“Oh,” the clerk squeaked indignantly, “Allied Domestic’s models are never destroyed. Banged up a little now and then, perhaps, but you show me one of our models that’s been put out of commission.” With dignity, he retrieved his order pad and smoothed down his coat. “No, sir,” he said emphatically, “our models survive. Why, I saw a seven-year-old Allied running around, an old Model 3-S. Dented a bit, perhaps, but plenty of fire left. I’d like to see one of those cheap Protecto-Corp. models try to tangle with that.”
Controlling himself with an effort, Tom asked: “But why? What’s it all for? What’s the purpose in this—conmpetition between them?”
The clerk hesitated. Uncertainly, he began again with his order pad. “Yes sir,” he said. “Competition; you put your finger right on it. Successful competition, to be exact. Allied Domestic doesn’t meet competition—it demolishes it.”
It took a second for Tom Fields to react. Then understanding came. “I see,” he said. “In other words, every year these things are obsolete. No good, not large enough. Not powerful enough. And if they’re not replaced, if I don’t get a new one, a more advanced model—”
“Your present Nanny was, ah, the loser?” The clerk smiled knowingly. “Your present model was, perhaps, slightly anachronistic? It failed to meet present-day standards of competition? It, ah, failed to come out at the end of the day?”
“It never came home,” Tom said thickly.
“Yes, it was demolished … I fully understand. Very common. You see, sir, you don’t have a choice. It’s nobody’s fault, sir. Don’t blame us; don’t blame Allied Domestic.”
“But,” Tom said harshly, “when one is destroyed, that means you sell another one. That means a sale for you. Money in the cash register.”
“True. But we all have to meet contemporary standards of excellence. We can’t let ourselves fall behind … as you saw, sir, if you don’t mind my saying so, you saw the unfortunate consequences of falling behind.”
“Yes,” Tom agreed, in an almost inaudible voice. “They told me not to have her repaired. They said I should replace her.”
The clerk’s confident, smugly-beaming face seemed to expand. Like a miniature sun, it glowed happily, exaltedly. “But now you’re all set up, sir. With this model you’re right up there in the front. Your worries are over, Mr… .” He halted expectantly. “Your name, sir? To whom shall I make out this purchase order?”
Bobby and Jean watched with fascination as the delivery men lugged the enormous crate into the living room. Grunting and sweating, they set it down and straightened gratefully up.
“All right,” Tom said crisply. “Thanks.”
“Not at all, mister.” The delivery men stalked out, noisily closing the door after them.
“Daddy, what is it?” Jean whispered. The two children came cautiously around the crate, wide-eyed and awed.
“You’ll see in a minute.”
“Tom, it’s past their bedtime,” Mary protested. “Can’t they look at it tomorrow?”
“I want them to look at it now.” Tom disappeared downstairs into the basement and returned with a screwdriver. Kneeling on the floor beside the crate he began rapidly unscrewing the bolts that held it together. “They can go to bed a little late, for once.”
He removed the boards, one by one, working expertly and calmly. At last the final board was gone, propped up : against the wall with the others. He unclipped the book of instructions and the 90-day warranty and handed them to Mary. “Hold onto these.”
“It’s a Nanny!” Bobby cried.
“It’s a huge, huge Nanny!”
In the crate the great black shape lay quietly, like an enormous metal tortoise, encased in a coating of grease. Carefully checked, oiled, and fully guaranteed. Tom nodded. “That’s right. It’s a Nanny, a new Nanny. To take the place of the old one.”
“For us?”
“Yes.” Tom sat down in a nearby chair and lit a cigarette. “Tomorrow morning we’ll turn her on and warm her up. See how she runs.”
The children’s eyes were like saucers. Neither of them could breathe or speak.
“But this time,” Mary said, “you must stay away from the park. Don’t take her near the park. You hear?”
“No,” Tom contradicted. “They can go in the park.”
Mary glanced uncertainly at him. “But that orange thing might—”
Tom smiled grimly. “It’s fine with me if they go into the park.” He leaned toward Bobby and Jean. “You kids go into the park any time you want. And don’t be afraid of anything. Of anything or anyone. Remember that.”
He kicked the end of the massive crate with his toe.
“There isn’t anything in the world you have to be afraid of. Not anymore.”
Bobby and Jean nodded, still gazing fixedly into the crate.
“All right, Daddy,” Jean breathed.
“Boy, look at her!” Bobby whispered. “Just look at her! I can hardly wait till tomorrow!”
