Ray Cummings

“ He lay staring up the wavering eye-beams. He could see the clouds high up, flushed with the dawnlight. An aircar was drifting past, up there, but an aircar was not a danger to Miss Babs.
"We're sending a man up to take the fuse out, Toory. Turn over, face down. That's it. Do this for me, Toory."
He lay with his face pressing into the rocky ground. The rock was dark and blurred, so close to his eye-lenses. He could remember how proud he'd felt down there in the warm sunlit valley standing under wait-command beside Miss Babs. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Toory's mailed hand was sheathed in a soft black glove. He was careful to keep his work-pincer retracted as he had been taught. He held out his hand, keeping it well lowered because the girl was quite small, two feet shorter than himself. Her own hand fumbled around for an instant. Fumbled because—Babs Doret was blind.
"It will be comforting," she said, when her fingers at last closed over the glove. "Father, you've made me very happy."
"The new training should not take more than a month," Erg said. "You must work with him an hour or two each day. ”

“ At last he realized that his training was over, and one day soon after that, his prospective purchaser came. His name was Robert Doret. He was a wealthy man and an important one. The faint, red-glowing beams from Toory's eyes, deep-set under his ridged brows, gazed down in apprehension at the man who perhaps might buy him.
"So you're trained to be called 'Toory'?" Robert Doret asked. "Is that correct?"
"Yes," Toory replied, striving to remain calm.
"You're right," Doret said to James Erg, who stood beside him. "Quite a pleasant, well-modulated voice. ”

“ It ground to a stop, and men leaped out and stood gasping.
"It's Doret's new model. It has killed a man!"
Another car came along and the distress sirens of both cars started wailing. Then a police car arrived; and still Toory stood confused and trembling, grasping the thing that had been a man. It was terribly frightening, because so many new thoughts seemed to be needed to make sense of the confusion.
Now he could hear the men. "Don't try to give it orders, it might leap at us!"
And a voice from back at the garden. "Here's Babs Doret. It must have killed her too!" ”

“ What difference what anybody suspects if they can't prove anything? A piece of damn machinery goes wrong, wanders out in the middle of the night and gets itself smashed, ruined. Who can prove different? ”

“ Generally they stayed out quite a long time. But there was one afternoon when they started, and came quickly back. Feeling unusually tired, Miss Babs went at once upstairs to her room and Toory resumed his silent, motionless wait-command in the foyer recess.
For a while there was nothing for his eye-beams to follow. Then he heard the soft tread of Higgins moving about in the library. In the quiet, somber dimness, Toory's eye-beams shifted. Through the foyer archway he could see Higgins clearly. ”

“ So what? We'll just sit tight, and leave the necklace down there in the woods while we wait a good two years. Then all we do is say we'll have a go at service in England again. I'll sell the diamonds over there one by one. Who'll ever be the wiser?"
It was nice to hear the drone of the voices for a while, and then Toory's attention drifted away. The weathercock on the roof gable began squeaking again. It was always loud on windy nights. It blended with the human-voice murmurs.
"I didn't know the blarsted thing was in the house, I tell you. I thought it had taken Miss Babs out for a walk." ”

“ Ray Cummings has delighted two generations of science fantasy readers with his unforgettable tales of the infinitely small and the infinitely large. We are all atom conscious today, but Ray was the first to discern the realms of gold spinning in miraculous splendor far below the threshold of the visible. ”

“ For a quarter of a century no other robot-builder had been able to compete with the world famous Erg product.
The big Erg factory in the suburbs of New York dominated the world market, its products ranging from modest one-task models up to the most elaborate. Model 2 RY was now the most elaborate, costing two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It was guaranteed slow-trained over a full two year period. The training included, of course, additional instruction for any specialized tasks desired by its purchaser ”

“ Babs told him their names and their general duties. There was Annie, the maid, and Higgins and his wife who served as steward and cook. There were also Tom, the chauffeur, Nerina, who was Miss Babs' personal maid, and old Jacques, the gardener.
Mrs. Higgins, that first day, had seemed alarmed. Her whisper to her husband had been very faint, but Toory's electronic hearing-grids had picked it up clearly. "Sure gives you the creeps, that thing lookin' at you with them red eye-beams." ”