Collected tales, p.80
Collected Tales, page 80
And he couldn’t say either that Farms, subordinate or not, had everything a man could want. It grew food so there was no shortage of that. There had to be houses for the people to live in and the best transportation there was to bring the produce to market and as for clothing—well, cotton was a crop.
Anything a person could want was available to those who worked for General Farms but Larry couldn’t say this because it would start a rush and he’d be left out. Above all he had to conceal why he wanted to transfer. “No real reason, I suppose. I just want to transfer.”
“This is an irresponsible attitude, doing what you want to,” said the judge. “I am glad the jurors are mature and sensible privates.” He banged the gavel. “What are the charges?”
The foreman of the jury read them. Larry Moss was one of the best transfers to Appliances in the last five years, and in a way this was serious, that he was a transfer. Larry did not seem to be a stable person. In addition he had a fine sense of production and had once correctly forcast the demand for a machine when the integraph had failed. Not only this, he was punctual and had used his take-home credits as fast as they were available.
“This is an unusual case,” said the judge. “Potentially you are a fine private.”
“I will be as good for the next General.”
“If we let you go.”
“But you have to.”
“I suppose we do, one way or another. You shouldn’t have made a special application,” said the judge with a drawn smile. “What is the verdict?”
The foreman of the jury had it ready but waited until the telecameras swung toward him. He read slowly. “The defendant, Larry Moss, has been grossly insubordinate and displays a lack of responsibility. He seems to need retraining. For this purpose we recommend that he be dishonorably discharged for a period of not less than two years. Then, and only if his attitude improves, should he be given the opportunity of resuming his status as a professional private.”
This was the verdict, prepared before the trial. Larry should have been warned by the telecameras. The law he was convicted under hadn’t been used much recently, it hadn’t been necessary to invoke it, but it was there whenever the occasion warranted. They’d dusted it off and thrown it into him. It was a shock and he couldn’t actually believe it as they went through the ceremony of tearing up his credit card and removing his G-A pin and tossing it into the scrap heap where it could be easily found. They would use the pin again, sure, but it was a convenient myth that an emblem once sullied was never given to anyone else.
Larry walked home from the trial. Without his credit card he had to. He was late in getting home and Peggy was there before him. From her expression he knew she had heard. “You know,” he said.
“It was on the tele,” she said. “I don’t think much of your idea of entertainment.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” he said. “I didn’t know they’d do this.”
“Oh? They gave you an opportunity to reconsider.”
“It wasn’t much of an opportunity. I would have had to crawl. Anyway, I had made up my mind.”
“You might have thought of me. You could have talked it over.”
“What would you have said? That it was my decision. You always say that.”
“Well, this decision is yours, if you want to claim it. What will become of us?”
“Nothing drastic. I can’t go to Farms immediately but they can’t keep me out of Employment.”
“Don’t be sure what they can do. Besides, Employment is not my idea of status.”
There was more, much more, but Peggy was not without loyalty. She became furious, wept and relented, and when they went to bed she was quite warm to him, more ardent than she had been in months. The warmth lasted until a few hours before dawn when she awakened and wept again. Larry got up and went to his own bed. When he finally arose Peggy was gone, having left for work earlier than usual.
This prepared him for G-E (Employment) which was about what he expected it to be. They registered him along with older men and women who were inefficient and had never amounted to much with their generals and so had slipped into G-E, and the youngsters who were in their last years with Education and couldn’t decide what they wanted to be when they got out and were using Employment to sample many jobs. They gave him a credit card with the most unfavorable discount rate he had ever heard of but he didn’t protest. There was one general even lower than Employment and he didn’t care to investigate it first hand.
He was instructed to wait at the exchange until jobs came in. For two days he reported and waited and there was nothing for him; this was part of his retraining. After that: he was told to stay home and call in every day. This was expensive, calls cost credits, and even more irksome than waiting at the exchange. At the exchange there were some people to talk to, among them a number of young girls who thought they were exceedingly attracted to him. He was somewhat of a celebrity. Few people were ever cashiered with as much a splash as he.
In a few days he did get jobs. Oddly, most of them were from Appliances, several hours or a few days at a time. He was given more responsible jobs than he’d gotten when working directly for them, was kept isolated from other technicians, and was never assigned to the plant he had once worked at. He never made a mistake, none that he was caught at, and he didn’t complain of his pay scale, which was not quite half of what it had been.
Other jobs came from Housing. Since he had terminated there with nothing against him his pay scale was somewhat higher than at G-A and working conditions were better. As if to compensate, he was not called by Housing as often.
But there was no work from Farms, not even a token assignment. He’d given them publicity and they should have come through with something. Even if they didn’t need anyone they should have given him a handout. What he’d gone through to get to them was the best advertisement any general could have but they didn’t acknowledge it in any way.
