WHAT YOU NEED

~3314 UOY TAHW 3VAH 3W



That’s what the sign said. Tim Carmichael, who worked for a trade paper that specialized in economics, and eked out a meager salary by selling sensational and untrue articles to the tabloids, failed to sense a story in the reversed sign. He thought it was a cheap publicity gag, something one seldom encounters on Park Avenue, where the shop fronts are noted for their classic dignity. And he was irritated.

He growled silently, walked on, then suddenly turned and came back. He wasn’t quite strong enough to resist the temptation to un­scramble the sentence, though his annoyance grew. He stood before the window, staring up, and said to himself, �śWe have what you need.’ Yeah?”

The sign was in prim, small letters on a black painted ribbon that stretched across a narrow glass pane. Below it was one of those curved, invisible-glass windows. Through the window Carmichael could see an expanse of white velvet, with a few objects carefully arranged there. A rusty nail, a snowshoe and a diamond tiara. It looked �Ślike a Dali decor for Carrier or Tiffany.

�śJewelers?” Carmichael asked silently. �śBut why what you need?” He pictured millionaires miserably despondent for lack of a matched pearl necklace, heiresses weeping inconsolably because they needed a few star sapphires. The principle of luxury merchandising was to deal with the whipped cream of supply and demand; few people needed diamonds. They merely wanted them and could afford them.

�śOr the place might sell jinni flasks,” Carmichael decided. �śOr magic wands. Same principle as a Coney carny, though. A sucker trap. Bill the Whatzit outside and people will pay their dimes and flock in. For two cents�"”

He was dyspeptic this morning, and generally disliked the world. Prospect of a scapegoat was attractive, and his press card gave him a certain advantage. He opened the door and walked into the shop.

It was Park Avenue, all right. There were no showcases or counters. It might be an art gallery, for a few good oils were displayed on the walls. An air of overpowering luxury, with the bleakness of an unlived-in place, struck Carmichael.

Through a curtain at the back came a very tall man with carefully combed white hair, a ruddy, healthy face and sharp blue eyes. He might have been sixty. He wore expensive but careless tweeds, which some­how jarred with the decor.

�śGood morning,” the man said, with a quick glance at Carmichael’s clothes. He seemed slightly surprised. �śMay I help you?”

�śMaybe.” Carmichael introduced himself and showed his press card.

�śOh? My name is Talley. Peter Talley.”

�śI saw your sign.”

�śOh?”

�śOur paper is always on the lookout for possible writeups. I’ve never noticed your shop before�"”

�śI’ve been here for years,” Talley said.

�śThis is an art gallery?”

�śWell�"no.”

The door opened. A florid man came in and greeted Talley cordially. Carmichael, recognizing the client, felt his opinion of the shop swing rapidly upward. The florid man was a Name�"a big one.

�śIt’s a bit early, Mr. Talley,” he said, �śbut I didn’t want to delay. Have you had time to get�"what I needed?”

�śOh, yes. I have it. One moment.” Talley hurried through the dra­peries and returned with a small, neatly wrapped parcel, which he gave to the florid man. The latter forked over a check�"Carmichael caught a glimpse of the amount and gulped�"and departed. His town car was at the curb outside.

Carmichael moved toward the door, where he could watch. The florid man seemed anxious. His chauffeur waited stolidly as the parcel was unwrapped with hurried fingers.

�śI’m not sure I’d want publicity, Mr. Carmichael,” Talley said. �śI’ve a select clientele�"carefully chosen.”

�śPerhaps our weekly economic bulletins might interest you.”

Talley tried not to laugh. �śOh, I don’t think so. It really isn’t in my line.”

The florid man had finally unwrapped the parcel and taken out an egg. As far as Carmichael could see from his post near the door, it was merely an ordinary egg. But its possessor regarded it almost with awe. Had Earth’s last hen died ten years before, the man could have been no more pleased. Something like deep relief showed on the Florida­tanned face.

He said something to the chauffeur, and the car rolled smoothly for­ward and was gone.

�śAre you in the dairy business?” Carmichael asked abruptly.

�śDo you mind telling me what your business is?”

�śI’m afraid I do, rather,” Talley said.

