Bagombo Snuff Box (3 page)

“They’re getting louder now. The voices are louder. I can’t
hear you very well above them. It’s like standing in the middle of a crowd,
with everybody trying to get my attention at once. It’s like . . .” The message
trailed off. They could hear a shushing sound in the speaker. The Major’s
transmitter was still on.

“Can you hear me, Able Baker Fox? Answer! Can you hear me?”
called General Dane.

The shushing noise stopped. The General and Groszinger
stared blankly at the speaker.

‘Able Baker Fox, this is Dog Easy Charley,” chanted the
radio operator. ‘Able Baker Fox, this is Dog Easy Charley. ...”

Groszinger, his eyes shielded from the glaring ceiling light
of the radio room by a newspaper, lay fully dressed on the cot that had been
brought in for him. Every few minutes he ran his long, slender fingers through
his tangled hair and swore. His machine had worked perfectly, was working perfectly.
The one thing he had not designed, the damn man in it, had failed, had
destroyed the whole experiment.

They had been trying for six hours to reestablish contact
with the lunatic who peered down at earth from his tiny steel moon and heard
voices.

“He’s coming in again, sir,” said the radio operator. “This
is Dog Easy Charley. Come in, Able Baker Fox. Over.”

“This is Able Baker Fox. Clear weather over Zones Seven,
Eleven, Nineteen, and Twenty-three. Zones One, Two, Three, Four, Five, and Six
overcast. Storm seems to be shaping up over Zones Eight and Nine, moving south
by southwest at about eighteen miles an hour. Over.”

“He’s OK now,” said the General, relieved.

Groszinger remained supine, his head still covered with the
newspaper. ‘Ask him about the voices,” he said.

“You don’t hear the voices anymore, do you, Able Baker Fox?”

“What do you mean, I don’t hear them? I can hear them better
than I can hear you. Over.”

“He’s out of his head,” said Groszinger, sitting up.

“I heard that,” said Major Rice. “Maybe I am. It shouldn’t
be too hard to check. All you have to do is find out if an Andrew Tobin died in
Evansville, Indiana, on February 17, 1927. Over.”

“I don’t follow you, Able Baker Fox,” said the General. “Who
was Andrew Tobin? Over.”

“He’s one of the voices.” There was an uncomfortable pause.
Major Rice cleared his throat. “Claims his brother murdered him. Over.”

The radio operator had risen slowly from his stool, his face
chalk-white. Groszinger pushed him back down and took the microphone from the
General’s now limp hand.

“Either you’ve lost your mind, or this is the most
sophomoric practical joke in history, Able Baker Fox,” said Groszinger. “This
is Groszinger you’re talking to, and you’re dumber than I think you are if you
think you can kid me.” He nodded. “Over.” _

“I can’t hear you very well anymore, Dog Easy Charley.
Sorry, but the voices are getting louder.”

“Rice! Straighten out!” said Groszinger.

“There—I caught that: Mrs. Pamela Ritter wants her husband
to marry again, for the sake of the children. He lives at—”

“Stop it!”

“He lives at 1577 Damon Place, in Scotia, New York. Over and
out.”

General Dane shook Groszinger’s shoulder gently. “You’ve
been asleep five hours,” he said. “It’s midnight.” He handed him a cup of
coffee. “We’ve got some more messages. Interested?”

Groszinger sipped the coffee. “Is he still raving?”

“He still hears the voices, if that’s what you mean.” The General
dropped two unopened telegrams in Groszinger’s lap. “Thought you might like to
be the one to open these.”

Groszinger laughed. “Went ahead and checked Scotia and
Evansville, did you? God help this army, if all the generals are as
superstitious as you, my friend.”

“OK, OK, you’re the scientist, you’re the brain-box. That’s
why I want you to open the telegrams. I want you to tell me what in hell’s
going on.”

Groszinger opened one of the telegrams.

HARVEY RITTER LISTED FOR 1577 DAMON PLACE, SCOTIA. GE
ENGINEER. WIDOWER, TWO CHILDREN. DECEASED WIFE NAMED PAMELA. DO YOU NEED MORE
INFORMATION? R. B. FAILEY, CHIEF, SCOTIA POLICE

He shrugged and handed the message to General Dane, then
opened the other telegram:

RECORDS SHOW ANDREW TOBIN DIED IN HUNTING ACCIDENT FEBRUARY
17, 1927. BROTHER PAUL LEADING BUSINESSMAN. OWNS COAL BUSINESS STARTED BY
ANDREW. CAN FURNISH FURTHER DETAILS IF NEEDED. F. B. JOHNSON, CHIEF, EVANSVILLE
P.O.

