Thunder and Roses Read online

  “That’s about it,” breathed Alistair. “I—” She was interrupted by Tiny, who suddenly leaped up and ran to her, kissing her hands, committing the forbidden enormity of putting his paws on her shoulders, running back to the wooden forms and nudging the disk, the yes symbol. His tail was going like a metronome without its pendulum.

  Mrs. Forsythe came in in the midst of all this rowdiness and demanded, “What goes on? Who made a dervish out of Tiny? What have you been feeding him? Don’t tell me. Let me … You don’t mean you’ve solved his problem for him? What are you going to do, buy him a pogo stick?”

  “Oh, Mum, we’ve got it! An alloy of molybdenum and gold. I can get it alloyed and cast in no time.”

  “Good, honey, good. You going to cast the whole thing?” She pointed to the drawing.

  “Why, yes.”

  “Humph!”

  “Mother! Why, if I may ask, do you ‘humph’ in that tone of voice?”

  “You may ask, Chicken, who’s going to pay for it?”

  “Why, that will—I—oh. Oh!” she said, aghast, and ran to the drawing. Alec came and looked over her shoulder. She figured in the corner of the drawing, oh-ed once again and sat down weakly.

  “How much?” asked Alec.

  “I’ll get an estimate in the morning,” she said faintly. “I know plenty of people. I can get it at cost—maybe.” She looked at Tiny despairingly. He came and laid his head against her knee, and she pulled at his ears. “I won’t let you down, darling,” she whispered.

  She got the estimate the next day. It was a little over thirteen thousand dollars.

  Alistair and Alec stared blankly at each other and then at the dog.

  “Maybe you can tell us where we can raise that much money?” said Alistair, as if she expected Tiny to whip out a wallet.

  Tiny whimpered, licked Alistair’s hand, looked at Alec, and then lay down.

  “Now what?” mused Alec.

  “Now we go and fix something to eat,” said Mrs. Forsythe, moving toward the door. The others were about to follow, when Tiny leaped to his feet and ran in front of them. He stood in the doorway and whimpered. When they came closer, he barked.

  “Sh-h! What is it, Tiny? Want us to stay here a while?”

  “Say, who’s the boss around here?” Mrs. Forsythe wanted to know.

  “He is,” said Alec, and he knew he was speaking for all of them. They sat down, Mrs. Forsythe on the studio couch, Alistair at her desk, Alec at the drawing table. But Tiny seemed not to approve of the arrangement. He became vastly excited, running to Alec, nudging him hard, dashing to Alistair, taking her wrist very gently in his jaws and pulling gently toward Alec.

  “What is it, fellow?”

  “Seems like matchmaking to me,” remarked Mrs. Forsythe.

  “Nonsense, Mum,” said Alistair, coloring. “He wants Alec and me to change places, that’s all.”

  Alec said, “Oh,” and went to sit beside Mrs. Forsythe. Alistair sat at the drawing table. Tiny put a paw up on it, poked at the large tablet of paper. Alistair looked at him curiously, then tore off the top sheet. Tiny nudged a pencil with his nose.

  Then they waited. Somehow, no one wanted to speak. Perhaps no one could, but there seemed to be no reason to try. And gradually a tension built up in the room. Tiny stood stiff and rapt in the center of the room. His eyes glazed, and when he finally keeled over limply, no one went to him.

  Alistair picked up the pencil slowly. Watching her hand, Alec was reminded of the movement of the pointer on a ouija board. The pencil traveled steadily, in small surges, to the very top of the paper and hung there. Alistair’s face was quite blank.

  After that no one could say what happened, exactly. It was as if their eyes had done what their voices had done. They could see, but they did not care to. And Alistair’s pencil began to move. Something, somewhere, was directing her mind—not her hand. Faster and faster her pencil flew, and it wrote what was later to be known as the Forsythe Formulae.

  There was no sign then, of course, of the furor that they would cause, of the millions of words of conjecture that were written when it was discovered that the girl who wrote them could not possibly have had the mathematical background to write them. They were understood by no one at first, and by very few people ever. Alistair certainly did not know what they meant.

