Is That What People Do?

by Robert Sheckley

  So he painted the picture in rosy colors, skipping over most of the stumbling blocks. He showed the psi, capable of dealing with his environment on a direct mental level; the psi, not a deviation or freak, but mankind fully realized.

  He almost had tears in his eyes by the time he was through.

  “To sum up,” he told them, “our hope is that, someday, everyone will be capable of psi powers.”

  After a barrage of questions, the conference broke up. The two men in dark suits remained.

  “Was there some further information you wanted?” Waverley asked politely. “I have some brochures—”

  “Have you got a man named Eskin here?” one of the men asked.

  “Why?” Waverley countered.

  “Have you?”

  “Why?”

  “All right, we’ll play it that way,” one of the men sighed. They showed their credentials. “Eskin was confined in Blackstone Sanitarium. We have reason to believe he came here, and we want him back.”

  “What’s wrong with him?” Waverley asked.

  “Have you seen him?”

  “Gentlemen, we’re getting nowhere. Suppose I had seen him—and mind you, I’m not admitting it—suppose I had a means of rehabilitating him, making a decent, worthy citizen out of him. Would you still insist on having him back?”

  “You can’t rehabilitate Eskin,” one of the men told him. “He’s found a perfectly satisfactory adjustment. Unfortunately, it’s one that the public cannot countenance.”

  “What is it?” Waverley asked.

  “Have you seen him?”

  “No, but if I do, I’ll get in touch with you,” Waverley said pleasantly.

  “Mr. Waverley. This attitude—”

  “Is he dangerous?” Waverley asked.

  “Not especially. But—”

  “Has he any supernormal powers?”

  “Probably,” one of the men said unhappily. “But his method of using them—”

  “Can’t say I’ve ever seen the chap,” Waverley said coolly.

  The men glanced at each other. “All right,” one of them said. “If you’ll admit to having him, we’ll sign him over to your custody.”

  “Now you’re talking,” Waverley said. The release was quickly signed, and Waverley ushered the two men out. As they reached the door, Waverley saw what he thought was a wink pass between them. He must have imagined it, he decided.

  “Was I right?” Doris asked him.

  “Perfectly,” Waverley said. “You’ve still got powder in your hair.”

  Doris located a mirror in her cavernous shoulder bag, and started dusting.

  “Forget it,” Waverley said, leaning over and kissing the tip of her nose. “Marry me tomorrow.”

  Doris considered for a moment. “Hairdresser tomorrow.”

  “Day after, then.”

  “I’m swimming the English Channel that day. Would next week be all right—”

  Waverley kissed her. “Next week is not only all right, it’s obligatory,” he said. “And I’m not fooling.”

  “All right,” Doris said, a little breathlessly. “But is this really it, Sam?”

  “It is,” Waverley said. Their wedding date had been postponed twice already. The first time, the problem of Billy Walker had come up. Walker hadn’t wanted to go on the Venture to Mars, and Waverley had stayed with him day and night, bolstering his courage.

  The next time had been when Waverley found a wealthy backer for Wild Talents, Inc. It was ‘round-the-clock work at first, organizing, contacting companies that might be able to use a psi, finding psis. But this time.

  He bent over her again, but Doris said, “How about that man in your office?”

  “Oh yes,” Waverley said with mild regret. “I think he’s genuine. I’d better see what he’s doing.” He walked through his office to the anteroom.

  The psi had found pencil and paper, and was busy scribbling. He looked up when Waverley and Doris walked in, and gave them a wild, triumphant grin.

  “Ah, my protector! Sir, I will demonstrate my scientific observations. Here is a complete account of all that transpired between A, you, and B, Miss Fleet.” He handed them a stack of papers.

  Eskin had written a complete account of Waverley’s conversation with Doris, plus a faithful anatomical description of their kisses. He appended the physical data with a careful description of the emotions of both, before, during, and after each kiss.

  Doris frowned. She had a love of personal privacy, and being observed by this ragged little man didn’t please her.

