Read The Probability Broach Online
Authors: L. Neil Smith
Tags: #Science Fiction, #General, #Fiction
The Probability Broach (5 page)
“We most certainly don’t,” I chimed. “How about his lab—or is that from watching too many Frankenstein movies? Maybe he was one of those mathematicians who work it out with a—”
“No, Dr. Meiss did have facilities. I suppose you may examine them.” He peeked again at his watch. “I can scarcely see any objection to that!”
BEALLS LED ME through his outer office, stopping to tell his secretary where he’d be if anybody wanted to know. Anybody
important.
She looked at me as if to ask whether I knew what I was getting into, but when her boss removed his glasses once again, I winked and patted my coat lightly where the hammer of the forty-one wears out the lining.
important.
She looked at me as if to ask whether I knew what I was getting into, but when her boss removed his glasses once again, I winked and patted my coat lightly where the hammer of the forty-one wears out the lining.
I’ve been accused of lots of things, but never of stupidity. In a business lucky to solve one out of twenty, I get my man about half the time, and, unlike fictional detectives, I’ve never been clubbed from behind or slipped a Mickey Finn. Not yet, anyway. The one time I got burned, some puke was shooting through a tiny window in a fire door, and my miserable .38 couldn’t punch through. I bought the .41 Magnum the day I got out of the hospital.
Bealls was still watching his watch. With a ninety-minute stall, the busy phone, and his utter delight at getting me into another part of the building, I wasn’t exactly without suspicions. I was the good guy, and couldn’t shoot first, that being the Code of the West or something, but whenever Bealls’s visitors showed up, they weren’t gonna get a chance with that machine gun—not if Smith & Wesson, Inc. had anything to say.
Vaughn Meiss’s office was a cinder-block cubicle in a nest of cinder-block cubicles along a cinder-block hall, all painted a depressingly familiar government gang-green. Bookcases teetered to the ceiling on all four walls, and a desk heaped with books and papers was crammed into the middle somehow. On the ceiling, over crumbing acoustic tile, he’d taped a Propertarian poster: IRS—IT REALLY STEALS! A small blackboard was covered with much erased squiggles like those in Bealls’s magazines, plus, for a nice human touch, the word “Shit!”
Bealls ushered me in like a hotel bellboy, turned the keys over, then excused himself—which was honest, people like him need a lot of excusing—to hustle off for “another appointment.” I peeked around the corner and watched him scurry away, staring at his watch.
I mugged around, wondering if I’d recognize a clue written in Meiss’s academic Sanskrit if it jumped off the board and started chewing on my tie. A quick once-over of the bookcases: fairly predictable—lots of math and physics, a couple of shelves of Propertarian stuff, a little science fiction. No secret panels, mysterious codes, or hollowed-out volumes.
One strange datum: the desk was piled with
histories
covering the Revolution and two or three subsequent decades. Bookmarks—campus parking tickets going back to 1983—indicated special interest in Alexander Hamilton, the Federalist Party, and, by golly, Albert Gallatin.
histories
covering the Revolution and two or three subsequent decades. Bookmarks—campus parking tickets going back to 1983—indicated special interest in Alexander Hamilton, the Federalist Party, and, by golly, Albert Gallatin.
Another curious thing: in an absolutely jam-packed office, one drawer of the desk, the second on the right, was conspicuously empty, or almost so—a half-empty box of Norma .357 Magnum ammunition, 158-grain hollowpoints; a felt-tip pen bearing the odd inscription LAPORTE PARATRONICS, LTD., LAPORTE, N.A.C., TELECOM GRAY 4-3122; a single pistol cartridge in an unfamiliar caliber marked D & A Auto .476; and—another coin! This one was about the size of a quarter:
ONE HALF METRIC OUNCE
SILVER 999 FINE
THE LAPORTE INDUSTRIAL BANK, LTD.
