Fred Barnes and his wife Fredda hadn't had a vacation in years. They had a
modest income, so Fredda never thought about traveling to exotic places or indulging
herself with V.I.P. room service in sumptuous hotel suites. But this year, they were both
very tired of their daily grinds.
Fred had the type of job which quickly sapped the enthusiasm of even the most dedicated
employee. He was a construction worker on the moon colony. Every morning, without fail,
he'd bio- transfer his consciousness from his home in Brooklyn, New York, Earth to his
assigned exoskeleton body unit at the site of the future Colony Base Five. He'd spend
eight hours in the uncomfortable near-vacuum of the moon, dragging inhuman limbs through a
variety of inhuman tasks: blasting through rock, digging up gravel, constructing
air/water/power conduits. Then, at night, he'd bio-transfer back home to his familiar,
late- middle-aged body.
Meanwhile, every morning, Fredda would bio-transfer herself from Brooklyn to Beijing,
where she would don any available body, usually that of a twelve or thirteen year-old
Chinese peasant girl, to clean floors and tables at a busy downtown restaurant. Fredda
would typically bio-transfer back to Brooklyn, to HER familiar late-middle-aged body, some
hours before her husband.
She'd spend the late afternoon hours shopping for food and cooking dinner. At six every
evening, she'd set a single shot of bourbon beside Fred's inert body and take the chair
next to his, to wait for his consciousness to arrive. Then, Fred's bio- essence would
return home to find a glass in his hand and his devoted wife by his side.
"Fred, we really need a break in our routine," Fredda announced one evening
after Fred had finished his drink.
"What kind of a break are you looking for?"
"Well, between the two of us, we should be able to scrape up enough credits to go on
a small trip. A Friday through Tuesday mini-vacation." Fredda had the evening paper
and was looking furiously through the vacation ads.
"Between the two of us, we have enough money to pay for one good dinner and night on
the town," said Fred.
"But Fred, did you know that Palanar City has luxurious hotel suites for just
fifty-three credits a night?" said Fredda, paraphrasing the copy on one particularly
appealing ad.
"Palanar City? Of course you can get a cheap hotel room in Palanar City. That's a
gambling town. They get you at the roulette table and the craps table, so they give you a
break on the room and body rental rates."
"We could win a ton of credits in Palanar City!" said Fredda.
"We could lose a ton of credits."
"Don't you want a long weekend of gambling fun and excitement?" asked Fredda,
paraphrasing another vacation ad. Fred declined comment. They continued to disagree on
this subject until Fredda finally played a trump card.
"I'm going to Palanar City, Fred, with or without you." This statement led to
Fred's eventual admission that a trip to Palanar City might be 'just what the doctor
ordered'.
"As long as we're careful not to waste too many credits on the gambling."
A few days later, reservations had been made, Moon colony boss had been notified, Chinese
restaurant boss had been notified, and Fred and Fredda were making final preparations for
the trip.
"Since we'll be gone for four days I think I'll leave my body in the bed," Fred
announced.
"Do that and you'll have a stiff neck when we get back, Fred. I'm sitting my body on
my comfortable living room sofa like I do every morning. Why change what works?"
"You remembered to reserve bodies for us in Palanar City, right?"
"No Fred. I forgot. Guess we'll have to use hotel loaners until we find proper
bodies."
"What? Hotel loaners? Damn things never work right."
"Relax Fred. I'm teasing you. I requested two vacation bodies. One male, one
female."
"You didn't ask for bodies in the twenty-year-old range, did you?"
"No Fred, I didn't waste money. Our bodies will both be approximately
thirty-five-years-old."
"Good. You know how I feel about wasting money. Those 'young adult' bodies just cost
too much. You can have almost as much fun in a thirty-year-old body as you can in a
twenty-year-old body anyway."
Preparations completed, all that remained were the bio-transfers. Fred first called the
hotel and informed the desk clerk that he and Fredda would be checking in momentarily.
And, moments later, Fred and Fredda were blinking new eyes in the plush hotel lobby.
