Time and Again

  "Must have been," thought Adams.

  "Nothing else to report," Thorne told him. "The name just bothered me."

  "Keep at it," Adams thought. "Let me know anything that turns up."

  "I will," Thorne promised. "Good-by."

  "Thanks for calling."

  Adams lifted off the cap. He opened his eyes and the sight of the room, commonplace and Earthly, with the sun streaming through the window, was almost a physical shock.

  He sat limp in his chair, thinking, remembering.

  The man had come at twilight, stepping out of the shadows onto the patio and he had sat down in the darkness and talked like any other man. Except the things he said were crazy.

  When he returns, Sutton must be killed. I am your successor.

  Crazy talk.

  Unbelievable.

  Impossible.

  And, still, maybe I should have listened. Maybe I should have heard him out instead of flying off the handle.

  Except that you don't kill a man who comes back after twenty years.

  Especially a man like Sutton.

  Sutton is a good man. One of the best the Bureau has. Slick as a whistle, well grounded in alien psychology, an authority on galactic politics. No other man could have done the Cygnian job as well.

  If he did it.

  I don't know that, of course. But he'll be in tomorrow and he'll tell me all about it.

  A man is entitled to a day's rest after twenty years.

  Slowly, Adams put away the mento-cap, reached out an almost reluctant hand and snapped up a tumbler.

  Alice answered.

  "Send me in the Asher Sutton file."

  "Yes, Mr. Adams."

  Adams settled back in his chair.

  The warmth of the sun felt good across his shoulders. The ticking of the clock was comforting.

  Commonplace and comforting after the ghost voices whispering out in space. Thoughts that one could not pin down, that one could not trace back and say, "This one started here and then."

  Although we're trying, Adams thought. Man will try anything, take any sort of chance, gamble on no odds at all.

  He chuckled to himself. Chuckled at the weirdness of the project.

  Thousands of listeners listening in on the random thoughts of random time and space listening in for clues, for hints, for leads. Seeking a driblet of sense from the stream of gibberish…hunting the word or sentence or disassociated thought that might be translated into a new philosophy or a new technique or a new science…or a new something that the human race had never even dreamed of.

  A new concept, said Adams, talking to himself. An entirely new concept.

  Adams scowled to himself.

  A new concept might be dangerous. This was not the time for anything that did not fit into the groove, that did not match the pattern of human thought and action.

  There could be no confusion. There could be nothing but the sheer, bulldog determination to hang on, to sink in one's teeth and stay. To maintain the status quo.

  Later, someday, many centuries from now, there would be a time and place and room for a new concept. When Man's grip was firmer, when the line was not too thin, when a mistake or two would not spell disaster.

  Man, at the moment, controlled every factor. He held the edge at every point…a slight edge, admitted, but at least an edge. And it must stay that way. There must be nothing that would tip the scale in the wrong direction. Not a word or thought, not an action or a whisper.

  VII

  APPARENTLY THEY HAD been waiting for him for some time and they intercepted him when he stepped out of the elevator on his way to the dining room for lunch.

  There were three of them and they stood ranged in front of him, as if doggedly determined that he should not escape.

  "Mr. Sutton?" one of them asked, and Sutton nodded.

  The man was a somewhat seedy character. He might not actually have slept in his clothes, although the first impression was that he had. He clutched a threadbare cap with stubby, grimed fingers. The fingernails were rimmed with the blue of dirt.

  "What may I do for you?" asked Sutton.

  "We'd like to talk to you, sir, if you don't mind," said the woman of the trio. "You see, we're a sort of delegation."

  She folded fat hands over a plump stomach and did her best to beam at him. The effect of the beam was spoiled by the wispy hair that straggled out from beneath her dowdy hat.

  "I was just on my way to lunch," said Sutton, hesitantly, trying to make it sound as if he were in a hurry, trying to put some irritation into his voice while still staying within the bounds of civility.

  The woman kept on beaming.

