The Best Of Lester Del Rey Part 11

Expeto watched them, his mind freezing at the impli- cations. But he wasn't insane. His thoughts were lucid. He opened his mouth to protest, just as Obanion swung around.

"Any feeling we're persecuting you, Expeto? Maybe you'd like to get in a few licks, to break my skull and run away where you'd be understood. You might get away with it; you're stronger than I am. Your reaction time is better, too.

See, I'm giving you the idea. And you've only got four hours in which to do it."

Expeto shook his head. That way lay madness. Let his mind feel he was persecuted and he'd surely be the paranoiac he'd heard mentioned. There had to be another answer. This was a hospital-and men were healed in hospitals. Even of madness. It could only be a test.

"No," he denied slowly, and was surprised to find it was true. "No, I don't want to kill you, doctor. If I've been insane, it's gone. But I can't remember-I can't remember!"

He pulled his voice down from its shriek, shook his head again and tried to restrain himself. "I'll cooperate. Only tell me who I am. What have I done that makes people call me a monster? My G.o.d, give me an anchor to hold me steady, and then do what you want."

"You're better off not knowing, since you seem to be able to guess when I'm lying." Obanion motioned the other men up, and they waited while Expeto took the chair they pointed out. Then they began clamping devices on his head.

"You're what the girl said-the spy. You're the most important man in the world right now-if you can stay sane. You're the one man who carries the secret of how we can live on the moon, protect Earth from aggressive powers, even get to the stars some day."

"But I can't remember-anything!"

"It doesn't matter. The secret's in you and we know how to use it. All right, now I'm going to give you some tests, and I want you to tell me exactly what comes into your mind. The instruments will check on it, so lying won't do any good. Ready?"

It went on and on, while new s.h.i.+fts came in. The clock on the wall indicated only an hour, but it might have been a century, when Obanion sighed and turned his work over to another.

Expeto's thoughts were reeling. He grabbed the breather gratefully, let his head thump back. There must be a way.

"What day is this?" he asked. At their silence, he frowned. "Cooperate meansboth working together. I've been doing my part. Or is it too much to answer a sun-pie question?"

The new man nodded slowly. "You're right. You deserve some answers, if I can give them without breaking security. It's June eighth, nineteen ninety-one- eleven P.M."

It checked with figures that had appeared in the back of his mind, ruining the one theory he'd had. "The President is William Olsen?"

The doctor nodded, killing the last chance at a theory. For a time, he'd thought that perhaps the aggressive countries had won, and that this was their dictators.h.i.+p. If he'd been injured in a war . . . but it was nonsense, since no change had occurred in his time sense or in the administration.

"How'd I get here?"

The doctor opened his mouth, then closed it firmly. "Forget that, Expeto.

You're here. Get this nonsense of a past off your mind-you never had one, understand? And no more questions. We'll never finish in less than three hours, as it is."

Expeto stood up slowly, shaking himself. "You're quite right. You won't finish. I'm sick of this. Whatever I did, you've executed your justice in killing the me that was only a set of memories. And whatever I am, I'll find for myself. To h.e.l.l with the lot of you!"

He expected zep-guns to appear, and he was right. The walls suddenly opened hi panels, and six men with guns were facing him, wearing the oppressive khaki.

But something hi him seemed to take over. He had the doctor in one arm and a zep-gun from the hand of a major before anyone else could move. He faced them, waiting for the bullets that would come, but they drew back, awaiting orders. Expeto's foot found the door, kicked at it; the lock snapped.

Obanion's voice cut through it all. "Don't! No shooting! Expeto, I'm the one you want. Let Smith go, and I'll accompany you, until you're ready to let me go. Fair enough?"

Smith was protesting, but the doctor cut him short. "My fault, since I'm responsible. And the Government be d.a.m.ned. I'm not going to have a bunch of good men killed. His reaction's too fast. We can learn things this way, maybe better. All right, Expeto-or do you want to kill them?"

Expeto dropped the gun a trifle and nodded, while the emotions in his head threatened to make him blank out. He knew now that he could never kill even one of them. But they apparently weren't as sure. "Take me outside, and you can go back," he told Obanion.

The doctor wiped sweat from his forehead, managed a pasty smile and nodded.

