The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works 1911-1987

by C. L. Moore

  We was back to home an hour later, all but Uncle Les, when the door busted open and in come Uncle Les, with the Perfesser staggering after him. Galbraith was a mess. He sank down and wheezed, looking back at the door in a worried way.

  "Funny thing happened," Uncle Les said. "I was flying along outside town and there was the Perfesser running away from a big crowd of people, with sheets wrapped around 'em—some of 'em. So I picked him up. I brung him here, like he wanted." Uncle Les winked at me.

  "Ooooh!" Galbraith said. "Aaaah! Are they coming?"

  Maw went to the door.

  "They's a lot of torches moving up the mountain," she said. "It looks right bad."

  The Perfesser glared at me.

  "You said you could hide me! Well, you'd better! This is your fault!"

  "Shucks," I said.

  "You'll hide me or else!" Galbraith squalled. "I—I'll bring that commission down."

  "Look," I said, "if we hide you safe, will you promise to fergit all about that commission and leave us alone?"

  The Perfesser promised. "Hold on a minute," I said, and went up to the attic to see Grandpaw.

  He was awake.

  "How about it, Grandpaw?" I asked.

  He listened to Little Sam for a second.

  "The knave is lying," he told me pretty soon. "He means to bring his commission of stinkards here anyway, recking naught of his promise."

  "Should we hide him, then?"

  "Aye," Grandpaw said. "The Hogbens have given their word—there must be no more killing. And to hide a fugitive from his pursuers would not be an ill deed, surely."

  Maybe he winked. It's hard to tell with Grandpaw. So I went down the ladder. Galbraith was at the door, watching the torches come up the mountain.

  He grabbed me.

  "Saunk! If you don't hide me—"

  "We'll hide you," I said. "C'mon."

  So we took him down to the cellar.

  When the mob got here, with Sheriff Abernathy in the lead, we played dumb. We let 'em search the house. Little Sam and Grandpaw turned invisible for a bit, so nobody noticed them. And naturally the crowd couldn't find hide nor hair of Galbraith. We'd hid him good, like we promised.

  That was a few years ago. The Perfesser's thriving. He ain't studying us, though. Sometimes we take out the bottle we keep him in and study him.

  Dang small bottle, too!

  -

  PILE OF TROUBLE

  Hogben 02

  Thrilling Wonder Stories - April 1948

  by Henry Kuttner

  We called Lemuel "Gimpy," on account of he had three legs. After he got his growth, about the time they fit the War Between the States, he was willing to keep his extra leg sort of tucked up behind him inside his britches, where it would be out of sight and people wouldn't talk. Course it made him look a little like one of them camel critters, but then Lemuel never was vain. It was lucky he was doublejointed, though, or he might of got cramps from keeping his leg tucked up thataway.

  We hadn't seen Lemuel for some sixty years. He was living in the southern part of the mountains, and the rest of us was up in northern Kaintuck. And I guess we wouldn't of got in that trouble if Lemuel hadn't been so blame shiftless. It looked like big trouble for a while. We Hogbens had had plenty of that before we moved to Piperville, what with people peeping and prying and trying to find out why the dogs barked so much for miles around. It got so we couldn't do no flying at all. Finally grandpaw said we'd just better pull up stakes and move down south where Lemuel was staying.

  I hate moving. That trip to Plymouth Rock made me sick to my stummick. I'd ruther of flew. But Grandpaw's the boss.

  He made us hire a truck and load everything in it. We had trouble getting the baby in; he don't weigh more'n three hundred pound, but that tank we got to keep him in is purty bulky. No trouble about Grandpaw, though; we just tied him up in an old gunny sack and shoved him under the seat. I had to do all the work. Paw had got at the corn likker and was plomb silly. He kept hopping around on the top of his haid and singing something called, "The World Turned Upside Down."

  Uncle wouldn't come. He'd dug himself in under the corncrib and said he was gonna hibernate fer ten years or so. We just left him there. "Allus traveling around," he kept complaining. "Cain't stay put. Every five hundred years or so, bang! Traipsin' off summers. Go on, git!"

  So we got.

  Lemuel, the one we used to call Gimpy, was one of the family. Seems there was a dust-up when we first came to Kaintuck—the way I heard it. Everybody was supposed to pitch in and help build a house, but not Lemuel—he wouldn't. Plomb shiftless. He flew off to the south. Every year or two he'd wake up a little and we'd hear him thinking, but mostly he just sot.

