The Reproductive System (Gollancz SF Library) by John Sladek Page A

earnest, in his glasses with their customary rims of solemn black, so energetic, so eager to set the world on fire. Madge fingered the yellow pin he’d given Susie: ‘ NO RETREAT—BEAT THE VIET CONG .’
    Jim was already worth money in his own right, besides being the son of a prominent gynaecologist, and leader of the California chapter of
Young Americans to Conserve Free Enterprise
.
    When he was serious, he was serious indeed. Madge recalled every detail of the first conversation she’d had with him:
    ‘Are you planning on studying medicine yourself, Mr. Porteus?’
    ‘No I’m not, Mrs. Suggs.’ He removed the glasses, startling her with the hard planes of his face. ‘No, I’m afraid the medical profession is a dead letter, these days. Despite all our efforts to prevent it, socialized medicine is on the way—and with it,
starvation for doctors
.
    ‘No, I’ve been keeping an ear to the ground while I pursue a course of business administration. Market analysis seems very promising—very promising, I can assure you. Qualified analysts are in short supply. It’s an uncrowded field, where an energetic, get-up-early young man can soon make his pile. Or I may opt for corporation law—chiefly protecting infant industries from the predations of the federal eagle—or some related field. I suppose the truth lies somewhere between the two. I may become an humble junior executive, an unknown but vital cog in middle management—a job where the rewards are not mere fiscal aggrandizement, but full commitment to the judicious use of power. I distribute work and rewards—and punishments—to my subordinates, while receiving my own just portion from the higher-ups; a vital link in the Great Chain of Command !’
    In many ways, she reflected, thinking back on that conversation, Jim seemed older than her husband.
    Madge was shocked to note the time. In the next five minutes
    she was a flurry of activity, bathing, perfuming, arranging her hair, and enveloping her body in diaphanous pyjamas of mysterious misty grey barely before the bell rang. She hurriedly pinned on the yellow button and ran to greet Jim.
    ‘Wow !’ he said. ‘Is it dark in here ! Let’s get a little light on the subject.’
    ‘Wow !’ he repeated, looking her over in the light. ‘You look great, Madge.’ He took off his Tyrolean hat and kissed her.
    As he undressed, neatly and efficiently, Jim talked of the coming elections for student government, in which his Student Ultra Conservatives, newly-formed, hoped to win a few seats.
    ‘We’re young and dynamic, though inexperienced,’ he said, folding his socks carefully and hanging them over the back of a chair. ‘The older parties will just have to move over and make room for us.’
    Madge moved over and made room for him in the bed.
    Woody sat in the dispatcher’s office the same night, staring unseeingly at the Lost Property form before him. For hours, he had found himself unable to even begin his strange report—though he saw every detail of it clearly, again and again.
    By the time he had brought his little train to a halt that afternoon, the rest of the crew had been on the ground, running for the dispatcher’s office where the beer was kept. The Altoona-Las Vegas run always stopped here at Double Flats for beer, especially on hot days. Officially, of course, they stopped to pick up train orders.
    ‘Where’s the beer?’ asked Fats, the brakeman cheerily.
    ‘I ain’t your slavey !’ screamed the dispatcher, who never spoke in any other tone. ‘You know where we keep it ! You guys don’t know what work is. You don’t know how lucky you got it, being out there in the fresh air. I wish I was back on the road, I wish to God I was.’ He spat into a dim, littered corner, where there might have been a spitoon. Woody and the crew opened beer cans and settled in various creaky chairs about the dark brown room. They were not anxious to get back into the desert dust and heat, no matter how