Is That What People Do?

by Robert Sheckley

  The next morning, while leafing through his magazines, Waverley had a sudden idea. He called Emma Cranick at once and told her to come over.

  “How do you feel about traveling?” he asked the girl. “Do you enjoy seeing new places?”

  “Oh, I do,” Emma said. “This is the first time I’ve been off my uncle’s farm.”

  “Do you mind hardships? Bitter cold?”

  “I’m never cold,” she told him. “I can warm myself, just like I can start fires.”

  “Fine,” Waverley said. “It’s just possible…”

  He got on the telephone. In fifteen minutes he had made an appointment for the poltergeist girl.

  “Emma,” he said, “have you ever heard of the Harkins expedition?”

  “No,” she said. “Why?”

  “Well, they’re going to the Antarctic. One of the problems of an expedition of that sort is heat for emergencies. Do you understand?”

  The girl broke into a smile. “I think I do.”

  “You’ll have to go down and convince them,” Waverley said. “No, wait! I’ll go down with you. You should be worth your weight in gold to an expedition like that.”

  It wasn’t too difficult. Several women scientists were going on the expedition, and after seven or eight demonstrations, they agreed that Emma would be an asset. Strong and healthy, she could easily pull her own weight. Self-warmed, she would be able to function in any weather. And her fire-making abilities...

  Waverley returned to his office at a leisurely pace, a self- satisfied smile on his lips. Girls like Emma would be useful on Mars someday, when a colony was established there. Heat would be difficult to conserve in Mars’s thin air. She was a logical choice for a colonist.

  Things like that reaffirmed his faith in the future of psi. There was a place for all psi talents. It was just a question of finding the right job, or creating one.

  Back in the office, a surprise was waiting for him. Eskin, the voyeur, was back. And Doris Fleet had a wrathful look in her eyes.

  “What’s wrong, Sid?” Waverley asked. “Back to pay us a visit?”

  “Back for good,” Eskin said unhappily. “They fired me, Mr. Waverley.”

  “Why?”

  “They’re not real scientists,” Eskin said sadly. “I showed them my results on their test cases, and they were shocked. Can you imagine it, Mr. Waverley? Scientists—shocked!”

  Waverley suppressed a grin. He had always had a feeling that surveys of that sort uncovered about a sixteenth of the truth.

  “Besides, they couldn’t keep their scientific detachment. I ran a series of studies on the scientists’ home lives for a control factor. And they threw me out!”

  “That’s a pity,” Waverley said, avoiding Doris Fleet’s look.

  “I tried to point out that there was nothing wrong in it,” Eskin said. “I showed them the series I’ve been running on you and Miss Fleet—”

  “What?” Doris yelped, standing up so suddenly she knocked over her chair.

  “Certainly. I keep my reports on all subjects,” the psi said. “One must run follow-up tests.”

  “That does it,” Doris said. “I never heard such a—Sam! Throw him out!”

  “What good will that do?” Waverley asked. “He’ll just go on observing us.”

  Doris stood for a moment, her lips pressed into a thin line. “I won’t stand for it!” she said suddenly. “I just won’t!” She picked up her handbag and started toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” Waverley asked.

  “To enter a nunnery!” Doris shouted, and disappeared through the door.

  “She wasn’t the girl for you, anyhow,” the psi said. “Extremely prudish. I’ve been observing your sexual needs pretty closely, and you—”

  “Shut up,” Waverley said. “Let me think.” No answer sprang into his mind. No matter what job he found for Eskin, the man would still go on with his observations. And Doris wouldn’t marry Waverley.

  “Go into the other room,” Waverley said. “I need time to think.”

  “Shall I leave my report here?” The psi said, showing him a stack of papers two inches thick.

  “Yeah, just drop it on the desk.” The psi went into the anteroom, and Waverley sat down to think.

  Over the next few days, Waverley gave every available minute to the voyeur’s problem. Doris didn’t come back to work the next morning, or the morning after that. Waverley called her apartment, but no one answered.

  The poltergeist girl left with the Antarctic expedition, and was given a big fanfare by the press.

