The Collected Stories

by Earl

  All Becker’s problems were solved in one stroke. Robots were not weaklings; robots never had children; and robots were at last rid of that human killer, Charles Becker.

  That was his escape, free at last from all torment. That was the tangle to unravel, in its broad outline. Dr. Grady cut off his mental sketching. He had to be ready for the question they always asked. Always.

  LORA WAS asking it, twisting her hands. “How serious is it, Doctor? Can he be—?”

  So often they left the word out.

  “Cured?” furnished Grady, softly, carefully. How many years had it taken him to eliminate all betraying inflections? “Now don’t worry, Mrs. Becker; we acknowledge few hopeless cases here in 1972. Wait in the outer office, please, while I talk to him.”

  After Lora sat down in the waiting room and pretended to read a magazine with blurred eyes, Dr. Grady called to the small man standing like a statue in the corner, unobtrusively. But with the self-effacement of a trained robot, not of a meek man.

  “This way please, Mr. Becker.”

  Becker did not turn his head, nor even blink.

  Grady nodded to himself. “This way please, X-88.”

  Becker came to life and obediently followed him into the private office. The door shut soundlessly.

  “Lie on that couch,” the doctor waved. “This will take an hour.”

  “I’ll stand, sir; robots do not tire.”

  Grady allowed no trace of surprise or annoyance on his face, fixed in neutral pleasantness from long practice. “Yes, of course. As you choose. Your name?”

  “X-88, sir. Robot home servant out of the Winton Works.”

  “The name Charles Becker. What does it mean to you?”

  “Nothing, sir. However, the name Becker itself does; I am the robot servant of Mrs. Lora Becker.”

  “Ah, but if Lora Becker is married, she must have a husband. Where is he?”

  “I do not know, sir.”

  “Is Mrs. Becker widowed or divorced?”

  “No. That is, I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do know,” said Grady, but not sharply. He said it casually, genially. “You answered correctly at first, before changing it. This shows that somehow, you yourself are fully aware that Mrs. Becker has a living husband, from whom she is not separated. Is he away on a trip?”

  “No.”

  “Again you know the answer. Then where is he? It is an interesting question, isn’t it? Why would not her devoted husband show up all last evening and through the night?”

  “Because he—I—” Becker stopped, turning blank. “A robot is unaware of human relationships and doings; I cannot answer.”

  “Yes, you can answer,” said the psychiatrist patiently. His tone was unaccusing, friendly, persuasive. “You almost gave me the answer a moment ago. You are not a robot called X-88, are you? Think once; you are a man, a human being of flesh and blood, called Charles Becker. Isn’t that right?”

  Logic should bring him back, now.

  Grady waited, hopefully. Had he broken through? Surely the preposterous fixation could not stand up in the face of pure logic. The robot masquerade must have weak chinks in its armor.

  But the hard, set face did not change. “I am robot X-88,” Becker said, in a nasal voice that exactly imitated the hundreds of robots he had activated into speech for nine years.

  Dr. Grady sighed inwardly, conceding defeat for the time being. He had at least expected Becker to emerge a moment or two, bewildered, before retreating again into his robot fantasy. It was comparatively rare for such an utter change of personality to stick like glue this long, in its primary stages.

  BRADY PICKED up a book on his desk, casually. Toying with it, he rose and approached the man who thought he was a robot. “Robots feel no pain, of course,” he said.

  “That is right, sir; robots feel no pain.”

  Grady suddenly jabbed the book at Becker, using its corners to dig into his ribs. Grady was not gentle about it, and he was a strong man.

  Reaction, zero.

  “As you said, sir, robots feel no pain.”

  Grady turned away. There must be a purple bruise there, under his clothes. No man could take sudden pain without at least a gasp; Becker hadn’t flinched in the slightest.

  The doctor’s trained thoughts followed up the pattern. Complete transference of personality. Complete belief that he was a robot, an iron man, with an iron skin holding no pain nerves. Fakirs walking through live coals, or lying on beds of sharp nails. Ordinary people too, under fear and stress, carrying bad wounds without feeling them till later. Psychosomatic nerve block. It was of that near-incredible mental astigmatism to physical hurt.

