“I don’t suppose you have a cigarette?” she said. “Well, I’ll live. How about some clothes? And how about coming out so I can get a look at you?” She stretched and yawned and then began to eat. Apparently she had showered, as was generally desirable on awakening from freeze-sleep to get rid of the exfoliated skin, and she had wrapped her ruined hair in a small towel. Dandish had left the one small towel in the washroom, reluctantly, but it had not occurred to him that his victim would wrap it around her head. Silvie sat thoughtfully staring at the remains of her breakfast and then after a while said, like a lecturer:
“As I understand it, starship sailors are always some kind of a nut, because who else would go off for twenty years at a time, even for money, even for any kind of money? All right, you’re a nut. So if you wake me up and won’t come out, won’t talk to me, there’s nothing I can do about it.
“Now, I can see that even if you weren’t a little loopy to start with, this kind of life would tip you. Maybe you just want a little company? I can understand that. I might even cooperate and say no more about it.
“On the other hand, maybe you’re trying to get your nerve up for something rough. Don’t know if you can, because they naturally screened you down fine before they gave you the job. But supposing. What happens then?
“If you kill me, they catch you.
“If you don’t kill me, then I tell them when we land, and they catch you.
“I told you about my uncle. Right now his body is in the deepfreeze somewhere on the dark side of Mercury and they’ve got his brain keeping the navigation channels clear off Belem. Maybe you think that’s not so bad. Uncle Henry doesn’t like it a bit. He doesn’t have any company, bad as you that way, I guess, and he says his suction hoses are always sore. Of course he could always louse up on the job, but then they’d just put him some other place that wouldn’t be quite as nice— so what he does is grit his teeth, or I guess you should say his grinders, and get along the best he can. Ninety years! He’s only done six so far. I mean six when I left Earth, whatever that is now. You wouldn’t like that. So why not come out and talk?”
Five or ten minutes later, after making faces and buttering another roll and flinging it furiously at the wall, where the disposal units sluiced it away, she said, “Damn you, then give me a book to read, anyway.”
Dandish retreated from her and listened to the whisper of the ship for a few minutes, then activated the mechanisms of the revival crib. He had been a loser long enough to learn when to cut his losses. The girl sprang to her feet as the sides of the crib unfolded. Gentle tentacles reached out for her and deposited her in it, locking the webbing belt around her waist. “You damned fool!” she shouted, but Dandish did not answer. The anesthesia cone descended toward her struggling face, and she screamed, “Wait a minute! I never said I wouldn’t—”; but what she never said she wouldn’t, she couldn’t say, because the cone cut her off. In a moment she was asleep. A plastic sack stretched itself around her, molding to her face, her body, her legs, even to the strayed towel around her hair, and the revival crib rolled silently to the freezing room. Dandish did not watch further. He knew what would happen, and besides, the timer reminded him to make his check. Temperatures, normal; fuel consumption, normal; course, normal; freezer room showed one new capsule en route to storage, otherwise normal. Goodbye, Silvie, said Dandish to himself, you were a pretty bad mistake.
Conceivably later on, with another girl . . .
But it had taken nine years for Dandish to wake Silvie, and he did not think he could do it again. He thought of her Uncle Henry running a dredge along the South Atlantic littoral. It could have been him. He had leaped at the opportunity to spend his sentence piloting a starship instead.
He stared out at the 10,000,000 stars below with the optical receptors that were his eyes. He clawed helplessly at space with the radars that gave him touch. He wept a 5,000,000-mile stream of ions behind him from his jets. He thought of the tons of helpless flesh in his hold, the bodies in which he could have delighted, if his own body had not been with Uncle Henry’s on coldside Mercury, the fears on which he could have fed, if he had been able to inspire fear. He would have sobbed, if he had had a voice to sob with.
<
~ * ~
HARD BARGAIN
BY ALAN E. NOURSE
Alan E. Nourse was an intern when he wrote this story, but he is now a full-fledged M.D. and a contributor to medical journals as well as to a volume called “Great Science Fiction About Doctors.” There are no doctors in “Hard Bargain”; in fact, the contractual hair-splitting perpetrated herein is more characteristic of the legal profession than the medical. It is a crafty confection about a man who has sold his soul to Satan in return for an unlimited supply of girls, but whose appetite grows more and more jaded, until. . . .
~ * ~
ON TUESDAY, Preisinger saw the Devil’s face in the mirror just as he finished shaving.
It might have seemed odd, but with Preisinger it was an old story. Every Tuesday morning, there it was, regular as daylight. This morning he regarded the face coldly. “You,” he said, “had better drop by for a chat, I think.”
“Really?” said the Devil.
“Really,” said Preisinger. “We’re supposed to have a bargain, you know. And you’re not holding up your end at all. You’d better stop by, or I’m afraid the deal is off.”
He finished his shave, and walked into the solarium to ring for breakfast. Only three years gone, he mused. Seven years to go. And seven years was really quite a long time.
