The Best of Henry Kuttner

by Henry Kuttner

  “I only done it to protect her,” Uncle Lem said, right quick. “You know I’m speaking the truth, Saunk boy. Pore Lily Lou was so pizon ugly, people used to up and heave a clod at her now and then afore they could help themselves. Just automatic-like. Couldn’t blame ’em. I often fought down the impulse myself.

  “But pore Lily Lou, I shore felt sorry for her. You’ll never know how long I fought down my good impulses, Saunk. But my heart of gold does get me into messes. One day I felt so sorry for the pore hideous critter I gave her the hexpower. Anybody’d have done the same, Saunk.”

  “How’d you do it?” I asked, real interested, thinking it might come in handy someday to know. I’m young yet, and I got lots to learn.

  Well, he started to tell me and it was kinda mixed up. Right at first I got a notion some furrin feller named Gene Chromosome had done it for him and after I got straight on that part he’d gone cantering off into a rigamarole about the alpha waves of the brain.

  Shucks, I knowed that much my own self. Everybody musta noticed the way them little waves go a-sweeping over the tops of people’s haids when they’re thinking. I’ve watched Grandpaw sometimes when he had as many as six hundred different thoughts follering each other up and down them little paths where his brain is. Hurts my eyes to look too close when Grandpaw’s thinking.

  “So that’s how it is, Saunk,” Uncle Lem wound up. “And this here little rattlesnake’s inherited the whole shebang.”

  “Well, why don’t you get this here Gene Chromosome feller to unscramble Junior and put him back the way other people are?” I asked. “I can see how easy you could do it. Look here, Uncle Lem.” I focused down real sharp on Junior and made my eyes go funny the way you have to when you want to look inside a person.

  Sure enough, I seen just what Uncle Lem meant. There was teensy-weensy little chains of fellers, all hanging onto each other for dear life, and skinny little rods jiggling around inside them awful teensy cells everybody’s made of—except maybe Little Sam, our baby.

  “Look here, Uncle Lem,” I said. “All you did when you gave Lily Lou the hex was to twitch these here little rods over that-away and patch ’em onto them little chains that wiggle so fast. Now why can’t you switch ’em back again and make Junior behave himself? It oughta be easy.”

  “It would be easy,” Uncle Lem kinda sighed at me. “Saunk, you’re a scatterbrain. You wasn’t listening to what I said. I can’t switch ’em back without I kill Junior.”

  “The world would be a better place,” I said.

  “I know it would. But you know what we promised Grandpaw? No more killings.”

  “But Uncle Lem!” I bust out. “This is tumble! You mean this nasty little rattlesnake’s gonna go on all his life hexing people?”

  “Worse than that, Saunk,” pore Uncle Lem said, almost crying. “He’s gonna pass the power on to his descendants, just like Lily Lou passed it on to him.”

  For a minute it sure did look like a dark prospect for the human race. Then I laughed.

  “Cheer up, Uncle Lem,” I said. “Nothing to worry about. Look at the little toad. There ain’t a female critter alive who’d come within a mile of him. Already he’s as repulsive as his daddy. And remember, he’s Lily Lou Mutz’s child, too. Maybe he’ll get even horribler as he grows up. One thing’s sure—he ain’t never gonna get married.”

  “Now there’s where you’re wrong,” Ed Pugh busted in, talking real loud. He was red in the face and he looked mad. “Don’t think I ain’t been listening,” he said. “And don’t think I’m gonna forget what you said about my child. I told you I was a power in this town. Junior and me can go a long way, using his talent to help us.

  “Already I’ve got on to the board of aldermen here and there’s gonna be a vacancy in the state senate come next week—unless the old coot I have in mind’s a lot tougher than he looks. So I’m warning you, young Hogben, you and your family’s gonna pay for them insults.”

  “Nobody oughta get mad when he hears the gospel truth about himself,” I said. “Junior is a repulsive specimen.”

  “He just takes getting used to,” his paw said. “All us Pughs is hard to understand. Deep, I guess. But we got our pride. And I’m gonna make sure the family line never dies out. Never, do you hear that, Lemuel?”

  Uncle Lem just shut his eyes up tight and shook his head fast. “Nosirree,” he said. “I’ll never do it. Never, never, never, never—”

  “Lemuel,” Ed Pugh said, real sinister. “Lemuel, do you want me to set Junior on you?”