  An editorial in a popular magazine came startlingly close to the true nature of the formulae when it said: “The Forsythe Formulae, which describe what the Sunday supplements call the ‘Something-for-Nothing Clutch,’ and the drawing that accompanies them, signify little to the layman. As far as can be determined, the formulae are the description and working principles of a device. It appears to be a power plant of sorts, and if it is ever understood, atomic power will go the way of gaslights.

  “A sphere of energy is enclosed in a shell made of neutron-absorbing material. This sphere has inner and outer ‘layers.’ A shaft passes through the sphere. Apparently a magnetic field must be rotated about the outer casing of the device. The sphere of energy aligns itself with this field. The inner sphere rotates with the outer one and has the ability to turn the shaft. Unless the mathematics used are disproved—and no one seems to have come anywhere near doing that, unorthodox as they are—the aligning effect between the rotating field and the two concentric spheres, as well as the shaft, is quite independent of any load. In other words, if the original magnetic field rotates at 3000 r.p.m., the shaft will rotate at 3000 r.p.m., even if there is only 1/16 horsepower turning the field while there is 10,000 braking stress on the shaft.

  “Ridiculous? Perhaps. And perhaps it is no more so than the apparent impossibility of 15 watts of energy pouring into the antenna of a radio station, and nothing coming down. The key to the whole problem is in the nature of those self-contained spheres of force inside the shell. Their power is apparently inherent, and consists of an ability to align, just as the useful property of steam is an ability to expand. If, as is suggested by Reinhardt in his ‘Usage of the Symbol ß in the Forsythe Formulae,’ these spheres are nothing but stable concentrations of pure binding energy, we have here a source of power beyond the wildest dreams of mankind. Whether or not we succeed in building such devices, it cannot be denied that whatever their mysterious source, the Forsythe Formulae are an epochal gift to several sciences, including, if you like, the art of philosophy.”

  After it was over, and the formulae written, the terrible tension lifted. The three humans sat in their happy coma, and the dog lay senseless on the rug. Mrs. Forsythe was the first to move, standing up abruptly. “Well!” she said.

  It seemed to break a spell. Everything was quite normal. No hangovers, no sense of strangeness, no fear. They stood looking wonderingly at the mass of minute figures.

  “I don’t know,” murmured Alistair, and the phrase covered a world of meaning. Then, “Alec—that casting. We’ve got to get it done. We’ve just got to, no matter what it costs us!”

  “I’d like to,” said Alec. “Why do we have to?”

  She waved toward the drawing table. “We’ve been given that.”

  “You don’t say!” said Mrs. Forsythe. “And what is that?”

  Alistair put her hand to her head, and a strange, unfocused look came into her eyes. That look was the only part of the whole affair that ever really bothered Alec. It was a place she had gone to, a little bit; and he knew that no matter what happened, he would never be able to go there with her.

  She said, “He’s been … talking to me, you know. You do know that, don’t you? I’m not guessing, Alec—Mum.”

  “I believe you, chicken,” her mother said softly. “What are you trying to say?”

  “I got it in concepts. It isn’t a thing you can repeat, really. But the idea is that he couldn’t give us any thing. His ship is completely functional, and there isn’t anything he can exchange for what he wants us to do. But he has given us something of great value.…” Her voice trailed off; she seemed to listen to something for a moment. �
�Of value in several ways. A new science, a new approach to attack the science. New tools, new mathematics.”

  “But what is it? What can it do? And how is it going to help us pay for the casting?” asked Mrs. Forsythe.

  “It can’t, immediately,” said Alistair decisively. “It’s too big. We don’t even know what it is. Why are you arguing? Can’t you understand that he can’t give us any gadgetry? That we haven’t his techniques, materials, and tools, and so we couldn’t make any actual machine he suggested? He’s done the only thing he can; he’s given us a new science, and tools to take it apart.”

  “That I know,” said Alec gravely. “Well, indeed. I felt that. And I—I trust him. Do you, ma’am?”

  “Yes, of course. I think he’s—people. I think he has a sense of humor and a sense of justice,” said Mrs. Forsythe firmly. “Let’s get our heads together. We ought to be able to scrape it up some way. And why shouldn’t we? Haven’t we three got something to talk about for the rest of our lives?”

