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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78749 ***
+
+
+
+
+                             Coffin for Two
+
+                          by Winston K. Marks
+
+
+
+
+  He returned to Earth after three years, with stars in his eyes and
+  Gwen in his heart. But Gwen had no heart--and a star on her brow!
+
+
+
+
+When I saw the lights of Albany Field below me I just about cried.
+It takes guts to live anywhere by yourself for three years, but that
+itchy, stinking garden of hell out on Venus does things to you that
+aren’t worth money. Not even the kind of money I’d get for the two tons
+of refined uranium concentrate I prospected out of Callispo Valley.
+
+Well, that was all over, and I just sat there at the controls trying
+not to bawl. I set her down, gunned up to the Import Shed, checked in
+my cargo by short-wave--God, but that first voice sounded good,--and
+turned the 40-ton crate over to the Port Receiver. And then the first
+human eyes in three years watched me shake out fourteen inches of beard
+and climb down on good old U. S. A., Earth, dirt.
+
+He was the surface jockey, a blond young man in a black jumper, and I
+almost hugged him I was so glad to see flesh and blood again. I was
+especially glad, although a little surprised they hadn’t sent out one
+of those gangly robot jockeys they were beginning to use at the ports
+when I left for Venus. It would have been a hell of a homecoming,
+staring into those fish eyes for a welcoming committee.
+
+I pumped his hand and said, “Boy, do you look good to me! How come no
+robots on duty around here? And what’s the red star on your forehead
+for?”
+
+“Welcome home, mister,” he said. “You must have been out there for
+quite a while. You’ll find things changed, I imagine. If you want I’ll
+take over now.”
+
+Sure. Things were bound to be changed after three years. But not
+certain people, not Tommy and Alec and Forest and--and maybe not even
+Gwendolyn. I didn’t dare to expect that Gwen was still waiting for me,
+but I couldn’t help hoping.
+
+I knocked the glass out of a phone booth getting in and started
+punching coins into the slot. Tommy was out, but Alec answered and
+swore a grand welcome. He’d have the gang rounded up at his flat in two
+hours.
+
+“I’ll be there soon as I get my lawn mowed,” I told him. “And say, how
+about, uh, is Gwen still around?”
+
+“Of course. She’ll be there.” Just like that.
+
+I noticed everyone on the taxi ramp wore red stars, five-pointed
+affairs about an inch across, right smack in the middle of their
+foreheads. Funny kind of a fad, I thought. Nobody had paid much
+attention to me around the Port, but when I got out of the cab at the
+Vilt Hotel I got long goings-over. The driver wore a red star. So did
+the hotel clerk, and a woman in an ermine wrap, and about nine-tenths
+of the people in the lobby. I stared as hard at them as they did at me.
+
+I got a room and took a bath. Then, feeling self-conscious in my
+out-of-date clothes, I went down to the barbershop. Here I got a real
+surprise. The barbers were barbers! The shoe-shine boy and the porter
+were amiable looking darkies!
+
+He no more got the bib under my chin than I asked, “What happened to
+all the robots? Not that I prefer them, you understand. But what’s the
+score? I’ve been away, and I thought--”
+
+The barber grinned. “You must have been away. I suppose you mean those
+animated junk piles three or four years ago. They’re gone. Nothing on
+the hoof but Government issue now.” Without any comment he clapped a
+rubber something over my nose and I took a dive.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When I woke up my beard was on the floor, I was trimmed, shaved,
+manicured and shined. That being my first brush with barbershop
+anaesthetic, now I understood the sign on the mirror: WE FEATURE THE
+NEW DREAM SERVICE. This new wrinkle made me forget about the robots.
+But one thing I did notice. In this barbershop there were only five
+chairs where they used to have them strung out as far as you could see.
+And there was something else that should have tipped me off to the
+situation. All the other four chairs were occupied by fellows without
+red stars on their faces.
+
+But me, I was space-happy about then with the prospect of seeing Gwen
+and the gang, so I didn’t think any more of it at the time. I caught
+an interurban Hedge-Hopper for New York and spent the time wondering a
+game of she-loves-me, she-loves-me-not.
+
+Alec had done pretty well in two hours. Almost everybody I knew in New
+York State was jammed into his apartment when I got there. I looked
+around for Gwen. Forest said she’d be along pretty soon. She came in
+on Tommy’s arm looking about as sweet as the girl you’re still in love
+with can look. She held out her arms and kissed me, but there was a
+little too much “Welcome home” in that hug, and not enough “Gee, Bill,
+but I’ve missed you!” to suit me. Tommy didn’t approve too much of what
+she did give me, but he seemed cordial enough at first.
+
+So things were like that. Old Pal, Old Gal, and Absence Makes the
+Heart Go Wander.
+
+Gwen wasn’t wearing a diamond, so I said to myself, nuts, Tommy’s a
+nice guy, but he wasted too much time. After awhile I got her alone out
+on Alec’s little balcony. It developed that Tommy had made more headway
+than I figured. She was pretty stand-offish at first.
+
+I was just beginning to get somewhere when the door jerked open behind
+us. Tommy saw me with my arm around Gwen’s shoulder. He looked mean,
+and that red star on his forehead made him look meaner.
+
+“What’s up, Tommy!” I asked.
+
+“Your number’s up if you don’t lay off Gwen. She’s my girl now.”
+
+“Hey, wait a minute,” I said. “This is still America.”
+
+“Come on, Gwen.” He took her arm and jerked. I was in no mood for that.
+I lined out a left jab across his bow. Somehow a fist got in my way. It
+was Tommy’s fist, and I could feel a couple of bones in my hand crack
+when our knuckles met.
+
+He said, “Go away!” giving me a little shove that almost dumped me over
+the railing for a six-story glide. By the time I got untangled Tommy
+had towed Gwen out of the flat.
