He touched something cold and smooth. Metal, a metal door handle. Relief flooded through him. “I’ve found it! Jan, get inside. Mara, come on.” He pushed Jan past him, into the car. Mara slipped in after Jan, her small agile body crowding in beside him.
“Stop!” a voice shouted from above. “There’s no use hiding in that ravine. We’ll get you! Come up and—”
The sound of voices was drowned out by the roar of the car’s motor. A moment later they shot into the darkness, the car rising into the air. Treetops broke and cracked under them as Erick turned the car from side to side, avoiding the groping shafts of pale light from below, the last furious thrusts from the two Leiters and their soldiers.
Then they were away, above the trees, high in the air, gaining speed each moment, leaving the knot of Martians far behind.
“Toward Marsport,” Jan said to Erick. “Right?”
Erick nodded. “Yes. We’ll land outside the field, in the hills. We can change back to our regular clothing there, our commercial clothing. Damn it—we’ll be lucky if we can get there in time for the ship.”
“The last ship,” Mara whispered, her chest rising and falling. “What if we don’t get there in time?”
Erick looked down at the leather case in his lap. “We’ll have to get there,” he murmured. “We must!”
For a long time there was silence. Thacher stared at Erickson. The older man was leaning back in his chair, sipping a little of his drink. Mara and Jan were silent.
“So you didn’t destroy the City,” Thacher said. “You didn’t destroy it at all. You shrank it down and put it in a glass globe, in a paperweight. And now you’re salesmen again, with a sample case of office supplies!”
Erickson smiled. He opened the briefcase and reaching into it he brought out the glass globe paperweight. He held it up, looking into it. “Yes, we stole the City from the Martians. That’s how we got by the lie detector. It was true that we knew nothing about a destroyed City.”
“But why?” Thacher said. “Why steal a City? Why not merely bomb it?”
“Ransom,” Mara said fervently, gazing into the globe, her dark eyes bright. “Their biggest City, half of the Council—in Erick’s hand!”
“Mars will have to do what Terra asks,” Erickson said. “Now Terra will be able to make her commercial demands felt. Maybe there won’t even be a war. Perhaps Terra will get her way without fighting.” Still smiling, he put the globe back into the briefcase and locked it.
“Quite a story,” Thacher said. “What an amazing process, reduction of size—A whole City reduced to microscopic dimensions. Amazing. No wonder you were able to escape. With such daring as that, no one could hope to stop you.”
He looked down at the briefcase on the floor. Underneath them the jets murmured and vibrated evenly, as the ship moved through space toward distant Terra.
“We still have quite a way to go,” Jan said. “You’ve heard our story, Thacher. Why not tell us yours? What sort of line are you in? What’s your business?”
“Yes,” Mara said. “What do you do?”
“What do I do?” Thacher said. “Well, if you like, I’ll show you.” He reached into his coat and brought out something. Something that flashed and glinted, somethig slender. A rod of pale fire.
The three stared at it. Sickened shock settled over them slowly.
Thacher held the rod loosely, calmly, pointing it at Erickson. “We knew you three were on this ship,” he said. “There was not doubt of that. But we did not know what had become of the City. My theory was that the City had not been destroyed at all, that something else had happened to it. Council instruments measured a sudden loss of mass in that area, a decrease equal to the mass of the City. Somehow the City had been spirited away, not destroyed. But I could not convince the other Council Leiters of it. I had to follow you alone.”
Thacher turned a little, nodding to the men sitting at the bar. The men rose at once, coming toward the table.
“A very interesting process you have. Mars will benefit a great deal from it. Perhaps it will even turn the tide in our favor. When we return to Marsport I wish to begin work on it at once. And now, if you will please pass me the briefcase—”
The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford
“I have something to show you,” Doc Labyrinth said. From his coat pocket he gravely drew forth a matchbox. He held the matchbox tightly, his eyes fixed on it. “You’re about to see the most momentous thing in all modern science. The world will shake and shudder.”
“Let me see,” I said. It was late, past midnight. Outside my house rain was falling on the deserted streets. I watched Doc Labyrinth as he carefully pushed the matchbox open with his thumb, just a crack. I leaned over to see.
There was a brass button in the matchbox. It was alone, except for a bit of dried grass and what looked like a bread crumb.
“Buttons have already been invented,” I said. “I don’t see much to this.” I reached out my hand to touch the button but Labyrinth jerked the box away, frowning furiously.
“This isn’t just a button,” he said. Looking down at the button he said, “Go on! Go on!” He nudged the button with his finger. “Go on!”
I watched with curiosity. “Labyrinth, I wish you’d explain. You come here in the middle of the night, show me a button in a matchbox, and—”
Labyrinth settled back against the couch, sagging with defeat. He closed the matchbox and resignedly put it back in his pocket. “It’s no use pretending,” he said. “I’ve failed. The button is dead. There’s no hope.”
“Is that so unusual? What did you expect?”
“Bring me something.” Labyrinth gazed hopelessly around the room. “Bring me—bring me wine.”
“All right, Doc,” I said getting up. “But you know what wine does to people.” I went into the kitchen and poured two glasses of sherry. I brought them back and gave one to him. We sipped for a time. “I wish you’d let me in on this.”
Doc put his glass down, nodding absently. He crossed his legs and took out his pipe. After he had lit his pipe he carefully looked once more into the matchbox. He sighed and put it away again.
“No use,” he said. “The Animator will never work, the Principle itself is wrong. I refer to the Principle of Sufficient Irritation, of course.”
“And what is that?”
“The Principle came to me this way. One day I was sitting on a rock at the beach. The sun was shining and it was very hot. I was perspiring and quite uncomfortable. All at once a pebble next to me got up and crawled off. The heat of the sun had annoyed it.”
“Really? A pebble?”
“At once the realization of the Principle of Sufficient Irritation came to me. Here was the origin of life. Eons ago, in the remote past, a bit of inanimate matter had become so irritated by something that it crawled away, moved by indignation. Here was my life work: to discover the perfect irritant, annoying enough to bring inanimate matter to life, and to incorporate it into a workable machine. The machine, which is at present in the back seat of my car, is called The Animator. But it doesn’t work.”
We were silent for a time. I felt my eyes slowly begin to close. “Say, Doc,” I began, “isn’t it time we—”
Doc Labyrinth leaped abruptly to his feet. “You’re right,” he said. “It’s time for me to go. I’ll leave.”
He headed for the door. I caught up with him. “About the machine,” I said. “Don’t give up hope. Maybe you’ll get it to work some other time.”
“The machine?” He frowned. “Oh, the Animator. Well, I’ll tell you what, I’ll sell it to you for five dollars.”
I gaped. There was something so forlorn about him that I didn’t feel like laughing. “For how much?” I said.