Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  “No,” said Binney, gulping. “I—I fell off. Off the ramp up there.” He pointed wildly.

  It took much argument, but at last the salesman got free. He staggered to a subway . . .

  There was a slight disturbance there. Binney, getting an umbrella in the ribs, and finding himself sandwiched in between two plump and odorous gentlemen, cried, “Out please,” at his station, with no perceptible result. Valiantly he fought his way through the mob. Anger began to rise in him.

  A woman screamed. She chattered incoherent sounds and pointed at Binney. He did not, for the moment, realize that he had briefly vanished into thin air and as suddenly returned. There had been only a momentary feeling that he stood amid a pallid scarlet glow, untenanted save for a man who had been jammed against him in the crush.

  Climbing out of the subway, Binney abruptly gasped as his chaotic thoughts focused upon the matter. He fled to a drugstore and made a hasty telephone call to Jersey. Presently an answer came.

  “For heaven’s sake,” Binney cried, “what was in that bottle you gave me, Professor? Opium?”

  Muffled grunts told of distant merriment.

  “Opium? I told you I did not know what it was. It would not react to litmus or anything. Why?”

  BINNEY, in great detail, told why.

  There was a pause on the other end of the wire. Then the Professor said jubilantly:

  “This is wonderful! My boy, you have been transported to another universe! Another dimension, existing coincidentally with ours, on another plane of vibration. The combination of the lightning shock—the electric energy—and my elixir sent you into another world. How I wish I could make more of the stuff! But the secret is lost, I fear.”

  “Then it was real? I wasn’t dreaming?”

  “It was real enough. I’m only theorizing, of course, from what you tell me, but it fits in with all our knowledge of non-Euclidean physics. As Planck puts it—” The Professor’s words became somewhat puzzling to Binney, who inquired:

  “Huh? How does lamb-pie come into it?”

  “Lambda. And pi. Part of a formula—an equation. It doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t understand, anyway. Try to imagine, Binney, two worlds, interlocking, existing in the same space but at a different rate of vibration. You were very lucky, you know. The ground level in the other world might not have been the same as ours, and you might have materialized there under the surface, or miles above it. As it was, where did you say you landed?”

  Binney explained again about the crescent-shaped plaza. The Professor laughed.

  “You were doubly lucky. The end of the Holland Tunnel in New York just happens to coincide with that crescent-shaped plaza in the red world. Suppose the accident had happened while you were up, say, in the Empire State? You’d have found yourself in the other world, in empty air over a thousand feet above the ground. What’s the matter? Are you there?”

  “Uh, yes,” said Binney, picking up the telephone receiver, which he had dropped in a momentary fit of stark horror.

  “So. Another thing—you say you returned to New York through the dimensions when you became angry? When that creature started to fly away with you? That is significant. Let me see . . .” The Professor grumbled and muttered, and at length became coherent again.

  “I have it, perhaps. Adrenalin. The ductless glands. We know little about them, but when lightning struck you in the Holland Tunnel, we had three factors. The electric energy, my elixir, and the adrenalin in your blood-stream—for you say you were angry at the time. One of them may have been the catalyst. The resultant chemical reaction altered your physical pattern so you were moved from one dimension to another.”

  “But I came back again—”

  “When you got angry. When the adrenalin flooded your body again. The elixir is probably in a state of suspension within your tissues. The lightning may have been the initial catalyst, and it isn’t necessary any more. Every time you get mad, you go into the other world. Get mad again, and you come back. I’m just theorizing, of course,” the Professor said chattily, “but you did say something happened just now in the subway. Repeat the incident, please.”

  Binney inserted a nickel in the slot at the operator’s request and continued his story.

  “Ah,” the Professor chuckled. “So human bodies conduct the power, too. Like electricity. You can take people with you into the other dimension—as you did with that man in the subway. Luckily, it was only momentary.”

  “Listen,” Binney said hopelessly, “I’m going crazy. What am I to do?”

