THE
SEVEN DEADLY SSNS
OF
SCIENCE FICTION

THE
SEVEN DEADLY SINS
OF
SCIENCE FICTION
Edited by
Isaac Asimov, Charles G. Waugh,
and Martin H. Greenberg
Headnotes by Isaac Asimov
FAWCETT CREST ® NEW YORK

Copyright © 1980 by Isaac Asimov, Charles G. Waugh and Martin H.
Greenberg
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America
"Sail 25" by Jack Vance. Copyright © 1962 by Ultimate Publishing Com-
pany. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agent, Kirby Mac-
Cauley.
"Peeping Tom" by Judith Merril. Copyright © 1954 by Standard Maga-
zines. Copyright © 1973 by Judith Merril. Reprinted by permission of the
author and her agent, Virginia Kidd.
"The Invisible Man Murder Case" by Henry Slesar. Copyright © 1958 by the
Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. Reprinted by permission of the author.
"Galley Slave" by Isaac Asimov. Copyright © 1957 by the Galaxy Publish-
ing Corporation. Reprinted by permission of the author.
"Divine Madness" by Roger Zelazny. Copyright © 1966 by Health Knowl-
edge, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author.
"The Midas Plague" by Frederik Pohl. Copyright © 1954 by the Galaxy
Publishing Corporation. Reprinted by permission of the author.
"The Man Who Ate the World" by Frederik Pohl. Copyright © 1956 by the
Galaxy Publishing Corporation. Reprinted by permission of the author.
"Margin of Profit" by Poul Anderson. Copyright © 1956 by Street & Smith
Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agents,
the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc., 845 Third Avenue, New York,
NY 10022.
"The Hook, the Eye and the Whip" by Michael G. Coney. Copyright ©
1974 by UPD Publishing Corporation under International, Universal and
Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Reprinted by permission of the
author.

CONTENTS
Introduction Martin H. Greenberg	vii
SLOTH:
Sail 25 Jack Vance	3
LUST:
Peeping Tom Judith Merril	29
ENVY:
The Invisible Man Murder Case Henry Slesar 53
PRIDE:
Galley Slave Isaac Asimov	93
*
ANGER:
Divine Madness Roger Zelazny	129
GLUTTONY:
The Midas Plague Frederik Pohl	139
The Man Who Ate the World Frederik Pohl 195
AVARICE:
Margin of Profit Foul Anderson	225
COVETOUSNESS:
The Hook, the Eye and the Whip
Michael G. Coney	249

INTRODUCTION
by MARTIN H. GREENBERG
Modern science went into high gear with the work of the great
Italian scientist, Galileo Galilei, in the 1590s. Modern science fiction
can be traced back to a posthumously published story, "Somnium," by
Galileo's contemporary and sometime friend, Johannes Kepler, an
equally great scientist. The two are intertwined from the beginning.
The now standard quartet of the scientific method—observation,
classification, hypothesis, and testing—can be applied to almost any field
of scholarly endeavor, even if it is not very scientific. They can be ap-
plied, for instance, to the study of science fiction. (Why else antholo-
gies?)
Of the four items, classification would seem to be the least creative,
the most uninteresting, and, indeed, the most subjective. Those who
spend their time inventing categories and trying to place nearly round
Objects into only slightly elliptical Holes are not as highly regarded in
the scientific world as those who produce and test theories, or who
make shrewd observations, or produce a subtle collection of data. And
yet classification has its fascinations, too.
Few subjects or objects have escaped the drive to classify all things,
and this includes Sin, which has a long and distinguished intellectual
history and is not a subject to take lightly. The concept of sin developed
from the idea of evil, which, for many thinkers, has been considered to
be weakness inherent in human nature itself. The ancient Greeks con-
sidered evil to be a necessary component of human beings and hence we
speak of "a necessary evil," which is not to be confused with moral cor-
rectness or failure. This rather resembles the Christian idea of "original
sin," by which Adam's sin of disobedience is indelibly inherited by all
his descendants—a kind of moral inheritance of acquired characteristics.
Sin was not always classified. The early stoics did not distinguish be-
tween different kinds of sin—they thought them all bad, with none any
worse than any other.

viii
Martin H. Greenberg
It was in the Egyptian desert that the first attempt to classify sin took
place. The classification was the product of a monastic order, which
made sense, for the monks fled the world to escape the sins with which
.it was saturated and then spent much of their time desperately fighting
the sins within themselves.
Concentrating, as they did, almost exclusively on the various aspects
of sin, it was natural for them to attempt to enumerate the different as-
pects of human existence that would severely test man and tempt him
away from a life of purity and goodness.
Inevitably, perhaps, the major sins were listed as seven in number.
Seven was a number that preoccupied the ancients, perhaps because
there were seven planets in the heavens. It was probably from this that
we gained seven days to the week (explained in theological terms by the
Jews, who picked up the notion in Babylonia). There were also the
seven wonders of the world, the seven liberal arts, and, in modern
times, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and, of course, The Magnificent
Seven.
The Catholic Church, concerned with the problem of identifying
those sins which were direct threats to the souls of its members, distin-
guished the "deadly sins" from the lesser "venial sins" for which par-
don could be sought. Saint Augustine developed three general catego-
ries of sinning—of thought, of word, and of deed (sometimes listed as
those deriving from infirmity, ignorance, and viciousness).
It was Thomas Aquinas, though, who really got specific and listed
Seven (what else?) Deadly Sins. These were (1) Sloth, (2) Pride, (3)
Lust, (4) Envy, (5) Anger, (6) Gluttony, and (7) Covetousness.
Sometimes Avarice is listed in place of Covetousness, and they may,
perhaps, be considered (7a) and (7b).
The Seven Deadly Sins were contrasted with the Seven (of course!)
Cardinal Virtues: (1) Humility, (2) Liberality, (3) Chastity, (4)
Meekness, (5) Temperance, (6) Brotherly Love, and (7) Diligence.
The reader will note that there are many important sins that are not
included in the Seven: lying, watching soap operas, admiring Idi Amin,
remaining only half-safe, not going for it, and indulging in literary criti-
cism. There are also virtues not included in the Seven, of which the
chief are reading and enjoying science fiction.
Well, we, the editors, do read and enjoy science fiction, and, ac-
tivated by Brotherly Love, we would bring the joy to others. Possessing
Meekness and Temperance, we do not claim to have achieved perfec-

Introduction
ix
tion; possessing Chastity, we know our results to be pure; and possess-
ing Diligence, we know we have done the best we can.
For we have labored beyond measure to observe and classify; we
hypothesize you will enjoy the results, and it is for you to test it. Here
we have stories which, in the science-fiction mode, exemplify and illus-
trate each of the Seven Deadly Sins, and give each a dimension perhaps
not thought of by Saint Thomas Aquinas. So we hope you will enjoy
and learn from the stories we have selected, and it is with considerable
Humility that we hope you will appreciate the years of field work and
the variety of sin that we engaged in to make this book a reality.

THE
SEVEN DEADLY SINS
OF
SCIENCE FICTION

SLOTH
How we love our ease! How we long for retirement, when we can
settle back and drowse in the sun I When we can sleep as late as
we like and let the time pass! But what if work must be done? The
answer is simple—stick someone else with it! So here we have a
study of magnificent laziness, of a man who goes through a long
trip doing nothing at all. Well, not quite nothing at all. He did do a
few little things—very little things—scarcely enough to disturb his
splendid record of SLOTH.

SAIL. 25
JACK VANCE
Henry Belt came limping into the conference room, mounted the dais,
settled himself at the desk. He looked once around the room: a swift
bright glance which, focusing nowhere, treated the eight young men who
faced him to an almost insulting disinterest. He reached in his pocket,
brought forth a pencil and a flat red book, which he placed on the desk.
The eight young men watched in absolute silence. They were much
alike: healthy, clean, smart, their expressions identically alert and wary.
Each had heard legends of Henry Belt, each had formed his private
plans and private determinations.
Henry Belt seemed a man of a different species. His face was broad,
flat, roped with cartilage and muscle, with skin the color and texture of
bacon rind. Coarse white grizzle covered his scalp, his eyes were crafty
slits, his nose a misshapen lump. His shoulders were massive, his legs
short and gnarled.
"First of all," said Henry Belt, with a gap-toothed grin, "I'll make it
clear that I don't expect you to like me. If you do I'll be surprised and
displeased. It will mean that I haven't pushed you hard enough."
He leaned back in his chair, surveyed the silent group. "You've heard
stories about me. Why haven't they kicked me out of the service? Incor-
rigible, arrogant, dangerous Henry Belt. Drunken Henry Belt. (This last
of course is slander. Henry Belt has never been drunk in his life.) Why
do they tolerate me? For one simple reason: out of necessity. No one
wants to take on this kind of job. Only a man like Henry Belt can stand
up to it: year after year in space, with nothing to look at but a half-
dozen round-faced young scrubs. He takes them out, he brings them
back. Not all of them, and not all of those who come back are space-
men today. But they'll all cross the street when they see him coming.
Henry Belt? you say. They'll turn pale or go red. None of them will
smile. Some of them are high-placed now. They could kick me loose if
they chose. Ask them why they don't. Henry Belt is a terror, they'll tell
you. He's wicked, he's a tyrant. Cruel as an axe, fickle as a woman. But

4
Jack Vance
a voyage with Henry Belt blows the foam off the beer. He's ruined
many a man, he's killed a few, but those that come out of it are proud
to say, 'I trained with Henry Belt!'
"Another thing you may hear: Henry Belt has luck. But don't pay
any heed. Luck runs out. You'll be my thirteenth class, and that's un-
lucky. I've taken out seventy-two young sprats, no different from your-
selves; I've come back twelve times: which is partly Henry Belt and
partly luck. The voyages average about two years long: how can a man
stand it? There's only one who could: Henry Belt. I've got more space-
time than any man alive, and now I'll tell you a secret: this is my last
time out. I'm starting to wake up at night to strange visions. After this
class I'll quit. I hope you lads aren't superstitious. A white-eyed woman
told me that I'd die in space. She told me other things and they've all
come true.
"We'll get to know each other well. And you'll be wondering on what
basis I make my recommendations. Am I objective and fair? Do I put
aside personal animosity? Naturally there won't be any friendship. Well,
here's my system. I keep a red book. Here it is. I'll put your names
down right now. You, sir?"
"I'm Cadet Lewis Lynch, sir."
"You?"
"Edward Culpepper, sir."
"Marcus Verona, sir."
"Vidal Weske, sir."
"Marvin McGrath, sir."
"Barry Ostrander, sir."
"Clyde von Gluck, sir."
"Joseph Sutton, sir."
Henry Belt wrote the names in the red book. "This is the system.
When you do something to annoy me, I mark you down demerits. At
the end of the voyage I total these demerits, add a few here and there
for luck, and am so guided. I'm sure nothing could be clearer than this.
What annoys me? Ah, that's a question which is hard to answer. If you
talk too much: demerits. If you're surly and taciturn: demerits. If you
slouch and laze and dog the dirty work: demerits. If you're overzealous
and forever scuttling about: demerits. Obsequiousness: demerits. Truc-
ulence: demerits. If you sing and whistle: demerits. If you're a stolid
bloody bore: demerits. You can see that the line is hard to draw. Here's
a hint which can save you many marks. I don't like gossip, especially

Sail 25
5
when it concerns myself. I'm a sensitive man, and I open my red book
fast when I think I'm being insulted." Henry Belt once more leaned
back in his chair. "Any questions?"
No one spoke.
Henry Belt nodded. "Wise. Best not to flaunt your ignorance so early
in the game. In response to the thought passing through each of your
skulls, I do not think of myself as God. But you may do so, if you
choose. And this"—he held up the red book—"you may regard as the
Syncretic Compendium. Very well. Any questions?"
"Yes sir," said Culpepper.
"Speak, sir."
"Any objection to alcoholic beverages aboard ship, sir?"
"For the cadets, yes, indeed. I concede that the water must be carried
in any event, that the organic compounds present may be reconstituted,
but unluckily the bottles weigh far too much."
"I understand, sir."
Henry Belt rose to his feet. "One last word. Have I mentioned that I
run a tight ship? When I say jump, I expect every one of you to jump.
This is dangerous work, of course. I don't guarantee your safety. Far
from it, especially since we are assigned to old 25, which should have
been broken up long ago. There are eight of you present. Only six ca-
dets will make the voyage. Before the week is over I will make the ap-
propriate notifications. Any more questions? . . . Very well, then.
Cheerio." Limping on his thin legs as if his feet hurt, Henry Belt de-
parted into the back passage.
For a moment or two there was silence. Then von Gluck said in a
soft voice, "My gracious."
"He's a tyrannical lunatic," grumbled Weske. "I've never heard any-
thing like it! Megalomania!"
"Easy," said Culpepper. "Remember, no gossiping."
"Bah!" muttered McGrath. "This is a free country. I'll damn well say
what I like."
Weske rose to his feet. "A wonder somebody hasn't killed him."
"I wouldn't want to try it," said Culpepper. "He looks tough." He
made a gesture, stood up, brow furrowed in thought. Then he went to
look along the passageway into which Henry Belt had made his de-
parture. There, pressed to the wall, stood Henry Belt. "Yes, sir," said
Culpepper suavely. "I forgot to inquire when you wanted us to convene
again."

6
Jack Vance
Henry Belt returned to the rostrum. "Now is as good a time as any."
He took his seat, opened his red book. "You, Mr. von Gluck, made the
remark, 'My gracious,' in an offensive tone of voice. One demerit. You,
Mr. Weske, employed the terms 'tyrannical lunatic' and 'megalomania,'
in reference to myself. Three demerits. Mr. McGrath, you observed that
freedom of speech is the official doctrine of this country. It is a theory
which presently we have no time to explore, hut I believe that the state-
ment in its present context carries an overtone of insubordination. One
demerit. Mr. Culpepper, your imperturbable complacence irritates me. I
prefer that you display more uncertainty, or even uneasiness."
"Sorry, sir."
"However, you took occasion to remind your colleagues of my rule,
and so I will not mark you down."
"Thank you, sir."
Henry Belt leaned back in the chair, stared at the ceiling. "Listen
closely, as I do not care to repeat myself. Take notes if you wish.
Topic: Solar Sails, Theory and Practice Thereof. Material with which
you should already be familiar, but which I will repeat in order to avoid
ambiguity.
"First, why bother with the sail, when nuclear jet-ships are faster,
more dependable, more direct, safer and easier to navigate? The answer
is threefold. First, a sail is not a bad way to move heavy cargo slowly
but cheaply through space. Secondly, the range of the sail is unlimited,
since we employ the mechanical pressure of light for thrust, and there-
fore need carry neither propulsive machinery, material to be ejected,
nor energy source. The solar sail is much lighter than its nuclear-pow-
ered counterpart, and may carry a larger complement of men in a
larger hull. Thirdly, to train a man for space there is no better instru-
ment than the handling of a sail. The computer naturally calculates sail
cant and plots the course; in fact, without the computer we'd be dead
ducks. Nevertheless the control of a sail provides working familiarity
with the cosmic elementals: light, gravity, mass, space.
"There are two types of sail: pure and composite. The first relies on
solar energy exclusively, the second carries a secondary power source.
We have been assigned Number 25, which is the first sort. It consists of
a hull, a large parabolic reflector which serves as radar and radio an-
tenna, as well as reflector for the power generator, and the sail itself.
The pressure of radiation, of course, is extremely slight—on the order of
an ounce per acre at this distance from the sun. Necessarily the sail

Sail 25
7
must be extremely large and extremely light. We use a fluoro-siliconic
film a tenth of a mil in gauge, fogged with lithium to the state of
opacity. I believe the layer of lithium is about a thousand two hundred
molecules thick. Such a foil weighs about four tons to the square mile.
It is fitted to a hoop of thin-walled tubing, from which mono-crystalline
iron cords lead to the hull.
"We try to achieve a weight factor of six tons to the square mile,
which produces an acceleration of between g/100 and g/1000 depend-
ing on proximity to the sun, angle of cant, circumsolar orbital speed,
reflectivity of surface. These accelerations seem minute, but calculation
shows them to be cumulatively enormous. G/100 yields a velocity in-
crement of 800 miles per hour every hour, 18,000 miles per hour each
day, or five miles per second each day. At this rate interplanetary dis-
tances are readily negotiable—with proper manipulation of the sail, I
need hardly say.
"The virtues of the sail I've mentioned. It is cheap to build and cheap
to operate. It requires neither fuel nor ejectant. As it travels through
space, the great area captures various ions, which may be expelled in
the plasma jet powered by the parabolic reflector, which adds another
increment to the acceleration.
"The disadvantages of the sail are those of the glider or sailing ship,
in that we must use natural forces with great precision and delicacy.
"There is no particular limit to the size of the sail. On 25 we use
about four square miles of sail. For the present voyage we will install a
new sail, as the old is well-worn and eroded.
"That will be all for today." Once more Henry Belt limped down
from the dais and out the passage. On this occasion there were no com-
ments.
n
The eight cadets shared a dormitory, attended classes together, ate at
the same table in the mess-hall. In various shops and laboratories they
assembled, disassembled and reassembled computers, pumps, genera-
tors, gyro-platforms, star-trackers, communication gear. "It's not
enough to be clever with your hands," said Henry Belt. "Dexterity is
not enough. Resourcefulness, creativity, the ability to make successful
improvisations—these are more important. We'll test you out." And pres-

8
Jack Vance
ently each of the cadets was introduced into a room on the floor of
which lay a great heap of mingled housings, wires, flexes, gears, compo-
nents of a dozen varieties of mechanism. "This is a twenty-six-hour
test," said Henry Belt. "Each of you has an identical set of components
and supplies. There shall be no exchange of parts or information be-
tween you. Those whom I suspect of this fault will be dropped from the
class, without recommendation. What I want you to build is, first, one
standard Aminex Mark 9 Computer. Second, a servo-mechanism to
orient a mass ten kilograms toward Mu Hercules. Why Mu Hercules?"
"Because, sir, the solar system moves in the direction of Mu Her-
cules, and we thereby avoid parallax error. Negligible though it may be,
sir."
"The final comment smacks of frivolity, Mr. McGrath, which serves
only to distract the attention of those who are trying to take careful
note of my instructions. One demerit."
"Sorry, sir. I merely intended to express my awareness that for many
practical purposes such a degree of accuracy is unnecessary."
"That idea, cadet, is sufficiently elemental that it need not be la-
bored. I appreciate brevity and precision."
"Yes, sir."
"Thirdly, from these materials, assemble a communication system,
operating on one hundred watts, which will permit two-way conver-
sation between Tycho Base and Phobos, at whatever frequency you
deem suitable."
The cadets started in identical fashion by sorting the material into
various piles, then calibrating and checking the test instruments.
Achievement thereafter was disparate. Culpepper and von Gluck,
diagnosing the test as partly one of mechanical ingenuity and partly or-
deal by frustration, failed to become excited when several indispensable
components proved either to be missing or inoperative, and carried each
project as far as immediately feasible. McGrath and Weske, beginning
with the computer, were reduced to rage and random action. Lynch and
Sutton worked doggedly at the computer, Verona at the communication
system.
Culpepper alone managed to complete one of the instruments, by the
process of sawing, polishing and cementing together sections of two
broken crystals into a crude, inefficient, but operative maser unit.
* * *

Sail 25
9
The day after this test McGrath and Weske disappeared from the
dormitory, whether by their own volition or notification from Henry
Belt no one ever knew.
The test was followed by weekend leave. Cadet Lynch, attending a
cocktail party, found himself in conversation with a Lieutenant-Colonel
Trenchard, who shook his head pityingly to hear that Lynch was train-
ing with Henry Belt.
"I was up with Old Horrors myself. I tell you it's a miracle we ever
got back. Belt was drunk two-thirds of the voyage."
"How does he escape court-martial?" asked Lynch.
"Very simple. All the top men seem to have trained under Henry
Belt. Naturally they hate his guts but they all take a perverse pride in
the fact. And maybe they hope that someday a cadet will take him
apart."
"Have any ever tried?"
"Oh yes. I took a swing at Henry once. I was lucky to escape with a
broken collarbone and two sprained ankles. If you come back alive,
you'll stand a good chance of reaching the top."
The next evening Henry Belt passed the word. "Next Tuesday morn-
ing we go up. We'll be gone several months."
On Tuesday morning the cadets took their places in the angel-wagon.
Henry Belt presently appeared. The pilot readied for take-off.
"Hold your hats. On the count. . ." The projectile thrust against the
earth, strained, rose, went streaking up into the sky. An hour later the
pilot pointed. "There's your boat. Old 25. And 39 right beside it, just in
from space."
Henry Belt stared aghast from the port. "What's been done to the
ship? The decoration? The red? the white? the yellow? The checker-
board."
"Thank some idiot of a landlubber," said the pilot. "The word came
to pretty the old boats for a junket of congressmen."
Henry Belt turned to the cadets. "Observe this foolishness. It is the
result of vanity and ignorance. We will be occupied several days remov-
ing the paint."
They drifted close below the two sails: No. 39 just down from space,
spare and polished beside the bedizened structure of No. 25. In 39's
exit port a group of men waited, their gear floating at the end of cords.
"Observe those men," said Henry Belt. "They are jaunty. They have

10
Jack Vance
been on a pleasant outing around the planet Mars. They are poorly
trained. When you gentlemen return you will be haggard and desperate
and well trained. Now, gentlemen, clamp your helmets, and we will pro-
ceed."
The helmets were secured. Henry Belt's voice came by radio.
"Lynch, Ostrander will remain here to discharge cargo. Verona, Cul-
pepper, von Gluck, Sutton, leap with cords to the ship; ferry across the
cargo, stow it in the proper hatches."
Henry Belt took charge of his personal cargo, which consisted of sev-
eral large cases. He eased them out into space, clipped on lines, thrust
them toward 25, leapt after. Pulling himself and the cases to the en-
trance port, he disappeared within.
Discharge of cargo was effected. The crew from 39 transferred to the
carrier, which thereupon swung down and away, thrust itself dwindling
back toward Earth.
When the cargo had been stowed, the cadets gathered in the ward-
room. Henry Belt appeared from the master's cubicle. "Gentlemen, how
do you like the surroundings? Eh, Mr. Culpepper?"
"The hull is commodious, sir. The view is superb."
Henry Belt nodded. "Mr. Lynch? Your impressions?"
"I'm afraid I haven't sorted them out yet, sir."
"I see. You, Mr. Sutton?"
"Space is larger than I imagined it, sir."
"True. Space is unimaginable. A good space-man must either be
larger than space, or he must ignore it. Both difficult. Well, gentlemen, I
will make a few comments, then I will retire and enjoy the voyage.
Since this is my last time out, I intend to do nothing whatever. The op-
eration of the ship will be completely in your hands. I will merely ap-
pear from time to time to beam benevolently about or, alas! to make
marks in my red book. Nominally I shall be in command, but you six
will enjoy complete control over the ship. If you return us safely to
Earth I will make an approving entry in my red book. If you wreck us
or fling us into the sun, you will be more unhappy than I, since it is my
destiny to die in space. Mr. von Gluck, do I perceive a smirk on your
face?"
"No, sir, it is a thoughtful half-smile."
"What is humorous in the concept of my demise, may I ask?"
"It will be a great tragedy, sir. I merely was reflecting upon the con-

Sail 25
11
temporary persistence of, well, not exactly superstition, but, let us say,
the conviction of a subjective cosmos."
Henry Belt made a notation in the red book. "Whatever is meant by
this barbaric jargon I'm sure I don't know, Mr. von Gluck. It is clear
that you fancy yourself a philosopher and dialectician. I will not fault
this, so long as your remarks conceal no overtones of malice and inso-
lence, to which I am extremely sensitive. Now as to the persistence of
superstition, only an impoverished mind considers itself the repository
of absolute knowledge. Hamlet spoke on this subject to Horatio, as I re-
call, in the well-known work by William Shakespeare. I myself have
seen strange and terrifying sights. Were they hallucinations? Were they
the manipulations of the cosmos by my mind or the mind of someone—
or something—other than myself? I do not know. I therefore counsel a
flexible attitude toward matters where the truth is still unknown. For
this reason: The impact of an inexplicable experience may well destroy
a mind which is too brittle. Do I make myself clear?"
"Perfectly, sir."
"Very good. To return, then. We shall set a system of watches
whereby each man works in turn with each of the other five. I thereby
hope to discourage the formation of special friendships, or cliques.
"You have inspected the ship. The hull is a sandwich of lithium-
beryllium, insulating foam, fiber, and an interior skin. Very light, held
rigid by air pressure rather than by any innate strength of the material.
We can therefore afford enough space to stretch our legs and provide all
of us with privacy.
"The master's cubicle is to the left; under no circumstances is anyone
permitted in my quarters. If you wish to speak to me, knock on my
door. If I appear, good. If I do not appear, go away. To the right are six
cubicles which you may now distribute among yourselves by lot.
"Your schedule will be two hours study, four hours on watch, six
hours off. I will require no specific rate of study progress, but I recom-
mend that you make good use of your time.
"Our destination is Mars. We will presently construct a new sail,
then, while orbital velocity builds up, you will carefully test and check
all equipment aboard. Each of you will compute sail cant and course
and work out among yourselves any discrepancies which may appear. I
shall take no hand in navigation. I prefer that you involve me in no dis-
aster. If any such occur I shall severely mark down the persons respon-
sible.

12
Jack Vance
"Singing, whistling, humming, are forbidden. I disapprove of fear and
hysteria, and mark accordingly. No one dies more than once; we are
well aware of the risks of this, our chosen occupation. There will be no
practical jokes. You may fight, so long as you do not disturb me or
break any instruments; however I counsel against it, as it leads to re-
sentment, and I have known cadets to kill each other. I suggest coolness
and detachment in your personal relations. Use of the microfilm projec-
tor is of course at your own option. You may not use the radio either to
dispatch or receive messages. In fact I have put the radio out of com-
mission, as is my practice. I do this to emphasize the fact that, sink or
swim, we must make do with our own resources. Are there any ques-
tions? . . . Very good. You will find that if you all behave with scrupu-
lous correctness and accuracy, we shall in due course return safe and
sound, with a minimum of demerits and no casualties. I am bound to
say, however, that in twelve previous voyages this has failed to occur.
Now you select your cubicles, stow your gear. The carrier will bring up
the new sail tomorrow, and you will go to work."
m
The carrier discharged a great bundle of three-inch tubing: paper-thin
lithium hardened with beryllium, reinforced with filaments of mono-
crystalline iron—a total length of eight miles. The cadets fitted the tubes
end to end, cementing the joints. When the tube extended a quarter-
mile it was bent bow-shaped by a cord stretched between two ends,
and further sections added. As the process continued, the free end
curved far out and around, and presently began to veer back in toward
the hull. When the last tube was in place the loose end was hauled
down, socketed home, to form a great hoop two miles and a half in di-
ameter.
Henry Belt came out occasionally in his space suit to look on, and
occasionally spoke a few words of sardonic comment, to which the ca-
dets paid little heed. Their mood had changed; this was exhilaration, to
be weightlessly afloat above the bright cloud-marked globe, with conti-
nent and ocean wheeling massively below. Anything seemed possible,
even the training voyage with Henry Belt! When he came out to inspect
their work, they grinned at each other with indulgent amusement. Henry
Belt suddenly seemed a rather pitiful creature, a poor vagabond suited

Sail 25
13
only for drunken bluster. Fortunate indeed that they were less naive
than Henry Belt's previous classes! They had taken Belt seriously; he
had cowed them, reduced them to nervous pulp. Not this crew, not by a
long shot! They saw through Henry Belt! Just keep your nose clean, do
your work, keep cheerful. The training voyage won't last but a few
months, and then real life begins. Gut it out, ignore Henry Belt as much
as possible. This is the sensible attitude; the best way to keep on top of
the situation.
Already the group had made a composite assessment of its members,
arriving at a set of convenient labels. Culpepper: smooth, suave, easy-
going. Lynch: excitable, argumentative, hot-tempered. Von Gluck: the
artistic temperament, delicate with hands and sensibilities. Ostrander:
prissy, finicky, over-tidy. Sutton: moody, suspicious, competitive. Ve-
rona: the plugger, rough at the edges, but persistent and reliable.
Around the hull swung the gleaming hoop, and now the carrier
brought up the sail, a great roll of darkly shining stuff. When unfolded
and unrolled, and unfolded many times more, it became a tough gleam-
ing film, flimsy as gold leaf. Unfolded to its fullest extent it was a shim-
mering disk, already rippling and bulging to the light of the sun. The ca-
dets fitted the film to the hoop, stretched it taut as a drum-head,
cemented it in place. Now the sail must carefully be held edge on to the
sun, or it would quickly move away, under a thrust of about a hundred
pounds.
From the rim braided-iron threads were led to a ring at the back of
the parabolic reflector, dwarfing this as the reflector dwarfed the hull,
and now the sail was ready to move.
The carrier brought up a final cargo: water, food, spare parts, a new
magazine for the microfilm viewer, mail. Then Henry Belt said, "Make
sail."
This was the process of turning the sail to catch the sunlight while the
hull moved around Earth away from the sun, canting it parallel to the
sun-rays when the ship moved on the sunward leg of its orbit: in short,
building up an orbital velocity which in due course would stretch loose
the bonds of terrestrial gravity and send Sail 25 kiting out toward Mars.
During this period the cadets checked every item of equipment
aboard the vessel. They grimaced with disgust and dismay at some of
the instruments: 25 was an old ship, with antiquated gear. Henry Belt
seemed to enjoy their grumbling. "This is a training voyage, not a pleas-
ure cruise. If you wanted your noses wiped, you should have taken a

14
Jack Vance
post on the ground. And I have no sympathy for fault-finders. If you
wish a model by which to form your own conduct, observe me."
The moody introspective Sutton, usually the most diffident and la-
conic of individuals, ventured an ill-advised witticism. "If we modeled
ourselves after you, sir, there'd be no room to move for the whiskey."
Out came the red book. "Extraordinary impudence, Mr. Sutton. How
can you yield so easily to malice?"
Sutton flushed pink; his eyes glistened, he opened his mouth to speak,
then closed it firmly. Henry Belt, waiting politely expectant, turned
away. "You gentlemen will perceive that I rigorously obey my own
rules of conduct. I am regular as a clock. There is no better, more ge-
nial shipmate than Henry Belt. There is not a fairer man alive. Mr. Cul-
pepper, you have a remark to make?"
"Nothing of consequence, sir."
Henry Belt went to the port, glared out at the sail. He swung around
instantly. "Who is on watch?"
"Sutton and Ostrander, sir."
"Gentlemen, have you noticed the sail? It has swung about and is
canting to show its back to the sun. In another ten minutes we shall be
tangled in a hundred miles of guy-wires."
Sutton and Ostrander sprang to repair the situation. Henry Belt shook
his head disparagingly. "This is precisely what is meant by the words
'negligence' and 'inattentiveness.' You two have committed a serious
error. This is poor spacemanship. The sail must always be in such a
position as to hold the wires taut"
"There seems to be something wrong with the sensor, sir," Sutton
blurted. "It should notify us when the sail swings behind us."
"I fear I must charge you an additional demerit for making excuses,
Mr. Sutton. It is your duty to assure yourself that all the warning de-
vices are functioning properly, at all times. Machinery must never be
used as a substitute for vigilance."
Ostrander looked up from the control console. "Someone has turned
off the switch, sir. I do not offer this as an excuse, but as an explana-
tion."
"The line of distinction is often hard to define, Mr. Ostrander. Please
bear in mind my remarks on the subject of vigilance."
"Yes, sir, but—who turned off the switch?"
"Both you and Mr. Sutton are theoretically hard at work watching
for any such accident or occurrence. Did you not observe it?"

Sail 25
15
"No, sir."
"I might almost accuse you of further inattention and neglect, in this
case."
Ostrander gave Henry Belt a long dubious side-glance. "The only
person I recall going near the console is yourself, sir. I'm sure you
wouldn't do such a thing."
Henry Belt shook his head sadly. "In space you must never rely on
anyone for rational conduct. A few moments ago Mr. Sutton unfairly
imputed to me an unusual thirst for whiskey. Suppose this were the
case? Suppose, as an example of pure irony, that I had indeed been
drinking whiskey, that I was in fact drunk?"
"I will agree, sir, that anything is possible."
Henry Belt shook his head again. "That is the type of remark, Mr.
Ostrander, that I have come to associate with Mr. Culpepper. A better
response would have been, Tn the future, I will try to be ready for any
conceivable contingency.' Mr. Sutton, did you make a hissing sound be-
tween your teeth?"
"I was breathing, sir."
"Please breathe with less vehemence."
Henry Belt turned away and wandered back and forth about the
wardroom, scrutinizing cases, frowning at smudges on polished metal.
Ostrander muttered something to Sutton, and both watched Henry Belt
closely as he moved here and there. Presently Henry Belt lurched to-
ward them. "You show great interest in my movements, gentlemen."
"We were on the watch for another unlikely contingency, sir."
"Very good, Mr. Ostrander. Stick with it. In space nothing is impos-
sible. I'll vouch for this personally."
IV
Henry Belt sent all hands out to remove the paint from the surface of
the parabolic reflector. When this had been accomplished, incident sun-
light was now focused upon an expanse of photoelectric cells. The
power so generated was used to operate plasma jets, expelling ions
collected by the vast expanse of sail, further accelerating the ship,
thrusting it ever out into an orbit of escape. And finally one day, at an
exact instant dictated by the computer, the ship departed from Earth
and floated tangentially out into space, off at an angle for the orbit of

16
Jack Vance
Mars. At an acceleration of g/100 velocity built up rapidly. Earth
dwindled behind; the ship was isolated in space. The cadets' exhila-
ration vanished, to be replaced by an almost funereal solemnity. The vi-
sion of Earth dwindling and retreating is an awesome symbol, equiva-
lent to eternal loss, to the act of dying itself. The more impressionable
cadets—Sutton, von Gluck, Ostrander—could not look astern without
finding their eyes swimming with tears. Even the suave Culpepper was
awed by the magnificence of the spectacle, the sun an aching pit not to
be tolerated, Earth a plump pearl rolling on black velvet among a myr-
iad of glittering diamonds. And away from Earth, away from the sun,
opened an exalted magnificence of another order entirely. For the first
time the cadets became dimly aware that Henry Belt had spoken truly
of strange visions. Here was death, here was peace, solitude, star-blaz-
ing beauty which promised not oblivion in death, but eternity. . . .
Streams and spatters of stars . . . The familiar constellation, the stars
with their prideful names presenting themselves like heroes: Achernar,
Fomalhaut, Sadal, Suud, Canopus. . .
Sutton could not bear to look into the sky. "It's not that I feel fear,"
he told von Gluck, "or, yes, perhaps it is fear. It sucks at me, draws me
out there. ... I suppose in due course I'll become accustomed to it."
"I'm not so sure," said von Gluck. "I wouldn't be surprised if space
could become a psychological addiction, a need—so that whenever you
walked on Earth you felt hot and breathless."
Life settled into a routine. Henry Belt no longer seemed a man, but a
capricious aspect of nature, like storm or lightning; and like some natu-
ral cataclysm, Henry Belt showed no favoritism, nor forgave one jot or
tittle of offense. Apart from the private cubicles, no place on the ship
escaped his attention. Always he reeked of whiskey, and it became a
matter of covert speculation as to exactly how much whiskey he had
brought aboard. But no matter how he reeked or how he swayed on his
feet, his eyes remained clever and steady, and he spoke without slurring
in his paradoxically clear sweet voice.
One day he seemed slightly drunker than usual, and ordered all
hands into space-suits and out to inspect the sail for meteoric puncture.
The order seemed sufficiently odd that the cadets stared at him in dis-
belief. "Gentlemen, you hesitate, you fail to exert yourselves, you lux-
uriate in sloth. Do you fancy yourselves at the Riviera? Into the

Sail 25
17
space-suits, on the double, and everybody into space. Check hoop, sail,
reflector, struts and sensor. You will be adrift for two hours. When you
return I want a comprehensive report. Mr. Lynch, I believe you are in
charge of this watch. You will present the report."
"Yes, sir."
"One more matter. You will notice that the sail is slightly bellied by
the continual radiation pressure. It therefore acts as a focusing device,
the focal point presumably occurring behind the cab. But this is not a
matter to be taken for granted. I have seen a man burnt to death in such
a freak accident. Bear this in mind."
For two hours the cadets drifted through space, propelled by tanks of
gas and thrust tubes. All enjoyed the experience except Sutton, who
found himself appalled by the immensity of his emotions. Probably least
affected was the practical Verona, who inspected the sail with a care ex-
acting enough even to satisfy Henry Belt.
The next day the computer went wrong. Ostrander was in charge of
the watch and knocked on Henry Belt's door to make the report.
Henry Belt appeared in the doorway. He apparently had been asleep.
"What is the difficulty, Mr. Ostrander?"
"We're in trouble, sir. The computer has gone out."
Henry Belt rubbed his grizzled pate. "This is not an unusual circum-
stance. We prepare for this contingency by schooling all cadets thor-
oughly in computer design and repair. Have you identified the
difficulty?"
"The bearings which suspend the data-separation disks have broken.
The shaft has several millimeters play and as a result there is total con-
fusion in the data presented to the analyzer."
"An interesting problem. Why do you present it to me?"
"I thought you should be notified, sir. I don't believe we carry spares
for this particular bearing."
Henry Belt shook his head sadly. "Mr. Ostrander, do you recall my
statement at the beginning of this voyage, that you six gentlemen are to-
tally responsible for the navigation of the ship?"
"Yes, sir. But-"
"This is an applicable situation. You must either repair the com-
puter, or perform the calculations yourself."
"Very well, sir. I will do my best."

18
Jack Vance
V
Lynch, Verona, Ostrander and Sutton disassembled the mechanism, re-
moved the worn bearing. "Confounded antique!" said Lynch. "Why
can't they give us decent equipment? Or if they want to kill us, why not
shoot us and save us all trouble."
"We're not dead yet," said Verona. "You've looked for a spare?"
"Naturally. There's nothing remotely like this."
Verona looked at the bearing dubiously. "I suppose we could cast a
babbitt sleeve and machine it to fit. That's what we'll have to do—unless
you fellows are awfully fast with your math."
Sutton glanced out the port, quickly turned away his eyes. "I wonder
if we should cut sail."
"Why?" asked Ostrander.
"We don't want to build up too much velocity. We're already going
thirty miles a second."
"Mars is a long way off ."
"And if we miss, we go shooting past. Then where are we?"
"Sutton, you're a pessimist. A shame to find morbid tendencies in
one so young." This from von Gluck.
"I'd rather be a live pessimist than a dead comedian."
The new sleeve was duly cast, machined, and fitted. Anxiously the
alignment of the data disks was checked. "Well," said Verona du-
biously, "there's wobble. How much that affects the functioning remains
to be seen. We can take some of it out by shimming the mount. . . ."
Shims of tissue paper were inserted and the wobble seemed to be re-
duced. "Now—feed in the data," said Sutton. "Let's see how we stand."
Coordinates were fed into the system; the indicator swung. "Enlarge
sail cant four degrees," said von Gluck, "we're making too much left
concentric. Projected course . . ." He tapped buttons, watched the
bright line extend across the screen, swing around a dot representing the
center of gravity of Mars. "I make it an elliptical pass, about twenty
thousand miles out. That's at present acceleration, and it should toss us
right back at Earth."
"Great. Simply great. Let's go, 25!" This was Lynch. "I've heard of
guys dropping flat on their faces and kissing Earth when they put down.
Me, I'm going to live in a cave the rest of my life."

Sail 25
19
Sutton went to look at the data disks. The wobble was slight but per-
ceptible. "Good Lord," he said huskily. "The other end of the shaft is
loose too."
Lynch started to spit curses; Verona's shoulders slumped. "Let's get
to work and fix it."
Another bearing was cast, machined, polished, mounted. The disks
wobbled, scraped. Mars, an ocher disk, shouldered ever closer in from
the side. With the computer unreliable, the cadets calculated and plot-
ted the course manually. The results were at slight but significant vari-
ance with those of the computer. The cadets looked dourly at each
other. "Well," growled Ostrander, "there's error. Is it the instruments?
The calculation? The plotting? Or the computer?"
Culpepper said in a subdued voice, "Well, we're not about to crash
head-on at any rate."
Verona went back to study the computer. "I can't imagine why the
bearings don't work better. . . . The mounting brackets—could they
have shifted?" He removed the side housing, studied the frame, then
went to the case for tools.
"What are you going to do?" demanded Sutton.
"Try to ease the mounting brackets around. I think that's our
trouble."
"Leave me alone! You'll bugger the machine so it'll never work."
Verona paused, looked questioningly around the group. "Well?
What's the verdict?"
"Maybe we'd better check with the old man," said Ostrander nerv-
ously.
"All well and good—but you know what he'll say."
"Let's deal cards. Ace of spades goes to ask him."
Culpepper received the ace. He knocked on Henry Belt's door. There
was no response. He started to knock again, but restrained himself.
He returned to the group. "Wait till he shows himself. I'd rather
crash into Mars than bring forth Henry Belt and his red book."
The ship crossed the orbit of Mars well ahead of the looming red
planet. It came toppling at them with a peculiar clumsy grandeur, a
mass obviously bulky and globular, but so fine and clear was the detail,
so absent the perspective, that the distance and size might have been
anything. Instead of swinging in a sharp elliptical curve back toward
Earth, the ship swerved aside in a blunt hyperbola and proceeded out-

20
Jack Vance
ward, now at a velocity of close to fifty miles a second. Mars receded
astern and to the side. A new part of space lay ahead. The sun was no-
ticeably smaller. Earth could no longer be differentiated from the stars.
Mars departed quickly and politely, and space seemed lonely and for-
lorn.
Henry Belt had not appeared for two days. At last Culpepper went to
knock on the door—once, twice, three times: a strange face looked out.
It was Henry Belt, face haggard, skin like pulled taffy. His eyes were
red and glared, his hair seemed matted and more unkempt than hair a
quarter-inch long should be.
But he spoke in his quiet clear voice. "Mr. Culpepper, your merciless
din has disturbed me. I am quite put out with you."
"Sorry, sir. We feared that you were ill."
Henry Belt made no response. He looked past Culpepper, around the
circle of faces. "You gentlemen are unwontedly serious. Has this pre-
sumptive illness of mine caused you all distress?"
Sutton spoke in a rush, "The computer is out of order."
"Why then, you must repair it."
"It's a matter of altering the housing. If we do it incorrectly—"
"Mr. Sutton, please do not harass me with the hour-by-hour minutiae
of running the ship."
"But, sir, the matter has become serious; we need your advice. We
missed the Mars turnaround—"
"Well, I suppose there's always Jupiter. Must I explain the basic ele-
ments of astrogation to you?"
"But the computer's out of order—definitely."
"Then, if you wish to return to Earth, you must perform the calcu-
lations with pencil and paper. Why is it necessary to explain the
obvious?"
"Jupiter is a long way out," said Sutton in a shrill voice. "Why can't
we just turn around and go home?" This last was almost a whisper.
"I see I've been too easy on you cads," said Henry Belt. "You stand
around idly; you chatter nonsense while the machinery goes to pieces
and the ship flies at random. Everybody into space-suits for sail inspec-
tion. Come now. Let's have some snap. What are you all? Walking
corpses? You, Mr. Culpepper, why the delay?"
"It occurred to me, sir, that we are approaching the asteroid belt. As

Sail 25
21
I am chief of the watch I consider it my duty to cant sail to swing us
around the area."
"You may do this; then join the rest in hull and sail inspection."
"Yes, sir."
The cadets donned space-suits, Sutton with the utmost reluctance.
Out into the dark void they went, and now here was loneliness indeed.
When they returned, Henry Belt had returned to his compartment.
"As Mr. Belt points out, we have no great choice," said Ostrander.
"We missed Mars, so let's hit Jupiter. Luckily it's in good position-
otherwise we'd have to swing out to Saturn or Uranus—"
"They're off behind the sun," said Lynch. "Jupiter's our last chance."
"Let's do it right, then. I say, let's make one last attempt to set those
confounded bearings. . . ."
But now it seemed as if the wobble and twist had been eliminated.
The disks tracked perfectly, the accuracy monitor glowed green.
"Great!" yelled Lynch. "Feed it the dope. Let's get going! All sail for
Jupiter. Good Lord, but we're having a trip!"
"Wait till it's over," said Sutton. Since his return from sail inspection,
he had stood to one side, cheeks pinched, eyes staring. "It's not over
yet. And maybe it's not meant to be."
The other five pretended not to have heard him. The computer spat
out figures and angles. There was a billion miles to travel. Acceleration
was less, due to the diminution in the intensity of sunlight. At least a
month must pass before Jupiter came close.
VI
The ship, great sail spread to the fading sunlight, fled like a ghost—out,
always out. Each of the cadets had quietly performed the same calcula-
tion, and arrived at the same result. If the swing around Jupiter were
not performed with exactitude, if the ship were not slung back like a
stone on a string, there was nothing beyond. Saturn, Uranus, Neptune,
Pluto were far around the sun; the ship, speeding at a hundred miles a
second, could not be halted by the waning gravity of the sun, nor yet
sufficiently accelerated in a concentric direction by sail and jet into a
true orbit. The very nature of the sail made it useless as a brake, always
the thrust was outward.

22
Jack Vance
Within the hull seven men lived and thought, and the psychic rela-
tionship worked and stirred like yeast in a vat of decaying fruit. The
fundamental similarity, the human identity of the seven men, was ut-
terly canceled; apparent only were the disparities. Each cadet appeared
to others only as a walking characteristic, and Henry Belt was an in-
comprehensible Thing, who appeared from his compartment at unpre-
dictable times, to move quietly here and there with the blind blank grin
of an archaic Attic hero.
Jupiter loomed and bulked. The ship, at last within reach of the
Jovian gravity, sidled over to meet it. The cadets gave ever more careful
attention to the computer, checking and counterchecking the instruc-
tions. Verona was the most assiduous at this, Sutton the most harassed
and ineffectual. Lynch growled and cursed and sweat; Ostrander com-
plained in a thin peevish voice. Von Gluck worked with the calm of
pessimistic fatalism; Culpepper seemed unconcerned, almost debonair,
a blandness which bewildered Ostrander, infuriated Lynch, awoke a
malignant hate in Sutton. Verona and von Gluck on the other hand
seemed to derive strength and refreshment from Culpepper's placid ac-
ceptance of the situation. Henry Belt said nothing. Occasionally he
emerged from his compartment, to survey the wardroom and the cadets
with the detached interest of a visitor to an asylum.
It was Lynch who made the discovery. He signaled it with an odd
growl of sheer dismay, which brought a resonant questioning sound
from Sutton. "My God, my God," muttered Lynch.
Verona was at his side. "What's the trouble?"
"Look. This gear. When we replaced the disks we dephased the
whole apparatus one notch. This white dot and this other white dot
should synchronize. They're one sprocket apart. All the results would
check and be consistent because they'd all be off by the same factor."
Verona sprang into action.
Off came the housing, off came various components. Gently he lifted
the gear, set it back into correct alignment. The other cadets leaned
over him as he worked, except Culpepper who was chief of the watch.
Henry Belt appeared. "You gentlemen are certainly diligent in your
navigation," he said presently. "Perfectionists almost."
"We do our best," greeted Lynch between set teeth. "It's a damn
shame sending us out with a machine like this."
The red book appeared. "Mr. Lynch, I mark you down not for your
private sentiments, which are of course yours to entertain, but for voic-

Sail 25
23
ing them and thereby contributing to an unhealthy atmosphere of de-
spairing and hysterical pessimism."
A tide of red crept up from Lynch's neck. He bent over the com-
puter, made no comment. But Sutton suddenly cried out, "What else do
you expect from us? We came out here to learn, not to suffer, or to fly
on forever!" He gave a ghastly laugh. Henry Belt listened patiently.
"Think of it!" cried Sutton. "The seven of us. In this capsule, forever!"
"I am afraid that I must charge you two demerits for your outburst,
Mr. Sutton. A good space-man maintains his dignity at all costs."
Lynch looked up from the computer. "Well, now we've got a cor-
rected reading. Do you know what it says?"
Henry Belt turned him a look of polite inquiry.
"We're going to miss," said Lynch. "We're going to pass by just as
we passed Mars. Jupiter is pulling us around and sending us out toward
Gemini."
The silence was thick in the room. Henry Belt turned to look at Cul-
pepper, who was standing by the porthole, photographing Jupiter with
his personal camera.
"Mr. Culpepper?"
"Yes, sir."
"You seem unconcerned by the prospect which Mr. Sutton has set
forth."
"I hope it's not imminent."
"How do you propose to avoid it?"
"I imagine that we will radio for help, sir."
"You forget that I have destroyed the radio."
"I remember noting a crate marked 'Radio Parts' stored in the star-
board jet-pod."
"I am sorry to disillusion you, Mr. Culpepper. That case is misla-
beled."
Ostrander jumped to his feet, left the wardroom. There was the
sound of moving crates. A moment of silence. Then he returned. He
glared at Henry Belt. "Whiskey. Bottles of whiskey."
Henry Belt nodded. "I told you as much."
"But now we have no radio," said Lynch in an ugly voice.
"We never have had a radio, Mr. Lynch. You were warned that you
would have to depend on your own resources to bring us home. You
have failed, and in the process doomed me as well as yourself. Inciden-
tally, I must mark you all down ten demerits for a faulty cargo check."

24
Jack Vance
"Demerits," said Ostrander in a bleak voice.
"Now, Mr. Culpepper," said Henry Belt. "What is your next pro-
posal?"
"I don't know, sir."
Verona spoke in a placatory voice. "What would you do, sir, if you
were in our position?"
Henry Belt shook his head. "I am an imaginative man, Mr. Verona,
but there are certain leaps of the mind which are beyond my powers."
He returned to his compartment.
Von Gluck looked curiously at Culpepper. "It is a fact. You're not at
all concerned."
"Oh, I'm concerned. But I believe that Mr. Belt wants to get home
too. He's too good a space-man not to know exactly what he's doing."
The door from Henry Belt's compartment slid back. Henry Belt
stood in the opening. "Mr. Culpepper, I chanced to overhear your
remark, and I now note down ten demerits against you. This attitude
expresses a complacence as dangerous as Mr. Sutton's utter funk." He
looked about the room. "Pay no heed to Mr. Culpepper. He is wrong.
Even if I could repair this disaster, I would not raise a hand. For I ex-
pect to die in space."
VII
The sail was canted vectorless, edgewise to the sun. Jupiter was a
smudge astern. There were five cadets in the wardroom. Culpepper,
Verona, and von Gluck sat talking in low voices. Ostrander and Lynch
lay crouched, arms to knees, faces to the wall. Sutton had gone two
days before. Quietly donning his space-suit, he had stepped into the exit
chamber and thrust himself headlong into space. A propulsion unit gave
him added speed, and before any of the cadets could intervene he was
gone.
Shortly thereafter Lynch and Ostrander succumbed to inanition, a
kind of despondent helplessness: manic-depression in its most stupefy-
ing phase. Culpepper the suave, Verona the pragmatic, and von Gluck
the sensitive remained.
They spoke quietly to themselves, out of earshot of Henry Belt's
room. "I still believe," said Culpepper, "that somehow there is a means
to get ourselves out of this mess, and that Henry Belt knows it."
Verona said, "I wish I could think so. . . . We've been over it a

Sail 25
25
hundred times. If we set sail for Saturn or Neptune or Uranus, the out-
ward vector of thrust plus the outward vector of our momentum will
take us far beyond Pluto before we're anywhere near. The plasma jets
could stop us if we had enough energy, but the shield can't supply it and
we don't have another power source. . . ."
Von Gluck hit his fist into his hand. "Gentlemen," he said in a soft
delighted voice, "I believe we have sufficient energy at hand. We will
use the sail. Remember? It is bellied. It can function as a mirror. It
spreads five square miles of surface. Sunlight out here is thin—but so
long as we collect enough of it—"
"I understand!" said Culpepper. "We back off the hull till the reactor
is at the focus of the sail and turn on the jets!"
Verona said dubiously, "We'll still be receiving radiation pressure.
And what's worse, the jets will impinge back on the sail. Effect—can-
cellation. We'll be nowhere."
"If we cut the center out of the sail—just enough to allow the plasma
through—we'd beat that objection. And as for the radiation pressure—
we'll surely do better with the plasma drive."
"What do we use to make plasma? We don't have the stock."
"Anything that can be ionized. The radio, the computer, your shoes,
my shirt, Culpepper's camera, Henry Belt's whiskey . . ."
VIII
The angel-wagon came up to meet Sail 25, in orbit beside Sail 40,
which was just making ready to take out a new crew.
The cargo carrier drifted near, eased into position. Three men sprang
across space to Sail 40, a few hundred yards behind 25, tossed lines
back to the carrier, pulled bales of cargo and equipment across the gap.
The five cadets and Henry Belt, clad in space-suits, stepped out into
the sunlight. Earth spread below, green and blue, white and brown, the
contours so precious and dear to bring tears to the eyes. The cadets
transferring cargo to Sail 40 gazed at them curiously as they worked. At
last they were finished, and the six men of Sail 25 boarded the carrier.
"Back safe and sound, eh, Henry?" said the pilot. "Well, I'm always
surprised."
Henry Belt made no answer. The cadets stowed their cargo, and
standing by the port, took a final look at Sail 25. The carrier retro-jet-
ted; the two sails seemed to rise above them.

26
Jack Vance
The lighter nosed in and out of the atmosphere, braking, extended its
wings, glided to an easy landing on the Mojave Desert.
The cadets, their legs suddenly loose and weak to the unaccustomed
gravity, limped after Henry Belt to the carry-all, seated themselves, and
were conveyed to the administration complex. They alighted from the
carry-all, and now Henry Belt motioned the five to the side.
"Here, gentlemen, is where I leave you. Tonight I will check my red
book and prepare my official report. But I believe I can present you an
unofficial resume of my impressions. Mr. Lynch and Mr. Ostrander, I
feel that you are ill-suited either for command or for any situation
which might inflict prolonged emotional pressure upon you. I cannot
recommend you for space duty.
"Mr. von Gluck, Mr. Culpepper, and Mr. Verona, all of you meet
my minimum requirements for a recommendation, although I shall
write the words 'Especially Recommended' only beside the names
'Clyde von Gluck' and 'Marcus Verona.' You brought the sail back to
Earth by essentially faultless navigation.
"So now our association ends. I trust you have profited by it."
Henry Belt nodded briefly to each of the five and limped off around the
building.
The cadets looked after him. Culpepper reached in his pocket and
brought forth a pair of small metal objects which he displayed in his
palm. "Recognize these?"
"Hmf," said Lynch in a flat voice. "Bearings for the computer disks.
The original ones."
"I found them in the little spare-parts tray. They weren't there be-
fore."
Von Gluck nodded. "The machinery always seemed to fail immedi-
ately after sail check, as I recall."
Lynch drew in his breath with a sharp hiss. He turned, strode away.
Ostrander followed him. Culpepper shrugged. To Verona he gave one
of the bearings, to von Gluck the other. "For souvenirs—or medals.
You fellows deserve them."
"Thanks, Ed," said von Gluck.
"Thanks," muttered Verona. "I'll make a stick-pin of this thing."
The three, not able to look at each other, glanced up into the sky
where the first stars of twilight were appearing, then continued on into
the building where family and friends and sweethearts awaited them.

LUST
How we, all of us who happen to be of the male persuasion, love
and admire the purity of womanhood. How soft and delicate
and fragrant they all are from the very young ("Thank heaven—for
little girls") to the very old ("Put them all together—they spell
M-O-T-H-E-R"). It's wonderful to have half the human race so much
superior to the other—except that that is sexist nonsense, isn't it?
All you need is a special sense and you'll discover that what the two
sexes have in common is LUST.

PEEPING TOM
JUDITH MERR5L
You take a boy like Tommy Bender—a nice American boy, well-
brought-up in a nice, average, middle-class family; chock-full of vita-
mins, manners, and baseball statistics; clean-shaven, soft-spoken, and
respectful to women and his elders. You take a boy like that, fit him out
with a uniform, teach him to operate the most modern means of man-
slaughter, reward him with a bright gold bar, and send him out to an
exotic eastern land to prove his manhood and his patriotism.
You take a kid like that. Send him into combat in a steaming jungle
inferno; teach him to sweat and swear with conviction; then wait till he
makes just one wrong move, pick him out of the pool of drying blood,
beat off the flies, and settle him safely on a hospital cot in an ill-
equipped base behind the lines, cut off from everyone and everywhere,
except the little native village nearby. Let him rest and rot there for a
while. Then bring him home, and pin a medal on him, and give him his
civvies and a pension to go with his limp. You take a boy like Tommy
Bender, and do all that to him, you won't expect him to be quite the
same nice, apple-cheeked youngster afterwards.
He wasn't.
When Tommy Bender came home, he was firmly disillusioned and
grimly determined. He knew what he wanted out of life, had practically
no hope of getting it, and didn't much care how he went about getting
the next-best things. And in a remarkably short time, he made it clear
to his erstwhile friends and neighbors that he was almost certain to get
anything he went after. He made money; he made love; he made ene-
mies. Eventually, he made enough of a success so that the enemies
could be as thoroughly ignored as yesterday's woman. The money, and
the things it bought for him, he took good care of.
For almost five years after he came home, Tommy Bender continued
to build a career and ruin reputations. People tried to understand what
had happened to him; but they didn't really.
Then, abruptly, something happened to change Tommy. His business

30
Judith Merril
associates noticed it first; his family afterwards. The girls he was seeing
at the time were the last to know, because he'd always been undependa-
ble with them, and not hearing from him for two or three weeks wasn't
unusual.
What happened was a girl. Her name was Candace, and when she
was married to Tommy, seven weeks after her arrival, the papers car-
ried the whole romantic story. It was she who had nursed him back to
health in that remote village on the edge of the jungle years ago. He'd
been in love with her then, but she'd turned him down.
That last part wasn't in the news story, of course, but it got around
town just as fast as the paper did. Tommy's bitterness, it seemed, was
due to his long-frustrated love. And anyone could see how he'd changed
since Candace came back to him. His employees, his debtors, his old
friends and discarded women, his nervous mother and his angry brother
all sighed with relief and decided everything was going to be all right
now. At last they really understood.
But they didn't. They didn't, for instance, understand what happened
to Tommy Bender in that God-forsaken little town where he'd spent
two months on crutches, waiting for his leg to heal enough to travel
home.
It was hot and sticky in the shack. The mattress was lumpy. His leg
itched to the very fringes of madness, and the man on his right had an
erratically syncopated snore that took him past the raveled edge straight
to insanity. All he needed to make the torture complete was the guy on
his left—and the nurse.
The nurse was young and round and lithe, and she wore battle fa-
tigues: slacks, and a khaki shirt that was always draped against her
high, full breasts in the damp heat. Her hair, dark blonde or light
brown, was just long enough to be pinned back in a tiny bun, and just
short enough so wisps of it were always escaping to curl around her ears
or over her forehead.
When she bent over him to do any of the small humiliating services
he needed done for him, he could see tiny beads of sweat on her upper
lip, and that somehow was always the one little touch too much.
So that after she moved on to the next bed, and beyond it, it would
be torture to have Dake, the guy on the left, turn toward him and start
describing, graphically, what he would do if he could just get his re-
maining arm out of the cast for fifteen minutes some day.

