Mike the Angel spent the next three days in a pale blue funk which he struggled valiantly against, at least to prevent it from becoming a deep blue.
There was something wrong aboard theBrainchild, and Mike simply couldn’t quite figure what it was. He found that he wasn’t the only one who had been asked peculiar questions by Snookums. The little robot seemed to have developed a sudden penchant for asking seemingly inane questions.
Lieutenant Keku reported with a grin that Snookums had asked him if he knew who Commander Gabrielreallywas.
“What’d you say?” Mike had asked.
Keku had spread his hands and said: “I gave him the usual formula about not being positive of my data, then I told him that you were known as Mike the Angel and were well known in the power field.”
Multhaus reported that Snookums had wanted to know what their destination was. The chief’s only possible answer, of course, had been: “I don’t have that data, Snookums.”
Dr. Morris Fitzhugh had become more worried-lookingthan usual and had confided to Mike that he, too, wondered why Snookums was asking such peculiar questions.
“All he’ll tell me,” the roboticist had reported, wrinkling up his face, “was that he was collecting data. But he flatly refused, even when ordered, to tell me what he needed the data for.”
Mike stayed away from Leda Crannon as much as possible; shipboard was no place to try to conduct a romance. Not that he deliberately avoided her in such a manner as to give offense, but he tried to appear busy at all times.
She was busy, too. Keeping herd on Snookums was becoming something of a problem. She had never attempted to watch him all the time. In the first place, it was physically impossible; in the second place, she didn’t think Snookums would develop properly if he were to be kept under constant supervision. But now, for the first time, she didn’t have the foggiest notion of what was going on inside the robot’s mind, and she couldn’t find out. It puzzled and worried her, and between herself and Dr. Fitzhugh there were several long conferences on Snookums’ peculiar behavior.
Mike the Angel found himself waiting for something to happen. He hadn’t the slightest notion what it was that he was waiting for, but he was as certain of its coming as he was of the fact that the Earth was an oblate spheroid.
But he certainly didn’t expect it to begin the way it did.
A quiet evening bridge game is hardly the place for a riot to start.
Pete Jeffers was pounding the pillow in his stateroom; Captain Quill was on the bridge, checking through the log.
In the officers’ wardroom Mike the Angel was looking down at two hands of cards, wondering whether he’d make his contract. His own hand held the ace, nine, seven ofspades; the ten, six, two of hearts; the jack, ten, nine, four, three, and deuce of diamonds; and the eight of clubs.
Vaneski, his partner, had bid a club. Keku had answered with a take-out double. Mike had looked at his hand, figured that since he and Vaneski were vulnerable, while Keku and von Liegnitz were not, he bid a weakness pre-empt of three diamonds. Von Liegnitz passed, and Vaneski had answered back with five diamonds. Keku and Mike had both passed, and von Liegnitz had doubled.
Now Mike was looking at Vaneski’s dummy hand. No spades; the ace, queen, five, and four of hearts; the queen, eight, seven, and six of diamonds; and the ace, king, seven, four, and three of clubs.
And von Liegnitz had led the three of hearts.
It didn’t look good. His opponents had the ace and king of trumps, and with von Liegnitz’ heart lead, it looked as though he might have to try a finesse on the king of hearts. Still, theremightbe another way out.
Mike threw in the ace from dummy. Keku tossed in his seven, and Mike threw in his own deuce. He took the next trick with the ace of clubs from dummy, and the singleton eight in his own hand. The one after that came from dummy, too; it was the king of clubs, and Mike threw in the heart six from his own hand. From dummy, he led the three of clubs. Keku went over it with a jack, but Mike took it with his deuce of diamonds.
He led the seven of spades to get back in dummy so he could use up those clubs. Dummy took the trick with the six of diamonds, and led out with the four of clubs.
Mike figured that Keku must—absolutelymust—have the king of hearts. Both his take-out double and von Liegnitz’ heart lead pointed toward the king in his hand. Now if....
Vaneski had moved around behind Mike to watch the play. Not one of them noticed Lieutenant Lew Mellon, the Medical Officer, come into the room.
That is, they knew he had come in, but they had ignored him thereafter. He was such a colorless nonentity that he simply seemed to fade into the background of the walls once he had made his entrance.
Mike had taken seven tricks, and, as he had expected, lost the eighth to von Liegnitz’ five of diamonds. When the German led the nine of hearts, Mike knew he had the game. He put in the queen from dummy, Keku tossed in his king triumphantly, and Mike topped it with his lowly four of diamonds.
If, as he suspected, his opponents’ ace and king of diamonds were split, he would get them both by losing the next trick and then make a clean sweep of the board.
He threw in his nine of diamonds.
He just happened to glance at von Liegnitz as the navigator dropped his king.
Then he lashed out with one foot, kicking at the leg of von Liegnitz’ chair. At the same time, he yelled, “Jake! Duck!”
He was almost too late. Mellon, his face contorted with a mixture of anger and hatred, was standing just behind Jakob von Liegnitz. In one hand was a heavy spanner, which he was bringing down with deadly force on the navigator’s skull.
Von Liegnitz’ chair started to topple, and von Liegnitz himself spun away from the blow. The spanner caught him on the shoulder, and he grunted in pain, but he kept on moving away from Mellon.
The medic screamed something and lifted the spanner again.
By this time, Keku, too, was on his feet, moving toward Mellon. Mike the Angel got behind Mellon, trying to grab at the heavy metal tool in Mellon’s hand.
Mellon seemed to sense him, for he jumped sideways, out of Mike’s way, and kicked backward at the same time, catching Mike on the shin with his heel.
Von Liegnitz had made it to his feet by this time and was blocking the downward swing of Mellon’s arm with his own forearm. His other fist pistoned out toward Mellon’s face. It connected, sending Mellon staggering backward into Mike the Angel’s arms.
Von Liegnitz grabbed the spanner out of Mellon’s hand and swung it toward the medic’s jaw. It was only inches away when Keku’s hand grasped the navigator’s wrist.
And when the big Hawaiian’s hand clamped on, von Liegnitz’ hand stopped almost dead.
Mellon was screaming. “You ——!” He ran out a string of unprintable and almost un-understandable words. “I’ll kill you! I’ll do it yet!You stay away from Leda Crannon!”
