The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  Blougan took the prohibition as a personal slap. He writhed. He brooded. He avoided speaking to Ray. At the directors’ meetings he was a sullen child. Before Vivian he employed different tactics, trying to wedge his way into her confidence, sounding her out on matters of sentiment, feeding her taffy. It all looked very bad as Ray now turned it over in his mind.

  Where might Blougan be at this moment? The switches in the control room were set to send passengers to Space Ship Center. Had he gone there? Perhaps Dwight would know, if he could be found—

  Dwight Richardson, lying at the foot of a fire escape tunnel near a side entrance, was aroused by the clattering voice of the telepage. He took an elevator up to the control room level. He strode into Ray’s presence a sorry looking figure. His head was bleeding; his green uniform was smeared.

  He read the question in Ray’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Mr. Lattimer. I realize it is a breach of orders to leave the controls. This—” he pointed to his gashed scalp—“took me without warning. I saw him enter but I didn’t realize—”

  “Blougan?” Ray roared.

  “Yes,” said the pale operator. “He holds a personal enmity toward me, but I can’t say what inspired him to cool me.” A startled expression came into his face. “Seems to come to me now that I had a passenger on—”

  “Get that head bandaged, Dwight, before you pass out again. I’ll ring for an emergency operator.”

  Ray did so, then rushed back to his office. The facts were out of the fog now, and yet he could not make up his mind to accept them. Somehow they floored him. His mind was still grasping for a straw of escape. Dialing for Professor Buchanan’s, he called for

  Mrs. Lattimer. A moment of tense waiting filled with wishful thinking. If that first call from Vivian on her arrival at the party could only have been a hallucination—

  A shadow cut across the televisor and Vivian reappeared, fresh and vivacious. “What is it, dear?” Echoes of the party accompanied her voice.

  “Why—ah—nothing. Just wanted to make sure you were there all right. I guess I was a little absent minded when you called before.”

  “Of course I’m here. Where else would I be?” she laughed.

  “Of course, dear.”

  “Aren’t you coming soon?”

  “Well, I—”

  Vivian read trouble in her husband’s manner. “Something’s wrong, Ray. What is it?”

  “Nothing. I—just forget I called. Goodbye.” He snapped off, snatched up the number he had written a few minutes before, and dialed for Space Ship Center.

  The televisor went on. There was the private booth again, occupied by Vivian. Ray was convinced. The bald fact was that there were two Vivians instead of one. A certain troublemaker had sent channelized radio waves in two directions and had switched on two receivers to catch them.

  Two identical Mrs. Lattimers. Duplicate wives. Neither knew of the other’s existence—yet!

  “Did you find anything wrong, Ray?” the anxious girl in the televisor was asking.

  “Plenty,” said her perspiring husband with a gasp.

  “We’re going to be very late for the party, dear. Don’t you think I’d better call and explain?”

  “No, by all means, don’t!” Ray was floundering. He knew she was growing impatient. She was unaware of impending trouble. “Just a minute—” He called the control room to be sure the emergency operator was on the job. “Listen, Vivian, Blougan’s got something in the air and it looks bad. He may be there looking for you. Keep out of his way and come on back here by radio as quick as you can. I’ll be waiting.”

  The peril of the situation now descended like a tornado upon Ray’s mind. That scoundrel had planned for this night. It was purely a break that Vivian had happened to hide away in a television booth before he intercepted her. What were his intentions? To make a break for another world? Ray’s perspiring fingers dialed Space Ship Center again.

  “Space Lines Information Desk, please . . . Hello. When is the next space ship scheduled to leave?”

  “For what points, please?”

  “Any points.”

  “The next departure is for Venus in fifty minutes.”

  “Can you inform me whether Barton F. Blougan has made any reservations? This is Ray Lattimer of Radio Transit inquiring.”

  The inventor’s famous name was like magic. The confidential information was at once secured. “Mr. Blougan has reserved two compartments, Mr. Lattimer . . . No, we find that his party has not boarded yet.”

  “Thank you.”

  It was clear now that the trickster’s intentions were sinister in the extreme. In less than an hour he expected to be off for Venus with a beautiful dark eyed Vivian, thinking that Ray, gayly dancing with another Vivian at the party, would never know what had happened. A sweet set-up.

  Ray dialed recklessly. The private television booth at Union Station did not answer. He tried again and again. Vivian was no longer there. He got in touch with the officials of the Venus-bound ship. They had not seen her. Very well. She must have gotten aboard radio transit to return momentarily. He would go to the passenger platform and wait. If she did not arrive shortly he would go to Space Ship Center after her.

  He paced the platform impatiently.

  He would have been far more impatient had he known that Bart Blougan had caught one Vivian Lattimer by the hand the moment she emerged from the television booth. Leading her to a secluded corner of the station lobby, he plunged into an exposition of his sensational scheme. It was so startling that her wits were at first paralyzed. If he was telling the truth, another Vivian existed. Two of her had been created, just as two cases of gems had once been created out of the sending of one. One Vivian for Ray, the other for himself. She would go merrily to Venus with him and never be missed. In less than an hour they would be off.

