Anderson, Poul - Novel 17 Read online

  He had gone only a few blocks when the crowd, in mass, suddenly turned and looked straight up at the sky. Alec, in perfect conformity, looked too. A series of block letters was forming up there, bright red against the dank gray sky. He waited, reading along with the others, until the message was complete. It wasn't a news headline. It read:

  AH TRAN IS COMING HERE SOON

  Beneath, appearing suddenly, was a huge banner: a photograph of Ah Tran himself. Alec peered deeply into the ageless features of this man who claimed to have a plan for the salvation of the human race, but the sky was too dark, the eyes too far away, the buzz of the crowd too distracting.

  He could see nothing up there he had not seen before.

  Then the walkway was moving too quickly and the message disappeared behind. Alec tucked his head into his shoulders and drifted lazily, effortlessly away.

  Seven

  Passing easily through the glass wall, Anna Richmond entered the central garden and was immediately met by a cold wind that cut like ice through the thin fabric of her gown. Holding her arms around her chest, she hurried to another place in the wall, where a dozen plastic dials were embedded in the soft wood. She turned one slightly to the left and the wind grew noticeably warmer. She touched another dial, letting her hand rest briefly, and was answered by the piercing shrieks of a flock of exotic birds. Then, the scene now properly set, she moved off into the high foliage. She stepped lightly, barely conscious of her own movements, lost in a trance. The effects of the sleeping drug Eathen had administered the night before had not wholly worn off. In particular, her toes were numb and tingly, as if asleep, and she shook her fingers constantly as she moved ever deeper into the jungle of the garden. She could walk out here without thinking in any event. She found the carefully hidden paths and followed them with knowledgeable ease. They were as familiar to her as the pattern of veins on the backs of both hands.

  She came to a place just beyond the creek where an anthill lay beneath a high willow tree. This was not her destination but, since she was here, she paused briefly and looked down at the hill. It was noticeably larger than the last time she had seen it, higher than her knees and as much as two feet across. The surface of the hill shifted constantly, the motion of the ants appearing systematic, certain, definite. She could have watched them for hours, but there simply wasn't time. What were they doing? Why were they moving? What was wrong with just sitting in the sun and enjoying the day? She laughed at herself— children asked questions like those. Adults were supposed to know the answers. What was wrong with her?

  She found another trail beyond the anthill and followed that through a narrow gate in a tall hedge. This was the place she had wanted all along—a brief expanse of cool, shaded grass. She threw herself down, opened her mouth, and made a noisy yawn.

  Directly in front of her, a round pale face materialized between the trunks of two trees.

  "Oh, there you are," she said, waving. "I didn't know if you might've gone out."

  "No," Eathen said, emerging wholly from between the trees. He came up to her, gait stiff and careful, arms held rigidly at his sides, and stood without moving. "I was waiting for you to wake up."

  "And here I am." She slapped the grass. "Sit down."

  He did---stiffly.

  "How late is it?" she asked. "I feel like I slept for hours and hours."

  "It's four minutes after noon."

  "Not so long—but I think the dose you gave me last night was too strong. I can't remember dreaming."

  "You were very nervous."

  "I was?" She shook her head. "Oh—oh, yes—now I remember. Alec. I was waiting for him. Is he home now?"

  "No."

  "He went out again already?"

  "He never came home."

  "Oh—oh, no." She broke off, gazing across the expanse to a tree, where a small silent bird hopped from frail branch to branch. "Poor Alec," she said. "Do you suppose I should phone the police? Maybe Inspector Cargill arrested him. Wouldn't that be funny? We'd have to stand bail."

  "If he had been arrested, I am sure you would have been notified."

  "True." She broke away from the hopping bird and slapped Eathen on the knee.

  "Besides, Alec didn't do it. The others did. Alec couldn't kill—not even a little bird."

  "Inspector Cargill should not be aware of the others' existence."