  And their heads went together.

  This is the letter that arrived two months later in St. Croix.

  Honey-lamb,

  Hold on to your seat. It’s all over.

  The casting arrived. I missed you more than ever, but when you have to go—and you know I’m glad you went! Anyway, I did as you indicated, through Tiny, before you left. The men who rented me the boat and ran it for me thought I was crazy, and said so. Do you know that once we were out on the river with the casting, and Tiny started whuffing and whimpering to tell me we were on the right spot, and I told the men to tip the casting over the side, they had the colossal nerve to insist on opening the crate? Got quite nasty about it. Didn’t want to be a party to any dirty work. It was against my principles, but I let them, just to expedite matters. They were certain there was a body in the box! When they saw what it was, I was going to bend my umbrelly over their silly heads, but they looked so funny I couldn’t do a thing but roar with laughter. That was when the man said I was crazy.

  Anyhow, over the side it went, into the river. Made a lovely splash. About a minute later I got the loveliest feeling—I wish I could describe it to you. I was sort of overwhelmed by a feeling of utter satisfaction, and gratitude, and, oh, I don’t know. I just felt good, all over. I looked at Tiny, and he was trembling. I think he felt it, too. I’d call it a thank you, on a grand psychic scale. I think you can rest assured that Tiny’s monster got what it wanted.

  But that wasn’t the end of it. I paid off the boatmen and started up the bank. Something made me stop and wait, and then go back to the water’s edge.

  It was early evening, and very still. I was under some sort of compulsion, not an unpleasant thing, but an unbreakable one. I sat down on the river wall and watched the water. There was no one around—the boat had left—except one of those snazzy Sunlounge cruisers anchored a few yards out. I remember how still it was, because there was a little girl playing on the deck of the yacht, and I could hear her footsteps as she ran about.

  Suddenly I noticed something in the water. I suppose I should have been frightened, but somehow I wasn’t at all. Whatever the thing was, it was big and gray and slimy and quite shapeless. And somehow, it seemed to be the source of this aura of well-being and protectiveness that I felt. It was staring at me. I knew it was before I saw that it had an eye—a big one, with something whirling inside of it. I don’t know. I wish I could write. I wish I had the power to tell you what it was like. I know that by human standards it was infinitely revolting. If this was Tiny’s monster, I could understand its being sensitive to the revulsion it might cause. And wrongly, for I felt to the core that the creature was good.

  It winked at me. I don’t mean blinked. It winked. And then everything happened at once.

  The creature was gone, and in seconds there was a disturbance in the water by the yacht. Something gray and wet reached up out of the river, and I saw it was going for that little girl. Only a tyke—about three, she was. Red hair just like yours. And it thumped that child in the small of the back just enough to knock her over into the river.

  And can you believe it? I just sat there watching and said never a word. It didn’t seem right to me that that baby could be struggling in the water. But it didn’t seem wrong, either!

  Well, before I could get my wits together, Tiny was off the wall like a hairy bullet and streaking through the water. I have often wondered why his feet are so big; I never will again. The hound is built like the lower half of a paddle wheel! In two shakes he had the baby by the scruff of the neck and was bringing her back to me. No one had seen that child get pushed, Alistair! No one but me. But there was a man on the yacht who must have seen her fall. He was all over the deck, roaring orders and getting in the way of things, and by the time he had his wherry in the water, Tiny had reached me with the little girl. She wasn’t frightened, either, she thought it was a grand joke! Wonderful youngster.

  So the man came ashore, all gratitude and tears, and wanted to gold-plate Tiny or something. Then he saw me. “That your dog?” I said it was my daughter’s. She was in St. Croix on her honeymoon. Before I could stop him, he had a checkbook out and was scratching away at it. He said he knew my kind. Said he knew I’d never accept a thing for myself, but wouldn’t refuse something for my daughter. I enclose the check. Why he picked a sum like thirteen thousand I’ll never know. Anyhow, I know it’ll be a help to you, and since the money really comes from Tiny’s monster, I’m sure you’ll use it. I suppose I can confess now. The idea that letting Alec put up the money even though he had to clean out his savings and mortgage his estate—would be all right if he were one of the family, because then he’d have you to help him make it all back again—well, that was all my inspiration. Sometimes, though, watching you, I wonder if I really had to work so all-fired hard to get you two married to each other.

