MAN IN A QUANDARY
By L. J. STECHER, JR.
Illustrated by MARTINEZ
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Science Fiction July 1958.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
If you were in my—well, shoes, if you don't mind
stretching a point—what would you do about this?
Dear Miss Dix VI:
I have a problem. In spite of rumors to the contrary, my parents wereproperly married, and were perfectly normal people at the time I wasborn. And so was I—normal, I mean. But that all contributed to thecreation of my problem.
I do not know if you can help me resolve it, but you have helped somany others that I am willing to try you. I enjoin you not to answerthis letter in your column; write me privately, please.
You know all about me, of course. Who doesn't? But most of what youknow about me is bound to be almost entirely wrong. So I will have toclarify my background before I present my problem.
Know, then, that I am Alfred the Magnificent. It surprises you, Iimagine, that I would be writing a letter to Miss Dix VI. After all, inspite of the tax rate, I am one of the richest—I will say it!—one ofthe richest men in the world.
Every word of that last statement is true. My parents were enormouslywealthy, but I have accumulated even more of the world's goods thanthey ever did. And if they had not been loaded with loot, I would notbe here now to be writing this letter to you.
Please excuse any lack of smoothness in the style and execution of thisletter. I'm doing this all myself. Usually I dictate to a secretary—alive secretary—but you understand that that would not be advisable fora letter of this kind, I'm sure.
So. My background. I was born in 2352 and, having passed my infantileI.Q. test with flying colors, was admitted to the Harvard Creche forSuperior Children at the usual age of three months.
The name of Alfred Vanderform naturally had been entered on the rollsmuch earlier. Ten years earlier, in point of fact. My parents had beenfortunate enough to be selected to have three children and I was to betheir first. They chose to begin with a son. They had known that theywould be chosen, and that I would be a superior child, and had takenthe wise precaution of signing me up for Harvard Creche as soon as theplanners had finished drawing up their preliminary charts.
In spite of what you may have heard, there was absolutely no chance offalsifying the initial I.Q. examination; in those days, at least. I wasa physically normal, mentally superior child. My progress at the crechewas entirely satisfactory. I was an ordinarily above-average genius inevery way.
At age six, I left the creche for my sabbatical year at home with myparents, and it was there that my first disaster occurred.
My mother and father moved into the same house while I was there, whichwas the custom then (and may still be, for all I know) in order toprovide a proper home-like atmosphere for me. Through some carelessnessin original planning, this was also the year that had been selected forthe birth of their second child, which was to be a girl. Both parentswere to be the same for all three of their children. Under usualcircumstances, they would have paid enough attention to me