  "He shouldn't be—no. But he is." She nodded sharply to herself. "I'm sure he knows." She stood up, gesturing at Eathen. "But do come along."

  Eathen went with her a brief distance through the woods to the place where, the night before last, she and Alec had viewed the procession of Ah Tran through the streets of Tokyo. She recalled how angry Alec had been at the trick she had played, splicing a sculptured tape of her own into the report of the real event. She had thought it a very funny gag, even though the tape she had fashioned for herself to view hadn't worked out properly.

  She sat down on one bench and told Eathen, "You sit over there." Even though the sun above was no more real than the moon at night, the atmosphere was totally different now—as different, she thought, as day and night. After dark, there was a feeling about this place—an aura of possible fantasy—as though reality were some wraith-like spirit of the day easily discarded once nighttime fell. There was nothing like that here now: the spirit of reality floated above, refusing to be dislodged.

  "We're going to have another lesson," she told Eathen.

  "Now?" he asked.

  "It's why I brought you here. If you want to be human, you have to learn."

  "All right," he said. "Whatever you wish."

  She turned and faced the trunk of a fat tree directly behind and, with a flourish, struck the wood with a doubled fist. A small door popped open below where she had struck, revealing a set of dials embedded in a slab of steel. "Music?" she asked Eathen, past her shoulder, touching one dial lightly. "You seem to have the best response with that."

  "Whatever you wish, Anna. But—" she almost sensed a radiated anxiousness "—will this take long?"

  "I don't know." She was facing the tree, seeing if she could feel him again. "Why?"

  "I thought I should inquire concerning Alec. He has never absented himself in this fashion before."

  "Maybe he's found a friend." She was being deliberately callous. "Some fat, stupid, dense example of humanity. You know he claims to love them so much."

  "That is possible," Eathen agreed.

  "Forget about it," she said, angered that his brief radiation had been all. "Just sit back and be quiet." She turned the dial. "Here—listen."

  She turned back to find Eathen sitting so stiffly on his bench that she had to remind herself that his backbone was no different from hers or anyone's—a formation of bone and nerve and cartilage. From the way he sat, it might have been a long iron bar or a lead pipe. Alec had told her often enough that—physically at least—androids were the same as humans. Grown not born—that was the only significant difference. It was in more abstract places that the two diverged: androids lacked humor and perception, the senses of irony and perspective, most emotions. An android could not laugh or cry or feel anger or joy or sorrow. But it wasn't only emotional. Looking at Eathen she could see that. It was physical too. Anyone meeting him for the first time would know at once what he was. Eathen would not need to speak or walk or even move—they would know. Nor did androids radiate. There were no feelings inside for a Superior to detect. That was what she wanted to change: she wanted to make Eathen into a human being.

  The music was playing now. It wasn't a piece she knew—some old song—a guitar and singer. This was Alec's music—she preferred classical material herself. And not just in music either. Her preferences extended into painting and literature and film and architecture. In everything, really, except her own specialty. She couldn't prefer classical tape sculptures. There weren't any. The art form was barely a decade old.

  She became aware of an assortment of visual effects playing across the air—an
accompaniment to the music, no doubt. She looked at Eathen. His eyes were open but he seemed wholly unmoved by the music and the effects. She thought he was probably composing his thoughts, carefully studying and analyzing what he was feeling and hearing and seeing so that he could describe his reactions to her later.

  She sighed. How ugly and familiar that was. Once upon a time, she and Alec had sat just like that, except then she was the one who had been analytical. He would play a particular song and, when it was done, demand to know her reaction. She had never shared his peculiar tastes; her criticism, she recalled, had been blunt and excessively personal. She had equated his preference for bad music (what she thought was bad music) with some monstrous flaw in his personality. Alec, in turn, had despaired of ever converting her from a frame of unreal snobbery into a taste for real, natural music.

