The Complete Roderick

by John Sladek

  He clenched a fist and stared for a moment at the heavy gold ring mounted with a single steel ball, then looked to the screen where the commentary accompanied diagrams of the Vitanuova Space Salvage Shuttle in proposed operation:

  ‘Yes now I believe we have located Mr Franklin in his car in the parking lot, evidently he’s pretty excited about this test so far, you can see the theoretical test on your screen now, he’s pretty excited, seems to be driving around in circles and honking his horn, that right, Nancy? Shouting what? “That’s the way to do it!” Well it certainly is, the people here at ground control are happy too so far this test is looking good, looking good, we’ll try to get hold of Mr Ben Franklin himself, maybe get his reaction to the test but now maybe we’re ready with a shot of the robot pilot in operation, that ready? Yes, here’s what you’ve all been waiting for …’

  The figure at the controls might have been mistaken for that of a robot at a distance, but the face was without doubt the face of Ben Franklin, his the ragged beard, his the pale expressionless eyes and mad grin.

  A bored voice from ground control said, ‘Looks like you have a little temperature buildup there, Mr Punch, can you confirm that incremental?’

  ‘Ffffffffff’

  ‘Say again? Can you confirm that temperature incremental in the cabin temperature?’

  ‘Shhhhhhhhh?’ came from the shuttle, as the camera vibrated and the bright face leaped and danced on the screen.

  ‘… will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiosly wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance fffffffffff and in thy book all my members are written, which in shhhhhhhhhhh were fashioned when as yet there was none of them.’

  In the ground control centre an argument took over the sound, many muffled and hysterical voices competing for the single ear.

  ‘What’s he saying? What’s he –?’

  ‘… Franklin I’m telling you that’s Franklin up there …’

  ‘ … alert on that increment we’ll be seeing smoke in …’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Nancy says he’s down in the parking …’

  ‘‘The Bible or …?’

  ‘Okay then who’s in the damn car?’

  ‘Temperature incremental is getting – look!’

  ‘Oh my God!’

  ‘Oh!’

  The screen showed an instant of Ben Franklin’s face, the eyes reflecting the sheet of flame before it swept over him and the transmission ended.

  After a moment the chairman shrugged. ‘Well we mustn’t dwell on that, there’s too much to get through here. And I understand we’ve just had word from KUR that in fact Franklin was fired a week ago. Well. I suggest we take a short break here before we tackle the next item.’

  A reptilian jaw near Roderick gave out a dry chuckle. ‘Dear me, I suppose young Mr Wood here must think it’s all as exciting as a TV car chase every day around here. Let me assure you, Mr Wood, nothing could be further from the truth. Most of our meetings engage the intellect, not the endocrine system.’

  ‘Lucky thing,’ said another. ‘Some of us are old enough to find any stimulation a risk not worth taking, heh heh. The grave beckons.’

  ‘Or the fishtank,’ said the first jaw. ‘One might seek salvation in the Leo Bunsky aquarium, eh?’

  ‘Ugly, ugly. I put my trust in the resurrection of the body.’

  ‘Religion?’

  ‘Of course not, I mean freeze-drying.’

  ‘But you must grant that, for all poor Leo’s ugliness, he has at least brought us out of the wilderness of hunting entities. Mr Wood would be thankful for that, I’m sure,’

  ‘Precisely. All the unsavoury operations we had to initiate. Why, even when hunting Mr Wood here, didn’t we –?’

  ‘Perhaps Mr Wood doesn’t want to hear –’

  ‘Oh I do,’ said Roderick. ‘How did you hunt me?’

  ‘We used these incompetent men from the Agency, mostly. I suppose the worst was that business with the Roxy theatre. Imagine burning down a whole movie house just to kill one robot. And then they bungled it.’

  Roderick said, ‘Wait a minute. To destroy me, you were actually willing to burn up a whole theatre full of people?’

  ‘Well of course you have to see this in an historical perspective, balancing a few hundred lives against – as we saw it – the survival of the human species. Not that we’d have authorized it specifically.’

