Christmas carols started up in the far corner of the room. Three tank-shaped, chest-high robots whirred across the room to circle the tree. One robot carried a basket stuffed full of tinsel, another long twisting chains of realistic-looking holly and the third a carton of nearglass bulbs.
"I thought we were going to decorate it," said Thad.
"No, Grandfather always thought children got too exuberant and noisy with jobs like this," said the girl. "So he had these servos built to take care if it. They've been with the family almost as long as I can remember. We can sit on the sofa there to watch."
"Careful, careful, children," warned one of the robots as they passed the tree. "Don't come too close, don't touch."
"Very cheerful." Thad eased down onto a see-through sofa filled with blue-tinted water and restless tropical fish. "How long have you been with the family?"
"This time?" She sat close to him, both knees tight together and pointed toward him. "Oh, something like six months. Every once in a while I get married and then later I come home." She folded her arms under her small breasts. "A very dull chronicle it makes. Tell me about . . . what was it like, being asleep all those years?"
"Tinsel last," said a robot as it began to twine holly on the pine-scented tree.
"It was simply like that," he said, "like being asleep."
"Did you dream?"
Thad thought. "No," he said finally.
Jean-Anne hugged herself tighter. "How awful. It is like being dead."
"The next best thing," he answered, grinning. "Do you get much involved in the various family enterprises?"
"Me? Oh, some, but I—"
"Hum." Badjett had drifted into the room. He coughed again, his glistening metal hand shielding his mouth. "We have had word that Mr. Robert II will arrive shortly."
"Good," said the girl. "It'll be nice to have Dad home on Christmas. He's almost always someplace else on holidays."
Badjett's pink face was turned toward Thad. "Mr. John suggests you join him in House Six for a short business meeting in one half hour, sir. Mr. Lon and Mr. Robert II, fresh from his tour of South America, will also attend."
"Won't my son be there, Badjett?"
"Mr. Alex is not often invited to these meetings, sir," explained Badjett. "His restlessness sometimes annoys Mr. John."
"I see," Thad said to the cherubic butler. "O.K., I'll be there."
A little over a half hour later he was in the study of J.P. Walbrook. A new fire was going in the fireplace. You could still see the Walbrook Enterprises monogram on the pseudologs. The old man sat as he had the last time Thad had seen him, clutching tight to the chair arms as though he were afraid of pitching over onto the floor.
Lon, holding a steaming cup of rum grog, was strutting back and forth in front of the high windows. "Pop's coming home for the holidays, Unc." he said when Thad entered. "It will be very gala. Maybe we can have one of the robots festoon him with mistletoe." He squinted through a window at the darkness. "Looks like the festive red and green lights of his air-cruiser fast approaching now."
J.P. asked, "How are you coming with your backgrounding, Bob?"
"Considering I have to fill myself in. on fifty years, not bad," Thad answered. "I haven't come across anything pertaining to our defense business, though. Since that makes up such a hefty part of—"
"We'll inform you on that aspect soon," promised the old man. "In fact, we may get into some facets of our government work tonight."
"Now you're back in the fold, Unc, maybe you can help cure Gramps of the habit of holding these meetings of his right before dinner," said Lon.
"We used to have them before breakfast," said Thad, remembering something he'd learned during his long days of OP processing.
Lon made a slurping sound over his cup. "Just so I don't miss the plum pudding tonight."
The door opened. A tall, thin man, bald and slightly stooped, walked into the room. He was shrugging out of an all-season flying jacket. "Good evening, Father."
"You've been informed of the good news," the old man said. "We've located Bob, after all these years."
The bald man took three steps in the direction of Thad. Then he shook his head. "This man can't be Robert Walbrook I," he said.
VII
The old man was out of his chair, pacing the room in a slow, crooked way. Thad was no longer there. Stopping near the high windows, J.P. reached out one knobby hand to touch the glass. "The winters get colder each year," he said. "What do you mean by what you said, Robert?"
