"No, Jerry," said the salesman, whose name was Nye. "Just using you as an example. Aren't you still on?"
"No, he gave me the over-and-out."
"See?" said the salesman. "Mr. Bundy is controlling a man — needless to say we don't mention our clients' names — who's trying to become a professional ballet dancer. He's only so-so, but with Jerry running him by remote control he puts on the finest tour-jeté you ever saw. Or suppose you can't swim —"
"Shucks," said Ovid Ross, staring at his knuckles. He was a long, big-boned young man with hands and feet large even in proportion to the rest of him, and knuckles oversized for even such hands. "I can swim and dance, kind of, and most of those things. Even play a little golf. My trouble is — well, you know."
"Well?"
"Here I am, just a big hick from Rattlesnake, Montana, trying to get on among all these slick operators in New York, where everybody's born with his hand in somebody else's pocket. When I go up against them it scares the behooligers out of me. I get embarrassed and trip over my big feet."
"In such a case," said Nye, "we choose controllers specializing in the roles of sophisticate, man-of-the-world, and so forth. Our Mr. Falck here is experienced in such parts. So are Mr. Abrams and Mr. Van Etten. Mr. Bundy is what you might call a second-string sophisticate. When he's not controlling a man engaged in dancing or athletic sports, he relieves one of the others I mentioned."
"So, if I sign up with you, and tomorrow I go see this publisher guy who eats horseshoes and spits out the nails, to ask for a job, you can take over?"
"Easiest thing in the world. Our theory is: no man is a superman! So, when faced with a crisis you can't cope with, call us in. Let a specialist take control of your body! You don't fill your own teeth or make your own shoes, do you? Then why not let our experts carry you through such crises as getting a job, proposing to a girl, or making a speech? Why not?" Nye's eyes shone.
"I dunno why not," said Ross. "But that reminds me. I got — I've got girl trouble too. Can you really take care of that?"
"Certainly. One of the controllers is the former actor Barry Wentworth. During his youth, he was the idol of frustrated women throughout the nation, and he succeeded in acquiring nine real-life wives as well as innumerable less formal romances. We'll do the courtship, the proposal, and everything for you."
Ross looked suspiciously at the salesman. "Dunno as I like that 'everything.'"
Nye spread his hands. "Only at your request. We have no thought of controlling a client beyond his desires. What we do is to compel you to do what you really wish to do, but lack the skill or the nerve to do."
"Say, here's another thing."
"Yes?"
"Is there any carry-over effect? In other words, uh, if a controller puts me through some act like swimming, will I learn to do that better from having the controller do an expert job with my carcass?"
"We believe so, though the psychologists are still divided. We think that eventually telagog control will be accepted as a necessary part of all training for forms of physical dexterity or skill, including such things as singing and speech-making. But that's in the future."
"Another thing," said Ross. "This gadget would give a controller a wonderful chance for — uh — practical jokes. Say the controllee was a preacher who hired you to carry him through a tough sermon, and the controller had it in for him, or maybe just had a low sense of humor. What would stop the controller from making the preacher tell stag-party stories from the pulpit?"
The salesman's face took on a look of pious horror. "Nobody in this organization would think of such a thing! If he did, he'd be fired before he could say 'hypospatial transmission.' This is a serious enterprise, with profound future possibilities."
Ross gave the sigh of a man making a fateful decision. "Okay, then. Guess I'll have to go without lunch for a while to pay for it, but if your service does what you say it'll be worth it. Give me the forms."
When Ross had signed the contract with the Telagog Company, the salesman said: "Now we'll have to decide which class of telagog receiver to fit you with. For full two-way communication you use this headset with this hypospatial transmitter in your pocket. It's fairly conspicuous ..."
"Too much so for me," said Ross.
"Then we have this set, which looks like a hearing aid and has a smaller pocket control unit. This doesn't let you communicate by hypospatial broadcast with the controller, but it does incorporate an off-switch so you can cut off the controller. And, if you have to communicate with him, you can write a note and hold it up for him to see with your eyes."
"Still kind of prominent. Got 'ny others?"
"Yes, this last kind is invisible for practical purposes." The salesman held up a lenticular object about the size of an eyeglass lens but thicker, slightly concave on one face and thin around the edge. "This is mounted on top of your head, between your scalp and your skull."
"How about controls?"
"You can't cut off the controller, but you can communicate by clicks with this pocket wireless key. One click means 'take over,' two is 'lay off but stand by,' and three is 'over-and-out,' or 'that's all until the next schedule.' If you want to arrange a more elaborate code with your controller, that's up to you."
"That looks like me," said Ross. "But have you got to bore holes in my skull for the wires?"
"No. That's the beauty of this Nissen metal. Although the wires are only a few molecules thick, they're so strong that when the receiver is actuated and their coils are released they shoot right through your skull into your brain without making holes you can see except under the strongest microscope."
"Okay," said Ovid Ross.
"First we'll have to fit you and install the receiver. You'll take a local anesthetic, won't you?"
"I guess so. Whatever you say."
"Then you'd better have a practice session with your controllers. They have to get used to your body, you know."
"Rather," said Gilbert Falck, taking off his helmet. He was a smallish blond young man about Ovid Ross's age. "You wouldn't want to knock your coffee-cup over because your arm is longer than mine, would you?"
The gold lettering on the frosted-glass part of the door said:
1026
HOOLIHAN PUBLICATIONS
THE GARMENT GAZETTE
Ovid Ross had stood in front of this door for fifteen awful seconds with his hand outstretched but not quite touching the knob, as if he feared an electric shock. God almighty, why did one have to be young and green and embarrassable? And from Rattlesnake, Montana? Then he remembered, reached into his pocket, and pushed the switch-button, once.
He remembered what he had been taught: as the controller took over, relax gradually. Not too suddenly, or you might fall in a heap on the floor. That would not make a good impression on a prospective employer.
The feeling of outside control stole over him with an effect like that of a heavy slug of hard liquor. He relaxed. A power outside his body was seeing with his eyes and sensing with his other senses. This power reached his arm out and briskly opened the door. Without volition on his part, he realized that he had stridden in and said to the girl at the switchboard behind the hole in the glass window, in friendly but firm and confident tones:
"Will you please tell Mr. Sharpe that Mr. Ross is here to see him? I'm expected."
Ross thought that, alone, he would have stumbled in, goggled wordlessly at the girl, stuttered, and probably ended by slinking out without seeing Sharpe at all. The control was not really complete — semi-automatic acts like breathing and walking were still partly under Ross's control — but Falck had taken over all the higher functions.
Presently he was shaking hands with Addison Sharpe, the managing editor, a small man with steel-rimmed glasses. Ross amazed himself by the glibness with which his tongue threw off the correct pleasantries: