crude. It doesn't work allthe time. It works only along vast distances. I won't announce ituntil I perfect it further. Meanwhile I need more money to carryon and when, through certain relatives, I heard of Mr. Untz'sproblem--well, it was simply too much to resist. You see, I'vemanaged to teleport a couple of frightful monsters from somewhereout of space. I was wondering what on earth to do with them."
"Where--where are they?" asked Harold.
"In my back yard," said Dr. Mildume.
At that point Mr. Maximilian Untz abruptly reappeared. He smelled oflotion and he was now dressed in a relatively conservative gabardineof forest green with a lavender shirt and a black knitted tie.
"Hello," he said. He looked at Mildume. "So who is this?"
"He says he has monsters for the dream sequence in his back yard,"explained Harold. "_Real_ ones."
"Look," said Mr. Untz, "kindly ask the gentleman to get lost, willyou, Harold?"
"No, wait," Harold said. "He may have something. He explained some ofit to me. It sounds almost possible. We can't lose much by taking alook."
"Only a few thousand dollars a minute," said Mr. Untz.
"_Bah--money!_" said Dr. Mildume. "Which reminds me--these monsters ofmine are going to cost you. Let's have that understood, right now."
* * * * *
Mr. Untz's eyebrows went up. This kind of talk he understood. Hereached into the side pocket of the gabardine for his cigarette case.He kept a separate gold case in each suit.
"_Yeeeeow!_" said Mr. Untz.
His hand came out of the pocket with a small green snake in it.
"Drop it! Stand back!" said Harold, being cool.
"Don't worry about it," said Dr. Mildume in a calmer voice. He wasblinking mildly at the snake. "It's merely an ordinary species ofgarden snake, sometimes erroneously called garter snake. Curious itshould be there."
Harold looked at Dr. Mildume sharply. "This teleportation of yourswouldn't have anything to do with it by any chance?"
"Of course not," snapped Mildume.
"_I_ know how it got here!" said Mr. Untz, his jowls trembling. He hadalready dropped the snake. "A certain child star whose initials areJimsy LaRoche! Last week he gives me a hotfoot. Monday a wetseat--soaked newspapers in my chair under one thin dry one. Yesterdaya big frog in my shower. I should take that brat over my knee andspank him to his face!"
"Mm--ah--of course," said Dr. Mildume without much interest in thetopic. "Shall we go to inspect the monsters now?"
Mr. Untz thought it over, only long enough to keep himself within thetime limits of a Man of Decision. Then he said, "Okay, so we'll gonow."
They passed Jimsy LaRoche on the way out. He was drinking pineapplejuice and sitting with his tutor, studying his lines. He smirked asMr. Untz passed. Mr. Untz scowled back but didn't say anything. InJovian silence he led the way to his car.
It turned out to be a longer ride than they had expected. Dr. Mildumelived in Twenty-nine Palms and, as Mr. Untz explained it, this was tooshort for an airplane and too long for an automobile. Mr. Untz wasnot in his best humor when they stopped before Dr. Mildume's stuccoand tile-roof house.
Mildume directed them immediately to a walled-in patio in the rear ofthe place. A shed-roof covered one side of the patio and under it wereracks of equipment. Harold recognized banks of relays, poweramplifiers, oscillographs and some other familiar devices. There werealso some strange ones.
Mildume waved his long fingers at all of it. "My teleportation set-upis entirely too bulky so far for practical use, as you can see."
"Nph," said Mr. Untz, eyeing it. During the drive Dr. Mildume andHarold had explained more to him about teleportation and the monstersand he was more doubtful than ever about the whole thing. "So let'ssee the monsters," he said now. "Time is fleeing."
Mildume went in his hopping step across the patio to a huge tarpaulinthat covered something square and bulky. He worried the tarpaulinaway. Two steel cages stood there.
"Sacred carp!" said Mr. Untz.
Two _somethings_ were in the steel cages.
They were both iridescent greenish-gray in color, they had globularbodies, no discernible heads and eyes on stalks growing from theirbodies. Three eyes apiece. If they _were_ eyes--anyway, they lookedlike eyes. Sweeping fibrillae came down to the ground and seemed toserve as feet. Great saw-toothed red gashes in the middle of each bodymight have been mouths.