His bald son hesitated. "I merely lost control of myself, Father." He was standing, slightly bent, with his back to the fireplace. "You know, travel shock, the holiday tensions . . . I blurted out the first thing which came to my mind when I saw him."
"You were a small boy when Bob had to be put away," reminded J.P. He slowly turned. "Stop tapping that mug against your teeth, Lon."
"Sorry, Gramps." Lon had taken the old man's chair and was sitting in it sideways with his legs
swinging over one arm of it. "Family squabbles always excite me."
"What makes you say he isn't Bob?" the old man asked his son.
Placing his palm against his forehead and then sliding it up onto his scalp, Robert II said, "I don't know exactly, Father. There's something about him . . . I'm not certain, but he struck me on first glance as being . . . well, not a Walbrook."
"Doesn't have our thoroughbred look, huh, Pops?"
"In a way that is what I mean, yes."
J.P. coughed a dry cough. "You don't imagine I allowed him to come here without looking into everything first?"
"No, I'm aware of what was done by way of investigation," answered Robert II. "I went over all the memos and videograms you sent me, Father."
The old man's head was ticking up and down as he watched the whirling snow. "He checks out on every point. We've gone into the story and it all turns out to be true, the wanderings, the time in Cleveland. And Dr. Rosenfeld ran an incredible number of checks on him before bringing him here to us. Fingerprints, retinal patterns ... everything matches."
Robert II said, "According to Dr. Rosenfeld."
"That hulking Gunder has also made numerous tests," the old man told him. "That is in addition to the independent checks I had made."
"Many things can be falsified," said Robert II. "Most of Uncle Robert's detailed medical records are lost, it seems. So we have no real proof."
J.P. insisted, "It's much harder to fake his memories, his attitudes, the way he walks and talks. It's all as I remember him."
"From fifty years ago, Father, from another century."
"You'll find, should you reach an age comparable to mine, Robert, that the early years of your life become clearer rather than dimmer as you reach this end of your life."
Robert II rubbed his bare head again. "You'd like this to be him," he said. "You've missed him, all these years . . . while he was in the vault and afterwards when we thought he was dead."
"Yes, I've missed Bob," admitted J.P. "There aren't many like him around anymore. But, Robert, I've never made a decision or a judgment on emotion. This man is my brother and—"
"So you're going to take him completely into the fold, Gramps," said Lon. "Let him help you run things."
"Yes, I am," said the old man. "That's only fair. It was what Bob and I agreed on back then when he submitted to the pseudodeath business. It's what the law says is fair."
Robert II said, "Certainly, Father. Let's, however, be cautious . . . let's be absolutely certain he is Robert B. Walbrook I."
"I am certain."
"Lyle Gunder is running his own check, using all the Total Security Agency facilities, Father. Nothing will be lost if we wait for the results of that."
"What do you mean, wait?"
"I think Pop means we can still toss a few fatted calves Unc's way," suggested Lon. "We ought to hold off, though, on letting him in on all the family secrets."
"Yes, exactly," said Robert II. "I think that
would be an excellent approach to the problem, Father."
"I don't see Bob's return as a problem." The old man pressed his fingers to the dark glass of the window. "Very well, Robert. We'll be, to please you, a bit more cautious than we have been."
"Thank you, Father."
VIII
They didn't try to kill Thad until two days later.
Just after lunch Thad was in his suite of rooms in House One, working in the small den which had been Robert Walbrook I's. Old J.P., as well as Robert II, had provided him with more background material. Several cartons of micro-cards, bundles of fax copies, but still nothing at all about Hellhound.
His television set out in the living room suddenly turned itself on. "Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States."
"My friends," said Warren Parkinson in his nervous voice, "there's nothing to get excited about. I really only . . . well, I like to talk to the American people now and then. And as President of the country, not to mention being Commander in Chief of the armed forces, I have a perfect right. I mean, I can come on and say hello there to my people any old time I want. Well, actually . . . one thing is sort of bothering me. I keep hearing talk about my health ... what was it Mr. Reisberson of our illustrious Washington Post-Star called me? 'A nervous twitch,' I believe. 'That nervous twitch in the White House,' I believe is how he put it . . ."
