Time and Again

IX

The lawyer said his name was Wellington. He had painted a thin coat of plastic lacquer over his forehead to hide the tattoo mark, but the mark showed through if one looked closely. And his voice was the voice of an android.

He laid his hat very carefully on a table, sat down meticulously in a chair and placed his brief case across his knee. He handed Sutton a rolled-up paper.

"Your newspaper, sir," he said. "It was outside the door. I thought that you might want it."

"Thanks," said Sutton.

Wellington cleared his throat. "You are Asher Sutton?" he asked.

Sutton nodded.

"I represent a certain robot who commonly went by the name of Buster. You may remember him."

Sutton leaned quickly forward. "Remember him? Why, he was a second father to me. Raised me after both my parents died. He has been with my family for almost four thousand years."

Wellington cleared his throat again. "Quite so," he said.

Sutton leaned back in his chair, crushing the newspaper in his grip.

"Don't tell me…"

Wellington waved a sober hand. "No, he's in no trouble. Not yet, that is. Not unless you choose to make it for him."

"What has he done?" asked Sutton.

"He has run away."

"Good Lord! Run away. Where to?"

Wellington squirmed uneasily in the chair. "To one of the Tower stars, I believe."

"But," protested Sutton, "that's way out. Out almost to the edge."

Wellington nodded. "He bought himself a new body and a ship and stocked it up…"

"With what?" asked Sutton. "Buster had no money."

"Oh, yes, he had. Money he had saved over, what was it you said, four thousand years or so. Tips from guests, Christmas presents, one thing and another. It would all count up…in four thousand years. Placed at interest, you know."

"But why?" asked Sutton. "What does he intend to do?"

"He took out a homestead on a planet. He didn't sneak away. He filed his claim, so you can trace him if you wish. He used the family name, sir. That worried him a little. He hoped you wouldn't mind."

Sutton shook his head. "Not at all," he said. "He has a right to that name, as good a right as I have myself."

"You don't mind, then?" asked Wellington. "About the whole thing, I mean. After all, he was your property."

"No," said Sutton, "I don't mind. But I was looking forward to seeing him again. I called the old home place, but there was no answer. I thought he might be out."

Wellington reached into the inside pocket of his coat.

"He left you a letter," he said, holding it out.

Sutton took it. It had his name written across its face. He turned it over, but there was nothing more.

"He also," said Wellington, "left an old trunk in my custody. Said it contained some old family papers that you might find of interest."

Sutton sat silently, staring across the room and seeing nothing.

There had been an apple tree at the gate and each year young Ash Sutton had eaten the apples when they were green and Buster had nursed him each time gently through the crisis and then had whaled him good and proper to teach him respect for his metabolism. And when the kid down the road had licked him on the way home from school, it had been Buster who had taken him out in the back yard and taught him how to fight with head as well as hands.

Sutton clenched his fists unconsciously, remembering the surge of satisfaction, the red rawness of his knuckles. The kid down the road, he recalled, had nursed a black eye for a week and become his fastest friend.

"About the trunk, sir," said Wellington. "You will want it delivered?"

"Yes," said Sutton, "if you please."

"It will be here tomorrow morning," Wellington told him.

The android picked up his hat and rose. "I want to thank you, sir, for my client. He told me you would be reasonable."

"Not reasonable," said Sutton. "Just fair. He took care of us for many years. He has earned his freedom."

"Good day, sir," said Wellington.

"Good day," said Sutton. "And thank you very much."

One of the mermaids whistled at Sutton.

Sutton told her, "One of these days, my beauty, you'll do that once too often."

She thumbed her nose at him and dived into the fountain.

The door clicked shut as Wellington left.

Slowly, Sutton slit the letter open, spread out the single page:

Gently, Sutton folded the sheet, put it in his pocket.

He sat idly in the chair, listening to the purling of the stream that gushed through the painting hung above the fireplace. A bird sang and a fish jumped in a quiet pool around the bend, just outside the frame.

Tomorrow, he thought, I will see Adams. Maybe I can find out if he's behind what happened. Although, why should he be? I'm working for him. I'm carrying out his orders.

He shook his head. No, it couldn't be Adams.

But it must be someone. Someone who had been laying for him, who even now was watching.

He shrugged mental shoulders, picked up the newspaper and unfolded it.

It was the Galactic Press and in twenty years its format had not changed. Conservative columns of gray type ran down the page, broken only by laconic headings. Earth news started in the upper left-hand corner of the front page, was followed by Martian news, by Venusian news, by the column from the asteroids, the column and a half from the Jovian moons…then the outer planets. News from the rest of the galaxy, he knew, could be found on the inside pages. A paragraph or two to each story. Like the old community personal columns in the country papers of many centuries before.

Still, thought Sutton, smoothing out the paper, it was the only way it could be handled. There was so much news…news from many worlds, from many sectors…human news, android and robot news, alien news. The items had to be boiled down, condensed, compressed, making one word do the job of a hundred.

There were other papers, of course, serving isolated sections, and these would give the local news in more detail. But on Earth there was need of galactic-wide news coverage…for Earth was the capital of the galaxy…a planet that was nothing but a capital…a planet that grew no food, allowed no industries, that made its business nothing but government. A planet whose every inch was landscaped and tended like a lawn or park or garden.

Sutton ran his eye down the Earth column. An earthquake in eastern Asia. A new underwater development for the housing of alien employees and representatives from watery worlds. Delivery of three new star ships to the Sector 19 run. And then:

Sutton read the item again. All attempts to reach him…

Herkimer had said there were reporters and photographers in the lobby and ten minutes later Ferdinand had sworn there weren't. He had had no calls. There had been no attempt to reach him. Or had there? Attempts that had been neatly stopped. Stopped by the same person who had lain in wait for him, the same power that had been inside the room when he stepped across the threshold.

He dropped the paper to the floor, sat thinking.

He had been challenged by one of Earth's foremost, if not the foremost, duelist.

The old family robot had run away…or had been persuaded to run away.

Attempts by the press to reach him had been stopped…cold.

The visor purred at him and he jumped.

A call.

The first since he had arrived.

He swung around in his chair and flipped up the switch.

A woman's face came in. Granite eyes and skin magnolia-white, hair a copper glory.

"My name is Eva Armour," she said. "I am the one who asked you to wait with the elevator."

"I recognized you," said Sutton.

"I called to make amends."

"There is no need…"

"But, Mr. Sutton, there is. You thought I was laughing at you and I really wasn't."

"I looked funny," Sutton told her. "It was your privilege to laugh."

"Will you take me out to dinner?" she asked.

"Certainly," said Sutton. "I would be delighted to."

"And someplace afterwards," she suggested. "We'll make an evening of it."

"Gladly," said Sutton.

"I'll meet you in the lobby at seven," she said. "And I won't be late."

The visor faded and Sutton sat stiffly in the chair.

They'd make an evening of it, she had said. And he was afraid she might be right.

They'd make an evening of it, and, he said, talking to himself, you'll be lucky if you're alive tomorrow.