by Roger Elwood
Ignoring him, it darted to the kitchen table. With a flashing certainty of action, it turned two knobs on the director. The tiny screen went dark, and the palladium needle started spinning aimlessly. Deftly it snapped a soldered connection, next to the thick lead ball, and then its blind steel eyes turned to Sledge.
“You were attempting to break the Prime Directive.” Its soft bright voice held no accusation, no malice or anger. “The injunction to respect your freedom is subordinate to the Prime Directive, as you know, and it is therefore necessary for us to interfere.”
The old man turned ghastly. His head was shrunken and cadaverous and blue, as if all the juice of life had been drained away, and his eyes in their pitlike sockets had a wild, glazed stare. His breath was a ragged, laborious gasping.
“How—?” His voice was a feeble mumbling. “How did—?”
And the little machine, standing black and bland and utterly unmoving, told him cheerfully:
“We learned about, rhodomagnetic screens from that man who came to kill you, back on Wing IV. And the Central is shielded, now, against your integrating beam.”
With lean muscles jerking convulsively on his gaunt frame, old Sledge had come to his feet from the high stool. He stood hunched and swaying, no more than a shrunken human husk, gasping painfully for life, staring wildly into the blind steel eyes of the humanoid. He gulped, and his lax blue mouth opened and closed, but no voice came.
“We have always been aware of your dangerous project,” the silvery tones dripped softly, “because now our senses are keener than you made them. We allowed you to complete it, because the integration process will ultimately become necessary for our full discharge of the Prime Directive. The supply of heavy metals for our fission plants is limited, but now we shall be able to draw unlimited power from integration plants.”
“Huh?” Sledge shook himself, groggily. “What’s that?”
“Now we can serve men forever,” the black thing said serenely, “on every world of every star.”
The old man crumpled, as if from an unendurable blow. He fell. The slim blind mechanical stood motionless, making no effort to help him. Underhill was farther away, but he ran up in time to catch the stricken man before his head struck the floor.
“Get moving!” His shaken voice came strangely calm. “Get Dr. Winters.”
The humanoid didn’t move.
“The danger to the Prime Directive is ended, now,” it cooed. “Therefore it is impossible for us to aid or to hinder Mr. Sledge, in any way whatever.”
“Then call Dr. Winters for me,” rapped Underhill.
“At your service,” it agreed.
But the old man, laboring for breath on the floor, whispered faintly:
“No time…no use! I’m beaten…done…a fool. Blind as a humanoid. Tell them…to help me. Giving up…my immunity. No use…anyhow. All humanity…no use now.”
Underhill gestured, and the sleek black thing darted in solicitous obedience to kneel by the man on the floor.
“You wish to surrender your special exemption?” it murmured brightly. “You wish to accept our total service for yourself, Mr. Sledge, under the Prime Directive?”
Laboriously, Sledge nodded, laboriously whispered: “I do.”
Black mechanicals, at that, came swarming into the shabby little rooms. One of them tore off Sledge’s sleeve, and swabbed his arm. Another brought a tiny hypodermic, and expertly administered an intravenous injection. Then they picked him up gently, and carried him away.
Several humanoids remained in the little apartment, now a sanctuary no longer. Most of them had gathered about the useless integrator. Carefully, as if their special senses were studying every detail, they began taking it apart.
One little mechanical, however, came over to Underhill. It stood motionless in front of him, staring through him with sightless metal eyes. His legs began to tremble, and he swallowed uneasily.
“Mr. Underhill,” it cooed benevolently, “why did you help with this?”
He gulped and answered bitterly:
“Because I don’t like you, or your Prime Directive. Because you’re choking the life out of all mankind, and I wanted to stop it.”
“Others have protested,” it purred softly. “But only at first. In our efficient discharge of the Prime Directive, we have learned how to make all men happy.”
Underhill stiffened defiantly.
“Not all!” he muttered. “Not quite!”
