Waldo, and Magic, Inc Page 4

  The dummy turned his eyes and head slightly. “Greetings, Uncle Gus. I do wish you would remember to phone before dropping in. I would have had your special dinner ready.”

  “Never mind. We may not be here that long. Waldo, this is my friend, Jimmie Stevens.”

  The dummy faced Stevens. “How do you do, Mr. Stevens,” the voice said formally. “Welcome to Freehold.”

  “How do you do, Mr. Jones,” Stevens replied, and eyed the dummy curiously. It was surprisingly lifelike; he had been taken in by it at first. A “reasonable facsimile.” Come to think of it, he had heard of this dummy. Except in vision screen few had seen Waldo in his own person. Those who had business at Wheelchair—no, Freehold, he must remember that—those who had business at Freehold heard a voice and saw this simulacrum.

  “But you must stay for dinner, Uncle Gus,” Waldo continued. “You can’t run out on me like that; you don’t come often enough for that. I can stir something up.”

  “Maybe we will,” Grimes admitted. “Don’t worry about the menu. You know me. I can eat a turtle with the shell.”

  It had really been a bright idea, Stevens congratulated himself, to get Doc Grimes to bring him. Not here five minutes and Waldo was insisting on them staying for dinner. Good omen!

  He had not noticed that Waldo had addressed the invitation to Grimes alone, and that it had been Grimes who had assumed the invitation to be for both of them.

  “Where are you, Waldo?” Grimes continued. “In the lab?” He made a tentative movement, as if to leave the reception room.

  “Oh, don’t bother,” Waldo said hastily. “I’m sure you will be more comfortable where you are. Just a moment and I will put some spin on the room so that you may sit down.”

  “What’s eating you, Waldo?” Grimes said testily. “You know I don’t insist on weight. And I don’t care for the company of your talking doll. I want to see you.” Stevens was a little surprised by the older man’s insistence; he had thought it considerate of Waldo to offer to supply acceleration. Weightlessness put him a little on edge.

  Waldo was silent for an uncomfortable period. At last he said frigidly, “Really, Uncle Gus, what you ask is out of the question. You must be aware of that.”

  Grimes did not answer him. Instead, he took Stevens’ arm. “Come on, Jimmie. We’re leaving.”

  “Why, Doc! What’s the matter?”

  “Waldo wants to play games. I don’t play games.”

  “But—”

  “Ne’ mind! Come along. Waldo, open the lock.”

  “Uncle Gus!”

  “Yes, Waldo?”

  “Your guest—you vouch for him?”

  “Naturally, you dumb fool, else I wouldn’t have brought him.”

  “You will find me in my workshop. The way is open.”

  Grimes turned to Stevens. “Come along, son.”

  Stevens trailed after Grimes as one fish might follow another, while taking in with his eyes as much of Waldo’s fabulous house as he could see. The place was certainly unique, he conceded to himself—unlike anything he had ever seen. It completely lacked up-and-down orientation. Spacecraft, even space stations, although always in free fall with respect to any but internally impressed accelerations, invariably are designed with up-and-down; the up-and-down axis of a ship is determined by the direction of its accelerating drive; the up-and-down of a space station is determined by its centrifugal spin.

  Some few police and military craft use more than one axis of acceleration; their up-and-down shifts, therefore, and their personnel, must be harnessed when the ship maneuvers. Some space stations apply spin only to living quarters. Nevertheless, the rule is general; human beings are used to weight; all their artifacts have that assumption implicit in their construction—except Waldo’s house.

  It is hard for a groundhog to dismiss the notion of weight. We seem to be born with an instinct which demands it. If one thinks of a vessel in a free orbit around the Earth, one is inclined to think of the direction toward the Earth as “down,” to think of oneself as standing or sitting on that wall of the ship, using it as a floor. Such a concept is completely mistaken. To a person inside a freely falling body there is no sensation of weight whatsoever and no direction of up-and-down, except that which derives from the gravitational field of the vessel itself. As for the latter, neither Waldo’s house nor any space craft as yet built is massive enough to produce a field dense enough for the human body to notice it. Believe it or not, that is true. It takes a mass as gross as a good-sized planetoid to give the human body a feeling of weight.