  The horrified girl would have shrieked but for the gleam of desperation in Bart Blougan’s eye. It was the height of absurdity that this silly, sullen, middle-aged male should concoct such a plan and think that she might fall for it. Her life and Ray’s were woven together. She would fight to death before anyone could take her away from him.

  But there was Blougan’s dangerous manner. She was in a tight spot and she knew it. His plans had been carefully laid. He expected them to go through. Her only chance was to suppress her rising anger and rely on her wits. If she could just scheme to get back to her waiting husband—

  Ray was tearing his hair. His shoulders were tense, his fingers were clenched, as he paced the platform. He looked at his watch. Still forty minutes. There was really no pressure of time yet; it was simply this idle waiting that burned him. The damned suspense. He had told Vivian he would wait here. Well, he couldn’t hold out any longer. He would go and find her.

  “Space Ship Center!” he blurted to the emergency operator as he stepped into a transit car. Then a familiar voice detained him.

  “Ray! Wait for me!” Vivian was hurrying toward him. She had just arrived by radio. He looked at her searchingly, caught her up in his arms.

  “Gosh, you had me worried,” he gasped. “I was afraid—” The look of surprise that came into her face caused him to stop short. “Where’d you come from?”

  “The party, of course. I couldn’t stay another minute after I saw you were so worried. What has happened,

  Ray?”

  His expression was puzzling as his gray eyes gazed at her. He glanced at his watch, returned it to his pocket slowly, regained his cool manner.

  “We’ll walk the balcony,” he said. “I’ve got lots of questions for you, and I want you to think fast.”

  “Go ahead.” Her eyes were alert.

  “You remember Blougan’s case of precious stones?”

  “Of course.”

  “You realize that anything could be duplicated by radio transit the same way—simply by throwing a couple of switches?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Even persons?”

  Vivian looked up at him cu
riously and nodded.

  “If you should be duplicated, Vivian, so that there were two of you, what would you do about it?”

  The question struck Vivian as humorous, and her eyes fluttered with mischief. “I’d insist that you be duplicated too, so that there would be a husband apiece for each of me.”

  Ray bit his tongue. “Let me carry the supposition farther. Suppose you found yourself in Space Ship Center and Bart Blougan accosted you—purely supposition on my part, you understand—and he convinced you that you had been duplicated. Furthermore, he had plans laid to cart you off to Venus on a space ship, assuring you that you would never be missed. Would you give his proposition a second thought?”

  “Ray Lattimer, don’t insult me,” came the instant answer.

  “All right. Now imagine he threatened you, told you to keep your mouth shut and come along or else. What would you do?”

  “How much time do I have?”

  “Less than an hour.”

  “What time of day?”

  “Now. Everything just as it is this evening. Your duplicate has gone to a party at Buchanan’s. I’m still here at work—”

  A touch of fright came into the girl’s face. “Ray! Are you trying to tell me—”

  “Think fast. What would you say? What would your first impulse be?”

  “In any tough spot my first impulse is always the same—to come to you the quickest way.”

  Ray glanced back toward the station platform. No one was in sight. “Go ahead. How would you manage it under the conditions I’ve given you?”

  “Well,” her face grew tense as she visualized the menacing situation, “my only chance would be to pretend to fall for the scheme. Tell him I’m all for it, and always had a secret yen for an escape to Venus. If I could get him coming my way I’d have a fighting chance to handle the situation.”

  “How?”

  “Well, I’d say, ‘Bart, why don’t we make a good thing out of this while we’re at it. I know where Ray keeps his designs of radio transit. He’s gone to the party by now. Let’s radio back to headquarters and get them. It will only take ten minutes or less, and those designs will certainly be valuable when we get to Venus.”

  “Would he fall for that?”

  “A chance to be boss of radio transit on Venus? Ray, do you know how jealous he is of you?”

  “You think you could get him to come back with you after those designs?”

  “Yes,” said Vivian confidently. “I might have trouble carrying on my plan from there, but here’s the chance I’d gamble on. As we arrived here, I would lead him directly to that farthest corridor, the dark one, to the supply closet. You know I carry a key and that lock is solid, and if you didn’t show up—”

  Vivian stopped short, noticing that her husband’s eyes were fixed intently upon something in the distance, beyond the balcony. At first she saw only Dwight Richardson, his uniformed back toward them. His head was bandaged. He was standing half bent, as if he too saw something in the distance that had aroused his curiosity. Then her eyes caught the two dim figures at the far end of the promenade slipping into the shadowy corridor.

  “Quick, Vivian!” Ray’s firm hand caught hers and to her utter amazement they went flying across to the rear hallway and down toward the darkened end. “It’s crazy but it’s worth a try,” Ray hissed as they ran. Cautiously they rounded the corner.

  “I don’t get it,” she gasped.

  “You will, or I miss my guess.” They reached their destination, the deeply indented doorway of the supply closet. “After all,” he whispered, “since you are identical, your minds are sure to work along the same lines.”

  “You mean—”

  “S-s-s-sh!”

