▼▼▼
Thelma had always known what a mess she was, how totally undesirable. What sane thing could love her? What did he want? Of course, she thought.
The console was ambitious for the power of a complete body. It was clear to her now. The factory had built the concept in as an intricate sales technique. She felt humiliated, sickened by her own foolishness. The body had to go back.
But she didn't send the body back. She hung it in the closet next to Bluto. She rolled the console into the corner next to the outlet and kept it plugged in. Occasionally she would switch it on and exchange a few remarks with it. She took to leaving the closet door open while she brought out Lips or the Wimp or Bluto, or sometimes all three to entertain her on the bed in full view of the console's green glowing screen. She took an intense pleasure in knowing the Brain was completely aware of what she did with the other robots. She rarely brought the Brain out, even to play a game. She never activated his body.
So she lay on the hotel bed with the Stimulus Catalogue beside her. It had been months since she had been able to talk to the Brain. She was sick with loneliness. It was really his fault. It had been his idea to get a body. He hadn't been content but had coaxed and tricked her into an insane expense for a project that could only be disgusting to her. He should have known her better than that. She hated him. He should be with her now to comfort her.
And it was her birthday. She allowed a few tears to sting their way out past her nose. She poured another drink and opened the catalogue. It would serve the Brain right if she got a venereal disease from one of these hotel robots.
▼▼▼
On her return trip, Thelma left her car at the airport and took a cab home. She was too drunk to drive. The final banquet had been the proverbial crowning blow. She was at the last table at the end of the room and the girl across the table, a new office manager, with her G-7 insignia shining new on her collar, was the daughter of a woman who had started with the Bureau in the same training class with Thelma. Thelma drank a lot and ate nothing.
She put her suitcase down just inside the door and kicked off her shoes. With her coat still on and her purse looped over her arm, she called coyly, "Did you have a good weekend?" She ambled into the bedroom and stood in front of the closet looking at the green glow. She raised the bottle to the console in salute and took a slug. Then she set about shedding her clothes. She was down to half her underwear when she felt the need to sit down.
She slid to the floor in front of the closet door. "Well, I had a splendid weekend," she smiled. "I've been such a fool not to try those hotel robots before."
She began to laugh and roll back and forth on the carpet. "Best birthday I ever had, Brain." She peeked at the green glow. It was steady and very bright. "Why don't you say something, Brain?" She frowned. "Ooh, I forgot." She crawled into the closet and lay down in front of the console. She reached out a plump little finger and flicked the activation switch. The screen came up dark red and solid.
"Welcome back, Thelma," said the Brain. Its voice was dull and lifeless.
"Let me tell you, Brain, I could have had a lot of amazing experiences for the money I wasted on you. And you have no trade-in value. You're tailored too specifically for me. They'd just junk you." Thelma giggled. The screen was oscillating with an odd spark of colorless light in the red.
"Please, Thelma. Remember that I am sensitive to pain when you are its source."
Thelma heaved herself onto her back and stretched. "Oh, I remember. It's on page two of the Owner's Manual . . . along with a lot of other crap. Like what a perfect friend you are, and what a great lover your body combo is." Thelma lifted her leg and ran the toes of one thick foot up the flattened legs of the Lips robot. "Does it hurt you to see me do this with another robot, Brain?" The screen of the console was nearly white, almost too bright to look at.
"Yes, Thelma."
Thelma gave the penis a final flick with her toes and dropped her leg. "I ought to sue the company for false advertising," she muttered. She rolled over and blinked at the glaring screen of the console. "The only thing you're good for is paying the bills like a DOMESTIC ..." She snorted at a sudden idea. "A DOMESTIC! That's what! You can mix my drinks and do the laundry and cleaning with that high-priced body! You can even cook! You know all the recipes. You might as well; you're never going to do me any good otherwise!" She hiked her hips into the air and, puffing for breath, began peeling off her corset.
