Mindswap

by Robert Sheckley

  'That's a hell of a thing to say,' Marvin said.

  'I wasn't thinking of my own stake in the matter,' the detective said. 'Obviously, I do have a stake. But more important than that is the concept of Justice, and the belief in the possibility of goodness, upon which all theories of evil must depend, and also the statistical theory of probabilities. All of these vital concepts might be damaged by my 159th failure to solve a crime. And I think you'll admit that these are somewhat larger issues than our petty lives.'

  'No, I won't admit it,' Marvin said.

  'Well, no need to argue the matter,' the detective said, in a determinedly cheerful voice. 'Find yourself another body somewhere; and above all, stay alive! I want you to promise me that you'll really try your level best to stay alive.'

  'I promise,' Marvin said.

  'And I shall proceed with your case, and I will contact you as soon as I have anything to report.'

  'But how will you find me?' Marvin asked. 'I don't know what body I'll be in, or even what planet.'

  'You forget that I am a detective,' Urdorf said, smiling faintly. 'I may have my troubles in finding criminals, but I have never experienced the slightest difficulty in finding victims. I have a theory about that, which I will be pleased to discuss with you whenever we both have the time. But for now, just remember: wherever you are or whatever you turn into, I shall certainly locate you. So keep your chin up, don't lose the old moxie, and above all, stay alive!'

  Marvin agreed to stay alive, since he had planned on it anyhow. And he went out into the street with his precious time flowing away, and still without a body.

  Chapter 7

  Headline in the Martian Sun-News (tri-planet edition):

  Swap scandal!

  Police officials on Mars and Terra revealed today the existence of a Mindswap scandal. Wanted for questioning is Ze Kraggash, species unknown, who allegedly sold, swapped, or otherwise disposed of his Body to 12 Beings simultaneously. Warrants have been issued for Kraggash's arrest, and the police of the tri-planet area confidently expect to make an announcement soon. The case is reminiscent of the infamous 'Eddie Two-Head' scandal of the early '90s, in which …

  Marvin Flynn let the newspaper fall into the gutter. He watched as the flowing sand bore it away; the bitter ephemerality of the newsprint seemed a paradigm of his own highly conditional existence. He stared at his hands; his head drooped.

  ' 'Ere now, 'ere now, what seems to be the trouble, eh, lad?'

  Flynn looked up into the kindly blue-green face of an Erlan.

  'I've got troubles,' Flynn said.

  'Well then, let's hear 'em,' the Erlan said, folding himself down on the kerb beside Flynn. Like all of his race, the Erlan combined a quick sympathy with brusque manners. Erlans were known as a rough, witty people, much given to cheerful banter and homely sayings. Great travellers and traders, the Erlans of Erlan II were religiously required to travel in corpore.

  Marvin told his story, right up to the disconsolate moment of the forward-surging now, the cruel and remorseless now, the hungry now, eating into his little stock of minutes and seconds, pressing forward to the time when his six hours would have elapsed, and bodyless, he would be cast into that unknown galaxy that men call 'death'.

  'Garn!' the Erlan said. 'Not half sorry for yourself, are you?'

  'You're damned right I'm sorry for myself,' Flynn said, with a flash of anger. 'I'd be sorry for anyone who was going to die in six hours. Why shouldn't I be sorry for myself?'

  'Suit yourself, cock,' the Erlan said. 'Some might call it bad form and all the bumf, but me, I hold with the teachings of the Guajuoie, who said: "Is it death which snuffles near you? Strike it on the snout!" '

  Marvin respected all religions, and certainly had no prejudices against the widespread Antidescantine Rite. But he couldn't see how the Guajuoie's words could help him, and he said so.

  'Buck up!' the Erlan said. 'Got yer brains and yer six hours, ain't yer?'

  'Five hours.'

  'Well then! Git up on your hind legs and show a little grit, eh, cobber? Won't do yourself much good maundering around here like a bloody buggering old lag, will you now?'

  'I don't suppose I will, really,' Marvin said. 'And yet, what can I do? I have no body, and hosts are expensive.'

  'Too true. But did you ever fink of the Open Market? Eh?'

  'But that's supposed to be dangerous,' Marvin said, and blushed at the absurdity of his statement. The Erlan grinned toughly.