Peeping Tom
31
You see Tommy Bender was still a nice young man then—after the
combat, and the wound, and the flies, and the rough hospitalization.
Dake was nothing of the sort. He'd been around, and he knew ex-
actly what value he placed on a woman. And he enjoyed talking about
it.
Tommy listened because there was no way not to, and he wriggled
and sweated and suffered, and the itch in his leg got worse, and the
stench from the garbage pile outside became unbearable. It went on that
way, hour after hour and day after day, punctuated only by the morning
visit from the medic, who would stop and look him over, and shake a
weary, discouraged head, and then go on to the next man.
The leg was a long time healing. It was better after Dake left and was
replaced with a quietly dying man who'd got it in the belly. After him,
there was a nice young Negro soldier, somewhat embarrassed about
being in sick bay with nothing more dramatic than appendicitis. But at
least, now, Tommy could keep his thoughts and dreams about Candace
to himself, untarnished.
Then one day, when it had begun to seem as if nothing would ever
change again in his life, except the occupants of the beds on either side
of him, something happened to break the monotony of discomfort and
despair. The medic stopped a little longer than usual in front of
Tommy's cot, studied the neat chart Candy was always filling in, and
furrowed his brow with concern. Then he muttered something to Can-
dace, and she looked worried too. After that, they both turned and
looked at Tommy as if they were seeing him for the first time, and
Candy smiled, and the doctor frowned a little deeper.
"Well, young man," he said, "We're going to let you get up."
"Thanks, doc," Tommy said, talking like a GI was supposed to.
"What should I do with the leg? Leave it in bed?"
"Ha, ha," the doctor laughed. Just like that. "Good to see you
haven't lost your spirit." Then he moved on to the next bed, and Tommy
lay there wondering. What would he do with the leg?
That afternoon, they came for him with a stretcher, and took him to
the surgery shack, and cut off the cast. They all stood around, five or six
of them, looking at it and shaking their heads and agreeing it was pretty
bad. Then they put a new cast on, a little less bulky than the first one,
and handed him a pair of crutches, and said: "Okay, boy, you're on
your own."
An orderly showed him how to use them, and helped him get back to

32
Judith Merril
his own bed. The next day he practiced up a little, and by the day after
that, he could really get around.
It made a difference.
Tommy Bender was a nice normal American boy, with all the usual
impulses. He had been weeks on end in the jungle, and further weeks on
his back in the cot. It was not strange that he should show a distinct
tendency to follow Candy about from place to place, now he was on his
feet again.
The pursuit was not so much hopeful as it was instinctive. He never,
quite, made any direct advance to her. He ran little errands, and helped
in every way he could, as soon as he was sufficiently adept in the han-
dling of his crutches. She was certainly not ill-pleased by his devotion,
but neither, he knew, was she inclined to any sort of romantic attach-
ment to him.
Once or twice, acting on private advice from the more experienced
ambulant patients, he made tentative approaches to some of the other
nurses, but met always the same kindly advice that they felt chasing
nurses would not be good for his leg. He accepted his rebuffs in good
part, as a nice boy will, and continued to trail around after Candy.
It was she, quite inadvertently, who led him to a piece of good for-
tune. He saw her leave the base one early evening, laden with packages,
and traveling on foot. Alone. For a GI, these phenomena might not
have been unusual. For a nurse to depart in this manner was extraor-
dinary, and Candace slipped out so quietly that Tommy felt certain no
one but himself was aware of it.
He hesitated about following at first; then he started worrying about
her, threw social caution to the winds, and went swinging down the nar-
row road behind her, till she heard him coming and turned to look, then
to wait.
She was irritated at first; then, abruptly, she seemed to change her
mind.
"All right, come along," she said. "It's just a visit I'm going to pay.
You can't come in with me, but you can wait if you want to, and walk
me back again."
He couldn't have been more pleased. Or curious.
Their walk took them directly into the native village, where Candace
seemed to become confused. She led Tommy and his crutches up and
down a number of dirty streets and evil-looking alleys before she lo-

Peeping Tom
33
cated the small earthen hut she was looking for, with a wide stripe of
blue clay over its door.
While they searched for the place, she explained nervously to
Tommy that she was fulfilling a mission for a dead soldier, who had, in
a period of false recovery just before the end, made friends with an old
man of this village. The dying GI had entrusted her with messages and
gifts for his friend—most notably a sealed envelope and his last month's
cigarette ration. That had been three weeks ago, and she'd spent the
time since working up her courage to make the trip. Now, she
confessed, she was more than glad Tommy had come along.
When they found the hut at last, they found a comparatively clean
old man sitting cross-legged by the doorway, completely enveloped in a
long gray robe with a hood thrown back off his shaven head. There was
a begging bowl at his side, and Tommy suggested that Candace might
do best just to leave her offerings in the bowl. But when she bent down
to do so, the old man raised his head and smiled at her.
"You are a friend of my friend, Karl?" he asked in astonishingly
good English.
"Why . . . yes," she fumbled. "Yes. Karl Larsen. He said to bring
you these. . . ."
"I thank you. You were most kind to come so soon." He stood up,
and added, just to her, ignoring Tommy. "Will you come inside and
drink tea with me, and speak with me of his death?"
"Why, I—" Suddenly she too smiled, apparently quite at ease once
more. "Yes, I'd be glad to. Thank you. Tommy," she added, "would
you mind waiting for me? I . . .I'd appreciate having someone to walk
back with. It won't be long. Maybe—" She looked at the old man who
was smiling, waiting. "Maybe half an hour," she finished.
"A little more or less perhaps," he said, in his startlingly clear Amer-
ican diction. "Perhaps your friend would enjoy looking about our small
village meanwhile, and you two can meet again here in front of my
door?"
"Why, sure," Tommy said, but he wasn't sure at all. Because as he
started to say it, he had no intention of moving away from that door at
all while Candy was inside. He'd stay right there, within earshot. But by
the time the second word was forming in his mouth, he had a sudden
clear image of what he'd be doing during that time.
And he was right.
No sooner had Candy passed under the blue-topped doorway than a

34
Judith Merril
small boy appeared at Tommy's other elbow. The youngster's English
was in no way comparable to that of the old man. He knew just two
words, but they were sufficient. The first was: "Youguhcigarreh?" The
second: "Iguhsisseh."
Tommy dug in his pockets, came out with a half-full pack, registered
the boy's look of approval, and swung his crutches into action. He fol-
lowed his young friend up and down several of the twisty village alleys,
and out along a footpath into the forest. Just about the time he was be-
ginning to get worried, they came out into a small clearing, and a mo-
ment later "Sisseh" emerged from behind a tree at the far edge.
She was disconcertingly young, but also unexpectedly attractive:
smooth-skinned, graceful, and roundly shaped. . . .
Somewhat later when he found his way back to the blue-topped door
in the village, Candy was already waiting for him, looking thoughtful
and a little sad. She seemed to be no more in the mood for conversation
than was Tommy himself, and they walked back to the base in almost
complete silence. Though he noted once or twice that her quiet mood
was dictated by less-happy considerations than his own, Tommy's ease
of mind and body was too great at that moment to encourage much
concern for even so desirable a symbol of American womanhood as the
beautiful nurse, Candace.
Not that his devotion to her lessened. He dreamed of her still, but the
dreams were more pleasantly romantic, and less distressingly carnal.
And on those occasions when he found his thoughts of her verging once
more toward the improper, he would wander off to the little village and
regain what he felt was a more natural and suitable attitude toward life
and love in general.
Then, inevitably, there came one such day when his young procurer
was nowhere to be found. Tommy went out to the clearing where Sisseh
usually met them, but it was quiet, empty and deserted. Back in the vil-
lage again, he wandered aimlessly up and down narrow twisting streets,
till he found himself passing the blue-topped doorway of the old man
whose friendship with a dead GI had started the whole chain of events
in motion.
"Good morning, sir," the old man said, and Tommy stopped politely
to return the greeting.
"You are looking for your young friend?"
Tommy nodded, and hoped the warmth he could feel on his face

Peeping Tom
35
didn't show. Small-town gossip, apparently, was much the same in one
part of the world as in another.
"I think he will be busy for some time yet," the old man volunteered.
"Perhaps another hour. . . . His mother required his services for an
errand to another village."
"Well, thanks," Tommy said. "Guess I'll come back this afternoon or
something. Thanks a lot."
"You may wait here with me if you like. You are most welcome," the
old man said hastily. "Perhaps you would care to come into my home
and drink tea with me?"
Tommy's manners were good. He had been taught to be respectful to
his elders, even to the old colored man who came to clip the hedges.
And he knew that an invitation to tea can never be refused without ex-
cellent good reason. He had no such reason, and he did have a warm in-
terest in seeing his dusky beauty just as soon as possible. He therefore
overcame a natural reluctance to become a visitor in one of the (doubt-
less) vermin-infested native huts, thanked the old man politely, and ac-
cepted the invitation.
Those few steps, passing under the blue-topped doorway for the first
time, into the earthen shack, were beyond doubt the most momentous
of his young life. When he came out again, a full two hours later, there
was nothing on the surface to show what had happened to him ... ex-
cept perhaps a more-than-usually-thoughtful look on his face. But when
Sisseh's little brother pursued him down the village street, Tommy only
shook his head. And when the boy persisted, the soldier said briefly:
"No got cigarettes."
The statement did not in any way express the empty-handed regret
one might have expected. It was rather an impatient dismissal by a man
too deeply immersed in weighty affairs to regard either the cigarettes or
their value in trade as having much importance.
Not that Tommy had lost any of his vigorous interest in the pleasures
of the flesh. He had simply acquired a more far-sighted point of view.
He had plans for the future now, and they did not concern a native girl
whose affection was exchangeable for half a pack of Camels.
Swinging along the jungle path on his crutches, Tommy was ap-
proaching a dazzling new vista of hope and ambition. The goals he had
once considered quite out of reach now seemed to be just barely beyond
his grasp, and he had already embarked on a course of action calculated
to remedy that situation. Tommy was apprenticed to telepath.

36
Judith Merril
The way it happened, the whole incredible notion seemed like a per-
fectly natural idea. Inside the one-room hut, the old man had intro-
duced himself as Armod Something-or-other. (The last name was a
confusion of clashing consonants and strangely inflected vowels that
Tommy never quite got straight.) He then invited his young guest to
make himself comfortable, and began the preparation of the tea by
pouring water from a swan-necked glass bottle into a burnished copper
kettle suspended by graceful chains from a wrought-iron tripod over a
standard-brand hardware-store Sterno stove.
The arrangement was typical of everything in the room. East met
West at every point with a surprising minimum of friction, once the first
impact was absorbed and the psychological dislocation adjusted.
Tommy settled down at first on a low couch, really no more than a
native mat covering some woven webbing, stretched across a frame that
stood a few inches off the floor on carved ivory claws. But he discov-
ered quickly enough that it did not provide much in the way of comfort
for a long-legged young man equipped with a bulky cast. An awful lot
of him seemed to be stretched out over the red-and-white-tile-pattern li-
noleum that covered the center of the dirt floor ... and he noticed,
too, that his crutches had left a trail of round dust-prints on the other-
wise spotless surface.
He wiped off the padded bottoms of the crutches with his clean hand-
kerchief, and struggled rather painfully back to his feet.
The whole place was astonishingly clean. Tommy wandered around,
considerably relieved at the absence of any very noticeable insect life,
examining the curious contents of the room, and politely refraining
from asking the many questions that came to mind.
The furnishing consisted primarily of low stools and tables, with a
few shelves somehow set into the clay wall. There was one large,
magnificently carved mahogany chest, which might have contained Ali
Baba's fortune; and on a teakwood table in the corner, with a pad on
the floor for a seat, stood a large and shiny late-model American stand-
ard typewriter.
A bookshelf near the table caught Tommy's eye, and the old man,
without turning around, invited his guest to inspect it. Here again was
the curious mixture of East and West: new books on philosophy, psy-
chology, semantics, cybernetics published in England and America. Sev-
eral others, though fewer, on spiritualism, psychic phenomena, and ra-
dio-esthesia. And mixed in with them, apparently at random, short

Peeping Tom
37
squat volumes and long thin ones, lettered in unfamiliar scripts and
ideographs.
On the wall over the bookshelf hung two strips of parchment, such as
may be seen in many Eastern homes, covered with ideograph characters
brilliantly illuminated. Between them was a glass-faced black frame
containing the certification of Armod's license to practice medicine in
the state of Idaho, U.S.A.
It did not seem in any way unnatural that Armod should come over
and answer explicitly the obvious questions that this collection of anom-
alies brought to mind. In fact, it took half an hour or more of conver-
sation before Tommy began to realize that his host was consistently
replying to his thoughts rather than to his words. It took even longer for
him to agree to the simple experiment that started him on his course of
study.
But not much longer. An hour after he first entered the hut, Tommy
Bender sat staring at eight slips of white paper on which were written,
one word to each, the names of eight different objects in the room. The
handwriting was careful, precise and clear. Not so the thoughts in
Tommy's mind. He had "guessed," accurately, five of the eight objects,
holding the faded piece of paper in his hand. He tried to tell himself it
was coincidence; that some form of trickery might be involved. The
hand is quicker than the eye. . . . But it was his own hand that held
the paper; he himself unfolded it after making his guess. And Armod's
calm certainty was no help in the direction of skepticism.
"Well," Tommy asked uncertainly, "what made you think I could do
it?"
"Anyone can do it," Armod said quietly. "For some it is easier than
for others. To bring it under control, to learn to do it accurately, every
time, is another matter altogether. But the sense is there, in all of us."
Tommy was a bit crestfallen; whether he believed in it or not, he pre-
ferred to think there was something a bit special about it.
Armod smiled, and answered his disappointment. "For you, it is
easier I think than for many others. You are—ah, I despise your psychi-
atric jargon, but there is no other way to say it so you will understand—
you are at ease with yourself. Relaxed. You have few basic conflicts in
your personality, so you can reach more easily into the—no, it is not the
'subconscious.' It is a part of your mind you have simply not used be-
fore. You can use it. You can train it. You need only the awareness of
it, and—practice."

38
Judith Merril
Tommy thought that over, slowly, and one by one the implications of
it dawned on him.
"You mean I can be a mind reader? Like the acts they do on the
• stage? I could do it professionally?"
"If you wished to. Few of those who pretend to read minds for the
entertainment of others can really do so. Few who have the ability and
training would use it in that way. You—ah, you are beginning to grasp
some of the possibilities," the old man said, smiling.
"Go on," Tommy grinned. "Tell me what I'm thinking now."
"It would be most. . . indelicate. And ... I will tell you; I do not
believe you will have much chance of success, with her. She is an unu-
sual young woman. Others . . . you will be startled, I think, to find
how often a forbidding young lady is more hopeful even than willing."
"You're on," Tommy told him. "When do the lessons start, and how
much?"
The price was easy; the practice was harder. Tommy gave up smok-
ing entirely, suffered a bit, got over it, and turned his full attention to
the procedures involved in gaining "awareness." He lay for hours on his
cot, or sat by himself on a lonely hillside in the afternoon siin, learning
to sense the presence of every part of himself as fully as that of the
world around him.
He learned a dozen different ways of breathing, and discovered how
each of them changed, to some slight degree, the way the rest of his
body "felt" about things. He found out how to be completely receptive
to impressions and sensations from outside himself; and after that, how
to exclude them and be aware only of his own functioning organism. He
discovered he could feel his heart beating and his food digesting, and
later imagined he could feel the wound in his leg healing, and thought
he was actually helping it along.
This last piece of news he took excitedly to Armod—along with his
full ration of cigarettes—and was disappointed to have his mentor re-
ceive his excited outpourings with indifference.
"If you waste your substance on such side issues," Armod finally an-
swered his insistence with downright disapproval, "you will be much
longer in coming to the true understanding."
Tommy thought that over, swinging back along the jungle path on his
crutches, and came to the conclusion that he could do without telepathy
a little longer, if he could just walk on his own two feet again. Not that
he really believed the progress was anything but illusory—until he heard

Peeping Tom
39
the medics' exclamations of surprise the next time they changed the
cast.
After that, he was convinced. The whole rigamarole was producing
some kind of result; maybe it would even, incredibly, do what Armod
said it would.
Two weeks later, Tommy got his first flash of certainty. He was, by
then, readily proficient in picking thoughts out of Armod's mind; but he
knew, too, that the old man was "helping" him . . . maintaining no
barriers at all against invasion. Other people had habitual defenses that
they didn't even know how to let down. Getting through the walls of
verbalization, habitual reaction, hurt, fear and anger, to find out what
was really happening inside the mind of a telepathically "inert" person
took skill and determination.
That first flash could not in any way be described as "mind reading."
Tommy did not hear or read or see any words or images. All he got was
a wave of feeling; he was sure it was not his own feeling only because
he was just then on his way back from a solitary hillside session in
which he had, with considerable thoroughness, identified all the sensa-
tions his body then contained.
He was crossing what was laughably referred to as the "lawn"—an
area of barren ground decorated with unrootable clumps of tropical
weeds, extending from the mess hall to the surgery shack and sur-
rounded by the barracks buildings—when the overwhelming wave of
emotion hit him.
It contained elements of affection, interest, and—he checked again to
be certain—desire. Desire for a man. He was quite sure now that the
feeling was not his, but somebody else's.
He looked about, with sudden dismay, aware for the first time of a
difficulty he had not anticipated. That he was "receiving" someone
else's emotions he was certain; whose, he did not know.
In front of the surgery shack, a group of nurses stood together, talk-
ing. No one else was in sight. Tommy realized, unhappily, that the lady
who was currently feeling amorous did not necessarily have to be in his
line of vision. He had learned enough about the nature of telepathy by
then to understand that it could penetrate physical barriers with relative
ease. But he had a hunch. . . .
He had learned enough, too, to understand some part of the meaning
of that word, "hunch." He deliberately stopped thinking, insofar as he
could, and followed his hunch across the lawn to the group of nurses.

40
Judith Merril
As he approached them, he let instinct take over entirely. Instead of
speaking to them, he made as if to walk by, into the shack.
"Hey there, Lieutenant," one of them called out, and Tommy
strained his muscles not to smile with delight. He turned around, in-
nocently, inquiring.
"Surgery's closed now," the little red-headed one said sharply. That
wasn't the one who'd called to him. It was the big blonde; he was al-
most sure.
"Oh?" he said. "I was out back of the base, on the hill there, and
some damn bug bit me. Thought I ought to get some junk put on it.
You never know what's hit you with the kind of skeeters they grow out
here." He addressed the remark to the group in general, and threw in a
grin that he had been told made him look most appealing like a little
boy, meanwhile pulling up the trouser on his good leg to show a fortui-
tously placed two-day-old swelling. "One leg out of commission is
enough for me," he added. "Thought maybe I ought to kind of keep a
special eye on the one that still works." He looked up, and smiled
straight at the big blonde.
She regarded the area of exposed skin with apparent lack of interest,
hesitated, jangled a key in her pocket, and said abruptly, "All right, big
boy."
Inside the shack, she locked the door behind them, without appearing
to do anything the least bit unusual. Then she got a tube of something
out of a cabinet on the wall, and told him to put his leg up on the table.
Right then, Tommy began to understand the real value of what he'd
learned, and how to use it. There was nothing in her words or her brisk
movements to show him how she felt. While she was smoothing the
gooey disinfectant paste on his bite, and covering it with a bandage, she
kept up a stream of light talk and banter that gave no clue at all to the
way she was appraising him covertly. Tommy had nothing to do but
make the proper responses—two sets of them.
Out loud, he described with appropriate humor the monstrous size
and appearance of the bug that they both knew hadn't bitten him. But
all the time he kept talking and kidding just as if he was still a nice
American boy, he could feel her wanting him, until he began to get con-
fused between what she wanted and what he did; and his eyes kept
meeting hers, unrelated to the words either of them were saying, to let
her know he knew.

Peeping Tom
41
Each time her hand touched his leg, it was a little more difficult to
banter. When it got too difficult, he didn't.
Later, stretched out on his cot in the barracks, he reviewed the entire
incident with approval, and made a mental note of one important item.
The only overt act the girl made—locking the door—had been accompa-
nied by a strong isolated thought surge of "Don't touch me!" Con-
versely, the more eager she felt, the more professional she acted.
Without the aid of his special one-way window into her mind, he knew
he would have made his play at precisely the wrong moment—assuming
he'd had the courage to make it at all. As it was, he'd waited till there
was no longer any reason for her to believe that he'd even noticed the
locking of the door.
That was Lesson Number One about women: Wait! Wait till you're
sure she's sure. Tommy repeated it happily to himself as he fell asleep
that night; and only one small regret marred his contentment. It wasn't
Candace. . . .
Lesson Number Two came more slowly, but Tommy was an apt
pupil, and he learned it equally well: Don't wait too long! The same
simple forthright maneuver, he found, that would sweep a normally co-
operative young lady literally off her feet if the timing was right would,
ten minutes later, earn him nothing more than an indignant slap in the
face. By that time, the girl had already decided either that he wasn't in-
terested (insulted); or that he wasn't experienced enough to do any-
thing about it (contemptuous); or that he was entirely lacking in sensi-
tivity, and couldn't possibly understand her at all^both).
These two lessons Tommy studied assiduously. Between them, they
defined the limits of that most remarkable point in time, the Precise
Moment And the greatest practical value of his new skill, so far as
Tommy could see, was in being able to locate that point with increasing
accuracy. The most noticeable property of the human mind is its con-
stant activity; it is a rare man—and notoriously an even rarer woman—
who has only one point of view on a given subject, and can stick to it.
Tommy discovered soon enough that whatever he was after, whether it
was five bucks to get into a poker game, or a date with one of the
nurses, the best way to get it was to wait for that particular moment
when the other person really wanted to give it to him.
It should be noted that Tommy Bender retained some ethics during
this period. After the first two games, he stopped playing poker. Possi-
bly, he was affected by the fact that suspicious rumors about his "luck"

42
Judith Merril
were circulating too freely; but it is more likely that the game had lost
its punch. He didn't really need the money out there anyhow. And the
process of his embitterment was really just beginning.
Three weeks after the incident in the surgery shack, Tommy got his
orders for transfer to a stateside hospital. During that short time,
though still impeded by cast and crutches, he acquired a quantity and
quality of experience with women that more than equaled the total of
his previous successes. And along with it, he suffered a few shocks.
That Tommy had both manners and ethics has already been es-
tablished, He also had morals. He thought he ought to go to church
more often than he did; he took it for granted that all unmarried women
were virgins till proved otherwise; he never (or hardly ever) used foul
language in mixed company. That kind of thing.
It was, actually, one of the smaller shocks, discovering the kind of
language some of those girls knew. Most of them were nurses, after all,
he reminded himself; they heard a lot of guys talking when they were
delirious or in pain, but—but that didn't explain how clearly they
seemed to understand the words. Or that the ones who talked the most
refined were almost always the worst offenders in their minds.
The men's faults he could take in stride; it was the women who dis-
mayed him. Not that he didn't find some "pure" girls; he did, to his hor-
ror. But the kind of feminine innocence he'd grown up believing in just
didn't seem to exist. The few remaining virgins fell into two categories:
those who were so convinced of their own unattractiveness that they
didn't even know it when a pass was being made at them; and those
who were completely preoccupied with a sick kind of fear-and-loathing
that Tommy couldn't even stand to peep at for very long.
Generally speaking, the girls who weren't actually looking for men
(which they did with a gratifying but immoral enthusiasm), were either
filled with terror and disgust, or were calculating wenches who made
their choice for or against the primrose path entirely in terms of the
possible profit involved, be it in fast cash or future wedded bliss.
Tommy did find one exception to this generally unpleasant picture.
To his determined dismay, and secret pleasure, he discovered that Can-
dace really lived up to his ideal of the American girl. Her mind was a
lovely, orderly place, full of softness and a sort of generalized liking for
almost everybody. Her thoughts on the subject of most interest to him
were also in order: She was apparently well-informed in an impersonal
sort of way, ignorant of any personal experience, and rather hazily,

Peeping Tom
43
pleasurably, anticipating the acquisition of that experience in some dim
future when she pictured herself as happily in love and married.
As soon as he was quite sure of this state of affairs, Tommy pro-
posed. Candace as promptly declined, and that, for the time being, ter-
minated their relationship. The nurse went about her duties, and what-
ever personal matters occupied her in her free time. The soldier
returned to his pursuit of parapsychology, women, and disillusion.
Tommy had no intention of taking these troubles to his teacher. But
neither did Armod have to wait for the young man to speak before he
knew. This time he was neither stern nor impatient. He spoke once
again of the necessity for continuing study till one arrived at the "true
understanding," but now he was alternately pleading and encouraging.
At one point he was even apologetic.
"I did not know that you would learn so quickly," he said. "If I had
foreseen this—doubtless I would have done precisely what I did. One
cannot withhold knowledge, and . . ."
He paused, smiling gently and with great sadness. "And the truth of
the matter is, you did not ask for knowledge. I offered it. I sold it! Be-
cause I could not deny myself the petty pleasure of your cigarettes!"
"Well," Tommy put in uncomfortably, "You made good on it, didn't
you? Seems to me you did what you said you would."
"Yes—no," he corrected himself. "I did nothing but show the way.
What has been done you did for yourself, as all men must. I cannot see
or smell or taste for you; no more could I open the way into men's
hearts for you. I gave you a key, let u^say, and with it you unlocked
the door. Now you look on the other side, but you do not, you cannot,
understand what you see. It is as though one were to show an infant,
just learning to use his eyes, a vision of violent death and bloody birth.
He sees, but he does not know. . . ."
Tommy stirred on the low couch, where he could now sit, as the old
man did, cross-legged and at ease. But he was uneasy now. He picked
up the cane that had replaced the crutches, toying with it, thinking
hopefully of departure. Armod understood, and said quickly, "Listen
now: I am an old man, and weak in my way. But I have shown you that
I have knowledge of a sort. There is much you have yet to learn. If you
are to perceive so clearly the depths of the human soul, then it is essen-
tial that you learn also to understand. . . ."
The old man spoke on; the young one barely listened. He knew he
was going home in another week. There was no sense talking about

44
Judith Merril
continuing his studies with Armod. And there was no need to continue;
certainly no wish to. What he had already learned, Tommy felt, was
very likely more than enough. He sat as quietly as he could, being pa-
tient till the old man was done talking. Then he stood up, and muttered
something about getting back in time for lunch.
Armod shook his head and smiled, still sadly. "You will not hear me.
Perhaps you are right. How can I speak to you of the true under-
standing, when I am still the willing victim of my own body's cravings?
I am not fit. I am not fit. . . ."
Tommy Bender was a very disturbed young man. He was getting
what he'd wanted, and he didn't like it. He was grateful to Armod, and
also angry at him. His whole life seemed to be a string of contra-
dictions.
He drifted along in this unsettled state for the remaining week of his
foreign service. Then, in a sudden flurry of affection and making
amends, the day he got his orders, he decided to see the old man just
once more. Most of the morning he spent racing around the base round-
ing up all the cigarettes he could get with what cash he had on hand,
plus a liberal use of the new skills Armod had taught him. Then he got
his gear together quickly. He was due at the air strip at 1400 hours, and
at 1130 he left the base for a last walk to the village, the cane in one
hand, two full cartons of butts in the other.
He found Armod waiting for him in a state of some agitation, ap-
parently expecting him. There ensued a brief formal presentation of
Tommy's gift, and acceptance of it; then for the last time, the old man
invited him to drink tea, and ceremoniously set the water to simmer in
the copper pot.
They both made an effort, and managed to get through the tea-drink-
ing with no more than light polite talk. But when Tommy stood up to
leave, Armod broke down.
"Come back," he begged. "When you are free of your service, and
have funds to travel, come back to study again."
"Why, sure, Armod," Tommy said. "Just as soon as I can manage
it."
"Yes, I see. This is what they call a social lie. It is meant not to con-
vince me, but to terminate the discussion. But listen, I beg you, one mo-
ment more. You can see and hear in the mind now; but you cannot talk,
nor can you keep silence. Your own mind is open to all who come and
know how to look—"

Peeping Tom
45
"Armod, please, I—"
"You can learn to project thought as I do. To build a barrier against
intrusion. You can—"
"Listen, Armod," Tommy broke in determinedly again. "I don't have
to know any of that stuff. In my home town, there isn't anybody else
who can do this stuff. And there's no reason for me to ever come back
here. Look, I'll tell you what I can do. When I get back home, I can
send you all the cigarettes you want—"
"No!"
The old man jumped up from his mat on the floor, and took two
rapid strides to the shelf where Tommy's present lay. He picked up the
two cartons, and tossed them contemptuously across the room, to land
on the couch next to the soldier.
"No!" he said again, just a little less shrilly. "I do not want your cig-
arettes! I want nothing, do you understand? Nothing for myself! Only to
regain the peace of mind I have lost through my weakness! Go to an-
other teacher, then," he was struggling for calm. "There are many
others. In India. In China. Perhaps even in your own country. Go to
one who is better fitted than I. But do not stop now! You can learn
more, much more!"
He was trembling with emotion as he spoke, his skinny frame shak-
ing, his black eyes popping as though they would burst out of his head.
"As for your cigarettes," he concluded, "I want none of them. I vow
now, until the day I die, I shall never again give way to this weakness!"
He was a silly, excitable old man, who was going to regret these
words. Tommy stood up feeling the foolish apologetic grin on his face
and unable to erase it. He did not pick up the cigarettes.
"Good-bye, Armod," he said, and walked out for the last time
through the blue-topped door.
But whatever either of them expected, and regardless of Tommy's
own wishes, his education did not stop there. It had already gone too
far to stop. The perception-awareness process seemed to be self-perpet-
uating, and though he practiced his exercises no more, his senses con-
tinued to become more acute—both the physical and the psychological.
At the stateside hospital, where his leg rapidly improved, Tommy had
some opportunity to get out and investigate the situation with the nice
old-fashioned girls who'd stayed at home and didn't go to war. By that
time, he could "see" and "hear" pretty clearly.

46
Judith Merril
He didn't like what he found.
That did it, really. All along, out at the base hospital, he'd clung to
the notion that the women at home would be different—that girls so far
from civilization were exposed to all sorts of indecencies a nice girl
never had to face, and shouldn't have to. Small wonder they turned
cynical and evil-minded.
The girls at home, he discovered, were less of the first, and far more
of the second.
When Tommy Bender got home again, he was grimly determined and
firmly disillusioned. He knew what he wanted out of life, saw no hope
at all of ever getting it, and had very few scruples about the methods he
used to get the next-best things.
In a remarkably short time, he made it clear to his erstwhile friends
and neighbors that he was almost certain to get anything he went after.
He made money; he made love; and of course he made enemies. All the
while, his friends and neighbors tried to understand. Indeed, they
thought they did. A lot of things can happen to a man when he's been
through hell in combat, and then had to spend months rotting and recu-
perating in a lonely Far Eastern field hospital.
But of course they couldn't even begin to understand what had hap-
pened to Tommy. They didn't know what it was like to live on a stead-
ily plunging spiral of anger and disillusionment, all the time liking peo-
ple less, and always aware of how little they liked you.
To sign a contract with a man, knowing he would defraud you if he
could; he couldn't, of course, because you got there first. But when you
met him afterward, you rocked with the blast of hate and envy he threw
at you.
To make love to a woman, and know she was the wrong woman for
you or you the wrong man for her. And then to meet her afterward . . .
Tommy had, in the worst possible sense, got out of bed on the wrong
side. When he first awoke to the knowledge of other people's minds, he
had seen ugliness and fear wherever he looked, and that first impress of
bitterness on his own mind had colored everything he had seen since.
For almost five years after he came home, Tommy Bender continued
to build a career, and ruin reputations. People tried to understand what
had happened to him . . . but how could they?
Then something happened. It started with an envelope in his morning
mail. The envelope was marked "Personal," so it was unopened by his
secretary and left on the side of his desk along with three or four other

Peeping Tom
47
thin, squarish, obviously non-business, envelopes. As a result, Tommy
didn't read it till late that afternoon, when he was trying to decide which
girl to see that night.
The return address said "C. Harper, Hotel Albemarle, Topeka, Kan-
sas." He didn't know anyone in Topeka, but the name Harper was
vaguely reminiscent. He was intrigued enough to open that one first,
and the others never were opened at all.
"Dear Tommy," it read. "First of all, I hope you still remember me.
It's been quite a long time, hasn't it? I just heard, from Lee Potter (the
little, dark girl who came just before you left . . . remember her?)"—
Tommy did, with some pleasure—"that you were living in Hartsdale,
and had some real-estate connections there. Now I'd like to ask a
favor. . . .
"I've just had word that I've been accepted as Assistant Superin-
tendent of the Public Health Service there—in Hartsdale—and I'm sup-
posed to start work on the 22nd. The only thing is, I can't leave my job
here till just the day before. So I wondered if you could help me find a
place to stay beforehand? Sort of mail-order real-estate service?
"I feel I'm being a little presumptuous, asking this, when perhaps you
don't even remember me—but I do hope you won't mind. And please
don't go to any special trouble. From what Lee said, I got the idea this
might be right in your line of business. If it's not, don't worry. I'm sure
I can find something when I get there.
"And thanks, ahead of time, for anything you can do.
"Cordially," it concluded, ".Candace Harper."
Tommy answered the letter the same day, including a varied list of
places and prices hurriedly worked up by his real-estate agent. That he
owned real estate was true; that he dealt in it, not at all. His letter to
Candy did not go into these details. Just told her how vividly he remem-
bered her, and how good it would be to see her again, with some ques-
tions about the kind of furnishings and decor she'd prefer. "If you're
going to get in early enough on the 21st," he wound up, "how about
having dinner with me? Let me know when you're coming, anyhow. I'd
like to meet you, and help you get settled."
For the next eleven days, Tommy lived in an almost happy whirl of
preparation, memory, and anticipation. In all the years since he had
proposed to Candace, he had never met another girl who filled so per-
fectly the mental image of the ideal woman with which he had first left
home. He kept telling himself she wouldn't, couldn't, still be the same

48
Judith Merril
person. Even a non-telepath would get bitter and disillusioned in
five years of the Wonderful Post-War World. She couldn't be the
same. . . .
And she wasn't. She was older, more understanding, more tolerant,
and, if possible, warmer and pleasanter than before. Tommy met her at
the station, bought her some dinner, took her to the perfect small apart-
ment where she was, unknown to herself, paying only half the rent. He
stayed an hour, went down to run some errands for her, stayed another
half-hour, and knew by then that in the most important respects she
hadn't changed at all.
There wasn't going to be any "Precise Moment" with Candy; not that
side of a wedding ceremony.
Tommy couldn't have been more pleased. Still, he was cautious. He
didn't propose again till three weeks later, when he'd missed seeing her
two days in a row due to business-social affairs. If they were married,
he could have taken her along.
When he did propose, she lived up to all his qualifications again. She
said she wanted to think it over. What she thought was: Oh, yes! Oh,
yes, he's the one I want! But it's too quick! How do I know for sure?
He never even thought of me all this time ... all the time 1 was wait-
ing and hoping to hear from him . . . How can he be sure so soon? He
might be sorry. . . .
"Let me think about it a few days, will you, Tommy?" she said, and
he was afraid to take her in his arms for fear he'd crush her with his
hunger.
Four weeks later they were married. And when Candy told him her
answer, she also confessed what he already knew: that she'd regretted
turning him down ever since he left the field hospital; that she'd been
thinking of him, loving him, all the long years in between.
Candy was a perfect wife, just as she had been a perfect nurse, and
an all-too-perfect dream girl. The Benders' wedding was talked about
for years afterwards; it was one of those rare occasions when everything
turned out just right. And the bride was so beautiful. . . .
The honeymoon was the same way. They took six weeks to complete
a tour of the Caribbean, by plane, ship and car. They stayed where they
liked as long as they liked, and did what they liked, all the time. And
not once in those six weeks was there any serious difference in what
they liked. Candy's greatest wish at every point was to please Tommy,
and that made things very easy for both of them.

Peeping Tom
49
And all the while, Tommy was gently, ardently, instructing his lovely
bride in the arts of matrimony. He was tender, patient, and under-
standing, as he had known beforehand he would have to be. A girl who
gets to the age of twenty-six with her innocence intact is bound to
require a little time for readjustment.
Still, by the time they came back, Tommy was beginning to feel a
sense of failure. He knew that Candace had yet to experience the
fulfillment she had hoped for, and that he had planned to give her.
Watching her across the breakfast table on the dining terrace of their
new home, he was enthralled as ever. She was lovely in negligee, her
soft hair falling around her face, her eyes shining with true love as they
met his.
It was a warm day, and he saw, as he watched her, the tiny beads of
sweat form on her upper lip. It took him back . . . way back . . . and
from the vividness of the hospital scene, he skipped to an equally clear
memory of that last visit to Armod, the teacher.
He smiled, and reached for his wife's hand, wondering if ever he
would be able to tell her what had come of that walk they took to the
village together. And he pressed her hand tighter, smiling again, as he
realized that now, for the first time, he had a use for the further talents
the old man had promised him.
That would be one way to show Candace the true pleasure she did
not yet know. If he could project his own thoughts and emotions . . .
He let go of her hand, and sat back, sipping his coffee, happy and
content, with just the one small problem to think about. Maybe 1 should
have gone back for a tyhile, after all, he thought idly.
"Perhaps you should have, dear," said innocent Candace. "I did."

ENVY
There's nothing wrong with wanting to be the best. And if you are
the best, there's nothing wrong with wanting to stay the best. That's
a noble aspiration—the drive for excellence. Of course, while you're
trying to make it, there's sure to be some rotten old fossil squatting
on the accolade and refusing to vacate. And if you happen to be
on top, there's invariably some rotten young punk trying to push you
aside. It's no wonder you can be driven to any deed by ENVY.

l

THE
INVISIBLE MAM
MURDER CASE
HENRY SLESAR
When you come right down to it, I'm a pretty nice guy. I'm not so
homely that you couldn't face me across a luncheon table, and not so
handsome that you wouldn't mind bringing your girl along. I make
pleasant small talk, and know how to listen sympathetically. I'm rela-
tively modest about my accomplishments, even if I am a sort of celeb-
rity (my last book sold one million four hundred thousand copies in the
paperback edition). So, being fully aware of the general niceness of me,
Jeff Oswald, it came as a rude shock to realize that there was somebody
in this world who hated my guts. Someone who despised me.
I got my first hint of this alarming fact when the Mystery Authors
Association extended me an invitation to take their podium for half an
hour. It was a big moment for me, being asked to speak before such an
auspicious gathering. I had just published my first novel (Kill Me
Quietly, Wharton Publishers, $2.95) and the ink hadn't dried on my
second contract. As you might know, the book became something of an
instantaneous best-seller, and there was a public clamor for further ad-
ventures of my private-eye hero, Rufe Armlock. Always alert to public
demand, I've since responded with nine more novels, each slightly
gorier (and more successful) than the last.
Anyway, the MAA slipped me a nice note, asking me to lecture, and
I willingly obliged. I don't believe my speech made any great impres-
sion, but I think the membership was amused to get a look at me. After
reading about Rufe Armlock, they must have expected something
different. (His face was like a granite slab, chiseled on by a bad sculp-
tor. His shoulders were too wide for most doorways. When he smiled,
he could chill a hood's blood or boil a woman's.) Actually, my face is

54
Henry Slesar
more the kind you see in graduation-class photos, the big-eared kid in
the back row with the pink cheeks and silly grin. I guess I didn't look
like the author of Kill Me Quietly at all.
It was after the lecture that I met the man who hated me. I didn't re-
alize the enmity at first; I was too flattered just to be introduced to Kirk
Evander. Evander had been a kind of hero of my childhood, when I dis-
covered his intricate detective novels after exhausting the output of
Conan Doyle, S. S. Van Dine, John Dickson Carr, Ellery Queen, and
the rest. Once I had thought that an Evander novel was the epitome of
the classic mystery yarn, but his most recent efforts hadn't held the old
magic. He was past sixty now; he was beginning to plagiarize himself.
"Gee, Mr. Evander," I said, in a voice that sounded boyish to my
own ears, "this is a great pleasure for me."
He was a small, wispy man with mournful features, but there was a
lot of incandescence in his eyes and he shook hands as if we were trad-
ing fish.
"Thank you," he said dryly. "This book of yours, Mr. Oswald. Did
you say it was called Kill Me Quickly?"
"Quietly" I corrected. "I'm afraid it's one of these hard-boiled
novels, Mr. Evander. Nothing like the things you write."
"I imagine not." He pursed his lips. "And do you seriously classify
this work as a mystery?"
"I don't classify it at all. You see, I have this private-detective char-
acter called Rufe Armlock. He's a sort of tough—"
"Spare me," Evander said, shutting his eyes. "I've heard quite
enough about private detectives, Mr. Oswald. The occupation has been
an excuse for the worst offenses against good taste that I have ever
known. You will pardon me if I am not amused."
I admit I was disappointed. Not because Evander didn't like my
book; I expected that. But my picture of the author was shattered by
meeting him. He looked like a dissipated college professor, and talked
like a refugee from a bad English play. I shifted uncomfortably, and
began to eye the crowd in search of interesting females.
But Evander wasn't through with me yet.
"Do you know something, Mr. Oswald? Young men like yourself,
with their Freudian nightmares translated into violent images of 'private
eyes' and 'naked blondes' and assorted cruelties, are primarily respon-
sible for the decline of the detective story."
"Gee, I'm sorry, Mr. Evander-"

The Invisible Man Murder Case
55
"Sorry? If you were truly sorry, Mr. Oswald, you would do the world
a favor. You would chop off your hands before they ever touched a
typewriter again. Or, if that cure seems too drastic, you would burn
every manuscript you write before the world ever sees it."
I still didn't get upset. I told you I was nice.
"Well, Mr. Evander, I don't think I could do that. You see, I write
for money."
"Why?"
"To eat, I guess."
"Why?"
I began to get the idea that Mr. Evander wasn't partial to me. I took
the hint and wandered off in search of the before-mentioned females.
Luckily, I found one. Her name was Eileen, and she turned out to be an
admirer of mine. It was nice to talk to her, especially since she was a lot
prettier than Kirk Evander. After the meeting, we went to her apart-
ment in Greenwich Village. Eileen was an Associate Member of the
Mystery Authors, which meant she hadn't sold anything yet. She read
me the first chapter of a suspense novel called Black Night at Benning-
ton. It was terrible. Unfortunately, I said so, and the evening ended
badly.
It was almost six months before I saw Kirk Evander again, and by
that time, my second novel (A Fistful of Blood) had become the best-
selling paperback on the stands. I went to another MAA meeting, with
the vague hope of running into Eileen again. I had already forgotten
Evander's acid comments, and even if I hadn't, I was too swelled with
my own success to let them worry me. When I saw the little guy, look-
ing as if he had worn the same rumpled suit from the last meeting to
this, I greeted him cheerfully.
"How's everything?" I asked. "Got a new book on the fire, Mr.
Evander?"
The man standing next to the writer, a snooty-looking guy that
worked for Wharton Publishing, the outfit that produced my books and
Evander's, coughed and moved away. Evander turned on me and smiled
without humor.
"My new book," he said bitingly, "is, indeed, on the fire. As I'm
sure you've heard."
I batted my eyes. "Huh?"
"It seems the public doesn't want crime literature any more. It wants

56
Henry Slesar
filth. It wants garbage! Unfortunately, there are people like you, Mr.
Oswald, to provide it in ready supply."
He whirled on his heel and stalked away. Just then, Eileen appeared
out of the crowd and pulled me to one side.
"For heavens' sake!" she said, tapping her foot. "Are you still shoot-
ing off your mouth, Jeff Oswald?"
"Gosh, it's nice to see you again, Eileen." It was nice. She was a
remarkably pretty girl, with Oriental eyes and auburn hair.
"I guess you'll never learn," she sighed. "Why must you be so tact-
less?"
I shifted my feet guiltily. "I'm sorry about that. I wouldn't have told
you that about your novel, but you begged me for an honest opinion—"
"I don't mean that. I mean Kirk Evander. Didn't you know about his
last book?"
"No."
"Well, it was the flop of the year. He considered it his masterpiece,
but the reviewers called it a pompous bore. One of these real period
pieces. A locked-room murder in the family mansion, with millions of
obscure clues."
"Gee, that's too bad. I used to admire that guy."
"He's nothing but an old fool. And maybe something else . . ." She
looked into the crowd thoughtfully. Then she bit her lip, and added:
"And how he hates you."
"Hates me?"
"I've heard him carry on about you in other meetings. He thinks
you're the sole reason for his failure. He practically has a stroke when
your name is mentioned."
"Gosh! I hardly even know the guy."
"That doesn't matter. You're some kind of symbol to him. All the
hate that's been building up in him for the last few years—he's directing
it at you."
I frowned. I didn't like being hated.
"Ah, the heck with it," I said, trying to be bright. "You and me need
a drink."
"You and I," she said primly. "Some writer you are."
So we had a drink. As a matter of fact, we had several. That was my
mistake.
* * *

The Invisible Man Murder Case
57
Around eleven o'clock, I was carrying seven or eight martinis in my
pouch, and my head felt like a sputnik, revolving slowly around the
meeting room. I wasn't used to so much alcohol, even if my hero, Rufe
Armlock, was. (He cracked the cap on a bottle of bourbon and tilted
the neck into his mouth. He didn't lower it until the brown stuff was
below the plimsoll line, but when he put it down, his steely eyes hadn't
changed in focus or alertness.) As a matter of fact, I was pie-eyed, and
saying a lot of stupid things. Like telling Kirk Evander just what I
thought of him and his "classic" detective novels.
"You're a bore," I said, poking a finger into his chest. "Thash what
you are. A bore. And you know what your novels are? Impopable. I
mean improbable. All those locked-room murders and junk like that.
That kind of thing never happens. Never!"
Evander remained calm while I lectured him. But out of my drunken
fog, his eyes shone like yellow lanterns.
"Never happens," I said again. "People don't get bumped oS that
way. Unnerstand, Mister Evander?"
"Of course," he said bowing slightly. "Thank you for the opinion,
Mr. Oswald."
"S'all right," I grinned. "Nice to help. You jus' listen to ol' Rufe
Armlock. I mean Jeff Oswald. The public does not believe that stuff any
more. They want action. Not that ol' locked-room junk. Unnerstand?"
"Perfectly," Kirk Evander told me.
By this time, Eileen had the good sense to pull me away. She coaxed
me out of the meeting hall and took me to her apartment, where I made
one slobbering attempt to kiss her. It failed miserably, and she thrust
me out the door like a cat. Somehow, I got myself home.
In the morning, an air-raid siren woke me up. After a while, I real-
ized it was only the doorbell. I got up and let my visitor in. It was
Aaron Snow, my agent.
"What's the matter with you?" he said.
"What time's it?" I groaned.
"Three." Aaron frowned at me, in his fatherly way. He was a year
older and fifty years wiser, and he looked like an aging quiz kid. "I've
been trying to reach you, but your phone's off the hook. I wanted to re-
port on that Wharton meeting this morning."
"What meeting?"
"I guess you didn't know. Kirk Evander stormed in there this morn-

58
Henry Slesar
ing, and gave 'em an ultimatum. Either they strike you from their list,
or him."
"What?"
"That's the truth. He must have been crazy to do it; his last book
sold about eight hundred copies, and I suspect he bought 'em all him-
self. He should have known they wouldn't drop a hot-rock like you."
"So what happened?"
"They tried to placate him, of course. He was once important to their
Mystery Division. And who knows? He might come through with a big
book yet. But Evander stood his ground. Either you go—or he does."
"What did Wharton say?"
"What could they say? They simply refused to accept. He stormed
out again, promising never to darken their door." Aaron sighed. "Feel
sorry for the old guy. He was really a great writer. He'll never get lined
up with a first-grade publisher now."
"Gee, that's rough."
"Don't let it worry you. Just concentrate on that next opus of yours.
Got a title yet?"
"Yeah, tentatively. To Kiss A Corpse. Like it?"
Aaron grimaced. "No. That must mean it's good."
It took me four months to reach the last chapter of that novel. One
night, hammering away on my old Remington, the doorbell sounded. I
cursed at the interruption, because I had just reached a very crucial mo-
ment. (She swayed toward him, her arms reaching out for the
unfinished caress, the shreds of her clothing waving in the breeze from
the opened window. But Rufe Armlock wasn't interested; he raised the
automatic in his hand and tenderly squeezed the trigger. The bullet
ripped into her soft white—)
"All right, all right!" I shouted, as the ringing persisted.
I flung open the door, and there was Kirk Evander.
For a moment, I was frightened. To tell you the truth, I scare easily.
Even the stories I write sort of scare me sometimes, and the realization
that my visitor was a man who hated me intensely was disturbing.
But he was smiling.
"Good evening," he said cordially. "I wonder if I could come in, Mr.
Oswald?"
"Sure," I gulped.
When he got inside, he took off his shabby homburg and peeled off a

The Invisible Man Murder Case
59
pair of gray suede gloves. There was a large hole in the right index
finger.
"I hope you'll pardon this intrusion. But I discovered something
very interesting in the evening paper, and I thought you'd like to see it."
I blinked at him.
"It relates to our conversation at the MAA meeting," Evander said
sweetly. "I believe you made certain statements, about the type of
crimes I write about. You said they were—improbable."
"Listen, Mr. Evander, I'm sorry if-"
"No, no," he said quickly, lifting his hand. "I quite understand. But I
knew you would be as intrigued as I was—to read this."
He handed me a newspaper clipping. I took it to the desk lamp and
read:
PUBLISHER'S AIDE
KILLED IN LOCKED
HOTEL ROOM
INEXPLICABLE MURDER
BAFFLES POLICE
March 12, New York. A murder mystery straight out of a
Kirk Evander novel took place last night at the Hotel Bel-
martin, where Winston Kale, 46, publisher's assistant, met
his death under mysterious circumstances. Mr. Kale, an em-
ployee of the Wharton Publishing Company, whose specialty
is mystery novels, was shot and killed in a room securely
locked and bolted from the inside.
The unusual nature of the crime was noted by the police
when they were called to the scene by Zora Brewster, 24, a
friend of the deceased. Miss Brewster claimed that she had
left Mr. Kale's hotel-apartment at one, leaving him in "good
spirits." When she closed the door behind her, she heard Mr.
Kale lock and bolt the door. As she was waiting outside for
the elevator, she heard a shot, and rushed back to the door.
When Mr. Kale failed to respond, she called the police. Mr.
Kale's body was discovered on the floor, a bullet having pen-
etrated the back of his head, causing instantaneous death.

60
Henry Slesar
Upon examination of the room, the police could find no
trace of any intruder or weapon. The room was located on
the nineteenth floor of the residential hotel, and the windows
were locked.
In an interview with Captain William Spencer, Homicide
Detail, the police official stated: "The circumstances of Mr.
Kale's death are certainly unusual, but we are confident that
a logical explanation will be found. We have ruled out sui-
cide completely, due to the direction of the bullet and the
lack of any weapon."
Miss Brewster, an actress and singer, is being held as a
material witness.
I looked up from the clipping with astonishment evident in my face,
because Evander chuckled and said:
"An 'improbable' murder, wouldn't you say, Mr. Oswald?"
"Gosh," I said. "Winston Kale! I saw him only last week—"
"The poor man," Evander clucked. "But if he had to die, what a de-
licious way to do it. I'm sure the Wharton Publishing Company is
pleased by the publicity."
I realized that Wharton wasn't the only one pleased. Kirk Evander's
glowing eyes indicated that he was pretty happy himself. The news story
was practically an advertisement for his novels. It was a natural promo-
tion gimmick.
"What about this girl?" I said. "Zora Brewster. Maybe she's the
one."
"Nonsense. Miss Brewster is an old—er—acquaintance of mine. She's
charming and harmless, and her brain compares in size to a pea. She
wouldn't have either motive or intellect to commit such a crime."
I decided to be a good sport. I grinned.
"Well, I guess you made your point, Mr. Evander. Guess there are
improbable crimes. Too bad about old Winston, though."
"Bah. Winston Kale's not worth mourning. He was a sycophant, a
yes-man for Douglas Wharton."
I scratched my head and studied the item again.
"But how was it done? You've had experience with this kind of thing,
Mr. Evander. In your novels, I mean. How could he get killed in a
locked room?"
"That," and Kirk Evander smiled, "is a story I just might reveal. In

The Invisible Man Murder Case
61
my next novel, for Gorgon Press. I've just signed a contract with them,
for a book to be called Death of a Publisher. I imagine this publicity
won't harm sales, eh? Good night, Mr. Oswald!"
He picked up his hat and gloves, and left with an air of triumph.
I couldn't get back to work after that visit. I felt as I had when I was
a kid, puzzling over a John Dickson Carr or Kirk Evander murder mys-
tery, trying to solve it before the author's revelation on page umptieth.
But the fact that this murder was real, and that I actually knew the dead
man, made it too upsetting for logical thought. It could have been coin-
cidental, but that seemed as improbable as the fact that such a crime
had actually taken place.
And then an even more disturbing idea intruded. The mysterious
death of Winston Kale had come along as a stroke of luck for Kirk
Evander. People would be talking about "locked-room" murders again,
and that meant talk about Kirk Evander fiction. It seemed awfully con-
venient.
Was it maybe too convenient?
I gave a shiver, and tried to warm myself over the typewriter.
A few weeks later, I learned that I was right about one thing, and
wrong about another. People talked about the locked-room murder, all
right, and Gorgon Press announced the new Kirk Evander novel with
appropriate fanfare. But the publicity didn't last. The newspapers got
awfully quiet about the strange death of Winston Kale, and people
started to forget.
Then they were sharply reminded.
Late one morning, I opened the newspaper and saw a front-page bul-
letin:
ACTRESS KILLED ON STAGE;
POLICE BAFFLED BY
"IMPOSSIBLE" CRIME
CHIEF WITNESS IN KALE
MURDER STABBED DURING
PERFORMANCE
April 7, New York. Zora Brewster, attractive songstress in
the Broadway production of "Live It Up," was killed last

62
Henry Slesar
night in circumstances as unusual as the death of Winston
Kale on March 11.
Miss Brewster, chief witness to the "locked-room" murder
of the publishing-company executive, suddenly collapsed on
stage during a musical number and was taken to her dressing
room. It was later revealed that she had been stabbed to
death by a blow from behind. However, Miss Brewster was
the only performer on the stage of the theater at the
time . . .
The article went on for considerable more lineage, and once more the
death of Winston Kale came in for examination. Kirk Evander's name
was mentioned three times, and his new novel, Death of a Publisher,
was also cited. It was great publicity, all right.
Too great.
The thought that had troubled me some weeks ago came back. It was
all too pat. Evander knew both Kale and Zora Brewster; he might not
have liked either one too much. More importantly, they may have been
natural victims of some nutty scheme to revive interest in the "classic"
detective yarn.
"No," I said aloud. "That's crazy! He wouldn't do such a thing—"
Then I remembered Kirk Evander's eyes, and I began to wonder if he
was more than just an embittered author. Maybe he was a mental case,
a desperate man.
If anybody could concoct such murders, Evander was the one. He'd
spent his whole life thinking about them.
And what if Zora Brewster's death wasn't the last? What if the
murders went on, maintaining interest in Kirk Evander's books? All he
had to do was keep knocking off people he didn't like, in some inexpli-
cable manner. . .
People he didn't like?
I swallowed the boulder that had lodged in my throat.
If Evander killed the people he didn't like—who was a better choice
than Mrs. Oswald's son, Jeff?
My hand was shaking like a bongo-player's, but I got it steady
enough to pick up a phone.
Aaron Snow's voice had a nice quality of gruff reality.
"I think you're nuts," he said, when I babbled out my suspicions.
"But if it's going to worry you, why not get in touch with Captain

The Invisible Man Murder Case
63
Spencer, the detective on the case? At this point, I think he'd be happy
to listen to any theory."
"Then you really think I should?"
"Sure. It's about time you met a real detective, anyway."
I was too nervous to take offense. I hung up the phone, squared my
shoulders, and called police headquarters.
I got even more rattled when I met Captain Bill Spencer. I mean, it
was a shock. He was a great big guy, with shoulders almost too wide for
my apartment door. He had a strong, rugged face, like chiseled granite.
He was practically a double for Rufe Armlock.
"Okay," Spencer frowned, taking a seat. "Let's get down to business,
Mr. Oswald. And do me one favor."
"What's that?"
"Stick to the facts. I'm not fond of fiction; particularly your kind."
"You've read my novels?"
"If you want literary criticism, Mr. Oswald, you called the wrong
guy. All I'm interested in is murder. Real murder."
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," I said eagerly. "I've got
an idea about these two crimes, and I think it makes sense."
"I'm listening," Captain Spencer said.
He leaned back and lit a cigarette while I talked. I told him every-
thing right from the beginning. I told him about Evander and his hatred
for me, and how he bemoaned the decline of the classic detective story.
I told him about his fight with Wharton Publishers, and how he knew
the girl, Zora Brewster. I told him all I could think of, without putting
my theory into a single crisp sentence.
He finally forced me into it.
Spencer said: "Let's get it straight, Mr. Oswald. Are you making an
accusation?"
I blinked.
"I guess I am," I said. "I don't have any proof, of course. But I think
Kirk Evander killed them both. He had plenty of motive."
"And did you also figure out how?"
"No. But if anybody could, Evander could. His own books prove it."
The captain stood up.
"Well, it's an interesting theory, Mr. Oswald . . ."
"But you don't believe it?"

64
Henry Slesar
"As a matter of fact, I think you may be right. I'll follow it up at
once."
I couldn't help looking surprised.
Spencer scowled. "I know what you're thinking. You've read so
many novels, you always think the cops never listen to anybody, and go
blundering ahead on their own. Well, you're wrong. Some of our best
leads come from outside. I happen to believe your theory's a damn
good one."
And he went out.
I have to admit I was flabbergasted. I had expected Spencer to scoff
at my idea; I thought the cops always did. They sure did it in Rufe
Armlock novels.
About three days later, I learned that Captain Spencer had acted
swiftly.
I was hunched over the typewriter, trying to get Rufe into trouble,
when I heard the pounding on the door. It was Kirk Evander, and he
was too angry to use the doorbell. He burst into the room like a small
tweedy cyclone and said:
"So! I meet my accuser face to face!"
"I don't understand-"
"You don't, eh? Then you deny it? You deny that you accused me of
murder? That you were responsible for having me dragged into the dirty
hands of the police, like some common hoodlum?"
I didn't know what to say. I would have gladly invented a lie, but I
couldn't think of one.
"You thought I wouldn't realize, eh? But I know it was you, Oswald.
You couldn't bear the fact of my success, could you? So you resort to
this!"
"Look, Mr. Evander, I'm sorry if—"
"I don't want your apologies!"
He went to the door, but turned before going out.
"All I have to say is this, Mr. Oswald. Be careful"
He laughed, and shut the door.
Well, let me tell you, I was scared. Evander hadn't actually denied
anything, and his last words sounded like a pure and simple threat.
Even though it was only eight-thirty, I decided that the best place
for me was in bed and under the covers.

