by Various
"And the rest of us?"
"Different, Mr. Burckhardt. I work here. I'm carrying out Mr. Dorchin's orders, mapping the results of the advertising tests, watching you and the others live as he makes you live. I do it by choice, but you have no choice. Because, you see, you are dead."
"Dead?" cried Burckhardt; it was almost a scream.
The blue eyes looked at him unwinkingly and he knew that it was no lie. He swallowed, marveling at the intricate mechanisms that let him swallow, and sweat, and eat.
He said: "Oh. The explosion in my dream."
"It was no dream. You are right--the explosion. That was real and this plant was the cause of it. The storage tanks let go and what the blast didn't get, the fumes killed a little later. But almost everyone died in the blast, twenty-one thousand persons. You died with them and that was Dorchin's chance."
"The damned ghoul!" said Burckhardt.
* * * * *
The twisted shoulders shrugged with an odd grace. "Why? You were gone. And you and all the others were what Dorchin wanted--a whole town, a perfect slice of America. It's as easy to transfer a pattern from a dead brain as a living one. Easier--the dead can't say no. Oh, it took work and money--the town was a wreck--but it was possible to rebuild it entirely, especially because it wasn't necessary to have all the details exact.
"There were the homes where even the brains had been utterly destroyed, and those are empty inside, and the cellars that needn't be too perfect, and the streets that hardly matter. And anyway, it only has to last for one day. The same day--June 15th--over and over again; and if someone finds something a little wrong, somehow, the discovery won't have time to snowball, wreck the validity of the tests, because all errors are canceled out at midnight."
The face tried to smile. "That's the dream, Mr. Burckhardt, that day of June 15th, because you never really lived it. It's a present from Mr. Dorchin, a dream that he gives you and then takes back at the end of the day, when he has all his figures on how many of you responded to what variation of which appeal, and the maintenance crews go down the tunnel to go through the whole city, washing out the new dream with their little electronic drains, and then the dream starts all over again. On June 15th.
"Always June 15th, because June 14th is the last day any of you can remember alive. Sometimes the crews miss someone--as they missed you, because you were under your boat. But it doesn't matter. The ones who are missed give themselves away if they show it--and if they don't, it doesn't affect the test. But they don't drain us, the ones of us who work for Dorchin. We sleep when the power is turned off, just as you do. When we wake up, though, we remember." The face contorted wildly. "If I could only forget!"
Burckhardt said unbelievingly, "All this to sell merchandise! It must have cost millions!"
The robot called April Horn said, "It did. But it has made millions for Dorchin, too. And that's not the end of it. Once he finds the master words that make people act, do you suppose he will stop with that? Do you suppose--"
The door opened, interrupting her. Burckhardt whirled. Belatedly remembering Dorchin's flight, he raised the gun.
"Don't shoot," ordered the voice calmly. It was not Dorchin; it was another robot, this one not disguised with the clever plastics and cosmetics, but shining plain. It said metallically: "Forget it, Burckhardt. You're not accomplishing anything. Give me that gun before you do any more damage. Give it to me now."
* * * * *
Burckhardt bellowed angrily. The gleam on this robot torso was steel; Burckhardt was not at all sure that his bullets would pierce it, or do much harm if they did. He would have put it to the test--
But from behind him came a whimpering, scurrying whirlwind; its name was Swanson, hysterical with fear. He catapulted into Burckhardt and sent him sprawling, the gun flying free.
"Please!" begged Swanson incoherently, prostrate before the steel robot. "He would have shot you--please don't hurt me! Let me work for you, like that girl. I'll do anything, anything you tell me--"
The robot voice said. "We don't need your help." It took two precise steps and stood over the gun--and spurned it, left it lying on the floor.
The wrecked blonde robot said, without emotion, "I doubt that I can hold out much longer, Mr. Dorchin."
"Disconnect if you have to," replied the steel robot.
Burckhardt blinked. "But you're not Dorchin!"
The steel robot turned deep eyes on him. "I am," it said. "Not in the flesh--but this is the body I am using at the moment. I doubt that you can damage this one with the gun. The other robot body was more vulnerable. Now will you stop this nonsense? I don't want to have to damage you; you're too expensive for that. Will you just sit down and let the maintenance crews adjust you?"
Swanson groveled. "You--you won't punish us?"
The steel robot had no expression, but its voice was almost surprised. "Punish you?" it repeated on a rising note. "How?"
Swanson quivered as though the word had been a whip; but Burckhardt flared: "Adjust him, if he'll let you--but not me! You're going to have to do me a lot of damage, Dorchin. I don't care what I cost or how much trouble it's going to be to put me back together again. But I'm going out of that door! If you want to stop me, you'll have to kill me. You won't stop me any other way!"
The steel robot took a half-step toward him, and Burckhardt involuntarily checked his stride. He stood poised and shaking, ready for death, ready for attack, ready for anything that might happen.
Ready for anything except what did happen. For Dorchin's steel body merely stepped aside, between Burckhardt and the gun, but leaving the door free.
"Go ahead," invited the steel robot. "Nobody's stopping you."
