Authors Choice (v1.0), page 10
“Why not?” Hal demanded.
“Because .…I am the belt!”
Chapelin gasped: “Laura, don’t be insane.”
“It was Laura that you buried. She was killed in the accident. As Mike says, there was never any such person as ’old Jonas.’ I instilled his memory in your minds to account for the corpse, which was unrecognizable after…after what had happened to it.”
The knife turned deeper in Hal’s heart. Every curve, every coloring, every sound of the voice was Laura’s— Mike said softly: “We’ve done Frankenstein one better.”
“I don’t think so,” Hal said steadily. “I think we’ve just reenacted a limerick. Remember the one about the young lady from Niger? She smiled as she rode on the tiger—” “They came back from the ride with the lady inside,” Mike whispered, “and the smile on the face of the tiger.” “Yes. I don’t think this is one of our belts. Ours weren’t complex enough to pull off a stunt like this, no matter how they might have been deranged.”
The girl looked steadily at Hal; it was quite impossible to imagine that she was changed. “Hal is right,” she said. “When your belt burned out, there was an instantaneous ultronic stress, a condition we call interspace. The mathematics are difficult, but I can teach them to you. The results, roughly, were to create an exchange in time; your belt was sent a hundred thousand years into this planet’s past, and replaced by this belt—myself.”
“The people here knew ultronics?” Chapelin asked.
“Very well. Their belts were at first much like yours—simple levitating devices. But as they learned more, they found that they could travel space without spaceships; new belts made a protecting envelop, manufactured food and air, disposed of waste. As the centuries went by, the belts came to be the universal tool; there was nothing they could not do. They could replace lost limbs and organs with counterfeits indistinguishable from the originals. Eventually they were endowed with intelligence and the ability to read minds. Then, even if a person died, his loved ones need not lose him.”
“What,” Hal said, “happened to the people?”
“We don’t know,” Laura’s voice said. “They died. More and more of them ceased to have children, or to take any interest in anything. We relieved them of all their responsibilities, hoping to give them all the free time they needed for satisyfing their desires—our whole aim was service. But a day came when the people had no desires. They died. The belts were self-sufficient; in my time they still operated the cities. Evidently they gave up so purposeless a task later on.”
Chapelin covered his face with his hands. “Laura—” he said brokenly.
“I regret your loss,” the familiar, lovely voice of Laura said. “I tried to protect you from it—to supply what you seemed to need. Perhaps it would be better if I took some other shape now, so as not to remind you—”
“Damn your cruel kindness,” cried Hal. “No wonder they died.”
“I am sorry. I can repay. I can give you all the mastery of ultronics, of other forces whose names you do not know. New belts can be built for Earth, and a new world begun.”
“No,” Hal said.
Niki and Chapelin stared at him. “Oh, come off it, Hal,” Niki said. “Be reasonable. This means we can all go home, and get off this stinking planet.”
“And think of the opportunity for knowledge,” Chapelin said. “Niki’s right; what’s done can’t be undone, no matter how it hurts. We’ve got the future to think of.”
“That’s what I’m thinking of,” Hal said. “Chapelin, weren’t you listening? Didn’t you hear what happened to this other race when the belts took over? Do you want to wish that on Earth?”
“It sounds rather comfortable to me,” Niki said. “Maybe they hadn’t any desires, but I do.”
Mike Cohen said softly: “It’s only a matter of time, Hal. If we send the belt back to where it came from—if it’ll go—we’ve still got the beginnings of ultronics right here. Sooner or later our crude belts will evolve into things like this.”
Laura’s belt saw, then, what Hal was going to do. “Hal!” her voice cried. “Don’t…it’s death for all of you.” Chapelin flung himself forward, his hands clawed, his face wild with fear. Mike Cohen stuck out a foot and tripped him.
“OK, Hal,” he said, almost cheerfully. “You’re right It’s for the best. Let ’er rip.”
Hal turned the modulator on full. The whole ridge of stars went up in a blaze of light. At the last, Laura’s golden voice wailed: “Hal, Hal, forgive me—”
After that nothing.
2/21/2121
The Styris blast was a tragedy: yet 1 could not tell Hal that I would survive it without making him more unhappy than he was. Now, I must go on to Earth, where I may do better. 1 have decided to pose as Hal; it seems fitting; he had his race in his heart, as do 1. We have, after all, a long tradition of service.
Comment on Tiger Ride
Many readers ask their most insistent questions about how collaboration works. Actually there are as many systems as there are teams, but here are two separate recollections of how this story got written:
BLISH: In 1947 Damon and I were both working for the same literary agency and were both having production spurts. Damon let it slip that he had a few stories he’d been unable to finish, and I suggested that I take a crack at finishing them. The outcome was five joint stories—including one I had been unable to finish—of which, I think, this one is clearly the best.
The “omnibelt” idea, the characters and the journal-entry form were already firmly in place when the ms came to me, but Damon couldn’t think of an ending and so had written only six or seven pages (of the final sixteen). I proposed an ending which he liked, so I went ahead, keeping the already established tone as best I could. When I reached the agreed-upon ending I thought of a snapper—a second ending which changes the whole story in retrospect, a trick I’d picked up from Henry Kuttner. I put it in and then showed it to Damon with some misgivings, for though I liked it, I knew he was ordinarily impatient with anything in a story he thought smacked of the cutesy. However, he didn’t object.