  ‘Indeed not,’ said the other. ‘Too inefficient, no finesse. Those Agency men were always ham-handed, let’s not forget the incident of the red stocking-cap.’

  Roderick asked what red stocking-cap.

  ‘Don’t you remember? You were supposed to be wearing it at the Tik Tok Bar, but you cunningly planted it on some old derelict – another life lost, I fear.’

  ‘Still, Wood, you were a most excellent quarry. Much too good for those yahoos from the Agency.’

  ‘Have I got this straight?’ Roderick asked. ‘You really murdered innocent people, just to destroy me?’

  ‘Heh heh, well of course you weren’t the only target. We had to make extensive use of Agency men and even one or two private hit-men, my word yes.’

  ‘What are you saying? You just went out and, and butchered people right and left?’ Roderick’s voice was loud now, and everyone in the room had turned to stare. ‘Butchered people right and left, just for some principle – some policy – you could reverse anyway whenever you felt like it – you could –’

  ‘Ah well, aren’t policy and principle so often confused, in these troubled times? But to say we butchered people right and left is both emotive and inaccurate. We were normally quite selective; those we asked the Agency to “finalize” as we liked to call it, were the inventors of dangerous Entities. Had we let them live, they’d go on making trouble for humanity.’

  ‘Within our framework for speculation, there was nothing else we could do,’ said the chairman, laying his hands on the table. ‘We were in a zero-option scenario.’

  ‘Precisely. Precisely. Precisely.’

  Roderick had reached the door when the chairman said, ‘Leaving? That’s unwise, Mr Wood. Without our protection, you’ll automatically become the property of KUR International. They’ll probably take your head to pieces.’

  ‘Suits me.’

  XXIV

  Just take a seat, Mr Wood is it? I’ll see if somebody can, excuse me … Good morning, KUR Innernational … Mr Swann? One moment … Ginny, there’s a Dr Welby on three to talk to a Mr Swann, is he in your office? No? Then he must be Patsy’s new boss or, everything’s in such a mess around here today, oh is he legal? Great … Lois have you got a Mr Swann? I have a Dr Welby for him on three … Good morning, KUR Innernational … Yes there is but I don’t know when, I can put you through to the press office …’

  Roderick sat down with a group of reporters: tired-looking men and women in waterproof coats, some with aerials sticking up from the backs of their necks, some fiddling with cameras or pocket memo machines, some sleeping.

  ‘You covering this too?’ someone said, and when Roderick did not reply, went on: ‘I drew the short straw, I wanted to cover that management consultant mass murder story, sounds like some juicy stuff there, cops say the guy’s been doing it for years, cutting women’s legs off.’

  ‘Juicy stuff? Is that what you call it?’

  ‘Well sure, easy to get a handle on a story like that, you got sex, big business, police incompetence, a sadistic fiend, that’s all prime stuff, you automatically get first or second slot in the six o’clock. Whereas this Moxon takeover is not exactly a surprise, is it?’

  ‘Takeover?’ said Roderick, surprised.

  ‘I mean it should rate a paragraph on about page 733 of the financial news teletext; nobody cares who runs big corporations nowadays, or who owns them, or why. I mean it’s slightly less interesting tha
n say the intrigues of Ruritanian internal politics; I really hate this financial desk job.’

  ‘Don’t underrate it, kid,’ said an older reporter, waking up. ‘You start believing it’s worthless, pretty soon everybody else believes it’s worthless. Pretty soon companies start asking themselves why they should go on throwing champagne press receptions, whole system could melt down under us, leave nothing but real news to report.’

  They stared out through the glass wall at real rain splashing on the perfectly square acre of concrete that separated the KUR Tower from real sidewalks and streets.

  ‘Okay, it’s a real meaningful job. So where’s the champagne?’

