99 Classic Science-Fiction Short Stories. Айзек Азимов

his performance. None of us dared look at his fellow; not one of the audience thought for a second of taking his eyes off the silver screen. We were stunned, stupefied, and filled with a wild terror all the more horrible because of the silence.

      The professor started to swim again and now approached the jellyfish. He tapped the crystal walls. Then as though seized with a sudden impulse, he went to the bottom, jumped up through the mouth, and entered the translucent ball of protoplasm. He peered at us through the transparent walls. His arms made a series of peculiar movements and once again he smiled at us.

      “My God!” exclaimed the artist. “He is wigwagging to us in army code. He says, ‘I have done it, and now I will return to your world.’”

      As though to keep his promise he started for the mouth of the jellyfish, and then—the mouth closed.

      The professor circled the glasslike ball seeking a way of exit. Once he waved at us in a peculiar manner and then suddenly he sought the wall and with arms and feet tried to break through. On his face was now the look of ghastly despair. The things on top of the jellyfish began to glow—no doubt now that they were eyes, and bright ones.

      Before our eyes the professor slowly disappeared into a globule of milky protoplasm. The jellyfish not only had made him a prisoner, but had actually dissolved and digested him. With a shriek the artist went over to the wall and turned on the electric lights. Trembling, the chemist looked down the tube of the microscope and told us that there was nothing in the hanging drop save the jellyfish.

      The next day, after a conference, in which each of us said only part of what he thought, we decided to destroy the roll of film—and sent word to the university that the professor had disappeared from the ship and our only explanation was that he had been drowned.

      7. The Rat Racket

      David H. Keller

      The Rat Racket

      With Dr. Keller's genius for hitting at vital spots every time, he now gives us a brand new idea and an ingenious solution. We hope no racketeers read this story. They might, as a result, cause the police some trouble. Fortunately, however, the racket has a flaw.

      Richard Moyer, senior partner of the firm of Moyer & Perkins, read that letter over twice before he called in the man who had helped him make the importing of high grade groceries from England a most profitable business for over twenty years.

      He simply handed the letter over to Paul Perkins without a word of explanation. The latter read it through and handed it back in equal silence, but the hand that held the letter trembled.

      "Just another racket," exclaimed Moyer, finally.

      "Looks like it. I suppose we were foolish to start in paying for protection. First our trucks were threatened; then the new building; after that our best customers were bombed, and we had to pay to protect them. Your son was kidnapped—and the police! They even went so far as to advise that we keep on paying—and now this letter! We might as well close out the business. All our profits go toward supporting a gang of criminals who have muscled into every type of American industry." They were running out through the picture. A crazed man tore it from the wall.

      "On the face of it the letter looks innocent enough," sighed Perkins, as he picked it up and gave it another reading. "Simply says that the rat menace is increasing, cites several business houses where the rodents have done a great deal of damage, and offers to give our warehouses complete protection for five thousand a week. You could show that letter to a hundred police officials and they would laugh at your fears. But I am not laughing. Because that letter was written on the same damaged typewriter that the other letters were written on and those gangsters have not failed to make any of their threats good."

      "Suppose we pretend that they are honest, and answer their letter and send them a check for the first week's protection?"

      "They will laugh at you and send back the check."

      "They may, at that. Then we will give them the cash. In either case, it will give us time to think. I feel that they are only experimenting with us. They are after larger game than five thousand a week. We shall see and hear more of this rat business in a while. Write to them and tell them that we will pay the cash, and put the entire matter in the hands of the Chamber of Commerce. If it does not act soon, the entire city will be in the hands of the gangsters."

      The complaint of Moyer & Perkins was only one of a dozen similar ones which reached the Chamber of Commerce that day. In a secluded room of the Manufacturers' Club a dozen wealthy men met day after day, hearing and weighing evidence against a hundred forms of racketeering which was rapidly becoming a terrible and powerful enemy to the varied industries of the Metropolis. Practically every business had been threatened and more than one captain of industry blustered openly, but paid his weekly tribute silently in order to protect his business, family, and home.

      Up to this time the usual weapon had been the strong arm man and the bomb. While these were bad enough, they were at least understood. When it came to rats, it was different. Of course, everybody knew something about rats—that they were supposed to be numerous around the river fronts and warehouses—but on the other hand, rats were seldom seen in daylight, and there were many New Yorkers who never saw one.

      Not one of the dozen men had been raised on a farm and none had served in the trenches during the World War. They did not understand rats, so, they hesitated, and finally simply advised the merchants who had received the rat letters to use their own judgement. As a result, some paid tribute and some did not. There is no evidence to show that those who paid were one hundred per cent free from rats in their warehouses, but within a week there was ample proof that at least three wholesale groceries and one laundry had been invaded overnight by rats in sufficient quantity to cause thousands of dollars' worth of damages. Moyer & Perkins heard the news and decided to pay another five thousand.

      The Defense Committee of the Chamber of Commerce was called to an extra meeting at the El Dorado Hotel. The owner of the hotel was one of the Committee, a man who, so far, had taken a very inactive part in its transactions. He did not waste time in giving the reason for the special meeting.

      "I was called on the telephone this morning," he explained. "The person at the other end wanted to protect my hotel from rats for the small compensation of twenty-five thousand dollars a week. He referred casually to the three warehouses and one laundry that had been wrecked last week. Right at the present time I have, on an average, twelve hundred guests a night. They are here to be entertained, not to be frightened by rats. But here is the point. If I yield, every other hotel in the city will be placed in a similar position. Three hundred thousand strangers are in the city every day. Suppose that ten hotels were overrun with rats in one week and the fact was circulated in the press? What would that cost the city?"

      "Better pay it," growled one of the men. He happened to own a hotel. He knew how temperamental was the pleasure-seeking stranger. Singularly, that advice was the only brand given by the rest of the Committee. They seemed strangely unable to offer any remedy except to keep on paying and in every way possible bar unpleasant news from the newspapers.

      Inside of next month, fifty-five hotels were paying a weekly tax to the rat racketeers. One small hotel refused, and was at once deluged with an army of rats which drove out guests and employees, killed one old scrub woman and severely injured twenty of the cooks, waiters and porters who received the brunt of the rodent onslaught.

      Moyer & Perkins were still paying the five thousand a week when, to their surprise, a visitor dropped into their office and casually suggested that they sell him their business.

      "It used to be a good business," explained Moyer.

      "It still is," interrupted Perkins. "What my partner means is this. We have our share of trade, but the overhead has become so heavy that we have not been able to make any money lately."

      "That is what I understand," commented the stranger. "In fact, I was sent here by the Chamber of Commerce. They told me you had been paying money for rat protection. That is about the only reason I want to buy your business. Your business is supposed to be worth about two hundred thousand