Shards of Space

by Robert Sheckley

  “You have an emergency telephone, haven’t you?” Morrison asked.

  “Yes. But I can use it only for personal emergencies.”

  “Can you at least carry a letter for me? A special delivery letter?”

  “Of course I can,” the robot postman said. “That’s what I’m here for. I can even lend you pencil and paper.”

  Morrison accepted the pencil and paper and tried to think. If he wrote to Max now, special delivery, Max would have the letter in a matter of hours. But how long would Max need to raise some money and send him water and ammunition? A day, two days? Morrison would have to figure out some way of holding out...

  “I assume you have a stamp,” the robot said.

  “I don’t,” Morrison replied. “But I’ll buy one from you. Solidoport special.”

  “Excellent,” said the robot. “We have just put out a new series of Venusborg triangulars. I consider them quite an esthetic accomplishment. They cost three dollars apiece.”

  “That’s fine. Very reasonable. Let me have one.”

  “There is the question of payment.”

  “Here,” Morrison said, handing the robot a piece of goldenstone worth about five thousand dollars in the rough.

  The postman examined the stone, then handed it back. “I’m sorry I can accept only cash.”

  “But this is worth more than a thousand postage stamps!” Morrison said. “This is goldenstone!”

  “It may well be,” Williams 4 said. “But I have never had any assaying knowledge taped into me. Nor is the Venus Postal Service run on a barter system. I’ll have to ask for three dollars in bills or coins.”

  “I don’t have it.”

  “I am very sorry.” Williams 4 turned to go.

  “You can’t just go and let me die!”

  “I can and must,” Williams 4 said sadly. “I am only a robot, Mr. Morrison. I was made by men, and naturally I partake of some of their sensibilities. That’s as it should be. But I also have my limits, which, in their nature, are similar to the limits most humans have on this harsh planet. And, unlike humans, I cannot transcend my limits.”

  The robot started to climb into the whirlpool. Morrison stared at him blankly, and saw beyond him the waiting wolfpack. He saw the soft glow of several million dollars’ worth of goldenstone shining from the ravine’s walls.

  Something snapped inside him.

  With an inarticulate yell, Morrison dived, tackling the robot around the ankles. Williams 4, half in and half out of the ‘porting vortex, struggled and kicked, and almost succeeded in shaking Morrison loose. But with a maniac’s strength Morrison held on. Inch by inch he dragged the robot out of the vortex threw him on the ground and pinned him.

  “You are disrupting the mail service,” said Williams 4.

  “That’s not all I’m going to disrupt,” Morrison growled. “I’m not afraid of dying. That was part of the gamble. But I’m damned if I’m going to die fifteen minutes after I’ve struck it rich!”

  “You have no choice.”

  “I do. I’m going to use that emergency telephone of yours.”

  “You can’t,” Williams 4 said. “I refuse to extrude it. And you could never reach it without the resources of a machine shop.”

  “Could be,” said Morrison. “I plan to find out.” He pulled out his empty revolver.

  “What are you going to do?” Williams 4 asked.

  “I’m going to see if I can smash you into scrap metal without the resources of a machine shop. I think your eyecells would be a logical place to begin.”

  “They would indeed,” said the robot. “I have no personal sense of survival, of course. But let me point out that you would be leaving all Venus without a postman. Many would suffer because of your antisocial action.”

  “I hope so,” Morrison said, raising the revolver above his head.

  “Also,” the robot said hastily, “you would be destroying government property. That is a serious offense.”

  Morrison laughed and swung the pistol. The robot moved its head quickly, dodging the blow. It tried to wriggle free, but Morrison’s two hundred pounds was seated firmly on its thorax.

  “I won’t miss this time,” Morrison promised, hefting the revolver.

  “Stop!” Williams 4 said. “It is my duty to protect government property, even if that property happens to be myself. You may use my telephone, Mr. Morrison. Bear in mind that this offense is punishable by a sentence of not more than ten and not less than five years in the Solar Swamp Penitentiary.”