+
+I went back to the party almost as mad as I was curious. I collared
+Alec and asked him, “Since when did Tommy become an ironman? I used to
+toss him around like a sparrow. And incidentally what’s all this red
+star business? It looks pretty silly to me.”
+
+Alec looked at me kind of funny. “You don’t--know what the red star
+signifies?” I shook my head, and he frowned. “Look,” he said, “let’s
+have a party tonight, and I’ll tell you all about it in the morning.”
+
+That was all right with me. This crowded flat was getting on my nerves,
+so I invited the whole mob into a fleet of cabs and went searching for
+some night life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We were barely out in the lights when a snubby little vehicle whammed
+out of a sidepass and just about pulverized our lead cab.
+
+“Oh, that’s too bad!” Alec said. “I think Forest and Kelly were in that
+one. They’ll hate to miss this party.”
+
+“Too bad?” I shouted. “My God, is that all it is when a couple of your
+buddies get ground into a pudding? Look at that mess.”
+
+That’s all our driver did, was to glance at the two smoking, half-fused
+lumps of machinery then swing out around them and back into traffic.
+Alec caught my arm.
+
+“Take it easy, Bill. They’re not hurt. That’s all part of this new
+set-up. I guess I’d better tell you now.”
+
+I guessed he better had. My stomach was rising and about to shine. I
+said, “None of your supersurgery is going to do those boys any good.
+They’re pulp!”
+
+“Bill, there isn’t a spot of real flesh and blood back there on the
+pavement, unless the cab driver was _fleshing it_, and damned few of
+them do.” Just then the cab stopped. Alec shouted to the rest that we’d
+be back pretty soon. He turned on the dome-light and told the driver to
+cruise around.
+
+Tapping his red star solemnly he said, “Bill, have you ever thought
+about _not dying_--ever?” He stuck out a bare hand. He cramped his
+fingers, wiggled them, pressed each against his thumb then grabbed my
+hand and gave it a squeeze. It felt warm and human until he put the
+pressure on. I got the sensation of being caught in a hydraulic vise.
+There was inhuman power in those slender fingers.
+
+“Jab it and it’ll jump. Cut it and it’ll bleed. Freeze it and it would
+rot off if you didn’t replace it. It’s fifty per cent stronger and
+reacts with greater sensitivity and coordination than the hand I was
+born with.”
+
+I didn’t understand yet, but I was getting disgusted already. Alec
+said, “Now keep your mind open a minute, Bill. Here, I’ll show you some
+more.” He bared the right half of his upper torso. Touching a spot
+in his armpit he laid open a flap of skin over his right breast. In
+a four-inch cubic cavity snuggled a red rubber lump with two tubular
+outlets that buried their opposite ends in his body. “That’s the power
+pick-up. The sympathetic mechanism is in the skull.”
+
+I watched him rearrange his clothing. I said, “So the red star
+signifies a robot? So I’ve been on a party with a bunch of pretty
+synthetics? Okay, Mister Rubber-Liver, now tell me what happened to
+Alec. Where is he? DON’T tell me they cut his heart and brain out and
+stuck it in that phony flesh-pot. I don’t believe it, and if you don’t
+tell me where Alec is I’ll scramble your cogs.”
+
+What I had been calling “Alec” laughed nervously and realistically.
+“You give me the same chills we all had when we first tried these
+_proxies_ out. It does seem a bit ghastly at first, but it’s all
+so perfect that you can’t argue it down. Bill, I’m in two places
+at once. Right now my real body is back at my apartment in an
+indestructible--well, you won’t like the word, but we call them
+coffins. Oh, very well, don’t believe me. I’ll show you, by heaven!”
+
+We drove back to his apartment. I was so befuddled it didn’t even seem
+strange when he told me to wait beside him while he stretched out full
+length in front of a closed door leading out of his kitchenette. He
+relaxed and then sagged even more, until he was motionless at my feet.
+The door clicked an inch ajar behind me. Alec’s voice yelled out _from
+the room_. “Wait a minute, Bill.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I wasn’t waiting. I was finding out. I kicked the door open and
+found myself in a five-by-eight cell with just enough room for the
+narrow door to swing in and miss a sure-enough coffin. Only it was
+transparent, and the body in it was just lying down making itself
+comfortable. A white arm was reaching up to close the lid when the head
+turned and saw me.
+
+It was Alec, all right, naked and looking kind of annoyed. “Dammit,
+Bill, I told you--well, it’s no longer sterile in here, so come in.” He
+shoved back the lid, got out and took a robe off a hook.
+
+“Are you convinced now?” He grinned and stuck out his hand. I was
+convinced, but I wasn’t happy about it.
+
+“Yeah, I suppose so,” I admitted, “but now that I’m here, how does it
+work?”
+
+He put on the robe and reached down inside the coffin. “These two
+levers control the whole business. This one,” he pressed it, “cuts
+in the proxy. When my head is between those electrode plates I’m in
+perfect rapport. Watch.”
+
+He bent into the coffin. I heard a shuffle on the kitchen floor, and
+in walked another Alec. I looked from one to the other. It wasn’t a
+healthy sensation. I said, “Cut it out. One of you guys is enough at a
+time.” The proxy lay down carefully, and Alec withdrew his head.
+
+“This other lever controls the lamps and the gas.” He moved it, and
+the glass box filled with a smoky blue light from tubes that ran the
+length of the inside edges. “That fog is an organic gas that seeps in
+at specific rate. It’s mixed with oxygen, and when you inhale it your
+lungs absorb it directly into the blood stream. In the presence of this
+ultra-violet H-light your body can utilize the stuff by photosynthesis.
+A shot of synthetic porphyrins once a month keeps up an abnormal
+sensitivity to light, and your blood stream manufactures enough
+carbohydrates to supply the minimum energy you use up lying prone and
+in your hour’s exercise a day.”
+
+“Exercise?”
+
+“Of course. There would be general atrophy of the whole body if
+you didn’t flex your muscles once in awhile. This short-wave light
+keeps your organs toned up and inhibits infection. The whole room
+is sterilized once a day or whenever the door is opened. The door,
+incidentally, locks only on the inside.”
