He looked at her. At her grey hair, her soft skin, the gentle mouth and eyes. The stooped form, the old overcoat she'd worn so many years because she'd insisted that he take her extra money and buy clothes for himself.
He looked at his mother who wanted him so much she would not let even death take him from her.
'Mother,' said the machine, forgetting for a moment.
Then he saw the twitching in her face. And he realized what he was.
He stood motionless; her eyes fled to his father standing beside him. And Peter saw what her eyes said.
They said - why like this?
He wanted to turn and run. He wanted to die. When he had killed himself the despair was a quiet one, a despair of hopelessness. It had not been this brain-bursting agony. His life had ebbed away silently and peacefully. Now he wanted to destroy it in an instant, violently.
'Peter,' she said.
But she did not smother him with kisses. How could she, his brain tortured. Would anyone kiss a suit of armour?
How long would she stand there, staring at him? He felt the rage mounting in his mind.
'Aren't you satisfied?' he said.
But something went wrong inside him and his words were jumbled into a mechanical croaking. He saw his mother's lips tremble. Again she looked at his father. Then back at the machine. Guiltily.
'How do you - feel, Peter?'
There was no hollow laughter even though his brain wanted to send out hollow laughter. Instead the gears began to grind and he heard nothing but the friction of gnashing teeth. He saw his mother try to smile, then fail to conceal her look of sick horror.
'Peter,' she wailed, slumping to the floor.
'I'll tear it apart,' he heard his father saying huskily,
'I'll destroy it.'
For Peter there was an upsurge of hope.
But then his mother stopped trembling. She pulled away from her husband's grip.
'No,' she said and Peter heard the granite like resolve in her voice, the strength he knew so well.
'I'll be all right in a minute,' she said.
She walked straight towards him, smiling.
'It's all right, Peter,' she said.
'Am I handsome, Mother?' he asked.
'Peter, you -'
'Don't you want to kiss me, Mother?' asked the machine.
He saw her throat move. He saw tears on her cheeks. Then she leaned forward. He could not feel her lips press against the cool steel. He only heard it, a slight thumping against the metal skin.
'Peter,' she said, 'Forgive us for what we've done.'
All he could think was -
Can a machine forgive?
They took him out the back doorway of the Physical Sciences Centre. They tried to hustle him to the car. But halfway down the walk Peter saw everything spin around and there was a stabbing in his brain as the mass of his new body crashed backward on the cement.
His mother gasped and looked down at him in fright.
His father bent over and Peter saw his fingers working on the right knee joint. His voice was muffled as he worked.
'How does your brain feel?'
He didn't answer. The red eyes glinted.
'Peter,' his father said urgently.
He didn't answer. He stared at the dark trees that lined Eleventh Street.
'You can get up now,' his father said.
'No.'
'Peter, not here.'
'I'm not getting up,' the machine said.
'Peter, please,' his mother begged.
'No, I can't, Mother, I can't.'
Spoken like a hideous metal monster.
'Peter, you can't stay there.''
The memory of all the years before stopped him. He would not get up.
'Let them find me,' he said, 'Maybe they'll destroy me.'
His father looked around with worried eyes. And, suddenly, Peter realised that no one knew of this but his parents. If the board found out, his father would be pilloried. He found the idea pleased him.
But his wired reflexes were too slow to stop his father from placing hands on his chest and pulling open a small hinged door.
Before he could swing one of his clumsy arms, his father flicked his mechanism and, abruptly, the arm stopped as the connection between his will and the machinery was broken.
Doctor Dearfield pushed a button and the robot stood and walked stiffly to the car. He followed behind, his frail chest labouring for breath. He kept thinking what a horrible mistake he had made to listen to his wife. Why did he always let her alter his decisions?
Why had he allowed her to control their son when he lived? Why had he let her convince him to bring their son back when he had made a last, desperate attempt to escape?
His robot son sat in the back seat stiffly. Doctor Dearfield slid into the car beside his wife.
