Astounding Science Fiction Stories: An Anthology of 350 Scifi Stories Volume 2 (Halcyon Classics)

by Various

  Jean drew back amazed. "Why, we would do no such thing!"

  "I know it, silly. I'm just negotiating."

  "No," he grumped, ready to be angry with her. He got up and strode around the studio. "The dog catcher! We will not lie to that snake!"

  Judy dropped the idea. "I've just now thought of another one. Here's an ultimatum we could give him and mean it, too. No more writing until we reach an agreement, or we will take away all his writing paper and reading matter for good!"

  "I'd thought of doing that," Jean conceded. "But isn't that a monstrous way to treat a literary genius?"

  "Not at all!" she protested. "By taking on a work that will require more time than his lifetime, he is defeating himself."

  "There's that way of looking at it," agreed the artist. "All right, Droozle," he called. "You heard us talking and you know we mean it. No more writing until we reach an agreement—or else!"

  Droozle quit writing at once. While the girl and the young artist watched anxiously, Droozle first wandered about uncertainly for a few minutes and then curled up on a newspaper and went to sleep.

  He slept all evening.

  "He has beaten us again," Jean Lanni told Judy Stokes resignedly when she arrived at his studio the following evening. He watched Droozle fascinatedly as the snake moved his restless tail over the margins of newspapers spread on the floor. "He doesn't know yet that I know. I discovered the fraud only by the merest accident."

  "He isn't writing?" she asked, perusing the newspapers for signs of Droozle's elegant script.

  "He most certainly is."

  "Where?"

  "Look at him!" Jean exclaimed, ignoring her question. "He's doing it again!"

  Droozle had ceased wriggling for the moment and lay there shaking violently, as though he had malaria. Then the paroxysm passed and he took up his restless movements again.

  "The poor genius," mourned Judy. "He must be sick with frustration."

  "Sick, my eye! That snake has learned to centrifuge part of his blood while it is in his body, so that the hemoglobin is separated out. The result is—invisible ink!"

  "Why, I'll tell that Droozle off!" raved Judy. "Here I sat feeling sorry for the little crumb!"

  Droozle did not mind. While she ranted, he brazenly began writing in visible ink once more.

  "How did you catch him at it?" she asked.

  "I used a piece of his newspaper to pick up a hot saw blade. The heat turned the invisible ink brown."

  "Droozle," said the girl passionately, looking down at the writer, "you know your master is in great need of funds. Where is your sense of loyalty and self-sacrifice for the one who has cared for you?"

  Droozle wrote poetically, "Is there Joy or any other good thing in Abnegation? Is there Beauty in Sacrifice? What Handsome purpose do these serve a being in his race with Time? His Days will soon be spent and they will come no more; thus my Criterion: Is This the most Joy gathering, Awareness touching, Beauty sensing act of which he is capable? None other is worthy of his time!"

  "Men are not so selfish," objected Jean.

  "I am not a man," wrote Droozle simply.

  Jean turned staunchly to the girl. "Judy, he has convinced me. I have been wrong about him. From now on he can write whatever he likes!"

  "Good-by to our hopes then?"

  "For the present, yes," assented Jean stoically, as he brought fresh sheets of paper from his desk for Droozle. "My landscapes might begin to sell after a while," he added without conviction.

  "Rotten little crumb," Judy fumed, glaring balefully at the snake. But Droozle wrote serenely on, his ruby eyes glowing enigmatically.

  Jean interposed magnanimously, "I see now that I have been inexcusably selfish with Droozle. I've kept him cooped up here, not wanting to bother with him while I was out on my painting trips. True, he was busy writing. But most of his knowledge of Earth has come from books; he can't write classics about living things unless he sees living things."

  As she picked up his trend of thought, Judy's face lost its resentful expression, and something like seraphic righteousness spread over it. "I see what you mean. Just how did you plan to make up for this shut-in feeling that poor Droozle must have been suffering so much from for all these years?"

  "Oh, Judy, I'm so glad you asked me!" He threw wide his arms to the world. "Out into the wind and the rain we shall go, and there I will draw my pictures while he observes; then into the roaring, brawling taverns we shall go, where life thrives in all its abundance. I've been robbing him by shutting him up here."

