HAPPY ENDING
By HENRY KUTTNER
Out of the Future emerge the Robot and
Tharn—while James Kelvin fights them
blindly, knowing not friend from foe!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1948.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The android uttered a protesting cry as Kelvin sent awave of mental energy at him
This is the way the story ended:
James Kelvin concentrated very hard on the thought of the chemist withthe red mustache who had promised him a million dollars. It was simply amatter of tuning in on the man’s brain, establishing a rapport. He haddone it before. Now it was more important than ever that he do it thisone last time. He pressed the button on the gadget the robot had givenhim, and thought hard.
Far off, across limitless distances, he found the rapport.
He clamped on the mental tight beam.
He rode it....
The red-mustached man looked up, gaped, and grinned delightedly.
“So there you are!” he said. “I didn’t hear you come in. Good grief,I’ve been trying to find you for two weeks.”
“Tell me one thing quick,” Kelvin said. “What’s your name?”
“George Bailey. Incidentally, what’s yours?”
But Kelvin didn’t answer. He had suddenly remembered the other thing therobot had told him about that gadget which established rapport when hepressed the button. He pressed it now—and nothing happened. The gadgethad gone dead. Its task was finished, which obviously meant he had atlast achieved health, fame and fortune. The robot had warned him, ofcourse. The thing was set to do one specialized job. Once he got what hewanted, it would work no more.
So Kelvin got the million dollars.
And he lived happily ever after....
This is the middle of the story:
As he pushed aside the canvas curtain something—a carelessly hungrope—swung down at his face, knocking the horn-rimmed glasses askew.Simultaneously a vivid bluish light blazed into his unprotected eyes. Hefelt a curious, sharp sense of disorientation, a shifting motion thatwas almost instantly gone.
Things steadied before him. He let the curtain fall back into place,making legible again the painted inscription: horoscopes—learnyour future—and he stood staring at the remarkable horomancer.
It was a—oh, impossible!
The robot said in a flat, precise voice, “You are James Kelvin. You area reporter. You are thirty years old, unmarried, and you came to LosAngeles from Chicago today on the advice of your physician. Is thatcorrect?”
In his astonishment Kelvin called on the Deity. Then he settled hisglasses more firmly and tried to remember an exposé of charlatans he hadonce written. There was some obvious way they worked things like this,miraculous as it sounded.
The robot looked at him impassively out of its faceted eye.
“On reading your mind,” it continued in the pedantic voice, “I find thisis the year Nineteen Forty-nine. My plans will have to be revised. I hadmeant to arrive in the year Nineteen Seventy. I will ask you to assistme.”
Kelvin put his hands in his pockets and grinned.
“With money, naturally,” he said. “You had me going for a minute. How doyou do it, anyhow? Mirrors? Or like Maelzel’s chess player?”
“I am not a machine