Doodad ss, p.2
Doodad (ss),
p.2
“They can do everything?”
“Well, not everything. Most of the inventions have about sixty different processes, all alien, all mixed, all shapes, sizes, molded into them. Each one of my creations has a different set of services. Some arc big. Some small. Some of the big ones have many, many services. The small ones have only one or two simple functions. Not two are alike. Think of the space and time and money you save by buying a doohingey!” “Yeah,” said Crowell. He thought about Bishop’s body. “Your doohingey is certainly versatile, all right.”
“That reminds me.” said the little man. “About that 1944 model hinkie you sold me in trade. Where did you get it?”
“Get it? You mean that pipe cle—I mean, the hinkie? I—Oh, well, I—” “You don’t have io be secretive. We share trade secrets, you know Did you make it yourself?”
“I…I bought it and worked on it. The…the power of thought, you know.”
“Then you know the secret? How astonishing! I thought I was the only one who knew about the transmission of thought into energy forms. Brilliant man. Did you study in Rruhre?”
“No. I was always sorry I never got there. Never had the opportunity. I had to struggle along alone. I-ook, I’d like to turn this doohingey in for another apparatus. I don’t like it.”
“You don’t like it? Why not?” ’Oh, I .just don’t. Too cumbersome. Give me something simple every time.”
Yeah, simple, he thought, something you can see how it works.
“What kind of machine do you want this time, Mr. Crowell?”
“Give me a…gadget.”
“What year gadget?”
“Does that make a great deal of difference, what year?”
“Oh, you’re joking again, aren’t you?” Crowell swallowed. “I’m joking.” “You know, of course, that in each year for thousands of years that the type of gadget and the name for a gadget would be different. A thingooey of the year 1965 would be an odds-bodkins in 1492. Or a et-tu-brutus in the days of Caesar.”
“Are you joking?” asked Crowell. “No. Never mind. Give me my gadget and I’ll go home.”
That word “home” startled Crowell. It wouldn’t be wise to go there just yet. Hide out for a while until he could send a message to the bodyguard saying that he was holding Bishop a prisoner. Yes. That was it. That was safest.
In the meantime he was curious about this shop, but not curious enough to have horrible contraptions like that doohingey near him. The little man was talking:
“I’ve a whole case full of thingumabobs from all historical periods I’ll give you,” he was saying. “I’m so overstocked with stuff, and nobody but you takes me seriously so far. I haven’t made one sale today. It’s quite saddening.”
Crowell felt sorry for the man, but—“Tell you what. I’ve got an empty storage room in my house. Send the stuff around in a few days and I’ll look it over and take what I like.”
“Can’t you take some of it with you now?” pleaded the little man.
“I don’t think I can—”
“Oh, it’s small. Very small stuff.
Really. Here, I’ll show you. A few little boxes of trinkets and knicknacks. Here. Here they are.” He bent behind a counter, brought out six boxes, enough to load Crowell’s arms up to the chin.
Crowell opened one box. “Sure. Ill take these. Nothing but soup strainers, paring knives, lemon juicers, doorknobs and old meerschaum pipes from Holland. Sure, I’ll take theseThey looked safe. They were small, simple. Nothing wrong with them.
“Oh, thank you. Thank you. Put these in the back of your beetle, gratis. I’m glad to dean them out of the store. I’ve done so much energy creating in the last few years or so I’ll be relieved to get rid of them. Sick and tired of looking at them. There you go.”
Crowell, his arms full, staggered out to his white beetle and tossed the stuff in the back seat. He waved to the little man, said he’d see him again in a few days, and drove off.
The hour spent in the shop, the gibbering joy of the little man, the bright lights, had made him forget, for the time, about Bishop’s bodyguards and Bishop himself.
The beetle car hummed tinder him. He headed downtown toward the Audio studios, trying to decide what was wisest to do. He reached back, curiously, and pulled out one of the little gadgets. It was nothing more nor less than a pipe. Seeing it, made him hungry for a smoke, so he took the pipe, filled it with makings from his blouse pouch, and lit it, experimentally, carefully. He puffed smoke. Fine. A good pipe.
