The Mile Long Spaceship (18 page)

Coldly he turned his eyes on her and held them on a point a fraction above her nose until she turned her head away. Still wordless he stalked from the elevator, but he could hear her sibilant whisper, was meant to hear it, "She did leave yesterday. With a man!"

In a white fury he called his secretary from his car and told her he would be very late. In less than an hour he was in Cullen's office.

"Cullen," he said coldly, "I won't have you going into my apartment and taking it out with you. The neighbors notice everything and they talk. I will not tolerate any gossip."

Cullen looked gloomy as he shrugged and said, "You have to realize my position, Andover. I told Panowsky that we were developing it for use in institutions and he's curious about when we'll go ahead with production, about how it's doing, why no one else seems to know anything about it. In short, he is curious. He tested it all night and brought it back this morning. I was going to call you to come get it."

For a long second Roger stared at him and then he turned his gaze inward. Just how badly did he want the security the android gave him? The thought of getting rid of Panowsky had come too easily, too fully developed for it not to have been lurking in the dark places of his mind for a long time. Recognising it had brought a kind of shock, but one that already was fading, leaving only the thought of his own necessity.

"Is Panowsky the only one who knows about it?" he asked easily.

"Oh there were others helping, naturally, but they never saw the finished thing. It was just another job to them. But think of Panowsky! He's a genius! You can't blame him for wanting to see how his creation is coming."

"Not at all," Roger concurred. He didn't blame Panowsky for being curious; he blamed him for being alive!

During the next weeks the idea crystallized and Roger knew he could end the threat named Panowsky. Obviously the man couldn't remain alive knowing about Lydia. He might innocently remark about her to someone who felt such a being as Lydia had no right to existence. He might demand Cullen produce her again and again. He might want to change her. Panowsky held her very life in his hands.

Every evening Roger sat listening to his music or examining his art or tenderly leafing through one of his invaluable books and time after time he found his eyes being drawn to where Lydia sat. For now he couldn't bear the thought of not having her with him, in the same room, as though by keeping her near he could be certain Panowsky hadn't come for her. He even bought her a membership in the Gourmet Plan. Of course the food she took in had to be removed later, but that and even the expense were minor in comparison to the security her presence gave him. She was his safeguard, the one who made such evenings possible, and, if at times he despised himself for his growing dependence on her, he overlooked it quickly, excused it by telling himself no man in the world had a more perfect wife, a less demanding one, or a more satisfying one. For Lydia was satisfying. She could discuss his books, echoing his sentiments as few, if any, of his friends ever did. She could exclaim over the brush work of his favorite artists or sit completely immobile throughout his most treasured concert, her very silence a tribute to his taste.

"Lydia," he said softly one night, for he had grown accustomed to speaking to her as if she really were his wife, "we'll go to New York tomorrow and get this settled once and for all."

"Yes dear," she said—as she always did.

Actually it was much easier than he had hoped. Panowsky was delighted to see Lydia and accepted Roger's presence with no more than an uplifted eyebrow as he began to examine the android.

"Best thing I ever turned out. Perfect reflexive coordination. wouldn't you say? You must be that government man Cullen was talking about. Dr.... uh, afraid I've forgotten. How's it been acting?"

It! He dared to speak of Lydia as an It! Roger suppressed his fury and said coolly, "Prepare drinks, Lydia. In the kitchen."

The android moved gracefully toward the door and Panowsky's grin broadened. "The reasoning ability... most amazing android ever produced. Makes its forerunners look like puppets on a string." He turned toward Roger just in time for his eyes to widen in disbelief before his face crumpled beneath the force of the hammer.

Roger calmly entered the kitchen and told Lydia, "Come, my dear. Mr. Panowsky remembered that he is expecting guests momentarily. We'll come back another time." They left by the rear door.

The next day Roger got a scrambled call from Cullen. "Andover," he gasped, "you've got to get rid of that android! Panowsky's been killed!"

Roger's voice was very cold and remote, "Are you drunk? What android?"

Cullen's haggard face seemed to cave in and he hissed into the screen, "Do you think it would fool anyone looking for an android?"

