The Questor Tapes (17 page)

“Questor!”

“Yes, Jerry?”

Jerry fidgeted guiltily. It was difficult to say what he had to, but he found the nerve to blurt it out. “I called Darro. I told him you were at Trimble Manor. I’m sorry . . .”

Questor nodded, understanding, and waved Jerry into the back seat of the limousine. Jerry got in, followed by the android. Before the chauffeur could shut the door, a police lorry rolled into view, blocking the village street ahead of them. Uniformed police began to boil out of it. Jerry whirled, looking behind them. Armed British troops and more uniformed policemen pulled up to block other streets. Questor started to get out of the car, but Jerry pulled him back.

“No, don’t try it. Ill talk to Darro, explain—”

“I have no choice but to attempt escape. I must remove myself to some distant area of the world, my friend.”

“Don’t keep calling me that! I’m the one who gave you away!”

“Then you must have believed it necessary for some good reason. Does that make you less my friend?”

Jerry stared at him and found it difficult to try to speak around the painful lump in his throat. He looked away before Questor’s bright, honest eyes caught the glitter of tears in his own.

A squad of soldiers armed with rifles and submachine guns was moving in, led by a lieutenant. “Hold it there!” the officer shouted. “Which of you is Questor?”

Jerry spun toward Questor and spoke quickly and quietly. “All right, when I move, go the other way
fast.
Darro promised they wouldn’t shoot.”

“Yes, I understand.”

Jerry braced himself, then opened the door beside him, and shoved it open. He stepped out, hands up, shouting, “
This way, here! I’m the one! I’m Questor!”

The squad of soldiers moved closer, their guns trained on Jerry. Questor slid out the other side of the car and began to walk away as casually as possible. Behind him, Jerry kept talking, trying to divert the soldiers’ attention as long as possible. A policeman cutting across the park blocked Questor’s way, drawing his revolver. Questor sprang forward, snatched the pistol from his hands, and flung it away.

A young soldier came around the corner of a parked lorry just in time to see Questor disarm the police officer. The android left the officer and headed straight toward the young soldier. The boy brought his weapon up to firing position.

“Hold your fire!” an officer shouted. Jerry turned at the same moment and saw what was happening.
“Don’t shoot!”

But the young soldier’s hands had already tightened on the weapon, and it bucked as he fired a burst directly at Questor. The android stopped, staggered, then began to fall backward. He landed in a crumpled heap, his unwinking eyes staring at the sky.

Jerry ran to him and knelt beside him to prop up his head and shoulders. Questor’s eyes seemed to have dulled, and his head rolled limply to the side. Jerry bowed his head over him.

“Questor! Questor, I’m sorry.”

The lieutenant in charge of the squad came up beside Jerry and stared down at the android. The submachine gun bullets had ripped the jacket and shirt across the abdominal area, but nothing else was visible. The lieutenant frowned. “No blood. Are you certain he’s hit?”

Jerry looked up at him, then down at Questor again. “There’s blood.
There’s blood all over!”

1 4

J
erry reflected glumly that the Project Questor lab and Cal Tech had not changed noticeably in the time they had been away. Then he realized that it had only been five days since Questor had been activated. It felt like a year . . . or more.

He glanced at the burly man in the laboratory clean suit beside him as they prepared to enter the lab. Darro had found Questor’s evidence, declaring Jerry innocent of any wrongdoing. But Jerry knew that Darro trusted him no more than he trusted any of the scientists who had attempted to steal the Questor secret. They were being tolerated here and now because they were needed.

Darro keyed his identification into the door device, and it slid open to admit him. Jerry did the same. As soon as the automatic door opened, he hurried to the assembly pallet where Questor’s body lay.

The android was motionless, his eyes still staring up, unblinking. The submachine gun bullets had ripped vicious holes in the plastiskin. Wires once again ran into the circuits beneath the entry flap in his side. The five scientists stood unhappily beside the pallet and at the monitoring stations.

