"Oh, certainly. He came back worn to a frazzle."
"Food?" I asked Riggs. "How is he feeding himself?"
"We see there's a supply of stuff, cookies and such-wise, left on a
low shelf, where he can get at them. One of the robots cooks up some
more substantial stuff on a regular schedule and leaves it where he can
find it. We have to be careful. We can't mess around too much. We can't
intrude on him. I have a feeling he's almost reached an actual turning
point. We can't afford to upset things now that he's come this far."
"The android's ready?"
"Just about," said Stanford.
"And the playmates?"
"Ready. They were less of a problem."
"There's nothing more that we can do?"
"Nothing," Stanford said. "Just wait, that's all. Young has carried
himself this far by the sheer force of will alone. That will is gone
now. He can't consciously force himself any further back. He is more
child than adult now. He's built up a regressive momentum and the only
question is whether that momentum is sufficient to carry him all the
way back to actual babyhood."
"It has to go back to that?" Riggs looked unhappy, obviously thinking
of his own future. "You're only guessing, aren't you?"
"All the way or it simply is no good," Stanford said dogmatically. "He
has to get an absolutely fresh start. All the way or nothing."
"And if he gets stuck halfway between? Half child, half man, what then?"
"That's something I don't want to think about," Stanford said.
* * * * *
He had lost his favorite teddy bear and gone to hunt it in the dusk
that was filled with elusive fireflies and the hush of a world quieting
down for the time of sleep. The grass was drenched with dew and he felt
the cold wetness of it soaking through his shoes as he went from bush
to hedge to flowerbed, looking for the missing toy.
It was necessary, he told himself, that he find the nice little bear,
for it was the one that slept with him and if he did not find it, he
knew that it would spend a lonely and comfortless night. But at no time
did he admit, even to his innermost thought, that it was he who needed
the bear and not the bear who needed him.
A soaring bat swooped low and for a horrified moment, catching sight
of the zooming terror, a blob of darkness in the gathering dusk, he
squatted low against the ground, huddling against the sudden fear that
came out of the night. Sounds of fright bubbled in his throat and now
he saw the great dark garden as an unknown place, filled with lurking
shadows that lay in wait for him.
He stayed cowering against the ground and tried to fight off the alien
fear that growled from behind each bush and snarled in every darkened
corner. But even as the fear washed over him, there was one hidden
corner of his mind that knew there was no need of fear. It was as if
that one area of his brain still fought against the rest of him, as if
that small section of cells might know that the bat was no more than a
flying bat, that the shadows in the garden were no more than absence of
light.
There was a reason, he knew, why he should not be afraid--a good reason
born of a certain knowledge he no longer had. And that he should have
such knowledge seemed unbelievable, for he was scarcely two years old.
* * * * *
He tried to say it--two years old.
There was something wrong with his tongue, something the matter with
the way he had to use his mouth, with the way his lips refused to shape
the words he meant to say.
He tried to define the words, tried to tell himself what he meant by
two years old and one moment it seemed that he knew the meaning of it
and then it escaped him.
The bat came again and he huddled close against the ground, shivering
as he crouched. He lifted his eyes fearfully, darting glances here and
there, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the looming house and it
was a place he knew as refuge.
"House," he said, and the word was wrong, not the word itself, but the
way he said it.
He ran on trembling, unsure feet and the great door loomed before him,
with the latch too high to reach. But there was another way, a small
swinging door built into the big door, the sort of door that is built
for cats and dogs and sometimes little children. He darted through
it and felt the sureness and the comfort of the house about him. The
sureness and the comfort--and the loneliness.
He found his second-best teddy bear, and, picking it up, clutched it to
his breast, sobbing into its scratchy back in pure relief from terror.
There is something wrong, he thought. Something dreadfully wrong.
Something is as it should not be. It is not the garden or the darkened
bushes or the swooping winged shape that came out of the night. It is
something else, something missing, something that should be here and
isn't.
Clutching the teddy bear, he sat rigid and tried desperately to drive
his mind back along the way that would tell him what was wrong. There
was an answer, he was sure of that. There was an answer somewhere; at
one time he had known it. At one time he had recognized the need he
felt and there had been no way to supply it--and now he couldn't even
know the need, could feel it, but he could not know it.
He clutched the bear closer and huddled in the darkness, watching the
moonbeam that came through a window, high above his head, and etched a
square of floor in brightness.
Fascinated, he watched the moonbeam and all at once the terror faded.
He dropped the bear and crawled on hands and knees, stalking the
moonbeam. It did not try to get away and he reached its edge and thrust
his hands into it and laughed with glee when his hands were painted by
the light coming through the window.
He lifted his face and stared up at the blackness and saw the white
globe of the Moon, looking at him, watching him. The Moon seemed to
wink at him and he chortled joyfully.
Behind him a door creaked open and he turned clumsily around.
Someone stood in the doorway, almost filling it--a beautiful person who
smiled at him. Even in the darkness he could sense the sweetness of the
smile, the glory of her golden hair.
"Time to eat, Andy," said the woman. "Eat and get a bath and then to
bed."
Andrew Young hopped joyfully on both feet, arms held out--happy and
excited and contented.
"Mummy!" he cried. "Mummy ... Moon!"
He swung about with a pointing finger and the woman came swiftly across
the floor, knelt and put her arms around him, held him close against
her. His cheek against hers, he stared up at the Moon and it was a
wondrous thing, a bright and golden thing, a wonder that was shining
new and fresh.
* * * * *
On the street outside, Stanford and Riggs stood looking up at the huge
house that towered above the trees.
"She's in there now," said Stanford. "Everything's quiet so it must be
all right."
Riggs said, "He was crying in the garden. He ran in terror for the
house. He stopped crying about the time she must have come in."
Stanford nodded. "I was afraid we were putting it off too long,
but I don't see now how we could have done it sooner. Any outside
interference would have shattered the thing he tried to do. He had to
really need her. Well, it's all right now. The timing was just about
perfect."
"You're sure, Stanford?"
"Sure? Certainly I am sure. We created the android and we trained her.
We instilled a deep maternal sense into her personality. She knows what
to do. She is almost human. She is as close as we could come to a human
mother eighteen feet tall. We don't know what Young's mother looked
like, but chances are he doesn't either. Over the years his memory has
idealized her. That's what we did. We made an ideal mother."
"If it only works," said Riggs.
"It will work," said Stanford, confidently. "Despite the shortcomings
we may discover by trial and error, it will work. He's been
fighting himself all this time. Now he can quit fighting and shift
responsibility. It's enough to get him over the final hump, to place
him safely and securely in the second childhood that he had to have.
Now he can curl up, contented. There is someone to look after him and
think for him and take care of him. He'll probably go back just a
little further ... a little closer to the cradle. And that is good, for
the further he goes, the more memories are erased."
"And then?" asked Riggs worriedly.
"Then he can proceed to grow up again."
They stood watching, silently.
In the enormous house, lights came on in the kitchen and the windows
gleamed with a homey brightness.
I, too, Stanford was thinking. Some day, I, too. Young has pointed the
way, he has blazed the path. He had shown us, all the other billions
of us, here on Earth and all over the Galaxy, the way it can be done.
There will be others and for them there will be more help. We'll know
then how to do it better.
Now we have something to work on.
Another thousand years or so, he thought, and I will go back, too. Back
to the cradle and the dreams of childhood and the safe security of a
mother's arms.
It didn't frighten him in the least.