Stunned by his own temerity, Comstock stared at what had formerly been
hidden by the hair of the beard.
"I knew it," Comstock said at last. "I knew no human being could live
for five hundred years."
"That is why I have taunted you into action," The Grandfather said
gravely, "I knew that only when you saw with your own eyes the evidence
of what you suspected would you be able to proceed properly."
"This is why there is no record of your existence prior to five hundred
years ago?"
"Yes."
Staring at the metallic surface that had been hidden under the
beard, seeing for the first time the control panel that covered The
Grandfather's whole chest, Comstock wondered what to do next.
"I hope," The Grandfather said, "that I have not been derelict to my
trust. But somehow the whole thing became too much for the mechanisms
that the scientists built into me."
If scientists could do things like this, Comstock thought with a wild
surge of hope, if they could have built a thing like this that faced
him, that was capable of living for half a thousand years, and had
succeeded in behaving like a super-human being, then what other wonders
was science capable of bringing about? What would the future hold,
released from the dead hands that had held his world in sway for so
long? The thought was enough to make his brain spin.
The beard lay across his hands, its very feel a challenge to the
imagination for it was not made of hair but some substance unlike any
that Comstock had ever seen before.
The Grandfather put his forefinger to a button on the board on his
chest. It actuated a servo mechanism that allowed him to sit down. He
said, "May I have my beard back?"
Witlessly, still astounded at what had come to pass, Comstock handed
the object to the man? Thing? That sat across the desk from him.
When The Grandfather was in the act of replacing the beard, Comstock
could see just under his chin, a series of rivets that held his head in
place. One looked loose and Comstock pointed it out.
The Grandfather tightened the rivet and then sighed. "Yes, there can be
no doubt I am beginning to wear out. That is why I have forced this
series of actions into being. That is why I forced Bowdler to leave the
Board to search for you rebels. I knew that my day was coming to an end.
"I cannot say that I will be sorry to be able to go to rust peacefully."
The idea of The Grandfather rusting, so bizarre as to have been
unimaginable a few days earlier did not even cause Comstock to flinch.
Forcing himself to listen to what The Grandfather was saying instead
of wondering wildly about the future, he heard, "You see it was my
primary function to keep the culture frozen till someone, anyone, with
intelligence and guts, came along and saw past the façade that had been
erected.
"I must confess," The Grandfather said wryly, "that when I first heard
about you, I did not think _you_ would be the one to tear down that
façade."
Since Comstock was as amazed as the robot, he did not find the words
insulting. As a matter of fact he was too worried about the next step
that had to be taken to think much about what the old machine was
saying.
"Shall we join my friends?" Comstock asked and it was only then that he
realized how long he had been sitting thinking, for he had not even
heard The Grandfather ask for his help.
The machine was frozen in the same position it had assumed when it sat
down at the desk. The Grandfather said almost plaintively. "I thought
that perhaps you had become deaf."
"Huh?"
"One of my circuits is jammed. You'll have to help me. This has been
happening more and more frequently lately, that's why I was so anxious
for assistance."
"What can I do?"
"See if you can rotate the fourth dial on the left, on my chest."
But the dial moved with no result. There was no impulse being sent to
motivate the big machine.
* * * * *
Lunatic thoughts raced through Comstock's now addled brain. He wondered
what vice The Grandfather would have to adopt in order to be cured.
"Don't get panicky," The Grandfather said. "It's only my body mechanism
that has been affected. In my top desk drawer there is a pair of
pliers. Get them."
Obeying, Comstock saw, in the desk drawer next to some tools, a metal
memorandum pad. Scrawled on it he read the idea that had held back his
world for five centuries. It said, "All or most diseases can be cured,
if the very moral people of a very moral civilization are forced to
perform actions which they consider immoral." After this statement
there were two more words. These, The Grandfather had evidently never
considered objectively. The two words were, True? False?
But Comstock did not pause to think about the statement too much.
Instead he grabbed the pliers and asked what he was to do with them.
"Unfasten the rivet that holds my head in place," the robot instructed.
Obeying the command was very difficult, Comstock found, for a variety
of reasons. First, he had an ingrained feeling that what he was
doing was the height of blasphemy, and then, when he controlled this
conditioned reflex, he found that time and rust had almost frozen the
rivets in place.
He was sweating by the time he had unfastened all the necklace of
rivets.
The Grandfather said, "Now, very carefully, lift my head straight
upwards."
There were many wires dangling down from the underside of the jaw. The
Grandfather directed Comstock to cut them free.
Then and only then, with Comstock holding the head carefully between
his blistered hands, The Grandfather said, "Now let us join the
others."
* * * * *
In the Board room, The Fathers, Bowdler, the philosopher, Grundy, Pat
and Helen sat beneath an inscribed metal plaque which read:
"Alcoholism cures heart trouble."
"Adultery cures arterio-sclerosis."
