“Sounds good except for one thing. What are you going to do with United Stated currency when you get where you’re going?”
“Oh, I won’t take it with me,” said Mccal. “I need it to buy things here.”
“What kind of things?”
“Artifacts. Real pre-atomic blow-up artifacts. I got a couple of collectors lined up back home who won’t ask any questions about the source.”
Alan eyed the little alien sceptically for a moment. “You don’t strike me as a particularly ethical sort,” he said. “With that invisibility gadget of yours you could walk off with anything you wanted. Why go to all this trouble?” Mccal recoiled from the suggestion in obvious horror.
“Theft? From primitives? Do you know what the Observers would do to me if they . . .” He turned green at the thought of whatever it was and his voice trailed off into incoherence. Then with an effort he regained control of himself.
“Look,” he said in a pleading voice. “In spite of everything you’ve said about being bored with everything, there must be something you want that you haven’t got!” A sudden change in the expression on Alan’s face spurred him on. “Or somebody you’re afraid of?”
Alan got slowly to his feet and began to pace the floor, a strange brooding expression in his wide set eyes.
“There is . . . and there is,” he said huskily. “A girl named Marion . . . Marion Jonston. I want her and she wants me.” He tossed his head petulantly. “I’m not accustomed to not getting things I want!” With an effort he slipped back into his usual pose of studied nonchalance.
“There’s a husband involved. He looks like an oversized Neanderthal and he’s tougher than I am and he’s wealthier than I am—and a hell of a lot nastier. If I ran off with Marion he’d get to us eventually. And when he did it wouldn’t be pleasant, not pleasant at all.” The momentary tightness of Alan’s face indicated that ‘not pleasant’ was somewhat of an understatement.
Mccal rubbed his hands together happily, reached for a wicked-looking little pistol like object that lay by itself at one corner of the table, and then pulled back in disappointment when the other shook his head and continued.
“I don’t want to kill him. It wouldn’t be any fun that way.” His words were accompanied by a faintly unpleasant smile. “You see, little friend, I’m a spoiled brat. Marion is the first thing in my life that I’ve wanted that I haven’t been able to get. He’s got to pay for that, and the worst thing I could do to him would be to let him live knowing I had her.”
The alien gestured excitedly toward the little invisibility machine. “With this you could slip in and out of his house whenever you wanted to. He’d never know anything about it.”
Alan snorted impatiently. “Stupid! I just told you that the whole point would be in his knowing and not being able to interfere.”
Mccal brooded over his stock for a minute and then let out a sudden whoop. Grabbing up a small metallic box with a dial at one end and a push button in if s center, he waved it excitedly in the air.
“All right,” said Alan, “what is it?”
When the alien told him, he reached slowly for his wallet.
Later that evening Alan picked up the telephone from its cradle, hesitated, and then turned. “You aren’t trying to pull a fast one, are you?” he demanded harshly.
Mccal threw up his twisted little hands in protest. “Look for yourself,” he said, gesturing toward the array on the coffee table. “Like I said before, there’s only one of a kind. The one you bought is the only twister in the whole lot.” Satisfied, Alan started to dial. “O.K., little friend. It’s a deal.” He grinned savagely. “In fact I might even have another customer for you before we’re through.”
THE hulking bull-necked man shambled slowly across the room toward the couple, his great hands clawed out before him as if they were seeking a throat. Mccal whimpered in terror and tried to huddle farther back in the far corner of the living room, Alan just smiled pleasantly and slid one carressing hand down the sleek contours of the girl who cowered against him.
“Easy does it, Jonston,” he said. “Might as well relax and get used to the idea.”
The approaching figured snarled and shuffled to a stop.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice thick with rage, “yeah, let’s. I don’t want to see this over with too quick, I got a little place where we can be alone, just the three of us, alone for a long, long, time.”
Alan didn’t seem disturbed. “Tell me, laddy,” he said lightly, “what would you say if I told you that you were going to have to spend the rest of your life sitting around gnawing your hairy knuckles while Marion and I were off someplace playing house?” He smiled satyr-like and ran his hand possessively over the girl again.
The taunting words almost goaded the other into a charge but with an effort he held himself back.
“I got you,” he whispered thickly. “I got you dead to rights. But even if you was to get away I’d find you. You know I’d find you. There ain’t no place where you could hide. No place at all.”
Alan’s left arm circled the girl tightly while his right hand gripped the little silver box concealed in his pocket.
“Place? No,” he said lazily. “But time? YES! If you’re still around five hundred years from now, look us up.” With a patronizing smile he pushed the button on the time warper that would catapult him and the girl instantaneously into the future.
THE country home was gone except for one crumbling wall but the sun was warm and the grass velvety soft against his bare skin. Alan reached langerously over and patted the tanned behind of the girl who sprawled beside him in abandoned exhaustion.
“That was fun, doll,” he said lazily. He picked a long spear of grass and began to nibble it contendtedly.
Closing his eyes, he lost himself in pleasant thoughts of the husband left behind.
“Alan!”
The shrill scream of terror catapulted him to his feet.
