New Writings in SF 18 - [Anthology] Read online

  VanGeorge instinctively held his breath. Helen hadn’t seen Robert in nearly a year. How would she greet him ? As friend? Or as beloved? Surely Robert must perceive her fragile passion? And how would he handle the situation without jeopardising his outrageous secret ?

  It was not Helen who greeted Robert. It was Robert who greeted Helen. He stepped down, with a sudden quickness, and before she could realise what he was doing, had lifted her high in the air with his broad hands around her waist. VanGeorge saw that she was laughing, kicking her legs playfully, emotionally on the verge of tears.

  Moments later they had disappeared through the terminal doors and VanGeorge did not hurry to follow. He looked at the glow in the west. The sky was purple now, with the evening star twinkling coldly to the left of the dark shadow of the Humanity Tower. Above the Tower was the full face of the moon. A shimmering blue-white ghost, brilliant, casting a pale sheet of light over the city. He had confirmed the truth: Helen loved Robert.

  When Don VanGeorge arrived at his office a few minutes later twenty floors under the roof he hadn’t seen the couple anywhere in the Cybernetics Department of Division, but he had noticed the significance of the closed door to Helen’s office. He had never seen that door closed before. With a heightening sense of repugnance he made a quick decision, shut his own door, and switched on his intercom into her office. He activated only the sound, not the picture, so there would be no small warning light nor buzz in the other room. He sat down, putting a candy mint in his mouth, and listened.

  ‘Of course I missed you.’ That was Robert’s voice. Resonant yet quiet, a monotone which nevertheless conveyed the nuances of his thoughts and feelings, a thoroughly remarkable voice, thought VanGeorge, considering who Robert really was.

  ‘I must ask that, Robert.’ Helen’s voice, although feminine, had that same quiet quality of the intellectual mind in the mature body which underscored every word. ‘This past year has been very lonely for me. My feelings for you have deepened.’

  ‘Although I know it’s true—for both of us—we cannot admit it, Helen. Not even to ourselves.’

  ‘But why not ? I’m not thinking of the future. I’m thinking of the past. Our past. That can’t hurt the precious project...’

  ‘We must, nevertheless, think of the future. Your future. And your father’s. Time for personal dreams is gone.’ There was a long pause.

  ‘It’s settled, then. You are making the trip!’

  ‘So ... Your father told you at last ... Now you understand.’

  VanGeorge clearly heard Helen’s involuntary sob. .

  ‘You’ll never survive. Everyone knows that. You’ll be the first, and the first man will never come back. Oh, I know it sounds as though I’m talking against the whole project but it’s the truth and I can’t help myself. I don’t want you to go out into space and die. I know I shouldn’t think of the future, but I love you too much. There! It’s said! I love you! Nothing else really matters.’

  ‘I must go, Helen. You know that.’

  ‘Not without a chance! Must you sacrifice yourself? We’re not savages! Let a machine do it! Hold me, Robert, hold me!’

  VanGeorge heard swishing of clothes, the squeaking of Robert’s plastic boots on the polished floor, the sounds of bodies embracing. He had heard enough. The reality was obscene. A pretty, human female was in love with a handsome, inhuman robot!

  VanGeorge savagely clicked off the intercom switch, his extreme indignation tempered by embarrassment. He cursed himself for his self-righteousness and banged around the room. ‘For God’s sake,’ he said aloud, with bitterness, ‘is the star trip worth it? Robert’s too valuable! Helen’s too involved! She’s unhappy! I’m unhappy! Even Robert the Robot is unhappy! And we call ourselves The Happy Society! Let’s get on with the whole bloody mess ... !’

  He stormed out of the room and in front of Helen’s door he knocked loudly. ‘We’re due at the meeting! Are you ready?’

