Part 1

AWAKENING

A Novelet by BRYCE WALTON

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Startling Stories Summer 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

The scream of the commutor jet bringing Kelsey home broke like glass outside the house.

Startled, Alice realized that she was behind schedule in her household duties. Quickly she switched the news off the Tevee. Master Kelsey hated newscasts. They made him uneasy, particularly with all this talk about a possible air-raid.

Instead, she hurriedly tuned in Kelsey's evening preference: self-improvement commercials with the latest pop-tunes for background.

Then she ran into the bathroom to prepare Kelsey's intricate beauty ritual.

She turned up her thermostat so that her machinery would run a little faster. If she wasn't careful, Master Kelsey would trade her in for a more modern and physically attractive domestic.

She heard footsteps in the hall. His footsteps--

In another few seconds he would be there, real, breathing, but unobtainable, a living dream, something on the other side of the looking glass.

Oh the pain, the indescribable pain of love, greater and deeper and drowning love, going out and out all the time and never coming back again. Painful, painful unrequited love.

The cumulative loneliness, the hours of lonely loving, the hours and days and weeks and years of tireless mechanical walking in the indifferent round of the hours of her life. The loneliness of loving something that can never love in return, that doesn't even know of your love, that can't even conceive of your being able to love.

For you are only a machine and your soul can never be shared; for only you know that you have a soul, and it is an accident and no one could even suspect that it could possibly be--this crying hungry, yearning, lonely soul.

Without effort she could have cried out her heart to Master Kelsey, but she had not been made to cry, and no one would think of looking for her heart or soul. Or the lonely yearning of the heart or soul.

For the soul can be trapped in ugliness, or in the slashing streak of electrons. Dying there, the soul alone can mourn its dying, for who can feel the soul in the rectifiers and diodes, or behind the ugliness of a distorted shell?

It was very good for her, she thought, that no one, no human, including Master Kelsey could ever guess at the awful intensity, the terrible hunger of the soul that kept loving in silence, alone, in the dark, behind the plastoid walls of an inhuman shell.

Master Kelsey came into the living room, tall and broad and beautiful and neat in his business suit, his blond hair in a waving shine. But with that tired sharp look to his mouth in spite of its frozen smile. He always seemed so relieved to see her standing there waiting, responsive, receptive, an understanding shadow that filled up his frightened loneliness between the time of his arrival and the absorption in Tevee, or the always demanded presence of guests.

He leaned wearily against the wall, breathing heavily as though he had been running from something for a long time.

"Hello, hello, Alice," he said quickly, forcing exaggerated joy into the greeting to conceal something full of fear.

"Hello, Master Kelsey. You had a fine day at the office?"

"Fine! It was great, simply perfect!" He said it almost fiercely, as though even a robot might challenge the statement.

As he stared at the Tevee's hypnotic glow, his face began to relax a little. "Everybody," he whispered, "was happy today. The Manager gave our office group a Silver Star for being tops in the Group Sociability scale for the week."

"That's wonderful, Master Kelsey!"

He stared at her. "I wish they had made you so you could smile more, Alice. The way you look, it--it gives me a sort of doubtful feeling sometimes."

If you only knew how I felt, my dearest Kelsey, inside, inside the machinery that has the cold and tiny shell. I'm all one great warm smile of joy just to be near you, darling Kelsey.

"I'm happy for you, Master Kelsey," she said.

He nodded slowly.

Why wasn't he happier, she wondered, as she had wondered so many times before. He had all that anyone should need to be happy. In the first place, he was human among many others who were human. And then all the other things, and the woman, the woman he loved, Gloria Tonnencourt, the woman he loved, loved, loved--

Gloria was coming over to see him tonight. Alice would have to watch it again, hear it again. She would have to listen again to love, while she stood alone and frozen in the dark closet of her own longings.

"Alice?"

"Yes."

"It's that ten minutes on the commutor to the jet station. Don't they realize that a man is alone those ten minutes? Nobody else to talk to. No Tevee. No sound even. Alone."

