Robert Sheckley: Accept No Substitutes

Illustrated by Ed Emsh

Ralph Garvey’s private space yacht was in the sling at Boston Spaceport, ready for takeoff. He was on yellow standby, waiting for the green, when his radio crackled.

“Tower to G43221,” the radio buzzed. “’Please await customs inspection.”

“Righto,” said Garvey, with a calmness he did not feel. Within him, something rolled over and died.

Customs inspection! Of all the black, accursed, triple-distilled bad luck! There was no regular inspection of small private yachts. The Department had its hands full with the big interstellar liners from Cassiopeia, Algol, Deneb, and a thousand other places. Private ships just weren’t worth the time and money. But to keep them in line, Customs held occasional spot checks. No one knew when the mobile customs team would descend upon any particular spaceport. But chances of being inspected at any one time were less than fifty to one.

Garvey had been counting on that factor. And he had paid eight hundred dollars to know for certain that the East coast team was in Georgia. Otherwise, he would never have risked a twenty-year jail sentence for violation of the Sexual Morality Act.

There was a loud rap on his port. “Open for inspection, please.”

“Righto,” Garvey called out. He locked the door to the aftercabin. If the inspector wanted to look there, he was sunk. There was no place in the ship where he could successfully conceal a packing case ten feet high, and no way he could dispose of its illegal contents.

“I’m coming,” Garvey shouted. Beads of perspiration stood out on his high, pale forehead. He thought wildly of blasting off anyhow, running for it, to Mars, Venus... But the patrol ships would get him before he had covered a million miles. There was nothing he could do but try to bluff it.

He touched a button. The hatch slid back and a tall, thin uniformed man entered.

“Thought you’d get away with it, eh, Garvey?” the inspector barked. “You rich guys never learn!”

Somehow, they had found out! Garvey thought of the packing crate in the after cabin, and its human-shaped, not-yet-living contents. Damning, absolutely damning. What a fool he’d been!

He turned back to the control panel. Hanging from a comer of it, in a cracked leather holster, was his revolver. Rather than face twenty years breaking pumice on Lunar, he would shoot, then try—

“The Sexual Morality Act isn’t a blue law, Garvey,” the inspector continued, in a voice like steel against flint. “Violations can have a catastrophic effect upon the individual, to say nothing of the race. That’s why we’re going to make an example of you, Garvey. Now let’s see the evidence.”

“I don’t know what in hell you’re talking about,” Garvey said. Surreptitiously his hand began to creep toward the revolver.

“Wake up, boy!” said the inspector. “You mean you still don’t recognize me?”

Garvey stared at the inspector’s tanned, humorous face. He said, “Eddie Starbuck?”

“About time! How long’s it been, Ralph? Ten years?”

“At least ten,” Garvey said. His knees were beginning to shake from sheer relief. “Sit down, sit down, Eddie! You still drink bourbon?”

“I’ll say.” Starbuck sat down oh one of Garvey’s acceleration couches. He looked around, and nodded.

“Nice. Very nice. You must be rich indeed, old buddy.”

“I get by,” Garvey said. He handed Starbuck a drink, and poured one for himself. They talked for a while about old times at Michigan State.

“And now you’re a Customs inspector,” Garvey said.

“Yeah,” said Starbuck, stretching his long legs. “Always had a yen for the law. But it doesn’t pay like transistors, eh?”

Garvey smiled modestly. “But what’s all this about the Sexual Morality Act? A gag?”

“Not at all. Didn’t you hear the news this morning? The FBI found an underground sex factory. They hadn’t been in business long, so it was possible to recover all the surrogates. All except one.”

“Oh?” said Garvey, draining his drink.

“Yeah. That’s when they called us in. We’re covering all spaceports, on the chance the receiver will try to take the damned thing off Earth.”

Garvey poured another drink and said, very casually, “So you figured I was the boy, eh?”

Starbuck stared at him a moment, then exploded into laughter. “You, Ralph? Hell, no! Saw your name on the spaceport out-list. I just dropped in for a drink, boy, for old time’s sake. Listen, Ralph, I remember you. Hell-on-the-girls-Garvey. Biggest menace to virginity in the history of Michigan State. What would a guy like you want a substitute for?”

“My girls wouldn’t stand for it,” Garvey said, and Starbuck laughed again, and stood up.

“Look, I gotta run. Call me when you get back?”

“I sure will!” A little lightheaded, he said, “Sure you don’t want to inspect anyhow, as long as you’re here?”

Starbuck stopped and considered. “I suppose I should, for the record. But to hell with it, I wont hold you up.” He walked to the port, then turned. “You know, I feel sorry for the guy who’s got that surrogate.”

“Eh? Why?”

“Man, those things are poison! You know that, Ralph! Anything’s possible—insanity, deformation. ... And this guy may have even more of a problem.”

“Why?”

“Can’t tell you, boy,” Starbuck said. “Really can’t. It’s special information. The FBI isn’t certain yet. Besides, they’re waiting for the right moment to spring it.”

With an easy wave, Starbuck left. Garvey stared after him, thinking hard. He didn’t like the way things were going. What had started out as an illicit little vacation was turning into a full-scale criminal affair. Why hadn’t he thought of this earlier? He had been apprehensive in the sexual substitute factory, with its low lights, its furtive, white-aproned men, its reek of raw flesh and plastic. Why hadn’t he given up the idea then? The surrogates Couldn’t be as good as people said...

“Tower to G43221,” the radio crackled. “Are you ready?”

Garvey hesitated, wishing he knew what Starbuck had been hinting at. Maybe he should stop now, while there was still time.

Then he thought of the giant crate in the after cabin, and its contents, waiting for activation, waiting for him. His pulse began to race. He knew that he was going through with it, no matter what the risk.

He signalled to the tower, and strapped himself into the control chair.

An hour later he was in space.

Twelve hours later, Garvey cut his jets. He was a long way from Earth, but nowhere near Luna. His detectors, pushed to their utmost limit, showed nothing in his vicinity. No liners were going by, no freighters, no police ships, no yachts. He was alone. Nothing and no one was going to disturb him.

He went into the after cabin. The packing case was just as he had left it, securely fastened to the deck. Even the sight of it was vaguely exciting. Garvey pressed the activating stud on the outside of the case, and sat down to wait for the contents to awaken and come to life.

The surrogates had been developed earlier in the century. They had come about from sheer necessity. At that time, mankind was beginning to push out into the galaxy. Bases had been established on Venus, Mars and Titan, and the first interstellar ships were arriving at Algol and Stagoe II. Man was leaving Earth.

Man—but not woman.

The first settlements were barely toeholds in alien environments. The work was harsh and demanding, and life expectancy was short. Whole settlements were sometimes wiped out before the ships were fully unloaded. The early pioneers were like soldiers on the line of battle, and exposed to risks no soldier had ever encountered.