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best of fritz leiber
Yes, but you went too far, Tom reminded me. You pried into people s minds to find their real
troubles and set em straight. That s psychers work, my lad, and you can t blame that august profession
for resenting your competition and having you terminated.
I helped the people I talked to, I countered stubbornly. 1 couldn t have talked to them at all, Tom, if I
hadn t something solid to say.
I love you dearly, madam, brood upon that, Tom said. Solid!
I don t worry em or push any of their desperation buttons, though I glimpsed banks of those, I
protested on. I just encouraged em to widen their minds and feelings a little and get some of the comic
side-wash of others troubles and cheer up naturally.
There you ve hit the nub of it, Tom asserted, wagging a ringer in my face. You tried to deliver more
than your job called for, instead of learning to do it with a minimum of effort and finding another job to
go with it, to swell your income and then another after that.
He gave a quick look around to make sure Ma hadn t come back, I soon realized and then, leaning
forward, said with a confidential hush, Oh, Meaghan, my boy, I ve learned so much of the world since I
got away from here and Ma s no longer firing me with resentments and wild ambitions. The world s a
very tidy comfortable place if only you ll remember there are three billion other lunatic climbers in it
and do no more than you re told and watch the smiles and frowns of your superiors and keep your eyes
open and your nostrils flared for flicker or scent of another chance to make money. Step fast, keep
adding one little job to the next like beads on a necklace, and forget Ma and her wild dreams. Oh, and
did I tell you my Katie s got two jobs herself now too? and never a one she d have had with Ma
around to hold her down.
Ma s all right, I told him sharply. She s got more courage and determination and vision than the four
of us ll ever have together. And such a fierce self-punishing drive I wonder she s still alive. How would
you ever have got out of here to a place of your own without Ma booting you?
True, true, he agreed. Nevertheless, Ma s a hopeless romantic. She wants her four sons to be Dukes
of the World, lording it over all.
I couldn t help chuckling at that. When I was still street-smiling, I confided, a little man, who thought
he was a great romantic, opened his mind to me wanting only to escape from the prison of his life and
aim a flashing sword at other men and capture with love their women and corral all the single girls
going around loose, too. After we both looked at this stirring picture a while, we realized that what he
really wanted was to have all women mother him and puff him up and lead him through life like a great
bobbing red balloon.
That s the way with all romantics, including Ma, Tom said, taking advantage of me straightway. She
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best of fritz leiber
wants her sons to be princes and kings, or board chairmen at all events, not realizing there s a billion
others starting up the success ladder with them and not one with a genuine ion drive. Not realizing that
the competition s too stiff for any man to dream of being more than an eight-job statistic with his peers.
Or ten at most.
The TV now was sailing over a great pile of gently crumpled bedclothes, which struck me as most
pleasant and unlikely. Then I realized it was orbiting the Earth high above the clouds and there low in
the foreground were the backs of beautifully barbered heads and now a sign flashing across the clouds:
Vacation Jaunts through Space for Nine-Job Heroes of Democracy.
You re right about the competition, I agreed quickly with Tom. I m no enemy of democracy, I m one
of its darlingest friends, but there s no question it s upped the competition more than ever it was in
Earth s history. We ve got more machines, more health, more freedom of movement, more education,
more leisure, more time for making money in our spare time, more almost equal people, and more
incentives, more quick showy rewards for the quickly successful with the result that the competition
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