See?

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  Illustrated by ASHMAN]

  _SEE?_

  By EDWARD G. ROBLES, JR.

  _Seeing things? Don't go to an analyst--see the Commission--if it doesn't find you first!_

  Well, there was this song a few years back. You know the one. PhilHarris singing about a thing that you couldn't get rid of, no matterwhat you did, a thing so repulsive it made you a social outcast. Neverthought I'd see one, though. Dirty Pete found it.

  Don't rush me. I'll tell you about it.

  We're hobos, understand? Now a hobo is a different breed of cat thanyou think. Oh, people are getting educated to the idea that a hobo willwork and move on, whereas a tramp will mooch and move on, and a bum willmooch and hang around, but you still find folks who are ignorant enoughto call us bums.

  We're aristocrats, yes sir. If it wasn't for us, you wouldn't enjoy halfthe little luxuries you do. Oh, don't believe me--talk to your experts.They know that, without the migratory worker, most of the crops wouldn'tget harvested. And, if I talk highfalutin' once in a while, don't blameme. Associating with the Professor improves any man's vocabulary, inspite of themselves.

  * * * * *

  There was the four of us, see? We'd been kicking around together forlonger than I care to think about. There was the Professor and DirtyPete and Sacks and Eddie. I'm Eddie. Nicknames are funny things. Takethe Professor--he was a real professor once, until he began hitting thebottle. Well, he lost his job, his home, his family, and his rep.

  One morning, he wakes up on Skid Row without a nickel in his jeans andthe great-granddaddy of all hangovers. He comes to a decision. Either hecould make a man out of hisself, or he could die. Right then, dyinglooked like the easiest thing to do, but it took more guts that he hadto jump off a bridge, so he went on the Road instead.

  After he got over his shakes--and he sure had 'em bad--he decided that,if he never took another drink, it'd be the best thing for him. So hedidn't. He had a kind of dignity, though, and he could really talk, sohe and I teamed up during the wheat harvest in South Dakota. We made allthe stops and, when we hit the peaches in California we picked up Sacksand Dirty Pete.

  Sacks got his monicker because he never wore shoes. He claimed thatgunny-sacks, wrapped around his feet and shins, gave as much protectionand more freedom, and they were more comfortable, besides costing nix.Since we mostly bought our shoes at the dumps, at four bits a pair, youmight say he was stretching a point, but that's one of the laws of theRoad. You don't step on the other guy's corns, and he don't step onyours.

  So guess why Dirty Pete was called that. Yeah. He hadn't taken a bathsince 'forty-six, when he got out of the army, and he didn't figure onever takin' another. He was a damn' good worker, though, and nobody'dever try anything with him around. He wasn't any bigger than a Macktruck. Besides, he was quiet.

  Oh, sure. You wanna know why I'm on the Road. Well, it happens I likewhiskers. Trouble is, they're not fashionable, unless you're some kindof an artist, which I'm not. You know, social disapproval. I didn't havethe guts to face it, so I lit out. Nobody cares on the Road what you do,so I was okay with my belt-length beard.

  A beard's an enjoyable thing, too. There's a certain kind of thrill youget from stroking it, and feeling its silkiness run through yourfingers. And besides, combing it, and keeping it free of burrs, snarlsand tangles, sort of keeps your spare moments so full that the devildon't find any idle time to put your hands to work in. If you ask me, Ithink that the razor has been the downfall of society. And I'm willingto bet I have plenty of company with the same opinion.

  Show me a man who doesn't let his beard grow once in a while, even ifit's only for a day or so, and you've shown me a man who thinks more ofsocial pressure than he does of his own comfort. And show me a man whosays he likes to shave, and you've shown me a man who is either a liaror is asking for punishment.

  * * * * *

  That's enough about us. Now to get on with the story. You know, if theProfessor hadn't been around, there would probably have been murder doneover the Thing, or at least our little group would've split up, 'causenone of us had the brains to figure it out.

  Pete's an expert scrounger. His eyes are sharp, and he's always on thelookout for a salable piece of goods, even if he can only get a nickelfor it. One night, we're sitting in a jungle near Sacramento, trying tofigure out whether to go north for the grapes, or south for the grapes.They're all over California, you know, and they pay pretty well.

