Here Comes Civilization: The Complete Science Fiction of William Tenn Volume II

by William Tenn

  Morris Burlap is in business like me, only he's a theatrical agent, sharp, real sharp. Instead of selling a load of used copper wire, say, or an option on a corner lot in Brooklyn, he sells talent. He sells a bunch of dancers to a hotel in the mountains, a piano player to a bar, a disc jockey or a comic to late-night radio. The reason he's called Morris Burlap is because of these heavy Harris tweed suits he wears winter and summer, every day in the year. They reinforce the image, he says.

  I called him from a telephone booth near the entrance and filled him in on the giveaway show. "Now, what I want to find out—"

  "Nothing to find out," he cut in. "There's no such show, Bernie."

  "There sure as hell is, Morris. One you haven't heard of."

  "There's no such show. Not in the works, not being rehearsed, not anywhere. Look: before a show gets to where it's handing out this kind of dough, it's got to have a slot, it's got to have air time all bought. And before it even buys air time, a packager has prepared a pilot. By then I'd have gotten a casting call—I'd have heard about it a dozen different ways. Don't try to tell me my business, Bernie: when I say there's no such show, there's no such show."

  So damn positive he was. I had a crazy idea all of a sudden and turned it off. No. Not that. No.

  "Then it's a newspaper or college research thing, like Ricardo said?"

  He thought it over. I was willing to sit in that stuffy telephone booth and wait: Morris Burlap has a good head. "Those damn documents, those receipts, newspapers and colleges doing research don't operate that way. And nuts don't either. I think you're being taken, Bernie. How you're being taken, I don't know, but you're being taken."

  That was enough for me. Morris Burlap can smell a hustle through sixteen feet of rockwool insulation. He's never wrong. Never.

  I hung up, sat, thought. The crazy idea came back and exploded.

  A bunch of characters from outer space, say they want Earth. They want it for a colony, for a vacation resort, who the hell knows what they want it for? They got their reasons. They're strong enough and advanced enough to come right down and take over. But they don't want to do it cold.

  You know, a big country wants to invade a small country, it doesn't start until there's at least a riot on the border. It gives them a legal leg. Even a big country needs a legal leg.

  All right. These characters from outer space, maybe all they had to have was a piece of paper from just one genuine, accredited human being, signing the Earth over to them. No, that couldn't be right. Any piece of paper? Signed by any Joe Jerk?

  I jammed a dime into the telephone and called Ricardo's college. He wasn't in. I told the switchboard girl it was very important: she said, all right, she'd ring around and try to spot him.

  All that stuff, I kept thinking, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Sea of Azov—they were as much a part of the hook as the twenty-for-a-five routine. There's one sure test of what an operator is really after: when he stops talking, closes up shop and goes away.

  With Eksar, it had been the Earth. All that baloney about extra rights on the Moon! They were put in to cover up the real thing he was after, for extra bargaining power.

  I go out to buy a shipment of small travel alarm clocks that I've heard a jobber is stuck with. Do I start arguing about the price of clocks? I do not. I tell the jobber I want to buy a truckload of folding ladies' umbrellas, maybe a couple of gross of alarm clocks, say travel alarms if he's got a nice buy in them, and can he do me any good in the men's wallet line?

  That's what Eksar had worked on me. It was like he'd made a special study of how I operate. From me alone, he had to buy.

  But why me?

  All that stuff on the receipt, about my equity, about my professional capacity, what the hell did it mean? I don't own Earth; I'm not in the planet-selling business. You have to own a planet before you can sell it. That's law.

  So what could I have sold Eksar? I don't own any real estate. Are they going to take over my office, claim the piece of sidewalk I walk on, attach the stool in the diner where I have my coffee?

  That brought me back to my first question. Who was this "they"? Who the holy hell were "they"?

  The switchboard girl finally dug up Ricardo. He was irritated. "I'm in the middle of a faculty meeting, Bernie. Call you back?"

  "Just listen a second," I begged. "I'm in something, I don't know whether I'm coming or going. I've got to have some advice."

