“Don't you know what you saw?” asked the investigator.
“No, I don't. That's the whole point of the matter: I will not accept, and will not tell, what I saw. Certainly I know that I'm held on suspicion of murder. But where is the body? You find it —anywhere—in any shape and I'll sure sleep better.”
In the second case, Ringer and Mayhall both seemed to know something of the disappearance of their employer, Lone. The three of them had walked in the plaza at evening. Only two of them had come back—and they much shaken.
“I know what I seemed to see,” Ringer ventured, “and I will not tell it. I'm not stubborn and I'm not sensitive to laughter, but I've sealed the whole thing off in a corner of my mind and I won't disturb it. I've hopes of hanging on to some pieces of my reason, and to open this again would set me back.”
“Loric?” Mayhall grunted. “I guess the damned fool swallowed himself. He's sure gone completely. Yes, I was with him, and I won't say any nearer than that what happened.”
“I simply will not explain,” said Immermann's advisor, Hebert. “He is gone, and I do not believe he will be back. No. If it was a hoax, I wasn't in on it, and I don't understand it. Do I believe that he wished to disappear for a private reason? Did he—wherever he has gone—go willingly? No, gentlemen, he did not go willingly! I never saw a man so reluctant to go.”
“I will not say what happened to Mr. Quinn,” said Pacheco, Quinn's assistant. “Of course I know that he was an important man — the most important in the world to me. You say that you will have answers out of me one way or the other? Then you'll have nothing but babbling out of a crazy man. “Why, yes, I suppose that you can hang me for murder. I don't know how those things are worked. It seems extreme, however. I thought there was a Latin phrase involved, about a body being required. Lay off now, fellows. I'm cracking up, I tell you.”
The investigators didn't lay off, but so far they had got nothing out of any of the witnesses. The four disappearances had to be as one, and the witnesses were certainly of a pattern.
“Are Extraterrestrials Kidnapping Our Top Talent?” the news banners read.
“Oh, hell,” said Umholtz in his cluttered office. “Hell,” said Easter in his clean one. They both knew that they were not men of any particular talent, and that the four men who had disappeared were not. They were shufflers and dealers in talent, that is all. In popular idea, they were responsible for the inventions they marketed. But off-Earth people—bent on such showy kidnappings—would have picked off seminal geniuses and not talent brokers. Four gone, two to go. Would the next one be Umholtz or Easter? Umholtz felt that it would be himself. He and his assistant, Planter, were worrying about it together when Shartel the aide came in to them.
“There's one to see you, Mr. Umholtz,” said Shartel with diffidence, for he was only half the bulk of his employer.
“An inventor?” Umholtz always sneered with his eyebrows when he spoke that word, although inventors were the only stock he dealt in.
“Who else comes to see us, Mr. Umholtz? This one may be worth investigating, though probably not for any invention he has.”
“A crackie? What does he have?”
“A crackie from end to end, and he won't say what he has.”
“We're not scanning clients these days, Shartel. I explain that to you every ten minutes. We're spending all our time worrying about the disappearances. Creative worry, Planter here calls it, and I don't appreciate his humor. I haven't time for a crackie today.”
“He got to see Claridge, Lone, Immermann, and Quinn—all a couple of hours before their disappearance.”
“All inventors make the same rounds. There's nobody else they can go to. And weren't there a couple of others who saw them all?”
“The others have all been checked out clean. This is the last one. The authorities have been looking for him and have left word to call if he showed. I'll ring them as soon as he's in here. There's a slim chance that he knows something, but he sure doesn't look it.”
“Send him in, Shartel. Has he a name?”
“Haycock. And he looks as though he had slept in one.”
Haycock didn't really have hay in his hair—that was only the color and lay of it. He had blue eyes with happy, dangerous gold specks in them, and a friendly and humorous sneer. He looked rather an impudent comedian, but inventors come in all sizes. He had something of the back-country hayseed in him. But also something of the panther. “I have here what may turn out to be a most useful device,” Haycock began. “Good. You have sent the underlings away. I never talk in their presence. They're inclined to laugh at me. I am offering you the opportunity to get in on the top floor with my device, Mr. Umholtz.”
