Collected tales, p.27
Collected Tales, page 27
“You dropped something, sir,” said the robot, handing him the slip from the floor.
“It was nothing,” said Jadiver, taking it. That was the best description of what he had dropped. He extended the invitation he had just filched.
The robot grasped the invitation and seemed unable to focus. It tried to examine the markings invisible to human eyes. It passed a trembling hand across a troubled forehead.
“Didn’t you come in half an hour ago?” it asked in bewilderment.
Someone had—the person to whom the invitation had been issued. The robot, of course, had remembered.
“Nonsense,” said Jadiver sharply. “Do you feel right? Are you sure of your equilibrium?”
If it was sure, he had miscalculated badly. Robots were so much more or less than humans. It should be possible to design a perfect robot, one that would realize all the potentialities of a mechanical personality. It had never been done; anthropomorphic conceptions had always interfered.
“Must be mistaken,” mumbled the robot, and swayed. It would collapse in twenty minutes. The robot pressed a button and the field behind him flickered off. Jadiver passed through it and the field fell back in place.
INSIDE, he looked around. The usual swank, or maybe more so. Impressive, if he cared to be impressed by it. At the moment he didn’t. He had to find Burlingame or Emily. He had created the faces of the other three as well, but he had made them into handsome nonentities. Among so many others who resembled them, he doubted that he could recognize them.
For an instant he thought he saw Emily and made his way through the crowd. When he got there, he saw his mistake. This girl’s flesh hadn’t been put on with a spray gun.
Burlingame was after jewels, of course, to be carefully selected from two or three of the wealthier guests. He must also have currency in mind, something negotiable for immediate use. He’d need cash to drop out of sight for a while.
Time was growing short for a word with Burlingame, just one word, whispered or spelled out silently: “Police.” That was all Burlingame would need.
Jadiver was weaponless, and aside from warning Burlingame, he couldn’t help. Until now he’d steered clear of violence and illegality. He’d known the use to which his disguises had been put, but that was the business of those who paid him.
Now it was different. The police had a line to him, direct. How much they knew was impossible to estimate. He could visualize a technician sitting in front of a screen, seeing everything that Jadiver saw. That, however, was a guess, for he didn’t actually know how the circuit beneath his skin functioned. Until he learned, he would have to continue guessing, and blunder accordingly.
He made his way to the balcony that encircled half the huge high room. He didn’t know the entire layout or the habits of those who lived here, but it was reasonably certain that they kept a large amount of cash on hand and that it would be safeguarded in a room not accessible to all the guests. It might even be up here.
The few people on the balcony were at the far end. He looked down on the milling guests. Still no sign of Burlingame or any of his crew. Jadiver had done his work too well. They were indistinguishable from the others.
At that moment, the lights brightened glaringly. The guests looked less glamorous. Women bulged excessively, top-heavy, and the tanned faces of the men turned an unpleasant gray.
Magically, uniforms appeared at every exit.
“Attention,” a harsh voice rang out. “Please line up. There are criminals among you and we can identify them.”
JADIVER didn’t listen to the rest. His eyes were on the uniformed men. Mercifully, they carried tangle guns. That much he was thankful for. Burlingame and his crew would be taken alive. They might not like what would happen later, but at least they would live.
The tangle gun was the most effective and least lethal weapon ever conceived. It would bring down a butterfly at two hundred yards and hold it there, without crumpling a wing or disturbing the dustlike scales. It would do the same with a Venusian saurian or a Martian windbeast, either of which outbulked an elephant and outsavaged a tiger.
It didn’t have to hit the target. With proximity fuses—and it was usually furnished that way—it was sufficient for the bullet to pass near. Jadiver drew a deep breath. No one was going to get killed because of him. Nevertheless, his skin crawled.
He gazed down at the guests lining up. They, too, knew what tangle guns were.
Suddenly a man darted out of line and headed toward one of the exits. He collided with an officer and the policeman went down. A tangle gun snapped. The running man fell headlong. Three more times the tangle gun fired at the man writhing on the floor—at his hands, at his face, and again at his legs.
The tangle gun propelled a plastic bullet, and that plastic was a paradox. It was the stickiest substance known and would adhere to a sphere of polished platinum, tearing away the solid metal if it were forcibly removed without first being neutralized. It also extruded itself into fine, wire-like strands on a moving object. The more anything moved, the tighter it wrapped around. The victim was better off to relax. He couldn’t escape; no one ever had.
Jadiver watched the man threshing on the floor. One shot would have been enough. Someone on the Venicity force liked to see men squirm.
As nearly as Jadiver could determine, the man on the floor was not Burlingame. The leader hadn’t been taken, but he didn’t have long to enjoy his freedom. The theory he had about teamwork was tarnished now—a feint here and a block there—and they were all headed into the arms of the Venicity police. It couldn’t work against superior force, and an ambush set unwittingly by Jadiver.
Then Jadiver saw them. They moved as a unit—Burlingame, Emily and two others. They smashed through the guests with a formation that had the flying wedge as a remote ancestor. Burlingame was leading it, tangle gun in hand. The guests were thrown back and a policeman went down.
