Golden Age of Science Fiction Vol IX

by Various

  "Yes, sir. But I checked the Brain--"

  "Did you, Ralph?"

  "Yes, sir. And the Maintainovac said it was perfect. There's nothing wrong with it."

  "Nothing wrong? You call twenty-four firings out of forty nothing?" The old man stood up, still holding the core of his apple.

  "Well, I don't understand it either, Mr. Moss." Colihan felt dew on his forehead. "Nothing seems to satisfy the Brain anymore. It seems to develop higher and higher standards, or something. Why, I'm not sure it wouldn't even fire--"

  "WHO?" said Moss thunderously. "WHO wouldn't it even fire?"

  The thunder hit Colihan squarely. He swallowed hard, and then managed to say:

  "Anybody, sir. Me, for instance."

  The President's face suddenly relaxed.

  "I'm no tyrant, my boy. You know that. I'm just doing a job, that's all."

  "Of course, sir--"

  "Well, all I want you to do is keep your eye on things. It could be a coincidence of course. That's the logical explanation." He narrowed his eyes. "What do you think, Ralph?"

  "Me, sir?" said Ralph, wide-eyed. "I don't think, sir. I ACT, sir!"

  "Good boy!" The boss chuckled and clapped his hand on Colihan's shoulder. Moss was momentarily satisfied.

  * * * * *

  The Personnelovac burped.

  Colihan picked up the card with a groan. It was pink.

  He walked over to the Action Chute and dropped it inside. As it fluttered down below, Colihan shook his head sadly. "Thirty-one," he said.

  He placed the next personnel record into the Information chamber. He flipped the lever, and the Personnelovac, now hot with usage, winked, chittered, chortled, and chuckled with amazing speed. The burp was almost joyful as the card popped out. But Colihan's face was far from joyful as he picked it up.

  Pink.

  "Thirty-two," he said.

  The next card was from Grimswitch's department. It was Subject #52098. The number was familiar. Colihan decided to check the file.

  "Sam Gilchrist," he said. "Couldn't be anything wrong with Sam. Why, he's a blinkin' genius!"

  Flip. Wink. Chitter. Chortle. Chuckle. BURP!

  Pink.

  "Poor Sam!" said Colihan.

  He fed the other records through quickly.

  Pink.

  Pink.

  PINK.

  At the end of the day, Colihan worked laboriously with a blunt-pointed pencil. It took him fifteen minutes for the simple calculation.

  "Sixty-seven tests. Twenty-three okay. Forty-four--"

  Colihan put his hands to his head. "What am I going to do?"

  * * * * *

  Grimswitch followed Colihan down the hall as he came out of the boss's office for the third time that week.

  "Well!" he said fatuously. "Quite the teacher's pet, these days. Eh, Colihan?"

  "Go away, Grimswitch."

  "On the carpet, eh? Temper a little short? Don't worry." Grimswitch's beefy hand made unpleasant contact with the Personnel man's shoulder. "Your old friends won't let you down."

  "Grimswitch, will you please let me alone?"

  "Better watch that think-machine of yours," Grimswitch chuckled. "Might fire you next, old boy."

  Colihan was glad when Morgan, the production operator, hailed Grimswitch away. But as he entered his own office, Grimswitch's words still troubled him. Grimswitch, he thought. That fat piece of garbage. That big blow-hard. That know-it-all.

  Almost savagely, he picked up the day's personnel cards and flipped through them carelessly.

  Grimswitch, that louse, he thought.

  Then he had the Idea.

  If Grimswitch was still chewing the fat with Morgan, then his secretary would be alone--

  If he called her and asked for Grimswitch's record--no, better yet, got Miss Blanche to call--

  Why not? he thought. After all, I am the Personnel Manager. Sure, it's a little irregular. He IS a department head. But it's my job, isn't it?

  Colihan flipped the inter-com and proceeded to call Miss Blanche.

  * * * * *

  His hand shook as he placed Grimswitch's card into the Personnelovac.

  The machine, though still heated by the day's activity, seemed to take longer than usual for its chittering, chuckling examination of the pin-holed facts on the record.

