COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works, page 287
Adaptable machines. Machines that can adapt to other organisms. Human organisms. With a difference.
Hibernation for Jack—yes. But for Melton and Michaela and Phil—It wouldn't work out in quite the same manner. For they were not of Jack's breed or race.
"We're never going to move," Melton said softly, and saw that it was 1:03.
Within the walls the machine stirred, recharging itself. Moonlight came through the windows, distorted by some quality in the clear panes. The three figures sat motionless, not even waiting now, in the house that Jack built.
The End
WE KILL PEOPLE
Astounding Science Fiction - March 1946
with Henry Kuttner
(as by Lewis Padgett)
It was quite a business, too ... and it wasn't anything you could prove murder. Murder, after all, is strictly a human affair: this was, on the contrary, an inhuman sort of business!
-
Glowing in polychromatic light, the neat, cryptic sign atop the building said sedately:
WE KILL PEOPLE
In the foyer, the directory told Carmody that the main office was on the second floor. There was nothing else listed on the glass-fronted board. Of the bank of elevators, only one was running, and that one operated by a uniformed moron with sleepy eyes and jaws that monotonously masticated gum. Carmody stepped into the car.
"Second," he said.
The operator didn't answer. The door closed, the floor pressed upward and then decelerated, and the moron slid the door open, to shut it quietly as Carmody stepped out on the deep carpet of a big, well-furnished reception room. One wall was lined with doors, numbered consecutively one to ten. The wall opposite the elevator was blank except for a few framed pictures and a six-by-six screen that showed a blond young man seated at a desk.
"Good morning," the young man said, looking into his telescreen and meeting Carmody's eyes. "May I help you?"
"Yeah. Who do I see about—"
"Oh," the young man said soberly. "Our exterminating service?"
Carmody didn't say anything.
"You are a client?"
"I might be. It depends."
"Quite," said the young man. "Our Mr. French will take care of you." He did things with the buttons on his desk. "Yes, he's free now. Would you mind stepping into Office Number One?"
Carmody pointed silently, and the young man nodded. Carmody walked across to the door, pushed it open, stepped through and glanced around, his face impassive. He was in a small room, furnished simply but with good taste. A relaxer chair extended beside a broad, low table that held a minor-size telescreen. The makings for smokes and drinks were conveniently handy.
On the screen was the head and shoulders of someone—our Mr. French, presumably. He had gray-streaked brown hair, a smooth, thinnish face, a sharp nose, and oldfashioned noncontact pince-nez. His clothes—what Carmody could see of them—were conservative. And his voice was dry and precise.
"Will you sit down, please?"
Carmody sat down. He lit a cigarette and looked speculatively at the face on the screen.
"My name is French, Samuel French. You'll notice the receptionist didn't take your name. If you decide to make use of our service, we'll need it, of course, but not just yet. First let me assure you that nothing you may say to me will put you in danger from the law. An intention to commit homicide is not actionable. You are not an accomplice either before or after the fact. Once you understand that, you'll be able to talk to me freely."
"Well—" Carmody said. "I'm a little—hesitant."
"We kill people," French said. "That's what brought you here, isn't it? To get an exterminating job done—safely."
It wasn't what had brought Carmody here, but he couldn't tell French that. He had to submerge himself completely in the role he was playing. From now on, he had to forget that he was working for Blake and play the part of a customer. At least until he had found out a little about this organization.
There had been nothing like it in the Amazonas. But the Amazonas Basin wasn't civilized, even fifteen years after World War ii had ended. In the five years of Carmody's life there as a construction engineer he had seen little change, really; a dam here, a railroad there, but nothing to touch the rain-forest and the big river and the seasonal floods. Then his discontinuance notice had come through, and, in white-hot fury, he had hopped the first clipper to New York, determined to punch the big shot in the nose.
He hadn't done that. There had been secretive visitors and interviews, a closed air cab that whipped northward, and the vision of an Aladdin's palace that he recognized as Oakhaven, the country estate of Reuben Blake. Even in this day of fabulous fortunes and super-tycoons, Blake was a figure. He represented money and industries—and politics.
Oakhaven was an architect's dream. The new plastics and alloys had made such engineering feats possible—towering columns that sprang sky-high from fragile-seeming, translucent floors, concepts from Rackham and Sime transmuted into hard reality. Carmody, flanked by guards, was passed from chamber to chamber, till he reached the penthouse sanctum of Blake. A battalion could have deployed across the resilient, landscaped floor of that sanctum. And, seated at an onyx table with a chessboard inlaid into the top, a big drunken man was jittering nervously as he laid scraps of paper on the board's squares.
"Carmody," Blake said, looking up. "I'm glad you got here. Have a drink." He pushed glass and bottle forward. Carmody laid his hands flat on the table and glared.