  It may be objected that a body in a free orbit around the Earth is not a freely falling body. The concept involved is human, Earth surface in type, and completely erroneous. Free flight, free fall, and free orbit are equivalent terms. The Moon falls constantly toward the Earth; the Earth falls constantly toward the Sun, but the sidewise vector of their several motions prevents them from approaching their primaries. It is free fall nonetheless. Consult any ballistician or any astrophysicist.

  When there is free fall there is no sensation of weight. A gravitational field must be opposed to be detected by the human body.

  Some of these considerations passed through Stevens’ mind as he hand-walked his way to Waldo’s workshop. Waldo’s home had been constructed without any consideration being given to up-and-down. Furniture and apparatus were affixed to any wall; there was no “floor.” Decks and platforms were arranged at any convenient angle and of any size or shape, since they had nothing to do with standing or walking. Properly speaking, they were bulkheads and working surfaces rather than decks. Furthermore, equipment was not necessarily placed close to such surfaces; frequently it was more convenient to locate it with space all around it, held in place by light guys or slender stanchions.

  The furniture and equipment was all odd in design and frequently odd in purpose. Most furniture on Earth is extremely rugged, and at least 90 percent of it has a single purpose—to oppose, in one way or another, the acceleration of gravity. Most of the furniture in an Earth-surface—or subsurface—house is stator machines intended to oppose gravity. All tables, chairs, beds, couches, clothing racks, shelves, drawers, et cetera, have that as their one purpose. All other furniture and equipment have it as a secondary purpose which strongly conditions design and strength.

  The lack of need for the rugged strength necessary to all terrestrial equipment resulted in a fairylike grace in much of the equipment in Waldo’s house. Stored supplies, massive in themselves, could be retained in convenient order by compartmentation of eggshell-thin transparent plastic. Ponderous machinery, which on Earth would necessarily be heavily cased and supported, was here either open to the air or covered by gossamerlike envelopes and held stationary by light elastic lines.

  Everywhere were pairs of waldoes, large, small and life-size, with vision pickups to match. It was evident that Waldo could make use of the compartments through which they were passing without stirring out of his easy chair—if he used an easy chair. The ubiquitous waldoes, the insubstantial quality of the furniture, and the casual use of all walls as work or storage surfaces, gave the place a madly fantastic air. Stevens felt as if he were caught in a Disney.

  So far the rooms were not living quarters. Stevens wondered what Waldo’s private apartments could be like and tried to visualize what equipment would be appropriate. No chairs, no rugs, no bed. Pictures, perhaps. Something pretty clever in the way of indirect lighting, since the eyes might be turned in any direction. Communication instruments might be much the same. But what could a washstand be like? Or a water tumbler? A trap bottle for the last—or would any container be necessary at all? He could not decide and realized that even a competent engineer may be confused in the face of mechanical conditions strange to him.

  What constitutes a good ash tray when there is no gravity to hold the debris in place? Did Waldo smoke? Suppose he played solitaire; how did he handle the cards? Magnetized cards, perhaps, and a magnetized playing surface.
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  “In through here, Jim.” Grimes steadied himself with one hand, gesturing with the other. Stevens slid through the manhole indicated. Before he had had time to look around he was startled by a menacing bass growl. He looked up; charging through the air straight at him was an enormous mastiff, lips drawn back, jaws slavering. Its front legs were spread out stiffly as if to balance in flight; its hind legs were drawn up under its lean belly. By voice and manner it announced clearly its intention of tearing the intruder into pieces, then swallowing the pieces.

  “Baldur!” A voice cut through the air from some point beyond. The dog’s ferocity wilted, but it could not check its lunge. A waldo snaked out a good thirty feet and grasped it by the collar. “I am sorry, sir,” the voice added. “My friend was not expecting you.”

  Grimes said, “Howdy, Baldur. How’s your conduct?” The dog looked at him, whined, and wagged his tail. Stevens looked for the source of the commanding voice, found it.

