Robert Bloch

by Atoms

  Frank retraced his steps. The coat hanger remained steadily outstretched before him. The crowd trailed behind, stumbling and giggling. Suddenly Frank wheeled abruptly and started for the house. He halted just under one of the bay windows and the coat hanger jerked down as if independently directed.

  “Here,” Frank whispered.

  Professor Seine began to rig his drill.

  “No!” Dr. Welk protested. “No, there isn’t any water! I’ve had the place inspected, there can’t be! Don’t ruin my flowerbeds—don’t you dare turn that thing on—stop him, somebody!”

  But as the group converged on Frank and the professor, the drill went into action. There was a whirring, a piercing of soft earth. And then—

  A wave of water spurted upwards, then fell in a flashing arc to drench the crowd.

  A geyser spouted from the sod.

  Frank beamed at the girl.

  “I did it!” he cried.

  “Sacre!” ejaculated the professor. “Sacre du printemps!”

  “Look!” Frank grabbed Nora and shook her, holding her under the spray. “He’s got to believe me now, doesn’t he! I can do anything, liquor or no liquor. I can produce apports, poltergeists, phenomena, anything. I’ve got the power, see? I can levitate, teleport—just you watch me—”

  “You damned fool!” Dr. Welk staggered over. “Know what you just did? You hit the city water main!”

  Professor Seine was frantically tugging at the drill. “It is immovable,” he gasped. “I cannot extricate it—”

  “Here, let me try!” Frank tugged at it, then turned. “Never mind, I’ll levitate it.” He faced the drenched and leaping crowd. “Now watch!” he yelled. “I’ll prove I have psi powers once and for all—look at this!”

  He allowed the darkness to surge over him, the blurry, alcoholic darkness. With his inner eye he could see the drill rising out of the ground as if of its own accord. He could see it lifting higher and higher. He strained to elevate it, watched it twirl above his head, and then the effort was too much. It was dropping, coming closer and closer. Frank tried to dodge, but he was too late. As the shrieking committee scattered in all directions, the drill landed on Frank’s head and the darkness closed in.

  It took ten stitches to patch up his skull, but Nora patched up the rest. Before the sobered, sodden committee left the house they had agreed to keep silence on the entire affair—including their own part in it. Perhaps Nora’s admission about the spiked punch helped. At any rate, no one was willing to go on record as having participated in the debacle. As for the reporters, neither of them was inclined to turn in a story.

  “Who’d believe it anyway?” said the one who was interested in Fort. “My city editor’s death on that kind of stuff. He wouldn’t recognize a flying saucer if his wife hit him with one.”

  Professor Seine was happy, however. In his eyes the experiment was a complete success, and once he was assured Frank’s injury wasn’t serious, he even agreed to pay for the cost of repairing the damaged water main.

  Dr. Welk’s reaction was curiously complex. He had seen enough to modify his attitude on parapsychology—but at the same time he had his reputation to consider. Fortunately, as Nora pointed out, no one would know. She certainly wouldn’t say anything, and neither would Frank.

  The young man didn’t learn all this until later. He sat up in bed at the hospital and listened to Nora’s account.

  “So you see, it all worked out for the best,” she told him. “Daddy isn’t angry at you for what happened. He feels you saved him, really.”

  “I saved him?”

  Nora blushed. “Yes, I told him it was your idea to spike the punch that way.”

  “But darling—”

  “Don’t you see? It’s all right now. We can be married, and you can continue your experiments in private, if you want.”

  “No I can’t.” Frank’s tone was sepulchral.

  “What do you mean?”

  “That blow on the head. It did something to me. I—I’ve been testing. The power doesn’t work any more. I can’t tell what’s written on my chart, and I don’t even know what you have in your purse.”

  Nora sighed. “I don’t know whether I’m happy or sad,” she said, reaching for his hand. “But don’t worry. Maybe it will come back when you’re well again.”

  She was wrong, of course. It didn’t come back. And some nine months after they were married—and Frank had an excellent job as assistant to Dr. Welk, cataloguing the pelvic bones of Australian aborigines—came the fatal hour.

