"Frankly, they laughed."
"I should think so. The Central Scanner didn't pick up anything except
a lot of ineffective propaganda. The sabotage business was all
hysteria."
"That's just what they said--the assignments were an empty honor." She
coldly considered Eric. "I want to wreck him too."
"I've smashed the insides," he said. "You'd better just work the
surface."
"That's all I want to do," she answered, starting to scratch
traditional marks all over the dead robot. It gave her a full
afternoon of happy, busy labor.
* * * * *
The next day a large open truck came around and the street echoed to
the appeal for contributions. Festival spirit was running high
everywhere and when the neighborhood crowd saw the young robot porters
carry Eric out there was a loud cheer of appreciation.
"My husband decided on a major contribution right away," Marie
announced to them.
"It's the least we could do," he said modestly.
Many onlookers, swept away by their example, rushed indoors to bring
out additional items of sacrifice. But only two others gave up their
robots. The rest clung to them for private Holy Night ceremonies. Soon
Eric disappeared under the renewed deluge of egg-beaters and washers.
"The best collection I have seen today," said the inspector
accompanying the truck. "You people are to be congratulated for your
exceptional patriotism."
"Destroy!" they shouted back joyously. "Make work!"
At dawn the Central Plaza was already crowded and new hordes kept
pouring in from outlying areas. Wendell and his wife had been among
the first to arrive. They waited, impatient in their separate ways, on
the borderline five hundred yards from the ten-story pyre.
Martial music roared from loudspeakers, interrupted by the
mellifluous boom of a merchandising announcer: "New product! Better
models! One hundred years of High Holy Days! New! New! NEW!"
"Destroy!" came the returning shout. "Make work! Work! Work!"
All the sounds echoed back and forth until baffled away by the open
area across the Plaza, where one large structure had already been
destroyed. Three others were slated for collapse today.
"The biggest Holy Day ever," a restless old woman said to Marie. "I've
seen all nine of them."
"Eric's in there," Marie chatted back, superficially sad, deeply
happy.
"Who?"
"Our house robot."
"Imagine that! Did you hear that?" People gathered round them and
cheered. The good-natured jostling continued until someone said: "Five
minutes to go!"
Wendell checked his watch. Somewhere in the pile at least one element
was coming to life, a metal arm reaching out for brother metal to
engulf in its cybernetic sweep.
"They're coming!" A line of six shiny new slaggers came rumbling into
the open with military precision. They moved along slowly, prolonging
the pleasures of anticipation, then broke rank, each seeking its
assigned point around the pile of appliances gathered for
destruction.
"The latest improved models," said the loudspeakers. "They will first
perform fifteen minutes of automatic maneuvers." The military music
resumed and each slagger turned, as if circling a coin, in clanking
rhythm to it.
"The three hundred and sixty degree turn. Next, making a box on the
Plaza floor...."
The voice stopped, appalled.
* * * * *
An avalanche of metal slid down one side of the pile and the crowd
gasped. The downward movement viscously slowed; then the metal,
suddenly alive with the capacity to defy gravity, circled upward.
Jagged limbs started flailing about.
"Disintegrator attack!" screamed the loudspeakers. "Attack!"
The maneuvers stopped. For one brief moment prior to changeover the
Plaza was dead still, except for the deafening rumble in the pile. The
slaggers broke the spell, rushing full speed toward the pile,
evaporator beams working.
One by one they faltered and were sucked into the destructive pyre.
The crowd fell further back. The whole pile came alive like a mineral
octopus. Then the squirming thing collapsed, every makeshift circuit
irreparably broken and dead. Everything had been happening too fast
for any pronounced reaction to accompany it; but now the world went
crazy.
"Stand firm!" pleaded the loudspeakers. "We will get reinforcements as
soon as celebrations are finished elsewhere."
A barrage of enormous boos came from the disintegrating mob. "Never
again! Fakes! It's finished, done for!"
"Stand firm!"
But the breakup down side avenues continued. "I don't understand,"
Marie shuddered. "Everything's crazy. We've been deceived, Wendell.
Who's been deceiving us?"
"Nobody--unless it's ourselves."
"I don't understand that either." Saucer-eyed she watched a great
clump of disgruntled people push past. "I _have_ to think!"
Suddenly, as they came around a corner, they were facing Burnett.
Hart tried to disregard him but the group leader would have none of
that. He rushed up to Hart. "Good to see a friendly face. Shocking
developments!" His face was grim, but tiny wrinkles at the corners of
his eyes betrayed an amusement that could only be discovered by those
who looked for it.
"Mr. Burnett," he explained to Marie. "A librarian at the main
building. Mr. Burnett, my wife Marie."
"I am most happy to meet you, Mrs. Hart. Have you heard the latest?"
"No, Mr. Burnett."
"The same things have been happening _everywhere_! They announced it
on the radio and they're saying it's due to anti-social elements.
Shocking!"
She shook her head stubbornly. "I don't know what to think. Maybe we
shouldn't be shocked, maybe we should be. I just don't know, Mr.
Burnett. I came to enjoy myself and look how it's ended." She bravely
held back a sob, "Maybe we'd have been better off if we've never heard
about High Holy Days!"
Burnett looked about with feigned apprehension. "You have to be careful
what you say. The government says there's even talk--subversive
handbills--about trying to rehabilitate some of the stuff in the piles."
"The government ought to keep quiet!" she exploded. "They said this
couldn't happen. You can't believe anything they say any more. The
_people_ decide and the government will have to listen, that's what I
say! And I'm a pretty typical person, not one of your intellectual
kind. No criticism of present company intended."
"None taken, Mrs. Hart. Our human future," said Burnett, exchanging a
grin with his aide, "remains, as it always has really been.
Interesting--to say the least!"