The Reproductive System (Gollancz SF Library) (18 page)

Hitching up its trailing cord and striding stiffly, a messenger pinball machine greeted another pinball machine messenger as they passed, by exhibiting 450 and a Super Special light.

‘6,000,000,’ replied the second.

The Professor watched the ascent and descent of the Venus probe rocket. The late mayor of Las Vegas descended once again to the bottom of his pool. The ice gears did not work.

Cal saved Harry from a decor-designed X-ray machine which was spraying the street with radiation. Jack was lost. A bank had been looted. A dead guard with an empty holster lay in the soft grey ash of money. Something was trying to get into the room where the child waited.

‘O Levitation!’ exclaimed Brian. Harry knocked Cal out, dragged him up five flights of stairs to a roof, and flung him off. Cal did not levitate. ‘The image of the murderer will appear upon the dead man’s retina!’ The roof reminded Harry of another roof, where he had skipped rope long ago. On descending, he read the advertisements of a gymnasium by flashlight.

Tour Paris!
a poster urged Cal as he recovered consciousness. The fall to the bed of shoes had knocked the wind out of him. At sunset the glass engine started up, ran briefly, and exploded into sparkling shards. ‘Hullo, Earthman,’ said
ROBO
. ‘We are being kept prisoner,’ Cal typed earnestly. Jack recalled his hunger. An inching foldaway sofa carried him to the drive-in theatre. Brian and the jukeboxes noisily greeted Cal, Harry, Daisy and Jack. Cal heartily greeted Brian, Harry, Daisy and Jack. Jack, glad to be found after being lost, greeted everyone with some relief. Daisy exhibited surprise at seeing Cal, but greeted him, Brian and Jack. Harry greeted Brian and Jack. The last sector of the clock on the screen disappeared. It was time for the ‘Main Feature’, a composite of audio-visual aids from the school (now a factory), homemade transparencies, and old horror films:

‘Machines can do so many things,’ says the delighted, delightful voice. ‘Yes, machines can do so many things. Mother sews your clothes on a machine—and washes them in another!’

Woman sewing changes abruptly to saurian threshing his tail, lashing out angrily at skyscrapers. Under his foot is a car. Dungeon scene, girl being tied to giant wheel. ‘We know
you
won’t talk under torture, Goodfelloe, but surely you won’t stand by and see
her twisted
and
broken
on my wheel?’

To his unspeakable horror, the beams of the full moon make his hands hairy. He becomes more than a wolf—less than human. A dark shape moves among the mists of the Rue Morgue, following a slender girl. Dr. Frankenstein throws back the cloth covering his experiment—and the table is empty! Father mows lawn with a machine.

‘No,’ said the child, backing away into a corner of the dirty mattress. The room was tilted at a crazy angle. There were

places where the plaster was missing, and the laths showed like white bones.

The black hearse bearing the armourial crest of Count Alucard rattles through the Transylvanian night. No driver, Strange plant creatures have surrounded the little farmhouse. ‘So you think I am mad, do you? You think it is madness to wish to create Life?’ Happy child uses electric toothbrush.

A panel flies back revealing—‘But tell me, doctor, what is
your
theory of these baffling murders?’ ‘Theory? What do you mean? Why should
I
have any theory? What are you driving at?’ Cows are milked by machines.

The medical examiner rises, removing glasses. ‘Odd. If we only knew what made those two little marks on her throat.’ ‘Machines make life easier
and
more fun.’

‘No,’ said the child. The grey box knew its part well. It advanced silently, axeblade arm upraised.

‘The army is helpless, sir. The mumbledypegs have taken the city.’ Laughing girl uses roller skates; boy delivers papers from elegant chrome bike. ‘Here in the jungle, my pretty one, there are many mysteries into which those of the outer world have found it wiser
not
to inquire.’ ‘Here, in the great Mesabi Range, is one of the largest open-pit mines in the world! Machines need iron.’ An Egyptologist holds up object. ‘Hmm. Looks like the Death Scarab of Ra. But how the devil did it get into poor Emerson’s room?’ ‘Father uses machines in his work—’ Lathe, adding machine, milk truck and dental drill quarter the screen.

