Kornbluth, Mary (Ed)

by [Anth] Science Fiction Showcase [v1. 0] [epub]

  ‘Mr. President!’ The breathless whisper of the blonde stenographer again. ‘Mr. President, Mr. Trumie is in the building!’

  On the situation map behind it, the Pentagon - the building they were in - flared scarlet.

  The Attorney General, nearest the door, leaped to its feet. ‘Mr. President, I hear him!’

  And they could all hear, now. Far off, down the long corridors, a crash. A faint explosion, and another crash, and a raging, querulous, high-pitched voice. A nearer crash, and a sustained, smashing, banging sound, coming towards them.

  The oak-panelled doors flew open, splintering.

  A tall, dark male figure in grey leather jacket, rocket-gun holsters swinging at its hips, stepped through the splintered doors and stood surveying the Council. Its hands hung just below the butts of the rocket guns.

  It drawled: ‘Mistuh Anderson Trumie!’

  It stepped aside. Another male figure - shorter, darker, hobbling with the aid of a stainless steel cane that concealed a ray-pencil, wearing the same grey leather jacket and the same rocket-gun holsters - entered, stood for a moment, and took a position on the other side of the door.

  Between them, Mr. Anderson Trumie shambled ponderously into the Council Chamber to call on his Council.

  * * * *

  Sonny Trumie, come of age.

  He wasn’t much more than five feet tall; but his weight was close to four hundred pounds. He stood there in the door, leaning against the splintered oak, quivering jowls obliterating his neck, his eyes nearly swallowed in the fat that swamped his skull, his thick legs trembling as they tried to support him.

  ‘You’re all under arrest!’ he shrilled. ‘Traitors! Traitors!’

  He panted ferociously, staring at them. They waited with bowed heads. Beyond the ring of councilmen, the situation map slowly blotted out the patches of red, as the repair-robots worked feverishly to fix what Sonny Trumie had destroyed.

  ‘Mr. Crockett!’ he cried shrilly. ‘Slay me these traitors!’

  Wheep-wheep, and the guns whistled out of their holsters into the tall bodyguard’s hands. Rata-tat-tat, and two by two, the nineteen councilmen leaped, clutched at air and fell, as the rocket pellets pierced them through.

  ‘That one too!’ cried Mr. Trumie, pointing at the sweet-faced blonde. Bang. The sweet young face convulsed and froze; it fell, slumping across its little table. On the wall the situation map flared red again, but only faintly - for what were twenty robots?

  Sonny gestured curtly to his other bodyguard. It leaped forward, tucking the stainless-steel cane under one arm, putting the other around the larded shoulders of Sonny Trumie. ‘Ah, now, young master,’ it crooned. ‘You just get ahold o’ Long John’s arm now -’

  ‘Get them fixed,’ Sonny ordered abruptly. He pushed the President of the Council out of its chair and, with the robot’s help, sank into it himself. ‘Get them fixed right, you hear? I’ve had enough traitors. I want them to do what I tell them!’

  ‘Sartin sure, young marster. Long John’ll -’

  ‘Do it now! And you, Davey! I want my lunch.’

  ‘Reckoned you would, Mistuh Trumie. It’s right hyar.’ The Crockett-robot kicked the fallen councilmen out of the way as a procession of waiters filed in from the corridor.

  He ate.

  He ate until eating was pain, and then he sat there sobbing, his arms braced against the tabletop, until he could eat more. The Crockett-robot said worriedly: ‘Mistuh Trumie, moughtn’t you hold back a little? Od Doc Aeschylus, he don’t keer much to have you eatin’ too much, you know.’

  ‘I hate Doc!’ Trumie said bitterly. He pushed the plates off the table. They fell with a rattle and a clatter, and they went spinning away as he heaved himself up and lurched alone over to the window. ‘I hate Doc!’ he brayed again, sobbing, staring through tears out the window at his kingdom with its hurrying throngs and marching troops and roaring waterfront. The tallow shoulders tried to shake with pain. He felt as though hot cinder-blocks were being thrust up into his body cavities, the ragged edges cutting, the hot weight crushing. ‘Take me back,’ he sobbed to the robots. ‘Take me away from these traitors. Take me to my Private Place!’

