The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works 1911-1987

by C. L. Moore

  It lit Kerry's cigarette and went back to the sink, where it resumed the dishwashing.

  -

  Kerry phoned Fitzgerald again. "I wasn't kidding. I'm having hallucinations or something. That damned radio just lit a cigarette for me."

  "Wait a minute—" Fitzgerald's voice sounded undecided. "This is a gag—eh?"

  "No. And I don't think it's a hallucination, either. It's up your alley. Can you run over and test my knee-jerks?"

  "All right," Fitz said. "Give me ten minutes. Have a drink ready."

  He hung up, and Kerry, laying the phone back into its cradle, turned to see the radio walking out of the kitchen toward the living room. Its square, boxlike contour was subtly horrifying, like some bizarre sort of hobgoblin. Kerry shivered.

  He followed the radio, to find it in its former place, motionless and impassive. He opened the doors, examining the turntable, the phonograph arm, and the other buttons and gadgets. There was nothing apparently unusual. Again he touched the legs. They were not wood, after all. Some plastic, which seemed quite hard. Or—maybe they were wood, after all. It was difficult to make certain, without damaging the finish. Kerry felt a natural reluctance to use a knife on his new console.

  He tried the radio, getting local stations without trouble. The tone was good—unusually good, he thought. The phonograph—

  He picked up Halvorsen's "Entrance of the Boyards" at random and slipped it into place, closing the lid. No sound emerged. Investigation proved that the needle was moving rhythmically along the groove, but without audible result. Well?

  Kerry removed the record as the doorbell rang. It was Fitzgerald, a gangling, saturnine man with a leathery, wrinkled face and a tousled mop of dull-gray hair. He extended a large, bony hand.

  "Where's my drink?"

  " 'Lo, Fitz. Come in the kitchen. I'll mix. Highball?"

  "Highball."

  "O.K." Kerry led the way. "Don't drink it just yet, though. I want to show you my new combination."

  "The one that washes dishes?" Fitzgerald asked. "What else does it do?"

  Kerry gave the other a glass. "It won't play records."

  "Oh, well. A minor matter, if it'll do the housework. Let's take a look at it." Fitzgerald went into the living room, selected "Afternoon of a Faun," and approached the radio. "It isn't plugged in."

  "That doesn't matter a bit," Kerry said wildly.

  "Batteries?" Fitzgerald slipped the record in place and adjusted the switches. "Now we'll see." He beamed triumphantly at Kerry. "Well? It's playing now."

  It was.

  Kerry said, "Try that Halvorsen piece. Here." He handed the disk to Fitzgerald, who pushed the reject switch and watched the lever arm lift.

  But this time the phonograph refused to play. It didn't like "Entrance of the Boyards."

  "That's funny," Fitzgerald grunted. "Probably the trouble's with the record. Let's try another."

  There was no trouble with "Daphnis and Chloe." But the radio silently rejected the composer's "Bolero."

  -

  Kerry sat down and pointed to a near-by chair. "That doesn't prove anything. Come over here and watch. Don't drink anything yet. You, uh, you feel perfectly normal?"

  "Sure. Well?"

  Kerry took out a cigarette. The console walked across the room, picking up a match book on the way, and politely held the flame. Then it went back to its place against the wall.

  Fitzgerald didn't say anything. After a while he took a cigarette from his pocket and waited. Nothing happened.

  "So?" Kerry asked.

  "A robot. That's the only possible answer. Where in the name of Petrarch did you get it?"

  "You don't seem much surprised."

  "I am, though. But I've seen robots before—Westinghouse tried it, you know. Only this—" Fitzgerald tapped his teeth with a nail. "Who made it?"

  "How the devil should I know?" Kerry demanded. "The radio people, I suppose."

  Fitzgerald narrowed his eyes. "Wait a minute. I don't quite understand—"

  "There's nothing to understand. I bought this combination a few days ago. Turned in the old one. It was delivered this afternoon, and—" Kerry explained what had happened.

  "You mean you didn't know it was a robot?"

  "Exactly. I bought it as a radio. And ... and ... the damn thing seems almost alive to me."

