Pohlstars

by Frederik Pohl

  "Something about He doesn't like the way we've spoiled His planet, he croaked. "Says He told us what to do, and we haven't done it-we've messed everything up-

  "Hell, shouted the President, "we can fix that up. Call Him back. We can make a deal. We'll give Him His own TV station so He can preach to the multitudes, let pilgrims come visit Him-anything He wants!

  But the translator was shaking his head again. "He doesn't want that. He says He's going back with the space people. They've got a better-class zoo.

  ENJOY, ENJOY

  Terry Carr is one of the true gentlemen of the science-fiction field. Editors have trouble being beloved; what they do cuts too close to the writers' bones for comfort. I do not believe there is an editor in the world who some writer, somewhere, does not wish dead. On those grounds I feel sure that there must therefore be some people who hate Terry Carr, but I've never met one. Perhaps the reason is that he has never been in charge of a major magazine or boss of a large book publishing company; he has put in his editorial time as editorial consultant, anthologist, assistant to other editors, proprietor of a special line of his own within a larger group, and these are not the exposed mountaintops where the ravaging lightnings strike. However, they are good places for someone to be whose biggest interest is in finding and showcasing bright new talent. That's something Terry does extremely well. Devotees still fondly remember the Carr "Ace Special series of a decade and a half ago, when Terry took his chances on such unknowns as Ursula K. LeGuin, Joanna Russ, R. A. Lafferty, and a lot of others whose subsequent careers show how good an editor he really is. So when Terry Carr asks me for something, I try to deliver; and when he told me he was putting together a new anthology of original stories called Fellowship of the Stars, I was pleased to offer him this one—and delighted when he accepted it.

  Booze, broads, big cars, the finest of food, waterbeds filled with vintage champagne. Those were some of the things that went with Tud Cowpersmith's job. The way he got the job was by going to a party in Jackson Heights. The way he happened to be at the party was that he had no choice.

  It wasn't a bad party, for a loft in Jackson Heights. It wasn't a bad loft. The windows at one end looked out on the tracks of the IRT el, but they had been painted over with acrylics to look like stained glass. Every twenty minutes you got a noise like some very large person stumbling by with garbage-can lids for shoes, but except for that the el might as well not have been there. Anyway, at that end of the loft the stereo speakers stood four feet high on the floor, so the noise didn't matter all that much. You couldn't possibly talk at that end. Cowpersmith wanted, eventually, to talk, as soon as the person he wanted to talk to showed up, so he drifted to the other end.

  There the noise was more or less bearable, and there the windows were still clear. They were even clean. He could see through them down on a sort of communal garden, three or four backyards for three or four different old apartment buildings thrown together: a tiny round plastic swimming pool, now iced over with leaves and boughs frozen into it; bare trees that probably had looked very nice in the summer. To get to the windows at that end you had to thread your way through a sort of indoor jungle, potted plants presumably carried in from the garden for the cold weather. And there, on a chrome-rimmed, chrome-legged kitchen table, the host and hostess were rolling joints. They greeted Cowpersmith—

  "Want a hit?"

  "Thanks."—but the pot did not ease him. He was looking for somebody. That was the reason he was there.

  The person he was looking for was named Murray. Murray was an old, old.., friend? Something like that. What he basically was was somebody who owed Cowpersmith fifty dollars, from a time when fifty hadn't seemed like an awful lot. Cowpersmith had heard, the day before, that Murray was in town, and tracked him down to a hotel on Central Park South.

  After some deliberation he had telephoned Murray. He really hated doing it. He needed the fifty, but in his view the odds against getting it were so bad that he didn't like the risk of investing a dime in a phone call. The dime was, after all, real money. There was no way to flash a revoked American Express card at the phone booth, as he had done with the last two restaurants and the airline that had brought him back from Chicago, where the last of his bankroll had melted away. But the odds had paid off! Murray was in, and obliging- "What fifty?

  "Well, don't you remember, you met that Canadian girl—

  "Oh, Christ, sure. Was it only fifty? Must be some interest due by now, Tud. Tell you what—

  —and the way it worked out they were to meet at this party, and Cowpersmith would collect not fifty but a hundred dollars.