“I’m not surprised,” said Groszinger. “I expected something
like this. I suppose you’re firmly convinced now that our friend Major Rice has
found outer space populated by ghosts?”

“Well, I’d say he’s sure as hell found it populated by something,”
said the General.

Groszinger wadded the second telegram in his fist and threw
it across the room, missing the wastebasket by a foot. He folded his hands and
affected the patient, priestlike pose he used in lecturing freshman physics
classes. ‘At first, my friend, we had two possible conclusions: Either Major
Rice was insane, or he was pulling off a spectacular hoax.” He twiddled his
thumbs, waiting for the General to digest this intelligence. “Now that we know
his spirit messages deal with real people, we’ve got to conclude that he has
planned and is now carrying out some sort of hoax. He got his names and
addresses before he took off. God knows what he hopes to accomplish by it. God
knows what we can do to make him stop it. That’s your problem, I’d say.”

The General’s eyes narrowed. “So he’s trying to jimmy the
project, is he? We’ll see, by God, we’ll see.” The radio operator was dozing.
The General slapped him on the back. “On the ball, Sergeant, on the ball. Keep
calling Rice till you get him, understand?”

The radio operator had to call only once.

“This is Able Baker Fox. Come in, Dog Easy Charley.” Major
Rice’s voice was tired.

“This is Dog Easy Charley,” said General Dane. “We’ve had
enough of your voices. Able Baker Fox—do you understand? We don’t want to hear
any more about them. We’re onto your little game. I don’t know what your angle
is, but I do know I’ll bring you back down and slap you on a rock pile in
Leavenworth so fast you’ll leave your teeth up there. Do we understand each
other?” The General bit the tip from a fresh cigar fiercely. “Over.”

“Did you check those names and addresses? Over.”

The General looked at Groszinger, who frowned and shook his
head. “Sure we did. That doesn’t prove anything. So you’ve got a list of names
and addresses up there. So what does that prove? Over.”

“You say those names checked? Over.”

“I’m telling you to quit it, Rice. Right now. Forget the
voices, do you hear? Give me a weather report. Over.”

“Clear patches over Zones Eleven, Fifteen, and Sixteen.
Looks like a solid overcast in One, Two, and Three. All clear in the rest.
Over.”

“That’s more like it, Able Baker Fox,” said the General. “We’ll
forget about the voices, eh? Over.”

“There’s an old woman calling out something in a German accent.
Is Dr. Groszinger there? I think she’s calling his name. She’s asking him not
to get too wound up in his work—not to—”

Groszinger leaned over the radio operator’s shoulder and
snapped off the switch on the receiver. “Of all the cheap, sickening stunts,”
he said.

“Let’s hear what he has to say,” said the General. “Thought
you were a scientist.” .

Groszinger glared at him defiantly, snapped on the receiver,
and stood back, his hands on his hips.

“—saying something in German,” continued the voice of Major
Rice.

“Can’t understand it. Maybe you can. I’ll give it to you the
way it sounds: Alles geben die Goiter, die unendlichen, ihren Lieblingen, ganz.
Alle—’”

Groszinger turned down the volume. “‘Alle Freuden, die unendlichen,
alle Schmerzen, die unendlichen, ganz,’” he said faintly. “That’s how it ends.”
He sat down on the cot. “It’s my mother’s favorite quotation— something from Goethe.”

“I can threaten him again,” said the General.

“What for?” Groszinger shrugged and smiled. “Outer space is
full of voices.” He laughed nervously. “There’s something to pep up a physics
textbook.”

‘An omen, sir—it’s an omen,” blurted the radio operator.

“What the hell do you mean, an omen?” said the General. “So
outer space is filled with ghosts. That doesn’t surprise me.”

“Nothing would, then,” said Groszinger.

“That’s exactly right. I’d be a hell of a general if
anything would. For all I know, the moon is made of green cheese. So what. All
I want is a man out there to tell me that I’m hitting what I’m shooting at. I
don’t give a damn what’s going on in outer space.”

“Don’t you see, sir?” said the radio operator. “Don’t you
see? It’s an omen. When people find out about all the spirits out there they’ll
forget about war. They won’t want to think about anything but the spirits.”

“Relax, Sergeant,” said the General. “Nobody’s going to find
out about them, understand?”

“You can’t suppress a discovery like this,” said Groszinger.