  Two telekinetic psis were found in East Africa and sent to Wild Talents.

  Waverley thought and thought.

  A man dropped into the office with a trained-dog act, and was very indignant when he heard that Wild Talents was not a theatrical agency. He left in a huff.

  Waverley went on thinking.

  Howard Aircraft called him. Since Bill Symes had left, Inspection had become the plant’s worst bottleneck. Production had been geared to the psi’s methods. When he was doing well, Symes could glance at a piece of metal and jot down his analysis. The part didn’t even have to be moved.

  Under the older method of X-ray inspection, the parts had to be shipped to Inspection, lined up, put under the machine, and the plates developed. Then a radiologist had to read the film, and a superior had to pass on it.

  They wanted Symes back.

  The psi returned. He had had his fill of farming in a surprisingly short time. Besides, he knew now that he was needed. And that made all the difference.

  Waverley sat at his desk, reading over the voyeur’s reports, trying to find some clue he might have missed.

  The man certainly had an amazing talent. He analyzed right down to the hormones and microscopic lesions. Now how in hell could he do that? Waverley asked himself. Microscopic vision? Why not?

  Waverley considered sending Eskin back to Blackstone. After all, the man was doing more harm than good. Under psychiatric care, he might lose his compulsion—and his talent, perhaps.

  But was Eskin insane? Or was he a genius with an ability far beyond the present age?

  With a nervous shudder, Waverley imagined a line in some future history book: “Because of Dr. Waverley’s stupidity and rigidity in dealing with the genius Eskin, psi research was held up for—”Oh no! He couldn’t chance that sort of thing. But there had to be a way.

  A man who could—of course!

  “Come in here, Eskin,” Waverley said to the potential genius.

  “Yes, sir,” the psi said, and sat down in front of Waverley’s desk.

  “Sid,” Waverley said, “how would you like to do a sexual report that would really aid science? One that would open a field never before explored?”

  “What do you mean?” the psi asked dubiously.

  “Look, Sid. Straight sexual surveys are old stuff. Everybody does them. Maybe not as well as you, but they still do them. How would you like it if I could introduce you to an almost unexplored field of science? A field that would really test your abilities to the utmost?”

  “I’d like that,” the psi said. “But it would have to do with sex.”

  “Of course,” Waverley said. “But you don’t care what aspect of sex, do you?”

  “I don’t know,” Eskin said.

  “If you could do this—and I don’t know that you can—your name would go down in history. You’d be able to publish your papers in the best scientific journals. No one would bother you, and you could get all the help you want.”

  “It sounds wonderful. What is it?”

  Waverley told him, and watched Eskin closely. The psi considered. Then he said, “I think I could do that, Mr. Waverley. It wouldn’t be easy, but if you really think that science—”

  “I know so,” Waverley said, in a tone of profoundest conviction. “You’ll need some texts, to get some background on the field. I’ll help you select them.”

  “I’ll start right now!” the p
si said, and closed his eyes for greater concentration.

  “Wait a minute,” Waverley said. “Are you able to observe Miss Fleet now?”

  “I can if I want to,” the psi said. “But I think this is more important.”

  “It is,” Waverley told him. “I was just curious as to whether you could tell me where she is.”

  The psi thought for a moment.

  “She isn’t doing anything sexual,” he said. “She’s in a room, but I don’t know where the room is. Now let me concentrate.”

  “Sure. Go ahead.”

  Eskin closed his eyes again. “Yes, I can see them! Give me pencil and paper!”

  Waverley left him as Eskin began his preliminary investigations.

  Now where had that girl gone? Waverley telephoned her apartment again, to see if she had come back. But there was no answer. One by one, he called all her friends. They hadn’t seen her.

  Where? Where in the world?

  Waverley closed his eyes and thought: Doris? Can you hear me, Doris?

  There was no reply. He concentrated harder. He was no telepath, but Doris was. If she was thinking of him...Doris! Sam!

  No message was necessary, because he knew she was coming back.

  “Where did you go?” he asked, holding her tightly.

  “To a hotel,” she said. “I just waited there and tried to read your mind.”

  “Could you?”