He couldn’t think much about Farms though; his efforts were directed toward climbing. Progress was slow and uncertain, to the extent there was any, but the plodding wasn’t wasted. Someday he’d be a professional private again and meanwhile, if he wasn’t making a living at least he was able to keep up the payments on the house. He might have been bitter but he didn’t have any place for strong emotions, even when Peggy started working nights.
She didn’t tell him at first; she didn’t come home when he expected her. Three hours later she finally came in. Sandra had been put to bed and he was sitting and staring at the fireplace, which wasn’t functioning properly but which he couldn’t afford to have repaired. She was tired but pleased. “Overtime?” he said.
“Sort of.”
He didn’t know why but her reply made him feel uneasy. “Sort of? I should think you’d know.”
“I do. I meant I don’t get overtime scale for it.”
“You’ve taken another job,” he said.
“It was the least I could do. You’re working hard and getting paid little for it. Another job won’t hurt me.”
“We’re getting by,” he said. This was approximately true. They had saved something and it wasn’t going out as fast as he had anticipated.
“I don’t want to argue,” she said, going to her bedroom.
“At least you can tell me what the extra job is,” he called after her. She didn’t answer so he followed her. She had taken her blouse off but stopped undressing when he came in. He appreciated what a fine figure she had, particularly from the waist up, slender but good.
“Education,” she said.
“Education? After working all day in Entertainment?”
“It’s not strange. There are such things as adult evening classes. It helps pay for Sandra’s schooling.”
He did want to believe her, but it had been some time since he had felt close, wanting her as much as he did now. He touched her.
She didn’t move away from his hand but he would have preferred it if she had. “I’m tired and dirty,” she said. “I’d like to lie down before eating. Do you mind.”
“I don’t mind,” he said, and went to the kitchen and started her dinner. When it was done she was sleeping and he didn’t think he should call her. She had probably eaten a snack between jobs and she needed rest. He set the refreeze button on the food and ate it the next morning for breakfast. It was as tasteless as what he usually had.
Thereafter he worked with less enthusiasm. The slackening of his purpose was scarcely perceptible, even to himself. He was punctual and on the jobs he made no mistakes but he didn’t have his old vitality. Possibly this was because he didn’t get enough sleep. Often he stayed up waiting for Peggy who seemed to come home later each time she accepted an assignment from Education.
She didn’t work every night. Education called her an average of four times a week but he never knew before he came home when this would be. When she did come early she was always tired from having been out late the previous night and went to bed, alone, soon after dinner. He saw very little of her and they spoke even less. There was nothing to say.
It was bad but he could endure it. He had to. He knew he shouldn’t be suspicious since she was doing everything she could to help out. There ought not to have been any place in his mind for the thoughts that kept recurring—until the night that Peggy didn’t come home at all.
He stayed up till midnight doing nothing since entertainment, even with her credit card, was expensive. Finally the knowledge that he had to get up early and hold down an important production line forced him to bed. The bed whispered: Sleep, but it was hours before he did, and then it was a fitful slumber. He awakened shortly and got up, though the sleep mechanism urged him to stay in bed, going to Peggy’s bedroom. She hadn’t returned.
He washed his face and sat up, wishing for a drink. There was nothing in the house. Finally he went back to bed saying silently to himself, in unison with the sleep mechanism, that he should sleep. He didn’t, until he got up and tinkered with the mechanism, adjusting it to the extreme range of power.
At dawn he awakened and lay there until it was time to get up. Peggy’s bed had not been slept in. He fixed breakfast for Sandra and sent her to school. He sat, trying not to think but succeeding poorly. The call plate rang and he left without answering it. Employment. He didn’t want to talk to them but sooner or later he’d have to. He went out and wandered the belts aimlessly, at least it seemed aimless—but he found himself in front of the Entertainment office that Peggy worked in. Without thinking what he was going to do he went up.
Brushing off the receptionist he said he wanted to see Peggy. The girl at the desk smiled and said Peggy was probably available. In a few minutes she came back and said that Peggy was working and couldn’t be disturbed. She didn’t smile. He stared at her and repeated that he wanted to see Peggy. She thought he meant it because Peggy finally came out, nervous but determinedly gay.
“You didn’t come home last night,” he said.
“Let’s go over here,” she said, retreating to a corner of the lobby. “People can hear us.”
He followed. He’d raise his voice so they’d hear what he wanted them to. “You didn’t come home.”
“You know I’ve been working.”
“I know, but not at what you said. In a way it was adult evening education though. Wasn’t it?”
“I got some sleep. It was late when I finished so I slept where I was.”
“I can imagine. What I said is that you’re not working for Education. You never have worked for them.”
“Don’t shout.”
“I haven’t raised my voice, but I can understand why you don’t want people to hear. Your part time job is in General Matrimony, isn’t it? That’s where you’ve been spending your evenings from the first.”
“I’m not ashamed of anything I’ve done.” She wouldn’t look at him.
“I don’t suppose you are. It’s one thing to work for Matrimony when you’re single, everybody does. But when you’re already married men know it and expect more. I don’t think you’ve disappointed them. Do you think that any one of those men will marry you?”
