Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

“First we destroy the big cities,” said the smallest Lybbla excitedly, “then we capture pretty girls and hold them for ransom or something. Then everybody’s scared and we win.”

  “How do you figure that out?” Gallegher asked.

  “It’s in the books. That’s how it’s always done. We know. We’ll be tyrants and beat everybody. I want some more milk, please.”

  “So do I,” said two other piping little voices.

  Grinning, Gallegher served. “You don’t seem much surprised by finding yourselves here.”

  “That’s in the books, too.” Lap-lap.

  “You mean—this?” Gallegher’s eyebrows went up.

  “Oh, no. But all about time-traveling. All the novels in our era are about science and things. We read lots. There isn’t much else to do in the Valley.” the Lybbla ended, a bit sadly.

  “Is that all you read?”

  “No, we read everything. Technical books on science as well as novels. How disintegrators are made and so on. We’ll tell you how to make weapons for us.”

  “Thanks. That sort of literature is open to the public?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “I should think it would be dangerous.”

  “So should I,” the fat Lybbla said thoughtfully, “but it isn’t, somehow.” Gallegher pondered. “Could you tell me how to make a heat ray, for example?”

  “Yes,” was the excited reply, “and then we’d destroy the big cities and capture—”

  “I know. Pretty girls and hold them for ransom. Why?”

  “We know what’s what,” a Lybbla said shrewdly. “We read books, we do.” He spilled his cup, looked at the puddle of milk, and let his ears droop disconsolately.

  The other two Lybblas hastily patted him on the back. “Don’t cry,” the biggest one urged.

  “I gotta,” the Lybbla said. “It’s in the books.”

  “You have it backward. You don’t cry over spilt milk.”

  “Do. Will,” said the recalcitrant Lybbla, and began to weep.

  Gallegher brought him more milk. “About this heat ray,” he said. “Just how—”

  “Simple,” the fat Lybbla said, and explained.

  It was simple. Grandpa didn’t get it, of course, but he watched interestedly as Gallegher went to work. Within half an hour the job was completed. It was a heat ray, too. It burned a hole through a closet door.

  “Whew!” Gallegher breathed, watching smoke rise from the charred wood. “That’s something!” He examined the small metal cylinder in his hand.

  “It kills people, too,” the fat Lybbla murmured. “Like the man in the back yard.”

  “Yes, it—What? The man in—”

  “The back yard. We sat on him for a while, but he got cold after a bit. There’s a hole burned through his chest.”

  “You did it,” Gallegher accused, gulping.

  “No. He came out of time, too, I expect. There was a heat-ray hole in him.”

  “Who . . . who was he?”

  “Never saw him before in my life,” the fat Lybbla said, losing interest. “I want more milk.” He leaped to the bench top and peered through the window at the towers of Manhattan’s skyline. “Wheel The world is ours!”

  The doorbell sang. Gallegher, a little pale, said. “Grandpa, see what it is. Send him away in any case. Probably a bill collector. They’re used to being turned away. Oh, Lord! I’ve never committed a murder before—”

  “I have,” Grandpa murmured, departing. He did not clarify the statement.

  Gallegher went into the back yard, accompanied by the scuttling small figures of the Lybblas. The worst had happened. In the middle of the rose garden lay a dead body. It was the corpse of a man, bearded and ancient, quite bald, and wearing curious garments made, apparently, of flexible, tinted cellophane. Through his tunic and chest was the distinctive hole burned by a heat-ray projector.

  “He looks familiar, somehow,” Gallegher decided. “Dunno why. Was he dead when he came out of time?”

  “Dead but warm,” one of the Lybblas said. “That was nice.”

  Gallegher repressed a shudder. Horrid little creatures. However, they must be harmless, or they wouldn’t have been allowed access to dangerous information in their own time-era. Gallegher was far less troubled by the Lybblas than by the presence of the corpse. Grandpa’s protesting voice came to his ears.

  The Lybblas scurried under convenient bushes and disappeared as three men entered the back yard, escorting Grandpa. Gallegher, at sight of blue uniforms and brass buttons, dropped the heat-ray projector into a garden bed and surreptitiously kicked dirt over it. He assumed what he hoped was an ingratiating smile.

