Is That What People Do? (6 page)

Desperately he clung to the steering wheel. He could hear the sail wrenching. It was made out of the toughest flexible alloys available, but it wasn’t going to hold up for long. The short, thick mast, supported by six heavy cables, was whipping like a fishing rod.

His brake linings were worn out, and his speed over the ground came up to 57 miles an hour.

He was too tired to think. He steered, his hands locked to the wheel, his slitted eyes glaring ahead into the storm.

The sail ripped with a scream. The tatters flogged for a moment, then brought the mast down. Wind gusts were approaching 190 miles an hour.

The wind now was driving him back toward the cliffs. At 192 miles an hour of wind, the Brute was lifted bodily, thrown for a dozen yards, slammed back on its wheels. A front tire blew under the pressure, then two rear ones. Clayton put his head on his arms and waited for the end.

Suddenly, the Brute stopped short. Clayton was flung forward. His safety belt checked him for a moment, then snapped. He banged against the instrument panel and fell back, dazed and bleeding.

He lay on the floor, half-conscious, trying to figure out what had happened. Slowly he pulled himself back into the seat, foggily aware that he hadn’t broken any limbs. His stomach was one great bruise. His mouth was bleeding.

At last, looking through the rear-vision mirror, he saw what had happened. The emergency anchor, trailing at 250 feet of steel cable, had caught in a deep outcropping of rock. A fouled anchor had brought him up short, less than half a mile from the cliffs. He was saved—

For the moment, at least.

But the wind hadn’t given up yet. The 193-mile-an-hour wind bellowed, lifted the truck bodily, slammed it down, lifted it again, slammed it down. The steel cable hummed like a guitar string. Clayton wrapped his arms and legs around the seat. He couldn’t hold on much longer. And if he let go, the madly leaping Brute would smear him over the walls like toothpaste—

If the cable didn’t part first and send him hurtling into the cliffs.

He held on. At the top of one swing, he caught a glimpse of the windspeed indicator. The sight of it sickened him. He was through, finished, done for. How could he be expected to hold on through the force of a 187-mile-an-hour wind? It was too much.

It was—187 miles an hour? That meant that the wind was dropping!

He could hardly believe it at first. But slowly, steadily, the dial hand crept down. At 160 miles an hour, the truck stopped slamming and lay passively at the end of its anchor line. At 153, the wind veered—a sure sign that the blow was nearly over.

When it had dropped to 142 miles an hour, Clayton allowed himself the luxury of passing out.

Carellan natives came out for him later in the day. Skillfully they maneuvered two big land ships up to the Brute, fastened on their vines—which tested out stronger than steel—and towed the derelict truck back to the station.

They brought him into the receiving shed and Nerishev carried him into the station’s dead air.

“You didn’t break anything except a couple of teeth,” said Nerishev. “But there isn’t an unbruised inch on you.”

“We came through it,” Clayton said.

“Just. Our boulder defense is completely flattened. The station took two direct hits from boulders and barely contained them. I’ve checked the foundations; they’re badly strained. Another blow like that—”

“—and we’d make out somehow. Us Earth lads, we come through! That was the worst in eight months. Four months more and the relief ship comes! Buck up, Nerishev. Come with me.”

“Where are we going?”

“I want to talk to that damned Smanik!”

They came into the shed. It was filled to overflowing with Carellans. Outside, in the lee of the station, several dozen land ships were moored.

“Smanik!” Clayton called. “What’s going on here?”

“It is the Festival of Summer,” Smanik said. “Our great yearly holiday.”

“Hmm. What about that blow? What did you think of it?”

“I would classify it as a moderate gale,” said Smanik. “Nothing dangerous, but somewhat unpleasant for sailing.”

“Unpleasant! I hope you get your forecasts a little more accurate in the future.”

“One cannot always outguess the weather,” Smanik said. “It is regrettable that my last forecast should be wrong.”

“Your
last?
How come? What’s the matter?”

“These people,” Smanik said, gesturing around him, “are my entire tribe, the Seremai. We have celebrated the Festival of Summer. Now summer is ended and we must go away.”

“Where to?”

“To the caverns in the far west. They are two weeks’ sail from here. We will go into the caverns and live there for three months. In that way, we will find safety.”

