He conscientiously took the middle of the steps all the rest of the way up.
Of course that merely meant a different distraction, when he really wanted to do some thinking. But it was a pleasurable distraction. And by the time they reached the top he had solved the problem; the pale spots at the back of Miss Pender’s knees meant she had got her suntan the hard way - walking in the sun, perhaps working in the sun, so that the bending knees kept the sun from the patches at the back; not, as anyone else would acquire a tan, by lying beneath a normal, healthful sunlamp held by a robot masseur.
He wheezed: ‘You don’t mean we’re all the way up?’
‘All the way up,’ she agreed, and looked at him closely. ‘Here, lean on me if you want to.’
‘No, thanks!’ He staggered over to the door, which opened naturally enough as he approached it, and stepped out into the flood of sunlight on the roof, to meet Mr. Roosenburg.
Garrick wasn’t a medical doctor, but he remembered enough of his basic pre-specialization to know there was something in that fizzy golden drink. It tasted perfectly splendid - just cold enough, just fizzy enough, not quite too sweet. And after two sips of it he was buoyant with strength and well being.
He put the glass down and said: ‘Thank you for whatever it was. Now let’s talk.’
‘Gladly, gladly!’ boomed Mr. Roosenburg. ‘Kathryn, the files!’
Garrick looked after her, shaking his head. Not only was she a statistician, which was robot work, she was also a file clerk - and that was barely even robot work, it was the kind of thing handled by a semisentient punchcard sorter in a decently run sector.
Roosenburg said sharply: ‘Shocks you, doesn’t it? But that’s why you’re here.’ He was a slim, fair little man, and he wore a golden beard cropped square.
Garrick took another sip of the fizzy drink. It was good stuff; it didn’t intoxicate, but it cheered. He said, ‘I’m glad to know why I’m here.’
The golden beard quivered. ‘Area Control sent you down and didn’t tell you this was a disaster area?’
Garrick put down the glass. ‘I’m a psychist. Area Control said you needed a psychist. From what I’ve seen, it’s a supply problem, but -’
‘Here are the files,’ said Kathryn Pender, and stood watching him.
Roosenburg took the spools of tape from her and dropped them in his lap. He said tangentially, ‘How old are you, Roger?’
Garrick was annoyed. ‘I’m a qualified psychist! I happen to be assigned to Area Control and -’
‘How old are you ?’
Garrick scowled. ‘Twenty-four.’
Roosenburg nodded. ‘Um. Rather young,’ he observed. ‘Maybe you don’t remember how things used to be.’
Garrick said dangerously, ‘All the information I need is on that tape. I don’t need any lectures from you.’
Roosenburg pursed his lips and got up. ‘Come here a minute, will you?’
He moved over to the rail of the sun deck and pointed. ‘See those things down there?’
Garrick looked. Twenty storeys down the village straggled off towards the sea in a tangle of pastel oblongs and towers. Over the bay the hills of the mainland were faintly visible through mist; and riding the bay, the flat white floats of the solar receptors.
‘It’s a power plant. That what you mean?’
Roosenburg boomed, ‘A power plant. All the power the world can ever use, out of this one and all the others, all over the world.’ He peered out at the bobbing floats, soaking up energy from the sun. ‘And people used to try to wreck them,’ he said.
Garrick said stiffly: ‘I may only be twenty-four years old, Mr. Roosenburg, but I have completed school.’
‘Oh, yes. Oh, of course you have, Roger. But maybe schooling isn’t the same thing as living through a time like that. I grew up in the Era of Plenty, when the law was: Consume. My parents were poor, and I still remember the misery of my childhood. Eat and consume, wear and use. I never had a moment’s peace, Roger! For the very poor it was a treadmill; we had to consume so much that we could never catch up, and the farther we fell behind, the more the Ration Board forced on us -’
Roger Garrick said: ‘That’s ancient history, Mr. Roosenburg. Morey Fry liberated us from all that.’
The girl said softly: ‘Not all of us.’
The man with the golden beard nodded. ‘Not all of us. As you should know, Roger, being a psychist.’
Garrick sat up straight, and Roosenburg went on: ‘Fry showed us that the robots could help at both ends - by making, by consuming. But it came a little late for some of us. The patterns of childhood - they linger on.’
Kathryn Pender leaned towards Garrick. ‘What he’s trying to say, Mr. Garrick - we’ve got a compulsive consumer on our hands.’
3
North Guardian Island - nine miles away. It wasn’t as much as a mile wide, and not much more than that in length. But it had its city and its bathing beaches, its parks and theatres. It was possibly the most densely populated island in the world ... for the number of its inhabitants.
The President of the Council convened their afternoon meeting in a large and lavish room. There were nineteen councilmen around a lustrous mahogany table. Over the President’s shoulder the others could see the situation map of North Guardian and the areas surrounding. North Guardian glowed blue, cool, impregnable. The sea was misty green; the mainland, Fisherman’s Island, South Guardian and the rest of the little archipelago were a hot and hostile red.
Little flickering fingers of red attacked the blue. Flick, and a ruddy flame wiped out a corner of a beach; flick, and a red spark appeared in the middle of the city, to grow and blossom, and then to die. Each little red whip-flick was a point where, momentarily, the defenses of the island were down; but always and always, the cool blue brightened around the red, and drowned it.
The President was tall, stooped, old. It wore glasses, though robot eyes saw well enough without. It said, in a voice that throbbed with power and pride: ‘The first item of the order of business will be a report of the Defence Secretary.’
The Defence Secretary rose to its feet, hooked a thumb in its vest and cleared its throat. ‘Mr. President -’
‘Excuse me, sir.’ A whisper from the sweet-faced young blonde taking down the minutes of the meeting. ‘Mr. Trumie has just left Bowling Green, heading north,’
The President nodded stiffly, like the crown of an old redwood nodding. ‘You may proceed, Mr. Secretary,’ it said after a moment.
‘Our invasion fleet,’ began the Secretary, in its high, clear voice, ‘is ready for sailing on the first suitable tide. Certain units have been, ah, inactivated, at the, ah, instigation of Mr. Trumie, but on the whole repairs have been completed and the units will be serviceable within the next few hours.’ Its lean, attractive face turned solemn. ‘I am afraid, however, that the Air Command has sustained certain, ah, increments of attrition - due, I should emphasize, to chances involved in certain calculated risks-’
‘Question, question!’ It was the Commissioner of Public Safety, small, dark, fire-eyed, angry.
‘Mr. Commissioner?’ the President began, but it was interrupted again by the soft whisper of the recording stenographer, listening intently to the earphones that brought news from outside.
‘Mr. President,’ it whispered, ‘Mr. Trumie has passed the Navy Yard.’ The robots turned to look at the situation map. Bowling Green, though it smouldered in spots, had mostly gone back to blue. But the jagged oblong of the Yard flared red and bright. There was a faint electronic hum in the air, almost a sigh.