"You're rambling. What makes you think anyone will be looking for one? And why here?"

"Listen to me, Andover. If they find Panowsky's papers, they'll know he made it, and they'll be on its trail within minutes. Do you understand what I'm saying? We'll both be sent up for rehab."

Roger leaned back in his chair and smiled frostily at the distraught man. "In that case, if I were you, I'd make damn sure that no papers were found." He flickcd off as Cullen opened his mouth. No need to worry about that part of it. Cullen would get them. The thing was done, and he had got away with it.

In a way it made good sense not to allow the populace at large to own androids. Too many of them had been used for nefarious activities. Of course they hadn't been at all like Lydia. Obviously she wasn't like that. "Lydia's good! She wouldn't do anything wrong!" He started up in surprise to see his secretary and Stuart standing in the doorway staring at him.

"Remember our luncheon date?" Stuart asked with an attempt at heartiness.

Roger wondered what they thought of his strange statement, but stubbornly refused to elaborate on it when Stuart hinted for an explanation.

It was at a party given to celebrate their first anniversary that Lydia showed the first signs of malfunctioning. She was listening quietly, as usual, to the conversation about her. No one any longer paid any attention to her peculiar reticence, almost a servility, but accepted it as part of the shy personality that she was.

Roger caught it; his eyes, never long off her, saw the first look of dissolution that passed over her face and the sudden clawing of her fingers. Almost instantly it passed and again she was his Lydia, her fingers curved in a graceful attitude in her lap. He blinked wondering at what had happened. Had a transistor or something given out? A minute wire burned out? He didn't know just what could go wrong with them, but he assumed that things did from time to time. He continued to watch her with anxious eyes. And it was he who gave her away.

Mathilde's sharp eyes followed his searching gaze and also fastened on Lydia. And she exclaimed, "Why, Lydia dear, are you ill?"

"She's all right. A little warm perhaps," Roger said hastily.

Lydia smiled her unvarying smile and said, "It's quite natural, I believe."

Roger felt his own smile slip and he forced it back in place wondering where in the world that particular response had come from, and what it had been intended for originally.

Mathilde's expression was of puzzlement for a moment as she tried to make sense out of the answer. Then she beamed with pleasure. "Why Lydia, do you mean that you and Roger are expecting?"

"Of course not!" Roger snapped, cutting Lydia off, but she turned to him and said smiling, "Of course, dear."

Oh, Lord, he thought, she had slipped a connection or something. Angrily he tried to convince Mathilde that she had misunderstood, but she was not to be convinced.

"Really, Roger, she should know. And it won't be long before you can't hide the fact." She added scoldingly, "You foolish thing. How angry you are. You should be happy. Like Lydia."

Roger glanced at Lydia and was shocked by the broad smile on her face, the laughing face, but without the sound that usually accompanied it. In horror he grabbed her arm and said hurriedly, "Thanks for the evening, Mathilde, Evan. We have to be going."

"You are angry, aren't you, Roger?" Mathilde was suddenly very sober.

"No, of course not. It's just that there's been a misunderstanding... Lydia can't be... I mean it just isn't true!"

He finally got her out of the house and back to his own apartment. He threw open the French doors to the verandah outside his living room and ordered Lydia to mix him a drink while he changed his clothes. From his dressing room he suddenly heard dishes crashing in the kitchen and he ran to see what was happening. Lydia was methodically removing one dish at a time and dropping it to the floor.

"Lydia," he commanded, "stop!"

She continued without pause, dropping dish after dish.

"Lydia, I order you... Put down..."

Crash!

"Lydia!" he shouted in desperation. "Lydia! Stop! Stand still!"

Crash! But she didn't lift another dish. She stood without moving, one arm outstretched in the act of picking up another plate, the motion incomplete, on her face a meaningless, frozen smile.

Roger wiped the accumulation of perspiration from his forehead realizing how frightened he had become at the thought of having her out of control. More quietly he said, "Lydia, turn around and walk into the livingroom."

She remained as motionless as a statue.

