The Age of the Pussyfoot

by Pohl Frederik

  It had finally penetrated to Forrester that money was still money. His quarter of a million dollars would have bought him—and in fact had bought him—something very like a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of goods and services, even by twentieth-century standards. It was not the dollar that had been inflated. It was the standard of living.

  There were so many things that a dollar could now buy. . . . And he had been buying quantities of them.

  He could even, he discovered, have managed to live out his life on that quarter of a million dollars—just as he could have in 1969—provided he had lived at a 1969 level. No robot servants. No extensive medical services—above all, no use of the freezer facilities and their concomitant organ banks, prostheses, antientropic chemical flushings and so forth. If he had eaten no costly, custom-prepared natural foods, had not traveled, had acquired no expensive gadgets . . . if he had, to be exact, lived exactly the life of a twentieth-century suburban peasant, he could have made it last.

  But not now. It was gone now. All gone, except for a few tens of thousands left in the account at the Nineteenth Chromatic, plus what the Sirian paid to his account every day. It was about enough to pay his standard joymaker fees for a couple of weeks, maybe. If he was careful.

  But Forrester was resigned to the situation. He didn’t mind it particularly—at least, he didn’t mind his bankruptcy, since it lay within his power to work and make more money than he had ever dreamed of anyway. What he minded very much was the fact that he had been a joke—he and his quarter of a million dollars. And he minded most of all the fact that Adne had shared in that joke.

  Because dimly, like a faint, predawn glow in the desert, he could see the foretaste of a time when Ande could be very important to him.

  Was already very important to him, he thought wryly. At least in a potential sort of way. He wondered again what she had meant about that business of choosing a name . . . and why, he suddenly thought, had she not called him?

  But what was important to him, Forrester realized, was not necessarily important to anyone else. For now, he was a sort of apprentice to life. For now, he would wait, and work, and learn. For now he would not push his luck.

  Forrester had learned modesty, if he had learned nothing else.

  Forrester had not yet discovered that, in one particular and quite unpleasant way, he was on his way to becoming the most important man in the world.

  What mostly confused Forrester about his Sirian employer was that the creature seemed preoccupied. Forrester even asked his joymaker about it.

  “Can you clarify your question, Man Forrester? What is there about the behavior of Alphard Four Zero-zero Trimate that puzzles you?”

  “Just call him ‘the Sirian,’ will you? Anyway, he has a funny way of talking.”

  “Perhaps that lies in my computation, Man Forrester. The Sirian language is tenseless and quasi-Boolean. I have taken the liberty of translating it into approximately twentieth-century English modes of speech, but if you wish I can give you a more literal rendering or—”

  “No, it’s not that. He seems to have something on his mind.”

  There was a pause of a second or two. Even Forrester knew enough to remark this occurrence; for the computer facilities to hesitate or search for an answer meant that the problem was something remarkable. But all the joymaker said was, “Can you give me an instance, Man Forrester?”

  “Not really. Well, he has me doing some odd things. Is it right for him to want to hypnotize me?”

  A pause again. Then the joymaker said, “I cannot say, Man Forrester. But I advise you to be cautious.”

  Well, cautious he was, Forrester reflected. But he was also puzzled.

  The Sirian did not repeat its suggestion about hypnotizing Forrester—“to secure in-depth referents, plus buried traumas of former time”—but it remained hard to figure out. It capriciously had him talking about the twentieth century at one moment, explaining the Arian-Athanasian wars of nearly two millennia before that at another. (Forrester had had to beg time out to research the heresies revolving around the distinction between the words “homoousian” and “homoiousian”; even so, he never really did get the problem straight.) It kindly volunteered to assume his joymaker costs as part of his expenses. It refused to allow him to charge as travel expenses a trip to the deepest vaults of Shoggo, where he had been looking up records of the abandoned pressure-dome settlements on Saturn. “Capricious” was the word.

  It occurred to Forrester that the Sirian might simply be lonesome. But it rejected his offer to come visit it in its quarters. And, as far as he was able to tell, it showed no interest in the fate of its ten compatriots also in exile on Earth.