  Talking fast—I could hear a lot of big-shot voices in the background—I ran through the story from the time I'd called him in the morning. What Eksar looked like and smelled like, the funny portable color TV he had, the way he'd dropped all those Moon rights and gone charging off once he'd been sure of the Earth. What Morris Burlap had said, the suspicions I'd been building up, everything. "Only thing is," I laughed a little to show that maybe I wasn't really serious about it, "who am I to make such a deal, huh?"

  He seemed to be thinking hard for a while. "I don't know, Bernie, it's possible. It does fit together. There's the U.N. aspect."

  "U.N. aspect? Which U.N. aspect?"

  "The U.N. aspect of the situation. The—uh—study of the U.N. on which we collaborated two years ago." He was using double-talk because of the college people around him. But I got it. I got it.

  Eksar must have known all along about the deal that Ricardo had thrown my way, getting rid of old, used-up office equipment for the United Nations here in New York. They'd given me what they called an authorizing document. In a file somewhere there was a piece of paper, United Nations stationery, saying that I was their authorized sales agent for surplus, second-hand equipment and installations.

  Talk about a legal leg!

  "You think it'll stand up?" I asked Ricardo. "I can see how the Earth is secondhand equipment and installations. But surplus?"

  "International law is a tangled field, Bernie. And this might be even more complex. You'd be wise to do something about it."

  "But what? What should I do, Ricardo?"

  "Bernie," he said, sounding sore as hell, "I told you I'm in a faculty meeting, damn it! A faculty meeting!" And he hung up.

  I ran out of the drug store like a wild man and grabbed a cab back to Eksar's hotel.

  What was I most afraid of? I didn't know, I was so hysterical. This thing was too big-time for a little guy like me, too damn dangerously big-time. It would put my name up in lights as the biggest sellout sucker in history. Who could ever trust me again to make a deal? I had the feeling like somebody had asked me to sell him a snapshot, and I'd said sure, and it turned out to be a picture of the Nike Zeus, you know, one of those top-secret atomic missiles. Only this was worse: I'd sold out my whole goddamn world. I had to buy it back—I had to!

  When I got to Eksar's room, I knew he was about ready to check out. He was shoving his funny portable TV in one of those cheap leather grips they sell in chain stores. I left the door open, for the light.

  "We made our deal," he said. "It's over. No more deals."

  I stood there, blocking his way. "Eksar," I told him, "listen to what I figured out. First, you're not human. Like me, I mean."

  "I'm a hell of a lot more human than you, buddy boy."

  "Oh, sure. You're a custom-built Cadillac and I'm a four-cylinder factory job. But you're not from Earth—that's my point. My point is why you want Earth. You can't personally need a—"

  "I don't need it. I'm an agent. I represent someone."

  And there it was, straight out, you are right, Morris Burlap! I stared into his fish eyes, practically pushing into my face. I wouldn't budge an inch if he killed me. "You're an agent for someone," I repeated slowly. "Who? What do they want Earth for?"

  "That's their business. I'm an agent. I just buy for them."

  "You work on a commission?"

  "I'm not in business for my health."

  You sure as hell aren't in it for your health, I thought. That cough, those tics and twitches—Then I realized what they meant. This wasn't the kind of air he was used to
. Like if I go up to Canada, right away I'm down with diarrhea. It's the water or something.

  The dirt on his face was a kind of suntan oil! A protection against our sunlight. Blinds pulled down, face smeared over—and dirt all over his clothes so they'd fit in with his face.

  Eksar was no bum. He was anything but. I was the bum. Think, Bernie, I said to myself. Think and hustle and operate like you never did before in your whole life. This guy took you, and big!

  "How much you work on—ten percent?" No answer: he leaned his chest against mine, and he breathed and he twitched, he breathed and he twitched. "I'll top any deal you have, Eksar. You know what I'll give you? Fifteen percent! I'm the kind of a guy, I hate to see someone running back and forth for a lousy ten percent."

  "What about ethics?" he said hoarsely. "I got a client."

  "Look who's bringing up ethics! A guy goes out to buy the whole damn Earth for twenty-seven hundred! You call that ethics?"

  Now he got sore. He set down the grip and punched his fist into his hand. "No, I call that business. A deal. I offer, you take. You go away happy, you feel you made out. All of a sudden, here you are back, crying you didn't mean it, you sold too much for the price. Too bad! I got ethics: I don't screw my client for a crybaby."

