The Second Fredric Brown Megapack: 27 Classic Science Fiction Stories

by Fredric Brown

  Now, however, it had a very definite purpose; Earth and Mars combined their efforts and their technologies to build a fleet equipped with the C-plus drive for the purpose of sending it against the aliens’ home planet to wipe it out. It took ten years, and it was estimated that the trip would take another ten.

  The vengeance fleet—not large in numbers but incredibly powerful in armament—left Marsport in 2830.

  Nothing was ever heard of it again.

  Not until almost a century later did its fate become known, and then only by deductive reasoning on the part of Jon Spencer 4, the great historian and mathematician.

  “We now know,” Spencer wrote, “and have known for some time, that an object exceeding the speed of light travels backward in time. Therefore the vengeance fleet would have reached its destination, by our time, before it started.”

  “We have not known, until now, the dimensions of the universe in which we live. But from the experience of the vengeance fleet, we can now deduce them. In one direction, at least, the universe is Cc miles around—or across; they mean the same thing. In ten years, traveling forward in space and backward in time, the fleet would have traversed just that distance—186,334186,334 miles. The fleet, traveling in a straight line, circled the universe, as it were, to its point of departure ten years before it left. It destroyed the first planet it saw and then, as it headed for the next, its admiral must have suddenly recognized the truth—and must have recognized, too, the fleet that came to meet it—and must have given a cease-fire order the instant the Earth-Mars fleet reached them.”

  “It is truly startling—and a seeming paradox—to realize that the vengeance fleet was headed by Admiral Barlo, who had also been admiral of the Earth fleet during the Earth-Mars conflict at the time the Earth and Mars fleets combined to destroy what they thought were alien invaders, and that many other men in both fleets on that day later became part of the personnel of the vengeance fleet.”

  “It is interesting to speculate just what would have happened had Admiral Barlo, at the end of his journey, recognized Venus in time to avoid destroying it. But such speculation is futile; he could not possibly have done so, for he had already destroyed it—else he would not have been there as admiral of the fleet sent out to avenge it. The past cannot be altered.”

  THE WEAPON

  The room was quiet in the dimness of early evening. Dr. James Graham, key scientist of a very important project, sat in his favorite chair, thinking. It was so still that he could hear the turning of pages in the next room as his son leafed through a picture book.

  Often Graham did his best work, his most creative thinking, under these circumstances, sitting alone in an unlighted room in his own apartment after the day’s regular work. But tonight his mind would not work constructively. Mostly he thought about his mentally arrested son—his only son—in the next room. The thoughts were loving thoughts, not the bitter anguish he had felt years ago when he had first learned of the boy’s condition. The boy was happy; wasn’t that the main thing? And to how many men is given a child who will always be a child, who will not grow up to leave him? Certainly that was rationalization, but what is wrong with rationalization when—the doorbell rang.

  Graham rose and turned on lights in the almost-dark room before he went through the hallway to the door. He was not annoyed; tonight, at this moment, almost any interruption to his thoughts was welcome.

  He opened the door. A stranger stood there; he said, “Dr. Graham? My name is Niemand; I’d like to talk to you. May I come in a moment?”

  Graham looked at him. He was a small man, nondescript, obviously harmless—possibly a reporter or an insurance agent.

  But it didn’t matter what he was. Graham found himself saying, “Of course. Come in, Mr. Niemand.” A few minutes of conversation, he justified himself by thinking, might divert his thoughts and clear his mind.

  “Sit down,” he said, in the living room. “Care for a drink?”

  Niemand said, “No, thank you.” He sat in the chair; Graham sat on the sofa.

  The small man interlocked his fingers; he leaned forward. He said, “Dr. Graham, you are the man whose scientific work is more likely than that of any other man to end the human race’s chance for survival.”

  A crackpot, Graham thought. Too late now he realized that he should have asked the man’s business before admitting him. It would be an embarrassing interview; he disliked being rude, yet only rudeness was effective.

