Time Travel Omnibus, page 478
The door opened and Pesbroke entered the apartment, overcoat over his arm, crushed Stetson hat clamped over his head. “Has he showed up again?” His ancient, alert eyes darted around the room. “You people look ready to go.”
“No sign of him,” Courtland said drearily. “Damn it—I sent him off; I didn’t grasp it until he was gone.” He showed Pesbroke the crumpled carbon.
“I see,” Pesbroke said, handing it back. “And if he comes back you’re going to tape what he says, and photograph everything he has in the way of equipment.” He indicated Anderson and MacDowell. “What about the rest of them? What’s the need of them?”
“I want people here who can ask the right questions,” Courtland explained. “We won’t get answers any other way. The man, if he shows up at all, will stay only a finite time. During that time, we’ve got to find out—” He broke off as his wife came up beside him. “What is it?”
“The boys want to watch,” Fay explained. “Can they? They promise they won’t make any noise.” She added wistfully, “I’d sort of like to watch, too.”
“Watch, then,” Courtland answered gloomily. “Maybe there won’t be anything to see.”
While Fay served coffee around, Courtland went on with his explanation. “First of all, we want to find out if this man is on the level. Our first questions will be aimed at tripping him up; I want these specialists to go to work on him. If he’s a fake, they’ll probably find it out.”
“And if he isn’t?” Anderson asked, an interested expression on his face. “If he isn’t, you’re saying . . .”
“If he isn’t, then he’s from the next decade, and I want him pumped for all he’s worth. But—” Courtland paused. “I doubt if we’ll get much theory. I had the impression that he’s a long way down on the totem pole. The best we probably can do is get a run-down on his specific work. From that, we may have to assemble our picture, make our own extrapolations.”
“You think he can tell us what he does for a living,” Pesbroke said cannily, “but that’s about it.”
“We’ll be lucky if he shows up at all,” Courtland said. He settled down on the couch and began methodically knocking his pipe against the ashtray. “All we can do is wait. Each of you think over what you’re going to ask. Try to figure out the questions you want answered by a man from the future who doesn’t know he’s from the future, who’s trying to repair equipment that doesn’t yet exist.”
“I’m scared,” the legal stenographer said, white-faced and wide-eyed, her coffee cup trembling.
“I’m about fed up,” Hurley muttered, eyes fixed sullenly on the floor. “This is all a lot of hot air.”
It was just about that time that the swibble repairman came again, and once more timidly knocked on the hall door.
The young repairman was flustered. And he was getting perturbed. “I’m sorry, sir,” he began without preamble. “I can see you have company, but I’ve rechecked my route instructions and this is absolutely the right address.” He added plaintively, “I tried some other apartments; nobody knew what I was talking about.”
“Come in,” Courtland managed. He stepped aside, got himself between the swibble repairman and the door, and ushered him into the living room.
“Is this the person?” Pesbroke rumbled doubtfully, his gray eyes narrowing.
Courtland ignored him. “Sit down,” he ordered the swibble repairman. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Anderson and Hurley and MacDowell moving in closely; Parkinson threw down his Fortune and got quickly to his feet. In the kitchen, the sound of tape running through the recording head was audible . . . the room had begun moving into activity.
“I could come some other time,” the repairman said apprehensively, eyeing the closing circle of people. “I don’t want to bother you, sir, when you have guests.”
Perched grimly on the arm of the couch, Courtland said, “This is as good a time as any. In fact, this is the best time.” A wild flood of relief spilled over him: now they had a chance. “I don’t know what got into me,” he went on rapidly. “I was confused. Of course I have a swibble; it’s set up in the dining room.”
The repairman’s face twitched with a spasm of laughter. “Oh, really,” he choked. “In the dining room? That’s about the funniest joke I’ve heard in weeks.”
