The Age of the Pussyfoot

by Pohl Frederik

  Forrester swung his legs out of the sort of low-walled crib he was lying in and found he could walk as well as ever. Even his bruises didn’t hurt, or not much, although he could detect what seemed to be the beginning return of pain.

  The red-faced man said, “You’re fine. Stay out of here for a while, will you? And don’t forget to see Hara, because you’re in some kind of trouble.” He turned away as Forrester started to question him. “How would I know what kind? Just go see Hara.”

  Although a slim green arrowhead of light skipped along the floor ahead of him, guiding him to Hara’s office, Forrester thought he could have found it without the arrowhead. Once he left the emergency rooms he was in the part of the dormer he remembered. Here he had awakened out of a frozen sleep lasting half a millennium. There, every day for a week, he had gone bathing in some sort of light, warm oil that had vibrated and tingled, making him feel drowsy but stronger each day. It was on the level below this that he had done his exercises and in the building across the bed of poinsettias (except that these poinsettias were bright gold) that he had slept.

  He wondered what had become of the rest of what he thought of as his graduating class. The thawed Lazaruses were processed in batches—fifty at a clip in his group—and, although he had not spent much time with any of them, there was something about this shared experience that had made him know them quickly.

  But when they were discharged, they all went in separate directions, apparently for policy reasons. Forrester regretted they had lost touch.

  Then he laughed out loud. A blue-jacketed woman, walking toward him along the hall and talking into an instrument on her wrist, looked up at him with curiosity and faint contempt. “Sorry,” he said to her, still chuckling, as the green beacon of light turned a corner and he followed. He didn’t doubt he looked peculiar. He felt peculiar. He was amused that he was missing these fellow graduates of the freezatorium with the fond, distant detachment he had felt for his high school class. Yet it was less than forty-eight hours since he had been with them.

  A busy forty-eight hours, he thought. A bit frightening, too. Even wealth was not as secure a buffer against this world as he had thought.

  The flickering green light led him into Hara’s office and disappeared.

  Hara was standing at the door, waiting for him. “Damned kamikaze,” he said amiably. “Can’t I trust you out of my sight for a minute?”

  Forrester, who had never been a demonstrative man, seized his hand and shook it. “Jesus, I’m glad to see you! I’m mixed up. I don’t know what the hell is going on, and—”

  “Just stay out of trouble, will you? Sit down.” Hara made a seat come out of the wall and a bottle out of his desk. He thumbed the cork expertly and poured a drink for Forrester, saying, “I expected you under your own power this morning, you know. Not in a DR cart. Didn’t the center warn you somebody was after you?”

  “Positively not!” Forrester was both startled and indignant. “What do you mean, somebody was after me? I had no idea—”

  Then, tardily, recognition dawned. “Unless,” he finished thoughtfully, “that’s what the joymaker was mumbling about. It was all about bonds and guaranties and somebody named Heinz something of Syrtis Major. That’s on Mars, isn’t it? Say!”

  “Heinzlichen Jura de Syrtis Major,” Hara supplied, toasting Forrester with his glass and taking a tiny sip of the drink. Forrester followed suit; it was champagne again. Hara sighed and said, “I don’t know, Charles, but I don’t think I’ll acquire a taste for this stuff after all.”

  “Never mind that! The Martian! The fellow in orange tights! He’s the one who beat me up, he and his gang!”

  Hara looked faintly puzzled. “Why, of course.”

  Forrester tipped up his ruby crystal glass and drained the champagne. It was not very good champagne—heaven knew where Hara had found it, after Forrester had mentioned it as being one of the great goods of the past—and it was by no means appropriate to the occasion. It tickled his nose. But at least it contained alcohol, which Forrester felt he needed.

  He said, humbly, “Please explain what happened.”

  “Sweat, Charles, where do I start? What did you do to Heinzie?”

  “Nothing! I mean—well, nothing, really. I might have stepped on his feet when we were dancing.”

