The Science-Fantasy Megapack Read online

  “And the Houmi?”

  Holden shrugged.

  * * * *

  Michael was an idealist and a fanatic and so was far more dangerous than Holden had suspected. His dream had been nurtured by old philosophies and forgotten injustices and, in the face of the greater ideal, nothing could be permitted to stand in his way. Nothing. Not even Holden’s life. He was regretful but determined.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I had to do it.”

  “You almost cracked my skull.” Holden tugged at his bonds and stared at the other man. “How long have I been out?”

  “A long time.” Michael hesitated. “I had to drug you after I stopped you using the radio. Then the repairs took longer than I thought. They are all finished now though.” He stared at a point above Holden’s head. “You were quite wrong about them, you know. I’ve learned a little of their language and they’re quite sincere. They want to see Earth, I’m traveling with them as a kind of ambassador, and they promise to return.”

  “And me?”

  “I’m sorry.” Michael lowered his eyes. “You’ll have to stay here.”

  “Tied? Like this?” Holden strained at his bonds then relaxed. “That’s murder,” he said quietly. “Is that what you want?”

  “I don’t trust you.”

  “What’s trust got to do with it?” Holden was frightened now; Michael meant exactly what he said. “What harm can I do? You’ve had your own way, the Houmi’s ship has been repaired, what more do you want?”

  Michael didn’t answer.

  “You’re frightened that I’ll upset your plans, is that it?” Holden laughed, a short sound without humor. “Well, maybe I’d try if I could. But what damage can I do now?” He began to sweat. “At least you could cut me free and leave me the ship.”

  “The ship isn’t space-worthy,” said Michael. “I had to use most of the parts for the repairs and I’ll need the radio, of course, the Houmi don’t use our type of communication. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re going to lie,” said Holden with sudden understanding. “You’re going to tell them that the Houmi rescued you from a wrecked ship. You’re going to say that because you want us to be friendly towards them and you think that lie will help things along.” He sneered. “Crazy logic! They helped us, therefore they must be friends, therefore we must be friendly towards them. Lies! All lies!”

  Michael rose to his feet.

  “You fool!” screamed Holden. “You blind, stupid fool! Don’t you know that you’re selling out your own race?”

  Michael stepped towards the door. He spoke once before he left Holden to his fate. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I wish that you could understand.”

  “Go to hell,” said Holden, and turned his face to the wall.

  * * * *

  Michael Denninson did not go to hell, not then, though he may have done later when he died by his own hand. He went to Earth with his friends the Houmi where, partly because of his lie, they were made welcome. They gave us some of their secrets, little things of no real value but, we thought a promise of what was to come. That was all they gave us, toys and the assurance that they would return. A promise that they kept only too well.

  The Houmi look almost human but they are not human and. what is worse, they do not regard us as human. Human, that is, by their own standards. And yet they have a wry sense of humor. It was they who insisted on the statues immortalizing Michael Denninson, the most hated man in the entire history of the human race. It was they who permitted the inscription and in this they reveal their lack of irony. Or perhaps they just don’t care. For as every schoolchild knows the inscription, as it stands, is true but indefinite. It lacks a hyphen and one other word.

  —SLAVES

  YOU GO, by E. C. Tubb

  Herman came into the office beating his hands together and shivering with cold.

  “Women!” he said. “Five gallons, a pint of oil and would I check the tires and battery.” He snorted. “Tires I don’t mind, but couldn’t she have left the battery until daylight?”

  “Service,” said Onslow. “Service with a smile. Tip?”

  “Not on your life.” Herman held out his hands to the warmth of the stove. Together with Onslow, he formed the night staff of the Acme Garage. It was a pleasant enough job, with little to do in the small hours but sit in the office and wait for some stranded motorist to call for help or service the few cars traveling through the night. He nodded toward the paper Onslow was holding.

  “Anything interesting?”

  “Not much. A couple of holdups, a murder and some more disappearances.” Onslow riffled the paper, his thin face adorned with heavy spectacles intent as he read the column. “You ever think about that?”

