The Goodly Creatures - C. M. Kornbluth, ebook, Temp
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The Goodly CreaturesHow many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in 'ttMiranda in The TempestFARWELL suddenly realized that his fingers had been trembling all morning, with a hair-fine vibration that he couldn't control. He looked at them in amazement and rested them on the keys of his typewriter. The tremor stopped and Farwell told himself to ignore it; then it would go away. The copy in the typewriter said: Kumfyseets—add I in the upper left-hand corner and under it:—hailed by veteran spacemen as the greatest advance in personal comfort and safety on the spaceways since—Since what? It was just another pneumatic couch. Why didn't he ever get anything he could work with? This one begged for pix—a stripped-down model in a Kumfyseet, smiling under a pretended seven-G takeoff acceleration—but the Chicago Chair Company account didn't have an art budget. No art, and they were howling for tear-sheets already.— comfort and safety on the spaceways since—He could take Worple to a good lunch and get a shirt-tail graf in his lousy "Stubby Says" column and that should hold Chicago Chair for another week. They wouldn't know the difference between Worple and—Farwell's intercom buzzed. "Mr. Henry Schneider to see you about employment.""Send him in, Grace."Schneider was a beefy kid with a practiced smile and a heavy handshake. "I saw your ad for a junior copywriter," hesaid, sitting down confidently. He opened an expensive, new-looking briefcase and threw a folder on the desk.Farwell leafed through it—the standard presentation. A fact sheet listing journalistic honors in high school and college, summer jobs on weeklies, "rose to sergeantcy in only ten months during U.M.T. period." Copies of by-line pieces pasted neatly, without wrinkles, onto heavy pages. A TV scenario for the college station. A letter from the dean of men, a letter from the dean of the journalism school."As you see," Schneider told him, "I'm versatile. Sports, travel, science, human-interest, spot news—anything.""Yes. Well, you wouldn't be doing much actual writing to start, Schneider. When—""I'm glad you mentioned that, Mr. Farwell. What exactly would be the nature of my work?""The usual cursus honoruni—" Schneider looked blank and then laughed heartily. Farwell tried again: "The usual success story in public relations is, copy boy to junior copywriter to general copywriter to accounts man to executive. If you last that long. For about three months you can serve Greenhough and Brady best by running copy, emptying waste baskets and keeping your eyes open. After you know the routine we can try you on—"Schneider interrupted: "What's the policy on salaries?" He didn't seem to like the policy on promotions.Farwell told him the policy on salaries and Schneider tightened his mouth disapprovingly. "That's not much for a starter," he said. "Of course, I don't want to haggle, but I think my presentation shows I can handle responsibility."Farwell got up with relief and shook his hand. "Too bad we couldn't get together," he said, talking the youngster to the door. "Don't forget your briefcase. If you want, you can leave your name with the girl and we'll get in touch with you if anything comes up. As you say, you might do better in another outfit that has a more responsible job open. It was good of you to give us a try, Schneider ..." A warm clap on the shoulder got him out.Next time, Farwell thought, feeling his 45 years, it would be better to mention the starting salary in the ad and short-stop the youngsters with inflated ideas. He was pretty sure he hadn't acted like that beefy hotshot when he was a kid—or had he? —comfort and safety on the space-ways since—He turned on the intercom and said: "Get me Stubby Worple at the Herald." Worple was in."Jim Farwell, Stub. I was looking at the column this morning and I made myself a promise to buzz you and tell you what a damn fine job it is. The lead graf was sensational." Modest protests."No, I mean it. Say, why don't we get together? You got anything on for lunch?"He did, but how about dinner? Hadn't been to the Mars Room for a coon's age."Oh, Mars Room. Sure e*nough all right with me. Meet you in the bar at 7:30?" He would.Well, he'd left himself wide open for that one. He'd be lucky to get off with a $30 tab. But it was a sure tear-sheet for the Chicago Chair people.Farwell said to the intercom: "Get me a reservation for 8 tonight at the Mars Room, Grace. Dinner for two. Tell Mario it's got to be a good table."He ripped the Kumfyseets first ad out of the typewriter and dropped it into the waste basket. Fifty a week from Chicago Chair less 30 for entertainment. Mr. Brady wasn't going to like it; Mr. Brady might call him from New York about it to say gently: "Anybody can buy space, Jim. You