  Hara said angrily, “A Marsman? You stepped on his feet?”

  “What’s so bad about that? I mean, even if I did. I’m not sure I did. Would you blow your stack about something like that?”

  “Mars isn’t Shoggo,” Hara said patiently, “and, anyway, maybe I would. Depends. Did you read your orientation book?”

  “Huh?”

  “The book of information about the year 2527. You got it when you were discharged here.”

  Forrester searched his memory. “Oh, that. Maybe I left it at the party.”

  “Well, that adds,” Hara said with some disgust. “Will you please try to bear in mind, first, that you’re sort of my responsibility; second, that you don’t know your way around? I’ll see you get another copy of the book. Read it! Come back and see me tomorrow; I’ve got work to do now. On your way out, stop at the discharge office and pick up your stuff.”

  He escorted Forrester to the door, turned, then paused.

  “Oh. Adne Bensen sends regards. Nice girl. She likes you,” he said, closed the door, and was gone.

  Forrester completed his processing and was released by the medical section, receiving as he left a neat white folder with his name imprinted in gold.

  It contained four sets of documents. One was a sheaf of medical records; the second was the book Hara had mentioned, slim and bronze-bound, with the title printed in luminous letters:

  YOUR GUIDE TO THE 26TH CENTURY [1970-1990 EDITION]

  The third document seemed to be a legal paper of some kind. At least, it was backed with a sheet of stiff blue material that gave it the look of a subpoena. Forrester remembered that the doctor who had patched him up had spoken of trouble. This looked like the trouble, though the words were either unfamiliar in context or totally meaningless to him:

  You, Charles Daigleish Forrester, uncommitted, undeclared, elapsed thirty-seven years, unemployed-pending, take greeting and are directed. Requirement: To be present at Congruency Hearing, hours 1075, days 15, months 9 . . .

  It had the authentic feel of legalese, he saw with dismay. Much of the face of the single sheet of paper that the blue material enclosed was covered with a sort of angular, almost readable lettering—something like the machine script they used to put on checks, Forrester thought, and then realized that that was no doubt what it was.

  But the paper had a date on it, and since that date appeared to be a week or more away, as near as Forrester could figure, he tabled it with some relief and turned to the next and last item in the folder.

  This was a financial statement. Attached to it was a crisp metallic slip with the same angular printing on it, which Forrester recognized as a check.

  He fingered it lovingly and puzzled out the amount.

  It was made out to him, and it was for $231,057.56.

  Forrester attempted to fold it—it sprang back like spring steel—and then put it away flat in his pocket. It felt good there.

  He was faintly puzzled by the fact that it was some twenty thousand dollars less than he had expected. But in terms of percentage the amount didn’t seem very significant, and he was cheerfully reconciled to the opinion that this society, like all societies, would no doubt have some sort of taxes. Twenty grand was, after all, an amount he could well afford as a sort of initiation fee.

  Feeling much more secure, he emerged into the sunlight and looked about him.

  It was late afternoon. The sun was to his right. Slate-blue water stretched to his left. He was looking southward over the great pinnacled mass of the city.

  Aircraft moved above it. Things crawled in its valleys. The sun picked out reflections from glass and metal, and, although it was still daylight, the city
already exuded a developing glow of neon and fluorescence.

  There were at least ten million people in Shoggo, Forrester knew. There were theaters and card parties and homes, places where he might find a friend or a lover. Or even an enemy. Down there was the girl who had kissed him last night—Tip?—and the crazy Martian and his gang, who had tried to kill him.

  But where?

  Forrester did not know where to begin.

  Alive, healthy, with almost a quarter of a million dollars in his pocket, he felt left out of things. Standing on a planet with a population of seventeen billion active human beings, and at least twice that number dreaming in the slow cold of the helium baths, he felt entirely alone.

