Virtual Unrealities, The Short Fiction of Alfred Bester (15 page)

“Looks like one android was made wrong.”

“Jesus!”

And the thermometer that day registered 92.9° gloriously Fahrenheit.

So there we were aboard the
Paragon Queen
enroute for Megaster V, James Vandaleur and his android. James Vandaleur counted his money and wept. In the second-class cabin with him was his android, a magnificent synthetic creature with classic features and wide blue eyes. Raised on its forehead in a cameo of flesh were the letters MA, indicating that this was one of the rare multiple-aptitude androids, worth $57,000 on the current exchange. There we were, weeping and counting and calmly watching.

“Twelve, fourteen, sixteen. Sixteen hundred dollars,” Vandaleur wept. “That’s all. Sixteen hundred dollars. My house was worth ten thousand. The land was worth five. There was furniture, cars, my paintings, etchings, my plane, my— And nothing to show for everything but sixteen hundred dollars. Christ!”

I leaped up from the table and turned on the android. I pulled a strap from one of the leather bags and beat the android. It didn’t move.

“I must remind you,” the android said, “that I am worth fifty-seven thousand dollars on the current exchange. I must warn you that you are endangering valuable property.”

“You damned crazy machine,” Vandaleur shouted.

“I am not a machine,” the android answered. “The robot is a machine. The android is a chemical creation of synthetic tissue.”

“What got into you?” Vandaleur cried, “Why did you do it? Damn you!” He beat the android savagely.

“I must remind you that I cannot be punished,” I said. “The pleasure-pain syndrome is not incorporated in the android synthesis.”

“Then why did you kill her?” Vandaleur shouted. “If it wasn’t for kicks, why did you—”

“I must remind you,” the android said, “that the second-class cabins in these ships are not soundproofed.”

Vandaleur dropped the strap and stood panting, staring at the creature he owned.

“Why did you do it? Why did you kill her?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered.

“First it was malicious mischief. Small things. Petty destruction. I should have known there was something wrong with you then. Androids can’t destroy. They can’t harm. They—”

“There is no pleasure-pain syndrome incorporated in the android synthesis.”

“Then it got to arson. Then serious destruction. Then assault … that engineer on Rigel. Each time worse. Each time we had to get out faster. Now it’s murder. Christ! What’s the matter with you? What’s happened?”

“There are no self-check relays incorporated in the android brain.”

“Each time we had to get out it was a step downhill. Look at me. In a second-class cabin. Me. James Paleologue Vandaleur. There was a time when my father was the wealthiest— Now, sixteen hundred dollars in the world. That’s all I’ve got. And you. Christ damn you!”

Vandaleur raised the strap to beat the android again, then dropped it and collapsed on a berth, sobbing. At last he pulled himself together.

“Instructions,” he said.

The multiple android responded at once. It arose and awaited orders.

“My name is now Valentine. James Valentine. I stopped off on Paragon III for only one day to transfer to this ship for Megaster V. My occupation: Agent for one privately owned MA android which is for hire. Purpose of visit: To settle on Megaster V. Fix the papers.”

The android removed Vandaleur’s passport and papers from a bag, got pen and ink and sat down at the table. With an accurate, flawless hand—an accomplished hand that could draw, write, paint, carve, engrave, etch, photograph, design, create, and build—it meticulously forged new credentials for Vandaleur. Its owner watched me miserably.

“Create and build,” I muttered. “And now destroy. Oh God! What am I going to do? Christ! If I could only get rid of you. If I didn’t have to live off you. God! If only I’d inherited some guts instead of you.”

Dallas Brady was Megaster’s leading jewelry designer. She was short, stocky, amoral and a nymphomaniac. She hired Vandaleur’s multiple-aptitude android and put me to work in her shop. She seduced Vandaleur. In her bed one night, she asked abruptly, “Your name’s Vandaleur, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I murmured. Then: “No! It’s Valentine. James Valentine.”

“What happened on Paragon?” Dallas Brady asked. “I thought androids couldn’t kill or destroy property. Prime Directives and Inhibitions set up for them when they’re synthesized. Every company guarantees they can’t.”

“Valentine!” Vandaleur insisted.

