Read Ebook: A Likely Story by Knight Damon Engle Robert Illustrator

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Ebook has 137 lines and 9043 words, and 3 pages

Ray showed signs of wanting to get down and join the caucus; he loves parliamentary procedure better than life itself; so I said hastily, "Let's get down with the crowd, Ray. We can't see much better up here, anyway."

He stiffened. "You go if you want to," he said quietly. "I'm staying here, where I can keep an eye on things."

The chandelier was now describing stately circles, causing a good deal of ducking and confusion, but the meeting was getting on with its business, namely, arguing about whether to confirm Kosmo by acclamation or nominate and elect a chairman in the usual way. That subject, I figured, was good for at least twenty minutes. I said, "Ray, will you tell me the truth if I ask you something?"

"Maybe." He grinned.

"Are you doing this?"

He threw his head back and chuckled, "No-o, I'm not doing it." He looked at me shrewdly, still grinning. "Is that why you were looking for me?"

I admitted it humbly. "It was just a foolish idea," I said. "Nobody we know could possibly--"

"Ah, come on, Ray."

He was affronted. "Why not? We've got some pretty good scientific brains in Medusa, you know. There's Gamble--he's an atomic physicist. There's Don Bierce; there's Duchamp; there's--"

"They could have invented it," he said stoutly.

He bristled. "No, I certainly don't--"

"Or like Lobbard discovering Scatiology?"

"Ptah! No! Like Watt, like Edison, Galileo--" He thumbed down three fingers emphatically. "--Goodyear, Morse, Whitney--"

Down below, the meeting had taken less than five minutes to confirm Samwitz as chairman. I think the chandelier helped; they ought to install one of those in every parliamentary chamber.

The chair recognized Punchy, who said sweetly that the first order of business ought to be to get opinions from the people who knew something, beginning with Werner Kley.

Somebody was dispatched to get film; somebody else trotted out to telephone for reporters and cameramen, and three or four other people headed in a businesslike way for the men's room.

Ray was simultaneously trying to get the chair's attention and explaining to me, in staccato asides, how many epochal inventions had been made by amateurs in attic workshops. I said--and this was really bothering me--"But look: do you see anybody with any kind of a gadget? How's he going to hide it? How's he going to focus it, or whatever?"

Ray snorted. "It might be hidden in almost anything. Burgeon's guitar--Gamble's briefcase--Mr. Chairman!"

Duchamp was talking, but I could feel it in my bones that Samwitz was going to get around to Ray next. I leaned closer. "Ray, listen--a thing like this--they wouldn't keep it to themselves, would they?"

"Why not? Wouldn't you--for a while, anyway?" He gave me his bobcat grin. "I can think of quite--a--few things I could do, if I had it."

So could I; that was the whole point. I said, "Yeah. I was hoping we could spot him, before the crowd does." I sighed. "Fat chance, I suppose."

He gave me another side-long look. "That shouldn't be so hard," he drawled.

He put on his most infuriating grin, peering to see how I took it. "I've, got, a few, ideas."

"Who?"

Wrong question. He shook his head with a that-would-be-telling look.

Somebody across the room went down with a crash; then somebody else. "Sit on the floor!" Ray shouted, and they all did it, squatting cautiously like old ladies at a picnic. The meeting gathered speed again.

I looked apprehensively at the narrow piano top we were standing on, and sat down with my legs hanging over. Ray stayed where he was, defying the elements to do their worst.

"You know, all right," I said, looking up at him, "but you're keeping it to yourself." I shrugged. "Well, why shouldn't you?"

"O-kay," he said good-naturedly. "Let's figure it out. Where were you when it started?"

"In the bar."

"Who else was there? Try to remember exact-ly."

I thought. "Art Greymbergen. Fred Balester. Gamble was there--"

"Okay, that eliminates him--and you, incidentally--because it started in here. Right, so far?"

"Right!"

"And Plass--that booboo he made?"

Ray dismissed Plass with a gesture. He was looking a little restive; another debate was under way down below, with Punchy and Leigh MacKean vociferously presenting the case for psychokinesis, and being expertly heckled by owlish little M. C. Burncloth's echo-chamber voice. "It's too much," I said quickly. "There's too many of them left. We'll never--"

"It's perfectly simple!" Ray said incisively. He counted on his fingers again. "Burgeon--Kley--Duchamp--Bierce--Burncloth--MacKean--Jibless. Eight people."

"One of the visitors?" I objected.

He shook his head. "I know who all these people are, generally," he said. "It's got to be one of those eight. I'll take Kley, Bierce, Jibless and MacKean--you watch the other four. Sooner or later they'll give themselves away."

A wave of neck-clutching passed over the crowd. Cold breezes, I expect. Or hot ones, in some cases. Tom Jones leaped up with a cry and sat down again abruptly.

"Did you see anything?" Ray asked.

I shook my head. Where, I wondered, was the good old science fiction cameraderie? If I'd been the lucky one, I would have let the crowd in--well, a few of them, anyway--given them jobs and palaces and things. Not that they would have been grateful, probably, the treacherous, undependable, neurotic bums....

They were looking nervous now. There had been that little burst of activity after a long pause , and now the--call it the stillness--was more than they could stand. I felt it, too: that building up of tension. Whoever it was, was getting tired of little things.

A horrible jangling welled out of Burgeon's guitar case; it sounded like a bull banjo with the heaves. Ned jumped, dropped his cigarette holder, got the case open and I guess put his hand on the strings; the noise stopped. That eliminated him ... or did it?

Take it another way. What would the guy have to be like who would waste a marvel like this on schoolboy pranks at a Medusa Christmas party? Not Jibless, I thought--he abominates practical jokers. Bierce didn't seem to be the type, either, although you could never tell; the damnedest wry stories get hatched occasionally in that lean ecclesiastic skull. Duchamp was too staid ; MacKean was an enigma. Gamble? Just maybe. Burgeon? Jones? It could be either, I thought, but I wasn't satisfied.

I glanced at Ray again, and mentally crossed him off for the second or third time. Ray's an honorable man, within his own complicated set of rules; he might mislead me, with pleasure, but he wouldn't give me the lie direct.

But I had the feeling that the answer was square in front of me, and I was blind to it.

The meeting was just now getting around to the idea that somebody present was responsible for all the nonsense. This shows you the trouble with committees.

His eyes widened; he nodded reluctantly. Then he stiffened and snapped his fingers at somebody squatting just below us--the invisible fan, Harry Somebody. I hadn't even noticed him there, but it's Ray's business to know everything and keep track of everybody--that's why he's up on his hill.

The fan came over. Ray handed him something. "Here is some change, Harry--run out and call up the weather bureau. Find out whether this freak weather is local or not, and if it is, just where the boundaries are. Got that?"

Harry nodded and went out. He was back only a couple of minutes later. "I got the Weather Bureau all right. They say it's local--just Manhattan and Queens!"

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