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                            THE LAST LETTER

                            By FRITZ LIEBER

                         Illustrated by DILLON

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                   Galaxy Science Fiction June 1958.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]




                Who or what was the scoundrel that kept
               these couriers from the swift completion
                 of their handsomely appointed rondos?


On Tenthmonth 1, 2457 A.D., at exactly 9 A.M. Planetary Federation
Time--but with a permissible error of a millionth of a second either
way--in the fifth sublevel of NewNew York Robot Postal Station 68,
Black Sorter gulped down ten thousand pieces of first-class mail.

This breakfast tidbit did not agree with the mail-sorting machine. It
was as if a robust dog had been fed a large chunk of good red meat with
a strychnine pill in it. Black Sorter's innards went _whirr-klunk_, a
blue electric glow enveloped him, and he began to shake as if he might
break loose from the concrete.

He desperately spat back over his shoulder a single envelope, gave
a great _huff_ and blew out toward the sorting tubes a medium-size
snowstorm consisting of the other nine thousand, nine hundred and
ninety-nine pieces of first-class mail chewed to confetti. Then, still
convulsed, he snapped up a fresh ten thousand and proceeded to chomp
and grind on them. Black Sorter was rugged.

The rejected envelope was tongued up by Red Subsorter, who growled deep
in his throat, said a very bad word, and passed it to Yellow Rerouter,
who passed it to Green Rerouter, who passed it to Brown Study, who
passed it to Pink Wastebasket.

Unlike Black Sorter, Pink Wastebasket was very delicate, though highly
intuitive--the machine equivalent of a White Russian countess. She
was designed to scan in 3,137 codes, route special-delivery spacemail
to interplanetary liners by messenger rocket, and distinguish 9s from
upside-down 6s.

Pink Wastebasket haughtily inhaled the offending envelope and almost
instantly turned a bright crimson and began to tremble. After a few
minutes, small atomic flames started to flicker from her mid-section.

White Nursemaid Seven and Greasy Joe both received Pink Wastebasket's
distress signal and got there as fast as their wheels would roll them,
but the high-born machine's malady was beyond their simple skills of
oilcan and electroshock.

       *       *       *       *       *

They summoned other machine-tending-and-repairing machines, ones far
more expert than themselves, but all were baffled. It was clear that
Pink Wastebasket, who continued to tremble and flicker uncontrollably,
was suffering from the equivalent of a major psychosis with severe
psychosomatic symptoms. She spat a stream of filthy ions at Gray
Psychiatrist, not recognizing her old friend.

Meanwhile, the paper blizzard from Black Sorter was piling up in great
drifts between the dark pillars of the sublevel, and flurries had
reached Pink Wastebasket's aristocratic area. An expedition of sturdy
machines, headed by two hastily summoned snowplows, was dispatched to
immobilize Black Sorter at all costs.

Pink Wastebasket, quivering like a demented hula dancer, was clearly
approaching a crisis. Finally Gray Psychiatrist--after consulting with
Green Surgeon, and even then with an irritated reluctance, as if he
were calling in a witch-doctor--summoned a human being.

The human being walked respectfully around Pink Wastebasket several
times and then gave her a nervous little poke with a rubber-handled
probe.

Pink Wastebasket gently regurgitated her last snack, turned dead
white, gave a last flicker and shake, and expired. Black Coroner
recorded the immediate cause of death as tinkering by a human being.

The human being, a bald and scrawny one named Potshelter, picked up the
envelope responsible for all the trouble, stared at it incredulously,
opened it with trembling fingers, scanned the contents briefly, gave
a great shriek and ran off at top speed, forgetting to hop on his
perambulator, which followed him making anxious clucking noises.

The nearest human representative of the Solar Bureau of Investigation,
a rather wooden-looking man named Krumbine, also bald, recognized
Potshelter as soon as the latter burst gasping into his office,
squeezing through the door while it was still dilating. The human
beings whose work took them among the Top Brass, as the upper-echelon
machines were sometimes referred to, formed a kind of human elite, just
one big nervous family.

"Sit down, Potshelter," the SBI Man said. "Hold still a second so the
chair can grab you. Hitch onto the hookah and choose a tranquilizer
from the tray at your elbow. Whatever deviation you've uncovered can't
be that much of a danger to the planets. I imagine that when you leave
this office, the Solar Battle Fleet will still be orbiting peacefully
around Luna."

