"_Your_ customers?" yelped the woman in the housecoat. "How about mine?
What's gonna happen, the world should be doomed?"
Clocker found admiration for Dr. Harding's approach. It was a line tried
habitually by politicians, but they didn't have the same kind of captive
audience, the control, the contrived background. A cosmic pitch like
this could bring a galactic payoff, whatever it might be. But it didn't
take his mind off Zelda.
"I see you are somewhat aghast," Dr. Harding observed. "But is my
statement _really_ so unexpected? You know the history of your own
race--a record of incessant war, each more devastating than the last.
Now, finally, Man has achieved the power of worldwide destruction. The
next war, or the one after that, will unquestionably be the end not only
of civilization, but of humanity--perhaps even your entire planet. Our
peaceful, altruistic civilization might help avert catastrophe, but that
would require our physical landing on Earth, which is not possible. Even
if it were, there is not enough time. Armageddon draws near.
"Then why have we brought you here?" asked Dr. Harding. "Because Man, in
spite of his suicidal blunders, is a magnificent race. He must not
vanish without leaving _a complete record_ of his achievements."
The crowd nodded soberly. Clocker wished he had a cigarette and his
wife. In her right mind, Zelda was unswervingly practical and she would
have had some noteworthy comments to make.
"This is the task we must work together on," said Dr. Harding
forcefully. "Each of you has a skill, a talent, a special knowledge we
need for the immense record we are compiling. Every area of human
society must be covered. We need you--urgently! Your data will become
part of an imperishable social document that shall exist untold eons
after mankind has perished."
* * * * *
Visibly, the woman in the housecoat was stunned. "They want to put down
what _I_ can tell them?"
"And tailoring?" asked the little man with the pin-cushion vest. "How to
make buttonholes and press clothes?"
The man who looked like a banker had his chin up and a pleased
expression on his pudgy face.
"I always knew I'd be appreciated some day," he stated smugly. "I can
tell them things about finance that those idiots in the main office
can't even guess at."
Mr. Calhoun stood up beside Dr. Harding on the rostrum. He seemed
infinitely benign as he raised his hands and his deep voice.
"Friends, we need _your_ help, _your_ knowledge. I _know_ you don't want
the human race to vanish without a _trace_, as though it had never
existed. I'm _sure_ it thrills you to realize that some researcher,
_far_ in the _future_, will one day use the very knowledge that _you_
gave. Think what it means to leave _your_ personal imprint indelibly on
cosmic history!" He paused and leaned forward. "Will you help us?"
The faces glowed, the hands went up, the voices cried that they would.
Dazzled by the success of the sell, Clocker watched the people happily
and flatteredly follow their frock-coated guides toward the various
buildings, which appeared to have been laid out according to very broad
categories of human occupation.
He found himself impelled along with the chattering, excited woman in
the housecoat toward a cerise structure marked SPORTS AND RACKETS. It
seemed that she had been angry at not having been interviewed for a
recent epic survey, and this was her chance to decant the experiences of
twenty years.
Clocker stopped listening to her gabble and looked for the building that
Zelda would probably be in. He saw ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT, but when he
tried to go there, he felt some compulsion keep him heading toward his
own destination.
Looking back helplessly, he went inside.
* * * * *
He found that he was in a cubicle with a fatherly kind of man who had
thin gray hair, kindly eyes and a firm jaw, and who introduced himself
as Eric Barnes. He took Clocker's name, age, specific trade, and gave
him a serial number which, he explained, would go on file at the central
archives on his home planet, cross-indexed in multiple ways for instant
reference.
"Now," said Barnes, "here is our problem, Mr. Locke. We are making two
kinds of perpetual records. One is written; more precisely,
microscribed. The other is a wonderfully exact duplicate of your
cerebral pattern--in more durable material than brain matter, of
course."
"Of course," Clocker said, nodding like an obedient patsy.
"The verbal record is difficult enough, since much of the data you give
us must be, by its nature, foreign to us. The duplication of your
cerebral pattern, however, is even more troublesome. Besides the
inevitable distortion caused by a distance of 10,000 light-years and the
fields of gravitation and radiation of all types intervening, the
substance we use in place of brain cells absorbs memory quite slowly."
Barnes smiled reassuringly. "But you'll be happy to know that the
impression, once made, can _never_ be lost or erased!"
"Delighted," Clocker said flatly. "Tickled to pieces."
"I knew you would be. Well, let us proceed. First, a basic description
of horse racing."
Clocker began to give it. Barnes held him down to a single sentence--"To
check reception and retention," he said.