  “Do? Nothing. I’ll find some cure. ’Phone me tonight. I’ll work out some way of neutralizing the elixir, and put you back to normal. Don’t worry,” the Professor comforted. “Er—if you happen to go into that other dimension in the meantime, try and take a camera with you. I’ve always contended that Earth isn’t the only world with life, and I’d appreciate your getting the proof for me.”

  He listened to Binney for a time, and then clucked remonstration.

  “Oh, of course, if you feel so strongly about it . . . Well, I’ll go to my lab and see what I can do. In the meantime, you’ll be safe enough if you don’t get mad. As long as there’s no adrenalin flooding your system, you’re normal. ’Phone me at eight.”

  “All right,” Binney assented, and hung up, his brain in a whirl.

  He couldn’t figure it out. No doubt the Professor knew what was happening, but he, Binney, certainly didn’t. Lamb-pies, nuts!

  HE went up to his offices. He’d take Susan Blythe out to lunch, and spend the day with her. He never got angry when Susan was near. Then at eight he could ’phone the Professor.

  Susan was a charming girl in a neatly tailored gray suit. She had black hair and eyes, and Binney’s heart flipped as he stared at the girl.

  She turned from her switchboard. “Hello,” Binney remarked tentatively.

  “Hi,” the girl returned companionably. “You’re just in time. Office closes at noon Saturdays.”

  “Swell,” said Binney. “Would you like to—uh—have lunch with me?”

  “I’m so sorry, Joe. Tim’s taking me to Coney.” Susan’s face softened at Binney’s crestfallen look. “Why not come along? You can rent a suit.”

  “Thanks,” the salesman nodded, and went into the inner office, after a discreet knock. Presently he came out, looking unhappy.

  “What’s the matter?” Susan asked sympathetically.

  “Oh, nothing. Lost a big order, that’s all. Dennler said I—I—” Binney gulped.

  Dennler had, apparently, said plenty, including the plain fool tricks of vanishing salesmen, and the dangers of sudden shock to a man with a weak heart and high blood pressure.

  Binney had not dared mention his forthcoming promotion. But the boss had. It was no longer forthcoming.

  He tried to forget his grief at Coney. But even there the unpleasant Tim Blake was a thorn in his side. Binney’s rented bathing suit sagged disconsolately on his lean form, while Blake had apparently been poured into his. He bulged with muscles.

  Glumly, Binney swam out past the breakers. Swimming was the only thing in which he excelled. As a youth he had won medals for it. His thin body cut through the water with surprising speed and grace.

  Susan, however, had a new suit and didn’t care to get it wet. Blake lounged beside her on the sands, grinning fatuously. Binney finally grew resentful enough to challenge Blake to a swim. The latter hesitated, but, after a glance at Susan, agreed.

  THERE was method in Binney’s plan. He swam rapidly but not too rapidly, keeping pace with his competitor. Whenever Blake tired, Binney encouraged him. And, at last, the two reached a raft far out to sea. Blake drew himself up, gasping and panting. Thereupon Binney turned around and swam rapidly back to shore, certain of a brief respite before his enemy could muster his strength. Grinning, he disregarded Blake’s furious cries.

  But there was little chance to talk quietly to Susan on the beach at Coney. When the girl suggested that they dress, Bi
nney was willing, for he noticed an angry spark in Susan’s eyes as she glanced out to sea where Blake, invisible at the distance, clung to his raft. Later, however, Binney had reason to regret his rashness . . .

  He was strolling along the boardwalk with Susan, toward the station, when a brawny figure in a bathing suit confronted him. Blake’s handsome face was contorted with fury. He expressed his intention of tearing Binney apart and scattering him to the winds.

  “Oh, be quiet, you big bully,” Susan said. “Going off and leaving me like that—”

  “Sure,” Binney snapped, heartened. “Go chase yourself.”

  Thereupon, with a maddened roar, Blake demonstrated the usefulness of kinetic energy by planting his fist on Binney’s lean chest. The latter was hurled back, but scrambled up immediately, glaring. If Susan had not been there, he might have been sensible enough to run. But, instead, Binney ducked under Blake’s roundhouse punch and hit the big man on the nose.

