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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #51297 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51297)
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pilot and the Bushman, by Sylvia Jacobs
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
-
-
-Title: The Pilot and the Bushman
-
-Author: Sylvia Jacobs
-
-Release Date: March 1, 2016 [EBook #51297]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PILOT AND THE BUSHMAN ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- THE PILOT AND THE BUSHMAN
-
- By SYLVIA JACOBS
-
- Illustrated by DAVID STONE
-
- [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
- Galaxy Science Fiction August 1951.
- Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
- the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
-
-
-
-
- Technological upheavals caused by inventions of our own are
- bad enough, but this was the ultimate depression, caused by
- the ultimate alien invention--which no Earthman ever saw!
-
-
-The Ambassador from Outer Space sprang to his feet, taking Jerry's
-extended hand in a firm, warm grasp. Jerry had been prepared for
-almost anything--a scholarly brontosaurus, perhaps, or an educated
-squid or giant caterpillar with telepathic powers. But the Ambassador
-didn't even have antennae, gills, or green hair. He was a completely
-normal and even handsome human being.
-
-"Scotch? Cigar?" the Ambassador offered cordially. "How can I help you,
-Mr. Jergins?"
-
-Studying him, Jerry decided there _was_ something peculiar about this
-extraterrestrial, after all. He was too perfect. His shave was too
-close, his skin so unblemished as to suggest wax-works. Every strand of
-his distinguished iron-gray hair was impeccably placed. The negligent
-and just-right drape of his clothes covered a body shaped like a Sixth
-Century B.C. piece of Greek sculpture. No mere human could have looked
-so unruffled, so utterly groomed, at three o'clock in the afternoon, in
-a busy office. A race, Jerry wondered, capable of taking any shape at
-will, in mimicry of the indigenous race of any planet?
-
-"You _can_ help me, but I'm not sure you _will_," Jerry said. "The
-rumor is that you won't do anything to ease this buyers' strike you
-started on Earth."
-
-The Ambassador smiled. "You're a man who's not used to taking no for an
-answer, I gather. What's your proposition?"
-
-"I'd like to contact some of the firms on the Federated Planets, show
-them how I could promote their merchandise on Earth. Earth is already
-clamoring for their goods. To establish a medium of exchange, we'd have
-to run simultaneous campaigns, promoting Earth merchandise on other
-planets."
-
-"That would be difficult, even for a man of your promotional ability,"
-the Ambassador said winningly. "You see, Earth is the only planet
-we've yet discovered where advertising--or promotion, to use the
-broader term--exists as a social and economic force."
-
-"How in hell can anybody do business without it?" Jerry demanded.
-
-"We don't do business in the sense you mean. Don't mistake me," the
-Ambassador added hastily, "we don't have precisely a communal economy,
-either. Our very well defined sense of ethics in regard to material
-goods is something I find impossible to describe in any Earth language.
-It's quite simple, so simple that you have to grow up with it to
-understand it. Our whole attitude toward material goods is conditioned
-by the Matter Repositor."
-
-"_That_ gadget!" Jerry said bitterly. "It was when you first mentioned
-it before the U.N. Assembly that all this trouble on Earth started.
-Everybody and his brother hopes that tomorrow he can buy a Matter
-Repositor, and never have to buy anything again. I came here mostly
-to ask you whether it's really true, that if you have one of those
-dinguses, you can bring anything you want into your living room."
-
-"You _can_. In practice, of course, repositing just anything that took
-your fancy would produce economic anarchy."
-
-"Let's put it this way," Jerry persisted. "Home appliances were my
-biggest accounts. Now, when we try to sell a refrigerator, the prospect
-says she's saving her cash till Matter Repositors get on the Earth
-market. She plans to reposit a refrigerator--not from her neighbor's
-kitchen, because that would be stealing--but from the factory. If the
-factory goes bust, people figure the government will have to subsidize
-building appliances. Now, could she really reposit a refrigerator?"
-
-"She could. But she wouldn't want to."
-
-"Why not?" Jerry asked, puzzled.
-
-"If she conceived an illogical and useless desire for food
-refrigeration, she would simply reposit a block of cold air from, say,
-the North Pole."
-
-"Oh, fine!" Jerry said sarcastically. "That would cause more
-unemployment in the refrigerator industry than repositing them without
-paying for them! But what do you mean about food refrigeration being
-illogical and useless?"
-
-"Well, in a storage warehouse, there might be some reason for food
-preservation. But you don't need cold or canning. Why not just reposit
-the bacteria that cause the food to deteriorate? There's no need to
-store food in a home equipped with a Matter Repositor. You simply
-reposit one meal at a time. Fruits and vegetables direct from tree or
-field. Meat from a slaughterhouse, since it isn't humane to remove a
-pound of steak from a live steer. But even this is needless."
-
-"Why?" Jerry baffledly wanted to know.
-
-"To free the maximum amount of the effort of thinking beings for
-non-material activities, each consumer can reposit the chemical
-elements of the food, synthesize his meal on the table. He can even
-reposit these elements directly into his stomach, or, to by-pass the
-effort of digestion, into his bloodstream as glycogen and amino acids."
-
-"So refrigerators would be as dead an item as kerosene lamps in a
-city wired for electricity," Jerry agreed unhappily. "Suppose Mrs.
-Housewife, not needing a refrigerator, reposits a washing machine. The
-point I'm driving at--is there any practical way to compensate the
-factory, give it an incentive to produce more washing machines, without
-dragging in government control?"
-
-"Why should the factory produce more washing machines? Who would want
-one? The housewife would simply reposit the dirt from her clothes
-into her flowerbed, without using water and soap. Or, more likely,
-reposit new clothes with different colors, fabrics, and styles. The
-Matter Repositor would eliminate textile mills and clothing factories.
-Earth's oceans have vast enough quantities of seaweed to eliminate the
-growing of cotton, wool, or flax. Or, again, you could reposit the
-chemical elements, either from the soil or from seawater."
-
-Jerry pondered the extensive implications of these revelations.
-Finally he said, "What it boils down to is this. All Earth's bustling
-material activity, all the logging and construction, the mining and
-manufacturing, the planting and fishing, the printing and postal
-service, the great transportation and shipping effort, the cleaning and
-painting, the sewage disposal, even the bathing and self-adornment,
-consist, when you analyze them, of one process only--_putting something
-from where you don't want it to where you do_. There's not one single,
-solitary Earth invention or service left to advertise!"
-
-"Nothing," the Ambassador agreed. "Which is exactly why advertising has
-not developed on the Federated Planets. You're fortunate that Earth
-doesn't have Matter Repositors. You'd be out of a job if it did."
-
-"Oh, no!" Jerry said. "I could still advertise the gadget to end all
-gadgets--the Matter Repositor itself. I know other people have asked
-you this before, but could an Earth company get a franchise to import
-those machines here, or the license rights to manufacture them?"
-
-"No," the Ambassador said, briefly and definitely.
-
-"Mr. Ambassador," Jerry protested, "you've gone to a lot of trouble to
-explain things you must already be tired of explaining to Earthmen,
-just so I personally could be sure they weren't merely rumors or
-misinterpretations. Now that I get down to the real point, you suddenly
-become blunt and unqualified. Why?"
-
-"Because there's a very serious question of ethics involved, wherever a
-more advanced civilization comes in contact with a relatively primitive
-one. For instance, when the white men came to America, the aborigines
-were introduced to gunpowder and firewater."
-
-"So you people are keeping Matter Repositors away from us, like a mama
-keeping candy away from a baby who's hollering for it, because it's not
-good for him! You'd pass up a chance to name your own price--"
-
-"The very way you phrase that remark indicates the danger. You regard
-personal gain as the strongest of motives, which means that Matter
-Repositors would be used for that, even by such unusually intelligent
-members of your race as yourself."
-
-"Don't softsoap me," Jerry said angrily. "Not after you just got
-through saying that we Earthlings are nothing but naked savages,
-compared to the high and mighty super-beings on other planets!"
-
-"I apologize for my phraseology," the Ambassador said. "With my limited
-command of your language--"
-
-"Your limited command, nuts! I suppose you supermen enjoy seeing us
-naked savages squirm. Why talk sanctimoniously about the damage you
-might do, when you know damn well the damage has already been done?
-Just the news that something as advanced as the Matter Repositor exists
-has sent unemployment to a new high, and the stock market to a new low.
-And you theorize about ethics, while denying us the only cure!" Jerry
-found himself fighting a nearly irresistible impulse to smash his fist
-into that too-perfect profile--which, he realized glumly, would only
-prove the Ambassador's point about savages.
-
-"Here, here," the Ambassador said benevolently, "let's have another
-drink. Then we'll see whether I can make it clear to you why the actual
-importation of Matter Repositors would cause much more trouble on Earth
-than the announcement of their existence, bad as the effect of that has
-been. To begin with, I admit I made a very serious error in mentioning
-the device at all before the U.N. Assembly. I intended merely to
-explain how I came here without a spaceship. After that, I was flooded
-with questions; I could no more avoid answering them than I could
-courteously avoid answering the questions you've been asking today."
-
-"You mean you super-beings actually admit you're human enough to make
-mistakes?" Jerry asked, somewhat mollified.
-
-"Of course we make mistakes. We try not to make the same one twice.
-You see, we once made the mistake of importing Matter Repositors to a
-planet whose natural resources and social concepts weren't adequate
-for the device. That was a long time ago, and they haven't recovered
-from the effects yet. Suppose a consignment of ten thousand Matter
-Repositors arrived on Earth tomorrow. Under your economic system, who
-would get them?"
-
-"The ten thousand people or corporations who had the most money to pay
-for them, I guess. Unless government agencies grabbed 'em."
-
-"Can you guarantee that of the ten thousand people on Earth who have
-the most money, not one is unscrupulous?"
-
-"Gosh, no!" Jerry said. "I don't think there's any doubt that to stay
-in business very long, a man or a company has to have a certain amount
-of business ethics. Nobody can gyp the public indefinitely. But a bank
-robber might have a lot of cash, or a confidence man, or a cluck with a
-big inheritance."
-
-"So, to be generous, let's assume that 9,999 of your wealthiest persons
-are so ethical that they would never make any profit at the expense of
-the general welfare. That leaves us one crook. What would he reposit
-first?"
-
-"Hmm.... Maybe the gold at Fort Knox."
-
-"And what effect would that have on Earth's business?"
-
-"I'm not quite sure," Jerry admitted. "I'm no shark on monetary theory,
-just the kind of large-scale salesman who makes mass production
-possible. But it certainly wouldn't do the world situation any good."
-
-"Suppose, next, our crook holds the President of the United States for
-ransom. Since he doesn't need money, the ransom price might be laws
-which would grant him impunity for his crimes. If not, he could have an
-accomplice reposit him out of jail, or even out of the electric chair,
-before the switch was pulled."
-
-"That's enough! I get the idea!" Jerry exclaimed.
-
-"Wait--there's a more important point. Suppose a government you
-consider the wrong government got hold of some of the machines. First,
-of course, they'd reposit the world stockpile of atomic bombs. Then
-they'd reposit disease bacteria into the bloodstreams of U.N. troops,
-officials, and civilian workers, and reposit all the ammunition out
-of U.N. guns. So long as there is one spark of nationalism left on
-Earth, so long as any country has an economic and political system
-they consider better than some other system, Matter Repositors would
-mean planetary self-destruction. Now do you see why I was blunt and
-unqualified?"
-
-"I do," Jerry said solemnly, "And I was a fool to fly off the handle
-when you called us savages. We are savages, I can see that now. And
-your people must be pretty damned godlike to be trusted with such an
-invention!"
-
-"Not at all. To a Micronesian bushman, the pilot who can be trusted
-with the power and speed of a B-29 seems a veritable god. But the pilot
-is only an ordinary Joe, very likely no more intelligent than the
-bushman--he just had a different background. Fighting each other for
-necessities and luxuries, the process that you people call business
-competition, has so long been needless to our people that they would
-no more think of competitive gain than you would do an Indian harvest
-dance before you signed a contract. They aren't necessarily more
-intelligent or more virtuous than your people--they just have a
-different background."
-
-"You seem to have devoted a lot of study to the larceny in the
-Earthman's soul," Jerry put in. "What if we stole the secret from you,
-whether you think it wise to give it to us or not? Suppose somebody
-swiped the blueprints, or copied a Repositor you brought with you for
-your own use?"
-
-The Ambassador smiled. "You might _try_ to steal it. That's why I
-didn't bring a Repositor with me, to save you people the trouble of a
-futile try."
-
-"Why futile?"
-
-"Well, the Matter Repositor is a simple device. Any child on the
-Federated Planets who had an education, say, equivalent to your
-technical high school education, could build a working model, even
-without another Repositor to assist him. But Earth's best technicians
-couldn't build one, even with either blueprints or a model to copy."
-
-"They couldn't, eh?" Jerry challenged, bristling again. "They managed
-to split atoms, transmute elements, do a few little tricks like that."
