The Randall Garrett Omnibus: Eleven SF Classics

by Randall Garrett

  "The error I made was in thinking that you had been forcibly abducted somehow-that you had been forced to write that third letter. It certainly looked like it, since I couldn't see any reason for you to hide anything from me.

  "I didn't think you'd be in on anything as underhanded as this looked, so I assumed that you were acting against your will."

  Scholar Rawlings smiled. “But you thought I was capable of underhanded tactics? That's not very flattering, young man."

  Turnbull grinned. “I thought you were capable of kidnaping a man. Was I wrong?"

  Rawlings laughed heartily. “Touche. Go on."

  * * * *

  "Since artifacts had been found in a part of the City from which they had previously been removed, I thought that Jim, here, had found a ... well, a cover-up. It looked as though some of the alien machines were being moved around in order to conceal the fact that someone was keeping something hidden. Like, for instance, a new weapon, or a device that would give a man more power than he should rightfully have."

  "Such as?” Duckworth asked.

  "Such as invisibility, or a cheap method of transmutation, or even a new and faster space drive. I wasn't sure, but it certainly looked like it might be something of that sort."

  Rawlings nodded thoughtfully. “A very good intuition, considering the fact that you had a bit of erroneous data."

  "Exactly. I thought that Rawlings Scientific Corporation-or else you, personally-were concealing something from the rest of us and from the Advisory Board. I thought that Scholar Duckworth had found out about it and that he'd been kidnaped to hush him up. It certainly looked that way."

  "I must admit it did, at that,” Duckworth said. “But tell me-how does it look now?"

  Turnbull frowned. “The picture's all switched around now. You came here for a purpose-to check up on your own data. Tell me, is everything here on the level?"

  Duckworth paused before he answered. “Everything human,” he said slowly.

  "That's what I thought,” said Turnbull. “If the human factor is eliminated-at least partially-from the data, the intuition comes through quite clearly. We're being fed information."

  Duckworth nodded silently.

  Rawlings said: “That's it. Someone or something is adding new material to the City. It's like some sort of cosmic bird-feeding station that has to be refilled every so often."

  Turnbull looked down at his big hands. “It never was a trade route focus,” he said. “It isn't even a city, in our sense of the term, no more than a birdhouse is a nest.” He looked up. “That city was built for only one purpose-to give human beings certain data. And it's evidently data that we need in a hurry, for our own good."

  "How so?” Rawlings asked, a look of faint surprise on his face.

  "Same analogy. Why does anyone feed birds? Two reasons-either to study and watch them, or to be kind to them. You feed birds in the winter because they might die if they didn't get enough food."

  "Maybe we're being studied and watched, then,” said Duckworth, probingly.

  "Possibly. But we won't know for a long time-if ever."

  Duckworth grinned. “Right. I've seen this City. I've looked it over carefully in the past few months. Whatever entities built it are so far ahead of us that we can't even imagine what it will take to find out anything about them. We are as incapable of understanding them as a bird is incapable of understanding us."

  "Who knows about this?” Turnbull asked suddenly.

  "The entire Advanced Study Board at least,” said Rawlings. “We don't know how many others. But so far as we know everyone who has been able to recognize what is really going on at the City has also been able to realize that it is something that the human race en masse is not yet ready to accept."

  "What about the technicians who are actually working there?” asked Turnbull.

  Rawlings smiled. “The artifacts are very carefully replaced. The technicians-again, as far as we know-have accepted the evidence of their eyes."

  * * * *

  Turnbull looked a little dissatisfied. “Look, there are plenty of people in the galaxy who would literally hate the idea that there is anything in the universe superior to Man. Can you imagine the storm of reaction that would hit if this got out? Whole groups would refuse to have anything to do with anything connected with the City. The Government would collapse, since the whole theory of our present government comes from City data. And the whole work of teaching intuitive reasoning would be dropped like a hot potato by just those very people who need to learn to use it.