Carmichael was beginning to scent a story. �śOf course, I could find out through the Better Business Bureau�"”

�śYou couldn’t.”

�śNo? They might be interested in knowing why an egg is worth five thousand dollars to one of your customers.”

Talley said, �śMy clientele is so small I must charge high fees. You�" ah�"know that a Chinese mandarin has been known to pay thousands of taels for eggs of proved antiquity.”

�śThat guy wasn’t a Chinese mandarin,” Carmichael said.

�śOh, well. As I say, I don’t welcome publicity�"”

�śI think you do. I was in the advertising game for a while. Spelling your sign backwards is an obvious baited hook.”

�śThen you’re no psychologist,” Talley said. �śIt’s just that I can afford to indulge my whims. For five years I looked at that window every day and read the sign backwards�"from inside my shop. It annoyed me. You know how a word will begin to look funny if you keep staring at it? Any word. It turns into something in no human tongue. Well, I discov­ered I was getting a neurosis about that sign. It makes no sense back­wards, but I kept finding myself trying to read sense into it. When I started to say �ŚDeen uoy tahw evah ew’ to myself and lookin’g for philo­logical derivations, I called in a sign painter. People who are interested enough still drop in.”

�śNot many,” Carmichael said shrewdly. �śThis is Park Avenue. And you’ve got the place fixed up too expensively. Nobody in the low-income brackets�"or the middle brackets�"would come in here. So you run an upper-bracket business.”

�śWlell,” Talley said, �śyes, I do.”

�śAnd you won’t tell me what it is?”

�śI’d rather not.”

�śI can find out, you know. It might be dope, pornography, high-class fencing�"”

�śVery likely,” Mr. Talley said smoothly. �śI buy stolen jewels, conceal them in eggs and sell them to my customers. Or perhaps that egg was loaded with microscopic French postcards. Good morning, Mr. Carmichael.”

�śGood morning,” Carmichael said, and went out. He was overdue at the office, but annoyance was the stronger motivation. He played sleuth for a while, keeping an eye on Talley’s shop, and the results were thor-

oughly satisfactory�"to a certain extent. He learned everything but why. Late in the afternoon, he sought out Mr. Talley again.

�śWait a minute,” he said, at sight of the proprietor’s discouraging face. �śFor all you know, I may be a customer.”

Talley laughed.

�śWell, why not?” Carmichael compressed his lips. �śHow do you know the size of my bank account? Or maybe you’ve got a restricted clien­tele?”

�śNo. But�"”

Carmichael said quickly, �śI’ve been doing some investigating. I’ve been noticing your customers. In fact, following them. And finding out what they buy from you.”

Talley’s face changed. �śIndeed?”

�śIndeed. They’re all in a hurry to unwrap their little bundles. So that gave me my chance to find out. I missed a few, but�"I saw enough to apply a couple of rules of logic, Mr. Talley. item: your customers don’t know what they’re buying from you. It’s a sort of grab bag. A couple of times they were plenty surprised. The man who opened his parcel and found an old newspaper clipping. What about the sunglasses? And the revolver? Probably illegal, by the way�"no license. And the diamond

�"it must have been paste, it was so big.”

�śM-mmm,” Mr. Talley said.

�śI’m no smart apple, but I can smell a screwy setup. Most of your clients are big shots, in one way or another. And why didn’t any of �Śem pay you, like the first man�"the guy who came in when I was here this morning?”

�śIt’s chiefly a credit business,” Talley said. �śI’ve my ethics. I have to, for my own conscience. It’s responsibility. You see, I sell�"my goods�" with a guarantee. Payment is made only if the product proves satis­factory.”

�śSo. An egg. Sunglasses. A pair of asbestos gloves�"I think they were. A newspaper clipping. A gun. And a diamond. How do you take in­ventory?”

Talley said nothing.

Carmichael grinned. �śYou’ve an errand boy. You send him out and he comes back with bundles. Maybe he goes to a grocery on Madison and buys an egg. Or a pawnshop on Sixth for a revolver. Or�"well, any­how, I told you I’d find out what your business is.”

�śAnd have you?” Talley asked.

�śWe have what you need,” Carmichael said. �śBut how do you know?”

�śYou’re jumping to conclusions.”

