It was night. All around the ship crickets chirped, disturbing the chill darkness. Olham bent over the vidscreen. Gradually the image formed; the call had gone through without trouble. He breathed a sigh of relief.
"Mary," he said. The woman stared at him. She gasped.
"Spence! Where are you? What's happened?"
"I can't tell you. Listen, I have to talk fast. They may break this call off any minute. Go to the Project grounds and get Dr Chamberlain. If he isn't there, get any doctor. Bring him to the house and have him stay there. Have him bring equipment, X-ray, fluoroscope, everything."
"But -"
"Do as I say. Hurry. Have him get it ready in an hour." Olham leaned toward the screen. "Is everything all right? Are you alone?"
"Alone?"
"Is anyone with you? Has... has Nelson or anyone contacted you?"
"No. Spence, I don't understand."
"All right. I'll see you at the house in an hour. And don't tell anyone anything. Get Chamberlain there on any pretext. Say you're very ill."
He broke the connection and looked at his watch. A moment later he left the ship, stepping down into the darkness. He had a half mile to go.
He began to walk.
One light showed in the window, the study light. He watched it, kneeling against the fence. There was no sound, no movement of any kind. He held his watch up and read it by starlight. Almost an hour had passed.
Along the street a shoot bug came. It went on.
Olham looked toward the house. The doctor should have already come. He should be inside, waiting with Mary. A thought struck him. Had she been able to leave the house? Perhaps they had intercepted her. Maybe he was moving into a trap.
But what else could he do?
With a doctor's records, photographs and reports, there was a chance, a chance of proof. If he could be examined, if he could remain alive long enough for them to study him -
He could prove it that way. It was probably the only way. His one hope lay inside the house. Dr Chamberlain was a respected man. He was the staff doctor for the Project. He would know, his word on the matter would have meaning. He could overcome their hysteria, their madness, with facts.
Madness - that was what it was. If only they would wait, act slowly, take their time. But they could not wait. He had to die, die at once, without proof, without any kind of trial or examination.The simplest test would tell, but they had no time for the simplest test. They could think only of the danger. Danger, and nothing more.
He stood up and moved toward the house. He came up on the porch. At the door he paused, listening. Still no sound. The house was absolutely still.
Too still.
Olham stood on the porch, unmoving. They were trying to be silent inside. Why? It was a small house; only a few feet away, beyond the door, Mary and Dr Chamberlain should be standing. Yet he could hear nothing, no sound of voices, nothing at all. He looked at the door. It was a door he had opened and closed a thousand times, every morning and every night.
He put his hand on the knob. Then, all at once, he reached out and touched the bell instead. The bell pealed, off some place in the back of the house. Olham smiled. He could hear movement.
Mary opened the door. As soon as he saw her face he knew.
He ran, throwing himself into the bushes. A security officer shoved Mary out of the way, firing past her. The bushes burst apart. Olham wriggled around the side of the house. He leaped up and ran, racing frantically into the darkness. A searchlight snapped on, a beam of light circling past him.
He crossed the road and squeezed over a fence. He jumped down and made his way across a backyard. Behind him men were coming, security officers, shouting to each other as they came. Olham gasped for breath, his chest rising and falling.
Her face - he had known at once. The set lips, the terrified, wretched eyes. Suppose he had gone ahead, pushed open the door and entered! They had tapped the call and come at once, as soon as he had broken off. Probably she believed their account. No doubt she thought he was the robot, too.
Olham ran on and on. He was losing the officers, dropping them behind. Apparently they were not much good at running. He climbed a hill and made his way down the other side. In a moment he would be back at the ship. But where to, this time? He slowed down, stopping. He could see the ship already, outlined against the sky, where he had parked it. The settlement was behind him; he was on the outskirts of the wilderness between the inhabited places, where the forests and desolation began. He crossed a barren field and entered the trees.
As he came toward it, the door of the ship opened.
