"Huh," snorted Hoolihan. "Suppose so. Damn it, I don't know what's the matter with this firm! We have the highest turnover of any trade journal I know of. No sooner get 'em broken in than off they go!"
Ross could have told Hoolihan that his violent power-complex might have something to do with it. But he forebore. It would only lead to an argument, and he might want a reference from Hoolihan some day.
Then Ross walked across town to the Telagog Company and told the receptionist: "Uh — send in that salesman, that Mr. Nye."
The salesman came in full of apologies: "... and while of course you waived damages in your contract, we are so anxious to please you that we're offering a one-year free extension of your three months' trial telagog subscription. Moreover, Mr. Falck is no longer in our employ."
"What happened?"
"Our Mr. Bundy, whose wires were crossed with Mr. Falck's, suspected something and came in early this morning to find Falck taking out that switch he installed behind his panel. Falck, knowing how complicated hypospatial circuits are, had figured the electricians would get down to tracing the crossover this afternoon. Now about that extension —"
"Never mind. Just take this gadget out of my head, will you?"
"You mean you don't want any more telagog control?"
"That's right. I found I can do well enough by myself."
"But you don't know. Your erythrophobia may take you unawares —"
"I'll worry about that when the time comes. Right now I feel that, with all I've been through in the past week, I can never be embarrassed again."
Nye looked dubious. "That's not psychologically sound."
"I don't care. That's the way it is."
"We're pretty busy today. Couldn't you come in again next week?"
"No. I'm getting married tomorrow and leaving on a two weeks' trip, and starting a new job when I get back."
"Congratulations! Is it that Miss La Motte that Bundy and Falck were talking about?"
"Yes."
"They said she was a pip. How did you manage it with your shyness?"
"When I walked her to the train, I just asked her, and she said yes. Simple as that."
"Fine. But after all, you know, a man's wedding day and the night following it constitute a crisis of the first magnitude. With one of our experts at your personal helm you need not fear —"
"No!" shouted Ovid Ross, smiting the chair arm with his fist. "By gosh, there's some things I'm gonna do for myself! Now get that neurosurgeon out of his office and get to work!"
Internal Combustion
Napoleon raised the limp cadaver by one claw, looked at it with his remaining eye, and said: "Hercules, you forget how heavy your fist is and how fragile the crania of these organisms are. This one is damaged beyond repair."
"Gee, I'm sorry, boss," said Hercules. "I only wanted to stop him from running away, like you told me to."
"Faithful fellow! I doubt if this itinerant mendicant would have proved a satisfactory puppet in any case. His character was too firmly set in patterns of dissipation and irresponsibility. Conceal the remains in the cellar until nightfall; then inter them."
"Okay, boss," said Hercules.
He clanked out of the library with the body under one arm. The MacDonald mansion had few furnishings left: a few broken-down chairs, a few tattered books on the shelves of the library. On the walls appeared rectangles of different colors from the rest where pictures had hung before the MacDonald heirs had finally stripped the house.
"What now?" asked Confucius. The other two liquid-fuel robots, Galahad and Sancho Panza, leaned forward attentively but did not speak. Sancho Panza could not because his vocalizer was broken, and he had never been able to save enough money to have it replaced.
"I do not know yet," said Napoleon, settling his black, drum-shaped body back on its three good legs.
The floor creaked but held under the nuclear robot's two-thousand-pound weight. It held because the cellar did not extend under the library, which rested on a thick concrete slab in turn supported by the sands of Coquina Beach. Fear of falling through the rotting floor and the malfunction of one leg had confined Napoleon to the library for years. Being nuclear-powered, he did not have to forage for fuel as did the other derelict robots dwelling in the ghost mansion. Before he had been discarded, Napoleon had the usual robotic inhibitions against hostile acts towards men. But hard radiations, escaping from the thick shielding around his pile and transpiercing his brain, had broken these down.
The mansion had been built a half-century before by William Bancroft MacDonald, the newspaper magnate. MacDonald had made his fortune by teaching his readers to hate and fear Latin-Americans and Canadians. His descendants occupied the mansion until his grandchildren gave up the struggle against termites, damp-rot, and the high cost of running a big house. So the robums, worn-out emancipated robots, squatted in the ruin without hindrance.
"I must think,", said Napoleon. "Always have a plan; leave nothing to chance."
"Your last plan wasn't so good," said Galahad.
"I could not foresee that this itinerant mendicant would prove both alcoholic and moronic. I offered him everything these organic people want: honor, glory, and riches. Had he evinced a willingness to follow my orders, I should have trained him, entered him in politics, and raised him to the leadership of this nation if not of the world. Yet, so terrified was he that he sought escape."
"Gosh," said Confucius. "Just think: all the kerosene we want and a good gasoline binge whenever we feel like it!"
"What was that idea about a kid, boss?" said Galahad.
"It is a more hazardous plan, but it offers greater possibilities. By rearing the organism from childhood we can more readily train it in the direction we wish it to go. The problem is: what child?"
Galahad said: "Homer knows a kid. The Sanborn kid, four houses north of here."
"Ah?" said Napoleon. "Perchance the hand of destiny offers a second opportunity. Tell me about this 'kid.' "
Homer walked north along Coquina Beach. The bright sun stood high over palms and cypresses. The waves of the Gulf broke heavily on the sand, each wave leaving scores of shiny little coquina clams, no two with the same color scheme: white, ivory, butter-yellow, red, blue, and purple. Before the next wave arrived, each coquina up-ended and burrowed out of sight.
Homer was looking for shells. Not just any shells, like those that crunched under his metallic feet with every step. He wanted rare shells that he could sell for money for kerosene to power him to hunt for more shells.
Most of the shells — conchs, strombs, scallops, oysters, clams, razor clams, murices, and so forth — were worthless. Now and then, however, a beachcomber could find one like the double sunburst, which would keep Homer in kerosene for a fortnight. Once he had found a perfect junonia, which kept all the robums going for a month and provided gasoline for an orgy as well.
The angel-wing clam was rare on the beach, but Homer knew better than to pick up even a perfect one. Anybody who wanted angel-wings could dig hundreds out of the mud of tidal flats, where they lived buried with their tubes sticking up out of holes. They were rare on the beach because they were so fragile that few were cast up undamaged.
Homer had a collecting bag over his left shoulder. He kept it in place with his stiff left arm, of which the disabled elbow joint had long since rusted fast. He picked up the shells with his good right.
He moved slowly so as not to crush valuable shells and so as not to flick sand up into his joints. His bearings were all ground loose anyway, but who would pay for relining them? As with most old pieces of machinery, Homer had passed the stage where organic people took any interest in repairing him. A new robot would be cheaper.