THf MAGAZINE OF fontosv AND

40¢

CANTATA 140

a new short novel by

· ~1.11P K. DICK RO'IimT F. YOUNG ~ ROGER ZELAZNY Including Venture Science Fiction

Cantata 140 (short novel) PHILIP K. DICK 5 The Second Philadelphia Experiment ROBERT P. YOUNG 62 Balloon Astronomy "iEODORE L. THOMAS 66 The Scientist and the Monster GAHAN WILSON 67 The Happy Place TONI HELLER LAMB 68 Books AVRAM DAVIDSON 71 The End of the Wine (verse) C. S. LEWIS 74 The Salvation of Faust ROGER ZELAZNY 76 All-Hallows (verse) LEAH BODINE DRAKE 79 Science: Nothing Counts ISAAC ASIMOV 80 The Struldbrugg Reaction JOHN SUTHERLAND 91 The Girl With the 100 Proof Eyes RON WEBB 109 We Serve the Star of Freedom JANE BEAUCLERK 114 F&SF M.JWketplace 129 Cover by Ed Emsb (illustrating "Cantata140")

Joseph W. Ferman, PUBLISHER Avram Davidson, EXECUTIVE EDITOJt lsooc Asimov, SCIENCE EDITOR Edward L. Ferman, MANAGING EDITOR

Ted White, ASSISTANT EDITOR

The Maguine of FanttJSy and Science Fiction, Vol•me 21, No. 1, Whole No. 158, lwly 1964. P•blished monthly by Mercury Press, ]ru:., at 40¢ a copy. An11ual subscriplio,. $4.50; $5.00 i11 Canada and the Pat< America11 Union; $5.50 in all other countries. Publi­ cation office, 10 Ferry Street, Concord, N. H. Editorial a11d general mail should be sent to 347 BIJ.fl 53rd St., New York, N. Y. 10022. Sec011d CltJSs postage r,aid at C011cord, N. H. Printed ill U.S.A. C 1964 by Mercury Press, Inc. All rights, inc uding translations into other langUGges, resert~ed. Submissions must be accompanied by stamPed, self-addressed e~~velopes; lhe Publisher cus•me.r no re.rtJonsibiJily fGROFF CONKLIN " ... chilling and fascinating ... highly entertaining and delightful reading."-Hartford Courant "Surprising, provocative ... It is plotted not with contrivances, but mercilessly with things which can happen."-THEODORE STURGEON, National Review $4.95 A novel by EDGAR PANGBORN Three-time winner of the Hugo Award, "America's acknowl­ edged master of science fic­ tion" (Chicago Tribune) now tells the story of a civilization evolving in a huge spaceship lost between the stars. $3.50 Also by Robert A. Heinlein GLORY ROAD $3.95 PODKAYNE OF MARS $3.50 STARSHIP TROOPERS $3.95 STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND $4.95 AT All BOOKSTORES OR FROM G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 200 Madison Ave., N.Y. 10016 The Presidency of the United States Is unique not only in be­ ing the most important office in the world to be fiUed by election based on popular suffrage, but certainly this aspect of it is of the utmost importance. The late John F. Kennedy was the first presi­ dent not to be of the predominant, or Protestant, religion; and the almost complete absence of this issue during his tragically short time in office indicates that-in this particular aspect of it, at any rate-the maUer may never be an issue again. It is doubt­ ful, too, that the ancestral origin of a potential president would be considered of prime importance, even if he were not (as all presidents so far have been) of British descent ... provided that he were nevertheless of Western European extraction. Still, noth­ ing stands still. The Congress, at my last count, included five Ne­ groes, one Sikh, and one each of Chinese and Japanese descent. Suppose one of these, or one of their same ethnic groups, should -not now, but tomorrow or the day after-decide to run for the office of first magistrate of our republic? His origin might still be an issue-but it might not perhaps be the most important issue. Overpopulation might be one. Sexual morality might be another. This story by the author of the fascinating and HUGO-winning· novel, The Man In The High Castle, was wriUen before murder - laid its hand again on an American chief of state. t;ANTATA 140

