The Man Who Talled Tales: Collected Short Stories of R.A. Lafferty

by R. A. Lafferty

  “I don't hear any slurred footsteps, Emil,” Sarpa said. “And what wooden passageways could they possibly be sounding in?”

  “Oh, oh, he's pounding on doors now,” Emil cried. “Somewhere he's breaking doors in. It's a piece of nerve-war he's launched against me. He has found out my childhood terror-profile. Well, such profiles are easily obtained now, thanks to the freedom-of-disclosure act. And I admit that the noise, the battering and splintering of wooden doors, does disturb me. I was just four years old when they splintered our doors and dragged my father out. Of course our doors here are steel-core with cross-link rubber-stone facing. But it was that old sound of splintering wooden doors that first impelled me to go into the security and break-proof business. Ah, that battering, splintering noise is coming over our own closed-circuit monitor! He's scoring points on me.”

  “But, Emil, I don't hear any such noises,” Sarpa Fuerst said.

  “Don't you really, dear? But Gatto will not bug me out with my own early fears. He's only a master-burglar, or a cat, or a ghost, or a fake. He's nothing to be frightened of. I have a short sword-epee only half a meter long. Oh, that's long enough to kill an elephant. Or a cat, or a ghost, or a master-burglar.”

  Well, just who was this Gatto, this master-burglar who bet his own life against the life of Emil Fuerst? One thing he was not, according to his reputation. He was not a man who made foolish bets. He was smart.

  “So am I!” Emil said out loud with a sudden outburst.

  Gatto had solved, or claimed to have solved, all the most intricate locks and alarms of ‘The Safety Fuerst Devices and Installations Enterprises’. He published many of these solutions in ‘Today's Burglar’, a fringy weekly journal for the gentry. And he ran come-on ads offering, for a price, the solution to the rest of them. It was the publication and offering for sale that hurt. And so a sort of duel had been joined between Gatto ‘The Cat Burglar’ and Emil Fuerst the safety-device man.

  “The ‘shadows’ of Gatto as he prowls through our grounds are real cats, live ones, big ones,” Emil was saying. “I believe that they are ocelots. They are part of the trademark that he has given himself in launching his image as ‘The Cat Burglar’. But how is he prowling our grounds without being electrocuted? And how do the cats do it? Oh, oh, one of them didn't escape it! Gatto is using live cats as extensions of his feeler-whiskers’, and one of them is a fried cat now.” “Where are you getting all that, Emil?” Sarpa asked him. “There's no such information on the screens. Oh, you're quite nervous, shaking nervous.”

  “I get the data from the infra-red sensors, of course. Oh, to be shaking nervous is to be finely sensing. I am sensing as finely as is Gatto with his cat-extensions.”

  “But I don't see anything like that on the sensor screens.”

  “You don't, Sarpa? You don't really? Then there is something wrong with you. Or with me. I thought that you could interpret sensor-screens competently.”

  Sarpa Fuerst was herself somewhat cat-like. She had a lazy swiftness of action and a slurred sharpness of voice. She was said to be magnificent in her physical attributes. She was such a woman as both the first-man and second-man at a complex of world-games would want very much. “The amplified audio pick-ups are full of static,” Emil said somberly.

  “You know that's impossible, Emil,” Sarpa told him. “Yours are the only completely static-free audio pick-ups in the world. You made them so.”

  “That's true. So then somebody is making pseudo-static noises for our audio to pick up. And our integrating detector has gone onto ‘third signal’. This means that Gatto has just done something that puzzles the detector and makes it ask for human advice. But what has he done? It looks to me as if he's still bogged down on our grounds, hugging some sort of island in the electrified ocean of trees and underbrush. Why isn't he dead, why isn't he dead? There are no such islands out there. There is nothing that can protect him from our ‘electrical corona wash’.”

  “Emil, don't be so jumpy. The detector has not gone on ‘third signal’. Nothing at all is happening, except maybe to you internally.”

  “Oh? I was sure for a moment that the detector had gone on ‘third signal’. I guess that it hadn't, but the whole detector is pretty fuzzy now. So are all the open-and-closed-circuit burglar alarms gone fuzzy. They aren't activated, but they've all developed a humming sound that is very close to the alarm signal.”

