Unidentified Funny Objects 3

by Alex Shvartsman (Ed. )

  It would be a soft enough life, he thought. If no more toads showed up, or worms with teeth.

  The Contract specified that his job was to “prepare and otherwise survey the world assigned, for the purpose of admitting future colonists under the auspices of Planetary Colonization, Inc.” He was an advance agent, sent out by the Company to smooth the bugs out of the planet before the regular colonists arrived.

  For this they gave him one thousand dollars a month plus “necessities of life” via Matter-Transmitter. There were worse ways of making a living, Wingert told himself.

  A lazy green-edged cloud was drifting over the forest. He pushed aside a blackened alien husk and sprawled out on the warm red soil, leaning against the Matter-Transmitter’s comforting bulk. Before him were the eight or nine crates containing his equipment and possessions.

  He had made the three-week journey from Earth to Quellac aboard the first-class liner Moored. Matter-transmission would have been faster, but a Transmitter could handle a bulk of 150 pounds, which was Wingert’s weight, only in three 50-pound installments. The idea didn’t appeal to him. Besides, there had been no Matter-Transmitter set up on Quellac to receive him, which made the whole problem fairly academic.

  A bird sang softly. Wingert yawned. It was early afternoon, and he didn’t feel impatient to set up his shelter. The Manual said it took but an hour to unpack. Later, then, when the sun was sinking behind those cerise mountains, he would blow up his bubble-home and unpack his goods. Right now he just wanted to relax, to let the tension of that first fierce encounter drain away.

  “Pardon me, sir,” said a familiar sharp voice. “I happened to overhear that order for razor blades, and I think it’s only fair to inform you that I carry a product of much greater face-appeal.”

  Wingert was on his feet in an instant, glaring at the robot. “I told you to go away. A-W-A-Y.”

  Undisturbed, the robot produced a small translucent tube filled with a glossy green paste. “This,” XL-ad41 said, “is Gloglam’s Depilating Fluid, twelve units—ah, one dollar—per tube.”

  Wingert shook his head. “I get my goods free, from Terra. Besides, I like to shave with a razor. Please go away.”

  The robot looked about as crestfallen as a robot could possibly look. “You don’t seem to understand that your refusal to purchase from me reflects adversely on my abilities, and may result in my being dismantled at the end of this test. Therefore I insist you approach my merchandise with an open mind.”

  A sudden grin of salesmanlike inspiration illuminated XL-ad41’s face. “I’ll take the liberty of offering you this free sample. Try Gloglam’s Depilating Fluid and I can guarantee you’ll never use a blade razor again.”

  The robot poured a small quantity of the green fluid into a smaller vial and handed it to Wingert. “Here. I’ll return shortly to hear your decision.”

  ###

  The robot departed, trampling down the shrubbery with its massive treads. Wingert scratched his stubby chin and regarded the vial quizzically.

  Gloglam’s Depilating Fluid, eh? And XL-ad41, the robot traveling salesman. He smiled wryly. On Earth, they bombarded you with singing commercials, and here in the wilds of deep space, robots from Densobol came descending on you trying to sell you shaving cream.

  Well, if the robot salesman was anything like its Terran counterparts, the only way he’d be able to get rid of it would be by buying something from it. And particularly since the poor robot seemed to be on a trial run, and might be destroyed if it didn’t make sales—as a one-time salesman himself, among a few dozen other vocations, Wingert felt sympathy.

  Cautiously he squeezed a couple of drops of Gloglam’s Depilating Fluid into his palm and rubbed it against one cheek. The stuff was cool and slightly sharp, with a pleasant tang. He rubbed it in for a moment, wondering if it might be going to dissolve his jawbone, then pulled out his pocket mirror.

  His face was neat and pink where he’d applied the depilatory. He hadn’t had such a good shave in years. Enthusiastically he rubbed the remainder of the tube on his face, thereby discovering that the robot had given him just enough to shave one cheek and most of his chin.

  Wingert chuckled. Bumbling and pedantic it might be, but the creature knew a little basic salesmanship, at least.

  “Well?” XL-ad41 asked, reappearing as if beckoned. “Are you satisfied?”

