The Best of Henry Kuttner

by Henry Kuttner

  “Ah, well,” Macduff philosophized as he flew down a corridor slightly ahead of the Atmospheric Inspector’s hurtling toe-cap, “Justice is blind. This is my thanks for working overtime—at least three minutes overtime. But now I am off duty and free to set my plans in motion.”

  Five minutes later, having eluded the Inspector and smoothed his ruffled plumage somewhat, he made his way briskly toward the lounge.

  “There’s one point in my favor,” he reflected. “Ess Pu apparently doesn’t know Ao is aboard. The last time he chased me he was still speaking bitterly of my part in forcing him to leave her on Aldebaran Tau. Unhappily that’s practically the only point in my favor. I must now mingle with the passengers in the grand lounge, while remaining undetected by Ess Pu, Captain Ramsay or any ship’s officer. I wish I were a Cerean.3 Ah, well.”

  As Macduff cautiously made his way toward the lounge his memory dwelt all too vividly on his recent progress from riches to rags. His meteoric descent from job to worse job had been little short of phenomenal.

  “Would you set a cinematome to digging ditches?” he had inquired. “Would you weigh elephants on a torquemeter?”

  He was told to stop gabbling and pick up that shovel. Instantly he began to work out the most efficient application of the law of leverages. There was some delay while he extended his decimals to include the influencing factor of low-threshold radioactivity upon the alpha waves of the brain.

  “Otherwise, anything can happen,” he explained, demonstrating. There was a crash.

  Macduff was then, by request, taken off the Hot Gang and put to work elsewhere. But, as he took pains to point out, his frame of reference did not include special skills in the block-processing of garbage for fuel, oiling of the symbiotic hemostatic adjustment mechanisms provided for the comfort of the passengers or testing refractive indices of liquid-coated bimetallic thermostats. He proved this empirically.

  So he was—by request—removed to Hydroponics, where the incident of the radioactive carbon tracer occurred. He said it wasn’t the carbon, it was the gammexene, and besides it wasn’t really the gammexene so much as his inadvertent neglect to supplement the insecticide with meso-inositol.

  But when thirty square feet of rhubarb plants began breathing out carbon monoxide as a result of sudden heredity changes brought on by the gammexene Macduff was promptly sent down to the kitchens, where he introduced a growth hormone into the soup, with nearly catastrophic results.

  At present he was an unvalued member of the staff of Atmospheric Controls, where he did the jobs nobody else wanted to do.

  More and more he had become conscious of the odor of sphyghi pervading the ship. Nothing could disguise its distinctive fragrance, which seeped by osmosis through membranes, trickled along the surface of molecular films and very likely rode piggyback on careening quanta. As Macduff made his stealthy way toward the lounge he realized that the word sphyghi was on every tongue, just as he had anticipated.

  He paused warily on the threshold of the lounge, which ran like a belt (or cravat) around the entire ship, so that in two directions the floor seemed to slope steeply, until you tried to walk up it. Then it felt like a squirrel cage, which compensated automatically to your own speed.

  Here was luxury. Macduff’s sybaritic soul yearned toward the tempting buffets of smörgåsbord, ti-pali and Gustators. Like a palace of ice an ornate perambulating bar swung slowly past on its monorail track. An orchestra was playing Starlit Days and Sunny Nights, an eminently suitable choice for a ship in space, and sphyghi fragrance sent its luxurious breath from wall to wall.

  Macduff stood with unobtrusive dignity near the door for some minutes, regarding the crowd. He was waiting for the appearance of Captain Ramsay. Presently a buzz of interested comment began to arise and a throng of passengers converged down the salon’s slopes. The Captain had arrived. Macduff melted into the crowd and vanished with the suddenness of a Boojum.

  Ramsay stood at the bottom of a concave sectioned amphitheater, looking up at his audience with an unaccustomed smile on his seamed face. There was no trace of Macduff, though a repressed mutter of sotto voce comment came occasionally from behind a broad-beamed member of the Plutonian lepidoptera.

  Captain Ramsay spoke.

