Return to Otherness

by Henry Kuttner

  So I pushed that stick of firewood I was holding, only now it was two billion, two hunnerd and fifty million, nine hunnerd and fifty-nine thousand, nine hunnerd and nineteen sticks, into just about the same number of hands and let go. Some of the people let go too, but most of ‘em held on to it. Then I tried to remember the speech I was a-gonna make, telling ‘em to git in the fust lick at Yancey afore he could swing that monkey wrench.

  But I was too confounded. It was funny. Having all them people looking right at me made me so downright shy, I couldn’t even open my mouth. What made it worse was that Grandpaw yelled I had only one second left, so there wasn’t even time to make a speech. In just one second, I was a-gonna flash back to our kitchen, and then old Yancey was all ready to jump hi the gadget and swing that monkey wrench. And I hadn’t warned nobody. All I’d done was give everybody a little old stick of firewood.

  My, how they stared! I felt plumb naked. Their eyes bugged right out. And just as I started to thin out around the edges like a biscuit, I - well, I don’t know what come over me. I guess it was feeling so oncommon shy. Maybe I shouldn’t of done it, but -

  I done it!

  Then I was back in the kitchen. Grandpaw was laughing fit to kill in the attic. The old gentleman’s got a funny kind of sense of humor, I guess. I didn’t have no time for him then, though, for Yancey jumped past me and into the gadget. And he disappeared into thin air, the way I had. Split up, like I’d been, into as many people as there was hi the world, and standing right in front of ‘em.

  Maw and Paw and Uncle Les was looking at me real hard. I sort of shuffled.

  “I fixed it,” I said. “Seems like a man who’s mean enough to hit little babies over the haid deserves what he’s” - I stopped and looked at the gadget - “what he’s been and got,” I finished, on account of Yancey had tumbled out of thin air, and a more whupped-up old rattlesnake I never seen. My!

  Well, I guess purty near everybody in the whole world had took a whang at Mr. Yancey. He never even had a chance to swing that monkey wrench. The whole world had got in the fust lick.

  Yes, siree. Mr. Yancey looked plumb ruined.

  But he could still yell. You could of heard him a mile off. He kept screaming that he’d been cheated. He wanted another chance, and this time he was taking his shooting iron and a bowie knife. Finally Maw got disgusted, took him by the collar, and shook him up till his teeth rattled.

  “Quoting Scripture!” she said, madlike. “You little dried-up scraggle of downright pizen! The Good Book says an eye for an eye, don’t it? We kept our word, and there ain’t nobody kin say different.”

  “That’s the truth, certes,” Grandpaw chimed in from the attic.

  “You better go home and git some arnicy,” Maw said, shaking Yancey some more. “And don’t you come round here no more, never again, or we’ll set the baby on you.”

  “But I didn’t git even!” Yancey squalled.

  “I guess you ain’t a-gonna, ever,” I said. “You just cain’t live long enough to git even with everybody in the whole world, Mr. Yancey.”

  By and by, that seemed to strike Yancey all in a heap. He turned a rich color like beet soup, made a quacking noise, and started cussing. Uncle Les reached for the poker, but there wasn’t no need.

  “The whole dang world done me wrong!” Yancey squealed, and clapped his hands to his haid. “I been flummoxed! Why in tarnation did they hit me fust? There’s something funny about - “

  “Hush up,” I said, all of a sudden realizing the trouble wasn’t over, like I’d thought. “Listen, anybody hear anything from the village?”

  Even Yancey shet up whilst we listened. “Don’t hear a thing,” Maw said.

  “Saunk’s right,” Grandpaw put in. “That’s what’s wrong.”

  Then everybody got it - that is, everybody except Yancey. Because about now there ought to of been quite a rumpus down at Piperville. Don’t fergit me and Yancey went visiting the whole world, which includes Piperville, and people don’t take a thing like that quiet. There ought to of been some yelling going on, at least.

  “What are you all standing round dumb as mutes for?” Yancey busted out. “You got to help me git even!”

