He had touched it gingerly before picking it up but it didn’t shock him; clearly the protective devices, whatever they were, were off.
He sweated over it for an hour and a half, looking for levers, buttons, a slit that he might pry wider with the blade of a knife. At last he kicked it and yelled, past endurance: ‘Open up, damn you!’
It opened wide on the floor before him.
‘Oh, bless your heart!’ cried Mooney, falling to his knees to drag out the string of wampum, the little mechanical mice, the viewing-machine sort of thing. Treasures like those were beyond price; each one might fetch a fortune, if only in the wondrous new inventions he could patent if he could discover just how they worked.
But where were they?
Gone! The wampum was gone. The goggles were gone. Everything was gone - the little flat canisters, the map instruments, everything but one thing.
There was, in a corner of the case, a squarish, sharp-edged thing that Mooney stared at blindly for a long moment before he recognized it. It was a part - only a part - of the jointed construction that Harse had used to rid himself of undesirables by bathing them in blue light.
What a filthy trick! Mooney all but sobbed to himself.
He picked up the squarish thing bitterly. Probably it wouldn’t even work, he thought, the world a ruin around him. It wasn’t even the whole complete weapon.
Still-
There was a grooved, saddle-shaped affair that was clearly a sort of trigger; it could move forward or it could move back. Mooney thought deeply for a while.
Then he sat up, held the thing carefully away from him with the pointed part towards the wall and pressed, ever so gently pressed forward on the saddle-shaped thumb-trigger.
The pale blue haze leaped out, swirled around and, not finding anything alive in its range, dwindled and died.
Aha, thought Mooney, not everything is lost yet! Surely a bright young man could find some use for a weapon like this which removed, if it did not kill, which prevented any nastiness about a corpse turning up, or a messy job of disposal
Why not see what happened if the thumb-piece was moved backward?
Well, why not? Mooney held the thing away from him, hesitated, and slid it back.
There was a sudden shivering tingle in his thumb, in the gadget he was holding, running all up and down his arm. A violet haze, very unlike the blue one, licked soundlessly forth -not burning, but destroying as surely as flame ever destroyed; for where the haze touched the gadget itself, the kit, everything that had to do with the man from the future, it seared and shattered. The gadget fell into white crystalline powder in Mooney’s hand and the case itself became a rectangular shape traced in white powder ridges on the rug.
Oh, no! thought Mooney, even before the haze had gone. It can’t be!
The flame danced away like a cloud, spreading and rising. While Mooney stared, it faded away, but not without leaving something behind.
Mooney threw his taut body backward, almost under the bed. What he saw, he didn’t believe; what he believed filled him with panic.
No wonder Harse had laughed so when Mooney asked if its victims were dead. For there they were, all of them. Like djinn out of a jar, human figures jelled and solidified where the cloud of violet flame had not at all diffidently rolled.
They were alive, as big as life, and beginning to move - and so many of them! Three - five - six:
The truck-driver, yes, and a man in long red flannel underwear who must have been the policeman, and Uncle Lester, and the bartender’s brother, and the chambermaid, and a man Mooney didn’t know.
They were there, all of them; and they came towards him, and oh! but they were angry!
I Plinglot, Who You?
1
‘Let me see,’ I said, ‘this is a time for the urbane. Say little. Suggest much,’ So I smiled and nodded wisely, without words, to the fierce flash bulbs.
The committee room was not big enough, they had had to move the hearings. Oh, it was hot. Senator Schnell came leaping down the aisle, sweating, his forehead glistening, his gold tooth shining, and took my arm like a trap. ‘Capital, Mr. Smith,’ he cried, nodding and grinning, ‘I am so glad you got here on time! One moment.’
He planted his feet and stopped me, turned me about to face the photographers and threw an arm around my shoulder as they flashed many bulbs. ‘Capital,’ said the senator with a happy voice. ‘Thanks, fellows! Come along, Mr. Smith!’
They found me a first-class seat, near a window, where the air-conditioning made such a clatter that I could scarcely hear, but what was there to hear before I myself spoke? Outside the Washington Monument cast aluminium rays from the sun.
We’ll get started in a minute,’ whispered Mr. Hagsworth in my ear - he was young and working for the committee - ‘as soon as the networks give us the go-ahead.’
He patted my shoulder in a friendly way, with pride; they were always doing something with shoulders. He had brought me to the committee and thus I was, he thought, a sort of possession of his, a gift for Senator Schnell, though we know how wrong he was in that, of course. But he was proud. It was very hot and I had in me many headlines.
Q. (Mr. Hagsworth.) Will you state your name, sir?
A. Robert Smith.
Q. Is that your real name?
A. No.
Oh, that excited them all! They rustled and coughed and whispered, those in the many seats. Senator Schnell flashed his gold tooth. Senator Loveless, who as his enemy and his adjutant, as it were, a second commander of the committee but of opposite party, frowned under stiff silvery hair. But he knew I would say that, he had heard it all in executive session the night before.
Mr. Hagsworth did not waste the moment, he went right ahead over the coughs and the rustles.
Q. Sir, have you adopted the identity of ‘Robert P. Smith’ in order to further your investigations on behalf of this committee?
A. I have.
Q. And can you -
Q. (Senator Loveless.) Excuse me.
Q. (Mr. Hagsworth.) Certainly, Senator.
Q. (Senator Loveless.) Thank you, Mr. Hagsworth. Sir -that is, Mr. Smith - do I understand that it would not be proper, or advisable, for you to reveal - that is, to make public - your true or correct identity at this time? Or in these circumstances?
A. Yes.
Q. (Senator Loveless.) thank you very much, Mr. Smith. I just wanted to get that point cleared up.
Q. (Mr. Hagsworth.) Then tell us, Mr. Smith -
Q. (Senator Loveless.) It’s clear now.
Q. (The Chairman.) Thank you for helping us clarify the matter, Senator. Mr. Hagsworth, you may proceed.
Q. (Mr. Hagsworth.) Thank you, Senator Schnell. Thank you, Senator Loveless. Then, Mr. Smith, will you tell us the nature of the investigations you have just concluded for this committee?
A. Certainly. I was investigating the question of interstellar space travel.
Q. That is, travel between the planets of different stars?
A. That’s right
Q. And have you reached any conclusions as to the possibility of such a thing?
A. Oh, yes. Not just conclusions. I have definite evidence that one foreign power is in direct contact with creatures living on the planet of another star, and expects to receive a visit from them shortly.
Q. Will you tell us the name of that foreign power?
A. Russia.
Oh, it went very well. Pandemonium became widespread: much noise, much hammering by Senator Schnell, and at the recess all the networks said big Neilsen. And Mr. Hagsworth was so pleased that he hardly asked me about the file again, which I enjoyed as it was a hard answer to give. ‘Good theatre, ah, Mr. Smith,’ he winked.