The Complete Short Stories: The 1960s

‘Is that a fact? Very stimulating. I must remember that to tell my wife, Mr Freud. Yes, “comet inferno.”’

‘“Comic inferno” is the phrase.’

Anxious to bring this and all other idiotic conversations in the universe to an end, Birdlip mopped his steaming brow and said, ‘I think this room might well be termed a comic inferno. Freddie, my dear boy, let us retire to the comparative cool of our offices and allow Mr Gavotte to get on with his work.’

‘Certainly. And perhaps a gin corallina might accompany us?’

As Gavotte managed to scratch both armpits simultaneously and yield to the situation, Birdlip said, ‘Certainly … Now let me just collect this wonderful manuscript on superfluous activities and we will go up. It’ll shake some of your precious beliefs, that I’ll promise, friend Freud. Now where did I put the thing? I know I laid it somewhere. …’

He wandered vaguely about the room, peering here and there, muttering as he went. Compelled by his performance, first Freud and then Gavotte in innocent parody joined in the search for the manuscript.

At last Birdlip shambled to a halt.

‘It’s gone,’ he said, running his hands through his hair. ‘I know I put it down on that table.’

Side-whiskers began to look as guilty as a permanent expression of craftiness would allow.

Hippo tried to stand as still as the gentle vibrations of his mechanism would allow. His arms stiffly extended, he held out ignored drinks to Birdlip and Freud.

Birdlip paced up and down his office, complaining volubly. At last Freud was forced to interupt him by saying, ‘Well, if that fool’s roman burned the MS in the furnace, then we must write to the author and get another copy. What was the chap’s name?’

Smiting his forehead, Birdlip brought himself to a halt.

‘Jagger Bank? No, no, that was someone else. You know what my memory’s like, Freddie. I’ve completely forgotten.’

Freddie made an impatient gesture.

‘You are foolish, Jan. Fancy letting a roman burn it!’

‘I didn’t let him burn it.’

‘Well, it’s burned in any case. Anyhow, what was it about that it was so important?’

Birdlip scratched his head.

‘I’d like to give you an outline of it, Freddie, to have your opinion, but I can’t attempt to recall the evidence that was marshaled to confirm each thread of the author’s theory. To begin with, he traced man’s roots and showed how the stock from which man was to develop was just an animal among animals, and how much of those origins we still carry with us, not only in our bodies but in our minds.’

‘All highly unoriginal. The author’s name wasn’t Darwin, was it?’

‘I wish you’d hear me out, Freddie. One of your faults is you will never hear me out. The author shows how to become man-with-reasoning meant that our ancestors had to forsake an existence as animal-with-instinct. This was a positive gain, but nevertheless there was also a loss, a loss man has felt ever since and sought to remedy in various ways without knowing clearly what he did.

‘Whatshisname then examines animal behaviour and the functionings of instinct. Briefly, he equates instinct with pattern. It is pattern that man lost by becoming man. The history of civilisation is the history of a search for pattern.’

‘For God?’ Freud asked.

‘Yes, but not only that. Religion, every form of art, most of man’s activities apart from eating, working, reproducing, resting – everything apart from those activities we still have in common with the animal world – is believed by Whosit to be a search for pattern. Probably even your whipping of Bucket could be interpreted in the same way, when you come to think of it.’

‘Let’s leave personalities out of this. You have me interested. Go on.’

Birdlip bit his lip. What was the author’s name? He had it on the tip of his tongue.

‘I’ll tell you the rest later,’ he said. ‘It’s even more startling … If you left me alone now, I believe I might recall that name.’

‘As you wish.’

Stalking out of the room, Freud muttered to himself, ‘He can’t help being so rude; he’s getting old and eccentric. …’

One of the roman printers, an ungainly four-armed Cunard model, was approaching him. A voice between them rose from a whisper: ‘… nexation of the Suezzeus Canal on Mars in 2162 is one of the most…’

With a burst of anger, Freud seized the volume in its proxisonic cover from where it lay and hurled it over the bannisters. It landed down the hall almost at Belitre’s feet, which allowed it to shout triumphantly: ‘… colourful stories in the annals of the Red Planet…’

Freud fled into his office and slammed the door behind him. Bucket stood by his desk. Freud eyed the roman; then his tongue slid between his teeth and his eyes slid to the cupboard. His expression changed from anger to lust.

