The Project Gutenberg EBook of Matchmaker, by Charles L. Fontenay
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Title: Matchmaker
Author: Charles L. Fontenay
Release Date: December 3, 2019 [EBook #60837]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MATCHMAKER ***
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MATCHMAKER
By CHARLES L. FONTENAY
_Ask a sensible question and you're sure
to get a sensible answer--remembering that
one man's sense may be a machine's poison!_
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, May 1960.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Jasso laid the bulky report on his superior's desk.
"No one living can solve the problem," he said.
Tern stared at him quizzically and leaned back in the cushioned chair
behind his desk.
"That's encouraging," Tern said with a wry smile. "The second
generation?"
"The probabilities are high. The most likely father is a man named Lao
Protik, a psycho-artist living in Nuyork."
"The mother?"
Jasso grinned, a flashing grin in a dark face. He sank into a chair,
pulled out a cigarette pack and offered one to Tern. The older man
shook his head, fishing in his pocket for an old-fashioned pipe. Jasso
clicked out a cigarette and drew deeply on it.
"That's one of the fascinating angles about dealing with the
Calculator," he said. "We combined the fifty most probable fathers,
including Lao, with the fifty most probable mothers. Believe it or not,
we drew an absolute blank. They just don't jibe at all."
"Not too surprising," said Tern. "It's happened before. But I gather
you've already decided to work with this psycho-artist. Why?"
"Lao's so far ahead of the rest, both men and women, it's the only
thing to do. And, since life is full of little surprises, we found
the probability highest if Lao marries a woman whose own separate
probability rating is close to zero." Jasso consulted his notes
and added: "She's a language teacher named Grida Mattin, living in
Southgate, Tennessee."
"You're pretty sure these results are right?" asked Tern.
"I've checked every angle I could think of," replied Jasso carefully.
"Of course, there's always the possibility that two near-zero
probabilities would add up better, when combined. But the probability
rating for marriage between these two is very high--you can see for
yourself when you check the figures. I think it's the best we'll find."
"It would be so much simpler if we had a high probability among people
in this generation," said Tern thoughtfully. "Arranging a marriage
between two strangers is a ticklish business."
"It's been done before," said Jasso. "I'll put a team of agents to work
on it right away."
* * * * *
There were millions of cards--if you could call things the size of a
bedsheet "cards." Each punched with holes like a swiss cheese, they
filled one of the Calculator's most strategic banks. They represented
every man, woman and child in the civilized world.
Through them, the course of history could be guided, the advancement
of civilization accelerated. By racing through the backgrounds and
capabilities of every person in the United Nations, the Calculator
could find the best one to do any job, to solve any problem.
Lao Protik, as he strolled into his swank Nuyork apartment building
that July evening, was completely unaware that the Calculator had
pointed a finger at him. Life flowed smoothly for him. Not a worry
darkened the horizon. His annual salary from Consolidated Ads was five
hundred thousand dols--a comfortable thirty thousand after taxes--and
he maintained three mistresses in separate apartments.
In the lobby, he paused to open his mailbox. Two letters fell out into
his hands; he tore the envelopes neatly across the end.
The first was an advertisement for the 2125 model of the Sky Swallow
convertible helicar. He crumpled it and tossed it into a potted palm.
He grunted in surprise as he read the second one.
"Vr. Lao Protik," he read. "Our firm has been impressed with your
accomplishments and growing reputation as a psycho-artist. We are in a
position to offer you employment at a salary of one hundred thousand
dols annually. Our representative, Vr. Casto Roche, will call on you in
a few days to discuss this offer with you."
The letter bore the illegible scrawl of someone who signed himself as
president of Colorvue Publicity, Inc. Lao had never heard of the firm.
Lao's lips curled and this missive followed the first one into the
potted palm. He felt a momentary irritation at the audacity of anyone
offering him a mere hundred thousand dols, then let the entire matter
slip from his mind.
Softly whistling the refrain of the latest hit tune, "The Clouds of
Venus Can't Come Between Us," he caught the elevator and ascended to
his last untroubled night for a long time to come.
* * * * *
A terse memorandum was waiting for Lao at his office the next morning.
It was not the sort of thing any employee of Consolidated Ads could
ignore--not even a Class A psycho-artist who was an officer in his
union. A worried frown creasing his normally smooth forehead, Lao
hurried down the corridor to the plush office of Mavo Caprin, president
of the firm.
Caprin was in no amiable mood. He grunted at Lao's somewhat querulous
greeting. He kept his nose buried in papers, puffing ominously on a fat
cigar for several minutes before looking up and waving Lao to a seat.
"Perhaps you can explain these, Protik," said Caprin sharply, waving
a thick fistful of letters. Lao leaned over to take them, and glanced
through several of them.
The phrases that met his eyes astounded and outraged him.
They were such words as "this insolent effrontery," "the unwarranted
audacity of the man," "a deliberate scheme to further rip away the
fabric of our tottering moral code"--all applied to his own work!
"I can't explain them because I don't know what they are talking
about, Voter Caprin," said Lao.
"They're talking about these," replied Caprin. With the flourish of a
magician taking a rabbit out of a hat, he produced a sheaf of Lao's
original paintings from his desk drawer.
Lao riffled through them. At first glance, he saw nothing wrong.
Then he looked more closely, and began to compare them with specific
complaints in the letters.
His face flushed bright red with anger.
Only one in a hundred readers of the advertisements that carried Lao
Protik's artwork would have noticed, but the complaints were justified!
