The Second Fritz Leiber

by Fritz Leiber

He started to open an envelope, then, after a quick look around and an apologetic smile at Potshelter, dumped them all on the disposal hopper, which gargled briefly.

  “After all, there is a crisis this morning,” he said in a defensive voice.

  Potshelter nodded absently. “I can remember back before personalized delivery and rhyming robots,” he observed. “But how I’d miss them now—so much more distingué than the hives with their non-personalized radio, TV and stereo advertising. For that matter, I believe there are some backward areas on Terra where the great advertising potential of telephones and telegrams hasn’t been fully realized and they are still used in part for personal communication. Now me, I’ve never in my life sent or received a message except on my walky-talky.” He patted his breast pocket.

  Krumbine nodded, but he was a trifle shocked and inclined to revise his estimate of Potshelter’s social status. Krumbine conducted his own social correspondence solely by telepathy. He shared with three other SBI officials a private telepath—a charming albino girl named Agnes.

  “Yes, and it’s a very handsome walky-talky,” he assured Potshelter a little falsely. “Suits you. I like the upswept antenna.” He drummed on the desk and swallowed another blue tranquilizer. “Dammit, what’s happened to those machines? They ought to have the two spies here by now. Did you notice that the second—the intended recipient of the letter, I mean—seems to be female? Another good Terran name, too, Jane Dough. Hive in Upper Manhattan.” He began to tap the envelope sharply against the desk. “Dammit, where are they?”

  “Excuse me,” Potshelter said hesitantly, “but I’m wondering why you haven’t read the message inside the envelope.”

  Krumbine looked at him blankly. “Great Scott, I assumed that at least it was in some secret code, of course. Normally I’d have asked you to have Pink Wastebasket try her skill on it, but.…” His eyes widened and his voice sank. “You don’t mean to tell me that it’s—”

  Potshelter nodded grimly. “Hand-written, too. Yes.”

  Krumbine winced. “I keep trying to forget that aspect of the case.” He dug out the message with shaking fingers, fumbled it open and read:

  Dear Jane,

  It must surprise you that I know your name, for our hives are widely separated. Do you recall day before yesterday when your guided tour of Grand Central Spaceport got stalled because the guide blew a fuse? I was the young man with hair in the tour behind yours. You were a little frightened and a groupmistress was reassuring you. The machine spoke your name.

  Since then I have been unable to forget you. When I go to sleep, I dream of your face looking up sadly at the mistress’s kindly photocells. I don’t know how to get in touch with you, but my grandfather has told me stories his grandfather told him that his grandfather told him about young men writing what he calls love-letters to young ladies. So I am writing you a love-letter.

  I work in a first-class advertising house and I will slip this love-letter into an outgoing ten-thousand-pack and hope.

  Do not be frightened of me, Jane. I am no caveman except for my hair. I am not insane. I am emotionally disturbed, but in a way that no machine has ever described to me. I want only your happiness.

  Sincerely,

  Richard Rowe

  Krumbine slumped back in his chair, which braced itself manfully against him, and looked long and thoughtfully at Potshelter. “Well, if that’s a code, it’s certainly a fiendishly subtle one. You’d think he was talking to his Girl Next Door.”

  Potshelter nodded wonderingly. “I only read as far as where they were planning to blow up Grand Central Spaceport and all the guides in it.”

  “Judas Priest, I think I have it!” Krumbine shot up. “It’s a pilot advertisement—Boy Next Door or—that kind of thing—printed to look like hand-writtening, which would make all the difference. And the pilot copy got mailed by accident—which would mean there is no real Richard Rowe.”

  At that instant, the door dilated and two blue detective engines hustled a struggling young man into the office. He was slim, rather handsome, had a bushy head of hair that had somehow survived evolution and radioactive fallout, and across the chest and back of his paper singlet was neatly stamped: “Richard Rowe.”

  When he saw the two men, he stopped struggling and straightened up. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said, “but these police machines must have made a mistake. I’ve committed no crime.”

  Then his gaze fell on the hand-addressed envelope on Krumbine’s desk and he turned pale.

