The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works 1911-1987

by C. L. Moore

  Hope had returned to MacIlson's face. "Is it all right?"

  "Oh, shut up!" Vanning snapped. "Wait here for me. Be back directly." He headed for a side door and vanished. In a surprisingly short time he returned, awkardly lugging a metal cabinet.

  "Help me ... uh! ... here. In this corner. Now get out."

  "But—"

  "Flash," Vanning ordered. "Everything's under control. Don't talk. You'll be arrested, but they can't hold you without evidence. Come back as soon as you're sprung." He urged MacIlson to the door, unlocked it, and thrust the man through. After that, he returned to the cabinet, swung open the door, and peered in. Empty. Sure.

  The suedette suitcase—

  Vanning worked it into the locker, breathing hard. It took a little time, since the valise was larger than the metal cabinet. But at last he relaxed, watching the brown case shrink and alter its outline till it was tiny and distorted, the shape of an elongated egg, the color of a copper cent piece.

  "Whew!" Vanning said.

  Then he leaned closer, staring. Inside the locker, something was moving. A grotesque little creature less than four inches tall was visible. It was a shocking object, all cubes and angles, a bright green in tint, and it was obviously alive.

  Someone knocked on the door.

  The tiny—thing—was busy with the copper-colored egg. Like an ant, it was lifting the egg and trying to pull it away. Vanning gasped and reached into the locker. The fourth-dimensional creature dodged. It wasn't quick enough. Vanning's hand descended, and he felt wriggling movement against his palm.

  He squeezed.

  The movement stopped. He let go of the dead thing and pulled his hand back swiftly.

  The door shook under the impact of fists.

  Vanning closed the locker and called, "Just a minute."

  "Break it down," somebody ordered.

  -

  But that wasn't necessary. Vanning put a painful smile on his face and turned the key. Counsel Hatton came in, accompanied by bulky policemen. "We've got MacIlson," he said.

  "Oh? Why?"

  For answer Hatton jerked his hand. The officers began to search the room, Vanning shrugged.

  "You've jumped the gun," he said. "Breaking and entering—"

  "We've got a warrant."

  "Charge?"

  "The bonds, of course." Hatton's voice was weary. "I don't know where you've hid that suitcase, but we'll find it."

  "What suitcase?" Vanning wanted to know.

  "The one MacIlson had when he came in. The one he didn't have when he went out."

  "The game," Vanning said sadly, "is up. You win."

  "Eh?"

  "If I tell you what I did with the suitcase, will you put in a good word for me?"

  "Why ... yeah. Where—"

  "I ate it," Vanning said, and retired to the couch, where he settled himself for a nap. Hatton gave him a long, hating look. The officers tore in—

  They passed by the locker, after a casual glance inside. The x rays revealed nothing, in walls, floor, ceiling, or articles of furniture. The other offices were searched, too. Vanning applauded the painstaking job.

  In the end, Hatton gave up. There was nothing else he could do.

  "I'll clap suit on you tomorrow," Vanning promised. "Same time I get a habeas corpus on MacIlson."

  "Step to hell," Hatton growled.

  " 'By now."

  Vanning waited till his unwanted guests had departed. Then, chuckling quietly, he went to the locker and opened it.

  The copper-colored egg that represented the suedette suitcase had vanished. Vanning groped inside the locker, finding nothing.

  The significance of this didn't strike Vanning at first. He swung the cabinet around so that it faced the window. He looked again, with identical results.

  The locker was empty.

  Twenty-five thousand credits in negotiable ore bonds had disappeared.

  Vanning started to sweat. He picked up the metal box and shook it. That didn't help. He carried it across the room and set it up in another corner, returning to search the floor with painstaking accuracy. Holy—

  Hatton?

  No. Vanning hadn't let the locker out of his sight from the time the police had entered till they left. An officer had swung open the cabinet's door, looked inside, and closed it again. After that the door had remained shut, till just now.

  The bonds were gone.

  So was the abnormal little creature Vanning had crushed. All of which meant—what?

  Vanning approached the locker and closed it, clicking the latch into position. Then he reopened it, not really expecting that the copper-colored egg would reappear.

