"Well, I don't know. Gives you a sort of rummy feeling, a thing like
that standin' around all the time. Shall I try speakin' to it now, Miss
Babs?"
She laughed. "Of course, if you wish. Go ahead, and say, 'Hello' to
him."
"Hello, Toory," Higgins said.
"Hello," Toory responded. It was just like Nerina's greeting, and easy
to answer properly.
"Science is sure wonderful," Higgins said. "He remembers everything he
ever knew, don't he? That's what Mr. Doret was saying--the thing's got
a memory-tape that puts everything down, just like he was writin' it in
a book. Does he learn new things easy, Miss Babs?"
"Yes, he's quite quick to learn," Miss Babs assured him.
"What I mean, if you tell him something new--not just something he's
been taught--what would he do? Could I try him out, Miss Babs?"
"Why--why yes, I suppose so," Miss Babs frowned. "Try, if you want to,
Higgins. But you'd better make it something simple."
* * * * *
Higgins swung around. "Wade across the stream, Toory," he said.
Toory's eye-beams lifted. It was an order taking him off wait-command.
He started to move, then stopped. Something seemed to be wrong, and he
was trying very hard not to make a mistake. It was like those puzzling
moments in his training when he couldn't decide what he should do.
"It would be bad for you to get your legs wet, wouldn't it?" Higgins
asked.
"No," Toory responded. His eye-beams swung to Babs.
"Do it, Toory," Babs said.
The wide rocky stream was shallow directly below the gorge, so that it
hardly wet Toory's knees as he waded across.
"Now, come back!" Higgins called.
Toory came back. Again under automatic wait-command, he stood
motionless. He knew that he had done the task properly. It was strange
that the unpleasant feeling inside him should persist. It was just as
though he had done something wrong.
"Certainly is real wonderful, Miss Babs," Higgins was exclaiming. "Real
wonderful!"
He gave Toory a few more orders while Babs listened, and Toory
responded dutifully. But it all seemed wrong. Toory was glad when
Higgins lighted another cigarette and wandered on; and then presently
Toory was leading the girl home around the base of the rocky hill in
the familiar way he knew so well.
It was Toory's last task for the day, and nightfall found him quiescent
again in the hall niche. A storm was in the making, so that there were
more little noises than usual, especially after midnight when his
hearing became sharpened. At monotonous intervals the big clock chimed,
but soon after midnight the voice-murmurs in the house died away.
Then they started again and it made Toory's eye-beams shift and his
head cock a little sidewise as he listened. The voices were familiar
and he knew it was Higgins and his wife whispering together in the east
wing.
"Oh Gil, be careful."
"Sure I will. I can handle that blarsted thing now. I gave it lots of
orders this afternoon."
The murmurs blurred into the wind under the eaves. The night had been
mostly cloudy, Toory knew, because no moonlight showed at the windows.
But there was a little moonlight there now. Toory stood in his hall
niche, watching it. Presently he could hear faint distant footsteps, a
familiar tread, and he knew that Higgins was coming softly down through
the house.
It was so new a thing that a queer, sharp jangling sprang up in Toory.
He was on guard-command, ready to give an alarm-call if the need came.
He remembered his guard-command training, the surprise tests in the
night, the whispers of two strange men outside a window he'd been
guarding.
It had been easy to give the alarm-call then. But surely this was
different. It was so hard, trying to understand. Somehow it seemed that
now there were things in his memory--things he had seen and heard--that
ought to fit together like little widely scattered parts of a difficult
order. You had to understand _all_ the parts. He wanted very much to
understand, because when he didn't, he made mistakes. It had seemed
easy during his training. He wondered why Higgins was giving him parts
so much harder to fit together than anything he had ever tried to
understand before.
The faint sound of Higgins' tread was growing louder. Toory's gaze
clung alertly to the staircase as he waited. Presently Higgins was at
the top, and coming quietly, swiftly down the padded steps. He was
wrapped in a greatcoat with a dark hat on his head.
Toory stirred. One of his feet jerked with an impulse to move, but he
remained motionless. Surely there was no need to shift to alarm-order,
and give a warning cry. Higgins was a member of the household.
"Answer me soft, Toory," Higgins said, his voice low and tense. "You
and I are goin' out together. You understand what I'm sayin'?"
"Yes," Toory answered softly.
It was easy to understand. Miss Babs often would tell him that they
were going out, and he would wait until she was ready. Toory stood
motionless. In the faint red glow of his eye-beams the sweat-beads on
Higgins' thin, sallow face glistened with tiny sparkling points of
light.
"You've learned to take orders from me," Higgins said. "Remember? Even
new orders."
"Yes, I remember," Toory said. He remembered that Babs had asked him to
obey the orders. That seemed to make a difference.
Now Higgins was standing a little back toward the foyer wall, away from
Toory. He said, "I'm takin' you out with me. We're leavin' by the front
door. You go first."
Toory's eye-beams swayed, his great burnished body standing irresolute.
He could feel his legs and arms trembling because the jangle of
confusion was suddenly worse in him. It seemed terribly hard not to
make a mistake.
Higgins' voice was insistent, even though it remained soft. "Get going,
Toory. You'll obey orders, won't you?"
"Yes," Toory responded.
"Then open the front door."
