Part 10 (1/2)

The door dilated in front of him and he stepped into the lab, his eyes turning to the low table where they sat. They looked healthy, and there was no sign of misery or uncertainty that he could see, though he could not be sure of that until he knew them better. He could not even be sure it was a scowl on the male's face as the Man turned and looked at him.

”Another one, eh? Okay, come up here. What you want?”

Then Senthree no longer wondered how to address the Man. He bowed low as he approached them, and instinct made his voice soft and apologetic as he answered.

”Nothing, Master. Only to serve you.”

THE TWONKY.

by Lewis Padgett.

Machines are designed to serve man, yes-but the man must understand the machine. In the hands of a child or a savage, even the most useful machine can became a deadly weapon. Lewis Padgett's twonky surely must have been a joy and a delight in the era in which it belonged-but look at the havoc caused by this valuable and convenient device when it wandered a few centuries into the past!

It is no secret by now that ”Lewis Padgett” was a pseudonym for the lamented Henry Kuttner, who died in 1958. Under a host of pen names Kuttner wrote every imaginable kind of science fiction, from swashbuckling s.p.a.ce adventures to wild farces to moody fantasy pieces. He reserved a special style for his Padgett stories, one typified by controlled lunacy and poker-faced wit. The typical Padgett approach was to take a simple theme and, by running it to its ultimate implications of absurdity, produce something at once dazzling, chilling, and howlingly funny.

The turnover at Mideastern Radio was so great that Mickey Lloyd couldn't keep track of his men. It wasn't only the draft; employees kept quitting and going elsewhere, at a higher salary. So when the big-headed little man in overalls wandered vaguely out of a storeroom, Lloyd took one look at the brown dungaree suit-company provided-and said mildly, ”The whistle blew half an hour ago. Hop to work.”

”Work-k-k?” The man seemed to have trouble with the word.

Drunk? Lloyd, in his capacity as foreman, couldn't permit that. He flipped away his cigarette, walked forward, and sniffed. No, it wasn't liquor. He peered at the badge on the man's overalls.

”Two-oh-four, m-mm. Are you new here?”

”New. Huh?” The man rubbed a rising b.u.mp on his forehead. He was an odd-looking little chap, bald as a vacuum tube, with a pinched, pallid face and tiny eyes that held dazed wonder.

”Come on, Joe. Wake up!” Lloyd was beginning to sound impatient. ”You work here, don't you?”

”Joe,” said the man thoughtfully. ”Work. Yes, I work. I make them.” His words ran together oddly, as though he had a cleft palate.

With another glance at the badge, Lloyd gripped Joe's arm and ran him through the a.s.sembly room. ”Here's your place. Hop to it. Know what to do?”

The other drew his scrawny body erect. ”I am-expert,” he remarked. ”Make them better than Ponthw.a.n.k.”

”O. K.,” Lloyd said. ”Make 'em, then.” And he went away.

The man called Joe hesitated, nursing the bruise on his head. The overalls caught his attention, and he examined them wonderingly. Where-oh, yes. They had been hanging in the room from which he had first emerged. His own garments had, naturally, dissipated during the trip-what trip?

Amnesia, he thought. He had fallen from the . . . the something . . . when it slowed down and stopped. How odd this huge, machine-filled barn looked. It struck no chord of remembrance.

Amnesia, that was it. He was a worker. He made things. As for the unfamiliarity of his surroundings, that meant nothing. He was still dazed. The clouds would lift from his mind presently. They were beginning to do that already.

Work. Joe scuttled around the room, trying to goad his faulty memory. Men in overalls were doing things. Simple,, obvious things. But how childish-how elemental! Perhaps this was a kindergarten.

After a while Joe went out into a stock room and examined some finished models of combination radio-phonographs. So that was it. Awkward and clumsy, but it wasn't his place to say so. No. His job was to make Twonkies.

Twonkies? The name jolted his memory again. Of course he knew how to make Twonkies. He'd made them all his life-had been specially trained for the job. Now they were using a different model of Twonky, but what the h.e.l.l! Child's play for a clever workman.

