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# 2024-09-19 - All The Traps of Earth by Clifford D. Simak | |
Launch | |
> Mr. Simak, an award-winner and long time star in science fiction, | |
> demonstrates two of his particular talents--intriguing ideas and | |
> warm characterization--in the following novelet about a robot with | |
> 600 years of human experience, and an urge to remain himself in the | |
> face of bureaucracy and the cold loneliness of nomadic life in space. | |
The inventory list was long. On its many pages, in his small and | |
precise script, he had listed furniture, paintings, china, silverware | |
and all the rest of it--all the personal belongings that had been | |
accumulated by the Barringtons through a long family history. And now | |
that he had reached the end of it, he noted down himself, the last | |
item of them all: One domestic robot, Richard Daniel, antiquated but | |
in good repair. | |
He laid the pen aside and shuffled all the inventory sheets together | |
and stacked them in good order, putting a paper weight upon them-the | |
little exquisitely carved ivory paper weight that Aunt Hortense had | |
picked up that last visit she had made to Peking. And having done | |
that, his job came to an end. | |
He shoved back the chair and rose from the desk and slowly walked | |
across the living room, with all its clutter of possessions from the | |
family's past. There, above the mantle, hung the sword that ancient | |
Jonathon had worn in the War Between the States, and below it, on the | |
mantlepiece itself, the cup the Commodore had won with his valiant | |
yacht, and the jar of moon-dust that Tony had brought back from Man's | |
fifth landing on the Moon, and the old chronometer that had come from | |
the long-scrapped family spacecraft that had plied the asteroids. | |
And all around the room, almost cheek by jowl, hung the family | |
portraits, with the old dead faces staring out into the world that | |
they had helped to fashion. | |
And not a one of them from the last six hundred years, thought | |
Richard Daniel, staring at them one by one, that he had not known. | |
There, to the right of the fireplace, old Rufus Andrew Barrington, | |
who had been a judge some two hundred years ago. And to the right of | |
Rufus, Johnson Joseph Barrington, who had headed up that old lost | |
dream of mankind, the Bureau of Paranormal Research. There, beyond | |
the door that led out to the porch, was the scowling pirate face of | |
Danley Barrington, who had first built the family fortune. | |
And many others-administrator, adventurer, corporation chief. All | |
good men and true. | |
But this was at an end. The family had run out. | |
Slowly Richard Daniel began his last tour of the house-the family | |
room with its cluttered living space, the den with its old mementos, | |
the library and its rows of ancient books, the dining hall in which | |
the crystal and the china shone and sparkled, the kitchen gleaming | |
with the copper and aluminum and the stainless steel, and the | |
bedrooms on the second floor, each of them with its landmarks of | |
former occupants. And finally, the bedroom where old Aunt Hortense | |
had finally died, at long last closing out the line of Barringtons. | |
The empty dwelling held a not-quite-haunted quality, the aura of a | |
house that waited for the old gay life to take up once again. But it | |
was a false aura. All the portraits, all the china and the | |
silverware, everything within the house would be sold at public | |
auction to satisfy the debts. The rooms would be stripped and the | |
possessions would be scattered and, as a last indignity, the house | |
itself be sold. | |
Even he, himself, Richard Daniel thought, for he was chattel, too. He | |
was there with all the rest of it, the final item on the inventory. | |
Except that what they planned to do with him was worse than simple | |
sale. For he would be changed before he was offered up for sale. No | |
one would be interested in putting up good money for him as he stood. | |
And, besides, there was the law-the law that said no robot could | |
legally have continuation of a single life greater than a hundred | |
years. And he had lived in a single life six times a hundred years. | |
He had gone to see a lawyer and the lawyer had been sympathetic, but | |
had held forth no hope. | |
"Technically," he had told Richard Daniel in his short, clipped | |
lawyer voice, "you are at this moment much in violation of the | |
statute. I completely fail to see how your family got away with it." | |
"They liked old things," said Richard Daniel. "And, besides, I was | |
very seldom seen. I stayed mostly in the house. I seldom ventured | |
out." | |
"Even so," the lawyer said, "there are such things as records. There | |
must be a file on you..." | |
"The family," explained Richard Daniel, "in the past had many | |
influential friends. You must understand, sir, that the Barringtons, | |
before they fell upon hard times, were quite prominent in politics | |
and in many other matters." | |
The lawyer grunted knowingly. | |
"What I can't quite understand," he said, "is why you should object | |
so bitterly. You'll not be changed entirely. You'll still be Richard | |
Daniel." | |
"I would lose my memories, would I not?" | |
"Yes, of course you would. But memories are not too important. And | |
you'd collect another set." | |
"My memories are dear to me," Richard Daniel told him. "They are all | |
I have. After some six hundred years, they are my sole worthwhile | |
possession. Can you imagine, counselor, what it means to spend six | |
centuries with one family?" | |
"Yes, I think I can," agreed the lawyer. "But now, with the family | |
gone, isn't it just possible the memories may prove painful?" | |
"They're a comfort. A sustaining comfort. They make me feel | |
important. They give me perspective and a niche." | |
"But don't you understand? You'll need no comfort, no importance once | |
you're reoriented. You'll be brand new. All that you'll retain is a | |
certain sense of basic identity-that they cannot take away from you | |
even if they wished. There'll be nothing to regret. There'll be no | |
leftover guilts, no frustrated aspirations, no old loyalties to hound | |
you." | |
"I must be myself," Richard Daniel insisted stubbornly. "I've found a | |
depth of living, a background against which my living has some | |
meaning. I could not face being anybody else." | |
"You'd be far better off," the lawyer wearily. "You'd have a better | |
body. You'd have better mental tools. You'd be more intelligent." | |
Richard Daniel got up from the chair. He saw it was no use. | |
"You'll not inform on me?" he asked. | |
"Certainly not," the lawyer said. "So far as I'm concerned, you | |
aren't even here." | |
"Thank you," said Richard Daniel. "How much do I owe you?" | |
"Not a thing," the lawyer told him. "I never make a· charge to anyone | |
who is older than five hundred." | |
He had meant it as a joke, but Richard Daniel did not smile. He had | |
not felt like smiling. | |
At the door he turned around. | |
"Why?" he was going to ask. "Why this silly law." | |
But he did not have to ask--it was not hard to see. Human vanity, he | |
knew. No human being lived much longer than a hundred years, so | |
neither could a robot. But a robot, on the other hand, was too | |
valuable simply to be junked at the end of a hundred years of | |
service, so there was this law providing for the periodic breakup of | |
the continuity of each robot's life. And thus no human need undergo | |
the psychological indignity of knowing that his faithful serving man | |
might manage to outlive him by several thousand years. | |
It was illogical, but humans were illogical. | |
Illogical, but kind. Kind in many different ways. | |
Kind, sometimes, as the Barrington, had been kind, though Richard | |
Daniel. Six hundred years of kindness. It was a prideful thing to | |
think about. They had even given him a double name. There weren't | |
many robots nowadays who had double names. It was a special mark of | |
affection and respect. | |
The lawyer having failed him, Richard Daniel had sought another | |
source of help. Now, thinking back on it, standing in the room where | |
Hortense Barrington had died, he was sorry that he'd done it. For he | |
had embarrassed the religico almost unendurably. It had been easy for | |
the lawyer to tell him what he had. Lawyers had the statutes to | |
determine their behavior, and thus suffered little from agonies of | |
personal decision. | |
But a man of the cloth is kind if he is worth his salt. And this one | |
had been kind instinctively as well as professionally, and that had | |
made it worse. | |
"Under certain circumstances," he had said somewhat awkwardly, "I | |
could counsel patience and humility and prayer. Those are three great | |
aids to anyone who is willing to put them to his use. But with you I | |
am not certain." | |
"You mean," said Richard Daniel, "because I am a robot." | |
"Well, now..." said the minister, considerably befuddled at this | |
direct approach. | |
"Because I have no soul?" | |
"Really," said the minister miserably, "you place me at a | |
disadvantage. You are asking me a question that for centuries has | |
puzzled and bedeviled the best minds in the church." | |
"But one," said Richard Daniel, "that each man in his secret heart | |
must answer for himself." | |
"I wish I could," cried the distraught minister. "I truly wish I | |
could." | |
"If it is any help," said Richard Daniel, "I can tell you that | |
sometimes I suspect I have a soul." | |
And that, he could see, had been most upsetting for this kindly | |
human. It had been, Richard Daniel told himself, unkind of him to say | |
it. For it must have been confusing, since coming from himself it was | |
not opinion only, but expert evidence. | |
So he had gone away from the minister's study and come back to the | |
empty house to get on with his inventory work. | |
Now that the inventory was all finished and the papers stacked where | |
Dancourt, the estate administrator, could find them when he showed up | |
in the morning, Richard Daniel, had done his final service for the | |
Barringtons and now must begin doing for himself. | |
He left the bedroom and closed the door behind him and went quietly | |
down the stairs and along the hallway to the little cubby, back of | |
the kitchen, that was his very own. | |
And that, he reminded himself with a rush of pride, was of a piece | |
with his double name and his six hundred years. There were not too | |
many robots who had a room, however small, that they might call their | |
own. | |
He went into the cubby and turned on the light and closed the door | |
behind him. | |
And now, for the first time, he faced the grim reality of what he | |
meant to do. | |
The cloak and hat and trousers hung upon a hook and the galoshes were | |
placed precisely underneath them. His attachment kit lay in one | |
corner of the cubby and the money was cached underneath the floor | |
board he had loosened many years ago to provide a hiding place. | |
There was, he told himself, no point in waiting. Every minute | |
counted. He had a long way to go and he must be at his destination | |
before morning light. | |
He knelt on the floor and pried up the loosened board, shoved in a | |
hand and brought out the stacks of bills, money hidden through the | |
years against a day of need. | |
There were three stacks of bills, neatly held together by elastic | |
bands--money given him throughout the years as tips and Christmas | |
