The Frederick Pohl Omnibus (1966) SSC

by Frederik Pohl

  She scowled. 'That Trumie!'

  'You can't blame him,' Garrick said reasonably. 'He's only trying to be good.'

  She looked at him queerly. 'He's only--' she began; but Roosenburg interrupted with an exultant cry.

  'Got it! All right, you. Sit up and start telling us what Trumie's up to now!'

  The fisherman figure said obligingly, 'Sure, boss. Whatcha wanna know?'

  • • • •

  What they wanted to know they asked; and what they asked it told them, volunteering nothing, concealing nothing.

  There was Anderson Trumie, king of his island, the compulsive consumer.

  It was like an echo of the bad old days of the Age of Plenty, when the world was smothering under the endless, pounding flow of goods from the robot factories and the desperate race between consumption and production strained the human fabric. But Trumie's orders came not from society, but from within. Consume! commanded something inside him, and Use! it cried, and Devour! it ordered. And Trumie obeyed, heroically.

  They listened to what the fisherman-robot had to say, and the picture was dark. Armies had sprung up on North Guardian, navies floated in its waters. Anderson Trumie stalked among his creations like a blubbery god, wrecking and ruling. Garrick could see the pattern in what the fisherman had to say. In Trumie's mind, he was Hitler, Hoover and Genghis Khan; he was dictator, building a war machine; he was supreme engineer, constructing a mighty state. He was warrior.

  'He was playing tin soldiers,' said Roger Garrick, and Roosenburg and the girl nodded.

  'The trouble is,' boomed Roosenburg, 'He has stopped playing.

  Invasion fleets, Garrick! He isn't content with North Guardian any more, he wants the rest of the country too!'

  'You can't blame him,' said Roger Garrick for the third time, and stood up.

  'The question is,' he said, 'what do we do about it?'

  'That's what you're here for,' Kathryn told him.

  'All right. We can forget,' said Roger Garrick, 'about the soldiers--qua soldiers, that is. I promise you they won't hurt anyone. Robots can't.'

  'I understand that,' Kathryn snapped.

  'The problem is what to do about Trumie's drain on the world's resources.' He pursed his lips. 'According to my directive from Area Control, the first plan was to let him alone--after all, there is still plenty of everything for anyone. Why not let Trumie enjoy himself? But that didn't work out too well.'

  'You are so right,' said Kathryn Pender.

  'No, no--not on your local level,' Garrick explained quickly. 'After all--

  what are a few thousand robots, a few hundred million dollars' worth of equipment? We could resupply this area in a week.'

  'And in a week,' boomed Roosenburg, 'Trumie would have us cleaned out again!'

  Garrick nodded. That's the trouble,' he admitted. 'He doesn't seem to have a stopping point. Yet--we can't refuse his orders. Speaking as a psychist, that would set a very bad precedent. It would put ideas in the minds of a lot of persons--minds that, in some cases, might not be reliably stable in the absence of a stable, certain source of everything they need, on request. If we say 'no' to Trumie, we open the door on some mighty dark corners of the human mind. Covetousness. Greed. Pride of possession--'

  'So what are you going to do?' cried Kathryn Pender.

  Garrick said resentfully, 'The only thing there is to do. I'm going to look over Trumie's folder again. And then I'm going to North Guardian Island.'

  • • • •

  5

  Roger Garrick was all too aware of the fact that he was only twenty-four.

  It didn't make a great deal of difference. The oldest and wisest psychist in Area Control's wide sphere might have been doubtful of success in as thorny a job as the one ahead.

  They started out at daybreak. Vapour was rising from the sea about them, and the little battery motor of their launch whined softly beneath the keelson. Garrick sat patting the little box that contained their invasion equipment, while the girl steered. The workshops of Fisherman's Island had been all night making some of the things in that box--not because they were so difficult to make, but because it had been a bad night. Big things were going on at North Guardian; twice the power had been out entirely for nearly an hour, as the demand on the lines from North Guardian took all the power the system could deliver.

  The sun was well up as they came within hailing distance of the Navy Yard.

