Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction July 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
FELONY
By JAMES CAUSEY
Illustrated by VIDMER
_Vogel started with crossword puzzles ... and worked his way up to Man's greatest enigma!_
* * * * *
When he was nine, Vogel almost killed another boy who inadvertentlyscattered his half-completed jigsaw puzzle.
At sixteen, he discovered the mysteries of the Danish Gambit, andcried.
At twenty-two, he crouched in a foxhole on Okinawa, oblivious to thedeath bursting about him, squinting in a painful ecstasy at thetattered fragment of newspaper on his knee. His sergeant screamed inagony, then died at his elbow. Vogel's face lit up. "Slay," he saidhappily, scribbling. As crossword puzzles go, it had been a toughie.
At thirty, he was Production Manager of Sachs Fixtures. His men hatedhim. The General Manager loved him. Tall, gaunt and ruthless, he couldglance at any detail print and instantly pinpoint the pattern of finalassembly, total man-hour budget and fabrication lead time.
Once, he made a mistake.
On a forty-thousand-dollar job lot he estimated too high on productionscrap. When the final assemblies were completed, they had two feet ofbulb extension left over. It disturbed him. He spent that evening inhis den brooding over chessmen. His wife let him alone.
Next day, he hired Amenth.
* * * * *
Personnel called that morning and apologized. "No experience, butamazing shop aptitude. He's coming down to you for an interview."
"I want," Vogel said into the phone, "three bench men. By noon. _With_shop experience."
Personnel was sorry. Vogel snarled and hung up.
"Hello, please, sir," said a voice.
Vogel stared, icily.
Meekness cowered in front of his desk. Meekness in the form of a smallbirdlike person with beseeching amber eyes.
"I am Amenth," he said, cringing.
Vogel eyed the olive skin, the cheekbones, the blue-black hair. "Awetback," he said. "Three men short and they send me wetbacks. Youknow sheet metal, buster?"
"I am not of the understanding," Amenth offered. "Experience, no." Hebeamed. "Aptitude, yes."
Fighting apoplexy, Vogel took him out into the shop. Amenth cringed atthe howl of air tools and punch presses. Vogel contemptuously took himby the arm and led him to a workbench where a wizened persimmon of aman performed deft lightnings with rivets and air wrench.
"Benny, this is Amenth. He's new." Vogel pronounced it like a curse."Get him some goggles from the crib, a rivet gun."
Vogel returned to his office scowling. The phone rang almostinstantly.
"Boss," said Benny, "he's from nothing--all thumbs with an air wrenchand he don't know alclad from stainless."
"Be right out," Vogel said, hanging up.
Before he had a chance to fire Amenth, the Fabrication Super came inwith a production problem. Vogel solved it, but it was almost an hourbefore he returned to Benny's bench--and stared.
Amenth was a blur of motion. His Keller chattered like a live thing.
A furious sweating Benny snapped at Vogel, "You playing practicaljokes? Look, this guy's gone crazy, he's fifty per cent understandard! Tell him to slow down before I file a grievance."
Amenth beamed. "I am of the aptitude," he said.
A queer deep tingle went through Vogel. The crystal delight ofchallenge he felt when confronted by an apparently impregnablefianchetto.
That was the first day.
* * * * *
A week later, Vogel was compiling a progress report from completedshop travelers. Abruptly he scowled at one traveler, then said,"Charlie!"
"Yes, sir," one of the planners said.
"Why didn't these galley panels go out for drop hammer?"
Charlie peered at the form and whistled. "Somebody must have changedthe planning sheet."
"Get me the story!"
Charlie went hurriedly out into the shop.
Some time later he returned with a pale dazed look. "It's this guy inassembly," he said. "Name is Amenth. He didn't even read the traveler.Just looked at the attached detail print and decided to miter theedges, then reverse the flange with a weld." He threw the completedpart on Vogel's desk. "Go ahead, check those tolerances," he saidwhitely. "Right on the money."
Vogel walked over to a calculator and figured. There was a dreamyexpression in his eyes. He said softly, "All fabrication in our ownshop. A net saving of 93 cents per unit, or eight hundred dollarstotal. I believe you planned this item, Charlie."
Vogel fired him.
That same afternoon Amenth came into the office on Vogel's order."Sir?"
"Don't you know how to read a traveler?" Vogel asked sternly.
"It was a lucky accident." Amenth looked terrified. "I just read theprint--"
"And did what seemed logical." Statement, then a very quiet question."What happened to your accent?"
The little man looked blank.
Vogel took a slow deep breath. "I've got a material planning jobopen," he said tightly. "Three-fifty to start. Interested?"
For a moment he thought Amenth would lick his hand.
The little man took to planning sheets like a duck to water. He poredfeverishly over blueprints, turning out travelers in a steady flood.
Vogel watched him. He went over to Personnel, requested Amenth'semployment application, read it and scowled. It was a masterpiece ofanonymity. Birthplace: New York. Former Occupation: Laborer. Hobbies:None. He memorized Amenth's address and returned the application.
Vogel always ate lunch in the office with his expediters. That noontwo of them got into an argument about the planets.
"I say there is life on Mars," Pete Stone insisted stubbornly. "Whenthe polar ice cap melts, the water runs along the canals and traces ofgreen from growing vegetation can be spotted."
"Which proves nothing," Harvey Lamb yawned. Lamb was chief expediter."Man couldn't live there, anyway. There's not enough oxygen."
"You would be amazed," Amenth said quietly, "at the adaptability ofMan."
Vogel set down his thermos and leaned forward. "You mean Martians, forinstance, could live here, assuming they existed and had spaceships?"
Amenth's smile was infinitely bitter. "Until they'd go mad."
The talk turned to baseball. Vogel lit his pipe and gave Amenth asurreptitious glance. The little man slumped in the corner, bleak andwithdrawn.
This was delicious.
* * * * *
Vogel left the shop and drove across town to Amenth's address. Itturned out to be an ancient rooming house on the West Side. Mrs.Reardon, the landlady, was an apathetic woman who brightened when heasked her about Amenth.
"He moved in just three weeks ago." Her face softened in recollection."He was like a lost dog coming in out of the rain. Couldn't hardlyspeak English and he wanted me to trust him for the rent. I must havebeen crazy." Her nostrils flared. "Not that he hasn't paid up. Are youa cop?"
Vogel nodded as he took out his wallet. In it was his honorarysheriff's badge, but he doubted if the woman would know thedifference. She didn't. She led the way upstairs to Amenth's room,worrying, and Vogel assured her they were only looking for ahit-and-run witness, that it was strictly routine.
Amenth's room was incredibly aseptic, barren of pictures, as
h trays,dirty laundry, any of the normal masculine debris. Vogel got the starkimpression of a convict's cell. In the bleak dresser were two pair ofsocks, underwear, one tie. In the closet hung one white shirt ...period. Everything wore an indefinable patina of newness. Two booksgraced the top of the dresser. Vogel recognized one of them, a text onfabrication and design which Amenth had borrowed from his office. Theother was a child's primer of English.
"He stays in his room almost every night--reads mostly, and he speaksEnglish much better now," said Mrs. Reardon. "A good tenant--I can'tcomplain--and he's quiet and clean." She described Amenth and Vogelshook his head.
"Our man is about sixty, with a beard," he said. "Funny