Title: Preferred Position

The bed woke them. "Time to get up, dears," it cooed. "Time to get up and greet the sun ... time to get up...." Then the supporting magnetism faded and let their mattress drift gently to the soft warm floor.

Janet turned and opened her eyes, pouting at Les. He scowled back, grumbled something, and rolled away. She shook his film-coated shoulder.

"Come on, Les. Come on, you'll feel better after coffee."

"Don't want any," he snarled.

But the damage had been done. At the word "coffee" a grotesque marionette opened the bedroom door and minced in with two steaming cups on a tray, swinging them artfully so that they appeared likely to spill, but didn't.

For some years, now, that dance had left Janet unamused. She was about to say so when Les growled, "These darned dolls are a nuisance. I wish you'd order a plain, automatic dispenser!"

"They're even more boring," Janet argued, sitting up. Her gauzy film-dress and sleepy face made her look appealingly childlike. She was fifty-five.

Les was sixty, with a full head of blond hair atop six and a half feet of slim solid flesh. He sat up with the expression of an exasperated six-year-old.

"Go away!" he told the doll. It did.

"But I wanted some!" Janet wailed. She was careful, though, not to use the words that would cause the doll to return.

Neither did Les. He said, "Why don't we take a couple of pills and go back to sleep till tomorrow? There isn't a darned thing to do."

"There never is," Janet said. Then noting she'd inadvertently agreed with her husband, she quickly added, "But we can't sleep—we did that yesterday. If we don't move around we'll practically stop eating, and anyway the neighbors will miss us. First thing you know we'll be accused of either a hunger-strike or immobility. Then they'll enslave us for attempting suicide!" She sniffed in self-pity at the thought.

"Ah, honk 'em!" Les said. "Slavery'd at least be a change. And slaves have something to do!"

"Don't talk nonsense," Janet said tartly. "You know perfectly well they always torture slaves."

"Yeah.... But I just can't face this any longer! I've got sixty-five more years of longevity, according to the doctors—and they're never wrong, curse them! Sixty-five more years without the possibility of illness, want, risk.... Even an accident is unlikely. Nothing's going to happen in all that time! Jan, I just can't face it."

"Isn't that just like a man?" she scoffed. "You know very well I've got seventy years to go—five still to wait before I can even have my first child! You're just being selfish!"

They glowered at each other. Then Les rubbed her cheek with the back of his hand, and smiled.

"Thanks, kid," he said. "You really had me going for a minute. Now I feel better!"

Pleased with the compliment, Janet concocted an extra-fancy combination of films to spray on herself for the morning's wear. When it was in place, she ordered a large breakfast and arranged to have the waiter-doll do a special dance-routine while serving.

But Les's smile had vanished with the whiskers he'd rubbed off. He picked at his food, turned his back on the dancing, and afterward yawned away the few minutes they spent on their apartment's terrace, stared at by fifty thousand neighbors who lacked anything better to do. When Les wandered idly off, Janet followed.

Les went to the living room, projected a book onto the ceiling, switched it off without reading, played with the glowing phosphors that lighted the room in colors he varied jarringly, fiddled with the console of the perfume aerosol and created a stink, and then, in sheer despair, turned on the puppet-set.

Its lighted screen listed the necessary dolls and props, so he laid them out. Soon the three-foot stage reflected a broadcast picture of the State Executive Office. A stringless, formally-dressed puppet sat at a desk, its blank face a transmitted facsimile of the Governor's.

"... the last time I can make this announcement," the Governor was saying into a hidden microphone. "The tests are to begin at noon. Jobs are now open! I repeat: jobs are now open! Men only, of course. But if any of you fellows out there suffer from boredom—and who doesn't in this wonderful State of ours that by virtue of the New Energy-Sources guarantees leisured security to each citizen—if, I repeat, you suffer from ennui, then why not apply for a job?

"Do it now—no further vacancies will occur for years, and we have some really desirable positions open this morning. Appointments will be made strictly on merit, as usual, with a job for every applicant and the best job for the top man.

"Though it's true that losers in this competition are required to assume for life the less desirable duties that our civilization imposes, I assure you that isn't as bad as it sounds. I was pretty far down the list in my day, yet I only have to be Governor....