  That required some decision making, too, because there was the investment for a subway token to be considered. But Murray had sounded prosperous enough for a gamble. Only no Murray. Cowpersmith took another hit from a girl wearing batik bellbottoms and a halter top and glared around the room. Through the roar of Alice Cooper he realized she was talking to him.

  "What?

  "I said, is your name Ted?

  "Tud.

  "Turd?

  "Tud Cowpersmith, he yelled over the androgynous rock. "It's a family name, Tudsbury.

  She reached up close to his ear-she was not more than five feet tall-and shouted, "If you're a friend of Murray's he's looking for you. He allowed her to lead him around the buttress of the stairwell, for the first time noticing that her armpits were unshaven, the hair on her head stuck out in tiny, tied witch curls, and she was quite pretty.

  And there was Murray, knotting his wild red eyebrows hospitably. "Hey, Tud. Looking great, man! Long time.

  "You're looking fine too, said Cowpersmith, although it wasn't really true. Murray looked a little bit fine and a lot prosperous; the medallion that hung over his raw-silk shirt was clearly gold, and he wore a very expensive- looking, though ugly, thick wristwatch. The thing was he also looked about fifteen years older than he had eighteen months before. They sat in two facing armchairs, one a broken lounger, the other so overstuffed that the stuffing was curling out of it. The girl sat cross-legged between them on the floor, and Murray idly played with her tied curls.

  Cooper had changed to the New York Queens and somebody had turned the volume down, or else the shelter of the stairwell did the same thing for them. Cowpersmith got several words of what Murray was saying.

  "Ajob? Cowpersmith repeated. "What kind of ajob?

  "The finest fucking job in all the world, said Murray, and laughed and laughed, poking the girl's shoulder. When he had calmed down, he said, "What do you work for, Tud?

  Cowpersmith said angrily, "God, you know. I worked for the advertising agency until they took cigarette ads off TV, then I was with the oil company until-

  "No, no. For what purpose.

  Cowpersmith shrugged. "Money?

  "Sure, but what do you do with the money?

  "Pay bills? he guessed.

  "No, no, damn it! After you do all the lousy stuff like that. What do you do with the extra money? Like when you were still pulling down twenty-five K at the agency and everything was on the expense account anyway?

  "Oh, sure. It had been so long ago Cowpersmith had almost forgotten. "Fun. Good food. Plays. Girls. Cars-

  "Right on, cried Murray, "and that's what everyone else works for, too. Everybody but me! That's what my job is. I don't have to work for those things, because I work at them. I don't imagine you're going to believe this, Tud, but it's true, he added as an afterthought.

  Cowpersmith looked down at the girl and swallowed hard. A dismal vision flashed through his mind, of the five crumpled twenties in his pocket turning out to be joke money that, turned over, might say April Fool or, held for ten minutes, might evaporate their ink, leaving bare paper and ruin. "I don't have any idea of what you're talking about, he said to Murray, but still looking at the girl.

  "You think I'm stoned, Murray said accurately.

  "Well-

  "I don't blame you. Look. Well, let's see. Shirley, he said, half laughing, "
how do we explain this? Try it this way, he went on, not waiting for her help, "suppose you had all the money in the world. Suppose you had more money than you even wanted, right?

  "I follow you. I mean, as a theoretical thing.

  "And then suppose you had like an accident. Crashbang; you're in a car accident or a piano falls on you. Quadriplegic. Can't have any fun anymore. Got that?

  "Bad scene, said Cowpersinith, nodding.

  "All right, but even though you can~t do much yourself anymore, there's a way you can have some fun vicariously. Like you're not going to Ibiza yourself, but you're seeing slides of it, or something. You can't get the kicks a normal person can, but you can get something, maybe not much but better than nothing, out of what other people do. Now, in that position, Tud, what would you do?

  "Kill myself.

  "No you wouldn't, for Christ's sake. You'd hire other people to have fun for you. And then with this process- he patted the ugly thing that looked like a wristwatch, but Cowpersmith now realized was not- you can play back their fun, and maybe it isn't much, but it's all the jollies you can ever get. Right, Shirley?

