by Various
Relegar squealed. His two eyes almost exploded in a rage of red. He wasn't permanently injured--he would grow a new leg--but he was furious because he dared not come close to the shield. The radiation would paralyze him within a couple of seconds. Grant saw his body sag a little on the corner where the leg had been, and then he had one of those flashes of intuition that every being had to have, to live long in the swamp. He knew how to win this fight. He trained the heat-gun on the second leg on the same side and pressed the trigger. That leg burned in two and Relegar's body sagged still more.
Grant started on the third one. A feeling of triumph was growing in him. Then Relegar charged.
Grant hadn't expected that. There was little he could do but hold the shield frantically before him to try to ward off the fangs and the mandibles.
He had had no idea that the Uranian's body was so heavy. It seemed to Grant the thing must weigh three or four hundred pounds. It thundered into him and knocked him over as if he had been a straw. The heavy hoofs galloped over him. He was surprised, but he rolled on over and came to his feet, shooting.
He got the fourth and fifth legs this time. Relegar's body sagged considerably, but the spider, his entire body turning red with rage, spun around and charged again. This time the great mouth was open, the fangs ready, and the mandibles were extended. Grant left himself open until he could feel the spider's fetid breath in his face, then he flung out his shield.
The sharp fangs struck it. Relegar turned into a tornado of fury for perhaps a second, trying to shake the skin from his teeth. But it was too late. The skin came loose, but the radiation had paralyzed the spider. He sank feebly to the ground with the shield under him. His eyes glared with unutterable malignant hate, but that was all. His muscles were impotent.
Grant stood a few feet away, getting his breath, feeling the trip-hammer in his temple slow down to normal. Then he aimed. The sixth, seventh, and eighth legs burned off. He put the pistol in its holster.
"I'm not going to try to kill you," he said. "I suppose that's impossible anyway, short of cutting you up into small pieces, and I don't relish that idea. But I'll leave you the snake-skin. It will have passed the peak of its radioactivity by tomorrow and you can start back for The Pass. But you won't go back very fast. You've got legs on only one side. It's going to be slow navigating, especially on water. In fact, I think maybe you'll have to wait until you grow some new legs."
He patted his pockets filled with half a million dollars' worth of echindul stones. "Long before that I'll be in Aphrodite depositing my stones at the First Interplanetary Bank."
He watched Relegar's eyes turn dead, cold black, then he screwed on his helmet, adjusted the oxygen, and stepped off into the brown water. He felt rather good, wading through the mud at the bottom of the swamp. He was somewhat astonished that it had fallen to him, a nobody, to be the means of breaking up Relegar's hold on The Pass. But it was a very satisfactory feeling. He thought about Beth and New Jersey and strawberries with fresh cream. He sighed happily. His luck had changed.
* * *
Contents
YOU TOO CAN BE A MILLIONAIRE
By Noel Loomis
Money was worthless, yet no man dared go broke. It was all pretty confusing to Mark until "Point-Plus-Pearlie" told him--YOU TOO CAN BE A MILLIONAIRE
Mark Renner looked anxiously backward as he ran up the street to the place where the faded gold lettering on one window said "Jewelry." That would be a good place to hide, he thought. Most of the plate-glass windows and doors along the street were broken out as in fact they were everywhere, and had been for twenty years--but one of the jewelry windows and the door, protected by iron grating, were still whole and would help to conceal him.
With one final glance back at the corner, he climbed the grating, scuttled across it, and dropped down. Then, keeping low, he ducked in among the dusty old counters and stopped abruptly, listening.
He heard Conley's slow, slapping footsteps as the tall man rounded the corner and came up the street. He forced himself to breathe softly in spite of the pounding of his heart. The dust rose a little around him and got in his nostrils and he wanted to sneeze, but by sheer willpower he choked it down.
Conley was from the Machine--Central Audit Bureau--and the Machine knew by now that Mark was three thousand points in the red. Three thousand points--when you were supposed to be always within one day's point of a balance. You were allowed twelve hundred points a day, so Mark was now two and a half days in debit.
He'd been walking the streets in a sort of daze, signing slips right and left while his own pad of slips stayed in his pocket. He hadn't cared, either, until now, because in this brave new world of the one freedom--freedom from work--he was abominably unhappy.
Everybody struggled all day to get enough points to stay even with Central, and what good did it do them? You got even one day, but the next day you had to start all over. There wasn't any point to it. So he'd said to hell with it, and for five days now he'd ignored the Machine entirely except to line up automatically once a day at the concourse to have his card audited. And for five straight days the balance had been in red.
Then, today, he had seen Conley on the street, coming toward him. All of a sudden Mark had been scared. He didn't know what Central would do to him--nobody knew--but he didn't want to find out, either. He ran from Conley.
Now he crouched in the dust behind an empty counter while Conley's footsteps approached. He held his breath when they got close, and when they passed the broken window he was very thankful.
It was late afternoon and he thought Conley would go back to Central. Nobody knew much about Conley except that he represented the Machine and that he seemed to disappear within it every afternoon.
