Part 6

"Charlie, I could be all wrong. But for some time I've been thinking. Already there are twenty thousand once near-dead people who have been changed over; not to mention five thousand others who were in good health. Part of me admires the humanitarian angles here. But then there's that feeling of a slow, creeping invasion, so far unopposed. I can't exactly put my finger on just what makes it horrible; but at night I wake up sweating cold all over. Maybe I've got a blind spot in my head. All I know is that most everything about this remarkable duplication of humanity goes against the instincts in my slow Neanderthal guts. No, don't argue, Charlie. I've heard all of Dr. Lanvin's counter-points, and I just can't feel right about the whole thing. So I'd be a hypocrite if I worked in this lab any longer. I'll leave today, with the best of wishes to you and yours, and Dr. Lanvin. Tell him, will you?"

"All hail, Bow," I said, shaking his hand. "Thanks for the honesty. I know what you mean. I've felt it all myself, even though I don't quite agree."

Scharber, his former buddy, was also present in my office. They shook hands almost formally, now. For Scharber had moved all the way to the other side of the fence. He'd become the thrilled, eager kind.

"Poor Bow," he growled after Bowhart was gone. "A good guy, a gentleman. But mixed up, like some tough kid, afraid to ride on a merry-go-round. Feeling a black-rat-brown-rat difference. A primitive terror of being crowded out by something far more vigorous, and different from what he has always conceived of as human. Which brings up the reason why I'm here to see you, Charlie. I've screwed up my nerve to change the quality of my bones and meat. As far as I'm concerned, the process might as well start tonight. Okay?"

I nodded. "Okay. Fine, Scharber," I said.

If folks had all been like Scharber, there would have been no obstruction of progress. If they had all been like Bowhart, there would at least have been no danger. But as always, there were other types. Among them were those who like to speak out against something.

* * * * *

Among these, now, was an old classmate of mine, whom I have mentioned before, one Armand Cope. Already he was becoming minorly famous, laying down the "facts" with a definite oratorical talent. I think that he was, in the main, honest in his beliefs. But pledged and prejudiced to one point of view, he was blindly violent toward its opposite number. Cope was a fanatic. And now, with the smokes of fear curling in many minds, nothing could have been more dangerous than his activities, and the activities of the numerous individuals who were like him.

I heard him speak over the radio and television. Always his words drummed on the same points:

"Friends, the craze for gadgets has become a folly, an insult to man's dignity. The proof has become brutally plain today. All we ever wanted was to live an uncomplex life--having houses that we build, and crops that we raise, with simple materials and simple work of our muscles, as nature intended. Science? Much of it should have stopped before it ever started. It was a trap from the first, offering its benefits as bait, not letting us know that it led to this mechanical abomination, which seeks to sully our own natural being with a hideous slime of the laboratory! The prospect makes one's nerves crawl; death is better than the triumph of such a thing! We must fight and fall, if necessary! Let the maniacs and fools know the real strength of humanity!"

Plenty of people were eager to listen to Cope, and to cheer him on.

I gulped, and then grinned at Doc rather wanly. Jan and I were in his house that particular evening.

"It's like we thought it would be, before anyone on Earth even knew about what we were bringing them," Jan said.

"You're going to talk back, Shane," Irma, Doc's wife, commented, with a thread of steel in her voice.

"Of course I'm going to talk back," he answered. "But I'm afraid that that could never do enough good. There'll always be enough point to what Cope and his kind say, for scared, furious souls to cling to. I wish mightily that it could be different; but I suspect that what I say will only help to consolidate another fierce belief, to oppose Cope's believers. Yes, like two mighty armies being drawn up for battle. That is the real danger! Well, anyway I've got to try."

And so Dr. Lanvin was on television the following evening, speaking from the Civic Center of Chicago. Jan and I left to run the lab, listened from my office. It was a good speech:

"... I've never liked cheap, showy gadgets, performing some small function that a person might do as well, and as easily, and with less affectation, with his own head and hands. There, perhaps Mr. Cope and I agree, as, no doubt we do about a pastoral simplicity when it is possible--the smells of rain and woods and gardens. But Cope forgets that, crowded as the Earth is, with its billions of mouths to feed, such beautiful, rustic inefficiency is no longer possible, and hence beyond being argued for, reasonably, unless the starship brings us to other habitable worlds.

