Anger rose up in me again and I walked to the door and turned the rusty key that had locked out the world for me. I opened the door wide and Agnes walked into the room.
She stood very still for a moment, staring from me to Claire. She held herself in a tense, arrogant way, as if she welcomed this chance to release her pent-up feelings and had the authority now to threaten us with more than words.
“I was sure that you would both return to his building,” she said. “When you left here this morning you escaped from two Security Police officers by boarding a bicycle race passenger beetle. You escaped again at the stadium. The man you met at the stadium helped you. He brought Claire to this room and told her to lock the door and admit no one.
“Oh, it was all very cleverly planned. The man who helped you is a criminal conspirator, a rebel. He intercepted a message I sent to the Security Police last night, but because he is not a telepath — as you and I are, John — he did not know that you had left this building until he intercepted a Security Police alert which informed him that you were at the stadium.”
She was looking directly at me now. “He’s had specialized training in undercover spying, and had no difficulty in finding you, even in so huge a crowd. He knows exactly how to scan a crowd with electronic magnifying devices, and a woman like Claire stands out.
“He helped both of you escape, by bringing Claire here and urging you to enter the races before the Security Police could place you under arrest. I was probing your mind when you descended to the tracks and it was all very clear to me. I had left the ruins and was in the computation vault, making sure that every step we are taking to crush the rebellion will be in strict accordance with the Giant Computer’s instructions. But if I had been at the stadium I could not have been more sharply aware of everything that was taking place there, because I was probing his mind too.
“You’re a remarkable man, John. He must have been as sure of that as I am — or he would never have urged you to enter the race. He must have thought you’d have a very good chance of winning the kind of victory you’d need to make the spectators turn on the Security Police in rage. He couldn’t have known, of course, just how remarkable that victory would be.”
I shook my head, because I wasn’t flattered by her praise. Somehow it angered me.
“It was blind luck,” I said. “The rider whose cycle I overturned made the mistake of looking back to see how close I was just as I came abreast of him.”
“It takes great skill and steadiness of nerve to take instant advantage of a mistake like that,” she said. “You have exceptional qualities of body and mind and you’re making a tragic mistake in wasting them on a woman like this, and joining a conspiracy that’s certain to fail.”
I had an answer for that one too. “If you’re so sure,” I said, “how do you square a rebellion that’s certain to fail with a man who was more than a match for the Security Police? There must be other men just as extraordinary on Venus Base, or the conspiracy would have been smashed before —”
She cut me off abruptly. “Then you do admit that you’re an extraordinary man?”
“Not at all,” I said. “I’m talking about the man who helped us and who doesn’t seem to be here now.”
“You know as well as I do that a telepath can’t always trace a man’s movements with complete accuracy when he’s doing hardly any thinking at all, just concentrating on getting to his destination as quickly as possible. I knew he’d be bringing Claire here, but the visualization contact broke down right after he left the stadium. He’s familiar with the ruins and didn’t have to stop and look around him, and visualize this particular part of the ruins to get here. I didn’t think he’d get here quite so fast or leave quite so quickly. It was a natural enough mistake under the circumstances. Just the fact that he escaped in time — and even what he accomplished at the stadium — doesn’t make him extraordinary.”
Her face had lost its harshness and she seemed, quite suddenly, almost to be pleading with me not to go on accusing her. “John, I will say it again. It is you who are extraordinary. I knew it from the first — when we stood side by side in the vault and you took me into your arms. You talked wildly, rebelliously — even scornfully. You derided the Giant Computer, denying that it cannot make a decision which is not wholly wise and in the best interests of Society.
“John, listen to me. You talked rebelliously, but I knew that deep in your mind you did not really feel that way.”
“If you knew that,” I flung at her, “why did you lie to me? Why did you pretend to agree with everything I said and made me think —”
“Make you think what, John?”
“That your anger was greater than mine. When I talked about Venus Base in a less harsh way, you were more derisive than I had hoped you would be. For I was less honest with myself than I am now, and did not quite want to believe that women would never be sent out …”
She moved closed to me and a look of almost desperate appeal came into my eyes. “John, suppose I told you I had a reason for lying. Suppose I told you that Society is so dangerously threatened that it must ignore what an extraordinary man says and continue to believe in his capacity for loyalty. If the rebelliousness had not gone too deep, it may not be too late. He may still be able to save himself.”
CHAPTER 16
I looked at Claire and saw that she was standing motionless, staring at Agnes with his lips tightly compressed. If she was startled by what the other woman had just said, she gave no outward indication of it.
I would have gone to her and put my arms about her if I had not been so sure that what Agnes had said would not make Claire less sure of my loyalty to the world had shared together.
Agnes must have sensed that too, and suddenly she realized that words alone where not a woman’s only weapon, for she swayed toward me as if she were about to fall and almost instinctively I reached out to steady her. It was just about the most foolish thing I could have done, for it gave her a chance to cling to me and wrap her arms about my shoulders — so tightly I could not have unclasped them without an effort that would have seemed brutal even to Claire, angered as she must have been.