"I seriously doubt that."

       *       *       *       *       *

Potshelter gulped a large lavender pill and took a deep breath.
"Krumbine, a letter turned up in the first-class mail this morning."

"Great Scott!"

"It is a letter from one person to another person."

"Good Lord!"

"The flow of advertising has been seriously interfered with. At a
modest estimate, three hundred million pieces of expensive first-class
advertising have already been chewed to rags and I'm not sure the Steel
Helms--God bless 'em!--have the trouble in hand yet."

"Judas Priest!"

"Naturally the poor machines weren't able to cope with the letter.
It was utterly outside their experience, beyond the furthest reach
of their programming. It threw them into a terrible spasm. Pink
Wastebasket is dead and at this very instant, if we're lucky, three
police machines of the toughest blued steel are holding down Black
Sorter and putting a muzzle on him."

"Great Scott! It's incredible, Potshelter. And Pink Wastebasket dead?
Take another tranquilizer, Potshelter, and hand over the tray."

Krumbine received it with trembling fingers, started to pick up a big
pink pill but drew back his hand from it in sudden revulsion at its
color and swallowed two blue oval ones instead. The man was obviously
fighting to control himself.

He said unsteadily, "I almost never take doubles, but this news you
bring--Good Lord! I seem to recall a case where someone tried to
send a sound-tape through the mails, but that was before my time.
Incidentally, is there any possibility that this is a letter sent by
one _group_ of persons to another group? A hive or a therapy group or a
social club? That would be bad enough, of course, but--"

"No, just one single person sending to another." Potshelter's
expression set in grimly solicitous lines. "I can see you don't quite
understand, Krumbine. This is not a sound-tape, but a letter written in
letters. You know, letters, characters--like books."

"Don't mention books in this office!" Krumbine drew himself up angrily
and then slumped back. "Excuse me, Potshelter, but I find this very
difficult to face squarely. Do I understand you to say that one person
has tried to use the mails to send a printed sheet of some sort to
another?"

"Worse than that. A written letter."

"Written? I don't recognize the word."

"It's a way of making characters, of forming visual equivalents of
sound, without using electricity. The writer, as he's called, employs
a black liquid and a pointed stick called a pen. I know about this
because one hobby of mine is ancient means of communication."

       *       *       *       *       *

Krumbine frowned and shook his head. "Communication is a dangerous
business, Potshelter, especially at the personal level. With you and
me, it's all right, because we know what we're doing."

He picked up a third blue tranquilizer. "But with most of the
hive-folk, person-to-person communication is only a morbid form of
advertising, a dangerous travesty of normal newscasting--catharsis
without the analyst, recitation without the teacher--a perversion of
promotion employed in betraying and subverting."

The frown deepened as he put the blue pill in his mouth and chewed it.
"But about this pen--do you mean the fellow glues the pointed stick to
his tongue and then speaks, and the black liquid traces the vibrations
on the paper? A primitive non-electrical oscilloscope? Sloppy but
conceivable, and producing a record of sorts of the spoken word."

"No, no, Krumbine." Potshelter nervously popped a square orange tablet
into his mouth. "It's a hand-written letter."

Krumbine watched him. "I never mix tranquilizers," he boasted absently.
"Hand-written, eh? You mean that the message was imprinted on a hand?
And the skin or the entire hand afterward detached and sent through
the mails in the fashion of a Martian reproach? A grisly find indeed,
Potshelter."

"You still don't quite grasp it, Krumbine. The fingers of the hand move
the stick that applies the ink, producing a crude imitation of the
printed word."

"Diabolical!" Krumbine smashed his fist down on the desk so that the
four phones and two-score microphones rattled. "I tell you, Potshelter,
the SBI is ready to cope with the subtlest modern deceptions, but when
fiends search out and revive tricks from the pre-Atomic Cave Era, it's
almost too much. But, Great Scott, I dally while the planets are in
danger. What's the sender's code on this hellish letter?"

"No code," Potshelter said darkly, proferring the envelope. "The return
address is--hand-written."

Krumbine blanched as his eyes slowly traced the uneven lines in the
upper left-hand corner:

    _from_ Richard Rowe
    215 West 10th St. (horizontal)
    2837 Rocket Court (vertical)
    Hive 37, NewNew York 319, N. Y.
    Columbia, Terra

"Ugh!" Krumbine said, shivering. "Those crawling characters, those
letters, as you call them, those _things_ barely enough like print
to be readable--they seem to be on the verge of awakening all sorts
of horrid racial memories. I find myself thinking of fur-clad
witch-doctors dipping long pointed sticks in bubbling black cauldrons.
No wonder Pink Wastebasket couldn't take it, brave girl."

