The Dark Side

by Damon Knight (ed. )

  I didn’t try to lose the car that followed me all the way home. Then I talked Jean into taking the kids over to her mother’s the next morning, and drank three cans of beer before I could get to sleep.

  The next morning I was shaved, dressed, and breakfasted when Jean and the kids pulled out of the driveway, bound for Grandma’s. I knew that they would have a tail of some kind, but that was all to the good. When she was barely out on the main highway, away from the house, according to agreement, the Marines would land. They did—two quiet, insignificant-looking little men I had never seen before. But I’ve seen too many movies not to be able to spot a shoulder holster when I see one.

  They were extremely polite, came in as though they were walking on expensive eggs. I gave them a pleasant smile and a can of beer apiece.

  They introduced themselves as Internal Revenue and Secret Service, and I blinked at that. What was the Secret Service doing here? He told me.

  “Secret Service is charged with the responsibility,” he said, “of detecting and handling counterfeit money.”

  Well, I knew it had been a slim chance. All I could do was ride the horse, now that I’d ordered the saddle. I cleared my throat.

  “Well, gentlemen, I asked you here deliberately. I think the best thing to do is to get this straightened out once and for all.” Secret Service grunted. “And the best way to do it is make a clean breast of things. Right?”

  “Right!”

  I reached in my pocket. “Take a look at these. Are they counterfeit? Or are they good?” and I passed them a sheaf of bills.

  Secret Service took them over to where the morning sun was glaring through the blinds and took a lens from his pocket. He stood there for quite some time before he came back to sit down.

  I asked him, “Are they good, or are they bad?”

  Secret Service grunted. “Perfectly good. Good as gold. Only they all have the same numbers.”

  “Fine,” I said. “You probably don’t get paid very much. Take them with you when you go.” The temperature dropped forty degrees. I didn’t have to be a mind reader to know why.

  “No, I’m not trying to bribe you. I thought it would be a good illustration of what I said yesterday—that’s right, you weren’t there. Someone said that money doesn’t come out of thin air. Well, this money did.”

  Internal Revenue believed that just as much as Secret Service, and said so.

  I shrugged. “So you want a better sample?”

  They nodded.

  They had nothing to lose.

  “How much money have you got on you? I don’t mean silver, although I might be able to fix you up there, too, but bills. Dollar bills, fives, tens, twenties…” I tried to be funny. “Since you’re not elected, I don’t think you have any big bills.” The joke fell flat, but between them they dug up about sixty dollars in bills of different denominations, and I spread them out as neatly as I could on the coffee table.

  “All right, now; this is what I meant—” and I made sure that they were comfortably settled around the glass-topped surface. The first bill up in the right corner was a dollar, and I told them to watch the surface of the table right next to it. I looked at the bill and concentrated.

  The surface of the glass clouded, and the duplicate began to appear, nice and green and shiny. When it was complete, I leaned back and told the pair to pick up the dollar and its mate and feel free to examine them. While they had the new one over under the light, looking at it from all angles, I did a quick job on the rest of the money and went out to the kitchen for more beer.

  They were so intent on the first one they never saw me leave. When they turned back to me I was sitting there with a cigarette, three full cans, and an expectant smile. Then they looked at the coffeetable and saw the rest of the duplicates.

  Secret Service looked at the bills, at the ones he had in his hand, and at Internal Revenue. “Good God Almighty,” he said, and collapsed into his chair.

  It took some time for them to get their breath; longer still for them to be able to ask sensible questions.

  “You probably won’t believe me,” I warned. “I still don’t believe it myself.”

  Secret Service looked at Internal Revenue. “After that,” he said, “I’ll believe anything. Come on, McNally, you’ve got yourself into a mess. Let’s hear you get yourself out of it.”

  That I couldn’t go for. “I’m in no mess; you are. I’ll make a million of those bills if you want, or if you don’t, and all I can do is spend a few years in prison. Now, if I’m in trouble I’ll stay in it. On the other hand, if you’ll give me a clean bill of health I’ll come across. Okay?”

  Secret Service snorted. “My job is to nail the source of counterfeit money. Bud, you’re all through!”

  I kept after him. “Suppose you can say you’ve dried up the source. Suppose you can prove that to yourself, and your boss. Do I get a clean sheet? And do I get an okay for back taxes if I pay up?”

  Internal Revenue hesitated. “Back taxes can always be paid up, with a penalty, if we think there was no criminal intent.”

  “And how about you?” I said to Secret Service. “Okay with you?”

  But he was just as bullheaded as me. “No, McNally. You stuck out your neck, and chopped it off yourself. You’ll make no more progress with U.S. currency.”

  I kept right after him. “All you can get me for is possession of what you call counterfeit money. It looks good to me. Maybe the numbering machine stuck, or something.”

  “Yeah? No numbering machine in here. You made that stuff right here front of my eyes!”

  “Did I?” I asked. “Maybe it was just a magic trick. The hand is quicker than the eye, you know.”

  He was definite about that. “Not quicker than my eye. You made that money right here in front of me. I don’t know how you did it, but I’ll find out.”

