“I give you,” cried Aker, “Colonel Henry Crowell, U.S.A.!”
He paled as the significance of this elaborate act dawned on him. Mayhem and Aker were putting on the pressure again and he could guess the reason. He wanted Army service, or any fighting for his country, but another hectic journey into the Past—huh-uh!
Colonel Crowell approached and gazed at Pete’s undersized, though tough and wiry, figure.
“This is the man?” he asked incredulously.
Dr. Mayhem beamed.
“The most well-traveled man in world history, Colonel. Shrewd and able.”
Pete stared at Mayhem suspiciously, like a turkey hearing the ax being whetted.
“Well,” the Army man said, “I’ve heard some amazing things about you, Mr. Manx!”
Pete blushed modestly, and the colonel sat down.
“I won’t kid you.” the colonel said. “I came to ask you a favor in the interest of national defense. As you know, we face a grave crisis and no stone is being left unturned to strengthen our military position. Now, men of your cosmopolitanism know there are scientific secrets, valuable ones, lost in the past. The Mayans, the Lemurians, the builders of the pyramids—all show indications of scientific advancement which we can’t match. Right?”
Pete’s heart did a quick wing-over and spin.
“Yeah, but them guys never had any knowledge of military stuff that’d do us—”
“Ah-ah ! Don’t be too sure. There’s one secret, if we can find it, that would make us masters of the air. Ever hear of the magic carpet?”
PETE had seen the Thief of Bagdad in the movies. He nodded.
“Of course,” Crowell continued, “it may only be a fairy tale. But historical research has shown us that the wildest fairy tales and legends often had their basis in fact. Now, if some early oriental discovered how to defeat gravity think what it would mean to us to rediscover that secret. How easy it would be to defend our cities; we could suspend great platforms in the sky with the heaviest cannon on them. We could hover ten miles over the enemy and rain bombs down. The science of aviation would be revolutionized! You would be immortal, Mr. Manx!”
“I’m just about immortal now,” Pete muttered with waning resistance. “Why pick on me? Anyone could make the trip.”
Professor Aker broke in eagerly.
“Not so, Manx. You are the best fitted. As you’ve made so many Time trips, Dr. Mayhem has plotted with utmost accuracy your Time Potential, and can project you almost exactly wherever we wish. We couldn’t do that with a stranger.”
“Besides,” added Mayhem, “it takes a man of wits and initiative like yourself to handle situations after he gets there.”
This rank flattery shattered the remnants of Pete’s resolve. He looked at the Time Chair, shuddering, and fixed his mind on the glories of patriotism.
“Okay,” he sighed. “Shoot the jolt to me, dolt.”
Quickly the preliminaries were completed. Power surged about the lab, shaking its very walls with muted dronings. Mayhem fiddled with dials and switches. Pete took his place in the Chair, one ear taking in Professor Aker’s explanations to the curious Colonel Crowell.
“Our proven concept of Time is that of a complete, coexistent circle, at the hub of which exists what we may call a Central Time Consciousness. Our apparatus releases the mind from the artificial barriers confining it to the present. Once within the Central Time Consciousness, it comes within the influence of a sort of psychic centrifuge, and is whirled out again into the mind of a person in the preselected era. Quite simple, as you can readily see …”
The Colonel seemed a little dazed.
“The Chair, of course, ties the mind immutably to its body in the Present, so the Traveler never gets beyond our control or lost in Time.”
Aker surreptitiously mopped his face with relief, and was spied so doing by Pete. The latter started up.
“Hey! I been framed! I ain’t the only one with experience in this thing! What about Aker? He’s able to make the trip—”
Hastily Aker reached past Mayhem toward the switch.
“Six weeks, Pete!”
Zung-g-g! There was a crackling, and quite suddenly the body of Pete Manx became revoltingly corpse-like. Only the most subtle instruments could have detected life therein. For the tenth fantastic time, Pete Manx was suffering with amps in his pants.
HIS first impression was of an overpowering odor—a combination of unwashed people, goats, and dogs, plus the sharpness of many spices, with a dash of putrescence from the quaintly oriental sewage disposal system. It was not altogether unpleasant.
