Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Something hit me!”

  A voice shouted, “That’s Dr. Meek’s house! The invisible man!”

  “The invisible man!”

  Through the tumult shrilled Angel’s frantic barks. Raleigh plunged desperately in pursuit. Ignoring the red light at the corner, he darted into a stream of traffic. Not a car slowed. Their drivers saw nothing!

  “The invisible man!”

  The barks were louder. Raleigh heard a scuffle, saw a man topple sideward, yelling. Angel’s cries were suddenly muffled.

  A knife materialized out of thin air, clattering on the cement. Raleigh dived, kicking the weapon aside as he smashed into a bulky, unseen body. Brant screamed an oath. A gun barked, the bullet breaking a plate-glass window nearby.

  Angel’s teeth snapped. Raleigh tried to locate the gun amid a squirming mass of invisible arms and legs. Then he saw it, a few feet away, out of reach.

  ANGEL saw it too. The misguided dog freed himself and rushed over to the weapon, seizing it in his jaws. He brought it back.

  Both men snatched for the gun at the same moment. Angel, always ready to play, danced back out of reach. The legs of the surrounding mob swallowed her. Somebody fell over Raleigh and rolled away, yelling.

  Brant’s fingers were feeling for his attacker’s eyes. Raleigh tried to get hold of Brant’s throat. He grabbed the man’s ears, instead. Since the crook was underneath, Raleigh began to bang Brant’s head against the sidewalk.

  After that, the fight was over.

  Raleigh got up dazedly, keeping his hand on his captive’s coat collar. The crowd was growing. If he drank the antidote now, it would mean long explanations . . .

  Angel barked. Raleigh said, “Sic ’em, Angel! Go get ’em.”

  Frantic with valor, the dog obeyed. The crowd broke up into a riot. Invisible teeth were everywhere, nipping sharply. Raleigh slung Brant over his shoulder and departed.

  He found a taxi, but hesitated. The driver would balk at invisible passengers. But luckily the man was in a nearby doorway, conversing with friends. Raleigh slung Brant’s unconscious form into the cab, clambered under the steering wheel and started the car, heedless of the driver’s sudden outcry.

  Thus a “driverless” taxicab moved rapidly along the street, to the shocked alarm of many.

  Sirens began to scream. Motorcycles pursued. As the cab halted outside the city hall, officers surrounded it.

  “It’s empty!” said one.

  And it was. Raleigh was already inside the building, carrying Brant.

  He tried several court rooms before finding the right one, which was packed due to the sensational nature of the case. Meek was on the stand, his round face choleric with rage at the questioning he had been undergoing. The judge, a skinny, bald old vulture, was peering through thick-lensed glasses and toying with his gavel.

  The guard at the door was sent staggering aside. Raleigh sprinted down the aisle, halting only when he stood before the bench.

  “Your Honor—” he began.

  “Silence in the court!” the judge snapped, using his gavel. But Meek’s eyes were glistening.

  He sprang to his feet. “Rick! Is that you?”

  “Silence!”

  The scientist thrust out an imploring hand.

  “Wait, your Honor. My assistant’s here.”

  “Where?”

  “He’s invisible,” said Meek.

  The judge poured water from a pitcher and drank it hastily.

  “This—this is most irregular—”

  He stopped. Beneath him, on the floor, a man was becoming visible.

  He was a short, squat fellow, with a drooping eyelid and a day’s growth of black beard. He was unconscious.

  “I poured the antidote down his throat,” a voice from empty air explained. “Now I’ll take some myself.”

  RICHARD RALEIGH reappeared, slightly battered, but grinning.

  The judge drank more water. He said, “So. It’s true. Not just publicity. I’ll be damned—silence in the court!” The gavel could not hush the rising tumult.

  Brant was stirring. Officers sprang forward to seize him. Raleigh explained to the judge.

  “That’s the real bank robber, your Honor. He—”

  “Money!” one of the policemen said. “His pockets are stuffed with it!”

  The judge used his gavel again. “Calm down, please. You—” He pointed at Raleigh. “Take the stand. I want to ask you some questions . . .” The questions were answered, though Raleigh could not keep his eyes off Binnie, who sat in the front row, looking more than ever like an angel. He scarcely realized it when the judge had finished and he was requested to step down.