  "And it seems to me that some precautions—” He stopped, then grinned rather sheepishly. “Oh,” he said, “I see."

  Rawlings grinned back. “There's never any need to distort the truth. Anyone who is psychologically incapable of allowing the existence of beings more powerful than Man is also psychologically incapable of piecing together the clues which would indicate the existence of such beings."

  Scholar Duckworth said: “It takes a great deal of humility-a real feeling of honest humility-to admit that one is actually inferior to someone-or something-else. Most people don't have it-they rebel because they can't admit their inferiority."

  "Like the examples of the North American Amerindian tribes.” Turnbull said. “They hadn't reached the state of civilization that the Aztecs or Incas had. They were incapable of allowing themselves to be beaten and enslaved-they refused to allow themselves to learn. They fought the white man to the last ditch-and look where they ended up."

  "Precisely,” said Duckworth. “While the Mexicans and Peruvians today are a functioning part of civilization-because they could and did learn."

  "I'd just as soon the human race didn't go the way of the Amerindians,” Turnbull said.

  "I have a hunch it won't,” Scholar Rawlings said. “The builders of the City, whoever they are, are edging us very carefully into the next level of civilization-whatever it may be. At that level, perhaps we'll be able to accept their teaching more directly."

  Duckworth chuckled. “Before we can become gentlemen, we have to realize that we are not gentlemen."

  Turnbull recognized the allusion. There is an old truism to the effect that a barbarian can never learn what a gentleman is because a barbarian cannot recognize that he isn't a gentleman. As soon as he recognizes that fact, he ceases to be a barbarian. He is not automatically a gentleman, but at least he has become capable of learning how to be one.

  "The City itself,” said Rawlings, “acts as a pretty efficient screening device for separating the humble from the merely servile. The servile man resents his position so much that he will fight anything which tries to force recognition of his position on him. The servile slave is convinced that he is equal to or superior to his masters, and that he is being held down by brute force. So he opposes them with brute force and is eventually destroyed."

  Turnbull blinked. “A screening device?” Then, like a burst of sunlight, the full intuition came over him.

  Duckworth's round face was positively beaming. “You're the first one ever to do it,” he said. “In order to become a member of the Advanced Study Board, a scholar must solve that much of the City's secret by himself. I'm a much older man than you, and I just solved it in the past few months.

  "You will be the first Ph.D. to be admitted to the Board while you're working on your scholar's degree. Congratulations."

  Turnbull looked down at his big hands, a pleased look on his face. Then he looked up at Scholar Duckworth. “Got a cigarette, Jim? Thanks. You know, we've still got plenty of work ahead of us, trying to find out just what it is that the City builders want us to learn."

  Duckworth smiled as he held a flame to the tip of Turnbull's cigarette.

  "Who knows?” he said quietly. “Hell, maybe they want us to learn about them!"

  THROUGH TIME AND SPACE WITH BENEDICT BREADFRUIT

  # 6

  "On the planet Toupher VI,” said Benedict Breadfruit in his address to the members of the Institute for
Twenty-First Century Studies, a group specializing in ancient history, “the natives keep time by means of cords which have knots tied along their length at precisely measured intervals. Since the material from which these cords are made is remarkably even in its rate of burning, it is possible to tell the exact hour by noticing how many knots have burned after one end has been lit."

  "What is this remarkable contraption called?” asked one of the members.

  "Why, naturally,” said Benedict Breadfruit in his best British accent, “it would be a knot clock."

  ... OR YOUR MONEY BACK

  There are times when I don't know my own strength. Or, at least, the strength of my advice. And the case of Jason Howley was certainly an instance of one of those times.

  When he came to my office with his gadget, I heard him out, trying to appear both interested and co-operative-which is good business. But I am forced to admit that neither Howley nor his gadget were very impressive. He was a lean, slope-shouldered individual, five-feet-eight or nine-which was shorter than he looked-with straight brown hair combed straight back and blue eyes which were shielded with steel-rimmed glasses. The thick, double-concave lenses indicated a degree of myopia that must have bordered on total blindness without glasses, and acute tunnel vision, even with them.

