“He was tall and dark and he wore his tuxedo beautifully. He stood by the entrance as if he were waiting for somebody. Then he shrugged his shoulders and started across the room in my direction. I reached in my purse for the holder, but my fingers froze so I started tenning. He stopped at somebody’s table and said something. They offered him a chair but he shook his head, I tenned twice before I got the holder out. There was a panicky minute when I couldn’t get the cigarette in but I finally made it. It took two matches to get it going.
“He started across the floor again. I could see he was going to walk right by my table and I was all set. I put a bored expression on my face, tilted my head, lifted my beautiful jade holder, and after inhaling slowly, started to let the smoke trickle out through my nostrils.”
There was a sudden shrill of a whistle from the street and an angry voice roared up. “Hey, you on third! Either close those curtains tight or switch off your lights. You’re letting enough light through to be spotted ten miles away.”
“I wonder if he means us,” she said.
He shrugged. “Maybe. Turn off the lamp.”
“I don’t like to smoke in the dark. Shut the window. The wind must be blowing the blackout curtains open.”
“It’ll be too hot in here with no air,” he protested.
“So you can mix yourself a cold drink. Hurry up before he puts a couple of bullets through the window. The wardens, have been getting awfully jumpy the last week or so.”
“Can’t blame them,” he said and shut the window.
“Mix me one while you’re at it.”
“I don’t want a drink, I want a decent smoke. I wonder if McGarvy’s is still open.”
“Even if he is, it won’t do you any good. You’d be lucky to get half way there before some guardsman potted you for a chutist.”
He sighed, tore another rectangle from the second sheet, and began to poke around in the ashtray for the most presentable of the remaining butts.
“Look,” she said, “do you want to hear the rest of this story or don’t you!”
“What story?” he asked vaguely as he licked the white cylinder. He examined it and then stuck out his tongue and licked it again. “Takes a lot of spit to make these things hold.”
“My story, you dope. The story of the green jade cigarette holder” He flicked his lighter, puffed, and coughed. “Go ahead.”
“As he came by the table I looked up at him through half-closed eyes and smiled mysteriously.”
“And?”
“He stopped dead in his tracks and said ‘Jesus Christ’ so loud that everybody heard him and looked at me. He was a gentleman, though, he didn’t laugh even though the rest of them did. He just got a strangled look on his face and made a beeline for the men’s room.”
“That was a sadder story than mine.”
“I don’t know, he hadn’t been eating garlic. At least I assume he hadn’t.”
“Damn!”
“What’s the matter?”
“Cigarette fell apart.”
There was a sudden distant barking as the guns out beyond the airport began to thud away. The amber “alert” glow on the television screen was replaced by an angry red.
“Bill.”
“Yes?”
“How fast does sound travel?”
“Seven or eight hundred miles an hour. Why?”
“If it should hit down by the depot, how long would it be before we could hear it?”
“Isn’t that a rather academic question?”
“I want to know.”
“Five or six seconds I guess.”
She switched out the lamp. “Open the curtains, I want to see.”
“I thought you were interested in hearing.”
“I want to see it when it hits.”
“All right.” He pulled open the curtains and raised the window.
“The breeze has stopped.”
There were flashes and distant crackles directly overhead.
“They’re coming in high. You might as well smoke that butt you’ve been hoarding. There’s no use saving it now.
“Can I use my green jade cigarette holder?”
“If you’ll save me first butts.”
“It’s a deal.”
There was a spurt of flame in the darkness and then the red glowing tip of the cigarette.
“I hate to smoke in the dark.”
“Turn on the lamp.”
“What about the warden?”
“To hell with the warden. That’s better.” She blew a puff of smoke in his face.
“Maybe if we went down in the basement…”
“With the new heavy ones?”
“I guess you’re right,” he said. “Hey, save me a drag! You’re a pig.”
“Deodorized, though. Count to ten.”
“It won’t last that long.”
“Count fast.”
“One.”
The sky toward the depot turned to sun.
“Here, darling. I’m not a pig.”
“Four”
“Kiss me!”
