William Tenn: Firewater

The woman with the dental nightmare stamped her foot. A cloud no larger than a man’s hand formed near the ceiling, burst and deposited a pail full of water on Hebster’s fine custom-made rug.

He ran a manicured forefinger around the inside of his collar so that his bulging neck veins would not burst. Not right now, anyway. He looked at Greta and regained confidence from the serenity with which she waited for more conversation to transcribe. There was a model of business precision for you. The Primeys might pull what one of them had in London two years ago, before they were barred from all metropolitan areas—increased a housefly’s size to that of an elephant—and Greta Seidenheim would go on separating fragments of conversation into the appropriate short-hand symbols.

With all their power, why didn’t they take what they wanted? Why trudge wearisome miles to cities and attempt to smuggle themselves into illegal audiences with operators like Hebster, when most of them were caught easily and sent back to the reservation and those that weren’t were cheated unmercifully by the “straight” humans they encountered? Why didn’t they just blast their way in, take their weird and pathetic prizes and toddle back to their masters? For that matter, why didn’t their masters—But Primey psych was Primey psych—not for this world, nor of it.

“We’ll tell you what we want in exchange,” Larry began in the middle of a honk. He held up a hand on which the length of the fingernails was indicated graphically by the grime beneath them and began to tot up the items, bending a digit for each item. “First, a hundred paper-bound copies of Melville’s Moby Dick. Then, twenty-five crystal radio sets, with earphones; two earphones for each set. Then, two Empire State Buildings or three Radio Cities, whichever is more convenient. We want those with foundations intact. A reasonably good copy of the Hermes statue by Praxiteles. And an electric toaster, circa 1941. That’s about all, isn’t it, Theseus?”

Theseus bent over until his nose rested against his knees.

Hebster groaned. The list wasn’t as bad as he’d expected—remarkable the way their masters always yearned for the electric gadgets and artistic achievements of Earth—but he had so little time to bargain with them. Two Empire State Buildings!

“Mr. Hebster,” his receptionist chattered over the communicator. “Those SIC men—I managed to get a crowd out in the corridor to push toward their elevator when it came to this floor, and I’ve locked the… I mean I’m trying to… but I don’t think—Can you—”

“Good girl! You’re doing fine!”

“Is that all we want, Theseus?” Larry asked again. “Gabble?”

Hebster heard a crash in the outer office and footsteps running across the floor.

“See here, Mr. Hebster,” Theseus said at last, “if you don’t want to buy Larry’s reductio ad absurdum exploder, and you don’t like my method of decorating bald heads for all its innate artistry, how about a system of musical notation—”

Somebody tried Hebster’s door, found it locked. There was a knock on the door, repeated almost immediately with more urgency.

“He’s already found something he wants,” S.S. Lusitania snapped. “Yes, Larry, that was the complete list.”

Hebster plucked a handful of hair from his already receding forehead. “Good! Now, look, I can give you everything but the two Empire State Buildings and the three Radio Cities.”

“Or the three Radio Cities,” Larry corrected. “Don’t try to cheat us! Two Empire State Buildings or three Radio Cities. Whichever is more convenient. Why… isn’t it worth that to you?”

“Open this door!” a bull-mad voice yelled. “Open this door in the name of United Mankind!”

“Miss Seidenheim, open the door,” Hebster said loudly and winked at his secretary, who rose, stretched and began a thoughtful, slow-motion study in the direction of the locked panel. There was a crash as of a pair of shoulders being thrown against it. Hebster knew that his office door could withstand a medium-sized tank. But there was a limit even to delay when it came to fooling around with the UM Special Investigating Commission. Those boys knew their Primeys and their Primey-dealers; they were empowered to shoot first and ask questions afterwards—as the questions occurred to them.

“It’s not a matter of whether it’s worth my while,” Hebster told them rapidly as he shepherded them to the exit behind his desk. “For reasons I’m sure you aren’t interested in, I just can’t give away two Empire State Buildings and/or three Radio Cities with foundations intact—not at the moment. I’ll give you the rest of it, and—”

“Open this door or we start blasting it down!”

“Please, gentlemen, please,” Greta Seidenheim told them sweetly. “You’ll kill a poor working girl who’s trying awfully hard to let you in. The lock’s stuck.” She fiddled with the door knob, watching Hebster with a trace of anxiety in her fine eyes.

“And to replace those items,” Hebster was going on, “I will—”

“What I mean,” Theseus broke in, “is this. You know the greatest single difficulty composers face in the twelve-tone technique?”

“I can offer you,” the executive continued doggedly, sweat bursting out of his skin like spring freshets, “complete architectural blueprints of the Empire State Building and Radio City, plus five… no, I’ll make it ten… scale models of each. And you get the rest of the stuff you asked for. That’s it. Take it or leave it. Fast!”

They glanced at each other, as Hebster threw the exit door open and gestured to the five liveried bodyguards waiting near his private elevator. “ Done,” they said in unison.

“Good!” Hebster almost squeaked. He pushed them through the doorway and said to the tallest of the five men: “Nineteenth floor!”

He slammed the exit shut just as Miss Seidenheim opened the outer office door. Yost and Funatti, in the bottle-green uniform of the UM, charged through. Without pausing, they ran to where Hebster stood and plucked the exit open. They could all hear the elevator descending.

Funatti, a little, olive-skinned man, sniffed. “Primeys,” he muttered. “He had Primeys here, all right. Smell that unwash, Yost?”

“Yeah,” said the bigger man. “Come on. The emergency stairway. We can track that elevator!”

They holstered their service weapons and clattered down the metal-tipped stairs. Below, the elevator stopped.

Hebster’s secretary was at the communicator. “Maintenance!” She waited. “Maintenance, automatic locks on the nineteenth floor exit until the party Mr. Hebster just sent down gets to a lab somewhere else. And keep apologizing to those cops until then. Remember, they’re SIC.”

“Thanks, Greta,” Hebster said, switching to the personal now that they were alone. He plumped into his desk chair and blew out gustily: “There must be easier ways of making a million.”

She raised two perfect blond eyebrows. “Or of being an absolute monarch right inside the parliament of man?”

“If they wait long enough,” he told her lazily, “I’ll be the UM, modern global government and all. Another year or two might do it.”

“Aren’t you forgetting Vandermeer Dempsey? His huskies also want to replace the UM. Not to mention their colorful plans for you. And there are an awful, awful lot of them.”

“They don’t worry me, Greta. Humanity First will dissolve overnight once that decrepit old demagogue gives up the ghost.” He stabbed at the communicator button. “Maintenance! Maintenance, that party I sent down arrived at a safe lab yet?”