"Don't give yourself airs. Human beings aren't important. Earth isn't important, except to provide intellectual exercise to others. Still and all, this is a simple world, with too little of the uncertainty factor."
Tracy started to laugh. After a while he said, "I just realized I was sitting here discussing semantics with a cat."
But Meg had vanished.
Familiarity with an enemy destroys wariness, and no doubt the cat knew that well enough. Obviously Tracy should have been on guard. The fact that Meg had drunk his cream-the equivalent of bread and salt-meant nothing; cats are amoral, familiars, by preference, immoral. The combination was perilous.
But Tracy, his mind slightly hazy with whiskey, clutched the book like a buckler and felt safe. He was thinking about formulas of logic. "Matter of deduction," he muttered. "I suppose the author made a lot of graphs and things and arrived at his conclusions that way. Tested them by induction. Whew.'" It was a dizzying thought.
Again he examined the book. The white circle on the cover was luminous again, and there was a number visible there. Tracy's stomach lurched.
Page 34.
He glanced around hastily, expecting anything; but the apartment seemed unchanged. Meg had not reappeared.
Page 34 said, "Canaries need oxygen."
Canaries?
Tracy remembered. A few days ago, a friend had given him an expensive roller canary, and he had not yet got rid of the creature. Its cage hung in a corner, covered with a white cloth. No sound proceeded from it.
Tracy went over and pulled the cover away. The canary was in trouble. It was lying on the bottom of the cage, kicking spasmodically, beak wide open.
Oxygen?
Tracy whistled under his breath and whirled to the windows, yanking them open one by one. The gusts of cold, fresh air made his head spin. He hadn't realized how drunk he was.
Whiskey, however, didn't account for the feeling of sick nausea in his stomach. He watched the canary slowly revive, and chewed at his lip. The air in the room hadn't been depleted enough to kill a bird. This wasn't a coal mine.
A coal mine-gas-yeah! Tracy, grinning tightly, dropped to his knees beside the gas radiator. As he had expected, the cock was turned on full, and he could hear a soft hissing.
Meg didn't always depend on magic. And a cat's paws were handy little tools.
Tracy closed the valve and made a circuit of the apartment, finding another open radiator in the bedroom. He attended to that. The canary recovered and peeped feebly. Tracy threw the cover back over its cage and considered.
The book. The numerals on the cover had faded again.
He felt a resurgence of panic. Ten references were allowed him. He had used two. That left eight-only eight. And Meg was a resourceful familiar, hell bent on revenge.
There was a thought stirring at the back of Tracy's mind, but it refused to emerge. He relaxed and closed his eyes. After a while the thought came out of hiding.
In his hands he held a magical power whose potentialities were unlimited. The brown book had the answer to every human problem. If Napoleon had possessed it, or Luther, or Caesar-well! Life was a succession of problems. Men were handicapped by their inability to visualize the complete equation. So they made mistakes.
But this book, Tracy thought, told the right answer.
Ironic that its powers should be wasted. That was what the situation amounted to. Ten references were allowed; after that, Meg would get her revenge, unhindered by the book's countermagic. What a waste!
Tracy rubbed his temples hard. A gold mine had been dumped in his lap, and he was trying to figure out a way of using it. Any time danger threatened, the book would give the solution, according to the equation of logic. Then the magic was, so to speak, passive.
Not quite. If Tracy faced financial ruin, that would certainly come under the classification of danger. Unless the meaning embraced only the danger of bodily harm. He hoped there were no such limitations.
On that assumption, if Tracy faced ruin, the book would give a page number that would save him. Would it simply point out a way of returning to his former financial status? No. Because that status had already been proved unsound and dangerous by the mere fact of its cancellation.
Casuistic reasoning, perhaps, but with clever manipulation, Tracy felt confident that he could play the cards close to his chest. He wanted money. Very well. He would place himself in a position where financial ruin was imminent, and the book would come to his rescue.
He hoped.
There were only eight page references left, and it would not do to waste them in making tests. Tracy skimmed through the book, wondering if he could apply the messages himself. It didn't seem probable. "Say no to everything," for example. In special circumstances, that was no doubt good advice. But who was to know when those circumstances would arise? Only the book, of course.
And-"An assassin awaits." Excellent advice! It would have been invaluable to Caesar-to most of the Caesars, in fact. Knowing that a murderer was in ambush, it would be easy to take precautions. But one couldn't be on guard all the time.
The logic was perfect, as far as it went. But one element was ever lacking-the time-variable. Since that particular variable depended entirely on the life pattern of the book's owner, it was manifestly impossible for it to be any rational sort of a constant.
Meantime, there was Meg. Meg was murderously active, and determined on her vengeance. If Tracy used the book-could use the book-to get what he wanted personally, he'd use up the other eight chances and leave himself unguarded against attack. Fame and fortune mean little to a corpse.
A red glow came from the window. A small, lizard-like creature crawled into view. There were suction pads on its toes, like a gecko's, and a faint smell of charring paint came with it as it scuttled over the sill. It looked like red-hot metal.
Tracy looked at the book. It was unchanged. This wasn't a danger, then. But it might have been-if he hadn't turned off the gas. Introduce a blazing salamander into a gas-filled apartment, and-Yeah.
Tracy picked up a siphon at his elbow and squirted soda at the salamander. Clouds of steam arose. The creature hissed and fled back the way it had come.
Very well. Eight chances were still left. Eight moves in which to outwit and destroy Meg. Less than that-as few as possible, in fact-if any chances were to be left. And it was necessary to leave a few, or Tracy's status in life would remain unchanged. Merely escaping from danger wasn't enough. He wanted-What?
He got pencil and paper and sat down to figure it out. Happiness was too vague-another variable, depending on the individual. Power? Women? Money? He had them all, in sufficient quantity. Security?
Security. That was a human constant. Security against the ominous shadows of the future. But one couldn't simply wish for security. The book didn't work that way. Abstractions were beyond its scope, seemingly.
What gave people security? Money was the first answer, yet that was not satisfactory. Tracy tried a new tack. Who was secure?
Paisanos, on the whole, were more contented than potentates. However, Tracy didn't want to be a paisano. What about Herrick, the publisher? Security? Well, no. Not when the world itself was unstable.
In the end Tracy decided nothing. Perhaps the best solution was to get himself into the worst spot possible, and leave the rest to the book. And, if the book failed him…
It might do just that. But Tracy was a gambler. What was the worst thing that could happen now?
The answer was obvious. The loss of the book!
A fire was laid ready in the grate. Tracy touched a match to a fold of newspaper, and watched the flames creep up till the hardwood was crackling. If he purposely rendered himself helpless, the book should logically reveal a panacea-a cure-all that would eliminate all his difficulties. It was worth trying.
Tracy grinned at his own cleverness.
He threw the book into the fire, face up. The flames licked up hungrily. Instantly two numerals appeared on the white oval.
43
The ultimate answer! The cure for the loss of the book!