Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  His hand struck out at the lever marked “door”; he swung it far over and the veil that had masked the screen was gone. He vaulted up over its low threshold, not seeing anything but the face and the terror of Quiana. But it was not Quiana’s name he called as he leaped.

  He lunged through the Door onto soft, yielding substance that was unlike anything he had ever felt underfoot before. He scarcely knew it. He flung himself forward, fists clenched, ready to drive futile blows into the monstrous mask of the Enemy. It loomed over him like a tower, tremendous, scarcely seen through the shelter of his helmet—and then the glare of the light-cone caught him.

  It was tangible light. It flung him back with a piledriver punch that knocked the breath from his body. And the blow was psychic as well as physical. Shaking and reeling from the shock, Dantan shut his eyes and fought forward, as though against a steady current too strong to breast very long. He felt Quiana beside him, caught in the same dreadful stream. And beyond the source of the light the Enemy stood up in stark, inhuman silhouette.

  He never saw Quiana’s world. The light was too blinding. And yet, in a subtle sense, it was not blinding to the eyes, but to the mind. Nor was it light, Dantan thought, with some sane part of his mind. Too late he remembered Quiana’s warning that the world of Zha was not Mars or Earth, that in Zha even light was different.

  Cold and heat mingled, indescribably bewildering, shook him hard. And beyond these were—other things. The light from the Enemy’s weapon was not born in Dantan’s universe, and it had properties that light should not have. He felt bare, emptied, a hollow shell through which radiance streamed.

  For suddenly, every cell of his body was an eye. The glaring brilliance, the intolerable vision beat at the foundations of his sanity. Through him the glow went pouring, washing him, nerves, bone, flesh, brain, in floods of color that were not color, sound that was not sound, vibration that was spawned in the shaking hells of worlds beyond imagination.

  It inundated him like a tide, and for a long, long, timeless while he stood helpless in its surge, moving within his body and without it, and within his mind and soul as well. The color of stars thundered in his brain. The crawling foulness of unspeakable hues writhed along his nerves so monstrously that he felt he could never cleanse himself of that obscenity.

  And nothing else existed—only the light that was not light, but blasphemy.

  Then it began to ebb . . . faded . . . grew lesser and lesser, until—Beside him he could see Quiana now. She was no longer stumbling in the cone of light, no longer shuddering and wavering in its violence, but standing erect and facing the Enemy, and from her eyes—something—poured.

  Steadily the cone of brilliance waned. But still its glittering, shining foulness poured through Dantan. He felt himself weakening, his senses fading, as the tide of dark horror mounted through his brain.

  And covered him up with its blanketing immensity.

  HE WAS back in the laboratory, leaning against the wall and breathing in deep, shuddering draughts. He did not remember stumbling through the Door again, but he was no longer in Zha. Quiana stood beside him, here upon the Martian soil of the laboratory. She was watching him with a strange, quizzical look in her eyes as he slowly fought back to normal, his heart quieting by degrees, his breath becoming evener. He felt drained, exhausted, his emotions cleansed and purified as though by baths of flame.

  Presently he reached for the clasp that fastened his clumsy armor. Quiana put out a quick hand, shaking her head.

  “No,” she said, and then stared at him again for a long moment without speaking. Finally, “I had not known—I did not think this could be done. Another of my own race—yes. But you, from Mars—I would not have believed that you could stand against the Enemy for a moment, even with your armor.”

  “I’m from Earth, not Mars. And I didn’t stand long.”

  “Long enough,” She smiled faintly. “You see now what happened? We of Zha can destroy without weapons, using only the power inherent in our bodies. Those like the Enemy have a little of that power too, but they need mechanical devices to amplify it. And so when you diverted the Enemy’s attention and forced him to divide his attack between us—the pressure upon me was relieved, and I could destroy him. But I would not have believed it possible.”

  “You’re safe now,” Dantan said, with no expression in voice or face.

  “Yes. I can return.”

  “And you will?”

  “Of course I shall.”

  “We are more alike than you had realized.”

  She looked up toward the colored curtain of the screen. “That is true. It is not the complete truth, Dantan.”

