Clifford Simak - Dusty Zebra - And Other Stories

“Now just a minute,” I warned him. “We’re going to put this in the contract—any failure to provide full and complete analysis…”

“What contract?”

“We’re going to have a contract drawn up, so either of us can sue the other within an inch of his life for breaking it.”

Which is a hell of a way to start out a business venture, but it’s the only way to handle a slippery little skate like Lewis.

So he told me what he’d found. “It’s an emotions gauge. That’s awkward terminology, I know, but it’s the best I can think of.”

“What does it do?”

“It tells how happy you are or how sad or how much you hate someone.”

“Oh, great,” I said, disappointed. “What good is a thing like that? I don’t need a gauge to tell me if I’m sore or glad or anything.”

He waxed practically eloquent. “Don’t you see what an instrument like that would mean to psychiatrists? It would tell more about patients than they’d ever be willing to tell about themselves. It could be used in mental institutions and it might be important in gauging reactions for the entertainment business, politics, law-enforcement and Lord knows what else.”

“No kidding! Then let’s start marketing!”

“The only thing is…”

“Yes?”

“We can’t manufacture them,” he said frustratedly. “We haven’t got the materials and we don’t know how they’re made. You’ll have to trade for them.”

“I can’t. Not right away, that is. First I’ve got to be able to make the Traders understand what I want, and then I’ll have to find out what they’re willing to trade them for.”

“You have some other stuff?”

“A few things.”

“You better turn them over to me.”

“Some that could be dangerous. Anyhow, it all belongs to me. I’ll give you what I want, when I want and…”

We were off again.

We finally wound up by adjourning to an attorney’s office. We wrote up a contract that is probably one of the legal curiosities of all time.

I’m convinced the attorney thought, and still thinks, both of us are crazy, but that’s the least of my worries now.

The contract said I was to turn over to Lewis, for his determination of its technical and merchandisable nature, at least 90 per cent of certain items, the source of which I alone controlled, and with the further understanding that said source was to remain at all times under my exclusive control. The other 10 per cent might, without prejudice, be withheld from his examination, with the party of the first part having sole authority to make determination of which items should constitute the withheld 10 per cent.

Upon the 90 per cent of the items supplied him, the party of the second part was to make a detailed analysis, in writing, accompanied by such explanatory material as was necessary to the complete understanding of the party of the first part, within no more than three months after receipt, at the end of which time the items reverted solely to the ownership of the party of the first part. Except that such period of examination and determination might be extended, under a mutual agreement made in writing, for any stated time.

Under no circumstances should the party of the second part conceal from the party of the first part any findings he might have made upon any of the items covered by the agreement, and that such concealment, should it occur, should be considered sufficient cause for action for the recovery of damages. That under certain conditions where some of the items might be found to be manufacturable, they could be manufactured under the terms of clauses A, B and C, section XII of this agreement.

Provisions for a sales organization to market any of said items shall be set up and made a part of this agreement. That any proceeds from such sales shall be divided as follows: 65 per cent to the party of the first part (me, in case you’ve gotten lost, which is understandable), and 35 per cent to the party of the second part (Lewis); costs to be apportioned accordingly.

There were a lot more details, of course, but that gives you an idea.

We got home from the attorney’s office, without either of us knifing the other, and found Marge over at my place. Lewis went in with me to have a look at the desk.

Apparently the Trader had received the ABC book all right and had been able to understand why it was sent, for there, lying on the desk, was a picture cut out of the book. Well, not cut out, exactly—it looked more as though it had been burned out.

The picture on the desk was Z for zebra.

Lewis stared worriedly at it. “Now we’re really in a fix.”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “I don’t know what the market price is, but they can’t be cheap.”

“Figure it out—expedition, safari, cages, ship, rail, fodder, keeper. You think we can switch him to something else?”

“I don’t see how. He’s put in his order.”

Bill came wandering in and wanted to know what was up. When I glumly told him, he said cheerfully, “Aw, that’s the whole trick in trading, Pop. If you got a bum jackknife you want to trade, you unload it on somebody who doesn’t know what a good knife is like.”

Lewis didn’t get it, but I did. “That’s right! He doesn’t know a zebra is an animal, or, if he does, how big it is!”

“Sure,” Bill said confidently. “All he saw was a picture.”

It was five o’clock then, but the three of us went uptown and shopped. Bill found a cheap bracelet charm about the size of the drawing in the book. When it comes to junk like that, my kid knows just where it’s sold and how much it costs. I considered making him a junior partner in charge of such emergencies, with about 10 per cent share or so—out of Lewis’s 35 per cent, of course—but I was sure Lewis wouldn’t hold still for that. I decided instead to give Bill a dollar a week allowance, said compensation to commence immediately upon our showing a profit.

Well, we had Z for zebra—provided the Trader was satisfied with a little piece of costume jewelry. It was lucky, I thought, that it hadn’t been Z for zephyr.

The rest of the alphabet was easy, yet I couldn’t help but kick myself over all the time we were wasting. Of all the unworthy catalogues we might have sent, that ABC book was the worst. But until the Trader had run through the whole list, I was afraid to send another for fear of confusing him.

So I sent him an apple and a ball and a small doll for a girl and a toy cat and toy dog, and so on, and then I lay awake nights wondering what the Trader would make of them. I could picture him trying to learn the use of a rubber doll or cat.

I’d given Lewis the two pairs of glasses, but had held back the fountain-pen fishing rod, for I was still scared of that one. He had turned over the emotion gauge to a psychiatrist to try out in his practice as a sort of field test.

Marge and Helen, knowing that Lewis and I had entered into some kind of partnership, were practically inseparable now. Helen kept telling me how glad she was that I had finally recognized what a sterling fellow Lewis was. I suppose Lewis heard the same thing about me from Marge.

Bill went around practically busting to do some bragging. But Bill is a great little businessman and he kept his mouth shut. I had told him about the allowance, of course.

Lewis was all for trying to ask the Trader for a few more of the emotion gauges. He had a draftsman at the plant draw up a picture of the gauge and he wanted me to send it through to indicate that we were interested in it.

But I told him not to try to rush things. While the emotion gauge might be a good deal, we should sample what the Trader had to offer before we made up our minds.

The Trader, apparently certain now that someone was cooperating with him, had dropped his once-a-day trade schedule and was open for business around the clock. After he had run through the list in the ABC book, he sent back a couple of blank pages from the book with very crude drawings on them—drawings that looked as if they had been made with crumbly charcoal. Lewis drew a series of pictures, showing how a pencil worked, and we sent the Trader a ream of paper and a gross of sharpened pencils, then sat back to wait.