"Which presents the subject of inventions--natural products of natural minds which are too sublime to be called gadgets. The starship, for one. The android process, for another. Does Mr. Cope suppose that the benefits the latter represents, would ever encourage mankind as a whole to suppress it? It couldn't be suppressed, by law or by anyone, as long as there are people left to dream of vigor going on and on.

"Mr. Cope says further that his nerves crawl. This is nothing more than the mistrust of the new and unknown, which time will take away. Yet, worst of all, he speaks of fighting and falling. I hope that he does not mean it. For today, that can truly be a thing of horror, and final silence. Therefore, I plead that he, and all those who have been tempted to think in this manner, review their reasoning, and correct its defects."

I visited Cope at his home. "Look, Cope," I said, "we used to be friendly enough to live and let each other live. Don't you see that what you're doing now can end all that has been built, and finish the human race--natural and android--entirely? You're bucking a logic and a need for betterment that's far too big for anyone--the death of death, you might say. What do you want in its place? The death of everyone? You've got to stop talking as you do, Cope, pounding on the detonator of a world!"

His intellectual face went white with rage at what I had said. "_You_--Harver!" he growled softly. "You dare to talk to me like that! When you helped to turn this hellish development loose on Earth! Make every human being a snake, and it would not be half as bad. Yes, I was half your friend. But now get out of my house--out before I kill you!"

* * * * *

Further signs of danger were soon more definite, after that. Several days after Scharber's emergence from the process, I was walking with him in a Chicago street. A tactless acquaintance of his, of opposite inclinations and a dislike of him, previously entertained, ran into us in a theatre lobby.

"Hi, Scharber," he greeted. "I heard. You were born a robot, so why bother to change? And why didn't you at least order yourself a better face?"

Scharber retained a normal capacity for getting sore, and only a normal amount of self-control. "A robot is a machine, Powers," he said. "So is the old time protoplasmic man. So is the android. It's silly to make a distinction, based on silly pride at being what you seem to think of as exclusively human. And maybe your face could also benefit by some changes."

Sure, Powers had been brooding, too, and brewing up poison. The fact that he swung at my companion, proved it. Scharber ducked like lightning, and responded with a much-pulled return punch--if he'd given it half of full force, Powers' jaw would have been a mush of bone-splinters. Powers went flat; and it was some seconds before he started to scream and curse:

"Tin monsters!" he spat venomously and inaccurately. "Get them--both of them! Trying to crowd us off the Earth!"

Somebody with sense shouted, "Keep your heads!" But that, to some others, only represented the challenge of opposition. A half-dozen men came at us at once. I upset two of them all right; but being still just ordinary, I wouldn't have had much chance, if it wasn't for Scharber. Presently, with a pack gathering around us, we had to fight our way out of there, Scharber sprinting away at last, with me riding him pickaback. No protoplasmic man could have run a third as fast as he did then. I suspect that that display of speed scared and infuriated our attackers, further.

Other androids came up against this same kind of experience, and their constant victories in such scuffles, sharpened their terrifying aspect in many minds, and the conviction that there had to be a battle to the death.

Nor was it only humans of the older order who gave way to outbursts of fury. Soon it was give and take. Androids retained all of the old capacities for various emotions. It seemed that each violent incident would be followed by something worse.

I saw one android blown to bits, his flesh still squirming hours after he had ceased to exist as a composite entity. One severed arm had drawn itself along the ground with clutching fingers, almost like a great slug crawling, for two hundred yards.

There was something demoniac about that, which, for the moment, almost made me agree with Armand Cope.

