IT WAS THE DAY OF THE ROBOT

by Frank Belknap Long

  A line from a half-forgotten poet flashed through my mind: Man begins by loving love and ends by loving a woman, but a woman begins by loving a man and ends by loving love.

  I told myself angrily that such a thought at such a moment was absurd, and I forced myself to counter-balance it by repeating to myself another line: Love is a conflict between reflexes and reflections.

  I could feel her trembling as I tightened my hold on her waist. “Up we go!” I whispered.

  She wasn’t very heavy. It’s curious how, when you get started on quotations, you can’t easily stop. Another line came to me, urging me to make haste. Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff that life is made of.

  She wasn’t heavy, but lifting her to the edge of the platform nearly wrenched my arms from their sockets. The platform was three feet above my head, even when I stood on tiptoe, and Claire let me do all of the hoisting.

  I lifted her over the edge and waited until she started crawling away from me on her hands and knees. Then I climbed up beside her and helped her to her feet.

  We went up the crumbling stone steps into the sunlight.

  For how many generations had the abandoned subway en­trances loomed as symbols of escape to a freedom debased and turned into a cruel mockery by a jungle savagery beyond Society’s control? Tradition had left them standing for a purpose, surely, for each one led to the same central wasteland of crumbling stone and steel.

  When you enter the ruins, with no intention of turning back, resolute of mind and will, the first half hour is the worst. You’re without firm anchorage of any sort. You know that eventually you’ll find a place to live, you’ll make friends. But until you do, your life hangs by a thread.

  No man or woman can go it alone in the ruins. You’ve got to take root fast. You’ve got to send sturdy roots deep into the strange new soil before a bullet crashes into your spine, or a knife buries itself between your shoulder blades.

  I tightened my hold on Claire’s hand and we moved along the ancient streets in complete silence. We walked past rubble-choked intersections which had once pulsed with light and traffic. The buildings were dark with age, their walls rusted and overgrown with climbing vines. The doors swung idly on their hinges, and there were ominous, blood-hued shadows and sagging signs everywhere.

  Bakery. Tilson’s Gas Station. Cut Rate Drugs.

  So far not even a shadow had crossed out path.

  Were the ruins deserted? I’d heard of ruins abandoned in superstitious fear, ruins where women — made desperate by loneliness — had refused to be fought over. They’d done their own choosing, picking one man and killing four, laughing as they discouraged all further pursuit.

  Outcast girls were often crack marksmen. I pictured myself crushing such a woman in my arms, a man of her own choosing, crushing her and holding her while I watched the fury and contempt in her eyes turn to an unfamiliar warmth which startled her, and widened her eyes, and brought her lips tight against mine.

  There were depths in human psychology I could never hope to fathom.

  I saw a door standing half-open, and on impulse kicked it wide. With my arm about Claire’s waist, I pushed forward into the sha­dows.

  The music was a wild, frenzied burst of sound. It came from a towering, rainbow-colored shape of metal and glass which stood against a crumbling wall spattered over with dark stains.

  There were several tables standing about, and at one of them sat a girl with jet-black hair, and wide, startled eyes. She was staring straight at me in the gloom.

  Quickly my eyes passed over her, lingering on the one-piece, silvery-textured suit, and the bared right leg with the small stocking knife held well in place. There was mud on her ankles, and her shoes were worn down from running on pavements and crumbling stone and gravel like a hunted creature of the night.

  “Come in, and shut the door!” she pleaded.

  The door seemed to come loose in my hands. It closed with a frightful rasp, and a chink of light came through from outside, spilling across the floor and pointing directly at me like an accusing finger.

  I said automatically, “Were you waiting for someone?”

  Her eyes bored into mine in a level, challenging stare. “For you.”

  I recognized her then. She had gone out of my life fast, and returned fast. Only, this time, there was no punched metaltape gleaming on her palm, no Security Guard watching us from the shadows.

