No Strings Attached, Lester Del Rey [readict .txt] 📗
- Author: Lester Del Rey
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"Apalon was studying your worship. You see, we've been studying your race the way you study white rats, using lower races to explain our own behavior. Anyhow, he got curious and figured out a way to mentalize himself into your plane. He was sort of a practical joker, you might say. So he picked a time when some half-crazy witch was trying to call up the being you worship as Satan to make some kind of a deal. Just as she finished, he popped up in front of her, spitting out a bunch of phosphorus to make a nice smoke and fire effect, and agreed with all her mumbo-jumbo about having to do what she wanted. She wanted her heart fixed up then, so he showed her how to use belladonna and went back, figuring it was a fine joke.
"Only he made a mistake. There's something about moving between planes that lowers the resistance to conditioning. Some of our people can take five or six trips, but Apalon was one of those who was so conditioning-prone that he had the habit fixed after the first trip. The next time she did the rigamarole, back he popped. He had to dig up gold for her, hypnotize a local baron into marrying her, and generally keep on the constant qui vive, until she got sloppy and forgot the pentagram she thought protected her and which he was conditioned to. But after he disintegrated her, he found she'd passed on the word to a couple of other witches. And he knew somebody at the Institute was bound to find what a fool he'd made of himself.
"So he began taking members aside and telling them about the trick of getting into your world. Excellent chance for study. Have to humor the humans by sticking to their superstitions, of course. One by one, they went over on little trips. It wasn't hard to find some superstitious dolt trying to summon something, since word had got around in your world. One of us would pop up, and that spread the word further. Anyhow, when Apalon was sure each member had made enough trips to be conditioned, he'd tell him the sad truth, and swear him to secrecy on penalty of being laughed out of the Institute. The old blaggard wound up with all of us conditioned. There was quite a flurry of witchcraft here, until we finally found a psychiatrist who could break the habit for us. Even then, it was tough going. We'd never have made it without the inquisitions and witch-burnings one of our experimental sociologists managed to stir up."
Alféar put out the third cigarette butt and stood up slowly. "Look, I don't mind a chat now and then, but my wives are waiting dinner. How about dismissing me?"
"Umm." Henry had been thinking while he listened. It had sounded like a reasonable explanation on the whole, except for the bit about Apalon's disintegrating the witch. Apparently as long as a man wasn't too unreasonable, there was a certain usefulness to having such friends on call. "What about the price for your help? I mean—well, about souls...."
Alféar twitched his ears disgustedly. "What the deuce would I do with your soul, Henry? Eat it? Wear it? Don't be a shnook!"
"Well, then—well, I've heard about wishes that were granted, but they all had a trick attached. If I asked for immortality, you'd give it, say; but then I'd get some horrible disease and beg and plead for death. Or ask for money, and then find the money was recorded as being paid to a kidnapper, or something."
"In the first place, I couldn't give you immortality," Alféar said, as patiently as he apparently could. "Your metabolism's not like ours. In the second place, why should I look for tainted money? It's enough nuisance doing what you ask, without looking for tricks to pull. Anyhow, I told you I half-enjoy visiting here. As long as you're reasonable about it, I don't mind keeping my end of the compulsion going. If you've got something to ask, ask away. There are no strings attached."
The creature seemed to be quite sincere. Henry considered it briefly, staring at a large tinted picture of Emma, and took the plunge. "Suppose I asked you to kill my wife for me—say by what looked like a stroke, so nobody would blame me?"
"That seems reasonable enough," Alféar agreed easily. "I could break a few blood vessels inside her skull.... Sure, why not? Only the picture in your mind is so distorted, I wouldn't know her. If she's like that, why'd you ever marry her?"
"Because she seemed different from other women, I guess," Henry admitted. "When I tipped the canoe over, and I figured she'd be mad because her dress was ruined, all she said was something about not being sugar, so she wouldn't melt." He shuddered, remembering all the times she'd said it since. "You won't have any trouble. Look, can you really read my mind?"
"Naturally. But it's all disorganized."
"Umm. Well." It gave him a queasy feeling to think of anyone seeing his secret thoughts. But this fellow apparently didn't work by human attitudes, anyhow. He groped about, and then smiled grimly. "All right, then. You can tell I think of her as my wife. And just to make sure, she'll be sure to say something about early to bed and early to rise; she says that every single damned night, Alféar! She never misses."
Alféar grunted. "Sounds more reasonable every minute, Henry. All right, when your wife says that, I pop out and give her a stroke that will kill her. How about dismissing me now?"
"No strings?" Henry asked. He watched carefully as Alféar nodded assent, and he could see no sign of cunning or trickery. He caught his breath, nodded, and closed his eyes. Seeing something vanish was nothing he wanted. "Dismissed."
he fruit was still gone when he opened his eyes, but there was no other sign of the thing. He found some fruit still in the refrigerator and restocked the bowl. Then he closed the strange book and put it away. He'd have to buy it himself, and burn it to make sure no one else found the trick, of course. For a moment, uneasiness pricked at him. Yet he was sure Alféar hadn't been lying, and the story the creature had told made more sense than the older superstitions. Henry adjusted his mind to having a well-conditioned demon on tap and then began the harder job of bracing himself for Emma's incoherent but detailed account of the movie when she came back.