The melange which was a competent psycho-artist's painting was
carefully confused to achieve a specific psychological objective--in
Lao Protik's work, to make people want to buy the products sponsored by
Consolidated Ads. But in these paintings the psychological impact had
been distorted cleverly. The psycho-art had been turned into effective
propaganda for polygamy!
"Somebody has altered my work," said Lao firmly. "I demand a thorough
check of every artist on the staff."
Caprin shook his head. "That won't be necessary. I've had these
paintings checked by experts, and they all agree this is your original
work."
* * * * *
"That's outrageous!" exclaimed Lao. "What 'experts' told you such lies?"
"It doesn't matter," said Caprin, a bit wearily now. "I don't like to
do it after such a long association, Lao, but Consolidated Ads has a
reputation to maintain. We can't take sides in politics. We have to let
you go."
Lao stared at him. Then he hurled paintings and letters in Caprin's
face and stalked to the door. Halfway out of the office, he turned and
shouted furiously:
"The Psycho-Artists Guild will have something to say about this,
Caprin!"
"I don't think so," Caprin retorted mildly, rubbing a bruised cheek.
It wasn't long before Lao realized the significance of that parting
remark. His few personal belongings jammed into his briefcase, he
emerged on the roof of the huge Consolidated Ads building and looked
around for a helicab. The cabstands were empty at the moment. Waiting
under an awning, he dropped a dime into a newspaper vending machine. It
clucked and ejected the noon edition of the _Star_ into his hands.
A good-sized headline on Page One proclaimed: "Art Union Ejects
Protik." His eyes bulging slightly, Lao read swiftly:
In a specially called meeting of its executive committee, the
Psycho-Artists Guild this morning revoked the membership of its
second vice-president, Lao Protik, chief psycho-artist for
Consolidated Ads.
Officers of the union refused to make public the reason for
Protik's ejection, but there were reports that some connection
with the notorious Polygamy League was involved. Protik could
not be reached for comment immediately, and the switchboard
operator at Consolidated Ads said she had instructions not
to ring his office.
* * * * *
Unshaven and bleary-eyed, Lao argued plaintively over the telephone
with his old friend, Majo Hobel, personnel chief at Autovance
Advertising. Hobel had tried several times in the past to woo Lao from
Consolidated Ads.
"It's no good, Lao," said Hobel. "You've been blackballed."
"But it's all a pack of lies, Majo!" cried Lao. "You know the inside of
the field. How about the foreign firms?" Anything outside of Nuyork was
"foreign."
"It's the same in Kahgo and all over. Sorry, Lao."
Cursing, Lao slammed down the receiver and dialed the number of Tinna,
his favorite mistress. A voice he recognized as Tinna's answered.
"Tinna," he began, "this is Lao...."
"She isn't here," said Tinna frigidly. The telephone clicked in his ear.
Lao's shoulders drooped. He put the phone in its cradle and, without
much hope, prepared to dial Phreda, another mistress. It buzzed at him
before he could begin.
He answered it.
"Voter Protik, there's a gentleman in the lobby to see you," said the
apartment house operator.
"I don't want to see any more reporters!" shouted Lao angrily.
"This isn't a reporter, sir. He says he's a representative of Colorvue
Publicity."
"Never heard of it," growled Lao. "But send him up."
He had no time to shave, but he washed his face and tried to make
himself a little more presentable before the apartment buzzer sounded.
He admitted an elderly man with a gray mustache, who had the well-fed
air of a corporation executive.
"Voter Protik, I am Roche of Colorvue Publicity," his visitor
introduced himself. "You received our letter several days ago?"
Lao searched his memory. Vaguely he recalled such a letter and his
hopes began to rise. Wasn't it something about offering him a job?
He asked Roche.
"That's correct, sir," replied Roche. "A hundred thousand dols a year,
one-quarter payable in advance."
"You may not want me now," said Lao gloomily. He had no scruples about
putting over a sharp business deal, but any contract he might draw
would be invalid if he withheld information.
"We are aware of your recent difficulties," said Roche sympathetically.
"I wish to assure you we do not believe the charges that you are
associated with the Polygamy League. Also you may wish to know that my
firm, while a small one, is a reputable one. A check of the Business
Practices Agency will prove that to you."
"I'm not a member of the Psycho-Artists Guild any more," Lao reminded
him bitterly, "to say nothing of having been blackballed by all major
firms and abandoned by my three mistresses."
"We have no union contract, and your personal life is your own,"
answered Roche with a slight smile. "Your known ability is sufficient
for us. There is one thing, however. Your work will not be in Nuyork,
but in Southgate, a small town in Tennessee. If you see fit to accept
our offer, we will arrange in advance for your quarters there. There
will be no cost to you."
"I hate to leave Nuyork," said Lao slowly. "And I'm frank to say that I
hate to come down from half a million dols to a hundred thousand. But
your offer comes as a life-saver to me, Voter Roche. I'm inclined to
accept it."
"Good," said Roche. "Think on it, if you like. I'll put a signed
contract in the next mail for you. When you return it with your
signature, your ticket and instructions will be waiting for you at
Lagwad Airport."
They shook hands on it, and Roche walked out of Lao's life--for a while.
* * * * *
His hands in his pockets, Lao strolled into the kitchen, where his
landlady, Grida Mattin, was melodiously preparing lunch. Grida wore an
apron over her old-fashioned opaque clothing and her head, beginning to
show a few gray streaks, was bent over the gleaming stove.
"Grida, do you mind if I use the telephone for a long-distance call to
Nuyork?" he asked.
