Astounding Science Fiction Stories: An Anthology of 350 Scifi Stories Volume 2 (Halcyon Classics)

by Various

  At the end of the week he was walking slowly along the street watching for Conley, because he was getting further in the red every day, when he saw a foot stuck out in his way and heard a voice say, "Don't you stumble over my lame foot," and he looked up and saw the old lady. Her black eyes were soft. "You don't look happy, Mark."

  "No." He held out his card.

  "Hm." Her keen old eyes shot back to his. "Thirty-two hundred in the red. That's more than before. You've lost two hundred points this week, Mark."

  "I know," he said dully.

  "Here. Push me, Mark." She pulled the shawl around her and Mark started pushing the wheel-chair. "You're a nice boy," she said when they reached a quiet street. "You just can't adjust yourself to this modern world."

  "I want a job," Mark said stubbornly. "Something to do besides--well, some kind of mark to aim at, I guess. This point business is just putting in time. I'm not creating anything. Even if I could fasten zippers on feather-beds, I'd be doing something worth while, because it'd be used. But this way of living is like digging a hole and then filling it in again. Why, you don't even dare to get into a fight. Somebody would collect a thousand points every time you hit him. The standard price of a black eye is three thousand. You have to be pretty careful about things like that. And there's always Conley."

  "Well," Penelope said, "I'm going to make you a proposition. I'll hold up your slip for sixty days, and in the meantime I'll teach you how to get ahead of the game. I'll teach you the tricks of the trade, just as old Point-a-Minute Charlie taught me. They say he averaged a point a minute all his life."

  "Where is he now?" asked Mark, interested.

  The old lady pondered. "Come to think of it, I don't know. I remember the last time I talked to him his credit balance was 98,000." She frowned at the tremendous, low-lying dome that covered the horizon in the distance and marked Central Audit Bureau. "I haven't seen him since then."

  "Hm," said Mark.

  "Well, now," Penelope said briskly. "I'll make you a regular business deal. I'll teach you, and for all you get, you give me twenty per cent. See how many you can get. Try for ten thousand. That'll give you something to shoot at."

  "Maybe I can beat the Machine," Mark said eagerly.

  Penelope swallowed. "They say you can't beat the Machine. But I guess it won't hurt to try."

  Mark did well. At first he just walked down the street stopping people as fast as he could get to them. "You didn't recognize me, sir," he would say indignantly. "I met you at Central concourse two years ago. Remember? You stood right in front of me in line for three hours, and we talked about our new suits. Remember? My feelings are injured because you ignored me just now. Fifty points. Will you sign my slip, please?"

  His credit reached the black the first week. He was netting five hundred points a day, and it was fun, but Penelope said, "We'll go for bigger stakes. This is kindergarten stuff. Now here's the way you start...."

  * * * * *

  So the next morning Mark managed to get himself knocked down four times, and each time he came up with a skinned knee and collected from five hundred to eight hundred and fifty points. He was learning, Penelope assured him when he gleefully showed her his card at the end of the day. Mark was elated. That day he had gathered fifty-one hundred points.

  "But this can get monotonous, too," Penelope said. "Anyway, you can't go around forever with a sandpapered knee. You're learning fast, and you're learning right. Old Point-a-Minute Charlie was the best there was, in his day, and he always said you make more points guessing character than you do falling down. Know your victim before you have an accident, and then hit him for all he will pay and hit him quick--the way I did you." She chuckled. "My commission for today is one thousand and twenty points. Here, sign my slip, please."

  Mark signed. It was a cheap price to pay for the fact that life was no longer pointless. He decided he'd try to gather a credit of one hundred thousand points.

  He worked on bigger stuff. He didn't try just everybody. He picked his signers with care. He slept until nine every morning and he and Penelope played two-handed bridge at a tenth of a point a point until midnight. He felt sorry for the poor suckers who had to get out at sunup and tread the sidewalks until dark to get enough points to satisfy Central. They were working like slaves, while he was living the life of Point-a-Minute Charlie.