  As the young man paced the floor outside the delivery room, a nurse asked him the usual question. “Which do you think it will be?” she inquired. “Boy or girl?”

  “Damned if I know,” Frank groaned. “What do you think I am—a mind reader?”

  COMFORT ME, MY ROBOT

  WHEN Henson came in, the Adjustor was sitting inside his desk, telescreening a case. At the sound of the doortone he flicked a switch. The posturchair rose from the center of the desk until the Adjustor’s face peered at the visitor from an equal level.

  “Oh, it’s you,” said the Adjustor.

  “Didn’t the girl tell you? I’m here to see you professionally.”

  If the Adjustor was surprised, he didn’t show it. He cocked a thumb at a posturchair. “Sit down and tell me all about it, Henson,” he said.

  “Nothing to tell.” Henson stared out of the window at the plains of Upper Mongolia. “It’s just a routine matter. I’m here to make a request and you’re the Adjustor.”

  “And your request is—?”

  “Simple,” said Henson. “I want to kill my wife.”

  The Adjustor nodded. “That can be arranged,” he murmured. “Of course, it will take a few days.”

  “I can wait.”

  “Would Friday be convenient?”

  “Good enough. That way it won’t cut into my weekend. Lita and I were planning a fishing trip, up New Zealand way. Care to join us?”

  “Sorry, but I’m tied up until Monday.” The Adjustor stifled a yawn. “Why do you want to kill Lita?” he asked.

  “She’s hiding something from me.”

  “What do you suspect?"

  “That’s just it—I don’t know what to suspect. And it keeps bothering me.”

  “Why don’t you question her?”

  “Violation of privacy. Surely you, as a certified public Adjustor, wouldn’t advocate that?”

  “Not professionally.” The Adjustor grinned. “But since we’re personal friends, I don’t mind telling you that there are times when I think privacy should be violated. This notion of individual rights can become a fetish.”

  “Fetish?”

  “Just an archaism,” The Adjustor waved a casual dismissal to the word. He leaned forward. “Then, as I understand it, your wife’s attitude troubles you. Rather than embarrass her with questions, you propose to solve the problem delicately, by killing her.”

  “Right.”

  “A very chivalrous attitude. I admire it.”

  “I’m not sure whether I do or not,” Henson mused. “You see, it really wasn’t my idea. But the worry was beginning to affect my work, and my Administrator—Loring, you know him, I believe—took me aside for a talk. He suggested I see you and arrange for a murder.”

  “Then it’s to be murder.” The Adjustor frowned. “You know, actually, we are supposed to be the arbiters when it comes to method. In some cases a suicide works just as well. Or an accident.”

  “I want a murder,” Henson said. “Premeditated, and in the first degree.” Now it was his turn to grin. “You see, I know a few archaisms myself.”

  The Adjustor made a note. “As long as we’re dealing in archaic terminology, might I characterize your attitude towards your wife as one of—jealousy?”

  Henson controlled his blush at the sound of the word. He nodded slowly. “I guess you’re right,” he admitted. “I can’t bear the idea of her having any secrets. I know it’s immature and absurd, a
nd that’s why I’m seeking an immature solution.”

  “Let me correct you,” said the Adjustor. “Your solution is far from immature. A good murder probably is the most adult approach to your problem. After all, man, this is the twenty-second century, not the twentieth. Although even way back then they were beginning to learn some of the answers.”

  “Don’t tell me they had Adjustors,” Henson murmured.

  “No, of course not. In those days this field was only a small, neglected part of physical medicine. Practitioners were called psychiatrists, psychologists, auditors, analysts —and a lot of other things. That was their chief stock in trade, by the way: name-calling and labelling.”

