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Title: A Bad Day for Sales
Author: Fritz Leiber
Release Date: January 1, 2016 [EBook #50819]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BAD DAY FOR SALES ***
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A BAD DAY FOR SALES
By FRITZ LEIBER
Illustrated by EMSH
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Science Fiction July 1953.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Don't wait to "Get 'em while they're hot."
By then, it is too late to get them of all!
The big bright doors of the office building parted with a pneumatic
_whoosh_ and Robie glided onto Times Square. The crowd that had been
watching the fifty-foot-tall girl on the clothing billboard get
dressed, or reading the latest news about the Hot Truce scrawl itself
in yard-high script, hurried to look.
Robie was still a novelty. Robie was fun. For a little while yet, he
could steal the show. But the attention did not make Robie proud. He
had no more emotions than the pink plastic giantess, who dressed and
undressed endlessly whether there was a crowd or the street was empty,
and who never once blinked her blue mechanical eyes. But she merely
drew business while Robie went out after it.
For Robie was the logical conclusion of the development of vending
machines. All the earlier ones had stood in one place, on a floor or
hanging on a wall, and blankly delivered merchandise in return for
coins, whereas Robie searched for customers. He was the demonstration
model of a line of sales robots to be manufactured by Shuler Vending
Machines, provided the public invested enough in stocks to give the
company capital to go into mass production.
The publicity Robie drew stimulated investments handsomely. It was
amusing to see the TV and newspaper coverage of Robie selling, but not
a fraction as much fun as being approached personally by him. Those
who were usually bought anywhere from one to five hundred shares, if
they had any money and foresight enough to see that sales robots would
eventually be on every street and highway in the country.
* * * * *
Robie radared the crowd, found that it surrounded him solidly, and
stopped. With a carefully built-in sense of timing, he waited for the
tension and expectation to mount before he began talking.
"Say, Ma, he doesn't look like a robot at all," a child said. "He looks
like a turtle."
Which was not completely inaccurate. The lower part of Robie's body was
a metal hemisphere hemmed with sponge rubber and not quite touching the
sidewalk. The upper was a metal box with black holes in it. The box
could swivel and duck.
A chromium-bright hoopskirt with a turret on top.
"Reminds me too much of the Little Joe Paratanks," a legless veteran
of the Persian War muttered, and rapidly rolled himself away on wheels
rather like Robie's.
His departure made it easier for some of those who knew about Robie to
open a path in the crowd. Robie headed straight for the gap. The crowd
whooped.
Robie glided very slowly down the path, deftly jogging aside whenever
he got too close to ankles in skylon or sockassins. The rubber buffer
on his hoopskirt was merely an added safeguard.
The boy who had called Robie a turtle jumped in the middle of the path
and stood his ground, grinning foxily.
Robie stopped two feet short of him. The turret ducked. The crowd got
quiet.
"Hello, youngster," Robie said in a voice that was smooth as that of a
TV star, and was, in fact, a recording of one.
The boy stopped smiling. "Hello," he whispered.
"How old are you?" Robie asked.
"Nine. No, eight."
"That's nice," Robie observed. A metal arm shot down from his neck,
stopped just short of the boy.
The boy jerked back.
"For you," Robie said.
The boy gingerly took the red polly-lop from the neatly fashioned blunt
metal claws, and began to unwrap it.
"Nothing to say?" asked Robie.
"Uh--thank you."
After a suitable pause, Robie continued. "And how about a nice
refreshing drink of Poppy Pop to go with your polly-lop?" The boy
lifted his eyes, but didn't stop licking the candy. Robie waggled his
claws slightly. "Just give me a quarter and within five seconds--"
A little girl wriggled out of the forest of legs. "Give me a polly-lop,
too, Robie," she demanded.
"Rita, come back here!" a woman in the third rank of the crowd called
angrily.
Robie scanned the newcomer gravely. His reference silhouettes were not
good enough to let him distinguish the sex of children, so he merely
repeated, "Hello, youngster."
"Rita!"
"Give me a polly-lop!"
