Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  “So far, so good,” Holt said over his shoulder. “My arm’s in shape again, anyhow.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “Must have hit my funny bone.”

  “No,” Smith said, “that was a paralyzer. Like this.” He exhibited the cane.

  Holt didn’t get it. He kept driving till they were nearly at their destination. He pulled up around the corner from a liquor store.

  “I’m getting a bottle,” he said. “It’s too cold and rainy without a shot of something to pep me up.”

  “We haven’t time.”

  “Sure, we have.”

  Smith bit his lip, but made no further objection. Holt bought a pint of rye and, back in the cab, took a swig, after offering his fare a drink and getting a shake of the head for answer.

  The rye definitely helped. The night was intensely cold and miserable; squalls of rain swept across the street, sluicing down the windshield. The worn wipers didn’t help much. The wind screamed like a banshee.

  “We’re close enough,” Smith suggested. “Better stop here. Find a place to hide the taxicab.”

  “Where? These are all private houses.”

  “A driveway . . . eh?”

  “O.K.,” Holt said, and found one shielded by overhanging trees and rank bushes. He turned off lights and motor and got out, hunching his chin down and turning up the collar of his slicker. The rain instantly drenched him. It came down with a steady, torrential pour, pattering noisily, staccato in the puddles. Underfoot was sandy, slippery mud.

  “Wait a sec,” Holt said, and returned to the cab for his flashlight. “All set. Now what?”

  “Keaton’s house.” Smith was shivering convulsively. “It isn’t eleven yet. We’ll have to wait.”

  They waited, concealed in the bushes on Keaton’s grounds. The house was a looming shadow against the fluctuating curtain of drenched darkness. A lighted window on the ground floor showed part of what seemed to be a library. The sound of breakers, throbbing heavily, came from their left.

  Water trickled down inside Holt’s collar. He cursed quietly. He was earning his thousand bucks, all right. But Smith was going through the same discomfort, and not complaining about it.

  “Isn’t it—”

  “Sh-h!” Smith warned. “The—others—may be here.”

  Obediently, Holt lowered his voice. “Then they’ll be drowned, too. Are they after the notebook? Why don’t they go in and get it?”

  Smith bit his nails. “They want it destroyed.”

  “That’s what the guy in the alley said, come to think of it,” Holt nodded, startled. “Who are they, anyhow?”

  “Never mind. They don’t belong here. Do you remember what I told you, Denny?”

  “About getting the notebook? What’ll I do if the safe isn’t open?”

  “It will be,” Smith said confidently. “Soon, now. Keaton is in his cellar laboratory, finishing his experiment.”

  Through the lighted window a shadow flickered. Holt leaned forward; he felt Smith go tense as wire beside him. A tiny gasp ripped from the old man’s throat.

  A man had entered the library. He went to the wall, swung aside a curtain, and stood there, his back to Holt. Presently he stepped back, opening the door of a safe.

  “Ready!” Smith said. “This is it! He’s writing down the final step of the formula. The explosion will come in a minute now. When it does, Denny, give me a minute to get away and cause a disturbance, if the others are here.”

  “I don’t think they are.”

  Smith shook his head. “Do as I say. Run for the house and get the notebook.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then get out of here as fast as you can, Don’t let them catch you, whatever you do.”

  “What about you?”

  Smith’s eyes blazed with intense, violent command, shining out of the windy dark. “Forget me, Denny! I’ll be safe.”

  “You hired me as a bodyguard.”

  “I’m discharging you, then. This is vitally important, more important than my life. That notebook must be in your hands—”

  “For the War Department?”

  “For . . . oh, yes. You’ll do that, now, Denny?”

  Holt hesitated. “If it’s that important—”

  “It is. It is!”

  “O.K., then.”

  The man in the house was at a desk, writing. Suddenly the window blew out. The sound of the blast was muffled, as though its source was underground, but Holt felt the ground shake beneath him. He saw Keaton spring up, take a half step away, and return, snatching up the notebook. The physicist ran to the wall safe, threw the book into it, swung the door shut, and pause there briefly, his back to Holt. Then he darted out of Holt’s range of vision and was gone. Smith said, his voice coming out in excited spurts, “He didn’t have time, to lock it. Wait till you hear me, Denny, and then get that notebook!”