  “You explain common-law marriage.” And, gamely, Forrester tried to describe to a Sirian the drives of sexual impulse and family needs, which had brought about a formal institution to regularize irregular conduct. “There exist trading stamps!” boomed the hollow, empty voice; and Forrester did his best to clarify the complexities of retail supermarket sales. “You have or have not violated legislative compulsion programs,” stated the Sirian; and that was the most prolonged session of all. Try as he would, Forrester could not seem to get across the idea of a personal ethic—of laws that one did not violate, because they were morally right, and of laws that everyone violated if they possibly could, because they were morally irrelevant.

  He found himself feeling sorry for the Sirian. Its homework was even more arduous than his own.

  But Forrester’s homework could not be neglected. He ordered his joymaker to display the records of the long-range reconnaissance of the Sirian planet.

  He had been thinking of the Sirians as a paper tiger, but now he saw fangs. Englobed by fortresses, with fast and mighty vessels of war flitting about like wasps, the whole Sirian system was a vast network of armament. There were a dozen planets in all, two of them in Trojan orbit with Sirius B, the rest normal satellites of the great white star. All were inhabited. All were defended.

  Earth’s reconnaissance drones had been lucky enough—or unlucky enough—to find themselves observing and taping what seemed to be war games. The Sirians took their war games seriously. Edited and compressed, the records showed a waste of creature and armament that only a massive war effort could justify. A hundred of the great ships were damaged, some destroyed. A fleet of them converged on an icy satellite of one of the outlying, planets . . . and the satellite was melted into glowing slag before Forrester’s eyes.

  There was no more after that. Clearly, the operators of the drones had felt that enough was enough; it was less dangerous to leave the Sirians unwatched than to run the risk of attracting attention with the drones.

  Forrester did not again offer to visit the Sirian in its quarters.

  On the fifth day of his new life, Forrester arose to the promptings of his bed, ordered a standard low-cost breakfast (it was, as a matter of fact, far tastier than his hand-hewn specials), checked his messages, and started to work.

  With some pride in his expertise, he commanded the joymaker to select and mark a course to the buried vastnesses of the American Documentation Institute. The green-glowing arrows sprang to life at his feet. He followed them out the door, into a sort of elevator cab (but one that moved laterally as well as up and down), out of the cab, into another building, through a foyer clattering with old-fashioned punch-card sorters, into a vault containing some centuries-old records in which his employer had shown a certain interest.

  His joymaker said abruptly, “You will inform me about the term ‘space race.’ ”

  Forrester took his eyes from the old microfilm viewer. “Hello, Sirian Four,” he said. “I’m busy looking up the beginnings of the Ned Lud Society, as you asked me. It’s pretty interesting, too. Did you know they used to break up computers and—”

  “You will discontinue Ned Lud Society research and state motives that led two areas of this planet to complete in reaching the Moon.”

  “All right. In a minute. Just l
et me finish what I’m doing.”

  There was no answer. Forrester shrugged and returned to the viewer. The Luddites appeared to have taken themselves a great deal more seriously when they first started: where Taiko postured and coaxed, his predecessors had done the Carrie Nation bit with the axes, chopping up computing machines with the war cry, “Men for men’s jobs! Machines for bookkeeping!”

  As he read he forgot about the call from his employer. Then—

  “Man Forrester!” cried his joymaker. “I have two urgent notices of intention for you!”

  It was the master computing center this time, not the deep, remote, echoless voice of the Sirian. Forrester groaned. “Not again!”

  “Heinzlichen Jura de Syrtis Major—”

  “I knew it,” Forrester muttered.

  “—states that he has reactivated his hunting permit. You are notified, Man Forrester, so please be guided accordingly.”

  “I’m guided, I’m guided. What’s the other one?”