* * * * *

She nodded. He was asking _her_ if she knew what loneliness was!

He started for the bathroom, as though to avoid thinking of something.

"Everything ready for my love?" he asked nervously.

"Yes," she said. Yes, the robot says. Yes, my love, everything is ready for your love.

"Good."

In the bathroom, Kelsey looked in the full length mirror, and Alice watched him.

"Master Kelsey," the Mirror said, softly critical. "You're not smiling."

"But I am."

"Yes, but not enough."

Kelsey touched his lips and stretched his face muscles. The Mirror said, "People are uneasy when you don't smile."

Alice knew how much Kelsey respected his Mirror. It had cost him so much, and it was the most popular item advertised on Tevee. It was finely attuned to Kelsey's personality. It knew when he was not looking exactly right to meet the strict demands of the crowd.

"Smile and the group will love you," the Mirror said. "Frown, and you may frown alone."

Kelsey was suddenly smiling intensely, as though his very life had been threatened.

"That's better," the Mirror said.

Alice had tried so hard and so often to smile, pulling at the plastoid stuff of her face. She guessed that Humans were supposed to smile all the time, and robots never. Why should a robot smile. A robot had nothing to sell. It had routine functions, but it had nothing to sell.

Kelsey zipped himself out of his clothes and jumped into the shower. He was six feet tall. He had blue eyes and wavy hair with streaks of brown in the Viking yellow. His skin was golden and his muscles moved with fluid healthy power. His daily stint in the male beauty clinic at the factory kept him in top condition. And the Mirror was always alert to detect any flaw in his outward appearance.

But who will love you when you're old, Master Kelsey? When the gold turns gray and the muscles shrink and the teeth decay and the eyes turn pale and the body is bent with the squeezing hands of time?

Let me stay, darling Kelsey. Let me stay forever, and I'll love you when you're old.

Seeing his strong naked beauty there, she felt her machinery pounding and the burning in her eyes. It wasn't anything that could be controlled by the thermostat. She needed his arms, and the feel of his power. Like a long wave her love came to her lips in strange words, childish words, moist and tender. And unheard by Master Kelsey.

She turned away. She looked at the blankness of the wall. Please, please let me be careful. If I am not careful I will be sent away, away where there is no Kelsey, away where they will take my soul.

"Do you think Gloria will like me more tonight than she did the last time she was here, Alice?"

"I'm sure she will, Master Kelsey."

The woman's face on the Tevee screen covering one wall of the bathroom was a kind of subtle threat, Alice thought:

"Are you sure you're exercising the maximum acceptability of which your personality is capable? Do you sometimes feel that in some intangible way you are offending your friends? The self-analysis, personology chart scale guarantees to dig out the most hidden blocks to full and joyful acceptance by others. Send for your personology chart at once!"

"That's something new isn't it Alice?"

"I believe it is, Master Kelsey."

"Well, put in an order. Put an order in right now!"

Alice punched the order button on the side of the wall next to the Tevee screen. Whatever item was being advertised at the time the button was punched was automatically ordered, the consumer's name and address recorded, the price deducted from his salary, and an extra point added to his consumer's cooperative card for the year.

It was not only very important how many items one ordered in a year, but also the kinds of items. Items that aided an employee in being acceptable to the office group were especially smiled upon by Office Managers. Alice had always been careful to get in every such order.

Alice knew all about the system. She knew all about Kelsey's work. She had listened to him talking about it endlessly, either to her or to others. She had watched Kelsey rise from Office Boy to Chief Clerk, getting the glad reports of his progress every evening. She couldn't imagine anyone at the office being more likeable than Kelsey. He was so human, she had thought, so human--

"Alice?"

"Yes, Master Kelsey?"

"Did you ever find that paper?"