  “Very interesting,” Waverley said, suppressing a smile for Doris’s sake. The man needed some guidance, he decided. But that could wait for tomorrow.

  After finding Eskin a place to sleep, Waverley and Doris had dinner and discussed their marriage plans. Then they went to Doris’s apartment, where they disregarded television until one o’clock in the morning.

  Next morning the first applicant was a sprucely dressed man in his middle thirties, who introduced himself as a lightning calculator. Waverley located a book of logarithms and put the man through his paces.

  He was very good. Waverley took his name and address and promised to get in touch with him.

  He was a little disappointed. Lightning calculators possessed the least wild of the wild talents. It was difficult to place them in really good jobs unless they had creative mathematical ability to go with their computing skill.

  The morning shipment of magazines and newspapers arrived, and Waverley had a few minutes to browse through them. He subscribed to practically everything in hopes of finding little- known jobs that his psis might fill.

  An elderly man with the purple-veined face of an alcoholic came in next. He was wearing a good suit, but with ragged, torn cuffs. His new shirt was impossibly filthy. His shoes, for some reason, were shined.

  “I can turn water into wine,” the man said.

  “Go right ahead,” Waverley told him. He went to the cooler and handed the man a cup of water.

  The man looked at it, mumbled a few words, and, with his free hand, made a pass at the water. He registered astonishment when nothing happened. He looked sternly at the water, muttered his formula again, and again made a pass. Still nothing happened.

  “You know how it is,” he said to Waverley. “We psis, our power just goes off and on. I’m usually good about forty percent of the time.”

  “This is just an off day?” Waverley asked, with dangerous calm.

  “That’s right,” the man said. “Look, if you could stake me for a few days, I’d get it again. I’m too sober now, but you should see me when I’m really—”

  “You read about this in the papers, didn’t you?” Waverley asked.

  “What? No, certainly not!”

  “Get out of here,” Waverley said. It was amazing how many frauds his business attracted. People who thought he was dealing in some sort of pseudo-magic, people who thought he would be an easy mark for a sad story.

  The next applicant was a short, stocky girl of eighteen or nineteen, plainly and unattractively dressed in a cheap print dress. She was obviously ill at ease.

  Waverley pulled up a chair for her and gave her a cigarette, which she puffed nervously.

  “My name’s Emma Cranick,” she told him, rubbing one perspiring hand against her thigh. “I—are you sure you won’t laugh at me?”

  “Sure. Go on,” Waverley said, sorting a batch of papers on his desk. He knew the girl would feel better if he didn’t look at her.

  “Well, I—this sounds ridiculous, but I can start fires. Just by wanting to. lean!” She glared at him defiantly.

  A poltergeist, Waverley thought. Stone-throwing and fire-starting. She was the first one he had seen, although he had long been aware of the phenomenon. It seemed to center mostly in adolescent girls, for some unknown reason.

  “Would you care to show me, Emma?” Waverley asked softly. The girl obliged by burning a hole in Waverley’s new rug. He poured a few cups o
f water over it, then had her burn a curtain as a check.

  “That’s fine,” he told the girl, and watched her face brighten. She had been thrown off her uncle’s farm. She was “queer” if she started fires that way, and her uncle had no place for anyone who was “queer.”

  She was rooming at the YWCA, and Waverley promised to get in touch with her.

  “Don’t forget,” he said as she started out. “Yours is a valuable talent—a very valuable one. Don’t be frightened of it.”

  This time her smile almost made her pretty.

  A poltergeist, he thought, after she had gone. Now what in hell could he do with a poltergeist girl? Starting fire...A stoker, perhaps? No, that didn’t seem reasonable.

  The trouble was, the wild talents were rarely reasonable. He had fibbed a bit to the reporters about that, but psis just weren’t tailor-made for the present world.

  He started leafing through a magazine, wondering who could use a poltergeist.

  “Sam!” Doris Fleet was standing in the door, her hands on her hips. “Look at this.”