  'Got the picture, eh, lad? But listen, it ain't so bad as you fink, long as you buck up and take aholt. Open Market's not so bad; been a lot of rot talked about it, mostly by the big Swap agencies that wanna go on charging their over-inflated capitalistic damned fees. But I know a bloke been working there twenty years on Short Shuffles, and he tells me most of the blokes is straight as a die. So keep your head up and your chest-prop tucked in tight, and pick yourself a good inter-man. Good luck, kid.'

  'Wait a moment!' Flynn cried, as the Erlan folded to his feet. 'What is your friend's name?'

  'James Virtue McHonnery,' the Erlan said. 'He's a tough, hard-bitten, narrow-minded little cuss, and overfond of looking upon the grape when it is red, and inclined to be smitten by black rage when in his cups. But he deals flat and he serves straight, and you couldn't ask no more than that from St Xal himself. Just tell him that Pengle the Squib sent you, and good luck to you.'

  Flynn thanked the Squib eagerly, embarrassing that tough yet good-hearted gentleman. Rising to his feet, he proceeded, slowly at first, then with more speed, towards the Quain, in the north-west corner of which lay the many stalls and open booths of the Open Market. And his hopes, previously near entropy, began now to pulse modestly yet firmly. And in the nearby gutter, tattered newspapers flowed on a stream of sand towards the eternal and enigmatic desert.

  'Hey-ya! Hey-ya! New bodies for old! Come and be serviced – new bodies for old!'

  Marvin trembled when he heard that ancient street cry, so innocent in itself, yet so reminiscent of certain dark bedtime stories. Hesitantly he advanced into the tangled labyrinth of streets and alleys, or dead-ends and courtyards, that made up the ancient Free Market Area. And as he walked, a dozen shouted propositions assailed his aural receptors.

  'Harvesters wanted to harvest the crop on Drogheda! We supply you with a fully functional body, complete with telepathy! All found, fifty credits a month, and a complete list of Class C-3 pleasures! Special two-year contracts are now being let. Come harvest the crop on beautiful Drogheda!'

  'Serve in the Naigwin Army! Twenty NCO bodies currently on offer, plus a few specials in junior officer ranks. All bodies fully equipped with martial skills!'

  'What's the pay?' a man asked the salesman.

  'Your keep, plus one credit a month.'

  The man sneered and turned away.

  'And,' the barker proclaimed, 'unlimited sacking rights.'

  'Well, that seems in order,' the man said grudgingly. 'But the Naigwins been losing this war for a decade. High casualty rate, and not much corporeal reclamation.'

  'We're changing all that,' the salesman said. 'You're an experienced mercenary?'

  'Correct,' the man said. 'The name is Sean Von Ardin, and I've been in just about every major war around, plus a fair number of minor ones.'

  'Last rank?'

  'Jevaldher in the army of the Count of Ganymede,' Von Ardin said. 'But before that I held the rank of Full Cthusis.'

  'Well, well,' the salesman said, seemingly impressed. 'Full Cthusis, eh? Got papers to prove it? OK, tell you what I can do. I can offer you a position with the Naigwins as Manatee Leader, Second Class.'

  Von Ardin frowned and calculated on his fingers. 'Let's see, Manatee Leader, Second Class is the equivalent of a Cyclopian Demi-Vale, which is slightly lower than an Anaxorean Banner King, and almost half a grade lower than a Dorian Old Boy. Which means … Hey, I'd lose an entire field grade if I joined you!'

  'Ah, but you didn't hear me out,' the salesman cont
inued. 'You would hold that rank for a period of twenty-five days, to prove Purity of Intent, which the Naigwin political leaders are very big on. Then we would jump you three entire grades to Melanoan Superios, which would offer you an excellent chance at provisional Lance-Jumbaya, and maybe – I can't promise this, but I think I can swing it unofficially – maybe I can get you appointed Sackmeister for the spoils of Eridsvurg.'

  'Well,' Von Ardin said, impressed in spite of himself, 'that's a pretty decent deal – if you can swing it.'

  'Come into the store,' the salesman said. 'Let me make a phone call …'

  Marvin walked on and listened to men of a dozen races arguing with salesmen of a dozen more. A hundred propositions were screamed in his ear. His spirits were stirred and uplifted by the vitality of the place. And the propositions he heard, though sometimes dismaying, were often intriguing:

  'Aphid-man wanted for the Senthis Swarm. Good pay, congenial friendships!'

