Collected Fiction

by Kris Neville

  “Tut, tut,” Parmenter reproved. “Throw people out of work, you mean. Throw doctors, nurses, dentists, psychiatrists out of work.”

  “Eliminate the need for them,” Smith said somewhat dryly.

  “Now, now, Harold. Now, tut, tut. Let’s be sensible about this . . . There are forces,” he said, glancing darkly at Finweister, “in our dear country who like to see young men like you express just such sentiments, who like to mislead you into believing just such—well, Harold, I know you’ll excuse me putting it bluntly—just such nonsense. UnAmerican people, Harold. Isn’t that correct . . . Mr. Finweister?”

  Finweister was left without words, but he growled angrily under his breath to conceal the wound left by the candid remarks.

  “Haven’t we got more of this so-called science than is good for progress already?” Parmenter asked. “Why, dear me, look what it’s done to our factories! Robbed all our working men of their jobs. We’ve had to put everybody to work in the service industries, and now you want to come along and take that over, too. You don’t want to leave us any work to do. And then how could we eat, I want to know? How could we afford to, Harold?” There was no answer to that devastating question, and Smith squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. “We could adjust to it,” he said.

  “Ah, me, the miseries, the miseries of the technological reaction. You don’t realize, you don’t realize at all.” His eyes twinkled good naturedly, expressing the thought without bitterness that a scientist has absolutely no concept of the only true science—economics. Where, indeed, unusual skill, training, intelligence and perspicacity are requisite to even an elementary understanding. “Imagine what would happen. Hairless men and women! Why, in a single stroke you would completely destroy our market for shampoo, razor blades, depilatories, eyebrow pencils, after-shave lotions, antiseptic sticks, hair dye, pin curlers, wigs, moustache wax, hair oil, dandruff remover, scalp refresher . . .” He shuddered. “Harold, we of the advertising world have spent the best years of our lives building up most of that market. It’s part of the great American tradition, and here you come along and want to throw millions of loyal, patriotic men and women out of their jobs, just on an ill-considered whim.”

  “No more bad breath, no more bad teeth, no more B. O.!” Smith said.

  “Please, please, please,” said Parmenter, pained deeply. “You’ve already cost us a million dollars worth of confusion. The market broke at noon, just as Parliament was called to order, and Service workers are threatening to strike, and their . . .” He let his voice die out. He leaned forward in the chair. “But Harold. There is no need for recriminations—no, we are two intelligent men sitting here in Professor Perdue’s living room. We are too big, Harold, for these petty considerations.”

  “Watch him,” Finweister said. “He’s slimy.”

  With innate dignity and nobility of character, Parmenter ignored the remark.

  “Let’s have it,” Smith said.

  “Well, my boy,” Parmenter said, standing up and going to the biologist’s chair and placing a fatherly hand on his shoulder, “I know you came here tonight to see if you couldn’t arrange some sort of compromise with us, before the Parliament passes laws making your whole process illegal. You’re worried, Harold, and you should be.”

  “You’re the one that’s worried,” Finweister snapped. “You know we’ve got you over a barrel and you’re ready to talk some sense for a change. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here.”

  “Our Socialitarian Movement,” Parmenter continued, ignoring the interruption, “is preparing the legislation even as we’re talking here tonight.”

  “But you didn’t manage to wean away Edwards,” Finweister said with a smirk. “Eve got his commitment in writing, and he’s introducing our bill Monday.”

  Parmenter was visibly shaken. He seemed to have lost control of himself and of the trend of his thoughts. “Edwards?” he whispered. “That’s a lie!” he said hoarsely, letting his hand fall limply away from Smith’s shoulder. “In writing?”

  And then quickly he regained his composure. “Now, surely you don’t think Edwards has any influence. Surely you don’t think . . .?”

  “Let’s go,” Finweister said. “He’s licked and he knows it. I told you we shouldn’t have bothered to come.”

  Finweister made to rise.

  “No!” Parmenter said, imploringly.

