Just until things die down a little, he was saying.
Maude had a funny grin. Just until things die down.
Well it must of started snowing right after dark that afternoon, because when we all waked up the house was surrounded. I said, Good thing you got the meat in, Maude and she looked out, it was still blowing snow and it showed no signs of stopping, she looked out and said, I guess it is.
He was still asleep, he slept the day through except he stumbled down at dusk and dreamed over a bowl of my rabbit stew, I turned to the sink and when I looked back the stew was gone and the biscuits was gone and all the extra in the pot was gone, I had a little flash of fright, it was all disappearing too fast. Then Maude come over to me and hissed. The food, he's eating all the food and I looked at his brown hands and his tender neck and I said, It don't matter, Maude, he's young and strong and if we run short he can go out into the snow and hunt. When we looked around next time he was gone, he had dreamed his way through half a pie and gone right back to bed.
Next morning he was up before the light, we sat together around the kitchen table and I thought how nice it was to have a man in the house, I could look at him and imagine anything I wanted. Then he got up and said, Look, I want to thank you for everything, I got to get along now and I said, You can't, and he said, I got things to do, I been here long enough, but I told him You can't, and took him over to the window. The sun was up by then and there it was, snow almost to the window ledges, like we have every winter, and all the trees was shrouded, we could watch the sun take the snow and make it sparkle and I said, Beautiful snow, beautiful, and he only shrugged and said, I guess I'll have to wait till it clears off some. I touched his shoulder. I guess it will. I knew not to tell him it would never clear off, not until late spring; maybe he guessed, anyway he looked so sad I gave him Father's silver snuffbox to cheer him up.
He would divide his time between Maude and me, he played Rook with her and made her laugh so hard she gave him her pearl earrings and the brooch Father brought her back from Quebec. I gave him Grandfather's diamond stickpin because he admired it, and for Christmas we gave him the cameos and Father's gold-headed cane. Maude got the flu over New Year and Arnold and me spent New Year's Eve together, I mulled some wine and he hung up some of Mama's jewellery from the centre light, and touched it and made it twirl. We lit the candles and played the radio, New Year's Eve in Times Square and somebody's Make-believe Ballroom, I went to pour another cup of wine and his hand was on mine on the bottle, I knew my lips was red for once and next day I gave him Papa's fur-lined coat.
I guess Maude suspected there was something between us, she looked pinched and mean when I went in with her broth at lunch, she said, Where were you at breakfast and I said, Maude it's New Year's Day, I thought I would like to sleep in for once. She was quick and spiteful. You were with him. I thought, If she wants to think that about me, let her, and I let my eyes go sleepy and I said, We had to see the New Year in, didn't we? She was out of bed in two days, I have never seen anybody get up so fast after the flu. I think she couldn't stand us being where she couldn't see what we was up to every living minute. Then I got sick and I knew what torture it must have been for her, just laying there, I would call Maude and I would call her, and sometimes she would come and sometimes she wouldn't come and when she finally did look in on me I would say, Maude, where have you been and she would only giggle and not answer. There was meat cooking all the time, roasts and chops and chicken fricassee, when I said Maude, you're going to use it up, she would only smile and say, I just had to show him who's who in the kitchen, he tells me I'm a better cook than you ever was. After a while I got up, I had to even if I was dizzy and like to throw up, I had to get downstairs where I could keep an eye on them. As soon as I was up to it I made a roast of venison that would put hair on an egg and after that we would vie with each other in the kitchen, Maude and me. Once I had my hand on the skillet handle and she come over and tried to take it away, she was saying, Let me serve it up for him. I said, you're a fool, Maude, I cooked this and she hissed at me, through the steam, it won't do you no good, Lizzie, it's me he loves, and I just pushed her away and said, you goddam fool, he loves me, and I give him my amethysts just to prove it. A couple of days later I couldn't find neither of them nowhere, I thought I heard noises up in the back room and I went up there and if they was in there they wouldn't answer, the door was locked and they wouldn't say nothing, not even when I knocked and knocked and knocked. So the next day I took him up in my room and we locked the door and I told him a story about every piece in my jewel box, even the cheap ones, when Maude tapped and whined outside the door we would just shush, and when we did come out and she said, All right, Lizzie, what was you doing in there, I only giggled and wouldn't tell.
She shouldn't of done it, we was all sitting around the table after dinner and she looked at me hard and said, You know something, Arnold, I wouldn't get too close to Lizzie, she has fits. Arnold only tried to look like it didn't matter, but after Maude went to bed I went down to make sure it was all right. He was still in the kitchen, whittling, and when I tried to touch his hand he pulled away.
I said, Don't be scared, I only throw one in a blue moon.
He said, That don't matter.
Then what's the matter?
I don't know, Miss Lizzie, I just don't think you trust me.
Course I trust you, Arnold, don't I give you everything?
He just looked sad. Everything but trust.
I owe you so much, Arnold, you make me feel so young.
He just smiled for me then. You look younger, Miss Lizzie, you been getting younger every day I been here.
You did it.
If you let me, I could make you really young.
Yes, Arnold, yes.
But I have to know you trust me.
Yes, Arnold.
