Child Read online

  Child

  William Tenn

  Child’s Play

  by William Tenn

  After the man from the express company had given the door an untipped slam, Sam Weber decided to move the huge crate under the one light bulb in his room. It was all very well for the messenger to drawl, “I dunno. We don’t send ’em; we just deliver ’em, mister”—but there must be some sensible explanation.

  With a grunt that began as an anticipatory reflex and ended on a note of surprised annoyance, Sam shoved the box forward the few feet necessary. It was heavy enough; he wondered how the messenger had carried it up the three flights of stairs.

  He straightened and frowned down at the garish card which contained his name and address as well as the legend—“Merry Christmas, 2353.”

  A joke? He didn’t know anyone who’d think it funny to send a card dated over four hundred years in the future. Unless one of the comedians in his law school graduating class meant to record his opinion as to when Weber would be trying his first case. Even so—

  The letters were shaped strangely, come to think of it, sort of green streaks instead of lines. And the card was a sheet of gold!

  Sam decided he was really interested. He ripped the card aside, tore off the flimsy wrapping material—and stopped.

  There was no top to the box, no slit in its side, no handle anywhere in sight. It seemed to be a solid, cubical mass of brown stuff. Yet he was positive something had rattled inside when it was moved.

  He seized the corners and strained and grunted till it lifted. The underside was as smooth and innocent of openings as the rest. He let it thump back to the floor.

  “Ah, well,” he said, philosophically, “it’s not the gift; it’s the principle involved.”

  Many of his gifts still required appreciative notes. He’d have to work up something special for Aunt Maggie. Her neckties were things of cubistic horror, but he hadn’t even sent her a lone handkerchief this Christmas. Every cent had gone into buying that brooch for Tina. Not quite a ring, but maybe she’d consider that under the circumstances—

  He turned to walk to his bed, which he had drafted into the additional service of desk and chair. He kicked at the great box disconsolately. “Well, if you won’t open, you won’t open.”

  As if smarting under the kick, the box opened. A cut appeared on the upper surface, widened rapidly and folded the top back and down on either side like a valise. Sam clapped his forehead and addressed a rapid prayer to every god whose name he could think of. Then he remembered what he’d said.

  “Close,” he suggested.

  The box closed, once more as smooth as a baby’s bottom.

  “Open.”

  The box opened.

  So much for the sideshow, Sam decided. He bent down and peered into the container.

  The interior was a crazy mass of shelving on which rested vials filled with blue liquids, jars filled with red solids, transparent tubes showing yellow and green and orange and mauve and other colors which Sam’s eyes didn’t quite remember. There were seven pieces of intricate apparatus on the bottom which looked as if tube-happy radio hams had assembled them. There was also a book.

  Sam picked the book off the bottom and noted numbly that while all its pages were metallic, it was lighter than any paper book he’d ever held.

  He carried the book over to the bed and sat down. Then he took a long, deep breath and turned to the first page. “Gug,” he said, exhaling his long, deep breath.

  In mad, green streaks of letters:

  Bild-A-Man Set #3. This set is intended solely for the use of children between the ages of eleven and thirteen. The equipment, much more advanced than Bild-A-Man Sets 1 and 2, will enable the child of this age-group to build and assemble complete adult humans in perfect working order. The retarded child may also construct the babies and mannikins of the earlier kits. Two disassembleators are provided so that the set can be used again and again with profit. As with Sets 1 and 2, the aid of a Census Keeper in all disassembling is advised. Refills and additional parts maybe acquired from The Bild-A-Man Company, 928 Diagonal Level, Glunt City, Ohio. Remember—only with a Bild-A-Man can you build a man!

  Weber squeezed his eyes shut. What was that gag in the movie he’d seen last night? Terrific gag. Terrific picture, too. Nice technicolor. Wonder how much the director made a week? The cameraman? Five hundred? A thousand?

  He opened his eyes warily. The box was still a squat cube in the center of his room. The book was still in his shaking hand. And the page read the same.