  “Oh, there ain’t no use in that,” I said. “You seen him try to hex me along with the crowd, didn’t you? No manner of use, Mister Pugh. Can’t hex a Hogben.”

  “Well—” He looked around, searching his mind. “Hm-m. I’ll think of something. I’ll—soft-hearted, aren’t you? Promised your Grandpappy you wouldn’t kill nobody, hey? Lemuel, open your eyes and look over there across the street. See that sweet old lady walking with the cane? How’d you like it if I had Junior drop her dead in her tracks?”

  Uncle Lemuel just squeezed his eyes tighter shut.

  “I won’t look. I don’t know the sweet old thing. If she’s that old, she ain’t got much longer anyhow. Maybe she’d be better off dead. Probably got rheumatiz something fierce.”

  “All right, then, how about that purty young girl with the baby in her arms? Look, Lemuel. Mighty sweet-looking little baby. Pink ribbon in its bonnet, see? Look at them dimples. Junior, get ready to blight them where they stand. Bubonic plague to start with maybe. And after that—”

  “Uncle Lem,” I said, feeling uneasy. “I dunno what Grandpaw would say to this. Maybe—”

  Uncle Lem popped his eyes wide open for just a second. He glared at me, frantic.

  “I can’t help it if I’ve got a heart of gold,” he said. “I’m a fine old feller and everybody picks on me. Well, I won’t stand for it. You can push me just so far. Now I don’t care if Ed Pugh kills off the whole human race. I don’t care if Grandpaw does find out what I done. I don’t care a hoot about nothing no more.” He gave a kind of wild laugh.

  “I’m gonna get out from under. I won’t know nothing about nothing. I’m gonna snatch me a few winks, Saunk.”

  And with that he went rigid all over and fell flat on his face on the sidewalk, stiff as a poker.

  Chapter 3. Over a Barrel

  Well, worried as I was, I had to smile. Uncle Lem’s kinda cute sometimes. I knowed he’d put hisself to sleep again, the way he always does when trouble catches up with him. Paw says it’s catalepsy but cats sleep a lot lighter than that.

  Uncle Lem hit the sidewalk flat and kinda bounced a little. Junior give a howl of joy. I guess maybe he figgered he’d had something to do with Uncle Lem falling over. Anyhow, seeing somebody down and helpless, Junior naturally rushed over and pulled his foot back and kicked Uncle Lem in the side of the haid.

  Well, like I said, us Hogbens have got pretty tough haids. Junior let out a howl. He started dancing around nursing his foot in both hands.

  “I’ll hex you good!” he yelled at Uncle Lem. “I’ll hex you good, you—you ole Hogben, you!” He drew a deep breath and turned purple in the face and—

  And then it happened.

  It was like a flash of lightning. I don’t take no stock in hexes, and I had a fair idea of what was happening, but it took me by surprise. Paw tried to explain to me later how it worked and he said it just stimulated the latent toxins inherent in the organism. It made Junior into a catalytoxic agent on account of the way the rearrangement of the desoxyribonucleic acid his genes was made of worked on the kappa waves of his nasty little brain, stepping them up as much as thirty microvolts. But shucks, you know Paw. He’s too lazy to figger the thing out in English. He just steals them fool words out of other folks’ brains when he needs ’em.

  What really happened was that all the pizon that little varmint had bottled up in him, ready to let go on the crowd, somehow seemed to r
’ar back and smack Uncle Lem right in the face. I never seen such a hex. And the awful part was—it worked.

  Because Uncle Lem wasn’t resisting a mite now he was asleep. Red-hot pokers wouldn’t have waked him up and I wouldn’t put red-hot pokers past little Junior Pugh. But he didn’t need ’em this time. The hex hit Uncle Lem like a thunderbolt.

  He turned pale green right before our eyes.

  Somehow it seemed to me a tumble silence fell as Uncle Lem went green. I looked up, surprised. Then I realized what was happening. All that pitiful moaning and groaning from the crowd had stopped.

  People was swigging away at their bottles of headache cure, rubbing their foreheads and kinda laughing weak-like with relief. Junior’s whole complete hex had gone into Uncle Lem and the crowd’s headaches had naturally stopped right off.