  'Rewrite man required to work on the Dirty Book of Kavengii! Must be able to empathize with sexual premises of the Midridarian race!'

  'Garden planners needed for Arcturus! Come and relax among the only vegetable-sentients in the galaxy!'

  'Expert manacler wanted for Vega IV! Opportunities also for semi-skilled restrainers! Full prerogatives!'

  There were so many opportunities in the galaxy! It seemed to Marvin that his misfortune was perhaps a blessing in disguise. He had wanted to travel – but his modesty had permitted him no more than the role of tourist. But how much better, how much more gratifying it would be, to travel for a reason: to serve with the armies of Naigwin, experience life as an aphid-man, learn what it meant to be a manacler – even to do rewrites on the Dirty Book of Kavengii.

  Directly ahead of him, he spotted a sign that read: 'James Virtue McHonnery, Licensed Short-Shuffle Dealer. Satisfaction guaranteed'.

  Standing at the waist-high counter and smoking a cigar was a tough, hard-bitten, sour-mouthed little man with piercing cobalt-blue eyes. This could be none other than McHonnery himself. Silent and disdainful, scorning to spiel, the little man stood with arms folded as Flynn walked up to the booth.

  Chapter 8

  They stood face to face, Flynn slack-jawed, McHonnery clam-mouthed. Several seconds of silence ensued. Then McHonnery said: 'Look, kid, this ain't no goddamned peep show and I ain't no goddamned freak. If you got something to say, spit it out. Otherwise take a walk for yourself before I break your back.'

  Marvin could see at once that this man was no fawning, honey-mouthed body salesman. There was no hint of obsequiousness in that rasping voice, no trace of ingratiation in that downturned mouth. Here was a man who said what he wanted to say, and took no heed of the consequences.

  'I – I am a client,' Flynn said.

  'Big deal,' McHonnery harshed. 'Am I supposed to turn handsprings or something?'

  His sardonic retort and blunt, inner-directed demeanour gave Flynn a sensation of confidence. He knew, of course, that appearances could be deceiving; but no one had ever told him what to judge by instead of appearances. He was inclined to trust this proud and bitter man.

  'I am going to be dispossessed of this body in a matter of hours,' Marvin explained. 'Since my own body has been stolen, I am in desperate need of a substitute. I have very little money, but I – I am quite willing and prepared to work.'

  McHonnery stared at him, and a sardonic grin twisted the man's tight lips. 'Prepared to work, huh? Ain't that nice! And just what are you prepared to work at?'

  'Why – anything.'

  'Yeah? Can you operate a Montcalm metal lathe with light-sensitive switchboard and manual cull? No? Think you could handle a Quick-Greeze Particle Separator for the Rare Earths Novelty Company? Not your sort of thing, huh? … I got a surgeon on Vega who wants somebody to run his Nerve-Impulse-Rejection Simulator (the old model with the double pedals). Not exactly what you had in mind? Well, we got a jazz band on Potemkin II which needs a stomach-horn man, and a restaurant near Bootes which could use a short-order cook, with working knowledge of Cthensis specialities. Doesn't ring a bell? Maybe you could pick flowers on Moriglia; of course, you'd have to be able to predict anthesis without more than a five-second variation. Or you could do spot-flesh-welding, if you've got the nerves for it, or boss a phylopod reclamation project, or draw up intermediate creeper systems, or – but I don't guess none of them strike your fancy, huh?'

  Flynn shook his head and mumbled, 'I don't know anything about any of those jobs, sir.'

  'Somehow,' McHonnery said, 'that doesn't surprise me as much as you might think. Is there anything you can do?'

  'Well, in college I was studying-'

  'Don't give me your goddamned life story! I'm interested in your trade, skill, talent, profession, ability, whatever you want to call it. What, specifically, can you do?'

  'Well,' Marvin said, 'I guess when you put it that way, I can't do anything much.'

  'I know,' McHonnery said, sighing. 'You're unskilled; it's written all over you. Kid, it may interest you to know that unskilled minds are common as dirt, commoner. The market's glutted with them, the universe is crammed to overflowing with them. It may interest you to know that there is nothing you can do that a machine can't do better, faster, and a damn sight more cheerfully.'

