HAPPY ENDING



by



Henry Kuttner









This is the way the story ended: James Kelvin concentrated very hard on the thought of the chemist with the red moustache who had promised him a million dollars. It was simply a matter of tuning in on the mans brain, establishing a rapport. He had done it before. Now it was more important than ever that he do it this one last time. He pressed the button on the gadget the robot had given him, and thought hard.

Far off, across limitless distances, he found the rapport.

He clamped on the mental tight beam.

He rode it 

The red-moustached man looked up, gaped, and grinned delightedly.

So there you are! he said. I didnt hear you come in. Good grief, Ive been trying to find you for two weeks.

Tell me one thing quickly, Kelvin said. Whats your name?

George Bailey. Incidentally, whats yours?

But Kelvin didnt answer. He had suddenly remembered the other thing the robot had told him about that gadget which established rapport when he pressed the button. He pressed it now  and nothing happened. The gadget had gone dead. Its task was finished, which obviously meant he had at last achieved health, fame and fortune. The robot had warned him, of course. The thing was set to do one specialised job. Once he got what he wanted, it would work no more.

So Kelvin got the million dollars.

And he lived happily ever after 




This is the middle of the story:

As he pushed aside the canvas curtain something  a carelessly hung rope  swung down at his face, knocking the horn-rimmed glasses askew. Simultaneously a vivid bluish light blazed into his unprotected eyes. He felt a curious, sharp sense of disorientation, a shifting motion that was almost instantly gone.

Things steadied before him. He let the curtain fall back into place, making legible again the painted inscription: HOROSCOPES  LEARN YOUR FUTURE  and he stood staring at the remarkable horomancer.

It was a  oh, impossible!

The robot said in a flat, precise voice, You are James Kelvin. You are a reporter. You are thirty years old, unmarried, and you came to Los Angeles from Chicago today on the advice of your physician. Is that correct?

In his astonishment Kelvin called on the Deity. Then he settled his glasses more firmly and tried to remember an expos of charlatans he had once written. There was some obvious way they worked things like this, miraculous as it sounded.

The robot looked at him impassively out of its faceted eye.

On reading your mind, it continued in the pedantic voice, I find this is the year nineteen forty nine. My plans will have to be revised. I had meant to arrive in the year nineteen seventy. I will ask you to assist me.

Kelvin put his hands in his pockets and grinned.

With money, naturally, he said. You had me going for a minute. How do you do it, anyhow? Mirrors? Or like Maelzels chess player?

I am not a machine operated by a dwarf, nor am I an optical illusion, the robot assured him. I am an artificially created living organism, originating at a period far in your future.

And Im not the sucker you take me for, Kelvin remarked pleasantly. I came in here to 

You lost your baggage checks, the robot said. While wondering what to do about it, you had a few drinks and took the Wilshire bus at exactly  exactly eight thirty-five post meridian.

Lay off the mind-reading, Kelvin said. And dont tell me youve been running this joint very long with a line like that. The cops would be after you. If youre a real robot, ha, ha.

I have been running this joint, the robot said, for approximately five minutes. My predecessor is unconscious behind that chest in the corner. Your arrival here was sheer coincidence. It paused very briefly, and Kelvin had the curious impression that it was watching to see if the story so far had gone over well.

The impression was curious because Kelvin had no feeling at all that there was a man in the large, jointed figure before him. If such a thing as a robot were possible, he would have believed implicitly that he confronted a genuine specimen. Such things being impossible, he waited to see what the gimmick would be.

My arrival here was also accidental, the robot informed him. This being the case, my equipment will have to be altered slightly. I will require certain substitute mechanisms. For that, I gather as I read your mind, I will have to engage in your peculiar barter system of economics. In a word, coinage or gold or silver certificates will be necessary. Thus I am  temporarily  a horomancer.

Sure, sure, Kelvin said. Why not a simple mugging? If youre a robot, you could do a super-mugging job with a quick twist of the gears.

It would attract attention. Above all, I require secrecy. As a matter of fact, I am  The robot paused, searched Kelvins brain for the right phrase, and said,  on the lam. In my era, time-travelling is strictly forbidden, even by accident, unless government-sponsored.