  “What’s happened here?” somebody called out in a kinda familiar voice. “Has that man fainted? Why don’t you help him? Here, let me by—I’m a doctor.”

  It was the skinny man with the kind-looking face. He was still drinking out of the headache bottle as he pushed his way through the crowd toward us but he’d put his notebook away. When he saw Ed Pugh he flushed up angrylike.

  “So it’s you, is it, Alderman Pugh?” he said. “How is it you’re always around when trouble starts? What did you do to this poor man, anyhow? Maybe this time you’ve gone too far.”

  “I didn’t do a thing,” Ed Pugh said. “Never touched him. You watch your tongue, Dr. Brown, or you’ll regret it. I’m a powerful man in this here town.”

  “Look at that!” Dr. Brown yells, his voice going kinda squeaky as he stares down at Uncle Lem. “The man’s dying! Call an ambulance, somebody, quick!”

  Uncle Lem was changing color again. I had to laugh a little, inside my haid. I knowed what was happening and it was kinda funny. Everybody’s got a whole herd of germs and viruses and suchlike critters swarming through them all the time, of course.

  When Junior’s hex hit Uncle Lem it stimulated the entire herd something tumble, and a flock of little bitty critters Paw calls antibodies had to get to work pronto. They ain’t really as sick as they look, being white by nature.

  Whenever a pizon starts chawing on you these pale little fellers grab up their shooting-irons and run like crazy to the battlefield in your insides. Such fighting and yelling and swearing you never seen. It’s a regular Bull Run.

  That was going on right then inside Uncle Lem. Only us Hogbens have got a special militia of our own inside us. And they got called up real fast.

  They was swearing and kicking and whopping the enemy so hard Uncle Lem had gone from pale green to a sort of purplish color, and big yeller and blue spots was beginning to bug out all over him where it showed. He looked oncommon sick. Course it didn’t do him no real harm. The Hogbens militia can lick any germ that breathes.

  But he sure looked revolting.

  The skinny doctor crouched down beside Uncle Lem and felt his pulse.

  “Now you’ve done it,” he said, looking up at Ed Pugh. “I don’t know how you’ve worked this, but for once you’ve gone too far. This man seems to have bubonic plague. I’ll see you’re put under control this time and that young Kallikak of yours, too.”

  Ed Pugh just laughed a little. But I could see he was mad.

  “Don’t you worry about me, Dr. Brown,” he said, mean. “When I get to be governor—and I got my plans all made—that there hospital you’re so proud of ain’t gonna operate on state funds no more. A fine thing!

  “Folks laying around in hospitals eating their fool heads off! Make ’em get out and plough, that’s what I say. Us Pughs never gets sick. I got lots of better uses for state money than paying folks to lay around in bed when I’m governor.”

  All the doctor said was, “Where’s that ambulance?”

  “If you mean that big long car making such a noise,” I said, “it’s about three miles off but coming fast. Uncle Lem don’t need no help, though. He’s just having an attack. We get ’em in the family all the time. It don’t mean nothing.”

  “Good heavens!” the doc said, staring down at Uncle Lem. “You mean he’s had this before and lived?” Then he looked up at me and smiled all of a sudden. “Oh, I see,” he said. “Afraid of hospitals, are you? Well, don’t worry. We won’t hurt him.”

  That surprised me some. He was a smart man. I’d fibbed a little for just that reason. Hospitals is no place for Hogbens. People in hospitals are too danged nosy. So I called Uncle Lem real loud, inside my head.

  “Uncle Lem,” I hollered, only thinking it, not out loud. “Uncle Lem, wake up quick! Grandpaw’ll nail your hide to the barn door if’n you let yourself get took to a hospital. You want ’em to find out about them two hearts you got in your chest? And the way your bones are fixed and the shape of your gizzard? Uncle Lem! Wake up!”

  It wasn’t no manner of use. He never even twitched.

  Right then I began to get really scared. Uncle Lem had sure landed me in the soup. There I was with all that responsibility on my shoulders and I didn’t have the least idea how to handle it. I’m just a young feller after all. I can hardly remember much farther back than the great fire of London, when Charles II was king, with all them long curls a-hanging on his shoulders. On him, though, they looked good.

  “Mister Pugh,” I said, “you’ve got to call off Junior. I can’t let Uncle Lem get took to the hospital. You know I can’t.”

