Father Malone's Weekly Roundup presents Astounding Tales of the Public Domain

Weird way. We have a special presentation for you this week. On the one hand, it is a wildly present tale from the golden age of science fiction. And on the other hand, and it allows me to procrastinate on this week's actual roundup, which is proving to be a bit of an unwieldy mess. I saw twenty eight years later, and my feelings are complicated, so that episode will be forthcoming.

In the meanwhile, I thought you might enjoy an episode of a show I did a few years back. It lasted just one season and it was called Astounding Tales of the Public Domain, which did exactly as promised. They are readings of some of the best science fiction stories by some of the best science fiction authors, like Ray Bradberry and Lee Brackett and H. P. Lovecraft and mister Fritz Lieber.

It's his tale A Bad Day for Sales, that I'd like to present to you today. Originally published in nineteen fifty three in Galaxy Science Fiction magazine, it is a deeply thoughtful and chilling view of both commerce and mass destruction. Luckily, it's set way in the future. Oh wait, this is that future? Oh well, it's still a fucking phenomenal story and I hope you enjoy bad day for sales by Fritz Lieber.

The big bright doors of the office building parted with a pneumatic woosh, and Roby glided on too times square. The crowd had been watching the fifty foot tall girl on the clothing billboard get dressed, or reading the latest news about the hot Truce scrawl itself in yard high script hurry to look. Roby was still a novelty. Roby was fun for a little while, yet he could steal the show. But the attention did not make Roby proud.

He had no more emotions than the pink plastic giantess who dressed and undressed endlessly, whether there was a crowd or the street was empty, and who never once blinked her blue mechanical eyes. But she merely drew business while Roby went after it. For Roby was the logical conclusion of the development of vending machines. All the earlier ones had stood at one place, on a floor or hanging on a wall and blankly delivered merchandise in return for coins, whereas Roby searched for customers. He was the demonstration model of a line of sales robots to be manufactured by Schuler vending machines, provided the public invested enough in stocks to give the company capital to go into mass production.

The publicity Roby drew stimulated investments handsomely. It was amusing to see the TV and newspaper coverage of Roby's selling, but not a fraction as much fun as being approached personally by him. Those who were usually bought anywhere from one to five hundred shares if they had any money and foresight enough to see that sales robots would eventually be on every street and highway in the country. Roby radared the crowd, found that it had surrounded him solidly, and stopped. With a carefully built in sense of timing, he waited for the tension and expectation to mount before he began talking.

Say mah, he doesn't look like a robot at all. A child said, he looks like a turtle, which was not completely inaccurate. The lower part of Roby's body was a metal hemisphere, hemmed with sponge rubber and not quite touching the sidewalk. The upper was a metal box with black holes in it. The box could swivel and duck a chromium bright hoopskirt with a turret on top reminds me too much of the Little Joe Para tanks.

A legless veteran of the Persian War muttered and rapidly rolled himself away on wheels, rather like Roby's. His departure made it easier for some of those who knew about Roby to open a path in the crowd. Roby headed straight for the gap. The crowd whooped. Roby glided very slowly down the path, deftly jogging aside whenever he got too close to ankles in skylaw or soccasins.

The rubber buffer on his hoopskirt was merely an added safeguard. The boy who had called Roby a turtle jumped in the middle of the path and stood his ground, grinning foxily. Roby stopped two feet short of him. The turret ducked. The crowd got quiet, Hello, youngster, Roby said, in a voice that was smooth as that of a TV star, and was in fact a recording of one.

The boy stopped smiling Hello. He whispered, how old are you? Roby asked nine. No, Hey, that's nice. Roby observed a metal arm shot down from his neck and stopped just short of the boy.

The boy jerked back for you, Roby said. The boy gingerly took the red pollylop from the neatly fashioned, blunt metal claws and began to unwrap it. Nothing to say, asked Roby. Uh, thank you. After a suitable pause, Roby continued, and.