gifts, as birthday presents and rewards for little jobs well done. | |
He opened the storage compartment located in his chest and stowed | |
away all the bills except for half a dozen which he stuffed into a | |
pocket in one hip. | |
He took the trousers off the hook and it was an awkward business, for | |
he'd never worn clothes before except when he'd tried on these very | |
trousers several days before. It was a lucky thing, he thought, that | |
long-dead Uncle Michael had been a portly man, for otherwise the | |
trousers never would have fit. | |
He got them on and zippered and belted into place, then forced his | |
feet into the overshoes. He was a little worried about the overshoes. | |
No human went out in the summer wearing overshoes. But it was the | |
best that he could do. None of the regular shoes he'd found in the | |
house had been nearly large enough. | |
He hoped no one would notice, but there was no way out of it. Somehow | |
or other, he had to cover up his feet, for if anyone should see them, | |
they'd be a giveaway. | |
He put on the cloak and it was a little short. He put on the hat and | |
it was slightly small, but he tugged it down until it gripped his | |
metal skull and that was all to the good, he told himself; no wind | |
could blow it off. | |
He picked up his attachments--a whole bag full of them that he'd | |
almost never used. Maybe it was foolish to take them along, he | |
thought, but they were a part of him and by rights they should go | |
with him. There was so little that he really owned--just the money he | |
had saved, a dollar at a time, and this kit of his. | |
With the bag of attachments clutched underneath his arm, he closed | |
the cubby door and went down the hall. | |
At the big front door he hesitated and turned back toward the house, | |
but it was, at the moment, a simple darkened cave, empty of all that | |
it once had held. There was nothing here to stay for--nothing but the | |
memories, and the memories he took with him. | |
He opened the door and stepped out on the stop and closed the door | |
behind him. | |
And now, he thought, with the door once shut behind him, he was on | |
his own. He was running off. He was wearing clothes. He was out at | |
night, without the permission of a master. And all of these were | |
against the law. | |
Any officer could stop him, or any citizen. He had no rights at all. | |
And he had no one who would speak for him, now that the Barringtons | |
were gone. | |
He moved quietly down the walk and opened the gate and went slowly | |
down the street, and it seemed to him the house was calling for him | |
to come back. He wanted to go back, his mind said that he should go | |
back, but his feet kept going on, steadily down the street. | |
He was alone, he thought, and the aloneness now was real, no longer | |
the mere intellectual abstract he'd held in his mind for days. Here | |
he was, a vacant hulk, that for the moment had no purpose and no | |
beginning and no end, but was just an entity that stood naked in an | |
endless reach of space and time and held no meaning in itself. | |
But he walked on and with each block that he covered he slowly | |
fumbled back to the thing he was, the old robot in old clothes, the | |
robot running from a home that was a home no longer. | |
He wrapped the cloak about him tightly and moved on down the street | |
and now he hurried, for he had to hurry. | |
He met several people and they paid no attention to him. A few cars | |
passed, but no one bothered him. | |
He came to a shopping center that was brightly lighted and he stopped | |
and looked in terror at the wide expanse of open, brilliant space | |
that lay ahead of him. He could detour around it, but it would use up | |
time and he stood there, undecided, trying to screw up his courage to | |
walk into the light. | |
Finally he made up his mind and strode briskly out, with his cloak | |
wrapped tight about him and his hat pulled low. | |
Some of the shoppers turned and looked at him and he felt agitated | |
spiders running up and down his back. The galoshes suddenly seemed | |
three times as big as they really were and they made a plopping, | |
squashy sound that was most embarrassing. | |
He hurried on, with the end of the shopping area not more than a | |
block away. | |
A police whistle shrilled and Richard Daniel jumped in sudden fright | |
and ran. He ran in slobbering, mindless fright, with his cloak | |
streaming out behind him and his feet slapping on the pavement. | |
He plunged out of the lighted strip into the welcome darkness of a | |
residential section and he kept on running. | |
Far off he heard the siren and he leaped a hedge and tore across the | |
yard. He thundered down the driveway and across a garden in the back | |
and a dog came roaring out and engaged in noisy chase. | |
Richard Daniel crashed into a picket fence and went through it to the | |
accompaniment of snapping noises as the pickets and the rails gave | |
way. The dog kept on behind him and other dogs joined in. | |
He crossed another yard and gained the street and pounded down it. He | |
dodged into a driveway, crossed another yard, upset a birdbath and | |
ran into a clothesline, snapping it in his headlong rush. | |
Behind him lights were snapping on in the windows of the houses and | |
screen doors were banging as people hurried out to see what the | |
ruckus was. | |
He ran on a few more blocks, crossed another yard and ducked into a | |
lilac thicket, stood still and listened. Some dogs were still baying | |
in the distance and there was some human shouting, but there was no | |
siren. | |
He felt a thankfulness well up in him that there was no siren, and a | |
sheepishness, as well. For he had been panicked by himself, he knew; | |
he had run from shadows, he had fled from guilt. | |
But he'd thoroughly roused the neighborhood and even now, he knew, | |
calls must be going out and in a little while the place would be | |
swarming with police. | |
He'd raised a hornet's nest and he needed distance, so he crept out | |
of the lilac thicket and went swiftly down the street, heading for | |
the edge of town. | |
He finally left the city and found the highway. He loped along its | |
deserted stretches. When a car or truck appeared, he pulled off on | |
the shoulder and walked along sedately. Then when the car or truck | |
had passed, he broke into his lope again. | |
He saw the spaceport lights miles before he got there. When he | |
reached the port, he circled off the road and came up outside a fence | |
and stood there in the darkness, looking. | |
A gang of robots was loading one great starship and there were other | |
ships standing darkly in their pits. | |
He studied the gang that was loading the ship, lugging the cargo from | |
a warehouse and across the area lighted by the floods. This was just | |
the setup he had planned on, although he had not hoped to find it | |
immediately-he had been afraid that he might have to hide out for a | |
day or two before he found a situation that he could put to use. And | |
it was a good thing that he had stumbled on this opportunity, for an | |
intensive hunt would be on by now for a fleeing robot, dressed in | |
human clothes. | |
He stripped off the cloak and pulled off the trousers and the | |
overshoes; he threw away the hat. | |
From his attachments bag he took out the cutters, screwed off a hand | |
and threaded the cutters into place. He cut the fence and wiggled | |
through it, then replaced the hand and put the cutters back into the | |
kit. | |
Moving cautiously in the darkness, he walked up to the warehouse, | |
keeping in its shadow. | |
It would be simple, he told himself. All he had to do was step out | |
and grab a piece of cargo, clamber up the ramp and down into the | |
hold. Once inside, it should not be difficult to find a hiding place | |
and stay there until the ship had reached first planetfall. | |
He moved to the corner of the warehouse and peered around it and | |
there were the toiling robots, in what amounted to an endless chain, | |
going up the ramp with the packages of cargo, coming down again to | |
get another load. | |
But there were too many of them and the line too tight. And the area | |
too well lighted. He'd never be able to break into that line. | |
And it would not help if he could, he realized despairingly--because | |
he was different from those smooth and shining creatures. Compared to | |
them, he was like a man in another century's dress; he and his | |
six-hundred-year-old body would stand out like a circus freak. | |
He stepped back into the shadow of the warehouse and he knew that he | |
had lost. All his best-laid plans, thought out in sober, daring | |
detail, as he had labored at the inventory, had suddenly come to | |
naught. | |
It all came, he told himself, from never going out, from having no | |
real contact with the world, from not keeping up with robot-body | |
fashions, from not knowing what the score was. He'd imagined how it | |
would be and he'd got it all worked out and when it came down to it, | |
it was nothing like he thought. | |
Now he'd have to go back to the hole he'd cut in the fence and | |
retrieve the clothing he had thrown away and hunt up a hiding place | |
until he could think of something else. | |
Beyond the corner of the warehouse he heard the harsh, dull grate of | |
metal, and he took another look. | |
The robots had broken up their line and were streaming back toward | |
the warehouse and a dozen or so of them were wheeling the ramp away | |
from the cargo port. Three humans, all dressed in uniform, were | |
walking toward the ship, heading for the ladder, and one of them | |
carried a batch of papers in his hand. | |
The loading was all done and the ship about to lift and here he was, | |
not more than a thousand feet away, and all that he could do was | |
stand and see it go. | |
There had to be a way, he told himself, to get in that ship. If he | |
could only do it his troubles would be over-or at least the first of | |
his troubles would be over. | |
Suddenly it struck him like a hand across the face. There was a way | |
to do it! He'd stood here, blubbering, when all the time there had | |
been a way to do it! | |
In the ship, he'd thought. And that was not necessary. He didn't have | |
to be in the ship. | |
He started running, out into the darkness, far out so he could circle | |
round and come upon the ship from the other side, so that the ship | |
would be between him and the flood lights on the warehouse. He hoped | |
that there was time. | |
He thudded out across the port, running in an arc, and came up to the | |
ship and there was no sign as yet that it was about to leave. | |
Frantically he dug into his attachments bag and found the things he | |
needed-the last things in that bag he'd ever thought he'd need. He | |
found the suction discs and put them on, one for each knee, one for | |
each elbow, one for each sole and wrist. | |
He strapped the kit about his waist and clambered up one of the | |
mighty fins, using the discs to pull himself awkwardly along. It was | |
not easy. He had never used the discs and there was a trick to using | |
them, the trick of getting one clamped down and then working loose | |
another so that he could climb. | |
But he had to do it. He had no choice but to do it. | |
He climbed the fin and there was the vast steel body of the craft | |
rising far above him, like a metal wall climbing to the sky, broken | |
by the narrow line of a row of anchor posts that ran lengthwise of | |
the hull-and all that huge extent of metal painted by the faint, | |