by Philip K. Dick

CHAPTER ONE Rising from his desk, Lackmore walked to the counter and al­ THE YOUNG COUPLE, BLACK· though he did not like Cols­ haired, dark-skinned, probably there seemed to be more of them Mexican or Puerto Rican, stood every month, coming into his Oak­ nervously at Herb Lackmore's land branch office of the U.S. De­ counter and the boy, the husband, partment on Special Public Wel­ said in a low voice, "Sir, we want fare-he said in a pleasant tone to be put to sleep. We want to be­ of voice designed to reassure the come bibs." two of them, "Have you thought it 5 6 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION over carefully, folks? It's a big selves into. Because no doubt they step. You might be out for, say, a were living on a government mili­ few hundred years. Have you tary pension, and naturally if the shopped for any professional ad­ girl was pregnant the pension rice about this?" would automatically be with­ The boy, glancing at his wife, drawn. swallowed and murmured, "No, Plucking hesitantly at the sir. We just decided between us. sleeve of his wrinkled coat the Col Neither of us can get a job and boy said, "Sir, how do we find an we're about to be evicted from our abort-consultant?" dorm. We don't even own a wheel, The ignorance of the dark­ and what can you do without a skinned strata, despite the govern­ wheel? You can't go anywhere. ment's ceaseless educational cam­ You can't even look for work." He paigns. No wonder their women was not a bad-looking boy, Lack­ were often preg. "Look in the more noticed. Possibly eighteen, phone book," Lackmore said. "Un­ he still wore the coat and trousers der abortionists, therapeutic. which were army-separation issue. Then the subsection advisors. Got The girl had long hair; she was it?" quite small, with black, bright "Yes sir. Thank you." The boy eyes and a delicately-formed al­ nodded rapidly. most doll-like face. She never "Can you read?" ceased watching her husband. ''Yes. I stayed in school until I "I'm going to have a baby," the was thirteen." On the boy's face girl blurted. fierce pride showed; his black eyes "Aw, the heck with both of gleamed. you," Lackmore said in disgust, Lackmore returned to reading drawing his breath in sharply. his homeopape; he did not have "You both get right out of here." any more time to offer gratis. No Ducking their heads guiltily wonder they wanted to become the boy and his wife turned and bibs. Preserved, unchanged, in a started from Lackmore's office, government warehouse, year after back outside onto the busy down­ year, until-would the labor mar­ town early-morning Oakland, ket ever improve? Lackmore per­ California street. sonally doubted it, and he had "Go see an abort-consultant!" been around a long time; he was Lackmore called after them, his ninety-five years old, a jerry. In advice coming from him irritably. his time he had put to sleep thou­ He resented having to help them, sands of people, almost all of but obviously someone had to; look them, like this couple, young. And at the spot they had gotten them- -dark. CANTATA 140 7 The door of the office shut. The pic came to life, candidate :Bris­ young couple had gone again as kin smiled in miniature, as Pethel quietly as they had come. pressed the tab beneath it. The Sighing, Lackmore began to Negro's mustache-obscured lips read once more the pape's article moved and above his head a bal­ on the divorce trial of Lurton D. loon appeared, filled with the Sands, Jr., the most sensational words he was saying. event now taking place; as always My first task will be to find an he read every word of it avidly. equitable disposition of the tens of millions of sleeping This day began for Darius "And dump every last bib back Pethel with vidphone calls from on the labor market," Pethel mur­ irate customers wanting to know mured, releasing the word tab. "If why their Jiffi-scuttlers hadn't this guy gets in the nation's been fixed. Any time now, he told ruined." But it was inevitable. them soothingly, and hoped that Sooner or later there would be a Erickson was already at work in Negro president; after all, since the service department of Pethel the Event of 1993 there had been Jiffi.-scuttler Sales & Service. more Cols than Caucs. As soon as he was off the vid­ Gloomily, he turned to page phone Pethel searched among the two for the latest on the Lurton litter on his desk for the day's copy Sands scandal; maybe that would of U.S. Business Report; he of cheer him up, the political news course kept abreast of all the eco­ being so bad. The famous org­ nomic developments on the planet. trans surgeon had become involved This alone set him above his em­ in a sensational contested divorce ployees; this, his wealth, and his suit with his equally famous wife advanced age. Myra, the abort-consultant. All "What's it say?" his salesman sorts of juicy details were begin­ Stu Hadley asked, standing in the ning to filter out, charges on both office doorway, robant magnetic sides. Dr. Sands, according to the broom in hand, pausing in his ac­ homeopapes, had a mistress; that tivity. was why Myra had stomped out, Silently, Pethel read the major and rightly so. Not like the old headline. days, Pethel thought, recalling his EFFECTS ON THE NATION'S youth in the late decades of the BUSINESS twentieth century. Now it was COMMUNITY OF A NEGRO 2080 and J1Ublic-and private­ PRESIDENT morality had worsened. And there, in 3-D, animated, Why would Dr. Sands want a was a pic of James Briskin; the mistress anyhow, Pethel wondered, 8 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION when there's that Golden Door That's big business. Before him Moments of Bliss satellite passing was a pic of Thisbe; with cad­ overhead every day? They say mium-white hair and little high there're five thousand girls to conical breasts she was a superb choose from. sight, an asthetic as well as a sex­ He, himself, had never visited ual treat. The pic showed her Thisbe Olt's satellite; he did not serving male guests of her satellite approve of it, nor did very many a tequila sour-an added fillip be­ jerries-it was too radical a solu­ cause tequila, being derived from tion to the overpopulation prob­ the mescal plant, had long been lem, and seniors, by letter and illegal on Earth proper. telegram, had fought its passage in Pethel touched the word tab of Congress back in '72. But the bUI Thisbe's pic and at once Thisbe's had gone through anyhow . . . eyes sparkled, her head turned, probably, he reflected, because her stable, dense breasts vibrated most Congressmen had the idea of subtly, and in the balloon above taking a jet'ab up there them­ her head the proper words formed. selves. And no doubt regularly Embarrassing personal ur~ency, did, now. Mr. American businessman? "If we whites stick together-" Do as many doctors recom· Hadley began. mend: visit my Golden Doorl "Listen," Pethel said, "that time It was an ad, Pethel discovered. has passed. If Briskin can dispose Not an informative article. of the bibs, more power to him; "Excuse me." A customer had personally it keeps me awake at entered the store and Hadley night, thinking of all those peo­ moved in his direction. ple, most of them just kids, lying Oh lord, Darius Pethel thought in those gov warehouses year after as he recognized the customer. year. Look at the talent going to Don't we have his 'scuttler fixed waste. It's-bureaucratic! Only yet? He rose to his feet, knowing a swollen socialist government that he personally would be need­ would have dreamed up a solution ed to appease the man; this was like that." He eyed his salesman Dr. Lurton Sands, and due to his harshly. "If you hadn't gotten this recent domestic troubles he had job with me, even you might-" become, of late, demanding and Hadley interrupted quietly, hot-tempered. "But I'm white." "Yes, doctor," Pethel said, walk­ Reading on further Pethel SdW ing toward him. 'What can I do that Thisbe Olt's satellite had for you today?" As if he didn't grossed a billion U.S. dollars jn know. Trying to fight off Myra as 2079. Wow, he said to himself. well as keep his mistress, Cally CANTATA 140 9 Vale, Dr. Sands had enough prob­ me?" He reached into his disor­ lems; he really needed the use of ganized, lumpy coat-pouch. his Jiffi-scuttler. Unlike other "Danvillel" Heim's face con­ customers it was not going to be vulsed. "I thought you got rid of possible to put this man off. him; give me that." He grabbed the folded sheets and began going Plucking by reflex at his great over them. "Danville is a nut. handlebar mustache, presidential Look." He waved the first sheet in candidate Jim Briskin said tenta­ Jim Briskin's face. "According to tively, 'We're in a rut, Sal. I him you're going to ban traffic ought to fire you. You're trying to from the U.S. to Thisbe's satellite. make me out the epitome of the That's insane! If the Golden Door Cols and yet you know I've spent is closed the birth rate will jump twenty years playing up to the back up again where it was­ white power structure. Frankly I what then? How does Danville think we'd have better luck trying manage to counter that?" to get the white vote, not the dark. After a pause Briskin said, I'm used to them; I can appeal to "The Golden Door is immoral." them." Spluttering, Heim said, "Sure. "You're wrong," his campaign And animals should wear pants." manager Salisbury Heim said. 'There's just got to be a better "Your appeal-listen and under­ solution than that satellite." stand this, Jim-is to the dark kid Heim lapsed into silence as he and his wife scared to death their read further into the speech. "And only prospect is winding up bibs he has you advocate this outmod­ in some gov warehouse. 'Bottled in ed, thoroughly discredited planet­ bond,' as they say. In you these wetting technique of Bruno people see-" Mini." He tossed the papers into "But I feel guilty." Jim Briskin's lap. "So what do you "Why?" Sal Heim demanded. wind up with? You back a plane­ "Because I'm a fake. I can't tary colonization scheme tried close the Dept of SPW ware­ twenty years ago and abandoned; houses; you know that. You got me you advocate closing the Golden to promise, and ever since I've Door satellite-you'll be popular, been sweating my life away trying Jim, after tonight. But popular to conceive how it could be done. with whom, though? Just 'lnswer And there isn't any way." He ex­ me; who is this aimed at?" He amined his wristwatch; one quar­ waited. ter hour remained before he had There was silence. to give his speech. "Have you read "You know what I think?" the speech Phil Danville wrote for Heim said presently. "I think this 10 PANTASY AND SCIENCE PICTION is your elaborate way of giving up. "William Schwarz." Of saying to hell with the whole Heim nodded exaggeratedly. thing. It's how you shed responsi­ "Yes, you're right. Then after you bility; I saw you start to do the gas about Woodbine-and we same thing at the convention in show a few shots of you and him that crazy doomsday speech you standing together on various plan­ gave, that morbid curiosity that ets-then you make a joke about still has everyone baffied. But for­ Dr. Sands." tunately you'd already been nomi­ "No," Briskin said. nated. It was too late for the con­ "Why not? Is Sands a sacred vention to repudiate you." cow? You can't touch him?" Briskin said, "I expressed my Jim Briskin said slowly, pains­ real convictions in that speech." takingly, "Because Sands is a great "What, that civilization is now doctor and shouldn't be ridiculed doomed because of this overpopu­ in the media the way he is right lation biz? Some convictions for now. " the first Col President to have." "He saved your brother's life. Heim got to his feet and walked to By finding him a wet new spleen the window; he stood looking out just in the nick of time. Or he at downtown Philadelphia, at the saved your mother just when-" jet-copters landing, the runnels of · "Sands has preserved hundreds, auto-cars and ramps of fOtJtcrs thousands, of people. Including coming and going, into and out of plenty of Cols. Whether they were every high rise building in sight. able to pay or not." Briskin was "I once in a while think, ·• Heim silent a moment and then he add­ said in a low voice, "that you feel ed, "Also I met his wife Myra and it's doomed because it's nominated I didn't like her. Years ago I went a Negro and may elect him; it's a to her; I had mad~ a girl preg and way of putting yourself down." we wanted abort advice." "No," Briskin said, with calm; "Good!" Heim said violently. his long face remained unruffied. "We can use that. You made a girl "111 tell you what to say in your pregnant-that, when Nonovulid speech for tonight/' Heim said, his is free for the asking; that shows back to Briskin. "First, you once you're a provident type, Jim." He more describe your relationship tapped his forehead. "You think with Frank Woodbine, because ahead." people go for space explorers; "I now have five minutes," Bris­ Woodbine is a hero, much more so kin said woodenly. He gathered up than you or what's-his-name. You the pages of Phil Danville's speech know; the man you're running and returned them to his inside against. The S.R.C.D. incumbent." coat pouch; he still wore a fonnal CANTATA 140 11 dark suit even in hot weather. who takes the world's suffering on That, and a flaming red wig, had his own shoulders because he's been his trademark back in the made that way. He can't help it; days when he had telecast as a TV he has to suffer. You see?" newsclown. "Amateurs," Heim said, and "Give that speech," Heim said, groaned. "and you're politically dead. And The TV cameras stood inert, as if you're-" He broke off. The door the seconds passed, but they were to the room had opened and his ready to begin; the time for the wife Patricia stood there. speech lay just ahead as Jim Bris­ "Sorry to bother you," Pat said. kin sat at the small desk which he "But everyone out here can hear employed when addressing the you yelling." Heim caught a people. Before him, near at hand, glimpse, then, of the big outside rested Phil Danville's speech. He room full of teen-age Briskinettes, had still not made up his mind uniformed young volunteers who about Danville's speech and he sat had come from all over the coun­ meditating as the TV technicians try to help elect the Republican­ prepared for the recording. Liberal candidate. The speech would be beamed to "Sorry," Heim murmured. the Republican-Liberal Party's Pat entered the room and shut satellite relay station and from it the door after her. "I think Jim's telecast repeatedly until satura­ right, Sal." Small, gracefully-built tion point had been achieved. -she had once been a dancer­ States Rights Conservative Demo­ Pat lithely seated herself and lit a crat attempts to jam it would cigar. ''The more naive Jim ap­ probably fail, because of the enor­ pears the better." She blew gray mous signal-strength of the R-L smoke from between her lumi­ satellite. The message would get nous, pale lips. "He still has a lin­ through despite Tompkin's Act, gering reputation for being cyni­ which permitted jamming of po­ cal. Whereas he should be another litical material. And, simultane­ Wendell Wilkie." ously, Schwarz' speech would be 'Wilkie lost," Heim pointed jammed in return; it was sched­ out. uled for release at the same time. "And Jim may lose," Pat '§aid; Across from him sat Patricia she tossed her head, brushing back Heim, lost in a cloud of nervous her long hair from her eyes. "But introspection. And, in the control if he does he can run again and room, he caught a glimpse of Sal, win next time. The important busy with the TV engineers, mak­ thing is for him to appear sensi­ ing certain that the image record­ tive and innocent, a sweet person ed would be flattering. 12 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION And, off in a comer by himself, sick at Bruno Mini, but the fact sat Phil Danville. No one talked is, he was right." to Danville; the party bigwigs, In the control room Sal Heim passing in and out of the studio, stared at him in gross anguish. He astutely ignored his existence. had done it. Sanctioned Mini's A technician nodded to Jim. abandoned scheme of recasting Time to begin his speech. the ecology of another world. Mad­ "It's very popular these days," ness revisited. Jim Briskin said to the TV cam­ The camera clicked off. era, "to make fun of the old Turning his head, Jim Briskin dreams and schemes for planetary saw the expression on Sal Heim's colonization. How could people face. He had been cut off there in have been so nutty? Trying to live the control room; Sal had given in completely inhuman environ­ the order. ments . . . on worlds never de­ "You're not going to let me fin­ signed for Homo sapiens. And it's ish?" Jim said. amusing that they tried for dec­ Sal's voice, amplified, boomed, ades to altt!r these hostile environ­ "No, goddam it. No!" ments to meet human needs-and Standing up, Pat called back, naturally failed." He spoke slow­ "You have to. He's the candidate. ly, almost drawlingly; he took his If he wants to hang himself, let time. He had the attention of the him." nation and he meant to make Also on his feet, Danville said thorough use of it. "So now we're hoarsely, "If you cut him off again looking for a planet ready-made, I'll spill it publicly. I'll leak the another 'Venus,' or more accurate­ entire thing, how you're working ly what Venus specifically never him like a puppet!" He started at was. What we had hoped it would once toward the door of the studio; be: lush, moist and verdant and he was leaving. Evidently he productive, a Garden of Eden just meant what he had said. waiting for us to show up." Jim Briskin said, "You better Reflexively, Patricia Heim turn it back on, Sal. They're right; smoked her El Producto alta cigar. you have to let me talk." He did never takin~ her eyes from him. not feel angry, only impatient. "Well,'' Jim Briskin said, "we'll His desire was to continue, noth­ never find it. And if we do, it'll be ing -else. "Come on, Sal," he said too late. Too small, too late, too quietly. ''I'm waiting." far away. If we want another The party brass and Sal Heim, Venus, a planet we can colonize, in the control room, conferred. we'll lurue to manufacture it our­ "He'll give in," Pat said to Jim selves. We can laugh ourselves Briskin. "I know Sal." Her face CANTATA 140 13 was expressionless; she did not en­ "Jim, you just don't have political joy this but she intended to endure instinct." it. Shrugging, Jim Briskin said, "Right," Jim agreed, nodding. "Possibly you're right." He was in "But will you watch a playback that sort of mood, now; he felt of the speech, Jim?" She said. "For passive and depressed. In any case Sal's sake. Just to be sure you in­ the damage had been done; the tend what you say." speech was on tape and already "Sure," he said. He had meant being relayed to the R-L satellite. to anyhow. His review of it had been cursory Sal Heim's voice boomed from at best. the wall speaker, "Damn your "I heard what Dotty said," Sal black Col hide, Jim!" said. "That Mini character will be Grinning, Jim Briskin waited, showing up here now; we'll have seated at his desk, his arms folded. him to contend with, along with The red light of the centra all our other problems. Anyhow, camera clicked back on. how about a drink?" "Okay," Jim Briskin agreed. CHAPTER TWO "Wherever you say. Lead the way." "May I join you?" Patricia said, AFTER THE SPEECH JIM BRIS­ appearing beside her husband. kin's press secretary, Dorothy Gill, "Sure," Sal said. He put his arm collared him in the corridor. "Mr. around her and hugged her. "A Briskin, you asked me yesterday to good big tall one, full of curiously­ find out if Bruno Mini is still refreshing tiny little bubbles that alive. He is, after a fashion." Miss last all through the drink. Just Gill examined her notes. ''He's a what women like." buyer for a dried fruit company in As they stepped out onto the Sacramento, California, now. Evi­ sidewalk, Jim Briskin saw a picket dently Mini's entirely given up his -two of them, in fact-carrying planet-wetting career, but your signs. speech just now will probably KEEP THE bring him back to his old grazing WHITE HOUSE WHITE. ground." LET'S KEEP AMERICA CLEAN! "Possibly not," Briskin said. The two pickets, both young "Mini may not like the idea of a Caucs, stared at him and he and Col taking up his ideas and propa­ Sal and Patricia stared at them. gandizing them. Thanks, Doro­ No one spoke. Several homeopape thy." camera men snapped pies; their Coming up beside him Sal flashbulbs lit the static scene Heim shook his head and said, starkly for an instant and then Sal 14 FANTASY AND SCIENCE PICTION and Patricia, with Jim Briskin a percentage of the elec_torate sup­ following, started on. ~The two ported CLEAN's views? Certainly, pickets continued to pace back CLEAN did not hurt his feelings; and forth along their little routes. he could not be wounded: he had ''The bastards," Pat said as the experienced too much already in three of them seated themselves at his years as a newsclown. In my a booth in the cocktail lounge years, he thought to himself acid­ across the street from the TV ly, as an American Negro. studio. A small boy, white, appeared at Jim Briskin said, "It's their job. the booth with a pen and tablet of God evidently meant them to do paper. "Mr. Briskin, can I get your that." It did not particularly both­ autograph?" er him; in one form or another it Jim signed and the boy darted had been a part of his life as long off to join his parents at the door as he could remember. of the tavern. The coupJe, well­ "But Schwarz agreed to keep dressed, young and obviously up­ race and religion out of the elec­ per stratum, waved at him cheer­ tion," Pat said. ily. "We're with you!" the man "Bill Schwarz did," Jim Briskin cal1ed. said, ''but Verne Engel didn't. And "Thanks," Jim said, nodding to it's Engel who runs CLEAN, not them and trying-but not suc­ the S.R.C.D. Party." cessfully-to sound cheery in re­ "I know darn well the S.R.C.D. turn. pays money to keep CLEAN sol­ "You're in a mood," Pat com­ vent," Sal murmured. "Without mented. their support it'd fold in a dav." He nodded. Mutely. "I don't agree with you," Bris­ "Think of all those people with kin said. "I think there'IJ always lily-white skins," Sal said, "who're be a hate organization like going to vote for a Col. My, my. CLEAN and there'IJ always be It's encouraging. Proves not all of people to support it." After all, us Whites are bad down under­ CLEAN had a point; they did not neath." want to see a Negro President, and "Did I ever say you were?" Jim wasn't it their right to feel like asked. that? Some people did, some peo­ "No, but you really think that. ple didn't; that was perfectly nat­ You don't really trust any of us." ural. And, he thought, why should 'Where'd you drag that up we pretend that race is not the is­ from?" Jim demanded, angry now. sue? It is, really. I am a Negro. 'What're you going to do?" Sal Verne Engel is factually correct. said. "Slash me with your electro­ The real question was: how large graphic magnetic razor?" CANTATA 14() 15 Pat said sharply, "What are you knows what it is yet but she's doing, Sal? Why are you talking hinted-" to Jim like that?" She peered "I don't want to hear," Jim about nervously. "Suppose some· Briskin said. one overheard." ''You may be right," Pat said "I'm trying to jerk him out of thoughtfully. "The Sands divorce his depression," Sal said. "I don't is turning nasty; it might backfire like to see him give it to them. if you mentioned it, as Sal wants Those CLEAN pickets upset him you to. The mistress, Cally Vale, but he doesn't recognize it or feel has disappeared, possibly mur­ it consciously." He eyed Jim. "I've dered. Maybe you do have an in· heard you say it many times. 'I stinct, Jim. Maybe you don't need can't be hurt.' Hell, you sure can. us after all.'' You were hurt just now. You want "I need you," Jim said, ''but not everyone to love you, White and to embroil me in Dr. Sands' marl· Col both. I don't know how you tal problems.'' He sipped his drink. ever got into politics in the first place. You should have stayed a Rick Erickson, repairman for newsclown, delighting young and Pethel Jiffi-scuttler Sales & Serv· old. Especially the very young." ice, lit a cigarette, tipped his stool Jim said, "I want to help the back by pushing with his bony human race.'' knees against his work bench. Be­ "By changing the ecology of the fore him rested the master turret planets? Are you serious?" of a defective jiffi-scuttler. The "If I'm voted into office I ac­ one, in fact, which belonged to tually intend to appoint Bruno Dr. Lurton Sands. Mini, without even having met There had always been bugs in him, director of the space pro­ the 'scuttlers. The first one put in gram; I'm going to give him the use had broken down; years ago, chance they never let him have, that had been, but the 'scuttlers even when they-" remained basically the same now "If you get elected," Pat said, as then. "you can pardon Dr. Sands.'' Historically, the original defec­ "Pardon him?" He glanced at tive 'scuttler had belonged to an her, disconcerted. "He's not being employee of Terran Development tried; he's being divorced.'' named Henry Ellis. After the ''You haven't heard the rumes?'' fashion of humans Ellis had not Pat said. "His wife is going to dig reported the defect to his employ­ up something criminal he's done ers . . . or so Rick recalled. It so she can dispatch him and ob­ had been before his time but myth tain their total property. No one persisted, an incredible legend, 16 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION still current among 'scuttler re­ dwelling on a miniature planet in pairmen, that through the defect some other system entirely. He in his 'scuttler Ellis had-it was was wrong. According to the leg­ hard to believe-composed the end the tiny people were from Holy Bible. Earth's own past; the script, of The principle underlying the course, had been ancient Hebrew. operation of the 'scuttlers was a Whether this had really happened limited form of time travel. Along Rick did not pretend to know, but the tube of his 'scuttler-it was in any case for some breach of said-Ellis had found a weak company rules Ellis had been fired point, a shimmer, at which an­ by RD and had long since disap­ other continuum completely had peared. Perhaps he had emigrat­ been visible. He had stooped down ed; who knew? Who cared? TD's and witnessed a gathering of tiny job was to patch the thin spot in persons who yammered in speed­ the tube and see that the defect ed-up voices and scampered about did not reoccur in subsequent in their world just beyond the wall 'scuttlers. of the tube. All at once the intercom at the Who were these people? Ini­ end of Rick's workbench blared. tially, Ellis had not known, but "Hey Erickson." It was Pethel's even so he had engaged in com­ voice. "Dr. Sands is up here asking merce with them; he had accepted about his 'scuttler. When'll it be sheets-astonishingly thin and ready?" tiny-of questions, taken the With the handle of a screw­ questions to language-decoding driver Rick Erickson savagely equipment at TD, then, once the tapped the master turret of Dr. foreign script of the tiny people Sands' 'scuttler. I better go up­ had been translated, taking the stairs and talk to Sands, he re­ questions to one of the corpora­ flected. I mean, this is driving me tion's big computers to get them crazy. It can't malfunction the answered. Then back to the Lin­ way he claims. guistics Department and at last Two steps at a time, Rick Erick­ at the end of the day, back up the son ascended to the main floor. tube of the Jiffi-scuttler to hand to There, at the front door, a man the tiny people the answers-in was just leaving; it was Sands­ their own language-to their Erickson recognized him from the questions. homeopape pies. He hurried, Evidently, if you believed this, reached him outside on the side­ Ellis had been a charitable man. walk. However, Ellis had supposed "Listen, doc-how come you that this was a non-Terran race say your 'scuttler dumps you off in CANTATA 140 17 Portland, Oregon and places like ''Yes, that sums it up.'' His face that? It just can't; it isn't built twisted; he seemed amused. "Well, that way!" that's my luck. Everything has They stood facing each other. been running like this for me, Dr. Sands, well-dressed, lean and lately." slightly balding, with deeply "Maybe I could get TD to take tanned skin and a thin, tapered it back," Erickson said. "And swap nose, regarded him complexly, you another one for it." cautious about answering. He "No." Dr. Sands shook his head looked smart, very smart. vigorously. "I want that particular So this is the man they're all one.'' His tone had become firm; writing about, Erickson said to he meant what he said. himself. Carries himself better "Why?" Who would want to than the rest of us and has a suit keep an admitted lemon? It didn't made from Martian mole cricket make sense. In fact the entire bide. But-he felt irritation. Dr. business had a wrong ring to it, Sands in general had a helpless and Erickson's keen faculties de~ manner; good-looking, in his mid tected this-he had seen many, forties, he had an easy-going, be­ many customers in his time. wildered geniality about him, as if "Because it's mine," Sands said. unable to deal with or comprehend "I picked it out originally." He the forces which had overtaken started on, then, down the side­ him. Erickson could see that; Dr. walk. Sands had a crushed quality, still "Don't give me that," Erickson stunned. said, half to himself. And yet Sands remained a gen­ Pausing, Sands said, "What?" tleman. In a quiet, reasonable He moved a step back, his face tone be said, "But that's what it dark, now. The geniality bad d~ seems to do. I wish I could tell parted. you more but I'm not mechanical­ "Sorry. No offense.'' Erickson ly inclined." He smiled, a thor­ eyed Dr. Sands acutely. And did oughly disarming smile that made not like what he saw. Beneath the Erickson ashamed of his own doctor's suavity there lay a cold­ gruffness. ness, something fixed and hard. "Aw hell," Erickson said, back­ This was no ordinary person and tracking. "It's the fault of TO­ Erickson felt uneasy. they could have ironed the bugs Dr. Sands said in a crisp voice, out of the 'scuttlers years ago. Too "Get it fixed and soon." He turned bad you got a lemon." You look and strode on down the sidewalk, like a not too bad guy, he reflected. leaving Erickson standing there. "'A lemon.'" Dr. Sands echoed. Jeez, Erickson said to himself, 18 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION and whistled. My busted back. I ter-with its infinitude of Boors, wouldn't want to tangle with him, endless windows . . . and, past he thought as he walked into the that, monojets rising and descend­ store. ing from the ramps, along which Going downstairs a step at a the footers scurried in swarms so time, hands thrust deep in his dense as to seem self-destructive. pockets, he thought, Maybe I'll The largest city in the world, four­ stick it all back together and take fifths of which Jay subsurface; a trip through it. He was again what he saw was only a meager thinking of old Henry Ellis, the fraction, a trace of its visible pro­ first man to receive a defective jections. No one in his lifetime, 'scuttler; he was recalling that even a ferry, could view it all; the Ellis had not wanted to give up city was simply too extensive. his particular one, either. And for See? Erickson grumbled to good reason. himself. Your 'scuttler's working Back in the service department okay; this isn't Portland, Oregon basement once more, Rick seated -it's exactly what it's supposed to himself at the work bench, picked be. up Dr. Sands' 'scuttler-turret and Crouching down, Erickson ran began to reassemble it. Presently an expert hand over the surface of he had expertly restored it to its the tube. Seeking-what? He did­ place and had hooked it back into n't know. But something which the circuit. would justify the doctor's insist­ Now, he said to himself as he ance on retaining this particular switched on the power field. Let's 'scuttler. see where it gets us. He entered He took his time. He was not the big gleaming circular hoop in a hurry. And he intended to which was the entrance of the find what he was searching for. 'scuttler, found himself-as usual -within a gray, formless tube CHAPTER THREE which stretched in both direc­ tions. Framed in ·the opening be­ 'fHE PLANET-WETTING SPEECH hind him lay his work bench. And which Jim Briskin delivered that in front of him- night-taped earlier during the New York City. An unstable day and then beamed from the view of an industriously-active R.-L. satellite-was too painful street comer which bordered Dr. for Salisbury Heim to endure. Sands' office. And a wedge, be­ Therefore he took an hour off and yond it, of the vast building itself, sought relief as many men did: he the high rise skyscraper of plastic boarded a jet'ab and shortly was -rexeroid compounds from Jupi- on his way to the Golden Door CANTATA 140 19 Moments of Bliss satellite. Let tion day. Incredibly, they were Jim blab away about Bruno Mini's apathetic toward Jim. Perhaps crackpot engineering program, he they believed-and he had heard said to himself as he rested in the this said-that Jim had sold out rear seat of the rising 'ab, grateful to the White power structure. for .this interval of relaxation. Let That he was not authentically a him cut his own throat. But at leader of the Col people as such. least I don't have to be dragged And in a sense this was true. down to defeat along with him; Because Jim Briskin represent­ I'm tempted, sometime before elec­ ed Whites and Cols alike. tion day, to cut myself loose and "We're there, sir," the 'ab driver, go over to the S.R.C.D. party. a Col, informed him. The 'ab Beyond doubt, Bill Schwarz slowed, came to rest on the breast­ would take him on. By an intri­ shaped vehicle port of the satel­ cate route Heim had already lite, a dozen yards from the pink sounded the opposition out. nipple which served as a location­ Schwarz had, through this careful, signal device. "You're Jim Bris­ indirect linkage, expressed pleas­ kin's campaign manager?" the ure at the idea of Heim joining driver said, turning to face him. forces with him. However, Heim "Yeah, I recognize you. Listen, Mr. was not really ready to make his Heim; he's not a sell-out, is he? I move; he had not pursued the heard a lot of folk argue that, but topic further. he wouldn't do it; I know that." At least, not until today. This "Jim Briskin," Heim said as he new, painful bombshell. And at a dug for his wallet, "has sold out time when the party had troubles nobody. And never will. You can enough already. tell your buddies that because it's The fact of the matter was­ the truth." He paid his fare, feel­ and he knew this from the latest ing grumpy. Grumpy as hell. polls-that Jim Briskin was trail­ "But is it true that-" ing Schwarz. Despite the fact that "He's working with Whites, yes. he had all the Col vote, and that He's working with me and I'm included non-Negro dark races White. So what? Are the Whites such as the Puerto Ricans on the supposed to disappear when Bris­ East Coast and the Mexicans on kin is elected? Is that what you the West. It was not a shoo-in by want? Because if it is you're not any means. And why was Briskin going to get it." trailing? Because all the Whites "I see what you mean, I guess,'' would be going to the polls, the driver said, nodding slowly. whereas only about sixty percent "You infer he's for all the people; of the Cols would show up on elec- right? He's got the interest of the 20 FANTASY AND SCIENCB FICTION White minority at heart just like opinions on that topic had not he has the col Majority. He's going been made public; at least he had to protect even including you tried to keep them under wraps. Whites." "We know these things, Sal," "That's right," Salisbury Heini Thisbe said. "I think you'd better said, as he opened the 'ab door. go inside and talk with George "As you put it, 'even including you Walt about it; they're down on Whites.' " He stepped out on the level C, in their office. They have pavement. Yes, even us, he said to a few things to say to you, Sal. I himself. Because we merit it. know because they've been discuss­ "Hello there, Mr. Heim." A ing it." woman's melodious voice. Heim Annoyed, Sal said, "I didn't turned- come here-" But what was the "Thisbe,'' he said, pleased. use? If the owners of the Golden "How are you?" Door satellite wanted to see him it "I'm glad to see that you have­ was undoubtedly advisable for n't stayed below just because your him to come around. "Okay," he candidate disapproves of us," said, and followed Thisbe in the Thisbe Olt said. Archly, she raised direction of the elevator. her green-painted, shining eye­ It always distressed him-de­ brows. Her narrow, harlequin-like spite his efforts to the contrary­ face glinted with countless dots of to find himself engaged in con­ pure light embedded within her versation with George Walt. They skin; it gave her eerie, nimbus-like were a mutation of a special sort; countenance the appearance of he had never seen anything quite constantly-renewed beauty. And like them. Nonetheless, although she had renewed herself, over a handicapped, George Walt had number of decades. Willowy, al­ risen to great economic power in most frail, she fiddled with a tas­ this society. The Golden Door sel of stone-impregnated fabric Moments of Bliss satellite, it was draped about her bare arms; she rumored, was only one of their had put on gay clothes in order to holdings; they were spread ex­ come out and greet him, and he tensively over the financial map was gratified. He liked her very of the modern world. They were a much-had for some time, now. form of mutated twinning, joined Guardedly, Sal Heim said, at the base of the skull so that a "What makes you think Jim Bris­ single cephalic structure served kin has any bones to pick with the both separate bodies. Evidently Golden Door, Thisbe? Has he ever the personality George inhabited actually said anything to that ef­ one hemisphere of the brain, made fect?" As far as he knew, Jim's use of one eye: the right, as he re- CANTATA 140 21 called. And the personality Walt informal clothing, a cotton shirt existed on the other side, distinct, and slacks, with sandals on the with its own idiosyncrasies, views feet. The right hand body, how­ and drives-and its own eye from ever, was formally dressed in a which to view the outside uni­ single-breasted suit, tie and but­ verse. toned gray cape. And the hands A uniformed attendant, a sort of the right body were jammed of cop, stopped Sal, as the elevator deep into the trouser pockets, a doors opened on level C. stance which gave to it an aura of "Mr. George Walt wanted to see authority if not age; it seemed dis­ me," Sal said. "Or so Miss Olt tells tinctly older than its twin. me, at least." "This is George," the head said, "This way, Mr. Heim," the uni­ pleasantly. "How are you, Sal formed attendant said, touching Heim? Good to see you." The left his cap respectfully and leading body extended its hand. Sal Sal down the carpeted, silent hall. walked toward the two of them He was let into a large chamber an.d gingerly shook hands. The -and there, on a couch, sat right hand body, Walt, did not George Walt. Both bodies at once want to shake with him; its hands rose to their feet, supporting be­ remained in its pockets. tween them the common head. "This is Walt," the head said, The head, containing the unmin­ less pleasantly, then. "We wanted gled entities of the brothers, nod­ to discuss your candidate with ded in greeting and the mouth you, Heim. Sit down and have a smiled. One eye-the left-re­ drink. Here, what can we fix for garded him steadily, while the you?" Together, the two bodies other wandered vaguely off, as if managed to walk to the sideboard, preoccupied. where an elaborate bar could be The two necks joined the head seen. Walt's hands opened a bottle in such a way that the head and of Bourbon while George's expert­ face were tilted slightly back. ly fixed an Old Fashioned, mixed George Walt tended to look slight­ sugar and water and bitters to­ ly over whomever they were talk­ gether in the bottom of a glass. ing to, and this added to the Together, George Walt made the unique impression; it made them drink and carried it back to Sal. seem formidable, as if their atten­ "Thanks," Sal Heim said, ac­ tion could not really be engaged. cepting the drink. The head was normal size, how­ "This is Walt," the common ever, as were both bodies. The head said to him. "We know that body to the left-Sal did not re­ if Jim Briskin is elected he'll in­ call which of them it was-wore struct his Attorney General to find 22 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION ways to shut the satellite down. Sal shrugged. "I'm just protect­ Isn't that a fact?" The two eyes, ing the interests of my client; together now, fixed themselves on you've been making threats toward him in an intense, astute gaze. him. You started it, both of you." "I don't know where you heard "This is George," the head said that," Sal said, evasively. rapidly. "Here's what I think we 'This is Walt," the head said. ought to have. Listen to this, Walt. 'There's a leak in your organiza­ We want Jim Briskin to come up tion; that's where we heard it. You here to the Golden Door and be realize what this means. We'll photographed publically." It add­ have to throw our support behind ed, in applause for itself, "Good Schwarz. And you know how idea. Get it, Sal? Briskin arrives many transmissions we make to here, covered by all the media, and Earth in a single day." visits one of the girls; it'll be good Sal sighed. The Golden Door for his image because it'll show kept a perpetual stream of junk, he's a normal guy-and not some honky-tonk stag-type shows, pour­ creep. So you benefit from this. ing down over a variety of chan­ And, while he's here, Briskin com­ nels, available to and widely pliments us." It added, "A good watched by almost everyone in the final touch but optional. For in­ country. The shows, especiallv the stance he says the national inter­ climactic orgy in which Thisbe est has-" herself-with her famous display "He'll never do it," Sal said. of expanding and contracting "He'll lose the election first." muscles working in twenty direc­ The head said plaintively, tions simultaneously and in four "We'll give him any girl he wants; colors-so to speak appeared, were my lord, we have five thousand to a come-on for the activity of the choose from I" satellite. But it would be duck "No luck," Sal Heim said. soup to work in an anti-Briskin "Now, if you were to make that bias; the satellite's announcers offer to me I'd take you up on it were slick pros. in a second. But not Jim. He's­ Downing his drink he rose and old-fashioned." That was as good started toward the door. "Go ahead a way to put it as any. "He's a and sick your stag shows on Jim; Puritan. You can call him a rem­ we'll win the election anyhow and nant of the twentieth century, if then you can be sure he'll shut you want." you. In fact I personally guaran­ "Or nineteenth," the head said, tee it right now." venomously. The head looked uneasy. "Dirty "Say anything you want," Sal p-pool," it stammered. said, nodding. "Jim won't care. He eANTATA 140 23 knows what he believes in; he where the girls • • • well, you thinks the satellite is-undigni­ know. Yes, I mean that part. And fied. The way it's all handled up we're going to make a campaign here, boom, boom, boom-me­ out of this, really put it over. chanically, with no personal We're going to insure Bill touch, no meeting of humans on a Schwarz' reelection." It added, human basis. You run an autofac; "And insure that Col frink's thor· I don't object and most people ough, total defeat." don't object, because it saves time. Sal said nothing. The great car­ But Jim does because he's senti­ peted office was silent. mental." "No response from you, Sal? Two right arms gestured at Sal You're going to sit idly by?'' menacingly as the head said loud­ "I came up here to visit a girl I ly, "The hell with that! We're as like," Sal said. "Sparky Rivers, her sentimental up here as you can name is. I'd like to see her now." get! We play background music He felt weary. "She's different in every room-the girls always from all the others . . . at least learn the customer's first name and all I've .tried." Rubbing his fore­ they're required to call him by that head he murmured, "No, I'm too and nothing else! How sentimen­ tired, now. I've changed my mind. tal can you get, for chrissakes? I'll just leave." What do you want?" In a higher­ "If she's as good as you say," the pitched voice it roared on, "A head said, "it won't require any marriage ceremony before and energy from you." It laughed in then a divorce procedure after­ appreciation of its wit. "Send a ward, so it constitutes a legal mar­ fray named Sparky Rivers down riage, is that it? Or do you want us here," it instructed, pressing a but­ to teach the girls to sew and wear ton on its desk. mother hubbards and bloomers, Sal Heim nodded dully. There and you pay to see their ankles was something to that. And after and that's it? Listen, Sal." Its all, this was what he had come voice dropped a tone, became here for, this ancient, appreciated ominous and deadly. "Listen, Sal remedy. Heim," it repeated. "We know our "You're working too hard," the business; don't tell us our business head said acutely. "What's the and we won't tell you yours. Start­ matter, Sal? Are you losing? Ob­ ing tonight our TV announcers viously you need our help. Very are going to insert a plug for badly, in fact." Schwarz in every telecast to Earth, "Help, schmelp," Sal said. right in the middle of the glori­ "What I need is a six week rest, ous chef-d'oeuvre you-know-what and not up here. I ought to take 24 PANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION an 'ab to Africa and hunt spiders Mrs. Myra Sands smoothed her or whatever the craze is right skirt thoughtfully, then lit a ciga­ now." With all his problems he rette. "We'll select at random had lost touch. from among the forty; I want you ''Those big trench-digging spi­ to follow at least five or six up. ders are out, now," the head in­ How long will it take for you to do formed him. "Now it's nocturnal that?" moths, again." Walt's right arm Tito calculated silently. "Say pointed at the wall and Sal saw, two days. If I have to go there and behind glass, three enormous iri­ see people. Of course if I can do descent cadavers, displayed under some of it on the phone-" He an ultraviolet lamp which brought liked to work through the Vid­ out all their many colors. "Caught phone Corporation of America's them myself," the head said, and product; it meant he could stick then chided itself, "No you did­ near the Altac 3-60. And, when n't; I did. You saw them but I anything came up, he could feed popped them into the killing jar." the data on the spot, get an opin­ Sal Heim sat silently waiting ion without delay. He respected for Sparky Rivers, as the two in­ the 3-60; it had set him back a habitants of the head argued with great deal, a year ago when he had each other as to which of them purchased it. And he did not in­ had brought back the African tend to permit it to lie idle, not if moths. he could help it. But sometimes- This was a difficult situation. The top-notch and expensive­ Myra Sands was not the sort who and dark-skinned-private inves­ could endure uncertainty; for her tigator, Tito Cravelli, operating things had to be either this or that, out of N'York, handed the woman either A or not-A-Myra made seated across from him the find­ use of Aristotle's Law of the Ex­ ings which his Altac 3-60 com­ cluded Middle, like no one else he puter had derived from the data knew. He admired her. Myra was provided it. It was a good ma­ a handsome, extremely well-edu­ chine. cated woman, light-haired, in her "Forty hospitals," Tito said. middle forties; across from him "Forty transplant operations with­ she sat erect and trim in her yel­ in the last year. Statistically, it's low Lunar squeak-frog suit, her unlikely that the UN Vital Organ legs long and without defect. Her Fund Reserve would have had that sharp chin alone let on-to Tito many organs available in so lim­ at least-the grimness, the no­ ited a time, but it is possible. In nonsense aspect, of her personal­ other words, we've got nothing." ity. Myra was a businesswoman CANTATA 140 25 first, before anything else; as one that. I recall, at the time of the nation's foremost authori­ Lurton had had, what shall I say? ties in the field of therapeutic A little too much to drink. It was abortions she was highly paid and evening and we were having din­ highly honored . . . and she was ner. Lurton blurted out some dam well aware of this. After all, she thing or other. About 'paying heav­ had been at it for years. And Tito ily' for the spleen. You know, Tito, respected anyone who lived as an that VOFR prices are rigidly set independent business person; af­ by the UN and they're not high; ter all, he, too, was his own boss, in fact they're too low . . . that's beholden to no one, to no subsi­ the cardinal reason the fund runs dizing organization or economic out of certain vital organs so of­ entity. He and Myra had some­ ten. Not from a lack of supply so thing in common. Although of much as the existence of too dam course Myra would have denied it. many takers." Myra Sands was a terrible goddam "Hmm," Tito said, jotting notes. snob; to her, Tito Cravelli was an "Lurton always said that if the employee whom she had hired to VOFR only were to raise its rates find out-or rather to establish as " fact-certain information about ''You're positive it was a her husband. spleen?" Tito broke in. He could not imagine why ''Yes," Myra nodded curtly, ex­ Lurton Sands had married her. haling streamers of gray smoke Surely it had been conflict-psy­ that swirled toward the lamp be­ chological, social, sexual, profes­ hind her, a cloud that drifted in sional-from the start. the artificial light of the office. It However, there was no explain­ was dark outside, now; the time ing the chemistry which joined was seven-thirty. men and women, locked them in "A spleen," Tito recapitulated. embraces of hate and mutual suf­ "In August of this year. At Latti­ fering sometimes for ninety years more General Hospital in San on end. In his line, Tito had seen Francisco. An army major named plenty of it, enough to last him " ' even a jerry lifetime. "Now I'm beginning to think it "Call Lattimore Hospital in was.- Wozzeck," Myra put in. "Or San Francisco," Myra instructed is that an opera composer?" in her crisp, vigilantly-authorita­ "It's an opera," Tito said. "By tive voice. "In August, Lurton Berg. Seldom performed, now." transplanted a spleen for an army He lifted the receiver of the vid­ major, there; I think his name was phone. "I'll get hold of the busi­ Walleck or some such quiddity as ness office at Lattimore; it's only 26 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION four-thirty, out there on the gerhans; you know, that part of Coast." the pancreas which controls sugar Myra rose to her feet and production in the body. I remem­ roamed restlessly about the office, ber because Lorton got to talking rubbing her gloved hands together about it because he saw me put­ in a motion that irritated Tito and ting two teaspoonsful of sugar in made it difficult for him to con­ my coffee." centrate on his call. "I'll look that up," the girl at "Have you had dinner?" he Lattimore said, overhearing Myra. asked her, as he waited on the line. She turned to her files. "No. But I never eat until eight­ "What I want to find out," Tito thirty or nine; it's barbaric to eat sail to her, "is the exact date at any earlier." which the organ was obtained Tito said, "Can I take you to from the UN's VOFR. If you can dinner, Mrs. Sands? I know an give me that datum, please." He awfully good little Armenian waited, accustomed to having to place in the Village. The food's be patient. His line of work abso­ actually prepared by humans." lutely required that virtue, above "Humans? As compared to all others, including intelligence. what?" The girl presently said, "A "Autonomic food-processing Colonel Weiswasser received an systems," Tito murmured. "Or organ transplant on August twelve don't you ever eat in autoprep of this year. Islands of Langer­ restaurants?" After all, the Sands hans, obtained from the VOFR were wealthy; possibly they nor­ the day before, August eleven. Dr. mally enjoyed human-prepared Lorton Sands performed the oper­ food. "Personally, I can't stand ation and of course certified the or­ autopreps. !he food's always so gan." predictable. Never burned, never "Thanks, miss," Tito said, and -"He broke off; on the vidscreen broke the connection. the miniature features of an em­ "The VOFR office is closed," ployee at Lattimore had formed. Myra said, as he began once more "Miss, this is Life-factors Re­ to dial. ''You'll have to wait until search Consultants of N'Y ork call­ tomorrow." ing. I'd like to inquire about an "I know somebody there," Tito operation performed on a Major said, and continued dialing. Wozzeck or Walleck last August, At last he had Gus Anderton, a spleen transplant." his contact at the UN's vital organ "Wait," Myra said suddenly. bank. "Gus, this is Tito. Check "Now I remember; it wasn't a August eleven this year for me. Is­ spleen-it was an islands of Lan- lands of Langerhans; okay? See if CANTATA HO tl the org-trans surgeon we previous­ "I know you are. Even if it's ly had reference to picked up one true that Lurton Sands-" there on that date." "Don't say 'even if.' He's a fa­ His contact was back almost at natic and you know it; he identi­ once with the information. "Cor­ fies so fully with his public image rect, Tito; it all checks out. Aug as a savior of lives that he's simply eleven, islands of Langerhans. had to make a psychological break Transferred by jet-hopper to Latti­ with reality. Probably he started more in San Francisco. Routine in a smali way, with what he told in every way." himself was a unique situation, an Tito Cravelli cut the circuit, exception; he had to have a par­ exasperated. ticular organ and he took it. And After a pause Myra Sands, still the next time-" She shrugged. pacing restlessly about his office, "It was easier. And so on.'' exclaimed, "But I know he's been "I see," Tito said. obtaining organs illegally. He "I think I see what we're going never turned anybody down, and to have to do," Myra said. "What you know there never have been you're going to have to do. Get that many organs in the bank-re­ started on this : find out from your serve-he had to get them some­ contact at the UN exactly what where else. He still is; I know it." organ the bank lacks at this time. "Knowing this and proving this Then deliberately set up another are two-" emergency situation; have some­ Turning to him, Myra snapped, one in a hospital somewhere apply "And outside of the UN bank to Lurton for that particular trans­ there's only one other place he plant. I realize that it'll cost one would or could go." hell of a lot of money but I'm will­ "Agreed," Tito said, nodding. ing to underwrite the expense. Do "But as your attorney said, you you see?" better have proof before you make "I see," Tito said. In other the charge; otherwise he'll sue you words, trap Lurton Sands. Play on for slander, libel, defamation of the man's determination to save character, the entire biz. He'd the life of a dying person . . . have to. You'd give him no make his humanitarianism the in­ choice." strument of his destruction. What "You don't like this," Myra a way to earn a living, Tito said. thought to himself. Another day, Tito shrugged. "I don't have to another dollar . . • it's hardly like it. That doesn't matter." that. Not when you get involved "But you think I'm treading on in something like this. dangerous ground." . "I know you can arrange it," J8 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Myra said to him fervently. "No luck," Tito said, and felt "You're good; you're experienced. uncomfortable. Aren't you?" Staring at him, Myra said, "But "Yes, Mrs. Sands," Tito said. why can't you locate her? She "I'm experienced. Yes, possibly I must be .somewherel" She looked can trap the guy. Lead him by the as if she could not believe her ears. nose. It shouldn't be too hard." ''The court process servers can't "Make sure your 'patient' offers find her either," Tito pointed out. him plenty," Myra said in a bit­ "But I'm sure she'll tum up by ter, taut voice. "Lurton will bite if trial time." He, too, had been won­ he senses a good financial return; dering why his staff had been un­ that's what interests him-in spite able to locate Lurton Sands' mis­ of what you and the darn public tress; after all, there were only a may or may not imagine. I ought limited number of places a person to know; I've lived with him a could hide, and detection and good many years, shared his most tracing devices, especially during intimate thoughts." She smiled, the last two decades, had im­ brieffiy. "It seems a shame I have proved to an almost supernatural to tell you how to go about your accuracy. business, but obviously I have to." Myra said, "I'm beginning to Her smile returned, cold and ex­ think you're just not any good. I ceedingly hard. wonder if I shouldn't put my busi­ "I appreciate your assistance," ness in somebody else's hands." Tito said woodenly. "That's your privilege," Tito "No you don't. You think I'm said. His stomach ached, a series trying to do something wicked. of spasms of his pyloric valve. He Something out of mere spite." wondered if he was ever going to Tito said, "I don't think any­ get an opportunity to eat, tonight. thing; I'm just hungry. Maybe you "You must find Miss Vale," don't eat until eight-thirty or nine Myra said. "She knows all the de­ but I have pyloric spasms and I tails of his activity; that's why have to eat by seven. Will you ex­ he's got her hidden-in fact she's cuse me?" He rose to his feet, pumping blood with a heart he pushing his desk chair back. "I procured for her." want to close up shop." He did "Okay, Mrs. Sands," Tito not renew his offer to take her out agreed, and inwardly winced at to dinner. the growing pain ..• Gathering up her coat and purse, Myra Sands said, "Have CHAPTER FOUR you located Cally Vale and if so where?" THE BLACK-HAIRED, BXTRBM:&- CANTATA 140 29 Iy dark youth said shyly, 'We "About a month and a half," came to you, Mrs. Sands, because Rachael Chaffy said, lifting her we read about you in the homeo­ head a trifle. She managed to pape. It said you were very good meet Myra's gaze; for a moment, and also you take people without at least. too much money." He added, "We ''Then abort-processing presents don't have any money at all right no difficulty," Myra said. "It's now, but maybe we can pay you routine. We can arrange for it by later." noon today and have it done by Brusquely, Myra Sands said, six tonight. At any one of several "Don't worry about that now." She free government abort clinics here surveyed the boy and girl. "Let's in the area. Just a moment." Her see. Your names are Art and secretary had opened the door to Rachael Chaffy. Sit down, both of the office and was trying to catch you, and let's talk, all right?" She her attention. "What is it, Tina?" smiled at them, her professional "An urgent phone call for you, smile of greeting and warmth; it Mrs. Sands." was reserved for her clients, given Myra clicked on her desk rid­ to no one else, not even to her hus­ phone. On the screen Tito Cra­ band-or, as she thought of Lur­ velli's features formed in replica, ton now, her former husband. puffy with agitation. In a soft voice the girl, Rachael, "Mrs. Sands," Tito said, "sorry said "We tried to get them to let to bother you at your office so early us become bibs but they said we this morning. But a number of should consult an advisor first." tracking devices we've been em­ She explained, 'Tm-well, you ploying here have wound up their see, somehow I got to be a preg. term of service and have come I'ni sorry." She ducked her head home. I thought you'd want to fearfully, with shame, her cheeks know. Cally Vale is nowhere on flushing deep scarlet. "It's too bad Earth. That's absolutely been de­ they don't just let you kill your­ termined; that's definite." He was self, like they did a few years ago," silent, then, waiting for her to say she murmured. "Because that something. would solve it." "Then she emigrated," Myra ''That law," Myra said firmly, said, trying to picture the dainty "was a bad idea. However imper­ and rather nauseatingly fragile fect deep-sleep is, it's certainly Miss Vale in the rugged environ­ preferable to the old form of self­ ment of Mars or Ganymede. destruction undertaken on an in­ "No," Tito Cravelli said em­ dividual basis. How far advanced phatically, shaking his head. is your pregnancy, dear?" "We've checked on that, of course. 30 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Cally Vale did not emigrate. It She ignored the young couple doesn't make sense but there it is. seated opposite her; they did not No wonder we're making no head­ at the moment matter: this was far way; we're faced with an impossi­ too important. ble situation." He did not appear "I'm in no position-" Tito be­ very happy about it. His features gan. Myra cut him off; she broke sagged glumly. the connection and the screen Myra said, "She's not on Earth faded. I'm in no position to say, and she didn't emigrate. Then she she finished for him. But who is? must-" It was obvious to her; Lurton? Maybe even he doesn't why hadn't they thought of it right know where Cally is. She might away, when Cally originally van­ have run out on him. Gone to the ished from sight? "She's entered a Golden Door Moments of Bliss government warehouse. Cally's a satellite and joined the army of bib." It was the only possibility girls there, under an assumed left. name. With relish, Myra pon­ 'We're looking into that," Tito dered that, picturing her former said, but without enthusiasm. "I husband's mistress as one of This­ admit it's possible but frankly I be's creatures, sexless and mechan­ just don't buy it. Personally, I ical and automatic. Whch will it think they've thought up some­ be, Cally? One, two, three or four? thing new, something original; Only, the choice isn't yours. It's I'd stake my job on it, everything theirs. Every time. Myra laughed. I have." Tito's tone was insistent, It's where you ought to be, Cally, now. No longer hesitant. "But she thought. For the rest of your we'll check all the Dept of SPW life, for the next two hundred warehouses, all ninety-four of years. them. That'll take a couple of days "Please forgive the interrup­ at least. Meanwhile-" He caught tion," Myra said to the young cou­ sight of the young couple, the ple seated opposite her. "And do Chaffys, waiting silently. "Per­ go on." haps I'd better discuss it with you "Well," the girl Rachael said later; there's no urgency." awkwardly, "Art and I felt that­ Maybe what the homeopapes we thought over the abortion and are hinting at actually did take we just don't want to do it. I don't place, Myra thought to herself. know why, Mrs. Sands. I know Perhaps Lurton has actually killed we should. But we can't." her. So she can't be subpoenaed by There was silence, then. Frank Fenner at the trial. "I don't see what you came to "Do you believe Cally Vale is me for," Myra said. "If you've dead?" Myra said to Tito bluntly. made up your minds against it a1- CANTATA 140 31 ready. Obviously, from a practical "Listen," Erickson said. "This is standpoint you should go through Dr. Sands' 'scuttler. You can with it; you're probably frightened laugh, but I think he's got his mis­ . . . after all, you are very young. tress in here, somewhere." But I'm not trying to talk you into "What?" Pethel laughed. it. A decision of this sort has to be "I mean it. I don't think she's your own." dead, even though I talked to In a low voice Art said, "We're Sands long enough to know he not scared, Mrs. Sands. That's not could do it if he felt it was neces­ it. We-well, we'd like to have sary-he's that kind of guy. Any­ the baby. That's all." how nobody's found her, even Myra Sands did not know what Mrs. Sands. Naturally they can't to say. She had never, in her prac­ find her, because Lorton's got his tice, run into anything quite like 'scuttler in here with us, out of this; it baffied her. sight. He knows it's here but they She could see already that this don't. And he doesn't want it was going to be a bad day. Be­ back, no matter what he says; he tween this and Tito's phonecall­ wants it stuck down here, right in it was too much. And so early. It this basement." was not yet even nine a.m. Staring at him Pethel said, "Great fud. Is this what you've In the basement of Pethel Jiffi.­ been doing on my time? Working scuttler Sales & Service the repair­ our detective theories?" man Rick Erickson prepared, for Erickson said, "This is impor­ the second day in a row, to enter tant! Even if it doesn't mean any the defective 'scuttler of Dr. Lur­ money for you. Hell, maybe it ton Sands, Jr. He still had not does; if I'm lucky and find her found what he was searching for. mavbe vou can sell her back to However, he did not intend to Mrs. Sands." give up. He felt, on an intuitive After a pause Daiius Pethel level, that he was very close. It shrugged in a philosophical way. would not be long now. "Okay. So look. If you do find From behind him a voice said, her-" "What are you doing, Rick?" Besides Pethel the salesman of Startled, Erickson jumped, the firm, Stuart Hadley, appeared. glanced around. At the door of the He said breezily, "What's up, repair department stood his em­ Dar?" As always cheerful and in­ ployer, Darius Pethel, heavy-set terested. in his wrinkled dark-brown old­ "Rick's searching for Dr. Sands' fashioned ferry-type wool suit mistress," Pethel said. He jerked which he customarily wore. his thumb at the 'scuttler. 32 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION "Is she pretty?" Hadley asked. That rupture in the tube-wall that 'Well starfed?" He looked hungry. led to ancient Israel?" .. you've seen her pies in the "Israel is right," Rick said brief­ homeopapes," Pethel said. "She's ly, as he scraped. His keen, thor­ cute. Otherwise why do you sup­ oughly-trained eye saw all at once pose the doctor risked his mar­ in the surface near at hand a slight riage, if she wasn't something ex­ irregularity, a distortion. Lean­ ceptional? Come on, Hadley; I ing forward, he reached out his need you upstairs on the floor. We hand- can't all three be down here­ His groping fingers passed someone'll walk away with the through the wall of the tube and register." He started up the stairs. disappeared. "And she's in there?" Hadley "Jesus," Rick said. He raised his said, looking puzzled as he bent to invisible fingers, felt nothing at peer into the 'scuttler. "I don't see first, and then touched the upper her, Dar." edge of the rent. "I found it," he Darius Pethel gaffawed. "Nei­ said. He looked around, but Pethel ther do I. Neither does Rick, but had gone. "Darius!" he yelled, but he's still searching-and on my there was no answer. "Damn him!" time, goddam it! Listen, Rick; if he said in fury to Hadley. you find her she's my mistress, be­ ''You found what?" Hadley cause you're on my time, working asked, starting cautiously into the for me." tube. "You mean you found the All three of them laughed at Vale woman? Cally Vale?" that. Headfirst, Rick Erickson crept "Okay," Rick agreed, on his into the rent. hands and knees, scraping the sur­ He sprawled, snatching for sup­ face of the 'scuttler tube with the port; falling, he struck hard blade of a screwdriver. ''You can ground and cursed. Opening his laugh and I admit it's funny. But eyes he saw, above, a pale blue sky I'm not stopping. Obviously, the with a few meager clouds. And, rent isn't visible; if it was, Doc around him, a meadow. Bees, or Sands wouldn't have dared leave what looked something more or it here. He may think I'm dumb, less like bees, buzzed in tall­ but not that dumb-he's got it stemmed white flowers as large as concealed and real well." saucers. The air smelled of sweet­ "'Rent,'" Pethel echoed. He ness, as if the flowers had impreg­ frowned, starting back a few steps nated the atmosphere itself. down the stairs and into the base­ I'm there, he said to himself. ment once more. ''You mean like I got through; this is where Doc Henry Ellis found, years ago? Sands hid his mistress to keep her CANTATA 140 33 from testifying for Mrs. Sands at some such thing? Big-domed in­ the trial or hearing or whatever it's habitant of the future, perhaps? called. He stood up, cautiously. He squinted-it was a woman; he Behind him he made out a hazy could tell by her hair. She wore shimmer: the nexus with the tube slacks and she was running to­ of the Jiffi-scuttler back in the ward him. Cally, he thought. Doc store's basement in Kansas City. I Sands' mistress, hurrying toward want to keep my bearings, he said me. Must think I'm Sands. In to himself warily. If I get lost I panic, he halted; what'll I do? he may not be able to get back again wondered. Maybe I better go back, and that might be bad. think this out. He started to turn Where is this? he asked him­ in the direction he had come. self. Must work that out-now. Out of the corner of his eye he Gravity like Earth's. Must be saw the girl's arm come up swiftly. Earth, then, he decided. Long No, he thought. Don't. time ago? Long time in the fu­ He stumbled as he snatched at ture? Think what this is worth; the hazy, small loop which con­ the hell with the man's mistress, nected the two environments, en­ the hell with him and his personal trance to the 'scuttler tube. problems-that's nothing. He The red glow of an aimed laser­ looked wildly around for some beam passed over his head. sign of habitation, for something You missed me, he thought in animal-like, or human; something terror. But-he clawed for the en­ to tell him what epoch this was, trance, found it, began to struggle past or future. Saber-tooth tiger, back through. But next time. Next maybe. Or trilobite. No, too late timet for the trilobite already; look at "Stop," he shouted at her with­ those bees. This is the break Ter­ out looking at her. His voice ran Development has been trying echoed in the bee-zooming plain to uncover for thirty years, now, of flowers. he said to himself. And the rat The second laser-beam caught that found it used it for his own him in the back. sneaky goings-on, as a place mere­ He put his hand out, saw it pass ly to hide his doxie. What a through the haze and disappear world! Erickson began slowly to beyond. It was safe but he was not. walk, step by step . . • She had killed him; it was too late, Far off, a figure moved. now, too late to get away from her. Shading his eyes against the Why didn't she wait? he asked glare of the sky, Rick Erickson himself. Find out who I was? Must tried to make out what it was. have been afraid. Primitive man? Cro-Magnon or Again the laser-beam flicked. It 34 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION touched the back of his head and ing the body of the repairman. that was that. There was no re­ "He must have found it,'' Pethel turning for him, no reentry into muttered, ashen-faced and trem· the safety of the tube. bling. 