Complete Fiction (Jerry eBooks) Read online

  “Well, I don’t think I should trust you. If it weren’t such a clever idea, I wouldn’t, but I’ve got to tell it to somebody. You see, I need at least one more good-sized, young planet to get back on my feet again. So I’m going to take this one.”

  “What?”

  “Sure. I’m going to warp it into Krolix. As I told you, the shortest distance between two points is a warped line.”

  “Thank the stars it isn’t straight!”

  “A dimensionally warped line has a distance, or length, of zero.”

  “Zero what?”

  “Just zero. Zero anything. When you travel the line it takes zero.”

  “Zero time?”

  “I guess so. Isn’t it a brilliant idea? Now my portable machine is all set up, so here goes.”

  REACHING out, I grabbed him by the arm and held on with all my might. “HOLD IT! You’ll throw this entire Solar System into chaos. You’ll upset the whole business, you little idiot.” I knew it was stupid even to surmise that he knew what he was talking about, but when a guy points a gun in your face you don’t stop to consider whether it’s a toy or not. You suddenly get very pessimistic on general principles.

  “That is right, isn’t it? Well, I’ll trade, then. I can use two lines of travel between the two points.”

  “But only one line of shortest distance can exist between two points.”

  “There you go again with that straight line stuff. I told you, I’m using a dimensionally warped line. You’re just dumb.” I didn’t admit that, either. “As I said, I’ll trade. I have lots of worthless rocks to choose from. I’ll warp one of ’em into this planet’s position as I warp this planet into Krolix. Same mass and everything.”

  “But you can’t do that. Two objects cannot exist in the same space at the same time.”

  “You just don’t understand zero. Both bodies will be in transit, if you want to call it that, at the same time. Neither will be wholly here nor there at the same time, although they will be in each other’s places at the same time—transit instantaneous. It’s all in your interpretation of zero—you’ve been conditioned and taught in a very limited conception of it, I see.”

  “Bosh!”

  “Oh. You don’t believe me. I’ll show you.” Before I could stop the little nut, he had pressed a bank of buttons. There wasn’t any noise. Just crazy lights. Then I had the feeling of being—pulled—in all directions at the same time.

  Next, I was standing in front of an oncoming subway train. I was falling through space with the ground thousands of feet below. I was gasping for breath in the middle of a big red desert—I saw ruined cities in the distance. I was being sucked down in a bog and snapped at by monsters that had never inhabited Earth. I was playing tag with the Asteroids. I was in the middle of a Hollywood movie set.

  Then I was back in the lab. I was a mess. That’s how I knew it had all been real and not hypnosis or something.

  “Had to get you back. But there it is—point-to-point-to-point etcetera. Faster than light, of course, so you didn’t travel. You were projected.”

  “How long was I gone?”

  “Maybe ten seconds. I had to give you enough time at each place so that you could see that you were some place. Well, now you’re convinced?”

  I was. You’d’ve been, too.

  “You little crook!” Gosh, I felt peeved. I had been responsible for getting him in here. I could see myself getting bounced from the University so fast it would make me dizzy all over again.

  “Please don’t say that. It hurts. You people will never know the difference. And I’m trading, anyway.”

  “Awfully shrewd bargain.”

  “Well, I don’t know.” A pout came over Fuj’s little face. He really looked as though I’d hit him. “First you told me I was crazy,” he sobbed. “Now I’m a crook!”

  “There, there, old man, what am I doing? Look here!” I had an idea! Now if I could only work it!

  “Fuj, old sock, don’t feel so bad.”

  “Yes?” He was sobbing. I wiped his nose and eyes with a piece of filter-paper.

  “I know where you can get something really nice.” He brightened immediately. “Here is a really good trade. You see, the people of Earth really like the good old Solar System. Leaving it would just break their hearts, Fuj. You wouldn’t want to be mean?”

  “Well, no-o-ooo. But I’m so poor.”

  “Suppose you got a nice piece of land—not nearly as big as Earth, but with little people on it that would make perfect puppets. You could move them about and do whatever you’d like with them. They’d love it. And you’d have fun.”