The communication box on the desk lit up when Clocker repeated the
sentence a few times, and a voice from the box said, "Increase output.
Initial impression weak. Also wave distortion. Correct and continue."
Barnes carefully adjusted the dials and Clocker went on repeating the
sentence, slowing down to the speed Barnes requested. He did it
automatically after a while, which gave him a chance to think.
[Illustration]
He had no plan to get Zelda out of here; he was improvising and he
didn't like it. The setup still had him puzzled. He knew he wasn't
dreaming all this, for there were details his imagination could never
have supplied, and the notion of spirits with scientific devices would
baffle even Oil Pocket.
Everybody else appeared to accept these men as the aliens they claimed
to be, but Clocker, fearing a con he couldn't understand, refused to. He
had no other explanation, though, no evidence of any kind except deep
suspicion of any noble-sounding enterprise. In his harsh experience,
they always had a profit angle hidden somewhere.
Until he knew more, he had to go along with the routine, hoping he would
eventually find a way out for Zelda and himself. While he was repeating
his monotonous sentence, he wondered what his body was doing back on
Earth. Lying in a bed, probably, since he wasn't being asked to perform
any physical jobs like Zelda's endless time-step.
That reminded him of Doc Hawkins and the psychiatrists. There must be
some here; he wished vengefully that he could meet them and see what
they thought of their theories now.
* * * * *
Then came the end of what was apparently the work day.
"We're making splendid progress," Barnes told him. "I know how tiresome
it is to keep saying the same thing over and over, but the distance is
_such_ a great obstacle. I think it's amazing that we can even _bridge_
it, don't you? Just imagine--the light that's reaching Earth at this
very minute left our star when mammoths were roaming your western states
and mankind lived in caves! And yet, with our thought-wave boosters, we
are in instantaneous communication!"
The soap, Clocker thought, to make him feel he was doing something
important.
"Well, you are doing something important," Barnes said, as though
Clocker had spoken.
Clocker would have turned red if he had been able to. As it was, he felt
dismay and embarrassment.
"Do you realize the size and value of this project?" Barnes went on. "We
have a more detailed record of human society than Man himself ever had!
There will be not even the most insignificant corner of your
civilization left unrecorded! Your life, my life--the life of this Zelda
whom you came here to rescue--all are trivial, for we must die
eventually, but the project will last eternally!"
Clocker stood up, his eyes hard and worried. "You're telling me you know
what I'm here for?"
"To secure the return of your wife. I would naturally be aware that you
had submitted yourself to our control voluntarily. It was in your file,
which was sent to me by Admissions."
"Then why did you let me in?"
"Because, my dear friend--"
"Leave out the 'friend' pitch. I'm here on business."
Barnes shrugged. "As you wish. We let you in, as you express it, because
you have knowledge that we should include in our archives. We hoped you
would recognize the merit and scope of out undertaking. Most people do,
once they are told."
"Zelda, too?"
"Oh, yes," Barnes said emphatically. "I had that checked by Statistics.
She is extremely cooperative, quite convinced--"
"Don't hand me that!"
* * * * *
Barnes rose. Straightening the papers on his desk, he said, "You want to
speak to her and see for yourself? Fair enough."
He led Clocker out of the building. They crossed the great square to a
vast, low structure that Barnes referred to as the Education and
Recreation Center.
"Unless there are special problems," Barnes said, "our human associates
work twelve or fourteen of your hours, and the rest of the time is their
own. Sleep isn't necessary to the psychic projection, of course, though
it is to the body on Earth. And what, Mr. Locke, would you imagine they
choose as their main amusements?"
"Pinball machines?" Clocker suggested ironically. "Crap games?"
"Lectures," said Barnes with pride. "They are eager to learn everything
possible about our project. We've actually had the director himself
address them! Oh, it was inspiring, Mr. Locke--color films in three
dimensions, showing the great extent of our archives, the many millions
of synthetic brains, each with indestructible memories of skills and
crafts and professions and experiences that soon will be no more--"
"Save it. Find Zelda for me and then blow. I want to talk to her alone."
Barnes checked with the equivalent of a box office at the Center, where,
he told Clocker, members of the audience and staff were required to
report before entering, in case of emergency.
"Like what?" Clocker asked.
"You have a suspicious mind," said Barnes patiently. "Faulty neuron
circuit in a synthetic duplicate brain, for example. Photon storms
interfering with reception. Things of that sort."
"So where's the emergency?"
"We have so little time. We ask the human associate in question to
record again whatever was not received. The percentage of refusal is
actually _zero_! Isn't that splendid?"
"Best third degree I ever heard of," Clocker admitted through clamped
teeth. "The cops on Earth would sell out every guy they get graft from
to buy a thing like this."