'Well, he got paid for his Rick Erickson was dead. nosiness; he sure got paid." 'We better get the police," Had­ Standing on the far side, in the ley said. tube of Dr. Sands' Jiffi-scuttler, ''Yes." Pethel nodded vacantly. Stuart Hadley waited nervously, "Of course. I see you turned it off. then saw Rick Erickson's fingers Good thing. We better leave it jerk through the wall near the strictly alone. The poor guy, the floor; the fingers writhed and Had­ poor goddam guy; look at what he ley stooped down and grabbed got for being smart enough to fig· Erickson by the wrist. Trying to ure it all 6Ut. Look, he's got some­ get back, he realized, and pulled thing in his hand." He bent down, Erickson by the arm with all his opening Erickson's fingers. strength. The dead hand held a wad of It was a corpse that he drew grass. into the tube beside him. "No org-trans operation can Horrified, Hadley rose unstead· help him, either," Pethel said. ily to his feet; he saw the two "Because the beam caught him in clean holes and knew that Erick· the head. Got his brain. Too bad." son had been killed with a laser He glanced at Stuart Hadley. rifle, probably from a distance. "Anyhow. the best org-trans sur­ Stumbling down the tube, Hadley geon is Sands and he isn't going reached the controls of the 'scut· to do anything to help Erickson. tier and cut the power off; the You can make book on that." shimmer of the entrance hoop at "A place where there's grass," once vanished and he knew-or Hadley murmured, touching the hoped-that now they, whoever contents of the dead man's hand. they were who had murdered Rick ''Where can it be? Not on Earth. Erickson, could not follow him Not now, anyway." through. "Must be the past," Pethel said. "Pethell" he shouted. "Come "So we've got time-travel. Isn't it down here!" He ran to Erickson's great?" His face twisted with grief. work bench and the intercom. ''Terrific beginning, one good man "Mr. Pethel,'' he said, "come back dead. How many left to go? Im· down here to the basement right agine a guy's reputation meaning away. Erickson's dead." that much to him, that he'd let The next he knew, Darius this happen. Or maybe Sands Pethel stood beside him, examin· doesn't know; maybe she was just CANTATA 140 35 given the laser gun to protect her· Erickson's hand. You know what self. In case his wife's private cops it means. It means the hell with got to her. And anyhow we don't that girl on the far side, or wha. know for sure if she did it; it could ever it is over there who shot have been someone else entirely, Erickson. It means the hell with not Cally Vale at all. What do we any of us and all of us, our senti· know about it? All we know is that ments and opinions." He gestured. Erickson is dead. And there was "All our lives put together." something basically wrong with Dimly, Stuart Hadley under· the theory he was going on." stood. Or thought he did. "But "You can give Sands the benefit she'll probably kill the next per· of the doubt, if you want," Hadley son who-" said, "but I'm not going to." He "Let TD worry about that," stood up, then, taking a deep Pethel said savagely. "That's their shuddering breath. "Can we get problem. They've got company pa. the police, now? You call them; I lice, armed guards they use for can't talk well enough to. You do patrol purposes; let them send it, Pethel, okay?" them over, first." His voice was Unsteadily, Darius Pethel low and harsh. "Let them lose a moved toward the phone on Erick· few men, so what. The lives of mil· son's work bench, his hand ex· lions of people are involved in tended gropingly, as if his apper· this, now. You get that, Hadley? ception of touch had begun to di~ Do you?" integrate. He picked up the r~ ''Y-yes," Hadley said, nodding. ceiver and then he turned to "Anyhow," Pethel said, more Stuart Hadley and said, 'Wait. calmly, now, "it's legitimately This is a mistake. You know who within the jurisdiction of TD ~ we've got to call? The factory. We cause it took place within one of have to tell Terran Development their 'scuttlers. Call it an acci­ about this; it's what they're after. dent; think of it that way. Un­ They come first.". avoidable and awful. Between an Hadley, staring at him, said, "I entrance and an exit hoop. Nat­ -don't agree." urally the company has to know." "This is more important than He turned his back to Hadley, then, what you think or I think, more concentrating on the vidphone. important than Sands and Cally Vale, any of us." Dar Pethel began "I think," Salisbury Heim said to dial. "Even if one of us is dead. to his presidential candidate James That still doesn't matter. You Briskin, "I have something cook­ know what I'm thinking about? ing you won't like. I've been talk­ Emigration. You saw the grass in ing to George Walt-" 36 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION At once Jim Briskin said, "No Gill had come up to Jim Briskin. deal. Not with them. I know what "A phone call for you, Mr. Bris­ they want and that's out, Sal." kin. The gentleman says it's urgent "If you don't do business with and he won't be wasting your George Walt," Heim said steadily, time. You don't know him, he says, "I'm going to have to resign as so he didn't give his name." She your campaign manager. I just added, "He's a Col. If that helps can't take any more, not after that you identify him.'' planet-wetting speech of yours. "It doesn't," Jim said. "But I'll Things are breaking too badly for talk to him anyhow.'' Obviously, us as it is; we can't take George he was glad to break off the con­ Walt on in addition to everything versation with Sal; relief showed else." on his face. "Bring the phone "There's something even worse," here, Dotty.'' Jim Briskin said, after a pause. "Yes, Mr. Briskin.'' She disap­ "Which you haven't heard. A wire peared and presently was back, came from Bruno Mini. He was carrying the extension vidphone. delighted with my speech and he's "Thanks.'' Jim Briskin pressed on his way here to-as he puts it the hold button, releasing it, and -·join forces with me.'" the vidscreen glowed. A face Heim said, "But you can still formed, swarthy and handsome, a " keen-eyed man, well-dressed and "Mini's already spoken to ho­ evidently agitated. Who is he? Sal meopape reporters. So it's too late Heim asked himself. I know him. to head him off media-wise. Sor- I've seen a pic of him somewhere. ry." Then he identified the man. It ''You're going to lose.'' was the big-time N'York investi­ "Okay, I'll have to lose.'' gator who was working for Myra "What gets me," Heim said bit­ Sands; it was a man named Tito terly, "what really gets me is that Cravelli, and he was a tough in­ even if you did win the election dividual indeed. What did he you couldn't have it all your way; want with Jim? one man just can't alter things The image of Tito Cravelli that much. The Golden Door M~ said, "Mr. Briskin, I'd like to have ments of Bliss satellite is going to lunch with you. In private. I have remain; the bibs are going to re­ something to discuss with you, just main; so are Nonovulid and the you and me; it's vitally important abort-consultants-you can chip to you, I assure you.'' He added, away a little here and there but with a glance toward Sal Heim, not-" "So vital I don't want anybody He ceased, because Dorothy else around." CANTATA 140 37 Maybe this is going to be an Getting out his handkerchief, Sal assassination attempt, Sal Heim Heim mopped his forehead. "After thought. Someone, a fanatic from that-" CLEAN, sent by Verne Engel and "After that," Jim said, 'They be­ his crowd of nuts. "You better not gin systematically campaigning go, Jim," he said, aloud. against me." "Probably not," Jim said. "But I Sal nodded. am anyhow." To the image on the ''You can tell George Walt," vidscreen he said, 'What time and Jim said, "that in my Chicago where?" speech today I'm going to come Tito Cravelli said, 'There's a out and advocate the shutting of little restaurant in the N'York the, satellite. And if I'm elected slum area, in the five hundred block of Fifth Avenue; I always "They know already," Sal Heim eat there when I'm in N'York­ said. "There was a leak." the food's prepared by hand. It's "There's always a leak." Jim did called Scotty's Place. Will that be not seem perturbed. · satisfactory? Say at one p.m., Reaching into his coat pocket, N'York time." Sal brought out a sealed envelope. "All right," Jim Briskin agreed. "Here's my resignation." He had "At Scotty's Place at one o'clock. been carrying it for some time. I've been there." He added tartly, Jim Briskin accepted the enve­ "They're willing to serve Cols." lope; without opening it he put it "Everyone serves Cols," Tito in his coat-pouch. "I hope you'll said, "when I'm along." He broke be watching my Chicago speech, the connection; the screen faded Sal. It's going to be an important and died. one." He grinned sorrowfully at "I don't like this," Sal Heim his ex-campaign manager; his pain said. at this breakdown of their relation­ "We're ruined anyhow," Jim re­ ship showed in the deep lines of minded him. "Didn't you say, just his face. The break had been long a minute ago?" He smiled laconi­ in coming; it had hung there in cally. "I think the time has ar­ the atmosphere between them in rived for me to clutch at straws, their former discussions. Sal. Any straw I can reach. Even But Jim intended to go on any­ this." how. And do what had to be done. ''What shall I tell George Walt? They're waiting. I'm supposed to CHAPTER FIVB set up a visit by you to the satellite within twenty-four hours; that As HB FLBW BY JET'AB TO would be by six o'clock tonight." Scotty's Place, Jim Briskin 38 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICnON thought, At least now I don't have this man you're meeting is. Sal to come out for Lurton Sands; I recognized him; did he tell you? don't have to follow Sal's advice It's Tito Cravelli, Sal says. You any more on any topic because if know. Myra Sands' investigator." he's not my campaign manager he "No," Jim said. "I didn't know." can't tell me what to do. To some Sal had said nothing to him; the extent it was a relief. But on a period in which Sal Heim gave deeper level Jim Briskin felt him the benefit of· his experience acutely unhappy. I'm going to was over, had ended there on the have trouble getting along without spot. Sal, he realized. I don't want to At Republican-Liberal cam­ get along without him. paign headquarters in N'York he But it was already done. Sal, stopped briefly to let off Phil Dan­ with his wife Patricia, had gone ville and Dorothy Gill and then on to his home in Cleveland, for a he went on, alone, to meet with much-delayed rest. And Jim Bris­ Tito Cravelli at Scotty's Place. kin, with his speechwriter Phil Cravelli, looking nervous and Danville and his press secretary keyed-up, was already in a booth Dorothy Gill, was on his way in in the rear of the restaurant, wait­ the opposite direction, toward ing for him, when he arrived. downtown N'Y ork, its tiny shops "Thanks, Mr. Briskin," Tito and restaurants and old, decaying Cravelli said, as Jim seated him­ apartment buildings, and all the self across from him. Hurriedly, microscopic, outdated business of­ Cravelli sipped what remained of fices where peculiar and occult his cup of coffee. "This won't take transactions continually took long. What I want for my infor­ place. It was a world which in­ mation is a great deal. I want a trigued Jim Briskin, but it was also promise from you that when you're a world he knew little about; he elected-and you will be, because had been shielded from it most of of this-you'll bring me in at cabi­ his life. net rank." He was silent, then. Seated beside him, Phil Dan­ "Good god," Jim said mildly. ville said, "He may come back, "Is that all you want?" Jim. You know Sal when he gets "I'm entitled to it," Cravelli overburdened; he blows up, falls said. "For getting this information into fragments. But after a week to you. I came across it because I of lazing around-" have someone working for me in "Not this time," Jim said. The -" He broke off abruptly. "I want -split was too basic. the post of Attorney General; I "By the way," Dorothy said. think I can handle the job . . . "Before he left, Sal told me who I think I'll be a good Attorney CANTATA 140 39 General. If I'm not, you can fire developed fauna and flora, but not me. But you have to let me in for Earth-they managed to snap a a chance at it." sky-chart, get a stellar reading. "Tell me what your information Within another few hours they'll is. I can't make that promise until probably have plotted it exactly, I hear it." know which star-system it lies in. Cravelli hesitated. "Once I tell Apparently it's a long, long way you-but you're honest, Briskin. from here. Too far for direct deep­ Everyone knows that. There's a space ships to probe-at least for way you can get rid of the bibs. some time to come. This break­ You can bring them back to activ­ through, this direct shorted-out ity, full activity." route, will have to be utilized for 'Where?" at least the next few decades." "Not here," Cravelli said. "Ob­ The waitress came for Jim's or­ viously. Not on Earth. The man I der. have working for me who picked "Perkin's Syn-Cof;' he mur­ this up is an employee of Terran mured absently. Development. What does that sug­ The waitress departed. gest to you?" "Cally Vale's there," Tito Cra­ After a pause Jim Briskin said, velli said. "They've made a break-through." "What!" "A little firm has. A retailer in "Doctor put her across. That's Kansas City, repairing a defective why my man got in touch with Jiffi-scuttler. They did it-or me; as you may know, I've been rather found it. Discovered it. The retained to search for Cally, try­ 'scuttler's at TD, now, being gone ing to produce her on demand for over by factory engineers. It was the trial. It's a mess; she lasered an moved east two hours ago; they employee of this Kansas City re­ acted immediately, as soon as the tialer, its one and only tried and retailer contacted them. They true 'scuttler repairman. He had knew what it meant." He added, gone across, exploring. Too bad for "Just as you and I do, and my man him. But in the great scheme of working for them." all things-" "Where's the break-through to? "Yes," Jim Briskin agreed. Cra­ What time period?" velli was right; it was small cost "No time period. Evidently. indeed. With so many millions of The conversion seems to have lives-and, potentially, billions taken place in spacial terms, as -involved. near as they can determine. A "Naturally TD has declared this planet with about the same mass top-secret. They've thrown up an Earth, similar atmosphere, well- euonnous security screen; I was 40 PANTASY AND SCIENCE PICTION lucky to get hold of the poop at the brokerage firm next door, the all. If I hadn't already had a man amplified sound of a man's voice in there-" Cravelli gestured. rose up and then was turned down "I'll name you to the cabinet," to a more reasonable level. Some­ Jim Briskin said. "As Attorney one had tuned in the TV, was General. The arrangement doesn't watching the Republican-Liberal please me but I think it's in order." presidential candidate giving his It's worth it, he said to himself. A latest speech. Perhaps I should lis­ hundred times over. To me and to ten, too, she decided, and reached everyone else on Earth, bibs and to turn on the TV set at her desk. non-bibs alike. To all of us. The set warmed, and there, on Sagging with relief and exulta­ the screen, appeared the dark, in­ tion, Tito Cravelli burbled, "Wow. tense features of Jim Briskin. She I can't believe it; this is great!" He swiveled her chair toward the set held out his hand, but Jim ignored and momentarily put aside Tito's it; he had too much else on his report. After all, anything James mind at the moment to want to Briskin said had become impor­ congratulate Tito Cravelli. tant; he might easily be their next Jim thought, Sal Heim got out a president. little too soon. He should have ". . . an initial action on my stuck around. So much for Sal's part," Briskin was saying, "and political intuition; at the crucial one which many may disapprove moment it had failed to material­ of, but one dear to my heart, will ize for him. be to initiate legal action against the so-called Golden Door Mo­ Seated in her office, abort-con­ ments of Bliss satellite. I've sultant Myra Sands once more thought about this topic for some leafed through Tito's brief report. time; this is not a snap decision on But already, outside her window, a my part. But, much more vital news machine for one of the major than that, I think we will see the homeopapes was screeching out Golden Door satellite become the news that Cally Vale had been thoroughly obsolete. That would found; it had been made public by be best of all. The role of sexuality the police. in our society could return to its I didn't think you could do it, biological norm: as a means to Tito, Myra said to herself. Well, I childbirth rather than an end in was wrong. You were worth your itself." fee, large as it is. Oh really? Myra thought arch­ It will be quite a trial, she said ly. Exactly how? to herself with relish. "I am about to give you a piece From a nearby office, probably of news which none of you have CANTATA 140 41 heard," Briskin continued ...It will call you later, Mrs. Sands. And 'make a vast difference in all our I'm sorry to pester you." He rang lives . . . so great, in fact, that off, then. no one could possibly foresee its "You ought to be listening to full extent at this time. A new pos­ Briskin's speech," Myra murmured sibility for emigration is about to aloud as she swung her chair back open up at last. At Terran Devel­ to face the television set; bending, opment-" she turned the audio knob and the On Myra's desk the vidphone sound of Briskin's voice rose once rang. Cursing in irritation she more to clear audibility. You of all turned down the sound of the tele­ people, she said to herself. vision set and took the receiver ". . . and, according to reports from its support. "This is Mrs. reaching me," Briskin said slowly Sands," she said. "Could you and gravely, "it has an atmosphere please call back in a few moments, nearly identical to that of Earth, thank you? I'm extremely busy and a similar mass as well." right now." Good grief, Myra Sands said to It was the dark-haired boy, Art herself. If that's the case then I'm Chaffy. "We were just wondering out of a job. Her heart labored what you'd decided," he mumbled painfully. No one will need abort apologetically. But he did not ring brokers any more. But frankly I'm off. "It means a lot to us, Mrs. just as glad, she decided. It's a task Sands." I'd like to see end-forever. "I know it does, Art," Myra Hands pressed together tautly, Sands said, "but if you'll just give she listened to the remainder of me a few more minutes, possibly Jim Briskin's momentous Chicago half an hour-" She strained to speech. hear what James Briskin was say­ My god, she thought. This is a ing on the television; almost, she piece of history being made, this could make out the low murmur of discovery. If it's true. If this isn't words. What was his new news? just a campaign stunt. Where were they going to emigrate Somewhere inside her she new to? A virgin environment? Well, that it was true. Because Jim Bris­ obviously; it would have to be. But kin was not the kind of person who precisely where is it? Myra won­ would make this up. dered. Are you about to pull this virgin world out of your sleeve, At the Oakland, California Mr. Briskin? Because if you are, I branch of the U.S. Government would like to see it done; that Department of Special Public would be worth watching. Welfare, Herbert Lackmore also "Okay," Art Chaffy said ...I'll sat listening to presidential candi- 42 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION date Jim Briskin's Chicago speech, to do something. And not neces­ being carried on all channels of sarily of a non-violent nature; it the TV as it was beamed from the was too late for non-violence to R.-L. satellite above. work .. Something more was re· He'll be elected now, Lackmore­ quired, now. Much more. The realized. We'll have a Col presi· situation had taken a dreadful dent at last, just what I was afraid turn and it would have to be recti· of. fied, by direct and quick action. And, if what he's saying is so, And if they won't do it, Lack· this business about a new possibil­ more said to himself, I will. I'm ity of emigration to an untouched not afraid to; I know it has t9 be world with fauna and flora like done. Earth's, it means the bibs will be awakened. In fact, he realized On the TV screen Jim Briskin's with a thrill of fright, it means face was stem as he said, ". • . there won't be any more bibs. At will provide a natural outlet for all. the biological pressures at work on That would mean that Herb everyone in our society. We will Lackmore's job would come to an be free at last to-" end. And right away. ''You know what this means?" Because of him, Lackmore said George of George Walt said to his to himself, I'm going to be out of brother Walt. work; I'll be in the same spot as "I know," Walt answered. "It all the Cols who come by here in means that nurf Sal Heim got a steady stream, day in day out­ nothing for us, nothing at all. You I'll be like some nineteen year old watch Briskin; I'm going to call Mexican or Puerto Rican or Negro Verne Engel and make some kind kid, without prospects or hope. All of arrangements. Him we can I've established over the years­ work with." wiped out by this. Completely. "Okay," George said, nodding With shaking fingers, Herb their shared head. He kept his eye Lackmore opened the local phone on the TV screen, while his broth· book and turned the pages. er dialed the vidphone. It was time to get hold of-and "All that gabble with Sal join-the organization of Verne Heim," Walt grumbled, and then Engel's which called itself became silent as his brother stuck CLEAN. Because CLEAN would him with his elbow, signalling not sit idly by and let this happen, that he wanted to listen to the Chi­ not if CLEAN believed as Herb cago speech. "Sorry," Walt said, Lackmore did. turning his eye to the vid&creen of Now was the time for CLEAN the phone. CAlft'A'I'& 140 43 At the door of their office Thisbe On the screen Verne Engel's Olt appeared, wearing a fawnskin pinched, wabble-like face mate­ gown with alternating stripes of rialized. "I see you-at least half magnifying transparency. "Mr. of you-are following Briskin's Heim is back," she informed them. rabble-rousing," Engel said. "How "To see you. He looks-dejected." did you decide which half was to "We've got no business to con­ call me and which half was to lis­ duct with Sal Heim,'' George said, ten to the Col?" Engel's distorted with anger. features twisted in a leer of de­ "Tell him to go back to Earth," rision. Walt added. "And from now on "Watch it,-that's enough," the satellite is closed to him; he George Walt retorted simultane­ can't visit any of our girls-at any ously. price. Let him die a miserable, lin­ "Sorry. I don't mean to offend gering death of frustration; it'll you," Engel said, but his expres­ serve him right." sion remained unchanged. 'Well, George reminded him acidly, what can I do for you? Please •Heim won't need us any more, if make it brief; I'd like to follow Briskin is telling the truth." Briskin's harangue, too." "He is," Walt said. "He's too "You're going to require help,'' simple a horse's ass to lie; Briskin Walt said to Engel. "If you're go­ doesn't have the ability." His call ing to stop Briskin now; this had been put through on the pri­ speech will put him across, and I vate circuit, now. On the vidscreen don't think even concerted trans­ appeared the miniature image of missions from our satellite-as we one of Verne Engel's gaudily-uni­ discussed-will be sufficient. It's formed personal praetorian flun­ just too damn clever a speech he's kies, the green and silver outfit of making. Isn't it, George?" the CLEAN people. "Let me talk "It certainly is," George said, directly to Verne," Walt said, eye fixed on the TV screen. "And making use of their common getting better each second as he mouth just as George was about to goes along. He's barely getting address a few more remarks to started; it's a genuine spellbinder. Thisbe. "Tell him this is Walt, on Whacking fine." the satellite." His eye on the vidscreen, Walt "Run along," George said to continued, "You heard Briskin Thisbe, when Walt had finished. come out against us; you must 'We're busy." have heard that part-everyone Thisbe eyed him momentarily else in the country certainly did. and then shut the office door after Planet-wetting with Bruno Mini her. isn't enough, he's also got to take +1 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION us on. Big plans for a Col, but evi­ George and Walt sat back in their dently he and his advisors feel he special wide couch to listen to the can handle it. We'll see. What do speech. you plan to do, Engel? At this very crucial point?" In the luxurious apartment "I've got plans, I've got plans," which he maintained in Reno, Dr. Engel assured him. Lurton Sands sat raptly listening "Still no-violence stuff?" to the television set, the Col candi· There was no audible answer, date James Briskin delivering his but Engel's face contorted oddly. Chicago speech. He knew what it "Come up here to the Golden meant. There was only one place Door," Walt said, "and let's talk. I that Briskin could have happened think my brother and I can see our across a "lush, virgin world." 0~ way clear to make a donation to viously Cally had been found. CLEAN, say in the neighborhood Going to his desk drawer Lur· of ten or eleven mil. Would that ton Sands got out the small laser help? You ought to be able to buy pistol which he kept there and what you need with money like thrust it into his coat pocket. I'm that." amazed he'd do it, Sands thought. Engel, white with shock, stam­ Capitalize off my problems-evi­ mered, "S-sure, George or Walt, dently I misjudged him. whichever you are." Now- so many lives which I "Get up here as soon as you can could have saved will be forfeited, then," Walt instructed him, and Sands realized. Due to this. And rang off. "I think he'll do it for Briskin is responsible ... he's us," he said to his brother. taken the healing power out of my "A gorp like that can't handle hands, darkened the force working anything," George said sourly. for the good of man. "Then for pop's sake, what do At the vidphone Sands dialed we do?" Walt demanded. the local jet'ab company. "I want "We do what we can. We help an 'ab to Chicago. As soon as pos· out Engel, we prompt him, shove sible." He gave his address, then him if necessary. But we don't pin hurried from his apartment to the our hopes on him, at least not en­ elevator. Those that are hounding tirely. We go ahead with some­ Cally and me to our deaths, he thing on our own, just to be cer­ thought, Myra and her detectives tain. And we have to be certain; and the homeopapes . . . now this is too serious. That Col actual­ they've been joined by Jim Briskin. ly means to shut us down." How could he align himself with Both their eyes, now, turned to­ them? Haven't I made clear to ward the TV screen, and both everyone what I can do in the serv· CANTATA 140 45 ice of human need? Briskin must known private operator as my At­ be aware; this can't be merely ig­ torney General; even that isn't norance on his part. important. My job was to make Frantically Sands thought. that speech as soon as Tito Cra­ Could it possibly be that Briskin velli brought me that information. wants the sick to die? All those And-that's exactly what I did. waiting for me, needing my help To the letter. No matter what the . . . help which no one else, after consequences. I've been pushed to my death, can Coming up to him, Phil Dan­ possibly provide. ville slapped him warmly on the Touching the laser pistol in his back. "A hell of a good fuss, Jim. pocket Sands said aloud glumly, You really outdid yourself." "It ~ertainly is easy to be mistaken "Thanks, Phil," Jim Briskin about another person." They can murmured. He felt tired. He nod­ take you in so easily, he thought. ded to the TV camera men and Deliberately mislead you. Yes, de­ then, with Phil Danville, walked liberately! over to join the knot of party brass The jet'ab swept up to the curb waiting at the rear of the studio. and slid open its door. "I need a drink," Jim said to them as several of them extended CHAPTER SIX their hands, wanting to shake with him. "After that." I wonder what WHEN HE HAD FINISHED HIS the opposition will do now, he speech Jim Briskin sat back and said to himself. What can Bill knew that this time he had done, Schwarz say? Nothing, actually. at last, a damn good job. It had I've taken the lid off the whole been the best speech of his politi­ thing and there's no putting it cal career, in some respects the back. Now that everyone knows only really decent one. there's a place we can emigrate to And now what? he asked him­ the rush will be on. By the multi­ self. Sal is gone, and along with tudes. The warehouses will be him Patricia. I've offended the emptied, thank god. As they should powerful and-immensely wealthy have been long ago. unicephalic brothers George Walt, I wish I had known about this, not to mention Thisbe herself he thought abruptly, before I be­ ••. and Terran Development, gan publically advocating Bruno which is no small potatoes, will be Mini's planet-wetting technique. I furious that its break-through has could have avoided that-and the been made public. But none of this break with Sal as well. matters. Nor does the fact that I'm But anyhow, he said to himself, now committed to naming a well- I'U be elected. 46 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Dorothy Gill said quietly to evidently. "Yes," he said, and him, "Jim, I think you're in." smiled at her. "I know he is," Phil Danville "Mr. Briskin," the little red­ agreed, grinning with pure de­ haired girl gasped, "there's a rume light. "How about it, Dotty? It's going around the satellite­ not like it was a little while ago. George Walt's doing something How'd you get hold of that info with Verne Engel, the man from about TD, Jim? It must have cost CLEAN." She caught hold of him you-" anxiously by the arm, stopping "It did," Jim Briskin said short­ him. "They're going to assassinate ly. "It cost me too much. But I'd you or something. Please be care­ pay it two times over." ful." Her face was stark with "Now for· the drink," Phil said. alarm. "There's a bar around the comer; I "\Vhat's your name?" Jim asked. noticed it when we were coming "Sparky Rivers. 1-work there, in here. Let's go." He started for Mr. Briskin." the door and Jim Briskin followed, "Thanks, Sparky," he said. "I'll hands deep in his overcoat pockets. remember you. Maybe sometime I The sidewalk, he discovered, can give you a cabinet post." He was crowded with people, a mob continued to smile at her but she which waved at him, cheered him; did not smile back. ''I'm just jok­ he waved back, noticing that ing," he said. "Don't be so down­ many of them were Whites as welJ cast." as Cols. A good sign, he reflected, "I think they're going to kill as his party moved step by step you," Sparky said. through the dense mass of people, "Maybe so." He shrugged. It uniformed Chicago city police was certainly possible. He leaned clearing a path for them to the bar forward, briefly, and kissed her on which Phil Danville had picked the forehead. "Take care of your­ out. self, too," he said, and then walked From the crowd a red-headed on with Phil Danville and Dorothy girl, very small, wearing dazzling Gill. wubfur lounging pajamas, the After a time Phil said "What kind fashionable with the girls on are you going to do, Jim?" the Golden Door Moments of Bliss "Nothing. What can I do? Wait, satellite, came hurrying, gliding I guess. Get my drink." and ducking toward him breath­ "You'll have to protect your­ lessly. "Mr. Briskin-" self," Dorothy Gill said. "If any­ He paused unwillingly, won­ thing happens to you-what'll we dering who she was and what she do then? The rest of us." wanted. One of Thisbe Olt's girls, Jim Briskin said, "Emigration CANTATA 140 47 will still exist, even without me. of the pistol. The pistol did not fire You can still wake the sleepers. and Lorton Sands stared down at As it says in Bach's Cantata 140. it in disbelief. "Myra, my wife." 'Wachet auf.' Sleepers, awake. He sounded almost apologetic. That'll have to be your watch­ "She removed the energy cartridge, word, from now on." obviously. Evidently she thought "Here's the bar," Phil Danville I'd try to use it on her." He tossed said. Ahead of them, a Chicago po­ the pistol away. · liceman held the door open for After a pause Jim Briskin said them and they entered one at a huskily, 'Well, now what, doc­ time. tor?" "It was dam nice of that girl to "Nothing, Briskin. Nothing. If warn me," Jim Briskin said. I had had more time I would have A man's voice, close to him, checked the gun out, but I had to said, "Mr. Briskin? I'm turton hurry to get here before you left. Sands, Jr. Perhaps you've been That was quite a heroic speech you reading about me in the homeo­ made; it'll certainly give most peo­ papes, lately." ple the impression that you're "Oh yes," Jim said, surprised to · seeking to alleviate man's prob­ see him; he held out his hand in lems . . . although of course you greeting. "I'm glad to meet you, and I know better. By the way­ Dr. Sands. I want to-" you do realize you won't be able to "May I talk please?" Sands said. awaken all the bibs; you can't ful­ "I have something to say to you. fill that promise because some are Because of you my life and the dead. I'm responsible for that. humanitarian work of two decades Roughly four hundred of them." is wrecked. Don't answer; I'm not Jim Briskin stared at him. going to get into an argument with "That's right," Sands said. "I've you. I'm simply telling you, so had access to Department of Spe­ you'll understand why." Sands cial Public Welfare warehouses. reached into his coat pocket. Now Do you know what that means? he held a laser pistol, pointed di­ Every organ I've taken has created rectly at Jim Briskin's chest. "I a dead human-when the time don't quite understand what it is comes for them to be revived, about my dedication to the sick whenever that may be. But I sup­ that offended you and made you pose the trump has to arrive sooner tum against me, but everybody or later, doesn't it?" else has, so why not you. After all, "You'd do that?" Jim Briskin Mr. Briskin, what better life-task said. could you set yourself than wreck­ "I did that," Sands corrected. ing mine?" He squeezed the trigger "But remember this: l killed only 48 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION potentially. Whereas in exchange "I know," Phil interrupted. His I saved someone right now, some­ face still ragged with fear and one conscious and alive in the gloom he made his way unsteadily present, someone completely de­ over to the bar to order. pendent on my skill." To Dotty Gill, Jim said, "Even Two Chicago policemen shoved if they get me I've done my job. I their way up to him; Dr. Sands keep telling myself that over and jerked irritably away but they con­ over again, anyhow. I broke the tinued to hold onto him, pinning news about TD's breakthrough and him between them. that's enough." Pale, Phil Danville said, "That "Do you actually mean that?'' -was almost it, Jim. Wasn't it?" she demanded. "You're that fatal­ He deliberately stepped between istic about it, about your chances?" Jim Briskin and Dr. Sands, shield­ She stared unwinkingly up into ing Briskin. "History revisited." his face. "Yes," Jim managed to say. He "Yes," he said, finally. And well nodded, his mouth dry. Basically he might be. he felt resigned. If Lurton Sands I have a feeling, he thought to did not manage to carry it off then himself, that this is not the time a certainly someone else would, Negro is going to make it to the given time. It was just too easy. presidency. Weapons technology had improved too much in the last hundred His contact within CLEAN years; everyone knew that, and came via an individual named now the assassin did not even have Dave DeWinter. DeWinter had to be in his vicinity. Like an act joined the movement at its incep­ of evil magic it could be done tion and had reported to Tito Cra­ from a distance. And the instru­ velli throughout. Now, hurriedly, ments were cheap and available to DeWinter told his employer the virtually anyone-even, as history most recent-and urgent-news. had shown, some ignorant, worth­ "They'll try it late tonight. The less smallfry, without friends, man actually doing it is not a funds, or even a fanatical purpose, member. His name is Herb Lack­ an overriding political cause. more or Luckmore and with the This incident with Lurton equipment they're providing him Sands was a vile harbinger. he doesn't need to be an accurate "Well," Phil Danville said, and shot." DeWinter added, "The sighed, "I guess we have to go on. equipment, what they call a boul­ What do you want to drink?" der, was paid for by George Walt, "A Black Russian," Jim decid­ those two mutants who own the ed, aher a pause. "Vodka and-" Golden Door." CANTATA 140 49 Tito Cravelli said, "I see. • pect to accomplish anything at all. There goes my post as Attorney The mutants George Walt would General, he said to himself. not be expecting him; they had no "Where can I find this Lackmore knowledge of his ties with Jim right now?" Briskin-or so he hoped. And "In his conapt in Oakland, also, he had three individuals California. Probably eating din­ working for him on the satellite, ner; it's about six, there." three of the girls. That gave him From the locked closet of his three separate places to stay-or office Tito Cravelli got a collapsi­ hide-while he was up there. Af­ ble high-powered scope-sight laser terwards, after he took care of rifle; he folded it up and stuffed it George Walt, it might well mean into pocket, out of sight. Such a the difference in saving his life. rifle was strictly illegal, but that That, of course, would be if hardly mattered right now; what George Walt wouldn't do busi­ Cravelli intended to do was ness with him, if they chose to against the law with any kind of fight it out. In a fight; they would weapon. lose; Tito Cravelli was a crack But it was already too late to shot. And in addition the initia- get Lackmore or Luckmore or tive would be with him. · whatever his name was. By the Where was the Golden Door time he reached the West Coast Moments of Bliss satellite right Lackmore would certainly be gone, now? Getting the evening homeo­ on his way east to intercept Jim pape he turned to the entertain­ Briskin; their flights would cross, ment page. If it was, say, over In­ his and Lackmore's. Better to lo­ dia, he had no chance; he would cate Briskin and stick close to him, not be able to reach the brothers get Lackmore when he showed up. in time. But Herb Lackmore would not The Golden Door Moments of have to show up, in the strict sense, Bliss satellite, according to the not with the variety of weapon time-schedule shown in the pape, which the mutant brtohers had was right now over Utah. By jet'ab provided him. He could be as far he could reach it within three away as ten miles-and still reach quarters of an hour. Briskin. That was soon enough. George Walt will have to call "Thanks a lot," he said to Dave him off, Cravelli decided. It's the DeWinter, who stood awkwardly only sure way-and even that is in the middle of the office wearing merely relatively sure. his splendid green and silver I'll have to go to the satellite, CLEAN uniform. "You trot on he said to himself. Now. If I ex· back to Engel. I'll keep in touch 50 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION with you." He left the office on a hesitantly up to him, her body dead run, then, racing down the bare and smooth. "What can I do stairs to the ground floor. for you? Are you here for-" Presently he was on his way to "Not on pleasure," Tito Cra­ the satellite. velli informed her. "Button up When the jet'ab had landed at your damn smock and listen to me. the field, Cravelli hurried down Is there any way you can get the ramp, purchased a ticket from George Walt up here?" the nude, golden-haired attend­ Francy pondered. "They never ant, and then rushed through gate visit a crib normally. 1-" five, searching for Francy's door. "Suppose there was trouble. A 705, it was-or so he recalled, customer refusing to pay." but under so much tension he felt "No. A bouncer would show up rattled. With five thousand doors then. But Geroge Walt would spread out in corridor after corri­ come here if they thought the FBI dor-and all around him, on ev­ or some other police agency had ery side, the animated pies of the moved in here and was officially girls twisted and chirped, trying arresting us girls." She pointed to to snare his attention and entice an obscure button on the wall. him to the joys inside. "For such an emergency. They I'll have to consult the satellite's have a regular neurosis about the directory, he decided. That would police; they think it's bound to waste precious time, but what al­ come, sooner or later-they must ternative did he have? Feverishly, have a guilty conscience about it. he loped down the corridor until That button connects to that great he arrived at the immensely ex­ big office of theirs." re]1sive, cross-indexed, illuminat­ "Ring the button," Cravelli said, ed directory board, with all its and got out his laser rifle; seating names winking on and off as himself on Francy's bed he began rooms emptied and refilled, ascus­ to assemble it. tomers hurried in and out. Minutes passed. It was 507 and it was empty oE Standing uneasily at the door, customers. listening, Francy said, "What's When he opened the door going to happen in here, Mr. Cra­ Francy said, "Hello/" and sat up, velli? I hope there's no -" then, blinking in surprise to see "Be quiet,"he said sharply. him. "Mr. Cravelli," she said The door of the room opened. uncertainly. "Is everything all The mutants George Walt stood right?" She slid from the bed, in the entrance, one hand on the wearing a pale smock of some knob, the other three gripping cheap thin material, and came short lengths of metal piping. CANTATA 140 51 Tito Cravelli leveled the laser "And he's going to get in touch rifle and said, "My intention is not with his gunsel, Herbert Lack­ to kill both of you but merely one more. Together you're going to call of you. That'll leave the other with this Lackmore back in. We'll do it half a dead brain, one dead eye, from your offiec; obviously we and a deteriorating body attached can't call from this woman's crib." to him. I don't think you'd appre­ To Francy he said, "You go ahead ciate that. Can you threaten me of them, lead the way. Start now, with anything equally dreadful? I please. There's no excess of time." seriously doubt it." Within him his pyloric valve be­ After a pause one of them-he gan to writhe in spasms; he gritted did not know which-said, ''What his teeth and for an instant shut -do you want?" The face was his eyes. twisting and livid, the two eyes, A length of piping whistled not in unison, staring, one of past his head. them at Tito, the other at his laser Tito Cravelli fired the laser rifle rifle. at George Walt. One of the two "Come in and close the door," bodies sagged, hit in the shoulder; Tito Cravelli said. it was wounded but not dead. "Why?" George Walt demand­ "You see?" Cravelli said. "It would ed. "What's this all about, any­ be terrible the the one of you that how?" survived." "Just come on in," Tito said, "Yes," the head said, bobbing up and waited. and down in a grotesque, pump­ The mutants entered. The door kin-like fit of nodding. 'We'll work shut after them and they stood fac­ with you, whoever you are. We'll ing him, still gripping the three call Engel; we can get this all lengths of metal piping. "This is straightened out. Please." Both George," the head said presently. eyes, each fixed on a different spot, "Who are you? Let's be reason­ bulged in glazed fear. The right able; if you're dissatisfied with the one, on the same side as the laser­ service you've received from this wound, had become opaque with woman-no, can't you see this is pain. a strong-arm robbery?" the head "Good enough," Tito Cravelli interrupted itself as the other said. He -thought, I may be Attor­ brother took control of the vocal ney General yet. Herding them apparatus. "He's here to rob us; he with his laser rifle, he moved brought that weapon with him, George Walt toward the door. didn't he?" "You're going to get in touch The weapon which Herb Lack­ with Verne Engel," Tito said. more had been provided with con- 52 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION tained a costly replica of the silver uniforms which s.parkled encephalic wave-pattern of James faintly, like moonlight. Briskin. He needed merely to place Cautiously, with a near-Psionic it within a few miles of Briskin, sense of suspicion, Lackmore screw in the handle and then, rolled down the wheel window. with a switch, detonate it. "What do you want?" he asked the It was a mechanism, he decid­ two CLEAN members. ed, which supplied little if any "Get out," one of them said personal satisfaction. However, at brusquely. least it would do the job and that, "Why?" Lackmore froze, did in the long run, was all that not budge. Could not. counted. And certainly it insured "There's been an alteration of his personal escape, or at least plans. Engel just now buzzed us greatly aided it. on the portable seek-com. You're to At this moment, nine o'clock at give that boulder back to us." night, Jim Briskin sat upstairs in a "No," Lackmore said. Obvious­ room at the Galton Plaza Hotel, in ly, the CLEAN movement had at Chicago, conferring with aides the last moment sold out; he did and idea-men; pickets of CLEAN, not know exactly why but there it parading before the notably first­ was. The assassination would not class hotel, had seen him enter take place as planned-that was and had conveyed the word to all he knew, all he cared about. Lackmore. Rapidly, he began to screw the I'll do it at exactly nine-fifteen, handle in. Lackmore decided. He sat in the "Engel says to forget it!" the back of a rented wheel, the mech­ other CLEAN man shouted. anism assembled beside him; it "Don't you understand?" was no larger than a football but "I understand," Lackmore said, rather heavy. It hummed faintly, and groped for the detonating off-key. switch. I wonder where the funds for The door of his wheel popped this apparatus appeared from, he open. One of the CLEAN men wondered. Because these items grabbed him by the collar, yanked cost a hell of a lot, or so I've read. him from the back seat and He was, a few minutes later, dragged him kicking and thrash._­ just making the final preparatory ing from the wheel and out onto adjustments when two dark, mas-­ the sidewalk. The other snatched sive, upright shapes materialized up the boulder, the expensive along the nocturnal sidewalk close weapon, from him and swiftly, ex­ beside the wheel. The shapes ap­ pertly, unscrewed the detonating peared to be wearing green and handle. CANTATA }40 53 Lackmore bit and fought. He rille and Francy stood by the office did not give up. door with a pistol which Tito had It did him no good. The located in the brothers' desk. CLEAN man with the boulder had "I'm all right," Briskin said, already disappeared into the night puzzled. He evidently could see darkness; along with the weapon around Tito, past him to George he had vanished-the boulder, Walt. and all of Lackmore's tireless, Tito said, "I've got a snake by busy, brooding plans, had gone. the tail here and I can't let go. "I'll kill you," Lackmore panted You have any suggestions? I've futilely, struggling with the fat, prevented your assassination, but powerful CLEAN man who had how the heck am I going to get out hold of him. of here?" He was beginning to be­ . "You'll kill nobody, fella," the come really worried. CLEAN man answered, and in­ After meditating, Briskin said, creased his pressure on Lackmore's "I could ask the Chicago police throat. " It was not an even fight; Herb "Niddy," Cravelli said, in de­ Lackmore had no chance. He had rision. "They wouldn't come." He sat at a government desk, stood knew that for a certainty. "They idly behind a counter, too many have no jurisdiction up here; that's years. been tested countless times-this Calmly, with clear enjoyment, isn't part of the United States, the CLEAN man made mincemeat even, let alone Chicago." out of him. Briskin said, "All right. I can For someone supposedly devot­ send some party volunteers up to ed to the cult of non-violence it help you. They'll go where I say. was amazing how good he was at We have a few who've clashed on it. the streets with Engel's organiza­ tion; they might know exactly From the two mutants' plush, what to do." Titan elk-beetle fuzz carpeted of­ "That's more like it," Cravelli fice, Tito Cravelli vidphoned Jim said, relieved. But his stomach Briskin at the Galton Plaza Hotel was still killing him; he could in Chicago. "Are you all right?" he scarcely stand the pain and he inquired. One of the Golden Door wondered if there were any way Moments of Bliss satellite's nurses he could obtain a glass of milk. was engaged in attempting futilely "The tension's getting me down," to bind up the injured brother he said. "And I haven't had my with a dermofax pack; she worked dinner. They'll have to get up here silently, as Cravelli held the laser pretty soon or frankly I'm going to 54 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION fold up. I thought of taking George As he started to board the big Walt off the satellite entirely, but jet-bus, which was filled with I'm afraid I'd never get them to R.-L. volunteers, Jim Briskin the launch field. We'd have to pass found himself facing two familiar too many Golden Door employees figures. on the way." ''You can't go to the satellite," "You're directly over N'York Sal Heim said, stopping him. Be· now," Jim Briskin said. "So it side him Patricia stood somberly won't take too long to get a few in her long coat, shivering in the people there. How many do you evening wind that drew in off the want?" lakes. "It's too dangerous . . . I "Certainly at least a hopper· know George Walt better than you load. Actually, all you can spare. do-remember? After all, I had You don't want to lose your future you figured for a business deal Attorney General, do you?" with them; that was to be my con· "Not especially." Briskin tribution." seemed calm, but his dark eyes Pat said, "If you go there, Jim, were bright. He plucked at his you'll never come back. I know it. great handlebar mustache, then, Stay here with me." She caught pondering. "Maybe I'll come hold of his arm, but he tugged along," he decided. loose. "Why?" "I have to go," he told her. "My "To make sure you get away." gunsel is there and I have to get "It's up to you," Cravelli said. him away; he's done too much for "But I don't recommend it. Things me just to leave him there." are somewhat hot, up here. Do you "I'll go instead of you," Sal know. any girls at the satellite who Heim said. could lead you through to George "Thanks." It was a good offer, Walt's office?" well meant. But-he had to repay "No," Jim Briskin said. And Tito Cravelli for what he'd done; then a peculiar expression ap­ obviously he had to see that Tito peared on his face. "Wait. I know got safely away from the Golden one. She was down here in Chi­ Door Moments of Bliss satellite. It cago today but perhaps she's gone was as simple as that. "The best I back up again." can offer you," he said, "is the op­ "Probably has," Cravelli said. portunity to ride along." He meant "They flit back and forth like light· it ironically. ning bugs. Take a chance on it, "All right," Sal said, nodding. anyhow. I'll see you. And watch "I'll come with you." To Pat he your step." He rang off, at that said, ''But you stay down below point. here. If we get back we should be CANTATA 140 55 showing up right away-or not at ''You could have been Se~retary all. Come on, Jim." He climbed of State," Jim said. the steps into the jet-bus, joining Sal nodded. "But that's the way the others already there. the fifty yarrow stalks fall. Any­ "Take care of yourself," Pat said how, I hope you win, Jim. I know to Jim Briskin. you will, after that speech; that "What did you think of my certainly was a masterpiece of speech?" he asked her. promising everything to everybody "I was in the tub; I only heard -a billion gold chickens in a bil­ part of it. But I think it was the lion gold pots. Needless to say I best you ever made. Sal said so, think you'll make a superb presi­ too, and he heard it all. Now he dent. One we all can be proud of." knows he made a terrific mistake; He grinned warmly. "Or am I mak­ he should have stuck with you." ing you sick?" "Too bad he didn't," Jim said. The Moments of Bliss satellite ''You wouldn't say something lay directly ahead of them; in the along the lines of 'better late than center of the breast-shaped landing , " field the winking pink nipple "Okay," he said. "Better late guided their vehicle to its land­ than never." Turning, he followed ing, a mammary invitation beck­ Sal Heim onto the jet-bus. He had oning to all. The principle of Yin, said it, but it was not true. Too out in space, inflated to cosmic much had happened; too late was proportions. too late. He and Sal had split for­ "It's a wonder George Walt can ever. And both of them knew it perambulate," Jim said. "Joined at . . . or rather feared it. And the base of the skull, the way they sought instinctively for a new are. Must be damn awkward." rapprochement without having 'What's your point?" Sal sound­ any idea how it could be done. ed tense and irritable, now. As the jet-bus whirled upward Jim Briskin said, "No particu­ in brisk ascent, Sal leaned over lar point. But you'd think one and said, "You've accomplished a would have sacrificed the other lot since I saw you last, Jim. I long ago, for purposes of utility." want to congratulate you. And "Have you ever actually seen I'm not being ironic. Hardly that." them?" "Thanks," Jim Briskin said, "No." He had never even been briefly. to the satellite. "But you'll never forgive me for "They're fond of each other," handing you my resignation when Sal Heim said. I did, will you? Well, I can't really The jet-bus began to settle onto blame you." Sal was silent, then. the landing field of the satellite; 56 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION the spin of the satellite provided Jim Briskin said, "A girl named its constant magnetic flux, suffi­ Sparky Rivers." cient to hold_ smaller objects to it, "ALL OF YOU?" The attendant and Jim Briskin thought. That's blinked, then shrugged her bare where we made our mistake. We shoulders urbanely. "All right, should never have allowed this gentlemen. De gustibus non dispu­ place to become attractive-in tandum est. Gate three. Watch any sense whatsoever. It was fee­ your step and don't jostle, please. ble wit, but the best he could man­ She's in room 395." She pointed age under the circumstances. May­ toward gate three and the group be Pat's right, he realized. Maybe moved in that direction. l-and Sal Heim-will never re­ Ahead, beyond gate three, Jim turn from this place. It was not Briskin saw rows of gilded, shin­ the sort of thought he enjoyed ing doors; over some lights glowed thinking; the Golden Door satel­ and he understood that those were lite was not at all the kind of place empty at the moment of customers. he wanted to wind up. Ironic that And, on each door, he saw the I should be going here now, for curious animated pic of the girl the first time, under these circum­ within; the pies called, enticed, stances, he said to himself. whined at them as they ap­ The doors of the jet-bus slid proached each in turn, searching back as the bus rolled to a halt. for room 395. "Here we are," Sal Heim said, "Hi, there!" and got quickly to his feet. "And "Hello, big fellow." here we go." Along with the party "Could, you hurry? I'm waiting volunteers he moved toward the nearest exit. Jim Briskin, after a 'Well, how are you?" moment, followed. Sal Heim said, "It's down this way. But you don't need her, Jim; At the entrance gate the pretty, I can take you to their office." dark-haired, unclad attendant on Can I trust you? Jim Briskin duty smiled a white-tooth smile at asked himself silently. "All right," them and said, "Your tickets, he said. And hoped it was a wise please." choice. "We're all new here," Sal Heim "This elevator," Sal said. "Press said to her, getting out his wallet. the button marked C." He entered 'We'll pay in cash." the elevator; the rest of the group "Are there any girls you wish to followed, crowding in after him, visit in particular?" the attendant as many as could make it. More asked, as she rang the money up than half the group remained out­ on her register. side in the corridor. ''You follow CANTATA 140 '11 us," Sal instructed them. "As soon body struggled to its feet; now its as you can." silent companion Bopped against Jim touched the C button and it and in horror it pushed the bur­ the elevator door shut soundlessly. dening, lifeless sack away. "I'm depressed," he said to Sal. "I A faint spasm of life stirred the don't know why." dangling sack; it was not quite "It's this place," Sal said. "It dead. And, on the face of the un­ isn't your style at all, Jim. Now, injured brother, wild hope ap­ if you were a necktie or a flatware peared. At once it tottered gro­ or a poriferous vobile salesman, tesquely toward the door. you'd like it. You'd be up here ev­ "Run!" the head bleated, and ery day, health permitting." clumsily groped for escape. "You "I don't believe so," Jim said. can make it!" it urged its still-liv­ "No matter what line of work I ing companion. The four-legged, was in;" It went against every­ scrambling joint creature bowled thing ethical-and esthetic-in over the surprised volunteers at the his makeup. door; together they all went down The elevator door slid back. in a floundering heap, the mutant "Here we are," Sal said. "This is among them, squealing in panic as George Walt's private office." He the injured body buried the other spoke matter of factly. "Hello, beneath it, struggling to rise. George Walt," he said, and stepped Jim Briskin, as George Walt out of the elevator. lurched upright, dived at them. He The two mutants sat at their big caught hold of an arm and hung cherrywood desk in their specially on. constructed wide couch. One of The arm came off. the bodies sagged like a limp sack He held onto it as George Walt and one eye had become fused­ stumbled up to their four feet and over and empty, lolling as it fo­ out the office door, into the corri­ cussed on nothing. dor beyond. In a shrill voice the head said, Staring down at it he said, "He's dying. I think he's even "The thing's artificial." He handed dead; you know he's dead." The it to Sal Heim. active eye fixed malignantly on "So it is," Sal agreed, stonily. Tito Cravelli, who stood with his Tossing the arm aside he hastily laser rifle, on the far side of the ran after George Walt; Jim ac­ office. In despair one of the living companied him and together they hands poked at the dangling, inert followed the mutants along the arm of its companion body. "Say thick-carpeted corridor. The three­ something!" the head screeched. armed organism moved badly, With immense difficulty the living crashing into itself as its twin 58 l'ANTAS!' AND SCIENCE FlcriON bodies swung first wide apart and •sure," Tito said calm1y. "What then stunningly together. It happened here today must have sprawled, then, and Sal Heim happened before. They were mu­ seized the righthand body around tants, all right, joined from birth, the waist. and then the one body perished The entire body came loose, and the surviving one quickly had arm and legs and trunk. But with­ this synthetic section built. It out the head. The other body­ couldn't have gone on alone with­ and single head-managed, in­ out the symbiotic arrangement be­ credibly, to get up and continue cause the brain-" He broke off. on. "You saw what it did to the surviv­ George Walt was not a mutant ing one just now; he suffered ter­ at all. It-he-was an ordinarily­ ribly. Imagine how it must have constituted individual. Jim Bris­ been the first time when-" kin and Sal watched him go, his "But he survived it," Sal point­ two legs pumping vigorously, arms ed out. swinging. "Good for him," Tito said, with­ After a long time Jim said, out irony. ''I'm frankly glad he did'; "Let's-get out of here." he deserved to." Kneeling down, he "Right." Nodding in agreement, inspected the trunk. "It looks to Sal turned to the party volunteers me as if this is George. I hope he who had trickled out into the cor­ can get it restored. In time." He ridor behind them. Tito CravelU rose, then. "Let's get upstairs and emerged from the office, rifle in back to the field; I want to get out hand; he saw the severed one­ of here." He shivered. "And then I armed trunk which had been half want a glass of warm, non-fat of the two mutants, glanced up milk. A big one." swiftly with perceptive under­ The three of them, with the standing as the remaining portion party volunteers struggling be­ disappeared from view past a cor­ hind, made their way silently back ner of the corridor. to the elevator. No one stopped "We'll never catch them now," them. The corridor, mercifully, Tito said. was empty. Without even a pic to "Him," Sal Heim corrected bit­ leer and cajole at them. ingly. "I wonder which one of them was synthetic, George or When they·arrived back in Chi­ Walt. And why did he do it? I cago, Patricia Heim met them and don't understand." at once said, "Thank God." she put Tito said, "A long time ago one her arms around her husband and must have died." he hugged her tight. "What hap­ They both stared at him. pened? It seemed to take so long, CANTATA 140 59 and yet actually it wasn't long at and successful artificial compo­ all; you've only been gone an nents. It was, most likely, a West hour." German firm; the cartels were "I'll tell you later," Sal said most advanced in such experimen­ shortly. "Right now I just want to tation. But it could of course be take it easy." engineers under contract to the "Maybe I11 cease advocating satellite alone, in permanent resi­ shutting the Golden Door satellite dence there. In any case four hun­ down," Jim said suddenly. dred lives represented a great num­ "What?" Sal said, astonished. ber, worth any effort at saving. HI may have been too hard. Too Worth any deal, he decided, with puritanical. I'd prefer not to take George Walt which could be away his livelihood; it seems to brought off. me he's earned it." He felt numb "Let's get something warm to right now, unable really to think drink," Pat said. "I'm freezing." about it. But what had shocked She started toward the front door him the most, changed him, had of Republican-Liberal party head­ not been the sight of George Walt quarters, key in hand. "We can fix coming apart into two entities, one some synthetic non-toxic coffee in­ artificial, one genuine. It had been side." Lorton Sands' disclosure about the As they stood around the coffee mass of maimed bibs. pot waiting for it to heat, Tito He had been thinking about said, "Why not let the satellite de­ this, trying to see a way out. Ob­ cline naturally? As emigration be­ viously, if the maimed bibs were gins it can serve a steadily dwin­ to be awakened at all they would dling market. You implied some­ have to be last in sequence. And thing along those lines in your by then perhaps replacement or­ Chicago speech anyhow." gans would be available in supply "I've been up there before," Sal from the UN's organ bank. But said, "as you know. And it didn't there was another possibility, and kill me. Tito's been there before, he had come onto it only just now. too, and it didn't warp or kill him." George Walt's corporate existence "Okay, okay," Jim said. "If praved the workability of wholly George Walt leave me alone I'll mechanical organs. And in this leave them alone. But if they keep Jim Briskin saw hope for Lorton after me, or if they won't make a Sands' victims. Possibly a deal deal regarding artif-org construc­ could be made with George Walt; tion-then it'll be necessary to do he-or they-would be left alone something. In any case the wel­ if they would reveal the manufac­ fare of those four hundred bibs turer of their highly sophisticated comes first." 60 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION "Coffee's ready," Pat said, and A vote for Jim Briskin, he began pouring. thought, recalling the cliches of Sipping, Sal Heim said, "Tastes the campaign, is a vote for human­ good." ity. Stale already, and always "Yes," Jim Briskin agreed. In over-simplified, and yet deep un­ fact the cup of hot coffee, syn­ derneath substantially true. So thetic and non-toxic as it had to be perhaps the whole long fracas had (only low-stratum dorm-housed been worthwhile. Cols drank the genuine thing) His big feet up on the arm of a was exactly what he needed. It couch, Phil Danville said, "It was made him feel a lot better. my majestic speeches that did it for you, Jim. Now, what's my re­ In November, despite the abu­ ward?" He grinned. "I'm waiting." sive telecasts from the Golden "Nothing on Earth could ever Door Moments of Bliss satellite, or be sufficient reward for such an because of them, Jim Briskin suc­ accomplishment," Jim Briskin ceeded in nosing out the incum­ said absently. bent Bill Schwarz and thereby "Look at him," Danville said to won for himself the presidential Dorothy Gill. "He's not happy, not election. even now. He's going to ruin Pat's So now, at long last, about a party." hundred years later than it should "I won't wreck the mood of the have come about, Salisbury Heim party," Jim assured them, drawing said to himself, we have a Negro himself up dutifully. After all, President of the United States. A they were right; this was the mo­ new epoch in human understand­ ment. But actually the great his­ ing has finally arrived. At least, he toric instant had for him already thought, let's hope so. begun to slide away and disap­ "What we need," Patricia said pear; it was too elusive, too subtly meditatively as they examined a interwoven into the texture of tally of the last, belated returns, commonplace reality. And in ad­ "is a party so we can celebrate." dition the problems awaiting him "I'm too tired to celebrate," Sal seemed to efface his recognition of said. "One beer, maybe. And then anything else. Yet that was how it home to bed." had to be. Outside on the sidewalk a A Secret Serviceman ap­ crowd of well-wishers yelled up proached him. "Mr. Briskin, slogans of congratulation; the we've intercepted a man outside in racket filtered into campaign head­ the hall wishing to speak with quarters and Sal Heim went to you.'' glance out the window. "A well-wisher," Pat said. CANTATA 140 61 "An assassin," Tito said, grop­ is Uranus. 'Way out there and big, ing instantly in his coat for his oh so big. Now, you'll naturally gun. ask me why." "No," the Secret Serviceman "No," Jim said. "I won't ask you said. "Some guy here on busi­ why." He felt resigned. Sooner or ness." later, even after the discovery of Opening the hall door Jim the untouched world, into which looked out. It was not a well-wish­ the first lines of Terran emigrants er or an assassin, as the Secret had already begun to move, Mmi Serviceman had correctly said. had to catch up with him. In fact The man waiting to see him, port­ it was virtually a relief. Such ly and short, wearing a. vest, was things in life were foreordained; Bruno Mini. he could see it in Mini's red, ex­ Hand extended, Mini said en­ cited face and bulging eyes. thusiastically, "It certainly took "Let me describe the advantages me a long time to catch up with of Uranus," Mini burbled, and be­ you, Mr. President Elect; I've gan handing Jim an overwhelming been trying throughout the cam­ barrage of documents from his paign." At once he rooted in his briefcase, one after another, as overstuffed briefcase. "You and I rapidly as possible. have a tremendous amount of vital It will be a difficult four years, business to transact, sir. I can now Jim Briskin realized somberly. reveal to you that the initial planet Four? More likely_ eight. I've planned on-and this will no -The way things turned out, doubt come to you as a surprise- he was correct .. It was eight.

