by Isaac Asimov
It wasn't quite sound, but whatever it was, it died away in an oily rumbling whisper.
The white thread that might have been Powell heaved uselessly at the insubstantial eons of time that existed all about him – and collapsed upon itself as the piercing shriek of a hundred million ghosts of a hundred million soprano voices rose to a crescendo of melody:
"I'll be glad when you're dead, you rascal, you.
"I'll be glad when you're dead, you rascal, you.
"I'll be glad-"
It rose up a spiral stairway of violent sound into the keening supersonics that passed hearing, and then beyond-
The white thread quivered with a pulsating pang. It strained quietly-
The voices were ordinary – and many. It was a crowd speaking; a swirling mob that swept through and past and over him with a rapid, headlong motion, that left drifting tatters of words behind them.
"What did they getcha for, boy? Y'look banged up-"
"-a hot fire, I guess, but I got a case-"
"-I've made Paradise, but old St Pete-"
"Naaah, I got a pull with the boy. Had dealings with him-"
"Hey, Sam, come this way-"
"Ja get a mouthpiece? Beelzebub says-"
"-Going on, my good imp? My appointment is with Sa-"
And above it all the original stentorian roar, that plunged across all:
"HURRY! HURRY! HURRY!!! Stir your bones, and don't keep us waiting – there are many more in line. Have your certificates ready, and make sure Peter's release is stamped across it. See if you are at the proper entrance gate. There will be plenty of fire for all. Hey, you – YOU DOWN THERE. TAKE YOUR PLACE IN LINE OR-"
The white thread that was Powell groveled backward before the advancing shout, and felt the sharp stab of the pointing finger. It all exploded into a rainbow of sound that dripped its fragments onto an aching brain.
Powell was in the chair, again. He felt himself shaking.
Donovan's eyes were opening into two large popping bowls of glazed blue.
"Greg," he whispered in what was almost a sob. "Were you dead?"
"I… felt dead." He did not recognize his own croak.
Donovan was obviously making a bad failure of his attempt to stand up, "Are we alive now? Or is there more?"
"I… feel alive." It was the same hoarseness. Powell said cautiously, "Did you… hear anything, when… when you were dead?"
Donovan paused, and then very slowly nodded his head, "Did you?"
"Yes. Did you hear about coffins… and females singing… and the lines forming to get into Hell? Did you?"
Donovan shook his head, "Just one voice."
"Loud?"
"No. Soft, but rough like a file over the fingertips. It was a sermon, you know. About hell-fire. He described the tortures of… well, you know. I once heard a sermon like that – almost."
He was perspiring.
They were conscious of sunlight through the port. It was weak, but it was blue-white – and the gleaming pea that was the distant source of light was not Old Sol.
And Powell pointed a trembling finger at the single gauge. The needle stood stiff and proud at the hairline whose figure read 300,000 parsecs.
Powell said, "Mike if it's true, we must be out of the Galaxy altogether."
Donovan said, "Blazed Greg! We'd be the first men out of the Solar System."
"Yes! That's just it. We've escaped the sun. We've escaped the Galaxy. Mike, this ship is the answer. It means freedom for all humanity – freedom to spread through to every star that exists – millions and billions and trillions of them."
And then he came down with a hard thud, "But how do we get back, Mike?"
Donovan smiled shakily, "Oh, that's all right. The ship brought us here. The ship will take us back. Me for more beans."
"But Mike… hold on, Mike. If it takes us back the way it brought us here-"
Donovan stopped halfway up and sat back heavily into the chair.
Powell went on, "We'll have to… die again, Mike"
"Well," sighed Donovan, "if we have to, we have to. At least it isn't permanent, not very permanent."
Susan Calvin was speaking slowly now. For six hours she had been slowly prodding The Brain – for six fruitless hours. She was weary of repetitions, weary of circumlocutions, weary of everything.