  He was right. It didn't.

  -

  Vanning staggered to the Winchell and called Galloway.

  "Whatzit? Huh? Oh. What do you want?" The scientist's gaunt face appeared on the screen, rather the worse for wear. "I got a hangover. Can't use thiamin, either. I'm allergic to it. How'd your case come out?"

  "Listen," Vanning said urgently, "I put something inside that damn—locker of yours and now it's gone."

  "The locker? That's funny."

  "No! The thing I put in it. A ... a suitcase."

  Galloway shook his head thoughtfully. "You never know, do you? I remember once I made a—"

  "The hell with that. I want that suitcase back!"

  "An heirloom?" Galloway suggested.

  "No, there's money in it."

  "Wasn't that a little foolish of you? There hasn't been a bank failure since 1949. Never suspected you were a miser, Vanning. Like to have the stuff around, so you can run it through your birdlike fingers, eh?"

  "You're drunk."

  "I'm trying," Galloway corrected. "But I've built up an awful resistance over a period of years. It takes time. Your call's already set me back two and a half drinks. I must put an extension on the siphon, so I can Winchell and guzzle at the same time."

  Vanning almost chattered incoherently into the mike. "My suitcase! What happened to it? I want it back."

  "Well, I haven't got it."

  "Can't you find out where it is?"

  "Dunno. Tell me the details. I'll see what I can figure out."

  Vanning complied, revising his story as caution prompted.

  "O. K.," Galloway said at last, rather unwillingly. "I hate working out theories, but just as a favor ... My diagnosis will cost you fifty credits."

  "What? Now listen—"

  "Fifty credits," Galloway repeated unflinchingly. "Or no prognosis."

  "How do I know you can get it back for me?"

  "Chances are I can't. Still, maybe ... I'll have to go over to Mechanistra and use some of their machines. They charge a good bit, too. But I'll need forty-brainpower calculators—"

  "O. K., O. K.!" Vanning growled. "Hop to it. I want that suitcase back."

  "What interests me is that little bug you squashed. In fact, that's the only reason I'm tackling your problem. Life in the fourth dimension—" Galloway trailed off, murmuring. His face faded from the screen. After a while Vanning broke the connection.

  He re-examined the locker, finding nothing new. Yet the suedette suitcase had vanished from it, into thin air. Oh, hell!

  -

  Brooding over his sorrows, Vanning shrugged into a top coat and dined vinously at the Manhattan Roof. He felt very sorry for himself.

  The next day he felt even sorrier. A call to Galloway had given the blank signal, so Vanning had to mark time. About noon MacIlson dropped in. His nerves were shot.

  "You took your time in springing me," he started immediately. "Well, what now? Have you got a drink anywhere around?"

  "You don't need a drink," Vanning grunted. "You've got a skinful already, by the look of you. Run down to Florida and wait till this blows over."

  "I'm sick of waiting. I'm going to South America. I want some credits."

  "Wait'll I arrange to cash the bonds."

  "I'll take the bonds. A fair half, as we agreed."

/>   Vanning's eyes narrowed. "And walk out into the hands of the police. Sure."

  MacIlson looked uncomfortable. "I'll admit I made a boner. But this time—no, I'll play smart now."

  "You'll wait, you mean."

  "There's a friend of mine on the roof parking lot, in a helicopter. I'll go up and slip him the bonds, and then I'll just walk out. The police won't find anything on me."

  "I said no," Vanning repeated. "It's too dangerous."

  "It's dangerous as things are. If they locate the bonds—"

  "They won't."

  "Where'd you hide 'em?"

  "That's my business."

  MacIlson glowered nervously. "Maybe. But they're in this building. You couldn't have finagled 'em out yesterday before the cops came. No use playing your luck too far. Did they use X rays?"

  "Yeah."

  "Well, I heard Counsel Hatton's got a batch of experts going over the blueprints on this building. He'll find your safe. I'm getting out of here before he does."

  Vanning patted the air. "You're hysterical. I've taken care of you, haven't I? Even though you almost screwed the whole thing up."