He was busy enjoying the pipe when he ’noticed something in the rear-view mirror. He was being followed by two black beetle cars. Not mistaking those low ebony high-powered crawlers.
He cursed silently and put on speed. The beetles were catching up with him, gaining speed every instant. There were two thugs in one of them, and two in the other.
“I’ll stop and tell them that I’m holding their boss as hostage,” said Crowell to himself.
There were guns gleaming in the hands of the thugs in the black cars.
Crowell realized that they w ould shoot first and talk later. He hadn’t planned that. He had planned on hiding away and calling them and giving them his ultimatum. But—this! They were coming after him. He wouldn’t have a chance to explain before they’d shoot him down.
He increased the speed with his foot. Sweat came out to play on his forehead. What a mess. He was beginning to wish he hadn’t returned the doohingey to the shop. He could use it now, just as he had inadvertently used it on Bishop.
Doohingey! Gadgets!
Crowell cried out in relief. Maybe—
He reached into the back seat and scrabbled wildly among the litter of gadgets. None of them looked like they could do anything, but he’d try, anyhow.
“O. K., you thingums, do your stuff 1 Protect me, damn you!”
There was a rattling crisp noise and something metallic thumped past Crowell’s ears, winged outside on transparent glass wings back in the direction of the pursuing enemy car and hit it head on.
There was an explosion of green fire and gray smoke.
The fraltamoret had done its work. It was a combination of a little boy’s automatic airplane and an explosive projectile.
Crowell pressed the floor plate and shot his beetle ahead again. The second car was still pursuing. They wouldn’t give up.
“Get them!” cried Crowell. “Get them, too! Get them any way you can!” He dumped two boxes of trinkets out the window. Several of them took flight. The others bounced harmlessly on the cement.
Two missiles glittered in the air. They looked like old-fashioned pinking shears, sharp and bright, and an antigravitymain-mechanistic drive attached. They sang along the boulevard until they got to the remaining black beetle car.
They went in through the open windows, gleaming.
The black beetle car lost its control and went off the avenue, turning over and over, smashing, and bursting into a sudden savage fire.
Crowell slumped in his seat. He let the beetle slow down and pull around a comer and over to the curb, stopping. He was breathing fast. His heart crashed.
He could go home now. if he wanted to. There would be no one else waiting for him at home, waiting to ambush him. stop him. question him, threaten him.
He could go home now. Funny, but lie didn’t feel relieved or happy. He just felt dark, unhappy, ill at ease. The world was a lousy place to live in. He had a bitter taste in his mouth.
He drove home. Well, maybe things would be better. Maybe.
He took the remaining boxes of trinkets and got out of the beetle and took the vac-elevator upstairs. He opened the door and laid the boxes down and sorted through them.
He still had that pipe in his mouth, after all the excitement. He had picked it up automatically and put it back in his mouth. He was nervous. Needed another smoke now to quiet his mind.
He put fresh tobacco in his new pipe and puffed it into life. That little man was a screw for giving him all this stuff. Dangerous to have this sort of knowledge lying around in the world. All kinds of wrong people might get hold of it, use it.
He laughed, and puffed at bis pipe.
From now on. he’d play big shot. With the help of the little man and the stop, he’d make those big Plastics officials jump, pay him money, obey his even’ thought. Damn them.
It sounded like a lot of trouble, though. He sat down and scowled and brooded about it and his thoughts got dark, like they had been for so many years. Pessimistic.
What was the use of trying to do anything in this world? Why did he bother to go on living? He got so tired.
Sometimes, like tonight and so many nights, in the long years, he felt that it might be a good idea if those gunmen caught up w ith him and filled him full of paralysis. Sometimes, if he had a gun in his ow ii fingers, he’d blast It’s brains out.
There was a sharp explosion. Crowell stood up suddenly. He stiffened and fell down on his knees.
He’d forgotten about the pipe in his mouth—forgotten it was a thingumabob gadget.
It took an unpleasently fatal way of reminding him.
THE END.
Ray Bradbury, Doodad (ss)
