Second Ending (6 page)

When the robots arrived and performed a neat encircling movement, the Ward Sister said, "You must return to bed, Mr. Ross." Seconds later a Cleaner lay his weakly resisting body along its back, pinioned him with five sets of metal arms and rolled back toward the tunnel mouth.

It took Ross several minutes to realize that he had undergone a change of status. The Ward Sister, it appeared, had heard him coughing in the ash-filled air at the mouth of the tunnel, had noted the many cuts and grazes on hands and legs he had acquired during the climb, and these, taken together with his somewhat abnormal recent activities, had caused the robot to react in accordance with its basic programming. He was no longer a Doctor in charge called "sir," but a patient called "Mr. Ross." And patients did what Ward Sister told them to do, not the other way around.

He was confined to bed for seventeen days.

Until each tiny cut was healed and the last square centimeter of scab dropped away, Ross's every order was ignored. When sheer impatience made him abusive, that also was ignored, as were most of his threats.

The one threat which was not ignored occurred on the second day. Ross had been throwing a tantrum over not being allowed to exercise for a few hours every day. He had ended by observing, at the top of his voice, that such an inhuman confinement was likely to drive him around the bend, that it could very well force him into taking his life, perhaps, through sheer boredom. To this the robot had replied that physical examination showed he was in a severely weakened state, due to both recent revivication and his too-exhausting trip to the surface, and that prolonged rest was indicated. Also, since the danger of Ross's injuring himself had been mentioned as a possibility — the chief reasons cited being loneliness and boredom, two conditions not likely to improve — it was the Ward Sister's duty to guard him against this danger for the rest of his life.

Just then Ross did not want to think of the future. He wanted to chat about unimportant things such as how he should have his hair cut and why some items of his clothing had deteriorated while others had not. But Ward Sisters were supposed to be too busy to chat with patients while on duty, and Ross was now a patient. Three or four times a day he received a few words of encouragement, and that was all.

Ross did not like the pictures he saw when he closed his eyes, so he kept them open as much as possible, staring at the ceiling, moving them slowly around the room, or squinting at the three-inches-distant bed sheet in an effort to resolve its weave. But the ceiling was white and free from discoloration, the room's fittings were bright, angular and cast no shadows, and trying to make his eyes behave like a microscope only gave him a headache. There were no angles or shadows or tricks of light on which his mind could build the nice, harmless pictures which would keep him from dwelling on his present terrifying position, and so he would be forced to look at the robot.

A smooth, upright ovoid with one fixed and one rotating eyepiece, and to Ross's mind a cybernetic miracle by virtue of its compactness alone. A servant, guardian and trained nurse, placed in this position of responsibility because of a shortage of human nurses, which had later become a shortage of human beings…

At that point the pictures which he did not want to see would come, whether his eyes were closed or not.

Pictures of Alice in crisp blue and white, serious, dedicated, untouchable. With her short hair, unplucked eyebrows and thin lips, her face had resembled that of a studious young boy. When he had discovered that she was neither unapproachable nor untouchable — toward himself, anyway — he had once told her that she looked like a boy. They had been swimming and Alice's dark brown hair was plastered tightly against her scalp, increasing the resemblance. A small, wet, feminine hand had made contact with his dripping back in a slap which stung, in memory, even now, and he had had to add a hasty qualifier to the effect that he meant from the neck up. Strangely enough, it had been later in that same day that he discovered that her lips were not thin, that they only seemed that way because she habitually kept them pressed together. Alice worried a lot, about examinations, her patients, about many trivial things which a less dedicated type would have ignored. She had very nice lips.

Pictures of Alice stretched on the sand behind the low rock which sheltered them from the wind, the heat of the sun covering them like a too-warm blanket. It was a picture in five sensual dimensions: the warm, damp smell as the sun blotted up the last remaining sea water from swimsuit and hair; the sensitive, tanned face looking up into his with eyes which seemed to grow larger and softer until he could see nothing else; then the kiss which, no matter how long, never lasted long enough; sometimes then she would sigh and murmur softly to him — but he rarely heard what she said, because the silly girl kept playing with his ears every time she tried to tell him something. They would kiss again and the emotional gale rising within him, the roaring in his ears and the mounting thunder of his pulse, would almost drown the slower thunder of the breakers, the great dead, filthy breakers which still crashed against a black and lifeless beach…

No matter how hard he tried to avoid it, his mind always slipped back into the same pit of despair. Until this moment "loneliness" had been a word with only a shadow of meaning. Until now nobody had known the crushing sense of loss and grief of a man whose loved ones, friends and everyone else have been taken away to leave him alone on a dead world. The fact that, by his own subjective time, only three or four days had gone by since Alice had kissed him a tearful good night and Pellew had growled his best wishes, and Ross's world had contained a crowded hospital which was part of a civilization covering a planet whose every square yard had teemed with life of some sort, made his loss that much more terrible.

