The Dealings of Daniel Kesserich Read online

  Fritz Leiber was one of the most famous fantasy and SF writers of the century, the author of many classic novels and stories, including the popular Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser fantasy series. “Awards for fantasy included the 1975 Grand Master of Fantasy Award, the 1976 World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, the 1981 Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America, six Hugos, four Nebulas, and about twenty other awards,” says The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.

  Now Tor is pleased to present in print for the first time this short novel of cosmic dread and Lovecraftian horror. It is a story of science gone awry, of strange dimensions— of love and death. Kesserich is a lone scientist in his California home laboratory, plunging intuitively beyond the bounds of known science into the deepest mysteries of time and space.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed

  in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

  THE DEALINGS OF DANIEL KESSERICH

  Copyright © 1997 by the Estate of Fritz Leiber

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book,

  or portions thereof, in any form.

  This book is printed on acid-free paper.

  Edited by David G. Hartwell

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  Tor Books on the World Wide Web:

  http://www.tor.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

  Design by Ann Gold

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Leiber, Fritz, 1910-1992

  The dealings of Daniel Kesserich / Fritz Leiber.

  p. cm.

  “A Tom Doherty Associates book.”

  ISBN 0-312-85408-0

  I. Title.

  PS3523.E4583D39 1997

  813’.54—dc20 96-44853

  CIP

  First Edition: March 1997

  Printed in the United States of America

  09876 5 4321

  Table of Contents

  Foreword

  Chapter 1 - the Riddle of the Pebbles

  Chapter 2 - Remains of a Notebook

  Chapter 3 - Small Talk

  Chapter 4 - Temporary Interruption of a Church Service

  Chapter 5 - Events Connected With a Burial

  Chapter 6 -Consequences of an Exhumation

  Chapter 7 - in the Minister’s Study

  Chapter 8 - Inmates of an Empty House

  Chapter 9 - Speculations of Kesserich

  Chapter 10 - the Final Outburst

  Chapter 11 - the Black Cat

  Chapter 12 - Kesserich: An Aftermath

  Postscript

  Fritz Leiber, Jr.

  Bibliography

  The Dealings of Daniel Kesserich

  FOREWORD

  Let me first explain that I have not intentionally written this as an explanation for the curious or as a warning to the overly curious. No. I merely wanted to make a permanent account of certain singular experiences that were beginning to be too much for my unaided memory. I wanted to have something to refer to, an anchor of fact to hold me down when my imagination began to wander too dangerously far afield. Being an author by profession I made this “anchor of fact” into, not a series of notes, but a story.

  No one, you see, is curious about the mass-insanity at Smithville for no one knows even of its occurrence—that is, no one except the inhabitants of that ominous town and they are all too eager to forget. Some of them have already forgotten, forced themselves to forget. A stranger, to learn anything, would have to work through several back issues of the local newspaper and then obtain from the inhabitants old gossip and tales, tales that they are singularly unwilling to recount. Even then he would have only a hint.

  But I was on the scene at the crucial time.

  Nor, as I have said, would it be of any avail for me to warn the overly curious against prying too closely into that puzzling group of events that touched obscurely, but with shivering danger, upon the teetering, black foundations of our threatened universe.

  No, when I wrote the body of this narrative, I wanted neither to warn nor to explain, or—strangest—to see it sold and printed. Not that I am adverse to money making. But, you see, at that time the story had no ending or, to be precise, it ended with a gigantic question mark. And stories are required to have reasonable endings.

  At that time the last section was the one I have entitled “The Final Outburst.”

  Now there are two additional chapters. These two chapters give a hideously convincing explanation of what was before only disturbingly enigmatical. The claims made in them may be criticized and ridiculed by certain of the scientifically minded. Nevertheless, I myself find that I must accept them or accept nothing at all, save admission of defeat in the face of the inexplicable.

  And I was on the scene.

  For what happened at Smithville is inexplicable in terms of mankind’s present knowledge. That is, inexplicable to everyone except possibly one man and he had more than mankind’s present knowledge. Or, at least, I am led to believe so.

  How those last two chapters came into my hands will be told in due course.

  So I trust I have now explained why this story is being published. The two final chapters gave it an ending, made it salable—and I am one who is always willing to sell.

  And so my little narrative goes out into the world, the little narrative that was written only to bring order into a black chaos of events in the real world and a threatening chaos of hypotheses in my own mind. It is, in fact, the only thing I ever wrote that was even once “not for publication.” I write to make money, not to “express myself.”

  What the result will be I do not know. Perhaps the curious will go to Smithville—if they can find it. Perhaps psychologists will substantiate the facts and use them as a “modem example of mass-delusion” in their text books. And perhaps one certain person will read what I have written and laugh.

