Dark Night in Toyland

by Bob Shaw

  “That’s right,” his companion put in fervently. “I’d give a million zlinkots for a build like yours. Two million.”

  Bryant glared from one to the other, still convinced he was being hazed; then a curious fact was borne home to him. Malicious fate had saddled him with a body that was undersized and puny, but that was nothing to the trick it had played on these strangers. They barely came up to his shoulder, and their clinging garments revealed concave chests and legs which would have looked more appropriate on stick insects. Bryant looked beyond them and saw that all the other men strolling in the plaza were jerry-built on similar lines, and the first glimmers of understanding came to him.

  If what he saw was a representative sample, if all the men on this world looked alike, then there was every likelihood that he was the most perfectly developed specimen of the lot. Alterealities Incorporated had fulfilled its contract after all, but not in the way he had anticipated.

  “I can’t get over those pectorals,” the first man commented, his gaze fixed admiringly on Bryant’s chest.

  “And how about those lats?” the second one added. “He must work out for hours every day.”

  “Oh, I like to keep in shape,” Bryant said modestly, preening himself. Then a new thought came to him. “Do you think the girls would go for a body like mine?”

  “Go for it!” The first man rolled his eyes. “You won’t be able to fight them off.”

  As if to verify his words, there came a series of gasps, giggles and other sounds of feminine delight from somewhere off to Bryant’s right. He turned and saw a group of six or seven young women approaching him at considerable speed. They were wide-eyed and pink-cheeked with what appeared to be unbridled desire. After a brief pause, during which they ogled his body from close up, they began to touch him with eager fingers. Others jostled for position, and in less than ten seconds Bryant was at the centre of a scrimmage. As he struggled to keep his feet in the confusion, hands clutched at various parts of his anatomy with disconcerting lack of finesse, bodies ground against him, lips were pressed urgently to his, and his ears were bombarded with proposals, the least bold of which required him to nominate his place or hers.

  The situation might have been highly gratifying to one with Bryant’s history of frustration, except for one unfortunate fact—the women of this world were, if anything, less well-endowed than their menfolk. Sharp elbows and knees beat painful tattoos all over his frame; bony fingers threated to remove pieces of his flesh. The overall effect was akin to being attacked by rapacious skeletons. Moaning in panic, Bryant lunged for freedom, groping in his jacket pocket for the flat shape of the Probability Normalizer.

  He found it, pressed the button, and on the instant—his jacket and shirt still draped over his arm—he was standing on the silvery disk in Alterealities Incorporated’s New York office. T. D. Marzian and Miss Cruft were gazing at him, the former with cool surprise, the latter with some degree of consternation.

  “Were things not entirely to your satisfaction, sir?” Marzian asked blandly.

  “Satisfaction?” Bryant quavered, heading unsteadily for the nearest chair. “My God, man, I nearly got torn to pieces!”

  He began to relate what had happened, but had uttered only a few words when it came to him that he was partially nude in the presence of Miss Cruft. Embarrassed, he struggled into his clothing and finished his story.

  “Most unfortunate,” Marzian said in matter-of-fact tones. “But now you can appreciate the value of our Triple Chance facility—you still have two free transfers in hand.”

  “Two? You mean you’re going to count that…shambles?” Bryant was shocked and indignant. “You sent me into a completely wrong sort of universe.”

  “It was the one you specified. We have your instructions here in your own writing.”

  “Yes, but when I said I wanted to be the most perfectly developed man in the world, I meant I wanted a new physique. One like Mister America’s.”

  Marzian gave him a barely perceptible shake of the head. “The Probability Redistributor doesn’t work that way. You are you, sir. You are one invariant point in an ocean of probabilities, and nothing can be done to alter that fact. The only realities in which you can exist are those in which you are short of stature and…um…somewhat underpowered.”

  Bryant, having invested practically every penny he owned, refused to be put off so easily. “Aren’t there any realities in which all the men are scrawny midgets, like the two I told you about, and all the women are…well…normal?” Making sure Miss Cruft was not watching, Bryant made ballooning gestures in front of his chest so that there would be no doubt about what he meant by “normal”.

