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the area-because it was your idea, of course. They haven't even been activated yet. I've still got
them in the Green Room. Want to see them?"
"Sure," said Morey buoyantly. He dashed ahead of Cherry to inspect the results of his own
brainstorm. There they were, standing statue-still against the wall, waiting to be energized to
begin their endless tasks.
"Yours is real pretty," Morey said gallantly. "But-say, is that thing supposed to look
like me?" He inspected the chromium face of the man-robot disapprovingly.
"Only roughly, the man said." Cherry was right behind him. "Notice anything else?"
Morey leaned closer, inspecting the featunes of the facsimile robot at a close range. "Well, no,"
he said. "It's got a kind of squint that I don't like, but-Oh, you mean that!" He bent over to
examine a smaller robot, half hidden between the other pair. It was less than two feet high, big-
headed, pudgy-limbed, thick-bellied. In fact, Morey thought wonderingly, it looked almost like-
"My God!" Morey spun around, staring wide-eyed at his wife.
"You mean-"
"I mean," said Cherry, blushing slightly.
Morrey reached out to grab her in his arms. "Darling!" he cried. "Why didn't you tell me?"
The Snowmen
TANDY said, "Not tonight, Howard. Why, I'm practically in bed already, see?" And she flipped the
vision switch just for a second; long enough so I could get a glimpse of a sheer negligee and
feathered slippers and, well, naturally, I couldn't quite believe that she really wanted me to
stay away. Nobody made her flip that switch.
I said, "Just for a minute, Tandy. One drink. A little music, perhaps a dance-"
"Howard, you're terrible."
"No, dearest," I said, fast and soft and close to the phone, "I'm not terrible, I'm only
very much in love. Don't say no. Don't say a word. Just close your eyes and in ten minutes I'll be
there, and-"
And then, confound them, they had to start that yapping. Bleepbleep on the phone, and
then: "Attention all citizens! Stand by for orders! Your world federal government has proclaimed a
state of unlimited emergency. All heatpump power generators in excess of eight horsepower per-"
I slammed down the phone in disgust. Leave it to them! Yack-yack on the phone lines at all
hours of the day and night, no consideration for anybody. I was disgusted, and then, when I got to
thinking, not so disgusted. Why not go right over? She hadn't said no; she hadn't had a chance.
So I got the Bug out, locked the doors and set the thermostats, and I set out.
It isn't two miles to Tandy's place. Five years ago, even I could make it in three or four
minutes: now it takes ten. I call it a damned shame, though no one else seems to care. But I've
always been more adventurous than most, and more social-minded. Jeffrey Otis wouldn't care about
things like that. Ittel du Bois wouldn't even know-his idea is to bury his nose in a drama-tape
when he goes out of the house, and let the Bug drive itself. But not me. I like to drive, even if
you can't see anything and the autopilot is perfectly reliable. Life is for living, I say. Live
it.
I don't pretend to understand this scientific stuff either-leave science to the people who
like it, is another thing I say. But you know how when you're in your Bug and you've set the
direction-finder for somebody's place, there's this beepbeepbeepbeep when you're going right and a
beepsQuAwK or a SQUAWKbeep when you go off the track? It has something to do with radio, only not
radio-that's out of the question now, they say-but with sort of telephoned messages through the
magma of the Earth's core. Well, that's what it says in the manual, and I know because one day I
glanced through it. Anyway. Excuse me for getting technical. But I was going along toward Tandy's
place, my mind full of warm pleasures and anticipating, and suddenly the beepbeepbeep stopped, and
there was a sort of crystal chime and then a voice: "Attention! Operation of private vehicles is
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forbidden! Return to your home and listen to telephoned orders every hour on the hour!" And then
the beepbeepbeep again. Why, they'd even learned how to jam the direction-finder with their
confounded yapping! It was very annoying, and angrily I snapped the DF off. Daring? Yes, but I
have to say that I'm an excellent driver, wonderful sense of direction, hardly need the direction-
finder in the first place. And anyway we were close; the thermal pointers in the nose had already
picked up Tandy's temperature gradient.
Tandy opened the locks herself. "Howard," she said in soft surprise, clutching the black
film of negligee. "You really came. Oh, naughty Howard!"
"My darling!" I breathed, reaching out for her. But she dodged.
"No, Howard," she said severely, "you mustn't do that. Sit down for a moment. Have one
little drink. And then I'm going to have to be terribly stubborn and send you right home, dear."
"Of course," I said, because that was, after all, the rules of the game. "Just one drink,
certainly." But, damn it, she seemed to mean it! She wasn't a bit hospitable-I mean, not really
hospitable. She seemed friendly enough and she talked sweetly enough, but... Well, for example,
she sat in the positively-not chair. I can tell you a lot about the way Tandy furnished her place.
There's the wing chair by the fire, and that's a bad sign because the arms are slippery and
there's only room for one actually sitting in it. There's the love seat- speaks for itself,
doesn't it? And there's the big sofa and, best of all, the bearskin rug. But way at the other end
of the scale is this perfectly straight, armless cane-bottomed thing, with a Ming vase on one side
of it and a shrub of some kind or other rooted in a bowl on the other, and that's where she sat.
I grumbled, "I shouldn't have come at all."
"What, Howard?"
"I said, uh, I couldn't come any, uh, faster. I mean, I came as fast as I could."
"I know you did, you brute," she said roguishly, and stopped the Martini-mixer. It poured
us each a drink. "Now don't dawdle," she said primly. "I've got to get some sleep."
"To love," I said, and sipped the top off the Martini.
"Don't do that," she warned. I got up from the floor at her feet and went back to another
chair. "You," she said, "are a hard man to handle, Howard, dear." But she giggled.
Well, you can't win them all. I finished my drink and, I don't know, I think I would have [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]