I, the discontent, the unjunked, live here in Rosewood Park, among the dogwood and myrtle, the headstones and broken angels, with Fritz—another legend—in our deep and peaceful mausoleum.
Fritz is a vampire, which is a terrible and tragic thing. He is so undernourished that he can no longer move about, but he cannot die either, so he lies in his casket and dreams of times gone by. One day, he will ask me to carry him outside into the sunlight, and I will watch him shrivel and dim into peace and nothingness and dust. I hope he does not ask me soon.
We talk. At night, when the moon is full and he feels strong enough, he tells me of his better days, in placescalled Austria and Hungary, where he, too, was feared and hunted.
"... But only a stainless steel leech can get blood out of a stone—or a robot," he said last night. "It is a proud and lonely thing to be a stainless steel leech—you are possibly the only one of your kind in existence. Live up to your reputation! Hound theml Drain theml Leave your mark on a thousand steel throatsl"
And he was right. He is always right. And he knows more about these things than I.
"Kenningtoni" his thin, bloodless lips smiled. "Oh, what a duel we fought! He was the last man on earth, and I the last vampire. For ten years I tried to drain him. I got at him twice, but he was from the Old Country and knew what precautions to take. Once he learned of my existence, he issued a wooden stake to every robot—but I had forty-two graves in those days and they never found me. They did come close, though....
"But at night, ah, at night!" he chuckled. "Then things were reversed! I was the hunter and he the preyl
"I remember his frantic questing after the last few sprays of garlic and wolfsbane on earth, the crucifix assembly lines he kept in operation around the clock— irreligious soul that he was! I was genuinely sorry when he died, in peace. Not so much because I hadn't gotten to drain him properly, but because he was a worthy opponent and a suitable antagonist. What a game we played!"
His husky voice weakened.
"He sleeps a scant three hundred paces from here, bleaching and dry. His is the great marble tomb by the gate... . Please gather roses tomorrow and place them upon it."
I agreed that I would, for there is a closer kinship between the two of us than between myself and any 'hot, despite the dictates of resemblance. And I must keep my word, before this day passes into evening and although there are searchers above, for such is the law of my nature.
"Damn them! (He taught me that word.) Damn them!" I say. "I'm coming up! Beware, gentle *bots! I shall walk among you and you shall not know me. I shall Join in the search, and you will think I am one of you. Ishall gather the red flowers for dead Kennington, rubbing shoulders with you, and Fritz will smile at the joke."
I climb the cracked and hollow steps, the east already Spilling twilight, and the sun half-Udded in the west I emerge.
The roses live on the wall across the road. From great twisting tubes of vine, with heads brighter than any rust, they bum like danger lights on a control panel, but moistly.
One, two, three roses for Kennington. Four, five...
**What are you doing, 'hot?" "Gathering roses."
**You are supposed to be searching for the werebot Has something damaged you?"
**No, I'm all right," I say, and I fix him where he stands, by bumping against bis shoulder. The circuit completed, I drain his vile-box until I am filled.
'Tfou are the wereboti" he intones weakly.
He falls with a crash.
... Six, seven, eight roses for Kennington, dead Kennington, dead as the *bot at my feet—more dead— for he once lived a full, organic life, nearer to Fritz's or my own than to theirs.
"What happened here, •hot?" '
"He is stopped, and I am picking roses," I tell them.
There are four *bots and an Over.
"It is time you left this place," I say. "Shortly it will be night and the werebot will walk. Leave, or he will end you."
"You stopped himi" says the Over. "You are the wereboti"
I bunch all the flowers against my chest with one arm and turn to face them. The Over, a large special-order *bot, moves toward me. Others are approaching from all directions. He had sent out a call.
"You are a strange and terrible thing," he is saying, and you must be junked, for the sake of the community."
He seizes me and I drop Kennington's flowers.
I cannot drain him. My coils are already loaded near their capacity, and he is specially insulated.
There are dozens around me now, fearing and hating. They will junk me and I will lie beside Kennington.
**Rust in peace," they will say. ... I am sony that I cannot keep my promise to Fritz."Release himi"
No! It is shrouded and moldering Fritz in the doorway of the mausoleum, swaying, clutching at the stone. He always knows....
"Release himi I, a human, order it"
He is ashen and gasping, and the sunlight is doing awful things to him.
—The ancient circuits click and suddenly I am free. "Yes, master," says the Over. "We did not know. ., .*'
"Seize that robotF
He points a shaking emaciated finger at him. "He is the werebot," he gasps. "Destroy biro! The one gathering flowers was obeying my orders. Leave him here with me." He falls to his knees and the final darts of day pierce his flesh.
"And got All the rest of you! QuicklyI It is my order that no robot ever enter another graveyard againi"
He collapses within and I know that now there are only bones and bits of rotted shroud on the doorstep of our home.
Pritz has had his final joke—a human masquerade.
I take the roses to Kennington, as the silent *bots file out through the gate forever, bearing the unprotesting Overbot with them. I place the roses at the foot of the monument—Kennington's and Fritz's—the monument of the last, strange, truly living ones.
Now only I remain unjunked.
In the final light of the sun I see them drive a stake through the Over's vite-box and bury him at the crossroads.
Then they hurry back toward their towers of steel, of plastic. I gather up what remains of Fritz and carry him down to his box. The bones are brittle and silent.
. . , It is a very proud and very lonely thing to be a stainless steel leech.
A THING OF TERRIBLE BEAUTY
I rather liked this one when I wrote it, but I don't remember why or how I came to write it. Perhaps Hamson Denmark had taken on a life of his own. Perhaps he's that gentleman I see walking along Bishop's Lodge Road every day, sometimes in both directions....
How like a god of the Epicureans is the audience, at a time like this! Powerless to alter the course of events, yet better informed than the characters, they might rise to their feet and cry out, "Do not!"—but the blinding of Oedipus would still ensue, and the inevitable knot in Jocasta*s scarlet would stop her breathing still.
But no one rises, of course. They know better. They, too, are inevitably secured by the strange bonds of the tragedy. The gods can only observe and know, they cannot alter circumstance, nor wrestle with ananke.
My host is already anticipating the thing he calls "catharsis." My search has carried me far, and my choice was a good one. Phillip Devers lives in the theater like a worm lives in an apple, a paralytic in an iron lung. It is his world.
And I live in Phillip Devers.
For ten years his ears and eyes have been my ears and eyes. For ten years I have tasted the sensitive preceptions of a great critic of the drama, and he has never known it He has come close—his mind is agile, his imagination vivid—but his classically trained intellect is too strong, his familiarity with psychopathology too intimate to permit that final leap from logic to intuition, and an admission of my existence. At times, before he drops off to sleep, he toys with the thought of attempting communication, but the next morning he always rejects it—which is well. What could we possibly have to say to one another?