Read Harry Harrison Short Stoies Online
Authors: Harry Harrison
Harry Harrison Short Stoies (9 page)
Billy decided then that anyone who fired a rocket in a police station was breaking the law, so he moved in with his club. I was right behind him since I did not want to miss any of the fun. Ned was at the bottom somewhere, but I didn’t doubt he could take care of himself.
There were a couple of muffled shots and someone screamed. No one fired after that because we were too tangled up. A punk named Brooklyn Eddie hit me on the side of the head with his gunbutt and I broke his nose all over his face with my fist.
* * * * *
There is a kind of a fog over everything after that. But I do remember it was very busy for a while.
When the fog lifted a bit I realized I was the only one still standing. Or leaning rather. It was a good thing the wall was there.
Ned came in through the street door carrying a very bashed-looking Brooklyn Eddie. I hoped I had done all that. Eddie’s wrists were fastened together with cuffs. Ned laid him gently next to the heap of thugs—who I suddenly realized all wore the same kind of handcuffs. I wondered vaguely if Ned made them as he needed them or had a supply tucked away in a hollow leg or something.
There was a chair a few feet away and sitting down helped.
Blood was all over everything and if a couple of the hoods hadn’t groaned I would have thought they were corpses. One was, I noticed suddenly. A bullet had caught him in the chest, most of the blood was probably his.
Ned burrowed in the bodies for a moment and dragged Billy out. He was unconscious. A big smile on his face and the splintered remains of his nightstick still stuck in his fist. It takes very little to make some people happy. A bullet had gone through his leg and he never moved while Ned ripped the pants leg off and put on a bandage.
“The spurious China Joe and one other man escaped in a car,” Ned reported.
“Don’t let it worry you,” I managed to croak. “Your batting average still leads the league.”
It was then I realized the Chief was still sitting in his chair, where he had been when the brouhaha started. Still slumped down with that glazed look. Only after I started to talk to him did I realize that Alonzo Craig, Chief of Police of Nineport, was now dead.
A single shot. Small caliber gun, maybe a .22. Right through the heart and what blood there had been was soaked up by his clothes. I had a good idea where the gun would be that fired that shot. A small gun, the kind that would fit in a wide Chinese sleeve.
I wasn’t tired or groggy any more. Just angry. Maybe he hadn’t been the brightest or most honest guy in the world. But he deserved a better end than that. Knocked off by a two-bit racket boss who thought he was being crossed.
Right about then I realized I had a big decision to make. With Billy out of the fight and Fats gone I was the Nineport police force. All I had to do to be clear of this mess was to walk out the door and keep going. I would be safe enough.
Ned buzzed by, picked up two of the thugs, and hauled them off to the cells.
Maybe it was the sight of his blue back or maybe I was tired of running. Either way my mind was made up before I realized it. I carefully took off the Chief’s gold badge and put it on in place of my old one.
“The new Chief of Police of Nineport,” I said to no one in particular.
“Yes, sir,” Ned said as he passed. He put one of the prisoners down long enough to salute, then went on with his work. I returned the salute.
The hospital meat wagon hauled away the dead and wounded. I took an evil pleasure in ignoring the questioning stares of the attendants. After the doc fixed the side of my head, everyone cleared out. Ned mopped up the floor. I ate ten aspirin and waited for the hammering to stop so I could think what to do next.
* * * * *
When I pulled my thoughts together the answer was obvious. Too obvious. I made as long a job as I could of reloading my gun.
“Refill your handcuff box, Ned. We are going out.”
Like a good cop he asked no questions. I locked the outside door when we left and gave him the key.
“Here. There’s a good chance you will be the only one left to use this before the day is over.”
I stretched the drive over to China Joe’s place just as much as I could. Trying to figure if there was another way of doing it. There wasn’t. Murder had been done and Joe was the boy I was going to pin it on. So I had to get him.
The best I could do was stop around the corner and give Ned a briefing.
“This combination bar and dice-room is the sole property of he whom we will still call China Joe until there is time for you to give me a rundown on him. Right now I got enough distractions. What we have to do is go in there, find Joe and bring him to justice. Simple?”
“Simple,” Ned answered in his sharp Joe-college voice. “But wouldn’t it be simpler to make the arrest now, when he is leaving in that car, instead of waiting until he returns?”
The car in mention was doing sixty as it came out of the alley ahead of us. I only had a glimpse of Joe in the back seat as it tore by us.
“Stop them!” I shouted, mostly for my own benefit since I was driving. I tried to shift gears and start the engine at the same time, and succeeded in doing exactly nothing.
So Ned stopped them. It had been phrased as an order. He leaned his head out of the window and I saw at once why most of his equipment was located in his torso. Probably his brain as well. There sure wasn’t much room left in his head when that cannon was tucked away in there.
A .75 recoilless. A plate swiveled back right where his nose should have been if he had one, and the big muzzle pointed out. It’s a neat idea when you think about it. Right between the eyes for good aiming, up high, always ready.
The BOOM BOOM almost took my head off. Of course Ned was a perfect shot—so would I be with a computer for a brain. He had holed one rear tire with each slug and the car flap-flapped to a stop a little ways down the road. I climbed out slowly while Ned sprinted there in seconds flat. They didn’t even try to run this time. What little nerve they had left must have been shattered by the smoking muzzle of that .75 poking out from between Ned’s eyes. Robots are neat about things like that so he must have left it sticking out deliberate. Probably had a course in psychology back in robot school.
Three of them in the car, all waving their hands in the air like the last reel of a western. And the rear floor covered with interesting little suitcases.
Everyone came along quietly.
