“I am. I say he’s an android, an artificial imitation of a man. It all figures.
“Look, Trella, he said he was born on Jupiter. A human could stand the gravity of Jupiter, inside a dome or a ship, but what human could stand the rocket acceleration necessary to break free of Jupiter? Here’s a man strong enough to break a spaceship safety belt just by getting up out of his chair against it, tough enough to take a beating with a heavy stick without being injured. How can you believe he’s really human?”
Trella remembered the thug Kregg striking Quest in the face and then crying that he had injured his hand on the bar.
“But he said Dr. Mansard was his father,” protested Trella.
“Robots and androids frequently look on their makers as their parents,” said Jakdane. “Quest may not even know he’s artificial. Do you know how Mansard died?”
“The oxygen equipment failed, Quest said.”
“Yes. Do you know when?”
“No. Quest never did tell me, that I remember.”
“He told me: a year before Quest made his rocket flight to Ganymede! If the oxygen equipment failed, how do you think Quest lived in the poisonous atmosphere of Jupiter, if he’s human?”
Trella was silent.
“For the protection of humans, there are two psychological traits built into every robot and android,” said Jakdane gently. “The first is that they can never, under any circumstances, attack a human being, even in self defense. The second is that, while they may understand sexual desire objectively, they can never experience it themselves.
“Those characteristics fit your man Quest to a T, Trella. There is no other explanation for him: he must be an android.”
* * * *
Trella did not want to believe Jakdane was right, but his reasoning was unassailable. Looking upon Quest as an android, many things were explained: his great strength, his short, broad build, his immunity to injury, his refusal to defend himself against a human, his inability to return Trella’s love for him.
It was not inconceivable that she should have unknowingly fallen in love with an android. Humans could love androids, with real affection, even knowing that they were artificial. There were instances of android nursemaids who were virtually members of the families owning them.
She was glad now that she had not told Quest of her mission to Ganymede. He thought he was Dr. Mansard’s son, but an android had no legal right of inheritance from his owner. She would leave it to Dom Blessing to decide what to do about Quest.
Thus she did not, as she had intended originally, speak to Quest about seeing him again after she had completed her assignment. Even if Jakdane was wrong and Quest was human—as now seemed unlikely—Quest had told her he could not love her. Her best course was to try to forget him.
Nor did Quest try to arrange with her for a later meeting.
“It has been pleasant knowing you, Trella,” he said when they left the G-boat at White Sands. A faraway look came into his blue eyes, and he added: “I’m sorry things couldn’t have been different, somehow.”
“Let’s don’t be sorry for what we can’t help,” she said gently, taking his hand in farewell.
Trella took a fast plane from White Sands, and twenty-four hours later walked up the front steps of the familiar brownstone house on the outskirts of Washington.
Dom Blessing himself met her at the door, a stooped, graying man who peered at her over his spectacles.
“You have the papers, eh?” he said, spying the brief case. “Good, good. Come in and we’ll see what we have, eh?”
She accompanied him through the bare, windowless anteroom which had always seemed to her such a strange feature of this luxurious house, and they entered the big living room. They sat before a fire in the old-fashioned fireplace and Blessing opened the brief case with trembling hands.
“There are things here,” he said, his eyes sparkling as he glanced through the notebooks. “Yes, there are things here. We shall make something of these, Miss Trella, eh?”
“I’m glad they’re something you can use, Mr. Blessing,” she said. “There’s something else I found on my trip, that I think I should tell you about.”
She told him about Quest.
“He thinks he’s the son of Dr. Mansard,” she finished, “but apparently he is, without knowing it, an android Dr. Mansard built on Jupiter.”
“He came back to Earth with you, eh?” asked Blessing intently.
“Yes. I’m afraid it’s your decision whether to let him go on living as a man or to tell him he’s an android and claim ownership as Dr. Mansard’s heir.”
Trella planned to spend a few days resting in her employer’s spacious home, and then to take a short vacation before resuming her duties as his confidential secretary. The next morning when she came down from her room, a change had been made.
Two armed men were with Dom Blessing at breakfast and accompanied him wherever he went. She discovered that two more men with guns were stationed in the bare anteroom and a guard was stationed at every entrance to the house.
“Why all the protection?” she asked Blessing.
“A wealthy man must be careful,” said Blessing cheerfully. “When we don’t understand all the implications of new circumstances, we must be prepared for anything, eh?”
There was only one new circumstance Trella could think of. Without actually intending to, she exclaimed:
“You aren’t afraid of Quest? Why, an android can’t hurt a human!”
Blessing peered at her over his spectacles.
“And what if he isn’t an android, eh? And if he is—what if old Mansard didn’t build in the prohibition against harming humans that’s required by law? What about that, eh?”
Trella was silent, shocked. There was something here she hadn’t known about, hadn’t even suspected. For some reason, Dom Blessing feared Dr. Eriklund Mansard … or his heir … or his mechanical servant.