+
+“What,” I asked, “would happen if I lay down in there?”
+
+“Nothing. You’ll have to have your own proxy molded and synchronized.
+They’re one-man affairs.”
+
+“Whatever made you think I’d have one of those blasted things around
+impersonating me,” I grouched.
+
+“Hell, you’re impossible. Get out of here. I’m going to sterilize this
+room.”
+
+I slammed out of the apartment before Alec’s proxy came to life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next morning I got Gwen on the phone. She was still a little cool,
+but she apologized. “It wasn’t fair for Tommy to push you around while
+you were _fleshing it_. If you reported him he’d stand a stiff fine.”
+
+“He’ll stand a carbon knock in his carburetor if he crosses me again,”
+I promised her. “How about you and me at the Vilt Ballroom tonight--in
+the flesh?” I added. There was a little silence.
+
+“You don’t understand, Bill. We don’t flesh it unless something serious
+happens to our proxies, and then only until they’re repaired. Besides,
+you’d better stay away from me until your proxy is completed. Tommy has
+taken certain proprietary rights in me these days, and he’s terribly
+jealous.”
+
+In my Sunday vocabulary I told her what the Government Health Bureau
+could do with their proxies. She took this as a reflection upon
+herself, which it more or less was, I guess. Anyway, she hung up on me.
+
+The first thing, I decided, was to teach Tommy the Open Door Policy. I
+didn’t want him butting in when I got in the swing with Gwen. I found
+his proxy at his office behind a lucite door labeled, ASSISTANT TRAFFIC
+MANAGER, Stratas Five.
+
+“Tommy,” I said, “for the sake of old times I won’t pop you. But get
+this straight, next time you shove that plastic nose into my business
+your proxy’ll be crying for a proxy. Incidentally, if you ever have
+guts enough to play paddy-cake for keeps, leave that super-stand-in at
+home and come see me.”
+
+Tommy smiled with a set of perfect, of course, teeth. “The trouble with
+you, Bill, is that you’re in my office. Your flesh is stinking up the
+place. Get out.”
+
+“Tommy, stand up and defend yourself.”
+
+Tommy not only stood up but he slapped down my special one-two punch
+like an Oreus Bug-eater spanking flies. Then he threw me out.
+
+This was getting not only monotonous but kind of painful. Now both
+hands ached, and I bled from minor lacerations I won’t identify.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I got pretty interested watching them put my first proxy together
+that afternoon. It was much more complicated than I had thought. Only
+the skeletal structure was inanimate when brought into short-wave
+rapport. There was a heart and a regular bloodstream. They explained
+that a nervous system operates under more influences than afferent
+and efferent control impulses, and in order to give sensation and
+emotional reaction they had to include synthetic glands to release
+real secretions like adrenalin. Hence, they needed a bloodstream,
+which distributed the various juices and produced authentic reactions
+and adjustments to the emotional stimuli of the real body and the
+environmental conditions of the proxy.
+
+It wasn’t a bad experience at all. They even warmed the mud for the
+moulage cast, and it felt kind of good mushing around in it until I
+got told to lie still. The first proof of the matrix showed every mole
+and hair on me, even the tiny insect scars I collected on Venus.
+
+I was sitting there admiring the finished product--it’s a funny
+sensation getting the first good look at the back of your neck--when a
+guy stepped up with a short-handled hammer and potted my poor proxy on
+the forehead. The damned indelible red star! It reminded me of certain
+aspects of second-hand living that had slipped my mind.
+
+This ghoulish feeling got even stronger that night when I lay down
+in my new apartment, in my new cell, in my new coffin. Following
+directions, I had locked the door from the inside, stripped, sterilized
+the cell and pulled the transparent coffin lid down over me. The two
+levers jutted conveniently by my hand. I pushed the first one and had
+to close my eyes against the sharp H-light. A warm draft of sweetish
+gas drifted in, smelling like grass right after it’s cut. The deadly
+silence and this smell reminded me of a cemetery. I noted my heart
+slow down, then I didn’t seem to need such deep breaths. This was
+approaching the state of semi-suspended animation they had explained
+would lengthen a man’s life span almost indefinitely.
+
+When I pulled the second lever something seemed to jar my brain into
+a long tunnel full of mercury. At one end was this coffin affair and
+my earthly clay. The other end let out through the eyes of my proxy in
+the white laboratory of the Government Health Bureau eight miles away.
+After a few minutes of this mental ice-skating I decided to take over
+my understudy, which just required, apparently, a curious feeling as to
+what was going on at the other end of the line.
+
+I stood my new container up on its feet and did a little experimental
+shadow-boxing. After a few minutes a blonde, red-star female came
+in and tossed me a towel to wipe off the salty scum of synthetic
+perspiration and said, “Nothing wrong with that build. It’ll get you
+there and back. If you want to leave now, your clothes are in there.”
+
+The long mirror in the dressing room showed the one flaw in my proxy. I
+was _supposed_ to be blushing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Back at the apartment I smeared some makeup over the red star. My
+Venusian complexion, which was still about the color of an old soccer
+ball, and which they had refused to improve in my proxy, made it easy
+to disguise the mark. It was a penitentiary offense I’d been told, but
+I wanted to find out something about Tommy.
+
+Knowing that Gwen had a date with Tommy, I got there early. She let me
+in and then invited me to get out. “Tommy’ll be here any minute,” she
+told me, avoiding her star with a powder puff.
+
+I said, “You almost look human in that purple outfit.”
+
+“Well, I don’t want blood spattered all over it,” she said. “Oh Bill,
+why didn’t you get a proxy. I--I think a great deal of both of you.
+You’re no match for Tommy’s proxy. Tommy will kill you, then he’ll be
+executed, then I’ll throw away my proxy and let myself dry up to be an
+old maid.”
