The Minority Report and Other Classic Stories (6 page)

“Go ahead.” Courtland made a quick decision. “Better yet, I’ll call him myself; he’ll probably have to know what’s going on.”

“What
is
going on?” Hurley demanded curiously. “I never heard you sound this way before … has somebody brought out a self-spraying paint?”

Courtland hung up the phone, waited out a torturous interval, and then dialed his superior, the owner of Pesco Paint.

“You have a minute?” he asked tightly, when Pesbroke’s wife had roused the white-haired old man from his after-dinner nap and got him to the phone. “I’m mixed up in something big; I want to talk to you about it.”

“Has it got to do with paint?” Pesbroke muttered, half humorously, half seriously. “If not—”

Courtland interrupted him. Speaking slowly, he gave a full account of his contact with the swibble repairman.

When Courtland had finished, his employer was silent. “Well,” Pesbroke said finally, “I guess I could go through some kind of routine. But you’ve got me interested. All right, I’ll buy it. But,” he added quietly, “if this is an elaborate time-waster, I’m going to bill you for the use of the men and equipment.”

“By time-waster, you mean if nothing profitable comes out of this?”

“No,” Pesbroke said. “I mean, if you
know
it’s a fake; if you’re consciously going along with a gag. I’ve got a migraine headache and I’m not going along with a gag. If you’re serious, if you really think this might be something, I’ll put the expenses on the company books.”

“I’m serious,” Courtland said. “You and I are both too damn old to play games.”

“Well,” Pesbroke reflected, “the older you get, the more you’re apt to go off the deep end; and this sounds pretty deep.” He could be heard making up his mind. “I’ll telephone Hurley and give him the okay. You can have whatever you want… I suppose you’re going to try to pin this repairman down and find out what he really is.”

“That’s what I want to do.”

“Suppose he’s on the level… what then?”

“Well,” Courtland said cautiously, “then I want to find out what a swibble is. As a starter. Maybe after that—”

“You think he’ll be back?”

“He might be. He won’t find the right address; I know that. Nobody in
this
neighborhood called for a swibble repairman.”

“What do you care what a swibble is? Why don’t you find out how he got from his period back here?”

“I think he knows what a swibble is—and I don’t think he knows how he got here. He doesn’t even know he’s here.”

Pesbroke agreed. “That’s reasonable. If I come over, will you let me in? I’d sort of enjoy watching.”

“Sure,” Courtland said, perspiring, his eye on the closed door to the hall.

“But you’ll have to watch from the other room. I don’t want anything to foul this up … we may never have another chance like this.”

Grumpily, the jury-rigged company team filed into the apartment and stood waiting for Courtland to instruct. Jack Hurley, in aloha sports shirt, slacks, and crepe-soled shoes, clodded resentfully over to Courtland and waved his cigar in his face. “Here we are; I don’t know what you told Pesbroke, but you certainly pulled him along.” Glancing around the apartment, he asked, “Can I assume we’re going to get the pitch now? There’s not much these people can do unless they understand what they’re after.”

In the bedroom doorway stood Courtland’s two sons, eyes half-shut with sleep. Fay nervously swept them up and herded them back into the bedroom. Around the living room the various men and women took up uncertain positions, their faces registering outrage, uneasy curiosity, and bored indifference. Anderson, the designing engineer, acted aloof and blase. MacDowell, the stoop-shouldered, pot-bellied lathe operator, glared with proletarian resentment at the expensive furnishings of the apartment, and then sank into embarrassed apathy as he perceived his own work boots and grease-saturated pants. The recording specialist was trailing wire from his microphones to the tape recorder set up in the kitchen. A slim young woman, the legal stenographer, was trying to make herself comfortable in a chair in the corner. On the couch, Parkinson, the plant emergency electrician, was glancing idly through a copy of
Fortune.

“Where’s the camera equipment?” Courtland demanded.

“Coming,” Hurley answered. “Are you trying to catch somebody trying out the old Spanish Treasure bunco?”

“I wouldn’t need an engineer and an electrician for that,” Courtland said dryly. Tensely, he paced around the living room. “Probably he won’t even show up; he’s probably back in his own time, by now, or wandering around God knows where.”