  'I'm sorry to hear that, sir.' Marvin said, sadly but with dignity. He turned to go.

  'Just a minute,' McHonnery said. 'I thought you wanted to work.'

  'But you said-'

  'I said you were unskilled, which you are. And I said that a machine can do anything you can do better, faster, and more cheerfully, but not more cheaply.'

  'Oh.' Marvin said.

  'Yep, in the cheapness department, you still got an edge over the gadgets. And that's quite an achievement in this day and age. I have always considered it one of the glories of mankind that, despite its best efforts, it has never completely succeeded in rendering itself superfluous. You see, kid, our instincts order us to multiply, while our intelligence commands us to conserve. We are like a father who bears many sons, but contrives to dispossess all but the eldest. We call instinct blind, but intelligence is equally so. Intelligence has its passions, its loves and its hates; woe to the logician whose superbly rational system does not rest upon a solid base of raw feeling. Lacking such a base, we call that man – irrational!'

  'I never knew that,' Marvin said.

  'Well, hell, it's obvious enough,' McHonnery said. 'The aim of intelligence is to put the whole goddamned human race out of work. Luckily, it can never be done. A man will outwork a machine any day in the week. In the brute-labour department, there'll always be opportunities for the unwanted.'

  'I suppose there's a certain comfort in that,' Flynn said doubtfully. 'And of course, it's very interesting. But when Pengle the Squib told me to go see you, I thought-'

  'Hey, how's that?' McHonnery said. 'You're a friend of the Squib?'

  'You might say that,' Flynn said, thus avoiding an outright lie, since anyone might say anything whether it was true or not.

  'You should have told me that in the first place,' McHonnery said. 'Not that it would have changed anything, since the facts are exactly as I have stated them. But I'd have told you that there's no shame in being unskilled; hell, all of us have to start out that way, don't we? If you do well on a Short-Shuffle contract, you'll pick up skills in no time.'

  'I hope so, sir,' Flynn said, growing cautious now that McHonnery had become affable. 'Do you have a job in mind for me?'

  'As a matter of fact, I do,' McHonnery said. 'It's a one-week Shuffle, which, even if you don't like it, you could do standing on your head. Not that you should have to, since it's a pleasant and compatible job, combining mild outdoor exercise with modest intellectual stimulation, all in a framework of good working conditions, an enlightened management, and a congenial working force.'

  'It sounds marvellous,' Flynn said. 'What's wrong with it?'

  'Well, it's not the sort of job you can get rich at,'
McHonnery said. 'In fact, the pay is lousy. But what the hell, you can't have everything. A week at this will give you a chance to think things over, talk with your fellow workers, decide upon a direction for yourself.'

  'What is the job?' Marvin asked.

  'The official job title is Ootheca Indagator, Second Class.'

  'That sounds impressive.'

  'Glad that you like it. It means that you hunt for eggs.'

  'Eggs?'

  'Eggs. Or to be more specific, you hunt for and, upon finding, collect the eggs of the rock ganzer. Think you can swing it?'

  'Well, I'd like to know a little more about the techniques utilized for the collecting, and also about job conditions, and-'

  He stopped because McHonnery was slowly, sadly shaking his head. 'You can find that out when you get there. I ain't delivering no goddamned travelogue, and you ain't deciding on no guided tour. Do you want the job or not?'

  'Do you have anything else available?'

  'No.'

  'Then I'll take the job.'

  'You've made a smart decision,' McHonnery said. He took a paper out of his pocket. 'Here is the standard government-approved contract, written in Kro-Melden, which is the official language of the planet Melde II, wherein is licensed the employing company. Can you read Kro-Melden?'

  'I'm afraid not.'

  'Then I'll translate the pertinent clauses for you, as required by law. Let's see … standard stuff about the Company not being responsible for fire, earthquake, atomic warfare, sun going nova, acts of god or gods, and so forth. The Company agrees to hire you for the sum of one credit a month, plus transportation to Melde; there it will furnish you with a Melde body; it will further issue you a set of clothes, and will feed and shelter you and care for your health and welfare, unless it finds itself unable to do so, in which case it won't and you will hold it harmless for that failure. In return for these and other Services, you will perform designated tasks as instructed, in this case those tasks exclusively relating to and specifically effecting upon the finding and collecting of ganzer eggs. And may God have mercy on your soul.'