  It was a lovely existence. He forgot about Penelope's slip for thirty-five thousand. He could almost pay it off anyway. Then came the day when he pulled his grand coup.

  He spent a week planning it, with Penelope's shrewd advice. He remembered what she had said about the man on the ladder in the nineteen-forties. He sandpapered his back and painted an irregular spot with merthiolate and iodine, and practiced twisting his back until it looked out of shape. Then he went out and watched for an absent-minded, nervous, excitable-looking man to try his next effort on.

  Penelope's biggest advice was, "Preparation is half the points," so it was three days before Mark found the right person. After he found him it was very simple. He signaled Penelope to follow, and then he walked behind the man until they came to a high curb.

  Mark moved out to the left. The man started to step up on the curb. Mark darted across in front of the man just as the man raised his foot. Mark managed to stumble exactly in front of the man. His arms went out and one hand caught the little man's leg. The little man fell squarely on top of him, assisted by a slight push from Penelope.

  Mark groaned heart-breakingly. In a moment there was a crowd. The little man was getting up, bewildered, and automatically trying to dust off his type K suit. Mark lay half on the curb, half off, squirming like a broken-back snake. "My back," he moaned piteously. "Oh, my back."

  The little man seemed paralyzed at the enormity of the thing he had done. He stared at Mark and Mark squirmed harder and moaned louder. Then Penelope hobbled up and pulled Mark's shirttail out of his trousers. The iodine spot on his back looked yellow and purple, and there were gasps from the crowd.

  "He did it!" Mark said, glaring accusingly at the little man. "He tripped me. He tripped me and broke my back!"

  Penelope was putting on a good act too, crying and wringing her hands and moaning. "My poor boy!" she said, over and over. A woman in the crowd came up and made a very expressive raspberry in the little man's face. The little man was not only bewildered; he was frightened. Mark adjudged the time had come.

  "Points for my broken back!" he cried. Penelope held out a slip to the little man. He signed it dazedly, then he slipped out of the crowd, while three men picked up Mark and laid him tenderly in Penelope's reclining wheel-chair.

  Mark could hardly contain himself. As soon as they were safely out of sight he said excitedly, "Let me see the slip."

  Penelope looked around. She kept pushing him but she handed over the slip.

  "Fifty thousand points!" Mark read under his breath. "Isn't that wonderful!" He couldn't remember ever having felt so elated in his life.

  Penelope was shaking her head wonderingly. "That was a good act," she said. "I'd never have had the nerve to try that myself."

  "Oh, that's nothing." Mark was enthusiastic. "As soon as I get fitted up with a magnelite brace so it'll look good, I'm going to knock a piece out of that curbing, and then if I can find out who's the registered owner of it I'll hit him for twenty-five thousand."

  * * * * *

  Mark got the twenty-five thousand. The owner of the sidewalk was finally convinced that Mark's broken back was worth a lot. From then on there was no holding Mark. Pretending to act for the little man who had originally knocked him down, he located the woman who had made a raspberry in the little man's face and collected another two thousand; the woman didn't recognize Mark, because Mark's features were changed a little.

  Then Mark spotted two others who had made threatening noises and collected five hundred from each, and from another who expressed doubt that he was really hurt, Mark got a thousand points. There was nothing to it, really. Most peo
ple had regular beats, and all Mark had to do was sit at one side in Penelope's wheel-chair and wait for them to come by. He would have collected more if he could have remembered more faces. He saw Conley go by once a day but now he wasn't afraid. He thought Conley looked at him disappointedly.

  A couple of weeks later he got his card back from the Machine at Central and looked at it with great satisfaction. He had a hundred and thirteen thousand points to his credit. He met Penelope and they went to her apartment for dinner. Jubilantly Mark got all the fancy food--even some synthetic meat--that he could get on his card, and they prepared for a feast.

  "The only thing is," Penelope said as she punched the dishes on the table, "I'm scared. I have a feeling you shouldn't have gone over a hundred thousand."

  "Is that why you never cashed my slip for thirty-five thousand?"

