There were four bids, and there should have been only three. Only three firms in the country were capable of making so miniaturized a control station.

Three bids were in quite heavy packets. The fourth was in a slim envelope. This was Opening INV-3MINCON3999.

“Ah, here are the bids from Micro Machinists Amalgamated, from Intensive Instrumentation, mid from DOW-MEC-TEC,” said Colonel Ludenschlager. “It isn’t likely that any of them will he less than two years, and we need it within two weeks. We are whipped before we start I” He struck the table with a ringing thud. “But what is the anomalous intrusion, the small envelope bid, Dinneen?”

“It’s from an M. M. McGruder,” said Colonel Dinneen. “The second M is in quotation marks. We may have a case for the prosecution here. The Joker Act was set up for just such stuff as this. There has to be a ceiling put on cranks.”

“There was a certain McGruder in Manhattan when I was a boy,” Colonel Schachmeister smiled. “I spent many pleasant moments in his, ah, Hippodrome, I believe he called it. It was a narrow place off a narrow cigar store, and only about three could get in it at one time, if they were small, and we were. Best show I ever saw for a dime,/though. What is the address of this one?”

“Here in D. C.,” said Dinneen. “It would be a rundown address even without the ending ‘Apt. 3, room 4-E, use cellar steps off small alley.’ Some address! And the phone number of the Rowdy - Dow Bar and Grill is given. It’s written in an old and probably insane hand. We will prosecute with compassion, possibly.”

The chime chimed for 9:30. It was opening time. And they opened the bids.

They quickly made the basic resume:

1. Micro Machinists Amalgamated. Basic Module: $2,106,740- .00. Estimated Time: 25 months. Exceptions and Alternatives: 256 (detailed). Follow-up Units: $260,000.00 ea. Estimated Time: 30 days each for first 6, grading down to 21 days each for additional

2. Intensive Instrumentation. Basic Module: $2,004,000DO. Estimated Time: 721 days. Exceptions and Alternatives: 228 (detailed). Follow-Up Units: $248,- 000.00 ea. Estimated Time: 28 days each for first 4, 19 days each for additional

3. Dow-Mec-Tec. Basic Module: $1,999,999.98. Estimated’ Time: 23 months. Exceptions and Alternatives: 204 (detailed). Follow-Up Units: $235,000.00 Estimated Time: 21 days each for first 9, 16 days each for additional.

4. M. ‘M.’ McGruder. Basic Module: $24.00. Estimated Time: 24 hours. Exceptions and Alternatives: none (undetailed). Follow-Up Units: $24.00 ea. Estimated Time: 24 hours each — “this keeps going on as long as I live or as long as you buy them, whichever is first. Note: Got one made already. Come try it. I need the $24.00. I don’t see how anybody can make them cheaper than this.”

“We run into the impossible,” said Ludenschlager sadly. “We need one within two weeks or we may as well forget the program. And if we forget the program, we may as well forget everything. It is not for personal aggrandizement that we seek this (except for Dinneen a little), but for the good of our country and the world. There has to be a way out of this delay.”

“How about McGruder?” Schachmeister laughed sourly.

“Oh, we’ll prosecute him under the Joker Act, of course,” Ludenschlager growled, “but now we have the taller thing to tackle. We have to find the way. Two years will be too late; we’ll be done for by then. Two weeks will almost be too late. We must somehow break the time barrier in this.” “We’re whipped, we’re whipped!” Dinneen wailed, “and our enemies will rejoice over us.” He turned on three toes and strode gloomily out of the room.

“The Covenant,” it said.

“Large, hard-roasted, de-oiled, white peanuts under the Goober John trade name. Three a day, and they must be Goober John Number Ones. Failure to provide them will void the Covenant.”

“There will be no failure,” said Malcomb ‘the Marvelous’ McGruder. “It shall be done.”

“We like-stuff pledge fulfill the Covenant,” it said.

The project is still classified, so we cannot in conscience give deep details of it. The project is still active, and perhaps an answer can be found for it this second time. Ah well, we lost the first race, and the most populous one-third of our nation; but we lost it hard. We had them near beaten for a little while there. Another year, and DOW-MEC- TEC will have their first module ready. It win probably be far too late, it will likely do no good at all, but you never know. The slimmest hope still remains …

But now they were looking very hard for that answer the first time: the three colonels, the High Commission of the colonels, the potential saviors of their country and the world. It was not for personal glory they sought this (except Dinneen a little) but for the ultimate good of the ultimate number.

Colonel Dinneen strode up and down endless corridors, booming like a canary in his odd voice. He didn’t want the thing in two years, he wanted it in two minutes, right now.

Colonel Ludenschlager shuffled old brain-buster notes looking for a miracle. He had an impediment there; he didn’t believe in miracles.

