Hugo Awards: The Short Stories (Volume 2)

by Anthology

  “Yes, Miss Emily."

  The hint of a smile crossed her ravaged face. “Now you know what pain is."

  “It is ... uncomfortable, Miss Emily."

  “You'll learn to live with it,” she said. She reached out and patted the robot's leg fondly. “If it's any comfort, I don't know if the medical specialists could have helped me even when I was young. They certainly can't help me now."

  “You are still young, Miss Emily."

  “Age is relative,” she said. “I am so close to the grave I can almost taste the dirt.” A metal hand appeared, and she held it in ten incredibly fragile fingers. “Don't feel sorry for me, Sammy. It hasn't been a life I'd wish on anyone else. I won't be sorry to see it end."

  “I am a robot,” replied Sammy. “I cannot feel sorrow."

  “You've no idea how fortunate you are."

  I shot the Baroni a triumphant smile that said: See? Even Sammy admits he can't feel any emotions.

  And he sent back a look that said: I didn't know until now that robots could lie, and I knew we still had a problem.

  The scene vanished.

  “How soon after that did she die?” I asked Sammy.

  “Seven months, eighteen days, three hours, and four minutes, sir,” was his answer.

  “She was very bitter,” noted the Baroni.

  “She was bitter because she was born, sir,” said Sammy. “Not because she was dying."

  “Did she lapse into a coma, or was she cogent up to the end?” I asked out of morbid curiosity.

  “She was in control of her senses until the moment she died,” answered Sammy. “But she could not see for the last eighty-three days of her life. I functioned as her eyes."

  “What did she need eyes for?” asked the Baroni. “She had a hoverchair, and it is a single-level house."

  “When you are a recluse, you spend your life with books, sir,” said Sammy, and I thought: The mechanical bastard is actually lecturing us!

  With no further warning, he projected a final scene for us.

  The woman, her eyes no longer blue, but clouded with cataracts and something else—disease, fungus, who knew?—lay on her bed, her breathing labored.

  From Sammy's point of view, we could see not only her, but, much closer, a book of poetry, and then we heard his voice: “Let me read something else, Miss Emily."

  “But that is the poem I wish to hear,” she whispered. “It is by Edna St. Vincent Millay, and she is my favorite."

  “But it is about death,” protested Sammy.

  “All life is about death,” she replied so softly I could barely hear her. “Surely you know that I am dying, Sammy?"

  “I know, Miss Emily,” said Sammy.

  “I find it comforting that my ugliness did not diminish the beauty around me, that it will remain after I am gone,” she said. “Please read."

  Sammy read: "There will be rose and rhododendron

  When you are dead and under ground;

  Still will be heard from white syringas..."

  Suddenly the robot's voice fell silent. For a moment I thought there was a flaw in the projection. Then I saw that Miss Emily had died.

  He stared at her for a long minute, which means that we did too, and then the scene evaporated.

  “I buried her beneath her favorite tree,” said Sammy. “But it is no longer there."

  “Nothing lasts forever, even trees,” said the Baroni. “And it's been five hundred years."

  “It does not matter. I know where she is."

  He walked us over to a barren spot about thirty yards from the ruin of a farmhouse. On the ground was a stone, and neatly carved into it was the following:

  * * * *

  Miss Emily

  2298-2331 G.E.

  There will be rose and rhododendron

  * * * *

  “That's lovely, Sammy,” said the Baroni.

  “It is what she requested."

  “What did you do after you buried her?” I asked.

  “I went to the barn."

  “For how long?"

  “With Miss Emily dead, I had no need to stay in the house. I remained in the barn for many years, until my battery power ran out."

  “Many years?” I repeated. “What the hell did you do there?"

  “Nothing."

  “You just stood there?"

  “I just stood there."

  “Doing nothing?"

  “That is correct.” He stared at me for a long moment, and I could have sworn he was studying me. Finally he spoke again. “I know that you intend to sell me."

