Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume One

by Short Story Anthology

  “Where's headquarters?” Larry said trying to keep his voice soothing.

  “Well ... I don't know. Daddy was awfully silly about it. He tied his handkerchief around my eyes near the end. But the others complained about me anyway, and Daddy got awfully mad and said something about the young people of the country participating in their emancipation and all, but the others got mad too, and said there wasn't any kind of help I could do around headquarters anyway, and I'd be better off in school. Everybody got awfully mad, but after the second time Daddy promised not to take me to headquarters any more.”

  “But where did you find the money, Zusannette?” Larry said.

  “At headquarters. There's tons and tons of it there.”

  Larry cleared his throat and said, “When you say tons and tons, you mean a great deal of it, eh?”

  She was proudly definite. “I mean tons and tons. A ton is two thousand pounds.”

  “Look, Zusanette,” Larry said reasonably. “I don't know how much money weighs, exactly, but let's say a pound would be, say, a thousand bills.” He took up a pencil and scribbled on a pad before him. “A pound of fifties would be $50,000. Then if you multiply that by 2,000 pounds to make a ton, you'd have $100,000,000. And you say there's tons and tons?”

  “And that's just the fifties,” Susan said triumphantly. “So you can see the two little packages I picked up aren't really important at all. It's just like I found them.”

  “I don't think there's quite a thousand bills in a pound,” Steve said weakly.

  Larry said, “How much other money is there?”

  “Oh, piles. Whole rooms. Rooms after rooms. And hundred dollar bills, and twenties, and fives, and tens—”

  Larry said, “Look, Zusanette, I don't think you're in any position to be telling us whoppers. This whole story doesn't make much sense, does it?”

  Her mouth tightened. “I'm not going to say anything more until Daddy gets here, anyway,” she said.

  Which was when the phone rang.

  “I have an idea that's for me,” Steve said.

  The screen lit up and LaVerne Polk said, “Call for Steve Hackett, Larry.”

  Larry pushed the phone around so Steve could look into it. LaVerne flicked off and was replaced by a stranger in uniform. Steve said, “Yeah?”

  The cop said, “He's flown the coop, sir. Must have got out just minutes before we arrived. Couldn't have taken more than a suitcase. Few papers scattered around the room he used for an office.”

  Susan gasped, “You mean Daddy?”

  Steve Hackett rubbed a hand over his flattened nose. “Holy Smokes,” he said. He thanked the cop and flicked off.

  Larry said, “Look Zusanette, everything's going to be all right. Nothing will happen to you. You say you managed to pick up two packets of all this money they have at headquarters. O.K. So you thought it wouldn't be missed and you've always wanted to spend money the way you see the stars do on TriD and in the movies.”

  She looked at him, taken back. “How did you know?”

  Larry said dryly, “I've always wanted to myself. But I would like to know one more thing. The Movement. What was it going to do with all this money?”

  That evidently puzzled her. “The Professor said they were going to spend it on chorus girls. I guess ... I guess he was joking or something. But Daddy and I'd just been up to New York and we saw those famous precision dancers at the New Roxy Theatre and all and then when we got back the Professor and Daddy were talking and I heard him say it.”

  Steve said, carefully, “Professor who?”

  Susan said, “Just the Professor. That's all we ever call him.” Her chin went to trembling still again.

  ***

  Larry summed it up for the Boss later.

  His chief scoffed his disbelief. “The child is full of dreams, Lawrence. It comes from seeing an over-abundance of these TriD shows. I have a girl the same age. I don't know what is happening to the country. They have no sense of reality.”

  Larry Woolford said mildly, “Well, she might be full of nonsense, but she did have the fifties, and she's our only connection with whoever printed them whether it's a movement to overthrow the government, or what.”

  The Boss said tolerantly, “Movement, indeed. Obviously, her father produced them and she purloined a quantity before he was ready to attempt to pass them. Have you a run down on him yet?”

  “Susan Self says her father, Ernest Self, is an inventor. Steve Hackett is working on locating him.”

