George shrugged sheepishly. “I guess I’m just no damn good,” he murmured.
“You flatter yourself,” the Supreme Head said. “You’re much worse than no damn good. You’re simply awful. I wonder if Limbo will ever live you down.”
“I hope so, sir,” George said contritely.
“Nevertheless,” the Supreme Head went on, “much as I loathe it, I suppose we must get on with it. I suppose you know why you’ve been summoned?”
George nodded dimly. “They reported me for teaching the Moaning Chorus to syncopate.”
“What!” the Supreme Head gasped. “You did what?”
GEORGE looked up, afrighted; he’d given himself away again with no need. “Yes sir,” he sighed resignedly, “I thought that if we got up a good hot act we might be able to wangle a few guest shots with the Celestial Choir. Actually, we’ve worked out a really sock arrangement of the Wham Barn Blues. I’m sure that if you heard it ... ”
“No!” the Supreme Head roared. “You couldn’t! Of all the unmitigated ...!” He stopped and waited for his spleen to subside. “George Pillsworth,” he said, “you are insufferable.”
“I suppose so, sir,” George said. “However my intentions ...”
“Blast your intentions!”
“Yes, sir. I’m very sorry.”
“Never mind. In that case it’s probably just as well that things are as they are. It’ll be a great relief to be rid of you.”
“Rid of me?” George said fearfully. “You aren’t going to ...?”
“Unfortunately, no,” the Supreme Head sighed. “What I mean is that your mortal part, Marc Pillsworth, has got himself shot.”
George looked up sharply. His whole aspect changed; his eye brightened; his entire being grew more alert. “I’m to be sent to Earth as a permanent haunt? Oh, sir ... !”
“Hold it!” the Supreme Head snapped. “Don’t go into a spring dance. There’s a hitch.”
“Oh,” George said, but his eagerness was not noticeably dampened.
To George, the merest prospect of a visit to Earth was only to be regarded with rapturous anticipation. To him that distant world of mortals was a place of boundless and exquisite attraction. It was made up in equal parts of liquor, women and larceny and anything else that existed there was merely the result of these things brought together in odd combination. For George, Earth was absolutely the last gasp.
Of course George had never achieved the ultimate accomplishment of establishing permanent residence on Earth, for on all of his previous visits he had arrived only to find that Marc was still alive and that he could not legitimately remain. If on these occasions, George had done his level best to rectify this error with whatever murderous means at hand, it did not imply that the ghost held any personal animosity for Marc. It was simply that George’s was the sort of temperament which boggled at almost nothing to achieve its end.
“What’s the catch?” he asked.
“Don’t be flip,” the Supreme Head admonished. “And stop syncopating.”
“Syncopating?” George asked innocently. “I’m standing perfectly still.”
“It’s your mind,” the Supreme Head said. “It’s jogging about like a cat on hot bricks. It shows all over you. This is an occasion of enormous seriousness.”
GEORGE did his best to assume an expression of profound sobriety. “Yes, sir,” he murmured.
“First of all,” the Supreme Head continued, “as usual there is some question as to Pillsworth’s actual status. He has been shot, it’s true, and his vibrations are definitely broken. However, experience has taught us to be wary in the case of Pillsworth. Often we have acted on false alarms in the past and have been sorry.” The Head paused and beetled his brow. “Of course we need not have regretted those errors had you behaved yourself at all in the manner of a decent, self-respecting shade. Nevertheless, we don’t dare take a chance despite our reluctance in the matter. Pillsworth’s wound falls into the mortality class, so we have no alternative but to issue you your travel orders and the usual allotment of ectoplasm.” He fixed George with an unhappy stare. “And get that look of evil delight off your face.”
“Sorry, sir,” George said.
“And make up your mind right now that this is a business trip. If Pillsworth is not dead or definitely dying when you arrive you will return instantly. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And if he isn’t dead or dying you will do nothing to alter this state of affairs. You will not undertake on your own initiative to shove him off tall buildings, under moving trucks or into open manholes. You will not threaten him with ropes, guns, explosives, rare poisons or knives, or attempt, to dispatch him to heaven by means of rocket. Have you got all that straight?”
“Yes, sir,” George said quietly. “Hands off. I understand.”
“I hope you do,” the Head said ominously, “for your own sake. Anyway, I suppose you’d better go along now and start checking out through Supply. All that’s left here is for you to raise your right hand and swear by memory to the Ten Commandments of the Hunter’s code. However, I suppose you’ve got them all cribbed on the sleeve of your robe.”
George lowered his gaze. “Yes, sir,” he murmured. “I have.”
“Then skip it,” the Head sighed resignedly. “Just clear out.”
“Yes, sir,” George said, brightening. “Thank you, sir.”
As the mists swirled up around George, and he gradually dissolved into their vaporish currents, a joyous grin lighted his face ...
THREE sets of eyes fastened clinically on the X-ray with worried, professional interest.
“There’s a slight chance,” the first doctor said, “if we operate immediately.”
“Too slight,” the second murmured. “The bullet’s too close to the heart. He’ll die on the table.”