  It was their differing backgrounds that were to blame. Poor Alec, raised in a government home, one of those chilling replicas of army existence—complete with uniforms, pomp, promotions, ceremony, courts-martial, demerits. Quite a place. The children assigned to the home—there were several dozen throughout the nation---were most often the offspring of quota violators. Alec had been a little different from the others, though not much, and Anna had willingly listened—at least in those first years—to his embellished recollections of a real mother and father. The truth was, of course, that Alec, like almost all Superiors, had lost both his mother and father too early to remember them at all. Anna's own mother had died giving childbirth, while her father was reported to have fled soon after, leaving his only daughter (this was Anna) in the care of two old acquaintances, the Millers, Kelly and Alice, a wealthy but not exciting pair who, whenever Anna brought up the subject of her parentage, changed the subject quicker than a bolt of lightning. Still, the Millers had provided Anna with an education and given her time in which to allow her artistic abilities to grow and mature. She owed them a lot, really. When she was growing up and displaying every indication of being as mad as a hatter—hearing voices where none existed, that sort of thing, answering questions before any were asked—and alternating fits of high mania and low depression—well, the Millers had always managed to forgive and forget or, at least, to ignore. Her toys had always been the best. They had given her—she was twelve or thirteen—a horse, with real hair and fluid gray eyes, that could be ridden. Later, when she began to sculpture tape, her tools had always been the very best. A good life. Compared to Alec's, a great one.

  Which raised an intriguing question: if she hadn't accidentally stumbled across Alec Richmond's path that one fateful day, what would her life have been? The chance of anyone discovering her without Alec's help was awfully small. No—she would have lived alone. Then what? Suicide? She had often contemplated the deed. Internment in an asylum? She had feared that since hearing the first voices as a young child. A grim life in any event—a horrible and tragic one.

  But she had found Alec—or he had found her. The fateful moment had struck during her first and only semester at Berkeley. During those months of initial separation from the familiar faces of the Millers, she had become more and more convinced of her own inescapable madness. She recalled seeing a tape about—who?—some old lady novelist—a woman who had gone through life creating fine art and being as crazy as could be—both conditions occurring simultaneously. Obviously, Anna had been deeply impressed. Me, too, she had thought, conceiving of herself following the footsteps of this now dimly recollected woman into the obliterating waves of the sea. But great art would have to come first, so she had spent most of her days at Berkeley ignoring her assigned studies and concentrating instead on producing her first major tape sculpture.

  All of this had occurred prior to that fateful day. She had been walking down a certain street, headed for some forgotten rendezvous—no, she remembered now—it was a tennis match with a roommate—feeling no less crazy than ever—forced to suffer the passing whims of every stranger—unable then to resist at all—a bomb of dull gray-ness as some humble man slouched past—then a flash of someone young and bright and cheery—then a smash of green prurience—nearly naked in white bikini shorts and halter for the tennis match—and, finally, unexpectedly, tremendously, Alec.

  Who had stopped. At the same instant, as they passed, both had immediately known the truth, glimpsed a matching soul, felt the presence of the other.

  It was hard at first to speak, but finally it had all come out—no need for words even then—and they had gone off to a small cafe to chatter incessantly the remainder of the day. Alec had told all; she did too. He revealed the existence of the Inner Circle of Superiors. "You're not crazy, Anna," he had said. "If you are, so am I, and dozens more. We're the only sane ones. That's the point. It's the rest-the poor humans—who are crazy."

  So she was cured. Just like that. In a matter of minutes. The world's greatest psychiatrists would have gone mad with envy had they known of Alec's ability. Three weeks later, in deep gratitude, she had married him. When Alec was still a small child in the home, the Superiors had found him and told him what he was. That was the significant point—wealth meant nothing, really—where their backgrounds hopelessly diverged. Anna had lived eighteen years in madness and despair; in comparison, Alec had lived those same years possessed of the positive certainty of his own innate superiority. Because of that, nowadays, he could afford to condescend. He could say humans were good at heart and ought to be helped.