-
-"I see I've been tactless again," the Ambassador said regretfully.
-"Just now, you readily conceded that Earthmen are savages morally, but
-when I seem to cast aspersions on your mechanical ability, it offends
-your racial vanity. All right, let's go back to the B-29 pilot and the
-intelligent bushman. The internal combustion engine that powers the
-B-29 is a simple device in fundamental principle, isn't it?"
-
-"Sure," Jerry said.
-
-"Any high school boy who has taken a course in auto mechanics, who has
-the requisite machine tools, metals, casting equipment, and fuel, could
-build a working model of an internal combustion engine, couldn't he,
-even without ready-made parts?"
-
-"If he wasn't all thumbs, he could."
-
-"All right. Now suppose the B-29 is grounded in the jungle. The bushman
-is examining the engine. He's just as intelligent as the pilot,
-remember, but his environment hasn't produced an oil well, let alone a
-refinery. He has never seen a lathe or a micrometer. He has no mine, no
-smelter. He can't copy that B-29 engine by whittling wood or chipping
-stone, even if he's a born mechanical genius, and he can't run it on
-seawater. So he says the plane flies by magic. Put him in the pilot
-seat, and you'll admit it's practically inevitable that he'll crash."
-
-"Why do you take so much trouble to explain things?" Jerry asked wryly.
-"I should have my head examined for not understanding it in the first
-place."
-
-"Let's say I'm feebly trying to make amends for what my unfortunate
-slip of the tongue has done to your business."
-
-"You've brought me around to your way of thinking, Mr. Ambassador,"
-Jerry said, recovering enough to carry the ball. "But it would be
-impossible to sell the public on the idea that they shouldn't have
-Repositors because they're too hot to handle. Statistics on auto
-accidents never convinced anybody that he didn't want a nice, shiny,
-new car. Nobody thinks he personally will get killed in traffic--he's
-too smart. You can't convince a youngster he doesn't want candy before
-dinner; he thinks he knows better than his parents. But you can hide
-the candy, while putting an appetizing meal on the table."
-
-"Yes, except that I regrettably didn't hide the fact that the Matter
-Repositor exists."
-
-"You sure didn't. And it puts you on a spot, doesn't it? I don't
-imagine it will be much fun for you to report to your government that
-one ill-considered remark, made shortly after your arrival, upset
-Earth's economy."
-
-For the first time, the Ambassador's suavity was ruffled. Sweat stood
-out on his noble forehead. "I've been hoping the bad-effects would die
-down before I have to report," he confessed.
-
-"They won't die down by themselves. You know damned well they're
-getting worse and worse, as word-of-mouth advertising about the Matter
-Repositor spreads." Jerry leaned closer. "But you and I can get rid of
-those bad effects."
-
-"How?"
-
-"Well, I'll tell you. When I came to see you, I was pretty sure you'd
-turn me down cold on importing Matter Repositors. But I had an ace
-up my sleeve. I hoped you would admit that the reason you've been
-stalling on selling Earth any Repositors is that you don't really have
-a practical one. I thought maybe rumors of the Repositor's powers
-had been vastly exaggerated. If you admitted that, I intended to
-publicize it to the limit. A campaign to convince Earthmen that you'd
-been kidding them would work, because it plays on John Q. Public's
-conviction that he's pretty smart, too smart to believe all this gab
-about a gadget he's never seen. With your denial to back me up, I could
-put it across. It would be a lifesaving shot in the arm for Earth
-business."
-
-"You mean," the Ambassador said reflectively, "that if I call myself
-a liar--if I actually become a liar in so doing--I can patch up the
-damage I've done? That puts me in a difficult ethical position."
-
-"Not as difficult as the one you're in now. If it will make it easier
-for you, I can word your denial in a face-saving way, and have it ready
-for your signature Tuesday. You have a remarkable command of colloquial
-English, but even a diplomat using his native tongue can't juggle the
-connotations and inferences like an advertising man."
-
-"It's very kind of you to offer your professional skill in my behalf. I
-think I should pay you a fee for the copy."
-
-"Skip it," Jerry said generously, fingering the nickel and two pennies
-in his pocket. "A small token of my appreciation for the patience
-you've shown. What time Tuesday?"
-
-"Say two o'clock?"
-
-"Fine. But before I spend my time on this, you're not going to make the
-same deal with somebody else, are you?"
-
-"Deal? Did I make a deal?"
-
-"What I mean, nobody else has approached you with the idea that Earth
-business would get back to normal if you would deny that a practical
-Matter Repositor exists? You'd say I have exclusive rights to the idea?"
-
-"Nobody has," the Ambassador said, "and I agree to give you exclusive
-rights."
-
-"Good! With your signed denial, I can raise the loot. I think the
-N.A.M. will go for it. The campaign will have to be well-financed,
-you see; the amount of space the news columns will give to your denial
-may be as much as they gave to your original statement, but that alone
-won't do the job. It's much harder to kill a notion that has penetrated
-the public mind than it is to implant one."
-
- * * * * *
-
-The Ambassador indulged in a chuckle. "I'm beginning to see daylight.
-My signed denial in your hands becomes a salable piece of merchandise,
-worth far more than I would pay you for a few lines of copy. Well, more
-power to you! Would it be out of place for me to contribute some of the
-funds for publicizing this denial?"
-
-"How much?" Jerry asked practically.
-
-"Well," the Ambassador explained, "I've had nothing reposited that I
-could avoid. But since your planet has a monetary exchange, I had to
-pay for my office help, lodging, and so on. Synthesizing coinage would
-have been counterfeiting, which is against your laws, so I merely had
-a moderate amount of uncoined gold reposited, and I sell it on the
-regular Earth market as I need funds. Gold has no particular value on
-the Federated Planets, of course. I could get whatever you need, so
-long as it isn't enough to disrupt the economy any more than--well,
-than I have already. Let's limit ourselves to an amount that could be
-accounted for by an unusually good year in mining."
-
-"Sold!" Jerry said happily. "I think I can struggle along on a million
-a month retainer. Plus the usual fifteen per cent on advertising
-space and printing, of course; I'll have an estimate on that for you
-Tuesday. Since you can finance the whole campaign yourself, we'll
-leave the N.A.M. out of it. That way I can spare you the humiliation
-of signing an outright denial. All you have to do from now on is
-to keep mum. Don't even admit that you're the angel financing this
-campaign; that would make it look phony. I'll assign you three personal
-public-relations men, on twenty-four-hour shift. All your public
-remarks are to screen through them."
-
-"But how can I conceal my identity when I'm sponsoring the campaign?"
-the Ambassador objected.
-
-"That's easy. The ostensible sponsor will be a dummy organization
-called--um--the Consumers Fact Finding Board. Nobody but me needs to
-know who signs the checks."
-
-"How long will this campaign continue?"
-
-"I figure it'll take about six months to sell the public this
-particular bill of goods. Once we get business revived, the best thing
-is never to mention the words Matter Repositor again, not even to deny
-its existence. The ultimate goal is to make people forget they ever
-heard of such a gadget. The more convincing I make it, the quicker I'll
-work myself out of a job."
-
-"I should think you'd make it last as long as possible; that's why I
-asked you for a time-limit. Do you _want_ to work yourself out of a
-job?"
-
-"You bet I do! Then I can start selling a bigger item, launch a
-longer-term promotion, one that will last till Earth gets civilized,
-till I don't have anything more to sell. From what you say, that will
-take a lot longer than I'll live."
-
-"It may be none of my business, but what is this big item you propose
-to sell next?" the Ambassador asked, curiously.
-
-"Earth," Jerry said.
-
-The Ambassador looked confused. "I'm afraid I don't understand."
-
-"Didn't you just get through telling me, in effect, that any of your
-people who came to Earth could have all the money they wanted to spend?
-Well, I'm going to run advertising copy on the Federated Planets, and
-get them to come here and spend it."
-
-"But I also told you that advertising is unknown on the Federated
-Planets!" the Ambassador protested.
-
-"All the better. Your people, then, will have less sales resistance
-than an audience of Earth kindergarten kids, who have had spot
-commercials dinned into their ears since birth. The only problem is
-space and time."
-
-"The Matter Repositor has effectively solved the problems of space and
-time."
-
-"No, I mean space and time as an advertising man uses those terms.
-Newspaper and magazine space, radio and TV time. Do you have any
-newspapers out there?"
-
-"We have very little you would classify as news. No wars, no stock
-market, no crime, no epidemics, no political mudslinging, few
-accidents. But we do have information bulletins, of course."
-
-"Fine! Besides that million a month retainer, I want an exclusive
-contract to run advertising copy in the information bulletins on the
-Federated Planets."
-
-"This is completely unprecedented!"
-
-"You want to get out of this mess you're in, don't you? I'm the boy who
-can get you out, and that's my price."
-
-"You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Jergins. Very well, I'll arrange it. But
-I'm getting you the contract only because I'm certain your excursion
-idea won't work. Oh, I know Earth men want to visit the Federated
-Planets; I've had plenty of requests. I've had to explain repeatedly
-that we must hold to our announced policy of no ambassador from Earth,
-and no exchange students, until Earth has completed a few more steps in
-the development of her civilization. But surely none of our people will
-come to Earth, aside from a few students of comparative civilizations.
-Our general public can view samples of your national costumes,
-automobiles, and so on, in the museums. I can't see why they should
-want to come here, while Earth is still in a primitive and dangerous
-stage."
-
-"You can't, eh? Well, you might be surprised, Mr. Ambassador, you
-might be surprised. For the time being, just picture yourself as the
-pilot of that B-29, grounded on a primitive little island in space.
-You've met a poor, ignorant bushman. He couldn't reproduce your plane
-to save his neck. He can't manufacture a single gadget you'd want to
-buy. Nevertheless, you're about to see a demonstration of a few tricks
-of survival that your super-civilized race has forgotten--or, rather,
-never knew. I think you'll cook up into a right tasty dish."
-
- * * * * *
-
-Four days later, the Better Business Bureau of Oskaloosa, Iowa,
-nabbed a questionable character who had accepted deposits from local
-businessmen, in return for elaborately printed but worthless contracts
-to deliver Matter Repositors.
-
-The warning flash crossed similar warnings from New Orleans, Reno,
-Milwaukee, and the Borough of Queens, with a particularly hysterical
-note injected by Los Angeles, where the populace had proved most
-susceptible to the bogus agents. The news of a national ring of
-confidence artists, capitalizing on people's desire for Matter
-Repositors, ran in all papers, of course. The editors as yet hadn't the
-faintest idea that they were printing carefully engineered publicity.
-
-Before he even got his space contracts lined up, Jerry had accomplished
-quite a feat. He had fixed things so that, if the Ambassador from Outer
-Space himself had changed his mind, and imported a cargo of genuine
-Matter Repositors, he would have had some trouble convincing people he
-wasn't a crook.
-
-In a record two weeks, the campaign proper was ready to roll. It was
-long on white space, and the copy was so short that, after glancing
-at it a few times, you found that you had involuntarily committed it
-to memory. In the center of blank pages in all major metropolitan
-newspapers appeared a small want-ad, stating that the Consumers Fact
-Finding Board had deposited with a New York bank the sum of one million
-dollars in cash, _after taxes_, which would be paid to any person,
-terrestrial or extraterrestrial, who could produce a Matter Repositor
-capable of repositing an object weighing two pounds a distance of ten
-feet.
-
-The offer was repeated daily for a month, and from the second day
-forward, there was a large, red overprint, looking like a crayon
-scrawl, which said, "No Takers to Date who Can Deliver the Goods!"
-
-The idea was pounded into the public mind by carcards, billboards,
-direct mail, and annoying telephone solicitors, who got subscribers
-out of bathtub and bed to ask them whether they had a Matter Repositor
-around the house they wanted to sell for a million dollars. Skywriters
-by day and illuminated blimps by night made sure the literate could not
-escape the message. Radio and TV singing and cartoon commercials took
-care of the illiterate.
-
-No conclusions were drawn in the copy. Each "prospect" was left with
-the comfortable feeling that his own superior intellect and powers of
-deduction had supplied the answer. No Matter Repositor turned up for
-sale, so everyone was sure there was no such thing. The whole campaign,
-like other advertising campaigns before it, depended on what people
-failed to consider. They neglected to realize that a million dollars
-would be a joke to the owner of a Matter Repositor, who could reposit
-all the wealth on Earth, including the million in the New York bank,
-but would have no use for money, since he could reposit usable goods.
-The magic phrase "a million dollars" was a worldwide symbol for all
-desirable material things. It would have been almost heresy to reflect
-that even that much cash had no actual value.
-
- * * * * *
-
-As Jerry promised, the Ambassador didn't have to issue an official
-denial. His chief public relations man quite truthfully admitted
-to reporters that the Ambassador had no Matter Repositor in his
-possession, a dispatch carried by all wire services, and snickered at
-by clever columnists.
