Knight, Damon - A for Anything

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For Justin Leiber a good Joe

A FOR ANYTHING

All characters in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

Printed in the United States of America April 1972

"EN TONTQ NIXA"

"IN THIS, CONQUER"

Words accompanying the vision of the cross seen by Constantine, on the eve of his

victory over Maxentius in 312

ONE

A retired bank vice-president named Harry Breitfeller, who lived in a comfortable duplex in Santa Monica with his

wife and other relatives, stepped out on the cement porch a little after nine one morning to pick up the mail. There

were half a dozen envelopes, mostly bills, in the mailbox, and a whacking big cardboard carton on the porch under it.

Breitfeller picked up the carton, thinking it must be something his wife had ordered, but saw that his own name was

on the label.

There was no return address. According to the postmark, the box had been mailed late the previous afternoon in

Clearwater, which is about thirty-four miles northeast of Los Angeles.

Breitfeller could not think of anyone he knew in Clear-water. Remembering stories he had heard about bombs in the

mail, he shook the box gingerly. It seemed too light to have a bomb in it, and it rattled.

He took the box inside and set it down, pulled up a chair, and put his half-smoked cigar carefully in an ashtray.

His wife, Madge, came in from the kitchen drying her hands. "What's that?" she asked.

"Don't know." Breitfeller had his pocket knife open, and was slitting the brown paper tape that sealed the carton.

"Well, who's it from?"

"Don't know," said Breitfeller again. He turned the two halves of the box top carefully back. Underneath was a little

crumpled newspaper, and under that, something made of wood. Cottage lamps, was his first thought, but they were

unstained arid there were no shades, and no light sockets.

He pulled the two objects out of the carton and set them upright on the table. His wife looked over his shoulder, and

so did her sister Ruth who had just followed her in from the kitchen. The objects were two identical wooden crosses.

They were about a foot and a half high. Each one stood on a thick wooden base, and had some kind of wiring

attached to the upright and crossarm. On the base of each one was a typewritten paper, stapled down, which read:

THIS IS A GISMO IT IS A DUPLICATING DEVICE-IT WILL DUPLICATE ANYTHING—

EVEN ANOTHER GISMO. TO OPERATE, SIMPLY ATTACH A SAMPLE OF WHATEVER YOU WISH TO

COPY TO THE LEFT HAND ARM OF THE GISMO, AS SHOWN.

(There was a careful pen sketch in the margin.)

THEN PRESS THE SWITCH, AND A COPY WILL APPEAR ATTACHED TO THE RIGHT HAND ARM OF

THE GISMO.

WARNING:

DO NOT ALLOW THE OBJECT BEING COPIED TO COME IN CONTACT WITH

ANYTHING ELSE.

Breitfeller read this through twice in silence, ignoring the heavy breathing of the two women leaning on his

shoulders. He was a pink-faced man, rather popeyed and without very much chin, but stronger than he looked.

He inspected the two crosses unhurriedly, up-ending them to see if there was anything on the bottom, then examining

each part of the wiring.

"It's a trick," said Ruth over his shoulder. "A silly trick."

"Maybe," said Breitfeller, putting his cigar back in his mouth. He saw that the wires stapled to the crossarms of the

two Gismos were really loops, and that the curious little met-al-and-glass blocks which hung from them were

suspended by these loops.

There was just the one circuit, that looped over to one of the little metal-glass blocks on the left side and then looped

over to the other on the right side. The rest of it, attached to the upright, was nothiag but a pair of dry cells and an

ordinary light switch.

Breitfeller thought he could build one of these himself, in half an hour, except for the little glass-metal blocks. He

had never seen one of those before.

He leaned over the table and peered closer. The glass was a curious-looking cloudy stuff, possibly not glass but a

plastic, and it was coated with copper on both sides. On the bottom side of each block there was a small copper hook.

It looked to Breitfeller as if the glass or whatever it was would be plenty to insulate that hook from the feeble current

that would go through the loop of wire: so the Gismo couldn't actually do anything, much less what it was advertised

to do. But when he looked at those little metal-glass-metal sandwiches, he wasn't so sure.

His older son, Pete, came in saying, "Dad, I'm going to take the car over to Glendale this morning, okay? Whatcha

got?"

"Gismos," said Breitfeller wryly, around his cigar. He was frowning at the nearest cross. You closed the switch here;

the current went up here, through these little contacts, and around here, past the left-hand glass-metal block but not

•through it, and then over here, doing the same to the right-hand glass-metal block, and then back to the dry cells. It

seemed to him that nothing could possibly happen if you tried it. His fingers began to itch.

"Hey," said Pete, reaching, "let me see that."

Breitfeller forestalled him. "Keep your hands off," he said indistinctly.

"Dad, I know all about that electronics jazz."

"Not about this electronics jazz, you don't." Breitfeller got up with a cross in each hand.

"Harry, what are you going to do?" his wife asked, looking alarmed.

"/ think you ought to call the police," said Ruth, behind her.

Breitfeller said, "I'm going out behind the garage. By myself." He departed, past his brother-in-law Mack, who was

just up and looked half asleep, but had curiosity enough to say "What's that?" as Breitfeller went by.

He went out through the kitchen and the back porch, banging the screen door behind him, and walked across the

yard to the alley. There was about three feet of,space between the side of his garage and the fence, and nothing

across the alley but the back of a brewery warehouse, so Breitfeller figured that if anything should go wrong, there

would not be too much damage.

He set both the Gismos down carefully on the stack of scrap lumber and stared at them. "TO OPERATE, SIMPLY

ATTACH A SAMPLE OF WHATEVER YOU WISH TO COPY . . ." There was a little coil of bare copper wire

wound handily around the copper hook under the left-hand cross-arm; that was one detail that half convinced him.

