Prescription for Chaos (25 page)

"I can't change a thing. That paper was drawn up by the company's lawyers. I don't guarantee anything, either. That's company policy."

"You see that row of junk parked in the lot over there? The slot-headed cretin who brought that in started out just like you, and ended up selling it two cents on the dollar and grateful for the pay. The only thing he could guarantee was that the tires were good. I'm selling the whole load in units of two pairs of tires with vehicle attached. The wheels happen to be InterCon format, so I've had a pretty fair sale."

"I can't possibly—"

"You're selling to me because you need cash. What I need is something I can sell at a fair price with a real guarantee. Take a look at that chain link fence. A while back, I unloaded some so-called bargains that strung my customers up by the ears. Now I sleep in a bombproof bunker with a forty-five under my pillow. Don't tell me about your company lawyers. They don't scare me half as much as a bankrupt customer with a gun."

"What do you suggest?"

"The first thing is get rid of this." He read aloud: " 'Purchaser by inserting the key in the doorlock of the aforesaid vehicle signifies irrevocable agreement with each and every clause, provision, and/or stipulation of this contract, without exception, he and his heirs and assigns forever.' And then this: 'User by paying the purchase price for permission to use this vehicle acquires no ownership right or interest therein, but only permission to use the vehicle under the terms of this contract.'"

"Well, that's a perfectly standard vehicle usage clause, and you get the benefit—"

"If I try to enforce it, there's only two possibilities. First, the courts throw out the whole thing. Then I look like a fool. Second, they approve it, and I have to hire more guards. No. I value what sleep I can still get."

"What—What deal do you offer?"

"What will you guarantee?"

"The engines will run."

"Are they built-in?"

"Well—heh—they just have to be adapted to fit. There are instructions included. I guess it wouldn't be impossible."

"That doesn't sound too good."

"The engines are all right. The wheels are all right, too."

"InterCon format?"

"Our own format. Exclusive. We've got the rights."

"So nobody else can use it without a special trough?"

"Exactly. We planned to get the monopoly."

"What you've got now is an orphan format."

"We'll sell you the rights!"

"That wouldn't help me any. All you've mentioned so far is the engines. What about the bodies?"

"The frame?"

"That's what I'm talking about."

"You're planning to check all this?"

"I'd be crazy if I didn't."

"The frame is a—er—an adaptation of the old standard InterCon frame. Practically indistinguishable from the Personal Car."

"What's wrong with it?"

"Well, we had them made up in a—ah—a foreign country—too assist in the industrial development of—ah—emerging—"

"Skip all that. What's wrong with it?"

"The roof leaks pretty bad in the rain. And what they used for paint—well—but you don't have to worry about that. The disclaimer covers everything."

"Except a customer with a gun. So the paint's no good and the roof sealer's worthless. How's the structure?"

"It's just as good as the InterCon job. Why not? It's a straight copy."

"What else?"

"The brakes are all right. The clutch will snap your head off."

"Now we're talking. Bear in mind who's going to demonstrate these things. You."

"I can find someone better."

"I can't. How about the literature?"

"The maps?"

"The maps and instructions. A car's no good if you can't figure where to go with it, or how to shift gears."

"We were figuring to sell the documentation separately, with the spark plugs."

"I asked what good it is."

"Some of it's copied from InterCon. That part's all right. The rest is good to give to your enemies. I don't think we've got the road to hell in there, but there's a lot of places you don't want to go."

"Doesn't matter as long as it's labeled right."

"Together with some stuff that looks great, but there isn't any place it matches up with. It's good for a demo."

"We can sell that for novelty. How about the rest of the documentation?"

"Ah—You mean the instructions?"

"What else would I mean?"

"You want the truth?"

"No good, eh?"

"We hired a guy to put together a hundred pages that would look good, and we gave him two weeks to do the job. He cobbled stuff together from copied InterCon drawings and an encyclopedia on mechanical design, and patched a pretty good introduction onto it. Not a bad job. The only problem is, it doesn't tell how to get the engine into the frame, or the wheels on the axles, or anything else you need to know. Of course, if you can read it and understand it, you already know enough to do the job without any instructions."