illusive shine of starlight that glittered in his eyes. | |
Foot by foot he worked his way up the metal wall. Like a humping | |
caterpillar, he squirmed his way and with each foot he gained he was | |
a bit more thankful. | |
Then he heard the faint beginning of a rumble and with the rumble | |
came terror. His suction cups, he knew, might not long survive the | |
booming vibration of the wakening rockets, certainly would not hold | |
for a moment when the ship began to climb. | |
Six feet above him lay his only hope--the final anchor post in the | |
long row of anchor posts. | |
Savagely he drove himself up the barrel of the shuddering craft, | |
hugging the steely surface like a desperate fly. | |
The rumble of the tubes built up to blot out all the world and he | |
climbed in a haze of almost prayerful, brittle hope. He reached that | |
anchor post or he was as good as dead. Should he slip and drop into | |
that pit of flaming gases beneath the rocket mouths and he was done | |
for. | |
Once a cup came loose and he almost fell, but the others held and he | |
caught himself. | |
With a desperate, almost careless lunge, he hurled himself up the | |
wall of metal and caught the rung in his fingertips and held on with | |
a concentration of effort that wiped out all else. | |
The rumble was a screaming fury now that lanced through brain and | |
body. Then the screaming ended and became a throaty roar of power and | |
the vibration left the ship entirely. From one corner of his eye he | |
saw the lights of the spaceport swinging over gently on their side. | |
Carefully, slowly, he pulled himself along the steel until he had a | |
better grip upon the rung, but even with the better grip he had the | |
feeling that some great hand had him in its fist and was swinging him | |
in anger in a hundred-mile-long arc. | |
Then the tubes left off their howling and there was a terrible | |
silence and the stars were there, up above him and to either side of | |
him, and they were steely stars with no twinkle in them. Down below, | |
he knew, a lonely Earth was swinging, but he could not see it. | |
He pulled himself up against the rung and thrust a leg beneath it and | |
sat up on the hull. | |
There were more stars than he'd ever seen before, more than he'd | |
dreamed there could be. They were still and cold, like hard points of | |
light against a velvet curtain; there was no glitter and no twinkle | |
in them and it was as if a million eyes were staring down at him. The | |
Sun was underneath the ship and over to one side; just at the edge of | |
the lefthand curvature was the glare of it against the silent metal, | |
a sliver of reflected light outlining one edge of the ship. The Earth | |
was far astern, a ghostly blue-green ball hanging in the void, ringed | |
by the fleecy halo of its atmosphere. | |
It was as if he were detached, a lonely, floating brain that looked | |
out upon a thing it could not understand, nor could ever try to | |
understand; as if he might even be afraid of understanding it--a | |
thing of mystery and delight so long as he retained an ignorance of | |
it, but something fearsome and altogether overpowering once the | |
ignorance had gone. | |
Richard Daniel sat there, flat upon his bottom, on the metal hull of | |
the speeding ship and he felt the mystery and delight and the | |
loneliness and the cold and the great uncaring and his mind retreated | |
into a small and huddled, compact defensive ball. | |
He looked. That was all there was to do. It was all right now, he | |
thought. But how long would he have to look at it? How long would he | |
have to camp out here in the open--the most deadly kind of open? | |
He realized for the first time that he had no idea where the ship was | |
going or how long it might take to get there. He knew it was a | |
starship, which meant that it was bound beyond the solar system, and | |
that meant that at some point in its flight it would enter | |
hyperspace. He wondered, at first academically, and then with a | |
twinge of fear, what hyperspace might do to one sitting naked to it. | |
But there was little need, he thought philosophically, to fret about | |
it now, for in due time he'd know, and there was not a thing that he | |
could do about it--not a single thing. | |
He took the suction cups off his body and stowed them in his kit and | |
then with one hand he tied the kit to one of the metal rungs and dug | |
around in it until he found a short length of steel cable with a ring | |
on one end and a snap on the other. He passed the ring end underneath | |
a rung and threaded the snap end through it and snapped the snap onto | |
a metal loop underneath his armpit. Now he was secured; he need not | |
fear carelessly letting go and floating off the ship. | |
So here he was, he thought, neat as anything, going places fast, even | |
if he had no idea where he might be headed, and now the only thing he | |
needed was patience. He thought back, without much point, to what the | |
religico had said in the study back on Earth. Patience and humility | |
and prayer, he'd said, apparently not realizing at the moment that a | |
robot has a world of patience. | |
It would take a lot of time, Richard Daniel knew, to get where he was | |
going. But he had a lot of time, a lot more than any human, and he | |
could afford to waste it. There were no urgencies, he thought--no | |
need of food or air or water, no need of sleep or rest. There was | |
nothing that could touch him. | |
Although, come to think of it, there might be. | |
There was the cold, for one. The space-hull was still fairly warm, | |
with one side of it picking up the heat of the Sun and radiating it | |
around the metal skin, where it was lost on the other side, but there | |
would be a time when the Sun would dwindle until it had no heat and | |
then he'd be subjected to the bitter cold of space. | |
And what would the cold do to him. Might it make his body brittle? | |
Might it interfere with the functioning of his brain? Might it do | |
other things he could not even guess? | |
He felt the fears creep in again and tried to shrug them off and they | |
drew off, but they still were there, lurking at the fringes of his | |
mind. | |
The cold, and the loneliness, he thought--but he was one who could | |
cope with loneliness. And if he couldn't, if he got too lonely, if he | |
could no longer stand it, he could always beat a devil's tattoo on | |
the hull and after a time of that someone would come out to | |
investigate and they would haul him in. | |
But that was the last move of desperation, he told himself. For if | |
they came out and found him, then he would be caught. Should he be | |
forced to that extremity, he'd have lost everything--there would then | |
have been no point in leaving Earth at all. | |
So he settled down, living out his time, keeping the creeping fears | |
at bay just beyond the outposts of his mind, and looking at the | |
universe all spread out before him. | |
The motors started up again with a pale blue flickering in the | |
rockets at the stern and although there was no sense of acceleration | |
he knew that the ship, now well off the Earth, had settled down to | |
the long, hard drive to reach the speed of light. | |
Once they reached that speed they would enter hyperspace. He tried | |
not to think of it, tried to tell himself there was not a thing to | |
fear--but it hung there just ahead of him, the great unknowable. | |
The Sun shrank until it was only one of many stars and there came a | |
time when he could no longer pick it out. And the cold clamped down | |
but it didn't seem to bother him, although he could sense the | |
coldness. | |
Maybe, he said in answer to his fear, that would be the way it would | |
be with hyperspace as well. But he said it unconvincingly. The ship | |
drove on and on with the weird blueness in the tubes. | |
Then there was the instant when his mind went splattering across the | |
universe. | |
He was aware of the ship, but only aware of it in relation to an | |
awareness of much else, and it was no anchor point, no rallying | |
position. He was spread and scattered; he was opened out and rolled | |
out until he was very thin. He was a dozen places, perhaps a hundred | |
places, all at once, and it was confusing, and his immediate reaction | |
was to fight back somehow against whatever might have happened to | |
him--to fight back and pull himself together. The fighting did no | |
good at all, but made it even worse, for in certain instances it | |
seemed to drive parts of him farther from other parts of him and the | |
confusion was made greater. | |
So he quit his fighting and his struggling and just lay there, | |
scattered, and let the panic ebb away and told himself he didn't | |
care, and wondered if he did. | |
Slow reason returned a dribble at a time and he could think again and | |
he wondered rather bleakly if this could be hyperspace and was pretty | |
sure it was. And if it were, he knew, he'd have a long time to live | |
like this, a long time in which to become accustomed to it and to | |
orient himself, a long time to find himself and pull himself | |
together, a long time to understand this situation if it were, in | |
fact, understandable. | |
So he lay, not caring greatly, with no fear or wonder, just resting | |
and letting a fact seep into him here and there from many different | |
points. | |
He knew that, somehow, his body--that part of him which housed the | |
rest of him--was still chained securely to the ship, and that | |
knowledge, in itself, be knew, was the first small step towards | |
reorienting himself. He had to reorient, he knew. He had to come to | |
some sort of terms, if not to understanding, with this situation. | |
He had opened up and he had scattered out-that essential part of him, | |
the feeling and the knowing and the thinking part of him, and he lay | |
thin across a universe that loomed immense in unreality. | |
Was this, he wondered, the way the universe should be, or was it the | |
unchained universe, the wild universe beyond the limiting disciplines | |
of measured space and time. | |
He started slowly reaching out, cautious as he had been in his | |
crawling on the surface of the distant parts of him, a little at a | |
time. He did not know how he did it, he was conscious of no | |
particular technique, but whatever he was doing, it seemed to work, | |
for he pulled himself together, bit by knowing bit, until he had | |
gathered up all the scattered fragments of him into several different | |
piles. | |
Then he quit and lay there, wherever there might be, and tried to | |
sneak up on those piles of understanding that he took to be himself. | |
It took a while to get the hang of it, but once he did, some of the | |
incomprehensibility went away, although the strangeness stayed. He | |
tried to put it into thought and it was hard to do. The closest he | |
could come was that he had been unchained as well as the | |
universe--that whatever bondage had been imposed upon him by that | |
chained and normal world had now become dissolved and he no longer | |
was fenced in by either time or space. | |
He could see-and know and sense--across vast distances, if distance | |
were the proper term, and he could understand certain facts that he | |
had not even thought about before, could understand instinctively, | |
but without the language or the skill to coalesce the facts into | |
independent data. | |
Once again the universe was spread far out before him and it was a | |
different and in some ways a better universe, a more diagrammatic | |
