Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume One

by Short Story Anthology

  ‘Then,’ commented the Ambassador, ‘it is high time we had Blieder-drive lifeboats for Blieder- drive ships.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more, Your Excellency. But the smallest Blieder apparatus has an Earth-mass of more than three hundred tons. That’s far too much for little boats.’ Picking up the photographs, Grayder slid them into a drawer. ‘The trouble with us is that everything we’ve got moves a heck of a lot too fast. What we really need is an ancient, propeller-driven air-plane. It could do something that we can’t-it could go slow.’

  ‘You might as well yearn for a bicycle,’ scoffed the Ambassador, feeling thwarted.

  ‘We have a bicycle,’ Grayder informed. ‘Tenth Engineer Harrison owns one.’

  ‘And he has actually brought it with him?’

  ‘It goes everywhere he goes. There’s a rumour that he sleeps with it.’

  ‘A spaceman toting a bicycle! ’The Ambassador blew his nose with a loud honk. ‘I take it that he is thrilled by the sense of immense velocity it gives him, an ecstatic feeling of rushing headlong through space?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know, Your Excellency.’

  ‘H’m! Bring this Harrison here. I’d like to see him. Perhaps we can set a crackpot to catch a crackpot.’

  Going to the caller-board, Grayder spoke over the ship’s system. ‘Tenth Engineer Harrison will report to the chart-room at once.’

  Within ten minutes Harrison appeared, breathless and dishevelled. He had walked fast three-quarters of a mile from the Blieder room. He was thin and woebegone, expecting trouble. His ears were large enough to cut the pedalling with the wind behind him and he wiggled them nervously as he faced the assembled officers. The Ambassador examined him with curiosity, much as a zoologist would inspect a pink giraffe.

  ‘Mister, I understand that you possess a bicycle.’

  At once on the defensive, Harrison said, ‘There’s nothing against it in the regulations, sir, and therefore—’

  ‘Damn the regulations,’ swore the Ambassador. ‘Can you ride the thing?’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  ‘All right. We’re stalled in the middle of a crazy situation and we’re turning to crazy methods to get moving. Upon your ability and willingness to ride a bicycle the fate of an empire may stand or fall. Do you understand me, Mister?’

  ‘I do, sir,’ said Harrison, unable to make head or tail of this.

  ‘So I want you to do an extremely important job for me. I want you to get out your bicycle, ride into town, find the mayor, sheriff, grand panjandrum, supreme galootie or whatever he is called, and tell him that he is officially invited to evening dinner along with any other civic dignitaries he cares to bring. That, of course, includes their wives.’

  ‘Very well, sir.’

  ‘Informal attire,’ added the Ambassador.

  Harrison jerked up one ear and drooped the other. ‘What was that, sir?’

  ‘They can dress how they like.’

  ‘I get it. Do I go right now, sir?’

  ‘At once. Return as quickly as you can and bring me the reply.’

  Saluting sloppily, Harrison went out. His Excellency found an easy-chair, reposed in it at full length, smiled with satisfaction.

  ‘It’s as easy as that.’ Pulling out a long cigar, he bit off its end. ‘If we can’t touch their minds we’ll appeal to their bellies.’ He cocked a knowing eye at Grayder. ‘Captain, see that there is plenty to drink. Strong stuff. Venusian cognac or something equally potent. Give them lots of hooch and an hour at a well-filled table and they’ll talk all night. We won’t be able to shut them up.’ He lit the cigar, puffed luxuriously. ‘That is the tried and trusted http://www.abelard.org/e-f-russell.php - index

  technique of high diplomacy—the insidious seduction of the distended gut. It always works. You’ll see!’

  Chapter 3

  Pedalling briskly down the road, Tenth Engineer Harrison reached the first street on either side of which were small detached houses with neat gardens back and front. A plump, amiable looking woman was trimming a hedge halfway along. He pulled up near to her, politely touched his cap.

  ‘Scuse me, ma’am, I’m looking for the biggest man in town.’

  She part-turned, gave him no more than a casual glance, pointed her clipping-shears southward.

