Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  “Some of our minimum-survival explorers have done very well.”

  “And others?”

  “There are hazards, of course,” Haskell admitted. “And aside from the potential dangers of the planet itself, there are other risks involved in the very nature of the, experiment I can’t even tell you what they are, since that would destroy our only control element on the minimum-survival test. I simply tell you that they are present.”

  “Not a very good outlook,” Perceveral said.

  “Perhaps not. But think of the rewards if you won through! You would, in effect, be the founding father of a colony! Your value as an expert would be immeasurable. You would have a permanent place in the life of the community. And equally important, you might be able to dispel certain insidious self-doubts concerning your place in the scheme of things.”

  Perceveral nodded reluctantly. “Tell me one thing. Your telegram arrived today at a particularly crucial moment. It seemed almost—”

  “Yes, it was planned,” Haskell said. “We’ve found that the people we want are most receptive when they’ve reached a certain psychological state. We keep close watch over the few who fit our requirements, waiting for the right moment to make our presentation.”

  “It might have been embarrassing if you’d been an hour later,” Perceveral said.

  “Or unfruitful if we’d been a day earlier.” Haskell arose from behind his desk. “Would you join me for lunch, Mr. Perceveral? We can discuss final details over a bottle of wine.”

  “All right,” Perceveral said. “But I’m not making any promises yet.”

  “Of course not,” Haskell said, opening the door for him.

  AFTER lunch, Perceveral did some hard thinking. The explorer’s job appealed to him strongly in spite of the risks. It was, after all, no more dangerous than suicide, and much better paying. The rewards were great if he won; the penalty for failure was no more than the price he had been about to pay for failure on Earth.

  He hadn’t done well in thirty-four years on Earth. The best he had shown were flashes of ability marred by a strong affinity for illness, accident and blunder. But Earth was crowded, cluttered and confused. Perhaps his accident-proneness had been not some structural flaw in him but the product of intolerable conditions.

  Exploration would give him a new environment. He would be alone, dependent only on himself, answerable only to himself. It would be tremendously dangerous—but what could be more dangerous than a glittering razor blade held in his own hand?

  This would be the supreme effort of his life, the ultimate test He would fight as he had never fought before to conquer his fatal tendencies. And this time he would throw every ounce of strength and determination into the struggle.

  He accepted the job. In the next weeks of preparation, he ate and drank and slept determination, hammered it into his brain and wove it between his nerves, mumbled it to himself like a Buddhist prayer, dreamed about it, brushed his teeth and washed his hands with it, meditated upon it until the monotonous refrain buzzed in his head waking and sleeping, and began slowly to act as a check and restraint upon action.

  The day arrived when he was assigned a year’s tour of duty upon a promising planet in the East Star Ridge. Haskell wished him luck and promised to stay in touch by L-phase radio. Perceveral and his equipment were put aboard the picket ship Queen of Glasgow, and the adventure was begun.

  During the months in space, Perceveral continued to think obsessively of his resolve. He handled himself carefully in no-weight, watched his every movement and cross-checked his every motive. This continuous inspection slowed him down considerably; but gradually it became habitual. A set of new reflexes began to form, struggling to conquer the old reflex system.

  But progress was spasmodic. In spite of his efforts, Perceveral caught a minor skin irritation from the ship’s purification system, broke one of his ten pairs of glasses against a bulkhead, and suffered numerous headaches, backaches, skinned knuckles and stubbed toes.

  Still, he felt he had made progress, and his resolution hardened accordingly. And at last his planet came into view.

  THE planet was named Theta.

  Perceveral and his equipment were set down on a grassy, forested upland near a mountain range. The area had been pre-selected by air survey for its promising qualities. Water, wood, local fruits and mineral-bearing ores were all nearby. The area could make an excellent colony site.

  The ship’s officers wished him luck, and departed. Perceveral watched until the ship vanished into a bank of clouds. Then he went to work.