  “Hello, boys. I was just going to notify Headquarters. Somebody dropped a dead man in my yard.”

  Two of the newcomers were officers, Gallegher saw, burly, distrustful and keen-eyed. The third was a small, dapper man with gray-blond hair plastered close to his narrow skull, and a pencil-thin mustache. He looked rather like a fox.

  He was wearing an Honorary Badge—which meant little or much, depending on the individual.

  “Couldn’t keep ’em out.” Grandpa said. “You’re in for it now, young fellow.”

  “He’s joking,” Gallegher told the officers. “Honest, I was just going to—”

  “Save it. What’s your name?” Gallegher said it was Gallegher. “Uh-huh.” The officer knelt to examine the body. He blew out his breath sharply. “Wh-ew! What did you do to him?”

  “Nothing. When I came out this morning, here he was. Maybe he fell out of a window up there somewhere.” Gallegher pointed up vaguely to overshadowing skyscrapers.

  “He didn’t. Not a bone broken. Looks like you stabbed him with a red-hot poker,” the officer remarked. “Who is he?”

  “I don’t know. Never saw him before. Who told you—”

  “Never leave bodies in plain sight, Mr. Gallegher. Somebody in a penthouse—like up there—might see it and ’vise Headquarters.”

  “Oh. Oh, I see.”

  “We’ll find out who killed the guy,” the officer said sardonically. “Don’t worry about that. And we’ll find out who he is. Unless you want to talk now and save yourself trouble.”

  “Circumstantial evidence—”

  “Save it.” The air was patted with a large palm. “I’ll ’vise the boys to come down with the coroner. Where’s the ’visor?”

  “Show him, Grandpa,” Gallegher said wearily. The dapper blond man took a step forward. His voice was crisp with authority.

  “Groarty, take a look around the house while Banister’s televising. I’ll stay here with Mr. Gallegher.”

  “O. K., Mr. Cantrell.” The officers departed with Grandpa.

  Cantrell said, “Excuse me,” and came forward swiftly. He dug slim fingers into the dirt at Gallegher’s feet and brought up the heat-ray tube. Smiling slightly, Cantrell examined the projector.

  Gallegher’s heart nosedived. “Wonder where that came from?” he gulped, in a frantic attempt at deception.

  “You put it there,” Cantrell told him. “I saw you do it. Luckily the officers didn’t. I think I’ll keep it.” He slipped the small tube into his pocket. “Exhibit A. That’s a damn peculiar wound in your corpse—”

  “It’s not my corpse!”

  “It’s in your yard. I’m interested in weapons, Mr. Gallegher. What sort of gadget is this?”

  “Uh—just a flashlight.”

  Cantrell took it out and aimed it at Gallegher. “I see. If I press this button—”

  “It’s a heat ray,” Gallegher said quickly, ducking. “For goodness sake, be careful!”

  “Hm-m-m. You made it?”

  “I . . . yes.”

  “And you killed this man with it?”

  “No!”

  “I suggest,” Cantrell said, repocketing the tube, “that you keep your mouth shut about this. Once the police get their hands on the weapon, your goose will be cooked. As it is, no known gun can make a wound like that. Proof will be diffic
ult. For some reason, I believe you didn’t kill the man, Mr. Gallegher. I don’t know why. Perhaps because of your reputation. You’re known to be eccentric, but you’re, also known to be a pretty good inventor.”

  “Thanks,” Gallegher said. “But . . . the heat ray’s mine.”

  “Want me to mark it Exhibit A?”

  “It’s yours.”

  “Fine,” Cantrell said, grinning. “I’ll see what I can do for you.”

  He couldn’t do much, as it proved. Almost anyone could wangle an Honorary Badge, but political pull didn’t necessarily mean a police in. The machinery of the law, once started, couldn’t easily be stopped. Luckily the rights of the individual were sacrosanct in this day and age, but that was chiefly because of the development of communication. A criminal simply couldn’t make a getaway. They told Gallegher not to leave Manhattan, secure in the knowledge that if he tried, the televisor system would quickly lay him by the heels. It wasn’t even necessary to set guards. Gallegher’s three-dimensional photo was already on file at the transportation centers of Manhattan, so that if he tried to book passage on a stratoliner or a sea-sled, he could be recognized instantly and sent home with a scolding.