  We figgered we'd live with him fer a while.

  That's what we did.

  Seems like Lemuel lived in an old water mill in the mountains up over a town called Piperville. It was kind of ramshackle. Lemuel was on the porch. He'd been sitting in a chair, but it had fallen down some while before, and he hadn't bothered to wake up to fix it. So he sat there in the middle of his whiskers, breathing a trifle. He was having a nice dream. We didn't wake him up. We toted the baby in the house, and Grandpaw and Paw started carrying in the bottles of corn.

  That was how we settled in. It warn't exactly convenient at first. Lemuel was too remarkable shiftless to keep vittles in the house. He'd wake up enough to hypnotize a coon, back somewheres in the woods, and purty soon the coon would come wandering along looking dazed, ready to be et. Lemuel had to eat coons mostly because they're clever with their paws, which are sort of like hands. You can call me a weasel if that shiftless Lem didn't hypnotize the coons into building a fire and cooking themselves. I never figgered out how he got the critters skun. Maybe he spit out the fur. Some people are just too lazy for anything.

  When he got thirsty, he made it rain a little over his haid and opened his mouth. It was shameful.

  Nobody paid no attention to Lemuel, though. Maw got busy. Paw, natcherally, snuck off with a jug of corn, and I had to do all the work. 'Twarn't much. Main trouble was we needed some sort of power. Keeping the baby alive in his tank uses up a lot of current, and Grandpaw drinks electricity like a hawg sucks up swill. Ef'n Lemuel had kept the water running in the stream, we'd of had no trouble, but that was Lemuel! He just let it dry up. There was a trickle, no more.

  Maw helped me build a gadget in the henhouse, and after that we got all the power we needed.

  The trouble all started when a skinny little runt come up the trail one day and seemed surprised to see maw take the washing out in the yard. I trailed along, interested like.

  "Right nice day," Maw said. "Want a drink, stranger?"

  He said he didn't mind if'n he did, so I got him a dipperful, and after he had drunk the corn he took a few gasping breaths and said, thanks, no, he didn't want any more just then or ever. He said he could cut his throat cheaper, and get the same effect.

  "Just moved in here?" he asked.

  Maw said yes, we had, and Lemuel was a relative. The feller looked at Lemuel, sitting on the porch with his eyes shut, and said, "You mean he's alive?"

  "Shore is," Maw said. "Alive and kicking, so to speak."

  "We thought he'd been dead for years," the man said. "That's why we never bothered about collecting the poll tax for him. I guess you'd better pay yours, too, now that you've moved in. How many of you are there?"

  " 'Bout six," Maw said.

  "All of age?"

  "There's Paw and Saunk and the baby—"

  "How old?"

  "The baby's about four hundred now, ain't he, Maw?" I asked, but she clouted me 'longside the haid and said I should shet up. The man pointed at me and said he'd meant how old was I. Heck, I couldn't tell him. I lost track round about Cromwell's time. Finally he said we'd all have to pay a poll tax except the baby.

  "Not that it matters," he said, writing in a little book. "You have to vote the right way in this town. The Machine's in to stay. There's
only one boss in Piperville, and his name's Eli Gandy. Twenty dollars that'll be."

  Maw told me to git some money, so I went searchin'. Grandpaw didn't have anything except something he said was a denarius, and that was his lucky piece anyhow; he said he'd swiped it from a feller named Julius up in Gaul. Paw was daid drunk. The baby had three dollars. I went and looked through Lemuel's pockets but didn't find nothing but an old oriole's nest with two eggs in it.

  When I told Maw, she scratched her haid, so I said, "We can make some by tomorrow, Maw. You'll take gold, won't you, Mister?"

  Maw clouted me. The man looked kind of funny and said sure, he'd take gold. Then he went away through the woods passing a coon that was carrying a bundle of twigs fer firewood, and I figgered Lemuel was getting hungry. The man started to walk faster.

  I started looking fer some old iron I could change into gold.

  The next day we got carted off to jail.

  We knew about it in advance, of course, but there wasn't much we could do. It's allus been our idea to keep our haids down and not attract no special attention. That's what Grandpaw told us to do now. We all went up to the attic—all but the baby and Lemuel, who never stirred—and I kept looking at a spiderweb up in one corner, so I wouldn't have to look at Grandpaw. He hurts my eyes.