CHANGING YOUR ADDRESS? The Magazine of FANTASY and SCIENCE FICfiON will follow you anywhere providing you let us know six weeks in advance. Please be sure to give us your old address as well as the new one, and add the ZIP number. (If convenient, send the address label from the wrapper of the next copy of F&SF you receive.) Subscription Service MERCURY PUBUCATIONS 347 East 53 Street New York, N. Y. 10022 ln our own story, KING'S EVIL (F&SF, Oct. 1956), mention was mmle of of the first "Philadelphia experiment"-of which every school-child knows-kites, keys, thunder and lightning. Up till now, however, that this experiment had not been the last, efcap'd the publick Knowledge. We will say no more, but allow the reader to read on . . . perhaps rueful and regretful that the sub;ect of the knowledge was ever discovered at all.

(NoTE: WITH THE EXCEPTION nally come to light, happily pro­ of the opening paragraph, which viding us with an instance of the is included to indicate the prob­ Grem-Overby Audio-Temporal able chronological point in the Throwback Principle in action­ Autobiography at which the pages an instance that predates the dis­ dealing with the second Philadel~ covery of the principle by over phia experiment originally oc­ three hundred years.) curred, the following document has never before been published. What gave my book"' the more Why, after removing the pages sudden and general celebrity was from the rest of his manuscript, the success of one of its proposed Dr. Franklin did not burn them in experiments, made by Messrs. Dal­ keeping with his intention, is any­ ibard and De Lor at Marly, for body's guess, and how they could drawing lightning from the have gone undiscovered for so clouds. This engag'd the public many years is a mystery which will attention every where. M. de Lor, probably never be resolved. In any • A pamphlet on the sameness of event, the account of the second lightning and electricity, published in Philadelphia experiment has fi- England circa 1752. 62 THE SECOND PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT 63 who had an apparatus for experi­ kite, a tuning fork, an iron grille, mental philosophy, and lectur'd and two pewter plates. I had sent in that branch of science, under­ the kite and key aloft earlier in the took to repeat what he called the evening, having first ascertain'd Philadelphia Experiments; and, that there was a good likelihood of after they were performed before a thunderstorm, and I purpos'd to the king and court, all the curious convert the electrical fluid which of Paris flocked to see them. I will would drench the immediate area not swell this narrative with an once the key procur'd lightning account of that capital experi­ from the clouds, into light. ment, nor of the infinite pleasure I The apparatus assembl'd to my receiv'd in the success of a similar satisfaction, I sat down before my one I made soon after with a kite work table to wait. Distant rum­ at Philadelphia, as both are to be blings of thunder sound'd, and oc­ found in the histories of elec­ casionally the darkness beyond the tricity. windows leap'd into brief and I would like, however, to make blinding brightness. Not wishing some mention of a second experi­ to jeopardize the safety of any of ment which I conduct'd not long the members of my family, I had after that time in the privacy of arrang'd matters so that none of my home and which result'd in a them would be present during the most singular phenomenon. In an­ experiment, and hence I had the ticipation of the noble uses to entire house to myself. which electricity will some day be The rumbling grew in volume, put, I had for some time been seek­ and the brightnesses increas' d both ing to improve upon the Leyden in frequency and in intensity. I jar in the hope of applying my dis­ had to proceed on the assumption covery toward some practical pur­ that the kite was still aloft, since pose, and to this end I had de­ were I to leave the apparatus the vis'd a sort of super-jar from a moment for which I eagerly wait'd large and thick-walled demijohn, might come and go during my ab­ which I had previously stripp'd of sence, leaving me no more en­ its wicker casing. The intervening lighten'd than I had been before. years have dimm'd my memory in­ The thought that I might be play­ sofar as the exact arrangement of ing with forces the true nature of the apparatus which I then as­ which I could not even guess at sembl'd is concem'd, but I do re­ cross' d my mind, but I did not let call that in addition to the Leyden it dissuade me from my purpose, jar it consist' d among other things having come to the conclusion of a glass lamp chimney, a quartz during the course of previous ex­ paper-weight, a brass doorkey, a periments that all worthwhile un- 64 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION dertakings are accompani' d by an First Voice:-to the Dick the element of risk. Disk Show, brought to you by The lightning bolt which the W-D-U. key attract'd took me unawares Second voice: BABYBABY­ when it came, and the thunder BABYBABYBABYBABYBABY­ that follow'd shook the house. The BABYBABYBABYBABYBABY­ glass lamp-chimney shatter'd, BABYBABYBABY HUH-WON­ whether from the vibration occa­ CHUWONCHUWONCHU­ sion'd by the thunder or from the WONCHUWONCHUWON­ actual functioning of the appara­ CHUWONCHUWONCHU­ tus, I have never been able to de­ WONCHUWONCHU CUMMA­ termine, but in either case my at­ ONAONAONAONAONAONA­ tempt to convert electrical fluid ONAONAONAONA HO­ into light did not bear fruit. How­ HUM! BABYBABYBABYBABY­ ever, while the experiment fail'd BABYBABYBABY- to gain its desired end, it was not It was at this point that a fit of altogether without results, for the trembling seiz'd me, causing me to tuning fork was quivering errati­ lurch against the table. The im­ cally, and when the sound of pact dislodg'd my apparatus, and thunder fad'd away, a voice could grille, Leyden jar, pewter plates, be heard-a loud presumptuous &c went crashing to the floor. Im­ voice that brought me to my feet. mediately, the caterwauling At first I thought that someone ceas'd, and a blessed silence filled had slipp'd into the room and was the room. addressing me, but a glance I was unnerv'd all the rest of around inform'd me that such was the evening, and I resolv'd never not the case,' and I could only con­ to try the experiment again. Re­ clude that my apparatus was in cently I came across a possible ex~ some way responsible for the planation for its bizarre results in sounds I was hearing. The invisi­ a paper written by a little-known ble speaker spoke only a few French metaphysicist named M. slur"ed words, and then another de Vrains. According to M. de speaker-or possibly a singer­ Vrains, the aether acts as a storage took over and began caterwauling place for sounds and contains all at the top of his hobble-dehoyish of the sounds that have ever been voice to the accompaniment of a creat'd on Earth. Occasionally, medley of sounds that I can only "downdrafts" occur, and bear some describe as a series of throbs, of these sounds back to earth, thrums, ard twangs. I subsequent­ where they are heard by "preter­ ly transcrib'd the spoken sounds natural people." I consider M. de from memory: Vrains' theroy to be medieval non- THE SECOND PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT 65 sense for the most part, but I do that have ever been creat'd on think that he has hit upon a half­ earth but all of the sounds that truth (that is to say that his basic ever will be created on earth. This, idea is correct, but that other of course, is arrant nonsense. Cer­ forces are at work of which he is tain of the words I heard do not totally ignorant), and I have come lend themselves to a primitive to the conclusion that my appara­ past, but neither do they lend tus some how occasion'd one of themselves to a civilized future. It these "downdrafts" and briefly ex­ may very well be that M. de Vrains pos'd my eardrums to the tortured might think they do, however, and wails of a victim of a long-ago pu­ use them to substantiate his theory. berty rite. M. de Vrains makes the Which is why I have just decid'd further suggestion that the aether to r~move this account of the sec­ may not be subject to time and ond Philadelphia experiment from that the sounds stor'd in it may my papers and burn it. comprise not only all of the sounds

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BALLOON ASTRONOMY by Theodore L. Thomas

THE SCIENCE OF STUDYING another. You have to do a great stars and other extraterrestrial ob­ deal more than simply heist your jects from a position outside the camera and telescope and start Earth's atmosphere is called space taking pictures. You have to set up astronomy. And when you make to take time exposures. And that's your observations from a balloon just what Stratoscope II does. hanging high in the stratosphere, Stratoscope II has a 36-inch you are working in the branch of mirror mounted in an exceedingly space astronomy called balloon as­ complex structure involving mer­ tronomy. Balloon astronomy is a cury-film bearings, a pre-cooling booming young science. Look at system for the mirror, and a highly Stratoscope I. refined control system to keep the Stratoscope I was a combina­ telescope trained on a dim object. tion of a 12-inch reflecting tele­ It is beginning to work, too. Dan­ scope, some auxiliary hardware, gling from a Mylar and Dacron and a whopping polyethylene baJ... balloon having an overall length loon, all at 80,000 feet. It took of 480 feet, the 3~ ton telescope some of the finest pictures of the system has begun to take mean­ surface of the sun that have ever ingful pictures. been taken. This was not much of But maybe we are misusing the a surprise to anybody. Once you system. With such ability to main­ lift your camera and telescope tain a line of sight, possibly the above the turbulent, seething mass system should be positioned on of air and water that makes up the the sunlit side of the Earth. The Earth's atmosphere, you are almost telescope could focus sunlight, and bound to improve your pictures. the concentrated sunlight beam But just because you get good could be used to pump a gas laser. pictures of the sun, you are by no This would produce an almost means out of the woods as far as steady stream of intense, coherent balloon astronomy is concerned. light that could be directed down The brilliant sun is one thing. The to receiving stations on the sur­ dim, night-time objects are quite face. The beam could be modulat- 66 THB SCIENCB SPiliNGBOARD 67 ed by measurements taken of beam would be immune from stat· cloud cover, wind velocity, water ic and fade-outs, and would pene­ content, air pressure, temperature, ·trate most clouds. We would have and everything else that delights one of the finest weather data the meteorologists' hearts. The collecting stations available.

