It took me five whole days of planning and re-planning before I had an answer. It was not a pleasant answer and, yes, it included the evil already looming over me.
I had cursed the whole damn situation at first, seeing it as another cruel trick of fate in the midst of my troubles. After a day or so, however, I came to regard it as something of a blessing. My natural anger had stiffened my determination. Possibly I was sticking my damn neck out but I was suddenly determined to fight this damn thing, if possible, on its own terms.
I am an executive in a position of power, so I took care and I planned everything.
It wanted wishes so it got wishes but perhaps not the sort it liked.
I wish to know.
I wish this point explained—.
It resented it, its anger licked at me like a remote flame but I was learning and the fundamental truth was that it, too, was bound by rules.
One, having answered a wish, it could not reverse or alter it.
Two; it could not go against the natural laws of this world. For example, it could grant me protection but only for my natural lifespan. Immortality, therefore, was out.
I grabbed at this one, I would begin my defiance with its own power. Immortality might be out but within one’s normal lifetime, that was another thing.
By the time I had finished, I was immune to everything. I could not be shot, poisoned or stabbed. I was immune to all disease, injected or otherwise. I could have survived a road crash or stepped, unharmed from the wreckage of a plane.
I rounded the whole lot off with what, I felt, were two body blows.
I wish that you cannot harm me
I wish that you cannot harm me, even if wished to do so when in the possession of another.
This I felt was the decisive wish, and it knew. I sensed the searing flames of resentment, but I was not clear of it yet. I had learned from the first that escape was not a wish that would be granted.
The only escape was to pass it on to another in the same way as I had been landed with it.
I had a plan, I could only pray that it would work. I called my mother in Ellsworth — this is an elite kind of resort for the elderly perched right on the coast. Elderly ladies meet there and exchange gossip. Among these gatherings was another lady— Groff’s mother.
I talked to my mother for a long time. She was an ex-actress of some note, so she would be word and part perfect.
When Mrs. Goff was in the gathering, my mother would ease her way into the conversation, dropping a sentence here and there.
She would say, “This last curio of my son’s, it really is a dreadful thing, only a stone but quite repulsive. I really can’t understand why he won’t get rid of it. He thinks no one will take it as a gift, particularly so, as he thinks it quite worthless.”
“And is it worthless, Mrs. Ventris?”
“Well, from private enquiries I have made, no. It might be worth a considerable amount of money to the right people.”
The bait was on the hook; I knew it was only a question of time.
I had to wait five days and then he caught me in the executives’ common room.
“Excuse me, sir, may I have a word, please.” He was unnaturally polite oat clearly quite sure of himself. He had taken this high-ranking bastard’s wife. He was now about to milk him of a valuable curio.
“Heard you didn’t care for it much, sir, also that it is worthless. I’m a bit of collector myself and I wondered if—”
I invited him home. I hesitated, I humm’d and haa’d. “It is absolutely worthless, you know.”
I did tell him all about it but I could see he did not believe me. Finally he paid me fifty for it. “Must give you something for it, sir, only fair.”
He went away gleefully, thinking of rich profits and, yes, once more taking a top executive for a mug. He had had his wife and now he had taken him for a curio of considerable value.
No, before you ask my conscience is not clear.
It will probably play hell with me in the coming years.
On the other hand, I have rid myself of an evil entity into the hands of a man who richly deserves it.
SOMETHING IN THE AIR, by Gordon Landsborough
The publisher came in, his form bulking against the rare sunlight angling down through the open doorway. He was smiling, affable, in his usual good humor.
“Well…mornin’!” He put an inflexion in his voice, so that the last word rose half an octave, giving the intended effect of surprise and delight. Surprise at what? thought Butty, his head sore, his nose streaming with cold. Because the sun was shining? Because he’d made it from Hampstead before ten this morning? Delighted? To see them? Them? Butty said an obscene thing inside this head that only wanted to lie down.
Some people streamed past the doorway carrying lollypops. Wind-cheatered and jeaned, the uniform of protest. The daily picket. Laughing young voices submerged in sound as a diesel bus coughed through its gears. Butty thought, “A bloody editorial office that steps right off a High Street pavement.” Then he turned his full hatred on the publisher knowing what was coming.
“And what has my hi-fi, sci-fi editor got to tell me this morning — eh, Butteridge?” Jolly. Just short of being hearty.
Butty said, “We’ve got the usual load of crap.” He looked across at Dickie Armstrong, bright young face alert, watching the same old morning game and interested to know how far he, Butty, would go in showing the publisher he was a crude, tasteless, insensitive creature. Further than usual, with this blasted cold in his head.
“Crap?”
“I’ve dipped into them. Only one that’s good.” The publisher waiting to damn his opinion of good. Butty brooded out through the doorway into the High Street. Let him wait. The High Street. Marks & Sparks protected by St. Michael. Sainsburys protecting their good name. Burton’s next to Woolworth’s next to Tescos next to Barclays next to British Home Stores next to.… Like every other High Street in the land, except that this had problems and the lollypop youngsters were going to sort then out. Or were they against all that money?
“The good one?” The publisher, prompting, smile pleasant, waiting to annihilate him. Enormous fat wedding ring. Enormous fat, expensive fountain pen. Massive cigarette lighter. Why should a little man want to be big? Butty, trying to find a dry place in a sodden handkerchief.
“It’s about a long-chain molecule,” Butty began, deliberately obscure, inviting death. The publisher’s round face brightened. This would be an easy one. “Imagine a benzidrene molecule and you hammer it pretty flat and tack on some hydroxyl groupings at odd corners.…”
Young Armstrong settled back, listening with satisfaction to the cultural warfare. He didn’t know what his editor was talking about, and he was pretty sure Butty was making things up as he went on. His own inventive mind raced parallel with the words Butty was saying, pictures flung into it as they always were when people played with ideas.
“Okay,” said the publisher, unruffled good humor demonstrated by an indulgent smile. “I’m dead ignorant. You’ve got your long-chain thingumny but I want to know what this story is about. You say it’s good. Is it good enough for our list?”
Butty knew the answer but insisted that the publisher made it for him. “It could come under the term: hallucinatory drug. Administered, nobody wants for anything because nobody wants anything. It just brings peace.”
“Peace?” The publisher allowed a frown to mar his sun-tanned forehead. “No fighting? That doesn’t sound much good.”
“Not a ray gun in the whole story.” Butty lifted the manuscript. It wasn’t very bulky, and it was so neat, the tidiness of a thoughtful mind. “Under the drug people find pleasure in living.” Oh, how difficult it was to explain in simple terms to this sleek and prosperous man the pleasure of mind exploration. “The MS merely tells of a disentangling of minds that have had a few thousand years to snarl them up.” And what shocks and surprises the author had given, disentangling. Inevitable, thought Butty, those conclusions, though women would fight like hell against them.