The Hotel Palanar was somewhat less expensive than the Palanar- Prime Hotel or the Palanar
City Inn. Its rooms featured muted, walnut colored walls, plush cream carpet and soft
mattresses on roomy double beds. But, unlike the Palanar-Prime, chocolates were not placed
on their pillows every morning by a smiling maid service staffer. And, unlike the P.C.
Inn, their room did not feature a complimentary bar with samples of wines and liquors from
every province in the solar system.
Still, Fredda was satisfied with her accommodations. And, she was quite comfortable with
her rental body, a fresh-faced brunette with quite a few pretty years left to her.
"When I see myself looking my proper age--I--I just wonder whether we made the right
choice all those years ago."
"Fredda, we're not going to go through this old song and dance again, are we?"
"But Fred, I want to be young and attractive all the time. Not just--once every
couple dozen years! And I COULD be young and attractive all the time. But YOU had to
convince me to . . . "
"Sell our youthful bodies for the government, in exchange for a guaranteed three to
four-hundred-year lifespan. And, two perfectly serviceable middle-aged bodies for our
personal use. I thought it was a good deal twenty years ago, and I still think it's a good
deal."
"I guess," said Fredda, examining her borrowed face in the mirror over the
borrowed desk in the borrowed study of their suite.
"Besides, that cute rental piece of flesh you're wearing at the moment should make
you forget all your troubles." Fred looked quite dapper himself, with his bright
casual borrowed clothing and boyish alluring rental face. He treated Fredda to the kind of
smile he reserved for his times in younger skin.
"No. A few thousand coins from one of those slot machines downstairs will make me
forget all my troubles."
"OK. Fine. Let's go throw away some money," he said, almost happily. "Just
remember, we each have a one hundred-fifty-credit gambling limit for the evening."
"A two hundred-credit limit, did you say?"
"I said a one hundred sixty five-credit limit."
"A one hundred eighty-credit limit?"
"A one hundred seventy five-credit limit."
"OK. I can live with a one hundred seventy five-credit," said Fredda. And, arm
in arm, Fred and Fredda left their room for the hotel casino.
Soon, Fred was deeply attached to a certain roulette wheel, the color red and the number
seventeen. Fredda had exchanged credits for casino coins and was feeding them to a hungry
slot machine.
Hours passed. Fredda fed her coins to the machine, which it ate gratefully, offering her
an assortment of mixed fruit icons in exchange for her labors.
Fredda's collection of casino coins inexorably shrank in size. She'd win a few coins, now
and again, to temporarily increase her stash, only to feed them back into the machine.
When she was down to ten credits worth of coins, she dealt the machine a mighty blow and
abandoned it for her husband's roulette table.
Fred, surprisingly enough, seemed to have come down with a bad case of gambling fever.
And, surprisingly enough, he was winning! He'd placed a few small bets, won a few credits,
then threw caution to the win and bet his entire stash of credits on one spin of the
wheel. He won that bet, placed tinier bets with some of his winnings, lost a bit, then
made another huge bet and won. Now, he was trying to decide whether to place every credit
he had left on the number twenty three.
"Fred, how much have you won?"
"Over one thousand credits."
"This is the time to leave the table."
"Oh no. The number twenty three pays off five to one."
"Fred . . . You're going to lose it all."
"Have faith, my dear," he said. And Fredda watched as the little ball spun
around and around and come to rest on the number twenty three.
"What did I tell you! I'm hot tonight!" said Fred. "Up five thousand
credits and still going strong!"
"This is the best time to quit--just walk away from the table," said Fredda.
Fred looked at his casino chips, representing five thousand credits, more money than he'd
seen in a month of Sundays. "But if I keep on betting, maybe we can walk away from
here with ten thousand credits, or twenty thousand, or more!"
"I don't recommend it, Fred," said Fredda.
"Are you betting or not, Sir?" asked the casino attendant.
"Yes. All five thousand credits on red."
"That pays off two to one, Sir," said the attendant.
"No Fred, don't do it," cautioned Fredda.
"Let 'er roll!" said Fred.