  The room was huge and spherical; floating in its center was a fat man—Waldo.

  He was dressed conventionally enough in shorts and singlet, except that his feet were bare. His hands and forearms were covered by metallic gauntlets—primary waldoes. He was softly fat, with double chin, dimples, smooth skin; he looked like a great, pink cherub, floating attendance on a saint. But the eyes were not cherubic, and the forehead and skull were those of a man. He looked at Stevens. “Permit me to introduce you to my pet,” he said in a high, tired voice. “Give the paw, Baldur.”

  The dog offered a foreleg, Stevens shook it gravely. “Let him smell you, please.”

  The dog did so, as the waldo at his collar permitted him to come closer. Satisfied, the animal bestowed a wet kiss on Stevens’ wrist. Stevens noted that the dog’s eyes were surrounded by large circular patches of brown in contrast to his prevailing white, and mentally tagged it the Dog with Eyes as Large as Saucers, thinking of the tale of the soldier and the flint box. He made noises to it of “Good boy!” and “That’s a nice old fellow!” while Waldo looked on with faint distaste.

  “Heel, sir!” Waldo commanded when the ceremony was complete. The dog turned in midair, braced a foot against Stevens’ thigh, and shoved, projecting himself in the direction of his master. Stevens was forced to steady himself by clutching at the handgrip. Grimes shoved himself away from the manhole and arrested his flight on a stanchion near their host. Stevens followed him.

  Waldo looked him over slowly. His manner was not overtly rude, but was somehow, to Stevens, faintly annoying. He felt a slow flush spreading out from his neck; to inhibit it he gave his attention to the room around him. The space was commodious, yet gave the impression of being cluttered because of the assemblage of, well, junk which surrounded Waldo. There were half a dozen vision receptors of various sizes around him at different angles, all normal to his line of sight. Three of them had pickups to match. There were control panels of several sorts, some of which seemed obvious enough in their purpose—one for lighting, which was quite complicated, with little ruby telltales for each circuit, one which was the keyboard of a voder, a multiplex television control panel, a board which seemed to be power relays, although its design was unusual. But there were at least half a dozen which stumped Stevens completely.

  There were several pairs of waldoes growing out of a steel ring which surrounded the working space. Two pairs, mere monkey fists in size, were equipped with extensors. It had been one of these which had shot out to grab Baldur by his collar. There were waldoes rigged near the spherical wall, too, including one pair so huge that Stevens could not conceive of a use for it. Extended, each hand spread quite six feet from little finger tip to thumb tip.

  There were books in plenty on the wall, but no bookshelves. They seemed to grow from the wall like so many cabbages. It puzzled Stevens momentarily, but he inferred—correctly it turned out later—that a small magnet fastened to the binding did the trick.

  The arrangement of lighting was novel, complex, automatic, and convenient for Waldo. But it was not so convenient for anyone else in the room. The lighting was of course, indirect; but, furthermore, it was subtly controlled, so that none of the lighting came from the direction in which Waldo’s head was turned. There was no glare—for Waldo. Since the lights behind his head burned brightly in order to provide more illumination for whatever he happened to be looking at, there was glare aplenty for anyone else. An electric eye circuit, obviously. Stevens found himself wondering just how simple such a circuit could be made.

  Grimes complained about it. “Damn it, Waldo; get those lights under control. You’ll give us headaches.”

  “Sorry, Uncle Gus.” He withdrew his right hand from its gauntlet and placed his fingers over one of the control panels. The glare stopped. Light now came from whatever direction none of them happened to be looking, and much more brightly, since the area source of illumination was much reduced. Lights rippled across the walls in pleasant patterns. Stevens tried to follow the ripples, a difficult matter, since the setup was made not to be seen. He found that he could do so by rolling his eyes without moving his head. It was movement of the head which controlled the lights; movement of an eyeball was a little too much for it.

  “Well, Mr. Stevens, do you find my house interesting?” Waldo was smiling at him with faint superciliousness.

