The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works 1911-1987

by C. L. Moore

  "Like the refrigerator," Phil said. "There weren't any marks on the linoleum, and there would have been some, in ten years. I looked. Something else was hooked up to that socket. Rewiring won't help any, Bob. Jack didn't need wires. He may have switched 'em around a bit, for convenience; but I suppose all he had to do was juggle a couple of atoms and—he'd have a machine."

  "A living house. Yeah. Nuts."

  "A robot house, could be. A robot wouldn't have to look like a man. We've got robots now, really, and they're functionally designed."

  "All right," Melton said harshly. "We can move."

  "We'd better. Because this house was made for Jack, not for us. It isn't working just right. The refrigerator's acting funny, but that's because it's plugged into a socket meant for some other gadget."

  "I tried it in some other plugs."

  "Any luck?"

  Melton shook his head. "It was still ... uh ... funny." He moved uneasily. "Why should French ... I mean, why would he want to—"

  "Why would a white man live in a Ubangi village? To study ethnology or entomology, perhaps. Or for the climate. Or simply to rest—to hibernate. Wherever Jack came from, he's gone back there now, and he didn't bother to put the house in its original condition. Yeah." Phil rose and went out. The cellar door closed softly.

  Melton went over to Michaela, knelt, and put his arm around her slim shoulders, feeling the yielding warmth of her. "We'll move, darling," he said.

  She stared out of the window. "It'd be so lovely, if ... well. The view's magnificent. I wish we didn't have to move. But it's the only thing. When, Bob?"

  "Want to start looking for another place tomorrow? A city apartment, maybe?"

  "All right," Michaela said. "A day or so more won't make much difference, will it?"

  -

  He could hear Michaela's soft breathing beside him, there in the dark. He could hear other things, too. They were not mice, he knew. Within the walls, there was a subtle, slow movement, at the threshold of hearing and consciousness. The house was recharging itself. The robot was preparing itself for the next day's work.

  It was mindless; it was not alive; it had no consciousness or sense of ego. It was a machine. But it was a machine so enormously versatile that only miraculous simplicity made its existence possible. How? A new pattern for electronic orbits? Or something quite unimaginable—

  We can see into the microcosm with the electronic microscope, Melton thought. But we can't see far enough. Beyond—

  There was an off-beat, distant rhythm in the quiet movement within the walls.

  -

  This is the house that Jack built.

  This is the malt

  That lay in the house that Jack built.

  -

  And so on. Melton followed the nursery rhyme to its conclusion. The inevitable growth, line by line, acquired a sort of horror to him. Yet he could not stop. He finished it and started all over.

  Who had John French been?

  Or what?

  Suddenly and sickeningly, he felt the disorientation. Without looking at Michaela, he sprang from bed, fumbled his way downstairs, and stood motionless in the hall, waiting.

  There was nothing.

  This is the house that Jack built.

  This is the rat—

  He went out to the kitchen. The cellar door was open. He could not see Phil, but he knew that his brother-in-law was at the foot of the stairs.

  "Phil," he said softly.

  "Yes, Bob."

  "Come on up."

  Phil mounted the steps. His pajamaed figure came into view, swaying slightly.

  "What's down there?" Melton asked.

  "Nothing."

  "Liquor?"

  "No."

  "Then what is it?"

  "Nothing," Phil said, his eyes glazed and bright. "I stand in the corner, my head against the wall, and ... I ... paint—" He slowed down and stopped. "No," he said after a moment. "It isn't painting, is it? But I thought—"

  "What?"

  "The house suited Jack, didn't it?" Phil said. "But then we don't know what Jack was or what he wanted. I wonder if he came from the future? Or from another planet? One thing—he certainly came from a place that was rather remarkable."

  "We're moving," Melton said. "As soon as I can find a place."

  "All right."

  "Let's go to bed."

  "Sure," Phil said. "Why not? Good night, Bob."

  "Good night, Phil."

  For a long time he lay awake, unable to sleep.

