Infinity One

by Robert Hoskins (Ed. )

  In the moonlight a young tiger sped swiftly away across the fields.

  R. A. Lafferty made his permanent mark on science fiction with the appearance of his first novel, Past Master. In this touching (in more than one sense) tale of a far tomorrow, he proves that the old ways . . . and the old cons ... are frequently best...

  HANDS OF THE MAN

  R. A. Lafferty

  His forearms were like a lion’s, sinuewed and corded and mountainous. One could hardly help looking at them, and he was looking at them himself. His hands, no less remarkable than his forearms, lay palm-up on the bar.

  The hands of the man were intricately and powerfully fashioned; on one of the lesser fingers of the left hand there was a heavy gold band three-quarters of an inch thick, and wide. The rest of him was a stocky skyman, fair and freckled. He was blue-eyed and lightly lashed and browed, and he gazed at his hands like a boy.

  It was a tavern frequented by skymen and traveling men of all sorts. A spotter had seen the man; and now he came and they talked.

  “You are very interested in something,” said the spotter Henry Hazelman.

  “Not at all,” the skyman said. “A man who is deeply interested has the same appearance as one who is completely absent-minded, as was my case. I was staring at my hands, and both they and my mind were empty. But before I had left off thinking, I was musing on the contrast between the two of them.”

  The skyman was named Hodl Oskanian, and the name was the least odd thing about him.

  “I was looking at my left hand which I was born with,” continued Hodl, “and at my right hand which I made myself. It is the saying of the palmists that we form the lines of our right hand by the tide of our lives.

  “You will notice, my friend, that all the lines of my left hand are graven so deeply that a coin could be stood up in any of them when the hand is flat. Get a hold on your emotions, man, and then look at that Head Line! Should it not betoken genius! You would say that a man with a Head Line like that would be capable of anything, and you would be right. Hold onto your eyeballs with both hands when you take a look at that Heart Line! Notice the Generosity Passage where it goes between the Mountains of Integrity and Nobility. Doesn’t it shake you a little to stand beside a man with a Heart Line like that?"

  “Yes, something does shake me a little,” Henry Hazel-man said.

  “Look at that Humility Bump!” Hodl all but sang. “I’ll bet I’ve got more humility than any man in creation! If I ever met a man with a hand like mine I’d follow him to the end of the universes just to shake it. Steady yourself now, friend. Look at that Life Line! It curves clear around the heel of my hand like the Ocean-River circling the ancient world. I couldn’t die at less than a hundred and twenty with a Life Line like that.”

  “Yes, it is quite a hand,” said Henry Hazelman.

  “But not the right hand,” said Hodl. “Notice that, while it also is one of the most fascinating hands in the worlds, it is not up to the left which I was born with. It is the hand of a compromised genius. Is there any other kind? It is like the hand of a Leonardo or an Aquinas or an Eoin Dinneen or an Aristotle or a Willy McGilly—the hand of a man capable of reaching the ultimates, but perhaps not of surpassing them. This comparative fuzziness of line is to be found in the right hands of all really great men. Even ive fall short of our destiny. Have you the price of a beer?”

  “Yes, here, give my friend a beer,” Henry cried to the bar-man. It was the green beer recently introduced from

  Barathron, and it had become a favorite of the skymen.

  And when the left hand of Hodl flicked out to take the beer, Henry Hazelman saw what he had been waiting to see. He went away.

  Henry went to David Daumier the diamond factor.

  “It’s as big as a hen’s egg, David, my word on it,” Henry was insisting.

  ‘‘To you all rocks are as big as hens’ eggs,” David said. “I wonder I never see such small eggs. It would take a hundred of them to make a dozen.”

  “I’ve never given you a wrong turn, David, and I never saw the like of this one.”

  “And probably glass.”

  “Wouldn’t I know the difference?”

  “Yes, you would know the difference.” And already David Daumier was going along with Henry the spotter.

  “There are little islands in that Head Line.” Hodl still talked to himself and to several who listened in both amusement and admiration. “In anyone but myself it would mean that a person with such islands in his Head Line was a little peculiar. Good afternoon, sir, is my conversation worth a beer to you? I have said it myself a hundred times that I’m the most interesting person I ever listened to.”

