COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works, page 76
A muscular young man in a dapper uniform came in after the robot. "Mr. Gallegher?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"Mr. Galloway Gallegher?"
"The answer's still 'yeah.' What can I do for you?"
"You can accept this summons," said the cop. He gave Gallegher a folded paper.
The maze of intricate legal phraseology made little sense to Gallegher. "Who's Dell Hopper?" he asked. "I never heard of him."
"It's not my pie," the officer grunted. "I've served the summons; that's as far as I go."
He went out. Gallegher peered at the paper. It told him little.
Finally, for lack of something better to do, he televised an attorney, got in touch with the bureau of legal records, and found the name of Hopper's lawyer, a man named Trench. A corporation lawyer at that. Trench had a battery of secretaries to take calls, but by dint of threats, curses and pleas Gallegher got through to the great man himself.
On the telescreen Trench showed as a gray, thin, dry man with a clipped mustache. His voice was file-sharp.
"Mr. Gallegher? Yes?"
"Look," Gallegher said, "I just had a summons served on me."
"Ah, you have it, then. Good."
"What do you mean, good? I haven't the least idea what this is all about."
"Indeed," Trench said skeptically. "Perhaps I can refresh your memory. My client, who is soft-hearted, is not prosecuting you for slander, threat of bodily harm, or assault and battery. He just wants his money back—or else value received."
Gallegher closed his eyes and shuddered. "H-he does? I ... ah ... did I slander him?"
"You called him," said Trench, referring to a bulky file, "a duck-footed cockroach, a foul-smelling Neanderthaler, and either a dirty cow or a dirty cao. Both are terms of opprobium. You also kicked him."
"When was this?" Gallegher whispered.
"Three days ago."
"And—you mentioned money?"
"A thousand credits, which he paid you on account."
"On account of what?"
"A commission you were to undertake for him. I was not acquainted with the exact details. In any case, you not only failed to fulfill the commission, but you refused to return the money."
"Oh. Who is Hopper, anyway?"
"Hopper Enterprises, Inc.—Dell Hopper, entrepreneur and impresario. However, I think you know all this. I will see you in court, Mr. Gallegher. And, if you'll forgive me, I'm rather busy. I have a case to prosecute today, and I rather think the defendant will get a long prison sentence."
"What did he do?" Gallegher asked weakly.
"Simple case of assault and battery," Trench said. "Good-by."
His face faded from the screen. Gallegher clapped a hand to his forehead and screamed for beer. He went to his desk, sucking at the plastibulb with its built-in refrigerant, and thoughtfully examined his mail. Nothing there. No clue.
A thousand credits—He had no recollection of getting them. But the cash book might show—It did. Under dates of several weeks back, it said:
Rec'd D. H.—com.—on acc't—c 1,000
Rec'd J. W.—com.—on acc't—c 1,500
Rec'd Fatty—com.—on acc't—c 800.
Thirty-three hundred credits! And the bank book had no record of that sum. It showed merely a withdrawal of seven hundred credits, leaving about fifteen still on hand.
Gallegher moaned and searched his desk again. Under a blotter he found an envelope he had previously overlooked. It contained stock certificates—both common and preferred—for something called Devices Unlimited. A covering letter acknowledged receipt of four thousand credits, in return for which payment stock had been issued to Mr. Galloway Gallegher, as ordered—
"Murder," Gallegher said. He gulped beer, his mind swirling. Trouble was piling up in triplicate. D. H.—Dell Hopper—had paid him a thousand credits to do something or other. Someone whose initials were J. W. had given him fifteen hundred credits for a similar purpose. And Fatty, the cheapskate, had paid only eight hundred credits on account.
Why?
Only Gallegher's mad subconscious knew. That brainy personality had deftly arranged the deals, collected the dough, depleted Gallegher's personal bank account—cleaning it out—and bought stock in Devices Unlimited. Ha!
Gallegher used the televisor again. Presently he beamed his broker.
"Arnie?"
"Hi, Gallegher," Arnie said, looking up at the tele-plate over his desk. "What's up?"
"I am. At the end of a rope. Listen, did I buy some stock lately?"
"Sure. In Devices—du."
"Then I want to sell it. I need the dough, quick."
"Wait a minute." Arnie pressed buttons. Current quotations were flashing across his wall, Gallegher knew.
"Well?"
"No soap. The bottom's dropped out. Four asked, nothing bid."
"What did I buy at?"
"Twenty."
Gallegher emitted the howl of a wounded wolf. "Twenty? And you let me do that?"
"I tried to argue you out of it," Arnie said wearily. "Told you the stock was skidding. There's a delay in a construction deal or something—not sure just what. But you said you had inside info. What could I do?"
"You could have beaten my brains out," Gallegher said. "Well, never mind. It's too late now. Have I got any other stock?"
