Big Book of Science Fiction (9 page)

~ * ~

“Come
on out and have a look at him,” said Jack.

Zinsser looked at his watch. “I
can’t. All kidding aside, I got to stick by the phone for another half hour at
the very least. Will he be all right out there? There’s hardly anyone around.”

“I think so. Molly’s with him,
and as I told you, they get along beautifully together. That’s one of the
things I want to have investigated—that telepathy angle.” He laughed suddenly. “That
Molly . . . know what she did this afternoon?” He told Zinsser about Molly’s
driving the car through the wrong end of the garage.

“The little hellion,” chuckled
Zinsser. “They’ll all do it, bless ‘em. At some time or other in his life, I
think every kid climbs aboard something he doesn’t know anything about and runs
it wrong. My brother’s kid went to work on the front lawn with his mother’s
vacuum cleaner the other day.” He laughed. “To get back to what’s-his-name—Mewhu,
and this gadget of his. Jack, we’ve got to hang on to it. Do you realize that
he and his clothes and this thing are the only clues we have as to what he is and
where he came from?”

“I sure do. But listen—he’s very
intelligent. I’m sure he’ll be able to tell us plenty.”

“You can bet he’s intelligent,”
said Zinsser. “He’s probably above average on his planet. They wouldn’t send
just anyone on a trip like that. Jack, what a pity we don’t have his ship!”

“Maybe it’ll be back. What’s your
guess as to where he comes from?”

“Mars, maybe.”

“Now, you know better than that.
We know Mars has an atmosphere, but it’s mighty tenuous. An organism the size
of Mewhu would have to have enormous lungs to keep him going. No; Mewhu’s used
to an atmosphere pretty much like ours.”

“That would rule Venus out.”

“He wears clothes quite
comfortably here. His planet must have not only pretty much the same
atmosphere, but the same climate. He seems to be able to take most of our
foods, though he is revolted by some of them—and aspirin sends him high as a
kite. He gets what looks like a laughing drunk on when he takes it.”

“You don’t say. Let’s see; it
wouldn’t be Jupiter, because he isn’t built to take a gravity like that. And
the outer planets are too cold, and_ Mercury is too hot.” Zinsser leaned back
in his chair and absently mopped his bald head. “Jack, this guy doesn’t even
come from this solar system!”

“Gosh. I guess you’re right.
Harry, what do you make of this jet gadget?”

“From the way you say it cuts
wood . . . can I see that, by the way?” Zinsser asked.

“Sure.” Garry went to work on the
jet. He found the right studs to press simultaneously. The casing opened
smoothly. He lifted out the active core of the device, and, handling it
gingerly, sliced a small corner off Zinsser’s desk top.

“That is the strangest thing I
have ever seen,” said Zinsser. “May I see it?”

He took it and turned it over in
his hands. “There doesn’t seem to be any fuel for it,” he said, musingly.

“I think it uses air,” said Jack.

“But what pushes the air?”

“Air,” said Jack. “No—I’m not
kidding. I think that in some way it disintegrates part of the air, and uses
the energy released to activate a small jet. If you had a shell around this
jet, with an intake at one end and a blast tube at the other, it would operate
like a high-vacuum pump, dragging more air through.”

“Or like an athodyd,” said
Zinsser. Garry’s blood went cold as the manager sighted down into the jet
orifice. “For heaven’s sake don’t push that button.”

“I won’t. Say—you’re right. The
tube’s concentric. Now, how on earth could a disruption unit be as small and
light as that?”

Jack Garry said, “I’ve been
chewing on that all day. I have one answer. Can you take something that sounds
really fantastic, so long as it’s logical?”

“You know me,” grinned Zinsser,
waving at a long shelf of back number science-fiction magazines. “Go ahead.”

“Well,” said Jack carefully. “You
know what binding energy is. The stuff that holds the nucleus of an atom
together. If I understand my smattering of nuclear theory properly, it seems
possible to me that a sphere of binding energy could be produced that would be
stable.”

“A sphere? With what inside it?”

“Binding energy—or maybe just
nothing ... space. Anyhow, if you surround that sphere with another, this one a
forcefield which is capable of penetrating the inner one, or of allowing matter
to penetrate it, it seems to me than anything entering that balance of forces
would be disrupted. An explosive pressure would be bottled up inside the inner
sphere. Now if you bring your penetrating field in contact with the
binding-energy sphere, the pressures inside will come blasting out. Incase the
whole rig in a device which controls the amount of matter going in one side of
the sphere and the amount of orifice allowed for the escape of energy, and
incase that further in an outside shell which will give you a stream of air
induced violently through it—like the vacuum pump you mentioned— and you have
this.” And he rapped on the little jet motor.

“Most ingenious,” said Zinsser,
wagging his head. “Even if you’re wrong, it’s an ingenious theory. What you’re
saying, you know, is that all we have to do to duplicate this device is to
discover the nature of binding energy and then find a way to make it stay
stably in spherical form. After which we figure out the nature of a field which
can penetrate binding energy and allow any matter to do likewise—one way.” He
spread his hands. “That’s all. Just learn to actually use the stuff that the
long-hair boys haven’t thought of theorizing about yet, and we’re all set.”

“Shucks,” said Garry, “Mewhu will
give us all the dope.”

“I hope so. Jack, this can
revolutionize the entire industrial world!”

“You’re understating,” grinned
Jack.

