Tomorrow, the Stars

  The door opened then, cautiously, and a figure in white came in. Expeto stared at the figure, and a slow churning began in his head. The words were reluctant this time, but they came, mere surface whispers that he had to fight to retain. But the differences in the figure made them necessary. The longer hair, the softer face, the swelling at the breast, and something about the hips stirred his memories just enough.

  "You're—woman!" He got the word out, not sure it would come.

  She jumped at his voice, reaching for the door which she had closed slowly. Fear washed over her face, but she nodded, gulping. "I—of course. But I'm just a tech­nician, and they'll be here, and—They've fastened you down!"

  That seemed to bring her back to normal, and she came over, her eyes sweeping over him curiously, while one eyebrow lifted, and she whistled. "Um, not bad. Hi, Romeo. Too bad you're a monster! You don't look mean."

  "So you came to satisfy your curiosity," he guessed, and his mind puzzled over it, trying to identify the urge that drove men to stare at beasts in cages. He was just a beast to them, a monster—but somehow important. And in the greater puzzle of it all, he couldn't even resent her remark. Instead, something that had been bothering him since he'd found the word came to the surface. "Why are there men and women—and who am I?"

  She glanced at her watch, her ear to the door. Then she glided over to him. "I guess you're the most im­portant man in the world—if you're a man, and not pure monster. Here."

  She found his hand had limited freedom in the chains and moved it over her body, while he stared at her. Her eyes were intent on him. "Well. Now do you know why there are men and women?" Her stare intensified as he shook his head, and her lips firmed. "My God, it's true—you couldn't act that well! That's all I wanted to know! And now they'll take over the whole moon! Look, don't tell them I was here—they'll kill you if you do. Or do you know what death is? Yeah, that's it, kaput! Don't talk, then. Not a word!"

  She was at the door, listening. Finally she opened it, and moved out. . . .

  There was no sound from the zep gun, but the splaatt of the bullet reached Expeto's ears. He shuddered, writhing within himself as her exploding body jerked back out of sight. She'd been pleasant to look at. Maybe that was what women were for.

  Obanion was over him then, while a crowd collected in the hall, all Wearing khaki. "We're not going to kill you, Expeto. We knew she'd come—or hoped she would. Now, if I unfasten your chains, will you behave? We've only got four hours left. O.K., Colonel Kallik?"

  The colonel nodded. Behind him, the others were gathering something up and leaving.

  "She's the spy, all right. That must make the last of them. Clever. I'd have sworn she was O.K. But they tipped their hand in letting Expeto's door stay unbolted before. Well, the trap worked. Sorry about cutting down your time."

  Obanion nodded, and now it was a group of men in white uniforms who came in, while the khaki-clad men left. They were wheeling in assorted machines, some­thing that might have been an encephalograph, a unitary cerebrotrope, along with other instruments.

  Expeto watched them, his mind freezing at the im­plications. But he wasn't insane. His thoughts were lucid. He opened his mouth to protest, just as Obanion swung around.

  "Any feeling we're persecuting you, Expeto? Maybe you'd like to get in a few licks, to break my skull and run away where you'd be understood. You might get away with it; you're stronger than I am. Your reaction time is better too. See, I'm giving you the idea. And you've only got four hours in which to do it."

  Expeto shook his head. That way lay madness. Let his mind feel he was persecuted and he'd surely be the paranoiac he'd heard mentioned. There had to be another answer. This was a hospital—and men were healed in hospitals. Even of madness. It could only be a test.

  "No," he denied slowly, and was surprised to find it was true. "No, I don't want to kill you, Doctor. If I've been insane, it's gone. But I can't remember—I can't remember!"

  He pulled his voice down from its shriek, shook his head again and tried to restrain himself. "I'll co­operate. Only tell me who I am. What have I done that makes people call me a monster? My God, give me an anchor to hold me steady, and then do what you want."