“Calm down, Doc!” snapped Mike the Angel. “What the hell’s the matter with you, anyway?”
Von Liegnitz was still straining, trying to get away from Keku to take another swipe at the medic, but the huge Hawaiian held him easily. The navigator had lapsed into his native German, and most of it was unintelligible, except for an occasional reference to various improbable combinations of animal life.
But Mellon was paying no attention. “You! I’ll kill you! Lecher! Dirty-minded, filthy....”
He went on.
Suddenly, unexpectedly, he smashed his heel down on Mike’s toe. At least, he tried to; he’d have done it if the toe had been there when his heel came down. But Mike moved it just two inches and avoided the blow.
At the same time, though, Mellon twisted, and Mike’s forced shift of position lessened his leverage on the man’s shoulders and arms. Mellon almost got away. One hand grabbed the wrench from von Liegnitz, whose grip had been weakened by the paralyzing pressure of Keku’s fingers.
Mike had no choice but to slam a hard left into the man’s solar plexus. Mellon collapsed like an unoccupied overcoat.
By this time, von Liegnitz had quieted down. “Let go, Keku,” he said. “I’m all right.” He looked down at the motionless figure on the deck. “What the hell do you suppose was eating him?” he asked quietly.
“How’s your shoulder?” Mike asked.
“Hurts like the devil, but I don’t think it’s busted. But why did he do it?” he repeated.
“Sounds to me,” said Keku dryly, “that he was nutty jealous of you. He didn’t like the times you took Leda Crannon to the base movies while we were at Chilblains.”
Jakob von Liegnitz continued to look down at the smaller man in wonder. “Lieber Gott” he said finally. “I only took her out a couple of times. I knew he liked her, but—” He stopped. “The guy must be off his bearings.”
“I smelled liquor on his breath,” said Mike. “Let’s get him down to his stateroom and lock him in until he sobers up. I’ll have to report this to the captain. Can you carry him, Keku?”
Keku nodded and reached down. He put his hands under Mellon’s armpits, lifted him to his feet, and threw him over his shoulder.
“Good,” said Mike the Angel. “I’ll walk behind you and clop him one if he wakes up and gets wise.”
Vaneski was standing to one side, his face pale, his expression blank.
Mike said: “Jake, you and Vaneski go up and make the report to the captain. Tell him we’ll be up as soon as we’ve taken care of Mellon.”
“Right,” said von Liegnitz, massaging his bruised shoulder.
“Okay, Keku,” said Mike, “forward march.”
Lieutenant Keku thumbed the opener to Mellon’s stateroom, shoved the door aside, stepped in, and slapped at the switch plaque. The plates lighted up, bathing the room in sunshiny brightness.
“Dump him on his sack,” said Mike.
While Keku put the unconscious Mellon on his bed, Mike let his gaze wander around the room. It was neat—almost too neat, implying overfussiness. The medical reference books were on one shelf, all in alphabetical order. Another shelf contained a copy of theInternational Encyclopedia, English edition, plus several dictionaries, including one on medical terms and another on theological ones.
On the desk lay a copy of the Bible, York translation, opened to the Book of Tobit. Next to it were several sheets of blank paper and a small traveling clock sat on them as a paperweight.
His clothing was hung neatly, in the approved regulation manner, with his shoes in their proper places and his caps all lined up in a row.
Mike walked around the room, looking at everything.
“What’s the matter? What’re you looking for?” asked Keku.
“His liquor,” said Mike the Angel.
“In his desk, lower left-hand drawer. You won’t find anything but a bottle of ruby port; Mellon was never a drinker.”
Mike opened the drawer. “I probably won’t find that, drunk as he is.”
Surprisingly enough, the bottle of wine was almost half full. “Did he have more than one bottle?” Mike asked.
“Not so far as I know. Like I said, he didn’t drink much. One slug of port before bedtime was about his limit.”
Mike frowned. “How does his breath smell to you?”
“Not bad. Two or three drinks, maybe.”
“Mmmm.” Mike put the bottle on top of the desk, then walked over to the small case that was standing near one wall. He lifted it and flipped it open. It was the standard medical kit for Space Service physicians.
The intercom speaker squeaked once before Captain Quill’s voice came over it. “Mister Gabriel?”
“Yes, sir?” said Mike without turning around. There were no eyes in the private quarters of the officers and crew.
“How is Mister Mellon?” A Space Service physician’s doctorate is never used as a form of address; three out of four Space Service officers have a doctor’s degree of some kind, and there’s no point in calling 75 per cent of the officers “doctor.”
Mike glanced across the room. Keku had finished stripping the little physician to his underclothes and had put a cover over him.
“He’s still unconscious, sir, but his breathing sounds all right.”
“How’s his pulse?”
Keku picked up Mellon’s left wrist and applied his fingers to the artery while he looked at his wrist watch.
Mike said: “We’ll check it, sir. Wait a few seconds.”
Fifteen seconds later, Keku multiplied by four and said: “One-oh-four and rather weak.”
“You’d better get hold of the Physician’s Mate,” Mike told Quill. “He’s not in good condition, either mentally or physically.”
“Very well. As soon as the mate takes over, you and Mister Keku get up here. I want to know what the devil has been going on aboard my ship.”
“You are bloody well not the only one,” said Mike the Angel.
Midnight, ship time.
And, as far as the laws of simultaneity would allow, it was midnight in Greenwich, England. At least, when a ship returned from an interstellar trip, the ship’s chronometer was within a second or two, plus or minus, of Greenwich time. Theoretically, the molecular vibration clocks shouldn’t vary at all. The fact that they did hadn’t yet been satisfactorily accounted for.
Mike the Angel tried to make himself think of clocks or the variations in space time or anything else equally dull, in the hope that it would put him to sleep.
He began to try to work out the derivation of the Beale equations, the equations which had solved the principle of the no-space drive. The ship didn’t move through space; space moved through the ship, which, of course, might account for the variation in time, because—
—the time is out of joint.
The time is out of joint: O cursed spite,That ever I was born to set it right!
The time is out of joint: O cursed spite,That ever I was born to set it right!
Hamlet, thought Mike.Act One, the end of scene five.
But why had he been born to set it right? Besides, exactly what was wrong? There was something wrong, all right.
