Firewater

by William Tenn

  Firewater

  William Tenn

  First published in Astounding Science Fiction magazine in 1952.

  Firewater

  by William Tenn

  The hairiest, dirtiest and oldest of the three visitors from Arizona scratched his back against the plastic of the webfoam chair. “Insinuations are lavender nearly,” he remarked by way of opening the conversation.

  His two companions—the thin young man with dripping eyes, and the woman whose good looks were marred chiefly by incredibly decayed teeth—giggled and relaxed. The thin young man said “Gabble, gabble, honk!” under his breath, and the other two nodded emphatically.

  Greta Seidenheim looked up from the tiny stenographic machine resting on a pair of the most exciting knees her employer had been able to find in Greater New York. She swiveled her blonde beauty at him. “That too, Mr. Hebster?”

  The president of Hebster Securities, Inc., waited until the memory of her voice ceased to tickle his ears; he had much clear thinking to do. Then he nodded and said resonantly, “That too, Miss Seidenheim. Close phonetic approximations of the gabble-honk and remember to indicate when it sounds like a question and when like an exclamation.”

  He rubbed his recently manicured fingernails across the desk drawer containing his fully loaded Parabellum. Check. The communication buttons with which he could summon any quantity of Hebster Securities personnel up to the nine hundred working at present in the Hebster Building lay some eight inches from the other hand. Check. And there were the doors here, the doors there, behind which his uniformed bodyguard stood poised to burst in at a signal which would blaze before them the moment his right foot came off the tiny spring set in the floor. And check.

  Courteously, he nodded at each one of his visitors from Arizona; he smiled rue-fully at what the dirty shapeless masses they wore on their feet were doing to the almost calf-deep rug that had been woven specially for his private office. He had greeted them when Miss Seidenheim had escorted them in. They had laughed in his face.

  “Suppose we rattle off some introductions. You know me. I’m Hebster, Algernon Hebster—you asked for me specifically at the desk in the lobby. If it’s important to the conversation, my secretary’s name is Greta Seidenheim. And you, sir?”

  He had addressed the old fellow, but the thin young man leaned forward in his seat and held out a taut, almost transparent hand. “Names?” he inquired. “Names are round if not revealed. Consider names. How many names? Consider names, reconsider names!”

  The woman leaned forward too, and the smell from her diseased mouth reached Hebster even across the enormous space of his office. “Rabble and reaching and all the upward clash,” she intoned, spreading her hands as if in agreement with an obvious point. “Emptiness derogating itself into infinity—”

  “Into duration,” the older man corrected.

  “Into infinity,” the woman insisted.

  “Gabble, gabble, honk?” the young man queried bitterly.

  “Listen!” Hebster roared. “When I asked for—”

  The communicator buzzed and he drew a deep breath and pressed a button. His receptionist’s voice boiled out rapidly, fearfully:

  “I remember your orders, Mr. Hebster, but those two men from the UM Special Investigating Commission are here again and they look as if they mean business. I mean they look as if they’ll make trouble.”

  “Yost and Funatti?”

  “Yes, sir. From what they said to each other, I think they know you have three Primeys in there. They asked me what are you trying to do—deliberately inflame the Firsters? They said they’re going to invoke full supranational powers and force an entry if you don’t—”

  “Stall them.”

  “But, Mr. Hebster, the UM Special Investigating—”

  “Stall them, I said. Are you a receptionist or a swinging door? Use your imagination, Ruth. You have a nine-hundred-man organization and a ten-million-dollar corporation at your disposal. You can stage any kind of farce in that outer office you want—up to and including the deal where some actor made up to look like me walks in and drops dead at their feet. Stall them and I’ll nod a bonus at you. Stall them.” He clicked off, looked up.

  His visitors, at least, were having a fine time. They had turned to face each other in a reeking triangle of gibberish. Their voices rose and fell argumentatively, pleadingly, decisively; but all Algernon Hebster’s ears could register of what they said were very many sounds similar to gabble and an occasional, indisputable honk!