Peters stepped out, framed against the light. In his arms was a heavy Boris gun. Olham stopped, rigid. Peters stared around him, into the darkness. "I know you're there, some place," he said. "Come on up here, Olham. There are security men all around you."
Olham did not move.
"Listen to me. We will catch you very shortly. Apparently you still do not believe you're the robot. Your call to the woman indicates that you are still under the illusion created by your artificial memories.
"But you are the robot. You are the robot, and inside you is the bomb. Any moment the trigger phrase may be spoken, by you, by someone else, by anyone. When that happens the bomb will destroy everything for miles around. The Project, the woman, all of us will be killed. Do you understand?"
Olham said nothing. He was listening. Men were moving toward him, slipping through the woods.
"If you don't come out, we'll catch you. It will only be a matter of time. We no longer plan to remove you to the Moon base. You will be destroyed on sight, and we will have to take the chance that the bomb will detonate. I have ordered every available security officer into the area. The whole county is being searched, inch by inch. There is no place you can go. Around this wood is a cordon of armed men. You have about six hours left before the last inch is covered."
Olham moved away. Peters went on speaking; he had not seen him at all. It was too dark to see anyone. But Peters was right. There was no place he could go. He was beyond the settlement, on the outskirts where the woods began. He could hide for a time, but eventually they would catch him.
Only a matter of time.
Olham walked quietly through the wood. Mile by mile, each part of the county was being measured off, laid bare, searched, studied, examined. The cordon was coming all the time, squeezing him into a smaller and smaller space.
What was there left? He had lost the ship, the one hope of escape. They were at his home; his wife was with them, believing, no doubt, that the real Olham had been killed. He clenched his fists. Some place there was a wrecked Outspace needle-ship, and in it the remains of the robot. Somewhere nearby the ship had crashed and broken up.
And the robot lay inside, destroyed.
A faint hope stirred him. What if he could find the remains? If he could show them the wreckage, the remains of the ship, the robot -
But where? Where would he find it?
He walked on, lost in thought. Some place, not too far off, probably. The ship would have landed close to the Project; the robot would have expected to go the rest of the way on foot. He went up the side of the hill and looked around. Crashed and burned. Was there some clue, some hint? Had he read anything, heard anything? Some place close by, within walking distance. Some wild place, a remote spot where there would be no people.
Suddenly Olham smiled. Crashed and burned -
Sutton Wood.
He increased his pace.
It was morning. Sunlight filtered down through the broken trees, onto the man crouching at the edge of the clearing. Olham glanced up from time to time, listening. They were not far off, only a few minutes away. He smiled.
Down below him, strewn across the clearing and into the charred stumps that had been Sutton Wood, lay a tangled mass of wreckage. In the sunlight it glittered a little, gleaming darkly. He had not had too much trouble finding it. Sutton Wood was a place he knew well; he had climbed around it
many times in his life, when he was younger. He had known where he would find the remains. There was one peak that jutted up suddenly, without a warning.
A descending ship, unfamiliar with the Wood, had little chance of missing it. And now he squatted, looking down at the ship, or what remained of it.
Olham stood up. He could hear them, only a little distance away, coming together, talking in low tones. He tensed himself. Everything depended on who first saw him. If it was Nelson, he had no chance. Nelson would fire at once. He would be dead before they saw the ship. But if he had time to call out, hold them off for a moment - that was all he needed. Once they saw the ship he would be safe.
But if they fired first -
A charred branch cracked. A figure appeared, coming forward uncertainly. Olham took a deep breath. Only a few seconds remained, perhaps the last seconds of his life. He raised his arms, peering intently.
It was Peters.
"Peters!" Olham waved his arms. Peters lifted his gun, aiming. "Don't fire!" His voice shook. "Wait a minute. Look past me, across the clearing."
"I've found him," Peters shouted. Security men came pouring out of the burned woods around him.
"Don't shoot. Look past me. The ship, the needle-ship. The Outspace ship. Look!"
Peters hesitated. The gun wavered.
