Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  Pathis was a tall, imposing man, dressed in a conservative tweed drape. His eyes had the crinkled corners of a man who laughs frequently. He beamed broadly and shook Carrin’s hand, looking around the crowded living room.

  “A beautiful place you have here, sir. Beautiful! As a matter of fact, I don’t think I’ll be overstepping the company’s code to inform you that yours is the nicest interior in this section.”

  Carrin felt a sudden glow of pride at that, thinking of the rows of identical houses, on this block and the next, and the one after that.

  “Now, then, is everything functioning properly?” Mr. Pathis asked, setting his briefcase on a chair. “Everything in order?”

  “Oh, yes,” Carrin said enthusiastically. “Avignon Electric never goes out of whack.”

  “The phone all right? Changes records for the full seventeen hours?”

  “It certainly does,” Carrin said. He hadn’t had a chance to try out the phone, but it was a beautiful piece of furniture.

  “The Solido-projector all right? Enjoying the programs?”

  “Absolutely perfect reception.” He had watched a program just last month, and it had been startlingly lifelike.

  “How about the kitchen? Auto-cook in order? Recipe-master still knocking ‘em out?”

  “Marvelous stuff. Simply marvelous.”

  Mr. Pathis went on to inquire about his refrigerator, his vacuum cleaner, his car, his helicopter, his subterranean swimming pool, and the hundreds of other items Carrin had bought from Avignon Electric.

  “Everything is swell,” Carrin said, a trifle untruthfully since he hadn’t unpacked every item yet. “Just wonderful.”

  “I’m so glad,” Mr. Pathis said, leaning back with a sigh of relief. “You have no idea how hard we try to satisfy our customers. If a product isn’t right, back it comes, no questions asked. We believe in pleasing our customers.”

  “I certainly appreciate it, Mr. Pathis.”

  CARRIN hoped the A.E. man wouldn’t ask to see the kitchen. He visualized the Castile Motors Bartender in there, like a porcupine in a dog show.

  “I’m proud to say that most of the people in this neighborhood buy from us,” Mr. Pathis was saying. “We’re a solid firm.”

  “Was Mr. Miller a customer of yours?” Carrin asked.

  “That fellow who killed himself?” Pathis frowned briefly. “He was, as a matter of fact. That amazed me, sir, absolutely amazed me. Why, just last month the fellow bought a brand-new Jet-lash from me, capable of doing three hundred and fifty miles an hour on a straightaway. He was as happy as a kid over it, and then to go and do a thing like that! Of course, the Jet-lash brought up his debt a little.”

  “Of course.”

  “But what did that matter? He had every luxury in the world. And then he went and hung himself.”

  “Hung himself?”

  “Yes,” Pathis said, the frown coming back. “Every modern convenience in his house, and he hung himself with a piece of rope. Probably unbalanced for a long time.”

  The frown slid off his face, and the customary smile replaced it. “But enough of that! Let’s talk about you.”

  The smile widened as Pathis opened his briefcase. “Now, then, your account. You owe us two hundred and three thousand dollars and twenty-nine cents, Mr. Carrin, as of your last purchase. Right?”

  “Right,” Carrin said, remembering the amount from his own papers. “Here’s my installment.”

  He handed Pathis an envelope, which the man checked and put in his pocket.

  “Fine. Now you know, Mr. Carrin, that you won’t live long enough to pay us the full two hundred thousand, don’t you?”

  “No, I don’t suppose I will,” Carrin said soberly.

  He was only thirty-nine, with a full hundred years of life before him, thanks to the marvels of medical science. But at a salary of three thousand a year, he still couldn’t pay it all off and have enough to support a family on at the same time.

  “Of course, we would not want to deprive you of necessities, which in any case is fully protected by the laws we helped formulate and pass. To say nothing of the terrific items that are coming out next year. Things you wouldn’t want to miss, sir!”

  Mr. Carrin nodded. Certainly he wanted new items.