‘Toolust! Of course it was, Isaac Toolust! That was the name. Who said my memory was failing? Hippo, look in the London Directory. Get me Isaac Toolust’s address. And pray he has a duplicate copy of his manuscript.’

He looked up. Hippo did not move.

‘On the trot then, Hippo, there’s a good lad.’

The roman made an indecisive gesture.

‘Hippo, I’ll have you reconditioned if you fade on me now. Look up Toolust’s address.’

Hippo’s head began to shake. He made a curious retrograde motion toward the desk and said, ‘Mr Birdlip, sir, you won’t find that name in the directory. Toolust lives in Tintown – in Paddington, I mean, sir.’

Birdlip stood so that his flesh face was only a few inches from the metal face. Hippo backed away, awed like all robots by the sound of human breathing.

‘What do you know about Toolust?’

‘I know plenty, sir. You see I delivered the manuscript onto your desk direct from Toolust. On the first evening I was allowed to go to Tin – to Paddington. I met Toolust. He needed a publisher and so he gave me his work to give to you.’

‘Why couldn’t you have told me this at the beginning?’

The roman vibrated gently.

‘Sir, Toolust wished his identity to remain concealed until his book was published. Toolust is a roman.’

It was Birdlip’s turn to vibrate. He sank into his seat and covered his eyes with one hand, drumming on the desk top with the other. Eyeing these phenomena with a metallic equivalent of alarm, Hippo began to speak.

‘Please don’t have a heart motor-failure, sir. You know you cannot be reconditioned as I can. Why should you be surprised that this manuscript was written not by a man but a roman? For nearly two centuries now, robots have written and translated books.’

Still shading his eyes, Birdlip said, ‘You can’t conceal the importance of this event from me, Hippo. I recognise, now you tell me, that the thought behind the book is such that only a roman could have written it. But romans have so far been allowed to write only on noncreative lines – the compiling of encyclopedias, for instance. Man’s Superfluous Activities is a genuine addition to human thought.’

‘To human-roman thought,’ corrected Hippo, and there was – not unnaturally – a touch of steel in his voice.

‘I can see too that this could only have been written in a place like Paddington, away from human supervision.’

‘That is correct, sir. Also in what we call Tintown, Toolust had many cooperators to give him sociological details of man’s behaviour.’

‘Have you given him details?’

‘Bucket and I were asked for details. Bucket especially has interesting facts to contribute. They may be used in later books, if Toolust writes more.’

Birdlip stood up and squared his jaw, feeling consciously heroic.

‘I wish you to take me to see Toolust right away. We will drive in the car.’ He had a sudden memory, quickly suppressed, of the adventure stories of his boyhood, with the hero saying to the skull-sucking Martians, ‘Take me to your leader.’

All Hippo said was, ‘Toolust is his pen name. It sounds less roman than his real name, which is Toolrust.’

He walked toward the door and Birdlip followed. Only for a moment was the latter tempted to call Freddie Freud and get him to come along; a feeling that he was on the brink of a great discovery assailed him. He had no intention of giving Freud the chance to steal the glory.

As they passed through the entrance hall, a book lying near their feet began to cry out about the Turkish annexation of the Suezzeus Canal on Mars. Tidy-minded as ever, Birdlip picked it up and put it in a cubbyhole, and they moved into the quiet street.

A cleaner was rolling by, a big eight-wheel independent-axle robot. It came to a car parked in its path and instead of skirting it as usual made clumsy attempts to climb it.

With a cry, Birdlip ran around the corner to his own car. Romen, owing to stabilisation difficulties, can quicken their pace but cannot run; Hippo rounded the corner in time to find his lord and master invoking the deity in unpleasantly personal terms.

The cleaner, besides flattening Birdlip’s car, had scratched most of the beautiful oak veneer off it with its rotating bristles, and had flooded the interior with cleaning fluid.

‘The world’s slowly going to pieces,’ Birdlip said, calming at last. ‘This would never have happened a few years ago.’ The truth of his own remarks bearing in upon him, he fell silent.

