The Project Gutenberg eBook of He who served
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Title: He who served
Author: Ray Cummings
Illustrator: Alex Schomburg
Release date: August 1, 2024 [eBook #74165]
Language: English
Original publication: New York, NY: King-Size Publications, Inc, 1954
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HE WHO SERVED ***
He Who Served
By Ray Cummings
This surely was the blackest of
crimes--to be newly built, and
lead the blind, and be a friend
beyond all human understanding.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Fantastic Universe September 1954.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
_Ray Cummings has delighted two generations of science fantasy
readers with his unforgettable tales of the infinitely small and
the infinitely large. We are all atom conscious today, but Ray was
the first to discern the realms of gold spinning in miraculous
splendor far below the threshold of the visible. He has explored
newer realms here, in a story so human and heart-warming you won't
be ashamed to shed a tear on completing it._
2 RY could remember the quick bright warmth of the afternoon sun on his
burnished copper and silvery plating. He could remember every prideful
moment of his early training in the big yard of the James Erg factory.
Every afternoon, at first only in good weather, he and others of the
newly-built had been taken into the yard from the quiet dimness of
the storeroom indoors. Not only was he the largest, the finest robot
of them all, but he was the most intricately constructed and the most
adept at complicated tasks. And he had been the first of the newer
models to be trained.
There were only twenty-five others of Model 2 RY under
construction--the supreme achievement of the genius of James Erg,
the culmination of a lifetime of work. For a quarter of a century no
other robot-builder had been able to compete with the world famous Erg
product.
The big Erg factory in the suburbs of New York dominated the world
market, its products ranging from modest one-task models up to the
most elaborate. Model 2 RY was now the most elaborate, costing two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It was guaranteed slow-trained over
a full two year period. The training included, of course, additional
instruction for any specialized tasks desired by its purchaser; and
association with the members of his family so that the timbre of their
human voices would produce no untoward reactions.
2 RY was big, just under seven feet. His frozen countenance, with its
square-cut contours, and faceted eyes, and his sturdy body-box gave him
the aspect of a rough-hewn statue, but was in no way grotesque. His
voice, hollow yet with several emotional gradations to it, was soft and
pleasing. He could remember that the human voice of the Instructor was
very much like his own--gentle and quiet, and beguiling in its infinite
patience.
2 RY had been taught just simple things at first. "Toory, come here."
He had learned to balance upright the first day. "Come, Toory. Stand
here by me." With his great jointed legs swinging, and sometimes
clanking because of his untrained awkwardness, Toory would obey.
"Very good, Toory. Now--sit down. Flat--all the way down. That's it,
Toory."
How patient the man had remained! "Now--raise your right hand. No, not
that one. The _right_ hand, Toory. That's splendid!"
And when he failed to realize he had made a mistake, the question would
come again. "You're using your left hand. Do you understand, Toory?"
"Yes," Toory would say.
He could remember every glorious moment of those two years. Outdoors
in rainy weather, with the rain dimming his eye-lenses so that he
had to learn to polish them with a bit of fabric. And more often in
cold weather when all his motions seemed to require more effort. His
reactions then would be slower if he did not automatically quicken
them. Quite as varied were the many tasks indoors in the training
rooms. They were mostly domestic tasks, because Toory had been designed
essentially, not for factory or business work, but for the home.
At last he realized that his training was over, and one day soon after
that, his prospective purchaser came. His name was Robert Doret. He
was a wealthy man and an important one. The faint, red-glowing beams
from Toory's eyes, deep-set under his ridged brows, gazed down in
apprehension at the man who perhaps might buy him.
"So you're trained to be called 'Toory'?" Robert Doret asked. "Is that
correct?"
"Yes," Toory replied, striving to remain calm.
"You're right," Doret said to James Erg, who stood beside him. "Quite a
pleasant, well-modulated voice. Certainly far more human-sounding than
the other models."
"Try him on emotion," Erg suggested.
Doret thought a moment. "I'm not sure I'm entirely pleased with you,
Toory," he said.
"I do not understand why," Toory murmured, contritely. "But I am sorry."
"You will find several emotion-gradations like that," Erg said.
"I see. Yes, it's a very impressive model, Erg--far in advance of your
others." Doret smiled thoughtfully. He was a small man, bulging about
the middle, with a rosy, pleasant face. "I guess he's worth the price,
Erg."
The skin around the blue eyes crinkled with tiny traceries of white
lines and Toory suddenly felt glad that Robert Doret might purchase
him. It was like the glow he experienced when he understood a task, and
accomplished it perfectly.
