* * * *
“Well?” said the mad scientist.
“Defeat,” said the disreputable political affairs researcher, dusting his Homburg with the sleeve of his grey flannel suit.
“Did you present my ultimatum to the U.N.?”
“Well, I did finally get in to see the sub-secretary of the sub-secretary of a very important sub-secretariat.”
“Wouldn’t believe you, heh?” The mad scientist bristled angrily and took a step toward the monster. “I think I’ll wipe out Liechtenstein. That’ll show them we mean business!”
“Oh, he believed me all right,” said Albert hastily. “I told him that if the U.N. didn’t do what he wanted, we’d be forced to destroy the world.”
“So?”
“The trouble is I got there a little late. It seems that in the last six months fourteen major powers have delivered the same ultimatum.”
Two days later the mad scientist emerged from his crypt, red-eyed from lack of sleep but with his lips curled in a sneer of cold command. He had been thinking positively and it had paid off.
“The solution is obvious,” he said curtly. “We’ll just back one of the big countries. Shop around and see who’ll make us the best offer.”
* * * *
When Alfred got back he found the mad scientist waiting impatiently by the drawbridge.
“What was Washington’s offer?”
The disreputable political researcher didn’t answer until they reached the dungeon. When they did, he set down his attaché case and then made a decisive thumbs-down gesture.
“The Secret Weapons Division was so secret that nobody knew where it was. I did finally get in to see the President’s Advisory Council on Weapons for Peace though. They were all very pleasant but they turned me down flat. They pointed out economic implications that we hadn’t realized.”
“Such as?” demanded the mad scientist.
“Well, as they explained it, if they let one little machine take over the whole job, they’d have to abandon the National Defense Effort, and if they gave up the National Defense Effort, they wouldn’t be able to continue Deficit Financing, and without Deficit Financing to Keep the Wheels Turning, there would be Mass Unemployment and Rioting in the Streets.” He took a long pause to get his breath back. “And Rioting in the Streets might reflect on the Present Administration. And the NATO countries don’t want to give up NATO because of discounts and things.”
“Never Say Die,” said the mad scientist, capitalizing without realizing it. “If the “haves’ don’t want us, we’ll just have to try the ‘have nots.’ There must be some little country left somewhere that still has mad dreams of empire—and can’t raise the price of an H-bomb.” He wandered over to the large wall map and eyed it reflectively. Suddenly his face lit up and his forefinger stabbed down on a little purple blotch in the Arabian peninsula.
“Hagistan!” he announced triumphantly. “The last remnant of the Hashishite Empire. Go and kindle the flame of world conquest in the breast of Ibn-ad-Ibn.”
* * * *
“He didn’t kindle,” announced the disreputable political affairs researcher despairingly, his voice loud against the ominous sound of distant, rumbling thunder. “As a matter of fact, he threw me out.” He dropped his leatherette attaché case in one chair and then dropped himself wearily in another.
“Didn’t kindle”! The mad scientist seemed frantic. “But why?” he said. “Why? Why? He must dream of glory and empire, remembering the blood of ancient desert kings in his veins.”
“Not this one.” Alfred began scraping absently at a gravy spot on his chest. Thunder rumbled again, closer now. “Hagistan is swarming with Homburgs from fourteen major powers, all packers, all packing books of blank checks for Ibn-ad-Ibn to fill in. Each country’s trying to get him on its side so they’ve got a contest going to see who can put in the most indoor plumbing, railroads, post offices, and airfields, who can give away the most Cadillacs to Crown Princes, and who can build the most dams and mix the driest Martinis. It’s what you call Diplomacy.” He shook his head sadly. “All deductible, too. I didn’t have a chance. The delegation from Red China was installing high fidelity in the seraglio when I came in, and Ibn-ad-Ibn was lounging on the ungalah watching them doing it. I gave him a pitch about how he could conquer the world if he tied in with us. You know what he said?”
“How could I?” said the mad scientist sourly. “I wasn’t there.”