Joe went back into the shop and found a vacant bench. He began to build a Twonky. Occasionally he slipped off and stole the material he needed. Once, when he couldn't locate any tungsten, he hastily built a small gadget and made it.

His bench was in a distant corner, badly lighted, though it seemed quite bright to Joe's eyes. n.o.body noticed the console that was swiftly growing to completion there. Joe worked very, very fast. He ignored the noon whistle, and, at quitting time, his task was finished. It could, perhaps, stand another coat of paint-it lacked the s.h.i.+mmertone of a standard Twonky. But none of the others had s.h.i.+mmertone. Joe sighed, crawled under the bench, looked in vain for a relaxopad, and went to sleep on the floor.

A few hours later he woke up. The factory was empty. Odd! Maybe the working hours had changed. Maybe- Joe's mind felt funny. Sleep had cleared away the mists of amnesia, if such it had been, but he still felt dazed.

Muttering under his breath, he sent the Twonky into the stock room and compared it with the others. Superficially it was identical with a console radio-phonograph combination of the latest model. Following the pattern of the others, Joe had camouflaged and disguised the various organs and reactors.

He went back into the shop. Then the last of the mists cleared from his mind. Joe's shoulders jerked convulsively.

”Great Snell!” he gasped. ”So that was it! I ran into a temporal snag!”

With a startled glance around, he fled to the storeroom from which he had first emerged. The overalls he took off and returned to their hook. After that, Joe went over to a corner, felt around in the air, nodded with satisfaction, and seated himself on nothing, three feet above the floor. Then Joe vanished.

”Time,” said Kerry WTesterfield, ”is curved. Eventually it gets back to the same place where it started. That's duplication.” He put his feet up on a conveniently outjutting rock of the chimney and stretched luxuriously. From the kitchen Martha made clinking noises with bottles and gla.s.ses.

”Yesterday at this time I had a Martini,” Kerry said. ”The time curve indicates that I should have another one now. Are you listening, angel?”

”I'm pouring,” said the angel distantly.

”You get my point, then. Here's another. Time describes a spiral instead of a circle. If you call the first cycle a, the second one's a plus 1-see? Which means a double Martini tonight.”

”I know where that would end,” Martha remarked, coming into the s.p.a.cious, oak-raftered living room. She was a small, dark-haired woman with a singularly pretty face and a figure to match. Her tiny gingham ap.r.o.n looked slightly absurd in combination with slacks and silk blouse. ”And they don't make infinity-proof gin. Here's your Martini.” She did things with the shaker and manipulated gla.s.ses.

”Stir slowly,” Kerry cautioned. ”Never shake. Ah-that's it.” He accepted the drink and eyed it appreciatively. Black hair, sprinkled with gray, gleamed in the lamplight as he sipped the Martini. ”Good. Very good.”

Martha drank slowly and eyed her husband. A nice guy, Kerry Westerfield. He was forty-odd, pleasantly ugly, with a wide mouth and an occasional sardonic gleam in his gray eyes as he contemplated life. They had been married for twelve years, and liked it.

From outside, the late faint glow of sunset came through the windows, picking out the console cabinet that stood against the wall by the door. Kerry peered at it with appreciation.

”A pretty penny,” he remarked. ”Still-”

”What? Oh. The men had a tough time getting it up the 'stairs. Why don't you try it, Kerry?”

”Didn't you?”

”The old one was complicated enough,” Martha said, in a baffled manner. ”Gadgets. They confuse me. I was brought up on an Edison. You wound it up with a crank, and strange noises came out of a horn. That I could understand. But now-you push a b.u.t.ton, and extraordinary things happen. Electric eyes, tone selections, records that get played on both sides, to the accompaniment of weird groanings and clickings from inside the console-probably you understand those things. I don't even want to. Whenever I play a Crosby record in a superdooper like that, Bing seems embarra.s.sed.”

Keny ate his olive. ”I'm going to play some Sibelius.” He nodded toward a table. ”There's a new Crosby record for you. The latest.”

Martha wriggled happily. ”Can I, maybe, huh?”

”Uh-huh.”

”But you'll have to show me how.”