“Who?” Hurley shouted, puffing gray cigar smoke in growing agitation. “What’s going on?”

“A man knocked on my door,” Courtland told him briefly. “He talked about some machinery, equipment I never heard of. Something called a swibble.”

Around the room blank looks passed back and forth.

“Let’s guess what a swibble is,” Courtland continued grimly. “Anderson, you start. What would a swibble be?”

Anderson grinned. “A fish hook that chases down fish.”

Parkinson volunteered a guess. “An English car with only one wheel.”

Grudgingly, Hurley came next. “Something dumb. A machine for house-breaking pets.”

“A new plastic bra,” the legal stenographer suggested.

“I don’t know,” MacDowell muttered resentfully. “I never heard of anything like that.”

“All right,” Courtland agreed, again examining his watch. He was getting close to hysteria; an hour had passed and there was no sign of the repairman. “We don’t know; we can’t even guess. But someday, nine years from now, a man named Wright is going to invent a swibble, and it’s going to become big business. People are going to make them; people are going to buy them and pay for them; repairmen are going to come around and service them.”

The door opened and Pesbroke entered the apartment, overcoat over his arm, crushed Stetson hat clamped over his head. “Has he showed up again?” His ancient, alert eyes darted around the room. “You people look ready to go.”

“No sign of him,” Courtland said drearily. “Damn it—I sent him off; I didn’t grasp it until he was gone.” He showed Pesbroke the crumpled carbon.

“I see,” Pesbroke said, handing it back. “And if he comes back you’re going to tape what he says, and photograph everything he has in the way of equipment.” He indicated Anderson and MacDowell. “What about the rest of them? What’s the need of them?”

“I want people here who can ask the right questions,” Courtland explained. “We won’t get answers any other way. The man, if he shows up at all, will stay only a finite time. During that time, we’ve got to find out–” He broke off as his wife came up beside him. “What is it?”

“The boys want to watch,” Fay explained. “Can they? They promise they won’t make any noise.” She added wistfully, “I’d sort of like to watch, too.”

“Watch, then,” Courtland answered gloomily. “Maybe there won’t be anything to see.”

While Fay served coffee around, Courtland went on with his explanation. “First of all, we want to find out if this man is on the level. Our first questions will be aimed at tripping him up; I want these specialists to go to work on him. If he’s a fake, they’ll probably find it out.”

“And if he isn’t?” Anderson asked, an interested expression on his face. “If he isn’t, you’re saying…”

“If he isn’t, then he’s from the next decade, and I want him pumped for all he’s worth. But—” Courtland paused. “I doubt if we’ll get much theory. I had the impression that he’s a long way down on the totem pole. The best we probably can do is get a run-down on his specific work. From that, we may have to assemble our picture, make our own extrapolations.”

“You think he can tell us what he does for a living,” Pesbroke said cannily, “but that’s about it.”

“We’ll be lucky if he shows up at all,” Courtland said. He settled down on the couch and began methodically knocking his pipe against the ashtray. “All we can do is wait. Each of you think over what you’re going to ask. Try to figure out the questions you want answered by a man from the future who doesn’t know he’s from the future, who’s trying to repair equipment that doesn’t yet exist.”

“I’m scared,” the legal stenographer said, white-faced and wide-eyed, her coffee cup trembling.

“I’m about fed up,” Hurley muttered, eyes fixed sullenly on the floor. “This is all a lot of hot air.”

It was just about that time that the swibble repairman came again, and once more timidly knocked on the hall door.

The young repairman was flustered. And he was getting perturbed. “I’m sorry, sir,” he began without preamble. “I can see you have company, but I’ve rechecked my route instructions and this is
absolutely
the right address.” He added plaintively, “I tried some other apartments; nobody knew what I was talking about.”

“Come in,” Courtland managed. He stepped aside, got himself between the swibble repairman and the door, and ushered him into the living room.

“Is this the person?” Pesbroke rumbled doubtfully, his gray eyes narrowing.

Courtland ignored him. “Sit down,” he ordered the swibble repairman. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Anderson and Hurley and MacDowell moving in closely; Parkinson threw down his
Fortune
and got quickly to his feet. In the kitchen, the sound of tape running through the recording head was audible … the room had begun moving into activity.