�śI’ve got a headache�"I didn’t have sunglasses!�"and I don’t believe in magic. Listen, Mr. Talley, I’m fed up to the eyebrows and way be­yond on queer little shops that sell peculiar things. I know too much about �Śem�"I’ve written about �Śem. A guy walks along the street and sees a funny sort of store and the proprietor won’t serve him�"he sells only to pixies�"or else he does sell him a magic charm with a double edge. Well�"pfui!”

�śMph,” Talley said.

�śMph’ as much as you like. But you can’t get away from logic. Either you’ve got a sound, sensible racket here, or else it’s one of those funny, magic-shop setups�"and I don’t believe that. For it isn’t logical.”

�śWhy not?”

�śBecause of economics,” Carmichael said flatly. �śGrant the idea that you’ve got certain mysterious powers�"let’s say you can make telepathic gadgets. All right. Why the devil would you start a business so you could sell the gadgets so you could make money so you could live? You’d simply put on one of your gadgets, read a stockbroker’s mind and buy the right stocks. That’s the intrinsic fallacy in these crazy-shop things�" if you’ve got enough stuff on the ball to be able to stock and run such a shop, you wouldn’t need a business in the first place. Why go round Robin Hood’s barn?”

Talley said nothing.

Carmichael smiled crookedly. �ś�ŚI often wonder what the vintners buy one half so precious as the stuff they sell,” he quoted. �ŚWell�"what do you buy? I know what you sell�"eggs and sunglasses.”

�śYou’re an inquisitive man, Mr. Carmichael,” Talley murmured. �śHas it ever occurred to you that this is none of your business?”

�śI may be a customer,” Carmichael repeated. �śHow about that?”

Talley’s cool blue eyes were intent. A new light dawned in them; Talley pursed his lips and scowled. �śI hadn’t thought of that,” he ad­mitted. �śYou might be. Under the circumstances. Will you excuse me for a moment?”

�śSure,” Carmichael said. Talley went through the curtains.

Outside, traffic drifted idly along Park. As the sun slid down beyond the Hudson, the street lay in a blue shadow that crept imperceptibly up the barricades of the buildings. Carmichael stared at the sign�"wa HAvE WHAT YOU NEED�"and smiled.

In a back room, Talley put his eye to a binocular plate and moved a calibrated dial. He did this several times. Then, biting his lip�"for he was a gentle man�"he called his errand boy and gave him directions. After that he returned to Carmichael.

�śYou’re a customer,” he said. �śUnder certain conditions.”

�śThe condition of my bank account, you mean?”

�śNo,” Talley said. �śI’ll give you reduced rates. Understand one thing.

I really do have what you need. You don’t know what you need, but

I know. And as it happens�"well, I’ll sell you what you need for, let’s

say, five dollars.”

Carmichael reached for his wallet. Talley held up a hand.

�śPay me after you’re satisfied. And the money’s the nominal part of the fee. There’s another part. If you’re satisfied, I want you to promise that you’ll never come near this shop again and never mention it to anyone.”

�śI see,” Carmichael said slowly. His theories had changed slightly. �śIt won’t be long before�"ah, here he is now.” A buzzing from the back indicated the return of the errand boy. Talley said, �śExcuse me,” and vanished. Soon he returned with a neatly wrapped parcel, which he thrust into Carmichael’s hands.

�śKeep this on your person,” Talley said. �śGood afternoon.”

Carmichael nodded, pocketed the parcel and went out. Feeling afflu­ent, he hailed a taxi and went to a cocktail bar he knew. There, in the dim light of a booth, he unwrapped the bundle.

Protection money, he decided. Talley was paying him off to keep his mouth shut about the racket, whatever it was. O.K., live and let live. How much would be�" Ten thousand? Fifty thousand? How big was the racket? He opened an oblong cardboard box. Within, nestling upon tissue paper, was a pair of shears, the blades protected by a sheath of folded, glued cardboard.

Carmichael said something softly. He drank his highball and ordered another, but left it untasted. Glancing at his wrist watch, he decided that the Park Avenue shop would be closed by now and Mr. Peter Talley gone.