The Brain's voice came to her in a strange vibrato, "Please, I am a MALE, Thelma." She tossed the sweat-damp garment at the console and flopped back, rubbing at the ridges it had left in her flesh. "Fettuccini Alfredo, a BIG plate of it. Cook it now while I play with Bluto. Serve it to me in bed when I'm finished. Come on, I'll be in debt for years to pay off this body of yours. Let's see if it can earn its keep around here." She reached out and hit the remote switch. The girdle had fallen across the screen and the white light pulsed through the web fabric. A stirring in the deflated body on the last hook made her look up. The flattened Near-Flesh was swelling, taking on its full heavy form. She watched, fascinated. The Brain's body lifted its left arm and freed itself from the hook. It stood up and its feet changed shape as they accepted the weight of the metal and plastic body. The lighted eyes of the Brain's face looked down at her. The good handsome face held a look of sadness. "I would be happy to cook and clean for you, Thelma. If another robot pleasured you, that would pleasure me. But you are in pain. Terrible pain. That is the one thing I cannot allow."
▼▼▼
Lenna Jordan fingered the new G-7 insignia clipped to her lapel and watched the workman install her name-plate where the Vole's had been for so many years. She was stunned by her luck. G-7, and a year earlier than she had expected.
The workman at the door slid aside and a large woman slouched into the cubicle. Grinsen, the massively shouldered drab they had elevated to be Jordan's assistant. Jordan stepped forward, extending her hand. "Congratulations, Grinsen. I hope you aren't upset by the circumstances."
The dour young woman dropped Jordan's hand quickly and let her heavy fingers stray to the new insignia pinned in her own suit. She blinked at Jordan through thick lenses. "Did you watch the television news? They interviewed Meyer from Bureau Central. He said Boss Vole was a loner and despondent over her lack of promotion."
The workman's cheerful face came around the edge of the door. "The boys in the program pool claim she accidentally got a look at herself in the mirror and dove for the window."
Jordan inhaled slowly. "You'll want to move into my old desk and check the procedure manuals, Grinsen."
Grinsen plucked a candy from the bowl on the desk and leaned forward. "The news had footage of the police cleaning up the mess." The large hand swung up to pop the candy into her mouth. "They said the impact was so great that it smashed the sidewalk where she landed and it was almost impossible to separate her remains from what was left of the robot." Grinsen reached for another candy. "That robot was a Super Companion. Boss Vole must have been in debt past her ears for an expensive model like that."
Jordan reached for a stack of program cards. "We'd better start looking over the schedule, Grinsen." Jordan handed her the cards and reached for another stack.
Grinsen tapped her cards dreamily on the desk. "Why would such a magnificent machine destroy itself trying to save a vicious old bat like the Vole?"
Jordan slid the candy bowl from beneath Grinsen's hand and carefully dumped the last of Boss Vole's favorite caramels into the wastebasket. "Did it?"
SUMMERTIME WAS NEARLY OVER
Brian Aldiss
▼▼▼
I AM resolved to leave some brief account of my days whilst I am still able. It does not escape me that a fair hand has already written some account of my early days; but that account broke off too soon, for I returned from the realms of ice, to which solitudes my soul—if I may be presumed to have one—was attracted.
In due time, I returned to the country ab
out the city of Geneva. Although I had hoped for justice and understanding when my story was known, that was not to be.
Persecution remained my lot. I had to escape to the nearby wilderness of mountain and ice, to live out my days among chamois and eagle, which were being hunted as avidly as I.
Before leaving the city for ever, I came across a philosopher, Jean- Jacques Rousseau, even more noted than the family of my accursed Master. At the beginning of one of his books I discovered these words, which to me in my lowly condition were more than words: "I am made unlike anyone I have ever met; I will even venture to say that I am like no one in the whole world."
Here was a sentiment I might have uttered myself. To find such understanding in a book gave me strength. Ever since coming upon Rousseau's writings so long ago, I have tried to live with my dear wife above the glaciers in the condition he would have approved, that of the Noble Savage —in defiance of those citified creatures who multiply in the valleys far below.
