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"Cobb?"
The confusion was thicker now, distinctions gone. He had always thought that thought processes depended on picking points on a series of yes-or-no scales ... but now the scales were gone, or bent into circles, and he was still thinking. Amazing what a fellow can do without. Without past or future, black or white, right or left, fat or thin, pokes or strokes... they're all the same ... me or you, space or time, finite or infinite, being or nothingness... make it real... Christmas or Easter, acorns or oak trees, Annie or Verena, flags or toilet-paper, looking at clouds or hearing the sea, ham-spread or tuna, asses or tits, fathers or sons...
"Cobb?"
Chapter Seventeen
It happened while he was buying an ice-cream, a double-size Mr. Frostee with sprinkles. The driver counted the change into Cobb's hand and suddenly he was... there again. But where had he been?
Cobb started, and stared at the truck-driver, an evil-looking bald man with half his teeth missing. Something like a wink or a smile seemed to flicker across the ruined face. Then the sickly sweet chiming started up again and the boxy white truck drove off, its powerful refrigeration unit humming away.
His feet carried him back to his beach cottage. Annie was on the porch in back, lounging on Cobb's hammock with her shirt off. She was rubbing baby oil into the soft rolls of her belly-flesh.
"Give me a lick, honey?"
Cobb looked at her, uncomprehending. Since when was she living with him? But... yet ... he could remember her moving in with him last Friday night. Today was Friday again. She'd been here a week. He could remember the week, but it was like remembering a book or a movie...
"Come on, Cobb, before it melts!"
Annie leaned out from the hammock, her brown breasts sliding around. He handed her the ice-cream cone. Ice-cream cone?
"I don't like ice-cream," Cobb said. "You can have it all."
Annie sucked at the cold tip, her full lips rounded. Coyly, she glanced over to see if Cobb was thinking what she was. He wasn't.
"Whydja buy it then?" she asked with a slight edge to her voice. "When you heard that music you went running out of here like you'd been waiting your whole life to hear it. First time I've seen you excited all week." There was a hint of accusation in the last sentence, of disappointment.
"All week," Cobb echoed and sat down. It was funny how supple his body felt. He didn't have to keep his back stiff. He held his hands up, flexing them curiously. He felt so strong.
Of course he had to be strong, to break out of his crate and through the warehouse wall, with only Sta-Hi to help him... What?
The memories were all there, the sights and sounds, but something was missing from them. Something he suddenly had again.
"I am," Cobb muttered. "I am me." He ... this body... hadn't thought that for ... how long?
"That's good, hon." Annie was lying back in the hammock, her hands folded over her navel. "You've been acting kind of weird ever since Mooney took us to the Gray Area last Friday. I am. I am me. That's all there is really, isn't there... ." She kicked out with her bare foot, setting the hammock to swaying.
The operation must have worked. It was all fitting together now. The frantic dash to the pink-house with Ralph. The nursie, the shot, and then that strange floating time of total disorientation.
Under these memories, faint but visible, were the robot's memories: Breaking out of the warehouse, contacting the old Anderson on the beach, and then moving in with Annie. That had been last week, last Friday.
Since then that cop, Mooney, had been out twice more to talk to him. But he hadn't realized the real Cobb was gone. The robot had been able to fake it by just acting too drunk to answer specific questions. Even though Mooney had begun to suspect that Cobb had a robot double somewhere, he was naive enough to think he'd know the double on sight.
"There's Sta-Hi," Annie called. "Will you let him in, Cobb?"
"Sure." He stood up easily. Sta-Hi always dropped by this time of day. Nights he guarded a warehouse at the spaceport. They liked to fish together. They did?
Cobb walked into the kitchen and peered through the screen door, holding the handle uncertainly. That sure looked like Sta-Hi out there in the harsh sun, skinny and shirtless, his lips stretched in a half-smile.
"Hi," Cobb said, as he had said every day for a week. "How are you?"
"Stuzzy," Sta-Hi said, smiling and tossing his hair back. "Waving." He reached for the door handle.
But Cobb continued to hold the door closed. "Hi," he said, on a wild impulse. "How are you?"
"Stuzzy," Sta-Hi said, smiling and tossing his hair back. "Waving." He reached for the door handle.
