Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  “Hah!”

  “Wait a minute. I’ve an idea. I’ve got connection at a teleview studio—maybe I can wangle something.” Gallegher used the ’visor. It took some time, but presently he managed to induce Senor Ramon Firez, the Argentine tenor, to hop an air taxi and come down to the laboratory in a hurry.

  “Firez!” Gallegher gloated. “That’ll prove it, one way or the other. One of the greatest voices in the hemisphere! If I suddenly find myself singing like a lark, I’ll know I can use the gadget on Hellwig.”

  Firez, it seemed, was night-clubbing but at the studio’s request he shelved his nocturnal activities for the nonce and appeared within ten minutes, a burly, handsome man with a wide, mobile mouth. He grinned at Gallegher, “You say there is trouble, that I can help with my great voice, and so I am at your service. A recording, is it?”

  “Something of the sort.”

  “To win a bet. perhaps?”

  “You can call it that,” Gallegher said, easing Firez into a chair. “I want to record the mental patterns of your voice.”

  “Ah-h, that is something new! Explain, please!”

  The scientist obediently launched into a completely meaningness jargon that served the purpose of keeping Senor Firez pacified while he made the necessary charts. That didn’t take long. The significant curves and patterns showed unmistakably. The graph that represented Firez’s singing ability—his great talent.

  Grandpa watched skeptically while Gallegher made adjustments, fitted the helmets into place, and turned on the device. Again lights flashed and wires hummed. And stopped.

  “It is a success? May I see—”

  “It takes awhile to develop the prints,” Gallegher lied unscrupulously. He didn’t want to burst into song while Firez was still present. “I’ll bring the results out to your apartment as soon as they’re done.”

  “Ah-h, good. Muy bueno.” White teeth flashed. “I am always happy to be of service, amigo!”

  Firez went away. Gallegher sat down and looked at the wall, waiting. Nothing happened. He had a slight headache, that was all.

  “Through fiddling?” Grandpa demanded.

  “Yeah. Do-re-nix-ja-so—”

  “What?”

  “Shut up. I Pagliacci—”

  “You’re crazy as a bedbug.”

  “I love a parade!” howled the frantic Gallegher, his tuneless voice cracking. “Oh, hell! Seated one day at the organ—”

  “She’ll be coming ’round the mountain,” Grandpa chimed in chummily. “She’ll be coining ’round the mountain—”

  “I was weary and ill at ease—”

  “She’ll be coming ’round the mountain—”

  “And my fingers wandered idly—”

  “WHEN SHE COMES!” Grandpa blatted, always the life of the party. “Used to carry a tune pretty well in my young days. Let’s get together now. Know ‘Frankie and Johnnie’ ?”

  Gallegher repressed an impulse to burst into tears. With a cold glance at Grandpa, he went into the kitchen and opened a bulb of beer. The cool catnip taste refreshed him, but failed to raise his spirits. He couldn’t sing. Not in the manner of Firez. anyhow. Nor would six months of training his larynx work any appreciable change, he knew. The device simply had failed to work. Mental hookup, nuts.

  Grandpa’s voice called shrilly.

  “Hey! I found something in the back yard!”

  “I don’t need three guesses,” Gallegher said moodily, and went to work on the beer.

  Three hours later—at ten p.m.—the police arrived. The reason for the delay was simply explained; the body in the morgue had vanished, but its disappearance hadn’t been detected for some time. Then there had been a thorough search, yielding, of course, not the slightest result. Mahoney appeared, with his cohorts, and Gallegher waved them into the back yard. “You’ll find it out there,” he sighed.

  Mahoney glared at him. “More funny business, eh?” he snapped.

  “None of my doing.”

  The troupe poured out of the lab, leaving a slim, blond man eying Gallegher thoughtfully.

  “How goes it?” Cantrell inquired.

  “Uh—O.K.”

  “You got any more of those—gadgets—hidden around here?”

  “The heat-ray projectors? No.”

  “Then how do you keep killing people that way?” Cantrell asked plaintively. “I don’t get it.”