  “Well, suppose we make the customary arrangement. If you will just sign over your son’s earnings for the first thirty years of his adult life, we can easily arrange credit for you.”

  MR. PATHIS whipped the papers out of his briefcase and spread them in front of Carrin.

  “If you’ll just sign here, sir.”

  “Well,” Carrin said, “I’m not sure. I’d like to give the boy a start in life, not saddle him with—”

  “But my dear sir,” Pathis interposed, “this is for your son as well. He lives here, doesn’t he? He has a right to enjoy the luxuries, the marvels of science.”

  “Sure,” Carrin said. “Only—”

  “Why, sir, today the average man is living like a king. A hundred years ago the richest man in the world couldn’t buy what any ordinary citizen possesses at present. You mustn’t look upon it as a debt. It’s an investment.”

  “That’s true,” Carrin said dubiously.

  He thought about his son and his rocket ship models, his star charts, his maps. Would it be right? he asked himself.

  “What’s wrong?” Pathis asked cheerfully.

  “Well, I was just wondering,” Carrin said. “Signing over my son’s earnings—you don’t think I’m getting in a little too deep, do you?”

  “Too deep? My dear sir!” Pathis exploded into laughter. “Do you know Mellon down the block? Well, don’t say I said it, but he’s already mortgaged his grandchildren’s salary for their full life-expectancy! And he doesn’t have half the goods he’s made up his mind to own! We’ll work out something for him. Service to the customer is our job and we know it well.”

  Carrin wavered visibly.

  “And after you’re gone, sir, they’ll all belong to your son.”

  That was true, Carrin thought. His son would have all the marvelous things that filled the house. And after all, it was only thirty years out of a life expectancy of a hundred and fifty.

  He signed with a flourish.

  “Excellent!” Pathis said. “And by the way, has your home got an A.E. Master-operator?”

  It hadn’t. Pathis explained that a Master-operator was new this year, a stupendous advance in scientific engineering. It was designed to take over all the functions of housecleaning and cooking, without its owner having to lift a finger.

  “Instead of running around all day, pushing half a dozen different buttons, with the Master-operator all you have to do is push one! A remarkable achievement!”

  Since it was only five hundred and thirty-five dollars, Carrin signed for one, having it added to his son’s debt.

  Right’s right, he thought, walking Pathis to the door. This house will be Billy’s some day. His and his wife’s. They certainly will want everything up-to-date.

  Just one button, he thought. That would be a time-saver!

  AFTER Pathis left, Carrin sat back in an adjustable chair and turned on the solido. After twisting the Ezi-dial, he discovered that there was nothing he wanted to see. He tilted back the chair and took a nap.

  The something on his mind was still bothering him.

  “Hello, darling!” He awoke to find his wife was home. She kissed him on the ear. “Look.”

  She had bought an A.E. Sexitizer-negligee. He was pleasantly surprised that that was all she had bought. Usually, Leela returned from shopping laden down.

  “It’s lovely,” he said.

  She bent over for a kiss, then giggled—a habit he knew she had picked up from the latest popular solido star. He wished she hadn’t.

  “Going to dial supper,” she said, and went to the kitchen. Carrin smiled, thinking that soon she would be able to dial the meals without moving out of the living room. He settled back in his chair, and his son w
alked in.

  “How’s it going, Son?” he asked heartily.

  “All right,” Billy answered listlessly.

  “What’sa matter, Son?” The boy stared at his feet, not answering. “Come on, tell Dad what’s the trouble.”

  Billy sat down on a packing case and put his chin in his hands. He looked thoughtfully at his father.

  “Dad, could I be a Master Repairman if I wanted to be?”

  Mr. Carrin smiled at the question. Billy alternated between wanting to be a Master Repairman and a rocket pilot. The repairmen were the elite. It was their job to fix the automatic repair machines. The repair machines could fix just about anything, but you couldn’t have a machine fix the machine that fixed the machine. That was where the Master Repairmen came in.

  But it was a highly competitive field and only a very few of the best brains were able to get their degrees. And, although the boy was bright, he didn’t seem to have an engineering bent.