The other side was even weirder, a ferocious-looking elder in a Karl Marx beard:
LYSANDER SPOONER
A.L. 32-110 ARCHITECT OF LIBERTY
These dubious clues in my pocket, I resolved to stop by the city of Laporte after I finished here. If it was the Laporte in Colorado, something definitely funny was going on. Six or seven miles northwest of Fort Collins, Laporte boasted fewer than five thousand inhabitants—an unlikely place for a bootleg mint, industrial bank, or paratronics factory—whatever that was. It had once been considered—its sole distinction—a potential capital of Colorado Territory, back when Jack Slade ran the stage line and Denver only had one of those newfangled railroad things.
To the matter at hand: I found my way downstairs (more green cinder block), let myself in to Meiss’s lab, and turned on the lights—forty-watt or less by government decree. The windows were heavily painted over—national security. There was also a stout slide-up-and-down bolt, handmade from a concrete reinforcing rod. Not a bad idea, I thought, as I clanked it shut. It was good for a few seconds’ warning.
Vaughn Meiss’s lab made all the stereotypes come true. Remember
The
Fly?
It was just like that—strung with wires and insulators, bulky pilot-lighted cabinets looming in the twilight. Only the posters were out of place. One on the back of the door read, GOVERNMENT SCIENCE IS A CONTRADICTION IN TERMS—AYN RAND and, penciled below:
Ayn Rand is a contradiction in terms.
Another, on the far wall, was a still from some old Boris Karloff flick: THEY NEVER UNDERSTOOD ME AT THE UNIVERSITY!
The
Fly?
It was just like that—strung with wires and insulators, bulky pilot-lighted cabinets looming in the twilight. Only the posters were out of place. One on the back of the door read, GOVERNMENT SCIENCE IS A CONTRADICTION IN TERMS—AYN RAND and, penciled below:
Ayn Rand is a contradiction in terms.
Another, on the far wall, was a still from some old Boris Karloff flick: THEY NEVER UNDERSTOOD ME AT THE UNIVERSITY!
There was a dark, steel-framed cubbyhole on the outside wall that might be a fire exit—I couldn’t see very well from where I stood, buried to the hips in infernal machinery. All but one fluorescent tube had been removed from the ceiling. Like everyone else these days, I was developing a caveman’s squint.
I worked my way to a console at the center, seemingly the command post, covered with knobs and dials. There were a couple of stained coffee cups and a half-filled ashtray I looked in vain for a pack of cigarettes. In the center of the console was a big gray metal notebook. You never know where the next clue is coming from—I peeked:
nothing.
Very curious, and like that almost-empty drawer upstairs, a sort of clue by omission. Somebody around here was a klepto.
nothing.
Very curious, and like that almost-empty drawer upstairs, a sort of clue by omission. Somebody around here was a klepto.
A scraping at the doorknob—Bealls, no doubt making sure I didn’t arrest any electrons without reading them their rights—footsteps, and muffled conversation. I suppressed my original impulse to go undo the bolt, and stood still, shivering a little. Then a crash! The door bulged, glass shattering into paint-covered fragments. The forty-one flashed into my hand as I ducked behind the console.
Again!
The doorjamb burst, splinters flying, and a cataract of data disks fountained to the floor. A man stood framed in the doorway, tossed his fire-extinguisher battering ram aside, and drew a weapon from his right hip.
Again!
The doorjamb burst, splinters flying, and a cataract of data disks fountained to the floor. A man stood framed in the doorway, tossed his fire-extinguisher battering ram aside, and drew a weapon from his right hip.
Shifting gently to one end of the console, I lined the intruder’s head atop my front sight like an apple on a post and waited, heart pounding painfully He scanned the dimly lit room, motioned to someone, left palm outward—stay back a moment—then moved in softly, head panning like a questing reptile. My hand was sweaty on the revolver grip.
As he drifted past, I swapped the Magnum to my left hand, laid the muzzle on the back of his neck, and rose. “Stand easy, asshole!” I whispered, trying to keep an eye on the door. He turned abruptly. I grabbed, jammed my thumb between the hammer of his automatic and the firing pin. The weapon pointed at my guts, the hammer fell. Pain lanced through my hand but the pistol failed to fire. I wrenched it away, smacked him backhand across the face with mine. Blood spurted, black in the dark, and he crumpled.
