Selected Stories of Alfred Bester

by Alfred Bester

  “Dead three—four hours at least.”

  “Her mouth is dry.”

  “She wasn’t drowned. Beaten to death.”

  In the dark evening heat the men swore softly. They picked up the body. One stopped the others and pointed to the child’s fingernails. She had fought her murderer. Under the nails were particles of flesh and bright drops of scarlet red, still liquid, still uncoagulated.

  “That blood ought to be clotted too.”

  “Funny.”

  “Not so funny. What kind of blood don’t clot?”

  “Android.”

  “Looks like she was killed by one.”

  “Vandaleur owns an android.”

  “She couldn’t be killed by an android.”

  “That’s android blood under her nails.”

  “The police better check.”

  “The police’ll prove I’m right.”

  “But androids can’t kill.”

  “That’s android blood, ain’t it?”

  “Androids can’t kill. They’re made that way.”

  “Looks like one android was made wrong.”

  “Jesus!”

  And the thermometer that day registered 92.9° gloriously Fahrenheit.

  So there we were aboard the Paragon Queen en route for Megastar V, James Vandaleur and his android. James Vandaleur counted his money and wept. In the second-class cabin with him was his android, a magnificent synthetic creature with classic features and wide blue eyes. Raised on its forehead in a cameo of flesh were the letters MA, indicating that this was one of the rare multiple-aptitude androids, worth $57,000 on the current exchange. There we were, weeping and counting and calmly watching.

  “Twelve, fourteen, sixteen. Sixteen hundred dollars.” Vandaleur wept; “That’s all. Sixteen hundred dollars. My house was worth ten thousand. The land was worth five. There was furniture, cars, my paintings, etchings, my plane, my— And nothing to show for everything but sixteen hundred dollars”

  I leaped up from the table and turned on the android. 1 pulled a strap from one of the leather bags and beat the android. It didn’t move.

  “I must remind you,” the android said, “that I am worth fifty-seven thousand dollars on the current exchange. I must warn you that you are endangering valuable property.”

  “You damned crazy machine,” Vandaleur shouted.

  “I am not a machine,” the android answered. “The robot is a machine. The android is a chemical creation of synthetic tissue.”

  “What got into you?” Vandaleur cried. “Why did you do it? Damn you!” He beat the android savagely.

  “I must remind you that I cannot be punished,” it said. “The pleasure pain syndrome is not incorporated in the android synthesis.”

  “Then why did you kill her?” Vandaleur shouted. “If it wasn’t for kicks, why did you—”

  “I must remind you,” the android said, “that the second-class cabins in these ships are not soundproofed.”

  Vandaleur dropped the strap and stood panting, staring at the creature he owned.

  “Why did you do it? Why did you kill her?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” I answered.

  “First it was malicious mischief. Small things. Petty destruction: I should have known there was something wrong with you then. Androids can’t destroy. They can’t harm. They—”

  “There is no pleasure-pain syndrome incorporated in the android synthesis.”

  “Then it got to arson. Then serious destruction. Then assault... that engineer on Rigel. Each time worse. Each time we had to get out faster. Now it’s murder. Christ! What’s the matter with you? What’s happened?”

  “There are no self-check relays incorporated in the android brain.”

  “Each time we had to get out it was a step downhill. Look at me. In a second-class cabin. Me. James Paleologue Vandaleur. There was a time when my father was the wealthiest— Now, sixteen hundred dollars in the world. That’s all I’ve got. And you. Christ damn you!”

  Vandaleur raised the strap to beat the android again, then dropped it and collapsed on a berth, sobbing. At last he pulled himself together.

  “Instructions,” he said.

  The multiple-aptitude android responded at once. It arose and awaited orders. “My name is now Valentine. James Valentine. I stopped off on Paragon Three for only one day to transfer to this ship for Megastar Five. My occupation: Agent for one privately owned MA android which is for hire. Purpose of visit: To settle on Megastar Five. Fix the papers.”

