The Best of Henry Kuttner

by Henry Kuttner

  “Peace and blessings be upon you,” said the angel, and vanished.

  Young fell back into his chair and massaged his aching brow. Simultaneously the door opened and Kipp stood on the threshold. Luckily Young’s hands temporarily hid the halo.

  “Mr. Devlin is here,” the president said. “Er…who was that on the bookcase?”

  Young was too crushed to lie plausibly. He muttered, “An angel.”

  Kipp nodded in satisfaction. “Yes, of course…What? You say an angel…an angel? Oh, my gosh!” The man turned quite white and hastily took his departure.

  Young contemplated his hat. The thing still lay on the desk, wincing slightly under the baleful stare directed at it. To go through life wearing a halo was only less endurable than the thought of continually wearing the loathsome hat. Young brought his fist down viciously on the desk.

  “I won’t stand it! I…I don’t have to—” He stopped abruptly. A dazed look grew in his eyes.

  “I’ll be…that’s right! I don’t have to stand it. If that lama got out of it…of course. ‘No sinner may wear a halo.’” Young’s round face twisted into a mask of sheer evil. “I’ll be a sinner, then! I’ll break all the Commandments—”

  He pondered. At the moment he couldn’t remember what they were. “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.” That was one.

  Young thought of his neighbor’s wife—a certain Mrs. Clay, a behemothic damsel of some fifty summers, with a face like a desiccated pudding. That was one Commandment he had no intention of breaking.

  But probably one good, healthy sin would bring back the angel in a hurry to remove the halo. What crimes would result in the least inconvenience? Young furrowed his brow.

  Nothing occurred to him. He decided to go for a walk. No doubt some sinful opportunity would present itself.

  He forced himself to don the shako and had reached the elevator when a hoarse voice was heard hallooing after him. Racing along the hall was a fat man.

  Young knew instinctively that this was Mr. Devlin.

  The adjective “fat,” as applied to Devlin, was a considerable understatement. The man bulged. His feet, strangled in biliously yellow shoes, burst out at the ankles like blossoming flowers. They merged into calves that seemed to gather momentum as they spread and mounted, flung themselves up with mad abandon, and revealed themselves in their complete, unrestrained glory at Devlin’s middle. The man resembled, in silhouette, a pineapple with elephantiasis. A great mass of flesh poured out of his collar, forming a pale, sagging lump in which Young discerned some vague resemblance to a face.

  Such was Devlin, and he charged along the hall, as mammoths thunder by, with earth-shaking tramplings of his crashing hoofs.

  “You’re Young!” he wheezed. “Almost missed me, eh? I was waiting in the office—” Devlin paused, his fascinated gaze upon the hat. Then, with an effort at politeness, he laughed falsely and glanced away. “Well, I’m all ready and r’aring to go.”

  Young felt himself impaled painfully on the horns of a dilemma. Failure to entertain Devlin would mean the loss of that vice presidency. But the halo weighed like a flatiron on Young’s throbbing head. One thought was foremost in his mind: he had to get rid of the blessed thing.

  Once he had done that, he would trust to luck and diplomacy. Obviously, to take out his guest now would be fatal insanity. The hat alone would be fatal.

  “Sorry,” Young grunted. “Got an important engagement. I’ll be back for you as soon as I can.”

  Wheezing laughter, Devlin attached himself firmly to the other’s arm. “No, you don’t. You’re showing me the town! Right now!” An unmistakable alcoholic odor was wafted to Young’s nostrils. He thought quickly.

  “All right,” he said at last. “Come along. There’s a bar downstairs. We’ll have a drink, eh?”

  “Now you’re talking,” said the jovial Devlin, almost incapacitating Young with a comradely slap on the back. “Here’s the elevator.”

  They crowded into the cage. Young shut his eyes and suffered as interested stares were directed upon the hat. He fell into a state of coma, arousing only at the ground floor, where Devlin dragged him out and into the adjacent bar.

  Now Young’s plan was this: he would pour drink after drink down his companion’s capacious gullet, and await his chance to slip away unobserved. It was a shrewd scheme, but it had one flaw—Devlin refused to drink alone.