“John,” came an insistent whisper. “John, listen to me. Do you really thing Claire is an android?”
There was a sudden stillness between us, as if the words themselves had a fateful quality and she dared not go on too quickly.
Her embrace became a little less clinging, but I was too startled to grip her by the wrists and force her arms to her side.
“Oh, it is all so clever, John, so carefully planned. The conspirators select reckless young spacemen, cut off from life and fulfillment by what they shrewdly but falsely call the tyranny of the Giant Computer. They appeal to them through the android shop scheme. Don’t you see, John? The rebel women pretend to be androids.
“They pretend to be androids, John. The biogenetic norm data of each pilot is carefully examined in advance and women who conform to the data of individual pilots are sold to that man in the shop. The women have to keep up a skillful pretense of having child minds.
“Until they are in space, John, and the pretense can be thrown aside. Then the pilot is told. Since the woman conforms in all respects to what he has always sought in a woman he is not likely to turn back. If he is human, he is not likely to regret having thrown in his lot with her. If a woman is beautiful enough there is no folly a man will not commit for her sake.”
For an instant the dream experience of the night before seemed almost to be recurring, for I felt myself, for the barest instant, to be remote from the room in which I was standing and even from the woman who was whispering to me.
But this time I was inside a cave — vast, shadowy and filled with smoke. Human figures moved waveringly through the gloom. I saw a man with his head bandaged, a woman supporting him. There were crimson stains on the bandage and his hair was a solid mass of clotted blood.
Some of the men were seated; others stood straight and reso
lute in shafts of reddening sunlight. But each was accompanied by a woman, and each had the look of a seasoned fighter struggling against desperate odds to preserve his independence and self-respect.
“Society is keeping the struggle secret, John. It has just begun, but it is spreading fast. So far, we have contained the rebels, have driven them from the central camps to solitary outposts. But reinforcements keep pouring in. The android shop scheme is working dangerously well.
“A hundred spacemen arrive daily, and the women inspire them in the struggle, stand by their sides through bloodshed and despair. Eventually, we will have a formidable army to repel.”
I awoke completely then from the strange spell. The cave vanished, and was replaced by the firm contours of reality. At first I saw only the dim oval of Agnes’s face, a white and moving blur. Then she moved her head a little more, and the three inches which had separated her eyes from mine widened to five or six, and I could see all of her features distinctly.
“You must listen to me, John,” she pleaded. “You must believe me: I, too, have unusual extrasensory faculties, as I told you. When I shut my eyes, scenes not clear to the senses present themselves to me with a startling clearness. I can see scenes on Venus Base now, just as you have seen them. Our thoughts, our inmost thoughts, have been joined by that bright inner vision, by the clairvoyance which is our strength.
“I will be your woman, John Talbot — and together we will fight this conspiracy and destroy it. We will share other visions on Venus, and every move that the conspirators make will be known to us. We’ll inform Society of their every maneuver, and we will not rest until they have been brought to justice.”
I really made an effort then to untangle her arms, deciding I’d be rough about it if I had to. But she resisted my angry tugging, and clung to me with a desperate urgency.
“Do you doubt what I’ve told you? Do you need proof? Shall I give you proof?”
Before I could reply she pressed her lips to my throat and kissed me, so hard her teeth bruised the flesh a little. A man doesn’t have to have a gram of masochism in his nature to be thrilled by that kind of “love bite” — if the woman hasn’t become hateful to him. But now, more than ever, I wanted Claire to be the woman in my arms while I was making it clear to Agnes that the way I felt about the Big Brain and the monitors couldn’t have been changed if I’d been offered a harem on Venus Base with from fifty to a hundred women in it. Unless, of course, they all looked like Claire and the Big Brain agreed to blow itself up when all of the monitors were standing right under it.
“Move back against the wall, Agnes,” a cold voice said.
The sound of Claire’s dress was no more than a rustle but I knew she was standing very close to us. Agnes stiffened in my arms, but before I could turn, Claire spoke again. “I’ll not warn you a third time. Stand away from him and move back against the wall.”
I had been right about Claire’s nearness. She was standing within three feet of us and her eyes met with mine the instant I turned. She had reached down and drawn the stocking knife from Agnes’s ankle. It glittered in her hand.
There are revelations so staggering that your mind goes off on a tangent. There is a moment of shock, of stunned disbelief, when you just can’t get a firm grip on reality.
She was a changed Claire. Her eyes were clear and determined — and blazing with anger. “It is all true, John,” Claire said. “She has opened your eyes more widely than you think. She is a very clever woman. The monitors trust her and are unwilling to believe that with her great beauty and clever tongue she will fail in her mission.”
Agnes was moving reluctantly back toward the wall now, but all of my attention was centered on Claire.
She was standing very still, the knife firm in her clasp, when I whispered: “You can’t be —”
“I am,” Claire said.
“A real woman.”
“Look at me, John. Can you doubt it? You should have known the instant you looked upon my unclothed body and told me that I was all woman.”
“The most beautiful woman I ever held in my arms,” I whispered. “And real!”