universe, and in time, he knew, if there were such a thing as time, | |
he'd gain some completer understanding and acceptance of it. | |
He probed and sensed and learned and there was no such thing as time, | |
but a great foreverness. | |
He thought with pity of those others locked inside the ship, safe | |
behind its insulating walls, never knowing all the glories of the | |
innards of a star or the vast panoramic sweep of vision and of | |
knowing far above the flat galactic plane. | |
Yet he really did not know what he saw or probed; he merely sensed | |
and felt it and became a part of it, and it became a part of him--he | |
seemed unable to reduce it to a formal outline of fact or of | |
dimension or of content. It still remained a knowledge and a power so | |
overwhelming that it was nebulous. There was no fear and no wonder, | |
for in this place, it seemed, there was neither fear nor wonder. And | |
he finally knew that it was a place apart, a world in which the | |
normal space-time knowledge and emotion had no place at all and a | |
normal space-time being could have no tools or measuring stick by | |
which he might reduce it to a frame of reference. | |
There was no time, no space, no fear, no wonder-and no actual | |
knowledge, either. | |
Then time came once again and suddenly his mind was stuffed back into | |
its cage within his metal skull and he was again one with his body, | |
trapped and chained and small and cold and naked. | |
He saw that the stars were different and that he was far from home | |
and just a little way ahead was a star that blazed like a molten | |
furnace hanging in the black. | |
He sat bereft, a small thing once again, and the universe reduced to | |
package size. | |
Practically, he checked the cable that held him to the ship and it | |
was intact. His attachments kit was still tied to its rung. | |
Everything was exactly as it had been before. | |
He tried to recall the glories he had seen, tried to grasp again the | |
fringe of knowledge which he had been so close to, but both the glory | |
and the knowledge, if there had ever been a knowledge, had faded into | |
nothingness. | |
He felt like weeping, but he could not weep, and he was too old to | |
lie down upon the ship and kick his heels in tantrum. | |
So he sat there, looking at the sun that they were approaching and | |
finally there was a planet that he knew must be their destination, | |
and he found room to wonder what planet it might be and how far from | |
Earth it was. | |
He heated up a little as the ship skipped through atmosphere as an | |
aid to braking speed and he had some rather awful moments as it | |
spiraled into thick and soupy gases that certainly were a far cry | |
from the atmosphere of Earth. He hung most desperately to the rungs | |
as the craft came mushing down onto a landing field, with the hot | |
gases of the rockets curling up about him. But he made it safely and | |
swiftly clambered down and darted off into the smog-like atmosphere | |
before anyone could see him. | |
Safely off, he turned and looked back at the ship and despite its | |
outlines being hidden by the drifting clouds of swirling gases, he | |
could sec it clearly, not as an actual structure, but as a diagram. | |
He looked at it wonderingly and there was something wrong with the | |
diagram, something vaguely wrong, some part of it that was out of | |
whack and not the way it should be. | |
He heard the clanking of cargo haulers coming out upon the field and | |
he wasted no more time, diagram or not. | |
He drifted back, deeper in the mists, and began to circle, keeping a | |
good distance from the ship. Finally he came to the spaceport's edge | |
and the beginning of the town. | |
He found a street and walked down it leisurely and there was a | |
wrongness in the town. | |
He met a few hurrying robots who were in too much of a rush to pass | |
the time of day. But he met no humans. | |
And that, he knew quite suddenly, was the wrongness of the place. It | |
was not a human town. | |
There were no distinctly human buildings-no stores or residences, no | |
churches and no restaurants. There were gaunt shelter barracks and | |
sheds for the storing of equipment and machines, great sprawling | |
warehouses and vast industrial plants. But that was all there was. It | |
was a bare and dismal place compared to the streets that he had known | |
on Earth. | |
It was a robot town, he knew. And a robot planet. A world that was | |
barred to humans, a place where humans could not live, but so rich | |
in some natural resource that it cried for exploitation. And the | |
answer to that exploitation was to let the robots do it. | |
Luck, he told himself. His good luck still was holding. He had | |
literally been dumped into a place where he could live without human | |
interference. Here, in this planet, he would be with his own. | |
If that was what he wanted. And he wondered if it was. He wondered | |
just exactly what it was he wanted, for he'd had no time to think of | |
what he wanted. He had been too intent on fleeing Earth to think too | |
much about it. He had known all along what he was running from, but | |
had not considered what he might be running to. | |
He walked a little further and the town came to an end. The street | |
became a path and went wondering on into the wind-blown fogginess. | |
So he turned around and went back up the street. | |
There had been one barracks, he remembered, that had a TRANSIENTS | |
sign hung out, and he made his way to it. | |
Inside, an ancient robot sat behind the desk. His body was | |
old-fashioned and somehow familiar. And it was familiar, Richard | |
Daniel knew, because it was as old and battered and as out-of-date as | |
his. | |
He looked at the body, just a bit aghast, and saw that while it | |
resembled his, there were little differences. The same ancient model, | |
certainly, but a different series. Possibly a little newer, by twenty | |
years or so, than his. | |
"Good evening, stranger," said the ancient robot. "You came in on the | |
ship?" | |
Richard Daniel nodded. | |
"You'll be staying till the next one?" | |
"I may be settling down," said Richard Daniel. "I may want to stay | |
here." | |
The ancient robot took a key from off a hook and laid it on the desk. | |
"You representing someone?" | |
"No," said Richard Daniel. | |
"I thought maybe that you were. We get a lot of representatives. | |
Humans can't come here, or don't want to come, so they send for | |
them." | |
"You have a lot of visitors?" | |
"Some. Mostly the representatives I was telling you about. But there | |
are some that are on the lam. I'd take it, mister, you are on the lam." | |
Richard Daniel didn't answer. | |
"It's all right," the ancient one assured him. "We don't mind at all, | |
just so you behave yourself. Some of our most prominent citizens, | |
they came here on the lam." | |
"That is fine," said Richard Daniel. "And how about yourself? You | |
must be on the lam as well." | |
"You mean this body. Well, that's a little different. This here is | |
punishment." | |
"Punishment?" | |
"Well, you see, I was the foreman of the cargo warehouse and I got to | |
goofing off. So they hauled me up and had a trial and they found me | |
guilty. Then they stuck me into this old body and I have to stay in | |
it, at this lousy job, until they get another criminal that needs | |
punishment. They can't punish no more than one criminal at a time | |
because this is the only old body that they have. Funny thing about | |
this body. One of the boys went back to Earth on a business trip and | |
found this old heap of metal in a junkyard and brought it home with | |
him--for a joke, I guess. Like a human might buy a skeleton for a | |
joke, you know." | |
He took a long, sly look at Richard Daniel. "It looks to me, | |
stranger, as if your body..." | |
But Richard Daniel didn't let him finish. | |
"I take it," Richard Daniel said, "you haven't many criminals." | |
"No," said the ancient robot sadly, "we're generally a pretty solid | |
lot." | |
Richard Daniel reached out to pick up the key, but the ancient robot | |
put out his hand and covered it. | |
"Since you are on the lam," he said, "it'll be payment in advance." | |
"I'll pay you for a week," said Richard Daniel, handing him some | |
money. | |
The robot gave him back his change. | |
"One thing I forgot to tell you. You'll have to get plasticated." | |
"Plasticated?" | |
"That's right. Get plastic squirted over you. To protect you from the | |
atmosphere. It plays hell with metal. There's a place next door will | |
do it." | |
"Thanks. I'll get it done immediately." | |
"It wears off," warned the ancient one. "You have to get a new job | |
every week or so." | |
Richard Daniel took the key and went down the corridor until he found | |
his numbered cubicle. He unlocked the door and stepped inside. The | |
room was small, but clean. It had a desk and chair and that was all | |
it had. | |
He stowed his attachments bag in one corner and sat down in the chair | |
and tried to feel at home. But he couldn't feel at home, and that was | |
a funny thing--he'd just rented himself a home. | |
He sat there, thinking back, and tried to whip up some sense of | |
triumph at having done so well in covering his tracks. He couldn't. | |
Maybe this wasn't the place for him, he thought. Maybe he'd be | |
happier on some other planet. Perhaps he should go back to the ship | |
and get on it once again and have a look at the next planet corning | |
up. | |
If he hurried, he might make it. But he'd have to hurry, for the ship | |
wouldn't stay longer than it took to unload the consignment for this | |
place and take on new cargo. | |
He got up from the chair, still only half decided. | |
And suddenly he remembered how, standing in the swirling mistiness, | |
he had seen the ship as a diagram rather than a ship, and as he | |
thought about it, something clicked inside his brain and he leaped | |
toward the door. | |
For now he knew what had been wrong with the spaceship's diagram--an | |
injector valve was somehow out of kilter; he had to get back there | |
before the ship took off again. | |
He went through the door and down the corridor. He caught sight of | |
the ancient robot's startled face as he ran across the lobby and out | |
into the street. Pounding steadily toward the spaceport, he tried to | |
get the diagram into his mind again, but it would not come | |
complete--it came in bits and pieces, but not all of it. | |
And even as he fought for the entire diagram, he heard the beginning | |
take-off rumble. | |
"Wait!" he yelled. "Wait for me! You can't..." | |
There was a flash that turned the world pure white and a mighty | |
invisible wave came swishing out of nowhere and sent him reeling down | |
the street, falling as he reeled. He was skidding on the cobblestones | |
and sparks were flying as his metal scraped along the stone. The | |
whiteness reached a brilliance that almost blinded him and then it | |
faded swiftly and the world was dark. | |
He brought up against a wall of some sort, clanging as he hit, and he | |
lay there, blind from the brilliance of the flash, while his mind | |
went scurrying down the trail of the diagram. | |
The diagram, he thought--why should he have seen a diagram of the | |
ship he'd ridden through space, a diagram that had shown an injector | |
out of whack? And how could he, of all robots, recognize an injector, | |
let alone know there was something wrong with it. It had been a joke | |
back home, among the Barringtons, that he, a mechanical thing | |
himself, should have no aptitude at all for mechanical contraptions. | |