How about a nice refreshing drink. Of poppy pop to go with your polly loop. The boy lifted his eyes, but didn't stop licking the candy. Roby waggled his claws slightly. Just give me a quarter, and within five seconds.

A little girl wriggled out of the forest of legs. Give me a polly loop, too, Roby, she demanded. Rita, come back here. A woman in the third rank of the crowd called angrily. Roby scanned the newcomer gravely.

His reference silhouettes were not good enough to let him distinguish the sex of children, so he merely repeated, hello, youngster, rita, give me a pollylop, disregarding both remarks. For a good salesman is single minded and does not waste bait, Roby said, winning lee. I'll bet you read Junior Space Killers now. I have here. Uh huh, I'm a girl.

He got a polllop at the word girl. Roby broke off rather ponderously. He said, I'll bet you read Gigi Jones Space Stripper. Now I have here the latest issue of that thrilling comic, not yet in the stationary vending machines. Just give me fifty cents in within five, please let me through.

I'm her mother. A young woman in the front rank drawled over her powder sprayed shoulder. I'll get her for you, and slithered out on six inch platform shoes. Runaway children, she said, nonchalantly, lifting her arms behind her head. She pirouetted slowly before Roby to show how much she did for her Balero half jacket and her form fitting slacks that melted into skylawn just above the knees.

The little girl glared at her. She ended the pirouette in profile. At this age level, Roby's reference silhouettes permitted him to distinguish sex, though with occasional amusing and embarrassing miss calls. He whistled admiringly. The crowd cheered.

Someone remarked critically to a friend, it would go over better if he was built more like a real roviot, you know, like a man. The friend shook his head. This way, it's subtler. No one in the crowd was watching the news script overhead as it scribbled ice pack for hot Truce Venadin hints Russ may yield on Pakistan. Roby was saying, in the savage new glamour tint, we have christened Mar's blood, complete with spray applicator and fit all fingerstalls that mask each finger completely except for the nail.

Just give me five dollars uncrumpled bills may be fed into the revolving rollers you see beside my arm, and within five seconds. No thanks, Roby, the young woman yon remember. Roby persisted for three more weeks, seductimizing mars blood will be unobtainable from any other robot or human vendor. No thanks. Roby scanned the crowd resourcefully.

Is there any gentleman here? He began, just as a woman elbowed her way through the front rank, I told you to come back, she snapped at the little girl. But I didn't get my polylob. Who would care to rita? Roby cheated ow.

Meanwhile, the young woman in the half balero had scanned the nearby gentleman on her own, Deciding that there was less than a fifty percent chance of any of them excepting the proposition Roby seemed about to make, she took advantage of the scuffle to slither gracefully back into the ranks. Once again, the path was clear before Roby. He paused, however, for a brief recapitulation of the more magical properties of Mars blood, including a telling phrase about the passionate clause of a Martian sunrise, but no one bought it wasn't quite time. Soon enough, silver coins would be clinking, bills going through the rollers faster than laundry, and five hundred people struggling for the privilege of having their money taken away from them by America's first mobile sales robot.

But there were still some tricks that Roby had to do free, and one certainly should enjoy those before starting the more expensive fun. So Roby moved on until he reached the curb. The variation in level was instantly sensed by his under scanners. He stopped, his head began to swivel. The crowd watched in eager silence.

This was Roby's best trick. Roby's head stopped swiveling. His scanners had found the traffic light. It was green. Roby edged forward, but then the light turned red.

Roby stopped again, still on the curb. The crowd softly awed its delight. It was wonderful to be alive and watching Roby on such an exciting day, alive and amused in the fresh weather controlled air, between the lines of bright skyscrapers with their winking windows, and under a sky so blue you could almost call it dark. But way way up where the crowd could not see, the sky was darker, still purple dark, with stars showing. And in that purple dark, a silver green, something the color of a bud, plunged down at better than three miles a second.

The silver green was a newly developed paint that foiled radar. Roby was saying. While we wait for the light, there's time for you youngsters to enjoy a nice refreshing poppy pop or for you adults. Only those over five feet tall are eligible to buy. To enjoy an exciting poppy pop phizz, just give me a quarter, or in the case of adults, one dollar.