  She shook her head and said sweetly. "Shit.

  "Well, anyway, it's something like that. I guess. It's kind of secret, I think probably because it's someone like Howard Hughes or maybe one of the Roekefellers that's involved. They won't say. But the job's for real, Tud. All I have to do is have all the fun I can. They pick up the tab, it all goes on the credit card, and they get the bill, and they pay it. As long as I wear this thing, that's all I have to do. And every Friday, besides all that, five hundred in cash.

  There was a pause while Bette Midler flowed over and around them from the speakers and Cowpersmith looked from the girl to his friend, waiting for the joke part. At last he said, "But nobody gets a job like that.

  "Wrong, friend," said Shirley. "You did. Just now. If you want it. I'll take you there tomorrow morning.

  Behind the door stenciled E.T.C. Import-Export Co., Ltd. there was nothing more than a suite of offices sparsely occupied and eccentrically furnished. Hardly furnished at all, you might say. There was nobody at the reception desk, which Shirley walked right past, and no papers on the desk of the one man anywhere visible. "I've got a live one for you, Mr. Morris, Shirley sang out. "Friend of Murray's.

  Mr. Morris looked like a printing salesman, about fifty, plump, studying Cowpersmith over half glasses. "Good producer, he agreed reluctantly. "All right, you're hired. And he counted out five hundred dollars in bills of various sizes and pushed them across the desk to Cowpersmith.

  Cowpersmith picked up the money, feeling instantly stoned. "Is that all there is to it?

  "No! Not for me, I've got all the paperwork now, your credit card, keeping records—

  "I mean, like, don't you want me to fill out an application form?

  "Certainly not. He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a wristwatch-shaped thing. Cowpersmith could not see all of the inside of the drawer from his angle, but he was nearly sure there was nothing else in it. He handed it to Cowpersmith and said, "Once you put it on it won't come off by itself, but we'll unlock it any time you want to quit. That's all. Go have fun. By which, he added, "I don't actually mean screwing, because we've got plenty of records of that already.

  "What then? asked Cowpersmith, disconcerted.

  "Hell, man! Up to you. Water skiing, skin diving, breaking the bank at Monte Carlo. What do you dream about, when things look bad'? You do dream, don't you?

  "Well, sure, but- Cowpersmith hesitated, thinking. "I always wanted to eat at La Tour d'Argent. And, uh, there's this crazy poison fish they have in Japan-

  "Sounds good, the man said without enthusiasm. "I'll have your card delivered to you at your hotel tomorrow.

  "Yes, but wait a minute. What's the catch'?

  "No catch, Tud, said Shirley, annoyed. "Jesus, what does it take to convince you?

  "Nothing like this ever happened to me before. There has to be something wrong with it.

  "No there doesn't, said Mr. Morris, "and I have to get busy on your card.

  Cowpersmith found himself standing up. "No, wait, he said. "How-how long does the job last?

  Shrug. "Until you get bored, I guess."

  "Then what?"

  "Then you turn in your recordings. And you take your last week's pay and go look for another job."

  "Recordings? Cowpersmith looked down at his wrist, where, without thinking about it, he had clasped on the metal object. is this a tape recorder?

  "I'm not into that part of it, Mr. Morris said. "I only know my job, and I've just done it. Good-by."

  And that was all she wrote. At Shirley's urging, Cowpersrnith checked into a small but very nice hotel on the Upper East Side, went to a massage parlor, ice-skated at Rockefeller Center, and met Shirley for a late drink in a Greek bar in Chelsea. "Good start, she said. "Now you're on your own. Got any plans?

  "Well, he said experimentaly, "I think I can still make the Mardi Gras in Rio. And I heard about a safari tour to Kenya—"

  "Travel, huh. Why not'? She finished her drink. "Well, we'll keep in touch—"

  "No, take it easy, he said. "I don't understand some things."

  "There isn't any reason for you to understand. Just enioy."

  "I tried to call Murray, but he's gone off somewhere—"

  And yoa're going too, right? Look, she said, "you're going to ask some probably very important questions, to you, but all I know's my own job"

  "Which is?"