I kicked him hard, just to make sure, then lifted his unconscious bulk—something unpleasant twanged inside my lower torso—and propped him on the console. He mumbled something before I got a hand over his mouth, fell awkwardly against me, and slid. His jacket caught—there was a click, a whining rumble from across the room. More pilot lights winked on.
At the door, five million flashbulbs were going off at once. Someone crouched there, machine pistols spraying the room with death. Bullets whistled past me, shattering on the concrete wall, metal shards and paint chips raining down. “No! No!” Bealls screamed from the hallway.
My forty-one roared and bucked, roared again. The machine gunner was blasted out the door, blood streaming in his wake like crepe-paper ribbons, and slammed into the wall behind. His head met the bricks like a ripe melon dropped on a concrete floor. I pocketed the captured automatic, shifted the revolver to my right. Four slugs left. More company through the door, guns blazing—Bealls was still yelling in the background. I fired—saw things shatter, people fall—and ran for the fire exit, plunging into darkness. Bullets buzzed and pinged behind me. I scrambled down a passageway, feeling dizzy, twisted. Instead of stairs, I found blue sky. I was at the bottom of a freshly excavated hole—like a grave.
Gunfire puffed the earth around me—a stinging slap numbed my right foot. Green grass and sunshine—I was out and running hard. Flopping prone, I leveled my forty-one on the hole in the ground, then remembered with a curse that the gun was empty. I rolled, groping for the automatic, crawling backward as I fumbled—
The earth rose with a deafening roar, heaved and buckled, ripped me from the ground. I landed hard but never let the Smith & Wesson go.
A sophisticated society doesn’t lack customs, it simply has so many they all cancel out. It may be considered a measure of civilization how long a hypothetical “Man from Mars” can wander around without running afoul of the gendarmes or getting burned at the stake for violating some taboo.—Admiral R. A. Heinlein
Conquest of the Bering Straits
After what seemed a long, long time, I sat up on the grass, my insides whirling crazily. I was never really unconscious, just preoccupied. Movie and TV people have the wrong idea about being “knocked out.” Most times a heavy blow simply crushes your skull, and you’re dead. I shook my head and was instantly
very
sorry. Some explosion! The whole building was gone without a trace.
very
sorry. Some explosion! The whole building was gone without a trace.
I was sitting at the foot of a tall hedge. I tried to focus, but it was like driving tenpenny nails into my brain, so I gave up for a while. All around me through the fuzziness, lumpy green entities swayed gently in a warm breeze. Patches of sunlight, painfully bright, illuminated many gaudily colored figures, their mouths dark
O
s of surprise or curiosity, but they were far too hazy, miles away down a dark tunnel of pain.
O
s of surprise or curiosity, but they were far too hazy, miles away down a dark tunnel of pain.
I simply sat, torn and bleeding, on the warm damp ground, surprised as hell at being alive. After a while, habit took over: I emptied the forty-one, found a speed-loader, restocked the revolver, and holstered it. The automatic went back heavy into my coat pocket. It seemed a pretty fair day’s work.
I levered myself onto my hands and knees and stayed in that position, panting. Then I rose heavily, aching in every tormented muscle. Bolts of lightning stabbed through my eyeballs, each followed by a wave of nausea and the drumming of dull pain. I staggered, tripping once or twice but staying upright. By the time I reached the nearest park bench, passing out was an attractive prospect.
I risked another peek. Through my personal haze, the scene was tranquil, bearing no relationship to the meat grinder I’d just been through: a broad emerald lawn and a five-foot hedge stretched endlessly in the distance. On the other side, a corrugated metal shack showed robin’s-egg blue. The air was warm, heavy with the scent of dark earth and growing things, dappled with sunshine and shade amid small groves of enormous trees; benches and sidewalks somehow tinted tones of red, orange, or yellow. My own—not concrete as I’d supposed—was a heavy, resilient rubber, pale lemon in color.