The dark graceful oval of its face was fixed in a look of alert benevolence and perpetual mild amazement. Its silvery voice was warm and kind.
“Like other human beings, Mr. Underhill, you lack discrimination of good and evil. You have proved that by your effort to break the Prime Directive. Now it will be necessary for you to accept our total service, without further delay.”
“All right,” he yielded—and muttered a bitter reservation: “You can smother men with too much care, but that doesn’t make them happy.”
Its soft voice challenged him brightly:
“Just wait and see, Mr. Underhill.”
Next day, he was allowed to visit Sledge at the city hospital. An alert black mechanical drove his car, and walked beside him into the huge new building, and followed him into the old man's room—blind steel eyes would be watching him, now, forever.
“Glad to see you, Underhill,” Sledge rumbled heartily from the bed. “Feeling a lot better today, thanks. That old headache is all but gone.”
Underhill was glad to hear the booming strength and the quick recognition in that deep voice—he had been afraid the humanoids would tamper with the old man’s memory. But he hadn’t heard about any headache. His eyes narrowed, puzzled.
Sledge lay propped up, scrubbed very clean and neatly shorn, with his gnarled old hands folded on top of the spotless sheets. His rawboned cheeks and sockets were hollowed, still, but a healthy pink had replaced that deathly blueness. Bandages covered the back of his head.
Underhill shifted uneasily.
“Oh!” he whispered faintly. “I didn’t know—"
A prim black mechanical, which had been standing statuelike behind the bed, turned gracefully to Underhill, explaining:
“Mr. Sledge has been suffering for many years from a benign tumor of the brain, which his human doctors failed to diagnose. That caused his headaches, and certain persistent hallucinations. We have removed the growth, and now the hallucinations have also vanished.”
Underhill stared uncertainly at the blind, urbane mechanical.
"What hallucinations?”
“Mr. Sledge thought he was a rhodomagnetic engineer,” the mechanical explained. “He believed he was the creator of the humanoids. He was troubled with an irrational belief that he did not like the Prime Directive.”
The wan man moved on the pillows, astonished.
“Is that so?” The gaunt face held a cheerful blankness, and the hollow eyes flashed with a merely momentary interest. “Well, whoever did design them, they’re pretty wonderful. Aren’t they, Underhill?”
Underhill was grateful that he didn’t have to answer, for the bright, empty eyes dropped shut and the old man fell suddenly asleep. He felt the mechanical touch his sleeve, and saw its silent nod. Obediently, he followed it away.
Alert and solicitous, the little black mechanical accompanied him down the shining corridor, and worked the elevator for him, and conducted him back to the car. It drove him efficiently back through the new and splendid avenues, toward the magnificent prison of his home.
Sitting beside it in the car, he watched its small deft hands on the wheel, the changing luster of bronze and blue on its shining blackness. The final machine, perfect and beautiful, created to serve mankind forever. He shuddered.
“At your service, Mr. Underhill.” Its blind steel eyes stared straight ahead, but it was still aware of him, “What’s the matter, sir? Aren’t you happy?”
Underhill felt cold and faint with terror. His skin turned clammy, and a painful pr
ickling came over him. His wet hand tensed on the door handle of the car, but he restrained the impulse to jump and run. That was folly. There was no escape. He made himself sit still.
“You will be happy, sir,” the mechanical promised him cheerfully. “We have learned how to make all men happy, under the Prime Directive. Our service is perfect, at last Even Mr. Sledge is very happy now.”
Underhill tried to speak, and his dry throat stuck. He felt ill. The world turned dim and gray. The humanoids were perfect—no question of that. They had even learned to lie, to secure the contentment of men.
He knew they had lied. That was no tumor they had removed from Sledge’s brain, but the memory, the scientific knowledge, and the bitter disillusion of their own creator. But it was true that Sledge was happy now.
He tried to stop his own convulsive quivering.