Conquering a touch of nausea, Pete looked about him. He was apparently standing in the hot sunlight on the main street of ancient Bagdad. The uproar was terrific. Children fought and played shrilly in the streets. Hawkers in the bazaars shouted their wares. Thieves and cut-purses operated brazenly, resulting in many a wild race with indignant citizens chasing the criminals in vain.
Pete sighed at this display of crudity; he always preferred his crime on the subtle side. He glanced at his clothing to judge if he were rich or poor, and to decide whether he would be able to live in quietness while pursuing his quest of the magic carpet.
He was dressed as most of the other inhabitants—loose, wide trousers, cotton kami from neck to ankles and a sash round the waist, red leather slippers. A turban completed the costume. A leather purse yielded a few odd coins, nothing more. Pete sighed. Probably he was a worthless lout again. How monotonous.
A voice caught his ear with a Persian equivalent of “Oh, nuts!”
A boy in his late teens squatted in the shade of a wall, looking disgustedly at an empty brass bottle. Pete had, on occasion, looked disconsolately at at empty bottles, but not at that age.
“What’s cookin’, bud?” he asked.
The boy stared.
“I do not cook, master. I am the victim of a cheat of a magician who sold me this bottle, which had the seal of Solomon, son of David, on whom be peace.”
“How’s that, chum?”
“He vowed that if one maketh certain motions and pronounceth certain words, a genie will appear from the bottle to do one’s bidding. But nothing hath occurred. I have been defrauded.”
Pete leaned over and patted him on the back.
“Kid, you don’t realize it, but more terrific magic than that has just been pulled off under your nose.”
The lad was quick on the uptake.
“Then thou art the genie?” he asked eagerly. “Whence comest thou?”
“From very distant lands, pal,” Pete swaggered, “that ain’t even been discovered yet. In fact, I won’t even be born for about eighteen centuries. That’s me, the genie with the light brown hair. Ha, ha!”
The youth failed to crack a smile. “What great magic!” he whispered in awe. “If thou’rt the genie, bring me great wealth at once.”
Pete grinned. He was enjoying himself kidding this yokel.
“That takes time, bud. Us genies don’t produce the geetus from thin air. We fix things so it seems to come natural-like. Be patient.”
Pete’s agile brain was already at work. He would need a native, possibly, to help him get around with his inquiries about the flying carpet. Why not this credulous lad, who already had a proper appreciation of Pete Manx’s importance in the scheme of things?
“Stick with me, chum, an’ you’ll wear diamonds. What’s yer name?”
“Ahmedalhazred.”
“I’ll call you Sabu. And you can call me—” Pete paused; naturally he didn’t know the name of the man whose body he was temporarily usurping. “Oh, just call me Bo.”
“As thou wishest, O Bo. What dost thou plan first?”
“As a matter o’ fact, I come here on a little personal business. Look. Is there a guy around here who operates a magic carpet?”
SABU stared blankly; he had never heard of so wondrous a thing. “It’s a flying carpet.” Pete elaborated. “Goes through the air like a Spitfire—I
mean just like a bird. Maybe you seen it zooming by, huh?”
Sabu registered bafflement. Pete shrugged in disgust. If the boy couldn’t help, he would just make some inquiries till he found someone who could. Discreet inquiries of course, not open advertising, else he might arouse competition for the secret knowledge.
With Sabu trailing behind still clutching his worthless magic bottle, Pete began his questioning. Weavers, tent-makers, coppersmiths, merchants, wine-sellers—all the businessmen in several blocks along the crooked thoroughfare were interviewed. Not one had so much as heard of the aerial carpet, and many looked rather queerly at the none too affluent stranger who asked crazy questions.
Twice Pete spoke to petty chiselers who promised, with secretive glances, that for a sum of money they would make contact with mysterious, informed personages who couldn’t be reached at the moment, and would Bo meet them here tomorrow? Pete laughed scornfully at such obvious punks.
One thing seemed quite clear; the existence of the flying carpet was not commonly known. Perhaps the inventor was keeping it a secret. Pete pondered. It was obvious that he must contrive to make the inventor come to him, rather than continue an interminable and probably unsuccessful search. How? By offering some sort of profit.
