Part 1

He Who Served

By Ray Cummings

This surely was the blackest of crimes--to be newly built, and lead the blind, and be a friend beyond all human understanding.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe September 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

_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. He has explored newer realms here, in a story so human and heart-warming you won't be ashamed to shed a tear on completing it._

2 RY could remember the quick bright warmth of the afternoon sun on his burnished copper and silvery plating. He could remember every prideful moment of his early training in the big yard of the James Erg factory. Every afternoon, at first only in good weather, he and others of the newly-built had been taken into the yard from the quiet dimness of the storeroom indoors. Not only was he the largest, the finest robot of them all, but he was the most intricately constructed and the most adept at complicated tasks. And he had been the first of the newer models to be trained.

There were only twenty-five others of Model 2 RY under construction--the supreme achievement of the genius of James Erg, the culmination of a lifetime of work. 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; and association with the members of his family so that the timbre of their human voices would produce no untoward reactions.

2 RY was big, just under seven feet. His frozen countenance, with its square-cut contours, and faceted eyes, and his sturdy body-box gave him the aspect of a rough-hewn statue, but was in no way grotesque. His voice, hollow yet with several emotional gradations to it, was soft and pleasing. He could remember that the human voice of the Instructor was very much like his own--gentle and quiet, and beguiling in its infinite patience.

2 RY had been taught just simple things at first. "Toory, come here." He had learned to balance upright the first day. "Come, Toory. Stand here by me." With his great jointed legs swinging, and sometimes clanking because of his untrained awkwardness, Toory would obey.

"Very good, Toory. Now--sit down. Flat--all the way down. That's it, Toory."

How patient the man had remained! "Now--raise your right hand. No, not that one. The _right_ hand, Toory. That's splendid!"

And when he failed to realize he had made a mistake, the question would come again. "You're using your left hand. Do you understand, Toory?"

"Yes," Toory would say.

He could remember every glorious moment of those two years. Outdoors in rainy weather, with the rain dimming his eye-lenses so that he had to learn to polish them with a bit of fabric. And more often in cold weather when all his motions seemed to require more effort. His reactions then would be slower if he did not automatically quicken them. Quite as varied were the many tasks indoors in the training rooms. They were mostly domestic tasks, because Toory had been designed essentially, not for factory or business work, but for the home.

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. Certainly far more human-sounding than the other models."

"Try him on emotion," Erg suggested.

Doret thought a moment. "I'm not sure I'm entirely pleased with you, Toory," he said.

"I do not understand why," Toory murmured, contritely. "But I am sorry."

"You will find several emotion-gradations like that," Erg said.

"I see. Yes, it's a very impressive model, Erg--far in advance of your others." Doret smiled thoughtfully. He was a small man, bulging about the middle, with a rosy, pleasant face. "I guess he's worth the price, Erg."

The skin around the blue eyes crinkled with tiny traceries of white lines and Toory suddenly felt glad that Robert Doret might purchase him. It was like the glow he experienced when he understood a task, and accomplished it perfectly.

The next day Toory learned that the sale had been made. He was to serve in Doret's country home, up in the hills north of the city. Toory needed no specialized training for that. But he learned that there was to be intensive, new-task instruction for a month to prepare him for his duties as a domestic helper for Babs Doret, the purchaser's daughter, for whom he had been bought.

She came with her father the next day--a small, brown-haired girl in a trim blue suit. Toory learned afterward that she was eighteen years old.

"This is Miss Babs, Toory," Erg explained. "You'll have to learn her voice well, and be quick to obey. Speak to her now."

"Yes, Miss Babs," Toory said.

"Talk to him, Babs," Doret urged.

"Hello, Toory," Babs said. "Give me your hand. I want to grasp it."

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. You'd better practice walking with him in the city traffic, if you plan to go into the city."

"Not much," Babs said. "Certainly for this summer, anyway, I'll be staying close to home."

