De Camp, L Sprague - The Guided Man.pdf
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THE GUIDED MAN
"ALL YOU DO," said the salesman for the Telagog Company, "is flip this switch at
the beginning of the crisis. That sends out a radio impulse, which is picked up
here and routed by the monitor to the proper controller."
Ovid Ross peered past the salesman at the man seated in the booth.
Gilbert Falck, he understood the man's name to be, but nobody would know him
under that helmet, from which a thick cable passed in a sagging curve to the
control board before him.
"So he takes over?" said Ross.
"Exactly. Suppose you've let yourself in for a date where there'll be
dancing, and you don't know how?"
"I do, kind of," said Ovid Ross.
"\\Tell, let's suppose you don't. We have in the booth, by prearrangement,
our Mr. Jerome Bundy, who's been a ballet dancer and a ballroom dancing
teacher-"
"Did somebody call me?" said a man, putting his head out of another
control booth into the corridor behind the row of booths.
"No, Jerry," said the salesman, whose name was Nye. "Just using you as an
example. Aren't you still on?"
"No, he gave me the over-and-out."
"See?" said the salesman. "Mr. Bundy is controlling a man-needless to say
we don't mention our clients' names-who's trying to become a professional ballet
dancer. He's only so-so, but with Jerry running him by remote control he puts on
the finest tour-jeté you ever saw. Or suppose you can't swim-"
"Shucks," said Ovid Ross, staring at his knuckles. He was a long, big-boned
young man with hands and feet large even in proportion to the rest of him, and
knuckles oversized for even such hands. "I
can swim and dance, kind of, and most of those things. Even play a little golf. My
trouble is-well, you know."
"WTell?"
"Here I am, just a big hick from Rattlesnake, Montana, trying to get on
among all these slick operators in New York, where everybody's born with his
hand in somebody else's pocket. When I go up against them it scares the
behooligers out of me. I get embarrassed and trip over my big feet."
"In such a case," said Nye, "we choose controllers specializing in the roles
of sophisticate, man-of-the-world, and so forth. Our Mr. Faick here is
experienced in such parts. So are Mr. Abrams and Mr. Van Etten. Mr. Bundy is
what you might call a second-string sophisticate. When he's not controlling a
man engaged in dancing or athletic sports, he relieves one of the others I
mentioned."
"So, if I sign up with you, and tomorrow I go see this publisher guy who
eats horseshoes and spits out the nails, to ask for a job, you can take over?"
"Easiest thing in the world. Our theory is: no man is a superman! So, when
faced with a crisis you can't cope with, call us in. Let a specialist take control of
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your body! You don't fill your own teeth or make your own shoes, do you? Then
why not let our experts carry you through such crises as getting a job, proposing
to a girl, or making a speech? Why not?" Nye's eyes shone.
"I dunno why not," said Ross. "But that reminds me. I got-I've got girl
trouble too. Can you really take care of that?"
"Certainly. One of the controllers is the former actor Barry Wentworth.
During his youth, he was the idol of frustrated women throughout the nation, and
he succeeded in acquiring nine real-life wives as well as innumerable less formal
romances. We'll do the courtship, the proposal, and everything for you."
Ross looked suspiciously at the salesman. "Dunno as I like that
'everything.'"
Nyc spread his hands. "Only at your request. We have no thought of
controlling a client beyond his desires. What we do is to compel you to do what
you really wish to do, but lack the skill or the nerve to do."
"Say, here's another thing."
"Yes?"
"Is there any carry-over effect? In other words, uh, if a controller
puts me through some act like swimming, will I learn to do that better from
having the controller do an expert job with my carcass?"
"We believe so, though the psychologists are still divided. We think that
eventually telegog control will be accepted as a necessary part of all training for
forms of physical dexterity or skill, including such things as singing and speech-
making. But that's in the future."
"Another thing," said Ross. "This gadget would give a controller a
wonderful chance for-uh-practical jokes. Say the controllee was a preacher who
hired you to carry him through a tough sermon, and the controller had it in for
him, or maybe just had a low sense of humor. What would stop the controller
from making the preacher tell stag-party stories from the pulpit?"
The salesman's face took on a look of pious horror. "Nobody in this
organization would think of such a thing! If he did, he'd be fired before he could
say 'hypospatial transmission.' This is a serious enterprise, with profound future
possibilities."
