The Collected Stories of Frank Herbert (127 page)

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Authors: Frank Herbert

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“How does it open?” he demanded.

“You just do things,” Billy said.

“Don't you play smart with me! I gave you an order: Tell me how you open this thing.”

“I can't.”

“You mean you won't!”

“I can't.”

“Why?” It was as much an accusation as a question.

Again, Billy shrugged. “The boxÂ â¦ well, it can only be opened by kids.”

“Oh, for Chrissakes!” Henry examined the ends of the box. Damn kid was lying about having opened it. Henry shook the box. It rattled suggestively, one of the ferosslk's better effects.

Helen said: “Perhaps if you let Billyâ¦”

Henry looked up long enough to stare her down, then asked: “Is dinner ready?”

“Henry, he's just a child!”

“Woman, I've worked all day to support you and your brat. Is this the appreciation I get?”

She backed toward the kitchen door, hesitated there.

Henry returned his attention to the box. He pushed at the end panels. Nothing happened. He tried various pressures on the top, the sides, the bottom.

“So you opened it, eh?” Henry asked, staring across the box at Billy.

“Yes.”

“You're lying.”

“I opened it.”

Having achieved the effect he wanted, Henry thrust the box toward Billy. “Then open it.”

Having achieved one of the moments he wanted, and right on time, Billy went for the effect. He turned the box over, slid an end panel aside, whipped the top open and closed it, restored the end panel, and presented the closed box to Henry.

“See? It's easy.”

The ferosslk, having achieved an education-node, convinced Henry he'd seen gold and jewels during the brief moment when the box had been opened.

Henry grabbed the box, wet his lips with his tongue. He pushed at the end panel. It refused to move.

“Grown-ups can't open it,” Billy said. “It says so right on the top.”

Henry brought a clasp knife from his hip pocket, opened it, tried to find an opening around the top of the box.

Billy stared at him.

Billy's mother still hovered fearfully in the kitchen doorway.

Henry had the sudden realization they both hoped he'd cut himself. He closed the knife, returned it to his pocket, extended the box toward Billy. “Open it for me.”

“I can't.”

Ominously, Henry asked: “AndÂ â¦ whyÂ â¦ not?”

“I can't let go of it when it's open.”

The ferosslk inserted a sense of doubt into the situation here without Billy suspecting. Henry nodded. That just might be true. The box might have a spring lock that closed when you let go of it.

“Then open it and let me look inside while you hold it,” Henry said.

“I can't now without doing all the other things.”

“What?”

“I can open it twice without the other things, butâ¦”

“What other things?”

“OhÂ â¦ like finding a grass seed and breaking a twigÂ â¦ and I'd have to find another ant hill. The one Iâ¦”

“Of all the damn fool nonsense!” Henry thrust the box towards Billy. “Open this!”

“I can't!”

Billy's mother said: “Henry, why don't youâ¦”

“Helen, you get the hell out of here and let me handle this!”

She backed farther into the kitchen.

Henry said: “Billy, either you open this box for me, or I'll open it the hard way with an axe.”

Billy shook his head from side to side, dragging out the moment for its proper curve.

“Very well.” Henry heaved himself from the chair, the box clutched in his right hand, angry elation filling him. They'd done it againâgoaded him beyond endurance.

He brushed past Billy, who turned and followed him. He thrust Helen aside when she put out a pleading hand. He strode out the back door, slamming it behind him, heard it open, the patter of Billy's footsteps following.

Let the brat make one protest! Just one!

Henry set his jaw, headed across the backyard toward the woodshed, that anachronism which set the tone and marked the age of this houseâ“modest older home in quiet residential area.”

Now, Billy called from behind him: “What're you going to do?”

Henry stifled an angry retort, caught by an odd note in Billy's voiceÂ â¦ an imperative.

“Daddy?” Billy called.

Henry stopped at the woodshed door, glanced back. Billy never called him
daddy
. The boy stood in the path from the house, his mother waited on the back porch.

Now, why was I angry with them?
Henry wondered.

He felt the box in his hand, looked at it. Jewels? In this dirty green little piece of stoneware? He was filled with the sense of his own foolishness, an effect achieved by a sophisticated refinement of ferosslk educational processing. Given a possible lesson to impart, the instructor could not resist the opportunity.

Once more, Henry looked at the two who watched him.

They'd done this deliberately to make him appear foolish! Damn them!

“Daddy, don't break the box,” Billy said.

It was a nicely timed protest and it demonstrated how well he had learned from the ferosslk.

His anger restored, Henry whirled away, slammed the box onto the woodshed's chopping block, grabbed up the axe.