  Someone adjusted his camera by focusing on the receptionist, behind her violet desk. Today she had taken the trouble to appear in violet hair, nails and lipstick, and now she smiled and turned so that the violet telephone receiver did not hide her smile. ‘Good morning, KUR Innernational … I can give you the press office … Ginny, did you see him yesterday? No him, when the ambulance men rolled him away right by my desk, he had on this oxygen mask and I mean he looked so helpless, even his eyebrows, and when you think how we all used to be so scared of him, he never even would say good morning or have a nice, if he even noticed you it was only to make some sarcastic remark about how he ought to replace you with a Roberta Receptionist machine, and now there he was. There he was, so helpless, helpless as a, a dog. Just a sec, Good morning, KUR Innernational …’

  ‘Besides,’ said the older reporter, ‘a conglomerate like this is interesting for its own sake. It’s like an incredibly complicated puppet – you never know where all the strings lead until you pull them and see what jumps. And something like this – Kratt keeling over like that during the negotiations – it’s like the puppeteer dropping all the strings. Now we’ll see how good Moxon is at picking them up and sorting them out.’

  ‘Yeah, but he’s bringing in a lot of strings of his own,’ said the younger. ‘I heard there’s gonna be a complete changeover of personnel, with –’

  ‘Well, there he is, let’s ask him.’

  There was a stampede past the reception desk to where Everett Moxon, flanked by press aides, waited to greet them.

  ‘Mr Moxon, is it true you seized the moment to pull the takeover, because Kratt, who always opposed you, was safely out of the way?’

  ‘Everett, look this way?’

  ‘Mr Moxon, would you say KUR is shaky, with some of its subsidiaries –?’

  ‘What kind of changes do you envision for –?’

  Moxon grinned Presidentially. ‘Boys and girls, one at a time, please. I thought we might go up to the penthouse and do this over a few glasses of champagne, okay? But I’ll just say now that Mr Kratt and I may have had a few minor disagreements, but we always saw eye to eye on all major decisions about the future of KUR. And when he recovers, he knows he can go on as chairman of the board as long as he likes. As you all know, the takeover has been in the cards for a long time. We like KUR, and KUR can use our capital. But let me say, let me just say that there is not going to be any asset-stripping, the Moxon Corporation is not an asset-stripping operation. Naturally we’ll have to look over the whole basket of apples and get rid of any bad ones, but only to protect the rest. Anyone here like champagne?’

  ‘What I’d like even more, Mr Moxon, is to know what are your plans for the KUR banking subsidiary, with General Fleisch –’

  Still clamouring questions, they packed into elevators and disappeared. The receptionist said, ‘Ginny, have you seen him? Not him, him, Mr Moxon. Not bad looking only his head is kinda small, just a sec. Good morning, KUR Inner –, oh hello Dr Hare, are you coming in today because a Dr D’Earth called a few times. Oh and there’s a Mr Roderick Wood waiting to see somebody, who should I, to whom should he – never mind, he’s gone …’

  Upstairs Everett Moxon walked around holding a glass of champagne and smiling for five minutes before ducking out to his office.

  His secretaries, Ann and Andy, were trying to clean the place. Ann held an ashtray containing a chewed cigar stub; Andy was dusting.

  ‘Sorry, sir. KUR janitors are on strike,’ said Andy.

  Ann sighed. ‘Something about automated cleaning machines in some subsidiary called Slumbertite.’

  ‘Wonderful timing.’ He looked around. ‘Is that interior decorator here? Send him in.’

  Ann hesitated. ‘There are a lot of people waiting, sir. Jud Mill and people from Katrat, from Datajoy, from T-Track Records and Mistah Kurtz Eating Houses. And there’s even a delegation from Kratt Brothers Midway Shows.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Andy snickered. ‘They look like the cast of Guys and Dolls, I’ve never seen so many sharp sideburns and black shirts with white ties.’

  ‘Okay. Okay. Send Jud in first, and tell the decorator he can make measurements or look around and get inspiration but he has to keep out of the way. Datajoy? What do we own called Datajoy?’

  Ann and Andy exchanged looks. Andy said, ‘Well, it’s sort of a combined clinic and pleasure ranch –’

  ‘Never mind how it’s marketed, what is it?’

  Ann said, ‘They implant electrodes in the customers’ heads, to stimulate their pleasure centres. It’s a leasing arrangement; as long as they keep up the payments they stay turned on. If they miss a payment –’

  ‘The electrode gets ripped out,’ Andy said. ‘One of Kratt’s more disgusting ideas.’