Ross gave the sigh of a man making a fateful decision. "Okay, then. Guess
I'll have to go without lunch for a while to pay for it, but if your service does what
you say, it'll be worth it. Give me the forms."
When Ross had signed the contract with the Telagog Company, the
salesman said: "Now, we'll have to decide which class of telagog receiver to fit you
with. For full two-way communication you use this headset with this hypospatial
transmitter in your pocket. It's fairly Conspicuous. .
"Too much so for me," said Ross.
"Then we have this set, which looks like a hearing aid and has a smaller
pocket control unit. This doesn't let you communicate by hypospatial broadcast
with the controller, but it does incorporate an off-switch so you can cut off the
controller. And, if you have to communicate with him, you can write a note and
hold it up for him to see with your eyes."
"Still kind of prominent. Got 'ny others?"
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"Yes, this last kind is invisible for practical purposes." The salesman held
up a lenticular object about the size of an eyeglass lens but thicker, slightly
concave on one face and thin around the edge. "This is mounted on top of your
head, between your scalp and your skull."
"How about controls?"
"You can't cut off the controller, but you can communicate by
clicks with this pocket wireless key. One click means 'take over,' two is 'lay off but
stand by,' and three is 'over and out,' or 'that's all until the next schedule.' If you
want to arrange a niore elaborate code with your controller, that's up to you."
"That looks like me," said Ross. "But have you got to bore holes in my skull
for the wires?"
"No. That's the beauty of this Nissen metal. Although the wires are only a
few molecules thick, they're so strong that when the receiver is actuated and their
coils are released they shoot right through your skull into your brain without
making holes you can see except under the strongest microscope."
"Okay," said Ovid Ross.
"First we'll have to fit you and install the receiver. You'll take a local
anesthetic, won't you?"
"I guess so. Whatever you say."
"Then you'd better have a practice session with your controllers. They have
to get used to your body, you know."
"Rather," said Gilbert Faick, taking off his helmet. He was a smallish blond
young man about Ovid Ross's age. "You wouldn't want to knock your coffee cup
over because your arm is longer than mine, would you?"
The gold lettering on the frosted-glass part of the door said:
1026
HOOLIHAN PUBLICATIONS
THE GARMENT GAZETTE
Ovid Ross had stood in front of this door for fifteen awful seconds with his
hand outstretched but not quite touching the knob, as if he feared an electric
shock. God almighty, why did one have to be young and green and
embarrassable? And from Rattlesnake, Montana? Then he remembered, reached
into his pocket, and pushed the switch-button, once.
He remembered what he had been taught: as the controller took over,
relax gradually. Not too suddenly, or you might fall in a heap on the floor. That
would not make a good impression on a prospective employer.
The feeling of outside control stole over him with an effect like that of a
heavy slug of hard liquor. He relaxed. A power outside his body was seeing with
his eyes and sensing with his other senses. This power reached his arm Out and
briskly opened the door. Without volition on his part, he realized that he had
stridden in and said to the girl at the switchboard behind the hole in the glass
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window, in friendly but firm and confident tones:
"Will you please tell Mr. Sharpe that Mr. Ross is here to see him? I'm
expected."
Ross thought that alone he would have stumbled in, goggled wordlessly at
the girl, stuttered, and probably ended by slinking out without seeing Sharpe at
all. The control was not really complete- semiautomatic acts like breathing and
walking were still partly under Ross's control-but Falck had taken over all the
higher functions.
Presently he was shaking hands with Addison Sharpe, the managing
editor, a small man with steel-rimmed glasses. Ross amazed himself by the
glibness with which his tongue threw off the correct pleasantries:
"A very nice plant you have, sir . . . I'm sure I shall enjoy it.
Yes, the salary mentioned by the agency will be satisfactory, though I hope
eventually to convince you I'm really worth more. . . References? Mr. Maurice
Vachek of The Clothing Retailer; Mr. Joseph McCue of A. S. Glickman Fabrics. .
Not a word to indicate that this same McCue had pounded his desk and
shouted, when firing Ovid Ross: "And here you are, a college man, who couldn't
sell bed warmers to Eskimos!~ What the hell good's your fancy education if it
don't teach you nothing useful?"
