Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  But always a part of my mind must have rebelled. So it was a wonderful feeling to learn the truth. I wasn’t really mad, or blasphemous, to doubt my own powers. I could give up the long inward struggle, trying to force myself to believe impossible things. I felt a relief so tremendous it made me a little lightheaded, the first time I ran these microfilms under the greenish glass and read the things my mind had always known were true.

  After that I was free. Or as free as society would allow. The tremendous power of public belief still restricted me externally, but in my own mind I could think as I chose. I could behave as I chose, so long as I stayed careful. I could send out a spell that would strike Jake Haliaia down in his tracks, and nobody could stop me, because the truth had set me free . . .

  But it was no good to be free alone.

  I looked at the columns of forgotten news on the screen before me, and wished that I had lived then instead of now, in a world and time that seemed far more real to me than my own. I had been born into a world of wrongness, a time that was out of joint. I was a skeptic, the one-eyed man in the country of the blind. It was as if I alone could see a great leaning crag far overhead, swaying, ready to topple and crush us all, while all around me the blind men made their futile magic and never knew the real danger.

  I didn’t know either, really. There was nothing as tangible as a toppling cliff. But I, the one-eyed man, had always seen a shadow, sensed an insecurity, felt a dim and hovering terror. I had never found out what it was. Not the Eagle—the totem was only a superstition. Magic? There was none. But somehow, somewhere, something existed that cast its shadow of fear, a monster I had been trying to identify all my life. And perhaps that was really why I first began to search the forbidden microfilms. Perhaps I had thought that in the past I could find the monster’s genesis, and learn its name.

  I never had. I had learned truth, and skepticism, and I had come to understand why corporate magic was the basis of my own culture. Back in the Twentieth Century, the troubles—stresses—dangers had grown until they merged into one great terror—a death-fear—which left no room in life for anything else. There had been real dangers, certainly. Society could have destroyed itself. And it nearly did. Then the death-fear grew too great, and reality could not be faced any more. Men were afraid of men. Society, somehow, had to be protected against itself, and so magic became the safeguard. Or, rather, a belief in magic, indoctrinated early, self-perpetuating, until now society felt safe—under some unnamed monster’s terrifying shadow.

  What monster?

  I didn’t know. But I was alone, in the country of the blind, and I think that was why I had to open Lila’s superstition-blinded eyes. So I wouldn’t be alone any more. And I’d done it, and I’d lost her.

  And in the end I’d get her back—blind again. She’d come back to me, after Haliaia died and the great forces of ritual had driven her into blindness, no matter how much her reason might fight against it. She was already learning that, even though magic was a lie, I was very far from powerless.

  She would come back blind. If that was the only way I could get her back—and it was—then let her eyes be sealed again.

  I sat there, staring at the glowing screen that opened into time. I sat there for a long while, thinking about Lila.

  On the fourteenth day I went to watch Haliaia die.

  I was just leaving my hotel room for his home when the bell rang and the face I had been expecting for two weeks flashed into sight on the visiphone screen. My hand, outstretched for the doorknob, began to shake. My heart pumped. I felt like a schoolboy caught in some act of guilt. My first impulse was to run. But then I pulled myself together and remembered who I was, and how well I was covered. I turned back to the screen and pushed the button that would bring me into focus for Mumm of Food Corporation.

  He had a sharp young face, not too scrupulous, and that frightening brashness that comes from the confidence of youth, before it has ever known a major defeat. I remembered him dimly from our school days, he just entering the university as candidate for training when I was graduating. His eyes came into quick focus on mine as my face shaped on his screen.

  “Hello,” he said. “Mumm. I remember you from school, don’t I, Cole?”

  “Yes, I know you,” I said. “How are you, Mumm?” And I touched three fingers to the corner of the screen in the same moment he extended his to the same spot, which is as close as you can come to a handshake on television.

  “I heard you were in town,” he said rather cagily.

  “I’ll bet,” I murmured. “What can I do for you?”