And why from the end of the act? Another act to come? Something more to happen? The clock will go round till another time comes. Watch the clock, the absolutely cuckoo clock, which ticked as things happened that made almost no sense and yet had sense hidden in their works.
The good old Keku clock. Somewhere is icumen in, lewdly sing Keku. The Mellon is ripe and climbing Jakob’s ladder. And both of them playing Follow the Leda.
And where were they heading? Toward some destination in the general direction of the constellation Cygnus. The transformation equations work fine on an interstellar ship. Would they work on a man? Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to transform yourself into a swan? Cygnus the Swan.
And we’llallplay Follow the Leda....
Somewhere in there, Mike the Angel managed to doze off.
He awoke suddenly, and his dream of being a huge black swan vanished, shattered into nothingness.
This time it had not been a sound that had awakened him. It had been something else, something more like a cessation of sound. A dying sigh.
He reached out and touched the switch plaque.
Nothing happened.
The room remained dark.
The room was strangely silent. The almost soundless vibration of the engines was still there, but....
The air conditioners!
The air in the stateroom was unmoving, static. Therewas none of the faint breeze of moving air. Something had gone wrong with the low-power circuits!
Now how the hell could that happen? Not by accident, unless the accident were a big one. It would take a tremendous amount of coincidence to put all three of the interacting systems out of order at once. And they allhadto go at once to cut the power from the low-load circuits.
The standard tap and the first and second stand-by taps were no longer tapping power from the main generators. The intercom was gone, too, along with the air conditioners, the lights, and half a dozen other sub-circuits.
Mike the Angel scrambled out of bed and felt for his clothing, wishing he had something as prosaic as an old-fashioned match, or even a flame-type cigarette lighter. He found his lighter in his belt pocket as he pulled on his uniform. He jerked it out and thumbed it. In the utter darkness, the orange-red glow gave more illumination than he had supposed. If a man’s eyes are adjusted to darkness, he can read print by the glow of a cigarette, and the lighter’s glow was brighter than that.
Still, it wasn’t much. If only he had a flashlight!
From a distance, far down the companionway, he could hear voices. The muffled sound that had awakened him had been the soft susurration of the door as it had slid open when the power died. Without the electrolocks to hold it closed, it had opened automatically. The doors in a spaceship are built that way, to make sure no one will be trapped in case of a power failure.
Mike dressed in a matter of seconds and headed toward the door.
And stopped just before he stepped out.
Someone was outside. Someone, or—something.
He didn’t knowhowhe knew, but he knew. He was as certain as if the lights had been on bright.
And whoever was waiting out there didn’t want Mike the Angel to know that he was there.
Mike stood silent for a full second. That was long enough for him to get angry. Not the hot anger of hatred, but the cold anger of a man who has had too many attempts on his life, who has escaped narrowly from an unseen plotter twice because of pure luck and does not intend to fall victim to the dictum that “the third time’s a charm.”
He realized that he was still holding the glowing cigarette lighter in his hand.
“Damn!” he muttered, as though to himself. “I’d forget my ears if they weren’t sewed down.” Then he turned, heading back toward his bed, hoping that whoever was waiting outside would assume he would be back immediately. At the same time, he lifted his thumb off the lighter’s contact.
Then he sat down on the edge of his bed and quickly pulled off his boots. Holding them both in his hands, he moved silently back to the door. When he reached it, he tossed both boots to the rear of the room. When they landed clatteringly, he stepped quietly through the door. In three steps he was on the opposite side of the corridor. He hugged the wall and moved back away from the spot where the watcher would be expecting him.
Then he waited.
He was on one side of the door to his stateroom, and the—what or whoever it was—was on the other. Until that other made a move, Mike the Angel would wait.
The wait seemed many minutes long, although Mike knew it couldn’t have been more than forty-five seconds or so. From other parts of the ship he could hear voices shoutingas the crewmen and officers who had been sleeping were awakened by the men on duty. The ship could not sustain life long if the air conditioners were dead.
Then, quite suddenly, the waiting was over. Behind Mike there was a bend in the corridor, and from around that bend came the sound of running footsteps, followed by a bellowing voice: “I’ll get the Commander; you go down and get the other boys started!”
Multhaus.
And then there was a glow of light. The Chief Powerman’s Mate was carrying a light, which reflected from the walls of the corridor.
And Mike the Angel knew perfectly well that he was silhouetted against that glow. Whoever it was who was waiting for him could see him plainly.
Multhaus’ footsteps rang in the corridor while Mike strained his eyes to see what was before him in the darkness. And all the time, the glow became brighter as Multhaus approached.
Then, from out of the darkness, came something that moved on a whir of caterpillar treads. Something hard and metallic slammed against Mike’s shoulder, spinning him against the wall.
At that moment, Multhaus came around the corner, and Mike could see Snookums scurrying on down the corridor toward the approaching Powerman’s Mate.
“Multhaus! Look out!” Mike yelled.
The beam from the chief’s hand torch gleamed on the metallic body of the little robot as it headed toward him.
“Snookums! Stop!” Mike ordered.
Snookums paid no attention. He swerved adroitly aroundthe astonished Multhaus, spun around the corner, and was gone into the darkness.
“What was all that, sir?” Multhaus asked, looking more than somewhat confused.
“A course of instruction on the First and Second Laws of Robotics as applied by the Computer Corporation of Earth,” said Mike, rubbing his bruised side. “But never mind that now. What’s wrong with the low-power circuits?”
“I don’t know, sir. Breckwell is on duty in that section.”
“Let’s go,” said Mike the Angel. “We have to get this cleared up before we all suffocate.”
“Someone’s going to get galloping claustrophobia before it’s over, anyway,” said Multhaus morosely as he followed Mike down the hallway in the direction from which Snookums had come. “Darkness and stuffy air touch off that sort of thing.”
“Who’s Officer of the Watch tonight?” Mike wanted to know.
“Ensign Vaneski, I think. His name was on the roster, as I remember.”
“I hope he reported to the bridge. Commander Jeffers will be getting frantic, but he can’t leave the bridge unless he’s relieved. Come on, let’s move.”
They sprinted down the companionway.
The lights had been out less than five minutes when Mike the Angel and Chief Powerman’s Mate Multhaus reached the low-power center of the Power Section. The door was open, and a torch was spearing its beam on two men—one kneeling over the prone figure of the other. The kneelingman jerked his head around as Mike and the chief came in the door.