  I didn’t pay him no mind. I sat down and studied the gadget. After a minute I seen what it was I’d done wrong. I guess Grandpaw seen it about as quick as I did. You oughta heard him laugh. I hope it done the old gentleman good. He has a right peculiar sense of humor sometimes.

  “I sort of made a mistake in this gadget, Maw,” I said. “That’s why it’s so quiet down in Piperville.”

  “Aye, by my troth,” Grandpaw said, still laughing. “Saunk had best seek cover. Twenty-three skiddoo, kid.”

  “You done something you shouldn’t, Saunk?” Maw said.

  “Blabber, blabber, blabber!” Yancey yelled. “I want my rights! I want to know what it was Saunk done that made everybody in the world hit me over the haid! He must of done something. I never had no time to -”

  “Now you leave the boy alone, Mr. Yancey,” Maw said. “We done what we promised, and that’s enough. You git outa here and simmer down afore you say something you regret.”

  Paw winked at Uncle Les, and before Yancey could yell back at Maw the table sort of bent its legs down like they had knees in ‘em and snuck up behind Yancey real quiet. Then Paw said to Uncle Les, “All together now, let ‘er go,” and the table straightened up its legs and give Yancey a terrible bunt that sent him flying out the door.

  The last we heard of Yancey was the whoops he kept letting out whenever he hit the ground all the way down the hill. He rolled half the way to Piperville, I found out later. And when he got there he started hitting people over the haid with his monkey wrench.

  I guess he figgered he might as well make a start the hard way.

  They put him in jail for a spell to cool off, and I guess he did, ‘cause afterward he went back to that little shack of his’n. I hear he don’t do nothing but set around with his lips moving, trying to figger a way to git even with the hull world. I don’t calc’late he’ll ever hit on it, though.

  At that time, I wasn’t paying him much mind. I had my own troubles. As soon as Paw and Uncle Les got the table back in place, Maw lit into me again.

  “Tell me what happened, Saunk,” she said. “I’m a-feared you done something wrong when you was in that gadget. Remember you’re a Hogben, son. You got to behave right when the whole world’s looking at you. You didn’t go and disgrace us in front of the entire human race, did you, Saunk?”

  Grandpaw laughed agin. “Not yet, he hasn’t,” he said.

  Then down in the basement I heard the baby give a kind of gurgle and I knowed he could see it too. That’s surprising, kinda, We never know for sure about the baby. I guess he really kin see a little bit into the future too.

  “I just made a little mistake, Maw,” I said. “Could happen to anybody. It seems the way I fixed that gadget up, it split me into a lot of Saunks, all right, but it sent me ahead into next week too. That’s why there ain’t no ruckus yet down in Piperville.”

  “My land!” Maw said. “Child, you do things so careless!”

  “I’m sorry, Maw,” I said. “Trouble is, too many people in Piperville know me. I’d better light out for the woods and pick me a nice holler tree. I’ll be needing it, come next week.”

  “Saunk,” Maw said, “you been up to something. Sooner or later I’ll find out, so you might as well tell me now.”

  Well, shucks, I knowed she was right. So I told her, and I might as well tell you, too. You’ll find out anyhow, come next week. It just shows you can’t be too careful. This day next week, everybody in the whole world is a-gonna be mighty surprised when I show up out of thin air, hand ‘em all a stick of firewood, and then r’ar back and spit right smack in their eye.

  I s’pose that there two billion, two hunnerd and fifty million, nine hunnerd and fifty-nine thousand, nine hunnerd and nineteen includes everybody on earth.

  Everybody!
>
  Sometime next week, I figger.

  See you later.

  THIS IS THE HOUSE

  Melton walked somberly into the living room and headed for the front windows, where he remained, brooding over some dark thought and twisting his hands idly behind him. His wife, Michaela, lifted her head and watched him, while the whirring of the sewing machine faded into silence. After a moment she said, “You’re in my light, Bob.” “Am I? Sorry,” Melton murmured, and moved aside.

  But he still kept his back to the room, and his fingers still moved nervously behind him. Michaela frowned, sent a slow, rather questioning glance around the room, and pushed back her chair.

  “Let’s have a drink,” she said. “Your silhouette looks vaguely rocky. A short, strong cocktail, perhaps - huh?”

