Norton, Andre - Anthology (6 page)

Even in spring the cliffs and river
seemed lonely and desolate. Men had not bothered to teach X-120 much of
religion or philosophy. Yet somewhere in the combination of cells in his brain
was a thought which kept telling him that he and his kind were suffering for
their sins and for the sins of men before them.

And perhaps the thought was true.
Certainly, men had never conquered their age-old stupidity, though science had
bowed before them. Countless wars had taken more from men than science had given
them. X-120 and his kind were the culmination of this primal killer instinct.

In the haste of a war-pressed
emergency man had not taken the time to refine his last creation, or to
calculate its result. And with that misstep man had played his last card on the
worn gaming table of earth. That built-in urge to kill men in yellow uniforms
had changed, ever so slightly, to an urge to kill—men.

Now there
were
only X-120, his two crippled comrades, the heaps of rusted steel, and the
leaning, crumbling towers.

He followed the river for several
miles until the steep sides lessened. Then he clambered out, and wandered
through groves of gnarled trees. He did not wish to go back to L-1716, not just
yet. The maimed robot was always sad. The rust was eating into him, too. Soon
he would be like G-3a. Soon the two of them would be gone. Then he would be the
last. An icy surge of fear stole over him. He did not want to be left alone.

He lumbered onward. A few birds
were stirring. Suddenly, almost at his feet, a rabbit darted from the bushes.
X-120's long jointed arms swung swiftly. The tiny animal lay crushed upon the
ground. Instinctively he stamped upon it, leaving only a bloody trace upon the
new grass.

Then remorse and shame stole over
him. He went on silently. Somehow the luster of the day had faded for him. He
did not want to kill. Always he was ashamed, after the deed was done. And the
age-old question went once more through the steel meshes of his mind: Why had
he been made to kill?

He went on and on, and out of long
habit he went furtively. Soon he came to an ivy-covered wall. Beyond this were
the ruins of a great stone house. He stopped at whal had once been a garden.
Near a broken fountain he found what he had been seeking, a little marble
statue of a child weathered and discolored. Here, unknown to his companions he
had been coming for years upon countless years. There was something about this
little sculpturing that had fascinates him. And he had been half ashamed of his
fascination.

He could not have explained his
feelings, but there was something about the statue that made him think of all
the things that men had possessed. It reminded him of all the qualities that
were so far beyond his kind. He stood looking at the statue for long. It
possessed an ethereal quality that still defied time. It made him think of the
river and of the overhanging cliffs. Some long-dead artist almost came to life
before his quartz eyes.

He retreated to a nearby brook and
came back with a huge ball of clay.
This in spite of the century-old
admonitions that all robots should avoid the damp.
For many years he had
been trying to duplicate the little statue. Now, once more, he set about his
appointed task. But his shearlike claws had been made for only one thing,
death. He worked clumsily. Toward sundown he abandoned the shapeless mass that
he had fashioned and returned to the ruins.

Near the shattered hall he met
L-1716. At the entrance they called to G-3a, telling him of the day's
adventures. But no answer came. Together they went in. G-3a was sprawled upon
the floor. The rust had conquered.

The elusive spring had changed into
even a more furtive summer. The two robots were coming back to their hall on an
afternoon which had been beautiful and quiet. L-1716 moved more slowly now. His
broken cables trailed behind him, making a rustling sound in the dried leaves
that had fallen.

Two of the cables had become
entangled. Unnoticed, they caught in the branches of a fallen tree. Suddenly
L-1716 was whirled about. He sagged to his knees. X-120 removed the cables from
the tree. But L-1716 did not get up. "A wrench," he said brokenly;
"something is wrong."

A thin tendril of smoke curled up
from his side. Slowly he crumpled. From within him came a whirring sound that
ended in a sharp snap. Tiny flames burst through his metal sides. L-1716 fell
forward.

And X-120 stood over him and
begged, "Please, old friend, don't leave me now." It was the first
time that the onlooking hills had seen any emotion in centuries.