Beside Randy, Stewart, who had been smiling, gave a low curse, shifted into gear, and backed up. Behind them, another high-wheeled car was just coming in, but Stewart managed to get off onto a sidetrack before this second car ground past.

"Nuts," said Stewart, hauling on the wheel. "The trough's full of muck. All we need is to climb out of it."

"Then what?"

"The guide wheel, here—" he tapped the steering wheel—"is only meant to shift troughs at the junctions. It'll tear your arms out by the roots if you try steering through raw muck."

He stopped at the gate, to shout, "You're gunked up in there!"

"Trough cleaner's down!" The gate opened. The car jolted forward.

"Miracle it didn't stall," snarled Stewart. "Damn it! I've got to deliver, and I've got to pick up repairs! But how do I do it? Did you hear that S.O.B. talk?"

"The guy arguing with him seemed all right."

Stewart hauled the wheel around, and they pulled out into a steady stream of traffic.

"Jake's okay. That was all bull about the customers being out to get him. It's the dealers. Boy, there are those who hate him!"

"Why not buy from him? At least you'd know what you were getting."

"Sure, but buy what? I want something I can count on." Stewart stared ahead, and made a grab for the brake lever. "Hang on! Somebody's jumped the trough! LOOK OUT! IT'S A PILE-UP!"

There was a crash ahead. Their own vehicle slowed, then slid. There was a jolt as someone banged them from behind. A quick glance showed Randy a monster van right behind. Off to the side, teams of horses trotted, eyes front, blinders cutting off the sight of the crashing cars.

Randy glanced at Stewart. "We should have got a horse!"

Stewart gave a fleeting grin. "Why tell me now? LOOK OUT!"

The car in front slammed to a stop. There was a sledgehammer shock, a blinding whirl of dust, a crash, blackness, remoteness, and then finally, light, and a voice.

He was slumped forward, his forehead against hard metal. He tried to stand, and landed painfully on one knee. His eyes came open and he saw a dim flat surface. He stumbled to his feet, looking for wreckage from the crash. He seemed to be in a dimly lit room.

In the dimness, a reflection glinted from the chromed Cougar emblem of his computer.

His wife asked anxiously, "Are you all right?"

He put his hand on the computer. It at least felt real. "Physically," he said, "I feel horrible. But it could be worse. What time is it?"

"Almost twelve."

"You haven't been to sleep?"

"I was waiting for you."

"You haven't been in here since I started to run Armagast's program?"

"No. Randy, what is it?"

He described what had happened.

She said, "It was like a dream?—A vivid dream?"

"A vivid dream that compared the computer industry to the state the auto industry might be in if it had our problems."

"Did it help?"

"Well, my problem was, what has gone wrong? I've got plenty of answers."

"You look awfully tired."

"It wasn't restful. Wait while I put things away."

The next day found Randy peering through bloodshot eyes at a hung-over-looking Stewart Rafer.

"Pratt," said Rafer, "ah—this Armagast program—I took it home. Ah . . . Suppose the Wright Brothers—No. No, forget that. Now, about this program—I think it's salable, but—Things are tight. We can't have you making purchases for the store without confirmation from me. You understand that?"

Randy forced a nod.

Stewart—this Stewart—looked at him owlishly.

"All right. Now, there's this business of the Gnat computer. How do you explain what we're going through with all these returns?"

Randy scowled. The Gnat was Stewart's idea. Now he, Randy, was supposed to explain it?

He reminded himself that he needed this job, and groped for a courteous answer.

Out in the showroom the outer door went shut, and light footsteps approached in the hall. Stewart and Randy glanced around. There was a rap at the door. Stewart said, "Come in." Randy's woman customer of yesterday stepped inside.

"I've brought my Shomizota printer, to be—ah—configured? It's in the trunk of my car, out front."

Randy winced. "Without the Superbyte, I—"

"I brought my Superbyte."

Randy cast a look of appeal at Stewart.

Stewart turned solicitously to the customer.

"We believe in total service here. Mr. Pratt will be glad to take care of it."

