'Serve in the Naigwin Army! Twenty NCO bodies currently on offer, plus a few specials in junior officer ranks. All bodies fully equipped with martial skills!'
'What's the pay?' a man asked the salesman.
'Your keep, plus one credit a month.'
The man sneered and turned away.
'And,' the barker proclaimed, 'unlimited sacking rights.'
'Well, that seems in order,' the man said grudgingly. 'But the Naigwins been losing this war for a decade. High casualty rate, and not much corporeal reclamation.'
'We're changing all that,' the salesman said. 'You're an experienced mercenary?'
'Correct,' the man said. 'The name is Sean Von Ardin, and I've been in just about every major war around, plus a fair number of minor ones.'
'Last rank?'
'Jevaldher in the army of the Count of Ganymede,' Von Ardin said. 'But before that I held the rank of Full Cthusis.'
'Well, well,' the salesman said, seemingly impressed. 'Full Cthusis, eh? Got papers to prove it? OK, tell you what I can do. I can offer you a position with the Naigwins as Manatee Leader, Second Class.'
Von Ardin frowned and calculated on his fingers. 'Let's see, Manatee Leader, Second Class is the equivalent of a Cyclopian Demi-Vale, which is slightly lower than an Anaxorean Banner King, and almost half a grade lower than a Dorian Old Boy. Which means … Hey, I'd lose an entire field grade if I joined you!'
'Ah, but you didn't hear me out,' the salesman continued. 'You would hold that rank for a period of twenty-five days, to prove Purity of Intent, which the Naigwin political leaders are very big on. Then we would jump you three entire grades to Melanoan Superios, which would offer you an excellent chance at provisional Lance-Jumbaya, and maybe – I can't promise this, but I think I can swing it unofficially – maybe I can get you appointed Sackmeister for the spoils of Eridsvurg.'
'Well,' Von Ardin said, impressed in spite of himself, 'that's a pretty decent deal – if you can swing it.'
'Come into the store,' the salesman said. 'Let me make a phone call …'
Marvin walked on and listened to men of a dozen races arguing with salesmen of a dozen more. A hundred propositions were screamed in his ear. His spirits were stirred and uplifted by the vitality of the place. And the propositions he heard, though sometimes dismaying, were often intriguing:
'Aphid-man wanted for the Senthis Swarm. Good pay, congenial friendships!'
'Rewrite man required to work on the Dirty Book of Kavengii! Must be able to empathize with sexual premises of the Midridarian race!'
'Garden planners needed for Arcturus! Come and relax among the only vegetable-sentients in the galaxy!'
'Expert manacler wanted for Vega IV! Opportunities also for semi-skilled restrainers! Full prerogatives!'
There were so many opportunities in the galaxy! It seemed to Marvin that his misfortune was perhaps a blessing in disguise. He had wanted to travel – but his modesty had permitted him no more than the role of tourist. But how much better, how much more gratifying it would be, to travel for a reason: to serve with the armies of Naigwin, experience life as an aphid-man, learn what it meant to be a manacler – even to do rewrites on the Dirty Book of Kavengii.
Directly ahead of him, he spotted a sign that read: 'James Virtue McHonnery, Licensed Short-Shuffle Dealer. Satisfaction guaranteed'.
Standing at the waist-high counter and smoking a cigar was a tough, hard-bitten, sour-mouthed little man with piercing cobalt-blue eyes. This could be none other than McHonnery himself. Silent and disdainful, scorning to spiel, the little man stood with arms folded as Flynn walked up to the booth.
Chapter 8
They stood face to face, Flynn slack-jawed, McHonnery clam-mouthed. Several seconds of silence ensued. Then McHonnery said: 'Look, kid, this ain't no goddamned peep show and I ain't no goddamned freak. If you got something to say, spit it out. Otherwise take a walk for yourself before I break your back.'
Marvin could see at once that this man was no fawning, honey-mouthed body salesman. There was no hint of obsequiousness in that rasping voice, no trace of ingratiation in that downturned mouth. Here was a man who said what he wanted to say, and took no heed of the consequences.
'I – I am a client,' Flynn said.
'Big deal,' McHonnery harshed. 'Am I supposed to turn handsprings or something?'
His sardonic retort and blunt, inner-directed demeanour gave Flynn a sensation of confidence. He knew, of course, that appearances could be deceiving; but no one had ever told him what to judge by instead of appearances. He was inclined to trust this proud and bitter man.
'I am going to be dispossessed of this body in a matter of hours,' Marvin explained. 'Since my own body has been stolen, I am in desperate need of a substitute. I have very little money, but I – I am quite willing and prepared to work.'
McHonnery stared at him, and a sardonic grin twisted the man's tight lips. 'Prepared to work, huh? Ain't that nice! And just what are you prepared to work at?'
'Why – anything.'
'Yeah? Can you operate a Montcalm metal lathe with light-sensitive switchboard and manual cull? No? Think you could handle a Quick-Greeze Particle Separator for the Rare Earths Novelty Company? Not your sort of thing, huh? … I got a surgeon on Vega who wants somebody to run his Nerve-Impulse-Rejection Simulator (the old model with the double pedals). Not exactly what you had in mind? Well, we got a jazz band on Potemkin II which needs a stomach-horn man, and a restaurant near Boötes which could use a short-order cook, with working knowledge of Cthensis specialities. Doesn't ring a bell? Maybe you could pick flowers on Moriglia; of course, you'd have to be able to predict anthesis without more than a five-second variation. Or you could do spot-flesh-welding, if you've got the nerves for it, or boss a phylopod reclamation project, or draw up intermediate creeper systems, or – but I don't guess none of them strike your fancy, huh?'
Flynn shook his head and mumbled, 'I don't know anything about any of those jobs, sir.'
'Somehow,' McHonnery said, 'that doesn't surprise me as much as you might think. Is there anything you can do?'
'Well, in college I was studying-'
'Don't give me your goddamned life story! I'm interested in your trade, skill, talent, profession, ability, whatever you want to call it. What, specifically, can you do?'
'Well,' Marvin said, 'I guess when you put it that way, I can't do anything much.'
'I know,' McHonnery said, sighing. 'You're unskilled; it's written all over you. Kid, it may interest you to know that unskilled minds are common as dirt, commoner. The market's glutted with them, the universe is crammed to overflowing with them. It may interest you to know that there is nothing you can do that a machine can't do better, faster, and a damn sight more cheerfully.'
'I'm sorry to hear that, sir.' Marvin said, sadly but with dignity. He turned to go.
'Just a minute,' McHonnery said. 'I thought you wanted to work.'
'But you said-'
'I said you were unskilled, which you are. And I said that a machine can do anything you can do better, faster, and more cheerfully, but not more cheaply.'
'Oh.' Marvin said.
'Yep, in the cheapness department, you still got an edge over the gadgets. And that's quite an achievement in this day and age. I have always considered it one of the glories of mankind that, despite its best efforts, it has never completely succeeded in rendering itself superfluous. You see, kid, our instincts order us to multiply, while our intelligence commands us to conserve. We are like a father who bears many sons, but contrives to dispossess all but the eldest. We call instinct blind, but intelligence is equally so. Intelligence has its passions, its loves and its hates; woe to the logician whose superbly rational system does not rest upon a solid base of raw feeling. Lacking such a base, we call that man – irrational!'