Clifford Simak - Time is the Simplest Thing

A faint surprise ran through him — that he should have been able to do a thing like this; that he, with his own two fists, should have beaten this big brute of a man into a bloody pulp.

He’d got in the first good blow and that had been nothing but pure and simple luck. And he had found the key that unlocked the robe and had that been a piece of luck as well?

He thought about it and he knew that it had not been luck, that it had been good and solid information plucked from the file of facts dumped into his brain when the creature on that planet five thousand light years distant had traded minds with him. The phrase had been a command to the robe to get its clutches off whatever it had trapped. Sometime in its mental wanderings across unimagined space, the Pinkness had soaked up a wondrous amount of information about the cactus people. And out of this incredible junk heap of miscellaneous facts the terribly discerning brain that belonged to humankind had been able to select the one undistinguished fact which at a given moment had high survival value.

Blaine stood and stared at Grant and there was still no movement in the man.

And what did he do now? Blaine wondered.

He got out of here, of course, as quickly as he could. For in just a little while someone from Fishhook would be stepping from the transo, wondering why he had not been delivered, all neatly trussed and gentle.

He would run again, of course, Blaine told himself with bitterness. Running was the one thing he could do really well. He’d been running now for weeks on end and there seemed no end to it.

Someday, he knew, he would have to stop the running. Somewhere he’d have to make a stand, for the salvation of his self-respect if for no other reason.

But that time had not yet come. Tonight he’d run again, but this time he’d run with purpose. This night he’d gain something for the running.

He turned to get the bottle off the table and as he moved, he bumped into the robe, which was humping slowly on the floor. He kicked it savagely and it skidded weakly, almost wetly, into a lump in the fireplace corner.

Blaine grabbed the bottle in his fist and went across the room to the pile of goods stacked in the warehouse section.

He found a bale of goods and prodded it and it was soft and dry. He poured the contents of the bottle over it, then threw the bottle back into the corner of the room.

Back at the fireplace, he lifted the screen away, found the shovel and scooped up flaming coals. He dumped the coals on top the liquor-wetted goods, then flung the shovel from him and stepped back.

Little blue flames licked along the bale. They spread and grew. They crackled.

It was all right, Blaine knew.

Given five good minutes and the place would be in flames. The warehouse would be an inferno and there’d be nothing that could stop it. The transo would buckle and melt down, and the trail to Fishhook would be closed.

He bent and grasped the collar of Grant’s shirt and tugged him to the door. He opened the door and hauled the man out into the yard, some thirty feet distant from the building.

Grant groaned and tried to get to hands and knees, then collapsed upon the ground again. Blaine bent and tugged him another ten feet along the ground and let loose of him. Grant muttered and thrashed, but he was too beaten to get up.

Blaine walked to the alley and stood for a minute, watching. The windows of the Post were filling very satisfactorily with the red of roaring flames.

Blaine turned and padded softly down the alley.

Now, he told himself, would be a splendid time to make a call on Finn. In just a little while the town would be agog with the burning of the Post and the police much too busy and officious to bother with a man out on the street in violation of the curfew.

A group of people were standing on the hotel steps, looking at the fire, which roared into the nighttime sky just two blocks away. They paid Blaine no notice. There was no sign of police.

“Some more reefer business,” said one man to another.

The other nodded. “You wonder how their minds work,” he said. “They’ll go and trade there in the daytime, then sneak back and burn the place at night.”

“I swear to God,” said the first man, “I don’t see why Fishhook put up with it. They needn’t simply stand and take it.”

“Fishhook doesn’t care,” the other told him. “I spent five years in Fishhook. I tell you, the place is weird.”

Newsmen, Blaine told himself. A hotel crammed full of newsmen come to cover what Finn would say tomorrow. He looked at the man who had spent five years in Fishhook, but he did not recognize him.

Blaine went up the steps and into the empty lobby. He jammed his fists into his jacket pockets so that no one could spot the bruised and bloody knuckles.

The hotel was an old one and its lobby furnishings, he judged, had not been changed for years. The place was faded and old-fashioned and it had the faint, sour smell of many people who had lived short hours beneath its roof.

A few people sat here and there, reading papers or simply sitting and staring into space, with the bored look of waiting imprinted on their faces.

Blaine glanced at the clock above the desk and it was 11:30.

He went on past the desk, heading for the elevator and the stairs beyond.

“Shep!”

Blaine spun around.

A man had heaved himself out of a huge leather chair and was lumbering across the lobby toward him.

Blaine waited until the man came up and all the time there were little insect feet running on his spine.

The man stuck out his hand.

Blaine took his right hand from his pocket and showed it to him.

“Fell down,” he said. “Stumbled in the dark.”

The man looked at the hand. “You better get that washed up,” he said.

“That’s what I intend to do.”

“You know me, don’t you?” the man demanded. “Bob Collins. Met you a couple of times in Fishhook. Down at the Red Ghost Bar.”

“Yes, of course,” Blaine said, uncomfortably. “I know you now. You slipped my mind at first. How are you?”

“Getting along all right. Sore that they pulled me out of Fishhook, but you get all sorts of breaks, mostly lousy, in this newspaper racket.”

“You’re out here to cover Finn?”

Collins nodded. “How about yourself?”

“I’m going up to see him.”

“You’ll be lucky if you get to see him. He up in 210. Got a big tough bruiser sitting just outside his door.”

“I think he’ll see me.”

Collins cocked his head. “Heard you took it on the lam. Just grapevine stuff.”

“You heard it right,” said Blaine.

“You don’t look so good,” said Collins. “Don’t be offended, but I got an extra buck or two . . .”

Blaine laughed.

“A drink, perhaps?”

“No. I must hurry and see Finn.”

“You with him?”

“Well, not exactly . . .”

“Look, Shep, we were good pals back there in Fishhook. Can you give me what you know? Anything at all. Do a good job on this one, they might send me back to Fishhook. There’s nothing I want worse.”

Blaine shook his head.

“Look, Shep, there are all sorts of rumors. There was a truck went off the road down by the river. There was something in that truck, something that was terribly important to Finn. He leaked it to the press. He’d have a sensational announcement to the press. He had something he wanted us to see. There’s a rumor it’s a star machine. Tell me, Shep, could it be a star machine? No one knows for sure.”

“I don’t know a thing.”

Collins moved closer, his voice dropping to a husky whisper. “This is big, Shep. If Finn can nail it down. He thinks he has hold of something that will blow the parries — every single parry, the whole concept of PK — clear out of the water. You know he’s worked for that for years. In a rather hateful way, of course, but he has worked for it for years. He’s preached hate up and down the land. He’s a first-class rabble-rouser. He needs just this one to cinch his case. Give him a good one now and the entire world tips to him. Give him that clincher and the world will shut its eyes to the way he did it. They’ll be out howling, out after parry blood.”