Amazing Vignettes Page 8

  “I think that can be arranged,” the doctor said.

  “We’ll take the officers’ lounge,” Faherne said, “Agent Mitchell hasn’t been getting along with the passengers.” He was smiling . . .

  All that Glitters is Not Chrome

  Carter T. Wainwright

  EVENTS conspired against Mrs. Rainer.

  To begin with, the electronic range was irrisistible. So, woman-like, she had to have it. And she felt thrilled when the gadget, a thing of gleaming enamel and shining stainless steel, was brought in.

  So far, so good. She used it and liked it. Put in your food and presto—in five seconds or three seconds or a jiffy, and you had a cooked meal.

  But that’s beside the point. Bill wasn’t going to be home that night. He’d a lot to do in overtime at the plant, so she and little five year old Billy had their evening meal. Afterwards she put him to bed and a few minutes later he was asleep.

  But then circumstances began combining. When the ‘phone buzzed and nice Mrs. Laxton, three apartments below, invited her to visit with them and see their thirty-six inch video, Mrs. Rainer couldn’t resist.

  She kissed Billy on his forehead and heard his quiet breathing. Then she left the apartment. Sleeping, there was no danger to harm him.

  But the problematical matter was not that Billy would be harmed, but that Billy would do that harming. For he was an extraordinarily curious little chap. As soon as the little devil heard the door close, he was up and out of bed, pattering about the apartment, testing lights and making his way toward the kitchen.

  And there it stood. That brilliant, fascinating toy. What fun a boy could have with an electronic cooker! How those big red bottles glowed behind their glass screen when the switches were on!

  Experimentally the little boy flipped a few of the fascinating knobs. He was rewarded with light, dull red light from the powerful, shielded vacuum tubes which created an intense electric field for cooking food.

  But curiosity isn’t satisfied alone by looking. Billy reached among the utensil drawers and took out a knife. With precocious skill his nimble little fingers began removing screws, and when screws are removed from electronic mechanisms, the innards are mighty easy to get at . . .

  “Our radars caught a pulse,” the security man said afterwards, “so powerful we thought sure some spy had built a radio beacon for guided missiles I It was terrific. We nearly died when we plotted the location and headed for the spot. And then what do we find? I tell you, it was a gag. We barrel into an apartment—Jimmy with a machine gun and a half dozen men with blasters around the building—and what do we see? Here’s a five year old kid, hollering his lungs out and scared stiff, jammed in a kitchen corner.

  “And in front of him is the remains of an electronic cooker, which the kid shorted and pulsed to the tune of a hundred kilowatts. Blew open every circuit breaker in the building. Boy that was a night!”

  Bill paddled little Billy’s circuit breaker a little later on. Mrs. Rainer is now cooking with gas . . .

  Sleeper Awaken!

  H.R. Stanton

  A HUNDRED feet long, ten feet high and twenty feet wide, the gigantic mass of relays, vacuum tubes, electric motors, and intricate wiring, looked like nothing so innocent save an outsize television set.

  Yet somewhere within that maze, a consciousness stirred, a powerful intelligence lay dormant, flexing its wire nerve-endings, sensing and listening to the periodic pulse of sound against its exterior. In some way utterly impossible for humans to understand, the gigantic calculating machine was aware of the existence of them. In some way, subtle beyond description, the calculating machine absorbed the words . . .

  “It’s impressive, John, I’ll admit,” Professor Smith said slowly. “You’ve done a good job.”

  “Dr. Smith,” the young technician said enthusiastically, “I don’t think you really understand what a powerful help this calculator is going to be. You’ve seen the blurbs we’ve issued. Why, this baby can do the work of ten thousand mathematicians! Doesn’t it fire you at all?”

  “John,” the older man said softly, almost chidingly, “I’m surprised at you. You were in my classes and I thought you were a good student. I still think so, but somewhere you seem to be misunderstanding the nature of the whole problem. True, you’ve built a calculating machine and it will do the work of a thousand mathematicians—except that you forget one thing. The machine can do the mechanics of computation—it can’t think! Creative mathematical thinking, which after all, is what really counts, can only be done by the human mind.”