There was a fallacy there somewhere, Kelvin thought, but he couldnt quite spot it. He blinked at the robot intently. It looked pretty unconvincing.

What proof do you need? the creature asked. I read your brain the minute you came in, didnt I? You must have felt the temporary amnesia as I drew out the knowledge and then replaced it.

So thats what happened, Kelvin said. He took a cautious step backward. Well, I think Ill be getting along.

Wait, the robot commanded. I see you have begun to distrust me. Apparently you now regret having suggested a mugging job. You fear I may act on the suggestion. Allow me to reassure you. It is true that I could take your money and assure secrecy by killing you, but I am not permitted to kill humans. The alternative is to engage in the barter system. I can offer you something valuable in return for a small amount of gold. Let me see. The faceted gaze swept around the tent, dwelt piercingly for a moment on Kelvin. A horoscope, the robot said. It is supposed to help you achieve health, fame and fortune. Astrology, however, is out of my line. I can merely offer a logical scientific method of attaining the same results.

Uh-huh, Kelvin said sceptically. How much? And why havent you used that method?

I have other ambitions, the robot said in a cryptic manner. Take this. There was a brief clicking. A panel opened in the metallic chest. The robot extracted a small, flat case and handed it to Kelvin, who automatically closed his fingers on the cold metal.

Be careful. Dont push that button until 

But Kelvin had pushed it 

He was driving a figurative car that had got out of control. There was somebody else inside his head. There was a schizophrenic, double-tracked locomotive that was running wild and his hand on the throttle couldnt slow it down an instant. His mental steering-wheel had snapped.

Somebody else was thinking for him!

Not quite a human being. Not quite sane, probably, from Kelvins standards. But awfully sane from his own. Sane enough to have mastered the most intricate principles of non-Euclidean geometry in the nursery.

The senses got synthesised in the brain into a sort of common language, a master-tongue. Part of it was auditory, and there were smells and tastes and tactile sensations that were sometimes familiar and sometimes spiced with the absolutely alien. And it was chaotic.

Something like this, perhaps 

 Big Lizards getting too numerous this season  tame threvvars have the same eyes not on Callisto though  vacation soon  preferably galactic  solar system claustrophobic  byanding tomorrow if square rootola and upsliding three 

But that was merely the word-symbolism. Subjectively, it was far more detailed and very frightening. Luckily, reflex had lifted Kelvins finger from the button almost instantly, and he stood there motionless, shivering slightly.

He was afraid now.

The robot said, You should not have begun the rapport until I instructed you. Now there will be danger. Wait. His eye changed colour. Yes  there is  Tharn, yes. Beware of Tharn.

I dont want any part of it, Kelvin said quickly. Here, take this thing back.

Then you will be unprotected against Tharn. Keep the device. It will, as I promised, insure your health, fame and fortune, far more effectively than a  a horoscope.

No, thanks. I dont know how you managed that trick  subsonics, maybe, but I dont 

Wait, the robot said. When you pressed that button, you were in the mind of someone who exists very far in the future. It created a temporal rapport. You can bring about that rapport any time you press the button.

Heaven forfend, Kelvin said, still sweating a little.

Consider the opportunities. Suppose a troglodyte of the far past had access to your brain? He could achieve anything he wanted.

It had become important, somehow, to find a logical rebuttal to the robots arguments. Like St Anthony  or was it Luther?  arguing with the devil, Kelvin thought dizzily. His headache was worse, and he suspected he had drunk more than was good for him. But he merely said: How could a troglodyte understand whats in my brain? He couldnt apply the knowledge without the same conditioning Ive had.

Have you ever had sudden and apparently illogical ideas? Compulsions? So that you seem forced to think of certain things, count up to certain numbers, work out particular problems? Well, the man in the future on whom the device is focused doesnt know hes en rapport with you, Kelvin. But hes vulnerable to compulsions. All you have to do is concentrate on a problem and then press the button. Your rapport will be compelled  illogically, from his viewpoint  to solve that problem. And youll be reading his brain. Youll find out how it works. There are limitations; youll learn those too. And the device will insure health, wealth and fame for you.