  "You're better off not knowing, since you seem to be able to guess when I'm lying." Obanion motioned the other men up, and they waited while Expeto took the chair they pointed out. Then they began clamping devices on his head. "You're what the girl said—the spy. You're the most important man in the world right now—if you can stay sane. You're the one man who carries the secret of how we can live on the moon, protect Earth from aggressive powers, even get to the stars someday."

  "But I can't remember—anything!"

  "It doesn't matter. The secret's in you and we know how to use it. All right, now I'm going to give you some tests, and I want you to tell me exactly what comes into your mind. The instruments will check on it, so lying won't do any good. Ready?"

  It went on and on, while new shifts came in. The clock on the wall indicated only an hour, but it might have been a century, when Obanion sighed and turned his work over to another.

  Expeto's thoughts were reeling. He grabbed the breather gratefully, let his head thump back. There must be a way.

  "What day is this?" he asked. At their silence he frowned. "Cooperate means both working together. I've been doing my part. Or is it too much to answer a simple question?"

  The new man nodded slowly. "You're right. You de­serve some answers, if I can give them without breaking security. It's June eighth, nineteen sixty-one-11 P.M."

  It checked with figures that had appeared in the back of his mind, ruining the one theory he'd had. "The President is William Olsen?"

  The doctor nodded, killing the last chance at a theory. For a time he'd thought that perhaps the aggressive countries had won, and that this was their dictatorship. If he'd been injured in a war—But it was nonsense, since no change had occurred in his time sense or in the Administration.

  "How'd I get here?"

  The doctor opened his mouth, then closed it firmly. "Forget that, Expeto. You're here. Get this nonsense of a past off your mind—you never had one, understand? And no more questions. We'll never finish in less than three hours, as it is."

  Expeto stood up slowly, shaking himself. "You're quite right. You won't finish. I'm sick of this. Whatever I did, you've executed your justice in killing the me that was only a set of memories. And whatever I am, I'll find myself. To hell with the lot of you!"

  He expected zep guns to appear, and he was right. The walls suddenly opened in panels, and six armed men were facing him, wearing the oppressive khaki. But something in him seemed to take over. He had the doctor in one arm and a zep gun from the hand of a major before anyone else could move. He faced them, waiting for the bullets that would come, but they drew back, awaiting orders. Expeto's foot found the door, kicked at it; the lock snapped.

  Obanion's voice cut through it all. "Don't! No shooting! Expeto, I'm the one you want. Let Smith go, and I'll accompany you, until you're ready to let me go. Fair enough?"

  Smith was protesting, but Obanion cut him short. "My fault, since I'm responsible. And the Government be damned. I'm not going to have a bunch of good men killed. His reaction's too fast. We can learn things this way, maybe better. All right, Expeto—or do you want to kill them?"

  Expeto dropped the gun a trifle and nodded, while the emotions in his head threatened to make him blank out. He knew now that he could never kill even one of them. But they apparently weren't so sure. "Take me outside, and you can go back," he told Obanion.

  The doctor wiped sweat from his forehead, managed a pasty smile and nodded. Surprisingly, he stepped through a different door, and down a short hall, where men with rifles stood irresolutely. Then they were out­side.

  Obanion turned to go back, and then hesitated. Sur­prisingly, he dropped an arm onto Expeto's shoulder. "Come on back inside. We can understand you. Or—All right, I guess you're going. Thanks
for taking my offer."

  The door closed, and Expeto was alone. Above him most of the building was dark, but he saw a few lighted windows, and some with men and women working over benches and with equipment. There was no sign of beds. All right, so it was some government laboratory.

  The most important monster in the world, the useful paranoiac they'd saved by amnesia . . . The monster they intended to persecute back to paranoia, in hopes he'd recover his memory and the secret they wanted. Let them have the secret—but let him have peace and quiet, where his brain could recover by itself. Then he'd gladly give it to them. Or would he? Would he really be a mon­ster again? Or might he learn the strange reason for there being men and women, the puzzle which seemed so simple that the woman had felt mere contact would solve it?