  “No, Emil, they haven't. They're absolutely silent.”

  “Oh, don't you hear the humming, Sarpa? And the ‘reassuring tone’ on the radio telephone has gone wrong. It's not nearly as reassuring as it was. And Gatto seems to have taken over the video scanner-screens. All the faces on it are his. Oh, those strange, round faces of his! There is Gatto as ‘Cat Burglar’. There is Gatto as four-legged ocelot. There is Gatto as ghost. And there is Gatto as relentless, giant, break-in person.”

  “Emil, we have no such things as video scanner-screens. You are losing your grip, my dear. That isn't good when you are playing what you say are dangerous games. But nobody can get into our strong house. You know that. Whatever tricks this Gatto seems to pull (and I am not even sure that there is such a person as Gatto), whatever deceptions he seems to work, if he was on the outside when the game began he is still on the outside, and he must remain on the outside. Remember that. God himself could not come into this house unless he knew the fourteen-point security code of tonight.”

  How did Emil Fuerst happen to be playing a dangerous, to-the-death game with the Master Burglar Gatto? How did they happen to lay their lives on the line as stakes in this game? Gatto had challenged Emil, and by publishing some of them and offering the rest of them for sale. That was a challenge that had to be answered. They agreed (the medium of their conversation was not too clear even to Emil, but he had dabbled in strange media before, and he supposed that Gatto had) to make a death game out of it. But if Emil were really sure of himself and of his devices, then it would be a danger-free game for him. Let the death be Gatto's!

  Emil had never seen this Gatto, nor perhaps had anybody else for certain. But the fact of being a mystery man didn't guarantee the winning of a duel. Emil was himself a mystery man in many ways.

  There was no way that Emil, on his impregnable plane, could lose the bet.

  But there was no way that Gatto, with his devious mind, could have made a foolish bet.

  “It's as though that damned cat could read my mind,” Emil complained once.

  “Nobody can really read minds,” junior partner Benedict Kingfisher had assured Emil. “There can be suggestions, there can be apprehensions, there can be fears if you let them be. An intruder can rattle the doors of the mind as he can rattle the doors of a building. And he can, somehow, introduce things into the mind. But he cannot carry things out of the mind, never. You know that you are secure, and I know it. And I will always be on the blue-line radio-telephone with ‘instant strike’ alarm, if ever it seems that he or anyone is coming close to the impossible invasion.”

  Yes, Benedict Kingfisher was a trustworthy associate and junior partner (“He's nearly as smart as I am,” Emil said once of Benedict), but why had he picked this time to be sick in bed with influenza? Or had Gatto picked this time to codify his challenge when the partner was weakened? Even so, Benedict was always on the hot-line radio-telephone, awake or asleep (he could monitor even while sleeping), well or ill.

  “Gatto cannot come all the way against me,” Emil was saying now. “Whatever devices of mine he clears, there will still be other devices that he cannot clear. Whatever doors he batters down, there will still be other doors that he cannot break. Even if he should break into this very room (I half desire that he would, even though I have a hidden horror of it), there is an even stronger room under the floor of this one, and he does not know about that.”

  “Maybe he does know about it,” Sarpa said.

  “Then we will go to that room together, and one of us will die there,” Emil said. “He may be my equal at this lock-ou
t break-in game, even though I have all the built-in advantages of playing on my home court. But if we go into that lower room together, we will play there a game at which I have no equal. He dies there, if he comes that far.”

  “Why are you so nervous then, Emil?” Sarpa asked him.

  “Because it is part of the game, perhaps. Because the delight of the game is enhanced by my very nervousness. But I have him every way the game may turn. I have assurance after assurance on my side. And I cannot be isolated.

  “What? No, oh no! Gatto is not pinned down on our electrified grounds. He is moving again, or something is moving. He moves too fast. It really seems as if there is more than one of him now. But likely he is throwing false images to confuse our data. One image of his is very near to our front door. Sarpa, he's nearly at the front door!”

  “Emil, our strong house does not have a front door, properly speaking. What looks like a front door is not a door at all. You know that. You designed it. Entry is by another way. Don't be nervous.”

