The Very Black

sourly. "Couldn't sleep last night.This damned responsibility. Worried all night about something wehadn't thought of."

  Pop looked up. Melrose went on. "Light--travels in a straight line,no?" He blinked small nervous eyes at us. Then, "Can't go aroundcorners unless it's helped, you see. I mean just this. The XXE-One isexpected to hit a significant fraction of the speed of light once itgets beyond the atmosphere. Now here's the point--how in hell do wecontrol it then?"

  He waited. I didn't say anything. Pop didn't say anything. Melrose rana hand through his hair once more, muttered _goddamit_ to himself,turned around and went barging out the door.

  Pop said wryly, "Another quick memo to the Pentagon. He never heard ofthe Earth's gravity."

  "He's heard," I said. "It's just that it slipped his mind these lastfew years."

  Pop grinned. He handed me a sheaf of typewritten notes. "These'll justabout make it. You'll notice the initial flight is charted pretty damnclosely."

  "Thanks, Pop. I better take these, somewhere else to look 'em over.Melrose might be back."

  "Pretty damn closely," he repeated. "Almost as closely as if she wasgoing up under radio control...." He stopped. He looked at me fromunder his eyebrows.

  I studied him. "Already told the brass I'd take her up, Pop." I keptmy voice down.

  "Sure, guy. Sure. Uh--you mention it to Marge?"

  "Last night."

  "I see." His eyes got suddenly far away. I left him like that. Hellwith him--hell with the whole family!

  * * * * *

  It was in the evening paper, tucked in the second section. Theytreated it lightly. It seemed the night watchman had opened the reardoor of the museum for a breath of air or maybe a smoke. Or maybe tokitchie-koo some babe under the chin in the alley.

  That's the only way it could have happened. And he'd discovered theempty exhibit case at 2:10 in the morning. The case still had a littlewhite card on it that told about the Brown Bess musket and the powderhorn and the ball shot inside.

  But the little white card lied in its teeth. There weren't any suchthings in the case at all. And he'd notified the curator at once.

  There was also mention of a mysterious phone call which couldn't betraced.

  Things like this don't happen in 1953. So I didn't get loaded thatnight. I went home, went to the davenport, sat down and told myselfthey don't happen. Things like this have never happened, will neverhappen. What occurred last night was something in the bottom of abottle of Jamaica rum.

  "Thinking, Mr. Anders?"

  I took a slow breath. He was swaying gently in the air a foot from myelbow and he was still a black mucous scum, as he had been the nightbefore. I got up.

  I said, "I'm not loaded tonight. I haven't had a thing all day." Itook two steps toward him.

  He wasn't there.

  I took another breath--a very very slow breath. I turned around andwent back to the davenport.

  He was back again.

  "They'll find that musket," he said. "I have no use for it now. Yousee I wanted it only to convince you, Mr. Anders."

  I put my hands on my knees and didn't look at him. I was suddenlytrying to remember where I'd put that Luger I'd brought home fromGermany a couple years back.

  "You're not quite convinced yet, Mr. Anders?"

  _Where in the hell did I put it?_

  "Very well, Mr. Anders. Now hear this, please. Now watch me." Hestirred at about hip height. A shelf-like section of the black massprotruded a little distance from the main part of him. On this shelfsuddenly lay a rusted penknife.

  "A very little boy, Mr. Anders. And a very long while ago. A talentedboy, one of those who has what might be called an exceptionalimagination. This boy cherished a penknife when he was quite small.Pick up the knife, Mr. Anders."

  The knife was suddenly in my lap. I picked it up. It was rusty. It hada flat bone handle. "Museums again," I whispered to myself.

  "So highly did this boy prize his knife that he went to great pains tocarve his name very very carefully on one side of the bone handle.Turn the knife over, Mr. Anders."

  The name was Edward Anders.

