Citizen in Space

by Robert Sheckley

  “We have no need of them,” Melith explained, “since we have no crime.”

  “I have heard,” said Goodman, “that there is no poverty on Tranai.”

  “None that I ever heard of,” Melith said cheerfully. “Are you sure you won’t have a cigar?”

  “No, thank you.” Goodman was leaning forward eagerly now. “I understand that you have achieved a stable economy without resorting to socialistic, communistic, fascistic or bureaucratic practices.”

  “Certainly,” Melith said.

  “That yours is, in fact, a free enterprise society, where individual initiative flourishes and governmental functions are kept to an absolute minimum.”

  Melith nodded. “By and large, the government concerns itself with minor regulatory matters, care of the aged and beautifying the landscape.”

  “Is it true that you have discovered a method of wealth distribution without resorting to governmental intervention, without even taxation, based entirely upon individual choice?” Goodman challenged.

  “Oh, yes, absolutely.”

  “Is it true that there is no corruption in any phase of the Tranaian government?”

  “None,” Melith said. “I suppose that’s why we have a hard time finding men to hold public office.”

  “Then Captain Savage was right!” Goodman cried, unable to control himself any longer. “This is utopia!”

  “We like it,” Melith said.

  Goodman took a deep breath and asked, “May I stay here?”

  “Why not?” Melith pulled out a form. “We have no restrictions on immigration. Tell me, what is your occupation?”

  “On Earth, I was a robot designer.”

  “Plenty of openings in that.” Melith started to fill in the form. His pen emitted a blob of ink. Casually, the minister threw the pen against the wall, where it shattered, adding another blue blotch to the wallpaper.

  “We’ll make out the paper some other time,” he said. “I’m not in the mood now.” He leaned back in his chair. “Let me give you a word of advice. Here on Tranai, we feel that we have come pretty close to utopia, as you call it. But ours is not a highly organized state. We have no complicated set of laws. We live by observance of a number of unwritten laws, or customs, as you might call them. You will discover what they are. You would be advised—although certainly not ordered—to follow them.”

  “Of course I will,” Goodman exclaimed. “I can assure you, sir, I have no intention of endangering any phase of your paradise.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t worried about us,” Melith said with an amused smile. “It was your own safety I was considering. Perhaps my wife has some further advice for you.”

  He pushed a large red button on his desk. Immediately there was a bluish haze. The haze solidified, and in a moment Goodman saw a handsome young woman standing before him.

  “Good morning, my dear,” she said to Melith.

  “It’s afternoon,” Melith informed her. “My dear, this young man came all the way from Earth to live on Tranai. I gave him the usual advice. Is there anything else we can do for him?”

  Mrs. Melith thought for a moment, then asked Goodman, “Are you married?”

  “No, ma’am,” Goodman answered.

  “In that case, he should meet a nice girl,” Mrs. Melith told her husband. “Bachelordom is not encouraged on Tranai, although certainly not prohibited. Let me see…How about that cute Driganti girl?”

  “She’s engaged,” Melith said.

  “Really? Have I been in stasis that long? My dear, it’s not too thoughtful of you.”

  “I was busy,” Melith said apologetically.

  “How about Mihna Vensis?”

  “Not his type.”

  “Janna Vley?”

  “Perfect!” Melith winked at Goodman. “A most attractive little lady.” He found a new pen in his desk, scribbled an address and handed it to Goodman. “My wife will telephone her to be expecting you tomorrow evening.”

  “And do come around for dinner some night,” said Mrs. Melith.

  “Delighted,” Goodman replied, in a complete daze.

  “It’s been nice meeting you,” Mrs. Melith said. Her husband pushed the red button. The blue haze formed and Mrs. Melith vanished.

  “Have to close up now,” said Melith, glancing at his watch. “Can’t work overtime—people might start talking. Drop in some day and we’ll make out those forms. You really should call on Supreme President Borg, too, at the National Mansion. Or possibly he’ll call on you. Don’t let the old fox put anything over on you. And don’t forget about Janna.” He winked roguishly and escorted Goodman to the door.