  He walked over. Eskin had arrived, and was standing beside the reception desk, a foolish smile on his face. Doris handed Waverley a sheaf of papers.

  Waverley read through them. They contained a complete account of everything he and Doris had done, from the moment he had walked into her apartment until he had left.

  But complete wasn’t the word. The psi had explored their every move and action. And, as if that weren’t bad enough, Waverley saw now why Eskin had been locked up.

  The man was a voyeur, a Peeping Tom. A supernormal Peeping Tom, who could watch people from miles away.

  Like most couples on the verge of marriage, Waverley and Doris did considerable smooching, and didn’t consider themselves any the worse for it. But it was something else again to see that smooching written down, dissected, analyzed.

  The psi had picked up a complete anatomical vocabulary somewhere, because he had described every step of their courtship procedure in the correct terms. Diagrams followed, then a physiological analysis. Then the psi had probed deeper, into hormone secretions, cellular structures, nerve and muscle reactions, and the like.

  It was the most amazing bit of pornography-veiled-as-science that Waverley had ever seen.

  “Come in here,” Waverley said. He brought Eskin into his office. Doris followed, her face a study in embarrassment.

  “Now then. Just what do you mean by this?” Waverley asked. “Didn’t I save you from the asylum?”

  “Yes, sir,” Eskin said. “And believe me, I’m very grateful.”

  “Then I want your promise that there’ll be no more of this.”

  “Oh, no?” the man said, horrified. “I can’t stop. I have my research to consider.”

  In the next half hour Waverley discovered a lot of things. Eskin could observe all those he came in contact with, no matter where they were. However, all he was interested in was their sex lives. He rationalized this voyeurism by his certainty that he was serving science.

  Waverley sent him to the anteroom, locked the door, and turned to Doris.

  “I’m terribly sorry about this,” he said, “but I’m sure we can resublimate him. It shouldn’t be too difficult.”

  “Oh, it shouldn’t?” Doris asked.

  “No.” Waverley said with confidence he didn’t feel. “I’ll figure it out.”

  “Fine,” Doris said. She put the psi’s papers in an ashtray, found a match, and burned them. “Until you do, I think we had better postpone the wedding.”

  “But why?”

  “Oh, Sam,” Doris said, “how can I marry you and know that slimy little thing is watching every move we make? And writing it all down?”

  “Now calm down,” Waverley said uncomfortably. “You’re perfectly right. I’ll go to work on him. Perhaps you’d better take the rest of the day off.”

  “I’m going to,” Doris said, and started for the door.

  “Supper this evening?” Waverley asked her.

  “No,” she said firmly. “I’m sorry, Sam, but one thing’ll lead to another, and not while that Peeping Tom is loose.” She slammed the door shut.

  Waverley unlocked the anteroom door.

  “Come in here, Sidney,” he said. “You and I are going to have a fine long talk.”

  Waverley tried to explain, slowly and patiently, that what Eskin did wasn’t truly scientific. He tried to show that it was a sexual deviation or overintensification, rationalized as a scientific motive.

  “But, Mr. Waverley,” Eskin said, “if I was just peeking at people, that would be one thing. But I write it all down, I use the correct terms; I classify and define. I hope to write a definitive work on the sexual habits of every human being in the world.”

  Waverley explained that people have a right to personal privacy. Eskin replied that science came above petty squeamishness. Waverley tried to batter at his fortifications for the rest of the day. But Eskin had an answer for everything, an answer that fit completely into his view of himself and the world.

  “The trouble is,” he told Waverley, “people aren’t scientific. Not even scientists. Would you believe it, in the sanitarium the doctors kept me locked in solitary most of the time. Just because I observed and wrote down their sexual habits at home? Of course, being in solitary couldn’t stop me.”

  Waverley wondered how Eskin had lived as long as he had. It would have been small wonder if an irate doctor slipped him an overdose of something. It probably required strong self-discipline not to.

