X7367DH964
TO: SOLAR SECTOR COORDINATOR
FROM: UNASSIGNED AGENT X-27
JUST LOCATED THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN. CLIENT INSISTED ON USUAL AGREEMENT AND MADE USUAL MENTAL RESERVATION. WILL BE ABLE TO MAKE MY QUOTA FOR THIS DEMICYCLE IF YOU CAN MATERIALIZE A LANGRED WARPER IN THE CHICAGO FIELD OFFICE BY 21:30 TODAY WITHOUT FAIL.
KRANS SIDLED WARILY THORUGH THE heavy steel door that opened off the main laboratory of Technology, Unlimited and gazed furtively around the large bare windowless room as if he were expecting some sort of a trap. The plain black walls seemed solid enough and there were no cracks in the gleaming jet expanse of freshly painted floor to betray trapdoors and hidden chutes leading down to hell knows where. The only really odd thing about the room was the cluster of ultraviolet and infrared lamps that were fixed in the ceiling and focused directly down on an old overstuffed easy chair that stood by itself in the exact center of the bare room. He went over to it, pushed it to one side, and carefully examined the section of floor it had occupied.
Satisfied at last, he shoved the chair back in its original position and went stealthily over to examine the only other furniture in the room, an ordinary desk and office chair that stood at the opposite end. Krans had lived too long by his wits to take anything for granted, and keeping one eye on the half-open heavy steel door at the far end of the room that was the only means of entrance, he made a quick inventory of the contents of the desk. The drawers were empty and the top contained only a large metal box covered with dials and meters, a legal document bearing his signature and that of the other, a cheap pen, and a large bottle of black ink.
“All set?” There was an odd humming sound to the voice of the tall, thin, saturnine individual who stepped lithely into the room. It was as if the vocal chords that produced the speech weren’t quite human. Except for an immaculate white laboratory smock, he was dressed entirely in black; a black that matched exactly in shade the glossy hair that rose in a widow’s peak from his strangely high forehead.
“I guess so,” said Krans, and then suddenly stabbed a suspicious finger at the bank of lamps that hung over the easy chair. “What are those for?”
The other chuckled. “I switch them on when I want to relax. The heating system in this place leaves much to be desired and I’m used to a somewhat warmer climate.”
“Me too,” said Krans, shivering slightly. “Chicago in January ain’t my idea of a vacation resort. If one of my boys wasn’t in a jam you wouldn’t catch me within a thousand miles of here.”
“Ah, yes,” said the tall man, “your difficulty. You never did tell me exactly what you were up to when we signed the contract.”
Krans went over to the easy chair and sat down. “One of the boys got stupid, that’s all. There ain’t nothing in the contract that says I got to tell you the details.”
The man in the white jacket gave a delicate shrug. “I dare say I’ll find out eventually,” he said. “Did you bring the space-time coordinates?”
“Yeah,” Krans pulled a slip of paper out of his pocket and began to read. As he did so the dark man’s hands danced over the controls of the square box that stood on the desk in front of him, deftly making adjustments.
“Time: anywhere between 12:10 and 12:50 p.m. According to what my boys have been able to dig up the watchman always came by exactly on the hour so I won’t have to worry about bumping into him. Date: March 17, 1947. Place: the blueprint room of the Anderson and Dickson Architectural Agency on the 12th floor of the Stadium Building.”
The dark man’s oddly slanted eyes made a quick sweep of the front of the machine and then he nodded. “I’m ready any time you are—though just to avoid future argument I feel that I should remind you again that changing the past in any noticeable way is impossible.”
Krans just growled impatiently. “We went through all this before we signed the contract. You’ve agreed to take me back ten years in time, give me freedom of movement once I get there, and then to see that I get back in the same condition I was in when I left. Right?”
“Yes, but . . .”
“Then let’s get on with it!” Krans opened his briefcase and took out a large India rubber eraser, a soft pencil, and a straight-edged ruler. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”
There was a sudden click of a switch on the front of the small black box and suddenly a shimmering oval sprang into being in front of the desk.
“Now what?” demanded Krans.
“Just walk through it. You’ll come out in the place you’ve been asking for.”
Krans hesitated and then squared his fat shoulders and took one step forward. The silver film rippled slightly as he pushed through it. Then, as long tapered fingers touched a control knob, it became transparent. Through the portal that opened into time could be seen the dimly lighted interior of the drafting room of the agency. Krans moved feverishly from board to board and then suddenly stopped before a large piece of paper covered with a number of small detail drawings. Squinting in the dim light he examined them one by one until he found the one he had come so far to find. His thick lips writhed back in a grimace of ugly triumph, and grasping firmly the large eraser he had brought with him, he began a series of slow deliberate strokes across the penciled lines of the drawing.
When he came charging back through the time warp, Krans looked as if he were on the verge of apoplexy.
“It wouldn’t erase!” he growled in an ugly voice. “No matter how hard I rubbed, the eraser slid off like there was a layer of glass on top of the paper!”
