Untouched by Human Hands

by Robert Sheckley

  He paused for a response, got none and went on. “You live in the most fortunate age mankind has ever known. You are surrounded by every wonder of art and science. The finest music, the greatest books and art, all at your fingertips. All you have to do is push a button.” He shifted to a kindlier tone. “Well, what are you thinking?”

  “I was just wondering how I could go to Mars,” the boy said. “With the debt, I mean. I don’t suppose I could get away from that.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Unless I stowed away on a rocket.”

  “But you wouldn’t do that.”

  “No, of course not,” the boy said, but his tone lacked conviction.

  “You’ll stay here and marry a very nice girl,” Leela told him.

  “Sure I will,” Billy said. “Sure.” He grinned suddenly. “I didn’t mean any of that stuff about going to Mars. I really didn’t.”

  “I’m glad of that,” Leela answered.

  “Just forget I mentioned it,” Billy said, smiling stiffly. He stood up and raced upstairs.

  “Probably gone to play with his rockets,” Leela said. “He’s such a little devil.”

  The Carrins ate a quiet supper, and then it was time for Mr. Carrin to go to work. He was on night shift this month. He kissed his wife goodbye, climbed into his Jet-lash and roared to the factory. The automatic gates recognized him and opened. He parked and walked in. ‘

  Automatic lathes, automatic presses—everything was automatic. The factory was huge and bright, and the machines hummed softly to themselves, doing their job and doing it well.

  Carrin walked to the end of the automatic washing machine assembly line, to relieve the man there.

  “Everything all right?” he asked.

  “Sure,” the man said. “Haven’t had a bad one all year. These new models here have built-in voices. They don’t light up like the old ones.”

  Carrin sat down where the man had sat and waited for the first washing machine to come through. His job was the soul of simplicity. He just sat there and the machines went by him. He pressed a button on them and found out if they were all right. They always were. After passing him, the washing machines went to the packaging section.

  The first one slid by on the long slide of rollers. He pressed the starting button on the side.

  “Ready for the wash,” the washing machine said.

  Carrin pressed the release and let it go by.

  That boy of his, Carrin thought. Would he grow up and face his responsibilities? Would he mature and take his place in society?

  Carrin doubted it. The boy was a born rebel. If anyone got to Mars, it would be his kid.

  But the thought didn’t especially disturb him.

  “Ready for the wash.” Another machine went by.

  Carrin remembered something about Miller. The jovial man had always been talking about the planets, always kidding about going off somewhere and roughing it. He hadn’t, though. He had committed suicide.

  “Ready for the wash.”

  Carrin had eight hours in front of him, and he loosened his belt to prepare for it. Eight hours of pushing buttons and listening to a machine announce its readiness.

  “Ready for the wash.”

  He pressed the release.

  “Ready for the wash.”

  Carrin’s mind strayed from the job, which didn’t need much attention in any case. He realized now what had been bothering him.

  He didn’t enjoy pushing buttons.

  THE ALTAR

  With a sprightly gait, Mr. Slater walked down Maple Street toward the station. There was a little bounce to his step this morning, and a smile on his clean-shaven substantial face. It was such a glorious spring morning!

  Mr. Slater hummed a tune to himself, glad of the seven block walk to the railroad station. Although the distance had been a bother all winter, weather like this made up for it. It was a pleasure to be alive, a joy to be commuting.

  Just then he was stopped by a man in a light blue topcoat.

  “Pardon me, sir,” the man said. “Could you direct me to the Altar of Baz-Matain?”

  Mr. Slater, still full of the beauties of spring, tried to think. “Baz-Matain? I don’t think—the Altar of Baz-Matain, you say?”

  “That’s right,” the stranger said, with an apologetic little smile. He was unusually tall, and he had a dark, thin face. Mr. Slater decided it was a foreign-looking face.

  “Terribly sorry,” Mr. Slater said, after a moment’s thought. “I don’t believe I ever heard of it.”

  “Thanks anyhow,” the dark man said, nodded pleasantly and walked off toward the center of town. Mr. Slater continued to the station.