-
-In basements and garages, persons of good, bad, and indifferent
-mechanical ability strove to earn the million. The U.S. patent office
-was inundated with models and drawings of unworkable devices. One of
-the Duke University subjects tried to patent his ability to influence
-the fall of dice mentally.
-
-During the next session of the Congress, Jerry's crack lobbyists raised
-a great howl about the shameful congestion in the Patent Office, not
-mentioning, of course, that they were employed by the man who had
-created the congestion, by offering a million dollars for a device he
-knew no Earthman could build.
-
-Another dummy organization, dubbed the Inventors Protective League,
-sponsored a bill to amend the act relating to perpetual motion
-machines. It passed, with an emergency clause, and, thereafter, devices
-purporting to reposit matter were not entitled to letters of patent.
-
-This just about clinched the deal, for the vast majority of people,
-who had never watched laws enacted, assumed that if something was in
-the law, there must be a good reason for it, unless, of course, it was
-anything like prohibition.
-
-A name band revived "The Thing," leaving the drumbeats out of the vocal
-refrain, and substituting, "Get out of here with that Matter Repositor,
-before I call a cop!" Within six months, radio and TV comedians had
-worn out the joke. Even Goofy, My Friend Irma, Mrs. Ace, and Gracie
-Allen were too sophisticated to believe in Matter Repositors. Gags
-about them dropped to the same low level as those about Brooklyn and
-joke-stealing comics.
-
-Although his appearance in public was liable to start boos and
-catcalls, the Ambassador from Outer Space was duly grateful. He was
-spared the painful necessity of reporting his disastrous slip of the
-tongue to his government, for Earth economy was again on the upward
-spiral. Everybody was spending the money he'd been saving up for a
-Matter Repositor.
-
-The Ambassador cheerfully paid the million-a-month retainer and the
-whopping space bills, but Jerry's greatest gain in the transaction was
-his agreement allowing him to run advertising in the Federated Planets
-information bulletins. The space didn't cost him a nickel. Yet he knew
-how to sell his exclusive rights to it for more money than any one
-Earth company had in its promotional budget.
-
-By the time the campaign debunking the Matter Repositor was ready
-to die a natural death, Jerry had started an organization of Earth
-businessmen, spearheaded by the Restaurant and Hotel Associations, and
-the transportation interests, to promote Earth as a primitive planet.
-The primitive aspects of Earth, Jerry predicted, would exert a powerful
-appeal on the citizens of the Federated Planets, who must be pretty
-bored with civilization, and badly in need of a vacation from too much
-perfection.
-
-This organization was not composed of dummies, by any means, but the
-businessmen joined up with a vague idea that their hostelries were to
-be way-stations, that they were going to promote sightseeing tours to
-places they themselves would call primitive, that the human exhibits
-would consist of blanketed Navajos, Chinese coolies, hula girls, Voodoo
-dancers, and Eskimos.
-
-Jerry filled the biggest convention hall in Chicago, and, at the climax
-of the proceedings, dramatically drew back a velvet curtain, unveiling
-a huge painting of the symbol of the campaign--a masked bandit, wearing
-a slouch hat, clutching in a greedy hand a fat bag marked with a dollar
-sign. Below was blazoned the tasteful slogan, "Let the People of Earth
-Gyp You!"
-
-A chorus of outrage echoed in the rafters. It hadn't occurred to the
-members that primitive exhibit A would be themselves; to wit, the genus
-Earth businessman; sub-species, go-getter. Jerry emerged from the
-resulting argument somewhat battered, but with what any experienced
-advertising man would recognize as a victory. His copy was to run in
-five per cent of the space, keyed. Now all he had to do was prove in
-dollars and cents that he knew more about mass sales psychology than
-his clients, which was, of course, a cinch.
-
-In spite of translation into a more civilized language, Jerry's five
-per cent of the space out-pulled the tamer ninety-five per cent by
-better than ten to one. Thereafter, his clients swallowed their pride,
-voted him a free hand, and contented themselves with raking in the
-shekels from a steady stream of handsome and rich extraterrestrial
-tourists.
-
- * * * * *
-
-After Jerry's tourist promotion had been running two years, the U.S.
-Post Office broke down and printed an issue of three-cent stamps
-commemorating the influx, showing the goddess Terra with welcoming arms
-open to the starred heavens. Jerry Jergins, the second advertising man
-in history to achieve the distinction of having Uncle Sam plug his
-product on a stamp, thereby entered the most select circles of his
-chosen profession.
-
-Jerry bought enough of the stamps to paper the walls of his swank and
-spacious penthouse offices, for the benefit of the swarm of tourists
-who invaded the place daily during afternoon open-house hours. They all
-wanted to see an advertising agency; to them, this phenomenon was the
-essence of that primitive planet, Earth. Jerry had recorded a lecture
-on primitive Earth customs which issued from concealed loudspeakers,
-and filled display cases with exhibits of primitive Earth culture,
-emphasizing the aspects he felt these extraterrestrials would find most
-exotic.
-
-Considering the fact that Jerry had managed to learn little about the
-Federated Planets that was not utterly essential to the mechanics
-of his advertising campaign there, he had done a pretty good job of
-"getting on the customer's side of the counter." Every tourist Jerry
-talked to had been conditioned, by some unrevealed but apparently
-foolproof process, not to repeat the Ambassador's error of mentioning
-Matter Repositors, or other aspects of life on the Federated Planets
-that might cause repercussions on Earth. Even tourist children couldn't
-be bribed with lollypops. Tourists talked a great deal, in fluent
-idiomatic Earth English, yet somehow said very little.
-
-But Jerry knew at least one thing--he was stirring emotions that lay
-so deep under layers and layers of civilization that these shining,
-perfect people hadn't known they were capable of feeling them, until
-they visited Earth. He was getting under their smooth skins, just as
-surely as the monotone of a Haitian drum-beat gets under the skin of a
-New Yorker.
-
-One of the display cases contained the working tools of
-gangsterism--sawed-off shotguns, blackjacks, a model of a bullet-proof
-automobile, a news photo of the St. Valentine's Day massacre, a
-clipping about police payoffs from houses of gambling and prostitution,
-another about blindness resulting from wood alcohol. The shot-glasses
-of authentic antique bootleg gin that stood on top the cases were often
-smelled but never sampled.
-
-The second case showed a chart of fluctuations of the stock market,
-with an actual operating ticker in the middle. Sections of the tape
-were much in demand as souvenirs. But the photo of a smashed body of
-a once-wealthy man who jumped from his office window after losing his
-fortune caused the most comment. The tourists found it difficult to
-understand how this man could consider his life less important than his
-bank balance.
-
-The largest case contained models of war weapons, a lurid painting of
-Pearl Harbor under aerial attack, another of the Hiroshima mushroom
-that ushered in the atomic age. There were gas masks, artificial limbs,
-a photo of a blinded veteran led by a Seeing-Eye dog. The tourists
-gaped at that exhibit with all the relish of Coney Island crowds
-visiting wax replicas of famous murder scenes.
-
-And along the entire 40-foot wall of the reception room, a photo-mural
-of a ragged, depression-era breadline brooded over the sleek heads of
-the beautifully dressed and elaborately fed tourists.
-
-On his way back to the office after lunch one day, Jerry spied a
-traffic-stopping cluster of humanity in the street outside one of the
-city's leading department stores. The crowd was gathered around a
-paddy-wagon. Never diffident, Jerry elbowed his way through the crush,
-to see two handsome and once well-groomed gentlemen getting a mussing
-up from a couple of cops. The suspects, athletic-looking characters,
-were putting up a good fight, and the policemen didn't like it. As
-Jerry watched, a billy descended on a well-barbered head, and suspect
-number one ceased resisting arrest.
-
-Jerry had come into contact with enough extraterrestrials by now so
-that he knew a tourist when he saw one. The male tourists gave him a
-violent pain in the neck, but he felt somewhat responsible. He grabbed
-an elbow of the suspect who remained conscious.
-
-"Give me your name, bud, and I'll bail you out. What happened?"
-
-"Oh, we just took a few things off the counters in that store," the
-tourist answered. "You're very kind, but we have plenty of money for
-bail, thanks. Or is it a bribe you're supposed to hand them?"
-
-"If you have plenty of money, why in hell didn't you buy the stuff,
-instead of stealing it?"
-
-"We just thought we'd have a bit of a lark. New experience and all
-that. When on Earth, do as the Earthmen do."
-
-"A lark!" the biggest policeman grunted. "We'll give you a lark,
-all right! Get in there, you!" He implemented his command with a
-well-placed kick in the seat of a pair of expertly tailored pants,
-boosting the tourist into the paddy-wagon, where his unconscious friend
-had already been deposited.
-
-The siren screamed, dispersing the crowd in front of the police
-vehicle, and Jerry went on his way, chuckling. As he passed a
-hole-in-the-wall bar he knew, he decided to stop for a quick one, to
-settle the heavy feeling in his stomach that came from eating lobster
-Newburg for lunch. It wasn't a place where you'd care to take a lady,
-but they served an honest ounce.
-
-As Jerry pushed through the old-fashioned swinging doors, a burst
-of sound greeted him. A whiskey baritone was rendering one of the
-unpublishable versions of "Christopher Columbo," to the accompaniment
-of a piano tinkle by the hired help. The customer was obviously from
-the other side of the tracks--from the other side of the Galaxy, in
-fact--and he was leaning against the piano for the simple reason that
-he couldn't stand up.
-
-He wore a well-cut California-style dinner jacket, and after all night
-and half the day, the white gabardine was no longer white. Several
-drinks had been spilled on the midnight-blue flannel trousers. Only a
-magnificent physique distinguished him from the Earth or garden variety
-of drunk.
-
-Jerry stood up to the bar, and as his eyes became accustomed to the
-dimness, he observed a touching--literally--scene being enacted in the
-darkest booth. An Earthside racetrack tout, whom Jerry recognized as
-one of the habitues of the place, had a gorgeous female tourist backed
-into a corner. She had retreated as far as the wall permitted, but he
-had long since caught up.
-
-Her jaunty, elbow-length chinchilla cape lay on the wet table. Her
-exquisitely simple strapless dinner dress of silver lamé exposed arms
-and shoulders that were literally out of this world. The naked effect
-was relieved only by a diamond, platinum, and emerald choker. Jerry
-knew, though the racetrack tout probably didn't, that the priceless
-bauble was Repositor--synthesized, with an Earth museum piece as a
-model.
-
-It was a tossup whether the race track tout was more interested in the
-diamonds or the tempting flesh they adorned. The girl made no attempt
-to fight him off. The reason for her acquiescence was not far to seek.
-The glass before her contained the remains of a "Pink Lady," which
-tastes like an ice-cream soda and kicks like four Kentucky mules.
-
-She moved her left hand to pick up the glass, and Jerry caught the
-flash of a circlet of channel-set baguette diamonds on the third
-finger. He concluded that she was the wife of the whiskey baritone.
-That worthy seemed utterly unconcerned about the whole thing, so why
-should Jerry interfere?
-
-The racetrack tout left his conquest momentarily, walked over to the
-bar, handed the bartender a five-spot. Without comment, the bartender
-took down a key tagged 13 from a hook, and the turf expert pocketed
-it. There was a dingy sign reading "Hotel" outside; Jerry had always
-supposed the floors above contained equally dingy furnished rooms.
-
-The beautiful tourist's silver heels mounted the back stairs
-unsteadily. The tout was half steering her, half supporting her. The
-man was sober enough to know exactly what he was doing. When she came
-back down those stairs, she would be minus not only her virtue, but
-her diamond necklace as well.
-
-"Oh, he knew the world was round-o, that sailors could be found-o," the
-whiskey baritone sang lustily.
-
-Jerry left the saloon with a bad taste in his mouth. As he passed
-through the electric-eye doorway of his office suite, he had the
-impression that the too perfect inhabitants of all the color
-advertising pages he had turned out in past years had suddenly come to
-life. Handsome tourists were moving, in chattering groups, from one
-display case to another.
-
-Their chatter, as usual, gave him few clues. He still harbored a
-suspicion that on their home planets, these lovely people might be
-symbiotes in the bodies of lower animals, or loathsome but intellectual
-worms. But he never had any success when he tried to pump them about
-whether they were like Earth inhabitants at home, or were issued these
-magnificent bodies and faces along with their passports to Earth.
-
-His unreasoning dislike of the males was undoubtedly part jealousy,
-for they were all tall, handsome, well-dressed, and athletic enough to
-be signed en masse by Hollywood. But the universal utter perfection of
-limb, features, and complexion, was not at all repulsive in the female.
-It was quite decorative to have a whole chorus of toothsome girls in
-Paris gowns cluttering up the office.
-
-Jerry had never seen one of them use a lipstick, rouge, or an
-eyebrow pencil. The cosmetic business was one of the few that had
-not profited from the tourist trade, except insofar as lady tourists
-bought costly perfumes, and Earthgirls strove to mimic the natural--or
-unnatural--coloring of the fair visitors. A few tourists brought their
-children along, and here the firm, rosy, unblemished skin was in its
-proper element. Tourist children were not one whit more cherubic than
-well-favored children of Earth.