  “Yes, your talk is worth that,” said David Daumier. “Bar-man, fill my friend again. That is a gaudy little ring you have there, skyman. The stone is simulated, of course.”

  It was the finest diamond that David had ever seen, and he had traded as many diamonds as any man in the universes.”

  “There’s deception in you,” Hodl rebuked him. “Let us be open. You are a professional. There’s a little blue light that appears behind the eyes of a professional when he sees a stone like this. Did you know that? You sparkle from it. And the stone is not simulated.”

  “A little too yellow.”

  “Golden rather. All great diamonds are golden. The small blue ones are for children.”

  “We will assume it is hot. Fortunately I can handle it, at somewhat of a discount, of course.”

  “If it were hot and of this size, would you not know about it?”

  “It isn’t from Earth,” said David. “I doubt that it’s of any trabant or asteroid. It hasn’t the orange cast of those of Ganymede, and I’d know a diamond from Hokey Planet anywhere. Is it from Astrobe? Pudibundia? Bellota?”

  “No, it isn’t from any of the Hundred Worlds, nor from any licensed planet. I didn’t pick it up in any such backyards. It’s from a distance.”

  “Has it a name?”

  “A private name only.”

  “Likely it has a flaw.” •

  “If it had a dozen it would still be peerless. But it has none.”

  “Not even a built-in curse?”

  “I have worn it in health. I believe it is lucky.”

  “Since we admit it has value, why are you not afraid to wear it openly?”

  “I’m a full-sized man, and armed, and in my wits. I would not be easily taken.

  “It is too large to market,” said David, “and diamonds are down.”

  “To the buyer, the market is always down.”

  “If you would set a price—to turn the conversation to the point.”

  “Oh, if you like it, I’ll give it to you,” Hodl said. David ordered a drink to settle his nerves before he answered.

  “For a moment I didn’t recognize your opening,” he told Hodl after he had sipped and swallowed. “Skyman, I would bet that you have haggled prices on Trader Planets.”

  “Aye, I’ve dealt with the gentlemen there and found them not too sharp,” said Hodl. “I left the Traders, shirtless and barefoot, it’s true, but not much worse than I was when I went there. I’m an easy mark.”

  “I wouldn’t like to play poker with you.”

  “It is not my game. I am too guileless.”

  “Would five thousand interest you?”

  “Not very much,” Hodl said looking at the Bump of Rectitude of his right hand. “I wouldn’t stoop to pick it off the floor, but if it were in my pocket I wouldn’t trouble to throw it away.”

  “Yes, you have haggled on Trader Planets. I could double it, but that is my limit.”

  “That will do nicely, David,” said Hodl.

  “What? You will go along with me? You will sell?”

  “I will sell nothing. Am I a merchant? I will give it to you as I said that I would. But to salve your feelings, I will accept the small sum you have named. Out of respect to you, I would hardly accept a smaller sum with an easy mind. Bring it here and lay i
t on the bar.”

  “I will send Henry,” said David. He nodded to Henry, and Henry left.

  “You have sent Henry, but not for theA money,” Hodl smiled as he studied the Island of Icarus of his right hand. “He has gone to collect some comic strip characters to keep me company. One of them, what we call homo conventus or mechanical man, will analyze myself and my gaud. Only after you are satisfied with the reports (and I’m told that they miss nothing nowadays) will you go and get the money. I admire your prudence, for this is the way that gentlemen do business.”

  And that is the way that the gentlemen did it Henry Hazelman returned with three comic strip characters, and one of them was a machine—a descendent of Structo the Mechanical Man from the strip of that name.

  It was Structo (his name in Hodl’s mind only) who affably and left-handedly shook hands with Hodl and engaged him in conversation.

  “It is a fine hand, sir,” said Structo. “(I am told you were saying the same thing about it yourself), and a fine ornament on it. No, do not attempt to withdraw your hand, skyman. It is necessary that I retain my grip in order to analyze yourself and your thing. My own filaments make contact with the crystalline complex, as well as with your own reta. I can read you like a book, to coin a phrase.”