Don't break the box!

“Wait!” Billy called.

Henry barely hesitated, a lapse which put him in the precise phasing Billy wanted.

Taking careful aim, Henry brought the axe hissing down. He still felt foolish, because it's difficult to shake off a ferosslk lesson, but anger carried him through.

At the instant of contact between blade and box, an electric glimmer leaped into existence around the axe head.

To Billy, watching from the yard, the blade appeared to slice into the box, shrinking, shining, drawing inward at an impossible angle. There came an abrupt, juicy vacuum-popping noiseâa cow pulling its foot out of the mud. The axe handle whipped into the box after the blade, vanished with a diminishing glimmer.

Still clutching the axe handle, Henry Alexander was jerked into the boxâdown, downÂ â¦ shrinkingÂ â¦

Whoosh!

The pearl glimmering winked out. The box remained on the chopping block where Henry had placed it.

Billy darted into the woodshed, grabbed up the box, pressed it to his left ear. From far away came a leaf-whispering babble of many angry and pleading voices. He could distinguish some of the names being called by those voicesâ

“Abdul!”

“Terrik!”

“Churudish!”

“Pablo!”

“James!”

“Sremani!”

“Harold!”

And, on a low and diminishing wail:

“Bill-eeeeeeeeeeeâ¦”

Having taught part of a lesson, the ferosslk recognized that the toy-plus-play element remained incomplete. By attaching a label at the proper moment, Billy had achieved a daddy-linkage, but no daddy existed now for all practical purposes. There were voices, of course, and certain essences, an available gene pattern from which to reconstruct the original. Something with the proper daddyness loomed as a distinct possibility and the ferosslk observed an attractive learning pattern in the idea.

A golden glow began to emerge from one end of the box. Billy dropped it and backed away as the glow grew and grew and grew. Abruptly, the glow coalesced and Henry Alexander emerged.

Billy felt a hand clutch his shoulder, looked up at his mother. The box lay on the ground near the chopping block. She looked from it to the figure which had emerged from it.

“Billy,” she demanded, “whatÂ â¦ what happened?”

Henry stooped, recovered the box.

“Henry,” she said, “you hit that box with the axe, but it's not broken.”

“Huh?” Henry Alexander stared at her. “What're you talking about? I brought the damn thing out here to make sure it was safe for Billy to play with.”

He thrust the box at Billy, who took it and almost dropped it. “Here, take it, son.”

“But Billy was pestering you,” she said. “You said you'dâ¦”

“Helen, you nag the boy too much,” Henry said. “He's just a boy and boys will be boys.” Henry winked at Billy. “Eh, son?” Henry reached over and mussed Billy's hair.

Helen backed up, releasing Billy's shoulder. She said: “But youÂ â¦ it looked like you went into the box!”

Henry looked at the box, then at Helen. He began to laugh. “Girl, it's a good thing you got a man who loves you because you are weird. You are really weird.” He stepped around Billy, took Helen gently by the arm. “C'mon, I'll help you with dinner.”

She allowed herself to be guided toward the house, her attention fixed on Henry.

Billy heard him say: “Y'know, honey, I think Billy could use a brother or a sister. What do you say?”

“Henry!”

Henry's laughter came rich and happy. He stopped, turned around to look at Billy, who stood in the woodshed doorway holding the box.

“Stay where you can hear me call, Bill. Maybe we'll go to a movie after dinner, eh?”

Billy nodded.

“Hey,” Henry called, “what're y' going to do with that funny box?”

Billy stared across the empty lot to the home of his friend Jimmy Carter. He took a deep breath, said, “Jimmy's got a catcher's mitt he's been trying to trade me. Maybe he'd trade for the box.”

“Hey!” Henry said. “Maybe he would at that. But look out Jimmy's old man doesn't catch you at it. You know what a temper he has.”

“I sure do,” Billy said. “I sure doÂ â¦ dad.”

Henry put his arm around Helen's shoulder and headed once more for the house. “Hear that?” He asked. “Hear him call me dad? Y'know, Helen, nothing makes a man happier than to have a boy call him dad.”

Tor Books by Frank Herbert

The Dragon in the Sea

Hellstrom's Hive

The White Plague

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

FRANK HERBERT (1920â1986) was the Hugo and Nebula Awardâwinning creator of the Dune saga, and the
New York Times
bestselling author of the first six novels in the series.

Introduction copyright Â© 1975 by Frank Herbert. First published in
The Best of Frank Herbert 1965â1970,
London: Sidgwick & Jackson.

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