The fury of the conflict came to a head one night when our laboratory went up in a cloud of nuclear fire. Five hundred persons were wiped out in the blast. It was lucky, indeed, that the lab was outside of Chicago proper, or the casualty list would have been much longer. Of our inner circle of friends, only Scharber was in the blast, and he escaped flying fragments and incandescent heat by dropping behind some heavy masonry. Radiations couldn't hurt him at all, though for a time he must keep away from the rest of us. The others of our group were safe in town.

There was the cold rage in Scharber's face when I first spoke to him from a little distance at the edge of the ruins.

"Damn them all, Charlie!" he growled. "Stupid, thick-headed, backward fools!"

"Easy, Scharb," I said. "The government, and the considerable majority of saner people, are trying to restore order."

It was true. Police forces were everywhere. Our president pleaded for calm. A cache of nuclear munitions was discovered and put under guard. It might even have belonged to androids. Nobody knew. It was in an old Chicago cellar. But of one thing we were sure--that there had to be many other caches of hellstuff, undiscovered and available to the hotheads and jerks, hidden in caves and woods and various other places, throughout the world.

One thing wasn't done. Armand Cope, and other rabble-rousers like him, were not put under restraint. It could have been accomplished within the emergency provisions of democracy, though a willful connection between the speeches that they had made and the blowup of the lab, could not be proven. Maybe the government was afraid to restrain them--afraid that their arrest would make them martyrs--and that this martyrdom would trigger the bombshell in the taut nerves and frightened minds of their followers. This belief may well have been the truth.

IX

Jan and I went to Doc's house, inside a police cordon, for a discussion. We risked radiation by bringing Scharber along. We wanted to make sure that he wouldn't do anything vindictive, which might well have happened had we left him by himself.

Irma met us at the door. "Shane almost wishes now that the android process had remained just the property of the micro-Xians," she said. "That's how bad matters seem to him at this point."

Doc jumped to his feet as we entered his study. "Cope means to speak again tonight," he announced. "Cope, and about a hundred others of his crowd, from scattered radio and television stations. We know about what they'll say, more or less. Yeah--'Get rid of these mechanical demons while there are still less than thirty-thousand of them. Before it's too late! Kill the serpent! Return to simplicity! Do you know that even their radioactive metabolism is poisonous to us?'"

Doc paused and groaned. "The latter isn't even true," he went on. "At least not while an android is on Earth, breathing oxygen and living by chemical energy. Then the radiation of a subatomic tissue-process is suppressed almost to zero. But that's the way most of Cope's arguments go--they leap thinly to conclusions, without thinking matters out to any depth. But many people don't want to think deeply, or else they're too frightened. And tonight I suspect that Cope and his bunch will give the order to attack. Charlie, what are we going to do?"

I was in a cold sweat. "You know what we can try as a temporary relief measure, Doc," I said. "We can silence Cope and a few of the others--you know how. The only trouble is that there are so many of those loudmouths, and only you and I and maybe Jan who are in a position to do the only thing that can be done. We may not be able to shut up anywhere near enough of them to get over this danger spot, but we have to try."

Jan came over to me and pressed my hand, and it helped. She was always courageous and cool.

As it turned out, there were few speeches of Cope's kind made that night. Cope collapsed before the television lenses and the microphones. No, he didn't die; he had what looked very like an epileptic fit. He dropped before he uttered a word. He frothed at the mouth, he snored. He looked ridiculous, even mad.

Why all this happened was simple. It was an old Xian trick. A micro-android--Doc had transmigrated briefly again--was inside Cope's skull, tampering with his brain. The tiniest flash at lowest power from a jet rod directed against the proper nerve center, was how it was done.

Doc silenced another character called Minton. I gagged another pair of flannel-mouths named Trefford and Donalds the same way. Jan managed to fix one called Parkhurst. That made five of the worst who had been operating around Chicago. But it still left over ninety others. It worried us badly, until we got back home, and into normal-sized bodies, once more. Scharber had been a good boy, staying out of trouble beside Doc's television, with Irma.

"Not one of the others said much either," he announced quietly. "They all fell on their faces the same way." He paused for just a second before he added, "I wonder why?" his eyes oddly aglow.

