The Age of the Pussyfoot

by Pohl Frederik

  It was his Sirian. And it was reaching out to touch him with something that glittered and stung.

  Forrester found himself lying on the ground, staring up at the suit that rode beside him on its jets.

  “I never said I’d go back to work for you,” he said. It hung there unresponding, the long tendril that had stung him now dangling slackly by its side.

  “I don’t need a job that bad,” he babbled, squeezing his eyes closed. He thought that whatever the Sirian had stabbed him with was something very peculiar indeed. For he could not move. And the Sirian seemed to be changing shape.

  It no longer looked like a Sirian at all.

  Twelve

  At some later time Forrester realized that he could move again, and he found that he was in a flier, laughing to himself over something he had forgotten, staring down at a bright golden farm scene below.

  A voice from behind him said, “Dear Charles, you are all right, it is true?”

  He turned, grinning. “Sure. Only I’ve forgotten some things.”

  “You will say what those things are, dear Charles?”

  He laughed, “Oh, what happened to the Sirian. Last I remember, he did something to me—it felt as though he were giving me a hypospray of something. And where we’re going—would you believe it, I don’t even remember getting into this thing with you. And another thing, I don’t remember why you’re wearing that funny-looking suit, Adne.”

  Adne said nothing, only regarded him roguishly through her circlet of green eyes.

  He was no longer laughing. “It’s confusing,” he apologized. “I’m sorry if I’ve messed things up again.”

  She still did not speak, although she was busy enough. With others of her eyes she was apparently studying the instrument board of the flier, which was marked off in terrain segments, showing their flight plan as they moved.

  “Dear Charles,” she said suddenly, “you are ready to perform your programmed tasks?”

  “What programmed tasks?”

  But the question was a mistake. An explosion of pain formed under his skull and burst through his body to the tips of fingers and toes, where it recoiled and surged back and forth through his nervous system in dwindling echoes. He cried out. It was not the first time he had felt that pain; he remembered now. And he remembered his programmed tasks.

  “You are Adne Bensen. As a joke you want me to smuggle you onto a starship. I must carry you aboard and plug in the command unit you have given me to the starship’s circuits and tell no one, or it will spoil the joke. And hurt me.”

  “Dear Charles,” boomed the hollow, resonant voice, “you are ready to perform your programmed tasks.”

  The pain was receding. Forrester leaned back, dizzy, sick, extremely confused. He wondered if his mind were breaking down. Certainly it would be no wonder if it were, after what he had been through.

  It did not seem to him that Adne’s joke was very funny. But Forrester recognized that his mind was not very sharp at that moment, and perhaps it was his judgment that was at fault, not the joke. He felt as though he were crazy. He felt both unbearably sleepy and keyed up, like an insomniac glaring hatefully at the slowly brightening window of his room. His eyes were gritty and sore, but when he closed them they sprang open again. It was frightening.

  And he was disoriented in space and time. He had no idea where they were. He realized with dismay that it was dark night outside the flier. When had that happened? Time passed that he did not mark in any way; he would look up to see Adne regarding him with her strangely bright green eyes, look again, and she was somewhere else; but he had not seen her move. Delusions. Had he not thought that Adne had stabbed him with something like a hypodermic? What possible motive would she have for that? Had he not seemed to remember her telling him who she was over and over? (As though he couldn’t recognize her!) Wasn’t there a memory of the girl, looking so strangely unlike herself in that Sirian spacesuit, repeating and endlessly repeating instructions on what he was to do at some later time, emphasizing them with jabs of that explosive pain?

  He closed his eyes, groaning.

  They flew open again, but curiously he was not in the flier any more. Dizzy and sick, he saw only in flashes, but the flashes told him that he was standing on hot, baked, dead grass; there was the whir of the flier’s idling rotors behind him, ahead of him a metallic whining of gears as a port opened, beside him a hiss of ducted gas. He found himself pushing the bobbing, silent figure in the cone-shaped spacesuit through the opening port; found himself connecting something flat and shiny to jacks on an instrument board. And then he was outside again, and under stars, and getting back into the flier.