It would insure anything, if it really worked that way. I could do anything. Thats why Im not buying!

I said there were limitations. As soon as youve successfully achieved health, fame and fortune, the device will become useless. Ive taken care of that. But meanwhile you can use it to solve all your problems by tapping the brain of the more intelligent specimen in the future. The important point is to concentrate on your problems before you press the button. Otherwise you may get more than Tharn on your track.

Tharn? What 

I think an  an android, the robot said, looking at nothing. An artificial human  However, let us consider my own problem. I need a small amount of gold.

So thats the kicker, Kelvin said, feeling oddly relieved. He said, I havent got any.

Your watch.

Kelvin jerked his arm so that his wristwatch showed. Oh, no. That watch cost plenty.

All I need is the goldplating, the robot said, shooting out a reddish ray from its eye. Thank you. The watch was now dull grey metal.

Hey! Kelvin cried.

If you use the rapport device, your health, fame and fortune will be assured, the robot said rapidly. You will be as happy as any man of this era can be. It will solve all your problems  including Tharn. Wait a minute. The creature took a backward step and disappeared behind a hanging Oriental rug that had never been east of Peoria.

There was silence.

Kelvin looked from his altered watch to the flat enigmatic object in his palm. It was about two inches by two inches, and no thicker than a womans vanity-case, and there was a sunken push-button on its side.

He dropped it into his pocket and took a few steps forward. He looked behind the pseudo-Oriental rug, to find nothing except emptiness and a flapping slit cut in the canvas wall of the booth. The robot, it seemed, had taken a powder. Kelvin peered out through the slit. There was the light and sound of Ocean Park amusement pier, that was all. And the silvered, moving blackness of the Pacific Ocean, stretching to where small lights showed Malibu far up the invisible curve of the coastal cliffs.

So he came back inside the booth and looked around. A fat man in a swamis costume was unconscious behind the carved chest the robot had indicated. His breath, plus a process of deduction, told Kelvin that the man had been drinking.

Not knowing what else to do, Kelvin called on the Deity again. He found suddenly that he was thinking about someone or something called Tharn, who was an android.

Horomancy  time  rapport  no! Protective disbelief slid like plate armour around his mind. A practical robot couldnt be made. He knew that. Hed have heard  he was a reporter, wasnt he?

Sure he was.

Desiring noise and company, he went along to the shooting gallery and knocked down a few ducks. The flat case burned in his pocket. The dully burnished metal of his wristwatch burned in his memory. The remembrance of that drainage from his brain, and the immediate replacement, burned in his mind. Presently bar whisky burned in his stomach.

Hed left Chicago because of sinusitis, recurrent and annoying. Ordinary sinusitis. Not schizophrenia or hallucinations or accusing voices coming from the walls. Not because he had been seeing bats or robots. That thing hadnt really been a robot. It all had a perfectly natural explanation. Oh sure.

Health, fame and fortune. And if 

THARN!

The thought crashed with thunderbolt impact into his head.

And then another thought: I am going nuts!

A silent voice began to mutter insistently over and over. Tharn  Tharn  Tharn  Tharn 

And another voice, the voice of sanity and safety, answered it and drowned it out. Half aloud, Kelvin muttered: Im James Noel Kelvin. Im a reporter  special features, legwork, rewrite. Im thirty years old, unmarried, and I came to Los Angeles today and lost my baggage checks and  and Im going to have another drink and find a hotel. Anyhow, the climate seems to be curing my sinusitis.

Tharn, the muffled drum-beat said almost below the threshold of realisation. Tharn, Tharn.

Tharn.

He ordered another drink and reached in his pocket for a coin. His hand touched the metal case. And simultaneously he felt a light pressure on his shoulder.

Instinctively he glanced around. It was a seven-fingered, spidery hand tightening  hairless, without nails  and white as smooth ivory.

