Short Stories Vol.1 Read online

  "If you don't mind"-voice firm, but fingers twisting a bit-"I'd like you to talk to my-uh-secretary."

  Pudgy proceeded to the phone with a solemn arm crooked behind his back. He lifted the phone in two fingers and said delicately, "Yes." A short pause, another "Yes," then a much longer pause, a squeaky beginning of an objection that perished quickly, another pause, a very meek "Yes," and the phone was restored to its cradle.

  "If Madam will come with me," he said, hurt and distant, "I will try to supply her needs."

  "fust a second." Claire rushed back to the phone, and dialed again. "Hello, Tony. I don't know what you said, but it worked. Thanks. You're a-" She struggled for the appropriate word, gave up and ended in a final little squeak, "-a-a dear!"

  It was Gladys Claffern looking at her when she turned from the phone again. A slightly amused and slightly amazed Gladys Claffem, looking at her out of a face tilted a bit to one side.

  "Mrs. Belmont?"

  It all drained out of Claire-just like that. She could only nod-stupidly, like a marionette.

  Gladys smiled with an insolence you couldn't put your finger on. "I didn't know you shopped here?" As if the place had, in her eyes, definitely lost caste through the fact.

  "I don't, usually," said Claire humbly.

  "And haven't you done something to your hair? It's quite-quaint. . . . Oh, I hope you'll excuse me, but isn't your husband's name Lawrence? It seems to me that it's Lawrence."

  Claire's teeth clenched, but she had to explain. She had to. "Tony is a friend of my husband's. He's helping me select some things."

  "I understand. And quite a dear about it, I imagine." She passed on smiling, carrying the light and the warmth of the world with her.

  Claire did not question the fact that it was to Tony that she turned for consolation. Ten days had cured her of reluctance. And she could weep before him; weep and rage.

  "I was a complete f-fool," she stormed, wrenching at her water-togged handkerchief. "She does that to me. I don't know why. She just does. I

  should have-kicked her. I should have knocked her down and stamped on her."

  "Can you hate a human being so much?" asked Tony, in puzzled softness. "That part of a human mind is closed to me."

  "Oh, it isn't she," she moaned. "It's myself, I suppose. She's everything I want to be-on the outside, anyway. . . . And I can't be."

  Tony's voice was forceful and low in her ear. "You can be, Mrs. Belmont. You can be. We have ten days yet, and in ten days the house will no longer be itself. Haven't we been planning that?"

  "And how will that help me-with her?"

  "Invite her here. Invite her friends. Have it the evening before I-before I leave. It will be a housewarming, in a way."

  "She won't come."

  "Yes, she will. She'll come to laugh. . . . And she won't be able to."

  "Do you really think so? Oh, Tony, do you think we can do it?" She had both his hands in hers. . . . And then, with her face flung aside, "But what good would it be? It won't be I; it will be you that's doing it. I can't ride your back."

  "Nobody lives in splendid singleness," whispered Tony. "They've put that knowledge in me. What you, or anyone, see in Gladys Claffern is not just Gladys Claffern. She rides the back of all that money and social position can bring. She doesn't question that. Why should you? . . . And look at it this way, Mrs. Belmont. I am manufactured to obey, but the extent of my obedience is for myself to determine. I can follow orders niggardly or liberally. For you, it is liberal, because you are what I have been manufactured to see human beings as. You are kind, friendly, unassuming. Mrs. Claffem, as you describe her, is not, and I wouldn't obey her as I would you. So it is you, and not I, Mrs. Belmont, that is doing all this."

  He withdrew his hands from hers then, and Claire looked at that expressionless face no one could read-wondering. She was suddenly frightened ' again in a completely new way.

  She swallowed nervously and stared at her hands, which were still tingling ' with the pressure of his fingers. She hadn't imagined it; his fingers had pressed hers, gently, tenderly, just before they moved away. ( Nof 1 Its fingers . . . Its fingers. . . .

  She ran to the bathroom and scrubbed her hands-blindly, uselessly.

  She was a bit shy of him the next day; watching him narrowly; waiting to see what might follow-and for a while nothing did.

