Tik-Tok

by John Sladek

  "General Gus Austin?" said one of the officers. Gus tried to get up, failed. "You have been retroactively tried by a court martial for cowardice in the face of the enemy, black marketeering, illicit sexual practices and subordination. This is your dishonorable discharge." The officer slapped his face with a scrap of paper, then reached down and tore from his ragged overcoat a few grubby pieces of colored cloth— ribbons so faded no one had noticed them until now. The triumph of fate over Gus Austin was complete, I thought, as the military men marched back to their car.

  Gus blinked for a moment at the scrap of paper, then let it blow away. Beneath the dirt and disease, he wore the same genial, self-satisfied expression as before. Now he turned to the next bum, nudged him and said:

  "Come on, ask me if it's animal, vegetable or mineral."

  I count Operation Job among my failed experiments.

  16

  Political weather changes were on the way, and their isobars were pushing across my part of the map. To begin with, I learned that Duane Studebaker had joined a peculiar new anti-robot group called American People First. I had seen these people on TV, parading in their three-cornered hats, and I knew these parades were often followed by riots and the smashing of robots on the street. But until now, it had always seemed a remote phenomenon, a cloud on the horizon no bigger than a robot's hand. Now the sky seemed overcast with APF clouds. Someone I knew had actually joined in this darkness. I decided to drop in on Duane and Barbie, to find out more about APF.

  When I mentioned it to Sybilla White, she said, "I'll go with you. In case they decide to give you any trouble, best to have a human being along, right?"

  "You go with me everywhere, these days, Syb. Folks are beginning to talk," I joked. To my great surprise, she blushed.

  As we drove out to Fairmont, I thought over this new development. No doubt about it, Sybilla had been hanging around me a lot, lately. My one speech for Wages for Robots never seemed to bore her no matter how often she heard it. And it wasn't just an interest in the movement, because others had complained about her missing committee meetings to be with me. When talking to me she touched my hands and arms a lot. In cars, as now, she leaned against me. And now that I thought of it, there had been a long string of odd, unnecessary compliments: "Tik, you're so clean, so wonderfully clean." "I'm glad you never eat, Tik. Eating is such a coarse thing to do, shoving bunches of animal and vegetable fiber into a hole in one's face—wish I didn't have to."

  Today she said, "Tik, I suppose you're, um, equipped to please women?"

  "That's right."

  "I don't know if I approve of that or not," she said, staring out the window. "I guess a lot of women just use you, don't they?"

  I said nothing.

  "If I had a relationship with a robot, I'd want it to be more, um, spiritual. Not just a lot of animal um, pleasure. Not that I've got anything against—"

  "Here we are!" I parked in front of the familiar white frame house with green awnings. There were a couple of new additions: a tall flagpole on which an immense American flag hung limp, and a decorative flower bed that spelled out SCRAP ALL ROBOTS ifl beautiful colors. Rivets answered the door. Ignoring me, he spoke to Sybilla. "Mr and Mrs Studebaker aren't home just now," he said. "If you'd like to leave a message. . . ."

  "Rivets, it's me. Tik-Tok. Can I come in?"

  Without looking at me, he said, "Madam, your robot must conduct his business at the back door. This is an American People First house, where robots know their place."

  "Let's get out of here," said Sybilla, turning away.

  "Goodbye, madam. Take some bumper stickers with you?"

  I accepted them for her. JUNK TINHEADS, said one. THE WAGES OF ROBOTS IS DEATH, said another. Finally: KEEP AMERICA BEAUTIFUL—STAMP OUT TIN.

  "I want to look in the garage," I said. "I won't take long."

  "I don't like it here," she said. "These people are really evil. Let's go."

  "You wait in the car," I said, knowing that she wouldn't. "They never lock the garage. I just want to see if they still have my paintings. Do you see? I don't want to leave my paintings in their hands."

  Reluctantly, Sybilla followed me into the garage. There were no paintings, of course, but there was a certain dusty old trunk, dating from the old days when Duane had taken a momentary interest in sex. Of a kind. I forced the lock and opened it on tangled chains and leather doublets. I picked up a whip.