The next day Toory learned that the sale had been made. He was to serve
in Doret's country home, up in the hills north of the city. Toory
needed no specialized training for that. But he learned that there
was to be intensive, new-task instruction for a month to prepare him
for his duties as a domestic helper for Babs Doret, the purchaser's
daughter, for whom he had been bought.
She came with her father the next day--a small, brown-haired girl in a
trim blue suit. Toory learned afterward that she was eighteen years old.
"This is Miss Babs, Toory," Erg explained. "You'll have to learn her
voice well, and be quick to obey. Speak to her now."
"Yes, Miss Babs," Toory said.
"Talk to him, Babs," Doret urged.
"Hello, Toory," Babs said. "Give me your hand. I want to grasp it."
Toory's mailed hand was sheathed in a soft black glove. He was careful
to keep his work-pincer retracted as he had been taught. He held out
his hand, keeping it well lowered because the girl was quite small, two
feet shorter than himself. Her own hand fumbled around for an instant.
Fumbled because--Babs Doret was blind.
"It will be comforting," she said, when her fingers at last closed over
the glove. "Father, you've made me very happy."
"The new training should not take more than a month," Erg said. "You
must work with him an hour or two each day. You'd better practice
walking with him in the city traffic, if you plan to go into the city."
"Not much," Babs said. "Certainly for this summer, anyway, I'll be
staying close to home."
"One of my Operatives will report tomorrow," Erg told her. "I'll
deliver Toory to you this afternoon.... You will learn the new tasks,
Toory?"
"Yes," Toory promised.
Then in the big Erg truck he was taken up into the hills to the Doret
summer home where he remained under wait-command in the foyer until
the Instructor arrived the next day. How warmly he remembered him from
the training periods in the factory. Immediately the new-task training
began. It was simple, letting Babs Doret hold his dangling gloved hand,
leading her where she directed him to go.
For only a short while was the Erg man really needed. The three of them
took long walks together so that Toory would become familiar with the
neighborhood.
With the Instructor intently watching, Toory soon learned to lead the
girl safely through the traffic of the village streets. Quickly he
developed a sixth-sense alertness to the dangers to Babs that must be
seen, and avoided. That was the important thing--avoiding danger to
this blind girl whose hand he held, avoiding it so that instantly with
permanent order for automatic action instilled in him, his response
would come with split-second timing.
The voice of the Instructor remained everlastingly patient when for
the hundredth time he repeated the permanent-order so that it would be
impressed on Toory beyond the possibility of error.
"Danger to Miss Babs must be avoided, Toory. _Danger to Miss Babs. Any
danger._ Do you understand, Toory?"
"Yes," Toory replied.
He learned all the traffic signals quickly. He was pleased with a
warmth inside him that kept getting brighter. "He's all right," the
Erg man said at last. "We've certainly given him plenty of tests, Miss
Doret. His reactions are all that could be desired."
"Yes," Babs agreed. "You've no idea how comforting it is, how safe I
feel."
It was nice that she was pleased. She asked, "You're not mixed up about
anything, Toory?"
"No," Toory replied.
Then the Erg man went away, and Toory's independent service began. It
caused him no confusion. There were the daily walks with Miss Babs,
sometimes shopping trips to the village, and visits to the homes of her
friends. Everywhere Toory was admired, so large and shining a model he
seemed, so comprehensive and smooth of response. Toory glowed inwardly.
His brain-tapes received the warmth, and his memory etched it down.
There was really little for Toory to do but assist and watch over Babs.
The Doret home was a many-roomed, spacious house set in a grove of
trees on a heavily wooded hillside a mile from the village. There were
several human servants, and on the day of his arrival they had come in
a little group to gaze at him curiously.
Babs told him their names and their general duties. There was Annie,
the maid, and Higgins and his wife who served as steward and cook.
There were also Tom, the chauffeur, Nerina, who was Miss Babs' personal
maid, and old Jacques, the gardener.
Mrs. Higgins, that first day, had seemed alarmed. Her whisper to her
husband had been very faint, but Toory's electronic hearing-grids had
picked it up clearly. "Sure gives you the creeps, that thing lookin' at
you with them red eye-beams."
All the other human servants had warmed to Toory, but Mrs. Higgins
had remained hostile. "It's because we ain't never worked in a house
with one of those _machines_, Miss Babs," her husband had murmured,
apologetically. "Not even a little one."
"She'll get used to it," Miss Babs assured him. "None of you will
ever have to give him an order. He'll stand here in the foyer under
wait-command when I don't need him."
There was little confusion in Toory's new life. During the nights the
foyer and the rooms adjoining it were dim and silent, so that Toory's
eye-beams remained motionless while he waited. But by day his gaze
roamed a bit, because there was more sound and movement.