  “As ye probably ken,” he said, “we are here to arrange aboot the ship’s pool. Some of ye may not have travelled in space before, so the acting firrst mate wull explain how this is done. Mister French, please.” Mr. French, a serious young man, took the stage. He cleared his throat, hesitated and looked around as a brief burst of applause came from behind the Plutonian lepidoptera.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Eh—many of you may be familiar with the old-time ship’s pool, in which passengers guessed the time of arrival in port. In space, of course, compensatory feed-back devices, effectors and subtractors control our ship so exactly that we know the Sutter will arrive in Xeria at exactly the posted time, which is—”

  “Come, come, my man, get to the point,” an unidentified voice put in from the audience. Captain Ramsay was observed to glance sharply toward the Plutonian.

  “Eh—quite,” said Mr. French. “Does anyone have a suggestion?”

  “Guessing the date on a coin,” a voice said eagerly, but it was drowned out by a chorus of cries mentioning the word sphyghi.

  “Sphyghi?” Captain Ramsay asked with hypocritical blankness. “The perfume stuff, ye mean?”

  There was laughter. A mousy Callistan got the floor.

  “Captain Ramsay,” he said. “How about running a sphyghi-seed lottery here, the way they do on Aldebaran Tau? The way it’s done, I think, is by betting on how many seeds there are in the first sphyghi fruit of the crop. The number always varies. Sometimes there are a few hundred, sometimes a few thousand and there’s no way of counting them until the fruit’s cut open. If Ess Pu could be induced to agree, perhaps—”

  “Allow me,” Captain Ramsay said. “I’ll consult Ess Pu.”

  He did so, while the crustacean looked blackly around. At first he was obdurate. But finally, in return for a half-share in the pool, he was prevailed upon to cooperate. Only the glamor of sphyghi and the unparalleled chance to boast about this lottery for the rest of their lives led the passengers to put up with his inordinate greed. But presently all was arranged.

  “Stewards wull pass among ye,” Captain Ramsay said. “Write yer guess and yer name on these slips of paper and drop them in a box which wull be provided for the purpose. Aye, aye, Ess Pu. Ye wull be given a chance too if ye insist.”

  The Algolian insisted. He wasn’t missing a bet. After long hesitation he put down a number, angrily scrawled the phonetic ideograph of his name and had turned to stalk away when something subtler than sphyghi fragrance began to breathe through the salon. Heads turned. Voices died away. Ess Pu, glancing around in surprise, found himself facing the door. His infuriated bellow reverberated from the ceiling for several seconds.

  Ao, standing on the threshold, paid no attention. Her lovely eyes gazed into the far distances. Concentric circles of magic drifted dreamily out from her. Already she was increasing the affective tone of all living organisms within the lounge, and Ess Pu was not excluded. However, as has already been disclosed, when an Algolian feels good his rage knows no bounds. Ao didn’t care.

  “Mine!” Ess Pu mouthed, swinging toward the Captain. “The girl—mine!”

  “Get ye claws awa’ from my face, mon,” Captain Ramsay said with dignity. “If ye wull join me in this quiet corner perhaps ye can state yer case in a more courteous fashion. Noo, what is it?”

  Ess Pu demanded Ao. He took out a certificate which appeared to state that he had travelled to Aldebaran Tau with Ao as her guardian. Ramsay fingered his jaw undecidedly. Meanwhile there was a scuffle among the thronging passengers who were pressing folded slips of paper upon the stewards. The breathless, rotund figure of Macduff burst out of the crowd just in time to snatch Ao from Ess Pu’s possessively descending claw
s.

  “Back, lobster!” he ordered threateningly. “Lay a claw on that girl at your peril.” Towing her, he dodged behind the Captain as Ess Pu lunged.

  “I thought so,” Ramsay said, lifting a cautioning finger at Ess Pu. “Were ye no specifically forbidden to mingle with the passengers, Macduff?”

  “This is a matter of law enforcement,” Macduff said. “Ao is my ward, not that criminal lobster’s.”

  “Can ye prove it?” Ramsay inquired. “That certificate of his—”

  Macduff tore the certificate from Ess Pu’s grip, scanned it hastily, crumpled it into a ball and threw it on the floor.

  “Nonsense!” he said scornfully, taking out a cablegram in an accusing manner. “Read this, Captain. As you will observe it is a cable from the Lesser Vegan Control Administration. It points out that Ao was illegally deported from Lesser Vega and that an Algolian is suspected of the crime.”

  “Eh?” Ramsay said. “One moment, Ess Pu.” But the Algolian was already hastily clashing his way out of the salon. Ramsay scowled at the cablegram, looked up and beckoned to a Cephan double-brained attorney among the passengers. There was a brief colloquy, from which Ramsay came back shaking his head.