  “He's an inventor indeed. Evidently, he has invented a perfect counterfeiting device. However, that is the Secret Service's headache, not ours. Do you wish to resume that vacation of yours, Lawrence?”

  His operative twisted his face in a grimace. “Sure, I do, but I'm not happy about this, sir. What happens if there really is an organization, a Movement, like she said? That brings it back under our jurisdiction, anti-subversion.”

  The other shook his head tolerantly. “See here, Lawrence, when you begin scheming a social revolution you can't plan on an organization composed of a small number of persons who keep their existence secret. In spite of what a good many persons seem to believe, revolutions are not accomplished by handfuls of conspirators hiding in cellars and eventually overthrowing society by dramatically shooting the President, or King, or Czar, or whoever. Revolutions are precipitated by masses of people. People who have ample cause to be against whatever the current government happens to be. Usually, they are on the point of actual starvation. Have you ever read Machiavelli?”

  Niccolo Machiavelli was currently the thing to read. Larry said with a certain dignity, “I've gone through ‘The Prince,’ the ‘Discourses’ and currently I'm amusing myself with his‘History of Florence.’ ”

  “Anybody who can amuse himself reading Machiavelli,” the Boss said dryly, “has a macabre sense of humor. At any rate, what I was alluding to was where he stated that the Prince cannot rule indefinitely in the face of the active opposition of his people. Therefore, the people always get a government that lies within the limits of their tolerance. It may be on one edge or the other of their limits of tolerance—but it's always within their tolerance zone.”

  Larry frowned and said, “Well, what's your point, sir?”

  The Boss said patiently, “I'm just observing that cultures aren't overthrown by little handfuls of secret conspirators. You might eliminate a few individuals in that manner, in other words change the personnel of the government, but you aren't going to alter a socio-economic system. That can't be done until your people have been pushed outside their limits of tolerance. Very well then. A revolutionary organization must get out and propagandize. It has got to convince the people that they are being pushed beyond endurance. You have got to get the masses to moving. You have to give speeches, print newspapers, books, pamphlets, you have got to send your organizers out to intensify interest in your program.”

  Larry said, “I see what you mean. If this so-called Movement actually existed it couldn't expect to get anywhere as long as remained secret.”

  The Boss nodded. “That is correct. The leaders of a revolutionary movement might be intellectuals, social scientists, scholars—in fact they usually are—take our own American Revolution with Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Washington. Or the French Revolution with Robespierre, Danton, Marat, Engels and Lenin. All were well educated intellectuals from the middle class. But the revolution itself, once it starts, comes from below, from the mass of people pushed beyond tolerance.”

  It came to Lawrence Woolford that his superior had achieved to his prominent office not through any fluke. He knew what he was talking about.

  The Boss wound it up. “If there was such an organization as this Movement, then this department would know about it. You don't keep a revolutionary movement secret. It doesn't make sense to even try. Even if it is forced underground, it makes as much noise as it can.”

  His trouble shooter cleared his throat. “I suppose you're right, sir.” He adde
d hesitantly. “We could always give Susan Self a few drops of Scop-Serum, sir.”

  The Boss scowled disapprovingly. “You know how the Supreme Court ruled on that, Lawrence. And particularly since the medics revealed its effect on reducing sexual inhibitions. No, Mr. Hackett and Secret Service will have to get the truth out of the girl by some other means. At any rate, it is out of our hands.”

  Larry came to his feet. “Well, then, I'll resume my vacation, eh?”

  His chief took up a report from his desk an frowned at it, his attention already passing to other matters. He grunted, “Clear it with LaVerne, please. Tell her I said to take another week to make up for our intruding on you in this manner.”

  ***

  In the back of his head, Larry Woolford had misgivings. For one thing, where had the kid, who on the face of her performance was no great brain even as sixteen or seventeen old's go, picked up such ideas as the fact that people developed prejudices against words like revolution and propaganda?

  However, he was clear of it now. Let Steve Hackett and his people take over. He, Lawrence Woolford, was due for a quick return to Astor, Florida and the bass fishing on the St. John's River.