“Haycock, you have the aspect of a man entranced by one of the four basic fallacies. If so, you are wasting my time. But I want to question you on a side issue. Is it true that you visited all four of them—Claridge, Lone, Immermano, and Quinn—on the days of their disappearances?”
“Sounds like their names. Four blind bats! None of them could see my invention at first. All of them laughed at it. Forget those fools, Umholtz. You can grow new fools, but what I have here is unique. It is the impossible invention.”
“By the impossible inventor, from the looks of you. I hold up four fingers, and one is it. Tell it in one word, Haycock!”
“Anti-grav.”
“Fourth finger. It's not even the season for anti-grav, Haycock. These things go in cycles. We get most of the anti-gravs in early winter. All right, I give you four seconds to demonstrate. Raise that table off the floor with your device.”
“It's barely possible that I could raise it, Umholtz, but not in four seconds. It would take several hours; instant demonstration is out. It's a pretty erratic piece of machinery, though I've had good luck on my last several attempts. It isn't really very impressive, and a lot of what I tell you you'll have to take on faith.”
“Haven't any, Haycock. Even a charlatan can usually put on a good show. Why the two pieces? One looks like a fishing tackle box, and the other like a sheaf of paper.”
“The papers are the mathematics of it, Umholtz. Look at the equations carefully and you'll be convinced without a demonstration.”
“All right. I pride myself on the speed I bring to spotting these basic errors, Haycock. They seem very commonplace equations, and then they break off when it's plain that you're getting nowhere. What happened to the bottom of these sheets?”
“Oh, my little boy ate that part of them. Just go ahead and you'll pick up the continuity again. Ah, you're at the end of it and you laugh! Yes, is it not funny how simple every great truth is?”
“I've seen them all, Haycock, and this is one of the most transparent. The only thing wrong with it is that it won't work and it's as full of holes as a seine.”
“But it does work part of the time, Umholtz, and we'll fill up the holes till it's practical. Well, is it a deal? It'll take a couple of years; but if you'll start plenty of money rolling, I'll get on with the project in a big way. Why do you roll your eyes like that, Umholtz? Is there a history of apoplexy in your family?”
“I will be all right in a moment, Haycock. I am afflicted by inventors, but I recover quickly. Let us set the gadget aside for the moment. Do you know where the four now-celebrated men have gone?”
“Papers said it was as if they had disappeared from the Earth. I imagine they sent a reporter or someone to check on it.”
“Take Claridge, for instance,” said Umholtz, “Did he seem disturbed when you last saw him?”
“I think he was the little one. He was kind of boggle-eyed, just like you were a minute ago. Kind of mad at me for wasting his time. Well pig's pants! I wasted my time, too! Blind as a bat, that man. Don't think he was convinced that my thing would work till maybe right at the end. Now let's get back to my instrument. It will do a variety of jobs. Even you can see where it would be useful.”
“It would be, if it worked, and it won't. Your piece of mathematics is
childish, Haycock.”
“Might be. I don't express myself well in that medium. But my machine does work. It creates negative gravity. That is, it works quite a bit of the time.”
Umholtz laughed. He shouldn't have, but he didn't know. And he did have an ugly sort of laugh.
“You laugh at me!” Haycock howled out. Gold fire popped from his eyes and he was very angry. The hayseed began to look like the panther. He touched his machine, and it responded with a sympathetic ping! to the anger of its master.
Umholtz was having fun with the now-blazing inventor.
“What do you do, Haycock-and-bull, turn that machine on and point it at something?” he guffawed. Umholtz enjoyed deriding a fellow.
“You hopeless hulk! I turned it on a minute ago when you laughed at me. It's working on you now. You'll be convinced in the end,” Haycock threatened.
“Do you not know, Haycock, that anti-grav is the standing joke in our profession? But they still come in with it, and they all have that same look in their eyes.”
“Umholtz, you lie! Nobody else ever had this look in his eye!”
