The truck slowed. “We’re there,” the werj driver informed them. He applied his brakes, and the truck came to a squeaking halt, causing everyone aboard to pitch violently. Mali stirred, opened her eyes; she glanced around in each direction, panic shaping her face—obviously she could not orient herself immediately.
“We’re there,” Joe said to her, and hugged her against him. And now it begins, he reflected. For better or worse. For richer; for poorer. Until—death, he thought. Do us part. Odd that he should think of that, the litany of the marriage vows. Yet it seemed to fit. Death, in some indistinct form, seemed to hover close by.
Stiffly, he rose, helped Mali up; they and the others began creakily to get down from the back of the truck. The night air with its smell of the sea . . . he took a deep breath. It is really close now, he realized. The sea. The cathedral. And Glimmung trying to separate them, the sea pushed back from Heldscalla. Like God did, he thought. Separating the dark from the light, or however it goes. And the water from the land.
To the quasiarachnid he said, “God, in Genesis, was very Faustian.”
Mali moaned. “Good lord; theology in the middle of the night.” In the damp, cold air she shivered, peering around her. “I don’t see a damn thing. We’re in the center of noplace.
Against the dim nocturnal sky Joe made out what appeared to be a geodesic dome. There it is, he said to himself.
The other trucks had arrived by now; all had stopped and from each of them the throng of life-forms emerged, each in its own peculiar fashion. Some helped others; the reddish jelly, for example, had a difficult time until a spiny apparition resembling a hostile bowling ball helped it down.
A hovercraft, illuminated and large, manifested itself above them, gradually descending until at last it had parked itself in the midst of their group. “Hello,” it said. “I am your conveyance to your work-areas. Board me carefully and I will take you there, if you would, please. Hello, hello.”
Hello to you, too, Joe said to himself as he and the rest of them slithered, flapped, and bumbled aboard.
Inside the geodesic dome they were met by a herd of robots. Joe stared in disbelief. Robots!
“They’re not illegal here,” Mali pointed out. “You must get it into your mind: you’re not on Earth anymore.”
Joe said, “But Edgar Mahan proved that a synthetic lifeform can’t come into existence. ‘Life has to come from life, and therefore, in the construction of self-programming mechanisms—‘ “
“Well, you’re looking at twenty of them,” Mali said.
“Why were we told they couldn’t be made?” Joe asked her.
“Because there’re too many unemployed people on Earth as it is. The government faked scientific evidence and documentation to say robots couldn’t be done. They are rare, however. They are hard to build and costly. I’m surprised to see this many. It is all he has, I’m sure. This is a—“ She searched for the word. “For our benefit. A display. To impress us.”
One of the robots, catching sight of Joe, coasted directly toward him. “Mr. Fernwright?”
“Yes,” Joe said. He looked around him at the corridors and massive doors and the recessed overhead lighting. Efficient, extensive, and labyrinthine. And without defect. Obviously it had just been built—and not yet put to use.
“I’m amazingly glad to see you,” the robot declared. “In the center of my chest you will probably see the word ‘Willis’ stenciled. I am programmed to respond to any instruction beginning with that word. For example, if you would like to see your work-area, merely say, ‘Willis, I would like to be taken to my work-area,’ and I would then happily lead you there, giving pleasure to myself and hopefully to you as well.”
“Willis,” Joe said, “are there living quarters here for us? For example is there a private room for Miss Yojez? She’s tired; she should be asleep.”
“A three-room apartment is ready for you and Miss Yojez,” Willis said. “Your personal living quarters.”
“What?” Joe said.
“A three-room apartment—“
“You mean we have an actual apartment? Not just a room?”
“A three-room apartment,” Willis repeated, with robotic patience.
“Take us there,” Joe said.
“No,” Willis said, “you have to say, ‘Willis, take us there.’
“Willis, take us there.”
“Yes, Mr. Fernwright.” The robot led them across the foyer to the elevators.