+
+“I don’t quite get this Gwen. You’ve changed a lot. The Gwen I used to
+know hated a bully. You stand there and tell me that Tommy will use his
+proxy to mash me up in my skin, and still you’re sweet on him.”
+
+She looked just a little embarrassed. “You aren’t used to things yet,
+Bill. The ethics are changed. If you stay you’ll be leering at Tommy
+and baiting him. You know what a temper he has.”
+
+“Well, my ethics haven’t changed any,” I said. “And personally, I doubt
+that you’re right about Tommy. I like Tommy. We were pals. Sure he’s
+got a temper, but if it’s changed him into an adolescent maniac, then
+maybe you shouldn’t be running around with him. Anyhow, we’ll find out
+pretty soon.”
+
+“The hard way.” She looked so bleak and concerned I knew she wasn’t
+just feeling sorry for herself. The trouble was I couldn’t be sure if
+it was Tommy or me she was really worried about. I finally figured
+there was one way of finding out, but I got only half way to her when
+Tommy busted in. Very sweet he looked until he saw me.
+
+I led off, “Hello, Pinocchio. Do you look smooth! Who takes the dents
+out of your fenders these days?” I was surprised to notice Gwen sit
+back in her chair, interested but not so fearful looking any more.
+Tommy glared for a second, then he said, “You!”
+
+“Right,” I admitted. “I see your headlights are adjusted, too. Well, if
+you people are going out for the evening, I guess I’ll go home and rest
+up. See you tomorrow, Gwen.”
+
+Science is wonderful. They’ve even improved on a man’s sneer. Tommy’s
+lips twisted into something like what a pretzel-maker would dream
+about. Deep down in his rubber throat he said, “This is what you asked
+for.”
+
+I dived over the sofa and yelled, “Take it easy, you lug. What are you
+going to do?”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I let him catch me the third time around the sofa. He knocked down the
+few feeble cracks I took at him, then he got ahold of my throat. I
+wilted and waited. Here was the answer.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A proxy breathes, but only for the purpose of talking. All the vital
+arteries and nerve threads being buried good and deep, it was easy to
+let his fingers gouge in. All I felt was the surface pain which there
+was plenty of.
+
+Just when my eyes were supposed to come popping out of my head I quit
+play-acting. I reached up and scrubbed my red star clean for Tommy to
+look at. “Leggo my tie,” I commanded, and he did.
+
+“That’s--illegal!” he gagged. It was surprising how fast he cooled off.
+Of course he’d been meaning to break a rule or two himself, and it was
+only my Trojan Horse in reverse that had stopped him.
+
+He turned on Gwen and shouted, “That’s a fine sweetheart you are! Why
+didn’t you warn me?”
+
+“Why Tommy, against what?” she asked innocently. “Besides, I didn’t
+know for sure. I only guessed.”
+
+“I don’t know what you can see in a Venusian mud mucker, but if you
+want him take him.”
+
+“Thank you,” Gwen said. “Maybe it’s his ethics I like. Don’t bother
+dropping in at the wedding.”
+
+For a second I thought Tommy was going to throw his proxy into battle,
+but I guess he reconsidered the fact that with my proxy I had gotten
+back my old muscle ratio in proportion to his somewhat puny one.
+Knowing how hard he was going to take this jilt, I wouldn’t even have
+kicked him in the pants if he hadn’t used a dirty word on the way out.
+
+Gwen shut the door after him and said, “He meant to kill you.”
+
+I asked her, “Were you serious about that wedding?”
+
+“You just ruined the self-respect of my only other prospect. Do I have
+to get down on my hands and knees?”
+
+“I guess that does leave me a clear field, doesn’t it?”
+
+She looked at me half smiling and half not smiling. “Well, Bill, what
+have I done to deserve all that enthusiasm? Come to think of it, this
+was my idea, wasn’t it?”
+
+Right here I was supposed to say something and put it all right, but
+the something wouldn’t come. Gwen came over and turned up her face. If
+those had been her real eyes they’d have had tears in them.
+
+She said, “It looks like I stuck my neck out. Maybe I’ll learn not to
+take a proxy for granted.”
+
+“That’s just it,” I managed to say. “I really wanted to marry you three
+years ago, and I still feel that way about the real--you. But I just
+can’t get feeling like that about a rubber doll even if it does look
+like you.”
+
+“Oh,” she said and looked down so I couldn’t see her face.
+
+“Look, Gwen,” I hesitated, then I blurted out, “How do these proxy
+people go about getting married?”
+
+“Same as always. Hunt up a minister and take the vows.”
+
+“And--then what?” I insisted, and at that instant I made a discovery:
+_Lady_ proxies can blush!
+
+“And then you go out and buy a coffin for two,” she murmured into my
+mangled necktie.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Note:
+
+
+ This etext was produced from Imaginative Tales, September 1955 (Vol. 2,
+No. 1). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+copyright on this publication was renewed.
+
+ Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but minor
+inconsistencies have been retained as printed.
+
+ The illustration has been moved to better fit the story.
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78749 ***
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+
+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78749 ***</div>
+
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowe116_5000" id="cover">
+  <img class="w20" src="images/cover.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      Transcribed from Imaginative Tales, September 1955 (Vol. 2, No. 1).
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div>
+<h1>
+Coffin for Two
+</h1>
+
+
+<p class="f15 center">by <strong>Winston K. Marks</strong></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>He returned to Earth after three years, with stars in his eyes and Gwen
+in his heart. But Gwen had no heart—and a star on her brow!</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div>
+
+
+<p>When I saw the lights of Albany Field below me I just about cried.
