Turn Left at Thursday (1961) SSC

by Frederik Pohl

  Kathryn Pender leaned toward Garrick. "What he's trying to say, Mr. Garrick, is that we've got a compulsive consumer On our hands."

  North Guardian island-nine miles away. It wasn't as much as a mile wide and not much more than that in length, but it had its city and its bathing beaches, its parks and theaters. It was possibly the most densely populated island in the world . . . for the number of its inhabitants.

  The President of the Council convened their afternoon meeting in a large and lavish room. There were nineteen councilmen around a lustrous mahogany table. Over the President's shoulder, the others could see the situation map of North Guardian and the areas surrounding. North Guardian glowed blue, cold, impregnable. The sea was misty green; the mainland, Fisherman's Island, South Guardian and the rest of the little archipelago were hot, hostile red.

  Little flickering fingers of red attacked the blue. Flick, and a ruddy flame wiped out a corner of a beach. Flick, and a red spark appeared in the middle of the city, to grow and blossom, and then to die. Each little red whip-flick was a point where, momentarily, the defenses of the island were; down; but always and always, the cool blue brightened, around the red and drowned it.

  The President was tall, stooped, old. It wore glasses, though robot eyes saw well enough without. It said, in a voice that throbbed with power and pride: "The first item of the order of business will be a report of the Defense Secretary."

  The Defense Secretary rose to its feet, booked a thumb in its vest and cleared its throat. "Mr. President-"

  "Excuse me, sir." A whisper from the sweet-faced young blonde taking down the minutes of the meeting. "Mr. Trumie has just left Bowling Green, heading north."

  The whole council turned to glance at the situation map, where Bowling Green had just flared red.

  The President nodded stiffly, like the crown of an old redwood nodding. "You may proceed, Mr. Secretary," it said after a moment.

  "Our invasion fleet," began the Secretary, in its high, clear voice, "is ready for sailing on the first suitable tide. Certain units have been, ah, inactivated, at the, ah, instigation of Mr. Trumie. But on the whole, repairs have been completed and the units will be serviceable within the next few hours." Its lean, attractive face turned solemn. "I am afraid, however, that the Air Command has sustained certain, ah, increments of attrition-due, I should emphasize, to chances involved in certain calculated risks--"

  "Question! Question!" It was the Commissioner of Public Safety, small, dark, fire-eyed, angry.

  "Mr. Commissioner?" the President began, but it was interrupted again by the soft whisper of the recording stenographer, listening intently to the earphones that brought news from outside.

  "Mr. President," it whispered, "Mr. Trumie has passed the Navy Yard."

  The robots turned to look at the situation map. Bowling Green, though it smoldered in spots, had mostly gone back to blue. But the jagged oblong of the Yard flared red and bright. There was a faint electronic hum in the air, almost a sigh.

  The robots turned back to face each other. "Mr. President! I demand that the Defense Secretary explain the loss of the Graf Zeppelin and the 456th Bomb Group!"

  The Defense Secretary nodded to the Commissioner of Public Safety. "Mr. Trumic threw them away," it said sorrowfully.

  Once again, that sighing electronic drone from the assembled robots.

  The Council fussed and fiddled with its papers, while the situation map on the wall flared and dwindled, flared and dwindled.

  The Defense Secretary cleared its throat again. "Mr. President, there is no question that the, ah, absence of an effective air component will seriously hamper, not to say endanger, our prospects of a suitable landing. Nevertheless-and I say this, Mr. President in full knowledge of the conclusions that may-indeed, should-be drawn from such a statement nevertheless, Mr. President I say that our forward elements will successfully complete an assault landing-"

  "Mr. President!" The breathless whisper of the blonde stenographer again. "Mr. President Mr. Trumie is in the building!"

  On the situation map behind it the Pentagon-the building they were in-flared scarlet.

  The Attorney General, nearest the door, leaped to its feet. "Mr. President, I hear him!"

  And they could all hear now. Far off, down the long corridors, a crash. A faint explosion, and another crash, and a raging, querulous, high-pitched voice. A nearer crash, and a sustained, smashing, banging sound, coming toward them.

  The oak-paneled doors flew open with a crash, splintering.

  A tall, dark male figure in gray leather jacket, rocket-gun holsters swinging at its hips, stepped through the splintered doors and stood surveying the Council. Its hands hung just below the butts of the rocket guns.

  It drawled: "Mistuh Anderson Trumie!"

  It stepped aside. Another male figure-shorter, darker, hobbling with the aid of a stainless steel cane that concealed a ray-pencil, wearing the same gray leather jacket and the same rocket-gun holsters-entered, stood for a moment, and took position on the other side of the door.

  Between them, Mr. Anderson Trumie shambled ponderously into the Council Chamber to call on his Council.