  The Adjustor gestured toward the slide-files. “I must’have five hundred spools transcribed there,” he calculated. “All of it from books—nineteenth, twentieth, even early twenty-first century material. And it’s largely terminology, not technique. Psychotherapy was just like alchemy in those days. Everything was named and defined. Inability to cope with environment was minutely broken down into hundreds of categories, thousands of terms. There were ‘schools’ of therapy, with widely divergent theories and applications. And the crude attempts at technique they used—you wouldn’t believe it unless you studied what I have here! Everything from trying to ‘cure’ a disorder in one session by means of brain-surgery or electric shock to the other extreme of letting the ‘patient’ talk about his problems for thousands of hours over a period of years.”

  He smiled. “I’m afraid I’m letting my personal enthusiasm run away with me. After all, Henson, you aren’t interested in the historical aspects. But I did have a point I wanted to make. About the maturity of murder as a solution-concept.”

  Henson adjusted the posturchair as he listened.

  “As I said, even back in the twentieth century, they were beginning to get a hint of the answer. It was painfully apparent that some of the techniques I mention weren’t working at all. ‘Sublimation’ and’‘catharsis’ helped but did not cure in a majority of cases. Physical therapy altered and warped the personality. And all the while, the answer lay right before their eyes.

  “Let’s take your twentieth-century counterpart for an example. Man named Henson, who was jealous of his wife. He might go to an analyst for years without relief. Whereas if he did the sensible thing, he’d take an axe to her and kill her.

  “Of course, in the twentieth century such a procedure was antisocial and illegal. Henson would be sent to prison for the rest of his life.

  “But the chances are, he’d function perfectly thereafter. Having relieved his psychic tension by the commonsense method of direct action, he’d have no further difficulty in adjustment.

  “Gradually the psychiatrists observed this phenomenon. They learned to distinguish between the psychopath and the perfectly normal human being who sought to relieve an intolerable situation. It was hard, because once a normal man was put in prison, he was subject to new tensions and stresses which caused fresh aberrations. But these aberrations stemmed from his confinement—not from the impulse which led him to kill.” Again the Adjustor paused. “I hope I’m not making this too abstruse for you,” he said. “Terms like ‘psychopath’ and ‘normal’ can’t have much meaning to a layman.”

  “I understand what you’re driving at,” Henson told him. “Go ahead. I’ve always wondered how Adjustment evolved, anyway.”

  “I’ll make it brief from now on,” the Adjustor promised. “The next crude step was something called the ‘psycho-drama.’ It was a simple technique in which an aberrated individual was encouraged to get up on a platform, before an audience, and act out his fantasies—including those involving aggression and violently antisocial impulses. This afforded great relief. Well, I won’t trouble you with the historical details about the establishment of Master Control, right after North America went under in the Blast. We got it, and the world started afresh, and one of the groups set up was Adjustment. All of physical medicine, all of what was then called sociology and psychiatry, came under the scope of this group. And from that point on we started to make real progress.

  “Adjustors quickly learned that old-fashioned therapies must be discarded. Naming or classifying a mental disturbance didn’t necessarily overcome it. Talking about it, distracting attention from it, teaching the patient a theory about it, were not solutions. Nor was chopping out or shocking out part of his brain structure.

  “More and more we came to rely on direct action as a cure, just as we do in physical medicine.

  “Then, of course, robotics came along and gave us the final answer. And it is the answer, Henson—that’s the thought I’ve been trying to convey. Because we’re friends, I know you well enough to eliminate all the preliminaries. I don’t have to give you a battery of tests, check reactions, and go through the other formalities. But if I did, I’m sure I’d end up with the same answer—in your case, the mature solution is to murder your wife as quickly as possible. That will cure you.”

  “Thanks,” said Henson. “I knew I could count on you.”

  “No trouble at all.” The Adjustor stood up. He was a tall, handsome man with curly red hair, and he somewhat towered over Henson who was only six feet and a bit too thin.

  “You’ll have papers to sign, of course,” the Adjustor reminded him. “I’ll get everything ready by Friday morning. If you’ll step in then, you can do it in ten minutes.”