  “Ah, I have the most modern defenses in the world. But it's as though Gatto isn't recognizing the modern at all. His is a primitive assault. And as to the more primitive defenses, do I have them?

  “But I cannot be isolated. I am like a person hidden in the sea, but my opponent has to look for me on the surface. A diver (and I am a depth diver in this) does not work in isolation, is not left on his own. He always has a trusted associate in the boat on the surface to monitor his life-lines. Benedict Kingfisher, even though he is home with the flu these last two days, is still my trusted associate in my boat. The life-line between us is the radio-telephone blue-line system. One station is here with me. The other station is with Benedict wherever he is. And an extension of my station here is in the strong room below me. It is the station of the last recourse. Ah, that last fallback point is the strongest of all! Whether or not I am the best player in the world at the keep-out break-in game, I am the best player in the world at the end-game of the short points, the duel with the sword-epees. I am the best fencer in the world.”

  “I am not sure that you are, Emil.”

  “With my own short epee, in my own iron room down below, and by my own rules which that room enforces, I am the best in the world. There is nothing in that lower room except the iron walls, the tricky light that wouldn't be understood by an opponent, and the two short epee-weapons hanging on the wall. Have I not been fencing ten hours a week in that room with our young and very strong man Benedict Kingfisher? Was he not International Collegiate Champion with the Long Epee? And none but the two of us have ever seen or held these short epees. Am I not the clear master of Benedict with this weapon?”

  “You can't be sure that you are, Emil. Besides, you've missed two days of practice with them now.”

  “And Gatto, whoever he is, has missed five years of practice with them, years when I have driven myself to very hard practice. He has never held a short epee in his hand. He has never heard of the weapon. I almost wish there were some way he could break in, so we could have that death battle in that room beneath this trapped floor.”

  Sh-klaup… sh-klaup… sh-klaup…

  “Sarpa, Gatto is all the way to the house! He's reaching for the doorknob. Something is pinching my life-line.”

  “Stop shaking, Emil. There isn't any front doorknob,” Sarpa spoke in exasperation and she flicked her tongue. Her tongue was very long, very slim, beautifully snake-like. No, she was right. Of course there wasn't any front doorknob. And yet a hand, that of a very high intensity person, was grasping the knob.

  “He's turning the knob, Sarpa.”

  “Oh, I suppose so, if you want to think so. You're frightened, Emil.”

  “No. To be frightened is to lose. I will not lose.”

  If you have ever heard a heavy knob turned by a strong hand, you heard it now. If you have ever heard a massive door flung open, with ripping and splintering of the wood as bars are torn from their sockets, you heard it now.

  “He's broken in. He's in the downstairs vestibule, Sarpa.”

  “There isn't any downstairs vestibule, Emil. And stop shaking. Oh, I'm shaking too. Whatever it is, it's in the house now.”

  Sh-klaup… sh-klaup… sh-klaup…

  “You think that I'm imagining those footsteps, Sarpa?” Emil asked with a touch of quaver in his voice.

  “No. I think that I'm imagining them,” she said with a nervous flick of her slender red tongue. “But they have quite a solid sound now.”

  “That huge cat-face of Gatto is on all the screens now, Sarpa! Don't tell me that you don't see it.”

  “I see it. Holy Sainte Hildegarde, how I see it!”

  There was a slight change in the sound of the stalking footsteps then.

  Sh-klaup-kuk… sh-klaup-kuk… sh-klaup-kuk…

  The feet were sluffing into something, wooden stair risers.

  “He's coming up the wooden stairs,” Emil Fuerst yowled. “One hundred impossible electronic barriers he has to have passed, and he's coming up the wooden stairs to this level. Yes, I know there aren't any wooden stairs.”

  Sh-klaup-kuk… sh-klaup-kuk… sh-klaup… sh-klaup…

  The footsteps were up the stairs now, past all the risers, and they were moving down the hallway to the fortress door. Sarpa Fuerst began to scream. The slurred klump of the feet came nearer and nearer.