  She nodded. "That's mostly the reason. My balance is over eighty thousand and I was afraid."

  "Afraid of what?"

  "I don't know. Just afraid."

  "Well," said Mark, "I'm not. I don't see what Central can do to a person for getting points. There's no rule against it."

  "It's dangerous," Penelope insisted.

  "Nevertheless, I have made a decision. A hundred thousand points--that's nothing." His head was high. "I'm going after a million points!"

  Penelope gasped. "Mark, you mustn't do anything like that. You have no use for a million points."

  "No," Mark said complacently, "but it's a lot of fun getting them. And it gives me something worth while to do. We'll sit up till three o'clock every morning and play bridge, and I'll stay in bed till noon, and dream up new stunts. I'll pull one a week. Life is going to be worth living."

  The announcing light showed at the door. Penelope pressed the admittance button. A tall, thin man came in a moment later. "Mark Renner?" he asked.

  Mark jumped. "Conley!" Mark's stomach had a funny feeling in it.

  "They told me I would find you here," Conley said.

  Penelope had recovered enough to gasp. "What do you want?"

  "I'm from Central Audit Bureau."

  "That's just lovely," Penelope said, "but it doesn't mean anything to us but a place where we get our cards balanced."

  "It should mean something to you," Conley said hollowly. "Central is the government."

  Penelope stared at him. "Sit down, please. I thought Central was just a machine."

  "It is something more than a machine. There is a small corps of persons who live inside the machine to service it and occasionally adjust it, and those persons really are the government--that is, all the government we have." He sat down stiffly, his back straight. "Now then, Mr. Renner, your card today showed a credit balance of a hundred and thirteen thousand points. Is that correct?"

  Mark swallowed. "Yes." He looked at Penelope. She was pale. With difficulty Mark asked, "Is it your job to check up on people, to see if they are entitled to their points?"

  "Oh, my, no. Central doesn't care about that. In fact, Central doesn't care how much anybody's debit is. We figure as long as a man is in debt he'll try to pay it off. They always do, at least. No, we never bother with debits, and I don't suppose we ever would."

  Mark breathed a sigh of relief.

  "But a credit of over a hundred thousand is something else," said Conley. "The machines won't handle six figures without trouble, you see, so there has to be a penalty." He looked very sad. "Now, then, I shall have to--"

  "Wait!" cried Penelope. "His credit is a hundred and thirteen thousand--but I have his slip for thirty-five thousand. If I turn it in, that would fix it up for him, wouldn't it."

  Mark felt a warm wave of gratitude toward Penelope. She was a million per cent; no question about it.

  "Well--yes, I suppose so. We don't like these last-minute adjustments, but I suppose--"

  * * * * *

  She came waving the slip and thrust it into Conley's face.

  "There!" she said triumphantly. "Put that on my account."

  Conley looked a little sad. "This is your slip?" he asked Mark.

  Mark nodded gratefully.

  "Let me have your credit card, Miss Penelope. Now, then, I'll transfer these points--hm." Conley's eyebrows raised. "Do you know what your balance is now, Miss Penelope?"

  Penelope's mouth shot open and she popped her hand across it.

  "You have now a hundred and twenty-two thousand," Conley said. He got up from his chair. "Well, I'm sorry, folks. That's the way it is."

  Mark gulped. "What way?"

  "Miss Penelope will have to come with me."

  Mark was on his feet. "If she goes, I go," he said dramatically.

  Conley looked at him. "If you feel that way about it, there won't be any trouble at all. You did go over, so I can take you in too."

  "In where?" Penelope demanded.

  "A certain number of persons is required to keep Central going, as I said--actually to be the government. But most of the population today is so apathetic they wouldn't be of any use at all, so years ago some of us who were in Central got an idea. We discovered that whenever any citizen rebels against the monotony of life today, he or she eventually winds up trying to gather a lot of points, because that is the only outlet for energy and ambition. That is the kind of person we need, so when anybody gets over a hundred thousand, the machine warns us. We go after them." Conley picked up his type N hat. "Well, see you in the morning. Punch in your cards at window 1000. We'll do the rest. And by the way--" He was at the door. "We start work at eight o'clock."

