“Uh-huh,” Gallegher said. “Thank God for that. I’d have gone nuts within a week otherwise. At least I can get out of the Sonatone contract. Then all I have to do is solve Brock’s problem.”
“But you did,” Joe said.
“Huh?”
“When you made me. You’d been talking to Brock previously, so you incorporated the solution to his problem into me. Subconsciously, perhaps.”
Gallegher reached for beer. “Talk fast. What’s the answer?”
“Subsonics,” Joe said. “You made me capable of a certain subsonic tone that Brock must broadcast at irregular time-intervals over his televiews—”
Subsonics cannot be heard. But they can be felt. They can be felt as a faint, irrational uneasiness at first, which mounts to a blind, meaningless panic. It does not last. But when it is coupled with A. A. — Audience Appeal — there is a certain inevitable result.
Those who possessed home Vox-View units were scarcely troubled. It was a matter of acoustics. Cats squalled, dogs howled mournfully. But the families sitting in their parlors, watching Vox-View stars perform on the screen, didn’t really notice anything amiss. There wasn’t sufficient amplification, for one thing.
But in the bootleg theater, where illicit Vox-View televisors were hooked up to Magnas—
There was a faint, irrational uneasiness at first. It mounted. Someone screamed. There was a rush for the doors. The audience was afraid of something, but didn’t know what. They knew only that they had to get out of there.
All over the country there was a frantic exodus from the bootleg theaters when Vox-View first rang in a subsonic during a regular broadcast. Nobody knew why, except Gallegher, the Brocks, and a couple of technicians who were let in on the secret.
An hour later another subsonic was played. There was another mad exodus.
Within a few weeks it was impossible to lure a patron into a bootleg theater. Home televisors were far safer! Vox-View sales picked up—
Nobody would attend a bootleg theater. An unexpected result of the experiment was that, after a while, nobody would attend any of the legalized Sonatone theaters either. Conditioning had set in.
Audiences didn’t know why they grew panicky in the bootleg places. They associated their blind, unreasoning fear with other factors, notably mobs and claustrophobia. One evening a woman named Jane Wilson, otherwise not notable, attended a bootleg show. She fled with the rest when the subsonic was turned on.
The next night she went to the palatial Sonatone Bijou. In the middle of a dramatic feature she looked around, realized that there was a huge throng around her, cast up horrified eyes to the ceiling, and imagined that it was pressing down.
She had to get out of there!
Her squall was the booster charge. There were other customers who had heard subsonics before. No one was hurt during the panic; it was a legal rule that theater doors be made large enough to permit easy egress during a fire. No one was hurt, but it was suddenly obvious that the public was being conditioned by subsonics to avoid the dangerous combination of throngs and theaters. A simple matter of psychological association—
Within four months the bootleg places had disappeared and the Sonatone supertheaters had closed for want of patronage. The Tones, father and son, were not happy. But everybody connected with Vox-View was.
Except Gallegher. He had collected a staggering check from Brock, and instantly cabled to Europe for an incredible quantity of canned beer. Now, brooding over his sorrows, he lay on the laboratory couch and siphoned a highball down his throat. Joe, as usual, was before the mirror, watching the wheels go round.
“Joe,” Gallegher said.
“Yes? What can I do?”
“Oh, nothing.” That was the trouble. Gallegher fished a crumpled cable tape out of his pocket and morosely read it once more. The beer cannery in Europe had decided to change its tactics. From now on, the cable said, their beer would be put up in the usual plastibulbs, in conformance with custom and demand. No more cans.
There wasn’t anything put up in cans in this day and age. Not even beer, now.
So what good was a robot who was built and conditioned to be a can opener?
Gallegher sighed and mixed another highball — a stiff one. Joe postured proudly before the mirror.
Then he extended his eyes, opposed them, and quickly liberated his subconscious through autohypnotism. Joe could appreciate himself better that way.
Gallegher sighed again. Dogs were beginning to bark like mad for blocks around. Oh, well.
He took another drink and felt better. Presently, he thought, it would be time to sing “Frankie and Johnnie.” Maybe he and Joe might have a duet — one baritone and one inaudible sub or supersonic. Close harmony.
Ten minutes later Gallegher was singing a duet with his can opener.
Gallegher Plus
Gallegher peered dimly through the window at the place where his back yard should have been and felt his stomach dropping queasily into that ridiculous, unlikely hole gaping there in the earth. It was big, that hole. And deep. Almost deep enough to hold Gallegher’s slightly colossal hangover.
But not quite. Gallegher wondered if he should look at the calendar, and then decided against it. He had a feeling that several thousand years had passed since the beginning of the binge. Even for a man with his thirst and capacity, it had been one hell of a toot.
“Toot,” Gallegher mourned, crawling toward the couch and collapsing on it. “Binge is far more expressive. Toot makes me think of fire engines and boat whistles, and I’ve got those in my head, anyway — all sounding off at once.” He reached up weakly for the siphon of the liquor organ, hesitated, and communed briefly with his stomach.
Gallegher: Just a short one, maybe?
Stomach: Careful, there!
Gallegher: A hair of the dog—
Stomach: O-O-O-OH!
Gallegher: Don’t do that! I need a drink. My back yard’s disappeared.
Stomach: I wish I could.
At this point the door opened and a robot entered, wheels, cogs, and gadgets moving rapidly under its transparent skin plate. Gallegher took one look and closed his eyes, sweating.
“Get out of here, “ he snarled. “I curse the day I ever made you. I hate your revolving guts.”
“You have no appreciation of beauty,” said the robot in a hurt voice. “Here, I’ve brought you some beer.”
“Hm-m-m!” Gallegher took the plastibulb from the robot’s hand and drank thirstily. The cool catnip taste tingled refreshingly against the back of his throat. “A-ah,” he said, sitting up. “That’s a little better. Not much, but—”
“How about a thiamin shot?”
“I’ve become allergic to the stuff,” Gallegher told his robot morosely. “I’m cursed with thirst. Hm-m-m!” He looked at the liquor organ. “Maybe—”
“There’s a policeman to see you.”
“A what?”
“A policeman. He’s been hanging around for quiet a while.”
“Oh,” Gallegher said. He stared into a corner by an open window. “What’s that?” It looked like a machine of some curious sort. Gallegher eyed it with puzzled interest and a touch of amazement. No doubt he had built the damned thing. That was the only way the erratic scientist ever worked. He’d had no technical training, but for some weird reason, his subconscious mind was gifted with a touch of genius. Conscious, Gallegher was normal enough, though erratic and often drunk. But when his demon subconscious took over, anything was liable to happen. It was in one of these sprees that he had built this robot, spending weeks thereafter trying to figure out the creature’s basic purpose. As it turned out, the purpose wasn’t an especially useful one, but Gallegher kept the robot around, despite its maddening habit of hunting up mirrors and posturing vainly before them, admiring its metallic innards.