THE SCIENTIST AND THE MONSTER

by Gahan Wilson

SCIENTIST SET OUT TO BUILD AND bring to life a new and superior sort of human being. He visualized it as being an example to the rest of us which would show the way to a bet­ ter life, progress and possibly even peace on Earth. Unfortunately, although he had -the best intentions, the scientist blundered seriously at a few crucial points, and economized a bit too much on materials. The disappointing result could only be described as a monster. The scientist, who had hidden himself in a closet the moment the monster had begun to stir, peeked out in dismay and watched the crea­ tture stagger exploratively about the laboratory. The thing was hideous, and the scientist felt a terrible guilt at having constructed it. "What right had I," he asked himself, "To play God and bring this poor, twisted creature into suffering existence?" Through tears of repentance, the scientist saw in sudden horror that the monster had discovered a full-length mirror hanging at one end of the laboratory and was clumping toward it. "How terrible!" groaned the scientist. "What will happen when the pathetic being sees his ghastly image in the glass?" The monster stood before the mirror a minute or so and then, with little coos of delight, began to mince up and down before it, turning and posturing as it did so. When the scientist leaned out of the closet a little further, so as to better observe this phenomenon, the monster saw him and ran shrieking and gagging from the room. Moral: Many ,people ~ou leel sorry for would seriously wonder why. Young Mrs. Toni Heller Lamb received her first rejection slip from F&SF when she was thirteen years old, and since then has been •not necessarily in order of appearance, a dancer, an actress, a ballet teacher, a file clerk, a B-girl, an invalid, and a wife. I showed great promise in all of these professions." Considering that Mrs. L. is now twenty years old, it is obvious that she has not been idle. The heroine of this, her first published story, is probably less than thirteen, and would appear to have a career even more curious than her creatrix' s . . . and not one likely to appeal to most. By the time you read this, Mrs. Lamb (she is married to a musician and lives in a Lower East Side garret) "should be the mother of a baby. If it turns out to be a rabbit, I'll be awfully mad." Boy or bunny, coney or colleen, we think you'll agree that writing i3 an­ other profession at which she shows great promise.

THE HAPPY PLACE

by Toni Heller Lamb

WHEN I LIVED IN THE CEME­ There were a lot of real old tery it was the best part of the graves and monuments that no­ year. It was right after summer, body took care of anymore. You when the trees and things were could tell if a plot was being still green, but the wind was cool mowed and watered because the even on sunny days. There were gravestone would have a little or­ lots of hills and trees there, all ange dot on the back. I lived in a green except for the white tomb­ place nobody took care of an}"' stones and crypts. Some of the more. trees had big purple flowers. I I used to live with my grand­ used to like to climb a big forked ma. She took care of me after my tree on top of one of the hills and mother and father died. We lived look down at the tall grass waving in a big old house with an attic. back and forth on the grave I didn't have to go to school ei­ mounds. ther. She said that the schools 68 THE HAPPY PLACE 69 there didn't teach any good, so and were my friends. They were she taught me herself. Whenever never there when I woke up. anybody came around I went up­ If there had been others, we stairs till they went away. I didn't could have played hide-and-seek go out much in the daytime any­ around the white tombstones. I way. Then my grandma died. liked the little ones where kids She got sick, and I had to make were buried. Once I pried one up, the beds and cook the food she ate just to see what it was like. I guess for a couple of days. And then she I thought maybe one of the kids just said to me, I'm going to die. might come out if the tombstones I knew she was, too, by the way weren't holding them down. That she said it. Very serious and sad. was stupid-nothing was under But before I die, she said, I must them but bugs and dirt. Everyone tell you what to do. Because the was dead but me. Even the fresh census taker will come for you ones were dead. and take you to someplace where When there were funerals I everything will be terrible. And watched. Once or twice I watched she told me where my parents up close with the other people were buried, and how to get in, while they covered the new cof­ and stuff. fins with dirt. But usually I hid It was so beautiful in the ceme­ and watched. I went after every­ tery. I stayed in a little stone one was gone. There would be house next to my parents' graves. lovely flowers all over. I put some It had kind of shelves where peo­ of them in my house. ple were buried that had been in I had a candle in a wire holder. the same family. There was a lit­ Somebody must of put it there a tle chair made of stone that I long time before. I burned it at could sit on, and a lovely window. night for a little while, sometimes. It was a stained glass window I never thought about the light showing a tree and a hill, and the shining through the windows. colors made rainbow shadows on Then one night after I had put the floor at sundown. It was warm out the candle, I heard noises there, and nice to sleep in. outside, and voices. Somebody There were other little houses. said, I know I saw lights. And I knew they were only fancy somebody else said, Well, I don't graves, but I used to pretend that see anything. Then I heard steps other people lived there. I used to go past. After a while I figured it wish that they would come over was safe. to visit me, sometimes. But they A couple of nights later they never did. When I slept I came and grabbed me. I hadn't lit dreamed that people were there, the candle again. I don't know 70 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION how they figured it out. All of a I hate the home and the people, sudden flashlights shone in the they're horrible and stupid. They window on me. Two men opened make me wear this ugly old dress the door very slowly. One of them with my name on it. The kids just said, Why, it's a kid, a little girl, want to play stupid games, and and the other one said, Jesus! and they act silly when I talk about they came in and grabbed me. I the cemetery. They don't believe kicked one of them hard, but they me. I was so happy at the ceme­ just held on to me and dragged tery. I just hate this place. It's so me down to the caretaker's house. awful. And the food is terrible. I I think I fainted or something. can't eat it and I'm always hun­ The next day I woke up and gry. I was never hungry at the they took me to this orphan home. cemetery. I ate real good.

'COMING NEXT MONTH

A poignanl story about an unusual discovery on Mar3>- WHEN THE CHANGE-WINDS BLOW by FRITZ LEIBER BOOKS

THE MACHINERIES OF JOY, Ray that Bradbury, twig bent slightly Bradbury, Simon &: Schuster, differently, might have made a $4.50 theologian. Eheu. Not all the stories are SF, some reflect the The trouble with so many Ray powerful in8uence of Mr. B.'s Bradbury collections is that any­ days in Dublin's fair city; others, one who likes his writings is sure that of Mexico, another place to to come to a point where he finds which his heart seemingly re­ collection after collection con­ sponds as deeply as to Mars. Most taining nothing but stories from potent of the non-SF, most potent other, previous collections. Frus­ one of all, I think, is an almost trating as this is, there is a bright unbearably convincing short about side to the picture-Mr. Brad­ a writer and his family who are bury, meanwhile, has been writ­ trapped-iron teeth and bleeding ing more stories and sooner or la­ 8esh-in the city they forever ter a collection of them is bound plan to 8ee. Accused so often of to appear-in fact, as The Ma­ turning his back on the present, chineries of Joy, it appears now. Ray Bradbury here perhaps un­ All new, so far as I can see, to consciously and persuasively book form . . . although, come shows why. Bradbury-Playboy to think of it, the story about The may be new to readers who do not Thing In The Well, on Mars, The follow that lavish, luxos market: One Who Waits . . • seems they will want to see for them­ mightily familiar and is not (cu­ selves how he does it; and for riously) mentioned in the copy­ those who like the old, familiar right acknowledgements . . . style, why, it is here, too. Should hmmm. Oh, well. Title story, title another title ever be sought for a being a fictitious quotation from future edition of this book, may I Blake, is about an Italian priest suggest one? The 87,000 Faces of who welcomes, and an Irish priest &y Bradbury. There's an inter­ who fears, the Age of Space. It re­ esting and zany cover design by veals the interesting possibility Isadore Seltzer. And photogra- 71 72 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION pher-artist-inventor Morris Scott TWELVE TALES OF SUSPENSE AND Dollens has a picture of the author 'I1IE SUPERNATURAL, Davis Grubb,, on the inside flap of the jacket Scribner, $3.95 which shows an 8 7 thousand and first-Mad Scientist Leering Mr. Grubb is a well-known re­ Lecherously. How does Mr. Brad­ gional writer, there is nothing bury do it, boys and girls? How wrong with this, and it is not his does he do it? fault if I find myself having be­ come some thne ago surfeited with '111E SEVENTH GALAXY READER, Fred­ dialect stories of that great region erik Pohl, ed., Doubleday, $3.95 which ranges from Appalachia to the Gulf and thence to the distant­ This is one of the best of the most marches of the Texan Repub­ series-perhaps the best. Con­ lic. Not all of the dozen tales here tributors, in order of appearance: labor under that burden, but some Algis Budrys, Ray Bradbury, which don't, suffer from the per­ Avram Davidson, Robert Bloch, haps greater fault of being over­ Lester Del Rey, Fredric Brown, written. I could mention in this R. A. Lafferty, Fredrik Pohl, Zen­ particular Where The Woodbine na Henderson, Cordwainer Smith, Twineth, a changeling story Judith Merril, Keith Laumer, which is all but ruined by it. Mr. Fritz Leiber, Margaret St. Clair, Grubb is just good enough to make and Damon Knight. Well, maybe one sigh that he isn't just that bit it's only the best in several years; better which would make him very come to think of it, most of the good. His particular pays is the above have written better stories mountain-and-river country of old for Galaxy than these here . . . time West By G-1 Virginia; its only not lately. I sure like Bloch's lore is I'm sure rich enough to be ''Crime Machine"-TV dramas used more sparingly than Mr. many years from now relate the Grubb delights to use it. Sorghum adventures of folk heroes such as and the supernatural should be AI Capone ("A mighty man who dripped thin, both. But, faults walked alone," from the theme and all, worth reading. song of the same name) and John -AVRAM DAVIDSON Dillinger. Mr. Pohl's "Three Por­ traits And A Prayer" make one wish he wrote more often than he LIFE BEYOND 'J1IE EAR111, V. A. does. The Zenna Henderson story Firsofl, Basic Books, $7.50 is not about The People, and Da­ mon Knight is funny about a seem­ The possibility of life on other ingly unacceptable subject. worlds is no longer the private BOOKS 73 speculation of science fiction fans. findings of Mariner n. It is being taken up by Real Scien­ At all times, he tries to accept tists in a variety of ways. alternatives that would make life Firsoff's book, for instance, is possible. In doing so, however, he very strong on chemistry. The first is accurate in both his astronomy half is devoted to a quick review and chemistry, and presents the of the chemical basis of life (for evidence to the contrary with rea­ which a chemical background sonable fairness. would help the reader) followed (His psychology is more bother­ by a detailed account of possible some than his physical science. extra-terrestrial life chemistries. He favors the concept of "mind" This latter is the most valuable as a thing in itself, accepts ESP part of the book, for I don't know as established fact and thinks that of any other volume that goes into insects show considerable signs of such detail on the possibilities of intelligent behavior.) silicon life, boron life, ammonia One gathers that Firsoff has not life, even mercury bromide life. received the attention he would The second half of the book like to receive and he speaks occa­ deals with the other worlds of the sionally, in rather wounded tones, Solar system as possible abodes of of scientific dogmatists and of life, with a comparatively short jealousy in high places. If so, final section on life outside the some of his ruffied feathers may be Solar system. smoothed by the kindly reception Firsoff is a scientific '1eftist;" he is bound to get in science fic­ that is, he tends to adopt views tion circles. His conclusions may that are not accepted by scientists sometimes be questionable but in general. He plugs away for a they are on Our Side and we will moderate atmosphere on Mercury surely find them interesting and and a thin one on the Moon, for stimulating. (In fact, serious s.f. considerable water beneath the writers should find this book in­ surface of Mars and the Moon, for valuable for background mate­ a cool, Earth-like Venus even (in rial.) an appendix) in the face of the -ISAAC ASIMOV C.S. Lewis wrote a wide and rich variety of books-the well-known Screwtape Letters (Macmillan), Surprised by Joy (Harcourt), The Case For Christianity, Out of the Silent Planet, Voyage of the Dawn Treader (all Macmillan), the Narnia series of ;uvenile fan­ tasies and many others. His stories in F&SF included THE SHODDY LANDS (Feb. 1956) and MINISTERING ANGELS (Jan. 1958). Professor Lewis's poem, The Last of the Wine, so im­ pressed Poul Anderson that he committed it to memory. His quota­ tions from it so impressed Mr. Edward Meskys, a New York scientist now living and working in California, that he wrote the author and obtained permission to reprint it in his amateur SF magazine, Niekas; and it was there that we first saw it. Professor Lewis's letter, granting permission, concluded, "I'd write more if I were not rather ill." At the time he wrote this he was in process of resigning both the professorship of medieval and Renaissance English at Cambridge and his fellowship at Magdalen College, Oxford; and the following month, on November 22, 1963, he died. This beautiful poem is, therefore, alas and indeed, literally,

THE END OF THE WINE

You think, if we sigh as we drink the last decanter, We're sensual topers, and thence you are ready to prose And read your lecture. But need you? Why should you banter Or badger us? Better imagine it thus: We'll suppose A man to have come from Atlantis eastward sailing­ Lemuria has fallen in the fury of a tidal wave; The cities are fallen; the pitiless, all prevailing, Inhuman ocean is Numinor's salt grave. To Europe he comes from Lemuria, saved from the wreck Of the gilded, loftily builded, countless fleet With the violet sails. A phial hangs from his neck, Holding the last of a golden cordial, subtle and sweet. © PtrNCB, London. 74 THE END OF THE WINE 75 Untamed is Europe, untamed-a wet desolation. Unwelcoming woods of the elk, of the mammoth and bear, The fen and the forest. The men of a barbarous nation, On the sand in a circle standing, await him there. Horribly ridged are their foreheads. Weapons of stone, Unhandy and blunt, they brandish in their clumsy grips. Their females set up a screaming, their pipes drone, They gaze and mutter. He raises his flask to his lips. And it brings to his mind the strings, the flutes, the tabors, How he drank with the poets at the banquet, robed and crowned; He recalls the pillared halls carved with the labours Of curious masters (Lemuria's cities lie drowned). The festal nights, when each jest that flashed for a second, Light as a bubble, was bright with a thousand years Of nurture-the honour and the grace unreckoned That sat like a robe on the Atlantean peers. It has made him remember ladies and the proud glances, Their luminous glances in Numinor and the braided hair, The ruses and mockings, the music and the grave dances (Where musicians played, the huge fishes goggle and stare). So he sighs, like us; then rises and turns to meet Those naked men. Will they make him their spoil and prey, Or salute him as god and brutally fawn at his feet? And which would be worse? He pitches the phial away. -C. s. LEWIS Concerning the man who called himself Magister Georgius Sabel­ licus Fau$tus Junior, little can be said with certainty. Fairly early in the 1500s Roman Catholics such as the Abbot of Spanheim and Canon Konrad Mudt described him merely as a despicable charla­ tan, a "wicked, cheating, useless and unlearned doctor." Scarcely a generation later, however, the Protestant Pastor Cast declared him to have been in league with the devil; and M elancthon, right­ hand man of Luther, said that Faust had studied magic in Cracow, and was "a disgraceful beast and sewer of many devils." And there are several reports that he died of having his neck rung by Satan himself. Exit History (if such it is); enter Legend, mounting higher and higher into Art-Marlowe's The Tragicall History of Dr. Faus­ tus, Goethe's Faust, and Wagner's opera. The drunken mounte­ bank who circumambulated the Germanies with a trained dog be­ comes transmuted (as if by that same alchemy to which the origi­ nal had pretensions) into the melancholy hero whose thirst is not merely for pleasure but for knowledge as well . . . and may it nat be, in some measure at least, that these who surveyed him from a distance-including, now, Roger Zelazny, briefly and poignantly­ rather than those who were his near-contemp@raries, saw the more of the truth?

THE SALVATION OF FAVST

by Hoger Zelazny

THE CURSED BELLS OF ORGY­ A strange taste to the wine, a time are ringing. My words begin tainted perfume in the hangings, to stir upon the page. and Helen snoring gently . . . Blinking clear, I see that the I rise. I cross to the window and paper is moist. look outside. 76 THE SALVAT~ON OF PAUn' 77 The animals are enjoying them­ "Why are you not like the oth­ selves. ers?" They look like me. They walk I stare across the room. Each and talk like me. But they are ani­ peal of the Orgy bell rattles upon mals. Animal post coitum triste est the walls of flesh, the bars of .bone. is not always the case. They are "I traded something very pre· happy. cious, my dear, for all that I pos­ Sporting about the great pole, sess." and unashamed upon the village "What?" green, indeed they are happy ani­ "I have no word for it." mals. Repeatedly so. I return to the balcony and The bells! throw a handful of gold coins to I should give anything I pos- the beggars who crouch by the sess to join them there! gate, torn between their desire for But they disgust me. alms and the lecherous cries of ... Helen? their sagging flesh. Let both be No. No solace today. For, verily, answered. I am triste. Let them be gone! The wine. Their wine is tapped My eyes fall upon the dagger, so early in the morning! Blessed the ceremonial dagger I had used drunkenness inundates the coun­ in the rituals. If only I had the tryside. My wine is tainted, how­ strength, the will . . • ever. But something, I do not under­ lam damned. stand what, cries out within me, "My god, my god-why hast "Do not I It is a-" thou forsaken me?" -I have no word for the con­ "Faustus?" cept. "Helen?" 'WagnerI" "Come tome." A sudden resolution. A pathetic I kiss her with the tenderness entreaty. of the strange feeling I have An attempt , •• known these past months. "You called, master?'' 'Why?" "Yes, Wagner. Set up the 'Why what, my dear?" north room. Today I shall con­ 'Why must you treat me as you jure." do?" His freckled face drops. A sniff "I have no word for the feel­ emerges from his snubnose. ing." "Hurry. Set things up. Then The tears of Helen upon the you may join them on the green." counterpane, drops of misery upon He brightens. He bows. He my hands. never bowed before, but I have 78 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION changed, and people fear me now. The heaviness is upon me. Con­ "Helen, my dearest, I go to put tact already-rapport soon. on my robes. Perhaps. I shall be a "Great horned one, I summon different man when I return." thee, from the depths •.." She breathes heavily, she Each candle is bonfire. squirms upon the bed. Light without illumination. "Oh, dol Please!" Darkness visible . . Her animal passions both attract "By all the great names, I and repel me now. Oh damna­ charge thee, appear before me tion! That I had never tampered " with things forbidden! For mere He is here, and my limbs are wealth, knowledge, power leaden. This! Two eyes flickering, unblink­ Down my long halls, and ing, from a pillar of absolute dark­ through the glittering vistas of ness. crystal, of marble. Of painted can­ "Faustus, you have called." vas. The thousand statues of my "Yes, great horned one, Lord of palace are crying. the Festival, I have summoned "Hold! Save us, Faustus! Do thee, upon this, thy day." not go back! We will grow ugly "What do you wish?" " "An end to the bargain." "I am sorry, beauty," I answer, "Why?" "but you are not enough. I must "I wish to be like the others fight to recover what once was once more. I am sorry I made the mme.. " ,pact. Take back everything you I pass on, and something is ·have given mel Make me like the sobbing behind me. poorest beggar at my gate, but re­ The north room wears black, turn me to what I was!" and the Circle is drawn. The can­ "Faustus. Faustus. Faustus. dles whip the shadows with lashes Three times do I speak thy name of light. The walls are carousel, in pity. It is no longer as I will, or Wagner's eyes, and pleading. as thou wiliest, but as it is willed." "Well set. Go thy ways, Wag­ My head swimming, my knees ner. Enjoy the day, thy youth buckling, I step forward and " break the Circle. My voice breaks, but he is al­ "Then consume me. I no longer ready gone. wish to live." The black robes disgust me also. The pillar sways. It is repugnant to traffic thus­ "I cannot, Faustus. Th¥ destiny why, I do not know. is thy own." "Gather, darkness!" "Why? What have I done that 1HE SALVATION OF FAUST 79 makes me so special, that sets me "Then begone, great one. You so apart?" were a good god, but I have been "You have accepted a soul in twisted inside. I must seek me an­ return for your lust to live, to other now, for strange things trou­ know." ble me." "What is a soul?" "Good-bye, gentle Faustus­ "I do not know. But it was a most unhappy of men. • part of the pact, and there are The emptied walls spin carou­ conditions upon this world which I sel. Around and around. must observe. You are eternally, The great green sun grinds on. irrevocably saved." Forever, and ever. "Is there nothing I can do?" The cursed bells oi Orgytime "Nothing." are ringing! Heavier and heavier the robes. And I in the center, alone.

ALL-HALLOWS

Hands that caressed move now in the yellowing-plumes of bristle-fern, lips that sang lullabies, lips that ardently kissed, redden the fence-row bittersweet, darling dust richens the pawpaw thicket where the mockers nested.

Some part of those we mourn returns in leaf and wind and water: 0 whose is the beloved voice I hear sighing among the cedars? -LEAH BoDINE DRAKE SCIENCE ·o··- .. NOTHING COUNTS

by Isaac Asimov

IN MY RECENT ARTICLE FORGET IT! (F & SF, March 1964) I spoke of a variety of things; among them, of Roman numerals. I casu­ ally asked the readers to guess how my 18th-Century source (Pike's textbook on arithmetic) wrote "five hundred thousand" in Roman nu­ merals. As I suppose you can guess, the feedback from the Gentle Readers ignored most of what I said and concerned itself almost exclusively with the problem of the Roman numerals which seem, even after five centuries of obsolescence, to exert a peculiar fascination over the in­ quiring mind. It is my theory that the reason for this is that Roman numerals ap­ peal to the ego. When one passes a cornerstone which says: "Erected MCMXVIII" it gives one a sensation of power to say, "Ah, yes, nineteen eighteen" to one's self. Naturally, I strive to give satisfaction. If Roman numerals interest you, then Roman numerals you shall have.

The notion of number and of counting, as well as the names of the smaller and more-often-used numbers, date back to prehistoric times and I don't believe that there is a tribe of human beings on Earth today, however primitive, that does not have some notion of number. With the invention of writing (a step which marks the boundary line between "prehistoric" and "historic") the next step had to be taken -numbers had to be written. One can, of course, easily devise written symbols for the words that represent particular numbers; as easily as for any other word. In English we can write the number of fingers on one hand as "five" and the number of digits on all four limbs as "twenty." Early in the game, however, the King's tax-collectors, chroniclers and scribes, saw that numbers had the peculiarity of being ordered. There 80 NOTHING COUNTS 81 was one set way of counting numbers and any number could be de­ . fined by counting up to it. Therefore why not make marks which need be counted up to the proper number. Thus, if we let "one" be represented as ' and "two" as ' ' ahd "Three" as 111, we can then work out the number indicated by a given symbol without trouble. You can see, for instance, that the sym­ bol, ' ' 1 ' ' ' ' ' 1 ' 1 1 1 1 ' 1 1 1 '' stands for "twenty-three." What's more such a symbol is universal. Whatever language you count in, the symbol stands for the number "twenty-three" whatever may be the sound, in your particular language, that represents it. It gets hard to read too many marks in an unbroken row so it is only natural to break it up into smaller groups. If we are used to counting on the fingers of one hand, it seems natural to break up the marks into groups of five. ''Twenty-three' then becomes 1 ' 1 ' ' 1 ' ' 1 ' 1 ' ' ' 1 1 1 ' '' "'. If we are more sophisticated and use both hands in counting, we 1 would write it '' '''' '''' ' '' '"''' '' '. If we go barefoot and use our toes, too, we might break numbers into twenties. All three methods of breaking up number symbols into more easily handled groups have left their mark on the various number systems of mankind, but the favorite was division into ten. Twenty symbols in one • group are, on the whole, too many for easy grasping, while five symbols in one group produce too many groups as numbers grow larger. Division into ten is the happy compromise. It seems a natural thought to go on to indicate groups of ten by a separate mark. There is no reason to insist on writing out a group of ten as '''' ' ' ' ' ' ' every time, when a separate mark, let us say -, can be used for the purpose. In that case "twenty-three" could be writ­ ten as - - ' "· Once you've started this way, the next steps are clear. By the time you have ten groups of ten (a hundred), you can introduce another symbol, for instance +· Ten hundreds, or a thousand, can become = and so on. In that case, the number "four thousand six hundred seventy five" ,,,,,can be written = = = = + + + + + + ------To make such a set of symbols more easily graspable, we can take advantage of the ability of the eye to form a pattern. (You know how you can tell the numbers displayed by a pack of cards or a pair of dice by the pattern itself.) We could therefore write "four thousand six ==+++---" hundred seventy five" as • == +++ --- "' 82 PA.NTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION And, as a matter of fact, the ancient Babylonians used just this system of Writing numbers, though of course they didn't use the symbols I have used. They used cuneiform wedges and I used symbols that lay conveniently to hand on the typewriter keyboard.

The Greeks, in the earlier stages of their development, used a system similar to that of the Babylonians, but in later times an alternate method grew popular. They made use of another ordered system-that of the letters of the alphabet. It is natural to correlate the alphabet and the number system. We are taught both about the same time in childhood and the two ordered systems of objects naturally tend to match up. The series "ay, bee, see, dee . . ." comes as glibly as "one, two, three, four . . ." and there is no difficulty in substituting one for the-other. If we use undifferentiated symbols such as ''''''' for "seven" all the components of the symbol are identical and all must be included without exception if the symbol is to mean "seven" and nothing else. On the other hand if "ABCDEFG" stands for "seven" (count the letters and see) then, since each symbol is different, only the last need be written. You can't confuse the fact that G is the seventh letter of the alphabet and therefore stands for "seven." In his way, a one-component symbol does the work of a seven-component symbol. Furthermore '"''' (six) looks very much like '' '' "' (seven); whereas F (six) looks nothing at all like G (seven). The Greeks used their own alphabet, of course, but lest we cause general hand-wringing at Mercury Publications, let's use our own al­ phabet here for the complete demonstration: A = one, B = two, C = three, D = four, E = five, F = six, G = seven, H = eight, I = nine and J = ten. We could let the letter K go on to equal "eleven" but at that rate our alphabet will only help us up through "twenty-six". The Greeks had a better system. The Babylonian notion of groups of ten had left its mark. If J = ten then J equals not only ten objects but also one group of tens. Why not, then, continue the next letters as numbering groups of tens. In other words J =ten, K =twenty, L =thirty, M =forty, 'N = fifty, 0 = sixty, P = seventy, Q = eighty, R = ninety. Then we can go on to number groups of hundreds: S = one hundred, T = two hundred, U = three hundred, V = four hundred, W =five hundred, X = six hundred, Y = seven hundred, Z = eight hundred. It would be convenient to go on to nine hundred but we have run out of letters. NOTHING COUNTS 83 However, in old fashioned alphabets, the ampersand (&) was some­ times placed at the end of the alphabet so we can say that &: = nine hundred. The first nine letters, in other words, represent the units from one to nine, the second nine letters represent the tens groups from one to nine, the third nine letters represent the hundreds groups from one to nine. (The Greek alphabet, in classic times, had only twenty-four let­ ters where twenty-seven are needed, so the Greeks made use of three archaic letters to fill out the list.) This system possesses its advantages and disadvantages over the Babylonian system. One advantage is that any number under a thou­ sand can be given in three symbols. For instance, by the system I have just set up with our alphabet, six hundred seventy-five is XPE, while eight hundred sixteen is ZJF. One disadvantage of the Greek system, however, is that the signifi­ cance of twenty-seven different symbols must be carefully memorized for the use of numbers to a thousand, whereas in the Babylonian system, only three different symbols must be memorized. Furthermore, the Greek system comes to a natural end when the letters of the alphabet are used up. Nine hundred ninety-nine (&RI) is the largest number that can be written without introducing special markings to indicate that a particular symbol indicates groups of thou­ sands, tens of thousands and so on. I will get back to this later. A rather subtle disadvantage of the Greek system was that the same symbols were used for numbers and words so that the mind could be easily distracted. For instance, the Jews of Graeco-Roman times adopted the Greek system of representing numbers but, of course, used the Hebrew alphabet-and promptly ran into a difficulty. The number "fifteen" would naturally be written as "ten-five." In the Hebrew alpha­ bet, however, "ten-five" represents a short version of the ineffable name of the Lord, and the Jews, uneasy at the sacrilege, allowed "fifteen" to be represented as "nine-six" instead. Worse yet, words in the Greek-Hebrew system look like numbers. For instance, to use our own alphabet, WRA is "five hundred ninety­ one." In the alphabet system, it doesn't matter in which order we place the symbols and WAR also means "five hundred ninety-one." (After all, we can say "five hundred one-and-ninety" if we wish.) Consequently, it is easy to believe that there is something warlike, martial, and of ominous import in the number "five hundred ninety-one." The Jews, poring over every syllable of the Bible in their effort to copy the word of the Lord with the exactness that reverence required, 84 l'ANTASY AND I!ICIENCE FICTION

:SaW munbers in all the words, and in New Testament times, a whole system of mysticism arose over the numerical interrelationships within the Bible. This was the nearest the Jews came to mathematics and they called this numbering of words "gematria" which is a distortion of the Greek "'geometria." We now call it "numerology." Some poor souls, even today, assign numbers to the different letters -and decide which names are lucky and which unlucky, and which boy should marry which girl and so on. It is one of the more laughable pseudo-sciences. In one case, a piece of gematria had repercussions in later history. This bit of gematria is to be found in "The Revelation of St. John the Divine," the last book of the New Testament; a book which is written in a mystical fashion that defies literal understanding. The reason for the lack of clarity is itself quite clear. The author of Revelation was denouncing the Roman government and was laying himself open to a charge of treason and subsequent crucifixion if he made his words too clear. Consequently, he made an effort to write in such a way as to be perfectly clear to his "in-group" audience, while remaining com­ pletely meaningless to the Roman authorities. In t.he thirteenth chapter, he speaks of beasts of diabolical powers and in the eighteenth verse, he says, "Here is wisdom. Let him that hath ttnderstanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man: and his number is Six hundred three-score and six." Clearly, this is designed not to give the pseudo-science of gematria holy sanction, but merely to serve as a guide to the actual person meant by the obscure imagery of the chapter. Revelation, as nearly as is known, was written only a few decades after the first great persecution of Christians under Nero. If Nero's name ("Neron Caesar") is written in Hebrew characters, the sum of the numbers represented by the indi­ vidual letters does indeed come out to be six hundred sixty-six, a number now known as "the number of the beast." Of course, there is no certainty in this, and other interpretations are possible. In fact, if Revelation is taken as having significance for all time as well as for the particular time in which it was written, it may refer to some anti-Christ of the future. For this reason, generation after generation, people have made attempts to show that, by the appropriate jugglings of the spelling of a name in an appropriate language, and by the appropriate assignment of numbers to letters, some particular per~ sonal enemy could be made to possess the number of the beast. If the Christians could apply it to Nero, the Jews themselves might easily have applied it to Hadrian a century later, if they had wished. NOTHING COUNTS 85 Five centuries later still it could be (and was) applied to Mohammed. At the time of the Reformation, Catholics calculated Martin Luther'! name and found it to be the number of the beast, and Protestants re­ turned the compliment by making the same discovery in the case of several Popes. Later still, when religious rivalries were replaced by nationalistic ones, Napoleon Bonaparte and William II were appropriately worked out. What's more, a few minutes work with my own system of alphabet­ numbers shows me that· "Herr Adollf Hitler" has the number of the beast. (I need that extra "I" to make it work.)