Annie the parlour maid would be cleaning and dusting, or the thin,
sharp-faced Gil Higgins would be moving about, swiftly, deftly at his
duties. And there also was Nerina--she who was Miss Babs' personal
maid--who quite often darted to and fro. Of them all, only Nerina ever
spoke to him. She would say "Morning, Toory." And Miss Babs had taught
him to respond with a cheery "Hello!"
It was all very comfortable to Toory as his memory-tapes etched down
the many little incidents of the passing days. There was never any
bewilderment. He made no mistakes, and he rejoiced in the warmth of
his memories. All the things going on around him here in a house that
had been new at first, but that now seemed completely homelike. Mostly
Toory liked going out with Babs, which they did nearly every afternoon
when the weather was right.
Generally they stayed out quite a long time. But there was one
afternoon when they started, and came quickly back. Feeling unusually
tired, Miss Babs went at once upstairs to her room and Toory resumed
his silent, motionless wait-command in the foyer recess.
For a while there was nothing for his eye-beams to follow. Then he
heard the soft tread of Higgins moving about in the library. In the
quiet, somber dimness, Toory's eye-beams shifted. Through the foyer
archway he could see Higgins clearly.
The steward was sliding back a wall panel, disclosing a big square
metal box which was built solidly into the space behind it. As Toory
watched, Higgins turned a knob on the box. It opened, and Higgins took
something out and dropped it into his right coat pocket--something
which for an instant as Higgins held it, sparkled in the faint light.
Toory had seen the sparkling object before. He had seen it on Miss
Babs' neck, and he recognized it instantly.
It was a new incident. Never before had he seen anyone open the big
metal box except Babs and her father. Higgins closed the box at once,
wiping it off carefully with his handkerchief. It was like watching
Annie dusting furniture. Then he slid the panel closed, wiped that off
also, and came quickly out into the foyer. His tread was almost silent
on the heavy rugs as he went back toward the pantry.
In the foyer suddenly he noticed Toory. It seemed to frighten him.
"Gawd! It saw me!" he muttered to himself. "The blarsted machine--"
All the rest of that afternoon Toory could feel confusion faintly
stirring in him, because what Higgins had done had been something
_new_. He was vaguely relieved when Nerina passed him, going upstairs
with Miss Babs' supper.
"Hello, Toory," she said as she went past.
"Hello," he responded.
There were no visitors that evening. Mr. Doret had gone away for about
a week, and in his absence the house was much quieter. Still under
wait-command, Toory stood in the hall with almost nothing to see, and
little to hear.
At midnight he automatically shifted to be on guard-command. It had
been part of his training, and after a little while he had never failed
to respond properly to the surprise tests the Instructor had devised
for him.
Now Toory's sight-beams were intensified, compensating the dimmer
light; and the audio-circuits were at the highest magnification. He
could hear many faint and distant tiny sounds, sounds which no human
ear could distinguish. Already he was familiar with the accustomed
sounds of the night. There was always the faint whir of the many
electronic appliances in the house, blending with the ponderous ticking
of the big hall clock. And often the stir of the breeze under the
eaves. Especially on windy nights.
Distant murmurs of voices inside the house always came distinctly to
Toory when he was on guard-command. A few floated to him now.
"Yeah, his name's Peter and he's a nice boy, too. Got plenty of money.
Soon as I met him he started spending it on me." Toory knew that was
Annie the parlour maid, who roomed high upstairs with Nerina.
Presently there were other, very faint murmurs, faint because they came
from the top of the most distant wing of the big house.
"Sure I hid it. You don't think I'd be such a fool, keeping it here
in the house? It's hid down in the woods, in that place I showed you.
Thirty thousand pounds sterling we'll get for the diamond-string. It's
worth easy that."
"Gil, is it really?"
"If it's worth a farthing."
* * * * *
The murmurs came from Higgins and his wife. The barking of the dog down
the hill swelled louder, so that Toory listened to the animal as it
bayed at the moon. It often did that, mostly all night. Then there was
Higgins' murmur again.
"I say, don't lose your nerve, old girl. It'll be a mess. We'll be
suspected, of course, but so will all the staff, which makes it quite
all right. See what I mean? Miss Babs being blind, anybody could have
sneaked up on her to watch her open that strongbox. It's a simple lock,
like I said. Anybody could have done it."
"Or even a visitor, Gil."
"Of course. Lots of people knew she had that necklace. There'll be a
lot of stink when Miss Babs finds out it's been stolen. But they'll
never pin it on us. I'm not a fool, wiped everything off. Not a chance
I left any fingerprints."