  This, as it proved, was unfortunate. Blake bellowed with rage, seized Binney by the throat, and bore him down, kneeling on his victim’s prostrate body. Binney made feeble fluttering motions with his hands. He tried vainly to catch his breath. Meanwhile, Susan had climbed atop Blake and was beating him about the ears in a futile fashion. A crowd gathered.

  Humiliation and fury surged up in Binney. He made a frantic, straining effort to throw off his captor, while the blood pulsed and beat in his temples. He felt a momentary blinding shock—

  The boardwalk dropped out from under him, and an immense scarlet void engulfed him. He saw Blake’s face, white and terrified, and the wide dark eyes of Susan as the three of them bumped lightly onto a hard surface. Above was a red sky, and a red sun . . .

  The flutter of great wings sounded. Shadows swooped down. A dozen talons gripped the three, and still clinging together, they were lifted.

  Reason was blotted out. There was only a mad impulse to hold on—to grip the nearest object. And so the three were carried along, with the wind screaming in their ears.

  Only Binney had any idea of what had happened. Those blasted adrenal glands of his—he had grown mad again. And, as the Professor had theorized, his atomic structure had altered so that he was in another dimension. Susan and Blake had come along because human bodies evidently conducted this fantastic power like electricity, just as the Professor had guessed.

  FAR down was level ground, hard and white and featureless. They were rising up the side of a great cliff—no, not a cliff, but the wall of a towering building. And Binney recognized the beings who held him. Furry, batwinged, two-headed creatures.

  “Nyasta dree urdle,” said one, and Binney moaned feebly. They’d started that again.

  The six bat-wings, bearing their human cargo, reached the summit of the building and commenced to swoop across the roof. The featureless flat surface swept past dizzyingly. As yet the three had no time to think or theorize. They simply clung together . . .

  They flew fast, yet it was a long time before the bat-wings hovered above a crescent-shaped wide well in a roof and slowly descended. Looking down, Binney saw a green-paved plaza, with a shimmering pool in the center. He recognized it as the scene of his first arrival in this other world.

  They hit the pavement with a thump, Binney underneath. With a moan of stark horror Blake shook free of the talons that gripped him and sprang up. Instantly he vanished.

  Just like that. One moment he was there, tall and brawny in the black bathing suit, the next he was quite one, without a trace. The bat-wings uttered in confusion.

  “Nyasta wurn!” someone said, in an excited tone, and then the talons gripped again. Once more the humans were lifted, only two now instead of three.

  Even at that horrific moment, Binney tried to figure it out. The Professor had said human bodies conducted the inter-dimensional power like electricity. To all intents and purposes Binney had within him a live wire. When Blake was in contact with the salesman, Blake, too, got the current. But when contact was broken—

  No more current. Blake, no longer in touch with the strange energy that kept him in this red world, had gone back into Earth’s dimension.

  But why didn’t that happen to Binney, too? Maybe because of the Professor’s elixir, soaked into his tissues. Binney could move from one world to another, and remain there, whereas neither Susan nor Blake could. The moment they lost their physical contact with Binney, they returned to Earth.

  So Blake was back in New York. And the two others were rising, captives of the bat-winged beings . . .

  The salesman groaned. This crescent-shaped plaza, he felt sure, had been the scene of his advent in the red world. Its pavement was level with the surface of the Holland Tunnel in New York. No doubt Blake was there now.

  Susan kept her eyes closed and held tightly to Binney, burrowing her nose into his shoulder. Even at that moment he was thrilled. Then sanity came back, and Binney, looking up at the two-headed things that held him, suddenly wanted to faint.

  He didn’t. He felt himself, instead, gently deposited on the roof beside the well that led down to the plaza. For a moment he lay quietly, his arm around Susan, staring at the inhuman red-haired faces, with their huge eyes and pouting mouths. He felt the girl shudder convulsively.

  Binney made a faint sound that ended in a gurgle. He tried again, with better luck.

  “It’s okay, Susan,” he managed. “Th-they won’t hurt us.”

  “Dree,” said a bat-wing, rather cryptically.

