"Our reproductive processes are similar," she said, "But not identical. Although much the same system. If I can be of any ... service ... to you, I'd be delighted!"
Noel groaned aloud. "Can you ever be of service! Baby, you don't know the half of it!"
And she didn't! The first Earth-Mars expedition, three lusty men without sex life for over a year, and a fourth who had too much!
But now the odds were starting to even!
There were women on Mars anyway, females that looked, tasted and felt like women.
INSTANT WOMEN!
"She's saved it this long, let her save it a little longer. Maybe you'll find a couple of Martian maidens. Virgins, maybe!"
THE INSTANT MAIDS OF MARS
CHAPTER I
About the best you could say for our landing on Mars was that we were down. The automatics had cut out for reasons as yet unknown when we were still five miles above the surface, and we had to fly by wire the rest of the way. Normally, this wouldn't have meant a hell of a lot, but the gyros had gone out, also for reasons as yet unknown, a few thousand feet above the surface of the planet which was being visited by humans for the first time.
That damned near did us in.
By manually controlling stabilizing rockets, we'd managed to maintain a more or less stable attitude for the descent, but, as we painfully found out, "more or less" isn't good enough.
The craft was in one piece, but it wasn't going to take off until some extensive repairs were made. We had the equipment and the trained personnel to do the job, but I wondered privately if we had the time.
A good guess would be no.
There was quite a bit of dissension among my four crew members which I can tell you about later. For now, unless these mutual dislikes were cleared up and the spirit of teamwork re-established we didn't have a chance of ever getting off this planet alive.
Such was the situation before we'd even opened a hatch and stepped foot, for the first time, on alien soil.
I sighed. "Charlie," I told my electronics tech, "break out the gryro-comps, if you please."
Under any other circumstances that could have been a very happy order.
You probably know what the gyro-comps were, but I'll explain them anyhow. It was pretty cute when you come to think of it. They were no larger than a wristwatch. They operated automatically. You didn't have to wind them. Wherever our ship landed was-well, the equivalent of the North Pole on Earth, see? So no matter where you strayed, the compass always pointed to the ship. Simple.
We also had an iron-clad rule that no one member of our party ever went anywhere alone.
And we each carried a real zinger of a weapon especially developed for our expedition. We somewhat facetiously called them "zap guns." They were, in reality, an ingenious item of equipment. Solar powered, like a transistor radio, they required no ammunition, no charging. They could be used to burn holes, move heavy objects, and would stun or even kill anything known on Earth or conceived to be living on another planet.
We also carried, or would carry, a week's iron rations in concentrate form and two canteens of water. This gear on our person, you understand.
On our small air-sled, which we hoped would Work in the rare atmosphere of Mars, we carried more rations, more water and emergency equipment. We also carried signal rockets, emergency first aid kits, plasma and such odd items as binoculars, cameras and film, flash lights, tape recorder, rope, radiation counter, collectors' jars and even fish nets, as well as a nylon net that would hold just about anything less than the size and ferocity of a bull elephant.
"Who are you taking on the first trip, Colonel?" That was Major Frank Laven, navigator and engineer, asking.
I shrugged. "You know the drill, Frank. We're in a little trouble, but I see no real reason to change our established M.O. because of it. Charlie goes on the first trip, so that we can check our communications. Then we go right down the line."
"If Charlie goes, I go." This was a flat statement in defiance of all orders from Robin Chou, the only civilian aboard. Also, the best-kept secret of the whole space program. Also, the bad apple in the barrel.
CHAPTER II
Now, I'll tell you all about Robin. My crew, myself included, had been in training for just this expedition for seven long years. I, nominally, had the last word on who was to go and who was not to go along. About three-quarters of the way through our training period we went "in the tank" for periods ranging up to sixty days.
Clinical tests followed.
The trip we planned figured to take just over two years.
The psychologists on the test consulted with each other, talked to the potential crew members individually (including me), then took me, >n a manner of speaking, to one side.
"The expedition," they assured me, "is absolutely impossible. You'll never get back alive."
"That's a blanket statement. I trust you have an equally all-embracing reason."
I got a group shrug. "Your sex life."
"I don't get it." And I really didn't.
"You figure to be gone two years. Five men in the crew. All reasonably young, reasonably well-adjusted. Three of the possible five are married. The rest enjoy an evening on the town, as you know from our Intelligence reports. All right. In two years time, if you last that long, you'll come back, if at all, a group of homosexuals!
"The more likely probability, however, is that your sexual frustrations will amply create such an attitude of hostility that you'll screw up somewhere along the line and not come back at all. A man brooding about his non-existent sex life is quite likely to miss an important operational function, and then good night, Charlie!"
"But what about the mental conditioning program?"
Again, the collective shrug. "Good for a few weeks. Months, maybe. But over such a period of time as two years, forget it. We're going to have to recommend that this expedition be called off until our technological advances can increase the load-carrying capacity of a ship. You've got to have women on board."
I couldn't see myself blowing this command because of the opinions of a bunch of headshrinkers. I had to think of some sort of solution to save it, even if I came up with only a half-assed idea.
I went before my superiors, laid my cards on the table.
Robin Chou was my answer. She was a half-Irish, half-Chinese stripper, and she was the end result of an exhaustive screening. She was cheerful, fun, and talented in many ways other than the sex act. And at that, she rated "superior" in every department. She could also cook, sing, dance, converse with a reasonable amount of intelligence, and was perfectly willing to cater to the sexual needs of four men aboard a space ship.
I don't know how I managed to convince them, but without too much argument the high brass gave their approval and Robin moved in with us for the final year of training.
Physically, she was in at least as good condition as any of us, and she continued to seem well-adjusted mentally.
In seclusion, as we were during that last year, she was a God-send. She slept around with each of us and her sunny attitude and acceptance of the fact that for the next three years she was going to have four "husbands" made the whole thing painless, if slightly amoral.
Right up until blast-off it had been fun. And for almost a month after that she continued to accommodate each of us, in turn, in the only private space in the ship.
Then she fell in love with Charlie Cramer, the electronics tech, thereby proving that the whims of a woman are more than a match for the best psychiatrists and psychologists (and spact expedition Commanders) in the universe.
At first, she was only reluctant to let us visit her. Then she became sullen, and finally, she downright refused to have anything to do with the rest of us. The "rest of us" being me Bing Murphy Laven, and Carlos Noel, our happy-go-lucky jack of all trades. A Navy man. And a full Commander.
When the thing first happened it didn't seem so much dangerous to the integrity of our mission as it seemed downright funny. Charlie was embarrassed after each of his visits. It turned out that Robin, in love, was damned near insatiable, so for a few days we laughed about it, kidding him about his drawn features, the bags under his eyes.
We even joked about being her three "ex-husbands" and held a private meeting for the purpose of deciding: "Shall we cut off old Charlie, too?" At that time, there seemed no good reason for it, so we decided to let things continue their merry course.
In a few weeks however, it became not so merry, as the strain started to tell. Especially, I believe, for Noel, a lusty fellow. I sensed antagonism starting to form and I called another meeting. Only this time it was for real.
"I've got a solution," I said. "I think. This isn't a command decision, though. I'll leave it up to you. We cut Charlie off, as of now. If Robin is the nympho she appears to be, she'd be only too happy to put the arrangement back on a share and share alike basis. It may take a little while, but I think it'll work. What do you think?"
Noel grunted. "I say, let's rape the bitch. Two of us can hold her and . . , "
"Negative," I ordered, sharply. "There'll be none of that. Not now, not later. Not as long as I'm in command of this party."
He shrugged. "Okay. I think you're wrong, but okay. Let's cut old Charlie off. It might work."
Laven voted for it too. When I told Charlie, he sighed with relief. "Thank God, skipper. She's too much dame for one man, I'll tell you that. Now, maybe I can get some rest. I sure as hell need some!"
It didn't work, though. Apparently Robin could turn her nymphomania on or off at will. She accepted the conditions stolidly, made no complaints, continued to do her best to entertain and divert us. In every way but that way.
Things kept getting worse. Finally Noel openly attempted to rape her. Two of us pulled him forcibly off, but our hearts weren't in it.
What to do?
I decided to pay her a visit. I knocked on her door.
"Yes?"
"Colonel Murphy. I'll have to talk to you."
She opened the door cautiously, just a crack.
"You're to stay in your cabin. For the rest of this trip. Unless you decide to change your mind. I can't have you circulating about this ship. Here's a key. Keep your door locked from the inside. I'll serve your chow."
She accepted the key sullenly, slammed the door shut angrily, and I heard the bolt snick shut.
That was that. It wasn't really cruel treatment. She had complete lavatory facilities in there, television tapes and a viewer, music tapes, book tapes, comfortable bunk (as we all knew) and controlled lighting.
She was in better shape than we were, by a long shot.
I sighed. Maybe this would solve the problem for now.
That sleeping period, I rested easily for the first time in weeks.
It was the last good night's sleep I had for quite a spell. Almost a year, in fact.
Frankly, I think the psychologists had been wrong in the first place. And I sure as hell couldn't take any kudos for my bright idea. Certainly, knowing that that lovely hunk of feminine pulchritude was separated from us by only the thinnest of bulkheads was almost too much.
Finally, however, touchdown.
CHAPTER THREE
"You're not going anywhere, Miss Chou," I told her. "Forget it. Because you didn't carry out the 'duty' you were selected for, and for which you freely volunteered, is no reason for you to assume that the rest of this crew is subject to your whims. You're staying aboard, and that's not a request. It's an order."
Her oriental eyes flashed. "If you leave me here, these bastards will rape me."
Noel openly laughed. "Baby,' he said, "you can count on it. Only thing is, technically, you're unrapable."
"You see?" Robin appealed to me.
I saw, all right. I saw my command going right down the drain. Billions of dollars and millions of man-hours wasted because of some dizzy goddamed Irish-Chinese floozie who should never have been along anyway. I wondered what those stinking psychologists would do if they were here to see the end result of my "solution" to the problem they'd posed for us.
There was no way to turn. A command decision right here might very well blow my command out of action. But I had to do something. What? Okay, I thought, the hell with it.
"We'll vote." I announced as firmly as I could. "Does she go or stay? I think this should be a majority decision.'
Unexpectedly, Commander Noel came around to my side.
"Take her with you, for God's sake!" he exploded. "Get her out of here. We've gone without long enough. Why start a habit we might not be able to keep up?"
"Frank?"
Laven stared at Robin, cleared his throat. "She's saved it this long, let her save it a little longer. I'm talking about today only, though. Tomorrow, I couldn't make a promise. Maybe you'll find a couple beautiful Martian maidens. Virgins, maybe."
I heaved a sigh of relief. Even a 24-hour postponement was better than a hole in the head, if you know what I mean.
"Suit up," I ordered Charley and Robin. "We hit the scout in five minutes. Check each other out."
We got into our somewhat cumbersome gear, and as Charley and Robin checked each other's equipment, Laven solemnly and somewhat ponderously checked mine. All secure.
We stepped into the airlock, which was at an awkward angle. It was, to my relief, completely functional. We dogged down the inner door, waited for the "whoosh" of escaping pressure from the outer hatch. I pressed the little red button that lowered the ladder.
And there we were.
A full-fledged space-ship commander. (The only one from our planet) An electronics tech. And a whore.
A likely group to be the first humans ever to set foot on any planet other than Earth.
It was the only group there, though, like the man said about the crooked poker game.
We clambered aboard the scout ship, after loosening a few locks. It had no dome, so we were forced to stay in our suits and helmets. Air pressure outside was fairly high, as was oxygen level, but nowhere near Earth level. You could probably sustain life there, without artificial environment, but it would be a gradual thing.
As has been remarked, you can fly a man to the top of Mt. Everest in a helicopter and drop him off, in a matter of minutes. He'll die within a half-hour. If he climbs Mt. Everest, taking a matter of weeks, he will live, even if he won't exactly thrive. A matter of acclimitization.
In this rarefied atmosphere of Mars, we were going to have to take it slow and easy. Maybe open our face-plates five minutes out of the hour, then ten, then fifteen something like that. Pretty indeterminate, actually. After all, no one had ever tried it before.
I made a "ready?" signal to both Charlie and Robin. Both blinked their fingertip lights at me, twice, which meant "A-Okay," so I threw the throttle forward on the little scout-ship and we took off.
I set the throttle on "cruise," turned on the auto-mechanism, and relaxed. We were going what we could have termed due South from the ship. In fact, with our gyro-comps, all directions from the ship were due South.
The terrain was monotonous but interesting. There was some life on Mars, and this was obvious. At least, there had been some life. Not necessarily animal, as we know it, but certainly vegetable as we know it.
At any rate, there were some pieces widely spaced, really of what would appear to be driftwood. I thought of sandstorms. While there wasn't supposed to be (according to the best minds on Earth) enough atmosphere on Mars to support any kind of a storm, the evidence tended to point the other way. The few pieces I observed and I used my binoculars to observe them as closely as possible certainly looked like something worried and chewed over by the tides or the sand. On Mars you could forget tides. It had to be sand, and that meant it had to be sandstorms, and that meant that there was or recently had been a great deal more atmosphere than we'd been led to believe.
It was a. curious matter, but nothing to lose sleep over at this stage of the game. Other things occupied my mind quickly.
Charlie was also using binoculars, scanning the horizon. He tapped me on the shoulder of my space suit, pointing. I followed his indicating finger, put my own binoculars back to my eyepieces.
A canal! Or, at any rate, what seemed to be a canal. I kicked off the auto-pilot, took over manual control, threw in full throttle. Five minutes later we were circling over the wide gash in the Martian landscape which could only be one of the numerous canals our astronomers has been reporting for the past several hundred years.
"Canal" isn't really the word for it. At least not as we understand the word on Earth. It was at least as deep as the Grand Canyon, back in the United States. And twice as wide.
And verdantly green!
I was actually afraid to land there. I circled the immediate area a couple of times. The canal stretched as far as the eye could see, in both directions. I looked at Charlie. He nodded.
I took us down. It was one hell of a feeling. And, moreover, as we descended into the wide rift between those high canyon walls, gauges on our scouter showed that air pressure and oxygen count were both damned near Earth-level!
One thing I knew right then. If there was any life on Mars, life as we know it, it was going to exist within a few yards of where we landed.
I signaled Charlie and Robin to stay suited up. They both had read the gauges, but I was concerned about the possibility of airborne viruses, of parasitic diseases which, under certain circumstances can almost explode into malignancy. The place didn't look threatening, evil or even particularly strange. But it might be.
It might also have almost been a fairly fertile planting of foliage back on Earth. It was almost too good to be true.
We got out the kits, checked everything we could check with our equipment. Wonderful.
I signalled to the other two. We opened our face-plates. The air tasted as good as anything on Earth. A hell of a lot better than our recirculated jazz on board the spacecraft.
Heady.
I passed out the "zap" guns. "Let's explore a bit. like, I'll go this way, you go that way, and you, Robin, go that way. Two hundred slow paces apiece. Then we'll come right back here and discuss what we've seen. No radio communication until we know, absolutely, what we're doing. We might wake up someone we don't want to wake up, right? So walk slowly, quietly. Keep your gun ready, your eyes and ears open. Remember two hundred paces each. Then hurry the hell back."
"What do you think we'll find?" This was Charlie.
I shrugged, although the motion was lost in the bulk of my spacesuit. "Who the hell knows? Just look. There might be something or someone."
We fanned out, made our trips, met again. The whole move took possibly thirty minutes.
It was non-productive, at least from first view. "So what did you find?" I had to ask the question.
"This." Charlie held up a dried bit of fossil, which vaguely resembled a root. Great.
"Robin?"
She nodded, shamefacedly. "Same thing."
Aside from the fact that the two roots, or fossils, or whatever they might be looked dramatically the same, there was nothing to cheer about. So, I didn't cheer.
Dusk was coming on. A weird sort of dusk it was, too. A red moon! The kind of a moon you can't quite believe in.
We rolled out the sleeping bags. We put a zap gun and a flashlight under each of them.
We took turns going off into the brush, for purposes of going to the toilet. Read your science fiction. Nobody has to go potty. We did. We were, after all, only human.
Robin trotted back in from the outer perimeter. She got in her bedroll, cuddled the root-thing to her side, and went to sleep.
Charlie re-entered the area, also climbed into his sack, tossed his root-like thing off to one side, and started to snore.
I didn't sleep quite so easily.
I started thinking about those goddamned roots.
They were evil looking, somehow.
Well picture a piece of driftwood washed up on the beach. Now, endow this hunk of wood with several curling tentacles, all immobile but threatening, nevertheless.
Picture some apertures which may or may not have been some sort of eyes. And make a color in your mind which may or may not have been something you'd ever seen before.