"But Gil, the police! they'll--"
"Sure. They'll question us all. So what? We'll just sit tight, and
leave the necklace down there in the woods while we wait a good two
years. Then all we do is say we'll have a go at service in England
again. I'll sell the diamonds over there one by one. Who'll ever be the
wiser?"
It was nice to hear the drone of the voices for a while, and then
Toory's attention drifted away. The weathercock on the roof gable began
squeaking again. It was always loud on windy nights. It blended with
the human-voice murmurs.
* * * * *
"I didn't know the blarsted thing was in the house, I tell you. I
thought it had taken Miss Babs out for a walk."
"Gil, it saw you take the necklace!"
"It did. But I tell you I didn't know it had come back with Miss Babs.
I never thought about it at all."
"You could have waited until some other day. You could have--"
"Stop jawin' at me, Mary. It's done now."
"But it will tell what it saw."
"Don't be a fool! That blarsted machine's not smart enough to talk--not
unless somebody questions it."
"But they _will_ question it. Miss Babs will ask it if it saw anyone
at the safe."
"Not until she finds out the necklace is gone, and she won't find out
until she goes to that party Friday night. Gives me three days to shut
up that damn machine. You'll see."
"Gil, I'm scared. It could even be listening to us now! It's down
there in the foyer, and I heard Miss Babs say once that when it's on
guard-command it can hear better than any dog."
The voices softened a little. Toory's eye-beams swung idly around the
foyer as he listened to the human voices, and the baying dog down
the hill and the creaking weathercock. It was very simple being on
guard-command. There was no danger here. Miss Babs was safe. He could
remember how the Instructor had given him the permanent-order to guard
Miss Babs. The human voices went on droning.
"So it's listenin' to us now? So what? A machine can't say, or do
anything on its own. You have to give it an order. And I tell you I got
everything figured out. Nobody's going to question a machine to find
out what's on its memory-tapes. I'm not that much of a fool."
"Gil! What you going to do?"
"Smash it, that's what. I'm going to take it out tomorrow night and
smash it to smithereens."
"Gil! You're crazy. You wouldn't dare go near it. It's got the
strength of fifty men--"
"That's how much you know. I'll take it outdoors, in the night. You
know that little catwalk swing-bridge over the gorge? It's only about a
mile from here. Well, it's been condemned. A sign on it says you don't
dare cross it now, it ain't safe, and might collapse."
"I know. I saw the sign. But Gil--"
"So I take that blarsted machine out there and I order it to walk
across the bridge. A machine that weighs a couple of tons will crash,
won't it? Two hundred feet down to the rocks! Smash, Mary--the
memory-tape of what it saw and heard gone forever. See what I mean?
Simple, eh?"
"But Gil, how can you take it out for a walk? It won't take orders from
you. It won't, will it?"
"No, maybe it wouldn't, right now. But I'll fix that tomorrow
afternoon. And tomorrow night I'll take it out. What difference
what anybody suspects if they can't prove anything? A piece of damn
machinery goes wrong, wanders out in the middle of the night and gets
itself smashed, ruined. Who can prove different?"
"But Gil--suppose it turned on you? Suppose, while you're orderin' it
out--"
"Don't you see I have no choice? If that thing blabbed it saw me take
the diamond-string I'd be done for. A machine can't lie, Mary. It's
got a memory-record nobody could get away from. Go to sleep now. Let me
do the worrying."
The human voices went silent.
The big foyer clock was sonorously chiming. Toory could remember that
Erg's reception room at the factory had a chiming clock too. Now as
the hours passed, and the new day began, Toory stood in his hall niche
with his eye-beams fixed on their usual resting place across the foyer.
Soon it would be time to shift automatically from guard-command to
wait-command. It was nice to know that he never made any mistakes. Most
of all, that was what he prided himself on.
The next afternoon Miss Babs took him for a walk again. It was a day of
dancing summer sunlight, and very happily he led her down the little
path through the garden, and out the side gate where the road passed
that led to the village.
"Take the path to the stream, Toory. Then we can come back the other
way--around the hill."
"Yes, Miss Babs," Toory said.
They had walked here many times, and it was easy not to do it wrong.
Toory followed the road until they reached the rocky hill that lay
beyond it. The stream roared as it tumbled through the ravine where
the swaying catwalk swing-bridge dangled from a dizzy height across
the cliff-tops. Here in the open it was placidly babbling over
moss-covered stones.
He remembered how Miss Babs had told him that the little brook was
always happy here, because it laughed all the time. At the stream edge
she sat down in the sunlight, and motionless under wait-command Toory
stood pridefully at her side.