When Astounding Stories bought the story I had another bad moment, for Joe Campbell had cut the snapper off my immediately preceding sale to him. But the story appeared unchanged, just as you see it here.
Both Damon and I have changed a lot in the ensuing 96
Tiger Ride 97 twenty years, but I think “Tiger Ride” might readily be taken for a recent story by either of us. This is probably because the style is essentially Damon’s, which has a kind of cool clarity that doesn’t age; my solo work of that period was relatively turgid and now looks its age.
By the way, Damon—who thought of the title? I can’t remember.
KNIGHT: Well, dammit, I can. It was my title. In those days I had to have a title that suited me or I couldn’t start the story, because you have to begin a story at the beginning, and the title is the beginning.
What fascinated me about this idea, and still does, is the question of identity—more specifically, “What is a man?” What stopped me from finishing the story was not so much the plot as the people—they would not come alive as / wanted them to. I was unwilling to slide around this problem and unable, then, to climb over it. Jim rescued the story, put a lot of supporting background into it and made it (I think) distinctively his own; he also got me the distinction of my first sale to Campbell—and my only one until 1963.
Of the five Blish-Knight collaborations (including one novelette we finally agreed to put out of its misery), the one I remember most fondly is “No Winter, No Summer,” into which Jim introduced a girl named Vaseline.
James Blish and Damon Knight
Introduction to Consumer’s Report
There seems to be a destiny that shapes each story’s end, rough-hew it though I may. This one is no exception. The only memory I have of writing any of my stories is that what took place seemed to be an inevitable process: I said what I had to say at the time and thoroughly enjoyed doing it. Stories happen. At the time they do I don’t really know what is happening. Afterward, yes; but in a different sort of way. Once the magazine has been tucked away for a couple of years and then pulled out and the story reread, I have some sort of an idea as to what I was trying to do and how well I did it. But not at the time of production, not while the typewriter was roaring through the first draft and the yellow pages were piling up on the desk and then one by one sliding off onto the floor.
Writing is seduction. And I’ve never quite decided who is doing what and to whom, whether I’ve made the story or the story has made me. In short, writing about writing is like writing about a cherished affair. One (at least I) can’t be clinical. All that can be said—and that with gratitude—is that there was a point in time when something delightful happened. In retrospect the why’s are essentially irrelevant; only the was’s matter. 1 realize that what I am trying to say is a most unsatisfactory explanation of why this particular story happened to be written. Five years ago I could have turned out a detailed critical study with no trouble at all. Five years ago I was a teacher of creative writing and was thoroughly convinced that I knew, and could teach, exactly what it was that went to make a successful story. Since then I’ve become something of a mystic as far as the creative process goes, and now I limit my teaching to the works of dead men who can no longer rise in their own defense.
The act of creation is something that happens to people who are lucky.
All that I can contribute to this discussion is the story itself. It happens to fall into that loose category known as science fiction. I ask only that it be judged as an exercise in imagination. As for what it has to say, I would prefer not to think of what the consequences might be if your children and mine ever realized what we are doing to them.
Theodore R. Cogswell
Consumer’s Report
by Theodore R. Cogswell
CON. SUM. ER (KON-SUM-ER), n„ 1. a person who destroys, uses up, or wastes industrial production in order to control the size of the population and make possible the full employment that is necessary for a healthy economy; 2. one who has not yet achieved producer status; 3. any person under twenty-one; 4. (obs.) a person who uses goods or services to satisfy his needs rather than to resell them or to produce other goods with them.
The Authorized Dictionary
(New Washington, Kansas:
The Federal Printing Office, 3rd ed., 1984)
It was Saturday so Alan had to go out and get the mail. Just as the letter carrier’s tank clanked away, he got his cousin Alf to man the front door turret and went zigzagging down the communication trench that led to the street. As he reached cautiously up to open the small door in the bottom of the armored mailbox, there was a sudden crack from across the way and the whine of a near miss sent him tumbling back into a slit trench. A moment later there was 100 Theodore R. Cogswell a coughing stutter as Alf opened up with the fifty and pounded a burst into the tungsten steel shutters of the house across the street. Alan jumped to his feet, dumped the mail out of the box, and then made a quick dive for safety just in case Alf s fire hadn’t discouraged the Higgens kid.
The mail didn’t look particularly exciting. There wasn’t anything for him, and aside from a few letters for his uncle, most of what had come consisted of advertisements for sniper-scopes and stuff like that. The only exceptions were two small black boxes. They looked like samples of something, and since, as the only consumer left in the family, samples were Alan’s prerequisite, he promptly stuffed them into his worn grenade carrier, and just as promptly forgot about them. Until that evening when the man from Consolidated Munitions stopped by, that is.
Mr. Flugnet was so disturbed that he’d forgotten to take off his white truce hat. “We think the promotion crew passed out a batch on this street,” he said as Alan slipped into the room and sat down quietly in the far comer. “But we’re not sure.”