  Funny that there were so many sciences, but no sci­ence of life—or was there? Maybe he'd been such a scientist—psychology, zoology, biology, whatever they'd call it from the Greek. Maybe the secret lay there, and it had completely burned out that part of his mind.

  Then he heard the sound of a motor and knew they weren't going to let him go. He wasn't to have a moment of freedom if they could prevent it. He swung about sharply, studying the horizon. There were lights and a town. There'd be people, and he could hide among them.

  He whipped his legs into action, driving on at a full run. The light of the moon was barely enough for him to see the ground clearly, but he managed a good deal more speed than the hallways had permitted. He heard the car behind on the road he found, and doubled his speed, while the sound of the motor slowly weakened as the distance increased.

  He breathed easier when he hit the outskirts of the town, and slowed to a casual walk, imitating the steps of a few people he saw about. This was better. In the myriad of streets and among countless others, he would be lost. The only trouble was that he was on a main street, and the lights would give him away to anyone who knew him.

  He picked up a paper from a waste receptacle and moved off to the left, seeking a less brilliantly-lighted street. Now and again he glanced at the print, looking for some trace. But aside from the news that his mind recognized as normal for the times, there was nothing on any mysterious, all-important person, nor on anyone who was either a monster or a savior.

  Ahead of him a lone girl was tapping along the sidewalk. He quickened his step, and she looked back, making the identity complete as her tiny bolero drifted back in the breeze to expose all but the tip of her breasts. She hesitated as he caught up with her, looking up uncertainly. "Yes?"

  She couldn't know the answers. Obviously she had never seen him. How could she tell him what he wanted to know?

  "Sorry. I thought you were someone else? No, wait. You can tell me something. Where can I find a place to stay?"

  "Oh. Well, the Alhambra, I guess." She smiled a little. "Back there—see where the sign is?"

  She brushed against his arm as she turned, and a faint gasp sounded. Her hand suddenly contracted on his bare skin, then jerked back sharply. She began stepping slowly away.

  "No!" It was a small wail as he caught her shoulder. Then she slumped against him, wilting as he pulled her toward his face. He released her, to see her fall down in a sagging heap.

  For a moment the sickness in him rose in great waves, undulating and horrible as he dropped beside her. But when he felt the pulse in her hand still beating, it left. He hadn't killed her, only frightened her into uncon­sciousness.

  He stood there, tasting that. Only frightened her that much!

  And finally he turned about and headed for the Alhambra. There was nothing he could do for her; she'd recover, in time, and it would be better if she didn't see him there. Then maybe she'd decide it was all a fantasy.

  Bitterly he watched a streak mount the horizon, remembering that the men had been discussing the two bases on the moon in the room where he'd first heard voices. They could face war and only fear it vaguely. But he could drive someone senseless by touching them!

  He found the night clerk busy watching a television set with the screen badly adjusted to an overbalance of red, and signed the register with the full name he'd hoped once was his. George Expeto, from—make it from New York. It wouldn't matter.

  "Five dollars," the clerk told him.

  Dollars? He shook his head slowly, trying to think. Something about dollars and cents. But it made no sense.

  The clerk's eyes were hard. "No dough, eh? O.K., try to fool someone else. No baggage, no dough, no room. Scram."

  Expeto stood irresolutely, trying to make sense out of it still. Dollars—something . . . The clerk had swung back to watching the set, and he reached out for the scrawny shoulder, drawing the man around.

  "But look—" Then it was no use. The shoulder had crumpled in his hand like a rotten stick, and the man had lapsed into a faint with a single shriek.

  Expeto stood outside, swaying while the sickness washed away slowly; he told himself the doctors would fix the man up—that was what they were for. They'd fix him, and no real harm had been done. He hadn't meant to hurt the man. He'd only meant to ask him what dollars were and how to get them.

  Then he moved on into a little park and dropped onto a seat. But the sickness was still there, a sickness he hadn't noticed, but which had been growing on him even before he'd hurt the clerk. It was as if something were slowly eroding his mind. Even the curious memory of ideas and words were going!