“What’s the matter?” he shouted, and then spun around in response to her terrified pointing just as a great gorillalike figure vaulted heavily over the wall and hurled itself upon him. In a moment he was caterwauling like a trapped animal and clawing to escape. And then, as the darkness rushed in, he felt great hands let go of his throat and clamp vice-like onto his right leg. There was a sudden twisting wrench and then a splintering agony that smashed him down into black unconsciousness . . .
That voice he knew. The rough stones against his back told him that he had been propped up against the ruined wall. He slowly forced his eyes open and looked dully down at the leg that bent out in front of him at an odd angle. He didn’t want to look up.
“One to a customer,” he said tonelessly, “and only one of each. He said he had only one of each. He said he had only one of each.”
A hand suddenly jerked back his head and he looked up into a distorted face, a face still grimed with fresh loam. The clothes had long since rotted away and the squat hairy figure looked more ape than human.
“Ya guessed right,” it said, “but ya guessed wrong. He did only have one of each.” One massive fist opened to show a shining cylinder with a needle-like orifice at one end.
“Your little friend sold it to me—except I don’t think the money did him much good. When I left he was staring at something oozing through the ceiling and squeaking like a ruptured mouse.” Jonston gave an obscene chuckle; “This thing worked, though, just like he said it would.”
“What is it?” croaked Alan.
“Well, it’s this way. Back where he came from a guy’s maybe taking a trip from one star to another and it’s maybe a thousand year deal. There ain’t much in the way of scenery so he just sets this little knob for how long he wants to be knocked out, jabs the needle in a vein, and he’s like dead until he gets there.
“You said to look you up in five hundred years so that’s just what I set it for. Then I went and dug a hole and pulled it in after me. Slept like a baby, too, except I did a lot of dreaming.”
A great hand turned Alan’s head slowly so that he could see the blank horror-filled face of the unclothed girl who huddled sobbing on the grass.
“Guess what I was dreaming about. Just guess.”
THE END
1960
THE BURNING
Theodore R. Cogswell in his many years as an s.f. practitioner has often demonstrated his special talents for humor and biting social comment. Here he combines those talents, and offers a surprising tale of sociological possibilities of the not distant future . . .
MOST OF THEM WERE UP IN CENtral Park getting the boxes ready but Hank and I stayed behind. We went over on 27th to bust some windows but we couldn’t because all the windows was already busted. So we went into the ACME ELITE BAR AND GRILL, and scrummaged around to see if there was anything that had maybe been overlooked. Hank finally found a bottle back in the corner buried under a heap of ceiling plaster and busted stuff that wasn’t worth lugging off for the fires, but it turned out to be one of them NO DEPOSIT, NO RETURN plastic things that didn’t make no proper noise at all when he smanged it against the wall.
We fooled around a while more but then I took a look out into the street. When I saw how short the shadows had got, I started getting the jumps. The burning always starts at high noon and there wasn’t much time left.
“We’d better be getting on up,” I said. “Goofing off on the collecting is one thing, but if the Mother notices we’re not there come light-up time, there’s going to be hell to pay.”
Hank just laughed. “She’ll be too twitched up by now to notice anything. This is her day. Things are too big to take time out to count the number of drabs in the back row of the clapping section.”
I still felt jumpy. Not that I wanted to go, mind you, in spite of what the Mother was always saying about it developing character. Mothers are always talking about Character and The Flag and The Sanctity of American Womanhood and stuff like that, but I notice it’s always the little guys who end up getting burnt during Mother’s Day ceremonies. And I’m a little guy.
Big Harry sinned with the Mother almost every night when he first got born into the Family but somehow it never got put down in the Book. Otto got put down, though, just like I told Hank he would, and when the Patrol came around they didn’t even check his name page, they just went up to his room and got him. But not before me and Hank did considerable sweating because by then we knew it was going to be one of us three. All that morning I don’t think five minutes went by without my giving my good luck pin at least one good rub just on the odd chance that it might do some good.
“Look, Hank,” I said. “We don’t go and the Mother happens to notice it, we’re in for it. But good.”
“Yeah,” he said, “but what if Otto craps out before light-up time? That bum ticker of his is liable to go plonk just from waiting . . . and the Mother likes live meat.”
“Better one than two,” I said, and grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to his feet. “Come on, let’s ramble. The Patrol happens to catch us this far south, we’ve had it!”
Hank didn’t take much pushing. He gets stubborn only when he thinks it’s good and safe, and as soon as I said “Patrol” he right away decided that maybe he wasn’t. He didn’t have much and what he did have he didn’t have much chance to use, but like the fellow says, “Something is better than nothing.” And nothing’s what you got when the Patrol gets through with you.
We girder-walked as far as 58th. I slipped twice but we had a pretty good safety rope linking us and Hank was able to haul me back both times. Working along twisted beams five stories up is a scary business but at least you don’t have to worry about out-walkers from other families taking pot shots at you. Ammo’s too scarce to waste on drabs and anyway you fall that far and there ain’t much left worth taking home.
