The man who had built this house had been teched in the head. After Featherstone had finished with him, he had been teched in the pocketbook. In point of fact, to show his profuse admiration for the worthy professor, he had deeded the house and several hundred surrounding acres of hills to Featherstone as an outright gift.
Featherstone had his converts.
Featherstone liked this house. It gave him a place to spend a few restful weeks or months when the heat was on in New York. He also liked it because George Graham did not know about it. From Featherstone’s point of view, a hideout that George Graham did not know about was a most desirable thing. Most desirable indeed!
Featherstone was a strange man. If he had been born in central Africa, his calling would never have been in doubt. He would not have been a hunter, a stalker of antelope, a bringer of food to the tribe. He would not have been a fighter, meeting the enemy face to face, a protector of the people. Nor would he have been a worker, a tiller of the soil.
He would have been a witch doctor. The hunters, the warriors, and the tillers of the soil would have brought tribute to him. He toils not, neither does he spin; yet he lives on the fat of the land. A witch doctor, with his face hidden behind a hideous task, a necklace of lion claws, a cow tail in one hand and a sack of gris-gris in the other, a worker of dark magic, with fear his chief assistant, and delusion and deceit his stock in trade. Born in central Africa, Featherstone would have been a witch doctor. And he would have been powerful. Whole tribes would have held him in awe, obeyed his commands, served his dark purposes.
If he had been born in Europe in the middle ages, he would have been an alchemist, a master of subtle poisons, with a secret laboratory hidden in some dark cave or cellar, and in this laboratory he would have sought what so many were seeking in that time—a way to transmute base metal into gold.
In yet other places and other times, he would have been a wizard, a warlock, a magician, trafficking with dark mysteries. And his fate, if caught with the goods, would have been to be broken on the wheel, to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, to be boiled alive in oil. But the odds are he would never have been caught with the goods.
In America, in the Twentieth Century, Featherstone was neither witch doctor, alchemist, nor magician, although he possessed an extensive knowledge of the practices of these trades. Nor was he an astrologer, a fortune teller, or a cultist. He knew the secrets of the astrologer, the inner workings of the crystal ball, and how to organize and run a cult on the right side of the law. He was not a spiritualist although he could manage ectoplasm with the best in the business.
There is no one word that could describe Featherstone. He was anything. Although his primary aim was to separate a sucker from ten thousand dollars, he was also willing to separate a sucker from five dollars. If a marked deck of cards would do the job, he used a marked deck of cards. If astrology would handle the separation process, he used astrology. If he found some rich individual—preferably a rich widow—who went in for spiritualism, then he brought out his spirits, changing his methods according to the weakness of his victim. He had no scruples, no morals. Honesty was something he liked to find in other people.
This was the man to whom Zeke Tuttle hoped to sell what he thought was a cannonball.
* * * *
Zeke found the professor relaxing in the shade of a tree on the highest level of his house, the solarium. He was seated in a heavily padded reclining lawn chair with a tall, cool glass handy to his right hand and a book written by a Hindu philosopher open in his lap. There was a rich widow in Pittsburgh who was interested in Hindu philosophy, and Featherstone was reading up on the subject.
Zeke approached, holding the cannonball behind him. “Professor?” he said diffidently.
“What the devil are you doing up here?” Featherstone demanded, noticing his employee. “I hired you to dig a ditch. Why aren’t you digging it?”
“I been diggin’,” Zeke defended.
“I didn’t ask you whether or not you have been digging. I asked you why you’re not digging now. I’m paying you to do it, am I not?”
“Yep. You’re payin’ me.”
“Good wages, too. Better than you could get anywhere else.”
“Wages are all right,” Zeke answered. He was beginning to squirm. City folks had funny ideas about work. When they hired a man they expected him to work from starting to stopping time without taking any time off. Country workers, on the other hand, are accustomed to take time out to rest when they feel the need. In leaving his job, Zeke had not been conscious that he was violating the code governing capital and labor. According to his lights, it was quite all right for a hired man to take time out to go tell the boss something. The fact that he was trying to sell his boss something made no difference.
“Well, what are you standing there for?” Featherstone demanded. “What do you want?”
“You wanta buy a cannonball?” Zeke answered, thrusting the object toward him.
Featherstone was a tall man, and even sitting down, an impressive one. He had manner, bearing, sangfroid. In his various occupations, these characteristics were useful. He also had hard black eyes that could turn gimlets to shame.
“A cannonball!” For a moment even Featherstone was surprised. A cannonball was about the last thing on earth he expected to see and certainly the last thing on earth, in heaven, or in hell he expected to buy.
Glancing toward the object his employee had thrust toward him, he saw that it did look like a cannonball. He could also see that his employee was trying to sell him something that was already his own property. For someone to sell him something that already belonged to him would irritate him exceedingly. He could see bits of dirt clinging to the cannonball which indicated that it had come from the ditch being dug on his land. Promptly, he moved to the attack.