  He stopped at LaVerne's desk and gave her his address to be, now that his vacation was resumed.

  She said, smiling up at him. “Right. The boss already told me to get in touch with Secret Service and let them know we're pulling out. What happened to Susan Self?”

  Larry looked at her. “How'd you know about Susan?”

  Her tone was deprecating. “Remember? You had me cut some tapes on you and that hulking Steve Hackett grilling the poor kid.”

  Larry snorted. “Poor kid, yet. With her tastes for living-it-up, and that father she has, she'll probably spend the rest of her life getting in Steve's hair as a counterfeit pusher.”

  “What are they going to do with her? She's just a child.”

  The agent shrugged. “I feel sorry for her, too, LaVerne. Steve's got her in a suite at the Greater Washington Hilton, until things are cleared up. They don't want the newspapers to get wind of this until they've got that inventor father of hers and whatever he's cooked up to turn out perfect reproductions of Uncle Sam's money. Look, I won't be leaving until tomorrow. What'd you say we go out on the town tonight?”

  “Why, Larry Woolford! How nice of you to ask me. Poor Little, Non-U me. What do you have in mind? I understand Mort Lenny's at one of the night clubs.”

  Larry winced. “You know what he's been saying about the administration.”

  She smiled sweetly at him.

  Larry said, “Look, we could take in the Brahms concert, then—”

  “Do you like Brahms? I go for popular music myself. Preferably the sort of thing they wrote back in the 1930s. Something you can dance to, something you know the words to. Corny, they used to call it. Remember ‘Sunny Side of the Street,’ and ‘Just the Way You Look Tonight’.”

  Larry winced again. He said, “Look, I admit, I don't go for concerts either but it doesn't hurt you to—”

  “I know,” she said sweetly. “It doesn't hurt for a bright young bureaucrat to be seen at concerts.”

  “How about Dixieland?” he said. “It's all the thing now.”

  “I like corn. Besides, my wardrobe is all out of style. Paris, London, and Rome just got in a huddle a couple of weeks ago and antiquated everything I own. You wouldn't want to be seen with a girl a few weeks out of date, would you?”

  “Oh, now, LaVerne, get off my back.” He thought about it. “Look, you must have something you could wear.”

  “Get out of here, you vacant minded conformist! I like Mort Lenny, he makes me laugh; I hate vodka martinis, they give me sour stomach; I don't like the current women's styles, nor the men's either.” LaVerne spun back to her auto-typer and began to dictate into it.

  Larry glared down at her. “All right. O.K. What do you like?”

  She snapped back irrationally, “I like what I like.”

  He laughed at her in ridicule.

  This time she glared at him. “That makes more sense than you're capable of assimilating, Mr. Walking Status Symbol. My likes and dislikes aren't dictated by someone else. If I like corny music, I'll listen to it and the devil with Brahms or Dixieland or anything else that somebody else tells me is all the thing!”

  He turned on his heel angrily. “O.K., O.K., it takes all sorts to make a world, weirds and all.”

  “One more label to hang on people,” she snarled after him. “Everything's labels. Be sure and never come to any judgments of your own!”

  What a woman! He wondered why he'd ever bothered to ask her for a date. There were so many women in this town you waded through them, and here he was exposing himself to be seen in public with a girl everybody in the department knew was as weird as they came. It didn't do your standing any good to be seen around with the type. He wondered all over again why the Boss tolerated her as his receptionist-secretary.

  He got his car from the parking lot and drove home at a high level. Ordinarily, the distance being what it was, he drove in the lower and slower traffic levels but now his frustration demanded some expression.

  ***

  Back at his suburban auto-bungalow, he threw all except the high priority switch and went on down into his small second cellar den. He didn't really feel like a night on the town anyway. A few vodka martinis under his belt and he'd sleep late and he wanted to get up in time for an early start for Florida. Besides, in that respect he agreed with the irritating wench. Vermouth was never meant to mix with Polish vodka. He wished that Sidecars would come back.

