The Mack Reynolds Megapack

by Mack Reynolds

  “I’m beginning to wonder whether or not this Movement doesn’t have something,” he said.

  She didn’t answer that. They sat in silence for a while, appreciating the drink. Nat Cole was singing “The Very Thought of You” now. Larry got up and made two more cocktails. This time he sat next to her. He leaned his head back on the couch and closed his eyes.

  Finally he said softly, “When Steve Hackett and I were questioning Susan, there was only one other person who knew that we’d picked her up. There was only one person other than Steve and me who could have warned Ernest Self to make a getaway. Later on, there was only one person who could have warned Frank Nostrand so that he and the Professor could find a new hideout.”

  She said sleepily, “How long have you known about that, darling?”

  “A while,” Larry said, his own voice quiet. “I figured it out when I also decided how Susan Self was spirited out of the Greater Washington Hilton, before we had the time to question her further. Somebody who had access to tapes made of me while I was making phone calls cut out a section and dubbed in a voice so that Betsy Hughes, the Secret Service matron who was watching Susan, was fooled into believing it was I ordering the girl to be turned over to the two Movement members who came to get her.”

  LaVerne stirred comfortably and let her head sink onto his shoulder. “You’re so warm and…comfortable,” she said.

  Larry said softly, “What does the Movement expect to do with all that counterfeit money, LaVerne?”

  She stirred against his shoulder, as though bothered by the need to talk. “Give it all away,” she said. “Distribute it all over the country and destroy the nation’s social currency.”

  It took him a long moment to assimilate that.

  “What have the rockets to do with it?”

  She stirred once again, as though wishing he’d be silent. “That’s how it will be distributed. About twenty rockets, strategically placed, each with a warhead of a couple of tons of money. Fired to an altitude of a couple of hundred miles and then the money is spewed out. In falling, it will be distributed over cities and countryside, everywhere. Billions upon billions of dollars worth.”

  Larry said, so softly as hardly to be heard, “What will that accomplish?”

  “Money is the greatest social-label of them all. The Professor believes that through this step the Movement will have accomplished its purpose. That people will be forced to utilize their judgment, rather than depend upon social-labels.”

  Larry didn’t follow that, but he had no time to go further now. He said, still evenly soft, “And when is the Movement going to do this?”

  La Verne moved comfortably. “The trucks go out to distribute the money tonight. The rockets are waiting. The firing will take place in a few days.”

  “And where is the Professor now?”

  “Where the money and the trucks are hidden, darling. What difference does it make?” LaVerne said sleepily.

  “And where is that?”

  “At the Greater Washington Trucking Corporation. It’s owned by one of the Movement’s members.”

  He said. “There’s a password. What is it?”

  “Judgment.”

  Larry Woolford bounced to his feet. He looked down at her, then over at the phone. In three quick steps he was over to it. He grasped its wires and yanked them from the wall, silencing it. He slipped into the tiny elevator, locking the door to the den behind him.

  As the door slid closed, her voice wailed, still sleepily husky, “Larry, darling, where are you—”

  He ran down the walk of the house, vaulted into the car and snapped on its key. He slammed down the lift lever, kicked the thrust pedal and was thrown back against the seat by the acceleration.

  Even while he was climbing, he flicked on the radio-phone, called Personal Service for the location of the Greater Washington Trucking Corporation.

  Fifteen minutes later, he parked a block away from his destination, noting with satisfaction that it was still an hour or more to go until dark. His intuition, working doubletime now, told him that they’d probably wait until nightfall to start their money-laden trucks to rolling.

  He hesitated momentarily before turning on the phone and dialing the Boss’ home address.

  When the other’s face faded in, it failed to display pleasure when the caller’s identity was established. His superior growled, “Confound it, Woolford, you know my privacy is to be respected. This phone is to be used only in extreme emergency.”