  Reporters were fleeing excitedly. “Meek’s name cleared! And Brant’s got a record! What a scoop!”

  Amid the commotion, Raleigh seized Binnie’s hand and found Dr. Meek. The scientist was beaming in triumph. He even smiled at his assistant.

  “Well, well. Thank you, Raleigh.” Suddenly the blue eyes went reptilian. “What d’you want?”

  “I want to marry Binnie—”

  The chandelier rocked. Dr. Meek had said “no” that emphatically.

  Raleigh looked swiftly at the girl, who nodded. Two hands lifted as one. And—quite suddenly and unexpectedly—Binnie Meek and Richard Raleigh disappeared.

  Meek ploughed like a spitting cobra, his wild gaze vainly searching for people who weren’t there any more.

  “Where are they?” he shouted. “Where’s my daughter? Where’s that double-crossing assistant of mine?”

  “Where’s the judge?” asked a baffled clerk.

  There was a lull in the noisy confusion. And it was at this point that practically everybody in the court room heard, from a distant corner, a disembodied voice which said benignly:

  “. . . I now pronounce you man and wife.”

  It was due to Dr. Meek’s unrestrained remarks at that moment that he was subsequently fined fifty dollars for contempt of court.

  MAN ABOUT TIME

  Piltdown Pete Chisels a Page from Stone-Age History When He Breaks the Chain of the Centuries—and Finds the Missing Link!

  CHAPTER I

  Manx Thinks

  PETE MANX had an idea. He sat in the laboratory of his friend Dr. Horatio Mayhem and deftly tossed his derby in the general direction of a rheostat. There was a crackling outburst of blue sparks, and Mayhem’s lean, storklike figure was galvanized into frantic activity. He hastily removed the derby and gave it back to Pete.

  “Never do that,” he told the squat little ex-barker reprovingly. “I’m using a lot of high voltage around here.”

  Manx looked uncomfortable for a moment. His brother-in-law had met a not entirely unexpected end as a result of a current of high voltage electricity. Pete glanced apprehensively at his chair, but relaxed when he failed to discover any suspicious looking wires connected with it.

  “Okay, Doc,” he said. “Unlax. Take it easy. I got a proposition.”

  Mayhem started slightly. He had been involved in Pete’s propositions before. He still remembered with horror the murderous proclivities of the racketeer “Mile-away” Moratti. He had come to the disheartening conclusion that Pete Manx was a trouble conductor.

  “Why don’t you go away?” he asked, rather plaintively. “I’m in the middle of an important experiment.”

  “Yeah?”

  Impressed, Pete looked around. He saw nothing but the usual chaotic labyrinth of apparatus. A guinea-pig, in a cage, was regarding him with baleful intentness. Otherwise, all was quite the same as usual.

  Mayhem beamed, however. He pointed with pride to the guinea-pig.

  “I’m testing his synapses,” he explained. “And his.” He pointed to a rabbit that was calmly devouring a portion of lettuce in a corner. “I’m trying to create an electrical stop-gap to nerve-impulses that will induce temporary paralysis.”

  Pete ignored him with his usual scientific detachment.

  “I
want to bet my roll on Pick-me-up,” the ex-barker stated. “He just won the Kentucky Derby.” He drew a newspaper from his pocket and indicated the headline. “See? A sixty-to-one shot.”

  “The laws of chance,” Mayhem remarked, his eyes growing bright with interest, “are most fascinating. Especially when you consider Planck’s constant and the Heisenberg uncertainty factor.” Then he noticed the date of the paper. His eyes dulled again. “But the creature, Pick-me-up, has already won the Kentucky Derby. I can’t see how you can expect to find someone who will take your wager.”

  “That’s where you come in!” Pete was beaming now. He straightened his red-and-green plaid necktie, lit a cigar, and aimed it at Mayhem. “If I’d known yesterday that Pick-me-up was the winner, I could have cleaned up. See?”

  “You didn’t know, though.”

  “There’s the answer,” Pete grinned, pointing at a chair that bore a discomforting resemblance to an electric seat. “Your time machine!”

  MAYHEM’S lips compressed with prim annoyance.