  “He explained it to me,” Grandpa said, “but I didn’t understand what he was talking about. Not then. I do now, of course. It’s simply a matter of variable temporal lines. Planck’s uncertainty principle enters into it, and Heisenberg, obviously. Laws of thermodynamics show clearly that a universe tends to return to the norm, which is our known rate of entropy, and variations from that norm must necessarily be compensated for by corresponding warps in the temporal-spatial structure of the universal cosmos-equation.”

  There was silence.

  Gallegher went to the wall and drew a glass of water, which he poured slowly over his head. “You understand that, do you?” he asked.

  “Sure,” Grandpa said. “Why not? The mental hookup gave me your mathematical talent—which included vocabulary, I suppose.”

  “You been holding out on me?”

  “Hell, no. It takes awhile for the brain to readjust to the new values. That’s a safety valve, I guess. The sudden influx of a completely novel set of thought-patterns would disrupt the mind completely. It sinks in—three hours or so it takes. It’s been that long or more, hasn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Gallegher said. “Yeah.” He caught sight of the watching Cantrell and managed a smile. “A little joke Grandpa and I have between ourselves. Nothing to it.”

  “Hm-m-m,” Cantrell said, his eyes hooded. “That so?”

  “Yeah. Sure. That’s all.”

  A body was carried in from the back yard and through the laboratory. Cantrell winked, patted his pocket significantly, and drew Gallegher into a corner.

  “If I showed anybody that heat ray of yours, you’d be sunk, Gallegher. Don’t forget that.”

  “I’m not. What the devil do you want, anyhow?”

  “Oh—I dunno. A weapon like this might come in plenty handy. One never knows. Lots of holdups these days. I feel safer with this thing in my pocket.” He drew back as Mahoney came in, chewing his lips. The detective was profoundly disturbed.

  “That guy in the back yard—”

  “Yeah?”

  “He looks like you, a bit. Only older.”

  “How about the fingerprints, Mahoney?” Cantrell asked.

  The detective growled something under his breath. “You know the answer. Impossible, as usual. Eyeprints check, too. Now listen, Gallegher, I’m going to ask you some questions and I want straight answers. Don’t forget you’re under suspicion of murder.”

  “Whom did I murder?” Gallegher asked. “The two guys who vanished from the morgue? There’s no corpus delicti. Under the new Codex, eyewitnesses and photographs aren’t enough to prove murder.”

  “You know why that was put into effect,” Mahoney said. “Three-dimensional broadcast images that people thought were real corpses—there was a stink about that five years ago. But those stiffs in your back yard aren’t three-dis. They’re real.”

  “Are?”

  “Two were. One is. You’re still on the spot. Well?”

  Gallegher said, “I don’t—” He stopped, his throat working. Abruptly, he stood up, eyes closed.

  “Drink to me only with thine eyes, and I will pledge with mine,” Gallegher sang, in a blasting tenor that, though untrained, rang true and resonant. “Or leave a kiss within the cup—”

  “Hey!” Mahoney snapped, springing up. “Lay off. Hear me?”

  “—and I’ll not ask for wine! The thirst that from the soul doth rise—”

  “Stop it!” the detective shouted. “We’re not here to listen to you sing!”

  Nevertheless, he listened. So did the others. Gallegher, caught in the grip of Señor Fire
z’s wild talent, sang on and on, his unaccustomed throat gradually relaxing and pouring out the notes like the beak of a nightingale. Gallegher—sang!

  They couldn’t stop him. They fled, with threats. They would return later—with a strait jacket.

  Grandpa also seemed caught in the throes of some strange affliction. Words poured out of him, strange semantic terms, mathematics translated into word-symbols, ranging from Euclid to Einstein and beyond. Grandpa, it seemed, had certainly acquired Gallegher’s wild talent for math.

  It came to an end, as all things, good or bad, inevitably do. Gallegher croaked hoarsely from a dry throat and, after a few feeble gasps, relapsed into silence. He collapsed on the couch, eying Grandpa, who was crumpled in a chair, wide-eyed. The three Lybblas had come out of hiding and stood in a row, each with a cookie clasped in furry paws.

  “The world is mine,” the fattest one said.

  Events marched. Mahoney ‘vised to say he was getting out a special injunction, and that Gallegher would be clapped into jail as soon as the machinery could be swung into action. Tomorrow, that meant.