-
-A guide from the Conducted Tours Company arrived to round up a
-batch of tourists, for a visit to the local jails, flop-houses, and
-gambling dens. He announced they would go by bus, and the horrified
-yet delighted whoops that greeted this news reminded Jerry of a Boston
-society dowager who had just been invited to ride on a camel.
-
-As the crowd trickled out the doors, a lovely vision in platinum blonde
-laid a slender hand on Jerry's arm.
-
-"Are you really the man who first thought of inviting us to this quaint
-and delightful planet?" she gushed.
-
-"I guess I am, lady. How do you like it?"
-
-"Oh, it's so primitive! So elemental! Everybody used to think visiting
-backward planets was dull and scholarly stuff. It took _you_ to show us
-how thrilling and exciting it can be!"
-
-"I'm glad to hear you say that. Some of the tourists are complaining
-that Earth isn't as primitive as the Tourist Bureau advertising makes
-it out to be."
-
-"Oh, you _do_ exaggerate a wee, tiny bit, but it's all in good fun,
-isn't it? On the whole, I'm not disappointed--especially not in the
-_men_!" She fluttered eyelashes, so long and dark that they looked
-artificial, at him.
-
-"The men?" Jerry asked blankly.
-
-"Oh, come, come!" the platinum blonde breathed throatily into his ear.
-"Don't pretend to be so innocent! You must have heard of the simply
-_terrific_ reputation Earthmen have acquired on other planets as
-masterful lovers!"
-
-"It's news to me," Jerry admitted, "but it sounds like a good drawing
-card. I'll try to work something like that into our ads."
-
-"Always thinking about business, aren't you? Why don't you think of
-something else, for a change? Me, for instance. Don't you feel a little
-bit sorry for a girl like me, with nothing but perfectly civilized men
-to go home to?" the girl pouted invitingly.
-
-Jerry found himself, by imperceptible stages, being backed into a
-corner. Well, well, he thought. Perhaps he'd been too harsh in judging
-that racetrack tout.
-
-"Since you mention it," Jerry said, "I'm not averse to playing the role
-of Galactic beachboy."
-
-"What does a beachboy do?"
-
-"I'd blush to explain it verbally to a girl unaccustomed to primitive
-Earth customs, but I'm pretty good at sign language. How about dinner
-tonight?"
-
-"Well ... if you'll let me pay the check. I do so adore this amazing
-Earth custom of exchanging food for little slips of paper."
-
-"The pleasure is all yours, sister. See you at the Ritz main dining
-room--eight o'clock. Soup and fish. Afterward, we'll look at my
-photo-murals. Now toddle along, baby, if you want to catch the bus to
-see those hoboes."
-
-Jerry was walking on the Milky Way. Aside from the profits, this job
-had its esthetic side, he decided. His exuberance was slightly dampened
-by the grim expression on his secretary's face.
-
-"A very important man has been waiting to see you," she said
-disapprovingly. "I sent him into your office. The least I could do was
-put him where he wouldn't have to smell all the perfume these brazen
-tourist women use. It's enough to make a person ill!"
-
-In the visitor's chair before Jerry's mother-of-pearl inlaid desk,
-the Ambassador from Outer Space was waiting, staring morosely at the
-endlessly repeated welcoming goddess Terra on Jerry's wall stamp
-collection.
-
-"Well, as I live and breathe!" Jerry exclaimed, "a real, live B-29
-pilot! Welcome to my humble grass shack! Scotch? Cigar? What can I do
-for you?"
-
-"You can put out your bonfire, cannibal," the Ambassador said, gruffly.
-"I think I've stewed enough."
-
-"Why are you tough, then?" Jerry asked. "At me, I mean. I thought I was
-your best friend in this here jungle. Didn't I do you a favor once, Mr.
-Ambassador?"
-
-"A _favor_? I paid you well for it! Not only in money, but by getting
-advertising space for your precious Tourist Bureau on the Federated
-Planets. I never thought it would lead to this!"
-
-"You thought my copy wouldn't pull, eh? Not even after I'd demonstrated
-I could make Earth opinion do a flip-flop on that Matter Repositor
-deal?"
-
-"Oh, I was quite sure you could manipulate Earthmen. That's your job.
-But I didn't believe our people would respond in such numbers to an
-appeal to primitive emotions!"
-
-"You weren't alone in that," Jerry said smugly. "Some very prominent
-members, of our organization wanted to make the campaign more
-civilized. I showed them where they were wrong. Can't you see that your
-people are fed up with civilization, right up to their pretty white
-necks? The very essence of Earth's appeal to them is that a trip here
-gives them a chance to relax their ethics, to play at going native."
-
-"Don't rub it in!" The Ambassador shuddered.
-
-"It's nothing new. Tourists have always kicked up their heels. Guess
-what I saw while I was out to lunch. The cops grabbed a couple of your
-boys for shoplifting! They thought it was such fun to ride in the
-paddy-wagon. Back home, of course, they wouldn't think of repositing
-anything they weren't supposed to, but on Earth it's different."
-
-"And for monkeyshines like that," the Ambassador growled, "I am
-driven half crazy working out sleep-record courses. '_Idioms of Earth
-English_'--'_What Not to Say on Backward Planets and Why_'--'_Earth
-Fashion Guide, What You Can Buy There and What to Reposit_.' Bah! I'm
-supposed to be a diplomat, not a fashion adviser!"
-
-"Why don't you hire some help?" Jerry suggested.
-
-"I have. I've hired a whole staff, with offices in all major Earth
-cities, to exchange platinum, bullion, and precious stones for Earth
-currencies. It's a man-sized job, I can tell you, to keep Earth
-currencies stable under this load!"
-
-"You're doing a very good job," Jerry said, soothingly.
-
-"You know what one of our citizens asked me yesterday? _How she could
-get a marriage license!_ Your officials had turned her down, because
-she'd been conditioned not to mention her birthplace and age. Mind you,
-a citizen of the Federated Planets wanted to marry an Earthman and live
-on this raw, Galactic frontier the rest of her life! Why, we don't even
-know whether the races can cross-breed!"
-
-"That should be looked into," Jerry agreed.
-
-"What are you trying to do?" the Ambassador demanded, "Drag the
-citizens of the Federated Planets down to the level of your jungle?
-You blithely assume those two shoplifters can be trusted with Matter
-Repositors when they get back home, but I'm not so sure. We haven't
-any jails to toss them into, but we may have to establish some.
-Matter-Repositor-proof jails!"
-
-"That's your problem," Jerry said. "All I'm trying to do is make some
-money for myself and, other businessmen on Earth. Which I'm doing,
-thank you. And I doubt that you could stop me, at this point. Your
-citizens would raise quite a howl if my ads stopped appearing in the
-information bulletins."
-
-"Money!" the Ambassador exclaimed, "All you Earthmen think about is
-money!" He leaned over Jerry's desk. "What if you could reposit the
-money--the gold, that is--without all the work you have to put into
-entertaining these tourists?"
-
-"Hmm," Jerry said, thinking of his date for that evening, and other
-equally lovely tourists. "Money isn't the only thing in life. And don't
-forget the income tax. I've got to have some deductible expenses."
-
-"Knowing you, I'd bet you could figure out some way of handling that
-little detail."
-
-"What's your proposition?"
-
-"Two years ago, you came to my office, wanting to import Matter
-Repositors. I told you Earth's civilization wasn't ready for them."
-
-"We still aren't, according to what you say about our avaricious
-instincts."
-
-"No, you're not. But you have methods of manipulating public opinion
-and attitudes that are far more advanced than those found on other
-planets."
-
-"So you admit that Earth is advanced in _something_!" Jerry said
-happily.
-
-"How would you like to have the name of Jerry Jergins go down in your
-history as the originator of the most significant public-relations
-campaign ever undertaken on this planet?" the Ambassador asked,
-temptingly. "You can handle it, if any man on Earth can."
-
-"Softsoaping me again! What's the campaign? I'll listen to it, but I
-don't know whether I'll buy it."
-
-"Your job would be to get Earth's psychology and sociology ready for
-the Matter Repositor."
-
-Jerry reflected. "You mean I'd have to eliminate war, supplement the
-Voice of America, and so on? I'd have certain advantages over the Voice
-of America, at that. I wouldn't have a bunch of politicians playing
-football with my appropriations."
-
-"This campaign would have to go further and deeper than the Voice of
-America. You might call it the Voice of Conscience. Its aim would be
-to make every human being on Earth care more about the welfare of his
-fellow-man than he cares about his own."
-
-"A couple of thousand years back," Jerry said, soberly, "a better
-Promoter than I tried to put that idea across. The campaign He started
-is still running. It's taken hold in some quarters, but I wouldn't say
-public acceptance is anything like worldwide yet."
-
-"Then you don't think you can do it?" the Ambassador asked, his
-eagerness somewhat deflated.
-
-"I'm not committing myself to whether I could or couldn't. I could put
-the Ten Commandments on an international hookup. Thou shalt not steal.
-Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor his goods. I could get Walt Disney to
-dramatize the golden rule."
-
-"Ah, I see you have some ideas for the copy already," the Ambassador
-said. "I thought I could get you interested in it. Then you'll sign a
-contract?"
-
-"No," Jerry said, briefly and definitely.
-
-"Now, wait a minute, Mr. Jergins," the Ambassador protested. "Why
-do you suddenly become blunt and unqualified? Do you realize what
-I'm offering you? In return for ceasing this tourist promotion, I'm
-offering you the invention that obsolesces all others--the Matter
-Repositor!"
-
-Jerry stood up and placed the palms of his hands flat on his desk.
-"I told you that you'd learn something in our primitive jungle, Mr.
-Ambassador. Well, this is it. We may be mechanical morons, according
-to your standards, but we naked savages can produce anything we need.
-Since we've corrected the misconception that what Earth produces isn't
-good enough for Earthmen, and whipped up a tourist trade, business is
-booming. And when it booms, we can distribute those Earth products in a
-way that suits us pretty well. A primitive way, you may think, but one
-that is adapted to the unfortunate circumstance that we aren't a bunch
-of little tin saints living in an ideal world.
-
-"I asked you for Matter Repositors once, and you were wise enough to
-turn me down. I'm glad you did. They'd cause us more trouble than the
-atomic bomb. We don't want the damn things. Do _you_ understand _that_?"
-
-On sudden impulse, Jerry strode across his office. There stood a large
-and brilliantly colored object, jarring oddly with the other furniture.
-Sometimes at a loss to spend his newly acquired wealth, Jerry had
-yielded, a month or so before, to a desire conceived in childhood to
-own a real honest-to-goodness juke box.
-
-Jerry fished in his pocket for a nickel, deposited it in the slot,
-pushed button seven. Loud, tinny, and offensively blatant, the strains
-of "I Don't Wanna Leave the Congo" filled the office, effectively
-drowning out any further remarks the Ambassador from Outer Space might
-have wished to make.
-
-"If you'll pardon me," Jerry shouted over the din, "I have some arrow
-heads to chip--and a potential extraterrestrial mate to woo with a
-quaint tribal ritual we call dating on Earth."
-
-
-
-
-
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-<pre>
-
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pilot and the Bushman, by Sylvia Jacobs
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
-
-
-Title: The Pilot and the Bushman
-
-Author: Sylvia Jacobs
-
-Release Date: March 1, 2016 [EBook #51297]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ASCII
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PILOT AND THE BUSHMAN ***
-
-
-
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-Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
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-</pre>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="364" height="500" alt=""/>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<div class="titlepage">
-<h1>THE PILOT AND THE BUSHMAN</h1>
-
-<p>By SYLVIA JACOBS</p>
-
-<p>Illustrated by DAVID STONE</p>
-
-<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br />
-Galaxy Science Fiction August 1951.<br />
-Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br />
-the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p class="ph3">Technological upheavals caused by inventions of our own are<br />
-bad enough, but this was the ultimate depression, caused by<br />
-the ultimate alien invention&mdash;which no Earthman ever saw!</p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p>The Ambassador from Outer Space sprang to his feet, taking Jerry's
-extended hand in a firm, warm grasp. Jerry had been prepared for
-almost anything&mdash;a scholarly brontosaurus, perhaps, or an educated
-squid or giant caterpillar with telepathic powers. But the Ambassador
-didn't even have antennae, gills, or green hair. He was a completely
-normal and even handsome human being.</p>
-
-<p>"Scotch? Cigar?" the Ambassador offered cordially. "How can I help you,
-Mr. Jergins?"</p>
-
-<p>Studying him, Jerry decided there <i>was</i> something peculiar about this
-extraterrestrial, after all. He was too perfect. His shave was too
-close, his skin so unblemished as to suggest wax-works. Every strand of
-his distinguished iron-gray hair was impeccably placed. The negligent
-and just-right drape of his clothes covered a body shaped like a Sixth
-Century B.C. piece of Greek sculpture. No mere human could have looked
-so unruffled, so utterly groomed, at three o'clock in the afternoon, in
-a busy office. A race, Jerry wondered, capable of taking any shape at
-will, in mimicry of the indigenous race of any planet?</p>
-
-<p>"You <i>can</i> help me, but I'm not sure you <i>will</i>," Jerry said. "The
-rumor is that you won't do anything to ease this buyers' strike you
-started on Earth."</p>
-
-<p>The Ambassador smiled. "You're a man who's not used to taking no for an
-answer, I gather. What's your proposition?"</p>
-
-<p>"I'd like to contact some of the firms on the Federated Planets, show
-them how I could promote their merchandise on Earth. Earth is already
-clamoring for their goods. To establish a medium of exchange, we'd have
-to run simultaneous campaigns, promoting Earth merchandise on other
-planets."</p>
-
-<p>"That would be difficult, even for a man of your promotional ability,"
-the Ambassador said winningly. "You see, Earth is the only planet
-we've yet discovered where advertising&mdash;or promotion, to use the
-broader term&mdash;exists as a social and economic force."</p>
-
-<p>"How in hell can anybody do business without it?" Jerry demanded.</p>
-
-<p>"We don't do business in the sense you mean. Don't mistake me," the
-Ambassador added hastily, "we don't have precisely a communal economy,
-either. Our very well defined sense of ethics in regard to material
-goods is something I find impossible to describe in any Earth language.