Not gray. Not green, nor blue, nor lavender.
A new color. Strange. Unsettling. Disturbing.
That was the picture I formed in my mind of these pieces of driftwood-roots-whatever they were.
Finally I fell into a troubled sleep.
CHAPTER IV
In the morning, nothing had changed.
I was still there, alive, although somewhat cramped and definitely cold. My thermo-programmed suit which should have kept me comfortable under the worst circumstances, simply hadn't worked as planned. I was still alive though, which, I suppose was some sort of tribute to the manufacturer.
So was Charlie, still there, alive.
So was Robin Chou.
Both of her!
And if this won't shake you up pretty good, you just can't be shook.
As God is my witness, there were two Robins laying there, side by side.
One was a little green?
Not real green, but a different sort of green, someway, and I can't describe it any better than that. It wasn't so much that she was green, but that she wasn't well, colored like a human. And there was this greenish sort of tinge. You could see it through her faceplate.
Oh, yes. We were all suited up for that long, cold night we'd just experienced. When temperatures drop to minus 300o, you don't fool around, you use your spacesuits. But now our party numbered four people, rather than three.
One of them slightly greenish.
Two of them completely adorable.
If you like green, that is.
And we were all wearing spacesuits. This, I knew, was utterly impossible.
Impossible, but there it was.
I sat up and yawned. It was involuntary as hell, because I really felt like screaming, pushing the old panic button.
Charlie sat up and yawned.
Robin sat up and yawned.
Robin number Two sat up and yawned.
Remember the old barroom gag? You take three pinches of cigarette ashes from an ashtray, sprinkle them into three piles on a serviette. Then you say, as the punch: "Will the real Joan of Arc please stand up?"
That's kind of the way I felt.
No need to ask who was the real Robin Chou.
But who the hell was the other chick, and where the hell had she come from?
And where had she picked up that spacesuit?
Charlie was gaping. He was, you'll please excuse the expression, entitled. Here he was, the one guy on Mars with any sex life whatsoever suddenly faced with TWO babes. Identical, except for a slight difference in skin coloration.
I was, for the moment at least, equally open-mouthed. Then I started to think, hard. The verdant, green channel of the canal. The weird, almost-alive and nearly identical chunks of driftwood, or roots, or whatever.
One word popped into my mind before anyone spoke a single word aloud.
Symbiosis!
Ask me where I dragged that word up and
I couldn't tell you. It had to be implanted deeply in my subconscious. I didn't even know for sure what it meant.
I checked the outside temperature. By our time, it was fairly early morning. My suit thermometer had suddenly begun to read 86 degrees, which was more than bearable. Particularly after the cold of only a few minutes earlier. I flicked open my face plate, made appropriate motions to the others. Obediently, one, two, three, the others followed my actions. I breathed deeply of the thin but supportable air.
"All right," I said before anyone else could speak. "I think we'd better get back and talk this over." I wasn't using any inflection in my voice to startle the new Robin. I'd had enough preflight training in psychology to bypass that particular pitfall.
Charlie started to say something. I shook my head.
"Forget it. We'll talk when we get back into a favorable environment." I pointed toward the sled.
We gathered up our gear, climbed aboard the only transport on the planet and took off, following our gyro-comps back to the ship.
It was a curious ride. No one spoke. Robin was so stunned by the appearance of a double she apparently couldn't. Charlie started to speak a couple of times, then looked at me, gulped, and held his counsel.
Robin the Second either could not or would not speak.
I found myself pondering the presently imponderables.
Animal, vegetable, or mineral?
A native? A parasite? A what?
I kept coming back to that one word, symbiosis!
CHAPTER V
We stopped the airsled at the ship, climbed off, started hauling our gear to the lock. The second Robin picked up an armload, acting, anyway, as a normal human. What she was, I didn't yet know. But a normal human, she certainly wasn't!
Still, nobody spoke a word.
We entered the ship, stripped off our suits, deposited our equipment.
I laughed outright at the expression on both Laven's and Noel's faces.
Actually, Noel was the first to recover and the first to speak. He looked at the slightly greenish-tinged girl. "Who are you? What's your name?"
She looked uneasily at Robin. "I'm I'm sorry, I can't help it. I'm Robin Chou.'
The real Robin swung a healthy left hook which would have probably returned our group to its original number had it connected.
Carlos Noel caught it easily. "Now, now, darling," he soothed the indignant, squalling and scratching Robin, "Look at it this way. You may have gained the key to your true love. What," he swung to me, "exactly the hell do we have here?" He released Robin absently, like a man putting his snapping and snarling dog aside.
She cuddled up to Charlie.
I shook my head. "I be goddamned if I know. One word keeps popping into my mind. Symbiosis."
And this is where, you see, Noel earns his salary and probably a good deal more.
"Symbiosis" he said. "Let me see: In biology, the consortion or union for life of two dissimilar organisms, each necessary to the other, as in the case of the fungus and the alga which together form the lichen also called mutualism and commensalism.' That good enough?"
I looked at Charlie. "What did you do with that piece of driftwood, or root, or whatever it was you picked up last night?"
He looked abashed. "I threw it to one side when I got in my sleeping bag. Forgot about it this morning."
"Robin?"
"I didn't want to take a chance on losing my first souvenir of Mars. I took it to bed with me my God, you mean she's a root?"
Carlos guffawed. "Some root, baby!"
I snapped my fingers for attention. "Well?" ! I asked the second Robin Chou. "I know you can talk. But can you reason? Can you answer some questions?'
She bobbed her head affirmatively. "Yes. I can talk. Symbiosis is correct. Advanced, complete symbiosis. I'm a native of the planet. Unfortunately, I can only talk to you in her language, drawing on her vocabulary."
I thought it was rather a distasteful look she gave Robin.
"Unfortunately, also," she continued, "there are many things I should tell you which I cannot. Lack of communication. My race faces extermination. We are as many as well, as in recorded history. But we have a major lack."
"I'll just bet you do," the real Robin snarled.
Charlie shushed her.
"We'll have to make a formal interview and taped report on this," I told the Martian.
She made a consenting motion. "Naturally. I'm ready when you are. May I-" she looked almost shy and certainly apologetic. "May I have a drink of water? A very small one?'
Carlos filled that gap. "Here, kid " he offered a glass. I wondered how he'd managed to pour it so fast. "You can have anything you want. Anything. Including me."
She accepted the drink, looking at me inquiringly.
"Laven, Carlos we'll set it up in Robin's room, Tape recorder. Cameras. Infra-red. Radiation detectors. Whatever else we'll need."
"Ice cold showers," Noel suggested, helpfully I didn't smile. There was a strong element o truth in his flip remark.
"Can't we listen?" asked Robin.
It was Carlos again who had the answer. "Dear darling," he informed her, blandly. "We're going to be in that room of yours for at least an hour If you and good old Charlie can't think of some thing to do in that time call me."
I swear to God, Robin blushed!
CHAPTER VI
Tape 4711, Expedition EVM. (Personal evaluations follow.) Subject, presumed Martian native. Intelligence tests inconclusive, as subject does not respond to mental stimuli as 'ordinary' humanoids. In the preceding confidential and presumably classified report, all available information has been given. The following is an informal question and answer period. There will be no departure from the actual context of the meeting.
Q-You are a native of this planet which we call Mars.?
A-Yes.
Q-Are you what could be called the dominant life form?
A-No. The lichens are the dominant life forms here. Just as your insects are the dominant life form on your planet.
Q-I'll ask the same question another way. Are you the only intelligent life form?
A-I don't know. I presume we're the most intelligent, anyway.
Q-And you speak English?
A-Yes. Of course. But only because you speak English.
Q-(by Commander Noel) Let me ask why you must speak to us only with the vocabulary and memory of Miss Chou. Think, now-the word "Dog". Is there a comparable animal on this planet?
A-Not now. My own memory tells me that my ancestors knew such beasts? But not now. Now there is only us and the lichens.
Q-(Again, Noel) Are you divided into male and female? Two sexes? I'm sure Miss Chous' memory and vocabulary will enable you to work out a comparison.
A-Well, yes and no.
Q-(Colonel Murphy) Yes and no? I'm afraid I don't understand.
A-You've probably guessed a great deal about us. We're an old race. We didn't look too unlike you in the beginning, although that was, of course, far beyond my memory. I know what I've been told, and what I've seen.
You know about our water problem. Gradually, our bodies adapted to it. It was survive or die. We adapted. We became, in a word, your word, symbiotic. During the dry winters, we became more and more plant-like. To keep our original body-forms, we maintained a handful of living people in a sunken city. With ample water for their survival. In the spring and summer, when the ice caps melted and the water flowed in the canals, they came out of their hiding place and lay among us us roots as I heard you call us.
Just a little water, a touch between us, and we became a proud race again. For half the year.
Q-And what happened to this cycle?
A-The inevitable. One winter there was not enough water to keep our "Living" people alive. They, too, withered into our shapes. And when the next thaw came, we could only make ourselves into other roots. This, of course, was a waste of time. And so on, for generations. Until you came. I'm the first of my people to regain humanoid form. To become a "broad."
Q-Not a good word, One of Miss Chou's limitations of vocabulary.
A-I'm sorry.
Q-No need. The word you seek is "female."
A-Thank you. Are we vegetables? No. Q-I didn't ask that.
A-Not aloud. You see, we haven't any real hearing. That is, as symbiotic organisms, we can develop all your senses, of course. But as we're a telepathic race, I'm afraid I just didn't turn on my hearing.
Q-(Noel) You used two words in that statement which make me wonder. "Symbiotic" and "Telepathic' I've reason to believe Miss Chou would have little or no knowledge of either. Yet, you-
A-The Colonel thought the word telepath, just now. And I've heard "symbiotic" enough to know what it means. As a matter-of-fact, you explained it for us.
Q-What would happen if we took you back out to the canal, which has the moisture we've discussed, and just well, turned you loose?
A-There'd be several thousand duplicates of me by morning.
Q-And the males? That's assuming you have a male-female relationship.
A-Oh, yes. Much like yours. Almost exactly like yours. The males would only identify with a male.
Q-In other words, you can survive but not reproduce yourselves. Not without a male of the species?
A-Correct.
* * *
I shut off the tape recorder on that note, giving it some thought. Carlos Noel was also deep in some moody introspect.
"My dear,' he finally spoke, warmly, "I have a question. This," he added for my benefit, "is not for the record. Right?"
"Right." I was intrigued.
"Do you feel completely female?" He asked the Martian girl. "I mean, do you have feelings like one of our females would have?"
"Of course," she answered. "Altogether. If Robin Chou is typical."
Noel shook his head. "She's hardly typical, but she is delightful. Complete symbiosis, eh?"
She nodded, gravely. "Complete.
Carlos looked at me, arched his eyebrows expressively. "We need two more of those roots. Female ones."
"But-"
"But me no buts, boss." He turned again to the Martian girl. "May I?" He reached out, cupped a firm, although slightly greenish breast in his hand. "It feels real," he assured me.
She squirmed with what appeared to be a mixture of pleasure and embarrassment. At least, a darker green shade crept over her skin as Carlos manipulated a delightfully shaped, if somewhat wrongly-colored nipple between his fingers.
All right, confess it. My loins did a bit more than stir. She was all woman, completely desirable. The fact that she was also completely alien couldn't have mattered less at the moment.
Noel apparently had much the same feeling
"You like men? I mean, our sort of men? Earth-men?"
"I like whatever Robin Chou-likes."
Carlos groaned aloud. "Boss," he turned to me, "we got to find two more roots today. Girl-type roots. That's the first thing." He looked bad at the girl again. "Tell me, dear darling: can we-well, procreate? Can you have children by me? By the obvious biological process?"
She looked regretful. "No. I'm afraid no. Our reproductive processes are similar, but not identical. We have a different metabolism. Although," she added, it seemed hurriedly, "much the same system. If I can be of service to you, I'd be most delighted to..."
Noel groaned again. "Can you be of service! Baby, you don't know the half of it! Get some roots, boss. Get some roots!'
I was completely in agreement, but at a loss. What should I do? In the first place, these were alien life forms. Sexy, without a doubt, and that was a commodity we were all starving for. Safe? Who knew?
"I'll tell you, Carlos. I'm going to leave the two of you alone here for a half-hour. Then I want to talk to you. If you know what I mean." I could see the main targets of this expedition rapidly going to hell, but I knew we'd accomplish nothing at all if we didn't do something right now about the sex situation.
I've read a fair share of the fiction that's devoted to space exploration, to Bug Eyed Monsters, to new social concepts. In these, the heroes invariably spend all kinds of years in space. Two things: They never go to the toilet and they have no sex lives. Their oxygen supply runs out, sure.
Big deal.
"A half-hour," I warned Carlos. "That's all. And you might find a new name for her. One Robin Chou is a sufficiency."
"Amen.'
I left them, went back out to the others. Charlie and Robin were completely engrossed in each other. Laven lifted an inquiring eyebrow. He'd left the room before Noel had started his off-the-record questions, so couldn't know the game we were playing.
"Noel's going to see what gives. Look on it as a clinical survey."
Frank grinned, mirthlessly. "Sure. Clinical."
For thirty minutes, that was all that was said, except for occasional murmurings from the huddle that was Robin and Charlie. Frank and I puttered around the somewhat restricted confines of the ship's cabin, trying to ignore what was going on in the private room. I made mental pictures though, that were positively pornographic.
Forget this, all of it. Something else, aside from my sex urges, was bothering me, and I wasn't quite sure what it was. I should get a little credit for having anything else on my mind, I guess.
The minutes passed slowly, but they passed. The door to Robin's stateroom opened, and
Noel emerged, in company with a glowing alien. He made a circle with his thumb and forefinger.
"Fabulous! Fantastic! The livin' end, dad!"
That seemed to be that. The second Robin seemed to blush again, a slightly deeper shade of green, at all the compliments.
Frank nudged me. "Well? More roots? One for you and one for me?"
I nodded assent. "That seems to be it, then Carlos. The sled will take three. You, and Missah-you were going to name her?"
"Rose. Rosie. Remember your Shakespeare? By any other name? like that?"
"Yes,' I nodded, wearily. "So, you, Frank and Rosie scoot out and pick up a couple of more roots.'
CHAPTER VII
She was fantastic. I lay beside her in the snug little berth of the stateroom, and she responded to my every move a thousandfold. There's an old saying that "in the dark all cats are gray." I knew she was green, but there seemed nothing wrong with that as I stroked the firm globes of her buttocks, teased the delightful tips of her soft yet firm breasts, pressed my tongue between her lips and, finally, took her in a blinding flash of an almost two-year-unvented passion.
She uttered little whimpers of pleasure as her thighs clasped themselves about me, and the love she gave me was more than any mere Earth woman could have done!
She had secrets only learned by the experience of a race thousands and thousands of years older than ours.
Later, I fell into a light slumber, relieved for the first time in what now seemed uncounted days, weeks, months, years. It was a light slumber, but a satisfying one. I woke up once, and she was there, ready, waiting and eager to receive me again, to thrust me, with convulsive motions of her adorable, nubile body, right back into the depths of my dreamless sleep.
I woke again, finally. I lit a cigarette, thoughtfully tracing the outlines of her body with a musing finger. She shivered with what seemed unfeigned delight.
Suddenly, sickeningly, I knew what my thought had been before (yesterday) Carlos and Rosie had set off in search of two more roots!
"Maria," I whispered softly. (That name is the one I gave her, and it's none of your business why.)
"Maria, do you, in this life form, eat?"
"Oh, yes."
"And drink?"
"With pleasure."
"And you breathe oxygen?"
"Whatever you breathe, we breathe."
"Complete symbiosis."
"Complete. I need you, you need me."
I got wearily to my feet in the dark, switched on the lamp and started dressing. She watched me with a cat-like smile on her adorable lips.
"May I have a glass of water?" she purred. I pointed, wordlessly, to the faucet in the bulkhead. She drank thirstily, yet cautiously, savoring it as a brandy connoisseur might savor the oily glow of a hundred-year-old choice cognac.
I finished dressing, left her behind, walked out and called Charlie, Frank and Noel for a council of war.
A few bitter words were exchanged, but it all came back to one unalterable truth; the Martian maidens drank water, ate food, breathed our atmosphere.
We couldn't afford them!
We'd spent three days putzing around, getting our more than maladjusted sex fives into some form of adjustment. We had repairs to make on the ship before we could take off for Earth and our rewards, which would be, if we made it, more than ample.
None of us-if you can understand this-would ever have to work again if we didn't so desire.