  His lips curled contempt inward. Humanity prime! These messes? Then he lit a cigarette and shrugged. Oh, well. Humanity prime. And business is business.

  Just remember they’re not supermen, he told himself. They may be dangerous, but they’re not supermen. Not by a long shot. Remember that epidemic of influenza that almost wiped them out, and how you diddled those two other Primeys last month. They’re not supermen, but they’re not humanity either. They’re just different.

  He glanced at his secretary and approved. Greta Seidenheim clacked away on her machine as if she were recording the curtest, the tritest of business letters. He wondered what system she was using to catch the intonations. Trust Greta, though, she’d do it.

  “Gabble, honk! Gabble, gabble, gabble, honk, honk. Gabble, honk, gabble, gabble, honk? Honk.”

  What had precipitated all this conversation? He’d only asked for their names. Didn’t they use names in Arizona? Surely, they knew that it was customary here. They claimed to know at least as much as he about such matters.

  Maybe it was something else that had brought them to New York this time—maybe something about the Aliens? He felt the short hairs rise on the back of his neck and he smoothed them down self-consciously.

  Trouble was it was so easy to learn their language. It was such a very simple matter to be able to understand them in these talkative moments. Almost as easy as falling off a log—or jumping off a cliff.

  Well, his time was limited. He didn’t know how long Ruth could hold the UM investigators in his outer office. Somehow he had to get a grip on the meeting again without offending them in any of the innumerable, highly dangerous ways in which Primeys could be offended.

  He rapped the desk top—gently. The gabble-honk stopped short at the hyphen. The woman rose slowly.

  “On this question of names,” Hebster began doggedly, keeping his eyes on the woman, “since you people claim—”

  The woman writhed agonizingly for a moment and sat down on the floor. She smiled at Hebster. With her rotted teeth, the smile had all the brilliance of a dead star.

  Hebster cleared his throat and prepared to try again.

  “If you want names,” the older man said suddenly, “you can call me Larry.”

  The president of Hebster Securities shook himself and managed to say “Thanks” in a somewhat weak but not too surprised voice. He looked at the thin young man.

  “You can call me Theseus.” The young man looked sad as he said it.

  “Theseus? Fine!” One thing about Primeys, when you started clicking with them, you really moved along. But Theseus! Wasn’t that just like a Primey? Now the woman, and they could begin.

  They were all looking at the woman, even Greta with a curiosity which had sneaked up past her beauty-parlor glaze.

  “Name,” the woman whispered to herself. “Name a name.”

  Oh, no, Hebster groaned. Let’s not stall here.

  Larry evidently had decided that enough time had been wasted. He made a suggestion to the woman. “Why not call yourself Moe?”

  The young man—Theseus, it was now—also seemed to get interested in the problem. “Rover’s a good name,” he announced helpfully.

  “How about Gloria?” Hebster asked desperately.

  The woma
n considered. “Moe, Rover, Gloria,” she mused. “Larry, Theseus, Seidenheim, Hebster, me.” She seemed to be running a total.

  Anything might come out, Hebster knew. But at least they were not acting snobbish any more: they were talking down on his level now. Not only no gabble-honk, but none of this sneering double-talk which was almost worse. At least they were making sense—of a sort.

  “For the purposes of this discussion,” the woman said at last, “my name will be… will be—My name is S.S. Lusitania.”

  “Fine!” Hebster roared, letting the word he’d kept bubbling on his lips burst out. “That’s a fine name. Larry, Theseus and… er, S.S. Lusitania. Fine bunch of people. Sound. Let’s get down to business. You came here on business, I take it?”

  “Right,” Larry said. “We heard about you from two others who left home a month ago to come to New York. They talked about you when they got back to Arizona.”

  “They did, eh? I hoped they would.”

  Theseus slid off his chair and squatted next to the woman who was making plucking motions at the air. “They talked about you,” he repeated. “They said you treated them very well, that you showed them as much respect as a thing like you could generate. They also said you cheated them.”