“Sev—”
CONVENTIONAL ENDING
Robert P. Mills, Ltd
156 East 52nd St.
New York 22, New York
Dear Bob:
Poul Anderson, Gordon Dickson, and I were over at my place last night batting around story ideas when the subject of science fiction conventions came up. The conversation naturally went on to the high cost of liquor at same, and how we always ended up drinking beer when we were in the mood for Scotch. Then Gordy came up with a wonderful idea. Why, he said, don’t the three of us knock out a special convention story and earmark the proceeds for vintage firewater. I’d just been talking about the strange character who has the apartment upstairs, a chap by the name of Gergen who believes that if he can hook enough junk radios together in the proper fashion he’ll be able to talk to Mars—and starting with him we blocked out a nice story idea. We’re calling the yarn “Conventional Ending.” The gimmick is that a character like the one upstairs actually does make contact with Mars, and the Martians take over his mind. By a process of mental ingestion he takes over the three of us so that the aliens have an embryonic group mind at their disposal. The final twist to the story is that the four of us go to the San Francisco science fiction convention, lure the big name writers and editors up to our hotel room one by one, and absorb them into the Martian group mind. They in turn start inviting fans up. We haven’t as yet figured out why the Martians should want to take over fandom, but Poul is going to do the last third of the story and he’ll come up with some sort of a snapper. We’re figuring on the yarn as a letter series, and it shouldn’t run over two thousand.
Here’s where you come in. Since the story has a definite time place focus, it will have to be placed within the next few weeks if it’s going to hit the stands before the convention. The three of us are all pressed for time so we’d like a definite go-ahead signal from somebody before we turn it out. Will you check around and see if anybody is interested? Let us know on this as soon as you can.
Salud,
Ted
Poul
Gordy
* * * *
WESTERN UNION 1954 APR 8 PM 0216
LOWNDES LIKES CONVENTIONAL ENDING ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS WORTH. WANTS IT FOR OCTOBER ISSUE OF FUTURE DUE TO HIT STAND ONE AUGUST. PROMISED HIM STORY IN TWO WEEKS LATEST. CAN DO?
BOB MILLS
WESTERN UNION 1954 APR 9 AM 0917
FOR ONE HUNDRED WE WOULD GIVE HIM THE SEVENTH STAGE LENSMAN BY SATURDAY. CAN DO!
TED, POUL, GORDY
WESTERN UNION 1954 APR 28 PM 0400
WHERE IS THAT STORY?
BOB MILLS
WESTERN UNION 1954 APR 29 AM 1127
HAVING TROUBLE WITH POUL. LETTER FOLLOWS
TED AND GORDY
* * * *
29 April 1954
Minneapolis, Minn.
Robert P. Mills, Ltd.
156 East 52nd Str
eet
New York 22, New York,
Dear Bob:
Sorry for the delay on “Conventional Ending.” We’ve been waiting for Poul to come up with an ending before we turned out our thirds. He kept promising to get it done, but he was trying to finish that novel for Shasta and kept putting us off. We’d have finished the story ourselves, only we still haven’t been able to figure out why the Martians would want to take over fandom.
Last night we finally went over to Poul’s, dragged him out of his study and over to Ted’s, plunked him down in front of a typewriter with a stack of paper on one side and a half a dozen bottles of cold beer on the other, and told him that he wasn’t leaving until he’d written us out of the hole he’d gotten us into. He thrashed and moaned and made a dozen false starts. Finally he came out shaking his head and saying he was completely stuck. So we all went to work on the ending, but we couldn’t accomplish any more collectively than he could by himself. Finally he had a flash. Look, he said, maybe if we all go upstairs and have a talk with this mad genius something will pop. Gergen never lets anybody in his apartment, but after a couple of more beers we decided to make a try.
The three of us went up and beat on the door. Gergen finally opened it a crack and peeked out at us. Ted introduced us and said that he’d been telling us about his attempts to contact Mars and that we wondered if he’d mind showing us his apparatus. Gergen didn’t say anything for a moment and then he stabbed one bony forefinger out at Poul. “He be the only one that be welcome,” he said.
Poul sort of hung back. He obviously didn’t like the idea of being closeted alone with Gergen, but we each grabbed an arm and pushed him in. We waited outside for a while and then went back downstairs. Two hours later Poul still hadn’t come down so we went upstairs after him.