  Holt said “O.K.,” but Smith was already gone, running through the bushes. A yell from the house heralded red flames sweeping out a distant, ground-floor window. Something fell crashingly—masonry, Holt thought.

  He heard Smith’s voice. He could not see the man in the rain, but there was the noise of a scuffle. Briefly Holt hesitated. Blue pencils of light streaked through the rain, wan and vague in the distance.

  He ought to help Smith—

  He’d promised, though, and there was the notebook. The pursuers had wanted it destroyed. And now, quite obviously, the house was going up in flames. Of Keaton there was no trace.

  He ran for the light window. There was plenty of time to get the notebook before the fire became dangerous.

  From the corner of his eye he saw a dark figure, cutting in toward him. Holt slipped on his brass knuckles. If the guy had a gun, it would be unfortunate; otherwise, fair enough.

  The man—the same one Holt had encountered in the Forty-second Street alley—raised a cane and aimed it. A “wan blue pencil of light streaked out. Holt felt his legs go dead and crashed down heavily.

  The other man kept running. Holt, struggling to his feet, threw himself desperately forward. No use.

  The flames were brightening the night now. The tall, dark figure loomed for an instant against the library window; then the man had clambered over the sill. Holt, his legs stiff, managed to keep his balance and lurch forward. It was agony; like pins-and-needles a thousand times intensified.

  He made it to the window, and, clinging to the sill, stared into the room. Flis opponent was busy at the safe. Holt swung himself through the window and hobbled toward the man.

  His brass-knuckled fist was ready.

  The unknown sprang lightly away, swinging his cane. Dried blood stained his chin.

  “I’ve locked the safe,” he said. Better get out of here before the fire catches you, Denny.”

  Holt mouthed a curse. He tried to reach the man, but could not. Before he had covered more than two halting steps, the tall figure was gone, springing lightly out through the window and racing away into the rain.

  Holt turned to the safe. He could hear the crackling of flames. Smoke was pouring through a doorway on his left.

  He tested the safe; it was locked. He didn’t know the combination—so he couldn’t open it.

  But Holt tried. He searched the desk, hoping Keaton might have scribbled the key on a paper somewhere. He fought his way to the laboratory steps and stood looking down into the inferno of the cellar, where Keaton’s burning, motionless body lay. Yes, Holt tried. And he failed.

  Finally the heat drove him from the house. Fire trucks were screaming closer, There was no sign of Smith or anyone else.

  Holt stayed, amid the crowds, to search, but Smith and his trackers had disappeared, as though they had vanished into thin air.

  “We caught him, Administrator,” said the tall man with the dried blood on his chin. “I came here directly on our return to inform you.”

  The Administrator blew out his breath in a sigh of deep relief.

  “Any trou
ble, Jorus?”

  “Not to speak of.”

  “Well, bring him in,” the Administrator said. “I suppose we’d better get this over with.”

  Smith entered the office. His heavy overcoat looked incongruous against the celoflex garments of the others.

  He kept his eyes cast down.

  The Administrator picked up a memo-roll and read: “Sol 21st, in the year of our Lord 2016, subject, interference with probability factors. The accused has been detected in the act of attempting to tamper with the current probability-present by altering the past, thus creating a variable alternative present. Use of time machines is forbidden except by authorized officials. Accused will answer.”

  Smith mumbled, “I wasn’t trying to change things, Administrator—”

  Torus looked up and said, “Objection. Certain key time-place periods are forbidden. Brooklyn, especially the area about Keaton’s house, in the time near 11:00 p. m., January 10, 1943, is absolutely forbidden to time travelers. The prisoner knows why.”

  “I knew nothing about it, Ser Jorus. You must believe me.”