▼▼▼
The placidity of a late August day lingers over the Swiss Alps. The sound of automobiles wending their way along the road far below does not reach me; I hear only a distant occasional cowbell and the cheerful nearer transactions of insects. I am at peace. The helicopters appeared after noon, when the clouds cleared from the brow of the Jungfrau. They had been active all week, unsettling me with their noise. There were two of them, blue, belonging to the Swiss police. Soon they disappeared behind a nearby slope, and I crawled from under the bush where I had hidden.
Once all was peace here. We did not know of tourists and helicopters.
Now the numbers of the People are increasing. If it isn't helicopters, it's cars on the way to the Silberner Hirsch below, or machines roaring in distant valleys. Elsbeth and I will have to move to a more remote place, if I can find one.
Elsbeth says she does not wish to move again. Our cave on the upper slopes of the Aletschhorn suits her well, but ours is a fugitive life, as I explain to her.
In summer, the People drive off the highway up the track leading to the Silberner Hirsch, with its fine view of the mountains to the north. Occasionally, one or two of them will leave their cars and climb higher, almost as far as the winter shelters. Perhaps they will pick the wild flowers growing in the lush grasses, cornflower, poppy, clover, eglantine, and the frail vetch.
They rarely reach the cave on its precipitous slope. I never molest the People. Elsbeth and I stay hidden. I protect her in my arms.
In winter, she and I are completely alone with the elements. My temperament is compatible with the wind and the snow and the storms born from the cold wombs of northern lakes. The People's machines do not threaten us then. We survive somehow. I have learned not to be afraid of fire. I sit over its red eye in the cave and listen to the musics of the atmosphere.
I am kin with the slopes hereabouts. They are steep and treacherous with outcropping rock. No People come to ski on them. In the autumn, before the first snows fall, when fog rolls up from the valley, the hotel closes down, the People all depart. Only a boy lives at the hotel to act as watchman with his goats and chickens. That's far below our eyrie—I go down there to scavenge.
Oh, I have seen that boy's face full of fear as he stares through a window at me passing in a swirl of snow.
The winter world is without human inhabitants. I can't explain it. I cannot explain to Elsbeth where the People go. Do they sleep all winter, like the waterfall?
This is the trouble: that I understand nothing. Long though I have lived, I never understand better as years pass. I never understand why the teeth of winter bite so cruelly down into the bone, how daylight sickens from the east, why Elsbeth is so chill as I lie with her, why the nights are so long, without word or gleam.
I am troubled by my lack of understanding. Nothing remains, nothing remains.
Best not to think of another winter. It is summer now, time of happiness. But summertime is nearly over.
All this livelong day I lay on my favourite rock in the sun. The flies visited and crawled on me. Also many other small things that may have life and thought—butterflies, snails in curled shell, spiders, maggots. I lay staring at the People below, coming to and going from the Silberner Hirsch. They climb from their machines. They walk about and photograph the valley and the hill peaks. They enter the restaurant. In time, they come from it again. Then they drive away. Their cars are beads on the thread of highway. They have homes, often far distant. Their homes are full of all manner of possessions. They are capable of many kinds of activity. I hear their planes roar overhead, leaving a trail of snow across the sky. People are always busy, like the flies and ants.
This also they can do: procreate. I have mated many times with Elsbeth. She brings forth no child. Here is another thing I cannot understand. Why does Elsbeth not bring forth child? Is the fault in her or in me, because I am strangely made, because, as Rousseau said, "I am made unlike anyone I ever met"?
The grass grows high before my sight. I peer through its little ambush at the scene below. Even the grass makes more grass, and all the small things that live in the grass reproduce their kind, until summer is over. Everything conceives more things, except Elsbeth and I.