  Arthur Ramsey, a frail old Inner Circle member, was National Home Director. He was the one who had discovered Alec. But Ramsey and the others had never had the slightest inkling of her existence. She should have been in that same home that housed Alec, but her father, for unknown reasons, had chosen to permit her to grow up in an atmosphere of wealth and promise. Had he known what that meant? Had he known what such a life would do to her?

  Within three months of the wedding day, Anna had realized that the only reason she and Alec were together was because he had chanced to pass her that day. If it had been Arthur Ramsey instead, she would probably be married to him now. She did not love Alec. Neither did she hate him. She felt—as far as he was concerned—quite empty inside. And since, at least back then, neither was able to conceal a strong emotion from the other, Alec had soon learned how she felt. That had put an end to their marriage and now, years later, Alec was missing and she didn't know where or why, or care.

  The music suddenly ended in a burst of color. Anna sighed and looked up and saw, with a start, that Eathen had disappeared. The bench he had occupied was now quite empty.

  "Eathen!" she called. "What happened to you? Where—?"

  He suddenly appeared across from her, passing between two tree trunks.

  "Where have you been?" she said, angrily.

  "I thought I heard the chimes sound."

  "I didn't hear a thing."

  "But someone was there."

  "Who? Alec?"

  "No, Inspector Cargill."

  "Is it about Alec?" She stood up hastily and peered into the woods behind Eathen, as if searching for something lost.

  "I wouldn't know," he said.

  "Then bring him out and I'll ask him." She sat down.

  "Bring him out here?"

  "Yes. Of course. Why not? Do as I say. This isn't our private frolicking place."

  But Eathen had already gone to fetch the visitor.

  Eight

  Cargill first materialized as a vague shape flickering between the trees. He approached alone; a tiny white point— his head—swam through a sea of green. But, at last, a final tree slid from his path and he emerged, fully revealed, dressed in his official black burlap, a silver badge pinned demurely to his chest.

  Anna said nothing. She allowed Cargill to come forward, entering the clearing on fastidious tiptoes, as though this were a sacred place and he were violating some shameful privacy. He bowed, nodded, smiled. His eyes darted suspiciously, peering into the dark shadowed places of the garden, but these anxieties—if they were real—fail
ed to be reflected in the feelings he radiated. The control he exercised over his mind—as always—astonished Anna. Unlike Eathen, Cargill clearly possessed such things as thoughts and feelings. Yes, she could sense them vaguely, lurking down below. But the content of his inner life—its significance—that was firmly hidden from her view.

  He had nearly reached the empty bench, mouthing her name as he came, when she stood up, towering high above him, gazing down at the pink smooth dome of his skull. "Well," she said, "where is he?"

  Cargill feigned surprise. (His radiations remained unchanged.) "Your father?" He glanced furtively up, avoiding her eyes.

  She shook her head and pointed to the empty bench. As he moved off in the indicated direction, she spoke to his back: "I mean Alec."

  Cargill seated himself with deliberation, smiling a grin of achievement when he seemed securely lodged: "Who?"

  "My husband. Alec. He went to see you yesterday and hasn't been home since."

  "Sylvia Mencken," Cargill mumbled. He did radiate something: surprise.

  "Who?"

  "Mencken's daughter." He adopted a stiff, official tone. "I requested her presence yesterday in order to identify the body. I arranged that her appointment should coincide with Alec's, a saving of both time and money. Both accompanied me to the morgue. When they left, they went together."

  "Is that where he is now?" she asked, her voice dropping to the level of a harsh whisper. It seemed so ugly—so base. How low would Alec choose to stoop?

  "I haven't the slightest idea," Cargill said. "They left the morgue together. But they may have separated before they reached the bottom step of the Hall."

  "But you don't believe that."

  "I told you that I didn't know." He was plainly impatient and willingly radiated the fact. "Your husband—his present or past whereabouts—is not my concern. I was not hired to search for him or to prevent him from getting lost."