  This is the house that Jack built.

  I wonder if Jack might come back—sometime?

  The house suited Jack.

  The house was alive.

  No, it wasn't. It was a machine.

  Any house could be such a machine—with a little renovation. By Jack.

  The machine suited Jack. Sure. But what effect would it have on humans? Mutation? Translation, eventually, into another world? Something thoroughly unusual, at any rate.

  Melton was not tempted to find out.

  I'll find an apartment tomorrow, he resolved. And, a little comforted, he went to sleep.

  -

  He got home the next evening somewhat early, and let himself into the house without hesitation. Michaela and Phil were in the living room. They were sitting silently, but turned to watch him as he entered.

  "I've got an apartment," Melton announced triumphantly. "We can start packing right away. How does that sound?"

  "Swell," Michaela said. "Can we move tomorrow morning?"

  "Sure. Jack can have his house back."

  The lights came on. Melton gave them a quick glance.

  "Still at it, eh? Well, who cares now? Drink? How about a cocktail, Mike? I'll even tackle the icebox tonight."

  "No, thanks."

  "Mm-m. Phil?"

  "No. I don't want any."

  "Well, I do," Melton said. He went into the kitchen, decided against ice cubes after all, and came back with a straight shot in a tiny glass. "Are we eating out tonight?" he demanded.

  "Oh," Michaela said. "I forgot dinner again."

  "I think we'd better move tomorrow," Melton said, "if not tonight." He sat down. "It's too early to eat now, but we can kill time with a drink or two." He looked at the clock. It was 4:20.

  He looked again.

  It was 10:40.

  Nothing had changed. But the sky was black outside the window. Outside of that, nothing had altered; Michaela and Phil had not moved, and Melton's drink was untasted in his hand.

  For a moment he thought wildly of amnesia. Then he realized that the truth was much simpler. He had simply let his mind go blank—he could even remember doing it—so that the time had, incredibly, slipped past until—

  It was 10:40.

  The shock of disorientation came, more slowly this time. It passed and was gone.

  Neither Michaela nor Phil moved.

  Melton looked at the clock. Simultaneously he felt a leaden, dull blankness creeping over his mind. This is like hibernation, he thought; gray, formless, without—

  It was 8:12.

  The sky was blue outside. The river was blue. Morning sunlight blazed on green patterns of leaves.

  "Mike," Melton said.

  "Yes, Bob."

  It was 3:35.

  But it was not time that had altered. Melton knew that very clearly. The fault lay in the house.

  It was night.

  It was 9:20.

  The telephone rang. Melton reached out and lifted the receiver from its cradle.

  "Hello," he said.

  Dr. Farr's distant voice sounded loud in the still, hot room. Michaela and Phil sat like carved figures under the bright overhead light. Presently Melton said, "No. No, we changed our minds. We're not going to move—"

  He hung up.

  Hibernation, he thought. The process had cumulative acceleration. For this was the house that Jack built. This was the den that Jack built. Some races—not human races—may need perio
ds of hibernation. And they will build robot machines—very simple machines—to care for them while they sleep.

  Adaptable machines. Machines that can adapt to other organisms. Human organisms. With a difference.

  Hibernation for Jack—yes. But for Melton and Michaela and Phil—It wouldn't work out in quite the same manner. For they were not of Jack's breed or race.

  "We're never going to move," Melton said softly, and saw that it was 1:03.

  Within the walls the machine stirred, recharging itself. Moonlight came through the windows, distorted by some quality in the clear panes. The three figures sat motionless, not even waiting now, in the house that Jack built.

  The End

  WE KILL PEOPLE

  Astounding Science Fiction - March 1946

  with Henry Kuttner

  (as by Lewis Padgett)

  It was quite a business, too ... and it wasn't anything you could prove murder. Murder, after all, is strictly a human affair: this was, on the contrary, an inhuman sort of business!