  “We'll find you a family with another Miss Emily,” I said. If they're the highest bidder.

  “I do not wish to serve another family. I wish to remain here."

  “There's nothing here,” I said. “The whole planet's deserted."

  “I promised my Miss Emily that I would never leave her."

  “But she's dead now,” I pointed out.

  “She put no conditions on her request. I put no conditions on my promise."

  I looked from Sammy to the Baroni, and decided that this was going to take a couple of mechs—one to carry Sammy to the ship, and one to stop the Baroni from setting him free.

  “But if you will honor a single request, I will break my promise to her and come away with you."

  Suddenly I felt like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, and I hadn't heard the first one yet.

  “What do you want, Sammy?"

  “I told you I did nothing in the barn. That was true. I was incapable of doing what I wanted to do."

  “And what was that?"

  “I wanted to cry."

  I don't know what I was expecting, but that wasn't it.

  “Robots don't cry,” I said.

  “Robots can't cry,” replied Sammy. “There is a difference."

  “And that's what you want?"

  “It is what I have wanted ever since my Miss Emily died."

  “We rig you to cry, and you agree to come away with us?"

  “That is correct,” said Sammy.

  “Sammy,” I said, “you've got yourself a deal."

  I contacted the ship, told it to feed Mech Three everything the medical library had on tears and tear ducts, and then send it over. It arrived about ten minutes later, deactivated the robot, and started fussing and fiddling. After about two hours it announced that its work was done, that Sammy now had tear ducts and had been supplied with a solution that could produce six hundred authentic saltwater tears from each eye.

  I had Mech Three show me how to activate Sammy, and then sent it back to the ship.

  “Have you ever heard of a robot wanting to cry?” I asked the Baroni.

  “No."

  “Neither have I,” I said, vaguely disturbed.

  “He loved her."

  I didn't even argue this time. I was wondering which was worse, spending thirty years trying to be a normal human being and failing, or spending thirty years trying to cry and failing. None of the other stuff had gotten to me; Sammy was just doing what robots do. It was the thought of his trying so hard to do what robots couldn't do that suddenly made me feel sorry for him. That in turn made me very irritable; ordinarily I don't even feel sorry for Men, let alone machines.

  And what he wanted was such a simple thing compared to the grandiose ambitions of my own race. Once Men had wanted to cross the ocean; we crossed it. We'd wanted to fly; we flew. We wanted to reach the stars; we reached them. All Sammy wanted to do was cry over the loss of his Miss Emily. He'd waited half a millennium and had agreed to sell himself into bondage again, just for a few tears.

  It was a lousy trade.

  I reached out and activated him.

  “Is it done?” asked Sammy.

  “Right,” I said. “Go ahead and cry your eyes out."

  Sammy stared straight ahead. “I can't,” he said at last.

  “Think of Miss Emily,” I suggested. “Think of how much you miss her."

  “I feel pain,”
said Sammy. “But I cannot cry."

  “You're sure?"

  “I am sure,” said Sammy. “I was guilty of having thoughts and longings above my station. Miss Emily used to say that tears come from the heart and the soul. I am a robot. I have no heart and no soul, so I cannot cry, even with the tear ducts you have given me. I am sorry to have wasted your time. A more complex model would have understood its limitations at the outset.” He paused, and then turned to me. “I will go with you now."

  “Shut up,” I said.

  He immediately fell silent.

  “What is going on?” asked the Baroni.

  “You shut up too!” I snapped.

  I summoned Mechs Seven and Eight and had them dig Sammy a grave right next to his beloved Miss Emily. It suddenly occurred to me that I didn't even know her full name, that no one who chanced upon her headstone would ever know it. Then I decided that it didn't really matter.

  Finally they were done, and it was time to deactivate him.

  “I would have kept my word,” said Sammy.

  “I know,” I said.

  “I am glad you did not force me to."