“A cannonball, eh? Nonsense. How would a cannonball get here?”
“Maybe shot in the Revolution,” Zeke suggested.
“Ridiculous. No battle was fought within fifty miles of this spot.”
“Maybe the Indians brought it here,” Zeke volunteered. He was feeling a little better. His employer seemed to have forgotten that he was supposed to be digging a ditch.
“Now what would an Indian be doing with a cannonball?” the professor scoffed.
* * * *
Zeke couldn’t answer that question. “Well,” he hedged, “It’s a cannonball anyhow, no matter how it got here. You wanna buy it?”
“Where did you get it?”
“Found it.”
“Where did you find it?”
“Over that way?” Zeke gestured vaguely toward the little valley where he had been digging. He knew as well as Featherstone where these questions were leading. If he admitted finding the ball in the ditch, the professor could claim it.
“What do you want for it?”
“Five dollars,” Zeke answered promptly.
“It’s not worth the price but I’ll take it.” Featherstone pulled a wallet from his coat pocket, and carefully concealing its contents from the inquisitive eyes of his employee, extracted a five dollar bill from it. He took the cannonball from Zeke’s willing hands.
Zeke reached for the bill. Featherstone snatched it out of his grasp. “I said I’d take it, not buy it!” he roared, leaping to his feet. “You idiot! Do you think I’m a big enough fool to buy my own property from you?”
“I—” Zeke was startled out of his wits. When the money had appeared, he had thought the sale completed. He now perceived it was not completed.
“You found this cannonball on my property!” Featherstone thundered. “Answer me. You found it in the ditch you were digging!”
“Y—yes.”
“Then it belongs to me. Now get the hell back to work. Do you think I’m paying you to loaf around up here in the shade?”
Zeke knew he was licked b
ut he made one last desperate effort to trade.
“Finders keepers,” he argued.
“Finders keepers the devil!” the professor snorted. “Anything found on my land belongs to me. I could have you put in jail for trying to sell me my own property. Now get back to work before I dock you for the time you have wasted up here. Get moving. Do you hear me?”
Zeke heard him. He was already moving. Featherstone’s laughter came to him as he went down the slope. He was so irritated that he did not tell Featherstone how the cannonball had jumped out of the ditch when he uncovered it. Secretly he hoped the ball would explode and blow Featherstone to hell and gone.
It was a false hope. This ball had never been designed to explode. Quite the contrary.
At that moment, fate must have been sitting back in the wings laughing at the human race. A ball that a ditch digger had found buried in glacial till, a ball that looked like a cannonball but certainly wasn’t a ball, that had leaped from the ground of its own accord when freed of the restraining soil, a ball encased in a quarter inch of lead, was in the hands of a man who was potentially the most dangerous crook in the United States.
* * * *
Featherstone saw at once that this was not a cannonball. Through a crack in the lead, he could see something glistening. He cut the lead away, using a pocket knife.
Amazement showed on his lean dark face as the object inside the lead came more and more to light.
It was a sphere, of a size that could easily be held in two cupped hands. It was made of a transparent plastic substance that was harder and tougher than any glass he had ever seen. The point of his knife would not even scratch it. Clearly visible inside the plastic, crossed and criss-crossed like the multitudinous threads of a tangled spider’s web were—a maze of tiny wires connecting equally tiny instruments.
“A radio set!” he thought. “A radio set in a crystal ball!” Then he shook his head. The instruments inside the sphere looked like they belonged in a radio set but they resembled no radio assembly with which he was familiar. And, among many other things, he had an excellent working knowledge of radio.
The tiny wires all ran to a central core which was about the size of a baseball. This core was black, blacker than the blackest night, so very black that in comparison the best grade of commercial paint would have seemed a drab affair. In that blackness were—lights. Millions of lights, an uncounted multitude of lights. Microscopic, almost atomic in size, they danced like incredibly tiny fireflies winging through a summer midnight.
Take a million fireflies and compress them to the size of a baseball. Take their beloved darkness and compress it until it becomes the essence of a thousand midnights. That was the picture of the dance going on inside the sphere and of the blackness in which the dance was taking place. Microscopic fireflies at midnight!
Featherstone frowned in perplexity. “This is marvelous workmanship!” he thought. “Marvelous, indeed.”
“Thank you,” a voice whispered in his mind.
The sphere had talked back to him!
Featherstone had found a crystal ball that actually worked! Or possibly the ball had found him. It was hard to know which. One fact was clear. A man who was potentially dangerous had in his possession a device that was potentially deadly.
* * * *
The girl was frightened, George Graham saw. She was clutching the cardboard box as though she was afraid it would blow up in her face. The furnishings of the office seemed to make her feel a little less frightened. Graham sighed. He wished to hell that sometime he would get a client who didn’t pay attention to how the place was furnished. What was it about the human face that made them suckers for an Oriental rug, mahogany furniture, indirect lighting, and a couple of good paintings? Sometime he was going to open an office with nothing in it but a plain pine table, unpainted, two uncomfortable chairs, and a—yes, by Harry!—and a spittoon; and the client who didn’t like the furnishings could get the hell out and stay out.
