by John Sladek
‘Looks familiar only –’
She snatched it away. ‘I’ll just mail it right off to the Society for Psychical Research, they’ll be very interested.’
‘But Ma, I’m interested, I –’
‘Why don’t you stay in bed this morning, school can wait. Oh, and you could work on that psychic message your Pa sent you through the planchette.’
He took her advice, if only to keep an eye on her. Besides, the cipher – if it was a cipher – might hold some indirect clue to Ma’s – madness? He smoothed it out on the bedclothes and opened his notebook to a clean page.
At noon, when he closed the notebook, there were no more clean pages, and no solution. His best so far was a single line:
hpmoy hpoq hw dwnp noh
threw then to gosh set
‘Take a look at this.’ One liver-spotted hand passed the binoculars to another.
It was just possible to make out a tiny group of people standing outside the fence with signs.
‘What do they want?’
‘Would you believe they’re Luddites?’
‘No I would not. Is that what security –?’
‘Precisely. Haven’t you seen the book? By this guy, what’s his name now, Hank Dinks, called Ludd Be Praised, turning into quite a cult item there.’
‘Ha ha, is it now? Think my daughter’s reading it now that you mention … but what’s the premiss?’
‘Crank stuff. Back to Nature, more or less, but with the emphasis on ol’ devil computer. Might know they’d get around to us – though I’m surprised they can’t muster more people for such an obviously populist cause. Can’t be twenty souls out there.’
‘The sun, you forget the sun. And we are a good way from Phoenix. If it weren’t for the sun, you know, I’d be tempted to stroll out and have a chat with them.’
‘Ah but security’s against it. Usual overcaution. I swear, sometimes I think they’d like to put all of us in Leo’s tank, seal us off from the rude world … oh wouldn’t they all be upset out there if they knew about Leo!’
‘Ha ha, wouldn’t they … be more like twenty thousand out there then, eh? But what, ah, what do they actually accuse us of doing? Running a clandestine computer?’
‘Better than that! Listen, they think we’re running robots! Us!’
After a few dry chuckles and coughs, the binoculars changed hands again. ‘Still, too bad they associate us with robots in any way. I don’t like it.’
‘Nobody likes it. The Agency certainly doesn’t like it. But …’
‘These little movements blow over, I suppose.’
‘Precisely. Precisely. Even if they don’t, we might …’
‘Use them? Exactly. Exactly. By the way, how’s that Nebraska business shaping up?’
‘No problem, as our Agency friends like to say. We have a clear set of pictures of the subject, front and profile, we have a voice print, we know exactly where to find him.’
‘Is he passing?’
‘More or less. At the moment he’s trying to pass as a black man.’
‘Fascinating! I wonder if we couldn’t study him for a while before –?’
‘Too risky, look what happened to our last surveillance team, that highly unlikely “accident”. Point oh oh oh oh seven at best, makes you wonder … No in fact I’ve already ordered the destruction for this evening.’
‘Oh well. Fun while it lasted. Better than this Kratt Industries business, that’s just boring. Pinball machines, talking gingerbread, automated concubines – low-grade stuff, all of it.’
‘Precisely what we have to encourage, my friend. Our job, after all, is to –’
‘I know, I know. To keep the world on the graph paper. Only sometimes don’t you feel, just a little like letting it, letting it slip?’
But the other elder was squinting through the glasses again. ‘I can just make out a sign – Oh listen to this! STOP ROBOTS. STOP POLLUTING THOUGHT WAVES.’
‘Fascinating!’
‘Fixed up like a minstrel today, are we? Well never mind, have your last little joke, because this is your last day. Here.’ Sister Filomena shoved a piece of paper at him.
‘What’s this, Sister, I – listen I –’
‘Walking papers, Mister Wood, walking papers. Your diploma. You are now officially graduated, so goodbye.’ She went back into her office and closed the door.
A.M.O.G.