  "Sure," MacIlson said, pulling at his lip. "But I—" He chewed a fingernail. "Oh, damn! I'm sitting on the edge of a volcano with termites under me. I can't stay here and wait till they find the bonds. They can't extradite me from South America—where I'm going, anyway."

  "You're going to wait," Vanning said firmly. "That's your best chance."

  There was suddenly a gun in MacIlson's hand. "You're going to give me half the bonds. Right now. I don't trust you a little bit. You figure you can stall me along—hell, get those bonds!"

  "No," Vanning said.

  "I'm not kidding."

  "I know you aren't. I can't get the bonds."

  "Eh? Why not?"

  "Ever heard of a time lock?" Vanning asked, his eyes watchful. "You're right; I put the suitcase in a concealed safe. But I can't open that safe till a certain number of hours have passed."

  "Mm-m." MacIlson pondered. "When—"

  "Tomorrow."

  "All right. You'll have the bonds for me then?"

  "If you want them. But you'd better change your mind. It'd be safer."

  For answer MacIlson grinned over his shoulder as he went out. Vanning sat motionless for a long time. He was, frankly, scared.

  The trouble was, MacIlson was a manic-depressive type. He'd kill. Right now, he was cracking under the strain, and imagining himself a desperate fugitive. Well—precautions would be advisable.

  Vanning called Galloway again, but got no answer. He left a message on the recorder and thoughtfully looked into the locker again. It was empty, depressingly so.

  -

  That evening Galloway let Vanning into his laboratory. The scientist looked both tired and drunk. He waved comprehensively toward a table, covered with scraps of paper.

  "What a headache you gave me! If I'd known the principles behind that gadget, I'd have been afraid to tackle it. Sit down. Have a drink. Got the fifty credits?"

  Silently Vanning handed over the coupons. Galloway shoved them into Monstro. "Fine. Now—" He settled himself on the couch. "Now we start. The fifty credit question."

  "Can I get the suitcase back?"

  "No," Galloway said flatly. "At least, I don't see how it can be worked. It's in another spatio-temporal sector."

  "Just what does that mean?"

  "It means the locker works something like a telescope, only the thing isn't merely visual. The locker's a window, I figure. You can reach through it as well as look through it. It's an opening into Now plus x."

  Vanning scowled. "So far you haven't said anything."

  "So far all I've got is theory, and that's all I'm likely to get. Look. I was wrong originally. The things that went into the locker didn't appear in another space, because there would have been a spatial constant. I mean, they wouldn't have got smaller. Size is size. Moving a one-inch cube from here to Mars wouldn't make it any larger or smaller."

  "What about a different density in the surrounding medium? Wouldn't that crush an object?"

  "Sure, and it'd stay squashed. It wouldn't return to its former size and shape when it was taken out of the locker again. X plus y never equals xy. But x times y—"

  "So?"

  "That's a pun," Galloway broke off to explain. "The things we put in the locker went into time. Their time-rate remained constant, but not the spatial relationships. Two things can't occupy the same place at the same time. Ergo, your suitcase went into a different time. Now plus x. And what x represents I don't know, though I suspect a few million years."

  Vanning looked dazed. "The suitcase is a million years in the future?"

  "Dunno how far, but—I'd say plenty. I haven't enough factors to finish the equation. I reasoned by induction, mostly, and the results are screwy as hell. Einstein would have loved it. My theorem shows that the universe is expanding and contracting at the same time."

  "What's that got to do—"

  "Motion is relative," Galloway continued inexorably. "That's a basic principle. Well, the Universe is expanding, spreading out like a gas, but its component parts are shrinking at the same time. The parts don't actually grow, you know—not the suns and atoms. They just run away from the central point. Galloping off in all directions ... where was I? Oh. Actually, the Universe, taken as a unit, is shrinking."

  "So, it's shrinking. Where's my suitcase?"

  "I told you. In the future. Inductive reasoning showed that. It's beautifully simple and logical. And it's quite impossible of proof, too. A hundred, a thousand, a million years ago the Earth—the Universe—was larger than it is now. And it continues to contract. Sometime in the future the Earth will be just half as large as it is now. Only we won't notice it because the Universe will be proportionately smaller."