* * * *
She was sure that Blessing was wrong, that Quest, whether man or android, intended no harm to him. Surely, Quest would have said something of such bitterness during their long time together on Ganymede and aspace, since he did not know of Trella’s connection with Blessing. But, since this was to be the atmosphere of Blessing’s house, she was glad that he decided to assign her to take the Mansard papers to the New York laboratory.
Quest came the day before she was scheduled to leave.
Trella was in the living room with Blessing, discussing the instructions she was to give to the laboratory officials in New York. The two bodyguards were with them. The other guards were at their posts.
Trella heard the doorbell ring. The heavy oaken front door was kept locked now, and the guards in the anteroom examined callers through a tiny window.
Suddenly alarm bells rang all over the house. There was a terrific crash outside the room as the front door splintered. There were shouts and the sound of a shot.
“The steel doors!” cried Blessing, turning white. “Let’s get out of here.”
He and his bodyguards ran through the back of the house out of the garage.
Blessing, ahead of the rest, leaped into one of the cars and started the engine.
The door from the house shattered and Quest burst through. The two guards turned and fired together.
He could be hurt by bullets. He was staggered momentarily.
Then, in a blur of motion, he sprang forward and swept the guards aside with one hand with such force that they skidded across the floor and lay in an unconscious heap against the rear of the garage. Trella had opened the door of the car, but it was wrenched from her hand as Blessing stepped on the accelerator and it leaped into the driveway with spinning wheels.
Quest was after it, like a chunky deer, running faster than Trella had ever seen a man run before.
>
Blessing slowed for the turn at the end of the driveway and glanced back over his shoulder. Seeing Quest almost upon him, he slammed down the accelerator and twisted the wheel hard.
The car whipped into the street, careened, and rolled over and over, bringing up against a tree on the other side in a twisted tangle of wreckage.
With a horrified gasp, Trella ran down the driveway toward the smoking heap of metal. Quest was already beside it, probing it. As she reached his side, he lifted the torn body of Dom Blessing. Blessing was dead.
“I’m lucky,” said Quest soberly. “I would have murdered him.”
“But why, Quest? I knew he was afraid of you, but he didn’t tell me why.”
“It was conditioned into me,” answered Quest “I didn’t know it until just now, when it ended, but my father conditioned me psychologically from my birth to the task of hunting down Dom Blessing and killing him. It was an unconscious drive in me that wouldn’t release me until the task was finished.
“You see, Blessing was my father’s assistant on Ganymede. Right after my father completed development of the surgiscope, he and my mother blasted off for Io. Blessing wanted the valuable rights to the surgiscope, and he sabotaged the ship’s drive so it would fall into Jupiter.
“But my father was able to control it in the heavy atmosphere of Jupiter, and landed it successfully. I was born there, and he conditioned me to come to Earth and track down Blessing. I know now that it was part of the conditioning that I was unable to fight any other man until my task was finished: it might have gotten me in trouble and diverted me from that purpose.”
More gently than Trella would have believed possible for his Jupiter-strong muscles, Quest took her in his arms.
“Now I can say I love you,” he said. “That was part of the conditioning too: I couldn’t love any woman until my job was done.”
Trella disengaged herself.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Don’t you know this, too, now: that you’re not a man, but an android?”
He looked at her in astonishment, stunned by her words.
“What in space makes you think that?” he demanded.
“Why, Quest, it’s obvious,” she cried, tears in her eyes. “Everything about you … your build, suited for Jupiter’s gravity … your strength … the fact that you were able to live in Jupiter’s atmosphere after the oxygen equipment failed. I know you think Dr. Mansard was your father, but androids often believe that.”
He grinned at her.
“I’m no android,” he said confidently. “Do you forget my father was inventor of the surgiscope? He knew I’d have to grow up on Jupiter, and he operated on the genes before I was born. He altered my inherited characteristics to adapt me to the climate of Jupiter … even to being able to breathe a chlorine atmosphere as well as an oxygen atmosphere.”
Trella looked at him. He was not badly hurt, any more than an elephant would have been, but his tunic was stained with red blood where the bullets had struck him. Normal android blood was green.
“How can you be sure?” she asked doubtfully.
“Androids are made,” he answered with a laugh. “They don’t grow up. And I remember my boyhood on Jupiter very well.”
He took her in his arms again, and this time she did not resist. His lips were very human.
THE MAN WHO HATED MARS, by Randall Garrett
“I want you to put me in prison!” the big, hairy man said in a trembling voice.
He was addressing his request to a thin woman sitting behind a desk that seemed much too big for her. The plaque on the desk said:
LT. PHOEBE HARRIS
TERRAN REHABILITATION SERVICE
Lieutenant Harris glanced at the man before her for only a moment before she returned her eyes to the dossier on the desk; but long enough to verify the impression his voice had given. Ron Clayton was a big, ugly, cowardly, dangerous man.
He said: “Well? Dammit, say something!”
