"Choose!" said the robonurse.
"Choose!" echoed his entire world.
But either choice was impossible!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Infinity June 1957.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
That morning, when Larry awoke, the robonurse was standing at the foot
of his bed, smiling benignly. It made no attempt to help him into his
housecoat and give him his morning unworry capsule. Instead it waited,
poised delicately on its humming treads, making no motion toward him.
"I'm awake," Larry said sourly. "Why aren't you functioning?" He
paused, frowning slightly, and added, "And where's my capsule?"
"This morning is different," said the robonurse. "This is your
birthday, young man!" It clicked twice, hissed, and rolled forward at
last, holding Larry's capsule-box in its grips. The box flew open as
the robot approached Larry's bed, and the boy saw, within its gleaming
interior, _three_ capsules--one the usual light blue, the other two a
harsh green and a bright yellow respectively.
"What's this?"
"_Choose_," the robonurse said inexorably.
The trigger-word echoed in the room for an instant. "_Choose_," the
robot said again, and the repetition unlocked a chain of synapses,
unleashed data hypnotically buried in Larry's mind years before, opened
doors and brightened dark corridors.
_Choose._ The terrifying word held promise of conflict, pain, anxiety.
Larry's fingers quivered with terror for a moment; his hand hovered
over the capsule-box, wavered for a long second of indecision, while a
glistening bead of sweat rolled down his smooth face.
His hand grazed the light-blue capsule, the capsule that could end the
sudden nightmare forever. He fingered its glossy surface for a moment,
then shook his head and touched the bright yellow one. A shudder of
fear ran through him as he did so, and he swept up the green capsule
hurriedly and swallowed it.
"Okay. I've chosen," he said weakly.
The robonurse, still smiling, closed the capsule-box and rolled away.
It replaced the box on its shelf and said, "You've chosen, Larry--but
all you've chosen is postponement of final decision."
"I know." His voice was dry. "I--I'm not ready yet. But at least I took
a step forward. I didn't take the unworry drug."
"True enough," the robonurse said. "You can still go in either
direction--back to the unworry of childhood, or on to the full anxiety
of adult life."
"Let me think," Larry said. "That's why I took the middle capsule. To
think this out."
"Yes, let him think!" Larry glanced up and saw the stooped figure
of his father at the door of the bedroom. The robonurse scuttled
away hummingly, and Larry swung around in bed. His father's face,
wrinkle-etched, baggy-eyed, and despairing, stared intently at him.
The tired face broke into a feeble grin. "So you've arrived at the Age
of Anxiety at last, Larry! Welcome--welcome to adulthood!"
* * * * *
Behind Larry lay an entire seventeen-year lifetime of unworrying--and
behind that lay the three centuries since Koletsky's development of the
unworry drug.
It was tasteless, easily manufactured, inexpensive, and--despite its
marvelous properties--not permanently habit-forming. Adults under the
influence of the unworry drug found themselves free from anxiety,
from nagging doubts about the future, from any need to worry or grow
ulcers or to plan and think ahead. Koletsky's drug made them completely
irresponsible.
Naturally, the drug was highly popular among a certain group of adults
with low psychic resistance to panaceas of this sort, and for a while
the unworry drug was a considerable source of worry to those still
clear-eyed enough to look ahead. Hundreds of thousands of people a year
were yielding to the synthetic bliss of the unworry drug, returning to
childhood's uninvolvement with the world.
Naturally, one of the remaining worriers invented an anti-unworry
drug--and with that, a new social alignment came into being. The new
tablet provided gradual weaning from the unworry drug; it took four
years for the treatment to be completed, but once so treated a person
could never bring himself to touch the Koletsky drug to his lips
again. There was an inflexible guarantee against back-sliding built
into the bonded hydrocarbons of the drug.
This second discovery left the world in possession of two remarkable
phenomena: a soothing drug and its antidote, both of 100% efficiency. A
new solution now presented itself--a solution whose details were simple
and obvious.
_Give the drug to children._ Let them live in a carefree paradise of
unworry until the age of seventeen--at which time, apply the four-year
withdrawal treatment. At twenty-one, they were ready to step into the
adult world, unmarked by the horrors of childhood and equipped to face
maturity with a calm, if somewhat blank mind.
At the age of seventeen, then, a choice: forward or backward. One out
of every ten elected to remain in the synthetic dream-world forever,
thereby removing themselves from a world in which they probably would
not have been fit to contend. It was an efficient screening process,
eliminating those dreamers who would not have withstood the grind,
who would have retreated from reality anyway, would have slipped into
neurotic fancies. The remaining ninety per cent chose maturity and
reality--and anxiety.
The light-blue capsule was the way back to dreamland; the bright yellow
one, the first step in withdrawal. The third capsule was the one most
frequently chosen. It was a delayer; its effect, neither positive nor
negative, was to allow its taker's hormones to remain suspended during
the period of choice.
"I've got three days, don't I, Dad?" The terms of the situation,
implanted in each child's mind long before he could possibly understand
the meanings of the words, now stood out sharply in Larry's mind.