"Certainly not, Lao," she answered, turning to smile at him. Her face
was not exceptionally attractive, but she had beautiful teeth. "Nothing
wrong, I hope."
"I don't know," he said. "My salary check is three weeks overdue."
He placed the call to Colorvue Publicity on the kitchen extension, and
stood by the stove, watching Grida stir and season.
"Cooking is almost a lost art, Grida, and you're a good cook," he
said. "I'm surprised you've never married."
Grida flushed at the compliment.
"It may sound boastful, but I've never courted a man, Lao," she said.
"As you may have noticed, I have conservative habits. I'm afraid I'm
a little out of place in the modern world. I don't approve of the
frivolous attitude people have toward marriage now."
Lao looked at her, not without some affection. Of course he had made
advances, as most men did to all unmarried women with whom they
associated.
But Grida was a history teacher, and she lived by the outmoded morals
of the distant past. She had made it known at once that marriage was
her price for intimacy, and she gave no hint she was interested in
marriage.
"There's nothing frivolous about it from the man's view-point, when
only a woman can apply for a divorce," replied Lao. "That's why it's
hard for women to catch husbands. With ten women to every man, most men
have no trouble finding mistresses."
"I don't approve of that, either," said Grida, compressing her lips
firmly.
The telephone interrupted, and Lao went into the library to talk.
"On your call, sir," came the thin voice of the Nuyork operator,
"there is no Colorvue Publicity listed."
"What!" he exclaimed. "There must be! Check again."
He waited a long, anxious moment.
"I'm sorry, sir," came the operator's voice again. "I have checked our
directory, and there is no Colorvue Publicity listed."
Lao swore fervently.
"Wait a minute," he cried. "Nuyork? Hold it just a minute, will you?"
He raced up the ramp to his second floor bedroom, fumbled through his
dresser drawer until he found his contract and ran back downstairs with
it. He had the operator check the name of every Colorvue Publicity
official who had signed the contract. None was listed.
"I know there's a Colorvue Publicity!" he shouted desperately. "Get me
the Business Practices Agency."
"Just a moment, sir."
A man's voice answered at the Business Practices Agency. It took him
several minutes to check the files in compliance with Lao's request for
information.
"We have no such firm listed in our records," he said at last.
* * * * *
"Dammit, I know you do!" exclaimed Lao. "You told me Colorvue Publicity
had a Double-A2 rating when I checked with you, not four months ago."
"Was the request for a rating by letter or by telephone, sir?"
"By telephone. It didn't take the girl three minutes to find it."
"There'd be no record of your request if it was made by telephone.
There must have been some mistake, sir. If there were a firm named
Colorvue Publicity in any city in the world having a population of more
than 100,000, it would be in our records."
Lao cursed him and hung up. Grida came out of the kitchen, wiping her
hands on her apron.
"I couldn't help overhearing, Lao," she said. "There must be something
wrong. That company sent me a check for your first three months' room
and board. It cleared the bank all right."
"So did my salary check for the first quarter," he said. "But the
Business Practices Agency is supposed to keep records of a firm for
a year after its dissolution. I can't understand anybody paying out
twenty-five thousand dols and then just disappearing!"
"If you need any help to tide you over, Lao ..." she said hesitantly.
"My salary isn't much--fifteen thousand dols a year. But I have
something saved."
"Thanks, Grida, but I'll be all right," he said, turning away.
Lao left the house and strode down the quiet streets of Southgate,
fuming. This had all the earmarks of a conspiracy. First the sabotage
at Consolidated Ads, now the utter disappearance of Colorvue Publicity.
But he could think of no enemies who would have reason to conspire
against him. The field of psycho-art was a highly specialized one,
without bitter competition.
Back in his room at Grida Mattin's house were half a dozen canvases
that reflected all his co-ordinated skill. Done on the instructions he
found at Lagwad Airport the night he left Nuyork, they depicted all
the advantages of marriage in a small Southern town. His now-vanished
employers had never sent him instructions for their disposal. Now the
work was wasted, unless he could sell them free-lance.
The brown autumn leaves were drifting down on the crumbling sidewalks
of Southgate, stripping the trees that lined the streets. Blue smoke
drifted from chimneys of a few of the old houses, dissipating into the
gray sky. It was an atmosphere that fitted his mood of despair.
The most pressing problem that faced him was financial. Lao was a
lavish man with his money. His balance at the bank now wouldn't cover
his income tax for the year. It was something he'd never had to worry
about before, because good psycho-artists were well-paid and always in
demand. Now, marooned in the Tennessee hills, blackballed by every big
firm in the nation, his prospects looked bleak.
Something Grida had said stuck in his mind. Fifteen thousand a
year--plus savings. It wasn't a great deal, after taxes, but it was a
living. And he could pay his own taxes next March.
He shook his head and turned his steps back toward the house. Marriage
was the very last resort for Lao. He'd try free-lancing the Colorvue
paintings first.
* * * * *
Roche looked unhappy. "While he was working on the paintings he didn't
have time to get around town, such as it is," he said. "He and Grida
were together a lot. They seemed to get along. Now he's sold the
paintings and he's spending the money on a mistress."
"Well, Jasso, this is your baby," said Tern. "What now?"
"A mistress can be scared off pretty easily," said Jasso. "We've got
agents pulling strings all over the place right now to stave off a
worse problem than that. Grida's sister, Alina, visits her every year
and our secondary checks with the Calculator show such a visit would
be fatal to any chances of a Lao-Grida marriage. Alina's a doctor in
Frisco. We've managed to get the hospital authorities to postpone her
vacation, but we've got to get Lao and Grida married pretty quick. They
can't stall Alina off forever."
