The Collection (34 page)

Gerber took the box. The servant limped away and Herbie's
eyes followed him suspiciously. Was the limp genuine or was it a piece of
misdirection?

The box folded out flat as the proverbial pancake. All four sides
hinged to the bottom, the top hinged to one of the sides. There were little
brass catches.

Herbie took a quick step back so he could see behind it
while the front was displayed to the audience. Yes, he saw it now. A triangular
compartment built against one side of the lid, mirror-covered, angles
calculated to achieve invisibility. Old stuff. Herbie felt a little
disappointed.

The prestidigitator folded the box, mirror-concealed compartment
inside. He turned slightly. "Now, my fine young man-"

What happened in Tibet wasn't the only factor; it was merely
the final link of a chain.

The Tibetan weather had been unusual that week, highly
unusual. It had been warm. More snow succumbed to the gentle warmth than had
melted in more years than man could count. The streams ran high, they ran wide
and fast.

Along the streams some prayer wheels whirled faster than
they had ever whirled. Others, submerged, stopped altogether. The priests,
knee-deep in the cold water, worked frantically, moving the wheels nearer to shore
where again the rushing torrent would turn them.

There was one small wheel, a very old one that had revolved
without cease for longer than any man knew. So long had it been there that no
living lama recalled what had been inscribed upon its prayer plate, nor what
had been the purpose of that prayer.

The rushing water had neared its axle when the lama Klarath
reached for it to move it to safety. Just too late. His foot slid in the
slippery mud and the back of his hand touched the wheel as he fell. Knocked
loose from its moorings, it swirled down with the flood, rolling along the
bottom of the stream, into deeper and deeper waters.

While it rolled, all was well.

The lama rose, shivering from his momentary immersion, and
went after other of the spinning wheels. What, he thought, could one small
wheel matter? He didn't know that-now that other links had broken-only that
tiny thing stood between Earth and Armageddon.

The prayer wheel of Wangur Ul rolled on, and on, until-a
mile farther down-it struck a ledge, and stopped. That was the moment.

"And now, my fine young man-"

***

Herbie Westerman-we're back in Cincinnati now-looked up,
wondering why the prestidigitator had stopped in mid-sentence. He saw the face of
Gerber the Great contorted as though by a great shock. Without moving, without
changing, his face began to change. Without appearing different, it became
different.

Quietly, then, the magician began to chuckle. In the
overtones of that soft laughter was all of evil. No one who heard it could have
doubted who he was. No one did doubt. The audience, every member of it, knew in
that awful moment who stood before them, knew it-even the most skeptical among
them-beyond shadow of doubt.

No one moved, no one spoke, none drew a shuddering breath.
There are things beyond fear. Only uncertainty causes fear, and the Bijou
Theater was filled, then, with a dreadful certainty.

The laughter grew. Crescendo, it reverberated into the far
dusty corners of the gallery. Nothing-not a fly on the ceiling-moved.

Satan spoke.

"I thank you for your kind attention to a poor
magician." He bowed, ironically low. "The performance is ended."
He smiled. "All performances are ended."

Somehow the theater seemed to darken, although the electric
lights still burned. In dead silence, there seemed to be the sound of wings,
leathery wings, as though invisible Things were gathering.

On the stage was a dim red radiance. From the head and from
each shoulder of the tall figure of the magician there sprang a tiny flame. A
naked flame.

There were other flames. They flickered along the proscenium
of the stage, along the footlights. One sprang from the lid of the folded box
little Herbie Westerman still held in his hands.

Herbie dropped the box.

Did I mention that Herbie Westerman was a Safety Cadet? It
was purely a reflex action. A boy of nine doesn't know much about things like
Armageddon, but Herbie Westerman should have known that water would never have
put out that fire.

But, as I said, it was purely a reflex action. He yanked out
his new water pistol and squirted it at the box of the pigeon trick. And the
fire
did
vanish, even as a spray from the stream of water ricocheted and
dampened the trouser leg of Gerber the Great, who had been facing the other
way.

There was a sudden, brief hissing sound. The lights were
growing bright again, and all the other flames were dying, and the sound of
wings faded, blended into another sound-rustling of the audience.

The eyes of the prestidigitator were closed. His voice
sounded strangely strained as he said: "This much power I retain. None of
you will remember this."

Then, slowly, he turned and picked up the fallen box. He
held it out to Herbie Westerman. "You must be more careful, boy," he
said. "Now hold it so."

He tapped the top lightly with his wand. The door fell open.
Three white pigeons flew out of the box. The rustle of their wings was not
leathery.

Herbie Westerman's father came down the stairs and, with a
purposeful air, took his razor strop off the hook on the kitchen wall.

Mrs. Westerman looked up from stirring the soup on the
stove. "Why, Henry," she asked, "are you really going to punish
him with that-just for squirting a little water out of the window of the car on
the way borne?"

Her husband shook his head grimly. "Not for that,
Marge. But don't you remember we bought him that water gun on the way downtown,
and that he wasn't near a water faucet after that? Where do you think he filled
it?"

He didn't wait for an answer. "When we stopped in at
the cathedral to talk to Father Ryan about his confirmation, that's when the
little brat filled it. Out of the baptismal font! Holy water he uses in his
water pistol!"

He clumped heavily up the stairs, strop in hand.

Rhythmic thwacks and wails of pain floated down the
staircase. Herbie-who had saved the world-was having his reward.