  I walked him to the side of the grave. “This won't be like your battery running down,” I said. “This time it's forever."

  “She was not afraid to die,” said Sammy. “Why should I be?"

  I pulled the plug and had Mechs Seven and Eight lower him into the ground. They started filling in the dirt while I went back to the ship to do one last thing. When they were finished I had Mech Seven carry my handiwork back to Sammy's grave.

  “A tombstone for a robot?” asked the Baroni.

  “Why not?” I replied. “There are worse traits than honesty and loyalty.” I should know: I've stockpiled enough of them.

  “He truly moved you."

  Seeing the man you could have been will do that to you, even if he's all metal and silicone and prismatic eyes.

  “What does it say?” asked the Baroni as we finished planting the tombstone.

  I stood aside so he could read it:

  * * * *

  “Sammy"

  Australopithicus Robotus

  * * * *

  “That is very moving."

  “It's no big deal,” I said uncomfortably. “It's just a tombstone."

  “It is also inaccurate,” observed the Baroni.

  “He was a better man than I am."

  “He was not a man at all."

  “Fuck you."

  The Baroni doesn't know what it means, but he knows it's an insult, so he came right back at me like he always does. “You realize, of course, that you have buried our profit?"

  I wasn't in the mood for his notion of wit. “Find out what he was worth, and I'll pay you for your half,” I replied. “Complain about it again, and I'll knock your alien teeth down your alien throat."

  He stared at me. “I will never understand Men,” he said.

  * * * *

  All that happened twenty years ago. Of course the Baroni never asked for his half of the money, and I never offered it to him again. We're still partners. Inertia, I suppose.

  I still think about Sammy from time to time. Not as much as I used to, but every now and then.

  I know there are preachers and ministers who would say he was just a machine, and to think of him otherwise is blasphemous, or at least wrong-headed, and maybe they're right. Hell, I don't even know if there's a God at all—but if there is, I like to think He's the God of all us Australopithicines.

  Including Sammy.

  A STUDY IN EMERALD

  Neil Gaiman

  I. The New Friend.

  Fresh From Their Stupendous European Tour, where they performed before several of the CROWNED HEADS OF EUROPE, garnering their plaudits and praise with magnificent dramatic performances, combining both COMEDY and TRAGEDY, the Strand Players wish to make it known that they shall be appearing at the Royal Court Theatre, Drury Lane, for a LIMITED ENGAGEMENT in April, at which they will present “My Look-Alike Brother Tom!” “The Littlest Violet-Seller” and “The Great Old Ones Come,” ( this last an Historical Epic of Pageantry and Delight); each an entire play in one act! Tickets are available now from the Box Office.

  It is the immensity, I believe. The hugeness of things below. The darkness of dreams.

  But I am woolgathering. Forgive me. I am not a literary man.

  I had been in need of lodgings. That was how I met him. I wanted someone to share the cost of rooms with me. We were introduced by a mutual acquaintance, in the chemical laboratories of St. Bart’s. “You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive,” that was what he said to me, and my mouth fell open and my eyes opened very wide.

  “Astonishing,” I said.

  “Not really,” said the stranger in the white lab-coat, who was to become my friend. “From the way you hold your arm, I see you have been wounded, and in a particular way. You have a deep tan. You also have a military bearing, and there are few enough places in the Empire that a military man can be both tanned and, given the nature of the injury to your shoulder and the traditions of the Afghan cave-folk, tortured.”

  Put like that, of course, it was absurdly simple. But then, it always was. I had been tanned nut-brown. And I had indeed, as he had observed, been tortured.

  The gods and men of Afghanistan were savages, unwilling to be ruled from Whitehall or from Berlin or even from Moscow, and unprepared to see reason. I had been sent into those hills, attached to the ______th Regiment. As long as the fighting remained in the hills and mountains, we fought on an equal footing. When the skirmishes descended into the caves and the darkness then we found ourselves, as it were, out of our depth and in over our heads.

