The Edmond Hamilton Megapack
The Dashiell Hammett Megapack
The C.J. Henderson Megapack
The M.R. James Megapack
The Selma Lagerlof Megapack
The Harold Lamb Megapack
The Murray Leinster Megapack***
The Second Murray Leinster Megapack***
The Jonas Lie Megapack
The Arthur Machen Megapack**
The Katherine Mansfield Megapack
The George Barr McCutcheon Megapack
The A. Merritt Megapack*
The Talbot Mundy Megapack
The E. Nesbit Megapack
The Andre Norton Megapack
The H. Beam Piper Megapack
The Mack Reynolds Megapack
The Rafael Sabatini Megapack
The Saki Megapack
The Darrell Schweitzer Megapack
The Robert Sheckley Megapack
The Bram Stoker Megapack
The Lon Williams Weird Western Megapack
The Virginia Woolf Megapack
The William Hope Hodgson Megapack
* Not available in the United States
** Not available in the European Union
***Out of print.
OTHER COLLECTIONS YOU MAY ENJOY
The Great Book of Wonder, by Lord Dunsany (it should have been called “The Lord Dunsany Megapack”)
The Wildside Book of Fantasy
The Wildside Book of Science Fiction
Yondering: The First Borgo Press Book of Science Fiction Stories
To the Stars—And Beyond! The Second Borgo Press Book of Science Fiction Stories
Once Upon a Future: The Third Borgo Press Book of Science Fiction Stories
Whodunit?—The First Borgo Press Book of Crime and Mystery Stories
More Whodunits—The Second Borgo Press Book of Crime and Mystery Stories
X is for Xmas: Christmas Mysteries
NO GUN TO THE VICTOR
CON-SUM-ER (KON-SUM-ER}, n., 1. A person who destroys, uses up, or wastes industrial production in order to control the size of the population and make possible the full employment that is necessary for a healthy economy. 2. One who has not yet achieved producer status. 3. Any person under twenty-one. 4. (Obs.) A person who uses goods or services to satisfy his needs rather than to resell them or to produce other goods with them.—The Authorized Dictionary (New Washington, Kansas: The Federal Printing Office, 3rd ed., 1984)
It was Saturday so Alan had to go out and get the mail. Just as the letter carrier’s tank clanked away, he got his cousin Alf to man the front door turret and went zigzagging down the communication trench that led to the street. As he reached cautiously up to open the small door in the bottom of the armored mail box, there was a sudden crack from across the way and the whine of a near miss sent him tumbling back into the slit trench. A moment later there was a coughing stutter as Alf opened up with the fifty and pounded a burst into the tungsten steel shutters of the house across the street. Alan jumped to his feet, dumped the mail out of the box, and then made a quick dive for safety just in case Alf’s fire hadn’t completely discouraged the Higgens kid.
The mail didn’t look particularly exciting. There wasn’t anything for him and aside from a few letters for his uncle, most of what had come consisted of advertisements for sniper-scopes and stuff like that. The only exceptions were two small black boxes. They looked like samples of something, and since, as the only consumer left in the family, samples were Alan’s perquisite, he promptly stuffed them into his worn grenade carrier, and just as promptly forgot about them. Until that evening when the man from Consolidated Munitions stopped by, that is.
Mr. Flugnet was so disturbed that he’d forgotten to take off his white truce hat “We think the promotion crew passed out a batch on this street,” he said as Alan slipped into the room and sat down quietly in the far corner. “But we’re not sure.”
“Why not?” asked Alan’s uncle, a weedy little man with a somewhat nasal voice.
“Because some damn kid dropped a mortar shell on their halftrack while they were on the way back to the warehouse to pick up another load. Got every one of them. Were any samples dropped off here?”
“Alan brought in the mail,” volunteered Alf.
“Was there anything in it that somebody wanted that they didn’t get?” asked Alan in a small voice. They all turned and looked at him, aware of his presence for the first time.
“I’m from Consolidated Munitions,” said Mr. Flugnet.
“Yes, sir?”
“Did you find a small black box in the mail? We’ve been passing out samples of our new concussion grenade and we just discovered today that several…uh…overpowered experimental models had got mixed in with them by mistake. We’re trying to track them down before its…well, before something unfortunate happens.”
Alan was just about to reach into his grenade case and produce the two little cartons when the word “overpowered” registered. He struggled briefly against temptation and lost.
“I dumped all the advertising stuff on the hall table.” He felt suddenly that his grenade case had become transparent and that the little black boxes inside, now grown to quadruple size, were visible to everybody in the room. He knew it couldn’t be, but even so he let his hand drop casually over the carrier just in case there might be a revealing bulge. “I’ll go check.”
Once the door was safely shut behind him, he took the two boxes out, opened them, and examined their contents. There was a little metallic globe in each, but one had a roughly soldered seam that made it look like a hand production job. He gave a little whistle of excitement and stowed it away carefully in his pocket. If he was going to make it through the game with North, he was going to need super power. After replacing the other grenade in his box and putting it back in his carrier, he squatted down on his haunches and listened at the keyhole. He wanted to find out something more about his new weapon.
“Fine young consumer, that,” he heard Mr. Flugnet say in the voice that producers use when they want to say something nice that they really don’t mean. Aunt Martha let out a long sniff.
“Too spindly! It’s a wonder to us that he’s made it this far. He just hasn’t got the stuff that my boys have. Made it through, both of them, with hardly a scratch.”
She nodded fondly over toward Reuban and Alf. Alf was sniggering through a comic book, one of the new improved kind without any words to distract the reader. Reuban just sat, a thin driblet of saliva drooling from one corner of his mouth, and plucked aimlessly at the buttons on his shirt. As they looked at him, he began to squirm back and forth and to make little whimpering sounds.
“Better take Reuban upstairs before he dirties himself again,” said Aunt Martha. Alf obediently took his younger brother by the arm and herded him out of the room. Alan ducked under the hall table until they had gone by.
“Which shock is he on?” asked Mr. Flugnet politely.
“He got his third today. That’s always the worst.”
Mr. Flugnet nodded his agreement.
“Another couple of weeks, though, and he’ll be ready to start his reconditioning. And by spring he’ll be ready to settle down as a full-fledged