  Well, I imagine that closes the business of Tiny’s monster. There are a lot of things we’ll probably never know. I can guess some things, though. It could communicate with a dog but not with a human, unless it half killed itself trying. Apparently a dog is telepathic with humans to a degree, though it probably doesn’t understand a lot of what it gets. I don’t speak French, but I could probably transcribe French phonetically well enough so a Frenchman could read it. Tiny was transcribing that way. The monster could “send” through him and control him completely. It no doubt indoctrinated the dog—if I can use the term—the day old Debbil took him up the waterline. And when the monster caught, through Tiny, the mental picture of you when Dr. Schwellenbach mentioned you, it went to work through the dog to get you working on its problem. Mental pictures—that’s probably what the monster used. That’s how Tiny could tell one book from another without being able to read. You visualize everything you think about. What do you think? I think that mine’s as good a guess as any.

  You might be amused to learn that last night all the compasses in this neighborhood pointed west for a couple of hours! ’By, now, chillun. Keep on being happy.

  Love and love, and a kiss for Alec,

  Mum

  P.S. Is St. Croix really a nice place to honeymoon? Jack—he’s the fellow who signed the check—is getting very sentimental. He’s very like your father. A widower, and—oh, I don’t know. Says fate, or something, brought us together. Said he hadn’t planned to take a trip upriver with his granddaughter, but something drove him to it. He can’t imagine why he anchored just there. Seemed a good idea at the time. Maybe it was fate. He is very sweet. I wish I could forget that wink I saw in the water.

  The Sky Was Full Of Ships

  SYKES DIED, AND after two years they tracked Gordon Kemp down and brought him back, because he was the only man who knew anything about the death. Kemp had to face a coroner’s jury in Switchpath, Arizona, a crossroads just at the edge of the desert, and he wasn’t too happy about it, being city-bred and not quite understanding the difference between “hicks” and “folks.”

  The atmosphere in the courtroom wa
s tense. Had there been great wainscoted walls and a statue of blind Justice, it would have been more impersonal and, for Kemp, easier to take. But this courtroom was a crossroads granger’s hall in Switchpath, Arizona.

  The presiding coroner was Bert Whelson, who held a corncob pipe instead of a gavel. At their ease around the room were other men, dirt farmers and prospectors like Whelson. It was like a movie shot. It needed only a comedy dance number and somebody playing a jug.

  But there was nothing comic about it. These hicks were in a position to pile trouble on Kemp, trouble that might very easily wind up in the gas chamber.

  The coroner leaned forward. “You got nothin’ to be afeard of, son, if your conscience is clear.”

  “I still ain’t talking. I brought the guy in, didn’t I? Would I done that if I’d killed him?”

  The coroner stroked his stubble, a soft rasping sound like a rope being pulled over a wooden beam.

  “We don’t know about that, Kemp. Hmm. Why can’t you get it through your head that nobody’s accusing you of anything? You’re jest a feller knows something about the death of this here Alessandro Sykes. This court’d like to know exactly what happened.”

  He hesitated, shuffled.

  “Sit down, son,” said the coroner.

  That did it. He slumped into the straight chair that one of the men pushed up for him, and told this story.

  I guess I better go right back to the beginning, the first time I ever saw this here Sykes.

  I was working in my shop one afternoon when he walked in. He watched what I was doing and spoke up.

  “You Gordon Kemp?”

  I said yes and looked him over. He was a scrawny feller, prob’ly sixty years old and wound up real tight. He talked fast, smoked fast, moved fast, as if there wasn’t time for nothin’, but he had to get on to somethin’ else. I asked him what he wanted.

  “You the man had that article in the magazine about the concentrated atomic torch?” he said.

  “Yeah,” I told him. “Only that guy from the magazine, he used an awful lot of loose talk. Says my torch was three hundred years ahead of its time.” Actually it was something I stumbled on by accident, more or less. The ordinary atomic hydrogen torch—plenty hot.