  “Look out for a little double phrase in a middle chapter,” said Hodl.

  “It’s an anti-bunko machine, skyman,” said David Daumier. “It reads you and your stone at the same time. Well, what do you read, Penetrax Nine?”

  “Mr. Daumier, the stone is sound and without flaw,” said Structo (Penta 9), “It rings like a bell.”

  “—to coin a phrase,” said Hodl. “How do I ring?”

  “Yes, that is the question,” said David. “My device, skyman, has appraised the stone, as my eye has done. But at the same time it can read what is in your mind regarding that stone. Should there be a flaw in the stone to escape both myself and my device, my machine will find it in your mind.”

  “Intelligent-looking contrivance, is he not?” said Hodl. “Can he follow a syllogism to the end? Can he recognize a counter-man? Can he count the marbles when the game is over?”

  “He can’t, but I can,” said David. “His job is to detect, and he does it well. My contrivance can sniff out every newest trick in the world.”

  “Aye, but can he snuffle out the oldest?” Hodl asked. “How do you read me, contrivance?”

  “Yes, is there any doubt in the mind of this man about the stone, Penta?” David asked.

  “Mr. Daumier, I had to travel some distance into his mind to find the stone,” said Structo. “But his mind is serene about the stone. It is good, and he knows it is good. Only—oh, no sir! Do not attempt to match grips with me, Mr. Skyman, even in fun. I have a grip of iron! I am basically iron. You will be injured if you persist. Or do I have it wrong. Why, you have crushed my hand as if it were an eggshell, to coin a phrase. No matter, I always carry a spare. Now, if you will release me, Mr. skyman—thank you.”

  “Quite a grip, skyman,” said David Daumier. “You crushed an iron probe that was built for durability. But my contrivance had already answered my question for me. You have no mental reservation as to the stone. I will go get the money now. My people will keep you company, skyman, and the contrived one will repair himself meanwhile.”

  David Daumier left on his errand.

  “I meant to say something else,” chittered Structo (Penta 9) when its master was gone, “but you squeezed the thought out of me. My nexus at the moment was in my hand which you crushed.”

  “You intended to say, gentle contrivance, that I knew the stone was good, too good,” said Hodl, “and that I was laughing in my mind. Of course I was! I’m a merry man, and it gladdens me to give away a thing too good to keep.”

  The contrivance put on another hand and busied himself hooking it up. The two human c.s. characters, glowering gunmen, studied Hodl with sleepy evil eyes and seemed more mechanical than their mechanical comrade.

  After a decent interval, David Daumier returned with a tightly-wrapped brown paper package. It was of fair size and was marked with a deformed Greek M, Daumier’s own code for the amount in the packet.

  “Now we will make the exchange,” David said softly, and he laid the paper-wrapped package openly on the bar. “Lay the ring beside it. Then I open and count.”

  “The ring won’t come off easily,” said Hodl. He worked and turned it vigorously. It was quite tight. “There is an amusing story of how the ring came off the finger of the last owner,” Hodl told them. “I finally used a bolt-cutter.”

  “The band doesn’t show it,” said David. “An expert must have rejoined it.”

  “The band wasn’t cut, the finger was,” said Hodl. “Say, that man did make a noise about it! ”

  “I’ll send for a jewelers’ saw,” said David. “I don’t mind the band being cut.”

  “Soap and hot water are quicker,” said Hodl. “It’ll slip off easily with that.”

  And soap and hot water were already there. The basin was brought by a counter-man in a dirty apron. And who notices a counter-man? Especially who notices that he is a pun? So the only one who recognized the man in the dirty apron as Willy McGilly was Hodl.

  Hodl soaked his great hand, and the ring came off. Hodl held it dramatically (while the counter-man made his counter unseen) in one of his great hands with their deep lines that betokened genius, and the faint islands in the Head Line that in any other man would indicate something a little peculiar about that genius.

  “It’s a nice ring,” said Hodl with regret. “Now we count.”

  Two of the comic strip characters patted their arm-pits to indicate that the bulge there had a reason for being, Henry Hazelman the spotter lounged in the doorway of the tavern to spot anything that should come, and David opened the package and began to count out the hundreds. Those bills sing a soft song to themselves when they fall on each other.