"A hundred shares of Martian Bonanza."
"Quoted at?"
"You could realize twenty-five credits on the whole lot."
"What are the bugles blowin' for?" Gallegher murmured.
"Huh?"
"I'm dreadin' what I've got to watch—"
"I know," Arnie said happily. "Danny Deever."
"Yeah," Gallegher agreed. "Danny Deever. Sing it at my funeral, chum." He broke the beam.
Why, in the name of everything holy and unholy, had he bought that du stock?
What had he promised Dell Hopper of Hopper Enterprises?
Who were J. W. (fifteen hundred credits) and Fatty (eight hundred credits)?
Why was there a hole in place of his back yard?
What and why was that confounded machine his subconscious had built?
He pressed the directory button on the televisor, spun the dial till he located Hopper Enterprises, and called that number.
"I want to see Mr. Hopper."
"Your name?"
"Gallegher,"
"Call our lawyer, Mr. Trench."
"I did," Gallegher said. "Listen—"
"Mr. Hopper is busy."
"Tell him," Gallegher said wildly, "that I've got what he wanted."
That did it. Hopper focused in, a buffalo of a man with a mane of gray hair, intolerant jet-black eyes, and a beak of a nose. He thrust his jutting jaw toward the screen and bellowed, "Gallegher? For two pins I'd—" He changed his tune abruptly. "You called Trench, eh? I thought that'd do the trick. You know I can send you to prison, don't you?"
"Well, maybe—"
"Maybe nothing! Do you think I come personally to see every crackpot inventor who does some work for me? If I hadn't been told over and over that you were the best man in your field, I'd have slapped an injunction on you days ago!"
Inventor?
"The fact is," Gallegher began mildly, "I've been ill—"
"In a pig's eye," Hopper said coarsely. "You were drunk as a lord. I don't pay men for drinking. Did you forget those thousand credits were only part payment—with nine thousand more to come?"
"Why ... why, n-no. Uh ... nine thousand?"
"Plus a bonus for quick work. You still get the bonus, luckily. It's only been a couple of weeks. But it's lucky for you you got the thing finished. I've got options on a couple of factories already. And scouts looking out for good locations, all over the country. Is it practical for small sets, Gallegher? We'll make our steady money from them, not from the big audiences."
"Tchwuk," Gallegher said. "Uh—"
"Got it there? I'm coming right down to see it."
"Wait! Maybe you'd better let me add a few touches—"
"All I want is the idea," Hopper said. "If that's satisfactory, the rest is easy. I'll call Trench and have him quash that summons. See you soon."
He blanked out.
Gallegher screamed for beer. "And a razor," he added, as Narcissus padded out of the room. "I want to cut my throat."
"Why?" the robot asked.
"Just to amuse you ... why else? Get that beer."
Narcissus brought a plastibulb. "I don't understand why you're so upset," he remarked. "Why don't you lose yourself in rapturous contemplation of my beauty?"
"Better the razor," Gallegher said glumly. "Far better. Three clients, two of whom I can't remember at all, commissioning me to do jobs I can't remember, either. Ha!"
Narcissus ruminated. "Try induction," he suggested. "That machine—"
"What about it?"
"Well, when you get a commission, you usually drink yourself into such a state that your subconscious takes over and does the job. Then you sober up. Apparently that's what happened this time. You made the machine, didn't you?"
"Sure," Gallegher said, "but for which client? I don't even know what it does."
"You could try it and find out."
"Oh. So I could. I'm stupid this morning."
"You're always stupid," Narcissus said. "And very ugly, too. The more I contemplate my own perfect loveliness, the more pity I feel for humans."
"Oh, shut up," Gallegher snapped, feeling the uselessness of trying to argue with a robot. He went over to the enigmatic machine and studied it once more. Nothing clicked in his mind.
There was a switch, and he flipped it. The machine started to sing "St. James Infirmary."
"—to see my sweetie there She was lying on a marble sla-a-ab—"
"I see it all," Gallegher said in a fit of wild frustration. "Somebody asked me to invent a phonograph."
"Wait," Narcissus pointed out. "Look at the window."
"The window. Sure. What about it? Wh—" Gallegher hung over the sill, gasping. His knees felt unhinged and weak. Still, he might have expected something like this.
The group of tubes emerging from the machine were rather incredibly telescopic. They had stretched down to the bottom of the pit, a full thirty feet, and were sweeping around in erratic circles like grazing vacuum cleaners. They moved so fast Gallegher couldn't see them except as blurs. It was like watching the head of a Medusa who had contracted St. Vitus' Dance and transmitted the ailment to her snakes.
"Look at them whiz," Narcissus said contemplatively, leaning heavily on Gallegher. "I guess that's what made the hole. They eat dirt."