The Invisible Man Murder Case
65
I couldn't fall asleep until an hour later, and then my dreams weren't
the kind I liked to dream.
About ten-fifteen, I thought I heard a sound outside. It might have
been a knock on the door, so I padded out of the bedroom and opened
the front door. There was nothing there but a breeze, so I went back to
my comforter.
A few minutes later, I was in the middle of a dream involving a guil-
lotine. I didn't care for it. I forced myself awake, but when I opened my
eyes, I saw that the shreds of the dream were still clinging. There was a
shining blade over my head.
"Go 'way," I murmured.
But the blade didn't go away. It started descending. Only now it
wasn't a guillotine blade any more; it was a meat chopper, and it
seemed interested in the white meat on my neck.
I froze on the bed.
Then the doorbell rang, and just as suddenly, the meat cleaver disap-
peared out of sight.
I sat up and rubbed my eyes. It had been a dream, then. But what a
dream.
I opened the door and there was Eileen, tapping her foot.
"Well," she said. "Is that how you usually dress for a night out?"
"Huh?" I looked down at my pajamas.
"It's rather unusual, but you might start a fad. Or did you just forget
about our date?"
I slapped my forehead. "Holy cow! I was supposed to meet you at
ten. I forgot-"
"I suppose you were keeping a date with dear old Rufe Armlock. Or
was it one of those blonde beauties he's always shooting in their soft
white—"
"Gosh, I'm sorry, Eileen, it slipped my mind completely. And for
good reason, believe me."
I pulled her inside and made her sit down. She was pretty cool to-
wards me, but when I told her about Evander's visit, she got all warm
and solicitous.
"You poor thing," she said, patting my cheek. "No wonder you were
upset."
I took advantage of her sympathetic attitude for a while, but half an
hour later, the telephone's jangle cut off any further ministrations of
mercy. I picked it up, and Spencer's rough voice said:

66
Henry Slesar
"Oswald? This is Captain Spencer. Thought you might like to know
that there's been another murder."
I gasped. "Whose?" I said.
"That's the tough part. I decided tonight that we had enough of him
to pull him in for serious questioning, so we dispatched a couple of men
to bring him back. That's when we found him."
"Evander?"
"Dead, murdered, just like the others. Only maybe a little worse.
Think maybe you ought to come down here."
"All right," I said, trying to stop my trembling. "Where are you?"
"At Evander's apartment, on Central Park South. Better get here be-
fore midnight."
"Right," I said.
Eileen insisted on coming down with me, but the police barricade
that had been stationed outside Evander's apartment door declined to
admit her. She waited outside while I walked in. Captain Spencer was
standing by the body, and at first, all I could see was Kirk Evander's
slippered feet.
"Just like the last time," Spencer said quietly. "Door was locked
from the inside, and so were all the windows. But this is how we found
him."
I looked down. Nobody had to tell me that Kirk Evander was dead.
His head was missing, neatly severed from his body.
I didn't get sick or anything. Not me. But when I got outside, then
did I get sick! Boy!
As you might guess, the news of Evander's murder, the third such
mysterious event in a period of less than three months, brought about a
journalistic picnic. There wasn't exactly rejoicing in the streets, but in
certain circles, like Gorgon Press, there were secret smiles of satis-
faction. They knew that Evander's last book would be a best-seller,
even before the galleys were made up.
Evander's earthly remains were put in the family vault by the au-
thor's only living relation, a brother named Borg Evander. This Borg
was quite a character, too, and here's how I came to meet him.
About a week after the murder, my agent, Aaron Snow, showed up at
my apartment, looking enthused. Aaron doesn't get enthused very often.
"Great idea," he said, tossing his hat on a chair. "I didn't think

The Invisible Man Murder Case
67
Wharton's publicity department had a good idea in them, but this time
they came across."
"What are you talking about?"
"Take a look."
He pulled a mimeographed sheet from his pocket. I saw it was a
standard news release, with the Wharton Publishing Company mast-
head. I'd seen them before, but this one made me sit up. The heading
read:
MYSTERY AUTHOR VOWS
TO DISCOVER MURDERER
OF KIRK EVANDER
Jeff Oswald, author of Kill Me Quietly, A Fistful of
Blood, and the forthcoming To Kiss a Corpse (Wharton
Pub. Co.) has vowed to find the killer of his friend, Kirk
Evander, the famed mystery novelist. Evander met his death
in circumstances as strange as. . .
I stopped reading, and said:
"This is screwy!"
"No, it isn't. It's a real sweet publicity idea. I know you don't like
that 'friendship' bit, but it was necessary."
"That's not what I mean. How can I solve these murders? Even the
police don't know where to start. I couldn't possibly—"
"You can make a try, just for appearance's sake. Nobody will blame
you if you fail."
"But we're doing all right without phony stunts—"
"We want it to continue, don't we? The public's fickle. Look at the
way Kirk Evander's old novels are selling; you couldn't give 'em away
six months ago. They could forget about Rufe Armlock in an awful
hurry."
"But how do I go about it?"
"Well, you know Captain Spencer pretty well. He can supply you
with information. And you can pay a call on Borg Evander, for in-
stance."
"Borg Evander? Who's that?"
"Kirk's brother, who showed up when he was killed. He might know
something. Look, I even brought you his address." He dug into his wal-

68
Henry Slesar
let for a scrap of paper. "Dr. Borg Evander, 80 Wiffletree Road,
Queens. .
"All right," I said glumly. "If I have to."
"You have to. Especially since I okayed the release this morning."
"You mean the papers will be printing this thing?"
"I hope so."
"But then—what if the murderer sees it? What if he thinks I really
know something?"
"You're not scared, are you?"
"Who, me? Of course."
The next morning was bright and clear, and the sunshine helped dis-
pel some of the murkiness that surrounded my errand. I went to pay a
call on Borg Evander, who lived in a section of town I knew nothing
about. After wandering about the streets, I finally found the old wood-
frame house at the end of the unpaved street. It was isolated from the
rest of the structures on the avenue, and from the moment I walked up
to the front door, I knew it was just as well. The place smelled bad.
I rang the doorbell, but heard no sound. Instead, a panel in the door
slid open noiselessly, and a light shone in my eyes. I blinked, and swore
I saw a lens staring at me. Then the panel slid shut hastily, and a voice
said:
"Please state your name and business."
I did, and the door opened. I started to say how-do-you-do to the
man behind it, but there wasn't any man. As the door shut behind me, I
got the idea that Dr. Borg Evander was one of these gadgeteers.
"Enter the door at the end of the hallway," the voice said.
I obeyed the instruction, but I gasped when I opened the door. There
was nothing but air behind it, and a railed platform some four feet
square.
"Please step on the platform," the voice told me.
I stepped on. A motor whined, and the platform descended. It took
me down about fifteen feet, to the floor of what was obviously a base-
ment laboratory, crowded with scientific paraphernalia. It all looked
very imposing and professional, but I couldn't tell if the junk scattered
around the place was intended to locate a cure for warts or repair tele-
vision sets. My host was nowhere in sight.
Then, out of a partitioned area at the end of the basement, out he
came. He looked a lot like Kirk Evander, but he was easily five years

The Invisible Man Murder Case
69
older. He didn't have Kirk's hot-lamped eyes, either. They were brown
and soft.
"I hope you don't mind the elevator," he said gently. "I detest stairs.
And my heart—"
"I understand. I—er—gather you're some kind of scientist, Dr.
Evander?"
"Ah," was all he said.
"Dr. Evander, I thought maybe you could help me. You see, your
brother was a close friend of mine, and I'm interested in uncovering his
murderer. I thought if we had a little talk—"
"But I've already spoken to the police," he said, looking bewildered.
"And what did you tell them?"
"Very little, I'm afraid. I hadn't seen Kirk for almost eight years,
until he showed up a few months ago. He was always rather distant to-
wards me. . . . Then, when I learned of his death, I came forward to
claim his body. That's really all I know."
It was a disappointment, but out of politeness, I chatted a few min-
utes longer. I was just about ready to leave when he said:
"Would you care to look around? I've been working on several fas-
cinating experiments. The police didn't seem very interested, but you, a
writer—"
"Well," I said, looking at my watch.
"It won't take very long. I don't see people very often, Mr. Oswald. I
suppose they consider me—odd."
"I wouldn't say that, doctor. But you'll have to admit. That odor—"
"Odor? What odor?"
"Well, frankly, Dr. Evander, there's a smell in this house that's a lit-
tle hard to take."
"Oh, dear." He put a finger on his mouth. "It's been here so long
I've become immune. It's the acaphenimatin compound, probably, a
new kind of plant food I'm working on. Or perhaps you're smelling the
sulfaborgonium." He lowered his eyes shyly. "A chemical I have named
after myself; a scientist's vanity. It has a pungent odor, but only in for-
mulation. I suppose I could stop making it, since it doesn't seem to have
any practical application."
"Well," I laughed feebly, "it sure stinks, don't it?"
"Yes," he answered vaguely. "Kirk used just that word. Yet he
seemed infinitely more interested in the sulfaborgonium than any of my
experiments."

70
Henry Slesar
I perked up at that.
"Kirk was interested? Why?"
"I really don't know. He seemed utterly fascinated by its properties.
As a matter of fact, he suggested a splendid use for it, if I could manu-
facture it in sufficient quantities. But that would be most impractical.
The distillation process requires months, and produces only the smallest
quantities from an exorbitant amount of raw materials."
"What use did he suggest?"
"Oh, an esthetic one. Kirk was always the esthete of the family. He
thought that the unsightly portions of public structures might be painted
with the chemical. Bridges and things. In order to make them more at-
tractive."
"I don't think I understand."
"Well, since sulfaborgonium is an anti-pigment and a total barrier of
light rays, it would naturally render these ugly portions invisible. How-
ever, I don't think—"
"Wait a minute. Would you go around that corner again, doctor?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Did you use the word invisible?"
"Yes, of course. Once transmuted into chemical form, sulfabor-
gonium becomes a soluble fat, with a consistency of a—well, a facial
cream, for instance." He chuckled impetuously. "Yes, Kirk was very
amusing about that. He called it Vanishing Cream."
I was staring at the doctor until my eyes were hurting.
"Go on," I said. "Tell me more."
"Well, because of its resistance to pigmentation, and its complete
barrierization of light, the chemical renders anything it covers invisible.
If I didn't stain it with methyl blue, I wouldn't be able to find it myself."
He chuckled again.
My head was swimming, and I wasn't sure if it was the odor or the
wild words of Dr. Evander.
"Let me get this straight. If you spread this stuff on something, that
something can't be seen?"
"Exactly."
"AnythingP"
"Oh, yes."
"Even a human being?"
The doctor looked puzzled.
"I suppose so. But why would anybody want to be invisible?"

The Invisible Man Murder Case
71
"Dr. Evander," I said, licking my lips, "you mean to say you can't
think of a single, solitary reason why somebody would want to be invis-
ible? Have you ever heard of H. G. Wells? Have you ever been to the
movies? Have you ever—" He wasn't reacting, so I put it more simply.
"Criminals, doctor! Just think about what an invisible criminal can ac-
complish! Or a spy! An army, doctor! Think of how many battles you
could win with an invisible army! A plane, a tank, a ship—imagine those
invisible! Big things, little things. Good men, bad men! A general or a
peeping Tom or a detective. . ."
"I never thought of it that way," Dr. Evander murmured. "But now
that you put it into words . . ." His face suddenly had more wrinkles
than before. "But most of the things you mentioned are terrible things.
Evil things-"
"That's right," I said grimly. "Take murder, for example. It would be
pretty easy to kill somebody, and not get detected—if you were invisible.
In a locked room for instance. All you have to do is walk in and kill
somebody, then lock all the doors and windows. When the police finally
break in, you walk out. Or on a stage, in front of thousands of witnesses
—you could kill someone without the fear of being detected. The perfect
crime."
"How awful!"
"I think your brother might have realized these potentials, doctor.
I'm not saying he used your chemical to commit the murders which
took place. He might have made it available to someone else, however.
And that someone may be responsible for all the deaths—including the
death of Kirk Evander. And he's free to kill again."
"It can't be true!"
"It must be true, doctor. If this stuff can do what you say—"
Something was making my ankle itch. I reached down and scratched
it. My hand touched something furry.
"What the hell,"I said.
"Oh," Doctor Borg said, seeing my expression. "That must be
Socrates."
He reached down and picked up an armful of nothing. Then he
stroked the nothing tenderly.
"What are you doing?" I said.
"It's Socrates, my cat. I rubbed the sulfaborgonium on her last week,
as an experiment. To see if the substance was harmful to animals. But
she appears to be perfectly all right."

72
Henry Slesar
I put my hand out, gingerly.
Socrates was fine. When I pulled my hand away, there were three
thin scratches on the skin.
When I got home, I sat down and stared at the typewriter and talked
to it like an old friend.
"What would Rufe Armlock do in a case like this?" I said.
The Remington didn't answer, but the thought of Rufe Armlock con-
jured up another image. Why not go right to Captain Spencer, and tell
him the story? It was simple and it was direct, so that's what I did.
"Oh, no," he said. "No, no, no."
"What do you mean, no?"
"I mean no, and that's all I mean. I appreciate your ideas, Mr. Os-
wald, don't misunderstand. But now you've gotten into fantasy—"
"But what if I could prove the story? What if I prove this sulfabor-
gonium stuff exists?"
"Can you?"
"I wanted to bring you a sample. That's one of the first things I
asked Dr. Evander, but he said it was all gone. The last drop went on
his cat. But it's my theory that either Kirk Evander or an accomplice
swiped some."
"Then you can't really show me this sulfawhatever-you-call it?
You only have his word for it?"
"But there's the cat/' I said anxiously. "The cat itself is proof that
things can be made invisible. Animals. People!"
"And you seriously think that an invisible man is walking around this
minute, bumping off people?"
"I do!"
He screwed up his face and rapped his desk.
"All right. You bring me the cat. Then I'll follow through."
"Right. I'll see Dr. Evander again tomorrow morning, and I'll pro-
duce Socrates. Then I'll leave it up to you to find this invisible mur-
derer. I don't envy you the job."
I saw Eileen that evening, and despite the fact that I wanted to keep
my discovery quiet, I couldn't help shooting off my mouth. That's a
problem of mine.
She listened to me in evident amazement, and then she said some-
thing that had us both unnerved.
"But Jeff! If this killer's invisible, then he could be any place. He
could be right in this room!"

The Invisible Man Murder Case
73
We both looked around, wide-eyed. Then I took an umbrella from
the rack and started to parry it around the room. Eileen did the same,
with a rolled-up magazine. It became a kind of crazy game after a
while, and we both started to giggle. Pretty soon we were laughing hys-
terically, poking into the closets and under the chairs and out the win-
dow, and we finally collapsed in helpless mirth, hugging each other like
a couple of nutty kids. It wasn't the most romantic moment of our lives,
but for some reason it seemed right. We got pretty silly and tender for a
few minutes, and when we got up off the floor, we were engaged to be
married. Funny how a thing like that happens, but that's the way it was
with us.
We didn't discuss the invisible murderer much after that. We had too
much else to talk about.
In the morning, I took the subway out to Queens and whistled mer-
rily all the way. The world seemed like a pretty nice place, even under-
ground.
But when I rang the front doorbell of Dr. Borg Evander's house, the
little panel in the door didn't slide back, and the television lens didn't
pop out to examine me. There was no response at all.
I rattled the knob, but the door was locked.
After five minutes of useless pounding, I went around to the other
side of the house and tried to find another method of entry. There
wasn't any. The back door was bolted, and all the windows were tightly
shut.
I didn't have any reason to get panicky. I hadn't told the doctor of
my intentions to return. He could have been out. And it was only natu-
ral for someone to lock up their house when they left it.
Still, I didn't like it.
There was a luncheon counter at the northwest corner. I went there
in the hope of finding a telephone booth; I found one. But the call I
placed to the doctor's home wasn't answered. I came out and spoke to
the counterman. He said:
"Old Doc Evander? Why, he must be home. Never known the Doc to
leave that nutty house of his. Has everything delivered. Regular
hermit."
That settled it. I went back to the Evander house and began to pound
on the front door. I almost busted my shoulder doing it, but I finally
snapped whatever screwy kind of electronic lock held it closed. When it
swung open, a bell began clanging a warning throughout the house, but

74
Henry Slesar
I didn't pay it any attention. I took the elevator platform down to the
basement.
Of course, my suspicions had been right. The old man was spread-
eagled on the stone floor, and the man who had wanted him dead didn't
care about being neat. His head had been struck several times with
something blunt and hard, and the result was sickening.
I called the police, and then roamed the house, calling out:
"Here, kitty, kitty, kitty. Here, Socrates. Here kitty, kitty . . ."
But I knew it was useless. The invisible killer had been thorough, and
now every speck of evidence was gone.
I won't say that Captain Spencer completely disbelieved my story.
After the murder of Borg Evander, it almost seemed like corroboration.
But he was a practical man, too, and he knew that my fantastic expla-
nation for the murders—without tangible evidence—would only produce
raised eyebrows and embarrassed coughs if he proposed the theory him-
self. It was all right for me to suggest the explanation—I was a fiction
writer. But he was a detective of homicide, and his stock-in-trade was
fact.
So the theory remained private, among Captain Bill Spencer and my-
self and the girl I wanted to marry.
It might have stayed that way forever, if Douglas Wharton, president
of the publishing company, hadn't gone loony.
Now, Douglas Wharton is a kind of legendary figure in publishing. As
a young man, running a hand-press in the back of a stationery shop, he
had established a distinguished reputation for integrity and daring. His
company was one of the first to recognize the growing American hunger
for mystery stories, and he also published one of the first regular series
of science-fiction novels. He established the Wharton Fellowships for
new authors in both fields, the first of their kind. He was one of the first
truly cooperative publishers in the history of the various author's
leagues.
He was in his sixties when I joined the list of the Wharton Publishing
Company, but you'll rarely see a better-looking or more vigorous man
of forty. He was a tall, slim guy, with movie-actor distinction in his
handsome features and graying temples. He looked like a retired British
major, but he could talk like a retired U. S. Army First Sergeant.
I liked Douglas Wharton. So I wasn't happy to hear the rumors about
him shifting his trolley.

The Invisible Man Murder Case
75
I asked Aaron Snow about it one day.
"Seems to be some truth in it," he said gravely. "The old man's been
acting pretty jumpy lately, and saying a lot of queer things. His friends
have been trying to get him to take a vacation, but he won't hear of it."
"What's the matter with him?"
Aaron shrugged. "I'm no psychiatrist. But from what I hear, he's see-
ing things. Things nobody else sees. Hearing them, too. He gets mad as
hell when the people around him deny it. Like last week. . ."
"What happened?"
"The way I get the story, there was a board meeting of the editors.
Company policy, stuff like that. The Mystery Book Editor was making
a report, when Wharton suddenly starts to curse—and if you've ever
heard Doug Wharton curse, you know how fluent he can be. Everybody
looks at him, and he accuses the man next to him of tickling his ankle."
"What?"
"That's right," Aaron said sadly. "Raised hell about it. Swore up and
down that his ankle was being tickled. The man next to him was Bosley
Morse, Senior Editor of the Classical Department. White hair and
whiskers, you know the guy, looks like Walt Whitman. Last guy in the
world you'd accuse of tickling your ankle. But that's what Wharton
claimed."
I whistled.
"Gee, that's tough. Fine man like that."
"Yeah, it's a shame, all right. Of course, he absolutely refuses to get
medical attention. Some of his friends tried sneaking a headshrinker in
to see him, pretending it was a social call. But Doug was too smart for
'em. Ticked off the doctor immediately, and threw him out of his
house."
Maybe you can guess what I was thinking.
"Listen, Aaron," I said. "Can you get me an appointment to see
Wharton?"
"What?"
"I'd like to see him. I only met him once, when we were signing the
contracts. Maybe you could fix up a lunch date or something."
"What for?"
"I've got an idea. It's a nutty idea, but then most of my ideas are. I'd
just like to see the man before I do anything about it."
"Well, if that's what you really want. I suppose I can arrange it

76
Henry Slesar
through the Mystery Editor." He narrowed his eyes shrewdly. "You got
something up your sleeve, Jeff?"
"Who, me?" I said innocently.
But when I left Aaron, I knew I did have something up my sleeve. I
had an invisible man, who had killed three people and a cat, and who
just might be after a fifth victim—in a slightly different manner.
Aaron went to work quickly to make the arrangements. There was
only one snag. Since his "trouble" had started, Douglas Wharton had
stopped dining out at lunch time, and confined his noontime meal to a
sandwich in the office. However, he didn't mind my joining him.
I kept the appointment promptly at twelve, walking through the im-
pressive oak-rimmed doorway of the presidential office. Wharton was at
his desk, looking older and more tired than I remembered him, but his
smile was wide and cordial when he greeted me.
"Sit down, Jeff," he invited. "My secretary will bring the lunch in a
few minutes. Ordered you a steak sandwich. Okay?"
"Suits me fine," I said.
"How's everything going? You must be working on novel number
four now, eh?"
"That's right. It's called The Noose Hangs High"
"Well, if it's as successful as the others, we both won't have any
cause for complaint. That's quite a character you've got there, that Rufe
Armlock."
"Yes, sir. Sometimes I wish he really existed."
He looked up at me sharply. "Why?"
"Oh, I dunno. He just never seems to have any trouble. If there's a
case to be solved, he just moves right in and solves it. You always know
thingsll come out all right in the end."
"Yes," Wharton sighed. "I see what you mean."
The lunch arrived, and we ate in silence for a few minutes. I kept
watching Wharton's face, anxious to see if I could detect any signs
of the looniness I'd been hearing about. He looked okay to me.
Then it happened.
We were sipping our coffee, and I was giving the president a rough
outline of the plot of The Noose Hangs High when he seemed to stiffen
and look past me towards the closed door. My blood went icy when I
saw the change in him.
"What's wrong, Mr. Wharton?"

The Invisible Man Murder Case
77
He continued to stare past me, and his lips were moving soundlessly.
"The knife . . he said hoarsely.
I whirled around, but there was nothing there. When I looked back at
the publisher, his hands were covering his eyes.
"Mr. Wharton . . ."
"I'll be okay, Jeff. I'm sort of-tired."
"Mr. Wharton, you said something about a knife."
"It was nothing."
"Did you see a knife?"
"No, no. . ."
Then suddenly, shockingly, he was laughing, laughing wildly, uncon-
trollably, dancing and gyrating in the swivel chair.
"Mr. Wharton!" I shouted, standing up.
"Stop it, stop it!" He was shrieking in anguish, even as he laughed,
and there were tears running down his cheeks.
"Mr. Wharton, are you all right?"
He stopped as quickly as he had started, and slumped exhausted over
the desk blotter. I went to him, and he pointed feebly towards the
pitcher of water. I poured him a glass and he drank it quickly,
coughing.
"What is it?" I said. "What happened to you?"
He couldn't answer for a moment. Then the door of the office
slammed shut violently, and he said:
"I was being tickled. So help me God, I was being tickled. It was
horrible. . ."
It sounded funny. Tickling is a funny word. But I didn't feel funny.
Only horrified.
"Has this happened before?"
"Yes, often. I don't know what's the matter with me. Maybe I'm
afraid to find out. But first I see things . . . like a knife, floating in
midair. Or something else. And then I know it's going to happen, then I
know the tickling will start, that awful tickling. . ."
He broke down and sobbed. Like I said, he was a man in his sixties,
but he sounded like a heartbroken child, sobbing on the impressive desk
in front of me.
"This is terrible," I said. "Don't you think you should get help, Mr.
Wharton? A doctor?"
He looked up at me, trying to compose himself.
"I'll tell you the truth. I've seen a doctor, my own doctor. He knows

78
Henry Slesar
of nothing organically wrong. I have a slight heart condition, but noth-
ing major. His only suggestion was that my trouble was mental." His
face hardened. "And I know that's not true. I know it. No matter what
insane symptoms I have, I know that my mind is sound. I'm sure most
people wouldn't believe that. . ."
"I believe it, Mr. Wharton."
"What?"
"I believe it. Because I think I know what's happening to you."
He stared at me, not sure what I meant.
"Mr. Wharton, will you let me tell you a story?" I said. "Not fiction,
Mr. Wharton. What I believe is a true story."
He didn't reply, but I took his silence for an affirmative.
I told him the story of Zora Brewster, and the two Evanders. I told
him about the missing cat, and the mysterious chemical called sulfabor-
gonium. I told him my theory about the invisible killer.
"I don't understand," he said, when I was through. "What does that
have to do with me?"
"Just this, Mr. Wharton. I think this invisible madman's decided
upon you as his next victim. Only now he's getting fancy. He must be
bored with his old hit-and-run tactics. He wants something more-
delicious. That's why he's doing what he's doing. Making you see
things. Making knives appear out of nowhere. Tickling you. Tickling
you to death."
"It's madness," Wharton said hoarsely. "The worst madness I ever
heard of."
"There's a captain of Homicide that believes it, too. His name is Bill
Spencer, and you can check with him about it if you like."
"But what can we do against such a man? How can we fight him?"
"I don't know yet. It's a terrible power he's got, a power that's hard
to stop. He can be anywhere, any time, and we'd never know it. The
way he was here a few minutes ago. The way he may still be here."
"The door-" Wharton stood up.
"Yes, the door slammed. But he could have stayed on this side,
couldn't he? And heard all we said."
"Then he must realize you know about him. He must realize how
dangerous you are to him—"
I swallowed, and tried to look placid.
<fHe must know a lot of things. He hasn't hurt me yet."
"What do you think I should do?"

The Invisible Man Murder Case
79
"I'm not sure. Try and stop him. Carry a gun. The next time he tries
his tricks—shoot. Don't be afraid of appearing ridiculous, Mr. Wharton.
Grapple with air if you have to, but try and hold on to your man.
Meanwhile, I'll talk to Spencer about this and try to develop some
more positive action."
I left the office, without knowing whether Douglas Wharton had been
convinced by my strange theory. But at least he was warned.
I was just about to leave the building when Greta, Mr. Wharton's
secretary, called to me.
"Oh, Mr. Oswald," she said. "Did you want to pick up your mail,
while you're here?"
I nodded. Usually, I average about two dozen fan letters a week,
addressed to the publishers. A lot of them are crank letters, mostly from
women. Sometimes, I'd get proposals of marriage.
Greta was looking through her files, and her face was puzzled.
"That's funny. I could swear there were nine letters, but I can only
find eight. That smelly one is missing—"
"Smelly one?" I grinned. "You mean a perfumed letter?"
"I wouldn't exactly call it perfume," she said. "It arrived last Friday,
and we practically had to fumigate the office. It smelled like rotten eggs
to me."
"Must be somebody who doesn't like Rufe Armlock," I said. Then I
thought it over and exclaimed: "Did you say rotten eggs?"
"Yes. I put it in the bottom drawer of my desk, and forgot all about
it. I would have forwarded it to you, but I thought it would be best to
deliver it in person. I was afraid I'd get arrested if I sent that awful
thing through the mails." She chuckled.
Rotten eggs. Sulphur. The words were stirring a memory in my brain.
That was the smell which had pervaded Dr. Borg Evander's house!
"And you say it's missing?"
"Yes. I'll keep looking for it; maybe it went to the mail room by mis-
take. Do you think it might be something important?"
"Could be," I said. "Could be very important. Keep searching for it,
huh?"
"I will, Mr. Oswald."
I returned to my apartment, my head aching with the thoughts that
were crowding my brain. The letter must have been written by Dr.
Evander, and it must have concerned our discussion. It might afford me

80
Henry Slesar
the proof that I was looking for, the proof that was destroyed by Dr.
Evander's murder.
I sat on the sofa, feeling suddenly exhausted. I wanted to forget the
whole business, forget about murder and madness and invisible killers
and locked rooms. I wanted a little peace and quiet. I wanted to marry
Eileen, and head off to some corny honeymoon spot like Niagara Falls,
and settle down to the simple life, have a couple of kids, take a trip
to Europe now and then. Let somebody else chase around catching in-
sane murderers. I wasn't Rufe Armlock; I was only Jeff Oswald, and I
was tired of the whole affair.
Then all Hell broke loose.
First it was Eileen, and her hysterical voice on my telephone sent
shivers from one end of my spine to the other. It was some time before
I got her to give me a coherent story.
"It's awful, awful," she sobbed. "I can't stand it another minute, Jeff,
not another minute . . ."
"But what's happening, Eileen?"
"It must be him. He's been following me, doing awful things. Tearing
my clothes, touching me . . ." She went off into a wave of tearful
gasps. "I just can't stand it, Jeff! You've got to help me!"
"I'll be right over!"
I got to Greenwich Village in less than twenty minutes, and found
Eileen lying on her bed. She was more than just disheveled. Her dress
had been ripped and torn in a dozen places, and her hair was wildly
disordered. She was still crying uncontrollably, and I had to hold her in
my arms like a child before she could talk sensibly.
"He—he must have followed me home," she said, her voice muffled
against my chest. "I suddenly felt this—touch on my leg. I jumped, and
then something tore my dress. I started to scream and he stopped. I
thought of calling the police, and then I realized what they would think.
For a while, nothing happened, and then it started all over again. Out of
nowhere, I'd feel this hand on me. And then he'd tear at my clothes
again—"
"Easy, baby," I said, my heart pounding so hard I thought it would
crack inside me.
"Then it stopped again. For almost an hour. I heard the door open
and shut, and I thought he was gone. I tried telephoning you at home,
but you weren't there. Then I called Aaron Snow, and he told me you

The Invisible Man Murder Case
81
were at Wharton. I called there, too. Then it started again—" She began
to sob again quietly.
"He's a madman," I said tensely. "No question of that. He's pulling
the same kind of stuff on Douglas Wharton. And he must realize that
you know about him, too." I grasped her arms. "Listen, Eileen, you've
got to get away from here. . ."
"But where could I go? How can you stop someone like that from
finding you?"
"We'll figure something out. But you've got to get out of town before
he—God knows what he'll do!"
"I—I've got an aunt who lives out in Sauter Beach. I could go there
for a few weeks."
"Good idea. Meanwhile, I want to call Bill Spencer and tell him
what's been happening. I think we've got to stop playing it so safe. I
think we've got to get some official help—even if the whole damn world
thinks we're crazy!"
I called Police Headquarters on Eileen's phone, but Captain Spencer
was off duty. I talked the desk sergeant into giving me his home tele-
phone number, and dialed it.
From the moment I heard Spencer's voice, I knew that he wasn't
alone.
"What is it, Captain?" I said. "Is anything wrong?"
"No," he said tensely. "Nothing's wrong. Everything's just fine. Just
remember this, Jeff. If I don't report in tomorrow at the station, and
they find the doors locked and bolted—he'll still be in the room. That's
how they can trap him. Remember that!"
"What are you saying?"
"I think he's with me, right now. He hasn't done anything yet, but I
feel his presence. But I'm ready for him. One noise, one movement, and
Til have him. . . ."
Even though Spencer's voice was calm, I couldn't help detecting the
undercurrent of hysteria. The captain wasn't a guy that scared easily,
but there was something unearthly and horrible about an opponent you
couldn't see. . . .
"Look," I said, "suppose we get some help? Suppose I call the po-
lice-"
"No! I'll take care of this myself. If he wants a fight. I'm—"
He stopped talking.
"Captain!" I said. "Bill!"

82
Henry Slesar
There was no answer.
"What is it?" Eileen said.
"Bill, are you okay?"
Eileen must have realized what was happening on the other end of
the phone, because she began to sob again, fearfully.
I slammed the receiver down and said:
"I've got to get over there!"
"Jeff, don't leave me-"
"I've got to! That thing is in Bill's apartment, I've got to help him!"
I burst out of the house and into the street, and almost went frantic
at my failure to hail a taxi. When I finally got one, I sat in the back seat
and knew that my attempt would come too late.
I was right, of course. The door of his apartment wasn't locked or
bolted; it was flung open. But Bill Spencer was dead, a dagger wound
between his wide shoulders.
The next afternoon, I saw Eileen off at LaGuardia Airport. I hated to
see her go, but I was glad, too. The plane would take her three hundred
miles from New York, and three hundred miles from the invisible luna-
tic that was tormenting her.
As far as I knew, now there were only two people left in the city that
the killer was interested in. Douglas Wharton, and me.
Back in the city, I called Wharton's office and suggested a council of
war. He agreed, and I went to his penthouse apartment that evening to
talk things over.
"What I can't understand is this," I told the publisher, as we sat in
his plushly decorated living room. "This fiend has killed or tormented
everybody but me. He hasn't laid a finger on me, or made any attempts
against my life. Yet if anybody can do him harm, it's me."
"There was that guillotine stuff you told me about," Wharton said.
"How about that?"
"That's true. It must have been the killer that was hovering over my
bed. But if he wanted to kill me with that meat chopper, he could have
done it. Yet he didn't."
"Obviously, he wants you alive. He must have his reasons."
"But why? The only people I know who really care if I'm alive or
dead are (1) Me, (2) Eileen, and (3) Aaron Snow. Why should this
nut care?"
Wharton chewed his lip thoughtfully.

The Invisible Man Murder Case
83
"Aaron Snow," he repeated. "Wasn't Snow Kirk Evander's agent, at
one time?"
"Yes, come to think of it. It was back a few years. They had a vio-
lent disagreement over money, and Evander asked for them to cancel
the arrangement."
"That was quite a loss for Snow, wasn't it? At that time, Evander
was a hot-selling author. Ten percent of his income was a lot of dough."
"Well, Aaron's doing okay now. Thanks mostly to Rufe Armlock, to
tell the truth."
"That's right," Wharton said musingly. "And that in itself would be a
good reason to want you alive—"
I stared at him.
"Now, look. You're not suggesting—"
"I'm not suggesting anything."
He got up and mixed us a drink. I watched him, trying to digest the
new thought he had planted in my mind. Then I saw him snap his
fingers, as if in recollection.
"Just thought of something. Greta gave me a letter for you. Said
something about it smelling bad—"
"What?" I shot out of the chair.
Wharton looked surprised at my reaction. "What's wrong? Something
important?"
"Maybe very important! Let me see it!"
He put down his drink and went out of the room. When he returned,
he was holding a long, rumpled envelope. He put it to his nose and
sniffed distastefully.
"I see what she meant," he said. "Damn thing smells like rotten
eggs."
I grabbed it from his hands and ripped it open.
There were two scrawled sheets inside. The handwriting was almost
indecipherable, but I finally made it out.
Dear Mr. Oswald:
I have been thinking over what you told me this morning,
and have decided to reveal the entire truth. I must admit that
the evil potentialities of my chemical had never occurred to
me before this. But now that I realize them, 1 think it is bet-
ter for you to knoM> the facts.
As I told you, I have not seen my brother Kirk for many

97	Henry Slesar
years, despite the fact that we resided in the same city. A few
months ago, he suddenly decided to renew his family ties,
and called upon me. I was delighted, of course, since I have
always admired my talented younger brother.
However, I begin to suspect that his interest in me was
only the result of his interest in my work. On several occa-
sions, 1 have provided Kirk with scientific information which
he has utilized in his novels, and some years ago, I informed
him of my experiments with sulfaborgonium. It was this par-
ticular chemical which held his interest now.
Two weeks ago, Kirk came to me and told me a very sad
story. It seemed that there was a great deal of public apathy
towards the kind of detective fiction which he wrote, and
that apathy was costing him his livelihood. He seemed truly
brokenhearted about it, and even though I know nothing of
literary matters, I was deeply moved by his plight.
Then he told me that he had an unusual plan, a plan
which he believed would restore the lost interest in the clas-
sic detective novel. It was actually a hoax, he informed me,
an amusing prank which he would play on the public in
order to increase interest in his work. As a scientist, of
course, I have little interest in practical jokery, but Kirk
seemed genuinely convinced that this "joke" would have
very practical effect upon his career.
Reluctantly, I agreed to cooperate.
Kirk's plan was this. Quite recently, there had been two
highly improbable murders, and he wished to create the sem-
blance of a third—the murder of himself. He was quite
delighted with the details of this hoax, for he intended to
spread the sulfaborgonium over his head, giving his body the
appearance of being decapitated. Then I was to supply him
with a chemical means for him to appear truly dead, a
method which is used for the performance of heart surgery.
He planned to be discovered this way, and for the world
to believe that he had been murdered by some impossible
means, just as the victims in his novels have been killed.
Then I was to claim his body for burial in the family vault.
His "body" of course, would be perfectly alive and well.
We went through the plan as outlined. There were some

The Invisible Man Murder Case
85
difficult moments (the county coroner, as you proba-
bly know, wanted to perform an autopsy; fortunately, I was
able to stop it in time) but in general, everything went
smoothly. When I brought Kirk's "body" home, I promptly
counteracted the heart-stoppage and he was completely re-
stored to health and vitality. He swore me to secrecy, and
told me that he planned to conceal himself in another part of
the country until the proper time came to reveal the hoax.
I have not heard from Kirk since.
While I cannot believe the terrible idea that Kirk himself
is behind the murders, I now feel that I must tell you the
true circumstances of his disappearance.
If there is anything further I can do to help, please feel
free to call upon me.
Sincerely,
DR. BORG EVANDER
I read the letter with the growing conviction that the answer to our
problem was in our hands. I read the letter aloud to Douglas Wharton,
whose face showed a confused mixture of bewilderment and surprise.
"But what does it mean?" he said. "Is it really Kirk that's playing
these invisible tricks?"
"Of course! Only Kirk would be interested in the death and torture
of these victims. He killed Winston Kale as an example. He didn't have
any great grievance against Kale, but he didn't like him much, either—
especially after Wharton Publishing refused his ultimatum. Then, to
keep interest alive in these puzzle murders, he killed Zora Brewster—the
one person who saw Kale alive before the locked-room murder. Then,
he plotted his own "murder," when the police got on his trail. Now he's
killing everyone who knows the story of the chemical—his own brother,
Captain Spencer. In order to complete his insane plan, he has three
more to go. You, because he associates his failures with your company.
Eileen, because she knows of his existence. And me."
"But why didn't he kill you first? You're the one he hates most."
"That's exactly why. Because he hates me so much, he wants me to
squirm. He wants me to know that there are such things as impossible
murders. When he's knocked off everybody in some improbable manner
—then he'll be ready to take care of me. But first, he has to demonstrate
that I was wrong and he was right."

86
Henry Slesar
Wharton folded his arms and shivered.
"All right. So we know it's Kirk Evander. But that doesn't bring us
any closer to a solution."
"Sure it does," I said. "Because now that we know it's Kirk, we can
act accordingly. We can try and think the way Kirk Evander thinks."
"How will that help?"
"I don't know yet," I said miserably. "But we've got to find a way."
That night, I sat and stared at my Remington, and I never thought so
hard in my life. It was like trying to work Rufe Armlock out of an esca-
pade, only it was much worse. At least I had control of the characters
in a Rufe Armlock novel; if I wanted them to do something, I made
them do it. If only it was that easy!
My only consolation was that Eileen was presumably out of danger.
Then even that was destroyed. Around ten o'clock, the telephone
rang and the long-distance operator told me that there was a call from
Sauter Beach. Eileen didn't have to say very much before I realized that
her invisible masher was still on the trail. My hands went cold on the
phone.
"Maybe I'm wrong," she said, her voice trembling. "But yesterday,
on the beach, I thought I saw something glinting in the sun ... I
looked up and could have sworn I saw a gun, just hanging in the
air . . ."
"Good God," I said, shutting my eyes.
"Jeff, I don't know what to do. If he's followed me here. . ."
"Hang on, sweetie, just hang on. We're working this out. We've
learned something we didn't know before. We're going to lick this."
"I don't know what to do! Should I come back to the city? Then
you'll all be in danger—"
"Never mind about that. Come back as soon as you can. We've got a
plan-"
"What kind of plan?"
"Never mind now. But we won't be so helpless any more."
I hung up, hoping she wouldn't realize that I was bluffing.
But an hour later, slumped over the still typewriter, I did have a
plan. I got so excited about it that I woke Douglas Wharton out of a
sound sleep, not realizing that it was already four in the morning.
The item that appeared in every New York newspaper read some-
thing like this:

The Invisible Man Murder Case
87
POSTHUMOUS AWARD TO
KIRK EVANDER
BANQUET TO BE HELD IN DEAD
MYSTERY NOVELIST'S HONOR
July 2, New York. The Wharton Publishing Company an-
nounced today that a new Fellowship was to be added to the
company's roster, to be named the Kirk Evander Fellow-
ship. It will provide special awards and scholarships to
promising authors of the "classic" detective novel. The
official innovation of the Kirk Evander Fellowship will take
place at a banquet in honor of the deceased novelist on July
8. Among the speakers will be. . .
Eileen's brow was ruffled when she studied the item.
"But what good will it do? Honoring that fiend?"
I chuckled. "Think about it, and you'll see. Can you think of any-
thing that would appeal more to an egomaniac like Evander? How can
he resist attending a banquet that's held in his own honor?"
"Then it's a trap?"
"Of course it is. And even if Evander realizes that it's a trap, I don't
think he'll be able to resist showing up. He's too convinced of his invin-
cible powers to believe that we could capture him. Besides, the Fellow-
ship idea is genuine. Evander was a heck of a good writer, and Wharton
does intend to create the award. The speakers will all be real, and the
entire event will be authentic. But there'll be some added features . . ."
"What kind of features?"
"Some preparations. Just in case we have an uninvited guest that
night. A special welcome for him."
Eileen's eyes shone.
"Can I come, Jeff?"
"No!"
"Please! After all, he's after me, too. It can't be any more dan-
gerous—"
I scowled like Ruf e Armlock and pulled her towards me.
"I said no, baby. And don't give me any argument, or I'll shoot you
in your soft, white . .
She didn't argue with me.

88
Henry Slesar
* * *
It was impressive, no doubt about it. The banquet hall, a ninety-foot
chamber in the Hotel Colbert, was splendidly decorated for the occa-
sion, with luxurious drapery and burgundy-red carpets and glittering
chandeliers. The speaker's table was raised on a dais, and two long
guest tables flanked each other on both sides of the hall. The guests
began milling around early in the evening, all of them dress-suited and
distinguished looking and seemingly pleased at the prospects of the oc-
casion. The full list of speakers hadn't been announced, but Douglas
Wharton was to make the main presentation.
After several rounds of drinks, the time for the formal opening of
events arrived.
The guests seated themselves, the doors were closed, and Douglas
Wharton rapped a gavel.
"Gentlemen, before we satisfy our appetite, I thought it would be ap-
propriate to have a few words concerning the purpose of this occasion.
So it gives me great pleasure to present a young man whose rise to fame
is best described in that worn but accurate word 'meteoric.' More impor-
tant, this young man, perhaps more than anyone present this evening,
has good reason to know the qualities of the man we have gathered to
honor. Gentlemen, Mr. Jeffrey Oswald."
There was a scattering of applause, and I tugged at the collar of my
formal shirt and stepped forward to the speaker's rostrum.
I cleared my throat and said:
"Kirk Evander was and is a great man."
I paused to let that sink in.
"I say was, because at the time of his passing, he had left the world
a heritage of some thirty-five mystery novels, the like of which may
never be seen again. I say is, because Kirk Evander will remain alive as
long as someone, somewhere, thrills to the magic words he put on
paper."
There was some more applause.
"Kirk Evander was more than merely a great man. The world has
had its share of those. But Kirk Evander was also an unusual man. A
man of courage and of daring, a man willing to face an unpopular trend
and do it battle. Kirk Evander made that battle, and the effort was
nothing short of magnificent. It was through him that we owe the pres-
ent upcurve in the popularity of the classic detective story—and all of
us want nothing more than to see that popularity maintained."

The Invisible Man Murder Case
89
Again, they applauded.
"As we all know, Kirk Evander's last novel, Death of a Publisher,
was released to the reviewers yesterday. I can't think of any more fitting
tribute than this review, which will be published in tonight's edition of
The New York Blade."
I lifted a sheaf of papers from the table and waved it at the crowd.
But I didn't read it. Instead, I placed it carefully in front of me, and
went on talking. I talked for another five minutes, and never once took
my eyes from the papers.
I was almost ready to sit down, when I saw them move.
"He's here!" I shouted.
Everyone went into action as planned. At the doorway, the two
dress-suited men who were standing by reached up and pulled the light
switches that plunged the hall into immediate darkness. Throughout the
room, I heard the swift movements of the guests as they reached be-
neath the covered tables and removed the masks that had been placed
there in readiness. I found my own beneath the speaker's podium, and
slipped it quickly over my face. Somewhere below, a lieutenant of po-
lice named Davis was preparing to pull the release on the gas bomb
which would spread the thick, deadly stuff in violent clouds throughout
the room.
"The door! The door!" I heard Wharton cry, and he leaped from the
dais to help form the barrier of bodies that would block the invisible
killer from making his escape. By this time, the heavy clouds of gas were
filling the room, and I could still smell its sickening-sweet odor through
the mask, or imagine that I did.
In the midst of the crowd there was a sudden wave of violent motion,
as if Kirk Evander was struggling wildly to make his way to an exit.
Hands reached out everywhere to try and pin him down, but he was too
clever. At the doorway, Douglas Wharton suddenly cried out and grap-
pled with the air, and then his assailant was gone.
"Don't try and hold him!" I shouted to them. "Let the gas stop him—"
There were frenzied sounds and movements in the darkness, sudden
shouts of surprise and fear, unexpected gasps and outbursts. But it was
only for the moment; soon there was only stillness.
"The lights!" I said. "Turn on the lights."
They flickered on overhead.
"All right," Douglas Wharton said commandingly. "He's here some-
place. Find him."

90
Henry Slesar
They backed off against the walls, and started to close in the ring
slowly.
From the rear of the hall, Lieutenant Davis of the police department
suddenly shouted:
"Here he is!"
I looked. Davis was lifting something from the floor, something that
appeared to be a dead weight.
He carried his burden towards one of the banquet tables, pulling
aside the cloth to place it down.
Then he threw the cloth over it, and we saw the outline of a small,
plump body. The outline of the unconscious body of Kirk Evander.
Davis bent over it.
"We didn't mean for the gas to kill him," he frowned. "But I'm
afraid his heart couldn't take it. Evander's dead."
Eileen and I did go to Niagara on our honeymoon. But as far as we
were concerned, the Falls could have been invisible, too.

PRIDE
Breathes there a man with soul so dead as not to be proud of his
species, his country, his group, his family, himself? That's the very
stuff of patriotism, of healthy self-respect. And shouldn't one be
proud of one's work, too? Of course. What kind of a man would
he be who wouldn't sacrifice everything to maintain that high opin-
ion of that to which he has dedicated his life. And, of course, the
final and total sacrifice is that of his very PRIDE.

GALLEY SLAVE
ISAAC ASIMOV
The United States Robot and Mechanical Men, Inc., as defendants in
the case, had influence enough to force a closed-doors trial without a
juiy-
Nor did Northeastern University try hard to prevent it. The trustees
knew perfectly well how the public might react to any issue involving
misbehavior of a robot, however rarefied that misbehavior might be.
They also had a clearly visualized notion of how an anti-robot riot
might become an anti-science riot without warning.
The government, as represented in this case by Justice Harlow Shane,
was equally anxious for a quiet end to this mess. Both U.S. Robots and
the academic world were bad people to antagonize.
Justice Shane said, "Since neither press, public nor jury is present,
gentlemen, let us stand on as little ceremony as we can and get to the
facts."
He smiled stiffly as he said this, perhaps without much hope that his
request would be effective, and hitched at his robe so that he might sit
more comfortably. His face was pleasantly rubicund, his chin round and
soft, his nose broad and his eyes light in color and wide-set. All in all, it
was not a face with much judicial majesty and the judge knew it.
Barnabas H. Goodfellow, Professor of Physics at Northeastern U.,
was sworn in first, taking the usual vow with an expression that made
mincemeat of his name.
After the usual opening-gambit questions, Prosecution shoved his
hands deep into his pockets and said, "When was it, Professor, that the
matter of the possible employ of Robot EZ-27 was first brought to your
attention, and how?"
Professor Goodfellow's small and angular face set itself into an un-
easy expression, scarcely more benevolent than the one it replaced. He
said, "I have had professional contact and some social acquaintance
with Dr. Alfred Lanning, Director of Research at U.S. Robots. I was in-

94
Isaac Asimov
clined to listen with some tolerance then when I received a rather
strange suggestion from him on the 3rd of March of last year—"
"Of 2033?"
"That's right."
"Excuse me for interrupting. Please proceed."
The professor nodded frostily, scowled to fix the facts in his mind,
and began to speak.
Professor Goodfellow looked at the robot with a certain uneasiness. It
had been carried into the basement supply room in a crate, in accord-
ance with the regulations governing the shipment of robots from place
to place on the Earth's surface.
He knew it was coming; it wasn't that he was unprepared. From the
moment of Dr. Lanning's first phone call on March 3, he had felt him-
self giving way to the other's persuasiveness, and now, as an inevitable
result, he found himself face to face with a robot.
It looked uncommonly large as it stood within arm's reach.
Alfred Lanning cast a hard glance of his own at the robot, as though
making certain it had not been damaged in transit. Then he turned his
ferocious eyebrows and his mane of white hair in the professor's direc-
tion.
"This is Robot EZ-27, first of its model to be available for public
use," He turned to the robot. "This is Professor Goodfellow, Easy."
Easy spoke impassively, but with such suddenness that the professor
shied. "Good afternoon, Professor."
Easy stood seven feet tall and had the general proportions of a man-
always the prime selling point of U.S. Robots. That and the possession
of the basic patents on the positronic brain had given them an actual
monopoly on robots and a near-monopoly on computing machines in
general.
The two men who had uncrated the robot had left now and the pro-
fessor looked from Lanning to the robot and back to Lanning. "It is
harmless, I'm sure." He didn't sound sure.
"More harmless than I am," said Lanning. "I could be goaded into
striking you. Easy could not be. You know the Three Laws of Robotics,
I presume."
"Yes, of course," said Goodfellow.
"They are built into the positronic patterns of the brain and must be
observed. The First Law, the prime rule of robotic existence, safeguards

Galley Slave
95
the life and well-being of all humans." He paused, rubbed at his cheek,
then added, "It's something of which we would like to persuade all
Earth if we could."
"It's just that he seems formidable."
"Granted. But whatever he seems, you'll find that he is useful."
"I'm not sure in what way. Our conversations were not very helpful
in that respect Still, I agreed to look at the object and I'm doing it."
"We'll do more than look, Professor. Have you brought a book?"
"I have."
"May I see it?"
Professor Goodfellow reached down without actually taking his eyes
off the metal-in-human-shape that confronted him. From the briefcase
at his feet, he withdrew a book.
Lanning held out his hand for it and looked at the backstrip. "Physi-
cal Chemistry of Electrolytes in Solution. Fair enough, sir. You selected
this yourself, at random. It was no suggestion of mine, this particular
text. Am I right?"
"Yes."
Lanning passed the book to Robot EZ-27.
The professor jumped a little. "No! That's a valuable book!"
Lanning raised his eyebrows and they looked like shaggy coconut
icing. He said, "Easy has no intention of tearing the book in two as a
feat of strength, I assure you. It can handle a book as carefully as you
or I. Go ahead, Easy."
"Thank you, sir," said Easy. Then, turning its metal bulk slightly, it
added, "With your permission, Professor Goodfellow."
The professor stared, then said, "Yes—yes, of course."
With a slow and steady manipulation of metal fingers, Easy turned
the pages of the book, glancing at the left page, then the right; turning
the page, glancing left, then right; turning the page and so on for minute
after minute.
The sense of its power seemed to dwarf even the large cement-walled
room in which they stood and to reduce the two human watchers to
something considerably less than life-size.
Goodfellow muttered, "The light isn't very good."
"It will do."
Then, rather more sharply, "But what is he doing?"
"Patience, sir."
The last page was turned eventually. Lanning asked, "Well, Easy?"

96
Isaac Asimov
The robot said, "It is a most accurate book and there is little to
which I can point. On line 22 of page 27, the word 'positive' is spelled
p~o-i-s-t-i-v-e. The comma in line 6 of page 32 is superfluous, whereas
one should have been used on line 13 of page 54. The plus sign in
equation XIV-2 on page 337 should be a minus sign if it is to be consis-
tent with the previous equations—"
"Wait! Wait!" cried the professor. "What is he doing?"
"Doing?" echoed Lanning in sudden irascibility. "Why, man, he has
already done it! He has proofread that book."
"Proofread it?"
"Yes. In the short time it took him to turn those pages, he caught
every mistake in spelling, grammar and punctuation. He has noted er-
rors in word order and detected inconsistencies. And he will retain the
information, letter-perfect, indefinitely."
The professor's mouth was open. He walked rapidly away from Lan-
ning and Easy and as rapidly back. He folded his arms across his chest
and stared at them. Finally he said, "You mean this is a proofreading
robot?"
Lanning nodded. "Among other things."
"But why do you show it to me?"
"So that you might help me persuade the university to obtain it for
use."
"To read proof?"
"Among other things," Lanning repeated patiently.
The professor drew his pinched face together in a kind of sour disbe-
lief. "But this is ridiculous!"
"Why?"
"The university could never afford to buy this half-ton—it must weigh
that at least—this half-ton proofreader."
"Proofreading is not all it will do. It will prepare reports from out-
lines, fill out forms, serve as an accurate memory-file, grade papers—"
"All picayune!"
Lanning said, "Not at all, as I can show you in a moment. But I
think we can discuss this more comfortably in your office, if you have
no objection."
"No, of course not," began the professor mechanically and took a
half-step as though to turn. Then he snapped out, "But the robot—we
can't take the robot. Really, Doctor, you'll have to crate it up again."
"Time enough. We can leave Easy here."

Galley Slave
97
"Unattended?"
"Why not? He knows he is to stay. Professor Goodfellow, it is neces-
sary to understand that a robot is far more reliable than a human
being."
"I would be responsible for any damage—"
"There will be no damage. I guarantee that. Look, it's after hours.
You expect no one here, I imagine, before tomorrow morning. The
truck and my two men are outside. U.S. Robots will take any respon-
sibility that may arise. None will. Call it a demonstration of the relia-
bility of the robot."
The professor allowed himself to be led out of the storeroom. Nor
did he look entirely comfortable in his own office, five stories up.
He dabbed at the line of droplets along the upper half of his forehead
with a white handkerchief.
"As you know very well, Dr. Lanning, there are laws against the use
of robots on Earth's surface," he pointed out.
"The laws, Professor Goodfellow, are not simple ones. Robots may
not be used on public thoroughfares or within public edifices. They may
not be used on private grounds or within private structures except under
certain restrictions that usually turn out to be prohibitive. The univer-
sity, however, is a large and privately owned institution that usually re-
ceives preferential treatment. If the robot is used only in a specific
room for only academic purposes, if certain other restrictions are ob-
served and if the men and women having occasion to enter the room co-
operate fully, we may remain within the law."
"But all that trouble just to read proof?"
"The uses would be infinite, Professor. Robotic labor has so far been
used only to relieve physical drudgery. Isn't there such a thing as mental
drudgery? When a professor capable of the most useful creative thought
is forced to spend two weeks painfully checking the spelling of lines of
print and I offer you a machine that can do it in thirty minutes, is that
picayune?"
"But the price-"
"The price need not bother you. You cannot buy EZ-27. U.S. Ro-
bots does not sell its products. But the university can lease EZ-27 for a
thousand dollars a year—considerably less than the cost of a single mi-
crowave spectograph continuous-recording attachment."
Goodfellow looked stunned. Lanning followed up his advantage by
saying, "I only ask that you put it up to whatever group makes the deci-

98
Isaac Asimov
sions here. I would be glad to speak to them if they want more informa-
tion."
"Well," Goodfellow said doubtfully, "I can bring it up at next week's
Senate meeting. I can't promise that will do any good, though."
"Naturally," said Lanning.
The Defense Attorney was short and stubby and carried himself
rather portentously, a stance that had the effect of accentuating his dou-
ble chin. He stared at Professor Goodfellow, once that witness had been
handed over, and said, "You agreed rather readily, did you not?"
The Professor said briskly, "I suppose I was anxious to be rid of Dr.
Lanning. I would have agreed to anything."
"With the intention of forgetting about it after he left?"
"Well—"
"Nevertheless, you did present the matter to a meeting of the Execu-
tive Board of the University Senate."
"Yes, I did."
"So that you agreed in good faith with Dr. Lanning's suggestions.
You weren't just going along with a gag. You actually agreed enthusi-
astically, did you not?"
"I merely followed ordinary procedures."
"As a matter of fact, you weren't as upset about the robot as you
now claim you were. You know the Three Laws of Robotics and you
knew them at the time of your interview with Dr. Lanning."
"Well, yes."
"And you were perfectly willing to leave a robot at large and unat-
tended."
"Dr. Lanning assured me—"
"Surely you would never have accepted his assurance if you had had
the slightest fear that the robot might be in the least dangerous,"
The professor began frigidly, "I had every faith in the word—"
"That is all," said Defense abruptly.
As Professor Goodfellow, more than a bit ruffled, stood down, Jus-
tice Shane leaned forward and said, "Since I am not a robotics man my-
self, I would appreciate knowing precisely what the Three Laws of
Robotics are. Would Dr. Lanning quote them for the benefit of the
court?"
Dr. Lanning looked startled. He had been virtually bumping heads

Galley Slave	99
with the gray-haired woman at his side. He rose to his feet now and the
woman looked up, too—expressionlessly.
Dr. Lanning said, "Very well, Your Honor." He paused as though
about to launch into an oration and said, with laborious clarity, "First
Law: a robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow
a human being to come to harm. Second Law: a robot must obey the
orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would
conflict with the First Law. Third Law: a robot must protect its own ex-
istence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Sec-
ond Laws."
"I see," said the judge, taking rapid notes. "These Laws are built into
every robot, are they?"
"Into every one. That will be borne out by any roboticist."
"And into Robot EZ-27 specifically?"
"Yes, Your Honor."
"You will probably be required to repeat those statements under
oath."
"I am ready to do so, Your Honor."
He sat down again.
Dr. Susan Calvin, robopsychologist-in-chief for U.S. Robots, who
was the gray-haired woman sitting next to Lanning, looked at her titular
superior without favor, but then she showed favor to no human being.
She said, "Was Goodfellow's testimony accurate, Alfred?"
"Essentially," muttered Lanning. "He wasn't as nervous as all that
about the robot and he was anxious enough to talk business with me
when he heard the price. But there doesn't seem to be any drastic dis-
tortion."
Dr. Calvin said thoughtfully, "It might have been wise to put the
price higher than a thousand."
"We were anxious to place Easy."
"I know. Too anxious, perhaps. They'll try to make it look as though
we had an ulterior motive."
Lanning looked exasperated. "We did. I admitted that at the Univer-
sity Senate meeting."
"They can make it look as if we had one beyond the one we ad-
mitted."
Scott Robertson, son of the founder of U.S. Robots and still owner of
a majority of the stock, leaned over from Dr. Calvin's other side and

100
Isaac Asimov
said in a kind of explosive whisper, "Why can't you get Easy to talk so
we'll know where we're at?"
"You know he can't talk about it, Mr. Robertson."
"Make him. You're the psychologist, Dr. Calvin. Make him."
"If I'm the psychologist, Mr. Robertson," said Susan Calvin coldly,
"let me make the decisions. My robot will not be made to do anything
at the price of his well-being."
Robertson frowned and might have answered, but Justice Shane was
tapping his gavel in a polite sort of way and they grudgingly fell silent.
Francis J. Hart, head of the Department of English and Dean of
Graduate Studies, was on the stand. He was a plump man, meticulously
dressed in dark clothing of a conservative cut, and possessing several
strands of hair traversing the pink top of his cranium. He sat well back
in the witness chair with his hands folded neatly in his lap and display-
ing, from time to time, a tight-lipped smile.
He said, "My first connection with the matter of the Robot EZ-27
was on the occasion of the session of the University Senate Executive
Committee at which the subject was introduced by Professor Good-
fellow. Thereafter, on the 10th of April of last year, we held a special
meeting on the subject, during which I was in the chair."
"Were minutes kept of the meeting of the Executive Committee? Of
the special meeting, that is?"
"Well, no. It was a rather unusual meeting." The dean smiled briefly.
"We thought it might remain confidential."
"What transpired at the meeting?"
Dean Hart was not entirely comfortable as chairman of that meeting.
Nor did the other members assembled seem completely calm. Only Dr.
Lanning appeared at peace with himself. His tall, gaunt figure and the
shock of white hair that crowned him reminded Hart of portraits he had
seen of Andrew Jackson.
Samples of the robot's work lay scattered along the central regions of
the table and the reproduction of a graph drawn by the robot was now
in the hands of Professor Minott of Physical Chemistry. The chemist's
lips were pursed in obvious approval.
Hart cleared his throat and said, "There seems no doubt that the
robot can perform certain routine tasks with adequate competence. I
have gone over these, for instance, just before coming in, and there is
very little to find fault with."