“Why not?” asked Alan’s uncle, a weedy little man with a somewhat nasal voice.
“Because some damn kid dropped a mortar shell on their halftrack while they were on the way back to the warehouse to pick up another load. Got every one of them. Were any samples dropped off here?”
“Alan brought in the mail,” volunteered Alf.
“Was there anything in it that somebody wanted that they didn’t get?” asked Alan in a small voice. They all turned and looked at him, aware of his presence for the first time.
“I’m from Consolidated Munitions,” said Mr. Flugnet.
“Yes, sir?”
“Did you find a small black box in the mail? We’ve been passing out samples of our new concussion grenade and we just discovered today that several…uh…overpowered experimental models had got mixed in with diem by mistake. We’re trying to track them down before it’s—well, before something unfortunate happens.”
Alan was just about to reach into his grenade case and produce the two little cartons when the word “overpowered” registered. He struggled briefly against temptation and lost.
“I dumped all the advertising stuff on the hall table.” He felt suddenly that his grenade case had become transparent and that the little black boxes inside, now grown to quadruple size, were visible to everybody in the room. He knew it couldn’t be, but even so he let his hand drop casually over the carrier just in case there might be a revealing bulge. “I’ll go check.”
Once the door was safely shut behind him, he took the two boxes out, opened them, and examined their contents. There was a little metallic globe in each, but one had a roughly soldered seam that made it look like a hand-production job. He gave a little whistle of excitement and stowed it away carefully in his pocket. If he was going to make it through the game with North, he was going to need super power. After replacing the other grenade in his box and putting it back in his carrier, he squatted down on his haunches and listened at the keyhole. He wanted to find out something more about his new weapon.
“Fine young consumer, that,” he heard Mr. Flugnet say in the voice that producers use when they want to say something nice that they really don’t mean. Aunt Martha let out a long sniff.
“Too spindly! It’s a wonder to us that he’s made it this far. He just hasn’t got the stuff that my boys have. Made it through, both of them, with hardly a scratch.”
She nodded fondly over toward Reuban and Alf. Alf was sniggering through a comic book, one of the new improved kind without any words to distract the reader. Reuban just sat, a thin driblet of saliva drooling from one comer of his mouth, and plucked aimlessly at the buttons on his shirt. As they looked at him, he began to squirm back and forth and to make little whimpering sounds.
“Better take Reuban upstairs before he dirties himself again,” said Aunt Martha. Alf obediently took his younger brother by the arm and herded him out of the room. Alan ducked under the hall table until they had gone by.
“Which shock is he on?” asked Mr. Flugnet politely. “He got his third today. That’s always the worst.”
Mr. Flugnet nodded his agreement.
“Another couple of weeks, though, and he’ll be ready to start his reconditioning. And by spring he’ll be ready to settle down as a full-fledged producer and start raising little consumption units of his own.” She sighed. “I do wish they’d work out a faster method. For three weeks now I’ve had to take care of him just like I would a baby. It’s no easy job for a woman of my age.”
Alan’s uncle clucked impatiently. “We all had to go through it once—and somebody had to take care of us. It’s never pretty, but it’s just the way things are.”
Alan was just about to give up and go back in the room when he heard his uncle say, “This new grenade you have in production, it’s something special?”
“It was supposed to be,” said the visitor unhappily. “We figured it would be the hottest consumers item to hit the market in years.”
“What do you mean, ‘supposed to be’? Did some bugs show up after you got it into production?”
Mr. Flugnet shook his head. “There’s nothing wrong with the grenade itself. It’ll knock out anything within a radius of ten feet and not even bother anybody standing just the other side of the blast area. We thought we had the perfect consumer item. No flying fragments to bother innocent producers, no danger of misfire. New Washington was so impressed that they gave us a heavy enough subsidy to make it possible for us to put three man-hours in each one and still retail them for four dollars and twenty-seven cents a gross. And then…”
“Yes?” Alan’s uncle leaned forward eagerly in his chair. For some reason or other, Mr. Flugnet changed the subject hurriedly. “What line are you in?”
“Small arms. But getting to those experimental models you’re looking for…”
Mr. Flugnet wasn’t about to get back. “How’s production?” he asked.
Unwillingly, Alan’s uncle moved off in the new direction. “Not bad, considering. We’re always the last to feel the pinch. Things are still tighter than I like, though. Shirey down the street got laid off at the burp-gun plant last week and he doesn’t know when he’ll be taken back. I don’t see why the government doesn’t shorten the truce periods so as to give the kids more consuming time.”
“It’s not that simple,” said Mr. Flugnet pontifically. “If you increase consumption much over what it is now, you’ll decrease the number of consumers too fast. That causes overproduction, and pretty soon more factories start shutting down. Then bingo! we’ve got ourselves a fine recession.”
“I hadn’t thought about it that way,” said Alan’s uncle slowly. “And after all, things aren’t too bad. Even if some of the arms plants do have to shut down once in a while, most of the producers do have jobs most of the time. And we are able to keep the population down to the point where the land that escaped the dusting during the big war can produce enough food for everybody.”