It was hard to fire into the mob through which Burlingame and his crew were bulling. In that respect, the tangle gun was not selective. It seized on any motion.
They couldn’t make it, but Jadiver hoped for them. They were at the edge of the crowd. Between them and freedom was a thin cordon of police. Beyond the police was a planted area where jungle vines and shrubs, considerably taller than a man, grew dense. Just past that area were two exits leading to the street.
From the balcony, Jadiver could see it clearly. If they could reach the exits, they had a chance for flight.
They broke through the cordon. They shouldn’t have, for superior trained men were opposing them. But it was another kind of training that Burlingame was using and with it he split the police. The group plunged into the jungle shrubs and emerged on the other side. The police on the floor couldn’t see them, the planted area screened off the view. They were almost safe.
The exits opened before they could reach them—more police. Burlingame went down, a cloud around his face, weaving wire shapes that tightened on his throat. The other two stumbled as police fired at their feet.
EMILY alone was not hit. She was close and moving too fast. She escaped the tangle guns, but ran directly into the arms of a burly officer. He laughed and grabbed her as if she were a robot. She bit him.
He swore at her and swiftly looked around. The guests couldn’t see. He hit her solidly in the middle. She gasped for breath. He took out his tangle gun and fired into her mouth.
Jadiver sicklily knew he had been wrong about the tangle gun; it could kill if the person who used it had sufficient experience and brutality.
Emily would never have to lose that beautiful face and figure. She could keep it until she died, which wouldn’t be long. Nobody could stop the peristaltic motion of the digestive system, voluntarily or otherwise, or of the lungs in trying to breathe.
Burlingame wouldn’t know. Policemen were cooperative, and it would be listed as an accident.
Jadiver closed his eyes. Emily was dying and no one could help her. Or himself, either, when they came to pick him up. They had to know exactly where he was. He waited, expecting a tap on the shoulder or the snap of the tangle gun.
The lights dimmed and the same harsh voice spoke. “The danger is over, thanks to the efficient work of the Venicity police force. You are now safe.”
Nothing like advertising yourself, thought Jadiver.
No one came near him. Apparently the police didn’t want him yet—they expected him to do more for them.
He went down the stairs and mingled with the excited guests. It had been a good show, unexpected entertainment, especially since it hadn’t involved any real danger for them. He circulated through the chattering men and women until he came near the planted area. At an opportune moment, he slipped in.
It was a miniature jungle; he was safe from ordinary detection as long as he stayed there. He went quietly through the vines and shrubs toward the other side. The broad back of a policemen loomed up in front of him.
Jadiver was an industrial engineer, a specialist in the design of robot bodies and faces, robots that had to look like humans. He knew anatomy, not in the way a doctor did, but it was nonetheless the knowledge of an expert. He reached out and the policeman toppled.
He dragged the unconscious man deeper into the little jungle and listened. No one had noticed. Physically a large man, the policeman might be the one who had shot Emily—and then again he might not be. He did have a tangle gun, which was the important thing. Jadiver took it and rifled the man’s pockets for ammunition.
He knelt for a final check on the body. The chest rose and fell with slow regularity. For insurance, Jadiver again pressed the nerve. This man wouldn’t trouble anyone for a few hours.
Jadiver looked out. When he was sure he wasn’t observed, he walked out and joined the guests. He moved politely from one group to another and in several minutes stood beside the door. He left the way he came.
It was that simple. He had to assume that until events proved he was mistaken.
OUTSIDE, he walked briskly. It was not late and the city overflowed with men and women walking, flying, skimming. Roughly dressed men down from the north polar farms, explorers from the temperate jungles, government girls—the jumbled swarm that comes to a planet in the intermediate stages of exploitation. It was a background through which he could pass unnoticed.
The circuit, though—always the circuit. He couldn’t escape that by walking away from it. But at least he’d proved that telepathy wasn’t possible by means of it, or he wouldn’t still be free.
Other than that, he didn’t know how it operated. If it was purely electronic in nature, then it had a range. He might be able to get beyond that range, if he knew how far it extended.
A lot depended on the power source. He hadn’t been able to check closely, hadn’t really known what he was looking at when he’d seen it in the autobath. He remembered that the circuit seemed to be laid over his own nervous system. Considering the power available, the range was apt to be quite limited.
That was pure supposition and might be wrong. There was nothing to preclude an external power source, say a closed field blanketing the city or even the entire planet. If so, it represented a technical achievement beyond anything he was familiar with. That didn’t disprove it, of course. The circuit itself indicated a startling advance and he knew it existed.
There was still another possibility. The circuit might not be entirely electronic. It might operate with the same forces that existed inside a single nerve cell. If so, all bets were off; there was no way he could determine the range. It might be anything at all, micro-inches or light-years.
With unlimited equipment and all the time in the worlds, he could answer some of those questions floating around in his mind. He had neither, but there were solutions he could make use of. Limited solutions, but it was better than waiting to be caught.
Jadiver headed toward one such solution.
The robot clerk looked up, smiling and patient, as he entered. It could afford to be patient. There was no place it wanted to be other than where it was at the moment. “Can I help you?”