“You’re nuts if you think I can’t,” said General Dane. “How’re
you going to tell anybody about this business without telling them we’ve got a
rocket ship out there?”

“They’ve got a right to know,” said the radio operator.

“If the world finds out we have that ship out there, that’s
the start of World War Three,” said the General. “Now tell me you want that.
The enemy won’t have any choice but to try and blow the hell out of us before
we can put Major Rice to any use. And there’d be nothing for us to do but try
and blow the hell out of them first. Is that what you want?”

“No, sir,” said the radio operator. “I guess not, sir.”

“Well, we can experiment, anyway,” said Groszinger. “We can
find out as much as possible about what the spirits are like. We can send Rice
into a wider orbit to find out how far out he can hear the voices, and whether—”

“Not on Air Force funds, you can’t,” said General Dane. “That
isn’t what Rice is out there for. We can’t afford to piddle around. We need him
right there.”

“All right, all right,” said Groszinger. “Then let’s hear
what he has to say

“Tune him in, Sergeant,” said the General.

“Yes, sir.” The radio operator fiddled with the dials. “He
doesn’t seem to be transmitting now, sir.” The shushing noise of a transmitter
cut into the hum of the loudspeaker. “I guess he’s coming in again. Able Baker
Fox, this is Dog Easy Charley—”

“King Two X-ray William Love, this is William Five Zebra
Zebra King in Dallas,” said the loudspeaker. The voice had a soft drawl and was
pitched higher than Major Rice’s.

A bass voice answered: “This is King Two X-ray William Love
in Albany. Come in W5ZZK, I hear you well. How do you hear me? Over.”

“You’re clear as a bell, K2XWL—twenty-five thousand megacycles
on the button. I’m trying to cut down on my drift with a—”

The voice of Major Rice interrupted. “I can’t hear you
clearly, Dog Easy Charley. The voices are a steady roar now. I can catch bits
of what they’re saying. Grantland Whitman, the Hollywood actor, is yelling that
his will was tampered with by his nephew Carl. He says—”

“Say again, K2XWL,” said the drawling voice. “I must have
misunderstood you. Over.”

“I didn’t say anything, W5ZZK. What was that about Grantland
Whitman? Over.”

“The crowd’s quieting down,” said Major Rice. “Now there’s
just one voice—a young woman, I think. It’s so soft I can’t make out what she’s
saying.”

“What’s going on, K2XWL? Can you hear me, K2XWL?”

“She’s calling my name. Do you hear it? She’s calling my
name,” said Major Rice.

“Jam the frequency, dammit!” cried the General. “Yell, whistle—do
something!” Early-morning traffic past the university came to a honking,
bad-tempered stop, as Groszinger absently crossed the street against the light,
on his way back to his office and the radio room. He looked up in surprise,
mumbled an apology, and hurried to the curb. He had had a solitary breakfast
in an all-night diner a block and a half from the laboratory building, and then
he’d taken a long walk. He had hoped that getting away for a couple of hours
would clear his head—but the feeling of confusion and helplessness was still
with him. Did the world have a right to know, or didn’t it?

There had been no more messages from Major Rice. At the
General’s orders, the frequency had been jammed. Now the unexpected eavesdroppers
could hear nothing but a steady whine at 25,000 megacycles. General Dane had
reported the dilemma to Washington shortly after midnight. Perhaps orders as to
what to do with Major Rice had come through by now.

Groszinger paused in a patch of sunlight on the laboratory
building’s steps, and read again the front-page news story, which ran
fancifully for a column, beneath the headline “Mystery Radio Message Reveals
Possible Will Fraud.” The story told of two radio amateurs, experimenting
illegally on the supposedly unused ultra-high-frequency band, who had been
amazed to hear a man chattering about voices and a will. The amateurs had
broken the law, operating on an unassigned frequency, but they hadn’t kept
their mouths shut about their discovery. Now hams all over the world would be
building sets so they could listen in, too.

“Morning, sir. Nice morning, isn’t it?” said a guard coming
off duty. He was a cheerful Irishman.

“Fine morning, all right,” agreed Groszinger. “Clouding up a
little in the west, maybe.” He wondered what the guard would say if he told him
what he knew. He would laugh, probably.

Groszinger’s secretary was dusting off his desk when he
walked in. “You could use some sleep, couldn’t you?” she said. “Honestly, why
you men don’t take better care of yourselves I just don’t know. If you had a
wife, she’d make you—”

“Never felt better in my life,” said Groszinger. ‘Any word
from General Dane?”