'Now he's perfect,' he said, 'Now you can lead him around as you please. A pity he wasn't so agreeable in life. Almost as pliable, almost as machine-like. But not quite. He didn't do everything you wanted him to.'
She looked at her husband with surprise, glancing back at the robot as if afraid it might hear. It was her son's mind. And she had said a man was his mind.
The sweet, unsullied mind of her son! The mind she had always protected and sheltered from the ugly taint of worldliness. He was her life. She did not feel guilty for having him brought back. If only he weren't so…
'Are you satisfied, Ruth?' asked her husband, 'Oh, don't worry; he can't hear me.'
But he could. He sat there and listened. Peter's brain heard.
'You're not answering me,' said Doctor Dearfield, starting the motor.
'I don't want to talk about it.'
'You have to talk about it,' he said, 'What have you planned for him now? You always made it a point to live his life before.'
'Stop it, John.'
'No, you've broken my silence, Ruth. I must have been insane to listen to you. Insane to let myself get interested in a such - hideous project. To bring you back your dead son.'
'Is it hideous that I love my son and want him with me?'
'It's hideous that you defy his last desire on Earth! To be dead and free of you and at peace at last.'
'Free of me, free of me,' she screamed angrily, 'Am I such a monster?'
'No,' he said quietly, 'But, with my help, you've certainly made our son a monster.'
She did not speak. Peter saw her lips draw into a thin line.
'What will he do now?' asked her husband, 'Go back to his classes? Teach sociology?'
'I don't know,' she murmured.
'No, of course you don't. All you ever worried about was his being near you.'
Doctor Dearfield turned the corner. He started up College Avenue.
'I know,' he said, 'We'll use him for an ashtray.'
'John, stop it!'
She slumped forward and Peter heard her sobbing. He watched his mother with the red glass eyes of the machine he lived in.
'Did you - h-have to make him so-so -'
'So ugly?'
'I-'
'Ruth, I told you what he'd look like. You just glossed over my words. All you could think of was getting your claws into him again.'
'I didn't, I didn't,' she sobbed.
'Did you ever respect a single one of his wishes?' her husband asked. 'Did you? When he wanted to write, would you let him? No! You scoffed. Be practical, darling, you said. It's a pretty thought but we must be practical. Your father will get you a nice position with the college.'
She shook her head silently.
'When we wanted to go to New York to live, would you let him? When he wanted to marry Elizabeth, would you let him?'
The angry words of his father faded as Peter looked out at the dark campus on his right. He was thinking, dreaming, of a pretty, dark-haired girl in his class. Remembering the day she'd spoken to him. Of the walks, concerts, the soft, exciting kisses, the tender, shy caresses.
If only he could sob, cry out.
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But a machine could not cry and it had no heart to break.
'Year after year,' his father's voice fluttered back into hearing, 'Turning him into a machine even then.'
And Peter's mind pictured the long, elliptical walk around the campus. The walk he had so many times trudged to and from classes, briefcase gripped firmly in his hand. The dark grey hat on his balding head, balding at twenty-eight! The heavy overcoat in winter, the grey tweed suit in fall and spring. The lined seersucker during the hot months when he taught summer session.
Nothing but depressing days that stretched on endlessly.
Until he had ended them.
'He's still my son,' he heard his mother saying.
'Is he?' mocked his father.
'It's still his mind, and a man's mind is everything.'
'What about his body?' her husband persisted, 'What about his hands? They are just two pronged claws like hooks. Will you hold his hands as you used to? Those riveted metal arms - would you let him put those arms around you and embrace you?'
'John, please -'
'What will you do with him? Put him in a closet? Hide him when guests come? What will you -'
'I don't want to talk about it!'
'You must talk about it! What about his face? Can you kiss that face?'
She trembled and, suddenly, her husband drove the car to the kerb and stopped it with a jerk. He grabbed her shoulder and turned her forcibly around.
