Survival Kit

Survival Kit by Frederik Pohl (1970)

Howard Mooney, a broke and resentful drifter squatting alone through a Jersey shore winter in his Uncle Lester's summer house, is interrupted on a storm-bound night by a stranger who forces his way in from the cold. The visitor is a tall, angry-eyed man in a silvery leotard named Harse, soaked as if from the sea and carrying a shiny, flat case. Harse announces he is a "wayfarer" who needs a guide and will pay for the service; consulting a small device from his kit, he explains he must reach Brooklyn on the twenty-sixth of December. When Mooney remarks that this is an odd way to describe travel, Harse implies Mooney is simply wrong — suggesting he moves through time rather than merely distance. Harse identifies himself only by name and dozes beside his case. Harse's kit turns out to contain a string of hollow steel spheres — "wampum" — each one poppable to reveal treasures: sapphires, gold, pearls, diamonds, heroin, silver, and more, though Harse warns some spheres hold plutonium or radium and could kill Mooney if forced open. He refuses to let Mooney take any payment until they reach Brooklyn. Mooney privately resolves to guide Harse there, then find a way to seize the whole kit — a "survival kit," Harse calls it — once the destination is reached. Hitchhiking toward the bridge, they're picked up by a delicatessen truck driver. When the driver reacts with curiosity and hostility to Harse's strange eating ritual from the kit, Harse calmly uses a jointed metal weapon to erase the man from existence with a pale blue light, leaving Mooney to drive off in the stolen truck as an unwilling accomplice. Mooney rationalizes his fear into ambition, seeing in Harse's futuristic gear — the wampum, the weapon — a means to power and fortune. They pawn some of the treasure in New York and check into an expensive hotel, but Harse's alien behavior draws unwanted attention: he tries to "collect" a lodge convention member with a viewing device, triggering a scene with photographers and a defensive black-fog burst from the kit that erases evidence. Forced to flee to a cheaper Brooklyn hotel, Mooney learns from Harse that he is essentially a downed flier awaiting rescue, and that the "Nexus Point" — his rendezvous — lies in Brooklyn's Vale of Cashmere at one minute past midnight on the 26th; missing it means a seventeen-year wait. That night, tiny robotic guardians from the kit swaddle Mooney in silvery restraints while he sleeps, protecting Harse; when a chambermaid stumbles on the scene, Harse erases her too. Mooney covers by accusing her of attempted theft. He then spends the following days selling off portions of Harse's treasure for cash, secretly hoarding the most valuable gems, and scheming to isolate and dispose of Harse to claim the survival kit for himself — trying prostitutes (Harse merely laughs) and hired thugs (Harse effortlessly vaporizes an attacking mugger in the park) as means to provoke a fatal confrontation, without success. Along the way his own visiting Uncle Lester, tipped off by a newspaper photo of Mooney near the "black fog" incident, tracks him to the hotel; Mooney manipulates the old man into entering the room alone under a pretext, and Harse disintegrates him too. On the night of the rendezvous, Mooney sneaks Harse into Prospect Park, deliberately misdirects a policeman toward them, and shoves Harse away in the wrong direction to be delayed while Mooney races ahead to reach the silvery, egg-shaped craft himself, hoping to pass himself off to the other time travelers and claim Harse's future for his own. But Harse — having taken the policeman's uniform as a disguise — is waiting for him at the top of the steps to the Vale of Cashmere, orders him to stand still, then walks past him and boards the craft with the others, which departs. Before vanishing, Harse honors his promise of payment, dropping the survival kit to Mooney from the departing craft. Elated, Mooney finally pries it open — only to find it emptied of all its wonders except one partial component of Harse's weapon. Experimenting with its trigger, he discovers a second setting: a violet haze that destroys the weapon and kit themselves while simultaneously restoring, whole and alive, every person Harse had "erased" throughout the story — the truck driver, the policeman, Uncle Lester, the bartender's brother, the chambermaid, and a stranger. All of them advance on Mooney together, furious, as the account ends.

By Frederik Pohl · First published 1970 · Genre: Science Fiction, Adventure, Thriller · 6 chapters · 14,494 words

First lines

It wasn't fair -- a smart but luckless man like Mooney had to scrounge, while Harse always made out just because he had a.

Mooney looked out of his window, and the sky was white.

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Survival Kit is listed on Textopian as a novel by Frederik Pohl, dated 1970 CE.

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science fiction · dystopia · survival · humanity · technology · society · environment · future · conflict · politics · ethics · adventure

Contents

More by Frederik Pohl