Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  “Can I get the suitcase back?”

  “No,” Galloway said flatly. “At least, I don’t see how it can be worked. It’s in another spatio-temporal sector.”

  “Just what does that mean?”

  “It means the locker works something like a telescope, only the thing isn’t merely visual. The locker’s a window, I figure. You can reach through it as well as look through it. It’s an opening into Now plus x.”

  Vanning scowled. “So far you haven’t said anything.”

  “So far all I’ve got is theory, and that’s all I’m likely to get. Look. I was wrong originally. The things that went into the locker didn’t appear in another space, because there would have been a spatial constant. I mean, they wouldn’t have got smaller. Size is size. Moving a one-inch cube from here to Mars wouldn’t make it any larger or smaller.”

  “What about a different density in the surrounding medium? Wouldn’t that crush an object?”

  “Sure, and it’d stay squashed. It wouldn’t return to its former size and shape when it was taken out of the locker again. X plus y never equal xy. But x times y—”

  “So?”

  “That’s a pun,” Galloway broke off to explain. “The things we put in the locker went into time. Their time-rate remained constant, but not the spatial relationships. Two things can’t occupy the same place at the same time. Ergo, your suitcase went into a different time. Now plus x. And what x represents I don’t know, though I suspect a few million years.”

  Vanning looked dazed. “The suitcase is a million years in the future?”

  “Dunno how far. but—I’d say plenty. I haven’t enough factors to finish the equation. I reasoned by induction, mostly, and the results are screwy as hell. Einstein would have loved it. My theorem shows that the universe is expanding and contracting at the same time.”

  “What’s that got to do—”

  “Motion is relative,” Galloway continued inexorably. “That’s a basic principle. Well, the Universe is expanding, spreading out like a gas, but its component parts are shrinking at the same time. The parts don’t actually grow, you know—not the suns and atoms. They just run away from the central point. Galloping off in all directions . . . where was I? Oh. Actually, the Universe, taken as a unit, is shrinking.”

  “So it’s shrinking. Where’s my suitcase?”

  “I told you. In the future. Inductive reasoning showed that. It’s beautifully simple and logical. And it’s quite impossible of proof, too. A hundred, a thousand, a million years ago the Earth—the Universe—was larger than it is now. And it continues to contract. Sometime in the future the Earth will be just half as small as it is now. Only we won’t notice it because the Universe will be proportionately smaller.”

  Galloway went on dreamily. “We put a workbench into the locker, so it emerged sometime in the future. The locker’s an open window into a different time, as I told you. Well, the bench was affected by the conditions of that period. It shrank, after we gave it a few seconds to soak up the entropy or something. Do I mean entropy? Allah knows. Oh, well.”

  “It turned into a pyramid.”

  “Maybe there’s geometric distortion, too. Or it might be a visual illusion. Perhaps we can’t get the exact focus. I doubt if things will really look different in the future—except that they’ll be smaller—but we’re using a window into the fourth dimension. We’re taking a pleat in time. It must be like looking through a prism. The alteration in size is real, but the shape and color are altered to our eyes by the fourth-dimensional prism.”

  “The whole point, then, is that my suitcase is in the future. Eh? But why did it disappear from the locker?”

  “What about that little creature you squashed? Maybe he had pals. They wouldn’t be visible till they came into the very narrow focus of the whatchmaycallit, but—figure it out. Sometime in the future, in a hundred or a thousand or a million years, a suitcase suddenly appears out of thin air. One of our descendants investigates. You kill him. His pals come along and carry the suitcase away, out of range of the locker. In space it may be anywhere, and the time factor’s an unknown quantity. Now plus x. It’s a time locker. Well?”

  “Hell!” Vanning exploded. “So that’s all you can tell me? I’m supposed to chalk it up to profit and loss?”

  “Uh-huh. Unless you want to crawl into the locker yourself after your suitcase. Lord knows where you’d come out, though. The proportions of the air probably would have changed in a few thousand years. There might be other alterations, too.”

  “I’m not that crazy.”