A hundred yards away, a silvery fountain feathered high into the air. A band played lively unfamiliar music, while children, dressed outlandishly, tossed an ordinary Frisbee. A dog barked, chasing the floating disk from child to child. They might as well have been the Seven Dwarves—my picture of their world was dim and fuzzy. Shivering in sweat, I had only the faintest interest in staying alive. My ears thrummed mocking counterpoint to the cheerful music from the bandstand.
Here and there, other people were dancing, talking in small groups, lying in pairs under leafy canopies, moving gently with the music. They wore a bewildering variety of costumes: bright swirly cloaks, skirts or kilts, trousers and tunics—riots of color strewn like shining flowers across the forested lawn. Hunched and feeble in my tattered suit, I clutched miserably at some hostile stranger’s pistol in my pocket. My knees and elbows were caked with mud.
A hand on my shoulder—I started. A dark, pretty girl in orange bellbottoms stood behind me. “Are you all right?” she asked, almost apologetically. Before I could reply, she slipped gracefully around the end of the bench. A sheathed dagger, needle slim, hung from a jewelled chain around her tanned and slender waist.
“Been hurt worse before,” I managed to croak. All this conversation was tiring. “Could you point me back toward the Sciences Building?” I was beginning to understand: the
Enquirer’s
headline would read, POLICEMAN THROWN HUNDREDS OF FEET BY EXPLOSION, LIVES! with a thumbnail sketch of my service record, duly exaggerated, and an account of how, while sailing through the air, I’d found Jesus.
Enquirer’s
headline would read, POLICEMAN THROWN HUNDREDS OF FEET BY EXPLOSION, LIVES! with a thumbnail sketch of my service record, duly exaggerated, and an account of how, while sailing through the air, I’d found Jesus.
The young lady looked dubious, but willing to let me pick my own handbasket. “You mean the university?” she pointed down a tinted pathway through the trees. I could see another sunlit space beyond, perhaps the slightest hint of moving traffic. Make that headline . HUNDREDS OF YARDS … ! “Across Confederation Boulevard, at the edge—why, you’re bleeding!”
Just like a movie heroine. I didn’t want to hear about it—you can do amazing things seriously injured, as long as you don’t
know.
“I really think I’ll be all right,” I lied, and found a Kleenex, dabbing at the worst parts. The web of my thumb, where I’d kept the other guy’s gun from going off, was split back half an inch. I wadded the bloody tissue into the fist and said, “Gotta get going. Police business.”
know.
“I really think I’ll be all right,” I lied, and found a Kleenex, dabbing at the worst parts. The web of my thumb, where I’d kept the other guy’s gun from going off, was split back half an inch. I wadded the bloody tissue into the fist and said, “Gotta get going. Police business.”
“If you’re sure,” she said. “Please be careful.”
“Thanks. I’ll try.” Stifling any further stoic repartee, I lurched painfully to my feet, plodded in the direction indicated. A hundred yards and a century later, I stopped at another bench, cheery pastel pink, and lowered myself wearily, wondering if I’d ever get up again.
I didn’t seem seriously damaged, just sore, and incredibly tired. Pilots have fallen miles, sans parachute, and survived. Maybe I’d qualify for a Guinness record when this was all over—a brightening thought, somehow. I started humming an old railroad song and reached into my coat pocket.
“Last week a premature blast went off / And a mile in the air went Big Jim Goff / And DRILL, ye tarriers, DRILL!”
“Last week a premature blast went off / And a mile in the air went Big Jim Goff / And DRILL, ye tarriers, DRILL!”
The pistol I’d confiscated was a sweetheart:
THE BROWNING ARMS COMPANY
MORGAN, UTAH & MONTREAL P.Q.
MADE IN BELGIUM
“
The next time payday comes around / Jim Goff a dollar short was found . .