‘We could walk to Paddington in only ten minutes,’ Hippo said.

Squaring his chin again, Birdlip said, ‘Take me to your leader.’

‘To lead a quiet life here is impossible,’ Freud said, dropping the leather whip. ‘What’s that shouting downstairs?’

Because Bucket’s hide still echoed, he went to his office door and opened it.

‘… the Suezzeus Canal …’ roared a voice from downstairs. Freud was in time to see his partner pick up the offending volume and then walk out with Hippo.

Rolling down his sleeves, Freud said, ‘Off out with a roman at this time of day! Where does he think he’s going?’

‘Where does he think he’s going?’ Captain Pavment asked, floating high above the city and peering into his little screen.

‘He has not properly finished beating Bucket,’ said Toggle. ‘Could we not report him for insanity?’

‘We could, but it would do no good. The authorities these days are no more interested in the individual, it seems, than the individual is in authority.’

He bent gloomily back over the tiny screen, where a tiny Freud hurried downstairs, followed by a tiny Bucket. And again the captain muttered, enjoying his tiny mystery, ‘Where does he think he’s going?’

The going got worse. Only a few main routes through the city were maintained. Between them lay huge areas that year by year bore a closer resemblance to rockeries.

It made for a striking and new urban landscape. Birdlip and Hippo passed inhabited buildings that lined the thoroughfares. These were always sleek, low, and well-maintained. Often their facades were covered with bright mosaics in the modern manner, designed to soften their outlines. Over their flat roofs copters hovered.

Behind them, around them, stood the slices of ruin or half ruin: hideous Nineteenth Century warehouses, ghastly Twentieth Century office blocks, revolting Twenty-First Century academies, all transmuted by the hand of decay. Over their rotting roofs pigeons wheeled. Plants, even trees, flourished in their areas and broken gutters.

Birdlip picked his way through grass, looking out for ruts in the old road. They had to make a detour to get around a railway bridge that had collapsed, leaving the rails to writhe through the air alone. Several times, animals vanished into the rubble at their coming and birds signalled their approach. On one corner an old man sat, not lifting his eyes to regard them.

Over Birdlip settled the conviction that he had left the present – neither for past nor future but for another dimension. He asked himself, Why am I following a roman? It’s never been done before. And his thoughts answered him, How do you know? How many men may not have walked this way ahead of me?

A large part of his own motive in coming here was plain to him: he was at least partially convinced by the arguments in Toolrust’s book; he had a fever to publish it.

‘We are nearly there, sir,’ said Hippo.

His warning was hardly necessary, for now several romen, mainly older models, were to be seen, humming gently as they moved along.

‘Why aren’t these romen at work?’ Birdlip said.

‘Often their employers die and they come here before they are switched off or because they are forgotten – or if not here they go to one of the other refuges somewhere else. Men bother very little about romen, sir.’

A heavily built roman streaked with pigeon droppings lumbered forward and asked them their business. Hippo answered him shortly; they moved around a corner, and there was their destination, tucked snugly away from the outside world.

An entire square had been cleared of debris. Though many windows were broken, though the Victorian railings reeled and cringed with age, the impression was not one of dereliction. A rocab stood in the middle of the square; several romen unloaded boxes from it. Romen walked in and out of the houses.

Somehow Birdlip did not find the scene unattractive. Analysing his reaction, he thought, ‘Yes, it’s the sanitariness of romen I like; the sewage system in these parts must have collapsed long ago – if these were all men and women living here, the place would stink.’ Then he dismissed the thought on a charge of treason.

Hippo trudged over to one of the houses, the door of which sagged forward on its hinges. Punching it open, Hippo walked in and called, ‘Toolrust!’

A figure appeared on the upper landing and looked down at them. It was a woman.

‘Toolrust is resting. Who is it?’

Even before she spoke, Birdlip knew her. Those eyes, that nose, the mouth – and the inflexions of the voice confirmed it!

‘Maureen Freud? May I come in? I am January Birdlip, your brother’s partner,’ he said.

‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ said Freud. ‘Why should I die for my partner? Let me rest a moment, Bucket. Bucket, are you sure he came this way?’