  “Dr. Graham, the weapon on which you are working—”

  The visitor stopped and turned his head as the door that led to a bedroom opened and a boy of fifteen came in. The boy didn’t notice Niemand; he ran to Graham.

  “Daddy, will you read to me now?” The boy of fifteen laughed the sweet laughter of a child of four.

  Graham put an arm around the boy. He looked at his visitor, wondering whether he had known about the boy. From the lack of surprise on Niemand’s face, Graham felt sure he had known.

  “Harry”—Graham’s voice was warm with affection—“Daddy’s busy. Just for a little while. Go back to your room; I’ll come and read to you soon.”

  “Chicken Little? You’ll read me Chicken Little?”

  “If you wish. Now run along. Wait. Harry, this is Mr. Niemand.”

  The boy smiled bashfully at the visitor. Niemand said, “Hi, Harry,” and smiled back at him, holding out his hand. Graham, watching, was sure now that Niemand had known; the smile and the gesture were for the boy’s mental age, not his physical one.

  The boy took Niemand’s hand. For a moment it seemed that he was going to climb into Niemand’s lap, and Graham pulled him back gently. He said, “Go to your room now, Harry.”

  The boy skipped back into his bedroom, not closing the door. Niemand’s eyes met Graham’s and he said, “I like him,” with obvious sincerity. He added, “I hope that what you’re going to read to him will always be true.”

  Graham didn’t understand. Niemand said, “Chicken Little, I mean. It’s a fine story—but may Chicken Little always be wrong about the sky falling down.”

  Graham suddenly had liked Niemand when Niemand had shown liking for the boy. Now he remembered that he must close the interview quickly. He rose, in dismissal. He said, “I fear you’re wasting your time and mine, Mr. Niemand. I know all the arguments, everything you can say I’ve heard a thousand times. Possibly there is truth in what you believe, but it does not concern me. I’m a scientist, and only a scientist. Yes, it is public knowledge that I am working on a weapon, a rather ultimate one. But, for me personally, that is only a by-product of the fact that I am advancing science. I have thought it through, and I have found that that is my only concern.”

  “But, Dr. Graham, is humanity ready for an ultimate weapon?”

  Graham frowned. “I have told you my point of view, Mr. Niemand.” Niemand rose slowly from the chair. He said, “Very well, if you do not choose to discuss it, I’ll say no more.” He passed a hand across his forehead. “I’ll leave, Dr. Graham. I wonder, though…may I change my mind about the drink you offered me?”

  Graham’s irritation faded. He said, “Certainly. Will whisky and water do?”

  “Admirably.”

  Graham excused himself and went into the kitchen. He got the decanter of whisky, another of water, ice cubes, glasses.

  When he returned to the living room, Niemand was just leaving the boy’s bedroom. He heard Niemand’s “Good night, Harry,” and Harry’s happy “Night, Mr. Niemand.”

  Graham made drinks. A little later, Niemand declined a second one and started to leave.

  Niemand said, “I took the liberty of bringing a small gift to your son, doctor. I gave it to him while you were getting the drinks for us. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

  “Of course. Thank you. Good night.”

  Graham closed the door; he walked through the living room into Harry’s room. He said, “All right, Harry. Now I’ll read to—”

  There was sudden sweat on his fo
rehead, but he forced his face and his voice to be calm as he stepped to the side of the bed. “May I see that, Harry?” When he had it safely, his hands shook as he examined it.

  He thought, Only a madman would give a loaded revolver to an idiot.

  MOUSE

  Bill Wheeler was, as it happened, looking out of the window of his bachelor apartment on the fifth floor on the corner of 83rd Street and Central Park West when the spaceship from Somewhere landed.

  It floated gently down out of the sky and came to rest in Central Park on the open grass between the Simon Bolivar Monument and the walk, barely a hundred yards from Bill Wheeler’s window.

