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Keith Laumer:

The Lighter Side

By Keith Laumer

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and

any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

"In the Queue" was first published by Putnam in 1970 as part of the anthology Orbit 7, edited by

Damon Knight. "The Planet Wreckers" was first published in Worlds of Tomorrow , February

1967. "The Body Builders" was first published in Galaxy, August 1966. Time Trap was first

published by Putnam in 1970. "The Devil You Don't" was first published by Doubleday in 1970

as part of the anthology Alchemy & Academe, edited by Anne McCaffrey. "The Exterminator"

(aka "A Bad Day for Vermin") was first published in Galaxy, February 1964. "The Big Show"

was first published in Galaxy, February 1968. "Goobereality" was first published by Berkley in

1968 as part of the anthology of Keith Laumer stories entitled It's a Mad, Mad, Mad Galaxy.

"Prototaph" was first published in Analog, March 1966. The Great Time Machine Hoax was first

published by Simon & Schuster in 1964.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com

ISBN: 0-7434-3537-0

Cover art by Richard Martin

First printing, May 2002

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Production by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH

Printed in the United States of America

THE RUTABAGA THAT

WALKED LIKE A MAN

The girl lay in the rain by her crumpled motorcycle. "You must help me," she whispered.

"Deliver the message: Beware the Rhox!"

"What rocks?" Roger looked around wildly. "I'll go for a doctor!"

Her voice faltered. "No time . . . to explain . . . take . . . button . . . put it in . . . your ear. . . ."

The green eyes held on Roger's, pleading.

"Seems like a funny time to worry about a hearing aid," Roger gulped, "but . . ." He held the

button to his ear. Did he hear a faint, wavering hum, or was it his imagination? He pushed it in.

"Drive to Pottsville," the girl's voice said in his ear. "Start now. Time is precious!"

There was the sound of a motor. The headlight of a second motorcycle was approaching. As it

shot past, he saw the shape behind the handlebars: a headless torso, bulbous, ornamented with

two clusters of tentacles. Through the single goggle, an eye as big as a pizza swiveled to impale

him with a glance of utter alienness.

With a strangled yell, Roger leaped back and saw the motorcycle veer wildly, hurling its

monstrous rider clear, then skid to a stop in the center of the highway. Roger could see that the

rider's upper portion was smashed into a pulp.

"I should go to the police," he said. "But what can I say? That I was responsible for the death

of a giant rutabaga?"

"Time is of the essence," the girl's slightly accented voice said. "Get going! Take the

motorcycle!"

"That would be stealing!"

"Who's going to report it? Relatives of a giant rutabaga?"

"You have a definite point there," Roger said . . .

-from Time Trap

BAEN BOOKS by Keith Laumer:

The Compleat Bolo

Retief!

Odyssey

Keith Laumer: The Lighter Side

IN THE QUEUE

The old man fell just as Farn Hestler's power wheel was passing his Place in Line, on his way

back from the Comfort Station. Hestler, braking, stared down at the twisted face, a mask of soft,

pale leather in which the mouth writhed as if trying to tear itself free of the dying body. Then he

jumped from the wheel, bent over the victim. Quick as he was, a lean woman with fingers like

gnarled roots was before him, clutching at the old man's fleshless shoulders.

"Tell them me , Millicent Dredgewicke Klunt," she was shrilling into the vacant face. "Oh, if

you only knew what I've been through, how I deserve the help-"

Hestler sent her reeling with a deft shove of his foot. He knelt beside the old man, lifted his

head.

"Vultures," he said. "Greedy, snapping at a man. Now, I care . And you were getting so close

to the Head of the Line. The tales you could tell, I'll bet. An Old-timer. Not like these Line, er,

jumpers," he diverted the obscenity. "I say a man deserves a little dignity at a moment like this-"

"Wasting your time, Jack," a meaty voice said. Hestler glanced up into the hippopotamine

features of the man he always thought of as Twentieth Back. "The old coot's dead."

Hestler shook the corpse. "Tell them Argall Y. Hestler!" he yelled into the dead ear. "Argall,

that's A-R-G-A-L-L-"

"Break it up," the brassy voice of a Line Policeman sliced through the babble. "You, get

back." A sharp prod lent urgency to the command. Hestler rose reluctantly, his eyes on the waxy

face slackening into an expression of horrified astonishment.

"Ghoul," the lean woman he had kicked snarled. "Line-!" She mouthed the unmentionable

word.

"I wasn't thinking of myself," Hestler countered hotly. "But my boy Argall, through no fault

of his own-"

"All right, quiet!" the cop snarled. He jerked a thumb at the dead man. "This guy make any

disposition?"

"Yes!" the lean woman cried. "He said, to Millicent Dredgewicke Klunt, that's M-I-L-"

"She's lying," Hestler cut in. "I happened to catch the name Argall Hestler-right, sir?" He

looked brightly at a slack-jawed lad who was staring down at the corpse.

The boy swallowed and looked Hestler in the face.

"Hell, he never said a word," he said, and spat, just missing Hestler's shoe.

"Died intestate," the cop intoned, and wrote a note in his book. He gestured and a clean-up

squad moved in, lifted the corpse onto a cart, covered it, trundled it away.

"Close it up," the cop ordered.

"Intestate," somebody grumbled. "Crap!"

"A rotten shame. The slot goes back to the government. Nobody profits. Goddamn!" the fat

man who had spoken looked around at the others. "In a case like this we ought to get together,

have some equitable plan worked out and agreed to in advance-"

Keith Laumer - The Lighter Side.pdf

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