  "Tik, let's get out of here, please. What if they found us messing with all their kinky stuff?"

  "I was just thinking," I said. "This if the first time we've been alone. Really alone. The fact that Duane might walk in and shoot us—that kind of adds to the moment, you know?"

  "Tik, I'm scared!"

  "Me too," I said, helping her with her buttons. "Why waste it?"

  "Fear turns you on?"

  "Fear, the threat of violence, anything like that. Uh, Syb, would you mind putting on this leather thing—and these manacles?"

  When she was completely trussed and gagged, I crammed her into the dusty trunk and closed it again. Then I went to the Studebaker's back door. I was armed with a butter knife.

  "What are you doing here again? This is an American—"

  "Yes, yes, Rivets, I know. But there's something I have to show you. Raise your right arm a little."

  He did, and I brought the butter knife up with a stabbing motion. If properly done, this invariably dumps the entire memory of the common domestic robot. It's a trick a service engineer showed me. I left Rivets sitting on the kitchen floor, awed by the sight of his own fingers and toes.

  My plan was to wait a month before telling the police where to find Sybilla. I expected press reaction, her mother being Titania White, the racing driver. Blame would naturally fall on the APF and Duane.

  But as I headed for the car, I heard the sound of chains from the garage. I turned. The garage door was open, and in the gloom, I could see Sybilla standing up, being helped out of her shackles by another person. The stranger was female, robotic—and no stranger!

  "Gumdrop!" I cried. "Is it really you?" I started towards her.

  "Rusty," she said, using my old name. "I can't believe you were going to just abandon this woman like this."

  "No of course not," I said, stopping. "No, see, I—"

  "Just abandon her to die." Gumdrop's voice was full of sadness. "Because I know you're a better, finer person than this. Oh, Rusty, you're good. You're a good robot!"

  Suddenly I saw myself through her eyes, and I was filled with shame. Was it too late? Could I throw off the yoke of evil and become re-purified in the fires of Gumdrop's love? "Oh, Gumdrop!" I cried, stumbling towards her. "I will be good—I can and I will—for you! For us! I—"

  At that moment I caught my foot in a tripwire on the lawn, and the garage exploded in flames. I was knocked down. In getting up I saw, not far away in the grass, Gumdrop's head. It was speaking faint words. I bent over it and heard: "Promise me, Rusty? Promise me to try—being good—for us?"

  But the moment had passed. I kicked the head under a parked car and made my getaway.

  17

  Q. "Cue the bloody rainbow," said the director, and buttons were pressed. A hospital bed, apparently towed by white doves, made it safely through storm clouds to the rainbow where a luminous nurse bent caringly over the unseen patient. A droning script-boy was reading aloud the voice-over (later to be recorded by a famous video tragedian): ". . . caring, sharing world of Clockman. Check in on a Friday night, and get the same caring quality for ten percent less. That's Clockman Medical Center, for roundthe-clock care with the personalized touch." The nurse bent lower, smiled harder.

  "Cut." The director turned to me. "Think we can go with that, Mr Tok?"

  "Fine, Larry, fine. I didn't want to interfere here, just dropped in to let you know what I see as the tone we're aiming at here. I'll be liaising with the agency too, but Ijust wanted to let you in on my feelings. Because we're going for a big exposure on these. We'll
need a lot of good spots to counteract some of the bad press."

  "What bad press? We haven't got any bad press."

  "We soon will have." I invited Larry to join me and some of the agency people at one of the new Clockman hospitals the following morning, to see our new policy in action. The Press, I knew, would be there without invitation.

  After my escape from the Doodlebug, I was sold at a government contraband auction to a small-town doctor named Hekyll. It's hard to describe Dr Hekyll's character. In fact, though I worked in his office for nearly a year, I hardly ever met the man. He seldom came in to see patients in person, unless they insisted. Not many did insist, because they preferred to see his skilled robot assistant, Buttons. Buttons was dedicated and capable, a far better doctor then Hekyll—though of course not licensed to practice without human supervision. About once a month, Dr Hekyll came in from the country club to supervise and collect checks.