-It's quite simple, so simple that you have to grow up with it to
-understand it. Our whole attitude toward material goods is conditioned
-by the Matter Repositor."</p>
-
-<p>"<i>That</i> gadget!" Jerry said bitterly. "It was when you first mentioned
-it before the U.N. Assembly that all this trouble on Earth started.
-Everybody and his brother hopes that tomorrow he can buy a Matter
-Repositor, and never have to buy anything again. I came here mostly
-to ask you whether it's really true, that if you have one of those
-dinguses, you can bring anything you want into your living room."</p>
-
-<p>"You <i>can</i>. In practice, of course, repositing just anything that took
-your fancy would produce economic anarchy."</p>
-
-<p>"Let's put it this way," Jerry persisted. "Home appliances were my
-biggest accounts. Now, when we try to sell a refrigerator, the prospect
-says she's saving her cash till Matter Repositors get on the Earth
-market. She plans to reposit a refrigerator&mdash;not from her neighbor's
-kitchen, because that would be stealing&mdash;but from the factory. If the
-factory goes bust, people figure the government will have to subsidize
-building appliances. Now, could she really reposit a refrigerator?"</p>
-
-<p>"She could. But she wouldn't want to."</p>
-
-<p>"Why not?" Jerry asked, puzzled.</p>
-
-<p>"If she conceived an illogical and useless desire for food
-refrigeration, she would simply reposit a block of cold air from, say,
-the North Pole."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, fine!" Jerry said sarcastically. "That would cause more
-unemployment in the refrigerator industry than repositing them without
-paying for them! But what do you mean about food refrigeration being
-illogical and useless?"</p>
-
-<p>"Well, in a storage warehouse, there might be some reason for food
-preservation. But you don't need cold or canning. Why not just reposit
-the bacteria that cause the food to deteriorate? There's no need to
-store food in a home equipped with a Matter Repositor. You simply
-reposit one meal at a time. Fruits and vegetables direct from tree or
-field. Meat from a slaughterhouse, since it isn't humane to remove a
-pound of steak from a live steer. But even this is needless."</p>
-
-<p>"Why?" Jerry baffledly wanted to know.</p>
-
-<p>"To free the maximum amount of the effort of thinking beings for
-non-material activities, each consumer can reposit the chemical
-elements of the food, synthesize his meal on the table. He can even
-reposit these elements directly into his stomach, or, to by-pass the
-effort of digestion, into his bloodstream as glycogen and amino acids."</p>
-
-<p>"So refrigerators would be as dead an item as kerosene lamps in a
-city wired for electricity," Jerry agreed unhappily. "Suppose Mrs.
-Housewife, not needing a refrigerator, reposits a washing machine. The
-point I'm driving at&mdash;is there any practical way to compensate the
-factory, give it an incentive to produce more washing machines, without
-dragging in government control?"</p>
-
-<p>"Why should the factory produce more washing machines? Who would want
-one? The housewife would simply reposit the dirt from her clothes
-into her flowerbed, without using water and soap. Or, more likely,
-reposit new clothes with different colors, fabrics, and styles. The
-Matter Repositor would eliminate textile mills and clothing factories.
-Earth's oceans have vast enough quantities of seaweed to eliminate the
-growing of cotton, wool, or flax. Or, again, you could reposit the
-chemical elements, either from the soil or from seawater."</p>
-
-<p>Jerry pondered the extensive implications of these revelations.
-Finally he said, "What it boils down to is this. All Earth's bustling
-material activity, all the logging and construction, the mining and
-manufacturing, the planting and fishing, the printing and postal
-service, the great transportation and shipping effort, the cleaning and
-painting, the sewage disposal, even the bathing and self-adornment,
-consist, when you analyze them, of one process only&mdash;<i>putting something
-from where you don't want it to where you do</i>. There's not one single,
-solitary Earth invention or service left to advertise!"</p>
-
-<p>"Nothing," the Ambassador agreed. "Which is exactly why advertising has
-not developed on the Federated Planets. You're fortunate that Earth
-doesn't have Matter Repositors. You'd be out of a job if it did."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, no!" Jerry said. "I could still advertise the gadget to end all
-gadgets&mdash;the Matter Repositor itself. I know other people have asked
-you this before, but could an Earth company get a franchise to import
-those machines here, or the license rights to manufacture them?"</p>
-
-<p>"No," the Ambassador said, briefly and definitely.</p>
-
-<p>"Mr. Ambassador," Jerry protested, "you've gone to a lot of trouble to
-explain things you must already be tired of explaining to Earthmen,
-just so I personally could be sure they weren't merely rumors or
-misinterpretations. Now that I get down to the real point, you suddenly
-become blunt and unqualified. Why?"</p>
-
-<p>"Because there's a very serious question of ethics involved, wherever a
-more advanced civilization comes in contact with a relatively primitive
-one. For instance, when the white men came to America, the aborigines
-were introduced to gunpowder and firewater."</p>
-
-<p>"So you people are keeping Matter Repositors away from us, like a mama
-keeping candy away from a baby who's hollering for it, because it's not
-good for him! You'd pass up a chance to name your own price&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"The very way you phrase that remark indicates the danger. You regard
-personal gain as the strongest of motives, which means that Matter
-Repositors would be used for that, even by such unusually intelligent
-members of your race as yourself."</p>
-
-<p>"Don't softsoap me," Jerry said angrily. "Not after you just got
-through saying that we Earthlings are nothing but naked savages,
-compared to the high and mighty super-beings on other planets!"</p>
-
-<p>"I apologize for my phraseology," the Ambassador said. "With my limited
-command of your language&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Your limited command, nuts! I suppose you supermen enjoy seeing us
-naked savages squirm. Why talk sanctimoniously about the damage you
-might do, when you know damn well the damage has already been done?
-Just the news that something as advanced as the Matter Repositor exists
-has sent unemployment to a new high, and the stock market to a new low.
-And you theorize about ethics, while denying us the only cure!" Jerry
-found himself fighting a nearly irresistible impulse to smash his fist
-into that too-perfect profile&mdash;which, he realized glumly, would only
-prove the Ambassador's point about savages.</p>
-
-<p>"Here, here," the Ambassador said benevolently, "let's have another
-drink. Then we'll see whether I can make it clear to you why the actual
-importation of Matter Repositors would cause much more trouble on Earth
-than the announcement of their existence, bad as the effect of that has
-been. To begin with, I admit I made a very serious error in mentioning
-the device at all before the U.N. Assembly. I intended merely to
-explain how I came here without a spaceship. After that, I was flooded
-with questions; I could no more avoid answering them than I could
-courteously avoid answering the questions you've been asking today."</p>
-
-<p>"You mean you super-beings actually admit you're human enough to make
-mistakes?" Jerry asked, somewhat mollified.</p>
-
-<p>"Of course we make mistakes. We try not to make the same one twice.
-You see, we once made the mistake of importing Matter Repositors to a
-planet whose natural resources and social concepts weren't adequate
-for the device. That was a long time ago, and they haven't recovered
-from the effects yet. Suppose a consignment of ten thousand Matter
-Repositors arrived on Earth tomorrow. Under your economic system, who
-would get them?"</p>
-
-<p>"The ten thousand people or corporations who had the most money to pay
-for them, I guess. Unless government agencies grabbed 'em."</p>
-
-<p>"Can you guarantee that of the ten thousand people on Earth who have
-the most money, not one is unscrupulous?"</p>
-
-<p>"Gosh, no!" Jerry said. "I don't think there's any doubt that to stay
-in business very long, a man or a company has to have a certain amount
-of business ethics. Nobody can gyp the public indefinitely. But a bank
-robber might have a lot of cash, or a confidence man, or a cluck with a
-big inheritance."</p>
-
-<p>"So, to be generous, let's assume that 9,999 of your wealthiest persons
-are so ethical that they would never make any profit at the expense of
-the general welfare. That leaves us one crook. What would he reposit
-first?"</p>
-
-<p>"Hmm.... Maybe the gold at Fort Knox."</p>
-
-<p>"And what effect would that have on Earth's business?"</p>
-
-<p>"I'm not quite sure," Jerry admitted. "I'm no shark on monetary theory,
-just the kind of large-scale salesman who makes mass production
-possible. But it certainly wouldn't do the world situation any good."</p>
-
-<p>"Suppose, next, our crook holds the President of the United States for
-ransom. Since he doesn't need money, the ransom price might be laws
-which would grant him impunity for his crimes. If not, he could have an
-accomplice reposit him out of jail, or even out of the electric chair,
-before the switch was pulled."</p>
-
-<p>"That's enough! I get the idea!" Jerry exclaimed.</p>
-
-<p>"Wait&mdash;there's a more important point. Suppose a government you
-consider the wrong government got hold of some of the machines. First,
-of course, they'd reposit the world stockpile of atomic bombs. Then
-they'd reposit disease bacteria into the bloodstreams of U.N. troops,
-officials, and civilian workers, and reposit all the ammunition out
-of U.N. guns. So long as there is one spark of nationalism left on
-Earth, so long as any country has an economic and political system
-they consider better than some other system, Matter Repositors would
-mean planetary self-destruction. Now do you see why I was blunt and
-unqualified?"</p>
-
-<p>"I do," Jerry said solemnly, "And I was a fool to fly off the handle
-when you called us savages. We are savages, I can see that now. And
-your people must be pretty damned godlike to be trusted with such an
-invention!"</p>
-
-<p>"Not at all. To a Micronesian bushman, the pilot who can be trusted
-with the power and speed of a B-29 seems a veritable god. But the pilot
-is only an ordinary Joe, very likely no more intelligent than the
-bushman&mdash;he just had a different background. Fighting each other for
-necessities and luxuries, the process that you people call business
-competition, has so long been needless to our people that they would
-no more think of competitive gain than you would do an Indian harvest
-dance before you signed a contract. They aren't necessarily more
-intelligent or more virtuous than your people&mdash;they just have a
-different background."</p>
-
-<p>"You seem to have devoted a lot of study to the larceny in the
-Earthman's soul," Jerry put in. "What if we stole the secret from you,
-whether you think it wise to give it to us or not? Suppose somebody
-swiped the blueprints, or copied a Repositor you brought with you for
-your own use?"</p>
-
-<p>The Ambassador smiled. "You might <i>try</i> to steal it. That's why I
-didn't bring a Repositor with me, to save you people the trouble of a
-futile try."</p>
-
-<p>"Why futile?"</p>
-
-<p>"Well, the Matter Repositor is a simple device. Any child on the
-Federated Planets who had an education, say, equivalent to your
-technical high school education, could build a working model, even
-without another Repositor to assist him. But Earth's best technicians
-couldn't build one, even with either blueprints or a model to copy."</p>
-
-<p>"They couldn't, eh?" Jerry challenged, bristling again. "They managed
-to split atoms, transmute elements, do a few little tricks like that."</p>
-
-<p>"I see I've been tactless again," the Ambassador said regretfully.
-"Just now, you readily conceded that Earthmen are savages morally, but
-when I seem to cast aspersions on your mechanical ability, it offends
-your racial vanity. All right, let's go back to the B-29 pilot and the
-intelligent bushman. The internal combustion engine that powers the
-B-29 is a simple device in fundamental principle, isn't it?"</p>
-
-<p>"Sure," Jerry said.</p>
-
-<p>"Any high school boy who has taken a course in auto mechanics, who has
-the requisite machine tools, metals, casting equipment, and fuel, could
-build a working model of an internal combustion engine, couldn't he,
-even without ready-made parts?"</p>
-
-<p>"If he wasn't all thumbs, he could."</p>
-
-<p>"All right. Now suppose the B-29 is grounded in the jungle. The bushman
-is examining the engine. He's just as intelligent as the pilot,
-remember, but his environment hasn't produced an oil well, let alone a
-refinery. He has never seen a lathe or a micrometer. He has no mine, no
-smelter. He can't copy that B-29 engine by whittling wood or chipping
-stone, even if he's a born mechanical genius, and he can't run it on
-seawater. So he says the plane flies by magic. Put him in the pilot
-seat, and you'll admit it's practically inevitable that he'll crash."</p>
-
-<p>"Why do you take so much trouble to explain things?" Jerry asked wryly.