  “Let’s have that telephone,” Morrison said.

  The robot’s chest opened and a small telephone extruded. Morrison dialed Max Krandall and explained the situation.

  “I see, I see,” Krandall said. “All right, I’ll try to find Wilkes. But, Tom, I don’t know how much I can do. It’s after business hours. Most places are closed—”

  “Get them open again,” said Morrison. “I can pay for it. And get Jim Remstaater out of trouble, too.”

  “It can’t be done just like that. You haven’t established any rights to your claim. You haven’t even proved that your claim is valuable.”

  “Look at it.” Morrison turned the telephone so that Krandall could see the glowing walls of the ravine.

  “Looks real,” Krandall said. “But unfortunately, all that glitters is not goldenstone.”

  “What can we do?” Morrison asked.

  “We’ll have to take it step by step. I’ll ‘port you the Public Surveyor. He’ll check your claim, establish its limits, and make sure no one else has filed on it. You give him a chunk of goldenstone to take back. A big chunk.”

  “How can I cut goldenstone? I don’t have any tools.”

  “You’ll have to figure out a way. He’ll take the chunk back for assaying. If it’s rich enough, you’re all set.”

  “And if it isn’t?”

  “Perhaps we better not talk about that,” Krandall said. “I’ll get right to work on this, Tommy. Good luck!”

  Morrison signed off. He stood up and helped the robot to its

  feet.

  “In twenty-three years of service,” Williams 4 said, “this is the first time anybody has threatened the life of a government postal employee. I must report this to the police authorities at Venusborg, Mr. Morrison. I have no choice.”

  “I know,” Morrison said. “But I guess five or ten years in the penitentiary is better than dying.”

  “I doubt it. I carry mail there, you know. You will have the opportunity of seeing for yourself in about six months.”

  “What?” said Morrison, stunned.

  “In about six months, after I have completed my mail calls around the planet and returned to Venusborg. A matter like this must be reported in person. But first and foremost, the mails must go through.”

  “Thanks, Williams. I don’t know how—”

  “I am simply performing my duty,” the robot said as it climbed into the vortex. “If you are still on Venus in six months, I will be delivering your mail to the penitentiary.”

  “I won’t be here,” Morrison said. “So long, Williams!”

  The robot disappeared into the ‘porting vortex. Then the vortex disappeared. Morrison was alone in the Venusian twilight.

  He found an outcropping of goldenstone larger than a man’s head. He chipped at it with his pistol butt, and tiny particles danced and shimmered in the air. After an hour, he had put four dents in his revolver, but he had barely scratched the highly refractory surface of the goldenstone.

  The sandwolves began to edge forward. Morrison threw stones at them and shouted in his dry, cracked voice. The wolves retreated.

  He examined the outcropping again and found a hairline fault running along one edge. He concentrated his blows along the fault.

  The goldenstone refused to crack.

  Morrison wiped the sweat from his eyes and tried to think. A chisel, he needed a chisel...

  He pulled off his belt. Putting the edge of the steel buckl
e against the crack, he managed to hammer it in a fraction of an inch. Three more blows drove the buckle firmly into the fault. With another blow, the outcropping sheared off cleanly. He had separated a twenty-pound piece from the cliff. At fifty dollars a troy ounce, this lump should be worth about twelve thousand dollars—if it assayed out as pure as it looked.

  The twilight had turned a deep gray when the Public Surveyor ‘ported in. It was a short, squat robot with a conservative crackle-black finish.

  “Good day, sir,” the surveyor said. “You wish to file a claim? A standard unrestricted mining claim?”

  “That’s right,” Morrison said.

  “And where is the center of the aforesaid claim?”

  “Huh? The center? I guess I’m standing on it.”

  “Very well,” the robot said.

  Extruding a steel tape, it walked rapidly away from Morrison. At a distance of two hundred yards, it stopped. More steel tape fluttered as it walked, flew, and climbed a square with Morrison at the center. When it had finished, the surveyor stood for a long time without moving.

  “What are you doing?” Morrison asked.