"One of my Operatives will report tomorrow," Erg told her. "I'll deliver Toory to you this afternoon.... You will learn the new tasks, Toory?"

"Yes," Toory promised.

Then in the big Erg truck he was taken up into the hills to the Doret summer home where he remained under wait-command in the foyer until the Instructor arrived the next day. How warmly he remembered him from the training periods in the factory. Immediately the new-task training began. It was simple, letting Babs Doret hold his dangling gloved hand, leading her where she directed him to go.

For only a short while was the Erg man really needed. The three of them took long walks together so that Toory would become familiar with the neighborhood.

With the Instructor intently watching, Toory soon learned to lead the girl safely through the traffic of the village streets. Quickly he developed a sixth-sense alertness to the dangers to Babs that must be seen, and avoided. That was the important thing--avoiding danger to this blind girl whose hand he held, avoiding it so that instantly with permanent order for automatic action instilled in him, his response would come with split-second timing.

The voice of the Instructor remained everlastingly patient when for the hundredth time he repeated the permanent-order so that it would be impressed on Toory beyond the possibility of error.

"Danger to Miss Babs must be avoided, Toory. _Danger to Miss Babs. Any danger._ Do you understand, Toory?"

"Yes," Toory replied.

He learned all the traffic signals quickly. He was pleased with a warmth inside him that kept getting brighter. "He's all right," the Erg man said at last. "We've certainly given him plenty of tests, Miss Doret. His reactions are all that could be desired."

"Yes," Babs agreed. "You've no idea how comforting it is, how safe I feel."

It was nice that she was pleased. She asked, "You're not mixed up about anything, Toory?"

"No," Toory replied.

Then the Erg man went away, and Toory's independent service began. It caused him no confusion. There were the daily walks with Miss Babs, sometimes shopping trips to the village, and visits to the homes of her friends. Everywhere Toory was admired, so large and shining a model he seemed, so comprehensive and smooth of response. Toory glowed inwardly. His brain-tapes received the warmth, and his memory etched it down.

There was really little for Toory to do but assist and watch over Babs. The Doret home was a many-roomed, spacious house set in a grove of trees on a heavily wooded hillside a mile from the village. There were several human servants, and on the day of his arrival they had come in a little group to gaze at him curiously.

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."

All the other human servants had warmed to Toory, but Mrs. Higgins had remained hostile. "It's because we ain't never worked in a house with one of those _machines_, Miss Babs," her husband had murmured, apologetically. "Not even a little one."

"She'll get used to it," Miss Babs assured him. "None of you will ever have to give him an order. He'll stand here in the foyer under wait-command when I don't need him."

There was little confusion in Toory's new life. During the nights the foyer and the rooms adjoining it were dim and silent, so that Toory's eye-beams remained motionless while he waited. But by day his gaze roamed a bit, because there was more sound and movement.

Annie the parlour maid would be cleaning and dusting, or the thin, sharp-faced Gil Higgins would be moving about, swiftly, deftly at his duties. And there also was Nerina--she who was Miss Babs' personal maid--who quite often darted to and fro. Of them all, only Nerina ever spoke to him. She would say "Morning, Toory." And Miss Babs had taught him to respond with a cheery "Hello!"

It was all very comfortable to Toory as his memory-tapes etched down the many little incidents of the passing days. There was never any bewilderment. He made no mistakes, and he rejoiced in the warmth of his memories. All the things going on around him here in a house that had been new at first, but that now seemed completely homelike. Mostly Toory liked going out with Babs, which they did nearly every afternoon when the weather was right.

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.

The steward was sliding back a wall panel, disclosing a big square metal box which was built solidly into the space behind it. As Toory watched, Higgins turned a knob on the box. It opened, and Higgins took something out and dropped it into his right coat pocket--something which for an instant as Higgins held it, sparkled in the faint light.

Toory had seen the sparkling object before. He had seen it on Miss Babs' neck, and he recognized it instantly.

