Дэймон Найт - Orbit 13

—Force of circumstances driving the protagonists to the commission of a dreadful act . . .

(He is standing at the window. It is open, and he speaks words to it. They scatter on the darkness, random as facts, unforgiving. He has done this before. He will do this again. He is free.)

I remember the last night. We had just made love and she stood at the window, her stomach bulging slightly now and her breasts full, the old stretch-marks lost. The motel sign was red on the glass; darkness entered through the window. And she said, Jim. Jim . . . we’re leaving. When she turned to me, light from the hall glinted on tears in her eyes that, now, would never fall. I’m sorry. After a moment I stood and nodded, then came up here and began to write down everything I remembered about her. At dawn I found I could write no more, and I realised she was gone.

(He is tall, large, with deep blue eyes and heavy ridges above them, like shelves for dark things that might fall out of the sky. He listens to his own voice ringing in the corridors of night. He smiles. It is almost over now.)

It is 3 A.M. now, a cool night wrapped in clouds, and again unable to sleep, I take down a book. It is a foreign edition and with a small silver knife I must cut the pages free as I read:

We are to recognise how all that comes into being must be ready for a sorrowful end; we are forced to look into the terrors of the individual existence—yet we are not to become rigid with fear: a metaphysical comfort tears us momentarily from the bustle of the changing figures. We are really for a brief moment—

But wait. There are sounds outside now. Voices milling about, feet. Voices. Together.

I go to the window. There are fires. The villagers have come at last.

“FOR THIS I came all the way downtown? Hell, Emma, it’s a machine! You didn’t tell me it would be a machine. At these prices, I refuse to talk to a machine. I demand something better.”

“You refuse. You demand. That’s right. Just keep it up, Harold. The machine is listening. Hear that, machine? Are you listening? Mister Big Shot refuses. Mister Egg-sec-u-tiff demands. Wait. Next he’ll start bossing you around. The same way he does me.”

“Must you distort everything, Emma? See here, machine, I think you can appreciate my position. I’m a sensitive man. Forced to come up the hard way. Groveling and clawing and shoving for everything I’ve got. When I get home at night, all I ask from her is a little understanding. Do I get it? No. What do I get instead? Nagging. Complaining. ‘The servants did this. The children did that.’ I can’t take much more of it, machine. Already I’ve developed a very nervous stomach.”

“Good morning.” From the machine’s tuba-shaped loudspeaker-mouth. “Please be seated.” A pleasant voice. Persuasively calming. They sat down. “According to my schedule, you two should be Mr. and Mrs. Harold Hokey. Is that correct?”

Harold answered. “Substantially, yes, but lately we’ve taken to pronouncing it ho -kay, though. The rhymester at my ad agency suggested it. To go along with their creative strategy. See, I advertise a lot. I’m mister big in aphrodisiacs, you know. You’ve probably heard my ad a million times. Too pooped to play? Make it ho-kay. On TV? Every night?”

“Sorry, no. I have you down as a compatibility problem. What seems to be the trouble?”

Emma quickly fielded that one. “The trouble is that Harold High Hat there thinks he’s God Almighty. Lord of the manner. Don’t you let him fool you with that ‘I’m so sensitive’ crap. Ask him why all that sensitivity didn’t bother him the time he automated elk antler production and laid off those sweet old shepherds. How that man did gloat. All I heard about for weeks. Go ahead, ask him. You’ll see. He’s the one who needs help, not me.”

“Now one minute, Emma.” Harold stood up. The books advised it in situations like this. Put you at a better advantage. Gave you the psychological edge. People were all conditioned. Height equals authority. “I think we’re taking a few things out of context, here, aren’t we?”

“Please sit down, Mr. Ho-kay,” from the machine.

“No, I will not.” Harold scowled down at the machine. “Not until I get her to admit she’s sick. And she is. It takes a genuinely sick mind to keep hammering away at me this way. Ruining my health. By distorting the facts. With sniveling half-truths.” Harold turned. Ready. Thinking on his feet. Humiliate. Degrade. Discredit. Get that bitch.

“MR. HO-KAY.” Stereophonic sound. At least two hundred watts. Fifteen-inch woofer. Thirty or forty mid-ranges. God-only-knows how many tweeters. Full blast. From at least thirty feet off the floor. “PLEASE SIT DOWN.”

He sat down.

The machine’s voice took on a cheery lilt. “Let’s probe around at random, for a while. See if we can define the parameters of your problem. For instance, what are your hobbies? Harold?”

Harold brightened considerably. “I collect ad art. Not that crummy stuff you buy in those cheapie galleries down on Forty-second Street. Stuff that’s already been thumbed over by a million people. No. I collect good stuff. First drafts. Signed by copywriter and art director. In fact, hanging in our living room, I have the original storyboard for the Bubbly-Seltzer ‘Grandma’s Coming to Dinner’ commercial. You know the one. Opens with a long shot of everybody rushing around. Straightening up the house. Cooking. Fantastic thing of three or four years ago. On the tube five, maybe six times a day. Anyway, I have it. Authentic as hell. Some of the most prominent experts in the country certified it before I bought. Had to pay a fancy price for it, too. Art like that doesn’t come along often. And I have more. Print stuff. The very first two-page spread for Whoops-A-Daisy. That one didn’t come cheap, either.”

“I don’t imagine so. Now, you, Emma. What’s your hobby?” the machine asked with soothing, pear-shaped tones.

Emma forsook candor for retaliation. “My hobby? Whining. According to Harold. He thinks I’ve got it so easy. Staying home alone. Raising the children by myself. While he’s off somewhere gallivanting round the world looking for more ways to make people hot.”

“Emma”—Harold whirled in his chair to face her—”you shut your filthy mouth.”

She leaned forward. “Well, I get hot, too, Harold, and you aren’t much help cooling me off, anymore, you know.” A direct hit, and she knew it.

“Stop it, do you hear me,” Harold screamed. “My sex life is of no concern to a damned machine.”

“Quite to the contrary, Mr. Ho-kay,” the machine responded with low wattage, jacked-up bass, muted treble. “All facets of your life together are my concern. Emma”—no treble, high filter, less than one db—”please tell me more.”

Emma had taken a bright green handkerchief from her transparent lucite handbag. She blew her nose with a resonant honk and returned the handkerchief to her bag. Carefully. To avoid smearing up the inside and ruining the bag’s transparency. She didn’t succeed. She stared with disgust, first at her purse, then at Harold.

“Harold isn’t home much, you see. I get lonely. For a man’s company. I’m hardly what you’d call oversexed or anything like that, but I do have normal cravings. Like any other woman. I’m not saying what I did was right. Or even proper. But Harold’s gone so much. I simply couldn’t do without.”

“Umm-uh.” The machine. Sensing antennae forward and back. Forward and back. “So, you felt you simply couldn’t do without.”

“No, of course not. Could you?”

“I really don’t know, Emma,” with compassion, understanding, tolerance. “Suppose you tell me about it.”