  Sonny Trumie, come of age. He wasn't much more than five feet tall, but his weight was close to four hundred pounds. He stood there in the door, leaning against the splintered oak, quivering jowls obliterating his neck, his eyes nearly swallowed in the fat that swamped his skull, his thick legs trembling as they tried to support him.

  "You're all under arrest!" he screeched. "Traitors! Traitors!"

  He panted ferociously, glowering at them. They waited with bowed heads. Beyond the ring of councilmen, the situation map slowly blotted out the patches of red as the repair robots worked feverishly to fix what Sonny Trumie had destroyed.

  "Mr. Crockett!" Sonny cried shrilly. "Slay me these traitors!"

  Wheep-wheep, and the guns whistled out of their holsters into the tall bodyguard's hands. Rata-tat-tat, and two by two, the nineteen councilmen leaped, clutched at air and fell as the rocket pellets pierced them through.

  "That one, tool" Mr. Trumie pointed at the sweet-faced blonde.

  Bang. The sweet young face convulsed and froze; it fell, slumping across its little table.

  On the wall, the situation map flared red again, but only faintly-for what were twenty robots?

  Sonny gestured curtly to his other bodyguard. It leaped forward, tucking the stainless steel cane under one arm, putting the other around the larded shoulders of Sonny Trumie.

  "Ah, now, young master," it crooned. "You just get ahold o' Long John's arm now--"

  "Get them fixed," Sonny ordered abruptly. He pushed the President of the Council out of its chair and, with the robot's help, sank into it himself. "Get them fixed right you hear? I've had enough traitors! I want them to do what I tell them!"

  "Sartin sure, young master. Long John'll be pleased to-"

  "Do it now! And you, Davey, I want my lunch!"

  "Reckoned you would, Mistuh Trumie. It's right hyar." The Crockett robot kicked the fallen councilmen out of the way as a procession of waiters filed in from the corridor.

  Sonny ate.

  He ate until eating was pain, and then he sat there sobbing, his arms braced against the tabletop, until he could eat more.

  The Crockett robot said worriedly: "Mistuh Trumie, moughtn't you rear back a mite? Old Doc Aeschylus, he don't hold with you eatin' too much, you know."

  "I hate Doc!" Trumie said bitterly.

  He pushed the plates off the table. They fell with a rattle and a clatter, and they went spinning away as he heaved himself up and lurched alone over to the window.

  "I hate Doc!" he brayed again, sobbing, staring through tears out the window at his kingdom with its hurrying throngs and marching troops and roaring waterfront. The tallow shoulders tried to shake with pain. He felt as though hot cinderblocks were being thrust down his throat the ragged edges cutting, the hot weight crushing.

  " Take me back," he wept to the robots. "T
ake me away from these traitors. Take me to my Private Place!"

  "As you see," said Roosenburg, "he's dangerous."

  Garrick looked out over the water, toward North Guardian. "I'd better look at his tapes," he said.

  The girl swiftly picked up the reels and began to thread them into the projector. Dangerous. This Trumie indeed was dangerous, Garrick conceded. Dangerous to the balanced, stable world, for it only took one Trumie to topple its stability. It had taken thousands and thousands of years for society to learn its delicate tightrope walk. It was a matter for a psychist, all right.

  And Garrick was uncomfortably aware that he was only twenty-four.

  "Here you are," said the girl.

  "Look them over," Roosenburg suggested. "Then, after you've studied the tapes on Trumie, we've got something else. One of his robots. But you'll need the tapes first."

  "Let's go," said Garrick.

  The girl flicked a switch and the life of Anderson Trumie appeared before them, in color, in three dimensions-in miniature.

  Robots have eyes; and where the robots go, the eyes of Robot Central go with them. And the robots go everywhere. From the stored files of Robot Central came the spool of tape that was the frightful life story of Sonny Trumie.

  The tapes played into the globe-shaped viewer, ten inches high, a crystal ball that looked back into the past. First, from the recording eyes of the robots in Sonny Trumie's nursery. The lonely little boy, twenty years before, lost in the enormous nursery.

  "Disgusting!" breathed Kathryn Pender, wrinkling her nose. "How could people live like that?"

  Garrick said: "Please, let me watch this. It's important." In the gleaming globe, the little boy kicked at his toys, threw himself across his huge bed, sobbed. Garrick squinted, frowned, reached out, tried to make contact. It was hard. The tapes showed the objective facts, but for a psychist, it was the subjective reality behind the facts that mattered.

  Kicking at his toys. Yes, but why? Because he was tired of them-and why was he tired? Because he feared them? Kicking at his toys. Because-because they were the wrong toys? Kicking-hate them! Don't want them! Want—

  A bluish flare in the viewing globe. Garrick blinked and jumped, and that was the end of that section.

  The colors flowed and suddenly jelled into bright life. Garrick recognized the scene after a moment-it was right there in Fisherman's Island, some pleasure spot overlooking the water. A bar, and at the end of it was Anderson Trumie at twenty, staring somberly into an empty glass. The view was through the eyes of the robot bartender.

