Paycheck. Part 21

Carl seated himself and grabbed for the plate of lamb chops. Then he recollected, and daintily selected a small one, and a tiny portion of peas. 'I'm hungry,' he admitted, 'but not too hungry.' He ate carefully, quietly.

Walsh gazed at him dumbfounded. 'What the h.e.l.l happened?' he demanded. 'Your hair - and your teeth and breath. What did you do?' What did you do?'

Without looking up, Carl answered, 'Party tactics. We're beating a strategical retreat. In the face of this Amendment, there's no point in doing something foolhardy. h.e.l.l, we don't intend to get slaughtered.' He sipped some lukewarm coffee. 'As a matter of fact, we've gone underground.'

Walsh slowly lowered his fork. 'You mean you're not going to fight?'

'h.e.l.l, no. It's suicide.' Carl glanced furtively around. 'Now listen to me. I'm completely in conformity with the provisions of the Horney Amendment; n.o.body can pin a thing on me. When the cops come snooping around, keep your mouths shut. The Amendment gives the right to recant, and that's technically what we've done. We're clean; they can't touch us. But let's just not say anything.' He displayed a small blue card. 'A Purist members.h.i.+p card. Backdated; we planned for any eventuality.'

'Oh, Carl!' Betty cried delightedly. 'I'm so glad. You look just - wonderful wonderful!'

Walsh said nothing.

'What's the matter?' Betty demanded. 'Isn't this what you wanted? You didn't want them to fight and kill each other-' Her voice rose shrilly. 'Won't anything satisfy you? This is what you wanted and you're still dissatisfied. What on earth more do you want?'

There was noise below the unit. Carl sat up straight, and for an instant color left his face. He would have begun sweating if it were still possible. 'That's the conformity police,' he said thickly. 'Just sit tight; they'll make a routine check and keep on going.'

'Oh dear,' Betty gasped. 'I hope they don't break anything. Maybe I better go and freshen up.'

'Just sit still,' Carl grated. 'There's no reason for them to suspect anything.'

When the door opened, Jimmy stood dwarfed by the green-tinted conformity police.

'There he is!' Jimmy shrilled, indicating Carl. 'He's a Naturalist official! Smell Smell him!' him!'

The police spread efficiently into the room. Standing around the immobile Carl, they examined him briefly, then moved away. 'No body odor,' the police sergeant disagreed. 'No halitosis. Hair thick and well-groomed.' He signalled, and Carl obediently opened his mouth. 'Teeth white, totally brushed. Nothing nonacceptable. No, this man is all right.'

Jimmy glared furiously at Carl. 'Pretty smart.'

Carl picked stoically at his plate of food and ignored the boy and the police.

'Apparently we've broken the core of Naturalist resistance,' the sergeant said into his neck-phone. 'At least in this area there's no organized opposition.'

'Good,' the phone answered. 'Your area was a stronghold. We'll go ahead and set up the compulsory purification machinery, though. It should be implemented as soon as possible.'

One of the cops turned his attention to Don Walsh. His nostrils twitched and then a harsh, oblique expression settled over his face. 'What's your name?' he demanded.

Walsh gave his name.

The police came cautiously around him. 'Body odor,' one noted. 'But hair fully restored and groomed. Open your mouth.'

Walsh opened his mouth.

'Teeth clean and white. But-' The cop sniffed. 'Faint halitosis ... stomach variety. I don't get it. Is he a Naturalist or isn't he?'

'He's not a Purist,' the sergeant said. 'No Purist would have body odor. So he must be a Naturalist.'

Jimmy pushed forward. 'This man,' he explained, 'is only a fellow hiker. He's not a party member.'

'You know him?'

'He's - related to me,' Jimmy admitted.

The police took notes. 'He's been playing around with Naturalists, but he hasn't gone the whole way?'

'He's on the fence,' Jimmy agreed. 'A quasi-Naturalist. He can be salvaged; this shouldn't be a criminal case.'

'Remedial action,' the sergeant noted. 'All right, Walsh,' he addressed Walsh. 'Get your things and let's go. The Amendment provides compulsory purification for your type of person; let's not waste time.'

Walsh hit the sergeant in the jaw.

The sergeant sprawled foolishly, arms flapping, dazed with disbelief. The cops drew their guns hysterically and milled around the room shouting and knocking into each other. Betty began to scream wildly. Jimmy's shrill voice was lost in the general uproar.

Walsh grabbed up a table lamp and smashed it over a cop's head. The lights in the apartment flickered and died out; the room was a chaos of yelling blackness. Walsh encountered a body; he kicked with his knee and with a groan of pain the body settled down. For a moment he was lost in the seething din; then his fingers found the door. He pried it open and scrambled out into the public corridor.

One shape followed, as Walsh reached the descent lift. 'Why?' 'Why?' Jimmy wailed unhappily. 'I had it all fixed - you didn't have to worry!' Jimmy wailed unhappily. 'I had it all fixed - you didn't have to worry!'