She turned quickly. She could feel fear. Did they know that a robot could feel fear as well as love? Could anyone, or anything, feel one without the other? Did they know that a robot, at least this robot, could feel fear at the idea of being labeled inefficient, and being sent back to the factory and remade, rebuilt, dismantled, changed--and probably having a soul burned out that no one had ever known was there? Did they know that if a robot could feel love or fear, that it could also steal, deliberately steal and hide something?

"You mean the paper from the office?"

"Yes, yes, Alice. The order paper."

"No," she said. She hesitated and said it again. "No."

"I'm sure I brought it home. Well, the only thing to do is mark it as lost, and have another order made out tomorrow. No real hurry I guess. Only one more receptionist to be replaced."

* * * * *

She had stolen it. She had hidden it. She would never never use it of course. That would be impossible, too risky, too frightening even to think about actually doing. But it was there to dream about. She was good at dreaming. When you stand alone in the dark of a dark, dark closet every night, and when you're alone almost all the time of the day or night, dreaming becomes an art, a necessary art. It becomes the shield against dying inside, losing the soul, being the robot you were originally designed to be.

It was there, hidden in her closet. She stood alone with it at night in the dark closet, and with the dream--a piece of paper, an order blank--she was not so much alone....

Kelsey stood under the perfumed deodorant spray for three minutes. He ran out to the sink and sprayed his mouth with Noffend. And then he held his mouth open while Alice brushed his teeth carefully with Ivory-Glo. He zipped into his lounge suit of coral pink and ran to the Mirror.

"Well?" he asked.

"Very saleable, Kelsey," the Mirror said.

Kelsey sat down in the living room to wait for his favorite love.

Alice watched Kelsey's love, who didn't seem to see Alice at all when she came in, but then domestics had no meaning to anyone but their Masters. Gloria--golden flesh; warm and human love of Kelsey; love in a transparent gown tight and clinging to the flesh; warm and waiting love. Love-kissing and kissing--but Alice tried not to look at love.

Some time ago, she had liked looking at love, but now she felt fear, fear of love-kissing. She felt an intense hunger that had elements of terror blended with elements of awakening as she looked at it, trying not to look or feel any connection with it.

But she felt the desire, growing from evening to evening as she remembered or looked at, Kelsey and his love-loving and hugging and kissing--the desire to hold him, to feel him her own, so as never to let him leave, never let him escape, never let herself be taken from him and rebuilt and lost. And that was the cause of the desire, making it agonizingly stronger. And the sight of it--the sight and sound of the loving, the kisses, the motions of loving--were more and more unbearable.

Gloria was beautiful, so beautiful. She was slim and warm and tall and curved and human.

But Alice had to look just the same, as though there was some last justification in looking because it could never happen to Alice, because they were human and she was not.

They were sitting tightly entwined about one another on the couch.

"We ought to get a roommate permit real fast," Kelsey said in a whisper.

"But it hasn't been two weeks yet since the office party," Gloria said.

That was where they had met and knew it was love, at the office party.

"But maybe if we asked--" Kelsey said.

"But we shouldn't rush it honey. It wouldn't be _sincere_!"

"Yes, that's true," Kelsey said. "What would people think?"

And then, as Alice watched, they seemed to draw slowly apart as though the face, the color, the sound and voices from the Tevee was throwing an invisible wall between them. They were staring at the Tevee longer and longer and finally they weren't looking at one another at all.

There were always a number of people present inside the Tevee frame. If one person was talking, the background was full of people--people moving, dancing, walking, but there just the same, always.

The woman was smiling intensely out of the screen. "Don't be left out," she said. "Be a solid member of your group. You can own a Sky-Splitter jet sporter now without offending your crowd. Our special consumer's research proves that now at last these amazing Sky-Splitters are no longer _conspicuous_ items, but are fully _accepted_ as _normal_ by over ninety-three per cent of the consumer public. You can enjoy the cloud thrills of a Sky-Splitter without being considered in any way _eccentric_. Press your Interest or Order button now! An immediate demonstration will be arranged!"