  “A short, strong snort of rye, I’d say,” Melton expanded, brightening a trifle. “I’ll fix it. Hm-m-m.” He had taken a step toward the hall door, but now he paused, almost imperceptibly. Michaela remembered the refrigerator then. “I’ll do it,” she said, but Melton growled something and went on out, his footsteps heavy and determined.

  Michaela crossed to the divan under the window and curled up on it, biting her lower lip and listening hard. As she expected, Bob was delaying opening the refrigerator. She heard the rattle of glasses, the clink of bottles, and a gurgle. The last tune Bob had had occasion to investigate the refrigerator, there had been a gasp and a string of blazing, subdued oaths. But he had refused to tell why. Remembering other incidents that had occurred in the last three days, Michaela moved her shoulders, uneasily. Not that she was cold. The house was warm, almost too warm, and that in itself implied certain disturbing factors they had already noticed. Because the coal furnace in the basement was working rather impossibly well.

  Melton came back with two highballs. He gave one glass to Michaela and slumped into a chair near her. There was a long silence.

  “O.K.,” Melton said presently. “So I didn’t put any ice in the drinks.”

  “What of it?”

  “Because there’s ice today. There wasn’t yesterday. But today the icetrays are full. Only it’s red ice.”

  “Red ice,” Michaela repeated. “I didn’t do it.”

  Her husband looked at her darkly. “I made no accusations,” he pointed out. “I didn’t really think you cut a vein and bled into the icetrays, simply to worry me. I’m just saying that the ice is red now.”

  “That’s easily solved. We’ll drink the rye straight. Where’s the bottle?”

  Melton produced it from behind his chair. “I thought we could use several. Did you phone the agent today, Mike?”

  “Yes. Nothing came of it. He got the idea we had termites.”

  “I wish we had. Better termites than … Well, what about the former tenant? Hadn’t he been able to find out anything at all?”

  “No, and he thinks we’re busybodies.”

  “I don’t care” - Melton took a long swig from his glass - “what he thinks. We bought this house on the understanding that it wasn’t - wasn’t -” He slowed down and stopped. Michaela exchanged a long glance with him.

  Melton nodded. “Sure. That’s the way it is. What can we say?”

  “Harmon kept talking about electricians and plumbers. He recommended several.”

  “That helps a lot.”

  “You’re a defeatist,” Michaela said, “and give me another drink. Thanks. After all, we’re saving coal.”

  “At the expense of my sanity.”

  “Could be you don’t understand this sort of furnace.”

  Melton put down his glass and glared at her. “I’ve handled furnace accounts at the office.” He worked with a New York advertising agency, which was one reason they had taken this house, half an hour from Manhattan and pleasantly isolated on the outskirts of a small Hudson River town. “I’ve had to find out a little about how they worked. There’s a place for a draft, there’s a vent where the gases go out, and there’s a boiler built into the furnace. You put coal in, and, presumably, it burns out, heats the water in the boiler, and is circulated through the house radiators. There’s also a blower that doesn’t work. Look. If you light a match, it burns up, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes. It burns up.”

  “But the coal doesn’t,” Melton said triumphantly. “Three days ago I put a couple of shovels of coal in the furnace. I’ve had a red bed of coals ever since. The house is warm. It shouldn’t be.” He reached over to an end table and scrabbled at some papers. “I even figured out how long it should have taken the coal to burn. The answer is four hours at the outside. Not three days.”

  “What about that automatic stoker idea?” Michaela asked. “Did you look?”

  “Well, I didn’t use an X-ray. But I looked. Yeah. I’ll show you.” He stood up, seized Michaela’s hand, and they headed for the cellar, by-passing the eccentric refrigerator.

  The cellar was capacious, cement-floored, and with six-by-six vertical supporting beams here and there. In one corner, by the coal bin, was the furnace, a bulging, dirty-white object with insulated pipes sticking out of it and wandering across the beams of the ceiling. All the drafts were shut, but the hydrostatic thermometer atop the boiler read 150. Melton opened the metal door. The bed of coals glowed red; ripples of wavy heat-motion ran across its surface.

