Here Comes Civilization: The Complete Science Fiction of William Tenn Volume II (60 page)

The dingus was there all right. This revolving distringulatrix. But the kid couldn't lay his hands on it. Nasty, I tell you.

"What about books? Got any books lying around the house: chemistry books, physics texts, pamphlets on industrial methods?"

"I don't live in a house. And I don't study from books. Not chemistry or physics anyway. That's all handled by conditioning. I had six hours of conditioning last night—examinations are coming, you know."

My tongue knotted with the frustration of it. Millions of bucks walking next to me and I didn't know how to turn it into cash. Ernest had evidently seen all he wanted to see of the present, at least temporarily—hadn't he met a real, live, robber baron?—and he was heading home to mama and self-expression.

There must be an angle, somewhere!

"Where'd you plant your chrondromos? I mean, where's its other end come out?"

He waved ahead. "Behind a big rock in Center Park."

"Central Park, you mean. Mind if I tag along, watch you leave?"

He didn't. We padded across Central Park West and turned up a little unpaved path. I pulled a dry bough off a tree and switched it across my ankles; I just had to think of something before he took off. I began to hate the can of paint; it was light enough, but it looked like such a puny item to get out of the whole deal. Especially if it couldn't be analyzed.

Keep the kid talking. Something would turn up.

"What kind of government do you have? Democracy, monarchy—"

There he went laughing at me again! It was all I could do not to smash him across the face with the switch. Here I was losing fortunes right and left, and he thought I was making like a comic!

"Democracy! But you would think in political terms, wouldn't you? You have to consider your sick individuals, your pressure groups, your—No, we passed that stage long before I was born. Let me see, the last president they manufactured was a reversibilist. So I imagine you could say we are living in a reversibilism. An unfulfilled one, though."

That helped a lot. Solved everything. I sort of dropped down into a moony yearning for an idea, any kind of an idea. Ernest skipped along chattering about things with unpronounceable names that did unbelievable deeds. I thought unprintable words.

"—I get in responsibility group five. Then there are the examinations, not at all easy this time. Even the trendicle may not help."

I cocked an ear at him. "What's with this trendicle? What does it give out?"

"It analyzes trends. Trends and developing situations. It's really a statistical analyzer, portable and a little primitive. I use it to determine the questions I'll be asked in the examinations. Oh, I forgot—you probably have the scholarship superstitions of your period. You don't believe that the young should anticipate questions based on the latest rearrangements in the world, on the individual curiosities of their instructors. There it is!"

High up on a little wooded hill was a gray and careless rock formation. And, even at that distance, I could see a transparent, shimmering blue haze behind the largest rock.

Ernest beat it off the road and scurried up the hill. I choked after him. There wasn't much time; I had to think it out fast—this trendicle looked like the goods.

I caught up to him just as he reached the large rock. "Ernest," I wheezed, "how does your trendicle go?"

"Oh, it's simple. You punch all available facts into it—regular keyboard, you know—it analyzes them and states the only possible result or shows the trend the facts indicate. Built-in Skeebee power system. Well, goodbye, Mr. Blyn."

He started for the blue haze where it was thickest on the ground. I wrapped my paw around his chest and pulled him back.

"There you go again. Skingeing!" he wailed.

"Sorry, kid. The last time. How would you like to be in on a really big deal? Before you go back, you might like to see me get control of an international trust. I've been planning it for some time—one of the biggest bull markets. Wall Street has never seen my secret gilt-edged because I have a broker planted in Chicago futures. I'll hurry it along and do it today, just so you can see how we robber barons operate. The only thing is, this trendicle deal will make it sure-fire and I'll be able to do the whole thing much faster. What a spectacle! Hundreds of banks failing, I get a corner on synthetic rubber, the gold standard crashes, small investors frozen and down to their bottom margin! You'll see it all. And if you get the trendicle for me, why I'd let you handle the capitalization."

