Read Online Mindswap by Robert Sheckley - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Robert Sheckley
Tags: SF
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stopped, clearly fearing a trick.
'You – you really mean this?' he said.
'I do,' Marvin said. 'I was never cut out for this kind of work. I don't know what they will do to me back at the camp, but I shall never gather a single ganzer egg!'
'Praised be the name of the Lord,' the ganzer egg said softly. 'I've seen a few strange things in my time, but it seems to me that the Hand of Providence-'
The hypothesis of the ganzer egg (known as the Interventionalist Fallacy) was interrupted by a sudden ominous crashing in the underbrush. Marvin whirled, and remembered the dangers of the planet Melde. He had been warned, but had forgotten. And now, desperately, he fumbled for his blaster, which had become entangled in his net. Violently he wrenched at it, pulled it free, heard a shrill warning from the ganzer egg-
And then he was flung violently to the ground. The blaster spun away into the underbrush. And Marvin gazed up into slit black eyes beneath a low armoured forehead.
No introductions were necessary. Flynn knew that he had met a full-grown adult marauding ganzer, and had met him under possibly the worst of all circumstances. The evidence (if evidence were needed) was all too evident; close to hand was the damning net, the telltale sunglasses, the revealing tongs. And closer still – closing on his neck – was the tooth-edged jaw of the gigantic saurian, so close that Marvin could see three gold molars and a temporary porcelain filling.
Flynn tried to wriggle free. The ganzer pressed him back with a paw the size of a yak saddle; his cruel claws, each the size of a pair of ice tongs, bit cruelly into Marvin's golden hide. The slavering jaws gaped hideously, descended, about to engulf his entire head …
Chapter 11
Suddenly – time stopped! Marvin saw the ganzer's jaws arrested in midslaver, his bloodshot left eye fixed in midblink, and his entire great body gripped in a strange and unyielding rigidity.
Nearby, the ganzer egg was as motionless as a carven replica of itself.
The breeze was stopped in midcareer. Trees were caught in straining postures, and a meritheian hawk was fixated in midflight like a dummy attached to a wire.
The sun stopped its inexorable rolling flight!
And in this strange tableau, Marvin stared with tremulous sensations in the direction of a single movement in the air three feet above his head and slightly to his left.
It began as a whorl of dust, broadened, expanded, expatiated, thickening at the base and becoming convex at the apex. The rotation came faster, and the figure solidified.
'Detective Urdorf!' Marvin cried. For it was indeed the Martian detective with the streak of bad luck who had promised to solve Marvin's case and to return to him his rightful body.
'Terribly sorry to barge in like this,' Urdorf said, materializing fully and falling heavily to the ground.
'Thank God you have come!' Marvin said. 'You have saved me from an extremely unpleasant fate, and now if you will help me out from under this creature-'
For Marvin was still pinned to the ground by the ganzer's paw, which had taken on the rigidity of tempered steel, and from beneath which he was unable to wriggle.
'Sorry,' the detective said, getting up and dusting himself off. 'I'm afraid I can't do that.'
'Why not?'
'Because it's against the rules,' Detective Urdorf told him. 'You see, any displacement of bodies during an artificial induced temporal stoppage (which is what this is) could result in a Paradox, which is forbidden since it might result in a temporal implosion which might conceivably have the result of warping the structure-lines of our continuum and thus destroy the universe. Because of this, any displacement is punishable by a prison sentence of one year and a fine of one thousand credits.'
'Oh. I didn't know that,' Marvin said.
'Well, I'm afraid that's how it is,' the detective said.
'I see,' Marvin said.
'I rather hoped you would,' the detective said.
There was a long and uncomfortable silence.
'You – you really mean this?' he said.
'I do,' Marvin said. 'I was never cut out for this kind of work. I don't know what they will do to me back at the camp, but I shall never gather a single ganzer egg!'
'Praised be the name of the Lord,' the ganzer egg said softly. 'I've seen a few strange things in my time, but it seems to me that the Hand of Providence-'
The hypothesis of the ganzer egg (known as the Interventionalist Fallacy) was interrupted by a sudden ominous crashing in the underbrush. Marvin whirled, and remembered the dangers of the planet Melde. He had been warned, but had forgotten. And now, desperately, he fumbled for his blaster, which had become entangled in his net. Violently he wrenched at it, pulled it free, heard a shrill warning from the ganzer egg-
And then he was flung violently to the ground. The blaster spun away into the underbrush. And Marvin gazed up into slit black eyes beneath a low armoured forehead.
No introductions were necessary. Flynn knew that he had met a full-grown adult marauding ganzer, and had met him under possibly the worst of all circumstances. The evidence (if evidence were needed) was all too evident; close to hand was the damning net, the telltale sunglasses, the revealing tongs. And closer still – closing on his neck – was the tooth-edged jaw of the gigantic saurian, so close that Marvin could see three gold molars and a temporary porcelain filling.
Flynn tried to wriggle free. The ganzer pressed him back with a paw the size of a yak saddle; his cruel claws, each the size of a pair of ice tongs, bit cruelly into Marvin's golden hide. The slavering jaws gaped hideously, descended, about to engulf his entire head …
Chapter 11
Suddenly – time stopped! Marvin saw the ganzer's jaws arrested in midslaver, his bloodshot left eye fixed in midblink, and his entire great body gripped in a strange and unyielding rigidity.
Nearby, the ganzer egg was as motionless as a carven replica of itself.
The breeze was stopped in midcareer. Trees were caught in straining postures, and a meritheian hawk was fixated in midflight like a dummy attached to a wire.
The sun stopped its inexorable rolling flight!
And in this strange tableau, Marvin stared with tremulous sensations in the direction of a single movement in the air three feet above his head and slightly to his left.
It began as a whorl of dust, broadened, expanded, expatiated, thickening at the base and becoming convex at the apex. The rotation came faster, and the figure solidified.
'Detective Urdorf!' Marvin cried. For it was indeed the Martian detective with the streak of bad luck who had promised to solve Marvin's case and to return to him his rightful body.
'Terribly sorry to barge in like this,' Urdorf said, materializing fully and falling heavily to the ground.
'Thank God you have come!' Marvin said. 'You have saved me from an extremely unpleasant fate, and now if you will help me out from under this creature-'
For Marvin was still pinned to the ground by the ganzer's paw, which had taken on the rigidity of tempered steel, and from beneath which he was unable to wriggle.
'Sorry,' the detective said, getting up and dusting himself off. 'I'm afraid I can't do that.'
'Why not?'
'Because it's against the rules,' Detective Urdorf told him. 'You see, any displacement of bodies during an artificial induced temporal stoppage (which is what this is) could result in a Paradox, which is forbidden since it might result in a temporal implosion which might conceivably have the result of warping the structure-lines of our continuum and thus destroy the universe. Because of this, any displacement is punishable by a prison sentence of one year and a fine of one thousand credits.'
'Oh. I didn't know that,' Marvin said.
'Well, I'm afraid that's how it is,' the detective said.
'I see,' Marvin said.
'I rather hoped you would,' the detective said.
There was a long and uncomfortable silence.
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