Cosmo approached the dripping block cautiously and bent over it.
“Let me out,” said a muffled voice.
Cosmo jumped back in fright and then suddenly turned to Albert.
“Funny guy, eh? Trying to make like a ventriloquist, eh? Well, I don’t scare, punk.”
“It’s not me,” protested Albert. “Listen.”
A chanting voice came from within the block.
Got a clock to fix,
Got a watch to stop,
Got a bone to pick,
Got a floor to mop.
Going to break some bones,
Going to suck some blood,
Going to spill some guti,
Someone’s name is mud.
Before the gang thief could make another accusation of ventriloquism, the block began to rock back and forth like a gigantic Mexican jumping bean. Then, as Cosmo watched wide-eyed, there was a splitting sound and a large fissure opened. A scrabbling sound came from inside and then slowly a hand appeared, a hand with swollen purple fingers that plucked at the edges of the split as if they were trying to force it open wider.
Cosmo had long prided himself on being a man of action. Now, if ever, action was called for.
“I’m getting out of here,” he said.
“Not yet, my friend.”
A soft voice from inside the block of cement froze him in his tracks. As he stood paralyzed, there was a sudden splintering crash and the whole block disintegrated into a pile of jagged shards.
Something moved in the debris, moved and then slowly squirmed out toward the shaking gangster. It was a man, a long dead man with his hands and feet wired together.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Cosmo,” it croaked. “I’ve been waiting for you a long, long time.”
Cosmo tried to raise the .45 that his reflexes had pulled out of its shoulder holster, but it hung limply from nerveless fingers.
“I’ve been wanting to ask you why yon went and did it, pal. Me that gave you your start and was like a father to you. It weren’t friendlylike to sap an old pal and put him in a box of wet concrete while he was still alive and then toss him in the bay. It weren’t friendlylike at all. That’s why I’ve come to take you back with me.”
The bloated fingers curled around the gangster’s ankles. He tried to raise his automatic again but it slipped from his fingers and went crashing to the floor. Then something snapped inside him. He let out a high-pitched scream and, kicking loose the clutching hands, dashed whimpering out of the room.
The swollen-faced man looked up at Albert and grinned.
Albert pointedly looked the other way.
“If you don’t mind,” he said. “Your Bosworth was bad enough, but this one—ugh!”
“All clear,” said Sir Whooping Water Gawain.
Albert turned and greeted the sight of the little brown Indian with a sigh of relief.
“Thanks a million!”
“Really wasn’t anything, old man,” said Whooping Water with a depreciating gesture. “What time is it?”
Albert glanced at his watch. “Two forty-five. We made it with three minutes to spare.”
“It’s later than I thought,” said the other. “Now that I’ve got all your troubles straightened out, I guess I might as well toddle on back. I’m due to go off shift at three.”
Albert’s momentary feeling of elation vanished. “What do you mean, ‘all straightened out’ ? I’m no better off than I was this morning.” Unable to restrain himself, he launched into a long narration of his woes.
“I don’t get it,” said Whooping Water when he had finally finished. “You let those thugs beat you unconscious rather than give up, but over at the University you let everybody and his brother shove you around.”
“I just can’t help it,” said Albert miserably. “It’s not that I’m a coward. It’s just the way my glands work. Every time I start to stand up for myself, something triggers them off and they all let loose at once. I get so much adrenalin in my blood that all I can do is stand there and shake. And so I’m not getting promoted and I’m losing my girl and there isn’t anything I can do about it.”
Whooping Water looked dreamily at the ceiling. “You know,” he said at last, “Mike Hammer’s glands let loose too, but he knows how to use them. And against a couple of amateurs . . .”
Albert let out a sudden squawk of protest but he was too late. Two fat green sparks came arcing across and caught him square in the middle of the forehead . . .
For some strange reason Priscilla wasn’t so thrilled at being rescued as might have been expected. The look of eager anticipation that was on her face as the door opened was replaced by one of annoyance when she saw who had opened it.
“It took you long enough,” she snapped pettishly as Albert undid the ropes that bound her to the chair. The old Albert would have quailed and begun to stutter apologies, but this wasn’t the old Albert.
When he dropped her off at her home she was breathing hard and there was a strange new look in her eyes.
“Won’t you come up?” she whispered. “There’s nobody home.”
Albert wanted to but Hammer wouldn’t let him.
“Got a couple of rats to take care of first,” he growled. “After that . . .” He ran his hand up and down her back and she melted against him. He gave her a sudden shove.
“Beat it, kid. I got work to do . . .”
When Albert swaggered into his office, Lippencott was in the middle of the fifteenth reading of his latest essay in tension, A Quarterly Journal of New Criticism.
“Easy does it, old man,” he said lazily as the door crashed shut. “I take it that Dr. Quimbat finally broke the news to you about the switch in courses.”
“What switch?” growled Albert.
“Next fall I’ll be giving a seminar in the New Criticism and a graduate course in James. I’m afraid that means that you are going to have to take over my two sections of Freshman English. Tough luck, old man, but I know that when you think it over you’ll realize that it’s for the good of the department. And now if you’ll excuse me, I’d better be taking off. Priscilla and I are going out tonight and I have a bit of work at home I want to get out of the way first.”