“I could come some other time,” the repairman said apprehensively, eyeing the closing circle of people. “I don’t want to bother you, sir, when you have guests.”

Perched grimly on the arm of the couch, Courtland said, “This is as good a time as any. In fact, this is the best time.” A wild flood of relief spilled over him: now they had a chance. “I don’t know what got into me,” he went on rapidly. “I was confused. Of course I have a swibble; it’s set up in the dining room.”

The repairman’s face twitched with a spasm of laughter. “Oh, really,” he choked. “In the dining room? That’s about the funniest joke I’ve heard in weeks.”

Courtland glanced at Pesbroke. What the hell was so funny about that? Then his flesh began to crawl; cold sweat broke out on his forehead and the palms of his hands. What the hell was a swibble? Maybe they had better find out right away—or not at all. Maybe they were getting into something deeper than they knew. Maybe—and he didn’t like the thought—they were better off where they were.

“I was confused,” he said, “by your nomenclature. I don’t think of it as a swibble.” Cautiously, he finished, “I know that’s the popular jargon, but with that much money involved, I like to think of it by its legitimate title.”

The swibble repairman looked completely confused; Courtland realized that he had made another mistake; apparently
swibble
was its correct name.

Pesbroke spoke up. “How long have you been repairing swibbles, Mr…” He waited, but there was no response from the thin, blank face. “What’s your name, young man?” he demanded.

“My
what?”
The swibble repairman pulled jerkily away. “I don’t understand you, sir.”

Good Lord, Courtland thought. It was going to be a lot harder than he had realized—than any of them had realized.

Angrily, Pesbroke said, “You must have a name. Everybody has a name.”

The young repairman gulped and stared down red-faced at the carpet. “I’m still only in service group four, sir. So I don’t have a name yet.”

“Let it go,” Courtland said. What kind of a society gave out names as a status privilege? “I want to make sure you’re a competent repairman,” he explained. “How long have you been repairing swibbles?”

“For six years and three months,” the repairman asserted. Pride took the place of embarrassment. “In junior high school I showed a straight-A record in swibble-maintenance aptitude.” His meager chest swelled. “I’m a born swibble-man,”

“Fine,” Courtland agreed uneasily; he couldn’t believe the industry was that big. They gave tests in junior high school? Was swibble maintenance considered a basic talent, like symbol manipulation and manual dexterity? Had swibble work become as fundamental as musical talent, or as the ability to conceive spatial relationships?

“Well,” the repairman said briskly, gathering up his bulging tool kit, “I’m all ready to get started. I have to be back at the shop before long… I’ve got a lot of other calls.”

Bluntly, Pesbroke stepped up squarely in front of the thin young man. “What is a swibble?” he demanded. “I’m tired of this damn fooling around. You say you work on these things—
what are they?
That’s a simple enough question; they must be something.”

“Why,” the young man said hesitantly, “I mean, that’s hard to say. Suppose—well, suppose you ask me what a cat or a dog is. How can I answer that?’

“We’re getting nowhere,” Anderson spoke up. “The swibble is manufactured, isn’t it? You must have schematics, then; hand them over.”

The young repairman gripped his tool kit defensively. “What in the world is the matter, sir? If this is your idea of a joke—“ He turned back to Courtland. “I’d like to start work; I really don’t have much time.”

Standing in the corner, hands shoved deep in his pockets, MacDowell said slowly, “I’ve been thinking about getting a swibble. The missus thinks we ought to have one.”

“Oh, certainly,” the repairman agreed. Color rising in his cheeks, he rushed on, “I’m surprised you don’t have a swibble already; in fact, I can’t imagine what’s wrong with you people. You’re all acting—oddly. Where, if I may ask, do you come from? Why are you so—well, so uninformed?”

“These people,” Courtland explained, “come from a part of the country where there aren’t any swibbles.”

Instantly, the repairman’s face hardened with suspicion. “Oh?” he said sharply. “Interesting. What part of the country is that?”

Again, Courtland had said the wrong thing; he knew that. While he floundered for a response, MacDowell cleared his throat and inexorably went on. “Anyhow,” he said, “we’ve been meaning to get one. You have any folders with you? Pictures of different models?”