"You know."
"I know? All right, I know. You don't have it for sale."
"Old chap, understand if you please that I do not only <i>sell</i>. I
am a trader--Trader Tom. I trade with many parties. There are, for
example ... extraterrestrials."
"Folk legend!"
"On the contrary, <i>mon cher</i>, the only reality it lacks is political
reality. The Assembly could no longer justify their disposition of
the cosmos if it were known they were dealing confiscation without
representation. Come, tell me what you want."
Manet gave in to it. "I want to be not alone," he said.
"Of course," Trader Tom replied, "I suspected. It is not so unusual,
you know. Sign here. And here. Two copies. This is yours. Thank you so
much."
Manet handed back the pen and stared at the laminated card in his hand.
/P
+-------------------------------------+
| TRADER TOM CREDIT CARD |
| |
| <i>Good for Anything</i> |
| |
| A-1 9*8*7*6*5*4*3*2***** |
| |
| WM. M<i>a</i>N<i>e</i>T /--<i>rader</i> /--<i>om</i> |
| |
| .............. |
| (Sign Here) Trader Tom |
+-------------------------------------+
P/
When he looked up from the card, Manet saw the box. Trader Tom was
pushing it across the floor towards him.
The box had the general dimensions of a coffin, but it wasn't
wood--only brightly illustrated cardboard. There was a large four-color
picture on the lid showing men, women and children moving through a
busy city street. The red and blue letters said:
/P
LIFO
<i>The Socialization Kit</i>
P/
"It is commercialized," Trader Tom admitted with no little chagrin.
"It is presented to appeal to a twelve-year-old child, an erotic,
aggressive twelve-year-old, the typical sensie goer--but that is
reality. It offends men of good taste like ourselves, yet sometimes it
approaches being art. We must accept it."
"What's the cost?" Manet asked. "Before I accept it, I have to know the
charges."
"You never know the cost. Only your executor knows that. It's the
Trader Tom plan."
"Well, is it guaranteed?"
"There are no guarantees," Trader Tom admitted. "But I've never had any
complaints yet."
"Suppose I'm the first?" Manet suggested reasonably.
"You won't be," Trader Tom said. "I won't pass this way again."
<tb>
Manet didn't open the box. He let it fade quietly in the filtered but
still brilliant sunlight near a transparent wall.
Manet puttered around the spawning monster, trying to brush the copper
taste of the station out of his mouth in the mornings, talking to
himself, winking at Annie Oakley, and waiting to go mad.
Finally, Manet woke up one morning. He lay in the sheets of his bunk,
suppressing the urge to go wash his hands, and came at last to the
conclusion that, after all the delay, he was mad.
So he went to open the box.
The cardboard lid seemed to have become both brittle and rotten. It
crumbled as easily as ideals. But Manet was old enough to remember the
boxes Japanese toys came in when he was a boy, and was not alarmed.
The contents were such a glorious pile of junk, of bottles from old
chemistry sets, of pieces from old Erector sets, of nameless things and
unremembered antiques from neglected places, that it seemed too good to
have been assembled commercially. It was the collection of lifetime.
On top of everything was a paperbound book, the size of the <i>Reader's
Digest</i>, covered in rippled gray flexiboard. The title was stamped in
black on the spine and cover: <i>The Making of Friends</i>.
Manet opened the book and, turning one blank page, found the title
in larger print and slightly amplified: <i>The Making of Friends and
Others</i>. There was no author listed. A further line of information
stated: "A Manual for Lifo, The Socialization Kit." At the bottom of
the title page, the publisher was identified as: LIFO KIT CO., LTD.,
SYRACUSE.
The unnumbered first chapter was headed <i>Your First Friend</i>.
/#
Before you go further, first find the <i>Modifier</i> in your kit. This
is <i>vital</i>.
#/
He quickly riffled through the pages. <i>Other Friends, Authority, A
Companion</i>.... Then <i>The Final Model</i>. Manet tried to flip past this
section, but the pages after the sheet labeled <i>The Final Model</i> were
stuck together. More than stuck. There was a thick slab of plastic in
the back of the book. The edges were ridged as if there were pages to
this section, but they could only be the tracks of lame ants.