  "—which is none of your business. Go enjoy. When Mr. Morris wants to he in touch with you he'll be in touch with you. No. Don't ask how he'll find you. He'll find you. And so good night.

  And so, for eight dynamite months, Tud Cowpersmith enioyed. He did everything he had ever wanted to do. He made the carnival in Rio and discovered hearts-of-palm soup in a restaurant overlooking the Copacabana beach. He rode a hydrofoil around Leningrad and toured the Hermitage, bloated on fresh caviar. Gypsy violins in Soho, pounded abalone on Fisherman's Wharf, a nude-encounter weekend at Big Sur, high-stakes gambling in Macao. First-class stewardesses on half a dozen airlines began to recognize him, in half a dozen languages. Shirley turned up once, in his suite at the George Cinq, but only to tell him he was doing fine. Another time he thought he saw Murray pushing a scooter at the Copenhagen airport, but he was going one way and Murray another, and there was no way for Cowpersmith to get off the moving person carrier to catch him. He took up motorcycle racing and tried to enjoy listening to the harpsichord and, in spite of what Morris had said, repeatedly and enthusiastically enjoyed a great deal of sex. It was at the time of his second case of gonorrhea that he began to feel enough was very nearly enough, and then one morning his phone rang.

  "Cowpersrnith? said Mr. Morris' tinny little voice, very far away. "You don't seem to be having a lot of fun right now. Are you about ready to quit?

  Although the pleasure had not been quite as much pleasure lately, the prospect of losing it was very much pain. "No! yelped Cowpersmith. "What are you talking about? Hell, man, you should see the girl I just- He looked around; he was alone in the big bed. "I mean, I've got this date—

  "No, whispered the small voice, "that's not good enough. Your EI's been down for three weeks now. Not below the threshold yet. We can still get a little good stuff from you. But the quality's definitely down, Cowpersmith, and something's got to be done about it.

  Dismayed, Cowpersmith sat up and swung his feet over the side of the bed. "How do you know about-what is it, my EI'?

  "Emotional index? Well, what do you think, man? We continuously monitor the product, and it just isn't what we want.

  "Yeah, Cowpersmith conceded. "Look, I just woke up and I'm a little fuzzy, but- He got out of bed, car- rying the phone, and sat in a chair by the window. Outside was Grosvenor Square, with a demonstration going on in front of the American Embassy, so he knew he was in the Europa in London.

  "But what, Cowpersrnith?

  "But I'l
l think of something. Hold on.

  By this time the staff of the hotel had learned to value him and understand his likes, so the floor waiter, alerted by the incoming phone call, was bringing in his black coffee, American style, with two large glasses of fresh orange juice. Cowpersrnith swallowed a little of one and a little of the other and said, "Listen, can you give me an idea of what he likes?

  "Who likes?

  "Whoever it is is paying for all this stuff.

  "I can't discuss our clients, said Mr. Morris. "They told me not to.

  "Well, can you give me some idea?

  "No. I don't know what you've been doing; the monitor doesn't show that. It shows where you are and how you're feeling. That's it. We won't know exactly what you've been up to until the debriefing, when they study the recordings. Me, I'll never know. Not my department.

  "Well, don't you have any idea what kind of stuff they like?

  "Mostly, any kind of stuff they haven't had before.

  "Hah! Cowpersmith thought wildly. "Listen, how's this? Has anybody just sort of sat and meditated for you?

  Pause. "You mean like religious meditation? Like some kind of guru?

  "Well, yes. Or just sitting and thinking, like, you know, Thoreau at Walden Pond.

  "I give it forty-eight hours, said Mr. Morris.

  "Or-well, how about skin diving? Again. The doctor told me to lay off for a little while until my ear healed up after Bermuda, but I heard about this neat stuff at the Great Barrier Reef, and-

  "Cowpersmith, said the tiny voice, "you know what you're costing? Not counting the half a thousand a week in cash. Your charge has been running over forty-eight hundred a week, on the average. You got to show more than some spearfishing maybe a couple weeks from now. You got to show today. And tomorrow. And every day. So long.