  Finally, it gave a satisfied burp and proffered the result to Colihan's eager hand.

  "Aha!" cried the personnel man gleefully.

  He walked over to his desk, wrote a quick note on his memo pad, and placed both note and card into an envelope. He addressed it to: OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT. Then he dropped it into the Action Chute. When it was out of sight, he rubbed his hands together in happy anticipation.

  * * * * *

  When Miss Blanche announced that President Moss himself was in Colihan's outer lobby, the Personnel Manager spent a hasty minute in straightening up the paper debris on his desk.

  The old man came striding into the room, exhibiting plenty of p-e-p, and he seated himself briskly on Colihan's sofa.

  "Sharp eyes, Ralph," he said. "Sharp eyes and a quick wit. This business demands it. That was a sharp notion you had, doing a run-through on Grimswitch. Never trusted that back-slapping fellow."

  Colihan looked pleased. "Trying to do a job, sir."

  "Put your finger on it," said Moss. "Hit the nail on the head. It's just like my father said: 'Trees go dead on the top.' Colihan--" The boss leaned forward confidentially. "I've got an assignment for you. Big assignment."

  "Yes, sir!" said Colihan eagerly.

  "If Grimswitch is a sour apple, maybe other department heads are, too. And who knows? IT knows."

  Moss pointed a finger at the Personnelovac.

  "I'm rounding up all the aptitude records of the department heads. They'll be in your hands in the next couple of days. Feed 'em in! Root 'em out! Spot the deadwood, Colihan! ACT!"

  "ACT!" echoed Colihan, his face flushed.

  The old man got up and went over to the Brain.

  "Marvelous machine," he said. "Honest. That's what I like about it."

  As Moss went out the door, Colihan could have sworn he saw the Personnelovac wink. He walked over to it and fingered the lever. It was turned off, all right.

  * * * * *

  It was an interesting week for Colihan.

  Morgan, the production man, was fired.

  Grimswitch came up to see the Personnel man and tried to punch him in the nose. Fortunately, he was a little too drunk, and the blow went wild.

  Seegrum, the Shipovac operator, was fired.

  Douglas, the Treasurer, was permitted to keep his job, but the Personnelovac issued a dire threat if improvement wasn't rapidly forthcoming.

  Wilson, the firm's oldest employee, was fired.

  In fact, seven out of General Product's twelve department heads were greeted by the ominous pink card.

  Colihan, no longer plagued by doubt, felt that life was definitely worth living. He smiled all the time. His memos were snappier than ever. His heels clicked merrily down the office hallways. He had p-e-p.

  Then, the most obvious thing in the world happened--and Colihan just hadn't foreseen it.

  His record card came up.

  * * * * *

  "Have you run through the stack yet?" Miss Blanche asked.

  "Er--just about." Colihan looked at her guiltily. He pushed his glasses back on the bridge of his nose. "Couple more here," he said.

  "Well, we might as well finish up. Mr. Moss would like to have the schedule completed this afternoon."

  "It will be. That's all, Miss Blanche."

  His secretary shrugged and left. Colihan went to the Personnelovac with the record in his hand. The file number was 630.

  "Don't let me down," he told the Brain.

  He placed the pin-holed card into the machine and flipped the lever. It winked, chittered, chortled, and chuckled with almost sinister softness. When the card was burped out at the other end, Colihan took
it out with his eyes firmly shut.

  * * * * *

  He walked over to the Action Chute mechanically. His hand hesitated before he dropped it inside. Then he changed his mind, walked back to the desk, and tore the pink card into the smallest possible shreds.

  The inter-com beeped.

  "Mr. Moss wants you," said his secretary.

  "Colihan!"

  "Yes, sir?"

  "Don't act so innocent, Colihan. Your report isn't complete. It should have been ready by now."

  "Yes, sir!"

  "You're not ACTING, Colihan. You're stalling!"

  "No, sir."

  "Then where's your Personnelovac report, Colihan? Eh? Where is it?"

  Colihan wrung his hands. "Almost ready, sir," he lied. "Just running it through now, sir."

  "Speed it up. Speed it up! Time's a'wastin', boy. You're not afraid, are you, Colihan?"

