The Complete Short Stories: The 1950s. Brian Aldiss

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СКАЧАТЬ in that shape, he is kept in it by self-hypnosis which only breaks down in times of stress, the amount of stress bearable varying from one individual to another. A human on the spot can sense such stresses … It’s a tiring job for him; we get doubles always to work day on, day off – ’

      ‘But I’ve always been there – ’

      ‘Of your group,’ the thin man cut in, ‘the human was Jagger, or two men alternating as Jagger. You caught one of them going off duty.’

      ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ Harley shouted. ‘You’re trying to say that I …’

      He choked on the words. They were no longer pronounceable. He felt his outer form flowing away like sand, as from the other side of the desk revolver barrels were levelled at him.

      ‘Your stress level is remarkably high,’ continued the thin man, turning his gaze away from the spectacle. ‘But where you fail is where you all fail. Like Earth’s insects which imitate vegetables, your cleverness cripples you. You can only be carbon copies. Because Jagger did nothing in the house, all the rest of you instinctively followed suit. You didn’t get bored – you didn’t even try to make passes at Dapple – as personable a Non-Man as I ever saw. Even the model spaceship jerked no appreciable reaction out of you.’

      Brushing his suit down, he rose before the skeletal being which now cowered in a corner.

      ‘The inhumanity inside always gives you away,’ he said evenly. ‘However human you are outside.’

       Panel Game

      It was Christmas. Snow fell by courtesy of Home-Count Climatic.

      Rick Sheridan came off shift early, flying his helic deftly through the white clouds, and keeping by long custom between the altitude levels prescribed for his particular consumer-class. As far as he might be said to have a character, his character was cheerful. He exhibited this cheerfulness now by whistling.

      The sound filled the little cockpit, competing with the bope music issuing from the 3-inch screen telly strapped on his wrist.

      Christmas! It was proverbially the time of festivity and maximum consumption. It was a period when everyone would be happy – except, possibly, he warned himself, his wife, Neata. Her moodiness had become trying of late. The mere thought of it knocked his whistle off key.

      For the difficult business of landing, Rick switched on to auto. This luxury had been fitted by Happy Hover Ltd. only two months ago. With the faintest of sighs, the helic leafed down, below the clouds, below the aerial levels, below the rooftops, and squatted in the Sheridan back garden.

      The garden was a large one, as gardens went, ten feet by sixteen, and covered by neo-concrete. Rick jumped out and stretched himself. Although he was all of twenty-eight, he suddenly felt young and healthy again. Appetite stirred sluttishly in his stomach.

      ‘Oh for a bowl of tasty, toothable Cob Corners!’ he cried exultantly, and bounded for the back door.

      He was high enough up the consumer hierarchy to own a magnificent two-room dwelling: Walking through the Disposing room, he entered the Gazing room and called: ‘Neata!’

      She was sitting quietly at the Relaxtable, laboriously mending a little labour-saving device, her fair head bent in concentration. Her smile of welcome formed easily and naturally round her new teeth, and she jumped up, throwing her arms round him – carefully, so as not to crumple his teddy tie.

      ‘Ricky, darling, you’re early!’ she exclaimed.

      ‘I hit my quota ahead of schedule,’ he explained proudly. ‘Thanks to Howlett’s.’

      Their only child, Goya, jumped up and ran to greet her daddy. She managed to do it backwards, thus keeping her eyes fixed on the wall screens, where Sobold the Soap King was facing three dirty-looking criminals single-handed.

      Rick’s eyes glistened behind their contact lenses. He reflected how affectionate the child was for a three-year-old, but something in the little girl’s actions must have displeased her mother, for Neata said irritably: ‘Why don’t you welcome your father properly?’

      ‘Wanna see old Sobold slosh the slashers,’ Goya said defiantly.

      ‘You’re old enough to guess what will happen,’ Neata said crossly. ‘He’ll catch them and make them all wash in that creamy, dreamy lather that only Little Britches Soap provides.’

      ‘Don’t get angry with her,’ Rick said. ‘Remember, it’s Christmas.’

      He took Goya on his knee, and settled down with her to watch Sobold, his hunger forgotten. The wall-screens filled two walls. Before the end of next year, if he worked as well as he was working now, they might be able to afford a third screen. And one day … he blushed with excitement at the thought of being surrounded by an image in quadruplicate on all four walls.

      A flicker of interference burst over the bright screens. Rick tutted with annoyance; the terrific technical accomplishment of telly was something upon which every civilised consumer prided himself, but it was nevertheless obvious that just lately there had been more misting than usual on the screens. Rick found himself recalling the rumours, dim and evasive, which he heard while at work; rumours of a vile movement to overthrow the present happy regime, of determined men with new weapons at their command.

      Dismissing the idea irritably, he turned full attention on to the screens. Justice and cleanliness having overtaken Sobold’s opponents, the next Quarter of an hour was to be devoted to ‘Mr. Dial’s Dairy’, a comic serial lampooning twentieth-century farm life, presented by the makers of Grinbaum’s Meat Bars.

      ‘Time for bed, Goya,’ Neata declared, and despite the young lady’s protests she was whisked into the Disposing room for an encounter with Little Britches, Ardentifrices and Juxon’s (‘Nun-better’) Drying powder. Rick seized this opportunity while he was alone to spend ten minutes looking into his Pornograph, but his attention was recalled by a jolly announcer in the Grinbaum uniform calling out: ‘Well, customers, there we have to leave Mr. Dial for now. Is his prize cow really going to calve? Will Sally Hobkin get that big kiss she deserves? Your guess is as good as mine, suckers. One thing everybody is sure about is the goodness, the sheer brothy, spothy goodness, of Grinbaum’s Meat Bars. A whole carcass goes into each of those chewy little cubes.’

      And then leaning, as it seemed, almost out of the screen, the announcer suddenly bellowed harshly: ‘Have you bought your quota of Grinbaum’s Meat Bars today, Sheridan?’

      Cut. Screen blank. Ten seconds till next programme.

      ‘He certainly puts that over well,’ Rick gasped proudly, passing a hand over his brow. ‘It always makes me jump.’

      ‘It makes me jump too,’ said Neata flatly, leading a night-dressed Goya into the room.

      This device whereby consumers could be individually named was the latest, and possibly cleverest, accomplishment of telly. The announcer had actually named no names; instead, at the correct moment, a signal transmitted from the studio activated a circuit at the receiving end which, in every individual home, promptly bellowed out the surname of the head consumer of the family.

      Neata pressed the Relaxtable, and a section of СКАЧАТЬ