Richard S. Shaver

“ Too many dreams had tormented him, these last starving months, eking out his dwindling food supply, waiting for something to come ... some planet to appear in the endless black void where he could set his fuel-dry ship down and rest. ”

“ Donay sighed. A man went to the stars seeking perfection, adventure, magic ... and when he found it, he found it was very like home, only better. It was like a perfect wife and a perfect farm and peace and contentment—bucolic magic—why had he left Earth? ”

“ He could not help wondering if the bodies of these machine-like people were as perfect as their faces were perfect. She laughed as the machine augmented his inadvertent wish ... and she zipped down her side, tossed off the one piece jumper of silken stuff. She stood there, perfect and desirable.
Steve flushed. "That wasn't necessary, baby," he heard himself say, embarrassed. "I couldn't help wishing."
"More you can never have, while you are made of flesh. My arms would crush you, my lips burst your soft flesh lips. ”

“ Steve nodded. "They act like robots," he observed, sadly. "I'd like to get some fuel, get back to my own world."
The old man scribbled some notes on a pad, nodded. "They will synthesize your fuel. I'll put through a requisition for it. Now, they may ask you if you want the treatment. It's tempting, because it gives you a life cycle, from birth through fecundity to death, of around ten times the ordinary cycle. Almost immortality you would think. But I refrained, and now I'm the only one left of the old race. The new race is not flesh." ”

“ It was a soft human hand, and Steve's heart leaped with the guess: "Some of these people didn't undergo the change and formed their own community. So the crystallized people sent me to the natural people, and now I am among my own kind again!"
The soft pink-tipped fingers grasped his arm, shook him gently, so gently, and Steve opened his eyes. The face in the darkness was vaguely familiar, but somehow all these people were nice looking. He eased himself off the back of the wagon, leaned against the body that belonged to the hand. A soft body, a woman's real body of flesh ... ”

“ Steve Donay nodded. The old man went on, wearily. "Well, you know how complicated the protoplasm molecule is, then. This change he introduced is only a new atom in the basic living molecule. As if, say, you're making pancakes and put in more shortening ..." the old man laughed. "When I make pancakes they swell up, like balloons. This is the opposite effect. The yeasty growth of life is changed, subdued, altered into a new pattern, by a single new ingredient in the chemical transversion in the body. ”

“ Steve looked into the other rooms of the suite, came back to stand beside the old man's bed. The old fellow rang a bell, and one of the beautiful creatures came and looked in the door.
"Our Earth visitor wants to take in the sights," started the old man, in the "Vey fanis vu?" language, but Steve understood because the thought augmenter was still switched on. "You get this memorandum onto a requisition slip and see that they make some fuel for his ship, so he can go back to his natural world. He doesn't like your new order any better than I do." ”

“ Steve observed. "They pay for their long lives."
The old man nodded sagely. "Things happen ten times as slowly, although to the eye they move as rapidly as before. The drive toward growth and progress is lessened by ten, to my eyes. They're satisfied to go on at the new slow pace."
"Stasified, you mean," Steve grinned. The old man smiled. "How come they made you their ruler?" asked Steve.
"I'm not the ruler. They believe I am the only one capable of understanding you, a flesh man."
Steve stood up. "What'll I do with myself while I'm waiting for that fuel order to go through?" ”

“ All it needed was fuel. And he couldn't pull himself out onto that meandering road that went over the hill and look for the civilization behind this little farm house and this perfect ... robot.
It was then he gave up trying to learn her language. Gave up waiting for the neighbors, for contact with intelligent members of her race. She could not be a living creature, and she could not be even flesh. She must be some kind of maintenance robot ... and Donay shivered. What lay over the hill? If even the tiny farms of this world were peopled with maintenance robots, what wonders lay over the hill? ”

“ He shook his head. "I'm from Earth, another planet. We can't understand each other, I suppose—not until I learn your tongue."
She opened the bottom half of the door, and he walked into a room of quiet beauty. A large brown tile stove was nearby with a copper pot simmering, utterly spotless. ”

“ Then there were no more of the farmsteads, and he came across a great empty plain, where the trail was wide and the earth beaten hard as stone. But nowhere did he see the vehicles that had made that track. In the distance he could see the tall spires of a city. ”

“ Donay sat down and listened. The thought in his head told him of a great world of people who had become very tired of everything and wanted to have something new. They did not want to die. They wanted life to be more satisfying, wanted to be more contented. The old man smiled sadly. "There arose among them a great scientist who promised them immortality and contentment. He had devised a treatment...."
The old man leaned back and looked at Donay. His eyes were tragic. "That's what ails the people, Steve Donay. They're treated ... ”

“ Steve muttered, "this is a world of madmen, or simpletons, or robots. Why does no one act curious, or sympathetic, or human?..." He walked on, gloomily.
Near the center of the city, many plodding hours later, he walked into the base of one of the great towers. There was a door he suspected was an elevator and he went in and pressed a button. It took him to the top. He got out and entered the first door he came to.
A woman sat behind a desk. She said. "Vey fanis vu?"
Donay said "Nuts," and slapped her face. She promptly rose from her seat and knocked him down. ”

“ I thought you must have a mate, that he must be away."
"In the flesh state, people have prevision, but it isn't as accurate. Ours is usually accurate. Just a new faculty. One of several new faculties."
"I suppose they will treat me?" Steve asked, but he knew.
Gently she explained—. "In the city, the change is provided for. It is in the drinking water. Here, we have to take capsules. If we didn't we'd revert to the flesh state. No one wants to revert."
Steve stood up. She moved into his arms naturally, and he knew he was home. ”

“ Robots don't have to think about what's coming next. They know. They know because they are machines. We know ahead, too, not because it's built in us, but because we can deduce precisely how things are going to turn out. The penalty of increased mental activity ... see?" Her voice was gentle, but there was awareness of something in it, something he ought to understand, something she couldn't say. ”