  After the conductor punched his ticket, Mr. Slater thought of the incident Baz-Matain, he repeated to himself as the train sped through the misty, ragged fields of New Jersey. Baz-Matain. Mr. Slater decided that the foreign-looking man must have been mistaken. North Ambrose, New Jersey, was a small town; small enough for a resident to know every street in it, every house or store. Especially a resident of almost twenty years standing, like Mr. Slater.

  Halfway through the office day, Mr. Slater found himself tapping a pencil against the glass top of his desk, thinking of the man in the light blue topcoat. A foreign-looking fellow was an oddity in North Ambrose, a quiet, refined, settled suburb. The North Ambrose men wore good business suits and carried lean brown suitcases; some were fat and some were thin, but anyone in North Ambrose might have been taken for anyone else’s brother.

  Mr. Slater didn’t think of it anymore. He finished his day, took the tube to Hoboken, the train to North Ambrose, and finally started the walk to his house.

  On the way he passed the man again.

  “I found it,” the stranger said. “It wasn’t easy, but I found it.”

  “Where was it?” Mr. Slater asked, stopping.

  “Right beside the Temple of Dark Mysteries of Isis,” the stranger said. “Stupid of me. I should have asked for that in the first place. I knew it was here, but it never occurred to me—”

  “The temple of what?” Mr. Slater asked.

  “Dark Mysteries of Isis,” the dark man said. “Not competitors, really. Seers and warlocks, fertility cycles and the like. Never come near our province.”

  “I see,” Mr. Slater said, looking at the stranger closely in the early spring twilight. “The reason I asked, I’ve lived in this town a number of years, and I don’t believe I ever heard—”

  “Say!” the man exclaimed, glancing at his watch. “Didn’t realize how late it was! I’ll be holding up the ceremony if I don’t hurry!” And with a friendly wave of his hand, he hurried off.

  Mr. Slater walked slowly home, thinking. Altar of Baz-Matain. Dark Mysteries of Isis. They sounded like cults. Could there be such places in his town? It seemed impossible. No one would rent to people like that.

  After supper, Mr. Slater consulted the telephone book. But there was no listing for Baz-Matain, or for The Temple of Dark Mysteries of Isis. Information wasn’t able to supply them either.

  “Odd,” he mused. Later, he told his wife about the two meetings with the foreign man.

  “Well,” she said, pulling her house robe closer around her, “no one’s going to start any cults in this town. The Better Business Bureau wouldn’t allow it To say nothing of the Woman’s Club, or the P.T.A.”

  Mr. Slater agreed. The stranger must have had the wrong town. Perhaps the cults were in South Ambrose, a neighboring town with several bars and a movie house, and a distinctly undesirable element in its population.

  The next morning was Friday. Mr. Slater looked for the stranger, but all he saw were his homogeneous fellow commuters. It was the same on the way back. Evidently the fellow had visited the Altar and left. Or he had taken up duties there at hours which didn’t coincide with Mr. Slater’s commuting hours.

  Monday morning Mr. Slater left his house a few minutes late and was hurrying to catch his train. Ahead he saw the blue topcoat.

&
nbsp; “Hello there,” Mr. Slater called.

  “Why hello!” the dark man said, his thin face breaking into a smile. “I was wondering when we would bump into each other again.”

  “So was I,” Mr. Slater said, slowing his pace. The stranger was strolling along evidently enjoying the magnificent weather. Mr. Slater knew that he was going to miss his train.

  “And how are things at the Altar?” Mr. Slater asked.

  “So-so,” the man said, his hands clasped behind his back. “To tell you the truth, we’re having a bit of trouble.”

  “Oh?” Mr. Slater asked.

  “Yes,” the dark man said, his face stern. “Old Atherhotep, the mayor, is threatening to revoke our license in North Ambrose. Says we aren’t fulfilling our charter. But I ask you, how can we? What with the Dionysus-Africanus set across the street grabbing everyone likely, and the Papa Legba-Damballa combine two doors down, taking even the unlikely ones well, what can you do?”

  “It doesn’t sound too good,” Mr. Slater agreed.