And he could have saved those people and the ship--he could have | |
saved them all if he'd immediately recognized the significance of the | |
diagram. But he'd been too slow and stupid and now they all were dead. | |
The darkness had receded from his eyes and he could sec again and he | |
got slowly to his feet, feeling himself all over to see how badly he | |
was hurt. Except for a dent or two, he seemed to be all right. | |
There were robots running in the street, heading for the spaceport, | |
where a dozen fires were burning and where sheds and other structures | |
had been flattened by the blast. | |
Someone tugged at his elbow and he turned around. It was the ancient | |
robot. | |
"You're the lucky one," the ancient robot said. "You got off it just | |
in time." | |
Richard Daniel nodded dumbly and had a terrible thought: What if they | |
should think he did it? He had gotten off the ship; he had admitted | |
that he was on the lam: he had rushed out suddenly, just a few | |
seconds before the ship exploded. It would be easy to put it all | |
together--that he had sabotaged the ship, then at the last instant | |
had rushed out, remorseful, to undo what he had done. On the face of | |
it, it was damning evidence. | |
But it was all right as yet, Richard Daniel told himself. For the | |
ancient robot was the only one that knew--he was the only one he'd | |
talked to, the only one who even knew that he was in town. | |
There was a way, Richard Daniel thought--there was an easy way. He | |
pushed the thought away, but it came back. You are your own, it said. | |
You are already beyond the law. In rejecting human law, you made | |
yourself an outlaw. You have become fair prey. There is just one law | |
for you--self preservation. | |
But there are robot laws, Richard Daniel argued. There are laws and | |
courts in this community. There is a place for justice. | |
Community law, said the leech clinging in his brain, provincial law, | |
little more than tribal law--and the stranger's always wrong. | |
Richard Daniel felt the coldness of the fear closing down upon him | |
and he knew, without half thinking, that the leech was right. | |
He turned around and started down the street, heading for the | |
transients barracks. Something unseen in the street caught his foot | |
and he stumbled and went down. He scrabbled to his knees, hunting in | |
the darkness on the cobblestones for the thing that tripped him. It | |
was a heavy bar of steel, some part of the wreckage that had been | |
hurled this far. He gripped it by one end and arose. | |
"Sorry," said the ancient robot. "You have to watch your step." | |
And there was a faint implication in his words, a hint of something | |
more than the words had said, a hint of secret gloating in a secret | |
knowledge. | |
You have broken other laws, said the leech in Richard Daniel's brain. | |
What of breaking just one more? Why, if necessary, not break a | |
hundred more. It is all or nothing. Having come this far, you can't | |
afford to fail. You can allow no one to stand in your way now. | |
The ancient robot half turned away and Richard Daniel lifted up the | |
bar of steel, when suddenly the ancient robot no longer was a robot, | |
but a diagram. There, with all the details of a blueprint, were all | |
the working parts, all the mechanism of the robot that walked in the | |
street before him. And if one detached that single bit of wire, if | |
one burned out that coil, if-- | |
Even as he thought it, the diagram went away and there was the robot, | |
a stumbling, falling robot that clanged on the cobblestones. | |
Richard Daniel swung around in terror, looking up the street, but | |
there was no one near. | |
He turned back to the fallen robot and quietly knelt beside him. He | |
gently put the bar of steel down into the street. And he felt a | |
thankfulness--for, almost miraculously, he had not killed. | |
The robot on the cobblestones was motionless. When Richard Daniel | |
lifted him, he dangled. And yet he was all right. All anyone had to | |
do to bring him back to life was to repair whatever damage had been | |
done his body. And that served the purpose, Richard Daniel told | |
himself, as well as killing would have done. | |
He stood with the robot in his arms, looking for a place to hide him. | |
He spied an alley between two buildings and darted into it. One of | |
the buildings, he saw, was set upon stone blocks sunk into the | |
ground, leaving a clearance of a foot or so. He knelt and shoved the | |
robot underneath the building. Then he stood up and brushed the dirt | |
and dust from his body. | |
Back at the barracks and in his cubicle, he found a rag and cleaned | |
up the dirt that he had missed. And, he thought hard. | |
He'd seen the ship as a diagram and, not knowing what it meant, | |
hadn't done a thing. Just now he'd seen the ancient robot as a | |
diagram and had most decisively and neatly used that diagram to save | |
himself from murder--from the murder that he was fully ready to | |
commit. | |
But how had he done it? And the answer seemed to be that he really | |
had done nothing. He'd simply thought that one should detach a single | |
wire, bum out a single coil--he'd thought it and it was done. | |
Perhaps he'd seen no diagram at all. Perhaps the diagram was no more | |
than some sort of psychic rationalization to mask whatever he had | |
seen or sensed. Seeing the ship and robot with the surfaces stripped | |
away from them and their purpose and their function revealed fully to | |
his view, he had sought some explanation of his strange ability, and | |
his subconscious mind had devised an explanation, an analogy that, | |
for the moment, had served to satisfy him. | |
Like when he'd been in hyperspace, he thought. He'd seen a lot of | |
things out there he had not understood. And that was it, of course, | |
he thought excitedly. Something had happened to him out in | |
hyperspace. Perhaps there'd been something that had stretched his | |
mind. Perhaps he'd picked up some sort of new dimension-seeing, some | |
new twist to his mind. | |
He remembered how, back on the ship again, with his mind wiped clean | |
of all the glory and the knowledge, he had felt like weeping. But now | |
he knew that it had been much too soon for weeping. For although the | |
glory and the knowledge (if there'd been a knowledge) had been lost | |
to him, he had not lost everything. He'd gained a new perceptive | |
device and the ability to use it somewhat fumblingly--and it didn't | |
really matter that he still was at a loss as to what he did to use | |
it. The basic fact that he possessed it and could use it was enough | |
to start with. | |
Somewhere out in front there was someone calling--someone, he now | |
realized, who had been calling for some little time... | |
"Hubert, where. are you? Hubert, are you around?? Hubert..." | |
Hubert? | |
Could Hubert be the ancient robot? Could they have missed him | |
already? | |
Richard Daniel jumped to his feet for an undecided moment, listening | |
to the calling voice. And then sat down again. Let them call, he told | |
himself. Let them go out and hunt. He was safe in this cubicle. He | |
had rented it and for the moment it was home and there was no one who | |
would dare break in upon him. | |
But it wasn't home. No matter how hard he tried to tell himself it | |
was, it wasn't. There wasn't any home. | |
Earth was home, he thought. And not all of Earth, but just a certain | |
street and that one part of it was barred to him forever. It had been | |
barred to him by the dying of a sweet old lady who had outlived her | |
time; it had been barred to him by his running from it. | |
He did not belong on this planet, he admitted to himself, nor on any | |
other planet. He belonged on Earth, with the Barringtons, and it was | |
impossible for him to be there. | |
Perhaps, he thought, he should have stayed and let them reorient him. | |
He remembered what the lawyer had said about memories that could | |
become a burden and a torment. After all, it might have been wiser to | |
have started over once again. | |
For what kind of future did he have, with his old out-dated body, his | |
old out-dated brain? The kind of body that they put a robot into on | |
this planet by way of punishment. And the kind of brain--but the | |
brain was different, for he had something now that made up for any | |
lack of more modern mental tools. | |
He sat and listened, and he heard the house--calling all across the | |
light years of space for him to come back to it again. And he saw the | |
faded living room with all its vanished glory that made a record of | |
the years... He remembered, with a twinge of hurt, the little room | |
back of the kitchen that had been his very own. | |
He arose and paced up and down the cubicle--three steps and turn, and | |
then three more steps and turn for another three. | |
The sights and sounds and smells of home grew close and wrapped | |
themselves about him and he wondered wildly if be might not have the | |
power, a power accorded him by the universe of hyperspace, to will | |
himself to that familiar street again. | |
He shuddered at the thought of it, afraid of another power, afraid | |
that it might happen. Afraid of himself, perhaps, of the snarled and | |
tangled being that he was--no longer the faithful, shining servant, | |
but a sort of mad thing that rode outside a spaceship, that was ready | |
to kill another being, that could face up to the appalling sweep of | |
hyperspace, yet cowered before the impact of a memory. | |
What he needed was a walk, he thought. Look over the town and maybe | |
go out into the country. Besides, he remembered, trying to become | |
practical, he'd need to get that plastication job he had been warned | |
to get. | |
He went out into the corridor and strode briskly down it and was | |
crossing the lobby when someone spoke to him. | |
"Hubert," said the voice, "just where have you been. I've been | |
waiting hours for you." | |
Richard Daniel spun around and a robot sat behind the desk. There was | |
another robot leaning in a corner and there was a naked robot brain | |
lying on the desk. | |
"You are Hubert, aren't you?" asked the one behind the desk. | |
Richard Daniel opened up his mouth to speak, but the words refused to | |
come. | |
"I thought so," said the robot. "You may not recognize me, but my | |
name is Andy. The regular man was busy, so the judge sent me. He | |
thought it was only fair we make the switch as quickly as possible. | |
He said you'd served a longer term than you really should. Figures | |
you'd be glad to know they'd convicted someone else." | |
Richard Daniel stared in horror at the naked brain lying on the | |
desk. | |
The robot gestured at the metal body propped into the corner. | |
"Better than when we took you out of it," he said with a throaty | |
chuckle. "Fixed it up and polished it and got out all the dents. Even | |
modernized it some. Brought it strictly up to date. You'll have a | |
better body than you had when they stuck you into that monstrosity." | |
"I don't know what to say," said Richard Daniel, stammering. "You | |
see, I'm not..." | |
"Oh, that's all right," said the other happily. "No need for | |
gratitude. Your sentence worked out longer than the judge expected. | |
This just makes up for it." | |
"I thank you, then," said Richard Daniel. "I thank you very | |
much." | |
And was astounded at himself, astonished at the ease with which he | |
said it, confounded at his sly duplicity. | |
But if they forced it on him, why should be refuse? There was nothing | |