  "Jean, look at Droozle," the girl exclaimed, pointing. "He has stopped in the middle of a page and is starting on a fresh one."

  Droozle wrote, "Please not out into the wind and the rain. Please not into the roaring, brawling taverns where life thrives in all its abundance. I loathe shudder and tilt."

  "Loathing is no reason to turn away from reality, Droozle," admonished the artist. "Things are not nearly so bad as they used to be anyway. In all justice, shudder and tilt requires far less body-English than its ancestor, rock and roll."

  Droozle argued carefully, "You will recall I heard some of it once when you took me into a particularly dirty bar over in the west end of town. I feel, as a result, that I have observed this type of data to the extent that I can write of it competently without further study."

  "Oh, but that was months ago," enthused Jean. "The tunes have all changed by now. New pows appear on the tapes every week. You have missed countless sockeroos already, being cooped up here. You will bless me, once you get accustomed to the realities of life—see if you don't. Heigh-ho the wind and the rain!"

  The snake shuddered.

  "Careful, you'll centrifuge," Judy warned.

  Jean added reflectively, studying the ceiling, "Day by day, month by month, year by year, the reality of everyday existence etches deeply into our consciousness, if we will but have the fortitude to expose ourselves to it."

  Droozle unavoidably centrifuged this time, but did manage, with laborious lateral movements, to mix the hemoglobin back with the plasma again.

  He complained, "It is cruel of you to condemn me to this ugliness. I want only to read my books and hear a few simple fugues by Bach."

  "It is not cruel. You will have exactly the same existence I have chosen for myself as an artist. It is fundamental that if you are to write serious literature, you must rub your nose against the realities of life."

  Droozle wriggled unhappily for a moment. Finally he wrote, "Actually my writing may not be as serious as the title implies. Misunderstandings conceivably arise over titles. Instead of The Rise and Fall of the Western Plainsman, how about changing it to Those Lowdown Scaly Rustlers?"

  "That's really getting down to earth," cried Jean, concealing his elation. "But if you aren't going to write serious literature, who will I get to go on my painting trips with me?"

  "Take that female of yours," suggested Droozle. "If she refuses to go, inform her that we shall be forced to hand her over to the dog catcher."

  "Do you suppose he means that?" wondered Jean.

  "Of course not, silly," said Judy, bright-eyed. "He's only negotiating."

  * * *

  Contents

  THE CUCKOO CLOCK

  by Wesley Barefoot

  You know a murderer preys on your household--lives with you--depends on you--and you have no defence!

  Death wore the seeming of a battered Chevrolet.

  The child's scream and the screech of rubber on concrete knifed through two seconds of time before snapping, like a celery stalk of sound, into aching silence. The silence of limbo, called into being for the space of a slow heartbeat. Then the thud of running feet, the rising hubbub of many voices.

  "Give her air!"

  "Keep back. Don't try to move her."

  "Somebody call an ambulance."

  "Yeah, and somebody call a cop, too."

  "I couldn't help it." It was the driver of the ramshackle Chevvie. "She fell off the curb rig
ht in front of me. Honest to God, it wasn't my fault."

  "Got to report these things right away," said the grey-haired man beside him. "No cause to worry if you ain't to blame."

  "Probably no brakes," said a heavily accented voice, and another spoke as if on cue, "Probably no insurance, neither."

  "Let me through! Oh, please--" The woman's voice was on the edge of hysteria. She came through the crowd like an automaton, not seeing the people she shoved and elbowed aside.

  * * * * *

  "D.O.A.," said the woman heavily. Her face was no longer twisted with shock, and she was almost pretty again. "D.O.A. Dead on arrival, it means. Oh, Jim, I never knew they said that." Suddenly there were tears in her blue eyes. There had been many tears, now.

  "Take it easy, Jean, honey." Jim Blair hoisted his lank six feet out of the old rocker, and crossed the room, running a nervous hand through his cornshuck hair. She's only thirty, he thought, and I'm three years older. That's awfully young to have bred three kids and lost them. He took her in his arms. "I know how tough it is. It's bad enough for me, and probably worse for you. But at least we're sure they'll never be bomb fodder. And we still have Joanna."

