Manly Wade Wellman - Chapbook 02 (17 page)

 
          
“Only
on the surface, Dillon,” said Buckalew, smiling faintly. “You don’t yet
understand. How can a—a thing with an artificial body be injured?”

 
          
“But
you—
what?”
exclaimed Stover, his blue
eyes widening in a startled way as he gazed at the face of the speaker. “What
did you say?” “I have more than one artificial leg, Dillon. I’m a fake through
and through—legs, arms, body and
head,
I am made of
metal covered with synthetic rubber flesh. I am the last robot your grandfather
made. That’s why he gave me the name of Robert.”

 
         
AGAIN
they sat at the Zaarr— Stover, Bee, and Buckalew. It was the same table from
which Stover had once risen hotly to smash Malbrook’s sneering face.

 
          
“Somehow,”
Stover was saying, “I'm not as shocked as I should be, Buckalew. I think I knew
that you were a robot all along.”

 
          
He
gestured at the food and drink served for only two. “This, subconsciously, was
my first clue. Your’s isn’t a normal body, or you’d have to nourish it at
times. And then your eternal youth; you knew my grandfather intimately, and
you’re not a day older now than then. Again, when that explosion happened at
our lodgings, you threw yourself in its way and saved me.”

 
          
“You
gave credit for that rescue to the poor robot servitor,” reminded Buckalew.

 
          
“At
first I did.
But when you sighed over ‘A robot saved you/ you
almost gave it away again.
Your body, more solidly and strongly made
than the metal servitor, kept my beef and bones from being de-atomized. And you
didn’t pass out on me, but calmly changed clothes.”

 
          
“Not
vanity on my part,” Buckalew assured him. “Without clothes I’m pretty evidently
an artificial figure. And so I had to think of dressing before I dared awaken
you. I dare say I acted very strangely, Dillon, but I was really telling the
truth.”

 
          
“The truth?”

 
          
“Fielding
magnetized the walls to hold both me and the servitor helpless until you came.
Also to hold the inflated copy figure of me up, too, so that when it was
released and sagged down the trigger device would set off the explosion. I
actually went blank in my mind—it has metal connections, you see. They were
frozen inactive until the magnetizing power was turned off. If I was rude or vague,
I’m sorry.”

 
          
“There
were more clues,” Stover continued. “You didn’t fear a shot from Gerda’s
pistol. You had no sense of dizziness when you climbed down those girders after
me; and your body, smaller than mine, was yet heavy enough to pull mine up by
the counter-balance of its weight. And —well, won’t you tell us the whole story
now?”

 
          
“Very briefly.”
Buckalew toyed with the wine glass from
which he never drank. “I was made, Dillon, by your grandfather when he was a
young man like yourself, studying here. Malbrook’s grandfather had engaged him
to experiment in robot engineering, and I was the finest example of his work.
At first your grandfather was dissatisfied with the sub-mental, sub-personal
servitors he evolved—but when he made me, he was heartsick.”

 
          
“Why?”
asked Bee with breathless interest.

 
          
Buckalew
smiled faintly. “I was a mind, a personality. To him, I was a friend, and a
dear friend. But because I was an artificial construction I was property, the
property of the man who engaged him.” Buckalew was somber. “He stopped making
super robots at once, but I was already here. I descended at last to the Malbrook
whose death has caused all these curious disclosures."

           
"So that was his hold over
you,” summed up Bee.

 
          
Buckalew
smiled bitterly.

 
          
"Yes.
He could expose me at any time as an artificial form of life. He could, if he
wished, have dismantled and destroyed me. He let me live as if I were a free
man, well-supplied with money—but only to run various unpleasant errands for
him.” Buckalew grew somber, but only for a moment. "I’m free of him now.
Nobody knows my real status except the two of you and the heir to Malbrook’s
property.”

 
          
"Reynardine
Phogor,” finished Stover. "Yes, she knows about you.” "What a rotten
shame!” put in Bee MacGowan warmly. "She may prove a worse owner than
Malbrook.”

           
"I can only find out,” sighed
Buckalew.

 
          
Stover
smiled as he signaled a robot waiter, who replenished his glass and Bee’s. Then
he said: "What were some of your jobs, Robert?”

