Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  STELLA HART, the fiancée of Pilot Terry Webb, was fighting the icy wind that rushed along Pennsylvania Avenue. Washington was buried in snow. The Capitol’s dome glistened whitely with it. Stella, a rather pretty girl of twenty, was shivering despite the old furs she hugged to her small figure.

  Terry had wanted to buy her a new coat, but she wouldn’t let him. They needed all the money they could get to buy that cottage in Maryland. But Terry had said that if he returned safely from this voyage, they’d never have to worry about money any more. He didn’t realize, Stella thought, just how much she was worrying about him now.

  Televisors everywhere were blaring the latest reports from the Newtonia. Her nerves were rasped and raw from the strain. She marched doggedly along the icy street, trying to shut out from her mind the picture of Terry—so close, so terribly close to the Sun.

  Gray daylight, and a cold wind blowing. A few hurrying dark figures in the distance, blacker blotches against the drab snow. The whine of an airship flashing invisibly past in the cloud-blanket overhead. And the snow sifting down softly, endlessly . . .

  There was a brittle, curiously penetrating snap, like the sound of a taut violin-string breaking. Simultaneously dozens of small points of fire sprang into existence in empty air, about a hundred yards from Stella. Strangely the snowflakes did not hide them from her. Little glowing specks of flame. They darted about in long, arcing curves, swinging, dancing.

  WHAT were they? A moment before they had been living inhabitants of a white dwarf star, the Companion of Sirius. Unleashed energy, warping matter, had crinkled the fabric of space as a sheet of paper is crushed, had scooped up these flaming beings and deposited them neatly on Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue. Though they were alive, even the atomic structure of their brains was alien to that of human beings. Their reactions were disastrous.

  They may have been puzzled, frightened, angry, or perhaps hungry. They danced among the snowflakes briefly, and then swung in widening spiral orbits, glimmering like tiny stars. Stella, watching them, did not at first realize that she was seeing anything more than an unusual electrical display. She felt a surge of fear only when one of the sparks brushed the stone wall of a building and brought the structure down in quick ruin.

  How could this happen? Simple. The Companion of Sirius is of tremendous density. Living beings existing on the white dwarf’s surface must be similarly compact in atomic structure. As a man’s finger brings down a house of cards, so the touch of the glowing star-point brought a ten-story office building crashing in destruction, collapsing upon itself, with a great, earth-shaking roar that drowned the victims’ screams. The concussion knocked Stella down. She scrambled to her feet, the sleazy fur wrapped around her face, momentarily blinding her. She tore it free.

  A cloud of dust was still billowing up, meeting the sliding rush of the snowflakes, luridly brightened by the streaking orbits of the stars as they raced faster and faster. Blocks and fragments of stone lay all around Stella, but, save for a shallow cut on one arm, she was miraculously unhurt. With panic tearing at her throat she turned, slipped, and went down in the slush. Quick footsteps sounded.

  A man gripped her arm, jerking her roughly to her feet. Half dragging her, he rushed away from the scene of destruction. Now that the noise of the collapsed building had died, Washington was strangely silent.

  Their breaths whooping, their throats raw, the two paused, looking back. Only a faint glow shone through the flickering veil the snow made. Stella glanced aside, saw that her rescuer was a short, pudgy man, with fogged gold-rimmed glasses and a bald spot that was speedily capped by snow.

  From the distance came a crashing bellow of grinding masonry.

  “War,” the little man said vaguely. “Some new kind of bomb. I don’t know—” Then his nostrils flared; there was sweat on his pink brow. “We’ve got to get out—eh? My wife and kids—they’re in New York—”

  Stella could not speak. Shuddering with cold and fear, she ran with her companion along Pennsylvania Avenue, goaded by the slow crescendo of sound that was rising to a world-shaking symphony of fear from doomed Washington.

  “Where? Where can we—” she managed to gasp.

  “My helicopter!”

  They reached the landing platform, not yet crowded with the refugees who would soon arrive. Stella had no relatives in Washington. She could not yet understand the full extent of the catastrophe, and she crouched in the cafoin, watching her rescuer silently as he nervously worked the controls. The door was opened, and a man’s unshaven face was thrust in. He cried something unintelligibly, and, despite the pilot’s remonstrance, pushed into the cabin a squat, dumpy woman carrying a child in her arms.