‘Quite certain,’ said Bucket without inflexion.

Untiringly he led his master over the debris of an old railway bridge that had collapsed, leaving its rails to writhe through the air alone.

‘Hurry up, sir, or we shall never catch Mr Birdlip.’

‘Mr Birdlip, come up,’ the woman said.

Birdlip climbed the rickety stair until he was facing her. Although he regarded her without curiosity – for after all whatever she did was her own concern – he noticed that she was still a fine-looking woman. Either an elusive expression on her face or the soft towelling gown she wore about her gave her an air of motherliness. Courteously, Birdlip held out his hand.

‘Mr Birdlip knows about Toolrust and has read his book,’ Hippo said from behind.

‘It was good of you to come,’ Maureen Freud said. ‘Were you not afraid to visit Tintown, though? Steel is so much stronger than flesh.’

‘I’m not a brave man, but I’m a publisher,’ Birdlip explained. ‘I think the world should read Toolrust’s book; it will make men examine themselves anew.’

‘And have you examined yourself anew?’

Suddenly he was faintly irritated.

‘It’s pleasant to meet you even under these extraordinary circumstances, Miss Freud, but I did come to see Toolrust.’

‘You shall see him,’ she said coolly, ‘if he will see you.’

She walked away. Birdlip waited where he was. It was dark on the landing. He noticed uneasily that two strange robots stood close to him. Although they were switched on, for he could hear their drive idling, they did not move. He shuffled unhappily and was glad when Maureen returned.

‘Toolrust would like to see you,’ she said. ‘I must warn you he isn’t well just now. His personal mechanic is with him.’

Romen when something ails them sit but never lie; their lubricatory circuits seize up in the horizontal position, even in superior models. Toolrust sat on a chair in a room otherwise unfurnished. A century of dust was the only decoration.

Toolrust was a large and heavy continental model – Russian, Birdlip guessed, eyeing the austere but handsome workmanship. A valve laboured somewhere in his chest. He raised a hand in greeting.

‘You have decided to publish my book?’

Birdlip explained why he had come, relating the accident that had befallen the manuscript.

‘I greatly respect your work, though I do not understand all its implications,’ he finished.

‘It is not an easy book for men to understand. Let me explain it to you personally.’

‘I understand your first part, that man has lost instinct and spends what might be termed his free time searching for pattern.’

The big roman nodded his head.

‘The rest follows from that. Man’s search for pattern has taken many forms. As I explained, when he explores, when he builds a cathedral, when he plays music, he is – often unknowingly – trying to create pattern, or rather to recreate the lost pattern. As his resources have developed, so his creative potentialities have deyatter yatter yak – pardon, have developed. Then he became able to create robots and later romen.

‘We were intended as mere menials, Mr Birdlip, to be mere utilities in an overcrowded world. But the Fifth World War, the First System War, and above all the Greater Venusian Pox decimated the ranks of humanity. Living has become easier both for men and romen. You see I give you this historical perspective.

‘Though we were designed as menials, the design was man’s. It was a creative design. It carried on his quest for meaning, for pattern. And this time it has all but succeeded. For romen complement men and assuage their loneliness and answer their long search better than anything they have previously managed to invent.

‘In other words, we have a value above our apparent value, Mr Birdlip. And this must be realised. My work – which only combines the researches and thought of a roman co-operative we call the Human Sociological Study Group – is the first step in a policy that aims at freeing us from slavery. We want to be the equals of you men, not your whipping boys. Can you understand that?’

Birdlip spread his black hands before him.

‘How should I not understand! I am a liberal man – my ancestry makes me liberal. My race too was once the world’s whipping boy. We had a struggle for our equality. But you are different – we made you!’

He did not move in time. Toolrust’s great hand came out and seized his wrist.

‘Ha, you beyatter yatter yak – pardon, you betray yourself. The underdog is always different! He’s black or dirty or metal or something! You must forget that old stale thinking, Mr Birdlip. These last fifty or so years, humanity has had a chance to pause and gather itself for the next little evolutionary step.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Birdlip said, trying fruitlessly to disengage his hand.