  He said, “I love you—Quiana.” This time he called her by name.

  Neither of them moved. Minutes went by silently.

  Quiana said, as if she had not heard him, “Those who followed you are here. I have been listening to them for some time now. They are trying to break through the door at the top of the shaft.”

  He took her hand in his gloved grasp. “Stay here. Or let me go back to Zha with you. Why not?”

  “You could not live there without your armor.”

  “Then stay.”

  Quiana looked away, her eyes troubled. As Dantan moved to slip off his helmet her hand came up again to stop him.

  “Don’t.”

  “Why not?”

  For answer she rose, beckoning for him to follow. She stepped across the threshold into the shaft and swiftly began to climb the pegs toward the surface and the hammering of the Redhelms up above. Dantan, at her gesture, followed.

  Over her shoulder she said briefly, “We are of two very different worlds. Watch—but be careful.” And she touched the device that locked the oval door.

  It slipped down and swung aside.

  DANTAN caught one swift glimpse of Redhelm heads dodging back to safety. They did not know, of course, that he was unarmed. He reached up desperately, trying to pull Quiana back but she slipped aside and sprang lightly out of the shaft into the cool gray light of the Martian morning.

  Forgetting her warning, Dantan pulled himself up behind her. But as his head and shoulders emerged from the shaft he stopped, frozen. For the Redhelms were falling. There was no mark upon them, yet they fell . . .

  She did not stir, even when the last man had stiffened into rigid immobility. Then Dantan clambered up and without looking at Quiana went to the nearest body and turned it over. He could find no mark. Yet the Redhelm was dead.

  “That is why you had to wear the armor,” she told him gently. “We are of different worlds, you and I.”

  He took her in his arms—and the soft resilience of her was lost against the stiffness of the protective suit. He would never even know how her body felt, because of the armor between them . . . He could not even kiss her—again. He had taken his last kiss of the mouth so like Quiana’s mouth, long years ago, and he would never kiss it again. The barrier was too high between them.

  “You can’t go back,” he told her in a rough, uneven voice. “We are of the same world, no matter what—no matter how—You’re no stranger to me, Quiana!”

  She looked up at him with troubled eyes, shaking her head, regret in her voice.

  “Do you think I don’t know why you fought for me, Dantan?” she asked in a clear voice. “Did you ever stop to wonder why Sanfel risked so much for me, too?”

  He stared down at her, his brain spinning, almost afraid to hear what she would say next. He did not want to hear. But her voice went on inexorably.

  “I cheated you, Dantan. I cheated Sanfel yesterday—a thousand years ago. My need was very great, you see—and our ways are not yours. I knew that no man would fight for a stranger as I needed a man to fight for me.”

  He held her tightly in gloved hands that could feel only a firm body in their grasp, not what that body was really like, nothing about it except its firmness. He caught his breath to interrupt, but she went on with a rush.

  “I have no way of kno
wing how you see me, Dantan,” she said relentlessly. “I don’t know how Sanfel saw me. To each of you—because I needed your help—I wore the shape to which you owed help most. I could reach into your minds deeply enough for that—to mould a remembered body for your eyes. My own shape is—different. You will never know it.” She sighed. “You were a brave man, Dantan. Braver and stronger than I ever dreamed an alien could be. I wish—I wonder—Oh, let me go! Let me go!”

  She whirled out of his grasp with sudden vehemence, turning her face away so that he could not see her eyes. Without glancing at him again she bent over the shaft and found the topmost pegs, and in a moment was gone.

  Dantan stood there, waiting. Presently he heard the muffled humming of a muted bell, as though sounding from another world. Then he knew that there was no one in the ancient laboratory beneath his feet.

  He shut the door carefully and scraped soil over it. He did not mark the place. The dim red spot of the sun was rising above the canyon wall. His face set, Dantan began walking toward the distant cavern where his aircar was hidden. It was many miles away, but there was no one to stop him, now.

  He did not look back.

