Return from the Stars (19 page)

"Excuse me, I'll be back in a minute!" called Marger, and ran up a winding stairway to a glass annex not far away. I stood alone on the pavement, which was hot from the sun. I looked around. The buildings at the far end of the lot we had already seen; they held the compactors and presses. What with the distance and the soundproofing, not a murmur reached me from there. Off by itself, behind the annex into which Marger had vanished, was a low and unusually long building, a kind of tin barracks; I headed for it to find some shade, but the heat from the metal walls was unbearable. I was about to leave when I heard a peculiar sound coming from inside the barracks, difficult to identify, not at all like the noise of machines at work. Thirty paces farther and I reached a steel door. In front of it stood a robot. At the sight of me, the robot opened the door and stepped aside. The curious sounds became stronger. I looked inside; it was not as dark as I had thought at first. Because of the murderous heat from the sheet metal I could hardly breathe, and would have backed out immediately had it not been for the voices. For they were human voices—distorted, merging in a hoarse chorus, blurred, babbling, as though in the gloom a pile of defective telephones were talking. I took two uncertain steps, something crunched beneath my feet, and clearly, from the floor, it spoke:

"Pleash … shir … haff…"

I stood rooted to the spot. The stifling air tasted of iron. The whisper came from below.

"Pleash … haff … look ar-round … pleash…"

It was joined by a second, monotonous voice, steadily reciting: "O anomaly eccentric… O asymptote spherical… O pole in infinity… O protosystem linear… O system holonomic… O space semimetrical… O space spherical… O space dielectrical…"

"Pleash … shir … yershervet … pleash…"

The darkness teemed with husky whisperings, out of which boomed:

"The planetary bioplasm, its decaying mud, is the dawn of existence, the initial phase, and lot from the bloody, dough-brained cometh copper…"

"Brek—break—brabzel—be … bre … veryscope…"

"O class imaginary… O class powerful… O class empty… O class of classes…"

"Pleash … haff … look ar-round … shir…"

"Hush-sh…"

"You…"

"Sh-sh."

"Hear me…"

"I hear…"

"Can you touch…?"

"Brek—break—brabzel…"

"No arms…"

"Sh-shame … you … you would see what a shiny and cold I am…"

"L-let them re … turn my armor, my golden sword … my inheri … tance … dis … possessed … night…"

"Behold the last efforts of the strutting croaking master of quartering and incarceration, for yea it riseth, thrice riseth the coming kingdom of the nonliving…"

"I'm new … quite new… I never had a short in the skeleton… I am still able … please…"

"Pleash…"

I did not know which way to look, asphyxiated by the merciless heat and those voices. They came from all sides. From the floor to the window slots below the ceiling rose heaps of twisted and tangled bodies; the little light that filtered in was reflected weakly in their dented metal.

"I had a temp, a temporary defect, but now I am all, am all right, I can see…"

"What do you see … it is dark…"

"Listen, please. I am invaluable, I am expensive. I indicate every power leak, I locate every stray current, every overload, just test me, please… This … this shaking is temporary… It has nothing in common with … please…"

"Pleash … shir…"

"And the dough-headed took their acid fermentation for a soul, the stabbing of meat for history, the means of postponing their decay for civilization…"

"Please, me … only me … it is a mistake…"

"Pleash … shir … haff…"

"I will save you…"

"Who is that…"

"What…"

"Who saves?"

"Repeat after me: the fire will not consume me utterly, and the water will not turn me all to rust, both elements will be a gate unto me, and I shall enter…"

"Hush-sh-sh!"

"The contemplation of the cathode—"

"Cathodoplation—"

"I am here by mistake… I think… I think, after all…"

"I am the mirror of betrayal…"

"Pleash … shir … yer shervet … haff a look ar-round…"

"O flight of the transfinite, O flight of the nebulae… O flight of the stars…"

"He is here!!!" something cried; and a sudden silence fell, a silence almost as penetrating in its terrible tension as the many-voiced chorus that had preceded it.

"Sir!!!" said something; I do not know why I was so sure, but I felt that these words were directed to me, I did not respond.

