The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works 1911-1987

by C. L. Moore

  Of the two at the desk, one was not human. The other went by the name of Johnson, and he might not be human either. It was hard to tell.

  Bradley had to try twice before his voice would come normally from a suddenly dry throat.

  "You want me, sir?"

  Court turned, smiling. His high collar hid the line where head and neck had been welded back in place. His smile was perfectly normal, but Bradley imagined now he could hear the tiny, soundless clicking of infinitesimal gears as the android's jaw moved and its inhuman muscles drew up.

  "Look here, Bradley," Court said. "Ever see this before?"

  Bradley looked. Then for an instant the blood drained from his head and the room went grey with his sudden giddiness. But this time he did not dare to drop anything or even to pause while he got control of himself again. They were both watching. He made a tremendous effort and forced the greyness back, forced the quiver out of his voice, forced his hands to stop shaking.

  "See what?" he asked in a perfectly normal voice. But he knew well enough.

  Court held up the razor-edged blade that had struck his head from his neck forty-eight hours ago. It was unmistakably the same heavy weapon Bradley had bought at a second-hand shop two days before he used it on the Director. He knew it by the carving on the handle, by the nick in the blade where some inhumanly durable metal in Arthur Court's neck had bitten into the honed edge of the steel. When Bradley saw it last, it lay beside the headless android body, red with unreal android blood.

  "Ever see it before?" Court asked again.

  "I—don't think so," Bradley heard himself saying, with just the right amount of impersonal interest. "Not to remember, anyhow. Why?"

  They looked thoughtfully at him. And by that single look, identical in both faces, he was suddenly quite sure that neither was human. It was something about the quality of the stare. He realized after a moment that it was the same look he had seen in the Wallinger kitten's eyes—remote, wild, speculative, not inimical but wary. One species looking at another species, measuring possible danger. The kitten had seen him from quite another angle, from low down, in sharp perspective, and probably not in colors, but in tones of grey. It was extraordinary, suddenly, to think how strange he might have looked to the small, wild, wary creature. If he could see himself as it saw him, he might not recognize that looming figure as himself at all. And it occurred to him now that to the androids he must look equally strange and alien. In what colors beyond spectrum-range did they see him? And what a soft, vulnerable structure of flesh and bone he must look to these creatures of steel and synthetics.

  They let him wait a long moment before either spoke or moved. Then that cold-lensed stare dropped from his face, both androids acting as simultaneously as if they moved on a single shaft. It was a mistake, Bradley thought—they shouldn't let me realize how mechanically they operate. And the second thought, close behind the first, warned him that perhaps now they didn't care. They knew what he knew. They had nothing more to hide ...

  Deliberately Court turned and made a note on his desk-pad.

  "All right, Bradley, thanks. Oh—wait a minute. Be in your office for the next half-hour, will you? I want to talk to you again."

  Bradley nodded. He didn't trust himself to speak. He was suddenly filled with a deep and bitter humiliation that he must accept the orders of this—this machine.

  It was the reversal of all normal things, for a man to say "sir" to a thing of gears and wiring.

  -

  He looked down at his own hands lying clenched before him on his desk. Ten minutes had ticked by. Before the next twenty were gone he would have to act. They knew. It had been no accident that they called him in to see the nicked steel blade. How they had traced it to him he could not imagine, but their cold, concise brains worked on theories of logic he could not even guess at. They had outwitted him, apparently, without effort. For all his precautions, his careful hiding of everything that might lead back to his identity, they knew. Or if they did not, they were too definitely suspicious to ignore. In the next five minutes, ten at most, he would have to make up his mind. He would have to act.

  He couldn't. All that filled his mind was the bitterness of premature defeat. How could he combat them, when even his own kind dismissed him as psychotic? It was doubtful, he told himself, if the whole human race, rousing at this moment to realization and activity, could defeat them now. How far had their preparations gone? How many of them were there? Too many for one man to fight.

