Is That What People Do? Read online

  “Definitely!” Toms said. “Why, when I’m an expert on lovemaking, I’ll—I can—”

  “That is no concern of mine,” the old man stated. “Let’s return to our lessons.”

  Next, Toms learned the Cycles of Love. Love, he discovered, is dynamic, constantly rising and falling, and doing so in definite patterns. There were fifty-two major patterns, three hundred and six minor patterns, four general exceptions, and nine specific exceptions.

  Toms learned them better than his own name.

  He acquired the uses of the Tertiary Touch. And he never forgot the day he was taught what a bosom really was like.

  “But I can’t say that!” Toms objected, appalled.

  “It’s true, isn’t it?” Varris insisted.

  “No! I mean—yes, I suppose it is. But it’s unflattering.”

  “So it seems. But examine, Toms. Is it actually unflattering?”

  Toms examined and found the compliment that lies beneath the insult, and so he learned another facet of the Language of Love.

  Soon he was ready for the study of the Apparent Negations. He discovered that for every degree of love, there is a corresponding degree of hate, which is in itself a form of love. He came to understand how valuable hate is, how it gives substance and body to love, and how even indifference and loathing have their place in the nature of love.

  Varris gave him a ten-hour written examination, which Toms passed with superlative marks. He was eager to finish, but Varris noticed that a slight tic had developed in his student’s left eye and that his hands had a tendency to shake.

  “You need a vacation,” the old man informed him.

  Toms had been thinking this himself. “You may be right,” he said, with barely concealed eagerness. “Suppose I go to Cythera V for a few weeks.”

  Varris, who knew Cythera’s reputation, smiled cynically. “Eager to try out your new knowledge?”

  “Well, why not? Knowledge is to be used.”

  “Only after it’s mastered.”

  “But I have mastered it! Couldn’t we call this field work? A thesis, perhaps?”

  “No thesis is necessary,” Varris said.

  “But damn it all,” Toms exploded, “I should do a little experimentation! I should find out for myself how all this works. Especially Approach 33-CV. It sounds fine in theory, but I’ve been wondering how it works out in actual practice. There’s nothing like direct experience, you know, to reinforce—”

  “Did you journey all this way to become a super-seducer?” Varris asked, with evident disgust.

  “Of course not,” Toms said. “But a little experimentation wouldn’t—”

  “Your knowledge of the mechanics of sensation would be barren, unless you understand love, as well. You have progressed too far to be satisfied with mere thrills.”

  Toms, searching his heart, knew this to be true. But he set his jaw stubbornly. “I’d like to find out that for myself, too.”

  “You may go,” Varris said, “but don’t come back. No one will accuse me of loosing a callous scientific seducer upon the galaxy.”

  “Oh, all right. To hell with it. Let’s get back to work.”

  “No. Look at yourself! A little more unrelieved studying, young man, and you will lose the capacity to make love. And wouldn’t that be a sorry state of affairs?”

  Toms agreed that it certainly would be.

  “I know the perfect spot,” Varris told him, “for relaxation from the study of love.”

  They entered the old man’s spaceship and journeyed five days to a small unnamed planetoid. When they landed, the old man took Toms to the bank of a swift flowing river, where the water ran fiery red, with green diamonds of foam. The trees that grew on the banks of that river were stunted and strange, and colored vermilion. Even the grass was unlike grass, for it was orange and blue.

  “How alien!” gasped Toms.

  “It is the least human spot I’ve found in this humdrum corner of the galaxy,” Varris explained. “And believe me, I’ve done some looking.”

  Toms stared at him, wondering if the old man was out of his mind. But soon he understood what Varris meant.

  For months he had been studying human reactions and human feelings, and rounding it all was the now suffocating feeling of soft human fit ii. fie had immersed himself in humanity, studied it, bathed in it, eaten and drunk and dreamed it. It was a relief to be here, where the water ran red and the trees were stunted and strange and vermilion, and the grass was orange and blue, and there was no reminder of Earth.

  Toms and Varris separated, for even each other’s humanity was a nuisance. Toms spent his days wandering along the river edge, marveling at the flowers which moaned when he came near them. At night, three wrinkled moons played tag with each other, and the morning sun was different from the yellow sun of Earth.