  “I didn’t think that you were against me,” the psi said sorrowfully. “I didn’t realize that you were so old-fashioned.”

  “I’m not against you,” Waverley said, trying to think of some way of dealing with the man. Then, in a sudden happy burst of inspiration, he had it.

  “Sidney,” he said, “I think I know of a job for you. A nice job, one you’ll like.”

  “Really?” the voyeur said, his face lighting up.

  “I think so,” Waverley said. He checked the idea in a recent magazine, located a telephone number, and dialed.

  “Hello? Is this the Bellen Foundation?” He introduced himself, making sure they knew who he was. “I hear that you gentlemen are engaged in a new survey on the sexual habits of males of Eastern Patagonian descent. Would you be interested in an interviewer who can really get the facts?”

  After a few more minutes of conversation, Waverley hung up and wrote out the address. “Go right over, Sid,” he said. “I think we have found your niche in life.”

  “Thank you very much,” the psychotic said, and hurried out.

  The next morning Waverley’s first appointment was with Bill Symes, one of Waverley’s brightest hopes, Symes had a fine psi talent in a clear, intelligent mind.

  This morning he looked confused and unhappy.

  “I wanted to speak to you first, Sam,” Symes said. “I’m leaving my job.”

  “Why?” Waverley wanted to know. He had thought that Symes was as well placed and happy as a psi could be.

  “Well—I just don’t fit in.”

  Symes was able to “feel” stresses and strains in metal. Like most psis, he didn’t know how he did it. Nevertheless, Symes was able to “sense” microshrinkage and porosity faster, and more accurately than an X-ray machine, and with none of the problems of interpretation that an X-ray inspection leaves.

  Symes’s talent was on an all-or-nothing basis; either he could do it or he couldn’t. Therefore he didn’t make mistakes. Even though his talent completely shut off forty percent of the time, he was still a valuable asset in the aircraft-engine industry, where every part must be X-rayed for possible flaws.

  “What do you mean, you do not fit in?” Waverley asked. “Don’t you think you’re worth the money you’re getting?”

  “It’s not that,” Symes said. “It’s the guys I work with. They think I’m a freak.”

  “You knew that when you started,” Waverley reminded him.

&n
bsp; Symes shrugged. “All right, Sam. Let me put it this way.” He lighted a cigarette. “What in hell am I? What are any of us psis? We can do something, but we don’t know how we do it. We have no control over it, no insight into it. Either it’s there or it isn’t. We’re not supermen, but we’re also not normal human beings. We’re—I don’t know what we are.”

  “Bill,” Waverley said softly. “It’s not the other men worrying you. It’s you. You are starting to think you’re a freak.”

  “Neither fish nor fowl,” Symes quoted, “nor good red meat. I’m going to take up dirt farming, Sam.”

  Waverley shook his head. Psis were easily discouraged from trying to get their talents out of the parlor-trick stage. The commercial world was built—theoretically—along the lines of one-hundred percent function. A machine that didn’t work all the time was considered useless. A carry-over of that attitude was present in the psis, who considered their talents a mechanical extension of themselves, instead of an integral part. They felt inferior if they couldn’t produce with machinelike regularity.

  Waverley didn’t know what to do. Psis would have to find themselves, true. But not by retreating to the farms.

  “Look, Sam,” Symes said. “I know how much psi means to you. But I’ve got a right to some normality also. I’m sorry.”

  “All right, Bill,” Waverley said, realizing that any more arguments would just antagonize Symes. Besides, he knew that psis were hams, too. They liked to do their tricks. Perhaps a dose of dirt-farming would send Bill back to his real work.

  “Keep in touch with me, will you?”

  “Sure. So long, Sam.”

  Waverley frowned, chewed his lip for a few moments, then went in to see Doris.

  “Marriage date back on?” he asked her.

  “How about Eskin?”

  He told her about Eskin’s new job, and the date was set for the following week. That evening they had supper together in a cozy little restaurant. Later they returned to Doris’s apartment to resume their practice of ignoring television.