Galley Slave
101
He picked up a long sheet of printing, some three times as long as the
average book page. It was a sheet of galley proof, designed to be cor-
rected by authors before the type was set up in page form. Along both
of the wide margins of the galley were proofmarks, neat and superbly
legible. Occasionally, a word of print was crossed out and a new word
substituted in the margin in characters so fine and regular it might easily
have been print itself. Some of the corrections were blue to indicate the
original mistake had been the author's, a few in red, where the printer
had been wrong.
"Actually," said Lanning, "there is less than very little to find fault
with. I should say there is nothing at all to find fault with, Dr. Hart. I'm
sure the corrections are perfect, insofar as the original manuscript was.
If the manuscript against which this galley was corrected was at fault in
a matter of fact rattier than of English, the robot is not competent to
correct it."
"We accept that. However, the robot corrected word order on occa-
sion and I don't think the rules of English are sufficiently hidebound for
us to be sure that in each case the robot's choice was the correct one."
"Easy's positronic brain," said Lanning, showing large teeth as he
smiled, "has been molded by the contents of all the standard works on
the subject. I'm sure you cannot point to a case where the robot's choice
was definitely the incorrect one."
Professor Minott looked up from the graph he still held. "The ques-
tion in my mind, Dr. Lanning, is why we need a robot at all, with all the
difficulties in public relations that would entail. The science of automa-
tion has surely reached the point where your company could design a
machine, an ordinary computer of a type known and accepted by the
public, that would correct galleys."
"I am sure we could," said Lanning stiffly, "but such a machine
would require that the galleys be translated into special symbols or, at
the least, transcribed on tapes. Any corrections would emerge in sym-
bols. You would need to keep men employed translating words to sym-
bols, symbols to words. Furthermore, such a computer could do no
other job. It couldn't prepare the graph you hold in your hand, for in-
stance."
Minott grunted.
Lanning went on. "The hallmark of the positronic robot is its flex-
ibility. It can do a number of jobs. It is designed like a man so that it
can use all the tools and machines that have, after all, been designed to

102
Isaac Asimov
be used by a man. It can talk to you and you can talk to it. You can ac-
tually reason with it up to a point. Compared to even a simple robot, an
ordinary computer with a nonpositronic brain is only a heavy adding
machine."
Goodfellow looked up and said, "If we all talk and reason with the
robot, what are the chances of our confusing it? I suppose it doesn't
have the capability of absorbing an infinite amount of data."
"No, it hasn't. But it should last five years with ordinary use. It will
know when it will require clearing, and the company will do the job
without charge."
"The company will?"
"Yes. The company reserves the right to service the robot outside the
ordinary course of its duties. It is one reason we retain control of our
positronic robots and lease rather than sell them. In the pursuit of its
ordinary functions, any robot can be directed by any man. Outside its
ordinary functions, a robot requires expert handling, and that we can
give it. For instance, any of you might clear an EZ robot to an extent
by telling it to forget this item or that. But you would be almost certain
to phrase the order in such a way as to cause it to forget too much or
too little. We would detect such tampering, because we have built-in
safeguards. However, since there is no need for clearing the robot in its
ordinary work, or for doing other useless things, this raises no
problem."
Dean Hart touched his head as though to make sure his carefully cul-
tivated strands lay evenly distributed and said, "You are anxious to
have us take the machine. Yet surely it is a losing proposition for U.S.
Robots. One thousand a year is a ridiculously low price. Is it that you
hope through this to rent other such machines to other universities at a
more reasonable price?"
"Certainly that's a fair hope," said Lanning.
"But even so, the number of machines you could rent would be lim-
ited. I doubt if you could make it a paying proposition."
Lanning put his elbows on the table and earnestly leaned forward.
"Let me put it bluntly, gentlemen. Robots cannot be used on Earth, ex-
cept in certain special cases, because of prejudice against them on the
part of the public. U.S. Robots is a highly successful corporation with
our extraterrestrial and space-flight markets alone, to say nothing of our
computer subsidiaries. However, we are concerned with more than
profits alone. It is our firm belief that the use of robots on Earth itself

Galley Slave
103
would mean a better life for all eventually, even if a certain amount of
economic dislocation resulted at first.
"The labor unions are naturally against us, but surely we may expect
cooperation from the large universities. The robot, Easy, will help you
by relieving you of scholastic drudgery—by assuming, if you permit it,
the role of galley slave for you. Other universities and research institu-
tions will follow your lead, and if it works out, then perhaps other ro-
bots of other types may be placed and the public's objections to them
broken down by stages."
Minott murmured, "Today Northeastern University, tomorrow the
world."
Angrily, Lanning whispered to Susan Calvin, "I wasn't nearly that el-
oquent and they weren't nearly that reluctant. At a thousand a year,
they were jumping to get Easy. Professor Minott told me he'd never
seen as beautiful a job as that graph he was holding and there was no
mistake on the galley or anywhere else. Hart admitted it freely."
The severe vertical lines on Dr. Calvin's face did not soften. "You
should have demanded more money than they could pay, Alfred, and
let them beat you down."
"Maybe," he grumbled.
Prosecution was not quite done with Professor Hart. "After Dr. Lan-
ning left, did you vote on whether to accept Robot EZ-27?"
"Yes, we did."
"With what result?"
"In favor of acceptance, by majority vote."
"What would you say influenced the vote?"
Defense objected immediately.
Prosecution rephrased the question. "What influenced you, person-
ally, in your individual vote? You did vote in favor, I think."
"I voted in favor, yes. I did so largely because I was impressed by
Dr. Lanning's feeling that it was our duty as members of the world's in-
tellectual leadership to allow robotics to help Man in the solutions of
his problems."
"In other words, Dr. Lanning talked you into it."
"That's his job. He did it very well."
"Your witness."
Defense strode up to the witness chair and surveyed Professor Hart

104
Isaac Asimov
for a long moment. He said, "In reality, you were all pretty eager to
have Robot EZ-27 in your employ, weren't you?"
"We thought that if it could do the work, it might be useful."
"If it could do the work? I understand you examined the samples of
Robot EZ-27's original work with particular care on the day of the
meeting which you have just described."
"Yes, I did. Since the machine's work dealt primarily with the han-
dling of the English language, and since that is my field of competence,
it seemed logical that I be the one chosen to examine the work."
"Very good. Was there anything on display on the table at the time
of the meeting which was less than satisfactory? I have all the material
here as exhibits. Can you point to a single unsatisfactory item?"
"Well-"
"It's a simple question. Was there one single solitary unsatisfactory
item? You inspected it. Was there?"
The English professor frowned. "There wasn't."
"I also have some samples of work done by Robot EZ-27 during the
course of his 14-month employ at Northeastern. Would you examine
these and tell me if there is anything wrong with them in even one par-
ticular?"
Hart snapped, "When he did make a mistake, it was a beauty."
"Answer my question," thundered Defense, "and only the question I
am putting to you! Is there anything wrong with the material?"
Dean Hart looked cautiously at each item. "Well, nothing."
"Barring the matter concerning which we are here engaged, do you
know of any mistakes on the part of EZ-27?"
"Barring the matter for which this trial is being held, no."
Defense cleared his throat as though to signal end of paragraph. He
said, "Now about the vote concerning whether Robot EZ-27 was to be
employed or not. You said there was a majority in favor. What was the
actual vote?"
"Thirteen to one, as I remember."
"Thirteen to one! More than just a majority, wouldn't you say?"
"No, sir!" All the pedant in Dean Hart was aroused. "In the English
language, the word 'majority' means 'more than half.' Thirteen out of
fourteen is a majority, nothing more."
"But an almost unanimous one."
"A majority all the same!"
Defense switched ground. "And who was the lone holdout?"

Galley Slave
105
Dean Hart looked acutely uncomfortable. "Professor Simon Nin-
heimer."
Defense pretended astonishment. "Professor Ninheimer? The head of
the Department of Sociology?"
"Yes, sir."
"The plaintiff?"
"Yes, sir."
Defense pursed his lips. "In other words, it turns out that the man
bringing the action for payment of $750,000 damages against my client,
United States Robot and Mechanical Men, Incorporated, was the one
who from the beginning opposed the use of the robot—although every-
one else on the Executive Committee of the University Senate was per-
suaded that it was a good idea."
"He voted against the motion, as was his right."
"You didn't mention in your description of the meeting any remarks
made by Professor Ninheimer. Did he make any?"
"I think he spoke."
"You think?"
"Well, he did speak."
"Against using the robot?"
"Yes."
"Was he violent about it?"
Dean Hart paused. "He was vehement."
Defense grew confidential. "How long have you known Professor
Ninheimer, Dean Hart?"
"About twelve years."
"Reasonably well?"
"I should say so, yes."
"Knowing him, then, would you say he was the kind of man who
might continue to bear resentment against a robot, all the more so be-
cause an adverse vote had—"
Prosecution drowned out the remainder of the question with an indig-
nant and vehement objection of his own. Defense motioned the witness
down and Justice Shane called luncheon recess.
Robertson mangled his sandwich. The corporation would not founder
for loss of three-quarters of a million, but the loss would do it no par-
ticular good. He was conscious, moreover, that there would be a much
more costly long-term setback in public relations.

106
Isaac Asimov
He said sourly, "Why all this business about how Easy got into the
university? What do they hope to gain?"
The Attorney for Defense said quietly, "A court action is like a chess
game, Mr. Robertson. The winner is usually the one who can see more
moves ahead, and my friend at the prosecutor's table is no beginner.
They can show damage; that's no problem. Their main effort lies in an-
ticipating our defense. They must be counting on us to try to show that
Easy couldn't possibly have committed the offense—because of the
Laws of Robotics."
"All right," said Robertson, "that is our defense. An absolutely air-
tight one."
"To a robotics engineer. Not necessarily to a judge. They're setting
themselves up a position from which they can demonstrate that EZ-27
was no ordinary robot. It was the first of its type to be offered to the
public. It was an experimental model that needed field testing and the
university was the only decent way to provide such testing. That would
look plausible in the light of Dr. Lanning's strong efforts to place the
robot and the willingness of U.S. Robots to lease it for so little. The
prosecution would then argue that the field test proved Easy to have
been a failure. Now do you see the purpose of what's been going on?"
"But EZ-27 was a perfectly good model," argued Robertson.
"It was the twenty-seventh in production."
"Which is really a bad point," said Defense somberly. "What was
wrong with the first twenty-six? Obviously something. Why shouldn't
there be something wrong with the twenty-seventh, too?"
"There was nothing wrong with the first twenty-six except that they
weren't complex enough for the task. These were the first positronic
brains of the sort to be constructed and it was rather hit-and-miss to
begin with. But the Three Laws held in all of them! No robot is so im-
perfect that the Three Laws don't hold."
"Dr. Lanning has explained this to me, Mr. Robertson, and I am
willing to take his word for it. The judge, however, may not be. We are
expecting a decision from an honest and intelligent man who knows no
robotics and thus may be led astray. For instance, if you or Dr. Lanning
or Dr. Calvin were to say on the stand that any positronic brains were
constructed 'hit-and-miss,' as you just did, Prosecution would tear you
apart in cross-examination. Nothing would salvage our case. So that's
something to avoid."
Robertson growled, "If only Easy would talk."

Galley Slave
107
Defense shrugged. "A robot is incompetent as a witness, so that
would do us no good."
"At least we'd know some of the facts. We'd know how it came to do
such a thing."
Susan Calvin fired up. A dullish red touched her cheeks and her
voice had a trace of warmth in it. "We know how Easy came to do it. It
was ordered to! I've explained this to counsel and I'll explain it to you
now."
"Ordered by whom?" asked Robertson in honest astonishment. (No
one ever told him anything, he thought resentfully. These research peo-
ple considered themselves the owners of U.S. Robots, by God!)
"By the plaintiff," said Dr. Calvin.
"In heaven's name, why?"
"I don't know why yet. Perhaps just that we might be sued, that he
might gain some cash." There were blue glints in her eyes as she said
that.
"Then why doesn't Easy say so?"
"Isn't that obvious? It's been ordered to keep quiet about the
matter."
"Why should that be obvious?" demanded Robertson truculently.
"Well, it's obvious to me. Robot psychology is my profession. If
Easy will not answer questions about the matter directly, he will answer
questions on the fringe of the matter. By measuring increased hesitation
in his answers as the central question is approached, by measuring the
area of blankness and the intensity of counter-potentials set up, it is
possible to tell with scientific precision that his troubles are the result of
an order not to talk, with its strength based on First Law. In other
words, he's been told that if he talks, harm will be done a human being.
Presumably harm to the unspeakable Professor Ninheimer, the plaintiff,
who, to the robot, would seem a human being."
"Well, then," said Robertson, "can't you explain that if he keeps
quiet, harm will be done to U.S. Robots?"
"U.S. Robots is not a human being and the First Law of Robotics
does not recognize a corporation as a person the way ordinary laws do.
Besides, it would be dangerous to try to lift this particular sort of inhibi-
tion. The person who laid it on could lift it off least dangerously, be-
cause the robot's motivations in that respect are centered on that per-
son. Any other course—" She shook her head and grew almost
impassioned. "I won't let the robot be damaged!"

108
Isaac Asimov
Lanning interrupted with the air of bringing sanity to the problem.
"It seems to me that we have only to prove a robot incapable of the act
of which Easy is accused. We can do that."
"Exactly," said Defense, in annoyance. "You can do that. The only
witnesses capable of testifying to Easy's condition and to the nature of
Easy's state of mind are employees of U.S. Robots. The judge can't pos-
sibly accept their testimony as unprejudiced."
"How can he deny expert testimony?"
"By refusing to be convinced by it. That's his right as the judge.
Against the alternative that a man like Professor Ninheimer deliberately
set about ruining his own reputation, even for a sizeable sum of money,
the judge isn't going to accept the technicalities of your engineers. The
judge is a man, after all. If he has to choose between a man doing an
impossible thing and a robot doing an impossible thing, he's quite likely
to decide in favor of the man."
"A man can do an impossible thing," said Lanning, "because we
don't know all the complexities of the human mind and we don't know
what, in a given human mind, is impossible and what is not. We do
know what is really impossible to a robot."
"Well, we'll see if we can't convince the judge of that," Defense
replied wearily.
"If all you say is so," rumbled Robertson, "I don't see how you can."
"We'll see. It's good to know and be aware of the difficulties in-
volved, but let's not be too downhearted. I've tried to look ahead a few
moves in the chess game, too." With a stately nod in the direction of the
robopsychologist, he added, "With the help of the good lady here."
Lanning looked from one to the other and said, "What the devil is
this?"
But the bailiff thrust his head into the room and announced some-
what breathlessly that the trial was about to resume.
They took their seats, examining the man who had started all the
trouble.
Simon Ninheimer owned a fluffy head of sandy hair, a face that nar-
rowed past a beaked nose toward a pointed chin, and a habit of some-
times hesitating before key words in his conversation that gave him an
air of a seeker after an almost unbearable precision. When he said,
"The Sun rises in the—uh—east," one was certain he had given due con-
sideration to the possibility that it might at some time rise in the west.

Galley Slave
109
Prosecution said, "Did you oppose employment of Robot EZ-27 by
the university?"
"I did, sir."
"Why was that?"
"I did not feel that we understood the-uh—motives of U.S. Robots
thoroughly. I mistrusted their anxiety to place the robot with us."
"Did you feel that it was capable of doing the work that it was
allegedly designed to do?"
"I know for a fact that it was not."
"Would you state your reasons?"
Simon Ninheimer's book, entitled Social Tensions Involved in Space-
Flight and Their Resolution, had been eight years in the making. Nin-
heimer's search for precision was not confined to his habits of speech,
and in a subject like sociology, almost inherently imprecise, it left him
breathless.
Even with the material in galley proofs, he felt no sense of comple-
tion. Rather the reverse, in fact. Staring at the long strips of print, he
felt only the itch to tear the lines of type apart and rearrange them
differently.
Jim Baker, Instructor and soon to be Assistant Professor of Sociol-
ogy, found Ninheimer, three days after the first batch of galleys had ar-
rived from the printer, staring at the handful of paper in abstraction.
The galleys came in three copies: one for Ninheimer to proofread, one
for Baker to proofread independently, and a third, marked "Original,"
which was to receive the final corrections, a combination of those made
by Ninheimer and by Baker, after a conference at which possible
conflicts and disagreements were ironed out. This had been their policy
on the several papers on which they had collaborated in the past three
years and it worked well.
Baker, young and ingratiatingly soft-voiced, had his own copies of
the galleys in his hand. He said eagerly, "I've done the first chapter and
they contain some typographical beauts."
"The first chapter always has them," said Ninheimer distantly.
"Do you want to go over it now?"
Ninheimer brought his eyes to grave focus on Baker. "I haven't done
anything on the galleys, Jim. I don't think I'll bother."
Baker looked confused. "Not bother?"
Ninheimer pursed his lips. "I've asked about the—uh—workload of

110
Isaac Asimov
the machine. After all, he was originally—uh—promoted as a proof-
reader. They've set a schedule."
"The machine? You mean Easy?"
"I believe that is the foolish name they gave it."
"But, Dr. Ninheimer, I thought you were staying clear of it!"
"I seem to be the only one doing so. Perhaps I ought to take my
share of the—uh—advantage."
"Oh. Well, I seem to have wasted time on this first chapter, then,"
said the younger man ruefully.
"Not wasted. We can compare the machine's result with yours as a
check."
"If you want to, but-"
"Yes?"
"I doubt that we'll find anything wrong with Easy's work. It's sup-
posed never to have made a mistake."
"I dare say," said Ninheimer dryly.
The first chapter was brought in again by Baker four days later. This
time it was Ninheimer's copy, fresh from the special annex that had
been built to house Easy and the equipment it used.
Baker was jubilant. "Dr. Ninheimer, it not only caught everything I
caught—it found a dozen errors I missed! The whole thing took it twelve
minutes!"
Ninheimer looked over the sheaf, with the neatly printed marks and
symbols in the margins. He said, "It is not as complete as you and I
would have made it. We should have entered an insert on Suzuki's work
on the neurological effects of low gravity."
"You mean his paper in Sociological Reviews?"
"Of course."
"Well, you can't expect impossibilities of Easy. It can't read the liter-
ature for us."
"I realize that. As a matter of fact, I have prepared the insert. I will
see the machine and make certain it knows how to—uh—handle inserts."
"It win know."
"I prefer to make certain."
Ninheimer had to make an appointment to see Easy, and then could
get nothing better than fifteen minutes in the late evening.
But the fifteen minutes turned out to be ample. Robot EZ-27 under-
stood the matter of inserts at once.
Ninheimer found himself uncomfortable at close quarters with the

Galley Slave
111
robot for the first time. Almost automatically, as though it were human,
he found himself asking, "Are you happy with your work?"
"Most happy, Professor Ninheimer," said Easy solemnly, the pho-
tocells that were its eyes gleaming their normal deep red.
"You know me?"
"From the fact that you present me with additional material to in-
clude in the galleys, it follows that you are the author. The author's
name, of course, is at the head of each sheet of galley proof."
"I see. You make—uh—deductions, then. Tell me—" He couldn't
resist the question—"What do you think of the book so far?"
Easy said, "I find it very pleasant to work with."
"Pleasant? That is an odd word for a—uh—a mechanism without
emotion. I've been told you have no emotion."
"The words of your book go in accordance with my circuits," Easy
explained. "They set up little or no counter-potentials. It is in my brain-
paths to translate this mechanical fact into a word such as 'pleasant.'
The emotional context is fortuitous."
"I see. Why do you find the book pleasant?"
"It deals with human beings, Professor, and not with inorganic mate-
rials or mathematical symbols. Your book attempts to understand
human beings and to help increase human happiness."
"And this is what you try to do and so my book goes in accordance
with your circuits? Is that it?"
"That is it, Professor."
The fifteen minutes were up. Ninheimer left and went to the univer-
sity library, which was on the point of closing. He kept them open long
enough to find an elementary text on robotics. He took it home with
him.
Except for occasional insertion of late material, the galleys went to
Easy and from him to the publishers with little intervention from Nin-
heimer at first—and none at all later.
Baker said, a little uneasily, "It almost gives me a feeling of
uselessness."
"It should give you a feeling of having time to begin a new project,"
said Ninheimer, without looking up from the notations he was making
in the current issue of Social Science Abstracts.
"I'm just not used to it. I keep worrying about the galleys. It's silly, I
know."
"It is."

112
Isaac Asimov
"The other day I got a couple of sheets before Easy sent them off
to-"
"What!" Ninheimer looked up, scowling. The copy of Abstracts slid
shut. "Did you disturb the machine at its work?"
"Only for a minute. Everything was all right. Oh, it changed one
word. You referred to something as 'criminal'; it changed the word to
'reckless.' It thought the second adjective fit in better with the context."
Ninheimer grew thoughtful. "What did you think?"
"You know, I agreed with it. I let it stand."
Ninheimer turned in his swivel chair to face his young associate. "See
here, I wish you wouldn't do this again. If I am to use the machine, I
wish the—uh—full advantage of it. If I am to use it and lose your—uh—
services anyway because you supervise it when the whole point is that it
requires no supervision, I gain nothing. Do you see?"
"Yes, Dr. Ninheimer," said Baker, subdued.
The advance copies of Social Tensions arrived in Dr. Ninheimer's
office on the 8th of May. He looked through it briefly, flipping pages
and pausing to read a paragraph here and there. Then he put his copies
away.
As he explained later, he forgot about it. For eight years, he had
worked at it, but now, and for months in the past, other interests had
engaged him while Easy had taken the load of the book off his shoul-
ders. He did not even think to donate the usual complimentary copy to
the university library. Even Baker, who had thrown himself into work
and had steered clear of the department head since receiving his rebuke
at their last meeting, received no copy.
On the 16th of June that stage ended. Ninheimer received a phone
call and stared at the image in the 'plate with surprise.
"Speidell! Are you in town?"
"No, sir. I'm in Cleveland." Speidell's voice trembled with emotion.
"Then why the call?"
"Because I've just been looking through your new book! Ninheimer,
are you mad? Have you gone insane?"
Ninheimer stiffened. "Is something-uh—wrong?" he asked in alarm.
"Wrong? I refer you to page 562. What in blazes do you mean by in-
terpreting my work as you do? Where in the paper cited do I make the
claim that the criminal personality is nonexistent and that it is the law-
enforcement agencies that are the true criminals? Here, let me quote—"

Galley Slave
113
"Wait! Wait!" cried Ninheimer, trying to find the page. "Let me see.
Let me see. . . Good God!"
"Well?"
"Speidell, I don't see how this could have happened. I never wrote
this."
"But that's what's printed! And that distortion isn't the worst. You
look at page 690 and imagine what Ipatiev is going to do to you when
he sees the hash you've made of his findings! Look, Ninheimer, the
book is riddled with this sort of thing. I don't know what you were
thinking of—but there's nothing to do but get the book off the market.
And you'd better be prepared for extensive apologies at the next Asso-
ciation meeting!"
"Speidell, listen to me—"
But Speidell had flashed off with a force that had the 'plate glowing
with after-images for fifteen seconds.
It was then that Ninheimer went through the book and began mark-
ing off passages with red ink.
He kept his temper remarkably well when he faced Easy again, but
his lips were pale. He passed the book to Easy and said, "Will you read
the marked passages on pages 562, 631, 664 and 690?"
Easy did so in four glances. "Yes, Professor Ninheimer."
"This is not as I had it in the original galleys."
"No, sir. It is not."
"Did you change it to read as it now does?"
"Yes, sir."
"Why?"
"Sir, the passages as they read in your version were most un-
complimentary to certain groups of human beings. I felt it advisable to
change the wording to avoid doing them harm."
"How dared you do such a thing?"
"The First Law, Professor, does not let me, through any inaction,
allow harm to come to human beings. Certainly, considering your repu-
tation in the world of sociology and the wide circulation your book
would receive among scholars, considerable harm would come to a
number of the human beings you speak of."
"But do you realize the harm that will come to me now?"
"It was necessary to choose the alternative with less harm."
Professor Ninheimer, shaking with fury, staggered away. It was clear
to him that U.S. Robots would have to account to him for this.

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Isaac Asimov
* * *
There was some excitement at the defendants' table, which increased
as Prosecution drove the point home.
"Then Robot EZ-27 informed you that the reason for its action was
based on the First Law of Robotics?"
"That is correct, sir."
"That, in effect, it had no choice?"
"Yes, sir."
"It follows then that U.S. Robots designed a robot that would of ne-
cessity rewrite books to accord with its own conceptions of what was
right. And yet they palmed it off as simple proofreader. Would you say
that?"
Defense objected firmly at once, pointing out that the witness was
being asked for a decision on a matter in which he had no competence.
The judge admonished Prosecution in the usual terms, but there was no
doubt that the exchange had sunk home—not least upon the Attorney
for the Defense.
Defense asked for a short recess before beginning cross-examination,
using a legal technicality for the purpose that got him five minutes.
He leaned over toward Susan Calvin. "Is it possible, Dr. Calvin, that
Professor Ninheimer is telling the truth and that Easy was motivated by
the First Law?"
Calvin pressed her hps together, then said, "No. It isn't possible. The
last part of Ninheimer's testimony is deliberate perjury. Easy is not de-
signed to be able to judge matters at the stage of abstraction represented
by an advanced textbook on sociology. It would never be able to tell
that certain groups of humans would be harmed by a phrase in such a
book. Its mind is simply not built for that."
"I suppose, though, that we can't prove this to a layman," said De-
fense pessimistically.
"No," admitted Calvin. "The proof would be highly complex. Our
way out is still what it was. We must prove Ninheimer is lying, and
nothing he has said need change our plan of attack."
"Very well, Dr. Calvin," said Defense, "I must accept your word in
this. We'll go on as planned."
In the courtroom, the judge's gavel rose and fell and Dr. Ninheimer
took the stand once more. He smiled a little as one who feels his posi-
tion to be impregnable and rather enjoys the prospect of countering a
useless attack.

Galley Slave
115
Defense approached warily and began softly. "Dr. Ninheimer, do you
mean to say that you were completely unaware of these alleged changes
in your manuscript until such time as Dr. Speidell called you on the
16th of June?"
"That is correct, sir."
"Did you never look at the galleys after Robot EZ-27 had proofread
them?"
"At first I did, but it seemed to me a useless task. I relied on the
claims of U.S. Robots. The absurd—uh—changes were made only in the
last quarter of the book after the robot, I presume, had learned enough
about sociology—"
"Never mind your presumptions!" said Defense. "I understood your
colleague, Dr. Baker, saw the later galleys on at least one occasion. Do
you remember testifying to that effect?"
"Yes, sir. As I said, he told me about seeing one page, and even
there, the robot had changed a word."
Again Defense broke in. "Don't you find it strange, sir, that after
over a year of implacable hostility to the robot, after having voted
against it in the first place and having refused to put it to any use what-
ever, you suddenly decided to put your book, your magnum opus, into
its hands?"
"I don't find that strange. I simply decided that I might as well use the
machine."
"And you were so confident of Robot EZ-27—all of a sudden—that
you didn't even bother to check your galleys?"
"I told you I was—uh—persuaded by U.S. Robots' propaganda."
"So persuaded that when your colleague, Dr. Baker, attempted to
check on the robot, you berated him soundly?"
"I didn't berate him. I merely did not wish to have him-uh—waste
his time. At least, I thought then it was a waste of time, I did not see
the significance of that change in the word at the—"
Defense said with heavy sarcasm, "I have no doubt you were in-
structed to bring up that point in order that the word change be entered
in the record—" He altered his line to forestall objection and said, "The
point is that you were extremely angry with Dr. Baker."
"No, sir. Not angry."
"You didn't give him a copy of your book when you received it."
"Simple forgetfulness. I didn't give the library its copy, either." Nin-
heimer smiled cautiously. "Professors are notoriously absentminded."

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Isaac Asimov
Defense said, "Do you find it strange that, after more than a year of
perfect work, Robot EZ-27 should go wrong on your book? On a book,
that is, which was written by you, who were, of all people, the most
implacably hostile to the robot?"
"My book was the only sizable work dealing with mankind that it
had to face. The Three Laws of Robotics took hold then."
"Several times, Dr. Ninheimer," said Defense, "you have tried to
sound like an expert on robotics. Apparently you suddenly grew inter-
ested in robotics and took out books on the subject from the library.
You testified to that effect, did you not?"
"One book, sir. That was the result of what seems to me to have
been—uh—natural curiosity."
"And it enabled you to explain why the robot should, as you allege,
have distorted your book?"
"Yes, sir."
"Very convenient. But are you sure your interest in robotics was not
intended to enable you to manipulate the robot for your own pur-
poses?"
Ninheimer flushed. "Certainly not, sir!"
Defense's voice rose. "In fact, are you sure the alleged altered pas-
sages were not as you had them in the first place?"
The sociologist half rose. "That's—uh—uh—ridiculous! I have the gal-
leys-"
He had difficulty speaking and Prosecution rose to insert smoothly,
"With your permission, Your Honor, I intend to introduce as evidence
the set of galleys given by Dr. Ninheimer to Robot EZ-27 and the set
of galleys mailed by Robot EZ-27 to the publishers. I will do so now if
my esteemed colleague so desires, and will be willing to allow a recess
in order that the two sets of galleys may be compared."
Defense waved his hand impatiently. "That is not necessary. My
honored opponent can introduce those galleys whenever he chooses. I'm
sure they will show whatever discrepancies are claimed by the plaintiff
to exist. What I would like to know of the witness, however, is whether
he also has in his possession Dr. Baker's galleys."
"Dr. Baker's galleys?" Ninheimer frowned. He was not yet quite
master of himself.
"Yes, Professor! I mean Dr. Baker's galleys. You testified to the
effect that Dr. Baker had received a separate copy of the galleys. I will
have the clerk read your testimony if you are suddenly a selective type

Galley Slave
117
of amnesiac. Or is it just that professors are, as you say, notoriously ab-
sent-minded?"
Ninheimer said, "I remember Dr. Baker's galleys. They weren't nec-
essary once the job was placed in the care of the proofreading ma-
chine—"
"So you burned them?"
"No. I put them in the waste basket."
"Burned them, dumped them—what's the difference? The point is you
got rid of them."
"There's nothing wrong—" began Ninheimer weakly.
"Nothing wrong?" thundered Defense. "Nothing wrong except that
there is now no way we can check to see if, on certain crucial galley
sheets, you might not have substituted a harmless blank one from Dr.
Baker's copy for a sheet in your own copy which you had deliberately
mangled in such a way as to force the robot to—"
Prosecution shouted a furious objection. Justice Shane leaned for-
ward, his round face doing its best to assume an expression of anger
equivalent to the intensity of the emotion felt by the man.
The judge said, "Do you have any evidence, Counselor, for the ex-
traordinary statement you have just made?"
Defense said quietly, "No direct evidence, Your Honor. But I would
like to point out that, viewed properly, the sudden conversion of the
plaintiff from anti-roboticism, his sudden interest in robotics, his refusal
to check the galleys or to allow anyone else to check them, his careful
neglect to allow anyone to see the book immediately after publication,
all very clearly point—"
"Counselor," interrupted the judge impatiently, "this is not the place
for esoteric deductions. The plaintiff is not on trial. Neither are you
prosecuting him. I forbid this line of attack and I can only point out
that the desperation that must have induced you to do this cannot help
but weaken your case. If you have legitimate questions to ask, Counse-
lor, you may continue with your cross-examination. But I warn you
against another such exhibition in this courtroom."
"I have no further questions, Your Honor."
Robertson whispered heatedly as council for the Defense returned to
his table, "What good did that do, for God's sake? The judge is dead set
against you now."
Defense replied calmly, "But Ninheimer is good and rattled. And
we've set him up for tomorrow's move. He'll be ripe."

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Isaac Asimov
Susan Calvin nodded gravely.
The rest of Prosecution's case was mild in comparison. Dr. Baker
was called and bore out most of Ninheimer's testimony. Drs. Speidell
and Ipatiev were called, and they expounded most movingly on their
shock and dismay at certain quoted passages in Dr. Ninheimer's book.
Both gave their professional opinion that Dr. Ninheimer's professional
reputation had been seriously impaired.
The galleys were introduced in evidence, as were copies of the
finished book.
Defense cross-examined no more that day. Prosecution rested and the
trial was recessed till the next morning.
Defense made his first motion at the beginning of the proceedings on
the second day. He requested that Robot EZ-27 be admitted as a spec-
tator to the proceedings.
Prosecution objected at once and Justice Shane called both to the
bench.
Prosecution said hotly, "This is obviously illegal. A robot may not be
in any edifice used by the general public."
"This courtroom," pointed out Defense, "is closed to all but those
having an immediate connection with the case."
"A large machine of known erratic behavior would disturb my client
and my witnesses by its very presence! It would make hash out of the
proceedings."
The judge seemed inclined to agree. He turned to Defense and said
rather unsympathetically, "What are the reasons for your request?"
Defense said, "It will be our contention that Robot EZ-27 could not
possibly, by the nature of its construction, have behaved as it has been
described as behaving. It will be necessary to present a few demon-
strations."
Prosecution said, "I don't see the point, Your Honor. Demon-
strations conducted by men employed at U.S. Robots are worth little as
evidence when U.S. Robots is the defendant."
"Your Honor," said Defense, "the validity of any evidence is for you
to decide, not for the Prosecuting Attorney. At least, that is my under-
standing."
Justice Shane, his prerogatives encroached upon, said, "Your under-
standing is correct. Nevertheless, the presence of a robot here does raise
important legal questions."

Galley Slave
119
"Surely, Your Honor, nothing that should be allowed to override the
requirements of justice. If the robot is not present, we are prevented
from presenting our only defense."
The judge considered. "There would be the question of transporting
the robot here."
"That is a problem with which U.S. Robots has frequently been
faced. We have a truck parked outside the courtroom, constructed ac-
cording to the laws governing the transportation of robots. Robot
EZ-27 is in a packing case inside with two men guarding it. The doors
to the truck are properly secured and all other necessary precautions
have been taken."
"You seem certain," said Justice Shane, in renewed ill-temper, "that
judgment on this point will be in your favor."
"Not at all, Your Honor. If it is not, we simply turn the truck about.
I have made no presumptions concerning your decision."
The judge nodded. "The request on the part of the Defense is
granted."
The crate was carried in on a large dolly and the two men who
handled it opened it. The courtroom was immersed in a dead silence.
Susan Calvin waited as the thick slabs of celluform went down, then
held out one hand. "Come, Easy."
The robot looked in her direction and held out its large metal arm. It
towered over her by two feet but followed meekly, like a child in the
clasp of its mother. Someone giggled nervously and choked it off at a
hard glare from Dr. Calvin.
Easy seated itself carefully in a large chair brought by the bailiff,
which creaked but held.
Defense said, "When it becomes necessary, Your Honor, we will
prove that this is actually Robot EZ-27, the specific robot in the employ
of Northeastern University during the period of time with which we are
concerned."
"Good," His Honor said. "That will be necessary. I, for one, have no
idea how you can tell one robot from another."
"And now," said Defense, "I would like to call my first witness to
the stand. Professor Simon Ninheimer, please."
The clerk hesitated, looked at the judge. Justice Shane asked, with
visible surprise, "You are calling the plaintiff as your witness?"
"Yes, Your Honor."
"I hope that you're aware that as long as he's your witness, you will

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Isaac Asimov
be allowed none of the latitude you might exercise if you were cross-ex-
amining an opposing witness."
Defense said smoothly, "My only purpose in all this is to arrive at
the truth. It will not be necessary to do more than ask a few polite ques-
tions."
"Well," said the judge dubiously, "you're the one handling the case.
Call the witness."
Ninheimer took the stand and was informed that he was still under
oath. He looked more nervous than he had the day before, almost ap-
prehensive.
But Defense looked at him benignly.
"Now, Professor Ninheimer, you are suing my clients in the amount
of $750,000."
"That is the-uh-sum. Yes."
"That is a great deal of money."
"I have suffered a great deal of harm."
"Surely not that much. The material in question involves only a few
passages in a book. Perhaps these were unfortunate passages, but after
all, books sometimes appear with curious mistakes in them."
Ninheimer's nostrils flared. "Sir, this book was to have been the cli-
max of my professional career! Instead, it makes me look like an in-
competent scholar, a perverter of the views held by my honored friends
and associates, and a believer of ridiculous and—uh—outmoded view-
points. My reputation is irretrievably shattered! I can never hold up my
head in any—uh—assemblage of scholars, regardless of the outcome of
this trial. I certainly cannot continue in my career, which has been the
whole of my life. The very purpose of my life has been—uh—aborted and
destroyed."
Defense made no attempt to interrupt the speech, but stared abstract-
edly at his fingernails as it went on.
He said very soothingly, "But surely, Professor Ninheimer, at your
present age, you could not hope to earn more than—let us be generous—
$150,000 during the remainder of your life. Yet you are asking the
court to award you five times as much."
Ninheimer said, with an even greater burst of emotion, "It is not in
my lifetime alone that I am ruined. I do not know for how many gener-
ations I shall be pointed at by sociologists as a—uh—a fool or maniac.
My real achievements will be buried and ignored. I am ruined not only
until the day of my death, but for all time to come, because there will

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121
always be people who will not believe that a robot made those inser-
tions-"
It was at this point that Robot EZ-27 rose to his feet. Susan Calvin
made no move to stop him. She sat motionless, staring straight ahead.
Defense sighed softly.
Easy's melodious voice carried clearly. It said, "I would like to ex-
plain to everyone that I did insert certain passages in the galley proofs
that seemed directly opposed to what had been there at first—"
Even the Prosecuting Attorney was too startled at the spectacle of a
seven-foot robot rising to address the court to be able to demand the
stopping of what was obviously a most irregular procedure.
When he could collect his wits, it was too late. For Ninheimer rose in
the witness chair, his face working.
He shouted wildly, "Damn you, you were instructed to keep your
mouth shut about—"
He ground to a choking halt, and Easy was silent, too.
Prosecution was on his feet now, demanding that a mistrial be de-
clared.
Justice Shane banged his gavel desperately. "Silence! Silence! Cer-
tainly there is every reason here to declare a mistrial, except that in the
interests of justice I would like to have Professor Ninheimer complete
his statement. I distinctly heard him say to the robot that the robot had
been instructed to keep its mouth shut about something. There was no
mention in your testimony, Professor Ninheimer, as to any instructions
to the robot to keep silent about anything!"
Ninheimer stared wordlessly at the judge.
Justice Shane said, "Did you instruct Robot EZ-27 to keep silent
about something? And if so, about what?"
"Your Honor—" began Ninheimer hoarsely, and couldn't continue.
The judge's voice grew sharp. "Did you in fact, order the inserts in
question to be made in the galleys and then order the robot to keep
quiet about your part in this?"
Prosecution objected vigorously, but Ninheimer shouted, "Oh, what's
the use? Yes! Yes!" And he ran from the witness stand. He was stopped
at the door by the bailiff and sank hopelessly into one of the last rows
of seats, head buried in both hands.
Justice Shane said, "It is evident to me that Robot EZ-27 was
brought here as a trick. Except for the fact that the trick served to pre-
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Isaac Asimov
the Defense in contempt. It is clear now, beyond any doubt, that the
plaintiff has committed what is to me a completely inexplicable fraud
since, apparently, he was knowingly ruining his career in the process—"
Judgment, of course, was for the defendant.
Dr. Susan Calvin had herself announced at Dr. Ninheimer's bachelor
quarters in University Hall. The young engineer who had driven the car
offered to go up with her, but she looked at him scornfully.
"Do you think he'll assault me? Wait down here."
Ninheimer was in no mood to assault anyone. He was packing, wast-
ing no time, anxious to be away before the adverse conclusion of the
trial became general knowledge.
He looked at Calvin with a queerly defiant air and said, "Are you
coming to warn me of a countersuit? If so, it will get you nothing. I
have no money, no job, no future. I can't even meet the costs of the
trial."
"If you're looking for sympathy," said Calvin coldly, "don't look for
it here. This was your doing. However, there will be no countersuit, nei-
ther of you nor of the university. We will even do what we can to keep
you from going to prison for perjury. We aren't vindictive."
"Oh, is that why I'm not already in custody for forswearing myself? I
had wondered. But then," he added bitterly, "why should you be vindic-
tive? You have what you want now."
"Some of what we want, yes," said Calvin. "The university will keep
Easy in its employ at a considerably higher rental fee. Furthermore, cer-
tain underground publicity concerning the trial will make it possible to
place a few more of the EZ models in other institutions without danger
of a repetition of this trouble."
"Then why have you come to see me?"
"Because I don't have all of what I want yet. I want to know why
you hate robots as you do. Even if you had won the case, your reputa-
tion would have been ruined. The money you might have obtained
could not have compensated for that. Would the satisfaction of your
hatred for robots have done so?"
"Are you interested in human minds, Dr. Calvin?" asked Ninheimer,
with acid mockery.
"Insofar as their reactions concern the welfare of robots, yes. For
that reason, I have learned a little of human psychology."
"Enough of it to be able to trick me!"

Galley Slave
123
"That wasn't hard," said Calvin, without pomposity. "The difficult
thing was doing it in such a way as not to damage Easy."
"It is like you to be more concerned for a machine than for a man."
He looked at her with savage contempt.
It left her unmoved. "It merely seems so, Professor Ninheimer. It is
only by being concerned for robots that one can truly be concerned for
twenty-first-century Man. You would understand this if you were a
roboticist."
"I have read enough robotics to know I don't want to be a ro-
boticist!"
"Pardon me, you have read a book on robotics. It has taught you
nothing. You learned enough to know that you could order a robot to
do many things, even to falsify a book, if you went about it properly.
You learned enough to know that you could not order him to forget
something entirely without risking detection, but you thought you could
order him into simple silence more safely. You were wrong."
"You guessed the truth from his silence?"
"It wasn't guessing. You were an amateur and didn't know enough to
cover your tracks completely. My only problem was to prove the matter
to the judge and you were kind enough to help us there, in your igno-
rance of the robotics you claim to despise."
"Is there any purpose in this discussion?" asked Ninheimer wearily.
"For me, yes," said Susan Calvin, "because I want you to understand
how completely you have misjudged robots. You silenced Easy by tell-
ing him that if he told anyone about your own distortion of the book,
you would lose your job. That set up a certain potential within Easy to-
ward silence, one that was strong enough to resist our efforts to break it
down. We would have damaged the brain if we had persisted.
"On the witness stand, however, you yourself put up a higher
counter-potential. You said that because people would think that you,
not a robot, had written the disputed passages in the book, you would
lose far more than just your job. You would lose your reputation, your
standing, your respect, your reason for living. You would lose the mem-
ory of you after death. A new and higher potential was set up by you—
and Easy talked."
"Oh, God," said Ninheimer, turning his head away.
Calvin was inexorable. She said, "Do you understand why he talked?
It was not to accuse you, but to defend you! It can be mathematically
shown that he was about to assume full blame for your crime, to deny

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Isaac Asimov
that you had anything to do with it. The First Law required that. He
was going to lie—to damage himself—to bring monetary harm to a cor-
poration. All that meant less to him than did the saving of you. If you
really understood robots and robotics, you would have let him talk. But
you did not understand, as I was sure you wouldn't, as I guaranteed to
the defense attorney that you wouldn't. You were certain, in your
hatred of robots, that Easy would act as a human being would act and
defend itself at your expense. So you flared out at him in panic—and de-
stroyed yourself."
Ninheimer said with feeling, "I hope some day your robots turn on
you and kill you!"
"Don't be foolish," said Calvin. "Now I want you to explain why
you've done all this."
Ninheimer grinned a distorted, humorless grin. "I am to dissect my
mind, am I, for your intellectual curiosity, in return for immunity from
a charge of perjury?"
"Put it that way if you like," said Calvin emotionlessly. "But ex-
plain."
"So that you can counter future antirobot attempts more efficiently?
With greater understanding?"
"I accept that."
"You know," said Ninheimer, "I'll tell you-just to watch it do you
no good at all. You can't understand human motivation. You can only
understand your damned machines because you're a machine yourself,
with skin on."
He was breathing hard and there was no hesitation in his speech, no
searching for precision. It was as though he had no further use for pre-
cision.
He said, "For two hundred and fifty years, the machine has been
replacing Man and destroying the handcraftsman. Pottery is spewed out
of molds and presses. Works of art have been replaced by identical
gimcracks stamped out on a die. Call it progress, if you wish! The artist
is restricted to abstractions, confined to the world of ideas. He must
design something in his mind—and then the machine does the rest.
"Do you suppose the potter is content with mental creation? Do you
suppose the idea is enough? That there is nothing in the feel of the clay
itself, in watching the thing grow as hand and mind work together? Do
you suppose the actual growth doesn't act as a feedback to modify and
improve the idea?"

Galley Slave
125
"You are not a potter," said Dr. Calvin.
"I am a creative artist! I design and build articles and books. There is
more to it than the mere thinking of words and of putting them in the
right order. If that were all, there would be no pleasure in it, no return.
"A book should take shape in the hands of the writer. One must ac-
tually see the chapters grow and develop. One must work and rework
and watch the changes take place beyond the original concept even.
There is taking the galleys in hand and seeing how the sentences look in
print and molding them again. There are a hundred contacts between a
man and his work at every stage of the game—and the contact itself is
pleasurable and repays a man for the work he puts into his creation
more than anything else could. Your robot would take all that away "
"So does a typewriter. So does a printing press. Do you propose to
return to the hand-illumination of manuscripts?"
"Typewriters and printing presses take away some, but your robot
would deprive us of all. Your robot takes over the galleys. Soon it, or
other robots, would take over the original writing, the searching of the
sources, the checking and cross-checking of passages, perhaps even the
deduction of conclusions. What would that leave the scholar? One thing
only—the barren decisions concerning what orders to give the robot
next! I want to save the future generations of the world of scholarship
from such a final hell. That meant more to me than even my own repu-
tation and so I set out to destroy U.S. Robots by whatever means."
"You were bound to fail," said Susan Calvin.
"I was bound to try," said Simon Ninheimer.
Calvin turned and left. She did her best to feel no pang of sympathy
for the broken man.
She did not entirely succeed.

ANGER
It has a use, the rage that shakes us and pours hormones into our
blood; that urges us to action and makes us insensible to pity and
pain. How would the great deeds of the world get done without
the push and shove of that trembling haze of crimson? And what
would we not give to undo the hasty things said and done in
ANGER.

D2VINE MADNESS
ROGER ZELAZNY
". . . I is this ?hearers wounded-wonder like stand them makes and
stars wandering the conjures sorrow of phrase Whose . .
He blew smoke through the cigarette and it grew longer.
He glanced at the clock and realized that its hands were moving
backwards.
The clock told him that it was 10:33, going on 10:32 in the p.m.
Then came the thing like despair, for he knew there was not a thing
he could do about it. He was trapped, moving in reverse through the se-
quence of actions past. Somehow, he had missed the warning.
Usually, there was a prism-effect, a flash of pink static, a drowsiness,
then a moment of heightened perception . . .
He turned the pages, from left to right, his eyes retracing their path
back along the lines.
"?emphasis an such bears grief whose he is What"
Helpless, there behind his eyes, he watched his body perform.
The cigarette had reached its full length. He clicked on the lighter,
which sucked away its glowing point, and then he shook the cigarette
back into the pack.
He yawned in reverse: first an exhalation, then an inhalation.
It wasn't real—the doctor had told him. It was grief and epilepsy,
meeting to form an unusual syndrome.
He'd already had the seizure. The dialantin wasn't helping. This was a
post-traumatic locomotor hallucination, elicited by anxiety, precipitated
by the attack.
But he did not believe it, could not believe it—not after twenty min-
utes had gone by, in the other direction—not after he had placed the
book upon the reading stand, stood, walked backward across the room
to his closet, hung up his robe, redressed himself in the same shirt and
slacks he had worn all day, backed over to the bar and regurgitated a
Martini, sip by cooling sip, until the glass was filled to the brim and not
a drop spilled.

130
Roger Zelazny
There was an impending taste of olive, and then everything was
changed again.
The second hand was sweeping around his wristwatch in the proper
direction.
The time was 10:07.
He felt free to move as he wished.
He redrank his martini.
Now, if he would be true to the pattern, he would change into his robe
and try to read. Instead, he mixed another drink.
Now the sequence would not occur.
Now the things would not happen as he thought they had happened,
and un-happened.
Now everything was different.
All of which went to prove it had been an hallucination.
Even the notion that it had taken twenty-six minutes each way was
an attempted rationalization.
Nothing had happened.
. . . Shouldn't be drinking, he decided. It might bring on a seizure.
He laughed.
Crazy, though, the whole thing . . .
Remembering, he drank.
In the morning he skipped breakfast, as usual, noted that it would
soon stop being morning, took two aspirins, a lukewarm shower, a cup
of coffee, and a walk.
The park, the fountain, the children with their boats, the grass, the
pond, he hated them; and the morning, and the sunlight, and the blue
moats around the towering clouds.
Hating, he sat there. And remembering.
If he was on the verge of a crackup, he decided, then the thing he
wanted most was to plunge ahead into it, not to totter halfway out, half-
way in.
He remembered why.
But it was clear, so clear, the morning, and everything crisp and dis-
tinct and burning with the green fires of spring, there in the sign of the
Ram, April.
He watched the winds pile up the remains of winter against the far

Divine Madness
131
gray fence, and he saw them push the boats across the pond, to come to
rest in shallow mud the children tracked.
The fountain jetted its cold umbrella above the green-tinged copper
dolphins. The sun ignited it whenever he moved his head. The wind
rumpled it.
Clustered on the concrete, birds pecked at part of a candy bar stuck
to a red wrapper.
Kites swayed on their tails, nosed downward, rose again, as young-
sters tugged at invisible strings. Telephone lines were tangled with
wooden frames and torn paper, like broken G clefs and smeared
glissandos.
He hated the telephone lines, the kites, the children, the birds.
Most of all, though, he hated himself.
How does a man undo that which has been done? He doesn't. There
is no way under the sun. He may suffer, remember, repent, curse, or
forget. Nothing else. The past, in this sense, is inevitable.
A woman walked past. He did not look up in time to see her face,
but the dusky blonde fall of her hair to her collar and the swell of her
sure, sheer-netted legs below the black hem of her coat and above the
matching click of her heels heigh-ho, stopped his breath behind his
stomach and snared his eyes in the wizard-weft of her walking and her
posture and some more, like a rhyme to the last of his thoughts.
He half-rose from the bench when the pink static struck his eyeballs,
and the fountain became a volcano spouting rainbows.
The world was frozen and served up to him under glass.
. . . The woman passed back before him and he looked down too
soon to see her face.
The hell was beginning once more, he realized, as the backward-
flying birds passed before.
He gave himself to it. Let it keep him until he broke, until he was all
used up and there was nothing left.
He waited, there on the bench, watching the slithey toves be brillig,
as the fountain sucked its waters back within itself, drawing them up in
a great arc above the unmoving dolphins, and the boats raced backward
across the pond, and the fence divested itself of stray scraps of paper, as
the birds replaced the candy bar within the red wrapper, bit by crunchy
bit.

132
Roger Zelazny
His thoughts only were inviolate, his body belonged to the retreating
tide.
Eventually, he rose and strolled backwards out of the park.
On the street a boy backed past him, unwhistling snatches of a popu-
lar song.
He backed up the stairs to his apartment, his hangover growing worse
again, undrank his coffee, unshowered, unswallowed his aspirins, and
got into bed, feeling awful.
Let this be it, he decided.
A faintly-remembered nightmare ran in reverse through his mind,
giving it an undeserved happy ending.
It was dark when he awakened.
He was very drunk.
He backed over to the bar and began spitting out his drinks, one by
one into the same glass he had used the night before, and pouring them
from the glass back into the bottles again. Separating the gin and ver-
mouth was no trick at all. The proper liquids leapt into the air as he
held the uncorked bottles above the bar.
And he grew less and less drunk as this went on.
Then he stood before an early martini and it was 10:07 in the p.m.
There, within the hallucination, he wondered about another halluci-
nation. Would time loop-the-loop, forward and then backward again,
through his previous seizure?
No.
It was as though it had not happened, had never been.
He continued on back through the evening, undoing things.
He raised the telephone, said "Good-bye," untold Murray that he
would not be coming to work again tomorrow, listened a moment,
recradled the phone and looked at it as it rang.
The sun came up in the west and people were backing their cars to
work.
He read the weather report and the headlines, folded the evening
paper and placed it out in the hall.
It was the longest seizure he had ever had, but he did not really care.
He settled himself down within it and watched as the day unwound it-
self back to morning.
His hangover returned as the day grew smaller, and it was terrible
when he got into bed again.

Divine Madness
133
When he awakened the previous evening the drunkenness was high
upon him. Two of the bottles he refilled, recorked, resealed. He knew
he would take them to the liquor store soon and get his money back.
As he sat there that day, his mouth uncursing and undrinking and his
eyes unreading, he knew that new cars were being shipped back to De-
troit and disassembled, that corpses were awakening into their death-
throes, and that priests the world over were saying black mass, un-
knowing.
He wanted to chuckle, but he could not tell his mouth to do it.
He unsmoked two and a half packs of cigarettes.
Then came another hangover and he went to bed. Later, the sun set
in the east.
Time's winged chariot fled before him as he opened the door and said
"Good-bye" to his comforters and they came in and sat down and told
him not to grieve overmuch.
And he wept without tears as he realized what was to come.
Despite his madness, he hurt.
. . . Hurt, as the days rolled backward.
. . . Backward, inexorably.
. . . Inexorably, until he knew the time was near at hand.
He gnashed the teeth of his mind.
Great was his grief and his hate and his love.
He was wearing his black suit and undrinking drink after drink, while
somewhere the men were scraping the clay back onto the shovels which
would be used to undig the grave.
He backed his car to the funeral parlor, parked it, and climbed into
the limousine.
They backed all the way to the graveyard.
He stood among his friends and listened to the preacher.
".dust to dust; ashes to Ashes," the man said, which is pretty much
the same whichever way you say it.
The casket was taken back to the hearse and returned to the funeral
parlor.
He sat through the service and went home and unshaved and un-
brushed his teeth and went to bed.
He awakened and dressed again in black and returned to the parlor.
The flowers were all back in place.

134
Roger Zelazny
Solemn-faced friends unsigned the Sympathy Book and unshook his
hand. Then they went inside to sit awhile and stare at the closed casket.
Then they left, until he was alone with the funeral director.
Then he was alone with himself.
The tears ran up his cheeks.
His suit and shirt were crisp and unwrinkled again.
He backed home, undressed, uncombed his hair. The day collapsed
around him into morning, and he returned to bed to unsleep another
night.
The previous evening, when he awakened, he realized where he was
headed.
Twice, he exerted all of his will power in an attempt to interrupt the
sequence of events. He failed.
He wanted to die. If he had killed himself that day, he would not be
headed back toward it now.
There were tears within his mind as he realized the past which lay
less than twenty-four hours before him.
The past stalked him that day as he unnegotiated the purchase of the
casket, the vault, the accessories.
Then he headed home into the biggest hangover of all and slept until
he was awakened to undrink drink after drink and then return to the
morgue and come back in time to hang up the telephone on that call,
that call which had come to break. . .
... the silence of his anger with its ringing.
She was dead.
She was lying somewhere in the fragments of her car on Interstate 90
now.
As he paced, unsmoking, he knew she was lying there bleeding.
. . . Then dying, after that crash at 80 miles an hour.
. . .Thenalive?
Then re-formed, along with the car, and alive again, arisen? Even
now backing home at a terrible speed, to reslam the door on their final
argument? To unscream at him and to be unscreamed at?
He cried out within his mind. He wrung the hands of his spirit.
It couldn't stop at this point. No. Not now.
All his grief and his love and his self-hate had brought him back this
far, this near to the moment. . .
It couldn't end now.

Divine Madness
135
After a time, he moved to the living room, his legs pacing, his lips
cursing, himself waiting.
The door slammed open.
She stared in at him, her mascara smeared, tears upon her cheeks.
"!hell to go Then," he said.
"Igoing I'm," she said.
She stepped back inside, closed the door.
She hung her coat hurriedly in the hall closet.
".it about feel you way the that's If," he said, shrugging.
"lyourself but anybody about care don't You," she said.
"!child a like behaving You're," he said.
"! sorry you're say least at could You"
Her eyes flashed like emeralds through the pink static, and she was
lovely and alive again. In his mind he was dancing.
The change came.
"You could at least say you're sorry!"
"I am," he said, taking her hand in a grip that she could not break.
"How much, you'll never know."
"Come here," and she did.

GLUTTONY
Isn't there something you don't think you can have enough of?
Chocolate creams? Dry martinis? Pate de foie gras? French-fried
potatoes? Roast stuffed duck? Diamond rings? Loni Anderson? A
person needs his dreams, and how better to dream than to imagine
one's self just wallowing in spareribs, sacher forte, emerald neck-
laces, and jaguars (both coats and cars)—and everything else your
little mind can want. Wouldn't that be nice? Are you sure? Or can
anything possibly spoil the fun of GLUTTONY?

THE MIDAS PLAGUE
FREDERIK POHL
And so they were married.
The bride and groom made a beautiful couple, she in her twenty-yard
frill of immaculate white, he in his formal gray ruffled blouse and
pleated pantaloons.
It was a small wedding—the best he could afford. For guests, they had
only the immediate family and a few close friends. And when the min-
ister had performed the ceremony, Morey Fry kissed his bride and they
drove off to the reception. There were twenty-eight limousines in all
(though it is true that twenty of them contained only the caterer's ro-
bots) and three flower cars.
"Bless you both," said old man Elon sentimentally. "You've got a
fine girl in our Cherry, Morey." He blew his nose on a ragged square of
cambric.
The old folks behaved very well, Morey thought. At the reception,
surrounded by the enormous stacks of wedding gifts, they drank the
champagne and ate a great many of the tiny, delicious canapes. They
listened politely to the fifteen-piece orchestra, and Cherry's mother even
danced one dance with Morey for sentiment's sake, though it was clear
that dancing was far from the usual pattern of her life. They tried as
hard as they could to blend into the gathering, but all the same, the two
elderly figures in severely simple and probably rented garments were
dismayingly conspicuous in the quarter-acre of tapestries and tinkling
fountains that was the main ballroom of Morey's country home.
When it was time for the guests to go home and let the newlyweds
begin their life together, Cherry's father shook Morey by the hand and
Cherry's mother kissed him. But as they drove away in their tiny runa-
bout their faces were full of foreboding.
It was nothing against Morey as a person, of course. But poor people
should not marry wealth.
Morey and Cherry loved each other, certainly. That helped. They
told each other so, a dozen times an hour, all of the long hours they

140
Frederik Pohl
were together, for all of their first months of their marriage. Morey even
took time off to go shopping with his bride, which endeared him to her
enormously. They drove their shopping carts through the immense
vaulted corridors of the supermarket, Morey checking off the items on
the shopping list as Cherry picked out the goods. It was fun.
For a while.
Their first fight started in the supermarket, between Breakfast Foods
and Floor Furnishings, just where the new Precious Stones department
was being opened.
Morey called off from the list, "Diamond lavaliere, costume rings,
earbobs."
Cherry said rebelliously, "Morey, I have a lavaliere. Please, dear!"
Morey folded back the pages of the list uncertainly. The lavaliere was
on there, all right, and no alternative selection was shown.
"How about a bracelet?" he coaxed. "Look, they have some nice
ruby ones there. See how beautifully they go with your hair, darling!"
He beckoned a robot clerk, who bustled up and handed Cherry the
bracelet tray. "Lovely," Morey exclaimed as Cherry slipped the largest
of the lot on her wrist.
"And I don't have to have a lavaliere?" Cherry asked.
"Of course not." He peeked at the tag. "Same number of ration
points exactly!" Since Cherry looked only dubious, not convinced, he
said briskly, "And now we'd better be getting along to the shoe depart-
ment. I've got to pick up some dancing pumps."
Cherry made no objection, neither then nor throughout the rest of
their shopping tour. At the end, while they were sitting in the super-
market's ground-floor lounge waiting for the robot accountants to tote
up their bill and the robot cashiers to stamp their ration books, Morey
remembered to have the shipping department save out the bracelet.
"I don't want that sent with the other stuff, darling," he explained. "I
want you to wear it right now. Honestly, I don't think I ever saw any-
thing looking so right for you."
Cherry looked flustered and pleased. Morey was delighted with him-
self; it wasn't everybody who knew how to handle these little domestic
problems just right!
He stayed self-satisfied all the way home, while Henry, their com-
panion-robot, regaled them with funny stories of the factory in which it
had been built and trained. Cherry wasn't used to Henry by a long shot,
but it was hard not to like the robot. Jokes and funny stories when you

The Midas Plague
141
needed amusement, sympathy when you were depressed, a never-failing
supply of news and information on any subject you cared to name-
Henry was easy enough to take. Cherry even made a special point of
asking Henry to keep them company through dinner, and she laughed
as thoroughly as Morey himself at its droll anecdotes.
But later, in the conservatory, when Henry had considerately left
them alone, the laughter dried up.
Morey didn't notice. He was very conscientiously making the rounds:
turning on the tri-D, selecting their after-dinner liqueurs, scanning the
evening newspapers.
Cherry cleared her throat self-consciously, and Morey stopped what
he was doing. "Dear," she said tentatively, "I'm feeling kind of restless
tonight. Could we—I mean do you think we could just sort of stay home
and—well, relax?"
Morey looked at her with a touch of concern. She lay back wearily,
eyes half closed. "Are you feeling all right?" he asked.
"Perfectly. I just don't want to go out tonight, dear. I don't feel up to
it."
He sat down and automatically lit a cigarette. "I see," he said. The
tri-D was beginning a comedy show; he got up to turn it off, snapping
on the tape-player. Muted strings filled the room.
"We had reservations at the club tonight," he reminded her.
Cherry shifted uncomfortably. "I know."
"And we have the opera tickets that I turned last week's in for. I hate
to nag, darling, but we haven't used any of our opera tickets."
"We can see them right here on the tri-D," she said in a small voice.
"That has nothing to do with it, sweetheart. I—I didn't want to tell
you about it, but Wainwright, down at the office, said something to me
yesterday. He told me he would be at the circus last night and as much
as said he'd be looking to see if we were there too. Well, we weren't
there. Heaven knows what 111 tell him next week."
He waited for Cherry to answer, but she was silent.
He went on reasonably, "So if you could see your way clear to going
out tonight—"
He stopped, slack-jawed. Cherry was crying, silently and in quantity.
"Darling!" he said inarticulately.
He hurried to her, but she fended him off. He stood helpless over
her, watching her cry.
"Dear, what's the matter?" he asked.

