A Mile Beyond the Moon Part 7

Walter had learned a certain amount of law for his real-estate license examination; he recognized the word. "The rent is seventy-five dollars," he said. "You speak English very well, Mr. Clurg." He hadn't been certain that the man was a foreigner until the dictionary word came out "You have hardly any accent."

"Thank you," Clurg said, pleased. "I worked hard at it Let me see-seventy-five is six twelves and three." He opened one of his s.h.i.+ny-new leather suitcases and calmly laid six heavy little paper rolls on Walter's desk. He broke open a seventh and laid down three mint-new silver dollars. "There I am," he said. "I mean, there you are."

Walter didn't know what to say. It had never happened before. People paid by check or in bills. They just didn't pay in silver dollars. But it was money-why shouldn't Mr. Clurg pay in silver dollars if he wanted to? He shook himself, scooped the rolls into his top desk drawer and said: "I'll drive you out there if you like. It's nearly quitting time anyway."

Walter told his wife Betty over the dinner table: "We ought to have him in some evening. I can't imagine where on Earth he comes from. I had to show him how to turn on the kitchen range. When it went on he said, 'Oh, yes-electricity!' and laughed his head off. And he kept ducking the question when I tried to ask him in a nice way. Maybe he's some kind of a political refugee."

"Maybe . . ." Betty began dreamily, and then shut her mouth. She didn't want Walter laughing at her again. As it was, he made her buy her science-fiction magazines downtown instead of at neighborhood newsstands. He thought it wasn't becoming for his wife to read them. He's so eager for success, she thought sentimentally.

That night while Walter watched a television variety show, she read a story in one of her magazines. (Its cover, depicting a s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p and a girl in green bra and shorts, had been prudently torn off and thrown away.) It was about a man from die future who had gone back in time, bringing with him all sorts of marvelous inventions. In the end the Time Police punished him for unauthorized time traveling. They had come back and got him, brought him back to his own time. She smiled. It would be nice if Mr. Clurg, instead of being a slightly eccentric foreigner, were a man from the future with all sorts of interesting stories to tell and a satchelful of gadgets that could be sold for millions and millions of dollars.

After a week they did have Clurg over for dinner. It rtarted badly. Once more he managedto sit down in empty air and crash to the floor. While they were brus.h.i.+ng him off he said fretfully: "I can't get used to not-" and then said bo more.

He was a picky eater. Betty had done one of her mother's ^ecialties, veal cutlet with tomato sauce, topped by a poached egg. He ate the egg and sauce, made a clumsy attempt to cut up the meat, and abandoned it. She served a plate of cheese, half a dozen Kinds, for dessert, and Clurg tasted them uncertainly, breaking off a crumb from each, while Betty wondered where that const.i.tuted good manners. His face lit up when he tried a ripe cheddar. He popped the whole wedge into his mouth and said to Betty: "I will have that, please."

"Seconds?" asked Walter. "Sure. Don't bother, Betty. IT1 get it." He brought back a quarter-pound wedge of the cheddar.

Walter and Betty watched silently as Clurg calmly ate every crumb of it He sighed. "Very good. Quite like-" The word, Walter and Betty later agreed, was see-mon-joe. They were able to agree quite early in the evening, because Clurg got up after eating the cheese, said warmly, Thank you so much!" and walked out of the house.

Betty said, "What-on-Earth!"

Walter said uneasily, "I'm sorry, doll. I didn't think he'd be quite that peculiar-"

"-But after all!"

"-Of course he's a foreigner. What was that word?"

He jotted it down.

While they were doing the dishes Betty said, "I think he was drunk. Falling-down drunk."

"No," Walter said. "It's exactly the same thing he did in my office. As though he expected a chair to come to him instead of him going to a chair." He laughed and said uncertainly, "Or maybe he's royalty. I read once about Queen Victoria never looking around before she sat down, she was so sure there'd be a chair there."

"Well, there isn't any more royalty, not to speak of," she said angrily, hanging up the dish towel. "What's on TV tonight?"