  “That’s hardly logical, is it?” Marzian’s voice now had an edge of impatience. “The males and females of any species have to be compatible, to share similar characteristics; otherwise that species couldn’t exist.”

  Bryant’s shoulders slumped. “Does that mean I’ve wasted all my money? All I wanted was to live in a reality where beautiful women would fall over themselves to get at me. Was that too much to ask?”

  Marxian stroked his chin with the air of a man intrigued by a professional challenge. “There’s no need to despair, Mr Bryant. Just take a look around you at our own reality. There are lots of extremely unprepossessing men who have more women than they know what to do with. The common factor is that these men can do something better than most others. Women go for success, you see. It doesn’t have to be in anything marvellous—singing, dancing, hitting a ball, driving a car…Is there anything you are particularly good at?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Bryant said dolefully.

  “Well, is there anything you are; fairly good at?”

  “Sorry.” Bryant took his newly-signed contract from his pocket and began scanning the small print. “What’s your policy about refunds?”

  “How about acting? Or shooting pool?” Marzian was beginning to sound anxious. “Can’t you even write stories?”

  “No.” Bryant shuffled the contract’s pages, then paused with a sheepish expression on his face. “There was one thing I could do at school—better than anybody else—but it’s too stupid for words.”

  “Try me,” Marzian urged.

  “Well…” Bryant gave him a tremulous smile. “I could blow bubbles off my tongue.”

  Marzian placed a hand on the nape of his neck and smoothed some hair down over his collar. “You could blow bubbles off your tongue.”

  “That’s right,” Bryant said with some signs of animation. “It’s not as easy as you might think. You’ve got to work up the right sort of saliva—not too thick and not too thin—to form a durable bubble. Then you’ve got to direct your breath against it at exactly the right angle to separate it from the tip of your tongue—not too high and not too low. And you have to curl your tongue into the right shape, as well. I was the only boy in my class who ever got four bubbles into the air at once.”

  “Really? Well, I suppose it’s worth a try.” Marzian tapped some keys on his desk, studied a visual display unit for a moment, then looked up at Bryant in round-eyed surprise. “This business never ceases to amaze me—there actually are other realities in which the principal glamour sport is skimming bubbles off the end of your tongue!”

  “And the women are…normal?”

  Marzian nodded. “We’re talking about Sector One probabilities, which means that everything else is pretty much the same as it is here.”

  “Can you transfer me to one of them?” Bryant said, with an abrupt up-swing in his mood. “One where the all-time champ had never managed more than three bubbles in the air at once?”

  “It’s at the extreme range of the equipment, but I can do it.” Marzian gestured in the direction of Miss Cruft. “You’ll need to complete a new authorisation.”

  “Of course.” When Bryant stooped over Miss Cruft’s desk to fill in the necessary forms, he became aware that she used an extremely heady brand of perfume, but his mind was preoccupied with
visions of the slim-waisted sirens who were to be in his ideal universe. He signed his name with a flourish and strode over to the probability focus plate.

  “Good luck,” Miss Cruft said.

  Bryant scarcely heard her. He took up his position on the silver disk, folded his arms and watched Marzian’s fingers flicker over the control panels as they tampered with the very structure of reality. Marzian concluded by hitting the red button and, as before, the transfer was instantaneous.

  Bryant found himself standing in a busy street in what could have been Manhattan had the buildings been higher and the traffic a few decibels louder. The men and women who thronged the sidewalks appeared normal, and the styles of their clothing differed only slightly from those of the reality Bryant had left behind. He looked closely at passers-by and saw that many of them were attempting to blow bubbles off their tongues as they went about the day’s business. Men and women alike were trying, and Bryant was gratified to see that not one of them had any vestige of style or technique. In his ten minutes of watching not one succeeded in launching a single bubble.