“Well?” Darro said.

Audret sighed and spoke first. “No brain-case injuries, fortunately. But several main servo-systems are gone, and we fear perhaps even deeper severance of—”

Darro interrupted curtly. “In simple English, please.
Can it be repaired?”

“Him,
not ‘it,’ ” Jerry snapped.

Dr. Bradley looked up from her monitoring station. “No brain waves at all.”

“Clinically dead, if that is the appropriate term,” Gorlov said. He glanced from Robinson to Darro. “Without Robinson’s assistance, the answer to your question is no.”

“Well, Robinson?”

Jerry looked back at Darro coldly. “I’ve answered that already, Darro. Only on my terms.”

“You made your terms when you called me, Robinson.”

“That was a mistake. I won’t make the same one again.”

“I will not bargain!”

Jerry nodded briefly. “Then you just let him lie there another one hundred forty-four hours and see what happens, Darro.”

Darro angrily moved a step forward, flinging out one arm to indicate the room, the scientists, the technology concentrated in that one place. “Five of the finest scientists in the world assure me nuclear fusion cannot be triggered to overload.”

“Will you bet your life on it, Darro?”

They stood there nose to nose, sizing each other up. Darro weighed the change in Jerry from pleasant, easy-going young engineer to the defiant, confident man who stood before him. But Darro was a gambler, and he knew a bluff when he saw one.

“Bet,” he said flatly.

“Call,” Jerry shot back. “If you, your five
fine
scientists, and Pasadena are still here six days from now, give me a telephone call. I’ll be in Iowa.” He turned and started for the door.

Just as it slid open for him, Darro called out, “What are your terms, Robinson?”

Jerry stopped, took a deep breath, and faced Darro again. “The lab under my control, these people obeying my orders, and . . . and if he is not fully functioning within five days, a jet standing by to transport him to a safe nuclear-blast location.”

“Agreed,” Darro said tightly. “And now, if you’re through . . .”

“Not quite,” Jerry said. “I’ll start work right away, but I want you out of this lab. Now. And I don’t want to see you back in here until I give the word.”

Darro froze, rage working in his face until it turned a deep red. Then, silently, he left the room.

Dr. Chen expertly ran a heat sealer over the last rip in the plastiskin made by the bullets. He stepped back and examined his work critically. Except for some cosmetology coloration needed at the repair points, Questor’s body was as perfect as before. Chen looked across the inert android to Jerry, who worked on the circuits beneath the flap of plastiskin.

“I can reapply necessary coloration later. Do you require other assistance?”

Jerry shook his head wearily. “To do what? What I need now is Vaslovik to explain these components.” He waved a hand vaguely. “Why don’t you turn in? The others will be back at seven.”

“Perhaps if you slept a few hours, Mr. Robinson,” Chen suggested.

“Would you?”

Chen studied the engineer. Jerry’s face had a two-day beard stubble. His eyes were an interesting shade of pink and had a tendency to water. But his mouth had a stubborn set, and Chen knew no argument of his would sway him. “I understand,” he said. “Please call me when I can assist further.”

Chen left, and Jerry turned back to Questor’s still form. He studied it, then rubbed his eyes to try to ease the stinging behind them. Nothing they had done so far had gotten a response from Questor. Superficial repairs had been made, but Questor had not been reactivated. Jerry spoke half to Questor, half to himself.

“We’ve got your servos all back in operation. But I’m stuck. The bullets tore open some components no one’s ever seen inside—”

He stopped as one of Questor’s fingers laboriously tapped twice on the edge of the pallet, as if in a signal. Jerry leaned closer to Questor’s ear and spoke into it. “Questor . . . Questor, it’s Jerry. Tap twice if you understand.”

He waited for the longest moment in his life. Then Questor’s finger moved and tapped twice.

Jerry let out a breath with a rush of relief. “Thank God! Questor, listen carefully. There are components damaged I’ve never seen inside before. Can you answer some yes-or-no questions about them?”