In a quarter I'm licensed to dispense intoxicating liquors, and within five seconds. But that was not cutting it quite fine enough. Just three seconds later, the silver green bud bloomed above Manhattan into a globular orange flower. The skyscrapers grew brighter and brighter, still the brightness of the inside of the sun. The windows winked, blossoming white fire flowers.

The crowd around Roby bloomed too. Their clothes puffed into petals of flame. Their heads of hair were torches. The orange flower grew stem and blossom. The blast came.

The winking window shafted tier by tear became black holes. The walls bent rocked, cracked. A stony dandriff flaked from their cornices. The flaming flowers on the sidewalk were all leveled at once. Roby was shoved ten feet His metal hoopskirt dimpled, regained its shape.

The blast ended. The orange flower grown vast vanished overhead on its huge magic beanstalk. It grew dark and very still. The cornice dandriff pattered down. A few small fragments rebounded from the metal hoopskirt.

Roby made some small, uncertain movements, as if feeling for broken bones. He was hunting for the traffic light, but it no longer shone either red or green. He slowly scanned a full circle. There was nothing anywhere to interest his reference silhouettes. Yet whenever he tried to move, his under scanners warned him of low obstructions.

It was very puzzling. The silence was disturbed by moans and a cracking sound, as faint at first as the scampering of distant rats. A seared man, his charred clothes, fuming where the blast had blown out. The fire rose from the curb. Roby scanned him.

Gooday, sir, Roby said, would here for a smoke, a truly cool smoke? Now I have here a yet unmarketed brand. But the customer had run away, screaming, and Roby never ran after customers, though he could follow them in a medium, brisk roll. He worked his way along the curb where the man had sprawled, carefully keeping his distance from the low obstructions, some of which writhed now and that, forcing him to jog. Shortly, he reached a fire hydrant.

He scanned it. His electronic vision, though it still worked, had been somewhat blurred by the blacks. Oh yes, sir, Roby said, then, after a long pause. Dat got your tongue. Well, I have a little present for you, a nice lovely pollylop.

Take it out, sir, he said, after another pause, it's for you, don't be afraid. His attention was distracted by other customers who began to rise up oddly here and there, twisting forms that confused his reference silhouettes and would not stay to be scanned properly. One cried water, but no quarter clinked in Roby's claws when he caught the word and suggested. Oh about a nice refreshing drink of poppy pop. The rat crackling of the flames had become a jungle muttering.

The blind windows began to wink fire again. A little girl marched, stepping neatly over arms and legs. She did not look at a white dress, and the once taller bodies around her had been shielded from the brilliance and the blast. Her eyes were fixed on Roby. In them was the same imperious confidence, though none of the delight with which she had watched him earlier.

Help me, Roby, she said, I want my mother. Oh, yes, sir, what would you like? Comics? Candy? Where is she, Roby, take me to her blues?

Would you like to watch me blow up a balloon? The little girl began to cry. The sound triggered off another of Roby's novelty circuits, a service feature that had brought in a lot of favorable publicity. Is something wrong? Are you in trouble?

Are you lost? Yes, Roby, take me to my mother. Stay right here, Roby said, reassuringly. And don't be frightened. I will call up a police.

Minute he whistled shrilly. Twice. Time passed. Roby whistled again. The windows flared and roared.

The little girl begged, take me away, Roby, and jumped onto a little step in his hoopskirt, give me a dime. The little girl found one in her pocket and put it in his cloths. Your weight is fifty four at one half pound. Have you seen my daughter? Have you seen her?

A woman who was crying somewhere? I left her watching that thing while I stepped inside readA Roby helped me. The little girl began babbling at her. He knew I was lost. He even called the police, but they didn't come.

He waited me too, didn't you, Roby? But Roby had gone off to pedal poppy pop to the members of a rescue squad which had just come around the corner, more robot like in their asbestos suits than he in his metal skin.