  Feeling more than a little self-conscious, Bryant moved out of the doorway in which he had been sheltering and began flipping bubbles. His boyhood skills did not return immediately, but within a short time he had begun achieving good separations. Bubble after bubble was lobbed into quivering flight, and inevitably—in spite of the far from ideal conditions—there came a moment when he had two in the air at once. By then he was at the centre of a crowd of spectators, and the event was greeted with a rousing cheer. He nodded demurely, acknowledging the applause, and was heartened to see that quite a few of his audience were desirable women and that they were gazing at him with every sign of adoration.

  This is more like it, he thought.

  A gleaming chauffeur-driven limousine pulled up at the edge of the crowd. The fat man who got out of it was richly dressed and exuded an unmistakable aura of power. Bryant, aware of his scrutiny, speeded up his action and almost at once got three bubbles airborne. The crowd went wild. Car horns sounded as traffic began to jam the street.

  “Say, are you a professional?” The fat man had somehow forced his way to Bryant’s side. “What’s your name?”

  Bryant grinned up at him, intuitively sure of what was coming next. “Arthur Bryant, and I’m not a professional.”

  “You are now—I can get you a million shiller a contest.” The fat man indicated his limousine. “Come on.”

  “With pleasure.” Bryant struggled to the car in the wake of his benefactor, got in and found himself sharing the rear seat with two of the most stunning women he had ever seen.

  “Girls, I’d like you to meet Arthur,” the fat man said. “He’s the next world champion bubbler, and I want you to be nice to him. Real nice. Got that?” The girls nodded in unison and turned to Bryant with slow-smouldering smiles which caused every nerve in his body to thrum like harp strings.

  Bryant sat up in the huge circular bed, rearranged the black satin pillows to support his back, and stared moodily at the beautiful young woman who was lying beside him.

  Three weeks had passed since he switched realities, and in that time he had become world champion in his chosen field, had made additional fortunes through endorsing a range of commercial products, had bought an island and a yacht, and had just signed up for his first three movies. He had also consorted with a succession of incredibly beautiful and passionate women, and many, many others were waiting in line just for the privilege of being seen with him.

  By all his own estimates he should have been deliriously happy—but something had gone wrong with his dream world. Something he had not foreseen.

  The young woman beside him opened her eyes, stirred languorously and said, “Do it again, Arthur.”

  Bryant shook his head. “I’m not in the mood.”

  “Go on, Arthur baby,” she pleaded. “Just one more time.”

  He tightened his lips obstinately. The effort of flicking thousands of bubbles a day into the air had given him a painful blister where the underside of his tongue rubbed against his teeth. As a result he had had to modify his technique and flick much faster, and the associated hyperventilation gave him dizzy spells and nausea. Into the bargain, he was bored.

  The girl purred sensuously and moved closer. “Just once more—just one little bubble.”

  Bryant put out his much-abused tongue and pointed at it angrily. “There’s more to me than this thing, you know,” he said with forgivable indistinctness. “I’m not just a tongue—I’ve got a mind. Doesn’t it ever occur to anybody that I might want to discuss philosophy?”

  The girl frowned. “Phil who?”

  “That does it!” On impulse, Bryant snatched his Probability Normalizer from the bedside table and pressed the button. On the instant, he was back in the Alterealities office, sprawling on the floor under the startled gazes of T. D. Marzian and Miss Cruft. The latter’s face turned a becoming shade of pink. Cursing himself for not having had the foresight to change out of his silk boudoir suit, Bryant scrambled to his feet and took shelter behind a chair while he adjusted what there was of his clothing.

  “It’s been three weeks, Mr Bryant,” Marzian said in neutral tones, opening a closet door and taking out a dressing gown. “Have we still got problems?”

  “Problems!” Bryant accepted the gown and was slipping it on when a new thought occurred to him. “You seem to have quite a few of these things in there.”

  An indecipherable expression flitted across Marzian’s face as he removed the Probability Normalizer from Bryant’s unresisting fingers and dropped it into his own pocket. “Other clients have returned on the spur of the moment. Were things getting tiresome?”

