And you lost. You had a chance to win, but the inexorable statistics of the machine’s setting made sure that if you played long enough, you had to lose.
That is to say, if you risked a ten-point ration stamp—showing, perhaps, that you had consumed three six-course meals—your statistic return was eight points. You might hit the jackpot and get a thousand points back, and thus be exempt from a whole freezerful of steaks and joints and prepared vegetables; but it seldom happened. Most likely you lost and got nothing.
Got nothing, that is, in the way of your hazarded ration stamps. But the beauty of the machine, which was Morey’s main contribution, was that, win or lose, you always found a pellet of vitamin-drenched, sugarcoated antibiotic hormone gum in the hopper. You played your game, won or lost your stake, popped your hormone gum into your mouth and played another. By the time that game was ended, the gum was used up, the coating dissolved; you discarded it and started another.
“That’s what the man from the NRB liked,” Howland told Morey confidentially. “He took a set of schematics back with him; they might install it on all new machines. Oh, you’re the fair-haired boy, all right!”
It was the first Morey had heard about a man from the National Ration Board. It was good news. He excused himself and hurried to phone Cherry the story of his latest successes. He reached her at her mother’s, where she was spending the evening, and she was properly impressed and affectionate. He came back to Howland in a glowing humor.
“Drink?” said Howland diffidently.
“Sure,” said Morey. He could afford, he thought, to drink as much of Howland’s liquor as he liked; poor guy, sunk in the consuming quicksands of Class Three. Only fair for somebody a little more successful to give him a hand once in a while.
And when Howland, learning that Cherry had left Morey a bachelor for the evening, proposed Uncle Piggotty’s again, Morey hardly hesitated at all.
The Bigelows were delighted to see him. Morey wondered briefly if they had a home; certainly they didn’t seem to spend much time in it.
It turned out they did, because when Morey indicated virtuously that he’d only stopped in at Piggotty’s for a single drink before dinner, and Howland revealed that he was free for the evening, they captured Morey and bore him off to their house.
Tanaquil Bigelow was haughtily apologetic. “I don’t suppose this is the kind of place Mr. Fry is used to,” she observed to her husband, right across Morey, who was standing between them. “Still, we call it home.”
Morey made an appropriately polite remark. Actually, the place nearly turned his stomach. It was an enormous glaringly new mansion, bigger even than Morey’s former house, stuffed to bursting with bulging sofas and pianos and massive mahogany chairs and tri-D sets and bedrooms and drawing rooms and breakfast rooms and nurseries.
The nurseries were a shock to Morey; it had never occurred to him that the Bigelows had children. But they did and, though the ■children were only five and eight, they were still up, under the care of a brace of robot nursemaids, doggedly playing with their overstuffed animals and miniature trains.
“You don’t know what a comfort Tony and Dick are,” Tanaquil Bigelow told Morey. “They consume so much more than their rations. Walter says that every family ought to have at least two or three children to, you know. Help out. Walter’s so intelligent about these things, it’s a pleasure to hear him talk. Have you heard his poem, Morey? The one he calls The Twoness of—”
Morey hastily admitted that he had. He reconciled himself to a glum evening. The Bigelows had been eccentric but fun back at Uncle Piggotty’s. On their own ground, they seemed just as eccentric, but painfully dull.
They had a round of cocktails, and another, and then the Bigelows no longer seemed so dull. Dinner was ghastly, of course; Morey was nouveau-riche enough to be a snob about his relatively Spartan table. But he minded his manners and sampled, with grim concentration, each successive course of chunky protein and rich marinades. With the help of the endless succession of table wines and liqueurs, dinner ended without destroying his evening or his strained digestive system.
And afterward, they were a pleasant company in the Bigelows’ ornate drawing room. Tanaquil Bigelow, in consultation with the children, checked over their ration books and came up with the announcement that they would have a brief recital by a pair of robot dancers, followed by string music by a robot quartet. Morey prepared himself for the worst, but found before the dancers were through that he was enjoying himself. Strange lesson for Morey: When you didn’t have to watch them, the robot entertainers were fun!
“Good night, dears,” Tanaquil Bigelow said firmly to the children when the dancers were done. The boys rebelled, naturally, but they went. It was only a matter of minutes, though, before one of them was back, clutching at Morey’s sleeve with a pudgy hand.
Morey looked at the boy uneasily, having little experience with children. He said, “Uh-what is it, Tony?”
“Dick, you mean,” the boy said. “Gimme your autograph.” He poked an engraved pad and a vulgarly jeweled pencil at Morey.
Morey dazedly signed and the child ran off, Morey staring after him. Tanaquil Bigelow laughed and explained, “He saw your name in Porfirio’s column. Dick loves Porfirio, reads him every day. He’s such an intellectual kid, really. He’d always have his nose in a book if I didn’t keep after him to play with his trains and watch tri-D.”
“That was quite a nice write-up,” Walter Bigelow commented—a little enviously, Morey thought. “Bet you make Consumer of the Year. I wish,” he signed, “that we could get a little ahead on the quotas the way you did. But it just never seems to work out. We eat and play and consume like crazy, and somehow at the end of the month we’re always a little behind in something—everything keeps piling up—and then the Board sends us a warning, and they call me down and, first thing you know, I’ve got a couple of hundred added penalty points and we’re worse off than before.”
“Never you mind,” Tanaquil replied staunchly. “Consuming isn’t everything in life. You have your work.”
Bigelow nodded judiciously and offered Morey another drink. Another drink, however, was not what Morey needed. He was sitting in a rosy glow, less of alcohol than of sheer contentment with the world.
He said suddenly, “Listen.”
Bigelow looked up from his own drink. “Eh?”
“If I tell you something that’s a secret, will you keep it that way?”
Bigelow rumbled, “Why, I guess so, Morey.”
But his wife cut in sharply, “Certainly we will, Morey. Of course! What is it?” There was a gleam in her eye, Morey noticed. It puzzled him, but he decided to ignore it.
He said, “About that write-up. I—I’m not such a hot-shot consumer, really, you know. In fact—” All of a sudden, everyone’s eyes seemed to be on him. For a tortured moment, Morey wondered if he was doing the right thing. A secret that two people know is compromised, and a secret known to three people is no secret. Still—
“It’s like this,” he said firmly. “You remember what we were talking about at Uncle Piggotty’s that night? Well, when I went home I went down to the robot quarters, and I—”
He went on from there.
Tanaquil Bigelow said triumphantly, “I knew it!”
Walter Bigelow gave his wife a mild, reproving look. He declared soberly, “You’ve done a big thing, Morey. A mighty big thing. God willing, you’ve pronounced the death sentence on our society as we know it. Future generations will revere the name of Morey Fry.” He solemnly shook Morey’s hand.