  "Out upon them for stinkard knaves," Grandpaw said. " 'Tis best that we go to their gaol; the days of the Inquisition are over. 'Twill be safe enough."

  "Cain't we hide that thar gadget we made?" I asked him.

  Maw clouted me fer speaking before my elders. "That won't do no good," she said. "Them spies from Piperville was up here this morning and seen it."

  Grandpaw said, "Have you hollowed a cavern under this house? Good. Hide me and the baby there. The rest of you—" He relapsed into old-fashioned language. " 'Tis pity if we were to live thus long and be found out by these black-avised dullards. 'Twere better their weasands were slit. Nay, Saunk—I spoke in jest. We would not call attention to ourselves. We will find a way."

  That was the way it was. We all got toted off, all but Grandpaw and the baby, who were down in the cave by that time. We got carried off to Piperville and put in the hoosegow. Lemuel never woke up. They drug him off by the heels.

  As fer Paw, he stayed drunk. He's got a trick he knows. He can drink corn, and then, as I understand it, the alcohol goes in his blood and gets changed into sugar or something. Magic, I guess. He tried to explain it to me, but it made oncommon bad sense. Likker goes into your stummick; how kin it go up inside your skull and turn into sugar? Plumb silly. Or conjure, anyhow. But what I was going to say, Paw says he's trained some friends of his named Enzymes—furriners, by the name—so they change the sugar right back to alcohol, and he kin stay drunk as long as he wants. Still, he likes fresh corn if he can get it. Me, I don't like them conjure tricks; they make me skittery.

  I was took into a room with people in it and told to sit down in a chair. They asked me questions. I played dumb. I said I didn't know nothing.

  "It's impossible!" somebody said. "They couldn't have built it themselves—illiterate hillbillies! But, unmistakably, there's a uranium pile in their henhouse!"

  Shucks.

  I kept on playing dumb. After a while they took me back to my cell. There was bedbugs. I made a sort of ray come out of my eyes and killed 'em off, much to the surprise of a seedy little feller with pink whiskers who was asleep in the upper bunk, and who I didn't notice was awake till it was too late.

  "I have been in some strange prisons in my time," said the seedy little feller, blinking rapid, "and I have had some unusual cellmates, but never yet have I encountered one whom I suspected to be the devil. My name is Armbruster, Stinky Armbruster, and I'm up for vagrancy. What's the charge against you, my friend? Buying souls over the ceiling price?"

  I said I was pleased to meet him. I had to admire his language. He had eddication something fearful.

  "Mr. Armbruster," I said, "I got no idea why I'm here. They just carted me off—Paw and Maw and Lemuel. Lemuel's asleep, though, and Paw's drunk."

  "I would like to be drunk." Mr. Armbruster told me. "Then I wouldn't be so surprised to see you floating two feet off the floor."

  That kind of embarrassed me. Nobody likes to be caught doing things like that. It was just that I was absent-minded, but I felt foolish. I said I was sorry.

  "It doesn't matter," Mr. Armbruster said, rolling over and scratching his whiskers. "I've been expecting this for years. I've had a pleasant life, all in all. And this is a delightful way to go crazy. Why did you say they arrested you?"

  "They said we had a uranium pile," I told him. "I bet we ain't. We got a woodpile, I know, 'cause I chopped the wood. But I know I never chopped no uranium."

  "You'd remember it if you had," he said. "It's probably some political gambit. Election's a week off. There's a reform party starting, and old Gandy's smashing it before it can start."

  "Well, we ought to be getting home," I said.

  "Where do you live?"

  I told him, and he thought that over. "I wonder. You're on the river, aren't you—the creek, I mean? Big Bear?"

  "It ain't even a creek," I said.

  Mr. Armbruster laughed. "Gandy called it the Big Bear River. That was before he got the Gandy Dam built, down below your place. There hasn't been any water in that creek for fifty years, but old Gandy put through an appropriation for I don't know how much money, about ten years ago. He got the dam built by calling the creek a river."

  "What did he want to do that for?" I asked.

  "Do you know how much crooked money you can make out of building a dam?" Mr. Armbruster asked me. "But Gandy's in to stay, I guess. When a man owns the newspapers, he can write his own ticket. Oh-oh. Here comes somebody."