Surprisingly, he stepped through a different door, and down a short hall, where men with rifles stood irresolutely. Then they were outside.

Obanion turned to go back, and then hesitated. Surprisingly, he dropped an arm onto Expeto's shoulder. "Come on back inside. We can understand you. Or ...

All right, I guess you're going. Thanks for taking my offer."

The door closed, and Expeto was alone. Above him, most of the building was dark, but he saw a few lighted windows, and some with men and women working over benches and with equipment. There was no sign of beds. All right, so it was some Government laboratory.

The most important monster in the world, the useful paranoiac they'd saved by amnesia. The monster they intended to persecute back to paranoia, in hopes he'd recover his memory, and the secret they wanted. Let them have the secret- but let him have peace and quiet, where his brain could recover by itself.

Then he'd gladly give it to them. Or would he? Would he really be a monster again? Or might he learn the strange reason for there being men and women, the puzzle which seemed so simple that the woman had felt mere contact would solve it?

Funny that there were so many sciences, but no science of life--or was there?Maybe he'd been such a scientist-psychology, zoology, biology, whatever they'd call it from the Greek. Maybe the secret lay there, and it had completely burned out that part of his mind.

Then he heard the sound of a motor and knew they weren't going to let him go.

He wasn't to have a moment of freedom they could prevent. He swung about sharply, studying the horizon. There were lights and a town. There'd be people, and he could hide among them.

He whipped his legs into action, driving on at a full run. The light of the moon was barely enough for him to see the ground clearly, but he managed a good deal more speed than the hallways had permitted. He heard the car behind on the road he found, and doubled his speed, while the sound of the motor slowly weakened as the distance increased.

He breathed easier when he hit the outskirts of the town, and slowed to a casual walk, imitating the steps of a few people he saw about. This was better. In the myriad of streets and among the countless others, he would be lost. The only trouble was that he was on a main street, and the lights would give him away to anyone who knew him.

He picked up a paper from a waste receptacle, and moved off to the left, seeking a less brilliantly lighted street. Now and again he glanced at the print, looking for some trace. But aside from the news that his mind recognized as normal for the tunes, there was nothing on any mysterious, all- important person, nor on anyone who was either a monster or a savior.

Ahead of him, a lone girl was tapping along on the sidewalk. He quickened his step, and she looked back, making the ident.i.ty complete as her tiny bolero drifted back in the breeze to expose all but the tip of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She hesitated as he caught up with her, looking up uncertainly. "Yes?"

She couldn't know the answers. Obviously she had never seen him. How could she tell him what he wanted to know? *

"Sorry, I thought you were someone else. No, wait. You can tell me something.

Where can I find a place to stay?"

"Oh. Well, the Alhambra, I guess." She smiled a little. "Back there-see where the sign is?"

She brushed against his arm as she turned, and a faint gasp sounded. Her hand suddenly contracted on his bare skin, then jerked back sharply, while she began stepping slowly away.

"No!" It was a small wail as he caught her shoulder. Then she slumped against him, wilting as he pulled her toward his face. He released her, to see her fall down in a sagging heap.

For a moment, the sickness in him rose in great waves, undulating and horrible as he dropped beside her. But when he felt the pulse in her hand still beating, it left. He hadn't killed her, only frightened her into unconsciousness.

He stood there, tasting that. Only frightened her that much!

And finally he turned about and headed for the Alhambra. There was nothing he could do for her; she'd recover, in time, and it would be better if she didn't see him there. Then maybe she'd decide it was all a fantasy.

He watched a streak mount the horizon bitterly, remembering that the men had been discussing the two bases on the moon in the room where he'd first heard voices. They could face war, such as the rocket he saw being prepared, raining down in h.e.l.l bombs from a quarter of a million miles, and only fear it vaguely. But he could drive someone senseless by touching her!

He found the night clerk busy watching a television set with the screen badly adjusted to an overbalance of red, and signed the register with the full name he'd hoped once was his. George Expeto, from-make it from New York. It wouldn't matter.

"Twenty dollars," the clerk told him.

Dollars? He shook his head slowly, trying to think.Something about dollars and cents. But it made no sense.

The clerk's eyes were hard. "No dough, eh? O.K., try to fool someone else. No baggage, no dough, no room. Scram."