  Krumbine laughed harshly. “No crime! No, not at all. Merely using the mails to communicate. Ha!”

  The young man shrank back. “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “Sorry, he says! Do you realize that your insane prank has resulted in the destruction of perhaps a half-billion pieces of first-class advertising?—in the strangulation of a postal station and the paralysis of Lower Manhattan?—in the mobilization of SBI reserves, the de-mothballing of two divisions of G. I. machines and the redeployment of the Solar Battle Fleet? Good Lord, boy, why did you do it?”

  Richard Rowe continued to shrink but he squared his shoulders. “I’m sorry, sir, but I just had to. I just had to get in touch with Jane Dough.”

  “A girl from another hive? A girl you’d merely gazed at because a guide happened to blow a fuse?” Krumbine stood up, shaking an angry finger. “Great Scott, boy, where was Your Girl Next Door?”

  Richard Rowe stared bravely at the finger, which made him look a trifle cross-eyed. “She died, sir, both of them.”

  “But there should be at least six.”

  “I know, sir, but of the other four, two have been shipped to the Adirondacks on vacation and two recently got married and haven’t been replaced.”

  Potshelter, a faraway look in his eyes, said softly, “I think I’m beginning to understand—”

  But Krumbine thundered on at Richard Rowe with, “Good Lord, I can see you’ve had your troubles, boy. It isn’t often we have these shortages of Girls Next Door, so that temporarily a boy can’t marry the Girl Next Door, as he always should. But, Judas Priest, why didn’t you take your troubles to your psychiatrist, your groupmaster, your socializer, your Queen Mother?”

  “My psychiatrist is being overhauled, sir, and his replacement short-circuits every time he hears the word ‘trouble.’ My groupmaster and socializer are on vacation duty in the Adirondacks. My Queen Mother is busy replacing Girls Next Door.”

  “Yes, it all fits,” Potshelter proclaimed excitedly. “Don’t you see, Krumbine? Except for a set of mischances that would only occur once in a billion billion times, the letter would never have been conceived or sent.”

  “You may have something there,” Krumbine concurred. “But in any case, boy, why did you—er—written this letter to this particular girl? What is there about Jane Dough that made you do it?”

  “Well, you see, sir, she’s—”

  Just then, the door re-dilated and a blue matron machine conducted a young woman into the office. She was slim and she had a head of hair that would have graced a museum beauty, while across the back and—well, “chest” is an inadequate word—of her paper chemise, “Jane Dough” was silk-screened in the palest pink.

  Krumbine did not repeat his last question. He had to admit to himself that it had been answered fully. Potshelter whistled respectfully. The blue detective engines gave hard-boiled grunts. Even the blue matron machine seemed awed by the girl’s beauty.

  But she had eyes only for Richard Rowe. “My Grand Central man,” she breathed in amazement. “The man I’ve dreamed of ever since. My man with hair.” She noticed the way he was looking at her and she breathed harder. “Oh, darling, what have you done?”

  “I tried to send you a letter.”

  “A letter? For me? Oh, darling!”

  * * * *

  Krumbine cleared his throat. “Potshelter, I’m going to wind this up fast. Miss Dough, could you transfer to this young man’s hive?”

  “Oh, yes, sir! Mine has
an over-plus of Girls Next Door.”

  “Good. Mr. Rowe, there’s a sky-pilot two levels up—look for the usual white collar just below the photocells. Marry this girl and take her home to your hive. If your Queen Mother objects refer her to—er—Potshelter here.”

  He cut short the young people’s thanks. “Just one thing,” he said, wagging a finger at Rowe. “Don’t written any more letters.”

  “Why ever would I?” Richard answered. “Already my action is beginning to seem like a mad dream.”

  “Not to me, dear,” Jane corrected him. “Oh, sir, could I have the letter he sent me? Not to do anything with. Not to show anyone. Just to keep.”

  “Well, I don’t know—” Krumbine began.

  “Oh, please, sir!”

  “Well, I don’t know why not, I was going to say. Here you are, miss. Just see that this husband of yours never writtens another.”

  He turned back as the contracting door shut the young couple from view.

