Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  BEING his uncle’s secretary was no sinecure, Tinney thought unhappily. And now this new device—what was it? Something to do with the fourth dimension. Uncle Wilbur had explained it once, rather vaguely, but Tinney had scarcely listened. He did not at all understand the first principles of the machine.

  Crockett appeared, with a full bottle. “I had forgotten this,” he said. “Has Mr. Van Dill left?”

  At Tinney’s nod he sighed and put the bottle into a sideboard. Then he stood ominously waiting till the young man, cringing under the butler’s cold glance, hastily gulped down the rest of his coffee and crumpled his napkin.

  “Er—better fix the lighting system,” Tinney said, rising. “I think Uncle Wilbur blew a fuse.”

  “Yes, sir. Immediately.”

  Tinney wandered off, feeling low. At the door of his uncle’s laboratory he paused. Better see that everything was in place there. Once a fire had started, ignored by the erratic Van Dill. Tinney opened the door and looked in.

  Fair enough. All was as usual, except for an oddly-shaped contrivance in the center of the floor. It looked rather like an oversized telephone booth, with walls on only two sides. On its floor lay Uncle Wilbur’s hat.

  Since one of Tinney’s passions was neatness, he immediately hurried forward after the hat. As he entered the booth and bent over a curious clicking sounded. Simultaneously a red light bathed him.

  Crockett had replaced the fuse, and the machine had been turned on!

  Tinney felt a wrenching jar, fell forward, and clutched wildly at a set of complicated controls on one wall. Dials spun under his hands. Briefly he had the extraordinary sensation of being in two places at once. There were two Bruce Tinneys!

  They merged. A grinding whirr came from the device. The two Tinneys spun apart again, reeling out of the booth. For a horrified moment each of them regarded the other.

  Yes—there were two. Perfect duplicates.

  The red glow still bathed the machine. As if by common consent, both Tinneys dived back into the booth, clutching at the controls. Fingers fumbled. Return the dials to their original positions—that was right.

  The clicking sounded again. The Tinneys drew together, feeling an indescribable sensation of merging. And, gasping, Bruce Tinney—no longer twins—leaped hastily away from the infernal device.

  That had been close! It was always safer to stay away from Uncle Wilbur’s inventions. But, luckily, there was no harm done.

  Gulping, Tinney lifted his hands to brush back his disheveled hair. That was a mistake. For a moment he had the odd impression that someone was in back of him, reaching around as though to cover Tinney’s eyes and say “Guess who?”

  With justifiable irritation, the young man swung around. He was alone. Puzzled, he glanced down at his hands.

  He had four hands… . Yipe! He had four arms!

  TINNEY remained perfectly motionless, staring. The upper set of arms were his usual ones. The others sprouted from his armpits, and there were rents in the thin silk of his pajama jacket where they had burst through. He must look rather like an Oriental goddess, he thought wildly.

  Four arms!

  Tinney staggered to a chair and sat down, not pleased. He looked at the booth. That had done it, of course. Uncle Wilbur—blast Uncle Wilbur!

  Apparently one of the attributes of a fourth-dimensional gadget was to split people into half—create twins. Duplication of atomic structure or something. The operation could be reversed, but not by an unskilled hand. Tinney licked his lips.

  He stood up and moved slowly toward the device. Then he paused.

  Suppose he made another mistake? This time it might be fatal. Two Bruce Tinneys had been squeezed into one, plus a set of additional arms. One Bruce Tinney might be squeezed into half a man!

  No—better not to meddle. How could you turn the machine off? It was difficult to say. The red light still glared down, and a faint humming hung in the air. Tinney sat down again and considered.

  Uncle Wilbur was the answer. He was the one to remedy this—this embarrassing development. Two additional arms! Good Lord! Tinney shut his eyes.

  “Crockett!” he called, and hesitated, feeling a natural dislike of showing his sudden deformity to the butler. But already Crockett’s footsteps sounded in the hall. Acting on impulse, Tinney put his lower set of arms behind his back, thus concealing them fairly well.

  “Sir?”

  “Uh—do you have an idea where Uncle Wilbur went?”

  “No, sir. I do not.”

  Some dive, probably, Tinney thought bitterly. Some low haunt of topers. Why the devil couldn’t Uncle Wilbur act like a normal human being? It wasn’t fair for him to run off and leave his nephew in this condition. Not for the first time, Tinney had an impulse to tell his uncle to go to the devil.

