Brknk's Bounty Read online

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  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction January 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  BRKNK'S BOUNTY

  By

  JERRY SOHL

  Illustrated by KOSSIN

  From a feature writer to feature attraction--now there's a real booze-to-riches success story!

  * * * * *

  I never thought I'd like circus life, but a year of it has changed me.It's in my blood now and I suppose I'll never give it up--even ifthey'd let me.

  This job is better than anything I could get in the newspaper racket.I work all summer, it's true, but I get the winter off, though some ofthe offers for winter work are mighty tempting. Maybe if I hadn't beenkicked off the paper, I'd be city editor now, knocking my brains out.Who knows? But maybe I'd just be a rewrite man, or in the slot,writing heads, or copyreading. But the thought of newspaper work afterall this appalls me.

  Trlk, the Sybillian, should be thanked for the whole thing, I suppose,though it would be a grudging thank-you I'd give him, considering allthe trouble he caused. Still....

  I first saw him on a July morning at the beginning of the vacationschedule, when four of us on the local side were trying to do fivepeople's work.

  My first inkling anything was wrong came when I returned from thecourthouse beat and stuck a sheet of paper in the typewriter to writethe probate court notes.

  I struck the keys. They wouldn't go all the way down. I opened thecover plate, looked in to see what was wrong. I saw nothing, so Itried again. Oscar Phipps, the city editor, was giving me the eye. Ifigured maybe he was pulling a trick on me. But then I knew _he_hadn't. He wasn't the type.

  * * * * *

  The back space, tabular, margin release, shift and shift lock workedperfectly. But the keys only went down a short way before theystopped. All except one key. The cap _D_.

  I hit the _D_. It worked fine the first time, but not the second. Itried all the keys again. This time only the _i_ worked. Now I had_Di_. I went ahead testing. Pretty soon I had

  _Dimly_

  Then came a space. A few letters more and it was

  _Dimly drouse the dreary droves_

  Phipps had one eyebrow raised. I lifted the cover plate again.Quickly.

  There I saw a fuzzy thing. It whisked out of sight. I snapped theplate down and held it down. The party I had been on the night beforehadn't been that good and I had had at least three hours' sleep.

  I tried typing again. I got nothing until I started a new line. Thenout came

  _Primly prides the privy prose_

  I banged up the plate, saw a blur of something slinking down betweenthe type bar levers again. Whatever it was, it managed to squeezeitself out of sight in a most amazing way.

  "Hey!" I said. "I know you're down there. What's the big idea?"

  Fuzzy squeezed his head up from the levers. The head looked like thatof a mouse, but it had teeth like a chipmunk and bright little blackbeads for eyes. They looked right at me.

  "You go right ahead," he said in a shrill voice. "This is going to bea great poem. Did you get all that alliteration there in those twolines?"

  "Listen, will you get out of there? I've got work to do!"

  "Yes, I think I've hit it at last. It was that four-stress iambic thatdid it. It was iambic, wasn't it?"

  "Go away," I said miserably.

  Fuzzy pulled the rest of himself out of the bars and stood on hindfeet. He crossed his forepaws in front of him, vibrated his long,furry tail, and said defiantly, "No."

  "Look," I pleaded, "I'm not Don Marquis and you're not Archie and Ihave work to do. Now will you _please_ get out of this typewriter?"

  His tiny ears swiveled upward. "Who's Don Marquis? And Archie?"

  "Go to hell," I said. I slammed the cover down and looked up into thecold eyes of Oscar Phipps who was standing next to my desk.

  "Who, may I ask," he said ominously, "do you think you're talking to?"

  "Take a look." I lifted the plate once again. Fuzzy was there on hisback, his legs crossed, his tail twitching.

  "I don't see anything," Phipps said.

  "You mean you can't see Fuzzy here?" I pointed to him, the end of myfinger an inch from his head. "Ouch!" I drew my hand away. "The littledevil bit me."

  "You're fired, Mr. Weaver," Phipps said in a tired voice. "Fired as ofright now. I'll arrange for two weeks' severance pay. And my advice toyou is to stay off the bottle or see a psychiatrist--or both. Not thatit'll do you any good. You never amounted to anything and you neverwill."

  I would have taken a swipe at Fuzzy, but he had slunk out of sight.

  * * * * *

  During the two erratic years I had been on the newspaper, I had passedthe city park every morning on my way to work, feeling an envy forthose who had nothing better to do than sit on the benches andcontemplate the nature of the Universe. Now I took myself there andsat as I had seen others do, hoping to feel a kinship with theseunfortunates.

  But all I did was feel alone, frustrated and angry at Phipps. Maybe Ihad been too convivial, maybe I had enjoyed night life too much, maybeI hadn't given the paper my all. But I wasn't ready for the boobyhatch even if I had seen a fuzzy little thing that could talk.

  I drew a copy of _Editor and Publisher_ from my pocket and wasscanning the "Help Wanted: Editorial" columns when out of the cornerof my eye I saw a blob of black moving along the walk.

  Turning handsprings, balancing himself precariously on the end of hisvibrating tail, running and waving his forepaws to get my attentionwas Fuzzy.

  I groaned. "Please go away!" I covered my eyes so I wouldn't have tolook at him.

  "Why?" he piped.

  "Because you're a hallucination."

  "I'm not a hallucination," he said indignantly. "I'm real flesh andblood. See?" He vibrated his tail so fast, I could hardly see it. Thenit stopped and stood straight out. "Lovely, isn't it?"

  "Look," I said, leaning far off the bench to speak to him, "I canprove you're a hallucination."

  "You _can_?" he quavered. "How?"

  "Because Phipps couldn't see you."

  "That square? Hah! He would not have believed it if he had seen me."

  "You mean you--"

  He disappeared and reappeared like a flashing neon sign. "There!" hesaid triumphantly.

  "Why didn't you let him see you then?" I asked, a little angry, butpleased nonetheless with his opinion of Phipps. "Because you didn't,you cost me my job."

  * * * * *

  He waved a forepaw deprecatingly. "You didn't want to stay on thathick sheet anyway."

  "It was a job."

  "Now you've got a better one."

  "Who's kidding whom?"

  "Together we'll write real literature."

  "I don't know anything about literature. My job is writing the news."

  "You'll be famous. With my help, of course."

  "Not with that 'dimly drouse' stuff."

  "Oh, that!"

  "Where did you come from, Fuzzy?"

  "Do I ask you where you come from?"

  "Well, no--"

  "And my name's not Fuzzy. It's Trlk, pronounced Turlick and spelledT-r-l-k."

  "My name's Larry Weaver, pronounced Lar-ree--"

  "I know. Look, you got a typewriter?"

  "A portable. At the apartment."
r />   "That will do."

  "Aren't you taking things for granted? I haven't said yet whether Iliked the idea."

  "Do you have any choice?"

  I looked at him, a couple of ounces of harmless-looking fur that hadalready cost me my immediate future in the newspaper business.

  "I guess not," I said, hoping I could find a way to get rid of him ifthings didn't work out right.

  And so began a strange collaboration, with Trlk perched on my shoulderdictating stories into my ear while I typed them. He had definiteideas about writing and I let him have his way.