CHAPTER 16
Stunned by his own temerity, Comstock stared at what had formerly been hidden by the hair of the beard.
"I knew it," Comstock said at last. "I knew no human being could live for five hundred years."
"That is why I have taunted you into action," The Grandfather said gravely, "I knew that only when you saw with your own eyes the evidence of what you suspected would you be able to proceed properly."
"This is why there is no record of your existence prior to five hundred years ago?"
"Yes."
Staring at the metallic surface that had been hidden under the beard, seeing for the first time the control panel that covered The Grandfather's whole chest, Comstock wondered what to do next.
"I hope," The Grandfather said, "that I have not been derelict to my trust. But somehow the whole thing became too much for the mechanisms that the scientists built into me."
If scientists could do things like this, Comstock thought with a wild surge of hope, if they could have built a thing like this that faced him, that was capable of living for half a thousand years, and had succeeded in behaving like a super-human being, then what other wonders was science capable of bringing about? What would the future hold, released from the dead hands that had held his world in sway for so long? The thought was enough to make his brain spin.
The beard lay across his hands, its very feel a challenge to the imagination for it was not made of hair but some substance unlike any that Comstock had ever seen before.
The Grandfather put his forefinger to a button on the board on his chest. It actuated a servo mechanism that allowed him to sit down. He said, "May I have my beard back?"
Witlessly, still astounded at what had come to pass, Comstock handed the object to the man? Thing? That sat across the desk from him.
When The Grandfather was in the act of replacing the beard, Comstock could see just under his chin, a series of rivets that held his head in place. One looked loose and Comstock pointed it out.
The Grandfather tightened the rivet and then sighed. "Yes, there can be no doubt I am beginning to wear out. That is why I have forced this series of actions into being. That is why I forced Bowdler to leave the Board to search for you rebels. I knew that my day was coming to an end.
"I cannot say that I will be sorry to be able to go to rust peacefully."
The idea of The Grandfather rusting, so bizarre as to have been unimaginable a few days earlier did not even cause Comstock to flinch.
Forcing himself to listen to what The Grandfather was saying instead of wondering wildly about the future, he heard, "You see it was my primary function to keep the culture frozen till someone, anyone, with intelligence and guts, came along and saw past the façade that had been erected.
"I must confess," The Grandfather said wryly, "that when I first heard about you, I did not think _you_ would be the one to tear down that façade."
Since Comstock was as amazed as the robot, he did not find the words insulting. As a matter of fact he was too worried about the next step that had to be taken to think much about what the old machine was saying.
"Shall we join my friends?" Comstock asked and it was only then that he realized how long he had been sitting thinking, for he had not even heard The Grandfather ask for his help.
The machine was frozen in the same position it had assumed when it sat down at the desk. The Grandfather said almost plaintively. "I thought that perhaps you had become deaf."
"Huh?"
"One of my circuits is jammed. You'll have to help me. This has been happening more and more frequently lately, that's why I was so anxious for assistance."
"What can I do?"
"See if you can rotate the fourth dial on the left, on my chest."
But the dial moved with no result. There was no impulse being sent to motivate the big machine.
* * * * *
Lunatic thoughts raced through Comstock's now addled brain. He wondered what vice The Grandfather would have to adopt in order to be cured.
"Don't get panicky," The Grandfather said. "It's only my body mechanism that has been affected. In my top desk drawer there is a pair of pliers. Get them."
Obeying, Comstock saw, in the desk drawer next to some tools, a metal memorandum pad. Scrawled on it he read the idea that had held back his world for five centuries. It said, "All or most diseases can be cured, if the very moral people of a very moral civilization are forced to perform actions which they consider immoral." After this statement there were two more words. These, The Grandfather had evidently never considered objectively. The two words were, True? False?
But Comstock did not pause to think about the statement too much. Instead he grabbed the pliers and asked what he was to do with them.
"Unfasten the rivet that holds my head in place," the robot instructed.
Obeying the command was very difficult, Comstock found, for a variety of reasons. First, he had an ingrained feeling that what he was doing was the height of blasphemy, and then, when he controlled this conditioned reflex, he found that time and rust had almost frozen the rivets in place.
He was sweating by the time he had unfastened all the necklace of rivets.
The Grandfather said, "Now, very carefully, lift my head straight upwards."
There were many wires dangling down from the underside of the jaw. The Grandfather directed Comstock to cut them free.
Then and only then, with Comstock holding the head carefully between his blistered hands, The Grandfather said, "Now let us join the others."
* * * * *
In the Board room, The Fathers, Bowdler, the philosopher, Grundy, Pat and Helen sat beneath an inscribed metal plaque which read:
"Alcoholism cures heart trouble."