  “Tiresome isn’t the word for it,” Bryant said, grateful for an understanding ear. “You have no idea what it’s like to be treated as an unfeeling object, to have people simply making use of you night and day.”

  “That was the reality you specified.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t understand. What I really needed was a universe where I would be appreciated for myself, for the real me, as a thinking person.”

  “And are you?”

  “Am I what?”

  “A thinking person?”

  Bryant scratched his head. “I think so. I mean I go around thinking all the time, don’t I?”

  “You picked the wrong reality twice in a row.”

  “Ah, but that was because I didn’t think.” Bryant narrowed his eyes, suspecting the other man was trying to make him look stupid. “I’ve thought the whole thing over—and I want you to transfer me to a reality in which I’ll be regarded as the wisest man in the world.”

  “I’m afraid the Probability Redistributor can’t cope with that sort of request,” Marzian said. “The target is too vague, you see. So many people have different ideas as to what constitutes wisdom. If we tried to effect a transfer under those terms, you’d be diffused into thousands of different realities. You’d become a kind of statistical gas, and you don’t really want that to happen.”

  Bryant considered the prospect for a moment. “You’re right—so what can we do?”

  “The trick is to particularise,” Marzian replied with weary expertise. “You think up something really deep, and I’ll incorporate it into the specification and transfer you to a reality where it’s regarded as the wisest thing ever said. Do you see what I mean?”

  “Of course I see what you mean.”

  “Go ahead then.”

  “I’m going to—it’s just that…” Bryant’s voice tailed off uncertainly as he came face to face with the realisation that it was much easier to proclaim oneself a thinker than to measure up to the job. “Well, it’s just that…”

  “We close in ten minutes,” Marzian said unhelpfully. “Can’t you think of anything?”

  “Don’t rush me.” Bryant placed a hand on his brow and tried to concentrate. “Let me see now…something’s coming…”

  “Let’s have it—I’ve
got a train to catch.”

  “Okay, here goes.” Bryant closed his eyes and began to intone in a hollow voice. “There’s no point in fishing for truth unless you are using the right bait.”

  Marzian gave an unexpected bark of laughter which almost drowned out a low gurgle from Miss Cruft.

  “What’s the matter?” Bryant said, unnerved and deeply offended. “You think that’s funny?”

  “No, no—it’s very…profound.” Marzian dabbed something from one of his eyes. “Forgive me—I’ve been under a strain lately, and my nerves aren’t too…” He cleared his throat and turned to the control panels on his desk. “Please step on to the probability focus plate and we’ll proceed.”

  Bryant hesitated. “Don’t I have to sign new papers?”

  “Not this time,” Marzian said carelessly, beginning to tap at his keyboards. “We like to get everything down in black and white for each client’s first two transfers, just in case there’s any quibbling afterwards, but this is your third shot—and this time you won’t be coming back. Whatever reality you fetch up in, you’re there for keeps.”

  “I see.” Bryant, now older and wiser with regard to all the hazards of reality-switching, felt a sudden timidity about what he was proposing to do. His first two excursions into alternative universes had been disastrous, and this time there would be no prearranged escape hatch. He hung back for a moment, teetering, then noticed that Miss Cruft was observing his reactions with broody interest. Squaring his shoulders, he stepped on to the silver disk and nodded for Marzian to go ahead.

  “Here we go,” Marzian said as he finished keying in the new specification. “Good-bye and good luck!”

  With a showman’s flourish he brought his hand over the red button and pressed down hard.

  Nothing happened.

  Bryant, who had been unconsciously cringing, straightened up and watched attentively as Marzian pressed the button again and again. The familiar surroundings of the office refused even to waver. They remained solid, immutable, real.

  “I can hardly believe this,” Marzian exclaimed, his jowls turning a lighter shade of grey. “It’s the very first time the Probability Redistributor has ever failed to…unless…Wait a minute!” He depressed a few keys, examined dials and instruments, and sat back in his chair looking thunderstruck.