The one, overwhelming necessity that sprang into Kelvins mind was a simple longing to place as much space as possible between himself and the owner of that disgusting hand. It was a vital requirement, but one difficult of fulfilment, a problem that excluded everything else from Kelvins thoughts. He knew, vaguely, that he was gripping the flat case in his pocket as though that could save him, but all he was thinking about was: Ive got to get away from here.

The monstrous, alien thoughts of someone in the future spun him insanely along their current. It could not have taken a moment while that skilled, competent, trained mind, wise in the lore of an unthinkable future, solved the random problem that had come so suddenly, with such curious compulsion.

Three methods of transportation were simultaneously clear to Kelvin. Two he discarded; motorplates were obviously inventions yet to come, and quirling  involving, as it did, a sensory coil-helmet  was beyond him. But the third method 

Already the memory was fading. And that hand was still tightening on his shoulder. He clutched at the vanishing ideas and desperately made his brain and his muscles move along the unlikely direction the future man had visualised.

And he was out in the open, a cold night wind blowing on him, still in a sitting position, but with nothing but empty air between his spine and the sidewalk.

He sat down suddenly.

Passers-by on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Cahuenga were not much surprised at the sight of a dark, lanky man sitting by the kerb. Only one woman had noticed Kelvins actual arrival, and she knew when she was well off. She went right on home.

Kelvin got up laughing with soft hysteria. Teleportation, he said. How did I work it? Its gone  Hard to remember afterwards, eh? Ill have to start carrying a notebook again.

And then  But what about Tharn?

He looked around, frightened. Reassurance came only after half an hour had passed without additional miracles. Kelvin walked along the Boulevard, keeping a sharp lookout. No Tharn, though.

Occasionally he slid a hand into his pocket and touched the cold metal of the case. Health, fame and fortune. Why, he could 

But he did not press the button. Too vivid was the memory of that shocking, alien disorientation he had felt. The mind, the experiences, the habit-patterns of the far future were uncomfortably strong.

He would use the little case again  oh, yes. But there was no hurry. First hed have to work out a few angles.

His disbelief was completely gone.

Tharn showed up the next night and scared the daylights out of Kelvin again. Prior to that, the reporter had failed to find his baggage tickets, and was only consoled by the two hundred bucks in his wallet. He took a room  paying in advance  at a medium-good hotel, and began wondering how he might apply his pipeline to the future. Very sensibly, he decided to continue a normal life until something developed. At any rate, hed have to make a few connections. He tried the Times, the Examiner, the News, and some others. But these things develop slowly, except in the movies. That night Kelvin was in his hotel room when his unwelcome guest appeared.

It was, of course, Tharn.

He wore a very large white turban, approximately twice the size of his head. He had a dapper black moustache, waxed downwards at the tips like the moustache of a mandarin or a catfish. He stared urgently at Kelvin out of the bathroom mirror.

Kelvin had been wondering whether or not he needed a shave before going out to dinner. He was rubbing his chin thoughtfully at the moment Tharn put in an appearance, and there was a perceptible mental lag between occurrence and perception, so that to Kelvin it seemed that he himself had mysteriously sprouted a long moustache. He reached for his upper lip. It was smooth. But in the glass the black waxed hairs quivered as Tharn pushed his face up against the surface of the mirror.

It was so shockingly disorientating, somehow, that Kelvin was quite unable to think at all. He took a quick step backward. The edge of the bathtub caught him behind the knees and distracted him momentarily, fortunately for his sanity. When he looked again there was only his own appalled face reflected above the washbowl. But after a second or two the face seemed to develop a cloud of white turban, and mandarin-like whiskers began to form sketchily.

Kelvin clapped a hand to his eyes and spun away. In about fifteen seconds he spread his fingers enough to peep through them at the glass. He kept his palm pressed desperately to his upper lip, in some wild hope of inhibiting the sudden sprouting of a moustache. What peeped back at him from the mirror looked like himself. At least it had no turban, and it wore horn-rimmed glasses. He risked snatching his hand away for a quick look, and clapped it in place again just in time to prevent Tharn from taking shape in the glass.