Past 58th things are too messed up to get through top side so we had to take to the storm sewers. Hank and I had a long argument as to who was to go first and then we flipped and I lost. I started singing the truce song as loud as I could with Hank hitting the refrain on the base parts. Hank’s got perfect pitch but you get a real rogue mother out on the prowl and she can be tone deaf as hell, especially if she’s got big ideas about snatching enough strays to build up a family of her own. Time was when they only went after the big ones and if a drab was in good voice he could wander all the way up to the 90’s on his own if he was so minded, but no more. Since the Council busted up, anything that’s still breathing is fair game—except for Mother’s Helpers, that is, and they never did count anyway.
We came out at 74th, both a bit winded from the singing and having to run the last two blocks because there was a sort of commotion in the cross conduit at 72nd that we didn’t stick around to find out what it was. We went into the Park slantwise, circling around through the trees so we could slide in from the back. With everybody all involved in watching Otto and all it wasn’t likely that they’d notice we were coming in late.
Only they weren’t watching Otto. They were watching the Mother. Otto was hanging from the stake in a limp way that let you know he was more than just out. His ticker had plonked just like Hank was afraid it would and Mother’s Day just isn’t Mother’s Day without a live one. Even Big Harry looked worried and had slid around behind some of the other kids, only it didn’t do him much good because even hunching he stood up a good six inches higher than the rest. There was going to be a replacement for Otto, and fast, and the Mother was just as likely as not to grab the first one she set eye on, even a prime like Big Harry.
Only she didn’t.
She went over and spit in Otto’s face for not loving her enough and then yelled at us to fall into family formation. There was a certain amount of shoving because everybody was trying to get into the back row but she broke that up in a hurry. Hank and I managed to get in at the far end of the last line, hoping that somebody else might strike her fancy before she got to us. Only we knew better. I looked at Hank and Hank looked at me and even if we were pals and all that each of us was thinking the same thing. Only just hoping it would be him instead of me wasn’t enough. I had to do something . . . and fast!
“There’s more in the Book on you than there is on me,” I says to Hank out of the side of my mouth, “If I was you I’d make a bolt.”
“Mother wouldn’t like it,” he whispered back. “If I was to spoil her celebration she wouldn’t love me anymore.”
I could see his point. Now that everything has sort of gone to pot, a Mother’s love is the only thing a boy can really count on, and the least we can do is try to make her happy on her day. But I could see my point too—namely that it was either Hank or me.
“Once across the park you’d be safe,” I said. “The Patrol don’t usually operate that far east and if you keep a sharp eye out for rogues you’ll be OK.” I could see he liked the idea but he was still worrying about the Mother. She was in the last row now and moving toward us steady like. Hank was really twitching and his face was kind of grey underneath the dirt.
“I can’t,” he said. “My legs won’t work.”
I sneaked a quick look at the Mother. She’d stopped and was looking down at us kind of thoughtful like. And I had a feeling she was looking more at me than she was at Hank.
“She’s got her eye on you, boy,” I said. “If you don’t leg it now you’re in for a slow burn. Them boxes is still wet from last night’s rain.”
We were supposed to be at attention but without knowing it I’d pulled my good-luck pin out of my pocket and was rubbing it with my thumb the way I got a habit of when I’m nervous. It’s a little gold like pin made in the shape of a funny kind of leaf. There was some writing on it too but I didn’t find out what the words was until later.
“It’s your funeral, kid,” I said.
Just then the Mother let out a yell.
“You! You down at the end!”
She was pointing at me but I swung around to Hank.
“Front and center, kid,” I said. “Mama wants
you.”
He let out a funny little squawk and then went into a sort of bent over half squat like he’d just been kicked in the gut. I let out a yell and grabbed at him, giving him a spin with my right hand so that he ended up pointing toward the trees. Then I came up with my left and jabbed him in the backside with my good-luck pin.
He took off like a prime rogue in mating season and was across the grass and into the trees before anybody rightly knew what was up. Then the Mother started yelling orders and a bunch of primes took off after him. I ran up to her and flopped down and started bawling, “Don’t be mad at me, I tried to stop him!” over and over until she belted me a couple.
“He said you didn’t have no right!” I said.
That shook her like I hoped it would and got her thinking about him instead of me.
“He what?” she said, as if her ears weren’t working right. “He said what?”
I made my voice all trembly.
“He said you didn’t have no right to burn kids when they hadn’t done nothing really bad.” I started crying again but the Mother didn’t pay me no mind. She just walked away.
The Patrol brought Hank in about an hour later. They’d worked him over to the point where he wasn’t up to doing much in the way of complaining.
Afterward we sat around the fire and had a family sing, finishing up as usual with “Silver Threads Among the Gold”. The Mother got all teary-eyed and mellow so I took a chance and went up and asked her what the words on my good-luck pin was. She didn’t belt me or nothing. She just gave me a sort of lazy grin and said, “Be Prepared”.
1961
MACHINE RECORD
“Good Heavens,” said the disreputable political affairs researcher, “you must be a madman!”
“Exactly,” said the mad scientist, his eyes glittering with insane cunning.
Collected Fiction Page 49