* * * * *
They found Zelda in a small lecture hall, where a matronly woman from
the other planet was urging her listeners to conceal nothing, however
intimate, while recording--"Because," she said, "this must be a
psychological as well as a cultural and sociological history."
Seeing Zelda, Clocker rushed to her chair, hauled her upright, kissed
her, squeezed her.
"Baby!" he said, more choked up than he thought his control would allow.
"Let's get out of here!"
She looked at him without surprise. "Oh, hello, Clocker. Later. I want
to hear the rest of this lecture."
"Ain't you glad to see me?" he asked, hurt. "I spend months and shoot
every dime I got just to find you--"
"Sure I'm glad to see you, hon," she said, trying to look past him at
the speaker. "But this is so important--"
Barnes came up, bowed politely. "If you don't mind, Miss Zelda, I think
you ought to talk to your husband."
"But what about the lecture?" asked Zelda anxiously.
"I can get a transcription for you to study later."
"Well, all right," she agreed reluctantly.
Barnes left them on a strangely warm stone bench in the great square,
after asking them to report back to work at the usual time. Zelda,
instead of looking at Clocker, watched Barnes walk away. Her eyes were
bright; she almost radiated.
"Isn't he wonderful, Clocker?" she said. "Aren't they all wonderful?
Regular scientists, every one of them, devoting their whole life to this
terrific cause!"
"What's so wonderful about that?" he all but snarled.
She turned and gazed at him in mild astonishment. "They could let the
Earth go boom. It wouldn't mean a thing to them. Everybody wiped out
just like there never were any people. Not even as much record of us as
the dinosaurs! Wouldn't that make you feel simply awful?"
"I wouldn't feel a thing." He took her unresponsive hand. "All I'm
worried about is us, baby. Who cares about the rest of the world doing a
disappearing act?"
"I do. And so do they. They aren't selfish like some people I could
mention."
"Selfish? You're damned right I am!"
* * * * *
He pulled her to him, kissed her neck in her favorite place. It got a
reaction--restrained annoyance.
"I'm selfish," he said, "because I got a wife I'm nuts about and I want
her back. They got you wrapped, baby. Can't you see that? You belong
with me in some fancy apartment, the minute I can afford it, like one I
saw over on Riverside Drive--seven big rooms, three baths, one of them
with a stall shower like you always wanted, the Hudson River and Jersey
for our front lawn--"
"That's all in the past, hon," she said with quiet dignity. "I have to
help out on this project. It's the least I can do for history."
"The hell with history! What did history ever do for us?" He put his
mouth near her ear, breathing gently in the way that once used to make
her squirm in his arms like a tickled doe. "Go turn in your time-card,
baby. Tell them you got a date with me back on Earth."
She pulled away and jumped up. "No! This is my job as much as theirs.
More, even. They don't keep anybody here against their will. I'm staying
because I want to, Clocker."
Furious, he snatched her off her feet. "I say you're coming back with
me! If you don't want to, I'll drag you, see?"
"How?" she asked calmly.
He put her down again slowly, frustratedly. "Ask them to let you go,
baby. Oil Pocket said he'd put you in a musical. You always did want to
hit the big time--"
"Not any more." She smoothed down her dress and patted up her hair.
"Well, I want to catch the rest of that lecture, hon. See you around if
you decide to stay."
He sat down morosely and watched her snake-hip toward the Center,
realizing that her seductive walk was no more than professional
conditioning. She had grown in some mysterious way, become more
serene--at peace.
He had wondered what catatonics got for their work. He knew now--the
slickest job of hypnotic flattery ever invented. That was _their_ pay.
But what did the pitchmen get in return?
* * * * *
Clocker put in a call for Barnes at the box office of the Center. Barnes
left a lecture for researchers from his planet and joined Clocker with
no more than polite curiosity on his paternal face. Clocker told him
briefly and bitterly about his talk with Zelda, and asked bluntly what
was in it for the aliens.
"I think you can answer that," said Barnes. "You're a scientist of a
sort. You determine the probable performance of a group of horses by
their heredity, previous races and other factors. A very laborious
computation, calling for considerable aptitude and skill. With that same
expenditure of energy, couldn't you earn more in other fields?"
"I guess so," Clocker said. "But I like the track."
"Well, there you are. The only human form of gain we share is desire for
knowledge. You devote your skill to predicting a race that is about to
be run; we devote ours to recording a race that is about to destroy
itself."
Clocker grabbed the alien's coat, pushed his face grimly close. "There,
that's the hook! Take away the doom push and this racket folds."