After we beat on the door for a good ten minutes, Gergen stuck his head out and snarled, ‘‘He be at home!” and slammed the door shut again. We beat it downstairs and called Poul’s right away. He finally answered the phone but he sounded awfully funny. Finally he said that if Gordy would come by his place in the morning he’d discuss the ending. Gordy suggested that we both drop over, but for some reason Poul vetoed it. We’ve about lost patience with him. If he doesn’t come through this time we’ll drop him out of the story, dig up an ending ourselves, and have it come out under a double rather than a triple byline.
If we’d known how much trouble this was going to cost everyone, we’d have stuck to our beer in the first place.
Salud,
Ted
Gordy
* * * *
WESTERN UNION 1954 MAY 1 AM 1131
JUST PHONED LOWNDES. HE SAYS AT THIS LATE DATE ANY STORY IS BETTER THAN NONE BUT WITHOUT POUL’S NAME ON IT IT IS ONLY WORTH FIFTY. HURRY HURRY HURRY.
BOB MILLS
*
WESTERN UNION 1954 MAY 4 AM 1049
HAVING TROUBLE WITH GORDY NOW. WILL LOWNDES TAKE STORY UNDER MY NAME ONLY?
TED
*
WESTERN UNION 1954 MAY 5 PM 0445
RWL JUST CALLED HOPPING MAD. SAYS HE GOT TELEGRAM FROM GORDY AND POUL THIS PM SAYING QUOTE THERE BE NO REASON WHY MARTIANS BE INTERESTED IN TAKING OVER FANDOM UNQUOTE. WANTED TO KNOW IF EVERYBODY IN MINNEAPOLIS HAD GONE CRAZY. I TOLD HIM YOU WOULD HANDLE THE STORY SOLO. HE SAID OK BECAUSE PRINTER IS HOLDING SPACE OPEN AND HE HAS TO FILL IT BUT TWENTY FIVE WAS AS HIGH AS HE WOULD GO FOR AN ORIGINAL COGSWELL.
BOB MILLS
* * * *
17 May 1954
Minneapolis, Minn.
Robert P. Mills Ltd.
156 East 52nd Street
New York 22, New York
Dear Bob:
Whew! “Conventional Ending” is finally in the mail. After this I’m never going to try a collaboration with anybody. Found a note under the door this morning saying, “Be over tonight to explain everything. Poul, Gordy, Gergen.” All that I can say is that whatever their story is, it better be good. I’ll let you know what the gag is as soon as I find out myself. Does Future pay on acceptance or publication, these days?
Salud,
Ted
* * * *
27 May, 1954
New York City, N.Y.
Theodore R. Cogswell
918 University Ave. SE
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Dear Ted:
Enclosed is the check for “Conventional Ending.” You will notice that after deductions for unnecessary telegrams you are ending up with the grand sum of $2.67. On this you’re going to drink Scotch?
Bob
* * * *
WESTERN UNION 1954 MAY 31 PM 1147
DEAR BOB. WE ARE ARRIVING IN NEW YORK SUNDAY PM ON NORTHWEST AIRLINES FLIGHT FOUR SEVEN. MAKE ARRANGEMENTS FOR PRIVATE REPEAT PRIVATE CONFERENCE WITH YOU MONDAY MORNING AND LOWNDES MONDAY AFTERNOON ON SPECIAL PLANS FOR SAN FRANCISCO SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION. GERGEN BE LOOKING FORWARD TO MEETING BOTH OF YOU.
TED, POUL AND GORDY
Table of Contents
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER
THE MEGAPACK SERIES
NO GUN TO THE VICTOR
MR. HOSKIN’S HEEL
THE CABBAGE PATCH
LIMITING FACTOR
DISASSEMBLY LINE
A SPUDGET FOR THWILBERT
TRAINING DEVICE
IMPACT WITH THE DEVIL
MACHINE RECORD
ONE TO A CUSTOMER
THE MAN WHO KNEW GRODNICK
LOVER BOY
THE OTHER CHEEK
MINIMUM SENTENCE
THE SHORT COUNT
CONVENTIONAL ENDING
The First Theodore R. Cogswell Megapack Page 21