When they were through Sammy picked up the phone and dialed a number.
“Anti-Martian League,” said a voice from the other end.
“I want to talk to Reynolds.”
“I’m very sorry but he’s in conference. If you’ll leave your name, I’ll have him call you as soon as he’s free.”
“Conference, shmomfercnce,” said Sammy sternly. “You tell him Rosen is on the phone and wants to talk to him right now.”
Three seconds later he heard the unctuous voice.
“We’ve been expecting to hear from you, Mr. Rosen. I assume you’re ready to release that statement to the press?”
“You mean you ain’t heard?” asked Sammy.
“Heard what?”
“About me going into a new business.”
“Now, Mr. Rosen,” said Reynolds soothingly, “that won’t be necessary. We did have to get a bit rough to bring you to your senses, but we’ll make up for it. That offer of a flask of Venusian Leather is still good.”
“That’s awfully kind of you,” said Sammy, “hut me and Wetzle have been talking things over and we decided that we ain’t going to let nobody push us around. The reason I called was to ask if maybe your conscience wasn’t bothering you enough for you to come over and clean up the mess you caused here.”
“Are you saying that you still won’t give in?” Reynolds sounded incredulous.
“That’s right,” said Sammy.
A staccato burst of profanity came from the phone and then a series of reflections upon Sammy’s antecedents that lasted a good three minutes. Sammy waited patiently until the other ran out of breath and then continued:
“That was pretty good, but it’s nothing to what you’re going to hear when your boss finds out that his attempts to run Wetzle and his friends back to Mars by setting up a phony league have backfired in his face. You see, in trying to get rid of the big stink Wetzle made, I found out something that the House of Arnett spent a lot of money to keep secret—what goes into Venusian Leather. He paused for a minute to let what he had just said sink in. “Right now you’re talking to one half of the firm of Rosen and Wetzle, cut-rate perfumers, manufacturers and sole distributors of ‘Martian Leather’ the new perfume for men. You’ll be seeing our slogan around once we get our advertising campaign going. It’s ‘Twice The Strength For Half The Price’.”
Galloping sounds came from the other end of the line as if Reynolds had suddenly taken to running across the ceiling.
It was Sammy’s turn to adopt a soothing tone of voice.
“There, there,” he said. “Sammy Rosen ain’t the man to hold a grudge. I know that your League is going to be jerked out from under you as soon as old man Arnett hears the news, but I want you should know that you and your Mr. Suggs can always have a job with us. Wetzle and I are going to need a couple of men to take care of the collecting once we set up our new trading station on Mars. “Of course you won’t have an air-tight glass cage to operate from, but it’ll be a living.”
“And that,” said Sammy happily as he hung up the phone, “takes care of that. Capital won’t be any problem, but we got one more thing we got to figure out before we can go into production. We’ve got to find some way to get our raw materials without scaring your people half to death every time we want to make a collection.”
“Is full simplicity,” said Wetzle, proud to be able to make a contribution at last. “An up like this,” the tiny tubes rose up through his fur, “a little muscles squeezing like this, and—”
“DON’T!” screamed Sammy.
He was too late.
• • • THE END
DISASSEMBLY LINE
The fiends! They cut off her nose to splice her faith!
“THIS is our Mr. Higgens,” said the blond young desk clerk. “He’ll be in charge of taking you apart. And this is Mr. Montgombery, the best reassembler on our staff.”
“Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” said Mr. Montgombery. “Likewise,” said Mr. Higgens. Aunt Hester gave a nod of cold acknowledgment of the introduction, and turned back to the reception desk. Higgens and Montgombery eyed her stiff back for a moment, looked at each other, and quietly left.
“One second, please,” said the desk clerk, lifting a small stack of cards out of a file drawer.
“As I was saying,” said Aunt Hester, “disorder I can tolerate, but not wilful mistreatment.” She pointed toward two dejected looking plants that squatted in tubs on each side of the main entrance to the lobby. “Those rubber plants haven’t been dusted in months! How do you expect the poor things to be happy with their pores all clogged up with filth and grime?”
