Walter J. Sheldon

“ Harold frowned. “Wait a minute. What’s this you’re talking about—teleportation? You mean a way of moving matter through space, just as television moves an image through space?”
“Well, not precisely,” said Mildume. “It’s more a duplication of matter. My Mildume beam—really another expression of the quanta or light energy absorbed by atoms—scans and analyzes matter. ”

“ Untz nodded. “Me, I am an expert on musicals. Musicals 57 I can do with my left hand. But ever since I am in Hollywood I do everything but a musical. And always something gets fouled up. Always there is trouble. You will not believe this, Harold, but I am an unhappy man.” ”

“ Harold raised his eyebrows. “Just what, Dr. Mildume, do you propose to give us for ten thousand dollars?”
“Beasts,” said Mildume. “Real monsters.”
“I beg your pardon?” said Harold. He began to work out strategies in his mind. Maybe he could casually walk over to the phone and pick it up quickly and call the studio police. Maybe he could get the jump on this madman before he pulled a knife. The thing to do was to humor him meanwhile....
Dr. Mildume said, “I will not deal with underlings. I demand to see Mr. Untz himself.”
“Well,” said Harold, “you understand that Mr. Untz is a busy man. ”

“ Mildume—who had come along as technical adviser—removed the tarpaulins from the cages. The cameramen, the grips, the electricians, the sound men—all stared unbelievingly. The script girl grabbed Mr. Untz’s hand and dug her fingernails into it. The makeup stylist clutched the lapels of his mauve jacket and fainted.
“Nothing to be afraid of,” Mr. Untz said to everybody. He was sort of convincing himself too. “Dr. Mildume here knows all about the monsters. He’s got everything under control. ”

“ They were, in other words, terrified by tiny Jimsy LaRoche—whose latest picture, ‘The Atomic Fissionist and the Waif,’ is now at your local theatre, by the way—as an Earth-being might have been terrified by a giant!”
Mr. Untz came out of the shower at that point. He was radiant in a canary-colored rayon sharkskin. He was rubbing his hands. He was beaming.
“Harold,” he said, “they’re putting me on a musical next. I got them twined around my little finger. Life is good. I think that screwy Dr. Mildume was smart to send those things back out into space before they could get to him. ”

“ Untz.
“What if they are?” said Mildume. “You make pictures with wild lions and tigers and alligators, don’t you? Seems to me you can find a way. I don’t recommend letting them out of the cage however.”
Mr. Untz nodded and said, “Well, maybe we can get Etienne Flaubert to do something with them. He’s the animal trainer we call on. Anyway Untz always figures something out. Only that’s why I like musicals better. There isn’t so much to figure out and you can play Victor Herbert backwards and get new tunes out of him. So anyway, we’ll get a truck and get these monsters to the studio right away.” ”

“ Bells were ringing—sirens blew—a blue studio police car took a corner on two wheels and barely missed them. Harold had a glimpse of uniformed men with drawn pistols.
They ended up somehow at Mr. Untz’s office-cottage. They went inside and Mr. Untz locked the door and slammed his back to it. He leaned there, panting. He said, “Trouble, trouble, trouble. I should have stayed in Vienna. And in Vienna I should have stood in bed.”
The door of the shower and dressing-room opened and Jimsy LaRoche came out. ”

“ Eddie Tamoto, the chief cameraman, finally came up to him and said, “It’s no use, Max. These cages simply don’t allow us to do anything. Why don’t we put them in the cages they use for jungle pictures? They’re big and camouflaged, and the mesh size is right.” ”

“ Untz, not without suspicion, “are you an assistant producer or a philosopher?”
“Sometimes to be the one,” sighed Harold, “you have to be the other.”
The big jungle cage arrived presently. While it was being set up another assistant came to Mr. Untz and said, “Jimsy LaRoche is outside, yelling to get in, Mr. Untz.”
Mr. Untz whirled on the assistant and said, “Tell that overpaid brat—who I personally didn’t want in my picture in the first place—tell him in the second place the President of the United States could not get in here this afternoon. ”

“ Mildume went on, “Now, we can make certain rough assumptions from the form and structure of these monsters. You will notice that except for their appendages they are globularly formed. Any engineer can tell you that the arch and hemisphere sustain the greatest weight for their mass. ”