The Best of Fritz Leiber by Fritz Leiber Read Free Book Online Page A

crap table. It was a thin wall of flames moving sideways across the table and just beyond the flames the faces of his Wife, Mother, and Mr. Guts, all looking very surprised. He realized that what he was chewing was a fragment of the Big Gambler’s skull, and he remembered the shape of the three loaves his Wife had started to bake when he left the House. And he understood the magic she’d made to let him get a little ways away and feel half a man, and then come diving home with his fingers burned.
    He spat out what was in his mouth and pegged the rest of the bit of giant-popover skull across the street.
    He fished in his left pocket. Most of the pale poker chips had been mashed
in
the fight, but he found a whole one and explored its surface with his fingertips. The symbol embossed on it was a cross. He lifted it to his lips and took a bite. It tasted delicate, but delicious. He ate it and felt his strength revive. He patted his bulging left pocket. At least he’d started out well provisioned.
    Then he turned and headed straight for home, but he took the long way, around the world.
     

Sanity
    “COME IN, Phy, and make yourself comfortable.”
    The mellow voice—and the suddenly dilating doorway—caught the general secretary of the World playing with a blob of greenish gasoid, squeezing it in his fist and watching it ooze between his fingers in spatulate tendrils that did not dissipate. Slowly, crookedly, he turned his head. World Manager Carrsbury became aware of a gaze that was at once oafish, sly, vacuous. Abruptly the expression was replaced by a nervous smile. The thin man straightened himself, as much as his habitually drooping shoulders would permit, hastily entered, and sat down on the extreme edge of a pneumatically form-fitting chair.
    He embarrassedly fumbled the blob of gasoid, looking around for a convenient disposal vent or a crevice in the upholstery. Finding none, he stuffed it hurriedly into his pocket. Then he repressed his fidgetings by clasping his hands resolutely together, and sat with downcast eyes.
    “How are you feeling, old man?” Carrsbury asked in a voice that was warm with a benign friendliness.
    The general secretary did not look up.
    “Anything bothering you, Phy?” Carrsbury continued solicitously. “Do you feel a bit unhappy, or dissatisfied, about your… er… transfer, now that the moment has arrived?”
    Still the general secretary did not respond. Carrsbury leaned forward across the dully silver, semicircular desk and, in his most winning tones, urged, “Come on, old fellow, tell me all about it.”
    The general secretary did not lift his head, but he rolled up his strange, distant eyes until they were fixed directly on Carrsbury. He shivered a little, his body seemed to contract, and his bloodless hands tightened their interlocking grip.
    “I know,” he said in a low, effortful voice. “You think I’m insane.”
    Carrsbury sat back, forcing his brows to assume a baffled frown under the mane of silvery hair.
    “Oh, you needn’t pretend to be puzzled,” Phy continued, swiftly now that he had broken the ice. “You know what that word means as well as I do. Better—even though we both had to do historical research to find out.”
    “Insane,” he repeated dreamily, his gaze wavering. “Significant departure from the norm. Inability to conform to basic conventions underlying all human conduct.”
    “Nonsense!” said Carrsbury, rallying and putting on his warmest and most compelling smile. “I haven’t the slightest idea of what you’re talking about. That you’re a little tired, a little strained, a little distraught—that’s quite understandable, considering the burden you’ve been carrying, and a little rest will be just the thing to fix you up, a nice long vacation away from all this. But as for your being… why, ridiculous!”
    “No,” said Phy, his gaze pinning Carrsbury. “You think I’m insane. You think all my colleagues in the World Management