So, presently, Mark crawled out of the broken window and walked down to Main Street. He looked carefully right and left and then, not seeing Conley's tall form above the traffic, he wandered slowly down the street, trying to figure things out. Why wasn't there anything worth while to do? What was the reason for all the broken windows and empty stores? Had there once been places where people could buy things like food and clothes? Maybe--before Central Audit Bureau had come into existence. Or had Central always been there?
Mark saw the old lady sitting in the wheel-chair. He turned out absently to walk by her. He saw her put her foot in his way but his brain wasn't working. He stumbled over her foot.
Instantly the old lady half arose from her chair as if in pain, shrieking and brandishing her cane, the leg held stiffly out in front of her. "You've injured me," she shrieked in a raucous voice. "You've hurt my lame foot!"
Mark stood there dumbly. He was a young man and so he didn't at once foresee what was about to happen.
A crowd gathered in no time. The old lady was putting on a show. Mark didn't get it. He would have allowed her a thousand points--even fifteen hundred--without argument. But he got the shock of his young life.
"Thirty thousand points!" she screamed at him, and thrust a pad of slips at him. "Sign my slip, please."
* * * * *
Mark took the pad automatically. He took the pencil she held out. He started to sign. He'd never get a credit balance at the Central Bureau now, but he didn't care. Maybe he'd get in so deep they'd give him some work.
The old lady's voice rose unexpectedly. "My feelings are hurt, too. He did it deliberately. Five thousand points for my injured feelings."
Dazedly Mark wrote down "Thirty-five thousand and no more," and signed his name. He handed the pad back to her and started on. The crowd was leaving.
But a voice stopped him. A soft voice. "Wait, son." He looked back. He started to go on, then he saw the old lady's eyes on his. "Stick around," she said. There wasn't any raucousness in her voice now. "Wait till the crowd goes. I want to talk to you."
Presently he was walking beside her while she laboriously operated the two big hand-wheels that propelled the chair. Two blocks away she turned into an empty building marked "Groceries." Mark h
elped her cross the threshold.
Inside, she amazed him by springing out of the chair and standing quite steadily. She was small and she wasn't as old and wrinkled as he had thought. "You get in the chair," she said. "I'll push you. I need the exercise."
A minute later she was pushing him briskly along the street while Mark sat, still half dazed, in the wicker chair, her old red shawl was across his lap.
"Get cramps in my legs, to say nothing of my bottom," she observed, "sitting there all day." She saw him stiffen. "Oh, you needn't be shocked. After all, I'm old enough to be your grandmother. I was born in 1940, you know."
"Nineteen-forty," Mark repeated, wonderingly. "Gee, that was back in the days when everybody worked. I wish I could work."
"Well, it's a changed world," she observed. "In those days, you had to work."
At that instant Mark heard the ominous slapping footsteps. He looked ahead, and there was Conley, easily noticeable because of the type N hat a head above everybody else, coming toward them. Mark snatched up the red shawl and wrapped it around his face to the nose and pulled his hat low over his eyes. He watched from under the type L brim while Conley approached. He held his breath while Conley fixed his deep eyes on him for a moment, but Conley went by, and once more he was safe.
The old lady trotted briskly along. They passed a few people who stared at them, but Mark was thinking. "This is 2021," he observed. "You're eighty-one years old. You must know all about things."
"I'm quite spry," she pointed out, "though I must say I am working up a sweat right now. No, no--" She pushed Mark back into the chair. "It's good for me. Don't get enough exercise any more. Now you just sit there. You're in a bad way. Anybody who'd fall for such a phony act and release thirty-five thousand points without even an argument--well, of course," she said archly, "I do have a well-turned ankle."
But the enormity of Mark's debit with Central when the old lady should turn in his slip, began to worry him. He wondered if he could get it back from her. He wasn't happy with the world, and things were all wrong, and all that, but still--well, he did have to live in it. Thirty-five thousand points. He began to worry. He wished he knew what the penalty would be. He wondered if the old lady knew. What were these points all about anyway? "You must know," he said, "how the world got into this mess."
She chuckled, "For thirty-five thousand points, I guess you've got a right to the story." She turned into the archway of a standard type B apartment house.
He wondered what she would do with all those points. What did anybody do with them? Everybody had about the same living quarters. Food was furnished by automatic vendors at the Hydroponic Farms. Clothes were provided, ready-made; all you had to do was put your credit card in a machine, punch the buttons for your measurements, and a suit would drop down the chute.
Mark got out of the chair and helped her inside with it. He took off his hat and started uncertainly to leave, but she put her hand on his arm, "No, no. Have supper with me. I'll tell you all about everything. Glad to. There aren't many who want to know about things any more."
Her apartment was neat and clean. It was hard for Mark to connect it with an old woman shrieking points at him. "My name's Pearl. Point-Plus-Pearlie, they call me. But my real name's Penelope. You can call me Penelope."
"Thank you," Mark said gravely, and sat down. Penelope bustled into an apron and began pulling packages from the freezer. "We'll have a feed, you and I--a real feed." She chuckled pleasantly. "After all, you're paying for it."
* * * * *
Mark squirmed uncomfortably.