A big flyer was faintly roaring as it passed high overhead. The red
eye-beams of Toory's gaze streamed up to it, but he didn't have to be
alert, because it wasn't dangerous to Miss Babs. Presently he heard
footsteps approaching and recognized the tread of Higgins. He had been
aware of the sound very faintly behind him almost all the way from the
house.
Then Higgins came in sight. He walked straight past Toory toward Miss
Babs. "Nice afternoon, Miss Babs," he said.
"Oh--is that you, Higgins," the blind girl asked.
"That it is, Ma'am. My day off, you know. A chap can do with a bit of
walking outdoors now and then."
"Yes, it's a beautiful day, Higgins," Miss Babs agreed.
The steward's slim, wiry body was clad in a white-striped blue suit,
and he wore a high stiff collar, and a red necktie. He had no hat, so
that the summer breeze was ruffling his thin, sandy hair. He lingered,
standing beside Babs with a cigarette dangling from his lips.
Toory waited motionless nearby, and presently he knew from the
unheeded blur of their words that they were talking of Model 2 RY.
"And I never once spoke to it, Miss Babs. Not all this time."
The girl smiled. "Did you want to, Higgins?"
"Well, I don't know. Gives you a sort of rummy feeling, a thing like
that standin' around all the time. Shall I try speakin' to it now, Miss
Babs?"
She laughed. "Of course, if you wish. Go ahead, and say, 'Hello' to
him."
"Hello, Toory," Higgins said.
"Hello," Toory responded. It was just like Nerina's greeting, and easy
to answer properly.
"Science is sure wonderful," Higgins said. "He remembers everything he
ever knew, don't he? That's what Mr. Doret was saying--the thing's got
a memory-tape that puts everything down, just like he was writin' it in
a book. Does he learn new things easy, Miss Babs?"
"Yes, he's quite quick to learn," Miss Babs assured him.
"What I mean, if you tell him something new--not just something he's
been taught--what would he do? Could I try him out, Miss Babs?"
"Why--why yes, I suppose so," Miss Babs frowned. "Try, if you want to,
Higgins. But you'd better make it something simple."
* * * * *
Higgins swung around. "Wade across the stream, Toory," he said.
Toory's eye-beams lifted. It was an order taking him off wait-command.
He started to move, then stopped. Something seemed to be wrong, and he
was trying very hard not to make a mistake. It was like those puzzling
moments in his training when he couldn't decide what he should do.
"It would be bad for you to get your legs wet, wouldn't it?" Higgins
asked.
"No," Toory responded. His eye-beams swung to Babs.
"Do it, Toory," Babs said.
The wide rocky stream was shallow directly below the gorge, so that it
hardly wet Toory's knees as he waded across.
"Now, come back!" Higgins called.
Toory came back. Again under automatic wait-command, he stood
motionless. He knew that he had done the task properly. It was strange
that the unpleasant feeling inside him should persist. It was just as
though he had done something wrong.
"Certainly is real wonderful, Miss Babs," Higgins was exclaiming. "Real
wonderful!"
He gave Toory a few more orders while Babs listened, and Toory
responded dutifully. But it all seemed wrong. Toory was glad when
Higgins lighted another cigarette and wandered on; and then presently
Toory was leading the girl home around the base of the rocky hill in
the familiar way he knew so well.
It was Toory's last task for the day, and nightfall found him quiescent
again in the hall niche. A storm was in the making, so that there were
more little noises than usual, especially after midnight when his
hearing became sharpened. At monotonous intervals the big clock chimed,
but soon after midnight the voice-murmurs in the house died away.
Then they started again and it made Toory's eye-beams shift and his
head cock a little sidewise as he listened. The voices were familiar
and he knew it was Higgins and his wife whispering together in the east
wing.
"Oh Gil, be careful."
"Sure I will. I can handle that blarsted thing now. I gave it lots of
orders this afternoon."
The murmurs blurred into the wind under the eaves. The night had been
mostly cloudy, Toory knew, because no moonlight showed at the windows.
But there was a little moonlight there now. Toory stood in his hall
niche, watching it. Presently he could hear faint distant footsteps, a
familiar tread, and he knew that Higgins was coming softly down through
the house.
It was so new a thing that a queer, sharp jangling sprang up in Toory.
He was on guard-command, ready to give an alarm-call if the need came.
He remembered his guard-command training, the surprise tests in the
night, the whispers of two strange men outside a window he'd been
guarding.
