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Read Ebook: Dumbwaiter by Stamers James Dillon Diane Illustrator Dillon Leo Illustrator
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Ebook has 198 lines and 12837 words, and 4 pages
Dumbwaiter
Illustrated by DILLON
The man ahead of me had a dragon in his baggage. So the Lamavic boys confiscated it. Lamavic--Livestock, Animal, Mineral and Vegetable, International Customs--does not like to find dragons curled up in a thermos. And since this antipathy was a two-way exchange, the Lamavic inspectors at Philadelphia International were singed and heated all ways by the time they got to me. I knew them well.
"Mr. Sol Jones?"
"That's right," I said, watching the would-be dragon smuggler being marched away. A very amateur job. I could have told him. There are only two ways to smuggle a dragon nowadays.
"Any livestock to declare, Mr. Jones?"
"I have no livestock on my person or in my baggage, nor am I accompanied by any material prohibited article," I said carefully, for I saw they were recording.
The little pink, bald inspector with a charred collar looked at his colleague.
"Anything known?"
His colleague looked down at me from six feet of splendid physique, smiled unpleasantly, and flipped the big black record book.
"'Sol Jones,'" he read, "'Lamavic four-star offender. Galactic registration: six to tenth power: 763918. Five foot ten inches, Earth scale. Blue eyes, hair variable and usually nondescript brown, ear lobes and cranial....' You're not disputing identity, Mr. Jones?"
"Oh, no. That's me."
"I see. 'Irrevocable Galactic citizenship for services to family of Supreme President Xgol in matter of asteroid fungus, subsequent Senatorial amnesty confirmed, previous sentences therefore omitted. Lamavic offenses thereafter include no indictable evidence but total twenty-four minor fines for introducing prohibited livestock onto various planets. Suspected complicity in Lamavic cases One through Seventy-six as follows: mobile sands, crystal thinkers, recording turtle, operatic fish, giant mastodon.' Mr. Jones, you seem to have given us trouble before."
"Before what?"
"Before this--er--"
"That," I said, "is an Unconstitutional remark. I am giving no trouble. I have made a full declaration. I demand the rights of a Galactic citizen."
He apologized, as he had to. This merely made both inspectors angry, but they were going to search me anyway. I knew that. Certainly I am a smuggler, and I had in fact a little present for my girl Florence--a wedding present, I hoped--but they would never find it. This time I really had them fooled, and I intended to extract maximum pleasure from watching their labors.
I saw the Lamavic records once. The next leading offender has only two stars and he's out on Ceres in the penal colony. My four stars denote that I disapprove of all these rules prohibiting the carrying of livestock from one planet to another. Other people extend the Galactic Empire; I extend my Galactic credit. You want an amusing extraterrestrial pet to while away the two-hour work week, I can provide one. Of course, this pet business was overdone in the early days when any space-hopper could bring little foreign monsters back to the wife and kiddies. Any weird thing could come in and did.
"You are aware, Mr. Jones, that you have declared that you are not trying to bring in any prohibited life-form, whether animal, mineral, vegetable, or any or all of these?"
"I am," I said.
"You are further aware of the penalties for a false declaration?"
"In my case, I believe I could count on thirty years' invigorating work on a penal planet."
"You could, Mr. Jones. You certainly could."
"Well, I've made my declaration."
"Will you step this way?"
Very polite in Philadelphia Spaceport. I followed the inspectors into the screening cubicles. There was a nasty looking device in the corner.
"I thought those things were illegal," I said.
"Unfortunately, Mr. Jones, you are, as you know, quite right. We may not employ a telepath instrument on any unconvicted person."
One of them read out the prohibitions and the other tried to watch me and the reflex counter behind me at the same time--a crude instrument which should be used, in my professional view, only to determine a person's capacities for playing poker with success.
"Ants-water, babblers, bunces, candelabra plants, catchem-fellers, Cythia Majoris, divers, dunces, dimple-images, drakes, dunking dogs, dogs-savage, dogs-water, dogs-not-otherwise-provided-for, unspec., elephants-miniature, fish-any...."
"Funny man," one said, and they went on reading.
"Okay," the large inspector said at last. "We'll examine him for everything."
For the next three hours, they took blood specimens to see if I had microscopic livestock hidden there, they X-rayed me and my baggage, fluoroscoped everything again, put the baggage through an irritator life-indexer, investigated my orifices in detail with a variety of instruments, took skin scrapings in case I was wearing a false layer, and the only thing they found was my dark glasses.
"Why don't you wear modern contact lenses?"
"It's none of your business," I said, "but these old-style spectacles have liquid lenses."
There was a flurry and they sent away for analysis a small drop from one of the lenses. There were no signs of prohibited life in the liquid.
"I could have told you that," I said. "It's dicyanin, a vegetable extract. Diminishes the glare."
I put the glasses on my nose and hooked on the earpieces. The effect was medieval, but I could see the little diver now. I could also see disturbing evidence of the inspectors' mental condition. A useful little device invented by Dr. W. J. Kilner for the study of the human aura in sickness and health. After a little practice, which I was not going to allow the Lamavic inspectors, the retina became sufficiently sensitive to see the micro-wave aura when you looked through the dicyanin screen. As was true of most of these psi pioneers at that time, nothing was done to further Kilner's work when he died. I noticed, without surprise, that the inspectors had a mental field of very limited extent and that the little diver had survived the journey nicely.
"Can I go now?" I asked.
"This time, Mr. Jones."
When I left, the repair staff was building a new inspection barrier to replace the parts the dragon had got. Such an amateur performance! Leave smuggling to professionals and we'd have Lamavic disbanded from boredom in ten years. I nearly slipped on the fine silica dioxide which had fused in the air when the dragon got annoyed. Nasty, dangerous pets.
The one for Florence was the only contraband I was carrying this trip, which was purely pleasure. She was waiting for me in her apartment, tall, golden, luscious, and all mine. She thought I was in import-export, which in a sense was true.
"I've missed you so much, Sol," she said, twining herself on me and the couch like a Venusian water-nymph. "Did you bring me a present?"
I lay back and let her kiss me.
"Of course I did. A small but very valuable present."
I let her kiss me again.
"Not--a Jupiter diamond, Sol?"
"Much rarer than that, and more useful."
"Oh. Useful."
"Something to help you in the house when we're married, honey. Now, don't pout so prettily, or I'll never get around to showing you."
My homecoming was not developing quite as I planned, but I put this down to womanly, if not exactly maidenly, quirks. When she found out what I had brought her, I was sure she would be all over me again. I put on my dark glasses so that I could see where the diver was.
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