  “You were right, Potshelter,” he said briskly. “It was one of those combinations of mischances that come up only once in a billion billion times. But we’re going to have to issue recommendations for new procedures and safeguards that will reduce the possibilities to one in a trillion trillion. It will undoubtedly up the Terran income tax a healthy percentage, but we can’t have something like this happening again. Every boy must marry the Girl Next Door! And the first-class mails must not be interfered with! The advertising must go through!”

  “I’d almost like to see it happen again,” Potshelter murmured dreamily, “if there were another Jane Dough in it.”

  * * * *

  Outside, Richard and Jane had halted to allow a small cortege of machines to pass. First came a squad of police machines with Black Sorter in their midst, unmuzzled and docile enough, though still gnashing his teeth softly. Then—stretched out horizontally and borne on the shoulders of Gray Psychiatrist, Black Coroner, White Nursemaid Seven and Greasy Joe—there passed the slim form of Pink Wastebasket, snow-white in death. The machines were keening softly, mournfully.

  Round about the black pillars, little mecho-mops were scurrying like mice, cleaning up the last of the first-class-mail bits of confetti.

  Richard winced at this evidence of his aberration, but Jane squeezed his hand comfortingly, which produced in him a truly amazing sensation that changed his whole appearance.

  “I know how you feel, darling,” she told him. “But don’t worry about it. Just think, dear, I’ll always be able to tell your friends’ wives something no other woman in the world can boast of: that my husband once wrote me a letter!”

  BULLET WITH HIS NAME

  Originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction, July 1958.

  The Invisible Being shifted his anchorage a bit in Earth’s gravitational field, which felt like a push rather than a pull to him, and said, “This featherless biped seems to satisfy Galaxy Center’s requirements. I’d say he’s a suitable recipient for the Gifts.”

  His Coadjutor, equally invisible and negatively massed, chewed that over. “Mature by his length and mass. Artificial plumage neither overly gaudy nor utterly drab—indicating median social level, which is confirmed by the size of his bachelor nest. Inward maps of his environment not fantastically inaccurate. Feelings reasonably meshed—at least neither volcanic nor frozen. Thoughts and values in reasonable order. Yes, I agree, a satisfactory test subject. Except.…”

  “Except what?”

  “Except we can never be sure of that ‘reasonable’ part.”

  “Of course not! Thank your stars that’s beyond the reach of Galaxy Center’s keenest telepathy, or even ours on the spot. Otherwise you and I’d be out of a job.”

  “And have to scheme up some other excuse for free-touring the Cosmos with backtracking permitted.”

  “Exactly!” The Being and his Coadjutor understood each other very well and were the best of friends. “Well, how many Gifts would you suggest for the test?”

  “How about two Little and one Big?” the Coadjutor ventured.

  “Umm…statistically adequate but spiritually unsatisfying. Remember, the fate of his race hangs on his reactions to them. I’d be inclined to increase your suggestion by one each and add a Great.”

  “No—at least I question the last. After all, the Great Gifts aren’t as important, really, as the Big Gifts. Besides.…”

  “Besides what? Come on, spit it out!” The Invisible Being was the bluff, blunt type.

  “Well,” said his less hearty but unswervingly honest companion, “I’m always afraid that you’ll use the granting of a Great Gift as an excuse for some sardonic trick—that you’ll put a sting in its tail.”

  “And why shouldn’t I, if I want to? Snakes have stings in their tails (or do they on this planet?) and I’m a sort of snake. If he fails the test, he fails. And aren’t both of us malicious, plaguing spirits, eager to knock holes in the inward armor of provincial entities? It’s in the nature of our job. But we can argue about that in due course. What Little Gifts would you suggest?”

  “That’s something I want to talk about. Many of the Little Gifts are already well within his race’s reach, if not his. After all, they’ve already got atomic power.”

  “Which as you very well know scores them nothing one way or the other on a Galaxy Center test. We’re agreed on the nature and the number of our Gifts—three Little, two Big, and one Great?”

  “Yes,” his Coadjutor responded resignedly.

  “And we’re agreed on our subject?”

  “Yes to that too.”

  “All right, then, let’s get started. This isn’t the only solar system we have to visit on this circuit.”