That was true. The gold specks in the blue eyes glinted in a mad way. The eyes did not focus properly. It seemed to Umholtz that Haycock did not look at him, but through him and beyond. The man might well be a maniac—the sort of maniac who could somehow be involved in the four disappearances. Never mind, they were coming for him. They'd be here any minute.
“Anti-grav is a violation of the laws of mass and energy,” Umholtz needled.
“To change the signature of a mass from plus to minus is not a violation of any law I recognize,” said Haycock evenly. “It is no good for you to justify now, Umholtz, or to find excuses. It is no use to plead for your life. Are you deaf as well as blind and stupid? I told you plainly that the demonstration had already begun. You were all a stubborn lot, but I convinced all four of them in the end, and I'll convince you. I tell you, Umholtz, that entrenched stupidity makes me mad, and when I get mad I sure do get mean. I've cancelled you out, you open idiot! Umholtz, I'll send you away screaming!”
“Rather I'll send you away in that act,” Umholtz purred, for the men in black were now into the room, and they laid legal hands on Haycock.
“Take him away,” Umholtz grunted out. “He's fishier than Edward's Ichthyology.”
Haycock didn't go away screaming, but he went roaring and fighting. That man was very mean, and those gold specks in his eyes were really sulphur.
Say, they couldn't get a thing out of that fellow. Haycock was an odd one, but that was all. They went over him from the beginning. He was known in his own neighborhood for his unsuccessful inventions and for his towering temper, but he hadn't any bodies lying around, and he hadn't been anywhere near any of the four men at the time of their disappearances. He was a crackie from end to end, but he hadn't a handle they could get hold of.
“I am not ghoulish,” Umholtz said to his men Planter and Shartel, “but the disappearance of four of my five competitors has opened up some pretty obvious opportunities for me. Oh, other men will be designated to replace them, but it'll be a long time before they get that sharp.” “What did the crackie have this afternoon, Mr. Umholtz?” Planter asked him.
“It isn't worth mentioning. One of the oldest and silliest.” The three of them were walking in the park in the evening.
“I suddenly feel odd,” said Umholtz and he placed one hand on his head and the other on his paunch. “Something I ate for supper didn't agree with me.”
“It's the worry,” said Planter. “The disappearances have upset you. With the thought that you might be next on the list, there has been a great weight on you.”
“I really feel as though a great weight has been lifted off me,” said Umholtz, “but I don't like the feeling. I'm light-headed.”
“The walk will do you good,” Planter told him. “You look well to me. I've never seen you move with so light a step.”
“No, no, I'm sick,” Umholtz moaned, and he began to look up in the air as though fearful of an attack from that sector. “My feet don't track right. There's a lightness in me. My stomach is turning inside out. Lord, but it would be a long way to fall!”
Umholtz flopped his way forward, his feet slipping on the grass as though he had lost traction. He got hold of the tree—a small elm.
“I'm starting to go!” he howled in real terror.
He put a bear hug around the tree, locking on to it with both arms and legs. “Great dancing dogfish, don't let me fall,” he sobbed. “How did I ever get so high up?”
“Umholtz, you are six inches from the ground,” Planter told him. “The man's gone mad, Shartel. Let's pry his legs loose first. When we get his feet on the ground he may get over his mania about falling.”
“Fools! Fools! You'll let me fall all the way down,” Umholtz screamed, but he was looking upward, and his face was flushed as though all the blood had run to his head.
“He was right,” Umholtz sniffled wetly in an interlude from his screaming and sobbing. “I'm finally convinced.”
“There's one leg loose, Shartel,” said Planter as he worked on Umholtz, “but for some reason it seems pretty difficult to hold it to the ground. Now the other leg, and we'll set him down on his feet. Whoops! What's wrong? You're going up with him, Shartel!”
Shartel did go up with him at first, for Umholtz was much the heavier man. But Shartel broke away and fell a dozen feet down to the grass.
Umholtz grabbed a precarious lodging in the tree top, but he was shearing off fronds and branches and going fast.