Expeto stood irresolutely, trying to mak& sense out of it still. Dollars- something . . . The clerk had swung back to watching the set, and he reached out for the scrawny shoulder, drawing the man around.

"But look . . ." Then it was no use. The shoulder had crumpled in his hand like a rotten stick, and the man had lapsed into a faint with a single shriek.

Expeto stood outside, swaying while the sickness washed away slowly, and he told himself the doctors would fix the man up; that was what they were for.

They'd fix him, and no real harm had been done. He hadn't meant to hurt the man. He'd only meant to ask him what dollars were and how to get them.

Then he moved on into a little park and dropped onto a seat. But the sickness was still there, a sickness he hadn't noticed, but which had been growing on him even before he'd hurt the clerk. It was as if something were slowly eroding his mind. Even the curious memory of ideas and words was going!

He was sitting there, his head in his hands, trying to catch himself, when the car drove up. Obanion and Kal-lik got out, but Obanion came over alone.

"Come on, Expeto. It won't work. You might as well come back. And there's only an hour left!"

Expeto got up slowly, nodding wearily. The doctor was right-there was no place for such a monster as he in the world.

"Left before what?" he asked dully, as he climbed into the rear of the car, and watched Obanion lock the door and the gla.s.s slide between him and the front seat.

For a second Obanion hesitated, then he shrugged. "All right. Maybe you should know. In another hour you'll be dead! And nothing can prevent it."

Expeto took it slowly, letting the thought sink into the muddying depths of his mind. But he was important ... they'd told him so. Or had they? They'd chased him about, bound him down, refused to tell him what he needed, refused him even civil decency and told him he was the hope of the world. Or had he only imagined it?

"I never wanted anything but myself. Only myself. And they wouldn't let me have that-not even for a few hours. They had to hound me . . ." He realized he was muttering aloud and stopped it.

But from the front seat, the voices came back, m.u.f.fled by the gla.s.s, Kallik speaking first. "See, paranoia all right. Thinks he's being persecuted."

"He is." Obanion nodded slowly. "With the time limit the Government insisted on, the ruin of our plans by the spies that got through, and the need to get the facts, what else could we do? If they'd let us animate him for a week-but six hours' limit on the vital crystals! We've had to be brutal."

"You talk as if he were a human being. Remember the other-XP One? Crazy, killing people, or trying to. I tell you, the robots can't be made trustworthy yet, no matter what you cybernetics boys have found in the last ten years.

This one only had six hours instead of ten for the other, and he's already threatened us and hurt two people."

"Maybe. We. don't know all the story yet." Obanion wiped his forehead. "And d.a.m.n it, he is human. That's what makes it tough, knowing we've got to treat him like a machine. Maybe we grew his brain out of sili-cones and trick metal crystals, and built his body in a laboratory, but the mechanical education he got made him a lot more human than some people, or should have made him so. If I can prove he isn't crazy . . ."

Expeto-Experiment Two-stared at the hands he held before his face. He bent the fingers, looking at the veins and muscles. Then, slowly, with his other hand, he twisted at them, stretching them out and out, until there could be no doubt of the rubbery plastic they were.

A monster! A thing grown in a laboratory, made out of mechanical parts, andfed bits of human education from tapes in cybernetics machines! A thing that would walk on the moon without air and take over enemy bases, or do all men's work-but that could never be taken as a man by human beings, who grew from something or other, but were never built. A thing to be animated for a few hours, and deliberately set to die at the end of that time, as a precaution-because it had no real life, and it wasn't murder to kill a built thing!

' A thing that somehow couldn't kill men, it seemed, judging by the sickness he'd felt when he'd hurt or threatened them. But a thing of which they couldn't be sure-until they'd tested him and found he was complete and sane.

He rocked back and forth on the seat, moaning a little. He didn't want to die; but already, the eroded places in his brain were growing larger. It didn't matter; he had never been anyone; he never could be anyone. But he didn't want to die!

"Hah' an hour left," the cyberneticist, Obanion, said slowly. "And less than that, unless we make sure he doesn't exert himself. He's about over."

Then the car was coming into the garage, and Obanion got out with Kallik.