  Robots were hard at work; the Yard was bustling with activity. An overhead travelling crane, eight feet tall, laboriously lowered a prefabricated fighting top onto an eleven-foot aircraft carrier. A motor torpedo boat--full sized, this one was, not to scale--rocked at anchor just before the bow of their launch. Kathryn steered around it, ignoring the hail from the robot-lieutenant-j.g. at its rail.

  She glanced at Garrick over her shoulder, her face taut. 'It's--it's all mixed up.'

  Garrick nodded. The battleships were model-sized, the small boats full scale. In the city beyond the Yard, the pinnacle of the Empire State Building barely cleared the Pentagon, next door.

  A soaring suspension bridge leaped out from the shore a quarter of a mile away, and stopped short a thousand yards out, over empty water.

  It was easy enough to understand--even for a psychist just out of school, on his first real assignment. Trumie was trying to run a world singlehanded, and where there were gaps in his conception of what his world should be, the results showed. 'Get me battleships!' he ordered his robot supply clerks; and they found the only battleships there were in the world to copy, the child-sized, toy-scaled play battleships that still delighted kids. 'Get me an Air Force!' And a thousand model bombers were hastily put together. 'Build me a bridge!' But perhaps he had forgotten to say to where.

  'Come on, Garrick!'

  He shook his head and focused on the world around him. Kathryn Pender was standing on a grey steel stage, the mooring line from their launch secured to what looked like a coast-defence cannon--but only about four feet long. Garrick picked up his little box and leaped up to the stage beside her. She turned to look at the city...

  "Hold on a second.' He was opening the box, taking out two little cardboard placards. He turned her by the shoulder and, with pins from the box, attached one of the cards to her back. 'Now me,' he said, turning his back to her.

  She read the placard dubiously:

  I AM A SPY!

  'Garrick,' she began, 'you're sure you know what you're doing-'

  'Put it on!' She shrugged and pinned it to the folds of his jacket.

  Side by side, they entered the citadel of the enemy.

  • • • •

  According to the fisherman-robot, Trumie lived in a gingerbread castle south of the Pentagon. Most of the robots got no chance to enter it. The city outside the castle was Trumie's kingdom, and he roamed about it, overseeing, changing, destroying, rebuilding. But inside the castle was his Private Place; the only robots that had both an inside--and outside-the-castle existence were his two bodyguards.

  'That,' said Garrick, 'must be the Private Place.'

  It was a gingerbread castle, all right. The 'gingerbread' was stonework, gargoyles and columns; there was a moat and a drawbridge, and there were robot guards with crooked little rifles, wearing tunics and fur shakos three feet tall. The drawbridge was up and the guards at stiff attention.

  'Let's reconnoitre,' said Garrick. He was unpleasantly conscious of the fact that every robot they passed--and they had passed thousands--

  had turned to look at the signs on their backs. Yet--it was right, wasn't it?

  There was no hope of avoiding observation in any event. The only hope was to fit somehow into the pattern--and spies would certainly be a part of the pattern. Wouldn't they?

  Garrick turned his back on doubts and led the way around the gingerbread palace.

  The only entrance was the drawbridge.

  They stopped out of sight of the ramrod-stiff guards. Garrick said:

  'We'll go in
. As soon as we get inside, you put on your costume.' He handed her the box. 'You know what to do. All you have to do is keep him quiet for a while and let me talk to him.'

  The girl said doubtfully, 'Garrick. Is this going to work?'

  Garrick exploded: 'How the devil do I know? I had Trumie's dossier to work with. I know everything that happened to him when he was a kid--when this trouble started. But to reach him, to talk to the boy inside the man--that takes a long time, Kathryn. And we don't have a long time. So...'

  He took her elbow and marched her towards the guards. 'So you know what to do,' he said.

  'I hope so,' breathed Kathryn Pender, looking very small and very young.

  They marched down the wide white pavement, past the motionless guards...

  Something was coming towards them. Kathryn held back. 'Come on!'

  Garrick muttered.

  'No, look!' she whispered. 'Is that--is that Trumie?'

  He looked.