“He’ll die anyway. We’re merely taking the only chance there is.”
“I suppose so. Has his wife arrived yet?”
“She’s with him now.”
“He’s not conscious, is he?”
“No, certainly not, but they could not keep her away.”
“We’d better explain how it is. We’re almost certain to lose him.”
“I suppose so.”
There was a pause before they turned and reluctantly left the room. Outside, in the hospital corridor, the first doctor proceeded to the door at the end of the hall while the other two stayed behind. He opened the door and quietly stepped inside.
Marc lay still on the bed, his pleasant face drawn and pale against the pillow. Julie sat beside the bed, a classic figure of silent grief, her blond, beauty drained with uncomprehending fright. She did not cry. Nor did she move as the doctor walked toward her from the door.
“Mrs. Pillsworth ...” the doctor said, but Julie remained motionless. He moved closer to her and placed his hand gently on her shoulder. “We’ve just seen the X-ray.” At this Julie looked up. “We’ll have to operate instantly. The preparations are being made now.” He paused. “The chances for success are negligible.”
Julie nodded dazedly. “I know,” she whispered. “I know ...”
She did not resist as the doctor took her arm and guided her to the door. At the last moment, though, she paused and looked back at the lean face on the pillow.
“He looks so peaceful,” she said. “He looks so content. Does a dying man ever dream, doctor?”
EVEN Marc himself could not have fitted a positive answer to Julie’s question. Did he dream? Or had he merely retreated from the world to a realm of absolute reality? He didn’t know himself.
He remembered passing through caverns of roaring darkness, only to be caught up by a tongue of searing flame and hurled into some obscure dimness where it seemed that all the thought, melody, all the remembered sensation of a lifetime writhed about him like vague forms, one interposed upon the other, in unpatterned confusion.
But now these entangled vagaries faded away and suddenly he found himself
sitting on a green slope at the outer perimeter of a grove of graceful trees. A blue mist drifted lightly up the far rise to soften the horizon. Marc was no stranger to this place for he had visited it often. He felt no dismay at finding himself again in the valley of his own mind. Indeed, through the last few years, it had become as familiar to him as his own home or office. So had the redheaded minx who found her existence there.
Marc stirred and looked around. The landscape was uninhabited. No lovely, lightly clad figure appeared on the horizon, no lithe form emerged from the groves and ran toward him.
Marc frowned anew over the improbable fact of Toffee. Certainly she existed in his mind, a constant and consistent product of his imagination. That was perfectly easy to understand. The parts of it, though, that he never quite got used to were her periods of existence outside his mind, in the world of actuality.
What Marc had never been able to really comprehend was that his mind could project into the physical world a physical being—to such an extent that her existence was not only apparent to himself but also to everyone else who came within the radius of the mental vibration which produced the girl.
The question in Marc’s mind, then, was whether Toffee really existed, was truly real, or whether she was merely an hallucination, a sort of contagious hysteria.
Toffee’s personality always got in the way of the answer. The girl was infinitely distracting, from the pert aliveness of her quick green eyes to the full redness of her lips. Beyond that there was the almost shameful perfection of her supple young body. These things blocked analytical thought. Then, too, there was her unerring instinct for roaring, bounding madness, and her absolute contempt for the logical, the moral or the conservative. Toffee, in brief, was at once brash, embarrassing, impetuous, warm, highhanded, endearing, maddening and completely unforgettable. So to all practical purposes, then, she was real; the matter of Toffee’s source was pallidly unimportant next to the vivid fact of Toffee herself.
Marc stretched luxuriously and got to his feet, but as he did so he peered around toward the green obscurity of the forest. There was still no movement, no sound. He frowned quizzically. This wasn’t at all usual. Always before Toffee had been there to greet him almost at the instant of his arrival. Another time she would be swarming all over him by now.
HE shrugged and started aimlessly up the rise. At first he climbed unhurriedly, but as he drew nearer the trees his gait quickened. At the outskirts of the forest he found himself pausing to listen, but there was no sound. The feathery branches swayed in silent grace before him. A small concern began to trickle into his mind.
The blue mists broke smoothly before his stride as he entered the cool enclosure of the forest. Again he paused.
“Toffee ...?” he found himself calling.
There was no answer.
He shoved ahead, and now there was a sort of anxiety in his step, and he took care not to break the stillness lest Toffee answer. An odd feeling of bereavement came over him, though he told himself it was foolish. After all, the girl was entirely imaginary, and a pack of trouble into the bargain. Then suddenly he stopped.
An odd murmuring seemed to come from the left. He moved in that direction, stopped to listen, then hurried on. Ahead he saw a dim lightness sketched through the trees, a suggestion of a clearing obscured by the dense branches. He approached it, parted the foliage and looked out. He stopped short.
Toffee sat in the middle of the clearing, her legs folded under her. Her eyes were closed and one slender hand was pressed to her forehead in an attitude of labored concentration. Her slight tunic, an emerald transparency at best, did little to conceal the impertinent perfection of her figure. She was leaning forward just a bit, and her flaming hair hung loose over her shoulders. She seemed to be chanting something to herself, though Marc couldn’t make it out.