  So there he was. The bonds were gone, beyond hope of redemption. Vanning could resign himself to that loss, once he knew the securities wouldn’t fall into the hands of the police. But MacIlson was another matter, especially after a bullet spattered against the glassolex window of Vanning’s office.

  An interview with MacIlson had proved unsatisfactory. The defaulter was convinced that Vanning was trying to bilk him. He was removed forcibly, yelling threats. He’d go to the police—he’d confess—

  Let him. There was no proof. The hell with him. But, for safety’s sake, Vanning clapped an injunction on his quondam client.

  It didn’t land. MacIlson clipped the official on the jaw and fled. Now, Vanning suspected, he lurked in dark corners, armed, and anxious to commit homicide. Obviously a manic-depressive type.

  Vanning took a certain malicious pleasure in demanding a couple of plain-clothes men to act as his guards. Legally, he was within his rights, since his life had been threatened. Until MacIlson was under sufficient restriction, Vanning would be protected. And he made sure that his guards were two of the best shots on the Manhattan force.

  He also found out that they had been told to keep their eyes peeled for the missing bonds and the suedette suitcase. Vanning Winchelled Counsel Hatton and grinned at the screen.

  “Any luck yet?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My watchdogs. Your spies. They won’t find the bonds, Hatton. Better call ’em off. Why make the poor devils do two jobs at once?”

  “One job would be enough. Finding the evidence. If MacIlson drilled you, I wouldn’t be too unhappy.”

  “Well, I’ll see you in court,” Vanning said. “You’re prosecuting Watson, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. Are you waiving scop?”

  “On the jurors? Sure. I’ve got this case in the bag.”

  “That’s what you think,” Hatton said, and broke the beam.

  Chuckling, Vanning donned his topcoat, collected the guards, and headed for court. There was no sign of MacIlson—

  Vanning won the case, as he had expected. He returned to his offices, collected a few unimportant messages from the switchboard girl, and walked toward his private suite. As he opened the door, he saw the suedette suitcase on the carpet in one corner.

  He stopped, hand frozen on the latch. Behind him he could hear the heavy footsteps of the guards. Over his shoulder Vanning said, “Wait a minute,” and dodged into the office, slamming and locking the door behind him. He caught the tail end of a surprised question.

  The suitcase. There it was, unequivocally. And, quite as unequivocally, the two plain-clothes men, after a very brief conference, were hammering on the door, trying to break it down.

  Vanning turned green. He took a hesitant step forward, and then saw the locker, in the corner to which he had moved it. The time locker—

  That was it. If he shoved the suitcase inside the locker, it would become unrecognizable. Even if it vanished again, that wouldn’t matter. What mattered was the vital importance of getting rid—immediately!—of incriminating evidence.

  The door rocked on its hinges. Vanning scuttled toward the suitcase and picked it up. From the corner of his eye he saw movement.

  In the air above him, a hand had appeared. It was the hand of a giant, with an immaculate cuff fading into emptiness. Its huge fingers were reaching down—

  Vanning screamed and sprang away. He was too s
low. The hand descended, and Vanning wriggled impotently against the palm.

  The hand contracted into a fist. When it opened, what was left of Vanning dropped squashily to the carpet, which it stained.

  The hand withdrew into nothingness. The door fell in and the plain-clothes men stumbled over it as they entered.

  It didn’t take long for Hatton and his cohorts to arrive. Still, there was little for them to do except clean up the mess. The suedette bag, containing twenty-five thousand credits in negotiable bonds, was carried off to a safer place. Vanning’s body was scraped up and removed to the morgue. Photographers flashed pictures, fingerprint experts insufflated their white powder, X ray men worked busily. It was all done with swift efficiency, so that within an hour the office was empty and the door sealed.

  Thus there were no spectators to witness the advent of a gigantic hand that appeared from nothingness, groped around as though searching for something, and presently vanished once more—

  The only person who could have thrown light on the matter was Galloway, and his remarks were directed to Monstro, in the solitude of his laboratory. All he said was:

  “So that’s why that workbench materialized for a few minutes here yesterday. Hm-m-m. Now plus x—and x equals about a week. Still, why not? It’s all relative. But—I never thought the Universe was shrinking that fast!”