  "I'm not a crybaby. I'm just a poor shmuck trying to scratch out a living. But who are you? You're a big-time operator from another world with all kinds of gimmicks going for you, buttons you can press, angles I can't even begin to figure."

  "You had these angles, these gimmicks, you wouldn't use them?"

  "Certain things I wouldn't use, certain things I wouldn't do. Don't laugh, Eksar, I mean it. I wouldn't hustle a guy in an iron lung no matter how much of a buck was in it. And I wouldn't hustle a poor shmuck with a hole-in-the-wall office and leave him looking like he's sold out his entire planet."

  "Sold out isn't the word for it," he said. "That receipt you signed will stand up anywhere. We got the legal machinery to make it stand up, and we got other machinery, too, planet-size machinery. Once my client takes possession, the human race is finished, it's kaput, gone with the wind, forget about it. And you're Mr. Patsy."

  It was hot in that hotel room doorway, and I was sweating like crazy. But I was feeling better. First that ethics pitch, now this routine of trying to scare the hell out of me. Maybe his deal with his client wasn't so good, maybe something else, but one thing I knew—Eksar wanted to do business with me. I grinned at him.

  He got it. He changed color a little under all that dirt. "What's your offer, anyway?" he asked, coughing. "Name a figure."

  "Well, I'll admit you're entitled to a profit. That's only fair. Let's say thirty-one hundred and five. The twenty-seven you paid, plus a full fifteen percent. Do we have a deal?"

  "Hell no!" he screamed. "On all three deals, you got a total of thirty-two hundred and thirty dollars out of me—and you're offering thirty-one hundred five to buy it back? You're going down, buddy, you're going down instead of up! Get out of my way—I'm wasting time."

  He turned a little and pushed me out of the way. I banged across the corridor. He was strong! I ran after him to the elevator—that receipt was still in his pocket.

  "How much do you want, Eksar?" I asked him as we were going down. Get him to name a price, then I can bargain from it, I figured.

  A shrug. "I got a planet, and I got a buyer for it. You, you're in a jam. The one in a pickle is the one who's got to tickle."

  The louse! For every one of my moves, he knew the countermove.

  He checked out and I followed him into the street. Down Broadway we went, people staring at a respectable guy like me walking with such a Bowery-type character.

  I threw up my hands and offered him the thirty-two hundred and thirty he'd paid me. He said he couldn't make a living out of shoving the same amount of money back and forth all day.

  "Thirty-four, then? I mean, you know, thirty-four fifty?"

  He didn't say anything. He just kept walking.

  "You want it all?" I said. "Okay, take it all, thirty-seven hundred—every last cent. You win."

  Still no answer. I was getting worried. I had to get him to name a figure, any figure at all, or I'd be dead.

  I ran in front of him. "Eksar, let's stop hustling each other. If you didn't want to sell, you wouldn't be talking to me in the first place. You name a figure. Whatever it is, I'll pay it."

  That got a reaction. "You mean it? You won't try to chisel?"

  "How can I chisel? I'm over a barrel."

  "Okay. It's a long, long trip back to where my client is. Why should I knock myself out when I can help somebody who's in trouble? Let's see—we need a figure that's fair for you and fair for me and fair all around. That would be—oh, say, sixteen thousand."

  So there it was. I was booked for a thorough bath. Eksar saw my face and began laughing. He laughed himself into a coughing fit.

  Choke, you bastard, I thought, choke! I hope the air of this planet poisons you. I hope you get gangrene of the lungs.

  That sixteen thousand figure—it was exactly twice what I had in the bank. He knew my bank account cold, up to the last statement.

  He knew my thoughts cold, too. "You're going to do business with a guy," he said, between coughs, "you check into him a little."

  "Tell me more," I said sarcastically.

  "All right. You got seven thousand, eight hundred and change. Two hundred more in accounts receivable. The rest you'll borrow."

  "That's all I need to do—go into hock on this deal!"

  "You can borrow a little," he coaxed. "A guy like you, in your position, with your contacts, you can borrow a little. I'll settle for twelve thousand. I'll be a good guy. Twelve thousand?"