  "Nope." Fitzgerald shook his head, rose, and inspected the console carefully. "It's a new kind of robot. At least—" he hesitated. "What else is there to think? I suggest you get in touch with the Mideastern people tomorrow and check up."

  "Let's open the cabinet and look inside," Kerry suggested.

  Fitzgerald was willing, but the experiment proved impossible. The presumably wooden panels weren't screwed into place, and there was no apparent way of opening the console. Keny found a screwdriver and applied it, gingerly at first, then with a sort of repressed fury. He could neither pry free a panel nor even scratch the dark, smooth finish of the cabinet.

  "Damn!" he finally. "Well, your guess is as good as mine. It's a robot. Only I didn't know they could make 'em like this. And why in a radio?"

  "Don't ask me," Fitzgerald shrugged. "Check up tomorrow. That's the first step. Naturally I'm pretty baffled. If a new sort of specialized robot has been invented, why put it in a console? And what makes those legs move? There aren't any casters."

  "I've been wondering about that, too."

  "When it moves, the legs look—rubbery. But they're not. They're hard as ... as hardwood. Or plastic."

  "I'm afraid of the thing," Kerry said.

  "Want to stay at my place tonight?"

  "N-no. No. I guess not. The—robot—can't hurt me."

  "I don't think it wants to. It's been helping you, hasn't it?"

  "Yeah," Kerry said, and went off to mix another drink.

  The rest of the conversation was inconclusive. Fitzgerald, several hours later, went home rather worried. He wasn't as casual as he had pretended, for the sake of Kerry's nerves. The impingement of something so entirely unexpected on normal life was subtly frightening. And yet, as he had said, the robot didn't seem menacing.

  -

  Kerry went to bed, with a new detective mystery. The radio followed him into the bedroom and gently took the book out of his hand. Kerry instinctively snatched for it.

  "Hey!" he said. "What the devil—"

  The radio went back into the living room. Kerry followed, in time to see the book replaced on the shelf. After a bit Kerry retreated, locking his door, and slept uneasily till dawn.

  In dressing gown and slippers, he stumbled out to stare at the console. It was back in its former place, looking as though it had never moved. Kerry, rather white around the gills, made breakfast.

  He was allowed only one cup of coffee. The radio appeared, reprovingly took the second cup from his hand, and emptied it into the sink.

  That was quite enough for Keny Westerfield. He found his hat and topcoat and almost ran out of the house. He had a horrid feeling that the radio might follow him, but it didn't, luckily for his sanity. He was beginning to be worried.

  During the morning he found time to telephone Mideastern. The salesman knew nothing. It was a standard model combination—the latest. If it wasn't giving satisfaction, of course, he'd be glad to—

  "It's O.K.," Kerry said. "But who made the thing? That's what I want to find out."

  "One moment, sir." There was a delay. "It came from Mr. Lloyd's department. One of our foremen."

  "Let me speak to him, please."

  But Lloyd wasn't very helpful. After much thought, he remembered that the combination had been placed in the stock room without a serial number. It had been added later.

  "But who made it?"

  "I just don't know. I can find out for you, I guess. Suppose I ring you back."

  "Don't forget," Kerry said, and went back to his class. The lecture on the Venerable Bede wasn't too successful.

  -

  At lunch he saw Fitzgerald, w
ho seemed relieved when Kerry came over to his table. "Find out any more about your pet robot?" the psychology professor demanded.

  No one else was within hearing. With a sigh Kerry sat down and lit a cigarette. "Not a thing. It's a pleasure to be able to do this myself." He drew smoke into his lungs. "I phoned the company."

  "And?"

  "They don't know anything. Except that it didn't have a serial number."

  "That may be significant," Fitzgerald said.

  Kerry told the other about the incidents of the book and the coffee, and Fitzgerald squinted thoughtfully at his milk. "I've given you some psych tests. Too much stimulation isn't good for you."

  "A detective yarn!"

  "Carrying it a bit to extremes, I'll admit. But I can understand why the robot acted that way—though I dunno how it managed it." He hesitated. "Without intelligence, that is."

