Gold Read online

  —Do you mind if I rest a little. I don’t really like talking about all this. Just let me rest a while.

  —Okay, I’m better now. I can go on.

  After the year was up, I felt that it was enough. We could return the Kid to U.S. Robots. After all, he had served his purpose.

  But Josie was against that. Dead set against that.

  I said, “But we’d have to buy him outright now.”

  And she said, she would pay the down payment, so I went along with her.

  One of the things she said was that we couldn’t take away Charlie’s brother. Charlie would be lonely.

  And I did think, well, maybe she’s right. I tell you it’s deadly when you start thinking your wife might be right. It leads you into nothing but trouble.

  Charlie did ease up on the Kid a little as he grew older. He got to be just as tall as the Kid, for one thing, so maybe he didn’t think he had to knock him around as much.

  Also, he became interested in things besides rough and tumble. Basketball, for instance; he played one-on-one with the Kid and Charlie was good. He always out-maneuvered the Kid and hardly ever missed a basket. Well, maybe the Kid let himself be outmaneuvered and maybe he didn’t ever block a basket-shot efficiently, but how do you account for getting the ball into the basket? The Kid couldn’t fake that, could he?

  In the second year, the Kid sort of became a member of the family. He didn’t eat with us or anything like that, because he didn’t eat. And he didn’t sleep either, so he just stood in the corner of Charlie’s bedroom at night.

  But he watched the holoviews with us, and Josie would always explain things to him so that he got to know more and to seem more human. She took him shopping with her and wherever else she went, if Charlie didn’t need him. The Kid was always helpful, I suppose, and I guess he carried things for her and was always polite and attentive and that sort of thing.

  And I’ll tell you, Josie was more easygoing, with the Kid around. More good-humored, more good-natured, less whining. It made for a more pleasant homelife, and I figured, well, the Kid is teaching Charlie to be more and more dominant, and he’s teaching Josie to smile more, so maybe it was a good thing it was there.

  Then it happened.

  —Listen, can you let me have something wet?

  —Yeah, with alcohol. Just a little, just a little. Come on, what are you worrying about the rules for? I’ve got to get through this somehow.

  Then it happened. One out of a million—or out of a billion. Microfusion units aren’t supposed to give trouble. You can read about it anywhere. They’re all fail-safe, no matter what. Except mine wasn’t. I don’t know why. Nobody knows why. At the start, no one even knew it was the microfusion. They’ve told me since that it was, and that I qualify for full restoration of the house and furniture.

  Fat lot of good that would do me.

  —Look, you’re treating me as though I were a homicidal maniac, but why me? Why aren’t you getting after the microfusion people for murder? Find out who made that unit, or who goofed up installing it.

  Don’t you people know what real crimes are? There’s this thing, this microfusion—it doesn’t explode, it doesn’t make a noise, it just gets hotter and hotter and after a while the house is on fire. How come people can get away manufacturing—

  —Yes, I’ll get on with it. I’ll get on with it.

  I was away that day. That one day in a whole year I was away. I run everything from my home, or from wherever I am with my family. I don’t have to go anywhere, the computers do it all. It’s not like your job, officer.

  But the big boss wanted to see me in person. There’s no sense to it; everything could have been done closed-circuit. He has some sort of idea, though, that he wants to check all his section heads every once in a while in person. He seems to think that you can’t really judge a person unless you see him in three dimensions and smell him and feel him. It’s just superstition left over from the Dark Age—which I wish would come back, before computers and robots, and when you could have all the children you wanted.

  That was the day when the microfusion went.

  I got the word right away. You always get the word. Wherever you are, even on the Moon or in a space settlement, bad news gets to you in seconds. Good news you might miss out on, but bad news never.

  I was rushing back while the house was still burning.

  When I got there, the house was a total wreck, but Josie was out on the lawn, looking a complete mess, but alive. She had been out on the lawn when it happened, they told me.

  When she saw the house become all in flame, and Charlie was inside, she rushed in at once, and I could see she must have brought him out because there he was lying to one side with people bending over him. It looked bad. I couldn’t see him. I didn’t dare go over there to see him. I had to find out from Josie first.

  I could hardly speak. “How bad is he?” I asked Josie, and I didn’t recognize my own voice. I think my mind was beginning to go.

  She was saying, “I couldn’t save them both. I couldn’t save them both.”

  Why should she want to save them both? I thought. I said, “Stop worrying about the Kid. He’s just a device. There’s insurance and compassion money and we can buy another Kid.” I think I tried to say all that, but I don’t know if I managed. Maybe I just made hoarse, choking sounds. I don’t know.

  I don’t know if she heard me, or if she even knew I was there. She just kept whispering, “I had to make a choice,” over and over.

  So I had to go where Charlie was lying and I cleared my throat and I managed to say, “How’s my boy? How badly is he hurt?”

  And one of them said, “Maybe he can be fixed up,” then he looked up at me and said, “Your boy?”

  I saw the Kid lying there, with one arm distorted and out of action. He was smiling as if nothing had happened, and he was saying, “Hello, Dad. Mom pulled me out of the fire. Where’s Charlie?”