  "I'm Mrs. Jellicoe," she said, acting as if he must be glad to get the information. "And this gentleman, the one who spoke to you, is Mr. Hamilton. The other one of us is Captain Stevens."

  Captain Stevens, Sutton noted, was a beefy individual, better dressed than the other two. His blue eyes twinkled at Sutton, as if he might be saying: I don't approve of these people any more than you do, Sutton, but I'm along with them and I'll do the best I can.

  "Captain?" said Sutton. "One of the star ships, I presume."

  Stevens nodded. "Retired," he said.

  He cleared his throat. "We hate to bother you, Sutton, but we tried to get through to your rooms and couldn't. We've waited several hours. I hope you'll not disappoint us."

  "It'll be just a little while," pleaded Mrs. Jellicoe.

  "We could sit over here," said Hamilton, twirling the cap in his dirty fingers. "We saved a chair for you."

  "As you wish," said Sutton.

  He followed them back to the corner from which they had advanced upon him and took the proffered chair.

  "Now," he said, "tell me what this is all about."

  Mrs. Jellicoe took a deep breath. "We're representing the Android Equality League," she said.

  Stevens broke in, successfully heading off the long speech that Mrs. Jellicoe seemed on the point of making. "I am sure," he said, "that Mr. Sutton has heard of us at one time or another. The League has been in existence for these many years."

  "I have heard of the League," said Sutton.

  "Perhaps," said Mrs. Jellicoe, "you've read our literature."

  "No," said Sutton, "I can't say that I have."

  "Here's some of it, then," said Hamilton. He dug with a grimy hand into an inside coat pocket, came out with a fistful of dog-eared leaflets and tracts. He held them out to Sutton and Sutton took them gingerly, laid them on the floor beside his chair.

  "Briefly," said Stevens, "we represent the belief that androids should be granted equality with the human race. They are human, in actuality, in every characteristic except one."

  "They can't have babies," Mrs. Jellicoe blurted out.

  Stevens lifted his sandy eyebrows briefly and glanced at Sutton half apologetically.

  He cleared his throat. "That's quite right, sir," he said, "as you probably know. They are sterile, quite sterile. In other words, the human race can manufacture, chemically, a perfect human body, but it has been unable to solve the mystery of biological conception. Many attempts have been made to duplicate the chromosomes and genes, fertile eggs and sperm, but none has been successful."

  "Someday, perhaps," said Sutton.

  Mrs. Jellicoe shook her head. "We aren't meant to know all things, Mr. Sutton," she declared sanctimoniously. "There is a Power that guards against our knowing everything. There is…"

  Stevens interrupted her. "Briefly, sir, we are interested in bringing about an acceptance of equality between the biological human race, the born human race, and the chemically manufactured human race that we call the androids. We contend that they are basically the same, that both are human beings, that each is entitled to the common heritage of the human race.

  "We, the original, biological human race, created the androids in order to bolster our population, in order that "there might be more humans to man the command posts and administration centers spread
through the galaxy. You perhaps are well aware that the only reason we have not brought the galaxy more closely under our control is the lack of human supervision."

  "I am well aware of that," said Sutton.

  And he was thinking: no wonder. No wonder that this Equality League is regarded as a band of crackpots. A flighty old woman, a stumbling, dirty oaf, a retired space captain with time hanging heavy on his hands and nothing else to do.

  Stevens was saying, "Thousands of years ago slavery was wiped out as between one biological human and another. But today we have a slavery as between the biological human and the manufactured human. For the androids are owned. They do not live as masters of their own fate, but serve at the direction of an identical form of life…identical in all things except that one is biologically fertile and the other one is sterile."

  And that, thought Sutton, certainly is something that he learned by rote from out of a book. Like an insurance salesman or an agent for an encyclopedia.

  He said aloud, "What do you want me to do about it?"

  "We want you to sign a petition," said Mrs. Jellicoe.

  "And make a contribution?"

  "Indeed not," said Stevens. "Your signature will be enough. It is all we ask. We are always glad to get evidence that men of prestige are with us, that the thinking men and women of the galaxy see the justice of our claim."

