The SF Hall of Fame Volume Two B (45 page)

Morey stared at the card miserably. "We—that is, my
wife and I— just had a long talk about that last night, Mr. Wainwright. And,
believe me, we're going to do better. We're going to buckle right down and get
to work and—uh—do better," he finished weakly.

Wainwright nodded, and for the first time there was a note
of sympathy in his voice. "Your wife. Judge Elon's daughter, isn't she?
Good family. I've met the Judge many times." Then, gruffly, "Well,
nevertheless, Fry, I'm warning you. I don't care how you straighten this out,
but
don't let the Committee mention this to me again"

"No, sir."

"All right. Finished with the schematics on the new
K-50?"

Morey brightened. "Just about, sir! I'm putting the
first section on tape today. I'm very pleased with it, Mr. Wainwright, honestly
I am. Tve got more than eighteen thousand moving parts in it now, and that's
without-"

"Good. Good." Wainwright glanced down at his desk.
"Get back to it. And straighten out this other thing. You can do it, Fry.
Consuming is everybody's duty. Just keep that in mind."

Howland followed Morey out of the drafting room, down to the
spotless shops. "Bad time?" he inquired solicitously. Morey grunted.
It was none of Howland's business.

Howland looked over his shoulder as he was setting up the
programing panel. Morey studied the matrices silently, then got busy reading
the summary tapes, checking them back against the schematics, setting up the
instructions on the programing board. Howland kept quiet as Morey completed the
setup and ran off a test tape. It checked perfectly; Morey stepped back to
light a cigarette in celebration before pushing the
start
button.

Howland said, "Go on, run it. I can't go until you put
it in the works."

Morey grinned and pushed the button. The board lighted up;
within it, a tiny metronomic beep began to pulse. That was all. At the other
end of the quarter-mile shed, Morey knew, the automatic sorters and conveyers
were fingering through the copper reels and steel ingots, measuring hoppers of
plastic powder and colors, setting up an intricate weaving path for the
thousands of individual components that would make up Bradmoor's new K-50
Spin-a-Game. But from where they stood, in the elaborately muraled programing
room, nothing showed. Bradmoor was an ultra-modernized plant; in the
manufacturing end, even robots had been dispensed with in favor of machines
that guided themselves.

Morey glanced at his watch and logged in the starting time
while Howland quickly counter-checked Morey's raw-material flow program.

"Checks out," Howland said solemnly, slapping him
on the back. "Calls for a celebration. Anyway, it's your first design,
isn't it?"

"Yes. First all by myself, at any rate."

Howland was already fishing in his private locker for the
bottle he kept against emergency needs. He poured with a flourish. "To
Morey Fry," he said, "our most favorite designer, in whom we are much
pleased."

Morey drank. It went down easily enough. Morey had
conscientiously used his liquor rations for years, but he had never gone beyond
the minimum, so that although liquor was no new experience to him, the single
drink immediately warmed him. It warmed his mouth, his throat, the hollows of
his chest; and it settled down with a warm glow inside him. Howland, exerting
himself to be nice, complimented Morey fatuously on the design and poured
another drink. Morey didn't utter any protest at all.

Howland drained his glass. "You may wonder," he
said formally, "why I am so pleased with you, Morey Fry. I will tell you
why this is."

Morey grinned. "Please do."

Howland nodded. "I will. It's because I am pleased with
the world, Morey. My wife left me last night."

Morey was as shocked as only a recent bridegroom can be by
the news of a crumbling marriage. "That's too ba—I mean is that a
fact?"

"Yes, she left my beds and board and five robots, and
I'm happy to see her go." He poured another drink for both of them.
"Women. Can't live with them and can't live without them. First you sigh
and pant and chase after 'em—you like poetry?" he demanded suddenly.

Morey said cautiously, "Some poetry."

Howland quoted: "'How long, my love, shall I behold
this wall between our gardens—yours the rose, and mine the swooning lily.' Like
it? I wrote it for Jocelyn—that's my wife—when we were first going
together."

"It's beautiful," said Morey.

"She wouldn't talk to me for two days." Howland
drained his drink. "Lots of spirit, that girl. Anyway, I hunted her like a
tiger. And then I caught her.
Wow!"

