Heinlein, Robert A – Friday

Query: Why are all three of that family so slender? I am certain that they do not diet and do not take masochistic exercise. A therapist once told me that all the exercise any person needs could be had in bed. Could that be it?

The above is the good news. The bad news-

The International Corridor was closed. It was possible to reach Deseret by changing at Portland, but there was no guarantee that the SLC-Omaha-Gary tube would be open. The only major international route running capsules regularly seemed to be San Diego-Dallas-Vicksburg-Atlanta. San Diego was no problem as the San Jose tube was open from Bellingham to La Jolla. But Vicksburg is not Chicago Imperium; it is simply a river port from which a person with cash and persistence might reach the Imperium.

I tried to call Boss. After forty minutes I felt about synthetic voices the way humans feel about my sort of people. Who thought up this idea of programming “politeness” into computers? To hear a machine voice say “Thank you for waiting” may be soothing the first time, but three times in a row reminds you that it is phony, and forty minutes of such stalls without even once hearing a living voice can try the patience of a guru.

I never did get that terminal to admit that it was not possible to phone into the Imperium. That confounded digital disaster was not programmed to say no; it was programmed to be polite. It would have been a relief if, after a certain number of futile tries, it had been programmed to say, “Buzz off, sister; you’ve had it.”

I then tried to call the Bellingham post office to inquire about mail service into the Imperium-honest-to-goodness words on paper, paid for as a parcel, not a facsimile or mailgram or anything electronic.

I got a cheerful lecture on doing your Christmas mailing early. With Christmas half a year away this seemed less than urgent.

I tried again. I got scolded about zip codes.

I tried a third time and got Macy’s customer service department and a voice: “All our friendly helpers are busy at the moment thankyouforwaiting.”

I didn’t wait.

I didn’t want to phone or to send a letter anyhow; I wanted to report to Boss in person. For that I needed cash. That offensively polite terminal admitted that the local office of MasterCard was in the Bellingham main office of TransAmerica Corporation. So I punched the signal and got a sweet voice-recorded, not synthesized-saying: “Thank you for calling MasterCard. In the interests of efficiency and maximum savings to our millions of satisfied customers all of our California Confederacy district offices have been consolidated with the home office at San Jose. For speedy service please use the toll-free signal on the back of your MasterCard card.” The sweet voice gave way to the opening bars of “Trees.” I shut it off quickly.

My MasterCard card, issued in Saint Louis, did not have on it that San Jose toll-free signal, but only the signal of the Imperial Bank of Saint Louis. So I tried that number, not very hopefully.

I got Punch-a-Prayer.

While I was being taught humility by a computer, Georges was reading the Olympic edition of the Los Angeles Times and waiting for me to quit fiddling. I gave up and asked, “Georges, what’s in the morning paper on the emergency?”

“What emergency?”

“Huh? I mean, Excuse me?”

“Friday my love, the only emergency mentioned in this newspaper is a warning by the Sierra Club concerning the threat to the endangered species Rhus diversiloba. A picketing demonstration against Dow Chemical is planned. Otherwise all is quiet on the western front.”

I wrinkled my forehead to stimulate my memory. “Georges, I don’t know much about California politics-”

“My dear, no one knows much about California politics, including California politicians.”

“-but I do seem to recall reports on the news of maybe a dozen major assassinations in the Confederacy. Was that all a hoax?” Thinking back and figuring time zones-how long? Thirty-five hours?

“I find obituaries of several prominent ladies and gentlemen who were mentioned in the news night before last . . . but they are not listed as assassinated. One is an ‘accidental gunshot wound.’ Another died after a ‘lingering illness.’ Another was a victim in an ‘unexplained crash’ of a private APV and the Confederacy Attorney General has ordered an investigation. But I seem to recall that the Attorney General herself was assassinated.”