He saw his own face reflected in the blank face of the Fury. You could very nearly read an ironic note in that stiff bow, with the diplomat’s ribbon of honor across the chest of the creature, symbol of duty discharged honorably. But there was nothing honorable about this withdrawal. The incorruptible metal was putting on corruption and looking back at Hartz with the reflection of his own face.
He watched it stalk towards the door. He heard it go thudding evenly down the stairs. He could feel the thuds vibrate in the floor, and there was a sudden sick dizziness in him when he thought the whole fabric of society was shaking under his feet.
The machines were corruptible.
Mankind’s survival still depended on the computers, and the computers could not be trusted. Hartz looked down and saw that his hands were shaking. He shut the drawer and heard the lock click softly.
He gazed at his hands. He felt their shaking echoed in an inner shaking, a terrifying sense of the instability of the world.
A sudden, appalling loneliness swept over him like a cold wind. He had never felt before so urgent a need for the companionship of his own kind. No one person, but people. Just people. The sense of human beings all around him, a very primitive need.
He got his hat and coat and went downstairs rapidly, hands deep in his pockets because of some inner chill no coat could guard against. Halfway down the stairs he stopped dead still.
There were footsteps behind him.
He dared not look back at first. He knew those footsteps. But he had two fears and he didn’t know which was worse. The fear that a Fury was after him-and the fear that it was not. There would be a sort of insane relief if it really was, because then he could trust the machines after all, and this terrible loneliness might pass over him and go.
He took another downward step, not looking back. He heard the ominous footfall behind him, echoing his own. He sighed one deep sigh and looked back.
There was nothing on the stairs.
He went on down after a timeless pause, watching over his shoulder. He could hear the relentless feet thudding behind him, but no visible Fury followed. No visible Fury.
The Erinyes had struck inward again, and an invisible Fury of the mind followed Hartz down the stairs.
It was as if sin had come anew into the world, and the first man felt again the first inward guilt. So the computers had not failed, after all.
Hartz went slowly down the steps and out into the street, still hearing as he would always hear the relentless, incorruptible footsteps behind him that no longer rang like metal.
THE PROUD ROBOT
Things often happened to Gallegher, who played at science by ear. He was, as he often remarked, a casual genius. Sometimes he’d start with a twist of wire, a few batteries, and a button hook, and before he finished, he might contrive a new type of refrigerating unit.
At the moment he was nursing a hangover. A disjointed, lanky, vaguely boneless man with a lock of dark hair falling untidily over his forehead, he lay on the couch in the lab and manipulated his mechanical liquor bar. A very dry Martini drizzled slowly from the spigot into his receptive mouth.
He was trying to remember something, but not trying too hard. It had to do with the robot, of course.
Well, it didn’t matter.
“Hey, Joe,” Gallegher said.
The robot stood proudly before the mirror and examined its innards. Its hull was transparent, and wheels were going around at a great rate inside.
“When you call me that,” Joe remarked, “whisper. And get that cat out of here.”
“Your ears aren’t that good.”
“They are. I can hear the cat walking about, all right.”
“What does it sound like?” Gallegher inquired, interested.
“Jest like drums,” said the robot, with a put-upon air. “And when you talk, it’s like thunder.” Joe’s voice was a discordant squeak, so Gallegher meditated on saying something about glass houses and casting the first stone. He brought his attention, with some effort, to the luminous door panel, where a shadow loomed-a familiar shadow, Gallegher thought.
“It’s Brock,” the annunciator said. “Harrison Brock. Let me in!”
“The door’s unlocked.” Gallegher didn’t stir. He looked gravely at the well-dressed, middle-aged man who came in, and tried to remember. Brock was between forty and fifty; he had a smoothly massaged, cleanshaven face, and wore an expression of harassed intolerance. Probably Gallegher knew the man. He wasn’t sure. Oh, well.
Brock looked around the big, untidy laboratory, blinked at the robot, searched for a chair, and failed to find it. Arms akimbo, he rocked back and forth and glared at the prostrate scientist.
“Well?” he said.
“Never start conversations that way,” Callegher mumbled, siphoning another Martini down his gullet. “I’ve had enough trouble today. Sit down and take it easy. There’s a dynamo behind you. It isn’t very dusty, is it?”
“Did you get it?” Brock snapped. “That’s all I want to know. You’ve had a week I’ve a check for ten thousand in my pocket. Do you want it, or don’t you?”
“Sure,” Gallegher said. He extended a large, groping hand. “Give.”
“Caveat einptor. What am I buying?”
“Don’t you know?” the scientist asked, honestly puzzled.
Brock began to bounce up and down in a harassed fashion. “My God,” he said. “They told me you could help me if anybody could. Sure. And they also said it’d be like pulling teeth to get sense out of you. Are you a technician or a drivelling idiot?”
Gallegher pondered. “Wait a minute. I’m beginning to remember. I talked to you last week, didn’t I?”
“You talked—” Brock’s round face turned pink. “Yes! You lay there swilling liquor and babbled poetry. You sang ‘Frankie and Johnnie.’ And you finally got around to accepting my commission.”
“The fact is,” Gallegher said, “I have been drunk. I often get drunk. Especially on my vacation. It releases my subconscious, and then I can work. I’ve made my best gadgets when I was tizzied,” be went on happily. “Everything seems so clear then. Clear as a bell. I mean a bell, don’t I? Anyway—” He lost the thread and looked puzzled. “Anyway, what are you talking about?”
“Are you going to keep quiet?” the robot demanded from its post before the mirror.
Brock jumped. Gallegher waved a casual hand. “Don’t mind Joe. I just finished him last night, and I rather regret it.”
“A robot?”
“A robot. But he’s no good, you know. I made him when I was drunk, and I haven’t the slightest idea how or why. All he’ll do is stand there and admire himself. And sing. He sings like a banshee. You’ll hear him presently.”
With an effort Brock brought his attention back to the matter in hand. “Now look, Gallegher. I’m in a spot. You promised to help me. If you don’t, I’m a ruined man.”
“I’ve been ruined for years,” the scientist remarked. “It never bothers me. I just go along working for a living and making things in my spare time. Making all sorts of things. You know, if I’d really studied, I’d have been another Einstein. So they tell me. As it is, my subconscious picked up a first-class scientific training somewhere. Probably that’s why I never bothered. When I’m drunk or sufficiently absent-minded, I can work out the damnedest problems.”
“You’re drunk now,” Brock accused.