  "No, sir."

  "Then let's have it. No more delay! Bull by the horns! Expect it in an hour, Colihan. Understand?"

  "Yes, sir!"

  The boss clicked off. Colihan groaned audibly.

  "What can I do?" he said to himself. He went to the Brain and shook his fist helplessly at it. "Damn you!" he cursed.

  He had to think. He had to THINK!

  It was an effort. He jerked about in his swivel chair like a hooked fish. He beat his hands on the desk top. He paced the floor and tore at the roots of his hair. Finally, exhausted, he gave up and flopped ungracefully on the office sofa, abandoning himself to the inevitable.

  At that precise moment, the mind being the perverse organ it is, he was struck by an inspiration.

  The Maintainovac bore an uneasy resemblance to Colihan's own think-machine. Wilson, the oldest employee of General Products, had been the operator of the maintenance Brain. He had been a nice old duffer, Wilson, always ready to do Colihan a favor. Now that he had been swept out in Colihan's own purge, the Personnel Manager had to deal with a new man named Lockwood.

  Lockwood wasn't so easy to deal with.

  "Stay out of my files, mister," he said.

  Colihan tried to look superior. "I'm the senior around here, Lockwood. Let's not forget that."

  "Them files is my responsibility." Lockwood, a burly young man, stationed himself between Colihan and the file case.

  "I want to check something. I need the service records of my Brain."

  "Where's your Requisition Paper?"

  "I haven't got time for that," said Colihan truthfully. "I need it now, you fool."

  Lockwood set his face like a Rushmore memorial.

  "Be a good fellow, can't you?" Colihan quickly saw that wheedling wasn't the answer.

  "All right," he said, starting for the door. "I just wanted to help you."

  He opened the door just a crack. Sure enough, Lockwood responded.

  "How do you mean, help me?"

  "Didn't you know?" Colihan turned to face him. "I'm running through an aptitude check on the Personnelovac. Special department head check. Mr. Moss's orders."

  "So?"

  "I was just getting around to yours. But I figured I'd better make sure the Brain was functioning properly." He grew confidential. "You know, that darned machine has been firing everyone lately."

  A little rockslide began on Lockwood's stoney face.

  "Well ..." he said. "If that's the case--"

  "I knew you'd understand," said Colihan very smoothly.

  * * * * *

  Eagerly, the Personnel Manager collated the records of the Personnelovac. They were far more complex than any employee record, and it took Colihan the better part of an hour.

  Any moment he expected to hear the President's angry voice over the inter-com. His anxiety made him fumble, but at last, the job was done.

  He slipped the record, marked by a galaxy of pinholes, into the Brain.

  "Now we'll see," he said grimly. "Now we'll find out what's eating this monster."

  He flipped the switch.

  The Personnelovac winked.

  It was several minutes before it digested the information in its chamber. Then it chittered.

  It chortled.

  It chuckled.

  Colihan held his breath until the BURP came.

  The card appeared. It read:

  "Subject #PV8. Mech. Rat. 9987. Mem. Rat. 9995. Last Per. Vac.

  "An. None. Cur. Rat. 100.

  "Analysis: Subject operating at maximum efficiency. Equipped to perform at peak level. Is completely honest and does not exhibit bias, prejudice, or sentiment in establishing personnel evaluations. Cumulative increase in mnemonic ability. Analytic ability improving."

  Colihan walked slowly over to the Action Chute as he finished reading the card.

  "However," it read, "because of mechanistic approach to humanistic evaluation, subject displays inability to incorporate human equation in analytical computation, resulting in technically accurate but humanistically incorrect deductions.

  "Recommendation: Fire him."

  Colihan dropped the pink card into the chute. In half an hour, the Action wheels of General Products concluded their work, and the Personnelovac had winked for the last time.

  THE END

  * * *

  Contents

  HELPFULLY YOURS

  By Evelyn E. Smith

  Tarb Morfatch had read all the information on Terrestrial customs that was available in the Times morgue before she'd left Fizbus. And all through the journey she'd studied her Brief Introduction to Terrestrial Manners and Mores avidly. Perhaps it was a bit overinspirational in spots, but it had facts in it, too.