"So won't you please apply? I want a lot of competition!"

The stage darkened, and the puppet got up and walked to its box. Before the lights could go up on the next program, Les switched the set off.

"What do you think?" he asked Janet.

"I don't know," she said. "Nobody in my family has ever worked."

"Mine, either. But I once knew a fellow who'd tried for a job. He seemed o.k. to me, but he sure didn't get a good one! Had a clerical position, with business machines, and their output was geared down to spread the work. So he didn't have enough to do ... just stacked punched cards or something every day for eighty years!"

"Oh, you'd do better than that, dear!"

"Maybe. Point is, there are jobs worse than no job at all!"

"I'm not so sure!" Janet said, suddenly determined. "Only a few minutes ago you weren't very happy about the idle days ahead. Why not take a chance?"

"Take a chance? What kind of language is that? Chance went out along with disease and poverty and crime and accidents. You're way off base, Jan!"

"But you have a chance—oh, all right!—an opportunity, then, if you like that better, to get a good job. Now, if I were a man—"

"But you're not.... Still ... maybe I'll try it...."

For the first time in a month or two, Janet kissed him warmly. And after she'd helped him into his wings and seen him off from the terrace, she felt a strange warm glow of anticipation. Not since she'd married had there been need for a decision that could bring change into her life. This was a Day!

It was a Day for a lot of others, too. She learned that from the noon broadcast of the test ceremony.

"In my time," the Governor said, speaking from the Capitol's rotunda, "in my time a hundred aspirants was considered a good turnout. Today's applicants total a thousand! We haven't actually got a thousand jobs lined up, but we'll get 'em! And I'm privileged to announce, now that the list of competitors has closed, that we do have the astoundingly large number of ten—repeat, ten—genuinely desirable appointments to make."

Ten good jobs for a thousand applicants didn't sound to Janet like an astoundingly large number. She'd been sprawled on a magnetically-positioned pad half-way between floor and ceiling, but she sat up when the Governor stopped talking, and with a twinge of genuine and unwonted anxiety watched the long file of applicants as they approached in turn the brain-wave analyzer, the voice-operated sorter that would add their life-files to current test results, and the officials who judged each man's configuration.

She wished they'd announce the test results publicly, but knew they wouldn't. So, when Les had gone through—about twenty minutes after the start—Janet shut off the broadcast, dissolved her dress-films, and had herself rubbed by the massage machine. The morning's suspense was proving too much for her, and she didn't want to have a headache when Les came home.

But even the mechanical masseuse couldn't rub away her strange feelings. Not since marriage had Janet felt curiosity as to the future.

What if he got so dull they never even argued about anything? She shivered at the thought—but then she smiled. And for the next hour Janet lay under the soothing massage and gave herself up to the delightful new pleasure of worrying.

When Les returned, shadowing the terrace in his descent like some portentous bird, Janet began to shake. Without even waiting to kiss him, she said, "How was it? How did you do?"

Les grinned teasingly. "Help me moult, first," he said. "I'm tired."

Unable to get anything else out of him until it was done, she tore his wings off damagingly, kissed him, and said, "Now won't you say something?"

"I'm hungry!"

"No!" She danced her impatience like a little girl. "Tell me!"

But even as she pouted, her eyes sparkled in anticipation.

"I start tomorrow," he said.

"Did you get the best job?"

"Nope. No, I really didn't."

"What, then?"

"Second best!"

"Oh, wonderful! What is it?"

"Rigger and high-climber—topping trees, setting structural iron, fixing flag-poles—that sort of thing. Powderman was first."

"Oh, rigger's wonderful!" Visions of his future work flashed across her mind, implanted there by childhood hours spent watching other members of this elite profession at their thrilling work. She knew there could be broken cables, falling pulleys, snapped booms, dropped loads—every day would have its interesting possibilities!

"My darling!" She threw her arms around him and was momentarily silenced by his kiss.

Then she stepped back, looked admiringly up at him, and said, "Oh, I'm so happy for you! And so proud! I'm going right in and order up a nice big meal. I know you'll enjoy this one—it really might be your last!"