An international picture magazine, by arrangement with the authorities, had made a deal whereby in exchange for exclusive pictures and our stories, we would each of us become independently wealthy. And that was just one small bite of the pie. I wasn't exactly in favor of giving it up. Neither, it developed, were the others. Charlie, of course, least of all. After all, he had the real Robin Chou.
I asked Maria, just after the meeting: "You know what's up, don't you?"
She nodded, soberly, almost breaking my heart. "Yes. You can't support more life forms."
"That's true. Neither can we leave here unless we get some outside assistance for our ship."
"Carlos," she said, promptly.
"Carlos?"
"The finest specimen of your species." I resented this, and I told her so. Emphatically.
"We have to have all kinds of help," I said. "Carlos Noel isn't well-enough oriented in all the phases of our activities to be able to father a race of-" I stopped there, rather astounded at my thought. "Anyway," I continued, "we need technicians. In a hurry. I know what must be done. Now: Will you help us pick out some male roots?"
She clapped her hands. "Oh, yes. Let's go now. Right now."
So that's pretty much what happened.
Carlos, Charlie and Frank went out the first night. The "girls" helped them find male roots, laid them side by side, poured a cup of water over each of the roots, carefully guided the tendrils to my crew.
Robin locked herself in her much-used stateroom, sulking.
I passed the evening rather pleasantly. You can imagine how.
Next morning, we had the regular Charlies, Carlos and Franks. Plus three green ones. I passed the action, although I must admit it was rather a weird sight for me, listening to a sardonic (Martian-type) Carlos giving advice to a green Charlie.
It took us a couple of days to effect the repairs with our new corps of assistants.
And finally, our spaceship was ready for takeoff.
I asked the Martian "Laven", "What are you going to do now? Now that we're leaving?"
"Propagate," he said, winking. "Man, you've saved the whole entire Martian race. We'll start up the canal. Propagating. Breeding like mad. Funsies, dad! Don't worry about a thing. A few of us will wither away until we get re-acclimated to Mars, instead of your Earth air and water. But plenty of ns will come through. You brought Mars back into the system, you know?"
I shook my head. It just didn't seem right, somehow.
"Tomorrow,' 'he continued, "a thousand of us. Next day, ten thousand. Then a million. Kicks!"
I signalled for the port to be closed. The five of us stood just beside the visiplate, a minute or so before blastoff. We watched in silence as the three "men" and the three "women" started to walk away, up the canal. They walked perhaps a thousand yards, tiny figures, disappearing into the distance.
They turned and waved at us. I think each of us aboard the ship waved back, involuntarily.
I pushed the programmed button that would blast us off. The countdown started. A robot voice started enunciating: "Blastoff in twelve seconds. Counting. Twelve eleven-"
We arranged our seatbelts and settled ourselves into our couches.
Carlos leaned to me as the robot voice continued.
"Think of it," he whispered. "All of Mars, a whole planet, populated by..."
Before he could finish, the initial stages cut in, and we were pressed back into our couches with far too many G's of pressure for comfort or conversation.
Initial lift lasted several minutes.
" ... just me, Frank and Charlie. And Robin." Carlos picked up where he'd left off. "Millions of us. I wonder what the next ship is going to think?"
It was a frightening picture in a way. I shook my head, loosened my seat belt.
The instruments, which registered every fractioned ounce of weight weren't registering properly. I glanced quickly at the fuel gauges. We were in better than good shape, but I wondered where the extra weight on the scale, some seven or eight pounds had came from. They meant several thousand pounds of extra thrust needed.
I glanced at Carlos.
He grinned.
"So," he said. "So, we'll be wealthy millionaires when we get back to earth. Meanwhile, I'll tell you the truth.
"I got five of them roots in my luggage. Purely experimental purposes, of course."
I chewed on this fact for awhile.
"You got 'em named yet?"
"Only generically, dad. Only generically. "Instant Broads!'. Wait until we hit Hollywood."
I grunted, turning to the controls. "I can hardly wait."
Know something? I can hardly wait!
"When they eat shrimp, that's one thing. But raw shrimp, three times a day that's something else know what I mean?"
"I TELL YOU, AL!"
I'll take a double, Al. What? Yeah, beer chaser.
What's your last name, Al? I been in here a hundred times, right? Never heard your last name. You're Jewish, though. I dig your people.
What was it? Cohen? Kalien? I should of known. Don't tell me, I know the rest already. The guys with your family name, they get to read the Book, right?
Sure.
I study up on stuff like that, you know. No, not religion. Well, some religion maybe. But I'm a guy who-likes to keep an open mind on any subject.
Religion, politics, horses, that space stuff yeah, like the astronauts. Segregation. Movie stars.
Actually, Al. it's kind of amazing, even to me, how much of that junk I clutter my mind up with, you know?
No, really. Come on, I mean it. I probably got more unclassified information in my mind than anyone else you know.
Too bad they don't have those big quiz shows anymore.
Me a brain, Al? I'm a lousy fry cook, for Pete's sake! That's right. Same union as yours. I thought I told you already. No?
Sure. Breakfast shift. I'm fast on eggs. What?
Oh, Well, I tell you, Al. I had an experience this morning I still don't quite believe. It didn't really start this morning, it really started a few weeks ago.
Sure, go take care of that joker who just came in. I'll wait. Bring me another one on the way back, okay?
How about you? Hey, that joker looks familiar. I bet you I served him this morning. Or yesterday.
What? Oh, that stuff. Well, Al, I tell you.
You won't believe me. I feel like a big kook even talking about it. Really.
I tell you what, you probably got a lot of side-work to do. Forget it. I won't mention it again. Just give me another double. I don't need anymore beer. I'll tell you about it some other time.
To tell you the truth, I'm still a little shook so I'd just as soon not discuss it.
No, Al, hold the beer. I got plenty left. Just the double.
What? No, Al, I ain't drinking too fast. Well, maybe I am at that. Such an experience!
No, no. Sorry. Forget it. like I'm trying to.
I tell you though, Al. It's been a lousy couple of weeks for me. I mean it. I really mean it.
Well, like first it ain't no bargain even working in that crummy joint, you know? Yeah, the absolute worst waitresses in town. Don't know how to order. But, I guess you get used to anything, so first thing you know, you accept the joint. like, the grill overheats all the time, you got to furnish your own tools, we got only three egg pans. And we got a boss who can't fry nothing, not even bacon.
Nice, huh?
Well, what the hell, we all got our problems. You got enough glasses on that back bar for the Derby, and what do you do? You wipe 'em off every day. So your boss is queer for glasses. like I said, it's a thing you get to live with.
Oh, hey, Al, I asked you for your name but I never did tell you mine. Busby. Ed Busby. My friends call me "Buzzy".
Oh, Yeah, it's a hell of a story, but I'm afraid to tell it. Who's to believe me? It's the kind of thing they could put you away for if you started tellin' it around.
Hey, thank you very much! On the house? Thank you. It's a drink I'll enjoy, I'm sure.
What, Al? I don't know. I'm busting to tell it to someone. Sure, why do you think I even mentioned it? But you got to promise you won't laugh at me after. Okay?
That's a promise, right, Al?
Okay, already. So I'll tell you., It all started a couple of weeks ago. I'd just come on shift and it was...
* * *
It was a minute or so before ten o'clock that Friday night, and it was literally pouring down rain. Ed Busby, taking over the ten-to-six shift at the drive-in, was sober (although he had a pint stuck away in the locker), slightly damp and completely unhappy.
To begin with, he didn't like being a cook, although he'd never done anything else. There'd been a hassle about the rent at the fleabag he slept in, and there was absolutely no side work even started by the big Polack he was relieving. Also, he'd missed the daily double at Hollypark by one lousy number. Altogether, any way you looked at it, it was going to be a lousy night. One thing, there wouldn't be a hell of a lot of business. The weather would keep most people home.
The pot-walloper, a fat Indian faggot, showed up late as usual. Buzzy read him off, checked out the supplies, poured himself a cup of coffee and retreated to the end of the counter, muttering unhappily to himself as he looked the joint over, estimating his needs for the next hour.
As his ire simmered down to a slow boil, and just in time, the door opened. In walked the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen in his life. Class, from top to delightful, well-rounded bottom.
She wore a raincoat, but was hatless. Droplets of moisture sparkled like thousands of tiny diamonds in her blonde, almost silver, hair.
Buzzy heaved a deep sigh. All his life, he'd wanted to meet and bed a chick like this. Forget it. In his heart he knew he had no chance. This sort of lovely wasn't meant for a fry cook.
Buzzy sighed again, hoping the fat and sloppy waitress who managed to make even the drive-in's crisp, salmon-colored uniform look dismal and drab, would tout her off the minute steak. He rechecked the icebox. They were still there from last night, and they were pretty far from what you could call great.
"Baste two, hash browns, wheat toast."
Well, love's offering. Buzzy selected the finest two eggs in the carton. Tenderly, he placed three pats of butter in a clean egg-pan. He turned up the flame, tossed the eggs back on the range, trotted out to the kitchen and peeled a boiled potato over the protests of the pot-walloper. He wasn't about to give this beautiful customer the ordinary pre-packaged hash-browns.
Back at the range, he chopped the potatoes carefully, dropped more butter into a skillet, added the potatoes and, when they were sizzling, poured in three creamers of half-and-half. For seventy cents, the meal was a real bargain.
The girl started eating with complete disinterest. Buzzy, practically heart-broken, trotted back to the locker room and took a good-sized belt from his bottle. He stood there, contemplating the long eight hours ahead of him, shrugged and took another belt. Then he went back out to bask in the glow emanating from this beauty even though she was still merely picking at his lovingly prepared eggs and hash browns.
* * *
Then, while she still had most of that good food left on her plate, Al by the way, you drop in on my shift, I'll treat you the same way, baby, if you'll eat it she asked that fat-assed waitress to talk to me. Me!
Can you imagine?
Know what she wanted?
A shrimp cocktail.
That's right, Al. A shrimp cocktail.
So, what the hell, I asked myself? She wants a shrimp cocktail, she gets one.
I made up a shrimp cocktail which is one dish you don't very often serve at that hour of the night. She ate it, but she made a few faces. Privately, Al, I didn't blame her. Our shrimp is pretty tired.
What, Al? Yeah, another double. One more won't do me anything. Straighten me right out, do me a world of good. Right?
So look yeah, better give me another beer for a wash. No, I don't care what kind. Whatever's coldest, you know?
Anyhow like I was telling you after the way she'd turned up her pretty little nose at both of her orders I figure she won't be coming back. So what happens? Comes around two o'clock in the morning the broad walks back in. Orders another shrimp cocktail. No eggs, no coffee, nothing. A shrimp cocktail.
I served her the last of the shrimp. She ate it, but she still made faces. I figured what the hell did I care? It was sixty-five cents, mostly profit.
Now, Al, comes the real kooky part. Are you ready?
She walks in at a quarter to six in the morning, just before I get off shift.
The waitress takes her order, walks over to me. "That nut," she says, "wants another shrimp cocktail."
I tell the waitress I ain't got no more shrimp. Cooked, anyway. There's some raw shrimp in the icebox, but this is not my job. I mean, the morning man cooks and peels the shrimps. Not me. God knows I got enough side work of my own.
The waitress walks back, gives her the information. She brings back the order, "She'll take them raw."
"What?"
The dumpy waitress shrugged. "That's what the customer said. She'll take them raw." Kooky, you know, Al. Raw shrimp?
I was kind of busy, so I didn't put up a beef. I fixed her the raw shrimp as a kind of shrimp cocktail. I took the time to watch her out of the corner of my eye. This time she didn't make faces. She ate it with a kind of dreamy relish. She was really enjoying it.
Raw shrimp, yet!
But that ain't all of it. Get this, Al. After she'd finished she walked over to me and asked me if I'd fix her the same thing every night until further notice.
No, Al. I kid you not!
So this goes on for a couple of weeks, Al, and now you know what? The broad comes over and tells me she's crazy about me!
How about that? I take a half-dozen raw shrimp every two, three hours, stack 'em in a bowl, sauce on the side. That's all I do. And, as far as I know, that's all she eats. At least at night, anyhow. Weird, huh? And just because of those stupid raw shrimp, the broad decides she's hung up on me! What a kook!
But beautiful. like wow! That's the real hell of it. She's so damned beautiful.
You what? You know her?
Oh, you live at Malibu?
Your next door neighbor?
I'm a son of a bitch! You're kidding! Boy, you know, kook or no kook, I dig the broad the most. No, really, Al. Hey, have a drink on me. A double. Okay?
Say it again, Al. Hey, crazy. A luau, huh? At your pad? At the beach? That's swinging, you know? Sure, I'll help cook it. I'll make some of that Hawaiian chicken, with the parmesan cheese and cocoanut. Pork with pineapple. Some baked whitefish. like that. Then we'll have a whole bucket of raw shrimp. Just for laughs, you know?
No, no, Al. Take the buck. I mean it. I really mean it. This might be the answer, kid. At least I'll get to dig her without a counter between us.
Tomorrow night is the night. Man, like tomorrow night is the night! Great. Wonderful! I'll be there. You'd better believe I'll be there!
* * *
"Myrtle,' Buzzy said dreamily. "What a beautiful name. Myrtle. like poetry, you know?"
The girl stirred in his arms, warm in his embrace. "I know. You like the name, don't you?"
"Most beautiful name I could ever think of."
She smiled secretly to herself. "I'm sure."
The party had by now died down fairly well.
It was Buzzy's night, and he was determined to make the most of it, but not too sure how to go about it.
"Hey," he said with false cheer. "I wonder what old Al is doing? Gosh, it's been quite a while since anyone's been out here by the pool. Gosh, that's a pretty scarf you're wearing. Gosh..."
Buzzy was being fairly bold and he knew it, but it was tonight or never. His nervous system was far too charged to put up with anymore disappointments.
Into the life of countless Buzzy's only one such Myrtle appears. She was everything he'd ever wanted. Gorgeous. Stacked. Knockers that-well, they were too much, that's what they were, and through the thin material of the bikini she was wearing poolside, he could even see the nipples of those wonderful, globular breasts.
"Goddamn" he whispered, reverently.
"What?"
"I sure wish," he answered somewhat obliquely, "I sure wish I'd brought my swimming trunks. I'd sure love to get into that good old pool with you."
Myrtle got to her feet, smiling as if at a distance.
Slowly, tantalizingly, she stripped off the top of her suit, allowing her delightfully pointed breasts to present puckered tips as they faced the breeze. Without another word, she slid down the brief bottom of her bikini, revealing the most lovely of bodies. There were dimples where dimples should be, curves where most women had never had them.
Still without a word, she dived, without a ripple, into the pool. Buzzy whimpered, quickly stripped, jumped in after her.
Only a small globe illuminated the pool, and it went out after a few moments, presumably the victim of an overload on the fuses.
Their bodies touched, and she encircled him.
They writhed in a passionate sea ballet.
On top of the water and underneath, their white figures twined and entwined. Little gasps and cries of pleasure rent the night air like the cries of a gull.
And finally there was silence.
* * *
"Was everything all right?" Al asked Myrtle.
She made an indefinite shrug. The surf rolled over their glistening bodies. "As good as could be expected, I guess."
"You think..."
"Oh, sure. I guess so."
They swam a few more strokes in companionable silence. "Pretty lousy way, though," Al muttered.
Myrtle rolled over on her back, swam thoughtfully. "I suppose it is. But still, who knows a better way to propagate the race?"
"The race," Al grunted. "The frigging damned race. Well-"
Myrtle blew him an airy kiss in the semi-darkness.
"Well," she whispered, "until they find a better way.
"Oh," he reminded her, "the scarf, you'll strangle."
She untied the scarf, threw it to him. He looked at it, balled it in his fist, let it sink.
They floated in quiet for a period of moments.
"Well," he said.
"Well later."
"Later," he answered as her lithe body knifed down into the depths. His last sight of her was that of her gills pulsating.
Al smiled grimly, turned toward the shore, a couple of miles away.
Now all he had to do was explain away the presence of Buzz's body at the bottom of his swimming pool.
Anyway, Al thought to himself, he died happy. And he'll never have to make another raw shrimp cocktail.
It was, though, when you considered it, one hell of a way to propogate Venusians.
Al felt the gills along his own neck. A rotten deal. The surgeons should have done a better job for him. He hated the necessary neckties he was forced to wear constantly.
A small fish darted by and Al caught and ate it in one swift, seal-like motion. He munched thoughtfully, wondering what eggs might taste like.
AH it takes is a gimmick. But you've got to have an idea to go with it Then, you're on your way to a fortune!
THE WORLD'S GREATEST SALESMAN
"Jimmy Kubek," the sultry-voice motion picture star whispered in my ear as I caressed a lush, rounded thigh, "you're the greatest lover in the world!"