  From his belt the voice of the joymaker spoke up. “Man Forrester. ‘Will you take your messages?”

  “Yes,” said Forrester, disconcerted. “No. Wait a minute.”

  He took the last cigarette out of the pack he had got that morning, lit it, then crumpled the pack and threw it away. He thought.

  Owning a joymaker was a little like having a genie with three wishes. The thing’s promptness and precision disconcerted him; he felt that it demanded equal certitude from himself and he did not feel up to it.

  He grinned to himself ruefully, admitting that he was being made self-conscious by what he really knew to be nothing but a radio connection with some distant lash-up of cold-state transistors and ferrite cores. Finally he said, “Look. You. I think what I ought to do is go back to my room and start over again from home base. What’s the best way to get there?”

  “Man Forrester,” said the joymaker, “the best way to get to the room you occupied is by cab, which I can summon for you. However, the room is no longer yours. Will you accept your messages?”

  “No. Wait a minute! What do you mean, no longer mine? I didn’t check out.”

  “Not necessary, Man Forrester. It is automatic on departure.”

  He paused and thought, and on consideration it didn’t seem to matter much. He had left nothing there. No bag, no baggage. No personal possessions, not even a shaving brush: he wouldn’t have to shave for a week or two anyway, Hara had told him.

  All of himself that he had left in the room was the garments he had worn last night. And those, he remembered, were disposable . . . and so had no doubt been disposed of.

  “What about the bill?” he asked.

  “The charge was paid by the West Annex Discharge Center. It is entered on your financial statement, Man Forrester. Your messages include one urgent, two personal, one notice of legal, seven commercial—”

  “I don’t want to hear right now. Wait a minute.”

  Once again Forrester tried to frame the right question.

  He abandoned the effort. Whatever his skills, he was not a computer programmer, and it was no good trying to talk like one. It seemed absurd to ask a machine for value judgments, but—

  “Cripes,” he said, “tell me something. What would you do, right now, if you were me?”

  The joymaker answered without hesitation, as though that sort of question were coming up every day. “If I were you, Man Forrester, which is to say, if I were human, just unfrozen, without accommodations, lacking major social contacts, unemployed, unskilled—”

  “That’s the picture, all right,” Forrester agreed. “So answer the question.” Something was crawling underfoot. He stepped aside, out of its way, a glittering metal thing.

  “I would go to a tea shop, Man Forrester. I would then read my orientation book while enjoying a light meal. I would then think things over. I would then—”

  “That’s far enough.”

  The metal thing, apparently espying Forrester’s discarded cigarette pack, scuttled over to it and gobbled it down. Forrester watched it for a second, then nodded.

  “You’ve got some good ideas, machine,” he said. “Take me to a tea shop!”

  Four

  The joymaker procured a cab for Forrester, a wingless vehicle like the death-reversal conveyance that had brought him in for repair, but orange and black instead of white; it looked like Hallowe’en. And the cab took him to the joymaker’s recommended tea shop.

  The shop was curious. It was located in an interior hall of a great spidery building in the heart of the city. The cab flew under a pierced-steel buttress, actually into a sort of vaulted opening that could have served only birds and angels, or men in aircraft, since it was at least fifty feet above ground. It halted and hovered before a balcony planted with climbing roses, and Forrester had to step over a knife edge of empty space. The cab did not quiver, not even when his weight left it.

  A girl with hair like transparent cellophane greeted him. “I have your reservation, Man Forrester. Will you follow me, please?”

  He did, walking behind her across a quartz-pebbled court and into the hall that was the tea room, admiring the swing of her hips and wondering just what it was that she did to her hair to make it stand out like a sculptured puffball and rob it of opacity.

  She seated him beside a reflecting pool, with silvery fish swimming slowly about. Even with the peculiar hairdo, she was a pretty girl. She had dimples and dark, amused eyes.

  He said, “I don’t know what I want, actually. Anyway, who do I order from?”