A few flakes of snow were falling
through the air. The sky looked gray and low.
A pair of crows
were
going home, their raucous cries troubling an otherwise dead world.

X-120 moved slowly. All that day he
had felt strange. He found himself straying from the trail. He could only move
now by going in a series of arcs. Something was wrong within him. He should be
back in the hall, he knew, and not out in this dangerous moisture. But he was
troubled, and all day he had wandered, while the snowflakes had fallen
intermittently about him.

On he went through the gray, chill
day. On and on until he came to crumbling wall, covered with withered ivy. Over
this he went into a ruined garden, and paused at a broken fountain, before an
old and blackened statue.

Long he stood, looking down at the
carving of a little child, a statue that men had made so long before. Then his
metal arm swung through the air. The marble shivered into a hundred fragments.

Slowly he turned about and retraced
his steps. The cold sun was sinking, leaving a faint amethyst stain in the west.
He must get back to the hall.
Mustn't stay out in the wet, he
thought.

But something was wrong. He caught
himself straying from the path, floundering in circles. The light was paling,
although his eyes had been fashioned for both day and night.

Where was he? He realized with a
start that he was lying on the ground. He must get back to the hall. He
struggled, but no movement came. Then, slowly, the light faded and flickered
out.

And the snow fell, slowly and
silently, until only a white mound showed where X-120 had been.

            
Through books and
such well-organized television programs as STAR TREK, we have been introduced
to life on board the great space cruisers of the future. Only—as good as those
ships may appear to be, the end products of mankind's most efficient invention
and far-out dreaming—they must still be crewed by mortals. And men have their
faults in plenty. A psychic cripple on board means danger, as the captain of
the FFT-136, on his first voyage of command, discovered.

            
Lieutenant Nord
Corbett adjusted his freshly pressed uniform jacket over his thick, broad
shoulders, checked to see if the jeweled-incrusted wings were exactly
horizontal with the first row of spatial exploratory ribbons before entering the
wardroom. He well remembered, when he was a junior officer, how the sight of a
well-dressed, impeccably neat commanding officer, no matter how long they had
been spacing, maintained the enthusiasm, confidence, and morale of the officers
and men.

 
          
 
The wardroom looked like a tridimensional
pictograph advertising the dining salon of a billionaire's yacht. Soft light
from the curving overhead ricocheted from the gleaming, satiny pandamus wood
lining the bulkhead, glanced on the spotless linen, flickered on the silverware
like liquid flame. In the center of the elliptical table was his own donation
to the officers' mess: a massive stand of carmeltia; the fabulously valuable,
deathless, roselike flower from Dynia.

 
          
 
He enjoyed dinner with his officers. He
refused to pattern himself after other officers of his same class, who as soon
as they were given a command, no matter how small, begin to live a life of
lofty solitude. They felt such eremitic behavior would automatically make them
revered, feared, and admired. The majesty that went with command, Lieutenant
Nord Corbett well knew, came from mutual respect and not from living in a
half-world of distant glory.

 
          
 
He quickly noted, as he sat at the head of the
table, there was still no trace of irking boredom on the alert faces of his ten
officers. He looked for evidence of dullness every night at this time. An
officer bored with the monotony of spacing was a terrible hazard because he
could easily infect others with his own morose discontent.

 
          
 
The steward was at his elbow. From an
intricately carved, large silver bowl he pulled a shining metal can, nested in
ice.
"A lettuce and tomato salad, sir?"
Then
apologetically, "That's all we have left now."

 
          
 
Nord Corbett nodded. The salad as it emerged
from the can looked garden fresh, even to tiny beads of moisture on the crisp
leaves.

 
          
 
Nord looked down the table at Ensign Munroe,
finance and supply officer. "Fresh canned stores are about gone now,
aren't they?" He ladled dressing on the bright green and red vegetables.