  He relaxed on the couch and siphoned a double Martini.

  “Yeah, that’s it,” he murmured after a while. “Whew! I guess Vanning must have been the only guy who ever reached into the middle of next week and—killed himself! I think I’ll get tight.”

  And he did.

  THE END.

  DE WOLFE OF WALL STREET

  Pete Manx Sells the Future Short When New York’s Bulls and Bears Grab a Corner on His Stock Market Career!

  DR. HORATIO MAYHEM, distinguished creator of the time chair and discoverer of the ineluctable principles of the Central Time Consciousness and the Psychic Centrifuge, looked in sympathy at his visitor, Pete Manx.

  The sympathy was partly for Pete’s too utter taste in clothes, which had betrayed him into purchasing a moot suit of bad plaid with a ripe stripe, and partly for the little man’s depressed demeanor.

  “Why so gloomy, Manx? Generally your spirit is only too blithe. Financial troubles?” It was an odds-on guess.

  Pete nodded glumly, clearing a chair of pliers, wire, bolts and other evidences of technological advancement as he sat down.

  “Yeah,” Pete said. “I’m deep in the heart of taxes.”

  He sighed, and the odor of shellac made him sneeze dolorously.

  “Ah, but we must all make willing sacrifices these days, my boy,” Mayhem observed sententiously. “War is—um—”

  “That’s just it, Doc. I ain’t got nothin’ much to sacrifice. I tried to help the War Department, but it was no soap, you remember. I been rejected for active service in the Army. So what’s left? Not much, unless’n I had a lot of dough to help with the war effort in a financial way.”

  Mayhem looked speculatively at Manx, then at Professor Belleigh Aker, his colleague. The latter snorted scornfully.

  “You wouldn’t be thinking of using the time chair in some promotion scheme? You’ve tried to make money before, you know. And somehow you always seem to fall ever so short of success.”

  The delicate sarcasm was lost on Pete, who leaped up to pace with nervous energy about the laboratory.

  “I know, I know. But s’pose I got a perfect plan this time. Absolutely foolproof! Wouldja shoot me back in time again, Doc?”

  “How much do you think you could make?” Mayhem smiled indulgently.

  Pete waved his arms. “Doc, there ain’t no limit. Millions! An’ half goes to you an’ the experiments, too. The rest I can plunk into war bonds—most of it, anyways,” he finished with a touch of native caution. “It’s patriotic.”

  “What is you r—um—plot this time?”

  “Simplicity itself, Doc. So simple it’s beautiful. Look. Can you ship me back to October, 1929?”

  MAYHEM shuddered at the awful date.

  “Yes, my boy, that I can do. You comprehend my concept of the Wheel of Time, of course, from the hub or central consciousness of which a psyche may be directed—”

  “Doc,” pleaded Pete, “do we have to go through that every time? It sounds logical, but it always leaves me so confused-like.”

  “But I was only about to explain,” said Mayhem plaintively, “how much more accurately I can direct you to a recent date, rather than a remotely—”

  “Okay, okay. So it’s a cinch. I go back to 1929 just before the stock market crash. A guy who knew about that beforehand could make a fortune by short selling, huh?”

  “Ah!”

  “Well—and get this, Doc—I locate myself, see, and get myself to play the market for a crash. Bingo, I’m rich! When you bring me back, I got millions tucked away just waitin’ to buy bombs for them bums over there in Japan!”

  “I’d like to see that scene,” interposed Aker sardonically.

  But Mayhem’s pedagogical eyebrows rose in scholarly admiration.

  “By Jove, my boy! You might have something there, at that. It is, as you say, beautifully simple. And the motive is worthy. Yet—um—complications always dog your historical footsteps . . .”

  “But I figgered all the angles this time, Doc. It’s foolproof. I been studyin’ the 1929 papers for days, refreshin’ my memory. An’ if I ain’t got enough dough when I get back there, it’ll be a pushover to make enough for my stock market killin’. Besides, what if things have been a little tough on some of my time travels? Ain’t I always managed to triumph in the end?”

  Aker tittered. “ ‘Triumph’ is not quite the word, I think.”