.” I’ve always admired the Browning P-35, despite its lack of authoritative stomp. Impeccably designed and made to last for generations, it’s no more powerful than an issue .38 but carries an impressive fourteen cartridges.
The next time payday comes around / Jim Goff a dollar short was found . .
.” I’ve always admired the Browning P-35, despite its lack of authoritative stomp. Impeccably designed and made to last for generations, it’s no more powerful than an issue .38 but carries an impressive fourteen cartridges.
“‘What for? says he, then this reply …”
On the other side, stamped in neat, tiny letters, was something that started me wondering exactly what I’d
do
when I found my way back to the university:
On the other side, stamped in neat, tiny letters, was something that started me wondering exactly what I’d
do
when I found my way back to the university:
CALIBRE 9MM PARABELLUM
PROPERTY OF U.S. GOVERNMENT SECURITY
POLICE
‘“Yer docked fer the time you was up in the sky!’ /And
DRILL, ye
tarriers,
DRILL!”
DRILL, ye
tarriers,
DRILL!”
Wobbling the rest of the way across the park, I really wanted someplace to lie down and curl up, maybe suck my thumb a little. I wasn’t really hurt: cuts and bruises—large bruises—and a grisly furrow in the heel of my right shoe where a passing slug had left splinters of copper and lead.
I labored along, people staring at me a little, and me staring right back. Whatever the local ordinances were, I saw more low-slung handguns, more dirks and daggers, than in a dozen B-westerns and swashbucklers spliced together reel to reel. I found myself grabbing convulsively at my left armpit more than once. Fort Collins sure had changed!
Maybe they were all dressed up for some kind of fair. I didn’t recognize the costume period. Most people, including some cops I know, are frightened by weapons of all kinds, knives worse than guns, for some silly reason. These must all be toys, part of the celebration. I tried looking closer without being nosy—not my jurisdiction, after all—but the effort still brought tears. There hadn’t been a hardware collection like this since the Crusades were catered. Women and children sporting arms right along with the men. But wait.
Were
they children, waddling like circus midgets, even brushing the ground with an occasional knuckle?
Were
they children, waddling like circus midgets, even brushing the ground with an occasional knuckle?
If only the fog of weariness and pain would—can you have a migraine in a dream? Mud- and blood-splattered from collar to ankles, amid all this resplendent sartorialism, I was about as attractive and dignified as a Larimer Street wino. I’d even managed to split a crotch seam.
At last I reached a low, meandering wall of multicolored brick, more bewildered than ever. The street was a broad ribbon of sea-green crabgrass full of traffic, not a single vehicle even remotely familiar. There wasn’t a wheel in sight.
I’d once ridden an English hovercraft, admired the same sort of ground effect machine on Puget Sound before Ralph Nader shut it down. This wasn’t the same at all: these whispered along, quiet as an usher in church. I was beginning to get an idea that I was more than lost, I was profoundly misplaced.
Maybe I’d been hurt and was wandering around with amnesia.
That old Greer Garson flick—
Random Harvest
?—real people have spent years like that, building new lives, families, then coming back in shock to their original personalities. This world around me was some artist’s conception of Tomorrowland. Had I spent the last twenty years being someone else? It
would
explain the age I felt right now! Had
decades
passed between the lab explosion and whatever happened in the park, and now, after some second stress or injury, was I myself again?
Random Harvest
—Ronald Colman was the guy.
Random Harvest
?—real people have spent years like that, building new lives, families, then coming back in shock to their original personalities. This world around me was some artist’s conception of Tomorrowland. Had I spent the last twenty years being someone else? It
would
explain the age I felt right now! Had
decades
passed between the lab explosion and whatever happened in the park, and now, after some second stress or injury, was I myself again?
Random Harvest
—Ronald Colman was the guy.
Across the street, a three-story Edwardian building had a low wall around it, too, and a large bronze sign:
LAPORTE CITY UNIVERSITY, LTD.