  "Intelligence?" Kerry licked his lips. "I'm not so sure that it's just a machine. And I'm not crazy."

  "No, you're not. But you say the robot was in the front room. How could it tell what you were reading?"

  "Short of x-ray vision and superfast scanning and assimilative powers, I can't imagine. Perhaps it doesn't want me to read anything."

  "You've said something," Fitzgerald grunted. "Know much about theoretical—machines—of that type?"

  "Robots?"

  "Purely theoretical. Your brain's a colloid, you know. Compact, complicated—but slow. Suppose you work out a gadget with a multi-million radioatom unit embedded in an insulating material—the result is a brain, Kerry. A brain with a tremendous number of units interacting at light-velocity speeds. A radio tube adjusts current flow when it's operating at forty million separate signals a second. And—theoretically—a radioatomic brain of the type I've mentioned could include perception, recognition, consideration, reaction and adjustment in a hundred-thousandth of a second."

  "Theory."

  "I've thought so. But I'd like to find out where your radio came from."

  A page came over. "Telephone call for Mr. Westerfield."

  Kerry excused himself and left. When he returned, there was a puzzled frown knitting his dark brows. Fitzgerald looked at him inquiringly.

  "Guy named Lloyd, at the Mideastern plant. I was talking to him about the radio."

  "Any luck?"

  Kerry shook his head. "No. Well, not much. He didn't know who had built the thing."

  "But it was built in the plant?"

  "Yes. About two weeks ago—but there's no record of who worked on it. Lloyd seemed to think that was very, very funny. If a radio's built in the plant, they know who put it together."

  "So?"

  "So nothing. I asked him how to open the cabinet, and he said it was easy. Just unscrew the panel in back."

  "There aren't any screws," Fitzgerald said.

  "I know."

  They looked at one another.

  Fitzgerald said, "I'd give fifty bucks to find out whether that robot was really built only two weeks ago."

  "Why?"

  "Because a radioatomic brain would need training. Even in such matters as the lighting of a cigarette."

  "It saw me light one."

  "And followed the example. The dishwashing—hm-m-m. Induction, I suppose. If that gadget has been trained, it's a robot. If it hasn't—" Fitzgerald stopped.

  Kerry blinked. "Yes?"

  "I don't know what the devil it is. It bears the same relation to a robot that we bear to eohippus. One thing I do know, Kerry; it's very probable that no scientist today has the knowledge it would take to make a ... a thing like that."

  "You're arguing in circles," Kerry said. "It was made."

  "Uh-huh. But how—when—and by whom? That's what's got me worried."

  "Well, I've a class in five minutes. Why not come over tonight?"

  "Can't. I'm lecturing at the Hall. I'll phone you after, though."

  With a nod Kerry went out, trying to dismiss the matter from his mind. He succeeded pretty well. But dining alone in a restaurant that night, he began to feel a general unwillingness to go home. A hobgoblin was waiting for him.

  "Brandy," he told the waiter. "Make it double."

  -

  Two hours later a taxi let Kerry out at his door. He was remarkably drunk. Things swam before his eyes. He walked unsteadily toward the porch, mounted the steps with exaggerated care, and let himself into the house.

  He switched on a lamp.

  The radio came forward to meet him. Tentacles, thin, but strong as metal, coiled gently around his body, holding him motionless. A pang of violent fear struck through Kerry. He struggled desperately and tried to yell, but his throat was dry.

  From the radio panel a beam of yellow light shot out, blinding the man. It swung down, aimed at his chest. Abruptly a queer taste was perceptible under Kerry's tongue.

  After a minute or so, the ray clicked out, the tentacles flashed back out of sight, and the console returned to its corner. Kerry staggered weakly to a chair and relaxed, gulping.

  He was sober. Which was quite impossible. Fourteen brandies infiltrate a definite amount of alcohol into the system. One can't wave a magic wand and instantly reach a state of sobriety. Yet that was exactly what had happened.

  The—robot—was trying to be helpful. Only Kerry would have preferred to remain drunk.