The other thing was the metal-glass blocks; another, now that he thought of it, was the grain of the wood, which

looked identical in the two crosses, and the fourth thing, the one that really made his heart beat faster, was just-the

fact that there were two Gismos and not one.

Because if it was a gag, why should there be two? But if it was real, then with two Gismos you could make a third

one, a fourth, a fifth ...

Well, you never got anything without taking a little risk.

Breitfeller, with a sardonic gleam in his eye, fumbled for his money clip and withdrew a one-dollar bill. He uncoiled

the copper wire, wound it around the folded bill, and carefully attached it to the little hook on the left-hand side of

the Gismo. He slowly put out his middle finger to the switch. Slowly he pressed it down.

He blinked. Swinging from the right-hand arm of the Gismo, as if it had been there all the time, was a second, folded,

green one-dollar bill.

"Lord God Almighty," said Breitfeller, fervently.

TWO

The sun, just past the meridian, made a glaringly bright rim of light around each of the closed dark shades. Except

for this brilliance, and two or three random bits of metalwork picked out by the sunlight, the room was in hot half-

darkness. The air was close and stale. On the laboratory bench was a clutter of electronic test equipment, carelessly

piled. A book had been knocked to the floor, where it lay disheveled among wads of paper, dust, bits of insulation

and wire. In the far corner, half a stack of massive loose-leaf binders, precariously piled atop a filing cabinet, had

fallen. From under these protruded the legs and body of a man.

The piled books stirred, rose and parted with a gravestone clatter. A head emerged, crowned with dust. A hand came

up to hold it. There was a groan.

Mr. Gilbert Wall, of Western Electronics, for it was he, sat up painfully and looked around him. His hair was

rumpled, his tanned face covered with grime. There was a large bruise, beginning to turn yellow and blue, around his

right eye, which was swollen half shut. Wall touched this bruise, gingerly, and groaned again. "Maniac," he muttered

to himself.

He sat up straighter, looking momentarily apprehensive. "Swing?" he called. There was no answer.

Blinking, Wall turned and noticed the brightness against the drawn shades. He started, and looked at his wristwatch.

"Quarter after one!" he ejaculated. He looked around wildly,

then scrambled to his feet and wincingly went to the bench, His hands did not find what they sought. He glared

around once more, half distractedly. "My God!" he said.

On the wall beside the door there was a telephone. Wall saw it and went there. He took the receiver down, heard a

dial tone, and dialed "O."

"Operator," he said shakily, "get me Los Angeles." He gave the number. "I want to speak to Nathan MatDonald—

Nathan—N as in nut—that's right, and hurry. This is an emergency call."

"My trunks are all busy to Los Angeles," said the voice. "Will you wait, or shall I call you back?"

Wall swallowed. "Operator, this is Roy M. Jackson of the Federal Bureau of Investigation speaking. This is a matter

of the national interest. Now put that call through, if you please."

There was a pause. "May I have your identification number, sir?"

Damn. "Operator, I've just been assigned. I do not have an identification number yet. You'll just have to take my

word for it. This call must go through."

"Sir, 1 can't break in on a trunk call unless you have an identification number."

"Give me the head operator."

After a few moments there was another voice. "Sir, this is Miss Timmins. May I help you?"

Wall repeated his story, in a voice of passionate sincerity.

"Sir, one moment, I'll have the operator connect you with the office of the Clearwater chief of police."

"I don't want the police, I want Los Angeles!" said Wall, glaring.

"That's the best I can do for you, sir. If Chief Underwood will vouch for you, or if you would come to the telephone office

and show your identification—"

"Put the Chief on," said Wall. He was thinking: Underwood; now why did that name ring a bell?

By the time he got the man on the line, he had remembered. "Underwood, this is Gilbert Wall speaking." (If the

operator was listening in, let her.) "Perhaps you remember me. We met at the Masonic convention two years ago—

Norm Hodge introduced us, do you recall?"

"Why, yes, sure I do, Mr. Wall," said "Underwood's voice. (The old memory never failed; Wall could see the man's

face clearly in his mind's eye, jowly and obsequious, a typical dis-

appointed small-town public servant.) "How are you anyway!"

"I'm just fine, and yourself?" v "Well, not too badf I can't complain. What can I do for you?"

Wall's hand went to the knot in his necktie. "Underwood

—what do they call you, uh—" (what was the man's name)

—"Ed?"

"Ed, that's right."

"And youll call me Gil, won't you? Ed.'here's my little problem. I'm in Clearwater for the day on some confidential

work, I can't tell you over the telephone, but between us two, a Mr. Hoover is very, very interested in this."

"Oh, is that right? Well, you know, anything I can do—"

"Just one thing if you would, Ed. I've got to make an urgent call to 'L.A. and it happens the trunks are busy. You see

I'm working against time, Ed, you understand, and every minute counts. So if you would call the head operator, Miss

Timmins her name is, and more or less vouch for me— Incidentally, before we hang up, I wonder if we could have

dinner together before I leave. I can explain this thing to you then in a little more detail, of course."

"Why, sure, Gil," said Underwood, "that would be ..great. Now let me see, you want me to tell the head operator— "

"Just that you know me and so on, and ask her to do us the courtesy of putting my call through. Tell her I'm at—""

He read off the number of the phone from the dial card. "And, ah, I'll call for you at home say "bout eight o'clock,

family too, of course, will that be all right?"

"Fine."

"Fine, Ed, I'll be seeing you and thanks a million." Sweating, Wall hung up and rummaged in his pockets for a

cigarette. ,

A few minutes later the telephone rang. Wall snatched the receiver down and said, "Gilbert Wall speaking."