  At the end of a week, refreshed and renewed, Toms and Varris returned to G’cel, the Tyanian city dedicated to the study of love.

  Toms was taught the five hundred and six shades of Love Proper, from the first faint possibility to the ultimate feeling, which is so powerful that only five men and one woman have experienced it, and the strongest of them survived less than an hour.

  Under the tutelage of a bank of small, interrelated calculators, he studied the intensification of love.

  He learned all of the thousand different sensations of which the human body is capable, and how to augment them, and how to intensify them until they become unbearable, and how to make the unbearable bearable, and finally pleasurable, at which point the organism is not far from death.

  After that, he was taught some things which have never been put into words and, with luck, never will.

  “And that,” Varris said one day, “is everything.”

  “Everything?”

  “Yes, Toms. The heart has no secrets from you. Nor, for that matter, has the soul, or mind, or the viscera. You have mastered the Language of Love. Now return to your young lady.”

  “I will!” cried Toms. “At last she will know!”

  “Drop me a postcard,” Varris said. “Let me know how you’re getting on.”

  “I’ll do that,” Toms promised. Fervently he shook his teacher’s hand and departed for Earth.

  At the end of the long trip, Jefferson Toms hurried to Doris’ home. Perspiration beaded his forehead and his hands were shaking. He was able to classify the feeling as Stage Two Anticipatory Tremors, with mild masochistic overtones. But that didn’t help—this was his first field work and he was nervous. Had he mastered everything?

  He rang the bell.

  She opened the door and Toms saw that she was more beautiful than he had remembered, her eyes smoky-gray and misted with tears, her hair the color of a rocket exhaust, her figure slight but sweetly curved. He felt again the lump in his throat and sudden memories of autumn, evening, rain, and candlelight.

  “I’m back,” he croaked.

  “Oh, Jeff,” she said, very softly. “Oh, Jeff.”

  Toms simply stared, unable to say a word.

  “It’s been so long, Jeff, and I kept wondering if it was all worth it. Now I know.”

  “You—know?”

  “Yes, my darling! I waited for you! I’d wait a hundred years, or a thousand! I love you, Jeff!”

  She was in his arms.

  “Now tell me, Jeff,” she said. “Tell me!”

  And Toms looked at her, and felt, and sensed, searched his classifications, selected his modifiers, checked and double-checked. And after much searching, and careful selection, and absolute certainty, and allowing for his present state of mind, and not forgetting to take into account climatic conditions, phases of the Moon, wind speed and direction, Sun spots, and other phenomena which have their due effect upon love, he said:

  “My dear, I am rather fond of you.”

  “Jeff! Surely you can say more than that! The Language of Love—”

  “The Language is damnably precise,” Toms said wretchedly. “I’m sorry, but
the phrase, ‘I am rather fond of you’ expresses precisely what I feel.”

  “Oh, Jeff!”

  “Yes,” he mumbled.

  “Oh damn you, Jeff!”

  There was, of course, a painful scene and a very painful separation. Toms took to traveling.

  He held jobs here and there, working as a riveter at Saturn-Lockheed, a wiper on the Helg-Vinosce Trader, a farmer for a while on a kibbutz on Israel IV. He bummed around the Inner Dalmian System for several years, living mostly on handouts. Then, at Novilocessile, he met a pleasant brown-haired girl, courted her and, in due course, married her and set up housekeeping.

  Their friends say that the Tomses are tolerably happy, although their home makes most people uncomfortable. It is a pleasant enough place, but the rushing red river nearby makes people edgy. And who can get used to vermilion trees, and orange-and-blue grass, and moaning flowers, and three wrinkled moons playing tag in the alien sky?

  Toms likes it, though, and Mrs. Toms is, if nothing else, a flexible young lady.

  Toms wrote a letter to his philosophy professor on Earth, saying that he had solved the problem of the demise of the Tyanian race, at least to his own satisfaction. The trouble with scholarly research, he wrote, is the inhibiting effect it has upon action. The Tyanians, he was convinced, had been so preoccupied with the science of love, after a while they just didn’t get around to making any.

