Damon Knight - Orbit 20

Then, instead of his screwdriver at the end of his wrist, he had a compression-molding machine. And a closed mold.

The steady rhythms of factory noise echoed and merged into a buzzing drone in his ears. The hissing of the coolant tube was constant, pure, idiotic. The crack of bones reverberated, a clang of metal bulks not quite touching. With distinct kinesthesia, he felt the skin on his wrist pop and rip, a sliced sausage. Bones crushing themselves to gravel made a crackling in the bursting stink of charred skin and pressure-cooked sinew and the styrene stench of the factory.

He felt molten plastic pump up the veins of his arm. Hot plastic and blood spattered everywhere. The cleanup crew would be mopping and scraping for a week!

Just when he felt his knees give out, some bright foreman saw fit to smash the glass out of a fire-alarm box. An emergency’s an emergency, right? The sprinkler system showered him with a fine mist, while he hung by his wrist, until the ejection cycle. They carried him to the loading dock, soaked in grimy broth, for his ride to the hospital.

There he saw a lot of white machines with rubber hoses and tubes and plastic masks and polished metal canisters and white formica counter tops and plastic drinking tumblers and rubber undersheets and rubber bibs on radiologists and see-thru smocks on specialists and a rubber mat on the lobby floor that led to a revolving door, and the next thing he knew, he was stepping through a sliding glass electric-eye door into the plush showroom of the largest prosthetics outlet in the city.

Deep carpets of spun nylon. A wall of grey plexiglas overlooking the parking lot. Recessed fluorescent lights in acoustical ceiling panels. And wood-grain shelves and shelves above and shelves below and more shelves filled with prosthetics, all attractively displayed in styrofoam holders. Here was a patent-pending big toe. Here was an expensive knee, which left the client free to choose the foot of his personal preference. What a selection! Artie thinking, wish I’d brought a date.

All of a sudden, the meditechnical team were all over him with calipers and tape measures.

Wait until you see it, they told him. The Mechand trademark hand is tops in the field. Absolutely. This baby’s got every extra in the catalog, they told him. It’s more than a hand. It’s a job asset. Your earning power is going to soar. And wait until your friends feel your new grip!

Have a look at this photo spread, they told him. The motorized spin-thimble built into the index finger will sink screws or power a wide range of light power tools. The reinforced thumb supports seventy pounds! But most important is the feel. To appreciate that, you’ve got to try it out at home. No obligation. Only minor implants. A few tests for voltage levels at your motor arcs. A fitting for your shoulder harness. And you’re set for life. Guaranteed.

Artie asked for a credit estimate.

Price is no object, they told him. All on the company tab, they assured him. Covered under the group policy.

Artie thinking, I bet I could wangle six fingers out of this deal. Or a secret compartment. Or a decoder ring.

They asked him if he realized how lucky he was to work at a plant with such a generous employee health program. They told him, these babies cost plenty, retail. Plus, you get a month’s layoff with full salary to use as a period of adjustment.

Artie thinking, nice idea. I’ll learn to jack off lefty.

The first thing he did after installation was to flex his new fingers in and out and listen to the tiny motors whir, forward and reverse. Then he figured out how to crack his knuckles. The report carried a city block.

Artie would get to wondering what happened to the hand the interns removed. Was it floating in ajar for med students to gawk at? Or did they throw it away?

Artie thought about that for a while. Somewhere, in some zip-locked plastic bag of hospital garbage, in with the pussy swabs and the left-over biscuits . . .

Artie thinking, why do I even think about this?

Q-14738. The inventory tag was dangling from a steel upright across the aisle from Artie. Fine! A start. But there was no pallet of Q-14738 boxes at ground level.

Artie dragged a stepladder to the spot and stepped up for a look at the second shelf. No luck.

Artie fetched an aluminum staircase on coasters that would let him read the stenciling on top of the boxes at the third level. The coasters snagged on some loose excelsior, but he wrestled the thing into position and climbed it. No Q-14738.

He’d need somebody to ride him up to fourth level on the fork lift.

Artie cupped his palms to his mouth and bellowed. “Hey, Kid!” One thing you had to give the New Kid: he could handle a lift truck like it was part of him—steer around any jam, swivel that fork into the tightest spaces, drag an overloaded pallet back out a narrow aisle, full throttle reverse, all the time lowering the merchandise without even looking at it. The Kid could drive.

The truck rumbled around a comer and slammed to a standstill inches behind Artie’s back. The heat rash on his neck prickled in a wash of exhaust.

The Kid slung his leg over a canister of propane fuel. “Need a lift?”

“Can we put a pallet up front?”

“Psh... You scared to fall off? Come on. I want to punch out.”

Artie clenched his hands. His right gave a bleat and a whimper, resealing itself.

“Aw, Art, we got the little thing upset! You still want to look for your sample?”

Artie set his left shoe on the right prong of the truck. The prong was no wider than the shoe. He stepped onto the other prong.

“We’re off!” the Kid yelled, and the truck lunged down the aisle, motor knocking. Artie clamped his hands to the rumbling chassis.

“No, I just want to go up!”

“Too late. You got a free ride coming.” The Kid shook his hair out behind him. Propane fumes reeked. The truck took two abrupt corners in one whirl of front-axle steering. “Hold on tight. Letting her out on the stretch.”

The roller-wheels jumped a smashed carton. Artie could see himself bucked off his perch. He grabbed the safety bars that caged the driver’s platform.

“Once around the racks, Art, that’s all you’re good for. Going up.”

With no framework of boards beneath his feet, only the steel fork, Artie was heading for the ceiling. The lift engine whined. The cold cement floor and the Kid’s grinning face shot away below him. No hand-holds to brace him, only the shelves rushing past. His shoes vibrated, rising beneath him, then jolted to a dead stop. He was standing at the fourth level.

No Q-14738. Artie hunkered over and rummaged. Nothing. He lifted his eyes.

Overhead, the worn slats of a skewed fiberboard pallet.

Who’d put a pallet on top of the whole rack? Who’d invent a fifth level, just for him? Without looking down, he shouted, “Can you take me any higher?”

A faraway voice: “Can’t be done.”

He’d have to climb. So he climbed. A firm two-handed grip on the topmost strut of the rack, three stories tall. A heave. A hoist of the leg. He rolled onto his back on the pallet. It didn’t teeter. The ceiling was a yard away.

He turned his head. One carton. No label. He reached for it to break it open and look inside.

“Art? You still up there? What would you do if I knocked off work for the day, ha ha ha?”

“What would you do if I dropped a box on your head?”

“I don’t have to listen to insults!”

The Kid revved up the truck and rolled away.

What crap, Artie murmuring and reaching to wedge his fingers under the carton flap.

Just then a finger tapped Artie on the neck.

Funny, the things that ran through Artie’s head sometimes.

Like the time he walked into the downtown prosthetics workshop, late for his periodic manual maintenance check. Before he could even take a number, the meditechnical team had him laid out on a foam rubber couch. Trained professionals jostled around him, a precise blur of smocks, tongue depressors, ammeters, jowls, bifocals, forceps, a test-your-grip machine . . .