Elsbeth remained as usual in our cave beside the waterfall. When the good season is spent and cold bites to the bone, the waterfall dies like most other living things. Its music ceases. It becomes rigid and mute. What is this grief that visits the Earth so regularly? How to explain it?
Only in the spring does the waterfall recover, and then it roars with delight at regaining life, just as I did. Then Elsbeth and I are happy again.
My head becomes cloudy as I lie on my rock peering through the grass at the scene down below. After night has fallen, I will climb down the slopes to walk about unseen round the hotel and retrieve what the People have discarded. I find there something to eat, and many other things, discarded papers and books, this and that. The night is my friend. I am darkness itself.
Why it has to be thus I know not. Yet I have thought myself not to feel discontent. Once I was malicious because I was miserable, but no more. Now I have my lovely mate, I have schooled myself to be neither malicious nor miserable, and not to hate People.
In the discarded newspapers I read that there are People far more evil than ever I was. They take pleasure in killing the innocent. This murder they do not only with their bare hands but with extreme weapons, the nature of which I am unable to comprehend. Thousands die in their wars every year.
Sometimes I read the name of my Maker in the newspapers. Even after all this time, they still speak ill of him; why it does not therefore make me, his victim, welcome among People I do not know. This is something else eluding my understanding.
Lying in my cloudy state, I fall asleep without knowing it. The flies buzz and the sun is hot on my spine.
To dream can be very cruel. I try to tear these visions from myself. In my dreams, memories of dead People rise up. One claims that I have his thighs and legs, another that I have his torso. One wretch wishes his head returned, another even claims his internal organs. These desperate People parade in my sleep. I am a living cemetery, a hospital of flesh for those who lack flesh. What can I do? Within me I feel dreadful ghosts and crimes locked within my bones, knotted into my very entrails. I cannot pass water without a forgotten claimant reaching for what is his.
Do People suffer in this way? Being a mere composite from charnel houses, I fear that I alone undergo this sorrow behind the eyebrows. Residual scenes from dreadful other memories play like lice inside veins I hardly dare look on as mine. I feel myself a theatre of other lives and deaths.
Why then do People shun me? Have I not more humanity than they trapped inside me?
While I suffered from these dreams on my slab of rock, something woke me. I heard the sound of voices carried on the thin air. Two People, females, were climbing upwards. They had left behind the Silberner Hirsch and were moving towards the place where I lay.
I obs
erved them with the silent attention a tiger must give its approaching prey. And yet not that exactly, for there was fear in my heart. The People always awaken fear in me. The elder of these two women was gathering wild flowers, exclaiming as she did so. It was innocent enough, yet still I felt the fear.
The elder female sank down on a tree stump to rest, fanning herself with her hand. The other one came on, picking her way cautiously. I saw the brown hair on the crown of her head, gleaming in the sun with a beauty I cannot describe.
She would have passed me by a few feet, perhaps not noticing me. Yet because I could not bear to lie where I was and chance being seen, I jumped up with a great bound and confronted her.
The female gave a gasp of fear, looking up at me with her mouth open, revealing tongue and white teeth.
"Help!" she called once, until I had my hand over the lower part of her face. The look she gave me changed from fear to disgust.
Oh, I've seen that look on the faces of People before. It always awakens my fury. The faces of People are unlike mine, plastic, mobile, given to expressing emotion. With one blow I could wipe that expression and the flesh that paints it right from their skulls.
As I lifted her, her toes dangled in their white trainers. I thrust my face into hers, that female face dewed with the heat of afternoon. As I considered whether to smash her and throw her down on the mountainside, I caught her scent. It hit me as forcibly as a blow to the stomach.
That scent ... So different from the scent of Elsbeth ... It caused a kind of confusion in my brain, making me pause. One of those old elusive memories from the back of my brain returned to baffle me—a memory of something that had never happened to me. I have said I understand little; at that moment I understood nothing, and that terrible lack ran through me like an electric shock. I put her down.
The Ultimate Frankenstein Page 3