�ś. . . one half so precious as the stuff they sell.” Carmichael said. �śMaybe it’s the scissors of Atropos. Blah.” He unsheathed the blades and snipped experimentally at the air. Nothing happened. Slightly crimson around the cheekbones, Carmichael reholstered the shears and dropped them into the side pocket of his topcoat. Quite a gag!

He decided to call on Peter Talley tomorrow.

Meanwhile, what? He remembered he had a dinner date with one of the girls at the office, and hastily paid his bill and left. The streets were darkening, and a cold wind blew southward from the Park Car­michael wound his scarf tighter around his throat and made gestures toward passing taxis.

He was considerably annoyed.

Half an hour later a thin man with sad eyes�"Jerry Worth, one of the copy writers from his office�"greeted him at the bar where Car­michael was killing time. �śWaiting for Betsy?” Worth said, nodding to­ward the restaurant annex. �śShe sent me to tell you she couldn’t make it. A rush deadline. Apologies and stuff. Where were you today? Things got gummed up a bit. Have a drink with me.”

They worked on a rye. Carmichael was already slightly stiff. The dull crimson around his cheekbones had deepened, and his frown had be­come set. �śWhat you need,” he remarked. �śDouble crossing little�"”

�śHuh?” Worth said.

�śNothing. Drink up. I’ve just decided to get a guy in trouble. If I can.”

�śYou almost got in trouble yourself today. That trend analysis ~of ores�"”

�śEggs. Sunglasses!”

�śI got you out of a jam�"”

�śShut up,” Carmichael said, and ordered another round. Every time he felt the weight of the shears in his pocket he found his lips moving.

Five shots later Worth said plaintively, �śI don’t mind doing good deeds, but I do like to mention them. And you won’t let me. All I want is a little gratitude.”

�śAll right, mention them,” Carmichael said. �śBrag your head off. �ŚWho cares?”

Worth showed satisfaction. �śThat ore analysis�"it was that. You weren’t at the office today, but I caught it. I checked with our records and you had Trans-Steel all wrong. If I hadn’t altered the figures, it would have gone down to the printer�"”

�ŚWhat?”

�śThe Trans-Steel. They�"”

�śOh, you fool,” Carmichael groaned. �śI know it didn’t check with the office figures. I meant to put in a notice to have them changed. I got my dope from the source. Why don’t you mind your own busi­ness?”

Worth blinked. �śI was trying to help.”

�śIt would have been good for a five-buck raise,” Carmichael said. �śAf­ter all the research I did to uncover the real dope�" Listen, has the stuff gone to bed yet?”

�śI dunno. Maybe not. Croft was still checking the copy�"”

�śO.K.!” Carmichael said. �śNext time�"” He jerked at his scarf, jumped off the stool and headed for the door, trailed by the protesting Worth. Ten minutes later he was at the office, listening to Croft’s bland ex­planation that the copy had already been dispatched to the printer.

�śDoes it matter? Was there�" Incidentally, where were you today?”

�śDancing on the rainbow,” Carmichael snapped, and departed. He had switched over from rye to whisky sours, and the cold night air naturally did not sober him. Swaying slightly, watching the sidewalk move a little as he blinked at it, he stood on the curb and pondered.

�śI’m sorry, Tim,” Worth said. �śIt’s too late now, though. There won’t be any trouble. You’ve got a right to go by our office records.”

�śStop me now,” Carmichael said. �śLousy little�"” He was angry and drunk On impulse he got another taxi and sped to the printer’s, still trailing a somewhat confused Jerry Worth.

There was rhythmic thunder in the building. The swift movement of the taxi had given Carmichael a slight nausea; his head ached, and alcohol was in solution in his blood. The hot, inky air was unpleasant. The great Linotypes thumped and growled. Men were moving about. It was all slightly nightmarish, and Carmichael doggedly hunched his shoulders and lurched on until something jerked him back and began to strangle him.

Worth started yelling. His face showed drunken terror. He made in­effectual gestures.

But this was all part of the nightmare. Carmichael saw what had hap­pened. The ends of his scarf had caught in the moving gears somewhere and he was being drawn inexorably into meshing metal cogs. Men were running. The clanking, thumping, rolling sounds were deafening. He pulled at the scarf.

Worth screamed, �ś. . . knife! Cut it!”