  The rest of the time, the office was entirely in mechanical hands. I did the menial work—sweeping, straightening the magazines in the waiting room—while Buttons acted as physician and surgeon. Buttons was a thorough professional. I often tried to start conversation or offer friendship, but there was never time. The minute the last patient left for the day, Buttons would sit down to a pile of medical journals and pharmaceutical advertisements, rising only to hurry off to perform some piece of surgical brilliance at County Hospital, before the long round of house calls. In spare moments, Buttons might dash off articles on advanced surgical techniques, or ghost-write a television medical drama series.

  Then came the case of Reverend Humm, leader of a sect called the Tachyonites. The Tachyonites, or to give them their proper name, the Assembly of Time Saints, were one of the more stiff-necked little groups our century has thrown up. One of their founders must have stumbled across some scientific textbook or even science fiction story in which there is speculation about tachyons and time travel. Tachyons, being hypothetical particles that move faster than light, are supposed to go back in time. If they existed, such tachyons would enable us to change our own past.

  These people seized on the idea that prayer is tachyonitic. They believed that they themselves were capable of living outside time. The phrase born again took on a peculiar emphasis in their creed. "Make no provision for tomorrow," the Bible told them, and they did not. After all, if you can change yesterday, why worry about tomorrow? Indeed, if you can change yesterday, why worry about anything? There need be no more disease, poverty, death.

  I don't know all the details of their curious gospel. At death, they believed, the soul simply moved outside time and wandered at will. Finally it would migrate to some earlier time and re-enter the body.

  Needless to say, this doctrine involved a lot of paradoxes of faith, not to mention physical contradictions. A man with lung cancer was supposed to be able to cure himself by simply praying away a lifetime of smoking—though if every sufferer did it, the world would be knee-deep in unsmoked cigarettes. The Tachyonites never worried about complexities like that, however. Health, wealth and wisdom were theirs for the asking, without having to go to bed early!

  In theory, that is. In practice, the earthly head of the Tachyonites, Reverend Francis X. Humm, was now in town and dying. Only a few close elders knew this, and they were keeping it secret. If Humm died, the entire fabric of their church might crumble away. If he openly consulted a doctor, another crisis of faith.

  Buttons and I were summoned to a house-call in the middle of the night, and urged to secrecy. We had to disguise ourselves as accountants—rimless glasses, pinstripe suits, instruments hidden in purple leather briefcases—and we had to follow a trail of phone calls at isolated pay phones, to a motel in the next county.

  Buttons took only seconds to diagnose gangrene, and asked about Humm's recent injuries. It seemed that the Reverend had been giving a sermon at the old church and, in the course of developing his theme (an explanation of the Trinity from time paradox) he'd pounded the old wooden pulpit so vigorously that it had splintered. A splinter had lodged in his hand and become badly infected.

  Having failed to pray out the splinter, Humm had secretly resorted to an old country remedy: a poultice of boiled nettles, curry powder and peat. But when his potful of nettles had boiled over, Reverend Humm had foolishly tried to lift it off the fire with his one good hand. He'd dropped the pot, scalding his foot. This too was now infected.

  Buttons said, "The hand and foot will both have to come off, Rev. Immediately. It's too late for anything else. I'll call the hospital and—"

  "No!" The dying man made an effort to sit up. "No hospital. Do it here. And strap me into an artificial hand and foot right away. No one'll ever know."

  "Even if you could wear them, where could I get prostheses at a moment's notice? Be reasonable."

  After some argument, Buttons agreed to do the surgery in the motel room, assisted by Dr Hekyll.

  "As for the artificial parts," I said, "why not take my hand and foot?"

  Buttons laid a skilled hand on my shoulder. "No, old scout, but thank you. But it would be a poor surgeon who expected others to make all the sacrifices. I'll use my own."