"It's down there," Olham said rapidly. "I knew I'd find it here. The burned wood. Now you believe me. You'll find the remains of the robot in the ship. Look, will you?"
"There is something down there," one of the men said nervously.
"Shoot him!" a voice said. It was Nelson.
"Wait." Peters turned sharply. "I'm in charge. Don't anyone fire. Maybe he's telling the truth."
"Shoot him," Nelson said. "He killed Olham. Any minute he may kill us all. If the bomb goes off -"
"Shut up." Peters advanced toward the slope. He stared down. "Look at that." He waved two men up to him. "Go down there and see what that is."
The men raced down the slope, across the clearing. They bent down, poking in the ruins of the ship.
"Well?" Peters called.
Olham held his breath. He smiled a little. It must be there; he had not had time to look, himself, but it had to be there. Suddenly doubt assailed him. Suppose the robot had lived long enough to wander away? Suppose his body had been completely destroyed, burned to ashes by the fire?
He licked his lips. Perspiration came out on his forehead. Nelson was staring at him, his face still livid. His chest rose and fell.
"Kill him," Nelson said. "Before he kills us."
The two men stood up.
"What have you found?" Peters said. He held the gun steady. "Is there anything there?"
"Looks like something. It's a needle-ship, all right. There's something beside it."
"I'll look." Peters strode past Olham. Olham watched him go down the hill and up to the men. The others were following after him, peering to see.
"It's a body of some sort," Peters said. "Look at it!"
Olham came along with them. They stood around in a circle, staring down.
On the ground, bent and twisted in a strange shape, was a grotesque form. It looked human, perhaps; except that it was bent so strangely, the arms and legs flung off in all directions. The mouth was open; the eyes stared glassily.
"Like a machine that's run down," Peters murmured.
Olham smiled feebly. "Well?" he said.
Peters looked at him. "I can't believe it. You were telling the truth all the time."
"The robot never reached me," Olham said. He took out a cigarette and lit it. "It was destroyed when the ship crashed. You were all too busy with the war to wonder why an out-of-the-way wood would suddenly catch fire and burn. Now you know."
He stood smoking, watching the men. They were dragging the grotesque remains from the ship. The body was stiff, the arms and legs rigid.
"You'll find the bomb now," Olham said. The men laid the body on the ground. Peters bent down.
"I think I see the corner of it." He reached out, touching the body.
The chest of the corpse had been laid open. Within the gaping tear something glinted, something metal. The men stared at the metal without speaking.
"That would have destroyed us all, if it had lived," Peters said. "That metal box there."
There was silence.
"I think we owe you something," Peters said to Olham. "This must have been a nightmare to you. If you hadn't escaped, we would have -" He broke off.
Olham put out his cigarette. "I knew, of course, that the robot had never reached me. But I had no way of proving it. Sometimes it isn't possible to prove a thing right away. That was the whole trouble. There wasn't any way I could demonstrate that I was myself."
"How about a vacation?" Peters said. "I think we might work out a month's vacation for you. You could take it easy, relax."
"I think right now I want to go home," Olham said.
"All right, then," Peters said. "Whatever you say."
Nelson had squatted down on the ground, beside the corpse. He reached out toward the glint of metal visible within the chest.
"Don't touch it," Olham said. "It might still go off. We better let the demolition squad take care of it later on."
Nelson said nothing. Suddenly he grabbed hold of the metal, reaching his hand inside the chest. He pulled.
"What are you doing?" Olham cried.
Nelson stood up. He was holding on to the metal object. His face was blank with terror. It was a metal knife, an Outspace needle-knife, covered with blood.
"This killed him," Nelson whispered. "My friend was killed with this." He looked at Olham. "You killed him with this and left him beside the ship."
Olham was trembling. His teeth chattered. He looked from the knife to the body. "This can't be Olham," he said. His mind spun, everything was whirling. "Was I wrong?"
He gaped.
