"Lewis Padgett - When the Bough Breaks 1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Padgett Lewis)

WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS
by Lewis Padgett (Henry Kuttner and Catherine Lucille Moore)

File name: Lewis Padgett - When the Bough Breaks 1.0.rtf
Scanned from "Line to Tomorrow" (Bantam Books, August 1954) by drOrlof
First published in "Astounding Science Fiction", November 1944 (ed. John W. Campbell, Jr)


THEY WERE SURPRISED at getting the apartment, what with high rents and written-in clauses in the lease, and Joe Calderon felt himself lucky to be only ten minutes subway ride from the University. His wife, Myra, fluffed up her red hair in a distracted fashion and said that landlords presumably expected parthenogenesis in their tenants, if that was what she meant. Anyhow, it was where an organism split in two and the result was two mature specimens. Calderon grinned, said, "Binary fission, chump," and watched young Alexander, aged eighteen months, backing up on all fours across the carpet, preparatory to assuming a standing position on his fat bowlegs.
It was a pleasant apartment, at that. The sun came into it at times, and there were more rooms than they had any right to expect, for the price. The next-door neighbor, a billowy blonde who talked of little except her migraine, said that it was hard to keep tenants in 4-D. It wasn't exactly haunted, but it had the queerest visitors. The last lessee, an insurance man who drank heavily, moved out one day talking about little men who came ringing the bell at all hours asking for a Mr. Pott, or somebody like that. Not until some time later did Joe identify Pott with Cauldron-or Calderon.
They were sitting on the couch in a pleased manner, looking at Alexander. He was quite a baby. Like all infants, he had a collar of fat at the back of his neck, and his legs, Calderon said, were like two vast and trunkless limbs of stone-at least they gave that effect. The eyes stopped at their incredible bulging pinkness, fascinated. Alexander laughed like a fool, rose to his feet, and staggered drunkenly toward his parents, muttering unintelligible gibberish. "Madman," Myra said fondly, and tossed the child a floppy velvet pig of whom he was enamored.
"So we're all set for the winter," Calderon said. He was a tall, thin, harassed-looking man, a fine research physicist, and very much interested in his work at the University. Myra was a rather fragile red-head, with a tilted nose and sardonic red-brown eyes. She made deprecatory noises.
"If we can get a maid. Otherwise I'll char."
"You sound like a lost soul," Calderon said. "What do you mean, you'll char?"
"Like a charwoman. Sweep, cook, clean. Babies are a great trial. Still, they're worth it."
"Not in front of Alexander. He'll get above himself."
The doorbell rang. Calderon uncoiled himself, wandered vaguely across the room, and opened the door. He blinked at nothing. Then he lowered his gaze somewhat, and what he saw was sufficient to make him stare a little.
Four tiny men were standing in the hall. That is, they were tiny below the brows. Their craniums were immense, watermelon large and watermelon shaped, or else they were wearing abnormally huge helmets of glistening metal. Their faces were wizened, peaked tiny masks that were nests of lines and wrinkles. Their clothes were garish, unpleasantly colored, and seemed to be made of paper.
"Oh?" Calderon said blankly.
Swift looks were exchanged among the four. One of them said, "Are you Joseph Calderon?"
"Yeah."
"We," said the most wrinkled of the quartet, "are your son's descendents. He's a super child. We're here to educate him."
"Yes," Calderon said. "Yes, of course. I... listen!"
"To what?"
"Super-"
"There he is," another dwarf cried. "It's Alexander! We've hit the right time at last!" He scuttled past Calderon's legs and into the room. Calderon made a few futile snatches, but the small men easily evaded him. When he turned, they were gathered around Alexander. Myra had drawn up her legs under her and was watching with an amazed expression.
"Look at that," a dwarf said. "See his potential tefeet-zie?" It sounded like tefeetzie.
"But his skull, Bordent," another put in. "That's the important part. The vyrings are almost perfectly coblast-ably."
"Beautiful," Bordent acknowledged. He leaned forward. Alexander reached forward into the nest of wrinkles, seized Bordent's nose, and twisted painfully. Bordent bore it stoically until the grip relaxed.
"Undeveloped," he said tolerantly. "We'll develop him."
Myra sprang from the couch, picked up her child, and stood at bay, facing the little men. "Joe," she said, "are you going to stand for this? Who are these bad-mannered goblins?"
"Lord knows," Calderon said. He moistened his lips. "What kind of a gag is that? Who sent you?"
"Alexander," Bordent said. "From the year... ah... about 2450, reckoning roughly. He's practically immortal. Only violence can kill one of the Supers, and there's none of that in 2450."
Calderon sighed. "No, I mean it. A gag's a gag. But-"
"Time and again we've tried. In 1940, 1944, 1947-all around this era. We were either too early or too late. But now we've hit on the right time-sector. It's our job to educate Alexander. You should feel proud of being his parents. We worship you, you know. Father and mother of the new race."
"Tuh!" Calderon said. "Come off it!"
"They need proof, Dobish," someone said. "Remember, this is their first inkling that Alexander is homo superior."
"Homo nuts," Myra said. "Alexander's a perfectly normal baby."
"He's perfectly supernormal," Dobish said. "We're his descendents."
"That makes you a superman," Calderon said skeptically, eyeing the small man.
"Not in toto. There aren't many of the X Free type. The biological norm is specialization. Only a few are straight-line super. Some specialize in logic, others in vervainity, others-like us-are guides. If we were X Free supers, you couldn't stand there and talk to us. Or look at us. We're only parts. Those like Alexander are the glorious whole."
"Oh, send them away," Myra said, getting tired of it. "I feel like a Thurber woman."
Calderon nodded. "O.K. Blow, gentlemen. Take a powder. I mean it."
"Yes," Dobish said, "they need proof. What'll we do? Skyskinate?"
"Too twisty," Bordent objected. "Object lesson, eh? The stiller."
"Stiller?" Myra asked.
Bordent took an object from his paper clothes and spun it in his hands. His fingers were all double-jointed. Calderon felt a tiny electric shock go through him.
"Joe," Myra said, white-faced. "I can't move."
"Neither can I. Take it easy. This is... it's-" He slowed and stopped.
"Sit down," Bordent said, still twirling the object. Calderon and Myra backed up to the couch and sat down. Their tongues froze with the rest of them.