  But of course he couldn’t. He was penniless. Uncle Wilbur supported him. Tinney sighed. If he could only raise a thousand—enough to buy that stationery store on 72nd Street. He could be very happy there, in his quiet way, not continually having his life upset by such things as this.

  And Van Dill might not return for days!

  “Thanks, Crockett,” Tinney said, and the butler went out.

  What now? Obviously, he couldn’t go looking for Uncle Wilbur in this condition!

  And yet—why not? An overcoat would easily conceal the extra pair of arms. Things weren’t as bad as they had seemed. Tinney actually gave a little relieved sigh as he rose. A shower, now——

  He had some difficulty shaving, but found it fantastically easy to scrub his back. He took his time. Better let Uncle Wilbur get tight enough to be hazy and good-tempered, else he might refuse to accompany his nephew back to the laboratory.

  SINCE Tinney rose late, it was nearly two o’clock before he descended the stairs, dressed and ready, his supernumerary arms dangling, hidden by the topcoat he wore. The weather was blazingly hot, but—oh, well.

  Crockett, he saw, was engaged in an altercation at the door. A burly man with the face of a belligerent ape snarled remarks.

  “I’m sorry, sir. Mr. Van Dill is not at home.”

  “Yeah? Who’s that coming downstairs, then? Lemme by!” And the burly man brushed Crockett aside.

  Tinney hastily dived through the nearest door, finding himself in the laboratory. The guest followed him. He had a broken nose, cauliflower ears, and tiny eyes set in little pits of gristle.

  Now he looked disappointed. “You ain’t Van Dill,” he growled. Then he brightened. “A relative, maybe? Huh?”

  “I—uh—I’m Mr. Van Dill’s nephew. Can I help you?” Tinney asked, feeling slightly uneasy.

  “Yeah,” said the newcomer. “I’m Twister Haggerty. I’m the guy your uncle kicked in the pants an hour ago.” He moved forward, fists clenched.

  “Oh,” said Tinney, hastily retreating. “That was my uncle. Not me. You’re a little mixed up, aren’t you?”

  “Not a bit,” said Twister Haggerty. “Grandpa ran out of the bar before I could stand up, but I found out who he was. So I come to his place to push his teeth in. If he ain’t home, I’ll wait. Meantime, I don’t like Grandpa or any of his relatives. So I’m gonna push your teeth in while I’m waiting.”

  “Now look,” Tinney gulped. “You don’t seem to understand. I didn’t do anything to you.”

  “But I’m gonna do something to you,” Haggerty said happily, continuing his slow advance. “To your face. Yeah.”

  “Crockett!” Tinney called.

  No answer. The butler, of course, was well out of harm’s way. Tinney stepped backward slowly.

  “I warn you——” he began, but did not finish. Twister Haggerty grinned. He looked like a ravenous gargoyle.

  “And me billed for a fight tonight. My manager says I gotta keep from worrying. Well, I’ll be worried stiff till I take a poke at Grandpa. He ain’t here, but you’ll do.”

  “No,” said Tinney hopelessly, and just then Haggerty lurched forward.

  Tinney squeaked, staggered bac
k, and felt his heel catch on something. As he twisted to keep his balance, the burly man was upon him. Automatically Tinney flung his arms around Haggerty’s body. All four arms. The topcoat burst open, and the extra pair shot out like tentacles of an octopus.

  “Hey!” Haggerty yelped, and said no more.

  For the two men, swaying off-balance, had toppled into Uncle Wilbur’s fourth-dimensional machine.

  TINNEY felt again that brief vertigo, and the crawling sense of compression. With an effort he hurled himself out of the booth, and braced himself to meet Haggerty’s attack.

  But Haggerty was nowhere in evidence.

  “Say,” the man’s voice whispered, in Tinney’s ear. “Say, I feel funny. What——”

  Something was pressing against Tinney’s right cheek. His collar, he discovered, was torn. Where was Haggerty?

  Turning slowly, Tinney came to rest facing a large mirror set in the wall. He stayed motionless.

  It wasn’t the sight of his face that gave him pause. That was familiar enough. Nor, indeed, was it the fact that he was wearing Haggerty’s clothes. That wasn’t the worst, by any means.