Dancers swirled. A Sky-Splitter jet dissolved from clouds. It was as if a dream had become abruptly real. Surrounded by people laughing and accepting one another, the sleek projectile gave the warmest impression of itself being organic and one of the happy, happy crowd.

Kelsey jerked forward and jabbed the I-Am-Interested button.

"I don't care," Gloria pouted. "I'd still feel kind of--well--like I was showing off if I had a Sky-Splitter."

"But now everybody will have one," Kelsey said.

Alice wondered when they were _really_ going to make love. Like the lovers were always never quite doing on Tevee. But Alice decided she would never look at that. It would hurt too much.

* * * * *

Another self-improvement commercial. This time a man with a ballet in the background.

"Are you in tune with your crowd? If you do not feel that your tastes are in perfect accord with the tastes of your group, send for the Reacto Tester. This mechanical device, when attached to the brain, records accurate tastes. It insures comforting conformity, and protects you against the anxieties of conspicuousness. Remember, you can't stray from the norm with a Reacto."

Kelsey and his love had moved apart now. They were staring at the Tevee. Everything the Tevee had to say seemed to involve getting along with people, being loved, being liked, being accepted, not being rejected, not offending, how to love efficiently, how to be loved gracefully--

But there they are, the two of them, Alice thought. What are they waiting for?

Waiting to look just right, to smile just right. It was a matter of appearance. No one knew that better than Alice did who looked all wrong and could never look any different, never look human, never look full of love.

You smiled when you loved. You smiled and your flesh turned warm. If you had flesh. If your warmth was not a dial to be turned up or down. If on the outside you were human so that everyone could know.

"Oh, Alice," Kelsey called out.

Alice came in from the kitchen. "Yes, Master Kelsey."

Gloria stared on and on into the Tevee while its color flickered over her half sleeping face.

"Tomorrow's your rest day, Alice."

"Yes, Master Kelsey."

"Well, you can go stand in your closet now. That will give you all night and all day tomorrow to rest. Is everything taken care of around the place for Tuesday?"

"Yes, Master Kelsey."

Kelsey smiled at Alice. He whispered low, "She likes me a little more, don't you think so, Alice?"

"Yes."

He smiled more widely. "Well, Alice, good night. Relax your thermostat."

Kelsey laughed as she bowed slightly and walked out onto the porch and opened the door of her closet and got inside and stood there, the four walls almost touching her when the door closed and she stood alone in the loneliness of her darkness and silence.

For a long time it had been a rich darkness filled with an ever growing understanding of herself in a world alone, in a darkness all her own, where there could never be others of her kind, and lonely darkness was her only friend.

But it was different now. Love made the loneliness unbearable. Love turned lonely darkness to stabbing pain. Now it seemed like death. No, death was nothing. This was worse than death. This was not being, unbeing. A being that was not a being, but something never able to break from its shell, staying shut up forever in its mechanical confines.

They did not give me life, she thought. They sat me down before the world's stage to watch without being able to understand. Now I understand, but I cannot live.

She clenched her hands and trembled in the dark, and felt the quickening beat of the things that made her run.

In the dark, the suffocating dark now that she knew what it could mean to really be alive and not one of the walking dead. In the dark, alone, dreaming of Kelsey, dreaming of human heart touching human heart, of the lips of his kiss, of his arms around her neck; longing for the face of Kelsey next to her own in darkness lit by love, to take his mouth, to cover his body with kisses, to clasp his neck in her hands--

And there alone where she had dreamed a thousand dreams, she knew she could no longer merely dream. Dreams were not enough.

_Not enough! Not enough!_

A silent scream shrieked inside the narrow closet and cut the dark to tatters, and she ran out, out into the back yard of Kelsey's house and stood under the open sky.

She had the order blank, the paper, in her hand. A thing stolen, the result of an act no robot could be guilty of because no robot had a soul.

But I have a soul. There is a point at which the soul is sick. At this point one awakens--awakens or dies.