"Yeah," the scientist agreed, drawing back. "I wonder why. Dirt—Hm-m-m. Raw material." He peered at the machine, which was wailing:
"—can search the wide world over And never find another sweet man like me."
"Electrical connections," Gallegher mused, cocking an inquisitive eye. "The raw dirt goes in that one-time waste-basket. Then what? Electronic bombardment? Protons, neutrons, positrons—I wish I knew what those words meant," he ended plaintively. "If only I'd had a college education!"
"A positron is—"
"Don't tell me," Gallegher pleaded. "I'll only have semantic difficulties. I know what a positron is, all right, only I don't identify it with that name. All I know is the intensional meaning. Which can't be expressed in words, anyhow."
"The extensional meaning can, though," Narcissus pointed out.
"Not with me. As Humpty Dumpty said, the question is, which is to be master. And with me it's the word. The damn things scare me. I simply don't get their extensional meanings."
"That's silly," said the robot. "Positron has a perfectly clear denotation."
"To you. All it means to me is a gang of little boys with fishtails and green whiskers. That's why I never can figure out what my subconscious has been up to. I have to use symbolic logic, and the symbols ... ah, shut up," Gallegher growled. "Why should I argue about semantics with you, anyhow?"
"You started it," Narcissus said.
Gallegher glared at the robot and then went back to the cryptic machine. It was still eating dirt and playing "St. James Infirmary."
"Why should it sing that, I wonder?"
"You usually sing it when you're drunk, don't you? Preferably in a barroom."
"That solves nothing," Gallegher said shortly. He explored the machine. It was in smooth, rapid operation, emitting a certain amount of heat, and something was smoking. Gallegher found a lubricating valve, seized an oil can, and squirted. The smoke vanished, as well as a faint smell of burning.
"Nothing comes out," Gallegher said, after a long pause of baffled consideration.
"There?" The robot pointed.
Gallegher examined the grooved wheel that was turning rapidly. Just above it was a small circular aperture in the smooth hide of a cylindrical tube. Nothing seemed to be coming out of that hole, however.
"Turn the switch off," Gallegher said. Narcissus obeyed. The valve snapped shut and the grooved wheel stopped turning. Other activity ceased instantly. The music died. The tentacles stretched out the window stopped whirling and shortened to their normal inactive length.
"Well, there's apparently no end product," Gallegher remarked. "It eats dirt and digests it completely. Ridiculous."
"Is it?"
"Sure. Dirt's got elements in it. Oxygen, nitrogen—there's granite under New York, so there's aluminum, sodium, silicon—lots of things. No sort of physical or chemical change could explain this."
"You mean something ought to come out of the machine?"
"Yes," Gallegher said. "In a word, exactly. I'd feel a lot better if something did. Even mud."
"Music comes out of it," Narcissus pointed out. "If you can truthfully call that squalling music."
"By no stretch of my imagination can I bring myself to consider that loathsome thought," the scientist denied firmly. "I'll admit my subconscious is slightly nuts. But it's got logic, in a mad sort of way. It wouldn't build a machine to convert dirt into music, even if such a thing's possible."
"But it doesn't do anything else, does it?"
"No. Ah. Hm-m-m. I wonder what Hopper asked me to make for him. He kept talking about factories and audiences."
"He'll be here soon," Narcissus said. "Ask him."
Gallegher didn't bother to reply. He thought of demanding more beer, rejected the idea, and instead used the liquor organ to mix himself a pick-me-up of several liqueurs. After that he went and sat on a generator which bore the conspicuous label of Monstro. Apparently dissatisfied, he changed his seat to a smaller generator named Bubbles.
Gallegher always thought better atop Bubbles.
The pick-me-up had oiled his brain, fuzzy with alcohol fumes. A machine without an end product—dirt vanishing into nothingness. Hm-m-m. Matter cannot disappear like a rabbit popping into a magician's hat. It's got to go somewhere. Energy?
Apparently not. The machine didn't manufacture energy. The cords and sockets showed that, on the contrary, it made use of electric power to operate.
And so—
What?
Try it from another angle. Gallegher's subconscious, Gallegher Plus, had built the device for some logical reason. The reason was supplied by his profit of thirty-three hundred credits. He'd been paid that sum, by three different people, to make—maybe—three different things.
Which of them fitted the machine?
Look at it as an equation. Call clients a, b, and c. Call the purpose of the machine—not the machine itself, of course—x. Then a (or) b (or) c equals x.
Not quite. The term a wouldn't represent Dell Hopper; it would symbolize what he wanted. And what he wanted must necessarily and logically be the purpose of the machine.
Or the mysterious J. W., or the equally mysterious Fatty.
Well, Fatty was a shade less enigmatic. Gallegher had a clue, for what it was worth. If J. W. was represented by b, Fatty would be c plus adipose tissue. Call adipose tissue t, and what did you get?
Thirsty.