There was no answer. She rapped on top of the counter with her umbrella. “Young man! I was speaking to you!”
The young man looked up briefly from the pile of cards he was checking.
“One minute, Miss Winston,” he said. “As soon as I find your record, I’ll be able to take care of you.”
AUNT HESTER sniffed through her enormous, beaklike nose and surveyed the general untidiness of the lobby with distaste. She didn’t know where she was yet, but it certainly wasn’t the sort of hostelry she would have selected for a home away from home, if she’d had any voice in the matter; during her annual trips to Boston she always stayed at the Aldrich, a quiet and dignified family hotel that had been patronized by the Winstons for four generations. But this wasn’t Boston—and she hadn’t had any choice about coming here. She’d just—come.
“Ah, here we are.” The young man behind the counter pulled out a card and scanned it quickly. “Sorry to have kept you waiting, but we’re terribly short-handed here. I have to act as desk clerk, registrar, and office manager at the same time.”
Aunt Hester didn’t look at all sympathetic. “That’s no excuse for neglecting the rubber plants,” she said severely. “While a plant is not human, it is still part of the divine pattern. The Good Lord put us on Earth to look after those who are unable to look after themselves.” She spoke with the brusque assurance of one who had done considerable looking after, and intended to do a lot more.
“But you aren’t on . . .” The clerk suddenly caught himself and looked back at her card. “You’ll be in 327. It’s an inside room, but it’s all we have open at the moment. If you’ll wait just a few minutes until I can bring your records up to date, I’ll take you up there.”
“I’ll find my own way, thank you,” sniffed Aunt Hester.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to walk up, then,” said the clerk. “I run the elevator too.”
It wasn’t a very nice room. There was only one window, and it was jammed open. Sulphur fumes from a small crater at the bottom of the air shaft curled yellow streamers into the room, making a tawny haze through which the single light bulb hanging from the ceiling shone dimly. Aunt Hester coughed genteelly and waved a lace-trimmed handkerchief ineffectually in front of her face.
“Something,” she said to herself, “is going to have to be done about this.”
Her face took on an expression of grim satisfaction as she began planning—she loved to manage things and lives, especially other people’s. She was considering organizing a committee of guests to call upon the manager when there was a diffident knock upon her door.
“Who’s there?” she called.
MR. Montgombery and Mr. Higgens entered. Their shoulders were so broad that they had to turn sideways to get through the doorway.
“Time for your first lesson, ma’am,” said Mr. Montgombery.
“Lesson?” said Aunt Hester. “I made no arrangements for lessons.”
“Oh, yes, you did, ma’am,” said Mr. Montgombery. “You wouldn’t be here unless there was something you had to learn.”
“Stuff and—”
Aunt Hester never got the “nonsense” out. Before she knew what was up, Mr. Higgens had thrown her to the floor and planted one large brogan firmly on her chest. Aunt Hester was a spare sort who was not too well equipped with natural padding, and the hobnails hu
rt. But that hurt was nothing compared to the one that came when Mr. Higgens reached down, grabbed hold of her long and aquiline nose, and tore it out by the roots.
Aunt Hester threshed and howled.
Mr. Higgens handed the nose over to Mr. Montgombery and addressed Aunt Hester sternly: “Come now, ma’am, we can’t have this carrying on. How do you expect Mr. Montgombery to reassemble you when you’re bouncing around like that?”
She just screamed all the louder. It wasn’t until Mr. Montgombery knelt down and locked her head firmly between his knees that he was able to replace her nose in roughly its original position.
He groaned and rubbed his back gingerly as he pulled himself to his feet. “If Dr. Walters doesn’t do something for my arthritis, I’m going to transfer over to rack detail! The pay’s less and there isn’t as much variety, but there wouldn’t be any of this infernal bending up and down all day.”
“Don’t worry, Herbert,” said Mr. Higgens comfortingly. “As soon as this damp spell passes, you’ll feel better about the whole thing. You know you’d never be happy doing the same thing day after day. You’re an artist. Come on, now. As soon as we finish up that case in 814 we’ll both go down and have a nice cup of hot tea.”