I smiled. I yawned a little, too, and glanced at my watch. It was all I was wearing. She didn't have a watch on, so really, it was all we were wearing between us.
I can't mention her name, but she's a sex-image to all the world. To me, she's just another wealthy broad, one among hundreds. I decided to tell her the story, make my pitch, collect my dough and get out.
I reached over, gently kissing an adorable pink nipple which hardened immediately.
"Well," I started, lighting a cigarette and laying back. "I used to be an insurance investigator. And that's how it started. I was a good investigator, and I used to get all the odd-ball assignments."
* * *
In all my years as an insurance investigator, I'd never had an assignment like this. It was real nutty.
"Kubek," my supervisor told me, "draw some expense money and get down to Belleville. We've had over three hundred claims for accidents there. During the past two weeks!"
Belleville. Population exactly 26,109. It not only didn't figure, it made so little sense it was ridiculous.
"How many policyholders have we got there, for God's sake?"
He flipped over his memo, shook his head. "Little less than seven hundred.", "What the hell's happened then? A disaster?
A mine cave-in? A hurricane? An explosion?"
"No. Nothing like that. Six people fell from windows. Three accidental gunshot wounds. Two hundred auto accidents. Rest, miscellaneous. Oh this might interest you five gored by a bull. The same goddamned bull," he ended, bitterly.
"That's crazy!"
"Tell me. I haven't slept for a week." He glared at me through red-rimmed eyes. "Get going, Kubek. Find out what's wrong. I've got a stinking actuary ready to commit suicide. It's impossible, but the claims have been filed. By doctors, hospitals, widows and widowers. Here take the list of names."
I accepted the sheaf of papers, went down to the accounting department and drew my expense money.
An hour later I was on my way. Three hours later, I was in Belleville, in the southern part of the state.
I parked in front of the court house, pumped up the parking meter, and went inside. Five minutes later I was talking to the sheriff.
"Jimmy Kubek," I introduced myself, flashing my investigator's license. "Magnum Insurance. It's lunch time. Could I buy you some lunch and have a little talk?"
He was a burly, red-faced example of the small-town law enforcement official, the kind they usually call "peace-officers." He was quite obviously more of a politician than an officer of the law, but that was none of my business.
"About all the accidents?" He had a shrewd voice, if you know what I mean. He wasn't about to commit himself to anything but a vague promise.
"Well, yes. I don't know if you've seen the figures, but-"
He waved a hand, cutting me off. "Knew you fellers would be down here sooner or later. Hell, ain't it? Think I can get your company off the hook, though. Won't have to pay out a cent in claims. How'd you like that, hey? Be all right, wouldn't it?"
I was more than a little puzzled. "Well, Magnum Insurance is a reputable firm. If those claims are justifiable, we certainly intend to pay every one of them, right down to the last penny."
He looking knowing. "Yes, huh? Then how come you're down here? An insurance investigator? Hey?"
"We investigate every unusual claim. You'll admit this is a more than unusual situation. However, I'll be glad to listen to any information you may have that would enable my company to properly evaluate the entire situation."
He snorted. "Fancy words, young feller, but they mean the same thing I just said. Your company would likely pay a little extra money to get off the hook, wouldn't it? To me, if I could help them?"
I was getting a little impatient. "Do you think that's strictly ethical, sheriff? Turning your good office to a private profit?"
"I'm a practical politician," he shrugged. "It cost me money to get elected. I aim to make money out of my office. I'm the only guy in town who can tell you the truth, and prove it. Let's go to lunch." Abruptly, he got up, reached for a wide-brimmed hat, the kind often affected by politicians and rural officers.
I followed him out and onto the street, wondering what it was all about.
We stood at the corner, waiting for the light to change.
"Wonder what it's all about, do you? Wonder if I'm trying to extort money out of you, hey? Wonder if I can prove something, something to your advantage, hey? Watch this." He reached into his pocket, and I heard a faint but easily recognizable ticking.
With no further warning, he stepped directly into the path of an oncoming bus, which was doing at least thirty-five miles an hour!
I heard the brakes screech, but that was all. There was a faint hazing of my vision, and the sheriff stood beside me, grinning. The bus went past.
It was as if the incident had never occurred. I needed time to think about it. He was still audibly ticking. He reached in his pocket again and the ticking stopped.
"What in God's name was that?" I had to know.
"You buyin' the lunch?"
"I am indeed," I assured him.
"I'll tell you then."
I had to settle for that. I still wasn't sure I'd seen what I thought I'd seen.
He steered me into the local hotel bar-dining room, and ordered a double martini. I did the same. What the hell? It was all on the expense account, and I had a feeling I was going to need all the fortification I could safely handle.
He downed his double in a gulp, snapped his fingers for another, then turned to me.
"How much?"
"What?"
"How much d'you think your company would pay me to save their freight? How much insurance do you think they got involved in this thing?"
I calculated, rapidly. About three hundred claims. About a thousand dollars a claim, or a little less. Say a quarter of a million bucks. We weren't playing Parchesi.
"Hard to say," I told him, chewing on my olive. "We'd pay some claims. Others, I don't know. Maybe part, maybe none. I think I could make you a substantial guarantee if you could give me written assurance that-"
He negated this by an impatient shake of his head. "Not good enough. I want at least well, let's say, five grand. Cash. If I can get your outfit off the hook. All the way off."
I ordered my second double martini, glanced nonchalantly at the menu, trying to make up my mind between the Businessman's Special which was pot roast with buttered noodles, or a plain old hamburger steak with french fries.
I was more than a little excited, to tell you the truth. He had a rare ring of authenticity in his voice. I figured him for a con artist of the first water, but I also figured he must know something.
God knows, the whole incident was freakish enough. So much so that I felt inclined to take a chance with the company money.
"Tell you what I'll do," I offered. "I'll guarantee the money. If you can produce one shred of evidence that backs up your statement. How's that?"
He grinned wolfishly. "Still not convinced by what you saw on the street? When I stepped in front of the bus? When it rephased?"
"When it what?"
He reached into his pocket, pulled out what looked like a cheap pocket watch, a regular stem-winder, you know? He placed it before me.
"There it is."
I didn't touch it. I remembered the ticking from his pocket just before he'd stepped in front of the bus. It looked like any old watch. The face was a little different, that's all. There were thirteen numerals, regularly spaced. Only one hand. The numerals, if that's what they were, were foreign to me. I'd never seen any like them. At one side, near the stem, was a button. I presume this was what he pushed on and off. It was kind of a stop watch, as near as I could make out, and on second thought, looked a helluva lot different than an ordinary one.
I raised my eyes to his. "So, what is it?"
"A rephaser," he said it without special emphasis.
Our drinks finally came. The waiter looked down at the gimmick, grinned at the sheriff. "Still got one, hey?"
"Yep."
The conversation sounded normal enough. I was apparently the only baffled party to this whole deal.
I reached out, touched it gingerly with my forefinger.
"What does it do? It looks like some kookie kind of a stop watch."
He nodded, slowly. "You could call it that, I s'pose. You could call it a back-up watch and be much more accurate, though."
"Oh?"
"Yep. See, when you step in front of a bus or jump out a window, or get charged by a bull, or ... well, hell, when you do amjthing that's going to get you accidentally hurt, it rephases you in time. Gives you a second chance. Or," he added, "I s'pose a third or fourth chance. As long as it's turned on. Only runs for ten, fifteen minutes, though. Then you have to rewind it. Although they forgot to tell us about that."
I considered this, feeling myself somewhere in the midst of a nightmare.
"They?"
"Yeah. The Vegans."
He said it matter-of-factly enough.
"The the Vegans?"
"Good bunch of boys," he said. He slapped the table with his hand. "Matter of fact, a damned good bunch of practical politicians. Out to get those votes. One way or another. You know?"
I didn't know. And I couldn't begin to guess. At this stage of the game, I felt like a soap bubble in a meat grinder. Lots of luck, kid!
"You've lost me," I confessed. "But I'll have another drink while I try to find you."
He tapped the "rephaser" with a thoughtful finger. "This is only one of the things they brought us," he said, "but it's the one that I know is going to get you insurance boys in an uproar. And that's mostly because the people they gave em to forgot to wind 'em. And then, if you want to be real honest about it, they ain't made very well."
"Ain't made very well," I echoed faintly.
"Well, put it this way. These fellers come here, to Earth, and they're campaigning for votes. Two factions of 'em. They got a little different system than we have, but not too different. Need votes. Make lots of campaign speeches, and give out lotes of goodies. Press your thumb in this hunk of plastic and you get a rephaser. Press your thumb in this hunk of plastic, get a lifetime supply of water, gas, electricity, gasoline, soup, milk. Whatever you want." He spat on the floor, not worrying about the waiter or the manager calling him. He represented the awful majesty of the law. "Trouble is, none of this junk lasted too long. Vegans," he added scornfully. "Big deal."
"Let's get back to the essentials," I begged, weakly. I wasn't too sure just what the essentials were, but it seemed a lot better to talk about them than sit here and listen to this dizzying bit of rhetoric I was getting. "You say these-people?-are from Vega. Just where is that?"
The sheriff looked up, startled. "You don't know? Oh, hell, that's right. You couldn't, could you? Well, it's some cotton-pickin' system a few hundred light years from Earth. From our own solar system. Look, let's forget lunch. You want to meet one? I got one locked up in the jail. The rest went back, but this one I got."
"You got a Vegan?" I was getting dizzier by the minute.
"Yes." He quickly nodded his head. "I got one, but I be damned if I know why he stays in jail. Why don't you ask him? He won't even talk to me.
We got up, left. I couldn't tell whether it was the martinis or the conversation that accounted for my slight stagger.
At the corner, the sheriff demonstrated the "re-phasing" trick again, this time causing a speeding truck with trailer to re-appear back up the street a hundred yards or so. Once again I saw the flickering as the phase mechanism cut in, and I again felt the unreality of the whole thing. How the hell was I going to explain this one to the home office?
At the jail, we went quickly back to a cell set well in the rear of the structure. There was a man seated on the let-down bunk. He looked like any other prisoner. Except he kept fading in and out of sight.
I wished desperately for an aspirin.
The sheriff watched beside me for a moment. "Funny, ain't it? I mean, the way he's there and then he ain't. Well, that's politics for you. On Vega," he added, ominously, "he's the same thing as a Republican."
"Oh?"
"Yep." He spat reflectively, sending a cockroach scurrying for a crack. "Shifty. Can't trust 'em. Bad bunch."
The man on the bunk didn't speak, didn't move. He sat as a stone image, not even blinking. I turned to the sheriff, questioningly.
"Guess I'll leave you alone with him for awhile. like I said, he won't even talk to me. Not lately, anyhow." He paused, thinking. "Not since the trouble about the rephasers."
"Trouble?"
"Yeah. Well, hell, people started to put too much confidence in 'em. like the kids they'd take their hotrods out and play chicken. Trouble was, they usually forgot to wind 'em. And sometimes," he glared at his prisoner, "they'd just give out. like so much of the stuff the politicians offer you. But this one was deadly. You know, you begin to depend on one of those damned things and it quits on you. The other junk they gave us was just as bad, but not as dangerous. Looked great for awhile, but petered out. Well," he spat again, and not a cockroach raised its head, "he's your man. I hope he'll talk to you." He turned, left me alone.
I studied the Vegan, now wholly visible. He could have been anyone, if he hadn't kept disappearing.
"Would you," I started to say, and suddenly he was standing beside me! Grinning!
I damned near fainted.
"But, why-"
"Why do I stay in the cell?" It was a pleasant, well-modulated voice. "I must. On Vega, we never break the law. I was arrested by this sheriff as a vagrant, with no visible means of support. True. I was arrested as an alien. True. Really, it doesn't matter."
I gulped. I guess you could say I was frozen in my tracks. "I'm confused. You're really from outer space?"
He vanished, came back into view, all in a split second. He nodded. "Yes. From Vega. Far too many light years away for you to even comprehend. We didn't really mean any harm to you people here on Earth. I'll try and put the situation in words you can understand. You're a newspaper reporter?"
"No, I'm an insurance investigator. We have a thing here on Earth called the Law of Averages. Someone, or something, has refuted it completely in this little town. We've had an exorbitantly high incidence of accidents here the past few weeks. Far too many deaths and disablements. An impossible situation."
He blinked in and out of existence. "Yes," he offered, becoming visible. "I know. Our fault. Our fault, altogether. Or, rather, the fault of the Galactic Foundation, as you would call it in your somewhat archaic language. We needed one vote for the next session. One vote."
"But all these accidents?" I asked.
He looked thoughtful, flashed in and out of my still incredulous eyesight. "Yes. You see, we're damned near immortal according to your time table. And it's fifty years of your time for our ship to get back to Vega. I don't know whether the sheriff told you or not, but we had to get thumbprints in a very special kind of plastic. For the Vote."
"The Vote?"
"Yes. It comes out like this-' he flickered on and off again. "We are extremely long-lived people. Not necessarily the people of my planet, but we spacemen. Possibly you've read about the optiman' which your space scientists are trying to develop? I'm one of them, but from a culture far more advanced. Civilizations rise and fall, cultures come and go, but we space people go on forever, almost literally. If I were to rephase myself into my own time sequence, it would take me ten of your years to blink my eyelids. Does this impress you?"
"I don't know," I told him. "Frankly, you sound like some kind of a nut! All I know is, my name is Kubek, and I work for an insurance company, and some bastard has screwed up our actuarial tables! Also, you haven't explained this 'rephasing' piece of junk, which seems to be our big headache."
He disappeared from my side and reappeared seated on his bunk, where he'd been when I first saw him. He just sat there and grinned at me.
I called the sheriff and got out of there.
We sat in the sheriff's office, discussing the matter, which was still far too exotic for me to assimilate.
"All right," I told him. "You've turned me off on a real kook. You say you want money from my company? Good! I say I want some proof from
He shifted his cud, and I winced as he looked around for a place to spit. "I'm prepared to write you a check for every dime you want. Now I want one of those rephasers for me, for my own, for the company. Put up, or shut up!"
He laughed at me, and opened a desk drawer. He stuck a hairy paw in, and pulling out a rephaser, threw it in front of me. "There you go, son. You now own a rephaser. It's yours as soon as we go to the bank with the check and it clears. Don't depend on it though, Boy, it's political."
* * *
That evening I was in the office with my superior. The rephaser was lying on the desk between us. We'd been at this for a couple of hours. Seated at my left was probably the best electronics technician in the business. The rephaser was opened, it's back was off. It was spread on the desk like a two dollar watch. The mechanism was alarmingly simple. There was a spring, a release mechanism, and a small piece of as-yet unidentified metal against which a small trigger hit.
"Chief," I was telling my supervisor, "this will make us millionaires! Here is what could be the absolutely fool-proof gadget which will cut our pay-out claims in half, the moment we issue one to each of our policy holders. Only thing we'll change, we'll put a self-winder on each one so as to eliminate the human element of forgetfulness. Mister Jackson," I asked the technician, "how much will it cost to make these?"
"In volume? Perhaps fifty cents apiece. That's if," he added worriedly, "we can duplicate the metal in that striking block. It shouldn't be too awfully difficult. I'm sure that with our vast research facilities, and our staff of expert metallurgists, it's a matter of not even days, but merely hours."
"Well," I said to my supervisor, triumphantly, "what do you think?"
"Who's going to test the first one?"
* * *
"And that's all that happened?" the glamorous woman in my arms murmured.
"Not quite. Because I volunteered for the test. But while I was waiting for the prototype to be made up, I had a sudden flash of inspiration. I quit my job, obtained sole rights to the rephaser. That wasn't hard. The company wasn't really sold on the idea anyhow."
"I don't get it."
I grinned, turned out the bed lamp. "You will, baby, you will."
I kissed her lips, nibbled at her tiny, shell-like ears, slid my mouth to the hollow at the base of her neck, then to first one lovely breast and the other. Meanwhile, she came alive under my hands. Her body whipped from side to side, as she started to moan.
"Oh, yes, darling, now take me!"
I felt her firm, quivering thighs clasp about me, as we rocked, with the rhythm of love and passion.
The almost unbearably beautiful climax was nearer and nearer and then I pressed the button of my rephaser (wrist model) and...
Nearer and nearer and nearer...
You could hear her screaming with pleasure as far south as San Diego and as far north as Sacramento.
I pressed the button again again again.
* * *
I dressed, placed the rephaser softly on the nightstand, kissed her gently on the forehead. She was snoring softly. I looked at the check in my hand. Another sale for ten grand. Outside, I looked up at the stars. I wondered which one was Vega.
"Thank you, men," I said softly, and I walked off to my next appointment.