His eyes shone like brand-new dimes. "That would be fully conscious! Think of my getting involved in financial battle like that! But it's so risky! If a Census Keeper winds a total and finds I've been subtracted—If my guide catches me using a chrondromos illegally—"

I'm a salesman, I told you. I know how to handle people. "Suit yourself," I said, turning away and stepping on my cigarette. "I just thought I'd offer you the chance because you're a nice kid, a bright boy; I think you'll go far. We robber barons have a lot of pride, you know. It isn't every errand boy I'd trust with anything as important as capitalization." I made as if to walk away.

"Oh, please, Mr. Blyn!" He sprinted around in front of me. "I appreciate your offer. If only it weren't so dangerous—But danger, that's the breath of life to you, isn't it? I'll do it. I'll get you the trendicle. We'll rip the market open together. Will you wait?"

"Only if you hurry," I said. "I have a lot of manipulating to do before the sun goes down. Take off." I set the can of paint on the grass and crossed my arms. I swished the dry bough back and forth like the widget kings go in for—scepters.

He nodded, turned and ran into the blue haze just behind the rock. His body sort of turned blue and hazy too as he hit it; then he was gone.

What an angle! I mean,
what an angle
. You get it, don't you? This trendicle—if it was anything like the kid described it—could practically be used the way I said I was going to use it, in that fast double-talk shuffle I'd handed him. Predict movements of the stock market up and down—sideways even!; anticipate business cycles and industrial trends; prophesy war, peace and new bond issues. All I'd have to do would be to sock the facts into it—all the financial news, let's say, of the daily paper—and out would come multitudes of money. Was I set!

I threw my head back and winked at a treetop.

Honestly, I felt drunk. I must have been drunk. Because I'd stopped figuring. Just shows—never stop figuring. Never!

I wandered up to the shimmering blue haze and put my hand out toward it. Just like a stone wall. The kid had been giving me the straight goods on this conditioning deal.

He was a nice kid. Ernest. Nice name.

Nice.

The haze parted and Ernest ran out. He was carrying a long, gray box with a cluster of white keys set in one end. Looked like an adding machine that had been stretched.

I plucked it away from him. "How does it work?"

He was breathing hard. "My guide... she saw me... she called me... I hope she didn't see me go into the chrondromos... first time I've disobeyed her... illegal use of chrondromos—"

"Sure," I said. "Sure. Very sad. How does it work?"

"The keys. You punch the facts out on the keys. Like the ancient—like your typewriter. The resulting trend appears on the small scanner."

"Pretty small. And it'll take a terrifically long time to type out a couple of pages of financial news. Those stock listings, especially. Don't you people have anything that you just show the paper to and it burps out the result?"

Ernest looked puzzled. Then, "Oh, you mean an
open
trendicle. My guide has one. But it's only for adults. I won't get an open trendicle until responsibility group seven. With good leanings toward self-expression."

There he went on that self-expression gag. "Then that's what we need, Ernest. Suppose you trot back and pick up your guide's trendicle."

I've never seen so much shock on anyone's face in my life. He looked as if I'd told him to shoot the president. The one they just manufactured.

"But I told you! It isn't mine—it's my guide's!"

"You want to be in charge of capitalization, don't you? You want to see the greatest coup ever pulled in Wall Street—lambs fleeced, bears skinned, bulls broken? Go back to your guide—"

"You are discussing me?" A very sweet, very high voice.

Ernest twisted around. "Wolf bait! My guide," he fluted.

A little old lady in a nutty kind of twisted green dress was standing just outside the haze. She was smiling sadly at Ernest and shaking her head at me. I could tell the difference.

"I hope you are satisfied, Ernest, that this period of high adventure was in reality very ugly and peopled by individuals infinitely small. We've become a little impatient with the duration of your unstabling, however. It's time you returned."

"You don't mean—the Census Keepers
knew
all along that I was illegally using a chrondromos? They allowed me to do it?"

"Of course. You stand very high in self-expression; an exception had to be made in your case. Your involved and slightly retarded concepts of the romantic aspects of this era made it necessary to expose you to its harshness. We couldn't pass you into responsibility group five until you had readjusted. Come, now."

It was about time for me to break into the conversation. Between Ernest and the old lady, it sounded like a duet with fife and piccolo. Such voices!

