JOHN T. PHILLIFENT

Owe Me

Large corporate structures, like all large bureaucratic structures, mold the lives of the men and women who work in them. Novels like The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit and nonfiction works such as The Organization Man discuss the problems of routine, conformity, and drabness that pervade the modern business organization. The seemingly heartless removal of employees after decades of service and the lack of security for white-collar workers of all types is one aspect of this problem, as is the "gold watch and a thank you" treatment of those who make it to retirement, men and women who (in many cases) look back on a career devoid of meaning.
"Owe Me" is a story of one of the important stock characters in science fiction-the deviant-the individual who refuses to accept the system as it is and who struggles to change it. Mr. Smith is a man with enormous creative talents who simply will not play the game. There is a strong tendency for large bureaucratic structures to "reward'' the people who work in them by promoting them from positions where their creative abilities are being utilized to administrative positions for which they are not suited or qualified (the Peter Principle) or in which they are unhappy. The term "desk jockey" is understood in many different cultures-and for many the Desk is a prison. This story also explores a question addressed in this book by Isaac Asimov: how can you put a price on creativity? Smith's answer is that salaries, royalties, and status are never enough.

Conway Morriss sagged back in his managerial chair and contemplated the forthcoming interview with considerable distaste. A glance at the digital wall clock showed him 10.14.50. He promised himself a clear fifteen minutes out of a very full morning to finding out why, at least. A discreet chime interrupted his train of thought, heralded his secretary's voice.
"Mr. Smith is here, Mr. Morriss."
Morriss scowled. "Very well, Hilda, send him in, and no more incalls until I say.

The door murmured open, clicked shut again. Smith came across the tread-deadening carpet to halt and stand, casually erect in front of the desk, meeting the manager's irritated stare with a calmness that hinted of underlying amusement and curiosity. For a long moment there was nothing said, Morriss taking the opportunity to study Smith all over again. A tall man, lean and loose-jointed, almost gangling, yet with an aura of self-confidence that went well with his rakehell hairstyle, eagle-beak nose, and cool gray eyes retreating into shadow under a cliff like brow. It was a face full of character, yet the man was little better than a janitor, a night watchman, even if the post was over dignified with the title of security guard. An important post all the same. Morriss Micro-Modules had plenty of stuff to tempt a certain type of -intruder. -
"You wanted to see me, Mr. Morriss?" Smith sounded idly curious.
"I wouldn't say I want to see you, Smith." Morriss shook his head. "I have little choice, seeing that 1, personally, hired you in the first place. I'm not in the habit of passing the buck, but I tell you frankly I am not looking forward to this, nor to what I shall have to do immediately afterward." He saw Smith's inquiring look, and jabbed at the folder on his desk. "I have your personnel file here, naturally, and heading it is a letter, a personal letter to me from Harvey Bander, recommending you. Harvey's a good friend of mine, as well as being in a similar line of business. So again I have little choice. Either that letter is an arrant forgery, or you somehow managed to fool Harvey into trusting you. Now that you've been caught I have to ring and tell him. Warn him. But before I do that I have to deal with you. The truth. Sit down."
Smith looked for a chair, adjusted it, sat, and the submerged curiosity was plainer on his face now. "I reckon you will ring Harvey Bander when we're through here, Mr. Morriss, just to set your mind at rest, but you won't surprise him at all. He knows me pretty well."
"Does he know you're a common thief ? At least? Or possibly something a lot worse, an industrial snoop?" Morriss meant to keep his voice controlled but the mere thought of an outsider prowling through his files and records made his blood pressure and voice rise. In the gadgetry business fortunes can be made and lost on exclusive know-how. Smith smiled now, not unkindly.
"We can wash out 'thief,' at least," he suggested mildly. "The