The warping of relative values that intoxication gives saved Car­michael. Sober, he would have been helpless with panic. As it was, each thought was hard to capture, but clear and lucid when he finally got it. He remembered the shears, and he put his hand in his pocket. The blades slipped out of their cardboard sheath, and he snipped through the scarf with fumbling, hasty movements.

The white silk disappeared. Carmichael fingered the ragged edge at his throat and smiled stiffly.



Mr. Peter Talley had been hoping that Carmichael would not come back. The probability lines had shown two possible variants; in one, all was well; in the other. .

Carmichael walked into the shop the next morning and held out a five-dollar bill. Talley took it.

�śThank you. But you could have mailed me a check”

�śI could have. Only that wouldn’t have told me what I wanted to know.”

�śNo,” Talley said, and sighed. �śYou’ve decided, haven’t you?”

�śDo you blame me?” Carmichael asked. �śLast night�"do you know what happened?”

�śYes.”

�śHow?”

�śI might as well tell you,” Talley said. �śYou’d find out anyway. That’s certain, anyhow.”

Carmichael sat down, lit a cigarette and nodded. �śLogic. You couldn’t have arranged that little accident, by any manner of means. Betsy Hoag decided to break our date early yesterday morning. Before I saw you. That was the beginning of the chain of incidents that led up to the accident. Ergo, you must have known what was going to happen.”

�śI did know.”

�śPrescience?”

�śMechanical. I saw that you would be crushed in the machine�"”

�śWhich implies an alterable future.”

�śCertainly,” Talley said, his shoulders slumping. �śThere are innumer­able possible variants to the future. Different lines of probability. All depending on the outcome of various crises as they arise. I happen to be skilled in certain branches of electronics. Some years ago, almost by accident, I stumbled on the principle of seeing the future.”

�śHow?”

�śChiefly it involves a personal focus on the individual. The moment you enter this place”�"he gestured�"”you’re in the beam of my scanner. In my back room I have the machine itself. By turning a calibrated dial, I check the possible futures. Sometimes there are many. Sometimes only a few. As though at times certain stations weren’t broadcasting. I look into my scanner and see what you need�"and supply it.”

Carmichael let smoke drift from his nostrils. He watched the blue coils through narrowed eyes.

�śYou follow a man’s whole life�"in triplicate or quadruplicate or what­ever?”

�śNo,” Talley said. �śI’ve got my device focused so it’s sensitive to crisis curves. When those occur, I follow them farther and see what prob­ability paths involve the man’s safe and happy survival.”

�śThe sunglasses, the egg and the gloves�"”

Talley said, �śMr.�"uh�"Smith is one of my regular clients. Whenever he passes a crisis successfully, with my aid, he comes back for another checkup. I locate his next crisis and supply him with what he needs to meet it. I gave him the asbestos gloves. In about a month, a situation will arise where he must�"under the circumstances�"move a red-hot bar of metal. He’s an artist. His hands�"”

�śI see. So it isn’t always saving a man’s life.”

�śOf course not,” Talley said. �śLife isn’t the only vital factor. An ap­parently minor crisis may lead to�"well, a divorce, a neurosis, a wrong decision and the loss of hundreds of lives indirectly. I insure life, health and happiness.”

�śYou’re an altruist. Only why doesn’t the world storm your doors? Why limit your trade to a few?”

�śI haven’t got the time or the equipment.”

�śMore machines could be built.”

�ŚWell,” Talley said, �śmost of my customers are wealthy. I must live.”

�śYOU could read tomorrow’s stock-market reports if you wanted dough,” Cannichael said. �śWe get back to that old question. If a guy has miraculous powers, why is he satisfied to run a hole-in-the-wall store?”

�śEconomic reasons. I�"ah�"I’m averse to gambling.”

�śIt wouldn’t be gambling,” Carmichael pointed out. �śI often wonder what the vintners buy. . .�Ś Just what do you get out of this?”

�śSatisfaction,” Talley said. �śCall it that.”

But Carmichael wasn’t satisfied. His mind veered from the question and turned to the possibilities. Insurance, eh? Life, health and happi­ness.

�śWhat about me? Won’t there be another crisis in my life sometime?” �śProbably. Not necessarily one involving personal danger.”

