[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Science Fiction May 1953.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Not to be or not to not be ... that was the
not-question for the invader of the not-world.
Dear Editor:
My 14 year old boy, Ronnie, is typing this letter for me because he
can do it neater and use better grammar. I had to get in touch with
somebody about this because if there is something to it, then somebody,
everybody, is going to point finger at me, Ivan Smernda, and say, "Why
didn't you warn us?"
I could not go to the police because they are not too friendly to
me because of some of my guests who frankly are stew bums. Also they
might think I was on booze, too, or maybe the hops, and get my license
revoked. I run a strictly legit hotel even though some of my guests
might be down on their luck now and then.
What really got me mixed up in this was the mysterious disappearance of
two of my guests. They both took a powder last Wednesday morning.
Now get this. In one room, that of Joe Binkle, which maybe is an alias,
I find nothing but a suit of clothes, some butts and the letters I
include here in same package. Binkle had only one suit. That I know.
And this was it laying right in the middle of the room. Inside the
coat was the vest, inside the vest the shirt, inside the shirt the
underwear. The pants were up in the coat and inside of them was also
the underwear. All this was buttoned up like Binkle had melted out of
it and dripped through a crack in the floor. In a bureau drawer were
the letters I told you about.
Now. In the room right under Binkle's lived another stew bum that
checked in Thursday ... name Ed Smith, alias maybe, too. This guy was a
real case. He brought with him a big mirror with a heavy bronze frame.
Airloom, he says. He pays a week in advance, staggers up the stairs to
his room with the mirror and that's the last I see of him.
In Smith's room on Wednesday I find only a suit of clothes, the same
suit he wore when he came in. In the coat the vest, in the vest the
shirt, in the shirt the underwear. Also in the pants. Also all in the
middle of the floor. Against the far wall stands the frame of the
mirror. Only the frame!
What a spot to be in! Now it might have been a gag. Sometimes these
guys get funny ideas when they are on the stuff. But then I read
the letters. This knocks me for a loop. They are all in different
handwritings. All from different places. Stamps all legit, my kid says.
India, China, England, everywhere.
My kid, he reads. He says it's no joke. He wants to call the cops or
maybe some doctor. But I say no. He reads your magazine so he says
write to you, send you the letters. You know what to do. Now you have
them. Maybe you print. Whatever you do, Mr. Editor, remember my place,
the Plaza Ritz Arms, is straight establishment. I don't drink. I never
touch junk, not even aspirin.
Yours very truly,
Ivan Smernda
* * * * *
Bombay, India
June 8
Mr. Joe Binkle
Plaza Ritz Arms
New York City
Dear Joe:
Greetings, greetings, greetings. Hold firm in your wretched projection,
for tomorrow you will not be alone in the not-world. In two days I,
Glmpauszn, will be born.
Today I hang in our newly developed not-pod just within the mirror
gateway, torn with the agony that we calculated must go with such
tremendous wavelength fluctuations. I have attuned myself to a fetus
within the body of a not-woman in the not-world. Already I am static
and for hours have looked into this weird extension of the Universe
with fear and trepidation.
As soon as my stasis was achieved, I tried to contact you, but got
no response. What could have diminished your powers of articulate
wave interaction to make you incapable of receiving my messages and
returning them? My wave went out to yours and found it, barely pulsing
and surrounded with an impregnable chimera.
Quickly, from the not-world vibrations about you, I learned the
not-knowledge of your location. So I must communicate with you by what
the not-world calls "mail" till we meet. For this purpose I must
utilize the feeble vibrations of various not-people through whose
inadequate articulation I will attempt to make my moves known to you.
Each time I will pick a city other than the one I am in at the time.
I, Glmpauszn, come equipped with powers evolved from your fragmentary
reports before you ceased to vibrate to us and with a vast treasury
of facts from indirect sources. Soon our tortured people will be free
of the fearsome not-folk and I will be their liberator. You failed in
your task, but I will try to get you off with light punishment when we
return again.
The hand that writes this letter is that of a boy in the not-city of
Bombay in the not-country of India. He does not know he writes it.
Tomorrow it will be someone else. You must never know of my exact
location, for the not-people might have access to the information.
I must leave off now because the not-child is about to be born. When it
is alone in the room, it will be spirited away and I will spring from
the pod on the gateway into its crib and will be its exact vibrational
likeness.
I have tremendous powers. But the not-people must never know I am among
them. This is the only way I could arrive in the room where the gateway
lies without arousing suspicion. I will grow up as the not-child in
order that I might destroy the not-people completely.
All is well, only they shot this information file into my matrix too
fast. I'm having a hard time sorting facts and make the right decision.
Gezsltrysk, what a task!
Farewell till later.