  That was what I wanted him to say. “You saw me make money right in front of you? Without a printing press or anything? What would a jury say to that? What would they think about your sanity—and yours?” I turned to Internal Revenue. “And you still don’t know how I did it, and you never will, unless I tell you. Right? What do you say?”

  Internal Revenue wagged his head and moaned. “Right, I’m afraid.”

  Secret Service swore. “You too? You want to let this—this counterfeiter get away with that? Why—”

  I mentioned the old one about sticks and stones may break your bones and he snorted hard enough to blow the rest of the bills off the coffee table. No one picked them up.

  “Well, how about it?” I prodded. “While you’re thinking about it, I’ll get another beer.”

  “Oh no, you don’t!” he yelped, and tried to follow me into the kitchen. Internal Revenue pulled him back into his chair and leaned over. I could hear them whispering frantically while I pretended to have trouble finding the beer opener. I let them whisper for two or three minutes until I went back into the living room and found the opener where it had been all the time. I opened the cans and sat back. Secret Service had a face like Thor.

  “Make up your mind yet?” I inquired. “I’d like to cooperate, but not at the point of a gun.”

  His frown grew darker. “Got a telephone? I’ll have to get my boss in on this.”

  Internal Revenue winced. “Yes, there’s a phone. I’ve spent three months listening in on it.” While Secret Service went to the phone to mutter briefly into it, I grinned. I know just how long Jean can talk to her mother saying absolutely nothing.

  Secret Service came back and Sat down. “He’s pretty close to here. Five minutes.”

  We sat drinking cold beer until the boss showed up. Five minutes was a poor estimate. Three would have been better. I looked out the window and watched a telephone-company truck drop off an undistinguished repairman, and sit there with the motor running. Sharp babies, these Federals.

  So we went through the whole routine again with the coffee table and the bills and I had the place littered with money bef
ore they all gave up. I began to wonder if there was enough beer.

  The boss said, “What guarantee have I that this will stop?”

  I said, “When you find out how I do it you’ll be your own guarantee. Okay?”

  The boss said, “No. There are a lot of things to be straightenened out first. For one thing—”

  I snapped at him, “Let’s get this straight. I’ll tell you how I make the money. I’ll give you the gadget to take with you so you’ll know I can’t make any more. All you have to do is promise never to prosecute me for what’s gone by in the past. Now, there’s no strings to my offer—there’ll be no more money made, and you let me alone for the rest of my life. If either or us ever breaks the agreement, everything is off and the other can do what he likes.”

  He jumped on one word. “Gadget! You make this stuff, )”<“allv make it? It isn’t just an optical illusion?”

  I nodded. “I really make it, right in front of you, and if we do business you take the gadget with you right out the front door. Never again will I make a dime, and that’s a promise!”

  The boss looked at Secret Service and Secret Service looked at Internal Revenue. They all looked at me and I excused myself. When I came out of the bathroom they weren’t too happy; the boss did the talking.

  “McNally, God help you if you’re lying. We’ll coöperate, only because we have to. But, all right; we won’t prosecute for anything you’ve done in the past. But, if you ever pull anything like this again, you’re going to rue the day you were born. Just to show you I mean business, this could mean all our jobs. Counterfeiting is a felony, and we’re letting you get away with it. Understand that?”

  He barked out the words, and I knew he meant just what he said. But I meant what I’d said, too. I told him that was fair enough, as far as I was concerned.

  “It’d better be. Now, start talking. How do you do it?”

  I laughed. “I discovered it by accident. You can do it yourself. Here; this coffee table…”

  They looked down at it. “What about it?”

  “You’re the boss,” I told him. “You do it first. Just put one of those bills on the glass and think about it. Think about how nice it would be if you had another one just like it. Think about where your next pay is going to go.”

  I’ll give the boss credit. He hated to make a fool of himself, but he tried. He really tried. He took a bill out of his billfold and dropped it skeptically on the glass top. He shifted uncomfortably under the stares of the other two, and gave me one glare before he started concentrating on the money. Nothing happened.

  He looked up at me and opened his mouth. I shook my head.

  “This is no joke,” I said softly. “You’re the first one that knows this—even my wife doesn’t,” which was quite true.

  He was game, and tried to concentrate. I motioned to Secret Service and Internal Revenue to move away with me, on the basis that the boss might find it a little easier without three men panting over him. We moved a few feet away and I took a sip of my beer.

  I almost choked when I heard a gasp from the boss. I eagerly bent over the table again. The same thing was happening; the mist, the green color, the final completed bill. The boss sat up and wiped his forehead.

  “Uh,” he said.

  “Let me try that,” said Secret Service and Internal Revenue, almost in unison, and they in turn bent over the table. The same thing happened.

  They all sat back and waited for me to talk. I sat back and waited for them to ask questions. The boss asked the first one.

  “How do you do it?”

  I told him the absolute truth. “I don’t know. I was just sitting here with my wife one night, glooming about what we owed, when she took out the last ten dollars we had. She flipped it on the table to show me how short we were going to be, and I just sat there moping about life in general. The next thing you know we had two ten-dollar bills. And that was it.”