Disregarding both remarks, for a good salesman is single-minded and
does not waste bait, Robie said winningly, "I'll bet you read _Junior
Space Killers_. Now I have here--"
"Uh-uh, I'm a girl. _He_ got a polly-lop."
* * * * *
At the word "girl," Robie broke off. Rather ponderously, he said, "I'll
bet you read _Gee-Gee Jones, Space Stripper_. Now I have here the
latest issue of that thrilling comic, not yet in the stationary vending
machines. Just give me fifty cents and within five--"
"Please let me through. I'm her mother."
A young woman in the front rank drawled over her powder-sprayed
shoulder, "I'll get her for you," and slithered out on six-inch
platform shoes. "Run away, children," she said nonchalantly. Lifting
her arms behind her head, she pirouetted slowly before Robie to show
how much she did for her bolero half-jacket and her form-fitting slacks
that melted into skylon just above the knees. The little girl glared at
her. She ended the pirouette in profile.
At this age-level, Robie's reference silhouettes permitted him to
distinguish sex, though with occasional amusing and embarrassing
miscalls. He whistled admiringly. The crowd cheered.
Someone remarked critically to a friend, "It would go over better if he
was built more like a real robot. You know, like a man."
The friend shook his head. "This way it's subtler."
No one in the crowd was watching the newscript overhead as it
scribbled, "Ice Pack for Hot Truce? Vanadin hints Russ may yield on
Pakistan."
Robie was saying, "... in the savage new glamor-tint we have christened
Mars Blood, complete with spray applicator and fit-all fingerstalls
that mask each finger completely except for the nail. Just give me five
dollars--uncrumpled bills may be fed into the revolving rollers you see
beside my arm--and within five seconds--"
"No, thanks, Robie," the young woman yawned.
"Remember," Robie persisted, "for three more weeks, seductivizing Mars
Blood will be unobtainable from any other robot or human vendor."
"No, thanks."
Robie scanned the crowd resourcefully. "Is there any gentleman
here ..." he began just as a woman elbowed her way through the front
rank.
"I told you to come back!" she snapped at the little girl.
"But I didn't get my polly-lop!"
"... who would care to...."
"Rita!"
"Robie cheated. Ow!"
* * * * *
Meanwhile, the young woman in the half bolero had scanned the nearby
gentlemen on her own. Deciding that there was less than a fifty per
cent chance of any of them accepting the proposition Robie seemed about
to make, she took advantage of the scuffle to slither gracefully back
into the ranks. Once again the path was clear before Robie.
He paused, however, for a brief recapitulation of the more magical
properties of Mars Blood, including a telling phrase about "the
passionate claws of a Martian sunrise."
But no one bought. It wasn't quite time. Soon enough silver coins would
be clinking, bills going through the rollers faster than laundry, and
five hundred people struggling for the privilege of having their money
taken away from them by America's first mobile sales robot.
But there were still some tricks that Robie had to do free, and one
certainly should enjoy those before starting the more expensive fun.
So Robie moved on until he reached the curb. The variation in level was
instantly sensed by his under-scanners. He stopped. His head began to
swivel. The crowd watched in eager silence. This was Robie's best trick.
Robie's head stopped swiveling. His scanners had found the traffic
light. It was green. Robie edged forward. But then the light turned
red. Robie stopped again, still on the curb. The crowd softly _ahhed_
its delight.
It was wonderful to be alive and watching Robie on such an exciting
day. Alive and amused in the fresh, weather-controlled air between the
lines of bright skyscrapers with their winking windows and under a sky
so blue you could almost call it dark.
(But way, way up, where the crowd could not see, the sky was darker
still. Purple-dark, with stars showing. And in that purple-dark, a
silver-green something, the color of a bud, plunged down at better than
three miles a second. The silver-green was a newly developed paint that
foiled radar.)
Robie was saying, "While we wait for the light, there's time for
you youngsters to enjoy a nice refreshing Poppy Pop. Or for you
adults--only those over five feet tall are eligible to buy--to enjoy
an exciting Poppy Pop fizz. Just give me a quarter or--in the case of
adults, one dollar and a quarter; I'm licensed to dispense intoxicating
liquors--and within five seconds...."