"Hi," Cobb said, trying to keep the tremble out of his voice. "How are you?"
"Stuzzy," Sta-Hi said, smiling and tossing his hair back. "Waving." He reached for the door handle.
Music was playing, wheedling closer. Resonant as a film of mucus across a public-speaker's throat... har-rumph... sweet as a toothache, it's Mister Frostee time!
Sta-Hi jerked and turned around. He was hurrying towards the white truck that was slowly cruising up.
"More ice-cream?" Annie asked as Cobb opened the door to follow.
The door slapped shut. Annie kicked again, swaying gently. Today she wouldn't cover up her breasts when Sta-Hi came in. Her nipples were a definite plus. She poured out a bit more baby oil. One of them was going to take her to the Golden Prom tonight and that was that.
Cobb followed the Sta-Hi thing... Sta-Hi2 ... out to the Mr. Frostee truck. The sun was very bright. The same bald man with the half-caved-in face was driving. What a guy to have selling ice-cream. He looked like a thrill-killer.
The driver stopped when he saw Sta-Hi2, and gave him a familiar smile. At least it might have been a smile. Sta-Hi2 walked up to him expectantly.
"A double-dip Mr. Frostee with sprinkles on it."
"Yeth thir!" the driver said, his loose lips fluttering. He got out and unlatched the heavy door in the truck's side. He wore colorful sneakers with letters around the edges. Kid's shoes, but big.
"Thtick your head in," the driver advised, "an you'll get it!"
Cobb tried to see over Sta-Hi2's shoulder. There was much too much equipment in that truck. And it was so cold in there. Frost crystals formed in the air that blew out. In the middle was what looked like a giant vacuum chamber, even colder, shrouded and insulated. A double-dip Mr. Frostee with sprinkles was sitting there in a sort of bracket set one meter back. Had it been that way for Cobb? He couldn't remember.
It didn't seem to bother the driver that Cobb was watching. They were all in this together. Sta-Hi2 leaned in, reaching for that cone.
There was a flash of light, four flashes, one from each corner of the door. The skinny arm snagged the cone, and the figure turned around utterly expressionless.
"Yes no no no yes no no no yes yes yes no no no yes no no yes yes yes no yes yes yes yes no no ..." it muttered, dropping the cone. It turned and shuffled towards Cobb's house. The feet stayed on the ground at all times, and left two plowed-up grooves in the crushed shell driveway. "...no yes no no no."
The driver looked upset. "Whath with him? Heth thuppothed to..."
He hurried into the truck's cab and talked for a minute over what seemed to be a CB radio. Then he came back out, looking relieved.
"I didn't wealize. Mithter Fwostee jutht bwoke contact with him. The weal Thta-Hi ith coming back... he got away. Tho the wemote'll need a new cover. Jutht lay him on your bed for now. We'll pick him up tonight."
The half-faced driver jumped back into the truck and drove off with a cheery wave. Somehow he had brought Cobb back to life, but he had turned Sta-Hi off instead. They hadn't had a brain-tape to put into the robot. And with the real Sta-Hi coming back intact they'd decided to turn it off.
Cobb took the Sta-Hi thing's arm, trying to help it towards his house. The features on the tortured face were distorted almost beyond recognition. The mouth worked, tongue humping up like an epileptic's.
Machine language. It raised one of its clawed hands, trying to block the bright sunlight.
Cobb led it to the front steps, and it stumbled heavily. It didn't seem to have the concept of lifting its feet. He held the door open, and the Sta-Hi thing came in on all fours, hands and knees shuffling along.
"What's the matter?" Annie asked, coming into the kitchen from the back porch. "Is he tripping?" She was in the mood for some excitement. It would be really neat to show up stoned at the Prom. "You got any more, Sta-Hi?"
The anguished figure fell over onto its side now, thick tongue protruding, lips drawn back in rictus death-grin. Its arms were wrapped around its chest, and the legs were frantically bicycling up some steep and heartless grade. The leg-motions slowly pulled the body around and around in circles on the kitchen floor.
Annie backed off, changing her mind about taking this trip.
"Cobb! He's having a fit!"