  * * * *

  In the hall, when the two came out, he made his greeting to Robert as warm as possible, which wasn’t difficult because he really liked Robert very much despite what he was. Damn it all, Robert was practically human—Helen was a mature woman with superior brains—what the hell was he, VanGeorge, so upset about when the melodrama would be over in a couple of hours ? Besides, he suddenly had to concede, perhaps Professor Haines had exaggerated! No conclusive proof had ever been demonstrated—Robert could be just a re-built human being, a sophisticated revivification, instead of a robot! Maybe. Just maybe.

  ‘Look, Doctor,’ Helen was saying enthusiastically, as they made their way down the elevator towards the meeting room, ‘see what Robert has brought for me!’ She held up a large loose-leaf binder, thick with pages and insertions. ‘He’s given me a whole year! The things he wanted to share with me while we weren’t together he’s put in this. And he’s made little drawings and he’s written all kinds of appropriate sentiments, the pages even have just the right colours and aromas and with talking photographs and stress plates with musical selections. A whole world we shared together while we were apart.’ All the time she was turning over pages, pointing at the details with delight and laughing excitedly.

  ‘How thoughtful!’ VanGeorge said. ‘I’ve always thought personal communication should utilise the art of the collage.’ Helen was soaking up his comments, yearning for exuberant affirmation of her own feelings. He had to give her more. ‘Robert has always been an artist at thoughtfulness. Yes, he’s very clever.’

  Robert didn’t seem embarrassed by Helen’s adolescent fervency. His eyes were wide and blue and inscrutable. He kept straightening his tunic and flattening the lines of his pantaloons at his waist and thighs and touching fastidiously the buttoned top of his collar where it brushed his chin. Although Helen chattered away merrily, Robert kept to his usual taciturnity, and VanGeorge could see that they were both troubled. There was a strain between them all and it was growing, almost in direct ratio to the rapid approach of the conference so as to suggest the rupture would unavoidably come then. He could understand Helen—she was a woman. Especially she was an unmarried woman who was maternal and who had been practically a sister to Robert—even a mother. As for Robert, VanGeorge had found him bewildering until Doctor Haines himself had explained, although the explanation in many ways confused instead of clarified the situation. Ten years ago Robert had been shy and sensitive, yet utterly self-controlled. Last year he had begun to show an emotional breakdown and the doctor had been forced to continue Robert’s training among the scientists and technicians of the impersonal research facilities of Aerospace Dynamics. With his departure everyone had seemed helped—recognising at the same time that nothing had been changed or cured and that the day was coming when they would all be facing their personal relationships again under the most extreme of circumstances.

  They entered the elevator and dropped seventy stories in silence. At the Communications Level they walked across the marble floor to the private elevator to the persona] laboratory of the head of the department, virtually the home of Doctor Haines for the past twenty years.

  As they were going up, VanGeorge decided to ease the tension of silence which had enveloped them and at the same time prepare them for the ordeal which was to come.

  ‘Well, what we’ve been preparing for is almost here. Ten years for me. Seven, for the newest member of the team. Over two decades for your father, Helen. ‘Sbeen a long time. And all during that time we’ve had our eyes fixed on our one goal—the starship.’ That wasn’t exactly a lie. After all, however important Robert had been over the years he had always been part of the starship experiment. ‘Robert has always been an important part of our plans, we all know that, but now he is the most important part. Everything we do must go towards his success.’

  Helen’s transient light-heartedness faded away to solemnity.

  They walked out into the white corridor, down the hall, and into the outer-room of the cybernetics department. Brockton and Doctor
Haines were sunk in the soft contour chairs, talking. They looked up when the three of them entered, Brockton at Helen and the doctor at Robert.

  The room was large, a huge window in the far wall framing the view of the city. The indirect lighting cast no shadows on the department apparatus and filing cabinets lining the left wall, nor any highlights on the metal bodies of the robots on racks along the right wall. The only bright and lively colours in the room came from Helen’s low-walled cubicle. There on her desk, next to her unfinished portrait of Robert, was the vase of perma-fixed flowers he had sent to her a month ago. VanGeorge looked at the painting on its aluminium easel, seeing more clearly now how impassionately she had limned the face and eyes to the neglect of all other features.