  Anderson Trumie was weeping.

  Once again, there was the objective fact-but the fact behind the fact what was it? Trumie had been drinking, drinking. Why?

  Drinking, drinking.

  With a sudden sense of shock, Garrick saw what the drink was-the golden, fizzy liquor. Not intoxicating. Not habit-forming! Trumie had become no drunk. It was something else that kept him drinking, drinking, must drink, must keep on drinking, or else--

  And again the bluish flare.

  There was more-Trumie feverishly collecting objects of art, Trumie decorating a palace, Trumie on a world tour, and Trumie returned to Fisherman's Island.

  And then there was no more.

  "That," said Roosenburg, "is the file. Of course, if you want the raw, unedited tapes, we can try to get them from Robot Central, but-"

  "No." The way things were, it was best to stay away from Robot Central; there might be more breakdowns and there wasn't much time. Besides, something was beginning to suggest itself.

  "Run the first one again," said Garrick. "I think maybe I'll find something there."

  Garrick made out a quick requisition slip and handed it to Kathryn Pender, who looked at it, raised her eyebrows, shrugged and went off to have it filled.

  By the time she came back, Roosenburg had escorted Garrick to the room where the captured Trumie robot lay chained.

  "He's cut off from Robot Central," Roosenburg was saying. "I suppose you figured that out. Imagine! Not only has Trumie built a whole city for himself-but even his own Robot Central!"

  Garrick looked at the robot. It was a fisherman, or so Roosenburg had said. It was small, dark, black-haired; possibly the hair would have been curly, if the sea water hadn't plastered the curls to the scalp. It was still damp from the tussle that had landed it in the water and eventually into Roosenburg's hands.

  Roosenburg was already at work. Garrick tried to think of the robot as a machine, but it wasn't easy. The thing looked very nearly human-except for the crystal and copper that showed where the back of its head had been removed.

  "It's as bad as a brain operation," said Roosenburg, working rapidly without looking up. "I've got to short out the input leads without disturbing the electronic balance--"

  Snip, snip. A curl of copper fell free, to be grabbed by

  Roosenburg's tweezers. The fisherman's arms and legs kicked sharply like a dissected galvanized frog's.

  Kathryn Pender said: "They found him this morning, casting nets into the bay and singing 0 Sole Mio. He's from North Guardian, all right."

  Abruptly the lights flickered and turned yellow, then slowly returned to normal brightness. Roger Garrick got up and walked over to the window. North Guardian was a haze of light in the sky, across the water.

  Click, snap. The fisherman robot began to sing:

  Tutte le serre, dopo quel fanal,

  Dietro la caserma, ti staro ed-

  Click. Roosenburg muttered under his breath and probed further. Kathryn Pender joined Garrick at the window.

  "Now you see," she said.

  Garrick shrugged. "You can't blame him."

  "I blame him I" she said hotly. "I've lived here all my life. Fisherman's Island used to be a tourist spot-why, it was lovely here. And look at it now. The elevators don't work. The lights don't work. Practically all of our robots are gone. Spare parts, construction material, everything-it's all gone to North Guardian! There isn't a day that passes, Garrick, when half a dozen barge-loads of stuff don't go north, because he requisitioned them. Blame him? I'd like to kill him!"

  Snap. Sputtersnap. The fisherman lifted its head and caroled:

  Forse dommani, piangerai,

  E dopo tu, sorriderai--

  Roosenburg's probe uncovered a flat black disc. "Kathryn, look this up, will you?" He read the serial number from the disc and then put down the probe. He stood flexing his fingers, looking irritably at the motionless figure.

  Garrick joined him. Roosenburg jerked his head at the fisherman.

  "That's robot repair work, trying to tinker with their insides. Trumie has his own Robot Central, as I told you. What I have to do is recontrol this one from the substation on the mainland, but keep its receptor circuits open to North Guardian on the symbolic level. You understand what I'm talking about? It'll think from North Guardian, but act from the mainland."

  "Sure," said Garrick.

  "And it's damned close work. There isn't much room inside one of those things--" He stared at the figure and picked up the probe again.

  Kathryn Pender came back with a punchcard in her hand. "It was one of ours, all right. Used to be a busboy in the cafeteria at the beach club." 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--"

  Roosenburg interrupted with an exultant cry. "Got it! Okay, you-sit up and start telling us what Trumie's up to now!"

  The fisherman figure said obligingly, "Yes, Boss. What You 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 str
ained the whole society. But Trumie's orders came not from society, but from within. Consumel 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 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," Roosenburg said, "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, what do we do about it?"

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

  "All right. We can forget about the soldiers-as soldiers, that is. They won't hurt anyone. Robots can't."

  "I know that," Kathryn snapped.

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

  "Didn't work out too well," repeated Kathryn Pender bitterly.