Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

“Then why can’t you make me be in two billion whatever it was places at the same time? Mebbe for just a half a minute or so. I ain’t greedy. That’d be long enough, anyhow.”

  “Long enough for what?” Maw asked.

  Yancey give me a sly look. “I got me a problem,” he said. “I want to find a feller. Trouble is, I dunno if I kin find him now. It’s been a awful long time. But I got to, somehow or other. I ain’t a-gonna rest easy in my grave unless I done paid all my debts, and for thutty years I been owing this feller something. It lays heavy on my conscience.”

  “That’s right honorable of you, neighbor,” Maw said.

  Yancey snuffled and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

  “It’s a-gonna be a hard job,” he said. “I put it off mebbe a mite too long. The thing is, I was figgering on sending my eight boys out to look for this feller sometime, so you kin see why it’s busted me all up, the way them no-good varmints up and got kilt without no warning. How am I gonna find that feller I want now?”

  Maw looked troubled and passed Yancey the jug.

  “Whoosh!” he said, after a snort. “Tastes like real hell-fire for certain. Whoosh!” Then he took another swig, sucked in some air, and scowled at Maw.

  “If’n a man plans on sawing down a tree and his neighbor busts the saw, seems to me that neighbor ought to lend his own saw. Ain’t that right?”

  “Sure is,” Maw said. “Only we ain’t got eight boys to lend you.”

  “You got something better,” Yancey said. “Black, wicked magic, that’s what. I ain’t saying yea or nay ’bout that. It’s your own affair. But seeing as how you kilt off them wuthless young ’uns of mine, so’s I can’t do like I was intending—why, then it looks like you ought to be willing to help me in some other way. Long as I kin locate that feller and pay him what I owe him, I’m satisfied. Now, ain’t it the gospel truth that you kin spilt me up into a passel of me-critters?”

  “Why, I guess we kin do that, I s’pose,” Maw said.

  “An’ ain’t it gospel that you kin fix it so’s every dang one of them me-critters will travel real fast and see everybody in the whole, entire world?”

  “That’s easy,” I said.

  “If’n I kin git to do that,” Yancey said, “it’d be easy for me to spot that feller and give him what he’s got coming to him.” He snuffled. “I allus been honest. I’m skeered of dying unless I pay all my debts fust. Danged if’n I want to burn through all eternity like you sinful Hogbens are a-gonna.”

  “Shucks,” Maw said, “I guess we kin help out, neighbor, being as how you feel so het up about it. Yes, sir, we’ll do like you want.”

  Yancey brightened up considerable.

  “Promise?” he asked. “Swear it, on your word an’ honor?”

  Maw looked kind of funny, but Yancey pulled out his bandanna again, so she busted down and made her solemn promise. Right away Yancey cheered up.

  “How long will the spell take?” he asked.

  “There ain’t no spell,” I said. “Like I told you, all I need is some scrap iron and a washbasin. ’Twon’t take long.”

  “I’ll be back real soon,” Yancey said, sort of cackling, and run out, laughing his haid off. Going through the yard, he kicked out at a chicken, missed, and laughed some more. Guess he was feeling purty good.

  “You better go on and make that gadget so’s it’ll be ready,” Maw told me. “Git going.”

  “Yes, Maw,” I said, but I sat there for a second or two, studying. She picked up the broomstick.

  “You know, Maw—”

  “Well?”

  “Nothing,” I said, and dodged the broomstick. I went on out, trying to git clear what was troubling me. Something was, only I couldn’t tell what. I felt kind of unwilling to make that there gadget, which didn’t make right good sense, since there didn’t seem to be nothing really wrong.

  I WENT out behind the woodshed, though, and got busy. Took me ’bout ten minutes, but I didn’t hurry much. Then I come back to the house with the gadget and said I was done. Paw told me to shet up.

  Well, I sat there and looked at the gimmick and still felt trouble on my mind. Had to do with Yancey, somehow or other. Finally I noticed he’d left his old magazine behind, so I picked it up and started reading the story right under that picture, trying to make sense out of it. Durned if I could.

  It was all about some crazy hillbillies who could fly. Well, that ain’t no trick but what I couldn’t figger out was whether the feller that writ it was trying to be funny or not. Seems to me people are funny enough anyhow, without trying to make ’em funnier.