After looking over the apartment Joe got Mali into bed; she fell asleep without a sound. Even the bed was large. Everything in the apartment was solid and in good taste (of a modest sort), and the apartment itself was, like its contents, large. He could hardly believe it. He examined the kitchen, the living room–.
And found, in the living room, on a coffee table, a jar from Heldscalla. As soon as he saw it he knew what it was. Seating himself on the couch he reached out and carefully picked it up.
The deep yellow glaze. He had never seen such a rich yellow before; it surpassed even the yellows of Delft tiles—surpassed, in fact, Royal Albert yellow. That made him wonder about bone china. Are there bone beds here? he asked himself. And, if so, what percentage bone are they using? Sixty percent? Forty? And are their bone beds as good as the peoples’ bone bed in Moravia?
“Willis,” he said.
“Yassuh.”
Questioningly, Joe said, “ ‘Yassuh’? Why not ‘Yessir’?”
The robot said, “I jes’ done bin readin’ Earth history, Massah Fernwright, suh.”
“Are there bone beds here on Plowman’s Planet?”
“Well, Massuh Fernwright, I don’ rightly know. Ah gues’ dat you’all kin as’ de central computator iffen—“
“I order you to talk correctly,” Joe said.
“You’all gotta say ‘Willis’ fust. Iffen you’all wan’ me tuh—“
“Willis, talk correctly.”
“Yes, Mr. Fernwright.”
“Willis, can you take me to my work-area?”
“Yes, Mr. Fernwright.”
“Okay,” Joe said. “Take me there.”
The robot unlocked the heavy steel and asbestos door and stood to one side, permitting Joe Fernwright to enter the enormous, dark room. Overhead lights came on automatically as he crossed the threshold.
He saw, at the far end of the room, a major workbench, and fully equipped. Three sets of waldoes. Glare-free lighting which operated from a pedal console. Self-focusing magnifying glasses, fifteen inches and more in diameter. The separate heat-needles, all the known sizes. To the left of the workbench he saw protective cartons, a kind which he had read about but never seen. Going over, he picked up one, dropped it experimentally . . . and watched it float downward, gently landing, without impact.
And the sealed containers of glazes. Every tint, shade, and hue was represented; the row of containers lined one side of the room in four rows. With them he could match virtually the glazes of every pot coming onto his bench. One more item. He walked over to it and inspected it with wonder. A weightless area, where gravity was balanced by a ring of invisible counterspin: this was the ultimate workshop device for a pot-healer, this weightless area. He would not need to secure the pieces of pot in order to meld them together; the pieces, in the weightless chamber, would simply remain where he put them. By means of this he could handle four times the number of pots he had turned out in former times, and those were times of prosperity. And the positioning would be absolutely exact. Nothing would slip, slide, or tilt during the healing process.
He noted, too, the kiln, which might be needed if a shard were missing and the need to create a duplicate came into being. Thus he could complete pots of which he did not have all the pieces. This aspect of the craft of pot-healing was not generally dealt with publicly, but—it existed.
Never in his life had he seen such a well-equipped shop for pot-healing.
Already, a number of broken pots had been brought in; a pile of filled protective cartons had accumulated at the incoming end of the bench. I could start right now, he realized. All I have to do is to flip a half-dozen switches and I’m in business. Tempting . . . He walked over to the rack of heatneedles, took one down, held it. Well balanced, he decided. Quality product; the best. He opened one of the filled cartons, gazed down at the potsherds. His interest became emergent instantly; setting down the heat-needle he took the shards out one by one, enjoying the glazes and the glaze texture of the pot. A fat, short pot. A funny pot, perhaps. He put the pieces back in the carton and turned, with the idea of carrying them over to the weightless area. He wanted to begin. This was his life. Never did I think, he thought, that I would have access to, the use of–.
He halted. And felt, inside, as if some animal had gnawed at his heart. Gnawed it with greed. And delight.