  In a few moments, Goodman found himself alone on the sidewalk. He had reached utopia, he told himself, a real, genuine, sure-enough utopia.

  But there were some very puzzling things about it.

  Goodman ate dinner at a small restaurant and checked in at a nearby hotel. A cheerful bellhop showed him to his room, where Goodman stretched out immediately on the bed. Wearily he rubbed his eyes, trying to sort out his impressions.

  So much had happened to him, all in one day! And so much was bothering him. The ratio of men to women, for example. He had meant to ask Melith about that.

  But Melith might not be the man to ask, for there were some curious things about him. Like throwing his pen against the wall. Was that the act of a mature, responsible official? And Melith’s wife….

  Goodman knew that Mrs. Melith had come out of a derrsin stasis field; he had recognized the characteristic blue haze. The derrsin was used on Terra, too. Sometimes there were good medical reasons for suspending all activity, all growth, all decay. Suppose a patient had a desperate need for a certain serum, procurable only on Mars. Simply project the person into stasis until the serum could arrive.

  But on Terra, only a licensed doctor could operate the field. There were strict penalties for its misuse.

  He had never heard of keeping one’s wife in one.

  Still, if all the wives on Tranai were kept in stasis, that would explain the absence of the nineteen-to-thirty-five age group and would account for the ten-to-one ratio of men to women.

  But what was the reason for this technological purdah?

  And something else was on Goodman’s mind, something quite insignificant, but bothersome all the same.

  That rifle on Melith’s wall.

  Did he hunt game with it? Pretty big game, then. Target practice? Not with a telescopic sight. Why the silencer? Why did he keep it in his office?

  But these were minor matters, Goodman decided, little local idiosyncrasies which would become clear when he had lived a while on Tranai. He couldn’t expect immediate and complete comprehension of what was, after all, an alien planet.

  He was just beginning to doze off when he heard a knock at his door.

  “Come in,” he called.

  A small, furtive, gray-faced man hurried in and closed the door behind him. “You’re the man from Terra, aren’t you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I figured you’d come here,” the little man said, with a pleased smile. “Hit it right the first time. Going to stay on Tranai?”

  “I’m here for good.”

  “Fine,” the man said. “How would you like to become Supreme President?”

  “Huh?”

  “Good pay, easy hours, only a one-year term. You look like a public-spirited type,” the man said sunnily. “How about it?”

  Goodman hardly knew what to answer. “Do you mean,” he asked incredulously, “that you offer the highest office in the land so casually?”

  “What do you mean, casually?” the little man spluttered. “Do you think we offer the Supreme Presidency to just anybody? It’s a great honor to be asked.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “And you, as a Terran, are uniquely suited.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, it’s common knowledge that Terrans derive pleasure from ruling. We Tranaians don’t, that’s all. Too muc
h trouble.”

  As simple as that. The reformer blood in Goodman began to boil. Ideal as Tranai was, there was undoubtedly room for improvement. He had a sudden vision of himself as ruler of utopia, doing the great task of making perfection even better. But caution stopped him from agreeing at once. Perhaps the man was a crackpot.

  “Thank you for asking me,” Goodman said. “I’ll have to think it over. Perhaps I should talk with the present incumbent and find out something about the nature of the work.”

  “Well, why do you think I’m here?” the little man demanded. “I’m Supreme President Borg.”

  Only then did Goodman notice the official medallion around the little man’s neck.

  “Let me know your decision. I’ll be at the National Mansion.” He shook Goodman’s hand, and left.

  Goodman waited five minutes, then rang for the bellhop. “Who was that man?”

  “That was Supreme President Borg,” the bellhop told him. “Did you take the job?”

  Goodman shook his head slowly. He suddenly realized that he had a great deal to learn about Tranai.

  The next morning, Goodman listed the various robot factories of Port Tranai in alphabetical order and went out in search of a job. To his amazement, he found one with no trouble at all, at the very first place he looked. The great Abbag Home Robot Works signed him on after only a cursory glance at his credentials.

