MUCK MAN
BY FREMONT DODGE
The work wasn't hard, but there were some sacrifices.
You had to give up hope and freedom—and being human!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, November 1963.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
I
The girl with the Slider egg glittering in her hair watched thebailiff lead Asa Graybar out of the courtroom. He recognized her asold Hazeltyne's daughter Harriet, no doubt come to see justice done.She didn't have the hothouse-flower look Asa would have expected in agirl whose father owned the most valuable of the planetary franchises.She was not afraid to meet his eye, the eye of a judicially certifiedcriminal. There was, perhaps, a crease of puzzlement in her brow, as ifshe had thought crimes were committed by shriveled, rat-faced types,and not by young biological engineers who still affected crewcuts.
Tom Dorr, Hazeltyne's general manager, was her escort. Asa feltcertain, without proof, that Dorr was the man who had framed him forthe charge of grand theft by secreting a fresh Slider egg in hislaboratory. The older man stared at Asa coldly as he was led out ofthe courtroom and down the corridor back to jail.
Jumpy, Asa's cellmate, took one look at his face as he was put backbehind bars.
"Guilty," Jumpy said.
Asa glared at him.
"I know, I know," Jumpy said hastily. "You were framed. But what's therap?"
"Five or one."
"Take the five," Jumpy advised. "Learn basket-weaving in a niceair-conditioned rehab clinic. A year on a changeling deal will seem alot longer, even if you're lucky enough to live through it."
Asa took four steps to the far wall of the cell, stood there brieflywith his head bent and turned to face Jumpy.
"Nope," Asa said softly. "I'm going into a conversion tank. I'm goingto be a muck man, Jumpy. I'm going out to Jordan's Planet and huntSlider eggs."
"Smuggling? It won't work."
Asa didn't answer. The Hazeltyne company had gone after him becausehe had been working on a method of keeping Slider eggs alive. TheHazeltyne company would be happy to see him mark time for five yearsof so-called social reorientation. But if he could get out to Jordan'sPlanet, with his physiology adapted to the environment of that wretchedworld, he could study the eggs under conditions no laboratory couldduplicate. He might even be able to cause trouble for Hazeltyne.
His only problem would be staying alive for a year.
An interview with a doctor from the Conversion Corps was requiredfor all persons who elected changeling status. The law stated thatpotential changelings must be fully informed of the rights and hazardsof altered shape before they signed a release. The requirement heldwhether or not the individual, like Asa, was already experienced.
By the time humanity traveled to the stars, medical biology had madeit possible to regenerate damaged or deficient organs of the body.Regeneration was limited only by advanced age. Sometime after a man'stwo hundredth year his body lost the ability to be coaxed into growingnew cells. A fifth set of teeth was usually one's last. As long assenescence could be staved off, however, any man could have bulgingbiceps and a pencil waist, if he could pay for the treatment.
Until the medical associations declared such treatments unethical therewas even a short fad of deliberate deformities, with horns at thetemples par