records don't show anything missing that I took. As for the other thing, that could be harder to disprove, but maybe we'll get to it. Just what did Stoltz report to you anyway?"
"How did you know it was Stoltz?" Morriss felt belated caution. Smith didn't even begin to look Re a guilty man caught out. "Not that it matters," he resumed, "since you've as good as admitted . . . What the devil are you doing?"
Smith had risen to his feet smoothly and was holding a small something he had taken from a hip pocket, aiming it slowly around the office. "Just making sure we're not bugged," he said, and Morriss snorted.
"This interview is not being recorded, believe me."
"I do. There's one mike in your left-hand drawer, one in the intercom, one in the terminal console, and one over there in that wall unit, but they're all inert right now. That's all right. It's the nonofficial ones, that you might not know about, that I'm looking for." Smith completed a careful full revolution, shrugged, and nodded. "It's all right. Nothing here."
Morriss snorted again. "What are you trying to pull? A gadget that small that could sweep a room this size that easily . . . is strictly from TV fantasy. You have your nerve, trying that kind of bluff on me, of all people."
"No bluff. This works. I made it myself." Smith sat again. "We can get to that later. Tell me about Stoltz's report."
Morriss, fighting the feeling that he was the interviewee rather than,
the other way around, shuffled a sheet of paper where he could glance
at it for reference. 	
"No need to quote the exact words. In essence, it was Stoltz's shift after yours. He made his rounds conscientiously. He found doors open, drawers open, files open, terminal readouts left switched on . . . where they had no business to be. In places where he isn't allowed to be himself. Nor any security guard. Except in an emergency. And none was registered. So he made report to that effect. It had to be you, or some confederate you let in. Snooping into things and places where only myself and three other people have any rightful access! "
"That's fair," Smith admitted. "Of course, he wouldn't know if anything had been taken."
"Right. I won't know until Ratcliffe has' finished checking. But don't get any notion that will let you off the hook!"

"Did Lem Stoltz offer any reason why I would be so dim as to leave things that way for him . . . or anyone else . . . to find?"
"Not his place. But he did suggest that perhaps you were smart enough to be able to open all those off-limit restrictions, only you didn't know how to shut them up again."
"It's a thought. He's a good man, Stoltz. One of the few who checks everything he's supposed to, not Re some who do a once around quick and forget it. You'd do well to keep him on."
"Now see here!" Morriss felt it was time he got back on top again. "Are you suggesting this was all a deliberate plan of yours?"
"Just that. It's been reported, and here I am, in disgrace. Weren't you just a little bit surprised that I checked in this morning all normal? To fit your picture I should have been a hundred miles away by now. Incidentally I can open, and shut, any door, drawer, lock, cabinet, or storeroom in this establishment, Mr. Morriss. In fact I have been doing just that every night shift in the three months I've been here."
"My God!" Morriss felt sweat start on his face. "And you think you can con me into believing that you're not into industrial espionage! You must take me for a full-marks fool!"
"Maybe I do, in a way. I take you for an honest man anyway, and that can come close to the same thing, sometimes. "
"Why don't I pick up this phone," Morriss growled, "and call the law right now, and have you put away?"
"Couple of reasons. One, you don't want that kind of publicity. Two, you'd have a job thinking up a charge that would stick. Let me give you a third, a better one. " Smith rose again, approached the desk. Morriss peered up at him in sudden apprehension. The man had a wild, corsair look about him, almost piratical. He had produced yet another something from a pocket.
"This--he held it between finger and thumb of his left hand--is quite a toy. Starting here--he indicated the plain end--is a nine volt cell, the kind you supply for those wrist radios you market. Next to it is a chip, the sixty -four-circuit assembly . . . it's the Mark IX module that turned out to have undesirable characteristics and was scrapped, remember? And then a YIG crystal cluster, another one that came out wrong in the melt, the Y4C multiplier . . . "
"They were all consigned to scrap. Weren't they?"
"Not yet. You have two thousand of those in a store bin. And be glad of that. There's a few more bits and pieces, all odds or rejects, and then we get to this." He indicated the other end now. "Remember

that experimental laser-kit you got the contract for? Schools and hobbyists and instructional classes? Remember, too, that somebody set up the wrong figures and pulled off a thousand quartz rods that were too damned fine to be any good for anything? Well now . . . there's a bit more to it than that, naturally, but the point is, everything here is from your own stock bins and more than half of it is reject or scrap."
"Our reject rate is no higher than . . . " Morriss tried, but Smith wasn't listening to him. He changed hands, felt in another pocket.
"Recognize that?" he asked. Morriss took the slim slab of metal, some three inches by two, mirror-finish one side, rough cast the other, scratched his memory, found the reference.
"That's a base plate, one we use for our microportable TV."
"Right. It's vanadium steel, one-eighth of an inch thick, and a swine to cut, but you have to have it, as the only substantial bit in the whole assembly. Holds everything else together. Now . . ." Smith reached for a couple of financial reports, gray-backed volumes that were identical save for the monthly imprint. He arranged them parallel with an inch gap separating them, laid the metal plate to bridge the gap. A third volume on top reduced the gap still more. He made a careful adjustment to a knurled collar around the waist of the thing in his hand, then brought the thin quartz rod close to one edge of the metal, using the third volume as a guideline for his hand.
"The circuitry," he murmured, as if talking to himself, "does things to concentrate the final output into a beam with a cross section considerably finer than a hair. So the temperature in that beam section is something ferocious."
Morriss saw the quartz tip move steadily along, "Saw a needle point of intense glare and a spit of microscopic sparks.
"Of course," Smith mused, "that beam range is only a shade more than an inch, but what more do you need?" He reached the far edge, lifted the gadget away. The mirror surface looked as if it had been scored with a needle, until Smith picked up the uncovered half and handed it across. "It's cold," he said, "and a clean cut. Mind your fingers, that edge is like a razor."
Morriss stared at the clean edge and had no words. He gazed up at Smith, and still the words wouldn't come. Smith grinned easily, took the cut plate back. "Just to show off," he said, almost apologetically, and took up a rubber band from the desk tray. Diving into his pocket again he brought out a stub of chalk-white stuff. "Borax stick," he explained. "It helps." He rubbed it delicately and sparingly on both