  Pete, as usual, is out looking, and pretty soon he comes back into campwith this thing in his hand. He handles it like it was hot, but he'spleased he's found it, because he hopes to merchandise it. So he walksup to me, and says, "Hey, Eddie. What'll you gimme for this, huh?"

  I say, "Get that to hell away from me! I'll give you a swift kick in thepants if you don't."

  He looks real surprised. He says, "Huh, I thought maybe you could useit."

  I get up on my feet. I say, real low and careful, because maybe he'sjoking, "Look, Pete--you oughtta know by this time, I _like_ my beard.Now will you go away?"

  He mooches off, looking like I'd kicked him, and goes over to theProfessor. I figure maybe the Professor could use it, so I listen. TheProf looks like he was being offered a live rattlesnake.

  "No, thanks, really, Pete. I have resolved never to touch it again. Ihope you don't mind."

  Well, for some reason Pete don't look pleased, and he's real unhappy bythis time, but he tries again.

  "Hey, Sacks, what'll you gimme for--"

  He don't get a chance to finish. I'm only listening with half an ear,but I'm so surprised I stand up like I been stuck with a pin. Sackssays, "Whatinell would I do with a left shoe? You know I don't use 'em."

  Pete looks at the thing in his hand, and the Prof and I go over there.

  The Professor looks at the thing real carefully and speaks up. "Say,Pete, look at that thing and tell me what it is."

  "Why, it's a brand new bar of soap, of course. I don't use it, but oneof you might want to. What's all the beef about?"

  "Soap?" I say. "Why, you poor fish, something must have happened to youreyes. When you offered me that straight razor, I thought you'd gone offyour nut. Now I _know_ it."

  The Professor interrupts. He looks excited. "Wait a minute, Eddie. To methat item looks exactly like a full fifth of Old Harvester, 100 proof.Used to be my favorite, before I became an abstainer. To Pete, it lookslike soap. To you, it looks like a straight razor while, to Sacks, itresembles a shoe. Does that give you any ideas?"

  "Means we're all having hallucinations," I grunts.

  "Exactly. Pete, was there anything else in the location where you foundthis thing?"

  "Nothing but some scrap tin."

  "Show us."

  * * * * *

  So, the four of us wanders across the field and, sure enough, there wasthis silly-looking object lying there. It was about eighteen or twentyfeet across, and two feet thick, and I nearly made a fool of myself. Ialmost screamed when I saw six straight razors _crawling_ out of a holein its side.

  The Professor whistled. "Grab them, boys. We want them."

  Well, Sacks sacrifices one of his sacks, and we rounded up fifteen ofthe useless things. We went back to the jungle, where the Prof explainedit.

  "Look, fellows, suppose you were a being from another planet that wantedto take over here. Suppose, further, that you were rather small andrelatively defenseless. To finish the suppositions, suppose you were apositive telepath, with not only the ability to read minds, but also theability to create visual and tactile hallucinations. How would youprotect yourself?"

  A light began to daw
n, but I didn't say a word about it.

  The Professor continued. "If you could do all this, you'd make yourselflook just as useless as possible. To Pete, you'd look like a bar ofsoap, because he never uses the stuff. To Sacks, you'd look like a shoe,because his dislike for shoes is evident in his mind. To Eddie, who isproud of his beard, you'd look like a razor, while to me, you'd looklike a bottle of booze, because I dislike its effects intensely. Inother words, you would assume an imposture that would assure you'd neverbe picked up, except by someone like Pete, who would see in you asalable item, even though not a usable one. It may be, Pete, that youhave saved the world."

  So, that's the story. We're all still on the Road, of course, but now weare the "Commission for the Investigation of Extraterrestrial Invasion."Congress named us as that, when we got the data to them.

  Now, Mr. Mayor, you see our problem. Have your citizens seen anythingaround that they don't want? If they have, we want to look at it.

  --EDWARD G. ROBLES, JR.

  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from _Galaxy Science Fiction_ June 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.