  “I’m making depth-photographs of the terrain,” the robot said. “It’s rather difficult in this light. Couldn’t you wait till morning?”

  “No!”

  “Well, I’ll just have to cope,” the robot said.

  It moved and stood, moved and stood, each subterranean exposure taking a little longer than the last as the twilight deepened. If it had had pores, it would have sweated.

  “There,” said the robot at last, “that takes care of it. Do you have a sample for me to take back?”

  “Here it is,” Morrison said, hefting the slab of goldenstone and handing it to the surveyor. “Is that all?”

  “Absolutely all,” the robot said. “Except, of course, that you haven’t given me the Deed of Search.”

  Morrison blinked. “I haven’t given you the what?”

  “The Deed of Search. That is a government document showing that the claim you are filing on is free, as per government order, of fissionable material in excess of fifty per cent of the total mass to a depth of sixty feet. It’s a mere formality, but a necessary one.”

  “I never heard of it,” Morrison said.

  “It became a requirement last week,” explained the surveyor. “You don’t have the Deed? Then I’m afraid your standard unrestricted claim is invalid.”

  “Isn’t there anything I can do?”

  “Well,” the robot said, “you could change your standard unrestricted claim to a special unrestricted claim. That requires no Deed of Search.”

  “What does the special restricted part mean?”

  “It means that in five hundred years all rights revert to the Government of Venus.”

  “All right!” Morrison shouted. “Fine! Good! Is that all?”

  “Absolutely all,” the surveyor said. “I shall bring this sample back and have it assayed and evaluated immediately. From it and the depth-photographs we can extrapolate the value and extent of your claim.”

  “Send me back something to take care of the wolves,” Morrison said. “And food. And listen—I want a Prospector’s Special.”

  “Yes, sir. It will all be ‘ported to you—if your claim is of sufficient value to warrant the outlay.”

  The robot climbed into the vortex and vanished.

  Time passed, and the wolves edged forward again. They snarled at the rocks Morrison threw, but they didn’t retreat. Jaws open and tongues lolling, they crept up the remaining yards between them and the prospector.

  Then the leading wolf leaped back and howled. A gleaming vortex had appeared over his head and a rifle had fallen from the vortex, striking him on a forepaw.

  The wolves scrambled away. Another rifle fell from the vortex. Then a large box marked Grenades, Handle With Care. Then another box marked Desert Ration K.

  Morrison waited, staring at the gleaming mouth of the vortex. It crossed the sky to a spot a quarter of a mile away and paused there, and then a great round brass base emerged from the vortex, and the mouth widened to allow an even greater bulge of brass to which the base was attached. The bulge grew higher as the base was lowered to the sand. When the last of it appeared, it stood alone on the horizon-to-horizon expanse, a gigantic ornate brass punchbowl in the desert. The vortex rose and paused again over the bowl.

  Morrison waited, his throat raw and aching. Now a small trickle came out of the vortex and splashed down into the bowl. Still Morrison didn’t move.

  And then it came. The trickle became a roar that sent the wolves and kites fleeing in terror, and a cataract poured from the vortex to the huge punchbowl.

  Morrison began staggering toward it. He should have ordered a canteen, he told himself thirstily, stumbling across the quarter mile of sand. But at last he stood beneath the Prospector’s Special, higher that a church steeple, wider than a house, filled with water more precious than goldenstone itself. He turned a spigot at the bottom. Water soaked the yellow sands and ran in rivulets down the dune.

  He should have ordered a cup or glass, Morrison thought, lying on his back with open mouth.

  THE GIRLS AND NUGENT MILLER

  Nugent Miller bent down and examined the footprints, gently brushing aside leaves and twigs with his pocket knife. They had been made recently, by a small foot. Perhaps a woman’s foot?

  Staring at the footprints, Miller could glimpse the woman rising from them, could see too vividly the high-arched foot, the narrow ankle, and the slender golden legs. Turning the imaginary woman on her imaginary pedestal, Miller admired the long graceful curve of her back, and he could see—

  “That’s enough,” he told himself. He had no proof other than the footprint. Hope could be dangerous, desire could be catastrophic.

