"None yet," sniffed Barlow. "My first wife didn't want them. But Verna
wants one--wanted one--but we're going to wait until--we _were_ going
to wait until--"
"Of course," said the potter, feeling a savage desire to tell him off,
blast him to hell and gone for his work. But he choked it down. There
was The Problem to think of; there was always The Problem to think of,
and this poor blubberer might unexpectedly supply a clue. Hawkins would
have to pass him on.
* * * * *
"Come along," Hawkins said. "My time is short."
Barlow looked up, outraged. "How can you be so unfeeling? I'm a human
being like--"
The Los Angeles-Chicago "rocket" thundered overhead and Barlow broke
off in mid-complaint. "Beautiful!" he breathed, following it with his
eyes. "Beautiful!"
He climbed out of the vault, too interested to be pained by its
roughness against his infantile skin. "After all," he said briskly,
"this should have its sunny side. I never was much for reading, but
this is just like one of those stories. And I ought to make some money
out of it, shouldn't I?" He gave Hawkins a shrewd glance.
"You want money?" asked the potter. "Here." He handed over a fistful
of change and bills. "You'd better put my shoes on. It'll be about a
quarter-mile. Oh, and you're--uh, modest?--yes, that was the word.
Here." Hawkins gave him his pants, but Barlow was excitedly counting
the money.
"Eighty-five, eighty-six--and it's dollars, too! I thought it'd
be credits or whatever they call them. 'E Pluribus Unum' and
'Liberty'--just different faces. Say, is there a catch to this? Are
these real, genuine, honest twenty-two-cent dollars like we had or
just wallpaper?"
"They're quite all right, I assure you," said the potter. "I wish you'd
come along. I'm in a hurry."
* * * * *
The man babbled as they stumped toward the shop. "Where are we
going--The Council of Scientists, the World Coordinator or something
like that?"
"Who? Oh, no. We call them 'President' and 'Congress.' No, that
wouldn't do any good at all. I'm just taking you to see some people."
"I ought to make plenty out of this. _Plenty!_ I could write books.
Get some smart young fellow to put it into words for me and I'll bet I
could turn out a best-seller. What's the setup on things like that?"
"It's about like that. Smart young fellows. But there aren't any
best-sellers any more. People don't read much nowadays. We'll find
something equally profitable for you to do."
Back in the shop, Hawkins gave Barlow a suit of clothes, deposited him
in the waiting room and called Central in Chicago. "Take him away," he
pleaded. "I have time for one more firing and he blathers and blathers.
I haven't told him anything. Perhaps we should just turn him loose and
let him find his own level, but there's a chance--"
"The Problem," agreed Central. "Yes, there's a chance."
The potter delighted Barlow by making him a cup of coffee with a cube
that not only dissolved in cold water but heated the water to boiling
point. Killing time, Hawkins chatted about the "rocket" Barlow had
admired, and had to haul himself up short; he had almost told the real
estate man what its top speed really was--almost, indeed, revealed that
it was not a rocket.
He regretted, too, that he had so casually handed Barlow a couple of
hundred dollars. The man seemed obsessed with fear that they were
worthless since Hawkins refused to take a note or I.O.U. or even a
definite promise of repayment. But Hawkins couldn't go into details,
and was very glad when a stranger arrived from Central.
"Tinny-Peete, from Algeciras," the stranger told him swiftly as the
two of them met at the door. "Psychist for Poprob. Polasigned special
overtake Barlow."
"Thank Heaven," said Hawkins. "Barlow," he told the man from the past,
"this is Tinny-Peete. He's going to take care of you and help you make
lots of money."
The psychist stayed for a cup of the coffee whose preparation had
delighted Barlow, and then conducted the real estate man down the
corduroy road to his car, leaving the potter to speculate on whether he
could at last crack his kilns.
Hawkins, abruptly dismissing Barlow and the Problem, happily picked
the chinking from around the door of the number two kiln, prying it
open a trifle. A blast of heat and the heady, smoky scent of the
reduction fire delighted him. He peered and saw a corner of a shelf
glowing cherry-red, becoming obscured by wavering black areas as it
lost heat through the opened door. He slipped a charred wood paddle
under a mug on the shelf and pulled it out as a sample, the hairs on
the back of his hand curling and scorching. The mug crackled and pinged
and Hawkins sighed happily.
