Short Fiction Fritz Leiber (free e books to read .txt) 📖

the contracting door shut the young couple from view.

“You were right, Potshelter,” he said briskly. “It was one of those combinations of mischances that come up only once in a billion billion times. But we’re going to have to issue recommendations for new procedures and safeguards that will reduce the possibilities to one in a trillion trillion. It will undoubtedly up the Terran income tax a healthy percentage, but we can’t have something like this happening again. Every boy must marry the Girl Next Door! And the first-class mails must not be interfered with! The advertising must go through!”

“I’d almost like to see it happen again,” Potshelter murmured dreamily, “if there were another Jane Dough in it.”

Outside, Richard and Jane had halted to allow a small cortege of machines to pass. First came a squad of police machines with Black Sorter in their midst, unmuzzled and docile enough, though still gnashing his teeth softly. Then⁠—stretched out horizontally and borne on the shoulders of Gray Psychiatrist, Black Coroner, White Nursemaid Seven and Greasy Joe⁠—there passed the slim form of Pink Wastebasket, snow-white in death. The machines were keening softly, mournfully.

Round about the black pillars, little mecho-mops were scurrying like mice, cleaning up the last of the first-class-mail bits of confetti.

Richard winced at this evidence of his aberration, but Jane squeezed his hand comfortingly, which produced in him a truly amazing sensation that changed his whole appearance.

“I know how you feel, darling,” she told him. “But don’t worry about it. Just think, dear, I’ll always be able to tell your friends’ wives something no other woman in the world can boast of: that my husband once wrote me a letter!”

Bullet with His Name

The Invisible Being shifted his anchorage a bit in Earth’s gravitational field, which felt like a push rather than a pull to him, and said, “This featherless biped seems to satisfy Galaxy Center’s requirements. I’d say he’s a suitable recipient for the Gifts.”

His Coadjutor, equally invisible and negatively massed, chewed that over. “Mature by his length and mass. Artificial plumage neither overly gaudy nor utterly drab⁠—indicating median social level, which is confirmed by the size of his bachelor nest. Inward maps of his environment not fantastically inaccurate. Feelings reasonably meshed⁠—at least neither volcanic nor frozen. Thoughts and values in reasonable order. Yes, I agree, a satisfactory test subject. Except⁠ ⁠…”

“Except what?”

“Except we can never be sure of that ‘reasonable’ part.”

“Of course not! Thank your stars that’s beyond the reach of Galaxy Center’s keenest telepathy, or even ours on the spot. Otherwise you and I’d be out of a job.”

“And have to scheme up some other excuse for free-touring the Cosmos with backtracking permitted.”

“Exactly!” The Being and his Coadjutor understood each other very well and were the best of friends. “Well, how many Gifts would you suggest for the test?”

“How about two Little and one Big?” the Coadjutor ventured.

“Umm⁠ ⁠… statistically adequate but spiritually unsatisfying. Remember, the fate of his race hangs on his reactions to them. I’d be inclined to increase your suggestion by one each and add a Great.”

“No⁠—at least I question the last. After all, the Great Gifts aren’t as important, really, as the Big Gifts. Besides⁠ ⁠…”

“Besides what? Come on, spit it out!” The Invisible Being was the bluff, blunt type.

“Well,” said his less hearty but unswervingly honest companion, “I’m always afraid that you’ll use the granting of a Great Gift as an excuse for some sardonic trick⁠—that you’ll put a sting in its tail.”

“And why shouldn’t I, if I want to? Snakes have stings in their tails (or do they on this planet?) and I’m a sort of snake. If he fails the test, he fails. And aren’t both of us malicious, plaguing spirits, eager to knock holes in the inward armor of provincial entities? It’s in the nature of our job. But we can argue about that in due course. What Little Gifts would you suggest?”

“That’s something I want to talk about. Many of the Little Gifts are already well within his race’s reach, if not his. After all, they’ve already got atomic power.”

“Which as you very well know scores them nothing one way or the other on a Galaxy Center test. We’re agreed on the nature and the number of our Gifts⁠—three Little, two Big, and one Great?”

“Yes,” his Coadjutor responded resignedly.

“And we’re agreed on our subject?”

“Yes to that too.”

“All right, then, let’s get started. This isn’t the only solar system we have to visit on this circuit.”

Ernie Meeker⁠—of Chicago, Illinois, U.S. of A., Occident, Terra, Sol, Starswarm 37, Rim Sector, Milky Way Galaxy⁠—rubbed his chin and slanted across the street to a drugstore.

“Package of blades. Double edge. Five. Cheapest.”

At one point during the transaction, the clerk lost sight of the tiny packet he’d placed on the coin-whitened glass between them. He gave a suspicious look, as if the customer had palmed them.

Ernie blinked. After a moment, he pointed toward the center of the counter.

“There they are,” he said, dropping a coin beside them.

The clerk’s face didn’t get any less suspicious. Customer who could sneak something without your seeing could sneak it back the same way. He rang up the sale and closed the register fast.

Ernie Meeker went home and shaved. Five days⁠—and shaves⁠—later, he pushed the first blade, uncomfortably dull now, through the tiny slot beside the bathroom mirror. He unwrapped the second blade from the packet.

Five shaves later, he cut himself under the chin with the second blade, although he was drawing it as gently through his soaped beard as if it were only his second shave with it, or at most his third. He looked at it sourly and checked the packet. Wouldn’t have been the first time he’d absentmindedly changed blades ahead of schedule.

But there were still three blades in their waxed wrappings.

Maybe, he thought, he’d still had one of the blades from the last packet and shuffled it into this series.

Or maybe⁠—although the manufacturers undoubtedly had inspectors to prevent it from happening⁠—he’d got a decent