Clayton had a sudden sinking feeling in his stomach. “Safety from what, Smanik?”

“I told you. Summer is over. We need safety now from the winds—the powerful storm winds of winter.”

“What is it?” Nerishev said.

“In a moment.” Clayton thought very quickly of the super-hurricane he had just passed through, which Smanik had classified as a moderate and harmless gale. He thought of their immobility, the ruined Brute, the strained foundations of the station, the wrecked boulder barrier, the relief ship four months away. “We could go with you in the land ships, Smanik, and take refuge in the caverns with you—be protected—”

“Of course,” said Smanik hospitably.

“No, we couldn’t,” Clayton answered himself, his sinking feeling even lower than during the storm. “We’d need extra oxygen, our own food, a water supply—”

“What is it?” Nerishev repeated impatiently. “What the devil did he say to make you look like that’”

“He says the
really
big winds are just coming,” Clayton replied.

The two men stared at each other.

Outside, a wind was rising.

THE ROBOT WHO LOOKED LIKE ME

Snaithe’s Robotorama is an unprepossessing shop on Boulevard KB22 near the Uhuru Cutoff in Greater New Newark. It is sandwiched between an oxygenator factory and a protein store. The storefront display is what you would expect—three full-size humanoid robots with frozen smiles, dressed occupationally—Model PB2, the French Chef, Model LR3, the British Nanny, Model JX5, the Italian Gardener. All of Them Ready to Serve You and Bring a Touch of Old-World Graciousness into Your Home.

I entered and went through the dusty showroom into the workshop, which looked like an uneasy combination of slaughterhouse and giant’s workshop. Heads, arms, legs, torsos, were stacked on shelves or propped in corners. The parts looked uncannily human except for the dangling wires.

Snaithe came out of the storeroom to greet me. He was a little gray worm of a man with a lantern jaw and large red dangling hands. He was some kind of a foreigner—they’re always the ones who make the best bootleg robots.

He said, “It’s ready, Mr. Watson.” (My name is not Watson, Snaithe’s name is not Snaithe. All names have been changed here to protect the guilty.)

Snaithe led me to a corner of the workshop and stopped in front of a robot whose head was draped in a sheet. He whisked off the sheet.

It was not enough to say that the robot looked like me; physically, this robot
was
me, exactly and unmistakably, feature for feature, right down to the textures of skin and hair. I studied that face, seeing as if for the first time the hint of brutality in the firmly cut features, the glitter of impatience in the deep-set eyes. Yes, that was me. I didn’t bother with the voice and behavior tests at this time. I paid Snaithe and told him to deliver it to my apartment. So far, everything was going according to plan.

I live in Manhattan’s Upper Fifth Vertical. It is an expensive position, but I don’t mind paying extra for a sky view. My home is also my office. I am an interplanetary broker specializing in certain classes of rare mineral speculations.

Like any other man who wishes to maintain his position in this high-speed competitive world, I keep to a tight schedule. Work consumes most of my life, but everything else is allotted its proper time and place. For example, I give three hours a week to sexuality, using the Doris Jens Executive Sex Plan and paying well for it. I give two hours a week to friendship, and two more to leisure. I plug into the Sleep-inducer for my nightly quota of 6.8 hours, and also use that time to absorb the relevant literature in my field via hypno-paedics. And so on.

Everything I do is scheduled. I worked out a comprehensive scheme years ago with the assistance of the Total Lifesplan people, punched it into my personal computer and have kept to it ever since.

The plan is capable of modification, of course. Special provisions have been made for illness, war, and natural disasters. The plan also supplies two separate subprograms for incorporation into the main plan. Subprogram one posits a wife, and revises my schedule to allow four hours a week interaction time with her. Subprogram two assumes a wife and one child, and calls for an additional two hours a week. Through careful reprogramming, these subprograms will entail a loss of no more than 2.3% and 2.9% of my productivity respectively.

I had decided to get married at age 32.5 and to obtain my wife from the Guarantee Trust Matrimonial Agency, an organization with impeccable credentials. But then something quite unexpected occurred.

