[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Magazine October 1961.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
He was dangerously insane. He threatened
to destroy everything that was noble and
decent--including my date with my girl!
When the elevator didn't come, that just made the day perfect. A broken
egg yolk, a stuck zipper, a feedback in the aircon exhaust, the window
sticking at full transparency--well, I won't go through the whole sorry
list. Suffice it to say that when the elevator didn't come, that put
the roof on the city, as they say.
It was just one of those days. Everybody gets them. Days when you're
lucky in you make it to nightfall with no bones broken.
But of all times for it to happen! For literally months I'd been
building my courage up. And finally, just today, I had made up my
mind to do it--to propose to Linda. I'd called her second thing this
morning--right after the egg yolk--and invited myself down to her
place. "Ten o'clock," she'd said, smiling sweetly at me out of the
phone. She knew why I wanted to talk to her. And when Linda said ten
o'clock, she meant ten o'clock.
Don't get me wrong. I don't mean that Linda's a perfectionist or a
harridan or anything like that. Far from it. But she does have a
fixation on that one subject of punctuality. The result of her job,
of course. She was an ore-sled dispatcher. Ore-sleds, being robots,
were invariably punctual. If an ore-sled didn't return on time, no one
waited for it. They simply knew that it had been captured by some other
Project and had blown itself up.
Well, of course, after working as an ore-sled dispatcher for three
years, Linda quite naturally was a bit obsessed. I remember one time,
shortly after we'd started dating, when I arrived at her place five
minutes late and found her having hysterics. She thought I'd been
killed. She couldn't visualize anything less than that keeping me from
arriving at the designated moment. When I told her what actually had
happened--I'd broken a shoe lace--she refused to speak to me for four
days.
And then the elevator didn't come.
* * * * *
Until then, I'd managed somehow to keep the day's minor disasters from
ruining my mood. Even while eating that horrible egg--I couldn't very
well throw it away, broken yolk or no; it was my breakfast allotment
and I was hungry--and while hurriedly jury-rigging drapery across that
gaspingly transparent window--one hundred and fifty-three stories
straight down to slag--I kept going over and over my prepared proposal
speeches, trying to select the most effective one.
I had a Whimsical Approach: "Honey, I see there's a nice little
Non-P apartment available up on one seventy-three." And I had a
Romantic Approach: "Darling, I can't live without you at the moment.
Temporarily, I'm madly in love with you. I want to share my life
with you for a while. Will you be provisionally mine?" I even had a
Straightforward Approach: "Linda, I'm going to be needing a wife for at
least a year or two, and I can't think of anyone I would rather spend
that time with than you."
Actually, though I wouldn't even have admitted this to Linda, much less
to anyone else, I loved her in more than a Non-P way. But even if we
both had been genetically desirable (neither of us were) I knew that
Linda relished her freedom and independence too much to ever contract
for any kind of marriage other than Non-P--Non-Permanent, No Progeny.
So I rehearsed my various approaches, realizing that when the time
came I would probably be so tongue-tied I'd be capable of no more
than a blurted, "Will you marry me?" and I struggled with zippers and
malfunctioning air-cons, and I managed somehow to leave the apartment
at five minutes to ten.
Linda lived down on the hundred fortieth floor, thirteen stories away.
It never took more than two or three minutes to get to her place, so I
was giving myself plenty of time.
But then the elevator didn't come.
I pushed the button, waited, and nothing happened. I couldn't
understand it.
The elevator had always arrived before, within thirty seconds of
the button being pushed. This was a local stop, with an elevator
that traveled between the hundred thirty-third floor and the hundred
sixty-seventh floor, where it was possible to make connections for
either the next local or for the express. So it couldn't be more than
twenty stories away. And this was a non-rush hour.
I pushed the button again, and then I waited some more. I looked at my
watch and it was three minutes to ten. Two minutes, and no elevator! If
it didn't arrive this instant, this second, I would be late.
It didn't arrive.
I vacillated, not knowing what to do next. Stay, hoping the elevator
would come after all? Or hurry back to the apartment and call Linda, to
give her advance warning that I would be late?
Ten more seconds, and still no elevator. I chose the second
alternative, raced back down the hall, and thumbed my way into my
apartment. I dialed Linda's number, and the screen lit up with white
letters on black: PRIVACY DISCONNECTION.
Of course! Linda expected me at any moment. And she knew what I wanted
to say to her, so quite naturally she had disconnected the phone, to
keep us from being interrupted.
Frantic, I dashed from the apartment again, back down the hall to the
elevator, and leaned on that blasted button with all my weight. Even if
the elevator should arrive right now, I would still be almost a minute
late.
No matter. It didn't arrive.
I would have been in a howling rage anyway, but this impossibility
piled on top of all the other annoyances and breakdowns of the day
was just too much. I went into a frenzy, and kicked the elevator door
three times before I realized I was hurting myself more than I was
hurting the door. I limped back to the apartment, fuming, slammed the
door behind me, grabbed the phone book and looked up the number of
the Transit Staff. I dialed, prepared to register a complaint so loud
they'd be able to hear me in sub-basement three.