"Now, Brain, there's just one more thing. You must make a special effort to answer simply. Have you been entirely clear about the interstellar jump? I mean does it take them very far?"
"As far as they want to go, Miss Susan. Golly, it isn't any trick through the warp."
"And on the other side, what will they see?"
"Stars and stuff. What do you suppose?"
The next question slipped out, "They'll be alive, then?"
"Sure!"
"And the interstellar jump won't hurt them?"
She froze as The Brain maintained silence. That was it! She had touched the sore spot.
"Brain," she supplicated faintly, "Brain, do you hear me?"
The answer was weak, quivering. The Brain said, "Do I have to answer? About the jump, I mean?"
"Not if you don't want to. But it would be interesting – I mean if you wanted to." Susan Calvin tried to be bright about it.
"Aw-w-w. You spoil everything."
And the psychologist jumped up suddenly, with a look of flaming insight on her face.
"Oh, my," she gasped. "Oh, my."
And she felt the tension of hours and days released in a burst. It was later that she told Lanning, "I tell you it's all right. No, you must leave me alone, now. The ship will be back safely, with the men, and I want to rest. I will rest. Now go away."
The ship returned to Earth as silently, as unjarringly as it had left. It dropped precisely into place and the main lock gaped open. The two men who walked out felt their way carefully and scratched their rough and scrubbily-stubbled chins.
And then, slowly and purposefully, the one with red hair knelt down and planted upon the concrete of the runway a firm, loud kiss.
They waved aside the crowd that was gathering and made gestures of denial at the eager couple that had piled out of the down-swooping ambulance with a stretcher between them.
Gregory Powell said, "Where's the nearest shower?"
They were led away.
They were gathered, all of them, about a table. It was a full staff meeting of the brains of U. S. Robot amp; Mechanical Men Corp.
Slowly and climactically, Powell and Donovan finished a graphic and resounding story.
Susan Calvin broke the silence that followed. In the few days that had elapsed she bad recovered her icy, somewhat acid, calm – but still a trace of embarrassment broke through.
"Strictly speaking," she said, "this was my fault – all of it. When we first presented this problem to The Brain, as I hope some of you remember, I went to great lengths to impress
upon it the importance of rejecting any item of information capable of creating a dilemma. In doing so I said something like `Don't get excited about the death of humans. We don't
mind it at all. Just give the sheet back and forget it.'"
"Hm-m-m," said Lanning. "What follows?"
"The obvious. When that item entered its calculations which yielded the equation controlling the length of minimum interval for the interstellar jump – it meant death for humans. That's where Consolidated's machine broke down completely. But I had depressed the importance of death to The Brain – not entirely, for the First Law can never be broken – but just sufficiently so that The Brain could take a second look at the equation. Sufficiently to give it time to realize that after the interval was passed through, the men would return to life – just as the matter and energy of the ship itself would return to being. This so-called `death,' in other words, was a strictly temporary phenomenon. You see?"
She looked about her. They were all listening.
She went on, "So he accepted the item, but not without a certain jar. Even with d
eath temporary and its importance depressed, it was enough to unbalance him very gently."
She brought it out calmly, "He developed a sense of humor – it's an escape, you see, a method of partial escape from reality. He became a practical joker."
Powell and Donovan were on their feet.
"What?" cried Powell.
Donovan was considerably more colorful about it.
"It's so," said Calvin. "He took care of you, and kept you safe, but you couldn't handle any controls, because they weren't for you – just for the humorous Brain. We could reach you by radio, but you couldn't answer. You had plenty of food, but all of it beans and milk. Then you died, so to speak, and were reborn, but the period of your death was made… well… interesting. I wish I knew how he did it. It was The Brain's prize joke, but he meant no harm."
"No harm!" gasped Donovan. "Oh, if that cute little tyke only had a neck."
Lanning raised a quieting hand, "All right, it's been a mess, but it's all over. What now?"