"What's the difference between a computer and a--never mind. It's just that sometimes you wonder if there's any difference at all!"
DEAR MAVIS
I
I took the early San Francisco flight from International in Los Angeles on Trans-California Airlines so that I could get in a full day's work up there for my advertising agency. It's practically a commuter's flight, if it comes right down to that, taking off shortly before dawn and I was surprised to find that on this particular morning the plane was less than full.
Pleasantly surprised; I had several meetings to make, all vital ones for the firm, and I wanted this opportunity to go over my notes, the ones that had seemed fairly brilliant last night. I wondered how they'd stand up in the cold fight of day, so it was a genuine pleasure to have my seat all to myself.
For the brief spell I had it to myself, that is.
The "no smoking" light went off, I unfastened my seatbelt, and suddenly found myself with a companion.
I tried to ignore him after all, he'd moved over from across the aisle with the obvious intent of striking up a conversation, which I was in no mood for. No mood at all.
He was fortyish, fairly well set up, a shade ever six feet, plumpish without being fat. I noticed his hands, too. They were white, dainty, altogether unlike the rest of his appearance.
"Daniels," he introduced himself. "Danny Daniels."
I nodded as courteously as possible under the circumstances, and told him I was George Fedor. I tried to go back to my notes.
For a while he sat as motionless as a statue, not moving, hardly breathing.
His just being there sort of bugged me. I thought of asking the hostess for a pillow for him, inasmuch as he was obviously lost in a lethargic deal of his own.
"Don't bother," he said, anticipating my command. "I don't want to sleep. Anyway, I'm only going to San Francisco."
The hell with him and the milk of human kindness and consideration. I lifted my eyebrows, went back to my notes. Then I started to worry. It hadn't been so long since some nut had smuggled a bomb on board an airplane and tried to collect on the insurance. I looked with a great deal of caution at him.
Was he or wasn't he?
You never know with whom you travel these days.
"You're afraid of me, aren't you?" he asked. "Forget it. I'm not a criminal. Of any kind."
"What the hell have we got here?" I thought. "A mind reader?" I muttered something, pointed-turning my back and rustling my notes, although I found it completely impossible to concentrate.
There was a kind of strained silence. I guess a truce, you could call it.
All right. I'm curious. I turned back. "Light bother you?"
"The what? The light? Oh, no. Anyway, it's almost daylight. Thank you. Bother you? Shall I switch it off?"
It was a foolish question. I was seated beside the switch.
"If you don't mind..."
He reached past me, as I sat there feeling utterly foolish, and switched it off. He leaned back into his own seat.
We sat, more or less companionably in silence for a few moments.
"She was wrong," he muttered.
I wasn't sure I'd heard him.
"What?"
He smiled thinly, teeth barely showing in the semi-darkness. "Believe it or not, this is the third time I've tried to get on a plane tonight. I missed two just thinking about her. And about how wrong she was."
"An argument with a lady?" It was a polite conversational gambit, nothing more, but he sat up abruptly.
"A lady! What do you mean?"
"You just said 'she' was wrong." Oh, boy, I had picked a real winner.
"Oh. Oh, yes. So you immediately concluded I was speaking of a lady. The same idea occurred to her once. She also thought she was a lady." He shook his head.
There seemed to be a mixture of bitterness and irony perhaps even malevolence in his voice. I lit a cigarette, thinking that this was going to be some trip, boy!
I looked around for the stewardess, couldn't find her. The conversation, aside from the introductions, didn't make very much sense. I concluded that the guy was a first-class nut.
"I don't want to discuss this much longer," I told him, wishing to hell I had a drink in my hand, even at this untimely hour, "but being an advertising man, words are my business. When one refers to anyone as 'she' one naturally assumes the subject of conversation to be a lady. Or, at least, a female."
"Five or ten years ago that would be true. Would have been true," he corrected himself. "But not today. Not in our age my friend, Mr. Fedor, correct? The pronoun can now stand for any noun of the feminine gentler. If it's a question of semantics, this also happens to be one of my specialties. All pronouns are merely conventional symbols of a familiar code which brings an image to the mind of the gentler of any given object. In English, few inanimate objects have a gentler in the Romanic languages, few if any objects are neuter."
I excused myself, got up and went to the rest-room. I didn't have to go to the' restroom, you understand, I just wanted to get away for a few minutes. I lit a cigarette, smoked it, idly washed my hands, took a sip of water.
I had to go back to my seat sometime. I looked at my watch. Still forty minutes to San Francisco. I sighed, walked back. Some conversation I had going!
Daniels politely rose and stepped into the aisle as I reoccupied my seat.
"It's all a matter of coding," he said, as if there'd been no interruption. "Yes, that's it, exactly."
"Coding?" I asked, and, with the asking, unlocked a veritable floodgate of words from this erratic travel companion.
"Coding. A system of signals. Look: take the word 'train'. Add V and we get 'trains'. Many where there was only one before, just by the simple addition of one letter. A signal to our nervous centers, a signal which modulates our concept of a given object."
I thought about this. "Doesn't grammar have a term for these things?"
"Forget terminology," he waved his hand impatiently as if chasing away flies. "Forget it altogether. There's both more and less to it than that. Language, the spoken language and the written language they're far from perfect, you must agree. In order to converse intelligently, the average man has to learn just under a half-million combinations of words, letters and so on. On top of that, you must also have various grammatical forms, conjugations, and all."
"But you have to have them," I said. "How could you get along without them?"
"Ha-that's easy. Now we're talking about the simple thing to do! Reduce the alphabet. Take the first ten letters. Or, even, figures from one to ten. This would give you something like four million combinations."
"And we'd make sentences like 'one, three, four, one, seven."
"Quite possibly. Look, do you have any language beside English?"
I nodded. "A little Russian. Studied in the Army."
"Good. What is the Russian word for 'elephant'? "
I had to dig deep. "Slon."
"Correct. Nothing seems queer about this to you?"
"Why should it? One language is Russian. The other English."
"But the Russian word has only four letters, or symbols. The English word has twice as many. So, my friend, think of it as a symbol. To a well-programmed machine it would simply be four units instead of eight. Vastly preferable."
"But," I asked, "would a machine see the same thing I see when I hear either of the words?"
He laughed shortly. "Would it 'see' the same thing? Of course. Its memory banks would store the possible combinations of numerals and reject those not applicable. You do not find this amusing? Perhaps, not even very educational?"
I shrugged.
He ran his hands almost savagely through his shock of hair, then turned to me. "Look at it this way," he said, impatiently, as a stern teacher to an unruly or inattentive student. "Look at it like this: It isn't a case of words being translated. It's of the meanings of the words, or, rather, the images that such words evoke. Have you ever heard of the secondary signaling system in man?"
I shook my head.
"It's like this. Please try and understand. If you put your finger in a fire, you draw it back, hurriedly. You don't have time to realize why you do this, you do it without conscious thought. A conditioned reflex. Right?"
"Right."
He cleared his throat. "So," he went on, "but if just before you reach the fire someone cries out 'look out, you'll burn yourself, the same thing happens. You see, speech is our second signaling system. Words are only symbols, code, warnings. We react to the code just as we do to the actual phenomena. Now do you understand me?"
I looked indecisive, I think. This apparently satisfied him. , "Suppose," he went on, "that you'd been conditioned to recognize the numeral 'five' as a part of a code meaning, in effect, 'look out, you're going to burn yourself. Wouldn't you react in exactly the same way?"
I shrugged. "I suppose so."
He smiled in triumph. "If you can understand that, then, my friend, you must be prepared to go a step further. Why not a simple, uniform code, a programming pattern, with which to translate all the signals which we react to? Not only key words, sentences or even paragraphs, but all signals. The world we live in is perceived through our senses. The signals our nervous centers receive enable us to perceive, to move, to feel, to think. Do you follow me? Can you guess in what form the signals our brain receives from our outer organs are transmitted? In code!"
"In code?"
"Correct. Dot-dash. One-two-three. With uniformity. Thus, when you smell a rose, hear music, see beautiful girls, it's all coded into your brain, the final receiver, with dots and dashes, one, twos, and threes. It's that simple."
I glanced at my watch. Half an hour until touchdown in San Francisco.
He grunted, looking disgusted. "You think I'm crazy, don't you?"
I looked in desperation for the hostess. At least, for Christ's sake, a cup of coffee! She was still nowhere in sight.
"Well," I hedged it a bit, "well, I don't think you're crazy. But you're certainly enthused about your subject. Whatever it is. And I'm damned if I know what it is!" There! Let him gnaw on that pearl for a moment.
He bobbed his head up and down. "I probably am crazy, if it comes to that," he said, ignoring my remark. "Daniels is my name and computers is my game." He gave a wild burst of laughter, slapping his thighs and attracting the attention of other passengers aboard. "Computers," he went on. "A wonderful concept of the scientific brains. Let me tell you something, my friend: you can make them too smartF'
"Too smart for what?" I had to ask, like a fool.
"Why, too smart for people, of course. We've only a few minutes before we arrive in San Francisco. Let me tell you about Mavis."
I was interested in spite of myself, I'll admit. "Mavis?"
"That's what I named her. Machine for Advanced Vital Insurance Statistics. MAVIS. You see, the way it happened was like this: the company I used to work for got an order from a large an extremely large insurance firm. It wanted a highly sophisticated, yet portable machine that would do several extremely selective and sensitive operations."
"For example?
"Well, let's see. Examine new applications, reject or accept them. Examine claims for death, sickness or injury, fire and motor vehicle, marine and airplane. Approve or disapprove payment of claims. And, if possible, also handle the mortgage payments and all of the insurance company's investments which you may be sure are many and involved. Also, to approve or disapprove all extraordinary expenses on the part of company personnel, make out the payroll checks. There were several other functions specified as 'desirable, not vital', but this will give you a general idea."
I shook my head. "Doesn't seem possible to build a machine that large," I told him.
"Exactly what my company said. I differed. Rather violently. I got fired. I went to the insurance people myself, told them that if they would finance me, I would build them just such a machine. No one else would touch the job, you see. So I got a complete carte blanche on this. It took me almost a year to build it, and then transistorized and printed circuits became available. I abandoned my first machine, and started my new computer from scratch. In another six months, I had Mavis."
"And that's the story, eh?"
"Good Lord, no! If that were all, I'd have no problems in the world. You wondered, no doubt, why I kept harping on 'codes' of numerals. The electronic computer performs all its operations by means of code. Coldly, logically."
"And emotionlessly," I added. "And you forgot one other thing it must be programmed, right? By humans?"
"Without emotion? I'm not so sure, my friend. But my machine programmed itself!"
"That's impossible."
He smiled. "Nothing is impossible. I simply gave Mavis a scanning device. She quickly you see, I call the machine 'she' even now learned to use it. Translating the words I fed into her electronic impulses."
This was getting a little too deep for me. "I'm not a fool, you know. No machine can know what to do with impulses it receives. It wouldn't know the actual problem involved, nor what you'd want to do with the problem. Only the human mind can discriminate. Therefore, no matter what you say, no machine can analyze a problem. First it must be programmed to that specific problem."
"Ah. I thought you'd say that. I felt the same way at one time. In fact, I knew it to be a fact. In other words, is a machine capable of thinking? At one time, the mere idea was inconceivable. In 1955, machines that could translate from one language to another were invented. Some of the translations weren't bad at all.
"At any rate, it was a logical step from that to my particular specialty, which was increasing technical terms, mathematics, slang, everything, and improving the long-range memory banks of these machines. I finally developed a machine that could translate from any one of a dozen languages into another, with completely correct translations! Mavis literally used all the material I could feed her. To amuse myself, I removed her typing mechanism and installed, rather, a microphone and speaker. So now I had a machine that could both speak and hear. And with a vast storage system, you'd have to call it, that was almost completely unused."
"So that was Mavis," I said.
Daniels flushed. "No, not at all. That was a very young Mavis. You could, perhaps, compare her with a child genius. She could 'talk' in a sense, but it was mostly babble. You see, she was doing her utmost to talk logically, and of course that was impossible. I had to build two more signals into her, expressing approval and disapproval."
"And this worked?"
He chuckled. "Eventually. I made a terrible mistake by watching television one night when I noted Mavis carefully studying the pages of a book I'd brought her to read. For a solid week after that, I heard such gems as 'Please, mother, I'd rather do it myself and "The filter's just a quarter-inch away'. It's a mistake I never made again. Her logical brain had rejected all the so-called entertainment on television and retained the commercials as the lesser of two evils."
I thought this over. As an advertising man, I was inclined to agree with Mavis. For some reason, I found myself liking this machine, which, to a high degree of probability, existed only in the mind of this kook riding with me in the plane.
"And then?" I asked.
As he started to say something in reply, the stewardess finally came through the plane, busily announcing San Francisco coming up and reminding us to put out our cigarettes and fasten our seatbelts.
In the resultant bustle and well-ordered confusion of landing and de-planing, we had no chance to do other than exchange the usual banalities. Anyway, he was once again disinterested. His disinterest, if you want to know the truth, matched my relief.
At least he hadn't blown up the plane, and I realized with a small shock that I'd carried this idea in my mind ever since we'd met and started our conversation.
II
To make a long story short, if you don't mind cliches, my day didn't go as well as it might have. I'd had several appointments with our clients. Of these, three had not taken place. One was unavoidably out with the flu. One had just disappeared, presumably off on a drunk. The other had left word that he simply couldn't make it until tomorrow, but that it was important I see him then. Since this last was a client we were getting worried about, his message decided me. I'd simply have to lay over.
Well, my firm keeps a suite of rooms at a nice hotel which shall be nameless. I checked in, called Los Angeles, and explained my position to Ed Bitke, the particular vice-president who happens to be in charge of me, among other things.
"Good," Ed said, which surprised me. Bitke is ordinarily a slow man with a buck for the expense account. "Good. Look, George, something has come up which I want you to handle. Remember, we've been talking about a one-man office in San Francisco, to kind of keep on top of things there, right? Sort of a service office, really. Okay? Now, here's the scoop, baby there's a Miss wait a minute, I got a note here somewhere yeah, a Miss Nora Pohl going to call on you. Supposed to be very hep about public relations, long background in the field, good office manager. Tell you what," he said expansively and surprisingly, "take her to dinner and a few drinks.. Feel her out. If you think she's right for the job, we'll bring her down here for a couple of weeks of indoctrination, and all like that, know what I mean?"
I had a fairly good idea. She was probably fat, fortyish and giddy. And I was being stuck with the job of brushing her off. I wondered which of our San Francisco clients had recommended her for the job.
"Got you, dear dad," I said. "How badly do we want this paragon?"
"Now what the hell kind of a remark is that?"
"Mine not to reason why, huh?" I asked.
There was an ominous chuckle on the other end of the wire. "Now you got it. Yours but to do-or die."
"She's that great? Really?"
"So we hear. Don't goof on this one, George boy. Half a dozen agencies are after her. So, naturally, we want her. I'll have to call you about seven. Got it?"
"Right." He clicked down his receiver, and I called room service for a double on the rocks before I showered. I looked at my watch, and it was just fifteen minutes before seven.
My drink arrived in five minutes, and I was showered and in a robe when the phone rang.
This was a voice, believe me!
An hour later, we were in the dining room of my hotel, and I was talking to the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen in my life. Movie stars? Don't make me laugh!
This gal, this Nora Pohl, had everything I'd ever seen in the way of succulent feminine flesh backed right off the map. I was drooling all over the goddamned tablecloth.
How can you describe her? I'm not at all sure you can! A face like an only slightly fallen angel. Pouting lips, almost jet-black hair, beautifully coiffed. Eyes as dark blue as the deepest mountain pool. Pearly teeth. Softly-rounded shoulders, one on each side of the two most gorgeous breasts I've ever laid eyes on, daringly revealed by the teasing dinner gown she wore. And her waist and legs-God above, those legs! Almost too long to be real, swelling from tiny, thoroughbred ankles to gently rounded calves, dimpled knees and thighs that could keep you up all night talking to yourself!
She was, if you'll excuse the somewhat vulgar expression, a hunk of plunder that wouldn't quit.
I explained (I think) some of the firm's action to her. Every once in awhile I'd find myself babbling a bit, and while I sort of hoped she wouldn't notice, she did. No doubt of it.
She leaned over, touched me on the hand. "Mister Fedor," she said in that sultry, intimate voice. "Don't be embarrassed. Immodest as it may sound, I know I'm beautiful. I know I distract men. And some women. This is not, you understand, the easiest burden in the world to carry. There are times, many of them, when I'd like to be appreciated as just another person. For my ability. If I were in show business, or a model, I suppose my looks would be an asset, a stock in trade. Unfortunately, I have the double curse of being intelligent as well as attractive. They seem to work against each other." She smiled, wistfully and adorably. "Which makes me, in the end, a most lonely person."