  “One for you and one for me,” he said. “That’s fair. Have another.”

  Young could not refuse, under the circumstances. The worst of it was that Devlin’s liquor seemed to seep into every cell of his huge body, leaving him, finally, in the same state of glowing happiness which had been his originally. But poor Young was, to put it as charitably as possible, tight.

  He sat quietly in a booth, glaring across at Devlin. Each time the waiter arrived, Young knew that the man’s eyes were riveted upon the hat. And each round made the thought of that more irritating.

  Also, Young worried about his halo. He brooded over sins. Arson, burglary, sabotage, and murder passed in quick review through his befuddled mind. Once he attempted to snatch the waiter’s change, but the man was too alert. He laughed pleasantly and placed a fresh glass before Young.

  The latter eyed it with distaste. Suddenly coming to a decision, he arose and wavered toward the door. Devlin overtook him on the sidewalk.

  “What’s the matter? Let’s have another—”

  “I have work to do,” said Young with painful distinctness. He snatched a walking cane from a passing pedestrian and made threatening gestures with it until the remonstrating victim fled hurriedly. Hefting the stick in his hand, he brooded blackly.

  “But why work?” Devlin inquired largely. “Show me the town.”

  “I have important matters to attend to.” Young scrutinized a small child who had halted by the curb and was returning the stare with interest. The tot looked remarkably like the brat who had been so insulting on the bus.

  “What’s important?” Devlin demanded. “Important matters, eh? Such as what?”

  “Beating small children,” said Young, and rushed upon the startled child, brandishing his cane. The youngster uttered a shrill scream and fled. Young pursued for a few feet and then became entangled with a lamp-post. The lamp-post was impolite and dictatorial. It refused to allow Young to pass. The man remonstrated and, finally, argued, but to no avail.

  The child had long since disappeared. Administering a brusque and snappy rebuke to the lamp-post, Young turned away.

  “What in Pete’s name are you trying to do?” Devlin inquired. “That cop’s looking at us. Come along.” He took the other’s arm and led him along the crowded sidewalk.

  “What am I trying to do?” Young sneered. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? I wish to sin.”

  “Er…sin?”

  “Sin.”

  “Why?”

  Young tapped his hat meaningly, but Devlin put an altogether wrong interpretation on the gesture. “You’re nuts?”

  “Oh, shut up,” Young snapped in a sudden burst of rage, and thrust his cane between the legs of a passing bank president whom he knew slightly. The unfortunate man fell heavily to the cement, but arose without injury save to his dignity.

  “I beg your pardon!” he barked.

  Young was going through a strange series of gestures. He had fled to a show-window mirror and was doing fantastic things to his hat, apparently trying to lift it in order to catch a glimpse of the top of his head—a sight, it seemed, to be shielded jealously from profane eyes. At length he cursed loudly, turned, gave the bank president a contemptuous stare, and hurried away, trailing the puzzled Devlin like a captive balloon.

  Young was muttering thickly to himself.

  “Got to sin—really sin. Something big. Burn down an orphan asylum. Kill m’ mother-in-law. Kill…anybody!” He looked quickly at Devlin, and the latter shrank back in sudden fear. But finally Young gave a disgusted
grunt.

  “Nrgh. Too much blubber. Couldn’t use a gun or a knife. Have to blast—Look!” Young said, clutching Devlin’s arm. “Stealing’s a sin, isn’t it?”

  “Sure is,” the diplomatic Devlin agreed. “But you’re not—”

  Young shook his head. “No. Too crowded here. No use going to jail. Come on!”

  He plunged forward. Devlin followed. And Young fulfilled his promise to show his guest the town, though afterward neither of them could remember exactly what had happened. Presently Devlin paused in a liquor store for refueling, and emerged with bottles protruding here and there from his clothing.

  Hours merged into an alcoholic haze. Life began to assume an air of foggy unreality to the unfortunate Devlin. He sank presently into a coma, dimly conscious of various events which marched with celerity through the afternoon and long into the night. Finally he roused himself sufficiently to realize that he was standing with Young confronting a wooden Indian which stood quietly outside a cigar store. It was, perhaps, the last of the wooden Indians. The outworn relic of a bygone day, it seemed to stare with faded glass eyes at the bundle of wooden cigars it held in an extended hand.

