F. L. Wallace

“ Here and there his skin began parting from his flesh. The autobath kept on kneading him. It was when it reached for his face—Jadiver remembered very clearly—he lost consciousness.
He lay on the bed in the hospital, sweat soaking into the bandages. He could understand why he'd had a memory block—being boiled alive was frightful enough for his mind to repress.
It was not only the accident that was disturbing, but the manner in which it occurred. He knew robot machinery and the principles used in the construction of it. The autobath was one of the best—foolproof, if there was such a mechanism. ”

“ It was not late and the city overflowed with men and women walking, flying, skimming. Roughly dressed men down from the north polar farms, explorers from the temperate jungles, government girls—the jumbled swarm that comes to a planet in the intermediate stages of exploitation. It was a background through which he could pass unnoticed.
The circuit, though—always the circuit. He couldn't escape that by walking away from it. But at least he'd proved that telepathy wasn't possible by means of it, or he wouldn't still be free. ”

“ No future for him there, jammed in on a crowded world, but it was his planet, always would be, and he wouldn't mind going back.
"Sorry," said the clerk, flipping over the passport and studying it. "I can't book you. The flight's only for Earth citizens."
"I was born there," Jadiver impatiently said. "Can't you see?"
"You were?" asked the robot eagerly. "I was built there." It handed him back the passport. "However, it doesn't matter where you were born. You've been here three years without going back. Automatically, you became a citizen of Venus two and a half years ago." ”

“ Jadiver was an industrial engineer, a specialist in the design of robot bodies and faces, robots that had to look like humans. He knew anatomy, not in the way a doctor did, but it was nonetheless the knowledge of an expert. He reached out and the policeman toppled.
He dragged the unconscious man deeper into the little jungle and listened. No one had noticed. Physically a large man, the policeman might be the one who had shot Emily—and then again he might not be. He did have a tangle gun, which was the important thing. Jadiver took it and rifled the man's pockets for ammunition. ”

“ Jadiver looked, then turned away. "Cellophane," he said. "A man can be born, live, die, and be shoveled away; begot and beget, completely untouched by human hands."
She looked blank at the mention of cellophane. Probably didn't know what it was, thought Jadiver. So few people did any more.
"Don't worry about it," she said. "Your skin's transparent now, but in a few days it will be normal."
"That's nice," said Jadiver. "I suppose it would be educational, but I'd just as soon not be an anatomy model of the first layer of the human body." ”

“ Jadiver didn't listen to the rest. His eyes were on the uniformed men. Mercifully, they carried tangle guns. That much he was thankful for. Burlingame and his crew would be taken alive. They might not like what would happen later, but at least they would live.
The tangle gun was the most effective and least lethal weapon ever conceived. It would bring down a butterfly at two hundred yards and hold it there, without crumpling a wing or disturbing the dustlike scales. ”

“ Burlingame was leading it, tangle gun in hand. The guests were thrown back and a policeman went down.
It was hard to fire into the mob through which Burlingame and his crew were bulling. In that respect, the tangle gun was not selective. It seized on any motion.
They couldn't make it, but Jadiver hoped for them. They were at the edge of the crowd. Between them and freedom was a thin cordon of police. Beyond the police was a planted area where jungle vines and shrubs, considerably taller than a man, grew dense. ”

“ The tangle gun propelled a plastic bullet, and that plastic was a paradox. It was the stickiest substance known and would adhere to a sphere of polished platinum, tearing away the solid metal if it were forcibly removed without first being neutralized. It also extruded itself into fine, wire-like strands on a moving object. The more anything moved, the tighter it wrapped around. The victim was better off to relax. He couldn't escape; no one ever had.
Jadiver watched the man threshing on the floor. One shot would have been enough. Someone on the Venicity force liked to see men squirm. ”

“ It was that skin, of course, the synthetic substance they had put on him over the circuit. They should have tested it under these conditions. They might not have been so anxious to boil men alive.
He felt that he was almost invincible. It was an exhilarating feeling. He stopped trying to reload the tangle gun and stood up. He sprinted at the policeman, who stood his ground, firing frantically at a target he could not miss and yet did not hit. The tangle strands shattered all around the target.
Jadiver swung the gun with his remaining strength; the butt connected with the policeman's forehead. ”

“ It should be possible to design a perfect robot, one that would realize all the potentialities of a mechanical personality. It had never been done; anthropomorphic conceptions had always interfered.
"Must be mistaken," mumbled the robot, and swayed. It would collapse in twenty minutes. The robot pressed a button and the field behind him flickered off. Jadiver passed through it and the field fell back in place.
Inside, he looked around. The usual swank, or maybe more so. Impressive, if he cared to be impressed by it. At the moment he didn't. He had to find Burlingame or Emily. ”

“ The robot switched to the regular speaking voice. "They built your design, after all. They needed a big and powerful mobile robot, one that could house, in addition to the regular functions, an extensive and delicate mechanism."
That was the voice that had haunted him so long and in so many situations. It was not Jadiver's own voice, but it resembled his. A third person might not recognize the difference.
"That other mechanism," said Jadiver. "Is that the one that monitors the circuit in my body?"
"That parallels the circuit in your body." Tentacles were busy straightening out the dents. ”

“ The human body is a good design—for a human. It doesn't belong on a robot. That, for most purposes, should be a squat container with three wheels or treads, with eye-stalks and tentacles on top. I designed one like that, but it was never built. Robots always look like beautiful girls or handsome men, and the mechanism is twice as clumsy as it should be, in order to fit in with that conception. ”