Mrs. Andrew Casworthy greeted her husband on the front steps of their attractive three-story house, wringing her hands anxiously.
“What’s the matter?” Casworthy grunted, taking off his hat. With his pocket handkerchief he wiped sweat from his florid face. “Lord, it was hot today. What’s wrong? What is it?”
“Andrew, I’m afraid—”
“What the hell happened?”
“Phyllis came home from the park today without her Nanny. She was bent and scratched yesterday when Phyllis brought her home, and Phyllis is so upset I can’t make out—”
“Without her Nanny?”
“She came home alone. By herself. All alone.”
Slow rage suffused the man’s heavy features. “What happened?”
“Something in the park, like yesterday. Something attacked her Nanny. Destroyed her! I can’t get the story exactly straight, but something black, something huge and black … it must have been another Nanny.”
Casworthy’s jaw slowly jutted out. His thickset face turned ugly dark red, a deep unwholesome flush that rose ominously and settled in place. Abruptly, he turned on his heel.
“Where are you going?” his wife fluttered nervously.
The paunchy, red-faced man stalked rapidly down the walk toward his sleek surface cruiser, already reaching for the door handle.
“I’m going to shop for another Nanny,” he muttered. “The best damn Nanny I can get. Even if I have to go to a hundred stores. I want the best—and the biggest.”
“But, dear,” his wife began, hurrying apprehensively after him, “can we really afford it?” Wringing her hands together anxiously, she raced on: “I mean, wouldn’t it be better to wait? Until you’ve had time to think it over, perhaps. Maybe later on, when you’re a little more—calm.”
But Andrew Casworthy wasn’t listening. Already the surface cruiser boiled with quick, eager life, ready to leap forward. “Nobody’s going to get ahead of me,” he said grimly, his heavy lips twitching. “I’ll show them, all of them. Even if I have to get a new size designed. Even if I have to get one of those manufacturers to turn out a new model for me!”
And, oddly, he knew one of them would.
THE TURNING WHEEL
BARD CHAI said thoughtfully, “Cults.” He examined a tape-report grinding from the receptor. The receptor was rusty and unoiled; it whined piercingly and sent up an acrid wisp of smoke. Chai shut it off as its pitted surface began to heat ugly red. Presently he finished with the tape and tossed it with a heap of refuse jamming the mouth of a disposal slot.
“What about cults?” Bard Sung-wu asked faintly. He brought himself back with an effort, and forced a smile of interest on his plump olive-yellow face. “You were saying?”
“Any stable society is menaced by cults; our society is no exception.” Chai rubbed his finely-tapered fingers together reflectively. “Certain lower strata are axiomatically dissatisfied. Their hearts burn with envy of those the wheel has placed above them; in secret they form fanatic, rebellious bands. They meet in the dark of the night; they insidiously express inversions of accepted norms; they delight in flaunting basic mores and customs.”
“Ugh,” Sung-wu agreed. “I mean,” he explained quickly, “it seems incredible people could practice such fanatic and disgusting rites.” He got nervously to his feet. “I must go, if it’s permitted.”
“Wait,” snapped Chai. “You are familiar with the Detroit area?”
Uneasily, Sung-wu nodded. “Very slightly.”
With characteristic vigor, Chai made his decision. “I’m sending you; investigate and make a blue-slip report. If this group is dangerous, the Holy Arm should know. It’s of the worst elements—the Techno class.” He made a wry face. “Caucasians, hulking, hairy things. We’ll give you six months in Spain, on your return; you can poke over ruins of abandoned cities.”
“Caucasians!” Sung-wu exclaimed, his face turning green. “But I haven’t been well; please, if somebody else could go—”
“You, perhaps, hold to the Broken Feather theory?” Chai raised an eyebrow. “An amazing philologist, Broken Feather; I took partial instruction from him. He held, you know, the Caucasian to be descended of Neanderthal
stock. Thek extreme size, thick body hair, their general brutish cast, reveal an innate inability to comprehend
anything but a purely animalistic horizontal; proselytism is a waste of time.”
He affixed the younger man with a stern eye. “I wouldn’t send you, if I didn’t have unusual faith in your devotion.”
Sung-wu fingered his beads miserably. “Elron be praised,” he muttered; “you are too kind.”