  Mark brightened. "Did you say work?"

  "Oh, it's only four hours a day, five days a week. The rest of the time is your own, only of course you can't come Outside. It would upset things if the general public learned about us. Yes, it's a regular job; not hard work, but steady work. Gives you something to aim for; there are promotions, you know, and extra bonuses for those who show promise."

  "Work!" Mark said. "Steady work? You mean there'll be something to do all the time?"

  "Five days a week," said Conley.

  Mark said, "This is so sudden. Why don't you sit down a minute while we let it soak in? We have plenty of enzymes and stuff for a guest, don't we, Miss Penelope? Why not stay for supper, Conley?"

  "No, thanks," said Conley. "We have beefsteak and hot biscuits for supper in Central."

  Penelope shrieked with joy. "Beef!"

  Mark was puzzled. "What's that?"

  "It's an old-fashioned food," said Conley. "Rather tasty too."

  "Please sit down," Penelope begged, "and tell us more."

  Conley looked at his watch. "Believe I will. My feet get a little tired all day from pounding the pavement. But there isn't much more to tell. You'll find out everything tomorrow. And I'm sure you'll like it. We try to give each person work to challenge him."

  "What if a person wouldn't want to go to Central?"

  "Very few ever object. Once in a while they are afraid and run away, but we just register their number with all the machines, and whenever that number is presented for food or clothes, the machines reject the card." He paused. "A very neat arrangement. Of course, inside of Central the point system as you know it now will be of no value whatever. We use money in Central."

  Penelope had a can of synthetic meat in her hands. "Beef!" she said suddenly, and hurled the can into the disintichute. "I'm going to starve all night so I can enjoy eating tomorrow."

  "So nobody ever gets away?" asked Mark.

  "Very seldom, though there's one fellow playing a game with Central. He must have gotten wind of us, and he keeps careful check on his points. About once every three months he starts going strong. He'll be putting in eight or ten thousand points a day. Then his balance will shoot up over a hundred thousand and I'll go after him, but he's always just signed away a lot of points. Would you believe it, the last time he had given away fifty thousand points to a fellow who claimed a broken back. He said he knew it was a phony, but he had me there and he laughed at me, for he had signed
away the points. The slip showed up next day."

  Mark looked at Penelope and grinned. "We should have known that nobody in his right mind would give away fifty thousand points."

  Conley raised his hand in a salute. "See you tomorrow at Central. If they don't keep you busy, look me up."

  Mark watched him leave. Then he looked beamingly at Penelope. "Work! Every day! Eight o'clock! We'll have to get up before breakfast! Isn't it wonderful?"

  But Penelope's bird-like eyes were bright. "He said there would be promotions and bonuses for those who show promise," she recalled. "I wish we had known that. We could have made a cleanup and gone into Central with a record that would make their eyes pop out. Anyhow"--she dug her pad of release blanks out of her pocket and began to figure on the back. "Let's see, fifty thousand from the little man who's playing a game with Central, twenty-five from the owner of the sidewalk, two thousand for the raspberry, five hundred each from two who made noises of disrespect, and a thousand from the man who doubted that your back was really broken. You could have collected two thousand from that last one," she said absently, "if you hadn't got cold feet. Anyway, that's seventy-nine thousand points. Now, then, twenty per cent of that is fifteen thousand, eight hundred points."

  She wrote rapidly and held out the pad to Mark. "Sign my slip, please."

  * * *

  Contents

  THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE

  by H.P. Lovecraft

  WEST of Arkham the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods that no axe has ever cut. There are dark narrow glens where the trees slope fantastically, and where thin brooklets trickle without ever having caught the glint of sunlight. On the gentler slopes there are farms, ancient and rocky, with squat, moss-coated cottages brooding eternally over old New England secrets in the lee of great ledges; but these are all vacant now, the wide chimneys crumbling and the shingled sides bulging perilously beneath low gambrel roofs.