The Eye of the Sibyl and Other Classic Strories (53 page)

“Your name,” one of the white-clad technocrats said.

“Contemptible,” he managed to say, unable to take his eyes off the extraordinarily beautiful young woman.

“You have an appointment with DNA Reappraisal,” the other of the white-clad technocrats said crisply. “What is your purpose? What ukase emanating from the gene pool do you intend—did you intend, I should say—to alter?”

Joe said lamely, “I—wanted to be reprogrammed for… you know. Longer life. The encoding for death was about to come up for me, and I—”

“We know that isn’t true,” the lovely dark-haired woman said in a husky, sexy voice, but a voice nonetheless filled with intelligence and authority. “You were attempting suicide, were you not, Mr. Contemptible, by having your DNA coding tinkered with, not to postpone your death,
but to bring it on
?”

He said nothing. Obviously, they knew.

“WHY?” the woman said sharply.

“I—” He hesitated. Then, slumping in defeat he managed to say, “I’m not married. I’ve got no wife. Nothing. Just my damn job at the record store. All those damn German songs and those bubblegum rock lyrics; they go through my head night and day, constantly, mixtures of Goethe and Heine and Neil Diamond.” Lifting his head he said with furious defiance, “So why should I live on? Call that living? It’s existence, not living.”

There was silence.

Three frogs hopped across the floor. Mr. Computer was now turning out frogs from all the airducts on earth. Half an hour before, it had been dead cats.

“Do you know what it is like,” Joe said quietly, “to have such lyrics as ‘The song I sang to you / The love I brang to you’ keep floating through your head?”

The dark-haired lovely woman said, suddenly, “I think I do know, Contemptible. You see, I am Joan Simpson.”

“Then—” Joe understood in an instant. “You’re down there at the center of the earth watching endless daytime soap operas! On a closed loop!”

“Not watching,” Joan Simpson said. “Hearing. They’re from radio, not TV.”

Joe said nothing. There was nothing to say.

One of the white-clad technocrats said, “Ms. Simpson, work must begin restoring Mr. Computer to sanity. It is presently turning out hundreds of thousands of Pollys.”

“ ‘Pollys’?” Joan Simpson said, puzzled; then understanding flooded her warm features. “Oh yes. His childhood sweetheart.”

“Mr. Contemptible,” one of the white-clad technocrats said to Joe, “it is because of your lack of love for life that Mr. Computer has gone crackers. To bring Mr. Computer back to sanity we must first bring you back to sanity.” To Joan Simpson, he said, “Am I correct?”

She nodded, lit a cigarette, leaned back thoughtfully. “Well?” she said presently. “What would it take to reprogram you, Joe? So you’d want to live instead of die? Mr. Computer’s abreactive syndrome is directly related to your own. Mr. Computer feels it has failed the world because, in examining a cross index of humans whom it cares for, it has found that you—”

“ ‘Cares for’?” Joe Contemptible said. “You mean Mr. Computer likes me?”

“Takes care of,” one of the white-clad technocrats explained.

“Wait.” Joan Simpson scrutinized Joe Contemptible. “You reacted to that phrase ‘cares for.’ What did you think it meant?”

He said, with difficulty, “Likes me. Cares for in that sense.”

“Let me ask you this,” Joan Simpson said, presently, stubbing out her cigarette and lighting another. “Do you feel that no one cares for you, Joe?”

“That’s what my mother said,” Joe Contemptible said.

“And you believed her?” Joan Simpson said.

“Yes.” He nodded.

Suddenly Joan Simpson put out her cigarette. “Well, Doubledome,” she said in a quiet, brisk voice. “There aren’t going to be any more radio soap operas nattering at me any more. I’m not going back down to the center of the earth. It’s over, gentlemen. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.”

“You’re going to leave Mr. Computer insane as—”

“I will heal Mr. Computer,” Joan Simpson said in an even voice, “by healing Joe. And—” A slight smile played about her lips. “And myself, gentlemen.”

There was silence.

“All right,” one of the two white-clad technicians said presently. “We will send you both down to the center of the earth. And you can rattle on at each other throughout eternity. Except when it is necessary to lift you out of Dismal Pak to heal Mr. Computer. Is that a fair trade-off?”