"It strikes me that you're just as far away from the marriage as you
were at the beginning," commented Tern.
"How do you make two people want to marry each other?" countered Jasso.
"It's not enough the Calculator has to pick out a woman 20 years older
than he is. Checking them against each other, they are basically
incompatible."
"Can you tell them? Maybe if they knew how important their marriage is
to the world...."
"I've checked that," said Jasso. "We can't. The probability would drop
to almost nothing."
"Excuse me, sir," interposed Roche. "All the pertinent information on
the basic personalities of Lao and Grida is filed in their Calculator
cards. It seems to me that all you'd have to do would be to ask the
Calculator how to make them want to marry each other."
"Dealing with the Calculator isn't quite that simple, Roche," replied
Jasso with a smile. "It's a machine. It has no language that would
permit it to tell us _how_ things are done, even though we might say it
knows, because it has all the necessary information.
"If we ask for information recorded in the Calculator, it can refer
us to the place in the file to find it--if we phrase the question
properly. If we ask a true-or-false question, it will answer 'yes' or
'no,' if it has the answer. If we ask for correlation of information,
the Calculator can give us the probability of attaining an objective.
"That's why it takes such long training to become a Calculator
operator. The Calculator can correlate the emotional factors of Lao and
Grida for us, but we have to draw our own conclusions for action from
them--and then ask the Calculator for probabilities. That's all."
Tern had listened gravely, without interrupting, his hands folded
across the bulge of his stomach.
"You evidently haven't been asking the right questions, Jasso," he
remarked sardonically. "It's hard for me to realize that this is the
Jasso who stopped the Brazilo-Panamanian War and solved the economic
crisis that threatened Pakistan."
"I've still got a few tricks up my sleeve, Chief," retorted Jasso. "The
only way to make a pair want to marry is to throw them together and
then exploit their psychological weakness. Make them _need_ each other.
I've got a psychology team checking Lao and Grida with a fine-tooth
comb, and we'll check their recommendations with the Calculator."
"From what you've told me, I'd say Lao's biggest weakness is a love of
luxurious living," suggested Tern. "That takes money, you know."
"Economic pressure alone doesn't go deep enough to drive him to
marriage. Not with so many available women around. Don't worry; we're
using economic pressure to keep him off balance. But the psychologists
tell us the final motivation must be an emotional frustration. It
doesn't have to be a big one, but it must be basic."
* * * * *
Lao had had the letter for two days, and still didn't know what to do
about it. It had cost him two sleepless nights.
In the old days in Nuyork he would have aired his troubles to friends
at the Psycho-Artists Club and probably acted on a dozen varying bits
of advice at the same time. Here there was no one to whom he could turn.
He glared morosely at the unfinished painting. The canvas gleamed with
iridescent whorls and lines, from which the face and form of Grida
Mattin were beginning to emerge. In the maze of waxing and waning
colors could be distinguished, if one looked closely enough, faint
countenances of women and babies with expressions of anxiety, of fear,
of hunger for love ... with occasionally a man.
It would have sold well, he thought. Free-lancing had been a promising
idea.
He dragged himself downstairs to breakfast. He usually reacted to
Grida's singing. It pleased him mildly when he was in an expansive
mood, irritated him when his mind was on something else.
This morning he hardly heard it.
"Alina will be here in three weeks," Grida imparted over the toast and
coffee.
"Alina?" he asked, without much interest.
"My sister. Haven't I mentioned her to you before?"
"No, I don't think so. Where is she?"
"She's a doctor in Frisco. She visits me every year, but she's already
more than a month late this year."
A doctor. Jasso raised a mental image of Alina as sort of a duplicate
of Grida, a plain, elderly woman with graying hair swept back into a
bun at the nape of her neck. Right now, however, he had more important
matters on his mind.
"Grida, do you know a good lawyer?" he blurted.
"Why, yes. Tello Distane is the best in town," she said. "Is there
anything the matter, Lao?"
Silently, he pulled the crumpled letter from his pocket and handed it
to her. It was from a prominent Nuyork legal firm. It said:
On behalf of our clients, Colorvue Publicity, Inc., we are
instituting suit against you for one million dols in damages,
for having disposed of psycho-paintings you contracted to
accomplish for them.
"But isn't that the company you couldn't find any report of?" gasped
Grida.
"It disappeared right off the map," said Lao grimly. "Now it's appeared
again. I can't understand this at all!"
"I'd take it to Tello," said Grida firmly. "He can tell you what you
should do."
* * * * *
He took his letter to Distane that afternoon. Small towns change
little, and the attorney's office was upstairs over a department store,
as his great-grandfather's probably had been.
Distane, a white-haired man with a leonine cast to his jaw, listened
with fingertips together for a few moments, until the details of Lao's
troubles began to unfold.
"Just a moment, Voter," he said. "What did you say your name is?"
"Lao Protik," answered Lao, somewhat nettled.
Moistening his index finger, Distane shuffled through some papers on
his desk, peering at them with intense concentration. At last his face
lit.
"Ah, Voter Protik," he said, settling back in his chair. "We have a new
partner in our firm ... an experienced attorney, you understand, but
new to our firm. I think Voter Attok is the man who should handle your
case."
Getting to his feet with a grunt, Distane led Lao into an adjoining
room which gave evidence of having been newly furnished not long
before. An urbane-looking man of middle age sat behind the desk,
twiddling a letter opener idly.