       *       *       *       *       *

Firming himself behind his desk, he pushed a number of buttons and
spoke long numbers and meaningful alphabetical syllables into several
microphones. Banks of colored lights around the desk began to blink
like a theatre marquee sending Morse Code, while phosphorescent
arrows crawled purposefully across maps and space-charts and through
three-dimensional street diagrams.

"There!" he said at last. "The sender of the letter is being
apprehended and will be brought directly here. We'll see what sort
of man this Richard Rowe is--if we can assume he's human. Seven
precautionary cordons are being drawn around his population station:
three composed of machines, two of SBI agents, and two consisting of
human and mechanical medical-combat teams. Same goes for the intended
recipient of the letter. Meanwhile, a destroyer squadron of the Solar
Fleet has been detached to orbit over NewNew York."

"In case it becomes necessary to Z-Bomb?" Potshelter asked grimly.

Krumbine nodded. "With all those villains lurking just outside the
Solar System in their invisible black ships, with planeticide in their
hearts, we can't be too careful. One word transmitted from one spy to
another and anything may happen. And we must bomb before they do, so
as to contain our losses. Better one city destroyed than a traitor
on the loose who may destroy many cities. One hundred years ago,
three person-to-person postcards went through the mails--just three
postcards, Potshelter!--and _pft_ went Schenectady, Hoboken, Cicero,
and Walla Walla. Here, as long as you're mixing them, try one of these
oval blues--I find them best for steady swallowing."

Bells jangled. Krumbine grabbed up two phones, holding one to each ear.
Potshelter automatically picked up a third. The ringing continued.
Krumbine started to wedge one of his phones under his chin, nodded
sharply at Potshelter and then toward a cluster of microphones at the
end of the table. Potshelter picked up a fourth phone from behind them.
The ringing stopped.

The two men listened, looking doped, Krumbine with an eye fixed on
the sweep second hand of the large wall clock. When it had made one
revolution, he cradled his phones. Potshelter followed suit.

"I do like the simplicity of the new on-the-hour Puffyloaf
phono-commercial," the latter remarked thoughtfully. "The Bread That's
Lighter Than Air. Nice."

Krumbine nodded. "I hear they've had to add mass to the leadfoil
wrapping to keep the loaves from floating off the shelves. Fact."

       *       *       *       *       *

He cleared his throat. "Too bad we can't listen to more
phono-commercials, but even when there isn't a crisis on the agenda, I
find I have to budget my listening time. One minute per hour strikes a
reasonable balance between duty and self-indulgence."

The nearest wall began to sing:

    Mister J. Augustus Krumbine,
    We all think you're fine, fine, fine, fine.
    Now out of the skyey blue
    Come some telegrams for you.

The wall opened to a small heart shape toward the center and a sheaf of
pale yellow envelopes arced out and plopped on the middle of the desk.
Krumbine started to leaf through them, scanning the little transparent
windows.

"Hm, Electronic Soap ... Better Homes and Landing Platforms ...
Psycho-Blinkers ... Your Girl Next Door ... Poppy-Woppies ...
Poopsy-Woopsies...."

He started to open an envelope, then, after a quick look around and an
apologetic smile at Potshelter, dumped them all on the disposal hopper,
which gargled briefly.

"After all, there _is_ a crisis this morning," he said in a defensive
voice.

Potshelter nodded absently. "I can remember back before personalized
delivery and rhyming robots," he observed. "But how I'd miss them
now--so much more distingué than the hives with their non-personalized
radio, TV and stereo advertising. For that matter, I believe there are
some backward areas on Terra where the great advertising potential of
telephones and telegrams hasn't been fully realized and they are still
used in part for personal communication. Now me, I've never in my life
sent or received a message except on my walky-talky." He patted his
breast pocket.

Krumbine nodded, but he was a trifle shocked and inclined to revise
his estimate of Potshelter's social status. Krumbine conducted his own
social correspondence solely by telepathy. He shared with three other
SBI officials a private telepath--a charming albino girl named Agnes.