“Wait,” Joe Contemptible said feebly, but already Ms. Simpson was nodding.

“It is,” she said.

“What about my conapt?” Joe protested. “My job? My wretched little pointless life as I am normally accustomed to living it?”

Joan Simpson said, “That is already changing, Joe. You have already encountered me.”

“But I thought you would be old and ugly!” Joe said. “I had no idea—”

“The universe is full of surprises,” Joan Simpson said, and held out her waiting arms for him.

Bob Bibleman had the impression that robots wouldn’t look you in the eye. And when one had been in the vicinity small valuable objects disappeared. A robot’s idea of order was to stack everything into one pile. Nonetheless, Bibleman had to order lunch from robots, since vending ranked too low on the wage scale to attract humans.

“A hamburger, fries, strawberry shake, and—” Bibleman paused, reading the printout. “Make that a supreme double cheeseburger, fries, a chocolate malt—”

“Wait a minute,” the robot said. “I’m already working on the burger. You want to buy into this week’s contest while you’re waiting?”

“I don’t get the royal cheeseburger,” Bibleman said.

“That’s right.”

It was hell living in the twenty-first century. Information transfer had reached the velocity of light. Bibleman’s older brother had once fed a ten-word plot outline into a robot fiction machine, changed his mind as to the outcome, and found that the novel was already in print. He had had to program a sequel in order to make his correction.

“What’s the prize structure in the contest?” Bibleman asked.

At once the printout posted all the odds, from first prize down to last. Naturally, the robot blanked out the display before Bibleman could read it.

“What is first prize?” Bibleman said.

“I can’t tell you that,” the robot said. From its slot came a hamburger, french fries, and a strawberry shake. “That’ll be one thousand dollars in cash.”

“Give me a hint,” Bibleman said as he paid.

“It’s everywhere and nowhere. It’s existed since the seventeenth century. Originally it was invisible. Then it became royal. You can’t get it unless you’re smart, although cheating helps and so does being rich. What does the word ‘heavy’ suggest to you?”

“Profound.”

“No, the literal meaning.”

“Mass.” Bibleman pondered. “What is this, a contest to see who can figure out what the prize is? I give up.”

“Pay the six dollars,” the robot said, “to cover our costs, and you’ll receive an—”

“Gravity,” Bibleman broke in. “Sir Isaac Newton. The Royal College of England. Am I right?”

“Right,” the robot said. “Six dollars entitles you to a chance to go to college—a statistical chance, at the posted odds. What’s six dollars? Prat-fare.”

Bibleman handed over a six-dollar coin.

“You win,” the robot said. “You get to go to college. You beat the odds, which were two trillion to one against. Let me be the first to congratulate you. If I had a hand, I’d shake hands with you. This will change your life. This has been your lucky day.”

“It’s a setup,” Bibleman said, feeling a rush of anxiety.

“You’re right,” the robot said, and it looked Bibleman right in the eye. “It’s also mandatory that you accept your prize. The college is a military college located in Buttfuck, Egypt, so to speak. But that’s no problem; you’ll be taken there. Go home and start packing.”

“Can’t I eat my hamburger and drink—”

“I’d suggest you start packing right away.”

Behind Bibleman a man and woman had lined up; reflexively he got out of their way, trying to hold on to his tray of food, feeling dizzy.

“A charbroiled steak sandwich,” the man said, “onion rings, root beer, and that’s it.”

The robot said, “Care to buy into the contest? Terrific prizes.” It flashed the odds on its display panel.

When Bob Bibleman unlocked the door of his one-room apartment, his telephone was on. It was looking for him.

“There you are,” the telephone said.

“I’m not going to do it,” Bibleman said.

“Sure you are,” the phone said. “Do you know who this is? Read over your certificate, your first-prize legal form. You hold the rank of shavetail. I’m Major Casals. You’re under my jurisdiction. If I tell you to piss purple, you’ll piss purple. How soon can you be on a transplan rocket? Do you have friends you want to say goodbye to? A sweetheart, perhaps? Your mother?”

“Am I coming back?” Bibleman said with anger. “I mean, who are we fighting, this college? For that matter, what college is it? Who is on the faculty? Is it a liberal arts college or does it specialize in the hard sciences? Is it government-sponsored? Does it offer—”

“Just calm down,” Major Casals said quietly.