I was using one of my Leisure Hours to attend the wedding of one of my friends. His fiancée’s maid of honor was named Elaine. She was a slender, vivacious girl with sun-streaked blond hair and a delicious little figure. I found her charming, went home and thought no more about her. Or, I
thought
I would think no more about her. But in the following days and nights her image remained obsessively before my eyes. My appetite fell off and I began sleeping badly. My computer checked out the relevant data and told me that I might conceivably be having a nervous breakdown; but the strongest inference was that I was in love.

I was not entirely displeased. Being in love with one’s future wife can be a positive factor in establishing a good relationship. I had Elaine checked out by Discretion, Inc., and found her to be eminently suitable. I hired Mr. Happiness, the well-known go-between, to propose for me and make the usual arrangements.

Mr. Happiness—a tiny white-haired gentleman with a twinkling smile—came back with bad news. “The young lady seems to be a traditionalist,” he said. “She expects to be courted.”

“What does that entail, specifically?” I asked.

“It means that you must videophone her and set up an appointment, take her out to dinner, then to a place of public entertainment and so forth.”

“My schedule doesn’t allow time for that sort of thing,” I said. “Still, if it’s absolutely necessary, I suppose I could wedge it in next Thursday between nine and twelve p.m.”

“That would make an excellent beginning,” Mr. Happiness said.

“Beginning? How many evenings am I supposed to spend like that
⁵
”

Mr. Happiness figured that a proper courtship would require a minimum of three evenings a week and would continue for two months.

“Ridiculous!” I said. “The young lady seems to have a great deal of idle time on her hands.”

“Not at all,” Mr. Happiness assured me. “Elaine has a busy, completely scheduled life, just like any educated person in this day and age. Her time is completely taken up by her job, family, charities, artistic pursuits, politics, education, and so forth.”

“Then why does she insist upon this time-consuming courtship?”

“It seems to be a matter of principle. That is to say, she wants it.”

“Is she given to other irrationalities?”

Mr. Happiness sighed. “Not Really. But she
is
a woman, you know.”

I thought about it during my next Leisure Hour. There seemed to be no more than two alternatives. I could give up Elaine; or I could do as she desired, losing an estimated 17% of my income during the courtship period and spending my evenings in a manner I considered silly, boring, and unproductive.

Both alternatives were unacceptable. I was at an impasse.

I swore. I hit the desk with my fist, upsetting an antique ashtray. Gordon, one of my robot secretaries, heard the commotion and hurried into the room. “Is there anything the matter, sir?” he asked.

Gordon is one of the Sperry’s Deluxe Limited Personalized Series Androids, number twelve out of a production run of twenty-five. He is tall and thin and walks with a slight stoop and looks a little like Leslie Howard. You would not know he was artificial except for the government-required stamps on his forehead and hands. Looking at him, the solution to my problem came to me in a single flash of inspiration.

“Gordon,” I said slowly, “would you happen to know who handcrafts the best one-shot individualized robots?”

“Snaithe of Greater New Newark,” he replied without hesitation.

I had a talk with Snaithe and found him normally larcenous. He agreed to build a robot without government markings, identical to me, and capable of duplicating my behavior patterns. 1 paid heavily for this, but I was content: I had plenty of money, but practically no time to spend. That was how it all began.

The robot, sent via pneumo-express, was at my apartment when I arrived. I animated him and set to work at once. My computer transmitted the relevant data direct to the robot’s memory tapes. Then I punched in a courtship plan and ran the necessary tests. The results were even better than I had expected. Elated, I called Elaine and made a date with her for that evening.

During the rest of the day I worked on the Spring market offers, which had begun to pile up. At 8:00 pm I dispatched Charles II, as I had come to call the robot. Then I took a brief nap and went back to work.

Charles II returned promptly at midnight, as programmed. I did not have to question him: the events of the evening were recorded on the miniature concealed movie camera which Snaithe had built into his left eye. I watched and listened to the beginning of my courtship with mixed emotions.

It went beyond impersonation; the robot
was
me, right down to the way I clear my throat before I speak and rub my forefinger against my thumb when I am thinking. I noticed for the first time that my laugh was unpleasantly close to a giggle; I decided to phase that and certain other annoying mannerisms out of me and Charles II.