  “We are all the same, Man Forrester,” she said. “May I choose for you? Some tea and cakes?”

  Numbly, he nodded and, as she turned and left, watched the sway of her hips with an entirely different kind of interest.

  He sighed. This was a confusing world!

  He took the book out of the folder he had been given at the West Annex Discharge Center and placed it on the table. Its cover was simple and direct:

  YOUR GUIDE TO THE 26TH CENTURY

  [1970-1990 EDITION]

  Where to Go

  How to Live

  Managing Your Money

  Laws, Customs, Folkways

  It was edge-indexed with helpful headings: MAKING FRIENDS, LIVING ON A BUDGET, HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF YOUR JOYMAKER, JOB OPPORTUNITIES, WHERE TO GET NEEDED TRAINING . . . it went on and on. Forrester, flipping through the pages, was astonished to find how many of them there were.

  He had a good week’s reading here, he estimated. Obviously the first thing for him to do was to decide what was the first thing to do.

  Making friends could wait a bit. He seemed already to have made more friends—and enemies!—than he could assimilate.

  Living on a budget? He smiled to himself and patted the pocket that held his check.

  How to get the most out of your joymaker, though. That was a good place to start, thought Forrester, then opened the book to the right page and began to read.

  The remote-access computer transponder called the “joymaker” is your most valuable single possession in your new life. If you can imagine a combination of telephone, credit card, alarm clock, pocket bar, reference library, and full-time secretary, you will have sketched some of the functions provided by your joymaker.

  Essentially it is a transponder connecting you with the central computing facilities of the city in which you reside on a shared-time, self-programming basis. “Shared-time” means that many other joymakers use the same central computer—in Shoggo, something like ten million of them. If you go to another city your joymaker will continue to serve you, but it must be reset to a new frequency and pulse-code. This will be done automatically when you travel by public transportation. However, if you use private means, or if for any reason you spend any time in the agricultural areas, you must notify the joymaker of your intentions. It will inform you of any steps you must take.

  “Self-programming” means that the programmed software includes . . .

  The self-programming, shared-time girl with the dark, grave eyes brought Forrester his tea and cakes. “Thank you,” he said, staring at her. He was still not quite sure of his deductions about her. He tried an experiment. “Can you give me my messages?” he asked.

  “Certainly, Man Forrester, if you wish,” she said pro
mptly. “Alfred Guysman wishes to see you on political business. Adne Bensen asks you to return her message of this morning. The Nineteenth Chromatic Trust informs you that arrangements have been made for you to establish banking facilities with them—”

  “That’s enough,” he said, marveling at how nicely a shared-time transponder could be packaged. “I’ll take the rest later.”

  There was no sugar for the tea, but it was physically hot and chemically cool at the same time—rather like a mentholated cigarette, except that there was no particular taste associated with it. Forrester returned to his book.

  “Self-programming” means that the programmed software includes procedures for translating most normal variations of voice, idiom, accent, and other variable modalities into a computer-oriented simscript and thence into the mathematical expressions on which the computers operate. As long as your personal joymaker is within reception range of your voice, you may communicate via other shared-time transponders if you wish. Appropriate modulation will be established automatically. However, do not attempt to use another individual’s joymaker when yours is not within range. Proper coding cannot be assured. In the event that your joymaker is lost or damaged . . .

  Forrester sighed and ate one of the cakes. It was rich with flavors like butter and cinnamon and with others he could not identify. Pleasant but strange.

  Very much like this world that had been given him.

  “Man Forrester,” said the joymaker at his belt, its tones muffled by his coat and the tablecloth, “it is necessary for you to accept some messages. I have a notice of personal visit and—”

  Forrester said, “Look, I’m doing what you said, right? I’m reading my book. Let me figure it out a little before you throw messages at me. Unless,” he said as an afterthought, “there’s some matter of life or death.”

  “There are no messages involving life or death, Man Forrester.”