  Poetry again, a crazy line flashing through my mind. Her young breasts brightening into sighs. The fantasy I’d succumbed to in the vault had come true; I could only stare, moisten my lips, and wonder if I had gone quite mad.

  I looked at Claire, standing straight and still at my side. She was staring at the outcast girl with friendly interest, as a child might stare at a performing bear in a carnival of animals.

  How close can a man feel to two women at the same time? If you hold one in your arms, and she’s tender and yielding, and her lips are fire, can you look over your shoulder at another woman with a childlike stare who speaks in monosyllables, and whisper, “You’ll never know how much you mean to me, my darling!”

  In some ways Claire was closer to me than the girl at the table. I had held her in my arms too; I knew her name — and how could I fail to be stirred by her trust and utter dependency?

  Don’t be a fool, a voice whispered deep in my mind. You’re drawn to both women. It’s as natural as breathing for a man to be drawn to two women — a dozen. It can happen at any time.

  Surprisingly, Claire’s hand had crept into mine. Her fingers tightened and relaxed, then tightened again.

  I tried to keep my voice calm. “How did you know I was coming here? You couldn’t have followed me when I left the vault. I had my own beetle, and I drove fast.”

  “And looked behind to make sure?” she inquired, mockingly.

  She laughed at my sudden alarm.

  The police raid had puzzled me. Emotional illusion therapy shops are seldom raided before noon. Treatments do not, as a rule, take place in the early hours of the morning, and what herdsman would send beaters across an entire mountainside to capture one goat?

  Had she actually followed me from the Giant Computer vault to the therapy shop, and notified the police? The thought seemed incredible; I rejected it, even before she said, “When I left the vault I knew we’d meet again. Your need was as desperate as mine.”

  Her eyes brightened with a sudden, wild yearning, with a hint of voluptuousness startling in its candor.

  “Your need was as desperate as mine, and I knew we’d meet in the ruins. I knew you’d come in search of me, with the memory of my lips burning yours. I knew it would be only a matter of hours until you found me.”

  Suddenly, she seemed to see Claire for the first time, to realize the significance of Claire. Her eyes narrowed, and her voice became less assured. “You did not come alone,” she said. “Where did you find this girl? Who is she?”

  “Her name is Claire,” I said. “I did not meet her here, and I did not come here in search of you.”

  Her eyes widened in swift amazement, then narrowed again, fastening on Claire in angry disbelief. She half rose from the table, the quickness of her breathing revealing how deeply she had been hurt.

  To appease her I said quickly, “We had some trouble with the police. I could have identified myself and straightened it out, but Claire needed my help desperately. They could have held her on a technical charge, just out of spite. A minor infraction, of no importance, but you know how the police can be when they’re envious of another man’s interest in a beautiful woman.”

  “You’re interested in her, are you?”

  “I’ve known Claire for a long time,” I lied. “She’s younger than you’d suspect — just turned eighteen. You ought to realize it’s natural enough for a man my age to take a fatherly interest in a second cousin as young and inexperienced as Claire. There’s nothing seri­ous between us, if that’s what you’ve been thinking.”


  “That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking,” the girl from the vault said.

  For a moment I was afraid that her anger would continue to mount. But after what must have been for her a bad moment, she resumed her original position at the table, making no effort to conceal the shapely grace of her bared right knee.

  “That was cattish of me,” she said. “Why shouldn’t I believe you? You are not the kind of man who would allow himself to be trapped in a lie — even to a woman so foolishly and recklessly emotional that she would hold you quite blameless.”

  She cast down her eyes suddenly, allowing her fingers to stray for an instant to the securely sheathed stocking knife.

  “It is easy enough to say that jealousy is for children. It is easy enough to say that a man or a woman in love should be completely an adult. But we know better — you and I. You have been to Venus Base, and I have been denied a woman’s right to happiness.”

  She raised her eyes and looked directly at Claire, her lips cur­ving in a smile. “Hello, Claire!” she said. “I’m Agnes.”

  Claire sat down quietly and folded her hands in her lap. She looked at me, as if to make sure I did not disapprove.