  -

  Glowing in polychromatic light, the neat, cryptic sign atop the building said sedately:

  WE KILL PEOPLE

  In the foyer, the directory told Carmody that the main office was on the second floor. There was nothing else listed on the glass-fronted board. Of the bank of elevators, only one was running, and that one operated by a uniformed moron with sleepy eyes and jaws that monotonously masticated gum. Carmody stepped into the car.

  "Second," he said.

  The operator didn't answer. The door closed, the floor pressed upward and then decelerated, and the moron slid the door open, to shut it quietly as Carmody stepped out on the deep carpet of a big, well-furnished reception room. One wall was lined with doors, numbered consecutively one to ten. The wall opposite the elevator was blank except for a few framed pictures and a six-by-six screen that showed a blond young man seated at a desk.

  "Good morning," the young man said, looking into his telescreen and meeting Carmody's eyes. "May I help you?"

  "Yeah. Who do I see about—"

  "Oh," the young man said soberly. "Our exterminating service?"

  Carmody didn't say anything.

  "You are a client?"

  "I might be. It depends."

  "Quite," said the young man. "Our Mr. French will take care of you." He did things with the buttons on his desk. "Yes, he's free now. Would you mind stepping into Office Number One?"

  Carmody pointed silently, and the young man nodded. Carmody walked across to the door, pushed it open, stepped through and glanced around, his face impassive. He was in a small room, furnished simply but with good taste. A relaxer chair extended beside a broad, low table that held a minor-size telescreen. The makings for smokes and drinks were conveniently handy.

  On the screen was the head and shoulders of someone—our Mr. French, presumably. He had gray-streaked brown hair, a smooth, thinnish face, a sharp nose, and oldfashioned noncontact pince-nez. His clothes—what Carmody could see of them—were conservative. And his voice was dry and precise.

  "Will you sit down, please?"

  Carmody sat down. He lit a cigarette and looked speculatively at the face on the screen.

  "My name is French, Samuel French. You'll notice the receptionist didn't take your name. If you decide to make use of our service, we'll need it, of course, but not just yet. First let me assure you that nothing you may say to me will put you in danger from the law. An intention to commit homicide is not actionable. You are not an accomplice either before or after the fact. Once you understand that, you'll be able to talk to me freely."

  "Well—" Carmody said. "I'm a little—hesitant."

  "We kill people," French said. "That's what brought you here, isn't it? To get an exterminating job done—safely."

  It wasn't what had brought Carmody here, but he couldn't tell French that. He had to submerge himself completely in the role he was playing. From now on, he had to forget that he was working for Blake and play the part of a customer. At least until he had found out a little about this organization.

  There had been nothing like it in the Amazonas. But the Amazonas Basin wasn't civilized, even fifteen years after World War ii had ended. In the five years of Carmody's life there as a construction engineer he had seen little change, really; a dam here, a railroad there, but nothing to touch the rain-forest and the big river and the seasonal floods. Then his discontinuance notice had come through, and, in white-hot fury, he had hopped the first clipper to New York, determined to punch the big shot in the nose.

  He hadn't done that. There had been secretive visitors and interviews, a closed air cab that whipped northward, and the vision of an Aladdin's palace that he recognized as Oakhaven, the country estate of Reuben Blake. Even in this day of fabulous fortunes and super-tycoons, Blake was a figure. He represented money and industries—and politics.

  Oakhaven was an architect's dream. The new plastics and alloys had made such engineering feats possible—towering columns that sprang sky-high from fragile-seeming, translucent floors, concepts from Rackham and Sime transmuted into hard reality. Carmody, flanked by guards, was passed from chamber to chamber, till he reached the penthouse sanctum of Blake. A battalion could have deployed across the resilient, landscaped floor of that sanctum. And, seated at an onyx table with a chessboard inlaid into the top, a big drunken man was jittering nervously as he laid scraps of paper on the board's squares.

  "Carmody," Blake said, looking up. "I'm glad you got here. Have a drink." He pushed glass and bottle forward. Carmody laid his hands flat on the table and glared.