"Uncle Miltie. But... uh... I think I'll read. Uh... where do you keep those magazines of yours, doll? Believe I'll give them a try."

She gave him a look that he wouldn't meet, and she went to get him some of her magazines. She also got a slim green book which she hadn't looked at for years. While Walter flipped uneasily through the magazines she studied the book. After about ten minutes she said: "Walter. Seemonjoe. I I think I know what language it is!'

He was instantly alert. "Yeah? What?"

"It should be spelled c-i-m-a-n-g-o, with little jiggers over the C and G. It means 'Universal food' in Esperanto."

"Where's Esperanto?" he demanded.

"Esperanto isn't anywhere. It's an artificial language. I played around with it a little once. It was supposed to end war and all sorts of things. Some people called it the language of the future'." Her voice was tremulous.

Walter said, "I'm going to get to the bottom of this."

He saw Clurg go into the neighborhood movie for the matinee. That gave him about three hours.

Walter hurried to the Curran bungalow, remembered to slow down and tried hard to look casual as he unlocked the door and went in. There wouldn't be any trouble-he was a good citizen, known and respected-he could let himself into a tenant's house and wait for him to talk about business if he wanted to, He tried not to think of what people would think if he should be caught rifling Clurg's luggage, as he intended to do. He had brought along an a.s.sortment of luggage keys.

Surprised by his own ingenuity, he had got them at a locksmith's by saying his own key was lost and he didn't want to haul a heavy packed bag downtown.

But he didn't need the keys. In the bedroom closet the two suitcases stood, unlocked.

There was nothing in the first except uniformly new clothes, bought locally at good shops.The second was full of the same. Going through a rather extreme sports jacket, Walter found a wad of paper in the breast pocket. It was a newspaper page. A number had been penciled on a margin; apparently the sheet had been torn out and stuck into the pocket and forgotten. The dateline on the paper was July 18th, 2403.

Walter had some trouble reading the stories at first, but found it was easy enough if he read them aloud and listened to his voice.

One said: TAIM KOP NABD: PROSKYOOTR ASKS DETH.

Patrolm'n Oskr Garth V thi Taim Polis w'z arest'd toodei at biz horn, 4365 9863th Suit, and bookd at 9768th Prisint on m. --. tchardg'z *v Polis-Ekspozh'r. Thi aledjd Ekspozh'r okurM hwafle Garth w'z on dooti in thi Twenti-Furst Sentch'ri. It konsist'd "v hiz admish'n too a sit'zen 'v thi Twenti-Furst Sentch'ri that thi Taim Polis ekzisted and woz op'rated fr"m thi Twenti-Fifth Sentch'ri. Thi Proskypot'rz Ofis sed thi deth pen'lti wil be askt ifl vyoo 'v thi heinus neitch'r 'v thi ofens, hwitch thret'nz thi hwol fabrik 'v Twenti-Fifth-Sentch'ri eksiz-tens.

There was an advertis.e.m.e.nt on the other side: BOIZ"ND YUNG MEN!.

SERV EUR SENTCH'RI!.

ENLIST IN THI TAIM POLIS RKURV NOW!.

RIMEMB'R-.

V THI AJEZ! ONLY IN THI TAIM POLIS KAN EU PROTEKT EUR SIVILIZASH*N FR'M.

VARFNS! THEIR IZ NO HAIER SERVIS TOO AR KULTCH'R! THEIR IZ NO K'REER SO.

FAS*NATING AZ A K'REER IN THI TAIM POLIS!.

Underneath it another ad asked: HWAI BI ASHEEMPD UV EUR TCHAIRZ? GET ROLFASTS! No uth'r tcheir haz thi immidjit respons uv a Rolfast Sit enihweir-eor Rolfast iz theirl Eur Rolfast mefl partz ar solid gold to avoid tairsum polis.h.i.+ng. Eur Rolfast beirings are thi fain'st six-intch dupliks di'mondz for long wair.

Walter's heart pounded. Gold-to avoid tiresome polis.h.i.+ng! Six-inch diamonds-for long wear!