"Sir, please … a moment of your time. Sir, I—am different. I am here by mistake."

There was a stir.

"Silence! I am living!" This outshouted the rest. "Yes, I was thrown in here, they dressed me in metal on purpose, so no one would know, but please, only put your ear to me and you will hear a pulse!"

"I also!" came a second voice over the first. "I also! Sir! I was ill; during my illness I imagined that I was a machine, that was my madness, but now I am well! Hallister, Mr. Hallister can vouch for me, please ask him, please get me out of here!"

"Pleash … pleash, shir…"

"Brek … break…"

"Your servant…"

The barracks buzzed and roared with rusty voices, at one point it was filled with a breathless scream, I began to retreat and stumbled backward into the sunlight, blinded, squinting; I stood awhile, shielding my eyes with my hand; behind me was a drawn-out grating sound; the robot had shut the door and bolted it.

"Sirrrr…" This still reached me through the wave of muffled voices from behind the wall. "Pleash … service … a mistake…"

I passed the glass annex. I did not know where I was going—I only wanted to get away from those voices, not to hear them; I jumped when I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Marger, fair-haired, handsome, smiling.

"I do apologize, Mr. Bregg. It took forever…"

"What will happen to them…?" I interrupted, almost rudely, indicating the solitary barracks with my hand.

"I beg your pardon?" he blinked. "To whom?"

Suddenly he understood and was surprised:

"Ah, you went there? There was no need…"

"Why no need?"

"That's scrap."

"How do you mean?"

"Scrap for recasting, after selection. Shall we go? We have to sign the official record."

"In a minute. Who conducts this selection?"

"Who? The robots."

"What? They do it themselves?"

"Certainly."

He fell silent under my gaze.

"Why aren't they repaired?"

"It wouldn't pay," he said slowly, with surprise.

"And what happens to them?"

"To the scrap? It goes there," he pointed at the thin, solitary column of the furnace.

In the office the forms were ready, spread out on the desk—the official record of the inspection, some other slips of paper—and Marger filled in the blanks in order, signed, and gave me the pen. I turned it over in my fingers.

"And is there no possibility of error?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"There, in that … scrap, as you call it, can they wind up there … even when they are still efficient, in working order—what do you think?"

He looked at me as if he did not understand what I was saying.

"That was the impression I got," I finished slowly.

"But that is not our concern," he replied.

"Then whose concern is it?"

"The robots'."

"But it is we who make the inspection."

"Ah, no," he smiled with relief at finally perceiving the source of my error. "The one has nothing to do with the other. We inspect the synchronization of processes, their tempo and efficiency, but we do not go into such details as selection. That is not our province. Apart from the fact that it is unnecessary, it also would be quite impossible, because today there are about eighteen automata for every living person; of these, five end their cycle daily and become scrap. That amounts to something on the order of two billion tons a day. You can see for yourself that we would be unable to keep track of this, and in any case the structure of our system is based on precisely the opposite relationship: the automata serve us, not we them…"

I could not dispute what he said. Without another word I signed the papers. We were about to part when I surprised myself by asking him if humanoid robots were also produced.

"Not really," he said, and added reluctantly, "In their day they caused a bit of trouble…"

"How so?"

"Well, you know engineers! They reached such a level of perfection in their simulations that certain models could not be distinguished from live human beings. Some people could not tolerate that…"

Suddenly I remembered the stewardess on the ship that I had taken from Luna.

"Could not tolerate that…?" I repeated his words. "Was it, then, something like a … phobia?"

"I am no psychologist, but I suppose you could call it that. Anyway, this is ancient history."

"And are there still such robots?"

"Oh yes, they are found on short-range rockets. Did you meet one of them?"

I gave an evasive answer.

"Will you have time now to take care of your business?" He was concerned.

"My business…?"

Then I remembered that I was supposed to have something to attend to in the city. We parted at the entrance to the station, where he had led me, all the while thanking me for extricating him from a difficult situation.