�śThen I’m a permanent customer.” I�"don t�" �śListen,” Carmichael said, �śI’m not trying to shake you down. I’ll pay.

I’ll pay plenty. I’m not rich, but I know exactly what a service like this would be worth to me. No worries�"”

�śIt couldn’t be�"”

�śOh, come off it. I’m not a blackmailer or anything. I’m not threaten­ing you with publicity, if that’s what you’re afraid of. I’m an ordinary guy, not a melodramatic villain. Do I look dangerous? What are you afraid of?”

�śYou’re an ordinary guy, yes,” Talley admitted. �śOnly�"”

�śWhy not?” Carmichael argued. �śI won’t bother you. I passed one crisis successfully, with your help. There’ll be another one due some­time. Give me what I need for that. Charge me anything you like. I’ll get the dough somehow. Borrow it, if necessary. I won’t disturb you at all. All I ask is that you let me come in whenever I’ve passed a crisis, and get ammunition for the next one. What’s wrong with that?”

�śNothing,” Talley said soberly.

�śWell, then. I’m an ordinary guy. There’s a girl�"it’s Betsy Hoag. I

want to marry her. Settle down somewhere in the country, raise kids and have security. There’s nothing wrong with that either, is there?”

Talley said, �śIt was too late the moment you entered this shop today.”

Carmichael looked up. �śWhy?” he asked sharply.

A buzzer rang in the back. Talley went through the curtains and came back almost immediately with a wrapped parcel. He gave it to Carmichael.

Carmichael smiled. �śThanks,” he said. �śThanks a lot. Do you have any idea when my next crisis will come?”

�śIn a week.”

�śMind if I�"” Carmichael was unwrapping the package. He took out a pair of plastic-soled shoes and looked at Talley, bewildered.

�śLike that, eh? I’ll need�"shoes?”

�śYes.”

�śI suppose�"” Carmichael hesitated. �śI guess you wouldn’t tell me why?”

�śNo, I won’t do that. But be sure to wear them whenever you go out.”

�śDon’t worry about that. And�"I’ll mail you a check. It may take me a few days to scrape up the dough, but I’ll do it. How much?”

�śFive hundred dollars.”

�śI’ll mail a check today.”

�śI prefer not to accept a fee until the client has been satisfied,” Talley said. He had grown more reserved, his blue eyes cool and withdrawn.

�śSuit yourself,” Carmichael said. �śI’m going out and celebrate. You�" don’t drink?”

�śI can’t leave the shop.”

�ŚWell, goodbye. And thanks again. I won’t be any trouble to you, you know. I promise that!” He turned away.

Looking after him, Talley smiled a wry, unhappy smile. He did not answer Carmichael’s goodbye. Not then.

When the door had closed behind him, Talley turned to the back of his shop and went through the door where the scanner was.



The lapse of ten years can cover a multitude of changes. A man with the possibility of tremendous power almost within his grasp can alter, in that time, from a man who will not reach for it to a man who will�" and moral values be damned.

The change did not come quickly to Carmichael. It speaks well for his integrity that it took ten years to work such an alteration in all he had been taught. On the day he first went into Talley’s shop there was little evil in him. But the temptation grew stronger week by week,

visit by visit. Talley, for reasons of his own, was content to sit idly by, waiting for customers, smothering the inconceivable potentialities of his machine under a blanket of trivial functions. But Carmichael was not content.

It took him ten years to reach the day, but the day came at last.

Talley sat in the inner room, his back to the door. He was slumped low in an ancient rocker, facing the machine. It had changed little in the space of a decade. It still covered most of two walls, and the eyepiece of its scanner glittered under amber fluorescents.

Carmichael looked covetously at the eyepiece. It was window and doorway to a power beyond any man’s dreams. Wealth beyond imagin­ing lay just within that tiny opening. The rights over the life and death of every man alive. And nothing between that fabulous future and him­self except the man who sat looking at the machine.

Talley did not seem to hear the careful footsteps or the creak of the door behind him. He did not stir as Carmichael lifted the gun slowly. One might think that he never guessed what was coming, or why, or from whom, as Carmichael shot him through the head.