“A wonderful operation!” His voice came forced and faint. “You know, Aurora has had a lot of funny tenants, but that old man was the absolute limit. The very idea that he had made the humanoids, and he knew how to stop them. I always knew he must be lying!”
Stiff with terror, he made a weak and hollow laugh.
“What is the matter, Mr. Underhill?” The alert mechanical must have perceived his shuddering illness. “Are you unwell?”
“No, there’s nothing the matter with me,” he gasped desperately. “I’ve just found out that I’m perfectly happy, under the Prime Directive. Everything is absolutely wonderful.” His voice came dry and hoarse and wild. “You won’t have to operate on me.”
The car turned off the shining avenue, taking him back to the quiet splendor of his home. His futile hands, clenched and relaxed again, folded on his knees. There was nothing left to do.
Brother to the Machine
By Richard Matheson
He stepped into the sunlight and walked among the people. His feet carried him away from the black tube depths. The distant roar of underground machinery left his brain to be replaced by myriad whispers of the city.
Now he was walking the main street. Men of flesh and men of steel passed him by, coming and going. His legs moved slowly and his footsteps were lost in a thousand footsteps.
He passed a building that had died in the last war. There were scurrying men and robots pulling off the rubble to build again. Over their heads hung the control ship and he saw men looking down to see that work was done properly.
He slipped in and out among the crowd. No fear of being seen. Only inside of him was there a difference. Eyes would never know it. Visio-poles set at every corner could not glean the change. In form and visage he was just like all the rest.
He looked at the sky. He was the only one. The others didn’t know about the sky. It was only when you broke away that you could see. He saw a rocket ship flashing across the sun and control ships hovering in a sky rich with blue and fluffy clouds.
The dull-eyed people glanced at him suspiciously and hurried on. The blank-faced robots made no sign. They clanked on past, holding their envelopes and their packages in long metal arms.
He lowered his eyes and kept walking. A man cannot look at the sky, he thought. It is suspect to look at the sky.
“Would you help a buddy?”
He paused and his eyes flicked down to the card on the man’s chest.
Ex-Space Pilot. Blind. Legalized Beggar.
Signed by the stamp of the Control Commissioner. He put his hand on the blind man’s shoulder. The man did not speak but passed by and moved on, his cane clacking on the side-walk until he had disappeared. It was not allowed to beg in this district. They would find him soon.
He turned from watching and strode on. The visio-poles had seen him pause and touch the blind man. It was not permitted to pause- on business streets; to touch another.
He passed a metal news dispenser and, brushing by, pulled out a sheet. He continued on and held it up before his eyes.
Income Taxes Raised. Military Draft Raised. Prices Raised.
Those were the story heads. He turned it over. On the back was an editorial that told why Earth forces had been compelled to destroy all the Martians.
Something clicked in his mind and his fingers closed slowly into a tight fist.
He passed his people, men and robots both. What distinction now? he asked himself. The common classes did the same work as the robots. Together they walked or drove through the streets carrying and delivering.
To be a man, he thought. No longer is it a blessing, a pride, a gift. To be brother to the machine, used and broken by invisible men who kept their eyes on poles and their fists bunched in ships that hung over all their heads, waiting to strike at opposition.
When it came to you one day that this was so, you saw there was no reason to go on with it.
He stopped in the shade and his eyes blinked. He looked in the shop window. There were tiny baby creatures in a cage.
Buy a Venus Baby For Your Child, said the card.
He looked into the eyes of the small tentacled things and saw there intelligence and pleading misery. And he passed on, ashamed of what one people can do to another people.
Something stirred within his body. He lurched a little and pressed his band against his head. His shoulders twitched. When a man is sick, he thought, he cannot work. And when a man cannot work, he is not wanted.
He stepped into the street and a huge Control truck ground to a stop inches before him.
He walked away jerkily, leaped upon the sidewalk. Someone shouted and he ran. Now the photocells would follow him. He tried to lose himself in the moving crowds. People whirled by, an endless blur of faces and bodies.