  He was sitting there, his head in his hands, trying to catch himself, when the car drove up. Obanion and Kallik got out, but Obanion came over alone.

  "Come on, Expeto. It won't work. You might as well come back. And there's only an hour left!"

  Expeto got up slowly, nodding wearily. The doctor was right—there was no place in the world for such a monster as he.

  "Left before what?" he asked dully, as he climbed into the rear of the car and watched Obanion lock the door and the glass slide between him and the front seat.

  For a second Obanion hesitated, then he shrugged. "All right. Maybe you should know. In another hour you'll be dead! And nothing can prevent it."

  Expeto took it slowly, letting the thought sink into the muddying depths of his mind. But he was important—they'd told him so. Or had they? They'd chased him about, bound him down, refused to tell him what he needed, refused him even civil decency and told him he was the hope of the world. Or had he only imagined it?

  "I never wanted anything but myself. Only myself. And they wouldn't let me have that—not even for a few hours. They had to hound me—" He realized he was muttering aloud and stopped it.

  But from the front seat the voices came back, muffled by the glass, Kallik speaking first. "See, paranoia all right. Thinks he's being persecuted."

  "He is." Obanion nodded slowly. "With the time limit the Government insisted on, the ruin of our plans by the spies that got through, and the need to get the facts, what else could we do? If they'd let us animate him for a week—but six hours' limit on the vital crystals! We've had to be brutal."

  "You talk as if he were a human being. Remember the other—XP One? Crazy, killing people, or trying to. I tell you, the robots can't be made trustworthy yet, no matter what you cybernetics boys have found in the last ten years. This one only had six hours instead of ten for the other, and he's already threatened us and hurt two people."

  "Maybe. We don't know all the story yet." Obanion wiped his forehead. "And damn it, he is human. That's what makes it tough, knowing we've got to treat him like a machine. Maybe we grew his brain out of silicones and trick metal crystals, and built his body in a laboratory, but the mechanical education he got made him a lot more human than some people, or should have made him so. If I can prove he isn't crazy—"

  Expeto—Experiment Two—stared at the hand he held before his face. He bent the fingers, looking at the veins and muscles. Then, slowly, with his other hand, he twisted at them, stretching them out and out, until there could be no doubt that they were rubbery plastic.

  A monster!
A thing grown in a laboratory, made out of mechanical parts, and fed bits of human education from tapes in cybernetics machines! A thing that would walk on the moon without air and take over enemy bases, do men's work, but who could never be taken as a man by human beings, who grew from something or other but were never built. A thing to be animated for a few hours and deliberately set to die at the end of that time, as a precaution—because it had no real life, and it wasn't murder to kill a built thing!

  A thing that somehow couldn't kill men, it seemed, judging by the sickness he'd felt when he'd hurt or threatened them. But a thing of which they couldn't be sure—until they'd tested him and found he was com­plete and sane.

  He rocked back and forth on the seat, moaning a little. He didn't want to die; but already the eroded places in his brain were growing larger. It didn't matter; he had never been anyone; he never could be anyone. But he didn't want to die!

  "Half an hour left," the cyberneticist, Obanion, said slowly. "And less than that unless we make sure he doesn't exert himself. He's about over."

  Then the car was coming into the garage, and Obanion got out with Kallik. Expeto went with them quietly, knowing that Obanion was right. Already he was finding it hard to use his legs or control what passed for muscles. They went back to the room with the instruments and the waiting technicians.

  For a moment he looked at the humans there. Obanion's eyes were veiled, but the others were open to his gaze. And there was no pity there. Men don't pity a car that is too old and must go to the scrap heap. He was only a machine, no matter how valuable. And after him other machines would see the faces of men turned away from them, generation after generation.

  Slowly he kicked at the chair, tipping it over without splintering it, and his voice came out as high and shrill as his faltering control could force it. "No! No more! You've persecuted me enough. You've tried to kill me—me, the hope of your puny race! You've laughed at me and tortured me. But I'm smarter than you—greater than you! I can kill you—all of you—the whole world, with my bare hands."