Thad strolled into the living room, tried to turn off the set. It wouldn't allow that.
"I mean," continued the President, licking his lips, "I only last week had a complete—reallyhead-to-toe—physical. I'm—and here I'm quoting the Surgeon General himself—I''shipshape'. Look, I even brought you copies of my X-rays and my electrocardiograms and my brainwave recordings to look at. Well, admittedly the old brain does show a slight . . ."
Thad's phone rang. "Hello?"
The dark lovely Jean-Anne showed on the small square screen. "Care to take a walk, Uncle? Or are you glued to the President."
"A walk would be fine, my child."
"Oh, am I still addressing you as though you were venerable? Forgive it. I'll see you out behind House Two in five minutes."
On his way downstairs Thad encountered Alex Walbrook on the staircase.
"Oh . . . uh . . . hello, Father," said the lanky man, attempting a smile. He had his arms full of bundles of fax memos, neatly tied. "I was just . . . uh . . . coming to talk with you."
"What about, Alex?"
The son of Robert I shrugged his narrow shoulders. "Nothing . . . uh . . . important. It can wait if you—"
"I promised Jean-Anne I'd take a stroll with her," said Thad. "Drop in later."
"I'd like to, yes," said Alex. "I hardly get to see you. They don't allow me into many of the . . . uh . . . top-level meetings, you know. And they . . . uh . . . they're going to keep you . . ." He turned the sentence into a cough, closed his mouth on it.
"Going to keep me what?"
"I ought not to . . . but . . . uh . . . you are my father, after all," said the lanky Alex in a low voice. "I'm not supposed to . . . uh ... know this, but I find things out. It's been decided to keep you out of the . . . uh ... top-priority things until . . . uh . . . until everyone is satisfied."
Thad grinned. "So the Gunder view of me is shared around the old homestead?"
"Not by me, Father," Alex told him. "But I'm afraid . . . well, you'll be wanting to get to Jean-Anne. You're sure it . . . uh ... won't bother you if I pop in on you later?"
"Not at all," Thad assured him.
Jean-Anne was already outside when he got there. She wore an all-season hiking suit of black and scarlet, a small scarlet cap on her head. "I like to walk up through the woods, up toward the hills over there."
"I think I'm up to that."
"Let's proceed then, Uncle." She took his hand, leading him away from the complex of saltbox houses.
The day was chill and clear, the thin sunlight tinting the snow a pale yellow. "Our President seemed particularly twitchy today," remarked Thad.
"You've been away. He was almost serene compared to the—" "I'm a little unsettled by the fact we're doing so much work for the government," Thad said. "With a guy like Parkinson in charge. By the way, I still haven't been given very much about the defense end of Walbrook Enterprises."
"You're not supposed—" began Jean-Anne. She took her hand out of his, touching her fingertips to
her cheek.
"Not supposed to be told?"
The girl looked away. "Will you allow me to tactfully change the subject, Uncle? I'm sorry."
"Sure," Thad said. Increasingly since he'd been here the idea of trying to get information from the girl bothered him. The Opposition Party might not like it, but there it was. He began talking about other things.
When they were ten minutes into the oaks and maples a crunching sound commenced off to the right.
"Don't let it bother you," Jean-Anne said when she noticed the turning of his head. "It's Chambers Twenty-six probably."
"And who's he?"
"Or it might be Chambers Twenty-five. Grandfather has two of them stationed in this part of the forest," she explained. "Robots, as you might imagine. It's an old-world touch really, they're gamekeepers. Designed to look after the wild life and keep off poachers."
"Do we get many poachers?"
"Not since I can remember. Mostly Chambers Twenty-five and Chambers Twenty-six take care of feeding the squirrels and birds in the winter. Occasionally they shoot a rat."
The crunching grew louder. All at once Thad's back began to feel strange, as though he had a big X drawn between his shoulder blades. He glanced over his shoulder. "Down!" he shouted as he pushed Jean-Anne over into the snow.