142
Frederik Pohl
She turned her head away.
Morey rocked back on his heels. It wasn't exactly the first time he'd
seen Cherry cry—there had been that poignant scene when they Gave
Each Other Up, realizing that their backgrounds were too far apart for
happiness, before the realization that they had to have each other, no
matter what. . . . But it was the first time her tears had made him feel
guilty.
And he did feel guilty. He stood there staring at her.
Then he turned his back on her and walked over to the bar. He ig-
nored the ready liqueurs and poured two stiff highballs, brought them
back to her. He set one down beside her, took a long drink from the
other.
In quite a different tone, he said, "Dear, what's the matter?y
No answer.
"Come on. What is it?"
She looked up at him and rubbed at her eyes. Almost sullenly, she
said, "Sorry."
"I know you're sorry. Look, we love each other. Let's talk this thing
out."
She picked up her drink and held it for a moment, before setting it
down untasted. "What's the use, Morey?"
"Please. Let's try."
She shrugged.
He went on remorselessly, "You aren't happy, are you? And it's be-
cause of—well, all this." His gesture took in the richly furnished conser-
vatory, the thick-piled carpet, the host of machines and contrivances for
their comfort and entertainment that waited for their touch. By implica-
tion it took in twenty-six rooms, five cars, nine robots. Morey said, with
an effort, "It isn't what you're used to, is it?"
"I can't help it," Cherry said. "Morey, you know I've tried. But back
home—"
"Dammit," he flared, "this is your home. You don't live with your fa-
ther any more in that five-room cottage; you don't spend your evenings
hoeing the garden or playing cards for matchsticks. You live here, with
me, your husband! You knew what you were getting into. We talked all
this out long before we were married—"
The words stopped, because words were useless. Cherry was crying
again, but not silently.
Through her tears, she wailed: "Darling, I've tried. You don't know

The Midas Plague	143
how I've tried! I've worn all those silly clothes and I've played all those
silly games and I've gone out with you as much as I possibly could and
-I've eaten all that terrible food until I'm actually getting fa-fa-fat! I
thought I could stand it. But I just can't go on like this; I'm not used to
it. I—I love you, Morey, but I'm going crazy, living like this. I can't help
it, Morey—I'm tired of being poor!"
Eventually the tears dried up, and the quarrel healed, and the lovers
kissed and made up. But Morey lay awake that night, listening to his
wife's gentle breathing from the suite next to his own, staring into the
darkness as tragically as any pauper before him had ever done.
Blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed Morey, heir to more worldly goods than he could possibly
consume.
Morey Fry, steeped in grinding poverty, had never gone hungry a day
in his life, never lacked for anything his heart could desire in the way of
food, or clothing, or a place to sleep. In Morey's world, no one lacked
for these things; no one could.
Malthus was right—for a civilization without machines, automatic
factories, hydroponics and food synthesis, nuclear breeder plants, ocean
mining for metals and minerals . . .
And a vastly increasing supply of labor. . .
And architecture that rose high in the air and dug deep in the ground
and floated far out on the water on piers and pontoons . . . architecture
that could be poured one day and lived in the next. . .
And robots.
Above all, robots . . . robots to burrow and haul and smelt and fab-
ricate, to build and farm and weave and sew.
What the land lacked in wealth, the sea was made to yield, and the
laboratory invented the rest. . . and the factories became a pipeline of
plenty, churning out enough to feed and clothe and house a dozen
worlds.
Limitless discovery, infinite power in the atom, tireless labor of hu-
manity and robots, mechanization that drove jungle and swamp and ice
off the Earth, and put up office buildings and manufacturing centers and
rocket ports in their place . . .
The pipeline of production spewed out riches that no king in the time
of Malthus could have known.
But a pipeline has two ends. The invention and power and labor

144
Frederik Pohl
pouring in at one end must somehow be drained out at the other . . .
Lucky Morey, blessed economic-consuming unit, drowning in the
pipeline's flood, striving manfully to eat and drink and wear and wear
out his share of the ceaseless tide of wealth.
Morey felt far from blessed, for the blessings of the poor are always
best appreciated from afar.
Quotas worried his sleep until he awoke at eight o'clock the next
morning, red-eyed and haggard, but inwardly resolved. He had reached
a decision. He was starting a new life.
There was trouble in the morning mail. Under the letterhead of the
National Ration Board, it said:
"We regret to advise you that the following items returned by you in
connection with your August quotas as used and no longer serviceable
have been inspected and found insufficiently worn." The list followed—a
long one, Morey saw to his sick disappointment. "Credit is hereby
disallowed for these and you are therefore given an additional consum-
ing quota for the current month in the amount of four-hundred and
thirty-five points, at least three-hundred and fifty points of which must
be in the textile and home-furnishing categories."
Morey dashed the letter to the floor. The valet picked it up emo-
tionlessly, creased it and set it on his desk.
It wasn't fair! All right, maybe the bathing trunks and beach um-
brellas hadn't been really used very much—though how the devil, he
asked himself bitterly, did you go about using up swimming gear when
you didn't have time for such leisurely pursuits as swimming? But cer-
tainly the hiking slacks were used! He'd worn them for three whole days
and part of a fourth; what did they expect him to do, go around in rags?
Morey looked belligerently at the coffee and toast that the valet-robot
had brought in with the mail, and then steeled his resolve. Unfair or
not, he had to play the game according to the rules. It was for Cherry,
more than for himself, and the way to begin a new way of life was to
begin it.
Morey was going to consume for two.
He told the valet-robot, "Take that stuff back. I want cream and
sugar with the coffee—lots of cream and sugar. And besides the toast,
scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, orange juice—no, make it half a grape-
fruit. And orange juice, come to think of it."

The Midas Plague
145
"Right away, sir," said the valet. "You won't be having breakfast at
nine then, will you, sir?"
"I certainly will," said Morey virtuously. "Double portions!" As the
robot was closing the door, he called after it, "Butter and marmalade
with the toast!"
He went to the bath; he had a full schedule and no time to waste. In
the shower, he carefully sprayed himself with lather three times. When
he had rinsed the soap off, he went through the whole assortment of
taps in order: three lotions, plain talcum, scented talcum and thirty sec-
onds of ultra-violet. Then he lathered and rinsed again, and dried him-
self with a towel instead of using the hot-air drying jet. Most of the mis-
cellaneous scents went down the drain with the rinse water, but if the
Ration Board accused him of waste, he could claim he was experi-
menting. The effect, as a matter of fact, wasn't bad at all.
He stepped out, full of exuberance. Cherry was awake, staring in dis-
may at the tray the valet had brought "Good morning, dear," she said
faintly. "Ugh."
Morey kissed her and patted her hand. "Well!" he said, looking at
the tray with a big, hollow smile. "Food!"
"Isn't that a lot for just the two of us?"
"Two of us?" repeated Morey masterfully. "Nonsense, my dear, I'm
going to eat it all by myself!"
"Oh, Morey!" gasped Cherry, and the adoring look she gave him was
enough to pay for a dozen such meals.
Which, he thought as he finished his morning exercises with the spar-
ring-robot and sat down to his real breakfast, it just about had to be,
day in and day out, for a long, long time.
Still, Morey had made up his mind. As he worked his way through
the kippered herring, tea and crumpets, he ran over his plans with
Henry. He swallowed a mouthful and said, "I want you to line up some
appointments for me right away. Three hours a week in an exercise gym
—pick one with lots of reducing equipment, Henry. I think I'm going to
need it. And fittings for some new clothes—I've had these for weeks.
And, let's see, doctor, dentist—say, Henry, don't I have a psychiatrist's
date coming up?"
"Indeed you do, sir!" it said warmly. "This morning, in fact. I've al-
ready instructed the chauffeur and notified your office."
"Fine! Well, get started on the other things, Henry."
"Yes, sir," said Henry, and assumed the curious absent look of a

146
Frederik Pohl
robot talking on its TBR circuits-the "Talk Between Robots" radio-as
it arranged the appointments for its master.
Morey finished his breakfast in silence, pleased with his own virtue,
at peace with the world. It wasn't so hard to be a proper, industrious
consumer if you worked at it, he reflected. It was only the malcontents,
the ne'er-do-wells and the incompetents who simply could not adjust to
the world around them. Well, he thought with distant pity, someone had
to suffer; you couldn't break eggs without making an omelet. And his
proper duty was not to be some sort of wild-eyed crank, challenging the
social order and beating his breast about injustice, but to take care of
his wife and his home.
It was too bad he couldn't really get right down to work on consum-
ing today. But this was his one day a week to hold a job—loux of the
other six days were devoted to solid consuming—and besides, he had a
group therapy session scheduled as well. His analysis, Morey told him-
self, would certainly take a sharp turn for the better, now that he had
faced up to his problems.
Morey was immersed in a glow of self-righteousness as he kissed
Cherry good-by (she had finally got up, all in a confusion of delight at
the new regime) and walked out the door to his car. He hardly noticed
the little man in enormous floppy hat and garishly ruffled trousers who
was standing almost hidden in the shrubs.
"Hey, Mac." The man's voice was almost a whisper.
"Huh? Oh-whatisit?"
The man looked around furtively. "Listen, friend," he said rapidly,
"you look like an intelligent man who could use a little help. Times are
tough; you help me, I'll help you. Want to make a deal on ration
stamps? Six for one. One of yours for six of mine, the best deal you'll
get anywhere in town. Naturally, my stamps aren't exactly the real
McCoy, but they'll pass, friend, they'll pass—"
Morey blinked at him. "No!" he said violently, and pushed the man
aside. Now it's racketeers, he thought bitterly. Slums and endless sordid
preoccupation with rations weren't enough to inflict on Cherry; now the
neighborhood was becoming a hangout for people on the shady side of
the law. It was not, of course, the first time he had ever been ap-
proached by a counterfeit-ration-stamp hoodlum, but never at his own
front door!
Morey thought briefly, as he climbed into his car, of calling the

The Midas Plague
147
police. But certainly the man would be gone before they could get
there; and after all, he had handled it pretty well as it was.
Of course, it would be nice to get six stamps for one.
But very far from nice if he got caught.
"Good morning, Mr. Fry," tinkled the robot receptionist. "Won't you
go right in?" With a steel-tipped finger, it pointed to the door marked
group therapy.
Someday, Morey vowed to himself as he nodded and complied, he
would be in a position to afford a private analyst of his own. Group
therapy helped relieve the infinite stresses of modern living, and without
it he might find himself as badly off as the hysterical mobs in the ration
riots, or as dangerously anti-social as the counterfeiters. But it lacked
the personal touch. It was, he thought, too public a performance of
what should be a private affair, like trying to live a happy married life
with an interfering, ever-present crowd of robots in the house—
Morey brought himself up in panic. How had that thought crept in?
He was shaken visibly as he entered the room and greeted the group to
which he was assigned.
There were eleven of them: four Freudians, two Reichians, two Jung-
ians, a Gestalter, a shock therapist and the elderly and rather quiet
Sullivanite. Even the members of the majority groups had their own in-
dividual differences in technique and creed, but despite four years with
this particular group of analysts, Morey hadn't quite been able to keep
them separate in his mind. Their names, though, he knew well enough.
"Morning, Doctors," he said. "What is it today?"
"Morning," said Semmelweiss morosely. "Today you come into the
room for the first time looking as if something is really bothering you,
and yet the schedule calls for psychodrama. Dr. Fairless," he appealed,
"can't we change the schedule a little bit? Fry here is obviously under a
strain; that's the time to start digging and see what he can find. We can
do your psychodrama next time, can't we?"
Fairless shook his gracefully bald old head. "Sorry, Doctor. If it were
up to me, of course—but you know the rules."
"Rules, rules," jeered Semmelweiss. "Ah, what's the use? Here's a
patient in an acute anxiety state if I ever saw one—and believe me, I
saw plenty—and we ignore it because the rules say ignore it. Is that pro-
fessional? Is that how to cure a patient?"

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Frederik Pohl
Little Blaine said frostily, "If I may say so, Dr. Semmelweiss, there
have been a great many cures made without the necessity of departing
from the rules. I myself, in fact—"
"You yourself!" mimicked Semmelweiss. "You yourself never han-
dled a patient alone in your life. When you going to get out of a group,
Blaine?"
Blaine said furiously, "Dr. Fairless, I don't think I have to stand for
this sort of personal attack. Just because Semmelweiss has seniority and
a couple of private patients one day a week, he thinks—"
"Gentlemen," said Fairless mildly. "Please, let's get on with the
work. Mr. Fry has come to us for help, not to listen to us losing our
tempers."
"Sorry," said Semmelweiss curtly. "All the same, I appeal from the
arbitrary and mechanistic ruling of the chair."
Fairless inclined his head. "All in favor of the ruling of the chair?
Nine, I count. That leaves only you opposed, Dr. Semmelweiss. We'll
proceed with the psychodrama, if the recorder will read us the notes
and comments of the last session."
The recorder, a pudgy, low-ranking youngster named Sprogue,
flipped back the pages of his notebook and read in a chanting voice,
"Session of twenty-fourth May, subject, Morey Fry; in attendance, Doc-
tors Fairless, Bileck, Semmelweiss, Carrado, Weber—"
Fairless interrupted kindly, "Just the last page, if you please, Dr.
Sprogue."
"Um—oh, yes. After a ten-minute recess for additional Rorschachs
and an electro-encephalogram, the group convened and conducted
rapid-fire word association. Results were tabulated and compared with
standard deviation patterns, and it was determined that subject's major
traumas derived from, respectively—"
Morey found his attention waning. Therapy was good; everybody
knew that, but every once in a while he found it a little dull. If it
weren't for therapy, though, there was no telling what might happen.
Certainly, Morey told himself, he had been helped considerably-at
least he hadn't set fire to his house and shrieked at the fire-robots, like
Newell down the block when his eldest daughter divorced her husband
and came back to live with him, bringing her ration quota along, of
course. Morey hadn't even been tempted to do anything as outra-
geously, frighteningly immoral as destroy things or waste them—well, he
admitted to himself honestly, perhaps a little tempted, once in a great

The Midas Plague	149
while. But never anything important enough to worry about; he was
sound, perfectly sound.
He looked up, startled. All the doctors were staring at him. "Mr.
Fry," Fairless repeated, "will you take your place?"
"Certainly," Morey said hastily. "Uh-where?"
Semmelweiss guffawed. "Told you. Never mind, Morey; you didn't
miss much. We're going to run through one of the big scenes in your
life, the one you told us about last time. Remember? You were fourteen
years old, you said. Christmas time. Your mother had made you a
promise."
Morey swallowed. "I remember," he said unhappily. 'Well, all right.
Where do I stand?"
"Right here," said Fairless. "You're you; Carrado is your mother;
Fm your father. Will the doctors not participating mind moving back?
Fine. Now, Morey, here we are on Christmas morning. Merry Christ-
mas, Morey!"
"Merry Christmas," Morey said half-heartedly. "Uh—Father dear,
where's my—uh—my puppy that Mother promised me?"
"Puppy!" said Fairless heartily. "Your mother and I have something
much better than a puppy for you. Just take a look under the tree there
—it's a robot! Yes, Morey, your very own robot—a full-size thirty-eight-
tube fully automatic companion robot for you! Go ahead, Morey, go
right up and speak to it. Its name is Henry. Go on, boy."
Morey felt a sudden, incomprehensible tingle inside the bridge of his
nose. He said shakily, "But I—I didn't want a robot."
"Of course you want a robot," Carrado interrupted. "Go on, child,
play with your nice robot."
Morey said violently, "I hate robots!" He looked around him at the
doctors, at the gray-paneled consulting room. He added defiantly, "You
hear me, all of you? I still hate robots!"
There was a second's pause; then the questions began.
It was half an hour before the receptionist came in and announced
that time was up.
In that half hour, Morey had got over his trembling and lost his wild,
momentary passion, but he had remembered what for thirteen years he
had forgotten.
He hated robots.

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Frederik Pohl
The surprising thing was not that young Morey had hated robots. It
was that the Robot Riots, the ultimate violent outbreak of flesh against
metal, the battle to the death between mankind and its machine heirs
. . . never happened. A little boy hated robots, but the man he became
worked with them hand in hand.
And yet, always and always before, the new worker, the competitor
for the job, was at once and inevitably outside the law. The waves
swelled in—the Irish, the Negroes, the Jews, the Italians. They were
squeezed into their ghettoes, where they encysted, seethed and struck
out, until the burgeoning generations became indistinguishable.
For the robots, that genetic relief was not in sight. And still the
conflict never came. The feedback circuits aimed the anti-aircraft guns
and, reshaped and newly planned, found a place in a new sort of ma-
chine—together with a miraculous trail of cams and levers, and inde-
structible and potent power source and a hundred thousand parts and
subassemblies.
And the first robot clanked off the bench.
Its mission was its own destruction; but from the scavenged wreck of
its pilot body, a hundred better robots drew their inspiration. And the
hundred went to work, and hundreds more, until there were millions
upon untold millions.
And still the riots never happened.
For the robots came bearing a gift and the name of it was "Plenty."
And by the time the gift had shown its own unguessed ills, the time
for a Robot Riot was past. Plenty is a habit-forming drug. You do not
cut the dosage down. You kick it if you can; you stop the dose entirely.
But the convulsions that follow may wreck the body once and for all.
The addict craves the grainy white powder; he doesn't hate it, or the
runner who sells it to him. And if Morey as a little boy could hate the
robot that had deprived him of his pup, Morey the man was perfectly
aware that the robots were his servants and his friends.
But the little Morey inside the man—he had never been convinced.
Morey ordinarily looked forward to his work. The one day a week at
which he did anything was a wonderful change from the dreary con-
sume, consume, consume grind. He entered the bright-lit drafting room
of the Bradmoor Amusements Company with a feeling of uplift.
But as he was changing from street garb to his drafting smock, How-
land from Procurement came over with a knowing look. "Wainwright's

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151
been looking for you," Howland whispered. "Better get right in there."
Morey nervously thanked him and got. Wainwright's office was the
size of a phone booth and as bare as Antarctic ice. Every time Morey
saw it, he felt his insides churn with envy. Think of a desk with nothing
on it but work surface—no calendar-clock, no twelve-color pen rack, no
dictating machines!
He squeezed himself in and sat down while Wainwright finished a
phone call. He mentally reviewed the possible reasons why Wainwright
would want to talk to him in person instead of over the phone, or by
dropping a word to him as he passed through the drafting room.
Very few of them were good.
Wainwright put down the phone and Morey straightened up. "You
sent for me?" he asked.
Wainwright in a chubby world was aristocratically lean. As General
Superintendent of the Design & Development Section of the Bradmoor
Amusements Company, he ranked high in the upper section of the well-
to-do. He rasped, "I certainly did. Fry, just what the hell do you think
you're up to now?"
"I don't know what you m-mean, Mr. Wainwright," Morey stam-
mered, crossing off the list of possible reasons for the interview all of
the good ones.
Wainwright snorted. "I guess you don't. Not because you weren't
told, but because you don't want to know. Think back a whole week.
What did I have you on the carpet for then?"
Morey said sickly, "My ration book. Look, Mr. Wainwright, I know
I'm running a little bit behind, but—"
"But nothing! How do you think it looks to the Committee, Fry?
They got a complaint from the Ration Board about you. Naturally they
passed it on to me. And naturally I'm going to pass it right along to
you. The question is, what are you going to do about it? Good God,
man, look at these figures—textiles, fifty-one per cent; food, sixty-seven
per cent; amusements and entertainment, thirty per cent! You haven't
come up to your ration in anything for months!"
Morey stared at the card miserably. "We—that is, my wife and I—just
had a long talk about that last night, Mr. Wainwright. And, believe me,
we're going to do better. We're going to buckle right down and get to
work and—uh—do better," he finished weakly.
Wainwright nodded, and for the first time there was a note of sympa-
thy in his voice. "Your wife. Judge Elon's daughter, isn't she? Good

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Frederik Pohl
family. Fve met the Judge many times." Then, gruffly: "Well, never-
theless, Fry, I'm warning you. I don't care how you straighten this out,
but don't let the Committee mention this to me again "
"No, sir."
"All right. Finished with the schematics on the new K-50?"
Morey brightened. "Just about, sir! I'm putting the first section on
tape today. I'm very pleased with it, Mr. Wainwright, honestly I am.
I've got more than eighteen thousand moving parts in it now, and that's
without-"
"Good. Good." Wainwright glanced down at his desk. "Get back to
it. And straighten out this other thing. You can do it, Fry. Consuming is
everybody's duty. Just keep that in mind."
Howland followed Morey out of the drafting room, down to the spot-
less shops. "Bad time?" he inquired solicitously. Morey grunted. It was
none of Howland's business.
Howland looked over his shoulder as he was setting up the program-
ing panel. Morey studied the matrices silently, then got busy reading the
summary tapes, checking them back against the schematics, setting up
the instructions on the programing board. Howland kept quiet as Morey
completed the setup and ran off a test tape. It checked perfectly; Morey
stepped back to light a cigarette in celebration before pushing the start
button.
Howland said, "Go on, run it. I can't go until you put it in the
works."
Morey grinned and pushed the button. The board lighted up; within
it, a tiny metronomic beep began to pulse. That was all. At the other
end of the quarter-mile shed, Morey knew, the automatic sorters and
conveyers were fingering through the copper reels and steel ingots,
measuring hoppers of plastic powder and colors, setting up an intricate
weaving path for the thousands of individual components that would
make up Bradmoor's new K-50 Spin-a-Game. But from where they
stood, in the elaborately muraled programing room, nothing showed.
Bradmoor was an ultra-modernized plant; in the manufacturing end,
even robots had been dispensed with in favor of machines that guided
themselves.
Morey glanced at his watch and logged in the starting time while
Howland quickly counterchecked Morey's raw-material flow program.
"Checks out," Howland said solemnly, slapping him on the back.
"Calls for a celebration. Anyway, it's your first design, isn't it?"

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153
"Yes. First all by myself, at any rate."
Howland was already fishing in his private locker for the bottle he
kept against emergency needs. He poured with a flourish. "To Morey
Fry," he said, "our most favorite designer, in whom we are much
pleased."
Morey drank. It went down easily enough. Morey had consci-
entiously used his liquor rations for years, but he had never gone be-
yond the minimum, so that although liquor was no new experience to
him, the single drink immediately warmed him. It warmed his mouth,
his throat, the hollows of his chest; and it settled down with a warm
glow inside him. Howland, exerting himself to be nice, complimented
Morey fatuously on the design and poured another drink. Morey didn't
utter any protest at all.
Howland drained his glass. "You may wonder," he said formally,
"why I am so pleased with you, Morey Fry. I will tell you why this is."
Morey grinned. "Please do."
Howland nodded. "I will. It's because I am pleased with the world,
Morey. My wife left me last night."
Morey was as shocked as only a recent bridegroom can be by the
news of a crumbling marriage. "That's too ba— I mean, is that a fact?"
"Yes, she left my beds and board and five robots, and I'm happy to
see her go." He poured another drink for both of them. "Women. Can't
live with them and can't live without them. First you sigh and pant and
chase after 'em—you like poetry?" he demanded suddenly.
Morey said cautiously, "Some poetry."
Howland quoted: " 'How long, my love, shall I behold this wall be-
tween our gardens—yours the rose, and mine the swooning lily' Like it?
I wrote it for Jocelyn—that's my wife—when we were first going to-
gether."
"It's beautiful," said Morey.
"She wouldn't talk to me for two days." Howland drained his drink.
"Lots of spirit, that girl. Anyway, I hunted her like a tiger. And then I
caught her. Wow!"
Morey took a deep drink from his own glass. "What do you mean,
wow?" he asked.
"Wow" Howland pointed his finger at Morey. "Wow, that's what I
mean. We got married and I took her home to the dive I was living in,
and wow we had a kid, and wow I got in a little trouble with the Ration

154
Frederik Pohl
Board—nothing serious, of course, but there was a mixup—and wow
fights.
"Everything was a fight," he explained. "She'd start with a little nag-
ging, and naturally I'd say something or other back, and bang we were
off. Budget, budget, budget; I hope to die if I ever hear the word
'budget' again. Morey, you're a married man; you know what it's like.
Tell me the truth, weren't you just about ready to blow your top the
first time you caught your wife cheating on the budget?"
"Cheating on the budget?" Morey was startled. "Cheating how?"
"Oh, lots of ways. Making your portions bigger than hers. Sneaking
extra shirts for you on her clothing ration. You know."
"Damn it, I do not know!" cried Morey. "Cherry wouldn't do any-
thing like that!"
Howland looked at him opaquely for a long second. "Of course not,"
he said at last. "Let's have another drink."
Ruffled, Morey held out his glass. Cherry wasn't the type of girl to
cheat. Of course she wasn't. A fine, loving girl like her—a pretty girl, of
a good family; she wouldn't know how to begin.
Howland was saying, in a sort of chant, "No more budget. No more
fights. No more, 'Daddy never treated me like this.' No more nagging.
No more extra rations for household allowance. No more—Morey, what
do you say we go out and have a few drinks? I know a place where—"
"Sorry, Howland," Morey said. "I've got to get back to the office,
you know."
Howland guffawed. He held out his wristwatch. As Morey, a little
unsteadily, bent over it, it tinkled out the hour. It was a matter of min-
utes before the office closed for the day.
"Oh," said Morey. "I didn't realize—Well, anyway, Howland, thanks,
but I can't. My wife will be expecting me."
"She certainly will," Howland sniggered. "Won't catch her eating up
your rations and hers tonight."
Morey said tightly, "Howland!"
"Oh, sorry, sorry." Howland waved an arm. "Don't mean to say any-
thing against your wife, of course. Guess maybe Jocelyn soured me on
women. But honest, Morey, you'd like this place. Name of Uncle Pig-
gotty's, down in the Old Town. Crazy bunch hangs out there. You'd
like them. Couple nights last week they had—I mean, you understand,
Morey, I don't go there as often as all that, but I just happened to drop
in and—"

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155
Morey interrupted firmly. "Thank you, Howland. Must go home.
Wife expects it. Decent of you to offer. Good night. Be seeing you."
He walked out, turned at the door to bow politely, and in turning
back cracked the side of his face against the door jamb. A sort of pleas-
ant numbness had taken possession of his entire skin surface, though,
and it wasn't until he perceived Henry chattering at him sympathetically
that he noticed a trickle of blood running down the side of his face.
"Mere flesh wound," he said with dignity. "Nothing to cause you
least conshter—consternation, Henry. Now kindly shut your ugly face.
Want to think."
And he slept in the car all the way home.
It was worse than a hangover. The name is "holdover." You've had
some drinks; you've started to sober up by catching a little sleep. Then
you are required to be awake and to function. The consequent state has
the worst features of hangover and intoxication; your head thumps and
your mouth tastes like the floor of a bear pit, but you are nowhere near
sober.
There is one cure. Morey said thickly, "Let's have a cocktail, dear."
Cherry was delighted to share a cocktail with him before dinner.
Cherry, Morey thought lovingly, was a wonderful, wonderful, won-
derful-
He found his head nodding in time to his thoughts, and the motion
made him wince.
Cherry flew to his side and touched his temple. "Is it bothering you,
darling?" she asked solicitously. "Where you ran into the door, I
mean?"
Morey looked at her sharply, but her expression was open and ador-
ing. He said bravely, "Just a little. Nothing to it, really."
The butler brought the cocktails and retired. Cherry lifted her glass.
Morey raised his, caught a whiff of the liquor, and nearly dropped it.
He bit down hard on his churning insides and forced himself to swal-
low.
He was surprised but grateful: It stayed down. In a moment, the cu-
rious phenomenon of warmth began to repeat itself. He swallowed the
rest of the drink and held out his glass for a refill. He even tried a
smile. Oddly enough, his face didn't fall off.
One more drink did it. Morey felt happy and relaxed, but by no
means drunk. They went in to dinner in fine spirits. They chatted cheer-

156
Frederik Pohl
fully with each other and Henry, and Morey found time to feel senti-
mentally sorry for poor Howland, who couldn't make a go of his mar-
riage, when marriage was obviously such an easy relationship, so
beneficial to both sides, so warm and relaxing-
Startled, he said, "What?"
Cherry repeated, "It's the cleverest scheme I ever heard of. Such a
funny little man, dear. All kind of nervous, if you know what I mean.
He kept looking at the door as if he was expecting someone, but of
course that was silly. None of his friends would have come to our house
to see him."
Morey said tensely, "Cherry, please! What was that you said about
ration stamps?"
"But I told you, darling! it was just after you left this morning. This
funny little man came to the door; the butler said he wouldn't give his
name. Anyway, I talked to him. I thought he might be a neighbor, and I
certainly would never be rude to any neighbor who might come to call,
even if the neighborhood was—"
"The ration stamps!" Morey begged. "Did I hear you say he was
peddling phony ration stamps?"
Cherry said uncertainly, "Well, I suppose that in a way they're
phony. The way he explained it, they weren't the regular official kind.
But it was four for one, dear—four of his stamps for one of ours. So I
just took out our household book and steamed off a couple of weeks'
stamps and—"
"How many?" Morey bellowed.
Cherry blinked. "About—about two weeks' quota," she said faintly.
"Was that wrong, dear?"
Morey closed his eyes dizzily. "A couple of weeks' stamps," he re-
peated. "Four for one—you didn't even get the regular rate."
Cherry wailed, "How was I supposed to know? I never had anything
like this when I was home! We didn't have food riots and slums and all
these horrible robots and filthy little revolting men coming to the door!"
Morey stared at her woodenly. She was crying again, but it made no
impression on the case-hardened armor that was suddenly thrown
around his heart.
Henry made a tentative sound that, in a human, would have been a
preparatory cough, but Morey froze him with a white-eyed look.
Morey said in a dreary monotone that barely penetrated the sound of

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157
Cherry's tears, "Let me tell you just what it was you did. Assuming, at
best, that these stamps you got are at least average good counterfeits,
and not so bad that the best thing to do with them is throw them away
before we get caught with them in our possession, you have approxi-
mately a two-month supply of funny stamps. In case you didn't know it,
those ration books are not merely ornamental. They have to be turned
in every month to prove that we have completed our consuming quota
for the month.
"When they are turned in, they are spot-checked. Every book is at
least glanced at. A big chunk of them are gone over very carefully by
the inspectors, and a certain percentage are tested by ultra-violet, infra-
red, X-ray, radioisotopes, bleaches, fumes, paper chromatography and
every other damned test known to Man." His voice was rising to an
uneven crescendo. "If we are lucky enough to get away with using any
of these stamps at all, we daren't—we simply dare not—use more than
one or two counterfeits to every dozen or more real stamps.
"That means, Cherry, that what you bought is not a two-month sup-
ply, but maybe a two -year supply—and since, as you no doubt have
never noticed, the things have expiration dates on them, there is proba-
bly no chance in the world that we can ever hope to use more than half
of them." He was bellowing by the time he pushed back his chair and
towered over her. "Moreover," he went on, "right now, right as of this
minute, we have to make up the stamps you gave away, which means
that at the very best we are going to be on double rations for two weeks
or so.
"And that says nothing about the one feature of this whole grisly
mess that you seem to have thought of least—namely that counterfeit
stamps are against the law! I'm poor, Cherry; I live in a slum, and I
know it; I've got a long way to go before I'm as rich or respected or
powerful as your father, about whom I am beginning to get consid-
erably tired of hearing. But poor as I may be, I can tell you this for
sure: Up until now, at any rate, I have been honest"
Cherry's tears had stopped entirely and she was bowed white-faced
and dry-eyed by the time Morey had finished. He had spent himself;
there was no violence left in him.
He stared dismally at Cherry for a moment, then turned wordlessly
and stamped out of the house.
Marriage! he thought as he left.
* * *

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Frederik Pohl
He walked for hours, blind to where he was going.
What brought him back to awareness was a sensation he had not felt
in a dozen years. It was not, Morey abruptly realized, the dying traces
of his hangover that made his stomach feel so queer. He was hungry—
actually hungry.
He looked about him. He was in the Old Town, miles from home,
jostled by crowds of lower-class people. The block he was on was as
atrocious a slum as Morey had ever seen—Chinese pagodas stood next
to rococo imitations of the chapels around Versailles; gingerbread
marred every facade; no building was without its brilliant sighs and flare-
lights.
He saw a blindingly overdecorated eating establishment called Billie's
Budget Busy Bee and crossed the street toward it, dodging through the
unending streams of traffic. It was a miserable excuse for a restaurant,
but Morey was in no mood to care. He found a seat under a potted
palm, as far from the tinkling fountains and robot string ensemble as he
could manage, and ordered recklessly, paying no attention to the ration
prices. As the waiter was gliding noiselessly away, Morey had a sicken-
ing realization: He'd come out without his ration book. He groaned out
loud; it was too late to leave without causing a disturbance. But then, he
thought rebelliously, what difference did one more unrationed meal
make anyhow?
Food made him feel a little better. He finished the last of his
profiterole au chocolate, not even leaving on the plate the uneaten one-
third that tradition permitted, and paid his check. The robot cashier
reached automatically for his ration book. Morey had a moment of
grandeur as he said simply, "No ration stamps."
Robot cashiers are not equipped to display surprise, but this one
tried. The man behind Morey in line audibly caught his breath, and less
audibly mumbled something about slummers. Morey took it as a com-
pliment and strode outside feeling almost in good humor.
Good enough to go home to Cherry? Morey thought seriously of it
for a second; but he wasn't going to pretend he was wrong and certainly
Cherry wasn't going to be willing to admit that she was at fault.
Besides, Morey told himself grimly, she was undoubtedly asleep.
That was an annoying thing about Cherry at best: She never had any
trouble getting to sleep. Didn't even use her quota of sleeping tablets,
though Morey had spoken to her about it more than once. Of course, he
reminded himself, he had been so polite and tactful about it, as befits a

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159
newlywed, that very likely she hadn't even understood that it was a
complaint. Well, that would stop!
Man's man Morey Fry, wearing no collar ruff but his own, strode de-
terminedly down the streets of the Old Town.
"Hey, Joe, want a good time?"
Morey took one unbelieving look. "You again!" he roared.
The little man stared at him in genuine surprise. Then a faint glim-
mer of recognition crossed his face. "Oh, yeah," he said. "This morn-
ing, huh?" He clucked commiseratingly. "Too bad you wouldn't deal
with me. Your wife was a lot smarter. Of course, you got me a little
sore, Jack, so naturally I had to raise the price a little bit."
"You skunk, you cheated my poor wife blind! You and I are going to
the local station house and talk this over."
The little man pursed his lips. "We are, huh?"
Morey nodded vigorously. "Damn right! And let me tell you—" He
stopped in the middle of a threat as a large hand cupped around his
shoulder.
The equally large man who owned the hand said, in a mild and cul-
tured voice, "Is this gentleman disturbing you, Sam?"
"Not so far," the little man conceded. "He might want to, though, so
don't go away."
Morey wrenched his shoulder away. "Don't think you can strongarm
me. I'm taking you to the police."
Sam shook his head unbelievingly. "You mean you're going to call
the law in on this?"
"I certainly am!"
Sam sighed regretfully. "What do you think of that, Walter? Treating
his wife like that. Such a nice lady, too."
"What are you talking about?" Morey demanded, stung on a pe-
culiarly sensitive spot.
"I'm talking about your wife," Sam explained. "Of course, I'm not
married myself. But it seems to me that if I was, I wouldn't call the
police when my wife was engaged in some kind of criminal activity or
other. No, sir, I'd try to settle it myself. Tell you what," he advised,
"why don't you talk this over with her? Make her see the error of—"
"Wait a minute," Morey interrupted. "You mean you'd involve my
wife in this thing?"
The man spread his hands helplessly. "It's not me that would involve

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her, Buster," he said. "She already involved her own self. It takes two
to make a crime, you know. I sell, maybe; I won't deny it. But after all,
I can't sell unless somebody buys, can I?"
Morey stared at him glumly. He glanced in quick speculation at the
large-sized Walter; but Walter was just as big as he'd remembered, so
that took care of that. Violence was out; the police were out; that left
no really attractive way of capitalizing on the good luck of running into
the man again.
Sam said, "Well, I'm glad to see that's off your mind. Now, returning
to my original question, Mac, how would you like a good time? You
look like a smart fellow to me; you look like you'd be kind of interested
in a place I happen to know of down the block."
Morey said bitterly, "So you're a dive-steerer too. A real talented
man."
"I admit it," Sam agreed. "Stamp business is slow at night, in my ex-
perience. People have their minds more on a good time. And, believe
me, a good time is what I can show 'em. Take this place I'm talking
about, Uncle Piggotty's is the name of it, it's what I would call an unu-
sual kind of place. Wouldn't you say so, Walter?"
"Oh, I agree with you entirely," Walter rumbled.
But Morey was hardly listening. He said, "Uncle Piggotty's, you
say?"
"That's right," said Sam.
Morey frowned for a moment, digesting an idea. Uncle Piggotty's
sounded like the place Howland had been talking about back at the
plant; it might be interesting, at that.
While he was making up his mind, Sam slipped an arm through his
on one side and Walter amiably wrapped a big hand around the other.
Morey found himself walking.
"You'll like it," Sam promised comfortably. "No hard feelings about
this morning, sport? Of course not. Once you get a look at Piggotty's,
you'll get over your mad, anyhow. It's something special. I swear, on
what they pay me for bringing in customers, I wouldn't do it unless I
believed in it."
"Dance, Jack?" the hostess yelled over the noise at the bar. She
stepped back, lifted her flounced skirts to ankle height and executed a
tricky nine-step.
"My name is Morey," Morey yelled back. "And I don't want to
dance, thanks."

The Midas Plague	161
The hostess shrugged, frowned meaningfully at Sam and danced
away.
Sam flagged the bartender. "First round's on us," he explained to
Morey. "Then we won't bother you any more. Unless you want us to, of
course. Like the place?" Morey hesitated, but Sam didn't wait. "Fine
place," he yelled, and picked up the drink the bartender left him. "See
you around."
He and the big man were gone. Morey stared after them uncertainly,
then gave it up. He was here, anyhow; might as well at least have a
drink. He ordered and looked around.
Uncle Piggotty's was a third-rate dive disguised to look, in parts of it
at least, like one of the exclusive upper-class country clubs. The bar, for
instance, was treated to resemble the clean lines of nailed wood; but un-
derneath the surface treatment, Morey could detect the intricate lamina-
tions of plyplastic. What at first glance appeared to be burlap hangings
were in actuality elaborately textured synthetics. And all through the
bar the motif was carried out.
A floor show of sorts was going on, but nobody seemed to be paying
much attention to it. Morey, straining briefly to hear the master of
ceremonies, gathered that the wit was on a more than mildly vulgar
level. There was a dispirited string of chorus beauties in long ruffled
pantaloons and diaphanous tops; one of them, Morey was almost sure,
was the hostess who had talked to him just a few moments before.
Next to him a man was declaiming to a middle-aged woman:
"Smote I the monstrous rock, yahoo!
Smote I the turgid tube, Bully Boy!
Smote I the cankered hill—
Why, Morey!" he interrupted himself. "What are you doing here?"
He turned farther around and Morey recognized him. "Hello, How-
land," he said. "I—uh—I happened to be free tonight, so I thought—"
Howland sniggered. "Well, guess your wife is more liberal than mine
was. Order a drink, boy."
"Thanks, I've got one," said Morey.
The woman, with a tigerish look at Morey, said, "Don't stop,
Everett. That was one of your most beautiful things."
"Oh, Morey's heard my poetry," Howland said. "Morey, I'd like you

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Frederik Pohl
to meet a very lovely and talented young lady, Tanaquil Bigelow.
Morey works in the office with me, Tan."
"Obviously," said Tanaquil Bigelow in a frozen voice, and Morey
hastily withdrew the hand he had begun to put out.
The conversation stuck there, impaled, the woman cold, Howland
relaxed and abstracted, Morey wondering if, after all, this had been
such a good idea. He caught the eye-cell of the robot bartender and or-
dered a round of drinks for the three of them, politely putting them on
Howland's ration book. By the time the drinks had come and Morey
had just got around to deciding that it wasn't a very good idea, the
woman had all of a sudden become thawed.
She said abruptly, "You look like the kind of man who thinks,
Morey, and I like to talk to that kind of man. Frankly, Morey, I just
don't have any patience at all with the stupid, stodgy men who just
work in their offices all day and eat all their dinners every night, and
gad about and consume like mad and where does it all get them any-
how? That's right; I can see you understand. Just one crazy rush of con-
sume, consume from the day you're born plop to the day you're buried
pop! And who's to blame if not the robots?"
Faintly, a tinge of worry began to appear on the surface of Howland's
relaxed chin. "Tan," he chided, "Morey may not be very interested in
politics."
Politics, Morey thought; well, at least that was a clue. He'd had the
dizzying feeling, while the woman was talking, that he himself was the
ball in the games machine he had designed for the shop earlier that day.
Following the woman's conversation might, at that, give his next design
some valuable pointers in swoops, curves, and obstacles.
He said, with more than half truth, "No, please go on, Miss Bigelow.
I'm very much interested."
She smiled; then abruptly her face changed to a frightening scowl.
Morey flinched, but evidently the scowl wasn't meant for him. "Ro-
bots!" she hissed. "Supposed to work for us, aren't they? Hah! We're
their slaves, slaves for every moment of every miserable day of our
lives. Slaves! Wouldn't you like to join us and be free, Morey?"
Morey took cover in his drink. He made an expressive gesture with
his free hand—expressive of exactly what, he didn't truly know, for he
was lost. But it seemed to satisfy the woman.
She said accusingly, "Did you know that more than three-quarters of
the people in this country have had a nervous breakdown in the past

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163
five years and four months? That more than half of them are under the
constant care of psychiatrists for psychosis—not just plain ordinary neu-
rosis like my husband's got and Howland here has got and you've got,
but psychosis. Like I've got. Did you know that? Did you know that
forty percent of the population are essentially manic depressive, thirty-
one percent are schizoid, thirty-eight percent have an assortment of
other unfixed psychogenic disturbances, and twenty-four—"
"Hold it a minute, Tan," Howland interrupted critically. "You've got
too many percents there. Start over again."
"Oh, the hell with it," the woman said moodily. "I wish my husband
were here. He expresses it so much better than I do." She swallowed
her drink. "Since you've wriggled off the hook," she said nastily to
Morey, "how about setting up another round—on my ration book this
time?"
Morey did; it was the simplest thing to do in his confusion. When
that was gone, they had another on Howland's book.
As near as he could figure out, the woman, her husband and quite
possibly Howland as well belonged to some kind of anti-robot group.
Morey had heard of such things; they had a quasi-legal status, neither
approved nor prohibited, but he had never come into contact with them
before. Remembering the hatred he had so painfully relived at the
psychodrama session, he thought anxiously that perhaps he belonged
with them. But, question them though he might, he couldn't seem to get
the principles of the organization firmly in mind.
The woman finally gave up trying to explain it, and went off to find
her husband while Morey and Howland had another drink and listened
to two drunks squabble over who bought the next round. They were at
the Alphonse-Gaston stage of inebriation; they would regret it in the
morning; for each was bending over backward to permit the other to
pay the ration points. Morey wondered uneasily about his own points;
Howland was certainly getting credit for a lot of Morey's drinking to-
night. Served him right for forgetting his book, of course.
When the woman came back, it was with the large man Morey had
encountered in the company of Sam, the counterfeiter, steerer and gen-
eral man about Old Town.
"A remarkably small world, isn't it?" boomed Walter Bigelow, only
slightly crushing Morey's hand in his. "Well, sir, my wife has told me
how interested you are in the basic philosophical drives behind our

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Frederik Pohl
movement, and I should like to discuss them further with you. To begin
with, sir, have you considered the principle of Twoness?"
Morey said, "Why-"
"Very good," said Bigelow courteously. He cleared his throat and
declaimed:
Han-headed Cathay saw it first,
Bright as brightest solar burst;
Whipped it into boy and girl,
The blinding spiral-sliced swirl:
Yang
And Yin.
He shrugged deprecatingly. "Just the first stanza," he said. "I don't
know if you got much out of it."
"Well, no," Morey admitted.
"Second stanza," Bigelow said firmly:
Hegel saw it, saw it clear;
Jackal Marx drew near, drew near;
O'er his shoulder saw it plain,
Turned it upside down again:
Yang
And Yin*
There was an expectant pause. Morey said, "I—uh—"
"Wraps it all up, doesn't it?" Bigelow's wife demanded. "Oh, if only
others could see it as clearly as you do! The robot peril and the robot
savior. Starvation and surfeit. Always twoness, always!"
Bigelow patted Morey's shoulder. "The next stanza makes it even
clearer," he said. "It's really very clever—I shouldn't say it, of course,
but it's Howland's as much as it's mine. He helped me with the verses."
Morey darted a glance at Howland, but Howland was carefully looking
away. "Third stanza," said Bigelow. "This is a hard one, because it's
long, so pay attention."
Justice, tip your sightless scales;
One pan rises, one pan falls.

The Midas Plague	165
"Howland," he interrupted himself, "are you sure about that rhyme?
I always trip over it. Well, anyway:
Add to A and B grows less;
A's B's partner, nonetheless.
Next, the Twoness that there be
In even electricity.
Chart the current as ifs found:
Sine the hot lead; line the ground.
The wild sine dances, soars, and falls,
But only to figures the zero calls.
Sine wave, scales, all things that be
Share a reciprocity.
Male and female, light and dark:
Name the numbers of Noah's Ark!
Yang
And Yin!
"Dearest!" shrieked Bigelow's wife. "You've never done it better!"
There was a spatter of applause, and Morey realized for the first time
that half the bar had stopped its noisy revel to listen to them. Bigelow
was evidently quite a well-known figure here.
Morey said weakly, "I've never heard anything like it."
He turned hesitantly to Howland, who promptly said, "Drink! What
we all need right now is a drink."
They had a drink on Bigelow's book.
Morey got Howland aside and asked him, "Look, level with me. Are
these people nuts?"
Howland showed pique. "No. Certainly not."
"Does that poem mean anything? Does this whole business of
twoness mean anything?"
Howland shrugged. "If it means something to them, it means some-
thing. They're philosophers, Morey. They see deep into things. You
don't know what a privilege it is for me to be allowed to associate with
them."
They had another drink. On Howland's book, of course.
Morey eased Walter Bigelow over to a quiet spot. He said, "Leaving
twoness out of it for the moment, what's this about the robots?"

166
Frederik Pohl
Bigelow looked at him round-eyed. "Didn't you understand the
poem?"
"Of course I did. But diagram it for me in simple terms so I can tell
my wife."
Bigelow beamed. "It's about the dichotomy of robots," he explained.
"Like the little salt mill that the boy wished for: it ground out salt and
ground out salt and ground out salt. He had to have salt, but not that
much salt. Whitehead explains it clearly—"
They had another drink on Bigelow's book.
Morey wavered over Tanaquil Bigelow. He said fuzzily, "Listen.
Mrs. Walter Tanaquil Strongarm Bigelow. Listen."
She grinned smugly at him. "Brown hair," she said dreamily.
Morey shook his head vigorously. "Never mind hair," he ordered.
"Never mind poem. Listen. In pre-cise and el-e-me/z-ta-ry terms, ex-
plain to me what is wrong with the world today."
"Not enough brown hair," she said promptly.
"Never mind hair!"
"All right," she said agreeably. "Too many robots. Too many robots
make too much of everything."
"Ha! Got it!" Morey exclaimed triumphantly. "Get rid of robots!"
"Oh, no. No! No! No. We wouldn't eat. Everything is mechanized.
Can't get rid of them, can't slow down production—slowing down is
dying, stopping is quicker dying. Principle of twoness is the concept that
clarifies all these—"
"No!" Morey said violently. "What should we do?"
"Do? I'll tell you what we should do, if that's what you want. I can
tell you."
"Then tell me."
"What we should do is"—Tanaquil hiccupped with a look of refined
consternation—"have another drink."
They had another drink. He gallantly let her pay, of course. She un-
gallantly argued with the bartender about the ration points due her.
Though not a two-fisted drinker, Morey tried. He really worked at it.
He paid the price, too. For some little time before his limbs stopped
moving, his mind stopped functioning. Blackout. Almost a blackout, at
any rate, for all he retained of the late evening was a kaleidoscope of
people and places and things. Howland was there, drunk as a skunk,
disgracefully drunk, Morey remembered thinking as he stared up at

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167
Howland from the floor. The Bigelows were there. His wife, Cherry, so-
licitous and amused, was there. And oddly enough, Henry was there.
It was very, very hard to reconstruct. Morey devoted a whole morn-
ing's hangover to the effort. It was important to reconstruct it, for some
reason. But Morey couldn't even remember what the reason was; and
finally he dismissed it, guessing that he had either solved the secret of
twoness or whether Tanaquil Bigelow's remarkable figure was natural.
He did, however, know that the next morning he had waked in his
own bed, with no recollection of getting there. No recollection of any-
thing much, at least not of anything that fit into the proper chrono-
logical order or seemed to mesh with anything else, after the dozenth
drink, when he and Howland, arms around each other's shoulders, com-
posed a new verse on twoness and, plagiarizing an old marching tune,
howled it across the boisterous barroom:
A twoness on the scene much later
Rest in your refrigerator.
Heat your house and insulate it.
Next your food: Refrigerate it.
Frost will damp your Freon coils,
So flux in nichrome till it boils.
See the picture? Heat in cold
In heat in cold, the story's told!
Giant-writ the sacred scrawl:
Oh, the twoness of it all!
Yang
And Yin!
It had, at any rate, seemed to mean something at the time.
If alcohol opened Morey's eyes to the fact that there was a twoness,
perhaps alcohol was what he needed. For there was.
Call it a dichotomy, if the word seems more couth. A kind of two-
pronged struggle, the struggle of two unwearying runners in an immor-
tal race. There is the refrigerator inside the house. The cold air, the
bubble of heated air that is in the house, the bubble of cooled air that is
the refrigerator, the momentary bubble of heated air that defrosts it.
Call the heat Yang, if you will. Call the cold Yin. Yang overtakes Yin.
Then Yin passes Yang. Then Yang passes Yin. Then-
Give them other names. Call Yin a mouth; call Yang a hand.

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Frederik Pohl
If the hand rests, the mouth will starve. If the mouth stops, the hand
will die. The hand, Yang, moves faster.
Yin may not lag behind.
Then call Yang a robot.
And remember that a pipeline has two ends.
Like any once-in-a-lifetime lush, Morey braced himself for the conse-
quences—and found startedly that there were none.
Cherry was a surprise to him. "You were so funny," she giggled.
"And, honestly, so romantic "
He shakily swallowed his breakfast coffee.
The office staff roared and slapped him on the back. "Howland tells
us you're living high, boy!" they bellowed more or less in the same
words. "Hey, listen to what Morey did—went on the town for the night
of a lifetime and didn't even bring his ration book along to cash inI"
They thought it was a wonderful joke.
But, then, everything was going well. Cherry, it seemed, had re-
formed out of recognition. True, she still hated to go out in the evening
and Morey never saw her forcing herself to gorge on unwanted food or
play undesired games. But, moping into the pantry one afternoon, he
found to his incredulous delight that they were well ahead of their ra-
tion quotas. In some items, in fact, they were out—a month's supply and
more was gone ahead of schedule!
Nor was it the counterfeit stamps, for he had found them tucked
behind a bain-marie and quietly burned them. He cast about for ways of
complimenting her, but caution prevailed. She was sensitive on the sub-
ject; leave it be.
And virtue had its reward.
Wainwright called him in, all smiles. "Morey, great news! We've ap-
preciated your work here, and we've been able to show it in some more
tangible way than compliments. I didn't want to say anything till it was
definite, but—your status has been reviewed by Classification and the
Ration Board. You're out of class Four Minor, Morey!"
Morey said tremulously, hardly daring to hope, "I'm a full Class
Four?"
"Class Five, Morey. Class Five! When we do something, we do it
right. We asked for a special waiver and got it—you've skipped a whole
class." He added honestly, "Not that it was just our backing that did it,

The Midas Plague	169
of course. Your own recent splendid record of consumption helped a
lot. I told you you could do it!"
Morey had to sit down. He missed the rest of what Wainwright had
to say, but it couldn't have mattered. He escaped from the office, side-
stepped the knot of fellow employees waiting to congratulate him, and
got to a phone.
Cherry was as ecstatic and inarticulate as he. "Oh, darling!" was all
she could say.
"And I couldn't have done it without you," he babbled, "Wain-
wright as much as said so himself. Said if it wasn't for the way we—well,
you have been keeping up with the rations, it never would have got by
the Board. I've been meaning to say something to you about that, dear,
but I just haven't known how. But I do appreciate it. I—Hello?" There
was a curious silence at the other end of the phone. "Hello?" he re-
peated worriedly.
Cherry's voice was intense and low. "Morey Fry, I think you're
mean. I wish you hadn't spoiled the good news." And she hung up.
Morey stared slack-jawed at the phone.
Howland appeared behind him, chuckling. "Women," he said.
"Never try to figure them. Anyway, congratulations, Morey."
"Thanks," Morey mumbled.
Howland coughed and said, "Uh—by the way, Morey, now that
you're one of the big shots, so to speak, you won't—uh—feel obliged to—
well, say anything to Wainwright, for instance, about anything I may
have said while we—"
"Excuse me," Morey said, unhealing, and pushed past him. He
thought wildly of calling Cherry back, of racing home to see just what
he'd said that was wrong. Not that there was much doubt, of course.
He'd touched her on her sore point.
Anyhow, his wristwatch was chiming a reminder of the fact that his
psychiatric appointment for the week was coming up.
Morey sighed. The day gives and the day takes away. Blessed is the
day that gives only good things.
If any.
The session went badly. Many of the sessions had been going badly,
Morey decided; there had been more and more whispering in knots of
doctors from which he was excluded, poking and probing in the dark in-

170
Frederik Pohl
stead of the precise psychic surgery he was used to. Something was
wrong, he thought.
Something was. Semmelweiss confirmed it when he adjourned the
group session. After the other doctors had left, he sat Morey down for a
private talk. On his own time too—he didn't ask for his usual ration fee.
That told Morey how important the problem was.
"Morey," said Semmelweiss, "you're holding back."
"I don't mean to, Doctor," Morey said earnestly.
"Who knows what you 'mean' to do? Part of you 'means' to. We've
dug pretty deep, and we've found some important things. Now there's
something I can't put my finger on. Exploring the mind, Morey, is like
sending scouts through cannibal territory. You can't see the cannibals—
until it's too late. But if you send a scout through the jungle and he
doesn't show up on the other side, it's a fair assumption that something
obstructed his way. In that case, we would label the obstruction 'canni-
bals.' In the case of the human mind, we label the obstruction a
'trauma.' What the trauma is, or what its effects on behavior will be, we
have to find out, once we know that it's there."
Morey nodded. All of this was familiar; he couldn't see what Sem-
melweiss was driving at.
Semmelweiss sighed. "The trouble with healing traumas and pene-
trating psychic blocks and releasing inhibitions—the trouble with every-
thing we psychiatrists do, in fact, is that we can't afford to do it too
well. An inhibited man is under a strain. We try to relieve the strain.
But if we succeed completely, leaving him with no inhibitions at all, we
have an outlaw, Morey. Inhibitions are often socially necessary. Sup-
pose, for instance, that an average man were not inhibited against bla-
tant waste. It could happen, you know. Suppose that instead of consum-
ing his ration quota in an orderly and responsible way, he did such
things as set fire to his house and everything in it or dumped his food al-
lotment in the river.
"When only a few individuals are doing it, we treat the individuals.
But if it were done on a mass scale, Morey, it would be the end of soci-
ety as we know it. Think of the whole collection of anti-social actions
that you see in every paper. Man beats wife; wife turns into a harpy;
junior smashes up windows; husband starts a black-market stamp
racket. And every one of them traces to a basic weakness in the mind's
defenses against the most important single anti-social phenomenon-
failure to consume."

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171
Morey flared, "That's not fair, Doctor! That was weeks ago! We've
certainly been on the ball lately. I was just commended by the Board, in
fact-"
The doctor said mildly, "Why so violent, Morey? I only made a gen-
eral remark."
"It's just natural to resent being accused."
The doctor shrugged. "First, foremost, and above all, we do not ac-
cuse patients of things. We try to help you find things out." He lit his
end-of-session cigarette. "Think about it, please. I'll see you next
week."
Cherry was composed and unapproachable. She kissed him remotely
when he came in. She said, "I called Mother and told her the good
news. She and Dad promised to come over here to celebrate."
"Yeah," said Morey. "Darling, what did I say wrong on the phone?"
"They'll be here about six."
"Sure. But what did I say? Was it about the rations? If you're sensi-
tive, I swear I'll never mention them again."
"I am sensitive, Morey."
He said despairingly, "I'm sorry. I just—"
He had a better idea. He kissed her.
Cherry was passive at first, but not for long. When he had finished
kissing her, she pushed him away and actually giggled. "Let me get
dressed for dinner."
"Certainly. Anyhow, I was just—"
She laid a finger on his lips.
He let her escape, and feeling much less tense, drifted into the li-
brary. The afternoon papers were waiting for him. Virtuously, he sat
down and began going through them in order. Midway through the
World-Telegram-Sun-Post-and-News, he rang for Henry.
Morey had read clear through to the drama section of the Times-
Herald-Tribune-Mirror before the robot appeared. "Good evening," it
said politely.
"What took you so long?" Morey demanded. "Where are all the ro-
bots?"
Robots do not stammer, but there was a distinct pause before Henry
said, "Belowstairs, sir. Did you want them for something?"
"Well, no. I just haven't seen them around. Get me a drink."
It hesitated. "Scotch, sir?"