Talley sighed and shivered a little, and twisted the scanner dial. It was not the first time that the eyepiece had shown him his own lifeless body, glimpsed down some vista of probability, but he never saw the slumping of that familiar figure without feeling a breath of indescriba­ble coolness blow backwards upon him out of the future.

He straightened from the eyepiece and sat back in his chair, looking thoughtfully at a pair of rough-soled shoes lying beside him on a table. He sat quietly for a while, his eyes upon the shoes, his mind following Carmichael down the street and into the evening, and the morrow, and on toward that coming crisis which would depend on his secure foot­ing on a subway platform as a train thundered by the place where Car­michael would be standing one day next week.

Talley had sent his messenger boy out this time for two pairs of shoes. He had hesitated long, an hour ago, between the rough-soled pair and the smooth. For Talley was a humane man, and there were many times when his job was distasteful to him. But in the end, this time, it had been the smooth-soled pair he had wrapped for Carmichael.

Now he sighed and bent to the scanner again, twisting the dial to bring into view a scene he had watched before.

Carmichael, standing on a crowded subway platform, glittering with oily wetness from some overflow. Carmichael, in the slick-soled shoes Talley had chosen for him. A commotion in the crowd, a surge toward

the platform edge. Carmichael’s feet slipping frantically as the train roared by.

�śGoodbye, Mr. Carmichael,” Talley murmured. It was the farewell he had not spoken when Carmichael left the shop. He spoke it regret­fully, and the regret was for the Carmichael of today, who did not yet deserve that end. He was not now a melodramatic villain whose death one could watch unmoved. But the Tim Carmichael of today had atone­ment to make for the Carmichael of ten years ahead, and the payment must be exacted.



It is not a good thing to have the power of life and death over one’s fellow humans. Peter Talley knew it was not a good thing�"but the power had been put into his hands. He had not sought it. It seemed to him that the machine had grown almost by accident to its tremendous completion under his trained fingers and trained mind.

At first it had puzzled him. How ought such a device to be used? What dangers, what terrible potentialities, lay in that Eye that could see through the veil of tomorrow? His was the responsibility, and it had weighed heavily upon him until the answer came. And after he knew the answer�"well, the weight was heavier still. For Talley was a mild man.

He could not have told anyone the real reason why he was a shop­keeper. Satisfaction, he had said to Carmichael. And sometiI~ies, indeed, there was deep satisfaction. But at other times�"at times like this�"there was only dismay and humility. Especially humility.

We have what you need. Only Talley knew that message was not for the individuals who came to his shop. The pronoun was plural, not singular. It was a message for the world�"the world whose future was being carefully, lovingly reshaped under Peter Talley’s guidance.

The main line of the future was not easy to alter. The future is a pyramid shaping slowly, brick by brick, and brick by brick Talley had to change it. There were some men who were necessary�"men who would create and build�"men who should be saved.

Talley gave them what they needed.

But inevitably there were others whose ends were evil. Talley gave them, too, what the world needed�"death.

Peter Talley had not asked for this terrible power. But the key had been put in his hands, and he dared not delegate such authority as this to any other man alive. Sometimes he made mistakes.

He had felt a little surer since the simile of the key had occurred to him. The key to the future. A key that had been laid in his hands.

Remembering that, he leaned back in his chair and reached for an

old and well-worn book. It fell open easily at a familiar passage. Peter Talley’s lips moved as he read the passage once again, in his room be­hind the shop on Park Avenue.

�śAnd I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter. . . . And I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. .







Wyszukiwarka

Podobne podstrony:
Henry Kuttner Exit the Professor UC
What You Need To Know When Pursuing Wealth
INXS What you need
Stephen King I Know What You Need
Henry Kuttner The Misguided Halo UC
Henry Kuttner The Twonky UC
Henry Kuttner Nothing But Gingerbread Left UC
Henry Kuttner Or Else UC
Henry Kuttner Absalom UC
Henry Kuttner Housing Problem UC
Henry Kuttner Endowment Policy UC
Umilta, M A & Other I Know What You Are Doing
Iodine why you need it
In Nomine Be Careless What You Wish For
Limp Bizkit Show Me What You Got
Fragma Every Time You Need Me

więcej podobnych podstron