De Camp, L Sprague - The Guided Man.pdf - ebook7 - zenek.szlachetny

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

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?"

"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

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.

"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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