  He eyed me sharply and closely. “We’re losing a good man today,” he said.

  I didn’t pretend not to understand. “You can’t expect me to be sorry,” I said.

  “I know.” He paused. “Quite a coincidence,” he said, his eyes searching my face. “Convenient for you,” he added.

  I let my voice sharpen. “Maybe the rules have changed since I left the university. Used to be out of line to ask what you’re asking.”

  “I’m not asking any questions,” he told me. “I don’t need to. All I’m saying is it’s very convenient for you, having Haliaia die so soon after your . . . falling-out. Coincidence, your turning up for the funeral. You a relative, Cole?”

  I paused long enough to be sure my voice wouldn’t shake. I was repressing a strong impulse to smash the screen in his face.

  “Not precisely a relative,” I told him when my voice was under control. “I wanted to watch him die. Does that surprise you?”

  “I know it was you,” he said flatly. “I’m not asking. I know. What I wonder is whether you had a valid client, or if you acted for yourself.”

  “I could bring you up before the university for that,” I said.

  “You won’t.”

  “I may. I’ll talk it over with Thornvald. If you have any doubts about my ethics, you’d better take it up with him, not me. Do you think I’d show up here if I knew I’d blasphemed?”

  He grimaced very slightly. “You might. If you stole Haliaia’s soul for the reason I think you did, you wouldn’t stop at anything. I’ll talk with Thornvald.”

  “Then do it, and stop annoying me.” I drew a deep breath. “You talk like a skeptic when you break your vows this way. I’ll have a word with your White President after the funeral, Mumm. You and I haven’t got a thing to say to each other.” I flipped the switch and cut him off in the middle of whatever he was about to say next. His mouthing face, gone silent, shrank to a bright pinpoint and vanished.

  Shaking a little, I whirled around, snatched up my funeral robe and hurried out. It didn’t matter a damn what Mumm believed, because I was covered. Even if he moved illegally against me, I wasn’t afraid of his magic. But if he talked to Thornvald . . .

  Suddenly I saw what a fool I’d been. I would have to get rid of Rabb. I couldn’t see how I could possibly have overlooked something so obvious so long. With Rabb’s mouth shut, the only possible evidence against me would be gone. I couldn’t afford to take any further chances. Thinking over what viruses I had on hand in the lab, I hurried into a taxi and gave Haliaia’s address.

  The house was crowded. For the first time since the spell against Haliaia was announced, his friends and relatives returned. Society flowed back over the living dead man to celebrate his funeral and the receiving of his soul by the totem of his clan. Voices were singing the second funeral hymn as my taxi drew up. I pulled the funeral robe on over my street clothing and joined the crowds moving through the house. Nobody here was likely to know me, and I didn’t care if they did.

  I followed the mourners up the escalator to Haliaia’s bedroom, where he lay on the black-draped bed. The Fish Totem had been set up where he could see it. His half-closed eyes blinked slowly, gazing at the stuffed fish on its gold board as if he saw the vision of eternity before him. Maybe he did. Belief can do strange things even to the intelligent mind.

  Against the wall were his relatives in the clan, an
d his closest friends, kneeling on little pneumatic pads and singing the death song. I didn’t see Lila, but two of Haliaia’s wives were present. I hadn’t realized he had gone through marriage and divorce that often. I wondered how Lila liked being third.

  Around the bed, back and forth, hands folded over a little green plastic fish figure, walked a man I knew must be Haliaia’s father, his closest living relative. He sang in a deep soft voice.

  On the bed Haliaia lay wrapped in the white shroud with the Fish Totem. His half-shut eyes were dull. I thought he saw nothing but the stuffed figure above the bed. His mouth gaped and closed. His arms were pressed close to his sides. He lay like the totem of his clan, straight and rigid on the bed.

  Suddenly his whole body twisted in a convulsive arc, and then wrenched itself back. Three times he did this, and lay motionless again.

  The song rose solemnly.