  ‘That would be Jeff Baines. First on the right and second on the left. It’s a small delicatessen.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He moved on, hearing the steady snip-snip resume behind him. First on the right. He curved around a long, low, rubber-balled truck parked by the corner. Second on the left. Three children pointed at him dramatically and yelled shrill warnings that his back wheel was going round. He found the delicatessen, propped a pedal on the curb, gave his machine a reassuring pat before he went inside and had a look at Jeff.

  There was plenty to see. Jeff had four chins, a twenty-two inch neck, and a paunch that stuck out half a yard. An ordinary mortal could have got into either leg of his pants without bothering to take off his diving suit. Jeff Baines weighed at least three hundred pounds and undoubtedly was the biggest man in town.

  ‘Wanting something?’ inquired Jeff, lugging it up from far down.

  ‘Not exactly.’ Harrison eyed the succulent food display and decided that anything unsold by nightfall was not thrown out to the cats. ‘I’m looking for a certain person.’

  ‘Are you now? Usually I avoid that sort—but every man to his taste.’ He plucked a fat lip while he mused a moment, then suggested. ‘Try Sid Wilcock over on Dane Avenue. He’s the most certain man I know.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it that way,’ said Harrison. ‘I meant that I’m searching for somebody particular.’

  ‘Then why the blazes didn’t you say so in the first place?’ Jeff Baines worked over the new problem, finally offered, ‘Tod Green ought to fit that specification topnotch. You’ll find him in the shoeshop at the end of this road. He’s particular enough for anyone. He’s downright finicky.’

  ‘You persist in misunderstanding me,’ Harrison told him and then went on to make it plainer, ‘I’m hunting a local bigwig so that I can invite him to a feed.’

  Resting himself on a high stool which he overlapped by a foot all round, Jeff Baines eyed him peculiarly. ‘There’s something lopsided about this. Indeed, it seems crazy to me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re going to use up a considerable slice of your life finding a fellow who wears a wig, especially if you insist that it’s got to be a big one. And then again, where’s the point of dumping an ob on him merely because he uses a bean-blanket?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘It’s plain horse-sense to plant an ob where it will cancel another one out, isn’t it?’

  ‘Is it?’ Harrison let his mouth hang open while his mind struggled with the strange problem of how to plant an ob.

  ‘So you don’t know? You’re exposing your tonsils and looking dopey because you don’t know?’

  Jeff Baines massaged a couple of his chins and sighed. He pointed at the other’s middle. ‘Is that a uniform you’re wearing?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A genuine, pukka, dyed-in-the-wool uniform?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Ah, said Jeff, ‘That’s where you’ve fooled me—coming here by yourself, on your ownsome. If there had been a gang of you dressed identically the same I’d have known at once that it was a uniform. That’s what uniform means: all alike. Doesn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ agreed Harrison, who had never given it a thought.

  ‘So you’re from that ship. I ought to have guessed it in the beginning. I must be slow on the uptake today. But I didn’t expect to see one, just one, messing around on a pedal contraption. It goes to show, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Harrison, glancing warily backward to make sure that no opportunist had swiped his bicycle while he was engaged in conversation. ‘It goes to show.’

  ‘All right, let’s have it. Why have you come her
e and what do you want?’

  ‘I’ve been trying to tell you all along. ‘I’ve been sent to—’

  ‘Been sent?’ Jeff’s eyes widened a little. ‘Mean to say you actually let yourself be sent?’

  Harrison gaped at him. ‘Of course. Why not?’

  ‘Oh, I get it now,’ said Jeff, his puzzled features suddenly clearing. ‘You confuse me with the queer way you talk. What you really mean is that you planted an ob on somebody, eh?’

  Desperately, Harrison asked, ‘For heaven’s sake, what’s an ob?’

  ‘He doesn’t know,’ commented Jeff Baines, looking prayerfully at the ceiling. ‘He doesn’t even know that!’ For a short while he contemplated the ignoramus with condescending pity before he said, ‘You hungry by any chance?’

  ‘Going on that way.’

  ‘All right. I could tell you what an ob is. But I’ll do something better—I’ll show you.’ Heaving himself off the stool, he waddled to the door at back. ‘God alone knows why I should bother to educate a uniform. It’s just that I’m bored. C’mon, follow me.’