  “Oh, well, Theseus.” Hebster spread his manicured hands. “I’m a businessman.”

  “You’re a businessman,” S.S. Lusitania agreed, getting to her feet stealthily and taking a great swipe with both hands at something invisible in front of her face. “And here, in this spot, at this moment, so are we. You can have what we’ve brought, but you’ll pay for it. And don’t think you can cheat us.”

  Her hands, cupped over each other, came down to her waist. She pulled them apart suddenly and a tiny eagle fluttered out. It flapped toward the fluorescent panels glowing in the ceiling. Its flight was hampered by the heavy, striped shield upon its breast, by the bunch of arrows it held in one claw, by the olive branch it grasped with the other. It turned its miniature bald head and gasped at Algernon Hebster, then began to drift rapidly down to the rug. Just before it hit the floor, it disappeared.

  Hebster shut his eyes, remembering the strip of bunting that had fallen from the eagle’s beak when it had turned to gasp. There had been words printed on the bunting, words too small to see at the distance, but he was sure the words would have read “E Pluribus Unum.” He was as certain of that as he was of the necessity of acting unconcerned over the whole incident, as unconcerned as the Primeys. Professor Kleimbocher said Primeys were mental drunkards. But why did they give everyone else the D.T.s?

  He opened his eyes. “Well,” he said, “what have you to sell?”

  Silence for a moment. Theseus seemed to forget the point he was trying to make; S.S. Lusitania stared at Larry.

  Larry scratched his right side through heavy, stinking cloth.

  “Oh, an infallible method for defeating anyone who attempts to apply the reductio ad absurdum to a reasonable proposition you advance.” He yawned smugly and began scratching his left side.

  Hebster grinned because he was feeling so good. “No. Can’t use it.”

  “Can’t use it?” The old man was trying hard to look amazed. He shook his head. He stole a sideways glance at S.S. Lusitania.

  She smiled again and wriggled to the floor. “Larry still isn’t talking a language you can understand, Mr. Hebster,” she cooed, very much like a fertilizer factory being friendly. “We came here with something we know you need badly. Very badly.”

  “Yes?” They’re like those two Primeys last month, Hebster exulted: they don’t know what’s good and what isn’t. Wonder if their masters would know. Well, and if they did —who does business with Aliens?

  “We… have,” she spaced the words carefully, trying pathetically for a dramatic effect, “a new shade of red, but not merely that. Oh, no! A new shade of red, and a full set of color values derived from it! A complete set of color values derived from this one shade of red, Mr. Hebster! Think what a non-objectivist painter can do with such a—”

  “Don’t sell me, lady. Theseus, do you want to have a go now?”

  Theseus had been frowning at the green foundation of the desk. He leaned back, looking satisfied. Hebster realized abruptly that the tension under his right foot had disappeared. Somehow, Theseus had become cognizant of the signal-spring set in the floor; and, somehow, he had removed it.

  He had disintegrated it without setting off the alarm to which it was wired.

  Giggles from three Primey throats and a rapid exchange of “gabble-honk.” Then they all knew what Theseus had done and how Hebster had tried to protect himself. They weren’t angry, though—and they didn’t sound triumphant. Try to understand Primey behavior!

  No need to get unduly alarmed—the price of dealing with these characters was a nervous stomach. The rewards, on the other hand—

  Abruptly, they were businesslike again.

  Theseus snapped out his suggestion with all the finality of a bazaar merchant making his last, absolutely the last offer. “A set of population indices which can be correlated with—”

  “No, Theseus,” Hebster told him gently.

  Then, while Hebster sat back and enjoyed, temporarily forgetting the missing coil under his foot, they poured out more, desperately, feverishly, weaving in and out of each other’s sentences.