  Only a few seconds of silence before the footsteps began to whisper in the distance. Then there were low voices—Blougan’s and—yes, Vivian’s! The girl at Ray’s side trembled as she heard. It was chilling, uncanny—her own voice drawing closer and closer; her own answers fending off Blougan’s menacing suspicions; her own trap ready to spring—and yet here she stood silently, motionless, concealed against the wall as if bound apart from herself, watching herself approach this crisis.

  The voices were only a few feet away now. Blougan was muttering uneasily. He stopped short.

  “This is the door,” came Vivian’s voice.

  “Yeah?” Blougan quavered. “How do I know but what someone’s hiding in that doorway?”

  Ray waited no longer. He did not pounce, he simply stepped forth and said, “Feeling guilty, Blougan?”

  The corridor lights flashed on at the same instant, in time to show Blougan’s right hand plunging for a gun. Ray’s muscular body leaped into action.

  Three spectators now witnessed the swift combat. The newcomer was Dwight Richardson, whose suspicions had brought him into the corridor in time to flash on the lights. He divided his attention between the combatants and the two female spectators. He seemed to be seeing double. The flying fists were dizzying enough, but to see two figures of Mrs. Lattimer fluttering around, both of them cheering for the same man, crying the same words, occasionally clutching each other’s hands in their excitement—this was too much for him. It was disquieting to his world of order and precision. For something to do, he bent down and picked up the gun which, after all, had just as well be in his pocket.

  Shortly the violent Blougan was quiet on the floor, and his broad shouldered opponent was straightening up and brushing the hair out of his eyes.

  Then came a strange moment. Perfect silence, and yet the atmosphere was charged with emotion. Dwight Richardson looked on in bewilderment. For the life of him he couldn’t tell which of these gorgeous females was Mrs. Lattimer and which was her twin sister; and to his utter astonishment he saw that President Lattimer himself was in the same dilemma. At least that masterful executive was looking from one to the other of them in the most questioning manner; Dwight had never seen him look helpless before, but he was plainly dumbfounded now. And most curious of all, it was as obvious as could be that both women were dying to throw their arms around their hero and kiss him, yet they both held back—as if they themselves didn’t know which was his wife. It was too much for Dwight.

  Once they looked at each other and broke into embarrassed smiles; then their faces grew serious and they seemed to be thinking deep thoughts. President Lattimer seemed the more ill at ease because of Dwight’s presence; so the operator said, “I’m ready to go back on duty now, Mr. Lattimer.”

  His words seemed to relieve the situation. “Yes, do, please,” Lattimer answered. Then with a glance at the prone figure on the floor, “When this snake wakes up, tell him I’m granting him free passage to Space Ship Center.”

  “Yes, Mr. Lattimer.” Dwight turned and started back to the control room.

  “Oh, Dwight—”

  The operator whirled about, his normal dignity badly shattered. Both these girls had spoken to him, almost in unison. Both had started toward him, as if they were about to say something of great importance. It was uncanny.

  Blougan groaned and opened his eyes. As they turned to look at him, Lattimer caught the nearest one by the hand and said, with a toss of the head, “Go get the designs for radio transit.”

  Both girls saw the decisive look in their husband’s face. What he had in mind, neither of them knew. But in the past tense moments their own bold wits had been working furiously. Brief as the scene had been that had held them face to face, both were convinced of the impossibility of even a temporary triangular group. In the conversation of silence they had read Ray’s anguish; each time either had started to speak, similar words were on the lips of the other; their personalities being identical, one of them was superfluous. Had their characters been less ideal, they might have been at each other’s throats for the right to go on sharing life with Ray. Instead, each was aware that a moment of sacrifice was at hand.

  Now that Ray had given a direction to one of them and she had started to comply, the other seized th
e opportunity to follow out her own plan. She hurried to catch up with Dwight, who had turned the corner toward the control room.

  “Dwight, there’s something you’ve got to do for me—”

  Ray heard no more. He and Blougan were the only occupants of the corridor now, and a moment later there was only Blougan.

  Ray ran to his office, picked up a few effects, and hurried out again. He had lost no time. Vivian—the one who had gone for the designs—would be returning by this time, he believed; the other Vivian would be at the control room with Dwight; Blougan would still be in the farthest corridor sitting in a daze; and the emergency operator would have gone off duty.

  As Ray emerged from his office he saw at once that one of his calculations had gone astray. Blougan, whether in a daze or not, was in a radio transit car, spiralling toward the transmitter; now he was gone. Where? Ray would not know until he reached the control room and saw how the switches were set.

  Then came a second surprise. The emergency operator, waiting for an elevator, spoke to him. “Mr. Lattimer, your wife said you had ordered me to go off duty. She said that Dwight would be in shortly, and in the meantime she would—”

  Ray did not wait to hear how she had sidetracked Dwight. She was alone at the controls and that was enough to tell him she had made a dangerous decision. He bounded through the promenade in time to see one of the girls board a transit car and push off. The other, racing toward her, waving the package of designs frantically, was screaming to her to stop.

  The terror of her voice told him what was about to happen. He flew into the control room. His eyes caught a row of switches—all open. Not a single receiver would catch the waves that were about to go forth. They would be lost in space. Already Blougan had unwittingly made his final exit.