  “Only with a Bild-A-Man can you build a man!” Heaven help a neurotic young lawyer at a time like this!

  There was a price list on the next page for “refills and additional parts.” Things like one liter of hemoglobin and three grams of assorted enzymes were offered for sale in terms of one slunk fifty and three slunks forty-five. A note on the bottom advertised Set #4: “The thrill of building your first live Martian!”

  Fine print announced pat. pending 2348.

  The third page was a table of contents. Sam gripped the edge of the mattress with one sweating hand and read:

  Chapter I—A child’s garden of biochemistry.

  Chapter II—Making simple living things indoors and out.

  Chapter III—Mannikins and what makes them do the world’s work.

  Chapter IV—Babies and other small humans.

  Chapter V—Twins for every purpose: twinning yourself and your friends.

  Chapter VI—What you need to build a man.

  Chapter VII—Completing the man.

  Chapter VIII—Disassembling the man.

  Chapter IX—New kinds of life for your leisure moments.

  Sam dropped the book back into the box and ran for the mirror. His face was still the same, somewhat like bleached chalk, but fundamentally the same. He hadn’t twinned or grown himself a mannikin or devised a new kind of life for his leisure moments. Everything was snug as a bug in a bughouse.

  Very carefully he pushed his eyes back into the proper position in their sockets.

  “Dear Aunt Maggie,” he began writing feverishly. “Your ties made the most beautiful gift of my Christmas. My only regret is—”

  My only regret is that I have but one life to give for my Christmas present. Who could have gone to such fantastic lengths for a practical joke? Lew Knight? Even Lew must have some reverence in his insensitive body for the institution of Christmas. And Lew didn’t have the brains or the patience for a job so involved.

  Tina? Tina had the fine talent for complication, all right. But Tina, while possessing a delightful abundance of all other physical attributes, was badly lacking in funny-bone.

  Sam drew forth the leather wallet she’d given him and caressed it. Tina’s perfume seemed to cling to the surface and move the world back into focus.

  The metallic greeting card glinted at him from the floor. Maybe the reverse side contained the sender’s name. He picked it up, turned it over.

  Nothing but blank gold surface. He was sure of the gold; his father had been a jeweler. The very value of the sheet was rebuttal to the possibility of a practical joke. Besides, again, what was the point?

  “Merry Christmas, 2353.” Where would humanity be in four hundred years? Traveling to the stars, or beyond—to unimaginable destinations? Using little mannikins to perform the work of machines and robots? Providing children with—

  There might be another card or note inside the box. Weber bent down to remove its contents. His eye noted a large grayish jar and the label etched into its surface: Dehydrated Neurone Preparation, for human construction only.

  He backed away and glared. “Close!”

  The thing melted shut. Weber sighed his relief at it and decided to go to bed.

  He regretted while und
ressing that he hadn’t thought to ask the messenger the name of his firm. Knowing the delivery service involved would be useful in tracing the origin of this gruesome gift.

  “But then,” he repeated as he fell asleep, “it’s not the gift—it’s the principle! Merry Christmas, me.”

  The next morning when Lew Knight breezed in with his “Good morning, counselor,” Sam waited for the first sly ribbing to start. Lew wasn’t the man to hide the light of his humor under a bushel. But Lew buried his nose in The New York State Supplement and kept it there all morning. The other five young lawyers in the communal office appeared either too bored or too busy to have Bild-A-Man sets on their conscience. There were no sly grins, no covert glances, no leading questions.

  Tina walked in at ten o’clock, looking like a pinup girl caught with her clothes on.

  “Good morning, counselors,” she said.

  Each in his own way, according to the peculiar gland secretions he was enjoying at the moment, beamed, drooled or nodded a reply. Lew Knight drooled. Sam Weber beamed.

  Tina took it all in and analyzed the situation while she fluffed her hair about. Her conclusions evidently involved leaning markedly against Lew Knight’s desk and asking what he had for her to do this morning.