Cobb could almost understand it now. There was some machinery in that Mr. Frostee truck, machinery which had brought his own consciousness back to him. Machinery which had done something else to Sta-Hi2. Turned it off.
The twitching on the floor damped down, oscillation by oscillation. Then the Sta-Hi thing was still, utterly still.
"Call a doctor, Cobb!"
Annie was all the way back on the porch, peering into the kitchen with both hands over her mouth.
"A doctor can't help him, Annie. I don't think he was even..." He couldn't say it.
Cobb bent over and picked the limp form up as easily as a rag-doll. Amazing the strength they'd built in. He carried the body down the short hall and laid it on his bed.
Chapter Eighteen
Mooney lit a cigarette and stepped into the patch of shade under the space-shuttle's stubby wing. Starting with this shipment, every crate shipped from Disky had to be opened and inspected, right out here on the goddamn field. The superheated air hanging over the expanse of concrete shimmered in the afternoon sun. Not a ghost of a breeze.
"Here's the last bunch, Mr. Mooney." Tommy looked down at him from the hatch. Six tight plastic containers glided down on the power-lift. "Interferon and a couple of crates of organs."
Mooney turned and gave a high-sign to the platoon of armed men standing in the sun fifteen meters off. Almost quitting time. Still puffing his cigarette, he turned back to eye the last set of crates. It was going to be a bitch getting those things open.
"Who was the asshole who had the bright idea of searching crates for stowaway robots?" Tommy asked, sliding down the lift.
A rivulet of sweat ran into Mooney's eye. Slowly he drew out his handkerchief and mopped his face again. "Me," he said. "I'm the asshole. There's been two break-ins at Warehouse Three. At least we thought they were break-ins. Both times there were some empty crates and a hole in the wall. Routine organ theft, right? Well ... the second time I noticed that the debris from the holes was on the outside of the building. I figure what we had here was a break-out. The boppers have snuck at least three robots down on us, the way I see it."
Tommy looked dubious. "Has anyone ever seen one of these robots?"
"I almost had one of them myself. But I didn't realize it till it was too late." Mooney had been back at Cobb's twice... hoping to find the old man's robot double. But there had just been the old man there, drunk as usual. No way to know where the robot was now... hell, it could probably even change its face. If it even existed. He'd searched almost this whole shipment now, and still hadn't found anything.
Mooney ground out his cigarette. "It could be I'm wrong, though." He stepped into the sun and began examining the fastenings on the next crate. "I hope I'm wrong."
What, after all, did he really have to go on? Just some scraps of wall-board lying outside the warehouse instead of inside. And a faint glimpse of a running figure that had reminded him of old Cobb Anderson. And seeing a guy who had looked like Cobb's twin at the Gray Area last week. But he hoped he was wrong, and that nothing bad would happen, now that his life was settling into a comfortable groove.
Young Stanny was living at home again. That was the main thing. His narrow escape from those brain-eaters seemed to have sobered him. Ever since the police had brought him back he'd been a model son. And with Stanny back in the house, Bea had straightened out a little, too.
Mooney had gotten his son a job as a night watchman at the spaceport... and the kid was taking his work seriously! He hadn't fucked-up yet! At this rate he'd be handling the whole watch-system for the warehouses inside of six months.
Daytimes Stanny wasn't home much. Incredible how little sleep that boy needed. He'd catch a catnap after work and then he'd be off for the day. Mooney worried a little about what Stanny might be up to all day, but it couldn't be too bad. Whatever it was it couldn't be too bad.
Every evening, regular as clockwork, Stanny would show up for supper, usually a little tranked-out, but never roaring stoned like he used to get. It was just amazing how he'd straightened out ever...
"I've cracked the seal," Tommy repeated.
Mooney's attention snapped back to the task at hand. Six more crates and they'd be through for the day. This one was supposed to be full of interferon ampoules. The gene-spliced bacteria that produced the anti-cancer drug grew best in the sterile, low-temperature lunar environment. Mooney helped Tommy lift the lid off, and they peered in.
No problem. It was full of individual vacuum-sealed syringes, loaded and ready to go. Halfheartedly, Mooney dug down into the crate, making sure that nothing else was in there. Passed. Tommy switched on the conveyor-belt, and the crate glided across the field, past the armed men, and into Warehouse Three.