           
"The principal one was being
Mal- brook's financial figurehead. In my name he could speculate. His own
operations would have caused too much publicity and set financial opponents on
guard against him. With me as a front, he could operate safely. Even if I
wanted to cheat or oppose him, I couldn’t. He could declare my true status at
any time, destroy me, and take my technical holdings. Fielding used me that
way, too.” "Could you operate as a financier and business man yourself?”
inquired Stover.

 
          
Buckalew’s
artificial eyebrows went up. "Yes. I’m well experienced and adapted. But
I'll never get the chance, belonging to Miss Phogor.”

 
          
"She
and I had a conversation while we waited to be interviewed in Congreve’s
office,” said Stover. “First of all, she thought that she owed me everything.
Without me, the true bequest to her of the bulk of Malbrook’s property would
never have been learned. And I agreed very frankly. I asked certain favors.”

 
          
"About the water rights?”

 
          
"Yes,
about the water rights,” agreed Stover. "They are going to be

 
          
administered
for the good of the whole Martian population—a
government project and relief activity, not a money-grubbing monopoly. They’ll
tide Mars over while the condenser- ray work is being perfected. She agreed
that I was right—such things should be. And then I made another stipulation. I
asked her for something outright as a reward for my services.”

 
          
"Reward?”
asked Buckalew. "What?”

 
          
"You,”
said Stover succinctly.

 
          
For
once Buckalew’s artificial face betrayed something like mute, human
astonishment.

 
          
"She
made a formal written transfer of her title to you over to me,” said Stover.
"Technically, you’re now my property. That will protect you from any legal
trouble as a piece of machinery. But, practically, you belong to yourself.”

 
          
"To
myself,” muttered Buckalew.
"To myself.”
He
picked up the wineglass. "For the first time since I was made, I wish I
could take a drink.”

 
          
"Come
to Earth with me,” Stover was urging. “There you’ll never be spotted as
anything but a man. And you know that Bee and I will never tell on you.”

 
         
Robert
buckalew looked at him with startled eyes.

           
“You think I could run my life my
own way?”

 
          
"Why not?
I’ll gamble on you. In all of Pulambar, in
all of the Solar System, in
all of the
habitable
universe, I could never ask for an animate friend with a braver, warmer, truer
heart than you. And here’s to your robot health.”

 
          
Stover
and Bee lifted glasses and drank. Buckalew gravely bowed his sleek head.

 
          
"Consider
a return toast drunk,” he said in a voice that for once trembled with the
emotion that robots are said never to feel. “We’re all safe, all happy,
all
triumphant. We don't have to fight or hate anyone. Not
even Brome Fielding.”

 
          
"No,”
agreed Stover. "We can see now that Fielding was beaten from the start.”
 
 
         
Both Bee and Buckalew turned sharp
gazes upon him.

 
          
“How
so?” asked Bee. “With Malbrook dead, he was so powerful.” “Exactly,” agreed
Stover. “It happens that I was sure of his guilt only when I heard that he had
possession of that transcribed will. It had been lost. I knew it had been
tampered with. So Fielding must have hidden and changed it. The rest of the
picture filled itself in. But his position of power was really his downfall. It
became more and more evident that a man of supreme power was guilty.” “You
started that train of thought when you first said that only one of the
High-tower set could have done it,” remembered Buckalew.

 
          
“Yes.
Police secrets, scientific knowledge, a dozen other difficult things, were
wielded as weapons by the killer.
Even without the evidence
that turned up, we could have can
 
celed one suspect after another because
of their weaknesses, until we came to the first citizen of Pulambar —Brome
Fielding.”

 
          
Buckalew
nodded gravely.
“A rationalization worthy of your
grandfather, Dillon.
You’ll start back to work now?”

 
          
“Almost at once.
I’m going to finish that condenser
apparatus, and make Mars fertile again. The Mal- brook-Fielding fortune,
founded on water monopoly, won’t long survive its owners. But,” and Stover
waved the topic away, “we’re celebrating now, aren’t we?”

 
          
“We
are,” said Buckalew. “What then? Shall I order a joy-lamp for you two
susceptibles?”

 
          
Stover
turned and looked very fondly at Bee.

 
          
“Your
eyes are joy-lamp enough,” he told her gently, “for me for the rest of my
life.”