  "Baloney, Eksar. You know me so well, you know I can't borrow."

  He looked away at the pigeon-green statue of Father Duffy in front of the Palace Theater. "The trouble is," he said in a mournful voice, "that I wouldn't feel right going back to my client and leaving you in such a jam. I'm just not built that way." He threw back his twitching shoulders—you knew, he was about to take a beating for a friend, and he was proud of himself. "Okay, then. I'll take only the eight thousand you have and we'll call it square."

  "Are you through, you mother's little helper you, you Florence Goddamn Nightingale? Then let me set you straight. You're not getting any eight thousand out of me. A profit, yes, a little skin I know I have to give up. But not every cent I own, not in a million years, not for you, not for Earth, not for anybody!"

  I'd been yelling, and a cop walking by came in close for a look. I thought of calling out "Help! Police! Aliens invading us!" but I knew it was all up to me. I calmed down and waited until he went away, puzzled. But the Broadway we were all standing on—what would it look like in ten years if I didn't talk Eksar out of that receipt?

  "Eksar, your client takes over Earth waving my receipt—I'll be hung high. But I've got only one life, and my life is buying and selling. I can't buy and sell without capital. Take my capital away, and it makes no difference to me who owns Earth and who doesn't."

  "Who the hell do you think you're kidding?" he said.

  "I'm not kidding anybody. Honest, it's the truth. Take my capital away, and it makes no difference if I'm alive or if I'm dead."

  That last bit of hustle seemed to have reached him. Listen, there were practically tears in my eyes the way I was singing it. How much capital did I need, he wanted to know—five hundred? I told him I couldn't operate one single day with less than seven times that. He asked me if I was really seriously trying to buy my lousy little planet back—or was today my birthday and I was expecting a present from him? "Don't give your presents to me," I told him. "Give them to fat people. They're better than going on a diet."

  And so we went. Both of us talking ourselves blue in the face, swearing by everything, arguing and bargaining, wheeling and dealing. It was touch and go who was going to give up first.

  But neither of us did. We both held out until we reached
what I'd figured pretty early we were going to wind up with, maybe a little bit more.

  Six thousand, one hundred and fifty dollars.

  That was the price over and above what Eksar had given me. The final deal. Listen, it could have been worse.

  Even so, we almost broke up when we began talking payment.

  "Your bank's not far. We could get there before closing."

  "Why walk myself into a heart attack? My check's good as gold."

  "Who wants a piece of paper? I want cash. Cash is definite."

  Finally, I managed to talk him into a check. I wrote it out, he took it and gave me the receipts, all of them: the twenty for a five, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Sea of Azov—every last receipt I'd signed. Then he picked up his little satchel and marched away.

  Straight down Broadway, without even a good-bye. All business, Eksar was, nothing but business. He didn't look back once.

  All business. I found out next morning he'd gone right to the bank and had my check certified before closing time. What do you think of that? I couldn't do a damn thing: I was out six thousand, one hundred and fifty dollars. Just for talking to someone.

  Ricardo said I was a Faust. I walked out of the bank, beating my head with my fist, and I called up him and Morris Burlap and asked them to have lunch with me. I went over the whole story with them in an expensive place that Ricardo picked out. "You're a Faust," he said.

  "What Faust?" I asked him. "Who Faust? How Faust?"

  So naturally he had to tell us all about Faust. Only I was a new kind of Faust, a twentieth-century American one. The other Fausts, they wanted to know everything. I wanted to own everything.

  "But I didn't wind up owning," I pointed out. "I got taken. Six thousand one hundred and fifty dollars worth I got taken."

  Ricardo chuckled and leaned back in his chair. "O my sweet gold," he said under his breath. "O my sweet gold."

  "What?"

  "A quotation, Bernie. From Marlowe's Doctor Faustus. I forget the context, but it seems apt. 'O my sweet gold.'"

  I looked from him to Morris Burlap, but nobody can ever tell when Morris Burlap is puzzled. As a matter of fact, he looks more like a professor than Ricardo, him with those thick Harris tweeds and that heavy, thinking look. Ricardo is, you know, a bit too natty.