  Smith was making “hushing” gestures in the direction of Finweister. “No! Wait! Gentlemen! I . . . Until you told me this, I . . . well, I’m not a poker player, gentlemen. I can’t bluff.”

  “You knew damned well that you hadn’t got Edwards.”

  “No, not a word. Not a word of it came to my ears. In writing? I understood that he was ready to go along with us.” Parmenter blinked his eyes. “Until the moment you spoke, I thought we had a majority. Frankly, gentlemen, I’m shaken. Give me a moment.” He walked over and poured himself a brandy. “You are a clever man, Mr. Finweister. You are far too clever for a businessman like me.” He poured another brandy. “I congratulate you, sir. If what you say is true, and if you say it, sir, I’m satisfied that it is . . .” His voice broke. “Well, frankly, gentlemen, we must face it,” he sobbed. “We’re licked. You were too fast for us. We’re ready to capitulate. We’re ready to give in. We’re beat.” Tears ran down his cheeks in a display of anguish that would have moved to compassion the very stone paper weight on the desk. “All we can ask now is the scraps, the crumbs, the merest leftovers . . . You know as well as I do what this means. The people will come to hate us. We will be persecuted. History will ridicule us. It is abysmal . . . Let us salvage something, gentlemen. Do not leave us to this.” He sighed. “We only want to serve. That has always been and always will be our only aim. We are willing to assist you in every way we can—money—publicity . . .” He put his head in his hands. His body shook with emotion.

  Smith called Finweister aside. “What do you make of it?”

  “Damned if I know.”

  “Is it possible that he really thought Edwards would come out for him?”

  “I’m not sure. I thought—but I don’t know. Maybe he did.”

  “Look,” said Smith. “How much were you bluffing about the rest? Have we still got enough votes?”

  Finweister shrugged.

  “Can we afford to tell him to go to hell? Can we take the chance?”

  “I don’t know for sure that they can’t get their prohibition through. It will depend upon the debate and the grass root reaction, which seems to be running against us heavier every minute.”

  Parmenter was pacing the floor. “Well?” he said. “Tell me—tell me the worst.”

  “Just what did you have in mind?” Smith said.

  Parmenter slumped defeatedly into a chair. “Whatever you say. We know when we’re licked.”

  Finweister and Smith looked at each other.

  “I understand,” Parmenter said, “that you have a Nine Point Program that you want to put into legislation and that you want the government to finance. But you know what happens whenever the government finances anything. They put all kinds of strings on it. Listen, this is too important to put into anyone’s hands but yours. As long as it’s got to be, you’re the only man we can trust with it.”

  “Well?”

  “I just thought of this. Suppose the Advertising Council gives you a research grant—no strings attached. Suppose the Council agrees to set up clinics for mutation all over the country. Suppose we pay all these expenses. It would give us the chance to continue to serve the people, to retain their good will . . . to salvage a little . . .”

  Finweister and Smith withdrew a few feet again.

  “We better get him to sign something before the shock wears off,” Finweister whispered. “It looks like he things he’s beat, all right.”

  They came back.

  “Are you empowered to act for your body?”

  “Yes. Oh, yes, indeed. I can go as high as 5,000,000 a year for research and 5,000,000 a ye
ar for clinics.”

  “Let’s put it on paper.”

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” said Parmenter. With shaking hands he dicto-typed: “The Council of Advertising of America hereby agrees to pay $5,000,000 per annum to the charitable trust of the name Smith Genetics Research Foundation for use as said Foundation sees fit in the development of the so-called Smith Process for the purpose of applying the results of the research to mankind. And furthermore, provides to pay an equal amount yearly for the establishment and administration of clinics to bring any benefits from the research to all the people . . .” He shut off the machine. “Regardless of race, creed, or national origin?”

  “Certainly,” Smith said.

  Parmenter wrote that and then continued: “Freely, or for a nominal fee, provided that no parents be coerced into having their children mutated in any manner save as they expressly request.” He stopped again. “That’s to protect us all,” he explained. “In case something should happen to you and the Foundation fall into less trustworthy hands.”