  * * * * *

  She twisted away from him, her voice suddenly bitter. "Don't give me that Pollyanna stuff, Jim. 'Goody, goody, only a broken leg. It might have been your back.' There's no use trying to whitewash it. Our kids, our own kids, all gone. Dead." She began to sob. "I wish I were, too."

  "Jean, Jean--"

  "I don't care. I mean it. Everything bad has happened since Joanna came to live with us."

  "Darling, you can't blame the child for a series of accidents."

  "I know." She raised her tear-stained face. "But after all-- Michael, drowned. Then Steve, falling off the water tower. Now it's Marian." Her fingers gripped his arm tightly. "Jim, each of them was playing alone with Joanna when it happened."

  "Accidents, just accidents," he said. It wasn't like Jean, this talk. Almost-- His mind shied away from the word, and circled back. Almost paranoid. But Jean was stable, rational, always had been. Still, maybe a little chat with Doctor Holland would be a good idea. Breakdowns do happen.

  They both turned at the slamming of the screen door. Then came the patter of childish feet on the kitchen linoleum, and Joanna burst into the room.

  "Mommy, I want to play with Marian. Why can't I play with Marian?"

  Jean put her arm around the girl's thin shoulder. "Darling, you won't be able to play with Marian for--quite a while. You mustn't worry about it now."

  "Mommy, she looked just like she was asleep, then they came and took her away." Her lips trembled. "I'm frightened, Mommy."

  * * * * *

  Jim looked down at the dark eyes, misted now, the straight brown hair, and the little snub nose with its dusting of freckles. She's all we have left, poor kid, and not even ours, really. Helen's baby.

  He looked up as the battered cuckoo clock on the mantel clicked warningly. "Time for little girls to be in bed, Joanna. Run along now like a good girl, and get washed." Even as he spoke the miniature doors flew open and the caricature of a bird popped out, shrilly announcing the hour. It cuckooed eight times, then bounced back inside. Joanna watched entranced.

  "Bed time, darling," said Jean gently. "School tomorrow, remember? And don't forget to brush your teeth."

  "I won't. Goodnight, Mommy, goodnight, Daddy." She turned up her face to be kissed, smiled at them, and was gone. They listened to her footsteps on the stairs.

  "Jim, I'm sorry about the things I said." Jean's voice was hesitant, a little ashamed. "It is hard, though, you know it is-- Jim, aren't you listening? After all, you don't have to watch the clock now." Her smile was as labored as the joke.

  He smiled back. "I think I'll take a walk, honey. Some fresh air would do me good."

  "Jim, don't go. I'd rather not be alone just now."

  "Well." He looked at her, keeping his expression blank. "All right, dear. How about some coffee? I could stand another cup." And he thought: Tomorrow I'll go. I'll talk to Holland tomorrow.

  * * * * *

  "Let me get this straight, Jim." Holland's pudgy face was sober, his eyes serious. "You started out by thinking Jean was showing paranoid tendencies, and offhand I'm inclined to agree with you. Overnight you changed your mind and began thinking that maybe, just maybe, she might be right. Honestly, don't you suspect your own reasons for such a quick switch?"

  "Sure I do, Bob," Blair said worriedly. "Do you think I haven't beaten out my brains over it? I know the idea's monstrous. But just suppose there was a branch of humanity--if you could call it human--living off us unsuspected. A branch that knows how to eliminate--competition--almost by instinct."

  "Now hold on a minute, Jim. You've taken Jean's reaction to this last death, plus a random association with a cuckoo clock, and here you are with a perfectly wild hypothesis. You've always been rational and analytical, old man. Surely you can realize that a perfectly normal urge to rationalize Jean's conclusions is making you concur with them against your better judgment."

  "Bob--"

  "I'm not through, Jim. Just consider how fantastic the whole idea is. Because of a series of accidents you can't accuse a child of planned murder. Nor can you further hypothesize that all orphans are changelings, imbued with an instinct to polish off their foster-siblings."

  "Not all orphans, Bob. Not planned murder, either. Take it easy. Just some of them. A few of them--different. Growing up. Placing their young with well-to-do families somehow, and then dropping unobtrusively out of the picture. And the young growing up, and always the natural children dying off in one way or another. The changeling inherits, and the process is repeated, step by step. Can you say it's impossible? Do you know it's impossible?"