The Roman system of number symbols had similarities to both the Greek and Babylonian systems. Like the Greeks, the Romans used letters of the alphabet. However, they did not use them in order, but used just a few letters which they repeated as often as necessary-as in the Babylonian system. Unlike the Babylonians, the Romans did not in­ vent a new symbol for ever ten-fold increase of number, but (more primitively) used new symbols for five-fold increases as well. Thus, to begin with, the symbol for "one" is I, and "two", "three" and four" can be written II, Ill, and 1111. The symbol for five, then, is not IIIII, but is V. People have amused themselves no end trying to work out the reasons for the particular letters chosen as symbols, but there are no explanations that are universally accepted. However, it is pleasant to think that I represents the upheld finger and that V might symbolize the hand itself with all five fingers: one branch of the V would be the out-held thumb, the other, the re­ maining fingers. For "six", "seven", "eight" and "nine", we would then have VI, VII, VIII, and VIlli. For "ten", we would then have X, which (some people think) rep­ resents both hands held wrist to wrist. "Twenty-three" would be XXIII, "forty-eight" would be XXXXVIII and so on. The symbol for "fifty" is L, for "one hundred" is C, for "five hundred" is D and for "one thousand" isM. The C and Mare easy to understand, for C is the first letter of "centum" (meaning "one hundred") and M is the first letter of "mille" (one thousand). For that very reason, however, those symbols are suspicious. As ini­ tials they may have come to oust the original less-meaningful symbols for those numbers. For instance, an alternative symbol for "thousand" looks like this (I). (This is the nearest I can come, using the symbols available on my typewriter keyboard and, for the sake of- the Noble Printer, I wish to confine myself to those.) Half of a thousand or "five 86 FANTASY AND !CIENCE FJCl'lON hundred" is the right half of the symbol, or I) and this may have been converted into D. As for the L which stands for "fifty", I don't know why it is used. Now, then, we can write nineteen sixty-four, in Roman numerals, as follows: MDCCCCLXIIII. One advantage of writing Il'Umbers according to this system is that it doesn't matter in which order the numbers are written. If I decided to write nineteen sixty-four as CDCLIIMXCICI, it would still represent nineteen sixty-four if I add up the number values of each letter. How­ ever, it is not likely that anyone would ever scramble the letters in this fashion. If the letters were written in strict order of decreasing value, as I did the first time, it would then be much simpler to sum the values of the letters. And, in fact, this order of decreasing value is (except for special cases) always used. Once the order of writing the letters in Roman numerals is made an established convention, one can make use of deviations from that set order if it will help simplify matters. For instance, suppose we decide that when a symbol of smaller value follows one of larger value, the two are added; while if the symbol of smaller value precedes one of larger value, the first is subtracted from the second. Thus VI is "five" plus "one" or "six", while IV is "five" minus "one" or "four." (One might even say that IIV is "three", but it is conventional to subtract no more than one symbol.) In the same way LX is "sixty" while XL is "forty"; CX is "one hundred ten", while XC is "ninety"; MC is "one thousand one hundred" while CM is "nine hundred." The value of this "subtractive principle" is that two symbols can do the work of five. Why write VIlli if you can write IX; or DCCCC if you can write CM. The year nineteen sixty-four, instead of being writ­ ten MDCCCCLXIIII (twelve symbols), can be written MCMLXIV (seven symbols). On the other hand, once you make the order of writing letters significant, you can no longer scrample them even if you wanted to. For instance if MCMLXIV is scrambled to MMCLXVI it becomes "two thousand one hundred sixty-six." The subtractive principle was used on and off in ancient times but was not regularly adopted till the Middle Ages. One interesting theory for the delay involves the simplest use of the principle; that of IV ("four"). These are the first letters of IVPITER, the chief of the Ro­ man gods and the Romans may have had a delicacy about writing even the beginning of the name. Even today, on clockfaces bearing Roman numerals, "four" is represented as IIII rather than as IV. This is not because the clockface does not accept the subtractive principle for "nine"' is represented as IX and never as VIlli. NOTHING COUNTS 87 With the symbols already given, we can go up to the number "four thousand nine hundred ninety-nine" in Roman numerals. This would be MMMMDCCCCLXXXXVIIII or, if the subtractive principle is used, MMMMCMXCIX. You might suppose that "five thousand" (the next number) could be written MMMMM, but this is not quite right. Strictly speaking, the Roman system never requires a symbol to be repeated more than four times. A new symbol is always invented to prevent that: IIIII = V; XXXXX = L; and CCCCC =D. Well, then, what isMMMMM? No letter was decided upon for "five thousand." In ancient times there was little need in ordinary life for numbers that high. And it scholars and tax collectors had occasion for larger numbers, their sys­ tems did not percolate down to the common man. One method of penetrating to "five thousand" and beyond is to use a bar to represent thousands. Thus, V would represent not "five" but "five thousand." And sixty-seven thousand four hundred eighty-two would be LXVIICDLXXXII. But another method of writing large numbers harks back to the primitive symbol (I) foi: "thousand." By adding to the cunred lines, we can increase the number by ratios of ten. Thus "ten thousand" would be ((1)), and "hundred thousand" would be (((I))). Then just as "five hundred" was I) or D, "five thousand" would be I)) and "fifty thousand" would be I))). Remember now, that in FORGET IT! I asked if any Gentle Reader could guess how Pike represented "five hundred thousand." A number wrote that he wrote it D, but he didn't. That symbol would indeed represent "five hundred thousand" but it is not the one he used. Instead, he uses the older system of straight and curved lines. Since "fifty thou­ sand" is I))), as Pike himself admits, one might suspect that "five hundred thousand" would be I)))), but Pike does not use that. Instead, he represents "five hundred thousand" as 1)))1))). Don't ask me why.

Just as the Romans made special marks to indicate thousands, so did the Greeks. What's more, the Greeks made special marks for ten-thou­ sands and for millions (or at least some of the Greek writers did). That the Romans didn't carry this to the logical extreme is no surprise. The Romans prided themselves on being non-intellectual .. That the Greeks missed it also, however, will never cease to astonish me. Suppose that instead of making special marks for large numbers only, one were to make special marks for ew-ery type of group from the units 88 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION on. If we stick to the system I introduced at the start of the article; that is, the one in which ' stands for units, - for tens, + for hundreds and = for thousands, then we could get by with but one set of nine sym­ bols. We could write every number with a little heading, marking off the type of groups =+-'· Then for "two thousand five hundred eighty­ one" we could get by with only the letters from A to I and write - + -, it BEHA. What's more, for "five thousand five hundred fifty-five" we - + -, could write EEEE. There would be no confusion among the E's since the symbol above each E would indicate that one was a "five" another a "fifty" another a "five hundred" and another a "five thousand." By using additional symbols for ten-thousands, hundred-thousands, millions and so on, any number, however large, could be written in this same fashion. Yet it is not surprising that this would not be popular. Even if a Greek had thought of it he would have been repelled by the necessity of writing those tiny symbols. In an age of hand-copying, additional symbols meant additional labor and scribes would resent that furiously. Of course, one might easily decide that the symbols weren't necessary. The groups, one could agree, could always be written right to left in increasing values. The units would be at the right end, the tens next on the left, the hundreds next and so on. In that case, BEHA would be "two thousand five hundred eighty-one" and EEEE would be "five thousand five hundred fifty-five" even without the little symbols on top. Here, though, a difficulty would creep in. What if there were no groups of ten, or perhaps no units, in a particular number. Consider the number "ten" or the number "a hundred and one." The former is made up of one group of ten and no units, while the latter is made up of one group of hundreds, no groups of tens and one unit. Using sym- .. I + - I bois over the columns, the numbers could be written A and A A, but now you would not dare leave out the little symbols. If you did, how could you differentiate A meaning "ten" from A meaning "one" or AA meaning "a hundred and one" from AA meaning "eleven" or AA meaning "a hundred and ten." You might try to leave a gap so as to indicate a "hundred and one" by A A. But then, in an age of hand-copying, how quickly would that become AA, or, for that matter, how quickly might AA become A A? Then, too, how would you indicate a gap at the end of a symbol. No, even if the Greeks thought of this system, they must obviously have come to the conclusion that the existence of gaps in numbers made this attempted simplification impractical. They decided it was safer to NOTHING COUNTS 89 let J stand for "ten" and SA for "a hundred and one" and to Hades with little symbols. What no Greek ever thought of-not even Archimedes himself-was that it wasn't absolutely necessary to work with gaps. One could fill the gap with a symbol by letting one stand for nothing; for "no groups." Suppose we use $ as such a symbol. Then, if "a hundred and one" is made up of one group of hundreds, no groups of tens, and one unit, it can be written A$A. If we do that sort of thing, all gaps are elimi­ nated and we don't need the little symbols on top. "One" becomes A, "ten" becomes A$, "one hundred" becomes A$$, "a hundred and one" becomes A$A, "a hundred and ten" becomes AA$ and so on. Any num­ ber, however large, can be written with the use of exactly nine letters ·plus a symbol for nothing. Surely this is the simplest thing in the world-after you think of it. Yet it took men about five thousand years, counting from the begin­ ning of number symbols, to think of a symbol for nothing. The man who succeeded (one of the most creative and original thinkers in his­ tory) is unknown. We know only that he was some Hindu who lived no later than the ninth century. The Hindus called the symbol "sunya" meaning "empty." This sym­ bol for nothing was picked up by the Arabs, who termed it "sifr" which in their language meant "empty." This has been distorted into our own words "cipher" and, by way of "zefirum," into "zero." Very slowly, the new system of numerals (called "Arabic numerals" because the Europeans learned of them from the Arabs) reached the west and replaoed the Roman numerals. Because the Arabic numerals came from lands which did not use the Roman alphabet, the shape of the numerals was nothing like the letters of the Roman alphabet and this was good, too. This removed word­ number confusion and reduced gematria from the every-day occupa­ tion of anyone who could read, to a burdensome folly that only a few could support. The Arabic numerals as now used by us are, of course, I, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and the all-important 0. Such is our reliance on these nu­ merals (which are internationally accepted) that we are not even aware of the extent to which we rely on them. For instance if this article has seemed vaguely queer to you, perhaps it was because I had deliberately refrained from using Arabic numerals all through. We all know the great simplicity Arabic numerals have lent to arithmetical computation. The unnecessary load they took off the hu­ man mind, all because of the presence of the zero, is simply incalcula- 90 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION ble. Nor has this fact gone unnoticed in the English language. The im­ portance of the zero is reflected in the fact that when we work out an arithmetical computation we are (to use a term now slightly old-fash­ ioned) "ciphering." And when we work out some code, we are "de­ ciphering" it. So if you look once more at the title of this article, you will see that I am not being cynical. I mean it literally. Nothing counts! The symbol for nothing makes all the difference in the world.

F&SF-The Sun Never Sets On

The Magazine of FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION is now being sent to seventy-two countries and territories of the world and to all seven continents. From Afghanistan to Zanzibar and from Iceland to New Zealand, (including some countries behind the iron curtain) there are readers en­ joying F&SF in English, in French, in German, or in Spanish. This is most gratifying both to the editor and the publisher. More Important, we believe its reflects a growing worldwide interest in stories and articles with imagination and vision. "An eminent clergyman, asked his opinion of Gulliver's Travels, which had recently been published, replied that ·u was all a pack of lies, and he did not believe a word of itf . . ," Among the reports which received this worthy man's scorn was that of the Struldbruggs, the immortals of the Island of Luggnagg. The latest relation on this matter comes to us from a writer new to SF, John Sutherland, Associate Professor of English at Colby College, who says of himself, "I have published a fair number of articles in pro­ fessional fournals, as weU as one textbook, and I am at work on a study of eighteenth century satire . . . I live in the country (at East Vassalboro, Maine) with my wife and three young children." His story, however, deals with this current century, into which its protagonists have survived from the previous one. Let it suf­ fice to say that it is not serious, and offers fun and games for all.

THE STRULDBRUGG REACTION

by John Sutherland

" • • • They were the most Jnortifying Sight I ever beheld; and the Women more horrible than the Men. Besides the usual Deformities in extreme old Age, they acquired an additional Ghastliness in Proportion to their Number of Years, which is not to be described; and among half a Dozen I soon distinguished which was the oldest, although there were not above a Century or two between them. The Reader will easily believe, that from what I had heard and seen, my keen Appetite for Perpetuity of Life was much abated • • , • The King ••. raillied me very pleasantly; wishing I would send a Couple of Struldbruggs to my own Country, to arm our People against the Fear of Death . .. ." (from TRAVELS INTO SEVERAL REMOTE NATIONS OF THE WORLD, by Lemuel Gulliver)

91 92 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

SINCB WB HAVB GROWN SO VBRY not realized then, of course, how old, I must confess to a degree, of very young we were. Nor had we self-indulgence which formerly I realized in that better, simpler might have scorned. Hence there day, as we pursued implacably the was nothing unusual about my be­ archcriminal, Dr. O'Shaunnessy, ing still asleep at nine o'clock on that finally we should overtake him that fateful morning in August -and that he would have his re­ when my manservant, George, venge. Yet so it came to pass-and shook me so respectfully by the a bitter, fiendish revenge it has shoulder. Nonetheless, I started proved to be! wide awake on the instant at the "Up, Dawson up! Catch the sight of his wide ow 1-like eyes and hour before it flies!" downturned solemn mouth. And Painfully I turned my head when through my incipient cata­ upon its pillow. Sure enough, racts I saw at his side Anthony, the there sat Bones, alert in his wheel­ faithful servant of my ancient chair in the center of my bedrQOm. comrade and mentor in scientific His hawklike visage and piercing detection, Haricot Bones, I knew eyes were as commanding at nine­ some fresh adventure must be in ty-five (which is all he will con­ the wind. But little did I imagine fess to) as ever they had been in that Bones' classic skills soon were earlier, happier years. But per­ to be tried in perilous competition haps, I reflected, he would not with the ruthlessly direct method­ agree that those had been happier ology of a late-twentieth century years. He had not at that time suf­ American private investigator. fered from Dr. O'Shaunnessy's re­ The rain dashed in hot, sullen venge to the extent I had. More­ streams against the steel-framed over, his moods had mellowed windows of my hotel bedroom. with age, and to the best of my From the streets of New York­ knowledge he had not felt need to which seemed as far beneath our revert to cocaine for at least thirty luxurious suite as the fleeting years. Of course, there had been dreams of a past century-the roar some unfortunate experiments of automotive traffic rose to aston­ with hashish-and now there was ish me once again with the vulgar, mescaline .... assertive power of the brash new Again my reflections were inter­ world into which our stubborn rupted: "Up, Dawson, upl The bodies had endured. game is afoot! Anthony will help Surely the world had changed George to dress you and mount you vastly, I mused, since Bones and I in your wheelchair." Bones' dis­ had been young men together in tinguished features twisted into an our digs on Baker Street. We had arch-although extremely wrin- TiiE STRULDBRVGG REACTION 93 kled-smile. "It is ridiculous that Bones wheeled to watch in the you should lie there mooning over mirror as George trimmed the griz­ your old friend's petty vices when zled remnants of my beard. ''You one fiendish crime has been per­ are thinking of chickenfeathers," petrated, and another impends!" he announced in a high, strained "Astonishing!" I exclaimed. "As­ voice. tonishing!" "Quite right, Haricot," I replied. "Not at all, Dawson," he replied "But you cannot astonish me with with evident satisfaction. He os­ simple tricks of lipreading after all cillated his chair by turning first these years. I know my lips move one wheel and then the other. as I keen over my tattered store of ':You must know by now that to me memories. However, in this par­ your thoughts oft are writ plain ticular case, you can oblige me upon your face, hide them as you mightily-if you will be good will behind the blotches of senile enough to elucidate further this dermatitis." Then the sound of his strange, obsessive image." grim chuckle, like the last stifled "I'm sorry, my dear Dawson, but shrieks of a hyena choking on I cannot," h_e admitted. "Perhaps chickenfeathers, called most unex­ if you were to tell me . . • ?" pectedly to my mind a queer expe­ "I shan't trouble you with the rience I once had at Bloemfontein, trivial circumstance which before the relief of Mafeking. brought the uncouth word to my But George and Anthony hud­ mind and lips just now," I broke dled me into my dressing gown, in hastily. "However, the image of and the significance of this recol­ chickenfeathers is linked indelibly lection momentarily eluded me. in my recollection with an extraor­ When George pushed me past dinary experience I once had when Bones enroute to the lavatory, I serving as a Surgeon with the could not forbear murmuring: "I Home County Rifles at Bloemfon­ only meant, my dear Haricot, that tein. . . ." And I went on to tell it is astonishing in this brave new how, for night after night, I had world to find that so much still de­ been unable to sleep because of the pends upon the efforts of such very groans and sighs of the wounded old gentlemen as ourselves." men and the unearthly, shrieking "Just so, Dawson, just so,'' Bones laughter of prowling hyenas. I had grumbled. I saw him color, and had a touch of fever, and my old knew that I had scored a touch. wound from the Afghan campaign But I also knew that his deduc­ began again to trouble me. (Soon tions had been correct (as so often I was to be invalided home.) One before), and I flinched to think of grisly brute of a great dog hyena the petty malice of my deception. haunted my fancy like a demon. 94 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Sometimes it stole limbs from the Our servants stowed us in one pits behind the amputation tents cab, themselves aiid our wheel­ -sometimes it robbed the officers' chairs in another. As we swung in henroost. We were all near off our convoy through the gaudy canyons heads with the horror of it when, of the entertainment district, one hot black night, the brute's Bones began to tell me something usual shrieks of laughter suddenly of our errand. slid down scale to end in the most "I was approached," he said, ghastly wheezing chuckles. Final­ ''by an extremely fat, ancient fe­ ly even these ceased. \Ve went out male person, wearing scarlet trous­ next morning to find the huge ers, a yellow shirt, and a shining mangy brute choked to death, a hu­ blue-grey wig." man arm protruding from its slav­ "An entertainer from the music ering mouth as if there were a man halls?" I hazarded. inside signalling for help. But "If you had been more observ­ when we opened it up, we found ant during the past few weeks, my its throat and windpipe choked dear Dawson, you would recognize only with chickenfeathers. that I describe a quite convention­ Gravely, Bones heard me out. al American costume." "Truly an horrendous vision," he "Extraordinary!" said. "But you should have told me "Indeed. Whatever one may sooner, my dear Dawson, that you think of her taste in dress, this per­ found my own innocent chuck­ son was old enough to recall some ling so unpleasant." of the much-publicized successes "It's not that, my dear Haricot of my middle career. She had seen " a notice in the papers that we were "We've campaigned together too visiting in this city. I must confess long for you to hookwink me, old I was flattered that she should seek friend." me out in her distress." "But truly, my dear Haricot," I "Very gratifying, I'm sure," I replied, "no matter what first murmured coldly, stung by his slur brought the image to my mind, I on my powers of observation. have the most unearthly feeling "She has a granddaughter," that it has some tremendous occult Bones went on, "whom she believes significance for us now. Perhaps to be in deadly danger. At present it is intended as a warning against we are enroute to call upon that greed." young woman at her place of em­ "Why my scientific Dr. Daw­ ployment-which, coincidental­ son," Bones said lightly, "I never ly, is also the scene of the recent thought you would yield so grossly crime. Her employer is a private to superstition in you~: old age." inquiry agent-of a rather dis- nD! STI.ULDBRUGG REACTION 95 reputable genre, I was given to un· we sought at once informed us that derstand by the grandparent." she had been chosen Miss Yonkers "Why in the world did you Ballbearing in 1961, and had agree to take the case?" I asked, been runnemp in a beauty contest thinking of the many distin· in Ocean City, New Jersey, in the guished clients we had turned same year. Bones made some more away since Bones' semi-retirement formal introductions, and I dis­ more than a half-century before. covered that her name was Rose­ But Bones only smiled his inscrut· Albertine Chandler. Her hair was able smile and-after reaching an extremely bright red, and it quickly into his waistcoat pocket seemed to have been trained, like -began sofdy to hum a tune from ivy, to grow backward and upward Pinafore. These characteristic from every side to shape a shining actions told me that he had di~ fountain of fire on top of her head. connected his hearing aid, and I As she flounced about helping could hope for no more informa­ George and Anthony to arrange tion at that time. our chairs, her body vibrated in a manner which might have The private inquiry agent's charmed my susceptible heart a name turned out to be Mickey short decade before, when I still O'Reilly. His office was on the sec- was commuting to Zurich for mon­ 9ond floor of a dingy brick building key-gland treatments. Her musky on a sidestreet crowded with tav­ perfume, mingled with the scent of erns and tenements. To the vast powder and perspiration, hung amusement of a horde of street ur­ heavy in the air of the grubby litde chins, our men had to carry us up office. When she reseated herself, the narrow front steps. Fortunate­ the flimsy material of her blouse ly, Bones had provided himself clung in the heat to her damp, with a pocketful of small native half-exposed mammaries. Through coins, and a few handfuls tossed some ingenious artifice of her stay­ judiciously into the serum (by maker, the two plump organs pro­ Anthony, at Bones' direction) pur­ truded at an upward angle from chased us respite from their jeers her torso, to confront us like mor­ and importunities. (They seemed tars, or howitzers, across the no­ particularly amused by Bones' old man's-land of her typewriting ma­ deerstalker, which I must confess chine. Our servants, I perceived, seemed unsuitable headgear­ were deeply moved by her charms. both for the city, and for the wet, A short, stout, crophaired per­ tropical climate.) son, his face inflamed by dissipa· Mammiferous and steatopygous tion, entered from a back room in the extreme, the young woman which appeared to serve both as 96 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION private office and as bedchamber. see nothing but the dust of ages, The person's rumpled olive-purple but I knew that each splinter suit was of artificial silk, and he scratched from the ancient floor, wore an olive-purple shirt to each blob and dribble of dirt or ex~ match; a smouldering cigar stump crement, had its special message protruded from his thick lips, and for Haricot's trained senses. a half-empty pint of cheap native "And there he lay, see?" O'Reil­ whiskey depended from his left ly continued twenty minutes later. hand. With a certain negligent Each time O'Reilly said "see," he grace, Rose-Albertine introduced slapped viciously at the sinister him to us as her employer, Mickey bulge of a shoulder holster under O'Reilly. his sleazy purple jacket. "Blood "Call me Mick," he said, and of­ was running out under the door fered Bones a pull at his flask. like flood tide in the Hudson As O'Reilly paced the grimy, River. Old Rose-Alley here took snlintered floor amidst mingled one look and flopped like a gut­ fumes of tobacco and whiskey, shot bitch." His voice trembled, sweat and scent, he poured out a then hardened, and he spoke as if passionate tale of blood and from a larynx of reinforced con­ slaughter fit to chill the blood of crete: "My old Buddy, Cash even slightly less experienced in­ O'Toole, cashed in at last, see? vestigators than Bones and myself. Shot and cut like he'd gone Hardened campaigner that I am, through the A&P meat-grinder, I must confess I yearned for a nice and I'll get the dirty bastuds 'at biscuit and a steadying glass of did it, if it takes till judgment sherry long before the brutal in­ day, see?" quiry agent had finished his "Quite right, Mr. O'Reilly, I'm strange recital. sure," said Haricot smoothly. "You "I'm a private eye, see?" said have every reason to be disturbed, O'Reilly. "And there's lots of mugs but of course you realize that you would like me rubbed, see? But I must not take the law into your had this pal-would give his right own hands." arm for me, see? He cooled a cou­ "Damn the law!" cried O'Reilly. ple of, hoods, and the rest lay low. "It's blood I want!" He drew his automatic pistol-I observed that "Yes, yes," said Bones, but his it was a .4 5 calibre Colt-and eyes were elsewhere-darting emptied its clip. Then he snapped about the floor looking for clues­ open as ugly a spring stiletto as I racing like liberated mongooses have had the displeasure of seeing back at the snakepits after long since the Black Hand chased us dull years of idle luxury. I could through Syracuse in '93. With this THE 8'BULDBRUGG REACTION 97 he proceeded to incise deep crosses ephemeral world is safe. We can in the soft, blunt noses of two bul­ but watch and wait." lets. Then he reloaded, putting the "But how can you be sure where doctored bullets on top where they he is going?" would be first to enter the cham­ "A cut on his shoe, and those ber. blobs of clay you see just inside the "Dum-dums," said Haricot threshold, told me much. A chance calmly. "It was the only way we remark I once overheard in a back could stop the Fuzzy-Wuzzys­ street in Peoria correlates with whatever sentimentalists may their implications, as does some claim." information I received in confi­ . "I want revenge, see?" growled dence from our sleeping beauty's O'Reilly. "I'll blow holes in the grandparent." He waved negli­ bastuds they can stick their own gently at the flurry around Rose­ heads through. I'll cut their hearts Albertine. out and make them eat them!" He "Bones, you astonish mel" hurled his empty flask into a cor­ "Elementary, my dear Dawson,» ner where it broke with a sodden he said, then reached gracefully crash, then staggered out the door, into his waistcoat pocket to switch pistol in one hand, ·knife in the off his hearing aid. I could but • other. stare in admiration at the high­ "Ooh, eech!" said Rose-Alber­ domed forehead behind which tine suddenly, and flopped for­ such wonders of ratiocination were ward over her writing machine. so constantly and consistently per~ "Fetch the ammonia salts, An­ formed. thony," Haricot said. "The wretched female has fainted at a Late that afternoon, after An· most inconvenient juncture." In thony had removed the remnants response to his command, both our of our five o'clock tea, I determined servants lunged eagerly to the re­ to quiz Bones further. He had been lief of the unconscious beauty. busy with mysterious errands for "But where ·has that brute, most of the day, while I must con· O'Reilly, gone?" I asked. "Is it safe fess I had been content to recuper­ to allow him to wander forth ate in the air conditioned survival armed in his present state of chamber of our hotel suite after the mind?" harrowing expedition of the mom· "I believe, my dear Dawson, ing. that he has gone to interrogate one "May I ask again, my dear Hari· Lefty Spaghanini, the leader of cot," I ventured, "why you have de­ the East Side mob. As for your sec­ cided to involve yourself in such a ond question-nothing in this sordid affair?" (I feared, although 98 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION I dared DOt say so, that his affec· that Mr. Michael O'Reilly, the pri· tions had been entrapped by the vate agent we visited this morning, flamboyant grandparent. I knew he and Mr. Cassius OToole, whose was still taking Swiss gland treat· mutilated corpse I viewed in the ments.) morgue this afternoon, both were Bones turned his wheelchair to descendants of the late unlament· stare out the window. As he began ed Dr. O'Shaunnessy ?" to speak, I watched with admiring "Surely you jest, Bones," I pro­ fascination the silhouette of his tested. hawklike visage. ''You will recall, "Not at all, my dear Dawson," my dear Dawson," he said, "a cer­ he replied. ''You will recall that tain fateful morning in a Sussex O'Shaunnessy steadfastly refused pub, when our tea had a peculiarly to divulge the secret of that re­ acrid flavor?" markable poison-refused, in fact, "Of course. But that was many to admit his complicity in its for· years ago-although we still suf­ mulation. One reason for my neg­ fer the consequences." lect of more public problems in "Suffer," he said, "is your word scientific detection has been my for it. I await further experience. unremitting pursuit of every wisp However, the fiend responsible for and fragment of evidence which the adulteration-! refer, of might lead me to that lost formula. course, to Dr. O'Shaunnessy-in­ Just think, Dawson," he said, tended without doubt to poison us. swinging his chair to confront me, In the event, as all the wodd his hawk's eyes burning with en­ knows, the new poison he had syn­ thusiasm, "think what this may thesized combined with an anti­ mean for humanity! The secret Gf dote of my own invention to set off eternal life! The fountain of what the press has been pleased to youth!" call the Struldbrugg Reaction. "But think of all we have suf· Now, although our bodies continue fered, Haricot," I protested. "One to decay at a most distressing rate, can hardly call this state we en­ our vital spirits continue unim­ dure youth!" paired. If we can escape violence, "Bagatelle. If we can but keep we may live on for many hundreds life in body, all other things will of years!" be added unto us. You would be "An appalling prospect," I said amazed if I told you about some bitterly. of the feats I have accomplished "As I said before," he replied, after my monthly injection in "that is a matter of opinion. We Zurich I" He swung back to the must await the event. But what window. "But all this is beside the would you say if I informed you point. I allowed you to believe this THE STRULDBRUGG REACTION 99 to be a mere pleasure tour, but I steaming from the heat of the out­ led us over here following a lead I side world. "Did you hear the guy received from one of my agents­ on TV?" she asked breathlessly. a little man who keeps a shop in "He says Mickey's cooled three the Tottenham Court Road. From guys already, and that he's out for an aged aunt in Eastcheap he got morel" wind of some papers left by Dr. "What are the police doing?" O'Shaunnessy. These papers had asked Bones calmly. been dispatched in secret to Amer­ "Well, Jeez, they don't know for ican relatives-undoubtedly in an sure who done it. The guy on TV attempt to evade my net. With lit­ called it 'Gangland Massacre in tle; to guide me but the names East Side A. C.' But, Jeez, your O'Reilly and O'Toole, and some guys told me how you said that old addresses fifty years out of date, I Mick was gunning for Spaghanini came posthaste to comb the great -and he was one of them. 'Grue­ cities of the New World. Now my somely mutilated' the guy said, just search is over-but with O'Toole like Mick said he'd fix all those dead, Mickey O'Reilly is our sole bastuds! Jeez-I hope they have remaining link with the secret of some pictures in the News tomor­ the Struldbrugg Reaction." row!" • "Then your interest in this case "Most extraordinary and irregu­ is personal, after all. Perhaps Miss lar," said Bones thoughtfully. Chandler's grandparent was an­ 'While I am not yet prepared to other of the fictions you have in­ name the killer of Mr. Cassius vented to amuse me?" O'Toole, I am quite sure that Mr. "Not at all, my dear Dawson," Spaghanini had little or nothing Bones assured me solemnly. "Coin­ to do with it." cidence has always been a favorite "Yeah," said Rose-Albertine, guest at my table." with a toss of her fountain of At that moment George entered blood-red hair, "that's the way it is to announce with suspicious en­ with old Mick when he gets mad. thusiasm: "Miss Rose-Albertine It sure don't pay to fool around Chandler." I considered that the with him!" servants had competed most im­ Furtively I propelled my rub­ properly that morning in their lust ber-tired chair to the window and to play Prince Charming to her switched the fan in the aircondi­ Sleeping Beauty. However, one tloning unit to high; Rose-Alber­ must admit that they aroused her tine's aura of sweat, powder, chew­ with efficiency. ing gum, and cheap perfume was Rose-Albertine flounced in right almost too much for my abraded behind him, her abundant charms nasal mucosae. "My dear Bones," 100 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION I said, "this is appalling! Is it not filled the suite with the piercing your duty to release any informa­ strains of his violfu, as he com­ tion you may have right away, be­ posed wild chords to express his fore any more crimes are commit­ fancy or his vision. ted?" One concession alone would Bones' sharp look cut through Bones make to our fears-although me like an edged weapon. "You he may have made it more for the will recall the matter of which we sake of the garish petitioner who were just speaking, which, I be­ first brought him into the case. lieve, should take priority. More­ Rose-Albertine remained with us. over, these people are foreigners She spent most of her time with who have their own folkways. We our men, who readily agreed to have no right to interfere. I do not find her a place to stay with them know that the police consider any in the servant's quarters. Both crime to have been committed this George and Anthony boasted stout­ afternoon. The dead men were ly that they would mount strict known criminals, and Mr. O'ReiJ.. guard over her both day and night. ly, after all, is a licensed investiga­ No matter how O'Toole had met tor. Who are we to question his his end-they said-O'Reilly's en­ methods?" emies would find in Rose-Alley "But he seeks only private re­ Chandler no easy victim for their venge," I protested, "and he is spite. I could only hope that they mad!" were correct. "The Americans attach a pecu­ Furtive mouse-like men crept in liar virtue to private enterprise," and out; I recognized them as crea­ Bones replied coldly, "and many tures of the same sort employed by men are mad." Bones in London to search out in­ That evening and all next day formation. Rose-Albertine and our Bones kept to himself. He re­ two menservants attended to our mained in his bedroom but left the needs-although with what door ajar. I could catch glimpses seemed increasing difficulty. In­ of him in his chrome-plated wheel­ deed, our men appeared to be get­ chair. Sometimes he darted about ting extremely tired-perhaps, I the luxurious chamber like a trout thought, from the nervous strain of in a forest pool; sometimes he guard duty. I feared, also, that stopped, contemplative in mid­ they might be drinking. However, carpet, for hours at a time. Some­ they emerged at intervals from times he seemed to be immersed in their quarters to inform us when­ minute calculations in the small ever an announcement of another black notebook which he always of O'Reilly's killings came over the carried with him. Sometimes he picture-wireless. "Mad Mystery THE STRULDBRUGG REACTION 101 Killer Still at Large," and "Terror making a report, I understood. Reigns in Underworld," are two Twice before, in London, had I fragments which stuck in George's seen counterparts of this situation: memory long enough for him to re· the gang of street arabs who con­ peat them to us. trolled this block, I realized, must By the middle of the second be in Bones' pay. Now we were aU afternoon, when Bones finally actors in a deadly puppet drama, emerged from his bedchamber, the for which Bones held many toll of O'Reilly's victims stood at strings. Uneasily, I wondered if he eight. Like a comet Haricot held enough. wheeled his gleaming chair across "We shall wait by the front the sitting room to ring for the steps," Bones informed us, after we servants, and when they appeared had been safely disengaged from CRose-Albertine breathless and the taxi and remounted into our dishevelled between them) he chairs. "I have been informed by gave orders to prepare for a quick my young leftenant that O'Reilly trip back to O'Reilly's rooms. "If left Zlotnik's Rathskeller just twen­ my calculations are accurate," he ty-one minutes ago, and is now im· said, "this will be the crisis. Dr. bibing what is known as a 'boiler· Dawson, if you will be so good as maker' in Harry's Tavern-an es· to bring your old army revolver? tablishment which is only a half· We may have desperate men to deal block from us. I have sent him no­ with!" . tice to join us here immediately. I nodded my agreement, and our He has been told that I wish to men leapt to action. present him with important evi· dence concerning the identity of When our taxis pulled up in the murderer of his friend front of the sordid edifice which O'Toole." contained O'Reilly's rooms, some· "Jeez," said Rose-Albertine, thing indefinably different about "you'd better not just be fooling the street caught my attention. A around, old man. I think maybe I'd parking space appeared at the curb better get out of here. Mick's liable just where needed. When George to start shooting if you cross him and Anthony came bustling up-even just a little bit!" around with our chairs to help us "Fear not," said Haricot. "Dr. disembark, no mob of clamoring Dawson is armed and ready f'or urchins gathered to make insulting any eventuality. We are old cam• remarks or to demand baksheesh. paigners, he and I. Once we were Finally, when a half-grown lad called the tongs of justice, and sidled up to Bones and began to many a tough nut have we cracked speak in rapid, low tones, as if between us! But I shall not 'cross 102 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION up' your friend, O'Reilly; I shall she agreed. "You guys!" she ex· perform as promised." claimed, simpering. "Don't you ever "OK," replied Rose-Albertine. get enough?" "I'll stay. But I know I shouldn't!" Then a lithe, darkskinned boy She huddled between George and darted by like a swallow, pausing Anthony, both of whom were in flight only long enough to whi~ drooping like fagged runners after per, "He's here!" Close behind, like a five mile race. a pursuing storm, came O'Reilly A shrill whistle sounded from himself, his olive-purple suit even down the block. "He's on his way," more baggy and sweatstained than said Haricot calmly. "And by the before, his eyes more bloodshot, way, I should mention that I've and his chin bristling like the back also invited a number of persons of a hedgehog. No weapons sullied who, I am told, are leaders in the his hands, but his clothes bulged local underworld. They have ominously; I felt sure he was evinced considerable interest in armed to the teeth. As he sprang O'Reilly's violent activities of the like a rogue panther to confront us, past few days. And they should be I could feel that he was still rav­ arriving fairly soon." He pulled ing mad with his blood-lust for out his watch, listened to be sure it revenge. was still ticking, then considered "Well, you old bastud,'' he said it soberly, as if wondering whether to Bones, "here I am. What've yuh or not it was going to explode. got to tell me? Spit it out-and it Rose-Albertine was seated on had better be good!" O'Reilly's steps between our two "The problem," replied Bones, haggard menservants. I was ar~ "is really extremely elementary, ranged in my chair on one side the once one puts aside some of the steps, Bones on the other. As re~ purely fortuitous circumstantial resentatives of an older, more sta~ evidence. I had the pleasure of ex­ ble society, we were rather like the plicating a similar case in Paris, symbolically protective lions on ei~ in 1898, when I was called in for ther side the steps of the New York consultation by the Surete. About Public Library-if I may venture the same time, a German col­ a provincial comparison. How~ league, Herr Professor-Doktor ever, as we sat thinking of the Fluegelbein, very kindly called to iblood and slaughter which had di~ my attention a closely related va­ graced the past few days, Anthony riant which occurred in Hamburg and George quite evidently were in 1863. Now the minimum nee· trying to entice their fair charge essary • " to enter the building with them. "Can it!" growled O'Reilly, After some whispered discussion, drawing his pistol with a brutal niE STRULDBRUGG REACTION 103 gesture and waving it under Hari· "Is he laying for me there?" de­ cot's nose. "Can it, or I'll blow your manded O'Reilly, swinging his ass out of that tin buggy. Now, gun in a wild arc. 'Well, they've who done it? Just name a name, laid there before! Sometimes at and I'll gut-shoot the bastudl" night they're laying for me all over "My dear O'Reilly," Haricot pro­ when I get back from the tavern. tested, "you have no idea-l as­ But I always shoot the bastuds b~ sure you it is not as simple as that." fore they can get me! I gut-shoot "Talk!" O'Reilly punched them, and watch them crawl and Bones roughly in the chest with puke and lick blood before they the muzzle of his gun. die!" Gun in hand, he bounded up 'There is a toilet-room in the the dirty steps and disappeared basement of this building," Bones into the building. I noted that began. (I must confess I had no Rose-Albertine and her two Prince notion of what he was leading up Charmings also had vanished with· to.) in. I hoped they stayed well out of "You won't be in no shape to use O'Reilly's way. it, if you don't hurry," said O'Reil­ "A charming example of primi­ ly. tive paranoia," Bones remarked. "Now this toilet-room is small, "But as your, yourself, have dirty, ill-lighted, and extremely pointed out," I protested, "his be· smelly," Bones went on calmly. "It havior seems to be perfectly ac· contains only the minimum essen· ceptable to the natives of this tial plumbing fixture . . ." country. Furt'Qermore, what here· ' "You want I should ram your ports may actually have occurred. head in it? Get to the point!" Can we classify him as mad, if he "Very well," replied Bones, "but suffers from no delusions?" whatever happens, don't blame me. "Perhaps not. But hark-the Remember that each one of us, ul­ problem may solve itself!" A burst timately, is responsible for his own of heavy firing resounded from fate-that our own past actions within the building, like thunder, determine both our present state or like distant cannon on a still and our future fortunes. You are day. -" he said, looking at O'Reilly's "I trust he has not attacked the brutal features with evident dis­ young female in his fury!" taste- "what you have made your· "Rose-Alley? Where is she?" self. Now, if you wish, I suggest Bones' piercing glances Bashed in that you proceed immediately to every direction like sparks from a this toilet-room, where you may revolving pinwheel. "Here you," he find awaiting you the person you called to one of the street arabs, seek." "lend a hand! Dr. Dawson and I 104 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION must be transported in our wheel­ gagging sound escaped my chairs to the basement of this clenched lips. building. Here now! Quick now!" "Steady, Dawson, steady!" came Such was the persuasive force of the cool voice of Bones from his his personality (aided by his station at my side. "You and I have purse) that we soon found our­ seen too much in our day for you selves propelled through dingy cat­ to flinch now at the wreckage of acombs, enroute to the focal toilet. such a crude decoy." Behind us like a chorus of the les­ Then I saw what tricks my eyes ser demons crept a cautious semi­ had played upon me. By the dim circle of young ragamuffins. The light I could just make out a scare­ room was half-filled with dusty crow-like figure-made of a cartons and barrels-behind any broom, an old jacket, and a couple one of which, I thought, might of bedpillows-which lay broken lurk an enraged gunman. Grimly across the toilet seat. One sleeve of I clutched my trusty old Webley the jacket protruded pathetically in my palsied hand. Just ahead a upward, insecurely caught on a scouting boy turned and tensely splinter of broken broomstick. The waved, then pointed to a series of pillows had burst, and drifting dark splotches which ran across feathers seemed almost to fill the the concrete floor like oil drippings dirty little room. from a leaky crankcase. "Fresh "What . . . ?" I began, but blood!" he said, simply. The trail was cut off by a woman's piercing emerged from beneath the silent, scream. closed door of the toilet-room. A cry for help followed the At my direction, the boy kicked scream, and then the shrill words: open the door, then leaped to safe­ "No, Mick! No, no, Mick! Don't ty. But when I peered within, my shoot! Don't shoot!" gun almost dropped from my trem­ "Here, Rose-Alley!" Harcot's as­ bling hand as I thought for one sured tones filled the circumam­ mad moment, I have been here be­ bient ether with new hope, as a fore I The door seemed to open into gush of pure oxygen may bring life the crepuscular, pre-dawn glow of to a drowning man. the South African plain, and there Her spike heels clattering like before me once again lay the corpse castanets on the concrete floor, her of a great dog hyena-. It was hair dishevelled, her body half un­ choked with chickenfeathers, cov­ clothed, Rose-Albertine ran toward ered with chickenfeathers-and us from a dark, far corner of the protruding from its mouth was the cellar. In close pursuit staggered grisly remnant of a human arm! Mickey O'Reilly, blood dripping My swimming head wavered, and a from his wounded body, his pistol THE STltULDBR.UGG REACTION 105 protruding menancingly from his Bones, Rose-Albertine, and our beefy fist. I tried to bring my old two . menservants (who bad Webley to bear, but my shaking emerged sheepishly from behind fingers refused their duty. some barrels with the rest of Rose­ Twenty ragged boys in a half­ Albertine's clothing, after they circle, with Bones and I in their were assured that all was safe). In midst like aged choir-masters, addition, five swarthy gentlemen served as audience for the final appeared, three of whom were pri· dramatic scene. Like a queen at vately introduced to me as the bay, Rose-Albertine turned proud­ chiefs of some local bands of crim­ ly to face her apelike pursuer. She inals; the other two, who were was clad only in a wisp of skirt, very similar in appearance, were and her proud, naked breasts were publicly introduced as detective­ levelled at O'Reilly's head like the inspectors from the police. Lurking twin muzzles of an elephant rifle. like shadows in the comers of the Staggering, O'Reilly pointed his room were a half-dozen of the heavy pistol upward from the hip, street arabs who had proved so then pulled the trigger. Only a brave and so helpful. sharp metallic click greeted our Bones wheeled his chair to the straining ears, as the firing pin center of the room, and before his struck either a faulty cartridge or commanding gaze, all fell silent. an empty chamber. O'Reilly sank ''My first clues," he said, "were a to his knees as the blood pouring few scattered bloodspots and three down his legs formed a pool lumps of clay-all of which had around him. "You, too, Rose-Al­ been overlooked by the police. ley," he moaned. "I never thought With these to start with, two days you'd two-time me, you bitch!" his of painstaking investigation were gun clocked again and again as he necessary to untangle the wily triggered it convulsively. "I'm all killer's subtle spoor. With expert shot out. You've got it made, you assistance (he nodded gracefully bitch! I can't ... I can't ..." to the street arabs in the comers), With these last words, he pitched it was not difficult to trace forward on his face-dead. With OToole's thin trail of blood to the a sob, Rose-Albertine sprang for­ basement toilet, where the discov­ ward to throw herself on his bloody ery of a spent bullet helped to con­ corpse. firm my developing hypothesis. The lads also helped me to trace A half hour later, a strangely the provenance of the tiny lumps mixed assemblage foregathered in of clay which I found just this the late O'Reilly's front office. side the office threshold. We There were, of course, myself and matched them, finally, with some 106 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION mounds of subsoil around a side­ "That's not what I mean," I in· walk excavation right beside Zlot­ terjected. "I fear there may be a nik's Rathskeller. With this much flaw in your otherwise perfect so­ established, I was ready to restage lution. O'Reilly, you must recall, the circumstances of the crime­ spoke of Rose-Albertine as having and as luck would have it, at the been a witness to the bloody scene same time to help rude justice here in the outer office ...." thrust her way to the light." "No more of that, Dawson," "What ... ?" I tried to ask, but Haricot interrupted in his turn. no one heeded my interruption. "While candor compels me to ad­ "Gentlemen," Bones went on, mit that Rose-Alley may indeed his hawk's eyes sweeping the in· have been present, we must recall tent assemblage, "as you may by that we still are gentlemen. We now have surmised, O'Reilly him· must havf! a care for the young self shot and killed his best friend, lady's reputation!" Cassius O'Toole. Returning from Hot blood flushed my face as I his regular nightly tour of the lo· felt the justice of his rebuke. cal taverns, O'Reilly, as was his After a painful moment of si· custom, staggered to the basement lence, Bones continued: "As I toilet to relieve himself before at· was saying, my dear Dawson, the tempting the stairs to these rooms. problem in its essentials was so In the dim light, he mistook elementary that even the police O'Toole (who was there on a sim· might have been able to solve it in· ilar errand) for an enemy in am· time-particularly if they had bush, and shot him down. O'Reilly troubled to read my little mono­ then retired. Due to O'Reilly's graph on the classification of the sadistic habit of shooting low, subsoils of Manhattan. Of course, O'Toole survived long enough to the police never seem to be able to crawl upstairs and drag h-imself make their observations with the into O'Reilly's rooms in search of minute particularity which is aid. Awakened from drunken necessary for real success. They sleep by his friend's cries, O'Reilly are so taken up with their rote­ rushed into their outer office just learning of fingerprints; so accus· in time to watch his friend expire, tomed to using the crib-notes fur­ and-in all innocence-pledge nished by underworld informers to take a dreadful revenge upon -that they cannot pass the more his killer." subtle tests of true detection." "Extraordinary," I murmured. "Perhaps so," I replied. "But "Elementary, my dear Dawson,'' what happened to O'Reilly him· Bones began modestly. "Even the self? Did one of these gangster police ..•" persons here sl".oot him?" THE STRULDBRUGG REACTION 107 "No, no!" exclaimed Bones hur­ "Just so,'' said Haricot, to whom riedly. "On the contrary! Ironical­ I previously had described my ly enough, O'Reilly achieved his sensations in more detail. "Illu­ own last, best wish, and took ven­ sion is all. We are such stuff as geance upon the killer of O'Toole dreams are made on, and to re­ -by shooting himself." quite us, our dreams-for better "But how?!" or worse-make us. Our lives are "My able leftenant," Bones but spiderwebs of consciousness said, nodding toward one of the dangling in the black abyss of il­ street arabs, "arranged at my direc­ lusion-stretch them as we will tion the decoy dummy in a comer with new formulas for immortal­ behind the toilet. When O'Reilly ity. But apropos-what say you further confirmed my initial hy­ now to O'Shaunnessy's revenge?" pothesis by firing upon this dum­ "Spiderweb or no," I replied, my, his bullets ricocheted from "life again is amusing, and I now the stone cellar walls to return am grateful to our unloving ene­ most justly upon his own body. He my. You may be pleased to hear was-as, ironically, in a different that I have decided to resume my sense he wished to be-his own course of treatments in Zurich. judge, jury, and executioner." But what of the formula you were • As I recalled Haricot's devotion seeking? Is the Struldbrugg Reac­ to billiards, I at last understood tion lost forever to mankind, now his cryptic remark about helping that O'Shaunnessy's last two heirs "rude justice." "Marvelous!" I mur­ are dead?" mured, in sincere tribute to his "Aha," said Bones, "we may dis­ genius. cover more about that later. How­ Hours later, after satisfying ever, you should be told that An­ some of the curiosity of Haricot's thony was serving interests beyond many new admirers, Bones and I those of nature while engaged in relaxed in the drawing room of our the agreeable pursuit of young hotel suite. Rose-Albertine had Rose-Alley. He was commissioned gone off to recuperate in her gaudy by me to obtain the key to O'Reil­ grandparent's apartment in Yon­ ly's desk and inner room. Hidden kers. Our exhausted servants had in the desk, he found for me this retired to their quarters to sleep. paper." "It is curious," I said, "that of Carefully, from a long manila all the horrors of the day, by far envelope, Bones drew out a sheet the worst for me was the sight of of thin yellowed paper. Across it, that broken, feathercovered dum­ like a record of the migration of a my sprawled across that sordid flock of peripatetic partridges, toilet seat." scrabbled the .figures and symbols 108 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION of scores of complex chemical for· ever, are high." Nimbly he rolled mulae. They were traced with to the sideboard and poured us brown ink in a tiny, precise hand; each a glass of light sherry."Come, after more than fifty years I still let us drink to the future! To the could recognize the highly indi­ Struldbrugg Reaction! To the bull. vidual style of Dr. O'Shaunnessy. dog breed! Never say die!" 'We cannot know for some Glass held high, I capped his time," Bones went on portentous­ gallant toast: "Let us make Struld· ly, "what my tests of these equa­ bruggs of all mankind! Never say tions will reveal. My hopes, how· die!"