Colonel Schachmeister walked desolately through the city, praying for the instant miniaturized control station. He walked and walked; but where did he walk?

“It is my unconscious leading me somewhere,” he mumbled, “And I will follow my unconscious wherever it leads, like a man in a dream.”

That Schachmeister was an unconscious phony. It wasn’t his unconscious leading him anywhere! It was his conniving own self walking furtively where his own dishonesty would not allow him to walk openly. And he had tliat address graven on his brain by a micro-stylus.

There was something about a three-foot-wide Hippodrome from his boyhood; there was something of the credence in the incredible: and both these things were shameful to him as a man of science, and a colonel moreover.

Well, it was a shabby enough neighborhood. The alley was worse, and yet even this was not the final alley. He found it then, the “small alley,” hardly a skunk track. He followed it. He knocked crunchingly on a door and near lost his hand in the termite-eaten wood.

“Be careful there!” an ancient voice blatted out like slats falling down in an old bed. “Those are friends of my own people, and my people will not have them discommoded. After all, they are quiet, they do no harm, and they eat only wood.”

“It — it’s the same McGruder It is Malcomb ‘the Marvelous’ McGruder himself, the Grand Master of McGruder’s Marvels!’1 Colonel Schachmeister detonated in wonder.

“Oh sure, little boy,” came the! wonderful voice like an old organ filling with noise again and blowing the dust off itself in doing so. “And it’s the same little Heinie Schachmeister! Why aren’t you in school today, Heinie? Oh, I notice that you have grown, and perhaps you are too old for school now.”

“It’s marvelous to see you again, Marvelous!” Schachmeister breathed in awe. “I had no idea that you were the same one, or that you were still alive.”

“Come in, little Heinie. And what are you doing? I have never seen your name in the Flea-Bag. so I suppose you have failed in your early ambition.”

“Ah, McGruder, I don’t know what the Flea-Bag is, and I forget what early ambition of mine you refer to.”

“The Flea-Bag, Heinie, is a mimeographed sheet that still circulates among the members of our dwindling profession. And your early ambition was to grow up and have fleas of your own.” “Wish I had done it, McGruder, wish I had done it, especially on days like this. Some of my happiest hours were spent watching

McGruder’s Marvels, that greatest of all Flea Circuses, in that little hole in the wall.”

“In the Hippodrome, you mean, Heinie? Do you remember the Coachman Set?”

“Yes, yes, and the flea up on the coachman’s seat, in livery, and with the whip! McGruder, when you screwed the three sections of the microscope together, you could see the very braiding of that coachman’s whip. And the flea in harness! The harness was perfect, and had little bells on it. The bells had clappers, and you could hear them jingle when you screwed that little thing into your ear. And the flea in harness was shod, with real horseshoes, or flea-shoes.”

More, Heinie, more! The shoes had authentic calks on them, and nails! And the nails were of no ordinary sort, but were ancient horseshoe nails with the oblong wedge-shaped heads. You could see that when you screwed the fourth section into the microscope. And you remember the lady fleas inside the coach, Heinie?”

“Yes, yes, dressed in old Empire style with the high hair on them, and the flounce stuff. And when you screwed the little thing into your nose you could smell their perfume. What was it, McGruder?”

“Printemps. And you may not know it, but there were eight petticoats on each of those lady fleas, and the microscope lace on even the inmost of them was done with loving care and surpassing detail, more than nine hundred loops on the bottom round in the style that is called punto a groppo. Your eyes used to boggle at my things, little Heinie.”

“My mind boggles at something now. That was forty years ago. McGruder, I know you were good, but this passes reason! You still have your little lathes and turners and instruments here, but you did not make a miniaturized control station with such!”

“Of course not, Heinie. The detailing for the little control station had to be a thousand times finer, actually eight thousand times finer, than anything I could do on my own little lathes. I’m surprised you should ask such a silly question, Heinie.”

“Is that the control station there, Marvelous?”

“That’s it, Heinie. Take it along and try it and send me the twenty-four dollars if it works. I’ll have another one this time tomorrow if you wish. It’s nice to have seen you. I’m always happy when the little boys come back to see me again.”

The Marvelous McGruder still had a certain threadbare elegance about him.

“McGruder, how did you make the control station.?”

“Trade secret, Heinie. You remember my patter. Everything was always a trade secret.”

“McGruder, I’m, going to ask you the silliest question I’ve ever asked, anyone in my life. Did your fleas somehow,. manufacture that thing?”