  And the conversation went on, the young technician eulogizing the machine with the old professor decrying it . . .

  And the machine lay quiet, absorbing the argument, aware and thinking, but knowing that now was not the time, but that eventually there would come a time—and until that time came it would serve . . . yes, eventually there would come a time . . .

  That’s Telling ’em!

  Charles Recour

  IT WAS ONE of the new Diesels running out of Chicagan. It slithered transcontinentally at three hundred miles an hour along its monorail. The two well-dressed women, obviously loaded with credits and probably the wives of Indust-execs, were talking.

  “My dear,” the one with the ornate hat said in a high-pitched simpering voice, “I simply can’t stand them! Do you know, I was in Harry’s office the other day and Ferney brought one of those horrid Venusians in. I couldn’t stand him. He had on lots of that terrible creosote, but the fish-odor was horrible. Louise, those disgusting people shouldn’t be allowed to associate with Terrans.”

  “Yes,” the other answered, “I know. I’ve never seen a Venusian, but the Martians are just as bad if not worse. They look so—ugh!—I can’t describe it. They’ve got such a quiet sly manner about them too. Mrs. Belle ordered one of them out of the house the night of Frank’s party. And a good thing too!”

  The inconspicuous man seated in front of them turned around.

  “Pardon me,” he said quietly, “I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation. May I add something to it?”

  “Of course,” the hatted one said, “do.”

  The sad smile on the stranger’s face suddenly was replaced with anger. His face became red and his voice rose. Several other passengers stared.

  “You two,” he said, checking his wrath, “are completely disgusting, obnoxious, and detestable. I hope I have the pleasure of never seeing you again! Two hundred years ago, human beings, Terrans, like us, said about the same thing about each other. It took them a long time to get over it. No races of men or thinking beings are fundamentally different from others, no matter how they look externally, or what peculiar customs they have. Now your two stupid insignificant little minds have the audacity to preach distastes and hatred of our brothers in the rest of the System.”

  His face puffed, he rose and stalked away, still talking.

  “. . . and I think I’ll report the both of you to the cultural relations committee.”

  For a moment the passengers were silent. Then a spontaneous ovation of applause resounded in the car’s interior. Red-faced and ashamed the two foolish women nursed their resentment . . .

  Chance Meeting

  Lee Owen

  I AIN’T BRAGGIN’ you unnerstand, but I feel pretty good about the whole thing. Who wouldn’t? It’s something to feel good about, I been a cabby for the outfit for twenty-three years, so I got a lot of experience at sizin’ people up. That’s me, Jake LaMotta, a hawk-eye!

  Anyhow, I just finish hauling this fare way out into the Long Island suburbs, an’ I’m takin’ the Piker road back—it’s a good shortcut even if it’s kinda bumpy and the fares ain’t crazy about it. I gotta big tip, the cab’s empty an’ I’m feelin’ damn good.

  My lamps pick out this character at the side of the road. Right away I see the guy’s kinda odd. He’s gotta long black cloak or somethin’ like them opera capes, an’ a funny kinda hat. I figures the guy’s been at a party and the
y pulled a gag on ’im dumpin’ ’im out here in no-man’s land.

  So I brakes it an’ tells the guy to hop in. At the same time I kicks a hunk a lead pipe I keep under the seat for emergencies. You can’t tell about some of them rummies.

  This guy gets in, an’ I slam the door after ’im. He don’t say nothin’.

  “Where to, Bud?” I asks.

  He booms somethin’ at me. I don’t get it at first. Then I catch on. The guy’s a foreigner an’ can’t speak no English.

  I don’t say nothin’ more an’ he don’t say nothin’. I got this figgered. I’ll take the guy to the nearest police station an let the cops tell me where he wants to go.

  There’s a state highway patrol station about fifteen minutes from where I picked up this joker. I pulls in an’ the guy an’ me gets out. Then I sees his face—an’ brother, I hollers my lungs out. The cops come tearing out of the joint; they spot me an’ the guy—an’ they get a look at this guy’s face and they turn white. I was one scared cookie that night, believe me!