So I showed him where the money was. By then it was past midnight and we was both tired, he said, Tomorrow, and I let him go off to his rest.
I don't know what roused us both and brought us out into the hall but I bumped into Maude at dawn, we was both standing in our nightgowns like two ghosts. We crept downstairs together and there was light in the kitchen, the place where we kept the money was open, empty, and there was a crack of light in the door to the cold-room. I remember looking through and thinking. The meat is almost gone. Then we opened the door a crack wider and there he was, he had made a sledge, he must of sneaked down there and worked on it every night. It was piled with stuff, our stuff, and now he had the door to the outside open, he had dug himself a ramp out of the snow and he was lashing some home-made snowshoes on his feet, in another minute he would cut out of there.
When he heard us he turned.
I had the shotgun and Maude had the axe.
He said, You can have all you stuff.
We said, We don't care about the stuff, Arnold. How could we tell him it was our youth he was taking away?
He looked at us, wall-eyed. You can have it all, just let me out.
You said you loved us, Arnold.
He was scrabbling up the snow ramp. Never mind what I told you, let me out of here.
He was going to get away in another minute, so Maude let him have it with the axe.
Afterwards we closed the way to the outside and stood there and looked at each other, I couldn't say what was in my heart so I only looked at Maude, we was both sad, sad, I said, The food is almost gone.
Maude said, Everything is gone. We'll never make it to spring.
I said, We have to make it to spring.
Maude looked at him laying there. You know what he told me? He said, I can make you young.
Me too, I said. There was something in his eyes that made me believe it.
Maude's eyes was aglitter, she said, The food is almost gone.
I knew what she meant, he was going to make us young. I don't know how it will work in us, but he is going to make us young, it will be as if the fits had never took me, never
in all them years. Maude was looking at me, waiting, and after a minute I looked square at her and said, I know.
So we et him.
LUCIFER by E. C. Tubb
It was a device of great social convenience and everyone used it. Everyone, in this case, meaning the Special People all of whom were rich, charming and socially successful. Those who had dropped in to study an amusing primitive culture and those who, for personal reasons, preferred to remain on a world where they could be very large fish in a very small sea.
The Special People, dilettantes of the Intergalactic Set, protected and cosseted by their science, playing their games with the local natives and careful always to preserve their anonymity. But accidents can happen even to the superhuman. Stupid things which, because of their low order of probability, were statistically impossible.
Like a steel cable snapping when the safe it was supporting hung twenty feet above the ground. The safe fell, smashing the sidewalk but doing no other damage. The cable, suddenly released from strain, snapped like a whip, the end jerking in a random motion impossible to predict. The odds against it hitting any one particular place were astronomical. The odds against one of the Special People being in just that spot at that exact time were so high as to negate normal probability. But it happened. The frayed end of the cable hit a skull, shredding bone, brain and tissue in an ungodly mess. A surgically implanted mechanism sent out a distress call. The man's friends received the signal. Frank Weston got the body.
Frank Weston, anachronism. In a modern age no man should have to drag a twisted foot through 28 years of his life. Especially when he has the face of a Renaissance angel. But if he looked like an angel he was a fallen one. The dead couldn't be hurt but their relatives could. Tell a suicide's father that his dead girl was pregnant. A doting mother that the apple of her eye was loathsomely diseased. They didn't bother to check, why should they? And, even if they did, so what? Anyone could make a mistake and he was a morgue attendant not a doctor.
Dispassionately he examined the new delivery. The cable had done a good job of ruining the face—visual identification was impossible. Blood had ruined the suit but enough remained to show the wearer had brought pricey material. The wallet contained few bills but a lot of credit cards. There was some loose change, a cigarette case, a cigarette lighter, keys, wrist-watch, tiepin . . . They made little rustling noises as Frank fed them into an envelope. He paused when he saw the ring.
Sometimes, in his job, an unscrupulous man could make a little on the side. Frank had no scruples only defensive caution. The ring could have been lost before the stiff arrived in his care. The hand was caked with blood and maybe no one had noticed it. Even if they had it would be his word against theirs. If he could get it off, wash the hand free of blood, stash it away and act innocent the ring could be his. And he would get it off if he had to smash the hand to do it. Accidents sometimes made strange injuries.
An hour later they arrived to claim the body. Quiet men, two of them, neatly dressed and calmly determined. The dead man was their business associate. They gave his name and address, the description of the suit he was wearing, other information. There was no question of crime and no reason to hold the body.
One of them looked sharply at Frank. "Is this all he had on him?"
"That's right," said Frank. "You've got it all. Sign here and he's yours."
"One moment." The two men looked at each other then the one who had spoken turned to Frank. "Our friend wore a ring. It was something like this." He extended his hand. "The ring had a stone and a wide band. Could we have it please."
Frank was stubborn. "I haven't got it. I haven't even seen it. He wasn't wearing it when he came in here."
Again the silent conference. "The ring has no intrinsic value but it does have sentimental worth. I would be prepared to pay one hundred dollars for it and no questions will be asked."
"Why tell me?" said Frank coldly. Inside he felt the growing warmth that stemmed from sadistic pleasure. How he didn't know but he was hurting this man. "You gonna sign or what?" He turned the knife. "You think I stole something you call the cops. Either way get out of here!"