  But where was Adne?

  He flung himself petulantly down on the seat. His head was splitting with pain. “Damn you,” he whispered, and slept.

  When he woke up, the flier was standing at the side of the hoverway, across from the tapering yellow spire. The engines were stopped and silent. As best he could tell, it was at the exact spot where the Sirian had reached out for him with the thing that stung.

  He staggered out and breathed deep. Whush of vehicles from the hoverway, scream of tires from another, more distant road. There was no other sound. It appeared to be morning.

  He called tentatively, “Adne?”

  There was no answer. In a way, he had not expected one, only hoped.

  Twenty-four hours had disappeared out of his life, and he was very hungry. He searched his pockets, to see what might be left of the handout from his friend, the whip-murderer. Nothing. He had expected that, of course. His resources were dwindling all the time. His money was gone. His credit was destroyed. Whitlow, his mentor among the Forgotten Men, was dead—irrevocably dead, Forrester thought, making the distinction in his mind that this age made out of instinct.

  He had only Adne left—if he had Adne. So he did what he had known all along he was going to do; he headed for Adne’s condominium.

  He knew perfectly well, as he skulked through the underways and dodged passing fliers, that he had no real claim on her. She might not be home; she might not admit him if she was.

  But she was home and did admit him, without much enthusiasm. “You look a mess,” she said, averting her face. “All right, come in.”

  He sat down, ill at ease. The two children were there, staring with total interest at something on the view-wall. They barely glanced his way, then returned to their show. For that matter, Adne’s attention was on the wall as well.

  Forrester cleared his throat. He was aware that, besides being hungry and broke, he was also far from clean. He cast about in his mind for some conversational gambit that would give Adne a chance to invite him to eat, or at least to wash up. “I, uh, had a funny experience,” he said tentatively.

  She grunted over her shoulder, “Hold it, will you, Charles?” She seemed very upset over something, he thought, watching her as she fingered her joymaker and stared at the changing patterns on the view-wall.

  He said desperately, “I thought you were with me yesterday. It was all dreamlike and crazy, and I’m worried. It wasn’t you, was it?”

  “Charles, will you shut up a minute?” Her attention was on the wall. Forrester glanced at it. . . .

  And saw a scene that he recognized. It was dried, seared grass on an open plain. There was a mark where something heavy had ground into the earth. A man s voice was saying, in tones of sonorous mourning, “The liftship appears to have evaded orbital patrols, and so it must be assumed to be on its way to Sirius itself. Radar-net surveillance detected it at launch, and appropriate challenges were issued. But there was no response. . . .”

  Forrester swallowed a lump in his throat. “Did—did a Sirian—did one of them escape?”

  The boy snapped, “Sweat, Charles! Where’ve you been? Happened hours ago!”

  Forrester let his eyes close on his interior agony. The organ voice of the man narrating from the view-wall continued.

  “Meanwhile, there is much concern at every lev
el of authority. There can be no doubt that there must have been human complicity in the escape. Yet no joymaker monitors have registered any such event, nor can any motive be found. The Alliance for Solar-Sirian Amity has voluntarily offered all of its members for mind-probing; eight registered nihilist-obliterative organizations have been questioned about statements of policy suggesting that, in one formulation or another, all of humanity should destroy itself. No information suggesting complicity has emerged.

  “But transcending any question of guilt are the considerations of consequence. One fact is beyond argument: a Sirian has managed to begin the long trip back to his home planet, undoubtedly carrying with him the information that Earth is the culprit in the destruction of a Sirian spacecraft. Experts in Sirian psychology declare that the result will be war. All over the world at this hour—”

  “He’s looping it, Mim,” grumbled the boy. “We heard this part twice already. Can I shut it off?”

  Adne nodded and sank back, her face tense and almost expressionless as the wall relapsed into a decorative jungle scene.

  Forrester coughed.

  “Oh,” said Adne. “I almost forgot you were here. Did you want to ask me something?”