  Tony was working. If there was any difficulty in technique in putting up wallpaper, or utilizing the quick-drying paint, Tony's activity did not show it. His hands moved precisely; his fingers were deft and sure.

  He worked all night. She never heard him, but each morning was a new

  adventure. She couldn't count the number of things that had been done, and by evening she was still finding new touches-and another night had

  come.

  She tried to help only once and her human clumsiness marred that. He was in the next room, and she was hanging a picture in the spot marked by Tony's mathematical eyes. The little mark was there; the picture was there; and a revulsion against idleness was there.

  But she was nervous, or the ladder was rickety. It didn't matter. She felt it going, and she cried out. It tumbled without her, for Tony, with far more than flesh-and-blood quickness, had been under her.

  His calm, dark eyes said nothing at all, and his warm voice said only words. "Are you hurt, Mrs. Belmont?"

  She noticed for an instant that her falling hand must have mussed that sleek hair of his, because for the first time she could see for herself that it was composed of distinct strands-fine black hairs.

  And then, all at once, she was conscious of his arms about her shoulders and under her knees-holding her tightly and warmly.

  She pushed, and her scream was loud in her own ears. She spent the rest of the day in her room, and thereafter she slept with a chair upended against the doorknob of her bedroom door.

  She had sent out the invitations, and, as Tony had said, they were accepted. She had only to wait for the last evening.

  It came, too, after the rest of them, in its proper place. The house was scarcely her own. She went through it one last time-and every room had been changed. She, herself, was in clothes she would never have dared wear before. . . . And when you put them on, you put on pride and confidence

  with them.

  She tried a polite look of contemptuous amusement before the minor, and the mirror sneered back at her masterfully.

  What would Larry say? ... It didn't matter, somehow. The exciting days weren't coming with him. They were leaving with Tony. Now wasn't that strange? She tried to recapture her mood of three weeks before and failed completely.

  The clock shrieked eight at her in eight breathless installments, and she turned to Tony. "They'll be here soon, Tony. You'd better get into the basement. We can't let them-"

  She stared a moment, then said weakly, "Tony?" and more strongly, "Tony?" and nearly a scream, "Tony!"

  But his arms were around her now; his face was close to hers; the pressure of his embrace was relentless. She heard his voice through a haze of emotional jumble.

  "Claire," the voice said, "there are many things I am not made to understand, and this must be one of them. I am leaving tomorrow, and I don't

  want to. I find that there is more in me than just a desire to please you. Isn't it strange?"

  His face was closer; his lips were warm, but with no breath behind them -for machines do not breathe. They were almost on hers.

  . . . And the bell sounded.

  For a moment, she struggled breathlessly, and then he was gone and nowhere in sight, and the bell was sounding again. Its intermittent shrillness was insistent.

  The curtains on the front windows had been pulled open. They had been closed fifteen minutes earlier. She knew that.

  They must have seen, then. They must all have seen-everything!

  They came in so politely, all in a bunch-the pack come to howl-with their sharp, darting eyes piercing everywhere. They had seen. Why else would Gl
adys ask in her jabbingest manner after Lany? And Claire was spurred to a desperate and reckless defiance.

  Yes, he is away. He'll be back tomorrow, I suppose. No, I haven't been lonely here myself. Not a bit. I've had an exciting time. And she laughed at them. Why not? What could they do? Larry would know the truth, if it ever came to him, the story of what they thought they saw.

  But they didn't laugh.

  She could read that in the fury in Gladys Claffern's eyes; in the false sparkle of her words; in her desire to leave early. And as she parted with them, she caught one last, anonymous whisper-disjointed.

  ". . . never saw anything like ... so handsome-"

  And she knew what it was that had enabled her to finger-snap them so. Let each cat mew; and let each cat know-that she might be prettier than Claire Belmont, and grander, and richer-but not one, not one, could have so handsome a lover!

  And then she remembered again-again-again, that Tony was a machine, and her skin crawled.

  "Go away! Leave me be!" she cried to the empty room and ran to her bed. She wept wakefully all that night and the next morning, almost before dawn, when the streets were empty, a car drew up to the house and took Tony away.

