The Age of the Pussyfoot

Seven

As Forrester faced the man named Heinzlichen Jura de Syrtis Major, he felt he was in the state described as “ready for anything.” What this actually meant was that he was totally unready. He did not know what to expect. He could feel his heart pounding; he sensed that his hands were beginning to shake. Even Adne seemed stimulated; she was watching them, her small face intensely interested, and she was fumbling something out of her joymaker. A tranquilizer? No, more likely something to pep her up, thought Forrester. Whatever it was, she popped it in her mouth and swallowed before she said, “Hello, Heinzie. Come on in. I think you and Charles have met.”

Forrester gave her a look, then returned to Heinzlichen. He started to put out his hand, then stopped, balancing on the balls of his feet, half ready to shake hands, half in a stance resembling the attack position of karate. “We’ve met, all right. Too damned often, if you ask me.”

Heinzlichen came in, allowed the door to close behind him, and stood still, studying Forrester as if he were a specimen in a museum. Adne had been playing with the lights again, and mottled reds and yellows flecked his face. They suited his personal color scheme. He was a tall, fat man. His hair was red, and he wore a close-cut red beard that covered all of his face except for nose, lips, and eyes, like the mask of a chimpanzee. He rubbed his beard thoughtfully while he examined Forrester’s face with attention, glanced appraisingly at his arms and body, stared down at the position of his feet, and finally nodded. He returned his gaze to a point on Forrester’s chest and stabbed at it with a finger. He said, “Dat is where I will kill you. Dere. In de heart.”

Forrester exhaled sharply through his nose. It tingled. He felt the flush of adrenalin through his bloodstream. He opened his mouth; but Adne cut in swiftly before he could speak.

“Heinze dear! You promised.”

“Promised? What promised? I promised to talk, dat’s all. So let’s talk.”

“But Charles doesn’t understand how things are, Heinzie. Sit down. Have a drink.”

“Oh, sure I’ll have a drink. You pick me out something nice. But make it fast, because I have only a couple of minutes.” He returned to Forrester. “Well? You want to talk?”

Forrester said belligerently, “You’re damned right I want to talk. And, no, Adne, I don’t want a drink. Now, look here, you—” He hesitated, finding it hard to think of the right thing to say. “Well, what I want to know is, why the devil do you want to kill me?”

The Martian looked baffled. He glanced at Adne helplessly, then back to Forrester. “Sweat, I don’t know,” he said. “Up dere at de party you stomped my foot. . . . But I guess I just didn’t like you anyway. What do you want to ask a question like dat for?”

“Why? It’s my life!”

The Martian growled, “I knew dis was a bad idea. Honey, I’m going. De more I see of dis guy, de less I like him.”

But Adne had her hand on his arm. “Please, Heinzie. Here.” She handed him a fizzy orange drink in a thing like a brandy inhaler with a hollow stem. “You know Charles is just out of the sleep-freeze. He’s kind of a slow learner, I’m afraid.”

“Dat’s his business. Killing him, dat’s my business.” But the Martian grumpily accepted the drink. The girl pressed her advantage.

“Yes, but Heinzie—dear—what’s the fun of it if he doesn’t know what it’s all about?”

“Trimmer!” Heinzlichen growled. “Maybe it’s more fun dat way. I can’t help dinking we lose some of de important values when killing’s all so cut and dried.”

“All right, Heinzie, maybe you’re right, but there’s such a thing as fair play, too. Why, I don’t even think Charles really knows what his rights are.”

The Martian shook his head. “Dat’s not my business eider. Dere’s his joymaker; let him call up and find out.”

Adne winked reassuringly at Forrester, who was not in the least reassured. But she seemed more confident and relaxed now. She leaned back, sipping her drink, and said silkily, “Wouldn’t it be nicer for you to talk to him about it? Tell Charles what you want to do, exactly?”

“Oh, dat part’s all right.” The Martian put down his drink, scratched his beard thoughtfully, and said, “Well, it’s like dis. I want to beat him up good, and den I will stomp on his chest cage until it breaks and ruptures de heart. De reason I like to do it dat way is it hurts a lot, and you don’t get near de brain. Of course,” he mused, “I got to pay a little more, but de best pleasures are de ones you pay for. Cheap’s cheap.” Then his expression lightened—or seemed to: the beard hid most of his transient looks. “Anyway,” he added, “maybe I can get off paying de bill. I talked to de lawyer, and he said Forrester hasn’t touched all de bases, law-wise, so maybe we can fight de costs. But dat doesn’t matter in de long run. What de hell, if it costs it costs.”

Forrester nodded thoughtfully and sat down. “I believe I’ll have that drink now, Adne,” he said. He realized, with a certain amount of pride, that he was perfectly calm.