"I'll tell you how all this started," Penelope said, popping open a can of high-content protein. "Back before you were born there were insurance companies. At first they were started to insure your life, and--"
"Your life!" Mark frowned. "How--"
"Never mind. Also, they insured you against loss by fire. Then it was loss by collision of vehicles--you've never seen an auto, of course--and so on. Finally they got to insuring you against hurting yourself when you slipped on a cake of soap in the bathtub, and then they insured against a suit for damages by someone who might stub his toe and fall down and break a leg on your sidewalk. Follow me?"
"I think so," said Mark doubtfully.
"Well, there were all kinds of lawsuits. Two men would be in an accident. Both hurt. Their insurance companies would sue each other. Suppose A knocked over a ladder and B fell down on top of him. B's fall broke A's arm and it broke his own leg. A could sue B for breaking his arm. B could sue A for making him fall. Well, suppose A was insured by company X, and B was insured by company Y. A and B filed claims against each other's companies, and everybody went to court."
"You mean they didn't agree on damages?" Mark asked incredulously.
"Exactly." Penelope cut off the top of a bottle of enzymes. "It was pretty dumb. But pretty soon the companies got wise. They formed working agreements.
"When two companies carried insurance on two persons involved in an accident, the companies just presented their claims to each other, and the one with the biggest claim against him paid the difference, while each company paid off the claim of the one it represented. You can see what eventually happened."
She punched a button and a dinette table popped out of the wall.
"Companies insured people for more and more types of damage, even against being insulted or against a claim for damages for being insulted. The big companies eliminated the small ones, and it was just a matter of bookkeeping among those that were left. Eventually the government took it over."
"But look," said Mark, "I don't see--"
"Don't rush me." Penelope put a can into the container-dissolver and punched the button that set out the plates and silverware on the tiny table. "You see, pretty soon everybody was insured for everything possible. People were collecting right and left, mostly small amounts but lots of them. But it took quite a bit of time to file claims and so on. And also, a man spent all he made buying insurance to protect himself. It was a wicked circle. Nobody could quit buying insurance and nobody dared quit filing claims. That's when the government took over. They simplified things. Once a day you turn your slips into Central and the Machine audits your account. That's all there is to it."
"But there's nothing else to do," Mark objected. "No entertainment, no work."
"Why should there be entertainment? Entertainment means work for somebody. No, Central--which is the government, of course--has eliminated work for everybody and at the same time has provided something to keep everybody busy. What work must be done is done by automatic, self-lubricating, self-repairing, self-renewing machinery." She sighed. "It's a brave new world. Everything is neatly worked out. Everybody spends all their time gathering points to offset the points they lose gathering points--and nobody seems to mind except a few rebels like you and me. I saw that rebellious look in your eyes when you signed my slip. That's why I invited you to come along with me. But, as I said, Central keeps everybody busy all day and half the night trying to balance themselves. There's no labor problem, no unemployment, no relief, no worry about anything." She paused, to dip the vitamins out of the dissolver. "The only catch is--it's so damned monotonous."
Mark blinked, but Penelope whirled on him, the dissolver in one hand. "Why do you think I sit out there and put on my act all day long? Not to get points, though I confess the points are the measure of my success--but because life is too dull otherwise." She dished out the vitamins.
"You say the government did all this?"
"Yes."
A thought struck Mark. "Who is the government?"
Penelope was filling glasses from the ice-water faucet. She turned her head and stared at him like a bright-eyed bird. "To tell you the truth, Mark, as far as I know the men who used to make up the government disappeared after the last war, about the time all this automatic machinery was put in. We used to have an election every so often, but I haven't heard that word for twenty-five years. Do you know what I think?"
"No," Mark said attentively.
"I don't think there is any more government!" Penelope said dramatically. "I think all that's left are the Machine and Central Audit Bureau--which is nothing but a giant posting machine."
"Have you seen it--Central, I mean? I see the concourse where we line up every day to have our cards posted--but what's behind those twelve hundred windows?"
* * * * *
She nodded briskly. "I saw it from one of the last planes. Central covers miles and miles in both directions. They said then it was the biggest machine on earth--and do you know, Mark"--she paused dramatically--"I think the Machine is the government! Roll up your chair, Mark."
Mark did. "But doesn't there have to be somebody to take care of the Machine?" he asked, holding her chair.
"Not that I know of. They said it was perfect--that barring an earthquake it would run for a thousand years without a human hand."
The iron-juice cocktail was pretty good, the way Penelope had flavored it with enzymes. But Mark inevitably got back to the thing that worried him. "What will happen when that release slip of mine goes through for thirty-five thousand points?"
Penelope raised her white eyebrows. "I don't know, but undoubtedly something drastic. I'll tell you what. I'll hold your slip for a while and you go out and see if you can get some points on your credit side. Stir up a little trouble. Get the points first and argue after."...
Mark went out and tried to get some points next day, but he couldn't seem to get his heart in his work. It was all so pointless. Why couldn't the old lady give him back that slip, anyway? Mark got pretty much in the dumps, and after he managed to get his foot stepped on and demanded three hundred points, only to be countered by a claim of four hundred for hurting the other man's instep, he began to feel very low indeed.