  “No,” she said. “Not until the last, when you were trying too.”

  “Just as well,” Waverley said. “I’d never have any secrets from you. If you ever try anything like that again, I’ll send the goblins out looking for you.”

  “I wouldn’t want that,” she said, looking at him seriously. “I guess I’d better not leave again. But, Sam—how about—”

  “Come on in and look.”

  “All right.”

  In the other room, Eskin was writing on a piece of paper. He hesitated, then started scribbling again. Then he drew a tentative diagram, looked at it and crossed it out, and started another.

  “What is he doing?” Doris asked. “What’s that supposed to be a picture of?”

  “I don’t know,” Waverley said. “I haven’t studied their names. It’s some sort of germ.” “Sam, what’s happened?”

  “Resublimation,” Waverley said. “I explained to him that there were other forms of sex he could observe, that would benefit mankind and science far more, and win him endless prestige. So he’s looking for the sex-cycle of bacteria.”

  “Without a microscope?”

  “That’s right. With his drive, he’ll devour everything ever written about bacterial life. He’ll find something valuable, too.”

  “Resublimation,” Doris mused. “But do germs have a sex life?”

  “I don’t know,” Waverley said. “But Eskin will find out. And there’s no reason why he can’t do some perfectly good research in the bargain. After all, the line between many scientists and Peeping Toms is pretty fine. Sex was really secondary to Eskin after he had sublimated it into scientific observation. This is just one more step in the same direction. “Now would you care to discuss dates and places?”

  “Yes—if you’re sure it’s permanent.”

  “Look at him.” The psi was scribbling furiously, oblivious to the outside world. On his face was an exalted, dedicated look.

  “I guess so.” Doris smiled and moved closer to Waverley. Then she looked at the closed door. “There’s someone in the waiting room, Sam.”

  Waverley kept back a curse. Telepathy could be damnably inconvenient at times. But business was business. He accompanied Doris to the door.

  A young girl was sitting on a chair. She was thin, delicate, frightened-looking. Waverley could tell, by the redness of her eyes, that she had been crying recently.

  “Mr. Waverley? You’re the Wild Talents man?”

  Waverley nodded.

  “You have to help me. I’m a clairvoyant, Mr. Waverley. A real one. And you have to help me get rid of it. You must!”

  “We’ll see,” Waverley said, a pulse of excitement beating in his throat. A clairvoyant!

  “Suppose you come in here and tell me all about it.”

  THE SWAMP

  Ed Scott took one look at the boy’s terrified white face and knew something serious was wrong. “What is it, Tommy?” he asked.

  “It’s Paul Barlow,” the boy said. “We were all playing in the east swamp—and—and—and he’s sinking, sir!”

  Scott knew he had no time to waste. Just last year, two men had been lost in the treacherous patches of the east swamp. The area was fenced now, and children had been warned. But they played there anyhow. Scott took a long coil of rope from his garage and set off at a run.

  In ten minutes he was deep within the swamp. He saw six boys standing on a grassy fringe of firm land. Twenty feet beyond them, in the middle of a smooth, yellowish gray expanse, was Paul Barlow. The boy was waist-deep in the gluey quicksand, and sinking. His arms flailed, and the quicksand crept toward his chest. It looked as though the boy had tried to cross this patch on a dare. Ed Scott uncoiled his rope and wondered what made kids act with such blind, murderous stupidity.

  He threw the rope, and the children watched breathlessly as it soared accurately into Paul’s hands. But the child—with quicksand up to the middle of his chest—didn’t have the strength to hold on.

  With only seconds left, Scott tied an end of the rope to a stump, took a firm grip, and waded out after the screaming boy. The sand trembled and gave under his feet. Scott wondered if he’d have the strength to haul himself and the boy out. But the first problem was to reach Paul in time.