“Not just yet, junior.” Albert turned and clicked the lock on the door behind him. “You and I got a little talking to do first. For one thing, I ain’t giving up my seminar or my Chaucer course for you or nobody else. And for another, you go woofing around the department head any more sticking knives in my back and you’re going to find out all of a sudden your ears ain’t mates!”
Lippencott grinned and blew a puff of tobacco smoke in Albert’s face.
“Anything more, little man?”
“Yeah,” said Albert in a soft voice. “I got Priscilla staked out. You come poaching and you’re going to end up minus a head, not that you’d miss it none.”
Lippencott stood up and flexed his muscles. “Albert,” he said, “I’ve been wanting to paste you for a long time. But my conscience wouldn’t let me because you were too little and too weak. But now I can do it with no regrets.” Proudly conscious of his beautifully muscled body, he stalked toward Albert.
“Put ’em up,” he said, assuming the stance that had made him runner-up for the base middleweight championship during his wartime tour of duty as P.T. officer at Smutney Field.
Albert didn’t cooperate. Instead one hand suddenly snaked out and grabbed an empty coke bottle that was sitting on the window sill. With a practiced twist of the wrist he smashed it against the floor.
“Pretty boy,” he hissed as he advanced slowly forward, the jagged edges held at ready, “you ain’t going to be any longer.” Lippencott stood his ground, but not very long. “Listen, Albert,” he said nervously as he recoiled a step. “You’re not acting like a gentleman.”
“There’s a good reason for that,” said Albert, sidling closer with a horrible grin on his face. “I ain’t no gentleman.”
Without warning, his arm flas
hed out. It was only by grace of excellent reflexes and a great deal of luck that Lippencott was able to preserve his nose. It was too much. He let out a frightened howl and turned to run, but there wasn’t any place to run to. The door was locked and Albert had him backed into a comer.
“You touch me and I’ll report you to the administration,” he whimpered as the jagged edges of the broken bottle came closer and closer to his face.
Albert chuckled. “Who’d believe you? Everybody knows what a mouse of a guy I am.”
That did it. Lippencott cracked completely and sobbed promise after promise. Albert waited until he’d heard the words he wanted and then tossed the bottle end crashing against the wall.
“Just don’t forget,” he said as he swaggered out. “There’s a coke machine in every building on the campus.”
VI
When Albert came into the English office, the gongs were still beating inside his head. He was informed by the secretary that the chairman was in conference—which meant that he was taking his daily two hour nap on the rather bumpy divan he had brought back from his student quarters at Oxford. Albert didn’t say anything, he just slapped her attractive posterior in a flattering way and, as she stood gasping, barreled into the inner sanctum and slammed the door behind him.
Ten minutes passed before he emerged. When he did the secretary was waiting for him with a melting smile. He gave her another spank and gestured toward the inner office.
“Boss man wants to see you, kiddo. He’s got a few memos to dictate. He’s changed his mind about dropping my Middle English courses. The one I want you to get right out, though, is the recommendation for promotion.” He flicked again and she ran squealing into Dr. Quimbat’s office.
Dr. Quimbat was somewhat the worse for wear. He started to babble something about a coke bottle but then regained enough of his senses to think better of it and dictate what had to be dictated.
There was company waiting for him in Albert’s own office. As soon as the door was shut, Whooping Water gave the little finger wiggle that was necessary to banish Mike Hammer.
“Want another shot before your date tonight? Mike’s been doing all right by you so far.”
Albert shuddered and shook his head. “No thanks! Every time she cuddles up to me I start getting ideas.”
“What’s wrong with that? You’re a big boy now, and she isn’t exactly a spring chicken.”
“It’s not that I’m objecting to. These ideas involve an erotic transference from the usual areas to her stomach. And that isn’t all. I keep wanting to go out and buy a big .45.”
“I see what you mean,” said Whooping Water.
“So, thanks for everything. I’m going to be needing your help later today but there’s no use your hanging around here until then.”
“I’m dismissed?”
“You’re dismissed.”
When Whooping Water disappeared this time, he did it by slow stages. First his epidermis became transparent, and then bit by bit the rest of him faded out until there was nothing left but a stomach, a pair of lungs, and an intricately coiled large intestine, all hanging motionless in mid-air.
Without Hammer to back him up, Albert found himself growing nauseated. “Please,” he gulped. “Eve had about all I can take for one day.”
The lungs contracted and a little snicker came from the air above them. Then slowly, much too slowly, the viscera faded from sight.
Albert had just put his feet up on his desk for the first time in his academic career when there was a knock on the door and Dick Martinelli, State’s star quarterback, came diffidently in.
“No!” said Albert before the football player could get in a word.
“Wait a minute, doc,” protested the other in an injured voice. “I ain’t asking for no free ride. I just want one of them there retests.”
“You want what!”