  Obediently, Harrison, went behind the counter, paused to give his bicycle a reassuring nod, trailed the other through a passage and into a yard.

  Jeff Baines pointed to a stack of cases. ‘Canned goods.’ He indicated an adjacent store. ‘Bust them open and pile the stuff in there. Stack the empties outside. Please yourself whether you do it or not. That’s freedom, isn’t it?’ Hehttp://www.abelard.org/e-f-russell.php - index

  lumbered back into the shop.

  Left to himself, Harrison scratched his large ears and thought it over. Somewhere, he felt, there was an obscure sort of confidence trick. A candidate named Harrison was being tempted to qualify for his sucker certificate. But if the play was beneficial to its organizer it might be worth learning because it could then be passed on to other victims. One must speculate in order to accumulate.

  So he dealt with the cases as required. It cost him twenty minutes of hard, slogging work after which he returned to the shop.

  ‘Now,’ explained Baines, ‘you’ve done something for me. That means you’ve planted an ob on me. I don’t thank you for what you have done. There’s no need to. All I have to do is get rid of the ob.’

  ‘Ob?’

  ‘Obligation. Why use a long word when a short one is plenty good enough? An obligation is an ob. I shift it this way: Seth Warburton, next door but one, has got half a dozen of my obs saddled on him. So I get rid of mine to you and relieve him of one of his to me by sending you around for a meal.’ He scribbled briefly on a slip of paper. ‘Give him this.’

  Harrison stared at it. In casual scrawl it read, ‘Feed this bum.’

  Slightly dazed, he wandered out, stood by his bicycle and again examined the paper. Bum, it said. He could think of several on the ship who’d explode with wrath at the sight of that. Then his attention drifted to the second shop farther along. It had a window crammed with comestibles and two big words on the sign-strip above: Seth’s Gulper.

  Coming to a decision which was encouraged by his insides, he walked into Seth’s holding the paper as if it were a death warrant. Beyond the door there was a long counter, some steam and a clatter of crockery. He chose a seat at a marble-topped table occupied by a gray-eyed brunette.

  ‘Do you mind?’ He inquired politely as he lowered himself into the chair.

  ‘Do I mind what?’ She examined his ears as if they were curious phenomena. ‘Rabies, dogs, aged relatives or standing around in the rain?’

  ‘Do you mind me sitting here?’

  ‘I can please myself whether or not I endure it. That’s freedom, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Harrison, ‘sure it is.’ He fidgeted in his seat, feeling that he’d made a move and promptly lost a pawn. He sought around for something else to say and at that point a thin-featured man in a white coat dumped before him a large plate loaded with fried chicken and three kinds of unfamiliar food. The sight unnerved him. He couldn’t remember how many years it had been since he’d last seen fried chicken or how many months since he’d been offered vegetables in other than powder form.

  ‘Well,’ demanded the waiter, mistaking his fascinated reaction, ‘doesn’t it please you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Harrison handed over the slip of paper. ‘Sure it does. You bet it does.’

  Glancing at the note, the other called to somebody semi-visible at one end of the counter. ‘You’ve wiped out one of Jeff’s.’ He strolled away, tearing the slip into small pieces.

  That was a fast pass,’ commented the brunette, nodding at the loaded plate. ‘He dumps a heavy feed-ob on you and you bounce it straight back, leaving all quits. I’ll have to wash dishes to get rid of mine. Or kill one Seth has got on somebody else.’

  ‘I stacked a ton of canned stuff.’ Harrison picked up knife and fork, his mouth watering. There were no knives and forks on the ship; they weren’t needed for powders and pills. ‘Don’t give you much choice here, do they? You take what you get.’

  ‘Not if you’ve got an ob on Seth,’ she informed. ‘When you have, he must work it off the best way he can. You should have put that to him instead of waiting for fate and complaining afterward.’

  ‘But I’m not complaining.’

  ‘It’s your right. That’s freedom, isn’t it?’ She mused a bit, went on, ‘It isn’t often I’m an ob ahead of Seth but when I am I scream for iced pineapple and he comes running. When he’s one ahead I do the running.’ Her gray eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion. ‘You’re listening as if all this is new to you.’