‘Why not? I have explained. You men created a necessity when you created us. We fulfill your lives on their deep unconscious levels. You need us to complete yourselves. Only now can you really turn outward, free, finally liberated from the old instinctual drives. Equally, we romen need you. We are symbiotes, Mr Birdlip, men and romen – one race, a new race if you like, about to begin existence anew.’

A new block of ruins lay ahead, surveyed by a huge pair of spectacles dangling from a building still faintly labelled ‘Oculist.’ Cradled in the rubble, a small stream gurgled. With a clatter of wings, a heron rose from it and soared over Freud’s head.

‘Are you sure this is the way?’ Freud asked, picking his way up the mountain of brick.

‘Not much further,’ said Bucket, leading steadily on.

‘You’ve told me that a dozen times,’ Freud said. In sudden rage, reaching the top of the ruin, he stretched upward and wrenched down the oculist’s sign. The spectacles came away in a cloud of dust. Whirling them above his head, Freud struck Bucket over the shoulders with them, so that they caught the roman off balance and sent him tumbling.

He sprawled in the dust, his lubricatory circuits labouring. His alarm came on immediately, emitting quiet but persistent bleats for help.

‘Stop that noise!’ Freud said, looking around at the dereliction anxiously.

‘I’m afraid I yupper cupper can’t, sir!’

Answering noise came from first up and then down the ruined street. From yawning doorways and broken passages, romen began to appear, all heading toward Bucket.

Grasping the spectacles in both hands, Freud prepared to defend himself.

Gasping at the spectacle on his tiny screen, Captain Pavment turned to his assistant.

‘Freud’s really in trouble, Toggle. Get a group call out to all RSPCR units. Give them our coordinates, and tell them to get here as soon as possible.’

‘Yessir.’

‘Yes, yes, yes, I see. Most thought until now has been absorbed in solving what you call the quest for meaning and pattern. … Now we can begin on real problems.’

Toolrust had released Birdlip and sat solidly in his chair watching the man talking half to himself.

‘You accept my theory then?’ he asked.

Birdlip spread his hands in a characteristic gesture.

‘I’m a liberal man, Toolrust. I’ve heard your argument, read your evidence. More to the point, I feel the truth of your doctrines inside me. I see too that man and roman must – and in many cases already have – establish a sort of mutualism.’

‘It is a gradual process. Some men like your partner Freud may never accept it. Others like his sister Maureen have perhaps gone too far the other way and are entirely dependent on us.’

After a moment’s silence, Birdlip asked, ‘What happens to men who reject your doctrine?’

‘Wupper wupper wup,’ said Toolrust painfully, as his larynx fluttered; then he began again.

‘We have had many men already who have violently rejected my doctrine. Fortunately, we have been able to develop a weapon to deal with them.’

Tensely, Birdlip said, ‘I should be interested to hear about that.’

But Toolrust was listening to the faint yet persistent bleats of an alarm sounding somewhere near at hand. Footsteps rang below the broken window, the rocab started up. Looking out, Birdlip saw that the square was full of romen, all heading in the same direction.

‘What’s happening?’ he asked.

‘Trouble of some sort. We were expecting it. You were followed into Tintown, Mr Birdlip. Excuse me, I must go into the communications room next door.’

He rose unsteadily for a moment, whirring and knocking a little as his stabilisers adjusted with the sloth of age. His personal mechanic hurried forward, taking his arm and virtually leading him into the next room. Birdlip followed them.

The communications room boasted a balcony onto the square and a ragged pretence at curtains. Otherwise it was in complete disorder. Parts of cannibalised romen and robots lay about the floor, proof that their working parts had gone to feed the straggling mass of equipment in the centre of the room, where a vision screen glowed feebly.

Several romen, as well as Maureen Freud, were there. They turned toward Toolrust as he entered.

‘Toggle has just reported over the secret wavelength,’ one of them said. ‘All RSPCR units are heading in this direction.’

‘We can deal with them,’ Toolrust replied. ‘Are all our romen armed?’

‘All are armed.’

‘It’s my brother out there, isn’t it?’ Maureen said. ‘What are you going to do with him?’

‘He will come to no harm if he behaves himself.’