The X-ray of a fractured arm appears. ‘It must be the Lost City itself!’ exclaims the older explorer, parting the ferns to peer, ‘—and when he relaxes, too.’ Golf cart, camera, fishing reel, shotgun. ‘No one can hear you if you scream, my dear. We have the castle quite to ourselves. Hahahaha!’

Cal thought of the two machines fighting. Kenogenesis. They altered their own genes as they went along. Bound to get a maverick like that once in awhile. Kind of insanity. Turns on its own kind. Ordinarily, he supposed, they were incapable of taking life deliberately. It was inconceivable that they could always recognize one another, in all mutations. No, more likely they respected all life-forms. But …

‘Machines are friendly to us, as long as we are friendly to them.’ Father oils lawnmower. ‘Look deep into my eyes, my dear.’ Turbaned mesmerist leans over pale girl. ‘Deeper.

Deeper.’

‘There are machines to make women beautiful—’ Four women under hair driers read
Popular Mechanics
. ‘Surely no human being could have done this!’ ‘Machines—’ ‘Good Lord!’ It’s a—a human head!’

The box advanced silently, matching the child’s every move, backing it into the corner. The shadow of the axeblade grew longer. But at the last possible second it stopped, mysteriously seized with rust.

‘No! That sunlight—I can’t stand it! Arrghiiiaaaa!’ The Lost City is buried under a quick lava flow; the broken house of Usher slides into the slimy syrup of the swamp; the castle is in flames; the mysterious island sinks forever; the aliens are dissolved by rain. As the monster’s head sinks, smoking, into the cauldron of seething acid, there is an almost pleading look in its eye. ‘There are some mysteries,’ intones the white-haired scientist, ‘better left in the hands of the Deity.’ ‘Thank God it’s all over!’ sobs his daughter, throwing herself in the arms of the young scientist and looking away from the corpse of the alien invader. The young scientist shakes his crewcut, looking at the thing. ‘I wonder if it really is all over?’ he murmurs.

The head of the dummy with the smashed nose appears, red-lighted, forty axe-handles breadth between the eyes. ‘Yes, machines can do so many things,’ he gurgles. ‘Aren’t you glad that
you’re
a machine?’ The screen goes black.

Professor Gallopini’s one remaining jukebox comes alive, glowing with bubbling coloured lights. ‘I’ll see you in my dreams,’ it promises the five fleeing figures. Behind them, the great screen buckles and collapses.

From ten miles up, the city of Millford looked like a shiny dime. From a mile up, it looked like a pancake griddle. From the ground outside, it looked like an oil storage tank of more than usual diameter. No reconnaissance teams had yet been persuaded to find out what it looked like on the inside. It was presumed that the inhabitants were dead or had long since fled the scene.

In the elegant, all-stainless-steel cafeteria of the Wompler Research Laboratory there was nothing at all to eat. The Womplers, father and son, lay stretched out on two parallel tables, too weak to move. Grandison turned his gaunt face to regard his son, who was reading a magazine.

They had eaten all the ketchup and mustard the first day—and Louie had eaten the most. Thereafter there had been nothing but crumbs of Sooper Proteen from the linings of Louie’s coat pockets—and of them, too, the fat young man had taken the lion’s share. Now he was even hogging the magazine, looking at the pretty pictures of food.

It wasn’t fair! Granny thought, observing how fat his son was. Surely Louie wouldn’t mind parting with a little slice of that fat? Or, if so, Grandison could wait until he was asleep. There were sharp knives in the kitchen. …

‘Hey, Pop! Did the chicken give some eggs yet?’ asked Louie, sitting up and yawning. He moved his big meaty shoulders in a stretch of feigned weariness.