^"
The first time machine, gentlemen,
^"
Professor Johnson proudly informed his two colleagues.
^"
True,
it is a small-scale experimental model. It will operate only on objects
weighing less than three pounds, five ounces and for distances into the past
and future of twelve minutes or less. But it works.
^"

The small-scale model looked like a small scale—a postage
scale—except for two dials in the part under the platform.

Professor Johnson held up a small metal cube.
^"
Our
experimental object,
^"
he said,
^"
is a brass
cube weighing one pound, two point, three ounces. First, I shall send it five
minutes into the future.
^"

He leaned forward and set one of the dials on the time
machine.
^"
Look at your watches," he said.

They looked at their watches, Professor Johnson placed the
cube gently on the machine
^'
s platform. It vanished.

Five minutes later, to the second, it reappeared.

Professor Johnson picked it up.
^"
Now five
minutes into the past." He set the other dial. Holding the cube in his
hand he looked at his watch.
^"
It is six minutes before three o
^'
clock.
I shall now activate the mechanism—by placing the cube on the platform—at
exactly three o
^'
clock. Therefore, the cube should, at five minutes
before three, vanish from my hand and appear on the platform, five minutes
before I place it there.
^"

^"
How can you place it there, then?"
asked one of his colleagues.

^"
It will, as my hand approaches, vanish from
the platform and appear in my hand to be placed there. Three o
^'
clock.
Notice, please.
^"

The cube vanished from his hand.

It appeared on the platform of the time machine.

^"
See? Five minutes before I shall place it
there, it is there!
^"

His other colleague frowned at the cube. "But," he
said, "what if, now that it has already appeared five minutes before you
place it there, you should change your mind about doing so and
not
place
it there at three o'clock? Wouldn't there be a paradox of some sort involved?
^"

^"
An interesting idea,
^"
Professor Johnson said.
^"
I had not thought of it, and it will
be interesting to try. Very well, I shall
not . . .

There was no paradox at all. The cube remained.

But the entire rest of the Universe, professors and all,
vanished.

When Eustace Weaver invented his time machine he was a very
happy man. He knew that he had the world by the tail on a downhill pull, as
long as he kept his invention a secret. He could become the richest man in the
world, wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice. All he had to do was to take short
trips into the future to learn what stocks had gone up and which horses had won
races, then come back to the present and buy those stocks or bet on those
horses.

The races would come first of course because he would need a
lot of capital to play the market, whereas, at a track, he could start with a
two-dollar bet and quickly parlay it into the thousands. But it would have to
be at a track; he
^'
d too quickly break any bookie he played with, and
besides he didn
^'
t know any bookies. Unfortunately the only tracks
operating at the present were in Southern California and in Florida, about
equidistant and about a hundred dollars' worth of plane fare away. He didn
^'
t
have a fraction of that sum, and it would take him weeks to save that much out
of his salary as stock clerk at a supermarket. It would be horrible to have to
wait that long, even to start getting rich.

Suddenly he remembered the safe at the supermarket where he
worked—an afternoon-evening shift from one o
^'
clock until the market
closed at nine. There'd be at least a thousand dollars in that safe, and it had
a time lock. What could be better than a time machine to beat a time lock?

When he went to work that day he took his machine with him;
it was quite compact and he
^'
d designed it to fit into a camera case
he already had so there was no difficulty involved in bringing it into the
store, and when he put his coat and hat into his locker he put the time machine
there too.

He worked his shift as usual until a few minutes before
closing time. Then he hid behind a pile of cartons in the stock room. He felt
sure that in the general exodus he wouldn
^'
t be missed, and he
wasn't. Just the same he waited in his hiding place almost a full hour to make
sure everyone else had left. Then he emerged, got his time machine from the
locker, and went to the safe. The safe was set to unlock itself automatically
in another eleven hours; he set his time machine for just that length of time.

He took a good grip on the safe
^'
s handle—he
^'
d
learned by an experiment or two that anything he wore, carried, or hung onto
traveled with him in time-and pressed the stud.

He felt no transition, but suddenly he heard the safe's
mechanism click open—but at the same moment heard gasps and excited voices
behind him. And he whirled, suddenly realizing the mistake he'd made; it was
nine o'clock the next morning and the store
^'
s employees—those on the
early shift—were already there, had missed the safe and had been standing in a
wondering semi-circle about the spot where it had stood—when the safe and Eustace
Weaver had suddenly appeared.

Luckily he still had the time machine in his hand. Quickly
he turned the dial to zero—which he had calibrated to be the exact moment when
he had completed it—and pressed the stud.

And, of course, he was back before he had started and ...

When Eustace Weaver invented his time machine he knew that he
had the world by the tail on a downhill pull, as long as he kept his invention
a secret. To become rich all he had to do was take short trips into the future
to see what horses were going to win and what stocks were going up, then come
back and bet the horses or buy the stocks.

The horses came first because they would require less
capital —but he didn
^'
t have even two dollars to make a bet, let
alone plane fare to the nearest track where horses were running.

He thought of the safe in the supermarket where he worked as
a stock clerk. That safe had at least a thousand dollars in it, and it had a
time lock. A time lock should be duck soup for a time machine.

So when he went to work that day he took his time machine
with him in a camera case and left it in his locker. When they closed at nine
he hid out in the stock room and waited an hour till he was sure everyone else
had left. Then he got the time machine from his locker and went with it to the
safe.

He set the machine for eleven hours ahead—and then had a second
thought. That setting would take him to nine o
^'
clock the next
morning. The safe would click open then, but the store would be opening too and
there
^'
d be people around. So instead he set the machine for
twenty-four hours, took hold of the handle of the safe and then pressed the
button on the time machine.