Unfortunately, it was a more complicated plot than usual, and she went on and on, from the moment she entered the door. He tried to close his ears, but he'd never succeeded in that. He yawned, and she yawned back, but went on until the last final morsel was covered for the second or third time.
"He was wonderful," she finally concluded. "Just wonderful. Only I wished you'd come with me. You'd have liked it. Henry, did you take the garbage out?"
"Yes, dear," he answered. "Hours ago."
He yawned elaborately again. She mumbled something about having to keep the kitchen clean because cleanliness was next to godliness, but her automatic yawn muffled the words. Then she glanced at the clock. "Heavens, it's almost one! And early to bed and early to rise...."
Henry jerked his eyes away, just as he caught the first glimpse of Alféar popping into existence beside her. He heard the beginning of a shriek change to a horrible gargling and then become a dying moan. Something soft and heavy hit the floor with a dull thud. Henry turned around slowly.
"Dead," Alféar said calmly, rubbing one of his fingers. "This business of getting just one finger through the planes into her head cuts off the circulation. There, that's better. Satisfied?"
Henry dropped beside the corpse. She was dead, according to the mirror test, and there wasn't a mark on her. He stared at the puffy, relaxed features; he'd expected an expression of horror, but she seemed simply asleep. His initial feeling of pity and contrition vanished; after all, it had been quick and nearly painless. Now he was free!
"Thanks, Alféar," he said. "It's fine—fine. Do I dismiss you now?"
"No need this time. I'm free as soon as the job's done. Unless you'd like to talk awhile...."
Henry shook his head quickly. He had to telephone a doctor. Then he could call Shirley—her mother would be gone by now. "Not now. Maybe I'll summon you sometime for a smoke or something. But not now!"
"Okay," Alféar said, and vanished. Surprisingly, seeing him disappear wasn't unpleasant, after all. He just wasn't there.
Waiting for the doctor was the worst part of it. All the legends Henry knew ran through his mind. Alféar could have given her a stroke and then added some violent poison that would show up in an autopsy. He could be sitting wherever he was, chuckling because Henry hadn't restricted his wish enough to be safe. Or any of a hundred things could happen. There was the first witch, who had thought she had Apalon under control, only to be turned to dust.
But the doctor took it calmly enough. "Stroke, all right," he decided. "I warned her last year that she was putting on too much weight and getting high blood pressure. Too bad, Mr. Aimsworth, but there was nothing you could do. I'll turn in a certificate. Want me to contact a mortician for you?"
Henry nodded, trying to appear properly grief-stricken. "I—I'd appreciate it."
"Too late now," the doctor said. "But I'll be glad to send Mr. Glazier around in the morning." He pulled the sheet up over Emma's body, leaving it on the backroom couch to which they had carried it. "You'd better go to a hotel for the night. And I'll give you something that will make you sleep."
"I'd rather not," Henry said quickly. "I mean, I'd feel better here. You know...."
"Certainly, certainly." The doctor nodded sympathetically, but as if it were an old story to him. He left the pills with instructions, said the proper things again, and finally went out.
hirley's voice was sleepy and cross when she answered, but it grew alert as soon as he told her about Emma's stroke. He was almost beginning to believe the simple version of the story himself.
"Poor Henry," she murmured. Her voice sharpened again. "It was a stroke? The doctor was sure?"
"Positive," he assured her, cursing himself for having let her guess some of the thoughts that had been on his mind. "The doctor said she'd had hypertension and such before."
She considered it a second, and then a faint laugh sounded. "Then I guess there's no use in crying over spilled milk, is there, Henry? If it had to happen, it just had to. And I mean, it's like fate, almost!"
"It is fate!" he agreed happily. Then he dropped his voice. "And now I'm all alone here, baby lamb, and I had to call you up...."
She caught on at once, as she always did. "You can't stay there now! It's so morbid. Henry, you come right over here!"
Demons, Henry thought as he drove the car through the quiet residential streets toward her apartment, had their uses. They were a much maligned breed. Probably the people who had summoned them before had been ignorant, stupid people; they'd messed up their chances and brought trouble on themselves by not finding out the facts and putting it all down to superstitious magic. The fellows were almost people—maybe even a little superior to humans. If a man would just try to understand them, they could help him, and with no danger at all.
"No strings attached," he said to himself, and then chuckled softly. It fitted perfectly; now there were no strings attached to him. Emma was at peace, and he was free. He'd have to wait a few months to marry Shirley legally, of course. But already, she was as good as his wife. And if he played up the shock angle just enough, this could be a wonderful evening again....
Shirley was unusually lovely when she met him at the door. Her soft golden hair made a halo for her face—a face that said she'd already anticipated his ideas, and had decided he was a man who needed sympathy and understanding for what had happened.
There was even time for the idea that he was free to be brought up, tentatively at first, and then eventually as a matter of course. And the plans expanded as he considered them. There was no need to worry about things now. The quiet marriage became a trip around the world as he
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