The Complete Roderick by John Sladek Page B

and information retrieval systems and even poker players all I ever wanted was to create something, all right,
help
create something. Okay, okay don’t say it. I know my limitations. I’m intelligent but not creative, fine, only – at least I could help?’
    The lock of hair fell forward. ‘What is it? You want to see him,or what? Because there’s nothing much to see, not yet. And help, I don’t need any help, right now it’s a one-man job. All I need is some time, a little more time.’
    ‘Sure.’ Ben studied the coal on his cigarette. ‘Maybe you don’t trust me because I’m not Jewish or something, that it?’
    ‘Not – what the hell? Jewish? What does that mean?’
    ‘I don’t know, but, no offence but –’
    ‘Look, I’m not hardly Jewish myself, my old man was reformed I guess but I wasn’t even raised –’
    ‘Yeah, okay, but it’s a, like a holy work to you all the same. Secret and holy. Like the prophet Jeremiah and his son, making the first
golem,
you know? They made him out of clay, and they wrote the program on his forehead, and he came to life.’
    Dan shrugged. ‘Yeah, well I’ve got to get back to the lab.’
    ‘Yeah, but you know what they wrote? TRUTH, ’
emeth,
they wrote, and he came to life. And the first thing he asked them was couldn’t they kill him, before he fell into sin like Adam.’
    ‘Look, it’s just something I’ve got to do, alone.’ The lock of hair was brushed back, and fell again as he stood up.
    ‘But listen a minute, will you? All he wanted to do was die. They wrote the program on his forehead, ’
emeth,
he came to life and all he wanted was to die.’
    ‘Really gotta be going, Ben. I mean, these parables or whatever they are, maybe they mean a lot to you but, uh –’
    ‘The point is, maybe that’s all we can create, death. Even when we try to make life it comes out death, death is there all the time. See – wait a minute! – see, Jeremiah and Son, all they had to do was erase one letter from the program, see? So ’
emeth
became
meth.
DEAD. It was there all the time.’
    ‘Yep. Hebrew, huh? Never learned any myself. Oh, uh, thanks again for the lunch. See you.’
    Ben watched him go, a gawky Jiminy Cricket figure blundering among the white tables, stepping over the plaster leg, squeezing past the Manichee, slipping through gaps between formica and nybro, melamine and fibreglass, fleeing from the animated faces, only one of which turned to look, saw that he too was not Sandy, and dismissed him like an untidy, irrelevant thought.

III
    There was dust on Mister O’Smith’s hand-tooled boots from sitting in the departure lounge. He noticed it when he was looking down, getting set for another fast draw against Brazos Billy. Brazos was not the kind of man to mind if a feller stopped a minute to dust off his Gallen Kamps. In fact Brazos was no kind of man at all, just a fibreglass figure at the end of an abbreviated fibreglass street, ready to go up against anybody for a quarter in the slot. If you shot him, Brazos would look surprised, crumple and collapse, even bleed a little; if not, he’d just smirk. Mister O’Smith always drew blood, and he did so now. They were calling his plane, but he lingered, watching the blood ooze out on the little cowtown street, watching it ooze back in, as Brazos uncrumpled and stood tall again. Well, back to work.
    On the plane he read his gun catalogue. Nothing much else to do, since the Agency didn’t trust a freelancer like Mister O’Smith enough to tell him anything in advance so he could get his mind set for it. The Agency was a pain in the behind, with all their need-to-know stuff and their limited-personal-contacts stuff – hell, they even gave him a code book and a radio martini olive! As if he’d be fool enough to drink martinis anyhow, and shoot, radio olives went out with, with the Walther PP8!
    In Minnetonka the snow was melting; his sheepskin was too warm; the taxis were all covered with crap; Mister