With a puzzled look at the radio, he entered the kitchen and started on the dishes. The hall phone rang. Kerry wiped his hands on a dish towel and answered it.
It was Mike Fitzgerald, who taught psychology at the University.
“Hiya, Fitz.”
“Hiya. Martha gone?”
“Yeah. I just drove her to the train.”
“Feel like talking, then? I’ve got some pretty good Scotch. Why not run over and gab a while?”
“Like to,” Kerry said, yawning again, “but I’m dead. Tomorrow’s a big day. Rain check?”
“Sure. I just finished correcting papers, and felt the need of sharpening my mind. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. Wait a minute.” Kerry put down the phone and looked over his shoulder, scowling. Noises were coming from the kitchen. What the hell!
He went along the hall and stopped in the doorway, motionless and staring. The radio was washing the dishes.
After a while he returned to the phone. Fitzgerald said, “Something?”
“My new radio,” Kerry told him carefully. “It’s washing the dishes.” Fitz didn’t answer for a moment. His laugh was a bit hesitant. “Oh?”
“I’ll call you back,” Kerry said, and hung up. He stood motionless for a while, chewing his lip. Then he walked back to the kitchen and paused to watch.
The radio’s back was toward him. Several limber tentacles were manipulating the dishes, expertly sousing them in hot, soapy water, scrubbing them with the little mop, dipping them into the rinse water and then stacking them neatly in the metal rack. Those whip-lashes were the only sign of unusual activity. The legs were apparently solid.
“Hey!” Kerry said.
There was no response.
He sidled around till he could examine the radio more closely. The tentacles emerged from a slot under one of the dials. The electric cord was dangling. No juice, then. But what-Kerry stepped back and fumbled out a cigarette. Instantly the radio turned, took a match from its container on the stove and walked forward. Kerry blinked, studying the legs. They couldn’t be wood. They were bending as the-the thing moved, elastic as rubber. The radio had a peculiar sidling motion unlike anything else on earth.
It lit Kerry’s cigarette and went back to the sink, where it resumed the dishwashing.
Kerry phoned Fitzgerald again. “I wasn’t kidding. I’m having hallucinations or something. That damned radio just lit a cigarette for me.”
“Wait a minute.” Fitzgerald’s voice sounded undecided. “This is a gag, eh?”
“No. And I don’t think it’s a hallucination, either. It’s up your alley. Can you run over and test my knee-jerks?”
“All right,” Fitz said. “Give me ten minutes. Have a drink ready.”
He hung up, and Kerry, laying the phone back into its cradle, turned to see the radio walking out of the kitchen toward the living room. Its square, boxlike contour was subtly horrifying, like some bizarre sort of hobgoblin. Kerry shivered.
He followed the radio, to find it in its former place, motionless and impassive. He opened the doors, examining the turntable, the phonograph arm and the other buttons and gadgets. There was nothing apparently unusual. Again he touched the legs. They were not wood, after all. Some plastic, which seemed quite hard. Or-maybe they were wood, after all. It was difficult to make certain, -without damaging the finish. Kerry felt a natural reluctance to use a knife on his new console.
He tried the radio, getting local stations without trouble. The tone was good-unusually good, he thought. The phonograph-He picked up Halvorsen’s Entrance of the Boyars at random and slipped it into place, closing the lid. No sound emerged. Investigation proved that the needle was moving rhythmically along the groove, but without audible result. Well?
Kerry removed the record as the doorbell rang. It was Fitzgerald, a gangling, saturnine man with a leathery, wrinkled face and a tousled mop of dull gray hair. He extended a large, bony hand.
“Where’s my drink?”
“Lo, Fitz. Come in the kitchen. I’ll mix. Highball?”
“Highball.”
“O.K.” Kerry led the way. “Don’t drink it just yet, though. I want to show you my new combination.”
“The one that washes dishes?” Fitzgerald asked. “What else does it do?”
Kerry gave the other a glass. “It won’t play records.”
“Oh, well. A minor matter, if it’ll do the housework. Let’s take a look at it.” Fitzgerald went into the living room, selected Afternoon of a Faun and approached the radio. “It isn’t plugged in.”
“That doesn’t matter a bit,” Kerry said wildly.
“Batteries?” Fitzgerald slipped the record in place and adjusted the switches. “Ten inch-there. Now we’ll see.” He beamed triumphantly at Kerry. “Well? It’s playing now.”
It was.
Kerry said, “Try that Halvorsen piece. Here.” He handed the disk to Fitzgerald, who pushed the reject switch and watched the lever arm lift.
But this time the phonograph refused to play. It didn’t like Entrance of the Boyars.
“That’s funny,” Fitzgerald grunted. ‘Probably the trouble’s with the record. Let’s try another.”
There was no trouble with Daphnis and Chloë. But the radio silently rejected the composer’s Bolero.
Kerry sat down and pointed to a nearby chair. “That doesn’t prove anything. Come over here and watch. Don’t drink anything yet. You, uh, you feel perfectly normal?”
“Sure. Well?”
Kerry took out a cigarette. The console walked across the room, picking up a match book on the way and politely held the flame. Then it went back to its place against the wall.
Fitzgerald didn’t say anything. After a while he took a cigarette from his pocket and waited. Nothing happened.
“So?” Kerry asked.
“A robot. That’s the only possible answer. Where in the name of Petrarch did you get it?”
“You don’t seem much surprised.”
“I am, though. But I’ve seen robots before; Westinghouse tried it, you know. Only this—” Fitzgerald tapped his teeth with a nail. “Who made it?”
“How the devil should I know?” Kerry demanded. “The radio people, I suppose.”
Fitzgerald narrowed his eyes. “Wait a minute. I don’t quite understand—”
“There’s nothing to understand. I bought this combination a few days ago. Turned in the old one. It was delivered this afternoon, and…” Kerry explained what had happened.
“You mean you didn’t know it was a robot?”
“Exactly. I bought it as a radio. And-and-the damn thing seems almost alive to me.”
“Nope.” Fitzgerald shook his head, rose and inspected the console carefully. “It’s a new kind of robot. At least—” He hesitated. “What else is there to think? I suggest you get in touch with the Mideastem people tomorrow and check up.”
“Let’s open the cabinet and look inside,” Kerry suggested.
Fitzgerald was willing, but the experiment proved impossible. The presumably wooden panels weren’t screwed into place, and there was no apparent way of opening the console. Kerry found a screwdriver and applied it, gingerly at first, then with a sort of repressed fury. He could neither pry free a panel or even scratch the dark, smooth finish of the cabinet.
“Damn!” he said finally. “Well, your guess is as good as mine. It’s a robot. Only I didn’t know they could make ’em like this. And why in a radio?”
“Don’t ask me.” Fitzgerald shrugged. “Check up tomorrow. That’s the first step. Naturally, I’m pretty baffled. If a new sort of specialized robot has been invented, why put it in a console? And what makes those legs move? There aren’t any casters.”
“I’ve been wondering about that, too.”
“When it moves, the legs look-rubbery. But they’re not. They’re hard as-as hardwood. Or plastic.”