The Complete Fury by Henry Kuttner

Author:Henry Kuttner [Kuttner, Henry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

So they took him to a man named Doc Mallard, a short, neckless man with curly fair hair and a face bronzed with scented skin-oil. Doc Mallard gave Sam a cold look. “What’s this about? I don’t take IOU’s.”

Sam had the sudden, strange realization that forty years ago this man had been a raw kid, learning the angles that he himself had mastered long before that. He knew a queer moment of toppling, almost frightening psychological perspective, as though, somehow, he looked down at Mallard from the enormous height of years. He was immortal—

But vulnerable. He let the drunkenness die out of his voice, but not the age. He said, “Let’s talk privately.” Mallard regarded him with a shrewdness that made Sam want to smile. When they were alone he said deliberately, “Ever hear of Sam Reed?”

“Reed? Reed? Oh, the Colony boy. Sure. Dream-dust, wasn’t it?”

“Not exactly. Not for very long, anyhow. I’m Sam Reed.”

Mallard did not take it in for a moment. He was obviously searching his memory for details of that long-ago scandal of his boyhood days. But because the Colony bubble had been—unique in Keep history, apparently he remembered after a while.

“Reed’s dead,” he said presently. “Everybody knows—”

“I’m Sam Reed. I’m not dead. Sure, I dream-dusted, but that can be cured. I’ve been landside for a long time. Just got back.”

“What’s the angle?”

“Nothing’s in it for you, Mallard. I’ve retired. I just mentioned it to prove I’m good for my IOU’s.” Mallard sneered. “You haven’t proved a thing. Nobody comes back rich from landside.”

“I made my money right here, before I left.” Sam looked crafty.

“I remember all about that. The government found your caches. You haven’t got a penny left from that.” Mallard was goading him. Sam made his voice crack. “You call seventy thousand credits nothing?” he cried in senile anger.

Mallard grinned at the ease with which he was trapping the old fool.

“How do I know you’re Sam Reed? Can you prove it?”

“Fingerprints—”

“Too easy to fake. Eyeprints, though—” Mallard hesitated. Clearly he was of two minds. But after a moment he turned and spoke into a mike. The door opened and a man came in with a bulky camera. Sam, on request, looked into the eyepiece and was briefly blinded. They waited in silence, a long time.

Then the desk-mike buzzed before Mallard. .Out of it a tinny voice said, “O.K., Doc. The patterns check with the library files. That’s your man.”

Mallard clicked the switch and .said, “All right, boys, come on in.” The door opened and four men entered. Mallard spoke to them over his shoulder. “This is Sam Reed, boys. He wants to give us seventy thousand credits. Talk him into it, will you?”

The four moved competently toward Sam Reed.

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