  “Can’t do much about this, Macduff,” he said. “It isn’t a GBI offence, unfortunately. I find I’m empowered only to turn Ao over to her richtful guardian and since she has none—”

  “Your error, Captain,” Macduff broke in. “You want her richt—I mean, her rightful guardian? You’re looking at him. Here’s the rest of that cablegram.”

  “What?” Captain Ramsay demanded.

  “Exactly. Terence Lao-T’se Macduff. That’s what it says. The Lesser Vegan Control Administration has accepted my offer to stand in loco parentis to Ao, pro tem.”

  “Vurra weel,” Ramsay said reluctantly. “Ao’s yer ward. Ye wull have to take that up with the Xerian authorities when ye arrive, for as sure as my name is Angus Ramsay ye’ll gae head over basket doon the gang-plank the minute we land on Xeria. Ye and Ess Pu can fight it oot there. In the meantime I dinna allow a crewman to mingle with my passengers. Go for-rard!”

  “I demand the rights of a passenger,” Macduff said excitedly, backing up a step or two. “The price of the ticket includes the pool and I demand—”

  “Ye are no passenger. Ye’re a dom insubordinate member of—”

  “Ao’s a passenger!” Macduff contended shrilly. “She’s entitled to take part in the pool, isn’t she? Well, then, a slip, please, Captain.”

  Ramsay growled under his breath. But finally he beckoned to the steward with the slotted box.

  “Let Ao write her own guess,” he insisted stubbornly.

  “Nonsense,” Macduff said. “Ao’s my ward. I’ll write it for her. Moreover, if by any miraculous chance she should happen to win the pool, it will be my duty to administer the dough in the best interests of her welfare, which obviously means buying us both tickets to Lesser Vega.”

  “Och, why quibble?” Ramsay said suddenly. “If ye’re lucky enough to have a miracle happen, fair enough.”

  Macduff, concealing what he wrote, scribbled busily, folded the paper and pushed it through the slot. Ramsay took a permaseal from the steward and ran it across the box-top.

  “Personally,” Macduff said, watching him, “I feel slightly degraded by the atmosphere of the Sutter. What with condoning smuggling, shyster tactics and pure vicious gambling, I’m forced to the unsavory conclusion, Captain, that you’re running a crime ship. Come, Ao, let us seek purer air.”

  Ao licked her thumb and thought of something very nice, perhaps the taste of her thumb. No one would ever know.

  Time passed, both Bergsonian and Newtonian. On either scale it seemed probable that Macduff’s time was running rapidly out.

  “Who sups wi’ Auld Clootie should hae a long spoon,” Captain Ramsay said to the acting first, on the day of the Sutter’s scheduled arrival at Xeria. ‘The wonder is that Macduff has evaded Ess Pu’s claws this long, the way he’s been trying to get at those sphyghi plants. What baffles me is what he hopes to accomplish by sneaking around the Algolian’s cabin with sodium iodide counters and microwave spectroscopes. Whatever he wrote doon in the lottery box canna be changed. The box is in my safe.”

  “Suppose he finds a way to open the safe?” the acting first suggested.

  “In addition to the time lock it is keyed to the alpha radiations of my own brain,” Captain Ramsay pointed out. “He canna possibly—ah, talk of the devil, Mr. French, look who’s coming.”

  The rotund yet agile form of Macduff came scuttling rapidly along the corridor, one jump ahead of the Algolian. Macduff was breathing hard. At sight of the two officers he dived behind them like a quail going to cover. Ess Pu, blind with fury, snapped his claws in the Captain’s very face.

  “Control yerself, mon!” Ramsay said sharply. The Algolian made a mindless gobbling sound and waved a paper wildly in the air.

  “Man, indeed,” Macduff said with some bitterness, from his position of precarious safety. “He’s nothing but an acromegalic lobster. It’s getting so any object can be classified as humanoid these days, the way they keep broadening the requirements. Letting in all the riff-raff of the Galaxy. Martians were the opening wedge. Now the deluge. I can see the need for a certain amount of latitude, but we peril the dignity of true humanoids when we apply the proud name of Man to a lobster. Why, the creature isn’t even a biped. In fact, there’s a certain air of indecent exposure about where he wears his bones.”

