[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Burckhardt moistened his lips.
"You're a robot," he said.
The girl tried to nod. The twitching lips said, "I am. And so are you.,'
Swanson, after a single inarticulate sound, walked over to the desk and sat staring at the
wall. Burckhardt rocked back and forth beside the shattered puppet on the floor. He had no words.
The girl managed to say, "I'm-sorry all this happened." The lovely lips twisted into a
rictus sneer, frightening on that smooth young face, until she got them under control. "Sorry,"
she said again. "The-nerve center was right about where the bullet hit. Makes it difficult to-
control this body."
Burckhardt nodded automatically, accepting the apology. Robots.
It was obvious, now that he knew it. In hindsight, it was inevitable. He thought of his mystic
notions of hypnosis or Martians or something stranger still-idiotic, for the simple fact of
created robots fitted the facts better and more economically.
All the evidence had been before him. The automatized factory, with its transplanted minds-
why not transplant a mind into a humanoid robot, give it its original owner's features and form?
Could it know that it was a robot?
"All of us," Burckhardt said, hardly aware that he spoke out loud. "My wife and my
secretary and you and the neighbors. All of us the same."
"No." The voice was stronger. "Not exactly the same, all of us. I chose it, you see. I-"
This time the convulsed lips were not a random contortion of the nerves-"I was an ugly woman, Mr.
Burckhardt, and nearly sixty years old. Life had passed me. And when Mr. Dorchin offered me the
chance to live again as a beautiful girl, I jumped at the opportunity. Believe me, I jumped, in
spite of its disadvantages. My flesh body is still alive-it is sleeping, while I am here. I could
go back to it. But I never do."
"And the rest of us?"
"Different, Mr. Burckhardt. I work here. I'm carrying out Mr. Dorchin's orders, mapping
the results of the advertising tests, watching you and the others live as he makes you live. I do
it by choice, but you have no choice. Because, you see, you are dead."
"Dead?" cried Burckhardt; it was almost a scream.
The blue eyes looked at him unwinkingly and he knew that it was no lie. He swallowed,
marveling at the intricate mechanisms that let him swallow, and sweat, and eat.
He said: "Oh. The explosion in my dream."
"It was no dream. You are right-the explosion. That was real and this plant was the cause
of it. The storage tanks let go and what the blast didn't get, the fumes killed a little later.
But almost everyone died in the blast, twenty-one thousand persons. You died with them and that
was Dorchin's chance."
"The damned ghoul!" said Burckhardt.
The twisted shoulders shrugged with an odd grace. "Why? You were gone. And you and all the
others were what Dorchin wanted-a whole town, a perfect slice of America. It's as easy to transfer
a pattern from a dead brain as a living one. Easier-the dead can't say no. Oh, it took work and
money-the town was a wreck-but it was possible to rebuild it entirely, especially because it
wasn't necessary to have all the details exact.
"There were the homes where even the brain had been utterly destroyed, and those are empty
inside, and the cellars that needn't be too perfect, and the streets that hardly matter. And
anyway, it only has to last for one day. The same day-June 15th-over and over again; and if
someone finds something a little wrong, somehow, the discovery won't have time to snowball, wreck
the validity of the tests, because all errors are canceled out at midnight."
The face tried to smile. "That's the dream, Mr. Burckhardt, that day of June 15th, because
you never really lived it. It's a present from Mr. Dorchin, a dream that he gives you and then
takes back at the end of the day, when he has all his figures on how many of you respond to what
file:///F|/rah/Frederik%20Pohl/Frederik%20Pohl%20-%20Best%20of%20Frederik%20Pohl.txt (17 of 152) [1/23/03 12:26:26 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Frederik%20Pohl/Frederik%20Pohl%20-%20Best%20of%20Frederik%20Pohl.txt
variation of which appeal, and the maintenance crews go down the tunnel to go through the whole
city, washing out the new dream with their little electronic drains, and then the dream starts all
over again. On June 15th.
"Always June 15th, because June 14th is the last day any of you can remember alive.
Sometimes the crews miss someone-as they missed you, because you were under your boat. But it
doesn't matter. The ones who are missed give themselves away if they show it-and if they don't, it
doesn't affect the test. But they don't drain us, the ones of us who work for Dorchin. We sleep
when the power is turned off, just as you do. When we wake up, though, we remember." The face
contorted wildly. "If I could only forget!"
Burckhardt said unbelievingly, "All this to sell merchandise! It must have cost millions!"
The robot called April Horn said, "It did. But it has made millions for Dorchin, too. And
that's not the end of it. Once he finds the master words that make people act, do you suppose he
will stop with that? Do you suppose--"
The door opened, interrupting her. Burckhardt whirled. Belatedly remembering Dorchin's
flight, he raised the gun.
"Don't shoot," ordered the voice calmly. It was not Dorchin; it was another robot, this
one not disguised with the clever plastics and cosmetics, but shining plain. It said metallically,
"Forget it, Burckhardt. You're not accomplishing anything. Give me that gun before you do any more
damage. Give it to me now."
Burckhardt bellowed angrily. The gleam on this robot torso was steel; Burckhardt was not
at all sure that his bullets would pierce it, or do much harm if they did. He would have put it to
the test- But from behind him came a whimpering, scurrying whirlwind: its name was Swanson,
hysterical with fear. He catapulted into Burckhardt and sent him sprawling, the gun flying free.
"Please!" begged Swanson incoherently, prostrate before the steel robot. "He would have
shot you-please don't hurt me! Let me work for you, like that girl. I'll do anything, anything you
tell me--"
The robot voice said, "We don't need your help.2' It took two precise steps and stood over
the gun-and spurned it, left it lying on the floor.
The wrecked blond robot said, without emotion, "I doubt that I can hold out much longer,
Mr. Dorchin."
"Disconnect if you have to," replied the steel robot.
Burckhardt blinked. "But you're not Dorchin!"
The steel robot turned deep eyes on him. "I am," it said. "Not in the flesh-but this is
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]