+It takes guts to live anywhere by yourself for three years, but that
+itchy, stinking garden of hell out on Venus does things to you that
+aren’t worth money. Not even the kind of money I’d get for the two tons
+of refined uranium concentrate I prospected out of Callispo Valley.</p>
+
+<p>Well, that was all over, and I just sat there at the controls trying
+not to bawl. I set her down, gunned up to the Import Shed, checked in
+my cargo by short-wave—God, but that first voice sounded good,—and
+turned the 40-ton crate over to the Port Receiver. And then the
+first human eyes in three years watched me shake out fourteen inches
+of beard and climb down on good old U. S. A., Earth, dirt.</p>
+
+<p>He was the
+surface jockey, a blond young man in a black jumper, and I almost
+hugged him I was so glad to see flesh and blood again. I was especially
+glad, although a little surprised they hadn’t sent out one of those
+gangly robot jockeys they were beginning to use at the ports when I
+left for Venus. It would have been a hell of a homecoming, staring
+into those fish eyes for a welcoming committee.</p>
+
+<p>I pumped his hand and
+said, “Boy, do you look good to me! How come no robots on duty around
+here? And what’s the red star on your forehead for?”</p>
+
+<p>“Welcome home,
+mister,” he said. “You must have been out there for quite a while.
+You’ll find things changed, I imagine. If you want I’ll take over
+now.”</p>
+
+<p>Sure. Things were bound to be changed after three years. But
+not certain people, not Tommy and Alec and Forest and—and maybe not
+even Gwendolyn. I didn’t dare to expect that Gwen was still waiting
+for me, but I couldn’t help hoping.</p>
+
+<p>I knocked the glass out of a phone
+booth getting in and started punching coins into the slot. Tommy was
+out, but Alec answered and swore a grand welcome. He’d have the gang
+rounded up at his flat in two hours.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll be there soon as I get
+my lawn mowed,” I told him. “And say, how about, uh, is Gwen still
+around?”</p>
+
+<p>“Of course. She’ll be there.” Just like that.</p>
+
+<p>I noticed
+everyone on the taxi ramp wore red stars, five-pointed affairs about
+an inch across, right smack in the middle of their foreheads. Funny
+kind of a fad, I thought. Nobody had paid much attention to me around
+the Port, but when I got out of the cab at the Vilt Hotel I got long
+goings-over. The driver wore a red star. So did the hotel clerk, and
+a woman in an ermine wrap, and about nine-tenths of the people in the
+lobby. I stared as hard at them as they did at me.</p>
+
+<p>I got a room and
+took a bath. Then, feeling self-conscious in my out-of-date clothes,
+I went down to the barbershop. Here I got a real
+surprise. The barbers were barbers! The shoe-shine boy and the porter
+were amiable looking darkies!</p>
+
+<p>He no more got the bib under my chin
+than I asked, “What happened to all the robots? Not that I prefer
+them, you understand. But what’s the score? I’ve been away, and I
+thought—”</p>
+
+<p>The barber grinned. “You must have been away. I suppose you
+mean those animated junk piles three or four years ago. They’re gone.
+Nothing on the hoof but Government issue now.” Without any comment he
+clapped a rubber something over my nose and I took a dive.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>When I woke
+up my beard was on the floor, I was trimmed, shaved, manicured and
+shined. That being my first brush with barbershop anaesthetic, now I
+understood the sign on the mirror: WE FEATURE THE NEW DREAM SERVICE.
+This new wrinkle made me forget about the robots. But one thing I did
+notice. In this barbershop there were only five chairs where they
+used to have them strung out as far as you could see. And there was
+something else that should have tipped me off to the situation. All
+the other four chairs were occupied by fellows without red stars on
+their faces.</p>
+
+<p>But me, I was space-happy about then with the prospect
+of seeing Gwen and the gang, so I didn’t think any more of it at the
+time. I caught an interurban Hedge-Hopper for New York and spent the
+time wondering a game of she-loves-me, she-loves-me-not.</p>
+
+<p>Alec had done
+pretty well in two hours. Almost everybody I knew in New York State was
+jammed into his apartment when I got there. I looked around for Gwen.
+Forest said she’d be along pretty soon. She came in on Tommy’s arm
+looking about as sweet as the girl you’re still in love with can look.
+She held out her arms and kissed me, but there was a little too much
+“Welcome home” in that hug, and not enough “Gee, Bill, but I’ve missed
+you!” to suit me. Tommy didn’t approve too much of what she did give
+me, but he seemed cordial enough at first.</p>
+
+<p>So things were like that.
+Old Pal, Old Gal, and Absence Makes the Heart Go Wander.</p>
+
+<p>Gwen wasn’t
+wearing a diamond, so I said to myself, nuts, Tommy’s a nice guy, but
+he wasted too much time. After awhile I got her alone out on Alec’s
+little balcony. It developed that Tommy had made more headway than I
+figured. She was pretty stand-offish at first.</p>
+
+<p>I was just beginning to
+get somewhere when the door jerked open behind us. Tommy saw me with
+my arm around Gwen’s shoulder. He looked mean, and
+that red star on his forehead made him look meaner.</p>
+
+<p>“What’s up, Tommy!” I asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Your number’s up if you don’t lay off Gwen. She’s my girl
+now.”</p>
+
+<p>“Hey, wait a minute,” I said. “This is still America.”</p>
+
+<p>“Come on,
+Gwen.” He took her arm and jerked. I was in no mood for that. I lined
+out a left jab across his bow. Somehow a fist got in my way. It was
+Tommy’s fist, and I could feel a couple of bones in my hand crack when
+our knuckles met.</p>
+
+<p>He said, “Go away!” giving me a little shove that
+almost dumped me over the railing for a six-story glide. By the time
+I got untangled Tommy had towed Gwen out of the flat.</p>
+
+<p>I went back to
+the party almost as mad as I was curious. I collared Alec and asked
+him, “Since when did Tommy become an ironman? I used to toss him around
+like a sparrow. And incidentally what’s all this red star business?