China Joe only snarled while Ned told me that his name really was Stantin and the Elmira hot seat was kept warm all the time in hopes he would be back. I promised Joe-Stantin I would be happy to arrange it that same day. Thereby not worrying about any slip-ups with the local authorities. The rest of the mob would stand trial in Canal City.
It was a very busy day.
Things have quieted down a good deal since then. Billy is out of the hospital and wearing my old sergeant’s stripes. Even Fats is back, though he is sober once in a while now and has trouble looking me in the eye. We don’t have much to do because in addition to being a quiet town this is now an honest one.
Ned is on foot patrol nights and in charge of the lab and files days. Maybe the Policeman’s Benevolent wouldn’t like that, but Ned doesn’t seem to mind. He touched up all the bullet scratches and keeps his badge polished. I know a robot can’t be happy or sad—but Ned
seems
to be happy.
Sometimes I would swear I can hear him humming to himself. But, of course, that is only the motors and things going around.
When you start thinking about it, I suppose we set some kind of precedent here. What with putting on a robot as a full-fledged police officer. No one ever came around from the factory yet, so I have never found out if we’re the first or not.
And I’ll tell you something else. I’m not going to stay in this broken-down town forever. I have some letters out now, looking for a new job.
So some people are going to be
very
surprised when they see who their new Chief of Police is after
I
leave.
THE K-FACTOR (1960)
Speed never hurt anybody—it’s the sudden stop at the end. It’s not how much change that signals danger, but how fast it’s changing….
“We’re losing a planet, Neel. I’m afraid that I can’t … understand it.”
The bald and wrinkled head wobbled a bit on the thin neck, and his eyes were moist. Abravanel was a very old man. Looking at him, Neel realized for the first time just how old and close to death he was. It was a profoundly shocking thought.
“Pardon me, sir,” Neel broke in, “but is it possible? To lose a planet, I mean. If the readings are done correctly, and the k-factor equations worked to the tenth decimal place, then it’s really just a matter of adjustment, making the indicated corrections. After all, Societics is an exact science—”
“Exact?
Exact!
Of course it’s not! Have I taught you so little that you dare say that to me?” Anger animated the old man, driving the shadow of death back a step or two.
Neel hesitated, feeling his hands quiver ever so slightly, groping for the right words. Societics was his faith, and his teacher, Abravanel, its only prophet. This man before him, carefully preserved by the age-retarding drugs, was unique in the galaxy. A living anachronism, a refugee from the history books. Abravanel had singlehandedly worked out the equations, spelled out his science of Societics. Then he had trained seven generations of students in its fundamentals. Hearing the article of his faith defamed by its creator produced a negative feedback loop in Neel so strong his hands vibrated in tune with it. It took a jarring effort to crack out of the cycle.
“The laws that control Societics, as postulated by … you, are as exact as any others in the unified-field theory universe.”
“No they’re not. And, if any man I taught believes that nonsense, I’m retiring tomorrow and dropping dead the day after. My science—and it is really not logical to call it a science—is based on observation, experimentation, control groups and corrected observations. And though we have made observations in the millions, we are dealing in units in the billions, and the interactions of these units are multiples of that. And let us never forget that our units are people who, when they operate as individuals, do so in a completely different manner. So you cannot truthfully call my theories exact. They fit the facts well enough and produce results in practice, that has been empirically proven. So far. Some day, I am sure, we will run across a culture that doesn’t fit my rules. At that time the rules will have to be revised. We may have that situation now on Himmel. There’s trouble cooking there.”
“They have always had a high activity count, sir,” Neel put in hopefully.
“High yes, but
always
negative. Until now. Now it is slightly positive and nothing we can do seems to change it. That’s why I’ve called you in. I want you to run a new basic survey, ignoring the old one still in operation, to re-examine the check points on our graphs. The trouble may lie there.”
Neel thought before he answered, picking his words carefully. “Wouldn’t that be a little … unethical, sir? After all Hengly, who is operator there now, is a friend of mine. Going behind his back, you know.”
“I know nothing of the sort.” Abravanel snorted. “We are not playing for poker chips, or seeing who can get a paper published first. Have you forgotten what Societics is?”
Neel answered by rote. “The applied study of the interaction of individuals in a culture, the interaction of the group generated by these individuals, the equations derived therefrom, and the application of these equations to control one or more factors of this same culture.”
“And what is the one factor that we have tried to control in order to make all the other factors possible of existence?”
“War.” Neel said, in a very small voice.
“Very good then, there is no doubt what it is we are talking about. You are going to land quietly on Himmel, do a survey as quickly as possible and transmit the data back here. There is no cause to think of it as sneaking behind Hengly’s back, but as doing something to help him set the matter right. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Neel said firmly this time, straightening his back and letting his right hand rest reassuringly on the computer slung from his belt.
“Excellent. Then it is now time to meet your assistant.” Abravanel touched a button on his desk.
* * * * *
It was an unexpected development and Neel waited with interest as the door opened. But he turned away abruptly, his eyes slitted and his face white with anger. Abravanel introduced them.
“Neel Sidorak, this is—”
“Costa. I know him. He was in my class for six months.” There wasn’t the slightest touch of friendliness in Neel’s voice now. Abravanel either ignored it or didn’t hear it. He went on as if the two cold, distant young men were the best of friends.
“Classmates. Very good—then there is no need to make introductions. Though it might be best to make clear your separate areas of control. This is your project Neel, and Adao Costa will be your assistant, following your orders and doing whatever he can to help. You know he isn’t a graduate Societist, but he has done a lot of field work for us and can help you greatly in that. And, of course, he will be acting as an observer for the UN, and making his own reports in this connection.”