Toory's great measured steps took him to the door. The latch fastenings
clanked as he opened them, because his arms and hands were trembling.
The heavy door swung wide, and bumped back against the stopper with a
thump.
"I told you not to make a noise," Higgins murmured sharply.
Toory remembered. He always remembered the right response when he
had done something wrong. "I am sorry," he said. "I did not mean to
do anything wrong." He stood at the open doorway, trying to stop the
quivering in his legs.
"You go first," Higgins whispered. "Take the garden path to the side
gate. Start now."
With slow long strides Toory went out, and down the little steps.
He could hear Higgins softly closing the door after them. Broken
clouds floated overhead and the dim garden was faintly silvered with
moonlight. The garden path was a little threading passage between the
shrubs and flower-beds.
"Keep goin', Toory. You hear me?"
"Yes," Toory said. He could hear Higgins' breathing, close behind him.
And back at the house, suddenly now there were faint sounds. As he
turned back to stare he heard the click of the front door opening, and
a familiar voice calling to him.
"Toory! Toory!" It was Babs! Very clear was the tapping of her cane as
she felt her way out to the flagging outside the door.
Toory would have responded, even without direct-command. But instantly
Higgins muttered, "Don't speak, Toory!"
Toory did not speak. He remembered that always, a direct command had to
be responded to first. Higgins jerked at his arm. "Come with me, over
here. Stand quiet."
They stood a few feet off the path, by the edge of a shrub. "She's
blind, she can't see us," Higgins whispered. "And she mustn't hear us
either. Don't make _any_ noise!"
Silently Toory stood with his eye-beams wildly swaying. If only Miss
Babs would give him a direct-order. He wanted so desperately to obey it.
* * * * *
Now the summer moonlight aureoled the slender figure of Babs as she
came slowly along the garden path, feeling her way with her cane. If
only he could have led her as he always did.
"Toory, surely I heard you opening the front door," she called out
suddenly. "Where are you, Toory? Answer me!"
Before Higgins could interfere Toory spoke loudly. "Here I am, Miss
Babs!"
"Toory, you shouldn't have come out. Did someone order you?"
"Yes, Miss Babs."
"Who was it, Toory?"
Higgins whispered protests were vehement, but Toory hardly heard them.
"Higgins," Toory said.
"_Higgins_ ordered you? Where is he now, Toory?"
"He is here beside me, Miss Babs."
Higgins cursed bitterly, and stepped out into the moonlight. "I--I
didn't tell him to come out, Miss Babs!" he said.
"Oh--so you're here, Higgins?" The blind girl's voice sounded startled.
Toory could see them standing together on the garden path, the
moonlight pallid on Higgins' frightened face.
"I came out to get the blarsted thing," Higgins said quickly. "I saw
him out here, and thought I'd have a go at getting him back."
"You couldn't have made a mistake, Toory?" Babs said. "Answer me
carefully now. Why did you come out?"
"He told me to obey him," Toory said. "He told me to go, and open the
front door quietly."
"So you ordered him out," Babs said. "I can't understand this, Higgins.
What possible reason--"
"I didn't!" Higgins protested. "He's got it all mixed up!"
"It has to be true," Babs told him. She was calmly angry. "We'll go
back to the house now, Higgins. We'll soon see why you--"
"Oh no we won't!" In a panic Higgins had suddenly gripped her
shoulders. "I don't know what he's talkin' about. It's all crazy talk!
Crazy--"
"Higgins, take your hands off me. How dare you?"
"You think I'm lettin' a crazy machine say things about me? I'm
tellin' you--"
"Take your hands off me, Higgins."
Now the struggling Babs was frightened. It sent a horrible jangle
through Toory. There was something wrong, and Miss Babs was frightened
about it. Suddenly he saw that she was trying to scream and Higgins in
a panic had put his hand over her mouth.
Within Toory the jangling confusion grew worse, as if some horrible
corroding acid burned at him. He had a permanent-order always to avoid
danger to Miss Babs. Wasn't she in danger now? It was so terribly hard,
trying to puzzle things out, without training-memory or an order. He
could feel the jangle mounting to a bursting tumult. If only he could
think for himself, act for himself, without any orders.
He heard himself saying, "I want to hold your hand, and lead you, Miss
Babs."
The words so startled the two humans in front of him that they ceased
to struggle. It was as though Model 2 RY suddenly had crossed a great
abyss, and it was terrifying.
"Why--why Toory--" Babs cried.
"I want to hold your hand and lead you, Miss Babs. I am going to do it
now." Toory's great metal legs clanked as he took a slow step forward.
"The thing's gone wild," Higgins choked. "It's comin' at us! Tell it
to keep away from us! _You_ tell it--"
"W-wait, Toory," Babs whispered.
"You hear?" Higgins almost screamed, "You hear that, you crazy--"
"No," Toory said. The disobedience was a shattering thing. It so
frightened Toory, hearing his own voice say it, that his huge body
stood twitching with a chaos impossible to control.
"I am going to lead you home, Miss Babs. It is better for us to go home
now."
It was more than just independent thinking. Toory didn't know what it
was; but in all the tumult within him there seemed to be the knowledge
that this was the only right thing for him to do. Now he was clanking
forward with determined steps.