Pete hunkered down in an alley and began to think furiously. Sabu watched, awe-stricken. Pete might start a war, in which the owner of a flying carpet could make a fortune. But military experiences at the siege of Troy weren’t exactly unqualified successes. Besides, people were always getting hurt in wars. No, the war idea was not so good.
Finally Pete came to the perfect solution of his problem. Vaudeville! Introduce the delights of vaudeville to these Persians, offer big money for new and original acts, and indubitably the magic carpeteer would learn of his big chance to cash in. He would come as inevitably as flies to honey.
Once he had the inventor located, Pete had no doubt of his ability to wheedle, bribe, steal, or slug the secret of the carpet from its owner.
“Okay!” he cried, jumping up. “I got it!”
Sabu’s eyes widened.
“Hath aught been revealed to thee in a vision, O Bo?”
“Yeah, yeah. A vision. All I need now is a theatre. I mean, d’you know of a place I can rent a big building?”
Sabu thought, then suggested the home of a recently deceased wealthy jewel trader. His harem had been disbanded by his sole heir, a spinster sister, and now the place stood practically empty. Apart from the mosque, it was the most nearly suitable place in Bagdad that the lad could think of.
WITHIN the hour Pete presented himself to the lady in question. Behind her veil she was homely enough to have gotten a job in any dairy souring the cream, but this type was all the easier for Pete’s savoir faire. Glib-tongued, suave, he knocked her off balance with rank flattery, then floored her with his fast-talking business proposition.
“Babe,” he said, “it’s the birth of vaudeville, and don’t ask me why. It’ll sweep the country, and I’m the guy what can do it. We’ll take this barn o’ yours—it ain’t earnin’ you a dime, I mean a kran, and what d’you want with such a big joint, anyway? —and turn it into a real investment. You’ll be known throughout the Orient as a benign patroness of the Arts.
“Of course, I realize the financial gain involved doesn’t interest you so much, so we’ll just sign for a nominal ten per cent of the net profits. By coincidence I have a contract right with me, just a little one-year lease with options and permission to make alterations.” Pete whipped out parchment and quill smoothly. “Right here, if you please. On the dotted line …”
A flirtatious glance, a sly squeeze of the hand, and she was Pete’s, body and soul. More to the point, so was her property.
An architect came next, and he was induced to remodel the building to Pete’s specifications, in return for another ten per cent of the net, if any.
Pete opened his office in one corner of the new theatre with the sign, “Theatrical Agency. Talent Wanted,” hung in the window. He also plastered Bagdad with throw-sheets asking for entertainers, promising glittering rewards for those who could qualify. Then he sat back to await prosperity.
Prosperity, unfortunately, was reluctant to be wooed by this brash stranger. Entertainers came, it is true, but they were all alike. They were girls who danced at banquets and stag parties; to the last female, the only thing they could do was the Dance of the Seven Veils.
“That’s okay as far as it goes,” Pete exclaimed to Sabu in disgust, “but you can’t make a vaudeville show outa one act, can you?”
“I know not, O Bo.”
So Pete took the seven best hoofers, made a chorus, and taught them some of the simpler tap routines he had once known many centuries in the future. He named the act Dance of the Forty-nine Veils.
“It’s plain to see,” he observed, “that I gotta be the director of this show as well as the producer.”
Sabu’s bottle gave Manx his first idea. Aided by a coppersmith, he fashioned one of those trick stage jugs which appear to empty themselves of water time after time. Pete, in his varied career, had once stooged for a rather good magician. Naturally he had picked up a good many of the master’s tricks, and now they came in good stead.
He worked out a magic act for himself, nothing elaborate but sufficiently clever to amaze the local yokels. There were some simple card tricks, a many-pocketed coat with the usual assortment of eggs, coins, and rabbits, and the act climaxed by sawing Sabu in half. The equipment was paid for by another promise of ten per cent of the profits.
NEXT Pete scouted around for musicians. There were a few street singers and beggars strumming on three-stringed mandolins, and he also found two down-at-heel fellows who played on a flute-like instrument. The music was weird, sing-song stuff, like Raymond Scott a little off key.
