We Can Build You (14 page)

“What?” both I and Maury said together.

“I could use a number of them designed to look exactly like the family next door. A friendly, helpful family that would make a good neighbor. People you’d want to move in near, people like you remember from your childhood back in Omaha, Nebraska.”

After a pause Maury said, “He means that he’s going to sell lots of them. So they can build.”

“Not sell,” Barrows said. “Give. Colonization has to begin; it’s been put off too long as it is. The Moon is barren and desolate. People are going to be lonely, there. It’s difficult, we’ve found, to get anyone to go first. They’ll buy the land but they won’t settle on it. We want towns to spring up. To do that possibly we’ve got to prime the pump.”

“Would the actual human settlers know that their neighbors are merely simulacra?” I asked.

“Of course,” Barrows said smoothly.

“You wouldn’t try to deceive them?”

“Hell no,” Dave Blunk said. “That would be fraud.”

I looked at Maury; he looked at me.

“You’d give them names,” I said to Barrows. “Good old homey American names. The Edwards family, Bill and Mary Edwards and their son Tim who’s seven. They’re going to the Moon; they’re not afraid of the cold and the lack of air and the empty, barren wastes.”

Barrows eyed me.

“And as more and more people got hooked,” I said, “you could quietly begin to pull the simulacra back out. The Edwards family and the Jones family and the rest—they’d sell their houses and move on. Until finally your subdivisions, your tract houses, would be populated by authentic people. And no one would ever know.”

“I wouldn’t count on it working,” Maury said. “Some authentic settler might try to sleep with Mrs. Edwards and then he’d find out. You know how life is in housing tracts.”

Dave Blunk brayed out in a hee-haw of laughter. “Very good!”

Placidly, Barrows said, “I think it would work.”

“You have to,” Maury said. “You’ve got all those parcels of land up there in the sky. So people are loath to emigrate … I thought there was a constant clamor, and all that was holding them back was the strict laws.”

“The laws are strict,” Barrows said—“but—let’s be realistic. It’s an environment up there that once you’ve seen it … well, let’s put it this way. About ten minutes is enough for most people. I’ve been there. I’m not going again.”

I said, “Thanks for being so candid with us, Barrows.”

Barrows said, “I know that the Government simulacra have functioned to good effect on the Lunar surface. I know what you have: a good modification of those simulacra. I know how you acquired the modification. I want the modification, once again modified, this time to my own concept. Any other arrangement is out of the question. Except for planetary exploration your simulacra have no genuine market value. It’s a foolish pipe dream, this Civil War stunt. I won’t do business with you on any understanding except as I’ve outlined. And I want it in writing.” He turned to Blunk, and Blunk nodded soberly.

I gaped at Barrows, not knowing whether to believe him; was this serious? Simulacra posing as human colonists, living on the Moon in order to create an illusion of prosperity? Man, woman and child simulacra in little living rooms, eating phony dinners, going to phony bathrooms … it was horrible.
It was a way of bailing this man out of the troubles he had run into; did we want to hang our fortunes and lives onto that?

Maury sat puffing away miserably on his cigar; he was no doubt thinking along the lines I was.

And yet I could see Barrows’s position. He had to persuade people in the mass that emigration to the Moon was desirable; his economic holdings hinged on it. And perhaps the end justified the means. The human race had to conquer its fear, its squeamishness, and enter an alien environment for the first time in its history. This might help entice it; there was comfort in solidarity. Heat and air domes protecting the great tracts would be built … living would not be physically bad—it was only the psychological reality which was terrible, the aura of the Lunar environment. Nothing living, nothing growing … changeless forever. A brightly-lit house next door, with a family seated at their breakfast table, chatting and enjoying themselves: Barrows could provide them, as he would provide air, heat, houses and water.

I had to hand it to the man. From my standpoint it was fine except for one single joker. Obviously, every effort would be made to keep the secret. But if the efforts were a failure, if news got out, probably Barrows would be financially ruined, possibly even prosecuted and sent to jail. And we would go with him.

How much else in Barrows’ empire had been concocted in this manner? Appearance built up over the fake …

I managed to switch the topic to the problems involved in a trip back to Seattle that night; I persuaded Barrows to phone a nearby motel for rooms. He and his party would stay until tomorrow and then return.

The interlude gave me a chance to do some phoning of my own. Off by myself where no one could overhear me I telephoned my dad at Boise.

“He’s dragging us into something too deep for us,” I told
my dad. “We’re out of our depth and none of us know what to do. We just can’t handle this man.”

Naturally my dad had already gone to bed. He sounded befuddled. “This Barrows, he is here now?”

“Yes. And he’s got a brilliant mind. He even debated with the Lincoln and thinks he won. Maybe he did win; he quoted Spinoza, about animals being clever machines instead of alive. Not Barrows—Lincoln. Did Spinoza really say that?”

“Regretfully I must confess it.”

“When can you get down here?”

“Not tonight,” my father said.

“Tomorrow, then. They’re staying over. We’ll knock off and resume tomorrow. We need your gentle humanism so be damn sure to show up.”

I hung up and returned to the group. The five of them—six, if you counted the simulacrum—were together in the main office, chatting.

“We’re going down the street for a drink before we turn in,” Barrows said to me. “You’ll join us, of course.” He nodded toward the simulacrum. “I’d like it to come along, too.”

I groaned to myself. But aloud I agreed.

Presently we were seated in a bar and the bartender was fixing our drinks.

The Lincoln had remained silent during the ordering, but Barrows had ordered a Tom Collins for it. Now Barrows handed it the glass.

“Cheers,” Dave Blunk said to the simulacrum, raising his whiskey sour.

“Although I am not a temperance man,” the simulacrum said in its odd, high-pitched voice, “I seldom drink.” It examined its drink dubiously, then sipped it.

“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!

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-Tac 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.