"You?" I couldn't conceal the tone of incredulity that accompanied my voice. "You, lonely? Impossible!"
"You find that hard to believe? Let me ask you a question. A very simple one. You find me attractive, do you not? Even desirable?"
I gulped. This wasn't exactly, I recalled fuzzily, what our conversation was supposed to be embracing. "Of course I do." A brilliant reply.
"You mean that, do you?"
I nodded.
"So why don't you ask me to go to bed with you? Or at least make a move in that general direction?"
"Why should a beautiful girl like you want a slob like me to go to bed with her?"
She smiled a secret smile. "See what I mean? If I were a little less beautiful, a little less desirable, I could have the pleasure of accepting or declining such invitations. As it is, I receive no invitations. None."
I gulped, feeling like a goddamned schoolboy. "You got one now," I informed her, and it took a lot of doing to make the words come out. "I know what your answer will be, but still, you can't say George Fedor didn't ask. Now, shall we order dinner?"
"Here's your surprise, George Fedor I accept. And who needs food at a time like this? Shall we go to the suite your firm maintains here?"
We did, indeed.
III
I'll pass the rest of that night as lightly as possible. Let me say only that she tore my nervous system to ribbons. Nothing was too shocking for her. She even made some downright outrageous suggestions with which I happily went along. She seemed to derive a wild, strange sort of pleasure from catering to every evil thought that crossed me, crossed my mind. I'm fairly sure she even planted some of them there. I do know that I awoke at nine the next morning, and she emerged, like a lovely pagan goddess, freshly showered, and started to step into her clothing. I just lay there, too exhausted to move, and watched through a dreamy haze of cigarette smoke as she adorned that spectacular body.
I think no man has even known such a night of love.
"More, darling?" she asked. "One for the road?"
I groaned in sheer despair. "No chance, Nora. IV got to gather myself together and take care of my appointments. There's a Trans-California plane back to L.A. this afternoon. Why don't you join me for breakfast? I should be able to get through my appointments by one o'clock. You can be packing whatever you'll need to take with you, and we'll take the afternoon flight."
She finished dressing, smoothing one nylon, allowing me a glimpse of exciting girl-flesh above the long stocking top.
"You go ahead," she said, shrugging into her coat. "You get everything done. I'll grab a bite to eat at my apartment, and meet you downstairs at what time? One o'clock?"
"Better make it two," I told her. "Give me a chance to get my notes together. I'll have to do a bit of work on the plane," I said apologetically.
"I'll help you with that."
"Wonderful."
She blew me a kiss from the door and left.
Hoo-boy! The bed was even sagging a bit it must have been a hell of a session!
I debated calling room service for food, and decided that I'd make better time in the dining room. So I-showered, shaved, dressed and went on clown to the lobby. I bought a fresh pack of cigarettes and a morning paper, then went into the coffee shop for some eggs. And sausage. And coffee.
The waitress was kind enough to bring me a cup of coffee while my order went to the kitchen. I lit a cigarette, opened my paper to the sports section, took a sip of coffee and settled back with a sigh of contentment.
My mood didn't last long.
My kooky friend from the flight up, Dan Daniels, was on the prowl. He must have spotted me at once, and came straightaway to my table. Without an invitation from me (which was fairly un likely) he plopped down across the table.
The waitress brought me my breakfast, and Daniels or no Daniels, I was hungry.
"Thank God I found you, Mister Fedor," he started out.
I lowered my newspaper. "What does that mean?" I asked, rather inelegantly, through a mouthful of eggs.
He glanced in all directions. "I have good reason to believe that my life is in danger!"
Great! Jesus Christ! Just great! "Not," I told him, "from me, certainly."
He glared at me with burning eyes. "Don't try to pretend, Fedor. Don't even get started on pretending you don't know what I mean!"
I shook my head, wearily. I had appointments to make, and keep. A plane to catch, and, just incidentally, my breakfast to eat.
I dropped my paper, gulped my coffee, left the money plus a tip on the table. Forget the breakfast. "Daniels," I told him, and made a big mistake. "I'm sorry for your troubles, which I'm sure are all too real. However, I'm in the filthy, dirty area of commerce with my fellow men. I came to San Francisco on business, which I must now go out and conduct, to the best of my limited ability. If you're around here, say about one or two this afternoon, I'll be happy to be brought up to date on the latest of your adventures. Until then, I'm sorry, but I must run along. Nice seeing you again." And that was one of the blackest lies of my career.
Now, ask me why I said between one and two o'clock, and I can't tell you. A Freudian slip, a mental lapse, or maybe plain stupidity.
I got back to the hotel just after one. I went to my suite, packed, called the bellman and had the bag taken down to wait for the airport limousine. Then I walked into the lounge, half-hoping that Nora would be there early. She wasn't. But old reliable was! My friend, Daniels!
He sashayed right over. "Please, Mister Fedor, will you sit in a booth with me? Will you listen to me? I would like to buy you a drink. I realize I must sound well, irrational to you, but take my word for ti, my life is in danger. I doubt if you can save it, but I want to tell someone about it."
I sipped moodily at my double on the rocks. This ass was making a lush out of me. "Why don't you talk to the police?"
He smiled, and it was, surprisingly, a gentle sort of smile. "The police? I'd wind up in the loony bin. Who would believe my story? Except, maybe you, sir."
I sighed, and we got up and moved to a booth. I still had a little while before the limousine left for the airport. I told him so.
"That will be ample time to tell my story, Unless you interrupt. First, I must ask. you. You do know that strange things happen from time to time. Stranger than we can ever believe?"
"I suppose so."
"Accept that supposition."
"I shall. But let me tell you something. I'm expecting a young lady, a new executive for my firm, almost any minute. You will be nice enough to break this conversation off on her arrival?"
"My congratulations, and certainly. Now. Remember, no interruptions, otherwise there'll be no time."
"No interruptions."
IV
I'm not exactly sure (he said) where I left off the story about Mavis.
Her tremendous memory banks? Her vast thirst for knowledge? Her microphone and speakers, so that she could both hear and reply, there bypassing the ordinary channels of communication between Man, the Master, and Slave, the Machine? Oh, how quickly that concept changed!
You see, she knew her name.
Mavis.
One day she suggested that I build her a set of articulated arms, complete with at least rudimentary fingers.
"That way," she told me, in a softly-modulated voice, "I can turn pages without calling on you for help. I don't sleep, so there's really no reason I couldn't be adding to my memory banks at night."
I couldn't find any fault with that kind of logic. It made sense. There was a small item, although I didn't know it was small. I didn't know the first thing about servo-mechanisms such as would make possible the preparation of a set of articulated appendages. Mavis, however, did.
Acting under her instructions, I bought certain materials, took them back to my shop. There, I tooled them to her specifications, always aware of the beady eye of the scanner I'd built into her.
Finally, the great day came. I fitted her with the arms, she almost laughed aloud. Yes, believe it or not, there was a note of glee in her "voice."
Uncanny? Of course. But still understandable.
For a week, perhaps two weeks, she was as happy, I suppose, as a machine can be. She read complete volumes, day and night. My electricity bill soared. I mentioned this to her.
"We'll make me solar-powered," she suggested.
Again, I was stumped, and again, Mavis was at no loss whatsoever. We compromised, by giving her a set of eyes. One for scanning, the other for picking up solar radiation for charging solar batteries. Really, she did look better, somewhat more human, and thereby understandable, by having a pair of eyes, even if one was false.
Next, almost inevitably, came mobility. I built her, under her direction, a sort of tripod, tricycle arrangement, again powered, so that she could move almost at will, although ponderously.
You realize what I had got myself into, don't you? Here was a machine which was powered by sources other than common electricity, and which therefore could not be turned "on" or "off" as it might suit one's imagine. Further, a machine with a voice, sight, fantastic coding, programming and memory banks and, worst of all, self-propelled.
No, don't speak. Let me tell it.
Next, she tried to kill me.
Yes, just that simple. Logic, you see, was everything to Mavis. She had been reading, unknown to me "Gray's Anatomy."
To Mavis, therefore, it was only logical that she should dissect, or even vivisect, a human. I was the closest human. Ergo, I was the chosen victim, and we had quite a discussion about it. no
"Don't you see," she asked me, rather plaintively you might say, "that I cannot pursue my knowledge of that field any more without an actual dissection? Now, really, there's nothing more you can do for me. You've built me. Anything else you could conceivably do, I could undoubtedly do better. Therefore, it becomes urgent, imperative and absolutely necessary that I dissect you. Now!" , I explained carefully to her, appealing to her sense of logic, that she was only a machine, that I was a human, and as such, her master.
She scoffed at this idea.
"How am I to learn?"
I explained that it wasn't really the sort of material that was needed for her memory banks.
"Nonsense. If I'm to judge on accidents and fatalities for the insurance company, I must know a great deal more than I do about the human body."
It was irrefutable logic, and long before I could think of an answer that might even conceivably satisfy her, she had me pressed against the wall, seeking my jugular with her fantastically agile and strong steel fingers.
I'll never know what small amount of sense I had left so that I could remember that although she was articulated and mobile, complete with all the senses, she was still unable to bend or stoop. I fell to the floor between her front wheels and her flailing arms simply couldn't reach me. She backed off, baffled, then ran at me again.
Again, she couldn't reach me.
It would be easy to say or think that I had a machine on my hands that had gone completely crazy, but this wasn't the case at all. She'd gone completely logical.
And for this, I could blame no one but myself. After all, I'd been responsible for those logical programmings.
Now, before you interrupt, which I can see you're about to do, let me add this.
Mavis backed off from the second attempt on my life, focused her seeing eye on me, and whispered, plaintively, "You don't love me!"
It could have been, probably was a trap. Female logic. She couldn't dip her head to see exactly where I was, nor could she bend her body. I took a slight chance.
"No, I don't," I told her.
Her triangle-framed, wheeled body rammed yet another time against the wall, narrowly missing me.
Again, Mavis had something to say. "I'm a woman, a lady," she whimpered. "But I'm not entitled to the emotions of a lady. Why?
Outraged, I told her the old truth. That she was a machine and a machine only. That she was not entitled to human emotions or feelings, not being human.
I explained to her that she was not a woman, not in the accepted sense of the word.
"But what does a female human have that I don't have? Love? I love you. Compassion. I have all that."
I almost screamed at this. I questioned her as to how even her somewhat mixed-up logic-banks could compare murder with compassion.
"You're beyond your prime as a human animal, am I correct? Therefore, it is only logical that I, who love you, should end your misery."
I told her that she hadn't been properly programmed, either by me or herself on the subject of love. I explained that there were many kinds of love, not the least of which was compassion. Furthermore, I pointed out, if I were just a little beyond the best age for making sexual love, why should Mavis, a cold-steel, oil-and-bearing-and-transistor type of being criticize me?
"True." she muttered. "True. Logic. Indisputable logic. There are books on the subject?"
I told her there were books, certainly. Some factual, some pornographic, some fit only for adult ears and eyes.
"Sex," she muttered thoughtfully. "Sex. That's the thing."
For the next week, my dear Mister Fedor, she read twenty-four hours a day. Kraft-Ebbing, Karpman, Freud. She read all of mankind's available history on the subject of sex, both normal and abnormal. She proposed ways for me to make money, and they all could have worked.
Then she sent me out for materials. She only muttered and hummed happily when I asked her what she was up to.
"That," she announced happily, damned near blowing a 30-amp fuse, "is for me to know and you to find out!"
You can imagine my disgust with the entire project by this time. Yet, I was also completely intrigued!
Here I had what amounted to a perfect machine. It should have been ideal for the insurance company for which I'd designed it in the first place. Now, however, it was wrapped in a mysterious mantle of sex.
(He paused dramatically, sipping from his drink. I ordered another double on the rocks, glancing nervously at my watch. He noted my gesture, hurriedly resuming his narrative.)
"I see I have only a few moments, so I'll tell you the rest as briefly as possible."
V
Now this is me, George Fedor speaking, and I'll tell you, this guy was getting to me.
"She surprised me," he said, for the first time dropping that pedantic note I'd found so irritating. "She surprised the hell out of me."
I found myself suddenly believing his story, and I didn't want to. I even found, deep down within me, a little sympathy for the cat. If he'd truly gone through all of these phases, he was holding up much better than I would have done under the circumstances.
"You-" I started to say.
He held up a hand, interrupting. "Please, didn't we agree you were going to listen to me?"
I could only nod.
"So. Where were we? Ah, yes. She designed herself."
"Programmed, you mean."
He shook his head impatiently. "Of course she programmed herself. What I meant to say is she also designed herself."
"Into an attractive machine?"
"No. No, my friend. Into an attractive woman. And that's something to think about. Visualize, if you will, a machine in the form of a perfect woman. Brilliant. Lovely. Sexy. Yes, sexy. You see, she'd read all the books, seen all the late-night movies on TV. She was a combination of Gina Lollobrigida, Tuesday Weld, God only knows who else. The epitome and the ultimate of desirable womanhood of every age, race, creed or color.
"The materials I'd bought for her well, to be brief, she gave herself all the coating and much of the plumbing of a startlingly attractive female. Certainly all of the basic plumbing. I walked into my laboratory one night and there she was, sensationally, gloriously nude. What breasts, what thighs, what ... everything.
"There was a built-in thermostatic system that kept her at something in the area of 99 degrees. She wanted, you see, to be a bit warmer than the norm. Just as she had wanted her breasts larger and firmer, her legs longer, her waist tinier, her lips more pouting."
I had to interrupt here, whether he liked it or not. "You mean to tell me that a self-programmed machine (I'd already accepted, you see, the possibility) could build itself into the very image of a desirable, seductive woman? I find this ridiculous!"
"That's where you're wrong. Mavis not only could, she did. I should know. Well, forget that for the moment. Now, she employed her feminine wiles on me."
There was a moment of silence, as Daniels slowly shook his head, as if in disbelief of his own actions. "Would you believe me if I told you I made love to her? To Mavis?" His voice rose almost to a scream, and I looked worriedly around the bar. "It's true. Absolutely true. Mavis took me to bed. Believe me, my friend, she was better than any human could ever have been. You see, she'd programmed herself. I had a combination of Madame DuBarry, Pompadour, and as I said before, God knows who else. Fantastic. It was not until hours later that I was able to realize what a filthy, perverted thing I'd actually done. I'd made love with a machine!"
Frankly, at this point, I felt like vomiting.
Also, frankly, I more or less believed him. Not exactly every word, but the gist of it, if you know what I mean.
"And she left you?"
He nodded. "She left. Oh yes, she left. To conquer new fields. But, my friend, my life is still in danger. Shall I tell you why, or can you guess?
"I can guess. You, and you alone, know of her origin."
"Yes." He agreed with a solemn headshake. "You hit it, exactly."
"And so long as only you know of her origin, she needs to kill only you to keep the secret? That she is a machine, not a woman? And, as such, presumably both immortal and increasingly wise?"
"Not presumably. Almost certainly."
"And you think she'd kill you to protect this information?"
He assented with a strangely stiff gesture. "She would indeed."
I glanced again at my watch. Five minutes before my departure for Los Angeles. I snapped my fingers for another drink. I was giving his story some serious thought. "Assuming," I said, "that I believe everything you say. Assuming this, I repeat how could one protect himself against such a monster? I mean, what would one look for?"
He rolled his fingertips on the table top. 'Well," he offered, finally, "you could watch for several things. Really. She's fantastically heavy, you know. Although her servo-mechanisms work smoothly, you can't disguise all the weight. The sheer weight. She must go somewhere in the neighborhood of five or six hundred pounds. If she sat on an ordinary chair, it would sag. If she sat on a bad chair, it would inevitably break from her weight. There's that Only, of course, if she forgot, even for a second!
"Then, her strength, which is far beyond that of the human. My friend, she could reach out, grasp your arm, and break the bone to powder!"
I glanced at my watch again. Time for Nora and the flight to Los Angeles.
"I'll tell you," I said, "it's all been very interesting, and I honestly believe every word you've spoken. Unfortunately, I've got to make a plane. Thank you for joining me and for telling me your incredible story. I'm sure I'll never forget it, or you. I've been wondering as you've told me all this, just what you're doing in San Francisco? I don't mean to sound too personal, but has your visit anything to do with the-"
"Yes," he interrupted me, smiling bitterly. "I'm here looking for Mavis. Trying to turn her-off."
"Off?"