The reason was that Forrester had come to a decision while Heinzlichen was talking: he had decided to go along with the gag. True, it wasn’t really a gag. True, when this man said he intended to cause Forrester a lot of pain and bring about his ultimate death, he meant every word of it. But you could not spend your life in weighing consequences. You had to pretend that the chips were only plastic and did not represent real currency of any sort, otherwise you would lose the game out of nerves and panic.

The very fact that the stakes were so important to Forrester was a good reason for pretending they were only make-believe.

He accepted a glass from Adne and said reasonably, “Now, let’s get this straight. Did I understand you right? You talked to a lawyer before you tried to kill me?”

“Nah! Wake up, will you? All I did den was file de papers.”

“But you just said—”

“Listen, why don’t you? De papers was so I could kill you—all de usual stuff, bonds to cover de DR business, guaranties against damaging de brain, and like dat. Den de lawyer was just yesterday, when I got de idea maybe I could kill you and save, all de bond and guaranty money.”

“Excuse me. I didn’t understand that part.” Forrester nodded pleasantly, thinking hard. It began to make a certain amount of sense. The thing you had to remember was that death, to these people, was not a terminal event but only an intermission.

He said, “As I understand it—I mean, if I understand it—the legal part of this business means you have to guarantee to pay my freezer costs if you kill me.”

“Nah! Not ‘if.’ Odder wise you got it.”

“So I don’t have anything to say about it. The law lets you kill me, and I’m stuck with it.”

“Dat’s right.”

Forrester said thoughtfully, “But it doesn’t sound fair to me, everything considered.”

“Fair? Of course it’s fair! Dat’s de whole idea of de guaranties.”

“Yes, of course—if the circumstances are normal. But in this case, with death-reversal out of the question . . .”

The Martian snorted angrily. “Are you crazy?”

“No, really,” Forrester persisted. “You said you were going to try to get out of paying my expenses. You know more about it than I do. Suppose you succeed?”

“Oh, boy! Den you have to pay dem yourself.”

Forrester said politely. “But you see, I can’t. I don’t have any money to pay them with. Ask Adne.”

The Martian turned to Adne with a look of unbelieving anger, but she said, “As a matter of fact, Heinzie, Charles is telling you the truth. I didn’t think of it, but it’s so. I mean, I haven’t checked his balance . . . but it can’t be much.”

“De hell with his balance! What de sweat do I care about his balance? I just want to kill him!”

“You see, Jura, if you kill me—”

“Shut up, you!”

“But the way things are—”

“Dog sweat!” The Martian’s face was working angrily under the mask of beard. He was confused, and that made him mad: “What’s de matter with you, Forrester? Why didn’t you get a job?”

“Well, I will. As soon as I can.”

“Sweat! You want to chicken out, dat’s all!”

“I simply didn’t understand my money situation. I didn’t plan it this way. I’m sorry, Jura, I really am, but—”

“Shut up!” barked the Martian. “Look, I got no more time for dis talk. I have to go to de rehearsal hall; we’re doing de Schumannlieder, and I’m de soloist. Answer de question. Do you want to chicken out?”

“Well,” said Forrester, fiddling with his glass and casting a sidelong glance at Adne, “yes.”

“Fink! Dogsweat fink!”

“I know how you feel. I guess I’d feel the same way.”

“De hell with how you’d feel. All right, look. I’m not promising anything, but I’ll talk to de lawyer again and see where de hell we stand. Meanwhile, you get a job, hear?”

Forrester showed the Martian out. For some reason that he could not quite analyze, he was feeling elated.

He stood thoughtfully at the door, testing the feeling. For a man who had just discovered he was a pauper, who had reinforced the dislike of an enemy who proposed to kill him, Forrester was feeling pretty good. Probably it was all an illusion, he thought fatalistically.

Adne was curled up on the couch, studying him. She had been doing something with the lights again; now they were misty blue, and her skin gleamed through the lacy strands of her coverall. Perhaps she had been doing something with that, too; it seemed to be showing more of Adne than it had earlier. Forrester excused himself and went into the little lavatory room to splash cold water on his face. And then he realized the cause of his elation.

He had managed to win a point.

He was not a bit sure it was a worthwhile point; he wasn’t even quite sure of what he had won. But, for better or for worse, he had gained a small victory over Heinzlichen Jura de Syrtis Major. For days Forrester had been a cork bobbing to the thrust of every passerby; now he was thrusting back. He came smiling back into the room and cried, “I want a drink!”

Adne was still on the couch, murmuring into her joymaker. “—And be sure you’re locked up,” she was saying. “Don’t forget your prophylaxis and say good night, Mim.” She put it down and looked up at him. Her expression was sulky but entertained.

“The kids?” She nodded. “My God, is it that late?” He had forgotten the passage of time. “I’m sorry. I mean, what about their dinners and all?”

She looked slightly less sulky, slightly more entertained. “Oh, Charles! You weren’t thinking I had to boil oatmeal or peel potatoes? They’ve had their dinners, of course.”

“Oh. Well. I guess we should be thinking about ours. . . .”

“Not yet.”