cut surfaces, maneuvered them back together' slipped the band around to hold them, made another adjustment to the thing in his hand. This time Morriss saw a faint fan of blue from that quartz tip. Less than a minute later the plate was whole again, only now it was a staring impossibility, one half of it miffor-smooth, the other half rough-cast finish. It was the same on the other side. Morriss turned it over, foolishly, just to check. His eyes could barely detect the join ridge.
"Try that on Dommy Richards, and watch his face," Smith suggested, and for a moment, Morriss grinned in anticipation, anxious to see what his chief engineer would make of it. But the mirth evaporated quickly.
"All right, Smith . . . if that is your name . . . what's it all about? You have obviously laid on this whole charade deliberately. But why?"
Smith's grin was guarded now. He held out the gadget for Morriss to take. It was respectably heavy, looked like a fat black pencil with a chrome waistline. Morriss put it down, watched Smith settle back in his chair.
"I don't have to tell you," the inventor said, "that it's a surefire hobby item. That's your field. Battery life is around eight hours continuous. And all the components are your own stock run or standard products. Here"--he fished out a folded paper from an inside pocket, leaned to toss it onto the desk--is the detailed guts of it, circuitry and parts named. You know the prices, the costing, the potential market. Go ahead and analyze it market-wise. Say, for three months."
Morriss almost asked, "Why three months?" But his own wit caught up in time to stop that gaffe. There would be a flush of competition just as soon as other hobby houses could lay hands on a sample and strip it. "Three months would be optimistic," he substituted. "Things catch on fast in this business."
"Yes, but . . . at least half the items in there are wild. Nonstandard. And you're the only one with the production details on file, the know-how. So you have the edge all the way. Still, three months would do for starters. And--as Morriss reached for his terminal console--it might be better on your desk comp, not that thing. Just as well not to have anything on permanent record just yet."
"You don't miss a trick, do you?" Morriss muttered, his fingers dancing over his desk computer. This was his field, and his fingers were sure, the LEDs flickering their swift responses. He had already intuited a final figure, but it was still something of a shock to see the

results come up in hard green. It was big. The hobby market could pay very well if the item was right. And this was. It had a thousand potential uses. Morriss schooled his face. He was first and foremost a businessman. When he had said he wasn't in the habit of passing the buck he had spoken truly. He grasped the nettle firmly now.
"All right," he said, meeting Smith's stare. "How much?"
Smith leaned back in his chair and chuckled. "Comes the hard part. I'm as big a fool as the next man in some ways, Mr. Morriss. One of my follies is that I like to kid myself I'm a fair judge of character. 'So when you say 'How much like that, we both know what you mean. Only, I'm not selling anything. What you have there is -all your own property. Even the paper and ink of the diagram is company stock. It's all yours anyway. Free!"
Morriss took two full minutes and several deep breaths and still his voice came out shrill. "You can't do that! Man, do you know what this thing is worth?"
"Don't tell me, I don't want to know. I'm no good at that kind of figuring, never was. No, it's a gift. If handing you back your own property can be classified as a gift. No sale, anyway."
Morriss shook his head helplessly. He wanted to get up and stride about, and shout, and do something. But Smith just sat there, serene and unmoved.
"There has got to be more to it than that," he insisted. "Three months you've worked here. In your own time, out of establishment components, you have produced something that will sell by the million. Yes, million! And now you're giving it away, to me. Smith, there has to be a string somewhere!"
"Well now," Smith nodded slowly, "there is a place where you could tie a string or two, if you want to. There are things you could do for me, again if you feel you want to. This is where it comes in, am I a judge of character?"
"Ali!" Morriss began to feel more comfortable. "What . . . a job?"
"Hah!" Smith laughed openly now. "You run true to pattern. Mr. Morriss. No, no job. Hell, what do I want with a job?"
"But, man, at a salary at least ten times what we've been paying you. And worth every cent of it, for a man who can do this kind of trick . . . " He saw that Smith was still grinning, still shaking his head. "No?"
"No. I don't have a lot of use for money."