  The android removed Vandaleur’s passport and papers from a bag, got pen and ink and sat down at the table. With an accurate, flawless hand—an accomplished hand that could draw, write, paint, carve, engrave, etch, photograph, design, create and build—it meticulously forged new credentials for Vandaleur. Its owner watched me miserable.

  “Create and build,” I muttered. “And now destroy. Oh, God! What am I going to do? Christ! If I could only get rid of you. If I didn’t have to live off you. God! If only I’d inherited some guts instead of you.”

  Dallas Brady was Megastar’s leading jewelry designer. She was short, stocky, amoral and a nymphomaniac. She hired Valentine’s multiple-aptitude android and put me to work in her shop. She seduced Valentine. In her bed one night, she asked abruptly: “Your name’s Vandaleur, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I murmured. Then: “No! No! It’s Valentine. James Valentine.”

  “What happened on Paragon?’ Dallas Brady asked. “I thought androids couldn’t kill or destroy property. Prime Directives and Inhibitions set up for them when they’re synthesized. Every company guarantees they can’t.”

  “Valentine!” Vandaleur insisted.

  “Oh, come off it,” Dallas Brady said. “I’ve known for a week. I haven’t hollered copper, have I?”

  “The name is Valentine.”

  “You want to prove it? You want I should call the police?” Dallas reached out-and picked up the phone. “For God’s sake, Dallas!” Vandaleur leaped up and struggled to take the phone from her. She fended him off, laughing at him, until he collapsed and wept in shame and helplessness.

  “How did you find out?” he asked at last.

  “The papers are full of it. And Valentine was a little too close to Vandaleur. That wasn’t smart, was it?”

  “I guess not. I’m not very smart.”

  “Your android’s got quite a record, hasn’t it? Assault. Arson. Destruction. What happened on Paragon?”

  “It kidnapped a child. Took her out into the rice fields and murdered her.”

  “Raped her?’

  “I don’t know.”

  “They’re going to catch up with you.”

  “Don’t I know it? Christ! We’ve been running for two years now. Seven planets in two years. I must have abandoned a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of property in two years.”

  “You better find out what’s wrong with it.”

  “How can I? Can I walk into a repair clinic and ask for an overhaul? What am I going to say? ‘My android’s just turned killer. Fix it.’ They’d call the police right off.” I began to shake. “They’d have that android dismantled inside one day. I’d probably be booked as an accessory to murder.”

  “Why didn’t you have it repaired before it got to murder?”

  “I couldn’t take the chance,” Vandaleur explained angrily. “if they started fooling around with lobotomies and body chemistry and endocrine surgery, they might have destroyed its aptitudes. What would I have left to hire out? How would I live?”

  “You could work yourself. People do.”

  “Work at what? You know I’m good for nothing. How could I compete with specialist androids and robots? Who can, unless he’s got a terrific talent for a particular job?”

  “Yeah. That’s true.” “I lived off my old man all my life. Damn him! He had to go bust just before he died. Left me the android and that’s all. The only way I can get along is living off what it earns.”

  “You bett
er sell it before the cops catch up with you. You can live off fifty grand. Invest it.”

  “At three percent? Fifteen hundred a year? When the android returns fifteen percent of its value? Eight thousand a year. That’s what it earns. No, Dallas. I’ve got to go along with it.”

  “What are you going to do about its violence kick?”

  “I can’t do anything... except watch it and pray. What are you going to do about it?”

  “Nothing. It’s none of my business. Only one thing... I ought to get something for keeping my mouth shut.”

  “What?”

  “The android works for me for free. Let somebody else pay you, but I get it for free.”

  The multiple-aptitude android worked. Vandaleur collected its fees. His expenses were taken care of. His savings began to mount. As the warm spring of Megaster V turned to hot summer, I began investigating farms and properties. It would be possible, within a year or two, for us to settle down permanently, provided Dallas Brady’s demands did not become rapacious.

  On the first hot day of summer, the android began singing in Dallas Brady’s workshop. It hovered over the electric furnace which, along with the weather, was broiling the shop, and sang an ancient tune that had been popular half a century before.