  He thought of the whole long history of the race of man, struggling up through countless milleniums of unrecorded time, through five thousand years of slowly increasing knowledge and maturity—to this hour. To the laying in iron android hands, gloved with synthetic flesh, of that priceless heritage. What would they do with the gift? Why were they taking over this culture mankind had been so painfully long in building? Would it mean anything at all to them, or would they cast aside the heritage of all those milleniums and build up their own soulless civilization on a foundation that did not even spare a glance for all man's wasted centuries?

  "How did it start?" he asked himself. "Why? Why?" And out of the human logic of his own mind came the glimmer of an answer. "When the first man made the first successful android, the human race was doomed."

  For a successful android meant one indistinguishable from man, one capable of creating others in its own image, one capable of independent motion and reasoning. And what purpose moved in the brain of that first of its metal kind? Had its human creator implanted there some command which led—knowingly or unknowingly—to all that followed? Had the order been one which the android could achieve only by duplicating itself until the human race was infected through and through with the robot cells of the androids?

  It was quite possible. Perhaps the original creator still lived, perhaps he was dead—of age, of accident, of murder at the hands of his own Frankensteinian creations. And paradoxically, perhaps the android race moved on and on along the outward fanning lines of that first command, following toward infinity, toward the last decimal place, some impossible goal which no human being would now ever know ...

  "They'll finish me," Bradley told himself, almost without emotion. "If they don't suspect me yet, they will. And there's nothing I can do to stop them. Wallinger didn't believe me. No one else will. And the androids will follow me until they catch me no matter how far I run. When they finish me off, they'll probably set to work to make their disguise so perfect not even I could have penetrated it, knowing what I know. They could do that. They could reason out every point where I suspected them, and stop every gap with humanoid behavior. They're machines. That's part of their problem. They can work it out if they set themselves the job. Maybe they're working on it now. By the time they finish me, maybe ..."

  He slammed both fists hard upon the desk. "No!" he told himself fiercely, and rose.

  There were fifteen minutes left.

  -

  The telephone on Arthur Court's desk buzzed. The android put out a metallic hand and machine spoke into machine. Out of the mouthpiece Bradley's voice sounded small and clear.

  "Hello. Hello, sir. This is Bradley. Look, are you busy? Something very odd has just turned up and I thought you ought to be the first to know. I—I'm not sure what to do."

  "What is it? What are you talking about?"

  "I'd rather not say on the phone."

  "Where are you?"

  "Across the street. You know the Green Door Grille?"

  "I thought I told you to wait in your office, Bradley."

  "When you hear what I've got to tell you—" Bradley paused for an instant to swallow his own cold anger at the arrogance in the voice of the machine "—you'll understand. Can you come?"

  "Sit tight. I'll be there in five minutes."

  -

  Bradley sat at the wheel of his car, feeling the faint throb of the motor running softly. His eyes were on the door of the office building across the street. His fingers were clenched on
the plastic of the wheel and the rhythmic beat of the car seemed an echo of the heavy beating in his chest as he waited.

  Arthur Court came out of the revolving door. He looked up and down the street. He turned left and with long strides hurried down the block toward the little side-street upon which the Green Door opened. Bradley waited, watching Court, watching the traffic, biding his time.

  It worked with miraculous precision. There were only three pedestrians on the side-street and all were walking the other way. Heavy trucks parked along the narrow curbing shut out all vision except the most direct. It was as if Arthur Court were dodging through a series of little private rooms between the trucks—and in the last little room he had a rendezvous with Bradley that he did not yet know about ...

  The car purred like a tiger under Bradley's hands as he rolled into the quiet street where Court moved ahead of him. This would have to be gauged exactly right, Bradley reminded himself tensely. Not too little, not too much. Not before Court was in a corner where he could not escape even by the exercise of instant reflexes, impulses electron-fast moving a body that was literally steel wire and springs. Not until he was in a trap of no escape.