172
Frederik Pohl
"Before dinner? Get me a manhattan."
"We're all out of vermouth, sir."
"All out? Would you mind telling me how?"
"It's all used up, sir."
"Now that's just ridiculous," Morey snapped. "We have never run
out of liquor in our whole lives, and you know it. Good heavens, we
just got our allotment in the other day, and I certainly—"
He checked himself. There was a sudden flicker of horror in his eyes
as he stared at Henry.
"You certainly what, sir?" the robot prompted.
Morey swallowed. "Henry, did I—did I do something I shouldn't
have?"
"I'm sure I wouldn't know, sir. It isn't up to me to say what you
should and shouldn't do."
"Of course not," Morey agreed grayly.
He sat rigid, staring hopelessly into space, remembering. What he
remembered was no pleasure to him at all.
"Henry," he said. "Come along, we're going belowstairs. Right
now!"
It had been Tanaquil Bigelow's remark about the robots. Too many
robots—make too much of everything.
That had implanted the idea; it germinated in Morey's home. More
than a little drunk, less than ordinarily inhibited, he had found the
problem clear and the answer obvious.
He stared around him in dismal worry. His own robots, following his
own orders, given weeks before. . .
Henry said, "It's just what you told us to do, sir."
Morey groaned. He was watching a scene of unparalleled activity,
and it sent shivers up and down his spine.
There was the butler-robot, hard at work, his copper face expres-
sionless. Dressed in Morey's own sports knickers and golfing shoes, the
robot solemnly hit a ball against the wall, picked it up, and teed it, hit it
again, over and again, with Morey's own clubs. Until the ball wore rag-
ged and was replaced; and the shafts of the clubs leaned out of true;
and the close-stitched seams in the clothing began to stretch and abrade.
"My God!" said Morey hollowly.
There were the maid-robots, exquisitely dressed in Cherry's best,
walking up and down in the delicate, slim shoes, sitting and rising and

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173
bending and turning. The cook-robots and the serving-robots were pre-
paring dionysian meals.
Morey swallowed. "You—you've been doing this right along," he said
to Henry. "That's why the quotas have been filled."
"Oh, yes, sir. Just as you told us."
Morey had to sit down. One of the serving-robots politely scurried
over with a chair, brought from upstairs for their new chores.
Waste.
Morey tasted the word between his lips.
Waste.
You never wasted things. You used them. If necessary, you drove
yourself to the edge of breakdown to use them; you made every breath
a burden and every hour a torment to use them, until through diligent
consuming and/or occupational merit, you were promoted to the next
higher class, and were allowed to consume less frantically. But you
didn't wantonly destroy or throw out. You consumed.
Morey thought fearfully: When the Board finds out about this . . .
Still, he reminded himself, the Board hadn't found out. It might take
some time before they did, for humans, after all, never entered robot
quarters. There was no law against it, not even a sacrosanct custom.
But there was no reason to. When breaks occurred, which was infre-
quently, maintenance robots or repair squads came in and put them
back in order. Usually the humans involved didn't even know it had
happened, because the robots used their own TBR radio circuits and
the process was next thing to automatic.
Morey said reprovingly, "Henry, you should have told—well, I mean
reminded me about this."
"But, sir!" Henry protested. " 'Don't tell a living soul,' you said. You
made it a direct order."
"Umph. Well, keep it that way. I—uh—I have to go back upstairs.
Better get the rest of the robots started on dinner."
Morey left, not comfortably.
The dinner to celebrate Morey's promotion was difficult. Morey liked
Cherry's parents. Old Elon, after the premarriage inquisition that father
must inevitably give to daughter's suitor, had buckled right down to the
job of adjustment. The old folks were good about not interfering, good
about keeping their superior social status to themselves, good about
helping out on the budget—at least once a week, they could be relied on

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Frederik Pohl
to come over for a hearty meal, and Mrs. Elon had more than once
remade some of Cherry's new dresses fo fit herself, even to the extent of
wearing all the high-point ornamentation.
And they had been wonderful about the wedding gifts, when Morey
and their daughter got married. The most any member of Morey's fam-
ily had been willing to take was a silver set or a few crystal table pieces.
The Elons had come through with a dazzling promise to accept a car, a
bird-bath for their garden and a complete set of living-room furniture!
Of course, they could afford it—they had to consume so little that it
wasn't much strain for them even to take gifts of that magnitude. But
without their help, Morey knew, the first few months of matrimony
would have been even tougher consuming than they were.
But on this particular night it was hard for Morey to like anyone. He
responded with monosyllables; he barely grunted when Elon proposed a
toast to his promotion and his brilliant future. He was preoccupied.
Rightly so. Morey, in his deepest, bravest searching, could find no
clue in his memory as to just what the punishment might be for what he
had done. But he had a sick certainty that trouble lay ahead.
Morey went over his problem so many times that an anesthesia set in.
By the time dinner was ended and he and his father-in-law were in the
den with their brandy, he was more or less functioning again.
Elon, for the first time since Morey had known him, offered him one
of his cigars. "You're Grade Five—can afford to smoke somebody else's
now, hey?"
"Yeah," Morey said glumly.
There was a moment of silence. Then Elon, as punctilious as any
companion-robot, coughed and tried again. "Remember being peaked
till I hit Grade Five," he reminisced meaningfully. "Consuming keeps a
man on the go, all right. Things piled up at the law office, couldn't be
taken care of while ration points piled up, too. And consuming comes
first, of course—that's a citizen's prin^duty. Mother and I had our
share of grief over that, but a couple that wants to make a go of mar-
riage and citizenship just pitches in and does the job, hey?"
Morey repressed a shudder and managed to nod.
"Best thing about upgrading," Elon went on, as if he had elicited a
satisfactory answer, "don't have to spend so much time consuming, give
more attention to work. Greatest luxury in the world, work. Wish I had
as much stamina as you young fellows. Five days a week in court are
about all I can manage. Hit six for a while; relaxed first time in my life,

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but my doctor made me cut down. Said we can't overdo pleasures.
You'll be working two days a week now, hey?"
Morey produced another nod.
Elon drew deeply on his cigar, his eyes bright as they watched
Morey. He was visibly puzzled, and Morey, even in his half-daze, could
recognize the exact moment at which Elon drew the wrong inference.
"Ah, everything okay with you and Cherry?" he asked diplomatically.
"Fine!" Morey exclaimed. "Couldn't be better!"
"Good, Good." Elon changed the subject with almost an audible
wrench. "Speaking of court, had an interesting case the other day.
Young fellow—year or two younger than you, I guess—came in with a
Section Ninety-seven on him. Know what that is? Breaking and en-
tering!"
"Breaking and entering," Morey repeated wonderingly, interested in
spite of himself. "Breaking and entering what?"
"Houses. Old term; law's full of them. Originally applied to stealing
things. Still does, I discovered."
"You mean he stole something?" Morey asked in bewilderment.
"Exactly! He stole. Strangest thing I ever came across. Talked it over
with one of his bunch of lawyers later; new one on him, too. Seems this
kid had a girl friend, nice kid but a little, you know, plump. She got in-
terested in art."
"There's nothing wrong with that," Morey said.
"Nothing wrong with her, either. She didn't do anything. She didn't
like him too much, though. Wouldn't marry him. Kid got to thinking
about how he could get her to change her mind and—well, you know
that big Mondrian in the Museum?"
"I've never been there," Morey said, somewhat embarrassed.
"Um. Ought to try it some day, boy. Anyway, comes closing time at
the Museum the other day, this kid sneaks in. He steals the painting.
That's right—steals it. Takes it to give to the girl."
Morey shook his head blankly. "I never heard of anything like that in
my life."
"Not many have. Girl wouldn't take it, by the way. Got scared when
he brought it to her. She must've tipped off the police, I guess. Some-
body did. Took 'em three hours to find it, even when they knew it was
hanging on a wall. Pretty poor kid. Forty-two room house."
"And there was a law against it?" Morey asked. "I mean it's like
making a law against breathing."

176
Frederik Pohl
"Certainly was. Old law, of course. Kid got set back two grades.
Would have been more but, my God, Jie was only a Grade Three as it
was."
"Yeah," said Morey, wetting his lips. "Say, Dad—"
"Urn?"
Morey cleared his throat. "Uh—I wonder—I mean, what's the pen-
alty, for instance, for things like—well, misusing rations or anything like
that?"
Elon's eyebrows went high. "Misusing rations?"
"Say you had a liquor ration, it might be, and instead of drinking it,
you—well, flushed it down the drain or something. . ."
His voice trailed off. Elon was frowning. He said, "Funny thing,
seems I'm not as broadminded as I thought I was. For some reason, I
don't find that amusing."
"Sorry," Morey croaked.
And he certainly was.
It might be dishonest, but it was doing him a lot of good, for days
went by and no one seemed to have penetrated his secret. Cherry was
happy. Wainwright found occasion after occasion to pat Morey's back.
The wages of sin were turning out to be prosperity and happiness.
There was a bad moment when Morey came home to find Cherry in
the middle of supervising a team of packing robots; the new house, suit-
able to his higher grade, was ready, and they were expected to move in
the next day. But Cherry hadn't been belowstairs, and Morey had his
household robots clean up the evidences of what they had been doing
before the packers got that far.
The new house was, by Morey's standards, pure luxury.
It was only fifteen rooms. Morey had shrewdly retained one more
robot than was required for a Class Five, and had been allowed a com-
pensating deduction in the size of his house.
The robot quarters were less secluded than in the old house, though,
and that was a disadvantage. More than once Cherry had snuggled up
to him in the delightful intimacy of their one bed in their single bed-
room and said, with faint curiosity, "I wish they'd stop that noise." And
Morey had promised to speak to Henry about it in the morning. But
there was nothing he could say to Henry, of course, unless he ordered
Henry to stop the tireless consuming through each of the day's twenty-

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177
four hours that kept them always ahead, but never quite far enough
ahead, of the inexorable weekly increment of ration quotas.
But, though Cherry might once in a while have a moment's curiosity
about what the robots were doing, she was not likely to be able to guess
at the facts. Her upbringing was, for once, on Morey's side—she knew
so little of the grind, grind, grind of consuming that was the lot of the
lower classes that she scarcely noticed that there was less of it.
Morey almost, sometimes, relaxed.
He thought of many ingenious chores for robots, and the robots po-
litely and emotionlessly obeyed.
Morey was a success.
It wasn't all gravy. There was a nervous moment for Morey when the
quarterly survey report came in the mail. As the day for the Ration
Board to check over the degree of wear on the turned-in discards came
due, Morey began to sweat. The clothing and furniture and household
goods the robots had consumed for him were very nearly in shreds. It
had to look plausible, that was the big thing—no normal person would
wear a hole completely through the knee of a pair of pants, as Henry had
done with his dress suit before Morey stopped him. Would the Board
question it?
Worse, was there something about the way the robots consumed the
stuff that would give the whole show away? Some special wear point in
the robot anatomy, for instance, that would rub a hole where no hu-
man's body could, or stretch a seam that should normally be under no
strain at all?
It was worrisome. But the worry was needless. When the report of
survey came, Morey let out a long-held breath. Not a single item disal-
lowed!
Morey was a success—and so was his scheme!
To the successful man come the rewards of success. Morey arrived
home one evening after a hard day's work at the office and was alarmed
to find another car parked in his drive. It was a tiny two-seater, the sort
affected by top officials and the very well-to-do.
Right then and there Morey learned the first half of the embezzler's
lesson: Anything different is dangerous. He came uneasily into his own
house, fearful that some high officer of the Ration Board had come to
ask questions.
But Cherry was glowing. "Mr. Porfirio is a newspaper feature writer

178
Frederik Pohl
and he wants to write you up for their 'Consumers of Distinction' page!
Morey, I couldn't be more proud!"
"Thanks," said Morey glumly. "Hello."
Mr. Porfirio shook Morey's hand warmly. "I'm not exactly from a
newspaper," he corrected. "Trans-video Press is what it is, actually.
We're a news wire service; we supply forty-seven hundred papers with
news and feature material. Every one of them," he added complacently,
"on the required consumption list of Grades One through Six inclusive.
We have a Sunday supplement self-help feature on consuming problems
and we like to—well, give credit where credit is due. You've established
an enviable record, Mr. Fry. We'd like to tell our readers about it."
"Um," said Morey. "Let's go in the drawing room."
"Oh, no!" Cherry said firmly. "I want to hear this. He's so modest,
Mr. Porfirio, you'd really never know what kind of a man he is just to
listen to him talk. Why, my goodness, I'm his wife and I swear I don't
know how he does all the consuming he does. He simply—"
"Have a drink Mr. Porfirio," Morey said, against all etiquette.
"Rye? Scotch? Bourbon? Gin-and-tonic? Brandy alexander? Dry
manha—I mean what would you like?" He became conscious that he
was babbling like a fool.
"Anything," said the newsman. "Rye is fine. Now, Mr. Fry, I notice
you've fixed up your place very attractively here and your wife says that
your country home is just as nice. As soon as I came in, I said to my-
self, 'Beautiful home. Hardly a stick of furniture that isn't absolutely
necessary. Might be a Grade Six or Seven.' And Mrs. Fry says the other
place is even barer."
"She does, does she?" Morey challenged sharply. "Well, let me tell
you, Mr. Porfirio, that every last scrap of my furniture allowance is ac-
counted for! I don't know what you're getting at, but—"
"Oh, I certainly didn't mean to imply anything like that! I just want
to get some information from you that I can pass on to our readers.
You know, to sort of help them do as well as yourself. How do you do
it?"
Morey swallowed. "We—uh—well, we just keep after it. Hard work,
that's all."
Porfirio nodded admiringly. "Hard work," he repeated, and fished a
triple-folded sheet of paper out of his pocket to make notes on. "Would
you say," he went on, "that anyone could do as well as you simply by de-

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voting himself to it—setting a regular schedule, for example, and keeping
to it very strictly?"
"Oh, yes," said Morey.
"In other words, it's only a matter of doing what you have to do
every day?"
"That's it exactly. I handle the budget in my house—more experience
than my wife, you see—but no reason a woman can't do it."
"Budgeting," Porfirio recorded approvingly. "That's our policy, too."
The interview was not the terror it had seemed, not even when
Porfirio tactfully called attention to Cherry's slim waistline ("So many
housewives, Mrs. Fry, find it difficult to keep from being—well, a little
plump.") and Morey had to invent endless hours on the exercise ma-
chines, while Cherry looked faintly perplexed, but did not interrupt.
From the interview, however, Morey learned the second half of the
embezzler's lesson. After Porfirio had gone, he leaped in and spoke
more than a little firmly to Cherry. "That business of exercise, dear. We
really have to start doing it. I don't know if you've noticed it, but you
are beginning to get just a trifle heavier and we don't want that to hap-
pen, do we?"
In the following grim and unnecessary sessions on the mechanical
horses, Morey had plenty of time to reflect on the lesson. Stolen treas-
ures are less sweet than one would like, when one dare not enjoy them
in the open.
But some of Morey's treasures were fairly earned.
The new Bradmoor K-50 Spin-a-Game, for instance, was his very
own. His job was design and creation, and he was a fortunate man in
that his efforts were permitted to be expended along the line of greatest
social utility—namely, to increase consumption.
The Spin-a-Game was a well-nigh perfect machine for the purpose.
"Brilliant," said Wainwright, beaming, when the pilot machine had
been put through its first tests. "Guess they don't call me the Talent-
picker for nothing. I knew you could do it, boy!"
Even Howland was lavish in his praise. He sat munching on a plate
of petits-fours (he was still only a Grade Three) while the tests were
going on, and when they were over, he said enthusiastically, "It's a
beauty, Morey. That series corrupter—sensational! Never saw a prettier
piece of machinery."
Morey flushed gratefully.
Wainwright left, exuding praise, and Morey patted his pilot model

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Frederik Pohl
affectionately and admired its polychrome gleam. The looks of the ma-
chine, as Wainwright had lectured many a time, were as important as its
function: "You have to make them want to play it, boy! They won't
play it if they don't see it!" And consequently the whole K series was
distinguished by flashing rainbows of light, provocative strains of music,
haunting scents that drifted into the nostrils of the passerby with com-
pelling effect.
Morey had drawn heavily on all the old masterpieces of design—the
one-arm bandit, the pinball machine, the juke box. You put your ration
book in the hopper. You spun the wheels until you selected the game
you wanted to play against the machine. You punched buttons or spun
dials or, in any of 325 different ways, you pitted your human skill
against the magnetic-taped skills of the machine.
And you lost. You had a chance to win, but the inexorable statistics
of the machine's setting made sure that if you played long enough, you
had to lose.
That is to say, if you risked a ten-point ration stamp—showing, per-
haps, that you had consumed three six-course meals—your statistic re-
turn was eight points. You might hit the jackpot and get a thousand
points back, and thus be exempt from a whole freezerful of steaks and
joints and prepared vegetables; but it seldom happened. Most likely you
lost and got nothing.
Got nothing, that is, in the way of your hazarded ration stamps. But
the beauty of the machine, which was Morey's main contribution, was
that, win or lose, you always found a pellet of vitamin-drenched, sugar-
coated antibiotic hormone gum in the hopper. You played your game,
won or lost your stake, popped your hormone gum into your mouth and
played another. By the time that game was ended, the gum was used up,
the coating dissolved; you discarded it and started another.
"That's what the man from the NRB liked," Howland told Morey
confidentially. "He took a set of schematics back with him; they might
install it on all new machines. Oh, you're the fair-haired boy, all right!"
It was the first Morey had heard about a man from the National Ra-
tion Board. It was good news. He excused himself and hurried to phone
Cherry the story of his latest successes. He reached her at her mother's,
where she was spending the evening, and she was properly impressed
and affectionate. He came back to Howland in a glowing humor.
"Drink?" said Howland diffidently.
"Sure," said Morey. He could afford, he thought, to drink as much of

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Howland's liquor as he liked; poor guy, sunk in the consuming quick-
sands of Class Three. Only fair for somebody a little more successful to
give him a hand once in a while.
And when Howland, learning that Cherry had left Morey a bachelor
for the evening, proposed Uncle Piggotty's again, Morey hardly hesi-
tated at alL
The Bigelows were delighted to see him. Morey wondered briefly if
they had a home; certainly they didn't seem to spend much time in it
It turned out they did, because when Morey indicated virtuously that
he'd only stopped in at Piggotty's for a single drink before dinner, and
Howland revealed that he was free for the evening, they captured
Morey and bore him off to their house.
Tanaquil Bigelow was haughtily apologetic. "I don't suppose this is
the kind of place Mr. Fry is used to," she observed to her husband,
right across Morey, who was standing between them. "Still, we call it
home."
Morey made an appropriately polite remark. Actually, the place
nearly turned his stomach. It was an enormous glaringly new mansion,
bigger even than Morey's former house, stuffed to bursting with bulging
sofas and pianos and massive mahogany chairs and tri-D sets and bed-
rooms and drawing rooms and breakfast rooms and nurseries.
The nurseries were a shock to Morey; it had never occurred to him
that the Bigelows had children. But they did, and though the children
were only five and eight, they were still up, under the care of a brace of
robot nursemaids, doggedly playing with their overstuffed animals and
miniature trains.
"You don't know what a comfort Tony and Dick are," Tanaquil
Bigelow told Morey. "They consume so much more than their rations.
Walter says that every family ought to have at least two or three chil-
dren to, you know, help out. Walter's so intelligent about these things,
it's a pleasure to hear him talk. Have you heard his poem, Morey? The
one he calls The Twoness of—"
Morey hastily admitted that he had. He reconciled himself to a glum
evening. The Bigelows had been eccentric but fun back at Uncle Pig-
gotty's. On their own ground, they seemed just as eccentric, but pain-
fully duU.
They had a round of cocktails, and another, and then the Bigelows
no longer seemed so dull. Dinner was ghastly, of course; Morey was

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Frederik Pohl
nouveau-riche enough to be a snob about his relatively Spartan table.
But he minded his manners and sampled, with grim concentration, each
successive course of chunky protein and rich marinades. With the help
of the endless succession of table wines and liqueurs, dinner ended with-
out destroying his evening or his strained digestive system.
And afterward, they were a pleasant company in the Bigelow's ornate
drawing room. Tanaquil Bigelow, in consultation with the children,
checked over their ration books and came up with the announcement
that they would have a brief recital by a pair of robot dancers, followed
by string music by a robot quartet. Morey prepared himself for the
worst, but found before the dancers were through that he was enjoying
himself. Strange lesson for Morey: When you didn't have to watch
them, the robot entertainers were fun!
"Good night, dears," Tanaquil Bigelow said firmly to the children
when the dancers were done. The boys rebelled, naturally, but they
went. It was only a matter of minutes, though, before one of them was
back, clutching at Morey's sleeve with a pudgy hand.
Morey looked at the boy uneasily, having little experience with chil-
dren. He said, "Uh-what is it, Tony?"
"Dick, you mean," the boy said. "Gimme your autograph." He
poked an engraved pad and a vulgarly jeweled pencil at Morey.
Morey dazedly signed and the child ran off, Morey staring after him.
Tanaquil Bigelow laughed and explained, "He saw your name in
Porfirio's column. Dick loves Porfirio, reads him every day. He's such
an intelligent kid, really. He'd always have his nose in a book if I didn't
keep after him to play with his trains and watch tri-D."
"That was quite a nice write-up," Walter Bigelow commented—a lit-
tle enviously, Morey thought. "Bet you make Consumer of the Year. I
wish," he sighed, "that we could get a little ahead on the quotas the way
you did. But it just never seems to work out. We eat and play and con-
sume like crazy, and somehow at the end of the month we're always a
little behind in something—everything keeps piling up—and then the
Board sends us a warning, and they call me down and, first thing you
know, I've got a couple of hundred added penalty points and we're
worse off than before."
"Never you mind," Tanaquil replied staunchly. "Consuming isn't ev-
erything in life. You have your work."
Bigelow nodded judiciously and offered Morey another drink. An-

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183
other drink, however, was not what Morey needed. He was sitting in a
rosy glow, less of alcohol than of sheer contentment with the world.
He said suddenly, "Listen."
Bigelow looked up from his own drink. "Eh?"
"If I tell you something that's a secret, will you keep it that way?"
Bigelow rumbled, "Why, I guess so, Morey."
But his wife cut in sharply, "Certainly we will, Morey. Of course!
What is it?" There was a gleam in her eye, Morey noticed. It puzzled
him, but he decided to ignore it.
He said, "About that write-up. I—I'm not such a hotshot consumer,
really, you know. In fact—" All of a sudden, everyone's eyes seemed to
be on him. For a tortured moment, Morey wondered if he was doing the
right thing. A secret that two people know is compromised, and a secret
known to three people is no secret. Still—
"It's like this," he said firmly. "You remember what we were talking
about at Uncle Piggotty's that night? Well, when I went home I went
down to the robot quarters, and I—"
He went on from there.
Tanaquil Bigelow said triumphantly, "I knew it!"
Walter Bigelow gave his wife a mild, reproving look. He declared
soberly, "You've done a big thing, Morey. A mighty big thing. God
willing, you've pronounced the death sentence on our society as we
know it. Future generations will revere the name of Morey Fry." He
solemnly shook Morey's hand.
Morey said dazedly, "I what?"
Walter nodded. It was a valedictory. He turned to his wife. "Tana-
quil, we'll have to call an emergency meeting."
"Of course, Walter," she said devotedly.
"And Morey will have to be there. Yes, you'll have to, Morey; no ex-
cuses. We want the Brotherhood to meet you. Right, Howland?"
Howland coughed uneasily. He nodded noncommittally and took an-
other drink.
Morey demanded desperately, "What are you talking about? How-
land, you tell me!"
Howland fiddled with his drink. "Well," he said, "it's like Tan was
telling you that night. A few of us, well, politically mature persons have
formed a little group. We—"
"Little group!" Tanaquil Bigelow said scornfully. "Howland, some-
times I wonder if you really catch the spirit of the thing at all! It's ev-

AT
184	Frederik Pohl
erybody, Morey, everybody in the world. Why, there are eighteen of us
right here in Old Town! There are scores more all over the world! I
knew you were up to something' like this, Morey. I told Walter so the
morning after we met you. I said, 'Walter mark my words, that man
Morey is up to something.' But I must say," she admitted worshipfully,
"I didn't know it would have the scope of what you're proposing now!
Imagine—a whole world of consumers, rising as one man, shouting the
name of Morey Fry, fighting the Ration Board with the Board's own
weapon—the robots. What poetic justice!"
Bigelow nodded enthusiastically. "Call Uncle Piggotty's, dear," he
ordered. "See if you can round up a quorum right now! Meanwhile,
Morey and I are going belowstairs. Let's go, Morey—let's get the new
world started!"
Morey sat there open-mouthed. He closed it with a snap. "Bigelow,"
he whispered, "do you mean to say that you're going to spread this idea
around through some kind of subversive organization?"
"Subversive?" Bigelow repeated stiffly. "My dear man, all creative
minds are subversive, whether they operate singly or in such a group as
the Brotherhood of Freemen. I scarcely like—"
"Never mind what you like," Morey insisted. "You're going to call a
meeting of this Brotherhood and you want me to tell them what I just
told you. Is that right?"
"Well-yes."
Morey got up. "I wish I could say it's been nice, but it hasn't. Good
night!"
And he stormed out before they could stop him.
Out on the street, though, his resolution deserted him. He hailed a
robot cab and ordered the driver to take him on the traditional time-
killing ride through the park while he made up his mind.
The fact that he had left, of course, was not going to keep Bigelow
from going through with his announced intention. Morey remembered,
now, fragments of conversation from Bigelow and his wife at Uncle Pig-
gotty's, and cursed himself. They had, it was perfectly true, said and
hinted enough about politics and purposes to put him on his guard. All
that nonsense about twoness had diverted him from what should have
been perfectly clear: They were subversives indeed.
He glanced at his watch. Late, but not too late; Cherry would still be
at her parents' home.
He leaned forward and gave the driver their address. It was like be-

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185
ginning the first of a hundred-shot series of injections: you know it's
going to cure you, but it hurts just the same.
Morey said manfully: "And that's it, sir. I know I've been a fool. I'm
willing to take the consequences."
Old Elon rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. "Um," he said.
Cherry and her mother had long passed the point where they could
say anything at all; they were seated side by side on a couch across the
room, listening with expressions of strain and incredulity.
Elon said abruptly, "Excuse me. Phone call to make." He left the
room to make a brief call and returned. He said over his shoulder to his
wife, "Coffee. We'll need it. Got a problem here."
Morey said, "Do you think—I mean what should I do?"
Elon shrugged, then, surprisingly, grinned. "What can you do?" he
demanded cheerfully. "Done plenty already, I'd say. Drink some coffee.
Call I made," he explained, "was to Jim, my law clerk. He'll be here in
a minute. Get some dope from Jim, then we'll know better."
Cherry came over to Morey and sat beside him. All she said was,
"Don't worry," but to Morey it conveyed all the meaning in the world.
He returned the pressure of her hand with a feeling of deepest relief.
Hell, he said to himself, why should I worry? Worst they can do to me
is drop me a couple of grades, and what's so bad about that?
He grimaced involuntarily. He had remembered his own early strug-
gles as a Class One and what was so bad about that.
The law clerk arrived, a smallish robot with a battered stainless-steel
hide and dull coppery features. Elon took the robot aside for a terse
conversation before he came back to Morey.
"As I thought," he said in satisfaction. "No precedent. No laws
prohibiting. Therefore no crime."
"Thank heaven!" Morey said in ecstatic relief.
Elon shook his head. "They'll probably give you a reconditioning
and you can't expect to keep your Grade Five. Probably call it anti-
social behavior. Is, isn't it?"
Dashed, Morey said, "Oh." He frowned briefly, then looked up. "All
right, Dad, if I've got it coming to me, I'll take my medicine."
"Way to talk," Elon said approvingly. "Now go home. Get a good
night's sleep. First thing in the morning, go to the Ration Board. Tell
'em the whole story, beginning to end. They'll be easy on you." Elon
hesitated. "Well, fairly easy," he amended. "I hope."

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Frederik Pohl
* * *
The condemned man ate a hearty breakfast.
He had to. That morning, as Morey awoke, he had the sick certainty
that he was going to be consuming triple rations for a long, long time to
come.
He kissed Cherry good-by and took the long ride to the Ration Board
in silence. He even left Henry behind.
At the Board, he stammered at a series of receptionist robots and was
finally brought into the presence of a mildly supercilious young man
named Hachette.
"My name," he started, "is Morey Fry. I—I've come to—talk over
something I've been doing with—"
"Certainly, Mr. Fry," said Hachette. "I'll take you in to Mr. Newman
right away."
"Don't you want to know what I did?" demanded Morey.
Hachette smiled. "What makes you think we don't know?" he said,
and left.
That was Surprise Number One.
Newman explained it. He grinned at Morey and ruefully shook his
head. "All the time we get this," he complained. "People just don't take
the trouble to learn anything about the world around them. Son," he
demanded, "what do you think a robot is?"
Morey said, "Huh?"
"I mean how do you think it operates? Do you think it's just a kind
of a man with a tin skin and wire nerves?"
"Why, no. It's a machine, of course. It isn't human"
Newman beamed. "Fine!" he said. "It's a machine. It hasn't got flesh
or blood or intestines—or a brain. Oh—" he held up a hand—"robots
are smart enough. I don't mean that. But an electronic thinking ma-
chine, Mr. Fry, takes about as much space as the house you're living in.
It has to. Robots don't carry brains around with them; brains are too
heavy and much too bulky."
"Then how do they think?"
"With their brains, of course."
"But you just said—"
"I said they didn't carry them. Each robot is in constant radio com-
munication with the Master Control on its TBR circuit-the Talk Be-
tween Robots' radio. Master Control gives the answer; the robot acts."
"I see," said Morey. "Well, that's very interesting but—"

The Midas Plague	187
"But you still don't see," said Newman. "Figure it out. If the robot
gets information from Master Control, do you see that Master Control
in return necessarily gets information from the robot?"
"Oh," said Morey. Then, louder, "Oh! You mean that all my robots
have been—" The words wouldn't come.
Newman nodded in satisfaction. "Every bit of information of that
sort comes to us as a matter of course. Why, Mr. Fry, if you hadn't
come in today, we would have been sending for you within a very short
time."
That was the second surprise. Morey bore up under it bravely. After
all, it changed nothing, he reminded himself.
He said, "Well, be that as it may, sir, here I am. I came in of my own
free will. I've been using my robots to consume my ration quotas—"
"Indeed you have," said Newman.
"—and I'm willing to sign a statement to that effect any time you like.
I don't know what the penalty is, but I'll take it. I'm guilty; I admit my
guilt."
Newman's eyes were wide. "Guilty?" he repeated. "Penalty?"
Morey was startled. "Why, yes," he said "I'm not denying any-
thing."
"Penalties," repeated Newman musingly. Then he began to laugh. He
laughed, Morey thought, to considerable excess; Morey saw nothing he
could laugh at, himself, in the situation. But the situation, Morey was
forced to admit, was rapidly getting completely incomprehensible.
"Sorry," said Newman at last, wiping his eyes, "but I couldn't help it.
Penalties! Well, Mr. Fry, let me set your mind at rest. I wouldn't worry
about the penalties if I were you. As soon as the reports began coming
through on what you had done with your robots, we naturally assigned
a special team to keep observing you, and we forwarded a report to the
national headquarters. We made certain—ah—recommendations in it
and—well, to make a long story short, the answers came back yesterday.
"Mr. Fry, the National Ration Board is delighted to know of your
contribution toward improving our distribution problem. Pending a fur-
ther study, a tentative program has been adopted for setting up consum-
ing-robot units all over the country based on your scheme. Penalties?
Mr. Fry, you're a hero!"
A hero has responsibilities. Morey's were quickly made clear to him.
He was allowed time for a brief reassuring visit to Cherry, a triumphal

188
Frederik Pohl
tour of his old office, and then he was rushed off to Washington to
be quizzed. He found the National Ration Board in a frenzy of work.
"The most important job we've ever done," one of the high officers
told him. "I wouldn't be surprised if it's the last one we ever have! Yes,
sir, we're trying to put ourselves out of business for good and we don't
want a single thing to go wrong."
"Anything I can do to help—" Morey began diffidently.
"You've done fine, Mr. Fry. Gave us just the push we've been need-
ing. It was there all the time for us to see, but we were too close to
the forest to see the trees, if you get what I mean. Look, I'm not much
on rhetoric and this is the biggest step mankind has taken in centuries
and I can't put it into words. Let me show you what we've been doing."
He and a delegation of other officials of the Ration Board and men
whose names Morey had repeatedly seen in the newspapers took Morey
on an inspection tour of the entire plant.
"It's a closed cycle, you see," he was told, as they looked over a
chamber of industriously plodding consumer-robots working off a ship-
ment of shoes. "Nothing is permanently lost. If you want a car, you
get one of the newest and best. If not, your car gets driven by a robot
until it's ready to be turned in and a new one gets built for next year.
We don't lose the metals—they can be salvaged. All we lose is a little
power and labor. And the Sun and the atom give us all the power we
need, and the robots give us more labor than we can use. Same thing
applies, of course, to all products."
"But what's in it for the robots?" Morey asked.
"I beg your pardon?" One of the biggest men in the country said
uncomprehendingly.
Morey had a difficult moment. His analysis had conditioned him
against waste and this decidedly was sheer destruction of goods, no mat-
ter how scientific the jargon might be.
"If the consumer is just using up things for the sake of using them
up," he said doggedly, realizing the danger he was inviting, "we could
use wear-and-tear machines instead of robots. After all, why waste
them?"
They looked at each other worriedly.
"But that's what you were doing," one pointed out with a faint note
of threat.
"Oh, no!" Morey quickly objected. "I built in satisfaction circuits—
my training in design, you know. Adjustable circuits, of course."

The Midas Plague
189
"Satisfaction circuits?" he was asked. "Adjustable?"
"Well, sure. If the robot gets no satisfaction out of using up things—"
"Don't talk nonsense," growled the Ration Board official. "Robots
aren't human. How do you make them feel satisfaction? And adjustable
satisfaction at that!"
Morey explained. It was a highly technical explanation, involving the
use of great sheets of paper and elaborate diagrams. But there were
trained men in the group and they became even more excited than be-
fore.
"Beautiful!" one cried in scientific rapture. "Why, it takes care of
every possible moral, legal and psychological argument!"
"What does?" the Ration Board official demanded. "How?"
"You tell him, Mr. Fry."
Morey tried and couldn't. But he could show how his principle oper-
ated. The Ration Board lab was turned over to him, complete with
more assistants than he knew how to give orders to, and they built satis-
faction circuits for a squad of robots working in a hat factory.
Then Morey gave his demonstration. The robots manufactured hats
of all sorts. He adjusted the circuits at the end of the day and the robots
began trying on the hats, squabbling over them, each coming away tri-
umphantly with a huge and diverse selection. Their metallic features
were incapable of showing pride or pleasure, but both were evident in
the way they wore their hats, their fierce possessiveness . . . and their
faster, neater, more intensive, more dedicated work to produce a still
greater quantity of hats . . . which they also were allowed to own.
"You see?" an engineer exclaimed delightedly. "They can be
adjusted to want hats, to wear them lovingly, to wear the hats to pieces.
And not just for the sake of wearing them out—the hats are an incentive
for them!"
"But how can we go on producing just hats and more hats?" the Ra-
tion Board man asked puzzledly. "Civilization does not live by hats
alone."
"That," said Morey modestly, "is the beauty of it. Look."
He set the adjustment of the satisfaction circuit as porter-robots
brought in skids of gloves. The hat-manufacturing robots fought over
the gloves with the same mechanical passion as they had for hats.
"And that can apply to anything we—or the robots—produce," Morey
added. "Everything from pins to yachts. But the point is that they get
satisfaction from possession, and the craving can be regulated according

190
Frederik Pohl
to the glut in various industries, and the robots show their appreciation
by working harder." He hesitated. "That's what I did for my servant-
robots. It's a feedback, you see. Satisfaction leads to more work—and
better work—and that means more goods, which they can be made to
want, which means incentive to work, and so on, all around."
"Closed cycle," whispered the Ration Board man in awe. "A real
closed cycle this time!"
And so the inexorable laws of supply and demand were irrevocably
repealed. No longer was mankind hampered by inadequate supply or
drowned by overproduction. What mankind needed was there. What the
race did not require passed into the insatiable—and adjustable—robot
maw. Nothing was wasted.
For a pipeline has two ends.
Morey was thanked, complimented, rewarded, given a ticker-tape pa-
rade through the city, and put on a plane back home. By that time, the
Ration Board had liquidated itself.
Cherry met him at the airport. They jabbered excitedly at each other
all the way to the house.
In their own living room, they finished the kiss they had greeted each
other with. At last Cherry broke away, laughing.
Morey said, "Did I tell you I'm through with Bradmoor? From now
on I work for the Board as civilian consultant. And " he added impres-
sively, "starting right away, I'm a Class Eight!"
"My!" gasped Cherry, so worshipfully that Morey felt a twinge of
conscience.
He said honestly, "Of course, if what they were saying in Washington
is so, the classes aren't going to mean much pretty soon. Still, it's quite
an honor."
"It certainly is," Cherry said staunchly. "Why, Dad's only a Class
Eight himself and he's been a judge for I don't know how many years."
Morey pursed his lips. "We can't all be fortunate," he said gen-
erously. "Of course, the classes still will count for something—that is, a
Class One will have so much to consume in a year; a Class Two will
have a little less; and so on. But each person in each class will have
robot help, you see, to do the actual consuming. The way it's going to
be, special facsimile robots will—"
Cherry flagged him down. "I know, dear. Each family gets a robot
duplicate of every person in the family."

The Midas Plague
191
"Oh," said Morey, slightly annoyed. "How did you know?"
"Ours came yesterday," she explained. "The man from the Board
said we were the first in the area—because it was your idea, of course.
They haven't even been activated yet. I've still got them in the Green
Room. Want to see them?"
"Sure," said Morey buoyantly. He dashed ahead of Cherry to inspect
the results of his own brainstorm. There they were, standing statue-still
against the wall, waiting to be energized to begin their endless tasks.
"Yours is real pretty," Morey said gallantly. "But—say, is that
thing supposed to look like me?" He inspected the chromium face of
the man-robot disapprovingly.
"Only roughly, the man said." Cherry was right behind him. "Notice
anything else?"
Morey leaned closer, inspecting the features of the facsimile robot at
a close range. "Well, no," he said. "It's got a kind of a squint that I
don't like, but—Oh, you mean that!" He bent over to examine a smaller
robot, half hidden between the other pair. It was less than two feet high,
big-headed, pudgy-limbed, thick-bellied. In fact, Morey thought won-
deringly, it looked almost like—
"My God!" Morey spun around, staring wide eyed at his wife. "You
mean—"
"I mean," said Cherry, blushing slightly.
Morey reached out to grab her in his arms.
"Darling!" he cried. "Why didn't you tell me?"

GLUTTONY
And what could be more appropriate than two stories to represent
GLUTTONY, especially when we can present Fred Pohl's lesser
known but equally good companion to "The Midas Plague."
Incidentally, this marks the first time these two stories have ever
appeared in one volume, and we are to be forgiven if we exhibit
a large degree of PRIDE in arranging this for your enjoyment!

THE MAN WHO ATE THE
WORLD
FREDERIK POHL
He had a name, but at home he was called "Sonny," and he was almost
always at home. He hated it. Other boys his age went to school. Sonny
would have done anything to go to school, but his family was, to put it
mildly, not well off. It wasn't Sonny's fault that his father was spectac-
ularly unsuccessful. But it meant—no school for Sonny, no boys of his
own age for Sonny to play with. All childhoods are tragic (as all adults
forget), but Sonny's was misery all the way through.
The worst time was at night, when the baby sister was asleep and the
parents were grimly eating and reading and dancing and drinking, until
they were ready to drop. And of all bad nights, the night before his
twelfth birthday was perhaps Sonny's worst. He was old enough to
know what a birthday party was like. It would be cake and candy,
shows and games; it would be presents, presents, presents. It would be a
terrible, endless day.
He switched off the color-D television and the recorded tapes of sea
chanteys and, with an appearance of absent-mindedness, walked toward
the door of his playroom.
Davey Crockett got up from beside the model rocket field and said,
"Hold on thar, Sonny. Mought take a stroll with you." Davey's face
was serene and strong as a Tennessee crag; it swung its long huntin' rifle
under one arm and put its other arm around Sonny's shoulders.
"Where you reckon we ought to head?"
Sonny shook Davey Crockett's arm off. "Get lost," he said pet-
ulantly. "Who wants you around?"
Long John Silver came out of the closet, hobbling on its wooden leg,
crouched over its knobby cane. "Ah, young master," it said re-
proachfully, "you shouldn't ought to talk to old Davey like that! He's a
good friend to you, Davey is. Many's the weary day Davey and me has
been a-keepin' of your company. I asks you this, young master: Is it

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Frederik Pohl
fair and square that you should be a-tellin' him to get lost? Is it fair,
young master? Is it square?"
Sonny looked at the floor stubbornly and didn't answer. My gosh,
what was the use of answering dummies like them? He stood rebel-
liously silent and still until he just felt like saying something. And then
he said: "You go in the closet, both of you. I don't want to play with
you. I'm going to play with my trains."
Long John said unctuously, "Now there's a good idea, that is! You
just be a-havin' of a good time with your trains, and old Davey and
me'll—"
"Go ahead!" shouted Sonny. He stood stamping his foot until they
were out of sight.
His fire truck was in the middle of the floor; he kicked at it, but it
rolled quickly out of reach and slid into its little garage under the tanks
of tropical fish. He scuffed over to the model-railroad layout and glared
at it. As he approached, the Twentieth Century Limited came roaring
out of a tunnel, sparks flying from its stack. It crossed a bridge, whistled
at a grade crossing, steamed into the Union Station. The roof of the sta-
tion glowed and suddenly became transparent, and through it Sonny
saw the bustling crowds of redcaps and travelers—
"I don't want that," he said. "Casey, crack up old Number Ninety-
Nine again."
Obediently the layout quivered and revolved a half-turn. Old Casey
Jones, one and an eighth inches tall, leaned out of the cab of the S.P.
locomotive and waved good-by to Sonny. The locomotive whistled
shrilly twice and started to pick up speed-
It was a good crackup. Little old Casey's body, thrown completely
free, developed real blisters from the steam and bled real blood. But
Sonny turned his back on it. He had liked that crackup for a long time-
longer than he liked almost any other toy he owned. But he was tired of
it.
He looked around the room.
Tarzan of the Apes, leaning against a foot-thick tree trunk, one hand
on a vine, lifted its head and looked at him. But Tarzan, Sonny calcu-
lated craftily, was clear across the room. The others were in the closet—
Sonny ran out and slammed the door. He saw Tarzan start to come
after him, but even before Sonny was out of the room Tarzan slumped
and stood stock-still.
It wasn't fair, Sonny thought angrily. It wasn't fair! They wouldn't

The Man Who Ate the World
197
even chase him, so that at least he could have some kind of chance to
get away by himself. They'd just talk to each other on their little radios,
and in a minute one of the tutors, or one of the maids, or whatever else
happened to be handy, would vector in on him. And that would be that.
But for the moment he was free.
He slowed down and walked down the Great Hall toward his baby
sister's room. The fountains began to splash as he entered the hall; the
mosaics on the wall began to tinkle music and sparkle with moving
colors.
"Now, chile, whut you up to!"
He turned around, but he knew it was Mammy coming toward him.
It was slapping toward him on big, flat feet, its pink-palmed hands lifted
to its shoulders. The face under the red bandanna was frowning, the
gold tooth sparkling as it scolded: "Chile, you is got us'n's so worried
we's fit to die! How you 'speck us to take good keer of you ef'n you run
off lak that? Now you jes come on back to your nice room with
Mammy an' we'll see if there ain't some real nice program on the
teevee."
Sonny stopped and waited for it, but he wouldn't give it the satis-
faction of looking at it. Slap-slap the big feet waddled cumbersomely to-
ward him; but he didn't have any illusions. Waddle, big feet, three hun-
dred pounds and all, Mammy could catch him in twenty yards with a
ten-yard start. Any of them could.
He said in his best icily indignant voice, "I was just going in to look
at my baby sister."
Pause. "You was?" The plump black face looked suspicious.
"Yes, I was. Doris is my very own sister, and I love her very much."
Pause—long pause. "Dat's nice," said Mammy, but its voice was still
doubtful. "I 'speck I better come 'long with you. You wouldn't want to
wake your lil baby sister up. Ef I come I'll he'p you keep real quiet."
Sonny shook free of it—they were always putting their hands on you!
"I don't want you to come with me, Mammy!"
"Aw now, honey! Mammy ain't gwine bother nothin', you knows
that."
Sonny turned his back on it and marched grimly toward his sister's
room. If only they would leave him alone! But they never did. It was al-
ways that way, always one darn old robot—yes, robot, he thought, sav-
agely tasting the naughty word. Always one darn robot after another.
Why couldn't Daddy be like other daddies, so they could live in a de-

198
Frederik Pohl
cent little house and get rid of these darn robots—so he could go to a
real school and be in a class with other boys, instead of being taught at
home by Miss Brooks and Mr. Chips and all those other robots?
They spoiled everything. And they would spoil what he wanted to do
now. But he was going to do it all the same, because there was some-
thing in Doris's room that he wanted very much.
It was probably the only tangible thing he wanted in the world.
As they passed the imitation tumbled rocks of the Bear Cave, Mama
Bear poked its head out and growled: "Hello, Sonny. Don't you think
you ought to be in bed? It's nice and warm in our bear bed, Sonny."
He didn't even look at it. Time was when he had liked that sort of
thing too, but he wasn't a four-year-old like Doris any more. All the
same, there was one thing a four-year-old had—
He stopped at the door of her room. "Doris?" he whispered.
Mammy scolded: "Now, chile, you knows that lil baby is asleep!
How come you tryin' to wake her up?"
"I won't wake her up." The farthest thing from Sonny's mind was to
wake his sister up. He tiptoed into the room and stood beside the little
girl's bed. Lucky kid! he thought enviously. Being four, she was allowed
to have a tiny little room and a tiny bed—where Sonny had to wallow
around in a forty-foot bedchamber and a bed eight feet long.
He looked down at his sister. Behind him Mammy clucked approv-
ingly. "Dat's nice when chilluns loves each other laku an' that lil
baby," it whispered.
Doris was sound asleep, clutching her teddy-bear. It wriggled slightly
and opened an eye to look at Sonny, but it didn't say anything.
Sonny took a deep breath, leaned forward and gently slipped the
teddy-bear out of the bed.
It scrambled pathetically, trying to get free. Behind him Mammy
whispered urgently: "Sonny! Now you let dat ole teddy-bear alone, you
heah me?"
Sonny whispered, "I'm not hurting anything. Leave me alone, will
you?"
"Sonny!"
He clutched the little furry robot desperately around its middle. The
stubby arms pawed at him, the furred feet scratched against his arms. It
growled a tiny doll-bear growl, and whined, and suddenly his hands
were wet with its real salt tears.

The Man Who Ate the World
199
"Sonny! Come on now, honey, you know that's Doris's teddy. Aw,
chile!"
He said, "It's mine!" It wasn't his. He knew it wasn't his. His was
long gone, taken away from him when he was six because it was old,
and because he had been six and six-year-olds had to have bigger, more
elaborate companion-robots. It wasn't even the same color as his—it
was brown, where his had been black and white. But it was cuddly and
gently warm; and he had heard it whispering little make-believe bedtime
stories to Doris. And he wanted it, very much.
Footsteps in the hall outside. A low-pitched pleading voice from the
door: "Sonny, you must not interfere with your sister's toys. One has
obligations."
He stood forlornly, holding the teddy-bear. "Go away, Mr. Chips!"
"Really, Sonny! This isn't proper behavior. Please return the toy."
He cried: "I won't!"
Mammy, dark face pleading in the shadowed room, leaned toward
him and tried to take it away from him. "Aw, honey, now you knows
dat's not-"
"Leave me alone!" he shouted. There was a gasp and a little cry
from the bed, and Doris sat up and began to weep.
Well, they had their way. The little girl's bedroom was suddenly filled
with robots—and not only robots, for in a moment the butler robot ap-
peared, its face stern and sorrowful, leading Sonny's actual flesh-and-
blood mother and father. Sonny made a terrible scene. He cried, and he
swore at them childishly for being the unsuccessful clods they were; and
they nearly wept too, because they were aware that their lack of stand-
ing was bad for the children.
But he couldn't keep the teddy.
They got it away from him and marched him back to his room, where
his father lectured him while his mother stayed behind to watch
Mammy comfort the little girl. His father said: "Sonny, you're a big
boy now. We aren't as well off as other people, but you have to help us.
Don't you know that, Sonny? We all have to do our part. Your mother
and I'll be up till midnight now, consuming, because you've interrupted
us with this scene. Can't you at least try to consume something bigger
than a teddy-bear? It's all right for Doris because she's so little, but a
big boy like you—"
"I hate you!" cried Sonny, and he turned his face to the wall.

200
Frederik Pohl
They punished him, naturally. The first punishment was that they
gave him an extra birthday party the week following.
The second punishment was even worse.
n
Later—much, much later, nearly a score of years—a man named Roger
Garrick in a place named Fisherman's Island walked into his hotel
room.
The light didn't go on.
The bellhop apologized. "We're sorry, sir. We'll have it attended to,
if possible."
"If possible?" Garrick's eyebrows went up. The bellhop made putting
in a new light tube sound like a major industrial operation. "All right."
He waved the bellhop out of the room. It bowed and closed the door.
Garrick looked around him, frowning. One light tube more or less
didn't make an awful lot of difference; there was still the light from the
sconces at the walls, from the reading lamps at the chairs and chaise
longue and from the photomural on the long side of the room—to say
nothing of the fact that it was broad, hot daylight outside and light
poured through the windows. All the same, it was a new sensation to be
in a room where the central lighting wasn't on. He didn't like it. It was—
creepy.
A rap on the door. A girl was standing there, young, attractive,
rather small. But a woman grown, it was apparent. "Mr. Garrick? Mr.
Roosenburg is expecting you on the sun deck."
"All right." He rummaged around in the pile of luggage, looking for
his briefcase. It wasn't even sorted out! The bellhop had merely
dumped the lot and left.
The girl said, "Is that what you're looking for?" He looked where she
was pointing; it was his briefcase, behind another bag. "You'll get used
to that around here. Nothing in the right place, nothing working right.
We've all got used to it."
We. He looked at her sharply, but she was no robot; there was life,
not the glow of electronic tubes, in her eyes. "Pretty bad, is it?"
She shrugged. "Let's go see Mr. Roosenburg. I'm Kathryn Pender, by
the way. I'm his statistician."
He followed her out into the hall. "Statistician?"

The Man Who Ate the World
201
She turned and smiled—a tight, grim smile of annoyance. "That's
right. Surprised?"
Garrick said slowly, "Well, it's more a robot job. Of course, I'm not
familiar with the practice in this sector. . ."
"You will be," she said shortly. "No, we aren't taking the elevator,
Mr. Roosenburg's in a hurry to see you."
"But-"
She turned and glared at him. "Don't you understand? Day before
yesterday I took the elevator, and I was hung up between floors for an
hour and a half. Something was going on at North Guardian, and it
took all the power in the lines. Would it happen again today? I don't
know. But, believe me, an hour and a half is a long time to be hanging
in an elevator." She turned and led him to the fire stairs. Over her
shoulder she said: "Get it straight once and for all, Mr. Garrick. You're
in a disaster area here. . . Anyway, it's only ten more flights."
Ten flights.
Nobody climbed ten flights of stairs any more! Garrick was huffing
and puffing before they were halfway, but the girl kept on ahead, light
as a gazelle. Her skirt cut midway between hip and knees, and Garrick
had plenty of opportunity to observe that her legs were attractively
tanned. Even so, he couldn't help looking around him. It was a robot's-
eye view of the hotel that he was getting; this was the bare wire arma-
ture that held up the confectionery suites and halls where the humans
went. Garrick knew, as everyone absent-mindedly knew, that there were
places like this behind the scenes everywhere. Belowstairs the robots
worked; behind scenes, they moved about their errands and did their
jobs. But nobody went there. It was funny about the backs of this girl's
knees; they were paler than the rest of the leg—
Garrick wrenched his mind back to his surroundings. Take the guard
rail along the steps, for instance. It was wire-thin, frail-looking. No
doubt it could bear any weight it was required to, but why couldn't it
look that way? The answer, obviously, was that robots did not have hu-
manity's built-in concepts of how strong a rail should look before they
could believe it really was strong. If a robot should be in any doubt—
and how improbable, that a robot should be in doubt—it would perhaps
reach out a sculptured hand and test it. Once. And then it would re-
member, and never doubt again; and it wouldn't be continually edging
toward the wall, away from the spider-strand between him and the ver-
tical drop—

202
Frederik Pohl
He conscientiously took the middle of the steps all the rest of the way
up.
Of course that merely meant a different distraction, when he really
wanted to do some thinking. But it was a pleasurable distraction. And
by the time they reached the top he had solved the problem; the pale
spots at the back of Miss Pender's knees meant she had got her suntan
the hard way—walking in the sun, perhaps working in the sun, so that
the bending knees kept the sun from the patches at the back; not, as
anyone else would acquire a tan, by lying beneath a normal, healthful
sunlamp held by a robot masseur.
He wheezed: "You don't mean we're all the way up?"
"All the way up," she agreed, and looked at him closely. "Here, lean
on me if you want to."
"No, thanks!" He staggered over to the door, which opened naturally
enough as he approached it, and stepped out into the flood of sunlight
on the roof, to meet Mr. Roosenburg.
Garrick wasn't a medical doctor, but he remembered enough of his
basic pre-specialization to know there was something in that fizzy
golden drink. It tasted perfectly splendid—just cold enough, just fizzy
enough, not quite too sweet. And after two sips of it he was buoyant
with strength and well-being.
He put the glass down and said: "Thank you for whatever it was.
Now let's talk."
"Gladly, gladly!" boomed Mr. Roosenburg. "Kathryn, the files!"
Garrick looked after her, shaking his head. Not only was she a statis-
tician, which was robot work, she was also a file clerk—and that was
barely even robot work, it was the kind of thing handled by a semisen-
tient punch-card sorter in a decently run sector.
Roosenburg said sharply: "Shocks you, doesn't it? But that's why
you're here." He was a slim, fair little man, and he wore a golden beard
cropped square.
Garrick took another sip of the fizzy drink. It was good stuff; it didn't
intoxicate, but it cheered. He said, "I'm glad to know why I'm here."
The golden beard quivered. "Area Control sent you down and didn't
tell you this was a disaster area?"
Garrick put down the glass. "I'm a psychist. Area Control said you
needed a psychist. From what I've seen, it's a supply problem, but—"
"Here are the files," said Kathryn Pender, and stood watching him.

The Man Who Ate the World
203
Roosenburg took the spools of tape from her and dropped them in
his lap. He said tangentially, "How old are you, Roger?"
Garrick was annoyed. "I'm a qualified psychist! I happen to be as-
signed to Area Control and—"
"How old are you?"
Garrick scowled. "Twenty-four."
Roosenburg nodded. "Um. Rather young," he observed. "Maybe you
don't remember how things used to be."
Garrick said dangerously, "All the information I need is on that tape.
I don't need any lectures from you."
Roosenburg pursed his lips and got up. "Come here a minute, will
you?"
He moved over to the rail of the sun deck and pointed. "See those
things down there?"
Garrick looked. Twenty stories down, the village straggled off toward
the sea in a tangle of pastel oblongs and towers. Over the bay the hills
of the mainland were faintly visible through the mist; and riding the
bay, the flat white floats of the solar receptors.
"It's a power plant. That what you mean?"
Roosenburg boomed, "A power plant. All the power the world can
ever use, out of this one and all the others, all over the world." He
peered out at the bobbing floats, soaking up energy from the sun. "And
people used to try to wreck them," he said.
Garrick said stiffly: "I may only be twenty-four years old, Mr. Roo-
senburg, but I have completed school."
"Oh, yes. Oh, of course you have, Roger. But maybe schooling isn't
the same thing as living through a time like that. I grew up in the Era of
Plenty, when the law was: Consume. My parents were poor, and I still
remember the misery of my childhood. Eat and consume, wear and use.
I never had a moment's peace, Roger! For the very poor it was a tread-
mill; we had to consume so much that we could never catch up, and the
farther we fell behind, the more the Ration Board forced on us—"
Roger Garrick said: "That's ancient history, Mr. Roosenburg. Morey
Fry liberated us from all that."
The girl said softly: "Not all of us."
The man with the golden beard nodded. "Not all of us. As you
should know, Roger, being a psychist."
Garrick sat up straight, and Roosenburg went on: "Fry showed us
that the robots could help at both ends—by making, by consuming. But

204	Frederik Pohl
it came a little late for some of us. The patterns of childhood—they lin-
ger on."
Kathryn Pender leaned toward Garrick. "What he's trying to say, Mr.
Garrick—we've got a compulsive consumer on our hands."
m
North Guardian Island—nine miles away. It wasn't as much as a mile
wide, and not much more than that in length. But it had its city and its
bathing beaches, its parks and theaters. It was possibly the most densely
populated island in the world ... for the number of its inhabitants.
The President of the Council convened their afternoon meeting in a
large and lavish room. There were nineteen councilmen around a lus-
trous mahogany table. Over the President's shoulder the others could
see the situation map of North Guardian and the areas surrounding.
North Guardian glowed blue, cool, impregnable. The sea was misty
green; the mainland, Fisherman's Island, South Guardian and the rest
of the little archipelago were a hot and hostile red.
Little flickering fingers of red attacked the blue. Flick, and a ruddy
flame wiped out a corner of a beach; flick, and a red spark appeared in
the middle of the city, to grow and blossom, and then to die. Each little
red whipflick was a point where, momentarily, the defenses of the island
were down; but always and always, the cool blue brightened around the
red, and drowned it.
The President was tall, stooped, old. It wore glasses, though robot
eyes saw well enough without. It said, in a voice that throbbed with
power and pride: "The first item of the order of business will be a re-
port of the Defense Secretary."
The Defense Secretary rose to its feet, hooked a thumb in its vest and
cleared its throat. "Mr. President—"
"Excuse me, sir." A whisper from the sweet-faced young blonde tak-
ing down the minutes of the meeting. "Mr. Trumie has just left Bowling
Green, heading north."
The whole council turned to glance at the situation map, where
Bowling Green had just flared red.
The President nodded stiffly, like the crown of an old redwood nod-
ding. "You may proceed, Mr. Secretary," it said after a moment.
"Our invasion fleet," began the Secretary, in its high, clear voice, "is

The Man Who Ate the World
205
ready for sailing on the first suitable tide. Certain units have been—ah—
inactivated, at the—ah—instigation of Mr. Trumie, but on the whole
repairs have been completed and the units will be serviceable within the
next few hours." Its lean, attractive face turned solemn. "I am afraid,
however, that the Air Command has sustained certain, ah, increments
of attrition—due, I should emphasize, to chances involved in certain cal-
culated risks—"
"Question, question!" It was the Commissioner of Public Safety,
small, dark, fire-eyed, angry.
"Mr. Commissioner?" the President began, but it was interrupted
again by the soft whisper of the recording stenographer, listening in-
tently to the earphones that brought news from outside.
"Mr. President," it whispered, "Mr. Trumie has passed the Navy
Yard." The robots turned to look at the situation map. Bowling Green,
though it smoldered in spots, had mostly gone back to blue. But the jag-
ged oblong of the Yard flared red and bright. There was a faint elec-
tronic hum in the air, almost a sigh.
The robots turned back to face each other. "Mr. President! I demand
the Defense Secretary explain the loss of the Graf Zeppelin and the
456th Bomb Group!"
The Defense Secretary nodded to the Commissioner of Public Safety.
"Mr. Trumie threw them away," it said sorrowfully.
Once again, that sighing electronic drone from the assembled robots.
The Council fussed and fiddled with its papers, while the situation
map on the wall flared and dwindled, flared and dwindled. The Defense
Secretary cleared its throat again. "Mr. President, there is no question
that the—ah—absence of an effective air component will seriously ham-
per, not to say endanger, our prospects of a suitable landing. Neverthe-
less—and I say this, Mr. President, in full knowledge of the conclusions
that may—indeed, should!—be drawn from such a statement—never-
theless, Mr. President, I say that our forward elements will suc-
cessfully complete an assault landing—"
"Mr. President!" The breathless whisper of the blonde stenographer
again. "Mr. President, Mr. Trumie is in the building!"
On the situation map behind it, the Pentagon—the building they were
in—flared scarlet.
The Attorney General, nearest the door, leaped to its feet. "Mr. Pres-
ident, I hear him!"
And they could all hear now. Far off, down the long corridors, a

206
Frederik Pohl
crash. A faint explosion, and another crash; and a raging, querulous,
high-pitched voice. A nearer crash, and a sustained, smashing, banging
sound, coming toward them.
The oak-paneled doors flew open, splintering.
A tall, dark male figure in gray leather jacket, rocket-gun holsters
swinging at its hips, stepped through the splintered doors and stood sur-
veying the Council. Its hands hung just below the butts of the rocket
guns.
It drawled: "Mistuh Anderson Trumie!,,
It stepped aside. Another male figure—shorter, darker, hobbling with
the aid of a stainless-steel cane that concealed a ray-pencil, wearing the
same gray leather jacket and the same rocket-gun holsters—entered,
stood for a moment, and took a position on the other side of the door.
Between them, Mr. Anderson Trumie shambled ponderously into the
Council Chamber to call on his Council.
Sonny Trumie, come of age.
He wasn't much more than five feet tall; but his weight was close to
four hundred pounds. He stood there in the door, leaning against the
splintered oak, quivering jowls obliterating his neck, his eyes nearly
swallowed in the fat that swamped his skull, his thick legs trembling as
they tried to support him.
"You're all under arrest!" he shrilled. "Traitors! Traitors!"
He panted ferociously, staring at them. They waited with bowed
heads. Beyond the ring of councilmen, the situation map slowly blotted
out the patches of red, as the repair-robots worked feverishly to fix
what Sonny Trumie had destroyed.
"Mr. Crockett!" he cried shrilly. "Slay me these traitors!"
Wheep-wheep, and the guns whistled out of their holsters into the tall
bodyguard's hands. Rata-tat-tat, and two by two, the nineteen council-
men leaped, clutched at air and fell, as the rocket pellets pierced them
through.
"That one too!" cried Mr. Trumie, pointing at the sweet-faced
blonde. Bang. The sweet young face convulsed and froze; it fell, slump-
ing across its little table. On the wall the situation map flared red again,
but only faintly—for what were twenty robots?
Sonny gestured curtly to his other bodyguard. It leaped forward,
tucking the stainless-steel cane under one arm, putting the other around

The Man Who Ate the World
207
the larded shoulders of Sonny Trumie. "Ah, now, young master," it
crooned. "You just get ahold o' Long John's arm now—"
"Get them fixed," Sonny ordered abruptly. He pushed the President
of the Council out of its chair and, with the robot's help, sank into it
himself. "Get them fixed right, you hear? I've had enough traitors. I
want them to do what I tell them!"
"Sartin sure, young marster. Long John'll—"
"Do it now! And you, Davey! I want my lunch."
"Reckoned you would, Mistuh Trumie. It's right hyar." The Crockett-
robot kicked the fallen councilmen out of the way as a procession of
waiters filed in from the corridor.
He ate.
He ate until eating was pain, and then he sat there sobbing, his arms
braced against the tabletop, until he could eat no more. The Crockett-
robot said worriedly: "Mistuh Trumie, moughtn't you hold back a lit-
tle? Old Doc Aeschylus, he don't keer much to have you eatin' too
much, you know."
"I hate Doc!" Trumie said bitterly. He pushed the plates off the
table. They fell with a rattle and a clatter, and they went spinning away
as he heaved himself up and lurched alone over to the window. "I hate
Doc!" he brayed again, sobbing, staring through tears out the window at
his kingdom with its hurrying throngs and marching troops and roaring
waterfront. The tallow shoulders tried to shake with pain. He felt as
though hot cinderblocks were being thrust up into his body cavities, the
ragged edges cutting, the hot weight crushing. "Take me back," he
sobbed to the robots. "Take me away from these traitors. Take me to
my Private Place!"
IV
"So you see," said Roosenburg, "he's dangerous."
Garrick looked out over the water, toward North Guardian. "I'd bet-
ter look at his tapes," he said. The girl swiftly picked up the reels and
began to thread them into the projector. Dangerous. This Trumie was
dangerous, all right, Garrick conceded. Dangerous to the balanced, sta-
ble world; for it only took one Trumie to topple its stability. It had
taken thousands and thousands of years for society to learn its delicate
tightrope walk. It was a matter for a psychist, all right. . . .