  “How often must I tell you that there’s no such thing? Time travel is impossible. My device simply liberates the ego—the consciousness—and sends it into the central time-hub, about which time itself revolves. Time is like a closed circle, a wheel. At present we’re existing at a certain point on the circumference. If we can take a short cut through the diameter of the wheel, we can enter another time sector. You should know that.”

  “Yeah, Doc, I know. I oughta. I been back to Rome, Egypt, and twice to England. Robin Hood, Cheops, King Arthur, Claudius—I had my fill of that kind of stuff.”

  Mayhem was scarcely listening. “What happens, of course, is that your consciousness enters another time sector. Automatically it enters the mind and body of someone who is existing at that particular moment. If you went back to the fifteenth century, you might find yourself existing as Columbus, King Ferdinand, or a savage in the Caribbean.”

  “No, thanks,” Pete said. He shuddered feelingly. “Just forget about shooting me all the way back there. I want you to send me back just one day. Yesterday. So I can lay a bet on Pick-me-up and collect it when I get back to now.”

  “What?” Mayhem’s jaw dropped. “Yesterday! But—but you were alive then!”

  ‘“So what?”

  “It isn’t possible! It’s a paradox. There couldn’t possibly be two Pete Manxes—”

  “Thanks,” said Pete, pleased by the compliment.

  Mayhem went on unheedingly.

  “And you can’t change a known and immutable past. You didn’t bet on Pick-me-up yesterday, and that’s that.”

  Mayhem turned suddenly. A huge, pompous man had entered the lab. It was Professor Aker, Pete’s archenemy, with whom he had quarreled in a multitude of historical eras. Aker glared at Pete through his pince-nes.

  “Well, what is it now?” he boomed. “What does this moron want?”

  “Hey!” Pete said resentfully. “I know what that means. Don’t think I got no education at all, fat stuff.”

  “Quiet,” Mayhem commanded, and turned to the professor. Quickly he explained Pete’s desires. Aker nodded thoughtfully.

  “An interesting experiment. Why not try it, Mayhem? After all, what can you lose? He’s no use to anybody while he’s alive, anyhow.”

  Pete swore somewhat anxiously under his breath.

  “I’ll take my chances,” he grunted. “Sixty-to-one on Pick-me-up is plenty good odds. I’ll take a chance like that any day.”

  He went over to the electrified chair and sat down in it. Doctor Mayhem turned to his control board.

  “This won’t take long,” he said. “Er—Professor Aker, I expected you yesterday to help me with my synapse experiments. What happened?”

  Aker frowned. “I really can’t say. A touch of sun, perhaps, or something rather like amnesia. I’m probably getting absent-minded, but for the life of me I can’t remember what I did yesterday morning. It—”

  “Come on,” Pete broke in impatiently. “Let ’er roll.”

  MAYHEM obediently let her roll. He pushed buttons and twirled levers. Things began to revolve and spit sparks. The physicist began to look worried.

  “Funny,” he murmured. “There’s something wrong. I believe I actually need more power.”

  “Feed her more juice, Doc,” Manx urged, gnawing his cigar. He pushed the white rabbit away from his feet. “Scram, stupid.”

  The beast hopped away, paused, and returned to sniff at Pete’s green socks. Mayhem generously applied more current. A low hum of restrained power throbbed through the room.

  “This is almost the limit,” he said. “If—” He pushed a lever further over.

  Crash! Lightning struck, with raving white flames. The 100m rocked and jarred under the terrific impact. For a second Mayhem and Aker were blinded. Then, as light and sound died, they saw again through blinking eyes.

  “Pete!” Mayhem’s voice was frightened. He stared at the limp figure of Mr. Manx, slumped laxly in the chair.

  “He’s all fight,” Aker reassured, pointing toward a dial. “Only—Jumping Jupiter, look at that! You used too much power, Mayhem!”

  The physicist took one look and clapped his hand to his brow.

  “Good Lord, look at the instruments! I’ve sent Pete back beyond Egypt or even Sumeria! He’s in the prehistoric past!”

  “So is the rabbit,” Aker gasped. “It was touching Manx when the juice went on, and the current was transmitted to its body. The rabbit’s ego is back in prehistoric times, too!”