'Look at him! Can you kiss that metal face? Is it your son, is that your son?'
She could not look. And it was the final blow at Peter's brain. He knew that she had not loved his mind, his personality, his character at all. It was the living person she had doted upon, the body she could direct, the hands she could hold - the responses she could control.
'You never loved him,' his father said cruelly. 'You possessed him. You destroyed him.'
'Destroyed!' she moaned in anguish.
And then they both spun around in horror. Because the machine had said, 'Yes. Destroyed.'
His father was staring at him.
'I thought -' he said, thinly.
'I am now, in objective form, what I have always been,' said the robot. 'A well-controlled machine.'
The throat gears made sound.
'Mother, take home your Little boy,' said the machine.
But Doctor Dearfield had already turned the car around and was heading back.
9 - BIG SURPRISE
Old Mr. Hawkins used to stand by his picket fence and call to the little boys when they were coining home from school.
'Lad!' he would call. 'Come here, lad!' Most of the little boys were afraid to go near him, so they laughed and made fun of him in voices that shook. Then they ran away and told their friends how brave they'd been. But once in a while a boy would go up to Mr. Hawkins when he called, and Mr. Hawkins would make his strange request. That was how the verse got started:
Dig me a hole, he said, Winking his eyes,
And you will find A big surprise.
No one knew how long they'd heard the children chanting it. Sometimes the parents seemed to recall having heard it years ago.
Once a little boy started to dig the hole but he got tired after a while and he didn't find any big surprise. He was the only one who had ever tried -
One day Ernie Willaker was coming home from school with two of his friends. They walked on the other side of the street when they saw Mr. Hawkins in his front yard standing by the picket fence.
'Lad!' they heard him call. 'Come here, lad!'
'He means you, Ernie,' teased one of the boys.
'He does not,' said Ernie.
Mr. Hawkins pointed a finger at Ernie. 'Come here, lad!' he called.
Ernie glanced nervously at his friends.
'Go on,' said one of them. 'What're ya scared of?'
'Who's scared?' said Ernie. 'My ma says I have to come home right after school is all.'
'Yella,' said his other friend. 'You're scared of old man Hawkins.'
'Who's scared!'
'Go on, then.'
'Lad!' called Mr. Hawkins. 'Come here, lad.'
'Well.' Ernie hesitated. 'Don't go nowhere,' he said.
'We won't. We'll stick around.'
'Well - ' Ernie braced himself and crossed the street, trying to look casual. He shifted his books to his left hand and brushed back his hair with his right. Dig me a hole, he says, muttered in his brain.
Ernie stepped up to the picket fence. 'Yes, sir?' he asked.
'Come closer, lad,' the old man said, his dark eyes shining.
Ernie took a forward step.
'Now you aren't afraid of Mister Hawkins, are you?' said the old man winking.
'No, sir,' Ernie said.
'Good,' said the old man. 'Now listen, lad. How would you like a big surprise?'
Ernie glanced across his shoulder. His friends were still there. He grinned at them. Suddenly he gasped as a gaunt hand clamped over his right arm. 'Hey, leggo!' Ernie cried out.
'Take it easy, lad,' soothed Mr. Hawkins. 'No one's going to hurt you.'
Ernie tugged. Tears sprang into his eyes as the old man drew him closer. From the corner of an eye Ernie saw his two friends running down the street.
'L-leggo,' Ernie sobbed.
'Shortly,' said the old man. 'Now then, would you like a big surprise?'
'No-no, thanks, mister.'
'Sure you would,' said Mr. Hawkins. Ernie smelled his breath and tried to pull away, but Mr. Hawkins's grip was like iron.
'You know where Mr. Miller's field is?' asked Mr. Hawkins.
'Y-yeah.'
'You know where the big oak tree is?'
'Yeah. Yeah, I know.'
'You go to the oak tree in Mr. Miller's field and face towards the church steeple. You understand?'
