User:DoctorWho42/Gifts from the Universe

"Gifts from the Universe" is a short story by American author Leonard Tushnet. It was first published in the May 1968 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

Plot
Morris Greenstein goes to Gifts from the Universe. The owner Peter Tolliver sells him a cachepot. It is fifty cents. Greenstein offers to buy everything. Greenstein runs a store Gifts for the Trade. Tolliver only does business with silver. Greenstein returns from the bank with a bag full of quarters. Tolliver counts the silver quarters which equate to $16.75. Greenstein picks the items he wants and Tolliver packs them in a carton. Greenstein drops the carton on the way out, but nothing breaks. Tolliver tells Greenstein his ceramics are unbreakable except in strong sunlight. Greenstein resells them to the department store Strauss. He returns to Tolliver's gift shop with the Strauss order. Tolliver tells Greenstein it will be ready tomorrow morning. At home, Greenstein confides in his wife Sadie. The next day they both go to Gifts from the Universe. Sadie asks Tolliver how much for everything. Tolliver tells her $524.50. Tolliver can refurnish his entire inventory in twenty-four hours. When they unpack the ceramics at home, Sadie comments on Tolliver's sickliness. They decide to take all the silver from home in exchange for Tolliver's merchandise. When they return, they find it is only $440. The next day Tolliver appears more sickly. Sadie offers to take Tolliver home and care for him. Sadie learns he is from Venus. His people are afflicted with a cancer whose cure requires silver. Given strong ethics, Tolliver's people wanted to acquire the silver through the gift business. They did not want to endanger Earth as they viewed its political situation precarious. Tolliver arrived to Earth via teleportation but the process shortens the lifespan. As he was already sick, he is now closer to death. Greenstein goes to everyone he knows to buy all their silver. Greenstein and Sadie carry the unconscious Tolliver to the backroom of Gifts from the Universe. They find a coffinlike box which is his teleportation device. They place him inside with all the silver they could get. He disappears. Greenstein and Sadie sells the ceramics to a buyer from Dallas. Six months later, customers complain the items shatter in sunlight. Sadie makes Greenstein donate their epergne to the New Falls Museum.

Reception
In 1968, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction editor Edward L. Ferman commended "both the proprietor and the merchandise are appropriately peculiar." In 1970, Analog Science Fiction and Fact's P. Schuyler Miller called it "fresh and new."