Randy went out to the car, and carried in the Shomizota. As he went back for the Superbyte, a thought occurred to him.

Would Armagast's program handle customer problems?

Why not?

He lugged the Superbyte into the showroom, and the customer said sweetly, "Mr. Rafer has assured me you'll be happy to take care of this, too." She handed him a box labeled, "WordSnapper 2 for UltraByte Computers."

As Randy groped for words, she said, "Now I must run," and left.

From the repair shop down the hall came a curse from Mike the technician, who hardly ever swore.

Randy massaged his temples, opened the word processor box, and found no instructions. Where was whatever literature Snapper Software had included with this thing?

The outer door opened. The mailman tossed some bills on the counter and went out.

Randy, examining the Shomizota printer, found a big envelope, dumped the contents, and sheets of Chinese-Japanese characters looked up at him.

Randy drew a careful breath, and reminded himself that he only had to get through the rest of the day. Then it was home to his Cougar and Armagast's program.

He glanced up as the doorlatch clicked again. A well dressed man came in with a precocious-looking boy carrying a Gnat computer. Stewart emerged from his office, a crumpled bill in his fist, to whirl as a crash and a string of oaths echoed down the hall from the repair shop.

It suddenly dawned on Randy that the Computer Age's bugs weren't confined to the hardware and software. There were humanware bugs, and he was about to see them crash the system.

He was scarcely aware of his brief silent prayer as he approached his boss. "Excuse me, Mr. Rafer. Mike mentioned something yesterday, and I should have passed it on to you. If I could see you just a moment—"

Stewart eyed the Gnat, glanced toward the repair shop, excused himself to the customer, and stepped into his office.

Randy kept his voice low. "Mike said he can't handle the Gnat repairs plus the forty-eight-hour fix we've been promising. If he decides to quit, we're sunk. Let me promise him we'll forget the 48-hour till the Gnats are out of the way."

Stewart hesitated, then nodded. "But hurry up. He's about to erupt."

Randy, moving fast, knocked on the repair shop door, and stepped inside.

"Mike, excuse me. I told Stew you needed more time, and he agreed. He says you can forget the 48-hour fix till you've had time enough to get the Gnats out of the way."

Mike looked at him wildly. "Nobody could keep up with this!"

"Don't try. Take it as slow as you have to. We appreciate your trying, but anybody can only do so much."

"Forget the 48-hour fix?"

"Till the Gnats are out of the way. I think we're almost at the end of them."

Mike blew out his breath. "Okay. I can live with that." He bent down and set a dented wastebasket upright. "Push over that stool, will you, and shut the door tight when you go out. Thanks for talking to Stew."

Randy, coming back down the hall, heard Stewart talking to the customer: ". . . any amount of trouble from these Gnats, but we'll back up the warranty as best we can. My hardware specialist warned me about the machine, but I didn't believe him."

Randy stopped in his tracks. Was he still stuck in Armagast's program? Why was Stewart being reasonable? Then it dawned on him—Stewart had used the program, too.

The customer was saying, "As long as you'll back up my son's Gnat, I'll ask you something else. What do you have that's reliable?"

"I—ah—"

"I don't need the latest electronic miracle. I need a machine I can count on."

Stewart glanced at Randy, who mentally shifted gears.

"There's the Sharke II. That's been very thoroughly debugged."

Stewart objected. "It won't run the latest software. The Superbyte is faster, has a lot more RAM, more—" He paused. With an effort, he said, "But the II is very reliable. That's true." He excused himself.

Randy spoke carefully, straining not to be like any salesman he'd met recently in Armagast's program. "Mr. Rafer is right that the Superbyte is faster, and has more capabilities. But the Sharke II is very reliable, has excellent instruction manuals, comes with a good deal of useful software, and costs a lot less."

"Okay. Let me have some literature, and I'll be back when my son's Gnat is fixed to look this machine over. And—speaking of my son, where—"

A beeping noise became evident, from the back of a post on the other side of which was the Sharke Graphics 1000. The customer smiled, took the literature, got his protesting son loose from the Graphics 1000, and went out. Randy sat down by the Shomizota printer, thinking.