  “Holdups?” Warmed, Herman sat down and lit a cigarette. Physically, he was totally opposite Onslow, being big and florid where the other man was thin and pale. He gestured with his cigarette. “Places like this don’t get held up, not with the two of us. Those punks pick single-man stations to knock over.”

  “Not holdups,” said Onslow. “Disappearances.” He folded the paper and leaned forward. “Did you know that every year 12,000 people vanish? I don’t mean they run away from their families or skip their jobs. They literally vanish.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that.”

  “Must have a reason,” Herman said comfortably. He wasn’t much of a reader and was tired of the radio, so an argument with Onslow was as good a way to pass the time as any he could think of. Made something interesting to tell Mary over breakfast, too.

  “No reason,” said Onslow. “No reason at all.”

  Onslow warmed to his subject. “You wouldn’t think it possible in this civilization, what with social security, the police, the paperwork checking and registering of every individual, but it does. Men and women vanish and are never found again. It’s the truth.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” chuckled Herman. “There have been times when I’ve felt like taking a long, one-way walk. Means nothing.”

  “You don’t get it,” said Onslow. “I’m not talking about the people who have obviously decided to run away. People like that pack a bag, draw out their money from the bank, make some preparations before leaving. Most of them are easily found; all of them could be if anyone were interested enough. I’m talking about the mysteries, the people who vanish for no reason and without making any plans at all.” He shook his head. “Sometimes it worries me.”

  “Maybe they were snapped up by something in a flying saucer?” Herman chuckled again; somehow, he couldn’t take Onslow’s statement seriously. He didn’t disbelieve it, for the thin man never lied, but he just couldn’t accept it He changedthe subject. “I’ve been thinking about what you told me last night. You know, that time-travel thing.”

  “The paradox?” Onslow smiled. “Did you work it out?”

  “I think so.” Herman frowned to stir up his memory; he and Mary had spent a couple of hours on the problem before he hit the sack. “If a man invents a time machine,” he said carefully, “and then goes back to kill his grandfather when a boy, then he couldn’t have been born, could he?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Then if he hadn’t been born, he couldn’t invent a time machine in the first place. But if he hadn’t invented it, he couldn’t have killed his grandfather, so he would have been born anyway.” Herman drew a deep breath. “So he didn’t kill his grandfather at all. Right?” He looked anxiously at the other man.

  “Near enough.” Onslow knew better than to labor the point. “If he was born, then his grandfather couldn’t have been killed when a boy, so all that about going back and killing the old man doesn’t really enter into it.”

  “That’s what I said,” lied Herman. “Mary kept trying to tie me in knots, but I made her see sense in the end.” He hesitated. “Got any more?”

  “Paradoxes?” Onslow looked surprised. “Sure, if you’re interested.”

  “I’m interested.” Herman glanced through the office windows. Th
e night was a bad one, cold, wet, miserable, a night most people would choose to stay indoors. “May as well talk as read or listen to the radio. More interesting anyway.”

  “How about this one?” Onslow helped himself to a cigarette and hunched closer to the stove. “An old Greek named Zeno dreamed it up and it’s a good one. Achilles was going to race a tortoise. The tortoise was placed halfway down a measured strip—it doesn’t matter how long—and Achilles stood at the starting line. You get the idea?”

  “Sure, the tortoise was given a big start.”

  “It was halfway down the strip,” said Onslow. “So the race started. Now before Achilles could catch up with the tortoise, he had to cover half the distance between them. Right?”

  Herman frowned, then nodded. “Sure, of course. He had to reach the halfway mark between them.”

  “Yes, but by the time he had reached that halfway mark the tortoise had moved on a bit further. So Achilles had to cover half that distance, by which time the tortoise had moved on still more. So Achilles had to cover half that distance and then half the next distance and so on.” Onslow leaned back. “How did Achilles ever catch up with the tortoise?”