-"I should have my head examined for not understanding it in the first
-place."</p>
-
-<p>"Let's say I'm feebly trying to make amends for what my unfortunate
-slip of the tongue has done to your business."</p>
-
-<p>"You've brought me around to your way of thinking, Mr. Ambassador,"
-Jerry said, recovering enough to carry the ball. "But it would be
-impossible to sell the public on the idea that they shouldn't have
-Repositors because they're too hot to handle. Statistics on auto
-accidents never convinced anybody that he didn't want a nice, shiny,
-new car. Nobody thinks he personally will get killed in traffic&mdash;he's
-too smart. You can't convince a youngster he doesn't want candy before
-dinner; he thinks he knows better than his parents. But you can hide
-the candy, while putting an appetizing meal on the table."</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, except that I regrettably didn't hide the fact that the Matter
-Repositor exists."</p>
-
-<p>"You sure didn't. And it puts you on a spot, doesn't it? I don't
-imagine it will be much fun for you to report to your government that
-one ill-considered remark, made shortly after your arrival, upset
-Earth's economy."</p>
-
-<p>For the first time, the Ambassador's suavity was ruffled. Sweat stood
-out on his noble forehead. "I've been hoping the bad-effects would die
-down before I have to report," he confessed.</p>
-
-<p>"They won't die down by themselves. You know damned well they're
-getting worse and worse, as word-of-mouth advertising about the Matter
-Repositor spreads." Jerry leaned closer. "But you and I can get rid of
-those bad effects."</p>
-
-<p>"How?"</p>
-
-<p>"Well, I'll tell you. When I came to see you, I was pretty sure you'd
-turn me down cold on importing Matter Repositors. But I had an ace
-up my sleeve. I hoped you would admit that the reason you've been
-stalling on selling Earth any Repositors is that you don't really have
-a practical one. I thought maybe rumors of the Repositor's powers
-had been vastly exaggerated. If you admitted that, I intended to
-publicize it to the limit. A campaign to convince Earthmen that you'd
-been kidding them would work, because it plays on John Q. Public's
-conviction that he's pretty smart, too smart to believe all this gab
-about a gadget he's never seen. With your denial to back me up, I could
-put it across. It would be a lifesaving shot in the arm for Earth
-business."</p>
-
-<p>"You mean," the Ambassador said reflectively, "that if I call myself
-a liar&mdash;if I actually become a liar in so doing&mdash;I can patch up the
-damage I've done? That puts me in a difficult ethical position."</p>
-
-<p>"Not as difficult as the one you're in now. If it will make it easier
-for you, I can word your denial in a face-saving way, and have it ready
-for your signature Tuesday. You have a remarkable command of colloquial
-English, but even a diplomat using his native tongue can't juggle the
-connotations and inferences like an advertising man."</p>
-
-<p>"It's very kind of you to offer your professional skill in my behalf. I
-think I should pay you a fee for the copy."</p>
-
-<p>"Skip it," Jerry said generously, fingering the nickel and two pennies
-in his pocket. "A small token of my appreciation for the patience
-you've shown. What time Tuesday?"</p>
-
-<p>"Say two o'clock?"</p>
-
-<p>"Fine. But before I spend my time on this, you're not going to make the
-same deal with somebody else, are you?"</p>
-
-<p>"Deal? Did I make a deal?"</p>
-
-<p>"What I mean, nobody else has approached you with the idea that Earth
-business would get back to normal if you would deny that a practical
-Matter Repositor exists? You'd say I have exclusive rights to the idea?"</p>
-
-<p>"Nobody has," the Ambassador said, "and I agree to give you exclusive
-rights."</p>
-
-<p>"Good! With your signed denial, I can raise the loot. I think the
-N.A.M. will go for it. The campaign will have to be well-financed,
-you see; the amount of space the news columns will give to your denial
-may be as much as they gave to your original statement, but that alone
-won't do the job. It's much harder to kill a notion that has penetrated
-the public mind than it is to implant one."</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>The Ambassador indulged in a chuckle. "I'm beginning to see daylight.
-My signed denial in your hands becomes a salable piece of merchandise,
-worth far more than I would pay you for a few lines of copy. Well, more
-power to you! Would it be out of place for me to contribute some of the
-funds for publicizing this denial?"</p>
-
-<p>"How much?" Jerry asked practically.</p>
-
-<p>"Well," the Ambassador explained, "I've had nothing reposited that I
-could avoid. But since your planet has a monetary exchange, I had to
-pay for my office help, lodging, and so on. Synthesizing coinage would
-have been counterfeiting, which is against your laws, so I merely had
-a moderate amount of uncoined gold reposited, and I sell it on the
-regular Earth market as I need funds. Gold has no particular value on
-the Federated Planets, of course. I could get whatever you need, so
-long as it isn't enough to disrupt the economy any more than&mdash;well,
-than I have already. Let's limit ourselves to an amount that could be
-accounted for by an unusually good year in mining."</p>
-
-<p>"Sold!" Jerry said happily. "I think I can struggle along on a million
-a month retainer. Plus the usual fifteen per cent on advertising
-space and printing, of course; I'll have an estimate on that for you
-Tuesday. Since you can finance the whole campaign yourself, we'll
-leave the N.A.M. out of it. That way I can spare you the humiliation
-of signing an outright denial. All you have to do from now on is
-to keep mum. Don't even admit that you're the angel financing this
-campaign; that would make it look phony. I'll assign you three personal
-public-relations men, on twenty-four-hour shift. All your public
-remarks are to screen through them."</p>
-
-<p>"But how can I conceal my identity when I'm sponsoring the campaign?"
-the Ambassador objected.</p>
-
-<p>"That's easy. The ostensible sponsor will be a dummy organization
-called&mdash;um&mdash;the Consumers Fact Finding Board. Nobody but me needs to
-know who signs the checks."</p>
-
-<p>"How long will this campaign continue?"</p>
-
-<p>"I figure it'll take about six months to sell the public this
-particular bill of goods. Once we get business revived, the best thing
-is never to mention the words Matter Repositor again, not even to deny
-its existence. The ultimate goal is to make people forget they ever
-heard of such a gadget. The more convincing I make it, the quicker I'll
-work myself out of a job."</p>
-
-<p>"I should think you'd make it last as long as possible; that's why I
-asked you for a time-limit. Do you <i>want</i> to work yourself out of a
-job?"</p>
-
-<p>"You bet I do! Then I can start selling a bigger item, launch a
-longer-term promotion, one that will last till Earth gets civilized,
-till I don't have anything more to sell. From what you say, that will
-take a lot longer than I'll live."</p>
-
-<p>"It may be none of my business, but what is this big item you propose
-to sell next?" the Ambassador asked, curiously.</p>
-
-<p>"Earth," Jerry said.</p>
-
-<p>The Ambassador looked confused. "I'm afraid I don't understand."</p>
-
-<p>"Didn't you just get through telling me, in effect, that any of your
-people who came to Earth could have all the money they wanted to spend?
-Well, I'm going to run advertising copy on the Federated Planets, and
-get them to come here and spend it."</p>
-
-<p>"But I also told you that advertising is unknown on the Federated
-Planets!" the Ambassador protested.</p>
-
-<p>"All the better. Your people, then, will have less sales resistance
-than an audience of Earth kindergarten kids, who have had spot
-commercials dinned into their ears since birth. The only problem is
-space and time."</p>
-
-<p>"The Matter Repositor has effectively solved the problems of space and
-time."</p>
-
-<p>"No, I mean space and time as an advertising man uses those terms.
-Newspaper and magazine space, radio and TV time. Do you have any
-newspapers out there?"</p>
-
-<p>"We have very little you would classify as news. No wars, no stock
-market, no crime, no epidemics, no political mudslinging, few
-accidents. But we do have information bulletins, of course."</p>
-
-<p>"Fine! Besides that million a month retainer, I want an exclusive
-contract to run advertising copy in the information bulletins on the
-Federated Planets."</p>
-
-<p>"This is completely unprecedented!"</p>
-
-<p>"You want to get out of this mess you're in, don't you? I'm the boy who
-can get you out, and that's my price."</p>
-
-<p>"You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Jergins. Very well, I'll arrange it. But
-I'm getting you the contract only because I'm certain your excursion
-idea won't work. Oh, I know Earth men want to visit the Federated
-Planets; I've had plenty of requests. I've had to explain repeatedly
-that we must hold to our announced policy of no ambassador from Earth,
-and no exchange students, until Earth has completed a few more steps in
-the development of her civilization. But surely none of our people will
-come to Earth, aside from a few students of comparative civilizations.
-Our general public can view samples of your national costumes,
-automobiles, and so on, in the museums. I can't see why they should
-want to come here, while Earth is still in a primitive and dangerous
-stage."</p>
-
-<p>"You can't, eh? Well, you might be surprised, Mr. Ambassador, you
-might be surprised. For the time being, just picture yourself as the
-pilot of that B-29, grounded on a primitive little island in space.
-You've met a poor, ignorant bushman. He couldn't reproduce your plane
-to save his neck. He can't manufacture a single gadget you'd want to
-buy. Nevertheless, you're about to see a demonstration of a few tricks
-of survival that your super-civilized race has forgotten&mdash;or, rather,
-never knew. I think you'll cook up into a right tasty dish."</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>Four days later, the Better Business Bureau of Oskaloosa, Iowa,
-nabbed a questionable character who had accepted deposits from local
-businessmen, in return for elaborately printed but worthless contracts
-to deliver Matter Repositors.</p>
-
-<p>The warning flash crossed similar warnings from New Orleans, Reno,
-Milwaukee, and the Borough of Queens, with a particularly hysterical
-note injected by Los Angeles, where the populace had proved most
-susceptible to the bogus agents. The news of a national ring of
-confidence artists, capitalizing on people's desire for Matter
-Repositors, ran in all papers, of course. The editors as yet hadn't the
-faintest idea that they were printing carefully engineered publicity.</p>
-
-<p>Before he even got his space contracts lined up, Jerry had accomplished
-quite a feat. He had fixed things so that, if the Ambassador from Outer
-Space himself had changed his mind, and imported a cargo of genuine
-Matter Repositors, he would have had some trouble convincing people he
-wasn't a crook.</p>
-
-<p>In a record two weeks, the campaign proper was ready to roll. It was
-long on white space, and the copy was so short that, after glancing
-at it a few times, you found that you had involuntarily committed it
-to memory. In the center of blank pages in all major metropolitan
-newspapers appeared a small want-ad, stating that the Consumers Fact
-Finding Board had deposited with a New York bank the sum of one million
-dollars in cash, <i>after taxes</i>, which would be paid to any person,
-terrestrial or extraterrestrial, who could produce a Matter Repositor
-capable of repositing an object weighing two pounds a distance of ten
-feet.</p>
-
-<p>The offer was repeated daily for a month, and from the second day
-forward, there was a large, red overprint, looking like a crayon
-scrawl, which said, "No Takers to Date who Can Deliver the Goods!"</p>
-
-<p>The idea was pounded into the public mind by carcards, billboards,
-direct mail, and annoying telephone solicitors, who got subscribers
-out of bathtub and bed to ask them whether they had a Matter Repositor
-around the house they wanted to sell for a million dollars. Skywriters
-by day and illuminated blimps by night made sure the literate could not
-escape the message. Radio and TV singing and cartoon commercials took
-care of the illiterate.</p>
-
-<p>No conclusions were drawn in the copy. Each "prospect" was left with
-the comfortable feeling that his own superior intellect and powers of
-deduction had supplied the answer. No Matter Repositor turned up for
-sale, so everyone was sure there was no such thing. The whole campaign,
-like other advertising campaigns before it, depended on what people
-failed to consider. They neglected to realize that a million dollars
-would be a joke to the owner of a Matter Repositor, who could reposit
-all the wealth on Earth, including the million in the New York bank,
-but would have no use for money, since he could reposit usable goods.