+It looks pretty silly to me.”</p>
+
+<p>Alec looked at me kind of funny. “You
+don’t—know what the red star signifies?” I shook my head, and he
+frowned. “Look,” he said, “let’s have a party tonight, and I’ll tell
+you all about it in the morning.”</p>
+
+<p>That was all right with me. This
+crowded flat was getting on my nerves, so I invited the whole mob
+into a fleet of cabs and went searching for some night life.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>We were
+barely out in the lights when a snubby little vehicle whammed out of
+a sidepass and just about pulverized our lead cab.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, that’s too
+bad!” Alec said. “I think Forest and Kelly were in that one. They’ll
+hate to miss this party.”</p>
+
+<p>“Too bad?” I shouted. “My God, is that all
+it is when a couple of your buddies get ground into a pudding? Look
+at that mess.”</p>
+
+<p>That’s all our driver did, was to glance at the two
+smoking, half-fused lumps of machinery then swing out around them and
+back into traffic. Alec caught my arm.</p>
+
+<p>“Take it easy, Bill. They’re
+not hurt. That’s all part of this new set-up. I guess I’d better tell
+you now.”</p>
+
+<p>I guessed he better had. My stomach was rising and about to
+shine. I said, “None of your supersurgery is going to do those boys
+any good. They’re pulp!”</p>
+
+<p>“Bill, there isn’t a spot of real flesh and
+blood back there on the pavement, unless the cab driver was <i>fleshing
+it</i>, and damned few of them do.” Just then the cab stopped. Alec shouted
+to the rest that we’d be back pretty soon. He turned on the dome-light
+and told the driver to cruise around.</p>
+
+<p>Tapping
+his red star solemnly he said, “Bill, have you ever thought about
+<i>not dying</i>—ever?” He stuck out a bare hand. He cramped his fingers,
+wiggled them, pressed each against his thumb then grabbed my hand and
+gave it a squeeze. It felt warm and human until he put the pressure
+on. I got the sensation of being caught in a hydraulic vise. There was
+inhuman power in those slender fingers.</p>
+
+<p>“Jab it and it’ll jump. Cut it
+and it’ll bleed. Freeze it and it would rot off if you didn’t replace
+it. It’s fifty per cent stronger and reacts with greater sensitivity
+and coordination than the hand I was born with.”</p>
+
+<p>I didn’t understand
+yet, but I was getting disgusted already. Alec said, “Now keep your
+mind open a minute, Bill. Here, I’ll show you some more.” He bared the
+right half of his upper torso. Touching a spot in his armpit he laid
+open a flap of skin over his right breast. In a four-inch cubic cavity
+snuggled a red rubber lump with two tubular outlets that buried their
+opposite ends in his body. “That’s the power pick-up. The sympathetic
+mechanism is in the skull.”</p>
+
+<p>I watched him rearrange his clothing. I
+said, “So the red star signifies a robot? So I’ve been on a party with
+a bunch of pretty synthetics? Okay, Mister Rubber-Liver, now tell me
+what happened to Alec. Where is he? DON’T tell me they cut his heart
+and brain out and stuck it in that phony flesh-pot. I don’t believe it,
+and if you don’t tell me where Alec is I’ll scramble your cogs.”</p>
+
+<p>What
+I had been calling “Alec” laughed nervously and realistically. “You
+give me the same chills we all had when we first tried these <i>proxies</i>
+out. It does seem a bit ghastly at first, but it’s all so perfect that
+you can’t argue it down. Bill, I’m in two places at once. Right now
+my real body is back at my apartment in an indestructible—well, you
+won’t like the word, but we call them coffins. Oh, very well, don’t
+believe me. I’ll show you, by heaven!”</p>
+
+<p>We drove back to his apartment.
+I was so befuddled it didn’t even seem strange when he told me to wait
+beside him while he stretched out full length in front of a closed
+door leading out of his kitchenette. He relaxed and then sagged even
+more, until he was motionless at my feet. The door clicked an inch
+ajar behind me. Alec’s voice yelled out <i>from the room</i>. “Wait a minute,
+Bill.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>I wasn’t waiting. I was finding out. I kicked the door open and
+found myself in a five-by-eight cell with just enough room for the
+narrow door to swing in and miss a sure-enough
+coffin. Only it was transparent, and the body in it was just lying
+down making itself comfortable. A white arm was reaching up to close
+the lid when the head turned and saw me.</p>
+
+<p>It was Alec, all right, naked
+and looking kind of annoyed. “Dammit, Bill, I told you—well, it’s
+no longer sterile in here, so come in.” He shoved back the lid, got
+out and took a robe off a hook.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you convinced now?” He grinned
+and stuck out his hand. I was convinced, but I wasn’t happy about it.</p>
+
+<p>“Yeah, I suppose so,” I admitted, “but now that I’m here, how does it
+work?”</p>
+
+<p>He put on the robe and reached down inside the coffin. “These
+two levers control the whole business. This one,” he pressed it, “cuts
+in the proxy. When my head is between those electrode plates I’m in
+perfect rapport. Watch.”</p>
+
+<p>He bent into the coffin. I heard a shuffle on
+the kitchen floor, and in walked another Alec. I looked from one to
+the other. It wasn’t a healthy sensation. I said, “Cut it out. One of
+you guys is enough at a time.” The proxy lay down carefully, and Alec
+withdrew his head.</p>
+
+<p>“This other lever controls the lamps and the gas.”
+He moved it, and the glass box filled with a smoky blue light from
+tubes that ran the length of the inside edges. “That fog is an organic
+gas that seeps in at specific rate. It’s mixed with oxygen, and when
+you inhale it your lungs absorb it directly into the blood stream.