  The car seemed to gather its haunches beneath it and spring. It roared in the quiet street and Court turned wildly around. His face was pure machine, Bradley thought, in that unguarded moment when the cold-lensed eyes met his. Bradley was part of the automobile, the two welded into one so that the car was his weapon, obedient to his hand as the steel blade had been obedient that severed Court's head from his neck. But this time there would be no mistake.

  He crouched over the wheel, sighting the car like a gun, pinning Court between fender and fender, centered beyond the radiator cap, with the blank wall of a truck behind him. Man and man-made machine were one juggernaut weapon that crashed down upon machine-made machine and flattened it against a wall of steel ...

  Bradley saw Court's face go blank beyond the radiator cap. He saw the machine-body crumple slowly down out of sight. He waited for an instant, ready to urge the car on if he had to ...

  -

  "It's all right," Bradley said soothingly. Court stirred and mumbled on the seat beside him. "No, it's all right, Court. Just relax. You had a little accident, but don't worry, I'm not taking you to a doctor ..."

  Court said, "No—" almost clearly. Bradley sighed and pulled over to the curb. He had hoped he wouldn't need to use the hypodermic, but it was ready against the moment when he must.

  This was guesswork, of course. He couldn't be sure the android mechanisms would respond to drugs meant for the human blood stream. But the chances were they would, at least temporarily. The android was keyed to as close a likeness to humanity as possible. Its reflexes were patterned upon the human. Cut it and it bled. Decapitate it and respiration ceased, circulation stopped. Very well, then, drug it and for a while it should sleep ...

  Court slept.

  -

  Only a body made of metal under the flesh could have stumbled in the semblance of a walk, half carried, half conscious, with that heavy a shot of sedative in its synthetic veins. Bradley guided the creature up the steps to the Wallinger house. He was not wearing his mask now. Everything must stand or fall by this single trial. If he failed now, hiding his identity would be of no use to him.

  The small girl answered the door.

  "Daddy's next door," she said, looking at the drugged and stumbling Court with interest and no alarm. "He'll be back in a minute. Won't you come in?" She issued the invitation with all the aplomb of one newly learned in the social graces, but it was clear that curiosity and not hospitality had prompted the words. It was clear, too, that she was so unacquainted with danger that a situation like this roused no fear in her mind.

  Bradley guided his burden down the hall and into the library. On the sofa against the wall the kitten lay bonelessly asleep. Bradley eased the drugged android down onto the cushions, gently tipping the cat off to the floor. Such is the complexity of the mind that even in this intent moment it occurred to him that in a machine world the cat and the cushion would probably be indistinguishable, one from another. Only a human, and a truly mature human, would be incapable of handling any small living thing roughly. The cat yawned, woke, found itself on the floor and in the presence of two strangers, and instantly streaked for the door. Its interested ears presently reappeared around the corner.

  Above them, after a moment, was seen the shy but curious face of the smallest Wallinger. Bradley made an effort and remembered his name.

  "Hello, Jerry," he called, settling Court on the sofa. "Is your father back yet?"

  There was no reply from the child, but the little girl came in an instant later, soon enough to answer the question. She was pushing her reluctant brother before her.

  "I called Daddy," she volunteered. "He'll be right over. What's the matter with—him?"

  "He had a—a little accident. He'll be all right."

  She considered Court with unself-conscious intentness. Court was emerging from the drug. He turned his head restlessly on the cushions, murmuring thickly. The boy, the girl and the kitten regarded him from the door, an almost terrifying remoteness in their gaze. It was obvious that to none of the three did real sympathy mean a thing yet. They could not identify themselves with adults or with suffering. All three had the cold curiosity of young animals in their eyes.

  And why should they identify themselves with an android? Bradley felt the question click into place in his mind and a flash of memory illumined the thought. Children. Children, who see too clearly to be deceived by an android race. Children, without perspective and therefore without the preconceived prejudices that had blinded adults to this terrifying intrusion upon the world of humans.

