William Tenn - A Man of Family

Stewart Raley found his seat in the Commuter’s Special—the stratojet that carried him every day from the Metropolitan New York Business Area to his suburban home in northern New Hampshire—with legs that literally felt not and eyes that really and truly saw not.

It was pure habit, years and years of the same repetitive act, that enabled him to find his accustomed place at the window beside Ed Greene; it was habit that pushed his forefinger at the button imbedded in the seat back immediately ahead of him; and it was habit that then kept him staring at the late-afternoon news telecast in the tiny seat-back screen, even though none of his senses registered a single one of the rapid-fire, excitedly announced bulletins.

He did hear, dimly, the scream of the jet’s takeoff, but it was habit again that kept his feet firm on the floor and that tensed his abdominal muscles against the encircling safety belt. And that meant, he realized, that he was getting closer to a situation where habit would be of no help at all—where nothing would be of any help. Not against about the worst possible thing that could happen to a man in 2080 A.D.

“Had a rough day, Stew?” Ed Greene asked him with beery aoudness. “You look tired as hell.”

Raley felt his lips move, but it was a while before sound came out of his throat. “Yes,” he said finally. “I had a rough day.”

“Well, and who asked you to work for Solar Minerals?” Ed asked, as if he were replying to a sharply phrased argument. “These interplanetary corporations are all the same: pressure, pressure, pressure. You got to get the invoices ready right now, this minute, this second, because the Neptunian supply ship is leaving and there won’ t be another one for six months; you got to get the Mercury correspondence all dictated because—Don’t I know? I worked for Outer Planet Pharmaceuticals fifteen years ago and 1 had a goddam bellyful. Give me the real-estate racket and accounts in the Metropolitan New York Business Area. Quiet. Solid. Calm.”

Raley nodded heavily and rubbed at his forehead. He didn’t have a headache, but he wished he had one. He wished he had anything that would make it impossible for him to think.

“Course, there’s not much money in it,” Ed went on, boomingly viewing the other side of the question. “There’s not much money, but there’s no ulcers either. I’ll probably be stuck in a two-child bracket all my life—but it’ll be a long life. We take things slow and easy in my office. We know little old New York’s been here a long time, and it’ll he here a long time to come.”

“Yes,” Raley said, still staring straight ahead of him. “It will be. New York will be here for a long time to come.”

“Well, don’t say it in such a miserable tone of voice, man! Ganymede will be here for a long time, too! No one’s going to run away with Ganymede!”

Frank Tyler leaned forward from behind them. “How about a little seven-card stud, fellas?” he inquired. “We’ve got a half-hour to kill.”

Raley didn’t feel at all like playing cards, but he felt too grateful to Frank to refuse. His fellow-employee at Solar Minerals had been listening to Greene—as, inevitably, had everyone else on the plane—and he alone knew what anguish the real-estate man had been unconsciously creating. He’d probably got more and more uncomfortable and had decided to provide a distraction, any distraction.

Nice of him, Raley thought, as he and Ed spun their seats around so that they faced the other way. After all, he’d been promoted to the Ganymede desk over Frank’s head; another man in Frank’s position might have enjoyed hearing Ed sock it to him. Not Frank, he was no ghoul.

It was the usual game, with the usual four players. Bruce Robertson, the book illustrator, who sat on Frank Tyler’s left, brought his huge portfolio up off the floor and placed it table-wise on their knees. Frank opened a fresh deck and they cut for deal. Ed Greene won.

“Usual stakes?” he asked, as he shuffled the cards. “Ten, twenty, thirty?”

They nodded, and Ed began to lay out a hand. He didn’t stop talking though.

“I was telling Stew,” he explained in a voice that must have carried clear to the pilot in his sealed-off cabin, “that real estate is good for the blood pressure, if not much else. My wife is all the time telling me to move into a more hotshot field. ‘I feel so ashamed,’ she says, ‘a woman of my age with only two children. Stewart Raley is ten years younger than you and already Marian has had her fourth baby. If you were half a man, you’d be ashamed, too. If you were half a man, you’d do something about it.’ You know what I tell her? ‘Sheila,’ I say, ‘the trouble with you is you’re 36A-happy.’ ”

Bruce Robertson looked up, puzzled. “36A?”

Ed Greene guffawed. “Oh, you lucky bachelor, you! Wait’ll you get married! You’ll find out what 36A is all right. You’ll eat, sleep and drink 36A.”

“Form 36A,” Frank Tyler explained to Bruce quietly as he raked in the pot, “is what you fill out when you make application to the FPB for permission to have another child.”

“Oh. Of course. I just didn’t know the number. But wait a minute, Ed. Economic status is only one of the factors. The Family Planning Bureau also considers health of the parents, heredity, home environment—”

“What did I tell you?” Ed crowed. “A bachelor! A wet-behind-the-ears, no-child bachelor!”

Bruce Robertson turned white. “I’ll be getting married one of these days, Ed Greene,” he said through tightly set teeth. “And when I do, I’ll have more children than you ever—”

“You’re right about economic status being only one of the factors,” Frank Tyler broke in hurriedly, peaceably. “But it’s the most important single factor, and if there already are a couple of children in the family, and they seem to be in pretty good shape, it’s the factor that the FPB considers to the exclusion of almost everything else in handing down its decision.”

“Right!” Ed brought his hand down positively and the cards danced about on the portfolio-table. “Take my brother-in-law, Paul. Day and night, my wife is going Paul this, Paul that; it’s no wonder I know more about him than I do myself. Paul owns half of Mars-Earth Freighting Syndicate, so he’s in an eighteen-child bracket. His wife’s sort of lazy, she doesn’t care much for appearances, so they only have ten children, but—”

“Do they live in New Hampshire?” Frank asked. A moment before, Stewart Raley had noticed Frank glancing at him with real concern: he was evidently trying to change the subject, feeling that the direction the conversation had taken could only make Raley more miserable. It probably showed on his face.

He’d have to do something about his face: he’d be meeting Marian in a few minutes. If he wasn’t careful, she’d guess immediately.

“New Hampshire?” Ed demanded contemptuously. “My brother-in-law, Paul? With his money? No, sir! No backyard suburb for him! He lives in the real country, west of Hudson Bay, up in Canada. But, like I was saying, he and his wife don’t get along so good, the home life for the kids isn’t the best in the world, if you know what I mean. You think they have trouble getting a 36A okayed? Not on your life! They fill it out and it’s back the next morning with a big blue approved all over it. The way the FPB figures, what the hell, with their money they can afford to hire first-class nursemaids and child psychologists, and if the kids still have trouble when they grow up, they’ll get the best mental therapy that money can buy.”

Bruce Robertson shook his head. “That doesn’t sound right to me. After all, prospective parents are being turned down every day for negative heredity.”