His thin, metallic voice faded as the lift plunged down the well to the ground floor. Behind Walsh, the police were coming cautiously out into the hall; the sound of their boots echoed dismally after him.

He examined his watch. Probably, he had fifteen or twenty minutes. They'd get him, then; it was inevitable. Taking a deep breath, he stepped from the lift and as calmly as possible walked down the dark, deserted commercial corridor, between the rows of black store-entrances.

Charley was lit up and animate when Walsh entered the ante-chamber. Two men were waiting, and a third was being interviewed. But at the sight of the expression on Walsh's face the robot waved him instantly in.

'What is it, Don?' it asked seriously, indicating a chair. 'Sit down and tell me what's on your mind.'

Walsh told it.

When he was finished, the a.n.a.lyst sat back and gave a low, soundless whistle. 'That's a felony, Don. They'll freeze you for that; it's a provision of the new Amendment.'

'I know,' Walsh agreed. He felt no emotion. For the first time in years the ceaseless swirl of feelings and thoughts had been purged from his mind. He was a little tired and that was all.

The robot shook its head. 'Well, Don, you're finally off the fence. That's something, at least; you're finally moving.' It reached thoughtfully into the top drawer of its desk and got out a pad. 'Is the police pick-up van here, yet?'

'I heard sirens as I came in the ante-room. It's on its way.'

The robot's metal fingers drummed restlessly on the surface of the big mahogany desk. 'Your sudden release of inhibition marks the moment of psychological integration. You're not undecided anymore, are you?'

'No,' Walsh said.

'Good. Well, it had to come sooner or later. I'm sorry it had to come this way, though.'

'I'm not,' Walsh said. 'This was the only way possible. It's clear to me, now. Being undecided isn't necessarily a negative thing. Not seeing anything in slogans and organized parties and beliefs and dying can be a belief worth dying for, in itself. I thought I was without a creed ... now I realize I have a very strong creed.'

The robot wasn't listening. It scribbled something on its pad, signed it, and then expertly tore it off. 'Here.' It handed the paper briskly to Walsh.

'What's this?' Walsh demanded.

'I don't want anything to interfere with your therapy. You're finally coming around - and we want to keep moving.' The robot got quickly to its feet. 'Good luck, Don. Show that to the police; if there's any trouble have them call me.'

The slip was a voucher from the Federal Psychiatric Board. Walsh turned it over numbly. 'You mean this'll get me off?'

'You were acting compulsively; you weren't responsible. There'll be a cursory examination, of course, but nothing to worry about.' The robot slapped him good-naturedly on the back. 'It was your final neurotic act ... now you're free. That was the pent-up stuff; strictly a symbolic a.s.sertion of libido - with no political significance.'

'I see,' Walsh said.

The robot propelled him firmly toward the external exit. 'Now go on out there and give the slip to them.' From its metal chest the robot popped a small bottle. 'And take one of these capsules before you go to sleep. Nothing serious, just a mild sedative to quiet your nerves. Everything will be all right; I'll expect to see you again, soon. And keep this in mind: we're finally making some real progress.'

Walsh found himself outside in the night darkness. A police van was pulled up at the entrance of the unit, a vast ominous black shape against the dead sky. A crowd of curious people had collected at a safe distance, trying to make out what was going on.

Walsh automatically put the bottle of pills away in his coat pocket. He stood for a time breathing the chill night air, the cold clear smell of darkness and evening. Above his head a few bright pale stars glittered remotely.

'Hey,' one of the policemen shouted. He flashed his light suspiciously in Walsh's face. 'Come over here.'

'That looks like him,' another said. 'Come on, buddy. Make it snappy.'

Walsh brought out the voucher Charley had given him. 'I'm coming,' he answered. As he walked up to the policeman he carefully tore the paper to shreds and tossed the shreds to the night wind. The wind picked the shreds up and scattered them away.

'What the h.e.l.l did you do?' one of the cops demanded.

'Nothing,' Walsh answered. 'I just threw away some waste paper. Something I won't be needing.'

'What a strange one this one is,' a cop muttered, as they froze Walsh with their cold beams. 'He gives me the creeps.'

'Be glad we don't get more like him,' another said. 'Except for a few guys like this, everything's going fine.'

Walsh's inert body was tossed in the van and the doors slammed shut. Disposal machinery immediately began consuming his body and reducing it to basic mineral elements. A moment later, the van was on its way to the next call.

Autofac

I.

Tension hung over the three waiting men. They smoked, paced back and forth, kicked aimlessly at weeds growing by the side of the road. A hot noonday sun glared down on brown fields, rows of neat plastic houses, the distant line of mountains to the west.

'Almost time,' Earl Perine said, knotting his skinny hands together. 'It varies according to the load, a half second for every additional pound.'