“What did you expect?” asked the dark man blandly. “I gave you fair warning that the past couldn’t be changed in any noticeable way. But of course that doesn’t invalidate the contract. I merely promised to take you back ten years and return you. But before we move on to my part of the bargain—that part that says that you will make a substantial contribution to Technology, Unlimited—just as a matter of idle curiosity, what is this all about?”
“One of my boys is stuck inside the safety deposit vault of the First National,” grumbled Krans. “Unless I can figure some way to get him out they’re going to find him there when they open up Monday.”
“So you got the bright idea that if you went back and tinkered with the plans used in the construction of the bank you could set up a way for your agent to escape without being detected. Clever idea that. Too bad it was impossible.” He stretched himself like a lithe jungle cat and an eager look came into his eyes. “But let’s get on with our transaction. You’ve got something I’d like very much to get my . . . ah . . . hands . . . on.”
“Not just yet,” said Krans harshly as he hunched forward in his chair. “Not just yet!”
As the dark man rose to his feet, a slight odor of brimstone began to fill the room. And then, as he took one step forward, there was a sudden crashing sound and a roaring swirl of angry flames came into being in the center of the room. When it finally died away Mr. Krans was gone. In his place loomed a figure right out of medieval demonology, complete with a pair of needle-sharp horns and a twitching barbed tail. The dark man took one step backward and then sat down again.
“Interesting,” he said at last, “but what’s the point?”
Little flames seemed to leap into being deep within the demon’s glowing, saucer-like eyes.
“Listen, man,” he hissed. “Nobody believes in us any more—at least not until it’s too late—so all that we got to do is walk around in the shape of a natural man and take what we want when we want it. Back in the old days it wasn’t like that. People knew about us and were on guard against us. We really had to work for what little we got—and I mean work! Now we got it made and I’m not about to give up my twenty-hour week and all my easy pickings for nobody.”
“My sympathy,” murmured the dark man, “but I fail to see where all this is leading us.”
“Right up to the fact that Bal-Shire looks enough like me to be my twin brother . . . except that he’s got three heads. What do
you think’s going to happen when he’s discovered stuck in the main vault of the biggest bank in Chicago come Monday morning?”
The other settled back in his chair and put his feet on the desk. He seemed strangely unmoved by either Krans’s transformation or his revelation.
“Couldn’t he just dematerialize or something?” he suggested.
“If he could he wouldn’t be stuck there now.”
“What happened?”
“A deal I’ve been working on involves a little blackmail so I sent Bal-Shire down to the bank to sneak some papers out of a safety deposit box after the vault was sealed for the weekend. The clumsy idiot wasn’t paying any attention to what he was doing when he materialized and he knocked over a bottle of ink with his tail. The crash startled him so that he went straight up in the air. When he came down he landed right in the middle of a disruption pattern and he’s been stuck there howling for help ever since. He can’t dematerialize as long as he’s inside it and there’s nothing any of us can do for him. We can’t even touch the edge of a field, let alone cross its boundaries.” He paused and then growled in a rumbling voice. “That’s where you come in. You’re supposed to know all about this science stuff. You cook up something that will get my boy out—or else!”
“Or else what?” asked the dark man in an interested voice.
A great gout of white flame gushed suddenly from the demon’s mouth and played along the edges of the heavy steel door until its edges and those of its massive frame ran together in one solid weld.
“Or else we’ll give the police a real locked room mystery. The question as to how you managed to weld yourself into a bare room when you didn’t have any equipment, and then tear yourself slowly into small chunks—that’s going to give the newspapers a real field day.”
The dark man sat quietly for a moment and then said, “You present a rather convincing argument. But if I’m going to be able to do anything for you, you’ve got to give me something more to go on. What is this disruption field you talk about? How does it work?”
The demon scowled. The whole subject was obviously extremely distasteful to him. “It’s not really a field,” he growled; “it’s just a five-sided geometrical figure, a pentagram. If one of us gets stuck inside we can’t change shape and we can’t get out. We just freeze—it’s something instinctive like the way a bird reacts to a snake. Something happened way back when . . . after the battle with the shining ones and the long fall . . . after we changed so much we couldn’t fly high enough to get away.”
He stared silently at the black shining floor for a moment and then his voice regained its normal gruffness. “We haven’t got time to talk about the past. It’s the present that’s the problem. Are you going to start doing something about it or am I?”
“I could think better if I could relax,” said the dark man plaintively. “You don’t have to hog the only comfortable chair in the place.”
The demon simply grunted, settled back more firmly, and producing a wicked looking dagger from some secret place, began to sharpen the tips of his long claws. There was a moment of hesitation and then the dark man said at last, “If I’m going to change the past without really changing the past, you’ll have to give me a little more to go on. Just what were you trying to accomplish by going back and changing a set of construction plans?”