Forrester said, reorienting his thinking very quickly, “All right. Then what about that drink?”

“I’m not thirsty, you fool. Sit down.” She lifted her joymaker, looked him over with narrowed eyes, kissed the soft spot at the base of his throat, and touched it with the joymaker.

Forrester felt a sudden surge inside him. It was like a mild electric shock, like a whiff of mingled oxygen and musk.

Adne studied him critically, then leaned forward and kissed him on the lips.

A moment later he said, “Do that again.”

She did. Then she lay back against him with her head on his shoulder.

“Dear Charles,” she said, “you’re such a nut.”

He stroked her and kissed her hair. The parallel-strand fabric did not feel coarse or wiry; he could hardly tell it was there.

“I don’t know if you did the right thing with Heinzie,” she said meditatively. “It’s kind of—you know. Almost chicken . . .” Then she turned inside his arm and kissed his ear. “I know it embarrasses you when I talk biology, but—well, the reason I’m natural-flow, you see, is that I’m a natural type of girl. Do you understand?”

“Sure,” he lied, only vaguely hearing her.

“I mean, if you want to you can take the pills and use the chemosimulants, and it’s just about the same. But I don’t do that, because, if you’re going to do that, you might just as well go all the way and use the joy machine.”

“I can see that, all right,” he said, but she fended him off and added, “Still, one doesn’t have to be rigid. Sometimes you’re at a low point, and something special happens, and you’d like to be at a high point. Then you can take a pill if you want to, do you see?”

“Oh, yes! Say!” said Forrester, pleasantly excited, “I wonder! How would you feel about taking a pill now?”

She sat up, stretched, and put her arms around him. “Don’t have to,” she said, resting her cheek against his. “I took one when you let Heinzie in.”

With two victories in one day, thought Forrester in a mood of pleasant triumph and lassitude, this world had come pretty close to his first hopes for it, after all. After the girl had gone, he slept for ten good hours and woke with the conviction that everything would turn out right. The father of a President and the lover of Adne Bensen was, at least in his own eyes, a figure of much mana. There were problems. But he would cope with them.

He ordered breakfast and added, “Machine! How do I go about getting a job?”

“If you will state parameters, Man Forrester, I will inform you as to openings that may be suitable.”

“You mean, what kind of job? I don’t know what kind. Just so it pays—” he coughed before he could get the figure out—“around ten million bucks a year.”

But the joymaker took it in stride. “Yes, Man Forrester. Please inform me further as to working conditions: home or external; mode of payment—straight cash or fringed; if fringe, nature permitted—profit-sharing, stock issue, allocated earnings bonus, or other; categories not to be considered; religious, moral or political objections, not stated in your record profile, which may debar classes of employ—”

“Slow down a minute, machine. Let me think.”

“Certainly, Man Forrester. Will you receive your messages now?”

“No. I mean,” he added cautiously, “not unless there are some life-or-death ones, like that Martian being out to kill me again.” But there weren’t. That, too, thought Forrester with pleasure, set this day off from other days.

He ate thoughtfully and economically, bathed, put on clean clothes, and allowed himself an extremely expensive cigarette before he tackled the joymaker again. Then he said, “Tell you what you do, machine. Just give me an idea of what jobs are open.”

“I cannot sort them unless you give me parameters, Man Forrester.”

“That’s right. Don’t sort them. Just give me an idea of what’s going.”

“Very well, Man Forrester. I will give you direct crude readout of new listings as received in real time. Marking. Mark! Item, curvilinear phase-analysis major, seventy-five hundred. Item, chef, full manual, Cordon Bleu experience, eighteen thousand. Item, poll subjects, detergents and stress-control appliances, no experience required, six thousand. Item, childcare domestics—but, Man Forrester,” the joymaker broke in on itself, “that clearly specifies female employment. Shall I eliminate the obviously inappropriate listings?”

“No. I mean, yes. Eliminate the whole thing for now. I get the idea.” But it was confusing, thought Forrester uncomfortably; the salaries mentioned were hardly higher than twentieth-century scale. They would not support a Pekingese pup in this era of joyful extravagance. “I think I’ll go see Adne,” he said suddenly, and aloud.

The joymaker chose to reply. “Very well, Man Forrester, but I must inform you as to a Class Gamma alert. Transit outside your own dwelling will be interrupted for drill purposes.”

“Oh, God. You mean like an air raid.”

“A drill, Man Forrester.”

“Sure. Well, how long is that going to go on?”

“Perhaps five minutes, Man Forrester.”

“Oh, well, that’s not so bad. I tell you what, why don’t you give me my messages while I’m waiting.”

“Yes, Man Forrester. There are one personal and nine commercial. The personal message is from Adne Bensen and follows.” Forrester felt the light touch of Adne’s hand, then the soft sound of Adne’s voice. “Dear Charles,” her voice whispered, “see me again soon, you dragon! And you know we have to think about something, don’t you? We have to decide on a name.”