  Gallegher ‘vised an attorney—the best one on the Eastern seaboard. Yes, Persson could quash the injunction, and certainly win the case, or—well, anyhow, Gallegher would have nothing to worry about if he retained the lawyer. The fee was payable partially in advance.

  “How much? . . . Uh!”

  “Call me,” Persson said, “when you wish me to take charge. You may mail your check tonight.”

  “All right,” Gallegher said, and hurriedly ‘vised Rufus Hellwig. The tycoon, luckily, was in.

  Gallegher explained. Hellwig was incredulous. He agreed, however, to be at the laboratory early the next morning for a-test. He couldn’t make it before then. Nor could he advance any money till matters had been proved beyond a doubt.

  “Make me an excellent concert pianist,” he said, “and I’ll be convinced.”

  After that, Gallegher ‘vised the teleview studio again, and managed to get in touch with Joey Mackenzie, the blond, beautiful pianist who had taken New York by storm recently and had instantly been signed by the telecompany. She said she’d be over in the morning. Gallegher had to talk her into it, but he dropped enough hints to rouse the girl’s interest to fever pitch. She seemed to class science with black magic, and was fascinated by both.

  She’d be there.

  And another body appeared in the back yard, which meant probability-line d was taking over. No doubt the third corpse, at the same time, had vanished from the morgue. Gallegher almost felt sorry for Mahoney.

  The wild talents settled down. Apparently the irresistible outburst came only at the beginning, some three hours or more after the initial treatment. After that, the ability could be turned on or off at will. Gallegher was no longer impelled to burst into song, but he found he could sing, and sing well, when he wished. Likewise Grandpa had a fine sense of mathematics when he chose to use it.

  Finally, at five o’clock in the morning, Mahoney arrived with two officers, arrested Gallegher, and carried him off to jail.

  He was incommunicado for three days.

  Persson, the attorney, came on the evening of the third day armed with writs of habeas corpus and foul language. He sprang Gallegher, somehow—perhaps on his reputation. Later, in the air taxi, he threw up his hands and howled complaints.

  “What kind of a case is this? Political pressure, legal tangles—it’s crazy! Corpses appearing in your back yard—seven of them already—and vanishing from the morgue. What’s behind it, Gallegher?”

  “I’m not sure. You . . . uh . . . you’re acting as my attorney?”

  “Obviously.” The taxi skimmed precariously past a skyscraper.

  “The check—” Gallegher hazarded.

  “Your grandfather gave it to me. Oh, he gave me a message, too. He said he’d treated Rufus Hellwig along the lines you’d suggested, and collected the fee. I can’t feel that I’ve earned any part of my retainer yet, though. Letting you stay in jail for three days! But I was up against powerful political pull. Had to pull plenty of wires myself.”

  So that was it. Grandpa, of course, had acquired Gallegher’s mathematical talent, and knew all about the mental hookup and how it worked. He’d treated Hellwig—successfully, it seemed. At least, they were in the chips now. But would that be enough?

  Gallegher explained as much as he dared. Persson shook his head.

  “The time machine’s behind it, you say? Well, you’ve got to turn it off somehow. Stop those corpses from coming through.”

  “I can’t even smash it,” Gallegher confessed. “I tried, but it’s in a state of stasis. Completely out of this temporal-spatial sector. I don’t know how long that’ll last. It’s set to bring back my own corpse—and it’ll keep doing that.”

  “So. All right. I’ll do my best. Anyway, you’re a free man now. But I can’t guarantee anything unless you eliminate those incessant corpses of yours, Mr. Gallegher. I get out here. See you tomorrow. At my office, at noon? Good.”

  Gallegher shook hands and directed the cabman to his own place. An unpleasant surprise awaited him. It was Cantrell who opened the door.

  The man’s narrow, pale face twitched into a smile. “Evening,” he said pleasantly, stepping back. “Come in, Gallegher.”

  “I am in. What are you doing here?”

  “Visiting. Visiting your grandfather.”

  Gallegher glanced around the laboratory. “Where is he?”

  “I dunno. See for yourself.”

  Sensing danger of some kind, the scientist began to search. He found Grandpa eating pretzels in the kitchen, and feeding the Lybblas. The old man evaded his gaze.

  “O.K.,” Gallegher said, “let’s have it.”