  Young was no longer wearing a hat. And Devlin suddenly noticed something decidedly peculiar about his companion.

  He said softly, “You’ve got a halo.”

  Young started slightly. “Yes,” he replied, “I’ve got a halo. This Indian—” He paused.

  Devlin eyed the image with disfavor. To his somewhat fuzzy brain the wooden Indian appeared even more horrid than the surprising halo. He shuddered and hastily averted his gaze.

  “Stealing’s a sin,” Young said under his breath, and then, with an elated cry, stooped to lift the Indian. He fell immediately under its weight, emitting a string of smoking oaths as he attempted to dislodge the incubus.

  “Heavy,” he said, rising at last. “Give me a hand.”

  Devlin had long since given up any hope of finding sanity in this madman’s actions. Young was obviously determined to sin, and the fact that he possessed a halo was somewhat disquieting, even to the drunken Devlin. As a result, the two men proceeded down the street, bearing with them the rigid body of a wooden Indian.

  The proprietor of the cigar shop came out and looked after them, rubbing his hands. His eyes followed the departing statue with unmitigated joy.

  “For ten years I’ve tried to get rid of that thing,” he whispered gleefully. “And now…aha!”

  He re-entered the store and lit a Corona to celebrate his emancipation.

  Meanwhile, Young and Devlin found a taxi stand. One cab stood there; the driver sat puffing a cigarette and listening to his radio. Young hailed the man.

  “Cab, sir?” The driver sprang to life, bounced out of the car, and flung open the door. Then he remained frozen in a half-crouching position, his eyes revolving wildly in their sockets.

  He had never believed in ghosts. He was, in fact, somewhat of a cynic. But in the face of a bulbous ghoul and a decadent angel bearing the stiff corpse of an Indian, he felt with a sudden, blinding shock of realization that beyond life lies a black abyss teeming with horror unimaginable. Whining shrilly, the terrified man leaped back into his cab, got the thing into motion, and vanished as smoke before the gale.

  Young and Devlin looked at one another ruefully.

  “What now?” the latter asked.

  “Well,” said Young, “I don’t live far from here. Only ten blocks or so. Come on!”

  It was very late, and few pedestrians were abroad. These few, for the sake of their sanity, were quite willing to ignore the wanderers and go their separate ways. So eventually Young, Devlin, and the wooden Indian arrived at their destination.

  The door of Young’s home was locked, and he could not locate the key. He was curiously averse to arousing Jill. But, for some strange reason, he felt it vitally necessary that the wooden Indian be concealed. The cellar was the logical place. He dragged his two companions to a basement window, smashed it as quietly as possible, and slid the image through the gap.

  “Do you really live here?” asked Devlin, who had his doubts.

  “Hush!” Young said warningly. “Come on!”

  He followed the wooden Indian, landing with a crash in a heap of coal. Devlin joined him after much wheezing and grunting. It was not dark. The halo provided about as much illumination as a twenty-five-watt globe.

  Young left Devlin to nurse his bruises and began searching for the wooden Indian. It had unaccountably vanished. But he found it at last cowering beneath a washtub, dragged the object out, and set it up in a corner. Then he stepped back and faced it, swaying a little.

  “That’s a sin, all right,” he chuckled. “Theft. It isn’t the amount that matters. It’s the principle of the thing. A wooden Indian is just as important as a million dollars, eh, Devlin?”

  “I’d like to chop that Indian into fragments,” said Devlin with passion. “You made me carry it for three miles.” He paused, listening. “What in heaven’s name is that?”

  A small tumult was approaching. Filthy, having been instructed often in his duties as a watchdog, now faced opportunity. Noises were proceeding from the cellar. Burglars, no doubt. The raffish Scotty cascaded down the stairs in a babel of frightful threats and oaths. Loudly declaring his intention of eviscerating the intruders, he flung himself upon Young, who made hasty clucking sounds intended to soothe the Scotty’s aroused passions.