  In closing, let me mention that the names are substitutes: Smithville. John Ellis, Elstrom, and the rest. Only Kesserich I have not changed. The name is so much a part of the man that I am unwilling to separate them. No matter. No one remembers Kesserich—except myself, and the people of Smithville.

  George Kramer

  CHAPTER 1 - THE RIDDLE OF THE PEBBLES

  Being a city dweller, I was astonished by the way the main cross street of Smithville, California, ended suddenly in the desert. I suppose that back in New York I had unconsciously thought of streets as going on forever; if they did end it would be at an apartment building or a river. But this one led to an ocean of sand and sage and then stopped. It was as if it said: “Go through the desert in what direction you will; there are an infinite number of directions in the desert. But watch your step, for I am done with you. I have done my work in leading you there.”

  It reminded me of something that Kesserich had once said:

  “If we humans ever gained the power to move in a fourth dimension, our former life in three would seem as cramping as being in a narrow tunnel.”

  The very immensity of the desert impressed me more than I had expected. Being on the edge of the little town of Smithville seemed to me like being on the boundary between the finite and the fearful infinite. And that idea too made me think of Kesserich.

  It was only natural that I should be thinking of him, for I was on my way to pay him a visit. Daniel Kesserich, my college roommate, whom I had not seen for ten years.

  On a rise half a mile ahead I could see the small, white house the hotel clerk had described to me.


  “You’ll find him there all right, I guess,” he had said. “I haven’t seen him for weeks, but then none of us sees a great deal of Mister Kesserich.”

  That was just what you always heard of Kesserich. Love of isolation was the seal he had set on his whole life. The only connection his very house had with the town was a couple of heavily insulated wires supported by a series of short, thick poles. I idly marveled at the size of the wires.

  Three of us had been roommates, three of us had become fast friends: Daniel Kesserich, John Ellis, and myself, George Kramer. Then, as happens after college days, circumstances took them out of my life. John Ellis had come to this little California town to wed Mary Andrews, ward of a prominent local fruit grower, and to set up a medical practice. Mary Andrews had been our fellow student, come to far-off New York in the face of her guardian’s objections. She had some money of her own. All three of us had liked her well.

  Kesserich had come out to Smithville with the Ellises and finally made his home there, where the clear, quiet air did not interfere with his star-gazing, his experiments, and his crystalline theory-spinning. I had taken my chance in New York and finally achieved some minor success as a writer. For ten years we had not seen one another; our letters had become fewer and fewer, finally ceased altogether. Friendship there still was, but inactive.

  Only a month before I had chanced to look through the letters Kesserich had sent me during the first years. They seemed like a continuation of the nocturnal discussions we had at college and I felt myself caught by the old enthusiasm. How daringly young imaginations rip through the more speculative of scientific notions, especially those eternal riddles of space and time! There was the desert again! Kept one’s mind coming back to the problem of the infinite.

  Anyway, Kesserich had been a most astute critic in these matters. Strains of an old argument floated through my mind, one he repeated so often that we called it “the dirge.”

  “I wonder if all the people who talk so glibly of time traveling have understood what it means: namely, that past and future ages are just as real as the present. Else there would be no places to travel to. And then what keeps us from time-traveling? Only the human mind, the human consciousness, which is bound down to one tiny bit of time, the present moment. But if we could ever get outside the present moment, we would see the world in four dimensions, the fourth being time. We would see ourselves, stretching out in a continuous line from the cradle to the grave…”

  I stopped to wonder what effect the desert had on Kesserich; the desert, a gigantic incubator for strange ideas.

  It was John Ellis’s letter that had brought me out west. It had told of the death of his wife, Mary. One of those sudden, purely accidental deaths that are therefore doubly heartrending. “If she had only heard (I quote the letter) that her former guardian was trying out a new poisonous spray that did not stain the fruit or leave any visible sign. If that hired man hadn’t forgotten, with murderous, damnable stupidity, to put up the written warning. If she hadn’t happened to wander over there that fatal afternoon. If she hadn’t happened to eat that particular orange off that particular tree…”

  I could see in every line John’s inability to cope with this sudden stroke of fate. Despite his choice of profession he was a high-strung, sensitive man. His being a doctor probably only made the tragedy hit him the harder. Between the lines I could read his need of companionship. As I had been planning a vacation for some time his letter decided me on Smithville. It was not purely an act of sympathy on my part; if bored or pained I could always go elsewhere; for years I’d wanted to see the west.

  I was visiting Kesserich first to find out how the land lay and what changes had taken place in John so that I’d know how best to approach him. Ten years is a long time.

  By now I had come to the squat, white house. A little path lead to the door, strangely hedged on both sides by a wall of cactus and sage. I walked up it, raised my hand to knock out the familiar four and two raps that had been our signal at college… and hesitated. Old friendships are queer things. For the first time I began to wonder just how much Kesserich had changed. I might find that the old bond was no longer between us. The way to Kesserich’s friendship and confidence was narrow, as narrow as the way between the two hedges where I now stood.