  “That’s not all,” the stranger said. “Our high priest is threatening to leave if we don’t get some action. He’s a seventh degree adept, and Brahma alone knows where we’d get another.”

  “Mmm,” Mr. Slater murmured.

  “That’s what I’m here for, though,” the stranger said. “If they’re going to use sharp business practices, I’ll go them one better. I’m the new business manager, you know.”

  “Oh?” Mr. Slater said, surprised. “Are you reorganizing?”

  “In a way,” the stranger told him. “You see, it’s like this—” Just then a short, plump man hurried up and seized the dark man by the sleeve of the blue topcoat.

  “Elor,” he panted. “I miscalculated the date. It’s this Monday! Today, not next week!”

  “Damn,” the dark man said succinctly. “You’ll have to excuse me,” he said to Mr. Slater. “This is rather urgent.” He hurried away with the short man.

  Mr. Slater was half an hour late for work that morning, but he didn’t care. It was all pretty obvious, he thought, sitting at his desk. A group of cults was springing up in North Ambrose, vying for congregations. And the mayor, instead of getting rid of them, was doing nothing. Perhaps he was even taking bribes!

  Mr. Slater tapped his pencil against his glass topped desk. How was it possible? Nothing could be hidden in North Ambrose. It was such a little town. Mr. Slater knew a good percentage of the inhabitants by their first names. How could something like this go on unnoticed?

  Angrily, he reached for the telephone.

  Information was unable to supply him with the numbers of Dionysus-Africanus, Papa Legba or Damballa. The mayor of North Ambrose, he was informed, was not Atherhotep, but a man named Miller. Mr. Slater telephoned him.

  The conversation was far from satisfying. The mayor insisted that he knew every business in the town, every church, every lodge. And if there were any cults—which there weren’t—he would know of them too.

  “You have been deluded, my good man,” Mayor Miller said, a little too pompously to suit Mr. Slater. “There are no people by those names in this town, no such organizations. We would never allow them in.”

  Mr. Slater thought this over carefully on the way home. As he stepped off the train platform he saw Elor, hurrying across Oak Street with short, rapid steps.

  Elor stopped when Mr. Slater called to him.

  “Really can’t stay,” he said cheerfully. “The ceremony begins soon, and I must be there. It was that fool Ligian’s fault.”

  Ligian, Mr. Slater decided, would be the plump man who had stopped Elor in the morning.

  “He’s so careless,” Elor went on. “Can you imagine a competent astrologer making a mistake of a week in the conjugation of Saturn with Scorpio? No matter. We hold the ceremony tonight, short- handed or not.”

  “Could I come?” Mr. Slater asked, without hesitation. “I mean, if you’re short-handed—”

  “Well,” Elor mused. “It’s unprecedented.”

  “I’d really like to,” Mr. Slater said, seeing a chance to get to the bottom of the mystery.

  “I really don’t think it’s fair to you,” Elor went on, his thin, dark face thoughtful. “Without preparation and all.”

  “I’ll be all right,” Mr. Slater insisted. He would really have something to dump in the mayor’s lap if this worked! “I really want to go. You’ve got me quite excited about it.”

  “All right,” Elor said. “We’d better hurry.”

  They walked down Oak Street, toward the center of town. Then, just as they reached the first stores, Elor turned. He led Mr. Slater two blocks over and a block down, and then retraced a block. After that he headed back toward the railroad station.

  It was getting quite dark.

  “Isn’t there a simpler way?” Mr. Slater asked.

  “Oh, no,” Elor said. “This is the most direct. If you knew the roundabout way I came the first time—”

  They walked on, backtracking blocks, circling, re-crossing streets they had already passed, going back and forth over the town Mr. Slater knew so well.

  But as it grew darker, and as they approached familiar streets from unfamiliar directions, Mr. Slater became just a trifle confused. He knew where he was, of course, but the constant circling had thrown him off.

  How very strange, he thought. One can get lost in one’s own town, even after living there almost twenty years.

  Mr. Slater tried to place what street they were on without looking at the sign post, and then they made another unexpected turn. He had just made up his mind that they were backtracking on Walnut

  Lane, when he found that he couldn’t remember the next cross street. As they passed the corner, he looked at the sign.