  Oh, it’s no feat to beat the heat.

  All reet! All reet!

  So jeet your seat

  Be fleet be fleet

  Cool and discreet

  Honey...

  It sang in a strange, halting voice, and its accomplished fingers were clasped behind its back, writhing in a strange rumba all their own. Dallas Brady was surprised.

  “You happy or something?” she asked.

  “I must remind you that the pleasure-pain syndrome is not incorporated in the android synthesis,” I answered. “All reet! All rent! Be fleet be fleet, cool and discreet, honey…”

  Its fingers stopped their twisting and picked up a pair of iron tongs. The android poked them into the glowing heart of the furnace, leaning far forward to peer into the lovely heat.

  “Be careful, you damned fool!” Dallas Brady exclaimed. “You want to fall in?”

  “I must remind you that I am worth fifty-seven thousand dollars on the current exchange,” I said. “It is forbidden to endanger valuable property. All reet! All reet! Honey…”

  It withdrew a crucible of glowing gold from the electric furnace, turned, capered hideously, sang crazily, and splashed a sluggish gobbet of molten gold over Dallas Brady’s head. She screamed and collapsed, her hair and clothes flaming, her skin crackling. The android poured again while it capered and sang.

  “Be fleet be fleet, cool and discreet, honey…” It sang and slowly poured and poured the molten, gold until the writhing body was still. Then I left the workshop and rejoined James Vandaleur in his hotel suite. The android’s charred clothes and squirming fingers warned its owner that something was very much wrong.

  Vandaleur rushed to Dallas Brady’s workshop, stared once, vomited and fled. I had enough time to pack one bag and raise nine hundred dollars on portable assets. He took a third-class cabin on the Megastar Queen, which left that morning for Lyre Alpha. He took me with him. He wept and counted his money and I beat the android again.

  And the thermometer in Dallas Brady’s workshop registered 98.1° beautifully Fahrenheit.

  On Lyra Alpha we holed up in a small hotel near the university. There, Vandaleur carefully bruised my forehead until the letters MA were obliterated by the swelling and the discoloration. The letters would reappear again, but not for several months, and in the meantime Vandaleur hoped that the hue and cry for an MA android would be forgotten. The android was hired out as a common laborer in the university power plant. Vandaleur, as James Venice, eked out life on the android’s small earnings.

  I wasn’t too unhappy. Most of the other residents in the hotel were university students, equally hard up, but delightfully young and enthusiastic. There was one charming girl with sharp eyes and a quick mind. Her name was Wanda, and she and her beau, Jed Stark, took a tremendous interest in the killing android which was being mentioned in every paper in the galaxy.

  “We’ve been studying the case,” she and Jed said at one of the casual student parties which happened to be held this night in Vandaleur’s room. “We think we know what’s causing it. We’re going to do a paper.” They were in a high state of excitement.

  “Causing what?” somebody wanted to know.

  “The android rampage.”

  “Obviously out of adjustment, isn’t it? Body chemistry gone haywire. Maybe a kind of synthetic cancer, yes?”

  “No.” Wanda gave Jed a look of suppressed triumph.

  “Well, what is it?”

  “Something specific.”

  “What?”

  “That would be telling.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “Nothing doing.”

  “Won’t you tell us?” I asked intently. “I... we’re very much interested in what could go wrong with an android.”

  “No, Mr. Venice,” Wanda said. “It’s a unique idea and we’ve got to protect it. One thesis like this and we’ll be set up for life. We can’t take the chance of somebody stealing it.”

  “Can’t you give us a hint?”

  “No. Not a hint. Don’t say a word, Jed. But I’ll tell you this much, Mr. Venice. I’d hate to be the man who owns that android.”

  “You mean the police?” I asked.

  “I mean projection, Mr. Venice. Psychotic projection! That’s the danger... and I won’t say any more. I’ve said too much as is.”