It was a new incident. Never before had he seen anyone open the big metal box except Babs and her father. Higgins closed the box at once, wiping it off carefully with his handkerchief. It was like watching Annie dusting furniture. Then he slid the panel closed, wiped that off also, and came quickly out into the foyer. His tread was almost silent on the heavy rugs as he went back toward the pantry.

In the foyer suddenly he noticed Toory. It seemed to frighten him. "Gawd! It saw me!" he muttered to himself. "The blarsted machine--"

All the rest of that afternoon Toory could feel confusion faintly stirring in him, because what Higgins had done had been something _new_. He was vaguely relieved when Nerina passed him, going upstairs with Miss Babs' supper.

"Hello, Toory," she said as she went past.

"Hello," he responded.

There were no visitors that evening. Mr. Doret had gone away for about a week, and in his absence the house was much quieter. Still under wait-command, Toory stood in the hall with almost nothing to see, and little to hear.

At midnight he automatically shifted to be on guard-command. It had been part of his training, and after a little while he had never failed to respond properly to the surprise tests the Instructor had devised for him.

Now Toory's sight-beams were intensified, compensating the dimmer light; and the audio-circuits were at the highest magnification. He could hear many faint and distant tiny sounds, sounds which no human ear could distinguish. Already he was familiar with the accustomed sounds of the night. There was always the faint whir of the many electronic appliances in the house, blending with the ponderous ticking of the big hall clock. And often the stir of the breeze under the eaves. Especially on windy nights.

Distant murmurs of voices inside the house always came distinctly to Toory when he was on guard-command. A few floated to him now.

"Yeah, his name's Peter and he's a nice boy, too. Got plenty of money. Soon as I met him he started spending it on me." Toory knew that was Annie the parlour maid, who roomed high upstairs with Nerina.

Presently there were other, very faint murmurs, faint because they came from the top of the most distant wing of the big house.

"Sure I hid it. You don't think I'd be such a fool, keeping it here in the house? It's hid down in the woods, in that place I showed you. Thirty thousand pounds sterling we'll get for the diamond-string. It's worth easy that."

"Gil, is it really?"

"If it's worth a farthing."

* * * * *

The murmurs came from Higgins and his wife. The barking of the dog down the hill swelled louder, so that Toory listened to the animal as it bayed at the moon. It often did that, mostly all night. Then there was Higgins' murmur again.

"I say, don't lose your nerve, old girl. It'll be a mess. We'll be suspected, of course, but so will all the staff, which makes it quite all right. See what I mean? Miss Babs being blind, anybody could have sneaked up on her to watch her open that strongbox. It's a simple lock, like I said. Anybody could have done it."

"Or even a visitor, Gil."

"Of course. Lots of people knew she had that necklace. There'll be a lot of stink when Miss Babs finds out it's been stolen. But they'll never pin it on us. I'm not a fool, wiped everything off. Not a chance I left any fingerprints."

"But Gil, the police! they'll--"

"Sure. They'll question us all. 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."

"Gil, it saw you take the necklace!"

"It did. But I tell you I didn't know it had come back with Miss Babs. I never thought about it at all."

"You could have waited until some other day. You could have--"

"Stop jawin' at me, Mary. It's done now."

"But it will tell what it saw."

"Don't be a fool! That blarsted machine's not smart enough to talk--not unless somebody questions it."

"But they _will_ question it. Miss Babs will ask it if it saw anyone at the safe."

"Not until she finds out the necklace is gone, and she won't find out until she goes to that party Friday night. Gives me three days to shut up that damn machine. You'll see."

"Gil, I'm scared. It could even be listening to us now! It's down there in the foyer, and I heard Miss Babs say once that when it's on guard-command it can hear better than any dog."

The voices softened a little. Toory's eye-beams swung idly around the foyer as he listened to the human voices, and the baying dog down the hill and the creaking weathercock. It was very simple being on guard-command. There was no danger here. Miss Babs was safe. He could remember how the Instructor had given him the permanent-order to guard Miss Babs. The human voices went on droning.