+In the presence of this ultra-violet H-light your body can utilize
+the stuff by photosynthesis. A shot of synthetic porphyrins once a
+month keeps up an abnormal sensitivity to light, and your blood stream
+manufactures enough carbohydrates to supply the minimum energy you use
+up lying prone and in your hour’s exercise a day.”</p>
+
+<p>“Exercise?”</p>
+
+<p>“Of
+course. There would be general atrophy of the whole body if you didn’t
+flex your muscles once in awhile. This short-wave light keeps your
+organs toned up and inhibits infection. The whole room is sterilized
+once a day or whenever the door is opened. The door, incidentally,
+locks only on the inside.”</p>
+
+<p>“What,” I asked, “would happen if I lay down
+in there?”</p>
+
+<p>“Nothing. You’ll have to have your own proxy molded and
+synchronized. They’re one-man affairs.”</p>
+
+<p>“Whatever made you think I’d
+have one of those blasted things around impersonating me,” I grouched.</p>
+
+<p>“Hell, you’re impossible. Get out of here. I’m going to sterilize this
+room.”</p>
+
+<p>I slammed out of the apartment before
+Alec’s proxy came to life.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The next morning I got Gwen on the phone.
+She was still a little cool, but she apologized. “It wasn’t fair for
+Tommy to push you around while you were <i>fleshing it</i>. If you reported
+him he’d stand a stiff fine.”</p>
+
+<p>“He’ll stand a carbon knock in his
+carburetor if he crosses me again,” I promised her. “How about you and
+me at the Vilt Ballroom tonight—in the flesh?” I added. There was a
+little silence.</p>
+
+<p>“You don’t understand, Bill. We don’t flesh it unless
+something serious happens to our proxies, and then only until they’re
+repaired. Besides, you’d better stay away from me until your proxy
+is completed. Tommy has taken certain proprietary rights in me these
+days, and he’s terribly jealous.”</p>
+
+<p>In my Sunday vocabulary I told her
+what the Government Health Bureau could do with their proxies. She took
+this as a reflection upon herself, which it more or less was, I guess.
+Anyway, she hung up on me.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing, I decided, was to teach
+Tommy the Open Door Policy. I didn’t want him butting in when I got in
+the swing with Gwen. I found his proxy at his office behind a lucite
+door labeled, ASSISTANT TRAFFIC MANAGER, Stratas Five.</p>
+
+<p>“Tommy,” I said,
+“for the sake of old times I won’t pop you. But get this straight, next
+time you shove that plastic nose into my business your proxy’ll be
+crying for a proxy. Incidentally, if you ever have guts enough to play
+paddy-cake for keeps, leave that super-stand-in at home and come see
+me.”</p>
+
+<p>Tommy smiled with a set of perfect, of course, teeth. “The trouble
+with you, Bill, is that you’re in my office. Your flesh is stinking
+up the place. Get out.”</p>
+
+<p>“Tommy, stand up and defend yourself.”</p>
+
+<p>Tommy
+not only stood up but he slapped down my special one-two punch like an
+Oreus Bug-eater spanking flies. Then he threw me out.</p>
+
+<p>This was getting
+not only monotonous but kind of painful. Now both hands ached, and I
+bled from minor lacerations I won’t identify.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>I got pretty interested
+watching them put my first proxy together that afternoon. It was much
+more complicated than I had thought. Only the skeletal structure was
+inanimate when brought into short-wave rapport. There was a heart and
+a regular bloodstream. They explained that a nervous system operates
+under more influences than afferent and efferent
+control impulses, and in order to give sensation and emotional reaction
+they had to include synthetic glands to release real secretions like
+adrenalin. Hence, they needed a bloodstream, which distributed the
+various juices and produced authentic reactions and adjustments to the
+emotional stimuli of the real body and the environmental conditions of
+the proxy.</p>
+
+<p>It wasn’t a bad experience at all. They even warmed the mud
+for the moulage cast, and it felt kind of good mushing around in
+it until I got told to lie still. The first proof of the matrix showed
+every mole and hair on me, even the tiny insect scars I collected on
+Venus.</p>
+
+<p>I was sitting there admiring the finished product—it’s a funny
+sensation getting the first good look at the back of your neck—when
+a guy stepped up with a short-handled hammer and potted my poor proxy
+on the forehead. The damned indelible red star! It reminded me of
+certain aspects of second-hand living that had slipped my mind.</p>
+
+<p>This
+ghoulish feeling got even stronger that night when I lay down in my new
+apartment, in my new cell, in my new coffin. Following directions, I
+had locked the door from the inside, stripped, sterilized the cell and
+pulled the transparent coffin lid down over me. The two levers jutted
+conveniently by my hand. I pushed the first one and had to close my
+eyes against the sharp H-light. A warm draft of sweetish gas drifted
+in, smelling like grass right after it’s cut. The deadly silence and
+this smell reminded me of a cemetery. I noted my heart slow down, then
+I didn’t seem to need such deep breaths. This was approaching the state
+of semi-suspended animation they had explained would lengthen a man’s
+life span almost indefinitely.</p>
+
+<p>When I pulled the second lever something
+seemed to jar my brain into a long tunnel full of mercury. At one end
+was this coffin affair and my earthly clay. The other end let out
+through the eyes of my proxy in the white laboratory of the Government
+Health Bureau eight miles away. After a few minutes of this mental
+ice-skating I decided to take over my understudy, which just required,
+apparently, a curious feeling as to what was going on at the other end
+of the line.</p>
+
+<p>I stood my new container up on its feet and did a little
+experimental shadow-boxing. After a few minutes a blonde, red-star
+female came in and tossed me a towel to wipe off the salty scum of
+synthetic perspiration and said, “Nothing wrong with that build. It’ll
+get you there and back. If you want to leave
+now, your clothes are in there.”</p>
+
+<p>The long mirror in the dressing room
+showed the one flaw in my proxy. I was <i>supposed</i> to be blushing.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Back at the apartment I smeared some makeup over the red star. My Venusian
+complexion, which was still about the color of an old soccer ball,
+and which they had refused to improve in my proxy, made it easy to
+disguise the mark. It was a penitentiary offense I’d been told, but
+I wanted to find out something about Tommy.</p>
+
+<p>Knowing that Gwen had a
+date with Tommy, I got there early. She let me in and then invited me
+to get out. “Tommy’ll be here any minute,” she told me, avoiding her
+star with a powder puff.</p>
+
+<p>I said, “You almost look human in that purple
+outfit.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I don’t want blood spattered all over it,” she said.