  “You mean I could have land with a command? That kind is worth just fifty-seven point two times as much, not counting insurance.”

  “Sure, sure. Now look. I want you to go to this place to do the job, because there’s lots of water around it. You’ll have to watch yourself and make preliminary investigations. I don’t want any tidal waves, so all the land you take must be substituted by an equal weight of water.” He was beaming.

  “Water? Easy. But you understand, I’ll have actually to travel there—can’t warp. Can’t carry the machine all assembled with me. So, how do I get there, and how do I recognize the place?”

  “Well, it’s a big island, about eleven-thousand miles due west of New York City, on the fortieth degree parallel. It’s long and narrow, and there are lots of little yellow people who have buck teeth living on it.”

  So I sent him on his way yesterday. He may get lost. If you see him around, just give him a few directions, will you?

  And now for Prof. Sanders!

  Sidewinder from Sirius

  The treacherous aliens from Outer Space gave Earth six months to surrender or be destroyed . . . but Vice-colonel Gaylord Kraut, fearless ace of Terrestrial Intelligence, had a daring plan: Why not surrender note?

  GAYLORD KRAM, VICEcolonel of Intelligence, Terrestrial Federal government, sat pondering one of the worst poker hands he had ever witnessed, and he had witnessed a goodly number in his 38 years, when he should have been sweating blood over his tottering government’s most perplexing problem: what to do about the colonists from Sirius and their G-ray.

  But what could even a Kram do with two deuces, the joker, a five and an eight-spot, all of different suits?

  The other three Intelligence officers who were taking a little badly-needed recreation the “old fashioned” way weren’t too surprised when Kram raised a thousand credits. There was no sense in trying to analyze Kram’s poker, any more than there was any sense in trying to analyze Kram. He usually won. Always a different technique, but he usually won anyway.

  Major Ignacius Luverduk, Kram’s somewhat useful assistant, knew this and folded his lowly hand which consisted of nothing more than dogs-over.

  While he was waiting for the colonel across from him to up-ship or get off the runway, Kram fell to thinking.

  Xenthl had pulled a dirty one. Forty years ago, the people of Iaaro, system of Sirius, under the too-able leadership of Xenthl, had finally made their presence known on Earth. For three centuries, they had examined Earth from afar to assure themselves that it would make a suitable landing spot. For awhile, during the mid-twentieth century, they had scared the pants off some people and incurred the ridicule of some others less imaginative with their disc-shaped space and aircraft, but that couldn’t have been helped. One had to trace a culture, a civilization, for a long time before one could analyze its true character-traits, abilities, potentialities. Especially when one’s forces were few in number, and there were nearly two billion of the other fellow.

  But the people of Iaaro had finally landed, back in 2010, satisfied that Earth with its faults was better than more light-years of space with its uncertainties and hardships. And Xenthl had been very nice about the whole thing.

  THE COLONEL decided to up-ship.

  He was new. He pushed a mountain of white chips forward. “I’ll stay,” he said, with a tremulous sort of confide
nce. The lieutenant to his right folded, and being the dealer, gave Kram the two cards he asked for. The joker, Kram had decided, ought to be kept this once for a kicker.

  “I’ll play these,” the colonel said in what he intended to be a convincing tone.

  “Check blind to the pat,” Kram heard himself saying.

  “Umm. Five thousand should be enough.”

  Kram edged his hand open, and now it was his turn to up-ship or. The two twos and the joker had been somewhat disgustingly joined by a six and a seven.

  Yes, Xenthl had been very nice about it all, but then, in his, position with only a few thousand followers, how else could he have been? Conquest and occupation, even with superior weapons, would at any time have been unthinkable; force of numbers alone would have told as long as Earthmen had cannon and aircraft. And mass-murder of Earth’s people prior to the planet’s methodical examination would have left an immense, empty planet with only a few thousand of the newcomers to work it.

  Xenthl had wanted not only a planet, but slaves to work it as well.