  A fourth time Haliaia twisted himself back and forth. He was imitating his totem. He lay still. But his feet moved a little, slowly, as if they moved through water . . .

  The bad luck began two months late. There was nothing magical about it. Just one of those things—everybody has runs of bad luck.

  I kept a very close watch on Mumm and on my own safety. And on my own White President, just in case Mumm proffered charges against me. Nothing happened there. Thornvald’s behavior was perfectly normal. I tried to put myself in Mumm’s place and see what he would do. I couldn’t figure it. What could he do? He might not be able to resist sending out a stray virus or two, just in the hope of a hit. I watched myself very carefully for that. He might even hire a thug to shoot me or arrange an accident. I watched for that, too, as much as any man can. You have to take your chances in this world, and you don’t get something for nothing. I had got Haliaia’s death, and it was worth the risk.

  Once I called Lila. She wouldn’t talk to me. I let it slide. Time enough later to try again. In the meantime I got a girl with the theatrical name of Flamme to live with me. I didn’t intend to marry again for a while, and I needed someone to keep my establishment operating. It has to be done on a big scale, and I need a wife for social purposes. Flamme was of the hetera class, which meant she could act as wife in everything except the spiritual link, which is part of the magical system. Like our ancestors, we have serial polygamy, so after a divorce I could marry again, but on the spiritual level the polygamy is cumulative. There can be no spiritual divorce. So in the magical world I was still married to Lila. And she wouldn’t talk to me—yet.

  Rabb, incidentally, had an accident about a week after Haliaia’s death, and unfortunately, in the hospital, he got an overdose of sedation and died. The clan gave him a very respectable funeral.

  Otherwise nothing unusual happened, at first—except for one irrational, nonsensical thing that I’d never anticipated. Everything conscious, everything controllable and rational, I knew I could handle. But what began to go wrong was the ritual dream.

  I told you how it works. Herbs are burnt, there’s the shot of so-called holy drug, ritual prayer, hallucination. The average magician’s belief in himself is reinforced by the hallucination. Even after I lost the belief I went on with the window-dressing ritual, because I felt that if I began to vary from the conventional routine even in small matters, I might get careless and vary too much, in ways that would be noticeable.

  So I went on as usual. People came to me to get spells put on their enemies in other clans, and I got their signatures on the necessary contracts and publicized the magic in the communication channels. I had no trouble until another case of soul-stealing came up.

  The man was a Communications executive and his enemy was in Entertainment, the Lion Totem. My man’s skill was rated high enough so he had to sign up for only nine years of service on minimum subsistence. I got his signature, sent him away, and burned the herbs. I gave myself an injection and said the Eagle Totem prayer.

  The hallucination began.

  I found the victim in my dream and was just about to stun him with the sacred spear when—I woke up.

  I was back in my office, with the herbs smoking in their burner and my arm still tingling from the hypodermic spray. It was the first time since I’d been an acolyte this had ever happened. I sat there, wondering. Wondering and worrying.

  It was idiotic, but what kept running through my head was the thought that unless I had the ritual hallucination, I couldn’t visit the taboo microfilm library any more. There was no logical connection at all. And yet I couldn’t get the idea out of my mind. The more I thought about it the more worried I felt, without any reason at all.

  At last I realized that the drug must have been weak, or the herbs—well, not the herbs, they’re part of the window-dressing. All the same, I sent them down for chemical analysis, along with the drug. I sat waiting for the results. Once, I remember, I glanced back over my shoulder at the stuffed eagle on the wall. He gave me a glassy look.

  The report said the drug and the herbs were the same as usual.

  Not that it mattered. I could start the soul-stealing telecast at any time, and the magic would work whether or not I had the hallucination, since the magic was in the mind of the victim, not in my mumbo-jumbo. But I didn’t like this. It was a symptom, and I needed to understand its meaning.