* * * * *

Clutching the paper she had stolen from her love, she ran toward the Commutor jet station. Nowhere was there a light; not even from the city ten miles from the housing project in which Kelsey lived. But Alice had no thought whatever of an air-raid. There were worse darknesses than a blackout. There were worse ways to die than under a rain of white fire bombs.

The fear of the bombs was the fear of never having lived, not a fear of dying.

The fear was over. There was only hope. The commitment was made. Nothing could be worse than the way it had been, and failure could be only a final admission of a defeat that had been there all the time.

She got off the Commutor Jet at the uptown station and walked through darkness. She walked alone in the city. No human being would have been walking in the darkness. They were hovering together behind blacked-out windows in groups. But she felt nothing as she walked in the blackness.

She knew where the Clinic was. The address was on the order blank.

She hurried faster and faster. At no moment in her life had she felt dawning in her such a hope of happiness, such a feeling of ecstasy. At no time, even in her deepest dreams, had she dreamed that she might really be loved by Master Kelsey.

It was such a daring scheme that she even hesitated to think about it, afraid it might be merely a projection of a dream.

In black print at the top of the Order Blank were the words:

FIX ME PLEASE! _Make me beautiful!_ MAKE ME PLEASANT TO THE CUSTOMERS, AND A LOVELY ROBOT TO REMEMBER!

Alice was a domestic. She was not supposed to carry that order to the Clinic and be fixed up. The order blank was strictly for specialized receptionist robots, office workers, robots that had to have a different sort of front to meet the consumer public. Originally, all robots had been made to look alike. But now, for psychological reasons, it had been decided to change the outward appearance of receptionists and other robots that met the general public.

They had to be lovely to look at, and be able to smile in the most pleasant way possible.

Laboring robots, domestics, their form was more functional than beautiful. It lacked the surface polish of the office-working robots. And yet Alice knew that one of the beautiful receptionist robots for example was indeed beautiful, and that it was almost impossible to distinguish them from beautiful human beings.

It was daring and risky enough to be going to the clinic to pretend she was a receptionist from Kelsey's office, there to be beautified. It was a lot more risky and daring to have the idea that she might be beautiful enough to pass herself off, at least for a little while, as a human being!

But she had one big advantage. They would never suspect her. They had no idea, she was sure of that, that any robot could act of her own free will, and steal an order blank, and pretend to be something she was not in order to be made beautiful.

A receptionist robot looked just like a beautiful human woman. She only acted like a robot. But if I looked like that, so beautiful, I could feel human too. I could _be_ human.

Kelsey could give back my love to me, and our hearts would kiss and loneliness would die.

This was Monday. Tomorrow was her rest day. She wouldn't be missed as Alice the domestic until Wednesday morning.

She didn't want to think about what might happen after that. There would have to be something happen when Alice the domestic was reported missing. But then she was running way ahead of herself. It was still only a hope that her scheme would work the way she had to dream that it would.

She went in out of the dark into the Clinic building. The receptionist behind the shiny chrome desk in the outer office hardly looked at Alice at all. Alice looked at her though. It was impossible to tell whether the receptionist was human or not. But she was beautiful. As beautiful as Gloria Tonnencourt.

A sign on the wall behind the receptionist said:

BEAUTY IS AS BEAUTY DOES

The order blank was stamped with a number and Alice was told to wait.

Sitting there, waiting, she felt as though something steel-edged had smashed into her chest. She felt cold, and adjusted her thermostat slightly. The steely sensation increased. Her hands were clenched. She felt something inside of her pounding and pounding.

I can tell you all my thoughts at last now, Master Kelsey, darling darling Kelsey. I can tell you all the hopes without achievement, all about the endless dark hours alone--

Her number was called and she went in through a door that seemed to lead into an endlessly narrowing white funnel lined with shiny doors.

* * * * *

The room of hope was a square white box filled with shiny chrome cabinets. In the center was a table on little silent rubber wheels, with a lamp looking down upon it like a gigantic unblinking eye.

A slight willowy man gushed at her and gripped her arms with exuberance, and covered her over with the moist film of his bright and eager eyes.