Again the roulette wheel spun 'round and 'round, and again, Fred won! Now, he had ten
thousand credits.
"OK, Fred, let's go," said Fredda.
"But I'm hot. I'm so hot, I'm burning up, here."
"Fred, think of what we can do with ten thousand credits."
"Think of what we could do with twenty thousand!"
"Think of what we'll do if we lose everything."
Fred looked at his wife, then glanced at the roulette wheel again, then looked back at his
wife. "OK," he said, "Mr. Roulette-man, please assign my ten-thousand
credits to my account. I'm through for the evening."
"Good choice, Fred," Fredda said.
And soon, Fred and Fredda were walking through the hotel lobby. Fredda was hoping to go
back to their hotel room and test out their new youthful bodies. But the money was burning
a hole in Fred's pocket. He wanted to spend some of it. And the Palanar City Hotel was
chock-full of places to spend it.
"Let's visit the hotel Pleasure Dome," he said. "The night is young and the
Pleasure Domes in Palanar City are reputed to be the best in the country."
"Oh, Fred. You're determined to blow your winnings on some novelty or other, aren't
you?"
"Yes dear. I am."
"Where's my old, conservative Fred?"
"I left him home with my old, conservative body."
Fredda resigned herself to the prospect of an evening of pleasure, followed by a morning
of regret over lost credits. And soon, she and Fred were browsing through a Pleasure Dome
more glamorous than any similar establishment back home in Brooklyn. The walls were
adorned with holographic projections of beautiful men and women bathing in hot springs,
hiking on beautiful mountains, sunning themselves on sandy beaches. Any of these evening
jaunts would have made this vacation one that Fredda would never forget. Some of the
offerings weren't even that expensive. Fred and Fredda could spend the evening as young
surfers on a Hawaiian island for just three hundred credits. Fredda was just about to
suggest the surfer trip when she noticed that Fred was entranced by one particular
tableau. It featured a graceful man in a tuxedo, dancing with a woman in a long, flowing
dress, to the sounds of a Big Band orchestra. The couple were swinging and swaying under
the breath-taking pink sky of Venus. Other vacationers could be seen in the background,
dining on Venetian nectar and drinking from oversized champagne glasses.
"This is the trip I want to take this evening," exclaimed Fred.
"It costs one thousand credits, Fred."
"So, what's your point?"
"Do you really want to waste one thousand credits for one single evening of
fun?"
"Yes. I just won five thousand."
"This tableau is one of our most popular," said the Pleasure Dome clerk.
"We call it 'In the Mood Under A Venetian Sky'."
"I call it outrageously expensive," said Fredda.
"I call it a bargain at any price," said Fred.
Fred initiated his credit transfer very quickly, too quickly for Fredda to formulate any
more objections to the trip. Soon, they had seated their rental butts in chairs for the
bio-transfers.
"These are rental bodies, you understand. If anything happens to them, we are
responsible," Fredda warned the clerk.
"Relax, enjoy your trip," said the clerk. "Your bodies will be waiting for
you upon your return. And we're sending you on a temporary time-limited transfer. You both
will return automatically at the end of the evening."
"Suppose there's an accident. Suppose you damage these bodies while we're away."
"Madam, we're completely insured against that sort of thing," said the clerk,
just before he flipped the switch and began the bio-transfer.
The trip took longer than Fredda expected. Their usual transfers to the moon or to China
were over in a flash, due to the relative closeness of those destinations. Now, however,
Fredda seemed to spend an eternity, sightless, weightless, bodiless, while her
consciousness journeyed to man's most distant colony.
Then, Fredda's mind connected with solid matter. She stood up in her new form and looked
around. She wasn't on Venus and she wasn't young. She was wearing a metallic,
uncomfortable android body.
"What's going on here," asked a second android in dismay. This android was, of
course, Fred.
They were lodged in a small dark chamber. "I think we took a wrong turn somewhere,
Fred," said Fredda.
"You can say that again."
"I think we took a wrong turn somewhere, Fred."