  And eventually he sent a short postcard to George Varris. He simply said that he was married, having succeeded in finding a girl for whom he felt “quite a substantial liking.”

  “Lucky devil,” Varris growled, after reading the card. “‘Vaguely enjoyable’ was the best I could ever find.”

  THE ACCOUNTANT

  Mr. Dee was seated in the big armchair, his belt loosened, the evening papers strewn around his knees. Peacefully he smoked his pipe, and considered how wonderful the world was. Today he had sold two amulets and a philter; his wife was bustling around the kitchen, preparing a delicious meal; and his pipe was drawing well. With a sigh of contentment, Mr. Dee yawned and stretched.

  Morton, his nine-year-old son, hurried across the living room, laden down with books.

  “How’d school go today?” Mr. Dee called.

  “Okay,” the boy said, slowing down, but still moving toward his room.

  “What have you got there?” Mr. Dee asked, gesturing at his son’s tall pile of books.

  “Just some more accounting stuff,” Morton said, not looking at his father. He hurried into his room.

  Mr. Dee shook his head. Somewhere, the lad had picked up the notion that he wanted to be an accountant An accountant! True, Morton was quick with figures; but he would have to forget this nonsense. Bigger things were in store for him.

  The doorbell rang.

  Mr. Dee tightened his belt, hastily stuffed in his shirt and opened the front door. There stood Miss Greeb, his son’s fourth-grade teacher.

  “Come in, Miss Greeb,” said Dee. “Can I offer you something?”

  “I have no time,” said Miss Greeb. She stood in the doorway, her arms akimbo. With her gray, tangled hair, her thin, long-nosed face and red runny eyes, she looked exactly like a witch. And this was as it should be, for Miss Greeb was a witch.

  “I’ve come to speak to you about your son,” she said.

  At this moment Mrs. Dee hurried out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron.

  “I hope he hasn’t been naughty,” Mrs. Dee said anxiously.

  Miss Greeb sniffed ominously. “Today I gave the yearly tests. Your son failed miserably.”

  “Oh dear,” Mrs. Dee said. “It’s Spring. Perhaps—”

  “Spring has nothing to do with it,” said Miss Greeb. “Last week I assigned the Greater Spells of Cordus, section one. You know how easy they are. He didn’t learn a single one.”

  “Hmm,” said Mr. Dee succinctly.

  “In Biology, he doesn’t have the slightest notion which are the basic conjuring herbs. Not the slightest.”

  “This is unthinkable,” said Mr. Dee.

  Miss Greeb laughed sourly. “Moreover, he has forgotten all the Secret Alphabet which he learned in third grade. He has forgotten the Protective Formula, forgotten the names of the 99 lesser imps of the Third Circle, forgotten what little he knew of the Geography of Greater Hell. And what’s more, he doesn’t want to learn.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Dee looked at each other silently. This was very serious indeed. A certain amount of boyish inattentiveness was allowable; encouraged, even, for it showed spirit. But a child had to learn the basics, if he ever hoped to become a full-fledged wizard.

  “I can tell you right here and now,” said Miss Greeb, “if this were the old days, I’d flunk him without another thought. But there are so few of us left.”

  Mr. Dee nodded sadly. Witchcraft had been steadily declining over the centuries. The old families died out, or were snatched by demonic forces, or became scientists. And the fickle public showed no interest whatsoever in the charms and enchantments of ancient days.

  Now, only a scattered handful possessed the Old Lore, guarding it, teaching it in places like Miss Greeb’s private school for the children of wizards. It was a heritage, a sacred trust.

  “It’s this accounting nonsense,” said Miss Greeb. “I don’t know where he got the notion.” She stared accusingly at Dee. “And I don’t know why it wasn’t nipped in the bud.”

  Mr. Dee felt his cheeks grow hot.

  “But I do know this. As long as Morton has that on his mind, he can’t give his attention to Thaumaturgy.”

  Mr. Dee looked away from the witch’s red eyes. It was his fault. He should never have brought home that toy adding machine. And when he first saw Morton playing at double-entry bookkeeping, he should have burned the ledger.

  But how could he know it would grow into an obsession?

