The Very Best of F & SF v1 Read Free

Latitude 40-45-20 was 99.9807 percent. No one can escape
four significant figures.”
    “Listen,” Knight
began angrily, “if this is your idea of—”
    “Kindly drink
gingerbeer and listen to my idea, Mr. Knight.” Boyne leaned across the table
with galvanic intensity. “This hour has been arranged with difficulty and much
cost. To whom? No matter. You have placed us in an extremely dangerous
position. I have been sent to find a solution.”
    “Solution for
what?” Knight asked.
    Jane tried to
rise. “I... I think we’d b-better be go—”
    Boyne waved her
back, and she sat down like a child. To Knight he said: “This noon you entered
premises of J. D. Craig & Co., dealer in printed books. You purchased,
through transfer of money, four books. Three do not matter, but the fourth...” He
tapped the wrapped parcel emphatically. “That is the crux of this encounter.”
    “What the hell
are you talking about?” Knight exclaimed.
    “One bound
volume consisting of collected facts and statistics.”
    “The Almanac?”
    “The Almanac.”
    “What about it?”
    “You intended to
purchase a 1950 Almanac.”
    “I bought the ’50
Almanac.”
    “You did not!”
Boyne blazed. “You bought the Almanac for 1990.”
    “What?”
    “The World
Almanac for 1990,” Boyne said clearly, “is in this package. Do not ask how.
There was a mistake that has already been disciplined. Now the error must be
adjusted. That is why I am here. It is why this meeting was arranged. You
cognate?”
    Knight burst
into laughter and reached for the parcel. Boyne leaned across the table and
grasped his wrist. “You must not open it, Mr. Knight.”
    “All right.” Knight
leaned back in his chair. He grinned at Jane and sipped gingerbeer. “What’s the
pay-off on the gag?”
    “I must have the
book, Mr. Knight. I would like to walk out of this Tavern with the Almanac
under my arm.”
    “You would, eh?”
    “I would.”
    “The 1990
Almanac?”
    “Yes.”
    “If,” said
Knight, “there was such a thing as a 1990 Almanac, and if it was in that
package, wild horses couldn’t get it away from me.”
    “Why, Mr.
Knight?”
    “Don’t be an
idiot. A look into the future? Stock market reports... Horse races... Politics.
It’d be money from home. I’d be rich.”
    “Indeed yes.” Boyne
nodded sharply. “More than rich. Omnipotent. The small mind would use the
Almanac from the future for small things only. Wagers on the outcome of games
and elections. And so on. But the intellect of dimensions.. . your intellect... would
not stop there.”
    “You tell me,” Knight
grinned.
    “Deduction. Induction.
Inference.” Boyne ticked the points off on his fingers. “Each fact would tell
you an entire history. Real estate investment, for example. What lands to buy
and sell. Population shifts and census reports would tell you. Transportation.
Lists of marine disasters and railroad wrecks would tell you whether rocket
travel has replaced the train and ship.”
    “Has it?” Knight
chuckled.
    “Flight records
would tell you which company’s stock should be bought. Lists of postal receipts
would tell you which are the cities of the future. The Nobel Prize winners
would tell you which scientists and what new inventions to watch. Armament
budgets would tell you which factories and industries to control. Cost of
living reports would tell you how best to protect your wealth against inflation
or deflation. Foreign exchange rates, stock exchange reports, bank suspensions
and life insurance indexes would provide the clues to protect you against any
and all disasters.”
    “That’s the idea,”
Knight said. “That’s for me.”
    “You really
think so?”
    “I know so.
Money in my pocket. The world in my pocket.”
    “Excuse me,” Boyne
said keenly, “but you are only repeating the dreams of childhood. You want
wealth. Yes. But only won through endeavor... your own endeavor. There is no
joy in success as an unearned gift. There is nothing