  Sam bit savagely into Hackleworth On Torts. Theoretically, Tina was employed by all seven of them as secretary, switchboard operator and receptionist. Actually, the most faithful performance of her duties entailed nothing more daily than the typing and addressing of two envelopes with an occasional letter to be sealed inside. Once a week there might be a wistful little brief which was never to attain judicial scrutiny. Tina therefore had a fair library of fashion magazines in the first drawer of her desk and a complete cosmetics laboratory in the other two; she spent one third of her working day in the ladies’ room swapping stocking prices and sources with other secretaries; she devoted the other two thirds religiously to that one of her employers who as of her arrival seemed to be in the most masculine mood. Her pay was small but her life was full.

  Just before lunch, she approached casually with the morning’s mail. “Didn’t think we’d be too busy this morning, counselor—” she began.

  “You thought incorrectly, Miss Hill,” he informed her with a brisk irritation that he hoped became him well; “I’ve been waiting for you to terminate your social engagements so that we could get down to what occasionally passes for business.”

  She was as startled as an uncushioned kitten. “But—but this isn’t Monday. Somerset Ojack only send you stuff on Mondays.”

  Sam winced at the reminder that if it weren’t for the legal drudgework he received once a week from Somerset Ojack he would be a lawyer in name only, if not in spirit only. “I have a letter, Miss Hill,” he replied steadily. “Whenever you assemble the necessary materials, we can get on with it.”

  Tina returned in a head-shaking moment with stenographic pad and pencils.

  “Regular heading, today’s date,” Sam began. “Address it to Chamber of Commerce, Glunt City, Ohio. Gentlemen: Would you inform me if you have registered currently with you a firm bearing the name of the Bild-A-Man Company or a firm with any name at all similar? I am also interested in whether a firm bearing the above or related name has recently made known its intention of joining your community. This inquiry is being made informally on behalf of a client who is interested in a product of this organization whose address he has mislaid. Signature and then this P.S.—My client is also curious as to the business possibilities of a street known as Diagonal Avenue or Diagonal Level. Any data on this address and the organizations presently located there will be greatly appreciated.”

  Tina batted wide blue eyes at him. “Oh, Sam,” she breathed, ignoring the formality he had introduced, “oh, Sam, you have another client. I’m so glad. He looked a little sinister, but in such a distinguished manner that I was certain—”

  “Who? Who looked a little sinister?”

  “Why, your new client.” Sam had the uncomfortable feeling that she had almost added “stupid.” “When I came in this morning, there was this terribly tall old man in a long black overcoat talking to the elevator operator. He turned to me—the elevator operator, I mean—and said, ‘This is Mr. Weber’s secretary. She’ll be able to tell you anything you want to know.’ Then he sort of winked, which I thought was sort of impolite, you know, considering. Then this old man looked at me hard and I felt distinctly uncomfortable and he walked away muttering ‘Either disjointed or predatory personalities. Never normal. Never balanced.’ Which I didn’t think was very polite, either, I’ll have you know, if he is your new client!” She sat back and began breathing again.

  Tall, sinister old men in long, black overcoats pumping the elevator operator about him. Hardly a matter of business. He had no skeletons in his personal closet. Could it be connected with his unusual Christmas present? Sam hummed mentally.

  “—but she is my favorite aunt, you know,” Tina was saying. “And she came in so unexpectedly.”

  The girl was explaining about their Christmas date. Sam felt a rush of affection for her as she leaned forward.

  “Don’t bother,” he told her. “I knew you couldn’t help breaking the date. I was a little sore when you called me, but I got over it; never-hold-a-grudge-against-a-pretty-girl-Sam, I’m known as. How about lunch?”

  “Lunch?” She gestured distractedly. “I promised Lew, Mr. Knight, that is—But he wouldn’t mind if you came along.”

  “Fine. Let’s go.” This would be helping Lew to a spoonful of his own medicine.

