Robert Silverberg: Company Store

His face was neat and pink where he’d applied the depilator. He hadn’t had such a good shave in years. Enthusiastically he rubbed the remainder of the tube on his face, thereby discovering that the robot had given him just enough to shave one cheek and most of his chin.

Wingert chuckled. Bumbling and pedantic it might be, but the creature knew a little basic salesmanship, at least.

“Well?” XL-ad41 asked, reappearing as if beckoned. “Are you satisfied?”

Grinning, Wingert said, “That was pretty sly—giving me enough to shave half my face, I mean. But the stuff is good; there’s no denying that.”

“How many tubes will you take?”

Wingert pulled out his billfold. He had brought only $16 with him; he hadn’t expected to have any use for Terran currency on Quellac, but there had been a ten, a five, and a one in his wallet at blast-off time.

“One tube,” he said. He handed the robot the tattered single. XL-ad41 bowed courteously, reached into a pectoral compartment, and drew out the remainder of the tube he had shown Wingert before.

“Uh-uh,” the Earthman said quickly. “That’s the tube you took the sample from—and the sample was supposed to be free. I want a full tube.”

“The proverbial innate shrewdness of the Terran,” XL-ad41 observed mournfully. “I defer to it.”

It gave a second tube to Wingert, who examined it and slid it into his tunic. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some unpacking to do,” Wingert said.

He strode around the smiling robot, grabbed the crowbar, and began opening the crate that housed his bubble home. Suddenly the Matter-transmitter emitted a series of loud buzzes followed by a dull clonk.

“Your machine has delivered something,” XL-ad41 ventured.

Wingert lifted the lid of the “Receive” platform and drew out a small package wrapped neatly in plastofil. He peeled away the wrapping.

Within was a box containing twenty-four double-edged blades, a tube of shaving cream and a bill folded lengthwise. Wingert read it:

Razor blades, as ordered $00.23

Shaving cream, as ordered $00.77

Charge for transportation $50.00

Total $51.00

“You look pale,” the robot said. “Perhaps you have some disease. You might be interested in purchasing the Derblong Self-Calibrating Medical Autodiagnostical Servomechanism, which I happen to—”

“No,” Wingert said grimly. “I don’t need anything like that. Get, out of my way.”

He stalked back to the Transmitter and jabbed down savagely on the Activator Stud. A moment later Smathers’ bland voice said, “Hello, Colonist Wingert. Something wrong?”

“There sure is,” Wingert said in a strangled voice. “My razor blades just showed up—with a $50 bill for transportation! What kind of racket is this, anyway? I was told that you’d ship my supplies out free of charge. It says in the contract—”

“The contract says,” Smathers interrupted smoothly, “that all necessities of life will be transmitted without cost, Colonist Wingert. It makes no mention of free supply of luxuries. The Company would be unable to bear the crushing financial burden of transporting any and all luxury items a colonist might desire.”

“Razor blades are luxury items?” Wingert choked back an impulse to kick the Transmitter’s control panel in. “How can you have the audacity to call razor blades luxury items?”

“Most colonists let their beards grow,” Smathers said. “Your reluctance to do so, Colonist Wingert, is your own affair. The Company—”

“I know. The Company cannot be expected to bear the crushing financial burden. Okay,” Wingert said. “In the future I’ll be more careful about what I order. And as for now, take these damned razor blades back and cancel the requisition.” He dumped the package in the “Send” bin and depressed the control stud.

“I’m sorry you did that,” Smathers said. “It will now be necessary for us to assess you an additional $50 to cover the return shipping.”

“What?”

“However,” Smathers went on, “we’ll see to it after this that you’re notified in advance anytime there may be a shipping charge on goods sent to you.”

“Thanks,” Wingert said hoarsely.

“Since you don’t want razor blades, I presume you’re going to grow a beard. I rather thought you would. Most colonists do, you know.”

“I’m not growing any beards. Some vending robot from the Densobol system wandered through here about ten minutes ago and sold me a tube of depilating paste.”

Smathers’ eyes nearly popped. “You’ll have to cancel that purchase,” he said, his voice suddenly stern.

Wingert stared incredulously at the pudgy face in the screen. “Now you’re going to interfere with that, too?”

“Purchasing supplies from anyone but the Company is a gross violation of your contract, Colonist Wingert! It makes you subject to heavy penalty! After all, we agreed to supply you with your needs. For you to call in an outside supplier is to rob the Company of its privilege of serving you, Colonist Wingert. You see?”

Wingert was silent for almost a minute, too dizzy with rage to frame words. Finally he said, “So I get charged $50 shipping costs every time I requisition razor blades from you people, but if I try to buy depilating paste on my own it violates my contract? Why, that’s—that’s usury! Slavery! It’s illegal!”

The voice from the Matter-Transmitter coughed warningly. “Powerful accusations, Colonist Wingert. I suggest that before you hurl any more abuse at the Company you read your contract more carefully.”

“I don’t give a damn about the contract! I’ll buy anywhere I please!”

Smathers grinned triumphantly. “I was afraid you’d say that. You realize that you’ve now given us legal provocation to slap a spybeam on you in order to make sure you don’t cheat us by violating your contract?”

Wingert sputtered. “Spybeam? But—I’ll smash your accursed Transmitter! Then try to spy on me!”

“We won’t be able to,” Smathers conceded. “But destroying a Transmitter is a serious felony, punishable by heavy fine. Good afternoon, Colonist Wingert.”

“Hey! Come back here! You can’t—”

Wingert punched the Activator Stud three times, but Smathers had broken the contact and would not reopen it.

Scowling, Wingert turned away and sat down on the edge of a crate.

“Can I offer you a box of Sugrath Anti-Choler Tranquilizing Pills?” XL-ad41 said helpfully. “Large economy size.”

“Shut up and leave me alone!”

Wingert stared moodily at the shiny tips of his boots. The Company, he thought, had him sewed up neatly. He had no money and no way of returning to Earth short of dividing himself into three equal chunks and teleporting. And though Quellac was an attractive planet, it lacked certain aspects of Earth. Tobacco, for one. Wingert enjoyed smoking.

A box of cigars would be $2.40 plus $75 shipping costs. And Smathers would smirk and tell him cigars were luxuries.

Sensotapes? Luxuries. Short-range transmitters? Maybe those came under the contract, since they were tools. But the pattern was clear. By the time his three-year tour was up, there would be $36,000 in salary waiting in his account—minus the various accumulated charges. He’d be lucky if he came out owing less than $20,000.

Naturally, he wouldn’t have that sort of money, and so the benevolent Company would offer a choice: either go to jail or take another three-year term to pay off your debt. So they’d ship him someplace else, and at the end of that time he’d be in twice as deep.

Year after year he would sink further into debt, thanks to that damnable contract. He’d spend the rest of his life opening up new planets for Planetary Colonizations, Inc., and never have anything to show for it but a staggering debt.