The Silver Eggheads

TWENTY-FOUR

"Madam Pneumo's establishment," Culllngham began, "is a very exclusive house of pleasure owned, managed and staffed entirely by robots. You see, fifty years or so ago there was this mad robot named Harry Chernik-at least I think Chernik was a robot-whose ambition it was to build robots which would be exactly like human beings on the outside, down to the least detail of texture and anatomy. Chernik's ruling idea was that if men and robots were exactly alike-and particularly if they could make love to each other! — then there couldn't possibly be any enmity between them; Chernik was doing his work, you see, around the time of the First Anti-Robot Riots and he was a dedicated interracialist.

"Well, of course the whole project turned out to be a blind alley as far as Chernik's main purpose was concerned. Most robots simply didn't want to look like human beings and besides all the space inside a Chernik robot was so taken up with machinery to enable the robot to counterfeit the behavior of a human in bed and in other simple acts of social intercourse-fine muscular controls, temperature and moisture and suction controls, etcetera-that there wasn't any room for anything else. Outside of their extraordinary amatory abilities, the Chernik robots were completely mindless-not true robots at all, but mere automata, and to squeeze both a real robot and a Cherik automaton into the same simulated giriskin envelope they would have had to be ten feet tall or as big as circus fatwomen. And besides, as I say, it turned out that most robots didn't go for the idea at all-they wanted to be sleek hard metal and nothing else; a soft bulbous robot or robix who looked like a human being, even a beautiful human being, would have been ostracized by them and forever barred from their particular delights, especially all robot-robix acts of tenderness.

"Chernik was shattered. Like some Indian rajah in the days of suttee, he surrounded himself on an enormous bed with all his most cunningly seductive creations, set fire to the crimson draperies of the bed, and then electrocuted himself. Chernik was mad, you see.

"The robots financing Chernik weren't. They'd always had in mind certain highly profitable subsidiary uses to which Chernik's automata could be put, though they'd never told Chernik about these ideas. So they doused the fire, saved the automata, and almost immediately put them to work in an establishment catering to male human beings, only adding certain hygienic and economic safeguards that had never occured to Chernik's essentially idealistic imagination."

Cullingham frowned. "I actually don't know if they've ever done anything similar with the male automata Chernik is supposed to have created-they're a remarkably secretive little robot syndicate-but their femmequins (as they're sometimes called) were a rousing success. Their mindlessness was an outstanding attraction, of course, and it in no way prevented special cams and tapes being temporarily put in them that would enable them to perform any act or murmur any fantasy a customer might desire. Best of all, perhaps, there was absolutely no sense of human entanglement, clash, conflict or consequence involved in your commerce with them.

"In addition, special features were in time developed which made femmequins particularly attractive to the more fastidious, fanciful, fantastically-oriented men like myself.

"For you see, Flaxy, the robot syndicate had not only saved Chernik's female automata, they'd also saved all his skills and secret processes. After a time they began to manufacture off-trail femmequins, women who were better than ordinary women or at any rate vastly more interesting, if you go in at all for the outrй." Cullingham became almost animated, spots of color appeared in his pale cheeks. "Can you imagine, Flaxy, having it with a girl who is all velvet or plush, or who really goes all hot and cold, or who can softly sing you a full-orchestra symphony while you're doing it or maybe Ravel's Bolero, or who has slightly-not excessively-prehensile breasts or various refreshingly electric skin areas, or who has some of the features-not overdone, of course-of a cat or a vampire or an octopus, or who has hair like Medusa's or Shambleau's that lives and caresses you, or who has four arms like Siva, or a prehensile tail eight feet long, or. . and at the same time is perfectly safe and can't bother or involve or infect or dominate you in any way? I don't want to sound like a brochure, Flaxy, but believe me, it's the ultimate!"

"For you, maybe," Flaxman said, looking around at his partner with a certain speculative apprehension. "Hey, now I can understand, those being your tastes, why you got the shudders so especially yesterday when that Ibsen woman began to wet her lip at you."

"Don't remind me!" Culllngham pleaded, paling.

"I won't. Well, as I was going to say, Madam Pneumo's off-trail femmequins may be just the thing for you-every man to his own tastes! — but me, I'm afraid they wouldn't relax me one bit, in fact, I'm afraid they'd turn my jitters into shudders, just like those Godawful silver eggheads would in my nursery nightmares as they went swooping around in the dark over my bed, dipping down under it and then slowly rising up at the foot, circling in for the kill."