"There could be only one answer to that, couldn't there?" Irma hinted.

Doc grinned reminiscently.

Jan smiled. "The elves of legend, the helpful ones," she chuckled. "Well, who knows but what there's a connection with those old folk tales? Legends frequently have a basis in fact. It seems that I remember a strange, deep little guy who lives way out in space, and down near the limit of smallness. His name was Kobolah, and lots of his people didn't believe that Earthians should be trusted. He almost got into trouble over that. But it appears that he still has lots of friends among his own kind who'd like to see the android become successful among us. It seems, further, that if Kobolah's particular asteroid world took off for the stars, already, as appeared to be intended, he and some pals have so far stayed behind. Or else it was just some pals of his who helped us. But who knows? Maybe we'll see him again. Anyway, his world was as wonderful a place as you could imagine. I wonder if there's anything more strange in the whole universe?"

As Jan's musing words ended, I saw a strange, speculative look in Scharber's face. Doc's eyes were soft for a second.

"I guess that miniature things still intrigue me," he said. "But we're tied up with bigger facts now. I think we've won a temporary peace, but I'll bet that that's all it will be--temporary. Even if Cope and the rest of the same crop stop shouting, now, there'll be others to do just as they did. In a day or two we'll know for sure."

* * * * *

Doc was right. On the very next evening Armand Cope was on the air again, frightened, but determined. "This treachery of last night, even though I do not understand its method, makes me even better aware that this is a fight to the finish," he growled. "A fight against a hideous thing, to which there can be no end except victory or death. As long as I am a man, I shall be proud...."

Doc shrugged mildly. "I'd almost say 'Blah, tiresome fool!'" he remarked. "But it wouldn't be fair. Cope stubbornly believes what he says, I'm sure. It's etched into his nature. To a lesser degree with most, it's the same with many others. So, this is it."

The following evening, Doc made his suggestions over the air, speaking from his house:

"I am addressing those, who, in the eyes of some, have ceased to be human. But perhaps the term, 'android' should be dropped entirely. We are men in form, mind, emotion, aim, and pleasure--let there be no instinctive, sullen, backward doubt of that! Our shape and our organs are human. We have sprung from man's aspirations, and his quest for more knowledge and better living. Though the knowhow of our living was borrowed from another people, it would have come to men on Earth in time, and by their own efforts. We are thus, simply, a far hardier variety of what humans have always been. To those who are weaker, troubled by fear, less understanding, we should be generous, until more time lets them realize these truths. Therefore, I suggest that we leave the Earth to them, going outward where our powers permit us to go freely."

That is how it has been. Among the androids, as if the interstellar regions was their natural habitat, Dr. Lanvin's hint took hold at once. On Earth, tension eased gradually, until even Armand Cope's voice sounded puzzled, and then sank to silence.

But let me tell about a side-event. Doc found a toy-sized craft in his workshop, a ship with tapered bow and stern, and retractable airfoils. It was less than an inch long. Need I say how we boarded it--Doc, Jan, and I? Or how later, we and one Kobolah, conversed under the scope of a micro-manipulator, while Scharber and Doc's Irma took turns watching us through the lenses?

We thanked the tiny Xian for all his help. We saw his electronic visual filaments blink over his eyes when Jan suggested:

"Kobolah, you could be cast in a larger form like the old Xians. You could go with Dr. Lanvin in the first ship to leave for the solar system of Sirius."

"Maybe--someday," he buzzed in answer. "Not now. To Sirius? I'm going there, anyway with my own people soon. Time? There is plenty--for everything. May you make few errors."

Then, with his jet rod he blasted off into the air. Within a minute, his ship, aboard which were hundreds of his kind that we had seen, spat blue fire, and darted out of the open window.

Scharber chuckled almost wistfully. "Micro-androids," he said. "Strangest thing I ever saw. Why didn't he take me with him? Got to start seeing the outer-universe somewhere. Why not in miniature? Darn, androids can go anywhere."