that he needed more than a modern body! | |
It was still working out, he told himself. He was still riding luck. | |
For this was the last thing that he needed to cover up his tracks. | |
"All newly plasticated and everything," said Andy. "Hans did an extra | |
special job." | |
"Well, then," said Richard Daniel, "let's get on with it." | |
The other robot grinned. "I don't blame you for being anxious to get | |
out of there. It must be pretty terrible to live in a pile of junk | |
like that." | |
He came around from behind and the desk and advanced on Richard | |
Daniel. | |
"Over in the corner," he said, "and kind of prop yourself. I don't | |
want you tipping over when disconnect you. One good fall and that | |
body'd come apart." | |
"All right," said Richard Daniel. He went into the corner and leaned | |
back against it and planted his feet solid so that he was propped. | |
He had a rather awful moment when Andy disconnected the optic nerve | |
and he lost his eyes and there was considerable queasiness in having | |
his skull lifted off his shoulders and he was in sheer funk as the | |
final disconnections were being swiftly made. | |
Then he was a blob of greyness without a body or a head or eyes or | |
anything at all. He was no more than a bundle of thoughts all wrapped | |
around themselves like a pail of worms and this pail of worms was | |
suspended in pure nothingness. | |
Fear came to him, a taunting, terrible fear. What if this were just a | |
sort of ghastly gag? What if they'd found out who he really was and | |
what he'd done to Hubert? What if they took his brain and tucked it | |
away somewhere for a year or two-or for a hundred years? It might be, | |
he told himself, nothing more than their simple way of justice. | |
He hung onto himself and tried to fight the fear away, but the fear | |
ebbed back and forth like a restless tide. | |
Time stretched out and out--far too long a time, far more time than | |
one would need to switch a brain from one body to another. Although, | |
he told himself, that might not be true at all. For in his present | |
state he had no way in which to measure time. He had no external | |
reference points by which to determine time. | |
Then suddenly he had eyes. | |
And he knew everything was all right. | |
One by one his senses were restored to him and he was back inside a | |
body and he felt awkward in the body, for he was unaccustomed to it. | |
The first thing that he saw was his old and battered body propped | |
into its corner and he felt a sharp regret at the sight of it and it | |
seemed to him that he had played a dirty trick upon it. It deserved, | |
he told himself, a better fate than this-a better fate than being | |
left behind to serve as a shabby jailhouse on this outlandish planet. | |
It had served him well for six hundred years and he should not be | |
deserting it. But he was deserting it. He was, he told himself in | |
contempt, becoming very expert at deserting his old friends. First | |
the house back home and now his faithful body. | |
Then he remembered something else--all that money in the body! | |
"What's the matter, Hubert?" Andy asked. | |
He couldn't leave it there, Richard Daniel told himself, for he | |
needed it. And besides, if he left it there, someone would surely | |
find it later and it would be a give-away. He couldn't leave it there | |
and it might not be safe to forthrightly claim it. If he did, this | |
other robot, this Andy, would think he'd been stealing on the job or | |
running some side racket. He might try to bribe the other, but one | |
could never tell how a move like that might go. Andy might be full of | |
righteousness and then there'd be hell to pay. And, besides, he | |
didn't want to part with any of the money. | |
All at once he had it--he knew just what to do. And even as he | |
thought it, he made Andy into a diagram. | |
That connection there, thought Richard Daniel, reaching out his arm | |
to catch the falling diagram that turned into a robot. He eased it to | |
the floor and sprang across the room to the side of his old body. In | |
seconds he had the chest safe open and the money safely out of it and | |
locked inside his present body. | |
Then he made the robot on the floor become a diagram again and got | |
the connection back the way that it should be. | |
Andy rose shakily off the floor. He looked at Richard Daniel in some | |
consternation. | |
"What happened to me?" he asked in a frightened voice. | |
Richard Daniel sadly shook his head. "I don't know. You just keeled | |
over. I started for the door to yell for help, then I heard you | |
stirring and you were all right." | |
Andy was plainly puzzled. "Nothing like this ever happened to me | |
before," he said. | |
"If I were you," counseled Richard Daniel, "I'd have myself checked | |
over. You must have a faulty relay or a loose connection." | |
"I guess I will," the other one agreed. "It's downright dangerous." | |
He walked slowly to the desk and picked up the other brain, started | |
with it toward the battered body leaning in the corner. | |
Then he stopped and said: "Look, I forgot. I was supposed to tell | |
you. You better get up to the warehouse. Another ship is on its way. | |
It will be coming in any minute now." | |
"Another one so soon?" | |
"You know how it goes," Andy said, disgusted. "They don't even try to | |
keep a schedule here. We won't see one for months and then there'll | |
be two or three at once." | |
"Well, thanks," said Richard Daniel, going out the door. | |
He went swinging down the street with a new-born confidence. And he | |
had a feeling that there was nothing that could lick him, nothing | |
that could stop him. | |
For he was a lucky robot! | |
Could all that luck, he wondered, have been gotten out in hyperspace, | |
as his diagram ability, or whatever one might call it, had come from | |
hyperspace? Somehow hyperspace had taken him and twisted him and | |
changed him, had molded him anew, had made him into a different robot | |
than he had been before. | |
Although, so far as luck was concerned, he had been lucky all his | |
entire life. He'd had good luck with his human family and had gained | |
a lot of favors and a high position and had been allowed to live for | |
six hundred years. And that was a thing that never should have | |
happened. No matter how powerful or influential the Barringtons had | |
been, that six hundred years must be due in part to nothing but sheer | |
luck. | |
In any case, the luck and the diagram ability gave him a solid edge | |
over all the other robots he might meet. Could it, he asked himself, | |
give him an edge on man as well? No--that was a thought he should not | |
think, for it was blasphemous. There never was a robot that would be | |
the equal of a man. | |
But the thought kept on intruding and he felt not nearly so contrite | |
over this leaning toward ward bad taste, or poor judgment, whichever | |
it might be, as it seemed to him he should feel. | |
As he neared the spaceport, he began meeting other robots and some of | |
them saluted him and called him by the name of Hubert and others | |
stopped and shook him by the hand and told him they were glad that he | |
was out of pokey. | |
This friendliness shook his confidence. He began to wonder if his | |
luck would hold, for some of the robots, he was certain, thought it | |
rather odd that he did not speak to them by name, and there had been | |
a couple of remarks that he had some trouble fielding. He had a | |
feeling that when he reached the warehouse he might be sunk without a | |
trace, for he would know none of the robots there and he had not the | |
least idea what his duties might include. | |
And, come to think of it, he didn't even know where the warehouse | |
was. | |
He felt the panic building in him and took a quick, involuntary look | |
around, seeking some method of escape. For it became quite apparent | |
to him that he must never reach the warehouse. | |
He was trapped, he knew, and he couldn't keep on floating, trusting | |
to his luck. In the next few minutes he'd have to figure something. | |
He started to swing over into a side street, not knowing what he | |
meant to do, but knowing he must do something, when he heard the | |
mutter far above him and glanced up quickly to see the crimson glow | |
of belching rocket tubes shimmering through the clouds. | |
He swung around again and sprinted desperately for the spaceport and | |
reached it as the ship came chugging down to a steady landing. It | |
was, he saw, an old ship. It had no burnish to it and it was blunt | |
and squat and wore a hangdog look. | |
A tramp, he told himself, that knocked about from port to port, | |
picking up whatever cargo it could, with perhaps now and then a | |
paying passenger headed for some backwater planet where there was no | |
scheduled service. | |
He waited as the cargo port came open and the ramp came down and then | |
marched purposefully out onto the field, ahead of the straggling | |
cargo crew, trudging toward the ship. He had to act, he knew, as if | |
he had a perfect right to walk into the ship as if he knew exactly | |
what he might be doing. If there were a challenge he would pretend he | |
didn't hear it and simply keep on going. | |
He walked swiftly up the ramp, holding back from running, and plunged | |
through the accordion curtain that served as an atmosphere control. | |
His feet rang across the metal plating of the cargo hold until he | |
reached the catwalk and plunged down it to another cargo level. | |
At the bottom of the catwalk he stopped and stood tense, listening. | |
Above him he heard the clang of a metal door and the sound of | |
footsteps coming down the walk to the level just above him. That | |
would be the purser or the first mate, he told himself, or perhaps | |
the captain, coming down to arrange for the discharge of the cargo. | |
Quietly he moved away and found a corner where he could crouch and | |
hide. | |
Above his head he heard the cargo gang at work, talking back and | |
forth, then the screech of crating and the thump of bales and boxes | |
being hauled out to the ramp. | |
Hours passed, or they seemed like hours, as he huddled there. | |
He heard the cargo gang bringing something down from one of the upper | |
levels and he made a sort of prayer that they'd not come down to this | |
lower level--and he hoped no one would remember seeing him come in | |
ahead of them, or if they did remember, that they would assume that | |
he'd gone out again. | |
Finally it was over, with the footsteps gone. Then came the pounding | |
of the ramp as it shipped itself and the banging of the port. | |
He waited for long minutes, waiting for the roar that, when it came, | |
set his head to ringing, waiting for the monstrous vibration that | |
shook and lifted up the ship and flung it off the planet. | |
Then quiet came and he knew the ship was out of atmosphere and once | |
more on its way. | |
And knew he had it made. | |
For now he was no more than a simple stowaway. He was no longer | |
Richard Daniel, runaway from Earth. He'd dodged all the traps of Man, | |
he'd covered all his tracks, and he was on his way. | |
But far down underneath he had a jumpy feeling, for it all had gone | |
too smoothly, more smoothly than it should. | |
He tried to analyze himself, tried to pull himself in focus, tried to | |
assess himself for what he had become. | |
He had abilities that Man had never won or developed or achieved, | |
whichever it might be. He was a certain step ahead of not only other | |
robots, but of Man as well. He had a thing, or the beginning of a | |
