The Lybblas, of course, had disappeared, probably in search of cookies. Cantrell, eyeing his watch, urged Van Decker into a chair. He kept one hand significantly on his pocket, and from time to time looked toward Gallegher. The ray gun was still around; its outline was visible beneath the flexocloth of Cantrell’s coat.
“Showyou how easy I can do it,” Grandpa cackled, tottering on spindly legs toward the mental hookup device and throwing switches.
“Careful, Grandpa,” Cantrell warned, his voice tight.
Van Decker stared. “Something is wrong?”
“No, no,” Grandpa said. “Mr. Cantrell is afraid I will make a mistake. But no. This helmet—”
He fitted it on Van Decker’s head. A stylus scratched wavering lines on graphs. Deftly Grandpa sheafed them together, fell over his own feet and collapsed, the cards flying far and wide. Before Cantrell could move the old man was up again, muttering oaths as he collected the charts.
He laid them on a table. Gallegher moved forward, peering over Cantrell’s shoulder. Whew! This was the real thing, all right. Van Decker’s I.Q. was tremendous. His wild talents were — well, wildly remarkable.
Cantrell — who also knew the details of the mental hookup now, since he had absorbed Gallegher’s mathematical ability via Grandpa — nodded with satisfaction. He fitted a helmet on his own head and moved toward the device. With a cursory glance at Van Decker to see that all was well, he threw the switches. Lights blazed, the humming rose to a scream. And died.
Cantrell removed the helmet. As he reached into his pocket, Grandpa lifted a casual hand and showed a small, gleaming pistol.
“Don’t do it,” Grandpa said.
Cantrell’s eyes narrowed. “Drop that gun.”
“Nope. I figured you’d want to kill us and smash the machine, so you’d stay unique. It won’t work. This gun’s got a hair trigger. You can burn a hole in me, Cantrell, but you’ll be dead while you’re doing it.”
Cantrell considered. “Well?”
“Get out. I don’t want to be burned down, any more than you want a bullet in your stomach. Live and let live. Beat it.”
Cantrell laughed softly. “Fair enough, Grandpa. You’ve earned it. Don’t forget, I still know how to build the machine. And — I’ve skimmed the cream. You can do the same thing, but not any better than I can.
“So it’s even,” Grandpa said.
“Yes, it’s even. We’ll meet again. Don’t forget what killed those corpses in your yard, Gallegher,” Cantrell said, and backed out of the door, smiling tightly.
Gallegher came to life with a jump. “We’ve got to vise the police!” he snapped. “Cantrell’s too dangerous now to let loose.”
“ Take it easy,” Grandpa cautioned, waving the gun. “I told you it was all fixed up. You don’t want to be convicted for murder, do you? If Cantrell’s arrested — and we couldn’t make a charge stick, anyway — the police would find the heat ray projector. This way’s better.”
“What way?” Gallegher demanded.
“O.K., Mickey,” Grandpa said, grinning at Dr. Simon Van Decker, who took off his red beard and wig and started to laugh triumphantly.
Gallegher’s jaw dropped. “A ringer!” he gulped.
“Sure. I vised Mickey privately a few days ago. Told him what I wanted. He dressed up, vised Cantrell, and pretended to be Van Decker. Made an appointment for tonight.”
“But the charts. They showed a genius I.Q.-”
“I switched charts when I dropped ’em on the floor,” Grandpa confessed. “I’d made up some fakes in advance.”
Gallegher scowled. “That doesn’t alter the situation, though. Cantrell’s still loose, and with too damn much knowledge.”
“Hold your horses, young fellow,” Grandpa said. “Wait’ll I explain.”
He explained.
About three hours later the telecast news came through: a man named Roland Cantrell had fallen to his death from the Atlantic Stratoliner.
Gallegher, however, knew the exact moment of Cantrell’s death. For the corpse in the back yard had vanished at that time.
Because, with the heat ray projector destroyed, Gallegher’s future no longer could involve his death through a heat beam. Unless he made another, which he would take care not to do.
The time machine came out of its stasis and returned to normal. Gallegher guessed why. It had been set to fulfill a definite pattern — involving the death of Gallegher according to a certain set of variables. Within the limits of those variables, it was frozen. It could not stop operating till it had exhausted all the possibilities. As long as any of Gallegher’s probable futures held heat ray death — corpses would appear.
Now the future was altered drastically. No longer did Gallagher’s probable futures now involve a-1, b-1, c-1, et cetera.
And the machine wasn’t set for such radical variations. It had fulfilled the task for which it had been set. Now it awaited new orders.
But Gallegher studied it thoroughly before using it again.
He had plenty of time. Without a single corpus delecti, Persson had no difficulty in getting the case quashed, though the unfortunate Mahoney nearly went mad trying to figure out what had happened. As for the Lybblas—
Gallegher absently passed around the cookies, wondering how he could get rid of the small, stupid creatures without hurting their feelings. “You don’t want to stay here all your lives, do you?” he inquired.
“Well, no,” one of them replied, brushing crumbs from his whiskers with a furry paw. “But we gotta conquer the Earth,” he pointed out plaintively.
“Mm-m-m,” Gallegher said. And went out to make a purchase, returning later with some apparatus he surreptitiously attached to the televisor.
Shortly thereafter, the regular telecast was broken off for what purported to be a news flash. By a curious coincidence, the three Lybblas were watching the visor at the time. The scene on the screen faded into a close-up of the newscaster, whose face was almost entirely concealed by the sheaf of papers he held. From the eyebrows up — the only part visible — he looked much like Gallegher, but the Lybblas were too intrigued to notice.
“Flash!” said the visor excitedly. “Important bulletin! For some time the world has known of the presence of three distinguished visitors from Mars. They have—”
The Lybblas exchanged startled glances. One of them started to pipe a question and was hastily shushed. They listened again.
“They had been planning to conquer the Earth, it has been learned, and we are pleased to report that the world’s entire population has gone over to the side of the Lybblas. A bloodless revolution has taken place. The Lybblas are unanimously acclaimed as our sole rulers—”
“Whee!” cried a small voice.
“—and the new form of government is already being set up. There will be a different fiscal system, and coins bearing the heads of the Lybblas are being minted. It is expected that the three rulers will shortly return to Mars to explain the situation to their friends there.”
The newscaster’s partially exposed face vanished from the screen, and the regular telecast resumed. After a while
Gallegher appeared, smiling secretively. He was greeted with shrill shouts from the Lybblas.
“We gotta go home now. It was a bloodless—”
“Revolution! The world is ours!”
Their optimism was surpassed only by their credulity. Gallegher allowed himself to be convinced that the Lybblas must go back to Mars.
“O.K.,” Gallegher agreed. “The machine’s all ready. One last cookie all around, and then off you go.”