 
          
 
"Yes, sir.
We'll
be on dry stores in about another week," Munroe answered, "unless, of
course, we pass a ship going Earthwards with fresh food."

 
          
 
"Then we'll be on them for the rest of
the trip," Nord announced, "
we
won't pass
any ships until we approximate Lanvin."

 
          
 
"We'll only have to eat dry stores for
about five or six more months," Ensign Lesnau, the astrogation officer,
prophesied.

 
          
 
Hardman, the executive officer, chuckled.
"Did you hear that, gentlemen? Please note, Mr. Lesnau announces an ETA
for Lanvin plus or minus one month. I'd suggest, captain," he looked at
Nord, "you might have Dr. Stacker teach him astrogation."

 
          
 
The laughter that circled the table at the
thought of the space surgeon teaching astrogation was as euphoric as a
synthetic comedy. Even after one hundred and two days of spacing, he still
couldn't believe it; the warm thought cloaked his mind; these smiling officers
were on his first command —Terrestrial Spaceship FFT-136. Their holds were
filled with agricultural supplies from the Colonial Office on Earth to Lanvin:
Planet IV, Sun 3,
Sirius
System. His feeling of
responsibility for the safe execution of this task was like the joy of a father
with a new son.

 
          
 
"Captain," Hardman interrupted his
reverie, "you missed a good story. Just before dinner, Munroe was telling
me about the most original crime on earth."

 
          
 
"You mean in space," Munroe
corrected; he turned to the captain. "My brother tells the story that when
he was junior instrument officer on the Explorer II, some loose-minded spaceman
held up the paymaster when they were five light-years from the nearest planet.
He knew he couldn't get off the ship with the money. He just thought it would
be a good idea."

 
          
 
"Well, it would be a good idea, if he
could get by with it," Nord admitted. "Think how much currency those
big ships carry. It would make a man fabulously rich."

 
          
 
"Not just big ships. Do you have any idea
how much I have in my safe for the District Base at Lanvin?" Munroe asked.

 
          
 
Bickford, the air officer, leaned forward
eagerly. "How much do you carry?"

 
          
 
"I've got a million stellars!"

 
          
 
"A million
stellars!"
Bickford's pale, blue eyes almost extruded. "Why,
that's a hundred million dollars."

 
          
 
Munroe nodded. "Captain, Mr. Bickford
knows elementary finance. Why can't he be supply officer for a while and let me
be air officer?"

 
          
 
"That's a good idea." Lesnau thought
aloud. "I'll be space surgeon, too.
A complete rotation
of all officers.
I've been worried about how Mr. Bickford handles the
air anyway. He's careless with our chlorophyl. You know air is rather important
to us."

 
          
 
"That last is a super-nova of
understatement," Dr. Stacker announced.

 
          
 
Bickford leaned across the
table,
his almost colorless, pale blue eyes were like tiny, venomous slits. "What
do you mean I don't handle the air properly?" His voice was a rasping
growl.

 
          
 
"Now, Mr, Bickford, don't get
spacey," Nord Corbett cautioned softly. "You know you were only being
kidded."

 
          
 
"Don't like to be kidded about my
detail," he answered testily. "Go on with the story." He jerked
his thin head toward Munroe.

 
          
 
"That's about all there was to it. Of
course he was caught and sent to the hospital." He turned to Dr. Stacker.
"What kind of illness is that anyway?"

 
          
 
The space surgeon put down his fork. "I
would diagnose such a case as being a psychopath."

 
          
 
"Just what is a psychopath?" Nord
asked.

 
          
 
"A psychopath is a person with a mental
defect, which prevents him from learning by experience. Such personalities are
usually brilliant, able to learn readily, but when it comes to living with
others, they are social failures. They are like
children,
mere emotional infants.Their conduct is ruled solely by impulse. They will
think over an idea for a second and then act without considering the
consequences to themselves or others. The professional criminal, the
pathological liar, the billionaire's son who is repeatedly fined for dropping
his yacht into a city, the swindler, kleptomaniac, pyromaniac, and moral degenerate
are all psychopaths."