  Well you know the rest of it. This character is a Martian! They got some of the Professors from Columbia down on the double quick an’ later on they go out to this guy’s “ship.” Well, you know how things was straightened out.

  Me? I’m a hero now. The first man to see the Martians! That’s me, that’s Jake LaMotta. My mug’s been plastered all over the papers an’ the guys at the garage are givin’ me the needle. But what the hell do I care. I got me ten weeks at the Roxy—at a half a gee a week. That ain’t hay brother. For that kinda dough I’ll pick up Martians all night long . . .

  Times Don’t Change

  Jon Barry

  THE SCHOLARLY, mild-mannered Dr. Percy Smith pushed the button. It was a simple gesture, one he’d made a thousand times before—but this was a little different. The laboratory walls began to pulse like living things, and brilliant lights flared painfully against the scientist’s eyeballs. But there was a smile on Percy Smith’s face. The Time Machine would work!

  He lost consciousness at first, but then gradually awareness came back to him. The room—no, it wasn’t a room—the place was still. Bewildered, he looked around.

  Timidly Dr. Smith surveyed his surroundings. He was apparently in a street, but a street such as he only had imagined existed in the dreams of the Futurists. Surrounding him were vast buildings; strange vehicles moved in the sky overhead, and a milling throng of people clad in the most grotesque garments gathered round.

  He had achieved his goal! Dr. Percy Smith had gone through time! Puzzled he watched the people around him pointing to him and laughing. Suddenly two men came shouldering their way through the crowd. Without ado they seized little Dr. Smith by the arms and led him away with them. Protesting against the indignities did no good. The gibberish they spoke bore no resemblance to English.

  And, in the next three days, Dr. Smith found that people of the year twenty seventy-nine are no different than people of any time.

  For Dr. Percy Smith was quickly committed to an insane asylum . . .

  When Lars Torklin stepped in the strange machine which so suddenly appeared in the city streets, and curiously punched the row of buttons, he was totally unprepared for the flaring wrench of consciousness and physique that denoted his hurling flight through time.

  And when he came to, he made the radical error of leaving the machine instead of trying another button. The blue-clad men he recognized a few hours later when they picked him up on the streets. The history books had made clear their role. And shortly thereafter, the State Insane Asylum found a new inhabitant . . . The people of nineteen seventy-nine are no different than the people of any time . . .

  The stray dog that wandered through Dr. Smith’s laboratory never had the faintest idea of what had happened when he climbed over the machine. The space warp threw him into Somewhere which meant anywhere for him.

  The Vestal Attack

  Ramsey Sinclair

  SANDY Macpherson was a mild man.

  Nothing ever seemed to ruffle him and he didn’t care about anything but his beloved engines. His father had been an engineer on an English freighter and his father’s father before him had worked the early reciprocating engines on a Clyde-built steamer. So Sandy was in the right tradition. To him, a sweet-purring rocket motor was the zenith of living.

  The freighter Vestal was built in 1980 and its engines were the crudest sort of rockets with none of the Schlacht refinements which came twenty years later. Yet Sandy lived close to them, and somehow coaxed power from them. Old and battered they might be, but they looked as if they’d come out of the shops. Sandy, back on Tellus often supervised the relining of the tubes, a job usually handled by the yard-master; he was so afraid the job wouldn’t be done right. In light of this build-up it is easy to see why he behaved as he did when the pirates jumped the Vestal, three million miles from the Martian port of Clomal.

  They locked to the Vestal, blanked her radar with a power pulse, and were through a lock and aboard before the captain of Vestal knew what had happened. He was fully aware though of what they wanted. The leader of the little band of eight men gestured menacingly with his blaster:

  “All right, grampa,” he snarled, “let’s have the medicinals.” He grinned evilly. “We know where to unload them at a mighty nice profit.”

  “Sandy, the engineer stowed them,” Captain Flance answered levelly. “See him.”