  “A portable neutron stabilizer for high altit—”

  “More than fifty ways of saying ‘however’ without—”

  “… So that every housewife can do an entrechat while cook—”

  “… Synthetic fabric with the drape of silk and manufactura—”

  “… Decorative pattern for bald heads using the follicles as—”

  “… Complete and utter refutation of all pyramidologists from—”

  “All right!” Hebster roared, “All right! That’s enough!”

  Greta Seidenheim almost forgot herself and sighed with relief. Her stenographic machine had been sounding like a centrifuge.

  “Now,” said the executive. “What do you want in exchange?”

  “One of those we said is the one you want, eh?” Larry muttered. “Which one—the pyramidology refutation? That’s it, I betcha.”

  S.S. Lusitania waved her hands contemptuously. “Bishop’s miters, you fool! The new red color values excited him. The new—”

  Ruth’s voice came over the communicator. “Mr. Hebster, Yost and Funatti are back. I stalled them, but I just received word from the lobby receptionist that they’re back and on their way upstairs. You have two minutes, maybe three. And they’re so mad they almost look like Firsters themselves!”

  “Thanks. When they climb out of the elevator, do what you can without getting too illegal.” He turned to his guests. “Listen—”

  They had gone off again.

  “Gabble, gabble, honk, honk, honk? Gabble, honk, gabble, gabble! Gabble, honk, gabble, honk, gabble, honk, honk.”

  Could they honestly make sense out of these throat-clearings and half-sneezes? Was it really a language as superior to all previous languages of man as… as the Aliens were supposed to be to man himself? Well, at least they could communicate with the Aliens by means of it. And the Aliens, the Aliens—

  He recollected abruptly the two angry representatives of the world state who were hurtling towards his office.

  “Listen, friends. You came here to sell. You’ve shown me your stock, and I’ve seen something I’d like to buy. What exactly is immaterial. The only question now is what you want for it. And let’s make it fast. I have some other business to transact.”

  The woman with the dental nightmare stamped her foot. A cloud no larger than a man’s hand formed near the ceiling, burst and deposited a pail full of water on Hebster’s fine custom-made rug.

  He ran a manicured forefinger around the inside of his collar so that his bulging neck veins would not burst. Not right now, anyway. He looked at Greta and regained confidence from the serenity with which she waited for more conversation
to transcribe. There was a model of business precision for you. The Primeys might pull what one of them had in London two years ago, before they were barred from all metropolitan areas—increased a housefly’s size to that of an elephant—and Greta Seidenheim would go on separating fragments of conversation into the appropriate short-hand symbols.

  With all their power, why didn’t they take what they wanted? Why trudge wearisome miles to cities and attempt to smuggle themselves into illegal audiences with operators like Hebster, when most of them were caught easily and sent back to the reservation and those that weren’t were cheated unmercifully by the “straight” humans they encountered? Why didn’t they just blast their way in, take their weird and pathetic prizes and toddle back to their masters? For that matter, why didn’t their masters—But Primey psych was Primey psych—not for this world, nor of it.

  “We’ll tell you what we want in exchange,” Larry began in the middle of a honk. He held up a hand on which the length of the fingernails was indicated graphically by the grime beneath them and began to tot up the items, bending a digit for each item. “First, a hundred paper-bound copies of Melville’s Moby Dick. Then, twenty-five crystal radio sets, with earphones; two earphones for each set. Then, two Empire State Buildings or three Radio Cities, whichever is more convenient. We want those with foundations intact. A reasonably good copy of the Hermes statue by Praxiteles. And an electric toaster, circa 1941. That’s about all, isn’t it, Theseus?”

  Theseus bent over until his nose rested against his knees.

  Hebster groaned. The list wasn’t as bad as he’d expected—remarkable the way their masters always yearned for the electric gadgets and artistic achievements of Earth—but he had so little time to bargain with them. Two Empire State Buildings!

  “Mr. Hebster,” his receptionist chattered over the communicator. “Those SIC men—I managed to get a crowd out in the corridor to push toward their elevator when it came to this floor, and I’ve locked the… I mean I’m trying to… but I don’t think—Can you—”