  “Yes, sir,” Larry said briskly. “It’s the Movement—”

  The other’s face darkened still further. “You’re not on that assignment any longer, Woolford. Walter Foster has taken over and I’m sympathetic to his complaints that you’ve proven more a hindrance than anything else.”

  Larry ignored his words, “Sir, I’ve tracked them down. Professor Voss is at the Greater Washington Trucking Corporation garages here in the Alexandria section of town. Any moment now, they’re going to start distribution of all that counterfeit money on some scatterbrain plan to disrupt the country’s exchange system.”

  Suddenly alert, the department chief snapped, “Where are you, Woolford?”

  “Outside the garages, sir. But I’m going in now.”

  “You stay where you are,” the other snapped. “I’ll have every department man and every Secret Service man in town over there within twenty minutes. You hang on. Those people are lunatics, and probably desperate.”

  Inwardly, Larry Woolford grinned. He wasn’t going to lose this opportunity to finish up the job with him on top. He said flatly, “Sir, we can’t chance it. They might escape. I’m going in!” He flicked off the set, dialed again and raised Sam Sokolski.

  “Sam,” he said, his voice clipped. “I’ve cornered the Movement’s leader and am going in for the finish. Maybe some of you journalist boys better get on over here.” He gave the other the address and flicked off before there were any questions.

  From the dash compartment he brought a heavy automatic, and checked the clip. He put it in his hip pocket and left the car and walked toward the garages. Time was running out now.

  He strode into the only open door, without shift of pace. Two men were posted nearby, neither of them truckmen by appearance. They looked at him in surprise.

  Larry clipped out, “The password is Judgment. I’ve got to see Professor Voss immediately.”

  One of them frowned questioningly, but the other was taken up with the urgency in Woolford’s voice. He nodded with his head. “He’s over there in the office.”

  Now ignoring them completely, Larry strode past the long rows of sealed delivery vans toward the office.

  He pushed the door open, entered and closed it behind him.

  Professor Peter Voss was seated at a paper-littered desk. There was a cot with an army blanket in a corner of the room, some soiled clothing and two or three dirty dishes on a tray. The room was being lived in, obviously.

  At the agent’s entry, the little man looked up and blinked in distress through his heavy lenses.

  Larry snapped, “You’re under arrest, Voss.”

  The professor was obviously dismayed, but he said in as vigorous a voice as he could muster, “Nonsense! On what charge?”

  “Counterfeiting, among many. Your whole scheme has fallen apart, Voss. You and your Movement, so-called, are finished.”

  The professor’s eyes darted, left, right. To Larry Woolford’s surprise, the Movement’s leader was alone in here. Undoubtedly, he was awaiting others, drivers of the trucks, technicians involved in the rockets, other subordinates. But right now he was alone.

  If Woolford correctly diagnosed the situation, Voss was playing for time, waiting for the others. Good enough, so was Larry Woolford. Had the Professor only known it, a shout would have brought at least two followers and the government agent would have had his work cut out for him.

  Woodford played along. “Just what is this fantastic scheme of yours for raining down money over
half the country, Voss? The very insanity of it proves your whole outfit is composed of a bunch of nonconformist weirds.”

  The Professor was indignant—and stalling for time. He said, “Nonconformists is correct! He who conforms in an incompetent society is an incompetent himself.”

  Larry stood, his legs apart and hands on hips. He shook his head in simulated pity at the angry little man. “What’s all this about raining money down over the country?”

  “Don’t you see?” the other said. “The perfect method for disrupting our present system of social-labels. With billions of dollars, perfect counterfeit, strewing the streets, the fields, the trees, available for anyone to pick up, all social currency becomes worthless. Utterly unusable. And it’s no use to attempt to print more with another design, because we can duplicate it as well. Our experts are the world’s best, we’re not a group of sulking criminals but capable, trained, dedicated men.

  “Very well! We will have made it absolutely impossible to have any form of mass-produced social currency.”

  Larry stared at him. “It would completely foul the whole business system! You’d have chaos!”