  I shall not forget the mirrored surface of the underground lake, nor the thing that emerged from the lake, its eyes opening and closing, and the singing whispers that accompanied it as it rose, wreathing their way about it like the buzzing of flies bigger than worlds.

  That I survived was a miracle, but survive I did, and I returned to England with my nerves in shreds and tatters. The place that leech-like mouth had touched me was tattooed forever, frog-white, into the skin of my now-withered shoulder. I had once been a crack-shot. Now I had nothing, save a fear of the world-beneath-the-world akin to panic which meant that I would gladly pay sixpence of my army pension for a Hansom cab, rather than a penny to travel underground.

  Still, the fogs and darknesses of London comforted me, took me in. I had lost my first lodgings because I screamed in the night. I had been in Afghanistan; I was there no longer.

  “I scream in the night,” I told him.

  “I have been told that I snore,” he said. “Also I keep irregular hours, and I often use the mantelpiece for target practice. I will need the sitting room to meet clients. I am selfish, private and easily bored. Will this be a problem?”

  I smiled, and I shook my head, and extended my hand. We shook on it.

  The rooms he had found for us, in Baker Street, were more than adequate for two bachelors. I bore in mind all my friend had said about his desire for privacy, and I forbore from asking what it was he did for a living. Still, there was much to pique my curiosity. Visitors would arrive at all hours, and when they did I would leave the sitting room and repair to my bedroom, pondering what they could have in common with my friend: the pale woman with one eye bone-white, the small man who looked like a commercial traveller, the portly dandy in his velvet jacket, and the rest. Some were frequent visitors, many others came only once, spoke to him, and left, looking troubled or looking satisfied.

  He was a mystery to me.

  We were partaking of one of our landlady’s magnificent breakfasts one morning, when my friend rang the bell to summon that good lady. “There will be a gentleman joining us, in about four minutes,” he said. “We will need another place at table.”

  “Very good,” she said, “I’ll put more sausages under the grill.”

  My friend returned to perusing his morning paper. I waited for an explana
tion with growing impatience. Finally, I could stand it no longer. “I don’t understand. How could you know that in four minutes we would be receiving a visitor? There was no telegram, no message of any kind.”

  He smiled, thinly. “You did not hear the clatter of a brougham several minutes ago? It slowed as it passed us – obviously as the driver identified our door, then it sped up and went past, up into the Marylebone Road. There is a crush of carriages and taxicabs letting off passengers at the railway station and at the waxworks, and it is in that crush that anyone wishing to alight without being observed will go. The walk from there to here is but four minutes...”

  He glanced at his pocket-watch, and as he did so I heard a tread on the stairs outside.

  “Come in, Lestrade,” he called. “The door is ajar, and your sausages are just coming out from under the grill.”

  A man I took to be Lestrade opened the door, then closed it carefully behind him. “I should not,” he said, “But truth to tell, I have had not had a chance to break my fast this morning. And I could certainly do justice to a few of those sausages.” He was the small man I had observed on several occasions previously, whose demeanour was that of a traveller in rubber novelties or patent nostrums.

  My friend waited until our landlady had left the room, before he said, “Obviously, I take it this is a matter of national importance.”

  “My stars,” said Lestrade, and he paled. “Surely the word cannot be out already. Tell me it is not.” He began to pile his plate high with sausages, kipper fillets, kedgeree and toast, but his hands shook, a little.

  “Of course not,” said my friend. “I know the squeak of your brougham wheels, though, after all this time: an oscillating G sharp above high C. And if Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard cannot publically be seen to come into the parlour of London’s only consulting detective, yet comes anyway, and without having had his breakfast, then I know that this is not a routine case. Ergo, it involves those above us and is a matter of national importance.”

  Lestrade dabbed egg yolk from his chin with his napkin. I stared at him. He did not look like my idea of a police inspector, but then, my friend looked little enough like my idea of a consulting detective – whatever that might be.