"This," said Distane heavily, "is Lao Protik, Voter Attok."
Distane left, shutting the door behind him. Lao stared at Attok. Attok
raised his eyebrows quizzically.
"Excuse me," apologized Lao hurriedly. "I was just trying to remember
if we had met before, Voter Attok. Your face seems very familiar to me."
"I don't believe so," said Attok in a well-modulated voice. "I gather
from Voter Distane that you have a legal problem on your mind, Voter
Protik. Won't you sit down?"
Settling himself in a chair, Lao handed the letter to Attok. Prompted
occasionally by questions from the attorney, he outlined the events
leading to its receipt.
"Well, I don't think you have anything to worry about, Voter Protik,"
said Attok when he had finished. "If they were delinquent in payment
of your salary before you sold the psycho-paintings and you tried
unsuccessfully to contact them through the Business Practices Agency,
they have no lawsuit. Just leave this letter with me for a few days
and I'll get in touch with you when I've completed the investigation
necessary to document our case."
Lao left, feeling better but racking his brain for an elusive memory.
He was sure he had seen Attok before.
* * * * *
Three days later, Attok called Lao back to his office. The atmosphere
was not nearly as hospitable.
"I thought you understood, Voter Protik, that a man must be absolutely
honest with his attorney," said Attok severely. "I can't handle your
case properly when you withhold facts from me."
"I haven't withheld any facts," said Lao, surprised.
"You did tell me that the Business Practices Agency had told you there
was no such firm as Colorvue Publicity, didn't you? The BPA tells
me they have no record of your getting in touch with them about the
matter. They say Colorvue Publicity has been recorded in their files
for several years. It is a small but reputable firm."
"It was a telephone check," said Lao desperately. "I don't know who
the man was I talked to, but I'll swear he said there was no Colorvue
Publicity!"
"Mmm." Attok stared keenly at him. "As I recall, you told me also that
you had not received your salary from Colorvue?"
"That's right, and how they expect me to hold onto the paintings when
they don't pay me...."
"How about these?"
Attok laid the photostats of three checks on the desk. Each was for
twenty-five thousand dols, and made out to Lao Protik from Colorvue
Publicity, Inc.
Lao recognized one of them as the check he had received as his first
quarter salary advance. The other two were exact duplicates, but
dated at three-month intervals. The photostats of the backs of the
checks--all of them--bore what appeared to be his endorsement.
"It's forgery!" howled Lao. "I only signed one of those checks! It's a
conspiracy to ruin me!"
"Conspiracy or not, Voter Protik, we can't win your case if experts say
that's your handwriting. The expert I took it to says it is."
Lao collapsed.
"Who's doing this to me, Voter Attok?" he whimpered. "Why are they
doing it?"
"On the face of it, I'd say to get your money," replied Attok
sympathetically. "You were a very successful psycho-artist before
your ... ah ... misfortune."
"I don't have any money. I have saved nothing."
"You are familiar with the law, aren't you? If they win the suit,
they're entitled to half of everything you make above a minimum five
thousand dols annually, until the judgment is paid."
"I don't make five thousand dols a year. I don't have a job. What can I
do, Voter Attok?"
"Why, as long as you make less than five thousand dols a year, they
can't touch you," replied Attok. "But to safeguard your finances in
the event you do regain your former financial status, I'd suggest you
incorporate yourself, with your wife as the controlling stockholder.
Then you can limit your personal salary to five thousand dols a year,
and the remainder of the income will be under her control. The law
can't touch it."
"But ... but I'm not married," said Lao.
Attok raised his eyebrows slightly.
"Oh, well, it doesn't matter," he said at last. "As long as you make
less than five thousand."
The wheels in Lao's brain were clicking as he left Attok's office.
He thought he saw through the whole scheme against him. Whoever was
behind Colorvue Publicity had engineered the frauds that got him
blackballed and discharged from Consolidated. They had maneuvered him
into a position where he would be vulnerable to a million-dol legal
judgment. Now, undoubtedly, the next move was to clear him and restore
his reputation, so he'd be financially able to pay off.
It was devilish--and he saw no way out.
* * * * *
Lao moped around the house, his nerves near the breaking point.
Daily he dreaded notification that the damage suit had been formally
instituted, a move which would cut off his only chance to see his
income and his position in the psycho-art field restored.
Marriage? It was on his mind constantly. The idea disturbed him almost
as much as the thought of Colorvue taking a big slice of his income for
the next decade or so. He might have been inclined to marry one of his
three mistresses in Nuyork--before they showed themselves for what they
were--but he knew better than to trust his former Southgate mistress
with control of his finances. She had abandoned him as soon as the
money from the sale of his paintings had run out.
A mailman's visit was an unusual enough phenomenon to create interest,
for it meant the delivery of a package. Letter mail was delivered from
the post office to each home through a vacuum tube system. Since it was
a letter Lao feared, he watched with considerable interest when the
mailman approached the front door, and curiosity was upper-most in his
mind when Grida called from downstairs to say the package was for him.
He knew no one who would be sending him a package.
Grida, her own curiosity apparent, made no move to leave the room when
he took the large, oblong package from her and prepared to open it.
A premonition smote him as he noted the return address: "The Nuyork
Gallery of Traditional Art."
With trembling fingers he tore away the wrappings. His paintings--all
three of them--tumbled to the floor.
He dropped into a chair, limp. The most important thing in his life was
lying, broken, before him.
