Mack Reynolds - Rolltown

The doctor shifted his shoulders again. “I feel the same way. As far as the auxiliaries are concerned, some, such as the ad building and the school, were bought by popular subscription when the town first organized some years ago. Others are privately owned. Sam Prager’s TV and electronic repair shop, for instance. Evidently, Sam had always loved to tinker. When his job was automated out from under him, he and his wife, Edith, took what resources they had and made a down-payment on a mobile home and equipped one room as a repair shop.”

“I wonder why Sam joined New Woodstock,” Bat said. “You’d think he’d look up a town that had a lot of members with similar interests in fiddling around with electronics.”

“Edith writes. Poetry, I believe. She’s on the striving intellectual side. Answer the question yourself, Bat. Why has a healthy, comparatively young fellow like you retired to a life in New Woodstock?”

Bat told him.

The doctor was irritated. “The word intelligence has its elastic qualities,” he said. “The tests we now use are considerably more efficient than they used to be; however, the I.Q. test largely measures the speed of your thinking, not necessarily its quality.”

“How do you mean?”

The testy old man said, “See here. Suppose you were shipwrecked on a deserted island. Who would you rather have as a companion, a computer programmer with an I.Q. of 150#longdash#gifted, in short#longdash#or a chappie with an I.Q. of 110, slightly above average, who was a professional fisherman and spent his vacations in hunting, hiking and skin diving.”

Bat said dryly, “These days, you’re not apt to be shipwrecked. And under the Meritocracy high I.Q. is the criteria that counts.”

The doctor said, “Fast thinking isn’t always the best. All chess players of premier standing don’t necessarily have high I.Q.s, nor do all top-ranking scientists. Some are pluggers, rather than speed-demon types. In mathematics, for another example, I once studied a boy of twelve who could do problems in his head almost as fast as you could state them. His mind worked at computer speed when it came to multiplication or division. Yet he was just short of being a moron.”

“Well, be that as it may, under the Meritocracy you’re primarily judged by your I.Q. and evidently on an average the system works. You’ve really got to operate to buck the system, get a decent education, get a position with one of the major corporations.”

Doc Barnes reached over and took Bat’s wrist. He said, “Your pulse is all right and you’ve lost the clammy feeling of shock. I suppose you could go now. One thing I ought to say to you, Bat, on this low I.Q. thing. You’re building up a grand inferiority complex.”

Bat Hardin stood and turned to leave. He said, lowly, “It’s not an inferiority complex, Doc. I am inferior.”

Before going to the mobile mansion which was the home of Dean Armanruder, Bat Hardin headed for the considerably less ostentatious home of his deputy, Al Castro.

On the way, he passed the camper of Ferd Zogbaum and considered momentarily sticking his head inside and inquiring about the other’s headache. It was a strange thing, that headache. What had Ferd said? That every time he got into a fight the headache hit him.

He approached the other’s camper but then drew himself up. Through one of the windows he could see Ferd sitting at his tiny desk talking earnestly into a TV phone. There was a, well, anxious look on his face, one of strain, although he was seemingly trying to control that element of his expression.

Bat shrugged and moved on. Since it seemed unlikely that the freelance writer had any contacts here in Mexico, he must have been communiciating with someone back in the States and the conversation was seemingly of more than passing interest.

Bat shrugged again. For all he knew, Ferd was querying some editor about an article. Possibly the strained element was there because he needed the money. But why should Ferd Zogbaum be hard up for money? He was a single fellow and eligible for his NIT. He could go all year without selling any of his pieces and never be really up against it, particularly since mobile town life was comparatively cheap and Mexico, in particular, considerably less expensive than the States. NIT, these days, was enough that anyone could live-it-up in Mexico or some of the other Latin American countries to the south. And more and more people were discovering the fact every day as witness the exodus of mobile towns and cities southward.

Al Castro’s home was approximately the size of Bat’s own but since he lived with his well-larded wife, Pamela, the space was really less than he could have wished for. The place was lighted up but the curtains drawn. Bat rang the bell.

Al came, yawning as ever, and opened up.

“Hi, Bat, what’s on? Jesus, it’s been a hot day. I hate heat. Come on in. Have a drink. Me and the old lady’s having a gin and a mixer they call Del Valle down here, based on grapefruit juice. Makes something like a Tom Collins.”

Bat followed him into the mobile home.

Pamela Castro was sitting at the small dining-room table, a tall frosted glass there and a wilted look about her. She was an objectionably fat woman and Bat had never particularly got along with her. She couldn’t see any reason for her husband donating his time as Bat’s deputy when he received no compensation. Theoretically she was a water colorist but in actuality she spent precious little time working at it.

Bat exchanged the usual amenities and turned back to Al Castro wondering all over again how any man could bear having a wife who outweighed him almost two to one and was a couple of inches taller to boot. Well, his wife was one of the few things that Al Castro never seemed to complain about, so evidently she suited him.

Bat said, “No thanks. I just had a drink and got knocked for a loop.”

“They got strong liquor down here, all right,” Al nodded. “But it tastes like turpentine. Take the tobacco stain right off your teeth. I’ll stick to Stateside grog.”

“It wasn’t the liquor,” Bat said wryly. “It was the bartender. He slugged me with a kid-sized baseball bat.”

Al Castro goggled him. “What’re you talking about?”

Bat told him what had happened and then, “I’m heading over to see Armanruder but whatever he says I think we’d better post a guard tonight. Why don’t you round up a couple of the emergency deputies, say Jake Benton’s boy, Tom, and Luke Robertson? We’ll share watches, four hours on, four hours off.”

“Heavens to Betsy,” Pamela complained in a half whine. “Is this getting to be an all day, all night thing? What do you get out of it, up and down all night? You’ll be too tired to drive tomorrow.”

Al said placatingly, “It’s an emergency, honey. You know how seldom we have to guard the town at night.”

“That was up in the States,” she grumbled. “I bet from now on you’ll be doing it every night, with these spies and all.”

Al didn’t answer that. He turned back to Bat. “Okay, I’ll run over and get Tom and Luke. You want we should carry shooters?”

“Good grief, no,” Bat told him. “That’s all we’d need, is to shoot one of these jokers. We’re not even in our own country. They’d stick you in the slammer until you rotted.”

“Well, suppose somebody takes a shot at me, first?”

Bat made a gesture of resignation with his hands. “In that case, what can you do? Make a beeline for home and get your own gun, but, oh man, tread carefully. For some reason or other, these people are already down on us. Damn if I can figure out why.” He turned to go, saying goodbye over his shoulder to the disgruntled Pamela Castro. She muttered a reply.