The kneeling man was Powerman First Class Fleck. Mike recognized the man on the floor as Powerman Third Class Breckwell.
“What happened?” he snapped at Fleck.
“Don’t know, sir. I was in the head when the lights went. It took me a little time to get a torch and get in here, and I found Breckwell gone. At least, I thought he was gone, but then I heard a noise from the tool cabinet and I opened it and he fell out.” The words seemed to come out all in a rush.
“Dead?” asked Mike sharply.
“Nossir, I don’t think so, sir. Looks like somebody clonked him on the head, but he’s breathin’ all right.”
Mike knelt over the man and took his pulse. The heartbeat was regular and steady, if a trifle weak. Mike ran a hand over Breckwell’s head.
“There’s a knot there the size of a golf ball, but I don’t think anything’s broken,” he said.
Footsteps came running down the hall, and six men of the power crew came pouring in the door. They slowed to a halt when they saw their commanding officer was already there.
“A couple of you take care of Breckwell—Leister, Knox—move him to one side. Bathe his face with water. No, wait; you can’t do that till we get the pumps moving again. Just watch him.”
One of the men coughed a little. “What he needs is a good slug of hooch.”
“I agree,” said Mike evenly. “Too bad there isn’t any aboard. But do what you think is best; I’m going to be toobusy to keep an eye on you. I won’t be able to watch you at all, so you’ll be on your own.”
“Yessir,” said the man who had spoken. He hid his grin and took out at a run, heading for wherever it was he kept his bottle hidden.
“Dunstan, you and Ghihara get out and watch the halls. If any other officer comes this way, sing out.”
“Yessir!” came the twin chorus.
More footsteps pounded toward them, and the remaining men of the power crew arrived.
“All right, now let’s take a look at these circuits,” said Mike.
Chief Multhaus had already flipped open all the panels and was peering inside. The men lined the torches up on the desk in the corner, in order to shed as much light as possible over the banks of low-power wiring, and went over to where Multhaus and Mike the Angel were standing.
“Dig out three replacement switches—heavy-duty six-double-oh-B-nines,” said Multhaus. There was a touch of disgust and a good-sized serving of anger and irritation in his voice.
Mike the Angel surveyed the damage. “See anything else, Multhaus?”
“No, sir. That’s it.”
Mike nodded. “About five minutes’ work to get the main switch going, which will give us power, and another ten minutes for the first and second stand-bys. Go ahead and take over, Multhaus; you won’t need me. I’ll go find out what the bloody unprintable is going on around here.”
Mike the Angel ran into Captain Sir Henry Quill as he went up the companionway to the bridge.
“What happened?” demanded the captain in his gravelly tenor voice.
“Somebody ripped out the main switches to the low-power taps from the main generators, sir,” said Mike. “Nothing to worry about. The boys will have the lights on within three or four minutes.”
“Who...?”
“I don’t know,” said Mike, “but we’d better find out pretty fast. There’ve been too many things going on aboard this ship to suit me.”
“Same here. Are you sure everything’s all right down there?”
“Absolutely, sir. We can quit worrying about the damage itself and put our minds to finding out who did that damage.”
“Do you have any ideas?”
“Some,” said Mike the Angel. “As soon as the intercom is functioning again, I think you’d better call a general meeting of officers—and get Miss Crannon and Fitzhugh out of bed and get them up here, too.”
“Why?” Black Bart asked flatly.
“Because Snookums has gone off his rocker. He’s attacked at least one human being that I know of and has ignored direct orders from a human being.”
“Who?” asked Black Bart.
“Me,” said Mike the Angel.
Mike told Captain Quill what had happened as they made their way back up to the bridge.
Ensign Vaneski, looking pale and worried, met them at the door. He snapped a salute. “I just reported to Commander Jeffers, sir. Something’s wrong with the low-power circuits.”
“I had surmised as much,” said Black Bart caustically. “Anything new? What did you find out? What happened?”
“When the lights went out, I was having coffee by myself in the wardroom. I grabbed a torch and headed for Power Section as soon as I could. The low-power room was empty. There should have been a man on duty there, but there wasn’t. I didn’t want to go inside, since I’m not a power officer, so I came up here to report. I—”
At that moment the lights blazed on again. There was a faint hum that built up all over the ship as the air conditioning came on at the same time.
“All right, Mister Vaneski,” said Black Bart, “get below and take care of things. There’s a man hurt down there, so be ready to take him to sick bay when the Physician’s Mate gets there. We don’t have a medic in any condition to take care of people, so he’ll have to do. Hop it.”
As Vaneski left, Black Bart preceded Mike into the bridge. Pete Jeffers was on the intercom. As Mike and the captain came in, he was saying, “All right. I’ll notify the Officer of the Watch, and we’ll search the ship. He can’t hide very long.” Then, without waiting to say anything to Mike or Quill, he jabbed at another button. “Mister von Liegnitz! Jake!”
“Ja?Huh? What is it?” came a fuzzy voice from the speaker.
“You all right?”
“Me? Sure. I was asleep. Why?”
“Be on your toes, sleepyhead; just got word that Mellon has escaped from his stateroom. He may try to take another crack at you.”
“I’ll watch it,” said von Liegnitz, his voice crisp now.
“Okay.” Jeffers sighed and looked up. “As soon as thepower came on, the Physician’s Mate was on the intercom. Mellon isn’t in his stateroom.”
“Oh, wonderful!” growled Captain Quill. “We now have one insane robot and one insane human running loose on this ship. I’m glad we didn’t bring any gorillas with us.”
“Somehow I think I’d be safer with a gorilla,” said Mike the Angel.
“According to the Physician’s Mate, Mellon is worse than just nuts,” said Jeffers quietly. “He says he loaded Mellon full of dope to make him sleep and that the man’s got no right to be walkin’ around at all.”
“He must have gotten out while the doors were open,” said Captain Quill. He rubbed the palm of his hand over the shiny pinkness of his scalp. His dark, shaggy brows were down over his eyes, as though they had been weighted with lead.
“Mister Jeffers,” he said abruptly, “break out the stun guns. Issue one to each officer and one to each chief non-com. Until we get this straightened out, I’m declaring a state of emergency.”