  “Man Forrester, it is from Alphard Four Zero-zero Trimate,” said the joymaker; then, unbending slightly, “or, as you call him, Sirian Four. A notice to terminate employment. Guarantees are met, and notice paid. Reason: failure to comply with reasonable request of employer, to wit, research questions concerning early U.S. and U.S.S.R. space probe motivation.”

  Forrester squawked, “Wait a minute! That sounds like—you mean—hey! I’m fired!”

  “Man Forrester,” said the joymaker, “that is correct. You are fired.”

  After the first shock had worn off, Forrester was not particularly sorry, although his feelings were hurt. He had thought he was doing as good a job as could be done. Considering the job. Considering the employer.

  Nevertheless, it had had its disadvantages, including the barely polite remarks Adne and the children had been passing about working for the enemy. So with a light heart Forrester dismissed the Sirian from his mind and informed the joymaker he wanted another job.

  Quite rapidly he had one: standby machine monitor for the great sublake fusion generating station under Lake Michigan. It paid very well, and the work was easy.

  Not for twenty-four hours did Forrester discover that the premium pay was due to the fact that, at unpredictable intervals, severe radiation damage was encountered. His predecessor in the job—in fact, all of his predecessors—were now blocks of low-temperature matter in the great lakeside freezers, awaiting discovery of a better technique for flushing the radioactive poisons out of their cells; and the joymaker candidly informed him that their probable wait for thawing and restoration, which depended on the pace at which certain basic biophysical discoveries were likely to be made, was estimated to be of the order of magnitude of two thousand years.

  Forrester blew his top. “Thanks!” he grated. “I quit! What the devil do they need a human being down here for anyway?”

  “In the event of cybernetic failure,” said the machine promptly, “an organic overseer may retain the potential of voice connection with the central computing facility, providing an emergency capability—”

  “It was only a rhetorical question. Forget it. Say,” said Forrester, punching the elevator button that would bring him up to the breather platform at the lake’s surface and thence back to the city, “why didn’t you tell me this job would kill me?”

  “Man Forrester,” said the machine gravely, “you did not ask me. Excuse me, Man Forrester, but you have summoned an elevator. Your relief is not due for three hours. You should not leave your station unattended.”

  “No, I shouldn’t. But I’m going to.”

  “Man Forrester! I must warn you—”

  “Look. If I read the plaque on the surface right, this particular installation has been in service for like a hundred and eighty years. I bet the cybernetic controls haven’t failed once in all that time. Right?”

  “You are quite correct, Man Forrester. Nevertheless—”

  “Nevertheless my foot. I’m going.” The elevator door opened; he entered; it closed behind him.

  “Man Forrester! You are endangering—”

  “Oh, shut up. There’s no danger. Worst that would happen would be that it might stop working for a while. So power from the city would come from the other generators until it got fixed, right?”

  “Yes, Man Forrester, but the danger—”

  “You argue too much. Over and out,” said Forrester. “Oh, except one thing. Find me another job.”

  But the joymaker didn’t.

  Time passed, and it still didn’t. It didn’t speak to him at all.

  Back in his room, Forrester demanded of the joymaker, “Come on, what’s the matter? You computers don’t have human emotions, do you? If I hurt your feelings I’m sorry.”

  But there was no answer. The joymaker did not speak. The view-walls would not light up. The dinner he ordered did not appear.

  The room was dead.

  Forrester conquered his pride and went to Adne Bensen’s apartment. She was not there, but the children let him in. He said, “Kids, I’ve got a problem. I seem to have blown a fuse or something in my joymaker.”

  They were staring at him, bemused. After a moment Forrester realized he had blundered in on something. “What is it, Tunt? Another club meeting? How about it, Mim?”

  They burst out laughing. Forrester said angrily, “All right. I didn’t come here for laughs, but what’s the joke?”

  “You called me Tunt!” the boy laughed.

  His sister giggled with him. “And that’s not the worst, Tunt. He called me Mim! Charles, don’t you know anything?”

  “I know I’m in trouble,” Forrester said stiffly. “My joymaker doesn’t work any more.”