“For God's sake, get me up from here!” Umholtz screamed, hanging upward from the topmost branch. He was like a tethered balloon tugging at its mooring.
“Throw a rope down to me! Do something!” he sobbed upsidedownly from the tree top. “I'll fall all the way, and I can't even see bottom.”
The topmost branch broke, and Umholtz fell off the world.
He fell upward into the evening sky, his scream dropping in pitch as he accelerated. He fell end over end, diminishing till he was only a dot in the sky. Then he was gone.
“What will we tell people—what—what can we say—however explain—how explain what we seen seem—” Shartel rattled, the bones in his body shaking like poker dice in a toss box. “You tell your lie and I'll tell mine,” Planter grumbled. “I'm crazy, but I'm not crazy enough to have seen that.”
Of the clique, only Easter was left. He was the most even-minded of the bunch and the least inclined to worry. It had been a peculiar series of events that had devoured his competitors, but he hadn't been able to base any theory on the disappearances. If he continued, he would be next. “I may try a little worrying myself,” he mused. “A man of my sort shouldn't neglect any field of cogitation. I'll give it a try. It should come easy for me today.”
So Easter worried, but he didn't do it well. It isn't easy if you haven't the lifetime habit of it.
Then a man came in to him unannounced. This was a man with hay-colored hair, with blue eyes with happy dangerous gold specks in them, a man with a friendly and humorous sneer. He had something of the hayseed in him. But also something of the panther.
“I have here what may turn out to be a most useful device,” Haycock began.
Nine Hundred Grandmothers
Ceran Swicegood was a promising young Special Aspects Man. But, like all Special Aspects, he had one irritating habit. He was forever asking the question: How Did it All Begin? They all had tough names except Ceran. Manbreaker Crag, Heave Huckle, Blast Berg, George Blood, Move Manion (when Move says “Move,” you move), Trouble Trent. They were supposed to be tough, and they had taken tough names at the naming. Only Ceran kept his own — to the disgust of his commander, Manbreaker.
“Nobody can be a hero with a name like Ceran Swicegood!” Manbreaker would thunder. “Why don't you take Storm Shannon? That's good. Or Gutboy Barrelhouse or Slash Slagle or Nevel Knife? You barely glanced at the suggested list.”
; “I'll keep my own,” Ceran always said, and that is where he made his mistake. A new name will sometimes bring out a new personality. It had done so for George Blood. Though the hair on George's chest was a graft job, yet that and his new name had turned him from a boy into a man. Had Ceran assumed the heroic name of Gutboy Barrelhouse he might have been capable of rousing endeavors and man-sized angers rather than his tittering indecisions and flouncy figures.
They were down on the big asteroid Proavitus — a sphere that almost tinkled with the potential profit that might be shaken out of it. And the tough men of the Expedition knew their business. They signed big contracts on the native velvet-like bark scrolls and on their own parallel tapes. They impressed, inveigled and somewhat cowed the slight people of Proavitus. Here was a solid two-way market, enough to make them slaver. And there was a whole world of oddities that could lend themselves to the luxury trade.
“Everybody's hit it big but you,” Manbreaker crackled in kindly thunder to Ceran after three days there. “But even Special Aspects is supposed to pay its way. Our charter compels us to carry one of your sort to give a cultural twist to the thing, but it needn't be restricted to that. What we go out for every time, Ceran, is to cut a big fat hog in the rump — we make no secret of that. But if the hog's tail can be shown to have a cultural twist to it, that will solve a requirement. And if that twist in the tail can turn us a profit, then we become mighty happy about the whole thing. Have you been able to find out anything about the living dolls, for instance? They might have both a cultural aspect and a market value.”
“The living dolls seem a part of something much deeper,” Ceran said. “There's a whole complex of things to be unraveled. The key may be the statement of the Proavitoi that they do not die.”
“I think they die pretty young, Ceran. All those out and about are young, and those I have met who do not leave their houses are only middling old.”
The Man Who Talled Tales: Collected Short Stories of R.A. Lafferty Page 55