  He had a crisp, incisive manner that indicated he was either a man who knew what he was doing or a man who was trying to impress me with a ready-made story. I listened to him and looked at his gadget without giving any more indication than necessary of what I really thought.

  When he was through, I said: “You understand, Mr. Howley that I'm not a patent lawyer; I specialize in criminal law. Now, I can recommend—"

  But he cut me off. “I understand that, counselor,” he said sharply. “Believe me, I have no illusion whatever that this thing is patentable under the present patent system. Even if it were, this gadget is designed to do something that may or may not be illegal, which would make it hazardous to attempt to patent it, I should think. You don't patent new devices for blowing safes or new drugs for doping horses, do you?"

  "Probably not,” I said dryly, “although, as I say, I'm not qualified to give an opinion on patent law. You say that gadget is designed to cause minute, but significant, changes in the velocities of small, moving objects. Just how does that make it illegal?"

  He frowned a little. “Well, possibly it wouldn't, except here in Nevada. Specifically, it is designed to influence roulette and dice games."

  I looked at the gadget with a little more interest this time. There was nothing new in the idea of inventing a gadget to cheat the red-and-black wheels, of course; the local cops turn up a dozen a day here in the city. Most of them either don't work at all or else they're too obvious, so the users get nabbed before they have a chance to use them.

  The only ones that really work have to be installed in the tables themselves, which means they're used to milk the suckers, not rob the management. And anyone in the State of Nevada who buys a license to operate and then uses crooked wheels is (a) stupid, and (b) out of business within a week. Howley was right. Only in a place where gambling is legalized is it illegal-and unprofitable-to rig a game.

  The gadget itself didn't look too complicated from the outside. It was a black plastic box about an inch and a half square and maybe three and a half long. On one end was a lensed opening, half an inch in diameter, and on two sides there were flat, silver-colored plates. On the top of it, there was a dial which was, say, an inch in diameter, and it was marked off just exactly like a roulette wheel.

  "How does it work?” I asked.

  He picked it up in his hand, holding it as though it were a flashlight, with the lens pointed away from him.

  "You aim the lens at the wheel,” he explained, “making sure that your thumb is touching the silver plate on one side, and your fingers touching the plate on the other side. Then you set this dial for whatever number you want to come up and concentrate on it while the ball is spinning. For dice, of course, you only need to use the first six or twelve numbers on the dial, depending on the game."

  * * * *

  I looked at him for a long moment, trying to figure his angle. He looked back steadily, his eyes looking like small beads peering through the bottoms of a couple of shot glasses.

  "You look skeptical, counselor,” he said at last.

  "I am. A man who hasn't got the ability to be healthily skeptical has no right to practice law-especially criminal law. On the other hand, no lawyer has any right to judge anything one way or the other without evidence.

  "But that's neither here nor there at the moment. What I'm interested in is, what do you want me to do? People rarely come to a criminal lawyer unless they're in a jam. What sort of jam are you in at the moment?"

  "None,” said Howley. “But I will be very soon. I hope."

  Well, I've heard odder statements than that from my clients. I let it ride for the moment and looked down at the notes I'd taken while he'd told me his story.

  "You're a native of New York City?” I asked.

  "That's right. That's what I said."

  "And you came out here for what? To use that thing on our Nevada tables?"

  "That's right, counselor."

  "Can't you find any games to cheat on back home?"

  "Oh, certainly. Plenty of them. But they aren't legal. I wouldn't care to get mixed up in anything illegal. Besides, it wouldn't suit my purpose."

  That stopped me for a moment. “You don't consider cheating illegal? It certainly is in Nevada. In New York, if you were caught at it, you'd have the big gambling interests on your neck; here, you'll have both them and the police after you. And the district attorney's office."