  The baffled coroner had superintended the removal of the body to the morgue. The police and Cantrell had departed. Grandpa, the three Lybblas, and Gallegher sat in the laboratory and looked dazedly at one another.

  “Time machine,” Gallegher said, pressing buttons on his liquor organ. “Bah! Why do I do these things?”

  “They can’t prove you’re guilty,” Grandpa suggested.

  “Trials cost money. If I don’t get a good lawyer. I’m sunk.”

  “Won’t the court give you a lawyer?”

  “Sure, but that isn’t the way it works out. Jurisprudence has developed into something like a chess game these days. It takes a gang of experts to know all the angles. I could be convicted if I overlooked even one loophole. Attorneys have the balance of political power, Grandpa. So they’ve got their lobbies. Guilt and innocence don’t mean as much as getting the best lawyers. And that takes money.”

  “You won’t need money,” the fattest Lybbla said. “When we conquer the world, we’ll set up our own monetary system.”

  Gallegher ignored the creature. “You got any dough. Grandpa?”

  “Nope. Never needed much up in Maine.”

  Gallegher cast desperate eyes around the laboratory. “Maybe I can sell something. That heat-ray projector—but no. I’d be sunk if anybody knew I’d had the thing. I only hope Cantrell keeps it under cover. The time machine—” He wandered over and stared at the cryptic object. “Wish I could remember how it works. Or why.”

  “You made it, didn’t you?”

  “My subconscious made it. My subconscious does the damnedest things. Wonder what that lever’s for.” Gallegher investigated. Nothing happened. “It’s fearfully intricate. Since I don’t know how it works, I can’t very well raise money on it.”

  “Last night,” Grandpa said thoughtfully, “you were yelling about somebody named Hellwig who’d given you a commission.”

  A light came into Gallegher’s eyes, but died swiftly. “I remember. A pompous big shot who’s a complete nonentity. Terrific vanity complex. He wants to be famous. Said he’d pay me plenty if I could fix him up.”

  “Well, why don’t you?”

  “How?” Gallegher demanded. “I could invent something and let him pretend he’d made it, but nobody’d ever believe a pot-head like Rufus Hellwig could do more than add two and two. If that. Still—”

  Gallegher tried the televisor. Presently a large, fat white face grew on the screen. Rufus Hellwig was an immensely fat, bald-headed man with a pug nose and the general air of a Mongolian idiot. By virtue of money, he had achieved power, but public recognition eluded him, to his intense distress. Nobody admired him. He was laughed at—simply because he had nothing but money. Some tycoons can carry this off well. Hellwig couldn’t, he scowled at Gallegher now.

  “Morning. Anything yet?”

  “I’m working on something. But it’s expensive. I need an advance.”

  “Oh,” Hellwig said unpleasantly, “you do, eh? I gave you an advance last week.”

  “You could have,” Gallegher said. “I don’t remember it.”

  “You were drunk.”

  “Oh. Was I?”

  “You were quoting Omar.”

  “What part?”

  “Something about spring vanishing with the rose.”

  “Then I was drunk,” Gallegher said sadly. “How much did I hook you for?”

  Hellwig told him. The scientist shook his head.

  “It just runs through my fingers like water. Oh, well. Give me more money.”

  “You’re crazy,” Hellwig growled. “Show results first. Then you can write your own ticket.”

  “Not in the gas chamber I can’t,” Gallegher said, but the tycoon had broken the beam. Grandpa took a drink and sighed.

  “What about this guy Cantrell? Maybe he can help.”

  “I doubt it. He had me on the spot. Still has, in fact. I don’t know anything about him.”

  “Well, I’m going back to Maine,” Grandpa said.

  Gallegher sighed. “Running out on me?”

  “Well, if you’ve got more liquor—”

  “You can’t leave, anyway. Accessory before the fact or something of the sort. Sure you can’t raise any money?”

  Grandpa was sure. Gallegher looked at the time machine again and sighed unhappily. Damn his subconscious, anyway! That was the trouble with knowing science by ear, instead of the usual way. The fact that Gallegher was a genius didn’t prevent him from getting into fantastic scrapes. Once before, he remembered, he’d invented a time machine of sorts, but it hadn’t worked like this one. The thing sat sullenly in its corner, an incredibly complicated gadget of glistening metal, its focus of materialization aimed somewhere in the back yard.

