NO TIME FOR TOFFEE!
By Charles F. Myers
Life was Marc's oyster, but: subversives
had shot him—a ghost was ready to haunt his
corpse—and Toffee was loving him to death!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
July 1952
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Just as he stepped to the microphone Marc caught sight of the swarthyman. He saw the red scar across the left eyebrow, the dull flash ofmetal in the large hairy hand. By then it was too late even to cry out.In the next instant the glass panel in the control booth shattered.
Marc felt an explosion of hot pain deep inside his chest. He was awareof looking around dumbly at Dick Drewson and seeing Drewson's faceregister shocked disbelief. Then the scene—the room, Drewson and theothers—disappeared, engulfed in a blinding sheet of flame—and Marcknew he was falling....
Somewhere, in a place where time and space didn't exist, grey mistsbegan to seeth and swirl, and withall there was an ominous rumbling.The High Council was almost in session.
In a sense, the High Council was already in session, for the Heads ofthe Council had developed their intellects to such an inconceivabledegree that when a meeting of the Council was imminent they couldsend their thoughts on ahead of them and get the meeting under wayeven before putting in an appearance. There was an exchange of viewsand information long before the Heads accomplished the mundane andtroublesome business of materialization. Thus it was that the mistsof Limbo now rumbled with thought, counter thought and—on thisparticular occasion—downright aggravation, even before the arrivalof the Supreme Head in the vapored chambers. There was an air offoreboding.
Having declined all vanities in the pursuit of the UltimateIntelligence, the Heads had allowed themselves to evolve into literalrepresentations of their titles. Directing all their energy anddevelopment to the brain and its encasement, their bodies had sufferedproportionately so that now they were little more than a group ofpreposterously large craniums, shaggy with cerebration, bearing facesweighted with the ponderous woe of Life, Death, Eternity and othersuch mental ballast. Five in all, they made up a company to be avoidedwhatever the cost.
The Supreme Head cleared his throat and Eternity rattled with phlegmydiscontent. Baleful glances were exchanged all around.
"Well," said the Supreme Head, after a pause for attention. "I supposeyou all know the reason for this meeting by now?"
The Second Head, a bald party with large ears, nodded sadly. "You saythis blighted Pillsworth has gone and got himself shot this time?"
"Precisely," the Supreme Head affirmed. "In a broadcasting studio, ifyou please. There's simply no keeping that man out of trouble."
"But why should we want to keep him out of trouble?" the Third Head, anelongated customer with eye pouches, wanted to know. "That's hardly ourresponsibility."
"There's George Pillsworth," the Supreme Head said fatefully. "Surelyyou haven't forgotten about George?"
A hush fell over the Council, a hush of horror.
"Not George again?" the Second Head shuddered. "We don't have to facehim again, do we?" He looked around beseechingly at the others. "Afterall, Pillsworth's only injured, isn't he? He's not dying?"
The Supreme Head looked for a moment as though he w