  Mrs. Dee smoothed out her apron, and said, “Miss Greeb, you know you have our complete confidence. What would you suggest’“

  “All I can do I have done,” said Miss Greeb. “The only remaining thing is to call up Boarbas, the Demon of Children. And that, naturally, is up to you.”

  “Oh, I don’t think it’s that serious yet,” Mr. Dee said quickly. “Calling up Boarbas is a serious measure.”

  “As I said, that’s up to you,” Miss Greeb said. “Call Boarbas or not, as you see fit. As things stand now, your son will never be a wizard.” She turned and started to leave.

  “Won’t you stay for a cup of tea?” Mrs. Dee asked hastily.

  “No, I must attend a Witch’s Coven in Cincinnati,” said Miss Greeb, and vanished in a puff of orange smoke.

  Mr. Dee fanned the smoke with his hands and closed the door. “Phew,” he said. “You’d think she’d use a perfumed brand.”

  “She’s old-fashioned,” Mrs. Dee murmured.

  They stood beside the door in silence. Mr. Dee was just beginning to feel the shock. It was hard to believe that his son, his own flesh and blood, didn’t want to carry on the family tradition. It couldn’t be true!

  “After dinner,” Dee said, finally, “I’ll have a man-to-man talk with him. I’m sure we won’t need any demoniac intervention.”

  “Good,” Mrs. Dee said. “I’m sure you can make the boy understand.” She smiled, and Dee caught a glimpse of the old witch-light flickering behind her eyes.

  “My roast!” Mrs. Dee gasped suddenly, the witch-light dying. She hurried back to her kitchen.

  Dinner was a quiet meal. Morton knew that Miss Greeb had been there, and he ate in guilty silence, glancing occasionally at his father. Mr. Dee sliced and served the roast, frowning deeply. Mrs. Dee didn’t even attempt any small talk.

  After bolting his dessert, the boy hurried to his room.

  “Now we’ll see,” Mr. Dee said to his wife. He finished the last of his coffee, wiped his mouth and stood up. “I am going to reason with him now. Where is my Amulet of Persuasion?”

  Mrs. Dee thought deeply for a moment. Then she walk
ed across the room to the bookcase. “Here it is,” she said, lifting it from the pages of a brightly jacketed novel. “I was using it as a marker.”

  Mr. Dee slipped the amulet into his pocket, took a deep breath, and entered his son’s room.

  Morton was seated at his desk. In front of him was a notebook, scribbled with figures and tiny, precise notations. On his desk were six carefully sharpened pencils, a soap eraser, an abacus and a toy adding machine. His books hung precariously over the edge of the desk; there was Money, by Rimraamer, Bank Accounting Practice, by Johnson and Calhoun, Ellman’s Studies for the CPA, and a dozen others.

  Mr. Dee pushed aside a mound of clothes and made room for himself on the bed. “How’s it going, son?” he asked, in his kindest voice.

  “Fine, Dad,” Morton answered eagerly. “I’m up to chapter four in Basic Accounting, and I answered all the questions—”

  “Son,” Dee broke in, speaking very softly, “how about your regular homework?”

  Morton looked uncomfortable and scuffed his feet on the floor.

  “You know, not many boys have a chance to become wizards in this day and age.”

  “Yes sir, I know.” Morton looked away abruptly. In a high, nervous voice he said, “But Dad, I want to be an accountant. I really do, Dad.”

  Mr. Dee shook his head. “Morton, there’s always been a wizard in our family. For eighteen hundred years, the Dees have been famous in supernatural circles.”

  Morton continued to look out the window and scuff his feet.

  “You wouldn’t want to disappoint me, would you, son?” Dee smiled sadly. “You know, anyone can be an accountant. But only a chosen few can master the Black Arts.”

  Morton turned away from the window. He picked up a pencil, inspected the point, and began to turn it slowly in his fingers.

  “How about it, boy? Won’t you work harder for Miss Greeb?”

  Morton shook his head. “I want to be an accountant.”

  Mr. Dee contained his sudden rush of anger with difficulty. What was wrong with the Amulet of Persuasion? Could the spell have run down? He should have recharged it. Nevertheless, he went on.