  It read: Left Orifice.

  Mr. Slater couldn’t remember any street in North Ambrose called Left Orifice.

  There were no streetlights on it, and Mr. Slater found that he didn’t recognize any of the stores. That was strange, because he thought he knew the little business section of North Ambrose very well. It gave him quite a start when they passed one squat black building on which there was a dimly lighted sign.

  The sign read: Temple of the Dark Mysteries of Isis.

  “They’re pretty quiet in there tonight, eh?” Elor said, following Mr. Slater’s glance toward the building. “We’d better hurry.” He walked faster, allowing Mr. Slater no time to ask questions.

  The buildings became stranger and stranger as they walked down the dim street. They were of all shapes and sizes, some new and glistening, others ancient and decayed. Mr. Slater couldn’t imagine any section in North Ambrose like this. Was there a town within the town? Could there be a North Ambrose by night that the daytime inhabitants knew nothing of? A North Ambrose approached only by devious turns through familiar streets?

  “Phallic rites in there,” Elor said, indicating a tall, slender building. Beside it was a twisted, sagging hulk of a place.

  “That’s Damballa’s place,” Elor said, pointing at it.

  Toward the end of the street was a white building. It was quite long, and built low to the ground. Mr. Slater hadn’t time to examine it, because Elor had his arm and was hurrying him in the door.

  “I really must become more prompt,” Elor muttered half to himself.

  Once inside, it was totally dark. Mr. Slater could feel movement around him, and then he made out a tiny white light. Elor guided him toward it, saying in friendly tones, “You’ve really helped me out of a jam.”

  “Have you got it7” a thin voice asked from beside the light. Mr. Slater began to make out shapes. As his eyes became more accustomed to the gloom, he could see a tiny, gnarled old man in front of the light.

  The old man was holding an unusually long knife.

  “Of course,” Elor said. “And he was willing, too.”

  The white light was suspended over a stone altar, Mr. Slater realized. In a single reflex action he turned to run, but Elor’s hand was tight on his a
rm.

  “You can’t leave us now,” Elor said gently. “We’re ready to begin.”

  And then there were other hands on Mr. Slater, many of them, pulling him steadily toward the Altar.

  SHAPE

  Pid the pilot slowed the ship almost to a standstill. He peered anxiously at the green planet below.

  Even without instruments, there was no mistaking it. Third from its sun, it was the only planet in this system capable of sustaining life. Peacefully it swam through its gauze of clouds.

  It looked very innocent. And yet, something on this planet had claimed the lives of every expedition the Glom had sent.

  Pid hesitated a moment, before starting irrevocably down. He and his two crewmen were as ready now as they would ever be. Their compact Displacers were stored in body pouches, inactive but ready.

  Pid wanted to say something to his crew, but wasn’t sure how to put it

  The crew waited. Ilg the Radioman had sent the final message to the Glom planet. Ger the Detector read sixteen dials at once, and reported, “No sign of alien activity.” His body surfaces flowed carelessly.

  Pid noticed the flow, and knew what he had to say. Ever since they had left Glom, shape-discipline had been disgustingly lax. The Invasion Chief had warned him; but still, he had to do something about it. It was his duty, since lower castes such as Radiomen and Detectors were notoriously prone to Shapelessness.

  “A lot of hopes are resting on this expedition,” he began slowly. “We’re a long way from home now.”

  Ger the Detector nodded. Ilg the Radioman flowed out of his prescribed shape and molded himself comfortably to a wall.

  “However,” Pid said sternly, “distance is no excuse for promiscuous shapelessness.”

  Ilg flowed hastily back into proper Radioman’s shape.

  “Exotic shapes will undoubtedly be called for,” Pid went on. “And for that we have a special dispensation. But remember—any shape not assumed strictly in the line of duty is a device of The Shapeless One!”

  Ger’s body surfaces abruptly stopped flowing.

  “That’s all,” Pid said, and flowed into his controls. The ship started down, so smoothly coordinated that Pid felt a glow of pride.