  “It’s possible, Son. Anything is possible.”

  “But is it possible for me?”

  “I don’t know,” Carrin answered, as honestly as he could.

  “Well, I don’t want to be a Master Repairman anyway,” the boy said, seeing that the answer was no. “I want to be a space pilot.”

  “A space pilot, Billy?” Leela asked, coming in to the room. “But there aren’t any.”

  “Yes, there are,” Billy argued. “We were told in school that the government is going to send some men to Mars.”

  “They’ve been saying that for a hundred years,” Carrin said, “and they still haven’t gotten around to doing it.”

  “They will this time.”

  “Why would you want to go to Mars?” Leela asked, winking at Carrin. “There are no pretty girls on Mars.”

  “I’m not interested in girls. I just want to go to Mars.”

  “You wouldn’t like it, honey,” Leela said. “It’s a nasty old place with no air.”

  “It’s got some air. I’d like to go there,” the boy insisted sullenly. “I don’t like it here.”

  “What’s that?” Carrin asked, sitting up straight. “Is there anything you haven’t got? Anything you want?”

  “No, sir. I’ve got everything I want.” Whenever his son called him ‘sir,’ Carrin knew that something was wrong.

  “Look, Son, when I was your age I wanted to go to Mars, too. I wanted to do romantic things. I even wanted to be a Master Repairman.”

  “Then why didn’t you?”

  “Well, I grew up. I realized that there were more important things. First I had to pay off the debt my father had left me, and then I met your mother—”

  Leela giggled.

  “—and I wanted a home of my own. It’ll be the same with you. You’ll pay off your debt and get married, the same as the rest of us.”

  BILLY was silent for a while, then he brushed his dark hair—straight, like his father’s—back from his forehead and wet his lips.

  “How come I have debts, sir?”

  Carrin explained carefully. About the things a family needed for civilized living, and the cost of those items. How they had to be paid. How it was customary for a son to take on a part of his parent’s debt, when he came of age.

  Billy’s silence annoyed him. It was almost as if the boy were reproaching him. After he had slaved for years to give the ungrateful whelp every luxury!

  “Son,” he said harshly, “have you studied history in school? Good. Then you know how it was in the past. Wars. How would you like to get blown up in a war?”

  The boy didn’t answer.

  “Or how would you like to break your back for eight hours a day, doing work a machine should handle? Or be hungry all the time? Or cold, with the rain beating down on you, and no place to sleep?”

  He paused for a response, got none and went on. “You live in the most fortunate age mankind has ever known. You are surrounded by every wonder of art and science. The finest music, the greatest books and art, all at your fingertips. All you have to do is push a button.” He shifted to a kindlier tone. “Well, what are you thinking?”

  “I was just wondering how I could go to Mars,” the boy said. “With the debt, I mean. I don’t suppose I could get away from that.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Unless I stowed away on a rocket.”

  “But you wouldn’t do that.”

  “No, of course not,” the boy said, but his tone lacked conviction.

  “You’ll stay here and marry a very nice girl,” Leela told him.

  “Sure I will,” Billy said. “Sure.” He grinned suddenly. “I didn’t mean any of that stuff about going to Mars. I really didn’t.”

  “I’m glad of that,” Leela answered.

  “Just forget I mentioned it,” Billy said, smiling stiffly. He stood up and raced upstairs.

  “Probably gone to play with his rockets,” Leela said. “He’s such a little devil.”

  THE Carrins ate a quiet supper, and then it was time for Mr. Carrin to go to work. He was on night shift this month. He kissed his wife good-by, climbed into his Jet-lash and roared to the factory. The automatic gates recognized him and opened. He parked and walked in.

  Automatic lathes, automatic presses—everything was automatic. The factory was huge and bright, and the machines hummed softly to themselves, doing their job and doing it well.

  Carrin walked to the end of the automatic washing machine assembly line, to relieve the man there.

  “Everything all right?” he asked.