For a second time the door to the office swung inward stealthily. Flaxman did only a sketch of his previous reaction, but somehow gave the impression of being quite as deeply affected.

A burly blue-chinned man in khaki overalls looked them over, then explained crisply, "Electric Light and Power. Routine damage inspection. See your electrolock isn't working. I'll make a note of that." He hauled a book out of a hip pocket.

"The robot repairing the escalator is going to attend to it," Cullingham volunteered, studying the man thoughtfully.

"I didn't see any robot when I came up," the other told him. "You ask me, they're all effing tin crooks or crocked tin stumblebums. I just fired one last night. He was drinking high-voltage juice on the job. Or shooting himself with it, if you look at it that way-a main-liner. Must have got away with hundreds of amperes. Be burnt out in two weeks if he finds a way to keep it up."

Flaxman opened his eyes. "Look, would you do me a great favor?" he said earnestly to the man in the doorway. "I know you're a city inspector, but it's nothing illegal and I'll make it worth your while. Just patch up the electrolock on that door. Now."

"Glad to oblige you," the man grinned. "Soon as I fetch my kit," he added, rapidly backing off and drawing the door shut.

"Strange," Cullingham said. "The man's the image of a Gil Hart who was a private hand and industrial troubleblaster when I met him five years ago. Either this was his twin brother or else Gil's come down in the world. Oh well, no loss, he was a pretty bad egg."

Flaxman automatically flinched at the word. He stared at the now closed and temporarily quiescent door for a long moment, then shrugged.

"You were saying, Cully, about the eggheads?" he asked. "I wasn't," Cullingham said gently, "but here's the plan I worked out last night. We'll invite two or three of the eggs-not Rusty this trip-over to the office. Gaspard can help bring them, but he mustn't be here during the interview, or any of the nurses either, it's a distracting influence. Gaspard can escort the nurse back, or something like that, while we have a good two-three hour chat and I present some stuff and maybe do some things to the eggs that I think will convince them, tease them into writing, you might say. I realize now that this'll be hard on you, Flaxy, but if it gets too bad at any point you can just walk out and take a rest while I carry on."

"I suppose you better go ahead with it," Flaxman said resignedly. "We got to get stories out of those horrors, somehow, or we're sunk. And it couldn't be much worse for me to have them here, sitting in their black collars staring at me, than just to sit here myself remembering the Godawful way they used to-"

This time the door opened so softly and slowly that there was no sense of sudden motion to catch the eye and it was almost wide open before either of them noticed it. And this time Flaxman merely closed his eyes, though with a final flash of white, as if the pupils had rolled upward.

Standing in the doorway was a tall thin man with a complexion not much more vital than his ash-gray suit. His cavernous eyes, long narrow face, high-hunching shoulders, and hollow chest all made him look rather like a pale cobra fresh-risen from a wicker basket.

Cullingham said, "What is your business, sir?"

Without opening his eyes, Flaxman added in a very tired voice, "If you are selling electricity, we are not buying any."

The gray man smiled faintly. If anything, it made him look more like a cobra. However, all he said (though in a voice that softly hissed) was, "No. I am just browsing. I assumed that since the place was open and empty it must be one of the completely gutted buildings up for sale."

"Didn't you see the electricians working outside?" Cullingham inquired.

The gray man said, "There are no electricians working outside. Well, gentlemen, I shall retire now. Within two days my bid will be sent to you."

"There's nothing here for sale," Flaxman informed him. The gray man smiled. "Nevertheless, my bid will be sent to you," he said. "I am a very persistent man and I am afraid you must put up with my little stubbornnesses."

"Well, who are you, anyway?" Flaxman demanded.

The gray man smiled for a third time as he softly drew the door shut after him, saying, "My friends sometimes call me, perhaps for my steely persistence, the Garrote."

"Strange," Cullingham said when the door was shut. "That man reminds me of someone too. But who? A face like a Sicilian Christ. . Puzzling."

"What's a garrote?" Flaxman asked.

"A tight steel collar," Cullingham replied coolly, "with a screw in it for breaking the neck. An invention of the gay old Spaniards. However, the Garrote would also mean simply the Noose."

As he said that last word, his eyebrows lifted. The two partners looked at each other.