  Sutton scraped back his chair and rose.

  "My name," he said, "would carry little prestige."

  "But Mr. Sutton…"

  "I approve of your aims," said Sutton, "but I am skeptical of your methods of carrying them forward."

  He made a half bow to them, still sitting in their chairs.

  "And now I must go to lunch," he said.

  He was halfway across the lobby when someone caught him by the elbow. He whirled, half angrily. It was Hamilton, threadbare cap in hand.

  "You forgot something," said Hamilton, holding out the leaflets Sutton had left lying on the floor.

  VIII

  THE DESK buzzer snarled at Adams and he thumbed it up.

  "Yes," he said. "What is it?"

  Alice's words tumbled over one another. "The file, sir. The Sutton file."

  "What about the Sutton file?"

  "It's gone, sir."

  "Someone is using it."

  "No, sir, not that. It has been stolen."

  Adams jerked erect.

  "Stolen!"

  "Stolen," said Alice. "That is right, sir. Twenty years ago."

  "But twenty years…"

  "We checked the security points," said Alice. "It was stolen just three days after Mr. Sutton set out for 61."

  IX

  THE LAWYER said his name was Wellington. He had painted a thin coat of plastic lacquer over his forehead to hide the tattoo mark, but the mark showed through if one looked closely. And his voice was the voice of an android.

  He laid his hat very carefully on a table, sat down meticulously in a chair and placed his brief case across his knee. He handed Sutton a rolled-up paper.

  "Your newspaper, sir," he said. "It was outside the door. I thought that you might want it."

  "Thanks," said Sutton.

  Wellington cleared his throat. "You are Asher Sutton?" he asked.

  Sutton nodded.

  "I represent a certain robot who commonly went by the name of Buster. You may remember him."

  Sutton leaned quickly forward. "Remember him? Why, he was a second father to me. Raised me after both my parents died. He has been with my family for almost four thousand years."

  Wellington cleared his throat again. "Quite so," he said.

  Sutton leaned back in his chair, crushing the newspaper in his grip.

  "Don't tell me…"

  Wellington waved a sober hand. "No, he's in no trouble. Not yet, that is. Not unless you choose to make it for him."

  "What has he done?" asked Sutton.

  "He has run away."

  "Good Lord! Run away. Where to?"

  Wellington squirmed uneasily in the chair. "To one of the Tower stars, I believe."

  "But," protested Sutton, "that's way out. Out almost to the edge."

  Wellington nodded. "He bought himself a new body and a ship and stocked it up…"

  "With what?" asked Sutton. "Buster had no money."

  "Oh, yes, he had. Money he had saved over, what was it you said, four thousand years or so. Tips from guests, Christmas presents, one thing and another. It would all count up…in four thousand years. Placed at interest, you know."

  "But why?" asked Sutton. "What does he intend to do?"

  "He took out a homestead on a planet. He didn't sneak away. He filed his claim, so you can trace him if you wish. He used the family name, sir. That worried him a little. He hoped you wouldn't mind."

  Sutton shook his head. "Not at all," he said. "He has a right to that name, as good a right as I have myself."

  "You don't mind, then?" asked Wellington. "About the whole thing, I mean. After all, he was your property."

  "No," said Sutton, "I don't mind. But I was looking forward to seeing him again. I called the old home place, but there was no answer. I thought he might be out."

  Wellington reached into the inside pocket of his coat.

  "He left you a letter," he said, holding it out.

  Sutton took it. It had his name written across its face. He turned it over, but there was nothing more.

  "He also," said Wellington, "left an old trunk in my custody. Said it contained some old family papers that you might find of interest."

  Sutton sat silently, staring across the room and seeing nothing.

  There had been an apple tree at the gate and each year young Ash Sutton had eaten the apples when they were green and Buster had nursed him each time gently through the crisis and then had whaled him good and proper to teach him respect for his metabolism. And when the kid down the road had licked him on the way home from school, it had been Buster who had taken him out in the back yard and taught him how to fight with head as well as hands.