  “Tell me about yourself, Claire,” Agnes urged. “Just how did you get in trouble with the police?”

  I started to intervene, but was stopped by a sudden change in Agnes’s expression. Her eyes had widened in alarm; she was lean­ing sharply forward, gripping the table with both hands.

  CHAPTER 6

  I swung around. Three men had entered the tavern and seated themselves at tables near the door. They were surly looking ruffians of muscle and bone, and they sat watching us with a stillness that was ominous.

  The one nearest to me was big — really big. I could see at a glance that he had been in a good many fights, and that each fight had left its mark on him. His nose was badly battered, crooked and flattened at the tip. His ears were misshapen, mere fleshly lobes flattened grotesquely, so that they spread out over his cheeks like crushed cauliflowers. His right cheek was further defaced by a livid scar, and there was something about the scar which made me see him in another situation — facing three or four men trying with insane rage to cripple him for life.

  It was a mind’s-eye vision, but it was so vivid I could see the flash of the knife as it grazed his cheek; I could see him backing away without a sound, a faint smile of contempt curling his lips.

  He certainly wasn’t a very handsome-looking baby, but all of my instincts warned me that what he lacked in looks he could make up for in other ways.

  He was staring at Claire. Not at Agnes, but at Claire, with a curious intent look, his eyebrows arched as if in amazement.

  His attitude did not surprise me. Girls like Claire were not often seen in the ruins. In the ruins, striking beauty really stood out. Put a flaming orchid in a rock garden overgrown with weeds, and that one solitary bloom will create a world of its own, so dazzling that the wrong kind of man will kill to posses it.

  It didn’t take Ugly Face long to recover from his surprise. When I saw his eyes leave Claire’s face and pass down over her, I had a pretty good idea how long it would take him to whip out a knife.

  *****

  What I did was the logical outgrowth of what I was — a telepath, a man who could read the mind of an adversary in a moment of deadly danger.

  There was one table between us. The instant he started to rise I leapt toward it, gripped it firmly and raised it high. The speed with which I moved seemed to cast a spell upon him. He froze facing me, his hand arrested half way to his hip.

  Before the spell could snap I hurled the table straight at him.

  This is Ugly Face, and you’ve hit him with a table smack on the chest! Try it sometime. Shudder to the impact of solid wood crack­ing against muscle and bone. It will make you want to cry out with the torturing uncertainty of it. Something will tighten inside you, you’ll have a wild impulse to follow up the assault with flailing fists, a bellow of rage.

  But if you’re wise, you won’t move in too quickly.

  The table spun Ugly Face around, sent him staggering back against the wall. First one knee gave way, then the other. He went down in a lopsided kind of sprawl, and that was the moment I picked to hurl myself upon him.

  He let out a yell, and drew a knife from his hip with a swiftness which said the play had been rehearsed and put into actual practice a thousand times, with a trip-hammer efficiency. But it couldn’t have been too perfect a play, for the instant I planted a blow right under his chin his neck stretched out a foot and the knife went clattering.

  To make sure he’d had enough, I knelt beside him, raised up his head, and asked him pointblank. He didn’t answer me, and I saw that there was no recognition at all in his eyes. I decided that it would be safe to let him sag back, and go to sleep.

  *****

  The instant I arose, the tallest of Ugly Face’s two friends was right over me with a drawn gun. I’ll say this for Number Two. Despite the massiveness of his shoulders, and his ill-proportioned wrestler’s look, he had a refined face.

  Mild, almost baby-blue eyes he had, and a mouth that was smiling almost gently at me as he took careful aim.

  “I saw what you did to my friend,” he said. “I can’t let that happen to me, can I?”

  He might have added, “It’s a nice evening for dying, isn’t it?” but I moved quickly to forestall him. I jack-knifed upward, and caught him in the stomach with one sharply bent elbow, and the top of my skull.