-The magic phrase "a million dollars" was a worldwide symbol for all
-desirable material things. It would have been almost heresy to reflect
-that even that much cash had no actual value.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>As Jerry promised, the Ambassador didn't have to issue an official
-denial. His chief public relations man quite truthfully admitted
-to reporters that the Ambassador had no Matter Repositor in his
-possession, a dispatch carried by all wire services, and snickered at
-by clever columnists.</p>
-
-<p>In basements and garages, persons of good, bad, and indifferent
-mechanical ability strove to earn the million. The U.S. patent office
-was inundated with models and drawings of unworkable devices. One of
-the Duke University subjects tried to patent his ability to influence
-the fall of dice mentally.</p>
-
-<p>During the next session of the Congress, Jerry's crack lobbyists raised
-a great howl about the shameful congestion in the Patent Office, not
-mentioning, of course, that they were employed by the man who had
-created the congestion, by offering a million dollars for a device he
-knew no Earthman could build.</p>
-
-<p>Another dummy organization, dubbed the Inventors Protective League,
-sponsored a bill to amend the act relating to perpetual motion
-machines. It passed, with an emergency clause, and, thereafter, devices
-purporting to reposit matter were not entitled to letters of patent.</p>
-
-<p>This just about clinched the deal, for the vast majority of people,
-who had never watched laws enacted, assumed that if something was in
-the law, there must be a good reason for it, unless, of course, it was
-anything like prohibition.</p>
-
-<p>A name band revived "The Thing," leaving the drumbeats out of the vocal
-refrain, and substituting, "Get out of here with that Matter Repositor,
-before I call a cop!" Within six months, radio and TV comedians had
-worn out the joke. Even Goofy, My Friend Irma, Mrs. Ace, and Gracie
-Allen were too sophisticated to believe in Matter Repositors. Gags
-about them dropped to the same low level as those about Brooklyn and
-joke-stealing comics.</p>
-
-<p>Although his appearance in public was liable to start boos and
-catcalls, the Ambassador from Outer Space was duly grateful. He was
-spared the painful necessity of reporting his disastrous slip of the
-tongue to his government, for Earth economy was again on the upward
-spiral. Everybody was spending the money he'd been saving up for a
-Matter Repositor.</p>
-
-<p>The Ambassador cheerfully paid the million-a-month retainer and the
-whopping space bills, but Jerry's greatest gain in the transaction was
-his agreement allowing him to run advertising in the Federated Planets
-information bulletins. The space didn't cost him a nickel. Yet he knew
-how to sell his exclusive rights to it for more money than any one
-Earth company had in its promotional budget.</p>
-
-<p>By the time the campaign debunking the Matter Repositor was ready
-to die a natural death, Jerry had started an organization of Earth
-businessmen, spearheaded by the Restaurant and Hotel Associations, and
-the transportation interests, to promote Earth as a primitive planet.
-The primitive aspects of Earth, Jerry predicted, would exert a powerful
-appeal on the citizens of the Federated Planets, who must be pretty
-bored with civilization, and badly in need of a vacation from too much
-perfection.</p>
-
-<p>This organization was not composed of dummies, by any means, but the
-businessmen joined up with a vague idea that their hostelries were to
-be way-stations, that they were going to promote sightseeing tours to
-places they themselves would call primitive, that the human exhibits
-would consist of blanketed Navajos, Chinese coolies, hula girls, Voodoo
-dancers, and Eskimos.</p>
-
-<p>Jerry filled the biggest convention hall in Chicago, and, at the climax
-of the proceedings, dramatically drew back a velvet curtain, unveiling
-a huge painting of the symbol of the campaign&mdash;a masked bandit, wearing
-a slouch hat, clutching in a greedy hand a fat bag marked with a dollar
-sign. Below was blazoned the tasteful slogan, "Let the People of Earth
-Gyp You!"</p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <img src="images/illus1.jpg" width="555" height="500" alt=""/>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p>A chorus of outrage echoed in the rafters. It hadn't occurred to the
-members that primitive exhibit A would be themselves; to wit, the genus
-Earth businessman; sub-species, go-getter. Jerry emerged from the
-resulting argument somewhat battered, but with what any experienced
-advertising man would recognize as a victory. His copy was to run in
-five per cent of the space, keyed. Now all he had to do was prove in
-dollars and cents that he knew more about mass sales psychology than
-his clients, which was, of course, a cinch.</p>
-
-<p>In spite of translation into a more civilized language, Jerry's five
-per cent of the space out-pulled the tamer ninety-five per cent by
-better than ten to one. Thereafter, his clients swallowed their pride,
-voted him a free hand, and contented themselves with raking in the
-shekels from a steady stream of handsome and rich extraterrestrial
-tourists.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>After Jerry's tourist promotion had been running two years, the U.S.
-Post Office broke down and printed an issue of three-cent stamps
-commemorating the influx, showing the goddess Terra with welcoming arms
-open to the starred heavens. Jerry Jergins, the second advertising man
-in history to achieve the distinction of having Uncle Sam plug his
-product on a stamp, thereby entered the most select circles of his
-chosen profession.</p>
-
-<p>Jerry bought enough of the stamps to paper the walls of his swank and
-spacious penthouse offices, for the benefit of the swarm of tourists
-who invaded the place daily during afternoon open-house hours. They all
-wanted to see an advertising agency; to them, this phenomenon was the
-essence of that primitive planet, Earth. Jerry had recorded a lecture
-on primitive Earth customs which issued from concealed loudspeakers,
-and filled display cases with exhibits of primitive Earth culture,
-emphasizing the aspects he felt these extraterrestrials would find most
-exotic.</p>
-
-<p>Considering the fact that Jerry had managed to learn little about the
-Federated Planets that was not utterly essential to the mechanics
-of his advertising campaign there, he had done a pretty good job of
-"getting on the customer's side of the counter." Every tourist Jerry
-talked to had been conditioned, by some unrevealed but apparently
-foolproof process, not to repeat the Ambassador's error of mentioning
-Matter Repositors, or other aspects of life on the Federated Planets
-that might cause repercussions on Earth. Even tourist children couldn't
-be bribed with lollypops. Tourists talked a great deal, in fluent
-idiomatic Earth English, yet somehow said very little.</p>
-
-<p>But Jerry knew at least one thing&mdash;he was stirring emotions that lay
-so deep under layers and layers of civilization that these shining,
-perfect people hadn't known they were capable of feeling them, until
-they visited Earth. He was getting under their smooth skins, just as
-surely as the monotone of a Haitian drum-beat gets under the skin of a
-New Yorker.</p>
-
-<p>One of the display cases contained the working tools of
-gangsterism&mdash;sawed-off shotguns, blackjacks, a model of a bullet-proof
-automobile, a news photo of the St. Valentine's Day massacre, a
-clipping about police payoffs from houses of gambling and prostitution,
-another about blindness resulting from wood alcohol. The shot-glasses
-of authentic antique bootleg gin that stood on top the cases were often
-smelled but never sampled.</p>
-
-<p>The second case showed a chart of fluctuations of the stock market,
-with an actual operating ticker in the middle. Sections of the tape
-were much in demand as souvenirs. But the photo of a smashed body of
-a once-wealthy man who jumped from his office window after losing his
-fortune caused the most comment. The tourists found it difficult to
-understand how this man could consider his life less important than his
-bank balance.</p>
-
-<p>The largest case contained models of war weapons, a lurid painting of
-Pearl Harbor under aerial attack, another of the Hiroshima mushroom
-that ushered in the atomic age. There were gas masks, artificial limbs,
-a photo of a blinded veteran led by a Seeing-Eye dog. The tourists
-gaped at that exhibit with all the relish of Coney Island crowds
-visiting wax replicas of famous murder scenes.</p>
-
-<p>And along the entire 40-foot wall of the reception room, a photo-mural
-of a ragged, depression-era breadline brooded over the sleek heads of
-the beautifully dressed and elaborately fed tourists.</p>
-
-<p>On his way back to the office after lunch one day, Jerry spied a
-traffic-stopping cluster of humanity in the street outside one of the
-city's leading department stores. The crowd was gathered around a
-paddy-wagon. Never diffident, Jerry elbowed his way through the crush,
-to see two handsome and once well-groomed gentlemen getting a mussing
-up from a couple of cops. The suspects, athletic-looking characters,
-were putting up a good fight, and the policemen didn't like it. As
-Jerry watched, a billy descended on a well-barbered head, and suspect
-number one ceased resisting arrest.</p>
-
-<p>Jerry had come into contact with enough extraterrestrials by now so
-that he knew a tourist when he saw one. The male tourists gave him a
-violent pain in the neck, but he felt somewhat responsible. He grabbed
-an elbow of the suspect who remained conscious.</p>
-
-<p>"Give me your name, bud, and I'll bail you out. What happened?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, we just took a few things off the counters in that store," the
-tourist answered. "You're very kind, but we have plenty of money for
-bail, thanks. Or is it a bribe you're supposed to hand them?"</p>
-
-<p>"If you have plenty of money, why in hell didn't you buy the stuff,
-instead of stealing it?"</p>
-
-<p>"We just thought we'd have a bit of a lark. New experience and all
-that. When on Earth, do as the Earthmen do."</p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <img src="images/illus2.jpg" width="426" height="500" alt=""/>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p>"A lark!" the biggest policeman grunted. "We'll give you a lark,
-all right! Get in there, you!" He implemented his command with a
-well-placed kick in the seat of a pair of expertly tailored pants,
-boosting the tourist into the paddy-wagon, where his unconscious friend
-had already been deposited.</p>
-
-<p>The siren screamed, dispersing the crowd in front of the police
-vehicle, and Jerry went on his way, chuckling. As he passed a
-hole-in-the-wall bar he knew, he decided to stop for a quick one, to
-settle the heavy feeling in his stomach that came from eating lobster
-Newburg for lunch. It wasn't a place where you'd care to take a lady,
-but they served an honest ounce.</p>
-
-<p>As Jerry pushed through the old-fashioned swinging doors, a burst
-of sound greeted him. A whiskey baritone was rendering one of the
-unpublishable versions of "Christopher Columbo," to the accompaniment
-of a piano tinkle by the hired help. The customer was obviously from
-the other side of the tracks&mdash;from the other side of the Galaxy, in
-fact&mdash;and he was leaning against the piano for the simple reason that
-he couldn't stand up.</p>
-
-<p>He wore a well-cut California-style dinner jacket, and after all night
-and half the day, the white gabardine was no longer white. Several
-drinks had been spilled on the midnight-blue flannel trousers. Only a
-magnificent physique distinguished him from the Earth or garden variety
-of drunk.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <img src="images/illus3.jpg" width="274" height="500" alt=""/>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p>Jerry stood up to the bar, and as his eyes became accustomed to the
-dimness, he observed a touching&mdash;literally&mdash;scene being enacted in the
-darkest booth. An Earthside racetrack tout, whom Jerry recognized as
-one of the habitues of the place, had a gorgeous female tourist backed
-into a corner. She had retreated as far as the wall permitted, but he
-had long since caught up.</p>
-
-<p>Her jaunty, elbow-length chinchilla cape lay on the wet table. Her
-exquisitely simple strapless dinner dress of silver lam&eacute; exposed arms
-and shoulders that were literally out of this world. The naked effect
-was relieved only by a diamond, platinum, and emerald choker. Jerry
-knew, though the racetrack tout probably didn't, that the priceless
-bauble was Repositor&mdash;synthesized, with an Earth museum piece as a
-model.</p>
-
-<p>It was a tossup whether the race track tout was more interested in the
-diamonds or the tempting flesh they adorned. The girl made no attempt
-to fight him off. The reason for her acquiescence was not far to seek.
-The glass before her contained the remains of a "Pink Lady," which
-tastes like an ice-cream soda and kicks like four Kentucky mules.</p>
-
-<p>She moved her left hand to pick up the glass, and Jerry caught the
-flash of a circlet of channel-set baguette diamonds on the third
-finger. He concluded that she was the wife of the whiskey baritone.
-That worthy seemed utterly unconcerned about the whole thing, so why
-should Jerry interfere?</p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <img src="images/illus4.jpg" width="491" height="500" alt=""/>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p>The racetrack tout left his conquest momentarily, walked over to the
-bar, handed the bartender a five-spot. Without comment, the bartender
-took down a key tagged 13 from a hook, and the turf expert pocketed
-it. There was a dingy sign reading "Hotel" outside; Jerry had always
-supposed the floors above contained equally dingy furnished rooms.</p>
-
-<p>The beautiful tourist's silver heels mounted the back stairs
-unsteadily. The tout was half steering her, half supporting her. The
-man was sober enough to know exactly what he was doing. When she came
-back down those stairs, she would be minus not only her virtue, but
-her diamond necklace as well.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, he knew the world was round-o, that sailors could be found-o," the
-whiskey baritone sang lustily.</p>
-
-<p>Jerry left the saloon with a bad taste in his mouth. As he passed
-through the electric-eye doorway of his office suite, he had the
-impression that the too perfect inhabitants of all the color
-advertising pages he had turned out in past years had suddenly come to
-life. Handsome tourists were moving, in chattering groups, from one
-display case to another.</p>
-
-<p>Their chatter, as usual, gave him few clues. He still harbored a
-suspicion that on their home planets, these lovely people might be
-symbiotes in the bodies of lower animals, or loathsome but intellectual
-worms. But he never had any success when he tried to pump them about
-whether they were like Earth inhabitants at home, or were issued these
-magnificent bodies and faces along with their passports to Earth.</p>
-
-<p>His unreasoning dislike of the males was undoubtedly part jealousy,
-for they were all tall, handsome, well-dressed, and athletic enough to
-be signed en masse by Hollywood. But the universal utter perfection of
-limb, features, and complexion, was not at all repulsive in the female.
