Страница 11 из 123
“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?”
The repairman responded. “I’m afraid not, sir. But if you’ll give me your address I’ll have the sales department send you information. And if you want, a qualified representative can call on you at your convenience and describe the advantages of owning a swibble.”
“The first swibble was developed in 1963?” Hurley asked.
“That’s right.” The repairman’s suspicions had momentarily lulled. “And just in time, too. Let me say this—if Wright hadn’t got his first model going, there wouldn’t be any human beings left alive. You people here who don’t own swibbles—you may not know it—and you certainly act as if you didn’t know it—but you’re alive right now because of old R.J. Wright. It’s swibbles that keep the world going.”
Opening his black case, the repairman briskly brought out a complicated apparatus of tubes and wiring. He filled a drum with clear fluid, sealed it, tried the plunger, and straightened up. “I’ll start out with a shot of dx—that usually puts them back into operation.”
“What is dx?” Anderson asked quickly.
Surprised at the question, the repairman answered, “It’s a high-protein food concentrate. We’ve found that ninety per cent of our early service calls are the result of improper diet. People just don’t know how to care for their new swibble.”
“My God,” Anderson said feebly. “It’s alive.”
Courtland’s mind took a nose dive. He had been wrong; it wasn’t precisely a repairman who had stood gathering his equipment together. The man had come to fix the swibble, all right, but his capacity was slightly different than Courtland had supposed. He wasn’t a repairman; he was a veterinarian.
Laying out instruments and meters, the young man explained: “The new swibbles are a lot more complex than the early models; I need all this before I can even get started. But blame the War.”
“The War?” Fay Courtland echoed apprehensively.
“Not the early war. The big one, in ‘75. That little war in ‘61 wasn’t really much. You know, I suppose, that Wright was originally an Army engineer, stationed over in—well, I guess it was called Europe. I believe the idea came to him because of all those refugees pouring across the border. Yes, I’m sure that’s how it was. During that little war, back in ‘61, they came across by the millions. And they went the other way, too. My goodness, people were shifting back and forth between the two camps—it was revolting.”
“I’m not clear on my history,” Courtland said thickly. “I never paid much attention in school… the ‘61 war, that was between Russia and America?”
“Oh,” the repairman said, “it was between everybody. Russia headed the Eastern side, of course. And America the West. But everybody was in it. That was the little war, though; that didn’t count.”
“Little?” Fay demanded, horrified.
“Well,” the repairman admitted, “I suppose it looked like a lot at the time. But I mean, there were buildings still standing, afterward. And it only lasted a few months.”
“Who—won?” Anderson croaked.
The repairman tittered. “Won? What an odd question. Well, there were more people left in the Eastern bloc, if that’s what you mean. Anyhow, the importance of the ‘61 war—and I’m sure your history teachers made that clear—was that swibbles appeared. R.J. Wright got his idea from the camp-changers that appeared in that war. So by ‘75, when the real war came along, we had plenty of swibbles.” Thoughtfully, he added, “In fact, I’d say the real war was a war over swibbles. I mean, it was the last war. It was the war between the people who wanted swibbles and those who didn’t.” Complacently, he finished, “Needless to say, we won.”
After a time Courtland managed to ask, “What happened to the others? Those who—didn’t want swibbles.”
“Why,” the repairman said gently, “the swibbles got them.”
Shakily, Courtland started his pipe going. “I didn’t know about that.”
“What do you mean?” Pesbroke demanded hoarsely. “How did they get them? What did they do?”
Astonished, the repairman shook his head. “I didn’t know there was such ignorance in lay circles.” The position of pundit obviously pleased him; sticking out his bony chest, he proceeded to lecture the circle of intent faces on the fundamentals of history. “Wright’s first A-driven swibble was crude, of course. But it served its purpose. Originally, it was able to differentiate the camp-shifters into two groups: those who had really seen the light, and those who were insincere. Those who were going to shift back… who weren’t really loyal. The authorities wanted to know which of the shifters had really come over to the West and which were spies and secret agents. That was the original swibble function. But that was nothing compared to now.”