He said, "Look!"
In his hand, he held the main lead that had connected Junior to the power supply.
I had forgotten about Junior, but now it came back. I said, "He's disconnected, then."
"Cold!"
"How did you do it?"
He said, "Junior was so busy watching you and Mary Ann fight that I managed to sneak up on it. Mary Ann put on one good show."
I didn't like that remark because Mary Ann is a very dignified and self-contained sort of girl and doesn't put on "shows." However, I had too much in hand to take issue with him.
I said to Mary Ann, "I don't have much to offer, Mary Ann; just a school teacher's salary. Now that we've dismantled Junior, there isn't even any chance of-"
Mary Ann said, "I don't care, Bill. I just gave up on you, you lunkheaded darling. I've tried practically everything-"
"You've been kicking my shins and stamping on my toes."
"I'd run out of everything else. I was desperate."
The logic wasn't quite clear, but I didn't answer because I remembered about the show. I looked at my watch and said, "Look, Mary Ann, if we hurry we can still make the second act."
She said, "Who wants to see the show?"-
So I kissed her some more; and we never did get to see the show at all.
There's only one thing that bothers me now. Mary Ann and I are married, and we're perfectly happy. I just had a promotion; I'm an associate professor now. Cliff keeps working away at plans for building a controllable Junior and he's making progress.
None of that's it.
You see, 1 talked to Cliff the next evening, to tell him Mary Ann and I were going to marry and to thank him for giving me the idea. And after staring at me for a minute, he swore he hadn't said it; he hadn't shouted for me to propose marriage.
Of course, there was something else in the room with Cliff's voice.
I keep worrying Mary Ann will find out. She's the gentlest girl I know, but she has got red hair. She can't help trying to live up to that, or have I said that already?
Anyway, what will she say if she ever finds out that I didn't have the sense to propose till a machine told me to?
It's Such a Beautiful Day
On April 12, 2117, the field-modulator brake-valve in the Door belonging to Mrs. Richard Hanshaw depolarized for reasons unknown. As a result, Mrs. Hanshaw's day was completely upset and her son, Richard, Jr., first developed his strange neurosis.
It was not the type of thing you would find listed as a neurosis in the usual textbooks and certainly young Richard behaved, in most respects, just as a well-brought-up twelve-year-old in prosperous circumstances ought to behave.
And yet from April 12 on, Richard Hanshaw, Jr., could only with regret ever persuade himself to go through a Door.
Of all this, on April 12, Mrs. Hanshaw had no premonition. She woke in the morning (an ordinary morning) as her mekkano slithered gently into her room, with a cup of coffee on a small tray.
Mrs. Hanshaw was planning a visit to New York in the afternoon and she had several things to do first that could not quite be trusted to a mekkano, so after one or two sips, she stepped out of bed.
The mekkano backed away, moving silently along the diamagnetic field that kept its oblong body half an inch above the floor, and moved back to the kitchen, where its simple computer was quite adequate to set the proper controls on the various kitchen appliances in order that an appropriate breakfast might be prepared.
Mrs. Hanshaw, having bestowed the usual sentimental glance upon the
Copyright (c) 1954 by Ballantine Books, Inc.
cubograph of her dead husband, passed through the stages of her morning ritual with a certain contentment. She could hear her son across the hall clattering through his, but she knew she need not interfere with him. The mekkano was well adjusted to see to it, as a matter of course, that he was showered, that he had on a change of clothing, and that he would eat a nourishing breakfast. The tergo-shower she had had installed the year before made the morning wash and dry so quick and pleasant that, really, she felt certain Dickie would wash even without supervision.
On a morning like this, when she was busy, it would certainly not be necessary for her to do more than deposit a casual peck on the boy's cheek before he left. She heard the soft chime the mekkano sounded to indicate approaching school time and she floated down the force-lift to the lower floor (her hair-style for the day only sketchily designed, as yet) in order to perform that motherly duty.
She found Richard standing at the door, with his text-reels and pocket projector dangling by their strap and a frown on his face.
"Say, Mom," he said, looking up, "I dialed the school's co-ords but nothing happens."
She said, almost automatically, "Nonsense, Dickie. I never heard of such a thing."
"Well, you try."
Mrs. Hanshaw tried a number of times. Strange, the school Door was always set for general reception. She tried other co-ordinates. Her friends' Doors might not be set for reception, but there would be a signal at least, and then she could explain.
But nothing happened at all. The Door remained an inactive gray barrier despite all her manipulations. It was obvious that the Door was out of order -and only five months after its annual fall inspection by the company.
She was quite angry about it.
It would happen on a day when she had so much planned. She thought petulantly of the fact that a month earlier she had decided against installing a subsidiary Door on the ground that it was an unnecessary expense. How was she to know that Doors were getting to be so shoddy?
She stepped to the visiphone while the anger still burned in her and said to Richard, "You just go down the road, Dickie, and use the Williamsons' Door."
Ironically, in view of later developments, Richard balked. "Aw, gee, Mom, I'll get dirty. Can't I stay home till the Door is fixed?"
And, as ironically, Mrs. Hanshaw insisted. With her finger on the combination board of the phone, she said, "You won't get dirty if you put flexies on your shoes, and don't forget to brush yourself well before you go into their house."
"But, golly-"
"No back-talk, Dickie. You've got to be in school. Just let me see you walk out of here. And quickly, or you'll be late."
The mekkano, an advanced model and very responsive, was already standing before Richard with flexies in one appendage.
Richard pulled the transparent plastic shields over his shoes and moved down the hall with visible reluctance. "I don't even know how to work this thing, Mom."
"You just push that button," Mrs. Hanshaw called. "The red button. Where it says 'For Emergency Use.' And don't dawdle. Do you want the mekkano to go along with you?"
"Gosh, no," he called back, morosely, "what do you think I am? A baby? Gosh!" His muttering was cut off by a slam.
With flying fingers, Mrs. Hanshaw punched the appropriate combination on the phone board and thought of the things she intended saying to the company about this.