“You fellows would have been on firmer ground,” Barrows said, “if you’d worked out the logic of your position a little further. But it’s too late to accomplish that now. I say whatever this full-sized doll of yours is worth as a salable idea, the idea of utilizing it in space exploration is worth at least as much–maybe more. So the two cancel each other out. Wouldn’t you agree?” He glanced inquiringly around.
“The idea of space exploration,” I said, “was the Federal Government’s.”
“My modification of that idea, then,” Barrows said. “My point is that it’s an even trade.”
“I don’t see what you mean, Mr. Barrows,” Pris said. “_What_ is?”
“Your idea, the simulacrum that looks so much like a human being that you can’t tell it from one . . . and ours, of putting it on Luna in a modern two-bedroom California ranch-style house and calling it the Edwards family.”
“That was Louis’ idea!” Maury exclaimed desperately. “About the Edwards family!” He gazed wildly around at me. “Wasn’t it, Louis?”
“Yes,” I said. At least, I thought it was. We have to get out of here, I told myself. We’re being backed farther and farther against the wall.
To itself the Lincoln sipped its Tom Collins.
“How do you like that drink?” Barrows asked it. “Flavorful. But it blurs the senses.” It continued to sip, however.
That’s all we need, I thought. Blurred senses!
10
At that point we managed to call a halt for the night.
“Nice meeting you, Mr. Barrows,” I said, holding out my hand to him.
“Likewise.” He shook hands with me, then with Maury and Pris. The Lincoln stood a little apart, watching in its sad way. . . Barrows did not offer to shake hands with it, nor did he say goodbye to it.
Shortly, the four in our group were walking back up the dark sidewalk to MASA ASSOCIATES, taking in deep breaths of clear cold night air. The air smelled good and it cleansed our minds.
As soon as we were back in our office, without the Barrows crew anywhere around, we got out the Old Crow. Using Dixie cups, we poured ourselves bourbon and water.
“We’re in trouble,” Maury said.
The rest of us nodded.
“What do you say?” Maury asked the simulacrum. “What’s your opinion about him?”
The Lincoln said, “He is like the crab, which makes progress forward by crawling sideways.”
“Meaning?” Pris said.
“I know what he means,” Maury said. “The man has forced us down so far we don’t know what we’re doing. We’re babes. Babes! And you and I–” He gestured at me. “We call ourselves salesmen. Why, we’ve been taken to the cleaners; if we hadn’t adjourned he’d have the place, lock, stock and barrel right now.”
“My dad,” I began.
“Your dad!” Maury said bitterly. “He’s stupider than we are. I wish we never had gotten mixed up with this Barrows. Now we’ll never get rid of him–not until he gets what he wants.”
“We don’t have to do business with him,” Pris said.
“We can tell him to go back to Seattle,” I said.
“Don’t kid me! We can’t tell him anything. He’ll be knocking at the door bright and early tomorrow, like he said. Grinding us down, hounding us–” Maury gaped at me.
“Don’t let him bother you,” Pris said.
I said, “I think Barrows is a desperate man. His vast economic venture is failing, this colonizing the Moon; don’t you all feel that? This is not a powerful, successful man we’re facing. It’s a man who put everything behind buying real estate on the Moon and then subdividing it and building domes to hold in heat and air, and building converters to turn ice into water–and he can’t get people to go there. I feel sorry for him.”
They all regarded me intently.
“Barrows has turned to this fraud as a last-ditch effort,” I said, “this fakery of setting up villages of simulacra posing as human settlers. It’s a scheme hatched out of despair. When I first heard it I thought possibly I was hearing another one of those bold visions that men like Barrows get, that the rest of us never have because we’re mere mortals. But now I’m not sure at all. I think he’s running scared, so scared that he’s lost his senses. This idea isn’t reasonable. He can’t hope to fool anyone. The Federal Government would catch on right away.”
“How?” Maury asked.