  Jorus went on relentlessly, “Administrator, here are the facts. The accused, having stolen a time traveler, set the controls manually for a forbidden spacetime sector. Such sectors are restricted, as you know, because they are keys to the future; interference with such key spots will automatically alter the future and create a different line of probability. Keaton, in 1943, in his cellar laboratory, succeeded in working out the formula for what we know now as M-Power. He hurried upstairs, opened his safe, and noted down the formula in his book, in such a form that it could very easily have been deciphered and applied even by a layman. At that time, there was an explosion in Keaton’s laboratory and he replaced the notebook in the safe and went downstairs, neglecting, however, to relock the safe. Keaton was killed; he had not known the necessity of keeping M-Power away from radium, and the atomic synthesis caused the explosion. The subsequent fire destroyed Keaton’s notebook, even though it had been within the safe. It was charred into illegibility, nor was its value suspected. Not until the first year of the twenty-first century was M-Power rediscovered.”

  Smith said, “I didn’t know all that, Ser Jorus.”

  “You are lying. Our organization does not make mistakes. You found a key spot in the past and decided to change it, thus altering our present. Had you succeeded, Dennis Holt of 1943 would have taken Keaton’s notebook out of the burning house and read it. His curiosity would have made him open the notebook. Pie would have found the key to M-Power. And. because of the very nature of M-Power, Dennis Holt would have become the most powerful man in his world time. According to the variant probability line you were aiming at, Dennis Holt, had he got that notebook, would have been dictator of the world now. This world, as we know it, would not exist, though its equivalent would—a brutal, ruthless civilization ruled by an autocratic Dennis Holt, the sole possessor of M-Power. In striving for that end, the prisoner has committed a serious crime.”

  Smith lifted his head. “I demand euthanasia,” he said. “If you want to blame me for trying to get out of this damned routine life of mine, very well. I never had a chance, that’s all.”

  The Administrator raised his eyebrows. “Your record shows you have had many chances. You are incapable of succeeding through your own abilities; you are in the only job you can do well. But your crime is, as Jorus says, serious. You have tried to create a new probability present, destroying this one, by tampering with a key-spot in the past. And, had you succeeded, Dennis Holt would now be dictator of a race of slaves. Euthanasia is no longer your privilege; your crime is too serious. You must continue to live, at your appointed task, until the day of your natural death.”

  Smith choked. “It was his fault—if he’d got that notebook in time—”

  Jorus looked quizzical. “His? Dennis Holt, at the age of twenty, in 1943 . . . his fault? No, it is yours, I think—for trying to change your past and your present.”

  The Administrator said: “Sentence has been passed. It is ended.”

  And Dennis Holt, at the age of ninety-three, in the year of our Lord 2016, turned obediently and went slowly back to his job, the same one he would fill now until he died.

  And Dennis Holt, at the age of twenty, in the year of our Lord 1943, drove his taxi home from Brooklyn, wondering what it had all been about. The veils of rain swept slanting across the windshield. Denny took another drink out of the bottle and felt the rye steal comfortingly through his body.

  What had it all been about?

  Banknotes rustled crisply in his pocket. Denny grinned. A thousand smackeroos! His stake. His capital. With that, now, he could do plenty—and he would, too. All a guy needed was a little ready money, and he could go places.

  “You bet!” Dennis Holt said emphatically. “I’m not going to hold down the same dull job all my life. Not with a thousand bucks—not me!”

  THE END.

  THE PROUD ROBOT

  Gallegher, the mad—or at least pie-eyed—scientist had produced a remarkable robot. But seemingly useless, it spent its time admiring its unquestionably remarkable, if not beautiful, self. But Gallegher had to find out—but quick!—why he’d made the infernal thing.

  ORIGINALLY the robot was intended to be a can opener. Things often happened that way with Gallegher, who played at science by ear. He was, as he often remarked, a casual genius. Sometimes he’d start with a twist of wire, a few batteries, and a button hook, and before he finished, he might contrive a new type of refrigerating unit. The affair of the time locker had begun that way, with Gallegher singing hoarsely under his breath and peering, quite drunk, into cans of paint.

