“It is a fairly new concept,” I told him. “It was developed on the planet Alden only a couple of centuries ago and has been in the process of refinement every since. No two of the instruments ever are alike. There is always something that can be done to make the next one better. It is an open-ended project when you settle down to design a compositor, which is an awkward name for it, but no one has thought of a better one.”
“But you call this one Bronco. There must be something in the name . . .”
“It’s like this,” I said. “The compositor is rather large and heavy. It is a complex mechanism and there are many rather delicate components that require heavy shielding. It is not something that one could drag around; it has to be self-propelling. So while we were about it, we built a saddle on it so a man could ride.”
“By we I suppose you mean yourself and Elmer. How does it happen Elmer is not with you now?”
“Elmer,” I told him, “is a robot and he is in a crate. He traveled on board the ship as freight.”
Bell moved uneasily, protesting. “But, Mr. Carson, you must know. Surely you must know. Robots are not allowed on Mother Earth. I am afraid we must . . .”
“In this case, you have no choice,” I said. “You cannot refuse him entry to the planet. He is a native of the Earth and this is something neither you nor I can claim.”
“A native! It’s impossible. You must be jesting, Mr. Carson.”
“Not in the least. He was fabricated here. In the days of the Final War. He helped build the last of the great war machines. Since then he has become a free robot and, according to galactic law, holds all the rights a human has, with a very few exceptions.”
Bell shook his head. “I am not sure.” he said. “I am not sure at all . . ”
“You need not be sure,” I said. “I am. I checked into the law, most thoroughly. Not only is Elmer a native, but in the meaning of the law he is native-born. Not fabricated. Born. Back on Alden there is a very legal document that attests to all of this and I have a copy with me.” He did not ask to see the copy. “For all intents,” I said, “Elmer is a human being.” “But surelv the captain would have questioned . . .” “The captain didn’t care,” I said. “Not after the bribe I paid him. And in case the law is not enough, I might point out that Elmer is all of eight feet tall and very, very tough. What is more, he is sentient. He wouldn’t let me turn him off when I nailed him in the crate. I’d hate to think of what might happen if someone other than myself opened up that crate.”
Bell eyed me almost sleepily, but there was a wariness behind the sleepiness. “Why, Mr. Carson,” he asked, “do you think so badly of us? We appreciate your coming, your having thought of us. Any aid that Mother Earth can give is yours if you only mention it. If there should be financial problems . . .”
“There are financial problems, certainly. But we seek no aid.”
He persisted. “There have been occasions when we extended monetary grants to other persons of the arts. To writers, painters …”
“I have tried as plainly as I can,” I said, “to indicate that! we want no ties to Mother Earth or to the Cemetery. But you deliberately persist in your misunderstanding. Must I put it bluntly?”
“No,” he said, “I would think there is no need. You are laboring under a romantic misapprehension there is more to Earth than the Cemetery and I tell You. sir there is nothing else. Earth is worthless. It was destroyed and abandoned ten thousand years ago and it would have been forgotten long ago if it had not been for us. Will you not reconsider? There would be much mutual benefit to both of us, I am intrigued by this new art form that you have described.”
“Look,” I said, “you might as well understand this. I don’t propose to turn out a Cemetery work. I’m not up for hire as a press agent for Mother Earth. And I owe you nothing. I paid your precious captain five thousand credits to haul us here and . . .”
“Which was less,” Bell said angrily, “than you would have paid on a Pilgrim ship. And a Pilgrim ship would not have taken all your freight.”
“I thought,” I said, “that it was sufficient payment.”
I didn’t say good-bye. I turned about and left. Walking down the steps of the administration building, I saw a ground car was parked in front of the steps, in the traffic circle. It was the only car in sight. The woman who sat in it was looking straight at me, as if she might have known that I was in the building and had been waiting for me.
The car was a screaming pink and that color, pink, made my thoughts go back to Alden, where it all had started.
Chapter 3
It had been early evening and I’d been in the garden watching the purple cloud that hung above the pink horizon (for Alden was a pink world), listening to the evensong of the temple birds that had gathered in the little grove of trees at the garden’s foot. I was listening with some pleasure, when trampling down the dusty path that led across the pink and sandy plain came this great eight-foot monstrosity, lurching along with his awkward stride like a drunken behemoth. Watching him, I hoped that he would pass by and leave me with the evening and the birds, for I was in no mood for strangers. I was considerably depressed and there was nothing I wanted quite so much as to be left alone so I’d have a chance to heal. For this had been the day when I’d finally come face-to-face with hard reality and had known that the dream of Earth was dead unless I could get more money. I knew how little chance I had of getting money. I had scraped up all I could and borrowed all I could and would have stolen if there’d been any chance of stealing. I’d had a hard look at it all and knew” wasn’t going to be able to build the kind of compositor wanted and the sooner I got reconciled to all of this, better it would be.
I sat in the garden and watched this great monstrosity lurching down the path and I tried to tell myself that he was headed elsewhere and would not stop. But that was purely wishful thinking, for my garden was the only place he could be heading for.
He looked like a worker robot, perhaps a heavy construction robot, although what a heavy construction robot would be doing on a planet such as Alden I could not imagine. Heavy construction is just one of the many things that are not done on Alden.
He came lurching up and stopped beside the gate. “With your permission, sir,” he said.
“Welcome to my home,” I told him, through my teeth.
He unlatched the gate and came through, stopping to make sure it was latched again before coming on. He came over to me and hunkered down as gently as he could and hissed a little at me as a matter of politeness. Have you ever heard a three-ton robot hiss? I tell you, it’s uncanny.
“The birds are doing nicely,” said this hunk of metal, squatting there beside me.
“They do very well,” I said.
“Allow me,” said the robot, “to introduce myself.”
“If you would please,” I said.
“My name is Elmer,” said the robot. “I am a free machine. I was given freedom papers many centuries ago. I have been my own man ever since.”
“Well,” I said, “congratulations. How are you making out?”
“Very well,” said Elmer. “I just sort of wander, going here and there.”
I nodded, believing him. You saw them now and then, these free and wandering robots who had gained, technically, the status of a human after many years of servitude.
“I have heard,” said Elmer, “that you’re going back to Earth.”
Not to the Earth, but back to Earth-that was the way of it. After more than ten millennia, one still went back to Earth. As if the human race had left it only yesterday.
“You have been misinformed,” I said.
“But you have a compositor . . .”
“A basic instrument,” I told him, “that needs a million things to do the kind of job that should be done. It would be pitiful to go to Earth with such a pile of junk.”