Courtland glanced at Pesbroke. What the hell was so funny about that? Then his flesh began to crawl; cold sweat broke out on his forehead and the palms of his hands. What the hell was a swibble? Maybe they had better find out right away—or not at all. Maybe they were getting into something deeper than they knew. Maybe—and he didn’t like the thought—they were better off where they were.
“I was confused,” he said, “by your nomenclature. I don’t think of it as a swibble.” Cautiously, he finished, “I know that’s the popular jargon, but with that much money involved, I like to think of it by its legitimate title.”
The swibble repairman looked completely confused; Courtland realized that he had made another mistake; apparently swibble was its correct name.
Pesbroke spoke up. “How long have you been repairing swibbles, Mr . . .” He waited, but there was no response from the thin, blank face. “What’s your name, young man?” he demanded.
“My what?” The swibble repairman pulled jerkily away. “I don’t understand you, sir.”
Good Lord, Courtland thought. It was going to be a lot harder than he had realized—than any of them had realized.
Angrily, Pesbroke said, “You must have a name. Everybody has a name.”
The young repairman gulped and stared down red-faced at the carpet. “I’m still only in service group four, sir. So I don’t have a name yet.”
“Let it go,” Courtland said. What kind of a society gave out names as a status privilege? “I want to make sure you’re a competent repairman,” he explained. “How long have you been repairing swibbles?”
“For six years and three months,” the repairman asserted. Pride took the place of embarrassment. “In junior high school I showed a straight-A record in swibble-maintenance aptitude.” His meager chest swelled. “I’m a born swibble-man.”
“Fine,” Courtland agreed uneasily; he couldn’t believe the industry was that big. They gave tests in junior high school? Was swibble maintenance considered a basic talent, like symbol manipulation and manual dexterity? Had swibble work become as fundamental as musical talent, or as the ability to conceive spatial relationships?
“Well,” the repairman said briskly, gathering up his bulging tool kit, “I’m all ready to get started. I have to be back at the shop before long . . . I’ve got a lot of other calls.”
Bluntly, Pesbroke stepped up squarely in front of the thin young man. “What is a swibble?” he demanded. “I’m tired of this damn fooling around. You say you work on these things—what are they? That’s a simple enough question; they must be something.”
“Why,” the young man said hesitantly, “I mean, that’s hard to say. Suppose—well, suppose you ask me what a cat or a dog is. How can I answer that?”
“We’re getting nowhere,” Anderson spoke up. “The swibble is manufactured, isn’t it? You must have schematics, then; hand them over.”
The young repairman gripped his tool kit defensively. “What in the world is the matter, sir? If this is your idea of a joke—” He turned back to Courtland. “I’d like to start work; I really don’t have much time.”
Standing in the corner, hands shoved deep in his pockets, MacDowell said slowly, “I’ve been thinking about getting a swibble. The missus thinks we ought to have one.”
“Oh, certainly,” the repairman agreed. Color rising in his cheeks, he rushed on, “I’m surprised you don’t have a swibble already; in fact, I can’t imagine what’s wrong with you people. You’re all acting—oddly. Where, if I may ask, do you come from? Why are you so—well, so uninformed?”
“These people,” Courtland explained, “come from a part of the country where there aren’t any swibbles.”
Instantly, the repairman’s face hardened with suspicion. “Oh?” he said sharply. “Interesting. What part of the country is that?”
Again, Courtland had said the wrong thing; he knew that. While he floundered for a response, MacDowell cleared his throat and inexorably went on. “Anyhow,” he said, “we’ve been meaning to get one. You have any folders with you? Pictures of different models?”
The repairman responded. “I’m afraid not, sir. But if you’ll give me your address I’ll have the sales department send you information. And if you want, a qualified representative can call on you at your convenience and describe the advantages of owning a swibble.”
“The first swibble was developed in 1963?” Hurley asked.
“That’s right.” The repairman’s suspicions had momentarily lulled. “And just in time, too. Let me say this—if Wright hadn’t got his first model going, there wouldn’t be any human beings left alive. You people here who don’t own swibbles—you may not know it—and you certainly act as if you didn’t know it—but you’re alive right now because of old R.J. Wright. It’s swibbles that keep the world going.”