But that was not cutting it quite fine enough. Just three seconds
later, the silver-green bud bloomed above Manhattan into a globular
orange flower. The skyscrapers grew brighter and brighter still, the
brightness of the inside of the Sun. The windows winked blossoming
white fire-flowers.
The crowd around Robie bloomed, too. Their clothes puffed into petals
of flame. Their heads of hair were torches.
* * * * *
The orange flower grew, stem and blossom. The blast came. The winking
windows shattered tier by tier, became black holes. The walls bent,
rocked, cracked. A stony dandruff flaked from their cornices. The
flaming flowers on the sidewalk were all leveled at once. Robie was
shoved ten feet. His metal hoopskirt dimpled, regained its shape.
The blast ended. The orange flower, grown vast, vanished overhead
on its huge, magic beanstalk. It grew dark and very still. The
cornice-dandruff pattered down. A few small fragments rebounded from
the metal hoopskirt.
Robie made some small, uncertain movements, as if feeling for broken
bones. He was hunting for the traffic light, but it no longer shone
either red or green.
He slowly scanned a full circle. There was nothing anywhere to
interest his reference silhouettes. Yet whenever he tried to move, his
under-scanners warned him of low obstructions. It was very puzzling.
The silence was disturbed by moans and a crackling sound, as faint at
first as the scampering of distant rats.
A seared man, his charred clothes fuming where the blast had blown out
the fire, rose from the curb. Robie scanned him.
"Good day, sir," Robie said. "Would you care for a smoke? A truly cool
smoke? Now I have here a yet-unmarketed brand...."
But the customer had run away, screaming, and Robie never ran after
customers, though he could follow them at a medium brisk roll. He
worked his way along the curb where the man had sprawled, carefully
keeping his distance from the low obstructions, some of which writhed
now and then, forcing him to jog. Shortly he reached a fire hydrant.
He scanned it. His electronic vision, though it still worked, had been
somewhat blurred by the blast.
"Hello, youngster," Robie said. Then, after a long pause, "Cat got your
tongue? Well, I have a little present for you. A nice, lovely polly-lop.
"Take it, youngster," he said after another pause. "It's for you. Don't
be afraid."
His attention was distracted by other customers, who began to rise
up oddly here and there, twisting forms that confused his reference
silhouettes and would not stay to be scanned properly. One cried,
"Water," but no quarter clinked in Robie's claws when he caught the
word and suggested, "How about a nice refreshing drink of Poppy Pop?"
The rat-crackling of the flames had become a jungle muttering. The
blind windows began to wink fire again.
* * * * *
A little girl marched, stepping neatly over arms and legs she did
not look at. A white dress and the once taller bodies around her had
shielded her from the brilliance and the blast. Her eyes were fixed on
Robie. In them was the same imperious confidence, though none of the
delight, with which she had watched him earlier.
"Help me, Robie," she said. "I want my mother."
"Hello, youngster," Robie said. "What would you like? Comics? Candy?"
"Where is she, Robie? Take me to her."
"Balloons? Would you like to watch me blow up a balloon?"
The little girl began to cry. The sound triggered off another of
Robie's novelty circuits, a service feature that had brought in a lot
of favorable publicity.
"Is something wrong?" he asked. "Are you in trouble? Are you lost?"
"Yes, Robie. Take me to my mother."
"Stay right here," Robie said reassuringly, "and don't be frightened.
I will call a policeman." He whistled shrilly, twice.
Time passed. Robie whistled again. The windows flared and roared. The
little girl begged, "Take me away, Robie," and jumped onto a little
step in his hoopskirt.
"Give me a dime," Robie said.
The little girl found one in her pocket and put it in his claws.
"Your weight," Robie said, "is fifty-four and one-half pounds."
"Have you seen my daughter, have you seen her?" a woman was
crying somewhere. "I left her watching that thing while I stepped
inside--_Rita!_"
"Robie helped me," the little girl began babbling at her. "He knew I
was lost. He even called the police, but they didn't come. He weighed
me, too. Didn't you, Robie?"
But Robie had gone off to peddle Poppy Pop to the members of a rescue
squad which had just come around the corner, more robotlike in their
asbestos suits than he in his metal skin.
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