Bitterly, Morrison answered, 'You've got it plotted? You're as bad as it is. Let's pretend it just happens happens to be late.' to be late.'

The third man said nothing. O'Neill was visiting from another settlement; he didn't know Perine and Morrison well enough to argue with them. Instead, he crouched down and arranged the papers clipped to his aluminum check-board. In the blazing sun, O'Neill's arms were tanned, furry, glistening with sweat. Wiry, with tangled gray hair, horn-rimmed gla.s.ses, he was older than the other two. He wore slacks, a sports s.h.i.+rt and crepe-soled shoes. Between his fingers, his fountain pen glittered, metallic and efficient.

'What're you writing?' Perine grumbled.

'I'm laying out the procedure we're going to employ,' O'Neill said mildly. 'Better to systemize it now, instead of trying at random. We want to know what we tried and what didn't work. Otherwise we'll go around in a circle. The problem we have here is one of communication; that's how I see it.'

'Communication,' Morrison agreed in his deep, chesty voice. 'Yes, we can't get in touch with the d.a.m.n thing. It comes, leaves off its load and goes on - there's no contact between us and it.'

'It's a machine,' Perine said excitedly. 'It's dead - blind and deaf.'

'But it's in contact with the outside world,' O'Neill pointed out. 'There has to be some way to get to it. Specific semantic signals are meaningful to it; all we have to do is find those signals. Rediscover, actually. Maybe half a dozen out of a billion possibilities.'

A low rumble interrupted the three men. They glanced up, wary and alert. The time had come.

'Here it is,' Perine said. 'Okay, wise guy, let's see you make one single change in its routine.'

The truck was ma.s.sive, rumbling under its tightly packed load. In many ways, it resembled conventional human-operated transportation vehicles, but with one exception - there was no driver's cabin. The horizontal surface was a loading stage, and the part that would normally be the headlights and radiator grill was a fibrous spongelike ma.s.s of receptors, the limited sensory apparatus of this mobile utility extension.

Aware of the three men, the truck slowed to a halt, s.h.i.+fted gears and pulled on its emergency brake. A moment pa.s.sed as relays moved into action; then a portion of the loading surface tilted and a cascade of heavy cartons spilled down onto the roadway. With the objects fluttered a detailed inventory sheet.

'You know what to do,' O'Neill said rapidly. 'Hurry up, before it gets out of here.'

Expertly, grimly, the three men grabbed up the deposited cartons and ripped the protective wrappers from them. Objects gleamed: a binocular microscope, a portable radio, heaps of plastic dishes, medical supplies, razor blades, clothing, food. Most of the s.h.i.+pment, as usual, was food. The three men systematically began smas.h.i.+ng objects. In a few minutes, there was nothing but a chaos of debris littered around them.

'That's that,' O'Neill panted, stepping back. He fumbled for his checksheet. 'Now let's see what it does.'

The truck had begun to move away; abruptly it stopped and backed toward them. Its receptors had taken in the fact that the three men had demolished the dropped-off portion of the load. It spun in a grinding half circle and came around to face its receptor bank in their direction. Up went its antenna; it had begun communicating with the factory. Instructions were on the way.

A second, identical load was tilted and shoved off the truck.

'We failed,' Perine groaned as a duplicate inventory sheet fluttered after the new load. 'We destroyed all that stuff for nothing.'

'What now?' Morrison asked O'Neill. 'What's the next strategem on our board?'

'Give me a hand.' O'Neill grabbed up a carton and lugged it back to the truck. Sliding the carton onto the platform, he turned for another. The other two men followed clumsily after him. They put the load back onto the truck. As the truck started forward, the last square box was again in place.

The truck hesitated. Its receptors registered the return of its load. From within its works came a low sustained buzzing.

'This may drive it crazy,' O'Neill commented, sweating. 'It went through its operation and accomplished nothing.'

The truck made a short, abortive move toward going on. Then it swung purposefully around and, in a blur of speed, again dumped the load onto the road.

'Get them!' O'Neill yelled. The three men grabbed up the cartons and feverishly reloaded them. But as fast as the cartons were shoved back on the horizontal stage, the truck's grapples tilted them down its far-side ramps and onto the road.

'No use,' Morrison said, breathing hard. 'Water through a sieve.'

'We're licked,' Perine gasped in wretched agreement, 'like always. We humans lose every time.'

The truck regarded them calmly, its receptors blank and impa.s.sive. It was doing its job. The planetwide network of automatic factories was smoothly performing the task imposed on it five years before, in the early days of the Total Global Conflict.

'There it goes,' Morrison observed dismally. The truck's antenna had come down; it s.h.i.+fted into low gear and released its parking brake.

'One last try,' O'Neill said. He swept up one of the cartons and ripped it open. From it he dragged a tengallon milk tank and unscrewed the lid. 'Silly as it seems.'

'This is absurd,' Perine protested. Reluctantly, he found a cup among the littered debris and dipped it into the milk. 'A kid's game!'