“Oh come off it,” Dallas Brady said. “I’ve known for a week. I haven’t hollered copper, have I?”

“The name is Valentine.”

“You want to prove it? You want I should call the cops?” Dallas reached out and picked up the phone.

“For God’s sake, Dallas!” Vandaleur leaped up and struggled to take the phone from her. She fended him off, laughing at him, until he collapsed and wept in shame and helplessness.

“How did you find out?” he asked at last.

“The papers are full of it. And Valentine was a little too close to Vandaleur. That wasn’t smart, was it?”

“I guess not. I’m not very smart.”

“Your android’s got quite a record, hasn’t it? Assault. Arson. Destruction. What happened on Paragon?”

“It kidnapped a child. Took her out into the rice fields and murdered her.”

“Raped her?”

“I don’t know.”

“They’re going to catch up with you.”

“Don’t I know it? Christ! We’ve been running for two years now. Seven planets in two years. I must have abandoned fifty thousand dollars’ worth of property in two years.”

“You better find out what’s wrong with it.”

“How can I? Can I walk into a repair clinic and ask for an overhaul? What am I going to say? ‘My android’s just turned killer. Fix it.’ They’d call the police right off.” I began to shake. “They’d have that android dismantled inside one day. I’d probably be booked as accessory to murder.”

“Why didn’t you have it repaired before it got to murder?”

“I couldn’t take the chance,” Vandaleur explained angrily. “If they started fooling around with lobotomies and body chemistry and endocrine surgery, they might have destroyed its aptitudes. What would I have left to hire out? How would I live?”

“You could work yourself. People do.”

“Work at what? You know I’m good for nothing. How could I compete with specialist androids and robots? Who can, unless he’s got a terrific talent for a particular job?”

“Yeah. That’s true.”

“I lived off my old man all my life. Damn him! He had to go bust just before he died. Left me the android and that’s all. The only way I can get along is living off what it earns.”

“You better sell it before the cops catch up with you. You can live off fifty grand. Invest it.”

“At three percent? Fifteen hundred a year? When the android returns fifteen percent on its value? Eight thousand a year. That’s what it earns. No, Dallas, I’ve got to go along with it.”

“What are you going to do about its violence kick?”

“I can’t do anything … except watch it and pray. What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing. It’s none of my business. Only one thing… . I ought to get something for keeping my mouth shut.”

“What?”

“The android works for me for free. Let somebody else pay you, but I get it for free.”

The multiple-aptitude android worked. Vandaleur collected its fees. His expenses were taken care of. His savings began to mount. As the warm spring of Megaster V turned to hot summer, I began investigating farms and properties. It would be possible, within a year or two, for us to settle down permanently, provided Dallas Brady’s demands did not become rapacious.

On the first hot day of summer, the android began singing in Dallas Brady’s workshop. It hovered over the electric furnace which, along with the weather, was broiling the shop, and sang an ancient tune that had been popular half a century before.

It sang in a strange, halting voice, and its accomplished fingers were clasped behind its back, writhing in a strange rumba all their own. Dallas Brady was surprised.

“You happy or something?” she asked.

“I must remind you that the pleasure-pain syndrome is not incorporated in the android synthesis,” I answered. “All reet! All reet! Be fleet be fleet, cool and discreet, honey …”

Its fingers stopped their writhing and picked up a heavy pair of iron tongs. The android poked them into the glowing heart of the furnace, leaning far forward to peer into the lovely heat.

“Be careful, you damned fool!” Dallas Brady exclaimed. “You want to fall in?”

“I must remind you that I am worth fifty-seven thousand dollars on the current exchange,” I said. “It is forbidden to endanger valuable property. All reet! All reet! Honey …”

It withdrew a crucible of glowing gold from the electric furnace, turned, capered hideously, sang crazily, and splashed a sluggish gobbet of molten gold over Dallas Brady’s head. She screamed and collapsed, her hair and clothes flaming, her skin crackling. The android poured again while it capered and sang.

“Be fleet be fleet, cool and discreet, honey …” It sang and slowly poured and poured the molten gold. Then I left the workshop and rejoined James Vandaleur in his hotel suite. The android’s charred clothes and squirming fingers warned its owner that something was very much wrong.