Questor’s finger moved again, slowly tapping once, then again.

Jerry closed his eyes and gripped Questor’s hand as he would a brother’s. A couple of unexpected rivulets of water ran down his cheeks, and he did not know if it was relief or fatigue or just honest tears. And he didn’t care.

Darro maintained his own vigil, perhaps more rigorous than Jerry’s. He sat at his desk signing a letter, then handed it to his assistant, Phillips. “That’ll be all, Phillips,” he said. The assistant retired gratefully, and Darro restlessly moved to a small-screen video monitor beside his desk. He snapped it on.

The video monitor lit up with a flickering, pale blue image of the lab. It was empty, except for Jerry, who bent intently over Questor’s body, working at something. His voice hollowly came over the monitor’s speaker.

“Next, the left abdominal stringer servo. Shall I bypass it now?”

Darro frowned and ran the monitor camera quickly around the lab. There
was
no one else there . . . except the android. His hand flicked another control, and the camera zoomed in to a closer shot of the pallet. It was just in time to see Questor’s fingers move, tapping out a yes answer.

Jerry worked carefully, delicately, moving aside circuitry as if it were tissue and muscles. Questor’s eyes fluttered and blinked, then focused on his friend. His mouth moved with difficulty, at first barely able to articulate the sounds.

“Je . . . Jer . . .”

Jerry looked up quickly, concerned. “What is it?”

“Jerry . . . you must not . . . fear to . . . probe deeper. I . . . feel no pain. I am . . . not a human patient.”

Robinson looked away guiltily. “You’re the only one involved in this entire thing who has shown any
human
decency. Including me!”

“Do not blame yourself. I understand.”

“Do you, Questor? Then you know more than all the psychologists and psychiatrists and students of mankind since the world began.”

“Please . . . go on with your work. It is necessary.”

Jerry nodded and began to probe the intricate circuitry and transistor setup inside Questor’s body. Suddenly he stopped, and his eyes darted to the android’s face. His voice shook slightly as he said, “Questor . . . a sealed covering of the furnace has been pierced.”

“Let me . . . investigate it,” Questor said.

Jerry quickly adjusted one of the lab cameras so that Questor could see the section on a nearby monitor. He set it on the closest zoom he could. Questor’s right hand moved slowly, dipping into the abdominal cavity, probing lightly with his sensitive fingers. He stopped. “Look closely here.” Jerry bent forward, scanning the area Questor pointed out—and looked up in sudden alarm. “Do not touch the device, Jerry.”

“It was hidden inside the casing. What is it?”

“The nuclear timing device.”

“Questor, together, can’t we remove the timer?”

Questor shook his head briefly, one slight shake left to right. “Only Vaslovik can remove it without detonation.”

Suddenly Darro’s voice came over the outside speaker, crackling in on low volume. “Robinson, this is Darro! Tell the machine to play dead until I get there. I want no one else to know it’s working again.”

Jerry’s mouth tightened into a hard line, but he turned to the two-way speaker and flicked it into a “send” position. “All right, Darro. We’ll wait for you.”

Darro entered the lab almost cautiously, moving toward Questor’s pallet to stare down at the android’s body. Questor’s eyes were closed, but the steady rise and fall of his chest had been restored. Jerry stood beside the assembly pallet almost protectively. Darro glanced across Questor at him, then down at the android again.

“Hello. My name is Darro.”

Questor’s eyes snapped open, and he stared at Darro. Finally, he moved his head in an acknowledging nod. “Mr. Robinson has told me you gave orders that I was not to be injured. For that attempt, at least, I thank you.”

“But I’m still the one who curtailed your freedom. What do you think of that?”

“What would you think of it?” Jerry snapped.

“Let the android answer, please.”

“Each of us has his own life instructions, Mr. Darro. You must, of course, be true to yours.”

Darro’s eyes narrowed, but his tone of voice did not change. It remained as cold as it always had. “I do not need advice from a machine.”