  "I want to know why I'm here," he said.

  Blake gave him a glance that, surprisingly, held only appeal.

  "Please. Please sit down and let me explain. I ... I had to do some things ... you'll understand. But first get this. I'll pay you whatever you want. I'll see you get your Brazilian job back, if you want it. I'm not trying to coerce you."

  "Why was I fired?"

  "I needed you," Blake said simply. "The construction company could get along without you, and I couldn't. I can't. Not very well. Now have a drink, sit down, and give me a chance to explain. Man, I'm sick!"

  That was true. Something had hit Blake hard and knocked the tough backbone out of him. Carmody hesitated, sat down, and looked at the chessboard. Each square had a bit of paper on it. The first one said 1¢. The one next to it was marked 2¢. The third, 4¢; the fourth, 8¢. The ultimate figure was astronomical.

  “Yeah,” Blake said, “you’ve heard the old gag. A rajah offered his favorite the choice between half his kingdom or— I forget what it was. The favorite said he just wanted a chessboard filled with money, doubled for each successive square. I don't know if the rajah ever paid it. Who could?"

  "So what?"

  "I've got power. But I need an operative. I'm fighting something that's plenty smart. An organization. They've got their ways of checking up, and if they ever suspected you were working for me—well! That's why I couldn't have gone about this more openly. I had to cover up. If you'll do a job for me, you can have anything you want. Literally."

  Carmody started to answer, and then paused, his mouth open. Blake gave him a twisted, slack-mouthed grin.

  "You're getting it. I can give you anything you want—within human limits. I'm Reuben Blake. But I won't be for long, unless I get help."

  "I thought you had an organization."

  "Sure I do. But this has to be strictly undercover. I picked you out from fifty case records. You're smart, not too scrupulous, you know your way around. You're qualified for the job."

  "What's the job?"

  "It's a frame," Blake said. "A smart frame. What it boils down to is this: my money or my life. And I've got to hand over one or the other!"

  "But—how?"

  -

  French adjusted his pince-nez and said, rather wearily, "I should have a record made of this. Our clients are always skeptical at first. Unless they know us by reputation ... you've n
ever heard of us?"

  "I just got back from Brazil," Carmody said. "Since then I've heard things, sure. That's why looked you up. But I can't quite see how you can do it."

  "Commit murder?"

  "Exactly. The law—"

  "We have a foolproof method," French said. "It's absolutely undetectable. Indistinguishable from natural death. The insurance companies are our biggest enemies, but we've a corps of attorneys who watch out for loopholes. We won't go to jail for income tax evasion!"

  "You might go to jail for murder though. How about that?"

  "Hearsay isn't evidence. You pay us to kill your enemy. He dies—of natural causes. We've had lawsuits, but we've never been convicted. Autopsies proved nothing except that no homicide was committed. You might call this insurance in reverse. Death insurance. If your enemy doesn't die, we refund your money. But we've never had to make a refund yet—except under Clause A."

  "What's that?"

  "We'll come to it later. First of all, let me apologize for pointing out that we must be assured you're a bona fide client. We have no time for reporters, spies, or curiosity-hunters."

  "I'm a prospective client," Carmody qualified. "And I want a—job done, yes. Only I don't want to hang for it."

  French put the tips of bloodless fingers together. "We have been in business only four years. Our organization is based on a certain scientific ... ah ... discovery. Our patent, you might call it. And that, of course, is a secret; if the nature of this patent were known, we'd have nothing to sell."

  "The modus operandi, you mean?"

  French nodded. "Yes. As I say ... we're expanding. We don't advertise much; we don't want to attract a low-class clientele. And we are incorporated; we have an exterminator's license, and we do maintain a service, on the side, to get rid of bedbugs and termites. We don't encourage that sort of thing, but we must do a bit of it for a front. However, our money is made through murder. Our clients pay well."

  "How much?"

  "No fixed rate. I'll explain that later, too."

  "There's got to be some minimum, though," Carmody said.