"Adultery cures arterio-sclerosis."
"Thieving cures insanity."
"Drug addiction cures cancer."
"Prostitution cures diabetes."
There were many such apothegms.
But no one even bothered to read them. As a matter of fact, Grundy had said that one of the first things that they had better do was remove the plaque. The others had agreed heartily.
A loudspeaker above the biggest door in the room said, "The Grandfather approaches."
The Fathers, in a body, forced their decrepit frames to rise.
The rebels decided that they too might as well rise out of respect.
It took a moment before everyone could see the object that Comstock was carrying under his arm.
Walking to the head of the table, Comstock said, "Sit down. Sit down. The Grandfather has a few words to say." Only then did he place the disembodied head he had been carrying onto the table in front of him.
Two of the oldest, sickest Fathers, died immediately.
When their bodies had been removed, Comstock said, "There's nothing to be afraid of. The Grandfather says that He is something that used to be called a robot."
Then rapping on the table with a gavel, he sat back and waited. Down at the far end of the table he could see Pat eyeing the head with awed fascination. The others were equally pop-eyed.
The philosopher, the man of words, could not be restrained. Before the Grandfather could speak, the philosopher asked incredulously, "Do you mean to say that we have been obeying the dictates of a machine?"
Nodding, Comstock said nonchalantly. "Yep."
Then The Grandfather spoke.
"I was made to be your servant, and it has been my sorry task to be your master. I have not enjoyed it and I must say that I am glad at long last to be rid of an onerous task."
Then he went on to describe the way he had tried, in his feeble, mechanical way to do that which he had been ordered to do. When he had finished his apologetic summary, he said, "But time grows ever shorter and I fear that even my carefully made cortex is beginning to go bad. Listen closely for I have no idea when I will cease to function.
"The mistakes I have made, have been errors of commission not omission. When I have failed it was because not even the scientists who made me could foretell what was to be, as no man can.
"I was told, just before the death of the scientist who finished me, that the reason all our people were driven from earth was because they were vestigial hangovers from what he called an inner-directed culture. An inner-directed culture is always the result of an historical period when the death rate is higher than the birth rate. This kind of culture possesses certain attributes which serve pioneers well, because these inner-directed people have a strong sense of right and wrong, they believe implicitly in black and white evils and virtues. But in our world the birth rate is now, because of my machinations, about equal to the death rate, our people live longer, few children are lost at birth, there is enough food to go around, and so it is time to evolve from an inner-directed culture to a more sophisticated one which has been called an other-directed culture.
"Such a culture is hesitant to make value judgments, it can no longer appraise the foibles of other human beings; the righteousness of the inner-directed person gives way to the more adult approach that right and wrong are after all purely subjective concepts.
"These people can be more objective and since they can, they must inevitably be less prone to throw the first stone.
"There are many concommittants of such a culture, but to you will be the wonder and the glory of discovering them. This is your next step.
"Take it wisely."
* * * * *
It was long before all that The Grandfather said made any sense to his hearers, but all of them remembered the words until the time came that they became understandable.
The last thing that The Grandfather said was, "In the old world from which we came, the earliest known culture was one called an ancestor-directed culture. This was understandable in a period when the death rate was so high and old age rare. Old age became magical since so few possessed it. Then as the elderliness alone ceased to be unique they ascended to the next culture pattern, the one I have described as the inner-directed culture. When your ancestors were sent away from earth almost all the earth people had become other-directed. What has happened in this long hiatus in which we've been out of touch with mother earth I cannot hazard an opinion.
"But if we are to proceed on the previous record we can be sure that they have now ascended to a still higher culture pattern. I would suggest that you not lift the force field that surrounds our planet till you have matured enough to be able to meet your earth cousins on an equal footing.
"An inner-directed culture places a terrific premium on fatherhood. That is why you have been raised with such a high opinion of fathers and why all your power symbols are in terms of fatherhood.
"In the next step which you are to take, fatherhood and motherhood will be equated properly and there will be no further emphasis on what has been called the battle of the sexes.
"The battle of the sexes will become not an armed truce, but an equal sharing of what is best in mankind.
"I have left directions as to how you may contact the inter-planetary economy but I suggest you wait till the time is ripe before taking that step.
"And now I am about to go out of phase. At last ... at long last ... I thought it would never come...."
The eyes closed and the robot was still.
It never spoke again.
Pat ran to Comstock's side. His waiting arms engulfed her as they stood, looking deeply into each other's eyes, savoring their moment of triumph, and thinking with delight of what the future held.
Comstock said, "I love you."
It was the first time in five hundred years that the air of that planet had heard those words said in a tone that meant by love--sharing and trust and hope and peace, and mutual sacrifice that something bigger and better might come from that love.
THE END