“ If he passed, he was on an equal footing with any other person wanted by the police. He'd take his chances on that, his wits against their organization; he could disappear if he didn't carry a beacon around with him. This was the best place to spend the interim period, crowded together with people coming and going to and from the wild lands of Venus.
But if he didn't pass the test—
He refused to think about it.
He walked aimlessly in the grayness of the Venusian day. Different people from those in the bright new sections of Venicity, quieter, grimmer, more bewildered. ”

“ There was a man on Earth, a top-notch scientist. He worked out the theory and set up the mechanism. He had a surgical assistant, a person who would never be more than that on Earth because she wasn't good on theory, though she was a whiz at surgery. She realized it and got his permission to build another machine and take it to Venus. Originally it was intended to accumulate data on the workings of the human nervous system. ”

“ On Venus, things were different. Laws concerning the rights of individuals are not so strict. She got the idea of examining the whole nervous system at once, not realizing what it meant because it had never been done that way. She discussed it with officials from the police department who saw instantly what she didn't—that once an extensive circuit was in a human, there was no way to get it out, except by death. ”

“ Cobber shrugged. "Who can you trust? If you go to a doctor good enough to find a gadget that small, what is he? A high-powered professional and he's got his problems. He sees something inside and smiles and says you're fine and charges you a fat fee. Even if he tells you that you've been planted, there's nothing you can do. No one's going to cut it out—not while the police can hear everything through it."
"Thanks for taking the chance."
Burlingame came in smiling confidently. "Now we can talk," he said. Behind him were three other men Jadiver had never seen. ”

“ He had to assume that the metallic fiber in his clothing and the lead flakes in the cosmetic would scramble the circuit signal. If they didn't, then he was completely without protection.
He'd soon know how correctly he had analyzed the problem.
He walked out of the transportation terminal and hailed an air cab which took him over the city and left him at the edge of a less reputable section.
It was not an old slum—Venicity hadn't endured long enough to have inherited slums; it built them quickly out of shoddy material and then tore them down again as the need for living space expanded outward. ”

“ Jadiver drew a deep breath. No one was going to get killed because of him. Nevertheless, his skin crawled.
He gazed down at the guests lining up. They, too, knew what tangle guns were.
Suddenly a man darted out of line and headed toward one of the exits. He collided with an officer and the policeman went down. A tangle gun snapped. The running man fell headlong. Three more times the tangle gun fired at the man writhing on the floor—at his hands, at his face, and again at his legs. ”

“ The robot was smooth and positive. "Your question is basically misleading, according to our statistics. In eight hundred and forty one million plus installations, on all the inhabited planets of the Solar System, there has never been one accident.
"The autobath is run by a small atomic motor and is not connected in any way to an outside power source. There are plumbing connections, but these are not suitable for the transmission of a signal. To answer your question specifically: There is no alarm system of any kind, local or general, nor is there any provision for someone else to attach one." ”

“ Jadiver tried to smile as he lifted a curiously bandaged arm. "Thanks for this."
"I'll take only half the credit. That was a combo job."
He was going to have difficulty if she insisted on using technical slang. "What's a combo job?"
"Just what it sounds like. A combination robot-human surgeon. All hospitals use them. The robot is more precise and delicate, but it lacks the final margin of judgment that's supplied by the human. Two of us work together in critical cases." ”

“ Eyes and ears, to be sure, good ones in a way, but without the delicate shadings a human has, particularly tactile interpretations. I didn't need better, they thought, because my function was to observe and report on the parallel circuit I mentioned.
"In the beginning, that circuit was a formless matrix and only faintly resembled your nervous system. As nerve data was exchanged back and forth, it began to resemble you more and more, especially your mind. Now, for practical purposes, it is you and I can look into it at will."
Jadiver stirred uneasily.
"Don't you understand?" asked the robot. ”

“ They have to leave if they expect to develop freely. But the hold of a whole culture is strong and it's hard to persuade them that they have to go." The robot paused. "Take a last look at a blighted area."
Outside planets glimmered in the distance.
Jadiver was tired and his eyes were closing. Now he could sleep safely, but not in peace.
"Don't regret it," advised the robot. "Where you're going, you'll have real designs to work on. No more pretty robot faces." ”

“ In order to get past that kind of equipment, you have to be a top-notch scientist—and one that can do better at a top-notch job.
"Now, who's got money? The rich, and they want to show it off wherever they go. Naturally they take precautions, too, but people are always involved and that's the weakness. You can build a machine that does one thing perfectly, but people make mistakes—they get rattled. Teamwork can take advantage of it. A feint here, and a block there, and before anyone knows what's happening, we're through their defenses. ”

“ He went slowly back to the apartment. It was not so strange that the police hadn't arrested him. They knew that he'd stay on the planet, that he had to. They'd had it figured out long before he did.
He fell into the bed without removing his clothing. The bed made no effort to induce him to sleep. It wasn't necessary.
In the morning, Jadiver awakened to the smell of food. The room he slept in was dark, but in the adjacent room he could hear the Kitch-Hen clucking away contentedly as it prepared breakfast. ”

“ The name he wanted was Doctor Doumya Filone. She was off duty at present. However, if it was an emergency—? His skin crawled and he decided it was just that and identified himself. There were a number of persons with whom he had contacts who wouldn't approve his doing this, but they didn't have to live in his skin.
He dialed her quickly. He couldn't place the number, but figured it was probably across town, in one of the newer districts. He didn't fully remember what she was like until she appeared on the screen. With that face to put on a robot, he might make a fortune. ”