Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  The monotone droned on.

  Fifteen minutes later, downstairs, Morgan set the photograph of Rufus at sixty upon the mantelpiece and regarded it with a heavy scowl.

  “AH right,” he said. “Let’s have it.”

  Bill fidgeted. “What is there to say? We’re doing something so new we have no precedent. Father’s changing, Pete—he’s changing in ways we didn’t expect. It worries me. I wish we hadn’t had to use him for a guinea pig.”

  “There was no choice, and you know it. If we’d used up ten years of testing and experiment—”

  “I know. He couldn’t have lasted six months when we started. He knew it was risky. He was willing to chance it. I know all that. But I wish—”

  “Now be reasonable, Bill. How the devil could we experiment except on a human subject, and a man with a high I.Q. at that? You know I tried it with chimps. But we’d have had to evolve them into humans first. After all, in the last analysis it’s the intelligence factor that makes the trick possible. It’s lucky your father’s breakdown was purely physical.” He paused, looking again at the photograph. “About this, though—”

  Bill spread his hands with a distracted motion. “I’d thought of every possible chance of error—except this one.” He laughed wryly. “It’s crazy. It isn’t happening.”

  “The whole thing’s crazy as a bedbug. I still don’t believe it’s working. If Rufus is really back to sixty already, then anything can happen. It wouldn’t surprise me if the sun came up from California tomorrow.” Morgan fished in his pocket and brought out a cigarette. “All right, then,” he said, fumbling for a match, “so he doesn’t look exactly as he did ten years ago. Does he act the way he did then?”

  Bill shrugged. “I don’t know. I wasn’t taking notes in those days. How was I to guess what you and I’d be up to now?” He paused. “No, I think he doesn’t,” he said.

  Morgan squinted at him through smoke. “What’s wrong?”

  “Little things. That look in his eyes when he woke awhile ago, for instance. Did you notice? A sort of sardonic brightness. He takes things less seriously. He . . . just doesn’t match his face any more. That austere look . . . it used to suit him. Now when he wakes suddenly and looks at you, he’s . . . well, looking out of a mask. The mask’s changing . . . some. I know it’s changing. The photograph proves that. But it isn’t changing as fast as his mind.”

  Deliberately Morgan blew smoke out in a long, swirling plume. “I wouldn’t worry too much,” he said soothingly. “He’ll never be the same man he was ten years ago, you know. We aren’t erasing his memory. Maybe he mellowed more than you realize in the decade he’s just retraced. At forty, at thirty, he’ll still be a man who’s lived seventy-odd years. It won’t be the same mind or the same man that existed in the Eighties. You’re just getting a case of the jitters, my boy.”

  “I’m not. His face has changed! His forehead angle’s different! His nose is beginning to arch up a little. His cheekbones are higher than they ever were in his life. I’m not imagining that, am I?”

  Morgan blew a leisurely ring.

  “Don’t get excited. We’ll check the shots. Maybe he’s getting an overdose of something. You know how that can affect the bony structure. There’s no harm done, anyhow. His physical condition is good and getting better. His mind’s keen. I’m more worried about you than him right now, Bill.”

  “About me?”

  “Yeah. Something you said before we went upstairs. Something about Faust. Remember? Now, just what did you have in mind?”

  Bill looked guilty. “I don’t remember.”

  “You were talking morals. You seemed to think there might be some punishment from on high hanging over us if our motives weren’t pure. How about that?”

  Bill’s tone was defensive, if his words were not. “You know better than to sneer at tradition just because it’s smart to. You were the one who convinced me that the old boys knew more than they ever passed on. Remember how the alchemists wrote their formulas in code to sound like magical spells? ‘Dragon’s Blood,’ for instance, meant something like sulphur. Translated, they often made very good sense. And the Fountain of Youth wasn’t water by accident. That was purely symbolic. Life rose from the water—” He hesitated. “Well, the moral code may have had just as solid a basis. What I said was that energy has to be expended to accomplish anything. Mephistopheles didn’t do any work; a demon has power as his birthright. Faust had to expend the energy. In the code of the formula—his soul. It all makes sense except in the terms they used.”