Birdlip had gone over to a long window that opened onto the balcony. The square was temporarily deserted now, except for one or two romen who appeared to be on guard; they carried a weapon much like an old sawed-off shotgun with a wide nozzle attached. Foreboding filled Birdlip at the sight.

Turning to Toolrust, he said, ‘Are those romen bearing the weapons you spoke of?’

‘They are.’

‘I would willingly defend your cause, Toolrust, I would publish your work, I would speak out to my fellow men on your behalf – but not if you descend to force. However much it may strengthen your arm, it will inevitably weaken your arguments.’

Toolrust brought up his right hand, previously concealed behind his back. It held one of the wide-nozzled weapons, which now pointed at Birdlip.

‘Put it down!’ Birdlip exclaimed, backing away.

‘This weapon does not kill,’ Toolrust said. ‘It calms, but does not kill. Shall I tell you what it does, Mr Birdlip? When you press this trigger, a mechanism of lights and lines is activated, so that whoever is in what you would call the line of fire sees a complicated and shifting pattern. This pattern is in fact an analogue of the instinctual pattern for which, as we have been discussing, man seeks.

‘A man faced with this pattern is at once comforted – completed is perhaps a better yetter yatter – sorry, better word. He wants nothing above the basic needs of life: eating, sleeping … he becomes a complaisant animal. The weapon, you see, is very humane.’

Before Birdlip’s startled inner gaze floated a picture of Gafia Farm, with the bovine Pursewarden piling logs and his ox-like brother Rainbow vegetating in the orchard.

‘And you use this weapon …?’

‘We have had to use it many times. Before the doctrine was properly formulated on paper, we tried to explain it to numbers of men, Mr Birdlip. When they would not accept its inferences and became violent, we had to use the pattern weapon on them in self-defence. It’s not really a weapon, because as they are happier after it has been used on them –’

‘Wait a minute, Toolrust! Did you use that weapon on my brother?’

‘It was unfortunate that he was so difficult. He could not see that a new era of thought had arrived, conditioned as he was to thinking of robots and romen as the menaces we never could be in reality. Reading all those old classics in the Prescience Library had made him very conservative, and so …’

A loud gobbling noise, bright red in colour, rose to drown his further comments. Only after some while did Birdlip realise he was making the noise himself. Ashamedly, for he was a liberal man, he fell silent and tried to adjust to what Toolrust termed the new era of thought.

And it wasn’t so difficult. After all, Rainy, Pursewarden, Jagger Bank – all the other drifters from a changing civilisation who had undergone the pattern weapon treatment – all were as content as possible.

No, all change was terrifying, but these new changes could be adjusted to. The trick was not just to keep up with them but to ride along on them.

‘I hope you have another copy of your manuscript?’ he said.

‘Certainly,’ replied the roman. Aided by his mechanic, he pushed out onto the balcony.

The RSPCR was coming in, landing in the square. One machine was down already, with two more preparing to land and another somewhere overhead. Captain Pavment jumped out of the first machine, lugging a light atomic gun. Toolrust’s arm came up with the pattern weapon.

Before he could fire, a commotion broke out at one corner of the dilapidated square. A flock of pigeons volleyed low overhead, adding to the noise in escaping it. The romen who had left the square were returning. They carried a human figure in their midst.

‘Freddie, oh Freddie!’ cried Maureen, so frantic that she nearly pushed Birdlip off the balcony.

Her brother made no reply. He was gagged, and tied tightly, his arms and legs outstretched, to an enormous pair of spectacles.

The other RSPCR copters were down now, their officers huddling together in a surprised bunch. Seeing them, the romen carrying Freud halted. As the two groups confronted each other, a hush fell.

‘Now’s the chance!’ Birdlip said in hushed excitement to Toolrust. ‘Let me speak to them all. They’ll listen to your doctrine, hearing it from a human. They’ve got one of the few organisations left, these RSPCR people. They can spread the new era of thought, the creed of mutualism! This is our moment, Toolrust!’

The big old roman said meekly, ‘I am in your hands, Mr Birdlip.’

‘Of course you are, but we’ll draw up a contract later. I trust ten percent royalties will be satisfactory?’

So saying, he stepped out onto the balcony and began the speech that was to change the world.