  They all moved back and looked at the coffee table.

  The boss said, “Where did you get this—this portable mint?”

  “From my relatives,” I said. I went on to tell him about the banshees and the leprechauns and he didn’t believe a word of it. But Secret Service did. Later I found out his name was Kelly,

  “So what do we do now?” said the boss in an irritated voice.

  “I told you that you could have the gadget,” and I meant it. “I’ve got a home, a car, and enough money in the bank. I always thought I could write stories if I had the chance, and I’ve been waiting for a good one. I think this is it. Take the table, and good health with it.”

  He looked at the table again. “And anyone can work it—anyone at all?”

  “I suppose so. You just did it yourself.”

  Without an instant’s hesitation he smashed the muzzle of the gun down at the coffee table. There was an agonised tinkling crash that sounded feminine; and then there was nothing but brittle shards on the rug.

  “Take this—thing outside; he commanded, and Secret Service carried the wooden frame of the table out on the front porch. The boss jumped on the skeleton until it shattered, and Secret Service himself brought a can of gasoline from the pseudo-telephone truck.

  We all watched the wood burn until there were ashes that the wind carried away when I stirred them gently with my foot. Then they left together, without saying another word. I never saw any of them again; Kelly I recognised from his newspaper picture when he was promoted some years later.

  So that’s the story. I never made any duplicate bills again; my promise made, the table destroyed, the ashes lost in the breeze. I write a little on the side occasionally,and with my limited talent I don’t sell too many stories. It’s a good thing I had money in the bank when the table was burned; money isn’t as easy to get as it once was.

  Sometimes I regret losing the coffee table—it was an old family heirloom. And money was so easy to make when I had it, that life was a dream. But it’s just as well that the boss smashed and burned it. If he had kept it for a while, he would have found out it was just a table, that I had made the bills while they were so intent on the money. It was my ancestry, and not theirs. But what they don’t know will never hurt them. I kept my promise, and I’ll go on keeping it. But I made no promises not to duplicate anything else.

  Right now. there’s a lot of people engaged in the business of finding and restoring old automobiles. Next year I’m going to France to take a look at a Type 51 Bugatti, They cost forty thousand dollars to make twenty years ago, and there’s only fourteen in existence. A fellow named Purdy who lives in New York would pay a good price for a fifteenth, I understand. And while I’m in Europe I’ll just stop in and look at some rare books and stamps and coins. They tell me that’s a good business, too—perfectly legal, and far more profitable than writing stories like this.

  The last story, like the first, is about time. Fritz Leiber wrote this one in 1947 to fill out an Arkham House collection, Night’s Black Agents; I think it is one of the most charming and hauntingly beautiful things he has ever done.

  Fritz Leiber

  THE MAN WHO NEVER GREW YOUNG

  Maot is becoming restless. Often toward evening she trudges to where the black earth meets the yellow sand and stands looking across the desert until the wind starts.

  But I sit with my back to the reed screen and watch the Nile.

  It isn’t just that she’s growing young. She is wearying of the fields. She leaves their tilling to me and lavishes her attentions on the flock. Every day she takes the sheep and goats farther to pasture.

  I have seen it coming for a long time. For generations the fields have been growing scantier and less diligently irrigated.

  There seems to be more rain. The houses have become simpler—mere walled tents. And every year some family gathers its flocks and wanders off west.

  Why should I cling so tenaciously to these poor relics of civilisation—I, who have seen king Cheops’ men take down the Great Pyramid block by block and r
eturn it to the hills?

  I often wonder why I never grow young. It is still as much a mystery to me as to the brown farmers who kneel in awe when I walk past.

  I envy those who grow young. I yearn for the sloughing of wisdom and responsibility, the plunge into a period of lovemaking and breathless excitement, the carefree years before the end.

  But I remain a bearded man of thirty-odd, wearing the goatskin as I once wore the doublet or the toga, always on the brink of that plunge yet never making it.

  It seems to me that I have always been this way. Why, I cannot even remember my own disinterment, and everyone remembers that.

  Maot is subtle. She does not ask for what she wants, but when she comes home at evening she sits far back from the fire and murmurs disturbing fragments of song and rubs her eyelids with green pigment to make herself desirable to me and tries in every way to infect me with her restlessness. She tempts me from the hot work at midday and points out how hardy our sheep and goats are becoming.

  There are no young men among us any more. All of them start for the desert with the approach of youth, or before. Even toothless, scrawny patriarchs uncurl from their graveholes, and hardly pausing to refresh themselves with the food and drink dug up with them, collect their flocks and wives and hobble off into the west.

  I remember the first disinterment I witnessed. It was in a country of smoke and machines and constant news. But what I am about to relate occurred in a backwater where there were still small farms and narrow roads and simple ways.

  There were two old women named Flora and Helen. It could not have been more than a few years since their own disinterments, but those I cannot remember. I think I was some sort of nephew, but I cannot be sure.

  They began to visit an old grave in the cemetery a half mile outside town. I remember the little bouquets of flowers they would bring back with them. Their prim, placid faces became troubled. I could see that grief was entering their lives.