  Scott came to within five feet of the boy, who was buried now to the neck. Keeping a firm grip on the rope, Scott waded forward another foot, sank to his waist, gritted his teeth, and reached for the boy—and felt the rope go slack! He twisted, trying to keep himself up as the swamp sucked him down—covering his chest and neck, filling his screaming mouth, and at last concealing the top of his head…

  On the wooded fringe, one of the boys closed the pocket knife with which he had cut the rope. Out in the swamp, little Paul Barlow stood up cautiously, supported by the wooden platform that he and the other boys had sunk at the swamp’s edge and carefully tested. Watching his footing, Paul backed out of the sand, circled around the danger spot, and joined the others.

  “Very good, Paul,” said Tommy. “You have succeeded in luring an adult to his death, and thereby become a full member of the Destroyers’ Club.”

  “Thank you, Mr. President,” Paul said, and the other children cheered.

  “But just one thing,” Tommy said. “In the future, please watch the overacting. All that screaming was a bit heavy, you know.”

  “I’ll watch it, Mr. President,” Paul said. By then it was evening. Paul and the other boys hurried home for supper. Paul’s mother commented on how good his color was; she approved of his playing with his friends in the open air. But, as with all boys, his poor clothes were a muddy mess—and his hands were dirty.

  THE FUTURE OF SEX: SPECULATIVE JOURNALISM

  Sophisticated sexual engineering will soon be a reality. Many techniques for high-powered sensual realization are already in the developmental stages. Nerve seeding is one example. Nerve endings in the penis are relatively few. The same is true of the vagina. Within the decade, however, your surgeon will be able to inject you with a local nerve-growth stimulant. In less than a week, newly grown and densely packed nerve endings will yield a new dimension of exquisite sensations. A desensitization period may prove necessary; it may take a man two weeks before he can avoid ejaculating at the slightest stimulus, such as when he touches his organ accidentally while reaching for change.

  Nerve clusters can be implanted on the body anywhere, and linked to the brain’s arousal center. There’s no limit but inconvenience. Sexual feeling could be diffused, causing polymorphous perversity in which the entire body functions as a single sexual organ. Norm
al spread of sensation between implanted nerve clusters will make this possible; your body will be like a six-foot-tall erect penis (or whatever height you are)—throbbingly sensitive, capable of febrile excitation impossible to imagine. Or, if you prefer, actual sex organs may be grown anywhere on the body. For example, an erectile stalk with male and/or female receptors at one end could be extruded from a point several inches below the armpit.

  Regardless of design, newly engineered people will find that their excitation potential vastly exceeds their orgasmic capacity. One impotency therapy currently being tested in Third World countries is the implantation of booster testes. In Nigeria, for example, despite a high national birth rate, certain tribes have been downbreeding to the point of extinction. An example of this is the Duka, a small sub-Saharan tribe wedged between two powerful and quarrelsome neighboring tribes. Most Duka males are unable to achieve orgasm despite frenzied use of the siila—a fetish doll of great erotic import, indigenous to the area northwest of Lake Chad. The booster testis has provided a dramatic solution. The operation itself is simple: a tiny diode, implanted in the male genital region, increases nerve impulses and thus sperm production. The results have been “reliable” erections with excellent ejaculatory ability. But can ejaculatory capacity be upgraded so that a man can have five, ten, or even twenty climaxes in an hour?

  The solution is almost at hand. Male orgasm typically results in enervation that persists for hours or even days. Multiple nerve-muscle nets, surgically layered on top of the present sets and triggered to fire at different times, will ensure orgasmic capacity—as intense as you can stand, and for as long as you can take it. Delightful though this may seem, there are risks. Almost certainly a fail-safe device will have to be implanted to turn one off before—there is no other way of saying it—the body literally fucks itself to death.

  Today, masturbation is the most convenient sex act. Unfortunately it is also the most boring. Therefore other people must sometimes be resorted to. The rehabilitation of masturbation will change all this. The sexually re-engineered individual will pursue him- or herself with full social approval, and his response level can be set so low that almost any stimulus will work. Partially clothed pinups, for example, or even innocuous “naughty” words such as do-do and caca might do the trick. Morally and scientifically sanctioned partnerless sex could be a relief for those who find themselves alone, perhaps during space travel, or who simply have trouble finding anyone to do anything sexual with. In this enlightened social climate, Solo Marriage will be a viable and respected institution.