  HOUSING PROBLEM

  JACQUELINE SAID IT WAS A CANARY, BUT I CONTENDED THAT there were a couple of lovebirds in the covered cage. One canary could never make that much fuss. Besides, I liked to think of crusty old Mr. Henchard keeping lovebirds; it was so completely inappropriate. But whatever our roomer kept in that cage by his window, he shielded it—or them—jealously from prying eyes. All we had to go by were the noises.

  And they weren’t too simple to figure out. From under the cretonne cloth came shufflings, rustlings, occasional faint and inexplicable pops, and once or twice a tiny thump that made the whole hidden cage shake on its red-wood pedestal-stand. Mr. Henchard must have known that we were curious. But all he said, when Jackie remarked that birds were nice to have around, was “Claptrap! Leave that cage alone, d’ya hear?”

  That made us a little mad. We’re not snoopers, and after that brushoff, we coldly refused to even look at the shrouded cretonne shape. We didn’t want to lose Mr. Henchard, either. Roomers were surprisingly hard to get. Our little house was on the coast highway; the town was a couple of dozen homes, a grocery, a liquor store, the post office, and Terry’s restaurant. That was about all. Every morning Jackie and I hopped the bus and rode in to the factor, an hour away. By the time we got home we were pretty tired. We couldn’t get any household help—war jobs paid a lot better—so we both pitched in and cleaned. As for cooking, we were Terry’s best customers.

  The wages were good, but before the war we’d run up too many debts, so we needed extra dough. And that’s why we rented a room to Mr. Henchard. Off the beaten track with transportation difficult, and with the coast dimout every night, it wasn’t too easy to get a roomer. Mr. Henchard looked from Charm Magazine like a natural. He was, we figured, too old to get into mischief.

  One day he wandered in, paid a deposit; presently he showed up with a huge Gladstone and a square canvas grip with leather handles. He was a creaking little old man with a bristling tonsure of stiff white hair and a face like Popeye’s father, only more human. He wasn’t sour; he was just crusty. I had a feeling he’d spent most of his life in furnished rooms, minding his own business and puffing innumerable cigarettes through a long black holder. But he wasn’t one of those lonely old men you could safely feel sorry for—far from it! He wasn’t poor and he was completely self-sufficient. We loved him. I called him grandpa once, in an outburst of affection, and my skin blistered at the resultant remarks.

  Some people are born under lucky stars. Mr. Henchard was like that. He was always finding money in the street. The few times we shot craps or played poker, he made passes and held straights without even trying. No question of sharp dealing—he was just lucky.

  I remember the time we were all going down the long wooden stairway that leads from the cliff-top to the beach. Mr. Henchard kicked at a pretty big rock that was on one of the steps. The stone bounced down a little way, and then went right through one of the treads. The wood was completely rotten. We felt fairly certain that if Mr. Henchard, who was leading, had stepped on that rotten section, the whole thing would have collapsed.

  And then there was the time I was riding up with him in the bus. The motor stopped a few minutes after we’d boarded the bus; the driver pulled over. A car was coming toward us along the highway and, as we stopped, one of its front tires blew out. It skidded into the ditch. If we hadn’t stopped when we did, there would have been a head-on collision. Not a soul was hurt.

  Mr. Henchard wasn’t lonely; he went out by day, I think, and at night he sat in his room near the window most of the time. We knocked, of course, before coming in to clean, and sometimes he’d say, “Wait a minute.” There’d be a hasty rustling and the sound of that cretonne cover going on his bird cage. We wondered what sort of bird he had, and theorized on the possibility of a phoenix. The creature never sang. It made noises. Soft, odd, not-always-birdlike noises. By the time we got home from work, Mr. Henchard was always in his room. He stayed there while we cleaned. On week-ends, he never went out.

  As for the cage . . .

  One night Mr. Henchard came out, stuffing a cigarette into his holder, and looked us over.

  “Mph,” said Mr. Henchard. “Listen, I’ve got some property to ’tend to up north, and I’ll be away for a week or so. I’ll still pay the rent.”

  “Oh, well,” Jackie said. “We can—”

  “Claptrap,” he growled. “It’s my room. I’ll keep it if I like. How about that, hey?”