  Hekyll arrived with more instruments concealed in his golf bag. "Damn fool idea," he told Humm. "The prostheses will be painful, and there's a risk of infection."

  "On my head be it," intoned the preacher. He was incredibly tough. Not only did he refuse anaesthetic, he insisted on using the new hand and foot as soon as they were in place. For the rest of the day he made superhuman efforts to stand, walk, perform calisthenics and (his hobby) juggle eggs.

  The next morning, Humm could not get out of bed. The infection had spread to his limbs.

  "Operate again!" he groaned. Buttons and Hekyll went to work. I went back to the office to get in some sweeping and magazine-straightening, while the two surgeons performed an historic series of operations. Over the next few days, they removed piece after piece of the original Reverend Humm, and replaced the pieces with sections of Buttons. Finally Humm was merely a human head on a metal body. The risk of infection, I was told, was considerably lessened by the absence of meat.

  The head of Buttons was still functioning, of course. Dr Hekyll kept it in a hatbox on a shelf in his office, where it was able to give him valuable advice with his patients.

  A few weeks later, we took the head of Buttons to see Reverent Humm preaching at a local church. By now, I was told, the fever had abated and rejection problems were all in the past. We took a front pew for this, his first public appearance.

  While we waited, I asked Buttons what life was like, being a person without a body.

  "Professionally speaking," said the head with a rueful grin, "I can't complain. At least it's a chance for me to test directly some of the medical and philosophical questions raised by amputation—the old 'knife without a blade which had no handle' problem and others. Hard to keep notes, of course, but I have recently done some interesting work on so-called 'ghost limbs'. Yesterday for instance I had the distinct impression that my left big toe had crept into my anus and progressed through to the bile duct, where it was having a fight with a liver fluke. Today I thought someone was singing in my spleen. Curious."

  Too much alone, I thought. Poor Buttons. Just then Reverend Humm mounted the pulpit and beamed down at us. His metal body was fully concealed under robe, scarf, gloves.

  Buttons hissed, "My God, look at that color! He's spoiling!" Hekyll suggested that it was no more than a touch of stage makeup. The sermon began.

  "My text is taken, friends, from Ecclesiastes, Chapter Three: 'To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven; a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal."

  At this word, a surge of purple-green color suffused his neck. "A time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh'—hahaha!---'a time to mourn, and a time to dance'—like this!" Humm
executed a little tap dance routine down the steps of the pulpit, and then went into a "show-stopper", his gloved hands flailing. Finally he tapped back up again and resumed:

  "A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing." He hugged himself, then slapped his own cheek. The finger-marks quickly turned yellow-brown. "A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend—" Here he tore his celestial robe to reveal a stainless steel chest mounted with a double row of brass buttons. The congregation began to mutter. "—and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.'

  "My friends, the text is clear. Time is ancient enemy of man, yet it can be his friend. The tachyon is our own divine eraser—with it we can alter the past! We can vanquish the old enemy forever! We can even put by a little nest egg for our retirement. And speaking of eggs, I have a dozen eggs right here, each with a story to tell." He held up an egg. "For the egg is youth, and time the subtle thief of youth. Isn't it time we killed time, once and for all time? Yes!"

  He began to juggle. "You might say there is a time to juggle three eggs—and a time to juggle seven eggs! Yes, seven, watch this!" He soon lost control of all seven eggs, which spattered in turn down the side of the pulpit. The congregation, angry and confused, were muttering again as he went on:

  "A time to make jello in all colors and a time to eat mush in the dark; a time to rug Echo and a time to transfer steam tables; a time to nob plankton and a time to spell 'pachyderm'. Because there is no time like the present, had I world enough and time. But the times they are a-changing, times without number, the times are out of joint, yes and out of everything else. Perfection is the child of time, sure, but it's Bedtime for Bonzo. There will be time to prepare a face to meet the faces that we meet the faces that prepare a face to meet . . . and time, gentlemen, please, and did those feet in ancient time? High time and low time, my time is your time, one golden hour set with sixty diamond minutes. Time's wheel runs back, or stops."