Still shielding his face, he went unsteadily into the bedroom and took the flat case out of his coat pocket. But he didnt press the button that would close a mental synapse between two incongruous eras. He didnt want to do that again, he realised. More horrible, somehow, than what was happening now was the thought of re-entering that alien brain.

He was standing before the bureau, and in the mirror one eye looked out at him between reflected fingers. It was a wild eye behind the gleaming spectacle lens, but it seemed to be his own. Tentatively he took his hand away 

This mirror showed more of Tharn. Kelvin wished it hadnt. Tharn was wearing white knee-boots of some glittering plastic. Between them and the turban he wore nothing whatever except a minimum of loincloth, also glittering plastic. Tharn was very thin, but he looked active. He looked quite active enough to spring right into the hotel room. His skin was whiter than his turban, and his hands had seven fingers each, all right.

Kelvin abruptly turned away, but Tharn was resourceful. The dark window made enough of a reflecting surface to show a lean, loinclothed figure. The feet showed bare and they were less normal than Tharns hands. And the polished brass of a lamp base gave back the picture of a small, distorted face not Kelvins own.

Kelvin found a corner without reflecting surfaces and pushed into it, his hands shielding his face. He was still holding the flat case.

Oh, fine, he thought bitterly. Everythings got a string on it. What good will this rapport gadget do me if Tharns going to show up every day? Maybe Im only crazy. I hope so.

Something would have to be done unless Kelvin was prepared to go through life with his face buried in his hands. The worst of it was that Tharn had a haunting look of familiarity. Kelvin discarded a dozen possibilities, from reincarnation to the dj vu phenomenon, but 

He peeped through his hands, in time to see Tharn raising a cylindrical gadget of some sort and levelling it like a gun. That gesture formed Kelvins decision. Hed have to do something, and fast. So, concentrating on the problem  I want out!  he pressed the button in the surface of the flat case.

And instantly the teleportation method he had forgotten was perfectly clear to him. Other matters were, however, obscure. The smells  someone was thinking  were adding up to a  there was no word for that, only a shocking visio-auditory ideation that was simply dizzying. Someone named Three Million and Ninety Pink had written a new flatch. And there was the physical sensation of licking a twenty-four-dollar stamp and sticking it on a postcard.

But, most important, the man in the future had had  or would have  a compulsion to think about the teleportation method, and as Kelvin snapped back into his own mind and time, he instantly used that method 

He was falling.

Icy water attacked him hard. Miraculously he kept his grip on the flat case. He had a whirling vision of stars in a night sky, and the phosphorescent sheen of silvery light on a dark sea. Then brine stung his nostrils.

Kelvin had never learned how to swim.

As he went down for the last time, bubbling a scream, he literally clutched at the proverbial straw he was holding. His fingers pushed the button down again. There was no need to concentrate on the problem; he couldnt think of anything else.

Mental chaos, fantastic images  and the answer.

It took concentration, and there wasnt much time left. Bubbles streamed up past his face. He felt them, but he couldnt see them. All around, pressing in avidly, was the horrible coldness of the salt water 

But he did know the method now, and he knew how it worked. He thought along the lines the future mind had indicated. Something happened. Radiation  that was the nearest familiar term  poured out of his brain and did peculiar things to his lung-tissues. His blood cells adapted themselves 

He was breathing water, and it was no longer strangling him.

But Kelvin had also learned that his emergency adaptation could not be maintained for very long. Teleportation was the answer to that. And surely he could remember the method now. He had actually used it to escape from Tharn only a few minutes ago.

Yet he could not remember. The memory was expunged cleanly from his mind. So there was nothing else to do but press the button again, and Kelvin did that, most reluctantly.

Dripping wet, he was standing on an unfamiliar street. It was no street he knew, but apparently it was in his own time and on his own planet. Luckily, teleportation seemed to have limitations. The wind was cold. Kelvin stood in a puddle that grew rapidly around his feet. He stared around.

