William Tenn: Winthrop Was Stubborn

A portion of the sidewalk shot up into a mound right under the two creatures. It lowered them gently to surface level.

“Listen!” Mr. Mead yelled. “Am I glad I ran into you! I’m trying to get to the State Department and I’m having trouble. I’d appreciate a little help.”

“Sorry,” the other man said. “Klap-Lillth and I will have to be back on Ganymede in a half-hour. We’re late for an appointment as is. Why don’t you call a government machine?”

“Who is he?” the orange hedge inquired as they began to move swiftly to the entrance of a building, the sidewalk under them flowing like a happy river. “He doesn’t narga to me like one of you.”

“Time traveler,” his companion explained. “From the past. one of the exchange tourists who came in two weeks ago.”

“Aha!” said the hedge. “From the past. No wonder I couldn’t narga him. It’s just as well. You know, on Ganymede we don’t believe in time travel. It’s against our religion.”

The Earthman chuckled and dug the hedge in the twigs. Volt and your religion! You’re as much an atheist as I am, Kalp-Lillth. When was the last time you attended a shkoot seem ceremony?”

“Not since the last syzygy of Jupiter and the Sun,” the hedge admitted. “But that’s not the point. I’m still in good standing. What all you humans fail to understand about the Ganymedan religion … ”

His voice trailed off as they disappeared inside the building. Mead almost spat after them. Then he recollected himself. They didn’t have much time to fool around—and, besides, he was in a strange world with customs insanely different from his own. Who knew what the penalties were for spitting?

“Government machine,” he said resignedly to the empty air. “I want a government machine.”

He felt a little foolish, but that was what they had been told to do in any emergency. And, sure enough, a gleaming affair of wires and coils and multicolored plates appeared from nothingness beside him.

“Yes?” a toneless voice inquired. “Service needed?”

“I’m on my way to see Mr. Storku at your Department of State,” Mr. Mead explained, staring suspiciously at the largest coil nearest him. “And I’m having trouble walking on the sidewalk. I’m liable to fall and kill myself if it doesn’t stop moving under me.”

“Sorry, sir, but no one has fallen on a sidewalk for at least two hundred years, and that was a highly neurotic side-walk whose difficulties had unfortunately escaped our attention in the weekly psychological checkup. May I suggest you take a jumper? I’ll call one for you.”

“I don’t want to take a jumper. I want to walk. All you have to do is tell this damn sidewalk to relax and be quiet.”

“Sorry, sir,” the machine replied, “but the sidewalk has its job to do. Besides, Mr. Storku is not at his office. He is taking some spiritual exercise at either Shriek Field or Panic Stadium.”

“Oh, no,” Mr. Mead moaned. His worst fears had been realized. He didn’t want to go to those places again.

“Sorry, sir, but he is. Just a moment, while I check.” There were bright blue flashes amongst the coils. “Mr. Storku is doing a shriek today. He feels he has been over-aggressive recently. He invites you to join him.”

Mr. Mead considered. He was not the slightest bit interested in going to one of those places where sane people became madmen for a couple of hours; on the other hand, time was short, Winthrop was still stubborn.

“All right,” he said unhappily. “I’ll join him.”

“Shall I call a jumper, sir?”

The portly man stepped back. “No! I’ll I’ll walk.”

“Sorry, sir, but you would never get there before the shriek has begun.”

Sweetbottom’s vice-president in charge of public relations put the moist palms of his hands against his face and gently massged it, to calm himself. He must remember that this was no bellhop you could complain to the management about, no stupid policeman you could write to the newspapers about, no bungling secretary you could fire or nervous wife you could tell off—this was just a machine into whose circuits a given set of vocal reactions had been built. If he had art apoplectic fit in front of it, it would not be the slightest tat concerned: it would merely summon another machine, a medical one. All you could do was give it information or receive information from it.

“ I don’t-like-jumpers, ” he said between his teeth.

“Sorry, sir, but you expressed a desire to see Mr. Storku. If you are willing to wait until the shriek is over, there is no problem, except that you would be well advised to start for the Odor Festival on Venus where he is going next. If you wish to see him immediately, however, you must take a jumper. There are no other possibilities, sir, unless you feel that my memory circuits are inadequate or you’d like to add a new factor to the discussion.”

I’d like to add a— Oh, I give up.” Mr. Mead sagged where he stood. “Call a jumper, call a jumper.”

“Yes, sir. Here you are, sir.” The empty cylinder that suddenly materialized immediately over Mr. Mead’s head caused him to start, but while he was opening his mouth to say, “Hey! I changed—” it slid down over him.

There was darkness. He felt as if his stomach were being gently but insistently pulled out through his mouth. His liver, spleen and lungs seemed to follow suit. Then the bones of his body all fell inward to the center of his now-empty abdomen and dwindled in size until they disappeared. He collapsed upon himself.

Suddenly he was whole and solid again, and standing in a large; green meadow, with dozens of people around him. His stomach returned to its proper place and squirmed back into position. “—anged my mind. I’ll walk after all,” he said, and threw up.

Storku, a tall, genial, yellow-haired young man, was standing in front of him when the spasms had subsided and the tears ceased to leak from his eyes. “It’s such a simple thing really, Mr.Mead. Just a matter of being intently placid during the jump.

“Easy—easy to say,” Mr. Mead gasped, wiping his mouth with his handkerchief. What was the reason Storku always exuded such patronizing contempt toward him? “Why don’t you people—why don’t you people find another way to travel? In my time, comfort in transportation is the keystone, the very keystone of the industry. Any busline, any airline, which doesn’t see to it that their passengers enjoy the maximum comfort en route to their destination is out of business before you can bat an eye. Either that, or they have a new board of directors.”

“Isn’t he intriguing?” a girl near him commented to her escort. “He talks just like one of those historical romances.”

Mr. Mead glanced at her sourly. He gulped. She was nude. For that matter, so was everyone else around him, including Mr. Storku. Who knew what went on at these Shriek Field affairs, he wondered nervously? After all, he had only seen them before from a distance in the grandstand. And now he was right in the middle of these deliberate lunatics.

“Surely you’re being a bit unjust,” Mr. Storku suggested. “After all, if an Elizabethan or a man from the Classic Greek period were to go for a ride in one of your homeless carriages or iron horses—to use your vernacular—he would be extremely uncomfortable and exhibit much more physical strain than you have. It’s purely a matter of adjustment to the unfamiliar. Some adjust, like your contemporary, Winthrop; some don’t, like yourself.”

“Speaking of Winthrop—” Mr. Mead began hurriedly, glad both of the opening and the chance to change the subject.

“Everybody here?” An athletic young man inquired as he bounded up. “I’m your leader for this Shriek. On your feet, everybody, come on, let’s get those kinks out of our muscles. We’re going to have a real fine shriek.”