  “Uh?” Herman looked blank. “By running faster, of course. Nothing to it.”

  “Isn’t there?” Onslow reached for paper and pencil. “Look at it this way.” He made swift sketches. “First he had to cover half the first distance, then half the second, then the third and all the rest. Look at it that way and he could never have caught up, because, no matter how short the distance, he had always to cover a half of it, by which time the tortoise had moved on.”

  “I see,” said Herman glumly. This was one time when he couldn’t dazzle Mary with his superior knowledge. It wasn’t much good taking home a problem to which he didn’t know the answer.

  Onslow took pity on him. “No one can really work it out the way it’s stated. They say that calculus can do it, but I wouldn’t know. The easy answer is that Achilles wasn’t racing to catch up with the tortoise at all; he was running to a point past the finishing line. That way, all he had to do was cover a series of decreasing halves of distance and so, naturally, he won hands down.”

  “Sure,” said Herman, relieved. “The gimmick depends on which way you look at it.”

  He glanced at his watch, then through the windows. A car came down the road, slowed and swung into the forecourt of the all-night restaurant a few hundred feet lower down. Onslow, who had headed toward the door when he heard the slowing car, grunted and busied himself at the stove instead.

  Herman switched on the radio, listened to a disc jockey announcing the next record, then switched off with a grunt of disgust. “Got any more?”

  “Paradoxes?” Onslow looked thoughtful. “Have you heard the one about the missing unit?”

  “Tell me,” Herman invited.

  “Three men go into a restaurant,” said Onslow. “The bill comes to thirty units and—”

  “Units?”

  “Dollars, pounds, rupees, it doesn’t matter what you call them.” Onslow lit a fresh cigarette. “The bill comes to thirty units—dollars, say. The manager, after the bill has been paid, finds that he’s overcharged by five dollars. He gives the five dollars to a waiter who, being dishonest, gives each of the three men one dollar each and pockets the two remaining.” Onslow flicked his cigarette. “Now, in effect, the men have each paid nine dollars for their meal. Three nines are twenty-seven. The waiter has kept two dollars. Twenty-seven and two make twenty-nine. Where is the other dollar?”

  “Wait a minute!” Herman was frowning. His lips moved as he thought. “What’s the answer?”

  “I don’t know.” Onslow sat down and leaned forward. “If you take the units—dollars—at each stage, you get the full amount. They handed the manager thirty dollars. He kept twenty-five and gave the waiter five, still thirty. The waiter gave the men one each, three, kept two, five, and the manager had the other twenty-five. Still thirty. But the men went into the restaurant with thirty dollars, ten each. They come out with one dollar each, so they must have spent twenty-seven between them. If they guessed the waiter was robbing them, all they could reclaim was two. So we still get twenty-nine instead of thirty.”

  He stood up as a car swished into the forecourt before the pumps. “You think about it while I serve this customer,” he suggested.

  The car was new and the customer felt toward it the same emotion that a mother has for her child. He insisted on Onslow’s inspecting the oil, demanded a different brand from a sealed can, watched the pump gauge with a suspicious eye, asked to have his tires and battery checked and then wanted his plugs tested. By the time Onslow had finished, he was blue with cold and in a frame of mind to regret the passing of the horse as a means of locomotion. Herman glanced up from where he sat, a sheet of paper before him and a frown creasing his forehead.

  “I don’t get it,” he said plaintively.

  “Nor me.” Onslow shivered as he warmed himself at the stove. “You’d think that a guy had better things to worry about than a heap of steel and rubber.” He rubbed his hands together. “Plug testing at three A.M.! They’ll be wanting a wash and polish next!

  “Service,” said Herman maliciously. “Service with a smile. Tip?”

  “Go to hell.”

  “It’s warm there, from what they tell me,” said Herman mildly. He scowled down at his sheet of paper. “I’ve been working on what you said. I still can’t see it. If you count in the money the men have, then you get two dollars over; if not, one dollar less.”