Mike the Angel hefted the heavy stun gun in his right fist, feeling its weight without really noticing it. He knew damned good and well it wouldn’t be of any use against Snookums. If Mellon came at him, the supersonic beam from the gun would affect his nerves the same way an electric current would, and he’d collapse, unconscious but relatively unharmed. But Mike doubted seriously that it would have any effect at all on the metal body of the robot. It is as difficult to jolt the nerves of a robot as it is to blind an oyster.
Snookums did have sensory devices that enabled him to tell what was going on around him, but they were not nerves in the ordinary sense of the word, and a stun gun certainly wouldn’t have the same effect.
He wondered just what effect itwouldhave—if any.
He was going down the main ladder—actually a long spiral stairway that led downward from the bridge. Behind him were Chief Multhaus, also armed with a stun gun, and four members of the power crew, each armed with a heavy spanner. Mike or the chief could take care of Mellon; it would be the crew’s job to take care of Snookums.
“Smash his treads and his waldoes,” Mike had told them, “but only if he attacks. Before you try anything else, give him an order to halt. If he keeps on coming, start swinging.” And, to Chief Multhaus: “If Mellon jumps me, fire that stun gun only if he’s armed with a knife or a gun. But if you do have to fire at Mellon, don’t wait to get in a good shot; just go ahead and knock us both out. I’d rather be asleep than dead. Okay?”
Multhaus had agreed. “The same goes for me, Commander. And the rest of the boys.”
So down the ladder they went. Mike hoped there’d be no fighting at all. He had the feeling that everything was all wrong, somehow, and that any use of stun guns or spanners would just make everything worse.
His wasn’t the only group looking for Snookums and Mellon. Lieutenant Keku had another group, and Commander Jeffers had a third. Lieutenant Commander von Liegnitz was with Captain Quill on the bridge. Mellon had already attacked von Liegnitz once; the captain didn’t want them mixing it up again.
Captain Quill’s voice came suddenly from a speaker in the overhead. “Miss Crannon and Dr. Fitzhugh have just spoken to me,” he said in his brisk tenor. “Snookums is safe in his own room. I have outlined what has happened, and they’re trying to get information from Snookums now. Lieutenant Mellon is still missing.”
“One down,” said Chief Multhaus. There was relief in his voice.
“Let’s see if we can find the other one,” said Mike the Angel.
They went down perhaps three more steps, and the speakers came to life again. “Will the Chief Physician’s Matereport to Commander Jeffers in the maintenance tool room? Lieutenant Keku, dismiss your men to quarters and report to the bridge. Commander Gabriel, dismiss your men to quarters and report to Commander Jeffers in maintenance. All chief non-coms report to the ordnance room to turn in your weapons. All enlisted men return to your posts or to quarters.”
Mike the Angel holstered his stun gun. “That’s two down,” he said to Chief Multhaus.
“Looks like we missed all the fun,” said Multhaus.
“Okay, men,” Mike said, “you got the word. Take those spanners back to the tool room in Power Section, and then get back to your quarters. Chief, you go with them and secure everything, then take that stun gun back to ordnance.”
“Yessir.”
Multhaus threw Mike a salute; Mike returned it and headed toward maintenance. He knew Multhaus and the others were curious, but he was just as curious himself. He had the advantage of being in a position to satisfy his curiosity.
The maintenance tool room was big and lined with tool lockers. One of them was open. Sprawled in front of it was Lieutenant Mellon. Over to one side was Commander Jeffers, standing next to a white-faced Ensign Vaneski. Nearby were a chief non-com and three enlisted men.
“Hullo, Mike,” Pete Jeffers said as Mike the Angel came in.
“What happened, Pete?” Mike asked.
Jeffers gestured at the sprawled figure on the floor. “We came in here to search. We found him. Mister Vaneski opened the locker, there, for a look-see, and Mellon jumped out at him. Vaneski fired his stun gun. Mellon collapsed tothe deck. He’s in bad shape; his pulse is so weak that it’s hard to find.”
Mike the Angel walked over and looked down at the fallen Medical Officer. His face was waxen, and he looked utterly small and harmless.
“What happened?” asked another voice from the door. It was Chief Physician’s Mate Pierre Pasteur. He was a smallish man, well rounded, pleasant-faced, and inordinately proud of his name. He couldn’t actually prove that he was really descended from the great Louis, but he didn’t allow people to think otherwise. Like most C. Phys. M.’s, he had a doctor of medicine degree but no internship in the Space Service. He was working toward his commission.
“We’ve got a patient for you,” said Jeffers. “Better look him over, Chief.”
Chief Pasteur walked over to where Mellon lay and took his stethoscope out of his little black bag. He listened to Mellon’s chest for a few seconds. Then he pried open an eyelid and looked closely at an eye. “What happened to him?” he asked, without looking up.
“Got hit with a beam from a stun gun,” said Jeffers.
“How did he fall? Did he hit his head?”
“I don’t know—maybe.” He looked at Ensign Vaneski. “Did he, Mister Vaneski? He was right on top of you; I was across the room.”
Vaneski swallowed. “I don’t know. He—he just sort of—well, hefell.”
“You didn’t catch him?” asked the chief. He was a physician on a case now and had no time for sirring his superiors.
“No. No. I jumped away from him.”
“Why? What’s the trouble?” Jeffers asked.
“He’s dead,” said the Chief Physician’s Mate.
Leda Crannon was standing outside the cubicle that had been built for Snookums. Her back and the palms of her hands were pressed against the door. Her head was bowed, and her red hair, shining like a hellish flame in the light of the glow panels, fell around her shoulders and cheeks, almost covering her face.
“Leda,” said Mike the Angel gently.
She looked up. There were tears in her blue eyes.
“Mike! Oh, Mike!” She ran toward him, put her arms around him, and tried to bury her face in Mike’s chest.
“What’s the matter, honey? What’s happened?” He was certain she couldn’t have heard about Mellon’s death yet. He held her in his arms, carefully, tenderly, not passionately.
“He’s crazy, Mike. He’s completely crazy.” Her voice had suddenly lost everything that gave it color. It was only dead and choked.
Mike the Angel knew it was an emotional reaction. As a psychologist, she would never have used the word “crazy.” But as a woman ... as a human being....
“Fitz is still in there talking to him, but he’s—he’s—” Her voice choked off again into sobs.