Bibleman seated himself. He discovered that his hands were shaking. To himself he thought, I was born in the wrong century. A hundred years ago this wouldn’t have happened and a hundred years from now it will be illegal. What I need is a lawyer.

His life had been a quiet one. He had, over the years, advanced to the modest position of floating-home salesman. For a man twenty-two years old, that wasn’t bad. He almost owned his one-room apartment; that is, he rented with an option to buy. It was a small life, as lives went; he did not ask too much and he did not complain—normally—at what he received. Although he did not understand the tax structure that cut through his income, he accepted it; he accepted a modified state of penury the same way he accepted it when a girl would not go to bed with him. In a sense this defined him; this was his measure. He submitted to what he did not like, and he regarded this attitude as a virtue. Most people in authority over him considered him a good person. As to those over whom
he
had authority, that was a class with zero members. His boss at Cloud Nine Homes told him what to do and his customers, really, told him what to do. The government told everyone what to do, or so he assumed. He had very few dealings with the government. That was neither a virtue nor a vice; it was simply good luck.

Once he had experienced vague dreams. They had to do with giving to the poor. In high school he had read Charles Dickens and a vivid idea of the oppressed had fixed itself in his mind to the point where he could see them: all those who did not have a one-room apartment and a job and a high school education. Certain vague place names had floated through his head, gleaned from TV, places like India, where heavy-duty machinery swept up the dying. Once a teaching machine had told him,
You have a good heart.
That amazed him—not that a machine would say so, but that it would say it to him. A girl had told him the same thing. He marveled at this. Vast forces colluding to tell him that he was not a bad person! It was a mystery and a delight.

But those days had passed. He no longer read novels, and the girl had been transferred to Frankfurt. Now he had been set up by a robot, a cheap machine, to shovel shit in the boonies, dragooned by a mechanical scam that was probably pulling citizens off the streets in record numbers. This was not a college he was going to; he had won nothing. He had won a stint at some kind of forced-labor camp, most likely. The exit door leads in, he thought to himself. Which is to say, when they want you they already have you; all they need is the paperwork. And a computer can process the forms at the touch of a key. The H key for hell and the S key for slave, he thought. And the Y key for you.

Don’t forget your toothbrush, he thought. You may need it.

On the phone screen Major Casals regarded him, as if silently estimating the chances that Bob Bibleman might bolt. Two trillion to one I will, Bibleman thought. But the one will win, as in the contest; I’ll do what I’m told.

“Please,” Bibleman said, “let me ask you one thing, and give me an honest answer.”

“Of course,” Major Casals said.

“If I hadn’t gone up to that Earl’s Senior robot and—”

“We’d have gotten you anyhow,” Major Casals said.

“Okay,” Bibleman said, nodding. “Thanks. It makes me feel better. I don’t have to tell myself stupid stuff like, If only I hadn’t felt like a hamburger and fries. If only—” He broke off. “I’d better pack.”

Major Casals said, “We’ve been running an evaluation on you for several months. You’re overly endowed for the kind of work you do. And undereducated. You need more education. You’re
entitled to
more education.”

Astonished, Bibleman said, “You’re talking about it as if it’s a genuine college!”

“It is. It’s the finest in the system. It isn’t advertised; something like this can’t be. No one selects it; the college selects you. Those were not joke odds that you saw posted. You can’t really imagine being admitted to the finest college in the system by this method, can you, Mr. Bibleman? You have a lot to learn.”

“How long will I be at the college?” Bibleman said.

Major Casals said, “Until you have learned.”

They gave him a physical, a haircut, a uniform, and a place to bunk down, and many psychological tests. Bibleman suspected that the true purpose of the tests was to determine if he were a latent homosexual, and then he suspected that his suspicions indicated that he
was
a latent homosexual, so he abandoned the suspicions and supposed instead that they were sly intelligence and aptitude tests, and he informed himself that he was showing both: intelligence and aptitude. He also informed himself that he looked great in his uniform, even though it was the same uniform that everyone else wore. That is why they call it a uniform, he reminded himself as he sat on the edge of his bunk reading his orientation pamphlets.