  A man come with keys and took Mr. Armbruster away. After quite awhile somebody else come and let me out. I was took into another room full of lights. Mr. Armbruster was there, and Maw and Paw and Lemuel, and some big fellers with guns. There was a little skinny wizened man with a bald head and snaky eyes, and everybody done what he told 'em. They called him Mr. Gandy.

  "This boy's an ordinary hillbilly," Mr. Armbruster said, when I come in. "If he's got into trouble, it must be by accident."

  They told him to keep quiet and banged him one. So he kept quiet. That Mr. Gandy sat off in a corner and sort of nodded, looking mean. He had a bad eye. "Listen, boy," he said to me. "Who are you shielding? Who built that uranium pile in your woodshed? You'd better tell me the truth or you'll get hurt."

  I just looked at him, so somebody hit me on top of the haid. Shucks. You can't hurt a Hogben by hitting him on the haid. I recollect the time the feuding Adamses cotched me and banged me on the haid till they was plumb wore out and couldn't even squeal when I dumped 'em down a cistern.

  Mr. Armbruster made noises.

  "Listen, Mr. Gandy," he said. "I know it'll make a big story if you find out who built that uranium pile, but you'll get re-elected without it. Maybe it isn't a uranium pile anyway."

  "I know who built it," Mr. Gandy said. "Renegade scientists. Or escaped Nazi war criminals. And I intend to find them!"

  "Oh-oh," said Mr. Armbruster. "Now I get the idea. A story like that would be nationwide, wouldn't it? You could run for Governor or the Senate or—or write your own ticket."

  "What did that boy tell you?" Mr. Gandy asked. But Mr. Armbruster said I hadn't told him nothing.

  Then they started to whup Lemuel.

  It was tiresome. Nobody can't wake up Lemuel when he's sot on a nap, and I never seen nobody so sot just then. They give him up fer daid after a time. He might as well of been. Lemuel is so bone lazy that when he's sleeping hard he don't even trouble to breathe.

  Paw was working magic with them Enzyme friends of his'n, and he was remarkable drunk. It sort of tickled him to get whupped. Every time they whammed him with a length of hose he giggled kind of foolish. I was ashamed.

  Nobody tried to whup Maw. When anybody got close enough to hit her, h
e'd go all over white as a goose wing and start busting out with sweat and shaking. Once we knowed a perfesser feller who said Maw could emit a tight-beam subsonic. He was a liar. She just made a noise nobody could hear and aimed it wherever she wanted. All them high-falutin words! Simple as firing a squirrel rifle. I can do it myself.

  Mr. Gandy said to take us back to where we was, and he'd see us later. So they drug out Lemuel, and we all went back to our cells. Mr. Armbruster had a lump on his haid the size of a duck egg. He lay down on his bunk moaning, and I sot in a corner looking at his haid, and sort of shooting a light out of my eyes, only nobody couldn't see the light. What it did was—shucks, I ain't eddicated. It worked like a poultice, anyhow. After a while the bump on Mr. Armbruster's haid went away, and he stopped groaning.

  "You're in trouble, Saunk," he said—I had told him my name by then. "Gandy's got big ideas now. And he's got the people of Piperville hypnotized. What he wants is to hypnotize the state, or even the nation. He wants to be a national figure. The right sort of news story could do that for him. Besides, it would ensure his re-election next week—not that he needs insurance. He's got the city in his pocket. Was that a uranium pile?"

  I just looked at him.

  "Gandy seems certain," he went on. "He sent up some physicists, and they said it was apparently Two-thirty-five with the graphite dampers. Saunk, I heard them talking. For your own good, you'd better not shield anyone. They're going to use a truth drug on you—sodium pentathol or scopolamine."

  "You better go to sleep," I said, because I heard Grandpaw calling me, inside my haid. I shet my eyes and listened. 'Twarn't simple, because Paw kept tuning in. Oh, my, he was drunk!

  "Have a drink," Paw said, cheerful, only without talking, if you understand.

  "Beshrew thee for a warrantable louse," Grandpaw said, much less cheerful. "Get thy dullard mind away from here. Saunk!"

  "Yes, Grandpaw," I said, silent-like.

  "We must make a plan—"