Morey took a deep drink from his own glass. "What do
you mean,
wow?"
he asked.

"Wow"
Howland pointed his finger at Morey.
"Wow,
that's what I mean. We got married and I took her home to the dive I was
living in, and
wow
we had a kid, and
wow
I got in a little
trouble with the Ration Board—nothing serious, of course, but there was a
mixup— and
wow
fights.

"Everything was a fight," he explained.
"She'd start with a little nagging, and naturally I'd say something or
other back, and
bang
we were off. Budget, budget, budget; I hope to die
if I ever hear the word 'budget' again. Morey, you're a married man; you know
what it's like. Tell me the truth, weren't you just about ready to blow your
top the first time you caught your wife cheating on the budget?"

"Cheating on the budget?" Morey was startled.
"Cheating how?"

"Oh, lots of ways. Making your portions bigger than
hers. Sneaking extra shirts for you on her clothing ration. You know."

"Damn it, I do
not
know!" cried Morey.
"Cherry wouldn't do anything like that!"

Howland looked at him opaquely for a long second. "Of
course not," he said at last. "Let's have another drink."

Ruffled, Morey held out his glass. Cherry wasn't the type of
girl to
cheat.
Of course she wasn't. A fine, loving girl like her—a
pretty girl, of a good family; she wouldn't know how to begin.

Howland was saying, in a sort of chant, "No more budget.
No more fights. No more 'Daddy never treated me like this.' No more nagging. No
more extra rations for household allowance. No more—Morey, what do you say we
go out and have a few drinks? I know a place where—"

"Sorry, Howland," Morey said. "I've got to
get back to the office, you know."

Howland guffawed. He held out his wristwatch. As Morey, a
little unsteadily, bent over it, it tinkled out the hour. It was a matter of
minutes before the office closed for the day.

"Oh," said Morey. "I didn't realize—Well,
anyway, Howland, thanks, but I can't. My wife will be expecting me."

"She certainly will," Howland sniggered.
"Won't catch
her
eating up your rations and hers tonight."

Morey said tightly, "Howland!"

"Oh, sorry, sorry." Howland waved an arm. "Don't
mean to say anything against
your
wife, of course. Guess maybe Jocelyn
soured me on women. But honest, Morey, you'd like this place. Name of Uncle
Piggotty's, down in the Old Town. Crazy bunch hangs out there. You'd like them.
Couple nights last week they had—I mean, you understand, Morey, I don't go
there as often as all that, but I just happened to drop in and—"

Morey interrupted firmly. "Thank you, Howland. Must go
home. Wife expects it. Decent of you to offer. Good night. Be seeing you."

He walked out, turned at the door to bow politely, and in
turning back cracked the side of his face against the door jamb. A sort of
pleasant numbness had taken possession of his entire skin surface, though, and
it wasn't until he perceived Henry chattering at him sympathetically that he
noticed a trickle of blood running down the side of his face.

"Mere flesh wound," he said with dignity.
"Nothing to cause you
least
conshter—consternation, Henry. Now
kindly shut your ugly face. Want to think."

And he slept in the car all the way home.

It was worse than a hangover. The name is
"holdover." You've had some drinks; you've started to sober up by
catching a little sleep. Then you are required to be awake and to function. The
consequent state has the worst features of hangover and intoxication; your head
thumps and your mouth tastes like the floor of a bear-pit, but you are nowhere
near sober.

There is one cure. Morey said thickly, "Let's have a
cocktail, dear." Cherry was delighted to share a cocktail with him before
dinner. Cherry, Morey thought lovingly, was a wonderful, wonderful,
wonderful-He found his head nodding in time to his thoughts and the motion made
him wince.

Cherry flew to his side and touched his temple. "Is it
bothering you, darling?" she asked solicitously. "Where you ran into
the door, I mean?"

Morey looked at her sharply, but her expression was open and
adoring. He said bravely, "Just a little. Nothing to it, really."

The butler brought the cocktails and retired. Cherry lifted
her glass. Morey raised his, caught a whiff of the liquor and nearly dropped
it. He bit down hard on his churning insides and forced himself to swallow.