The phone rang. Zinsser looked at
his watch again. “There’s my call.” He sat down, answered the phone, and while
he went on at great length to some high-powered character at the other end of
the line, about bills of lading and charter service and interstate commerce
restrictions, Jack lounged against the cutoff corner of the desk and dreamed.
Mewhu—a superior member of a superior race, come to earth to lead struggling
humanity out of its struggling, wasteful ways. He wondered what Mewhu was like
at home among his strange people. Young, but very mature, he decided, and
gifted in many ways —the pick of the crop, fit to be ambassador to a new and
dynamic civilization like Earth’s. And what about the ship? Having dropped
Mewhu, had it and its pilot returned to the mysterious corner of the universe
from which they had come? Or was it circling about somewhere in space,
anxiously awaiting word from the adventurous ambassador?

Zinsser cradled his instrument
and stood up with a sigh. “A credit to my will power,” he said. “The greatest
thing that has ever happened to me, and I stuck by the day’s work in spite of
it. I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve. Let’s go have a look at him.”

~ * ~

“Wheeeeyouwow!”
screamed Mewhu as another rising
plane passed over their heads. Molly bounced joyfully up and down on the
cushions, for Mewhu was an excellent mimic.

The silver man slipped over the
back of the driver’s seat in a lithe movement, to see a little better around
the corner of a nearby hanger. One of the Cubs had been wheeled into it, and
was standing not far away, its prop ticking over.

Molly leaned her elbows on the
edge of the seat and stretched her little neck so she could see, too. Mewhu
brushed against her head and her hat fell off. He bent to pick it up and bumped
his own head on the dashboard, and the glove compartment flew open. His strange
pupils narrowed, and the nictitating membranes flicked over his eyes as he
reached inside. The next thing Molly knew, he was out of the car and running
over the parking area, leaping high in the air, mouthing strange noises, and
stopping every few jumps to roll and beat with his good hand on the ground.

Horrified, Molly Garry left the
cat and ran after him. “Mewhu!” she cried. “Mewhu, come
back!”

He cavorted toward her, his arms
outspread. “W-r-r-row-w!” he shouted, rushing past her. Lowering one arm a
little and raising the other like an airplane banking, he ran in a wide arc,
leaped the little tarmac retaining wall and bounded out onto the hangar area.

Molly, panting and sobbing,
stopped and stamped her foot. “Mewhu!” she croaked helplessly. “Daddy said—”

Two mechanics standing near the
idling Cub looked around at a sound like a civet-cat imitating an Onondaga war
whoop. What they saw was a long-legged, silver-gray apparition with a
silver-white mustache, and slotted eyes, dressed in a scarlet robe that turned
to indigo. Without a sound, moving as one man, they cut and ran. And Mewhu with
one last terrible shriek of joy, leaped to the plane and disappeared inside.

Molly put her hands to her mouth
and her eyes bugged. “Oh, Mewhu,” she breathed. “Now you’ve done it.” She heard
pounding feet, turned. Her father was racing toward her, with Mr. Zinsser
waddling behind. “Molly! Where’s Mewhu?”

Wordlessly, she pointed at the
Cub; and as if it were a signal, the little ship throttled up and began to
crawl away from the hangars.

“Hey! Wait! Wait!” screamed Jack
Garry uselessly, sprinting after the plane. He leaped the wall but misjudged it
because of his speed. His toe hooked it and he sprawled slitheringly, jarringly
on the tarmac. Zinsser and Molly ran to him, helped him up. Jack’s nose was
bleeding. He whipped out a handkerchief, looked out at the dwindling plane. “Mewhu!”

The little plane waddled across
the field, bellowed suddenly with power. The tail came up, and it scooted away
from them —cross wind, cross the runway. Jack turned to speak to Zinsser and
saw the fat man’s face absolutely stricken. He followed Zinsser’s eyes and saw
the other plane, the big six-place cabin job, coming in.

He had never felt so helpless in
all his life. Those planes were going to collide. There was nothing anyone
could do about it. He watched them, unblinking, almost detachedly. They were
hurtling but they seemed to creep; the moment lasted forever. Then, with twenty
feet altitude, Mewhu cut his gun and dropped a wing. The Cub slowed, leaned
into the wind, and
side-slipped
so close under the cabin ship that
another coat of paint on either craft would have meant disaster.

Jack didn’t know how long he had
been holding that breath, but it was agony when he let it out.

“Anyway, he can fly,” breathed
Zinsser.

“Of course he can fly,” snapped
Jack. “A prehistoric thing like an airplane would be child’s play for him.
Child’s play.”

“Oh, Daddy, I’m scared.”

“I’m not,” said Jack hollowly.

“Me, too,” said Zinsser with an
unconvincing laugh. “The plane’s insured.”

The Cub arrowed upward. At a
hundred feet it went into a skidding turn, harrowing to watch, suddenly winged
over and came shouting down at them. Mewhu buzzed them so close that Zinsser
went flat on his face. Jack and Molly simply stood there, wall-eyed. An
enormous cloud of dust obscured every thing for ninety interminable seconds.
When they next saw the plane it was wobbling crazily at a hundred and fifty.

Suddenly Molly screamed
piercingly and put her hands over her face.,

“Molly! Kiddo, what is it?”

She flung her arms around his
neck and sobbed so violently that he knew it was hurting her throat. “Stop it!”
he yelled; and then, very gently, he asked, “What’s the matter, darling?”

“He’s scared. Mewhu’s terrible,
terrible scared,” she said brokenly.

Jack looked up at the plane. It
yawed, fell away on one wing.