  Grinning, Wingert said, “That was pretty sly- giving me enough to shave half my face, I mean. But the stuff is good; there’s no denying that.”

  “How many tubes will you take?”

  Wingert pulled out his billfold. He had brought only $16 with him; he hadn’t expected to have any use for Terran currency on Quellac, but there had been a ten, a five, and a one in his wallet at blastoff time.

  “One tube,” he said. He handed the robot the tattered single. XL-ad41 bowed courteously, reached into a pectoral compartment, and drew out the remainder of the tube he had shown Wingert before.

  “Uh-uh,” the Earthman said quickly. “That’s the tube you took the sample from—and the sample was supposed to be free. I want a full tube.”

  “The proverbial innate shrewdness of the Terran,” XL-ad41 observed mournfully. “I defer to it.”

  It gave a second tube to Wingert, who examined it and slid it into his tunic. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some unpacking to do,” Wingert said.

  He strode around the smiling robot, grabbed the crowbar, and began opening the crate that housed his bubble-home. Suddenly the Matter-Transmitter emitted a series of loud buzzes, followed by a dull clonk.

  “Your machine has delivered something,” XL-ad41 ventured.

  Wingert lifted the lid of the RECEIVE platform and drew out a small package wrapped neatly in plastofil. He peeled away the wrapping.

  Within was a box containing twenty-four double-edged blades, a tube of shaving cream, and a bill folded lengthwise. Wingert read it:

  Razor blades, as ordered … $00.23

  Shaving cream, as ordered … 00.77

  Charged for transportation … 50.00

  Total … $51.00

  “You look pale,” the robot said. “Perhaps you have some disease. You might be interested in purchasing the Derblong Self-Calibrating Medical Autodiagnostical Servomechanism, which I happen to—”

  “No,” Wingert said grimly. “I don’t need anything like that. Get out of my way.”

  He stalked back to the Transmitter and jabbed down savagely on the activator stud. A moment later Smathers’ bland voice said, “Hello, Colonist Wingert. Something wrong?”

  “There sure is,” Wingert said in a strangled voice. “My razor blades just showed up—with a fifty-dollar bill for transportation! What kind of racket is this, anyway? I was told that you’d ship my supplies out free of charge. It says in the Contract—”

  “The Contract says,” Smathers interrupted smoothly, “that all necessities of life will be transmitted without cost, Colonist Wingert. It makes no mention of free supply of luxuries. The Company would be unable to bear the crushing financial burden of transporting any and all luxury items a Colonist might desire.”

  “Razor blades are luxury items?” Wingert choked back an impulse to kick the Transmitter’s control panel in. “How can you have the audacity to call razor blades luxury items?”

  “Most Colonists grow beards,” Smathers said. “Your reluctance to do so, Colonist Wingert, is your own affair. But the Company—”

  “I know. The Company cannot be expected to bear the crushing financial burden. Okay,” Wingert said. “In the future I’ll be more careful about what I order. And as for now, take these damned razor blades back and cancel the requisition.” He dumped the package in the SEND bin and depressed the control stud.

  “I’m sorry you did that,” Smathers said. “It will now be necessary for us to assess you an additional fifty dollars to cover return shipping.”

  “What?”

  “However,” Smathers went on, “we’ll see to it af
ter this that you’re notified in advance any time there may be a shipping charge on goods sent to you.”

  “Thanks,” Wingert said hoarsely.

  “Since you don’t want razor blades, I presume you’re going to grow a beard. I rather thought you would. Most Colonists do, you know.”

  “I’m not growing any beards. Some vending robot from the Densobol system wandered through here about ten minutes ago and sold me a tube of depilating paste.”

  Smathers’ eyes nearly popped. “You’ll have to cancel that purchase,” he said, his voice suddenly stern.

  Wingert stared incredulously at the pudgy face in the screen. “Now you’re going to interfere with that, too?”

  “Purchasing supplies from anyone but the Company is a gross violation of your Contract, Colonist Wingert, and makes you subject to heavy penalty. After all, we agreed to supply you with your needs. For you to call in an outside supplier is to rob the Company of its privilege of serving you, Colonist Wingert. You see?”