"Mr. Wall, are you the party who called a few minutes ago

—with reference to a call to Los Angeles?"

"Yes, that's correct, operator."

"Sir, that was not the name you gave me then, was it?"

"No," said Wall coldly, "that was my cover name I gave you. I was obliged to give my under cover name to Chief

Underwood, to get him to identify me."

There was a slight hesitation. "Well, I'll have the operator put that call through for you," said the voice uncertainly. "Just

hold the wire, please."

Wall waited, smoking nervously. He smoothed back his sleek hair with his palm, fingered the gold cufflinks to make

sure they were still there, noticed a loose shirt button with annoyance. His billfold was in his breast pocket; fountain

pen, keys, notebook, all right.

"Hello?" An unfamiliar male voice.

"/ have a call for Mr. Nathan MacDonald. Is he there?"

The right number then; but where was Miss Jacobs, the switchboard operator?

"He's tied up, can I take a message?"

"Hello," said Wall, interrupting the voice of the operator, "this is Gilbert Wall—let me talk to MacDonald."

"Oh, Mr. Wall. This is Ernie, the office boy. I'll uh, I'll put .. you right through."

Another pause. "Hello, Gil."

Wall exhaled with relief. "Hello, Nate. Boy have I had a time with this call, but never mind that now. Listen, that

Ewing is a maniac. I mean it. First of all, Nate, our tip was correct, that gadget of his, that Gismo really works. There

is no doubt about it." The silence struck him as odd. "Hello, Nate? Are you listening?"

"/ heard you." Wall could see the heavy-jawed face, all straight lines—mouth, flat nose, narrow eyes, gray hair

combed straight across, tops of the horn-rimmed glasses as straight as a ruler. MacDonald sounded like that, dry,

unemotional even in crises, and yet there was something in his tone that bothered Wall.

"Well, it's just as bad as we thought. Or worse. He absolutely would not listen to reason, Nate, and what's worse, the

s.o.b. got away from me." Wall touched his temple gingerly, and winced. "It may have been my fault, I more or less

lost my head and made some threats, trying to throw a scare into him, and— He took me by surprise, I never thought

he had it in him, and he knocked some books over on me, and that's why I haven't called until now. Nate, I was out

cold all night, until just a few minutes ago. I'm still not-myself. Now, my idea is, he'll be hiding out somewhere. He's

probably scared witless over all this—assaulting me, and so on. Do you check me on that, Nate?"

The voice said,, "Probably."

"Well, we've got to move fast, Nate. I know it was my ball and I bobbled it, I admit that, but we've got to find that

guy. Swear out a warrant, or—how would this be—suppose we tell the. Health Service people he's infected with

bubonic plague, or something? ... Nate?"

The voice said, "There's a lot of noise here."

Wall heard a faint, distant murmur, as if a crowd of people were talking (shouting?) in the background. Then there

were some underwater «clicks, and MacDonald's voice again: "What are your plans now, Gil?"

"Plans?" said Wall, taken aback. "Well, I can either stay here—I've got a date with the local chief of police, I can

keep that, if we decide to work through him— Or if you want me to come back for a skull session, Nate, I can charter

a plane. But listen, we've got to get on the ball with this thing. I mean, if that maniac, Ewing, ever gets it into his

head to distribute that thing, that Gismo—Nate, my mind just boggles. I can't picture it."

"I'm watching it," said MacDonald's voice indistinctly.

"What?" said Wall after a moment. "What did you say, Nate?"

"I'm watching it happen," said MacDonald's voice. "What did you think Ewing was doing all this time?"

"What?" said Wall again.

"Those things were in the morning mail delivery here. Two in a box. At least a hundred people got them. Along about ten,

people started copying them and giving them away to their friends and relations. Now they're fighting in the streets."

"Nate—" said Wall brokenly.

"I've got mine. Sent Crawford down for them. Packing now, or you wouldn't have got me. I happen to know a place in

Wyoming that's built like a castle—you could hold off an army there. Well, take care of yourself, Gil. Nobody else will."

"Nate, give me a minute now, I just can't believe it—"

"Turn on your TV," said MacDonald. There was a click, and the wire went dead. -,

Wall stared blankly at the receiver, then turned slowly. There was a little portable TV set standing on the bench. He walked

over to it, leaving, the telephone receiver swinging at the end of its cord, and turned on the switch. The TV blurted: "—and

down Sunset Boulevard, from Olvera Street west. And here's a flash." The screen lighted, showed a raster, but no face

appeared. "Police Chief Victor Corsi has issued a call for special volunteer policemen to handle the crowds. It's my hunch

he won't get any. The big question today is, Have you got a Gismo? And believe me, nothing else matters. This station will

stay on the air to keep you informed as long as possible, but no thanks to its poltroon of a general manager,

/. W. Kidder, or its revolting program director, Douglas M. Dow, who took off Jor the hills as soon as they got theirs. For

my own part, I say balls to them both. And balls to the Pacific Broadcasting Company and all its little subsidiaries! Balls

to Mayor Needham! And balls to—"

Wall turned the set off. The voice stopped; the bright frame shrank, twitched, shriveled to a point of light, that faded

and went out.

THREE

Ewing opened the back screen door and stepped out into the yard. It was a still, cloudless morning; the smog was all

down in the valley. The tall dry grass was uncomfortable to walk in, and he moved automatically down the shallow

slope to stand under the pepper tree. In the cool cavern behind the hanging curtain of branches, the ground was bare

except for the carpet of .red leaves and the hard little berries. The kids had been building a hut in here with old

lumber from the fence, and their toys were scattered around. "Ewing's ear registered the sudden outburst of shrill

voices inside the house, . and he frowned unhappily. That was not so good: you could hear them half a mile away,

and they were all over the mountain in the daytime. But you couldn't keep children locked up like criminals.