He picked out a sign up the street that offered Turkish Baths, and headed moistly in that direction. His thoughts were mostly profane 

He was in New Orleans, of all places. Presently he was drunk in New Orleans. His thoughts kept going around in circles, and scotch was a fine palliative, an excellent brake. He needed to get control again. He had an almost miraculous power, and he wanted to be able to use it effectively before the unexpected happened again. Tharn 

He sat in a hotel room and swigged scotch. Gotta be logical!

He sneezed.

The trouble was, of course, that there were so few points of contact between his own mind and that of the future-man. Moreover, hed got the rapport only in times of crisis. Like having access to the Alexandrian Library, five seconds a day. In five seconds you couldnt even start translating 

Health, fame and fortune. He sneezed again. The robot had been a liar. His health seemed to be going fast. What about that robot? How had he got involved, anyway? He said hed fallen into this era from the future, but robots are notorious liars. Gotta be logical.

Apparently the future was peopled by creatures not unlike the cast of a Frankenstein picture. Androids, robots, so-called men whose minds were shockingly different  Sneeze. Another drink.

The robot had said that the case would lose its power after Kelvin had achieved health, fame and fortune. Which was a distressing thought. Suppose he attained those enviable goals, found the little push-button useless, and then Tharn showed up? Oh, no. That called for another shot.

Sobriety was the wrong condition in which to approach a matter that in itself was as wild as delirium tremens, even though, Kelvin knew, the science he had stumbled on was all theoretically quite possible. But not in this day and age. Sneeze.

The trick would be to pose the right problem and use the case at some time when you werent drowning or being menaced by the bewhiskered android with his seven-fingered hands and his ominous rod-like weapon. Find the problem.

But that future-mind was hideous.

And suddenly, with drunken clarity, Kelvin realised that he was profoundly drawn to that dim, shadowy world of the future.

He could not see its complete pattern, but he sensed it somehow. He knew that it was right, a far better world and time than his. If he could be that unknown man who dwelt there, all would go well.

Man must needs love the highest, he thought wryly. Oh, well. He shook the bottle. How much had he absorbed? He felt fine.

Gotta be logical.

Outside the window, street-lights blinked off and on. Neons traced goblin languages against the night. It seemed rather alien, too, but so did Kelvins own body. He started to laugh, but a sneeze choked that off.

All I want, he thought, is health, fame and fortune. Then Ill settle down and live happily ever after, without a care or worry. I wont need this enchanted case after that. Happy ending.

On impulse he took out the box and examined it. He tried to pry it open and failed. His finger hovered over the button.

How can I  he thought, and his fingers moved half an inch 

It wasnt so alien now that he was drunk. The future mans name was Quarra Vee. Odd he had never realised that before, but how often does a man think of his own name? Quarra Vee was playing some sort of game vaguely reminiscent of chess, but his opponent was on a planet of Sirius, some distance away. The chessmen were all unfamiliar. Complicated, dizzying space-time gambits flashed through Quarra Vees mind as Kelvin listened in. Then Kelvins problem thrust through, the compulsion hit Quarra Vee, and 

It was all mixed up. There were two problems, really. How to cure a cold  coryza. And how to become healthy, rich and famous in a practically prehistoric era  for Quarra Vee.

A small problem, however, to Quarra Vee. He solved it and went back to his game with the Sirian.

Kelvin was back in the hotel room in New Orleans.

He was very drunk or he wouldnt have risked it. The method involved using his brain to tune in on another brain in this present twentieth century that had exactly the wavelength he required. All sorts of factors would build up to the sum total of that wavelength  experience, opportunity, position, knowledge, imagination, honesty  but he found it at last, after hesitation among three totals that were all nearly right. Still, one was righter, to three decimal points. Still drunk as a lord, Kelvin clamped on a mental tight beam, turned on the teleportation, and rode the beam across America to a well-equipped laboratory, where a man sat reading.

The man was bald and had a bristling red moustache. He looked up sharply at some sound Kelvin made.

Hey! he said. How did you get in here?

Ask Quarra Vee, Kelvin said.

Who? What? The man put down his book.

Kelvin called on his memory. It seemed to be slipping. He used the rapport case for an instant, and refreshed his mind. Not so unpleasant this time, either. He was beginning to understand Quarra Vees world a little. He liked it. However, he supposed hed forget that too.