“The Department of Health inspects every person who intends to emigrate. It’s the Government’s business. How’s Barrows even going to get them off Earth?”
Maury said, “Listen. It’s none of our business how sound this scheme of his is. We’re not in a position to judge. Only time will tell and if we don’t do business with him even time won’t tell.”
“I agree,” Pris said. “We should confine ourselves to deciding what’s in it for us.”
“Nothing’s in it for us if he’s caught and goes to prison,” I said. “Which he will. Which he deserves to be. I say we’ve got to disengage, not do business with this man of any kind. It’s shaky, risky, dishonest, and downright stupid. Our own ideas are nutty enough.”
The Lincoln said, “Could Mr. Stanton be here?”
“What?” Maury said.
“I think we would be advantaged if Mr. Stanton were here and not in Seattle, as you tell me he is.”
We all looked at one another.
“He’s right,” Pris said. “We ought to get the Edwin M. Stanton back. He’d be of use to us; he’s so inflexible.”
“We need iron,” I agreed. “Backbone. We’re bending too much.”
“Well, we can get it back,” Maury said. “Tonight even. We can charter a private plane, fly to the Sea-Thc Airfield outside Seattle, drive into Seattle and search until we find it and then come back here. Have it tomorrow morning when we confront Barrows.”
“But we’d be dead on our feet,” I pointed out, “at best. And it might take us days to find it. It may not even be in Seattle, by now; it may have flown on to Alaska or to Japan– even taken off for one of Barrows’ subdivisions on the Moon.”
We sipped our Dixie cups of bourbon morosely, all but the Lincoln; it had put its aside.
“Have you ever had any kangaroo tail soup?” Maury said.
We all looked at him, including the simulacrum.
“I have a can around here somewhere,” Maury said. “We can heat it up on the hotplate; it’s terrific. I’ll make it.”
“Let me out,” I said.
“No thanks,” Pris said.
The simulacrum smiled its gentle, wan smile.
“I’ll tell you how I happened to get it,” Maury said. “I was in the supermarket, in Boise, waiting in line. The checker was saying to some guy, ‘No, we’re not going to stock any kangaroo tail soup anymore.’ All of a sudden from the other side of the display–it was boxes of cereal or something– this hollow voice issues: ‘No more kangaroo tail soup? Ever?’ And this guy comes hurrying around with his cart to buy up the last cans. So I got a couple. Try it, it’ll make you all feel better.”
I said, “Notice how Barrows worked us down. He calls the simulacra automatons first and then he calls them gimmicks and then he winds up calling them dolls.”
“It’s a technique,” Pris said, “a sales technique. He’s cutting the ground out from under us.”
“Words,” the simulacrum said, “are weapons.”
“Can’t you say anything to him?” I asked the simulacrum. “All you did was debate with him.”
The simulacrum shook its head no.
“Of course it can’t do anything,” Pris said. “Because it argues fair, like we did in school. That’s the way they debated back in the middle of the last century. Barrows doesn’t argue fair, and there’s no audience to catch him. Right, Mr. Lincoln?”
The simulacrum did not respond, but its smile seemed– to me–to become even sadder, and its face longer and more lined with care.
“Things are worse now than they used to be,” Maury said. But, I thought, we still have to do something. “He may have the Stanton under lock and key, for all we know. He may have it torn down on a bench somewhere, and his engineers are making one of their own slightly redesigned so as not to infringe on our patents.” I turned to Maury. “Do we actually have patents?”
“Pending,” Maury said. “You know how it works.” He did not sound encouraging. “I don’t doubt he can steal what we have, now that he’s seen our idea. It’s the kind of thing that if you know it can be done, you can do it yourself, given enough time.”
“Okay,” I said, “so it’s like the internal combustion engine. But we’ve got a headstart; let’s start manufacturing them at the Rosen factory as soon as possible. Let’s get ours on the market before Barrows does.”