  “Fine,” said Finweister.

  “For such a period until the financial obligations,” Parmenter went on, “of this agreement are assumed by another agency, or the contract and agreement is terminated by mutual consent. It is binding upon both parties to fulfil their stated obligations under this contract or to suffer the penalties provided by law and that in the event of forfeiture . . .”

  When they had finished, they called in the host. He witnessed the signing of the document.

  “It’s a load off my conscience, gentlemen,” Parmenter said. “It is the least we can do. We recognize that you would have beaten us. We submit gracefully. We only give money, which is little enough, while you, Dr. Smith, have given the process and the whole of your life’s research. I am proud to join with you in this.”

  They shook hands all around and had a drink.

  Then Smith and Finweister, writhed in smiles and aglow with self satisfaction, returned to town.

  “When this document is published,” Finweister promised, “the Parliament will go home the next day, and they’ll be damned glad to get off the hook. And, by God, I’m still not sure they’d have gone our way.” Laughing heartily, they parted.

  When Smith awoke the next morning, he phoned the press, and when the reporters were assembled in his living room, he issued his infamous Nine Point Pronouncement, or Mutation Credo, beginning: “All mutations will have the various aims of increasing the health of all the members of the race of man, of increasing the intelligence of all the members of the race of man, etc . . .”

  Four hours later Smith bought a paper to read the coverage given his pronouncement. The headline read: smith refuses government control. And the lead story was captioned: “No Dictatorial Tyranny In Administration. To Be Impartial, Says Smith.”

  On the second page he saw the page-sized, full color ad of the Advertising Council.

  Freely and to all ONLY as they so require and ONLY to the degree they require!

  Start Planning Your New Family Now!

  Only YOU can chose.

  Send for our free, 64 page booklet entitled, The New Man Of The Future, which discusses such interesting and vital subjects as: What figure will best fit future styles and What non-useful features are necessary to heighten attractiveness to the opposite sex?

  IF YOU WANT YOUR CHILD TO HAVE THE BEST,

  SEND FOR YOUR FREE BOOKLET TODAY!

  Smith found his announcement beyond the editorial attacking it, somewhat back in the paper, on page 83. It was a very fair write-up, pro and con, taking up almost all of the left-hand column.

  The next day he married Dorothy, and wrote—actually using an old fashioned manual pen—the last letter of which we have record: a request to a steamship line for a stateroom for his wife and himself. Since steamship lines were traditionally for newlyweds, it has long been thought that he intended only to take a brief honeymoon to the South Pacific Islands, but it can now be reasonably concluded from the new understanding of his character and from the fact that nothing further is available about him in English, that he did not return to America. Which only adds another unpleasant facet to his already unsavory character: he was a bad loser.

  Ansonwald Striker requested the dictograph to play back his last paragraph.

  “If one were to answer the question affirmatively, it would invalidate much of Smith’s character that has heretofore been agreed upon and with which Professor Metaxes, himself, agrees in broad outline—and indeed, make it appear that Smith was much less of a popular hero than is generally supposed—if not actually—at least tacitly—a supporter of the Anti-Progress Party.”

  Ansonwald Striker resumed dictation.

  “We would then be forced to give Parmenter a pre-eminent place in our hierarchy of national heroes and demote Smith to secondary importance if not drop him altogether.

  “It would be Parmenter’s—not Smith’s—extreme cleverness that was responsible for outwitting the finweisterian anti-socialitarians and adopting the process to the end of perpetuating the economy.”

  Ansonwald Striker paused. He sat scrunched up and satisfactorily helpless in the chair and needful of all the attention he could get. Wearily he punched a button for the servant, who was mostly all arms and legs, to come wheel the chair to the window so that he might relax his mind by watching the sunset.

  And his long, long beautiful hair!

  He would always be grateful to his mother for that. But of course it would mat up terribly even in a slight breeze.

  MARGINAL ERROR

  It was a society with a gearshift for a heart—and Chinwell was definitely out of gear

  IVY McCORD had huge, vacant eyes.