In the dog hours he examined what he had stolen. Sitting hunched in his usual corner of the canteen, masked by a newspaper, to the others in the place just another part of the furniture. Slowly he turned the ring. The band was thick and wide, raised in one part, a prominence which could be flattened by the pressure of a finger. The stone was flat, dull, probably a poorly ground specimen of the semi-precious group. The metal could have been plated alloy. If it was a hundred dollars could buy any of a dozen like it.
But—would a man dressed as the stiff had been dressed wear such a ring?
The corpse had reeked of money. The cigarette case and lighter had been of jewelled platinum—too hot to think of stealing. The credit cards would have taken him around the world and first class all the way. Would a man like that wear a lousy hundred-dollar ring?
Blankly he stared across the canteen. Facing his table three men sat over their coffee. One of them straightened, rose, stretched and headed towards the door.
Scowling Frank dropped his eyes to the ring. Had he thrown away a hundred dollars for the sake of some junk? His fingernail touched the protuberance. It sank a little and, impatiently, he pressed it flush.
Nothing happened.
Nothing aside from the fact that the man who had risen from the facing table and who had walked towards the door was suddenly sitting at the table again. As Frank watched he rose, stretched and walked towards the door. Frank pressed the stud. Nothing happened.
Literally nothing.
He frowned and tried again. Abruptly the man was back at his table. He rose, stretched, headed towards the door. Frank pressed the stud and held it down, counting. Fifty-seven seconds and suddenly the man was back at his table again. He rose, stretched, headed towards the door. This time Frank let him go.
He knew now what it was he had.
He leaned back filled with the wonder of it. Of the Special People he knew nothing but his own race had bred scientists and, even though a sadist, Frank was no fool. A man would want to keep something like this to himself. He would need to have it close to hand at all times. It would need to be in a form where he could use it quickly. So what better than in a ring? Compact. Ornamental. Probably everlasting.
A one-way time machine.
Luck, the fortuitous combination of favourable circumstances, but who needs luck when they know what is going to happen fifty-seven seconds in advance? Call it a minute. Not long?
Try holding your breath that long. Try resting your hand on a red-hot stove for even half that time. In a minute you can walk a hundred yards, run a quarter of a mile, fall three. You can conceive, die, get married. Fifty-seven seconds is enough for a lot of things.
For a card to turn, a ball to settle, a pair of dice tumble to rest. Frank was a sure-fire winner and in more ways than one.
He stretched, enjoying the shower, the impact of hot water driven at high pressure. He turned a control, and gasped as the water turned to ice and made goose pimples rise on his skin. A cold bath in winter is hardship when you've no choice, a pleasant titivation when you have. He jerked the control back to hot, waited, then cut the spray and stepped from the shower drying himself on a fluffy towel.
"Frank, darling, are you going to be much longer?"
A female voice with the peculiar intonation of the inbred upper classes; a member of the aristocracy by marriage and birth. The Lady Jane Smyth-Connors was rich, curious, bored and impatient.
"A moment, honey," he called and dropped the towel. Smiling he looked down at himself. Money had taken care of the twisted foot. Money had taken care of a lot of other things, his clothes, his accent, the education of his tastes. He was still a fallen angel but there was bright new gilt on his broken wings.
"Frank, darling!"
"Coming!" His jaws tightened until the muscles ached. The high-toned, high-stepping bitch! She'd fal
len for his face and reputation and was going to pay for her curiosity. But that could wait. First the spider had to get the fly well and truly in his web.
A silk robe to cover his nakedness. Brushes to tidy his hair. A spray gave insurance against halitosis. The stallion was almost ready to perform.
The bathroom had a window. He drew the curtains and looked at the night. Way down low a scatter of lights carpeted the misty ground. London was a nice city, England a nice place. Very nice, especially to gamblers—they paid no tax on winnings. And here, more than anywhere, high prizes were to be won. Not just for cash, that was for plebians, but make the right connections and every day would be Christmas.
London. A city the Special People held in high regard.
"Frank!"
Impatience. Irritation. Arrogance. The woman waited to be served.
She was tall with a peculiar angularity, an overgrown schoolgirl who should be wearing tweeds and carrying a hockey stick. But the appearance was deceptive. Generations of inbreeding had done more than fashion the distribution of flesh and bone. It had developed a ripe decadence and created a mass of seething frustrations. She was clinically insane but in her class people were never insane only "eccentric," never stupid only "thoughtless," never spiteful or cruel only "amusing."
He reached out, took her in his arms, pressed the ball of each thumb against her eyes. She strained back from the sudden pain. He pressed harder and she screamed from agony and the stomach-wrenching fear of blindness. In his mind a mental clock counted seconds. Fifty-one . . . fifty-two . . .
His fingers clamped down on the ring.
"Frank!"
He reached out and took her in his arms, heart still pounding from the pleasure of having inflicted pain. He kissed her with practised skill, nibbling her gently with his teeth. He ran his hands over her body, thin material rustling as it fell from her shoulders. He bit a little harder and felt her tense.
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