  He went down like a segmented plastic dummy, dropped from a cut wire in a garment display case. His knees folded, and he toppled forward and then back, as I lashed at his jaw with a sharp right, and delivered a left-handed blow to his solar plexus that almost broke my wrist.

  He flattened out at my feet.

  Number Three was still seated. I looked up quickly and saw that he was watching me, his expression strangely impassive. He was sturdily built, but far less formidable-looking than Ugly Face; I wasn’t too worried about what might happen if he came at me with a knife.

  I need not have worried at all. He either saw the gun lying at my feet, and decided to play safe — or he just had not stomach for a stand-up, drag-out fight. But whatever he decided or thought, his behavior was incredible. He simply rose quietly from the able, nodded to me, and walked out of the tavern without a backward glance.

  I swung around to face the two women. Agnes had leapt to her feet, and was staring at me with shining eyes. I looked at Claire, and was amazed to discover that her eyes were more puzzled than alarmed. There was no warmth in them; if she was relieved to see the two ruffians lying limp and unmoving on the floor, she gave no sign.

  I felt suddenly closer to Agnes. She, at least, could share my alarm; I could reach her more quickly with an appeal based on simple common sense.

  “We’ve got to find a safer place to stay,” I said. “This was an ancient entertainment center. It still is — to men who think of women in only one frame of reference. You must have known that when you came here.”

  She nodded, her eyes searching my face. “Yes, I did. Does it disturb you so much?”

  “Why do you ask me a question like that?” I flared. “If one of those brutes had started to paw you —”

  A mocking look came into her eyes. “There was no danger of that. They had eyes only for Claire. I suppose I should be insulted, but I happen to be a realist. If a man is primitive enough, a girl with Claire’s kind of beauty will drag him down very quickly to the level of a savage with a bow and arrow, mounted on a wild stallion.”

  The mockery in her eyes grew more pronounced. “A woman must come to a place like this if she doesn’t wish to be claimed too quickly. Few men would have the courage to come here alone, and for a woman there is safety in numbers. I knew you’d never find me if I hid myself away in an upstairs room in one of the safer places.”

  “We’ve got to find a safe place,” I said. “Immediately.”

  I
turned to Claire. “When we leave here, we’re going to walk very fast until we come to a place that looks safe,” I said. “Do you understand?”

  Agnes laughed. “You can tell, I suppose.”

  “It may sound crazy to you, but I can tell if a building isn’t safe. Do you want to come with us?”

  She looked at me steadily, the mockery gone from her eyes. “Just try and lose me.”

  Holding Claire’s hand firmly, I walked to the door and kicked it open. It rasped on rusty hinges; for an instant, I feared that it might collapse. But then, slowly, it swung shut behind us.

  I went out into the street again, with Agnes on my right, and Claire on my left, and no man ever had two more physically disturbing companions.

  Of one thing I was convinced. Agnes couldn’t know how I felt about Claire. Physically, Claire was the more perfect of the two; but there was that strange child-look in her eyes, the complete lack of adult understanding which chilled and disturbed me every time I glanced at her.

  Agnes, at least, would have understood my desperation. She would have understood why I had turned to an android for warmth and sympathy — if I had chosen to tell her.

  Did she suspect the truth already? I tried to read her expression for the answer as we moved along, hugging the dark, ancient buildings. But she hardly glanced at Claire, and her mind told me no­thing. That, too, puzzled me. I had never before met a woman whose mind I could not penetrate at all.

  Had she told me the truth about herself? Had she really come to the ruins in search of me? Was it that important to her?

  In spite of Claire, in spite of myself, Agnes’s intoxicating nearness overcame me for an instant, as it had in the vault. I had an impulse to stop, take her violently into my arms again, and tell her how glad I was that I had found her.

  The building was gray and towering, with at least twenty va­cantly staring windows and a great door. The feeling of security as we came abreast of it was strong in me, overpowering. I knew that it would be a safe sanctuary.

  The power was so strong in me that I knew instantly that it was a building of numerous empty rooms. I knew that the rooms were huge, and littered with rubbish.