  And, as I hesitated, the thing happened. I felt something push up beneath my foot. Moving away and looking down, I saw a tiny fragment of red sandstone. Just a tiny fragment, and there was a small pile of them at one side of the door— but I had not moved as I stood before the door and it had not been there when I had set my foot down, or else I would have felt it sooner. Or would I?

  As I stared downward I heard a tiny noise behind me. I spun round; no one there; only, on the ground, lay another fragment of red sandstone. Had it been there before? I shivered. Small events like this, minute infractions of natural law, are always the most eerie.

  Then, before my very eyes, a third red stone appeared several feet farther down the path. Appeared, I say. It was not thrown; it was not pushed up from under the ground. It just appeared. With trembling, cautious hand I picked it up; there seemed to be nothing unusual about it. And, as I inspected it dubiously, a fourth stone appeared farther on.

  If I had stopped to puzzle over the business I might have become completely unnerved, but the regular way in which the pebbles kept appearing fascinated me. Of contrasting color, they stood out like a trail across the desert floor. Trail? How laid and by whom and leading where? All else for the moment forgotten, I thought only of following it.

  I found myself being led back at a moderate pace toward a different part of town than that from which I had come. Sometimes I had difficulty in sighting the next stone, and this difficulty was a blessing in that it kept me from pondering on the monstrousness of what was happening.

  Finally the trail took me to an orchard fenced by light wire. As I hesitated in perplexity, another fragment appeared a few feet on the other side. I vaulted over and kept on. The task was more difficult now; the grass hid the tiny pebbles I was looking for. Once I lost the trail altogether. As I circled around trying to pick it up my glance fell upon a small patch of dried mud and, as I looked, the print of a shoe appeared in it; appeared—in the same way as had the fragments. Now, for the first time, extreme horror overtook me.

  Was I following the spoor of an invisible man? With a hectic desperation born of fear I dashed forward, my arms blindly groping for something tangible that I might grapple with. But I found nothing.

  Then I examined the footprint. It was not new; it looked several days old. How could a distinct footprint in dried mud be anything but old? I asked myself, holding my dizzy head in my hands. Then, with a slight, hysterical laugh I noticed a red pebble a little farther on. My breath coming fast and my heart pounding, I was drawn forward.

  The trail finally stopped at one of the orange trees; at least I could not find any continuation. Here the sod was trampled and there were many footprints, but none of them appeared, at least while I was watching. I wandered about, but could see nothing farther that was unusual. My fear was disappearing and in its place came an intellectual puzzlement like to nothing I have ever felt before. And then came a new fear: Was I insane? Were these stones hallucinations? What else could they be? I picked one of them up, half expecting it to melt away at my touch. Yet it was as maddeningly real and ordinary as only a bit of rock can be.

  But had I really seen it appear? Did the hallucination lie there? I returned for a last look to the tree where the trail ended. A bit of white cloth was laying on the ground—I was certain that it had not been there before, yet… I picked it up. It was a handkerchief. On one corner were the initials J.E.

  John Ellis!

  The name came into my mind like a bullet. His wife accidentally poisoned by fruit from “that particular tree.” Was this that tree? A new note, a gruesome one, was added to the riddle against which my mind futilely beat. I stood stupidly still, holding the bit of cloth in my h
and.

  Then I thought of Kesserich. This was just the sort of mystery that he had always wanted to come up against. Perhaps he could help explain things. Not that I thought they could be explained, but I had to talk to someone, someone who would not laugh or call the police to take me in charge as a lunatic. At a half run I doubled back toward his house, through the orchard, over the fence, past the graveyard that stood nearby, and on. As I ran I hardly thought of the fact that the trail had started at Kesserich’s, or wondered what that might mean.

  When I was about a hundred yards from the house came the climax of mysteries. There was a tremendous explosion; the shock of the sudden noise made me reel. When I looked up, the squat, white house had disappeared; in its place were two shaking walls and a wide scattering of fragments. I looked dumbfoundedly at the fat ball of smoke, the way it was beginning to roll away as unconcernedly as a little touring car that was chugging along almost a mile away across the desert…

  Then I hurried ahead to search the ruins. After five minutes or so I was joined in this task by the members of the local fire department and other people who came speeding or running from the town.

  We found clothing, bits of furniture, fragments of scientific apparatus, including an unbelievable quantity of copper wire. But of human remains, there was no trace.

  “Guess he was out of town, boys,” said the chief. “Any of you can puzzle out what might have caused it, ’cept a bomb? Well, I can’t either.”

  “We all know Mister Kesserich sometimes used enough electricity to darken all the lights in the town,” said an old man. “You can’t do that and not get danger.”

  Others nodded darkly. Some small-town people never do seem to get really modernized. Underneath and without knowing it, they remain superstitious witch-fearers and witch-burners.