* * * * *
Outside the door, Burckhardt brought up sharp. It was insane of Dorchin to let him go! Robot or flesh, victim or beneficiary, there was nothing to stop him from going to the FBI or whatever law he could find away from Dorchin's synthetic empire, and telling his story. Surely the corporations who paid Dorchin for test results had no notion of the ghoul's technique he used; Dorchin would have to keep it from them, for the breath of publicity would put a stop to it. Walking out meant death, perhaps--but at that moment in his pseudo-life, death was no terror for Burckhardt.
There was no one in the corridor. He found a window and stared out of it. There was Tylerton--an ersatz city, but looking so real and familiar that Burckhardt almost imagined the whole episode a dream. It was no dream, though. He was certain of that in his heart and equally certain that nothing in Tylerton could help him now.
It had to be the other direction.
It took him a quarter of an hour to find a way, but he found it--skulking through the corridors, dodging the suspicion of footsteps, knowing for certain that his hiding was in vain, for Dorchin was undoubtedly aware of every move he made. But no one stopped him, and he found another door.
It was a simple enough door from the inside. But when he opened it and stepped out, it was like nothing he had ever seen.
First there was light--brilliant, incredible, blinding light. Burckhardt blinked upward, unbelieving and afraid.
He was standing on a ledge of smooth, finished metal. Not a dozen yards from his feet, the ledge dropped sharply away; he hardly dared approach the brink, but even from where he stood he could see no bottom to the chasm before him. And the gulf extended out of sight into the glare on either side of him.
* * * * *
No wonder Dorchin could so easily give him his freedom! From the factory, there was nowhere to go--but how incredible this fantastic gulf, how impossible the hundred white and blinding suns that hung above!
A voice by his side said inquiringly, "Burckhardt?" And thunder rolled the name, mutteringly soft, back and forth in the abyss before him.
Burckhardt wet his lips. "Y-yes?" he croaked.
"This is Dorchin. Not a robot this time, but Dorchin in the flesh, talking to you on a hand mike. Now you have seen, Burckhardt. Now will you be reasonable and let the m
aintenance crews take over?"
Burckhardt stood paralyzed. One of the moving mountains in the blinding glare came toward him.
It towered hundreds of feet over his head; he stared up at its top, squinting helplessly into the light.
It looked like--
Impossible!
The voice in the loudspeaker at the door said, "Burckhardt?" But he was unable to answer.
A heavy rumbling sigh. "I see," said the voice. "You finally understand. There's no place to go. You know it now. I could have told you, but you might not have believed me, so it was better for you to see it yourself. And after all, Burckhardt, why would I reconstruct a city just the way it was before? I'm a businessman; I count costs. If a thing has to be full-scale, I build it that way. But there wasn't any need to in this case."
From the mountain before him, Burckhardt helplessly saw a lesser cliff descend carefully toward him. It was long and dark, and at the end of it was whiteness, five-fingered whiteness....
"Poor little Burckhardt," crooned the loudspeaker, while the echoes rumbled through the enormous chasm that was only a workshop. "It must have been quite a shock for you to find out you were living in a town built on a table top."
VI
It was the morning of June 15th, and Guy Burckhardt woke up screaming out of a dream.
It had been a monstrous and incomprehensible dream, of explosions and shadowy figures that were not men and terror beyond words.
He shuddered and opened his eyes.
Outside his bedroom window, a hugely amplified voice was howling.
Burckhardt stumbled over to the window and stared outside. There was an out-of-season chill to the air, more like October than June; but the scent was normal enough--except for the sound-truck that squatted at curbside halfway down the block. Its speaker horns blared:
"Are you a coward? Are you a fool? Are you going to let crooked politicians steal the country from you? NO! Are you going to put up with four more years of graft and crime? NO! Are you going to vote straight Federal Party all up and down the ballot? YES! You just bet you are!"
Sometimes he screams, sometimes he wheedles, threatens, begs, cajoles ... but his voice goes on and on through one June 15th after another.
* * *
Contents
CALL HIM SAVAGE
By John Pollard
Around the 15th of March each year, folks start saying, "Give the country back to the Indians!" Well, that's what we want to talk to you about.
I didn't even hear her come in. What with the Sioux rising against the white settlement at the fork of the Platte, the attack being set for dawn, and Chief Spotted Horse's impassioned speech to his braves, I wouldn't have heard anything under a ninety-seven-decibel war whoop.
Soft lips brushed the back of my neck and she said something.
"That's fine," I said.
"Sam!"
I heard that, all right. I looked up from the typewriter. "Hey, that's a nice nightgown!"
"I said I think I'm getting a cold."
"Well--with a nightgown like that...."
"Silly!" Her smile would have corrupted a bishop. "You coming to bed? It's almost midnight."
"Soon's I finish writing this chapter. Best thing I've ever done."
"More Indians?"
I reached for a cigarette. "Sure, more Indians. What else would one of the country's leading authorities on the original Americans be writing about? I hate to keep harping on the same subject, my sweet, but the dough from my last book bought you that mink stole you keep dangling in front of your girl friends."
"If you make so much money at it, why are you still a reporter?"
"I like being a reporter."