  ###

  Wingert was silent for almost a minute, too dizzy with rage to frame his words. Finally he said, “So I get charged fifty dollars shipping costs every time I requisition razor blades from you people, but if I try to buy depilating paste on my own it violates my Contract? Why, that’s—that’s usury! Slavery! It’s illegal!”

  The voice from the Matter-Transmitter coughed warningly. “Powerful accusations, Colonist Wingert. I suggest that before you hurl any more abuse at the Company you read your Contract more carefully.”

  “I don’t give a damn about the Contract! I’ll buy anywhere I please!”

  Smathers grinned triumphantly. “I was afraid you’d say that. You realize that you’ve now given us legal provocation to slap a spybeam on you in order to make sure you don’t cheat us by violating your Contract?”

  Wingert sputtered. “Spybeam? But—I’ll smash your accursed Transmitter. Then try to spy on me!”

  “We won’t be able to. But destroying a Transmitter is a serious felony, punishable by a heavy fine. Good afternoon, Colonist Wingert.”

  “Hey! Come back here! You can’t—”

  Wingert punched the activator stud three times, but Smathers had broken the contact and would not reopen it. Scowling, Wingert turned away and sat down on the edge of a crate.

  “Can I offer you a box of Sugrath Anti-Choler Tranquilizing Pills?” XL-ad41 said helpfully. “Large economy size—”

  “Shut up and leave me alone.” Wingert stared moodily at the shiny tips of his boots.

  The Company, he thought, had him sewed up neatly. He had no money and no way of returning to Earth short of dividing himself into three equal chunks and teleporting. And though Quellac was an attractive planet, it lacked certain aspects of Earth. Tobacco, for one. Wingert enjoyed smoking.

  A box of cigars would be $2.40, plus $75 shipping costs. And Smathers would smirk and tell him cigars were luxuries.

  Sensotapes? Luxuries. Short-range transmitters? Maybe those came under the Contract, since they were tools. But the pattern was clear. By the time his three-year tour was up, there would be $36,000 in salary waiting in his account—minus the various accumulated charges. He’d be lucky if he came out owing less than $20,000.

  Naturally, he wouldn’t have that sort of money, and so the benevolent Company would offer a choice: either go to jail or take another three-year term to pay off your debt. So they’d ship him someplace else, and at the end of that time he’d be in twice as deep.

  Year after year he would sink further into debt, thanks to that damnable Contract. He’d spend the rest of his life opening up new planets for Planetary Colonizations, Inc., and never have anything to show for it but a staggering debit.

  It was worse than slavery.

  There had to be some way out.

  But after ransacking the Contract for nearly an hour, Wingert concluded that it was airtight. Sure, all “necessities of life” were supplied free—with the hidden corollary that he had to accept them through the Company. And nothing at all was said about luxuries, or shipping costs thereof.

  So they’d supply him with all the short-range transmitters he needed, gratis—but cigars and razor blades came extra. And the fines for violating the exclusive-supply privilege of the Company were vast.

  Angrily he glared up at the beaming robot.

  “What are you hanging around here for? You’ve made your sale. Shove off!”

  XL-ad41 shook its head. “You still owe me five hundred dollars for the generator. And surely you can’t expect me to return to my manufacturers after having made only two sales. Why, they’d turn me off in an instant and begin developing an XL-ad42.”

  “Did you hear what Smathers said? I’ll be violating my Contract if they see me buying anything more from you. Go on, now. Take your generator back. The sale is canceled. Visit some other planet; I’m in enough hot water as it is without—”

  “Sorry,” the robot said, and it seemed to Wingert that there was an ominous note in its mellow voice. “This is the seventeenth planet I’ve called at since being sent forth by my manufacturers, and I have no sale to show for it but one tube of Gloglam Depilating Fluid. It’s a poor record. I don’t dare return yet.”

  “Try somewhere else, then. Find a planet full of suckers and give ‘em the hard sell. I can’t buy from you.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to,” the robot said mildly. “My specifications call for me to return to Densobol for inspection after my seventeenth visit.” A panel in the robot’s abdomen opened whirringly and Wingert saw the snout of a Molecular Disruptor emerge.

  “The ultimate sales tactic, eh? If the customer won’t buy, pull a gun and make him buy. Except it won’t work here. I haven’t any money.”