The next three crates were the same. But the last two... there was something funny about the last two. For one thing they were stuck together to make a double-size crate. And the label read "HUMAN ORGANS: MIXED." Usually a crate was all livers or all kidneys... always all one thing. He'd never seen a mixed crate yet.
The box was vacuum-tight, and it took a few minutes work with the pry-bars to break the seals. Mooney wondered what would be in there ... a Whitman's sampler assortment? Glazed eyeballs on paper doilies, a big liver like a brazil-nut, crunchy marrow-filled femurs, a row of bean-shaped kidneys, a king-size penis coyly curled against its testicles, chewy ropes of muscles, big squares of skin rolled up like apricot leather?
The lid splintered suddenly. Something was coming out!
Mooney sprang back, screaming a "READY!" to the soldiers. Their weapons were instantly at their shoulders.
The whole lid flew off now, and a shining silvery head poked out. A figure stood up, humanoid, glittering silver in the sun. Tubes connected it to further machinery in the box...
"AIM!" Mooney cried, backing well out of the line of fire.
The silver figure seemed to hear him, and began tearing at its head. A detachable bomb? Tommy cut and run, straight towards the troops. The fool! He was right in the line of fire! Mooney backed off, glancing desperately back and forth, waiting to give the FIRE command.
Suddenly the bubble-top came off the silvery figure's suit. There was a face underneath, the face of ...
"Wait, Dad! It's me!"
Sta-Hi tore the air-hoses loose and tried to jump behind the box before anyone could shoot. His legs were cramped from thirty hours in the crates. He moved awkwardly. His foot caught on the edge of the crate, and he sprawled onto the concrete apron.
Mooney ran forward, putting his body between the crate and the troops.
"AT EASE!" he hollered, leaning over his son. But if this was his son... who had been living at his house all week?
"Is it really you, Stanny? How did you get in the box?"
Sta-Hi just lay there for a minute, grinning and stroking the rough concrete. "I've been to the Moon. And call me Sta-Hi, dammit, how many times do I have to tell you?"
Chapter Nineteen
Cobb spent the afternoon trying to get drunk. Som
ehow Annie had gotten him to promise they'd go to the Golden Prom together, but he was damned if he wanted to be anything other than blacked-out by the time he got there.
It was funny the way she had convinced him. They'd closed the door on ... on Sta-Hi2...nd gone out to the porch together. And then, sitting there looking at Annie, wondering what to say, it was as if Cobb had fallen through her eyes, into her mind, feeling her body sensations even, and her desperate longing for a bit more fun, a little gaiety at the end of what had been a long, hard life. Before she'd even said a word he'd been convinced.
And now she was dressing or washing her hair or something and he was sitting on the stretch of beach behind his little pink cottage. Annie had stocked his cupboard with sherry earlier this week, hoping to get some kind of rise out of him, but, except when Mooney had come snooping around, it had sat there untouched, along with the food. Thinking back, he couldn't recall this new body of his having drunk or eaten much of anything during the last week. Of course he'd had to chew down some of the fish he and Sta-Hi2 had caught. Annie always insisted on frying it up for them. And when old Mooney had come, he'd sipped some sherry and pretended to be drunk. But other than that...
Cobb opened a second bottle of sherry and pulled deeply at it. The first bottle had done nothing but make him belch a few times, incredibly foul-smelling belches, methane and hydrogen-sulfide, death and corruption going on somewhere deep inside him. His mind was clear as a bell, and he was tired of it.
Suddenly exasperated, Cobb tilted up the second bottle of sherry, and, leaving an airspace above his upper lip, chugged the whole fucking thing down in one long, drink-crazed gurgle.
As he swallowed the last of it he felt a sudden and acute distress. But it wasn't the buzz, the flush, the confusion he had expected. It was, rather, an incredible urgency, a need to ...
Without even consciously controlling what he did, Cobb knelt down on the sand and clawed at the vertical scar on his chest. He was too full. Finally he pushed the right spot and the little door in his chest popped open. He tried not to breathe as the rotten fish and lukewarm sherry plopped down onto the sand in front of him. Yyeeeeeeaaaaauuughhhh.