Mike waited patiently, holding her, caressing her hair.
“Eight years,” she said after a minute or so. “Eight years I spent. And now he’s gone. He’s broken.”
“How do you know?” Mike asked.
She lifted her head and looked at him. “Mike—did he really hit you? Did he refuse to stop when you ordered him to? Whatreallyhappened?”
Mike told her what had happened in the darkened companionway just outside his room.
When he finished, she began sobbing again. “He’s lying, Mike,” she said. “Lying!”
Mike nodded silently and slowly. Leda Crannon had spent all of her adult life tending the hurts and bruises and aches of Snookums the Child. She had educated him, cared for him, taken pleasure in his triumphs, worried about his health, and watched him grow mentally.
And now he was sick, broken, ruined. And, like all parents, she was asking herself: “What did I do wrong?”
Mike the Angel didn’t give her an answer to that unspoken question, but he knew what the answer was in so many cases:
The grieving parent has not necessarily done anything wrong. It may simply be that there was insufficient or poor-quality material to work with.
With a human child, it is even more humiliating for a parent to admit that he or she has contributed inferior genetic material to a child than it is to admit a failure in upbringing. Leda’s case was different.
Leda had lost her child, but Mike hesitated to point out that it wasn’t her fault in the first place because the material wasn’t up to the task she had given it, and in the secondplace because she hadn’t really lost anything. She was still playing with dolls, not human beings.
“Hell!” said Mike under his breath, not realizing that he was practically whispering in her ear.
“Isn’t it?” she said. “Isn’t it Hell? I spent eight years trying to make that little mind of his tick properly. I wanted to know what was the right, proper, and logical way to bring up children. I had a theory, and I wanted to test it. And now I’ll never know.”
“What sort of theory?” Mike asked.
She sniffled, took a handkerchief from her pocket, and began wiping at her tears. Mike took the handkerchief away from her and did the wiping job himself. “What’s this theory?” he said.
“Oh, it isn’t important now. But I felt—I still feel—that everybody is born with a sort of Three Laws of Robotics in him. You know what I mean—that a person wouldn’t kill or harm anyone, or refuse to do what was right, in addition to trying to preserve his own life. I think babies are born that way. But I think that the information they’re given when they’re growing up can warp them. They still think they’re obeying the laws, but they’re obeying them wrongly, if you see what I mean.”
Mike nodded without saying anything. This was no time to interrupt her.
“For instance,” she went on, “if my theory’s right, then a child would never disobey his father—unless he was convinced that the man was not really his father, you see. For instance, if he learned, very early, that his father never spanks him, that becomes one of the identifying marks of ‘father.’ Fine. But the first time his fatherdoesspank him, doubt enters. If that sort of thing goes on, he becomes disobedientbecause he doesn’t believe that the man is his father.
“I’m afraid I’m putting it a little crudely, but you get the idea.”
“Yeah,” said Mike. For all he knew, there might be some merit in the girl’s idea; he knew that philosophers had talked of the “basic goodness of mankind” for centuries. But he had a hunch that Leda was going about it wrong. Still, this was no time to argue with her. She seemed calmer now, and he didn’t want to upset her any more than he had to.
“That’s what you’ve been working on with Snookums?” he asked.
“That’s it.”
“For eight years?”
“For eight years.”
“Is that the information, the data, that makes Snookums so priceless, aside from his nucleonics work?”
She smiled a little then. “Oh no. Of course not, silly. He’s been fed data on everything—physics, subphysics, chemistry, mathematics—all kinds of things. Most of the major research laboratories on Earth have problems of one kind or another that Snookums has been working on. He hasn’t been given the problemIwas working on at all; it would bias him.” Then the tears came back. “And now it doesn’t matter. He’s insane. He’s lying.”
“What’s he saying?”
“He insists that he’s never broken the First Law, that he has never hurt a human being. And he insists that he has followed the orders of human beings, according to the Second Law.”
“May I talk to him?” Mike asked.
She shook her head. “Fitz is running him through an analysis. He even made me leave.” Then she looked at his face more closely. “You don’t just want to confront him and call him a liar, do you? No—that’s not like you. You know he’s just a machine—better than I do, I guess.... What is it, Mike?”
No, he thought, looking at her,she still thinks he’s human. Otherwise, she’d know that a computer can’t lie—not in the human sense of the word.
Most people, if told that a man had said one thing, and that a computer had given a different answer, would rely on the computer.
“What is it, Mike?” she repeated.
“Lew Mellon,” he said very quietly, “is dead.”
The blood drained from her face, leaving her skin stark against the bright red of her hair. For a moment he thought she was going to faint. Then a little of the color came back.
“Snookums.” Her voice was whispery.
He shook his head. “No. Apparently he tried to jump Vaneski and got hit with a stun beam. It shouldn’t have killed him—but apparently it did.”
“God, God, God,” she said softly. “Here I’ve been crying about a damned machine, and poor Lew has been lying up there dead.” She buried her face in her hands, and her voice was muffled when she spoke again. “And I’m all cried out, Mike. I can’t cry any more.”
Before Mike could make up his mind whether to say anything or not, the door of Snookums’ room opened and Dr. Fitzhugh came out, closing the door behind him. There was an odd, stricken look on his face. He looked at Leda and then at Mike, but the expression on his face showed that he really hadn’t seen them clearly.
“Did you ever wonder if a robot had a soul, Mike?” he asked in a wondering tone.
“No,” Mike admitted.
Leda took her hands from her face and looked at him. Her expression was a bright blank stare.
“He won’t answer my questions,” Fitzhugh said in a hushed tone. “I can’t complete the analysis.”
“What’s that got to do with his soul?” Mike asked.
“He won’t answer my questions,” Fitzhugh repeated, looking earnestly at Mike. “He says God won’t allow him to.”
Captain Sir Henry Quill opened the door of the late Lieutenant Mellon’s quarters and went in, followed by Mike the Angel. The dead man’s gear had to be packed away so that it could be given to his nearest of kin when the officers and crew of theBrainchildreturned to Earth. Regulations provided that two officers must inventory his personal effects and those belonging to the Space Service.
“Does Chief Pasteur know what killed him yet, Captain?” Mike asked.
Quill shook his head. “No. He wants my permission to perform an autopsy.”