  He got up gingerly and sidled past the radio to the bookshelf. One eye on the combination, he took down the detective novel he had tried to read on the preceding night. As he had expected, the radio took it from his hand and replaced it on the shelf. Kerry, remembering Fitzgerald's words, glanced at his watch. Reaction time, four seconds.

  He took down a Chaucer and waited, but the radio didn't stir. However, when Kerry found a history volume, it was gently removed from his fingers. Reaction time, six seconds.

  Kerry located a history twice as thick.

  Reaction time, ten seconds.

  Uh-huh. So the robot did read the books. That meant x-ray vision and superswift reactions. Jumping Jehoshaphat!

  Kerry tested more books, wondering what the criterion was. "Alice in Wonderland" was snatched from his hand; Millay's poems were not. He made a list, with two columns, for future reference.

  The robot, then, was not merely a servant. It was a censor. But what was the standard of comparison?

  After a while he remembered his lecture tomorrow, and thumbed through his notes. Several points needed verification. Rather hesitantly he located the necessary reference book—and the robot took it away from him.

  "Wait a minute," Kerry said. "I need that." He tried to pull the volume out of the tentacle's grasp, without success. The console paid no attention. It calmly replaced the book on its shelf.

  Kerry stood biting his lip. This was a bit too much. The damned robot was a monitor. He sidled toward the book, snatched it, and was out in the hall before the radio could move.

  The thing was coming after him. He could hear the soft padding of its ... its feet. Kerry scurried into the bedroom and locked the door. He waited, heart thumping, as the knob was tried gently.

  A wire-thin cilia crept through the crack of the door and fumbled with the key. Kerry suddenly jumped forward and shoved the auxiliary bolt into position. But that didn't help, either. The robot's precision tools—the specialized antenna—slid it back; and then the console opened the door, walked into the room, and came toward Kerry.

  He felt a touch of panic. With a little gasp he threw the book at the thing, and it caught it deftly. Apparently that was all that was wanted, for the radio turned and went out, rocking awkwardly on its rubbery legs, carrying the forbidden volume. Kerry cursed quietly.

  -

  The phone rang. It was Fitzgerald.

  "Well? How'd you make out?"

  "Have you got a copy of Cassen's 'Social Literature of the Ages'?"

  "I don't think so—no. Why?"

  "I'll get it in the University library tomorrow, then." Kerry explained what had happened. Fitzgerald whistl
ed softly.

  "Interfering, is it? Hm-m-m. I wonder—"

  "I'm afraid of the thing."

  "I don't think it means you any harm. You say it sobered you up?"

  "Yeah. With a light ray. That isn't very logical."

  "It might be. The vibrationary equivalent of thiamin chloride."

  "Light?"

  "There's vitamin content in sunlight, you know. That isn't the important point. It's censoring your reading—and apparently it reads the books, with superfast reactions. That gadget, whatever it is, isn't merely a robot."

  "You're telling me," Kerry said grimly. "It's a Hitler."

  Fitzgerald didn't laugh. Rather soberly, he suggested, "Suppose you spend the night at my place?"

  "No," Kerry said, his voice stubborn. "No so-and-so radio's going to chase me out of my house. I'll take an ax to the thing first."

  "We-ell—you know what you're doing, I suppose. Phone me if ... if anything happens."

  "O.K.," Kerry said, and hung up. He went into the living room and eyed the radio coldly. What the devil was it—and what was it trying to do? Certainly it wasn't merely a robot. Equally certainly, it wasn't alive, in the sense that a colloid brain is alive.

  Lips thinned, he went over and fiddled with the dials and switches. A swing band's throbbing erratic tempo came from the console. He tried the short-wave band—nothing unusual there. So?

  So nothing. There was no answer.

  After a while he went to bed.

  At luncheon the next day he brought Cassen's "Social Literature" to show Fitzgerald.

  "What about it?"

  "Look here," Kerry flipped the pages and indicated a passage. "Does this mean anything to you?"

  Fitzgerald read it. "Yeah. The point seems to be that individualism is necessary for the production of literature. Right?"

  Kerry looked at him. "I don't know."

  "Eh?"