Robert Sheckley: A Ticket to Tranai

“Seems pretty slow,” Goodman commented cautiously.

“You’re right,” Abbag said. “Damned slow. Personally, I think it’s about right. But Consumer Research indicates that our customers want it slower still.”

“Huh?”

“Ridiculous, isn’t it?” Abbag asked moodily. “We’ll lose money if we slow it down any more. Take a look at its guts.”

Goodman opened the back panel and blinked at the maze of wiring within. After a moment, he was able to figure it out. The robot was built like a modern Earth machine, with the usual inexpensive high-speed circuits. But special signal-delay relays, impulse-rejection units and step-down gears had been installed.

“Just tell me,” Abbag demanded angrily, “how can we slow it down any more without building the thing a third bigger and twice as expensive? I don’t know what kind of a disimprovement they’ll be asking for next.”

Goodman was trying to adjust bis thinking to the concept of disimproving a machine.

On Earth, the plants were always trying to build robots with faster, smoother, more accurate responses. He had never found any reason to question the wisdom of this. He still didn’t.

“And as if that weren’t enough,” Abbag complained, “the new plastic we developed for this particular model has catalyzed or some damned thing. Watch.”

He drew back his foot and kicked the robot in the middle. The plastic bent like a sheet of tin. He kicked again. The plastic bent still further and the robot began to click and flash pathetically. A third kick shattered the case. The robot’s innards exploded in spectacular fashion, scattering over the floor. “Pretty flimsy,” Goodman said.

“Not flimsy enough. It’s supposed to fly apart on the first kick. Our customers won’t get any satisfaction out of stubbing their toes on its stomach all day. But tell me, how am I supposed to produce a plastic that’ll take normal wear and tear — we don’t want these things falling apart accidentally — and still go to pieces when a customer wants it to?”

“Wait a minute,” Goodman protested. “Let me get this straight. You purposely slow these robots down so they will irritate people enough to destroy them?”

Abbag raised both eyebrows. “Of course!”

“Why?”

“You are new here,” Abbag said. “Any child knows that. It’s fundamental.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d explain.”

Abbag sighed. “Well, first of all, you are undoubtedly aware that any mechanical contrivance is a source of irritation. Human-kind has a deep and abiding distrust of machines. Psychologists call it the instinctive reaction of life to pseudo-life. Will you go along with me on that?”

Marvin Goodman remembered all the anxious literature he had read about machines revolting, cybernetic brains taking over the world, androids on the march, and the like. He thought of humorous little newspaper items about a man shooting his television set, smashing his toaster against the wall, “getting even” with his car. He remembered all the robot jokes, with their undertone of deep hostility.

“I guess I can go along on that,” said Goodman.

“Then allow me to restate the proposition,” Abbag said pedantically. “Any machine is a source of irritation. The better a machine operates, the stronger the irritation. So, by extension, a perfectly operating machine is a focal point for frustration, loss of self-esteem, undirected resentment…”

“Hold on there!” Goodman objected. “I won’t go that far!”

“ — and schizophrenic fantasies,” Abbag continued inexorably. “But machines are necessary to an advanced economy. Therefore the best human solution is to have malfunctioning ones.”

“I don’t see that at all.”

“It’s obvious. On Terra, your gadgets work close to the optimum, producing inferiority feelings in their operators. But unfortunately you have a masochistic tribal tabu against destroying them. Result? Generalized anxiety in the presence of the sacrosanct and unhumanly efficient Machine, and a search for an aggression-object, usually a wife or friend. A very poor state of affairs. Oh, it’s efficient, I suppose, in terms of robot-hour production, but very inefficient in terms of long-range health and well-being.”

“I’m not sure…”

“The human is an anxious beast. Here on Tranai, we direct anxiety toward this particular point and let it serve as an outlet for a lot of other frustrations as well. A man’s had enough — blam! He kicks hell out of his robot. There’s an immediate and therapeutic discharge of feeling, a valuable — and valid — sense of superiority over mere machinery, a lessening of general tension, a healthy flow of adrenalin into the bloodstream, and a boost to the industrial economy of Tranai, since he’ll go right out and buy another robot. And what, after all, has he done? He hasn’t beaten his wife, suicided, declared a war, invented a new weapon, or indulged in any of the other more common modes of aggression-resolution. He has simply smashed an inexpensive robot which he can replace immediately.”

“I guess it’ll take me a little time to understand,” Goodman admitted.

“Of course it will. I’m sure you’re going to be a valuable man here, Goodman. Think over what I’ve said and try to figure out some inexpensive way of disimproving this robot.”

Goodman pondered the problem for the rest of the day, but he couldn’t immediately adjust his thinking to the idea of producing an inferior machine. It seemed vaguely blasphemous. He knocked off work at five-thirty, dissatisfied with himself, but determined to do better — or worse, depending on viewpoint and conditioning.

After a quick and lonely supper, Goodman decided to call on Janna Vley. He didn’t want to spend the evening alone with his thoughts and he was in desperate need of finding something pleasant, simple and uncomplicated in this complex Utopia. Perhaps this Janna would be the answer.

The Vley home was only a dozen blocks away and he decided to walk.

The basic trouble was that he had had his own idea of what Utopia would be like and it was difficult adjusting his thinking to the real thing. He had imagined a pastoral setting, a planetful of people in small, quaint villages, walking around in flowing robes and being very wise and gentle and understanding. Children who played in the golden sunlight, young folk danced in the village square…

Ridiculous! He had pictured a tableau rather than a scene, a series of stylized postures instead of the ceaseless movement of life. Humans could never live that way, even assuming they wanted to. If they could, they would no longer be humans.

He reached the Vley house and paused irresolutely outside. What was he getting himself into now? What alien — although indubitably Utopian — customs would he run into?

He almost turned away. But the prospect of a long night alone in his hotel room was singularly unappealing. Gritting his teeth, he rang the bell.

A red-haired, middle-aged man of medium height opened the door. “Oh, you must be that Terran fellow. Janna’s getting ready. Come in and meet the wife.”

He escorted Goodman into a pleasantly furnished living room and pushed a red button on the wall. Goodman wasn’t startled this time by the bluish derrsin haze. After all, the manner in which Tranaians treated their women was their own business.

A handsome woman of about twenty-eight appeared from the haze.

“My dear,” Vley said, “this is the Terran, Mr. Goodman.”

“So pleased to meet you,” Mrs. Vley said. “Can I get you a drink?”

Goodman nodded. Vley pointed out a comfortable chair. In a moment, Mrs. Vley brought in a tray of frosted drinks and sat down.

“So you’re from Terra,” said Mr. Vley. “Nervous, hustling sort of place, isn’t it? People always on the go?”