  “Sure,” the man said. “Haven’t had a bad one all year. These new models here have built-in voices. They don’t light up like the old ones.”

  Carrin sat down where the man had sat and waited for the first washing machine to come through. His job was the soul of simplicity. He just sat there and the machines went by him. He pressed a button on them and found out if they were all right. They always were. After passing him, the washing machines went to the packaging section.

  The first one slid by on the long slide of rollers. He pressed the starting button on the side.

  “Ready for the wash,” the washing machine said.

  Carrin pressed the release and let it go by.

  That boy of his, Carrin thought. Would he grow up and face his responsibilities? Would he mature and take his place in society? Carrin doubted it. The boy was a born rebel. If anyone got to Mars, it would be his kid.

  But the thought didn’t especially disturb him.

  “Ready for the wash.” Another machine went by.

  Carrin remembered something about Miller. The jovial man had always been talking about the planets, always kidding about going off somewhere and roughing it. He hadn’t, though. He’d committed suicide.

  “Ready for the wash.”

  Carrin had eight hours in front of him, and he loosened his belt to prepare for it. Eight hours of pushing buttons and listening to a machine announce its readiness.

  “Ready for the wash.”

  He pressed the release.

  “Ready for the wash.”

  Carrin’s mind strayed from the job, which didn’t need much attention in any case. He wished he had done what he had longed to do as a youngster.

  It would have been great to be a rocket pilot, to push a button and go to Mars.

  KILLER’S MASQUERADE

  AT FIRST Walter Jallin thought it was the wind that had wakened him. He lay in bed staring toward the window. He could hear the blind flapping against the frame.

  Twisting his neck slightly, Jallin could see the luminous dial of the alarm clock beside the bed. It read three twenty. He grunted and rolled over. Too soon he would have to get up and start the morning chores, he thought hazily.

  Then he heard the noise again.

  Wide awake now, he sat upright in bed, a sturdy, heavy-shouldered man. The faint sound was unmistakable; someone was walking around downstairs. Jallin rolled noiselessly out of bed.

  He got into his pants and tightened
the belt firmly around his wide stomach, listening all the time. He was alone in the farmhouse. His wife had stayed behind to oversee the moving of the living-room furniture—antiques which she had inherited from her family and which she had protected fiercely, awaiting the day when she and Jallin would have a farm of their own.

  As he padded silently across the floor, Jallin considered possibilities. Certainly his new neighbors would not be calling at this hour—not even as a joke. Only a thief would be sneaking into a lonely farmhouse two miles from the main road.

  Jallin took the single-barreled shotgun from the corner where he had left it. Groping his way to the bureau, he found the paper cartridges in a top drawer. He slipped one into the shotgun, put it on half cock, and released the safely. Then he started for the stairs.

  His bare feet made no sound: he moved downstairs slowly, like a great cat. About halfway down he stopped and listened again. The noise was very faint now; by straining he could just barely catch a scuffling sound. The thief must be wandering where everything is, Jallin thought, and smiled in the darkness. There was nothing in the living-room to steal—or, for that matter, to hide behind.

  The staircase faced the front door, and the living-room was at right angles to it. Jallin stopped on the last step. He shifted the gun into a firing position. His plan was to turn on the switch at the bottom of the stairs, step into the living-room, and fire. It seemed the best way to handle a thief.

  Setting the shotgun at full cock, he flipped the hall switch and stepped into the living-room.

  He didn’t shoot, because he didn’t know which man to shoot first.

  The two men were at opposite corners of the living-room. Both had revolvers, both had turned and faced him when he had stepped through the doorway. Jallin’s shotgun wavered between the two. The strangers glanced at Jallin, then faced each other again. Their revolvers were poised.

  “Drop it,” the man nearest the door said. He wore a brown gabardine suit. His eyes never wavered from the man at the other end of the room.

  “What the hell is this?” Jallin asked, his shotgun gripped firmly.

  “Drop yours,” the man beside the window said.

  “Who are you?” Jallin asked both of them.