  “Twenty-seven they paid, three they have, two the waiter has.” Onslow nodded. “Thirty-two units instead of thirty. I told you it was a good one.”

  Herman blinked. He was annoyed at his inability to solve the problem, a little tired and more than a little irritated. “Why use units? Why not plain ordinary dollars?”

  “It would work in any currency,” said Onslow mildly. “The paradox I mean. Or with anything similar. People, for example.”

  “People!” Herman crumpled the sheet of paper. “You serious?”

  For answer, Onslow picked up his newspaper and opened it at the column dealing with the latest disappearances. He tapped it.

  “Why not? People are units just the same as the mythical dollars we were talking about. If you can lose a dollar by passing it from hand to hand, why not a man or a woman?”

  “Hand to hand,” said Herman shrewdly. “You don’t pass people around that way.”

  “Maybe not, but they move just the same.” Onslow listened to the hum of an approaching car. It mounted, reached a peak, fell away as the car drove into the night. “People are on the move all the time, driving, walking, on the subways, in trains, airplanes, boats, all the tune moving from one place to another.” He picked up the newspaper and glanced at it. “Just like the dollars in the paradox.”

  “You’re crazy!” Herman snorted. “It isn’t the same at all.”

  “No?” Onslow shrugged. “Call a dollar a unit and call a man a unit and you have the same thing. Pass them around, one way and another, and they are still the same thing. And if a dollar can get lost in the shuffle, then why not a man?”

  “Men don’t vanish like that,” protested Herman. He flinched as Onslow held out the newspaper. “They can’t.”

  “But they do.” The thin man smiled and produced his cigarettes. He passed them to Herman, lit them, inhaled with quiet luxury. “I used to work in a lost and found office one time. You wouldn’t believe the things people lose. Umbrellas, briefcases, parcels, books, all kinds of things.”

  “I’ve lost stuff myself,” said Herman. “Anyone can forget a parcel or a book.”

  “Sure, but that isn’t all.” Onslow stared through the office window. “What about false teeth, artificial legs, artificial eyes, a pair of crutches, trusses, things like that? How can a man lose his false teeth? They aren’t something you carry around in your hand or loose in a pocket. The same with artificial legs or eyes. And not wr
apped» remember—we used to get them handed in just as they were found.” He looked at Herman. “Have you ever seen a man walking around with an unwrapped artificial leg under his arm?”

  “Not that I can remember.”

  “Of course you haven’t. And teeth—you wear false teeth, Herman. What do you do with them?”

  “Keep them in my mouth. What else?”

  “That’s what I mean. And yet you’d be surprised at the number of dentures handed in to every lost and found office every week.” Onslow shook his head. “It makes you wonder.”

  “Not me, it doesn’t,” said Herman. “I don’t go for that sort of pipe-dream.”

  Onslow thoughtfully turned back to the window and blew smoke against his reflection. “Twelve thousand a year. And that’s just in this country alone. No one knows how many people vanish all over the world. And people moving all the time. From one place to another and back again. From country to country, state to state, town to town, even from home to business. All moving—just like the dollars in the paradox.”

  Herman didn’t answer. He was thinking of Mary’s younger brother, a serviceman who had gone to an overseas trouble spot. He’d been reported missing—not killed in action, not even believed to have been killed, just missing. Herman hadn’t thought it odd at the time, but now he couldn’t get it out of his mind.

  “Maybe they shed their ‘bits’ when they vanish,” said Onslow reflectively. “A man gets lost in the shuffle and his teeth or spectacles or artificial leg just stays behind.”

  “But where do they go?” Herman was still thinking of his missing brother-in-law.

  “Where does the missing dollar go?” Onslow shrugged. “No one knows where they go. Maybe they’re still walking around somewhere, not knowing who they are. Or perhaps they just vanish, be as if they never were.” He dropped his butt and trod on it. “And it could happen at any time. You might leave for work and never get there, or start for home, or down the street and never arrive. You’d have made only one move too many or maybe just a move in the wrong direction. Who knows?”