He was surprised but grateful: It stayed down. In a moment,
the curious phenomenon of warmth began to repeat itself. He swallowed the rest
of the drink and held out his glass for a refill. He even tried a smile. Oddly
enough, his face didn't fall off.

One more drink did it. Morey felt happy and relaxed, but by
no means drunk. They went in to dinner in fine spirits. They chatted cheerfully
with each other and Henry, and Morey found time to feel sentimentally sorry for
poor Howland, who couldn't make a go of his marriage, when marriage was
obviously such an easy relationship, so beneficial to both sides, so warm and
relaxing. . .

Startled, he said, "What?"

Cherry repeated, "It's the cleverest scheme I ever
heard of. Such a funny little man, dear. All kind of
nervous,
if you
know what I mean. He kept looking at the door as if he was expecting someone,
but of course that was silly. None of his friends would have come to
our
house
to see him."

Morey said tensely, "Cherry,
please!
What was
that you said about ration stamps?"

"But I told you, darling! It was just after you left
this morning. This funny little man came to the door; the butler said he
wouldn't give any name. Anyway, I talked to him. I thought he might be a
neighbor and I certainly would
never
be rude to any neighbor who might
come to call, even if the neighborhood was—"

"The ration stamps!" Morey begged. "Did I
hear you say he was peddling phony ration stamps?"

Cherry said uncertainly, "Well, I suppose that in a
way
they're phony. The way he explained it, they weren't the regular official
kind. But it was four for one, dear—four of his stamps for one of ours. So I
just took out our household book and steamed off a couple of weeks' stamps
and—"

"How many?" Morey bellowed.

Cherry blinked. "About—about two weeks' quota,"
she said faintly. "Was that wrong, dear?"

Morey closed his eyes dizzily. "A couple of weeks'
stamps," he repeated. "Four for one—you didn't even get the regular
rate."

Cherry wailed, "How was I supposed to know? I never had
anything like this when I was
home!
We didn't have food riots and slums
and all these horrible robots and filthy little revolting men coming to the
door!"

Morey stared at her woodenly. She was crying again, but it
made no impression on the case-hardened armor that was suddenly thrown around
his heart.

Henry made a tentative sound that, in a human, would have
been a preparatory cough, but Morey froze him with a white-eyed look.

Morey said in a dreary monotone that barely penetrated the
sound of Cherry's tears, "Let me tell you just what it was you did.
Assuming, at best, that these stamps you got are at least average good
counterfeits, and not so bad that the best thing to do with them is throw them
away before we get caught with them in our possession, you have approximately a
two-month supply of funny stamps. In case you didn't know it, those ration
books are not merely ornamental. They have to be turned in every month to prove
that we have completed our consuming quota for the month.

"When they are turned in, they are spot-checked. Every
book is at least glanced at. A big chunk of them are gone over very carefully
by the inspectors, and a certain percentage are tested by ultra-violet,
infra-red, X-ray, radioisotopes, bleaches, fumes, paper chromatography and
every other damned test known to Man." His voice was rising to an uneven
crescendo.
"If
we are lucky enough to get away with using any of
these stamps at all, we daren't—we simply
dare
not—use more than one or
two counterfeits to every dozen or more real stamps.

"That means, Cherry, that what you bought is not a
two-month supply, but maybe a two-year supply—and since, as you no doubt have
never noticed, the things have expiration dates on them, there is probably no
chance in the world that we can ever hope to use more than half of them."
He was bellowing by the time he pushed back his chair and towered over her.
"Moreover," he went on, "right
now,
right as of this
minute,
we have to make up the stamps you gave away, which means that at the very
best we are going to be on double rations for two weeks or so.

"And that says nothing about the one feature of this
whole grisly mess that you seem to have thought of least, namely that
counterfeit stamps are against the
law!
I'm poor, Cherry; I live in a
slum, and I know it; I've got a long way to go before I'm as rich or respected
or powerful as your father, about whom I am beginning to get considerably tired
of hearing. But poor as I may be, I can tell you
this
for sure: Up until
now, at any rate, I have been
honest."