Know all Men by these presents that
RODERICK WOOD
having satisfactorily completed the Eighth Grape at
HOLY THINITY SCHOOL
in the Year of Our Lord McM____
is hereby awarded this
OIPLOMA OF SCHOLASTIC ACHIEVEMENT
(signed) Sr. M. Filomena, Principal
PRINTED IN TAIWAN
Father O’Bride put his head in at the door, without removing his fishing hat. ‘Hiya Sister, didn’t I see a new pupil come along here just now?’
‘New pupil?’
‘Yeah yeah, I was in my office cutting up one of Father Warren’s old cassocks, boy you wouldn’t believe how many relics you can get out of eleven yards of material, boy I got a hundred and fifty thousand little pieces so far not even half done I mean even at a buck apiece we can’t go wrong there, bandages for five – yeah I meant to ask you, any sign of that blood transfusion unit I ordered?’
‘What? Blood, Father, is Father Warren –?’
‘No prob, no sweat, just forgot to tell you I ordered this neat little unit, figured we could cycle a few pints right through him put it in these little plastic phials one drop each and – well don’t look at me like that, Sister, criminy! Not as if we’re taking anything away from him, he’ll still have blood of his own only we add a pint and drain off a – look, people hear about a stigmata first darn thing they want is a drop of the precious – okay never mind! Just tell me where I can contact this kid, one with the muscles. The natural.’
‘Natural? Father I don’t think –’
‘Natural, natural athlete, heck all these boogie kids are naturals. Point is this guy could make all the difference on the gridiron next season against St Larry’s – damn it I mean darn it, where is he?’
‘You must mean Roderick but he –’
‘Yeah Robert, where’s Robert?’
She waved, almost blessing him. ‘Gone, Father. Home or –’
‘Gone? Gone?’ He vanished and she could hear him bawling in the hallway:
‘ROBERT! Hey Robert, wait up!’
… his feet flapping down the stairs and hitting that miraculously shiny little patch of floor at the bottom … then a cry … a thump …
Then blessed silence.
‘Somebody oughta teach that nigger a lesson, knocking Father Owhatsit down the stairs like that, leaving him all paralysed from the waist up was it? Or down? Just who does this Doc Sam think he …’
‘Oh it wasn’t him, it was that other nigger one that’s been living in sin with Ma Wood, Violetta saw them … and anyway a man that wears a skirt and don’t like girls …’
‘Jake told me the Wood boy’s gone black, didn’t he used to be paralysed himself? Bobby Wood, used to be so paralysed they had to wheel him around in a little tank or …’
‘Jake’ll say anything, told me the kid was a two-headed robot, but listen before Doreen gets me under that drier and I can’t hear a thing, guess who asked Doc Sam to examine her the other day?’
‘Robots, shit we got enough damn robots out at the factory, Jap robots, German robots, reckon the machines is taking over all right, makes you wonder who won the damn war…’
‘Makes you wonder if these here Lewdites ain’t got something there, least they know the difference between a man and a god-durned wheel, but listen, my old lady says some nigger robot stuck a knife in Father O’Bride …’
‘Bob Wood? Yeah I heard that, same asshole knifed Father Warren a few months back ain’t it? Sure it is, hell they get away with murder these days … Not that I like Catlicks, only
you let a bunch wild niggers run around with knives …’
‘Machines is taking over, hell they even got machines’ lib, no shit, my wife’s going to the Ladies’ Guild to hear one of ’em, makes you wonder who won … three beers here, Charlie?’
‘Trouble-maker from way back, remember when he was at the public school here, wrecked the damn computer, just went berserk and wrecked …’
‘Somebody oughta wreck him, you know? Somebody oughta teach that little shit a lesson.’
‘I blame his home background I mean what do you expect? I think I liked the other ones better dear, the uh pink frames with rhinestones? What do you expect? Ma and Pa Wood aren’t exactly, well I mean they’re communists for one thing, atheistic communists, dressing that kid of theirs up in that porno get-up for the Christmas play, no wonder he scared poor old Sister Martha to death … only what do you expect, anybody sets a big toilet out in their yard, health hazard the sheriff had to break it up, we saw the whole thing! And Herb says she oughta be locked up. Do you think the rhinestones are too …?’