"Thieving cures insanity."
"Drug addiction cures cancer."
"Prostitution cures diabetes."
There were many such apothegms.
But no one even bothered to read them. As a matter of fact, Grundy had
said that one of the first things that they had better do was remove
the plaque. The others had agreed heartily.
A loudspeaker above the biggest door in the room said, "The Grandfather
approaches."
The Fathers, in a body, forced their decrepit frames to rise.
The rebels decided that they too might as well rise out of respect.
It took a moment before everyone could see the object that Comstock was
carrying under his arm.
Walking to the head of the table, Comstock said, "Sit down. Sit down.
The Grandfather has a few words to say." Only then did he place the
disembodied head he had been carrying onto the table in front of him.
Two of the oldest, sickest Fathers, died immediately.
When their bodies had been removed, Comstock said, "There's nothing to
be afraid of. The Grandfather says that He is something that used to be
called a robot."
Then rapping on the table with a gavel, he sat back and waited. Down
at the far end of the table he could see Pat eyeing the head with awed
fascination. The others were equally pop-eyed.
The philosopher, the man of words, could not be restrained. Before the
Grandfather could speak, the philosopher asked incredulously, "Do you
mean to say that we have been obeying the dictates of a machine?"
Nodding, Comstock said nonchalantly. "Yep."
Then The Grandfather spoke.
"I was made to be your servant, and it has been my sorry task to be
your master. I have not enjoyed it and I must say that I am glad at
long last to be rid of an onerous task."
Then he went on to describe the way he had tried, in his feeble,
mechanical way to do that which he had been ordered to do. When he had
finished his apologetic summary, he said, "But time grows ever shorter
and I fear that even my carefully made cortex is beginning to go bad.
Listen closely for I have no idea when I will cease to function.
"The mistakes I have made, have been errors of commission not omission.
When I have failed it was because not even the scientists who made me
could foretell what was to be, as no man can.
"I was told, just before the death of the scientist who finished me,
that the reason all our people were driven from earth was because they
were vestigial hangovers from what he called an inner-directed culture.
An inner-directed culture is always the result of an historical period
when the death rate is higher than the birth rate. This kind of culture
possesses certain attributes which serve pioneers well, because these
inner-directed people have a strong sense of right and wrong, they
believe implicitly in black and white evils and virtues. But in our
world the birth rate is now, because of my machinations, about equal to
the death rate, our people live longer, few children are lost at birth,
there is enough food to go around, and so it is time to evolve from
an inner-directed culture to a more sophisticated one which has been
called an other-directed culture.
"Such a culture is hesitant to make value judgments, it can no longer
appraise the foibles of other human beings; the righteousness of the
inner-directed person gives way to the more adult approach that right
and wrong are after all purely subjective concepts.
"These people can be more objective and since they can, they must
inevitably be less prone to throw the first stone.
"There are many concommittants of such a culture, but to you will be
the wonder and the glory of discovering them. This is your next step.
"Take it wisely."
* * * * *
It was long before all that The Grandfather said made any sense to his
hearers, but all of them remembered the words until the time came that
they became understandable.
The last thing that The Grandfather said was, "In the old world
from which we came, the earliest known culture was one called an
ancestor-directed culture. This was understandable in a period when the
death rate was so high and old age rare. Old age became magical since
so few possessed it. Then as the elderliness alone ceased to be unique
they ascended to the next culture pattern, the one I have described as
the inner-directed culture. When your ancestors were sent away from
earth almost all the earth people had become other-directed. What has
happened in this long hiatus in which we've been out of touch with
mother earth I cannot hazard an opinion.
"But if we are to proceed on the previous record we can be sure that
they have now ascended to a still higher culture pattern. I would
suggest that you not lift the force field that surrounds our planet
till you have matured enough to be able to meet your earth cousins on
an equal footing.
"An inner-directed culture places a terrific premium on fatherhood.
That is why you have been raised with such a high opinion of fathers
and why all your power symbols are in terms of fatherhood.
"In the next step which you are to take, fatherhood and motherhood will
be equated properly and there will be no further emphasis on what has
been called the battle of the sexes.
"The battle of the sexes will become not an armed truce, but an equal
sharing of what is best in mankind.
"I have left directions as to how you may contact the inter-planetary
economy but I suggest you wait till the time is ripe before taking that
step.
"And now I am about to go out of phase. At last ... at long last ... I
thought it would never come...."
The eyes closed and the robot was still.
It never spoke again.
Pat ran to Comstock's side. His waiting arms engulfed her as they
stood, looking deeply into each other's eyes, savoring their moment of
triumph, and thinking with delight of what the future held.
Comstock said, "I love you."
It was the first time in five hundred years that the air of that planet
had heard those words said in a tone that meant by love--sharing and
trust and hope and peace, and mutual sacrifice that something bigger
and better might come from that love.
THE END