He was finishing his orange juice and coffee when the Devil stepped through the wall into the room. The Prince of Thieves smelled slightly of sulphur and scorched cloth. He was tall and handsome in his sleek black Homburg and fine black Chesterfield. In his hand was a slender ebony walking stick.
“Now what is this foolishness,” he said, “about canceling our bargain? Just three years gone, and already you’re complaining?”
“I’ve a perfect right to complain,” said Preisinger coolly. “You’re slipping. You haven’t been doing right by me. You aren’t keeping your end of the bargain at all. Not at all.”
The Devil glanced around the room. “Well, now,” he said. “You seem to be doing quite well. The finest penthouse apartment in the city. Ample funds to maintain it. Hardly my taste in clothing, but that’s your business.” He looked sharply at Preisinger. “You do look a trifle peaked, though. Hard night last night?”
“Not the most gratifying night imaginable,” said Preisinger.
“Really? Something wrong with the supply?”
“Oh, no,” said Preisinger. “Quite the contrary. They flock to me. Everywhere I turn there are girls, dozens of girls.”
“Ah!” The Devil frowned slightly. “Are they unwilling? Do they reject your attentions? Or perhaps they’re a bit too bold, eh?”
Preisinger shook his head. “No, no. Nothing like that.”
“Well, then! Has the variety been unsatisfactory? Do you find them unattractive? No?” The Devil shrugged. “Then you disqualify your own claim. What more could you ask? You have seven years to go—but I’ve kept my part of the bargain.”
“The letter, perhaps,” said Preisinger. “Not the spirit. Your part of the bargain was to please me completely, and I’ve never quite been pleased. Something has been missing from the start.”
“If you’re talking about love, I can’t help you there,” said the Devil. “It’s quite out of my line, you know.”
“Nothing so maudlin as that,” said Preisinger quickly. “No, it’s much harder to define.” He leaped to his feet, groping for words. “These girls are too—how can I explain it?—too knowledgeable. There’s nothing for them to learn. Yes, that’s it! They seem so—experienced.”
“I thought that was considered a virtue,” said the Adversary dryly.
“But can’t you see?” said Preisinger. “They know all the rules! They perform like puppets on a string. There’s no
feeling of achievement, no sense of awakening-”
But now the Devil’s eyes gleamed with understanding. “You mean it’s innocence you want!” He guffawed. “You come to me in quest of innocence? How delightfully naive! Think of it! For ten earthly years I must supply you with unlimited ease and wherewithal plus the loveliest girls in the world to satisfy your most extravagant whim. In return I am to receive from you an insignificant trifle that you don’t even believe exists—your soul.” The Devil roared with laughter. “And now you demand innocence as well!” He paused. “An intriguing idea, but ridiculous. Quite ridiculous.”
“You mean you can’t do it,” said Preisinger.
“I mean nothing of the sort,” snapped the Devil. “A completely innocent maiden, untouched by human hands-”
He stroked his chin. “Difficult. Incredibly difficult.”
“But could you?” demanded Preisinger. “If you only realized how fearfully dull these others are—could you possibly do it?”
“Hardly,” said the Devil, “under our present contract. This would take work, time, the greatest delicacy. The price would be high.” He looked at Preisinger. “Would you give me your remaining seven years?”
Preisinger’s face grew pale, but he nodded slowly. “Anything,” he said.
The Devil beamed. “Then it’s done. You’d have one night with her only, of course. More would be unthinkable.”
Preisinger’s fingers trembled. “She must be perfect. It must be worth a hundred thousand other nights.”
“You have my word,” said the Devil.
“I must be the first man, absolutely the first, even in her mind-”
“That is understood.”
“And if you fail—the entire bargain is off.”
The Devil smiled “Agreed. And if I succeed-” He touched the coffee cup with his ebony stick and it turned glowing red. “One night,” he said, and vanished through the wall.
~ * ~
For five days Preisinger waited.
Before, he had been sated and dulled; now he was vibrant with anticipation. But as the days passed he grew jumpy and irritable. Each new face he saw on the street he scanned eagerly, then turned away in disappointment. His nerves grew taut. His body and mind were filled with an uncommon yearning.
On the sixth day he found her, late in the afternoon, in the basement gallery of a small art museum.
She was tall and slender. Her hair was ash blonde, her mouth full. She walked with grace, inconspicuously conspicuous, self-contained, an island to herself. She was cool as a March breeze, and warm as laughter by the fireside.
She was delightful.
He followed her, and spoke to her, and she smiled at him without suggestion. They moved through the gallery together. Her laughter was cheerful; her eyes warmed as she looked at him.
He learned that her name was Moira and that she was 19 years old. He learned many other things that did not interest him in the least. They left the gallery and walked in the park and looked across at the city and talked.
Preisinger suggested cocktails.
“Fine,” said the girl. “But I’ve never had a cocktail.”
“Incredible,” said Preisinger.
“But true,” said the girl.
They had two cocktails, but no more. They talked about art and music and books, and her understanding was gratifying. They talked about love and desire and fulfillment, and her innocence was disarming.