  Besides, serious things ought to be treated serious, and from what our Perfesser feller told me once, there’s an awful lot of people what really believe in science and take it tremendous serious. He allus got a holy light in his eye when he talked about it. The only good thing about that story, it didn’t have no girls in it. Girls make me feel funny.

  I didn’t seem to be gitting nowheres, so I went down to the cellar and played with the baby. He’s kind of big for his tank these days. He was glad to see me. Winked all four of his eyes at me, one after the other. Real cute.

  But all the time there was something about that magazine that kept nagging at me. I felt itchy inside, like when before they had that big fire in London, some while ago. Quite a spell of sickness they had then, too.

  It reminded me of something Grandpaw had told me once, that he’d got the same sort of skitters just before Atlantis foundered. ’Course, Grandpaw kin sort of look into the future—which ain’t much good, really, on account of it keeps changing around. I cain’t do that myself yet. I ain’t growed up enough. But I had a kind of hunch that something real bad was around, only it hadn’t happened quite yet.

  I almost decided to wake up Grandpaw, I felt so troubled. But around then I heard tromping upstairs, so I clomb up to the kitchen, and there was Yancey, swigging down some corn Maw’d give him. Minute I looked at the old coot, I got that feeling agin.

  Yancey said, “Whoosh,” put down the jug, and wanted to know if we was ready. So I pointed at the gadget I’d fixed up and said that was it, all right, and what did he think about it?

  “That little thing?” Yancey asked. “Ain’t you a-gonna call up Old Scratch?”

  “Ain’t no need,” Uncle Les said. “Not with you here, you little water moccasin, you.”

  Yancey looked right pleased. “That’s me,” he said. “Mean as a moccasin, and fulla pizen. How does it work?”

  “Well,” I said, “it sort of splits you up into a lot of Yanceys, is all.”

  Paw had been setting quiet, but he must of tuned in inside the haid of some perfesser somewheres, on account of he started talking foolish. He don’t know any four-bit words hisself.

  I wouldn’t care to know ’em myself, being as how they only mix up what’s simple as cleaning a trout.

  “Each human organism,” Paw said, showing off like crazy, “is an electromagnetic machine, emitting a pattern of radiations, both from brain and body. By reversing polarity, each unit of you, Yancey, will be automatically attracted to each already existent human unit, since un-likes attract. But first you will step on Saunk’s device and your body will be broken down—”

  “Hey!” Yancey yelped.

  Paw went right on, proud as a peacock.

  “—into a basic electronic matrix, which can then be duplicated to the point of infinity, just as a type face may print millions of identical copies of itself in reverse—negative instead of positive.

  “Since space is no factor where electronic wave-patterns are concerned, each copy will be instantly attracted to the space occupied by every other person in the world,” Paw was going on, till I like to bust. “But since two objects cannot occupy the same space-time, there will be an automatic spacial displacement, and each Yancey-copy will be repelled to approximately two feet away from each human being.”

  “You forgot to draw a pentagram,” Yancey said, looking around nervous-like. “That’s the
awfullest durn spell I ever heard in all my born days. I thought you said you wasn’t gonna call up Old Scratch?”

  MAYBE it was on account of Yancey was looking oncommon like Old Scratch hisself just then, but I just couldn’t stand it no longer—having this funny feeling inside me. So I woke up Grandpaw. I did it inside my haid, the baby helping, so’s nobody noticed. Right away there was a stirring in the attic, and Grandpaw heaved hisself around a little and woke up. Next thing I knew he was cussing a blue streak.

  Well, the whole family heard that, even though Yancey couldn’t. Paw stopped showing off and shet up.

  “Dullards!” Grandpaw said, real mad. “Rapscallions! Certes, y-wist it was no wonder I was having bad dreams. Saunk, you’ve put your foot in it now. Have you no sense of process? Didn’t you realize what this caitiff schmo was planning, the stinkard? Get in the groove, Saunk, ere manhood’s state shall find thee unprepared.” Then he added something in Sanskrit. Living as long as Grandpaw has, he gits mixed up in his talk sometimes.

  “Now, Grandpaw,” Maw thunk, “what’s Saunk been and done?”

