The Zap Gun

"Okay, this device," Lars said—and sighed—"this weapon originates from my own time and not from the future. You've had the prototype made. Presumably it works. So you've either taken it back to your own tiny factory or whatever it is you operate!" For a long time he considered, recapitulating in his mind over and over again. "All right," he said. "I don't need to ask you any more; we don't need to stain it. Better not to take any more chances. You agree?"

"I agree," Klug said, "if you feel you can continue on your own—with what you now know and no more."

"I'll find it."

Obviously he had to immediately approach the Vincent Klug of this period, drag the device out of him. But—and he saw it already—the Vincent Klug of 2004, having invented the device, would not recognize it as a weapon.

He would not therefore know which object was wanted; Klug might, in his typical, zany, marginal operations, possess a dozen, two dozen, constructs in every possible stage all the way from the rough sketch, the drafting board, to the final autofac-run retail-sales production items themselves.

He had broken contact with the ancient Vincent Klug of 2068 prematurely.

"Klug," he said instantly, urgently. "What kind of toy is it? A hint! Give me some clue. A board game? A war game?" He listened.

In his ears, as spoken words, not telepathically received thoughts, the cracked, senile voice mumbled, "Yeah, we really clobbered them, those slavers; they sure didn't expect us to come up with anything." The old man wheezing chuckling with delight. "Our weapons fashions designers. What a washout they were. Or so the aliens thought"

Lars shaking, opened his eyes. His head ached violently. In the glare of the overhead light he squinted in pain. He saw Lilo Topchev beside him, slouched inert, her fingers holding a pen... against a blank, untouched piece of white paper.

The trance-state, telepathic rapport with the obscured, i

Looking down, Lars saw his own hand as it gripped a pen, his own sheet of paper. There was no sketch of course; he was not surprised by that.

But the paper was not blank.

On it was a scrawled, labored sentence, as if the awkward, unskilled fingers of a child had gripped the pen not his. The sentence read:

The (unreadable, a short word) in the maze.

The something in the maze, he thought. Rat? Possibly. He seemed to make out an r. And the word consisted of three letters, the second of which—he was positive, now, as he scrutinized it—was a.

Unsteadily, he rose, made his way from the room; he opened door after door, at last found someone, a hospital orderly.

"I want a vidphone," Lars said.

He sat, finally, at a table on which rested an extension phone. With shaking fingers he dialed Henry Morris at his New York office.

Presently he had Henry on the screen.

"Get hold of that toy-maker Vincent Klug," Lars said. "He has a kids' product, a maze of some kind. It's gone through Lanferman Associates and come out. A working model exists. Pete Freid made it."

"Okay," Henry said, nodding.

"In that toy," Lars said, "there's a weapon. One we can use against the aliens—and win. Don't tell Klug why you want it. When you have it, mail it to me at Festung Washington, D.C. by 'stant mail—so there's no time-lapse."

"Okay," Henry Morris said.

After he had rung off, Lars sat back, once more picked up the sheet of paper, reexamined his scrawled sentence. What in God's name was that blurred word? Almost he had it...

"How do you feel?" Lilo Topchev appeared, bleary-eyed, rubbing her forehead, smoothing back her rumpled hair. "God, I'm sick. And again I got nothing." She plopped herself opposite him, rested her head in her hands. Then, sighing, she roused herself, peered to see the paper he held. "You derived this? During the trance-state,"

She frowned, her lips moving. "The—something—in the maze. That second word." For a time she was silent, and then she said, "Oh. I see what it says."

"You do?" He lowered the sheet of paper, and for some reason felt cold.

"The second word is man," Lilo said. "The man in the maze; that's what you wrote during the trance. I wonder what it means."

29

Later, subsurface, Lars sat in one of the great, silent meeting-chambers of the i

He sat with the unwrapped 'stant mail parcel from Henry Morris before him. A note from Henry informed him that this object was the sole maze-toy produced by Klug Enterprises and made up by Lanferman Associates in the last six years.

This small, square item was it.

The printed brochure from Vincent Klug's factory was included. Lars had read it several times.

The maze was simply enough in itself, but it represented for its trapped inhabitant an impenetrable barrier. Because the maze was inevitably one jump ahead of its victim. The inhabitant could not win, no matter how fast or how cleverly or how inexhaustibly he scampered, twisted, retreated, tried again, sought the one right (Didn't there have to be a one right?) combination. He could never escape. He could never find freedom. Because the maze, ten-year battery powered, constantly shifted.

Some toy, Lars thought. Some idea of what constitutes "fun."

But this was nothing; this did not explain what he had here on the table before him. For this was a psychologically sophisticated toy, as the brochure put it. The novelty angle, the inspired ingredient by which the toy-maker Vincent Klug expected to pilot this item into a sales success, was the empathic factor.

Pete Freid, seated beside Lars, said, "Hell, I put it together. And I don't see anything about it that would make it a weapon of war. And neither did Vince Klug, because I discussed it with him, before I made this prototype and after. I know darn well he never intended that."

"You're absolutely correct," Lars said. Because why at this period in his life-track should the toy-maker Vincent Klug have any interest in weapons of war? But the later Vincent Klug—

He knew better.

"What kind of a person is Klug?" Lars asked Pete.

Pete gestured. "Hell, you've seen him. Looks like if you stuck a pin in him he'd pop and all the air would come out."

"I don't mean his physical looks," Lars said. "I mean what's he like inside? Down deep, the machinery that makes him run."

"Strange, you putting it like that."

"Why?" Lars felt sudden uneasiness.

"Well, it reminds me of one of the projects he brought to me long time ago. Years ago. Something he was eternally puttering around with but finally gave up. Which I was glad of."

"Androids," Lars said.

"How'd you know?"

"What was he going to do with the androids?"

Pete scratched his head, scowling. "I could never quite figure it out. But I didn't like it. I told him no, every time."

"You mean," Lars said, "he wanted you to build them? He wanted Lanferman Associates to utilize its expertise in that line, on his android project, but for some strange reason he never—"

"He was vague. Anyhow he wanted them really human-like. And I always had that uneasy feeling about it." Pete was still scowling. "Okay, I admit there's layers and layers to Klug. I've worked with him but I don't pretend to understand him, any more than I ever figured out what he had in mind with his android project. Anyhow, he did abandon it and turned to—" he gestured toward the maze—"this."

Well, Lars thought, so that explains Lilo's android sketches.

General Nitz, who had been sitting silently across from them, said, "The person who operates this maze—if I understand this right, he assumes an emotional identity with that thing." He pointed at the tiny inhabitant, now inert because the switch was off. "That creature, there. What is that creature?" He peered intently, revealing for the first time to Lars that he was slightly nearsighted. "Looks like a bear. Or a Venusian wub; you know, those roly-poly animals that the kids love... there's a phenotypal enclave of them here at the Washington zoo. God, the kids never get tired of watching that colony of wubs."