“Well,” said the other reluctantly, “they were all ready to be inked in and blueprinted. Chances are that nobody would have noticed that the design for the ornamental inlaid pentagram for the center of the vault floor had had another side added to make it a hexagram. Six-pointed figures don’t bother us at all. Bal-Shire could have walked right through it, done his business, and been back to the pits in no time. It was a good idea—”
“—only it didn’t work. But maybe I’ve got hold of something that might. Any break in the lines of a pentagram causes it to lose its power, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, it’s an either-or deal.”
The dark man nodded thoughtfully and then began to fiddle with the controls of the machine on his desk. Just as the familiar oval formed, Krans jumped to his feet and came roaring across the room, his great bat wings stretched out as if he were trying to take off.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” he boomed. “Maybe I don’t know much about science but I do know something about humans. And my guess is that maybe you just got a bright idea that you could get out of this by going back before I sealed the room up and leaving me here to whistle.”
The man in the white coat tried to say something but he didn’t get a chance.
“Or maybe,” continued the demon, “you’re thinking that just because the contract has to be completed within thirty days that all you got to do is hop a couple of years in the future so that the whole agreement will lapse and I won’t have a legal leg to stand on?”
“Of course I thought of all that,” said the dark man impatiently, “but I wouldn’t be fool enough to try to act on either. If I went back I’d obviously try to avoid any agreement with you in the future. And I couldn’t do that because my so doing would mean a noticeable difference in the present. And as for the future—do you think I’m stupid enough to think that legal technicalities mean anything to your kind? Even if you can’t travel in time you’re immortal. No matter where I tried to hide in the future, I’d know that eventually you’d be around looking for me.”
Krans scratched his horns reflectively. “That makes sense,” he admitted at last and went back to his easy chair and sat down.
The other made a final adjustment on the warper, picked up the bottle of ink on his desk, and popped through the silver oval. A moment later he popped out again. “Little off course,” he said and twiddled with the knobs on his machine. When he came back the second time he had a satisfied grin on his face.
“Now you can’t say I didn’t complete my side of the bargain. Your boy is free. If he’s not back at the pits by now it’s because he stopped on the way for a couple of quick doubles. And under the circumstances I can’t say that I blame him.”
The demon looked dazed. “But how? You said that nothing could be done in the past that would cause a noticeable change. How could you change the pentagram in any way that wouldn’t be noticeable?”
“There was nothing to it,” said the other modestly. “Bal-Shire knocked over a bottle of ink in the ordinary course of events, didn’t he, and splashed it all over the floor?”
“Yes, but so what?”
“Nobody was around to notice it, were they?”
The demon shook his head mutely.
“And if I added another splash that cut across the lines of the inlaid pentagram and broke the figure so your boy could get out, there’s no reason why it should be noted more than the other splotches, is there? The janitor will clean up the whole mess Monday morning and that will be the end of that.”
Krans let out a grunt of relief, tossed his dagger into the air, and then caught it deftly. “And now you expect me to pay off,” he said with a leer. “Chum, you already know the answer. I’ve never kept a bargain yet and I’m not about to start. And the police are going to be going around talking to themselves when they find what’s left of you inside a locked room.” A set of long tusks slid into view and gnashed hungrily as he grabbed hold of the arms of the chair and started to pull himself to his feet.
The man behind the desk jumped back, as if in fright, grabbed for the two switches set in the wall behind him, and flipped one on and the other off. As the electric lights went out, there was a moment of total darkness before an eerie glow came from the bank of infrared and ultraviolet lights set in the ceiling. The demon let out an angry bellow and crouched to spring—and then as a glowing pentagram leapt into being around the chair, he made one convulsive movement and hurled his dagger just before he found himself locked in straining paralysis.
The shock of the blade that buried itself to the hilt in his back slammed the dark man against the wall. He started to slump and then pulled himself erect a
nd turned so he faced the trapped demon. In spite of a little trickle of blood that welled out of the corner of his mouth when he spoke, his voice gave no indication that anything unusual had happened. If anything, it was a little more pedantic than usual.
“If you had diverted just a little of the time you expended in encouraging human corruption to an examination of human progress, you might have learned that most inks fluoresce under ultraviolet light. When I went back through the time warp the first time I just made a hop of six hours. It only took me a couple of seconds to ink in a pentagram around your chair.”
“But the ink,” croaked the other. “There wasn’t any there before. There would have been a noticeable difference!”
The dark man gave a strangled cough as the trickle of blood suddenly increased to a gush. He dipped one finger in the inkwell and flipped several drops in the direction of the demon. As soon as they hit the floor they became invisible.
“Jet black on a jet black floor?” he gasped. “Why should it be noticeable? You were right though. When the police finally break in here they’ll have a real locked room mystery.” He reached behind him with unsteady fingers and touched the hilt of the dagger that had ripped into him. “I couldn’t have done it myself. Not at that angle. But back to our agreement. I said I’d give you what you wanted most—and I did—and now . . .”
Collected Fiction Page 42