It had been easy to give the alarm-call then. But surely this was
different. It was so hard, trying to understand. Somehow it seemed that
now there were things in his memory--things he had seen and heard--that
ought to fit together like little widely scattered parts of a difficult
order. You had to understand _all_ the parts. He wanted very much to
understand, because when he didn't, he made mistakes. It had seemed
easy during his training. He wondered why Higgins was giving him parts
so much harder to fit together than anything he had ever tried to
understand before.
The faint sound of Higgins' tread was growing louder. Toory's gaze
clung alertly to the staircase as he waited. Presently Higgins was at
the top, and coming quietly, swiftly down the padded steps. He was
wrapped in a greatcoat with a dark hat on his head.
Toory stirred. One of his feet jerked with an impulse to move, but he
remained motionless. Surely there was no need to shift to alarm-order,
and give a warning cry. Higgins was a member of the household.
"Answer me soft, Toory," Higgins said, his voice low and tense. "You
and I are goin' out together. You understand what I'm sayin'?"
"Yes," Toory answered softly.
It was easy to understand. Miss Babs often would tell him that they
were going out, and he would wait until she was ready. Toory stood
motionless. In the faint red glow of his eye-beams the sweat-beads on
Higgins' thin, sallow face glistened with tiny sparkling points of
light.
"You've learned to take orders from me," Higgins said. "Remember? Even
new orders."
"Yes, I remember," Toory said. He remembered that Babs had asked him to
obey the orders. That seemed to make a difference.
Now Higgins was standing a little back toward the foyer wall, away from
Toory. He said, "I'm takin' you out with me. We're leavin' by the front
door. You go first."
Toory's eye-beams swayed, his great burnished body standing irresolute.
He could feel his legs and arms trembling because the jangle of
confusion was suddenly worse in him. It seemed terribly hard not to
make a mistake.
Higgins' voice was insistent, even though it remained soft. "Get going,
Toory. You'll obey orders, won't you?"
"Yes," Toory responded.
"Then open the front door."
Toory's great measured steps took him to the door. The latch fastenings
clanked as he opened them, because his arms and hands were trembling.
The heavy door swung wide, and bumped back against the stopper with a
thump.
"I told you not to make a noise," Higgins murmured sharply.
Toory remembered. He always remembered the right response when he
had done something wrong. "I am sorry," he said. "I did not mean to
do anything wrong." He stood at the open doorway, trying to stop the
quivering in his legs.
"You go first," Higgins whispered. "Take the garden path to the side
gate. Start now."
With slow long strides Toory went out, and down the little steps.
He could hear Higgins softly closing the door after them. Broken
clouds floated overhead and the dim garden was faintly silvered with
moonlight. The garden path was a little threading passage between the
shrubs and flower-beds.
"Keep goin', Toory. You hear me?"
"Yes," Toory said. He could hear Higgins' breathing, close behind him.
And back at the house, suddenly now there were faint sounds. As he
turned back to stare he heard the click of the front door opening, and
a familiar voice calling to him.
"Toory! Toory!" It was Babs! Very clear was the tapping of her cane as
she felt her way out to the flagging outside the door.
Toory would have responded, even without direct-command. But instantly
Higgins muttered, "Don't speak, Toory!"
Toory did not speak. He remembered that always, a direct command had to
be responded to first. Higgins jerked at his arm. "Come with me, over
here. Stand quiet."
They stood a few feet off the path, by the edge of a shrub. "She's
blind, she can't see us," Higgins whispered. "And she mustn't hear us
either. Don't make _any_ noise!"
Silently Toory stood with his eye-beams wildly swaying. If only Miss
Babs would give him a direct-order. He wanted so desperately to obey it.
* * * * *
Now the summer moonlight aureoled the slender figure of Babs as she
came slowly along the garden path, feeling her way with her cane. If
only he could have led her as he always did.
"Toory, surely I heard you opening the front door," she called out
suddenly. "Where are you, Toory? Answer me!"
Before Higgins could interfere Toory spoke loudly. "Here I am, Miss
Babs!"
"Toory, you shouldn't have come out. Did someone order you?"
"Yes, Miss Babs."
"Who was it, Toory?"
Higgins whispered protests were vehement, but Toory hardly heard them.
"Higgins," Toory said.
"_Higgins_ ordered you? Where is he now, Toory?"
"He is here beside me, Miss Babs."
Higgins cursed bitterly, and stepped out into the moonlight. "I--I
didn't tell him to come out, Miss Babs!" he said.
"Oh--so you're here, Higgins?" The blind girl's voice sounded startled.
Toory could see them standing together on the garden path, the
moonlight pallid on Higgins' frightened face.
"I came out to get the blarsted thing," Higgins said quickly. "I saw
him out here, and thought I'd have a go at getting him back."