  Binney started to get up. Then he paused, gripping Susan tightly as a horrible thought came to him. They were high up above the green pavement of the plaza, about two hundred feet. If Binney let go of Susan now, she, too, like Blake, would return to her own world—but a couple of hundred feet above a New York street!

  BINNEY shut his eyes at the picture. Susan’s body suddenly materializing between skyscrapers, to plummet down toward the pavement, crashing—ugh!

  What had the Professor said some hours ago, over the phone?

  “Suppose the accident had happened while you were up, say, in the Empire State? You’d have found yourself in the other world, in empty air over a thousand feet above the ground.”

  Now the reverse situation faced Binney. The city of the two-headed beings seemed to be a huge cube, stretching as far as he could see. He was on the roof of it now. If he could return to New York, he would materialize two hundred feet above—well, probably 42nd Street.

  Good Lord! If he could only get down to the bottom of that crescentshaped plaza. That was the Holland Tunnel, back on Earth—and the ground level was approximately the same. But there was obviously no way to descend from the endless roof—no stairs or elevators. The winged creatures didn’t need such things.

  Binney took a deep breath and squeezed Susan so tightly that she cried out in protest.

  “We—we gotta get down!” Binney mumbled, and sent a glance of mingled appeal and horror at the inhuman faces surrounding him. He pointed down and nodded vigorously.

  “Urdle nyasta,” said the foremost, but its twin head immediately countered with, “Dree wurn.”

  “Oiliva,” said another.

  But they made no move.

  Binney gently shook Susan.

  “It’s all right, d-dear,” he whispered. “Open your eyes. We’re safe.” The words stuck in his throat.

  Susan burrowed her nose deeper in Binney’s shoulder and refused to stir.

  “Oh, Joe,” she gasped. “What is it?”

  One of the bat-wings reached out an exploratory talon and pulled Susan’s hair. Rather angrily Binney pushed the claw away. Then he went white with terror.

  He had almost lost his temper. And that would be fatal. The moment Binney got mad, his adrenal glands would start working. The metamorphosis to another dimension would take place. Binney would find himself, with Susan, high above a busy street with extremely hard pavement . . .

  “Oh, Lord,” Binney prayed, “help me keep my temper!”

  Frantically he
tried to think of other things. He couldn’t get mad if he were scared to death. So Binney did his best to frighten himself.

  That was the best possible procedure to make him courageous. After vainly attempting to convince himself that he was terrified, Binney discovered that he wasn’t. Even the monstrous creatures surrounding him had somewhat lost their air of alien menace. Sure, they were inhuman, but they acted just like a crowd at Coney. Only they didn’t seem to understand—

  Binney pointed at himself, at the nearest bat-wing, and then down into the well. Immediately the two-headed creature seized Binney in its talons and spread its wings. He almost lost his grip on Susan before he could recover from his surprise. The girl’s arm slipped through his fingers. Then his hand tightened about her wrist. But he was losing his hold moment by moment.

  GROANING, Binney, with his free arm, batted frantically at the talons that held him. The surprised batwing settled to the roof, and let go staring with wide eyes.

  “You ugly fool!” Binney ground out, drawing Susan’s limp form close. “You blasted—No, no. I mustn’t get mad. It—it’s funny. Yeah. That’s what it is. Oh, Lordy!”

  Susan had quietly fainted. Binney took the opportunity of removing the girl’s sash and tying one end about his waist, the other about hers. Then, sitting on the roof, he held Susan tightly within the circle of one arm and repeated his gestures downward.

  But this time the bat-wings examined him with blank incomprehension. Evidently they’d learned their lesson. They’d tried obeying his gestures before, and it hadn’t worked out.

  “Urdle ah dree,” said one. “Dree wurn.”

  This gave Binney a new thought. Imitating as well as he was able the strange, thin voice, he piped:

  “Urdle ah dree.”

  Immediately the bat-wings roused into furious activity. They fluttered and hopped about, in clumsy, bizarre excitement. Queer whistling noises came from the pouting lips.

  “Well,” Binney thought, “we’re making friends at least.” Seeking to cap the climax, he squeaked, “Dree wurn.”