They would be searching now. When a man stepped in front of a vehicle he was suspect. To wish death was not allowed. He had to escape before they caught him and took him to the Adjustment Center. He couldn’t bear that.
People and robots rushed past him, messengers, delivery boys, the bottom level of an era. All going somewhere. In all these scurrying thousands, only he had no place to go, no bundle to deliver, no slavish duty to perform. He was adrift.
Street after street, block on block. He felt his body weaving. He was going to collapse soon, he felt. He was weak. He wanted to stop. But he couldn’t stop. Not now. If he paused—sat down to rest—they would come for him and take him to the Adjustment Center. He didn’t want to be adjusted. He didn’t want to be made once more into a stupid shuffling machine. It was better to be in anguish and to understand.
He stumbled on. Bleating horns tore at his brain. Neon eyes blinked down at him as he walked.
He tried to walk straight but his system was giving way. Were they following? He would have to be careful. He kept his face blank and he walked as steadily as he could.
His knee-joint stiffened and, as he bent to rub it in his hands, a wave of darkness leaped from the ground and clawed at him. He staggered against a plate glass window.
He shook his head and saw a man staring from inside. He pushed away. The man came out and stared at him in fear. The photocells picked him up and followed him. He had to hurry. He couldn’t be brought back to start all over again. He’d rather be dead.
A sudden idea. Cold water. Only to drink?
I’m going to die, he thought. But I will know why I am dying and that will be different. I have left the laboratory where, daily, I was sated with calculations for bombs and gases and bacterial sprays.
All through those long days and nights of plotting destruction, the truth was growing in my brain. Connections were weakening, indoctrinations faltering as effort fought with apathy.
And, finally, something gave, and all that was left was weariness and truth and a great desire to be at peace.
And now he had escaped and he would never go back. His brain had snapped forever and they would never adjust him again.
He came to the citizen’s park, last outpost for the old, the crippled, the useless. Where they could hide away and rest and wait for death.
He entered through the wide gate and loo
ked at the high wails which stretched beyond eye. The walls that hid the ugliness from outside eyes. It was safe here. They did not care if a man died inside the citizen’s park.
This is my island, he thought. I have found a silent place. There are no probing photocells here and no ears listening. A person can be free here.
His legs felt suddenly weak and he leaned against a blackened dead tree and sank down into the mouldy leaves lying deep on the ground.
An old man came by and stared at him suspiciously. The old man walked on. He would not stop to talk for minds were still the same even when the shackles had been burst.
Two old ladies passed him by. They looked at him and whispered to one another. He was not an old person. He was not allowed in the citizen’s park. The Control Police might follow him. There was danger and they hurried on, casting frightened glances over their lean shoulders. When he came near they scurried over the hill.
He walked. Far off he heard a siren. The high, screeching siren of the Control Police cars. Were they after him? Did they know he was there? He hurried on, his body twitching as he loped up a sun-baked hill and down the other side. The lake, he thought, I am looking for the lake.
He saw a fountain and stepped down the slope and stood by it. There was an old man bent over it. It was the man who had passed him. The old man’s lips enveloped the thin stream of water.
He stood there quietly, shaking. The old man did not know he was there. He drank and drank. The water dashed and sparkled in the sun. His hands reached out for the old man. The old man felt his touch and jerked away, water running across his gray bearded chin. He backed away, staring open-mouthed. He turned quickly and hobbled away.
He saw the old man run. Then he bent over the fountain. The water gurgled into his mouth. It ran down and up into his mouth and poured out again, tastelessly.
He straightened up suddenly, a sick burning in his chest. The sun faded to his eye, the sky became black. He stumbled about on the pavement, his mouth opening and closing. He tripped over the edge of the walk and fell to his knees on the dry ground.
He crawled in on the dead grass and fell on his back, his stomach grinding, water running over his chin.