  First he activated his robot It was a tall, gleaming, black multipurpose machine, standard equipment for explorers and settlers. It couldn’t talk, sing, recite or play cards like the more expensive models. Its only response was a headshake or a nod; dull companionship for the year ahead. But it was programmed to handle verbal work-commands of a considerable degree of complexity, to perform the heaviest labor, and to show a degree of foresight in problem situations.

  With the robot’s help, Perceveral set up his camp on the plain, keeping a careful check on the horizon for signs of trouble. The air survey had detected no signs of an alien culture, but you could never tell. And the nature of Theta’s animal life was still uninvestigated.

  He worked slowly and carefully, and the silent robot worked beside him. By evening, he had set up a temporary camp. He activated the radar alarm and went to bed.

  He awoke just after dawn to the shrilling of the radar alarm bell. He dressed and hurried outside. There was an angry humming in the air, like the sound of a locust horde.

  “Get two beamers,” he told the robot, “and hurry back. Bring the binoculars, too.”

  The robot nodded and lurched off. Perceveral turned slowly, shivering in the gray dawn, trying to locate the direction of the sound. He scanned the damp plain, the green edge of forest, the cliffs beyond. Nothing moved. Then he saw, outlined against the sunrise, something that looked like a low dark cloud. The cloud was flying toward his camp, moving very quickly against the wind.

  The robot returned with the beamers. Perceveral took one and directed the robot to hold the other, awaiting orders to fire. The robot nodded, his eyecells gleaming dully as he turned toward the sunrise.

  WHEN the cloud swept nearer, it resolved into a gigantic flock of birds. Perceveral studied them through his binoculars. They were about the size of Terran hawks, but their darting, erratic flight resembled the flight of bats. They were heavily taloned and their long beaks were edged with sharp teeth. With all that lethal armament, they had to be carnivorous.

  The flock circled them, humming loudly. Then, from all directions, with wings swept back and talons spread, they began to dive. Perceveral directed the robot to begin firing.

  He and the robot stood back to back, blasting into the onslaught of birds. There was a whirling confusion of blood and feathers as battalions of birds were scythed out of the sky. Perceveral and the robot were holding their own, keeping the aerial wolf pack at a distance, even beating it back. Then Perceveral’s beamer failed.

  The beamers were supposed to be fully charged and guaranteed for seventy-five hours at full automatic. A beamer couldn’t fail! He stood for a moment, stupidly clicking the trigger. Then he flung down the weapon and hurried to the supplies tent, leaving the robot to continue the fight alone.

  He located his two spares and came out. When he rejoined the battle, he saw that the robot’s beamer had stopped functioning. The robot stood erect, beating off the swarm of birds with his arms. Drops of oil sprayed from his joints as he flailed at the dense flock. He swayed, dangerously close to losing his balance, and Perceveral saw that some birds had evaded his swinging arms and were perched on his shoulders, pecking at his eyecells and kinesthetic antenna.

  Perceveral swung up both beamers and began to cut into the swarm. One weapon failed almost immediately. He continued chopping with the last, praying it would retain its charge.

  The flock, finally alarmed by it
s losses, rose and wheeled away, screaming and hooting. Miraculously unhurt, Perceveral and the robot stood knee-deep in scattered feathers and charred bodies.

  Perceveral looked at the four beamers, three of which had failed him entirely. Then he marched angrily to the communications tent.

  HE contacted Haskell and told him about the attack of the birds and the failure of three beamers out of four. Red-faced with outrage, he denounced the men who were supposed to check an explorer’s equipment. Then, out of breath, he waited for Haskell’s apology and explanation.

  “That,” Haskell said, “was one of the control elements.”

  “Huh?”

  “I explained it to you months ago,” Haskell said. “We are testing for minimum-survival conditions. Minimum, remember? We have to know what will happen to a colony composed of people of varying degrees of proficiency. Therefore, we look for the lowest denominator.”