 
          
 
"What causes them?" Nord inquired.
"And why let them on ships anyway?"

 
          
 
Stacker sighed. "I wish I could answer it
all for you. The psychopath can only be explained as a vestigial remnant of
man's evolutionary development. It is normal for an infant to live solely by
impulse, but as mentality develops, he learns to make adjustments to life
without the origin of too many conflicts. If, however, we lack the ability to
learn how to live with others then we will act as a very intelligent animal
would act. Just remember, captain, it is a mental condition, which is a stage
in man's phylogenetic development."

 
          
 
"Well, how can you tell a psychopath from
a normal lug?" Hardman interposed.

 
          
 
"That's easy," Lesnau broke in,
"we're not normal. Those on Earth are. If we were normal, do you think
we'd be out here ten light-years from home?"

           
 
"The files in the Bureau of Spatial
Medicine," the space surgeon answered Hardman's question, "maintain
accurate records of all illnesses, arrests, domestic difficulties, and any
other symptom of maladjustment. All ships have physicians aboard who are
trained in psychiatry. We make every effort to keep the Service free from the
danger of the psychopath."

 
          
 
"Why are they so dangerous?" Hardman
asked with a laugh.
"Seems to me they are rather
absurd."

 
          
 
"I can see the danger," Nord said
slowly. "I wonder how much of an item they are in the cause of ships that
don't
return?
"

 
          
 
"I would say they were a tremendous
factor," the medical officer answered. "Think how easily one man
could wreck this ship. If he gained access to the tube banks, he could
substitute a worn tube and throw our astrogation out of kilter. If he got into
the chlorophyl banks, he could infect them and cause asphyxiation; if he could gain
access to the bleeder valves, he could release all our air into space. If he
kept one suit of armor, he would then control the ship," he paused, looked
around the table, "and be rich for life."

 
          
 
Hardman looked at the captain. "I hope
you keep all the keys around your neck." When the laughter subsided, he
addressed the doctor again. "Are all men carefully checked?" He
indicated Bickford with a nod. "I mean men like political appointees, such
as Mr. Bickford."

 
          
 
Bickford's pointed chin quivered angrily.
"What's the matter with my mind?" he snarled with trembling fury.
"Just because I'm not a graduate of the
Spatial
Academy
is no reason to pick on me." He
pounded the table angrily. "My cousin, who is manager of Synthetic Air,
got me this job. I was given a highly specialized course in air
management." His pale blue eyes glared at Dr. Stacker. "Just because
you silly space surgeons didn't have any reason to examine me doesn't mean my
mind isn't as good as yours. You're all just jealous because I have rich relatives.
Well," he laughed hysterically, "my mind is just as good as anyone's
at this table."

 
          
 
The officers sat stiffly erect in
embarrassed
silence as they pretended to ignore Bickford's
uncalled-for, infantile expression of anger. They waited, fumbling with the
silverware, gaze fixed on the waxen roselike flowers in the center of the
table. The wardroom was so quiet that when one of the stewards placed a serving
spoon in the dessert bowl, the click of the silver was startlingly explosive.

 
          
 
"I don't think there is anything the
matter with your mind; nor does anybody else." Nord eased the gathering
tension. But he felt cold on the inside, as if Pluto's turgid, bitter winds
were blowing out from his body and through his clothing. His hands and feet
felt cold, even his brain seemed frozen as he watched Bickford's thin fingers
pluck for a cigarette.

 
          
 
He turned to Dr. Stacker, who was observing
the air officer with clinical detachment. "You're the ship's athletic
officer. Who should I put my money on tonight?"

 
          
 
"I won't commit myself."

 
          
 
"Gentlemen, shall we go on the recreation
deck and watch the semifinals? Cooks, stewards, and waiters are expected to
beat the ship's repair force. It's going to be a good game of laska ball."