"What _is_ this?" exclaimed Grida. She picked up one of the paintings
and examined it. "This isn't psycho-art," she said. "This is real! I
like this, Lao."
"It's what I've always wanted to do," he said in a tired voice. "Those
three paintings have hung in the Gallery of Traditional Art for nearly
ten years."
"There's a letter attached," she said, holding it out to him.
"Go ahead--open it, Grida," he said. "I think I know what it says."
* * * * *
Grida tore open the envelope and unfolded the letter.
In accordance with instructions from our board of directors, in
special meeting, all the paintings hanging in our gallery have
been re-evaluated. We regret to inform you that your paintings
were judged to be no longer representative of traditional art.
They are being returned to you herewith. We wish to express our
appreciation....
She stopped reading.
"That's right," said Lao morosely. "They threw my paintings out."
"But, Lao, I didn't know you did this sort of thing," she said,
bewildered.
"It's what I've always wanted to do," he repeated. "I never really
liked psycho-art. I never believed it's real art. It isn't something
the artist feels and thinks, it's something he tries to make other
people feel and think.
"But psycho-art is the only kind of art I could make money at. I didn't
have the courage to starve in an attic or make a living in some prosaic
way and paint as a hobby. I turned my talent into cash and I always
spent the cash as fast as I made it--maybe because I was ashamed that
I was a coward."
"But these three?" asked Grida.
"Sometimes," said Lao dreamily, "I've had time to do what I wanted to
do. These are the best I've ever done. When I gave them to the gallery,
they told me these were among the highest examples of traditional art
they had ever seen. I thought they meant it, but I know now it was just
because I was a famous, wealthy psycho-artist."
Grida studied the paintings. One was a seascape, the other two mountain
scenes. The titles gave some key to Lao's inner feelings: "Peace in the
Valley," "The Moving Waters," "The Lonely Peak."
"Your trouble is that you grew up a little boy in a big city," said
Grida quietly. "You ought to try to forget the sort of things you knew
in Nuyork and settle down to a life among simple folk, like the people
around here. I think you could find work here, Lao, that would be a
living for you. And you'd have plenty of time to relax and paint the
way you want to."
Lao looked at her and saw that her eyes were full of sympathy for him.
It was the last little push his overwrought emotions needed.
He did not do it at once; but that night, after supper, he proposed
marriage to Grida Mattin and she accepted.
* * * * *
Tern was furious. He did not raise his voice, but Jasso could detect
his anger in his eyes and the tone of his voice.
"I put this matter entirely in your hands, Jasso, and I expected you to
do a thorough job on it," Tern said coldly. "It's inconceivable to me
that you should be so negligent in your investigation."
"It was my fault, I'll admit," said the crestfallen Jasso. "But you
can't blame the clerk. He was told to check the personal files on the
question 'marriage,' not 'ability to reproduce.' You'll have to agree
there's a difference."
"I would think the lowest clerk involved in this operation would be
instructed that _progeny_ from the marriage is the key factor!" said
Tern. "The whole purpose of this marriage from the first has been to
produce a child that the Calculator said would have a high probability
rating for solving the problem.
"Can you tell me how the devil you bright minds on the project expect a
marriage to produce a child--when the wife is sterile?"
"That's one thing that makes me wonder if there isn't some
maladjustment in the Calculator," said Jasso. "Sterility has been
marked on Grida Mattin's card for the last eight years. I don't think
you can criticize the clerk, or me, too harshly for not thinking about
sterility when the Calculator approved the marriage. After all, her
card was in the Calculator and...."
"Don't repeat yourself," interrupted Tern brusquely. "Of course,
those circuits must be checked, but I'll give 100 to one odds right
now there's nothing wrong with the Calculator. Sterility must have
registered as a correctible factor."
"I don't know why it would," objected Jasso very thoughtfully. "The
only evidence the Calculator has is that the sterility is a normal
result of her age, and that can't be reversed as far as I know. But the
only thing we can do is treat it as correctible."
"Try it," said Tern. "But, Jasso, I want you to realize you're not
dealing now with the movement of traffic in downtown Nuyork or even
the selection of a president. The solution of this problem is vital to
mankind. I don't want any more slip-ups."
* * * * *
Alina Mattin's fresh beauty seemed to light the interior of the antique
Twenty-First Century house. She resembled Grida, but more as Grida's
daughter might have looked than as her younger sister.
Lao sighed. Had he met Alina Mattin first, he did not believe any
conceivable emergency could have persuaded him to marry her sister.
"There's some misunderstanding somewhere, but they won't admit it,"
said Alina, a puzzled frown wrinkling the bridge of her nose. She and
Lao were having supper in the breakfast nook; Lao found her quite as
competent a cook as Grida.
After more than a year at Southgate and many months of marriage to
Grida, his lean features were filling out.
"I don't think there's been a mistake," he said complacently. "The
board of education ordered Grida to enter the hospital."
"For a routine physical check-up, eh?" replied Alina. "That isn't what
she's getting."
"What are they doing, then?" asked Lao, startled.
"They're examining her to see if anything can be done to restore her
fertility," answered Alina flatly. "Lao, did you authorize the hospital
to do that?"
"Certainly not! I never thought about her fertility, one way or
another. You're sure you're not mistaken?"
"I'm a doctor. I know what they're doing. But the hospital
administrator won't tell me a thing. He just says that's on the record
of her admission to the hospital."
"They must have gotten her records mixed up with someone else,"
theorized Lao.
"Maybe. I don't know whether you knew it or not, but Grida is too old
to have a child."