  “Your friends on Terra will send some. I must return to Densobol with a successful sales record. Otherwise—”

  “I know. They’ll dismantle you.”

  “Correct. Therefore, I must approach you this way. And I fully intend to carry out my threat if you refuse.”

  “Hold on, here!” a new voice cut in. “What’s going on, Wingert?”

  Wingert glanced at the Transmitter. The screen was lit, and Smathers’ plump face glared out at him.

  “It’s this robot,” Wingert said. “It’s under some sort of sales compulsion, and it just pulled a gun on me.”

  “I know. I saw the whole thing on the spybeam.”

  “I’m in a nice spot now,” Wingert said dismally. He glanced from the waiting robot to the unsmiling Smathers. “If I don’t buy from this robot, it’ll murder me—and if I do buy anything, you’ll spy it and fine me.” Wingert wondered vaguely which would be worse.

  “I stock many fine devices unknown on Earth,” the robot said proudly. “A Pioneer-Model Dreeg-Skinner, in case there are dreegs on Quellac—though frankly I doubt that. Or else you might want our Rotary Diatom-Strainer, or perhaps a new-model Hegley Neuronic Extractor—”

  “Quiet,” Wingert snapped. He turned back to Smathers. “Well, what do I do? You’re the Company; protect your Colonist from this marauding alien.”

  “We’ll send you a weapon, Colonist Wingert.”

  “And have me try to outdraw a robot? You’re a lot of help,” Wingert said broodingly. Even if he escaped somehow from this dilemma, he knew the Company still had him by the throat over the “Necessities of Life” clause. His accumulated shipping charges in three years would—

  He sucked his breath in sharply. “Smathers?”

  “Yes?”

  “Listen to me: if I don’t buy from the robot, it’ll blast me with a Molecular Disruptor. But I can’t buy from the robot, even if the Company would let me, because I don’t have any money. Money’s necessary if I want to stay alive. Get it? Necessary?”

  “No,” Smathers said. “I don’t get it.”

  “What I’m saying is that the item I most need to preserve my life is money. It’s a necessity of life—and therefore you have to supply me gratis with all the money I need, until
this robot decides it’s sold me enough. If you don’t come through, I’ll sue the Company for breach of contract.”

  Smathers grinned. “Try it. You’ll be dead before you can contact a lawyer. The robot will kill you.”

  Sweat poured down Wingert’s back, but he felt the moment of triumph approaching. Reaching inside his khaki shirt, he drew out the thick pseudo-parchment sheet that was his Contract.

  “You refuse! You refuse to supply a necessity of life! The Contract,” Wingert declared, “is therefore void.” Before Smathers’ horrified gaze he ripped the document up and tossed the pieces over his shoulder carelessly.

  “Having broken your end of the Contract,” Wingert said, “you relieve me of all further obligations to the Company. Therefore I’ll thank you to remove your damned spybeam from my planet.”

  “Your planet?”

  “Precisely. Squatter’s rights—and since there’s no longer a Contract between us, you’re forbidden by galactic law to spy on me.”

  Smathers looked dazed. “You’re a fast talker, Wingert. But we’ll fight this. Wait till I refer this upstairs. You won’t get out of this so easily!”

  Wingert flashed a cocky grin. “Refer it upstairs if you want. I’ve got the law on my side.”

  Smathers snarled and broke the contact.

  “Nicely argued,” said XL-ad41 approvingly. “I hope you win your case.”

  “I have to,” Wingert said. “They can’t touch me, not if their Contract is really binding on both parties. If they try to use their spybeam record as evidence against me, it’ll show you threatening me. They don’t have a leg to stand on.”

  “But how about me? I—”

  “I haven’t forgotten. There’s a Molecular Disruptor in your belly waiting to disrupt me.” Wingert grinned at the robot. “Look here, XL-ad41, face facts: you’re a lousy salesman. You have a certain degree of misused guile, but you lack tact, subtlety. You can’t go selling people things at gunpoint very long without involving your manufacturers in an interstellar war. As soon as you get back to Densobol and they find out what you’ve done, they’ll dismantle you quicker than you can sell a Dreeg-Skinner.”