X

The next day, Scharber's protoplastic form was found inert in his small bachelor's apartment. When we were notified, Doc and I had a look at the place. On Scharber's study table were many brief messages, written on paper with a heat-charred line. The words were English, and spelled correctly; but the script was strange. I knew the instrument of the writing. I had written with it myself.

But Scharber had left a note of his own, written to us in ink:

_Dear Dr. Lanvin, Mrs. Lanvin, Charlie, Jan. Everybody--So I win.... The Little Guy must have guessed. Anyway, he brought his ship here. Then he wrote his questions--though he could hear me answer. Do I want to come along? Yeah--look at the other papers--see for yourselves. You must have made a good impression out there--you who were there. So he likes Earthlings. For pets, maybe? Who knows? Well--I didn't say no.... Wish me luck, and the same to you. Do me a favor? Whoever goes first out to Sirius, take this big carcass of mine along--being android, it ought to keep for a long time. Maybe I'll need it after a while. Right now I'm getting a smaller edition. So long for maybe a hundred years, more or less._

_Scharber._

Smiling like an elf, Doc looked at me. "How do you feel?" he asked.

"Same as you, I suppose," I answered. "Haunted...."

During the year that followed, that first starship was completed, and ten others of the huge mile-long craft were begun. Jan and I saw them all in their cradles when we went out to the Moon to visit my mother and dad.

It was really meant to be a farewell trip. Jan and I hadn't expected to get berthed on that first starcraft, the _Euclid_, but it happened. Not all of the voyagers were of the new flesh.

"Farewell nothing," Dad told me slyly at the house. He looked more like a slightly older brother of mine, than somebody paternal.

"We're going along, Charlie," Mom intimated. "We've always been ready for new adventure, haven't we?"

In due course the _Euclid_ came to the New Mexico Spaceport to pick, up its passengers, Jan and I and the folks had been on Earth for over a month by then. We and Doc and Irma arrived at the port on the same rocket plane, and as I looked up at the brooding hull of that colossus I felt a little as if a kid dream of mine had come true--that I was matching my lusty strength against the whole universe, and winning. To fight and to win against something, has been a need in human blood and bone for uncounted eons. But should I feel a bit puny and sheepish, too? Comparing myself to Doc, for instance?

This was his special day. Back there behind us, as we approached the starship--back there beyond the guardropes--were the crowds of curious, thrilled, scared, envious humanity. Some cheered for what the _Euclid_ meant to progress--or perhaps they cheered more for a greater triumph--the thirty-thousand demigods who would be among its passengers. But was some of the cheering given in relief at being rid of them?

Bowhart was there, to shake hands with Doc and me and Irma and Jan, and to meet my folks.

"Good luck to you all," he said. "No Great Change, yet, for you, Charlie? So I hear. Funny, hunh? Dr. Lanvin--I want to give you special best wishes. You look happy, so I guess if you're satisfied, nothing I can say will be an offense. But I still wouldn't want to be you for a million dollars."

Bowhart must have known that much, saying what he did; because Doc wasn't at all offended--just airily nettled, like an ageless leprechaun pitied by an urchin.

"Oh?" he asked lightly. "In the past many a millionaire would have given more than a million for another week of life and vigor, and it was no sale. The value is a lot bigger; but it doesn't cost that, now--it doesn't cost anything except a little more growing up. What do you want to do, Bow? Drink beer, eat ice cream, make love? I can do all that, too. Someday you'll get it through your fuddled head that I'm still human. I think you're catching on already. Yes, the androids are leaving Earth; but you know that the process that makes them is still here. Every day there are more labs. Because people get hurt terribly, or wear out beyond reasonable repair. And what would you expect them to want to do then, just die?"

Doc wasn't just talking to slow minded Bowhart, but to all humanity that was like him. It was his final message. But there was another touch to it that wasn't in words. It was a cocky gentle air that maybe suggested the contrast of--say--eating a fine dinner, and then taking a long dive, unclothed, through the vacuum of space--both with equal relish.

Bowhart looked puzzled, and a bit sullen. Maybe he was beginning to catch on at last.