  “You’ve all done it!” Grandpaw yelled. “Couldn’t you add cause and effect? Saunk, what of the picture y-wrought in Yancey’s pulp mag? Wherefore hys sodien change of herte, when obviously the stinkard hath no more honor than a lounge lizard? Do you want the world depopulated before its time? Ask Yancey what he’s got in his britches pocket, dang you!”

  “Mr. Yancey,” I said, “what have you got in your britches pocket?”

  “Hey?” he said, reaching down and hauling out a big, rusty monkey wrench. “You mean this? I picked it up back of the shed.” He was looking real sly.

  “What you aiming to do with that?” Maw asked, quick.

  Yancey give us all a mean look. “Ain’t no harm telling you,” he said. “I aim to hit everybody, every durn soul in the whole, entire world, right smack on top of the haid, and you promised to help me do it.”

  “Lawks a-mercy,” Maw said.

  “Yes, siree,” Yancey giggled. “When you hex me, I’m a-gonna be in every place everybody else is, standing right behind ’em. I’ll whang ’em good. Thataway, I kin be sure I’ll git even. One of them people is just bound to be the feller I want, and he’ll git what I been owing him for thutty years.”

  “What feller?” I said. “You mean the one you met up with in New York you was telling me about? I figgered you just owed him some money.”

  “Never said no sech thing,” Yancey snapped. “A debt’s a debt, be it money or a bust in the haid. Ain’t nobody a-gonna step on my corn and git away with it, thutty years or no thutty years.”

  “He stepped on your corn?” Paw asked. “That’s all he done?”

  “Yup. I was likkered up at the time, but I recollect I went down some stairs to where a lot of trains was rushing around under the ground.”

  “You was drunk.”

  “I sure was,” Yancey said. “Couldn’t be no sech thing—trains running underground! But I sure as shooting wasn’t dreaming ’bout the feller what stepped on my corn. Why, I kin still feel it. I got mad. It was so crowded I couldn’t even move for a mite, and I never even got a good look at the feller what stepped on me.

  “By the time I hit out with my stick, he must of got away. Never knew what he looked like. Might have been a female, but that don’t signify. I just ain’t a-gonna die till I pay my debts and git even with everybody what ever done me dirt. I allus got even with every dang soul what done me wrong, and most everybody I ever met did.”

  RILED up a whole lot was Yancey Tarbell. He went right on from there:

  “So I figgered, since I never found out just who this feller was what stepped on my corn, I better make downright sure and take a lick at everybody, man, woman, and child.”

  “Now you hold your hosses,” I said. “Ain’t no children could have been alive thutty years ago, an’ you know it.”

  “Makes no difference,” Yancey snapped. “I was a-thinking, and I got an awful idea: suppose that feller went and died. Thutty years is a long time. But then I figgered, even if he did up and die, chances are he got married and had kids fust. If’n I can’t git even with him, I kin get even with his children. The sins of the father—that’s Scripture. If’n I hit everybody in the world, I can’t go fur wrong.”

  “You ain’t hitting no Hogbens,” Maw said. “None of us been in New York since afore you was born. I mean, we ain’t never been there. So you kin just leave us out of it. How’d you like to git a million dollars instead? Or maybe you want to git young again or something like that? We kin fix that for you instead, if you’ll give up this here wicked idea.”

  “I ain’t a-gonna,” Yancey said, stubborn. “You give your gospel word to help me.”

  “Well, we ain’t bound to keep a promise like that,” Maw said, but then Grandpaw chimed in from the attic.

  “The Hogben word is sacred,” he told us. “It’s our bond. We must keep our promise to this booby. But, having kept it, we are not bound further.”

  “Oh?” I said, sort of gitting a thought. “That being the case—Mr. Yancey, just what did we promise, exact?”

  He waved the monkey wrench at me.

  “I’m a-gonna git split up into as many people as they are people in the world, and I’m a-gonna be standing right beside all of ’em. You give your word to help me do that. Don’t you try to wiggle out of it.”

  “I ain’t wiggling,” I said. “Only we better git it clear, so’s you’ll be satisfied and won’t have no kick coming. One thing, though. You got to be the same size as everybody you visit.”