Anyhow, they had found a good place. The cottage stood on its own half-acre terrace more than halfway up the

mountainside. Above it there was only the scrubby slope of the mountain itself, bone-dry and littered with boulders,

and a row of desiccated palm trees along the irrigation canal. The one neighboring house, between the cottage and

the hill road, was empty and fire-gutted. Below the house there was another terrace, where evidently previous tenants

had had a kitchen garden; then the land sloped abruptly down and became an orchard of tiny orange trees. Ewing had

seen the owner's name on a mailbox, down at the bottom of the mountain: Lo

Vecchio, something like that. What was going to happen to him and his orchard now?

Down below, the valley lay spread out, rolling down and receding into an improbable blueness. Ewing could see the

road, diminishing to a tiny yellowish thread, and the cross-hatched patterns of tilled fields. The horizon curved

around him on three sides. Eucalyptus trees masked the highways; except for an occasional airplane, or a car going

or coming in the residential area just below, the world around hirn might have been deserted.

The rattle of a laboring engine-came echoing up in the clear air.

Ewing started, and peered fruitlessly off to his right, where trees screened the road. That sounded like somebody

coming up the hill.

Trouble. It might be somebody from the Adventist colony down below, paying a neighborly call, but from what

Ewing had seen, they all drove late-model cars. This sounded like a wreck. With his heart pumping in his throat,

Ewing ran into the house, past a startled Fay and two round girl-faces at the breakfast table, and got the shotgun out

of the closet. He made a second grab for the box of shells; two more jumps took him to the front porch. He was in

time to see the car pull up on the road above the house.

It was a battered, dusty Lincoln coupe with its trunk bulging open. All the chrome trim was missing from the body

and fenders, and the denuded strips were measled with rust. A fine spume of steam rose from the radiator.

"Dave boy!" shouted the driver, popping up on the far side of the car like a marionette. He was a dusty gray man in a

faded jacket and sweater; Ewing lowered the gun and stared at him. That cracked, cheerful voice—

"Platt!" he said, in mingled relief and exasperation.

"None other! The very same! In the flesh!" Platt came stork-legged down the driveway, moving with a jerky, nervous

energy, elbows pumping, his long face split in a yellow grin. He grabbed Ewing's hand and shook it hard; his water-

gray eyes were bright and sparkling. "Gotcha! You can't hide from me, boy! Ends of the earth! Well, hell, it's good to

see you, Dave—hello, Fay, hello kids—but for God's sake"— Ewing turned to see that his family was clustered in

the doorway; he turned back as Platt's stream of talk went on uninterrupted—"ask a man in and give him a drink of

water if you haven't got anything better. I'm so parched I'm spitting sand. What are you up here, eagles? Hell, is this

Elaine? My

God, you're big! Pretty as your old lady, too. And who's this?"

Kathy, looking suspicious, retired behind her mother's skirts. Elaine, who was .twelve, was blushing like a debutante.

Somehow they were all moving into the living room, and Platt threw himself into the only upholstered chair with a

shout of comfort. He was leading forward the next instant, still talking, fumbling a pack of cigarettes out of his

jacket, striking a shaky light, dropping the match, pulling Elaine into a one-armed embrace and winking at Kathy.

Platt was a man of galloping enthusiasms; a good experimental physicist, but a theorist whom nobody took seriously.

He had a new theory every year, and believed in every one with a frantic, whole-souled earnestness. His greatest love

was rocketry, but he had never succeeded in getting a clearance to work on classified projects. Platt's frustration was

acute, but only seemed to wind his spring tighter. He changed jobs frequently, and popped in and out of Ewing's life:

the last time they had met was in 1967.

Elaine, who was still blushing, drew away and went toward the kitchen. "I'll get the water for you, Mr. Platt."

"Call me Leroy. And not too much water, honey."

"There isn't any liquor in the house," Fay said. "We just moved in yesterday, but I can get some coffee ..."

"No, that's OK, I've got a bottle in the car—the bottomless bottle, thanks to your boy here—I'll bring it in later and

we'll have a ball, but listen, Dave—" the cigarette spilled ash down his frayed sweater—"I want to tell you, you're the

biggest genius of them all. My chapeau is off to you, boy, I mean it! I wish I'd invented that! But you did it, son—

you're the greatest. I mean it. Well"—he took the brimming glass of water from Elaine and raised it—"here's to you,

Dave Ewing, and long may you Gismo!" He sipped and made a mock-wry face, then gulped the water down.

Ewing said, "What makes you think I—"

"Who was working with Schellhammers?" Platt cried. "You think I didn't see your John Henry all over that thing?

Going to tell me you didn't do it?"

"No, but—"

"Sure, you did! The second I saw that, I could tell. I said to myself, I got to find old Dave, and I'll do it, too, if I have

to track 'm down like a bloodhound!"

Fay put in, "Leroy, how did you find us?"

"I'll tell you, honey. See, Dave and yours truly were old army buddies, and back at Fort Benning he always used- to

tell me how. he wanted to go live in the mountains some day —wanted to be a goddamn eagle and sneer down at all

the flatland foreigners. So I figured, where would Dave go if he wanted to get out of sight in a hurry? Not down to

L.A., because there's going to be hell popping down there. Not up the coast, because that'd take too long and he

might get stuck anywhere along the way. I figured, he'd head out on route ninety-one and stop the first time he came

to a high place. So I followed my hunch, and when I saw this little pimple with a house on it, I came on up. See?"