  Brockton was flashing his famous smile at Helen as the three of them sat down, Robert next to her on a couch, close but not touching. Brockton’s lean, browned face was pleasant, yet it had a trace of worry, VanGeorge felt, and the man’s muscular fingers were drumming nervously against his bare knees which thrust themselves out of the starched khaki shorts. Despite there never having been a romance between Brockton and Helen, that handsome egoist had always treated her like a possessive guardian or a condescending husband. Perhaps the reason was that he simply didn’t know how to express his genuine concern and affection.

  Dr. Haines had stepped back away from Robert after his soft, intense private words of greeting and had taken a limp leather notebook from the breast pocket of his tunic and was thumbing through it. He found his place and looked up seriously at Robert. ‘I haven’t seen you in a week,’ he said. *I suppose Helen has warned you not to go.’ His small brown goatee jutted out belligerently, but his eyes were warm with affection.

  Robert didn’t reply immediately, so Helen said, ‘Yes. What you propose is inhuman.’

  Brockton made a gurgling noise and VanGeorge had an overwhelming impulse to break out in some fierce sardonic laughter. Helen was so incredibly, stupidly naive—he was doing right to try to protect her. ‘How did you find out?’ Brockton added with heavy irony in his tone. When both VanGeorge and Dr. Haines looked at him sharply, he said, ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be here. This is a family affair, sort of, so if you’d like Don and me to leave we will certainly understand.’ Don VanGeorge, mildly startled, could only nod his agreement.

  ‘Of course not,’ Dr. Haines said, mildly.

  ‘Nonsense, Brock,’ Helen said simultaneously. ‘You and Doctor Don are part of the family too. I’ve known all along what Robert’s role would be. It’s just that now the time has come I don’t think it’s a good idea.’

  ‘I’m ... sorry. Very sorry,’ Brockton said and shifted his glance to Robert. There was a compassionate sincerity to his words which was immensely depressing.

  Dr. Haines said, ‘The only thing we’re here to discuss is the flight, that’s all, not Robert.’

  ‘Well, then. Dad, that’s the trouble,’ Helen said, ‘I think you should recognise you’ve put Robert in the position after all these years of not being able to say “no”. We all know there are doubts about the wisdom of the project. Why do we have to have such secrecy? We’ve lived with the idea so long we don’t realise how fantastic it is.’

  ‘You’re right, Helen! Absolutely! This is the last chance to avoid failure!’ Brockton was looking directly at Dr. Haines as he spoke. ‘This is the last chance for second thoughts. I’m willing and anxious to go—no matter how poor my survival chances seem.’

  ‘I suppose it still seems daring to you, Helen,’ her father said, ‘even after you’ve worked with us. But can you really call it fantastic?’

  ‘A trip to the stars?’ she replied. ‘I should think so!’

  ‘Not just a trip to the stars, my dear,’ he said, running his long fingers through thick brown hair, ‘—an interstellar ship with a pilot.’

  ‘But ... It’s too early for a manned-ship flight. Every research bears that out. The trip will take a lifetime. The pilot is certain to die.’

  Brockton said, ‘Oh!’ so explosively that they all frowned and looked at him quizzically. He shut his mouth firmly and flushed and looked at the floor. How he had ever kept Robert’s secret from her in the last few years was beyond VanGeorge’s understanding.

  Dr. Haines was sadly displeased with Helen. He tapped his notebook, cleared his throat and said, ‘I know you’re my daughter, Helen, but you’re strictly my secretarial assistant here in cybernetics. All factors are carefully calculated in our plans and you know this. We cannot afford sentiment.’ He clenched and unclenched his jaws. ‘Robert can always change his mind, I’m sure Brock will be ready, but the schedule calls for Robert to leave by eleven o’clock tonight. As we know, the starship has been in a parking orbit around the moon for a week.’

  ‘I know you don’t think sentiment belongs in this place.’ Helen’s face was white, but her voice was unchanged. ‘Someone has to think that way about Robert.’