  “Tush, mon, ye ken the word’s a mere figure of speech. What is it, Ess Pu? What’s this paper ye keep thrusting at me?”

  The Algolian was understood to gibber that Macduff had dropped it while fleeing. He recommended that the Captain read it carefully.

  “Later,” Ramsay said, thrusting it in his pocket. “We’re due to land on Xeria vurra soon, and I must be in the control room. Go for-rard, Macduff.”

  Macduff obeyed with surprising alacrity, at least until he was out of sight. Ess Pu, muttering thickly, followed. Only then did Ramsay pull the paper from his pocket. He studied it, snorted and handed it to the acting first. Macduff’s neat handwriting covered one side of the page, as follows:

  Problem: Find out how many seeds in the first ripe sphyghi fruit. How look inside a sealed fruit in which all seeds may not be formed yet? Ordinary vision useless.

  First day: Attempted to introduce radio-tracer in sphyghi so I could count radioactivity day by day and work out useful graphs. Failed. Ess Pu installed booby trap, sign of low criminal mentality. No harm done.

  Second day: Attempt to bribe Ess Pu with Immortality Elixir. Ess Pu outraged. Forgot Algolians regard adolescence as despicable. Small minds value size inordinately.

  Third day: Tried to focus infrared on sphyghi, to pick up secondary radiations with acoustical interferometer. Failed. Experimented in long-distance color staining of sphyghi cells with light waves. Failed.

  Fourth day: Attempts to introduce chloroform into Ess Pu’s quarters failed also. Impossible to get near enough fruit to try analysis through positive ion emissions. Am beginning to suspect Ess Pu was responsible for Captain Masterson’s hospitalization back on Aldebaran Tau. Probably crept up from behind in dark alley. All bullies are cowards. Note: try to turn Xerians against Ess Pu on arrival. How?

  There the quasi-diary ended. Mr. French looked up quizzically.

  “I had na realized Macduff was applying science so thoroughly,” Ramsay remarked. “But this merely confirms what Ess Pu told me weeks ago. He said Macduff was constantly trying to get at the sphyghi. But he couldna and he canna and noo we must prepare for landing, Mr. French.”

  He hurried away, trailed by the acting first. The corridor lay empty and silent for a little while. Then an intercom high in the wall spoke.

  “General announcement,” it said. “Passengers and crew of the Sutter, your attention, please. Prepare for landing. Immediately afterwar
ds, passengers will assemble in the grand lounge for the Xerian customs search. The results of the ship’s pool will also be announced. Your attendance is compulsory. Thank you.”

  There was silence, a sound of heavy breathing and finally a new voice sounded. “That means you, Macduff,” it said grimly. “Ye ken? Aye, ye’d better.”

  Four minutes later, the Sutter landed on Xeria.

  Yanked protesting from his cabin, Macduff was dragged to the grand lounge, where everyone else had already assembled. A group of Xerian officials, repressing their joy with some difficulty, was also in evidence, making a rather perfunctory search of the passengers, while other Xerians went through the ship rapidly, testing for contraband.

  But it was obvious that the contraband that excited them was the sphyghi. A table had been set up in the middle of the big room and upon it, each plant in its own little earthenware pot, the sphyghi stood. Plump golden fruit dangled from the branches, the pink glow of ripeness flushing their downy surfaces. An odor of pure delight exhaled from the plants. Ess Pu stood guardian, occasionally exchanging words with a Xerian official, who had already affixed a medal4 on the Algolian’s carapace.

  “Outrageous!” Macduff cried, struggling. “I merely needed another few minutes’ work with a vitally important experiment I was—”

  “Close your blabber-mouth,” Captain Ramsay told him. “I shall take great pleasure in kicking you off the Sutter myself.”

  “Leaving me to the tender mercies of that lobster? He’ll kill me! I appeal to our common humanoid—”

  Captain Ramsay conferred briefly with the Xerian leader, who nodded.

  “Quite right, Captain,” he or it said pedantically. “Under our laws debtors work out their debts, mayhem is assessed by its results and the aggressor forced to pay full reparations. Homicide naturally always carries the death penalty. Why do you ask?”

  “That applies even to Ess Pu?” the Captain persisted.

  “Naturally,” the Xerian said.

  “Weel, then,” Ramsay said significantly to Macduff.