‘Remember how she tried to poison Jake Mcllvaney? Cookies with ground glass and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she was behind this gingerbread …’
‘Oh she was, didn’t you know? They had a big police raid there, the FBI took away all her ginger to test for poison too bad they didn’t take her away at the same …’
‘And she’s been playing house with a black man ever since poor Pa, probably poisoned him too! And she’s a witch, everybody knows …’
‘Well the boy always was a trouble-maker, ask anybody, didn’t his teacher Miz Beek commit sui …?’
‘Mrs Feeney says he’s like he’s got the devil in him, you know he actually stabbed one of the priests?’
‘I blame his background. My Chauncey never would …’
‘Well, somebody better teach him a lesson.’
Roderick was at the dining-table, covering page after page with cipher calculations. Ma paused to kiss the top of his head.
‘That’s a good boy. Now I’m just going out to the Guild, be back in time to give Pa his supper. But if he wants anything meanwhile will you stick around?’
‘Sure, sure.’ It wasn’t polyalphabetic with a repeating key, it wasn’t a multifid, it wasn’t Playfair or a substitution followed by a grille transposition … was it even a cipher?
It had to be. Something in the world had to make sense. Ma would say it all did make sense, only you had to be on the astral plane to perceive it. Pa would say nothing made any sense at all, only we have to make our own sense out of it.
He gave up on the cipher and wandered into Pa’s workshop. There was the radio, still faintly murmuring music for its own easy listenin’ enjoyment. There was the box of inventions. There was the photo of Rex Reason, the cards hand-lettered by Miss Violetta Stubbs: ‘OVER THE HILL doesn’t mean DOWN AND OUT …’
The lettering was the same as on the piece of cloth. Sure, it was part of a hand-lettered tie: not remember wit fun, but
REMEMBER ME
WITH MUSCATINE
FUNERAL HOMES
printed sideways so the mourners could read it. Sure, so …
After a moment, Roderick took down the green key from its nail below Rex and left the house with it.
At twilight the giant letters SLUMBERTITE NEVER SLEEPS suddenly flared up like curious trees bursting into flame. The low slab of windowless factory supporting their neon splendour now seemed lower, less significant. The two tiny figures climbing out of their microscopic Rolls-Royce seemed nothing at all.
‘God, I love this place, bub. Almost makes me wish I was a religious guy … I don’t know, if I … if God …’ Mr Kratt recovered quickly. ‘Come on, let’s get inside, can’t stand around with your finger up your rectum all evening.’
He strode off across the perfect lawn, leaving Ben behind. ‘Come on, come on.’
‘Yes sir. I was just, I was just thinking …’
‘Too damn much thinking, your thinking got us into this mess, bub. Trouble with you artsy-fartsy academics, can’t see anything clearly, everything’s got too many sides to it. We had a good goddamn thing going there with Jinjur-Boy, only you had to go and spill your guts to the FDA the minute they came sniffing –’
‘It wasn’t like that at all, Mr Kratt I, all I said was –’
‘Was enough! Mercury batteries, why the hell admit a thing like that, you know what it’s gonna cost to fix this up? Hell of a lot more than you’re worth. Thing gets this far you can’t just grease a few palms you know. Gotta fix up a whole publicity campaign, pictures of a coupla senators and their kids eating the damn things, the works. And we gotta move fast before we get every hick consumer group in the country after us, look what they did to Buckingham cigarettes …’
‘I never heard of them.’
‘See what I mean? One minute they got fifty quacks on the payroll telling everybody how their natural blackstrap molasses-filter traps everything nasty, the next minute they’re wiped out. Dead!’
‘Dead,’ said Ben faintly. ‘But what do we do about these dead kids, eighteen of them now, eighteen …’
‘Look, stop moaning, will you? Our lawyers are already fixing all that up with the families, get each of ’em to sign an affidavit their kids never ate our product in return for an ex gratia handout, hell, most of ’em never seen so much cash, no problem there … no problem.’