The Ewings looked at each other-in dismay. Fay's hand was on the little portable radio; she must have switched it on,

because a power hum came out of the speaker. But there were no voices: the last of the local stations had gone off

the air yesterday evening. She turned it off, still looking stricken.

"Well, hell, you don't have to stay here, do you?" Platt demanded. "Not that anybody else would find you this easy,

but listen, old buddy, you too, Fay, what are you going to do with yourselves, now you don't have to work for a

living?"

Ewing cleared his throat. "We haven't really had time to talk about it. I'd like to build a lab somewhere, when things

settle down. . . ."

"Sure you would. You will, too, boy. Hell, the sky's the limit, and that brings me to the moral of my tale. Listen,

thanks to you, we can all do what we want now—and Dave, listen, you know what I want to do?"

Ewing said the first fantastic thing that came into his head. "Fly to the moon, I guess."

"Right. Good boy—smart as a razor, no flies on you."

"Oh, no," said Ewing, clutching his head.

"Sure! Dave, listen, come on with me, bring the family— I've got the place picked out, and I know ten, twenty other

people that'll come in with us, but you're the boy I wanted to see first. It's big, boy, it's the biggest thing in the

world!"

"You really want to,build a spaceship?"

"Going to build one, boy. Up in the Santa Rosas—the Kennelly labs, they're made to order. All the room you want,

and heavy equipment—two months to get organized, and then watch us go."

"Why not White Sands?"

Platt shook his head impatiently. "I don't want it, Davey. One thing, every space-happy nut in the country will be

there by now—you'll have to elbow 'em out of the way to spit. Then, what have they got that we need? Hardware,

yes, missile frames, yes, but most of it is the wrong scale. We're

going to start fresh, Davey, and do it right. You can't make an interplanetary vehicle out of a Viking, boy—might as

well put .rockets on an outhouse. Think about this, now. Really see it." He hitched ctoser, spreading his ungainly

arms. "Build your ship—any size. Make it as big as an apartment house if you want—and all payload, Davey! Put

'everything in. Bedrooms, bowling alleys, kitchens—wup, no kitchens; don't need 'em. But libraries, movie theaters,

laboratories—"

Ewing started. "Leroy, have you been drinking liquor copied by the Gismo? You said something before—"

"Sure," said Platt impatiently. "Eating the food, too: Why not? Just put it through twice, make sure you don't get any

reversed peptide chains. Now listen, boy, pay attention—you build all that, whatever you want, get the picture? Now:

put your rocket motors underneath. All you want. With the Gismo, you can have ten or a million. Now what about

fuel —all those big tanks that used to kill us dead before we got off the ground? Davey, two little tanks, hydrazine

and oxygen, and two Gismos. We make our fuel as we need it. Forget about your goddamn mass-energy ratios! I can

jack up the goddamn Mormon Temple and take it to the moon! The moon, hell!"

He took a breath. "Dave, think about it! We can go any goddamn where in the universe! This time next year, we'll be

on Mars. Mars." He stood up, arms out, and became a space-suited Martian explorer, staring keenly into the distance.

"What's that I see? Strange pyramids? Little men with six noses? We'll find out, but let's make it quick, because we

got a date on Venus. But we'll leave behind a bunch of big Gismos as an atmosphere plant—fifty years, a hundred

years, there'll be enough air on Mars to breathe without these helmets. Then Venus—same thing there. If there's no

oxygen, we'll make it. Davey, a lousy hundred years from now, man-kind'll own the universe. I'm telling you! We

can have Mars, and Venus, and the Jovian system, just for the asking! Then what about the stars? Listen, Davey, why

not? In that ship we can live indefinitely—we can have kids there, and they'll keep going when we kick off. Do you

see it now? Doesn't it send you?"

He paused and glared incredulously at Ewing. "No?"

"No. Now look, Leroy, just to take one point—this atmosphere scheme of yours. You're going to be adding mass—

billions of tons of it. It isn't like releasing free oxygen chemically, from oxides in the soil or something like that—

you're going to perturb the orbits of the planets."

"Not to bother about," said Platt energetically. "Look, look—say the mass of a small planet like Mars . . ." Still

talking, he hauled out a small celluloid slide rule and began flipping the cursor back dad forth.

"Wait a minute," Ewing said, "you're going off half-cocked again." He produced his own slide rule from his back

pocket, and they bent closer to each other, both trying to "talk at once.

When she saw this, Fay got up and went into the kitchen, taking her resigned children with her.

Half an hour later, when she came back with coffee and sandwiches, Platt was just getting to his feet in an ecstasy of

despair at human stupidity. "Well, hell," he said. "Well, hell. Well, hell, boy. I'll get the bottle and we'll have a snort

to celebrate, anyway. Maybe that'll loosen you up," he added in a stage aside. The screen door banged behind him.

Ewing grinned ruefully and put his arm around his wife as she sat down beside nun. "Better get the spare room

ready," he said.

"Dave, no, it's just that hot little room with the water heater in it. And we haven't even got a mattress for him."

"He'll sleep on the floor—he'll insist on it," Ewing said. He shook his head, feeling a sentimental warmth for Platt—

so entirely himself, so unchanged after all these years.

"Good old Leroy!" he said. "Venus!"

Shortly before noon the house was in full sunlight. The sky was clear; the heat poured down in a breathless torrent,

and the dry earth bounced it back. The air over the mountainside shimmered with heat, and the palms were dusty and

brittle. Ewing picked up a clod of dirt in his hand; it crumbled into brown powder. "Hot," said Leroy Platt, fanning

himself with a shapeless fedora, "sure is hot." The sunlight made his pale eyes look naked and mad, surprised like

oysters in the white shell of his face. He put the hat back on.