"I want to know why I'm here," he said.
Blake gave him a glance that, surprisingly, held only appeal.
"Please. Please sit down and let me explain. I ... I had to do some things ... you'll understand. But first get this. I'll pay you whatever you want. I'll see you get your Brazilian job back, if you want it. I'm not trying to coerce you."
"Why was I fired?"
"I needed you," Blake said simply. "The construction company could get along without you, and I couldn't. I can't. Not very well. Now have a drink, sit down, and give me a chance to explain. Man, I'm sick!"
That was true. Something had hit Blake hard and knocked the tough backbone out of him. Carmody hesitated, sat down, and looked at the chessboard. Each square had a bit of paper on it. The first one said 1¢. The one next to it was marked 2¢. The third, 4¢; the fourth, 8¢. The ultimate figure was astronomical.
“Yeah,” Blake said, “you’ve heard the old gag. A rajah offered his favorite the choice between half his kingdom or— I forget what it was. The favorite said he just wanted a chessboard filled with money, doubled for each successive square. I don't know if the rajah ever paid it. Who could?"
"So what?"
"I've got power. But I need an operative. I'm fighting something that's plenty smart. An organization. They've got their ways of checking up, and if they ever suspected you were working for me—well! That's why I couldn't have gone about this more openly. I had to cover up. If you'll do a job for me, you can have anything you want. Literally."
Carmody started to answer, and then paused, his mouth open. Blake gave him a twisted, slack-mouthed grin.
"You're getting it. I can give you anything you want—within human limits. I'm Reuben Blake. But I won't be for long, unless I get help."
"I thought you had an organization."
"Sure I do. But this has to be strictly undercover. I picked you out from fifty case records. You're smart, not too scrupulous, you know your way around. You're qualified for the job."
"What's the job?"
"It's a frame," Blake said. "A smart frame. What it boils down to is this: my money or my life. And I've got to hand over one or the other!"
"But—how?"
-
French adjusted his pince-nez and said, rather wearily, "I should have a record made of this. Our clients are always skeptical at first. Unless they know us by reputation ... you've never heard of us?"
"I just got back from Brazil," Carmody said. "Since then I've heard things, sure. That's why looked you up. But I can't quite see how you can do it."
"Commit murder?"
"Exactly. The law—"
"We have a foolproof method," French said. "It's absolutely undetectable. Indistinguishable from natural death. The insurance companies are our biggest enemies, but we've a corps of attorneys who watch out for loopholes. We won't go to jail for income tax evasion!"
"You might go to jail for murder though. How about that?"
"Hearsay isn't evidence. You pay us to kill your enemy. He dies—of natural causes. We've had lawsuits, but we've never been convicted. Autopsies proved nothing except that no homicide was committed. You might call this insurance in reverse. Death insurance. If your enemy doesn't die, we refund your money. But we've never had to make a refund yet—except under Clause A."
"What's that?"
"We'll come to it later. First of all, let me apologize for pointing out that we must be assured you're a bona fide client. We have no time for reporters, spies, or curiosity-hunters."
"I'm a prospective client," Carmody qualified. "And I want a—job done, yes. Only I don't want to hang for it."
French put the tips of bloodless fingers together. "We have been in business only four years. Our organization is based on a certain scientific ... ah ... discovery. Our patent, you might call it. And that, of course, is a secret; if the nature of this patent were known, we'd have nothing to sell."
"The modus operandi, you mean?"
French nodded. "Yes. As I say ... we're expanding. We don't advertise much; we don't want to attract a low-class clientele. And we are incorporated; we have an exterminator's license, and we do maintain a service, on the side, to get rid of bedbugs and termites. We don't encourage that sort of thing, but we must do a bit of it for a front. However, our money is made through murder. Our clients pay well."
"How much?"
"No fixed rate. I'll explain that later, too."
"There's got to be some minimum, though," Carmody said.
"Why? We went into the whole matter thoroughly, with expert psychologists and criminologists, before we incorporated. Experience proved our theories to be correct. What are the motives for murder?"
Carmody ticked them off on his fingers. "Well, greed—jealousy—revenge—"
"Passion or profit—two classifications, generally. We get few of the former. Such crimes are generally committed during a temporary emotional storm. Give the storm time to die down, put it on a practical level of hard cash, and the passion-murderer usually changes his mind. Moreover, very often he wants the pleasure of committing the crime himself. There have been cases, of course. But profit is the main motive. And most of our clients are drawn from the higher income brackets. It's a convenient service we offer, after all. The lower brackets are pretty conservative; they have indoctrinated morals, and think it's worse to pay for murder than to commit it personally."
"While the upper brackets are amoral, eh?"