-It was quite decorative to have a whole chorus of toothsome girls in
-Paris gowns cluttering up the office.</p>
-
-<p>Jerry had never seen one of them use a lipstick, rouge, or an
-eyebrow pencil. The cosmetic business was one of the few that had
-not profited from the tourist trade, except insofar as lady tourists
-bought costly perfumes, and Earthgirls strove to mimic the natural&mdash;or
-unnatural&mdash;coloring of the fair visitors. A few tourists brought their
-children along, and here the firm, rosy, unblemished skin was in its
-proper element. Tourist children were not one whit more cherubic than
-well-favored children of Earth.</p>
-
-<p>A guide from the Conducted Tours Company arrived to round up a
-batch of tourists, for a visit to the local jails, flop-houses, and
-gambling dens. He announced they would go by bus, and the horrified
-yet delighted whoops that greeted this news reminded Jerry of a Boston
-society dowager who had just been invited to ride on a camel.</p>
-
-<p>As the crowd trickled out the doors, a lovely vision in platinum blonde
-laid a slender hand on Jerry's arm.</p>
-
-<p>"Are you really the man who first thought of inviting us to this quaint
-and delightful planet?" she gushed.</p>
-
-<p>"I guess I am, lady. How do you like it?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, it's so primitive! So elemental! Everybody used to think visiting
-backward planets was dull and scholarly stuff. It took <i>you</i> to show us
-how thrilling and exciting it can be!"</p>
-
-<p>"I'm glad to hear you say that. Some of the tourists are complaining
-that Earth isn't as primitive as the Tourist Bureau advertising makes
-it out to be."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, you <i>do</i> exaggerate a wee, tiny bit, but it's all in good fun,
-isn't it? On the whole, I'm not disappointed&mdash;especially not in the
-<i>men</i>!" She fluttered eyelashes, so long and dark that they looked
-artificial, at him.</p>
-
-<p>"The men?" Jerry asked blankly.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, come, come!" the platinum blonde breathed throatily into his ear.
-"Don't pretend to be so innocent! You must have heard of the simply
-<i>terrific</i> reputation Earthmen have acquired on other planets as
-masterful lovers!"</p>
-
-<p>"It's news to me," Jerry admitted, "but it sounds like a good drawing
-card. I'll try to work something like that into our ads."</p>
-
-<p>"Always thinking about business, aren't you? Why don't you think of
-something else, for a change? Me, for instance. Don't you feel a little
-bit sorry for a girl like me, with nothing but perfectly civilized men
-to go home to?" the girl pouted invitingly.</p>
-
-<p>Jerry found himself, by imperceptible stages, being backed into a
-corner. Well, well, he thought. Perhaps he'd been too harsh in judging
-that racetrack tout.</p>
-
-<p>"Since you mention it," Jerry said, "I'm not averse to playing the role
-of Galactic beachboy."</p>
-
-<p>"What does a beachboy do?"</p>
-
-<p>"I'd blush to explain it verbally to a girl unaccustomed to primitive
-Earth customs, but I'm pretty good at sign language. How about dinner
-tonight?"</p>
-
-<p>"Well ... if you'll let me pay the check. I do so adore this amazing
-Earth custom of exchanging food for little slips of paper."</p>
-
-<p>"The pleasure is all yours, sister. See you at the Ritz main dining
-room&mdash;eight o'clock. Soup and fish. Afterward, we'll look at my
-photo-murals. Now toddle along, baby, if you want to catch the bus to
-see those hoboes."</p>
-
-<p>Jerry was walking on the Milky Way. Aside from the profits, this job
-had its esthetic side, he decided. His exuberance was slightly dampened
-by the grim expression on his secretary's face.</p>
-
-<p>"A very important man has been waiting to see you," she said
-disapprovingly. "I sent him into your office. The least I could do was
-put him where he wouldn't have to smell all the perfume these brazen
-tourist women use. It's enough to make a person ill!"</p>
-
-<p>In the visitor's chair before Jerry's mother-of-pearl inlaid desk,
-the Ambassador from Outer Space was waiting, staring morosely at the
-endlessly repeated welcoming goddess Terra on Jerry's wall stamp
-collection.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, as I live and breathe!" Jerry exclaimed, "a real, live B-29
-pilot! Welcome to my humble grass shack! Scotch? Cigar? What can I do
-for you?"</p>
-
-<p>"You can put out your bonfire, cannibal," the Ambassador said, gruffly.
-"I think I've stewed enough."</p>
-
-<p>"Why are you tough, then?" Jerry asked. "At me, I mean. I thought I was
-your best friend in this here jungle. Didn't I do you a favor once, Mr.
-Ambassador?"</p>
-
-<p>"A <i>favor</i>? I paid you well for it! Not only in money, but by getting
-advertising space for your precious Tourist Bureau on the Federated
-Planets. I never thought it would lead to this!"</p>
-
-<p>"You thought my copy wouldn't pull, eh? Not even after I'd demonstrated
-I could make Earth opinion do a flip-flop on that Matter Repositor
-deal?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, I was quite sure you could manipulate Earthmen. That's your job.
-But I didn't believe our people would respond in such numbers to an
-appeal to primitive emotions!"</p>
-
-<p>"You weren't alone in that," Jerry said smugly. "Some very prominent
-members, of our organization wanted to make the campaign more
-civilized. I showed them where they were wrong. Can't you see that your
-people are fed up with civilization, right up to their pretty white
-necks? The very essence of Earth's appeal to them is that a trip here
-gives them a chance to relax their ethics, to play at going native."</p>
-
-<p>"Don't rub it in!" The Ambassador shuddered.</p>
-
-<p>"It's nothing new. Tourists have always kicked up their heels. Guess
-what I saw while I was out to lunch. The cops grabbed a couple of your
-boys for shoplifting! They thought it was such fun to ride in the
-paddy-wagon. Back home, of course, they wouldn't think of repositing
-anything they weren't supposed to, but on Earth it's different."</p>
-
-<p>"And for monkeyshines like that," the Ambassador growled, "I am
-driven half crazy working out sleep-record courses. '<i>Idioms of Earth
-English</i>'&mdash;'<i>What Not to Say on Backward Planets and Why</i>'&mdash;'<i>Earth
-Fashion Guide, What You Can Buy There and What to Reposit</i>.' Bah! I'm
-supposed to be a diplomat, not a fashion adviser!"</p>
-
-<p>"Why don't you hire some help?" Jerry suggested.</p>
-
-<p>"I have. I've hired a whole staff, with offices in all major Earth
-cities, to exchange platinum, bullion, and precious stones for Earth
-currencies. It's a man-sized job, I can tell you, to keep Earth
-currencies stable under this load!"</p>
-
-<p>"You're doing a very good job," Jerry said, soothingly.</p>
-
-<p>"You know what one of our citizens asked me yesterday? <i>How she could
-get a marriage license!</i> Your officials had turned her down, because
-she'd been conditioned not to mention her birthplace and age. Mind you,
-a citizen of the Federated Planets wanted to marry an Earthman and live
-on this raw, Galactic frontier the rest of her life! Why, we don't even
-know whether the races can cross-breed!"</p>
-
-<p>"That should be looked into," Jerry agreed.</p>
-
-<p>"What are you trying to do?" the Ambassador demanded, "Drag the
-citizens of the Federated Planets down to the level of your jungle?
-You blithely assume those two shoplifters can be trusted with Matter
-Repositors when they get back home, but I'm not so sure. We haven't
-any jails to toss them into, but we may have to establish some.
-Matter-Repositor-proof jails!"</p>
-
-<p>"That's your problem," Jerry said. "All I'm trying to do is make some
-money for myself and, other businessmen on Earth. Which I'm doing,
-thank you. And I doubt that you could stop me, at this point. Your
-citizens would raise quite a howl if my ads stopped appearing in the
-information bulletins."</p>
-
-<p>"Money!" the Ambassador exclaimed, "All you Earthmen think about is
-money!" He leaned over Jerry's desk. "What if you could reposit the
-money&mdash;the gold, that is&mdash;without all the work you have to put into
-entertaining these tourists?"</p>
-
-<p>"Hmm," Jerry said, thinking of his date for that evening, and other
-equally lovely tourists. "Money isn't the only thing in life. And don't
-forget the income tax. I've got to have some deductible expenses."</p>
-
-<p>"Knowing you, I'd bet you could figure out some way of handling that
-little detail."</p>
-
-<p>"What's your proposition?"</p>
-
-<p>"Two years ago, you came to my office, wanting to import Matter
-Repositors. I told you Earth's civilization wasn't ready for them."</p>
-
-<p>"We still aren't, according to what you say about our avaricious
-instincts."</p>
-
-<p>"No, you're not. But you have methods of manipulating public opinion
-and attitudes that are far more advanced than those found on other
-planets."</p>
-
-<p>"So you admit that Earth is advanced in <i>something</i>!" Jerry said
-happily.</p>
-
-<p>"How would you like to have the name of Jerry Jergins go down in your
-history as the originator of the most significant public-relations
-campaign ever undertaken on this planet?" the Ambassador asked,
-temptingly. "You can handle it, if any man on Earth can."</p>
-
-<p>"Softsoaping me again! What's the campaign? I'll listen to it, but I
-don't know whether I'll buy it."</p>
-
-<p>"Your job would be to get Earth's psychology and sociology ready for
-the Matter Repositor."</p>
-
-<p>Jerry reflected. "You mean I'd have to eliminate war, supplement the
-Voice of America, and so on? I'd have certain advantages over the Voice
-of America, at that. I wouldn't have a bunch of politicians playing
-football with my appropriations."</p>
-
-<p>"This campaign would have to go further and deeper than the Voice of
-America. You might call it the Voice of Conscience. Its aim would be
-to make every human being on Earth care more about the welfare of his
-fellow-man than he cares about his own."</p>
-
-<p>"A couple of thousand years back," Jerry said, soberly, "a better
-Promoter than I tried to put that idea across. The campaign He started
-is still running. It's taken hold in some quarters, but I wouldn't say
-public acceptance is anything like worldwide yet."</p>
-
-<p>"Then you don't think you can do it?" the Ambassador asked, his
-eagerness somewhat deflated.</p>
-
-<p>"I'm not committing myself to whether I could or couldn't. I could put
-the Ten Commandments on an international hookup. Thou shalt not steal.
-Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor his goods. I could get Walt Disney to
-dramatize the golden rule."</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, I see you have some ideas for the copy already," the Ambassador
-said. "I thought I could get you interested in it. Then you'll sign a
-contract?"</p>
-
-<p>"No," Jerry said, briefly and definitely.</p>
-
-<p>"Now, wait a minute, Mr. Jergins," the Ambassador protested. "Why
-do you suddenly become blunt and unqualified? Do you realize what
-I'm offering you? In return for ceasing this tourist promotion, I'm
-offering you the invention that obsolesces all others&mdash;the Matter
-Repositor!"</p>
-
-<p>Jerry stood up and placed the palms of his hands flat on his desk.
-"I told you that you'd learn something in our primitive jungle, Mr.
-Ambassador. Well, this is it. We may be mechanical morons, according
-to your standards, but we naked savages can produce anything we need.
-Since we've corrected the misconception that what Earth produces isn't
-good enough for Earthmen, and whipped up a tourist trade, business is
-booming. And when it booms, we can distribute those Earth products in a
-way that suits us pretty well. A primitive way, you may think, but one
-that is adapted to the unfortunate circumstance that we aren't a bunch
-of little tin saints living in an ideal world.</p>
-
-<p>"I asked you for Matter Repositors once, and you were wise enough to
-turn me down. I'm glad you did. They'd cause us more trouble than the
-atomic bomb. We don't want the damn things. Do <i>you</i> understand <i>that</i>?"</p>
-
-<p>On sudden impulse, Jerry strode across his office. There stood a large
-and brilliantly colored object, jarring oddly with the other furniture.
-Sometimes at a loss to spend his newly acquired wealth, Jerry had
-yielded, a month or so before, to a desire conceived in childhood to
-own a real honest-to-goodness juke box.</p>
-
-<p>Jerry fished in his pocket for a nickel, deposited it in the slot,
-pushed button seven. Loud, tinny, and offensively blatant, the strains
-of "I Don't Wanna Leave the Congo" filled the office, effectively
-drowning out any further remarks the Ambassador from Outer Space might
-have wished to make.</p>
-
-<p>"If you'll pardon me," Jerry shouted over the din, "I have some arrow
-heads to chip&mdash;and a potential extraterrestrial mate to woo with a
-quaint tribal ritual we call dating on Earth."</p>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
-End of Project Gutenberg's The Pilot and the Bushman, by Sylvia Jacobs
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