  “Fine.” Henson smiled. “Then I think I’ll plan the murder for Friday evening, at home. I’ll get Lita to visit her mother in Saigon overnight. Best if she doesn’t know about this until afterwards.”

  “Thoughtful of you,” the Adjustor agreed. “I’ll have her robot requisitioned for you from Inventory. Any special requirements?”

  “I don’t believe so. It was made less than two years ago, and it’s almost a perfect match. Paid almost seven thousand for the job.”

  “That’s a lot of capital to destroy.” The Adjustor sighed. “Still, it’s necessary. Will you want anything else —weapons, perhaps?”

  “No.” Henson stood in the doorway. “I think I’ll just strangle her.”

  “Very well, then. I’ll have the robot here and operating for you on Friday morning. And you’ll take your robot too.”

  “Mine? Why, might I ask?”

  “Standard procedure. You see, we’ve learned something more about the mind—about what used to be called a ‘guilt complex.’ Sometimes a man isn’t freed by direct action alone. There may be a peculiar desire for punishment involved. In the old days many men who committed actual murders had this need to be caught and punished. Those who avoided capture frequently punished themselves. They developed odd psychosomatic reactions—some even committed suicide.

  “In case you have any such impulses, your robot will be available to you. Punish it any way you like—destroy it, if necessary. That’s the sensible thing to do.”

  “Right. See you Friday morning, then. And many thanks.” Henson started through the doorway. He looked back and grinned. “You know, just thinking about it makes me feel better already!”

  Henson whizzed back to the Adjustor’s office on Friday morning. He was in rare good humor all the way. Anticipation was a wonderful thing. Everything was wonderful, for that matter.

  Take robots, for example. The simple, uncomplicated mechanisms did all the work, all the drudgery. Their original development for military purposes during the twenty-first century was forgotten now, along with the concept of war which had inspired their creation. Now the automatons functioned as workers.

  And for the well-to-do there were these personalized surrogates. What a convenience!

  Henson remembered how he’d argued to convince Lita they should invest in a pair when they married. He’d used all of the sensible modern arguments. “You know as well as I do what having them will save us in terms of time and efficiency. We can send them to all the boring banquets and social functions. They can represent us at weddings and funerals, that sort of thing.
After all, it’s being done everywhere nowadays. Nobody attends such affairs in person any more if they can afford not to. Why, you see them on the street everywhere. Remember Kirk, at our reception? Stayed four hours, life of the party and everybody was fooled—you didn’t know it was his robot until he told you."

  And so forth, on and on. “Aren’t you sentimental at all darling? If I died wouldn’t you like to have my surrogate around to comfort you? I certainly would want yours to share the rest of my life."

  Yes, he’d used all the practical arguments except the psychotherapeutic one—at that time it had never occurred to him. But perhaps it should have, when he heard her objections.

  “I just don’t like the idea,” Lita had persisted. “Oh it isn’t that I’m old-fashioned. But lying there in the forms having every detail of my body duplicated synthetically—ugh! And then they do that awful hypnotherapy or whatever it’s called for days to make them think. Oh I know they have no brains, it’s only a lot of chemicals and electricity, but they do duplicate your thought patterns and they react the same and they sound so real. I don’t want anyone or anything to know all my secrets—”

  Yes that objection should have started him thinking. Lita had secrets even then.

  But he’d been too busy to notice; he’d spent his efforts in battering down her objections. And finally she’d consented.

  He remembered the days at the Institute—the tests they’d taken, the time spent in working with the anatomists, the cosmetic department, the sonic and visio adaptors, and then days of hypnotic transference.

  Lita was right in a way; it hadn’t been pleasant. Even a modern man was bound to feel a certain atavistic fear when confronted for the first time with his completed surrogate. But the finished product was worth it. And after Henson had mastered instructions, learned how to manipulate the robot by virtue of the control-command, he had been almost paternally proud of the creation.

  He’d wanted to take his surrogate home with him, but Lita positively drew the line at that.

  “We’ll leave them both here in Inventory,” she said. “If we need them we can always send for them. But I hope we never do.”