  Becker not only thought himself a robot. He was a robot. In all ways.

  In all ways?

  “A robot has three times the strength of a big man,” stated Dr. Grady. “A robot could, for instance, raise one corner of my safe, there. Go and do it, X-88.”

  Becker stalked over without a word. He even imitated the slow, heavy tread of a three-hundred pound robot to perfection, with his soaking-wet 125; it was oddly humorous, in a quite humorless way.

  Grady held his breath as Becker stooped for a hand-hold underneath the steel safe, standing on short legs. The human robot strained and lifted one corner off the floor, with his pipestem arms and frail back. Three powerful men could hardly have done the same.

  Becker let it back silently, without a thump, as a well-trained, high-powered robot would. He turned and straightened, without triumph. Robots did not gloat.

  “Very good,” said Grady evenly. “As a robot, you could also jump out my window, fall ten floors, and land without harm, taking up the shock by trigger reflexes of your knee joints.”

  “That is right, sir.”

  Grady’s eyes narrowed just a bit. The fear of death; the will to live—a man’s strongest instinctive drive. Would Becker break down under that threat, and emerge from hiding in the shell of X-88?

  “Go and jump out the window, X-88,” said Grady, in direct order. Surely that would call his “bluff.”

  “Which window?” asked Becker, turning and walking toward the three that overlooked the street.

  “The middle one,” said Grady.

  Becker was already halfway there, his step firm. He covered the rest of the distance, raised the window.

  “Order rescinded,” said Grady. “I have decided the jump is hardly necessary.” Grady kept smiling; he had a hard-worn smile that could cover any inward shudder, “Return home now, X-88, with Mrs. Becker. Obey her implicitly in all things.”

  Dr. Grady toned up his smile for Lora as he patted her arm. “It went well but it will take time,” he said softly. “Meanwhile, treat him as if he were your robot servant. Avoid calling him Charles or any endearment. Call him X-88. Give him household tasks to do, but nothing more. This is to erase all antagonism and resistance in him. Bring him back tomorrow.”

  Back in his office, before the next patient came in, Dr. Grady cast aside his smile. It was a unique case, the first he had heard of in psychiatric records, since robots had only been on the market for some twelve years. One thing struck him forcefully.

  It would take time, he had told Lora Becker. It was one of the fundamental tenets of psychiatry to never hurry. To take your time. Never force things. There was no time limit in curing mental aberrations. No deadline to meet.

  But with Charles Becker, there was a deadline.

  Robots did not eat or drink human foods.

  DR. GRADY was ready the next day. He had cancelled all his morning patients. They could wait; they ate and lived. He had concentrated all his thoughts on the new problem, and had his campaign worked out.

  It had to break through fast. Fast. Charles Becker had been without food and drink for 48 hours already.

  Grady wore his pleasant smile as Becker strode in, thumping his feet on the floor in slow measured steps.

  “Charles Becker,” said Grady, “is a killer of robots. At the factory from
which you came, X-88, he was a worker. He often murdered defective robots; is that right?”

  Becker’s eyes flicked. “Yes, that is right.”

  Grady was pleased. X-88 now admitted knowing Charles Becker, where before he had denied it. A slight opening.

  Grady wormed further in. “But robots do not have human status. Under the law, they are nothing but clever machines. Is a man, a human being, a murderer if he smashes a car, or a television set, or an electronic brain unit?”

  “No,” said Becker.

  “A robot,” said Grady, “is no more than a finer and more ingenious combination of the mechanical locomotion of a car, the perception of a sensitive TV-unit, and a compact electron brain. Therefore, Charles Becker was not committing murder when he destroyed robots; he only got rid of useless machinery. He would be foolish to have any sort of guilt complex over it, would he not?”

  “I do not understand such human emotions.”

  Grady thought. Defense mechanism. As a robot, Becker did not need to follow the reasoning. Still intact A mental barrier it was hopeless to attack. It was the root and foundation of his complex, built up solidly through nine long years.

  Grady shifted the attack to concrete things. “Do you feel weak, X-88?”