  Now their stares were round-eyed and open-mouthed. “Oh, Charles!” Obviously the magnitude of the catastrophe had overwhelmed their defenses. Whatever it was that had been occupying their minds when he came in, they were giving him their whole attention now.

  He said uncomfortably, “So what I want to know is, what went wrong?”

  “Find out!” cried Mim. “Hurry, Tunt! Poor Charles!” She gazed at him with a compassion and horror, as at a leper.

  The boy knew what practical steps to take—at least, he knew enough to be able to find out what Forrester had done wrong. Through his pedagogical joymaker, the boy queried the central computing facilities, listening with eyes wide to the inaudible response, and turned to stare again at Forrester.

  “Charles! Great sweat! You quit your job without notice!”

  “Well, sure I did,” said Forrester. He shifted uneasily in his seat. “All right,” he said, to break the silence. “I did the wrong thing, huh? I guess I was hasty.”

  “Hasty!”

  “Stupid,” Forrester amended. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry!”

  “If you just keep repeating everything I say,” said Forrester, “you might drive me crazy, but you won’t be exactly helping me. I goofed. All right. I admit it.”

  The boy said, “Yes, Charles, but didn’t you know you forfeited your salary? And you didn’t have anything much else, you know. A couple K-bucks sequestrated for the freezers, but not much loose cash. And so you’re—” The boy hesitated, forming the words with his lips. “You’re broke,” he whispered.

  If those were not the most frightening words Forrester had ever heard, they certainly were well up in the running. Broke? In this age of incredible plenty and high-velocity spending? He might as well be dead, again. He sank back in his chair, and the little girl sprang helpfully forward and ordered him a drink. Forrester took a grateful swallow and waited for it to hit him.

  It didn’t hit him. It was, of course, the best the girl could get for him on her own joymaker, but it had about as much kick as lemon pop.

  He put it down carefully and said, “See if I’ve got this straight. I didn’t pay my bills, so they turned off the joymaker. Right?”

  “Well, I guess you could say that.”

  “All right.” Forrester nodded. “So
the first thing I have to do is reestablish my credit. Get some money.”

  “Right, Charles!” cried the girl. “That’ll fix everything up!”

  “So how do I do that?”

  The two children looked at each other helplessly.

  “Isn’t there anything I can do?”

  “Well, sure, Charles. Sweat, there’s got to be! Get another job, I guess.”

  “But the joymaker wouldn’t get me one.”

  “Sweat!” The boy gazed thoughtfully at his joymaker, picked it up, shook it, then put it down again. “That’s bad. Maybe when Mim comes home she can help you.”

  “Really? Do you think she’ll help?”

  “Well, no. I mean, I don’t think she’d know how.”

  “Then what do I do?”

  The boy looked worried and a little scared. Forrester was pretty sure he looked the same way himself. Certainly that was how he felt.

  Of course, he told himself, Hara might help him once more; certainly he’d had the practice. Or Taiko might be sportsman enough to get over his snub and reopen the invitation to work for the Luddites.

  But he was pretty sure that neither of these possibilities represented any very hopeful facts.

  The little girl wandered thoughtfully away, not looking at Forrester, and began muttering into her joymaker—back to the game he had interrupted, Forrester thought with totally unjustified bitterness. He knew it was unjustified. These were only children, and he had no right to expect them to handle adult problems that at least one adult—himself—couldn’t handle at all. The boy said suddenly, “Oh, one other thing, Charles. Mim says Heinzie’s out after you again.”

  “Don’t I know it.” But it didn’t seem such a threat, compared with the disaster of insolvency.

  “Well, you see, you’ve got a problem there,” the boy said. “If you don’t have your joymaker you won’t have any warning when he’s around. And also there’s something about the DR equipment you might not know. You have to have some credit rating or they won’t freeze you at all if you’re killed. You know. There’s always the chance that you’ll do something that annuls the bonds, so Heinzie, or whoever, might protest payment—then they’d be in trouble. I mean, they don’t want to get stuck with a stiff that can’t pay up.