Henry Kuttner: The Well of the Worlds (Henry Kuttner) (Literary Thoughts Edition)

“Young men are such fools,” he said. “You can afford idealism now, maybe. When you get to my age, things look different.” He seemed for some moments to consider a private matter. Finally he shook his heavy head. “Don’t like to do it,” he murmured. “Still—” He reached into the pocket of his rumpled coat and held something out on a large, unsteady palm. “Take it,” he said. “Study it. What do you make of it?”

Sawyer rather gingerly accepted between thumb and forefinger a small, metallic, faceted disc about the size of an aspirin tablet. It was curved slightly on the underside. He looked up inquiringly.

“A little something of my own,” Alper said complacently. “A transceiver, actually. It transmits sound and it receives sound. But a very specialized sort of sound. I don’t know how familiar you may be with communication machines. One of the vital factors in any such device is the intensity of the internal noise of the receiving system. For instance, there is a constant sound and motion inside the human skull—the human body is such a communication machine. The heartbeat reverberates in it. The frictional whispering of blood moves through the arteries of the brain. The sound of breathing is loud in the passages of your head. Normally you are oblivious to these sounds. But they could be amplified.”

Alper leaned back and smiled. There was, Sawyer thought, distaste and dislike in the smile. Perhaps an old man’s jealous dislike of a young one.

“This device is such an amplifier,” he said.

The thing vibrated slightly in Sawyer’s hand, was still, vibrated again. Sawyer glanced at Alper’s hand, which had gone back into his pocket.

“You’re making it vibrate?” he asked. The old man nodded.

“And why,” Sawyer asked politely, “are you showing this to me?”

“Frankly—” Alper said, and suddenly snorted with laughter. “Frankly, I may as well confess the truth. I made it for the head of Klai Ford. I am somewhat distressed to realize that you saw the humiliating part I played in that film. You saw me begging for something I most urgently need. You saw it—refused. Very well. You also heard my statement that I had a method to bring Klai to heel. That wasn’t idle boasting, Mr. Sawyer. This transceiver is the method.”

Sawyer looked at him, puzzled and wary.

“I can trust you,” Alper said sardonically. “More than you know. The one thing I won’t risk is endangering my bargain with my—with the person I spoke to in the mine.”

“Has she really got you convinced,” Sawyer asked him, “that she’s tapped the fountain of youth?”

“You fool!” Alper said with sudden violence. “What do you know about youth? Do you think I could be fooled by mumbo-jumbo? Where do you think the energy comes from that you young men squander? From the sun, through photosynthesis, turning into a form your body can accept as fuel! Some radiations you can get directly from the sun. And electric energy can be conducted from one person to another. You’ll believe me—later.

“This is something a young man couldn’t comprehend—Mephistopheles didn’t bargain for Faust’s soul. I know. It was Faust who had to convince the devil his soul was worth buying, in a buyer’s market. And I had to convince Nethe I could be useful to her. I know what she demands in return for the energy I need. Klai’s life depends on me, whether I can remove her as an obstacle so Nethe won’t need to eliminate her. And I don’t want Klai killed. The investigation afterward might be—awkward.

“So I made this transceiver. I worked it out myself, in private. I meant it for Klai, but I see now that could be even more of a nuisance than the girl. I came here today prepared for trouble.” He laughed. “Here we go!” he said.

Alper was a ponderous man. He was also an old and a feeble man. What he did just now was therefore clearly impossible. He stood up straight. He pushed the cane violently away, so that it clattered to the floor beside his suddenly and strongly upright figure. The troll was still ponderous, but he was no longer stooped and feeble. A sort of impossible power flickered through him like a visible current. It was not youth, or muscular strength. It was something less natural, less explicable than suddenly restored physical power.

Sawyer heard the cane clatter without realizing what had happened. He was a young and active man, but he was no match for this unnaturally violent old one. Alper’s leap across the space that parted them was exactly the leap on an electric current between high-voltage terminals, not a physical body’s motion propelled by muscular action. Muscular action seemed to have nothing to do with it. Alper’s heavy bulk moved on some other propulsive force than muscle and bone.

The cane clattered. In the same instant the tremendous weight of that heavy old body hurtled against Sawyer’s chest, drove him six feet backward and flattened him hard against the wall. A ponderous forearm jammed against his throat all but throttled him. The room swam blackly before him. Dimly he was aware that at the very crown of his skull some curious sudden pressure took place.

And then it was all over.

The pressure released him before he could gather himself to fight Alper off. When the first clatter of the cane had warned him, Sawyer’s brain had sent a message to his body and his muscles flexed to respond. Alper’s incredibly quick action took place in the split second needed for an active young man’s reflexes to answer a summons to action. Sawyer thrust violently against the old man’s bulk in the same instant that all power failed Alper.

It had been rapid. It was soon ended. But it had been enough.

Alper collapsed before Sawyer’s thrust, helpless as a sack of flour. He fell heavily to the carpet, the floor shaking to the impact of his weight. He caught himself on one arm, wheezed noisily, and looked up under his thick, folded lids at Sawyer with a sly triumph on his empurpled face.

“Hand me my cane,” he said.

Sawyer was massaging his throat with one hand and cautiously touching the crown of his head with the other. He paid no attention. Once the menace of Alper’s weight was removed, he had a more immediate problem to solve. That strange, light, tingling area at the top of his skull. . . .

“Hand me my cane,” Alper said again. “Sawyer! You may as well learn now to jump when I speak. You’ll get used to it. Now!”

When he said now, thunder suddenly cracked Sawyer’s skull wide open.

The shaft of it seemed to strike downward straight through his skull and into the middle of his brain. Through a haze of forked lightnings he saw Alper’s grimly smiling face watching him. He clapped both hands to his head to keep the separating halves of his skull from falling entirely apart. While the thunder still crashed in his head he could do nothing at all but stand rigid, enduring it, holding his temples with both hands.

But it died at last. And then Sawyer whirled on the man at his feet, murderous anger flooding through his mind in the wake of the receding thunder.

“Careful!” Alper said in his thick voice. “Careful! Do you want it again? Now hand me my cane.”

Sawyer drew a long, uneven breath.

“No,” he said.

Alper sighed. “You’re a useful man,” he said. “I could kill you very easily. I could shake your brain to such a jelly you’d obey me, but if I did that, you’d be no use. To me or anyone. Be reasonable, Sawyer. I’ve got you. Why not cooperate. Would you rather die?”

“I’d rather kill you,” Sawyer said, still pressing his head with both hands, and between them looking down with a grim defiance that matched the old troll’s grim resolution. “I will, when I can.”

“Ah, but you can’t,” Alper told him. “Shall I prove it again? Shall I prove you can’t touch me fast enough to stop the—the lightning? You’re behaving very stupidly, Sawyer. I want to talk to you, but I can’t do it from the floor and I can’t get up alone. I want my cane. I’ll count three, Sawyer. If you haven’t handed me my cane by then, you know what to expect. You’ll have to learn the lesson, my boy.”