"They might mention your death."
"I know I'm going to die sometime. I'm ready. Death and taxes aren't both certain; the existence of one precludes the existence of the other-pro tem. As long as I just listen-as long as I don't try to conquer the world or build death rays--I'm O.K."
"It reminds me of the old story about the guy who took a short cut through a haunted forest on Hallowe'en," Cynthia said. "He was thinking that he'd always been on the level, and if devils could get him just because he was in the forest, there just wasn't any justice."
"And?"
"And then a voice behind him said, 'there isn't,'" Cynthia said pleasantly. "That's all."
"I run no risks," Fletcher declared.
"And I haven't believed a word you've been saying. But it's a new line, anyhow. Pay for the drinks and let's go somewhere and eat."
Fletcher reached for his wallet.
Quite safe. He hadn't copied any of the instructions or equations the Voice dictated to Korys. Somewhere, in the misty abyss of the future, the Voice lived in his unimaginable world, checking his temporal maps as men today check spatial charts. There were test-tube babies and a rather incredible university and a Polar Weather Station. And Daki had been rescued from the Inquisition, by means of something the Voice referred to casually as a yofleec. "Yofleec is ceelfoy spelled backwards," Fletcher reflected. "Animal, vegetable, or mineral? I don't care!"
His interest became purely impersonal; he had forced it into those channels. It was a tremendous relief to know that he wouldn't be tempted to steal from the future, as the unhappy Dr. Sawtelle had tried to do. There had been some hesitation about the hangover cure; it seemed harmless enough, but Fletcher wasn't sure about its possible toxic effects on a man of his era. It might eventually ossify him. He destroyed the recipe and refused to remember the ingredients.
Meanwhile, he followed the career of Korys with interest. These distorted glimpses into the future were fascinating. Remembering Cynthia's warning, he half expected the Voice to mention that a guy named Jerry Fletcher had been run down by a helicopter, but that never happened. The rules of inevitability didn't apply.
Why should they? He wasn't interfering. He wasn't sticking his neck out. He was following paths of cold logic; a spectator at a play was seldom shot by one of the actors.
John Wilkes Booth--
This wasn't a play. It was a movie. The actors were removed by temporal distances. Nevertheless he never interrupted the Voice now, and was careful to lift and replace the receiver very gently.
It went on for a month. Finally he learned that Korys was preparing to return to his original time-sector. The field work was almost completed. President Browning had been elected; the Dodgers had won the pennant; a lunar rocket base had been established. Fletcher wondered. 1960? 1970? Or later?
Cynthia steadily refused to visit his apartment and listen to the Voice. She contended that it was just a line. "It's better than etchings," she admitted, but it's a little too outré to be convincing." But Fletcher thought that Cynthia was less skeptical than she admitted.
He didn't care. The affair would end soon, anyhow. His work at the office had not suffered; there was a raise and a promotion in sight, and his hypochondria had lapsed into a passive state. Occasionally he suspected his feeling of well-being and ate vitamin pills as a preventive measure, but not often.
He hadn't even taken notes of the Voice's words. In a way, it was a taboo-the same principle as avoiding stepping on the cracks in the sidewalk, so it won't rain.
"He should be leaving tomorrow," Fletcher told Cynthia one night at dinner.
"Who?"
"Korys, of course."
"Good. Then you may stop talking about him. Unless you get a new bee in your bonnet. What do you expect next? A tame leprechaun?"
Fletcher grinned. "I can't afford it."
"They eat cream, don't they? I mean drink it."
"Mine won't. He'll drink rye and like it."
"I like this chicken cacciatore," Cynthia said, masticating. "If you promise to feed me this well all the time, I may reconsider my refusal to marry you."
It was the most hopeful sign she had shown so far. Fletcher became immersed in daydreams. Later, on a roof garden, they paused between dances to stand at the parapet and look out over the great, glittering city. The immensity of the night was made larger by the lights below.
"A rocket base on the Moon," Fletcher said softly.
Cool winds brushed his cheek. He put his arm about Cynthia and drew her close. He was very glad, suddenly, that he had not stepped on the cracks in the sidewalk. He had taken no chances. The future--the unknown--was dangerous, because it was the unknown.
And that peril could lie fearfully close. Here, now-two steps could carry him to the top of the parapet and over. Luckily men were conditioned against taking those two steps.
"It's cold," he said. "Let's go in, Cynthia. We don't want pneumonia-especially now."
• • • • •
The telephone rang. Fletcher had awakened with another headache this morning. Probably a hangover. He put down his cigarette in an ashtray and gently lifted the receiver. This might be the last call.
