we can talk Mr. Panzel into accepting a first mortgage on your ship for the balance.” With a swift gesture he whisked several complicated looking forms out…

  “Now if you’ll just sign here…and here…and here…”

  Thwilbert began to wiggle unhappily. “Maybe I’d better take a little time to think it over,” he said hesitantly. “I’m pleased and grateful that you gentlemen should have so much faith in me, but five thousand is an awful lot of money. And if I mortgage my ship…well…I mean, it just isn’t me. Hun is depending on me.”

  “Ah,” said Panzel. “Mr. Arnot, it occurs to me that in our excitement we have neglected to show His Malignancy the proven item with which R.A. of Sirius made 3429 univs his first week.”

  “Thirty-four hundred in a single week!”

  “Average, just average,” said Panzel airily. He pulled open his desk drawer, reached in, and pulled out a gaudily colored carton. His voice lowered reverently, “SQUIGGLES, The Breakfast Food of Supermen, a wonderful body building product containing that rare vitamin complex, K-9.”

  “And that isn’t all,” chimed in Arnot. “They not only snap, crackle, and pop—they wiggle while you eat.”

  Thwilbert was properly impressed. Before he had a chance to realize just what was happening, he had affixed his name to several papers, signed a check for five thousand univs, given Panzel a mortgage on his Mark-61, and was being ushered smoothly out of the office.

  “We’ll be down to s
ee you off in the morning,” said Panzel. “Give us your berth number and we’ll have that junk you’re carrying dumped out so you’ll be able to carry a maximum load of SQUIGGLES.”

  “I’m in slot thirty-seven,” said Thwilbert, “but isn’t tomorrow awfully early? I mean, shouldn’t I spend some time here in the home office getting a little training?”

  “Be a waste of time,” said Arnot. “You’re a natural, Your Malignancy, a natural!”

  * * * *

  The next morning the early bird set out for Canopus 4 looking for the worm. In his heart was high resolve, in his pouch a spudget egg almost ready to hatch, and in his holds an incredible number of cartons of SQUIGGLES—each carefully stamped UNFIT FOR HUMANOID CONSUMPTION.

  Once the distributors got a look at the premium, SQUIGGLE soared to fantastic heights. The Intergalactic Breakfast Food Corporation asked, and received, a hundred box tops and five univs for each spudget egg, and it wasn’t long before several thousands of them were transferred to the pants pockets of a like number of small boys.

  Business boomed even more as tiny spudgets began to come to life and break out of their shells. They were affectionate little beasts, loving everybody and being loved in return —but never more loved than when they began to sing. Their song was more golden than their wings, a liquid trilling that pulsed out in rich impossible arpeggios. At sunset they sang, swinging the air in flashing spirals, but always when their song was done they came winging back to perch contentedly on the shoulders of their small masters and chirp sleepy little night tunes in their ears.

  Delight rode the land…until the first spudgets hatched began to exhibit signs of hunger. Days passed, and as their little ribs began to project through their iridescent skins, their happy songs changed to mournful laments.

  Small boys went sobbing to their fathers, and their fathers wrote long and angry letters to the Intergalactic Breakfast Food Corporation; only to receive soothing replies informing them that an adequate supply of whortle, the spudgets’ favorite food, would shortly be made available at only five box tops and one univ per feeding.

  “Flowers!” said Panzel suddenly as he poured himself another drink of Aldebaranian stenga. “I think we should send some flowers.”