The lieutenant raised her eyes again. “Just be patient until I’ve read this.” Her voice and eyes were expressionless, but her hand moved beneath the desk.
Clayton froze. She’s yellow! he thought. She’s turned on the trackers! He could see the pale greenish glow of their little eyes watching him all around the room. If he made any fast move, they would cut him down with a stun beam before he could get two feet.
She had thought he was going to jump her. Little rat! he thought, somebody ought to slap her down!
He watched her check through the heavy dossier in front of her. Finally, she looked up at him again.
“Clayton, your last conviction was for strong-arm robbery. You were given a choice between prison on Earth and freedom here on Mars. You picked Mars.”
He nodded slowly. He’d been broke and hungry at the time. A sneaky little rat named Johnson had bilked Clayton out of his fair share of the Corey payroll job, and Clayton had been forced to get the money somehow. He hadn’t mussed the guy up much; besides, it was the sucker’s own fault. If he hadn’t tried to yell—
Lieutenant Harris went on: “I’m afraid you can’t back down now.”
“But it isn’t fair! The most I’d have got on that frame-up would’ve been ten years. I’ve been here fifteen already!”
“I’m sorry, Clayton. It can’t be done. You’re here. Period. Forget about trying to get back. Earth doesn’t want you.” Her voice sounded choppy, as though she were trying to keep it calm.
Clayton broke into a whining rage. “You can’t do that! It isn’t fair! I never did anything to you! I’ll go talk to the Governor! He’ll listen to reason! You’ll see! I’ll—”
“Shut up!” the woman snapped harshly. “I’m getting sick of it! I personally think you should have been locked up—permanently. I think this idea of forced colonization is going to breed trouble for Earth someday, but it is about the only way you can get anybody to colonize this frozen hunk of mud.
“Just keep it in mind that I don’t like it any better than you do—and I didn’t strong-arm anybody to deserve the assignment! Now get out of here!”
She moved a hand threateningly toward the manual controls of the stun beam.
Clayton retreated fast. The trackers ignored anyone walking away from the desk; they were set only to spot threatening movements toward it.
Outside the Rehabilitation Service Building, Clayton could feel the tears running down the inside of his face mask. He’d asked again and again—God only knew how many times—in the past fifteen years. Always the same answer. No.
When he’d heard that this new administrator was a woman, he’d hoped she might be easier to convince. She wasn’t. If anything, she was harder than the others.
The heat-sucking frigidity of the thin Martian air whispered around him in a feeble breeze. He shivered a little and began walking toward the recreation center.
There was a high, thin piping in the sky above him which quickly became a scream in the thin air.
He turned for a moment to watch the ship land, squinting his eyes to see the number on the hull.
Fifty-two. Space Transport Ship Fifty-two.
Probably bringing another load of poor suckers to freeze to death on Mars.
That was the thing he hated about Mars—the cold. The everlasting damned cold! And the oxidation pills; take one every three hours or smother in the poor, thin air.
The government could have put up domes; it could have put in building-to-building tunnels, at least. It could have done a hell of a lot of things to make Mars a decent place for human beings.
But no—the government had other ideas. A bunch of bigshot scientific characters had come up with the idea nearly twenty-three years before. Clayton could remember the words on the sheet he had been given when he was sentenced.
“Mankind is inhe
rently an adaptable animal. If we are to colonize the planets of the Solar System, we must meet the conditions on those planets as best we can.
“Financially, it is impracticable to change an entire planet from its original condition to one which will support human life as it exists on Terra.
“But man, since he is adaptable, can change himself—modify his structure slightly—so that he can live on these planets with only a minimum of change in the environment.”
* * * *
So they made you live outside and like it. So you froze and you choked and you suffered.
Clayton hated Mars. He hated the thin air and the cold. More than anything, he hated the cold.
Ron Clayton wanted to go home.
The Recreation Building was just ahead; at least it would be warm inside. He pushed in through the outer and inner doors, and he heard the burst of music from the jukebox. His stomach tightened up into a hard cramp.
They were playing Heinlein’s Green Hills of Earth.
There was almost no other sound in the room, although it was full of people. There were plenty of colonists who claimed to like Mars, but even they were silent when that song was played.
Clayton wanted to go over and smash the machine—make it stop reminding him. He clenched his teeth and his fists and his eyes and cursed mentally. God, how I hate Mars!
* * * *
When the hauntingly nostalgic last chorus faded away, he walked over to the machine and fed it full of enough coins to keep it going on something else until he left.
At the bar, he ordered a beer and used it to wash down another oxidation tablet. It wasn’t good beer; it didn’t even deserve the name. The atmospheric pressure was so low as to boil all the carbon dioxide out of it, so the brewers never put it back in after fermentation.
He was sorry for what he had done—really and truly sorry. If they’d only give him one more chance, he’d make good. Just one more chance. He’d work things out.
He’d promised himself that both times they’d put him up before, but things had been different then. He hadn’t really been given another chance, what with parole boards and all.
The First Science Fiction Megapack Page 42