  “Benedict, Benedict,” Emil cried into his radio-telephone blue-line station. “Whether as a ghost or as a cat or as a man, he's in the house and coming down the hallway to this room. Benedict, I want to see your face!”

  Sh-klaup… sh-klaup…

  The round face of Benedict Kingfisher came on the blue-line viewer. “Relax, Emil,” that round face said. “The electronic net hasn't been penetrated at any point, not by cat-flesh, not by man-flesh, not by ghost-flesh either. The 26,000 angstrom range where ghosts have their movement and life does not show any penetration at all, nor does any other range. Nothing has passed through anywhere. I'm sick in bed, Emil, but the verification of all our instrumentation has its terminals in my blue-line station as much as in yours.”

  Sh-klaup… sh-klaup… Those feet, those feet!

  “Benedict, can you see into this room?” Emil called into the blue-line.

  “Of course I can,” Benedict answered, slightly exasperated.

  “Then do you see that the doorknob is turning?”

  “Oh, that screaming of Sarpa's!” Benedict Kingfisher protested. “Tell her to shut up, Emil. Emil, there isn't any doorknob. No such archaic things were used in your house. Believe me, Emil, nobody and nothing has entered your house tonight.”

  The doorknob did turn then. There was the popping of minor pieces of metal as when a lock is stripped and broken by power torque. Then there was a tearing and splintering of wood. Consternation, consternation—that great oaken door (insanity, insanity, there shouldn't be any oaken door in this room) was thrown open with a resounding bang and roar.

  And the Cat Burglar, the Ghost Cat, the Master Breaker-Man, the Gatto Himself stood there, large and lowering, bristling, boiling with threat and with building murder.

  The screaming of Sarpa reached new heights, and then it began to separate into several elements.

  “Benedict, Benedict, send blue-line help instantly!” Emil wavered the words into the radio-phone. “Benedict, don't you see him!”

  “Oh sure,” the round face of Benedict Kingfisher said on the viewer. “I see him, and I also see through him. That's the test, Emil. Can't you see through him?”

  “Y-y-yes.”

  “Then he isn't there, Emil. Oh, stop shaking! If you can see through him, then he isn't there.”

  There was something unusual about the face of Benedict Kingfisher on the blue-line viewer. And there was something unusual about the see-through face of the huge cat, man, ghost, burglar, Gatto. Take the flesh mask off Gatto, and his was the same face as—

  “H-h-he isn't here? Wh-wh-where is he then?” Emil jittered?

 
; “Oh, I'm down here, Emil, in the room just below you,” the round face of Benedict Kingfisher said from the viewer. “Sarpa, stop that damned screaming. It's served its purpose well enough, but stop it now. Send Emil down here.”

  The screaming of Sarpa Fuerst had splintered into laughter, quicksilver laughter, flickering-red laughter, serpentine laughter…

  “This is the way you wanted it, Emil,” she chortled through the waterfall of her own glee. “No one and nothing has come into the house tonight, but someone was already here. Down you go, dear. I really do want the best-man-at-this-gaming for my man. I want to be sure I have the best.”

  She tripped the floor trap. And the fear-rattled Emil Fuerst, along with the see-through fat image Gatto, fell through the trapped floor into the iron room below. And the sharp-laughing Sarpa fell after them.

  “Epilogs should be quick and neat,” said Benedict Kingfisher as he held one short sword-epee in his right hand and threw the other one to Emil Fuerst with his left.

  Why hadn't Emil realized that Benedict and the cat-ghost looked so much alike? And now they coalesced. Benedict put on the Gatto transparency as though he were putting on a light garment.

  “We need have no tedious disposing of loose ends,” Benedict said with a purring voice. He was of a very old breed himself, at least as old as the mastiff totem of Emil. He was holding his short epee with more assurance than ever before, with total assurance. “The implications of Gatto and myself being the same person will explain all the loose ends. Sure the cat burglar could solve all the locks and codes and systems. He had been in on the designing of all of them. Sure the cat burglar could cause irregularities in the data-receptors tonight. He had been tampering with the receptors for two days while you thought him home sick in bed. Sure the cat burglar could effect the footfalls and visual appearances. He knew all there was to know about the audio and video apparatus in this house.”