"You couldn't have made a mistake, Toory?" Babs said. "Answer me
carefully now. Why did you come out?"
"He told me to obey him," Toory said. "He told me to go, and open the
front door quietly."
"So you ordered him out," Babs said. "I can't understand this, Higgins.
What possible reason--"
"I didn't!" Higgins protested. "He's got it all mixed up!"
"It has to be true," Babs told him. She was calmly angry. "We'll go
back to the house now, Higgins. We'll soon see why you--"
"Oh no we won't!" In a panic Higgins had suddenly gripped her
shoulders. "I don't know what he's talkin' about. It's all crazy talk!
Crazy--"
"Higgins, take your hands off me. How dare you?"
"You think I'm lettin' a crazy machine say things about me? I'm
tellin' you--"
"Take your hands off me, Higgins."
Now the struggling Babs was frightened. It sent a horrible jangle
through Toory. There was something wrong, and Miss Babs was frightened
about it. Suddenly he saw that she was trying to scream and Higgins in
a panic had put his hand over her mouth.
Within Toory the jangling confusion grew worse, as if some horrible
corroding acid burned at him. He had a permanent-order always to avoid
danger to Miss Babs. Wasn't she in danger now? It was so terribly hard,
trying to puzzle things out, without training-memory or an order. He
could feel the jangle mounting to a bursting tumult. If only he could
think for himself, act for himself, without any orders.
He heard himself saying, "I want to hold your hand, and lead you, Miss
Babs."
The words so startled the two humans in front of him that they ceased
to struggle. It was as though Model 2 RY suddenly had crossed a great
abyss, and it was terrifying.
"Why--why Toory--" Babs cried.
"I want to hold your hand and lead you, Miss Babs. I am going to do it
now." Toory's great metal legs clanked as he took a slow step forward.
"The thing's gone wild," Higgins choked. "It's comin' at us! Tell it
to keep away from us! _You_ tell it--"
"W-wait, Toory," Babs whispered.
"You hear?" Higgins almost screamed, "You hear that, you crazy--"
"No," Toory said. The disobedience was a shattering thing. It so
frightened Toory, hearing his own voice say it, that his huge body
stood twitching with a chaos impossible to control.
"I am going to lead you home, Miss Babs. It is better for us to go home
now."
It was more than just independent thinking. Toory didn't know what it
was; but in all the tumult within him there seemed to be the knowledge
that this was the only right thing for him to do. Now he was clanking
forward with determined steps.
Higgins jumped behind Babs and gasped wildly, "You keep away!"
"No," Toory said.
In the confused darkness of her blindness the girl was stammering
something. Toory did not hear it. His swinging, heavy hand reached down
and she recoiled from it, as if terrified by his inhuman strength. In
his awkwardness he reached out again, and she gave a little cry, and
wilted down at his feet.
He said, "Miss Babs, I am sorry. I did not mean to frighten you. I will
carry you home now."
It was as though a floodgate had broken, releasing in Toory an enormous
surge of shining confidence. Higgins had backed further down the path,
and Toory's eye-beams swung to his pallid, panic-stricken face.
"You keep away from me!" Higgins gasped.
"No," Toory said.
"You got to take orders from me! Do you hear?"
* * * * *
Toory moved from the fallen Babs, and started remorselessly toward
Higgins. In wild panic Higgins stooped, picked up a stone and sent it
clanking against the glistening plate of Toory's chest. Toory continued
to advance, his hands extended with the work-pincers out.
For just an instant, like a terror-stricken animal with its foot in a
trap, Higgins stood shaking. Then he turned and fled down the path. To
no avail. With monstrous clanking bounds Toory was on him as he reached
the garden gate.
It was all a strange and terrible confusion to Toory. Dominating him
was the thought that he must carry Miss Babs back in safety, just as if
she had been hit by an autocar and needed instant care.
Now he had caught Higgins up, and was pressing the frail human body
against his massive chest. There may have been an instant when Higgins
screamed and struggled. But if there was, it was soon over. The
mangled thing became quiet.
Toory found himself on the highway that passed along at the foot of the
hill. Beyond the steeply-rising, ragged cliff was dark against the sky,
and a light was suddenly bathing Toory as he stood irresolute in the
road with his burden--the headlights of an oncoming autocar. It ground
to a stop, and men leaped out and stood gasping.
"It's Doret's new model. It has killed a man!"
Another car came along and the distress sirens of both cars started
wailing. Then a police car arrived; and still Toory stood confused and
trembling, grasping the thing that had been a man. It was terribly
frightening, because so many new thoughts seemed to be needed to make
sense of the confusion.