“Passage to Earth,” said Jadiver.
The clerk consulted the schedule. That was pretense. The schedule and not much else had been built into its brain. “There’s an orbit flight in two weeks.”
In two weeks, Jadiver could be taken, tried, and converted ten times over. “Isn’t there anything sooner?”
“There’s an all-powered flight leaving tomorrow, but that’s for Earth citizens only.”
“Suits me. Book me for it.”
“Be glad to,” said the robot. “Passport, please.”
IT was going to cost more than just the fare, Jadiver knew. He would arrive on Earth with very little money and could expect to start all over. He was no longer fresh out of training, willing to start at the bottom. He was a mature man, experienced beyond the ordinary, and most organizations he could work for would be suspicious of that.
But it was worth it, aside from the escape. No future for him there, jammed in on a crowded world, but it was his planet, always would be, and he wouldn’t mind going back.
“Sorry,” said the clerk, flipping over the passport and studying it. “I can’t book you. The flight’s only for Earth citizens.”
“I was born there,” Jadiver impatiently said. “Can’t you see?”
“You were?” asked the robot eagerly. “I was built there.” It handed him back the passport. “However, it doesn’t matter where you were born. You’ve been here three years without going back. Automatically, you became a citizen of Venus two and a half years ago.”
Jadiver hadn’t known that. He doubted that many did. It was logical enough. Earth was overflowing and the hidden citizenship clause was a good way of getting rid of the more restless part of the population and making sure they didn’t come back.
“There’s still the orbit flight,” said the clerk, smiling and serene. “For that you need a visitor’s visa, which takes time. Shall I make the arrangements?”
Aside from the time element, which was vital, he couldn’t tip the police off that he intended to leave.
“Thanks,” he said, taking the passport. “I’ll call back when I make up my mind.”
Down the street was another interplanetary flight office and he wandered into it. It might have been the same office he had just left, robot and all.
“Information on Mars,” he said, his manner casual.
The clerk didn’t bother to consult the schedule. There was a difference, after all. “There’ll be an orbit flight in four months,” it said pleasantly. “Rate, four-fifths of the standard fare to Earth.”
Nothing was working out as expected. “What about the moons of Jupiter?” This was the last chance.
“Due to the position of the planets, for the next few months there are no direct flights anywhere beyond Mars. You have to go there and transfer.”
That escape was closed. “I can’t make plans so far in advance.”
The robot beamed at him. “I can see that you’re a gentleman who likes to travel.” It grew confidential and leaned over the counter. “I have a bargain here, truly the most sensational we’ve ever offered.”
Jadiver drew away from that eagerness. “What is this bargain?”
“Did you notice the fare to Mars? Four-fifths of that to Earth, and yet it’s farther away. Did you stop to think why?”
HE had noticed and he thought he knew why. It was another side of the citizenship program. Get them away from Earth, the farther the better, and don’t let them come back. If necessary, shuttle them between colonies, but don’t let them come back.
“I hadn’t,” he said. “Why?”
The voice throbbed throatily and robot eyes grew round. “To induce people to travel. Travel is wonderful. I love to travel.”
Pathetic thing. Someone had erred in building it, had implanted too much enthusiasm for the job. It loved to travel and would never get farther than a few feet from the counter. Jadiver dismissed that thought.
“What’s this wonderful offer?” he asked.
“Just think of it,” whispered the robot. “We have another destination, much farther than Jupiter, but only one-tenth the fare to Earth. If you don’t have the full fare in cash, just give us verbal assurance that you’ll pay when you get the money. No papers to sign. We have confidence in your personal integrity.”
“Sounds intriguing,” Jadiver said, backing away. It sounded more like a death sentence. Alpha Centauri or some such place—hard grubbing labor under a blazing or meager sun, it didn’t matter which. Exile forever on planets that lagged and would always lag behind Earth. It took years to get there, even at speeds only a little below that of light, time in which the individual was out of touch.
“I hope you won’t forget,” said the robot. “It’s hard to get people to understand. But I can see that you do.”
He understood too well. He ducked out of the flight office. He’d stay and take it here if he had to, escape some way if he could. Nothing was worth that kind of sacrifice.
He went slowly back to the apartment. It was not so strange that the police hadn’t arrested him. They knew that he’d stay on the planet, that he had to. They’d had it figured out long before he did.
He fell into the bed without removing his clothing. The bed made no effort to induce him to sleep. It wasn’t necessary.
IN the morning, Jadiver awakened to the smell of food. The room he slept in was dark, but in the adjacent room he could hear the Kitch-Hen clucking away contentedly as it prepared breakfast.
He rolled over and sat up. He was not alone.
“Cobber?” he called.
“Yeah,” said Cobber. He was very close, but Jadiver couldn’t see him.
“The police got them,” Jadiver said, reaching for the tangle gun. It was gone. He’d expected that.
“I heard. I was waiting for them and they didn’t come.” He was silent for a moment. “It had to be you, didn’t it?”
“It was,” Jadiver said. “When I found out, I tried to tell them. But it was too late.”