“He said, ‘Why shoot Santa Claus?’ I gotta admit I was stumped. He shook his head sadly again. “Why indeed?”
Through all this the mad scientist had been taking on the eerie, macabre look of a man possessed. Lightning now was flashing in abundance, sending weird, unworldly light through the casement, casting strange, half-real shadows on the walls of the dungeon. He turned and began to stare fixedly at the pear-shaped instrument of destruction, that instrument of prodigious lethality that embodied the very quintessence of his own twisted and brilliantly cunning mind.
And then, abruptly, there was a great clap of thunderous lightning, striking, seemingly, from the heart of heaven to the bowels of the very earth, and the whole ancient castle itself groaned with the mighty groan of Lucifer in Hell as the mad scientist began walking, fixedly, like a man in a dream, towards the machine.
Alfred looked aghast. “What are you going to do?”
There was no reply, only the muted distant sound of the now thunderous sea, beating crazily at the jagged base of the cliff, thousands of feet below them.
Alfred rose to his feet. “What are you going to do?” he demanded.
The voice of the mad scientist was soft, but it echoed hollowly in the now silent room. “The only thing that is left to do.” His movements were methodical, as if the whole grisly chain of events had been rehearsed many times for this one, ultimate performance.
Alfred stood frozen in wonder as the scientist unscrewed a plate from the side of the machine and with exquisite care disconnected some wires. Then he pushed a small lever all the way over to the left and replaced the plate. His hand poised itself over a large red button on the side of the machine, a button with the single, terse word ON engraved upon it. He hesitated, and then with a strong movement pushed down.
Instantly, one wall dropped away, revealing a sheer drop seven thousand feet to the sea. Wind and rain whistled into the room, soaking them both. There came a whirring noise from the machine and then the rumbling sound of rubber tires, tractor treads, and metal feet against the asphalt tile. Ponderously the pear-shaped monster rolled up to the now open wall, its muzzles, as always, pointing in all directions. The radar mast quivered expectantly.
The diabolical machine rolled through the gap in the wall to the edge of the cliff and stopped, ready to spew instant death out over a defenseless world. It clicked malevolently, and then with a sub-sonic rumble, hurled itself off the cliff into the sea. There was a long moment of silence followed by a breathtaking splash, and then the distant sound of dead fish popping to the surface.
The two men stood quietly for a moment, staring down at the churning water far below, each lost in their own gloomy thoughts. The mad scientist was the first to recover.
“Well,” he said, squaring his thin shoulders, “back to the old drafting board. The next time they can come to me!”
“Have you got an idea for a better model?” Alfred stroked his rain-soaked Homburg wistfully.
“No,” said the mad scientist sanely. “A better mousetrap.”
ONE TO A CUSTOMER
“And,” continued the alien persuasively, “I can allow only one to a customer.”
Alan Shirey looked down at the clutter of oddly shaped gadgets that were spread out on the low coffee table.
“What’s that?” he asked at last, pointing to a small sphere of a dull grey metal with a well-manicured finger.
Mccal smirked as he picked the little globe up and rolled it back and forth in one taloned hand.
“A force field generator
that has a very special sort of effect of the female sympathetic nervous system.”
“What sort of an effect?”
The little being tittered shrilly. “It makes them…eh…sympathetic. Once a girl gets within its operating radius, the most improper thing you can think of will seem to her to be the most natural…and delightful idea in the world. A little push here,” the globe suddenly shimmered faintly, “and it’s on. Another one here and it’s off. Interested?”
Alan shook his head and then walked over and eyed himself complacently in the plate glass mirror above the fireplace.
“My dear fellow,” he said with just a touch of condescension in his voice, “when you’ve been around this little planet of ours just a bit longer you’ll find out that when a man has what I have, no mechanical aids are necessary. Why should I pay you ten thousand dollars for a widget to take care of an operation I’ve been able to handle satisfactorily by myself ever since I was fourteen?” Turning back to the mirror he patted a straying lock of blond hair back into place and then gave himself a boyish smile.