  Filthy had other ideas. He spun like a dervish, yelling bloody murder. Young wavered, made a vain snatch at the air, and fell prostrate to the ground. He remained face down, while Filthy, seeing the halo, rushed at it and trampled upon his master’s head.

  The wretched Young felt the ghosts of a dozen and more drinks rising to confront him. He clutched at the dog, missed, and gripped instead the feet of the wooden Indian. The image swayed perilously. Filthy cocked up an apprehensive eye and fled down the length of his master’s body, pausing halfway as he remembered his duty. With a muffled curse he sank his teeth into the nearest portion of Young and attempted to yank off the miserable man’s pants.

  Meanwhile, Young remained face down, clutching the feet of the wooden Indian in a despairing grip.

  There was a resounding clap of thunder. White light blazed through the cellar. The angel appeared.

  Devlin’s legs gave way. He sat down in a plump heap, shut his eyes, and began chattering quietly to himself. Filthy swore at the intruder, made an unsuccessful attempt to attain a firm grasp on one of the gently fanning wings, and went back to think it over, arguing throatily. The wing had an unsatisfying lack of substantiality.

  The angel stood over Young with golden fires glowing in his eyes, and a benign look of pleasure molding his noble features. “This,” he said quietly, “shall be taken as a symbol of your first successful good deed since your enhaloment.” A wingtip brushed the dark and grimy visage of the Indian. Forthwith, there was no Indian. “You have lightened the heart of a fellow man—little, to be sure, but some, and at a cost of much labor on your part.

  “For a day you have struggled with this sort to redeem him, but for this no success has rewarded you, albeit the morrow’s pains will afflict you.

  “Go forth, K. Young, rewarded and protected from all sin alike by your halo.” The youngest angel faded quietly, for which alone Young was grateful. His head was beginning to ache and he’d feared a possible thunderous vanishment.

  Filthy laughed nastily, and renewed his attack on the halo. Young found the unpleasant act of standing upright necessary. While it made the walls and tubs spin round like all the hosts of heaven, it made impossible Filthy’s dervish dance on his face.

  Some time later he awoke, cold sober and regretful of the fact. He lay between cool sheets, watching morning sunlight lance through the windows, his eyes, and feeling it splinter in jagged bits in his brain. His stomach was making spasmodic attempts to leap up and squeeze itself out through his burning throat.

/>   Simultaneous with awakening came realization of three things: the pains of the morrow had indeed afflicted him; the halo mirrored still in the glass above the dressing table—and the parting words of the angel.

  He groaned a heartfelt triple groan. The headache would pass, but the halo, he knew, would not. Only by sinning could one become unworthy of it, and—shining protector!—it made him unlike other men. His deeds must all be good, his works a help to men. He could not sin!

  The Voice of the Lobster

  Tilting his cigar at a safe angle Terence Lao-T’se Macduff applied a wary eye to the peephole in the curtain and searched the audience for trouble.

  “A setup,” he muttered under his breath. “Or is it? I have the inexplicable sensation of wet mice creeping slowly up and down my spine. What a pity I wasn’t able to get that Lesser Vegan girl to front for me. Ah, well. Here I go.”

  He drew up his rotund form as the curtain slowly rose.

  “Good evening to you all,” he said jovially. “I am happy to see so many eager seekers after knowledge, from all parts of the Galaxy, gathered here tonight on this, Aldebaran’s greenest world—”

  Muffled noises rose from the audience, mingled with the musky odor of Aldebaranese and the scents of many other races and species. For it was Lottery Time on Aldebaran Tau and the famous celebration based on the counting of seeds in the first sphyghi fruit of the season had as usual drawn luck-worshippers from all over the Galaxy. There was even an Earthman, with shaggy red hair and a scowling face, who sat in the front row, glaring up at Macduff.

  Uneasily evading that glare, Macduff went on with some haste. “Ladies, gentlemen and Aldebaranese, I offer you my All-Purpose Radio-isotopic Hormone Rejuvenating Elixir, the priceless discovery which will give you the golden treasury of youth at a sum easily within the reach of each and every—”

  An ambiguous missile whizzed past Macduff’s head. His trained ear screened out words in a dozen different interstellar tongues and realized that none of them implied approval.