Roger fought down panic and turned to find the scotch. He would have a drink and consider what to do. Cullen. He'd have to know. He stopped midway through the living room and stared into the inquisitive eyes of his next door neighbor. She was leaning against the open verandah door.

"What do you want?" he demanded.

"Not a thing, Mister. Not a thing," she drawled and pushed herself away from the door lazily with an amused look.

Roger cursed her passionately. By morning it would be all over the building that he and Lydia had a fight, complete with dish throwing. Let them talk! He closed the doors with a bang and pulled the draperies over them.

He called Cullen and told him he was bringing her in as soon as he could get her to the car without being seen. Cullen looked more frightened than ever and Roger had a momentary vision of the fool going to pieces. He wouldn't dare!

He ordered Lydia to sit down, but she remained standing with one arm outstretched in the motion of lifting a dish. Reluctantly he approached her and carefully pushed the arm down to her side. It stayed. Then he dragged her to the living room and propped her up on the couch in a sitting position. He was pacing the floor trying to think of what to tell everyone when he heard her crash to the floor. She remained in the sitting position, only now her cheek and shoulder rested on the floor and she seemed to be looking at him, the broad smiling face vacuous and obscene. He shuddered and covered her.

Cullen would be ready with objections to having her cured, would probably insist that there was no longer anyone able to do it. He would need money for this. He glanced at the grotesque shape under the cover and decided it would be worth whatever Cullen asked, if only she were returned to him healed.

Somehow he managed to get her to the car and arranged in the seat beside him. The drive had a nightmarish, unreal quality since she kept toppling over on him and always the smiling face presented itself soundlessly. When he returned to his apartment at eight-thirty in the morning, he was still shaking, and now his face was a pale grey with deep hollows under his eyes. He colli lapsed on the couch and fell into a sleep cursed with dreams of her. He was awakened at ten by the insistent buzzing of his telescreen. Wearily he switched it on rubbing his eyes.

"Roger, what in heaven's name is wrong?" Evan exclaimed at the sight of him and he seemed to be making a thorough, although darting, examination of the unkempt room. "Are you all right, man?"

"It's all right," Roger said. "You might as well know. Lydia hasn't been well lately, and last night I decided to take her into New York to see a specialist. Just got back a little while ago."

Evan looked properly embarrassed and sympathetic and hurriedly began discussing business.

That wouldn't be the end of it, Roger knew. He had an address to give out, and the name of a non-existent doctor, and the name of the illness. Cullen supplied the address. He had a man in mind, he had said, but it would take at least a week, maybe two. Roger simply had to stall until he sent word.

Roger played the part of a grievously hurt husband for Mathilde minutes after Evan disconnected. Mathilde gushed sympathy and sorrow. She would send flowers, and she would write every day. Letters meant so much to the ill.

There were others and he kept up the pretence perfectly. He didn't hear from Cullen that week, nor the next. Almost daily he answered Mathilde's inquiry with the same sorrowful expression; she was making progress, but the doctor wouldn't say when she could return home. During the third week he tried to get in touch with Cullen, and he got no farther than his secretary who denied knowing where he was or when he would return.

He wasn't sleeping well and his appetite had dropped alarmingly. Poor Lydia, he kept thinking. Did she suffer? Could she suffer? Would they return her to him the same as she had been before? In his imagination he kept seeing her smooth plastic skin being peeled back and her wires and tubes and tapes exposed to strangers and the thought was appalling to him. He shouldn't have left her with a man like Cullen. He should have stayed. It was like abandoning a child to a tiger. He called her 'it.' Bitterly Roger wished Cullen had been with Panowsky that night. Afterward, he promised himself. As soon as she was well and home again.

The next day he received the same uninformative answer from Cullen's secretary when he called. And the next. Then Mathilde called to say the florist had returned her flowers, that no one was at that address. And on the nightly news tape he saw, "Android, Inc., Official Skips with Half a Million."

Weakly he sat down and stared at nothing. Cullen had fled. He had taken all he could find loose and with Roger's sixty thousand that made him quite a wealthy man. Roger tried not to think of Lydia. She was gone! His wife was dead!