"Just stay unstabled a second," I said. "Where do I come into all this?"

She turned hostile eyes to me. "I'm afraid you don't. We are removing it from you. The various items you have received from our time... you should never have gone so far, Ernest... will also be removed."

"I don't see it that way." I reached out and grabbed Ernest. He struggled, he had muscles in the strangest places; but I had no trouble holding on to him. I lifted the bough threateningly over his head.

"If you don't do just as I tell you, I'll hurt the boy. I'll—I'll skinge all over him!" Then I had an inspiration. "I'll demobilize him! I'll fragisticate every last bone in his body."

"Just what do you want?" she asked very quietly in that thin voice.

"That trendicle you have. The one without keys."

"I'll be back shortly." She turned with a tinkle of the green dress and faded back into the chrondromos. Just like that.

One of the neatest deals I'd ever swung. Just like that! And guys work for a living.

Ernest writhed and twisted and shuddered, but I held him. I wasn't letting him go, no sir! He represented millions of dollars.

The blue haze shimmered again and the old lady stepped out. She carried a circular black thing with a handle in the center.

"Now, that's more like—" I started to say as she pulled the handle.

And that was all. I couldn't move. I couldn't even wiggle the hairs in my nose. I felt like my own tombstone.

The kid darted away. He picked up the small trendicle where I'd dropped it on the grass and ran to the old lady. She reached up with her free hand. She was speaking to him:

"A definite pattern, Ernest. Selfishness, cruelty, little wisdom. Avarice without the faintest signs of a social—" Her hand came down and the blue haze disappeared. I bounded forward, but there was empty air behind the rock. As if they'd never been there.

Not quite.

The can of paint still sat on the ground where I'd parked it. I chuckled and reached for it. There was a sudden flicker of blue.

The can disappeared. A musical voice said, "Ooops. Sorry!"

I whirled. Nobody there. But the can was gone.

For the next half hour, I almost went crazy. All that stuff I could have had. All the questions I could have asked and didn't. All the information—money-making information—I had missed.

Information. Then I remembered. Wenceslaus. The kid had said someone named Wenceslaus had invented the spirillix about this time; had a lot of trouble financing it. I don't know what it is: maybe it stuffs ballot boxes; maybe it enables you to scratch your left elbow with your left hand. But whatever it is, I made up my mind right then, I'm going to find it and sink every penny I have into it. All I know about it is that it's some sort of gimmick; it does things—and it does them good.

I got back to my office and began hiring detectives. You see, I'd already figured that it wouldn't be enough to check phone listings—my Wenceslaus of the spirillix might not have a phone. He might not even call the gadget a spirillix; that could be the name Ernest's people fastened on it.

Well, I didn't go into detail with the detectives. I just told them to find me people named Wenceslaus or close to it, anywhere in the country. I interview them myself. I have to tell them the whole story, so they'll get the feel of the thing, so they'll be able to recognize the spirillix if they've invented it.

That's where you come in, Mr. Wantzilotz. Anyone with a name so close can't be missed. Maybe I didn't hear Ernest right; maybe the name was changed, later.

Now you've heard the story. Think, Mr. Wantzilotz. Are you working on anything besides raising chickens? Are you inventing anything, improving on anything—

No, I don't think a homemade mousetrap is quite what I want. Have you written a book, maybe? Thinking of writing one? Developing a new historical or economic theory—the spirillix might be anything! You haven't?

Well. I'll be going. You don't have any relatives of the same name who fool around with tools and stuff—no? I've got a lot of people to visit. You'd be amazed at the number of Wenceslauses and variations there are—

Wait a minute. Did you say you'd made—you'd invented a new mousetrap?

Here, have another cigar. Sit down. Now tell me, this mousetrap of yours—just how does it work? It catches mice, yes. But exactly what does it
do
?

I wrote this story immediately after "Child's Play" was accepted by John W. Campbell, and I used the time-travel vocabulary and background of "Child's Play." I was dreaming of having my own special series in
Astounding
—my own version of Asimov's Empire, Heinlein's Future History, or H. Beam Piper's Paratime Police. It was cheeky of me, I eventually decided, and gave it up.