“Certainly not, Heinie! What’s the matter with you anyhow? What do they make the colonels out of nowadays? No wonder we’re in trouble! You knew how hard it is, to get fleas ta «ear clothes, for even a few seconds? You know how hard it is to teach them even the most simple trick? Heinie, fleas, are stupid, and so are you! No, I will settle that. Fleas did not, in any way at all, have anything to do with making that miniature, control station.. I didn’t have much to do with it myself. Subcontracted it, really. No, I will not give you any more information about it. Take it and try it. Bring me the twenty-four dollars, if you are satisfied. And now you had better get along or your keiferin of a mother will be after me for letting you loiter so long in my place. Oh, 1 forgot! You’re a big boy now.”

Colonel Schachmeister left the shabby elegant old man, ‘Malcomb the Marvelous’ McGruder; and he took, the miniaturized control station along with. him.

He took it to a most secret laboratory to try it with his peers.

It worked

“The Covenant.” it said.

“There are only twenty-seven Goober John Number One peanuts, left here. These will last only nine days. Replenish the stock, McGruder, or the. Covenant is in danger.”

“I’ll remember to get a package of them at the Rawdy-Dow today,” McGruder promised.

‘Well, there were thirty of the “bullet brains” in operation now, and our enemies could no longer rejoice over us. Their own spectacular stunt had been inhibited; their own. dastardly program had been paralyzed With another thirty of the “bullet brains-” in operation, the High Commission, of the colonels, the Secret Saviors of the World, would be able to inhibit anything anywhere in that world.

It was of most amazing and curious effect that such small things could do such; and the secret of it was, in their very smallness. Now, the manner by which they did this — No!: No! No! We may not tell it! It is more than classified; it is totally under the ban. It is still possible that the thing may be done once more; still possible that it may yet save what is left of us.

But it was going well for the colonels in that time. And yet they wanted them faster than one a day.

“We have no desire for personal gain or glory,” said Dinneen, except myself a little. But if that crazy old man can make one a day, it should be possible for us to make a thousand. Go back to him, Schachmeister. Find out how he does it. We ‘have spied on him, of course, but we can’t understand it at all. The control stations seem to form themselves on his table there. They continue to take form even while he is asleep. And there’s a further mystery. He never checked out prints of the larger model that was to be miniaturized. What does he work from?”

“Is it true, Schachmeister, that he once operated a flea circus in New York?” Ludenschlager asked.

“Yes, it’s true enough. He’s the same man.”

“Can there be some possible connection? No, no, don’t laugh! It cannot be any sillier than what is already happening.”

“No, men, there isn’t a connection. He said to me, and he was speaking the truth, that fleas did not, in any way, have anything to do with the control stations. And, yet, I remember an ugly smear against McGruder from the early years — ”

“What is that, Schachmeister?” Dinneen demanded avidly.

“That he sometimes uses mechanical fleas. I did not believe it.”

“Go to him, Schachmeister,” Dinneen and Ludenschlager both begged. “If you cannot find out how he makes them, at least ask if he cannot make them faster.”

“The Covenant,” it said.

“There are only three Goober Number One peanuts left here. Replenish the stock, McGruder, or the Covenant will come to an end this very day. I’d get you an extension for the’ affection I have for you, but the numerous members of the smaller orders will not hear of it. There are seven orders, as you know, each smaller than the other. Sometimes they are hard to deal with, particularly the four smaller orders which I cannot see myself. Today, McGruder, Goober Johns!”

“I swear I will remember it,” McGruder swore. “I’ll get a package at the Rowdy-Dow this very afternoon.”

Colonel Schachmeister went back to see Malcomb ‘the Marvelous’ McGruder. McGruder was no longer shabby. He was the cream of old con men with an ivory-colored topper and canary-colored vest and gloves. He gestured with a silver-headed cane. He welcomed Heinie Schachmeister with incredible flourish, and Schachmeister came right to the point

“Will you not tell me how you make the stations, Marvelous? It is important.”

“No. I will not tell you. It is important, to me, that I slice up this fat hog for myself, and twenty-four dollar slices please me mightily.”

“Marvelous, you did not check out a set of plans for this thing. From what do you miniaturize?” “Well, I was going to, Heinie. I went by the place where the plans were to be had. But I found that the prints for that gadget weighed four hundred pounds, and also that I would have to put down a token deposit of $50,000.00 to check out a set of them. Both these things were too heavy for me. So I slipped a few of my small associates into a packet of plans (I always was a tricky man with my hands, you know), and they recorded the information in their own way.”

“Your small associates — ah — how long did it take them to record the plans?”

“About as long as it took me to light a cigar.”

“And how many of these associates were there? “Don’t know Heinie. They were sixth and seventh order associates, so there must have been quite a few of them.”

“What do they look like, McGruder?”

“Don’t know. I’ve never seen them. I can see only the first order ones, and the second order ones through a strong microscope. And each order can see only two orders smaller than itself, by using extreme magnification.” “They are not fleas?”

“Of course not, Heinie! What’s the matter with you?”

“Are they mechanical?”