  Sutton clenched his fists unconsciously, remembering the surge of satisfaction, the red rawness of his knuckles. The kid down the road, he recalled, had nursed a black eye for a week and become his fastest friend.

  "About the trunk, sir," said Wellington. "You will want it delivered?"

  "Yes," said Sutton, "if you please."

  "It will be here tomorrow morning," Wellington told him.

  The android picked up his hat and rose. "I want to thank you, sir, for my client. He told me you would be reasonable."

  "Not reasonable," said Sutton. "Just fair. He took care of us for many years. He has earned his freedom."

  "Good day, sir," said Wellington.

  "Good day," said Sutton. "And thank you very much."

  One of the mermaids whistled at Sutton.

  Sutton told her, "One of these days, my beauty, you'll do that once too often."

  She thumbed her nose at him and dived into the fountain.

  The door clicked shut as Wellington left.

  Slowly, Sutton slit the letter open, spread out the single page:

  Dear Ash—I went to see Mr. Adams today and he told me that he was afraid that you would not come back, but I told him that I knew you would. So I'm not doing this because I think you won't come back and that you will never know…because I know you will. Since you left me and struck out on your own, I have felt old and useless. In a galaxy where there were many things to do, I was doing nothing. You told me you just wanted me to live on at the old place and take it easy and I knew you did that because you were kind and would not sell me even if you had no use for me. So I'm doing something I have always wanted to do. I am filing on a planet. It sounds like a pretty good planet and I should be able to do something with it. I shall fix it up and build a home and maybe someday you will come and. visit me.

  Yours,

  Buster.

  P.S. If you ever want me, you can find out where I am at the homestead office.
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  Gently, Sutton folded the sheet, put it in his pocket.

  He sat idly in the chair, listening to the purling of the stream that gushed through the painting hung above the fireplace. A bird sang and a fish jumped in a quiet pool around the bend, just outside the frame.

  Tomorrow, he thought, I will see Adams. Maybe I can find out if he's behind what happened. Although, why should he be? I'm working for him. I'm carrying out his orders.

  He shook his head. No, it couldn't be Adams.

  But it must be someone. Someone who had been laying for him, who even now was watching.

  He shrugged mental shoulders, picked up the newspaper and unfolded it.

  It was the Galactic Press and in twenty years its format had not changed. Conservative columns of gray type ran down the page, broken only by laconic headings. Earth news started in the upper left-hand corner of the front page, was followed by Martian news, by Venusian news, by the column from the asteroids, the column and a half from the Jovian moons…then the outer planets. News from the rest of the galaxy, he knew, could be found on the inside pages. A paragraph or two to each story. Like the old community personal columns in the country papers of many centuries before.

  Still, thought Sutton, smoothing out the paper, it was the only way it could be handled. There was so much news…news from many worlds, from many sectors…human news, android and robot news, alien news. The items had to be boiled down, condensed, compressed, making one word do the job of a hundred.

  There were other papers, of course, serving isolated sections, and these would give the local news in more detail. But on Earth there was need of galactic-wide news coverage…for Earth was the capital of the galaxy…a planet that was nothing but a capital…a planet that grew no food, allowed no industries, that made its business nothing but government. A planet whose every inch was landscaped and tended like a lawn or park or garden.

  Sutton ran his eye down the Earth column. An earthquake in eastern Asia. A new underwater development for the housing of alien employees and representatives from watery worlds. Delivery of three new star ships to the Sector 19 run. And then:

  Asher Sutton, special agent of the Department of Galactic Investigation, returned today from 61 Cygni, to which he was assigned twenty years ago. Hope of his return had been abandoned several years ago. Immediately upon landing a guard was thrown around his ship and he was in seclusion at the Orion Arms. All attempts to reach him for a statement failed. Shortly after his arrival, he was called out by Geoffrey Benton. Mr. Sutton chose a pistol and informality.