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City •••••••••••••••••••••. State •.•••••••••. Zip. No. • ••••••• Although Ron Webb is being cuN'ently and callously removed from his self-built house in the Everglades (to make way for an airport) he is neither a Seminole nor bitter. He is, instead, Zl, mamed, father of three little girls; and has been a disc jockey, a clerk, and a newspaperman; and is now-after 21 years of effort­ a professional writer. You may have seen several of his stories In AHred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. Here he is now, with a story about Danny, Jeannie, Harold, and a bottle of the kind of stuff we have, alas, been unable to buy at the friendly French Wine and Liquor Store around the corner. We stUl buy, though. Feel it is our duty.

THE GIRL WITH THE 100 PROOF EYES

byRon Webb

I FIRST MET jEANNIE over a bot­ with this dusty old bottle of tle of vintage Scotch in my apart­ Scotch which he had copped from ment. I found her before that in a his bosses supply. bar. But perhaps I'd better ex­ "For you," he said, "my com­ plain. You see it all began in the pliments. The old man won't miss Five O'Clock Club about 1 ayem it. He orders the stuff by the crate -an hour into my birthday. from some foreign outfit, but be I was sitting alone in the joint, just opens one, maybe two, a having had a tiff with my chick, year." and was sopping up a few with I blew the dust off to read the AI, the barkeep. I mentioned how label, but it was in a language I'd it was my birthday and how tame never seen before. it was with no broad to celebrate 'What is it?" I asked. with and all when AI said: "Scotch. Or so the old man "Damn shame, Danny boy," and says. He never opened one here. went into the back room. Take it home and forget you're liv­ He came back a minute later ing. I'm gonna lock up." 109 110 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION So I went to my apartment. ran into the bathroom. I ran ill too Mter dropping some cool, before she had a chance to lock blues-type wax into the machine, the door: She grabbed a towel and I cut the seal on the bottle and wrapped it around her. "Don't broke out a few cubes. Although touch me," she said with her eyes the bottle sloshed, the booze was all wide and ran out the door. The not forth-coming. I was in the towel flapped open behind expos­ middle of kicking myself for a fall ing her luscious bottom which had guy when what do I see but tiny a dimple. The dimpk twitched fingers sticking out over the rim. tormentingly away as she fled into Then with a whoosh of smoke, the living room and sat down on this little dame crawled out-a the couch with the towel up little bitty naked dame. around her. "I'm Jeannie," the bite-sized "I'll scream," she threatened. chick said. I decided that discretion was "I'm nuts," I answered. Where­ the better part of valor, and sat upon she began to grow, Alice-in­ down across the room. After all, Wonderland-wise, into this lus­ we weren't even acquainted yet cious Las Vegas type. Tall and and Jeannie was obviously the shy rangy legged and a stacked upper type. deck. Her eyes were a bourbon "Hi," I opened cautiously. amber that matched her hair. "Hi," she answered suspicious­ I figured it was all done with ly. mirrors or something. I mean who This, I could see, was getting would expect a gorgeous doll like us nowhere. that to come out of a bottle. She "You always hang out in a stood there on my coffee table for Scotch bottle?" a minute with this sleepy sort of "Mostly," she said beginning to look in her eyes. relax a little. "I have to stay there She looked real enough. She until I'm uncorked." smelled real too-sort of musky "You ever been uncorked be­ and sexy with an overlay of vin­ fore?" tage wine. She might be a parlor Her eyes got all dreamy. "Yes." trick, but who the hell cared. I was beginning to get a little "Let me help you down," I dreamy myself. "What hap­ said reaching out for her. pened?" The sleepy look vanished and She frowned a little and said, her eyes got wide. Then she gave "I don't remember." a little breathy shriek and jumped I got the impression she was down from the table, knocking lying. I tried a different gambit. over her bottle in the process, and "Ever live in a lamp?'' mE GIRL WITH mE 1()() PROOF EYES 111 She was offended. "Me? In a "The bottler had a sense of hu­ smelly old lamp? Heavens no. My mor." family is of the finest bottles. Of "Oh," I said with a stupid course-well there was uncle smile, "a clown." Charlie. He lived in an awful ker­ She smiled too, but on· her it osene lantern." She blushed and wasn't stupid, and her towel then added, "but we never associ­ slipped down a little. ated with him." "Mogen David," I said breath· I had a sudden inspiration. ing hard, "submit." "Then if you're a real genie, since Then those I 00 proof eyes of I'm the one that uncorked you, hers got all fun-lovely and smoky you're my slave. You have to do amber, and she smiled some more anything I command." and kind of sank back on the "That's not so." couch. Her hair fell around her "What do you mean it's not so? shoulders in red brown waves and It says so in all the books." she let go of the towel. "Well," she said, thinking, "it's I reached out for her and not entirely so." kissed her. Her lips were warm "Ahal" I gloated. "Then I'm and soft and things were going right." I thought about the possi­ well when all of a sudden she be­ bilities and I think a gleam must gan to shrink. have come into my eyes because "What in hell?" I yelled. But she said quickly: there she lay all naked on the "You just get three." couch and only eight, nine, inches "Three commands?" tall. She nodded. She smiled again-it was defi­ With only three mystic goodies nitely a wicked smile-and grew to play around with I suppose I back to normal size. should have given it more 'Where do you get off?" I ques­ thought, but she looked so luscious tioned, "doing that.'' sitting there with only her towel She grabbed up her towel. "I that I said, just like that, HSub­ submitted," she said all innocent mit." again. "Now?" she asked. And her Then she started to cry. I eyes got all wide again. mean, she started to cry. Can you "Now." beat that? And she said all tear­ "You have to say the magic drippy, "It's a sort of defense words." mechanism. You know-?" ''Which would be?" I didn't know at all, but it "Mogen David." shook me seeing her cry. "Huh?'' She wiped her eyes with the 112 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION end of the towel and sniffing, said, with a lovesick look in her eyes. "I can't help it. When I get com­ Then she looked at me and manded, it works to protect me." said sympathetically, "I'm sorry, She pouted her lovely lips and Danny, it was a dirty trick. But I said, "I like you, Danny, I really know you understand. Harold and do, but I just can't submit until I are in love." -"She started to cry again. "Un­ And the big guy, Harold, til I have Granny with me." laughed. I could tell th~t the love I didn't say anything. I mean, was one-sided, because Harold what could I say? dripped lust and avarice. What Jeannie daubed at her eyes he was after was not pure and again and said, "The poor old wholesome. thing. She's all alone. She was "Jeannie," I cried, "you are evicted from her lovely Drambuie blinded by this creature. He is not bottle and now she's living in a for you." cheap wine jug at Shoermer's Del­ Harold helped himself to my icatessen." She fluttered her lash­ bourbon and lit one of my ciga­ es at me and said, "I just know rettes. everything will be all right when "It's no use," said Jeannie wist­ I have Granny out of there. fully. "Harold and I are soul Won't you help?" mates." I didn't have much choice. So It kind of got to me, you know, I went to Shoermer's and got the -seeing Jeannie so stuck on this jug. I recognized it by the blue big oaf who was drinking my cork that Jeannie said it would booze. have. "Mogen David," I said to Har­ I handed the jug to Jeannie old, "get lost." and averted my eyes while she Harold poured himself another opened it, figuring that it might drink and Jeannie said, "It won't be disrespectful to watch the nude work. You didn't uncork him, I grandmother climb out and all. did, and commands are non­ I heard the cork come out with transferable." a little "thunk" and then next "Two can play at this silly thing I heard was this deep male game," I told her sternly. "Mogen voice saying, "Baby," and Jeannie David. Put Harold back in the jug." saying, "Harold, honey." "0-o-ohl" she squealed and And there wasn't any grand­ started to cry again, but she did mother at all. it, and Harold got all vaporous Just this big naked guy pranc­ looking and spewed back into his ing around my apartment, and bottle. Jeannie cried a little more Jeannie hanging onto his arm as she corked him. THE GlllL WJnl niE }()() PROOF EYES 113 "Jeannie, honey," I said trying "He can use mine," she said. to comfort her, "don't cry." "I won't be needing it.'' Then she She shuddered a little, and as went up to Harold and whispered she did, Harold's bottle began to something to him. He glared at shimmy on the table. Then it be­ her, but then his frown faded­ gan to shake and dance around and so did Harold and he drifted and it split-right in two. Then into the Scotch bottle. there was this big naked guy "Poor thing," said Jeannie prancing around my apartment corking him. "I know he'll be ter­ again and Jeannie looking apolo­ ribly cramped in there." getic and talking about defense "Never mind. He'll adjust," 1 mechanisms and soul mates. said, thinking how shook the own­ This was intolerable. I mean er of the Five O'Clock Club would like it ripped me up. And now be if I snaked the bottle back into that big Harold crud had smashed his private stock and he uncorked his bottle and was leering at Jean­ Harold instead of some chick. nie's dimple. I looked at Jeannie Then I forgot the practical joke who was looking at Harold. because Jeannie was looking at me "Who needs it?" I sneered. adoringly with those amber eyes But it wasn't any use because I and I began to feel warm inside. knew that I did, so I used my last She said softly, "I love you, Dan­ command. "Mogen David. Love ny.'' me. " And I said all mushy, "I love Jeannie still looked at Harold, yon too." but it was like he had come out "My defense mechanism," she from under a rock or something. giggled. "You had to love me.'' Then she looked at me with her But I didn't mind at all. eyes getting all sleepy and said, I held her with one arm and "Danny, honey. Harold has got to kissed her, and with the other go." arm I pitched Harold into the "If you say so," I said as casual­ trash basket. ly as I could. "But what about his And Jeannie smiled all sleepy bottle?" eyed, and dropped her towel. Jane Beauclerk is the pseudonym of a poet whose poems "have been published here and there;" this is her first story sold. Says she, further, "I am divorced, have two children, a cat, and at present two principal ambitions. The first is to live in a real house on a few act'es of real land; the second is to have a good many million dol­ lars to make movies with." We are impressed with this story. It is inescapably and favorably reminiscent of our late contributor, Edward Moreton Drax Plunket, Baron Dunsany in the Peerage of Ireland-but whereas Lord Dunsany's stories were unmistakable Fantasy, this one is unmistakably Science Fiction. And, yet, withal, a Heroic-Romantic Adventure. We think there will be more of Miss Beauclerk on the pre-technical world of Apertia, its epic-rich people, and the potent and noble Stars who rule them; and you wiU want to think so, too.