+“Oh Bill, why didn’t you get a proxy. I—I think a great deal of both
+of you. You’re no match for Tommy’s proxy. Tommy will kill you, then
+he’ll be executed, then I’ll throw away my proxy and let myself dry
+up to be an old maid.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t quite get this Gwen. You’ve changed
+a lot. The Gwen I used to know hated a bully. You stand there and tell
+me that Tommy will use his proxy to mash me up in my skin, and still
+you’re sweet on him.”</p>
+
+<p>She looked just a little embarrassed. “You aren’t
+used to things yet, Bill. The ethics are changed. If you stay you’ll
+be leering at Tommy and baiting him. You know what a temper he has.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, my ethics haven’t changed any,” I said. “And personally, I doubt
+that you’re right about Tommy. I like Tommy. We were pals. Sure he’s
+got a temper, but if it’s changed him into an adolescent maniac, then
+maybe you shouldn’t be running around with him. Anyhow, we’ll find out
+pretty soon.”</p>
+
+<p>“The hard way.” She looked so bleak and concerned I knew
+she wasn’t just feeling sorry for herself. The trouble was I couldn’t
+be sure if it was Tommy or me she was really worried about. I finally
+figured there was one way of finding out, but I got only half way to
+her when Tommy busted in. Very sweet he looked until he saw me.</p>
+
+<p>I led
+off, “Hello, Pinocchio. Do you look smooth! Who takes the dents out of
+your fenders these days?” I was surprised to notice Gwen sit back in
+her chair, interested but not so fearful looking any more. Tommy glared
+for a second, then he said, “You!”</p>
+
+<p>“Right,” I admitted. “I see your headlights are adjusted, too. Well, if
+you people are
+going out for the evening, I guess I’ll go home and rest up. See you
+tomorrow, Gwen.”</p>
+
+<p>Science is wonderful. They’ve even improved on a man’s
+sneer. Tommy’s lips twisted into something like what a pretzel-maker
+would dream about. Deep down in his rubber throat he said, “This is
+what you asked for.”</p>
+
+<p>I dived over the sofa and yelled, “Take it easy,
+you lug. What are you going to do?”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>I let him catch me the third time
+around the sofa. He knocked down the few feeble cracks I took at him,
+then he got ahold of my throat. I wilted and waited. Here was the
+answer.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowe46_8750" id="071">
+  <img class="w30" src="images/071.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<p>A proxy breathes, but only for the purpose of talking. All
+the vital arteries and nerve threads being buried good and deep, it
+was easy to let his fingers gouge in. All I felt was the surface pain
+which there was plenty of.</p>
+
+<p>Just when my eyes were supposed to come
+popping out of my head I quit play-acting. I reached up and scrubbed my
+red star clean for Tommy to look at. “Leggo my tie,” I commanded, and
+he did.</p>
+
+<p>“That’s—illegal!” he gagged. It was surprising how fast he
+cooled off. Of course he’d been meaning to break a rule or two himself,
+and it was only my Trojan Horse in reverse that had stopped him.</p>
+
+<p>He turned on Gwen and shouted, “That’s a fine sweetheart you are! Why
+didn’t you warn me?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why Tommy, against what?” she asked innocently.
+“Besides, I didn’t know for sure. I only guessed.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know what
+you can see in a Venusian mud mucker, but if you want him take him.”</p>
+
+<p>“Thank you,” Gwen said. “Maybe it’s his ethics I like. Don’t bother
+dropping in at the wedding.”</p>
+
+<p>For a second I thought Tommy was going
+to throw his proxy into battle, but I guess he reconsidered the fact
+that with my proxy I had gotten back my old muscle ratio in proportion
+to his somewhat puny one. Knowing how hard he was going to take this
+jilt, I wouldn’t even have kicked him in the pants if he hadn’t used a
+dirty word on the way out.</p>
+
+<p>Gwen shut the door after him and said, “He
+meant to kill you.”</p>
+
+<p>I asked her, “Were you serious about that wedding?”</p>
+
+<p>“You just ruined the self-respect of my only other prospect. Do I
+have to get down on my hands and knees?”</p>
+
+<p>“I guess that does leave me a
+clear field, doesn’t it?”</p>
+
+<p>She looked at me half smiling and half not
+smiling. “Well, Bill, what have I done to deserve all that enthusiasm?
+Come to think of it, this was my idea, wasn’t
+it?”</p>
+
+<p>Right here I was supposed to say something and put it all right,
+but the something wouldn’t come. Gwen came over and turned up her face.
+If those had been her real eyes they’d have had tears in them.</p>
+
+<p>She
+said, “It looks like I stuck my neck out. Maybe I’ll learn not to take
+a proxy for granted.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s just it,” I managed to say. “I really
+wanted to marry you three years ago, and I still feel that way about
+the real—you. But I just can’t get feeling like that about a rubber
+doll even if it does look like you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh,” she said and looked down so
+I couldn’t see her face.</p>
+
+<p>“Look, Gwen,” I hesitated, then I blurted out,
+“How do these proxy people go about getting married?”</p>
+
+<p>“Same as always.
+Hunt up a minister and take the vows.”</p>
+
+<p>“And—then what?” I insisted,
+and at that instant I made a discovery: <i>Lady</i> proxies can blush!</p>
+
+<p>“And
+then you go out and buy a coffin for two,” she murmured into my mangled
+necktie.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div><div class="transnote">
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Note">
+    Transcriber’s Note:
+  </h2>
+
+
+
+<p>This etext was produced from Imaginative Tales, September 1955 (Vol. 2,
+No. 1). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+copyright on this publication was renewed.</p>
+
+<p>Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but minor
+inconsistencies have been retained as printed.</p>
+
+<p>The illustration has been moved to better fit the story.</p>
+
+</div>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78749 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #78749
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78749)