‘No but it’s just that sometimes I think we, all we can do is create death Even when we try to make life it comes out death, death is there all the time. In the program somewhere … it’s, I don’t know, almost as if we brought a gingerbread boy to life and all he wanted was to die …’
‘Goddamnit, pull yourself together, industrial accidental pollution, happens all the time! All the time, you can’t get all personal about this, Jesus you think every oil company executive pisses his pants every time he hears a pollution story? I mean sure if you want to go on playing fancy academic games writing little titbits for the Jackoff Journal fine, only I thought you wanted to run a goddamn company!’
‘Well I … yes, I guess … yessir I do.’
‘Fine. Then goddamnit, bub, start running it. And for Christ’s sake stop looking like a pall-bearer, give this Welby guy a big smile. Must be him waiting by the door.’
Ben Franklin managed a weak smile for Dr Welby while Kratt unlocked the plain steel door.
‘Really an honour Mr Kratt, if you don’t mind my saying so, been reading about you everywhere, newsletters, Fortune wasn’t it? A profile yes, and weren’t you named one of the top ten business lead –?’
‘Only the top ten new leaders, Doc. Good to see you’re well-informed though, because –’
‘And to think, you coming all this way just to meet with a small-town sawbones like me!’
‘Yes well I –’
‘You sure must want something pretty bad, ha ha.’
They stopped, Kratt and Welby facing each other in the chill stainless steel corridor, almost squared away like a pair of hostile dogs, each determined somehow to mount the other. Welby’s pale eyes (staring over the tops of his old-fashioned glasses) were locked in silent combat for a second with Kratt’s dark little eyes (staring under the heavy V of brows).
‘Doc,’ Kratt said softly. ‘Don’t sell yourself short. If I didn’t know you was a good businessman I wouldn’t be trying to trade horses with you. Now come on let’s see if we can find the damn board-room in this godforsaken place, think it’s at the end of the corridor …’
He led the way into an impressive conference room panelled in something very like walnut. While Ben and the doctor took their seats at the long table, Kratt went to the liquor cabinet.
‘See Doc, you’re a man with foresight. You and I know Nebraska’s gonna bring in gambling in a year or so, and we both know the considerable financial rewards to be reaped by the right man in the right place. So can we talk?’
Dr Welby nodded at the broad back. ‘Why sure. Hey thi
s is some layout you got here, never knew there’d be a place like this right in the old Slum –’
Kratt laughed, or perhaps coughed. ‘You know, no human being has been in this room for four years. Not even cleaners.’
‘But it’s spotless!’
‘Machine-cleaned, every damn day. Best thing about machine-cleaners is they don’t drink up the chairman’s booze – got some fifty-year-old Scotch here, Doc. What’s your pleasure?’
Dr Welby didn’t mind if he did.
The big German Shepherd snarled and threw himself against the fence, daring Roderick to try – just try – opening the gate and setting one foot on Slumbertite land. But when Roderick did open the gate and walk in, the dog only sniffed his hand and then trotted away to seek some other victim.
A long curved driveway led to the great factory. And just so there should be no mistake, a series of ‘landing lights’ flickered along it, pointing his way. And just to make absolutely sure there should be no mistake, a recorded voice spoke to him: ‘Keep to the driveway and don’t loiter. Please follow the lights.’
The driveway took him right up to the plain grey corrugated wall, which at first seemed to lack a door, even a keyhole. Only when he was close did a door slide open.
‘Step inside, please. Prepare for a security check. Prepare for a security check.’
He stepped inside and stood around, until a voice said: ‘Empty your pockets on the conveyor belt. Now. Everything will be returned to you when you leave the building.’ Pa’s cipher and the green key; a quarter and two nickels; a piece of string and a grubby stick of gum; half a yoyo, a broken rosary and the little folded wad of paper that was his ‘oiploma’; a rosary bead and a lead washer moved out of sight.
‘Face the light-panel. Answer the questions yes or no by pushing the yes or no button. QUESTION: Are you carrying or concealing any tool or weapon?’ No. ‘Are you carrying or concealing any explosive or inflammable material, such as gasoline, TNT, butane?’ No. ‘Are you carrying or concealing any electronic equipment, such as an artificial arm or leg?’ Yes. ‘Walk through the light-panel. Now.’
He pushed open the panel and entered the Emerald City.