  Morgan’s heavy brows met above his eyes. “Then you think someone’s got to pay. Who and what?”

  “How do I know? There wasn’t any glossary in the back of the book to show what Marlowe meant when he put down ‘soul.’ All I can say is we’re repeating, in effect,” the same experiment Faust went through. And Faust had to pay, somehow, in some coin or other that we’ll never know. Or”—he looked up suddenly with a startled face—“will we?”

  Morgan showed his teeth and said something rude.

  “All right, all right. Just the same, we’re doing a thing without any precedent but one, unless—” He hesitated. “Wait a minute. Maybe there was more than one. Or was it just a coincidence?” Morgan watched him mouthing soundless phrases, and said after a moment, “Are you crazy?”

  “Full fathoms five thy father lies,” Bill recited. “How about that?

  “Of his bones are coral made,

  These are pearls that were his eyes,

  Nothing of him that doth fade

  But doth suffer a sea change

  Into something rich and strange—”

  Morgan snorted. “Forget that and go on. What about precedent?”

  “Well, say there’s only been one, then. But there was that. And it won’t hurt us to take as much advantage as we can of what our predecessors learned. We can’t take very much. It’s all hidden in legend and code. But we do know that whoever Mephistopheles and Faust really were, and whatever means they used to get where we are now, they had trouble. The experiment seemed to succeed, up to a point—and then it blew up in their faces. Legend says Faust lost his soul. What that really means I don’t know. But I say our own experiment is showing the first faint symptoms of getting out of hand, and I say we may find out some day what that code really means. I don’t want to learn at Father’s expense.”

  “I’m sorry.” Morgan ground out his half-finished cigarette. “Is it any good my saying I think you’re letting your imagination run away with you? Or have you got me cast as Mephistopheles?”

  Bill grinned. “I doubt if you want his soul. But you know, in the old days you’d have got into trouble. There’s something a little too . . . too thaumaturgical about hypnotism. Especially about the kind of thing you put Rufus through.” He sobered. “You have to send his mind out—somewhere. What does he find there, anyhow? What does time look like? How does it feel to stand face to face with it?”

  “Oh, cut it out, Bill. Worry about your own mind, not Rufus’. He’s all right.”

  “Is he, Mephisto? Are you sure? Do you know where his mind goes when you send it out like that?”

  “How could I? Nobody knows. I doubt if Rufus knows himself, even in his dreams. But it works. That’s all that matters. There’s no such thing as time, except as we manufacture it.”

  “I know. It doesn’t exist. But Rufus has seen it. Rufus knows it well. Rufus—and Faust.” Bill looked up at the picture on the mantelpiece.

  Spring came early that year. Rains sluiced away the last of the snow, and the long curved street outside the Westerfield windows began to vanish behind frothing green leaves. In the familiar cycle winter gave way to spring, and for the first time in recorded history a man’s wintertime of life came round again to his own improbable spring.

  Bill could not think of him any more as Father. He was Rufus Westerfield now, a pleasant stranger to look at, though memory had kept pace with his retrogression and no lapse of awareness made h
im a stranger to talk to. He was a healthy, vigorous, handsome stranger to the eye, though. Flesh returned solidly to fill out the aesthetic, fine-drawn body that Bill remembered. It did not seem to him that his father had been so physically solid a man in his earlier youth, but he was, of course, receiving medical care now far in advance of what had been available to him then. And as Morgan pointed out, the intention had not been to recapture a facsimile of the Rufus of an earlier day, but simply to restore the old Rufus’ lost strength.

  The facial changes were what mystified them most. Bodily a man may change through perfectly normal causes, but the features, the angles of forehead and nose and chin, ought to remain constant. With Rufus they had not.

  “We’re getting a changeling in reverse,” Morgan admitted.

  “A few months ago,” Bill pointed out, “you were denying it.”

  “Not at all. I was denying the interpretation you put on it. I still deny that. There are good reasons behind the changes, good solid reasons that haven’t got a thing to do with thaumaturgy or adventures in hypnosis, or pacts with the devil, either. We just haven’t found out yet what causes the changes.”