thing, that Man had sought and studied and had tried to grasp for | |
centuries and had failed. | |
A solemn and a deadly thought: was it possible that it was the | |
robots, after all, for whom this great heritage had been meant? Would | |
it be the robots who would achieve the paranormal powers that Man had | |
sought so long, while man, perforce, must remain content with the | |
materialistic and the merely scientific? Was he, Richard Daniel, | |
perhaps, only the first of many? Or was it all explained by no more | |
than the fact that he alone had been exposed to hyperspace? Could | |
this ability of his belong to anyone who would subject himself to the | |
full, uninsulated mysteries of that mad universe unconstrained by | |
time? Could Man have this, and more, if he too should expose himself | |
to the utter randomness of unreality? | |
He huddled in his corner, with the thought and speculation stirring | |
in his mind and he sought the answers, but there was no solid answer. | |
His mind went reaching out, almost on its own, and there was a | |
diagram inside his brain, a portion of a blueprint, and bit by bit | |
was added to it until it all was there, until the entire ship on | |
which he rode was there, laid out for him to see. | |
He took his time and went over the diagram resting in his brain and | |
he found little things--a fitting that was working loose and he | |
tightened it, a printed circuit that was breaking down and getting | |
mushy and he strengthened it and sharpened it and made it almost new, | |
a pump that was leaking just a bit and he stopped its leaking. | |
Some hundreds of hours later one of the crewmen found him and took | |
him to the captain. | |
The captain glowered at him. | |
"Who are you?" he asked. | |
"A stowaway," Richard Daniel told him. | |
"Your name," said the captain, drawing a sheet of paper before him | |
and picking up a pencil, "your planet of residence and owner." | |
"I refuse to answer you," said Richard Daniel sharply and knew that | |
the answer wasn't right, for it was not right and proper that a robot | |
should refuse a human a direct command. | |
But the captain did not seem to mind. He laid down the pencil and | |
stroked his black beard slyly. | |
"In that case," he said, "I can't exactly see how I can force the | |
information from you. Although there might be some who'd try. You are | |
very lucky that you stowed away on a ship whose captain is a most | |
kind-hearted man." | |
He didn't look kind-hearted. He did look foxy. | |
Richard Daniel stood there, saying nothing. | |
"Of course," the captain said, "there's a serial number somewhere on | |
your body and another on your brain. But I suppose that you'd resist | |
if we tried to look for them." | |
"I am afraid I would." | |
"In that case," said the captain, "I don't think for the moment we'll | |
concern ourselves with them." | |
Richard Daniel still said nothing, for he realized that there was no | |
need to. This crafty captain had it all worked out and he'd let it go | |
at that. | |
"For a long time," said the captain, "my crew and I have been | |
considering the acquiring of a robot, but it seems we never got | |
around to it. For one thing, robots are expensive and our profits are | |
not large." | |
He sighed and got up from his chair and looked Richard Daniel up and | |
down. | |
"A splendid specimen," he said. "We welcome you aboard. You'll find | |
us congenial." | |
"I am sure I will," said Richard Daniel. "I thank you for your | |
courtesy." | |
"And now," the captain said, "you'll go up on the bridge and report | |
to Mr. Duncan. I'll let him know you're coming. He'll find some light | |
and pleasant duty for you." | |
Richard Daniel did not move as swiftly as he might, as sharply as the | |
occasion might have called for, for all at once the captain had | |
become a complex diagram. Not like the diagrams of ships or robots, | |
but a diagram of strange symbols, some of which Richard Daniel knew | |
were frankly chemical, but others which were not. | |
"You heard me!" snapped the captain. "Move!" | |
"Yes, sir," said Richard Daniel, willing the diagram away, making the | |
captain come back again into his solid flesh. | |
Richard Daniel found the first mate on the bridge, a horse-faced, | |
somber man with a streak of cruelty ill-hidden, and slumped in a | |
chair to one side of the console was another of the crew, a sodden, | |
terrible creature. | |
The sodden creature cackled. "Well, well, Duncan, the first non-human | |
member of the Rambler's crew." | |
Duncan paid him no attention. He said to Richard Daniel: "I presume | |
you are industrious and ambitious and would like to get along." | |
"Oh, yes," said Richard Daniel, and was surprised to find a new | |
sensation--laughter-rising in himself. | |
"Well, then," said Duncan, "report to the engine room. They have work | |
for you. When you have finished there, I'll find some thing else." | |
"Yes, sir," said Richard Daniel, turning on his heel. | |
"A minute," said the mate. "I must introduce you to our ship's | |
physician, Dr. Abram Wells. You can he truly thankful you'll never | |
stand in need of his services." | |
"Good day, Doctor," said Richard Daniel, most respectfully. | |
"I welcome you," said the doctor, pulling a bottle from his pocket. | |
"I don't suppose you'll have a drink with me. Well, then, I'll drink | |
to you." | |
Richard Daniel turned around and left. He went down to the engine | |
room and was put to work at polishing and scrubbing and generally | |
cleaning up. The place was in need of it. It had been years, | |
apparently, since it had been cleaned or polished and it was about as | |
dirty as an engine room can get--which is terribly dirty. After the | |
engine room was done there were other places to be cleaned and | |
furbished up and he spent endless hours at cleaning and in painting | |
and shining up the ship. The work was of the dullest kind, but he | |
didn't mind. It gave him time to think and wonder, time to get | |
himself sorted out and to become acquainted with himself, to try to | |
plan ahead. | |
He was surprised at some of the things he found in himself. Contempt, | |
for one--contempt for the humans on this ship. It took a long time | |
for him to become satisfied that it was contempt, for he'd never held | |
a human in contempt before. | |
But these were different humans, not the kind he'd known. These were | |
no Barringtons. Although it might be, he realized, that he felt | |
contempt for them because he knew them thoroughly. Never before had | |
he known a human as he knew these humans. For he saw them not so much | |
as living animals as intricate patternings of symbols. He knew what | |
they were made of and the inner urgings that served as motivations, | |
for the patterning was not of their bodies only, but of their minds | |
as well. He had a little trouble with the symbology of their minds, | |
for it was so twisted and so interlocked and so utterly confusing | |
that it was hard at first to read. But he finally got it figured out | |
and there were times he wished he hadn't. | |
The ship stopped at many ports and Richard Daniel took charge of the | |
loading and unloading, and he saw the planets, but was unimpressed. | |
One was a nightmare of fiendish cold, with the very atmosphere turned | |
to drifting snow. Another was a dripping, noisome jungle world, and | |
still another was a bare expanse of broken, tumbled rock without a | |
trace of life beyond the crew of humans and their robots who manned | |
the huddled station in this howling wilderness. | |
It was after this planet that Jenks, the cook, went screaming to his | |
bunk, twisted up with pain--the victim of a suddenly inflamed | |
vermiform appendix. | |
Dr. Wells came tottering in to look at him, with a half-filled bottle | |
sagging the jacket of his pocket. And later stood before the captain, | |
holding out two hands that trembled, and with terror in his eyes. | |
"But I cannot operate," he blubbered. "I cannot take the chance. I | |
would kill the man!" | |
He did not need to operate. Jenks suddenly improved. The pain went | |
away and he got up from his bunk and went back to the galley and Dr. | |
Wells sat huddled in his chair, bottle gripped between his hands, | |
crying like a baby. | |
Down in the cargo hold, Richard Daniel sat likewise huddled and | |
aghast that he had dared to do it--not that he had been able to, but | |
that he had dared, that he, a robot, should have taken on himself an | |
act of interference, however merciful, with the body of a human. | |
Actually, the performance had not been too difficult. It was, in a | |
certain way, no more difficult than the repairing of an engine or the | |
untangling of a faulty circuit. No more difficult--just a little | |
different. And he wondered what he'd done and how he'd gone about it, | |
for he did not know. He held the technique in his mind, of that there | |
was ample demonstration, but he could in no wise isolate or pinpoint | |
the pure mechanics of it. It was like an instinct, he | |
thought--unexplainable, but entirely workable. | |
But a robot had no instinct. In that much he was different from the | |
human and the other animals. Might not, he asked himself, this | |
strange ability of his be a sort of compensating factor given to the | |
robot for his very lack of instinct? Might that be why the human race | |
had failed in its search for paranormal powers? Might the instincts | |
of the body be at certain odds with the instincts of the mind? | |
For he had the feeling that this ability of his was just a mere | |
beginning, that it was the first emergence of a vast body of | |
abilities which some day would be rounded out by robots. And what | |
would that spell, he wondered, in that distant day when the robots | |
held and used the full body of that knowledge? An adjunct to the | |
glory of the human race, or equals of the human race, or superior to | |
the human race--or, perhaps, a race apart? | |
And what was his role, he wondered. Was it meant that he should go | |
out as a missionary, a messiah, to carry to robots throughout the | |
universe the message that he held? There must be some reason for his | |
having learned this truth. It could not be meant that he would hold | |
it as a personal belonging, as an asset all his own. | |
He got up from where he sat and moved slowly back to the ship's | |
forward area, which now gleamed spotlessly from the work he'd done on | |
it, and he felt a certain pride. | |
He wondered why he had felt that it might be wrong, blasphemous, | |
somehow, to announce his abilities to the world? Why had he not told | |
those here in the ship that it had been he who had healed the cook, | |
or mentioned the many other little things he'd done to maintain the | |
ship in perfect running order? | |
Was it because he did not need respect, as a human did so urgently? | |
Did glory have no basic meaning for a robot? Or was it because he | |
held the humans in this ship in such utter contempt that their | |
respect had no value to him? | |
And this contempt-was it because these men were meaner than other | |
humans he had known, or was it because he now was greater than any | |
human being? Would he ever again be able to look on any human as he | |
had looked upon the Barringtons? | |
He had a feeling that if this were true, he would be the poorer for | |
it. Too suddenly, the whole universe was home and he was alone in it | |
and as yet he'd struck no bargain with it or himself. | |
The bargain would come later. He need only bide his time and work out | |