Now he could hear the men. "Don't try to give it orders, it might leap
at us!"
And a voice from back at the garden. "Here's Babs Doret. It must have
killed her too!"
_No--no._ That was wrong. Surely he had not hurt Miss Babs. He saw them
up in the garden, bending over her. Somebody shouted, "She's fainted!"
He didn't want anyone to hurt Miss Babs. He would not permit anyone to
hurt her, because he had a permanent-order to protect her.
The humans were all babbling. "If we could get the fuse out of it--"
"It's up in the center of the back, up at the shoulders, isn't it?"
"I wouldn't know, it's a new model."
Take the fuse out? Out of _him_? The fuse--
"Maybe we could hit the eye-lenses with bullets."
No--no. With smashed eye-lenses he would be blind, like Miss Babs. How
could he guide her through the village traffic if his eye-lenses were
broken?
"Don't get too close! It might jump at us!"
Now bullets were thudding against Toory. He thought for an instant one
of them had hit an eye-lens. But it was only the metal plate of his
forehead. The bullets sang after him as he flung Higgins' body down,
and fled up into the darkness of the rocky cliff....
The dawn was approaching and still, somewhere up in the rocky darkness,
Model 2 RY was crouching. Everyone knew that he could not have taken
refuge elsewhere, for the cliff had been surrounded. James Erg had been
summoned, and had arrived in an Erg truck. Doret, too, had been hastily
sent for. And there was a swarm of police.
Erg stood with Doret, a little apart from the men in uniform. The
grey-haired scientist was pale, frightened and awed. "This model of
yours," Erg said, "is fortunately the only one of its kind I've sold,
Doret. I'll refund your money, of course, and never make another 2 RY
robot. I dare not do anything else."
Babs had talked with her father; and the hysterical, stricken Mary
Higgins had confessed the theft of the diamond-string, and revealed
where her husband had hidden it. Everyone knew all of the circumstances
now.
"It encountered so many problems so far afield from its training,"
James Erg was saying. "It's understandable, in a way, but I never
anticipated anything like this."
Something new had been added by a mysterious destiny to Model 2 RY,
something that not all the genius of science could build into it.
"It beats me," one of the Erg Instructors said. "You can't build fear
into a machine. But it's hiding up there now because _it's afraid_!"
Babs Doret's hair gleamed brightly in the dawnlight on the rocky
hillside. "You try calling to him, Babs," Doret suggested. "You were
closer to him than any of us."
She called quaveringly, "Toory--Toory, where are you? Can you hear me?"
He could hear her where he crouched, trembling. "Here I am, Miss Babs,"
he called back.
Her father prompted her. She called again. "We are going to take the
fuse out, Toory."
No--no--that would be wrong. He did not want that. In fear and
trembling he heard her voice again. "Stand up, Toory."
He wanted very much to do what was right. But this--
"Stand up, Toory."
He stood with the rose-glow of the coming sunlight glistening on him.
Now he could see Miss Babs clearly, low down among the rocks, with men
around her. One of the men was whispering to her.
"Turn your back to us, Toory," she called suddenly.
He turned around. His knees clanked with their trembling, but he
steadied himself.
"Now lie down, Toory. Flat--all the way down."
He lay staring up the wavering eye-beams. He could see the clouds high
up, flushed with the dawnlight. An aircar was drifting past, up there,
but an aircar was not a danger to Miss Babs.
"We're sending a man up to take the fuse out, Toory. Turn over, face
down. That's it. Do this for me, Toory."
He lay with his face pressing into the rocky ground. The rock was
dark and blurred, so close to his eye-lenses. He could remember how
proud he'd felt down there in the warm sunlit valley standing under
wait-command beside Miss Babs. She had said that the little brook as
it babbled over the stones was laughing. It was always happy, because
it laughed all the time. How he wished that he could hear the brook now.
"The Erg man is coming," the girl called. "Don't move, Toory."
It was very strange that Miss Babs would order this. He tried
desperately to reason why, but he could not.
Now he heard her voice again. "Will you lie quiet, Toory, while he
takes out the fuse? Answer me."
"Yes, Miss Babs. I will lie quiet."
Now the Erg man was bending over him. He pressed his face down harder
against the rock. And there was Babs' voice calling once more--her
voice with something in it that Toory never had heard directed at him
before. It was the voice humans used to one another.
"Goodbye, Toory."
He was so desperately frightened....
The fuse of Model 2 RY came out with a little click. The hissing,
throbbing tumult inside the glistening body faded into silence. The
turgid red eye-beams, down against the rock, went dark. Something
which had been was gone, and there was left only a motionless piece of
machinery.
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