“Are you going to let him?”
“I think not. We’ll put the body in the freezer and have the autopsy performed on Earth.” He looked around the room, seeing it for the first time.
“If you don’t,” said Mike, “you’ve got three suspected killers on your hands.”
Quill was unperturbed. “Don’t be ridiculous, Golden Wings.”
“I’m not,” Mike said. “I hit him in the pit of his stomach. Chief Pasteur filled him full of sedative. Mister Vaneskishot him with a stun beam. He died. Which one of us did it?”
“Probably no single one of them, but a combination of all three,” said Captain Quill. “Each action was performed in the line of duty and without malice aforethought—without even intent to harm permanently, much less to kill. There will have to be a court-martial, of course—or, at the very least, a board of inquiry will be appointed. But I am certain you’ll all come through any such inquiry scatheless.” He picked up a book from Mellon’s desk. “Let’s get about our business, Mister Gabriel. Mark down: Bible, one.”
Mike put it down on the list.
“International Encyclopedia, English edition. Thirty volumes and index.”
Mike put it down.
“The Oxford-Webster Dictionary of the English Language—
“Hallbert’s Dictionary of Medical Terms—
“The Canterbury Theological Dictionary—
“The Christian Religion and Symbolic Logic, by Bishop K. F. Costin—
“The Handbook of Space Medicine—”
As Captain Quill called out the names of the books and put them into the packing case he’d brought, Mike marked them down—while something began ticking in the back of his mind.
“Item,” said Captain Quill, “one crucifix.” He paused. “Beautifully carved, too.” He put it into the packing case.
“Excuse me, Captain,” said Mike suddenly. “Let me take a look at something, will you?” Excitedly, he leaned over and took some of the books out, looking at the pages of each one.
“I’ll be damned,” he said after a moment. “Or Ishouldbe—for being such a stupid idiot!”
Captain Quill narrowed his eyes. “What are you talking about, Mister Gabriel?”
“I’m not sure yet, Captain,” Mike hedged. “May I borrow these three books?” He held them up in his hands.
“May I be so bold as to askwhy, Mister Gabriel?”
“I just want to look at them, sir,” Mike said. “I’ll return them within a few hours.”
“Mister Gabriel,” Captain Quill said, “after what happened last night, I am suspicious of everything that goes on aboard this ship. But—yes. You may take them. However, I want them returned before we land tomorrow morning.”
Mike blinked. Neither he nor anyone else—with the exception of Captain Quill and Lieutenant Commander von Liegnitz, the navigator, knew the destination of the ship. Mike hadn’t realized they were that close to their goal. “I’ll have them back by then,” he promised.
“Very well. Now let’s get on about our work.”
The job was completed within forty-five minutes. A man can’t carry a great deal with him on a spaceship. When they were through, Mike the Angel excused himself and went to his quarters. Two hours after that he went to the officers’ wardroom to look up Pete Jeffers. Pete hadn’t been in his quarters, and Mike knew he wasn’t on duty by that time. Sure enough, Jeffers was drinking coffee all by himself in the wardroom. He looked up when Mike came in.
“Hullo, Mike,” he said listlessly. “Come sit. Have some coffee.”
There was a faint aroma in the air which indicated thatthere was more in the cup than just coffee. “No, thanks, Pete. I’ll sit this one out. I wanted to talk to you.”
“Sit. I am drinking a toast to Mister Lew Mellon.” He pointed at the coffee. “Sure you won’t have a mite? It’s sweetened from the grape.”
“No, thanks again.” Mike sat down. “It’s Mellon I wanted to talk about. Did you know him well, Pete?”
“Purty well,” Pete said, nodding. “Yeah, purty well. I always figured him for a great little bloke. Can’t figure what got into him.”
“Me either. Pete, you told me he was an Anglo-Catholic—a good one, you said.”
“’At’s right.”
“Well, how did you mean that?”
Pete frowned. “Just what I said. He studied his religion, he went to Mass regularly, said his prayers—that sort of thing. And he was, I will say, a Christian gentleman in every sense of the word.” There was irritation in his voice, as though Mike had impugned the memory of a friend.
“Don’t get huffy, Pete; he struck me as a pretty nice person, too—”
“Until he flipped his lid,” said Pete. “But that might happen to anybody.”
“Sure. But what I want to know—and don’t get sore—is, did he show any kind of—well,instabilitybefore this last outbreak?”
“Like what?”
“I mean, was he a religious nut? Did he act ‘holier than thou’ or—well, was he a fanatic, would you say?”
“No, I wouldn’t say so. He didn’t talk much about it. I guess you noticed that. I mean, he didn’t preach. He smoked some and had his glass of wine now and then—even had acocktail or two on occasion. His views on sex were orthodox, I reckon—I mean, as far as I know. He’d tell an off-color story, if it wasn’ttoobad. But he’d get up and leave quietly if the boys started tellin’ about the women they’d made. Fornication and adultery just weren’t his meat, I’d say.”
“I know he wasn’t married,” Mike said. “Did he date much?”
“Some. He liked to dance. Women seemed to like him.”
“How about men?”
“Most of the boys liked him.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh. Was he queer?” Pete frowned. “I’d damn near stake my life that he wasn’t.”
“You mean he didn’t practice it?”
“I don’t believe he even thought about it,” Pete said. “Course, you can’t tell what’s really goin’ on in a man’s mind, but—” His frown became a scowl. “Damn it, Mike, just because a man isn’t married by the time he’s thirty-five and practices Christian chastity while he’s single don’t necessarily mean he’s a damn fairy!”
“I didn’t say it did. I just wondered if you’d heard anything.”
“No more’n I’ve heard about you—who are in exactly the same position!”
“Exactly,” Mike agreed. “That’s what I wanted to know. Pete, if you’ve got it to spare, I’ll join you in that toast.”
Pete Jeffers grinned. “Comin’ right up, buddy-boy.”
He poured two more cups of coffee, spiked them from a small flask of brandy, and handed one to Mike. They drank in silence.
Fifteen minutes later, Mike the Angel was in the littleoffice that Leda Crannon shared with Dr. Fitzhugh. She was alone.
“How’s the girl today?” he asked.
“Beat,” she said with a forced smile.
“You look beautiful,” he said. He wasn’t lying. She looked drawn and tired, but she still looked beautiful.