  “I wonder what Cantrell wanted with that heat ray,” Gallegher mused.

  The Lybblas had been investigating the laboratory with interested golden eyes and twitching pink noses. Now they came back to sit in a row before Gallegher.

  “When we conquer the world, you won’t have to worry,” they told the man.

  “Thanks,” Gallegher said. “That helps a lot. The immediate need, however, is dough, and lots of it. I must get me a lawyer.”

  “Why?”

  “So I won’t be convicted for murder.

  It’s hard to explain. You’re not familiar with this time sector—” Gallegher’s jaw dropped. “Oh-oh. I got an idea.”

  “What is it?”

  “You told me how to make that heat ray. Well, if you can give me an angle on something else—something that’ll bring in quick money—”

  “Of course. We’ll be glad to do that. But a mental hookup would help.”

  “Never mind that. Start talking. Or let me ask questions. Yeah, that’ll be better. What sort of gadgets do you have in your world?”

  The doorbell sang. The visitor was a police detective, Mahoney, a tall, sardonic-looking chap with slick blue-black hair. The Lybblas, undesirous of attracting attention before they’d worked out a plan for world conquest, scuttled out of sight. Mahoney greeted the two men with a casual nod.

  “Morning. We ran into a little snag at Headquarters. A mix-up—nothing important.”

  “That’s too bad,” Gallegher said. “Have a drink?”

  “No, thanks. I want to take your fingerprints. And your eyeprints, if you don’t mind.”

  “O.K. Go ahead.”

  Mahoney called in a lab man who had accompanied him. Gallegher’s fingertips were pressed against sensitized film, and a specially lensed camera snapped the pattern of rods, cones and blood vessels inside his eyes. Mahoney watched, scowling. Presently the lab man showed the result of his labors the detective. “That tears it,” Mahoney said. “What?” Gallegher wanted to know. “Nothing much. That corpse in your back yard—”

&nbs
p; “Yeah?”

  “His prints are the same as yours. And his eye-pattern, too. Even plastic surgery couldn’t account for that. Who was that stiff, Gallegher?”

  The scientist blinked. “Jumping tomcats! My prints? It’s crazy.”

  “Crazy as the devil,” Mahoney agreed. “Sure you don’t know the answer?”

  The lab man, at the window, let out a long whistle. “Hey, Mahoney,” he called. “Come over here a minute. Want to show you something.”

  “It’ll keep.”

  “Not long, in this weather,” the lab man said. “It’s another corpse, out there in the garden.”

  Gallegher exchanged horrified glances with Grandpa. He sat motionless even after the detective and his companion had tumultuously rushed out of the laboratory. Cries came from the back yard.

  “Another one?” Grandpa said.

  Gallegher nodded. “Looks like it. Come on. We’d better—”

  “We’d better make a run for it!”

  “No soap. Let’s see what it is this time.”

  It was, as Gallegher already knew, a body. It, too, had been killed by a narrow hole burned through the fabricloth vest and the torso beneath. A heat-ray blast, undoubtedly. The man himself gave Gallegher a poignant shock—with good reason. He was looking at his own corpse.

  Not quite. The dead man looked about ten years older than Gallegher, the face was thinner, the dark hair sprinkled with gray. And the costume was of an extreme cut, unfamiliar _ and eccentric. But the likeness was unmistakable.

  “Uh-huh,” Mahoney said, looking at Gallegher. “Your twin brother, I suppose?”

  “I’m as surprised as you are,” the scientist said feebly.

  Mahoney clicked his teeth together. He took out a cigar and lit it with trembling fingers.

  “Now look,” he said, “I don’t know what kind of funny business is going on here, but I don’t like it. I got goose bumps. If this stiff’s eyeprints and fingerprints tally with yours, I . . . won’t . . . like . . . it. I’ll hate it like hell.

  I don’t want to feel that I’m going nuts. See?”

  “It’s impossible,” the lab man said. Mahoney shepherded them into the house and televised Headquarters. “Inspector? About that body that was brought in an hour ago—Gallegher, you know—”