The chicken—
the
chicken—was a scrawny bird perched on a chandelier well out of reach. From this perch it had taunted and tempted them for two weeks. It showed no sign of flying down within reach, of falling dead of starvation itself, or of laying an egg—‘giving eggs’ as Louie would have it. It’s only plumage was a torn bunch of multicoloured wires depending from its neck; it was featherless. It clucked softly to itself, day and night, in a regular rhythm. Over a period of time, this began to have the

effect, on Grandison, of a cricket jammed in his ear. There were times when he’d rather have seen the chicken go away, than eat it, and times when he convinced himself it was an hallucination. But, with a kind of contentment, the bird kept its bright eye fixed on him all the time. And clucked.

‘It did not lay an egg, son, and I doubt if it will. I think that bird there is a rooster.’

‘You sure know a lot of nature lore, Pop. What’s being a rooster got to do with its giving eggs?’

Granny sighed. He squinted up at the bird, trying to guess its, sex. Usually his conclusion depended on his mood. The bird shook its comb defiantly at him. It seemed a very rooster-like gesture.

Louie stretched his ribs-and-bacon and yawned, displaying a half-pound of tongue. After searching his pockets diligently for crumbs, he took out his dynamometer and squeezed it.

‘My grip is increasing as my weight drops,’ he said. After reading the dynamometer, he laid his arm on a meat scale and weighed it. ‘By the time I weigh fifty pounds, my grip’ll be a thousand pounds. Wow!’

Grandison imagined the arm being lifted tenderly from the scale, wrapped up in pink paper and marked with a crayon. He saw fat white fingers sizzling in a pan.

The chicken let out a squawk, then another.

‘Cross your fingers, son,’ breathed the old man sitting up quietly. ‘We may have us an omelette tonight.’

The loud sound became a regular cluck-clawk, and the bird swayed dizzily on its perch. A shiny ovoid surface peeped from under its tail propellor. ‘Get ready to catch it, son!’

‘I got it, Pop, I got it, I got it, I—’

Louie made a dive as the ovoid dropped, but hunger had slowed his reflexes. It slipped through his fingers and hit the floor.

And bounced.

In the lab above, Kurt and Karl Mackintosh moved smoothly and speedily about their work, never colliding, seldom speaking, always smiling, two clockwork figures. With their cooperation, the System had fitted them out with hydraulic power-assists on their arms and legs that multiplied both speed and strength. The power-assists were shaped like close-fitting pieces of armour: gauntlets, brassards, cuisses, jambeaux and sollerets.

They were run by electric pumps and hydraulic pistons. Strain gauges embedded in Kurt’s and Karl’s muscles switched on the pumps. Though they never said so, Kurt and Karl felt like two supermen in their new armour. They clicked and clanked about the lab, quite pleased with life. They liked to work so well that the System also fitted them out: with automatic intravenous nourishment.

In return, they worked out new experiments with animal-machine symbioses. Following Dr. Smilax’s orders, they fed all results directly into the System, via a handy typewriter in the corner. In addition, they taught it the rudiments of behavioural psychology, of Keynesian economics, of information theory, and they showed it how to simplify programmes.

They would identify themselves by applying their right ears to a metal plate. That keyed in the System, putting it in a receptive mood for their information.

When they worked harder, there were rewards.

When they worked poorly, there were punishments.

A reward was the lighting of a sign saying ‘
WELL DONE
!’

A punishment was a mild but unpleasant electric shock.

Sometimes Kurt received more punishments than Karl.

Sometimes Kurt received more rewards than Karl.

Sometimes they were even.

As time went on, there were fewer rewards and no punishments for either of them. As time went on, they adjusted. They adjusted to the System like a synchronizing clock. Like a clock, like a clock, like a synchronizing clock.

Clicking as they walked,

Ticking as they worked,

Talking as they went

About their clickwork clockwork work.

Louie sat on the floor, weeping over the cast-iron egg.

‘Stop that blubbering,’ Grandison ordered. ‘No use crying over spilt milk. No use stewing about it. Outa the frying pan into the fire. Jack Spratt could eat no fat …’ He stopped himself on the verge of babbling, and fell silent, watching his son’s great fat shoulders—of mutton—shake.