The bismuth resinate luster had fired to perfection, a haunting film
of silvery-black metal with strange bluish lights in it as it turned
before the eyes, and the Problem of Population seemed very far away to
Hawkins then.
* * * * *
Barlow and Tinny-Peete arrived at the concrete highway where the
psychist's car was parked in a safety bay.
"What--a--_boat_!" gasped the man from the past.
"Boat? No, that's my car."
Barlow surveyed it with awe. Swept-back lines, deep-drawn compound
curves, kilograms of chrome. He ran his hands futilely over the
door--or was it the door?--in a futile search for a handle, and asked
respectfully, "How fast does it go?"
The psychist gave him a keen look and said slowly, "Two hundred and
fifty. You can tell by the speedometer."
"Wow! My old Chevvy could hit a hundred on a straightaway, but you're
out of my class, mister!"
Tinny-Peete somehow got a huge, low door open and Barlow descended
three steps into immense cushions, floundering over to the right. He
was too fascinated to pay serious attention to his flayed dermis. The
dashboard was a lovely wilderness of dials, plugs, indicators, lights,
scales and switches.
The psychist climbed down into the driver's seat and did something with
his feet. The motor started like lighting a blowtorch as big as a silo.
Wallowing around in the cushions, Barlow saw through a rear-view mirror
a tremendous exhaust filled with brilliant white sparkles.
"Do you like it?" yelled the psychist.
"It's terrific!" Barlow yelled back. "It's--"
He was shut up as the car pulled out from the bay into the road with
a great _voo-ooo-ooom_! A gale roared past Barlow's head, though the
windows seemed to be closed; the impression of speed was terrific. He
located the speedometer on the dashboard and saw it climb past 90, 100,
150, 200.
"Fast enough for me," yelled the psychist, noting that Barlow's face
fell in response. "Radio?"
He passed over a surprisingly light object like a football helmet,
with no trailing wires, and pointed to a row of buttons. Barlow put
on the helmet, glad to have the roar of air stilled, and pushed a
pushbutton. It lit up satisfyingly and Barlow settled back even farther
for a sample of the brave new world's super-modern taste in ingenious
entertainment.
"TAKE IT AND STICK IT!" a voice roared in his ears.
* * * * *
He snatched off the helmet and gave the psychist an injured look.
Tinny-Peete grinned and turned a dial associated with the pushbutton
layout. The man from the past donned the helmet again and found the
voice had lowered to normal.
"The show of shows! The super-show! The super-duper show! The quiz of
quizzes! _Take it and stick it!_"
There were shrieks of laughter in the background.
"Here we got the contes-tants all ready to go. You know how we work it.
I hand a contes-tant a triangle-shaped cut-out and like that down the
line. Now we got these here boards, they got cut-out places the same
shape as the triangles and things, only they're all different shapes,
and the first contes-tant that sticks the cutouts into the board, he
wins.
"Now I'm gonna innaview the first contes-tant. Right here, honey.
What's your name?"
"Name? Uh--"
"Hoddaya like that, folks? She don't remember her name! Hah? _Would
you buy that for a quarter?_" The question was spoken with arch
significance, and the audience shrieked, howled and whistled its
appreciation.
It was dull listening when you didn't know the punch lines and catch
lines. Barlow pushed another button, with his free hand ready at the
volume control.
"--latest from Washington. It's about Senator Hull-Mendoza. He is still
attacking the Bureau of Fisheries. The North California Syndicalist
says he got affidavits that John Kingsley-Schultz is a bluenose from
way back. He didn't publistat the affydavits, but he says they say that
Kingsley-Schultz was saw at bluenose meetings in Oregon State College
and later at Florida University. Kingsley-Schultz says he gotta confess
he did major in fly-casting at Oregon and got his Ph.D. in game-fish at
Florida.
"And here is a quote from Kingsley-Schultz: 'Hull-Mendoza don't know
what he's talking about. He should drop dead.' Unquote. Hull-Mendoza
says he won't publistat the affydavits to pertect his sources. He says
they was sworn by three former employes of the Bureau which was fired
for in-com-petence and in-com-pat-ibility by Kingsley-Schultz.
"Elsewhere they was the usual run of traffic accidents. A three-way
pileup of cars on Route 66 going outta Chicago took twelve lives.