He rose to his feet. “There is nothing going to jump out of the closet at you, there are no trap doors, I am hot going to hypnotize you or give you drugs. In short, you are safe in this office as you would be in your grandmother’s parlor. So sit down, Miss Chambers, and tell me what you have on your mind.”
She forgot her fear in a hurry. Anger replaced it. She had violet eyes. Flames blazed in them.
“I beg your pardon, but—”
“But you are accustomed to having everyone treat you as if you were sugar or salt and might melt if left out in the rain. You are accustomed to having everyone treat you with all the respect due your father’s millions. When you enter the presence of a private detective, you expect that uncouth person to leap to his feet, bow from the hips, ask how he may serve your highness.”
That ought to fix her, he thought. She ought to swish out of his office with her nose in the air after that speech.
Graham had two reasons for being insulting. One, he was not interested in talking to curiosity seekers. He didn’t have time to waste on people who were looking for a thrill. His second reason was more obscure, but none the less real. If you insult a frightened person, their fear will sometimes be absorbed in anger and forgotten.
He waited for this girl to react.
She just looked at him. She didn’t bounce out of the office. The violet eyes went searchingly, even hungrily over his face. Graham would not have taken a prize in a most handsome or best-dressed man contest but the girl seemed to like the rugged strength she found in his face. Suddenly she sighed, and sat down. Wilted down, rather, as though her legs would no longer support her.
“Thank you,” she said. “I admit I was—terribly frightened. You did just the right thing to save me from hysteria.”
Graham stepped quickly around his desk. It was his turn to be surprised. She had understood why he had talked to her as he had. Not one woman in a thousand would have understood. He decided he liked this girl.
“Sorry,” he said, all harshness gone from his voice. “Will you have a cigarette?”
From the thin gold case which he extended toward her, she took a cigarette. He lit it for her.
“Now Miss Chambers,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
“You can tell me what to do about this.” She handed him the cardboard box she was carrying.
It was a shoe box, Graham saw as he removed the paper in which it was wrapped. The girl watched him from frightened eyes as he took off the lid.
Inside the box was a rabbit. A wild rabbit, with long ears and brown fur and a white tail. A common cottontail rabbit. Dead.
* * * *
The clients of George Graham had brought many things to him. They had brought him little dolls with needles thrust into them, they had brought him voodoo charms from Haiti, they had brought him great houangas that had originally come from Africa. Idols from Tibet, prayer wheels from China, decks of magic cards from Harlem, all the paraphernalia of superstition, of almost all of it, that the human race has invented. And it has invented plenty!
But no one had ever brought him a dead rabbit in an empty shoe box.
“What kind of a joke—”
The fear on the girl’s face stopped him. He swore silently at himself. The black and diabolical designs of superstition may seem silly from time to time but they are never a joking matter. Graham told himself he was old enough and experienced enough to know better than to think someone was playing a joke.
“What is this?” he said.
“A—a rabbit,” the girl answered.
“I know. But what else is it?”
“That’s—that’s what I came to you to find out. You—you specialize in this sort of thing, don’t you?”
Graham groaned. “I specialize in exposing fake mediums, fake fortune tellers, fake spiritualists, the tricksters who prey on unfortunate and unhappy people. I do not know what there
is to expose about a dead rabbit.”
“Look at the rabbit.”
“What?”
“Examine it closely. Take it out of the box. Here. Let me—”
Graham caught her wrist, shoved her hand aside. “Let’s not touch it unnecessarily,” he said. “Wait just a minute. I’ll get some gloves.”
He went into the next room. There was a laboratory in that room, as complete a laboratory as any in the city of New York. He stayed only long enough to take a pair of rubber gloves from a storage cabinet.
He used these to lift the rabbit out of its box. He set the rabbit on a piece of paper on his desk.
“Now look at it,” the girl said.
He saw what she meant. The rabbit sat naturally on its four feet. There was a suggestion of motion about the little animal. Graham got the impression that this rabbit had been ready to hop when something had happened to it. Instead of moving, the rabbit had been frozen in a hopping position, frozen solid instantly, all motion stilled in the fractional part of a second.
The rabbit had never known what had hit it. There was no indication that it had been fleeing for its life, its fur was not disarranged, and no blood spots were visible. It crouched on his desk ready to hop.
It would not hop again, not ever.
Graham ran gloved fingers over the furry body. The rabbit was as stiff and as solid as bone. He shrugged, slipped it back into its box, turned to the girl.
“Did you ever see anything like that before?” she asked.
“Never,” he answered.
“What do you think it is?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
The Alien MEGAPACK® Page 19