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eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: Ersatzes existed in a world where universal peace, population control and boredom drove people to the edge of violence. The Ersatz was the ideal solution to such social rage! Angry at your boss--take it out on your ersatz. That's what they are for! Nagged by your wife--whack your ersatz instead of her! Have a husband who is cheating on you--blow your ersatz's head off! That's what they were made for! And there was an endless supply of these android creatures! Even in an over-populated world. Ersatzes could be recycled! Mindless, soulless inventions of human science, they were the ultimate solution to man's problems. Only the National Organization FREE spoke to change things. FREE = For Rising Ersatz Equality! Only FREE was mad enough to believe that ersatzes might offer much more to its masters than simply an outlet for its violent nature. It was a losing cause, until ... Benny arrived!

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: 1969
Fictionwise Release Date: April 2005

2 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [809 KB], eReader (PDB) [131 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [108 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [97 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [213 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [155 KB], hiebook (KML) [368 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [222 KB], iSilo (PDB) [89 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [112 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [191 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [146 KB]
Words: 32555
Reading time: 93-130 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

He had been hiding and walking for most of the night in a blind terror, in a frantic horror that any moment the Social Police would step out of some dark corner and take him to the Chemical Lab for destruction. But no hand had reached from the black of night or the secret shadows which loomed like dark, foreboding arms attempting to grab at him. No Civilian teen-age gang had trapped him at a street corner to run a shiv across his guts or beat him senseless. For nobody killed another human being in the 21st Century. And that's what they thought he was.

But he was an ersatz, which meant that he didn't have any rights. He was there for the use of anyone who wanted his services, which included his meek acceptance to being beaten to death with clubs or fists, or sliced by razor sharp knives. They could even drop him into deep space so that his life would explode away.

So, he was running. He didn't know how long he would remain free, because the Social Police would find him--today, tomorrow or the next week. It didn't really matter. But there was that in him that cried for freedom, no matter how short it might be. For a little while he would have this freedom that human beings enjoyed from their birth. Those people born of women who didn't consider him human; they didn't consider an ersatz human--yet he couldn't help believing himself as human as the others. What really made him so different? Just because he had been born in a chemical vat? Did that mean he didn't have emotions or the will to live and the fear of dying and of pain? He had the desire to love and hate, to be loved and hated because he was an individual personality; to feel the joys and the bitter sorrows of life--but equal to those of the other men. Weren't those the qualities that made men human?

It was morning now, the red fire of the hot sun was breaking down over the city, bringing its warm light to melt the cold darkness and the horrible chill of death that had iced fear through him during the night hours.

He was walking down one of the lonely morning streets. His eyes took in the low, flat homes; watched the men and women through the large windows beginning to awaken to the day and the activities that would keep the civilized world producing the merchandise which was to be consumed with a hungry, desperate anxiety, as if they couldn't use enough bad cablevisions or enough bad washing machines or enough bad cars, which obediently broke down after six months of frantic use to be replaced quickly by new bad merchandise. This was the world of senseless insanity where people went about doing the same things each day in order to keep their minds occupied and off the world problems of population control and wonderful glorious peace. No more religious wars to bring terror into the minds of men of different faiths. Such madness was controlled, channeled. This was a world where ersatzes were killed to release simple frustrations. A man's wife didn't make love to him that evening; a woman's cooking didn't come out as she had expected! Or a Video didn't satisfy the frustrated viewer. Any reason from unreturned love to the fact that a child woke up in the morning with a slight cold, was cause enough to kill one of his kind.

Ersatzes came cheap!

There was the problem of over-crowding the world, solved by rigid birth control laws. Ersatzes were a necessary evil, to keep a tight rein on sanity. Couples couldn't have more than one child, and then only with government permission. There weren't enough challenging jobs for everybody and most people were bored and frustrated by the crowded living conditions. Only the rich could afford small homes like these now around him.

If your boss gave you a bad time it was easy to take it out on your ersatz. Kill the ersatz or beat it senseless--after all, that's what they were invented for. Release your angers and hates and disgusts and the personal horrors which plague you, give them all to your ersatz--and become a better member of society! They said this was morally right. Don't put the problems on society but on the ersatz!

That was the Law! Because crime was not permitted, violence against another human being was not permitted; anger against another human being was not allowed. Hate was not permitted. Experience those feelings? Well. Take it out on your ersatz! "That's what they are for!"