“Hey!” cried Mack. “You can’t do that! That just isn’t right!”
I didn’t need to look. I knew exactly what had happened. The aliens had duplicated not only our equipment, but the men as well. In that crowd of men were the duplicates of every one of us – everyone, that is, except myself and Greasy.
Horrified as I might have been, outraged as any human would be, I couldn’t help but think of some of the situations that might arise. Imagine two Macks insisting on bossing the operation! Picture two Thornes trying to get along together!
I didn’t hang around. I left Mack and the rest of them to explain why men should not be duplicated. In my tent, I sat down and wrote an imperative, high-priority, must-deliver order for five hundred peepers.
SO BRIGHT THE VISION
This story was probably completed early in 1955 under the title “Writ by Hand” before finally being sold to Leo Margulies at Fantastic Universe Science Fiction, to whom Cliff had been selling pieces the top-ranked markets rejected. Any critical mention that “So Bright the Vision” has received since being published in August 1956 has largely been due to comment on its vision of the writerly craft in a computerized future. And while such comment is both accurate and deserved, it completely overlooks the story’s criticisms of both the literary establishment in general and the science fiction establishment in particular: The machine, Cliff argued, was being allowed to set the norm for literature, which had the effect of setting up a pattern that would be deadly to good fiction.
For all the seriousness of that subject, this story is just kind of fun, showing what can be done by an author willing to break out of the prevailing SF pattern of the fifties. And I remain – as I said in my comment in an earlier volume of these collections, on the story “Ogre” – utterly tickled by Cliff’s use of that story’s “life blanket” idea in the context of this story.
The showroom was in the decorous part of town, where Kemp Hart seldom found himself. It was a long way from his usual haunts and he was surprised to find that he had walked so far. In fact, he would not have walked at all if his credit had been good at the Bright Star bar where his crowd hung out.
As soon as he realized where he was he knew he should turn around and walk rapidly away, for he was out of place in this district of swank publishers, gold-plated warrens and famous eateries. But the showroom held him. It would not let him go. He stood in front of it in all his down-at-heels unkemptness, one hand thrust in a pocket, fugitively rubbing between thumb and finger the two small coins that still remained to him.
Behind the glass the machines were shining-wonderful, the sort of merchandise that belonged on this svelte and perfumed street. One machine in the corner of the showroom was bigger and shinier than the others and had about it a rare glint of competence. It had a massive keyboard for the feeding in of data and it had a hundred slots or so for the working tapes and films. It had a mood control calibrated more sensitively than any he had ever seen and in all probability a lot of other features that were not immediately apparent.
With a machine such as that, Hart told himself, a man could become famous almost automatically and virtually overnight. He could write anything he wished and he would write it well and the doors of the most snooty of the publishers would stand open to him.
But much as he might wish to, there was no use of going in to see it. There was nothing to be gained by even thinking about it. It was just something he could stand and look at from beyond the showroom’s glass.
And yet, he told himself, he had a perfect right to go in and look it over. There was not a thing to stop him. Nothing, at least, beyond the sneer upon the salesman’s face at the sight of him – the silent, polite, well-disciplined contempt when he turned and slunk away.
He looked furtively up and down the street and the street was empty. The hour was far too early for this particular street to have come to life, and it occurred to him that if he just walked in and asked to see the machine, it would be all right. Perhaps he could explain he did not wish to buy it, but just to look at it. Maybe if he did that they wouldn’t sneer at him. Certainly no one could object. There must be a lot of people, even rich and famous people, who only came to look.
He edged along the showroom, studying the machines and heading for the door, telling himself that he would not go in, that it was foolish to go in, but secretly knowing that he would.
He reached the door and opened it and stepped inside. The salesman appeared almost as if by magic.
“The yarner in the corner,” Hart said. “I wonder if I might –”
“Most certainly,” said the salesman. “If you’ll just come along with me.”
In the corner of the showroom, the salesman draped his arm across the machine affectionately.
“It is our newest model,” he said. “We call it the Classic, because it has been designed and engineered with but one thought in mind – the production of the classic. It is, we think, a vast improvement over our Best Seller Model, which, after all, is intended to turn out no better than best sellers – even though on occasion it has turned out certain minor classics. To be quite honest with you, sir, I would suspect that in almost every one of those instances, it had been souped up a bit. I am told some people are very clever that way.”
Hart shook his head. “Not me. I’m all thumbs when it comes to tinkering.”
“In that case,” said the salesman, “the thing for you to do is buy the best yarner that you can. Used intelligently, there’s virtually no limit to its versatility. And in this particular model the quality factor is much higher than in any of the others. Although naturally, to get the best results you must be selective in your character films and your narrative problem tapes. But that needn’t worry you. We have a large stock of tapes and films and some new mood and atmosphere fixers that are quite unique. They come fairly high, of course, but –”
“By the way, just what is the price of this model?”
“It’s only twenty-five thousand,” the salesman told him, brightly. “Don’t you wonder, sir, how it can be offered at so ridiculous a figure? The engineering that went into it is remarkable. We worked on it for ten full years before we were satisfied. And during those ten years the specifications were junked and redrawn time and time again to keep pace with our developmental research.”
He slapped the shiny machine with a jubilant hand.
“I can guarantee you, sir, that nowhere can you get a product superior to this. It has everything. Millions of probability factors have been built into it, assuring you of sure-fire originality. No danger of stumbling into the stereotype, which is not true at all with so many of the cheaper models. The narrative bank alone is capable of turning out an almost infinite number of situations on any particular theme and the character developer has thousands of points of reference instead of the hundred or so you find in inferior models. The semantics section is highly selective and sensitive and you must not overlook –”
“It’s a good machine,” interposed Hart. “But it costs a bit too much. Now, if you had something else…”
“Most certainly, sir. We have many other models.”
“Would you take a machine in trade?”
“Gladly. What kind of machine do you have, sir?”
“An Auto-Author Ninety-six.”