  It was Trumie, larger than life. It was Anderson Trumie, the entire human population of the most-congested-island-for-its-population in the world. On one side of him was a tall dark figure, on the other side a squat dark figure, helping him along. They looked at his face and it was horror, drowned in fat. The bloated cheeks shook damply, wet with tears. The eyes looked out with fright on the world he had made.

  Trumie and his bodyguards rolled up to them and past. And then Anderson Trumie stopped.

  He turned the blubbery head, and read the sign on the back of the girl. I am a spy. Panting heavily, clutching the shoulder of the Crockett-robot, he stared wildly at her.

  Garrick cleared his throat. This far his plan had gone, and then there was a gap. There had to be a gap. Trumie's history, in the folder that Roosenburg had supplied, had told him how to reach the man. But a link was missing. Here was the subject, and here was the psychist who could cure him; and it was up to Garrick to start the cure.

  Trumie cried, in a staccato bleat: 'You! What are you? Where do you belong?'

  He was talking to the girl. Beside him the Crockett-robot murmured,

  'Rackin she's a spy, Mistuh Trumie. See thet sign a-hangin' on her back?'

  'Spy? Spy?' The quivering lips pouted. 'Curse you, are you Mata Hari? What are you doing out here? It's changed its face,' Trumie complained to the Crockett-robot. 'It doesn't belong here. It's supposed to be in the harem. Go on, Crockett, get it back!'

  'Wait!' cried Garrick, but the Crockett-robot was ahead of him. It took Kathryn Pender by the arm.

  'Come along thar,' it said soothingly, and urged her across the drawbridge. She glanced back at Garrick, and for a moment it looked as though she were going to speak. Then she shook her head, as though she were giving an order.

  'Kathryn!' cried Garrick. 'Trumie, wait a minute. That isn't Mata Hari!'

  No one was listening. Kathryn Pender disappeared into the Private Place. Trumie, leaning heavily on the hobbling Silver-robot, followed.

  Garrick, coming back to life, leaped after them...

  The scarlet-coated guards jumped before him, their shakos bobbing, their crooken little rifles crossed to bar his way.

  He cried, 'One side! Out of my way, you! I'm a human, don't you understand? You've got to let me pass!'

  They didn't even look at him; trying to get by them was like trying to walk through a wall of moving, thrusting steel. He shoved, and they pushed him back; he tried to dodge, and they were before him. It was hopeless.

  And then it was hopeless indeed, because behind them, he saw, the drawbridge had gone up.

  • • • •

  6

  Sonny Trumie collapsed into a chair like a mound of blubber falling to the deck of a whaler.

  Though he made no signal, the procession of serving robots started at once. In minced the maitre d', bowing and waving its graceful hands; in marched the sommelier, clanking its necklace of keys, bearing its wines in their buckets of ice. In came the lovely waitress-robots and the sturdy steward-robots, with the platters and tureens, the plates and bowls and cups. They spread a meal--a dozen meals--before him, and he began to eat. He ate as a penned pig eats, gobbling until it chokes, forcing the food down because there is nothing to do but eat. He ate, with a sighing accompaniment of moans and gasps, and some of the food was salted with the tears of pain he wept into it, and some of the wine was spilled by his shaking hand. But he ate. Not for the first time that day, and not for the tenth.

  Sonny Trumie wept as he ate. He no longer even knew he was weeping. There was the gaping void inside him that he had to fill, had to fill; there was the gaping world about him that he had to people and build and furnish--and use. He moaned to himself. Four hundred pounds of meat and lard, and he had to lug it from end to end of his island, every hour of every day, never resting, never at peace! There should have been a place somewhere, there should have been a time, when he could rest. When he could sleep without dreaming, sleep without waking after a scant few hours with the goading drive to eat and to use, to use and to eat...And it was all so wrong ! The robots didn't understand. They didn't try to understand, they didn't think for themselves. Let him take his eyes from any one of them for a single day, and everything went wrong. It was necessary to keep after them, from end to end of the island, checking and overseeing and ordering

  - yes, and destroying to rebuild, over and over I He moaned again, and pushed the plate away.

  He rested, with his tallow forehead fiat against the table, waiting, while inside him the pain ripped and ripped, and finally became bearable again.

  And slowly he pushed himself up again, and rested for a moment, and pulled a fresh plate towards him, and began again to eat....