  So she knew that, since the natives were non-alate, she was not to take wing on Earth. She had, however, forgotten to correlate the knowledge of their winglessness with her own vertical habits. As a result, on leaving the tender that had ferried her down from the Moon, she looked up instead of right and narrowly escaped death at the jaws of a raging groundcar that swerved out onto the field.

  She recognized it as a taxi from one of the pictures in the handbook. It was a pity, she thought sadly as she was knocked off her feet, that all those lessons she had so carefully learned were to go to waste.

  But it was only the wind of the car's passage that had thrown her down. As she struggled to get up, hampered by her awkward native skirts, the door of the taxi flew open. A tall young man--a Fizbian--burst out, the soft yellowish-green down on his handsome face bristling with fright until each feather stood out separately.

  "Miss Morfatch! Are you all right?"

  "Just--just a little shaky," she murmured, brushing dirt from her rosy leg feathers. Too young to be Drosmig; too good-looking to be anyone important, she thought glumly. Must be the office boy.

  To her surprise, he didn't help her up. Probably it would violate some native taboo if he did, she deduced. The handbook hadn't mentioned anything that seemed to apply, but, after all, a little book like that couldn't cover everything.

  * * * * *

  She could see the young man was embarrassed--his emerald crest was waving to and fro.

  "I'm Stet Zarnon," he introduced himself awkwardly.

  The Managing Editor! The handsome young employer of her girlish dreams! But perhaps he had a wife on Fizbus--no, the Grand Editor made a point of hiring people without families to use as a pretext for expensive vacations on the Home Planet.

  As she opened her mouth to say something brilliantly witty, to show she was no ordinary female but a creature of spirit and fire and intelligence, a sudden cacophony of shrill cries and explosions arose, accompanied by bursts of light. Her feathers stood erect and she clung to her employer with both feathered legs.

  "If these are the friendly diplomatic relations Earth and Fizbus are supposed to be enjoying," she said, "I'm not enjoying them one bit!"

  "They're only taking pictures of you with native equipment," he explained, pulling away from her. What was the matter with him? "You're the first Fizbian woman ever to come to Terra, you know."


  She certainly did know--and, what was more, she had made the semi-finals for Miss Fizbus only the year before. Perhaps he had some Terrestrial malady he didn't want her to catch. Or could it be that in the four years he had spent in voluntary exile on this planet, he had come to prefer the native females? Now it was her turn to shrink from him.

  He was conversing rapidly in Terran with the chattering natives who milled about them. Although Tarb had been an honors student in Terran back at school, she found herself unable to understand more than an occasional word of what they said. Then she remembered that they were not at the world capital, Ottawa, but another community, New York. Undoubtedly they were all speaking some provincial dialect peculiar to the locality.

  And nobody at all booed in appreciation, although, she told herself sternly, she really couldn't have expected them to. Standards of beauty were different in different solar systems. At least they were picking up as souvenirs some of the feathers she'd shed in her tumble, which showed they took an interest.

  Stet turned back to her. "These are fellow-members of the press."

  She was able to catch enough of what he said next in Terran to understand that she was being formally introduced to the aboriginal journalists. Although you could never call the natives attractive, with their squat figures and curiously atrophied vestigial wings--arms, she reminded herself--they were very Fizboid in appearance and, with their winglessness cloaked, could have creditably passed for singed Fizbians.

  Moreover, they seemed friendly; at any rate, the sounds they uttered were welcoming. She began to make the three ritual entrechats, but Stat stopped her. "Just smile at them; that'll be enough."

  It didn't seem like enough, but he was the boss.

  * * * * *

  "Thank the stars we're through with that," he sighed, as they finally were able to escape their confrères and get into the taxi. "I suppose," he added, wriggling inside the clumsy Terrestrial jacket which, cut to fit over his wings, did nothing either to improve his figure or to make him look like a native, "it was as much of an ordeal for you as for me."

  "Well, I am a little bewildered by it all," Tarb admitted, settling herself as comfortably as possible on the seat cushions.

  "No, don't do that!" he cried. "Here people don't crouch on seats. They sit," he explained in a kindlier tone. "Like this."