  He was a tall, thin, sad-faced man, very sunburned, wearing sneakers, khaki slacks, and a blue polo shirt. He had a knapsack on his back and a geiger counter in his hand. He wore horn-rimmed glasses. The left sidepiece had been broken and repaired with a twig and string, and he had reinforced the nosepiece with wire. The glasses seemed secure now, but he still didn’t trust them. He was quite myopic. If a lens broke, he could never replace it. Sometimes he had a nightmare in which his glasses dropped from his nose and he reached for them and just missed and the glasses fell down a mountainside, turning over and over in the air.

  He pressed the glasses more firmly against his nose, walked forward a few yards, and examined the ground again. He could detect two or three sets of footprints, maybe more. From the look of the ground they had been made recently.

  Miller found that he was beginning to tremble. He squatted down beside the footprints and reminded himself that he must not hope. The people who made those prints were probably dead.

  Still, he had to make sure. He straightened up and began following the footprints. They led through a stubbled field to the edge of a forest. He stopped for a moment and listened.

  It was a silent, beautiful September morning. The sun beat down on the barren fields, and light glinted from the stripped white branches of the forest. The only sounds he heard were the tired sigh of the wind and the background clicking of his geiger counter.

  “Normal reading,” Miller said to himself. “Whoever came this way must have had a geiger.”

  But they might not have used it properly. Perhaps they were contaminated, perhaps they were dying of radiation sickness. He couldn’t allow himself to hope. He had stayed sane this long by not hoping, not wishing, not desiring.

  “If they’re dead,” he told himself, “I’ll give them decent burial.” That thought exorcised the evil demons of hope and desire.

  Within the forest, he lost the faint trail in the underbrush. He tried to continue in the same direction but his geiger counter began to chatter furiously. He moved out at right angles, holding the geiger in front of him. When he had bypassed the hot spot he turned again, at an exact right angle, and walked parallel to the direction of the tr
ail. Carefully he counted his paces. It wouldn’t do for him to get caught in a pocket with radiation all around and no clear path out. That had happened to him three months ago, and the geiger’s batteries had been nearly exhausted before he could find a way out. He had spare batteries in his knapsack now, but the danger was still there.

  After about twenty yards he turned again to cross the trail, walking slowly, watching the ground.

  He was lucky. He found the footprints again, and near them a fragment of cloth caught on a bramble bush. He plucked the cloth and put it in his pockets. The footprints looked very fresh. Did he dare allow himself a little hope?

  No, not yet. He still remembered what had happened less than six months ago. He had climbed a small sandstone cliff to forage a warehouse on its top. At sunset he had come back down the cliff, and at the base he had found the body of a man. The man had been dead only a few hours. A submachine gun and a rifle were strapped to his shoulders, and his pockets were stuffed with grenades. They had been no protection against his subtlest enemy. The man had killed himself; the warm revolver was still in his hand.

  Apparently he had been following Miller’s footprints. When he had come to the base of the sandstone cliff, the footprints ended. Perhaps the man’s stamina had been undermined by the harsh radiation burns across his chest and arms; perhaps the instant of shattered hope when the footprints ended in solid stone had been too much for him. Whatever the reason, he had blown out his brains at the foot of the cliff. Hope had killed him.

  Miller had removed the man’s armament and buried him. He thought about the weapons for the better part of a day. He was tempted to keep them. They might be very necessary in this shattered new world.

  But finally he decided against keeping them. He was not going to violate the sternly held pledge of a lifetime; not after all he had seen. Besides, weapons at a time like this were too dangerous to the user. So he threw them into the nearest river.

  That had been less than six months ago. Now it was Miller who followed footprints, through thin forest loam to a narrow stream of running water. When he had crossed it he was able to count, in the stiff mud, five separate sets of footprints. They were so recent that the water was still seeping into them. The people must have passed here within the half-hour.