  “You take her, eh, meester? Maria—”

  “Ramon!” The woman tried to pull him in. “You come too!”

  “No—I mus’ get my father—I fin’ you after, Maria. An’ the muchacha—”

  A mob was pouring out on the platform. The helicopter drifted up. Below them a man stood waving, tears on his grimy, stubbled cheeks.

  “Vaya con Dios!”

  Stella, looking from the window, saw the platform suddenly split across the middle. The man was flung, a small black figure, into blinding clouds of chaos; flaming star-specks whirled into view. Thunder of ruin bellowed up . . .

  The pilot desperately battled air-currents. The squat Mexican woman screamed, huddled low, hugging her child till it began to cry with fright and pain.

  “Carmelita—muchacha—ohe, ohe!” the woman sobbed.

  Stella shivered, trying to understand what had happened, battling the cold, dark fear that was overwhelming her. Terry . . . Terry! Will I see you again? We can’t die now, either of us. We’ve got to live. That cottage in Maryland . . . Cod, God be merciful! Terry!

  THE BIGGEST LITTLE CITY IN THE WORLD, said the sign at the end of Virginia Street, Reno. The city hadn’t changed much in a hundred years. The state capitol had been moved here from Carson city; bars and gambling establishments still thrived. So did Reno’s most famous trade—divorces.

  Iola McGowan, wife of the telecaster, had taken advantage of his absence to go to Reno and start divorce proceedings. She was an artificially luscious blonde, and she had been married to McGowan, her fourth husband, for almost a year. She felt she was getting in a rut.

  So Iola, after an unpleasantly early visit to the courthouse, demolished a lamb chop and went for a stroll along Virginia Street, wondering how to pass the time. The man she had chosen as her next husband had been unfortunately detained in Hollywood working on a picture for Summit Studios, and so she was alone. Casting a glance at the snow-capped mountains to the west, she hastily turned into a comfortably warm establishment where the busy clicking of a Wheel of Fortune immediately intrigued her.

  Even at that hour inveterate gamblers were busy, though the tourist trade wasn’t due till evening. Iola found a seat next to a lean, good-looking fellow who was playing with a reckless disregard for consequences. He glanced at her with sleepy, appraising eyes as she placed a bet.

  Maybe Reno wouldn’t be so dull after all, Iola thought. The man was quite handsome.

  “Place your bets,” the attendant called. “All in—here she goes . . .”

  There was a faint snapping sound, strangely piercing. To an observer in an airplane, Reno would have looked exactly the same a half minute later. But actually it was considerably changed. Everybody had suffered. As a result of the tremendous energy that had been released, most of the inhabitants lived in a few seconds the span of decades. They grew old.

  But on some of them the process was reversed. They got young. Automobiles crashed against lamp posts and into store-fronts, driven by wrinkled, toothless oldsters. The Governor, who happened to be in his office at the capitol building, was abruptly reduced from a florid, portly man of sixty to a small, chubby child who ignored a visiting committee of ranchers to play with the fountain pen he had been using. The ranchers had their own troubles, however; they had become at l
east octogenarians, and four of them suddenly died of old age.

  Iola was changing her mind about her neighbor’s good looks. His face was too lean—why, it even had wrinkles in it. For heaven’s sake! His face looked like a skull with withered parchment stretched over the bones, and a straggling white beard dangled almost to his lap. But she couldn’t see him clearly. What was the matter? She lifted a trembling hand to rub her blurry eyes, and paused, transfixed, by the sight of the incredible claw attached to her arm. She screamed in a cracked voice . . .

  Then she caught sight of her face in a nearby mirror, and mercifully fainted.

  IN Joslyn’s penthouse, Mahaffey was fixing himself a Scotch and soda, listening to the televisor voice from the next room where Peter was. The kid was growing, Mahaffey thought. He could remember when young Pete was about knee-high to a grasshopper. Well, if he grew up like his old man it’d be okay. A swell guy, the doc.