  I heard steps outside, and a hoarse voice singing softly: “Be fleet be fleet, cool and discreet, honey. . . .” My android entered the room, home from its tour of duty at the university power plant. It was not introduced. I motioned to it and I immediately responded to the command and went to the beer keg and took over Vandaleur’s job of serving the guests. Its accomplished fingers writhed in a private rumba of their own. Gradually they stopped their squirming, and the strange humming ended.

  Androids were not unusual at the university. The wealthier students owned them along with cars and planes. Vandaleur’s android provoked no comment, but young Wanda was sharp-eyed and quick-witted. She noted my bruised forehead and she was intent on the history-making, thesis she and Jed Stark were going to write. After the party broke up, she consulted with Jed walking upstairs to her room.

  “Jed, why’d that android have a bruised forehead?’

  “Probably hurt itself, Wanda. It’s working in the power plant. They fling a lot of heavy stuff around.”

  “That all?”

  “What else?”

  “It could be a convenient bruise.”

  “Convenient for what?”

  “Hiding what’s stamped on its forehead.”

  “No point to that, Wanda. You don’t have to see marks on a forehead to recognize an android. You don’t have to see a trademark on a car to know it’s a car.”

  “I don’t mean it’s trying to pass as a human. I mean it’s trying to pass as a lower-grade android.”

  “Why?”

  “Suppose it had MA on its forehead.”

  “Multiple aptitude? Then why in hell would Venice waste it stoking furnaces if it could earn more— Oh. Oh! You mean it’s—?’

  Wanda nodded.

  “Jesus!” Stark pursued his lips. “What do we do? Call the police?”

  “No. We don’t know if it’s an MA for a fact. If it turns out to be an MA and the killing android, our paper comes first anyway. This is our big chance, Jed. If it’s that android we can run a series of controlled tests and—”

  “How do we find out for sure?”

  “Easy. Infrared film. That’ll show what’s under the bruise. Borrow a camera. We’ll sneak down to the power.plant tomorrow afternoon and take some pictures. Then we’ll know.”

  They stole down into the university power plant the following afternoon. It was a vast cellar, deep under the earth
. It was dark, shadowy, luminous with burning light from the furnace doors. Above the mar of the fires they could hear a strange voice shouting and chanting in the echoing vault: “All rent! All rent! So jeet your seat. Be fleet be fleet, cool and discreet, honey…” And they could see a capering figure dancing a lunatic rumba in time to the music it shouted. The legs twisted. The arms waved. The fingers writhed.

  Jed Stark raised the camera and began shooting his spool of infrared film, aiming the camera sights at that bobbing head.

  Then Wanda shrieked, for I saw them and came charging down on them, brandishing a polished steel shovel. It smashed the camera. It felled the girl and then the boy. Jed fought me for a desperate hissing moment before he was bludgeoned into helplessness. Then the android dragged them to the furnace and fed them to the flames, slowly, hideously. It capered and sang. Then it returned to my hotel.

  The thermometer in the power plant registered 100.9° murderously Fahrenheit. All reet! All reet!

  We bought steerage on the Lyra Queen and Vandaleur and the android did odd jobs for their meals. During the night watches, Vandaleur would sit alone in the steerage head with a cardboard portfolio on his lap, puzzling over its contents. That portfolio was all he had managed to bring with him from Lyra Alpha. He had stolen it from Wanda’s room. It was labeled ANDROID. It contained the secret of my sickness.

  And it contained nothing but newspapers. Scores of newspapers from all over the galaxy, printed, microfilmed, en graved, etched, offset, photostated... Rigel Star-Banner... Paragon Picayune… Megastar Times-Leader... Lalande Herald... Lacaille Journal... Indi Intelligencer... Eridani Telegram-News. All reet! All reet!

  Nothing but newspapers. Each paper contained an account of one crime in the android’s ghastly career. Each paper also contained news, domestic and foreign, sports, society, weather, shipping news, stock exchange quotations, human-interest stories, features, contests, puzzles. Somewhere in that mass of uncollated facts was the secret Wanda and Jed Stark had discovered. Vandaleur pored over the papers helplessly. It was beyond him. So jeet your seat!