«Elmer’s gone,» he said. «I spend all afternoon trying to find him. Not a sign of him anywhere.»
My first reaction was that it was just fine. Then I realized that the safest thing would be to know where Elmer was, so we could keep an eye on him.
And suddenly I had a horrible hunch that I knew where Elmer was.
«I didn’t actually go down into the valley,» said Ben, «but I walked around and glassed it from every angle.»
«He might be in one of the caves,» Jimmy said.
«Maybe so,» said Ben.
We did a lot of speculating on what might have happened to Elmer.
Jimmy held out for his having holed up in one of the caves. Ben was inclined to think he might have cleared out of the country. I didn’t say what I thought. It was too fantastic.
I volunteered for the first watch, saying that I couldn’t sleep with my foot, anyhow, and after the two of them were asleep, I walked over to Lulu and rapped on her hide. I didn’t expect anything to happen. I figured she would keep on sulking.
But she put out a tentacle and grew a face on it—a lens, an audio and speaker.
«It was nice of you,» I said, «not to run away and leave us.»
Lulu swore. It was the first and the only time I have ever heard her use such language.
«How could I leave?» she asked when she at last turned printable. «Of all the dirty human tricks! I’d have been gone long ago if it weren’t for—»
«What dirty trick?»
«As if you didn’t know. A built-in block that won’t let me move unless there’s one of you detestable humans inside me.»
«I didn’t know,» I said.
«Don’t try to pass the buck,» she snapped. «It’s a dirty human trick and you’re a dirty human and you’re just as responsible as all the rest of them. But it doesn’t make any difference any more, because I’ve found myself. I am finally content. I know what I was meant for. I have—»
«Lulu,» I asked her, straight out, «are you shacking up with Elmer?»
«That’s a vulgar way to say it,» Lulu told me heatedly. «It’s the nasty human way. Elmer is a scholar and a gentleman and his loyalty to his ancient, long-dead masters is a touching thing no human could be capable of. He has been badly treated and I shall make it up to him. All he wanted from you was the phosphate in your bones—»
«The phosphate in our bones!» I yelled.
«Why, certainly,» said Lulu. «Poor Elmer has such a hard time finding any phosphate. He got it at first from animals that he caught, but now all the animals are gone. There are birds, of course, but birds are hard to catch. And you had such nice, big bones—»
«That’s a fine thing for you to say,» I bawled her out sternly. «You were built by humans and humans educated you and—»
«Still I’m a machine,» said Lulu, «and I am closer to Elmer than I am to you. You humans can’t get it through your heads that there might be a legitimate set of non-human values. You are horrified that Elmer wanted the phosphate in your bones, but if there were a metal in Elmer that you needed, you’d break him up to get it without a second thought. You wouldn’t even consider that you might be wrong. You’d think it an imposition if Elmer should object. That’s the trouble with you and your human race. I’ve had enough. I have what I want. I am content to stay here. I’ve found the great love of my life. And for all I care, your pals and you can rot.»
She pulled in her face and I didn’t rap to try to get her to talk any more. I figured there wasn’t any use. She had made it about as plain as anyone could wish.
I walked back to the camp and woke Ben and Jimmy. I told them about my hunch and about the talk with Lulu. We were pretty glum, because we were all washed up.
Up till now, there had always been the chance that we could make a deal with Lulu. I had felt all along that we needn’t worry too much—that Lulu was more alone than we were and that eventually she would have to be reasonable. But now Lulu was not alone and she no longer needed us. And she still was sore at us—and not just at us, but at the whole human race.
And the worst of it was that this was no sudden whim. It had been going on for days. Elmer hadn’t been really watching us when he’d hung around at night. He’d come to neck with Lulu. And undoubtedly the two of them had planned Elmer’s attack on Ben and me, knowing that Jimmy would be loping to the rescue, leaving the coast clear so that Elmer could rush back and Lulu could take him in. And once it had been accomplished, Lulu had put out a tentacle and swept the tracks away so we wouldn’t know that Elmer was inside.
«So she jilted us,» said Ben.
«No worse than we did to her,» Jimmy reminded him.
«But what did she expect? A man can’t love a robot.»
«Evidently,» I said, «a robot can love a robot. And that’s a new one to paste into the book.»
«Lulu’s crazy,» Ben declared.
In all this great romance of Lulu’s, it seemed to me there was a certain false note. Why should Lulu and Elmer be sneaky about their love? Lulu could have opened the port any time she wanted and Elmer could have scampered up the ramp right before our eyes. But they hadn’t done that.
They had planned and plotted. They had practically eloped.
I wondered if, on Lulu’s part, it might be the mark of shame. Was she ashamed of Elmer—ashamed that she had fallen for him? Much as she might deny it, perhaps she nursed the smug snobbery of the human race.
Or was I only thinking this to save my own smug snobbery, simply building up a defense mechanism against being forced to admit, now or in some future time, that there might be other values than the ones evolved by humans? For in us all, I knew, lingered that reluctance to recognize that our way was not necessarily best, that the human viewpoint might not be the universal viewpoint to which all other life must eventually conform.
Ben made a pot of coffee, and while we sat around and drank it, we said some bitter things of Lulu. I don’t regret anything we said, for she had it coming to her. She’d played us a nasty trick.
We finally rolled back into our blankets and didn’t bother standing guard.
With Elmer out of circulation, there was no need.
The next morning, my foot was still sore, so I stayed behind while Ben and Jimmy went out to explore the valley that held the ruined city.
Meantime, I hobbled out and walked all around Lulu, looking her over.
There was no way I could see that a man might bust into her. The port itself was machined so closely that you had to get real close to see the tiny hairline where it fitted into her side.
Even if we could bust into her, I wondered, could we take control of her?
There were the emergencies, of course, but I wasn’t too sure just how much use they were. They certainly hadn’t bothered Lulu much when she’d got that crazy notion of eloping with us. Then she’d simply jammed them and had left us helpless.
And if we broke into Lulu, we’d come to grips with Elmer, and Elmer was just the kind of beast I had no hankering to come to grips with.
So I went back to camp and puttered around, thinking that now we’d really have to begin to lay some plans about how to get along. We’d have to build that cabin and work up a food supply and do the best we could to get along on our own. For I was fairly certain that we could expect no help from Lulu.
Ben and Jimmy came back in the afternoon and their eyes were shining with excitement. They spread out a blanket and emptied their pockets of the most incredible things any man has ever laid eyes on.
Don’t expect me to describe that stuff. There’s no point in trying to. What is the sense of saying that a certain item was like a metal chain and that it was yellow? There is no way to get across the feel of it as it slid through one’s fingers or the tinkle of it as it moved or the blazing color that was a sort of living yellow. It is very much like saying that a famous painting is square and flat and blue, with some green and red.