  “Well,” said Forrester, “I did, but it isn’t important now.

  “Not compared to this,” she agreed. “What was it?”

  “Nothing. It was just something about whether you were with me yesterday, but I don’t have to ask you any more. I know who was with me now.”

  Thirteen

  Once, many years before (it was actually several centuries, counting the deep-freeze time), little Chuck Forrester had caused a three-car auto smash that put two people in the hospital.

  He had done it with his little slingshot, lying out in the tall grass next to his house in Evanston, taking shots at the cars on the highway. His aim was too good. He hit one. He got a state policeman in the eye. The cop had lost control, jumped into the opposite lane, sideswiped a convertible, and skidded into a station wagon.

  Nobody died; the policeman didn’t even lose his eye, although it was close for a while; and, as it happened, they didn’t think to look around the neighborhood for kids with slingshots. The accident went down on the books as having been caused by a pebble thrown up by a passing car. But Chuck didn’t know that, and for a solid year afterward he woke up in a sweat of fear every night, and all his days were horrors of anticipating being caught.

  It was just so now.

  It was perfectly clear to Forrester that he was the one who had helped the Sirian circumvent the electronic defenses that kept the alien bound to Earth. He could work it out step by step in his mind. The Sirian had shopped around until it found a human being ignorant enough, and pliable enough, to be unsuspicious. It had contrived to inject him with some hypnotic drug; it had made him believe it was Adne Bensen, then induced him to fly it to the site of an obsolete, but still workable, spaceship—unconscious, or in whatever state in a Sirian passed for unconsciousness, so that the electronic alarms would register nothing. It had commanded him to load it aboard the ship and launch it into space, and he had done as he was commanded, in the fuzzy-minded suggestibility it had doped him into.

  Perfectly clear! He could see every step. And, if he could, certainly others could. All they had to do was take the trouble to think it through. And certainly all the world was thinking hard about the Sirians. The view-wall was full of news: special investigating teams ransacking the site of the take-off for clues, a hundred new probes launched to guard the perimeter of the solar system, Condition Yellow alert declared, and everyone cautioned to remain within easy distance of a raid shelter at all times.

  Forrester kept waiting for the hand to fall on his shoulder and the voice to cry, “You, Forrester! You are the man!”

  But it did not come. . . .

  Meanwhile, the flap over the escape of Sirian Four had had one good effect, and that was that Adne was so interested in the excitement that she became much more friendly to Forrester again. She even fed him, let him clean himself up in her bath, and, as the children were off on some emergency drill with their age-peers, gave him their room to sleep in when it became obvious he was near collapse.

  Voices woke him—Adne’s and a man’s.

  “. . . Mostly for the kids, of course. I’m not so worried for myself.”

  “Natch, honey. God! At a time like this! Just when the society’s ready to swing.”

  “It wouldn’t be so bad, but it makes you wonder about a lot of other things. I mean, really, how could they let that thing escape?”

  A masculine growl: “Hah! How? Haven’t I been telling you how? It’s letting machines do men’s work! We’ve put our destiny in the hands of solid-state components, so what do you expect? Don’t you remember my White Paper last year? I said, ‘Guarding men’s liberties is a post of honor, and only the honored should hold it.’ ”

  Forrester sat up, recognizing the voice: Taiko Hironibi. The Luddite.

  “I thought you were talking about the coppers,” said Adne’s voice.

  “Same thing! Machines should do machine work, men should do men’s—Hey, what’s that?”

  Forrester realized he had made a noise. He stood up, feeling ancient and worn, but somewhat better than before he had slept, and was coming out toward them even before Adne answered Taiko. “It’s only Charles. Come in here, Charles, why don’t you?”

  Taiko was standing before the view-wall, joymaker in his hand; his thumb was on one of the studs, and apparently he had just been giving himself a shot of one brand or another of euphoria. Even so, he glowered at Forrester.

  “Oh, don’t be like that,” said Adne.

  “Huh,” said Taiko.