  So he couldn’t kill ’em off, reasoned Kram in the back of his mind for the millionth time. The thing was to use strategy, not arms, and Xenthl could have his cake and eat it.

  Which, in six months’ time, unless somebody, probably himself, figured out a way to stop him, he would have.

  “Hmm,” grunted Kram, knitting his sleek brows in final appraisal of his hand. “Your five and my-y-y—seven-fifty.” Smoothly he pushed a pile of whites into the center of the polished Marswood table—not too quickly, and not too hesitantly. Timed just right. Just the way Xenthl had timed things.

  A firm toe-hold on Earth. That was first . . . the promise that, if allowed to colonize all the deserts of the planet, his people would within a few years’ time make garden spots of them through their vastly developed science of hydroponics. They had come, they explained, seeking refuge from their own drying planet of Iaaro—they were all that were left. All they wanted was a home, and they would, in turn, give to the men of Earth the advantages of their advanced learning. And see? No weapons!

  And that was true. They had dismantled every defensive weapon they had carried in the disc-shaped spacecraft; had turned the parts and blueprints over to earth scientists for study.

  And they had turned the deserts of the planet into garden spots, save for a few patches left barren for laboratory construction.

  And they had improved the lot of Earthmen in countless ways—philosophically, governmentally, politically, educationally, religiously, scientifically, technically, and so on.

  Nice kids. Until they had sprung the G-ray and shown their true colors, and by that time it was a little too late, even for the men of Earth to cuss themselves out for having been the most gullible jays in the Universe, fourth dimension included. While telecrooners were dripping songs about the delirious gal from Sirius and housewives were listening to the adventures of the young widow from Iaaro, Xenthl was quietly setting about to take over the planet.

  And, he was doing that, too.

  “You,” said the colonel as he got off the airstrip, “win.”

  KRAM raked in his loot. There was some deliberation concerning the continuation of the game. Idly, Kram counted the credits he had bluffed the colonel out of. Or, which he more than suspected, he had counter-bluffed the colonel out of.

  The G-ray, Xenthl had explained to the men of Earth when he announced to them. that they would be given one year in which to reorganize their governments in conformation with his dictates and in subservience to his rule and under the sovereignty of himself and his people, operated on the practical principles of a theory once promulgated, but never put to work before his death, by an Earth scientist of the 20th century. The earthman had called it a “general theory of gravitation.” The Sirians had their own name for it, and when applied in weapon form, the result was the G-ray—a weapon capable of completely nullifying the forces of gravitational cohesion within any and all molecular structures. Result? Complete and instantaneous disintegration of any material object, solid, gaseous or liquid, at which it was aimed. Within its scope, the forces of what Xenthl termed “molecular gravity” fell completely to zero. Nothing exploded. It just stopped being, all at once.

  There had been demonstrations. Three demonstrations, and the world was more than convinced.

  Xenthl had demonstrated his weapon on three of his own no-longer-needed laboratories. Situated in their sterile patches of blistering desert, they had each covered areas about the size of three large earth cities. With the complete operation telecast to all the world, and with earth scientists watching at respectful distances in observation posts in one of which Xenthl himself had been present, the Sirian dictator had given the commands for his G-batteries to fire. They fired at ranges twice those of Earth’s best atomic cannon.

  The lab-cities, each hit with a single blast, vanished one, two, three.

  The places where the labs had been were minutely examined by Earth’s men of science for weeks afterward.

  Not a trace. Of anything. Just sand. The sand, Xenthl explained, was kept as much below the ray-field as possible—digging holes for miles into the planet wasn’t, after all, necessary, and it would’ve wasted power . . .

  Where there may have been signs of disbelief, Xenthl had only to infer that, really, did the credulous ones of Earth suppose that the Lords of Iaaro had disclosed all their great secrets of science when they had landed? Would they have divulged the very secret of their proposed conquest?

  The brave man with the club facing an enemy with an atomic rifle knows he is licked. At such a point, Kram reflected, heroism would be a little silly; hysterical anger would be useless.