“A re-test. I went and read the book.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Well, I did. I’m going over to the drug store to see if there’s any new Spillane in, but there ain’t. And while I’m looking over the pocket book rack to see if there’s anything else that looks interesting, I sees a picture on a cover that makes me damn near drop my teeth. So I grabs it, and you know what?”
“What?” said Albert obediently. “When I gets home I find I went and bought a copy of this here Canterbury Tales which I’m supposed to be reading for your course but don’t because I take a look the first day and it’s full of funny words. Only this time I start looking through to see if I can find the part they got the picture on the cover from and WOW!”
“Wow?”
“Yeah, WOW!” Martinelli sniggered. “There’s stuff in there that I don’t see how they ever let it get printed. Like for example there’s one place where a guy climbs up a ladder to try and make a gal whose husband is supposed to be out of town and—”
“I have a certain familiarity with the story in question,” said Albert. “Suppose you let me ask the questions.”
“Sure thing, doc. Shoot!”
“Give me a precis of “The Reeve’s Tale.”
Martinelli gulped. “A what?”
“A precis—an abstract, a summary, a . . . well, just tell me what happened.”
“Why didn’t you say so in the first place. Well, there were a couple of guys who were going to Oxford or some place like that and they got a couple of days off. So they’re hitch-hiking around and they happen to bump into this miller, see? And he’s got a good-looking wife and a daughter who’s really stacked. So that night while the old man’s asleep, these guys . . .”
When Martinelli came back there was a happy smile on his face.
“I took your note about my grade change by the Dean’s office and he says I’m eligible again. Then I went over to the library for the book you wanted but the gal at the desk couldn’t help me. She said one copy was lost and the other was at the bindery.”
“Oh well,” said Albert. “I’ll find a copy some place. At least you finally did find out where the library was.”
“But I got it anyway,” said Martinelli triumphantly. “There was something about the title that stuck in my head so I went over to the drugstore and looked. Sure enough, they got it out in pocket book. Here.” He tossed the small paper-backed volume on Albert’s desk. “From the cover it looks like hot stuff. Maybe there’s more to these here classics than I thought. Anything else I can do for you?”
“Just a second,” said Albert and made a quick check of his briefcase. He had chalk, a piece of brass tubing, and a small quantity of charcoal.
“I guess not,” he said. “You run on back to the practice field. I have an engagement for this evening—I suppose you’d call it a heavy date—and I’ve got to get ready for it.”
“Okay, doc. I’ll be seeing you.” His hand was on the door knob when Albert stopped him.
“I have thought of something else. Will you scout around and see if you can find me a fire extinguisher? I’ve got to build a small fire in here shortly and I don’t want to take any chances of it getting out of hand.”
Martinelli looked bewildered, but he obeyed without question. “I got one in the car,” he said. “I’ll bring it right up.”
As the door shut behind him, Albert picked up the pocket book and examined the provocative scene on the cover with a great deal of interest. It showed two god-like young creatures engaged in some sort of a wrestling match on an Italian Renaissance bed. Albert eyed the male figure with a certain amount of envy—and then shrugged. Even if he were no physical prize, Priscilla’s dimensions were also several inches short of those of the impossibly curved and scantily dressed female who was sprawled out with a dreamy smile on her face.
“Aglon, Tetragram, vaycheon,” he muttered to himself and then settled down to wait Martinelli’s return with the extinguisher. With a sigh of anticipation, he flipped open the pocket book and began to read the first of The Adventures of Casanova.
1955
> TEST AREA
It’s easy for an alien scientist to feel superior when he’s light years from Earth. But how smart is it to make guinea pigs of men?
If our advancing science should unexpectedly elevate us to the summit of some vast, gene-altering cyclotron trained on the inhabitants of another world just how much of a “hands-off” policy would we adopt? And what if we found ourselves in just such a predicament, guinea pigs for laboratory technicians from beyond the stars? With superbly humorous aplomb top-echelon science-fiction author Ted Cogswell has posed the problem for us.
“I ASSURE YOU there’s nothing to worry about!” said Klen. “It’s not as if we were attempting to alter our own past. I’ll admit that any such attempt could lead to utter disaster. One little push a few million kersogs ago, and the dwarfles might have emerged as the dominant race instead of us. As it turned out, it was touch and go. No, Shiral, I have the perfect test area—the third planet.”
Shiral, Chief Coordinator of the Seekers, let a slow ripple of doubt run the length of his gelatinous bulk.
“If my memory serves me, one of your predecessors used the same terminology several millennia ago when he wanted to check some equations he had developed dealing with sub-nuclear fission. When he went back over his calculations to see if he could find out what had gone wrong, he found he’d dropped a quattuordecimal point. But by then it was too late. One of our planets was missing.”
“My figures have all been triple-checked,” said Klen impatiently. “And even if the old stories about the formation of the Asteroid Belt are true, the disruption of the fifth planet was no particular loss. The only life on it was a primitive sort of lichen.”
The Chief Coordinator rippled again, this time more with petulance than skepticism. “I still don’t see why you can’t leave well-enough alone. If your calculations are as conclusive as you claim, why not just accept them as such, and find some other problem to keep you “busy.”
“But maybe I’m wrong,” protested Klen.
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