Natural State

IV

THE magic tricks went over fairly well―at least nobody yawned. The comic monologue, however, was a flat failure, even though the piece had been expertly slanted for a rural audience and, by all the laws of psychostatics, should have rated at least half a dozen boffs. (“So the little boy came moseying back up the road, and his grandpa said to him, ‘Why didn’t you drive them hogs out of the corn like I told you?’ And the little fellow piped up, ‘Them ain’t hogs―them’s shoats!’ ”)

Alvah launched hopefully into his sales talks and demonstrations.

The all-purpose fireless lifetime cooker was received with blank stares. When Alvah fried up a savory batch of proteinpaste fritters and offered to hand them out, nobody responded but one small boy, and his mother hauled him down off the platform stair by the slack of his pants.

Smiling doggedly, Alvah brought out the pocket-workshop power tools and accessories. This, it appeared, was more like it. An interested hum went up as he drilled three holes of various sizes in a bar of duroplast, then sawed through it from end to end and finally cut a mortise in one piece, a tenon in the other, and fitted them together. A few more people drifted in.

“And now, friends,” said Alvah, “if you’ll continue to give me your kind attention …”

The next item was the little giant power-plant for the home, shop or office. Blank stares again. Alvah picked out one Muckfoot in the front row―a blear-eyed, open-mouthed fellow, with hair over his forehead and a basket under his arm, who seemed typical―and spoke directly to him. He outdid himself about the safety, economy, efficiency and unobtrusiveness of a little giant power-plant. He explained its operation in words a backward two-year-old could understand.

“A little giant,” he concluded, leaning over the platform rail to stare hypnotically into the Muckfoot’s eyes, “is the power-plant for you!”

The fellow blinked, slowly produced a dark-brown lump of something from his pocket, slowly put it into his inattentive mouth, and as slowly began to chew.

Alvah breathed deeply and clutched the rail. “And now,” he said, giving the clincher, “the marvel of the age―the superspeed runabout!” He pressed the button that popped open a segment of the floater’s hull and lowered the gleaming little twowheeled car into view.

“Now, friends,” he said, “just to demonstrate the amazing qualities of this miracle of modern science―is there―any gentleman in the crowd who has an animal he fancies for speed?”

FOR the first time, the Muckfeet reacted according to the charts. Shouts rocketed up: “Me, by damn!” “Me!” “Right here, mister!” “Yes, sir!”

“Friends, friends!” said Alvah, spreading his hands. “There won’t be time to accommodate you all. Choose one of you to represent the rest!”

“Swifty!” somebody yelped, and other voices took up the cry. A red-haired young man began working his way back out of the crowd, propelled by gleeful shouts and slaps on the back.

Alvah took an indicator and began pointing out the salient features of the runabout. He had not got more than a quarter of the way through when the redhead reappeared, mounted astride an animal which, to Alvah’s revolted gaze, looked to be part horse, part lynx, part camel and part pure horror.

To the crowd, evidently, it was one of nature’s finest efforts. Alvah swallowed bile and raised his voice again. “Clear a space now, friends―all the way around!”

It took time, but eventually self-appointed deputies began to get the crowd moving. Alvah descended, carrying two bright marker poles, and, followed by the inquisitive redhead, set one up at either side of the enclosure, a few yards short of the boundary.

“This will be the course,” he told Swifty. “Around these markers and the floater―that thing I was standing on. We’ll do ten laps, starting and finishing here. Is that all right?”

“All right with me,” said the redhead, grinning more widely than before.

There were self-appointed time-keepers and starters, too. When Alvah, in the runabout, and the redhead, on his monster, were satisfactorily lined up, one of them bellowed, “On y’ marks ―Git set …” and then cracked a short whip with a noise out of all proportion to its size.

For a moment, Alvah thought Swifty and his horrid mount had simply disappeared. Then he spotted them, diminished by perspective, halfway down the course, and rapidly getting smaller. He slammed the power bar over and took off in pursuit.