"But if that's Olham, then I must be -"
He did not complete the sentence, only the first phrase. The blast was visible all the way to Alpha Centauri.
James P. Crow
"You're a nasty little - human being," the newly-formed Z Type robot shrilled peevishly.
Donnie flushed and slunk away. It was true. He was a human being, a human child. And there was nothing science could do. He was stuck with it. A human being in a robot's world.
He wished he were dead. He wished he lay under the grass and the worms were eating him up and crawling through him and devouring his brain, his poor miserable human's brain. The Z-236r, his robot companion, wouldn't have anybody to play with and it would be sorry.
"Where are you going?" Z-236r demanded.
"Home."
"Sissy."
Donnie didn't reply. He gathered up his set of fourth dimensional chess, stuffed it in his pocket, and walked off between the rows of ecarda trees, toward the human quarter. Behind him, Z236r stood gleaming in the late afternoon sun, a pale tower of metal and plastic.
"See if I care," Z-236r shouted sullenly. "Who wants to play with a human being, anyhow? Go on home. You - you smell."
Donnie said nothing. But he hunched over a little more. And his chin sank lower against his chest.
"Well, it happened," Edgar Parks said gloomily to his wife, across the kitchen table.
Grace looked quickly up. "It?"
"Donnie learned his place today. He told me while I was changing my clothes. One of the new robots he was playing with. Called him a human being. Poor kid. Why the hell do they have to rub it in? Why can't they let us alone?"
"So that's why he didn't want any dinner. He's in his room. I knew something had happened." Grace touched her husband's hand. "He'll get over it. We all have to learn the hard way. He's strong. He'll snap back."
Ed Parks got up from the table and moved into the living-room of his modest five-room dwelling unit, located in the section of the city set aside for humans. He didn't feel like eating. "Robots." He clenched his fists futilely. "I'd like to get hold
of one of them. Just once. Get my hands into their guts. Rip out handfuls of wires and parts. Just once before I die."
"Maybe you'll get your chance."
"No. No, it'll never come to that. Anyhow, humans wouldn't be able to run things without robots. It's true, honey. Humans haven't got the integration to maintain a society. The Lists prove that twice a year. Let's face it. Humans are inferior to robots. But it's their damn holding it up to us! Like today with Donnie. Holding it up to our faces. I don't mind being a robot's body servant. It's a good job. Pays well and the work is light. But when my kid gets told he's -"
Ed broke off. Donnie had come out of his room slowly, into the living-room. "Hi, Dad."
"Hi, son." Ed thumped the boy gently on the back. "How you doing? Want to take in a show tonight?"
Humans entertained nightly on the vid-screens. Humans made good entertainers. That was one area the robots couldn't compete in. Human beings painted and wrote and danced and sang and acted for the amusement of robots. They cooked better, too, but robots didn't eat. Human beings had their place. They were understood and wanted: as body servants, entertainers, clerks, gardeners, construction workers, repairmen, odd-jobbers and factory workers.
But when it came to something like civic control coordinator or traffic supervisor for the usone tapes that fed energy into the planet's twelve hydrosystems -
"Dad," Donnie said, "can I ask you something?"
"Sure." Ed sat down on the couch with a sigh. He leaned back and crossed his legs. "What is it?"
Donnie sat quietly beside him, his little round face serious. "Dad, I want to ask you about the Lists."
"Oh, yeah." Ed rubbed his jaw. "That's right. Lists in a few weeks. Time to start boning up for your entry. We'll get out some of the sample tests and go over them. Maybe between the two of us we can get you ready for Class Twenty."
"Listen." Donnie leaned close to his father, his voice low and intense. "Dad, how many humans have ever passed their Lists?"
Ed got up abruptly and paced around the room, filling his pipe and frowning. "Well, son, that's hard to say. I mean, humans don't have access to the C-Bank records. So I can't check to see. The law says any human who gets a score in the top forty per cent is eligible for classification with a gradual upward gradation according to subsequent showing. I don't know how many humans have been able to -"