“Thanks, Mike. What can I do for you?”
Mike the Angel pulled up a chair and sat down. “Where’s Doc Fitz?”
“He’s still trying to get information out of Snookums. It’s a weird thing, Mike—a robot with a soul.”
“You don’t mind talking about it?”
“No; go ahead if you want.”
“All right, answer me a question,” he said. “Can Snookums read English?”
“Certainly. And Russian, and German, French, Chinese, and most of the other major languages of Earth.”
“He could read a book, then?”
“Yes. But not unless it was given to him and he was specifically told to use its contents as data.”
“Good,” said Mike. “Now, suppose Snookums was given complete data on a certain field of knowledge. Suppose further that this field is internally completely logical, completely coherent, completely self-consistent. Suppose it could even be reduced to a series of axioms and theorems in symbolic logic.”
“All right,” she said. “So?”
“Now, further suppose that this system, this field of knowledge is, right now, in constant use by millions of human beings, even though most of them are unaware of the implications of the entire field. Could Snookums work with such a body of knowledge?”
“Sure,” said Leda. “Why not?”
“What if there was absolutely no way for Snookums to experiment with this knowledge? What if he simply did not have the equipment necessary?”
“You mean,” she asked, “something like astrophysics?”
“No. That’s exactly what I don’t mean. I’m perfectly well aware that it isn’t possible to test astrophysical theories directly. Nobody has been able to build a star in the lab so far.
“But itispossible to test the theories of astrophysics analogically by extrapolating on data thatcanbe tested in a physics lab.
“What I’m talking about is a system that Snookums, simply because he is what he is, cannot test or experiment upon, in any way whatsoever. A system that has, in short, no connection with the physical world whatsoever.”
Leda Crannon thought it over. “Well, assuming all that, I imagine that it would eventually ruin Snookums. He’s built to experiment, and if he’s kept from experimenting for too long, he’ll exceed the optimum randomity of his circuits.” She swallowed. “If he hasn’t already.”
“I thought so. And so did someone else,” said Mike thoughtfully.
“Well, for Heaven’s sake! What is this system?” Leda asked in sudden exasperation.
“You’re close,” said Mike the Angel.
“What are you talking about?”
“Theology,” said Mike. “He was pumped full of Christian theology, that’s all. Good, solid, Catholic theology. Bishop Costin’s mathematical symbolization of it is simply a result of the verbal logic that had been smoothed out during the previous two thousand years. Snookums could reduceit to math symbols and equations, anyway, even if we didn’t have Bishop Costin’s work.”
He showed her the book from Mellon’s room.
“It doesn’t even require the assumption of a soul to make it foul up a robot’s works. He doesn’t have any emotions, either. And he can’t handle something that he can’t experiment with. It would have driven him insane, all right. But heisn’tinsane.”
Leda looked puzzled. “But—”
“Do you know why?” Mike interrupted.
“No.”
“Because he found something that he could experiment with. He found a material basis for theological experimentation.”
She looked still more puzzled. “What could that be?”
“Me,” said Mike the Angel. “Me. Michael Raphael Gabriel. I’m an angel—an archangel. As a matter of fact, I’mthreearchangels. For all I know, Snookums has equated me with the Trinity.”
“But—how did he get that idea?”
“Mostly from the Book of Tobit,” said Mike. “That’s where an archangel takes the form of a human being and travels around with Tobit the Younger, remember? And, too, he probably got more information from the first part of Luke’s Gospel, where Gabriel tells the Blessed Virgin that she’s about to become a mother.”
“But would he have figured that out for himself?”
“Possibly,” said Mike, “but I doubt it. He was told that I was an angel—literally.”
“Let me see that book,” she said, takingThe Christian Religion and Symbolic Logicfrom Mike’s hand. She openedit to the center. “I didn’t know anyone had done this sort of work,” she said.
“Oh, there was a great fuss over the book when it came out. There were those who said that the millennium had arrived because the truth of the Christian faith had been proved mathematically, and therefore all rational people would have to accept it.”
She leafed through the book. “I’ll bet there are still some who still believe that, just like there are some people who still think Euclidian geometry must necessarily be true because it can be ‘proved’ mathematically.”
Mike nodded. “All Bishop Costin did—all he wastryingto do—was to prove that the axioms of the Christian faith are logically self-consistent. That’s all he ever claimed to have done, and he did a brilliant job of it.”
“But—how do you know this is what Snookums was given?”
“Look at the pages. Snookums’ waldo fingers wrinkled the pages that way. Those aren’t the marks of human fingers. Only two of Mellon’s other books were wrinkled that way.”
She jerked her head up from the book, startled. “What?This is Lew Mellon’s book?”
“That’s right. So are the other two. A Bible and a theological dictionary. They’re wrinkled the same way.”
Her eyes were wide, bright sapphires. “Butwhy? Why would he do such a thing, for goodness’ sake?”
“I don’t know why it was done,” Mike said slowly, “but I doubt if it was for goodness’ sake. We haven’t gotten to the bottom of this hanky-panky yet, I don’t think.
“Leda, if I’m right—if thisiswhat has been causing Snookums’ odd behavior—can you cure him?”
She looked at the book again and nodded. “I think so. But it will take a lot of work. I’ll have to talk to Fitz about it. We’ll have to keep this book—and the other two.”
Mike shook his head. “No can do. Can you photocopy them?”
“Certainly. But it’ll take—oh, two or three hours per book.”
“Then you’d better get busy. We’re landing in the morning.”
She nodded. “I know. Captain Quill has already told us.”
“Fine, then.” He stood up. “What will you do? Simply tell Snookums to forget all this stuff?”
“Good Heavens no! It’s too thoroughly integrated with every other bit of data he has! You might be able to take one single bit of data out that way, but to jerk out a whole body of knowledge like this would completely randomize his circuits. You can pull out a tooth by yanking with a pair of forceps, but if you try to take out a man’s appendix that way, you’ll lose a patient.”
“I catch,” Mike said with a grin. “Okay. I’ll get the other two books and you can get to work copying them. Take care.”
“Thanks, Mike.”
As he walked down the companionway, he cursed himself for being a fool. If he’d let things go on the way they were, Leda might have weaned herself away from Snookums. Now she was interested again. But there could have been no other way, of course.