should know by now that we're not in the business of buying space. Sometimes I think you haven't got a grasp of the big picture the way a branch manager should. Greenhough asked about you the other day and I really didn't know what to tell him." And Farwell would sweat and try to explain how it was a special situation and maybe try to hint that the sales force was some-tunes guilty of overselling a client, making promises that Ops couldn't possibly live up to. And Mr. Brady would close on a note of gentle melancholy with a stinging remark or two "for your own good, Jim."Farwell glanced at the clock on his desk, poured one from his private bottle; Brady receded a little into the background of his mind."Mr. Angelo Libonari to see you," said the intercom. "About employment." "Send him in." Libonari stumbled on the carpeting that began at the thres-hold of Harwell's office.,.- "I saw your ad," he began shrilly, "your ad for a junior copywriter.""Have a seat." The boy was shabby and jittery. "Didn't you bring a presentation?"He didn't understand. "No, I just saw your ad. I didn't know I had to be introduced. I'm sorry I took up your time—" He was on his way out already."Wait a minute, Angelo! I meant, have you got any copies of what you've done, where you've been to school, things like that.""Oh." The boy pulled out a sheaf of paper from his jacket pocket. "This stuff isn't very good," 'he said. "As a matter of fact, it isn't really finished. I wrote it for a magazine, Integration, I don't suppose you ever heard of it; they were going to print it but they folded up, it's a kind of prose poem." Abruptly he ran dry and handed over the wad of dog-eared, interlined copy. His eyes said to Farwell: please don't laugh at me.Farwell read at random: "—and then the Moon will drift astern and out of sight, the broken boundary that used to stand between the eye and the mind." He read it aloud and asked: "Now, what does that mean?"The boy shyly and proudly explained: "Well, what I was trying to bring out there was that the Moon used to be as far as anybody could go with his eyes. If you wanted to find out anything about the other celestial bodies you had to guess and make inductions—that's sort of the whole theme of the piece—liberation, broken boundaries.""Uh-huh," said Farwell, and went on reading. It was a rambling account of an Earth-Ganymede flight. There was a lot of stuff as fuzzy as the first bit, there-were other bits that were hard, clean writing. The kid might be worth developing if only he didn't look and act so peculiar. Maybe it was just nervousness."So you're specially interested in space travel?" he asked."Oh, very much. I know I failed to get it over in this; it's all second-hand. I've never been off. But nobody's really written well about it yet—" He froze.His terrible secret, Farwell supposed with amusement, was that he hoped to be the laureate of space flight. Well, if he wasn't absolutely impossible, Greenhough and Brady couldgive him a try. Shabby as he was, he wouldn't dare quibble about the pay.He didn't quibble. He told Farwell he could get along on it nicely, he had a room in the run-down sub-Bohemian near north side of town. He was from San Francisco, but had left home years ago—Farwell got the idea that he'd run away— and been in a lot of places. He'd held a lot of menial jobs and picked up a few credits taking night college courses here and there. After a while Farwell told him he was hired and to see the girl for his withholding tax and personnel data forms.He buzzed his copy chief about the boy and leaned back in good humor. Angelo could1 never get to be an accounts man, of course, but he had some talent and imagination. Tame it and the kid could grow into a good producer. A rocket fan would be handy to have around if Sales stuck Ops with any more lemons like Chicago Chair.Worple drank that night at the Mars Room like a man with a hollow leg and Farwell more or less had to go along with him. He got the Kumfyseets item planted but arrived at the office late and queasy as McGuffy, the copy chief, was bawling out Angelo for showing up in a plaid shirt, and a dirty one at that.McGuffy came in to see him at 4:30 to ask about Angelo. "He just doesn't seem to be a Greenhough and Brady man, J. F. Of course if you think he's got something on the ball, that's good enough for me. But, honestly, can you see him taking an account to lunch?""Is he really getting in your hair, Mac? Give him a few days."McGuffy was back at the end of the week, raging. "He showed me a poem, J. F. A sonnet about Mars. And he acted as if he was doing me a favor! As if he was handing me a contract with Panamerican Steel!"Farwell laughed; it was exactly what he would expect Angelo to do. "It was his idea of a compliment, Mac. It means he thinks you're a g...
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