  He smiled. “Yes, I know. That's what I'm expecting. That's why I need a good lawyer to defend me. I understand you're the top man in this city."

  "Mr. Howley,” I said carefully, “as a member of the Bar Association and a practicing attorney in the State of Nevada, I am an Officer of the Court. If you had been caught cheating and had come to me, I'd be able to help you. But I can't enter into a conspiracy with you to defraud legitimate businessmen, which is exactly what this would be."

  He blinked at me through those shot-glass spectacles. “Counselor, would you refuse to defend a man if you thought he was guilty?"

  I shook my head. “No. Legally, a man is not guilty until proven so by a court of law. He has a right to trial by jury. For me to refuse to give a man the defense he is legally entitled to, just because I happened to think he was guilty, would be trial by attorney. I'll do the best I can for any client; I'll work for his interests, no matter what my private opinion may be."

  He looked impressed, so I guess there must have been a note of conviction in my voice. There should have been, because it was exactly what I've always believed and practiced.

  "That's good, counselor,” said Howley. “If I can convince you that I have no criminal intent, that I have no intention of defrauding anyone or conspiring with you to do anything illegal, will you help me?"

  I didn't have to think that one over. I simply said, “Yes.” After all, it was still up to me to decide whether he convinced me or not. If he didn't, I could still refuse the case on those grounds.

  "That's fair enough, counselor,” he said. Then he started talking.

  * * * *

  Instead of telling you what Jason Howley said he was going to do, I'll tell you what he did do. They are substantially the same, anyway, and the old bromide about actions speaking louder than words certainly applied in this case.

  Mind you, I didn't see or hear any of this, but there were plenty of witnesses to testify as to what went on. Their statements are a matter of court record, and Jason Howley's story is substantiated in every respect.

  He left my office smiling. He'd convinced me that the case was not only going to be worthwhile, but fun. I took it, plus a fat retainer.

  Howley went up to his hotel room, changed into his expensive evening clothes, and headed o
ut to do the town. I'd suggested several places, but he wanted the biggest and best-the Golden Casino, a big, plush, expensive place that was just inside the city limits. In his pockets, he was carrying less than two hundred dollars in cash.

  Now, nobody with that kind of chicken feed can expect to last long at the Golden Casino unless they stick to the two-bit one-armed bandits. But putting money on a roulette table is in a higher bracket by far than feeding a slot machine, even if you get a steady run of lemons.

  Howley didn't waste any time. He headed for the roulette table right away. He watched the play for about three spins of the wheel, then he took out his gadget-in plain sight of anyone who cared to watch-and set the dial for thirteen. Then he held it in his hand with thumb and finger touching the plates and put his hand in his jacket pocket, with the lens aimed at the wheel. He stepped up to the table, bought a hundred dollars worth of chips, and put fifty on Number Thirteen.

  "No more bets,” said the croupier. He spun the wheel and dropped the ball.

  "Thirteen, Black, Odd, and Low,” he chanted after a minute. With a practiced hand, he raked in the losers and pushed out Howley's winnings. There was sixteen hundred dollars sitting on thirteen now. Howley didn't touch it.

  The wheel went around and the little ball clattered around the rim and finally fell into a slot.

  "Thirteen, Black, Odd, and Low,” said the croupier. This time, he didn't look as nonchalant. He peered curiously at Howley as he pushed out the chips to make a grand total of fifty-one thousand two hundred dollars. The same number doesn't come up twice in succession very often, and it is very rare indeed that the same person is covering it both times with a riding bet.

  "Two thousand limit, sir,” the croupier said, when it looked as though Howley was going to let the fifty-one grand just sit there.

  Howley nodded apologetically and pulled off everything but two thousand dollars worth of chips.

  The third time around, the croupier had his eyes directly on Howley as he repeated the chant: “Thirteen, Black, Odd, and Low.” Everybody else at the table was watching Howley, too. The odds against Howley-or anyone else, for that matter-hitting the same number three times in a row are just under forty thousand to one.