  “Yes, dear, I’ll have another one,” she said to the waitress, and she nipped, with sharp, even teeth, at the seam of her left glove. “I suppose I have time for one more,” she said to Mildred Breen. “I don’t think three’s too many, do you? After all, dear, there’s only about this tiny bit of whisky,” she illustrated with her thumb and forefinger, “in each one.” She pulled down her glove and looked at her miniature wrist watch.

  Mildred toyed with the remains of her first old fashioned.

  “Of course,” Ivy said, putting one nylon sheer leg over the other, “I suppose you think there’s too many?”

  “No,” said Mildred mildly.

  Ivy began to swing her leg nervously. “You were saying—about the new mechomaid, dear—”

  “You’re bored, aren’t you?” Mildred asked.

  Ivy hesitated the smallest fraction of a second. Then she shrugged.

  The waitress came with, the cocktail. Ivy opened her red purse and found the correct change. “Thank you, dear,” she said.

  After the waitress had gone, Mildred said, “You ought to come down to the Culture Center more often.”

  Ivy studied her drink and puckered her lips in amusement. “Ralph asked you to talk to me?”

  Mildred said nothing.

  “Oh, well,” said Ivy listlessly.

  “All right, Ralph did ask me.”

  “Dear, it doesn’t matter. You’ve known me for years. You’ve a perfect right to talk to me about anything you like.” She half drained her glass.

  “The point is, you shouldn’t be bored.” Ivy put her glass next to the coaster, making a small, wet ring on the linen. “Did Ralph phone you? Or meet you somewhere?”

  Mildred bit the inside of her lower lip in annoyance.

  “Perfectly ridiculous,” Ivy said, reaching for the glass. Her leg continued to swing spasmodically. “Perfectly.” She finished the cocktail, having drunk around the cherry. “There’s nothing wrong with me.” Nervously she lit a cigarette and blew smoke at the ceiling.

  Mildred pushed aside her glass. “Actually, I was thinking of seeing you before Ralph phoned. I wanted to ask you to, take a little trip with me up to the Adirondacks next week. The children will be away, and Kurt is in Canada for the rest of the month. It would be nice fo
r us to get together again like that.” Ivy, her huge eyes still vacant, said, “Thank you, dear, but if you don’t mind, I’d be bored utterly stiff, every minute. I’m sure you understand . . .” She peeled back her glove lazily and consulted her watch again. “I really must be going; it’s almost time for Chinwell.” She stood up, smiling, distantly. “I know you understand.” She tugged at her glove.

  “I wouldn’t want to miss him. I hope you’ll excuse me? Well—good-by . . .”

  “Good-by,” Mildred said.

  Ivy turned and walked rapidly out the cafe, hips swinging decisively.

  RALPH McCORD worked with a cigarette hanging loosely from, the corner of his mouth. His pencil skipped rapidly, subdividing the manuscript the speech into representative section. Twice he consulted the compensation word count and rhetorical index tab at his elbow. By the use of a random chart, he selected five short sample pages from each representative section by marking them with five colors: blue for semantic content, red for logical development, green for emotional quality of delivery, brown for cultural integration and black for psychological constants. Having finished that, he transcribed the excerpts according to color. He put the original manuscript in the simplified file cabinet across the room. The files were well kept. Unlike the workers in the News Section, and to greater extent, the Book Section, Ralph was not forced to remove material every other day in order to change the audience-reached index. Speech Section dealt, except for rebroadcasts (usual pre-estimated), with a once determined unchangeable audience-reached figure which made it the easiest Section for manuscript-filing, and consequently the Section with the most orderly files.

  After having locked the cabinet, he began personal delivery of the excerpted pages to the proper rooms for numerical conversion.

  He was required to process the green excerpts himself, and after delivering the blue and red, he entered the green room, located the correct direct-speech tape from the library of the day, put on the synchronizer, inserted his excerpt page, set the dials, pushed the button—and waited.