  Lew Knight took the business of having a crowd instead of a party for lunch as badly as Sam hoped he would. Unfortunately, Lew was able to describe details of his forthcoming case, the probable fees and possible distinction to be reaped thereof. After one or two attempts to bring an interesting will he was rephrasing for Somerset Ojack into the conversation, Sam subsided into daydreams. Lew immediately dropped Rosenthal v. Rosenthal and leered at Tina conversationally.

  Outside the restaurant, snow discolored into slush. Most of the stores were removing Christmas displays. Sam noticed construction sets for children, haloed by tinsel and glittering with artificial snow. Build a radio, a skyscraper, an airplane. But “Only with a Bild-A-Man can you—”

  “I’m going home,” he announced suddenly. “Something important I just remembered. If anything comes up, call me there.”

  He was leaving Lew a clear field, he told himself, as he found a seat on the subway. But the bitter truth was that the field was almost as clear when he was around as when he wasn’t. Lupine Lew Knight, he had been called in law school; since the day when he had noticed that Tina had the correct proportions of dress-filling substance, Sam’s chances had been worth a crowbar at Fort Knox.

  Tina hadn’t been wearing his brooch today. Her little finger, right hand, however, had sported an unfamiliar and garish little ring. “Some got it,” Sam philosophized. “Some don’t got it. I don’t got it.”

  But it would have been nice, with Tina, to have got it.

  As he unlocked the door of his room he was surprised by an unmade bed telling with rumpled stoicism of a chambermaid who’d never come. This hadn’t happened before—Of course! He’d never locked his room before. The girl must have thought he wanted privacy.

  Maybe he had.

  Aunt Maggie’s ties glittered obscenely at the foot of the bed. He chucked them into the closet as he removed his hat and coat. Then he went over to the washstand and washed his hands, slowly. He turned around.

  This was it. At last the great cubical bulk that had been lurking quietly in the corner of his vision was squarely before him. It was there and it undoubtedly contained all the outlandish collection he remembered.

  “Open,” he said, and the box opened.

  The book, still open to the metallic table of contents, was lying at the bottom of the box. Part of it had slipped into the chamber of a strange piece of apparatus. Sam picked both out gingerly.

  H
e slipped the book out and noticed the apparatus consisted mostly of some sort of binoculars, supported by a coil and tube arrangement and bearing on a flat green plate. He turned it over. The underside was lettered in the same streaky way as the book. Combination Electron Microscope and Workbench.

  Very carefully he placed it on the floor. One by one, he removed the other items, from the Junior Biocalibrator to the Jiffy Vitalizer. Very respectfully he ranged against the box in five multi-colored rows the phials of lymph and the jars of basic cartilage. The walls of the chest were lined with indescribably thin and wrinkled sheets; a slight pressure along their edges expanded them into three-dimensional outlines of human organs whose shape and size could be varied with pinching any part of their surface—most indubitably molds.

  Quite an assortment. If there was anything solidly scientific to it, that box might mean unimaginable wealth. Or some very useful publicity. Or—well, it should mean something!

  If there was anything solidly scientific to it.

  Sam flopped down on the bed and opened to A Child’s Garden of Biochemistry.

  At nine that night he squatted next to the Combination Electron Microscope and Workbench and began opening certain small bottles. At nine forty-seven Sam Weber made his first simple living thing.

  It wasn’t much, if you used the first chapter of Genesis as your standard. Just a primitive brown mold that, in the field of the microscope, fed diffidently on a piece of pretzel, put forth a few spores and died in about twenty minutes. But he had made it. He had constructed a specific life-form to feed on the constituents of a specific pretzel; it could survive nowhere else.

  He went out to supper with every intention of getting drunk. After just a little alcohol, however, the dei-ish feeling returned and he scurried back to his room.

  Never again that evening did he recapture the exultation of the brown mold, though he constructed a giant protein molecule and a whole slew of filterable viruses.