Presently they ate and danced on a roof garden high above the city. She danced with ease and innocence. Preisinger steeled himself as her cheek touched his and her body moved close to his. Control, he told himself, patience. She was the one, she was what he had sought for so long, but it was too soon, too soon-”
She was delighted by the lights of the city below. She breathed deeply of the night air, and her nearness to him was overwhelming. “There is a better view where I live,” he said. “We could have some music, perhaps a little wine.”
She smiled up at him. “Yes,” she said. “That would be good. I’d like that.”
The view was better from his windows. The colors below were breathtaking. The music took on new meanings; the wine was his finest stock, its color delightful, its flavor superb. They talked and laughed softly, and then they were silent. The lights dimmed gently, the firelight glowed.
She was sublime.
He did not realize until later that he had not been the first.
The Devil had failed, after all, and he was free. The thought caressed him as he slept with his head on her shoulder.
~ * ~
In the morning she was gone, and the Devil stood by the window, twirling his ebony stick with impatience.
Preisinger saw him and burst out laughing. “You fool,” he cried. “You couldn’t quite bring it off, and yet I didn’t mind a bit. You didn’t keep the bargain, but you gave me what I had to have, all the same.”
The Devil just looked at him.
Preisinger stopped laughing. “Well? Why are you waiting? We’re finished, get out! The bargain is void.”
“Not quite,” said the Devil. “I gave you what you requested.”
“But not to the letter,” cried Preisinger. “I was not the first. Another man was before me-”
And then the Prince of Liars was laughing as smoking tears poured from his eyes. “And you call me a fool,” he said. “Did you really think I could command innocence without blemish? Ridiculous. I never could. Of course there was another—but the Devil is the Devil, not a man.”
And with a roar of laughter he led Preisinger through the wall into the furnace.
<
~ * ~
THE NAIL AND THE ORACLE
BY THEODORE STURGEON
Theodore Sturgeon is the science-fiction and fantasy writer’s science-fiction and fantasy writer. Ray Bradbury readily admits that, when he was younger, he “looked upon Sturgeon with a secret and gnawing jealousy.” James Blish flatly calls him “the finest conscious artist science fiction has ever had.” A writer of blinding brilliance and unbridled imagination—such books as “Some of Your Blood,” “More Than Human” and “E Pluribus Unicorn” are classics in the field—he is also “a manicured nudist” (in a friend’s literal description) and an original thinker who gets off good ones like this observation on sex: “The definition of perversion is anything done to the exclusion of everything else—including the normal position.” It has been said that Sturgeon harbors a “positive and pure loathing for all wheelers-and-dealers.” This is evident in many of his stories, and never more so than in the following tale of chicanery on a very high level.
~ * ~
DESPITE THE IMPROVEMENTS, the Pentagon in 1970 was still the Pentagon, with more places to walk than places to sit. Not that Jones had a legitimate gripe. The cubical cave they had assigned to him as an office would have been more than adequate for the two-three days he himself had estimated. But by the end of the third week it fit him like a size-6 hat and choked him like a size-12 collar. Annie’s phone calls expressed eagerness to have him back, but there was an edge to the eagerness now which made him anxious. His hotel manager had wanted to shift his room after the first week and he had been stubborn about it; now he was marooned like a rock in a mushroom patch, surrounded by a back-to-rhythm convention of the Anti-Anti-Population Explosion League. He’d had to buy shirts, he’d had to buy shoes, he’d needed a type-four common-cold shot, and most of all, he couldn’t find what was wrong with oracle.
Jones and his crew had stripped oracle down to its mounting bolts, checked a thousand miles of wiring and a million solid-state elements, everything but its priceless and untouchable memory banks. Then they’d rebuilt the monster, meticulously cross-checking all the way. For the past four days they had been running the recompleted computer, performance-matching with crash-priority time on other machines, while half the science boys and a third of the military wailed in anguish. He had reported to three men that the machine had nothing wrong with it,
that it never had had anything wrong with it, and that there was no reason to believe there ever would be anything wrong with it. One by one these three had gone (again) into oracle’s chamber, and bolted the door, and energized the privacy field, and then one by one they had emerged stern and disappointed, to tell Jones that it would not give them an answer: an old admiral, an ageless colonel and a piece of walking legend whom Jones called to himself the civilian.
Having sent his crew home—for thus he burned his bridges —having deprived himself of Jacquard the design genius and the 23 others, the wiring team, all the mathematicians, everyone, Jones sighed in his little office, picked up the phone again and called the three for a conference. When he put the instrument down again he felt a little pleased. Consistencies pleased Jones, even unpleasant ones, and the instant response of all three was right in line with everything they had done from the time they had first complained about oracle’s inability to answer their questions, all through their fiddling and diddling during every second of the long diagnostic operation. The admiral had had an open line installed to Jones’ office, the colonel had devised a special code word for his switchboard, the civilian had hung around personally, ignoring all firm, polite hints until he had turned his ankle on a cable, giving Jones a reason to get him out of there. In other words, these three didn’t just want an answer, they needed, it.
The Playboy Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy Page 23