  “No.”

  “But you’ve had no food for two days.”

  “Robots do not eat human food. However, four ounces of fuel must be given a robot each day, to keep him at peak performance; Mrs. Becker did not give me any.”

  No, thought Grady, because I phoned her and said not to. He had pressed the desk button and his nurse came in, wheeling a tea-table loaded with hot steaming foods, directly before Becker, His nose could not fail to drink in the tempting aromas. His human stomach could not fail to hunger for what lay within reach.

  Becker did not turn or move for five silent minutes.

  Grady gave up waiting. “Eat,” he commanded.

  “Sorry, but I must refuse,” said Becker, “Human food is harmful to us; robots have built-in guards against obeying any commands harmful to them.”

  Grady smiled. Damnable. By the same token, he could not get any knock-out drug down Becker’s throat, to render him unconscious, and then force-feed him. Nor could ten men help him overpower Becker by sheer weight of numbers, for force feeding. Becker would clamp his jaws shut, defying their fingers to open them; even if they managed to stuff food down his throat, he would automatically spit it out.

  Force-feeding was out Feeding of any kind was out until X-88 gave up the ghost and left.

  The doctor signalled and the nurse wheeled the table out He crossed that off his list on the desk. Then he brought a can of fuel-oil to Becker. It was ordinary oil, but looked quite like the poisonous radiated robot fuel. But it had another secret ingredient in it. Ipecac.

  “Your fuel, X-88.”

  Becker drank it down. Robots drank their fuel like humans, down a fuel-pipe gullet to the fuel distribution system below. It was as mechanically efficient as any other way.

  Becker stood a while, then retched violently over the rug.

  As the nurse cleaned it up, Grady waited for Becker to explain it. If he was still a robot.

  BECKER WAS still a robot. “That oil fuel was contaminated, sir; unfit for robot motors. But all late models are fitted with selective ejectors halfway to the fuel distributor system. Any unsuitable fuel is automatically regurgitated.”

  “Of course,” smiled Grady. “Stupid of me to forget.”

  He drew a line through item two and shifted to item three. “Punch a hole in this sheet metal with your fist,” he said, pointing to a square-yard of steel 1/32 inch thick, held firmly in a stand and clamps.

  Robots could smash a fist through gauges up to 1/32 inch; beyond that, they would shatter their intricate knuckle mechanisms.

  Something had to work, Grady told himself. Something had to be insurmountable to the human limitations of Becker. Then he would begin to shed his fixation of X-88 the robot.

  Hard steel, impervious to the human fist.

  There was a loud noise as Becker’s fist smashed through the steel plate. He withdrew the hand, without wincing. Knuckles unbruised, Grady noted. No blood. No broken bones sticking out under torn flesh.

  Grady’s pencil scraped across that item. Roughly, it was the well-known “maniacal” strength. Iron will, especially if psychotic, giving iron hardness momentarily to human bones and flesh. Hardly supernatural—merely the realm where supreme mental effort commanded all glandular and muscular processes to one powerful acme.

  Mind over matter. A trite simplification but the nutshell of it, basically. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Charles Becker and X-88. Grady swung his thoughts to the next item.

  BUT SUDDENLY, Lora came running in. Wild-eyed, she darted glances from the doctor to Becker, as if sensing failure. “I can’t stand it any longer,” she shrieked. Sobbing, she lifted the bottle to her lips. “Good-bye, dearest.”

  “Stop!” yelled Dr. Grady. “Don’t drink that deadly poison.” He Stumbled over the rug clumsily, and was too late to stop her. She gulped the bottle down, swayed on her feet, fell. Grady caught her limp form.

  “Your wife—dead,” he said to Becker. “The woman you love.”

  “Charles Becker’s wife,” corrected X-88. “A robot does not love.”

  “Wait in the outer office again,” said Grady, putting Lora on her feet. She cast a backward glance, choked, and closed the door behind her.

  Grady crossed that off. Emotion, love. X-88 would have none of it. “Strip yourself,” ordered Grady. “Of all clothing.”