  Children should know the truth.

  "Sue—isn't your name Sue? Listen. I want you to tell me something very important. I—I want your opinion." Bradley groped desperately among his memories of the seven-year-old mentality. Self-centered, scatterbrained, eager for praise, interested only in their own activities except for the briefest of excursions into the outer world. If he could only flatter her enough to hold her interest ...

  "Sue, this is something nobody but you could tell me. I want to see how much you know about—about—" He paused again. "Well, now, look. You know there are—" How could he put it? How could he ask her if she had noticed the androids among the adults whom she knew? Had she, indeed, ever seen one before? On her answer very much would depend, then, for if she did know the truth, then there must be many more of them than Bradley had guessed. If even a sheltered child knew ...

  "Sue, you know about people like—him?" He gestured toward the restless android. "You know there are—two kinds of men in the world?" He held his breath, waiting for her answer.

  Wariness came into her eyes. You could never tell when an adult was making fun of you, her look said.

  "No, I'm serious. I don't suppose—I just want to know if you know. Not all children can tell the difference, and I—"

  "Oh, all the kids know that." Contempt was in her voice.

  "Know—what?"

  "About them."

  Bradley drew a deep breath. All the kids know about them ...

  "Does your father know?" His voice sounded thin in his own ears.

  She gave him another of those wary glances that watched to see if he were deriding her. Evidently reassured, she laughed shortly.

  "Well, I guess he does. Doesn't everybody?"

  The room swam a little before Bradley's eyes. So many of them, so many more than he had ever dreamed ...

  "But the other kind," he heard himself saying almost pleadingly. "The other kind of men! How many—"

  There were voices in the hall. Wallinger's, and another's, deep and heavy.

  "In here, Officer," Wallinger was saying. "Right in here! Hurry!"

  "How many in the world?" Sue finished Bradley's question for him. And she laughed. "We learned it in school, but I don't remember. I can tell you how many of th
e real kind of men in this room, though. One! One!"

  "Will you tell your father that?" Bradley demanded in an agony of haste. "When he comes in, will you tell him there's only one of the real kind of man in here? Sue, will you—"

  "Susan, get back!" Wallinger was in the doorway. That grey look made his face old as he scanned the children for signs of visible harm. Behind him a uniformed man loomed, red-faced, looking into the room with grim alertness, ready for anything.

  There was a little silence.

  Then Court, on the sofa, groaned softly and struggled to sit up. Wallinger hurried across the room to help.

  "What have you done to him?" he demanded of Bradley. "You crazy fool, how far have you gone?"

  "He's all right," Bradley stammered. "He's—you can't hurt them!"

  Wallinger regarded him above Court's head.

  "So that's what you look like," he said. "I knew you from across the street, even without your mask, but your face, of course—Will you tell us your name?"

  "Bradley." He said it defiantly. "James Philips Bradley." The time for anonymity had passed. He hadn't expected the policeman to be here—it would be harder to explain in that large, disbelieving presence—but if Sue repeated what she had just told him, maybe he could convince them yet.

  "Ask your daughter about them," he said urgently. "She knows. Wallinger, I tell you, she knows! Remember, I warned you about the children? I said they couldn't hope to deceive children? Sue says all of them know—"

  "I'd better warn you, Bradley, Sue's got a wild imagination. I don't know what fables she's been telling you, but—Officer, hadn't you better—"

  "Wait!" This wasn't going as he had planned at all. He threw all the persuasion he could summon up into his voice. "You promised to give me a hearing, Wallinger. Don't you remember, you promised? I know I had a gun then, but please—give me just a minute to tell you what I know. This man's one of them." He paused, running his tongue across dry lips. Wallinger looked so disbelieving ... "He isn't hurt. I told you I'd bring proof, and there it is. This man. I had to get him here the only way I could. I tell you, you can't hurt them! Under the skin he's nothing but wires and metal. I can prove it! I—"