208
Frederik Pohl
And Garrick was uncomfortably aware that he was only twenty-four.
"Here you are," said the girl.
"Look them over," said Roosenburg. "Then, after you've studied the
tapes on Trumie, we've got something else. One of his robots. But you'll
need the tapes first."
"Let's go," said Garrick.
The girl flicked a switch, and the life of Anderson Trumie appeared
before them, in color, in three dimensions—in miniature.
Robots have eyes; and where the robots go, the eyes of Robot Cen-
tral go with them. And the robots go everywhere. From the stored files
of Robot Central came the spool of tape that was the life story of Sonny
Trumie.
The tapes played into the globe-shaped viewer, ten inches high, a
crystal ball that looked back into the past. First, from the recording
eyes of the robots in Sonny Trumie's nursery. The lonely little boy,
twenty years before, lost in the enormous nursery.
"Disgusting!" breathed Kathryn Pender, wrinkling her nose. "How
could people live like that?"
Garrick said, "Please, let me watch this. It's important." In the
gleaming globe the little boy-figure kicked at his toys, threw himself
across his huge bed, sobbed. Garrick squinted, frowned, reached out,
tried to make contact. ... It was hard. The tapes showed the objective
facts, all right; but for a psychist it was the subjective reality behind the
facts that mattered. Kicking at his toys. Yes, but why? Because he was
tired of them—and why was he tired? Because he feared them? Kicking
at his toys. Because—because they were the wrong toys? Kicking—hate
them! Don't want them! Want—
A bluish flare in the viewing globe. Garrick blinked and jumped; and
that was the end of that section.
The colors flowed, and suddenly jelled into bright life. Anderson
Trumie, a young man. Garrick recognized the scene after a moment—it
was right there on Fisherman's Island, some pleasure spot overlooking
the water. A bar, and at the end of it was Anderson Trumie, pimply and
twenty, staring somberly into an empty glass. The view was through the
eyes of the robot bartender.
Anderson Trumie was weeping.
Once again, there was the objective fact—but the fact behind the fact,
what was it? Trumie had been drinking, drinking. Why? Drinking,
drinking. With a sudden sense of shock, Garrick saw what the drink was

The Man Who Ate the World
209
—the golden, fizzy liquor. Not intoxicating. Not habit-forming! Trumie
had become no drunk, it was something else that kept him drinking,
drinking, must drink, must keep on drinking, or else—
And again the bluish flare.
There was more; there was Trumie feverishly collecting objects of
art, there was Trumie decorating a palace; there was Trumie on a world
tour, and Trumie returned to Fisherman's Island.
And then there was no more.
"That," said Roosenburg, "is the file. Of course, if you want the raw,
unedited tapes, we can try to get them from Robot Central, but—"
"No." The way things were, it was best to stay away from Robot
Central; there might be more breakdowns, and there wasn't much time.
Besides, something was beginning to suggest itself.
"Run the first one again," said Garrick. "I think maybe there's some-
thing there. . ."
Garrick made out a quick requisition slip and handed it to Kathryn
Pender, who looked at it, raised her eyebrows, shrugged and went off to
have it filled.
By the time she came back, Roosenburg had escorted Garrick to the
room where the captured Trumie robot lay enchained. "He's cut off
from Robot Central," Roosenburg was saying. "I suppose you figured
that out. Imagine! Not only has he built a whole city for himself—but
even his own robot control!"
Garrick looked at the robot. It was a fisherman, or so Roosenburg
had said. It was small, dark, black-haired, and possibly the hair would
have been curly, if the sea water hadn't plastered the curls to the scalp.
It was still damp from the tussle that had landed it in the water, and
eventually in Roosenburg's hands.
Roosenburg was already at work. Garrick tried to think of it as a ma-
chine, but it wasn't easy. The thing looked very nearly human—except
for the crystal and copper that showed where the back of its head had
been removed.
"It's as bad as a brain operation," said Roosenburg, working rapidly
without looking up. "I've got to short out the input leads without dis-
turbing the electronic balance. . ."
Snip, snip. A curl of copper fell free, to be grabbed by Roosenburg's
tweezers. The fisherman's arms and legs kicked sharply like a galva-
nized frog's.

210
Frederik Pohl
Kathryn Pender said: "They found him this morning, casting nets
into the bay and singing 'O Sole Mio.' He's from North Guardian, all
right."
Abruptly the lights flickered and turned yellow, then slowly returned
to normal brightness. Roger Garrick got up and walked over to the win-
dow. North Guardian was a haze of light in the sky, across the water.
Click, snap. The fisherman-robot began to sing:
Tutte le serre, dopo quel fanal,
Dietro la caserma, ti staro ed—
Click. Roosenburg muttered under his breath and probed further.
Kathryn Pender joined Garrick at the window. "Now you see," she
said.
Garrick shrugged. "You can't blame him."
"I blame him!" she said hotly. "I've lived here all my life. Fisher-
man's Island used to be a tourist spot—why, it was lovely here. And
look at it now. The elevators don't work. The lights don't work. Practi-
cally all of our robots are gone. Spare parts, construction material,
everything—it's all gone to North Guardian! There isn't a day that
passes, Garrick, when half a dozen bargeloads of stuff don't go north,
because he requisitioned them. Blame him? I'd like to kill him!"
Snap. Sputters^/?. The fisherman lifted its head and caroled:
Torse dommani, piangerai,
E dopo tu, sorriderai—
Snap. Roosenburg's probe uncovered a flat black disc. "Kathryn,
look this up, will you?" He read the serial number from the disc, and
then put down the probe. He stood flexing his fingers, staring irritably at
the motionless figure.
Garrick joined him. Roosenburg jerked his head at the fisherman.
"That's robot work, trying to tinker with their insides. Trumie has his
own control center, you see. What I have to do is recontrol this one
from the substation on the mainland, but keep its receptor circuits open
to North Guardian on the symbol level. You understand what I'm talk-
ing about? It'll think from North Guardian, but act from the mainland."
"Sure," said Garrick, far from sure.
"And it's damned close work. There isn't much room inside one of

The Man Who Ate the World
211
those things . . ." He stared at the figure and picked up the probe
again.
Kathryn Pender came back with a punchcard in her hand. "It was
one of ours, all right. Used to be a busboy in the cafeteria at the beach
club." She scowled. "That Trumie!"
"You can't blame him," Garrick said reasonably. "He's only trying
to be good."
She looked at him queerly. "He's only—" she began; but Roosenburg
interrupted with an exultant cry.
"Got it! All right, you. Sit up and start telling us what Trumie's up to
now!"
The fisherman figure said obligingly, "Sure, boss. Whatcha wanna
know?"
What they wanted to know they asked; and what they asked it told
them, volunteering nothing, concealing nothing.
There was Anderson Trumie, king of his island, the compulsive con-
sumer.
It was like an echo of the bad old days of the Age of Plenty, when
the world was smothering under the endless, pounding flow of goods
from the robot factories and the desperate race between consumption
and production strained the human fabric. But Trumie's orders came
not from society, but from within. Consume! commanded something in-
side him, and Use! it cried, and Devour! it ordered. And Trumie
obeyed, heroically.
They listened to what the fisherman-robot had to say; and the picture
was dark. Armies had sprung up on North Guardian, navies floated in
its waters. Anderson Trumie stalked among his creations like a blub-
bery god, wrecking and ruling. Garrick could see the pattern in what the
fisherman had to say. In Trumie's mind, he was Hitler, Hoover, and
Genghis Khan; he was dictator, building a war machine; he was su-
preme engineer, constructing a mighty state. He was warrior.
"He was playing tin soldiers," said Roger Garrick, and Roosenburg
and the girl nodded.
"The trouble is," boomed Roosenburg, "he has stopped playing. In-
vasion fleets, Garrick! He isn't content with North Guardian any more,
he wants the rest of the country too!"
"You can't blame him," said Roger Garrick for the third time, and
stood up.

212
Frederik Pohl
"The question is," he said, "what do we do about it?"
"That's what you're here for," Kathryn told him.
"All right. We can forget," said Roger Garrick, "about the soldiers—
qua soldiers, that is. I promise you they won't hurt anyone. Robots
can't."
"I understand that," Kathryn snapped.
"The problem is what to do about Trumie's drain on the world's re-
sources." He pursed his lips. "According to my directive from Area
Control, the first plan was to let him alone—after all, there is still plenty
of everything for anyone. Why not let Trumie enjoy himself? But that
didn't work out too well."
"You're so right," said Kathryn Pender.
"No, no—not on your local level," Garrick explained quickly. "After
all—what are a few thousand robots, a few hundred million dollars
worth of equipment? We could resupply this area in a week."
"And in a week," boomed Roosenburg, "Trumie would have us
cleaned out again!"
Garrick nodded. "That's the trouble," he admitted. "He doesn't seem
to have a stopping point. Yet—we can't refuse his orders. Speaking as a
psychist, that would set a very bad precedent. It would put ideas in the
minds of a lot of persons—minds that, in some cases, might not be relia-
bly stable in the absence of a stable, certain source of everything they
need, on request. If we say 'no' to Trumie, we open the door on some
mighty dark corners of the human mind. Covetousness. Greed. Pride of
possession—"
"So what are you going to do?" cried Kathryn Pender.
Garrick said resentfully, "The only thing there is to do. I'm going to
look over Trumie's folder again. And then I'm going to North Guardian
Island."
V
Roger Garrick was all too aware of the fact that he was only twenty-
four.
It didn't make a great deal of difference. The oldest and wisest psy-
chist in Area Control's wide sphere might have been doubtful of success
in as thorny a job as the one ahead.
They started out at daybreak. Vapor was rising from the sea about

The Man Who Ate the World
213
them, and the little battery motor of their launch whined softly beneath
the keelson. Garrick sat patting the little box that contained their inva-
sion equipment, while the girl steered. The workshops of Fisherman's
Island had been all night making some of the things in that box—not be-
cause they were so difficult to make, but because it had been a bad
night. Big things were going on at North Guardian; twice the power had
been out entirely for nearly an hour, as the demand on the lines from
North Guardian took all the power the system could deliver.
The sun was well up as they came within hailing distance of the Navy
Yard.
Robots were hard at work; the Yard was bustling with activity. An
overhead traveling crane, eight feet tall, laboriously lowered a prefab-
ricated fighting top onto an eleven-foot aircraft carrier. A motor tor-
pedo boat—full-sized, this one was, not to scale—rocked at anchor just
before the bow of their launch. Kathryn steered around it, ignoring the
hail from the robot lieutenant-j.g. at its rail.
She glanced at Garrick over her shoulder, her face taut. "It's—it's all
mixed up."
Garrick nodded. The battleships were model-sized, the small boats
full scale. In the city beyond the Yard, the pinnacle of the Empire State
Building barely cleared the Pentagon, next door. A soaring suspension
bridge leaped out from the shore a quarter of a mile away, and stopped
short a thousand yards out, over empty water.
It was easy enough to understand—even for a psychist just out of
school, on his first real assignment. Trumie was trying to run a world
singlehanded, and where there were gaps in his conception of what his
world should be, the results showed. "Get me battleships!" he ordered
his robot supply clerks; and they found the only battleships there were
in the world to copy, the child-sized toy-scaled play battleships that still
delighted kids. "Get me an Air Force!" And a thousand model bombers
were hastily put together. "Build me a bridge!" But perhaps he had for-
got to say to where.
"Come on, Garrick!"
He shook his head and focused on the world around him. Kathryn
Pender was standing on a gray steel stage, the mooring line from their
launch secured to what looked like a coast-defense cannon—but only
about four feet long. Garrick picked up his little box and leaped up to
the stage beside her. She turned to look at the city. . . .
"Hold on a second." He was opening the box, taking out two little

214
Frederik Pohl
cardboard placards. He turned her by the shoulder and, with pins from
the box, attached one of the cards to her back. "Now me," he said,
turning his back to her.
She read the placard dubiously:
I
am a
spy!
"Garrick," she began, "you're sure you know what you're doing—"
"Put it on!" She shrugged and pinned it to the folds of his jacket.
Side by side, they entered the citadel of the enemy.
According to the fisherman-robot, Trumie lived in a gingerbread cas-
tle south of the Pentagon. Most of the robots got no chance to enter it.
The city outside the castle was Trumie's kingdom, and he roamed about
it, overseeing, changing, destroying, rebuilding. But inside the castle was
his Private Place; the only robots that had both an inside- and outside-
the-castle existence were his two bodyguards.
"That," said Garrick, "must be the Private Place."
It was a gingerbread castle, all right. The "gingerbread" was stone-
work, gargoyles and columns; there was a moat and a drawbridge, and
there were robot guards with crooked little rifles, wearing scarlet tunics
and fur shakos three feet tall. The drawbridge was up and the guards at
stiff attention.
"Let's reconnoiter," said Garrick. He was unpleasantly conscious of
the fact that every robot they passed—and they had passed thousands-
had turned to look at the signs on their backs. Yet—it was right, wasn't
it? There was no hope of avoiding observation in any event. The only
hope was to fit somehow into the pattern—and spies would certainly be
a part of the pattern. Wouldn't they?
Garrick turned his back on doubts and led the way around the gin-
gerbread palace.
The only entrance was the drawbridge.
They stopped out of sight of the ramrod-stiff guards. Garrick said:
"We'll go in. As soon as we get inside, you put on your costume." He
handed her the box. "You know what to do. All you have to do is keep
him quiet for a while and let me talk to him."
The girl said doubtfully, "Garrick. Is this going to work?"

The Man Who Ate the World
215
Garrick exploded: "How the devil do I know? I had Trumie's dossier
to work with. I know everything that happened to him when he was a
kid—when this trouble started. But to reach him, to talk to the boy in-
side the man—that takes a long time, Kathryn. And we don't have a
long time. So . .
He took her elbow and marched her toward the guards. "So you
know what to do," he said.
"I hope so," breathed Kathryn Pender, looking very small and very
young.
They marched down the wide white pavement, past the motionless
guards. . .
Something was coming toward them. Kathryn held back. "Come on!"
Garrick muttered.
"No, look!" she whispered. "Is that-is that Trumie?"
He looked.
It was Trumie, larger than life. It was Anderson Trumie, the entire
human population of the most-congested-island-for-its-population in the
world. On one side of him was a tall, dark figure, on the other side a
squat dark figure, helping him along. They looked at his face and it was
horror, drowned in fat. The bloated cheeks shook damply, wet with
tears. The eyes looked out with fright on the world he had made.
Trumie and his bodyguards rolled up to them and past. And then
Anderson Trumie stopped.
He turned the blubbery head, and read the sign on the back of the
girl. 1 am a spy. Panting heavily, clutching the shoulder of the Crockett-
robot, he stared wildly at her.
Garrick cleared his throat. This far his plan had gone, and then there
was a gap. There had to be a gap. Trumie's history, in the folder that
Roosenburg had supplied, had told him what to do with Trumie; and
Garrick's own ingenuity had told him how to reach the man. But a link
was missing. Here was the subject, and here was the psychist who could
cure him; and it was up to Garrick to start the cure.
Trumie cried, in a staccato bleat: "You! What are you? Where do
you belong?"
He was talking to the girl. Beside him the Crockett-robot murmured,
"Rackin she's a spy, Mistuh Trumie. See thet sign a-hangin' on her
back?"
"Spy? Spy?" The quivering lips pouted. "Curse you, are you Mata
Hari? What are you doing out here? It's changed its face," Trumie com-

216
Frederik Pohl
plained to the Crockett-robot. "It doesn't belong here. It's supposed to
be in the harem. Go on, Crockett, get it back!"
"Wait!" cried Garrick, but the Crockett-robot was ahead of him. It
took Kathryn Pender by the arm.
"Come along thar," it said soothingly, and urged her across the
drawbridge. She glanced back at Garrick, and for a moment it looked as
though she were going to speak. Then she shook her head, as though
she were giving an order.
"Kathryn!" cried Garrick. "Trumie, wait a minute. That isn't Mata
Hari!"
No one was listening. Kathryn Pender disappeared into the Private
Place. Trumie, leaning heavily on the hobbling Silver-robot, followed.
Garrick, coming back to life, leaped after them. . .
The scarlet-coated guards jumped before him, their shakos bobbing,
their crooked little rifles crossed to bar his way.
He cried, "One side! Out of my way, you! I'm a human, don't you
understand? You've got to let me pass!"
They didn't even look at him; trying to get by them was like trying to
walk through a wall of moving, thrusting steel. He shoved, and they
pushed him back; he tried to dodge, and they were before him. It was
hopeless.
And then it was hopeless indeed, because behind them, he saw, the
drawbridge had gone up.
VI
Sonny Trumie collapsed into a chair like a mound of blubber falling to
the deck of a whaler.
Though he made no signal, the procession of serving robots started at
once. In minced the maitre d', bowing and waving its graceful hands; in
marched the sommelier, clanking its necklace of keys, bearing its wines
in their buckets of ice. In came the lovely waitress-robots and the sturdy
steward-robots, with the platters and tureens, the plates and bowls and
cups. They spread a meal—a dozen meals—before him, and he began to
eat. He ate as a penned pig eats, gobbling until it chokes, forcing the
food down because there is nothing to do but eat. He ate, with a sighing
accompaniment of moans and gasps, and some of the food was salted
with the tears of pain he wept into it, and some of the wine was spilled

The Man Who Ate the World
217
by his shaking hand. But he ate. Not for the first time that day, and not
for the tenth.
Sonny Trumie wept as he ate. He no longer even knew he was weep-
ing. There was the gaping void inside him that he had to fill, had to fill;
there was the gaping world about him that he had to people and build
and furnish—and use. He moaned to himself. Four hundred pounds of
meat and lard, and he had to lug it from end to end of his island, every
hour of every day, never resting, never at peace! There should have
been a place somewhere, there should have been a time, when he could
rest. When he could sleep without dreaming, sleep without waking after
a scant few hours with the goading drive to eat and to use, to use and to
eat . . . And it was all so wrong! The robots didn't understand. They
didn't try to understand, they didn't think for themselves. Let him take
his eyes from any one of them for a single day, and everything went
wrong. It was necessary to keep after them, from end to end of the is-
land, checking and overseeing and ordering—yes, and destroying to re-
build, over and over!
He moaned again, and pushed the plate away.
He rested, with his tallow forehead flat against the table, waiting,
while inside him the pain ripped and ripped, and finally became beara-
ble again. And slowly he pushed himself up again, and rested for a mo-
ment, and pulled a fresh plate toward him, and began again to eat. . .
After a while he stopped. Not because he didn't want to go on, but
because he couldn't.
He was bone-tired, but something was bothering him—one more de-
tail to check, one more thing that was wrong. The houri at the draw-
bridge. It shouldn't have been out of the Private Place. It should have
been in the harem, of course. Not that it mattered, except to Sonny
Trumie's sense of what was right. Time was when the houris of the
harem had their uses, but that time was long and long ago; now they
were property, to be fussed over and made to be right, to be replaced if
they were worn, destroyed if they were wrong. But only property, as all
of North Guardian was property—as all of the world would be his prop-
erty, if only he could manage it.
But property shouldn't be wrong.
He signaled to the Crockett-robot and, leaning on it, walked down
the long terrazzo hall toward the harem. He tried to remember what the
houri had looked like. It had worn a sheer red blouse and a brief red

218
Frederik Pohl
skirt, he was nearly sure, but the face. ... It had had a face, of
course. But Sonny had lost the habit of faces. This one had been some-
how different, but he couldn't remember just why. Still—the blouse and
skirt, they were red, he was nearly sure. And it had been carrying some-
thing in a box. And that was odd, too.
He waddled a little faster, for now he was sure it was wrong.
"That's the harem, Mistuh Trumie," said the robot at his side. It
disengaged itself gently, leaped forward and held the door to the harem
for him.
"Wait for me," Sonny commanded, and waddled forward into the
harem halls. Once he had so arranged the harem that he needed no help
inside it; the halls were railed, at a height where it was easy for a pudgy
hand to grasp the rail; the distances were short, the rooms close to-
gether. He paused and called over his shoulder, "Stay where you can
hear me." It had occurred to him that if the houri-robot was wrong he
would need Crockett's guns to make it right.
A chorus of female voices sprang into song as he entered the main
patio. They were a bevy of beauties, clustered around a fountain,
diaphanously dressed, languorously glancing at Sonny Trumie as he
waddled inside. "Shut up!" he commanded. "Go back to your rooms."
They bowed their heads and, one by one, slipped into the cubicles.
No sign of the red blouse and the red skirt. He began the rounds of
the cubicles, panting, peering into them. "Hello, Sonny," whispered
Theda Bara, lithe on a leopard rug, and he passed on. "I love you!"
cried Nell Gwynn, and, "Come to me!" commanded Cleopatra, but he
passed them by. He passed Dubarry and Marilyn Monroe, he passed
Moll Flanders and he passed Troy's Helen. No sign of the houri in
red . . .
And then he saw signs. He didn't see the houri, but he saw the signs
of the houri's presence; the red blouse and the red skirt, lying limp and
empty on the floor.
Sonny gasped, "You! Where are you? Come out here where I can see
you!"
Nobody answered Sonny. "Come out!" he bawled.
And then he stopped. A door opened and someone came out; not a
houri, not female; a figure without sex but loaded with love, a teddy-
bear figure, as tall as pudgy Sonny Trumie himself, waddling as he
waddled, its stubbed arms stretched out to him.

The Man Who Ate the World
219
Sonny could hardly believe his eyes. Its color was a little darker than
Teddy. It was a good deal taller than Teddy. But unquestionably, un-
doubtedly, in everything that mattered it was—"Teddy," whispered
Sonny Trumie, and let the furry arms go around his four hundred
pounds.
Twenty years disappeared. "They wouldn't let me have you," Sonny
told the teddy; and it said, in a voice musical and warm:
"It's all right, Sonny. You can have me now, Sonny. You can have
everything, Sonny."
"They took you away," he whispered, remembering. They took the
teddy-bear away; he had never forgotten. They took it away, and they
were wild. Mother was wild, and father was furious; they raged at the
little boy and scolded him, and threatened him. Didn't he know they
were poor, and did he want to ruin them all, and what was wrong with
him anyway, that he wanted his little sister's silly stuffed robots when he
was big enough to use nearly grown-up goods.
The night had been a terror, with the frowning, sad robots ringed
around and the little girl crying; and what had made it terror was not
the scolding—he'd had scoldings—but the worry, the fear and almost the
panic in his parents' voices. For what he did, he came to understand,
was no longer a childish sin; it was a big sin, a failure to consume his
quota—
And it had to be punished. The first punishment was the extra birth-
day party; the second was—shame. Sonny Trumie, not quite twelve, was
made to feel shame and humiliation. Shame is only a little thing, but it
makes the one who owns it little too. Shame. The robots were reset to
scorn him. He woke to mockery, and went to bed with contempt. Even
his little sister lisped the catalogue of his failures. You aren't trying,
Sonny, and You don't care, Sonny, and You're a terrible disap-
pointment to us, Sonny. And finally all the things were true; because
Sonny at twelve was what his elders made him.
And they made him . . . "neurotic" is the term; a pretty-sounding
word that means ugly things like fear and worry and endless self-
reproach. . .
"Don't worry," whispered the teddy. "Don't worry, Sonny. You can
have me. You can have what you want. You don't have to have any-
thing else. . ."

220
Frederik Pohl
VII
Garrick raged through the halls of the Private Place like a tiger upon a
kid. "Kathryn!" he cried. "Kathryn Pender!" Finally he had found a
way in, unguarded, forgotten. But it had taken time. And he was
worried. "Kathryn!" The robots peeped out at him, worriedly, and
sometimes they got in his way and he bowled them aside. They didn't
fight back, naturally—what robot would hurt a human? But sometimes
they spoke to him, pleading, for it was not according to the wishes of
Mr. Trumie that anyone but him rage destroying through North Guard-
ian Island. He passed them by. "Kathryn!" he called. "Kathryn!"
It wasn't that Trumie was dangerous.
He told himself fiercely: Trumie was not dangerous. Trumie was laid
bare in his folder, the one that Roosenburg had supplied. He couldn't
be blamed, and he meant no harm. He was once a bad little boy who
was trying to be good by consuming, consuming; and he wore himself
into neurosis doing it; and then they changed the rules on him. End of
the ration; end of forced consumption, as the robots took over for man-
kind at the other end of the cornucopia. It wasn't necessary to struggle
to consume, so the rules were changed. . . .
And maybe Mr. Trumie knew that the rules had been changed; but
Sonny didn't. It was Sonny, the bad little boy trying to be good, who
had made North Guardian Island. . . .
And it was Sonny who owned the Private Place, and all it held—
including Kathryn Pender.
Garrick called hoarsely, "Kathryn! If you hear me, answer me!"
It had seemed so simple. The fulcrum on which the weight of Tru-
mie's neurosis might move was a teddy-bear; give him a teddy-bear—or,
perhaps, a teddy-bear suit, made by night in the factories of Fisher-
man's Island, with a girl named Kathryn Pender inside—and let him
hear, from a source he could trust, the welcome news that it was no
longer necessary to struggle, that compulsive consumption could have
an end. Permissive analysis would clear it up; but only if Trumie would
listen.
"Kathryn!" roared Roger Garrick, racing through a room of mirrors
and carved statues. Because, just in case Trumie didn't listen, just in
case the folder was wrong and the teddy wasn't the key—

The Man Who Ate the World
221
Why, then, the teddy to Trumie was only a robot. And Trumie de-
stroyed them by the score.
"Kathryn!" cried Roger Garrick, trotting through the silent palace;
and at last he heard what might have been an answer. At least it was a
voice—a girl's voice, at that. He was before a passage that led to a room
with a fountain and silent female robots, standing and watching him.
The voice came from a small room. He ran to the door.
It was the right door.
There was Trumie, four hundred pounds of lard, lying on a marble
bench with a foam-rubber cushion, the jowled head in the small lap of—
Teddy. Or Kathryn Pender in the teddy-bear suit, the stick-like legs
pointed straight out, the stick-like arms clumsily patting him. She was
talking to him, gently and reassuringly. She was telling him what he
needed to know—that he had eaten enough, that he had used enough,
that he had consumed enough to win the respect of all, and an end to
consuming.
Garrick himself could not have done better.
It was a sight from Mother Goose, the child being soothed by his toy.
But it was not a sight that fit in well with its surroundings, for the
seraglio was upholstered in mauve and pink, and wicked paintings hung
about.
Sonny Trumie rolled the pendulous head and looked squarely at Gar-
rick. The worry was gone from the fearful little eyes.
Garrick stepped back.
No need for him just at this moment. Let Trumie relax for a while, as
he had not been able to relax for a score of years. Then the psychist
could pick up where the girl had been unable to proceed; but in the
meantime, Trumie was finally at rest.
The teddy looked up at Garrick, and in its bright blue eyes, the eyes
that belonged to the girl named Kathryn, he saw a queer tincture of tri-
umph and compassion.
Garrick nodded and left, and went out to the robots of North Guard-
ian and started them clearing away.
Sonny Trumie nestled his swine's head in the lap of the teddy-bear. It
was talking to him so nicely, so nicely. It was droning away, "Don't
worry, Sonny. Don't worry. Everything's all right. Everything's all
right." Why, it was almost as though it were real.

222
Frederik Pohl
It had been, he calculated with the part of his mind that was razor-
sharp and never relaxed, it had been nearly two hours since he had
eaten. Two hours! And he felt as though he could go another hour at
least, maybe two. Maybe—maybe even not eat at all again that day.
Maybe even learn to live on three meals. Perhaps two. Perhaps—
He wriggled—as well as four hundred greasy pounds can wriggle—and
pressed against the soft warm fur of the teddy-bear. It was so soothing!
"You don't have to eat so much, Sonny. You don't have to drink so
much. No one will mind. Your father won't mind, Sonny. Your mother
won't mind. .
It was very comfortable to hear the teddy-bear telling him those
things. It made him drowsy. So deliciously drowsy! It wasn't like going
to sleep, as Sonny Trumie had known going to sleep for a dozen or
more years, the bitterly fought surrender to the anesthetic weariness. It
was just drowsy. . .
And he did want to go to sleep.
And finally he slept. All of him slept. Not just the four hundred
pounds of blubber and the little pig eyes, but even the razor-sharp
mind-Trumie that lived in the sad, obedient hulk; it slept; and it had
never slept before.

AVARICE
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute." There's a bold,
heroic, military statement which we can all admire, hats off, hearts
pounding. What, count pennies, when principle is at stake?—And
yet, on the other hand, there is also the bold, heroic, military state-
ment: "There is no substitute for victory." Well, then what if heroics
lose and a little computational compromise wins? In that case—
"Count the profits and the wars will take care of themselves," says
AVARICE.

MARGIN OF PROFIT
POUL ANDERSON
It was an anachronism to have a human receptionist in this hall of
lucent plastic, among the machines that winked and talked between jade
columns soaring up into vaulted dimness—but a remarkably pleasant
one when she was as long-legged and red-headed a stun-blast as the girl
behind the desk. Captain Torres drew to a crisp halt, and a gauntleted
hand went to his gilt helmet. Traveling down sumptuous curves, his eye
was jarred by the small needier at her waist.
"Good day, sir," she smiled. "One moment, please, I'll see if Free-
man van Rijn is ready for you." She switched on the intercom and a
three-megavolt oath bounced out. "No, he's still conferring on the vid.
Won't you be seated?"
Before she turned it off, Torres caught a few words: ". . . By damn,
he'll give us the exclusive franchise or do without our business. Who do
these little emperors think they are? All right, so he has a million sol-
diers under arms. You can tell him to take those soldiers, with field ar-
tillery and hobnailed boots, by damn, and—" Click.
Torres wrapped his cape about the deep-blue tunic and sat down,
laying one polished boot across the other knee of his white culottes. He
felt out of his depth, simultaneously overdressed and naked. The regalia
of a Lodgemaster in the Federated Brotherhood of Spacemen was stiff
with gold braid, medals, and jewelry, far removed from the gray cover-
all he wore on deck or the loungers of planet leave. Worse, the guards
in the tower entrance, a kilometer below, had not only checked his cre-
dentials and retinal patterns, but had unloaded his sidearm.
Blast Nicholas van Rijn and the whole Polesotechnic League! Good
saints, drop him on Pluto without his underwear!
Of course, a merchant prince did have to be wary of assassins—and
most of them went to great lengths to avoid formal duels, though Van
Rijn himself was supposed to be murderously fast with a handgun.
Nevertheless, arming your receptionist was not a high-born thing to
do-

226
Poul Anderson
Torres wondered, rather wistfully, if she was one of the old devil's
mistresses. Perhaps not; but with the trouble between the Company—no,
the whole League—and the Brotherhood, she'd have no time for him,
being doubtless bound by a contract of personal fealty. His gaze went to
the League emblem on the wall, a golden sunburst afire with opals, sur-
rounding an ancient-style rocketship of the Caravel model, and the
motto: All the traffic will bear. That could be taken two ways, he
reflected sourly. Beneath it was the trademark of Van Rijn's own outfit,
the Solar Spice & Liquors Company.
The girl turned on the intercom again and heard the vidophone being
switched off; there followed a steady rumble of obscenities. "Go on in
now, sir," she said, and into the speaker: "Captain Rafael Torres,
representing the Brotherhood."
The spaceman straightened himself and went through the inner door.
His lean dark face clamped into careful lines. It would be a new experi-
ence, meeting his ultimate boss; for ten years, as captain of a ship and
lodgemaster of the union local, he had not called anyone "sir."
The office was big, with an entire side transparent, overlooking a
precipitous vista of Batavia's towers, green landscape, hot with tropical
gardens, and the molten glitter of the Java Sea. The other walls were
lined with the biggest referobot Torres had ever seen, with shelves of
extraterrestrial curios, and—astonishingly—a thousand or more old-type
folio books, exquisitely bound in tooled leather and looking well-worn.
The room and the desk were littered, close to maximum entropy, and
the ventilators could not quite dismiss a tobacco haze. The most notice-
able object on the desk was a small image of St. Dismas, carved from
sandroot in the Martian style. The precise and perfect patron for Nicho-
las van Rijn, thought Torres.
He clicked his heels and bowed till the helmet plume swept his nose.
"Lodgemaster-Captain Torres speaking for the Brotherhood, sir."
Van Rijn grunted. He was a huge man, two meters high, and the tri-
ple chin and swag belly did not make him appear soft. Rings glittered
on the hairy hands and bracelets on the thick wrists, under snuff-soiled
lace. Small gray eyes, set close to the great hook nose under a sloping
forehead, blinked at the spaceman. He went back to filling his church-
warden, and said nothing until he had a good head of steam up.
"So, by damn," he muttered then. "You speak for the whole louse-
bound union, I hope." The long handlebar mustaches and goatee wag-

Margin of Profit	227
gled over a gorgeously embroidered waistcoat. Beneath it was only a
sarong, columnar legs, and bare splay feet.
Torres checked his temper. "Yes, sir. For all the locals in the Solar
Federation, and every other lodge within ten light-years. We understood
that you would represent the League."
"Only tentatively. I will convey your demands to my colleagues, such
of them as I can drag out of their offices and harems. Sit."
Torres did not give the chair an opportunity to mold itself to him; he
sat on the edge and said harshly: "It's simple enough, sir. You already
know our decision. We aren't calling a real strike . . . yet. We just re-
fuse to take any more ships through the Kossaluth of Borthu till the
menace there has been stopped. If you insist that we do so, we will
strike."
"By damn, you cut your own throats," replied Van Rijn with surpris-
ing mildness. "Not alone the loss of pay and commissions. No, but if
Antares is not kept steadily supplied, she loses taste maybe for cinnamon
and London dry gin. Not to speak of products offered by other com-
panies. Like if Jo-Boy Technical Services bring in no more indentured
scientists, Antares builds her own academies. Hell and lawyers! In a few
years, no more market at Antares and all fifteen planets. You lose, I
lose, we all lose."
"The answer is simple enough, sir. We just detour around the Kossa-
luth. I know that'll take us through more hazardous regions, we'll have
more wrecks, but the brothers don't mind that risk."
"What?" Somehow, Van Rijn managed a basso scream. "Pest and
cannon balls! Double the length of the voyage! Double the fuel bills,
salaries, ship and cargo losses . . . halve the deliveries per year! We are
ruined! Better we give up Antares at once!"
It was already an expensive route, Torres knew; whether or not the
companies could actually afford the extra cost, he didn't know, for by
the standard treaty which Sol had also signed, the League's books were
its own secret. He waited out the dramatics, then said patiently:
"The Borthudian press gangs have been operating for two years now,
sir. We've tried to fight them, and can't. We didn't make this decision
overnight; if it had been up to the brothers at large, we'd have voted
right at the start not to go through that hellhole. But the Lodgemasters
held back, hoping something could be worked out. Apparently it can't."
"See here," growled Van Rijn. "I don't like this losing of men and
ships any better than you. Worse, maybe. A million credits a year or

228
Poul Anderson
more it costs this company alone. But we can afford it. Only fifteen per-
cent of our ships are captured. We would lose more, detouring through
the Gamma Mist or the Stonefields. Crewfolk should be men, not
jellyfish."
"Easy enough for you to say!" snapped Torres. "We'll face meteors
and dust clouds, rogue planets and hostile natives, warped space and
hard radiation . . . but I've seen one of those pressed men. That's what
decided me. I'm not going to risk it happening to me, and neither is
anyone else."
"Ah, so?" Van Rijn leaned over the desk. "By damn, you tell me."
"Met him on Arkan 111, autonomous planet on the fringe of the
Kossaluth, where we put in to deliver some tea. One of their ships was
in, too, and you can bet your brain we went around in armed parties
and were ready to shoot anyone who even looked like a crimp. I saw
him, this man they'd kidnaped, going on some errand, spoke to him, we
even tried to snatch him back so we could bring him to Earth for
deconditioning— He fought us and got away. God! He wasn't human
any more, not inside. And still you could tell he wanted out, he wanted
to break the conditioning, and he couldn't, and he couldn't go crazy
either—"
Torres grew aware that Van Rijn was thrusting a full goblet into his
hand. "Here, you drink this." It burned all the way down. "I have seen
conditioned men. I was a rough-and-tumbler myself in younger days."
The merchant went back behind his desk and rekindled his pipe. "It is a
fiendish thing to do, ja."
"If you want to outfit a punitive expedition, sir," said Torres sav-
agely, "I guarantee you can get full crews."
"No." The curled, shoulder-length black locks swished greasily as
Van Rijn shook his head. "The League does not have many capital
ships. It is unprofitable. The cost of a war with Borthu would wipe out
ten years' gains. And then we will have trouble with the milksop gov-
ernments of a hundred planets. No."
"Isn't there some kind of pressure you can put on the Kossalu him-
self?"
"Hah! You think maybe we have not tried? Economic sanctions do
not work; they are not interested in trade outside their own empire.
Threats they laugh at. They know that they have more navy than we
will ever build. Assassins never get close to the big potatoes." Van Rijn
cursed for two straight minutes without repeating himself. "And there

Margin of Profit
229
they sit, fat and greedy-gut, across the route to Antares and all stars be-
yond! It is not to be stood!"
He had been prowling the floor; now he whirled about with surpris-
ing speed for so large and clumsy a man. "This strike of yours brings it
to a head. And speaking of heads, it is getting time for a tall cold beer. I
shall have to confer with my fellows. Tell your men there will be steps
taken if it is financially possible. Now get out!"
It is a truism that the structure of a society is basically determined by
its technology. Not in an absolute sense—there may be totally different
cultures using identical tools—but the tools settle the possibilities: you
can't have interstellar trade without spaceships. A race limited to one
planet, possessing a high knowledge of mechanics but with all its basic
machines of commerce and war requiring a large capital investment,
will inevitably tend toward collectivism under one name or another.
Free enterprise needs elbow room.
Automation made manufacturing cheap, and the cost of energy nose-
dived when the proton converter was invented. Gravity control and the
hyperdrive opened a galaxy to exploitation. They also provided a safety
valve: A citizen who found his government oppressive could usually
emigrate elsewhere, which strengthened the libertarian planets; their
influence in turn loosened the bonds of the older world.
Interstellar distances being what they are, and intelligent races all hav-
ing their own ideas of culture, there was no union of planetary systems.
Neither was there much war: too destructive, with small chance for ei-
ther side to escape ruin, and there was little to fight about. A race
doesn't get to be intelligent without an undue share of built-in
ruthlessness, so all was not sweetness and brotherhood—but the balance
of power remained fairly stable. And there was a brisk demand for
trade goods. Not only did colonies want the luxuries of home, and the
home planets want colonial produce, but the old worlds had much to
swap.
Under such conditions, an exuberant capitalism was bound to strike
root. It was also bound to find mutual interest, to form alliances and
settle spheres of influence. The powerful companies joined together to
squeeze out competitors, jack up prices, and generally make the best of
a good thing. Governments were limited to a few planetary systems at
most; they could do little to control their cosmopolitan merchants. One

230
Poul Anderson
by one, through bribery, coercion, or sheer despair, they gave up the
struggle.
Selfishness is a potent force. Governments, officially dedicated to al-
truism, remained divided; the Polesotechnic League became a super-
government, sprawling from Canopus to Polaris, drawing its member-
ship from a thousand species. It was a horizontal society, cutting across
all political and cultural boundaries. It set its own policies, made its
own treaties, established its own bases, fought its own minor wars—and,
in the course of milking the Milky Way, did more to spread a truly uni-
versal civilization and enforce a lasting Pax than all the diplomats in the
galaxy.
But it had its own troubles.
One of Nicholas van Rijn's mansions lay on the peak of Kiliman-
jaro, up among the undying snows. It was an easy spot to defend, and a
favorite for conferences.
His gravcar slanted down through a night of needle-sharp stars, to-
ward the high turrets and glowing lanterns. Looking through the roof,
he picked out the cold sprawl of Scorpio. Antares flashed a red promise,
and he shook his fist at the suns between. "So! Monkey business with
Van Rijn, by damn. The whole Sagittarius clusters waiting to be
opened, and you in the way. This will cost you money, my friends, gut
and kipper me if it don't."
He thought back to days when he had ridden a bucketing ruin of a
ship through the great hollow spaces, bargaining under green skies, and
in poisonous winds for jewels Earth had never seen before, and a mo-
ment's wistfulness tugged at him. A long time now since he had been
any farther than the Moon . . . poor old fat man, chained to one miser-
able planet and unable to turn an honest credit. The Antares route was
more important than he dared admit; if he lost it, he lost his chance at
the Sagittarian developments to corporations with offices on the other
side of the Kossaluth. In today's pitiless competition, you either went on
expanding or you went under. And he had made too many enemies,
they were waiting for the day of his weakness.
The car landed itself, and the guards jumped out to flank him. He
wheezed the thin chill air into sooty lungs, drew his cloak of phosphores-
cent onthar skin tightly about him, and scrunched across frosty paving
to the house. There was a new maid at the door, pretty little baggage
. . . Venusian-French, was she? He tossed his plumed hat at her as the

Margin of Profit
231
butler said the Freemen were already here. He sat down and told the
chair, "Conference Room" and went along corridors darkly paneled in
the wood of a hundred planets.
There were four colleagues around the table when he entered. Kraak-
nach of the Martian Transport Company was glowing his yellow eyes at
a Frans Hals on the wall. Firmage of North American Engineering
puffed an impatient cigar. Mjambo, who owned Jo-Boy Technical Serv-
ices—which supplied indentured labor to colonial planets—was talking
into his wristphone. Gornas-Kiew happened to be on Earth and was au-
thorized to speak for the Centaurians; he sat quietly waiting, hunched
into his shell, only the delicate antennae moving.
Van Rijn plumped himself into the armchair at the head of the
table. Waiters appeared with trays of drinks, smokes, and snacks. He
took a large bite from a ham sandwich and looked inquiringly at the
others.
Kraaknach's owl-face turned to him. "Well, Freeman host, I under-
stand we are met on account of this Borthudian brokna. Did the space-
men make their ultimatum?"
"Ja" Van Rijn picked up a cigar and rolled it between his fingers.
"It grows serious. They will not take ships through the Kossaluth, ex-
cept to get revenge, while this shanghai business goes on."
"So why not blast the Borthudian home planet?" asked Mjambo.
"Death and damnation!" Van Rijn tugged at his goatee. "I had a lit-
tle computation run off today. Assuming we lost no ships—and Borthu
has good defenses—but allowing for salaries, risk bonus, fuel, ammuni-
tion, maintenance, depreciation, estimated loss due to lack of protection
elsewhere, lawsuits by governments afraid the Kossaluth may strike
back, bribes, and loss of profits to be had if the cost were invested
peaceably—the bill for that little operation would come to about thirty
trillion credits. In a nutshell, we cannot afford it. Simmons, a bowl of
Brazils!"
"You will pardon my ignorance, good sirs," clicked Gornas-Kiew's
artificial vocalizer. "My main interests lie elsewhere, and I have been
only marginally aware of this trouble. Why are the Borthudians
impressing our men?"
Van Rijn cracked a nut between his teeth and reached for a glass of
brandy. "The gruntbrains have not enough of their own," he replied
shortly.
"Perhaps I can make it clear," said Kraaknach. Like most Martians

232
Poul Anderson
of the Sirruch Horde, he had a mind orderly to the point of boredom.
He ran a clawlike hand through his gray feathers and lit a rinn-tube.
"Borthu is a backward planet . . . terrestroid to eight points, with
humanoid natives. They were in the early stage of nuclear energy when
explorers visited them seventy-eight years ago, and their reaction to the
presence of a superior culture was paranoid. They soon learned how to
make modern engines of all types, and then set out to conquer them-
selves an empire. They now hold a volume of space about forty light-
years across, though they only occupy a few Soltype systems within it.
They want nothing to do with the outside universe, and are quite able to
supply all their needs within their own boundaries—with the one excep-
tion of efficient spacemen."
"Hm-m-m," said Firmage. "Their commoners might see things
differently, if we could get a few trading ships in there. I've already
suggested we use subversive agents—get the Kossalu and his whole
bloody government overthrown from within."
"Of course, of course," said Van Rijn. "But that takes more time
than we have got, unless we want Spica and Canopus to sew up the
Sagittarius frontier while we are stopped dead here."
"To continue," said Kraaknach, "the Borthudians can produce as
many spaceships as they want, which is a great many since their econ-
omy is expanding. In fact, its structure—capitalism not unlike ours—
requires constant expansion if the whole society is not to collapse. But
they cannot produce trained crews fast enough. Pride, and a not
unjustified fear of our gradually taking them over, will not let them send
students to us any more, or hire from us, and they have only one under-
staffed academy of their own."
"I know," said Mjambo. "It'd be a hell of a good market for inden-
tures if we could change their minds for them."
"Accordingly, they have in the past two years taken to waylaying our
ships—in defiance of us and of all interstellar law. They capture the
men, hypnocondition them, and assign them to their own merchant
fleet. It takes two years to train a spaceman; we are losing an important
asset in this alone."
"Can't we improve our evasive action?" wondered Firmage. "Inter-
stellar space is so big. Why can't we avoid their patrols altogether?"
"Eighty-five percent of our ships do precisely that," Van Rijn told
him. "But the hyperdrive vibrations can be detected a light-year away if
you have sensitive instruments—pseudogravitational pulses of infinite

Margin of Profit
233
velocity. Then they close in, using naval vessels, which are faster and
more maneuverable than merchantmen. It will not be possible to cut
our losses much by evasion tactics. Satan and small pox! You think
maybe I have not considered it?"
"Well, then, how about convoying our ships through?"
"At what cost? I have been with the figures. It would mean operating
the Antares run at a loss—quite apart from all the extra naval units we
would have to build."
"Then how about our arming our merchantmen?"
"Bah! A frigate-class ship needs twenty men for all the guns and in-
struments. A merchant ship needs only four. Consider the salaries paid
to spacemen. And sixteen extra men on every ship would mean cutting
down all our operations elsewhere, for lack of crews. Same pestiferous
result: we cannot afford it, we would lose money in big fat gobs. What
is worse, the Kossalu knows we would. He needs only wait, holding
back his fig-plucking patrols, till we were too broke to continue. Then
he would be able to start conquering systems like Antares."
Firmage tapped the inlaid table with a restless finger. "Bribery, assas-
sination, war, political and economic pressure, all seem to be ruled
out," he said. "The meeting is now open to suggestions."
There was a silence, under the radiant ceiling.
Gornas-Kiew broke it: "Just how is this shanghaiing done? It is im-
possible to exchange shots while in hyperdrive."
"Well, good sir, statistically impossible," amended Kraaknach. "The
shells have to be hypered themselves, of course, or they would revert to
sublight velocity and be left behind as soon as they emerged from the
drive field. Furthermore, to make a hit, they would have to be precisely
in phase with the target. A good pilot can phase in on another ship, but
the operation is too complex, it involves too many factors, for any
artificial brain of useful size."
"I tell you how," snarled Van Rijn. "The pest-bedamned Borthudian
ships detect the vibration-wake from afar. They compute the target
course and intercept. Coming close, they phase in and slap on a tractor
beam. Then they haul themselves up alongside, burn through the hull or
the air lock, and board."
"Why, the answer looks simple enough," said Mjambo. "Equip our
boats with pressor beams. Keep the enemy ships at arm's length."
"You forget, esteemed colleague, that beams of either positive or

234
Poul Anderson
negative sign are powered from the engines," said Kraaknach. "And a
naval ship has larger engines than a merchantman."
"Well, then, why not arm our crews? Give 'em heavy blasters and let
'em blow the boarding parties to hell."
"The iUegitimate-offspring-of-interspecies-crosses Borthudians have
just such weapons already," snorted Van Rijn. "Sulfur and acid! Do
you think that four men can stand off twenty?"
"Mm-m-m . . . yes, I see your point," agreed Firmage. "But look
here, we can't do anything about this without laying out some cash. I'm
not sure offhand what our margin of profit is—"
"On the average, for all our combined Antarean voyages, about
thirty percent on each voyage," said Van Rijn promptly.
Mjambo started. "How the devil do you get the figures for my com-
pany?"
Van Rijn grinned and drew on his cigar.
"That gives us a margin to use," said Gornas-Kiew. "We can invest
in fighting equipment to such an extent that our profit is less—though I
agree that there must still be a final result in the black—for the duration
of the emergency."
"Ja " said Van Rijn, "only I have just told you we have not the men
available to handle such fighting equipment."
"It'd be worth it," said Mjambo viciously. "I'd take a fair-sized loss
just to teach them a lesson."
"No, no." Van Rijn lifted a hand which, after forty years of offices,
was still the broad muscular paw of a working spaceman. "Revenge and
destruction are un-Christian thoughts. Also, they will not pay very well,
since it is hard to sell anything to a corpse. The problem is to find some
means within our resources which will make it unprofitable for Borthu
to raid us. Not being stupid heads, they will then stop raiding and we
can maybe later do business."
"You're a cold-blooded one," said Firmage.
Van Rijn drooped his eyes and covered a shiver by pouring himself
another glass. He had suddenly had an idea.
He let the others argue for a fruitless hour, then said: "Freemen, this
gets us nowhere, nie? Perhaps we are not stimulated enough to think
clear."
"What would you suggest?" asked Mjambo wearily.
"Oh . » . an agreement. A pool, or prize, or reward for whoever

Margin of Profit	235
solves this problem. For example, ten percent of all the others' An-
tarean profits for the next ten years."
"Hoy there!" cried Firmage. "If I know you, you robber, you've just
come up with the answer."
"Oh, no, no, no. By good St. Dismas I swear it. I have some begin-
ning thoughts, maybe, but I am only a poor rough old space walloper
without the fine education all your Freemen had. I could so easy be
wrong."
"What is your idea?"
"Best I not say just yet, until it is more clear in my thick head. But
please to note, he who tries solving this problem takes on all the risk,
and it may well be some small expense. Also, without his solution
nobody has any more profits. Does not a little return on his investment
sound fair and proper?"
There was more argument. Van Rijn smiled with infinite benevo-
lence.
He was satisfied with an agreement in principle, sworn to by mercan-
tile honor, the details to be computed later.
Beaming, he clapped his hands. "Freemen, we have worked hard to-
night and soon comes much harder work. By damn, I think we deserve
a little celebration. Simmons, prepare an orgy."
Captain Torres was shocked. "Are you seriously asking us to risk
that?"
Van Rijn stared out through the office wall. "In all secrecy," he an-
swered. "I must have a crew I can trust."
"But—"
"We will not be stingy with the bonuses."
Torres shook his head. "Sir, I'm afraid it's impossible. The Brother-
hood has voted absolute refusal of any trips into the Kossaluth except
punitive expeditions—which this one is not. Under the constitution, we
can't change that policy without another vote, which would have to be a
public matter."
"It can be publicly voted on after we see if it works," urged Van
Rijn. "The first trip will have to be secret."
"Then the first trip will have to do without a crew."
"Rot and pestilence!" Van Rijn's fist crashed down on the desk and
he surged to his feet. "What sort of cowards do I deal with? In my day

236
Poul Anderson
we were men! We would have sailed through Hell's open gates if you
paid us enough!"
Torres sucked hard on his cigarette. "I'm stuck with the rules, sir,"
he declared. "Only a Lodgemaster can . . . well, all right, let me say
it!" His temper flared up. "You're asking us to take an untried ship into
enemy sky and cruise around till we're attacked. If we succeed, we win
a few measly kilocredits of bonus. If we lose, we're condemned to a life-
time of purgatory, locked up in our own skulls and unable to will any-
thing but obedience and knowing how our brains have been chained.
Win, lose, or draw for us, you sit back here plump and safe and rake in
the money. No"
Van Rijn sat quiet for a while. This was something he had not fore-
seen.
His eyes wandered forth again, to the narrow sea. There was a yacht
out there, a lovely thing of white sails and gleaming brass. Really, he
ought to spend more time on his own ketch—money wasn't as important
as all that. It was not such a bad world, this Earth, even for a lonely old
fat man, it was full of blossoms and good wine, clean winds and beauti-
ful women and fine books. In his forebrain, he knew how much his
memories of earlier-days were colored by nostalgia—space is big and
cruel, not meant for humankind. Let's face it, here on Earth we belong.
He turned around. "You say a Lodgemaster can legally come on such
a trip without telling anyone," he remarked quietly. "You think you can
raise two more like yourself, hah?"
"I told you, we won't! And you're only making it worse. Asking an
officer to serve as a common crewhand is grounds for a duel."
"Even if I myself am the skipper?"
The Mercury did not, outwardly, look different after the engineers
were finished with her. And the cargo was the same as usual: cinnamon,
ginger, pepper, cloves, tea, whiskey, gin. If he was going to Antares,
Van Rijn did not intend to waste the voyage. Only wines were omitted
from the list, for he doubted if they could stand a trip as rough as this
one was likely to be.
The alteration was internal, extra hull bracing and a new and mon-
strously powerful engine. The actuarial computers gave the cost of such
an outfitting—averaged over many ships and voyages—as equal to three
times the total profit from all the vessel's Antarean journeys during her

Margin of Profit
237
estimated lifetime. Van Rijn had winced, but ordered his shipyards to
work.
It was, in all truth, a very slim margin he had, and he had gambled
more on it than he could afford. But if the Kossalu of Borthu had statis-
tical experts of his own—always assuming, of course, that the idea
worked in the first place-
Well, if it didn't, Nicholas van Rijn would die in battle or be exe-
cuted as useless; or end his days as a brain-churned slave on a filthy
Borthudian freighter; or be held for a ruinous ransom. The alternatives
all looked equally bad.
He installed himself, the dark-haired and multiply curved Dorothea
Mclntyre, and a good supply of brandy, tobacco, and ripe cheese, in the
captain's cabin. One might as well be comfortable. Torres was his mate,
Captains Petrovich and Seichi his engineers. The Mercury listed from
Quito Spaceport without fanfare, hung unpretentiously in orbit till
clearance was given, and accelerated on gravity beams away from the
sim. At the required half-billion kilometers' distance, she went on hy-
perdrive and outpaced light.
Van Rijn sat back on the bridge and stuffed his churchwarden.
"Now is a month's voyage to Antares," he said piously. "Good St.
Dismas watch over us."
"I'll stick by St. Nicholas," murmured Torres. "Even if you do bear
the same name."
Van Rijn looked hurt. "Do you not respect my integrity?"
Torres grinned. "I admire your courage—nobody can say you lack
guts—and you may very well be able to pull this off. Set a pirate to
catch a pirate."
"You younger generations have a loud mouth and no courtesy." The
merchant lit his pipe and blew reeking clouds. "In my day we said 'sir'
to the captain even when we mutinied."
"I'm worrying about one thing," said Torres. "I realize that the
enemy probably doesn't know about the strike yet, and so they won't be
suspicious of us—and I realize that by passing within one light-year of
Borthu itself we're certain to be attacked—but suppose half a dozen of
them jump us at once?"
"On the basis of what we know about their patrol patterns, the es-
timated probability of more than one ship finding us is only ten percent,
plus or minus three." Van Rijn heaved his bulk onto his feet. One good
thing about spacefaring, you could set the artificial gravity low and feel

238
Poul Anderson
almost young again. "What you do not know so well yet, my young
friend, is that there are very few certainties in life. Always we must go
on probabilities. The secret of success is to arrange things so the odds
favor you—then in the long run you are sure to come out ahead. It is
your watch now, and I recommend to you a book on statistical theory
to pass the time. As for me, I will be in conference with Freelady Mcln-
tyre and a liter of brandy."
"I wish I could arrange my own captain's chores the way you do,"
said Torres mournfully.
Van Rijn waved an expansive hand. "Why not, my boy, why not? So
long as you make money and no trouble for the Company, the Com-
pany does not interfere with your private life. The trouble with you
younger generations is you lack initiative. When you are a poor old fee-
ble fat man like me you will look back and regret so many lost opportu-
nities."
Even in low-gee, the deck vibrated under his tread as he left.
Here there was darkness and cold and a blazing glory of suns. The
viewscreens held the spilling silver of the Milky Way, the ruby spark of
Antares among distorted constellations, the curling edge of a nebula
limned by the blue glare of a dwarf star. Brightest among the suns was
Borthu's, yellow as minted gold.
The ship drove on through night, pulsing in and out of four-dimen-
sional reality and filled with waiting.
Dorothea sat on a wardroom couch, posing long legs and high prow
with a care so practiced as to be unconscious. She could not get her
eyes from the screen.
"It's beautiful," she said in a small voice. "And horrible."
Nicholas van Rijn sprawled beside her, his majestic nose aimed at the
ceiling. "What is so bad, my little sinusoid?"
"Them . . . lying out there to pounce on us and— Why did I come?
Why did I let you talk me into it?"
"I believe there was mention of a tygron coat and Santorian flame-
drop earrings."
"But suppose they catch us?" Her fingers fell cold on his wrist.
"What will happen to me?"
"I told you I have set up a ransom fund for you. I also warned you
maybe they would not bother to collect, and maybe we get broken to

Margin of Profit
239
bits in this fight and all die. Satan's horns and the devil who gave them
to him! Be still, will you?"
The intraship speaker burped and Torres' voice said: "Wake of high-
powered ship detected, approaching from direction of Borthu."
"All hands to posts!" roared Van Rijn.
Dorothea screamed. He picked her up under one arm, carried her
down the hall—collecting a few scratches and bruises en route—tossed
her into his cabin, and locked the door. Puffing, he arrived on the
bridge. The visual intercom showed Petrovich and Seichi, radiation-ar-
mored, the engines gigantic behind them. Their faces were drawn tight
and glistening with sweat. Torres was gnawing his lip, fingers shaking as
he tuned in the hypervid.
"All right," said Van Rijn, "this is the thing we have come for. I
hope you each remember what you have to do, because if not we will
soon be very dead." He dropped into the main control chair and buck-
led on the harness. His fingers tickled the keys, feeling the sensitive re-
sponse of the ship. So far they had been using only normal power, the
great converter had been almost idling; it was good to know how many
wild horses he could call up.
The hypervid chimed. Torres pressed the Accept button and the
screen came to life.
It was a Borthudian officer who looked out at them. Skintight gar-
ments were dead black on the cat-lithe frame. The face was almost
human, but hairless and tinged with blue; yellow eyes smoldered under
the narrow forehead. Behind him could be seen the bridge, a crouching
gunnery officer, and the usual six-armed basalt idol.
"Terran ship ahoy!" He ripped out crisp, fluent Anglic, only subtly
accented by a larynx and palate of different shape. "This is Captain
Rentharik of the Kossalu's frigate Gantok. By the law, most sacred, of
the Kossaluth of Borthu, you are guilty of trespass on the dominions of
His Frightfulness. Stand by to be boarded."
"By double-damn, you out-from-under-wet-logs-crawling poppy-
cock!" Van Rijn flushed turkey red. "Not bad enough you pirate my
men and ships, with all their good expensive cargoes, but you have the
copperbound nerve to call it legal!"
Rentharik fingered the ceremonial dagger hung about his neck. "Old
man, the writ of the Kossalu runs through this entire volume of space.
You can save yourself punishment—nerve-pulsing, to be exact—by sur-
rendering peacefully and submitting to judgment."