They reached down, picked Aunt Hester up, and placed her on her lumpy bed.
“We’ll be back tomorrow morning to give you your next lesson, ma’am,” said Mr. Montgombery.
They left.
Aunt Hester lay quivering for five minutes before she was able to drag herself over to the phone.
“Desk clerk,” said a pleasant voice.
“I want the police!” gasped Aunt Hester.
“There, there,” said the desk clerk in a soothing voice. “After a month or so you’ll find yourself taking your lessons in your stride. If you’ll try to cooperate with Mr. Montgombery and Mr. Higgens when they come around tomorrow, you’ll find it will make things much easier.”
“There won’t be a tomorrow!” snapped Aunt Hester. “I’m leaving here at once!”
“YOU’LL hear from my lawyer,” promised Aunt Hester as she passed the desk clerk on her way through the lobby.
Without looking back, she opened the front door and went outside onto the veranda, which we unoccupied except for a sad-faced and somewhat portly man who looked as if he were suffering from a severe toothache. He was sitting in a sagging old rocker and had both feet up on the railing.
“How does one get to town from here?” Aunt Hester demanded.
“One doesn’t,” he said sadly. It seemed to hurt him to talk, and he tried to form his words without moving his lower jaw. “What were you sent here for?”
“I fail to see that it’s any concern of yours,” said Aunt Hester primly. “But it just so happens that . . . that . . .”
Her voice suddenly quavered to a stop and a panic-stricken expression came over her face.
“I don’t know,” she whispered in a frightened voice. “I just don’t know. I can’t seem to remember. I found myself standing in the lobby, and I seemed to have a reason for being there—but what went before is just a blur.”
“I know,” said the portly man sympathetically. “But you’ll remember after a bit. I think they muddle us up at first to make it easier for us. After a lesson or two, you’ll suddenly remember everything again, and then you’ll understand why you’re here.”
“Oh, no, I won’t! I’m leaving, right now.”
“You’ll never get as far as the gate.”
“We’ll see about that,” said Aunt Hester. “Good day, sir.”
The grounds were surrounded by a high wall, and through a wide archway in it a graveled drive curved up to the veranda. Aunt Hester fixed her eye on the wrought iron gate, which didn’t seem more than three hundred yards away, and started toward it with a determined stride.
After ten minutes, she found she was only half way to it.
She glanced back to see if anyone was coming after her. The veranda was still unoccupied except for the portly man. He waved at her. She started to sniff, but finding her nose was still extremely sensitive, didn’t. Instead, she started walking toward the gate again.
Aunt Hester was a past president of the Allentown Bird Watchers, and her stride was the efficient mile-eating one of an experienced hiker. On she walked, and on, fighting more and more unsuccessfully to keep down a feeling that something was wrong.
Twenty minutes later, she stopped again.
This time she was three-quarters of the way to the gate—close enough to see that it was partially open, and, though a shimmering haze across it made it impossible to see clearly, that there seemed to be a broad highway on the other side.
“Hello!” called a voice from behind her.
SHE turned around. The pudgy man had come down from the veranda and had walked half way to the gate.
“You’d better start back now,” he called. “If you don’t, you won’t make it in time for supper. In another hour you’ll be close enough to the gate to reach forward and touch it, but you could walk the rest of your life and still never quite get through it.”
“Stuff and nonsense,” said Aunt Hester, and kept on walking.
Her legs were reaching out and taking precise one-yard strides, and when she looked down at little clumps of grass alongside the drive she saw she was passing them at a normal rate. But with the gate, it was a different matter. The longer she walked, the slower her approach became, until at last, in spite of what her senses told her about her rate of locomotion, it seemed as though she was standing still.
On and on she went; but even her stubbornness had a limit, and when the dinner gong finally rang, she became aware that she was ravenously hungry as well as being somewhat footsore.