  Ernie Meeker—of Chicago, Illinois, U.S. of A., Occident, Terra, Sol, Starswarm 37, Rim Sector, Milky Way Galaxy—rubbed his chin and slanted across the street to a drugstore.

  “Package of blades. Double edge. Five. Cheapest.”

  At one point during the transaction, the clerk lost sight of the tiny packet he’d placed on the coin-whitened glass between them. He gave a suspicious look, as if the customer had palmed them.

  Ernie blinked. After a moment, he pointed toward the center of the counter.

  “There they are,” he said, dropping a coin beside them.

  The clerk’s face didn’t get any less suspicious. Customer who could sneak something without your seeing could sneak it back the same way. He rang up the sale and closed the register fast.

  Ernie Meeker went home and shaved. Five days—and shaves—later, he pushed the first blade, uncomfortably dull now, through the tiny slot beside the bathroom mirror. He unwrapped the second blade from the packet.

  Five shaves later, he cut himself under the chin with the second blade, although he was drawing it as gently through his soaped beard as if it were only his second shave with it, or at most his third. He looked at it sourly and checked the packet. Wouldn’t have been the first time he’d absentmindedly changed blades ahead of schedule.

  But there were still three blades in their waxed wrappings.

  Maybe, he thought, he’d still had one of the blades from the last packet and shuffled it into this series.

  Or maybe—although the manufacturers undoubtedly had inspectors to prevent it from happening—he’d got a decent blade for once.

  Two or three shaves later, it still seemed as sharp as ever, or almost so.

  “Funny thing,” he remarked to Bill at lunch, “sometimes you get a blade that shaves a lot better. Looks exactly like the others, but shaves better. Or worse sometimes, of course.”

  “And sometimes,” his office mate said, “you wear out a blade fast by not soaking your beard enough. For me, one shave with a stiff beard and the blade’s through. On the other hand, if you’re careful to soak your beard real good—four, five minutes at least—have the water steaming hot, get the soap really into it, one blade can last a long time.”

  “That’s true, all right,” Ernie agreed, trying to remember how well he
had been soaking his beard lately. Shaving was a good topic for light conversation, warm and agreeable, like most bathroom and kitchen topics.

  But next morning in the bathroom, looking at the reflection of his unremarkable face, there was something chilly in his feelings that he couldn’t quite analyze. He flipped his razor open and suspiciously studied the bright metal wafer, then flipped it closed with an irritated shrug.

  As he shaved, it occurred to him that a good detective-story murder method would be to substitute a very sharp razor blade for one the victim knew was extremely dull. He’d whip it across his throat, putting a lot of muscle into the stroke to get through the tangle, and—urrk!

  Ridiculous, of course. Wouldn’t work except with a straight razor. Wouldn’t even work with a straight razor, unless…oh, well.

  He told himself the blade was noticeably duller today.

  Next morning, he was still using the freak blade, but with a persistent though very slight uneasiness. Things should behave as you expected them to, in accordance with their flimsy souls, he told himself at the barely conscious level. Men should die, hearts should break, girls should tell, nations perish, curtains get dirty, milk sour…and razor blades grow dull. It was the comfortable, expected, reassuring way.

  He told himself the blade was duller still. Just a bit.

  The third morning, face lathered, he flipped open the razor and lifted it out.

  “You’re through,” he said to it silently. “I’ve had the experience before of getting bum shaves by trying to save a penny by pretending to myself that a wornout blade was still sharp enough, when it obviously couldn’t be. Or maybe—” he grinned a little wryly—“maybe I’d almost get one more shave out of you and then you’d fall to pieces like the Wonderful One Horse Shay and leave me with a chin full of steel porcupine quills. No, thanks.”

  So Ernie Meeker pushed through the little slot beside the mirror and heard tinkle faintly down and away the first of the Little Gifts, the Everlasting Razor Blade. One hundred and fifty thousand years later, it turned up, bright and shining, in the midst of a small knob of red iron oxide excavated by an archeological expedition of multi-brachs from Antares Gamma. Those wise history-mad beings handed it about wonderingly, from tentacle to impatient tentacle.