Read Online The Steam-Driven Boy by John Sladek - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John Sladek
Tags: Science-Fiction
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orange cigar. ‘Only Bitter Orange, I’m afraid. Ask the Machine.’
‘I’m afraid to ask it for anything, today,’ she said. ‘It keeps drugging me – James, Porter was put away a month ago, and I haven’t been able to paint since. Do you think I’m crazy? The Machine thinks so.’
‘The Machine,’ he said, tearing off the end of the cigar with his teeth, ‘is always right.’
Seeing Helena had wandered away to sit on Marya’s Chinese sofa, he excused himself with a nod and followed.
Wattleigh still sat brooding over the Fool’s Mate. ‘I don’t understand. I just can’t understand,’ he said.
‘– it’s like the Hare and the Tortoise,’ boomed the mathematician. Lloyd nodded solemnly. ‘The slow one can’t ever catch up, see?’
Lloyd spoke. ‘Well, you got a point. You got a point. Only I thought the slow one was the winner.’
‘Oh.’ Dewes (or Clewes) lapsed into thoughtful silence.
Marya wandered about the room, touching faces as if she were a blind person looking for someone she knew.
‘But I don’t understand!’ said Wattleigh.
‘I do,’ James mumbled about the cigar. The bittersweet smoke was thick as liquid in his mouth. He understood, all right. He looked at them, one by one: An er-mathematician having trouble with the difference between arithmetic and geometry; an ex-engineer, ditto; a painter not allowed to paint, not even to feel; a former chess ‘champion’ who could not play. And that left Helena Hershee, mistress to poor, dumb Wattleigh.
‘Before the Machines –?’ he began.
‘– I was a judge,’ she said, running her fingertips over the back of his neck provocatively. ‘And you? What kind of doctor were you?’
1988 A.D
.
‘It was during the second world war,’ Jim Fairchild said. He lay on his back on the long, tiger-striped sofa, with a copy of H OT R OD K OMIKS over his eyes.
‘I thought it only started in the sixties,’ said Marya.
‘Yeah, but the name, “Mussulman” – that started in the Nazi death camps. There were some people in them who couldn’t – you know – get with it. They stopped eating and seeing and hearing. Everybody called them “Mussulmen”, because they seemed like Moslems, mystic … ’
His voice trailed off, for he was thinking of the second world war. The good old days, when a man made his own rules. No Machines to tell you what to do.
He had been living with Marya for several months, now. She was his girl, just as the other Marya, in H OT R OD K OMIKS , was the girl of the other Jim, Jim (Hell-On-Wheels) White. It was a funny thing about Komiks. They were real life, and at the same time, they were better than life.
Marya – his Marya – was no intellectual. She didn’t like to read and think, like Jim, but that was o.k., because men were supposed to do all the reading and thinking and fighting and killing. Marya sat in a lavender bucket seat in the corner, drawing with her crayons. Easing his lanky, lean body up off the sofa, Jim walked around behind her and looked at the sketch.
‘Her nose is crooked,’ he said.
‘That doesn’t matter, silly. This is a fashion design. It’s only the dress that counts.’
‘Well, how come she’s got yellow hair? People don’t have yellow hair.’
‘Helena Hershee has.’
‘No she hasn’t!’
‘She has so?’
‘No, it ain’t yellow, it’s – it ain’t yellow.’
Then they both paused, because Muzik was playing their favourite song. Each had a favourite of his own – Jim’s was ‘Blap’, and Marya’s was ‘Yes I Know I Rilly Care For You’ – but they had one favourite together. Called ‘Kustomized Tragedy’. It was one of the songs in which the Muzik imitated their voices, singing close harmony:
Jim Guntz had a neat little kustom job,
And Marya was his girl.
They loved each other with a love so true
The truest in the worl’.
But Jim weren’t allowed to drive his lair,
And Marya could not see;
Kust’mized
‘I’m afraid to ask it for anything, today,’ she said. ‘It keeps drugging me – James, Porter was put away a month ago, and I haven’t been able to paint since. Do you think I’m crazy? The Machine thinks so.’
‘The Machine,’ he said, tearing off the end of the cigar with his teeth, ‘is always right.’
Seeing Helena had wandered away to sit on Marya’s Chinese sofa, he excused himself with a nod and followed.
Wattleigh still sat brooding over the Fool’s Mate. ‘I don’t understand. I just can’t understand,’ he said.
‘– it’s like the Hare and the Tortoise,’ boomed the mathematician. Lloyd nodded solemnly. ‘The slow one can’t ever catch up, see?’
Lloyd spoke. ‘Well, you got a point. You got a point. Only I thought the slow one was the winner.’
‘Oh.’ Dewes (or Clewes) lapsed into thoughtful silence.
Marya wandered about the room, touching faces as if she were a blind person looking for someone she knew.
‘But I don’t understand!’ said Wattleigh.
‘I do,’ James mumbled about the cigar. The bittersweet smoke was thick as liquid in his mouth. He understood, all right. He looked at them, one by one: An er-mathematician having trouble with the difference between arithmetic and geometry; an ex-engineer, ditto; a painter not allowed to paint, not even to feel; a former chess ‘champion’ who could not play. And that left Helena Hershee, mistress to poor, dumb Wattleigh.
‘Before the Machines –?’ he began.
‘– I was a judge,’ she said, running her fingertips over the back of his neck provocatively. ‘And you? What kind of doctor were you?’
1988 A.D
.
‘It was during the second world war,’ Jim Fairchild said. He lay on his back on the long, tiger-striped sofa, with a copy of H OT R OD K OMIKS over his eyes.
‘I thought it only started in the sixties,’ said Marya.
‘Yeah, but the name, “Mussulman” – that started in the Nazi death camps. There were some people in them who couldn’t – you know – get with it. They stopped eating and seeing and hearing. Everybody called them “Mussulmen”, because they seemed like Moslems, mystic … ’
His voice trailed off, for he was thinking of the second world war. The good old days, when a man made his own rules. No Machines to tell you what to do.
He had been living with Marya for several months, now. She was his girl, just as the other Marya, in H OT R OD K OMIKS , was the girl of the other Jim, Jim (Hell-On-Wheels) White. It was a funny thing about Komiks. They were real life, and at the same time, they were better than life.
Marya – his Marya – was no intellectual. She didn’t like to read and think, like Jim, but that was o.k., because men were supposed to do all the reading and thinking and fighting and killing. Marya sat in a lavender bucket seat in the corner, drawing with her crayons. Easing his lanky, lean body up off the sofa, Jim walked around behind her and looked at the sketch.
‘Her nose is crooked,’ he said.
‘That doesn’t matter, silly. This is a fashion design. It’s only the dress that counts.’
‘Well, how come she’s got yellow hair? People don’t have yellow hair.’
‘Helena Hershee has.’
‘No she hasn’t!’
‘She has so?’
‘No, it ain’t yellow, it’s – it ain’t yellow.’
Then they both paused, because Muzik was playing their favourite song. Each had a favourite of his own – Jim’s was ‘Blap’, and Marya’s was ‘Yes I Know I Rilly Care For You’ – but they had one favourite together. Called ‘Kustomized Tragedy’. It was one of the songs in which the Muzik imitated their voices, singing close harmony:
Jim Guntz had a neat little kustom job,
And Marya was his girl.
They loved each other with a love so true
The truest in the worl’.
But Jim weren’t allowed to drive his lair,
And Marya could not see;
Kust’mized
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