Robert Silverberg: Company Store

It was worse than slavery.

There had to be some way out.

But after ransacking the contract for nearly an hour, Wingert concluded that it was airtight.

Angrily he glared up at the beaming robot.

“What are you hanging around here for? You’ve made your sale. Shove off!”

XL-ad41 shook its head. “You still owe me $500 for the generator. And surely you can’t expect me to return to my manufacturers after having made only two sales. Why, they’d turn me off in an instant and begin developing an XL-ad42!”

“Did you hear what Smathers said? I’ll be violating my contract if they see me buying anything more from you. Go on, now. Take your generator back. The sale is cancelled. Visit some other planet; I’m in enough hot water as it is without—”

“Sorry,” the robot said, and it seemed to Wingert that there was an ominous note in its mellow voice. “This is the seventeenth planet I’ve called at since being sent forth by my manufacturers, and I have no sale to show for it but one tube of Gloglam Depilating Fluid. It’s a poor record. I don’t dare return yet.”

“Try somewhere else, then. Find a planet full of suckers and give ’em the hard sell. I can’t buy from you.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to,” the robot said mildly. “My specifications call for me to return to Densobol for inspection after my seventeenth visit.” A panel in the robot’s abdomen opened whirringly and Wingert saw the snout of a Molecular Disruptor emerge.

“The ultimate sales tactic, eh? If the customer won’t buy, pull a gun and make him buy. Except it won’t work here. I haven’t any money.”

“Your friends on Terra will send some. I must return to Densobol with a successful sales record. Otherwise—”

“I know. They’ll dismantle you.”

“Correct. Therefore, I must approach you this way. And I fully intend to carry out my threat if you refuse.”

“Hold on here!” a new voice cut in. “What’s going on, Wingert?”

Wingert glanced at the Transmitter. The screen was lit, and Smathers’ plump face glared outward at him.

“It’s this robot,” Wingert said. “It’s under some sort of sales compulsion, and it just pulled a gun on me.”

“I know. I saw the whole thing on the spybeam.”

“I’m in a nice spot now,” Wingert said dismally. He glanced from the waiting robot to the unsmiling Smathers. “If I don’t buy from this robot, it’ll murder me—and if I do buy anything, you’ll spy it and fine me.” Wingert wondered vaguely which would be worse.

“I stock many fine devices unknown on Earth,” the robot said proudly. “A Pioneer-Model Dreeg-Skinner, in case there are dreegs on Quellac—though frankly I doubt that. Or else you might want our Rotary Diatom-Strainer, or perhaps a new-model Hegley Neuronic Extractor—”

“Quiet,” Wingert snapped. He turned back to Smathers. “Well, what do I do? You’re the Company; protect your colonist from this marauding alien.”

“We’ll send you a weapon, Colonist Wingert.”

“And have me try to outdraw a robot? You’re a lot of help,” Wingert said broodingly. Even if he escaped somehow from this dilemma, he knew the Company still had him by the throat over the “Necessities of Life” clause. His accumulated shipping charges in three years would—

He sucked his breath in sharply. “Smathers?”

“Yes?”

“Listen to me: if I don’t buy from the robot, it’ll blast me with a Molecular Disruptor. But I can’t buy from the robot, even if the Company would let me, because I don’t have any money. Money’s necessary if I want to stay alive. Get it? Necessary?”

“No,” Smathers said. “I don’t get it.”

“What I’m saying is that the item I most need to preserve my life is money. It’s a necessity of life. And therefore you have to supply me gratis with all the money I need, until this robot decides it’s sold me enough. If you don’t come through, I’ll sue the Company for breach of contract.”

Smathers grinned. “Try it. You’ll be dead before you can contact a lawyer. The robot will kill you.”

Sweat poured down Wingert’s back, but he felt the moment of triumph approaching. Reaching inside his khaki shirt, he drew out the thick pseudoparchment sheet that was his contract.

“You refuse! You refuse to supply a necessity of life! The contract,” Wingert declared, “is therefore void.” Before Smathers’ horrified gaze he ripped the document up and tossed the pieces over his shoulder carelessly.

“Having broken your end of the contract,” Wingert said, “you relieve me of all further obligations to the Company. Therefore I’ll thank you to remove your damned spybeam from my planet.”

“Your planet?”

“Precisely. Squatter’s rights—and since there’s no longer a contract between us, you’re forbidden by galactic law to spy on me!”

Smathers looked dazed. “You’re a fast talker, Wingert. But we’ll fight this. Wait till I refer this upstairs. You won’t get out of this so easily!”

Wingert flashed a cocky grin. “Refer it upstairs, if you want. I’ve got the law on my side.”

Smathers snarled and broke the contact.

“Nicely argued,” said XL-ad41 approvingly. “I hope you win your case.”

“I have to,” Wingert said. “They can’t touch me, not if their contract is really binding on both parties. If they try to use their spybeam record as evidence against me, it’ll show you threatening me. They don’t have a leg to stand on.”

“But how about me? I—”

“I haven’t forgotten. There is a Molecular Disruptor in your belly waiting to disrupt me.” Wingert grinned at the robot. “Look here, XL-ad41, face facts: you’re a lousy salesman. You have a certain degree of misused guile, but you lack tact, subtlety. You can’t go selling people things at gunpoint very long without involving your manufacturers in an interstellar war. As soon as you get back to Densobol and they find out what you’ve done, they’ll dismantle you quicker than you can sell a Dreeg-Skinner.”

“I was thinking that myself,” the robot admitted.

“Good. But I’ll make a suggestion: I’ll teach you how to be a salesman. I used to be one, myself; besides, I’m an Earthman, and innately shrewd. When I’m through with you, you move on to the next planet—I think your makers will forgive you if you make an extra stop—and sell out all your stock.”

“It sounds wonderful,” XL-ad41 said.

“One string is attached. In return for the education I’ll give you, you’re to supply me with such things as I need to live comfortably here on a permanent basis. Cigars, magneboots, short-range transmitters, depilator, etc. I’m sure your manufacturers will think it’s a fair exchange, my profit-making shrewdness for your magneboots. Oh, and I’ll need one of those force-field generators too—just in case the Company shows up and tries to make trouble.”

The robot glowed happily. “I’m sure such an exchange can be arranged. I believe this now makes us partners.”

“It does indeed,” Wingert said. “As your first lesson, let me show you an ancient Terran custom that a good salesman ought to know.” He gripped the robot’s cold metal hand firmly in his own. “Shake, partner!”