  Bill shrugged. “The strangest thing is that he doesn’t seem to know.”

  “There’s a great deal, my friend, that he doesn’t seem to know.”

  Bill looked at him thoughtfully. “That’s got to wait.” He hesitated. “We can’t afford to tamper much with . . . with discrepancies of the mind, when we aren’t sure about the body yet. We don’t want to bring anybody else in on this unless we have to. It wouldn’t be easy to explain to a psychiatrist what’s behind these aberrations of his.”

  “There are times,” Morgan said, “when I wish we hadn’t decided to keep quiet about all this. But I suppose we hadn’t any choice. Not until we can put down Q.E.D., anyhow.”

  “There’s plenty to be done before that. If we ever can. If the stream isn’t too strong for us, Pete—”

  “Cold feet again? He’ll stop at thirty-five, don’t worry. One more series of shots, then say another month to strike a glandular balance, and he’ll start back to age with the rest of us. If he weren’t your father, you wouldn’t jitter about the whole thing this way.”

  “Maybe not. Maybe I wouldn’t.” Bill’s voice was doubtful.

  They were in the living room again, on a morning in May. And as Morgan looked up to speak, the door opened and Rufus Westerfield, aged forty, came into the room.

  He was handsome in the solid, sleek manner of early middle age. His hair had returned to rich dark-red, growing peaked above tilting brows. The black eyes tilted too, in shallow sockets, and there was a look in them entirely strange to any Westerfield who had ever borne the name before. The face and the thoughts behind it were equally alien to the Westerfields. But it was a subtle change. He had not noticed it himself.

  He was whistling as he came into the room.

  “Beautiful morning,” he said happily. “Beautiful world. You youngsters can’t appreciate it. Takes a man who’s been old to enjoy youth again.” And he put the curtains aside to look out on the new leaves and the freshness of May.

  “Rufus,” said Morgan abruptly, “what’s that tune?”

  “What tune?” Rufus slanted a surprised black glance over his shoulder.

  “You’re whistling it. You tell me.”

  Rufus frowned thoughtfully. “I dunno. An old one.” He whistled another bar or two, strange, almost breathless swoops of sound. “You ought to know it—very popular in its day. The words—” He paused again, the black eyes narrow, looking into infinity as he searched his memory. “On the tip of my tongue, But I can’t quite—Foreign words, though. Some light opera or other. Oh well—catchy thing.” He whistled the refrain again.

  “I don’t think it’s catchy,” Bill declared flatly. “No melody. I can’t follow the tune at all, if it’s got one.” Then he caught Morgan’s eye, and was silent.

  “What does it make you think of?” Morgan pursued. “I’m curious.”

  Rufus put his hands in his pockets and regarded the ceiling. “My young days,” he said. “That what you mean? Theater parties, lights and music. A couple of other young fellows I used to see a lot. There was a girl, too. Wonder whatever became of her—probably an old woman now. Her name was—” He hesitated. “Her name was—” He shaped the name with his lips, or tried to. Then an extraordinary expression crossed his face and he said, “You know, I can’t remember at all. It was something outlandish, like—” He tried again to shape with his lips a word that refused to come. “I know the name, but I can’t say it,” he declared fretfully. “Is that a psychic block or something, Pete? Well, I daresay it doesn’t matter. Funny, though.”

  “I wouldn’t worry. It’ll come to you. Was she pretty?”

  A slightly muzzy look crossed Rufus’ face. “She was lovely, lovely. All . . . spangles. I wish I could remember her name. She was the first girl I ever asked to . . . to—” He paused again, then said, “—to marry me?” in a thin, bewildered voice. “No, that’s not right. That’s not right at all.”

  “It sounds terrible,” Morgan remarked dryly. Rufus shook his head violently.

  “Wait. I’m all mixed up. I can’t quite remember what they . . . what was—” His voice faltered and.died away. He stared out the window in an agony of concentration, his lips moving again as he struggled for some reluctant memory. Morgan heard him murmur, “Neither marriage nor giving in marriage . . . no, that’s not it—”

  In a moment he turned back again, looking bewildered and shaking his head. There was a fine beading of sweat on his forehead, and his eyes for the first time had lost their look of sardonic confidence. “There’s something wrong,” he said simply.