  A faint snapping noise sounded. Peter called out, a note of panic in his voice: “Mahaffey! There’s something—”

  The chauffeur put his glass down and was through the doorway in a split second. His eyes bulged. The room had gone crazy!

  It looked familiar enough—same chairs and tables, bookshelves and televisor—till you got to the end. But instead of the further wall there was only—something else! Mahaffey shook his head, blinking. His eyes hurt. Angles here—crazy looking colors—

  Dr. Joslyn might have guessed that some utterly alien segment of the Universe had impinged here at the moment the energy had been released. But Mahaffey could only stare, sensing somehow that he looked on something very horrible—and very dangerous. A blaze of incredible colors that hurt the eye, angles and curves that were warped and twisted insanely—

  He made a quick dash and scooped up Peter, who was standing by the televisor, paralyzed with uncomprehending fright. Turning to escape, Mahaffey sensed danger. He whirled.

  Something was coming toward him, tacking and veering in mad flight, racing out from that crazy blaze of colors. A gray, leathery thing it was, and Mahaffey was perturbed because he couldn’t manage to focus it in his vision. Its outlines kept shifting. One moment it was big as a man; the next it was a speck; and then it was in the penthouse.

  Mahaffey raced for the desk, snatched a gun out of a drawer. The thing, whatever it was, seemed to be coming forward, though he couldn’t really be sure. Everything had gone crazy. He couldn’t see clearly enough to aim. But he fired.

  Something hit him, sent him spinning in one direction while Peter hurtled across the room to crash into a chair. Mahaffey felt a sickening pain knife into his chest. A rib’s busted, he thought. Maybe more than one. Was the kid okay? Yeah, he was moving. His arm, though—broke. Well, that wouldn’t kill him. Look out, kid!

  Gray leathery flesh moved swiftly toward the boy. Mahaffey got to his feet, sprang across the room. He grappled with the thing. Sickening, abysmal pain lanced through every part of him. The creature had hold, seemed to be wrapping itself all around him. The touch of its flesh burned like acid. The gun—

  He emptied the weapon at point-blank range. An endless, brain-piercing shrilling screamed out. And, quite suddenly, the leathery thing was gone; the wall of the room was back again, and everything was normal. There was a yellowish, musky smelling liquid on the rug, but this was already evaporating. Peter was lying still, but he was breathing, Mahaffey saw. Tough little sprout; all kids were. I’m dying, Mahaffey thought. That thing’s killed me. What the hell was it, anyway? Doesn’t matter . . . it’s gone now . . . so this is dying. Funny I’m not scared. No worse than a knockout punch.

  So long, kid. See you again sometime, maybe . . . maybe . . . wish I could say goodbye to your old man before I croak . . . So long—

  DANGER OVER, JOSLYN SAYS—

  SCIENTIST RETURNS, DECLARES

  ENERGY EXHAUSTED

  NEW YORK, Feb. 2—(GP)_Dr. Howard Joslyn today said no further danger from his so-called “reverse atom” exists, for his instruments show that the surplus of released energy has been dissipated. Since the destruction of Cleveland last night there have been no reports of similar catastrophes, and it is hoped that Dr. Joslyn’s statement will be confirmed. The mysterious lights that razed Washington are said to have disappeared . . .

  SUN SAVED!

  RESUMES FORMER BRIGHTNESS

  Joslyn’s Experiment Successful

  NEW YORK, Feb. 3—(GP)—The atomic blanket that smothered the Sun for so many months has been destroyed, Dr. Howard Joslyn declared today, by the energy his famous “reverse atom” released. The delicate balance necessary to maintain the comet’s matter On the Sun’s surface has been upset, and a hitherto unknown type of ionization has shattered the atomic nuclei of the radiation-smothering blanket. Scientists predict startling discoveries dealing with new properties of matter given immense energy-charges . . .

  SPRING came again to the Earth.

  Blighted crops began to yield. Sheep and cattle thrived again under the vital radiation of a newborn Sun. The snow that had covered nearly all the world melted and was forgotten. And Joslyn and Molin worked again in the former’s laboratory, helping to repair the damage the experiment had done.