Supper finished, they piled the plastic dishes in the dishwasher and
went into the parlor together. Lao turned the lights low. They sat down
together on the sofa. They sat very close together, and after a moment
Lao put his arm around Alina's shoulders. She laid her head contentedly
on his chest.
"Why couldn't you have stayed out of my life?" he asked, half
seriously, half teasingly.
"Would you want me to?" she asked softly.
"No," he admitted, running his fingers through her hair. "But this
isn't the way I want things. I suppose we should be thankful for these
few days while she's in the hospital, but I'm ashamed to be."
"So am I," confessed Alina, "but, darling, I've been so happy here
alone with you. Tell me, why did you marry Grida?"
"I'm not sure I know," he answered slowly. "I'd hate to have to try to
analyze my motives right now. I like Grida and respect her, but I don't
love her. I couldn't. I love you, Alina."
"Let's end this sneaking about behind Grida's back, Lao," she urged
earnestly, looking up into his face. "It isn't fair to her. Get a
divorce and let's marry each other."
"You know the law doesn't permit a man to seek a divorce, Alina. And
Grida wouldn't release me now. She loves me."
"Grida will divorce you," said Alina positively. "It will hurt her, but
she will. Grida is a history teacher, and her moral code is strict--and
out of date. It scarcely gets lip service any more from most people."
"You're suggesting I tell her about us? I couldn't, Alina! I can't let
her ever find out."
"But she will," said Alina, her eyes shining. "Lao, I'm going to have a
baby."
* * * * *
The man's face looked familiar.
Then he approached Lao and Alina, standing in the corridor outside the
chancery courtroom, and Lao recognized him with certainty.
"You're the man from Colorvue!" Lao flashed at him angrily.
"That's right, Voter Protik. I'm Casto Roche." The man held out his
hand. Lao ignored it.
"I ought to beat you all the way from here to Nuyork!" he growled--with
audacity, since Roche was a good deal bigger. "I trusted you, once."
"You trusted me twice," replied Roche amiably. "I think you'd recognize
me as someone else with a little different make-up."
He held his hand to his face and puffed out his cheeks slightly.
"Attok! My lawyer!" yelped Lao. People in the corridor turned to stare
at him. "I wondered why you disappeared after I paid you that fee! I
see it all now! You were part of this whole dirty--"
"Before you get too excited, Voter Protik ..." Roche did not complete
the sentence, but turned under his coat lapel to exhibit the badge
which identified him as a United Nations agent.
Lao gulped and choked off his tirade.
"I'm here to try to stop these divorce proceedings between you and your
wife," said Roche.
"Don't you think you've come to the wrong people?" suggested Alina,
apparently not nearly as impressed by Roche's badge as Lao was. "My
sister is the only one who can stop the divorce."
"Besides, it's too late," said Lao, regaining his voice. "The hearing
is finished. The judge will give his decision in a moment."
Roche said, "That can be stopped at a word from you. As a matter of
fact, the judge is waiting for me to confer with you before calling
the court back into session. I've told your wife why the government
is interested in preserving your marriage. She is willing to drop the
divorce proceedings if you are."
"Perhaps you'd better tell _us_ why," said Alina coolly.
* * * * *
Roche sighed. "All right. But it's rather involved. We haven't let
it be publicized widely, but the world is faced with a very serious
sociological problem. I suppose both of you are aware that there are a
great many more women than men."
"Of course," said Lao, his face brightening with reminiscence.
"Of course," concurred Alina, giving Lao a thoughtful glance.
"If you've read the Sunday supplements, you know why," said Roche.
"Always, more boy babies have been born than girl babies, but the high
mortality rate among boy babies has balanced the discrepancy. Now the
mortality rate has climbed tremendously higher for boy babies. We do
not know why. We do know that the ratio of women to men is increasing.
At the last census taken by the Calculator, it was 9.78 women to each
man.
"Under our present social system of monogamous marriage, this means the
actual birth rate is decreasing. Even the large number of illegitimate
children doesn't make up for the lack of men in the world. That, of
course, is the reason the Polygamy League has gained so much strength."
"Well, don't they have a point?" asked Lao. He added hastily: "I don't
hold with the ideas of the Polygamy League, you understand, in spite of
the propaganda that I was connected with it."
Roche smiled.
"That propaganda was manufactured by UN agents," he confessed. "So were
all your troubles, including the dummy corporation. Colorvue Publicity
had no other purpose but to maneuver you into marriage with Grida
Mattin. A little unethical, I'll admit, but sometimes we have to work
that way. You'll be happy to know that the damage suit against you has
been withdrawn. You can get your old job back with Consolidated Ads
and be restored to the Psycho-Artists Guild any time you wish. And
we've even arranged for the Gallery of Traditional Art to re-hang your
paintings.
"As a matter of fact," he continued, "the government has given serious
consideration to the ideas of the Polygamy League, but the Calculator
rejected them; it discovered that they would have an unfortunate impact
on our social structure. So polygamy is not the answer.
"The Calculator tells us it is very improbable that anyone now living
will find the answer.
"But the child of Lao Protik and Grida Mattin can--and probably
will--solve the problem."
* * * * *
"I'm afraid your Calculator is wrong," said Alina. "Go back and tell
your government Grida Mattin is unable to bear a child."
"The government has that information," replied Roche, frowning
slightly. "We must consider it a soluble problem, because the
Calculator has the information on file and it still gave us a high
probability on the marriage. The Calculator is a machine. It doesn't
make mistakes."
"It's made a mistake this time," said Alina positively. "Lao and I
are going to be married. I don't think he will give up our chance for
happiness for any such shaky scheme."