  Brockton ponderously cleared his throat. ‘You mustn’t!’ he said. It was a command.

  ‘You can’t order me what not to feel. Brock!’

  Brock’s reply was almost a whisper. ‘And what do you feel, Helen? Is it love?’ The silence was harsh and agonising to VanGeorge. He hardly dared to breathe. Brockton leaned across the way and took Helen’s shoulders in his big hands. ‘Is it love?’ he repeated. He shook her slightly, so that her body quivered under the loose, thin folds of her blouse. Then he pushed her away from him and stared at Robert who sat unmoving on the couch. There wasn’t a single wrinkle line on Robert’s youthful face, only his eyes, round and brilliant, had life.

  ‘You, Helen,’ Brockton said. ‘You love that?’

  Robert’s eyebrows went slowly up, bending into two perfect arcs and pinching the skin of his forehead into three long lines. He rose from the couch, lean and wiry, gazing up at Brockton who had also risen and was a foot taller.

  ‘Don’t lose your temper, Brock.’

  ‘I’m disgusted, Robert. Disgusted and revolted. Why didn’t you tell her?’ Brockton reached out quickly, grasping Robert’s left ear, and seemed to try to tear it off his head.

  Robert knocked up Brockton’s arm and stepped back. When Helen stood beside Robert and sympathetically made a caressing gesture over Robert’s violated ear, Brockton was infuriated and swung his fist at Robert’s jaw. Robert dodged and with his own open right hand pushed Brockton’s head back so violently that the man crashed against the couch and flipped over it to the floor.

  Before Brockton could get up, VanGeorge pulled Robert into the next room, Helen right behind.

  ‘I’m sorry, Doctor Don,’ Robert said.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ the older man replied.

  ‘I have to tell her, Don. She has to know and it has to be me to tell her.’

  When VanGeorge didn’t reply, Robert turned to her. VanGeorge looked at the row of M-5 robots standing against the far wall.

  ‘Helen, you do not love me.’ A weird rattle distorted his voice. She swung her eyes nervously across his face.

  ‘Helen, you must not love me.’ His hands were moving back and forth as though he had no control over them.

  ‘Helen, I like you.’ His hands continued their aimless rhythm, back and forth, and she seemed hypnotised and dumb.

  ‘Helen, as much as possible, I care for you. But, ah, there’s a conflict point, we’ve got to consider, the homeostasis, the ontogenetic, that is, my training, ah.’ The rattle was in his voice again. He stopped moving, awkwardly holding his arms in place as if paralysed.

  He began again.’ ‘I have always been truthful...

  Dr. Don VanGeorge began to have some second thoughts. At first he had believed that Helen should be told. He had always believed, right back at the start, years ago when he had met Robert, that Helen should not have been the only one forbidden the knowledge. She, of all of them, should not have been deceived. But now, in the last few seconds, VanGeorge was suddenly unsure; there would only be another twelve hours. Robert cou
ld leave. Helen would better bear the tragic role of frustrated lover than of outraged simpleton.

  ‘Helen, you must suspect the truth...’ Robert lowered his hands stiffly to his belt and hooked them there. ‘Surely you must know.’ He paused and turned his head away from her. ‘It’s nothing new. You’ve worked here. You know your father. Cybernetics. Professor Haines has progressed far since the days of Wiener of MIT and Aiken of Harvard. I don’t have to explain cybernetics to you, do I?’

  She shut her eyes. Behind VanGeorge’s back he could feel the presence of the rows of de-activated robots, which to Helen must have suddenly become grotesque blurs of polished metal.

  ‘Just one moment, Robert,’ VanGeorge said. ‘You’re leaving in a matter of hours. Do you think you should go into this?’

  ‘Please, Doctor VanGeorge,’ Helen said. ‘Let Robert say what he feels he must say.’ She squared her shoulders. ‘I know this laboratory. I know my father has built many servo-mechanisms. I remember them all as stiff, mechanical curiosities. But that was years ago. Before the rules of 1988.’