Luckily, McCue had promised to give him a good reference- provided the
job were anything but selling. Ross was pleased to observe that his body's
deportment under Falck's control, while much improved, was not altered out of
all recognition. He still spoke his normal General American instead of with
Falck's more easterly accents.
Addison Sharpe was saying: "You'll find working conditions here a little
unusual."
"So?" said Falck-Ross.
"For one thing, Mr. Hoolihan likes neathess. That means everybody cleans
his desk completely before he goes home at night. Every. thing but the telephone,
the calendar, the ashtray, and the blotter pad has to be out of sight."
Ross felt his controller start a little. No wonder! This would be Ovid Ross's
third trade journal, and never before kad he come across such a ruling. Normally,
staff writers and editors were allowed to build mares' nests of paper on their
desks to suit themselves, so long as they delivered the goods.
"For another," continued Sharpe, "Mr. Hoolihan disapproves of his
employees' fraternizing with each other outside of working hours. He considers it
bad for discipline."
At this outrageous ukase, Ross felt Falck jerk again.
"Finally," said Sharpe, "Mr. Hoolihan has a very acute sense of time. He
takes it much amiss if his employees show up so much as one minute late, so the
rest of us make a habit of arriving fifteen minutes early in the morning to allow
for delays. Also, I advise you not to get in the habit of taking your newspaper
down to the men's room to read, or ducking out for a midmorning cup of coffee.
The staff writer you're replacing thought he couldn't live without his teno'clock
coffee. That's why you're here and he isn't."
Ross had an urge to ask 110w you got to be a trusty. However, he had no
control over his vocal organs, and Falck was too well-trained for any such breaks.
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"Now," said Sharpe, "we'll go in to see Mr. Hoolihan."
The tyrant overflowed his swivel chair: a big stout red-faced man with a
fringe of graying hair around his pink dome of a scalp and great bushy eyebrows.
Timothy Hoolihan extended a paw and wrung Ross's hand. He made Ross's
bones creak, despite the fact that Ross had gotten his start in life by pitching hay
and throwing calves around.
"Glad to have you!" barked Hoolihan in a staccato voice like a burst of
machine-gun fire. "You do as we tell you, no reason we can't get along. Here!
Read this! Part of every new employee's indoctrination. Ever hear of Frederick
Winslow Taylor? Should have! Hundred years old and still makes sense."
Falck-Ross glanced down at the brochure: a reprint of an ancient homily
by Taylor on the duties of an employee.
"Now, you hang around a couple of days, reading the files, getting
oriented, and we'll put you on a definite assignment. Good luck! Take him away,
Addison!"
Overawed by this human dynamo, Ross was conscious of Falck's making
some glib but respectful rejoinder and directing his body out of the office.
For the first time since he had entered the office suite occupied by The
Garment Gazette, Ross began to try to regain control. He urged his right hand
toward the pocket in which reposed the little clicker key by which he
communicated with Falck. Evidently Faick realized what he was up to, for he
relaxed control long enough for Ross to get his hand into that pocket and press
the knob, twice.
At once Falck's control ceased. Ross, not catching himself quite in time,
stumbled and recovered. Sharpe turned his head to give him an owlish stare. The
managing editor took him around and introduced him to a half-dozen other
people: staff writers (called "editors" on this paper), an advertising manager, and
so forth. Then Sharpe showed Ross a cubicle with a desk.
"Yours," he said. "Say, are you feeling all right?"
"Sure. Why?"
"I don't know. When we came out of Mr. Hoolihan's office your manner
seemed to change. You're not sick, are you?"
"Never felt better."
"Heart all right? We wouldn't like you to conk out on us before you've
worked long enough to pull your weight."
"No, sir. My heart was good enough for me to be a practicing cowboy, so I
guess this won't hurt it."
Ross settled down at his new desk to read the Taylor article, the burden of
which seemed to be that to get ahead one should practice abject submission to
one's employer's slightest whim. While he was absorbing the eminent engineer's
advice, one of the girls came in and placed on his desk a big ring binder
containing last year's accumulation of file copies of The Garment Gazette, which
he read.
What Mr. Hoolihan really needed, he thought, was a multiple telagog set
by which he could control all his employees all at once and all the time.
During the lunch hour, Ovid Ross telephoned the Telagog Company and
asked for Gilbert Faick. After some delay a voice said:
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