“Toffee ...?” he said, and stepped forward to brace himself against the inevitable rush of brash affection.
The girl opened her eyes and looked around hastily.
“Sit down somewhere,” she said, “and be quiet.”
“Huh?” Marc asked.
Toffee didn’t answer. Instead, she closed her eyes, swayed back lightly on her shapely haunches and began the muttered chant anew.
Marc swayed a trifle himself, with astonishment—and perhaps a tinge of disappointment. This wasn’t like Toffee at all, not by a long shot. He moved slowly to her side and gazed down at her intent, upturned face.
“Toffee ... ?” he hazarded.
She didn’t open her eyes. Her lips moved. “Molecules,” she said.
“What?” Marc asked.
“Molecules,” Toffee repeated. “Molecules ... molecules ...”
“Molecules?” Marc said. “What are you talking about?”
Toffee opened her eyes at this and looked up at him with anxious irritation.
“Please be still,” she said. “I’ve got to think about molecules exclusively. It isn’t helping any, your gabbing away in my ear.”
“But why?” Marc asked. “What about molecules?”
“Everything depends on them, that’s all,” Toffee said impatiently. “Now, just ...”
“But wait a min—!”
“Quiet,” Toffee said. “Don’t you realize that you’re tottering on the brink of death at this very moment? Me, too, for that matter.”
“Death?” Marc asked. “What are you talking about?”
TOFFEE looked at him aghast.
“Don’t you remember?” she asked. “Have you actually forgotten about being shot in the studio?”
Marc stared down at her in growing horror. A small, agonized memory screamed out of the dark inner shadows of his awareness.
“Oh, Lord!” he cried. “I’m dying!”
“And if those licensed butchers get to hacking you up, you’re a goner,” Toffee said anxiously. “I have the inside information. There isn’t much time. I’ve got to concentrate like wild.”
“But . . .!”
“Quiet!” Toffee broke in. “Please be quiet.” She closed her eyes again and her lips began to move as before. “Molecules,” she murmured.
Marc remained rigid at her side. Panic rose inside him and filled his throat. His impulse was to turn and run blindly—perhaps back to that dying mortal body—but his terror held him transfixed. Staring down at Toffee, he felt he might go mad in the next moment. In the next moment he was certain he had.
Just in front of Toffee, close to the mossy greenness, he caught sight of a quick flicker of light, a strange disembodied illumination that was at once its own source and product. As he watched it flickered again, grew brighter and became a steady radiance. He glanced back at Toffee, but her face had become fixed and masklike. Her lips no longer moved.
The radiance grew swiftly, to an almost unbearable brightness. In it there was a cold hard suggestion of metal. Then it began to take form and solidify. Marc blinked as the thing, whatever it was, grew slowly out of the gleaming brilliance.
First a cylinder emerged, about a foot long and four or five inches in diameter. For a moment the object seemed to have completed itself, but then, one at either end, a pair of funnel-shaped openings emerged. These completed, a small, two-way switch arrangement appeared at the top and in the center of the cylinder. After that, the radiance was gone and only the strange instrument remained, lying on the grass before Toffee as though cast there by a careless hand.
“What—!” Marc gasped.
Toffee’s perky features relaxed. She opened her eyes.
“Did it turn out all right?” she asked brightly. “Is it finished?”
“Huh?” Marc asked. He pointed. “You mean that?”
“Oh, wonderful!” Toffee cried, delighted. “It’s rather pretty the way it shines, isn’t it?”
“What is it?”
“How should I know?” Toffee said blandly. “Just a gadget. There’s never been one before.”
“You mean you just developed it out of your mind?”
“But what’s it for?”
“I’ll show you,” Toffee said. She pointed to a nearby tree. “See that?” Marc nodded. “Keep looking at it.”
TURNING to the tree, she held the cylinder toward it, so that one of the funnels was aimed squarely in its direction.
“Now watch,” she said, and pressed the switch.
Marc, staring at the tree in rapt attention, started with surprise. Suddenly the tree was gone with no sign that it had ever been there.
“What ... !”
“The next part is more important,” Toffee said.
“Next part?” Marc said dazedly. “But where is it? Where ... ?”
“See there?” Toffee said, and this time she pointed to the center of the clearing. “Watch.”
Holding the cylinder so that the opposite end was pointed to the clearing, she pressed the switch in the other direction. Instantly the tree shot into being exactly at the spot she had indicated.
Marc stared. It was the same tree—the one that had disappeared—and yet it was subtly different. It seemed greener now, more alive.
“What happened?” he asked “What did you do to it?”
“Molecules,” Toffee said, smiling. “I broke it down into molecules, then projected it again. The machine absorbed the tree in molecules, compressed them, reconstructed the faulty or destroyed ones, eliminated all harmful matter and retained the count to reestablish it in perfect balance and health. It worked fine.”
“My gosh!” Marc said.
Drawing close to him, Toffee twined her arms around his neck with knowing deliberation and drew his surprised face down close to hers.
The Complete Adventures of Toffee Page 61