“Don’t be sure what they’ll do. You’d be surprised at the class of people that go there. I’ve met nothing but executives.”
“I’m not surprised. Where else would they go for a quiet affair? It is Matrimony, say it.”
“If you have to know, yes. It’s Matrimony.”
“You could have told me, Peggy,” he said. “You didn’t have to do it this way.”
“I could have told you.” Her face twisted. “You’ve humiliated me. I can’t look at the people I work with. They know what you are. And you expect me to take this and come back for more. You don’t think that I need to respect myself, that I have to do something to redeem myself. You—.”
He raised his hand and then walked away so that he wouldn’t hit her. “Traitor,” was the last thing he heard her say as he stumbled out of the office. On the street he wandered in a daze, hardly seeing where he was going. At length his head cleared and his stomach stopped trying to crawl up into his throat. The sunlight was astonishingly bright and the sky was too big to look at.
There was nothing left so he got on the belt that took him to Employment. He entered the building and sat in the waiting room. It was late and he was the only person there except for the clerical workers on the other side of the counter. No one noticed him until one of the young girls who was shopping around for a permanent job and who occasionally filled in on the Employment staff looked up. She was one of those who was attracted to him so she promptly miked him to report to the assignment counter.
He dragged himself there. “Private Moss, you’re late,” she said. “Report to Appliances immediately.”
“I’m not going,” he said.
“Not going? But you have a fine record. Don’t spoil it.”
“I can’t go.”
“If you have a job you must report.”
“If I go to Appliances today I’ll ruin everything,” he said. “Don’t force me to go.”
Concern showed fleetingly on her face and she retreated in consternation to the files at the rear of her office space. Presently she came back. “I think I’ve fixed it up,” she said. “You were in very early today and took the first job that was offered. Naturally you can’t go to Appliances. It’s a job with a private person so you’ll be all right.” She smiled. “If you want to see me after work I’ll put off my regular boyfriend.”
“I may see you,” he said, though he wasn’t going to. A schoolgirl was not for him, whatever she might think.
He took the assignment card she gave him and made his way there without noticing where he was. Even though he recognized the Kingans’ apartment when he passed it nothing jogged his memory until the door that he stopped at opened and, wearing something flimsy, Julie Sanford stood before him. “Employment called. I’ve been expecting you,” she said in a sultry whisper.
It fell together in his mind. In not much more than a second he knew. Things had happened to him, unrelated events that combined in the most unfavorable way. From the first day he’d seen Julie nothing had gone as it should. This was not accidental, and he knew who was behind it. He shoved Julie inside and shut the door after him.
“You’re strong,” she said, wriggling inside the garment he gripped firmly.
“Strong, but stupid,” he said. “I’ve stopped being stupid, just now. People have pushed me around enough. Tell me why you did it.” She started to say something and he knew she was going to deny knowing what he was talking about. He slugged her, a short punch to her mid-section. She went down, grovelling at his feet, gasping for breath, and still denying that she had anything to do with his misfortunes.
He bent to pick her up and the short flimsy garment slid over her body, rolling up in a tight ring just above her breasts. Her body was voluptuous but it wasn’t desire he felt nearly as much as anger. He jerked her erect and threw her into a chair. He slapped her face and while she blinked back tears he said: “Tell me in detail just what your scheme is.”
“It isn’t a scheme. I meant only to help.”
He hit her again. “I don’t need that kind of help.”
She covered her face with her hands so he wouldn’t hit her. “What do you think I did?” she said in a muffled voice.
Hers was a beautiful body and she made no attempt to cover it. He had mauled her but she seemed to have no resentment nor even fear. Instead there was a curious eagerness. His anger hadn’t lessened but he wasn’t sure where to turn it. “You led me on,” he said. “You flaunted the things you had in front of me. You let me know that you had everything a person can desire, and you led me to believe that I could have it too, just by asking.”
“Is that all?”
She was peeking at him through her fingers. “No. You gave me access to your apartment. With what you’ve spent on this place you could have made it impossible for anyone to break in, but you didn’t. You made it easy for anyone who wanted to get in. And it was clever to conceal the pictures, not too easy, but not difficult either. There was no real hint as to what General you were with, but with those cows, what else could it be?” He shook his head slowly. “Only General Farms doesn’t want anyone.”
She dropped her hands from her face and was smiling. “You think I did this to you?”
“Who else?”
“I did very little,” she said. “Mostly it was you from the beginning. You’re a rebel. It’s there for anyone to see. That’s why Appliances smashed you when you wanted to transfer. They have to keep people like you in line.”
“But you didn’t have anything to do with it,” he said bitterly.
“Hardly anything,” she said. “A canned ham and a bottle of wine convinced the Lieutenant Manager of Appliances that he should make an example of you. The point is: he was already going to do this. I merely showed him the best way,” she shrugged. “As for the rest, I’ve had a standing order with employment, even before you registered, that you were to be sent to me the first day you refused to report for a General job.”