Vandaleur rushed to Dallas Brady’s workshop, stared once, vomited and fled. I had enough time to pack one bag and raise nine hundred dollars on portable assets. He took a third-class cabin on the
Megaster Queen
, which left that morning for Lyra Alpha. He took me with him. He wept and counted his money and I beat the android again.

And the thermometer in Dallas Brady’s workshop registered 98.1° beautifully Fahrenheit.

On Lyra Alpha we holed up in a small hotel near the university. There, Vandaleur carefully bruised my forehead until the letters MA were obliterated by the swelling and the discoloration The letters would reappear again, but not for several months, and in the meantime Vandaleur hoped the hue and cry for an MA android would be forgotten. The android was hired out as a common laborer in the university power plant. Vandaleur, as James Venice, eked out life on the android’s small earnings.

I wasn’t too unhappy. Most of the other residents in the hotel were university students, equally hard-up, but delightfully young and enthusiastic. There was one charming girl with sharp eyes and a quick mind. Her name was Wanda, and she and her beau, Jed Stark, took a tremendous interest in the killing android which was being mentioned in every paper in the galaxy.

“We’ve been studying the case,” she and Jed said at one of the casual student parties which happened to be held this night in Vandaleur’s room. “We think we know what’s causing it. We’re going to do a paper.” They were in a high state of excitement.

“Causing what?” somebody wanted to know.

“The android rampage.”

“Obviously out of adjustment, isn’t it? Body chemistry gone haywire. Maybe a kind of synthetic cancer, yes?”

“No,” Wanda gave Jed a look of suppressed triumph.

“Well, what is it?”

“Something specific.”

“What?”

“That would be telling.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Nothing doing.”

“Won’t you tell us?” I asked intently. “I … We’re very much interested in what could go wrong with an android.”

“No, Mr. Venice,” Wanda said. “It’s a unique idea and we’ve got to protect it. One thesis like this and we’ll be set up for life. We can’t take the chance of somebody stealing it.”

“Can’t you give us a hint?”

“No. Not a hint. Don’t say a word, Jed. But I’ll tell you this much, Mr. Venice. I’d hate to be the man who owns that android.”

“You mean the police?” I asked.

“I mean projection, Mr. Venice. Projection! That’s the danger … and I won’t say any more. I’ve said too much as it is.”

I heard steps outside, and a hoarse voice singing softly: “Be fleet be fleet, cool and discreet, honey …” My android entered the room, home from its tour of duty at the university power plant. It was not introduced. I motioned to it and I immediately responded to the command and went to the beer keg and took over Vandaleur’s job of serving the guests. Its accomplished fingers writhed in a private rhumba of their own. Gradually they stopped their squirming, and the strange humming ended.

Androids were not unusual at the university. The wealthier students owned them along with cars and planes. Vandaleur’s android provoked no comment, but young Wanda was sharp-eyed and quick-witted. She noted my bruised forehead and she was intent on the history-making thesis she and Jed Stark were going to write. After the party broke up, she consulted with Jed walking upstairs to her room.

“Jed, why’d that android have a bruised forehead?”

“Probably hurt itself, Wanda. It’s working in the power plant. They fling a lot of heavy stuff around.”

“That all?”

“What else?”

“It could be a convenient bruise.”

“Convenient for what?”

“Hiding what’s stamped on its forehead.”

“No point to that, Wanda. You don’t have to see marks on a forehead to recognise an android. You don’t have to see a trademark on a car to know it’s a car.”

“I don’t mean it’s trying to pass as a human. I mean it’s trying to pass as a lower grade android.”

“Why?”

“Suppose it had ‘MA’ on its forehead.”

“Multiple aptitude? Then why in hell would Venice waste it stoking furnaces if it could earn more— Oh. Oh! You mean it’s—?” Wanda nodded.

“Jesus!” Stark pursed his lips. “What do we do? Call the police?”

“No. We don’t know if it’s an MA for a fact. If it turns out to be an MA and the killing android, our paper comes first anyway. This is our big chance, Jed. If it’s
that
android we can run a series of controlled tests and—”