"They're--they're _real_. They're _alive_!" said Harold Potterhoarsely. That was the thing about them. They had the elusive qualityof life about them--and of course they were thus infinitely moreterrifying than the prop department's fake monsters.
"They're alive all right," said Dr. Mildume chattily. "Took me quite abit of experimenting to discover what to feed them. They likeglass--broken glass. They're evidently a silicon rather than a carbonform of life."
"This I'll buy," said Mr. Untz, still staring.
"Of course," said Mildume. "I knew you would. They will cost youexactly ten thousand dollars per day. Per twenty-four hour period."
"Profiteer--burglar!" said Mr. Untz, glaring at Mildume.
Mildume shrugged.
There was an abrupt, high-pitched squeak. Harold stared at themonsters. The smaller one was quivering.
"They do that when they're angry," Dr. Mildume said. "Some sort ofskin vibration. This smaller one here seems to take the initiative inthings. Must be a male. Unless there's female dominance, as in birdsof prey, wherever these things come from. I've--uh--been unable toascertain which is which, if any."
Mr. Untz frowned suddenly. "Look--just how dangerous are thesethings?"
"Don't know _exactly_," said Dr. Mildume. "A pigeon got too near thecages the other day. They seemed to enjoy it. Although, as I say,their staple appears to be silicon forms. I carelessly set a Westonanalyzer too near them the other day and they had it for lunch."
"If they're too dangerous ..." began Mr. Untz.
"What if they are?" said Mildume. "You make pictures with wild lionsand tigers and alligators, don't you? Seems to me you can find a way.I don't recommend letting them out of the cage however."
Mr. Untz nodded and said, "Well, maybe we can get Etienne Flaubert todo something with them. He's the animal trainer we call on. AnywayUntz always figures something out. Only that's why I like musicalsbetter. There isn't so much to figure out and you can play VictorHerbert backwards and get new tunes out of him. So anyway, we'll get atruck and get these monsters to the studio right away."
It was arranged. It was arranged with utmost secrecy too. There wereother studios, after all, and in spite of their wealth of creativetalent it was easier to steal an idea than cook up a new one. Atombomb secrecy descended upon the Crusader Pictures lot and mostespecially upon Sound Stage Six, where the dream sequence for thepsychological thriller, "Jolt!" was being filmed.
Even Jimsy LaRoche, the star of the picture, was excluded from the bigbarn-like stage. Mr. Untz prepared to get his first stock shots of thebeasts.
There were gasps and much popping of eyebrows when Dr. Mildume--whohad come along as technical adviser--removed the tarpaulins from thecages. The cameramen, the grips, the electricians, the sound men--allstared unbelievingly. The script girl grabbed Mr. Untz's hand and dugher fingernails into it. The makeup stylist clutched the lapels of hismauve jacket and fainted.
"Nothing to be afraid of," Mr. Untz said to everybody. He was sort ofconvincing himself too. "Dr. Mildume here knows all about themonsters. He's got everything under control. So tell everybody aboutthem, Doctor."
Mildume nodded, bobbing his short white beard. He thrust his handsinto his tweed jacket, looked all around for a moment, then said, "Idon't know exactly where the monsters are from. I had my Q-beampointed into space, and I was focussing it, intending to put it onMars at the time of proper conjunction. All very complicated. Howeverthe beam must have worked prematurely. These monsters began to form inthe hydrogen chamber."
Several of the listeners looked at other listeners with u
nmistakabledoubt. Unruffled, Dr. Mildume went on, "Now, we can make certain roughassumptions from the form and structure of these monsters. You willnotice that except for their appendages they are globularly formed.Any engineer can tell you that the arch and hemisphere sustain thegreatest weight for their mass.
"We may concede that they come from a planet of very strong gravity.Their skin, for instance, is tough and rigid compared with ours. Theyhave difficulty staying rooted to earth--often a simple multipodmovement will send them bouncing to the top of the cage. There is oneother