  Mayhem, however, after pondering awhile, abruptly capitulated.

  “You might just be able to pull this coup, my boy. It’s worth the try, at least. Are you ready?”

  Ordinarily Pete approached the ordeal of the time chair with extreme reluctance. Now, however, he bounded eagerly into the gleaming seat, crossed his knees and plucked a dime cigar out of his vest pocket. Impatiently he watched Mayhem plot the time arc and call out proper adjustments for Aker to make on the machine.

  Then, with a gay, “Give the works to me, jerks,” he felt once again the familiar cosmic mal de mer—seasickness—as his ego was launched on the Sea of Time.

  Wheee-ump!

  The world twirled, slowly revolving to a magnificent halt, and Pete Manx looked about him. He was in New York, on Broadway’s Gay White Way, with its millions of bright lights. Manx looked about, grinning in delight. Top hats, fur coats, huge, sleek cars seeming oddly old-fashioned. Everybody with money; everybody happy. He spread his arms wide and breathed in deeply.

  “Ah!” he murmured. “The good old days!”

  And a wave of nostalgia brought a lump to his throat and tears to his eyes.

  A cop with a fishy eye impelled Pete to move on, but his reminiscent happiness could not be downed. October, 1929! The days of wealth. Prohibition and speakeasies. Transatlantic flyers. Al Capone. Moving picture palace marquees advertising “all-talking” pictures. People singing tunes from “Great Day” and “Whoopee.”

  The Philadelphia Athletics—could this be possible?—had just trounced the Cubs in the World Series. Sir Thomas Lipton was about to fail again in his attempts to take away the America’s Cup.

  “Got a dime for a cupa coffee, mister?”

  Pete scowled past this ragged interruption of his golden mood. He solaced himself with the thought that the bum probably owned a string of apartment houses and a yacht.

  BUT it brought him back to business. Pete inspected his temporary corporeal habitation and found it well dressed in spats, bowler, cane and a dark suit. He fumbled for the wallet which went with the body, and found it full. Better and better. He drew out a calling card. It read: Peter de Wolfe.

  “Very appropriate,” Pete decided, “for a guy who’s here to o
utfox the bulls an’ the bears!”

  Grinning hugely at his own wit, he swung off toward the nearest taxi stand. An hour’s drive or so brought him to Coney Island, where he knew he would find Pete Manx, well-known figure in the entertainment world. And so he did, behind the counter of the largest shooting gallery on the Midway.

  “Shoot ’em, folks!” Manx was hollering. “Shoot ’em! Six shots for a dime, genuwine prizes for your marksmanship!”

  De Wolfe watched Manx fondly for a while, knowing quite well the little man was no mean sharpshooter himself, in other ways. Manx owned a string of these target galleries along the coast, operated as fronts for traveling dice games which brought in the real income. When Manx’ relief took over, de Wolfe followed the owner around to his tiny office in the rear and pushed his way in.

  Manx cocked his cigar at a tough angle.

  “If you’re lookin’ for the game—”

  “Nope,” de Wolfe said. “I’m here to toss a million bucks in your lap.”

  Manx snorted. “What’re you sellin’ ? Opium?”

  “Just information. Advance information that’ll help you make a stock market killing.”

  “If it’s such hot dope, why not make the killin’ yourself? Why cut in a perfect stranger?”

  De Wolfe sat down. “It’s kinda complicated. Y’see, in order for me to make the killin’, you gotta do it.”

  Manx’ eyes gleamed. “Count me out. I ain’t no catspaw for some crooked play. Just who are you, anyway?”

  “That’s just it,” de Wolfe explained animatedly. “Y’see, though technically I’m Peter de Wolfe, actually I’m Pete Manx.”

  Jaw sagging, Manx of 1929 carefully stubbed out his cigar and put it away deliberately in a desk drawer.

  “Will you just come again on that one?” he asked thickly.

  De Wolfe beamed. “I knew you’d be surprised.”

  “Surprise ain’t exactly the word, pal. If you’re Pete Manx, then who the devil am I? If you don’t mind my askin’.” The little man, despite his sarcasm, was definitely worried now.