AROUND the first turn, it was Swifty, with Alvah nowhere. In the stretch, Alvah was coming up fast on the outside. Around the far turn, he was two monster lengths behind and, in the stretch again, they were neck and neck. Alvah kept it that way for the next two laps and then gradually pulled ahead. The crowd became a multicolored streak, whirling past him. In the sixth lap, he passed Swifty again―in the eighth, again―in the tenth, still again―and when he skidded to a halt beyond the finish post, fluttering its flags with the wind of his passage, poor old Swifty and his steaming beast were still lumbering halfway down the stretch.

“Now, friends,” said Alvah, triumphantly mounting the platform again, “in a moment, I’m going to tell you how you, yourselves, can own this wonderful runabout and many marvels more ―but first, are there any questions you’d like to ask?”

Swifty pushed forward, grinless, looking like a man smitten by lightning. “How many to a get?” he called.

Alvah decided he must have misunderstood. “You can have any number you want,” he said. “The price is so reasonable―but I’m going to come to that in a―”

“I don’t mean how many will you sell. How many to a get?” Alvah looked blank. “How many calves, or colts, or whatever, is what I want to know.”

There was a general murmur of agreement. This, it would seem, was what everybody wanted to know.

Appalled, Alvah corrected the misapprehension as quickly and clearly as he could.

“Mean to say,” somebody called, “they don’t breed?”

“Certainly not. If one of them ever breaks down―and, friends, they’re built to last―you get it repaired or buy another.”

“How much?” somebody in the crowd yelled.

“Friends, I’m not here to take your money,” Alvah said. “We just want―”

“Then how we going to pay for your stuff?”

“I’m coming to that. When two people want to trade, friends, there’s usually a way. You want our products. We want metals―iron, aluminum, chromium―”

“Suppose a man ain’t got any metal?”

“Well, sir, there are a lot of other things we can use besides metal. Natural fruits and vegetables, for instance.”

The slack-faced yokel in the first row, the one with the basket under his arm, roused himself for the first time. His mouth closed, then opened again. “What kind?”

“Natural products, friend. You know, the kind your great-granddad ate. We use a lot every year for table delicacies, even―”

The yokel came halfway up the platform stair. His gnarled fingers dipped into the basket and came up with a smooth redgold ovoid. He shoved it toward Alvah. “You mean,” he said incredulously, “you wouldn’ eat that?”

GULPING, Alvah backed away a step. The Muckfoot came after him. “Raise ’em myself,” he said plaintively, holding out the red fruit. “I tell you, they’re just the juiciest, goodest ― Go ahead, try one.”

“I’m not hungry,” Alvah said desperately. “I’m on a diet. Now if you’ll just step down quietly, friend, till after the―”

The Muckfoot stared at him, holding the fruit under Alvah’s nose. “You mean you won’t try it?”

“No,” said Alvah, trying not to breathe. “Now go on back down there, friend―don’t crowd me.”

“Well,” said the Muckfoot, “then durn you!” And he shoved the disgusting thing squashily into Alvah’s face.

Alvah saw red. Blinking away a glutinous film of juice and pulp, he glimpsed the yokel’s face, spread into a hideous grin. Waves of laughter beat about his ears. Retching, he brought up his right fist in an instinctive roundhouse swing that clapped the yokel’s grin shut and toppled him over the platform rail, basket, flying fruit and all.

The laughter rumbled away into expectant silence. Alvah fumbled in his kit for tissues, scrubbed a wad of them across his face and saw them come away daubed with streaky red. He hurled them convulsively into the crowd and, leaning over the rail, shouted thickly, “Lousy stinking filthy Muckieet!”

Muckfoot men in the front ranks turned and looked at each other solemnly. Then two of them marched up the platform stair and, behind them, another two.