"Do not be alarmed," said a disembodied voice.
"Do not be alarmed?" asked Fred. "I paid one thousand hard- earned credits
for an evening on Venus. Where's the big band? Where's my young body? Where's the Venetian
nectar? I want answers."
"I believe you two come from Palanar City?"
"Yes," answered Fredda. "From the Pleasure Dome in the Hotel Palanar."
"We told those Palanar merchants that our tableaus were filled. The dance space is
filled to capacity. We simply have no bodies left and no space on the dance floor for
you," said the voice. "Palanar merchants are quick to take customers credits,
then they leave us here on Venus to manage the overflow."
"And how do you manage the overflow?" asked Fredda.
"I'm authorized to offer you a number of alternative trips to other locales,"
said the voice. And, in her mind's eye, Fredda could suddenly visualize their
alternatives.
"Hey, these trips aren't nearly as glamorous as the trips they were offering back in
the Pleasure Dome. I don't see one that's worth one thousand credits," complained
Fred.
Fredda agreed with her husband. All of these alternative trips featured travellers in
middle aged bodies, watching second rate theater productions in poor Venetian
neighborhoods, swimming and shivering on chilly beaches, fishing from pitiful little boats
into murky water.
"I'm not happy with any of these scenarios," Fred repeated, more emphatically.
"We could transfer you back to Palanar City," said the voice. "But we
cannot offer a refund of your credits."
"And why not?"
"Because we've already transferred your consciousness to Venus. And that's what you
really paid for. The balance of the trip, i.e. the bodies, the orchestra, the food, etc.
are all provided as a special free service by the Venetian government, to promote tourism
to our fair colony."
"Well that's just great," grumbled Fred, the grumbling all the more fierce
because it came from his unattractive, metallic android throat.
"I told you we should have saved our credits," said Fredda.
"Oh be quiet, Fredda."
"Don't you tell me to be quiet, metal-mouth."
So it came to pass that Fred and Fredda reluctantly agreed to a transfer to a fishing boat
on the sullen Venetian sea. But, that transfer was also botched and the couple found
themselves in fish bodies, in the water, rather than in the still inert human bodies on
the boat.
"I've had about enough of this," bubbled Fred. "I'm going to swim to shore
and register my complaints," he added with a flip of his tail.
"Wait for me, Fred," said Fredda, moving her flippers with speed to follow her
husband, who was already some hundred yards closer to shore. And that's when the vacation
turned tragic. Fred swam too close to another boat, and was scooped up in a net by an aged
Venetian fisherman.
Fredda tried to communicate with the fisherman. She tried to tell him that he had not
caught a fish at all, but rather, had her husband in his net. But the man could not
understand her manner of fish speech. Instead, as Fred gasped for air in the net, the
fisherman cast a second net, in an attempt to capture Fredda. She escaped his clutches by
diving deep into the water, but when she returned to the surface, the fisherman and his
boat had both disappeared.
Fredda swam in circles on the Venetian sea, waiting for the temporary bio-transfer to wear
off and send her back to Palanar City. Some hours later, the familiar sensations of the
transfer began and she floated through space, arriving at the hotel just a little past
midnight.
Back in the Pleasure Dome waiting room, she inspected her rental body. All was intact. But
Fred's rental body was sitting inert on the adjacent chair. Fred himself was presumably
still on Venus, lying on some fat cat's plate with the label 'Catch of The Day'.
She told the Pleasure Dome clerk what had happened to her husband.
"Oh my. That is unfortunate," he replied.
"Unfortunate. My husband just wanted a little fun and excitement, and now he's
somebody's dinner. It's so unfair!"
"I suppose I'll have to report this incident to my superiors," said the clerk.
"And I suppose we'll have to offer restitution to your family."
"I'll never be able to eat fish again," lamented Fredda. "I'll see those
flat fish eyes staring at me from the plate and I'll think of my poor, poor Fred."
"Let me try to initiate his return transfer manually," said the clerk.