And Clurg must be a time policeman. "Only in the time police can you see the pageant of the ages!" What did a time policeman do? He wasn't quite clear about that. But what they didn't do was let anybody else-anybody earlier- know that the Time Police existed. He, Walter Lachlan of the Twentieth Century, held in the palm of his hand Time Policeman Clurg of the Twenty-Fifth Century-the Twenty-Fifth Century where gold and diamonds were common as steel and gla.s.s in this!

He was there when Clurg came back from the matinee. Mutely, Walter extended the page of newsprint Clurg s.n.a.t.c.hed it incredulously, stared at it and crumpled it in his fist. He collapsed on the floor with a groan. "I'm done for!" Walter heard him say.

"Listen, Clurg," Walter said. "n.o.body ever needs to know about this-n.o.body."

Clurg looked up with sudden hope in his eyes. "You will keep silent?" he asked wildly. "It is my life!"

"What's it worth to you?" Walter demanded with brutal directness. "I can use some of those diamonds and some of that gold. Can you get it into this century?"

"It would be missed. It would be over my ma.s.s-balance," Qurg said. "But I have a Duplix.

I can copy diamonds and gold for you; that was how I made my feoff money."

He s.n.a.t.c.hed an instrument from his pocket-a fountain pen, Walter thought "It is low in charge. It would Duplix about five kilograms in one operation-"

"You mean," Walter demanded, "that if I brought you five kilograms of diamonds and gold you could duplicate it? And the originals wouldn't be harmed? Let me see that tiling.

Can I work it?"

Clurg pa.s.sed over the "fountain pen". Walter saw that within the case was a tangle of wires, tiny tubes, lenses-he pa.s.sed it back hastily. Clurg said, "That is correct. You could buy or borrow jewelry and I could duplix it Then you could return the originals and retain thecopies. You swear by your contemporary G.o.d that you would say nothing?"

Walter was thinking. He could sc.r.a.pe together a good thirty thousand dollars by pledging the house, the business, his own real estate, the bank account, the life insurance, the securities. Put it all into diamonds, of course and then-doubled! Overnight!

"I'll say nothing," he told Clurg. "If you come through." He took the sheet from the twenty-fifth-century newspaper from Clurg's hands and put it securely in his own pocket.

"When I get those-diamonds duplicated," he said, "I'll burn them and forget the rest. Until then, I want you to stay close to home. I'll come around in a day or so with the stuff for you to duplicate."

Clurg nervously promised.

The secrecy, of course, didn't include Betty. He told her when he got home and she let out a yell of delight. She demanded the newspaper, read it avidly, and then demanded to see Clurg.

"I don't think h.e.l.l talk," Walter said doubtfully. "But if you really want to..."

She did, and they walked to the Curran bungalow. Clurg was gone, lock, stock and barrel, leaving not a trace behind. They waited for hours, nervously.

At last Betty said, "He's gone back."

Walter nodded. "He wouldn't keep his bargain, but by G.o.d I'm going to keep mine.

Come along. We're going to the Enterprise."

"Walter," she said. "You wouldn't-would you?"

Ke went alone, after a bitter quarrel.

At the Enterprise office he was wearily listened to by a reporter, who wearily looked over the twenty-fifth-century newspaper. "I don't know what you're peddling, Mr. Lachlan," he said, "but we like people to buy their ads in the Enterprise. This is a pretty bare-faced publicity grab."

"But-" Walter sputtered.

"Sam, would you please ask Mr. Morris to come up here if he can?" the reporter was saying into the phone. To Walter he explained, "Mr. Morris is our press-room foreman."

The foreman was a huge, white-haired old fellow, partly deaf. The reporter showed him the newspaper from the twenty-fifth century and said, "How about this?"

Mr. Morris looked at it and smelled it and said, showing no interest in the reading matter: "American Type Foundry Futura number nine, discontinued about ten years ago. It's been hand-set. The ink-hard to say. Expensive stuff, not a news ink. A book ink, a job-printing ink. The paper, now, I know. A nice linen rag that Benziger jobs in Philadelphia."