'Y-y-yeah.'
The old man drew him closer. 'You stand there and you walk ten paces. You understand? Ten paces.'
'Yeah -'
'You walk ten paces and you dig down ten feet. How many feet ?' He prodded Ernie's chest with a boney finger.
'T-ten,' said Ernie.
'That's it,' said the old man. 'Face the steeple, walk ten paces, dig ten feet - and there you'll find a big surprise.' He winked at Ernie. 'Will you do it, lad?'
'I - yeah, sure. Sure.'
Mr. Hawkins let go and Ernie jumped away. His arm felt completely numb.
'Don't forget, now,' the old man said.
Ernie whirled and ran down the street as fast as he could. He found his friends waiting at the corner.
'Did he try and murder you?' one of them whispered.
'Nanh,' said Ernie, 'He ain't so m-much.'
'What'd he want?'
'What d'ya s'pose?'
They started down the street, all chanting it.
Dig me a hole, he said,, Winking his eyes,
And you will find A big surprise.
Every afternoon they went to Mr. Miller's field and sat under the big oak tree.
'You think there's somethin' down there really?'
'Nanh.'
'What if there was though?'
'What?'
'Gold, maybe.'
They talked about it every day, and every day they faced the steeple and walked ten paces. They stood on the spot and scuffed the earth with the tips of their sneakers.
'You s'pose there's gold down there really?'
'Why should he tell us?'
'Yeah, why not dig it up himself?'
'Because he's too old, stupid.'
'Yeah? Well, if there's gold down there we split it three ways.'
They became more and more curious. At night they dreamed about gold. They wrote gold in their school books. They thought about all the things they could buy with gold. They started walking past Mr. Hawkins's house to see if he'd call them again and they could ask him if it was gold. But he never called them.
Then, one day, they were coming home from school and they saw Mr. Hawkins talking to another
boy.
'He told us we could have the gold!' said Ernie.
'Yeah!' they stormed angrily. 'Let's go!'
They ran to Ernie's house and Ernie went down to the cellar and got shovels. They ran up the street, over lots, across the dump, and into Mr. Miller's field. They stood under the oak tree, faced the steeple, and paced ten times. 'Dig,' said Ernie.
Their shovels sank into the black earth. They dug without speaking, breath whistling through their nostrils. When the hole was about three feet deep, they rested.
'You think there's gold down there really?'
'I don't know but we're gonna find out before that other kid does.'
'Yeah!'
'Hey, how we gonna get out if we dig ten feet?' one of them said.
'We'll cut out steps,' said Ernie.
They started digging again. For over an hour they shovelled out the cool, wormy earth and piled it high around the hole. It stained their clothes and their skin. When the hole was over their heads one of them went to get a pail and a rope. Ernie and the other boy kept digging and throwing the earth out of the hole. After a while the dirt rained back on their heads and they stopped. They sat on the damp earth wearily, waiting for the other boy to come back. Their hands and arms were brown with earth.
'How far're we down?' wondered the boy.
'Six feet,' estimated Ernie.
The other boy came back and they started working again. They kept digging and digging until their bones ached.
'Aaah, the heck with it,' said the boy who was pulling up the pail. 'There's ain't nothin' down there.'
'He said ten feet,' Ernie insisted.
'Well, I'm quittin',' said the boy.
'You're yella!'
'Tough,' said the boy.
Ernie turned to the boy beside him. 'You'll have to pull the dirt up,' he said.
'Oh - okay,' muttered the boy.
Ernie kept digging. When he looked up now, it seemed as if the sides of the hole were shaking and it was all going to cave in on him. He was trembling with fatigue.
'Come on,' the other boy finally called down. 'There ain't nothin' down there. You dug ten feet.'
'Not yet,' gasped Ernie.
'How deep ya goin', China?'
Ernie leaned against the side of the hole and gritted his teeth. A fat worm crawled out of the earth and tumbled to the bottom of the hole.