Pohl, Frederik - The Age of the Pussyfoot

But then you had the second drink. And then the third. Faces grew brighter. You began to feel more at ease. The whole bunch laughed at one of your jokes. The music on the stack of records changed to something you could dance to. You began to catch the rhythm of the party. . . .

Oh, I’ll try, vowed Forrester, joining the children in a sort of board game played against their own joymakers. I’ll catch the mood of this age if it kills me. Again.

Six

Up betimes, and set out to conquer a world. The home that Adne found for him was fascinating—walls that made closets as he needed them, windows that were not windows but something like television screens—but Forrester resolutely spent no time exploring its marvels. After a disturbed night’s sleep he was up and out, testing his new world and learning to cope with it. The children were marvelous. He begged the loan of them from Adne, and they were his guides. They took him to the offices of the Nineteenth Chromatic Trust, where a portly old Ebenezer Scrooge gravely examined Forrester’s check, painstakingly showed him how to draw against it, severely supervised his signing the necessary documents to open an account, and only at the end revealed himself by saying, “Man Forrester, good day.” They took him to a Titanian restaurant for lunch, a lark for them, but for him a shattering test of nerve, since the Titanians ate only live food, and he was barely able to cope with an aspic that writhed and rustled in his spoon. They showed him their playschool, where for three hours a week they competed and plotted with their peers (their lessons were learned at home, via their child-modified joymakers), and Forrester found himself playing London Bridge Is Falling Down with fourteen children and one other adult, symbolically acting out the ritual murder and entombment in the bridge’s foundations that the nursery rhyme celebrated. They took him to where the poor people lived, with half-fearful giggles and injunctions against speaking to anyone, and Forrester found himself out of pocket change, having given it all away to pale, mumbling creatures with hard-luck stories about Sol-burn on Mercury and freezer insurance firms that had gone bankrupt. They took him to a park—indoors, underground—where the landscaping was topologically grotesque and a purling stream flowed through a hill’s base and up the other side, and where ducks and frogs and a feathery sort of Venusian fish ate morsels of food the children tossed them. They took him to a museum where animated, enlarged cells underwent mitosis with a plop like a cow lifting her foot from a bog, and a re-created Tyrannosaurus rex coughed and barked and thumped its feet clangorously, its orange eyes glaring straight at Forrester. They showed him all their treasures and pleasures. But they did not show him a factory, or an office building, or a store of any size. For it did not seem that any of these existed any more. They showed him all around Shoggo until their joymakers chided them, and Forrester’s own said severely, “Man Forrester! The children must be returned for their naps. And you really must receive your messages.”

The children looked at him with woe. “Ah, well,” said Forrester, “we’ll do it again another day. How do we get home from here?”

“A cab,” said the girl doubtfully, but the boy shouted, “Walk! We can walk! I know where we are—ten minutes will do it. Ask your joymaker if you don’t believe me.”

“I believe you,” said Forrester.

“Then this way, Charles. Come on, Tunt.” And the boy led off between two towering buildings on the margin of a grassy strip, where huge hovercraft swished by at enormous speeds.

The joymaker complained, “Man Forrester, I have dichotomous instructions. Please resolve them.”

“Oh, God,” said Forrester, tired and irritable. “What’s your trouble now?”

“You have instructed me to hold messages, but I have several that are high priority and urgent. Please reaffirm holding order, stipulating a time limit if possible, or receive them now.”

The boy giggled. “You know why, Charles?” he demanded. “It tickles them when they’re holding messages. It’s like if you have to go to the bathroom.”

The joymaker said, “The analogue is inexact, Man Forrester. However, please allow me to discharge my message load.”

Forrester sighed and prepared to contemplate reality again. But something distracted him.

Besides the steady whush, whush of the passing hovercraft, besides the distant chant of a choir—they were passing some sort of church—there was another sound. Forrester looked up.

A faint tweeting sound of communications equipment was coming from a white aircraft, glass-fronted, hanging overhead. It bore the shining ruby caduceus, and behind the glass a dark-skinned man in blue was regarding Forrester gravely.

Forrester swallowed.

“Joymaker,” he demanded. “is that a death-reversal vehicle overhead?”

“Yes, Man Forrester.”

“Does that mean—” He cleared his throat. “Does that mean that crazy Martian is after me again?”

“Man Forrester,” said the joymaker primly, “among your urgent priority messages is a legal notice. The twenty-four-hour hold period having expired, and appropriate notices and action having been filed and taken, the man Heinzlichen Jura de—”

“Cut it out! Is he after me?”

“Man Forrester,” said the joymaker, “yes. As of seventeen minutes ago, the hold period having expired then, he is.”

At least the crazy Martian wasn’t in sight, thought Forrester, scanning the few visible pedestrians. But the presence of the death-reversal aircraft was a poor omen.

“Kids,” he said, “we got troubles. I’m being chased.”

“Oh, Charles!” breathed the boy, fascinated. “Will you get killed?”

“Not if I can help it. Look. Do you know any short cuts from here? Any secret ways—through cellars, over rooftops—you know.”

The boy looked at the girl. The girl’s eyes got very big.

“Tunt,” she whispered, “Charles wants to hide.”

“That’s it,” said Forrester. “What about it, son? You must know some special way. Any kid would.”

The boy said, “Charles. I know a way, all right. But are you sure—”

“I’m sure, I’m sure!” snapped Charles Forrester. “Come on! Where?”

The boy surrendered. “Follow me. You too, Tunt.” They turned and dived into one of the buildings. Forrester took a last look around for Heinzlichen whatever-his-name-was. He was not in sight. Only the hovercraft thrumming past, and the few uncaring pedestrians . . . and overhead the man in blue in the death-reversal vehicle, staring down at him, his expression both surprised and angry.

When he was safely back in the condominium building, the children returned to their own home to await the arrival of their mother, Forrester hurried to his apartment, closed the door, and locked it.

“Joymaker,” he said, “you were right. I admit it. So now let’s have all those messages. And take it slow, so I can understand what they’re about.”

The joymaker said serenely, “Man Forrester, your messages follow. Vincenzo d’Angostura states that he is still available for legal representation, but will not call again under Bar Association rules. Taiko Hironibi feels there was some misunderstanding and would like to discuss it with you. Adne Bensen sends you an embrace. A document package is in your receiving chute. Will you receive the embrace?”

“Hold it a minute. Gives me something to look forward to. Is any of the other stuff important?”

“As to that, Man Forrester, I have no parameters.”

“You’re a big help,” said Forrester bitterly. “Get me a drink while I’m thinking. Uh, gin and tonic.” He waited for it to appear and took a long pull.