“Yes, John.”
“I was in love with you from the first moment I saw you,” I said. “Did you know that?”
“I was sure of it, John. They studied your biogenetic norm data very carefully. I was the only woman they could find who was just right for you. It works both way, John. You are just right for me.”
Agnes cried, “That’s a lie!”
“I think not,” Claire said. “He was infatuated with you, but he loves me. He loves me enough to fight for a new life of freedom and independence on Venus.”
Her eyes narrowed and she added with a candor that startled me: “Elementary sexuality can be a powerful driving force in all men and women. But it doesn’t become really glorious until something more imperishable enters into it. The undying love of one man for one woman — his love for her as a person.”
Agnes’s eyes narrowed and she advanced on Claire with a cold fury in her stare. “Neither of you will live to join the conspirators,” she warned. “In a few minutes you will be prisoners. You will be bound and thrown into prison. Your trial and punishment will be swift, I promise you.”
I knew instantly that she could make good her threat. As an agent of Society, she would not have made a single warning move against us without complete assurance. I knew that if she struggled furiously precious time would be lost, our peril dangerously increased.
I stared at her for an instant in stunned incredulity. She was superb and resourceful, even in her desperation; Claire seemed to have sensed that resourcefulness instinctively, and was girding herself for a physical struggle that could have resulted in disaster for us both.
I leaped forward and seized Agnes about the waist. I clamped my hand over her mouth and shouted to Claire. “Get out! I’ll join you down below. Hurry, darling — there’s no time to be lost. The Security Police will be here any minute now.”
Agnes fought like a wildcat, bit, clawed and scratched. I saw Claire turn and run through the door, and I heard her footsteps descending the stairs to the street.
“You’ll never get away!” Agnes’s voice was choked with a despairing hatred.
“We can try,” I said, almost whispering it. I tightened my grip on her waist; then with a violent wrench I freed my left arm, and sent her spinning back against the wall.
I swung about and headed for the door. I heard her cry out, but I did not turn. I leapt out into the corridor and slammed the door shut behind me, the rusty key in my hand.
I locked the door from the outside, and headed straight down the stairs to the street. Claire was waiting for me at the foot of the stairs, standing white and motionless with one hand pressed to her throat.
“Come on,” I urged, “we’ve got to keep moving. They’ll be after us quickly enough.”
We joined hands and ran together out into the street. We kept close to the buildings as we ran, our shadows lengthening grotesquely before us on the deserted pavement. We skirted walls crumbling and time-eroded, ducked in and out of refuse-littered alleyways and ran for a short distance in the open, the early-morning sunlight beating unmercifully down upon us.
We were in the open when we heard the first chill far-off drone of the sirens.
I tightened my hold on Claire’s hand and whispered urgently, “We won’t have time to reach the subway entrance. We’ll be hemmed in from all sides. We’ve got to hide out while the search is on.”
“Where?” Claire breathed.
Ahead of us was a towering structure of crumbling gray-yellow stone. I gestured toward it and we headed for the darkly yawning entrance.
We passed together in a vast, dimly illuminated hall. On all sides of us towered incredible instruments of science crumbling into rust. We fled straight down the hall and climbed up behind a gigantic, dynamo-shaped object that vibrated hollowly as we jarred it with our bodies.
Suddenly out of
the darkness a voice droned, “This is Occupational Advisory Unit 34 GH. Pick your pattern for work and living. We want you to relax fully and completely while you observe the future, as we have planned it for you. You must have mechanical aptitude of a high order or you would not have come to this Unit.
“Take your time in choosing a profession. Wander about the hall at leisure and observe the many fascinating three-dimensional cinemascopic recordings. Study steel-welding, tool-making, metal-craft designing in all their intricate ramifications. It is your future you are planning here. Remember — your future.
“The choices you make now will influence your entire future. Remember. If you make a wise choice now half of the battle will be won.”
I tightened my hold on Claire’s hand. “This was an ancient occupational advisory unit building,” I whispered. “What you just heard was the last gasp of an expiring free society. That metaltape recording pretends to offer a choice of occupation to the poor dupes who found their way here. But even then there was an ominous undertone: observe the future as we have planned it for you.”
“I know,” Claire whispered. “In daring now to plan our own future we may well have chosen a design for dying. But the choice had to be made; I am glad we had the courage to dare greatly.”
I had learned the trick, years ago, of keeping a watertight compartment of my mind alert to danger. In one little portion of my mind a whisper in the dark, an approaching faint footstep, or dark undercurrents of hostile thoughts beating in upon me, could put me instantly on the defensive.
I suddenly knew that we were not alone in the building. I gripped Claire’s wrist and drew her back into the shadows. Then I leaned cautiously forward and stared down.
There was a flickering on the stone floor far below, a faint shifting of light and shadow between the projection instrument and the cinemascopic recording screens. I realized abruptly that someone was climbing up toward us. When I strained my ears I could hear the “someone’s” faint breathing.
IT WAS THE DAY OF THE ROBOT Page 13