The alien bobbed his misshapen little head apologetically. “Sorry. Traveling salesman, you know. Week in this system, week in that. Never really get to know a place.”
Alan wandered across the large living room and sprawled lazily out on a studio couch.
“Tell me, little friend,” he said, “if you’re what you say you are, why are you trying to sell your samples? And while we’re whying, why did you pick my back yard as a parking place for that whirligig of yours?”
Mccal shifted uneasily and then glanced apprehensively upwards as if he half expected some malignant being to come oozing down at him through the ceiling.
“I got reasons,” he mumbled finally.
“What kind?” demanded Alan. “You might as well start talking, because you aren’t about to sell me anything until I find out what’s going on.”
The alien stole another nervous look at the ceiling and then suddenly scuttled over to the coffee table. “Not to change the subject,” he said, “but for fifteen thousand I could let you have a light shield. Complete invisibility at the flick of a switch and…”
“Climb off it,” said Alan coldly. “I asked you a question.”
Mccal lapsed into a sulky silence for a moment and then finally said grudgingly. “Well, if you’ve got to know this place sits pretty well out by itself and I thought I’d run less chance of being spotted. Another thing was the swimming pool out in back. I figured that if you could afford one of those you’d have enough cash around to pay my prices.”
Alan pulled a plump wallet out of his pocket, tossed it in the air, and then caught it. “Sure I got money, lots of money. But if your gadgets will do what you say they will, you could walk into the front office of any big corporation in the country and come out with more millions then you’d know what to do with. Why don’t you?”
The little alien sighed wistfully. “I know. But I don’t dare go near any of the population centers with this stuff on me.” He gestured toward the coffee table. “It radiates. If the Observers ever spotted me it would be the squeebles for sure, and this being a primitive area there’d be no torsion off for good behavior. That’s why I have to peddle these things on the sly. I figured that by only bringing in one of a kind and making sure they would be used with discretion, there wouldn’t be enough fuss raised to attract their attention, at least not until I had a chance to put a couple of thousand light years between me and Sol.”
“Sounds good except for one thing. What are you going to do with United States currency when you get where you’re going?”
“Oh, I won’t take it with me,” said Mccal. “I need it to buy things here.”
“What kind of things?”
“Artifacts. Real pre-atomic blowup artifacts. I got a couple of collectors lined up back home who won’t ask any questions about the source.”
Alan eyed the little alien skeptically for a moment. “You don’t strike me as a particularly ethical sort,” he said. “With that invisibility gadget of yours you could walk off with anything you wanted. Why go to all this trouble?”
Mccal recoiled from the suggestion in obvious horror.
“Theft? From primitives? Do you know what the Observers would do to me if they… He turned green at the thought of whatever it was and his voice trailed off into incoherence. Then with an effort he regained control of himself.
“Look,” he said in a pleading voice. “In spite of everything you’ve said about being bored with everything, there must be something you want that you haven’t got!” A sudden change in the expression on Alan’s face spurred him on. “Or somebody you’re afraid of?”
Alan got slowly to his feet and began to pace the floor, a strange brooding expression in his wide-set eyes.
“There is…and there is,” he said huskily. “A girl named Marian…Marian Jonston. I want her and she wants me.” He tossed his head petulantly. “I’m not accustomed to not getting things I want!” With an effort he slipped back into his usual pose of studied nonchalance.
“There’s a husband involved. He looks like an oversized Neanderthal and he’s tougher than I am and he’s wealthier than I am…and a hell of a lot nastier. If I ran off with Marian he’d get to us eventually. And when he did it wouldn’t be pleasant, not pleasant at all.” The momentary tightness of Alan’s face indicated that “not pleasant” was somewhat of an understatement.
Mccal rubbed his hands together happily, reached for a wicked-looking little pistol-like object that lay by itself at one corner of the table, and then pulled back in disappointment when the other shook his head and continued.