"Your husband may still be alive and if I set the controls to search for intelligence
in the Venetian sea creatures, we might just be able to retrieve him." The clerk
played with a few buttons and dials on his manual transfer mechanism. "Looks
promising, Madam," he said.
"You've found him?" Fredda asked, hopefully.
"Possibly. Give me a few more minutes." He continued to twirl the dials and
click the buttons. And, a few moments later, Fred's rental body began to stir.
"Fred. Fred, is that you?" The body nodded in response. "Fred, are you
alright?" The body nodded again. "Can't you speak?"
"I--my-I voice bad language in head."
"What's wrong with him?"
"I don't know," said the clerk. "Possibly his fish body had already started
to die when he retrieved him. That might have caused damage to his bio-essence."
"Well, this is just great," said Fredda.
When Fred and Fredda finally returned home some two days later, they did so by
shuttle-craft, rather than by bio-transfer. The hotel had given them the rental bodies in
compensation for the damage to Fred's mind.
In the days that followed, Fred and Fredda's life changed considerably. Fred was unable or
unwilling to bio-transfer to his job on the moon colony. "Can't say I blame you,
Fred. After your last experience, you're afraid of doing another bio- transfer, aren't
you?" Fred nodded his head in the affirmative.
Fredda applied for government disability payments and began receiving a healthy check each
month, ear-marked for Fred's rehabilitation. Those welfare credits made them considerably
wealthier than they had been before the accident. And, given the considerable number of
credits they received from the sale of their original middle aged bodies to a Mars Colony
tour group, Fredda was even able to quit her own job and stay at home, every day, with
Fred.
Fred's ability to speak improved daily. He took to his language studies like a fish to
water. On the day of their return home, he was speaking in monosyllables.
"I Fred, you Fredda."
"Yes, you are Fred and I am Fredda. Do you remember our home?"
"Home. Home good," said Fred.
But within two months, Fred was conversing like a champion.
"I really need to stretch my muscles, Fredda. I think I'm going to take up swimming
or maybe even deep sea diving. After my recent experience, I find myself longing to return
to the sea, if only for a little while."
"I guess that's another side effect of your botched transfer, Fred," said
Fredda. "But, I suppose it's for the best. After all, swimming is a healthy activity.
It's good for the heart, you know."
"So I've read."
With his increased verbal abilities came an increase in Fred's libido. Perhaps it was
simply a function of their new, younger bodies, but Fred was nearly insatiable in the
bedroom. "Fred, give it a rest for a second," Fredda requested one morning,
after the ravages of fleshy delights began to wear on her body."
More time passed, as it always does, and Fredda began to enjoy living the life of the idle
rich. One day, she asked Fred what he thought of their new life.
"Do you miss your work on the moon colony?"
"Uh . . . no!" he replied. "Do you miss your work?"
"Not really."
"Do you miss the moon colony?"
"Fred, I never worked in the moon colony, you did. Don't you remember?"
"Uh. Not really."
"Don't you remember anything about your life before the accident?"
Fred looked at Fredda with guilt in his eyes. "Fredda, uh. I think--uh--I think it's
time I told you something."
"What?"
"I'm--I'm afraid of your reaction."
"Fred, you know you can tell me anything."
"You see, that's the problem. I'm not Fred. I'm a Venetian sea- creature, something
analogous to the porpoises you have here on Earth. That manual bio-transfer snatched me
away from a delicious meal served to be by my Venetian keeper."
"You're not Fred?"
"No. Fred, I'm afraid, is gone forever. My bio-essence was snatched by error."
"No!" said Fredda. "If you're not Fred, maybe my husband is still alive
somewhere on Venus, swimming around in that dismal sea."
"I don't think so."
"And why not?"
"Well, because of your descriptions of Fred's fish body."
"And what about Fred's fish body?"
"Well, like I said, that bio-transfer snatched me away from the middle of my
dinner."
"Yes. So what?"
"Well, I might be wrong, but I think your Fred was part of that dinner."
Fredda was horror stricken. "You mean . . . you mean . . ."
"Yes, my dear," said the new Fred. "I'm afraid I ate your husband."
end