Expeto went with them quietly, knowing that Obanion was right. Already, he was finding it hard to use his legs or control what pa.s.sed for muscles. They went back to the room with the instruments and the waiting technicians.

For a moment, he looked at the humans there. Oban-ion's eyes were veiled, but the others were open to his gaze. And there was no pity there. Men don't pity a car that is too old and must go to the sc.r.a.p heap. He was only a machine, no matter how valuable. And after him, other machines would see the faces of men turned away from them, generation after generation.

Slowly, he kicked at the chair, tipping it over without splintering it, and his voice came out as high and shrill as his faltering control could force'it.

"No! No more! You've persecuted me enough. You've tried to kill me-me, the hope of your puny race! You've laughed at me and tortured me. But I'm smarter than you- greater than you! I can kill you-all of you-the whole world, with my bare hands."

He saw shock on Obanion's face, and sadness, and for that he was almost sorry. But the smug satisfaction of Kallik as the zep- gun came up and the horror on the faces of the others counteracted it. He yelled once, and charged at them.

For a moment, he was afraid that he would not be stopped before he had to injure at least one of them. But then the zep-gun in Kallik's hand spoke silently, and the bullet smashed against the mockery of Expeto's body.

He lay there, watching them slowly recover from their fright. It didn't matter when one of them came over and began kicking him senselessly. It didn't even matter when Obanion put a stop to it.

His senses were fading now, and he knew that the excitement had shortened his brief time, and that the crystals were about to break apart and put an end to his short existence. But in a curious way, while he still hated and feared death, he was resigned to it.

They'd be better off. Maybe the first experimental robot had known that.

Expeto let the thought linger, finding it good. He couldn't believe the other had grown insane; it, too, must have found the bitter truth, and tried to do the only possible thing, even when that involved genuine injury to a few of the humans.

Now they'd have two such failures, and it would be perhaps years before they'd risk another, when their checks failed to show the reason for the nonexistent flaws. They'd have to solve their own problems of war or peace, without mechanical monsters to make them almost G.o.ds in power, while teaching them the disregard of devils for life other than their own.

And there'd be no more of his kind to be used and despised, and persecuted.

Persecuted? The word stirred up thoughts . . . something about paranoia andinsanity.

But it faded. Everything faded. And he sank through vague content into growing blackness. His thoughts were almost happy as death claimed him.

The Years Draw Nigh

MARS WAS HARSH and old, worn with the footsteps of two races that had come and gone, leaving only scant traces behind. Even the wind was tired, and its thin wailing was a monotonous mutter of memories from its eroded past.

Zeke Lerner stared out from the dust-covered observation port of the hastily- reconditioned little rocket, across the scarred runways and sand-filled pits for the star s.h.i.+ps, toward the ruins of what had once been the great Star Station. His face was gray and dull as he watched a figure coming across the pitted sand of the field toward his s.h.i.+p.

He sighed softly, a faint sound in the tiny cabin, and his breath stirred the dust that lay everywhere. In four centuries, a man can learn not to think, but feelings and emotions survive. He was tired beyond any power of the rejuvenation treatments to remedy. His shoulders sagged slightly, confirming the age that the gray in his hair implied. But his eyes were older still as he swung about to open the inner lock of the s.h.i.+p.

Stendal was a middle-aged man, but some of the same age and fatigue lay on his face when he dropped his aspirator helmet and slumped limply into a seat. His plain uniform as a.s.sistant Coordinator of Terra was covered with dirt and grime. He grinned faintly at Zeke and pulled a thermos of coffee out of its niche.

"So the Thirty-four is coming back?" Zeke asked quietly. o He had no need of the other's nod, though. When they'd finally located him at the Rejuvenation Center and rushed him to the rocket field, he'd suspected.

Only a matter of extreme urgency could interrupt a man's return to youth. The messengers had been uninformative, but he had been sure, once they told him Stendal was waiting on Mars. They must have been keeping it restricted to the top administrators. Zeke's eyes went back to the dirt on the man's uniform.

"Top secret," Stendal confirmed. "So hush-hush that I came to do the janitor work here. Now it's all yours. The robots and I managed to get it into a reasonable facsimile of repaired condition. Oof! I could use a week's sleep, but I've got to get back earthside at once. . . . Sorry to interrupt the rejuvenation, Zeke."