"So it's listenin' to us now? So what? A machine can't say, or do anything on its own. You have to give it an order. And I tell you I got everything figured out. Nobody's going to question a machine to find out what's on its memory-tapes. I'm not that much of a fool."

"Gil! What you going to do?"

"Smash it, that's what. I'm going to take it out tomorrow night and smash it to smithereens."

"Gil! You're crazy. You wouldn't dare go near it. It's got the strength of fifty men--"

"That's how much you know. I'll take it outdoors, in the night. You know that little catwalk swing-bridge over the gorge? It's only about a mile from here. Well, it's been condemned. A sign on it says you don't dare cross it now, it ain't safe, and might collapse."

"I know. I saw the sign. But Gil--"

"So I take that blarsted machine out there and I order it to walk across the bridge. A machine that weighs a couple of tons will crash, won't it? Two hundred feet down to the rocks! Smash, Mary--the memory-tape of what it saw and heard gone forever. See what I mean? Simple, eh?"

"But Gil, how can you take it out for a walk? It won't take orders from you. It won't, will it?"

"No, maybe it wouldn't, right now. But I'll fix that tomorrow afternoon. And tomorrow night I'll take it out. 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?"

"But Gil--suppose it turned on you? Suppose, while you're orderin' it out--"

"Don't you see I have no choice? If that thing blabbed it saw me take the diamond-string I'd be done for. A machine can't lie, Mary. It's got a memory-record nobody could get away from. Go to sleep now. Let me do the worrying."

The human voices went silent.

The big foyer clock was sonorously chiming. Toory could remember that Erg's reception room at the factory had a chiming clock too. Now as the hours passed, and the new day began, Toory stood in his hall niche with his eye-beams fixed on their usual resting place across the foyer. Soon it would be time to shift automatically from guard-command to wait-command. It was nice to know that he never made any mistakes. Most of all, that was what he prided himself on.

The next afternoon Miss Babs took him for a walk again. It was a day of dancing summer sunlight, and very happily he led her down the little path through the garden, and out the side gate where the road passed that led to the village.

"Take the path to the stream, Toory. Then we can come back the other way--around the hill."

"Yes, Miss Babs," Toory said.

They had walked here many times, and it was easy not to do it wrong. Toory followed the road until they reached the rocky hill that lay beyond it. The stream roared as it tumbled through the ravine where the swaying catwalk swing-bridge dangled from a dizzy height across the cliff-tops. Here in the open it was placidly babbling over moss-covered stones.

He remembered how Miss Babs had told him that the little brook was always happy here, because it laughed all the time. At the stream edge she sat down in the sunlight, and motionless under wait-command Toory stood pridefully at her side.

A big flyer was faintly roaring as it passed high overhead. The red eye-beams of Toory's gaze streamed up to it, but he didn't have to be alert, because it wasn't dangerous to Miss Babs. Presently he heard footsteps approaching and recognized the tread of Higgins. He had been aware of the sound very faintly behind him almost all the way from the house.

Then Higgins came in sight. He walked straight past Toory toward Miss Babs. "Nice afternoon, Miss Babs," he said.

"Oh--is that you, Higgins," the blind girl asked.

"That it is, Ma'am. My day off, you know. A chap can do with a bit of walking outdoors now and then."

"Yes, it's a beautiful day, Higgins," Miss Babs agreed.

The steward's slim, wiry body was clad in a white-striped blue suit, and he wore a high stiff collar, and a red necktie. He had no hat, so that the summer breeze was ruffling his thin, sandy hair. He lingered, standing beside Babs with a cigarette dangling from his lips.

Toory waited motionless nearby, and presently he knew from the unheeded blur of their words that they were talking of Model 2 RY.

"And I never once spoke to it, Miss Babs. Not all this time."

The girl smiled. "Did you want to, Higgins?"

"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.