“I’ll make a fresh start early tomorrow morning,” she promised herself, and turned back toward the hotel. The pudgy man waved at her sympathetically and went in to dinner.
It took her just as long to go back as it had to go out. When she finally staggered back up the steps onto the veranda and collapsed into the nearest chair, it was pitch dark and dinner had been over for two hours. After she partially recovered her breath, she walked stiffly back through the lobby, looking neither left nor right, stonily ignoring the desk clerk’s pleasant question as to whether she had enjoyed her walk.
Aunt Hester was an austere person little given to tears, but when she finally got back into her dingy room and shut the door behind her, she could control herself no longer. Exhausted and discouraged, she threw herself on her hard bed, buried her face in her lumpy pillow, and sobbed convulsively until the slight remaining swelling in her long nose was matched by a tearful puffiness around her reddened eyes.
Eventually, her lamentations were cut short by a knock at her door.
“Who’s there?” she sniffled.
“Mr. McCreary. I’m the one who was talking to you out on the veranda this afternoon. I saved a piece of chicken for you from supper.”
“Go away . . . please.”
There was a moment of silence, and then as her stomach growled protestingly, she began to regret her words.
“Er . . . Mr. McCreary?” she said finally in a weak voice.
He was still there. “Yes?” he said eagerly.
“Did you say chicken?”
“I did. I brought some bread and butter, too.”
“Just a moment,” said Aunt Hester. Going over to the wash basin, she dampened a towel and did what she could to repair the ravages of tears.
“Come in,” she said finally.
TEN minutes later, she felt somewhat happier about life. Conversation was a bit strained at first, of course—Aunt Hester had never been alone in a hotel room with a man before, and she was careful to leave the door partly open for appearance’s sake.
“I guess I should have listened to you this afternoon,” she said finally.
“There are some things people just have to find out for themselves,” he said. “I did. I turned back after a half an hour, though.” H
e patted his fat paunch apologetically. “I’ve got too much bulk on me to do very much in the way of long distance walking. If I ever get back, I’m going to get myself in condition again.”
“What do you mean, ‘if’ ?” said Aunt Hester. “You can’t just give in and let them keep you here! There must be some way out!”
He shook his head. “There isn’t. I’ve checked. There’s some sort of area of distortion that goes all around the place—no matter how long you walk, you never quite get out. No matter how far you go, it always takes as long to cover half the remaining distance as it did to get where you are. Before very long, you’re moving forward so slowly that you might as well be standing still. The mathematicians have a name for the process, but I’ll be darned if I can remember it.”
“Then we’re trapped?” Aunt Hester was on the verge of tears again, but didn’t want to show it.
“You can call it that. Once a person is brought here, he isn’t allowed to return until he has learned his lesson.”
“What lesson?” demanded Aunt Hester. “What’s all this talk about lessons? What am I doing here? Why can’t I remember?”
“You will,” said Mr. McCreary soothingly, “in due time.” He stroked his jaw and grinned wryly. His pudgy face took on a boyish expression that Aunt Hester found strangely attractive.
“For once,” he said, “I’m going to keep my big mouth shut. It’s something you just have to figure out for yourself.”
“Will I have to stay here long?” asked Aunt Hester anxiously. “After all, I’ve got responsibilities. I’ve got a job. I’ve got a family. I can’t stay away when everything needs taking care of!”
At the mention of the word family, Mr. McCreary’s face fell. “You’re married?”
“No. First there was Mother to take care of, and then my niece, Muriel. I’ve raised her since her mother died, and I don’t know what she’ll do without me being around to take care of her.”
“How old is she?” asked Mr. McCreary.
“Twenty-two. But she’s still a child. Right now, she wants to marry some penniless writer, and if I’m not around to show her what’s best for her, she’s apt to make a terrible mistake! She’s a sweet child, Mr. McCreary, but she just isn’t practical . . . I’ve had Mr. Keeler, our branch manager, over for dinner a dozen times just so the two of them could get to know each other, and instead of playing her cards right, she practically ignores him just because he’s a little fat and bald.”
Collected Fiction Page 24