William Tenn - Winthrop Was Stubborn

“Yeah, a real neon lit utopia,” Mr. Mead sneered. “No cops to safeguard life and property, to ask direction of even—Oh, well, it’s your world and you’re welcome to it. But that’s not the point. Don’t you see—I’m certain you can see, if you just put your mind to it—that Winthrop isn’t a citizen of your world, Storku? He didn’t go through your educational system, he didn’t have these psychological things, these readjustment courses, every couple of years, he didn’t—”

“But he came here as our invited guest,” Mr. Storku pointed out. “And, as such, he’s entitled to the full protection of our laws.”

“And we aren’t, I suppose,” Mr. Mead shouted. “He can do whatever he wants to us and get away with it. Do you call that law? Do you call that justice? I don’t. I call it bureaucracy, that’s what I call it. Red-tape and bureaucracy, that’s all it is!”

The yellow-haired young man put his hand on Mr. Mead’s shoulder. “Listen, my friend,” he said gently, “and try to understand. If Winthrop tried to do anything to you, it would be stopped. Not by interfering with Winthrop directly, but by removing you from his neighborhood. In order for us to take even such limited action, he’d have to do. That would be commission of an act interfering with your rights as an individual: what Winthrop is accused of, however, is omission of an act. He refuses to go back with you. Well, now. He has a right to refuse to do anything with his own body and mind. The Covenant of 2314 covers that area in so many words. Would you like me to quote the relevant passage to you?”

No, I would not like you to quote the relevant passage lo me. So you’re trying to say that nobody can do anything, is that it? Winthrop can keep all of us from getting back to our own time, but you can’t do anything about it and we can’t do anything about it. One hell of a note.”

An interesting phrase, that,” Mr. Storku commented. “If only there had only been an etymologist or linguist in your group, I would be interested in discussing it with him. However, your conclusion, at least in regard to this particular situation, is substantially correct. There is only one thing you can do: you can try to persuade Winthrop. Up to the last moment the scheduled transfer, that, of course, always exists as a possible solution.”

Mr. Mead brushed down his overly emotional jacket lapels. “And if we don’t, we’re out of luck? We can’t take him by the scruff of the neck and—and—”

“I’m afraid you can’t. A government machine or manufactured government official would appear on the scene and liberate him. Without any damage to your persons, you understand.”

“Sure. No damage,” Mr. Mead brooded. “Just leaving us stuck in this asylum for the rest of our lives, no ifs, no ands, no buts.”

Mr. Storku looked hurt. “Oh, come now, my friend: I’m certain it’s not that bad! It may be very different from your own culture in many ways, it may be uncomfortably alien in its artifacts and underlying philosophy, but surely, surely, there are compensations. For the loss of the old in terms of family, associates and experiences, there must be a gain in the new and exciting. Your Winthrop has found it so—he’s at Panic Stadium or Shriek Field almost every day, I’ve run into him at seminars and salons at least three times in the past ten days, and I hear from the Bureau of Home Appliances of the Department of Internal Economics that he’s a steady, enthusiastic and thoroughly dedicated consumer. What he can bring himself to do—”

“Sure he gets all those gadgets,” Mr. Mead sneered. “He doesn’t have to pay for them. A lazy relief jack like him couldn’t ask for anything better. What a world—gahhh!”

“My only point,” Mr. Storku continued equably, “is that being, well, ‘stuck in this asylum,’ as you rather vividly picture it, has its positive aspects. And since there seems to be a distinct possibility of this, it would seem logical for you people to begin investigating these positive aspects somewhat more wholeheartedly than you have instead of retreating to the security of each other’s company and such twentieth-century anachronisms as you are able to recreate.”

“We have—all we want to. What we want now, all of us, is to go home and to keep on living the lives we were born into. So what it comes down to is that nobody and nothing can help us with Winthrop, eh?”

Mr. Storku called for a jumper and held up a hand to arrest the huge cylinder in the air as soon as it appeared. “Well, now. That’s rather a broad statement. I wouldn’t quite want to go as far as that without conducting a thorough personal investigation of the matter. It’s entirely possible that someone, something, in the universe could help you if the problem were brought to its attention and if it were sufficiently interested. It’s rather a large, well-populated universe, you know. All I can say definitely is that the Department of State can’t help you.”

Mr. Mead pushed his fingernails deep into his palms and ground his teeth together until he felt the top enamel coming off in flakes and grit. “You couldn’t possibly,” he asked at last, very, very slowly, “be just a little more specific in telling us where to go for help, next? We have less than two hours left—and we won’t be able to cover very much of the galaxy in that time.”

“A good point,” Mr. Storku said approvingly. “A very well-taken point. I’m glad to see that you have calmed down and are at last thinking clearly and resourcefully. Now, who —in this immediate neighborhood—might be able to work out the solution of an insoluble problem? Well, first there’s the Temporal Embassy which handled the exchange and brought you people here in the first place. They have all kinds of connections, the Temporal Embassy people do; they can, if they feel like it, tap the total ingenuity of the human race for the next five thousand years. The trouble is, they take too much of the long view for my taste. Then there are the Oracle Machines which will give you the answer to any question that can be answered. The problem there, of course, is interpreting the answer correctly. Then, on Pluto, there’s a convention this week of vector psychologists. If anyone could figure out a way of persuading Winthrop to change his mind, they can. Unfortunately, the dominant field of interest in vector psychology at the moment is foetal education: I’m afraid they’d find your Winthrop far too mature a specimen. Then, out around Rigel, there’s a race of remarkably prescient fungi whom I can recommend out of my own personal experience. They have a most unbelievable talent for—”

The portly man waggled a frantic hand at him. “That’s enough! That’s enough to go on for a while! We only have two hours—remember?”

“I certainly do. And since it’s very unlikely that you can do anything about it in so short a time, may I suggest that you drop the whole matter and take this jumper with me to Venus? There won’t he another Odor Festival there for sixty-six years: it’s an experience, my friend, that should just not he missed. Venus always does these things right: the greatest odor-emitters in the universe will be there. And I’ll be very happy to explain all the fine points to you. Coming?”

Mr. Mead dodged out of the way of the jumper which Mr. Storku was gesturing down invitingly. “No, thank you! Why is it,” he complained when he had retreated to a safe distance, “that you people are always taking vacations, you’re always going off somewhere to relax and enjoy yourselves? How the hell does any work ever get done in this world?”

“Oh, it gets done,” the yellow-haired young man laughed as the cylinder began to slide down over him. “Whenever there’s a piece of work that only a human being can do, one us—the nearest responsible individual with the applicable training—takes care of it. But our personality goals are different from yours. In the words of the proverb: All play and no work makes Jack a dull boy.”