"What about me? Between reporting and Indians my love life is beginning to wither on the vine. You should have married a squaw."
"Who says I didn't?" I gave her my best leer and reached out an exploring hand. She blushed and backed away, laughing. "Nothing doing, Sam Quinlan! You want me I'll be in bed."
"Hey-hey!"
She gave me a quick kiss, evaded my grasp and disappeared into the bedroom. I finished lighting the cigarette, typed a few more lines. But my working mood was gone, a casualty of a black lace nightgown. Finally I got up from the desk and snapped on the radio and, while it warmed up, strolled over to the living room window.
* * * * *
At this hour Washington was largely in bed. Away over to the east I could see the dim glow of lights marking the Mall, with the Capitol dome beyond that. Now that communism was dead, buried and unmourned in Russia and her satellites, with peace and prosperity booming from Iowa to Iran, even the President would be sleeping like a baby. Any day now I would be down to covering PTA meetings for the Herald-Telegram. That was okay with me; my big interest was "Saga of the Sioux"--the third in the series of books I was writing on the history of the American Indian.
An early autumn breeze crawled in at the open window and moved the line of smoke from my cigarette. A quiet serene night, with the faint smell of burned leaves in the air and the promise of a cool, sunny, peaceful tomorrow. A lovely night, made far lovelier by the thought of the beautiful blonde waiting for me in the next room. After twelve years of marriage I still found her to be the most exciting and rewarding woman I had ever known.
"... most of eastern Colorado," the radio said suddenly, "as well as the western fringes of Nebraska and Kansas."
I turned the volume down. Weather report, probably, except that the announcer was making it sound like a declaration of war or a "sincere" commercial.
"We repeat," the voice continued, "since 8:10 this evening, Eastern Standard Time, literally nothing has come out of that section of the country. All communication has ceased, outbound trains and planes are long overdue, highway traffic out of the area has stalled."
"Sam?"
"Yeah?"
"You coming to bed?"
"... tuned to this station for further bulletins con--"
I clicked the set off. "Could I have three minutes for a fast shower?"
"Umm ... I guess so."
"I," I told her, "am coming to bed."
* * * * *
Lois rattled the handle of the stall-shower door, and I shut off the water. "Yeah?"
"Telephone, darling."
"At this hour? Who is it?"
"Sounds like Purcell."
"For Crisake!" I came out and grabbed a towel. "This is worse than one of those Hollywood farces about honeymooners. What's he want?"
"I didn't dare ask him, he sounded so grumpy."
I kissed her. "About that nightgown ..."
"You're getting me all wet!"
* * * * *
Purcell was night Editor at the Herald-Telegram, a small, intense, middle-aged, highly literate man. Years before, his wife had run off with a reporter, leaving Purcell with an undying hatred for all members of the profession.
His voice, over the wire, cracked like a whip. "Sam?"
"Listen, I'm off duty. You got any idea what time--"
"You're wanted at the White House. Now."
"The White House? You mean--?"
"The White House. The President wants to see you."
"The President! Cut out the gags, will you? I'm in no--"
"I don't kid with reporters, Sam. On your way."
The phone went dead. I stood there staring stupidly at the receiver. Lois had to shake my arm to get my attention. "What did he want?"
"The President wants to see me."
"You're joking!"
"Hunh-uh. Anybody but Pete Purcell, I'd agree." I put back the receiver and went over to the dresser for clean underwear. "Get back to bed, honey. I'll be home as soon as I get through running the Government. Can you imagine! The President wants to see me!"
She yawned and stretched, looking like the June page on an Esquire calendar. "Well, so much for my sheerest nightgown."
"Believe me, darling, if it wasn't the President--"
"I know. It would be an Ind
ian."
I finished dressing while she sat on the bed with her knees drawn up to her chin, watching me. I kissed her thoroughly and patted her here and there and went downstairs. The night man in the garage under the building put down his Racing Form and dug my Plymouth out of a welter of chrome and glass.
I drove much too fast all the way.
* * * * *
A guard at the gate looked at my press pass and used a hidden telephone. Within not much more than seconds I was ushered into the Press Secretary's office. The Secretary, a badly shaken man if ever I'd seen one, had evidently been pacing the floor. He looked at me sharply out of pale, bloodshot eyes. "Your name Quinlan?"
"Yes, sir."
"May I see your identification?"
I handed him my wallet. He flipped through the panels holding my press pass, social security card, driver's license and a picture of Lois in a bathing suit. When he failed to do more than give the latter a casual glance I knew this was a man with a troubled mind.
I said, "Maybe you could give me kind of a hint on what's going on."
"Going on?" he repeated absently.
"You know--going on." I got off a nonchalant-type laugh that would have fooled anybody who was deaf. "I even heard that the President wanted to see me!"
He gave me back the wallet. "Ah--yes. Come with me, please."
We left the office and went down a hall, around some corners and down more halls, past a lot of doors, all of them closed. Finally he stopped in front of a pair of doors with shiny brass doorknobs, knocked twice, then turned the knob, said, "Mr. Quinlan, gentlemen," shoved me through with a jerk of his chin, and closed the door behind me.
I never saw him again.