  It was true. Both Manx and the rabbit were utterly relaxed. The casual observer would have lost his casualness and called the dead. They were not, of course, as Mayhem realized. But matters were still far from satisfactory.

  The delicate transformers, over-burdened by the current, had burned out. Dr. Mayhem reeled slightly.

  “It’ll take hours—maybe longer—to fix the machine. How can Pete survive in such a savage environment?”

  Aker grinned nastily.

  “I shouldn’t worry about that if I were you. Don’t forget, he’ll be occupying the body of a savage himself.”

  “That’s true,” said Mayhem. He blinked in dismay as a startling thought struck him. “And so will the rabbit!”

  CHAPTER II

  Manx Goes a Way Back

  A TALONED, furry claw was approaching the nose of Mr. Manx. Pete stared up with bulging eyes. He tried to lift his hand to shut out the sight of the horrid thing, but it seemed impossible. Beyond the claw he could see tree-tops and a blue sky. Apparently he was lying on his back, and a disembodied talon was about to clutch him by the face. Mr. Manx found his voice.

  “No!” he babbled. “Don’t! I’m too young to die! Yah!”

  The claw had flattened itself over Pete’s eyes. Yelping, he lifted his left hand and pulled it away. Once more he could see, but he rather regretted it.

  There were two claws now. One was clutching the other by the wrist.

  “I knew it,” Pete said with conviction. “I’ve gone batty.”

  He realized abruptly that he wasn’t talking English. The time machine, of course, enabled Pete to take over the memories of the body he was occupying, as far as language was concerned. In Egypt he had spoken Egyptian, Latin in Rome, and so on. But this tongue was unique. It sounded like a dog fight. Grunts, groans and cackles barked from his throat in an off-key cacophony.

  Worst of all, perhaps, was Pete’s sudden discovery that the two claws were his own.

  He rose weakly and looked around. He was in a leafy forest, with towering trunks overgrown with lichen. Gigantic ferns were all around him. Water poured tricklingly from something nearby.

  Realizing that he was tremendously thirsty, Pete staggered toward the sound. He came out beside a little brook pool. He flung himself down and drank thirstily. Then he happened to glance at his image. He drew back slightly, paused, staring. A long, quavering moan issued from Pete’s thick, jutting lips.

  “Oh-h-h-h-h!” he gurg
led. “It’s that cockeyed time machine. I ain’t nuts. I’m a monkey!”

  This was not quite accurate. Pete wasn’t as handsome as a Cro-Magnon, nor was he as brutish in appearance as a Neanderthaler. His forehead was low, and beetling brows thrust out like hairy awnings over his savage little eyes. His nose was a mere lump like a Brussel sprout, his fanged mouth made up for it in size. Pete was distressed to note that he was slobbering.

  “I ain’t neat,” he groaned, gaping down at his shaggy body. His clothing consisted of the skin of some beast tied becomingly about his wide middle. It was there merely for the sake of fashion. Pete’s furry figure didn’t really need it.

  A hoarse panting caught his attention. He couldn’t have missed it. Manx glanced over one furry shoulder. He was appalled to discover a tiger lurking right behind him.

  It was distressingly large, and had teeth like sabers, Pete thought with unconscious accuracy. It was, in fact, a saber-tooth. Its tail was twitching significantly as it crouched lower.

  “Beware, Ulg!” a voice shrilled from somewhere in the forest. “Behind you—the striped death!”

  The tiger’s tail stiffened, and Pete, frozen with horror, gasped weakly. He saw the glaring amber eyes intent on him. A thread of saliva hung from the sharp-fanged mouth.

  The monster coughed—and charged!

  PETE was crouched on hands and knees beside the pool. He acted almost instinctively. There was no time to escape, so he simply turned a somersault and fell into the pool.

  Luckily it was deep, and Pete struck out desperately under water for the other side. His skin crawled with the expectation of vicious claws. If the tiger could swim, Pete Manx was sunk in more ways than one.

  He came up sputtering, risked a glance over his hairy shoulder. The big cat had paused at the pool’s edge, and was snarling. It tentatively dipped a paw into the water and then drew back. Suddenly it made up its mind. It hurled itself after Pete.

  But by this time Manx had reached the other side. He scrambled forward, his eyes searching desperately for a refuge. He could see only the trees, and the great ferns.