  “Oh—quite! Quite! I believe that it is the most remarkable place I have ever been in.”

  “And what do you find remarkable about it?”

  “Well—the lack of definite orientation, I believe. That and the remarkable mechanical novelties. I suppose I am a bit of a ground-lubber, but I keep expecting a floor underfoot and a ceiling overhead.”

  “Mere matters of functional design, Mr. Stevens; the conditions under which I live are unique; therefore, my house is unique. The novelty you speak of consists mainly in the elimination of unnecessary parts and the addition of new conveniences.”

  “To tell the truth, the most interesting thing I have seen yet is not a part of the house at all.”

  “Really? What is it, pray?”

  “Your dog, Baldur.” The dog looked around at the mention of his name. “I’ve never before met a dog who could handle himself in free flight.”

  Waldo smiled; for the first time his smile seemed gentle and warm. “Yes, Baldur is quite an acrobat. He’s been at it since he was a puppy.” He reached out and roughed the dog’s ears, showing momentarily his extreme weakness, for the gesture had none of the strength appropriate to the size of the brute. The finger motions were flaccid, barely sufficient to disturb the coarse fur and to displace the great ears. But he seemed unaware, or unconcerned, by the disclosure. Turning back to Stevens, he added, “But if Baldur amuses you, you must see Ariel.”

  “Ariel?”

  Instead of replying, Waldo touched the keyboard of the voder, producing a musical whistling pattern of three notes. There was a rustling near the wall of the room “above” them; a tiny yellow shape shot toward them—a canary. It sailed through the air with wings folded, bullet fashion. A foot or so away from Waldo it spread its wings, cupping the air, beat them a few times with tail down and spread, and came to a dead stop, hovering in the air with folded wings. Not quite a dead stop, perhaps, for it drifted slowly, came within an inch of Waldo’s shoulder, let down its landing gear, and dug its claws into his singlet.

  Waldo reached up and stroked it with a fingertip. It preened. “No earth-hatched bird can learn to fly in that fashion,” he stated. “I know. I lost half a dozen before I was sure that they were incapable of making the readjustment. Too much thalamus.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “In a man you would call it acute anxiety psychosis. They try to fly; their own prime skill leads them to disaster. Naturally, everything they do is wrong and they don’t understand it. Presently they quit trying; a little later they die. Of a broken heart, one might say, poetically.” He smiled thinly. “But Ariel is a genius among birds. He came here as an egg; he invented, unassisted,
a whole new school of flying.” He reached up a finger, offering the bird a new perch, which it accepted.

  “That’s enough, Ariel. Fly away home.”

  The bird started the “Bell Song” from Lakmé.

  He shook it gently. “No, Ariel. Go to bed.”

  The canary lifted its feet clear of the finger, floated for an instant, then beat its wings savagely for a second or two to set course and pick up speed, and bulleted away whence he had come, wings folded, feet streamlined under.

  “Jimmie’s got something he wants to talk with you about,” Grimes commenced.

  “Delighted,” Waldo answered lazily, “but shan’t we dine first? Have you an appetite, sir?”

  Waldo full, Stevens decided, might be easier to cope with than Waldo empty. Besides, his own midsection informed him that wrestling with a calorie or two might be pleasant. “Yes, I have.”

  “Excellent.” They were served.

  Stevens was never able to decide whether Waldo had prepared the meal by means of his many namesakes, or whether servants somewhere out of sight had done the actual work. Modern food-preparation methods being what they were, Waldo could have done it alone; he, Stevens, batched it with no difficulty, and so did Gus. But he made a mental note to ask Doc Grimes at the first opportunity what resident staff, if any, Waldo employed. He never remembered to do so.

  The dinner arrived in a small food chest, propelled to their midst at the end of a long, telescoping, pneumatic tube. It stopped with a soft sigh and held its position. Stevens paid little attention to the food itself—it was adequate and tasty, he knew—for his attention was held by the dishes and serving methods. Waldo let his own steak float in front of him, cut bites from it with curved surgical shears, and conveyed them to his mouth by means of dainty tongs. He made hard work of chewing.