  Lawrence Belmont passed Dr. Calvin's office, and, on impulse, knocked. He found her with Mathematician Peter Bogert, but did not hesitate on that account.

  He said, "Claire tells me that U.S. Robots paid for all that was done at my house-"

  "Yes," said Eh-. Calvin. "We've written it off, as a valuable and necessary

  part of the experiment. With your new position as Associate Engineer, you'll be able to keep it up, I think."

  "That's not what I'm worried about. With Washington agreeing to the tests, we'll be able to get a TN model of our own by next year, I think." He turned hesitantly, as though to go, and as hesitantly turned back again.

  "Well, Mr. Belmont?" asked Dr. Calvin, after a pause.

  "I wonder-" began Larry. "I wonder what really happened there. She- Claire, I mean-seems so different. It's not just her looks-though, frankly, I'm amazed." He laughed nervously. "It's her! She's not my wife, really-I can't explain it."

  "Why try? Are you disappointed with any part of the change?"

  "On the contrary. But it's a little frightening, too, you see-"

  "I wouldn't worry, Mr. Belmont. Your wife has handled herself very well. Frankly, I never expected to have the experiment yield such a thorough and complete test. We know exactly what corrections must be made in the TN model, and the credit belongs entirely to Mrs. Belmont. If you want me to be very honest, I think your wife deserves your promotion more than you do."

  Larry flinched visibly at that. "As long as it's in the family," he murmured unconvincingly and left.

  Susan Calvin looked after him, "I think that hurt-I hope. . . . Have you read Tony's report, Peter?"

  "Thoroughly," said Bogert. "And won't the TN-3 model need changes?"

  "Oh, you think so, too?" questioned Calvin sharply. "What's your reasoning?"

  Bogert frowned. "I don't need any. It's obvious on the face of it that we can't have a robot loose which makes love to his mistress, if you don't mind the pun."

  "Love! Peter, you sicken me. You really don't understand? That machine had to obey the First Law. He couldn't allow harm to come to a human being, and harm was coming to Claire Belmont through her own sense of inadequacy. So he made love to her, since what woman would fail to appreciate the compliment of being able to stir passion in a machine-in a cold, soulless machine. And he opened the curtains that night deliberately, that the others might see and envy-without any risk possible to Claire's marriage. I think it was clever of Tony-"

  "Do you? What's the difference whether it was pretense or not, Susan? It still has its horrifying effect. Read the report again. She avoided him. She screamed when he held her. She didn't sleep that last night-in hysterics. We can't have that."

  "Peter, you're blind. You're as blind as I was. The TN model will be rebuilt entirely, but not for your reason. Quite otherwise; quite otherwise.

  Strange that I overlooked it in the first place," her eyes were opaquely thoughtful, "but perhaps it reflects a shortcoming in myself. You see, Peter, machines can't fall in love, but-even when it's hopeless and horrifying- women can!"

  Hell-Fire

  There was a stir as of a very polite first-night audience. Only a handful of scientists were present, a sprinkling of high brass, some Congressmen, a few newsmen.

  Alvin Homer of the Washington Bureau of the Continental Press found himself next to Joseph Vincenzo of Los Alamos, and said, "Now we ought to leam something."

  Vincenzo stared at him through bifocals and said, "Not the important thing."

  Homer frowned. This was to be the first super-slow-motion films of an atomic explosion. With trick lenses changing directional polarization in flickers, the moment of explosion would be divided into billionth-second snaps. Yesterday, an A-bomb had exploded. Today, those snaps would show the explosion in incredible detail.

  Horner said, "You think this won't work?"

  Vincenzo looked tormented. "It will work. We've run pilot tests. But the important thing-"

  "Which is?"

  "That these bombs are man's death sentence. We don't seem to be able to learn that." Vincenzo nodded. "Look at them here. They're excited and thrilled, but not afraid."

  The newsman said, "They know the danger. They're afraid, too."

  "Not enough," said the scientist. "I've seen men watch an H-bomb blow an island into a hole and then go home and sleep. That's the way men are.

  Copyright (c) 1956 by King-Size Publications, Inc.

  For thousands of years, hell-fire has been preached to them, and it's made no real impression."