Sung-wu slid into a lift and was raised, amid great groans and whirrings and false stops, to the top level of the Central Chamber building. He hurried down a corridor dimly lit by occasional yellow bulbs. A moment later he approached the doors of the scanning offices and flashed his identification at the robot guard. “Is Bard Fei-p’ang within?” he inquired.
“Verily,” the robot answered, stepping aside.
Sung-wu entered the offices, bypassed the rows of rusted, discarded machines, and entered the still-functioning wing. He located his brother-in-law, hunched over some graphs at one of the desks, laboriously copying material by hand. “Clearness be with you,” Sung-wu murmured.
Fei-p’ang glanced up in annoyance. “I told you not to come again; if the Arm finds out I’m letting you use the scanner for a personal plot, they’ll stretch me on the rack.”
“Gently,” Sung-wu murmured, his hand on his relation’s shoulder. “This is the last time. I’m going away; one more look, a final look.” His olive face took on a pleading, piteous cast. “The turn comes for me very soon; this will be our last conversation.”
Sung-wu’s piteous look hardened into cunning. “You wouldn’t want it on your soul; no restitution will be possible at this late date.”
Fei-p’ang snorted. “All right; but for Elron’s sake, do it quickly.”
Sung-wu hurried to the mother-scanner and seated himself in the rickety basket. He snapped on the controls, clamped his forehead to the viewpiece, inserted his identity tab, and set the space-time finger into motion. Slowly, reluctantly, the ancient mechanism coughed into life and began tracing his personal tab along the future track.
Sung-wu’s hands shook; his body trembled; sweat dripped from his neck, as he saw himself scampering in miniature. Poor Sung-wu, he thought wretchedly. The mite of a thing hurried about its duties; this was but eight months hence. Harried and beset, it performed its tasks— and then, in a subsequent continuum, fell down and died.
Sung-wu removed his eyes from the viewpiece and waited for his pulse to slow. He could stand that part, watching the moment of death; it was what came next that was too jangling for him.
He breathed a silent prayer. Had he fasted enough? In the four-day purge and self-flagellation, he had used the whip with metal points, the heaviest possible. He had given away all his money; he had smashed a lovely vase his mother had left him, a treasured heirloom; he had rolled in the filth and mud in the center of town. Hundreds had seen him. Now, surely, all this was enough. But time was so short!
Faint courage stirring, he sat up and again put his eyes to the viewpiece. He was shaking with terror. What if it hadn’t changed? What if his mortification weren’t enough? He spun the controls, sending the finger tracing his time-track past the moment of death.
Sung-wu shrieked and scrambled back in horror. His future was the same, exactly the same; there had been no change at all. His guilt had been too great to be washed away in such short a time; it would take ages—and he didn’t have ages.
He left the scanner and passed by his brother-in-law. “Thanks,” he muttered shakily.
For once, a measure of compassion touched Fei-p’ang’s efficient brown features. “Bad news? The next turn brings an unfortunate manifestation?”
“Bad scarcely describes it.”
Fei-p’ang’s pity turned to righteous rebuke. “Who do you have to blame but yourself?” he demanded sternly. “You know your conduct in this manifestation determines the next; if you look forward to a future life as a lower animal, it should make you glance over your behavior and repent your wrongs. The cosmic law that governs us is impartial. It is true justice: cause and effect; what you do determines what you next become—there can be no blame and no sorrow. There can be only understanding and repentence.” His curiosity overcame him. “What is it? A snake? A squirrel?”
“It’s no affair of yours,” Sung-wu said, as he moved unhappily toward the exit doors.
“I’ll look myself.”
“Go ahead.” Sung-wu pushed moodily out into the hall. He was dazed with despair: it hadn’t changed; it was still the same.
In eight months he would die, stricken by one of the numerous plagues that swept over the inhabited parts of the world. He would become feverish, break out with red spots, turn and twist in an anguish of delirium. His bowels would drop out; his flesh would waste away; his eyes would roll up; and after an interminable time of suffering, be would die. His body would lie in a mass heap, with hundreds of others—a whole streetful of dead, to be carted away by one of the robot sweepers, happily immune. His mortal remains would be burned in a common rubbish incinerator at the outskirts of the city.
Meanwhile, the eternal spark, Sung-wu’s divine soul, would hurry from this space-time manifestation to the next in order. But it would not rise; it would sink; he had watched its descent on the scanner many times. There was always the same hideous picture—a sight beyond endurance—of his soul, as it plummeted down like a stone, into one of the lowest continua, a sinkhole of a manifestation at the very bottom of the ladder.