  “At first. Private individuals, once the value of money was seen to be zero, would have lost the amount of cash they had on hand. But banks and such institutions would lose little. They have accurate records that show the actual values they held at the time our money rains down.”

  Larry was bewildered. “But what are you getting at? What do you expect to accomplish?”

  The Professor, on his favorite subject, said triumphantly, “The only form of currency that can be used under these conditions is the personal check. It’s not mass produced, and mass-production can’t duplicate it. It’s immune to the attack. Business has to go on, or people will starve—so personal checks will have to replace paper money. Credit cards and traveler’s checks won’t do—we can counterfeit them, too, and will, if necessary. Realize of course that hard money will still be valid, but it can’t be utilized practically for any but small transactions. Try taking enough silver dollars to buy a refrigerator down to the store with you.”

  “But what’s the purpose?” Larry demanded, flabbergasted.

  “Isn’t it obvious? Our whole Movement is devoted to the destruction of social-label judgments. It’s all very well to say: You should not judge your fellow men but when it comes to accepting another man’s personal check, friend, you damn well have to! The bum check artist might have a field day to begin with—but only to begin with.”

  Larry shook his head in exasperation. “You people are a bunch of anarchists,” he accused.

  “No,” the Professor denied. “Absolutely not. We are the antithesis of the anarchist. The anarchist says, ‘No man is capable of judging another.’ We say, ‘Each man must judge his fellow, must demand proper evaluation of him.’ To judge a man by his clothes, the amount of money he owns, the car he drives, the neighborhood in which he lives, or the society he keeps, is out of the question in a vital culture.”

  Larry said sourly, “Well, whether or not you’re right, Voss, you’ve lost. This place is surrounded. My men will be breaking in shortly.”

  Voss laughed at him. “Nonsense. All you’ve done is prevent us from accomplishing this portion of our program. What will you do after my arrest? You’ll bring me to trial. Do you remember the Scopes’ Monkey Trial back in the 1920s which became a world appreciated farce and made Tennessee a laughingstock? Well, just wait until you get me into court backed by my organization’s resources. We’ll bring home to every thinking person, not only in this country, but in the world, the fantastic qualities of our existing culture. Why, Mr.-Secret-Agent-of-Anti-Subversive-Activity you aren’t doing me an injury by giving me the opportunity to have my day in court. You’re doing me a favor. Newspapers, radios, TriD will give me the chance to expound my program in the home of every thinking person in the world.”

  There was a fiery dedication in the little man’s eyes. “This will be my victory, not my defeat!”

  There were sounds now, coming from the other rooms—the garages. Some shouts and scuffling. Faintly, Larry Woolford could hear Steve Hackett’s voice.

  He was staring at the Professor, his eyes narrower.

  The Professor was on his feet. He said in defiant triumph, “You think that you’ll win prestige and honor as a result of tracking the Movement down, don’t you, Mr. Woolford? Well, let me tell you, you won’t! In six months from now, Mr. Woolford, you’ll be a laughingstock.”

  That did it.

  Larry said, “You’re under arrest. Turn around with your back to me.”

  The Professor snorted his contempt, turned his back and held up his hands, obviously expecting to be searched.

  In a fluid motion, Larry Woolford drew his gun and fired twice. The other with no more than a grunt of surprise and pain, stumbled forward to his knees and then to the floor, his arms and legs akimbo.

  The door broke open and Steve Hackett, gun in hand, burst in.

  “Woolford!” he barked. “What’s up?”

  Larry indicated the body on the floor. “There you are, Steve,” he said. “The head of the counterfeit ring. He was trying to escape. I had to shoot him.”

  Behind Steve Hackett crowded Ben Ruthenberg of the F.B.I. and behind him half a dozen others of various departments.

  The Boss came pushing his way through.

  He glared down at the Professor’s body, then up at Larry Woolford.

  “Good work, Lawrence,” he said. “How did you bring it off?”