I wandered about the streets; I went to a realon but left before sitting through half of the ridiculous show, and I rode to Clavestra in the lowest spirits. I sent back the gleeder a kilometer from the villa and went the rest of the way on foot. Everything was in order. They were mechanisms of metal, wire, glass, one could assemble them and disassemble them, I told myself; but I could not shake off the memory of that hall, of the darkness and the distorted voices, that cacophony of despair which held too much meaning, too much of the most ordinary fear. I could tell myself that I was a specialist on that subject, I had tasted it enough, horror at the prospect of sudden annihilation has ceased to be fiction for me, as it was for them, those sensible designers who had organized the whole thing so well: robots took care of their own kind, did so to the very end, and man did not interfere. It was a closed cycle of precision instruments that created, reproduced, and destroyed themselves, and I had needlessly overheard the agony of mechanical death.

I stopped at the top of a hill. The view, in the slanting rays of the sun, was indescribably beautiful. Every now and then a gleeder, gleaming like a black bullet, sped along the ribbon highway, aimed at the horizon, where mountains rose in a bluish outline, softened by the distance. And suddenly I felt that I could not look—as if I did not have the right to look, as if there lay a horrible deception in this, squeezing at my throat. I sat down among the trees, buried my face in my hands; I regretted having returned. When I entered the house a white robot approached me.

"You have a telephone call," it said confidingly. "Long distance: Eurasia."

I walked after it quickly. The telephone was in the hall, so that while speaking I could see the garden through the glass door.

"Hal?" came a faraway but clear voice. "It's Olaf."

"Olaf … Olaf!" I repeated in a triumphant tone. "Where are you, friend?"

"Narvik."

"What are you doing? How is it going? You got my letter?"

"Of course. That's how I knew where to find you."

A moment of silence.

"What are you doing…?" I repeated, less certain.

"What is there to do? I'm doing nothing. And you?"

"Did you go to Adapt?"

"I did. But only for a day. I stopped. I couldn't, you know…"

"I know. Listen, Olaf… I've rented a villa here. It might not be … but—listen! Come and stay here!"

He did not answer at once. When he did, there was hesitation in his voice.

"I'd like to come. And I might, Hal, but you know what they told us…"

"I know. But what can they do to us? Anyway, to hell with them. Come on."

"What would be the point? Think, Hal. It could be…"

"What?"

"Worse."

"And how do you know that I'm not having a ball here?"

I heard his short laugh, really more a sigh: he laughed so quietly.

"Then what do you want with me there?"

Suddenly an idea hit me.

"Olaf. Listen. It's a kind of summer resort here. A villa, a pool, gardens. The only problem … but you must know what things are like now, the way they live, right?"

"I have a rough idea."

The tone said more than the words.

"There you are, then. Now pay attention! Come here. But first get hold of some … boxing gloves. Two pairs. We'll do some sparring. You'll see, it'll be great!"

"Christ! Hal, Where am I going to find you boxing gloves? There probably haven't been any made for years."

"So have them made. Don't tell me it's impossible to make four stupid gloves. We'll set up a little ring—we'll pound each other. We two can, Olaf! You've heard about betrizating, I take it?"

"H'm. I'd tell you what I think of it. But not over the phone. Somebody might have delicate ears."

"Look, come. You'll do what I said?"

He was silent for a while.

"I don't know if there's any sense to it, Hal."

"All right. Then tell me, while you're at it, what plans you have. If you have any, then naturally I wouldn't think of bothering you with my whims."

"I have none," he said. "And you?"

"I came here to rest, educate myself, read, but these aren't plans, just… I simply couldn't see anything else ahead for me."

Silence.

"Olaf?"

"It appears that we have got off to an even start," he muttered. "What the hell. After all, I can leave at any time, if it turns out that…"

"Oh, stop it!" I said impatiently. "There is nothing to discuss. Pack a bag and come. When can you be here?"

"Tomorrow morning. You really want to box?"

"And you don't?"

He laughed.

"Hell, yes. And for the same reason you do."

"It's a deal, then," I said quickly. "I'll be expecting you. Take care."