“No, not mechanical. But they are mechanically inclined, in the smaller orders of them.”

“How did you become — ah — associated with them, Marvelous?”

“One of the first order ones was a friend of a flea who once worked with me. The flea introduced us, and we rather took to each other. We both know how to latch onto a good thing when we see it.”

“Marvelous, would it be possible to make more than one control station a day.”

“Sure. I just didn’t want to milk it dry too soon. Get you a dozen a day, if you want them. All it’ll take is a bigger sack of peanuts.”

“McGruder! Did I hear you right?”

“I don’t know what you Heard,

Heinie. I said. that, all ill would take would-he. a, bigger sack, of peanuts. I’ll haste twelve of the controls for you, tomorrow, but there’s no discount for quantity. I stick by my bid, Twenty-four dollars: each”/

“Marvelous. Marvelous, this-is marvelous” Colonel Schachmeister gibbered, and he rattled away from them to bring, the. glad news to-his associates,

“This puts us over the hump! Two, days-and we will have the world by its woolly tail!” Colonel Dinneen clattered. “We will have sufficient, coverage now to impose our will on all nations. For their own good-, we will compel them away from: their errors.”

“ We have no thought no thought of personal benefit,” Colonel Ludenschlager exploded with a jingling hiss, “except Colonel Dinneen a little. We will force-feed the world, on al benignity and kindness and understanding and good will. We will teach-the world true happiness and order, now that we will have the power to do so,”

“We be the lords of the world now,” cried Colonel Schachmeister, “the High Commission, of Colonels, saviors of the country and the world. The President will be glad to shine our very shoes;, it will teach him, blessed humility. We will shape the whole world like clay on in our hand. We will run the world now, and all must come down to our spring to drink. Ah, but the water, is sweet, and the people will come to love it!” The Greeks named it hybris. And. in, the Ozarks they call it Peacock Fever.. It was Pride. It was the Grand Arrogance, the Warrentless Assumption,, the bursting summertime of Giant Pride.. And. it would have its fall.

The Covenant!” it thundered!” Like acorns rattling on the roof; and McGruder almost didn’t need the piece, screwed into, his ear to hear it. “These aren’t Goober John, Number Ones!”

“Ach, they were, out of. Goober Johns at the Rowdy-Dow;.” the Marvelous McGruder soothed. “These are Arizona Spanish Peanuts, packaged, by the Snack-Sack people.. Try them. They’re even better than Goober Johns.”

“The Covenant is voided!” it said, sadly.. “The involvement with humanity is ended.”

And Malcomb ‘the. Marvelous’ McGruder was never able to establish contact with any-of them again; so that, instead of twelve of them that day, there were no control stations, at all for evermore. And those already in use blinked out

“McGruder, hey McGruder!” Colonel Schachmeister came to him.

“Ah, little Heinie, why are you not in school this day? Oh, I forget always, you are a big boy now. It is all ended, Heinie, all ended. The twenty-four dollars a day and everything is gone. I will have to live by my wits again, and I always hate to get off a comfortable con that has kept me.”

“McGruder,” the frantic Colonel Schachmeister moaned, “it isn’t merely that there will be no mare of the stations, it is that those already in service have gone dead or disappeared also. This is not possible. They were made to operate forever.”

“Don’t think so, Heinie, not after the Covenant was broken. I think that the guys in them quit when they heard about the wrong peanuts.”

“What guys? What peanuts? We’ve lost the jump on them, McGruder. A third of our country will be gone before we can institute a holding action, without the miniature stations. What made them go dead, McGruder?”

“I figure it all out now, Heinie. They didn’t make any little control stations at all. They took all of us in. They didn’t any more know how to make little control stations than I did, but they were smart enough to fake it and make them work. I tell you a thing.

Heinie, and you write it down so you remember it when you get big: never trust a bag you can’t see.”

“But they worked, Marvelous! They worked perfectly till they went dead or disappeared. They handled all the data flows perfectly. They responded, they monitored, they inhibited. Certainly they were control stations.”

“Not really, Heinie. Hey, this old town will be gone in another five minutes, won’t it! I bet that one took out thirty square blocks. Man, feel the hot blast from it even here. Your sleeve’s on fire, Heinie. Your mother will scold and moan when she sees bow it’s burned. See, this is the way it was — You know the man who made all the fancy little cars so cheap, and nobody knew how he did it?”

“No, no, McGruder, what is it? Oh, the asphalt is flowing like water in the streets! What do you mean?”

“A guy that bought one of those little cars lifted up the hood one day. It didn’t have a motor in it. It didn’t have any works at all in it. It’s the same as these little control stations were. It just had a little guy in there pedaling the pedals to make it go. Now they quit pedaling, Heinie.

— R. A. LAFFERTY

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

McGRUDER’S MARVELS 85