“But you don’t,” Bill insisted, “appreciate all my fiendish subtlety. Look— Say, what is your name?”
The demon hesitated. “You haven’t got another of those things?”
“What things?”
“Matches.”
“Sure.
“Light me one, please?”
Bill tossed the burning match into the center of the pentacle. The demon scrambled eagerly out of the now cold ashes of the powder and dived into the flame, rubbing himself with the brisk vigor of a man under a needle-shower. “There!” he gasped joyously. “That’s more like it.”
“And now what’s your name?”
The demon’s face fell again. “My name? You really want to know?”
“I’ve got to call you something.”
“Oh, no you don’t. I’m going home. No money games for me.”
“But I haven’t explained yet what you are to do. What’s your name?”
“Snulbug.” The demon’s voice dropped almost too low to be heard.
“Snulbug?” Bill laughed.
“Uh-huh. I’ve got a cavity in one tusk, my snakes are falling out, I haven’t got enough troubles, I should be named Snulbug.”
“All right. Now listen, Snulbug, can you travel into the future?”
“A little. I don’t like it much, though. It makes you itch in the memory.”
“Look, my fine snake-haired friend. It isn’t a question of what you like. How would you like to be left there in that pentacle with nobody to throw matches at you?” Snulbug shuddered. “I thought so. Now, you can travel into the future?”
“I said a little.”
“And,” Bill leaned forward and puffed hard at his corncob as he asked the vital question, “can you bring back material objects?” If the answer was no, all the fine febrile fertility of his spell-making was useless. And if that was useless, heaven alone knew how the Hitchens Embolus Diagnosis would ever succeed in ringing down the halls of history, and incidentally saving a few thousand lives annually.
Snulbug seemed more interested in the warm clouds of pipe smoke than in the question. “Sure,” he said. “Within reason I can—” He broke off and stared up piteously. “You don’t mean— You can’t be going to pull that old gag again?”
“Look baby. You do what I tell you and leave the worrying to me. You can bring back material objects?”
“Sure. But I warn you—”
Bill cut him off short. “Then as soon as I release you from that pentacle, you’re to bring me tomorrow’s newspaper.”
Snulbug sat down on the burned match and tapped his forehead sorrowfully with his tail tip. “I knew it,” he wailed. “I knew it. Three times already this happens to me. I’ve got limited powers, I’m a runt, I’ve got a funny name, so I should run foolish errands.”
“Foolish errands?” Bill rose and began to pace about the bare attic. “Sir, if I may call you that, I resent such an imputation. I’ve spent weeks on this idea. Think of the limitless power in knowing the future. Think of what could be done with it: swaying the course of empire, dominating mankind. All I want is to take this stream of unlimited power, turn it into the simple channel of humanitarian research, and get me $10,000; and you call that a foolish errand!”
“That Spaniard,” Snulbug moaned. “He was a nice guy, even if his spell was lousy. Had a solid, comfortable brazier where an imp could keep warm. Fine fellow. And he had to ask to see tomorrow’s newspaper. I’m warning you—”
“I know,” said Bill hastily. “I’ve been over in my mind all the things that can go wrong. And that’s why I’m laying three conditions on you before you get out of that pentacle. I’m not falling for the easy snares.”
“All right.” Snulbug sounded almost resigned. “Let’s hear ’em. Not that they’ll do any good.”
“First: This newspaper must not contain a notice of my own death or of any other disaster that would frustrate what I can do with it.”
“But shucks,” Snulbug protested. “I can’t guarantee that. If you’re slated to die between now and tomorrow, what can I do about it? Not that I guess you’re important enough to crash the paper.”
“Courtesy, Snulbug. Courtesy to your master. But I tell you what: When you go into the future, you’ll know then if I’m going to die? Right. Well, if I am, come back and tell me and we’ll work out other plans. This errand will be off.”
“People,” Snulbug observed, “make such an effort to make trouble for themselves. Go on.”
“Second: The newspaper must be of this city and in English. I can just imagine you and your little friends presenting some dope with the Omsk and Tomsk Daily Vuskutsukt.”
“We should take so much trouble,” said Snulbug.
“And third: The newspaper must belong to this space-time continuum, to this spiral of the serial universe, to this Wheel of If. However you want to put it. It must be a newspaper of the tomorrow that I myself shall experience, not of some other, to me hypothetical, tomorrow.”
“Throw me another match,” said Snulbug.
“Those three conditions should cover it, I think. There’s not a loophole there, and the Hitchens Laboratory is guaranteed.”
Snulbug grunted. “You’ll find out.”
Bill took a sharp blade and duly cut a line of the pentacle with cold steel. But Snulbug simply dived in and out of the flame of his second match, twitching his tail happily, and seemed not to give a rap that the way to freedom was now open. “Come on!” Bill snapped impatiently. “Or I’ll take the match away.”
Snulbug got as far as the opening and hesitated. “Twenty-four hours is a long way.”
“You can make it.”
“I don’t know. Look.” He shook his head, and a microscopic dead snake fell to the floor. “I’m not at my best. I’m shot to pieces lately, I am. Tap my tail.”
“Do what?”
“Go on. Tap it with your fingernail right there where it joins on.”
Bill grinned and obeyed. “Nothing happens.”
“Sure nothing happens. My reflexes are all haywire. I don’t know as I can make twenty-four hours.” He brooded, and his snakes curled up into a concentrated clump. “Look. All you want is tomorrow’s newspaper, huh? Just tomorrow’s, not