  Finally I decided I’d gradually build up immunity to the drug, and what I needed was a stronger dose. Well, I was right, up to a point. When I doubled the dose I got further into the hallucination. But I still woke up before I’d completed the ritual dream. This time I woke with a sense of near-panic, a feeling that something had gone very wrong indeed, and the knowledge that I had to do something about it fast.

  What I did was dangerous, but I wasn’t thinking clearly, and little waves of anxiety kept starting around my stomach and spreading out until—well, I tried again, with a still stronger dose, and I finished the hallucination. But I woke up with two doctors working on me, and Thornvald hovering behind them adjusting his silly totem symbols.

  “Get the hell out of here, Karl,” I said. “This is medical, not magical. I just got an overdose of the holy drug.”

  “Now, Lloyd,” Thornvald said, trying to look impressive. “The medics are taking care of their business. Just let me take care of mine.”

  “Well, it isn’t around here,” I said, and fell back, gasping, my heart fluttering till I was afraid it would stop altogether. One of the doctors gave me a shot of something and told me to relax. Remembering Rabb, I was really scared as I drifted off in spite of myself into sleep. But I woke feeling better. Thornvald had gone, leaving word that while he hadn’t finished his diagnosis, no magic seemed involved.

  I still felt terrible, but I went back to my desk and finished the job, purely routine now, luckily. Then I went home, canceling my other appointments, and told Flamme to keep the house quiet.

  The next day I still felt terrible. Flamme wanted me to stay home, but once a man gets sick it’s assumed there’s magic at work, and I couldn’t afford to have people start wondering why a Black President should feel bad. So I started for the office, with a splitting headache and a slight temperature.

  Only I didn’t get there. As I stepped onto a moving way I felt dizzy and misjudged the distance when I reached for the back of a lounge chair. I fell flat. If I hadn’t tried to catch myself it would have been all right. But I threw out my arms and landed at just the proper angle to break my left thumb.

  That did it. The medics X-rayed and tested, and finally put my left hand in a cast that left the fingers free, but was a damned nuisance. It would take more than a month to heal, too. In a quiet rage I went home, got into bed and yelled at Flamme to bring me liquor. Finally I collapsed into happy forgetfulness, drunk as hell. So drunk I even forgot to take alcohol-neutralizing pills before I went to sleep.

  So I woke up with a cold as well as a hangover.

  The cold went into influenza almost immediately.

  I remember medics working on me, and Flamme hovering in the backgroun
d, and Thornvald, Thornvald, Thornvald eternally coming to bother me. Thornvald with his silly gadgets supposed to diagnose magic. Thornvald saying, “I’ll do my best, Lloyd. You know that. I’ll cure the spell if I possibly can . . .

  And then suddenly silence, and waking with the fever gone and nothing to remind me of my sickness but the cast on my hand, and weakness. Silence.

  I rang the bell, and no one came. The room seemed very dim. The windows had been partially opened. I lay there wondering.

  I wondered if I were strong enough to get up. Apparently I’d have to. Angrily I threw back the covers and found I was pretty strong after all. I was shaping a few choice phrases in my mind about firing half a dozen servants and maybe Flamme too, when I swung my feet out of bed and saw the blue tunic stretched across my knees. I didn’t have any blue nightwear. Blue is a sacred color. I looked down at my chest . . .

  Everything came to a dead stop.

  I was wearing the sacred blue tunic with the Eagle Totem, wings outspread, embroidered across the front. My hand without any direction from my mind flew up to touch my forehead. It was as if I could feel the red circle traced there by somebody’s ritual spear in a hallucinatory dream. Somebody’s—whose? Whose?

  “Flamme!” I shouted.

  No answer anywhere.

  I jumped out of bed. I didn’t feel weak at all. I ran out of the room and down the silently gliding escalator, feeling the blue tunic catch between my knees. I kept calling for Flamme and the servants. All I heard were echoes. I jerked open the front door and there on the threshold were the black dishes of food. A black wreath swung against the door panel.

  I ripped it down. I saw people passing in the street and I shouted to them. No one looked at me. Not a head turned.