A thousand credits — He had no recollection of getting them. But the cash book might show—
It did. Under dates of several weeks back, it said:
Rec’d D. H. — com. — on acc’t — ci,ooo
Rec’d J. W. — com. — on acc’t—01,500
Rec’d Fatty — com. — on acc’t — c8oo
Thirty-three hundred credits! And the bank book had no record of that sum. It showed merely a withdrawal of seven hundred credits, leaving about fifteen still on hand.
Gallagher moaned and searched his desk again. Under a blotter he found an envelope he had previously overlooked. It contained stock certificates — both common and preferred — for something called Devices Unlimited. A covering letter acknowledged receipt of four thousand credits, in return for which payment stock had been issued to Mr. Galloway Gallegher, as ordered—
“Murder,” Gallegher said. He gulped beer, his mind swirling. Trouble was piling up in triplicate. D. H. — Dell Hopper — had paid him a thousand credits to do something or other. Someone whose initials were J. W. had given him fifteen hundred credits for a similar purpose. And Fatty, the cheapskate, had paid only eight hundred credits on account.
Why?
Only Gallegher’s mad subconscious knew. That brainy personality had deftly arranged the deals, collected the dough, depleted Gallegher’s personal bank account — cleaning it out — and bought stock in Devices Unlimited. Ha!
Gallegher used the televisor again. Presently he beamed his broker.
“Arnie?”
“Hi, Gallegher,” Arnie said, looking up at the teleplate over his desk. “What’s up?”
“I am. At the end of a rope. Listen, did I buy some stock lately?”
“Sure. In Devices — DU.”
“Then I want to sell it. I need the dough, quick.”
“Wait a minute.” Arnie pressed buttons. Current quotations were flashing across his wall, Gallegher knew.
“Well?”
“No soap. The bottom’s dropped out. Four asked, nothing bid.”
“What did I buy at?”
“Twenty.”
Gallegher emitted the howl of a wounded wolf. “Twenty? And you let me do that?”
“I tried to argue you out of it,” Arnie said wearily. “Told you the stock was skidding. There’s a delay in a construction deal or something — not sure what. But you said you had inside info. What could I do?”
“You could have beaten my brains out,” Gallegher said. “Well, never mind. It’s too late now. Have I got my other stock?”
“A hundred shares of Martian Bonanza.”
“Quoted at?”
“You could realize twenty-five credits on the whole lot.”
“What are the bugles blowin’ for?” Gallegher murmured.
“Huh?”
“I’m dreadin’ what I’ve got to watch—”
“I know,” Arnie said happily. “Danny Deever.”
“Yeah,” Gallegher agreed, “Danny Deever. Sing it at my funeral, chum.” He broke the beam.
Why, in the name of everything holy and unholy, had he bought that DU stock?
What had he promised Dell Hopper of Hopper Enterprises?
Who were J. W. (fifteen hundred credits) and Fatty (eight hundred credits)?
Why was there a hole in place of his back yard?
What and why was that confounded machine his subconscious had built?
He pressed the directory button on the televisors, spun the dial till he located Hopper Enterprises, and called that number.
“I want to see Mr. Hopper.”
“Your name?”
“Gallegher.”
“Call our lawyer, Mr. Trench.”
“I did,” Gallegher said. “Listen—”
“Mr. Hopper is busy.”
“Tell him,” Gallegher said wildly, “that I’ve got what he wanted.”
That did it. Hopper focused in, a buffalo of a man with a mane of gray hair, intolerant jet black eyes, and a beak of a nose. He thrust his jutting jaw toward the screen and bellowed, “Gallegher? For two pins I’d—” He changed his tune abruptly. “You called Trench, eh? I thought that’d do the trick. You know I can send you to prison, don’t you?”
“Well, maybe—”
“Maybe nothing! Do you think I come personally to see every crackpot inventor who does some work for me? If I hadn’t been told over and over that you were the best man in your field, I’d have slapped an injunction on you days ago!”
Inventor?
“The fact is,” Gallegher began mildly, “I’ve been ill—”
“In a pig’s eye,” Hopper said coarsely. “You were drunk as a lord. I don’t pay men for drinking. Did you forget those thousand credits were only part payment — with nine thousand more to come?”
“Why…why, n-no. Uh…nine thousand?”
“Plus a bonus for quick work. You still get the bonus, luckily. It’s only been a couple of weeks. But it’s lucky for you, you got the thing finished. I’ve got options on a couple of factories already. And scouts looking out for good locations, all over the country. Is it practical for small sets, Gallegher? We’ll make our steady money from them, not from the big audiences.”
“Tchwuk,” Gallegher said. “Uh—”
“Got it there? I’m coming right down to see it.”
“Wait! Maybe you’d better let ine add a few touches—”
“All I want is the idea,” Hopper said. “If that’s satisfactory, the rest is easy. I’ll call Trench and have him quash that summons. See you soon.”
He blanked out.
Gallegher screamed for beer. “And a razor,” he added, as Narcissus padded out of the room. “I want to cut my throat.”
“Why?” the robot asked.
“Just to amuse you, why else? Get that beer.”
Narcissus brought a plastibulb. “I don’t understand why you’re so upset,” he remarked. “Why don’t you lose yourself in rapturous contemplation of my beauty?”
“Better the razor,” Gallegher said glumly. “Far better. Three clients, two of whom I can’t remember at all, commissioning me to do jobs I can’t remember, either. Ha!” Narcissus ruminated. “Try induction,” he suggested. “That machine—”
“What about it?”
“Well, when you get a commission, you usually drink yourself into such a state that your subconscious takes over and does the job. Then you sober up. Apparently that’s what happened this time. You made the machine, didn’t you?”
“Sure,” Gallegher said, “but for which client? I don’t even know what it does.”
“You could try it and find out.”
“Oh. So I could. I’m stupid this morning.”
“You’re always stupid,” Narcissus said. “And very ugly, too. The more I contemplate my own perfect loveliness, the more pity I feel for humans.”
“Oh, shut up,” Gallegher snapped, feeling the uselessness of trying to argue with a robot. He went over to the enigmatic machine and studied it once more. Nothing clicked in his mind.
There was a switch, and he flipped it. The machine started to sing “St. James Infirmary.”
“I see it all,” Gallegher said in a fit of wild frustration. “Somebody asked me to invent a phonograph.”
“Wait,” Narcissus pointed out. “Look at the window.”
“The window. Sure. What about it? Wh—” Gallegher hung over the sill, gasping. His knees felt unhinged and weak. Still, he might have expected something like this.
The group of tubes emerging from the machine were rather incredibly telescopic. They had stretched down to the bottom of the pit, a full thirty feet, and were sweeping around in erratic circles like grazing vacuum cleaners. They moved so fast Gallegher couldn’t see them except as blurs. It was like watching the head of a Medusa who had contracted St. Vitus’s Dance and transmitted the ailment to her snakes.