  -

  Galloway went on dreamily. "We put a workbench into the locker, so it emerged sometime in the future. The locker's an open window into a different time, as I told you. Well, the bench was affected by the conditions of that period. It shrank, after we gave it a few seconds to soak up the entropy or something. Do I mean entropy? Allah knows. Oh, well."

  "It turned into a pyramid."

  "Maybe there's geometric distortion, too. Or it might be a visual illusion. Perhaps we can't get the exact focus. I doubt if things will really look different in the future—except that they'll be smaller—but we're using a window into the fourth dimension. We're taking a pleat in time. It must be like looking through a prism. The alteration in size is real, but the shape and color are altered to our eyes by the fourth-dimensional prism."

  "The whole point, then, is that my suitcase is in the future. Eh? But why did it disappear from the locker?"

  "What about that little creature you squashed? Maybe he had pals. They wouldn't be visible till they came into the very narrow focus of the whatchmaycallit, but—figure it out. Sometime in the future, in a hundred or a thousand or a million years, a suitcase suddenly appears out of thin air. One of our descendants investigates. You kill him. His pals come along and carry the suitcase away, out-of range of the locker. In space it may be anywhere, and the time factor's an unknown quantity. Now plus x. It's a time locker. Well?"

  "Hell!" Vanning exploded. "So that's all you can tell me? I'm supposed to chalk it up to profit and loss?"

  "Uh-huh. Unless you want to crawl into the locker yourself after your suitcase. Lord knows where you'd come out, though. The proportions of the air probably would have changed in a few thousand years. There might be other alterations, too."

  "I'm not that crazy."

  -

  So there he was. The bonds were gone, beyond hope of redemption. Vanning could resign himself to that loss, once he knew the securities wouldn't fall into the hands of the police. But MacIlson was another matter, especially after a bullet spattered against the glassolex window of Vanning's office.

  An interview with MacIlson had proved unsatisfactory. The defaulter
was convinced that Vanning was trying to bilk him. He was removed forcibly, yelling threats. He'd go to the police—he'd confess—

  Let him. There was no proof. The hell with him. But, for safety's sake, Vanning clapped an injunction on his quondam client.

  It didn't land. MacIlson clipped the official on the jaw and fled. Now, Vanning suspected, he lurked in dark corners, armed, and anxious to commit homicide. Obviously a manic-depressive type.

  Vanning took a certain malicious pleasure in demanding a couple of plain-clothes men to act as his guards. Legally, he was within his rights, since his life had been threatened. Until MacIlson was under sufficient restriction, Vanning would be protected. And he made sure that his guards were two of the best shots on the Manhattan force.

  He also found out that they had been told to keep their eyes peeled for the missing bonds and the suedette suitcase. Vanning Winchelled Counsel Hatton and grinned at the screen.

  "Any luck yet?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "My watchdogs. Your spies. They won't find the bonds, Hatton. Better call 'em off. Why make the poor devils do two jobs at once?"

  "One job would be enough. Finding the evidence. If MacIlson drilled you, I wouldn't be too unhappy."

  "Well, I'll see you in court," Vanning said. "You're prosecuting Watson, aren't you?"

  "Yes. Are you waiving scop?"

  "On the jurors? Sure. I've got this case in the bag."

  "That's what you think," Hatton said, and broke the beam.

  Chuckling, Vanning donned his topcoat, collected the guards, and headed for court. There was no sign of MacIlson—

  Vanning won the case, as he had expected. He returned to his offices, collected a few unimportant messages from the switchboard girl, and walked toward his private suite. As he opened the door, he saw the suedette suitcase on the carpet in the corner.

  He stopped, hand frozen on the latch. Behind him he could hear the heavy footsteps of the guards. Over his shoulder Vanning said, "Wait a minute," and dodged into the office, slamming and locking the door behind him. He caught the tail end of a surprised question.

  The suitcase. There it was, unequivocally. And, quite as unequivocally, the two plain-clothes men, after a very brief conference, were hammering on the door, trying to break it down.

  Vanning turned green. He took a hesitant step forward, and then saw the locker, in the corner to which he had moved it. The time locker—