  When he had reached the count of thirteen, David’s eyelid flickered and he paused, but for much less than a second, only long enough to check and recheck in his rapid mind and to put down a faint surge of panic.

  When David had reached thirty, Hodl reached out and lightly touched one of the bills. “It is nice looking money,” he said. He removed his hand, and David continued to count.

  Only one who knew the diamond-factor well, or who knew all men well, could have known that David was nervous. Only a very quick eye could have detected that his hand trembled when he passed the fifty mark. And only a consummate genius like Hodl could have known that the throat of David was dry, or have guessed why it was.

  Hodl reached out and touched another bill, the sixty-third or the sixty-fourth, it does not matter which.

  “It is nice-looking money, David. Possibly too nice-looking,” he said. “Continue to count.”

  The comic strip characters made moves towards their weapons, but David gulped and went on with the count.

  Seventy . . . eighty... ninety ... ninety-nine, one hundred. There was ripe finality about it. And David waited.

  “It’s a nice pile,” said Hodl. “I have never seen such pretty money. Who makes your money, David?”

  The comic strip characters and Henry Hazelman started their moves again, but Hodl froze them at half-reach. There is a proverb that a gun in the hand is worth three in a shoulder holster, and Hodl had one in his hand so fast that it sparkled in all their eyes.

  “I’m surprised at you, Mr. Daumier,” Hodl said softly. “I did not know that you dealt in funny money. To offer a poor price to a poor skyman is one thing. To pay even that in counterfeit is another. The deal is off, sir! I will keep my ring, and you may keep your pile.”

  “It can’t be,” David groaned bedazed. “I never take a bad bill. I sure never took a hundred of them. I myself have just got it from my own safe.”

  “It does look good. It is almost the best I have ever seen,” said Hodl “But, David, you have handled a million bills. You know what it is.”
/>   “You switched the package,” said David, hoarsely.

  “I have not. Your men and your machine have scanned me the whole time. I have nothing on me but this ring now back on my hand, and this little thing back on my other hand. And my pockets which I turn out for me contain nothing but twelve cents Earth coin, a small luck charm (a coney’s foot), and a Ganymede guilder. Your machine can read me as to physical things without contact.”

  “That’s right, Mr. Daumier,” said Structo (Penta 9). “That’s all he’s got on him.”

  “I came with this, and with this I leave,” said Hodl.

  They looked at the stocky skyman with the forearms like a lion’s and the little gun in one of his deep-lined hands. And they were afraid to jump him.

  David still didn’t know how the switch had been made. But now he knew when.

  That evening in another tavern, and this a secluded one down in Wreckville, Hodl Oskanian and Willy McGilly and some of their friends sat and drank together. And from a bundle of bills similar to David’s, Willy McGilly now counted out bills, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred; and these were valid.

  “They have multiplied the Earth by billions and made all things intricate,” said Willy. “Men are not the same as their fathers were, and a man would need three brains to comprehend all the new devices. And yet in quiet places, like a Green Valley, some of the simple and wholesome things endure—old friends, old customs, old cons—sweet frauds that are ever young. We are like ancient handicrafters in an automated universe, but we do fine and careful work.

  “They have multiplied it all, but the basic remains the same: The Setting (and the hands of Hodl do set the thing off well): the Bait (and the Stone would have to be the finest ever or we’d have worn it to dust using it for bait); the Warning, to give fun to the game; the Counter-Play; and then the Innocent Disclaimer.”

  Hodl once more gazed at his hands, and he spoke.

  “It was a nice touch, Willy, to use his own brown paper to wrap your own bundle, and to tape it so similarly with his own ‘David Daumier Jeweler’ tape. It was nice to find out and reproduce his own peculiar mark for the amount, and to learn all the little details while you were in his establishment, even though you could not get into The Safe Itself. I hope you didn’t help yourself to trinkets while you were there. It would be wrong to burglarize his premises, but it is licit to take a taker in honest corn-bat. You were the good switch-man, Willy, while I was the strong magnet to hold their eyes.