  * * * *

  4

  ‘So you see,’ said Roosenburg, ‘he’s dangerous.’

  Garrick looked out over the water, towards North Guardian. ‘I’d better look at his tapes,’ he said. The girl swiftly picked up the reels and began to thread them into the projector. Dangerous. This Trumie was dangerous, all right, Garrick conceded. Dangerous to the balanced, stable world; for it only took one Trumie to topple its stability. It had taken thousands and thousands of years for society to learn its delicate tightrope walk. It was a matter for a psychist, all right.....

  And Garrick was uncomfortably aware that he was only twenty-four.

  ‘Here you are,’ said the girl.

  ‘Look them over,’ said Roosenburg. ‘Then, after you’ve studied the tapes on Trumie, we’ve got something else. One of his robots. But you’ll need the tapes first.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Garrick.

  The girl flicked a switch, and the life of Anderson Trumie appeared before them, in colour, in three dimensions - in miniature.

  Robots have eyes; and where the robots go, the eyes of Robot Central go with them. And the robots go everywhere. From the stored files of Robot Central came the spool of tape that was the life story of Sonny Trumie.

  The tapes played into the globe-shaped viewer, ten inches high, a crystal ball that looked back into the past. First, from the recording eyes of the robots in Sonny Trumie’s nursery. The lonely little boy, twenty years before, lost in the enormous nursery.

  ‘Disgusting!’ breathed Kathryn Pender, wrinkling her nose. ‘How could people live like that?’

  Garrick said, ‘Please, let me watch this. It’s important.’ In the gleaming globe the little boy-figure kicked at his toys, threw himself across his huge bed, sobbed. Garrick squinted, frowned, reached out, tried to make contact.... It was hard. The tapes showed the objective facts, all right; but for a psychist it was the subjective reality behind the facts that mattered. Kicking at his toys. Yes, but why? Because he was tired of them - and why was he tired? Because he feared them? Kicking at his toys. Because - because they were the wrong toys? Kicking - hate them! Don’t want them! Want -

  A bluish flare in the viewing globe. Garrick blinked and jumped: and that was the end of that section.

  The colours flowed, and suddenly jelled into bright life. Anderson Trumie, a young man. Garrick recognized the scene after a moment - it was right there on Fisherman’s Island, some pleasure spot overlooking the water. A bar, and at the end of it was Anderson Trumie, pimply and twenty, staring sombrely into an empty glass. The view was through the eyes of the robot bartender.

  Anderson Trumie was weeping.

  Once again, there was the objective fact - but the fact behind the fact, what was it? Trumie had been drinking, drinking. Why? Drinking, drinking. With a sudden sense of shock, Garrick saw what the drink was - the golden, fizzy liquor. Not intoxicating. Not habit-forming! Trumie had become no drunk, it was something else that kept him drinking, drinking, must drink, must keep on drinking, or else —

  And again the bluish flare.

  There was more; there was Trumie feverishly collecting objects of art, there was Trumie decorating a palace; there was Trumie on a world tour, and Trumie returned to Fisherman’s Island.

  And then there was no more.

  ‘That,’ said Roosenburg, ‘is the file. Of course, if you want the raw, unedited tapes, we can try to get them from Robot Central, but-’

  ‘No.’ The way things were, it was best to stay away from Robot Central; there might be more breakdowns, and there wasn’t much time. Besides, something was beginning to suggest itself.

  ‘Run the first one again,’ said Garrick. ‘I think maybe there’s something there....’

  * * * *

  Garrick made out a quick requisition slip an
d handed it to Kathryn Pender, who looked at it, raised her eyebrows, shrugged and went off to have it filled.