  The body reflected in the glass had two heads. One belonged to Tinney. One was Haggerty’s. Both sprouted from the shoulders, cheek to cheek, in an insanely Siamese-twin fashion.

  Haggerty’s unshaved jowl rubbed Tinney’s jaw. The ape-faced man opened his mouth and his eyes. They got wider and wider.

  Then Haggerty turned his head. So did Tinney. As the two faces collided, nose to nose, Haggerty gave a coughing grunt and passed out. His eyes rolled up. His head fell forward and lay limply on Tinney’s chest.

  As for Tinney himself—he didn’t quite faint. But he felt a warning giddiness overcome him. As a result, he did something he had never before contemplated. Gasping, he fled into the sun-parlor, jerked open the sideboard, and dragged out the bottle Crockett had placed there. Then he uncorked it and fell into a chair.

  The brandy gurgled hotly down his throat, bringing tears to his eyes. But it probably saved his sanity.

  “Good lord,” Tinney said, shutting his eyes and swigging away. “It hasn’t happened. I mustn’t think about it. I—how much of this stuff should I drink? Uncle Wilbur drinks lots of it. I’ll need a couple of bottles, I guess.”

  Tinney, of course, had never tasted liquor before, except a glass of port in his infancy for the colic.

  Being healthy, he absorbed the alcohol without immediate nausea, and by the time the bottle was half empty, he felt well enough to open his eyes. Haggerty’s head lay on his bosom.

  Tinney moved unsteadily to a couch, pressed his companion’s head backward, and covered it with a cushion. If the—the creature suffocated, that was all to the good. But of course he couldn’t. The two heads had only one pair of lungs, and Tinney was keeping them well supplied.

  He drank more brandy and looked down. Why was he wearing Haggerty’s clothes? He investigated. He was, in fact, wearing Haggerty’s body.

  That awful fourth-dimensional machine! It was set for compression, and it was doing its job in a fantastically complete way. Or, rather, an incomplete way. Was he two men or one, Tinney wondered?

  ASTRAY thought had struck Tinney: Two heads were better than one. He laughed. He had thought of a use for Uncle Wilbur’s machine. If a cat had kittens, instead of drowning them, you could put them in the booth and turn the power on. The result would be one kitten.

  “Reduce excess population,” Tinney said thickly, and fumbled the bottle, dropping it. It broke.

  He had, however, made another discovery. He still had four arms. Four arms and two heads. And Haggerty’s body. Tinney decided he wanted more brandy. He’d have to find Uncle Wilbur.

  At this moment, Crockett appeared, looking down his nose. Since Haggerty’s face was covered by a cushion, the butler saw nothing amiss immediately.

  “Has the gentleman left, sir?” he inquired.

  “Gen’lman? Yesh—yes,” Tinney amended.

  “You have dropped a bottle, sir,” Crockett remarked, and ice seemed to hang on his words.

  Stung, Tinney looked up. He was reminded that he didn’t like the butler.

  “True,” he said. “I d-dropped a bottle. I have four arms, too.”

  “I fear you have been drinking——”

  Crockett didn’t finish. He turned slightly gray. It was all too obvious that, despite Tinney’s potations, the drunken young man was speaking the horrid truth. He had four arms, and all four of them were extended toward Crockett, the fingers scrabbling greedily in the air.

  “Guh——” said Crockett.

  “And an extra head. Friend of mine. Close friend,” Tinney explained, seizing Haggerty by the hair and pulling his face to view. “Seems to be asleep now, but that’s all right. Say hello to the gentleman, Crockett.” He rose and stalked forward.

  The butler made no remark. He was quite green now. The drunken Tinney felt happy.

  “Shake hands,” he commanded. “Meet my new hands. Both of them. That’s right.” He gripped Crockett’s palms, and with his other pair of hands, suddenly seized the butler by the throat.

  That finished Crockett. He tore himself free and fled, screaming. Tinney laughed and turned to the door.

  “Gotta find Uncle Wilbur. And get ’nother bottle. Wait a minute! Can’t go out this way. People’d talk. Mustn’t let ’em see I’ve got four arms.”

  Following this incomplete chain of reasoning, he located another topcoat, donned it, and concealed his extra arms. At the door he was reminded of Haggerty’s head. It was still unconscious, possibly overcome by the alcohol that Tinney had absorbed.