  Becker obeyed. It was no surprise to X-88 that he wore human clothing. Most robot servants did in human homes, to hide their metallic shine and make them less alien. Most people wanted it that way.

  Becker stood nude.

  “Robots are sexless,” stated Grady.

  “Yes.”

  “But humans have sex organs,” said the doctor simply, holding a large mirror in the right position. “How can X-88 have the same?”

  “I have no sex organ, sir; I am a robot.”

  Grady tilted the mirror. “Your face. What do you see?”

  “I see shiny metal reflected,” said Becker. “The usual TV eye-units, false nose, mouth for fuel intake. No human beard or hair.”

  Grady put the mirror away. Complete visual illusion. Looking at his own body. Becker’s eyes refused to see what could not exist on a robot. Sex organ, head of hair, fingernails, navel—none of those existed for X-88.

  But Grady did not tell Becker to dress. He still stood nude. The emotion of love he had denied. There was a stronger instinctive drive; he buzzed twice in signal.

  Lora came in, not the nurse. She stared at her unclothed husband without surprise.

  “Ready to go through with it?” the doctor asked gently.

  Lora blushed but nodded.

  “I’m glad you agreed,” said Grady. “If you hadn’t, I’m afraid I would have been forced to insist. I’ll leave the room. Take all the time you need. There is a closet for your clothes. When you wish me back, press the desk button,” He touched her hand. “Remember, try your best. It’s important. And it can’t wait for another time and place.”

  Lora watched the door close on the doctor. Then, glancing at the nude figure of her husband with another blush, she began undressing.

  She stood before him all the while, deliberately. His eyes did not focus on her at all. Did not seem to see the soft white thighs revealed, the womanly curves.

  Lora blushed no more. It was like undressing in complete personal privacy among inanimate furniture. But she went on desperately and finally stood before him, dropping the last bit of clothing coyly. Charles Becker had always responded to her charms—always.

  WHEN DR. GRADY answered the buzzer and strode in, Lora shook her head in anguish, fixing the last button. “He ignored me. Like a—a robot.”

  She fled to the waiting room, leaving a trail of tears.

  Grady drew a line a
gain on his list. The sex drive was completely absent in robots, including X-88.

  He had already checked with Lora on other bodily functions, and knew it was a blind alley. Robots did not eliminate waste products; neither did X-88. But that was comparatively simple—cessation of digestion, and metabolism slowed down to the minimum required for mere basic existence. Intestines, kidneys, all internal organs under rigid control.

  One more item left.

  But this was the clincher, and Grady had expected it to come down to this finally; at least, the preceding had perhaps opened the way. Placed some tiny doubt in the mind of X-88. Enough to burst the flood-gates over one final inconsistency in his hallucination.

  Then X-88 would leave. Charles Becker would return, and in time for a hearty meal before he collapsed from hunger. Lack of food had no meaning to X-88, but could be carried to an extreme of slow starvation for submerged Becker.

  This final item had to get Becker out of his iron trap, thought Grady, and the play of words did not amuse him.

  Grady opened his desk drawer, but first, in preparation, he said, “Remember this, X-88. Charles Becker, who worked at the robot assembly plant, is not a killer. Not a murderer. No guilt hangs over him. For nine years, only doing his job and burning out the brain-units of defective robots, he let that false thought loom in his mind. Without reason. He is innocent. He can return and face the world without stigma or disgrace. Charles Becker, wherever he is hiding now, has no slightest reason not to return. Is that clear?”

  “I understand nothing of what you say,” said the man robot.

  No, thought Grady, but your ears heard the words and your mind recorded them. Your human mind. You will remember.

  Grady stepped forward. He had a sharp knife in his hand.

  “Robots do not bleed,” he said. “They have no blood; you have no blood. Is that right, X-88?”

  “I have no blood,” agreed Becker, unflinching.

  “I will plunge this knife into you. There will be no blood, of course.”

  “No blood.”

  That was established. The stage was ready. Blood dripping. X-88 would see it, feel it, unable to explain it away. Unable to explain his soft vulnerability. X-88 would leave; Charles Becker would come back, bleeding.