An improvement on Woodwards protein analogues, he told the red-moustached man. Simple synthesis will do it.

Who the devil are you?

Call me Jim, Kelvin said simply. And shut up and listen. He began to explain, as to a small, stupid child. (The man before him was one of Americas foremost chemists.) Proteins are made of amino acids. There are about thirty-three amino acids  

There arent.

There are. Shut up. Their molecules can be arranged in lots of ways. So we get an almost infinite variety of proteins. And all living things are forms of protein. The absolute synthesis involves a chain of amino acids long enough to recognise clearly as a protein molecule. Thats been the trouble.

The man with the red moustache seemed quite interested. Fischer assembled a chain of eighteen, he said, blinking. Aberhalden got up to nineteen, and Woodward, of course, has made chains ten thousand units long. But as for testing 

The complete protein molecule consists of complete sets of sequences. But if you test only one or two sections of an analogue you cant be sure of the others. Wait a minute. Kelvin used the rapport case again. Now I know. Well, you can make almost anything out of synthesised protein. Silk, wool, hair  but the main thing, of course, he said, sneezing, is a cure for coryza.

Now look  said the red-moustached man.

Some of the viruses are chains of amino acids, arent they? Well, modify their structure. Make em harmless. Bacteria, too. And synthesise antibiotics.

I wish I could. However, Mr. 

Just call me Jim.

Yes. However, all this is old stuff.

Grab your pencil, Kelvin said. From now on itll be solid, with riffs. The method of synthesising and testing is as follows 

He explained, very thoroughly and clearly. He had to use the rapport case only twice. And when he had finished, the man with the red moustache laid down his pencil and stared.

This is incredible, he said. If it works 

I want health, fame and fortune, Kelvin said stubbornly. Itll work.

Yes, but  my good man 

However, Kelvin insisted. Luckily for himself, the mental testing of the red-moustached man had included briefing for honesty and opportunity, and it ended with the chemist agreeing to sign partnership papers with Kelvin. The commercial possibilities of the process were unbounded. Dupont or GM would be glad to buy it.

I want lots of money. A fortune.

Youll make a million dollars, the red-moustached man said patiently.

Then I want a receipt. Have to have this in black and white. Unless you want to give me my million now.

Frowning, the chemist shook his head. I cant do that. Ill have to run tests, open negotiations  but dont worry about that. Your discovery is certainly worth a million. Youll be famous, too.

And healthy?

There wont be any more disease, after a while, the chemist said quietly. Thats the real miracle.

Write it down, Kelvin clamoured.

All right. We can have partnership papers drawn up tomorrow. This will do temporarily. Understand, the actual credit belongs to you.

Its got to be in ink. A pencil wont do.

Just a minute, then, the red-moustached man said, and went away in search of ink. Kelvin looked around the laboratory, beaming happily.

Tharn materialised three feet away. Tharn was holding the rod-weapon. He lifted it.

Kelvin instantly used the rapport case. Then he thumbed his nose at Tharn and teleported himself far away.

He was immediately in a cornfield, somewhere, but undistilled corn was not what Kelvin wanted. He tried again. This time he reached Seattle.

That was the beginning of Kelvins monumental two-week combination of binge and chase.

His thoughts werent pleasant.

He had a frightful hangover, ten cents in his pocket, and an overdue hotel bill. A fortnight of keeping one jump ahead of Tharn, via teleportation, had frazzled his nerves so unendurably that only liquor had kept him going. Now even that stimulus was failing. The drink died in him and left what felt like a corpse.

Kelvin groaned and blinked miserably. He took off his glasses and cleaned them, but that didnt help.

What a fool.

He didnt even know the name of the chemist!

There was health, wealth and fame waiting for him just around the corner, but what corner? Some day hed find out, probably, when the news of the new protein synthesis was publicised, but when would that be? In the meantime, what about Tharn?

Moreover, the chemist couldnt locate him, either. The man knew Kelvin only as Jim. Which had somehow seemed a good idea at the time, but not now.