  "You lost it when you were eleven. You wouldn't remember though. Ifound it in an attic where it lay unnoticed. As the years went by yougradually forgot about the knife, you see, and when your mind hadcompletely abandoned the thoughts of it, it was mine--had I wanted it.As a matter of fact I didn't. I retrieved it just today."

  I put the knife down. Sweat was coming on my forehead now, I couldfeel it. I was remembering. I was remembering the knife and what wasscaring me even more was I was remembering the very day I had lost it.In the attic.

  I said very carefully, "All right. You've made your point. You cantake it from there."

  "Quite so, Mr. Anders. You now admit I exist, that I haveextraordinary powers. I am your own creation, Mr. Anders. As I saidbefore you have exceptional senses, including imagination. And yes,imagination is the greatest of all the senses.

  "Some humans with this gift often imagine ludicrous things, excitingthings, horrifying things--depending don't you see, on mood, emotion.And the things these mortals imagine become real, are actually,created--only they don't know it, of course."

  He stopped. He was probably giving me time to soak that up. Then hewent on. "You've forgotten to keep trying to remember where you putthat Luger, Mr. Anders. I just picked up the abandoned thought as itleft your consciousness just now."

  I gulped down something that tried to rise in my throat. I didn't likethis guy.

  "You created me when you were fourteen, Mr. Anders. You imagined me asa swashbuckling pirate. The only difference between me and the otherswho have been created in times past is that I have attained the ninthdimension. I am the first to do that. Also the first to capture thesecrets of your own third dimension. Naturally then, it would be apity for me to die."

  "Get out," I said.

  "Forgive me, Mr. Anders. My time is short. I die tomorrow."

  "That's swell. Now get out."

  "We're not immortal, you see. When our creators die their imaginationsdie with them. We too die. It follows. But for some time I've had anidea."

  "Out," I said again. "Get the hell out of here!"

  "You're going to die tomorrow, Mr. Anders, in that new flying saucer.And I must die with you. Except that I've had this idea."

  There are times when you look yourself in the eye and don't like whatyou see. Or maybe what you see scares the living hell out of you.When those times come along some little something inside tells youyou'd better watch out. Then the doubts creep in. After that themelancholy. And from that instant on you aren't very sane anymore.

  "_Out!_" I yelled. "Out, _out_, OUT! Get the hell out!"

  "One moment, Mr. Anders. Now as to this idea of mine. There's thiswoman--this Margie Hayman. This woman you call the Doll."

  That one jerked me around.

  "Exactly. Now listen very carefully. You aren't entirely you anymore,Mr. Anders. I mean, you aren't the complete _whole_ individual you asyou once were. You love this woman. Something inside you has gone outand is now a part of her."

  "Therefore, if you will just discard the thought of her sometimebetween now and when you take that ship up I can attach myself to hersentient being, don't you see, and thereby exist--at leastpartly--even though you yourself are dead."

  I pushed myself unsteadily to my feet. I stared at the entire blackrepulsive undulating mass before me. I took a step toward it.

  "It isn't much to ask, Mr. Anders. You've quarrelled with her. Youwant no more of her. You've practically told her that. All I ask isthat you finish the job--forget her. Discard her--throw her into themental junk pile of Abandonment."

  I didn't take any more steps. Something inside me was screaming, wasripping at my guts, was roaring with all the cacaphony of all thegiant discords of all eternity. Something inside my brain was suckingall my strength in one tremendous, surging power-dive of wishfulfillment. I was willing the black mucous mass of hi
m out of myconsciousness.

  He was no longer there. The only thing to prove he'd ever been thereat all was a very-old, very-rusty penknife over on the table in frontof the davenport--the knife with my name carved on the bone handle.

  After that I went unsteadily to the dresser in the living room. I gotthe Doll's picture down off the dresser. I undressed. I took thepicture to bed with me. The lights burned in my bedroom the entirenight.

  * * * * *

  Lieutenant Colonel Melrose looked weatherbeaten. His graying hair waspulled here and there like a rag mop