  Josie had made her choice and she had saved the Kid.

  I don’t know what happened after that. I remember nothing. You people say I killed her; that you couldn’t pull me off before I strangled her.

  Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t remember. All I know is—she’s the killer.

  She killed—she killed—Char—

  She killed my boy and she saved a piece—

  A piece of—

  Titanium.

  The Nations in Space

  A Modern Fable

  As is well known, the nations of Gladovia and Saronin have been enemies for many centuries. In medieval times, each had ruled the other at different times, and each remembered, with bitterness, the other’s heavy-handed domination. Even in the twentieth century, the two nations had managed to be on opposite sides in the major wars that were then fought.

  In the century of peace that followed the last of the great wars, Gladovia and Saronin had also been at peace, but always regarded each other with a sneer and a curl of the lip.

  But it was now 2080, and the solar power stations were in orbit about Earth collecting energy from the Sun and relaying it in the form of microwaves to the nations of all the world. It had utterly changed the world in many ways. With copious solar energy, the use of fossil fuels had dwindled, and the danger of the greenhouse effect had diminished (although some excess heat arising from solar energy did produce some heat pollution).

  With copious energy and with better population control, standards of living rose, the food supply improved, the distribution of resources was rationalized and, in general, an era of prosperity and contentment was in bloom.

  One thing, however, that had not changed was the antipathy of Gladovians for Saronin, and the dislike of the Saronese for Gladovia.

  Of course, the solar power stations did not run themselves. Despite thorough automation and the intense use of robots, it was still important for a few human beings to inspect the various stations periodically to make sure that all was running well and that tiny flecks of space debris and
unexpected spurts of solar wind did not alter the workings of the computers beyond the capacity of the robots, and of the computers themselves, to correct matters.

  Those chosen for the task served their stints and were regularly rotated so that the effects of zero gravity could be minimized by rest periods on Earth’s surface. It was purely coincidence, then, that the Space-Servitors (as they were called) in the summer of 2080, consisted, among others, of two Gladovians and two Saronese. These traditional enemies were thrown together in the course of their work and they performed their tasks correctly, but were careful to restrict communications with each other to the barest essentials and to refrain from any smiles or warmth.

  And one day, the younger Gladovian, Tomasz Brigon by name, came to the older one, Hamish Mansa, with a tense smile of delight, and said, “That fool of a Saronese has done it this time.”

  “Which one?” asked Mansa.

  “The one whose name sounds like a sneeze. Who can speak that foolish Saronese language? In any case, with true Saronese stupidity he has miscued Computer A-5.”

  Mansa looked alarmed. “With what result?”

  “None yet. But whenever the solar wind density rises above the 1.3 level, it will shut down half the power stations and burn out several of the computers.”

  “And what did you do about that?” Mansa’s eyes opened wide.

  “Nothing,” said Brigon. “I was there and I saw it happen. Now, it’s on the record. The Saronese identified himself as the worker on the Computer, and when the power stations shut down, and the computers burn out, the world will know that it was a stupid Saronese that did it.” Brigon stretched his arms luxuriously and said, with delight, “Everyone in the world will be furious, and the whole wicked nation of Saronin will be humiliated.”

  Mansa said, “But meanwhile the energy supply to Earth will be totally disrupted, and it may not be possible to restore the system to working order for months, perhaps for a year or two.”

  “Plenty of time,” said Brigon, “for the world to wipe Saronin from the face of the Earth, so that our own glorious nation of Gladovia can take over the territory that is rightfully ours.”

  “But think a bit,” said Mansa. “With so much energy suddenly gone, the world will be too busy trying to save itself from disaster to engage in crusades. There will be disruption of industry, the danger of starvation, the gathering of mobs of the distressed, the fighting over what energy can be obtained—total chaos.”

  “All the worse for Saronin—”

  “But the chaos will come to Gladovia, too. Our glorious nation depends on the solar energy supply just as Saronin does, just as the whole world does. There will be a world of catastrophe from which—who can tell—Gladovia may suffer far worse than Saronin. Who can tell?”

  Brigon’s mouth fell open and he looked disturbed. “Do you really think so?”

  “Of course. You must go to the one whose name is like a sneeze, and ask him to recheck his work. You needn’t say you know something is wrong. It’s simply that you were there, and you suddenly have this strange feeling that all is not well. Say you have a presentiment. And if he finds the miscue and corrects it, do not taunt him. It would not be safe to do so. And do it quickly! For the glorious nation of Gladovia! And for the world, of course.”

  Brigon had no choice. He did so, and the peril was averted.

  Moral:

  People always love themselves best. But in a world so interconnected that harm to one is harm to all, the best way of loving one’s self is to love everyone else, too.

  The Smile of the Chipper

  Johnson was reminiscing in the way old men do and I had been warned he would talk about chippers—those peculiar people who flashed across the business scene for a generation at the beginning of this twenty-first century of ours. Still, I had had a good meal at his expense and I was ready to listen.

  And, as it happened, it was the first word out of his mouth. “Chippers,” he said, “were just about unregulated in those days. Nowadays, their use is so controlled no one can get any good out of them, but back a ways—One of them made this company the ten-billion-dollar concern it now is. I picked him, you know.”