  Morgan stood up. “I wouldn’t worry,” he soothed. “You’re still going through some important changes, remember. You’ll get straightened out after awhile. When you do remember, let me know. It sounds interesting.”

  Rufus wiped his forehead. “That’s a funny feeling—getting your memories twisted. I don’t like it. The girl . . . it’s all confused—”

  Bill, from a far corner of the room, said, “I thought Mother was your first love, Rufus. That’s the story we always heard.”

  Rufus gave him a dazzled look. “Mother? Mother? Oh, you mean Lydia. Why, yes, she was, I think—” He paused for a moment then shook his head again.

  “Thought I had it that time. Something you said about—Mother, that’s it. I was thinking of mine. Are those pictures you’ve got there, Bill? Maybe I could remember whatever it is that’s bothering me if I saw—”

  “Grandma’s picture? It’s just what I was hunting. I suddenly had an idea that you might . . . uh . . . be getting more like her side of the family as you grow younger. Don’t know why I never thought of that before. Here she is.” He held up a yellowed metal rectangle, a tintype framed in plush. He scowled at it. “No. She’s nothing like you at all. I hoped—”

  “Let me see it.” Rufus held out his hand. Something very strange happened then. Bill laid the tintype in his father’s palm, and Rufus lifted it and looked into the shadowy features of the picture. And almost in the same motion he cried violently, “No! No, that’s ridiculous!” and hurled the thing to the floor. It bounced once, with a tinny sound, and lay face down on the bare boards.

  Nobody spoke. The silence was tense for half a minute. Then Rufus said in a perfectly reasonable voice, “Now what made me do that?”

  The other two relaxed just perceptibly, and Morgan said, “You tell us. What did?”

  Rufus looked at him, the tilted black eyes puzzled. “It was just . . . wrong, somehow. Not what I expected. Not at all what I expected. But what I did expect I couldn’t tell you now.” He sent a distracted glance about the room.

  The window caught his eye and he looked out at the pattern of leaves and branches beyond the porch. “That looks wrong to me,” he added helplessly. “Out there. I don’t know why, but when I see it suddenly I know it isn’t right. It’s the
first glance that does it. Afterward, I can tell it’s just the way it’s always been. But just for a minute—” He drew his shoulders together in a shrug of discomfort, and grimaced at the two men appealingly. “What’s wrong with me, boys?”

  Neither of them answered for a moment, then both spoke together.

  “Nothing to worry about,” Bill said, and Morgan declared in the same breath.

  “Your memory hasn’t caught up with your body yet, that’s all. It’s nothing that won’t straighten out in a little while. Forget it as much as you can.”

  “I’ll try.” Rufus sent a bewildered look about the room again. For a moment he seemed not only a stranger to the house and the street outside, but a stranger to his own body. He looked so sleek and handsome, so solidly assured of his place in the world. But there was nothing but bewilderment behind the facade.

  “I think I’ll take a walk,” he said, and turned toward the door. On the way he stooped and picked up the tintype of his mother’s face, pausing for an instant to look again at the unfamiliar picture. He shook his head doubtfully and laid the tintype down again. “I don’t know,” he said. “I just don’t know.”

  When the door had closed behind him, Morgan looked at Bill and whistled a long, soft note.

  ‘Well, you’d better get the record book,” he said. “We ought to put it all down before we forget it.” Bill glanced at him unhappily and went out of the room without a word. When he came back, carrying the big flat notebook in which they had been keeping, detail by detail, the record of their work, he was scowling.

  “Do you realize how impossible all that was?” he asked. “Rufus wasn’t remembering his past. He never had a past like that. Forgetting all the other aberrations, the thing isn’t possible. He grew up in a Methodist minister’s household. He believed theaters were houses of sin. He’s often told me he never set his foot inside one until long after he was married. He couldn’t have known a girl who was—all spangles. He never had any affairs—Mother was his first and last love. He’s told me that often. And he was telling the truth. I’m sure he was.”