Opening his black case, the repairman briskly brought out a complicated apparatus of tubes and wiring. He filled a drum with clear fluid, sealed it, tried the plunger, and straightened up. “I’ll start out with a shot of dx—that usually puts them back into operation.”
“What is dx?” Anderson asked quickly.
Surprised at the question, the repairman answered, “It’s a high-protein food concentrate. We’ve found that ninety per cent of our early service calls are the result of improper diet. People just don’t know how to care for their new swibble.”
“My God,” Anderson said feebly. “It’s alive.”
Courtland’s mind took a nose dive. He had been wrong; it wasn’t precisely a repairman who had stood gathering his equipment together. The man had come to fix the swibble, all right, but his capacity was slightly different than Courtland had supposed. He wasn’t a repairman; he was a veterinarian.
Laying out instruments and meters, the young man explained: “The new swibbles are a lot more complex than the early models; I need all this before I can even get started. But blame the War.”
“The War?” Fay Courtland echoed apprehensively.
“Not the early war. The big one, in ‘75. That little war in ‘61 wasn’t really much. You know, I suppose, that Wright was originally an Army engineer, stationed over in—well, I guess it was called Europe. I believe the idea came to him because of all those refugees pouring across the border. Yes, I’m sure that’s how it was. During that little war, back in ‘61, they came across by the millions. And they went the other way, too. My goodness, people were shifting back and forth between the two camps—it was revolting.”
“I’m not clear on my history,” Courtland said thickly. “I never paid much attention in school . . . the ‘61 war, that was between Russia and America?”
“Oh,” the repairman said, “it was between everybody. Russia headed the Eastern side, of course. And America the West. But everybody was in it. That was the little war, though; that didn’t count.”
“Little?” Fay demanded, horrified.
“Well,” the repairman admitted, “I suppose it looked like a lot at the time. But I mean, there were buildings still standing, afterward. And it only lasted a few months.”
“Who—won?” Anderson croaked.
The repairman tittered. “Won? What an odd question. Well, there were more people left in the Eastern bloc, if that’s what you mean. Anyhow, the importance of the ‘61 war—and I’m sure your history teachers made that clear—was that swibbles appeared. R.J. Wright got his idea from the camp-changers that appeared in that war. So by ‘75, when the real war came along, we had plenty of swibbles.” Thoughtfully, he added, “In fact, I’d say the real war was a war over swibbles. I mean, it was the last war. It was the war between the people who wanted swibbles and those who didn’t.” Complacently, he finished, “Needless to say, we won.”
After a time Courtland managed to ask, “What happened to the others? Those who—didn’t want swibbles.”
“Why,” the repairman said gently, “the swibbles got them.”
Shakily, Courtland started his pipe going. “I didn’t know about that.”
“What do you mean?” Pesbroke demanded hoarsely. “How did they get them? What did they do?”
Astonished, the repairman shook his head. “I didn’t know there was such ignorance in lay circles.” The position of pundit obviously pleased him; sticking out his bony chest, he proceeded to lecture the circle of intent faces on the fundamentals of history. “Wright’s first A-driven swibble was crude, of course. But it served its purpose. Originally, it was able to differentiate the camp-shifters into two groups: those who had really seen the light, and those who were insincere. Those who were going to shift back . . . who weren’t really loyal. The authorities wanted to know which of the shifters had really come over to the West and which were spies and secret agents. That was the original swibble function. But that was nothing compared to now.”
“No,” Courtland agreed, paralyzed. “Nothing at all.”
“Now,” the repairman said sleekly, “we don’t deal with such crudities. It’s absurd to wait until an individual has accepted a contrary ideology, and then hope he’ll shift away from it. In a way, it’s ironic, isn’t it? After the ‘61 war there was really only one contrary ideology: those who opposed the swibbles.”