  In his den, he shucked off his jacket, kicked off his shoes and shuffled into Moroccan slippers. He went over to his current reading rack and scowled at the paperbacks there. His culture status books were upstairs where they could be seen. He pulled out a western, tossed it over to the cocktail table that sat next to his chair, and then went over to the bar.

  Up above in his living room, he had one of the new autobars. You could dial any one of more than thirty drinks. Autobars were all the rage. The Boss had one that gave a selection of a hundred. But what difference did it make when nobody but eccentric old-timers or flighty blondes drank anything except vodka martinis? He didn't like autobars anyway. A well mixed drink is a personal thing, a work of competence, instinct and art, not something measured to the drop, iced to the degree, shaken or stirred to a mathematical formula.

  Out of the tiny refrigerator he brought a four-ounce cube of frozen pineapple juice, touched the edge with his thumbnail and let the ultra thin plastic peel away. He tossed the cube into his mixer, took up a bottle of light rum and poured in about two ounces. He brought an egg from the refrigerator and added that. An ounce of whole milk followed and a teaspoon of powdered sugar. He flicked the switch and let the conglomeration froth together.

  He poured it into a king-size highball glass and took it over to his chair. Vodka martinis be damned, he liked a slightly sweet long drink.

  He sat down in the chair, picked up the book and scowled at the cover. He ought to be reading that Florentine history of Machiavelli's, especially if the Boss had got to the point where he was quoting from the guy. But the heck with it, he was on vacation. He didn't think much of the Italian diplomat of the Renaissance anyway; how could you be that far back without being dated?

  He couldn't get beyond the first page or two.

  And when you can't concentrate on a Western, you just can't concentrate.

  He finished his drink, went over to his phone and dialed Department of Records and then Information. When the bright young thing answered, he said, “I'd like the brief on an Ernest Self who lives on Elwood Avenue, Baltimore section of Greater Washington. I don't know his code number.”

  She did things with switches and buttons for a moment and then brought a sheet from a delivery chute. “Do you want me to read it to you, sir?”

  “No, I'll scan it,” Larry said.

  Her face faded to be replaced by the
brief on Ernest Self.

  It was astonishingly short. Records seemed to have slipped up on this occasion. A rare occurrence. He considered requesting the full dossier, then changed his mind. Instead he dialled the number of the Sun-Post and asked for its science columnist.

  Sam Sokolski's puffy face eventually faded in.

  Larry said to him sourly, “You drink too much. You can begin to see the veins breaking in your nose.”

  Sam looked at him patiently.

  Larry said, “How'd you like to come over and toss back a few tonight?”

  “I'm working. I thought you were on vacation.”

  Larry sighed. “I am,” he said. “O.K., so you can't take a night off and lift a few with an old buddy.”

  “That's right. Anything else, Larry?”

  “Yes. Look, have you ever heard of an inventor named Ernest Self?”

  “Sure I've heard of him. Covered a hassle he got into some years ago. A nice guy.”

  “I'll bet,” Larry said. “What does he invent, something to do with printing presses, or something?”

  “Printing presses? Don't you remember the story about him?”

  “Brief me,” Larry said.

  “Well—briefly does it—it got out a couple of years ago that some of our rocketeers had bought a solid fuel formula from an Italian research outfit for the star probe project. Paid them a big hunk of Uncle's change for it. So Self sued.”

  Larry said, “You're being too brief. What d'ya mean, he sued? Why?”

  “Because he claimed he'd submitted the same formula to the same agency a full eighteen months earlier and they'd turned him down.”

  “Had he?”

  “Probably.”

  Larry didn't get it. “Then why'd they turn him down?”

  Sam said, “Oh, the government boys had a good alibi. Crackpots turn up all over the place and you have to brush them off. Every cellar scientist who comes along and says he's got a new super-fuel developed from old coffee grounds can't be given the welcome mat. Something was wrong with his math or something and they didn't pay much attention to him. Wouldn't even let him demonstrate it. But it was the same formula, all right.”