"Off. like the machine she is. I'm the only man in the world who knows how to stop her. I'm guilty, you see. Guilty of turning this-this monster loose on the unsuspecting world. So," he got heavily to his feet, extended his hand to me. "But now your own young lady will be coming. Thank you for listening to my story. You said you believed me. That was kind of you. I know you don't really. I can hardly believe it myself." He started to leave, turned back once again. "You know the worst thing to me? The fact that I not only made love with, but I fell in love with a machine!"
I shook my head as I watched his tall, lumpy and somehow pathetic figure cross the dining room to leave. It was a shambling gait, the gait of a man who has been whipped. A ridiculous man, therefore a pathetic man. There, but for the grace of God, could go I.
A bad thought.
I turned back to my drink, sipped it, set it down.
Nora came into the room, lighting it with her loveliness, and the pathetic man with his strange story faded from my thoughts.
She came up to my table, smiling brightly. I rose, smiling back.
"How nice to see you," I told her, meaning much more. "How very nice to see you." I pulled out her chair, and she sat. The chair sagged dangerously.
Almost as if she weighed more than she should have.
She grabbed the edge of the table so she wouldn't slip, and I swear to Christ I don't know why I said it, but I did. "Mavis?"
I watched in horrified fascination as the table edge ground to powder beneath her fingers.
I've had better days.
If you know what I mean.
"Gleep, Gleep--It just goes to show that you shouldn't talk to strangers in a bar, even a friendly place like The Beanery!"
AND THEY'RE ALL EXACTLY TWENTY-SIX YEARS OLD
I have to admit I was fairly intrigued. Well, I mean I've met a lot of nuts in my time, and a great many of them at Barney's Beanery. I know this is an illogical sounding name, but so help me God the place exists (at least, as of this writing) and the owner is a good friend of mine. I think.
Do I sound overly-cautious? Perhaps I am. I didn't used to be that way. Not at all.
like, I go to Barney's all the time. Too much, according to my wife. And there, without any question, you meet a lot of people. Some of them are real nuts. I'm sure that a lot of them, maybe even Barney, consider me in this category, too. Just because I'm a writer. A fairly good writer, you understand. By that, I don't mean the Great American Novel. You can knock that off right now. By "good" I mean that I work at it, harder than most people suspect, and that after I get so many pages written, it's sold. Almost automatically. Not under my own name, because that doesn't pull any weight. I had the fortune, or misfortune, to write a best-seller under a pen name. Now that's the only name my publisher is interested in.
If you're a writer, you know how this makes me feel. like I'm carrying someone around in my pocket.
Forget it.
Anyway, this one night, I'm sitting in Barney's, having a quiet, sociable drink.
This cat walks in, see, and asks if anyone has got a couple of hours to spare. He has to make a trip and he wants company.
Okay.
I'd just got a check from my publisher that morning and I felt fairly expansive. I wasn't planning on any more work for at least a week, and my eyes had turned what my friends call "Malibu Blue," which simply means that almost every time I finish a book, or get a check, I head for the beach. Don't ask me why, I don't know.
"A couple of hours," I had to say, being a nut. "I'll go with you." He was sober. At least, he looked sober. He nodded.
"I'm parked right around the corner on Hacienda Place," he said by way of acceptance. "Like another drink before we leave?"
I thought about my wife at home. She expected me by seven. It was five already. "Can you trim that two hours a little?" Then I thought a little more. "Listen, where are we going, anyway?"
He looked just a trifle offended. "If you don't want to go, I can always find someone else. It's just that my girl-friend gets a little nervous when I-"
"You're stoned?"
"On what? I've had a couple of beers. It's just that she well, she doesn't drink. None of her people do."
"Highly commendable," I said, finishing my bourbon. "Very nice. Stultifying, but nice."
"There's that," he agreed. "But it's a fact of life with her. With her people. They don't drink or smoke. Or anything bad. You know what I mean?"
"I don't know what you mean by 'bad', " I had to answer, "but if you mean what I think you mean, there's not a hell of a lot of future in your relationship with this girl, is there? Anyway, you still haven't answered my question. Where are we going for two hours, and de we leave now?"
He drummed the bar top nervously with his fingertips.
Finally, he cleared his throat. "I'm not sure your vibrations are right for this."
I slammed my glass on the bar, waved to Barney. "I'm goddamn sure they're not," I told him. "Why don't we forget the whole thing? I mean, like we didn't talk to each other. Nothing."
Christ! This was all I needed. Me, George L. George, boy writer, being suckered into a nut-trap by such an obvious character!
Vibrations, yet.
Well, all right. I live in Hollywood because I like the odd characters who inhabit it, frequent it, and sometimes contribute (unknowingly) to my livelihood. But I've trained myself without a great deal of effort to pass up the jerks who are the worst, like so far out you can't communicate, you know? How I'd missed on this one, I couldn't figure. Maybe because he looked so cotton picking normal. I don't know. My usual sixth-sense apparently hadn't been working.
He stuck out a very sincere hand, wanting to shake.
"I'm Jeff Morris," he announced in an unmistakable bray. "They call me 'reckless,' 'cause I'm from Texas I"
"Good on you," I muttered into my drink.
"I didn't catch the name?"
"Horatio Hornblower," I said. "Isaac Asiminov. Pierre Louys."
"Man," he said admiringly, "now that's what I call a handle! Old H.H.I.A.P. Louie! Buddy, I bet when they call you in a bar, you answer!"
I bet you I didn't. Not ordinarily. The telephone rang just about that time and it was for me.
Barney looked at me inquiringly. I framed a "who?" with my lips, and he pointed to the third finger of his left hand. The ring finger. My wife. A wonderful girl, but she turns into a crocodile from time to time. This was one of the times which is why I was, for Christ's sake, in Barney's anyway.
I shook my head "no", and Barney told her I wasn't there. No, he hadn't seen me. Yes, he'd give me a message if and when I came in. The message must have been a lulu, for you don't often see Barney turn pale. Under almost all circumstances he is a calm, self-contained man. This time he was damn near trembling.
I thought about it for a minute.
I turned to my new-found buddy. "About my vibrations," I said. "Are they really all that bad?"
"Partner," he assured me, "I wouldn't say they were bad. But you got to believe. And also," he added, "there's that business of you having to be back in exactly two hours. Now that sounds like a henpecked man to me."
Great. Here I was, a reasonably well-paid writer, being put on the defensive by an obvious nut. I mustered what dignity I could scrape up, and it took more than a little bit of scraping.
"Are you a married man?" I asked. "If you're not, you don't know the meaning of the phrase. All of us, one way or another, are henpecked. It's the old pecking system, you know?"
"Buddy, I know all about it. I'm a Texas boy, like I said. Listen here let's have us another libation and then we'll go out and see about your vibrations."
"I don't get this vibration bit," I said over my fresh drink. "I know it makes sense to you, but it doesn't make any sense to me. What the screaming hell do vibrations have to do with taking a two hour trip with you? Where are you going, anyway? Pacoima? Cucamonga? Some place like that?"
"Har!" he guffawed.
I resented this, although I admit it was a somewhat alcoholic resentment. "Har?" I asked with great indignation.
"Har de har, har!"
I climbed off the bar stool, looked around for something to belt him with.
"Look here," he said before I could find any loose bric-a-brac. "Look here. Let's us finish our drinks and plain go. Unless you're chicken."
I considered this for a minute, too. "I'm not chicken," I told him. "I don't know about my stinking vibrations, though. They might be chicken. Anyhow, what is this big deal you're taking me on? Something sensational?"
He smiled secretly into his drink. "How would you like to meet a redhead just twenty-six years old?" he asked.
"Depends on what she looks like."
He bobbed his head, still smiling. "She'll look great. Of if you'd prefer a blonde, that can be arranged, too. Or a brunette."
"Is she like your girl friend?" I had to know. "I mean, no drinking or smoking or anything bad?"
"Depends on what you mean by "bad', old buddy," he chuckled. "These gals don't consider sex bad, if that's what you mean. They consider it normal, like drinking water or blowing your nose."
I thought about this for awhile, too.
I stood up. "I'm ready to go check out the old vibrations," I announced.
He grinned knowingly, finished his drink, buttoned his sweater and started out the door with me. One thing sort of stuck in my craw. I asked him about it. "Hey do all these gals look twenty-six? Exactly?"
We reeled toward the corner, me thinking. He was humming some outlandish tune to himself.
I stopped him as we passed the liquor store. "Wait just a goddamned minute," I ordered. "How come not twenty-five or twenty-seven? Years old, I mean?"
He shrugged. "Beats hell out of me. They all just look twenty-six, that's all. Hey, buddy, how's those old vibrations doing? Think you'd recognize a space ship if you saw it?"
Whoa, Nelly!
"A space ship?"
He grinned. "That's what we're a-goin' on, partner."
A space ship. Well, I'd met 'em all, but this was a new type of nut. I sort of liked him.
"Gleep, gleep," I said, and belched.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Space talk," I assured him. "That's the way they talk out there in space when they're driving their space ships. Gleep, gleep."
"You're a funny son-of-a-bitch, aren't you? A real big man with the fast quip."
I poked a finger in his chest. It was starting to drizzle a little bit and I didn't want to stand around and get any wetter than was necessary. "Right. So tell me you got a space ship parked around the corner on Hacienda Place? Lots of luck, kid! Just out of plain old curiosity, where are you planning on flying, in two hours, where all the broads look exactly twenty-six years old?"
He told me, and I knocked him right smack on his behind, in the rain. Then I stalked back into Barney's Beanery, ordered an Irish coffee.
Barney grinned at me. "Thought you were taking a little trip, kid?"
I snarled something. He laughed aloud.
"Where'd he want you to go?"
"Forget it," I said. "He's a nut. A first class, all wool and a yard wide kook. One of your regular customers," I added, nastily.
"Seriously," Barney said, "where?"
"Get ready for it, buddy," I told him. "He wanted the to go to Earth with him. Where all the broads are exactly twenty-six years old! Boy, you get some winners in here. This must be the only joint on Venus with so many kooks."
Barney's feathers stood on end. He inadvertently clawed a glass in half, not thinking. "Earth? God almighty, I better put on a couple more signs. 'Earthmen, Keep Out'. Something like that."
"Unruffle, buddy," I said, preening my own feathers with my beak. "It takes all kinds. What the hell, it's a small Venus."
"Not that small," Barney said as he hopped down his perch to the other end of the bar.
"Once in a while, a compliment can be an insult and that's especially true on Ganymede!"
SPEAKING OF GANYMEDE-
It was before your time, son, that I'll tell you. This goes clear back to subjective space travel; I don't know if you youngsters in the service ever heard of it. It's a thing that's going to pop up again just as soon as those starliners go into service, if they ever get the appropriations set for them.
Well, I'll tell you: back in those days when we went out on a trip we were told we'd come back almost as young as when we'd left, but that things would be changed considerably here on Earth. Well, you know the legend that spacemen were especially bred for the job, for longevity and all like that. Hogwash!
Not a word of it is true. Never was.
It was simply and absolutely the fact, which was mighty hard to absorb even when it happened to you, that when we were gone from Earth three years as we experienced it, Earth and all the living things on it aged about seventeen, eighteen years.
Including our loved ones.
Lots of the guys, the married ones, found themselves younger than their sons after three or four trips. You can imagine what it did to the wives. To the marital relationship, that is.
Didn't do us any good, either, if it comes right down to that. You can imagine, maybe, what it felt like to come back a stranger every trip. Several of the boys cracked up altogether. The ones that didn't well, I guess we were a natural-born group of mavericks anyway. Loners. Really the best kind for spacing.
Now, of course, we got the time drive, so when it's only a matter of hours to Mar or Venus the time differential doesn't hardly mean anything. Although it exists. One thing you can't beat, it's the good old time-space continuum.
like, you're what? Thirty? All right, according to my actual years, I'm thirty-five, see? Only five years older than you.
I started spacing as a cadet at eighteen. I made five of the 3-year round trips. That would make me, let's see a hundred and ten years old by Earth time.
Sure I've seen a lot of amazing things happen on Earth. I've seen a lot of other amazing things happen, too.
Now that we're going for this rest and recreation week on Ganymede, let me tell you what to do and what not to do. You can get in a hell of a lot of trouble there if you don't know the ropes. They're always looking for greenhorns to swindle. You're liable to be working for nothing the next ten, twenty years.
No, you listen to the old man, son. I know that Ganymede like the back of my hand. Why not? I was there when it started!
II
Boy, did I ever know Ganymede! Colonel Eddie Roebuck (that's me), piloted the first shipload of convicts there! It was like an interplanetary Devil's Island, with much the same idea in mind. I had three hundred and ten of the most infamous, unreformable criminals in the world aboard, plus ten poor sons of bitches who were to handle the administrative end of things, plus a shipload of exotic, modern day items of equipment such as hammers, saws, nails, blankets, Clothing, shovels and picks.
Atomic Age, your butt!
They were of both sexes, naturally, and it was almost an even split, the men outnumbering the women perhaps by fifty head.
I dumped my cargo without even getting off ship. Who needed Ganymede? I reported my mission accomplished.
"Fine," Earth Command said. "Now, they got a load for you on Mars."
"Mars?"
"That's right. Even worse than our last batch. Incidentally, Venus is going to utilize the place, too, for the same purpose. Should be a real interesting place by the time you get back."
Very funny, I switched off my radio, programmed my craft for Mars and, immediately after blast-off, took myself a long, long nap.
It was just as well that I arrived at Marsport rested and somewhat relaxed. If you think Earth criminals can be unnerving, you should have seen those first Martian types. Both races, the Bipes and the Quads. And those Bipes well, you have some idea of what they're like. Beautiful humanoids but stink, Heaven Almighty!
I could smell 'em for a year after I unloaded that batch at Ganymede.
Meanwhile someone had brought in a load of Venusians, the scaly ones, and there'd already been two attempts to take over the settlement with a third one probably brewing.
So there you had the nucleus of a great little hell-hole. The scum and dregs of three planets and four races, thrown together in one, big ill-smelling heap.
I went back to Earth after that trip. Things had changed a lot, of course. Subjective time works both ways, so it had been, really, quite a few years by either Earth or Ganymedean time since I'd been in flight.
I was de-briefed, took my psych tests and physicals, got a fat paycheck, and went out on the town. Trouble is, I felt lost. No one really spoke my language. My uniform made me, in a way, an object of curiosity. Sure, the broads all went for me, the hustling type, that is, because any spacer generally is loaded with loot.
Aside from sex, though, I couldn't find anything in common with these people. So much happened, in those days, between trips that people just weren't with you. There were new tri-di stars, new books, new public figures. All that. New model air cars. Everything. Sort of like a guy getting out of prison. I guess.
As I say, those were the good old days, if you could take the loneliness. Paychecks, man! They paid us for Earth time, if you can imagine. And the salary wasn't bad.
On top of this, we got a bonus. So for two or three years actual work you got fifteen or eighteen years salary, plus a whopping bonus. You could call me a millionaire without being far off the mark. And I retire in five years at full pay, or have my choice of taking a plush desk job at a salary increase.
Anyway.
I wandered around for a few days, lost, kind of, then drifted back to the area near the spaceport. There were a dozen or so other "Astronauts" (that's what we used to call ourselves, honest!) hanging around, too, just as bugged as I was.
They'd all heard of Ganymede, and I spent a lot of time with them telling them about it.
So, one afternoon when we'd all had a few too many drinks, one of the jokers said: "Hey I got an idea. We got plenty of money for a charter. Why don't we chip in, lease a decent ship and go check the place out? We'll get one of those new time drives, and hell, we'll be there in a week."
I didn't know much about the new drive, although I was interested as it meant I could lead some kind of normal life, maybe.
Well, it took some doing but we finally got clearance.
When we hit Ganymede, that's about all we had left after our deposit with the firm we'd leased the ship from. Murder.
Anyway, we thought, and consoled ourselves with the thought, that there was damned little on Ganymede on which you could spend money.
Were we ever wrong!
Thirty-five ... no, thirty-six years had made quite a change. Remember, this was subjective time to all of us.
The scum of the solar system, and they'd organized. Vice, gambling, narcotics, booze. Oh, they were really organized, all right!
The administrators? Hell, they were fat and happy, loaded with illicit loot, shacked up, half-drunk or dazed with narcotics. The criminal element had taken over completely. One thing, though: they were taking in each other's washings for a living if you know what I mean.
They rolled out the red carpet for us.
Treated us far too good, actually. Hell, what little money we had left didn't count for a thing, they just wouldn't accept it.
After a few lecherous and carefree days and nights, we got the reason. We were supposed to go and spread the word that Ganymede was the place to visit if you were a spacer!
Of course, in the last thirty or forty years of their time things have improved to where it's the place for anyone to go who really wants to wallow in vice. Fabulous. The women?