Ewing enjoyed the heat. The sun beat down on his head and- shoulders as if it wanted to cook him; but his limbs

moved freely, well-oiled, and" tiny drops of sweat, like a golden mist, sprang out all over his arms and body. He

liked his sharp-edged shadow moving crisply underfoot in the strong light. He liked thinking about the cool shade

inside the house, after the heat. "We're almost there," he said, scrambling up. •

From the top of the little mountain they could look down

on the residential area, the Adventist college and food factory, all laid out like a tabletop village. The streets were

neatly drawn, the trees bright green, the housetops blue or red.

They turned. Down the opposite slope, it was another world: naked, burned-out mountain valleys, rolling away one

behind another, looking as if a drop of water would hiss into steam anywhere it touched them. Straight to the

horizon, there was no.sign of man.

"Now there," said Platt breathlessly. "That's it. There you have it. Thousands of square miles, Dave, mostly up and

down, but right next to our own back yards, and most of the time we forget it's here. Huh. You walk down a street

with houses on both sides, and you say to yourself, look how we've civilized this continent in a lousy three hundred

years. But, hell! We haven't scratched the surface! Dave, just think—if you can make your own water supply,

wherever you want it, what's to keep you from going out there, and planting grass all over those goddamn mountains,

if you feel like it? Why, hell, there's room enough to make every man a king!"

"Uh-huh," said Ewing, abstractedly.

"Of course, people being the sons of bitches they are— What's the matter?"

Ewing was staring off into the northern sky, shading his eyes. "I hear it, but I don't see it," he said.

"What?" Platt listened and stared. "A chopper," he said. A faint, distant rumble blurred over his words.

"What?" said Ewing. "Shut up a minute, Leroy."

The rumbling came rolling distantly down out of the sky. It was a voice speaking, but they could not make out the

words, only a vast blurred echo.

"There it is," said Ewing, after a moment. The tiny speck was hanging over the valley floor to northward, slowly

drift-nig closer. The rumbling words grew almost clear enough to be understood.

"Army copter," said Platt. He fell silent, and they both listened.

"Rrrr rrr rtnrm," said the brassy voice in the sky. It paused and began again: "Rrr attention plrrse. (rse.) Your attention

please, (ease.) This area has been placed under martial law. (law.) All citizens are ordered to remain in their homes,

(omes) and refrain from causing disturbances, (urbances.) Stay in your homes, (in your homes.) Normal services will be

restored shortly, (pred shortly.) Law-breakers will be severely punished, (verely punished.)" The voice grew to an

ear-offending shout as the copter drifted leisurely closer. Now it was almost overhead, and Ewing could see the

blades whirling shiny in the sunlight, and the transparent bubble with two dark figures in it. The drab-painted

machine turned as it drifted, the long curved body like an insect's abdomen. The huge voice stopped and began again.

"YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE. (EASE.) YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE. (EASE.)—"

Ewing had his hands over his ears. Platt's jaws were working. He took his hands away for a moment and said,

"What?"

Platt shouted, "Martial law!" He said something else, about "desertions,", but Ewing couldn't make it out. The copter

overhead, still shouting, drifted down toward the highway. Following it with his eyes, Ewing saw something strange.

He saw what looked like a line of cars and trucks, spaced almost bumper to bumper, climbing the mountain road.

There was a wrecker, followed by a red convertible, two moving vans with dusty red sides, three panel trucks, two

late-model sedans with glossy aluminum trailers, and a small gasoline tank truck.

He grabbed Platt by the arm, pointed. Then he was buck-jumping down the mountainside, with his heart in his

mouth, catching a glimpse of the lead car turning in at the top of the road.

A round man stood up in the back seat of the convertible and aimed a gun at him. "Hold it!"

Ewing skidded, arms flailing. The irrigation canal was coming up like a fast elevator; he could see the hard white

cement border, and the half-transparent minnows darting in the shadow. He couldn't stop himself, he was going in . .

* He plunged back with a violent effort, and the mountain hit him hard. His ears rang. Dust rose around him. He

sneezed and struggled to his feet.

._ The man in the convertible looked up at him without speaking. The gun was a double-barreled shotgun, sawed off

short. He held it with the stock tucked under his arm. His dusty blue polo shirt was dark with sweat; his face and his

heavy arms were burnt brick-color, but he wore only a shabby polo cap against the sun. A deer rifle was propped

against the seat near his hand, and the butts of two revolvers stuck out of his waistband. His round face, eyes slitted

against the glare, was placid and expressionless. He was chewing the... ragged cold stump of a cigar.

"Stay right where ya are," he said finally. Ewing glanced to

Ms left, and saw Platt standing there, hatless, with a bloody nose. "What was you guys running for?" the round man

asked them.

Ewing said nothing. "The young Negro in the front seat of the convertible was staring straight ahead, not looking up

or appearing to listen. He was manacled to the wheel. So were the drivers of the wrecker and the first moving van.

All three of them had the same vacant, faintly surprised expression.

The round man blinked and shifted his cigar. He nodded at the battered Lincoln up ahead. "That your heap?"

"It's mine," said Platt, starting forward. "I'll get it out—"

The shotgun came up sharply, and Platt stopped. "Just stand still," the round man said. "Okay, Percy."

The young Negro punched the drive button with his free hand, and the convertible inched ahead. Ahead of it, the

links of a heavy chain rattled on the ground, while behind it a similar chain tightened with a clank and groan. After a

moment, the other vehicles began to move. There were crashings and roaring engines as the motion transmitted itself

down the line.