  At the moment he was nursing a hangover. A disjointed, lanky, vaguely boneless man with a lock of dark hair falling untidily over his forehead, he lay on the couch in the lab and manipulated his mechanical liquor bar. A very dry Martini drizzled slowly from the spigot into his receptive mouth.

  He was trying to remember something, but not trying too hard. It had to do with the robot, of course. Well, it didn’t matter.

  “Hey, Joe,” Gallegher said.

  The robot stood proudly before the mirror and examined its innards. Its hull was transparent, and wheels were going around at a great rate inside.

  “When you call me that,” Joe remarked, “whisper. And get that cat out of here.”

  “Your ears aren’t that good.”

  “They are. I can hear the cat walking about, all right.”

  “What does it sound like?” Gallegher inquired, interested.

  “Just like drums,” said the robot, with a put-upon air. “And when you talk, it’s like thunder.” Joe’s voice was a discordant squeak, so Gallegher meditated on saying something about glass-houses and casting the first stone. He brought his attention, with some effort, to the luminous door panel, where a shadow loomed—a familiar shadow, Gallegher thought.

  “It’s Brock,” the annunciator said. “Harrison Brock. Let me in!”

  “The door’s unlocked.” Gallegher didn’t stir. He looked gravely at the well-dressed, middle-aged man who came in, and tried to remember. Brock was between forty and fifty; he had a smoothly massaged, clean-shaved face, and wore an expression of harassed intolerance. Probably Gallegher knew the man. He wasn’t sure. Oh, well.

  Brock looked around the big, untidy laboratory, blinked at the robot, searched for a chair, and failed to find it. Arms akimbo, he rocked back and forth and glared at the prostrate scientist.

  “Well?” he said.

  “Never start conversations that way,” Gallegher mumbled, siphoning another Martini down his gullet. “I’ve had enough trouble today. Sit down and take it easy. There’s a dynamo behind you. It isn’t very dusty, is it?”

  “Did you get it?” Brock snapped. “That’s all I want to know. You’ve had a week. I’ve a check for ten thousand in my pocket. Do you want it, or don’t you?”

  “Sure,” Gallegher said. He extended a large, groping hand. “G
ive.”

  “Caveat emptor. What am I buying?”

  “Don’t you know?” the scientist asked, honestly puzzled.

  Brock began to bounce up and down in a harassed fashion. “My God,” he said. “They told me you could help me if anybody could. Sure. And they also said it’d be like pulling teeth to get sense out of you. Are you a technician or a driveling idiot?”

  Gallegher pondered. “Wait a minute. I’m beginning to remember. I talked to you last week, didn’t I?”

  “You talked—” Brock’s round face turned pink. “Yes! You lay there swilling liquor and babbled poetry. You sang ‘Frankie and Johnnie.’ And you finally got around to accepting my commission.”

  “The fact is,” Gallegher said, “I have been drunk. I often get drunk. Especially on my vacation. It releases my subconscious, and then I can work. I’ve made my best gadgets when I was tizzied,” he went on happily. “Everything seems so clear then. Clear as a bell. I mean a bell, don’t I? Anyway—” He lost the thread and looked puzzled. “Anyway, what are you talking about?”

  “Are you going to keep quiet?” the robot demanded from its post before the mirror.

  Brock jumped. Gallegher waved a casual hand. “Don’t mind Joe. I just finished him last night, and I rather regret it.”

  “A robot?”

  “A robot. But he’s no good, you know. I made him when I was drunk, and I haven’t the slightest idea how or why. All he’ll do is stand there and admire himself. And sing. He sings like a banshee. You’ll hear him presently.”

  With an effort Brock brought his attention back to the matter in hand. “Now look, Gallegher. I’m in a spot. You promised to help me. If you don’t, I’m a ruined man.”

  “I’ve been ruined for years,” the scientist remarked. “It never bothers me. I just go along working for a living and making things in my spare time. Making all sorts of things. You know, if I’d really studied, I’d have been another Einstein. So they tell me. As it is, my subconscious picked up a first-class scientific training somewhere. Probably that’s why I never bothered. When I’m drunk or sufficiently absent-minded, I can work out the damndest problems.”