EST. A.L. 117
117 A.L.? They don’t start a new calendar every election year. What had happened here while I was out to lunch? And where the hell was
here,
anyway? All I wanted was to crawl off somewhere and lie down for a couple of months. I was through detectiving. Let someone else do it.
here,
anyway? All I wanted was to crawl off somewhere and lie down for a couple of months. I was through detectiving. Let someone else do it.
I guess I came pretty close to flipping out at that moment. That I didn’t, I attribute not to any sterling qualities, but simply to well-worn habits of mind and, perhaps, a dollop of shock-induced euphoria.
If I could just find someplace to start, some loose thread to pick until this whole mystery began to unravel—before I did. Do you just walk up and ask someone, “Excuse me, what
year
is this?”
year
is this?”
I could always call the cops. They might want my badge and gun for their museum. Hell, they might want
me
for their—hold it! I was still
carrying
that badge, and the .41 caliber weight swinging against my ribs wasn’t a grilled-cheese sandwich. I was still wearing my faithful old gray suit, my second-best tie, and everything else I’d put on in Denver this morning. However I’d gotten into this mess, it wasn’t via any twenty-year amnesic vacation.
me
for their—hold it! I was still
carrying
that badge, and the .41 caliber weight swinging against my ribs wasn’t a grilled-cheese sandwich. I was still wearing my faithful old gray suit, my second-best tie, and everything else I’d put on in Denver this morning. However I’d gotten into this mess, it wasn’t via any twenty-year amnesic vacation.
So much for the
Random Harvest
theory. A glance down the sidewalk, and there it was, my first sensible idea for the day—lower and wider than I was used to, with tinted panes in a wrought-iron latticework, and a fancy Kremlinesque spire pointing skyward:
Random Harvest
theory. A glance down the sidewalk, and there it was, my first sensible idea for the day—lower and wider than I was used to, with tinted panes in a wrought-iron latticework, and a fancy Kremlinesque spire pointing skyward:
TELECOM
Whatever that meant. Nothing orients you faster in strange territory than browsing through the phone book. There wasn’t any door. I took two steps down into the booth and the street noises went away. It also seemed cooler inside, but I could tolerate an air-conditioned phone booth if the Secretary of Energy could.
No phone book. Just like back home. No
telephone,
either: just a simple matte-finished panel like sandblasted Corning-ware. Underneath was a keyboard. I plunked myself down on the broad upholstered bench and abruptly the screen had letters on it:
telephone,
either: just a simple matte-finished panel like sandblasted Corning-ware. Underneath was a keyboard. I plunked myself down on the broad upholstered bench and abruptly the screen had letters on it:
-NEED ASSISTANCE?—
The Grand Combined Director of
Greater Paporte!
Gray, Bell, & Acme Communications Systems
which changed in a few moments to:
INSTRUCTIONS: Please enter party you wish to ’com. Number will be indicated by a pulsing cursor dot. Enter A for Accept and remit payment. For information, please enter 0 for Operator. For free map displays, enter
Map
plus address desired. Thank you for choosing our services.Gray Telecom System, Ltd.
Bell Telephone Co., Ltd.
Acme Communications, Ltd.
Now
there
was something: a polite phone company!
Three
polite companies, and the service argued Messrs. Gray, Bell, and Acme might be bucking pretty lively competition.
there
was something: a polite phone company!
Three
polite companies, and the service argued Messrs. Gray, Bell, and Acme might be bucking pretty lively competition.
I could have tried the local fuzz, but I figured I owed the thrill to my
alma mater.
The screen hadn’t mentioned Long Distance, so I examined the keyboard. It wasn’t laid out like a typewriter, but at this point, I felt lucky they were the same letters. It was back to hunt and peck after years of perfecting my own two-finger method. Finally, I decided on O.
alma mater.
The screen hadn’t mentioned Long Distance, so I examined the keyboard. It wasn’t laid out like a typewriter, but at this point, I felt lucky they were the same letters. It was back to hunt and peck after years of perfecting my own two-finger method. Finally, I decided on O.
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