  After a while he stopped. Not because he didn't want to go on, but because he couldn't.

  He was bone-tired, but something was bothering him--one more detail to check, one more thing that was wrong. The houri at the drawbridge. It shouldn't have been out of the Private Place. It should have been in the harem, of course. Not that it mattered, except to Sonny Trumie's sense of what was right. Time was when the houris of the harem had their uses, but that time was long and long ago; now they were property, to be fussed over and made to be right, to be replaced if they were worn, destroyed if they were wrong. But only property, as all of North Guardian was property--as all of the world would be his property, if only he could manage it.

  But property shouldn't be wrong.

  He signalled to the Crockett-robot and, leaning on it, walked down the long terrazzo hall towards the harem. He tried to remember what the houri had looked like. It had worn a sheer red blouse and a brief red skirt, he was nearly sure, but the face...

  It had had a face, of course. But Sonny had lost the habit of faces.

  This one had been somehow different, but he couldn't remember just why.

  Still--the blouse and skirt, they were red, he was nearly sure. And it had been carrying something in a box. And that was odd, too.

  He waddled a little faster, for now he was sure it was wrong.

  'That's the harem, Mistuh Trumie,' said the robot at his side. It disengaged itself gently, leaped forward and held the door to the harem for him.

  'Wait for me,' Sonny commanded, and waddled forwards into the harem halls. Once he had so arranged the harem that he needed no help inside it; the halls were railed, at a height where it was easy for a pudgy hand to grasp the rail; the distances were short, the rooms close together.

  He paused and called over his shoulder, 'Stay where you can hear me.' It had occurred to him that if the houri-robot was wrong, he would need Crockett's guns to make it right.

  A chorus of female voices sprang into song as he entered the main patio. They were a bevy of beauties, clustered around a fountain, diaphanously dressed, languorously glancing at Sonny Trumie as he waddled inside. 'Shut up!' he commanded. 'Go back to your rooms.' They bowed their heads and, one by one, slipped into the cubicles.

  No sign of the red blouse and the red skirt. He began the round
s of the cubicles, panting, peering into them. 'Hello, Sonny,' whispered Theda Bara, lithe on a leopard rug, and he passed on. 'I love you!' cried Nell Gwynn, and, 'Come to me!' commanded Cleopatra, but he passed them by. He passed Dubarry and Marilyn Monroe, he passed Moll Flanders and he passed Troy's Helen. No sign of the houri in red...

  And then he saw signs. He didn't see the houri, but he saw the signs of the houri's presence; the red blouse and the red skirt, lying limp and empty on the floor.

  Sonny gasped, 'You! Where are you? Come out here where I can see you!'

  Nobody answered Sonny. 'Come out!' he bawled.

  And then he stopped. A door opened and someone came out; not a houri, not female; a figure without sex but loaded with love, a teddy-bear figure, as tall as pudgy Sonny Trumie himself, waddling as he waddled, its stubbed arms stretched out to him.

  Sonny could hardly believe his eyes. Its colour was a little darker than Teddy. It was a good deal taller than Teddy. But unquestionably, undoubtedly, in everything that mattered it was--'Teddy,' whispered Sonny Trumie, and let the furry arms go around his four hundred pounds.

  • • • •

  Twenty years disappeared. 'They wouldn't let me have you,' Sonny told the teddy; and it said, in a voice musical and warm:

  'It's all right, Sonny. You can have me now, Sonny. You can have everything, Sonny.'

  'They took you away,' he whispered, remembering. They took the teddy-bear away; he had never forgotten. They took it away, and they were wild. Mother was wild, and father was furious; they raged at the little boy and scolded him, and threatened him. Didn't he know they were poor, and did he want to ruin them all, and what was wrong with him anyway, that he wanted his little sister's silly stuffed robots when he was big enough to use nearly grown-up goods.

  The night had been a terror with the frowning, sad robots ringed around and the little girl crying; and what had made it terror was not the scolding--he'd had scoldings--but the worry, the fear and almost the panic in his parents' voices. For what he did, he came to understand, was no longer a childish sin; it was a big sin, a failure to consume his quota--