Manet flipped back to page one.
/#
First find the <i>Modifier</i> in your kit. This is <i>vital</i> to your entire
experiment in socialization. The <i>Modifier is Part #A-1</i> on the Master
Chart.
#/
He prowled through the box looking for some kind of a chart. There
was nothing that looked like a chart inside. He retrieved the lid and
looked at its inside. Nothing. He tipped the box and looked at its
outside. Not a thing. There was always something missing from kits.
Maybe even the <i>Modifier</i> itself.
He read on, and probed and scattered the parts in the long box. He
studied the manual intently and groped out with his free hand.
The toe bone was connected to the foot bone....
<tb>
The Red King sat smugly in his diagonal corner.
The Black King stood two places away, his top half tipsy in frustration.
The Red King crabbed sideways one square.
The Black King pounced forward one space.
The Red King advanced backwards to face the enemy.
The Black King shuffled sideways.
The Red King followed....
Uselessly.
"Tie game," Ronald said.
"Tie game," Manet said.
"Let's talk," Ronald said cheerfully. He was always cheerful.
Cheerfulness was a personality trait Manet had thumbed out for him.
Cheerful. Submissive. Co-operative. Manet had selected these factors in
order to make Ronald as different a person from himself as possible.
"The Korean-American War was the greatest of all wars," Ronald said
pontifically.
"Only in the air," Manet corrected him.
Intelligence was one of the factors Manet had punched to suppress.
Intelligence. Aggressiveness. Sense of perfection. Ronald couldn't know
any more than Manet, but he could (and did) know less. He had seen to
that when his own encephalograph matrix had programmed Ronald's feeder.
"There were no dogfights in Korea," Ronald said.
"I know."
"The dogfight was a combat of hundreds of planes in a tight area, the
last of which took place near the end of the First World War. The
aerial duel, sometimes inaccurately referred to as a 'dogfight' was not
seen in Korea either. The pilots at supersonic speeds only had time for
single passes at the enemy. Still, I believe, contrary to all experts,
that this took greater skill, man more wedded to machine, than the
leisurely combats of World War One."
"I know."
"Daniel Boone was still a crack shot at eight-five. He was said to be
warm, sincere, modest, truthful, respected and rheumatic."
"I know."
<tb>
Manet knew it all. He had heard it all before.
He was so damned sick of hearing about Korean air battles, Daniel
Boone, the literary qualities of ancient sports fiction magazines,
the painting of Norman Rockwell, New York swing, <i>ad nauseum</i>. What a
narrow band of interests! With the whole universe to explore in thought
and concept, why did he have to be trapped with such an unoriginal
human being?
Of course, Ronald wasn't an original human being. He was a copy.
Manet had been interested in the Fabulous Forties--Lt. "Hoot" Gibson,
Sam Merwin tennis stories, <i>Saturday Evening Post</i> covers--when he had
first learned of them, and he had learned all about them. He had firm
opinions on all these.
He yearned for someone to challenge him--to say that <i>Dime Sports</i> had
been nothing but a cheap yellow rag and, why, <i>Sewanee Review</i>, there
had been a magazine for you.
Manet's only consolidation was that Ronald's tastes were lower than his
own. He patriotically insisted that the American Sabre Jet was superior
to the Mig. He maintained with a straight face that Tommy Dorsey was a
better band man than Benny Goodman. Ronald was a terrific jerk.
"Ronald," Manet said, "you are a terrific jerk."
Ronald leaped up immediately and led with his right.
Manet blocked it deftly and threw a right cross.
Ronald blocked it deftly, and drove in a right to the navel.
The two men separated and, puffing like steam locomotives passing the
diesel works, closed again.
Ronald leaped forward and led with his right.
Manet stepped inside the swing and lifted an uppercut to the ledge of
Ronald's jaw.
Ronald pinwheeled to the floor.
He lifted his bruised head from the deck and worked his reddened mouth.
"Had enough?" he asked Manet.