  I said, “They didn’t last long, I’m told.”

  “Not in those days. They burned out. When you add microchips at key points in the nervous system, then in ten years at the most, the wiring burns out, so to speak. Then they retired—a little vacant-minded, you know.”

  “I wonder anyone submitted to it.”

  “Well, all the idealists were horrified, of course, and that’s why the regulating came in, but it wasn’t that bad for the chippers. Only certain people could make use of the microchips—about eighty percent of them males, for some reason—and, for the time they were active, they lived the lives of shipping magnates. Afterward, they always received the best of care. It was no different from top-ranking athletes, after all; ten years of active early life, and then retirement.”

  Johnson sipped at his drink. “An unregulated chipper could influence other people’s emotions, you know, if they were chipped just right and had talent. They could make judgments on the basis of what they sensed in other minds and they could strengthen some of the judgments competitors were making, or weaken them—for the good of the home company. It wasn’t unfair. Other companies had their own chippers doing the same thing.” He sighed. “Now that sort of thing is illegal. Too bad.”

  I said, diffidently, “I’ve heard that illegal chipping is still done.”

  Johnson grunted and said, “No comment.”

  I let that go, and he went on. “But even thirty years ago, things were still wide open. Our company was just an insignificant item in the global economy, but we had located two chippers who were willing to work for us.”

  “Two?” I had never heard that before.

  Johnson looked at me slyly. “Yes, we managed that. It’s not widely known in the outside world, but it came down to clever recruiting and it was slightly—just a touch—illegal, even then. Of course, we couldn’t hire them both. Getting two chippers to work together is impossible. They’re like chess grandmasters, I suppose. Put them in the same room and they would automatically challenge each other. They would compete continually, each trying to influence and confute the other. They wouldn’t stop—couldn’t, actually—and they would burn each other out in six months. Several companies found that out, to their great cost, when chippers first came into use.”

  “I can imagine,” I murmured.

  “So since we couldn’t have both, and could only take one, we wanted the more powerful one, obviously, and that could only be determined by pitting them against each other, without letting them ruin each other. I was given the job, and it was made quite clear that if I picked the one who, in the end, turned out to be inadequate, that would be my end, too.”

  “How did you go about it, sir?” I knew he had succeeded, of course. A person can’t become chairman of the board of a world-class firm for nothing.

  Johnson said, “I had to improvise. I investigated each separately first. The two were known by their code-letters, by the way. In those days, their true identities had to be hidden. A chipper known to be a chipper was half-useless. They were C-12 and F-71 in our records. Both were in their late twenties. C-12 was unattached; F-71 was engaged to be married.”

  “Married?” I said, a little surprised.

  “Certainly. Chippers are human, and male chippers are much sought after by women. They’re sure to be rich and, when they retire, their fortunes are usually under the control of their wives. It’s a good deal for a young woman.—So I brought them together, with F-71’s fiancée. I hoped earnestly she would be good-looking, and she was. Meeting her was almost like a physical blow to me. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, tall, dark-eyed, a marvelous figure and rather more than a hint of smoldering sexuality.”

  Johnson seemed lost in thought for a moment, then he continued. “I tell you I had a strong urge to try to win the
woman for myself but it was not likely that anyone who had a chipper would transfer herself to a mere junior executive, which is what I was in those days. To transfer herself to another chipper would be something else—and I could see that C-12 was as affected as I was. He could not keep his eyes off her. So I just let things develop to see who ended with the young woman.”

  “And who did, sir?” I asked.

  “It took two days of intense mental conflict. They must each have peeled a month off their working lives, but the young lady walked off with C-12 as her new fiancée.”

  “Ah, so you chose C-12 as the firm chipper.”

  Johnson stared at me with disdain. “Are you mad? I did no such thing. I chose F-71, of course. We placed C-12 with a small subsidiary of ours. He’d be no good to anyone else, since we knew him, you see.”

  “But did I miss something? F-71 lost his fiancée and C-12 gained her. Surely C-12 was the superior.”

  “Was he? Chippers show no emotion in a case like this; no obvious emotion. It is necessary for business purposes for chippers to hide their powers so that the pokerface is a professional necessity for them. But I was watching closely—my own job was at stake—and, as C-12 walked off with the woman, I noticed a small smile on F-71’s lips and it seemed to me there was the glitter of victory in his eyes.”

  “But he lost his fiancée.”

  “Doesn’t it occur to you he wanted to lose her and it would not be easy to pry her loose? He had to work on C-12 to want her and on the woman to want to be wanted—and he did it. He won.”

  I thought about that. “But how could you have been sure? If the woman was as good-looking as you say she was—if she was smoldering so with sexuality, surely F-71 would have wanted to keep her.”

  “But F-71 was making her seem desirable,” said Johnson, grimly. “He aimed at C-12, of course, but with such power that the overflow was sufficient to affect me drastically. After it was all over and C-12 was walking away with her, I was no longer under the influence and I could see there was something hard and overblown about her—a kind of unlovely and predatory gleam in her eye.