  TINNEY made adjustments with his coat. But that wouldn’t work. The bulge was too suspicious. And the coat kept slipping off. Seeing a package on the hall table, Tinney had an idea. He went back to the kitchen, found a sheet of wrapping paper, and wrapped up Haggerty’s head completely, sealing it shut with gummed tape.

  The man wouldn’t suffocate, of course. And, by this method, it would seem merely as though Tinney was carrying a heavy parcel on his shoulder. To foster the illusion, he placed one hand atop it as if to keep it in place.

  Now he looked reasonably human. He could venture forth. And he did, hailing a taxi and going down-town. There was a well-filled wallet in Haggerty’s pocket, and Tinney had no compunction about using it. When a man needed a drink, he needed it. Liquor was pretty good, at that. Why hadn’t anyone told him these things?

  As a matter of fact, if Tinney hadn’t been drunk, he might have gone mad. But he was definitely tipsy, and, too, he knew that Uncle Wilbur was a scientific wizard. What had Van Dill said yesterday? The words came back vaguely:

  “Organisms naturally tend to unity… . My machine can duplicate the atomic pattern, but the thing has to be handled carefully. I might get two and a half rabbits, or three rabbits and an ear—and when I reversed the machine, I might get a rabbit and several extra ears. They’d probably be on the rabbit, though—physiological unity——”

  Whatever that meant. Tinney yelled at the taxi-driver as he caught sight of a bar. It was the Green Stocking, and his uncle had occasionally spoken of it. It catered to the sporting element, of which Uncle Wilbur was a confirmed member. A good portion of his time was spent on the telephone, laying bets with an unknown person named Joe.

  BRUCE TINNEY went into the bar and ordered a bottle of brandy. The bartender, a large man with a suspicious face, stared.

  “Gonna drink it here?” he demanded.

  “Sure. Maybe more. Who knows?” Tinney made an expansive gesture, and his topcoat fluttered as his extra arms sought for freedom.

  “Yeah. Well. Here you are. Say!” The bartender leaned forward confidentially. “What you got under that coat? A chicken?”

  “Chicken?” Tinney poured brandy and stared. “What do you mean?” But the bartender’s attention had been arrested by a new phenomenon. “How the devil do you keep that bundle balanced on your shoulder? Got it pinned on?”


  At that point the bundle fell forward on Tinney’s chest and dangled there. A faint voice said, “Rye. Straight.”

  “Okay.” The bartender had turned away automatically, but abruptly he swung back. “Was that you?”

  “No,” said Tinney, just as another voice said, “Yeah.”

  “Now, look,” the bartender said gently, placing his elbows on the bar. “I don’t want no trouble, see? I work hard. I don’t go for practical jokes. If you want that brandy, say so. If you want rye, okay. But——”

  “Oh Gawd,” howled that all-too-familiar voice. “I’m blind! Blind as a bat! Help!”

  THE bundle on Tinney’s chest bounced up and shook itself vigorously. The bartender hastily retreated and armed himself with a bung-starter.

  “A ventriloquist, huh?” he inquired. “I—yaah!”

  It was at this point that Tinney’s extra pair of arms burst out of hiding. There was a flailing windmill of arms. Hands tore at the brown paper covering Haggerty’s head. The man’s face emerged, crimson and glaring.

  “What’s the idea putting a paper bag over my head?” he demanded. His voice was somewhat thick, since he was quite as drunk as Tinney.

  The only other occupant of the bar, a thin man in a corner, rose quietly and shambled forward. He tapped Tinney on the shoulder.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said, “but you seem to have two heads.”

  “Lord, yes,” said the bartender hoarsely. “Look at ’em!”

  “You see them, too?” the thin man asked, and his jaw dropped. “I—I thought I was drunk. Oh-h!” He slid to the floor in a dead faint.

  “Rye!” Haggerty yelped.

  “Yeah,” said the bartender. “Rye. Here it is.”

  He put a bottle and a glass on the mahogany and began to tiptoe away. He was muttering softly to himself. He was, it seemed, going upstairs and lie down. He hadn’t touched a drop for years. Maybe it was the smell of the liquor that was getting him. He was going away.

  He went away, leaving the two-headed Tinney alone, save for the unconscious figure on the floor.

  The two heads turned to face each other, and then, as if by common consent, four hands shot out and seized the bottles. Tinney tilted the brandy bottle, Haggerty took the rye. There was no sound but a faint gurgling.