  Bill Wheeler’s hand paused in stroking the soft fur of the Siamese cat lying on the windowsill and he said wonderingly, “What’s that, Beautiful?” but the Siamese cat didn’t answer. She stopped purring, though, when Bill stopped stroking her. She must have felt something different in Bill—possibly from the sudden rigidness in his fingers or possibly because cats are prescient and feel changes of mood. Anyway she rolled over on her back and said, “Miaouw,” quite plaintively. But Bill, for once, didn’t answer her. He was too engrossed in the incredible thing across the street in the park.

  It was cigar-shaped, about seven feet long and two feet in diameter at the thickest point. As far as size was concerned, it might have been a large toy model dirigible, but it never occurred to Bill—even at his first glimpse of it when it was about fifty feet in the air, just opposite his window—that it might be a toy or a model.

  There was something about it, even at the most casual look, that said alien. You couldn’t put your finger on what it was. Anyway, alien or terrestrial, it had no visible means of support. No wings, propellers, rocket tubes or anything else—and it was made of metal and obviously heavier than air.

  But it floated down like a feather to a point just about a foot above the grass. It stopped there and suddenly, out of one end of it (both ends were so nearly alike that you couldn’t say it was the front or back) came a flash of fire that was almost blinding. There was a hissing sound with the flash and the cat under Bill Wheeler’s hand turned over and was on her feet in a single lithe movement, looking out of the window. She spat once, softly, and the hairs on her back and the back of her neck stood straight up, as did her tail, which was now a full two inches thick.

  Bill didn’t touch her; if you know cats you don’t when they’re like that. But he said, “Quiet, Beautiful. It’s all right. It’s only a spaceship from Mars, to conquer Earth. It isn’t a mouse.”

  He was right on the first count, in a way. He was wrong on the second, in a way. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves like that.

  After the single blast from its exhaust tube or whatever it was the spaceship dropped the last twelve inches and lay inert on the grass. It didn’t move. There was now a fan-shaped area of blackened earth radiating from one end of it, for a distance of about thirty feet.

  And then nothing happened except that people came running from several directions. Cops came running, too, three of them, and kept people from going too close to the alien object. Too close, according to the cops’ idea, seemed to be closer than about ten feet. Which, Bill Wheeler thought, was silly. If the thing was going to explode or anything, it would probably kill everyone for blocks around.

  But it didn’t explode. It just lay there, and nothing happened. Nothing except that flash that had startled both Bill and the cat. And the cat looked bored now, and lay back down on the windowsill, her hackles down.

  Bill stroked her sleek fawn-colored fur again, absentmindedly. He said, “This is a day, Beautiful. That thing out there is from outside, or I’m a spider’s nephew. I’m going down and take a look at it.”

  He took the elevator down. He got as far as the front door, tried to open it, and couldn’t. All he could see through the glass was the backs of people, jammed tight against the door. Standing on tiptoes and stretching his neck to see over the nearest ones, he could see a solid phalanx of heads stretching from here to there.

  He got back in the elevator. The operator said, “Sounds like excitement out front. Parade going by or something?”

  “Something,” Bill said. “Spaceship just landed in Central Park, from Mars or somewhere. You hear the welcoming committee out there.”

  “The hell,” said the operator. “What’s it doing?”

  “Nothing.”

  The operator grinned. “You’re a great kidder, Mr. Wheeler. How’s that cat you got?”

  “Fine,” said Bill. “How’s yours?”

  “Getting crankier. Threw a book at me when I got home last night with a few under my belt and lectured me half the night because I’d spent three and a half bucks. You got the best kind.”

  “I think so,” Bill said.

  By the time he got back to the window, there was really a crowd down there. Central Park West was solid with people for half a block each way and the park was solid with them for a long way back. The only open area was a circle around the spaceship, now expanded to about twenty feet in radius, and with a lot of cops keeping it open instead of only three.

  Bill Wheeler gently moved the Siamese over to one side of the windowsill and sat down. He said, “We got a box seat, Beautiful. I should have had more sense than to go down there.”