The Voice said, "All ready, Korys?"
Pause.
"Half an hour, then. But what caused the delay?"
Another, longer pause.
"Oh, really? I must make a note of that. But neuroses were common in that time. There was a touch of it in Embryo Korys, you know, but it was ironed out. Incidentally, his mother is on furlough. You'll be able to meet her in a few hours-But about this man. He knew who you were?"
Pause.
"I don't see how he could have known. Or located you. If he was as incoherent as all that, he shouldn't have been outside a sanatorium. What was his name?"
Pause.
"Fletcher. Gerald Fletcher? I'll check, but I'm sure there's no record. He's not one of ours. Too bad. Had he escaped from a sanatorium or ... Oh, I see. Well, he's in safe hands now, I suppose. Yes, a mental sanatorium they called it in those days, your research hasn't covered the medical field--such as it was! Curious that he should have known you. I can't understand--"
Pause.
"Called you by name? Not Korys? Really. How could he possibly have known? This is very interesting indeed. Just when did he first appear?"
Pause.
"Crowded--well, naturally. Riding a horse into the Waldorf-Astoria isn't done every day. But I told you there'd be no trouble; every paid off eccentric election bet in those days--Well, if he actually dragged you off the horse and called you by name--it's very curious. Obviously he was mad, but how he knew--No, it couldn't be ESP, could it? There's no actual evidence that the insane are more sensitive than--What did you find out about him?"
Pause.
"I see. Anxiety neurosis, of course, at the start. Something was bothering him--dread of the future, perhaps; that's common enough in such cases. The doctors said ... oh! Then he had escaped from a sanatorium. That sort of thing was interesting--probably started as nothing but hypochondria--built on some recurrent ailment, headaches or--Anyhow, it could increase over a long period into a genuine psychosis. How old a man was he?"
The humming void held only silence. And presently--
"Um-m-m. Typical, I'd say, at that age. Nothing we can do now, though--it's a pity. The man's hopelessly insane. It would be interesting to know what it was that set him off on the wrong track originally. I wonder what a man of that time and that type would worry about enough to drive him off balance? Such things start from a basis of hypochondria often enough, as you've described it, but why was he so sure he was going to become insane? Naturally, if you're convinced you're becoming psychotic and brood over it for years--well! Still, we can discuss the case in more detail personally. Half an hour, then?"
Pause.
"Fine. I'm glad you didn't felk the sorkins, boy!" The Voice laughed jovially. There was a click.
Fletcher watched his hand move forward a
nd drop the receiver into its black cradle.
He felt the walls close in.
The End
About the Author
Henry Kuttner (1915-1958) was an American author who was known for his literary prose and worked in close collaboration with his wife, C. L. Moore. Their work together spanned the 1940s and 1950s and most of the work was credited to pseudonyms, mainly Lewis Padgett and Lawrence O'Donnell. It has been stated that their collaboration was so intensive that, after a story was completed, it was often impossible for either Kuttner or Moore to recall who had written which portions. Among Kuttner's most popular work were the Gallegher stories, published under the Padgett name, about a man who invented hi-tech solutions to client problems (including an insufferably egomaniacal robot) when he was stinking drunk, only to be completely unable to remember exactly what he had built or why after sobering up.
In 2007, New Line Cinema released a feature film loosely based on the Lewis Padgett short story "Mimsy Were the Borogoves" under the title The Last Mimzy.
Catherine Lucille Moore (January 24, 1911 – April 4, 1987) was an American science fiction and fantasy writer, as C. L. Moore. She was one of the first women to write in the genre, and paved the way for many other female writers in speculative fiction. Moore met Henry Kuttner, also a science fiction writer, in 1936 when he wrote her a fan letter (mistakenly thinking that "C. L. Moore" was a man), and they married in 1940. Afterwards, almost all of their stories were written in collaboration under various pseudonyms, most commonly “Lewis Padgett”. (Another pseudonym, one Moore often employed for works that involved little or no collaboration, was "Lawrence O’Donnell". After Kuttner's death in 1958, Moore wrote almost no fiction and taught his writing course at the University of Southern California. She did write for a few television shows under her married name, but upon marrying Thomas Reggie (who was not a writer) in 1963, she ceased writing entirely. C. L. Moore died on April 4, 1987 at her home in Hollywood, California after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease. C.L. Moores pseudonyms included: Lawrence O'Donnell , C. H. Liddell , Lewis Padgett , Catherine L. Moore
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