  “ ‘Twasn’t my fault. Cantrell said he’d turn over the heat ray to the police if I didn’t do what he wanted. I knew that’d be your finish—”

  “What’s been happening?”

  “Now take it easy. I got it all worked out. It can’t do any harm—”

  “What? What?”

  “Cantrell’s been making me use the machine on him,” Grandpa confessed. “He peeked through the window when I treated Hellwig and figured out the answer. He threatened to get you convicted unless I gave him some extra talents.”

  “Whose?”

  “Oh—Gulliver, Morleyson, Kottman, Denys, St. Malory—”

  “That’s enough,” Gallegher said weakly. “The greatest technicians of the age, that’s all! And their knowledge in Cantrell’s brain! How did he wangle ’em into it?”

  “Fast talking. He didn’t let on what he wanted. Made up some cock-and-bull story—He got your mathematical talent, too. Through me.”

  “That’s just fine,” Gallegher said, looking grim. “What the devil is he up to?”

  “He wants to conquer the world,” the fattest Lybbla said sadly. “Oh, don’t let him do it. We want to conquer the world.”

  “Not quite that,” Grandpa said, “but bad enough. He’s got the same knowledge we have now—enough to build another mental hookup. And he’s taking the stratoliner to Europe in an hour.”

  “This means trouble,” Gallegher said.

  “Yeah, I know. I’m commencing to feel Cantrell’s just a mite unscrupulous. He’s the one responsible for your being kept in jail the last few days.”

  Cantrell opened the door and looked in. “There’s a new corpse in the garden. It just appeared. We won’t bother about it now, though. I’ll be leaving shortly. Any word from Van Decker?”

  “Van Decker!” Gallegher gulped. “You haven’t got him—”

  The man with the world’s highest I.Q.!

  “Not yet,” Cantrell smiled. “I tried to get in touch with him for days, and he ’vised me only this morning. I was afraid I’d miss him. But he said he’d be over tonight.” Cantrell glanced at his watch. “Hope he’s on time. Stratoliners won’t wait.”

  “Just a minute,” Gallegher said, moving forward. “I’d like to know your pl
ans, Cantrell.”

  “He’s going to conquer the world!” one of the Lybblas piped.

  Cantrell sent an amused look downward. “It’s not too fantastic, at that,” he admitted. “I’m completely amoral, luckily, so I can take full advantage of this opportunity. The talents of the world’s greatest minds—they’ll come in handy. I’ll be a success in almost anything. I mean anything,” he added, winking.

  “Dictator complex,” Grandpa scowled.

  “Not yet,” Cantrell told him. “Some day, maybe. Give me time. I’m pretty much of a superman already, you know.”

  Gallegher said, “You can’t—”

  “No? Don’t forget I’ve got that heat ray of yours.”

  “Yeah,” the scientist said, “and those corpses in the back yard—my own corpses—were all killed with a heat ray. You’re the only guy who has one, so far. Apparently you’re ticketed to kill me, eventually.”

  “Eventually’s better than now, isn’t it?” Cantrell asked softly.

  Gallegher didn’t answer. The other man went on.

  “I’ve skimmed the cream from the best minds on the East coast, and now I’ll do the same thing to Europe. Anything can happen.”

  One of the Lybblas began to cry bitterly, seeing his plan of world conquest shattered.

  The doorbell sang. Grandpa, at Cantrell’s nod, went out, to return with a squat, beak-nosed man wearing a bushy red beard. “Ha!” he bellowed. “I am here! Not late, I trust? Good.”

  “Dr. van Decker?”

  “Who else?” the redbeard shouted. “Now hurry, hurry, hurry. I am a busy man. This experiment of yours; as you explained it on the ’visor, it will not work, but I am willing to try. Projecting one’s astral is foolishness.”

  Grandpa nudged Gallegher. “Cantrell told him that was the idea,” he muttered.

  “Yeah? Listen, we can’t—”

  “Take it easy,” Grandpa said, and one eye closed in a significant wink. “I got your talents now, son. I thought of the answer. See if you can. I used your math. Sh-h-h!”

  There was no time for more. Cantrell shepherded them all into the laboratory. Gallegher, scowling and biting his lip, pondered the problem. He couldn’t let Cantrell get away with this. But, on the other hand, Grandpa had said it was all right—that everything was under control.