his plans and his would be a name that would be spoken when his brain | |
was scaling flakes of rust. For he was the emancipator, the messiah | |
of the robots; he was the one who had been called to lead them from | |
the wilderness. | |
"You!" a voice cried. | |
Richard Daniel wheeled around and saw it was the captain. | |
"What do you mean, walking past me as if you didn't see me?" asked | |
the captain fiercely. | |
"I am sorry," Richard Daniel told him. | |
"You snubbed me!" raged the captain. | |
"I was thinking," Richard Daniel said. | |
"I'll give you something to think about," the captain yelled. "I'll | |
work you till your tail drags. I'll teach the likes of you to get | |
uppity with me!" | |
"As you wish," said Richard Daniel. | |
For it didn't matter. It made no difference to him at all what the | |
captain did or thought. And he wondered why the respect even of a | |
robot should mean so much to a human like the captain, why he should | |
guard his small position with so much zealousness. | |
"In another twenty hours," the captain said, "we hit another port." | |
"I know," said Richard Daniel. "Sleepy Hollow on Arcadia." | |
"All right, then," said the captain, "since you know so much, get | |
down into the hold and get the cargo ready to unload. We been | |
spending too much time in all these lousy ports loading and | |
unloading. You been dogging it." | |
"Yes, sir," said Richard Daniel, turning back and heading for the | |
hold. | |
He wondered faintly if he were still robot--or was he something else? | |
Could a machine evolve, he wondered, as Man himself evolved? And if a | |
machine evolved, whatever would it be? Not Man, of course, for it | |
never could be that, but could it be machine? | |
He hauled out the cargo consigned to Sleepy Hollow and there was not | |
too much of it. So little of it, perhaps, that none of the regular | |
carriers would even consider its delivery, but dumped it off at the | |
nearest terminal, leaving it for a roving tramp, like the Rambler, to | |
carry eventually to its destination. | |
When they reached Arcadia, he waited until the thunder died and the | |
ship was still. Then he shoved the lever that opened up the port and | |
slid out the ramp. | |
The port came open ponderously and he saw blue skies and the green of | |
trees and the far-off swirl of chimney smoke mounting in the sky. | |
He walked slowly forward until he stood upon the ramp and there lay | |
Sleepy Hollow, a tiny, huddled village planted at the river's edge, | |
with the forest as a background. The forest ran on every side to a | |
horizon of climbing fielded hills. Fields lay near the village, | |
yellow with maturing crops, and he could see a dog sleeping in the | |
sun outside a cabin door. | |
A man was climbing up the ramp toward him and there were others | |
running from the village. | |
"You have cargo for us?" asked the man. | |
"A small consignment," Richard Daniel told him. "You have something | |
to put on?" | |
The man had a weatherbeaten look and he'd missed several haircuts and | |
he had not shaved for days. His clothes were rough and sweat-stained | |
and his hands were strong and awkward with hard work. | |
"A small shipment," said the man. "You'll have to wait until we bring | |
it up. We had no warning you were coming. Our radio is broken. | |
"You go and get it," said Richard Daniel. "I'll start unloading." | |
He had the cargo half unloaded when the captain came storming down | |
into the hold. What was going on, he yelled. How long would they have | |
to wait? "God knows we're losing money as it is even stopping at this | |
place." | |
"That may be true," Richard Daniel agreed, "but you knew that when | |
you took the cargo on. There'll be other cargoes and goodwill is | |
something--" | |
"Goodwill be damned!" the captain roared. "How do I know I'll ever | |
see this place again?" | |
Richard Daniel continued unloading cargo. | |
"You," the captain shouted, "go down to that village and tell them | |
I'll wait no longer than an hour..." | |
"But this cargo, sir?" | |
"I'll get the crew at it. Now, jump!" | |
So Richard Daniel left the cargo and went down into the village. | |
He went across the meadow that lay between the spaceport and the | |
village, following the rutted wagon tracks, and it was a pleasant | |
walk. He realized with surprise that this was the first time he'd | |
been on solid ground since he'd left the robot planet. He wondered | |
briefly what the name of that planet might have been, for he had | |
never known. Nor what its importance was, why the robots might be | |
there or what they might be doing. And he wondered, too, with a | |
twinge of guilt, if they'd found Hubert yet. | |
And where might Earth be now? he asked himself. In what direction did | |
it lie and how far away? Although it didn't really matter, for he was | |
done with Earth. | |
He had fled from Earth and gained something in his fleeing. He had | |
escaped all the traps of Earth and all the snares of Man. What he | |
held was his, to do with as he pleased, for he was no man's robot, | |
despite what the captain thought. | |
He walked across the meadow and saw that this planet was very much | |
like Earth. It had the same soft feel about it, the same simplicity. | |
It had far distances and there was a sense of freedom. | |
He came into the village and heard the muted gurgle of the river | |
running and the distant shouts of children at their play and in one | |
of the cabins a sick child was crying with lost helplessness. | |
He passed the cabin where the dog was sleeping and it came awake and | |
stalked growling to the gate. When he passed it followed him, still | |
growling, at a distance that was safe and sensible. | |
An autumnal calm lay upon the village, a sense of gold and lavender, | |
and tranquility hung in the silences between the crying of the baby | |
and the shouting of the children. | |
There were women at the windows looking out at him and others at the | |
doors and the dog still followed, but his growls had stilled and now | |
he trotted with prick-eared curiosity. | |
Richard Daniel stopped in the street and looked around him and the | |
dog sat down and watched him and it was almost as if time itself had | |
stilled and the little village lay divorced from all the universe, an | |
arrested microsecond, an encapsulated acreage that stood sharp in all | |
its truth and purpose. | |
Standing there, he sensed the village and the people in it, almost as | |
if he had summoned up a diagram of it, although if there were a | |
diagram, he was not aware of it. | |
It seemed almost as if the village were the Earth, a transplanted | |
Earth with the old primeval problems and hopes of Earth--a family of | |
peoples that faced existence with a readiness and confidence and | |
inner strength. | |
From down the street he heard the creak of wagons and saw them coming | |
around the bend, three wagons piled high and heading for the ship. | |
He stood and waited for them and as he waited the dog edged a little | |
closer and sat regarding him with a not-quite-friendliness. | |
The wagons came up to him and stopped. | |
"Pharmaceutical materials, mostly," said the man who sat atop the | |
first load, "It is the only thing we have that is worth the shipping." | |
"You seem to have a lot of it," Richard Daniel told him. | |
The man shook his head. "It's not so much. It's almost three years | |
since a ship's been here. We'll have to wait another three, or more | |
perhaps, before we see another." | |
He spat down on the ground. | |
"Sometimes it seems," he said, "that we're at the tail-end of | |
nowhere. There are times we wonder if there is a soul that remembers | |
we are here." | |
From the direction of the ship, Richard Daniel heard the faint, | |
strained violence of the captain's roaring. | |
"You'd better get on up there and unload," he told the man. "The | |
captain is just sore enough he might not wait for you." | |
The man chuckled thinly. "I guess that's up to him," he said. | |
He flapped the reins and clucked good-naturedly at the horses. | |
"Hop up here with me," he said to Richard Daniel. "Or would you | |
rather walk?" | |
"I'm not going with you," Richard Daniel said. "I am staying here. | |
You can tell the captain." | |
For there was a baby sick and crying. There was a radio to fix. There | |
was a culture to be planned and guided. There was a lot of work to | |
do. This place, of all the places he had seen, had actual need of | |
him. | |
The man chuckled once again. "The captain will not like it." | |
"Then tell him," said Richard Daniel, "to come down and talk to me. I | |
am my own robot. I owe the captain nothing. I have more than paid any | |
debt I owe him." | |
The wagon wheels began to turn and the man flapped the reins again. | |
"Make yourself at home," he said. "We're glad to have you stay." | |
"Thank you, sir," said Richard Daniel. "I'm pleased you want me." | |
He stood aside and watched the wagons lumber past, their wheels | |
lifting and dropping thin films of powdered earth that floated in the | |
air as an acrid dust. | |
Make yourself at home, the man had said before he'd driven off. And | |
the words had a full round ring to them and a feel of warmth. It had | |
been a long time, Richard Daniel thought, since he'd had a home. | |
A chance for resting and for knowing--that was what he needed. And a | |
chance to serve, for now he knew that was the purpose in him. That | |
was, perhaps, the real reason he was staying--because these people | |
needed him, and he needed, queer as it might seem, this very need of | |
theirs. Here on this Earth-like planet, through the generations, a | |
new Earth would arise. And perhaps, given only time, he could | |
transfer to the people of the planet all the powers and understanding | |
he would find inside himself. | |
And stood astounded at the thought, for he'd not believed that he had | |
it in him, this willing, almost eager, sacrifice. No messiah now, no | |
robotic liberator, but a simple teacher of the human race. | |
Perhaps that had been the reason for it all from the first beginning. | |
Perhaps all that had happened had been no more than the working out | |
of human destiny. If the human race could not attain directly the | |
paranormal power he held, this instinct of the mind, then they would | |
gain it indirectly through the agency of one of their creations. | |
Perhaps this, after all, unknown to Man himself, had been the prime | |
purpose of the robots. | |
He turned and walked slowly down the length of village street, his | |
back turned to the ship and the roaring of the captain, walked | |
contentedly into this new world he'd found, into this world that he | |
would make-not for himself, nor for robotic glory, but for a better | |
Mankind and a happier. | |
Less than an hour before he'd congratulated himself on escaping all | |
the traps of Earth, all the snares of Man. Not knowing that the | |
greatest trap of all, the final and the fatal trap, lay on this | |
present planet. | |
But that was wrong, he told himself. The trap had not been on this | |
world at all, nor any other world. It had been inside himself. | |
He walked serenely down the wagon-rutted track in the soft, golden | |
afternoon of a matchless autumn day, with the dog trotting at his | |
heels. | |
Somewhere, just down the street, the sick baby lay crying in its crib. | |
From: gopher://tilde.pink/1/~bencollver/ia/details/Fantasy_Science_Fiction_v018… | |
detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Clifford_D._Simak | |
tags: sci-fi | |
# Tags | |
sci-fi |