  “I know all that. But the beamers—”

  “Mr. Perceveral, setting up a colony, even on an absolute minimum basis, is a fantastically expensive operation. We supply our colonists with the newest and best in guns and equipment, but we can’t replace things that stop functioning or are used up. The colonists have to use irreplaceable ammunition, equipment that breaks and wears out, food stores that become exhausted or spoiled—”

  “And that’s what you’ve given me?” Perceveral asked.

  “Of course. As a control, we have equipped you with the minimum of survival equipment. That’s the only way we’ll be able to predict how the colonists will make out on Theta.”

  “But it isn’t fair! Explorers always get the best equipment!”

  “No,” Haskell said. “The old-style optimum-survival explorers did, of course. But we’re testing for least potential, which must extend to equipment as well as to personality. I told you there would be risks.”

  “Yes, you did,” Perceveral said. “But . . . All right. Do you have any other little secrets in store for me?”

  “Not really,” Haskell said, after a momentary pause. “Both you and your equipment are of minimum-survival quality. That about sums it up.”

  Perceveral detected something evasive in this answer, but Haskell refused to be more specific. They signed off and Perceveral returned to the chaos of his camp.

  PERCEVERAL and the robot moved their camp to the shelter of the forest for protection against further assaults by the birds. In setting up again, Perceveral noted that fully half of his ropes were badly worn, his electrical fixtures were beginning to burn out, and the canvas of his tents showed mildew. Laboriously he repaired everything, bruising his knuckles and skinning his palms. Then his generator broke down.

  He sweated over it for three days, trying to figure out the trouble from the badly printed instruction book, written in German, that had been sent with the machine. Nothing seemed to be set up right in the generator and nothing worked. At last he discovered, by pure accident, that the book was meant for an entirely different model. He lost his temper at this and kicked the generator, almost breaking the little toe of his right foot.

  Then he took himself firmly in hand and worked for another four days, figuring out the differences between his model and the model described, until he had the generator working again.

  The birds found that they could plummet through the trees into Perceveral’s camp, snatch food and be gone before the beamer could be leveled at them. Their attacks cost Perceveral a pair of glasses and a nasty wound on the neck. Laboriously he wove nets, and, with the robot’s help, strung them in the branches above his camp.

  The birds were baffled. Perceveral finally had time to check his food stores, and to discover that many of his dehydrated staples had been poorly processed, and others had become a host to an ugly airborne fungus. Either way, it added up to spoilage. Unless he took measures now, he would be short of food during the Thetan winter.

  He ran a series of tests on local fruits, grains, berries and vegetables. They showed several varieties to be safe and nourishing. He ate these, and broke into a spectacular allergy rash. Painstaking work with his medical kit gave him a cure for the allergy, and he set up a test to discover the guilty plant. But just as he was checking final results, the robot stamped in, upsetting test tubes and spilling irreplaceable chemicals.

  Perceveral had to continue the allergy tests on himself, and to exclude one berry and two vegetables as unfit for his consumption.

  But the fruits were excellent and the local grains made a fine bread. Perceveral collected seed, and, late in the Thetan spring, directed the robot to the tasks of plowing and planting.

  THE robot worked tirelessly in the new fields, while Perceveral did some exploring. He found pieces of smooth rock upon which characters had been scratched, and what looked like numbers, and even little stick-pictures of trees and clouds and mountains. Intelligent beings must have lived on Theta, he decided. Quite probably they still inhabited some parts of the planet. But he had no time to search for them.

  When Perceveral checked his fields, he found that the robot had planted the seed inches too deep, in spite of his programmed instructions. That crop was lost, and Perceveral planted the next by himself.

  He built a wooden shack and replaced the rotting tents with storage sheds. Slowly he made his preparations for survival through the winter. And slowly he began to suspect that his robot was wearing out.