"It's a case of relative values and proportions. Especially in this day and age. Power grows in direct ratio to money; if you have enough power, you approach godhead in your ability to juggle with lives. The gods were notorious for inundations and lightning-bolts. They could destroy mere humans without compunction. But the money barons don't need our help to handle lower-bracket enemies—they've got their own financial weapons for that. It's only when the gods were fighting among themselves that they called in aid. I could tell you cases that would surprise you—but, naturally, I shan't. Now—shall we discuss business?"
"All right," Carmody said. "The guy's name is Dale, Edward Dale."
"Address?"
Carmody gave it.
"Your name?"
"Albert Carmody. Don't you want to know my ... uh ... motive?"
"That will be investigated. Most of our running expenses are aimed at covering the initial investigation. As soon as we assure ourselves that you have a sound motive for wanting Dale killed, we'll take action. That's to protect ourselves against spies, framed evidence, and so on. We'll find out about you, Mr. Carmody, don't worry about that."
-
Dale was executive president of the Brazil-U.S-Combine that had fired Carmody. The motive was O.K.; it would, Carmody knew, check with his own rather violent personality-pattern.
"How much?"
"We set no price. That's up to you."
"Ten thousand dollars."
"I see," French said, making a note. "Now let me explain Clause A. In a business like this, we must set a high standard of honesty and professional ethics. We're bonded with Dow-Smith—the regular honesty bond, by which we forfeit ninety-five percent of our assets if it can be proved that we reneg on a contract. We have a standard of moral ethics, too."
"Moral?" Carmody said, lifting an eyebrow.
"Certainly. We've reduced life-value to a basis of pure cash. Here's how it works. Our investigators will give us an estimate of your total assets. Let's say arbitrarily you're worth a hundred thousand dollars. You'll pay ten thousand to have Edward Dale killed. His life, then, is worth ten percent of your assets. You follow me?"
"So far."
"If Dale's life is worth, to him, ten percent of his assets, we'll refund your check."
"I don't get that."
"Dale will be notified that a client has asked for his death. Your name, of course, won't figure in it. Nor will the amount you offered. The percentage will be mentioned. If Dale will pay ten percent of his total assets, we'll drop the case and refund your money."
"But how do you know he's got any money?"
"The chances are he's got more than you have, or you wouldn't need our services to exterminate him. It depends on your motive, of course. It's a risk we run. But we average. We average."
"It sounds like blackmail to me," Carmody said. "If I pay you to kill Dale, and you take protection money from him—"
"Two things are sure, death and taxes. The moment we accept your patronage, Dale is in articulo mortis. We are in the position of a physician who can save his patient's life—and charges for that medical service."
"After he's first administered poison."
"We have our ethics," French said, spreading his hands, and glancing interestedly at the well-manicured nails. "We put a cash value on a man's life, that's all. And a life isn't as intangible as ... say ... a lease."
"That's a question. Anyhow—let me think this out. You'll take my check for ten grand to kill Dale. But if he pays you—ten percent—of his assets, then he survives."
"And your money is refunded, under Clause A."
"What's to prevent me from coming back a week later and offering twenty thousand to get Dale killed? I could ruin the man that way. He'd have to keep on paying and paying till—"
"Ethics. We never accept the same client aiming at the same objective twice. That's a rule. You might come back and hire us to kill somebody else—that'd be acceptable—or anybody else might come in and pay us to kill Edward Dale, but we'd never accept another commission from you to murder Dale."
"But there's nothing to stop me from giving dough to some friend and having him hire you to kill Dale."
"Not a thing. Except our corps of investigators. They'd find out where that money came from. And if the client had a real motive for wanting Dale killed. It would look fishy. And we wouldn't take the case."
"I see," Carmody said, and a faint grin crossed his face. He was thinking of Dale's reaction. Dale would pay; the man was familiar with the way WE KILL PEOPLE worked, Carmody knew, and would certainly pony up ten percent of his sufficiently large fortune to save his own life. Carmody had surreptitiously assured himself of that already. He himself had killed in the past, but never quite in cold blood. He didn't want Dale dead, no. But the man had been guilty of double-dealing. He had taken Reuben Blake's orders, and fired Carmody from a job he liked and wanted. So Dale would have to pay for that. Not with his life, but with ten percent of his total assets—which would total a lot more than ten thousand dollars!
No. Ten percent had been the arbitrary figure set by French. The figure would be closer to five than ten—still large enough to hurt, though. And Carmody's bankroll was no windfall. He had earned it, and no investigation could shake that fact. That financial asset had been one of the reasons Blake had chosen Carmody.
-
"—to help me," Blake had said, back in his palace penthouse, two weeks ago, while he stared at the chessboard before him. "You've got to, Carmody. Or I'll be ruined."