  “If I can forgive him, you can forgive him. You have to make allowances for the kamikaze ages.”

  “Hah,” said Taiko. But the euphoria prevailed—either the spray from the joymaker, or the spice of danger that was sweeping them all. Taiko clipped the joymaker to his belt, rubbed his chin, then grinned. “Well, why not? All us human beings have to stand together now, right? Put ’er there.”

  Gravely they shook hands. Forrester felt altogether ridiculous doing it; he was not sure just what he had done to offend Taiko in the first place, and was not particularly anxious to be forgiven by him now. Still, he reminded himself, Taiko had once offered him a job. A job was something he needed. Although, with the Sirian threat so urgent and imminent now, it was at least an open question whether the Ned Lud Society would need any more workers. . . .

  It could not hurt to find out. Before he could change his mind, Forrester said rapidly, “I want you to know, Taiko, that I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said. You were right, of course.”

  Taiko’s eyes opened. “About what?”

  “About the danger of the machines, I mean. What I think is, men should do men’s work and machines should do machine work.”

  “There’s only one computer you can trust.” Forrester tapped his skull with a forefinger. “The one up here.”

  “Sure, but—”

  “It just burns me up,” said Forrester angrily, “to think that they left the safeguarding of our planet to solid-state components! If only they’d listened to you!”

  With part of his attention, Forrester could hear a smothered giggle from Adne, but he ignored it. “I want you to know,” he cried, “that I’ve come to some conclusions over the last few days and I’m for the Ned Lud Society a hundred percent. Let me help, Taiko! Call on me for anything!”

  Taiko gave the girl a look of absent-minded puzzlement, then returned to Forrester. “Well,” he said, “I’m glad to hear that. I’ll keep that in mind, if anything comes up.”

  It took all of Forrester’s self-control to keep his expression friendly and eager; why was Taiko being so slow? But Adne rescued him. Suppressing her giggles, she said excitedly, “Say, Taiko! Why don’t you let Charles in the Society? I mean, if he’d be willing.”

  Taiko frowned and hesitated, but
Forrester didn’t give him a chance. “I’m willing,” he said nobly. “I meant what I said. Glad to help.”

  Taiko shrugged after a second and said, “Well, fine, then, Forrester. Of course, the money’s not much.”

  “Doesn’t matter a bit!” cried Forrester. “It’s what I want to do! Uh, how much?”

  “Well, basic scale is twenty-six thousand.”

  “A day?”

  “Sure, Forrester.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Forrester largely. “I only want to serve any way I can.” And, exultant, he allowed himself to be given a drink to celebrate, which he enlarged to be a meal. Adne was tolerantly amused.

  And all the while the view-wall was displaying scenes of alarm and panic, unheeded.

  Forrester had not forgotten that he had betrayed Earth to the Sirians; he had only submerged that large and unpleasant thought in the smaller, but more immediate, pleasure of having escaped from the Forgotten Men. He drank a warm, minty froth and ate nutlike little spheres that tasted like crisp pork; he accepted a spray of a pinkly evanescent cloud from Adne’s joymaker that made him feel about seventeen again—briefly. Tomorrow would be time enough to worry about what he had done to the world, he thought. For today it was enough to be eating well and to have a place in the scheme of mankind.

  But all his worries came back to him when he heard his name spoken. It was Taiko’s joymaker that spoke it, and it said, “Man Hironibi! Permit an interruption, please. Are you in the company of Man Forrester, Charles Dalgleish?”

  “Yes, sure,” said Taiko, a beat before Forrester opened his mouth to plead with him to deny it.

  “Will you ask Man Forrester to speak his name, Man Hironibi?”

  “Go ahead, Forrester. It’s to identify you, see?”

  Forrester put down the cup of frothed mint and took a deep breath. The pink cloud of joy might as well never have been. He felt every year of his age, even the centuries in the freezer. He said, because he could think of no excuse for not saying it, “Oh, all right. Charles Dalgleish Forrester. Is that what you want?”