“I don’t want to kill him. It wouldn’t be any fun that way.” His words were accompanied by a faintly unpleasant smile. “You see, little friend, I’m a spoiled brat. Marian is the first thing in my life that I’ve wanted that I haven’t been able to get. He’s got to pay for that, and worst thing I could do to him would be to let him live knowing I had her.”
The alien gestured excitedly toward the little invisibility machine. “With this you could slip in and out of his house whenever you wanted to. He’d never know anything about it.”
Alan snorted impatiently. “Stupid! I just told you that the whole point would be in his knowing and not being able to interfere.”
Mccal brooded over his stock, for a minute and then let out a sudden whoop. Grabbing up a small metallic box with a dial at one end and a push button in its center, he waved it excitedly in the air.
“All right,” said Alan, “what is it?”
When the alien told him, he reached slowly for his wallet.
* * * *
Later that evening Alan picked up the telephone from its cradle hesitated, and then turned. “You aren’t trying to pull a fast one, are you?” he demanded harshly.
Mccal threw up his twisted little hands in protested. “Look for yourself,” he said, gesturing toward the array on the coffee table. “Like I said before, there’s only one of a kind. The one you bought is the only twister in the whole lot.”
Satisfied, Alan started to dial. “O.K., little friend. It’s a deal.” He grinned savagely. “In fact I might even have another customer for you before we’re through.”
* * * *
The hulking bull-necked man shambled slowly across the room toward the couple, his great hands clawed out before him as if they were seeking a throat. Mccal whimpered in terror and tried to huddle farther back in the far corner of the living room. Alan just smiled pleasantly and slid one caressing hand down the sleek contours of the girl who cowered against him.
“Easy does it, Jonston,” he said. “Might as well relax and get used to the idea.”
The approaching figure snarled and shuffled to a stop.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice thick with rage, “yeah, let’s. I don’t want to get this over with too quick. I got a little place where we can be alone, just the three of us, alone for a long, long, time.”
Alan didn
’t seem disturbed. “Tell me, laddy,” he said lightly, “what would you say if I told you that you were going to have to spend the rest of your life sitting around gnawing your hairy knuckles while Marian and I were off someplace playing house?” He smiled satyr-like and ran his hand possessively over the girl again.
The taunting words almost goaded the other into a charge but with an effort he held himself back.
“I got you,” he whispered thickly. “I got you dead to rights. But even if you was to get away I’d find you. You know. I’d find you. There ain’t no place where you could hide. No place at all.”
Alan’s left arm circled the girl tightly while his right hand gripped the little silver box concealed in his pocket.
“Place? No,” he said lazily. “But time? YES! If you’re still around five hundred years from now, look us up.” With a patronizing smile he pushed the button on the time warper that would catapult him and the girl instantaneously into the future.
* * * *
The country home was gone except for one crumbling wall but the sun was warm and the grass, velvety soft against his bare skin. Alan reached languorously over and patted the tanned behind of the girl who sprawled beside him in abandoned exhaustion.
“That was fun, doll,” he said lazily. He picked a long spear of grass and began to nibble it contentedly.
Closing his eyes, he lost himself in pleasant thoughts of the husband left behind.
“Alan!”
The shrill scream of terror catapulted him to his feet.
“What’s the matter?” he shouted, and then spun around in response to her terrified pointing just as a great gorilla-like figure vaulted heavily over the wall and hurled itself upon him. In a moment he was caterwauling like a trapped animal and clawing to escape. And then, as the darkness rushed in, he felt great hands let go of his throat and clamp vice-like onto his right leg. There was a sudden twisting wrench and then a splintering agony that smashed him down into black unconsciousness…
The voice he knew. The rough stones against his back told him that he had been propped up against the ruined wall. He slowly forced his eyes open and looked dully down at the leg that bent out in front of him at an odd angle. He didn’t want to look up.
The First Theodore R. Cogswell Megapack Page 13