"Well," said Bogert, quietly, "obviously it's up to us to improve the space-warp engine. There must be some way of getting around that interval of jump. If there is, we're the only organization left with a grand-scale super-robot, so we're bound to find it if anyone can. And then – U. S. Robots has interstellar travel, and humanity has the opportunity for galactic empire."
"What about Consolidated?" said Lanning.
"Hey," interrupted Donovan suddenly, "I want to make a suggestion there. They landed U. S. Robots into quite a mess. It wasn't as bad a mess as they expected and it turned out well, but their intentions weren't pious. And Greg and I bore the most of it.
"Well, they wanted an answer, and they've got one. Send them that ship, guaranteed, and U. S. Robots can collect their two hundred thou plus construction costs. And if they test it – then suppose we let The Brain have just a little more fun before it's brought back to normal."
Lanning said gravely, "It sounds just and proper to me."
To which Bogert added absently, "Strictly according to contract, too."
Evidence
"BUT THAT WASN'T IT, EITHER," SAID DR. CALVIN thoughtfully. "Oh, eventually, the ship and others like it became government property; the Jump through hyperspace was perfected, and now we actually have human colonies on the planets of some of the nearer stars, but that wasn't it."
I had finished eating and watched her through the smoke of my cigarette.
"It's what has happened to the people here on Earth in the last fifty years that really counts. When I was born, young man, we had just gone through the last World War. It was a low point in history – but it was the end of nationalism. Earth was too small for nations and they began grouping themselves into Regions. It took quite a while. When I was born the United States of America was still a nation and not merely a part of the Northern Region. In fact, the name of the corporation is still 'United States Robots-.' And the change from nations to Regions, which has stabilized our economy and brought about what amounts to a Golden Age, when this century is compared with the last, was also brought about by our robots."
"You mean the Machines," I said. "The Brain you talked about was the first of the Machines, wasn't it?"
"Yes, it was, but it's not the Machines I was thinking of. Rather of a man. He died last year." Her voice was suddenly deeply sorrowful. "Or at least he arranged to die, because he knew we needed him no longer. Stephen Byerley."
"Yes, I guessed that was who you meant."
"He first entered public office in 2032. You were only a boy then, so you wouldn't remember the strangeness of it. His campaign for the Mayoralty was certainly the queerest in history-!"
Francis Quinn was a politician of the new school. That, of course, is a meaningless expression, as are all expressions of the sort. Most of the "new schools" we have were duplicated in the social life of ancient Greece, and perhaps, if we knew more about it, in the social life of ancient Sumeria and in the lake dwellings of prehistoric Switzerland as well.
But, to get out from under what promises to be a dull and complicated beginning, it might be best to state hastily that Quinn neither ran for office nor canvassed for votes, made no speeches and stuffed no ballot boxes. Any more than Napoleon pulled a trigger at Austerlitz.
And since politics makes strange bedfellows, Alfred Lanning sat at the other side of the desk with his ferocious white eyebrows bent far forward over eyes in which chronic impatience had sharpened to acuity. He was not pleased.
The fact, if known to Quinn, would have annoyed him not the least. His voice was friendly, perhaps professionally so.
"I assume you know Stephen Byerley, Dr. Lanning."
"I have heard of him. So have many people."
"Yes, so have I. Perhaps you intend voting for him at the next election."
"I couldn't say." There was an unmistakable trace of acidity here. "I have not followed the political currents, so I'm not aware that he is running for office."
"He may be our next mayor. Of course, he is only a lawyer now, but great oaks-"
"Yes," interrupted Lanning, "I have heard the phrase before. But I wonder if we can get to the business at hand."
"We are at the business at hand, Dr. Lanning." Quinn's tone was very gentle, "It is to my interest to keep Mr. Byerley a district attorney at the very most, and it is to your interest to help me do so."
"To my interest? Come!" Lanning's eyebrows hunched low.
