Robert F. Young

“ Isolde reigned in the temple for five Earth-years, and she probably would have gone right on reigning there till her batteries gave out and her tapes went dead and the little in-built motor of her heart ceased to whir if a certain native labor recruiter named Jose Swenson had not landed in the Malaita to pick up a payload of Idwandanans. As it was, her reign came to an abrupt end.
Jose Swenson was a far cry from the Reverend Newell: his business was selling souls, not saving them, and he knew his business well. ”

“ But on a night watchman's pay, the only ones he can afford are a little too ostentatious even for him. He would like them to be a little less ostentatious, and, if possible, a little younger. He smiles, nods his head again. He drinks the fresh beer the bartender sets before him. He licks the froth from his lips with the tip of his gray tongue. He pockets the sheaf of credits which Hans slips him. He nods again. "Tomorrow night, then," he says. "At the backdoor. I'll have her ready for you."
Isolde's first stop, after her abduction, was at the house of a converter Hans knew. ”

“ Who would have dreamed that an android who screamed or sang gibberish (German was a dead language by 2241 in any but the most esoteric sense, and Vanderzee was generations removed from his native tongue) could attain to any degree of popularity whatsoever in any kind of an establishment whatsoever. But taverns are not ordinary establishments, and frequently events come to pass in them that could never have come to pass elsewhere. Isolde became popular. She became so popular, in fact, that Lanesce's business doubled. ”

“ None of which bears directly on the nature of Vanderzee's mistake. What does bear directly upon it is the fact that the variety of men who frequent bars, is infinite. Sooner or later someone had to come along who would recognize Isolde, either from her recitative or from her arias, or from her appearance, for what she was—or what she once had been. ”

“ Idiot waitresses have always enjoyed an exalted place in taverns. They make ideal patsies for jokes, for one thing, and are generally responsive to gooses, for another. While Isolde was neither an idiot nor responsive to gooses, the sounds she uttered whenever anyone said something to her, obscene or otherwise, were suggestive enough of idiot rantings to the ear of the average patron, for her to be classified as an idiot ”

“ Half fainting, he activated the lock, which the Idwandanans had accidentally closed and had been unable to reopen, and pulled Isolde inside. At the forest's edge Skonsdoggugil was mustering another contingent of warriors. Swenson pulled Isolde into the ship proper, secured the outer and inner locks. With her help, he got a tourniquet on the stump of his arm. Everything was swimming before his eyes by then, but he managed to gain the control room and strap Isolde and himself onto the two acceleration couches. He had one chance, and one chance only: to reach civilization before he bled to death. ”

“ But an operatic android was potentially capable of doing other things besides singing recitative and arias—as a number of twenty-third century operators had begun to realize some time before the beginning of this history. Hans Becker was one of them.
You've seen Hans. You've seen him in bars and on airbusses, in waiting rooms and in automats. He likes to sit in secluded corners and study people through his cigar smoke. He has a penchant for ostentatious blondes and dirty comic films. He has a passion for the quick credit. ”

“ In common with most men of his kind, he could meet a crisis in one way, and in one way only. He had not taken a drink since Sirius 21, but as soon as the seriousness of his predicament got through to him, he headed straight for the Star and Traveler—a thriving little establishment convenient to the spaceport, dedicated to the enhancement of human relationships via the congenial consumption of cut-rate gin. ”

“ So instead of departing, he set forth once more into the forest, with six members of his crew, leaving the remaining three members to guard the Malaita. This was a tactical blunder, arising from his mistaken assumption that by now, all of the Idwandanans would be too terrified of stun grenades to cause any serious trouble. As a matter of fact, most of them were, but Skonsdoggugil wasn't, and reinforced by several tribal units from the north, with whom his own tribe claimed kinship, he attacked the Malaita as soon as Swenson and his party were out of earshot. ”

“ Higgens intoned, "which, if I do say so, is about one tenth of what she's worth. Do I hear three?"
"300," the drunk said.
"350," the Dutch colonist said.
"450."
The Dutch colonist could outbid anybody in the crowd, and everybody in the crowd knew it, including the drunk. But the drunk didn't give a damn, and he went along to the one thousand mark before dropping out. The Dutch colonist got her for 1100 credits, and the first stage of Isolde's servitude began.
The Dutch colonist's name was Vanderzee. You've seen him, too. Forget about his race: his race has nothing to do with it. ”

“ The little man nods every now and then, smiles a satisfied smile every time Hans sets him up a beer. The little man is a night watchman. He is a night watchman in the very building where the Metropolitanette stores its deactivated androids. ”

“ Her built-in batteries were guaranteed for ten years, her tapes were authentic Kirsten Flagstad, and her name was Isolde.
She was shipped to New York via strato-freight, and late in October she opened the season at the Metropolitanette in what the hundred or so die-hard enthusiasts still holding the Wagnerian fort, called the best Tristan ever. Afterwards, she was deactivated and stored away, along with Tristan, Brangane, Melot, King Marke, Kurvenal, the shepherd and the helmsman, and the various knights, soldiers, attendants, and sailors that constituted the rest of the dramatis personae. ”

“ Hastily he calculated the co-ordinates of the nearest civilized planet, and fed them into the automatic pilot. He activated the pilot just before he blacked out.
It was his haste that was his undoing. The planet he had wanted was Delta Bootis 11, and the NRA should have snapped out of transphotic within orbiting distance in less than three objective days. On the fourth day, however, they were still in f.t.l. drive. ”