  His new employer, Mr. Abbag, was short and fierce-looking, with a great mane of white hair and an air of tremendous personal energy.

  “Glad to have a Terran on board,” Abbag said. “I understand you’re an ingenious people and we certainly need some ingenuity around here. I’ll be honest with you, Goodman, I’m hoping to profit from your alien viewpoint We’ve reached an impasse.”

  “Is it a production problem?” Goodman asked.

  “I’ll show you.” Abbag led Goodman through the factory, around the Stamping Room, Heat-Treat, X-ray Analysis, Final Assembly and to the Testing Room. This room was laid out like a combination kitchen-living room. A dozen robots were lined up against one wall.

  “Try one out,” Abbag said.

  Goodman walked up to the nearest robot and looked at its controls. They were simple enough; self-explanatory, in fact. He put the machine through a standard repertoire: picking up objects, washing pots and pans, setting a table. The robot’s responses were correct enough, but maddeningly slow. On Earth, such sluggishness had been ironed out a hundred years ago. Apparently they were behind the times here on Tranai.

  “Seems pretty slow,” Goodman commented cautiously.

  “You’re right,” Abbag said. “Damned slow. Personally, I think it’s about right. But Consumer Research indicates that our customers want it slower still.”

  “Huh?”

  “Ridiculous, isn’t it?” Abbag asked moodily. “We’ll lose money if we slow it down any more. Take a look at its guts.”

  Goodman opened the back panel and blinked at the maze of wiring within. After a moment, he was able to figure it out. The robot was built like a modem Earth machine, with the usual, inexpensive high-speed circuits. But special signal-delay relays, impulse- rejection units and step-down gears had been installed.

  “Just tell me,” Abbag demanded angrily, “how can we slow it down any more without building the thing a third bigger and twice as expensive? I don’t know what kind of a disimprovement they’ll be asking for next.”

  Goodman was trying to adjust his thinking to the concept of disimproving a machine.

  On Earth, the plants were always trying to build robots with faster, smoother, more accurate responses. He had never found any reason to question the wisdom of this. He still didn’t.

  “And as if that weren’t enough,” Abbag complained, “the new plastic we developed for this particular model has catalyzed or some damn thing. Watch.”

  He drew back his foot and kicked the robot in the middle. The plastic bent like a sheet of tin. He kicked again. The plastic bent still further and the robot began to click and flash pathetically. A third kick shattered the case. The robot’s innards exploded in spectacular fashion, scattering over the floor.

  “Pretty flimsy,” Goodman said.

  “Not flimsy enough. It’s supposed to fly apart on the first kick. Our customers won’t get any satisfaction out of stubbing their toes on its stomach all day. But tell me, how am I supposed to produce a plastic that’ll take normal wear and tear—we don’t want these things falling apart accidentally—and still go to pieces when a customer wants it to?”

  “Wait a minute,” Goodman protested. “Let me get this straight. You purposely slow these robots down so they will irritate people enough to destroy them?”

  Abbag raised both eyebrows. “Of course!”

  “Why?”

  “You are new here,” Abbag said. “Any child knows that. It’s fundamental.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d explain.”

  Abbag sighed. “Well, first of all, you are undoubtedly aware that any mechanical contrivance is a source of irritation. Humankind has a deep and abiding distrust of machines. Psychologists call it the instinctive reaction of life to pseudo-life. Will you go along with me on that?”

  Marvin Goodman remembered all the anxious literature he had read about machines revolting, cybernetic brains taking over the world, androids on the march, and the like. He thought of humorous little newspaper items about a man shooting his television set, smashing his toaster against the wall, “getting even” with his car. He remembered all the robot jokes, with their undertone of deep hostility.

  “I guess I can go along on that,” said Goodman.