  "Hell-fire: Are you religious, sir?"

  "What you saw yesterday was hell-fire. An exploding atom bomb is hell-fire. Literally."

  That was enough for Homer. He got up and changed his seat, but watched the audience uneasily. Were any afraid? Did any worry about hell-fire? It didn't seem so to him.

  The lights went out, the projector started. On the screen, the firing tower stood gaunt. The audience grew tensely quiet.

  Then a dot of light appeared at the apex of the tower, a brilliant, burning point, slowly budding in a lazy, outward elbowing, this way and that, taking on uneven shapes of light and shadow, growing oval.

  A man cried out chokingly, then others. A hoarse babble of noise, followed by thick silence. Horner could smell fear, taste terror in his own mouth, feel his blood freeze.

  The oval fireball had sprouted projections, then paused a moment in stasis, before expanding rapidly into a bright and featureless sphere.

  That moment of stasis-the fireball had shown dark spots for eyes, with dark lines for thin, flaring eyebrows, a hairline coming down V-shaped, a mouth twisted upward, laughing wildly in the hell-fire-and horns.

  The Last Trump

  The Archangel Gabriel was quite casual about the whole thing. Idly, he let the tip of one wing graze the planet Mars, which, being of mere matter, was unaffected by the contact.

  He said, "It's a settled matter, Etheriel. There's nothing to be done about it now. The Day of Resurrection is due."

  Etheriel, a very junior seraph who had been created not quite a thousand years earlier as men counted time, quivered so that distinct vortices appeared in the continuum. Ever since his creation, he had been in immediate charge of Earth and environs. As a job, it was a sinecure, a cubbyhole, a dead end, but through the centuries he had come to take a perverse pride in the world.

  "But you'll be disrupting my world without notice."

  "Not at all. Not at all. Certain passages occur in the Book of Daniel and in the Apocalypse of St. John which are clear enough."

  "They are? Having been copied from scribe to scribe? I wonder if two words in a row are left unchanged."

  "There are hints in the Rig-Veda, in the Confucian Analects-"

  "Which are the property of isolated cu
ltural groups which exist as a thin aristocracy-"

  "The Gilgamesh Chronicle speaks out plainly."

  "Much of the Gilgamesh Chronicle was destroyed with the library of Ashurbanipal sixteen hundred years, Earth-style, before my creation."

  Copyright (c) 1955 by King-Size Publications, Inc.

  !j "There are certain features of the Great Pyramid and a pattern in the inlaid jewels of the Taj Mahal-"

  "Which are so subtle that no man has ever rightly interpreted them." j Gabriel said wearily, "If you're going to object to everything, there's no fiSe discussing the matter. In any case, you ought to know about it. In matters concerning Earth, you're omniscient."

  $ "Yes, if I choose to be. I've had much to concern me here and investigating the possibilities of Resurrection did not, I confess, occur to me."

  "Well, it should have. All the papers involved are in the files of the Council of Ascendants. You could have availed yourself of them at any time."

  "I tell you all my time was needed here. You have no idea of the deadly efficiency of the Adversary on this planet. It took all my efforts to curb him, and even so-"

  "Why, yes"-Gabriel stroked a comet as it passed-"he does seem to have won his little victories. I note as I let the interlocking factual pattern of this miserable little world flow through me that this is one of those setups with matter-energy equivalence." i i "So it is," said Etheriel. J "And they are playing with it." s "I'm afraid so." ji "Then what better time for ending the matter?"

  "I'll be able to handle it, I assure you. Their nuclear bombs will not destroy them."

  "I wonder. Well, now suppose you let me continue, Etheriel. The appointed moment approaches."

  The seraph said stubbornly, "I would like to see the documents in the case."

  "If you insist." The wording of an Act of Ascendancy appeared in glittering symbols against the deep black of the airless firmament.

  Etheriel read aloud: "It is hereby directed by order of Council that the Archangel Gabriel, Serial number etcetera, etcetera (well, that's you, at any rate), will approach Planet, Class A, number G753990, hereinafter known as Earth, and on January 1, 1957, at 12:01 P.M., using local time values-" He finished reading in gloomy silence.