  “Junior, pour it on,” Mister Pugh said, grinning real nasty. “I want a little talk with young Hogben here.” The doctor looked up, puzzled, and Ed Pugh said, “Step over here a mite, Hogben. I want a private word with you. Junior, bear down!”

  Uncle Lem’s yellow and blue spots got green rings around their outside edges. The doctor sorta gasped and Ed Pugh took my arm and pulled me back. When we was out of earshot he said to me, confidential, fixing me with his tiny little eyes:

  “I reckon you know what I want, Hogben. Lem never did say he couldn’t, he only said he wouldn’t, so I know you folks can do it for me.”

  “Just exactly what is it you want, Mister Pugh?” I asked him.

  “You know. I want to make sure our fine old family line goes on. I want there should always be Pughs. I had so much trouble getting married off myself and I know Junior ain’t going to be easy to wife. Women don’t have no taste nowadays.

  “Since Lily Lou went to glory there hasn’t been a woman on earth ugly enough to marry a Pugh and I’m skeered Junior’ll be the last of a great line. With his talent I can’t bear the thought. You just fix it so our family won’t never die out and I’ll have Junior take the hex off Lemuel.”

  “If I fixed it so your line didn’t die out,” I said, “I’d be fixing it so everybody else’s line would die out, just as soon as there was enough Pughs around.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Ed Pugh asked, grinning. “Way I see it we’re good strong stock.” He flexed his gorilla arms. He was taller than me, even. “No harm in populatin’ the world with good stock, is there? I figger given time enough us Pughs could conquer the whole danged world. And you’re gonna help us do it, young Hogben.”

  “Oh, no,” I said. “Oh, no! Even if I knowed how—”

  There was a tumble noise at the end of the street and the crowd scattered to make way for the ambulance, which drawed up at the curb beside Uncle Lem. A couple of fellers in white coats jumped out with a sort of pallet on sticks. Dr. Brown stood up, looking real relieved.

  “Thought you’d never get here,” he said. “This man’s a quarantine case, I think. Heaven knows what kind of results we’ll find when we start running tests on him. Hand me my bag out of the back there, will you? I want my stethoscope. There’s something funny about this man’s heart.”

  Well, my heart sunk right down into my boots. We was goners and I knowed it—the whole Hogben tribe. Once them doctors and scientists find out about us we’ll never know a moment’s peace again as long as we live. We won�
��t have no more privacy than a corncob.

  Ed Pugh was watching me with a nasty grin on his pasty face.

  “Worried, huh?” he said. “You gotta right to be worried. I know about you Hogbens. All witches. Once they get Lem in the hospital, no telling what they’ll find out. Against the law to be witches, probably. You’ve got about half a minute to make up your mind, young Hogben. What do you say?”

  Well, what could I say? I couldn’t give him a promise like he was asking, could I? Not and let the whole world be overrun by hexing Pughs. Us Hogbens live a long time. We’ve got some pretty important plans for the future when the rest of the world begins to catch up with us. But if by that time the rest of the world is all Pughs, it won’t hardly seem worth while, somehow. I couldn’t say yes.

  But if I said no Uncle Lem was a goner. Us Hogbens was doomed either way, it seemed to me.

  Looked like there was only one thing to do. I took a deep breath, shut my eyes, and let out a desperate yell inside my head.

  “Grandpaw!” I hollered.

  “Yes, my boy?” said a big deep voice in the middle of my brain. You’d athought he’d been right alongside me all the time, just waiting to be called. He was a hundred-odd miles off, and sound asleep. But when a Hogben calls in the tone of voice I called in he’s got a right to expect an answer—quick. I got it.

  Mostly Grandpaw woulda dithered around for fifteen minutes, asking cross questions and not listening to the answers, and talking in all kinds of queer old-fashioned dialects, like Sanskrit, he’s picked up through the years. But this time he seen it was serious.

  “Yes, my boy?” was all he said.

  I flapped my mind wide open like a school-book in front of him. There wasn’t no time for questions and answers. The doc was getting out his dingus to listen to Uncle Lem’s two hearts beating out of tune and once he heard that the jig would be up for us Hogbens.

  “Unless you let me kill ’em, Grandpaw,” I added. Because by that time I knowed he’d read the whole situation from start to finish in one fast glance.