  "I wouldn't say impossible, Jim. But I would say that your thesis has a remarkably low index of probability. Why don't others suspect, besides you?"

  Jim spread his hands hopelessly. "I don't know. Maybe they do. Maybe these creatures--if they do exist--have some means of protection we don't know about."

  "You need more than maybes, Jim. What about Joanna Simmons' mother? According to your theories she should have been well off. Was she?"

  "No, she wasn't," Jim admitted reluctantly. "She came here and took a job with my outfit. Said she was divorced, and had lived in New York. Then she quit to take a position in California, and we agreed to board Joanna until she got settled. Warrenburg was the town. She was killed there quite horribly, in a terrible auto accident."

  "Have you any reason for suspecting skulduggery? Honestly, Jim? Or for labelling her one of your human--er--cuckoos?"

  "Only my hunch. We had a newspaper clipping, and a letter from the coroner. We even sent the money for her funeral. But those things could be faked, Bob."

  "Give me some evidence that they were faked, and I'll be happy to reinspect your views." Holland levered his avoirdupois out of his chair. "In the meantime, relax. Take a trip if you can. Try not to worry."

  Jim grinned humorlessly. "Mustn't let myself get excited, eh? Okay, Bob. But if I get hold of any evidence that I think you might accept, I'll be back. The last laugh and all that. Pending developments you take it easy, too. Don't let yourself get overworked. Stay out of the sun. So long now."

  "So long, Jim."

  * * * * *

  It was cool in the Warrenburg city hall, though outside the streets were sizzling.

  "Sorry, Mr. Blair," said the stout, motherly woman with the horn-rimmed glasses. "We've no record of a Helen Simmons. Nothing whatever." She closed the file with resolute finality.

  Jim stared at her. "Are you sure? There must be something. Mightn't there be a special file for accident cases? She was here in Warrenburg. She died here."

  The woman thinned her lips, shook her head. "If we had any information, it'd be right where I looked. There isn't a thing. Have you tried her last address? Maybe they could tell you something. We can't."

  "I'll try that next. Than
ks a lot."

  "Sorry we couldn't help you."

  He went out slowly.

  * * * * *

  872 Maple was a rambling frame house dozing on a wide flower-bordered lot. There was nothing sleepy about the diminutive woman who opened the door to Jim's knock. Snapping black eyes peered at him from a maze of wrinkles. A veined hand moved swiftly to smooth down the white hair that framed her face.

  "Looking for someone, young man?"

  "Just information, Mrs.--"

  "Collins, and it's Miss. Don't give out information about guests. You a bill collector?"

  "No, Miss Collins. As a matter of fact, I'm trying to check up on an old friend I lost track of. Helen Simmons. She lived at this address for a while."

  "Sure did. Well, come on in. Mind you, I don't usually do this, Mr.--"

  "Blair." Without any fanfare a bill changed hands.

  "Mr. Blair. Well, I can't tell you much. Try that green chair for size. What do you want to know?"

  * * * * *

  Jim studied the toe of his right shoe. His eyes were veiled. "I heard she was hurt, and hard up, and I was worried. My wife and I were friends of hers back east."

  "Hurt, hard up? Humph! Not likely, spendin' all her time drivin' that English car around. Takin' trips. I'm not sayin' she didn't mind her manners, though."

  "Did she have any close friends?"

  "She was chummy with Edith Walton, the girl that works for Doc Mendel. He's county coroner in his spare time. No men. Didn't fool around at all. I'd a known."

  * * * * *

  Behind Jim's stony eyes the pattern took clearer form, as if a mosaic approached completion. A mosaic of carefully planned events that totalled horror. He shivered as the outlines of his hunch filled in. Helen--what creatures were these? Helen--not dead, not poor,--carefully planting ostensible proof of her death and going on to a new role, a new life, in London or Paris or Rome. A free, untrammelled life. And her child--if child was the word--in his home, repeating the pattern. Eliminating competition as her mother undoubtedly had done. The competition--his and Jean's children! Changeling, changeling-- No, not that. Incubus! He shivered again.