"Yes, and it's a very handsome walky-talky," he assured Potshelter a
little falsely. "Suits you. I like the upswept antenna." He drummed
on the desk and swallowed another blue tranquilizer. "Dammit, what's
happened to those machines? They ought to have the two spies here by
now. Did you notice that the second--the intended recipient of the
letter, I mean--seems to be female? Another good Terran name, too, Jane
Dough. Hive in Upper Manhattan." He began to tap the envelope sharply
against the desk. "Dammit, where _are_ they?"

"Excuse me," Potshelter said hesitantly, "but I'm wondering why you
haven't read the message inside the envelope."

       *       *       *       *       *

Krumbine looked at him blankly. "Great Scott, I assumed that at least
_it_ was in some secret code, of course. Normally I'd have asked you to
have Pink Wastebasket try her skill on it, but...." His eyes widened
and his voice sank. "You don't mean to tell me that it's--"

Potshelter nodded grimly. "Hand-written, too. Yes."

Krumbine winced. "I keep trying to forget that aspect of the case." He
dug out the message with shaking fingers, fumbled it open and read:

    _Dear Jane_,

    _It must surprise you that I know your name, for our hives are
    widely separated. Do you recall day before yesterday when your
    guided tour of Grand Central Spaceport got stalled because the
    aide blew a fuse? I was the young man with hair in the tour behind
    yours. You were a little frightened and a groupmistress was
    reassuring you. The machine spoke your name._

    _Since then I have been unable to forget you. When I go to sleep,
    I dream of your face looking up sadly at the mistress's kindly
    photocells. I don't know how to get in touch with you, but my
    grandfather has told me stories his grandfather told him that
    his grandfather told him about young men writing what he calls
    love-letters to young ladies. So I am writing you a love-letter._

    _I work in a first-class advertising house and I will slip this
    love-letter into an outgoing ten-thousand-pack and hope._

    _Do not be frightened of me, Jane. I am no caveman except for my
    hair. I am not insane. I am emotionally disturbed, but in a way
    that no machine has ever described to me. I want only your
    happiness._

    _Sincerely_,

    _Richard Rowe_

Krumbine slumped back in his chair, which braced itself manfully
against him, and looked long and thoughtfully at Potshelter. "Well, if
that's a code, it's certainly a fiendishly subtle one. You'd think he
was talking to his Girl Next Door."

Potshelter nodded wonderingly. "I only read as far as where they were
planning to blow up Grand Central Spaceport and all the guides in it."

"Judas Priest, I think I have it!" Krumbine shot up. "It's a pilot
advertisement--Boy Next Door or--that kind of thing--printed to look
like hand-writtening, which would make all the difference. And the
pilot copy got mailed by accident--which would mean there is no real
Richard Rowe."

At that instant, the door dilated and two blue detective engines
hustled a struggling young man into the office. He was slim, rather
handsome, had a bushy head of hair that had somehow survived evolution
and radioactive fallout, and across the chest and back of his paper
singlet was neatly stamped: "RICHARD ROWE."

When he saw the two men, he stopped struggling and straightened up.
"Excuse me, gentlemen," he said, "but these police machines must have
made a mistake. I've committed no crime."

Then his gaze fell on the hand-addressed envelope on Krumbine's desk
and he turned pale.

       *       *       *       *       *

Krumbine laughed harshly. "No crime! No, not at all. Merely using the
mails to communicate. Ha!"

The young man shrank back. "I'm sorry, sir."

"Sorry, he says! Do you realize that your insane prank has resulted
in the destruction of perhaps a half-billion pieces of first-class
advertising?--in the strangulation of a postal station and the
paralysis of Lower Manhattan?--in the mobilization of SBI reserves, the
de-mothballing of two divisions of G. I. machines and the redeployment
of the Solar Battle Fleet? Good Lord, boy, why did you do it?"

Richard Rowe continued to shrink but he squared his shoulders. "I'm
sorry, sir, but I just had to. I just had to get in touch with Jane
Dough."

"A girl from another hive? A girl you'd merely gazed at because a guide
happened to blow a fuse?" Krumbine stood up, shaking an angry finger.
"Great Scott, boy, where was Your Girl Next Door?"

Richard Rowe stared bravely at the finger, which made him look a trifle
cross-eyed. "She died, sir, both of them."

"But there should be at least six."

"I know, sir, but of the other four, two have been shipped to the
Adirondacks on vacation and two recently got married and haven't been
replaced."