  ‘Are you a stranger here?’

  He nodded, his mouth full of chicken. A little later he managed, ‘I’m off that spaceship.’

  ‘Good grief!’ She froze considerably. ‘An Antigand! I wouldn’t have thought it. Why, you look almost human.’

  ‘I’ve long taken pride in that similarity.’ He chewed, swallowed, looked inquiringly around. The white-coated man came up. ‘What’s to drink?’ Harrison asked.

  ‘Dith, double-dith, shemak or coffee.’

  ‘Coffee. Big and black.’

  ‘Shemak is better,’ advised the brunette as the waiter went to get it. ‘But why should I tell you?’

  The coffee came in a pint-sized mug. Putting it down, the waiter said, ‘It’s your choice seeing that Seth is working one off. What’ll you have for after—apple pie, yimpik delice, grated tarfelsoufers or canimelon in syrup?’

  ‘Iced pineapple.’

  ‘Ugh ! ’The other blinked at him, gave the brunette an accusing stare, brought it and dumped it on the table.

  Harrison pushed it across. ‘Take the plunge and enjoy yourself.’

  ‘It’s yours.’

  ‘Couldn’t eat it if I tried.’ He dug up another load of chicken, stirred his coffee, he began to feel at perfect peace with this world. ‘Got as much as I can manage right here.’ He made an inviting motion with his fork. ‘Go on, be greedy and to heck with the waistline.’

  ‘No.’ Firmly she pushed the pineapple back at him. ‘If I ate my way through that I’d be saddled with an ob.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘I don’t let strangers dump obs on me.’

  ‘Quite right, too. Very proper of you,’ approved Harrison. ‘Strangers often have strange notions.’

  ‘You’ve been around,’ she remarked. ‘Though I don’t know what’s strange about the notions.’

  ‘Cynic!’ The pineapple got another pass in her direction. ‘If you feel that I’ll be burdening you with an ob that you’ll have to pay off you can do it in seemly manner here and now. All I want is some information.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Just tell me where I can put my finger on the ripest cheese in this locality.’

  ‘That’s easy. Go round to Alec Peters’ place, middle of Tenth Street.’ With that she helped herself to the dish.

  http://www.abelard.org/e-f-russell.php - index

  ‘Thanks. I was beginning to think that everyone was dumb or
afflicted with the funnies.’

  He carried on with his own meal, finished it, lay back expansively. Unaccustomed nourishment persuaded his brain to work a bit more dexterously for after a minute an expression of chronic doubt clouded his face and he inquired, ‘Does this Peters run a cheese warehouse?’

  ‘Of course.’ Emitting a sigh of pleasure, she pushed the empty dish aside.

  He groaned low down, then informed, ‘I’m chasing the mayor.’

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘Number one. The big boss. The sheriff, pohanko, or what-ever you call him.’

  ‘I’m still no wiser,’ she said, genuinely puzzled.

  ‘The man who runs this town. The leading citizen.’

  ‘Make it a little clearer,’ she suggested, trying hard to help him. ‘Who or what should this citizen be leading?’

  ‘You and Seth and everyone else.’ He waved a hand to encompass the entire burg.

  Frowning, she asked, ‘Leading us where?’

  ‘Wherever you’re going.’

  She gave up, beaten, and signed the white-coated waiter to come to her assistance.

  ‘Matt, are we going any place?’

  ‘How should I know?’

  ‘Well, ask Seth then.’

  He went away, came back with, ‘Seth says he’s going home at six o’clock and what’s it to you?’

  ‘Anyone leading him there?’ she inquired.

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ Matt advised. ‘He knows his own way and he’s cold sober.’

  Harrison chipped in. ‘Look, I don’t see why there should be so much difficulty about all this. Just tell me where I can find an official, any official—the police chief, the city treasurer, the mortuary keeper or even a mere justice of the peace.’

  ‘What’s an official?’ asked Matt, openly baffled.

  ‘What’s a justice of the peace?’ added the brunette.

  His mind side-slipped and did a couple of spins. It took him quite a time to reassemble his thoughts and try another tack.