  “Xenthl and his crowd,” mused Vicecolonel Gaylord Kram to himself as he stretched the zipper on his bulging hip-pocket, “are a bunch of sidewinders!”

  “The game, in which you have been the only victor, is over,” said Luverduk at his elbow, “and in your last statement, you are as usual, correct. But wait until the Old Man learns how much time we killed diddling instead of using the electro-relaxers!”

  “Jupiter damn’ the ’laxers—You do not seem to have perceived, Luverduk, that I have a theory!”

  THE OTHER’S globular countenance reflected no particular surprise at this quiet thunder, for to Luverduk, theories by Kram were things to be taken regularly for granted; monstrous theories which, oddly enough, were without exception correct in every detail when put into actual practice, as Kram himself, of course, would never fail to make perfectly clear in the first place. That Kram was an Intelligence expert with a brilliant background in weapon design was the fact, however, in which the Terrestrial government was at present narrow-mindedly interested.

  And it was the fact that had led to the dumping of the Sirian G-ray problem right in his lap.

  Unearthing the G-ray secret was Kram’s assigned mission; that made it Ignacius Luverduk’s, as well. “You have a theory. Should I take that Siriusly? Ha!”

  Kram only quickened the strides of his long, gaunt legs as they headed for his office. There was not even the quiver of one long black eyebrow to denote his having heard Luverduk’s effort.

  “For a ballistics and weapon-design expert,” the wheezing Major observed, “you, Kram, are at least a devilish poker player. You were bluffing on that last hand. Lying in your teeth! Psychologically speaking, you were guilty of the worst sort of misrepresentation.”

  “Foof. He was bluffing every bit as bad as I was. Worse. Probably didn’t even have a pair.”

  “You could tell?” Luverduk’s round blue eyes became excited, for his own brand of poker left something to be desired in the way of winning money.

  “When the time comes,” Kram said, “that I fail to perceive a bluff, and fail then to call it, I will start a mink ranch on Pluto.”

  No reply. Luverduk had heard that Pluto was a sterile planet, and was a little puzzled. The two strode into Kram’s office, which was empty of staffers. It was �
�laxer time. Kram started doing the talking:

  “You, Ignacius, will deliver a message for me to Sectors-General Hoskins, in ‘person.” Kram was writing things on a memo pad, the blanks of which were stamped CONFIDENTIAL at their tops in big red letters. “It says, Iggy, that President Thurston is to be informed that I have unequivocally failed to glean any information concerning the Sirian secret weapon, and in trying further to do so, would seriously imperil whatever chances Earth may have left to escape total destruction. I, Kram, have somehow failed! The message points out in addition that Eve lost seventy-three percent of my secret operatives already, and it explains that with each additional one captured, Xenthl’s temper is shortening to the breaking point. Being slightly paranoiac, he hates to be crossed. He’s one of those egotistical bastards, you know . . .”

  “Oh, but you can’t—”

  “Shuddup. It also advises that the Terrestrial government open truce negotiations for the consideration of terms.”

  “You mean you’re telling Hoskins and Thurston that we should wave the white flag?” Luverduk paled to the color of old paste.

  “You deliver it. And—” Kram kept writing, “there’s a P.S.. It says that I personally—that we personally—plan to request audience with Xenthl, to open aforementioned truce negotiations. Today!”

  “You,” quavered the Major scarcely above a whisper, “have cracked up!”

  “We will take off for Xenthl’s Moonside headquarters at precisely 1600 hours, radiating a truce signal. And you will now deliver this message.” He thrust the memo into Luverduk’s wringing hands. “And you will return here in exactly 30 minutes. That’s an order!”

  “Oh, Gaylord!” breathed Luverduk asthmatically. “Oh, oh, oh . . .” The length of the corridor down which he waddled swallowed up the gibberish that whispered in his wake.

  THIRTY MINUTES to the second later, just as Kram was putting the finishing touches on the thing which, he had estimated would take him precisely 30 minutes to rig, Luverduk returned. “Gaylord!”