The wrecker crawled ahead. Its broad wooden bumper butted up against the rear of the Lincoln, and began to shove.

The Lincoln budged, trembled and bucked nearer the side of the road. Its right front wheel ran off the edge. The

wrecker pushed, grinding in low gear. The Lincoln tipped downward, toward the narrow canyon between the road

and the house. It hung, swayed reluctantly, and then went over with a grand smash against the side of the house.

There was a startled shriek from inside. A tile fell off the roof and slid down the exposed side of the Lincoln. The

dust cloud rose. The wheels spun quietly to a halt.

The cavalcade stopped, a little at a time. The round man turned his full attention back to Ewing and Platt. He did it

deliberately, as if massive gears were turning somewhere inside him. He blinked, shifted the cigar butt in his mouth,

and spoke. "Why did ya park ya car inna road?"

Ewing thought he had seen a face at the bedroom window. He said unwillingly, "Nobody uses this road. It doesn't go

anywhere, except a ranch around the other side. They don't use it any more, there's a barrier."

The round man digested this in silence. He shifted the cigar again. "Yaa?" He chewed the cigar with an expression of

distaste, removed it, spat, and put it back. "How big of a place would ya say that is?"

"The ranch? I have no idea," Ewing said stiffly. Platt was

looking mournfully down at the way his car was wedged in between the slope and the house.

The round man stared at Ewing. "Ya seen it?"

"From a distance—I mean the house. I told you. I don't know anything about the ranch itself."

The round man thought about this. "Just one house?"

"That's all I saw."

After another pause, the round man nodded. He balanced the shotgun on his knee, took a soiled piece of paper and a -

stub of pencil out of his shirt pocket, and carefully drew a heavy line across the paper. "Okay," he said. "The heck

with it." He put the paper and pencil away with the same deliberation, picked up the shotgun again, and stared at

Ewing. "You live here?"

Ewing nodded.

"Who else?"

"Nobody else," said Ewing, tightly. "Just my friend and me."

"Don't tell me no fairy tales. Whatja do for a living?"

Ewing said, biting the words, "I'm an experimental physicist."

Instead of grunting and looking baffled, as Ewing had expected, the round man merely nodded. "Him too?"

"Yes."

The round man breathed quietly through his nose for a while, staring at the ground somewhere near Ewing's feet,

shifting the cigar from time to time. Eventually he said, "Come on down here—climb the chain and cross over."

When they had done so, he got out of the car and stood beside them in the road. "March." They started down the

driveway. "Your wife know how to shoot a gun?" he asked Ewing as they went.

"No," said Ewing heavily. It was the truth.

They walked in silence down to the shaded front porch and opened the door. In the living room, Fay and the children

were waiting.

"My name is Krasnow," said the round man. "Herb Kras-now. I was a shipfitter in San Diego for seven years. I was

in the Marines, too, before that, so don't make the mistake of thinking I'll be afraid to use this thing."

Krasnow's face was round and unemphatic, the nose short and wide, mouth and chin blending into his full cheeks.

His eyes seemed to belong to someone else; steady, under untidy black brows. He showed his teeth rarely when he

spoke;

when he did, momentarily, Ewing saw that they were yellow-brown stumps, widely separated. The black hair on his

arms and hands was luxuriant; his fingers were the thick, spatulate fingers, with black-rimmed nails cut back almost

to the quick, of a man used to working with his hands. In his shabby polo cap and stained shirt, heavy-bellied, he

might have been any workman on a street repair job, or loading a truck, or driving one. Ewing realized that he had

seen thousands of men like this one in his life, but had never looked closely at one before.

Krasnow pushed his cap back, and immediately' looked older; wet strands of hair straggled over his brown, bald

scalp. Sitting in the straight chair beside the window, he faced the Ewings and Platt, all crowded together in a row on

the couch. He held the shotgun balanced on one thigh, in a way that suggested he could aim and fire it from that

position, one-handed. "See, my wife died a coupla years ago," he said. "I'm all alone inna world, so I figure, what the

hell? Why shouldn' I get mine?"

Ewing swallowed and said angrily, "That's a hell of a philosophy. What about those people up there on the road—

why shouldn't they get theirs?"

"You have an awful nerve," Fay said. "Who do you think you are, God? You can't do a thing like that to people!"

Krasnow shook his head. 'They'd do the same to me. I take my chances, just like they took theirs. You might even

knock me over and take the whole works. I'm just one guy."

Platt leaned forward over his crossed knees; he was folded up like a jackknife on the couch, all joints and bony

hands. The cigarette in his fingers trembled and spilled ash. "When are you going to sleep, Krasnow?" he asked.

Krasnow pantomimed a bark of laughter. "Yaa," he said. "You hit it there. We been on the road a day and a half

already, and all I got was cat-naps. That colored boy, Percy, he'd as soon kill me as look at me. I figure I got to get

through two more nights, maybe three before I can sleep. I'm getting old; ten years ago I coulda done it easy."

"You must be out of your mind," Ewing said. "What you're talking about just isn't possible. You can't keep all those

people under control forever—you have to sleep sometime."

Krasnow shook his head. "Ya gotta have slaves now," he said. He used the word matter-of-factly. "Nothing else is

worth anything. Ya can't get people to work for ya any other way. How's the work gonna get done?"

"What work?" Ewing demanded. "Don't you understand, everything's free now—power, machinery, anything a

Gismo will carry. Later on there'll be bigger Gismos, for things like automobiles and prefab houses. What are you

going to do, build a pyramid or something? Take your Gismo, why don't you, and let those people go."

"Naa. You're talking fairy tales. Every guy goes off with his own Gismo, and that's it? Not on your sweet life, mister.