  By the time she came back, Roosenburg had escorted Garrick to the room where the captured Trumie robot lay enchained. ‘He’s cut off from Robot Central,’ Roosenburg was saying. ‘I suppose you figured that out. Imagine! Not only has he built a whole city for himself - but even his own robot control!’

  Garrick looked at the robot. It was a fisherman, or so Roosenburg had said. It was small, dark, black-haired, and possibly the hair would have been curly, if the sea water hadn’t plastered the curls to the scalp. It was still damp from the tussle that had landed it in the water, and eventually in Roosenburg’s hands.

  Roosenburg was already at work. Garrick tried to think of it as a machine, but it wasn’t easy. The thing looked very nearly human - except for the crystal and copper that showed where the back of its head had been removed.

  ‘It’s as bad as a brain operation,’ said Roosenburg, working rapidly without looking up. ‘I’ve got to short out the input leads without disturbing the electronic balance…’

  Snip, snip. A curl of copper fell free, to be grabbed by Roosenburg’s tweezers. The fisherman’s arms and legs kicked sharply like a galvanized frog’s.

  Kathryn Pender said: ‘They found him this morning, casting nets into the bay and singing O Sole Mio. He’s from North Guardian, all right.’

  Abruptly the lights flickered and turned yellow, then slowly returned to normal brightness. Roger Garrick got up and walked over to the window. North Guardian was a haze of light in the sky, across the water.

  Click, snap. The fisherman-robot began to sing:

  Tutte le serre, dopo quel fanal,

  Dietro la caserma, ti stard ed -

  Click. Roosenburg muttered under his breath and probed further. Kathryn Pender joined Garrick at the window. ‘Now you see,’ she said.

  Garrick shrugged. ‘You can’t blame him.’

  ‘I blame him!’ she said hotly. ‘I’ve lived here all my life. Fisherman’s Island used to be a tourist spot - why, it was lovely here. And look at it now. The elevators don’t work. The lights don’t work. Practically all of pur robots are gone. Spare parts, construction material, everything - it’s all gone to North Guardian! There isn’t a day that passes, Garrick, when half a dozen barge-loads of stuff don’t go north, because he requisitioned them. Blame him? I’d like to kill him!’

  Snap. Sputtersnap. The fisherman lifted its head and carolled:

  Forse dommani, piangerai.

  E dopo tu, sorriderai -

  Snap. Roosenburg’s probe uncovered a flat black disc. ‘Kathryn, look this up, will you?’ He read the serial number from the disc, and then put down the probe. He stood flexing his fingers, staring irritably at the motionless figure.

  Garrick joined him. Roosenburg jerked his head at the fisherman. ‘That’s robot work, trying to tinker with their insides. Trumie has his own control centre, you see. What I have to do is recontrol this one from the substation on the mainland, but keep its receptor circuits open to North Guardian on the symbolic level. You understand what I’m talking about? It’ll think from North Guardian, but act from the mainland.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Garrick, far from sure.

  ‘And it’s damned close work. There isn’t much room inside one of those things....’ He stared at the figure and picked up the probe again.

  Kathryn Pender came back with a punchcard in her hand. It was one of ours, all right. Used to be a busboy in the cafeteria at the beach club.’ She scowled. ‘That Trumie!’

  ‘You can’t blame him,’ Garrick said reasonably. ‘He’s only trying to be good.’

  She looked at him queerly. ‘He’s only -’ she began; but Roosenburg interrupted with an exultant cry.

  ‘Got it! All right, you. Sit up and start telling us what Trumie’s up to now!’

  The fisherman figure said obligingly, ‘Sure, boss. Whatcha wanna know?’

  * * * *

  What they wanted to know they asked; and what they asked it told them, volunteering nothing, concealing nothing.

  There was Anderson Trumie, king of his island, the compulsive consumer.