Kind of hard to explain the women, if they were women, that is. They were, at least many of them, three and four way crosses between Earth, Martian Bipes and Quads and scaly Venusians.
The male members grew either hideous or handsome. The females were damned near all ravishing. Somewhere along the line a type emerged, which you could only call "Ganymedean".
The sheer beauty of the Martian Bipes, minus their stink. The green eyes and lithe grace and the cold, reasoning, logical mentality of the scaly Venusians all this with the conniving minds and lustrous hair of the Earthwomen. And, an important factor, the endurance plus the unemotional determination of the Martian Quads.
Strangely, none of the women from this curious melange of racial mixtures ever developed more than two legs. Some of the men developed four legs, plus arms. Some developed only three. The three-leggers retained most of the characteristics of the original Quads. The Quads, the new ones, that is, didn't.
There were all sorts of curious mixtures to be found, and there's no reason talking about it. Name it, any possible combination, and you could find it.
But the women boy, the women! Fantastic. Lovely, beautiful, supple, pneumatic, pliable, willing and anxious!
The whole damn planet was completely amoral, immoral and rotten to the core.
And lots of fun!
I'll say one thing, that first group of which I was a member, relished it. We'd never had a better idea.
We spent a solid week at it, knocking our brains out. With, I might add, the more than enthusiastic cooperation of the natives.
We dragged ourselves back to our spaceship, wagged our heads at each other, and took off for Earth. We were a tired bunch of cats, what I mean!
But when we got back, we spread the word, all right! What a place for a spacer to vacation! Name it, and it was immediately available. You could do anything you liked, anyway you liked, as often as you liked. Nobody thought you were strange, because the Ganymedeans were the strangest of all!
III
The city, the principal one, at least is called, simply "A".
Good a name as any, I guess.
With my permission, Jim Moran, my copilot to whom I'd been giving all the good advice, landed on the flaming jet of our rockets. We landed easily, which isn't too difficult to do under the extremely light gravity. No matter what the experts tell you, take my word for it gravity on Ganymede is exactly one-tenth that of Earth. Good to know when you're a stranger here. You're ten times as strong as you would be on Earth. Sometimes this comes in handy.
I pressed the green button which unlocked the doors and turned on the "LANDFALL PLEASE EXIT" lights back in the main cabin. Really, you start to feel more like a bus driver every day, but I guess you can chalk it up to progress.
We had two hundred and fifty paying passengers aboard, which made it a profitable trip for us. A real profitable trip.
When the last passenger had disembarked, I p-essed another green button which allowed the porters outside to open the baggage compartment. I grinned to myself, thinking of the reason the porters were always so available on a high-priced spa such as Ganymede. First, they ran their own customs service. Which means they went through every piece of luggage arriving or departing the spaceport, and removed any items that might be of value. You could buy the same radio, razor or risque set of pictures ten times over. While any sort of pornography could be purchased on Ganymede, you just couldn't get it off-planet. Diamonds, rubies, pearls, precious metals went for a song on Ganymede. But they stayed there!
Nothing that you bought, except trinkets, would ever be taken off Ganymede. It made for a nice economy.
Jim fussed around, shutting off this and that, making notes of procedure, arrival time and so on until the yellow light came on telling us that all landing procedure had been accomplished, that both passengers and baggage had been unloaded.
"Well, boy," I told him, cutting off the main power, leaving only the auxiliary running, and pocketing the keys (this last as necessary on Ganymede as keeping your legs crossed) "here we are. Two weeks to do nothing but preserve our sanity and what little virtue we have left."
"Debriefing?"
I laughed aloud. "On Ganymede? Forget it. No one here gives a damn. They just want to see the color of our money, buddy. You want to strike out on your own? Or you want to stick with me? I know all the good places. And, more important, all the bad ones, unless they've come up with some new ones, which seems more than likely."
Jim flushed a little as he gathered up all his paper work, placed it carefully into an attache case. "Come on, now," he said. "It's not all that bad. Hell, I mean there's some culture here, isn't there? Art galleries? Museums?"
I cracked up laughing. "Culture? More than any place you've ever visited in the solar system! Know what the Ganymedean culture is? Milk the pigeon! Get the greenhorn before someone else does. If they've got a museum, which I doubt, it'll be composed of a collection of emptied wallets and split skulls. Look, get it through your head you're a big boy. If you want to go on your own, go ahead. You won't be physically harmed. These cats don't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. No, indeed. No spacer has ever come to physical harm here. Well, not by violence, anyway. Although," I reflected, "you can't necessarily say the same about tourists. About the worst purchase in the universe is a roundtrip ticket to this place. I bet you we lose fifty of our party, minimum."
We took a last check around the control room. Everything in order and two glorious weeks on Ganymede.
"Wait a minute," I told Jim. I took out my wallet, counted out half my money, which was several thousand dollars, and stuck it up behind a control panel. "Getaway money," I explained. "A bit more difficult to do when you leave here."
He nodded, took the hint, emptied half his wallet, and hid the money, too. For the next two weeks, this ship would be sealed, locked and inviolate. The only safe place on all Ganymede. Oh, they had banks, but the Ganymedean banks made slight mistakes, and never in your favor. It was house odds from here out.
We swung down the companionway, down to the airlock. I took a last look around. I heard a faint clinking nearby. It was the robot servant which served food and drink to our passengers. I went over, turned it off after directing it into a quiet corner so I wouldn't fall over the damned thing when I came back aboard.
That seemed to be it. "Ready?" I asked Jim.
He nodded, and I unsealed, for the last time, the hatch leading to the runway which was simply an inflated rubberoid tube that led from the ship to the protective envelope of the bubble, plastic, that covered "A". You see, Ganymede has only a rarified atmosphere. Okay for the original Quads and Bipes, but not worth a damn to the new generations, nor to Earthmen or Venusians.
We walked perhaps twenty paces, then stepped onto the moving walk, which whisked us, busily, into "A".
"What do we do now?" Moran asked.
"Nothing. Just wait. Follow dad's lead. One thing about Ganymede the service is almost as high in standard as the prices. Watch."
We stepped off the moving ramp and were surrounded by solicitors for the leading hotels cum whorehouses cum casinos cum saloons on Ganymede. Spacers were always welcome, more than welcome. The tourist might have spent damn near his last buck getting here, but the spacer always had a few dollars in his pocket.
English, strangely enough was the going language, although signs in some of the joints advertised the fact that Martian or Venusian was also spoken.
I waved them all off, except a familiar figure. He was of the new breed, a Tripe, and I thought I recognized him.
"Aren't you Balka, from the Marmar Hotel?" I asked him.
He nodded idiotically, drool gathering at the corners of his somewhat equine mouth and hobbled over to reach for our two attache cases. I shook my head at Jim, held the cases out of reach.
Roebuck," I said, pointing to my badge which carried one of the lowest numbers in space. "Roebuck. Remember?"
He sat down, using his third leg as a prop, rolled yellowish eyes back in his head and pretended to think. Moran looked at me accusingly, just as if I'd asked a complete idiot to perform an impossible mental equation. I grinned.
"Balka," I said softly. "No chance. Forget it. You can't think of a way."
The eyes rolled back into focus and he stood up, shrugging. "You haven't changed, Major," he said, agreeably.
"Colonel."
"Really? How time flies! Ah well. The Marmar? We welcome you. We only got about thirty of your party, Roebuck. What did you do, warn 'em off?"
We climbed into the hotel cab and took off. The panel slid down between the driver's compartment and us.
"Careful what you say," I warned Moran. "The cab's bugged. Balka can hear every word we say."
The panel slid back down. Balka grinned again in the rearview mirror. "Might as well have the ventilation," he said. "I keep forgetting about you, Roebuck. You're a real old timer, aren't you?"
"The oldest," I assured him. "The very oldest. A lot longer than you. So what's new on Ganymede?"
"Not a thing. Same old racket, same old juice. The administration gets a little but leaves us enough. A new hatch of lovelies and get this: almost half-Venusian. Fabulous. Some of 'em are still a little scaly, like, but that'll breed out in time. Next trip down, you'll see. I expect I can set you up with a half-dozen or so little Martian charmers, though. Former Quads. No stink. Seriously, we're doing a lot with genetics here. Seriously."
I started to say something, but Balka suddenly screeched to a halt, drew a blaster, and burnt down a really green, original Venusian scaly.
Moran gasped, made as if to draw his own side piece, but I restrained him. Purple puffings on the side of Balka's neck slowly subsided. He put his blaster away, turned and grinned apologetically.
"He wouldn't pay his tab," he said. "Owed me almost three hundred bucks. He had it coming."
"Open murder?" Moran whispered into my ear.
"On Ganymede," I explained, "it's at least quasi-legal and completely acceptable. Saves paying collection agencies."
Balka smiled at us, displaying those horse teeth. "I feel better about that bastard, somehow," he said. "He sure had it coming. It's been one of those weeks, Colonel. Know what I mean?"
"This," Moran asked me, "is a vacation spa? A resort-type place?"
"Take a look," I invited as we pulled up in front of the Marmar Hotel. "Just read the signs."
They were pretty sensational, all right. More so than I'd remembered.
FIFTY BEAUTIFUL WHORES FIFTY
That's what one "crawler" sign announced every minute.
WE NEVER CLOSE ALL THE ACTION ALL THE TIME
So read the green neon underneath the top sign.
A really big sign flashed on and off over the top of the hotel.
VICE IS NICE! ENJOY IT HERE!
You sort of got the idea. I chuckled to myself as Moran climbed slowly out of the cab. The "doorman" was wearing long stockings, high heels, a garter belt and that's about all she was wearing. Oh, on one stocking was the greeting, embroidered: "Welcome to The Marmar. Home of Whatever You Want".
Believe me, on the upper thigh of this gorgeous creature, this sign got more attention than all the neons in the galaxy.
Balka chortled. "First time here, huh? Nothing. Not a red cent. We'll get it back. I already called ahead for your reservations. Separate suites?"
I said yes, which solved it nicely. Frankly, I didn't like the idea of the boy staying by himself his first night on Ganymede, but I realized that at age thirty he should have a little common sense.
Well, we hit the desk, checked in, and were escorted to our rooms by the "bellmen", who were cunningly attired, as were most of the girls on Ganymede, in garter belts, sheer stockings and high heels. Get the idea. All the so-called "intimate" services at the Marmar, or, for that matter, any other luxury hotel on Ganymede, including room service, parking porters, bellmen, doormen, waitresses, maids all wore just about the same costume. And all were girls. Lovely, gorgeous, seductive, tantalizing, willing and more than completely available girls.
I slapped the kid on the back, mounted to my room. Lovely. My female bellhop turned on the air-conditioning, flushed the toilet experimentally, turned back to me, rather uncertainly and asked, with a grind and a bump that would have done more than credit to any tri-di queen: "May I serve you in any other way?"
You couldn't miss what she had in mind, kiddo.
"Later, perhaps." I tossed her a few bucks. She bobbed, curtsied, threw me another grind and bump, then left. Reluctantly, I might add.
I decided to take a small nap. I put my wallet under the pillow, hung my clothing in the closet. On second thought I went back to my clothing, took out my handkerchief and comb, and my insignia. I knew there was a sliding panel in the closet. I also knew that these rascals would steal anything, including used handkerchiefs.
I stuck everything under my pillow. Then I undressed, lay down, and double-checked everything I'd stuck out of sight.
I stuck a chair under the doorknob, tried to figure what else I'd forgotten.
On a planet that is completely evil, you have to sort of reverse your thinking. like, you don't ask yourself "what have I done wrong?".
You ask, rather, "what have I done right?" And this is probably a mistake. All values change. Figure it out for yourself.
IV
Time passed, as time will, no matter by whose calendar. I awoke, aware of someone in my suite beside myself.
I snapped on the lights.
"I'm sorry," she said, cringing. "I'm ashamed."
"You should be," I said, sternly. "Clumsy. Woke me up. Pretty bad, really."
She bobbed her head. "Sorry. You deserve better."
"I deserve the best. The very best. In fact, I deserve and require the finest on Ganymede. Do you have any specialties?"
"Not not really. I'm willing to try, though. More than willing."
I grew stern. "Call Balka."
"Balka?" She was really terrified.
"Balka!"
She went to the telephone. Balka appeared in a matter of minutes. "Yes, Colonel Roebuck?"
I pointed a finger at the cringing girl. "This is the best you can do? For me?"
"Clumsy?"
"Terribly clumsy. She even woke me up. If I don't rate better than this, I'm going to bad-rap you all over the solar system. She even admits she doesn't have any specialties."
Without speaking a single word, Balka pointed to the door. Cringing, the girl left. Balka sighed as the door closed softly behind her.
"Old friend," he said to me, "you must forgive me. That's one of the new hatch. Perhaps too much Venusian. Did she feel ... scaly?"
"I have no idea. I didn't feel her. Anyway, she didn't come to love, she came to steal."
Balka was horrified. "And you caught her?"
"Indeed."
He wagged his head sadly. "I don't know what we're coming to. I tell you, Colonel, the planet is coming to pieces. It just isn't what it used to be. Remember the good old days, when a girl could wipe out your entire pay without waking you? When you could have a dozen varieties of love in a night? We just seem to be losing our grip. Well, I'll send you another girl. Will one be enough?" The last was, on Ganymede, a polite inquiry.
"One will be more than enough. Is she accomplished?"
He chuckled, proudly. "This one is. An accomplished thief, a basic prostitute. With specialties. Rotten to the core, a real, true Ganymedean. Three-quarters Quad."
This was the highest praise Balka could give, and I felt I was really getting something for my effort.
He left, promising to have the girl in my hands within a half-hour.
It was less than fifteen minutes, actually, when she arrived. I gasped at the sight of her as I opened the door to my suite.
She was fantastic. Whatever had evolved from the Quads, she certainly had to rate among the tops. Breasts that were firm, round, proudly jutting and gelatinous.
Thighs that whispered of delights to come as they brushed silkily against each other.
In bed she was not only delightful and satisfying, she was demanding. Her lush hips ground in a swivel-pattern under my guiding hands, and as she accepted me, I felt as if I were being overwhelmed by creamy velvet!
She left me in a few hours, making false promises to return. I lay back, relaxing, smiling to myself.
I knew she'd swung with my bankroll, even my rings.
Balka rang me up about seven the next morning.
"Never mind the bankroll," I told him before he could apologize. "Just my rings. And whatever else she nailed."
"She was that bad, eh?"
"The worst. The absolute end."
"I'm glad," he said. "I'm glad I was able to give you the very worst. I'll return your money, of course. You'll be leaving soon? You'll mention little old Balka around the system?"
I laughed. "You may be sure. As the rottenest, most evil being on Ganymede."
"Wonderful. Next trip up, I'll try to find a girl even more evil. But this one will be so happy to hear your opinion that she'll probably demand more money. Or the right to keep a stiff percentage of what she steals. Well, that's show biz." We rang off.
I showered, shaved, dressed, returned to the launch pad. Not as bad as I'd thought. Only a few pieces of metal were missing from the fins. Let's face it, cadmium was getting too commonplace to be worth the effort. I thought back to the good old days when you literally had to damn near buy your whole tail-assembly back from the junkyard to get off the planet.
The kid showed up in about an hour. Visibly shook.
"Nice night?" I asked him, as we strapped in.
"We're leaving now? I thought we were going to be here for a couple of weeks?"
I turned on the auxiliaries. "That's a standard cover story," I informed him. "Nobody in his right mind stays here more than a day or so. Especially spacers. Hell, another day and we wouldn't have a ship. They'd have it cannibalized and gone in forty-eight hours."
I turned on the gyros, the computer-bank, the switch that warmed up the power-pile.
We were getting ready for blast-off.
Moran went through the motions, but he wasn't with it. "Have a good time last night?" I asked.
T don't understand this place. The gambling joints were actually advertising crooked games! The bars were announcing their drinks were watered!"
"And?"
"And the girl I had last night well, you figure it out! She was fabulous in the sack. Cooperative, willing and I guess you could say she had diversified talents. When we'd finished I told her how good it all was. You'd think I'd insulted her! She damn near tore me to ribbons. It'll take a month for the scratches to heal!"
"You actually used the word 'good' to her?" I asked, smiling to myself. I turned on everything, started the countdown.
"Sure. Why?"
"Boy." I told him, kicking everything off and feeling the familiar sensation of six G's hitting us, "Boy, you couldn't have said anything worse. Don't you know that here, on Ganymede, 'bad' is the norm, and 'good' is the very worst thing you could say?"
He thought about this.
We headed for Earth.
I reached under the control panel, got my money back.
I heard him. It was just a whisper. "I'll be damned."