There's just two ways, and you'll find that out—ya gotta own slaves, or ya gotta be a slave."

"Power hates a vacuum," said Platt. His voice was curiously subdued; he was looking with close attention at the

burning tip of his cigarette. "Trouble is, though, how you going to keep them down on the farm? First chance they

get, they'll cut your throat and go over the wall. Then what?"

Krasnow looked at him directly and, it seemed, curiously. "That's something I gotta work out," he said. "Like now, I

got them cars chained together, and I got demolition bombs I can set off by short wave. Live bombs, one in every

car. That could be better, but it works. But later on I gotta think of something else. You're supposed to be smart, you

got any ideas?"

"I might," said Platt, thin-lipped. His gaze and Krasnow's met. -

"Yeah. Well, meantime, I gotta find a place like you said. With a wall." Krasnow sighed. "I heard something about

this place around the bend here, so I thought I'd take a look—a long shot. But I can tell from the way you talk, it's no

good. I'll head up the coast, like I thought at first. There's plenty of rich guys' places up north, outa the way. Haifa

them big, shots are away all year. Either there'll be just a caretaker, some old geezer, or else some punks that've

moved in lately. Either way, I know how to handle it."

He stood up. "Ewing, you love ya wife and kids?"

Ewing's jaw knotted with anger and fear. He said, "What's that to you?"

Krasnow nodded slowly. "Sure ya do. Okay, buster, now you listen. If ya don't want to see them killed right here,

you do like I tell ya. Understand?" Ewing's throat went dry, and he could not answer. "You're coming along with

me," Krasnow went on after a moment. "I like the look of ya, and I like ya family, and I can use a scientist like you.

So get used to the idea. Now come on outside—yaa, you too, everybody. I got something to show ya."

He herded them through the door. Out in the yard, blinking in the white glare, Krasnow and Platt looked sorrowfully

at each other. The shadow of Krasnow's gun was a short black line on the baited ground between them. "I can't use

ya, and I can't trust ya," said Krasnow. "So start runnin'."

Ewing looked on unbelievingly. He saw Platt, staring into Krasnow's eyes, shudder and stiffen. Then the tall man

was whirling, all knees and elbows, diving down the slope to the terrace below—zigzagging as he made for the

shelter of the nearest pepper tree—

The gun went off with a noise like the end of the world. Deafened, uncomprehending, Ewing saw his friend's body

hurl itself thrashing into the weeds. The children screamed. The bitter scent of powder filled the air. Through the

leaves Ewing could see what was left of Platt's head, a gray and red tatter. The legs went on kicking, and kicking....

Fay's skin had turned paper-gray. She looked at him, and the pupils of her eyes began to slide up out of sight. Ewing

caught her as her knees buckled.

"Soon as she comes to," said Krasnow quietly, "you and her can start loading whatever ya want on ya trailer. 111

give ya half an hour. And meantime, you can be thinking about why I done that." He jerked his head toward the body

in the weeds below.

Up on the road, in the cabs and front seats of all the parked vehicles, the faces of the drivers had turned to look down

on them. Their expressions had not changed, but was as if a common string had pulled them all around, like so many

puppets.

At nightfall, the caravan was winding northward along the ridge highway toward Tejon Pass. The air was cool. Off

to Ewing's left the sun went down behind the mountains in great tattered scarlet and orange streamers; the riding

lights of the van ahead glowed in the deepening twilight.

Fay and the girls were in one of the house trailers, sharing it with some other poor devil's family. Ewing was alone

with the oncoming night, in the steady drone of the engine, with his wrist manacled to the steering wheel.

A slave . ..

And the father of slaves.

He'd had more than enough time to think about what Krasnow had meant back there at the mountain house. Krasnow

had murdered Platt for an object lesson, and because he

knew Platt would never make a good slave . . . too reckless and unstable. Besides, Platt was unmarried. Platt was not

the slave type.

The slave type ...

Funny to think that there were physicist types even among the natives of the Congo, who had never heard of physics

. . . and slave types, even among the physicists of America, who had forgotten there was such a thing as slavery.

And it was curious, how easy it was to accept the truth about himself. Tomorrow, after 'he had slept and the sun was

high, he might fill up with anger again—the brittle anger, so easily broken—and swear to himself, futilely, that he

would escape, kill Krasnow, rescue his family. . . . But now, alone, he knew he never would. Krasnow was wise

enough to be "a good master." Ewing's lips moved: the phrase was bitter.

What about fifty, a hundred years from now? Wouldn't the slave society break down—wouldn't the Gismo become at

last what Ewing had thought it would be, an emancipator? Wouldn't men learn to respect each other and live in

peace?

Would it be worth all the misery and death, then? Ewing felt the earth breathe under him, the long slow swell of the

sleeping giant. . . . On that scale, had he done good or evil?

He did not know. The car droned onward, following the tail lights of the van ahead. From the west, slowly, darkness

scythed out across the land.

FOUR

Dick Jones opened his eyes lazily to a green-and-gold morning, knowing as he awakened that there was something

special about this day. Comfortably asprawl, giving himself to the cool breeze as sensuously as a cat, he wondered

what it . might be: a hunt today? visitors? or a trip somewhere?

Then he remembered, and sat up suddenly. This was the day he was leaving Buckhill to go to Eagles.

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ForJustinLeiberagoodJoeAFORANYTHINGAllcharactersinthisbookarefictional,andanyresemblancetopersonslivingordeadispurelycoincidental.Copyright©1959byZenithBooks,Inc.-Copyright©1965byDamonKnightAllrightsreserved,includingtherighttoreproducethisbookorportionsthereof.PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmericaApril...

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