  The cops below were having a tough time. But reinforcements were coming, truckloads of them. They fought their way into the circle and then helped enlarge it. Somebody had obviously decided that the larger that circle was the fewer people were going to be killed. A few khaki uniforms had infiltrated the circle, too.

  “Brass,” Bill told the cat. “High brass. I can’t make out insignia from here, but that one boy’s at least a three-star; you can tell by the way he walks.”

  They got the circle pushed back to the sidewalk, finally. There was a lot of brass inside by then. And half a dozen men, some in uniform, some not, were starting, very carefully, to work on the ship. Photographs first, and then measurements, and then one man with a big suitcase of paraphernalia was carefully scratching at the metal and making tests of some kind.

  “A metallurgist, Beautiful,” Bill Wheeler explained to the Siamese, who wasn’t watching at all. “And I’ll bet you ten pounds of liver to one miaouw he finds that’s an alloy that’s brand new to him. And that it’s got some stuff in it he can’t identify.”

  “You really ought to be looking out, Beautiful, instead of lying there like a dope. This is a day, Beautiful. This may be the beginning of the end—or of something new. I wish they’d hurry up and get it open.”

  Army trucks were coming into the circle now. Half a dozen big planes were circling overhead, making a lot of noise. Bill looked up at them quizzically.

  “Bombers, I’ll bet, with pay loads. Don’t know what they have in mind unless to bomb the park, people and all, if little green men come out of that thing with ray guns and start killing everybody. Then the bombers could finish off whoever’s left.”

  But no little green men came out of the cylinder. The men working on it couldn’t, apparently, find an opening in it. They’d rolled it over now and exposed the under side, but the under side was the same as the top. For ail they could tell, the under side was the top.

  And then Bill Wheeler swore. The army trucks were being unloaded, and sections of a big tent were coming out of them, and men in khaki were driving stakes and unrolling canvas.

  “They would do something like that, Beautiful,” Bill complained bitterly. “Be bad enough if they hauled it off, but to leave it there to work on and still to block off our view—”

  The tent went up. Bill Wheeler watched the top of the tent, but nothing happened to the top of the tent and whatever went on inside he couldn’t see. Trucks came and went, high brass and civvies came and went.

  And after a while the phone rang. Bill gave a last affectionate rumple to the cat’s fur and went to answer it.

  “Bill Wheeler?” the receiver asked. “This is General Kelly speaking. Your name has be
en given to me as a competent research biologist. Tops in your field. Is that correct?”

  “Well,” Bill said. “I’m a research biologist. It would be hardly modest for me to say I’m tops in my field. What’s up?”

  “A spaceship has just landed in Central Park.”

  “You don’t say,” said Bill.

  “I’m calling from the field of operations; we’ve run phones in here, and we’re gathering specialists. We would like you and some other biologists to examine something that was found inside the—uh—spaceship. Grimm of Harvard was in town and will be here and Winslow of New York University is already here. It’s opposite Eighty-third Street. How long would it take you to get here?”

  “About ten seconds, if I had a parachute. I’ve been watching you out of my window.” He gave the address and the apartment number. “If you can spare a couple of strong boys in imposing uniforms to get me through the crowd, it’ll be quicker than if I try it myself. Okay?”

  “Right. Send ’em right over. Sit tight.”

  “Good,” said Bill. “What did you find inside the cylinder?”

  There was a second’s hesitation. Then the voice said, “Wait till you get here.”

  “I’ve got instruments,” Bill said. “Dissecting equipment. Chemicals. Reagents. I want to know what to bring. Is it a little green man?”

  “No,” said the voice. After a second’s hesitation again, it said, “It seems to be a mouse. A dead mouse.”

  “Thanks,” said Bill. He put down the receiver and walked back to the window. He looked at the Siamese cat accusingly. “Beautiful,” he demanded, “was somebody ribbing me, or—”

  There was a puzzled frown on his face as he watched the scene across the street. Two policemen came hurrying out of the tent and headed directly for the entrance of his apartment building. They began to work their way through the crowd.