  The great black all-purpose machine performed its tasks as before. But the robot’s movements were growing increasingly jerky and his use of strength was indiscriminate. Heavy jars splintered in his grip and farming implements broke when he used them. Perceveral programmed him for weeding the fields, but the robot’s broad splay feet trampled the grain sprouts as his fingers plucked the weeds. When the robot went out to chop firewood, he usually succeeded in breaking the axe handle. The cabin shook when the robot entered, and the door sometimes left its hinges.

  Perceveral wondered and worried about the robot’s deterioration. There was no way he could repair it, for the robot was a factory-sealed unit, meant to be repaired only by factory technicians with special tools, parts and knowledge. All Perceveral could do was retire the robot from service. But that would leave him completely alone.

  HE programmed increasingly simple tasks into the robot and took more work upon himself. Still the robot continued to deteriorate. Then one evening, when Perceveral was eating his dinner, the robot lurched against the stove and sent a pot of boiling rice flying.

  With his new-found survival talents, Perceveral flung himself out of the way and the boiling mess landed on his left shoulder instead of his face.

  That was too much. The robot was dangerous to have around. After dressing his burn, Perceveral decided to turn the robot off and continue the work of survival alone. In a firm voice, he gave the Dormancy Command.

  The robot simply glared at him and moved restlessly around the cabin, not responding to a robot’s most basic command.

  Perceveral gave the order again. The robot shook his head and began to stack firewood.

  Something had gone wrong. He would have to turn the robot off manually. But there was no sign of the usual cut-out switch anywhere on the machine’s gleaming black surface. Nevertheless, Perceveral took out his tool kit and approached the robot.

  Amazingly, the robot backed away from him, arms raised defensively.

  “Stand still!” Perceveral shouted.

  The robot moved away until his back was against the wall.

  Perceveral hesitated, wondering what was going wrong. Machines weren’t permitted to disobey orders. And the willingness to give up life had been carefully structured into all robotic devices.

  He advanced on the robot, determined to turn him off somehow. The robot waited until he was close, then swung an armored fist at him. Perceveral dodged out of the way and flung a wrench at the robot’s kinesthetic antenna. The robot quickly retracted it and swung again. This time his armored fist caught Perceveral in the ribs.

  Per
ceveral fell to the floor and the robot stood over him, his eyecells flaring red and his iron fingers opening and closing. Perceveral shut his eyes and waited for the coup de grace. But the machine turned and left the shack, smashing the lock as he went.

  In a few minutes, Perceveral heard the sound of firewood being cut and stacked—as usual.

  With the aid of his medical kit, Perceveral taped up his side. The robot finished work and came back for further instructions. Shakily, Perceveral ordered him to a distant spring for water. The robot left, showing no further signs of aggression. Perceveral dragged himself to the radio shack.

  “YOU shouldn’t have tried to turn him off,” Haskell said, when he heard what had happened. “He isn’t designed to be turned off. Wasn’t that apparent? For your own safety, don’t try it again.”

  “But what’s the reason?”

  “Because—as you’ve probably guessed by now—the robot acts as our quality-control over you.”

  “I don’t understand,” Perceveral said. “Why do you need a quality-control?”

  “Must I go through it all again?” Haskell asked wearily. “You were hired as a minimum-survival explorer. Not average. Not superior. Minimum.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “LET me continue. Do you recall how you were during your thirty-four years on Earth? You were continually beset by accident, disease and general misfortune. That is what we wanted on Theta. But you’ve changed, Mr. Perceveral.”

  “I’ve certainly tried to change.”

  “Of course,” Haskell said. “We expected it. Most of our minimum-survival explorers change. Faced with a new environment and a fresh start, they get a grip on themselves such as they’ve never had before. But it’s not what we’re testing for, so we have to compensate for the change. Colonists, you see, don’t always come to a planet in a spirit of self-improvement. And any colony has its careless ones, to say nothing of the aged, the infirm, the feeble-minded, the foolhardy, the inexperienced children, and so forth. Our minimum-survival standards are a guarantee that all of them will have a chance. Now are you beginning to understand?”