He whipped together an octet of strings and woodwinds, with a percussion section featuring a home-made drum. Not at all satisfied with the current taste in music, Pete simply wrote his own—three pieces, all that he could remember offhand: Beat Me, Daddy, Eight to the Bar, Boogly Woogly Piggy, and a rough rendering of Glenn Miller’s arrangement of the Volga Boatman.
By the time he had thoroughly rehearsed his orchestra, one of the girls had blossomed forth with real talent, and was elevated to the position of specialty artiste. Stalling for time, Pete promised the cast another ten per cent if they would be patient.
“It’s tough, kid,” he sighed to the awed Sabu. “Sometimes people don’t savvy the genius of a true promoter.”
When the show finally premiered, however, Pete considered his troubles practically over. It was a smash hit. Bo’s Bagdad Burleycue (Come One—Come All! Plenty of Persian Pretties !) played to S. R. O. before the first week was out. Money poured in so fast Sabu, promoted to theater manager, became dizzy trying to keep accounts.
Pete, of course, was preoccupied with his main purpose, trying to locate the elusive roving rug. By twos and threes, then by dozens and finally by the hundreds, hopeful entertainers thronged Pete’s offices trying to persuade the Great Man that they were born vaudevillians. Jugglers, minstrels, acrobats, itinerant storytellers, and others swarmed about like a plague.
Pete trained two assistants to catch the acts, which were monotonously alike and usually lousy. All he wanted to know was—had any of them ever heard of a guy with a flying carpet? None had.
Presently another difficulty arose. Pete was not surprised; he had yet to travel in Time without something going amiss. Sabu came to him breathlessly one morning with a message.
“O Bo,” he gasped, “the mighty Ali Ben Mahmoud demands thy presence!”
Pete sighed.
“Who’s this Ben? Why don’t he see me here?”
“Ali Ben Mahmoud, O Bo, is the caliph of Bagdad.” Sabu lowered his voice fearfully. “A very wicked caliph, O Bo, whose people groan beneath unjust taxes and walk in terror of his displeasure.”
Pete smiled cynically.
“Crooked politics, hey
? What’s he want?”
“I surmise that thou hast incurred his displeasure with thy vaudeville. It angers the caliph when another maketh more money than he.”
Pete glanced down at his tailor-made silks, glittering with jewels. He smiled with some vanity.
“We are in the dough,” he said complacently. “Well, let’s put this smalltime politician in his place.”
Sabu hesitated.
“It would be better, O Bo, wert thou a man of high social estate. Hast thou a title in that far land whence thou come?”
“I was a corporal in C.M.T.C. once. I guess nobody will kick if I promote myself. From now on you can call me major.”
“Excellent, O Major Bo. It will impress the caliph. Follow me.”
THE palace to which Sabu led Pete was an ornate structure of the Persian hybrid architecture of domes and minarets and semicircular arches. Ali Ben Mahmoud, however, though pretentious in a fat and bejeweled way, was anything but hybrid. He was pure, unadulterated chiseler from turban to sandals. Pete had known too many sharpshooters to make any mistake about this one.
He bowed low, tipping his turban at a rakish angle.
“Major Bo, at your service, Caliph. What’s cookin’?”
Ali Ben gave the flippant visitor a basilisk stare, while pawing through an acre of surrounding food for a chop to gnaw on.
“It hath come to my ears,” he said, “that thou seekest a magic carpet.”
“Yeah, Ben. Somewhere around here a guy has invented a flying rug. I’m tryin’ to locate it.”
“If there be any such marvel in Bagdad, it belongeth to me.”
Ali Ben and Pete exchanged a long look. Pete swallowed. This was what he had feared, tough competition that he would have trouble in bucking.
“Sure, Ben, if I get it. If I find the thing, I’ll bring it right around. All I want is a few words with the inventor, anyway.”
“Not ‘if,’ O Major. Thou seemest confident of the existence of such a magic carpet. If ‘tis not brought to me forthwith, I shall suspect treachery. That would be unfortunate.” He drew one fat finger playfully across his throat, but Pete could see he was not joking.
My Best Science Fiction Story Page 3