  “Then allow me to restate the proposition,” Abbag said pedantically. “Any machine is a source of irritation. The better a machine operates, the stronger the irritation. So, by extension, a perfectly operating machine is a focal point for frustration, loss of self-esteem, undirected resentment—”

  “Hold on there!” Goodman objected. “I won’t go that far!”

  “—and schizophrenic fantasies,” Abbag continued inexorably. “But machines are necessary to an advanced economy. Therefore the best human solution is to have malfunctioning ones.”

  “I don’t see that at all.”

  “It’s obvious. On Terra, your gadgets work close to the optimum, producing inferiority feelings in their operators. But unfortunately you have a masochistic tribal taboo against destroying them.

  Result: Generalized anxiety in the presence of the sacrosanct and unhumanly efficient Machine, and a search for an aggression-object, usually a wife or friend. A very poor state of affairs. Oh, it’s efficient, I suppose, in terms of robot-hour production, but very inefficient in terms of long-range health and well-being.”

  “I’m not sure—”

  “The human is an anxious beast. Here on Tranai, we direct anxiety toward this particular point and let it serve as an outlet for a lot of other frustrations as well. A man’s had enough—blam! He kicks hell out of his robot. There’s an immediate and therapeutic discharge of feeling, a valuable—and valid—sense of superiority over mere machinery, a lessening of general tension, a healthy flow of adrenalin into the bloodstream, and a boost to the industrial economy of Tranai, since he’ll go right out and buy another robot. And what, after all, has he done? He hasn’t beaten his wife, suicided, declared a war, invented a new weapon, or indulged in any of the other more common modes of aggression-resolution. He has simply smashed an inexpensive robot which he can replace immediately.”

  “I guess it’ll take me a little time to understand,” Goodman admitted.

  “Of course it will. I’m sure you’re going to be an invaluable man here, Goodman. Think over what I’ve said and try to figure out some inexpensive way of disimproving this robot.”

  Goodman pondered the problem for the rest of the day, but he couldn’t immediately adjust his thinking to the idea of producing an inferior machine. It seemed vaguely blasphemous. He knocked off work at five-thirty, dissatisfie
d with himself, but determined to do better—or worse, depending on viewpoint and conditioning.

  After a quick and lonely supper, Goodman decided to call on Janna Vley. He didn’t want to spend the evening alone with his thoughts and he was in desperate need of finding something pleasant, simple and uncomplicated in this complex Utopia. Perhaps this Janna would be the answer.

  The Vley home was only a dozen blocks away and he decided to walk.

  The basic trouble was that he had had his own idea of what utopia would be like and it was difficult adjusting his thinking to the real thing. He had imagined a pastoral setting, a planetful of people in small, quaint villages, walking around in flowing robes and being very wise and gentle and understanding. Children who played in the golden sunlight, young folk who danced in the village square….

  Ridiculous! He had pictured a tableau rather than a scene, a series of stylized postures instead of the ceaseless movement of life. Humans could never live that way, even assuming they wanted to. If they could, they would no longer be humans.

  He reached the Vley house and paused irresolutely outside. What was he getting himself into now? What alien—although indubitably utopian—customs would he run into?

  He almost turned away. But the prospect of a long night alone in his hotel room was singularly unappealing. Gritting his teeth, he rang the bell.

  A red-haired, middle-aged man of medium height opened the door. “Oh, you must be that Terran fellow. Janna’s getting ready. Come in and meet the wife.”

  He escorted Goodman into a pleasantly furnished living room and pushed a red button on the wall. Goodman wasn’t startled this time by the bluish derrsin haze. After all, the manner in which Tranaians treated their women was their own business.

  A handsome woman of about twenty-eight appeared from the haze.

  “My dear,” Vley said, “this is the Terran, Mr. Goodman.”

  “So pleased to meet you,” Mrs. Vley said. “Can I get you a drink?”

  Goodman nodded. Vley pointed out a comfortable chair. In a moment, Mrs. Vley brought in a tray of frosted drinks and sat down.

  “So you’re from Terra,” said Mr. Vley. “Nervous, hustling sort of place, isn’t it? People always on the go?”