WE SERVE THE STAR OF FREEDOM

by Jane Beauclerk

ALL NIGHT THEY SAT AROUND horses, looking up at the dawn. He the campfire and talked. The turned to the others. "Friends and strangers took much and gave lit­ children, shall we move on?" tle, so that by dawn they spoke the "Wait," said the blue-eyed speech of Apertia, if badly, while stranger, and motioned. Some hur­ their own language remained a ried to the vessel of the strangers. thing hidden. Poal listened the Another, in black clothing, drew more carefully for that. Poal aside. "I take it from the way 'We come to trade," said the in which you listen," he said, leader of the strangers. His hair "that you are an intelligent young was brown, his eyes and clothing man. Am I right?" blue. "You may be right," answered "Indeed," said the rider of Poal. "It is your privilege.,. 114 WE SEB.VE THE STAll OF FREEDOM 115 The man nodded. "I am a his­ The historian nodded. "Yes, torian," he said. "I wonder if any­ now you are doomed," he said. one else understands the futility The rider of horses put down a of this so well as I." strip of cloth, letting it slide be­ "How well do you understand tween his fingers. "Friends and it?" asked Poal. children," he said, "shall we move "It is an old story," said the his­ on?" torian. "We open new markets, we "It is day," said another. All make more goods. When the mar­ rose, except Poal, and the rider kets are glutted, or when they went to his beasts. have learned to make goods for "Wait," said the blue-eyed themselves, we must open others. stranger hastily. "Let us trade." It is futile." "Why?" asked the oldest wom­ "Why?" asked Poal. an, who was mother to the rider of · "Because the universe is finite," horses. "We have clothing and fire said the historian, nodding. and weapons. What else do you Some returned from the vessel, offer?" bringing goods, and spread them "This, and that, and these oth­ before the rider of horses. "Here is ers," answered the man, and he jeweller's work," said the blue­ spoke of the usefulness and the eyed man, lifting a metal collar beauty and the value of the things. that sparkled darkly. By the time he finished speaking, "Firelight lies," said the rider, all had gone, except Poal. and he trampled out the embers of "Can it be," asked the man, the fire and lifted the collar in the "that you think these things use­ clear light of dawn. less, or ugly, or of no value?" "Here is cloth," said the blue­ "For five spans of this cloth," eyed man. "Here are sticks that answered Poal, "the Star of Beauty make fire. Here is soap. Here are would wade the three hundred weapons." seas. For this jewelled collar, the "It is bad policy," said the his­ Star of Wealth would melt his torian, "to introduce new weapons golden house to make coins. For to inferior cultures." three of these fire sticks, the Star "They are pretty things," said of Poetry would cut off three fin­ Paol. gers of his left hand." "But not too durable," said the "I do not understand your talk historian. "We need raw mate­ of stars,'' said the man, "but I take rials. We need ores. I see that you it that you think highly of our have a knife at your belt. Is it of a goods. Why then will you not common metal?" trade?" "Yes," he answered. "Steel." "We serve the Star of Freedom," 116 FANTASY AND SCIENCB FICTION answered Poal. And he rose to fol­ ''You are in luck, my friends," low his people. cried the rider of horses. And he offered one of his beasts to the It was near noon when the rid­ blue-eyed stranger, saying, "Come, er of horses, walking between his I will show you your luck." two beasts, began to speak lovingly But the stranger started back of a little weapon the strangers suspiciously. "Sit on an animal?" had shown, that struck down game he said. "Follow you alone? What beyond the reach of arrows and trick is this?" more surely. "Such a thing has "Come all in your vessel, then," many uses," he said; "especially answered the rider. "Indeed you near the dominion of the Star of will need it to carry the ore." Battle." For they climbed the ris­ So it was settled, and the stran­ ing road toward the mountains of gers and the rider of horses flew Org. away in the strangers' vessel to­ They fell into talk of this, some ward the abandoned mine in the praising the weapon, some decry­ next valley. The rider had found ing the Star, some saying they this mine only the year before, the should turn back and visit with very year it was giv~n up for lack the strangers. As they talked, some­ of safe transport, that ~alley lying thing passed over them and landed very near the dominion of the Star in the road ahead. of Battle. The others waited and "What is it?'' asked one. slept, to make up for the night of "A new flock of strangers," an­ talk around the campfire. Toward swered his cousin. "This time let evening the vessel came again. them teach us a new tongue. I "You understand that we must weary of the speech of Apertia." test it further," the leader of the But indeed it was only the blue­ strangers was saying. His blue eyed stranger and some few of his eyes shone like polished bird's companions, come in a smaller eggs. "But if it is good, we will of­ vessel from their great vessel. The fer you, say, twenty spans of the rider of horses met them with flowered cloth-" smiles. "Why?" asked the rider of horses. "Perhaps, if you will not trade, He had the look of a man who has you will lead us to others who seen marvels, and his feet gripped will," said the blue-eyed man. '1 the firm earth lovingly, but he put it to you frankly that we need leaned his hand on the vessel's iron ore." side as the winner of a race leans 'We have often noticed with an­ on his horse's neck. "What could noyance," said the historian, ''how we do with twenty spans of such nothing quite replaces iron ore." cloth?" WE SERVE THE STAR OF FREEDOM 117 "Trade it," answered the blue­ "It pleases me," answered the eyed man. "I have heard it said rider of horses, "as it happens." that someone called the Star of "I give it to you, to keep or use Beauty would give much for such or lose as you will," said Poal. cloth." Then they went on happy and The rider shrugged. "What is it singing. to us if the Star of Beauty goes Now the road branched, the clothed in silver or in rags?" he one fork turning sharp along the said. "We serve the Star of Free­ outer slopes of the mountains, dom." while the other ran up into the "What will you take, then?" steep pass between the peaks of cried the man. "I put it to you Org and Desolation. Some would frankly that we want this ore." have turned down the outer road, "Take it," said the rider. "I give but the rider of horses mounted it to you, to keep or use or lose as and trotted toward the pass. They you will. Friends and children, sat and waited. shall we move on?" "Is he mad?" asked an old un­ 'We have slept and are ready," cle. "We have never taken the said Poal, and he took a little wea­ pass. To take the pass would be to pon quietly from the belt of one of cross the dominion of the Star of the strangers and put it into his Battle." sleeve. "Only a little rocky corner of So they moved on up the moun­ it," answered Poal, who held the tain road, leaving the strangers rider's second horse. "It would with open mouths. A little while save us many barren miles and later they saw the vessel lift and days." By back toward the great vessel. "Our rider is not mad," said an­ "They do wisely to tum aside from other. "He has the little weapon." the dominion of the Star of Bat­ "Yes, yes," nodded the old un­ tle," said one. cle, "but the Star of Battle is the "More wisely than need is, al­ Star of Battle." most," said his brother. "They have Then, when they had done marvellous little weapons for cer­ talking, the rider of horses re­ tain, and marvellous large ones, at turned. "The road is wild but good a guess." enough," he said, "and the moun­ The rider of horses sighed, as a tains full of game. Friends and man sighs who thinks of his be­ children, shall we take the pass?" loved. Many were willing, but not all, "Does this please .you?" asked and so they parted at the parting Paol, putting the stranger's wea­ of the roads. The larger number, pon into his hand. Poal among them, went on to- 118 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION ward the pass, but the others was held. "Is it wisely done," stayed a while by the roadside to grumbled the oldest woman, "to choose a new rider for themselves. race a horse that has been hurried And the rider of horses gave them over rocks a day long, and gone his second beast, that the new rid­ without water, and been fright­ er should not be ashamed. ened with howling warriors? Is it done wisely?" The pass was narrow, with "Yes," answered the rider of steep wooded walls, so that a few horses, and he mounted and rode could have held it against unrea­ the race. Truth or luck was with sonable odds; but it was long him, for the town horse stumbled years now since any had sought near the finish line and so lost to this entrance to the Star of Bat­ him by half a length. tle's dominion, and it stood un­ "Camp here and be welcome," guarded. They crossed in the dusk, said the town rider sourly. So they and came into a high valley among camped. Some went about the hills. There the rider of horses town, giving and taking gifts; knocked down three of the beasts some took their ease in the sun, called lyo, and they made camp talking of the danger passed; and and feasted. some went hunting in the fields, Before dawn they broke camp for the pleasure of seeing the rider again, and were out of the hills by of horses knock down birds with daylight. Now they followed a his little weapon. faded road through a rocky land, "Strange that it never needs to cut off from the rest of the Star of be fitted with a new bolt," said Battle's dominion by ragged ranges one. "Doubtless it makes its own of bare stone. Halfway across it bolts." they were set upon by Lord Early "No," said Poal, who had lis­ and a force of twenty warriors, but tened more closely to the stran­ the rider of horses knocked down gers' talk. "It carries many bolts, three or four of them with the lit­ but in time all will be shot." tle weapon, and the rest passed on "Until then," said the rider of southward. That night they horses, knocking down ·a cluster of camped again among hills, and nuts from the top of a blyyo tree, the next morning crossed the east­ "it is a pretty thing." ern spur of Craghead and came But when they came back to down into the fertile plain where the camp they heard grumbling. the Star of Wealth had dominion. "It is a sorry town," said one. "The Towns were set thick along the people lock their houses against roads and rivers. In the first they us; and what is worse, they lock were welcomed gladly, and a race their shops and stalls." WE SERVE THE STAR OP FREEDOM 119 "Gifts are hard to find," said the slack of its chain, and so jumped sons and little brothers that cared the fence and gathered a sleeveful for the rider's beast. 'We had to of the little green eggs. He had creep under the wall of the smithy, turned to give the cat an egg, and that in broad daylight, to find when something caught him in the nails for the horse's left hind ribs and wrapped around him. shoe." "Thief;" cried a voice. "Cor­ "This is a cheap thin welcome," rupter of cats! Murderer of un­ said another, "and I for one will hatched fowls!" have none of it." Then many Poal unwound the weighted agreed and began to talk of moving rope from around himself, being on to another town; for their pas­ careful of his eggs, and turned. It sage of the day before had made was a woman who had struck him them proud, and they thought no thus cowardly from behind, and welcome worthy of them. now stood threatening him with a "Well enough," said the rider of stick. She was very young, and horses. "I am ready for another pleasant to look at. Her hair was race." So they moved on, follow­ violet-colored, wreathed with yel­ ing a river eastward to another low Bowers, and her eyes stung town, and there lost the race and him like serpents. were forced to move on again. "Out," she said, "or I loose the Now it drew on toward eve­ cat on you. And first put down the ning, and they were troubled to eggs." think that among so many towns ··1 take them as your gift," he they must shame themselves by answered. "I am hungry." sleeping in the fields. But they She lowered the stick a little, came to another town, and here and looked at him more patiently. Poal took the town rider's whip "Whom do you serve?" she asked. from his pocket a moment before "My lord the Star of Freedom," the race, and they camped there answered Poal. that night and were all welcomed. She put down the stick. "Take In the morning Poal rose early, it for a gift," she said somewhat with a great desire for turkey eggs, wearily. Then her eyes Bashed. but the first yard of turkeys he "But not to feed the horus cat and found was guarded by a snarling corrupt it and breed in it a taste horus cat the size of a colt. "Take for eggs. Out, or I call my father!" care, my kitten," said Poal. "If "I had it in my mind to give a you purr too loud, you wake the gift this morning," said Poal, "and people of the house." He scratched there was none to take it but your the beast's chin with a stick, and cat. Now there is another." And he with another stick wound up the held out the egg toward her. 120 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Her lip quivered, with anger, it "Why not?" asked Poal. And he might be, or with laughter, and played with the little weapon at she took the egg. "Come then, cor­ his belt. rupter of cats," she said, "and eat "You wear a strange thing at under our nut tree." your belt,'' said the merchant. "Most call me Poal," he said, "What is it?" following her. "It is a weapon that can pick a "All call me Lorn," said the flower bud from the topmost woman, over her shoulder. branch of a blyyo tree at four bow­ "Not I," answered Poal. "I call shots distance,'' answered Poal. you a pleasure to the eye and a "And where did you get it?" blessing to the heart." asked the merchant, whose eyes So they ate. were bright like a sick bird's. . "From a trader, beyond the do­ "Friends and children,'' said minion of the Star of Battle," he the rider of horses, in due time, answered. "shall we move on?" "So?" said the merchant. "Leave "I shall not,'' said Poal. And he me the weapon as security, and told his reasons. take six horses loaded with iron "Is this wisely done,'' cried the ore, and go trading into the domin· rider of horses, "to part from your ion of the Star of Battle. If you tpeople and lie alone in a town return with sufficient profit, and among townsfolk, to be one free within four months, the girl is man among these servants of the yours." Star of Wealth, to live at risk and "Take the weapon," said Poal. without law, and all for the sake So it was settled, and before of a merchant's daughter? Is this dawn of a rainy morning Poal set done wisely, my son?" out, leading six horses loaded with ''Yes,'' answered Poal. ore. As he passed the merchant's "Take this, then," said the rid­ house the woman Lorn came whis­ er, putting the little weapon into pering to him, and put the stran· his hand. "I give it to you, to keep gers' weapon into his sleeve. Then or use or lose as you will." he walked on singing. A few days he journeyed thus · When the rider and his people slowly beside the boat-thick river, had gone, Poal came to the mer­ for his heart was easy and the chant and told him of the matter. walking good. But when he came The merchant laughed in his face. to the slopes of Craghead he cut Poal laughed also. loose one of the horses and divided "Why do you laugh?'' grunted its load among the others. "Now the merchant. come, my pretty,'' said Poal. "I WE SERVE THE STAR OF FREEDOM 121 shall be my own rider of horses." "Lord Bromon," they answered. And he mounted and rode singing ''Tell him that one comes who up the slope. serves the Star of Freedom," said But when he topped the spur Poal. and looked down on the wUd hills "Surely we guessed as much and the roll of stony desert be­ from your valiant defense," they yond, his song died on the air, for said, and mocked him greatly. he saw the flash of battle far off at But they brought him to Lord the horizon. He thought diligently Bromon, a huge stubborn man of of the woman Lorn, and he wa­ much strength, who looked on tered his horses and knocked down him scornfully and kindly. He a pair of flying rabbits for his spoke to his surgeons, saying, meal. "Heal his hurt"; and to Poal, In the last valley he tethered "How can I please you?" the loaded beasts, and rode to the "Give me safe passage, My top of a hill. He saw battle below Lord," answered Poal. "My road him. Where two rock walls ran lies that way." And he pointed out from the labyrinthine ranges toward the vessel of the strangers. on his left hand, a troop of horse­ "What?" cried Lord Bromon. men had penned a larger force "Do you serve Lord Early?" within the stone V. ''Well, they. "I serve the Star of Freedom," will need iron," thought Poal. answered Poal. "I met Lord Early "They are wearing swords out not long ago, and the meeting was fast." But then there came a lull in not friendly." the battle and he saw that what "Go then," said Lord Bromon, the besieged warriors held as their who kept one eye always on the barricade was the great vessel of camp of his enemy. "But if you are the strangers. "Come, my pretty Lord Early's spy, you deserve what beast," said Poal. ''We must see Lord Early will do to you." this." And he rode down to the Then Poal, whose cut the sur­ fighting. geons had dressed, rode on into When he had come near to the the V of the rock walls. He saw horsemen they turned and set how the crossbows that lined the upon him, but he threw away his top of the vessel turned to follow knife and rode forward empty­ him, and so he flung wide his arms handed, so that he got no more and let the horse· amble at its own than a bruise and a cut. will. They l~t him pass around the "Who commands here?" he end of the vessel, and held him asked, when they had put up their pinned in the sights of a cross­ swords, seeing that they would get bow whUe Lord Early came to no fighting from him. him. 122 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION "You are a man of Lord Bro­ Then came Bromon and his wild man's," said Lord Early, looking at horsemen, and I had no time to him, "or one of those wanderers move out." He shrugged. "That with the strange weapon, or it was six days ago. I have thrown up may be both, and in any case you earthworks, as you see, and built are my enemy. But you come un­ the thing into a tolerable fortifica­ armed. How can I please you?" tion. But we are eating our shoes "I serve only the Star of Free­ now, and in a few days more we dom," said Poal, "and I come will be drinking blood." peacefully, but it is true that I "It grieves me," said Poal. He have an uncommon weapon." He went to where he saw a little seam showed it. in the vessel's side, and kicked Lord Early's brow darkened. against it. "It is I, Poal, a friend ''What is this weapon?" he asked. and trader," he shouted in the "Stand with it on the peak of speech of Apertia. Craghead, My Lord," answered In due time the door of the ves­ Poal, "and you can strike down a sel opened, and Poal dismounted man riding from Black Harbor to and went in. It was a marvel the sea." above all marvels. "Sit down "It is a foul weapon," said Lord quickly," said the historian. "You Early. "Take it from my sight." look dizzy." "Gladly, My Lord," he an­ Poal sat down and looked at swered, "if I may go into this ves­ the slick walls and stiff floor and sel." the strange things on them. In Lord Early shrugged. "Go into boxes the color of ice he saw the this boulder, if you will. Doubtless goods the strangers had offered for the vessel has a door, but there is trade to his people, and he no sign hung over it." thought of the woman Lorn and Poallooked down the long met­ his eyes flashed. "How can I al side of the vessel, and saw that please you?" he asked. this was true. "How did you come The blue-eyed leader of the to barricade yourself behind the strangers snorted. "Take these thing, My Lord?" he asked. madmen away," he said. 'We had "I was marching down from the no more than landed when they Ranges of Bewilderment, in hope attacked us. We could crush them of cutting off Lord Fadzal and his as quickly as you close your hand; bowmen, when I saw this thing but that would be to create hostil­ drop from the sky, and men come ity. An opening market must be out of it," said Lord Early. "I of­ treated with care and indul­ fered ·them battle, but they fled gence." into the vessel again and closed it. "Therefore we carefully and in- WE SERVE THE STAR OF FREEDOM 123 dulgently withdrew," added the and he loosed them and led them historian. 'We would have with­ down toward the vessel. "Step drawn farther, but suddenly we neatly, my joys," he told them. found ourselves being used as a 'We may have a larger load to car­ barricade. I judge that you are in ry back, if only I can think of a state of more than feudal an­ something." He took the little archy, and I fear that you will weapon and aimed it at a Rying prove a doubtful market." rabbit. Nothing happened. He "If we should rise now," said aimed it at a rock under his horse's the blue-eyed man, "our rising feet. Nothing happened. ''The would shake these pestilential bolts are shot," he said. brawlers like ants in a churn. And Then he thought of something, that is not the way to treat a mar­ and led his horses into a fold of ket." the rocks. When he had tethered Poal looked long at the shining them, he rode down again to the cloth, at the gleam of strange met­ camp of Lord Bromon. al and the changing fire of strange Lord Bromon sat stiff-faced on jewels. "Let me out," he said, "and a stone while his surgeons toiled at I will send them away." his wounded shoulder. "It grieves "That is unlikely," said the his­ me, My Lord," said Poal. "Pity torian, "and probably impossible." that you had not my weapon." But they let him out. 'What is this weapon?" asked He came out under the hoofs of Lord Bromon, whose face was as the warhorse of Lord Bromon, the stone face of a cliff in the mo­ who had grown tired of the siege ment before an avalanche. and led a Rying attack on one end "Stand with it on the plain, of the barricade. "Safe passage!" My Lord, and you could strike cried Poal, rolling on one side. He down the soaring carrion bird, if spent some bad minutes crouched only it did not Ry too high to be against the vessel; and indeed he seen," answered Poal. ''With this might have called again to the weapon, My Lord, you may kill a strangers, had he not had still the man as easily as look at him, as a taste of his boast in his mouth. serpent strikes or a spider snares. But in due time the attack was With this weapon-" beaten off, and Lord Bromon "You may live among spiders wounded with a great swashing and serpents if you will," roared blow of Lord Early's mace. Then Lord Bromon. "It is not fit for a Poal caught his horse, and rode man's use." He struck his fist safe through the lines and back to against the stone, and his sur­ the hills under Craghead. The five geons wept. " I let you live, friend, horses stood tethered by a stream, because you are an outlander and 124 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION a man of no account. But if any out of sight, and Lord Bromon and who serves my lord the Star of Bat­ his warriors had come angrily in tle dared stoop for such a weapon, pursuit and passed up into the honor would melt like snow on ranges, scattering stones from red-hot iron, and war and glory their horses' hoofs. Then Poal perish, and good battles come no slipped the weapon into his sleeve more. Take the thing from my and came down to Lord Early. sight!" "It is trickery," said Lord Early, Then Poal rode a little way off who stood with drawn sword be­ and called to a warrior of Lord side the vessel. "Bromon is not so Broman's. The man came, scowl­ much a coward as to flee without ing and leaning on his spear. reason." "Tell me, friend, where I am "That," said Poal, brushing the most likely to meet with Lord dust from his garments, "is not Gorgro," said Poal. Bight, My Lord, and he has rea­ "Beyond the Ranges of Bewil­ son. He has also my weapon." derment," answered the man. 'What?" cried Lord Early. "To "Good journey to you. Though arms, my men! After the scoun­ why an outlander and a man of no drel! We shall die bravely, at courage should seek a meeting least." And they gathered their with Lord Gorgro is more than I weapons and marched away into know." the Ranges of Bewilderment, be­ "It is true that I am an out­ fore Poal could unfold the story lander," said Poal. "But long ago I he had prepared to send them contracted with that lord to bring there. So he shrugged, and went him a certain little weapon." And back to his five horses. he rode away hastily toward the By the time he had led them ranges. down to the scene of the siege, the The warrior looked after him strangers were standing with puz­ and turned then to Lord Bromon, zled faces around their vessel. and shortly Poal heard a great cry "How did you do it?" asked the and a noise of mounting. He hur­ blue-eyed man. ried into a cleft of the rocks, "It was nothing," said Poal. where a dry streambed came down "Some are chasing others, and from the mountains, and there he those are chasing me." dropped from his horse and struck "This is what is known as strat­ the beast across the Banks, so that egy," said the historian, nodding. it leaped forward and galloped up "How can we reward you?" the streambed with a great clatter. asked the blue-eyed man. Then be crept behind a boulder Poal shook his head. "It is not a and waited until the horse was matter for reward," he answered. WE SEllVE THE STAll OF FREEDOM 125 "But it would please me to have ion is of the heart. let us leave some of those goods you carry in this place and seek your people. the vessel." Let us serve only the Star of Free­ Then goods were brought out dom and the Star of Love." So it and heaped up, and after some was settled between them. trials at loading his five horses But when the marrying was Poal cast off the sacks of ore and done, the merchant called Poal hung the strange goods in their aside. "You are an outlander," he place. His heart was warm. "Take said, "and you are young, but this for a gift," he said to the lead­ plainly you have skill." And he er of the strangers, and be gave gave him half share in his mer­ him the little weapon from his chandising. sleeve. The man said nothing. Poal told this privately to his Then Poal turned back toward wife, and when he saw the look of Craghead and the plain and the her face he clenched his hands woman Lorn. upon his heart. "Oh, it was not done wisely," she said, "and I The merchant gave him great have married a fool and an out­ welcome, with a bright feast and lander and a man not worthy to all the merchants of the town serve the Star of Freedom or the nodding in wonder at his goods. Star of Love." But that was after the woman "But a gift!" said Poal. "He Lorn had met him at her father's gave it as a gift. What could I do gate and led him with torchlight but take it?" and shouting to her father's cham­ "And now we are bound," said ber, for the merchant had not Lorn. "How can we free ourselves looked for him so soon. And with­ from wealth?" And she pressed in a few days they were married. her violet hair upon her eyes. "I will make a poor husband "My joy and my hope of pleas­ for a merchant's daughter," Poal ure," answered Poal, "it is true told her privately, "and a poor that I am a fool; but what could I townsman. I had rather give than do?" sell, and I have never learned to ''You must not waste your time buy. I have served none but the in grieving," she said. ''You must Star of Freedom, and him I have be a good merchant, and it is my served so well that not even his do­ father you must please now, not minion could hold me." me." "I am sick of buying and sell­ So Poal went to the merchant's ing," answere&Lorn. "I am sick of shop and sat there all the morn­ the town. The Star of Wealth has ing, but the merchandising smile no dominion over me, for domin- came hard to his face. 126 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Toward noon the great vessel of "Take them, then," cried Poal. the strangers landed beside the "Surely your pleasures are outer quay of the harbor, and the strange,'' And he gave them the strangers came into the town. sacks. They came with hopeful faces, When the merchant came, puff­ though somewhat uncertain, and ing with eagerness to see the with more goods in little running strangers, the strangers had gone carts. Poal left the merchant's on to other shops. "What did you shop and went to meet them. get from them?" he asked. "What strategy is this?" asked "Nothing," answered Poal, and the historian. 'Wherever we go, he told of the diamonds. Then the you are before us, and unexpected merchant was angry. things happen." "But why should I take from "It may be that the Stars who them what I do not want?" asked have dominion over all have Poal. "I mean them nothing but brought this about," answered good." Poal. "How can I please you, my "I too," said the merchant. friends?" "Hear me, young outlander. It is "We come to trade," said the not good for a man to have too blue-eyed man, who looked around much joy or too much pain. When him nervously. "It would please you give him something he wants, me to know that there were nei­ you must balance his joy by taking ther wanderers nor warriors in this something else from him. This is town." what is known as mutual profit. "There are none but merchants," But I see that you are a fool, and I said Poal sadly, with a merchan­ was a fool to trust you." Then he dising smile. "Let us trade." And cursed him. he led them to the shop of Lorn's Now Poal walked down very father. Nothing pleased them, ex­ sadly to the outer quay and saw cept three sacks of diamonds. the Star of Wealth come to land "For these jewels," they said eager­ from a great ship. The sails of the ly, "we will give you this and ship were colored like the gold of that." And they showed their sunsets, and the Star walked in goods. golden shoes. He came up from the "But these are only rough dia­ quay, to where Poal stood beside monds," said Poal, "small dia­ the strangers' vessel, and there he monds, flawed ill-colored dia­ stopped. monds, the scrapings of the "What is this thing?" asked the mines." Star. He was a tall man and very "These diamonds please us thin, with some beauty and much best,'' they answered him. grace. Poal bowed before him. WE SERVE THE STAR OF FREEDOM 127 "It is a vessel, My Lord," he ship. answered. Poal sat and watched them. It "It is a marvel," said the Star of was past sunset when the work Wealth. "It would please me to was finished, and the ship set sail own it." at once with an offshore breeze. Poal thought of his wife Lorn, Poal jingled his sapphires and and of her father. "I will sell it to went to find his wife. you, then," he said. He found the strangers in­ "Is it yours to sell?" asked the stead, and they were troubled. The Star. news of their vessel's going had "I think you cannot buy it from run up through the town and any other, My Lord," he answered. reached them at last where they "What is your price?" asked the were trading eagerly with the Star. town's merchants. Now they came Poal looked upward from the running to the outer quay, and golden shoes. "The sapphires that stood 1there open-mouthed and you wear, My Lord," he answered. with grim eyes. They saw the "That is a great price," said the great ship standing out to sea, dull Star of Wealth, "but I will pay it." gold in the twilight, with the And he took the twenty star sap­ great vessel silver on her deck. phires that he wore on twenty sil­ "Send after it," cried the blue­ ver chains about his arms, and eyed man, and clutched at his gave them to Poal. Then he called hair. his men, and with much labor and "It is the ship of our lord the the use of derricks they got the Star of Wealth," the townsfolk an­ vessel down the quay and onto the swered. "What he buys is bought."

IT'S CORRECT TO CLIPI Filling in the coupon on the next page ofl'ers the following advailtagesa 1. Guaranteed monthly delivery to your door of the best in seienee fic­ tion and fantasy reading. 2. Reduced rate-it's eheaper to subscribe than to b117 your eopiea at the new11tand. S. An essentially unmarred eopy of this issue-the coupon Is backed np with this box, and its removal does not atfeet the text of the surrounding materiaL 128 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION ·And they looked somewhat threat· you will. Share it among you." eningly on the strangers. Now a strange light woke in "Then we are lost," said the the man's blue eyes, like dawn strangers. Some wept. Some tight· over a waking town. He turned ened their mouths like the necks from the quay slowly and followed of moneybags. Some turned in an· Poal back toward the merchant's ger on the townsfolk. Only the shop, and all the strangers fol· blue-eyed man still said, "We lowed after. must send after it. Where will he So in due time all was agreed. land?" Nothing would satisfy the stran· "At Seacape, most likely," they gers but that a contract should be answered. "It is a troublesome written out in the language of journey.'' Apertia, and witnessed and signed "But how did he come to take and sealed, delivering all Poal's our vessel? Who sold it to him?" merchandise to them jointly and cried the blue-eyed man. Poal severally. Then Poal spoke pri· drew him quickly aside. vately with his wife, and in the "It is a troublesome journey, darkness they left that town, .my friend," said Poal, "and it may walking quickly. At dawn they be the ship will sink. Stay here stopped and took a horse from a and trade among these merchants. farmer's field, and rode on. But They delight in trade." out of gladness they gave their The man looked at him, saying sapphires to the farmer's little nothing. daughter whom they found herd· "I have it in my mind to give a ing turkeys, all but the one sap· gift," said Poal. "Take all my mer· phire that Lorn wore about her chandise, to keep or use or lose as wrist.

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City ••••• , ••••••• e • • • • • • • State • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Zip # ••••••••••• ************************* :~ MARKET PLACE ~: ************************* Large Science Fiction Collection. Midshipman BOOKS-MAGAZINES John Buckalew, Room 6224, BH, USNA, Annapo olis, Md. Why buy books? Send 1~ for information & catalog to: Science Fiction Circulating Library, Fantasy and science fiction: out of print, rare. P. 0. Box 1308, So. Son Gabriel, California. first editions-a distinguished catalogue sent upon request. Albatross Books, PO Box 123, Locate any book. Aardvark Fantasy, Box 1749, Hollywood 28, Calif. Orlando, Fla. 32802. SEND ONLY $2.00 for 12 different magazines SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW contains concise, on magic tricks. Will include 22-page catalogue timely reviews of science fiction books, maga­ of magical literature free. Satisfaction guaran• zines, and paperbacks. Includes articles by teed. Anthony VanderLinden, Desk FS, Oyster Leinster, Norton, Anderson, Carnell, etc. Send Bay, N.Y. 11771. for free sample copy. Box 1568, San Diego, California 92112. TRADE MAGAZINES! Send me 6 SF mags-re­ ceive 4 different. D. Jenkins, West Lafayette, Science Fiction Magazines, Astounding, Amazing, Ohio. Wonder, others 1930's. Carl Coots, Waverly, N.Y. 14892. EDUCATIONAL Don't let them take YOUI Read HOW TO COL­ LECT AS MUCH MONEY AS POSSIBLE FROM IN­ SURANCE COMPANIES and learn how a claim­ LOVE, WORK AND KNOWLEDGE-their definition ant took THEM. Crazy method but it worked. is the goal af our school and summer camp. We're still laughing. You'll laugh tool Send Coeducational. Four ta Eighteen. SUMMERLANE, $2.88 for hard-cover edition to Ohio Publishing Milasas 5, New York. Co. 6511 Bramble Avenue, Cincinnati 45227. Ohioans add 9¢ tax, unfortunately. HYPNOTISM 25,000 magazines for sale. Thousands wanted in excellent condition; science fiction, weird, Free Illustrated, Hypnotism Catalogue. Write horror, spicy, western, adventure, others. Send Powers, 8721 Sunset, Hollywood 69, California. list, enclosing stamp. Magazine Center, Box 214, Little Rock, Ark. LEARN WHILE ASLEEP, Hypnotize with your recorder, phonograph. Astonishing detoils, sen­ For immediate Release: "OFF-THE-BEATEN· sational catalog free. Sleep-learning Research PATH"-$2.00. R. Therrien, 2250 W. !30th Ave­ Association, Box 24-FS, Olympia, Washington. nue, San Leandro, Calif. BOOKS-The Surreal & Bizarre! Sadisml Maso­ PATENTS AND INVENTIONS chism! Vampirism & Lycantlvopyl Extended lists now available. Summerfore, Associated, Box 37, Vista, California. PATENT SEARCHERS, $6.001 Free "Invention Rec­ ord". Information. Miss Hayward, 1029 Ver­ MIRI FIC: newest fanzina, SF, fantasy, fact•••• mont, Washington 5, D.C. Send 35¢-1665 Johnson Avenue, Elmont, N.Y., 11003. INVENTIONS wanted. Patented, unpatented. Ex· tensive manufacturers lists. Search service. Ae­ 164 Astounding Dec. 46 to Feb. 63 $50.00; 91 plications prepared. Financial assistance ava•l· Galaxy Mar. 51 to Oct. 59 $25.00; 136 F&SF able. For free details write New York Invention Dec. 51 to Dec. 63 $40.00. R. Lowe, 2614 N. Service, 141 Broadway, Roam 817, New York 6, Springfield, Chicago 47, Ill. New York.

Do you Ita- something to advertise to sf readers? looks, magazines, typewriters, telescopes, computers, space-drives, or misc. Use tlte f&Sf Market Place at tltese low, low rates: $2.50 for minimum of ten (10) words, plus 2511 for eaclt additional word. Send copy and remittance to: Adv. Dept., fantasy and Science fiction, 347 fait 53 Street, New York 22, N. Y. 129 PERSONALS WANTED TO BUY Doc Savage Magazines wanted. Certain months ELECTRONICS ENGINEER, 30, seeks Right Girl­ of years 1933, 1934, 1935. Write Tobiska, 14737 lust, not righteous; ambitious, not grasping; Arrow, Fontana, Calif. reverent, not religious; merciful. Box 1901, Annapolis, Md. COMIC BOOKS, 25¢-$1.00 each for pre-1950, any number. SEULING, 2881 W. 12, Brooklyn 24, N.Y. SERVICES-AUTHORS MISCELLANEOUS

WRITERS WANTED! Leading Agency seeks books, FULL COLOR COVERS of Fantasy and Science stories, articles for sale to top paying publishers! Fic;tion without overprinting-suitable for fram­ All subjects, lengths! Mail scripts today for ing-75¢ for one; $2.00 for three; $3.00 for six; prompt sales actions: CARLSON WADE LITER· $15.00 for thirty-three. Our selection. Send order ARY AGENCY, 475 Fifth Avenue, New York 17, and remittance to: Mercury Press, Inc., Box 271, New York. Rockville Centre, N.Y. BEER, ALE, LIQUORS, WINESI Strongest Methods! $2.00. (Supplies, Hydrometer, Saccharometer POEMS WANTED for musical setting and re· Price List Included.). Research Enterprises, 29· cording. Send poems. Free examination. Crown MOB Samoset Road, Woburn, Mass. Music, 49-FS West 32, New York 1. GROW LUXURIANT HAIR! Banish graying-No· turally Proven European methods. $2.-"Marco", STAMPS 24 John St., N., Hamilton, Canada. Stretch to health, ideal for everyone. A few minutes a day to strengthen muscles. Complete with chart and insructions. $3.98. J. L. Hazenstab, GOOD APPROVALS at FAIR PRICES. STAMPS, 162 Beechwood Drive, Youngstown 12, Ohio. Box 711, Belmont, Calif. Smo-Cioud·Bug Killer, Simply light and a clean white cloud penetrates into cracks, crevices and 25 LARGE AMERICAN COMMEMORATIVES 10¢. other places bugs hide. $1.98, J. l. Hazenstab, Accompanying approvals. Free Perforation 162 Beechwood Drive, Youngstown 12, Ohio. Gauge. LINSTAMPS, St. Catharines 147, Ontario. SCIENTIFIC HANDWRITING ANALYSIS! Have you space-age personality, dynamics? Your 307 WORLDWIDE Different 25¢. Sensational handwriting reveals your 11Goods" and 11bads". approvals. NIAGARA STAMPS, St. Catharines for evalua1ion, send $3.00. Graphlab, Bolt 12-J, 247, Ontario. Olympia, Washington. FOREIGN editions of The Magazine of FANTASY 90,000 STAMPS SALE! Bargain lot: sets, packets, AND SCIENCE FICTION-few sample copies of pictorials $1.00. Large assortment $2.00. High each edition are available at SO¢ each-British, value packet $3.00. Litera1ure and 52 stamps 5 french, German, Italian. Send remittance to cts. Persile, 436 N. Y. Ave. Brooklyn 25, N. Y. f&SF-Box 271, Rockville Centre, N.Y., 11570. :YOUR MARKET PLACE A market is people-alert, intelligent, active people. Here you can reach 156,000 people (averaging three readers per copy -52,000 paid circulation). Many of them are enthusiastic hobbyists­ collecting books, magazines, stamps, coins, model rockets, etc.-actively interested in photography, music, astronomy, painting, sculpture, elec­ tronics. If you have a product or service of merit, tell them about it. The price is right: $2.50 for a minimum of ten ( 10) words, plus 25¢ for each additional word. Advertising Dept., Fantasy & Science Fiction 347 East 53 St., New York, N.Y. 10022 130 A MERCURY PUBLICATION

The ~aga~e of FANTASY and SciENCE FICTION has been awarded the HUGO as the world's best science fiction magazine. The award was made by the 21st World Science Fic­ tion Convention, held in Washing­ ton, D. C. This is the fourth time this magazine has been so honored, previous awards having been made in 1958, 1959 and 1960. We are also pleased to report that a special HUGO was awarded to F&SF Science Editor Isaac Asimov for "putting the science in science fiction." We think that science fiction and fantasy fiction have come to occupy a respected position in the spectrum of literature. Perhaps because they have come to represent not the tri­ umph of imagination over reality, but rather a commingling of the two. Yet this remains a unique field, free of many of the fetters of contemporary at better newsstands everv month fiction. F&SF is proud to be a leader By subscription $4.50 a year in the field. However, the purpose of 40c this magazine, first and foremost, is 347 East 53 Street New York 22. N.Y. to entertain. It is gratifying to receive awards, but we are well aware that a past honor is not a guarantee of future excellence. We propose to con­ tinue to bring you the freshest, most stimulating entertainment in the field.