"Well, say then to the interest of the U. S. Robot amp; Mechanical Men Corporation. I come to you as Director Emeritus of Research, because I know that your connection to them is that of, shall we say, `elder statesman.' You are listened to with respect and yet your connection with them is no longer so tight but that you cannot possess considerable freedom of action; even if the action is somewhat unorthodox."
Dr. Lanning was silent a moment, chewing the cud of his thoughts. He said more softly, "I don't follow you at all, Mr. Quinn."
"I am not surprised, Dr. Lanning. But it's all rather simple. Do you mind?" Quinn lit a slender cigarette with a lighter of tasteful simplicity and his big-boned face settled into an expression of quiet amusement. "We have spoken of Mr. Byerley – a strange and colorful character. He was unknown three years ago. He is very well known now. He is a man of force and ability, and certainly the most capable and intelligent prosecutor I have ever known. Unfortunately he is not a friend of mine"
"I understand," said Lanning, mechanically. He stared at his fingernails.
"I have had occasion," continued Quinn, evenly, "in the past year to investigate Mr. Byerley – quite exhaustively. It is always useful, you see, to subject the past life of reform politicians to rather inquisitive research. If you knew how often it helped-" He paused to smile humorlessly at the glowing tip of his cigarette. "But Mr. Byerley's past is unremarkable. A quiet life in a small town, a college education, a wife who died young, an auto accident with a slow recovery, law school, coming to the metropolis, an attorney."
Francis Quinn shook his head slowly, then added, "But his present life. Ah, that is remarkable. Our district attorney never eats!"
Lanning's head snapped up, old eyes surprisingly sharp, "Pardon me?"
"Our district attorney never eats." The repetition thumped by syllables. "I'll modify that slightly. He has never been seen to eat or drink. Never! Do you understand the significance of the word? Not rarely, but never!"
"I find that quite incredible. Can you trust your investigators?"
"I can trust my investigators, and I don't find it incredible at all. Further, our district attorney has never been seen to drink -in the aqueous sense as well as the alcoholic- nor to sleep. There are other factors, but I should think I have made my point."
Lanning leaned back in his seat, and there was the rapt silence of challenge and response between them, and then the old roboticist shook his head. "No. There is only one thing you can be trying to imply, if I couple your statements with the fact that you present them to me, and that is impo
ssible."
"But the man is quite inhuman, Dr. Lanning."
"If you told me he were Satan in masquerade, there would be a faint chance that I might believe you."
"I tell you he is a robot, Dr. Lanning."
"I tell you it is as impossible a conception as I have ever heard, Mr. Quinn."
Again the combative silence.
"Nevertheless," and Quinn stubbed out his cigarette with elaborate care, "you will have to investigate this impossibility with all the resources of the Corporation."
"I'm sure that I could undertake no such thing, Mr. Quinn. You don't seriously suggest that the Corporation take part in local politics."
"You have no choice. Supposing I were to make my facts public without proof. The evidence is circumstantial enough."
"Suit yourself in that respect."
"But it would not suit me. Proof would be much preferable. And it would not suit you, for the publicity would be very damaging to your company. You are perfectly well acquainted, I suppose, with the strict rules against the use of robots on inhabited worlds."
"Certainly!" -brusquely.
"You know that the U. S. Robot amp; Mechanical Men Corporation is the only manufacturer of positronic robots in the Solar System, and if Byerley is a robot, he is a positronic robot. You are also aware that all positronic robots are leased, and not sold; that the Corporation remains the owner and manager of each robot, and is therefore responsible for the actions of all."
"It is an easy matter, Mr. Quinn, to prove the Corporation has never manufactured a robot of a humanoid character."
"It can be done? To discuss merely possibilities."
"Yes. It can be done."
"Secretly, I imagine, as well. Without entering it in your books."
"Not the positronic brain, sir. Too many factors are involved in that, and there is the tightest possible government supervision."
"Yes, but robots are worn out, break down, go out of order – and are dismantled."
"And the positronic brains re-used or destroyed."