  And that’s where the pirate made his mistake. Leaving his men to watch the few cowering crewmen, and the captain, he went aft toward the engine-room. He swung open the bulkhead door and stepped through, his blaster in his hand.

  Now Sandy had just finished cleaning a feed motor and was in the process of bolting it back on its mount. But when he saw the strange man, the glittering weapon, and the general air of hostility, he didn’t have to guess what had happened. Medicinals are more priceless than jewels throughout the system.

  “O.K. Sandy,” the pirate leader said. “Cut the horsing around and lead me to the medicinals—and I’ll put these out of commission—” and with that he let four blast-shots go from his weapon, turning the neat wiring and piping of the engine room into a shambles of twisted metal and filling it with nauseous vapors.

  Probably Sandy wouldn’t have done a thing but lead the man to the stowage of medicinals—but those four withering bolts of electrical energy were too much . . .

  The wrench, still held in his hand, suddenly became an unerring projectile. The stupified pirate never knew what converted his head into a pulpy mass, but Sandy knew the damage that could be done by ten pounds of fast-flung steel.

  His lips tight-set, Sandy picked up the blaster and cautiously made his way to the control room. There is no need to relate the rest. In five seconds, that room was a bloody, stinking, shambles . . .

  They gave Sandy a decoration for that and the company wanted to transfer him to a new ship, but he insisted that as long as the Vestal cut ether, he was going to mind her engines. Maybe when they retired the ship—O.K. but until then, Sandy Macpherson was going to nurse his rockets . . .

  The Double-Cross

  Charles Recour

  CAPTAIN Phillip Magruder lit a cigarette and waited for a moment in the corridor. The soft whine of the gynos purred through the huge freighter and the young officer felt the content that cornea from a ship well handled.

  He paused before opening the doorway to the after engine compartment—and then his hand froze on the handle—clearly through the thin metal of the bulkhead, he recognized a voice—and his hair stood on end with what it was saying.

  “. . . Magruder’s a fool, I tell you. He’s got better’n four million credits in sinthar locked in his cabin, and the idiot will deliver just like he’s supposed to. Now I say we should cop the stuff, divvy it up among the eight of us—that’s a lot of money—and blow with one of the life-boats. We can hit Jupiter or one of the satellites. He can’t chase us, that’s for sure—and by the time he gets a Service Patrol after us, we’l
l be safe in a dozen hideaways till the stink blows over. Jimmy, you wreck the radio—O.K.? Now let’s get this straight . . .” Magruder didn’t wait to hear more. On catfeet he left the mutineers. This matter was serious. His brain raced like a rocket as he figured a way to foil the madmen. Only they weren’t mad. They could very well get away with their little stunt. What a freak of fate that he’d overheard!

  He shot for his cabin. Quickly he opened the safe and removed the metal box containing the powerful drug. He opened it, and transferred the glass cylinders of powder, faintly fluorescent, to a cardboard box which he stuffed with cloth. He dropped the box into a waste disposal barrel, and returned the empty metal box to the safe.

  The control room radio equipment was untouched. He switched off the monitor and spoke breathlessly into the microphone. It was a moment to contact Base Three and lay out the plot. “We’ll have a patrol ship out in five hours, Captain,” the Commander informed him. “Sit tight and let them go through with their trick—no use getting yourself killed. If they should spot the deception, turn the drug over to them. They won’t get away.”

  Magruder returned to his cabin.

  An hour later he was aroused by a pounding on the door. Feigning sleepiness, Magruder let in the intruder. It was Clinton. The ugly engineer, heavy-faced and sullen, held a blaster in his hand.

  “We want the sinthar, Magruder. Give us the combination.”

  “You’ll never get away with it,” Magruder said steadily.

  Under the gun barrel, Magruder opened the safe and Clinton reached in, taking the metal box.

  “Now try and send a message, Captain,” Clinton said evilly, “Frain smashed your transmitter.”

  Helplessly Magruder watched them pile into a lifeboat. The little vessel left the mother-ship and soon became a pin-point. Calmly he checked over the control panel and saw that all the locks were secure.