The big robot's first shot missed Thad, sizzled the dry bark off a dark oak trunk.
Thad was on the ground, rolling away fast in the snow.
The robot had a blaster rifle built into its right arm. The weapon crackled again. The snow two feet to the left of Thad melted, splashing him with great drops of boiling water.
He kept on rolling, got up and dived around behind another thick oak.
"Stop it, Chambers!" Jean-Anne was crying.
Hunched low, Thad went running through the trees, circling over the hard-packed snow. He got himself behind the big slow-moving mechanism. The robot wore a thick red Mackinaw, and nothing else, over its chrome-plated body. And for some reason a pair of earmuffs were stuck on its thick head.
Thad shinnied up a tree directly to the rear of the thing.
The gamekeeper must have heard that. It began slowly to turn.
Thad was in the air, hurling himself toward it. Both his booted feet slammed hard into the robot's back.
There was an enormous clanging thud. The gun-hand went off once more, burning up brush, splashing hot snow. Then the big gamekeeper tottered, toppled forward.
Thad went for mechanism's head, jumping up and down. Cracking and smashing sounded beneath his boots.
Chambers, whichever one this was, gave a flap of the arms. A smell of burning plastic began to spew out of his ears.
"Uncle Robert," said Jean-Anne. "You can stop, he's . . . dead or whatever you call it with machines."
Thad had driven the machine's bright head far down into the hard snow. He stepped back and away, wiping at his face. "Don't tell me that bastard mistook me for a poacher."
"I can't understand what happened." She was still kneeling in the snow where he'd shoved her. She held out a slender hand to him.
He stood watching her for a few seconds before helping her up. "Somebody," he said.
"What?" She brushed away snow.
Thad shook his head, saying, "Probably a malfunction. Yeah, I'm sure that will turn out to be the explanation. We'd better get inside before the other one makes a try."
"Other one?"
"You told me there were two of them, Twenty-five and Twenty-six," said Thad. "Which one was this?"
Jean-Anne turned her face toward the sprawled mechanism. "I can'
t tell now," she said.
IX
The paramedical robot handed Thad back his clothes. It gave a negative shake of its ball-shaped head before rolling out of the white metal room.
"Bend over a little further," suggested Dr. Rosenfeld. "Urn, yes, everything—everything seems to be just—just fine, Mr. Walbrook."
"They wouldn't have been able to plant a mike in there without my knowing." Thad straightened up, began dressing.
"You—you're not supposed to say anything relevant until I give you the key phrase," the grizzled physician reminded. "Yes, Mr. Walbrook, you're in the pink of condition. That's the phrase." He slipped off his synthskin glove and crossed to let the wall sanitizer work on his hands. "And don't get overconfident about where and where—where not they can hide a bug on you or your clothes.
Obviously—obviously somebody out there on the estate is suspicious of you."
"O.K., we can talk now." Short, stocky Crosby Rich of the Opposition Party came into the examination room eating a kelpdoughnut.
"I'll attend to my other patients." When Dr. Rosenfeld was out in the corridor Rich said, "A dumbbell. So they tried to knock you off, huh?"
"Yep." Thad seamed his tunic. "Rosenfeld tells me you've been doing a good job fooling the Walbrook tribe," said Rich. "Where'd you screw up?"
"Wait now," said Thad. "If somebody is suspicious I'm not the real Robert, why not simply call my bluff? Unmask me in public, in front of old J.P."
"If they figure you for a spy, they may want to get rid of you quickly and permanently," said Rich.
"I'm not sure."
"It could also be there are Walbrooks with purely personal reasons for wanting to do me in."
"You said, in the report Rosenfeld smuggled out, that Robert II accused you of being a fake."
Sitting in a white metal chair, Thad said, "Yeah, that he did. I get the impression the old man talked him out of the notion."
"Robert II would like you to be false," said the small, dark OP man. "Before you showed up there was only one rickety old dumbbell between him and complete control of the whole works."
Gift-Wrapped & Toe-Tagged: A Melee of Misc. Holiday Anthology Page 57