"You see, Mr. Lachlan? It's a fake." The reporter shrugged.

Walter walked slowly from the city room. The press-room foreman knew. It was a fake.

And Clurg was a faker. Suddenly Walter's heels touched the ground after twenty-four hours and stayed there. Good G.o.d, the diamonds! Clurg was a conman! He would have worked a package switch! He would have had thirty thousand dollars' worth of diamonds for less than a month's work!

He told Betty about it when he got home and she laughed unmercifully. "Time Policeman" was to become a family joke between the Lachlans.

Harry Twenty-Third Street stood, blinking, in a very peculiar place. Peculiarly, his feet were firmly encased, up to the ankles, in a block of dear plastic.

There were odd-looking people and a big voice was saying: "May it please the court.

The People of the Twenty-Fifth Century versus Harold Parish, alias Harry Twenty-Third Street, alias Clurg, of the Twentieth Century. The charge is impersonating an officer of the Time Police. The Prosecutor's Office will ask the death penalty in view of the heinous nature of the offense, which threatens the whole fabric-"

Virginia

Iambs "Bunny" Coogler woke on the morning of his father's funeral with a confused feeling that it was awfully crowded in his bedroom. Ohara, his valet (of the s.h.i.+manoseki Oharas, and not to be confused with the Dublin branch of the family) was shaking his sleeve and saying: "You wake up, Missah Bunny! Ah, such important gentermen come see youl"

Bunny groped on the bedside table for the sungla.s.ses to shelter his pink-rimmed eyes from the light. Ohara popped them onto his face and then rapidly poured a prairie oyster, a bromo and a cup of black coffee laced with brandy into him. Bunny's usual rate of morning vibration began to dampen towards zero and he peered about the room through the dark lenses.

"Morning, young Coogler," said a gruff voice. The outline was that of J. G. Barsax, senior partner of his late father's firm. A murmur of greeting came from three other elephantine figures. They were Gonfalonieri of First American, Witz of Diversified Limited, and McChesney of Southern Development Inc. If an efficient bomb had gone off in the room at that moment, it would have liquidated eighteen-billion-dollars' worth of Top Management and Owners.h.i.+p.

"Sorry about your father," Barsax grunted. "Mind if we sit? Not much time before the funeral. Have to brief you fast."

Bunny said, "Mr. Sankton told me what I'd have to do, Mr. Barsax. Rise after the 'Amen,'

lead the procession past the casket, up the center aisle to the limousine exit-"

"No, no, no. Of course you know the funeral form. I'm talking about the financial briefing.

Coogler, you're a very wealthy young man."

Bunny took off his sungla.s.ses. "I am?" he asked uncertainly. "Surely not. There's this trust thing he was always talking about to pay me twenty thousand a year-"

'Talked," said Gonfalonieri. "That's all he did. He never got it on paper. You're the sole heir to the liquid equivalent of, say, three and a half billion dollars."

Ohara hastily refilled the cup with laced coffee and put it in Bunny's hand.

"So," little Mr. Witz said softly, "there are certain things you must know. Certain rules that have sprung up which We observe." The capitalized plural p.r.o.noun was definitely sounded.

Whether it was to be taken as royal, editorial, or theological, who can say? They proceeded to brief Bunny.

Firstly, he must never admit that he was wealthy. He might use the phrase "what little I have," accompanied by a whimsical shrug.

Secondly, he must never, under any circ.u.mstances, at any time, give anything to anybody. Whenever asked for anything he was to intimate that this one request he simply could not grant, that it was the one crus.h.i.+ng straw atop his terrible burden of charitable contributions.

Thirdly; whenever offered anything-from a cigar to a million-dollar market tip from a climber-he must take it without thanks and complain bitterly that the gift was not handsomer.

Fourthly, he must look on Touching Capital as morally equivalent to coprophagia, but he must not attempt to sting himself by living on the interest of his interest; that was only for New Englanders.

Fifthly, when he married he must choose his bride from one of Us.

"You mean, one of you four gentlemen?" Bunny asked.