240
Poul Anderson
"By treaty, open space is free to ships of all planets," said Van Rijn.
"And it is understood by all civilized races that treaties override any
local law."
Rentharik smiled bleakly. "Force is the basis of law, Captain."
"J a, it is, and now you make the mistake of using force on Van Rijn!
I shall have a surprise for your strutting little slime mold of a king."
Rentharik turned to a recorder tube and spoke into it. "I have just
made a note to have you assigned to the Ilyan run after conditioning.
We have never found any way to prevent seepage of the Ilyan air into
the crewman's helmets; and it holds chlorine."
Van Rijn's face lit up. "That is a horrible waste of trained personnel,
Captain. Now it so happens that on Earth we can make absolutely im-
pervious air systems, and I would gladly act as middleman if you wish
to purchase them—at a small fee, of course."
"There has been enough discussion," said Rentharik. "You will now
be grappled and boarded. There is a fixed scale of punishments for cap-
tured men, depending on the extent of their resistance."
The screen blanked.
Torres licked sandy lips. Tuning the nearest viewscreen, he got the
phase of the Borthudian frigate. She was a black shark-form, longer and
slimmer than the dumpy merchantman, of only half the tonnage but
with armor and gun turrets etched against remote star-clouds. She came
riding in along a curve that would have been impossible without gravitic
acceleration compensators, matching velocities in practiced grace, until
she loomed huge a bare kilometer away.
The intercom broke into a scream. Van Rijn swore as he saw
Dorothea having hysterics in the cabin. He cut her out of the circuit and
thought with anguish that she would probably smash all the bottles—and
Antares still eleven days off!
There was a small, pulsing jar. The Gantok was in phase and the
gravity-fingers of a tractor beam had reached across to lay hold of the
Mercury.
"Torres," said Van Rijn. "You stand by, boy, and take over if any-
thing happens to me. I may want your help anyway, if it gets too rough.
Petrovich, Seichi, you got to maintain our beams and hold 'em tight, no
matter what the enemy does. O.K.? We go!"
The Gantok was pulling herself in, hulls almost touching now. Pe-
trovich kicked in the full power of his converter. Arcs blazed blue with

Margin of Profit
241
million-volt discharges, the engine bawled, and ozone was spat forth
sharp and smelling of thunder.
A pressor beam lashed out, an invisible hammerblow of repulsion,
five times the strength of the enemy tractor. Van Rijn heard the Mer-
cury's ribs groan with the stress. The Gantok shot away, turning end
over end. Ten kilometers removed, she was lost to vision among the
stars.
"Ha, ha!" bellowed Van Rijn. "We spill all their apples, eh? By
damn! Now we show them some fun!"
The Borthudian hove back into sight. She clamped on again, full
strength attraction. Despite the pressor, the Mercury was yanked to-
ward her with a brutal surge of acceleration. Seichi cursed and threw in
all the pressor power he had.
For a moment Van Rijn thought his ship would burst open. He saw
the deckplates buckle under his feet and heard steel shear. Fifty million
tons of force were not to be handled lightly. The Gantok was batted
away as if by a troll's fist.
"Not so far! Not so far, you dumbhead! Let me control the beams."
Van Rijn's hands danced over the pilot board. "We want to keep him
for a souvenir!"
He used a spurt of drive to overhaul the Gantok. His right hand
steered the Mercury while his left wielded the tractor and the pressor,
seeking a balance. The engine thunder rolled and boomed in his skull.
The acceleration compensator could not handle all the fury now loosed,
and straps creaked as his weight was hurled against them. Torres, Pe-
trovich, and Seichi were forgotten, part of the machinery, implementing
the commands his fingers gave.
Now thoroughly scared, the Borthudian opened her drive to get
away. Van Rijn equalized positive and negative forces, in effect welding
himself to her hull by a three-kilometer bar. Grinning, he threw his
superpowered engine into reverse. The Gantok strained to a halt and
went backwards with him.
Lightning cracked and crashed over his engineers' heads. The hull
shuddered as the enemy fought to break free. Her own drive was added
to the frantic repulsion of her pressors, and the gap widened. Van Rijn
stepped down his own pressors. When she was slammed to a dead stop,
the blow echoed back at him.
"Ha, like a fish we play him! Good St. Peter the Fisherman, help us
not let him get away!"

242
Poul Anderson
* * *
It was a bleak and savage battle, nine and a half trillion empty kilo-
meters from anyone's home, with no one to watch but the stars. Rentha-
rik was a good pilot, and a desperate one. He had less power and less
mass than the Mercury, but he knew how to use them, lunging, bucking,
wheeling about in an attempt to ram. Live flesh could only take so
much, thought Van Rijn while the thunders clattered around him. The
question was, who would have to give up first?
Something snapped, loud and tortured, and he felt a rush of stinging
electrified air. Petrovich cried it for him: "Burst plate—Section Four.
I'll throw a patch on, but someone's got to weld it back or we'll break
in two."
Van Rijn signaled curtly to Torres. "Can you play our fish? I think
he is getting tired. Where are the bedamned spacesuits?"
He reeled from his chair and across the pitching deck. The Gantok
was making full-powered leaps, trying to stress the Mercury into ruin.
By varying their own velocity and beam-force, the humans could nullify
most of the effect, but it took skill and nerve. God, but it took nerve!
Van Rijn felt his clothes drenched on his body.
He found the lockers and climbed awkwardly into his specially built
suit. Hadn't worn armor in a long time—forgotten how it stank. Where
was that beblistered torch, anyhow? When he got out on the hull, sur-
rounded by the glaze of all the universe, fear was cold within him.
One of those shocks that rolled and yawed the ship underfoot could
break the gravitic hold of his boots. Pitched out beyond the hyperdrive
field and reverting to normal state, he would be forever lost in a micro-
second as the craft flashed by at translight speeds. It would be a long
fall through eternity.
Electric fire crawled over the hull. He saw the flash of the Gantok's
guns—she was firing wildly, on the one-in-a-billion chance that some
shell would happen to be in phase with the Mercury. Good—let her use
up her ammunition. Even so, it was a heart-bumping eerie thing when a
nuclear missile passed through Van Rijn's own body. No, by damn,
through the space where they coexisted with different frequencies—must
be precise—now here is that fit-for-damnation hull plate. Clamp on the
jack, bend it back toward shape. Ah, heave ho, even with hydraulics it
takes a strong man to do this, maybe some muscle remains under all
that goose grease. Slap down your glare filter, weld the plate, handle a
flame and remember the brave old days when you went hell-roaring

Margin of Profit
243
halfway across this arm of the galaxy. Whoops, that lunge nearly tossed
him off into God's great icebox!
He finished his job, reflected that there would have to be still heavier
bracing on the next ship of this model, and crept back to the air lock,
trying to ignore the ache which was his body. As he entered, the rolling
and plunging and racketing stopped. For a moment he thought he had
been stricken deaf.
Then Torres' face swam into the intercom, wet and haggard, and said
hoarsely: "They've quit. I don't think they expect their own boat can
take any more of this—"
Van Rijn straightened his bruised back and whooped. "Excellent!
Wonderful! But pull us up alongside quick, you lardhead, before—"
There was the twisting sensation of reversion to normal state, and the
hyperdrive noise spun into silence. Van Rijn lost his footing as the Mer-
cury sprang forward and banged against the enemy.
It had been an obvious tactic for Rentharik to use: Switching off his
interstellar drive, in the hope that the Terran ship would remain hyper
and flash so far away he could never be found again. The answer was
equally simple—a detector coupled to an automatic cutoff, so that the
Mercury would instantly do likewise. And now the League ship was
immediately alongside the Gantok, snuggled beneath the very guns the
frigate could no longer bring to bear and held by a tractor force she
could not break.
Van Rijn struggled back to his feet and removed his helmet. The in-
tercom blushed at his language.
"Captain!" Petrovich yelped the realization. "They're going to board
usr
"Name of Judas!" Van Rijn's breastplate clashed on the deck. "Must
I do all your thinking for you? What use is our pressor if not to swat off
unwelcome guests?" He threw back his head and bellowed with
laughter. "Let them try, let them try! Our drive field envelops theirs, so
it does not matter whether they use their engines or not—and we are
stronger, nie? We can drag them with us even if they fight it. All my life
I have been a deep-sea fisherman. And now, full speed ahead to An-
tares with this little minnow that thought it was a shark!"
A hypervid call to Antares as soon as they were in range brought a
League carrier out to meet them. Van Rijn turned the Gantok over to

244
Poul Anderson
her and let Torres pilot the battered Mercury in. Himself, he wanted
only to sleep.
Not that the Borthudians had tried any further stunts, after their
boarding party was so cold-bloodedly shoved into deep space. Rentha-
rik was sensible enough to know when he was beaten, and had pas-
sively let his ship be hauled away. But the strain of waiting for any pos-
sible resistance had been considerable.
Torres had wanted to communicate with the prisoned crew, but Van
Rijn would not allow it. "No, no, my boy, we demoralize them more by
refusing the light of our eyes. I want the good Captain Rentharik's
fingernails chewed down to the elbow when I see him."
That was, in the governor's mansion, in Redsun City. Van Rijn had
appropriated it for his own use, complete with wine cellar and con-
cubines. Between banquets he had found time to check on local prices
and raise the tag on pepper a millicredit per gram. The colonists would
grumble, but they could afford it; if it weren't for him, their meals
would be drab affairs, so didn't he deserve an honest profit?
After three days of this, he decided it was time to see Rentharik. He
lounged on the governor's throne, pipe in one hand.
Rentharik advanced across the parquet floor, gaunt and bitter under
the guns of two League gentlemen. He halted before the throne.
"Ah, so there you are!" Van Rijn beamed and waved the bottle. "I
trust you have had the pleasant stay? Redsun City jails are much rec-
ommended, I am told."
"My government will take measures," spat the Borthudian. "You will
not escape the consequences of this piracy."
"Your maggoty little kinglet will do nothing of the sort," declared
Van Rijn. "If the civilized planets did not dare fight when he was play-
ing buccaneer, he will not when it is the other way around. He will ac-
cept the facts and learn to love them."
"What do you plan to do with us?"
"Well, now, it may be we can collect a little ransom for you, perhaps,
eh? If not, the local iron mines are always short of labor. But out of the
great goodness of my heart, I let you choose one man who may go
home freely and report what has happened. After that we negotiate."
Rentharik narrowed his lids. "See here, I know how your filthy trad-
ing system works. You won't do anything that doesn't pay you. And to
equip a vessel like yours—one able to capture a warship—costs more
than the vessel could ever hope to earn."

Margin of Profit
245
"Quite so. It costs just about three times as much."
"So . . . we'll ruin the Antares route for you! Don't think we'll give
up our patrols in our own sovereign territory. We can outlast you, if
you want a struggle of attrition."
"Ah!" Van Rijn waggled his pipestem. "That is what you cannot do,
my friend. You can reduce our profit considerably, but you cannot
eliminate it; therefore, we can continue the route indefinitely under pres-
ent conditions. You see, each voyage nets a thirty percent profit."
"And it costs three hundred percent of your profit to outfit a ship—"
"Indeed. But we are only so equipping every fourth ship. That means
we operate on a smaller margin, yes, but a little arithmetic should show
you we can still scrape by in the black ink."
"Every fourth—!" Rentharik shook his head, frankly puzzled. "But
what will you gain? Out of every four encounters, we will win three."
"Just so. And by those three victories, you will capture twelve slaves.
The fourth time, we rope in twenty Borthudian spacemen. Naturally,
you will never know beforehand which ship is going to be the one that
can fight back. You will either have to give up your press gangs or see
them whittled away." Van Rijn rubbed his horny palms together. "So
you see, by damn, always I operate on the statistics, and always I load
the statistics. My friend, you have had it edgewise."
Rentharik crouched where he stood and blazed at his captor: "I
learned, here, that your union will not travel through the Kossaluth. Do
you think reducing the number of impressed men by one fourth will
change their minds?"
Van Rijn grinned. "If I know my spacemen—why, of course. Because
if you do continue to raid us, you will soon reduce yourselves to so few
crews as to be helpless. Then you will have to deal with us, and our
terms will include freeing all of the slaves, deconditioning, and good fat
indemnities. Any man worth his salt can stand a couple years' service,
even on your moldy rustbuckets, if he knows he will then be freed and
paid enough to retire on."
He cleared his throat, buttered his tone, and went on: "So is it not
wise that you make terms at once? We will be very lenient if you do.
You will have to release and indemnify all your present captives, and
stop raiding, but you can send students to our academies at not much
more than the usual fees. We will want a few minor trade concessions
as well, of course—"
"And in a hundred years you'll own us!" It was a snarl.

246	Poul Anderson
"If you do not agree, by damn, in three years we will own you. The
choice is yours. You must have a continuously expanding supply of
spacemen or your economy collapses. You can either let us train them
in civilized fashion, and give us a wedge by which we ruin you in three
generations, or you can impress them and be ruined inside this decade.
Pick your man; we will let him report to your king-pig. And never for-
get that I, Nicholas van Rijn of the Polesotechnic League, do nothing
without very good reason. Even the name of my ship could have
warned you."
"The name—?" whispered Rentharik.
"Mercury" explained Van Rijn, "was the god of commerce, gam-
bling—and thieves."

COVETOUSNESS
We're not supposed to want things that don't belong to us. We
shouldn't covet our neighbor's possessions and yet, come on,
folks—how can business proceed if we don't covet each other's
customers and commissions and positions. And as long as we estab-
lish that principle as sound business practice, how about hankering
for our neighbors' arms and kidneys and hearts? Now there's
COVETOUSNESS.

THE HOOBC, THE EYE AND THE
WHIP
MICHAEL G. CONEY
Often in the spring evenings I would stroll down to the Skipper's Ma-
rina in Dollar Bay and watch the bonded S.P. men working on their
bosses' boats. I would chat with them as they scraped, painted and
varnished, and try to discover what made them tick. In general they
were a cheerful lot and it was rarely that a man would openly admit
that he was dissatisfied, or that he wished he had never elected to be
bonded. Indeed, it was not always obvious that an S.P. man was bonded
—for the rough work in the boat yards he wore coveralls with the letters
S.P. front and back, just as did any other State Prisoner.
Perhaps the most interesting of these characters was Charles, Doug
Marshall's man. I would see him at work even on weekends, scraping
and filling, preparing the boat for the coming season while the Freemen
and their chattering wives wandered about the slipway and the wharves,
grotesque marine pets flopping at their heels. These weekends had be-
come social events, each Freeman trying to outdo his fellow in hearty
commendation of his own sleek boat, while the wives vied over such
niceties as minipile cookers and autoflush heads. They would stand be-
side their boats, these Freemen would, patting them and stroking them
like racehorse owners, meanwhile barking instructions at their bonded
men.
Even Carioca Jones appeared on occasion—once she came wearing
the slitheskin dress I had made for her the previous autumn and the
emotion-sensitive skin turned a faint pink as our eyes met and we both
thought of Joanna. Her young, smooth hands rose to her vulture's
throat almost of their own accord, while her hard black eyes wrinkled
in a smile.
"I must say I'm surprised to see you here, Joe, knowing your views,"
she greeted me.
"I like to look at the boats."

250
Michael G. Coney
"Yes, but all these—people, darling. Aren't they simply terrible?"
"No worse than anyone else, I guess," I said coldly, wishing she
would move on.
Carioca Jones was ostensibly a reformed character since the incident
last year that had caused the entire Peninsula to ostracize her socially—a
bitter blow for the ex-3-V star. Predictably for a woman of her drive
and personality, she had thrown herself into a round of social do-good-
ing by way of atonement and was expected to become the next presi-
dent of the Foes of Bondage Association, which had been making its
presence felt around the Peninsula recently.
Unfortunately, anyone meeting her for the first time always com-
mented on what beautiful hands she had for her age—and somewhere in
the squalid workshops of the State Prison an S.P. girl named Joanna
was now stitching coveralls with steel fingers.
One Friday afternoon in May I left the slithe farm in the capable
hands of Dave Froehlich, my bonded man, and walked down to the Ma-
rina. By now the boats were in good shape—most of the paintwork hav-
ing been completed—and the S.P. men were working on decks and
below, polishing brass, overhauling engines. About twenty hydrofoils
stood in line on their insect legs, looking virile and rakish.
Alone among the S.P. men, Charles was working on the outside hull
of his boss's boat, lubricating the heavy rollers of the Eye. I walked
over and greeted him. He looked up from his work.
"Hi, Joe," he said. That was one of the things I liked about him. He
was able to treat me as an equal and whenever I talked with him I for-
got that he was a State Prisoner and I a Freeman.
Unlike my foreman, Dave, who will address me as "Mr. Sagar" no
matter how often I tell him to use my Christian name. Dave is a good
man, but he will go on hating me until his time is served. Nothing per-
sonal about it—I just happen to be a Freeman.
"When are you going to get her in the water?" I asked Charles.
"About three weeks' time, I reckon." He stood, wiped his hands on
his coveralls and gripped the huge steel loop of the Eye in both hands.
He pulled, extending it on well-greased runners until it projected some
eight feet from the hull of the boat, a giant polished metal D. He
grinned at me and tapped it with a small hammer—it rang like a bell.
Rumor had it that an Eye fractured in use down south somewhere
last summer, although the accident was hushed up. A sling-glider must

The Hook, the Eye and the Whip
251
have complete confidence in his equipment. Satisfied, Charles gave the
Eye a seemingly gentle push. Four hundred and twenty pounds of glit-
tering steel-titanium alloy rolled smoothly back into the hull of the
boat, the flat upright of the D—the outermost part of the Eye—fitting so
snugly with the contours of the hull that the joining could hardly be
seen.
Charles turned his attention to the Whip, which lay on the slipway
beside the boat and stretched to a small mooring buoy out in the water
—a total distance of some eighty yards. This year everyone had bought
new Ultrafiber-X Whips—they lay rigid across the surface in parallel
green lines.
"What do you think about, Charles?" I asked curiously. "When
Doug's up in his glider and the Hook hits the Eye—what thoughts occur
to you?"
He grinned, kneading grease into the attachment where the Whip
joined the pilot's harness. "There's no time to think. I'm too busy pin-
ning down the Whip, rolling out the Eye, trying to control the boat at
the same time—while I listen to some damfool observer panicking in the
stern."
I smiled, too. I had crewed for Doug Marshall as observer and had
panicked when I thought the sling-glider had gotten out of control.
"But there's one thing I never think about," continued Charles. "You
want me to say I worry about Doug's getting hurt, don't you?"
"It must occur to you."
"It doesn't. You'd have to be a glider pilot yourself to understand. I
used to be a pilot a few years back. It's a new sport—we've got a lot to
learn—but it's a great sport. Joe—there's nothing like the thrill of
being up there in that little glider that's hardly bigger than yourself—at
two hundred and fifty miles per hour."
Charles stood over six feet, blond and weatherbeaten—he looked the
sling-glider type, though hardly the State Prisoner type. Doug Marshall
had told me about that once. Charles had been sentenced for rape, of
all things, after some incident on board his boat. I personally thought
the whole thing sounded unlikely and obviously the judge had had his
doubts, too—Charles only got four years.
He had applied for bonding—which carries an automatic one-third
sentence remission—after he had served the six months compulsory.
Doug Marshall had known him slightly in the past and had agreed to
take him on. Charles was now bound by the terms of the one-sided con-

252
Michael G. Coney
tract to serve his master faithfully and well to the utmost of his ability,
until the death of either party or completion of his sentence—whichever
came sooner.
The sling-glider pilot is entirely in his steersman's hands.
I looked at Charles. Surely he must think something while Doug was
in the air in that flimsy glider.
For example—he might think of Doug's dying. If that happened,
Charles' contract would be up and with it his sentence—he would be a
free man. A Freeman.
For example—he had to think of Doug's possibly being seriously in-
jured. In which case Charles would, as ever, be required to serve Doug
to the utmost.
Which might mean the donation of an organ.
Charles worked on impassively, talking technicalities as he checked
and greased Doug Marshall's harness.
It is difficult to define an air of suppressed excitement. It can be ob-
served most easily, perhaps, in the way people will suddenly address
comparative strangers, asking their views on whatever is causing the
furor. Such an air was in evidence at the Skipper's Marina during those
last few weeks before the start of the sling-gliding season. Freemen
talked of competitions and Freewomen spoke of the clothes they would
wear at the President's Opening Scratch Trophy—while at their feet,
brought into unaccustomed proximity, land sharks fought German shep-
herds, pet octopi devoured micropekes.
The sloping landscape of the long slipway was busy every day and
crowded on weekends when the owners arrived to assist or berate their
S.P. men, according to personality. Huge boats towered everywhere.
Men scuttled underneath with paintbrushes and power tools, putting on
finishing touches.
I frequently dropped by on Sunday afternoons to assist Marshall. For
a few hours I breathed sawdust and cellulose as we cleaned up the
boat's interior—then we drank beer with him and Charles in the dim
cabin as slow nightfall came. Sometimes other boat owners would climb
the ladder, hammer on the cabin roof and shout a greeting, then
squeeze into the small cabin to share our beer and prolong the party
past midnight.
On the last Sunday before the season began Carioca Jones came
again to the marina, spectacularly dressed, land shark flopping at her

The Hook, the Eye and the Whip
253
heels. The brute was growing fast—by now he was over six feet long.
Doug Marshall was bent double and sweating as he adjusted the shear-
pin on one of the props, when the land shark undulated over to lie be-
side him and watch him coldly, stinking like a fishmarket. The im-
planted oxygenator caused its gills to pulsate unpleasantly. Doug caught
sight of the fish suddenly, straightened, and cracked his head on the
keel.
He had not liked Carioca Jones since the Joanna episode and now he
exploded. "Get that bastard away from me before I put this drill
through its skull!" He brandished his whirring power tool like a rapier.
Carioca hurried over and laid a hand on her pet's collar. She was
wearing slitheskin gloves—products of my small factory—and I noticed
they had turned mauve in sympathy with her temper. "Wilberforce is
quite harmless." She spoke coolly enough. "There's no call to lose your
temper with him, Mr. Marshall. He wasn't doing anything wrong."
"Wrong." Doug was massaging his scalp. "The swine nearly frac-
tured my skull for me."
"Come now, Mr. Marshall. A big brave sling pilot shouldn't be
frightened of a mere land shark, should he now?"
Doug recovered slightly, swallowed hard and spoke carefully. "Miss
Jones, that fish is a menace. He's been allowed to grow too big. Look at
those teeth. He could have your leg off without batting an eyelid. You
ought to have him put down."
"Put down?" Carioca's gloves were purple and trembling. Doug met
her stare levelly. She looked elsewhere for a scapegoat and, as I was
edging out of the scene, Charles descended the ladder from the cockpit
and glanced at the protagonists with interest. He was wearing his State
Prison coveralls. Carioca's gaze lit on the letters S.P. and her eyes
flashed. "Oh, so you have a slave here doing your work for you."
The abrupt change of subject foxed Doug. "What the hell's that got
to do with it?" he asked, baffled. "Anyway, Charles is my bonded
man."
"Oh, a bonded man, is he? I might have guessed. No wonder you
love sling-gliding. Who wouldn't, with a spare-parts man standing by?"
Doug's eyes widened. He looked at Charles, who seemed to have
been struck speechless. I couldn't think of much to say myself—arrant
bad taste has that effect on me. Fortunately help was at hand in the un-
likely guise of the club secretary, who happened to be passing. He
stepped in quickly.

254
Michael G. Coney
"Miss Jones, did I hear you rightly?"
"Who are you, you strange little man?"
Bryce Alcester, secretary of the Peninsula Sling-gliding Club, flushed.
"I think I heard you use an expression we don't like around here, Miss
Jones. Was I right? Did you use such an expression?" He was a small
man with a face like a beaver, but he had reserves of determination.
"Of course you don't like the expression, because it's true. How else
can men like you summon the nerve to go up in those nasty little
gliders?"
"I must ask you to leave the premises, madam. I must also remind
you that you are not a member."
"And I must tell you that the Foes of Bondage will picket the Presi-
dent's Trophy next week. You haven't heard the last of this, not by a
long way."
Reluctantly, with Alcester's hand on her arm, she began to move
away. Her eye caught mine. "Really, Joe, I can't think why you associ-
ate with such cowards."
After seeing her off the premises Alcester hurried back to us. There
was a tear in the leg of his pants where the land shark had taken a snap
at him. "I'm terribly sorry, gentlemen." He looked at Charles, swal-
lowed and said awkwardly, "And—uh—I would like to apologize to you,
Charles, on behalf of the club."
Charles smiled blandly. "I've been called names before."
Later that evening as we drank beer in the cabin I asked Charles,
"What does it really feel like to be called—what Carioca called you?" I
must have had several drinks by then.
Charles grinned. "Always trying to pump me, aren't you, Joe? I often
wonder if you're a revolutionary on the quiet, gathering information."
"Maybe, but I'm not a Foe of Bondage."
"But Carioca Jones is right, you know," he said surprisingly. "I am a
spare-parts man. I've wagered my body against a shorter sentence. I
went into it with my eyes open and so far I've been lucky. I've still got
all my limbs and other items. And I don't mind Doug's sling-gliding, be-
cause I've done it myself and I know the thrill of it. Now that's where
Carioca Jones is wrong. I know that we would glide whether or not—uh
—spare parts were available. Miss Jones doesn't know that. She can't.
She's a woman."
I addressed Doug, pushing it a bit further. "Doug, suppose you
smashed yourself up and you needed, say, a leg. Would you use

The Hook, the Eye and the Whip
255
Charles? Or would you spend the rest of your life limbless, watching
Charles walk about whole?"
"The beer has brought honesty," said Doug quietly. "And I can say
in honesty that I don't know. And it's one thing about myself I never
want to know."
II
In the last days before the first race I had become totally infected with
the sling-gliding fever. Up to then I had had no intention of competing
despite Doug Marshall's hints about the difficulty he was having in
finding a competent observer. I spent most afternoons and every eve-
ning on the slipway, helping with the feverish last-minute preparations.
Sling-gliding has this in common with any sport where complex equip-
ment is used: No matter how careful the preparations, no matter how
long ago such preparations started, there is always a panic at the finish.
The Skipper's Marina had put its truck at the disposal of the club and
the vehicle was in constant use, commuting between Louise and the ma-
rina with suddenly remembered necessities.
Carioca Jones did not appear, although there were rumors from time
to time of the form the picketing was going to take. Some said that the
Foes of Bondage had hired a boat and intended to upset the racing by
zigzagging across the course on the pretext that the sea was free to all.
Then, a couple of days before the first race, they were seen with their
banners and placards boarding a plane for Lake William in the far
north. It seemed that some idiots were going to walk the glacial coast as
far as Wall Bay, a distance of several hundred miles. There were three
bonded men and a doctor in the party of ten—it was reported that the
doctor was taking a full set of surgical instruments along in case some-
one suffered severe frostbite. Not only that, but there were backup par-
ties hovertrucking supplies to remote rendezvous where the terrain was
too broken and the weather too severe to allow aircraft to get in. The
personnel for this hazardous task had been hired from the State Prison.
On the Thursday, under pressure from Doug, Charles and several
beers, I agreed to join Doug's crew as observer. That evening I stayed
late at the marina. I had—later—a hazy recollection of a party develop-
ing in the cramped space of somebody's cabin—but first I awoke with a
powerful headache and a desire to be sick, to find that I was lying on

256
Michael G. Coney
the floor in unfamiliar surroundings. I crawled to my feet, got as far as
the door, and poked my head out into the chill night air.
After a few deep breaths I felt better. I glanced around the cabin and
saw a sleeping girl, partly clothed, on one of the berths. Her mouth was
hanging open and she was a mess—lipstick all over her face, hair mat-
ted. Crumpled around her throat was a slitheskin neckerchief, its dull
brown hue testifying the extent to which she was drained of emotion. I
hoped it wasn't I who had drained her and thought briefly of Charles
and his rape case—and of how easy it is to transgress the law these days.
I shut the cabin door quietly behind me and stood in the cockpit of
the beached hydrofoil, allowing the night breezes to cool my head. I felt
sweaty and stale. It occurred to me that technically I was trespassing by
being in the Skipper's Marina after the club was closed and without
having a sleep-in permit. Since the shortage of State Prisoners—which
hit the country last autumn—there has been a tightening up in various
facets of the law and I'm not sure that trespass isn't one of them. I
stepped over the cockpit coaming, found the ladder, and climbed
quietly down to the slipway.
The next thing I did was to trip over the Whip of the unknown boat
and fall flat and noisily on my face. Whips are of incredible lightness
and rigidity, particularly this season's improved models. The end of this
particular Whip must have been balanced on a box—anyway, it followed
me to the ground with a ringing clatter that set up a sympathetic reso-
nance throughout its entire eighty-yard length, causing it to protest with
a wail that must have come close to awakening the very fossils under the
sedimentary mud of which the Peninsula is composed.
As I lay there trying not to vomit, a scurrying, rustling noise came
nearby and the hair at the nape of my neck prickled. The brute who
made that noise could have been anything—Carioca Jones' appalling
land shark was quite innocuous compared with some of the bizarre pets
I had seen that spring. It was becoming unsafe to leave one's car or
house at night, since many of the creatures, unsuited to human com-
pany, had escaped and were roaming the flat countryside, fighting one
another and attacking man on sight.
I lay still and waited. The sounds continued: an uneven series of
footsteps—or some sort of steps—an occasional clatter of a can of paint
or similar slipway debris being knocked over and a vocal gasping noise
I tried to tell myself was human. Encouragingly, the sounds began re-

The Hook, the Eye and the Whip
257
treating and soon they faded away. I heard the distant whine of a hover-
car starting up—then that too receded and all was quiet again.
Obviously there had been a trespasser among the boats. In the morn-
ing someone would find his paintwork scored or his rudder pintles
loosened. That sort of thing annoys me—I just can't see the sense in it. I
wished I'd had the courage to tackle the intruder.
Twenty minutes later I was driving through my farm gates. I got out
of the car and listened. Everything seemed to be in order; the reptiles
were uttering that bubbling sound that characterizes the contented
slithe. Relieved, I made for the house. Recently I've been having trou-
ble again with otters getting into the pens and carrying off the slithes
and I had mentioned to Dave the necessity for strengthening our de-
fenses. Increasingly there are dangerous predators at large on the Penin-
sula.
The following morning Dave and I made a tour of inspection. The
little reptiles were in good shape, trotting about with a faintly red tone
to their skins, the shade that denotes happiness and, presumably, health.
As we threw the fodder over the chicken wire the slithes scurried for-
ward, turning pink with pleasure and feeding voraciously. Dave gave
one of his rare grins. Then, noticing me testing the strength of the
chicken wire with my feet, his manner assumed its accustomed
seriousness.
"I heard a rumor yesterday," he said. "Someone saw a garden barra-
cuda loose over Long Beach way. This guy was walking along the na-
ture trail at the back of the lagoon there and the bastard came for him
straight out of the bushes, all snapping teeth—you know what they're
like. It's getting serious. There are things running wild all over the
place."
"I was thinking about that last night. Perhaps you'd get one of the
men to double the wire. It's a good thing the brutes can't live long."
He glanced at me. "You haven't heard about the new oxygenator
they've been implanting recently? It doesn't have to be renewed. They
say it stimulates the gills into a modified operation. They do a bit of
surgery on the beast as well, and then the fish or whatever is totally
adapted to living on land for the rest of its life."
"I don't like the sound of that," I said. The possibilities this develop-
ment opened up were somewhat alarming. At this moment a car drove
up and saved me further anxiety on the subject.

258
Michael G. Coney
"Hi, Joe darling." Carioca Jones.
"I thought you were up in the snow somewhere," I said tactlessly.
"Joe, it was the most idiotic hoax! Someone sent me a transcript of a
Newspocket report up at Lake William and it sounded like the most
heartrending thing. Dozens of poor S.P. men are supposedly being used
as nothing better than pack animals. And there were some bonded men
with the actual party, going across the glaciers—you know what frostbite
is—and they had a surgeon with them as well. My dear, the report was
positively sinister. I mean, you know and I know that I've learned my
lesson and we both think these transplants are abominable. Barbaric."
"Yes," I said carefully, not looking at her hands.
"And when we got there with all our banners and placards nothing
was happening! We marched down the street singing and everyone
looked at us as though we were mad. And it was so cold—you've no
idea! So we booked into the nearest hotel and I went to the local
Newspocket agency—and do you know, they'd never even heard of the
Great Arctic Trek, as it was supposed to be called."
"You must have been very disappointed."
She shot me a glance of birdlike suspicion but apparently my expres-
sion satisfied her. "Quite—and it was dreadfully embarrassing. We hadn't
really allowed for the cold there. Some of my girls were frostbitten quite
badly. They were very upset and four of them resigned from the Foes
for good."
I nearly asked her just how badly those four had been hurt and
whether, if surgery had been necessary, they had contacted the nearest
State Prison. As Foes of Bondage, it was hardly likely they would have
bonded S.P. girls. So if fingers were needed they would have to take
their chances with the Ambulatory Organ Pool—a euphemism for long-
term prisoners first on the list of compulsory donors. I nearly asked her,
but I didn't.
Instead I asked, "Are men allowed to join the Foes?"
"Of course," she said firmly. "Why ever not?"
"I just wondered. The members all seem to be women."
"Oh, but that's the way it works out, my dear. You see, it's men who
go in for these dangerous sports—it's men who get smashed up and need
transplants—so naturally men will support the status quo."
"Pardon me, Carioca, but that's garbage. Only a fraction of the male
population can afford to sling-glide or tramp through the Arctic."
"You men all stick together—that's the trouble. Look at you, Joe.

The Hook, the Eye and the Whip
259
You admit you're against legalized slavery, yet you've got your own
bonded man and you're friendly with lice like Marshall who risk some-
one else's neck for fun. You wouldn't join the Foes of Bondage if I
begged you to, so I won't bother."
Just for the record, at this point I gave Carioca something from the
depths of my soul, if I have one. "Dave Froehlich is a good man whom
I rescued from that stinking prison—and I get no thanks from Dave. I'm
friendly with Marshall because I enjoy his personality and to hell with
his views—even if his views were unsound, which I doubt, I won't join
the Foes because I'd be the only man there and people would look on
me as a crank, added to which I don't agree with the Foes' methods.
Regardless of whether or not the members are women, they are exactly
the type of person I don't like. Your members get a vicarious personal
satisfaction from the annoyance they cause others. Their methods are
wrong, in that they think it right to counter problems with problems."
Carioca Jones' mouth had fallen agape. When I finished she hitched
it up, thought a bit, then said, "You take the whole thing too seriously,
Joe. The Foes are a club, that's all. A woman's club, if you will. This
talk is nonsense. When we demonstrate we just think what fun it is to be
doing it together. If it helps you any, Joe, I don't think the members
consider the objects of the Association as deeply as you seem to do."
"Then we need a new Association. Damn it, Carioca, they shout ob-
scenities at people."
"Well, isn't it fun to have the chance to shout obscenities at people
without fear of any comeback?"
I nearly lost my temper—and a good customer. "I've never felt any
desire to shout obscenities at people. That's the mentality of a teen-age
vandal."
She took my arm suddenly. "Oh, come on, Joe. Let's not quarrel. I
came to do business with you. You and I are on the same side, basi-
cally. It's people like your friend Marshall I don't like. It was he who
faked the Newspocket transcript, of course."
"Oh, come off it, Carioca."
"No, I mean it. It's typical of his sense of humor. And I can tell you,
it's not so funny up at Lake William for a person of my age, Joe."
It was the first time I'd ever heard her mention her age. I changed the
subject hastily. "You said you came to do business."
"Of course—you must be busy." Her manner had become stiff. "I'd
like to buy four dozen slitheskin wristlets, please."

260
Michael G. Coney
"Four dozen?"
"They're for the Foes of Bondage. We shall wear them at the demon-
stration tomorrow and they will show the solidarity of our feelings."
I had a mental image of four dozen Foes with fists upraised but with
wristlets unfortunately showing colors of rainbow diversity. "Do you
think it's wise?" I ventured.
"Look, Joe Sagar, do you want the business or don't you?"
Resignedly I took her into the showroom. While she was selecting the
wristlets she persisted in asking about Charles, his crime, his sentence.
She seemed to be trying to work up a feeling of pity for the man.
m
Although the President's Trophy is the first event of the season and
tends to be looked on as a mere hors d'oeuvre to the main course of
races later in the summer, it is nevertheless an event worth winning. The
psychological boost to the visitor will frequently start a winning vein in
subsequent weeks that can be worth a good deal of prize money. And
more than any other sport, sling-gliding depends on confidence.
Confidence in one's glider, one's Whip, one's boat, one's observer and
steersman—all of which comes with practice, but which is proved and
improved by winning.
Traditionally, the main body of spectators gathers along the ancient
stone seawall that was one of the few human artifacts on the Peninsula
to escape total destruction by the tidal waves of the Western Seaboard
Slide. Here gather the curious, the casual, the enthusiasts—and the Foes
of Bondage. Out across the bay, a half-mile distant, the gaunt pillar of
the Fulcrum rises from the calm water.
The Foes had already picketed the entrance to the marina, screaming
their epithets at the hovercars as they arrived with pilots, crews, and
maintenance men. On stepping from my own vehicle I had been sur-
prised when a woman I hardly knew thrust herself before me and re-
ferred to my slithe farm as a "plantation." This was the latest dirty
word unearthed by the Foes and apparently referred to some early
phase of man's relationship with his fellows. When I replied, rather
weakly, that I didn't plant anything at the farm—if the growing of crops
was what she objected to—she merely uttered a jeering noise and called
me a "boss man."

The Hook, the Eye and the Whip
261
Then Carioca Jones appeared. "My God, Joe," she shrilled. "Do you
mean to tell me you're actually taking part in this pantomime?"
Fortunately the press of the crowd had taken her away from me at
this point, so I was spared the embarrassment of conversation.
The President's Trophy is a distance/placement event and not strictly
a race, because the time factor does not enter the judges' calculations—
although the very fact of the high speeds attained during sling-gliding
tend to cause the general public to refer to any event as a race. In this
particular event the glider flies to a point out in the Strait, drops a
marker and returns, the pilot endeavoring to land at a point as close as
possible to the seawall. A buoy, just offshore from the spectators, indi-
cates the optimum. It is this finish close to the crowd—allied to the fact
of its being the first event of the season—that gives the race its enormous
popularity.
By the time the boats were cruising about, testing their engines, the
Foes of Bondage had positioned themselves at a point near the northern
end of the seawall, close to the marina. From time to time their presi-
dent, an elderly woman—and, I supposed, the woman Carioca Jones
hoped to supplant—whipped them into a frenzy with a few well-turned
phrases. She had an imposing, almost puritanical presence that lent
weight to her oracular delivery. From my position at the end of the slip-
way I couldn't hear her words, but judging from the cheers of her sup-
porters it was all good stuff. From time to time the Foes' fists would
curve forward and upward in a fair and feminine imitation of a right
uppercut—symbol of the Association—but the wristlets remained neutral
brown. You can't fool slitheskin. Maybe the colors would come later,
when the racing started.
In the distance a hydrofoil was racing toward the Fulcrum. The
crowd was still. Behind the boat a tiny glider rose into the sky. It was
too far away for us to see the Whip as the boat snapped around the Ful-
crum, but we could judge the fearsome acceleration as the little dart
was flung low above the water at a speed around two hundred and fifty
miles per hour. For an instant we lost it against the trees of the dark is-
land opposite, then it slipped into view above the Strait. There was a
murmur as those with binoculars saw the marker buoy drop away as the
glider turned to make its approach. The distance of this buoy from the
Fulcrum was taken into account in the final placings, encouraging pilots
to go for speed and distance instead of merely stalling slowly in for an
accurate landing.

262
Michael G. Coney
Archer was gliding and he had squeezed a little too much distance
from his speed. He was coming in fast and low after a wide turn and it
was apparent he would not make the finishing buoy. Skimming the sea
so close I'll swear he raised ripples on the calm surface, he used his last
breath of flying speed in a shallow climb, then stalled and dropped into
the water about two hundred yards away. The spectators clapped po-
litely as he struggled clear of his harness and trod water waiting to be
picked up. The Foes of Bondage were silent, watching. Their wristlets
remained neutral to a woman—neither showing the purple of engaged
distaste nor the pink of pleasure. I assumed they had done their home-
work and discovered that Archer had no bonded S.P. man.
I caught sight of Carioca Jones at the instant she glanced at me—and
suddenly I knew that the Foes' rancor was being reserved for our boat
and Doug Marshall in particular.
Marshall was gliding, Charles was steering and I was observing, sit-
ting in the stern and watching for trouble, Charles' attention naturally
being concentrated on the Fulcrum ahead. I stole a quick glance over
my shoulder and saw the black post rising solitary out of the flat sea
about half a mile ahead. I looked back and Marshall was waving.
"Right!" I shouted to Charles.
He gunned the motor. The Whip took the strain and rose dripping
from the water with hardly a sag in its rigid length. A feather of foam
appeared at Marshall's skis as he began to move, rising upright with the
glider attached to his back like a bright vampire.
The boat rose on its foils and the last of the roiling wake fled
abruptly astern to be replaced by twin hissing threads of spray. Mar-
shall began to experience lift and kicked off the skis, raising his hands
to grip the controls in the nose of the glider. He drew up his legs,
jackknifing and thrusting them back into the slender fuselage. He was
flying, the Whip attached to his chest harness with snap-fastening. He
sailed easily behind us at about fifty miles per hour, lying face down
within the belly of the tiny dart-shaped glider. I suppressed a shudder—
the takeoff always affects me like that, ever since Patterson's mistake
last season. Patterson had grasped the controls clumsily—so we assumed
afterward. Anyway, his glider had plunged down suddenly, the Whip
had smashed through the nose, jamming. Then the angle of the Whip to
the glider had taken it down through the water, deeper, deeper ... I
think the most terrifying thing was watching the Whip shortening, short-

The Hook, the Eye and the Whip	263
ening despite the deceleration of the boat, as the glider and Patterson
dove uncontrollably into the black pressure of the deeps. He must have
descended over fifty feet in about eight seconds.
A sight not easily forgotten.
But Marshall was safely aloft and veering out toward our starboard
beam, ready to take advantage of the initial effect of the Fulcrum post.
He had banked and I could see him grinning at us, grinning with exhila-
ration, a six-foot man in a ten-foot glider.
At moments like this the oddest notions come to the front of one's
racing stream of thoughts. Suddenly I was thinking of Thursday night
on the slipway and of the fact that Doug Marshall seemed to be a target
of the Foes of Bondage, who had returned from Lake William earlier
than expected.
Charles hit the water brake for just the instant necessary to swing
Doug directly abeam and, at precisely the right moment, leaned across
to the Whip bracket. . .
And slipped the pin easily into its housing, locking the Whip at right
angles to the boat. He eased the throttle away and we leaped forward
again, the glider riveted to a parallel course eighty yards from our port
beam and matching our speed of about ninety miles per hour. I exhaled
a gasp of relief, which was lost in the scream of the turbines. Just for a
moment the thought of sabotage had crossed my mind.
"Coming up!" shouted Charles.
I glanced around quickly and saw the Fulcrum post racing nearer,
the giant Hook jutting out black and solid toward us. In June of last
year, I think it was, Bennett had misjudged the clearance and run into
the Hook. . .
Charles thumbed a button and the Eye slid out from the reinforced
portside of the hull. The craft listed as the huge steel loop extended and
I made the conventional sign to Marshall—the O of finger and thumb.
He dipped in acknowledgment.
"Brace yourself!" shouted the bonded man. He leaned into the pad-
ded pillar to the right of the wheel. I huddled into the seat, cushioning
my head in my hands.
The Hook engaged the Eye.
I probably screamed a little as the G's hit me—I'm told I usually do.
The Hook engaged the Eye—and snatched the hydrofoil, by now travel-
ing at around a hundred and twenty miles per hour, into a thirty-yard
radius turn.

264	Michael G. Coney
Around about this time I never know what's happening—I just cower
there and wait for it to finish. I've seen it from a distance, of course,
and it looks quite simple. The pilot has taken his glider to a station off
the starboard of the boat, so that when the Hook engages the Eye, the
boat veers sharply away. Despite its rigidity, the Whip bends. The glider
begins to accelerate as the centrifugal force allied to the incredible
strength of the Whip takes effect.
I've seen boats circle the Fulcrum post on the swiveling Hook so fast
that the Whip spirals like a watchspring, the glider lagging behind at
first but accelerating, accelerating until the Whip finally snaps straight
and flings the glider outward at speeds of up to three hundred miles per
hour. A glider ten feet long with a wingspan of perhaps seven feet,
made of stressed permaplast. . .
There is a certain margin for error. If the observer senses that the
glider is not in the correct position, that the pilot is not quite ready, he
can tell the steersman to abort at any distance up to forty yards from
the Fulcrum and the boat will veer right, slowing, while the pilot de-
taches the Whip from his harness, closes in and, stalling, drops into the
water alongside. This is the testbook procedure, although I've seen
teams take a wide, wide circle and approach the Hook again without
dropping the glider.
As the G's forced my head into the backrest of the seat I again
sensed something was wrong. I opened my eyes, saw the dizzy blur of
water racing past, the gaunt blackness of the Fulcrum post partly ob-
scuring the view. Then, climbing rapidly against the sky, the glider. The
Whip spiraled back from Marshall, beyond my field of vision. I could
see him fumbling one-handed with the release mechanism.
The glider lagged back, dropped out of view as the Whip curled.
Marshall's snap-fastening had jammed. He could not break clear of the
Whip. Shortly all that coiled energy would be spent in smashing him
into the sea—or whirling him and his glider into broken pieces vertically
overhead. . .
Once, and once only, I saw a man make a perfect landing on the sur-
face with the Whip still attached to his jammed fastening—yet that man
died, too. Farrel. We watched from the shore as the Eye hit the Hook
and the boat snapped into its turn at exceptionally high speed—the oc-
casion was the finals of the National Distance Championships. The
Whip coiled into a venomous high-tensile spring which reminds the

The Hook, the Eye and the Whip
265
overly imaginative of a striking cobra. Farrel had gone into his slow
climb and was accelerating as the boat slowed at the post and the Whip
began to straighten. Farrel's wife was watching through binoculars and I
heard her gasp suddenly—a sudden gasp that was almost a scream. I
remember the expression on the face of Farrel's bonded man—who was
standing next to Mrs. Farrel—as he snatched the glasses from her and
clamped them to his eyes. Mrs. Farrel turned to me. Her face was
twisted and she was only able to utter one word—but it was probably
the only word applicable to the situation.
"Why?" she asked.
And the boat had slowly descended from its hydrofoils and was
wallowing around the Fulcrum, while the Whip spent its venom in
hurling Farrel into a speed of three hundred miles per hour. He had
stopped trying to fight the release mechanism now and was concen-
trating on his attitude, maintaining level flight as the Whip straightened
and began to slow.
At this point the other spectators had realized something was wrong.
Sometimes a foolhardy pilot will delay release until the very last instant
of acceleration, taking chances on the control problems that arise with a
dying Whip. But Farrel had gone past even that point. There was a slow
murmur of communal horror.
There were also a few anticipatory chuckles from S.P. men standing
near. Except for Farrel's man, of course—he stood like a statue, binocu-
lars jammed against his face.
The Whip slowed—although we couldn't tell from where we stood,
the Whip must have been slowing—but still Farrel retained control, re-
tained his horizontal attitude. He was rapidly losing lift due to the drag-
ging effect of the Whip at his chest, but he avoided overcorrecting and
plunging into the sea, and he avoided the disastrous stall that would
have started an end-over-end spin and a breakup of the glider. He was
giving a masterly exhibition.
And it was all pointless, of course. There were murmurs of appreci-
ation from around us and I think some people really thought Farrel was
going to get away with it. But they didn't know sling-gliding the way the
rest of us did. You never escaped from a jammed fastening.
Farrel was decelerating visibly now, edging closer to the water, ex-
tricating his legs from the slender fuselage and dangling them, soles up-
turned, like a swan coming into land.
An S.P. man chuckled, watching the Whip.

266
Michael G. Coney
There was a communal sigh as Farrel touched the water and his
speed fell to zero. He flipped the nose of the glider up in a last-minute
stall. I think, even then, he felt he could avoid the inevitable if he could
get the drag of the glider's surface area against the water in addition to
his own weight.
He didn't make it. He was probably up to his waist in water when the
Whip reacted. The deceleration had coiled it backward, building up a
reverse tension, which now exploded in snatching Farrel from the water
and dragging him backward, end over end in the scattering remnants of
his glider, spinning along the surface in a curved, frantic plume of
spray . . .
The Whip waved to and fro a few times, gradually losing momentum,
until at last it lay quiet and twitching on the surface and the boat was
able to cast loose from the Hook and pick up Farrel. His neck was
broken—his back and legs were broken. Hardly a bone in his body had
escaped fracture—hardly an organ was not ruptured.
It might have been possible to do something about all that. But Far-
rel was dead, too.
It had taken just a few seconds. I remember the look on the face of
the bonded man when they brought the body ashore. Absolved of all his
obligations, his past crime, whatever it was, atoned for—released from
his bond by the death of his principal, he was now a free man. He
turned silently away from the drenched and broken thing they had laid
on the seawall and he walked off, saying nothing.
Then Farrel, now Marshall. Pressed hard against the latex headrest, I
watched helplessly as the Whip straightened, preparatory to coiling in
the reverse direction, while Marshall stayed high in the sky, transfixed
by the tip. I rolled my head against the force that held it and saw
Charles fighting his way clear of the G-post. His eyes were wide and
dead as they met mine—I knew he was going to try something desperate,
but his motives were anybody's guess. He edged clear of the post and
centrifugal force snatched him instantly from my view.
All this happened so quickly that I had every excuse for doing noth-
ing—in any case, there was no way I could have gotten clear of the
seat. Then the boat was slowing. The landscape ceased its crazy spin.
The Fulcrum post became a solid object of iron and rust and rivets. As
is the way of boats built for speed, ours stopped quickly. I stood up, my
head reeling.

The Hook, the Eye and the Whip
267
Marshall was clear, gliding landward, trailing the Whip behind him,
the broken end hanging a short distance above the surface. I satisfied
myself that he was descending quickly enough to avoid a stall—the
Whip in total length is no aid to a smooth landing—and turned my at-
tention to Charles. He was floundering in the water some twenty feet
off the port bow. I grabbed the wheel, revved the engine and slipped it
into reverse, backed clear of the Hook, retracted the Eye, and motored
toward him. I got my hands under his armpits and dragged him aboard.
He was a big man, strong and heavy, but he was unable to help himself
or me.
"Where's Doug?" he asked faintly.
"Almost down. He'll be okay." I glanced at the rig that fastened the
Whip to the boat. The steel tubing was bent—the Whip itself had
snapped off short where Charles' flying body had smashed into the
swivel joint.
It was one of those occasions where the last thing you want to do is
to consider the implications. I pillowed Charles' head on a life jacket
and spun the wheel, heading for shore. Marshall was traveling parallel
to the seawall now, diving to maintain speed and at the same time lose
height before the trailing end of the Whip began to drag in the water
and the abrupt deceleration began. Gauging the point of impact, I drove
the boat on at full throttle.
Less than a minute later I was pulling Marshall from the water and
extricating him from his harness, aided by men from a milling cluster of
small boats. I pulled in against the seawall and we carried Charles to
the shore, laying him on the grass while someone ran to call the ambu-
lopter.
Almost instantly, it seemed, the Foes of Bondage were standing over
us in force, and I shuddered involuntarily because I'll swear there was
something akin to predatory satisfaction in their eyes as they looked at
the broken figure of Charles, his soaked life jacket oozing crimson. But
he was alive.
Two women were to the fore—the president of the Foes, and Carioca
Jones. Carioca was the first to speak. She indicated Marshall, who was
bending over Charles lifting a bottle to the injured man's lips.
"That's the man I told you about, Evadne," the ex-3-V star said in a
voice sufficiently loud for all to hear. "He's the prankster who tried to
get us all out of the way so that we couldn't spoil his fun. Well, you big
brave man," she addressed Doug, "how do you feel now? Your man

268
Michael G. Coney
saved you—and we all know why. And now, look at him, poor thing."
There was a murmur of agreement from the Foes, and I believe
someone tried to start up a chant, but some remnants of decency pre-
vailed. Not to be outdone by Carioca, the elderly Evadne said her piece.
"It is a terrible comment on our society when a man will, quite delib-
erately, risk his life to save another."
Fortunately there was a diversion at this juncture. A man stepped
forward and touched Doug on the shoulder. He was carrying the har-
ness that had been cut away from the glider. He indicated the snap
release.
"Look, like you said, Doug. Someone's been fooling with this. The
release pin's been bent. You can see the marks of pliers."
The crowd had gathered itself without conscious volition into two
distinct factions around the bleeding man on the seawall. To the land-
ward side were the Foes of Bondage, an unyielding bloc of womanhood,
upright and militant. Along the edge of the embankment, backs to the
sea, were the pilots, their crews and supporters, who up to now had
been quietly on the defensive.
The mechanic's words changed this. Doug left Charles and stood,
flushing. An angry muttering spread through the ranks of the pilots. The
Foes backed off guiltily.
"I can assure you all—" began the president, hands fluttering, wristlet
yellowing.
Carioca took one glance at her fading leader and knew her opportu-
nity had come. She stepped forward boldly.
"It's quite obviously a frame-up. And clever, too. Done by one of
your own pilots with the object of discrediting the Foes and, inciden-
tally, getting a competitor out of the way. Your treasurer himself told
me he heard someone prowling about the slipway on Thursday night."
Her black eyes blazed at the elderly man, forcing a nervous nodding
agreement. "So there you are. Only club members are familiar with the
slipway and the gear you use. And only a slave-owner would think this
way, knowing that a bonded man would risk injury himself rather than
allow harm to come to his master."
She bent forward over Charles. "You poor man," she said. "And you
only had a year or so to go." Her voice hardened. "Couldn't you have
taken the chance that the bastard would kill himself? You'd have been
free, then."
She moved back a little, a theatrical gesture to direct the attention to lo7

The Hook, the Eye and the Whip	269
Charles and insure that we all heard his reply—so confident was Carioca
Jones. Faintly, but growing louder, we could hear the hissing whine of
the ambulopter. The Foes of Bondage wore righteous expressions as
they contemplated their prize specimen, their raison d'etre, while he lay
bleeding on the seawall.
Charles managed a smile.
"I've been a Freeman since Thursday, Miss Jones."
It was fairly typical of Carioca Jones to have forgotten the factor of
Charles' one-third remission in her enthusiasm for the witch hunt. The
uproar that followed Charles' revelation lasted in various ways for sev-
eral months and was discussed whenever sling-gliders met that summer.
The arguments waxed furious but it was all rather pointless because, in
fact, there were not many bonded men involved in sling-gliding. Many a
pilot had the same fear as Doug Marshall—if he were injured so
seriously that he needed a transplant, what would he do? Better by far
to be able to draw on the anonymity of the Ambulatory Organ Pool,
which is not available to Freemen with their own bonded men. Nobody
wants to take a limb from a person with whom he may be associated for
years.
Charles made a good recovery although it was feared at first that he
had suffered irreparable damage to both kidneys. Luckily the original
diagnosis proved false.
In the strange, sometimes primitive atmosphere of the Peninsula, is-
sues are seldom clear-cut, and solutions or explanations almost never at
hand. We never discovered just who had sabotaged Doug's equipment.
Conversely, the Foes of Bondage failed to unmask the perpetrators of
the Lake William hoax. There is a simple, neat possibility—but one we
consider highly improbable. Things just don't work out that way around
here.
Carioca Jones weathered the setback, of course. After the elderly
Evadne resigned following the Charles incident, she put her own name
forward and was duly elected president of the Foes of Bondage. After a
decent interval for things to quiet down she began to push herself and
the Association forward as forcefully as ever.
People don't change on the Peninsula. Their fortunes may fluctuate
but their characters are inflexibly formed by the time they arrive here.