  Larry replaced the gun in his holster and shrugged modestly. “The Polk girl gave me the final tip-off, sir. I gave her some Scop-Serum in a drink and she talked. Evidently, she was a member of the Movement.”

  The Boss was nodding wisely. “I’ve had my eye on her, Lawrence. An obvious weird. But we will have to suppress that Scop-Serum angle.” He slapped his favorite field man on the arm jovially. “Well, boy, this means promotion, of course.”

  Larry grinned. “Thanks, sir. All in a day’s work. I don’t think we’ll have much trouble with the remnants of this Movement thing. The pitch is to treat them as counterfeiters, not subversives. Try them for that. Their silly explanations of what they were going to do with the money will never be taken seriously.” He looked down at the small corpse. “Particularly now that their kingpin is gone.”

  A new wave of agents, F.B.I. men and prisoners washed into the room and Steve Hackett and Larry were for a moment pushed back into a corner by themselves.

  Steve looked at him strangely and said, “There’s one thing I’d like to know: Did you really have to shoot him, Woolford?”

  Larry brushed it off. “What’s the difference? He was as weird as they come, wasn’t he?”

  UNBORN TOMORROW

  Betty looked up from her magazine. She said mildly, “You’re late.”

  “Don’t yell at me, I feel awful,” Simon told her. He sat down at his desk, passed his tongue over his teeth in distaste, groaned, fumbled in a drawer for the aspirin bottle.

  He looked over at Betty and said, almost as though reciting, “What I need is a vacation.”

  “What,” Betty said, “are you going to use for money?”

  “Providence,” Simon told her whilst fiddling with the aspirin bottle, “will provide.”

  “Hm-m-m. But before providing vacations it’d be nice if Providence turned up a missing jewel deal, say. Something where you could deduce that actually the ruby ring had gone down the drain and was caught in the elbow. Something that would net about fifty dollars.”

  Simon said, mournful of tone, “Fifty dollars? Why not make it five hundred?”

  “I’m not selfish,” Betty said. “All I want is enough to pay me this week’s salary.”

  “Money,” Simon said. “When you took this job you said it was the romance that appealed to you.”

  “Hm-m-m. I didn’t know most sleuthing amounted to snooping around department stores to check on the clerks knocking down.” />
  Simon said, enigmatically, “Now it comes.”

  * * * *

  There was a knock.

  Betty bounced up with Olympic agility and had the door swinging wide before the knocking was quite completed.

  He was old, little and had bug eyes behind pince-nez glasses. His suit was cut in the style of yesteryear but when a suit costs two or three hundred dollars you still retain caste whatever the styling.

  Simon said unenthusiastically, “Good morning, Mr. Oyster.” He indicated the client’s chair. “Sit down, sir.”

  The client fussed himself with Betty’s assistance into the seat, bug-eyed Simon, said finally, “You know my name, that’s pretty good. Never saw you before in my life. Stop fussing with me, young lady. Your ad in the phone book says you’ll investigate anything.”

  “Anything,” Simon said. “Only one exception.”

  “Excellent. Do you believe in time travel?”

  Simon said nothing. Across the room, where she had resumed her seat, Betty cleared her throat. When Simon continued to say nothing she ventured, “Time travel is impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?”

  “Yes, why?”

  Betty looked to her boss for assistance. None was forthcoming. There ought to be some very quick, positive, definite answer. She said, “Well, for one thing, paradox. Suppose you had a time machine and traveled back a hundred years or so and killed your own great-grandfather. Then how could you ever be born?”

  “Confound it if I know,” the little fellow growled. “How?”

  Simon said, “Let’s get to the point, what you wanted to see me about.”

  “I want to hire you to hunt me up some time travelers,” the old boy said.

  Betty was too far in now to maintain her proper role of silent secretary. “Time travelers,” she said, not very intelligently.

  The potential client sat more erect, obviously with intent to hold the floor for a time. He removed the pince-nez glasses and pointed them at Betty. He said, “Have you read much science fiction, Miss?”

  “Some,” Betty admitted.