The Chicago-Los Angeles morning rocket crashed and exploded in the
Mo-have--Mo-javvy--what-ever-you-call-it Desert. All the 94 people
aboard got killed. A Civil Aeronautics Authority investigator on the
scene says that the pilot was buzzing herds of sheep and didn't pull
out in time.
"Hey! Here's a hot one from New York! A Diesel tug run wild in the
harbor while the crew was below and shoved in the port bow of the
luck-shury liner _S. S. Placentia_. It says the ship filled and sank
taking the lives of an es-ti-mated 180 passengers and 50 crew members.
Six divers was sent down to study the wreckage, but they died, too,
when their suits turned out to be fulla little holes.
"And here is a bulletin I just got from Denver. It seems--"
* * * * *
Barlow took off the headset uncomprehendingly. "He seemed so callous,"
he yelled at the driver. "I was listening to a newscast--"
Tinny-Peete shook his head and pointed at his ears. The roar of air was
deafening. Barlow frowned baffledly and stared out of the window.
A glowing sign said:
MOOGS!
WOULD YOU BUY IT
FOR A QUARTER?
He didn't know what Moogs was or were; the illustration showed
an incredibly proportioned girl, 99.9 per cent naked, writhing
passionately in animated full color.
The roadside jingle was still with him, but with a new feature. Radar
or something spotted the car and alerted the lines of the jingle. Each
in turn sped along a roadside track, even with the car, so it could be
read before the next line was alerted.
IF THERE'S A GIRL
YOU WANT TO GET
DEFLOCCULIZE
UNROMANTIC SWEAT.
"A*R*M*P*I*T*T*O"
Another animated job, in two panels, the familiar "Before and After."
The first said, "Just Any Cigar?" and was illustrated with a two-person
domestic tragedy of a wife holding her nose while her coarse and
red-faced husband puffed a slimy-looking rope. The second panel glowed,
"Or a VUELTA ABAJO?" and was illustrated with--
Barlow blushed and looked at his feet until they had passed the sign.
"Coming into Chicago!" bawled Tinny-Peete.
Other cars were showing up, all of them dreamboats.
Watching them, Barlow began to wonder if he knew what a kilometer
was, exactly. They seemed to be traveling so slowly, if you ignored
the roaring air past your ears and didn't let the speedy lines of the
dreamboats fool you. He would have sworn they were really crawling
along at twenty-five, with occasional spurts up to thirty. How much
was a kilometer, anyway?
The city loomed ahead, and it was just what it ought to be: towering
skyscrapers, overhead ramps, landing platforms for helicopters--
He clutched at the cushions. Those two 'copters. They were going
to--they were going to--they--
He didn't see what happened because their apparent collision courses
took them behind a giant building.
* * * * *
Screamingly sweet blasts of sound surrounded them as they stopped for a
red light. "What the hell is going on here?" said Barlow in a shrill,
frightened voice, because the braking time was just about zero, he
wasn't hurled against the dashboard. "Who's kidding who?"
"Why, what's the matter?" demanded the driver.
The light changed to green and he started the pickup. Barlow stiffened
as he realized that the rush of air past his ears began just a brief,
unreal split-second before the car was actually moving. He grabbed for
the door handle on his side.
The city grew on them slowly: scattered buildings, denser buildings,
taller buildings, and a red light ahead. The car rolled to a stop in
zero braking time, the rush of air cut off an instant after it stopped,
and Barlow was out of the car and running frenziedly down a sidewalk
one instant after that.
_They'll track me down_, he thought, panting. _It's a secret police
thing. They'll get you--mind-reading machines, television eyes
everywhere, afraid you'll tell their slaves about freedom and stuff.
They don't let anybody cross them, like that story I once read._
Winded, he slowed to a walk and congratulated himself that he had guts
enough not to turn around. That was what they always watched for.
Walking, he was just another business-suited back among hundreds. He
would be safe, he would be safe--
A hand tumbled from a large, coarse, handsome face thrust close to his:
"Wassamatta bumpinninna people likeya owna sidewalk gotta miner slamya
inna mushya bassar!" It was neither the mad potter nor the mad driver.
"Excuse me," said Barlow. "What did you say?"
"Oh, yeah?" yelled the stranger dangerously, and waited for an answer.
Barlow, with the feeling that he had somehow been suckered into
the short end of an intricate land-title deal, heard himself reply
belligerently, "Yeah!"