Many times Ross wanted to die. But he was too young and healthy to die of grief, and any more positive approach to dying would certainly be checked by the Sister. And so his despair found its lowest point and, because the only way to go from there was up, it began to recede. Not that he felt hope or anything like it; it was simply an acceptance of his present circumstances and the feeling that perhaps he should look more closely into them before he made a more determined effort to end it all. After all, he had a hospital, hundreds of robots and he didn't know what else at his disposal and taking stock seemed like a good idea. Besides, it would keep his mind occupied.

At about the same time Ross made this decision he discovered that while the robot continued to ignore all his orders and/or invective, it would accede to reasonable requests of the type which convalescent patients could be expected to make. The Ward Sister did not forbid him to read.

The first book Ross asked for was, of course, Pellew's diary. He read it through carefully from beginning to end, then reread it in conjunction with the green folder. Now he knew exactly what had happened to the hospital, and when. Pellew had begun his diary as the usual personal record of events, but toward the end it became a series of orders and suggestions directed toward Ross himself, when the doctor had realized that he was likely to be the only survivor with medical training.

Ross requested books which Dr. Pellew had suggested he study. Works on genetics for the most part, which must have been heavy going even for the good Doctor. For his own information he asked for books on robotics, and one of them turned out to be a popularization which he could just barely understand. He also began to make plans for the time when the Sister would stop calling him "Mr. Ross."

Then one "morning" when the lights had come on after his eight-hour sleep period the robot placed three food cans beside him and asked, "Have you any instructions, sir?"

Ross said yes with quite unnecessary force, and while he was struggling into a fresh toga he began issuing orders. Some of them, he feared, were pretty tall orders. First, he wanted the case histories of the people who had died between the time of Pellew's death and his own awakening. He was not hopeful of finding survivors in Deep Sleep, because the Sister had stated that there were none. But Pellew's diary had said that Ross was the only survivor with medical training, which implied that there must be other survivors without training, and he wanted that point cleared up. Second, he asked for a census to be made of all the operable or repairable robots in the hospital, their numbers, types, relative intelligence and specialties. Any who had been placed in a state of low alert by humans prior to their deaths were to be reactivated. Third, he wanted a report on the water, food and power supply position.

Ross paused. From his reading he knew that the Sister had been relaying his instructions as he had spoken them to the other robots in this level, who, because Sister's transmitter could not punch a signal through a mile of solid rock, would relay them physically to the higher levels.

He took a deep breath and went on: "You will detail cleaning and maintenance robots to repair and clear the damaged upper levels, including where necessary elevators and communication circuits. And I want a small area of the surface cleared of ash and soil samples taken at one-foot intervals to a depth of twenty feet. I'll require samples of the air and sea water as well."

Ross hesitated, then asked, "Does your training, I mean programming, enable you to do an air or soil analysis?"

"No, sir," the Sister replied, "but there are Pathology Sisters capable of doing so."

"Very well, put them onto it…"

He broke off as a Cleaner rolled in, deposited a small pile of folders beside him and began making his bed. The notes Ross had made while lying down were knocked to the floor, and the robot picked them up and thrust them into its built-in wastepaper basket.

"I want those back!" said Ross angrily. When the sheets had been returned, slightly crumpled, he added, "I'll do my own tidying up from now on. No Cleaners are to come here unless I send for them."

When the robot had gone Ross looked through the case histories it had brought. There were five of them, all relating to patients suffering from conditions which in his time had been considered fatal. Like him, their 508 forms bore the words treatment successful, to BE REVIVED PERMANENTLY IN ——— YEARS FROM THIS date — the number of years ranged from forty to seventy-five. Unlike his own, they were all stamped died during revivication, and in all cases the attending physician was down as Ward Sister 5B. In spite of himself, Ross shivered. For the first time since meeting the robots on the day after his awakening, he felt afraid of them.

"Why did these patients die?" he said, as steadily as he could manage. "Tell me the exact circumstances."

The Sister ticked a couple of times, then said briskly, "Dr. Pellew's orders were to awaken all Deep Sleep patients when their revivication was due, and he did not cancel or modify these orders prior to his death. We therefore revived all patients as they fell due, using robot assistance. Specifically, I attended to the revivication while two Cleaners restrained the patients so that they would not injure themselves by moving too suddenly or too soon. On awakening the patients displayed extreme agitation and tried to break free of the robot arms which were holding them immobile. Their struggles were of sufficient violence to cause internal damage from which they subsequently died."