  “Hey?”

  “I kin fix it easy. When you step on this here gadget, there’ll be two billion, two hunnerd fifty million, nine hunnered and fifty-nine thousand, nine hunnered and twenty Yanceys all over the world. S’posin’, now, one of these here Yanceys finds himself standing next to a big feller seven feet tall. That wouldn’t be so good, would it?”

  “I want to be eight feet high,” Yancey said.

  “No, sir. The Yancey who goes to visit a feller that high is a-gonna be just that high hisself, exactly. And the one who visits a baby only two feet high is a-gonna be only two feet high hisself. What’s fair’s fair. You agree to that, or it’s all off. Only other thing, you’ll be just exactly as strong as the feller you’re up again’.”

  I guess he seen I was firm. He hefted the monkey wrench.

  “How’ll I git back?” he asked.

  “We’ll take care of that,” I said. “I’ll give you five seconds. That’s long enough to swing a monkey wrench, ain’t it?”

  “It ain’t very long.”

  “If’n you stay longer, somebody might hit back.”

  “So they might,” he said, turning pale under the dirt. “Five seconds is plenty.”

  “Then if’n we do just that, you’ll be satisfied? You won’t have no kick coming?”

  He swung the monkey wrench and laughed.

  “Suits me fine and dandy,” he said. “I’ll bust their haids good. Heh, heh, heh.”

  “Then you step right on here,” I said, showing him. “Wait a mite, though. I better try it fust, to make sure it works right.”

  I picked up a stick of firewood from the box by the stone and winked at Yancey. “You git set,” I said. “The minute I git back, you step right on here.”

  Maw started to say something, but all of a sudden Grandpaw started laughing in the attic. I guess he was looking into the future again.

  I stepped on the gadget, and it worked slick as anything. Afore I could blink, I was split up into two billion, two hunnerd and fifty million, nine hunnerd and fifty-nine thousand, nine hunnerd and nineteen Saunk Hogbens.

  There was one short, o’ course, on account of I left out Yancey, and o’ course the Hogbens ain’t listed in no census. But here I was, standing right in front of everybody in the whole, entire world except the Hogben fam’ly and Yancey hisself. It was plumb onreasonable.

  NEVER did I know there was so
many faces in this world! They was all colors, some with whiskers, some without, some with clothes on, some naked as needles, some awful big and some real short, and half of them was in daylight and half was in the nighttime. I got downright dizzy.

  For just a flash, I thought I could make out some of the people I knowed down in Piperville, including the Sheriff, but he got mixed up with a lady in a string of beads who was casing a kangaroo-critter, and she turned into a man dressed up fit to kill who was speechifyin’ in a big room somewheres.

  My, I was dizzy.

  I got ahold of myself and it was about time, too, for just about then near everybody in the whole world noticed me. ’Course, it must have looked like I’d popped out of thin air, right in front of them, real sudden, and—well, you ever had near two billion, two hunnerd and fifty million, nine hunnerd and fifty-nine thousand, nine hunnerd and nineteen people looking you right square in the eye? It’s just awful. I forgot what I’d been intending. Only I sort of heard Grandpaw’s voice telling me to hurry up.

  So I pushed that stick of firewood I was holding, only now it was two billion, two hunnerd and fifty million, nine hunnerd and fifty-nine thousand, nine hunnerd and nineteen sticks, into just about the same number of hands and let go. Some of the people let go too, but most of ’em held on to it. Then I tried to remember the speech I was a-gonna make, telling ’em to git in the fust lick at Yancey afore he could swing that monkey wrench.

  But I was too confounded. It was funny. Having all them people looking right at me made me so downright shy, I couldn’t even open my mouth. What made it worse was that Grandpaw yelled I had only one second left, so there wasn’t even time to make a speech. In just one second, I was a-gonna flash back to our kitchen, and then old Yancey was all ready to jump in the gadget and swing that monkey wrench. And I hadn’t warned nobody. All I’d done was give everybody a little old stick of firewood.

  My, how they stared! I felt plumb naked. Their eyes bugged right out. And just as I started to thin out around the edges like a biscuit, I—well, I don’t know what come over me. I guess it was feeling so oncommon shy. Maybe I shouldn’t of done it, but—