  “Where’s the stoker?” he asked.

  “Built in,” Michaela suggested, hopelessly. “It’s a big furnace.”

  “The boiler’s like a jacket. That fattens it out.”

  “Why not let the fire go out and start another? Maybe -”

  “Let it go out? I can’t make it go out. I can’t even shake it through the grate.” He seized an iron crank and demonstrated. “The house is too hot, even with all the windows open. When snow sets in, I don’t know what we’ll do.”

  Michaela turned abruptly toward the stairs. Melton said, “What’s the matter?”

  “The doorbell.”

  “I didn’t hear it.”

  On the landing, Michaela paused to look down at her husband. “No,” she said reflectively, “one doesn’t. Hadn’t you noticed?” She made a despairing gesture and departed, leaving Melton to stare after her. Now that he thought of it, not once in the past three days had he heard the doorbell ring. Yet, he recalled now, there had been callers - mostly salesmen determined to sell the new tenants insulation, paint jobs, extermination equipment, and subscriptions to magazines. Somehow it had always been Michaela who had answered the door. Melton had taken it for granted that he had been in a part of the house where it wasn’t easy to hear the bell.

  He scowled, at the furnace, his thin, saturnine face set in troubled lines. Very easy to say, “Ignore the matter.” But you couldn’t. Not even the single matter of the furnace. And there had been others. What was wrong with the house?

  Superficially nothing. Certainly nothing that a prospective tenant would notice on inspection. The title search had showed no flaws; an architect had approved Melton’s plan to buy the place. So they had moved in, grateful for a pied a terre after months of vain house-hunting.

  Sixteen Pinehurst Drive seemed exactly what they wanted. It wasn’t ultra-modern; it had a certain solid air of assurance about it. It had sat for fifteen years facing the Hudson Palisades across the river, like a prim dowager austerely gathering gray stone skirts about her. The foundation was stone; the upper stories - it was a two-story house - were wooden frame. And the layout of the rooms was ideal for their manage, Melton and Michaela and her brother Phil, who lived with them when he wasn’t off on a binge, as he was, presumably, at present.

  So they had moved in, the furniture had been installed, and the trouble began. Melton wished Phil were here. The guy, for all his erratic tendencies, had the ability to take things for granted; he exuded reassurance. But Phil hadn’t even seen the new house yet.

  He did not, therefore, know about the hall light, upstairs, which after a few experiments the Meltons had decided not to use at all. There was something
about it. It altered complexions oddly, and had a quality of semi-fluorescence. Not quite that, but neither Michaela nor Melton liked to see each other in its illumination. The bulb wasn’t at fault; they’d tried several - new ones at that - and the quality of the light was unchanged.

  Now, why in the devil -

  Yesterday, when Melton had gone to the refrigerator for ice cubes, he had got a tremendous shock. Electrical disturbance of some sort, obviously; but to see an aurora borealis effect in your refrigerator is inevitably disturbing. And there were other things, shading into subtleties of sensation and emotion, that couldn’t be captured in words. The house wasn’t haunted. It was rather, Melton felt, simply too efficient - in an extremely off-beam way.

  The windows had been hard to open, extremely hard - for a while. Then, without any particular reason, they had all yielded as though greased, just in time to prevent the Meltons from dashing out of their overheated house to get a breath of fresh air. Melton decided to look up a friend whom he’d met while handling the Instar Electric account. The man was a technician of some kind, and might be able to explain a few puzzling matters. Like the mice. If they were mice. There was something scuttling around at night - certainly too small to be a troll, Michaela contended - and the traps Melton set caught nothing.

  “Not those mice,” Michaela had remarked. “They’re too smart. One morning you’re going down in the cellar and find a trap reset, with a tiny glass of whiskey as the bait. That’ll be the end of you.”

  Melton was not amused.

  A shrunken little man in baggy pants and a suede jacket appeared suddenly on the staircase landing and looked at Melton. Melton looked back in a baffled manner.

  “Furnace trouble, huh?” the man said. “Your wife said you couldn’t figure it out.”