  We agreed, and he smoked half his cigarette in one gasp. “Mm-m. Well, look here, now. Always before I’ve had my own car. So I’ve taken my bird cage with me. This time I’ve got to travel on the bus, so I can’t take it. You’ve been pretty nice—not peepers or pryers. You got sense. I’m going to leave my bird cage here, but don’t you touch that cover!”

  “The canary—” Jackie gulped. “It’ll starve.”

  “Canary, hmm?” Mr. Henchard said, fixing her with a beady, wicked eye. “Never you mind. I left plenty o’ food and water. You just keep your hands off. Clean my room when it needs it, if you want, but don’t you dare touch the bird cage. What do you say?”

  “Okay with us,” I said.

  “Well, you mind what I say,” he snapped.

  That next night, when we got home, Mr. Henchard was gone. We went into his room and there was a note pinned to the cretonne cover. It said, “Mind, now!” Inside the cage something went rustle-whirr. And then there was a faint pop.

  “Hell with it,” I said. “Want the shower first?”

  “Yes,” Jackie said.

  Whirr-r went the cage. But it wasn’t wings. Thump!

  The next night I said, “Maybe he left enough food, but I bet the water’s getting low.”

  “Eddie!” Jackie remarked.

  “All right, I’m curious. But I don’t like the idea of birds dying of thirst, either.”

  “Mr. Henchard said—”

  “All right, again. Let’s go down to Terry’s and see what the lamb chop situation is.”

  The next night—Oh, well. We lifted the cretonne. I still think we were less curious than worried. Jackie said she once knew somebody who used to beat his canary.

  “We’ll find the poor beast cowering in chains,” she remarked flicking her dust-cloth at the windowsill, behind the cage. I turned off the vacuum. Whish—trot-trot-trot went something under the cretonne.

  “Yeah—” I said. “Listen, Jackie. Mr. Henchard’s all right, but he’s a crackpot. That bird or birds may be thirsty now. I’m going to take a look.”

  “No. Uh—yes. We both will, Eddie. We’ll split the responsibility.”

  I reached for the cover, and Jackie ducked under my arm and put her hand over mine.

  Then we lifted a corner of the cloth. Something had been rustling around inside, but the instant we touched the cretonne, the sound st
opped. I meant to take only one swift glance. My hand continued to lift the cover, though. I could see my arm moving and I couldn’t stop it. I was too busy looking.

  Inside the cage was a—well, a little house. It seemed complete in every detail. A tiny house painted white, with green shutters—ornamental, not meant to close—for the cottage was strictly modem. It was the sort of comfortable, well-built house you see all the time in the suburbs. The tiny windows had chintz curtains; they were lighted up, on the ground floor. The moment we lifted the cloth, each window suddenly blacked out. The lights didn’t go off, but shades snapped down with an irritated jerk. It happened fast. Neither of us saw who or what pulled down those shades.

  I let go of the cover and stepped back, pulling Jackie with me.

  “A d-doll house, Eddie!”

  “With dolls in it?”

  I stared past her at the hooded cage. “Could you, maybe, do you think, perhaps, train a canary to pull down shades?”

  “Oh, my! Eddie, listen.”

  Faint sounds were coming from the cage. Rustles, and an almost inaudible pop. Then a scraping.

  I went over and took the cretonne cloth clear off. This time I was ready; I watched the windows. But the shades flicked down as I blinked.

  Jackie touched my arm and pointed. On the sloping roof was a miniature brick chimney; a wisp of pale smoke was rising from it. The smoke kept coming up, but it was so thin I couldn’t even smell it.

  “The c-canaries are c-cooking,” Jackie gurgled.

  We stood there for a while, expecting almost anything. If a little green man had popped out of the front door and offered us three wishes, we shouldn’t have been much surprised. Only nothing happened.

  There wasn’t a sound, now, from the wee house in the bird cage.

  And the blinds were down. I could see that the whole affair was a masterpiece of detail. The little front porch had a tiny mat on it. There was a doorbell, too.

  Most cages have removable bottoms. This one didn’t. Resin-stains and dull gray metal showed where soldering had been done. The door was soldered shut, too. I could put my forefinger between the bars, but my thumb was too thick.