Potshelter, a faraway look in his eyes, said softly, "I think I'm
beginning to understand--"

But Krumbine thundered on at Richard Rowe with, "Good Lord, I can see
you've had your troubles, boy. It isn't often we have these shortages
of Girls Next Door, so that temporarily a boy can't marry the Girl Next
Door, as he always should. But, Judas Priest, why didn't you take your
troubles to your psychiatrist, your groupmaster, your socializer, your
Queen Mother?"

"My psychiatrist is being overhauled, sir, and his replacement
short-circuits every time he hears the word 'trouble.' My groupmaster
and socializer are on vacation duty in the Adirondacks. My Queen Mother
is busy replacing Girls Next Door."

"Yes, it all fits," Potshelter proclaimed excitedly. "Don't you see,
Krumbine? Except for a set of mischances that would only occur once in
a billion billion times, the letter would never have been conceived or
sent."

"You may have something there," Krumbine concurred. "But in any case,
boy, why did you--er--written this letter to this particular girl? What
is there about Jane Dough that made you do it?"

"Well, you see, sir, she's--"

       *       *       *       *       *

Just then, the door re-dilated and a blue matron machine conducted
a young woman into the office. She was slim and she had a head of
hair that would have graced a museum beauty, while across the back
and--well, "chest" is an inadequate word--of her paper chemise,
"JANE DOUGH" was silk-screened in the palest pink.

Krumbine did not repeat his last question. He had to admit to himself
that it had been answered fully. Potshelter whistled respectfully. The
blue detective engines gave hard-boiled grunts. Even the blue matron
machine seemed awed by the girl's beauty.

But she had eyes only for Richard Rowe. "My Grand Central man," she
breathed in amazement. "The man I've dreamed of ever since. My man
with hair." She noticed the way he was looking at her and she breathed
harder. "Oh, darling, what have you done?"

"I tried to send you a letter."

"A letter? For me? Oh, darling!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Krumbine cleared his throat. "Potshelter, I'm going to wind this up
fast. Miss Dough, could you transfer to this young man's hive?"

"Oh, yes, sir! Mine has an over-plus of Girls Next Door."

"Good. Mr. Rowe, there's a sky-pilot two levels up--look for the
usual white collar just below the photocells. Marry this girl and
take her home to your hive. If your Queen Mother objects refer her
to--er--Potshelter here."

He cut short the young people's thanks. "Just one thing," he said,
wagging a finger at Rowe. "Don't written any more letters."

"Why ever would I?" Richard answered. "Already my action is beginning
to seem like a mad dream."

"Not to me, dear," Jane corrected him. "Oh, sir, could I have the
letter he sent me? Not to do anything with. Not to show anyone. Just to
keep."

"Well, I don't know--" Krumbine began.

"Oh, _please_, sir!"

"Well, I don't know why not, I was going to say. Here you are, miss.
Just see that this husband of yours never writtens another."

He turned back as the contracting door shut the young couple from view.

"You were right, Potshelter," he said briskly. "It was one of those
combinations of mischances that come up only once in a billion billion
times. But we're going to have to issue recommendations for new
procedures and safeguards that will reduce the possibilities to one
in a trillion trillion. It will undoubtedly up the Terran income tax
a healthy percentage, but we can't have something like this happening
again. Every boy must marry the Girl Next Door! And the first-class
mails must not be interfered with! The advertising must go through!"

"I'd almost like to see it happen again," Potshelter murmured dreamily,
"if there were another Jane Dough in it."

       *       *       *       *       *

Outside, Richard and Jane had halted to allow a small cortege of
machines to pass. First came a squad of police machines with Black
Sorter in their midst, unmuzzled and docile enough, though still
gnashing his teeth softly. Then--stretched out horizontally and borne
on the shoulders of Gray Psychiatrist, Black Coroner, White Nursemaid
Seven and Greasy Joe--there passed the slim form of Pink Wastebasket,
snow-white in death. The machines were keening softly, mournfully.

Round about the black pillars, little mecho-mops were scurrying like
mice, cleaning up the last of the first-class-mail bits of confetti.

Richard winced at this evidence of his aberration, but Jane squeezed
his hand comfortingly, which produced in him a truly amazing sensation
that changed his whole appearance.

"I know how you feel, darling," she told him. "But don't worry about
it. Just think, dear, I'll always be able to tell your friends' wives
something no other woman in the world can boast of: that my husband
once wrote me a letter!"