  ‘Disgusting, yes.’ Moxon’s phone rang. He sat on the desk and reached for it. ‘Still, if we combined it with Moxon Retirement Systems … Hello, Moxon … What is it, Francine, I’ve got people to see … Jough Braun, what does he, yes all right, all right we’ll talk about it.’

  Jud Mill was a distinguished-looking man of no particular age or sex. He began spreading folders on the desk and peering at them through half-moon reading glasses. ‘I may as well admit we had a few problems, Mr Moxon, with this direct editing scheme. When Mr Kratt brought me in as a media management consultant, I told him I foresaw problems with authors. Sure enough, everything worked well enough with the bookstore chains, the market survey people, the editorial – but the authors had problems. Authors always screw up a package.’

  ‘What happened? Direct editing?’

  ‘It works like this: the author writes directly on to a computer. This is linked up to leading bookstore chains, to their sales computers, and to prose analysis programs. The idea was to give the author instant feedback; as soon as he pecks out a few words, the computer grinds it through and tells him how good it is.’

  ‘How good?’

  ‘For his sales. By comparing sentences with sentences in his earlier books, and up-to-the-minute sales records, it can help him shape his prose as he writes.’

  ‘But it went wrong?’

  ‘In a sense. We had this leading Katrat Books author parked at his tax-haven home down in Nassau, hammering out his book on our DE system, when evidently he developed some kind of block. So to keep up his quota, he started, well, plagiarizing his own previous books. Naturally the computer rated this as highly saleable stuff, and I am afraid it went into production. See, the computer also sets type and – well in fact, The Hills Afar is a word-for-word copy of Red Situation, thirty million copies went out.’

  ‘Jesus. Could be sued by thirty million customers.’

  ‘No, well oddly enough, it’s selling very well and so far nobody seems to notice. The bookstore figures show we could even reprint.’ He opened another folder and sat back, causing the striped collar of his shirt to crackle. ‘That’s not important now. What I really wanted to do was launch a more foolproof scheme, total computer authorship.’

  Moxon looked surprised. ‘But I thought –’

  ‘Computers weren’t ready? Not to produce works of “lasting literary significance”, no, but to write big bucks books, yes. Naturally we keep the authorship under wraps, create a persona using a photo of a model, a fake bio – even, if necessary, an actor to appear on TV. I’ve talked
it over with Mel Zell at –’

  ‘Wait a minute, hold on there. I’m not at all sure about leaving out the human touch like that, the author is very –’

  ‘The author is one big problem for everybody,’ said Mill ‘When you’re trying to orchestrate a big, complex deal, bringing together all the elements of the package each in the right quantity at the right time, the author just gets in the way. When I architected a certain big property a few years ago with Sol Alter, we started with a one-line idea. Then we got a big-name star interested in appearing in a movie, that enabled us to bootstrap a six-figure plus movie deal, and with all that we had something to take to the publishers. We landed a seven-figure paperback deal and from there on had no problem getting all we wanted out of magazine serialization, book club, foreign and cassette rights, direct cable specials, options for a TV series, syndicated comics, t-shirts, board games, colouring books and so on. Then we fixed the music and wrapped up those rights. And then and only then did we finally hire an author to hack out the screenplay and book, the fictionalization. We paid him I think two grand and no comebacks. That book, Mr Moxon, was Boy and Girl.’

  The interior decorator, who had been quietly walking around the office, now cleared his throat.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘This apostle clock on the wall – it’ll have to go, Mr Moxon. For one thing, it’s an obvious fake.’

  ‘Fine, take it away.’ Moxon turned to Jud Mill, who was now collecting his folders. ‘I’d feel better about this computer author if I could see a sample of its work.’

  ‘What good would that do? Oh all right, here.’

  Moxon took the piece of paper and studied it for a minute. ‘This some kind of joke, Jud? It’s not even spelled right, looks like some six-year-old batted this out during recess.’

  ‘No, well, our market research has been pretty darn thorough, and all the indications are that this is the coming thing, as the literacy level of the public keeps dropping, the demand is for more regressive stuff, fairy tales, basic English, short sentences …’