Kelvin took out the rapport case and stared at it with red eyes. Quarra Vee, eh? He rather liked Quarra Vee now. Trouble was, half an hour after his rapport, at most, he would forget all the details.

This time he used the push-button almost as Tharn snapped into bodily existence a few feet away.

The teleportation angle again. He was sitting in the middle of a desert. Cactus and Joshua trees were all the scenery. There was a purple range of mountains far away.

No Tharn, though.

Kelvin began to be thirsty. Suppose the case stopped working now? Oh, this couldnt go on. A decision hanging fire for a week finally crystallised into a conclusion so obvious he felt like kicking himself. Perfectly obvious!

Why hadnt he thought of it at the very beginning?

He concentrated on the problem: How can I get rid of Tharn? He pushed the button 

And a moment later, he knew the answer. It would be simple, really.

The pressing urgency was gone suddenly. That seemed to release a fresh flow of thought. Everything became quite clear.

He waited for Tharn.

He did not have to wait long. There was a tremor in the shimmering air, and the turbaned, pallid figure sprang into tangible reality.

The rod-weapon was poised.

Taking no chances, Kelvin posed his problem again, pressed the button, and instantly reassured himself as to the method. He simply thought in a very special and peculiar way  the way Quarra Vee had indicated.

Tharn was flung back a few feet. The moustached mouth gaped open as he uttered a cry.

Dont! the android cried. Ive been trying to 

Kelvin focused harder on his thought. Mental energy, he felt, was pouring out towards the android.

Tharn croaked. Trying  you didnt  give me  chance 

And then Tharn was lying motionless on the hot sand, staring blindly up. The seven-fingered hands twitched once and were still. The artificial life that had animated the android was gone. It would not return.

Kelvin turned his back and drew a long, shuddering breath. He was safe. He closed his mind to all thoughts but one, all problems but one.

How can I find the red-moustached man?

He pressed the button.




This is the way the story starts:

Quarra Vee sat in the temporal warp with his android Tharn, and made sure everything was under control.

How do I look? he asked.

Youll pass, Tharn said. Nobody will be suspicious in the era youre going to. It didnt take long to synthesise the equipment.

Not long. Clothes  they look enough like real wool and linen, I suppose. Wristwatch, money  everything in order. Wristwatch  thats odd, isnt it? Imagine people who need machinery to tell time!

Dont forget the spectacles, Tharn said.

Quarra Vee put them on. Ugh. But I suppose 

Itll be safer. The optical properties in the lenses are a guard you may need against mental radiations. Dont take them off, or the robot may try some tricks.

Hed better not, Quarra Vee said. That so-and-so runaway robot! Whats he up to, anyway, I wonder? He always was a malcontent, but at least he knew his place. Im sorry I ever had him made. No telling what hell do in a semi-prehistoric world if we dont catch him and bring him home.

Hes in that horomancy booth, Tharn said, leaning out of the time-warp. Just arrived. Youll have to catch him by surprise. And youll need your wits about you, too. Try not to go off into any more of those deep-thought compulsions youve been having. They could be dangerous. That robot will use some of his tricks if he gets the chance. I dont know what powers hes developed by himself, but I do know hes an expert at hypnosis and memory erasure already. If you arent careful hell snap your memory track and substitute a false brain-pattern. Keep those glasses on. If anything should go wrong, Ill use the rehabilitation ray on you, eh? And he held up a small rod-like projector.

Quarra Vee nodded. Dont worry. Ill be back before you know it. I have an appointment with that Sirian to finish our game this evening.

It was an appointment he never kept.

Quarra Vee stepped out of the temporal warp and strolled along the boardwalk towards the booth. The clothing he wore felt tight, uncomfortable, rough. He wriggled a little in it. The booth stood before him now, with its painted sign.

He pushed aside the canvas curtain and something  a carelessly hung rope  swung down at his face, knocking the horn-rimmed glasses askew. Simultaneously a vivid bluish light blazed into his unprotected eyes. He felt a curious, sharp sensation of disorientation, a shifting motion that almost instantly was gone.

The robot said, You are James Kelvin.



The End