  Joslyn came in one day smiling. “Remember Terry Webb?” he asked. “Our pilot on the Newtonia? Well, he’s getting married. I just got a telegram from him. We’re invited.”

  “Bah!” Molin rumbled. “We have no time. Send him my condolences, the young fool. Why should he get married? He’s a hero now—everybody giving him medals and money.” The Swiss pointed at a dozen sheets of calculations on the table.

  “But look, Howard—I have found the answer. The unknown quantity in our calculations. It explains your reverse atom very simply.”

  “What?” Joslyn hurried forward, snatched up the papers. “You’ve found the missing factor?” His keen eyes searched the calculations.

  “Sure. Your figures were right, but your reasons weren’t. You got energy, plenty of it—but how?”

  “By creating a reverse atom,” Joslyn said slowly. “One that released more energy than it apparently possessed.”

  Molin roared assent.

  “So! But we did not look far enough. It does not make sense, Howard—we should have known two apples and two apples don’t make five apples. If they do, the extra apple must come from somewhere. And all this energy we got out of nothing—it, too, came from somewhere.”

  “From the atoms.”

  “Not from them—through them. You didn’t create energy out of nothing; what you did was to tap a reservoir of power. It got you the correct results, but the origin of this power—we both guessed wrong about that. We must have siphoned energy, so to speak, into the atoms of our Universe, from some reservoir of power.”

  “Perhaps you have hit it,” Joslyn said excitedly. “Of course! But this reservoir—”

  “Is another continuum. Another Universe, one separated from us perhaps by space and time, filled with potential and kinetic energy as our own Universe is so filled. You simply bridged the gulf between the two continua with your reverse atom, Howard, and siphoned energy to us from this other Universe—emptied it, drained it dry.”

  “But look here, Max,” Joslyn frowned. “You say the known scientific laws weren’t violated. Where has this excess energy gone? If it’s been destroyed—that’s impossible, you know.”

  “Not destroyed—converted. It hasn’t gone into nothingness. It was utilized in warping and twisting the foundations of the Universe as it did. It was converted, scattered all through our continuum, changed to light, heat, maybe matter. We have far more potential energy than we had before, and the Universe will last longer. It’s been rejuvenated.”

  Joslyn nodded, a little sadly.

  “Converted energy—you’re right, Max. Changed, like so many lives have been changed and destroyed by our experiment. Mahaffey . . .”

  BUT Mahaffey was beyond pain and fear, separated from them by six feet of earth. There were flowers by the gr
ave, some of them put there by Peter.

  So many lives . . . changed . . .

  A squat Mexican woman searching in the ruins of Washington, her stolid face betrayed by the eternal sorrow of her eyes . . . Two happy lovers in a Maryland cottage, already forgetting the terror they had known . . . A woman in Reno, gasping bitter, dry sobs, staring at a mirror and a ravaged shrunken mask . . . Joe McGowan, the telecaster, getting a divorce and going to Hawaii on his honeymoon with a famous actress . . .

  The world moved on . . .

  THRESHOLD

  A very nice bargain he made—murder without penalty—wealth—the payment the demon asked was a minor thing—

  IT was quiet in the comfortable little apartment, twelve stories above the traffic of Central Park West. Venetian blinds reflected soft lights. Conventional prints were on the walls, a neutral-colored rug on the floor, and a decanter of whiskey was amber and crystal in Haggard’s hand as he reflected ironically on the setting. Distinctly out of place, he thought, for an experiment in black magic.

  He poured liquor for Stone, who had just arrived, out of breath and puffing nervously on a cigarette. The young attorney leaned forward in his chair and accepted the glass.

  “You’re not drinking, Steve?”

  “Not tonight,” said Haggard, with a twisted little smile. “Drink up.” Stone obeyed. Then he set down the glass and opened a brief case he had been holding on his lap. From it he took a flat, oblong parcel.

  “Here’s the book you wanted.” He tossed it across the room.

  Haggard didn’t open the parcel. He placed it carefully on an end table, next to a capped thermos bottle standing there. His gaze lingered on the latter.