He laughed happily. “So the swibbles differentiated those who didn’t want to be differentiated by swibbles. My, that was quite a war. Because that wasn’t a messy war, with a lot of bombs and jellied gasoline. That was a scientific war—none of that random pulverizing. That was just swibbles going down into cellars and ruins and hiding places and digging out those Contrapersons one by one. Until we had all of them. So now,” he finished, gathering up his equipment, “we don’t have to worry about wars or anything of that sort. There won’t be any more conflicts, because we don’t have any contrary ideologies. As Wright showed, it doesn’t really matter what ideology we have; it isn’t important whether it’s Communism or Free Enterprise or Socialism or Fascism or Slavery. What’s important is that every one of us agrees completely; that we’re all absolutely loyal. And as long as we have our swibbles—” He winked knowingly at Courtland. “Well, as a new swibble owner, you’ve found out the advantages. You know the sense of security and satisfaction in being certain that your ideology is exactly congruent with that of everybody else in the world. That there’s no possibility, no chance whatsoever that you’ll go astray—and that some passing swibble will feed on you.”
It was MacDowell who managed to pull himself together first. “Yeah,” he said ironically. “It certainly sounds like what the missus and I want.”
“Oh, you ought to have a swibble of your own,” the repairman urged. “Consider—if you have your own swibble, it’ll adjust you automatically. It’ll keep you on the right track without strain or fuss. You’ll always know you’re not going wrong—remember the swibble slogan: Why be half loyal? With your own swibble, your outlook will be corrected by painless degrees . . . but if you wait, if you just hope you’re on the right track, why, one of these days you may walk into a friend’s living room and his swibble may just simply crack you open and drink you down. Of course,” he reflected, “a passing swibble may still get you in time to straighten you out. But usually it’s too late. Usually—” He smiled. “Usually people go beyond redemption, once they get started.”
“And your job,” Pesbroke muttered, “is to keep the swibbles working?”
“They do get out of adjustment, left to themselves.”
“Isn’t it a kind of paradox?” Pesbroke pursued. “The swibbles keep us in adjustment, and we keep them in adjustment . . . it’s a closed circle.”
The repairman was intrigued. “Yes, that’s an interesting way of putting it. But we must keep control over the swibbles, of course. So they don’t die.” He shivered. “Or worse.”
“Die?” Hurley said, still not understanding. “But if they’re built—” Wrinkling his brows he said, “Either they’re machines or they’re alive. Which is it?”
Patiently, the repairman explained elementary physics. “Swibble-culture is an organic phenotype evolved in a protein medium under controlled conditions. The directing neurological tissue that forms the basis of the swibble is alive, certainly, in the sense that it grows, thinks, feeds, excretes waste. Yes, it’s definitely alive. But the swibble, as a functioning whole, is a manufactured item. The organic tissue is inserted in the master tank and then sealed. I certainly don’t repair that; I give it nutriments to restore a proper balance of diet, and I try to deal with parasitic organisms that find their way into it. I try to keep it adjusted and healthy. The balance of the organism, is, of course, totally mechanical.”
“The swibble has direct access to human minds?” Anderson asked, fascinated.
“Naturally. It’s an artificially evolved telepathic metazoan. And with it, Wright solved the basic problem of modern times: the existence of diverse, warring ideological factions, the presence of disloyalty and dissent. In the words of General Steiner’s famous aphorism: War is an extension of the disagreement from the voting booth to the battlefield. And the preamble of the World Service Charter: war, if it is to be eliminated, must be eliminated from the minds of men, for it is in the minds of men that disagreement begins. Up until 1963, we had no way to get into the minds of men. Up until 1963, the problem was unsolvable.”
“Thank God,” Fay said clearly.
The repairman failed to hear her; he was carried away by his own enthusiasm. “By means of the swibble, we’ve managed to transform the basic sociological problem of loyalty into a routine technical matter: to the mere matter of maintenance and repair. Our only concern is keep the swibbles functioning correctly; the rest is up to them.”