"We have no way of forcing him," admitted Roche, "but I believe Voter
Protik should speak for himself, knowing how important this is."
"She's right!" said Lao, anger in his tone. "I think the government
has interfered with my life enough as it is! I've done my part, and
the government didn't even do me the courtesy of letting me know I was
doing it. I love Alina. I don't intend to be tied to Grida for the rest
of my life just on the outside chance you'll come up with a cure for
her sterility."
He turned his back on Roche.
Roche looked at Alina. She looked back, coldly. With a shrug, Roche
left them and went through the door to the courtroom.
A few moments later the bailiff threw open the courtroom doors.
Lao, Alina and Grida filed in with the spectators and attorneys. They
stood as the judge entered from his chambers, adjusted his black robes
and took his seat. The spectators sat down then, but the attorneys and
principals remained standing at the bar.
The judge put on his spectacles, looked over some papers, and raised
his head to survey the courtroom. Solemnly he announced:
"It is the decision of this court that Grida Mattin Protik be granted a
divorce, as requested, from the defendant, Lao Protik.
"It is the further decision of this court that the co-respondent in
this suit, Alina Mattin, being unmarried and having proved herself by
her admitted actions to be an unfit mother, her unborn child by the
defendant shall be delivered as soon as feasible after birth into the
custody of the complainant, Grida Mattin Protik."
* * * * *
"Well, that blows it up," said Jasso despondently, laying the newspaper
clipping on Tern's desk. "Lao and Alina didn't even contest Grida's
custody of their child, even though their marriage before its birth
legitimatized it. Now Grida has the baby and Lao and Alina have gone
off to parts unknown."
"I suppose we could find them, if we tried," said Tern. "But I don't
see the point in following this case any farther, Jasso. They made it
pretty plain to your agent that the Lao-Grida marriage is through."
"Shall I write it off as closed, then?"
"I'm afraid you might as well," consented Tern reluctantly. "How have
your alternate combinations turned out?"
"We've succeeded in arranging several marriages in the highest
probability group. But frankly, Chief, all the probability ratings for
their offspring are pretty low. We had our only real chance in the
Lao-Grida combination."
"I don't want to go to the third generation if I can help it," said
Tern. "There's always the chance that combinations of low probability
individuals might result in high probability offspring. Let's run
another test on direct probability, on just those individuals who have
been filed for the first time since we began the Lao-Grida case."
"I'll get started on it right away," said Jasso.
* * * * *
Two days later, Jasso burst into Tern's office highly excited, a
section of tape from the Calculator trailing from his grasp.
"Chief, this is unbelievable!" he cried. "We have an individual
here whose probability tests 82.371 per cent to solve the problem,
projecting a life expectancy of 50 years!"
Tern whistled and rolled his eyes.
"Pretty high probability!" he said delightedly. "Pretty doggoned high!
Baby, I suppose?"
"Yes," said Jasso. He paused, and added slowly and with emphasis: "The
child's name is Nina Mattin."
"Mattin?"
"The daughter of Lao Protik and Alina Mattin! Now the adopted daughter
of Grida Mattin."
"What!"
"The strange thing about it, Chief, is that Alina Mattin was one of
the higher probability mothers we found first. But we checked her
against Lao, and the probability for an offspring of their marriage
was extremely low. Do you suppose the Calculator has gone completely
haywire?"
Tern did not answer at once. He sat, lost in deep thought, for several
minutes. Then he began laughing.
He laughed until tears came into his eyes, slapping his knee
delightedly. Jasso stood there, looking blank.
"No, the Calculator's not haywire, Jasso," said Tern, when he could
get his breath. "It just has all the facts, and it correlates facts
we don't even think about. The reason we get funny ideas about it
sometimes is because the Calculator can't talk. As you explained,
it can just answer questions, and sometimes we don't ask the right
questions.
"From what's happened, I'd say the question you asked the Calculator
when you were looking for second-generation probabilities was not 'the
offspring of two people.' It was 'offspring resulting from the marriage
of two people.' Isn't that right?"
"It seemed the proper way to put the question," answered Jasso a little
stiffly.
* * * * *
Tern began laughing again. "It was the right question to put," he
choked, "but illegitimacy was the key to the whole thing!
"Look: the Calculator had all the facts. It knew all about the
emotional make-up of Lao, Grida and Alina. It knew that Alina was
Grida's sister.
"The probability course is obvious! Given a marriage between Lao
and Grida, the probability was high that he would meet her sister,
Alina, under convenient circumstances. The probability was high, too,
considering the emotional make-up of the three, that Lao and Alina
would fall in love. Under our present social scheme, an illegitimate
child was likely. So there you are."
"Chief, I know you've been in this business a lot longer than I
have," said Jasso slowly. "I've got to confess now that I can't see
the slightest reason why the probability for a child of Lao and Alina
should be so much higher under these circumstances than if the two of
them just met and got married."
"Environment, my boy! It's just as important as heredity. Lao's
marriage to Grida was the key to the whole thing. Grida is a motherly,
fiercely conscientious type of woman who would insist on rearing her
husband's child--no matter who the mother was. And of course the courts
would uphold her."
Tern was laughing again. "Anyway, we've got it licked. We have our
high-probability individual.... But I'm glad of one thing. Suppose
you'd asked the Calculator to check itself--asked it, for instance, if
we knew what we were doing. It would have given us a straight answer,
and we would have abandoned the whole project--it would have told us we
didn't know at all!"
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