  It was like an echo of the bad old days of the Age of Plenty, when the world was smothering under the endless, pounding flow of goods from the robot factories and the desperate race between consumption and production strained the human fabric. But Trumie’s orders came not from society, but from within. Consume! commanded something inside him, and Use! it cried, and Devour! it ordered. And Trumie obeyed, heroically.

  They listened to what the fisherman-robot had to say, and the picture was dark. Armies had sprung up on North Guardian, navies floated in its waters. Anderson Trumie stalked among his creations like a blubbery god, wrecking and ruling. Garrick could see the pattern in what the fisherman had to say. In Trumie’s mind, he was Hitler, Hoover and Genghis Khan; he was dictator, building a war machine; he was supreme engineer, constructing a mighty state. He was warrior.

  ‘He was playing tin soldiers,’ said Roger Garrick, and Roosenburg and the girl nodded.

  ‘The trouble is,’ boomed Roosenburg, ‘He has stopped playing. Invasion fleets, Garrick! He isn’t content with North Guardian any more, he wants the rest of the country too!’

  ‘You can’t blame him,’ said Roger Garrick for the third time, and stood up.

  ‘The question is,’ he said, ‘what do we do about it?’

  ‘That’s what you’re here for,’ Kathryn told him.

  ‘All right. We can forget,’ said Roger Garrick, ‘about the soldiers - qua soldiers, that is. I promise you they won’t hurt anyone. Robots can’t.’

  ‘I understand that,’ Kathryn snapped.

  ‘The problem is what to do about Trumie’s drain on the world’s resources.’ He pursed his lips. ‘According to my directive from Area Control, the first plan was to let him alone - after all, there is still plenty of everything for anyone. Why not let Trumie enjoy himself? But that didn’t work out too well.’

  ‘You are so right,’ said Kathryn Pender.

  ‘No, no - not on your local level,’ Garrick explained quickly. ‘After all - what are a few thousand robots, a few hundred million dollars’ worth of equipment? We could resupply this area in a week.’

  ‘And in a week,’ boomed Roosenburg, ‘Trumie would have us cleaned out again!’

  Garrick nodded. That’s the trouble,’ he admitted. ‘He doesn’t seem to have a stopping point. Yet - we can’t refuse his orders. Speaking as a psychist, that would set a very bad precedent. It would put ideas in the minds of a lot of persons - minds that, in some cases, might not be reliably stable in the absence of a stable, certain source of everything they need, on request. If we say ‘no’ to Trumie, we open the door on some mighty dark corners of the human mind. Covetousness. Greed. Pride of possession -’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’ cried Kathryn Pender.

  Garrick said resentfully, ‘The only thing there is to do. I’m going to look over Trumie’s folder again. And then I’m going to North Guardian Island.’

  * * * *

  5

  Roger Garrick was all too aware of the fact that he was only twenty-four.

  It didn’t make a great deal of difference. The oldest and wisest psychist in Area Control’s wide sphere might have been doubtful of success in as thorny a job as the one ahead.

  They started out at daybreak. Vapour was rising from the sea about them, and the little battery motor of their launch whined softly beneath the keelson. Garrick sat patting the little box that contained their invasion equipment, while the girl steered. The workshops of Fisherman’s Island had been all night making some of the things in that box - not because they were so difficult to make, but because it had been a bad night. Big things were going on at North Guardian; twice the power had been out entirely for nearly an hour, as the demand on the lines from North Guardian took all the power the system could deliver.

  The sun was wel
l up as they came within hailing distance of the Navy Yard.

  Robots were hard at work; the Yard was bustling with activity. An overhead travelling crane, eight feet tall, laboriously lowered a prefabricated fighting top onto an eleven-foot aircraft carrier. A motor torpedo boat - full sized, this one was, not to scale - rocked at anchor just before the bow of their launch. Kathryn steered around it, ignoring the hail from the robot-lieutenant-j.g. at its rail.

  She glanced at Garrick over her shoulder, her face taut. ‘It’s – it’s all mixed up.’