I wasn't as bad off as old Faust and his deal with the devil. My soul
was still my own. But my body was community property--and I couldn't,
by God, so much as bite my own tongue without feeling like a bloody
murderer--and being made to suffer for it, too.
Perhaps you don't think biting your tongue is any great privilege to
have to give up. Maybe not. But, no matter how you figure, you've got
to admit the situation was--well--confining.
And it lasted for over nine years.
Nine miserable years of semi-slavery? Well, no. I couldn't honestly say
that it was that bad. There were all the restrictions and limitations,
but also there was my perfect health; and what you might call a sort of
a sense of inner well-being. Added to that, there was my sensationally
successful career. And the money.
All at once, almost anything I undertook to do was sensationally
successful. I wrote, in several different styles and fields and under a
number of different names; I was terrific. My painting was the talk of
the art world. "Superb," said the critics. "An astonishing
other-worldly quality." How right they were--even if they didn't know
why. I patented a few little inventions, just for fun; and I invested.
The money poured in so fast I couldn't count it. I hired people to
count it, and to help guide it through the tax loopholes--although
there I was able to give them a few sneaky little ideas that even our
sharpest tax lawyers hadn't worked out.
Of course the catch in all that was that, actually, I was not so much a
rich, brilliant, successful man. I was a booming, prosperous nation.
The satisfaction I could take in all my success was limited by my
knowledge that it was a group effort. How could I help being
successful? I had a very fair part of the resources of a society
substantially ahead of our own working for me. As for knowledge of our
world, they didn't just know everything I did. They knew everything I
ever had known--or seen, heard, read, dreamed or thought of. They could
dig up anything, explore it, expand it and use it in ways I couldn't
have worked out in a thousand years. Sure, I was successful. I did stay
out of sports--too dangerous; entertainment--didn't lend itself too
well to the group approach; and music--they had never developed or used
sound, and we agreed not to go into it. As I figured it, music in the
soul may be very beautiful; but a full-size symphony in a sinus I could
do without.
So I had success. And there was another thing I had too. Company.
Privacy? No, I had less privacy than any man who ever lived, although I
admit that my people, as long as I obeyed the rules, were never pushy
or intrusive. They didn't come barging into my thoughts unless I
invited them. But they were always ready. And if those nine years were
less than perfect, at least I was never lonesome. Success, with me, was
not a lonely thing.
And there were women.
Yes, there were women. And finally, at the end of it, there was a
woman--and that was it.
As they had explained it, they were prepared to be tolerant about
my--ah--relations with women as long as I was "reasonable" in my
selection. Come to find out, they were prepared to be not just tolerant
but insistent--and very selective.
First there was Helga.
Helga was Uncle John's secretary, a great big, healthy, rosy-cheeked,
blonde Swedish girl, terrific if you liked the type. Me, I hadn't ever
made a move in her direction, partly because she was so close to Uncle
John, but mostly because my tastes always ran to the smaller types. But
tastes can be changed.
Ten days after that first conversation with my people I'd already
cleared something like $50,000 in a few speculations in the commodity
market. I was feeling a little moody in spite of it, and I decided to
quit my job. So I went up that afternoon to Uncle John's office to tell
him.
Uncle John was out. Helga was in. There she was, five foot eleven of
big, bouncy, blonde smorgasbord. Wow! Before, I'd seen Helga a hundred
times, looked with mild admiration but not one real ripple inside. And
now, all at once, wow! That was my people, of course, manipulating
glands, thoughts, feelings. "Wow!" it was.