That statement was so outrageous that Morriss could only gape.
"What you can do," Smith murmured, "if you want to, three little things. First, clear my wage check to the end of the month."
"No problem." Morriss stretched out his hand. "A word to the cashier. "
"And while you're doing that, the second thing. Have him fix up an unlimited credit account on you, in the name of Magruder Smith."
Morriss drew his hand back sharply, all his instincts screaming against such a deal. He hoped it didn't show on his face, but Smith had sharp eyes.
"You don't like that? You're thinking I might walk out of here and run up a few bills to take you for maybe half a million or some such figure? Now why would I do a thing like that? How good a character judge are you, Morriss?" Smith wrinkled his brow in curiosity. "Can I eat more than one meal at a time, wear more than one outfit, sleep in more than one bed at a time? Who can? As I said, I have little use for money. So long as I have enough fare to the next place, I'll get by."
"But . . ." Morriss hesitated, "a checking account! What for?"
"Just a thought. I might be back this way sometime, who knows? Still, forget that. Do it this way. Your word that if ever I have need of money, or a favor of some kind, I can call on you. Call it an obligation. How's that?"
Morriss looked down at the gadget, then at his figure estimates, then back to Smith, and felt foolish. "You'd accept just my word?"
"I'll take that chance, sure."
"You said that I run true to form. Like Harvey Bander? You made this kind of deal with him?"
"And a few more, yes. I move around a lot. And that's the third thing you -can do for me. You have other friends, Mr. Morriss. Write me a letter or two, like the one Harvey Bander wrote. That's all. That's it. I'd like to be moving on again."
This time Morriss took three minutes of baffled thought, then stretched his hand again to the intercom. "You'll have your wages, and your credit account. And three letters. I'm willing to take a chance on you, Smith. But there's a thing you can do for me, in a moment. Ah, Willmot, Morriss here. I'd like you to raise a new credit account. Yes, the name is Magruder Smith . . ." It took only a few minutes. As Morriss released the switch and sat back the unusual forename rang a long-forgotten bell in his mind. "Magruder Smith?" he murmured. "I have heard that name before, haven't IT'

"Maybe. You want to know why I choose to live this way, right? Well, that's part of it. A long time ago now, full of bright and shiny ambition, I started up my own business. This line, but nothing this size . . . "
"This was a shoestring outfit once," Morriss interrupted. "and it took a lot of damned hard work to build it up to what you see now."
"I appreciate that. I know. I had ideas, and they worked. I made a lot of money fast. And then, it seemed like all at once, there I was at a desk, dealing, trading, arguing, trying to tell other people what to do, and how to do it, watching them do it, and worrying . . . a load on my back all the time, ulcers getting a grip on my guts. All that, while I paid men on the shop floor to do what I wanted to do. It was no good. I sold out. I quit. Money wouldn't buy me what I wanted, and I can't be idle. I need problems, but I like to be free to pick my own. This way . . . I can. That's it. "
"You'd be worth a lot to me," Morriss murmured, scribbling hurriedly. "Your own office, work your own hours, all the facilities, references . . . "
"On an income I'd have to pay taxes, file returns. And it can get lost or stolen. You realize if I got mugged in a dark alley tonight I wouldn't lose a thing? I have nothing to lose. I'm rich enough, in the only way inflation can't touch. I know eight or ten people like you who owe me, should I ever be in need. Who can steal that?" He rose and stood by the desk as Morriss finished the last letter and folded all three into an envelope. "You better have this, too." He produced a card with a circuit diagram on it. "That's my bug-finder. My own. It works. You can get yourself one made up. But, take my advice, don't sell it. Let a professional bugman get a good look at that and he'll figure out a bug to beat it. I could. And one last thing. " This was another paper with a long screed on it. "You have pretty good security arrangements here, but there are a few weak spots. That's a list of them, and how to tighten them up a bit. All right? Thanks for everything. See you around sometime, maybe. "
For a long while after Smith had gone Morriss sat still at his desk, deep in thought. The man was smart obviously. But crazy, too. No home, no roots, no money in the bank, no security, not even an automobile! Just a bum, wandering from job to job. It was no way for a man to live. So why, Morriss demanded of himself savagely, why was he so achingly envious?