Still berserk, Alvah met the first couple with two violent kicks in the chest. This cleared the stair, but he turned to find three more candidates swarming over the rail. He swung at the nearest, who ducked. The next one seized Alvah’s arm with both hands and toppled over backward. Alvah followed, head foremost, and landed with a jar that shook him to his toes.

The next thing he knew, he was lying on the ground surrounded by upward of twenty thick seamless boots, choking on dust, and getting the daylights methodically kicked out of him.

Alvah rolled over frantically, climbed the first leg that came to hand, got his back against the platform and, by flint of cracking skulls together, managed in two brisk minutes to clear a momentary space around him. Another dim figure lunged at him. Alvah clouted it under the ear, whirled and vaulted over the rail onto the platform.

His gun popped out into his hand.

For just a moment, he was standing alone, feeling the pistol grip clenched hard in his dirtcaked palm and able to judge exactly how long he had before half a dozen Muckfeet would swarm up the stair and over the rail. The crowd’s faces were sharp and clear. He saw Artie and Doc Either and Jake, his mouth open to howl, and he saw the girl, B. J., in a curious posture-leaning forward, her right arm thrust out and down. She had just thrown something at him.

ALVAH saw the gray-white blur wobbling toward him. He tried to dodge, but the thing struck his shoulder and exploded with a papery pop. For a bewildering instant, the air was full of dancing bright particles. Then they were gone.

Alvah didn’t have time to wonder about it. He thumbed the selector over to Explosive, pointed the gun straight up and squeezed the trigger.

Nothing happened.

There were two Muckfeet half over the rail and three more coming up the stair. Incredulous, still aiming at the air, Alvah tried again―and again. The gun didn’t work.

Three Muckfeet were on the platform, four more right behind them. Alvah spun through the open door and slapped at the control button. The door stayed open.

The Muckfeet were massed in the doorway, staring in like visitors at an aquarium. Alvah dived at the power bar, shoved it over. The floater didn’t lift.

“Holly! Luke!” called a clear voice outside, and the Muckfeet turned. “Leave him alone. He’s got enough troubles now.”

Alvah was pawing at the control board.

The lights didn’t work.

The air-conditioner didn’t work.

The scent-organ didn’t work.

The musivox didn’t work.

One of the Muckfeet put his head in at the door. “Reckon he has,” he said thoughtfully and went away again. Alvah heard his voice, more faintly. “You do something, B. J.?”

“Yes,” said the girl, “I did something.”

MOVING warily, Alvah went outside. The girl was standing just below the platform, watching as the Muckfoot men filed down the stair.

“You!” he said to her.

She paid him no attention. “Just one of those things, Luke,” she said.

Luke nodded solemnly, “Well, the Fair don’t come but once a year.” He and the other men moved past her into the crowd, each one acquiring a train of curiosity-seekers as he went. The crowd began to drift away.

A familiar voice yelped, “Ride’m out on a razorback is what I say!”

A chorus of “Now, Jake!” went up. There were murmurs of dissent, of inquiry, of explanation. “Time for the poultry judging!” somebody called, and the crowd moved faster.

Alvah went dazedly down and climbed into the runabout. He waggled its power bar. No response.

He tore open his kit and began frantically hauling out one glittery object after another, holding each for an instant and then throwing it on the ground. The ‘ razor, the heater, the vacuum cleaner, the sonotube, the vibromasseur.

Swifty rode by, at ease atop his horse-lynx-camel-horror. He was whistling.

The crowd was almost gone. Among the stragglers was Jake, fists on his pudgy hips, his choleric cheeks gleaming with sweat and satisfaction.

“Well, Mister High-and-Mighty,” he called, “what are you going to do now?”

That was just what Alvah was wondering. He was about a thousand miles from home by air―probably more like fifteen hundred across-country. He had no transportation, no shelter, no power tools, no equipment. He had, he realized with horror, been cut off instantly from everything that made a man civilized.

What was he going to do?