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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 see 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 on 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 word - 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, and 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, failing 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 be really had
done nothing. He'd simply thought that one should detach a single wire, burn
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, be 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 outdated body, his
old outdated 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 he 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 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 he 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 the desk and advanced on Richard Danie1.
"Over in the corner," he said, "and kind of prop yourself. I don't want
you tipping over when I 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 newborn 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 1uck.
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 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 bad 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 be
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 something 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 be 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 shinning 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 inflammed vermiform
appendix.
Dr. Wells came tottering in to look at him, with a half-filled bottle
sagging the pocket of his jacket. 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 way 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 folded 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 tranquillity 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.
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 see 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 on 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 word - 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, and 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, failing 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 be really had
done nothing. He'd simply thought that one should detach a single wire, burn
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, be 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 outdated body, his
old outdated 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 he 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 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 he 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 the desk and advanced on Richard Danie1.
"Over in the corner," he said, "and kind of prop yourself. I don't want
you tipping over when I 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 newborn 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 1uck.
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 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 bad 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 be
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 something 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 be 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 shinning 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 inflammed vermiform
appendix.
Dr. Wells came tottering in to look at him, with a half-filled bottle
sagging the pocket of his jacket. 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 way 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 folded 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 tranquillity 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.