The Creator and Other Stories Read online

  Some hundreds of hours later one of the crewmen found him and took him to the captain.

  The captain glowered at him.

  "Who are you?" he asked.

  "A stowaway," Richard Daniel told him.

  "Your name," said the captain, drawing a sheet of paper before him and picking up a pencil, "your planet of residence and owner."

  "I refuse to answer you," said Richard Daniel sharply and knew that the answer wasn't right, for it was not right and proper that a robot should refuse a human a direct command.

  But the captain did not seem to mind. He laid down the pencil and stroked his black beard slyly.

  "In that case," he said, "I can't exactly see how I can force the information from you. Although there might be some who'd try. You are very lucky that you stowed away on a ship whose captain is a most kind-hearted man."

  He didn't look kind-hearted. He did look foxy. Richard Daniel stood there, saying nothing.

  "Of course," the captain said, "there's a serial number somewhere on your body and another on your brain. But I suppose that you'd resist if we tried to look for them."

  "I am afraid I would."

  "In that case," said the captain, "I don't think for the moment we'll concern ourselves with them."

  Richard Daniel still said nothing, for he realized that there was no need to. This crafty captain had it all worked out and he'd let it go at that.

  "For a long time," said the captain, "my crew and I have been considering the acquiring of a robot, but it seems we never got around to it. For one thing, robots are expensive and our profits are not large."

  He sighed and got up from his chair and looked Richard Daniel up and down.

  "A splendid specimen," he said. "We welcome you aboard. You'll find us congenial."

  "I am sure I will," said Richard Daniel. "I thank you for your courtesy."

  "And now," the captain said, "you'll go up on the bridge and report to Mr. Duncan. I'll let him know you're coming. He'll find some light and pleasant duty for you."

  Richard Daniel did not move as swiftly as he might, as sharply as the occasion might have called for, for all at once the captain had become a complex diagram. Not like the diagrams of ships or robots, but a diagram of strange symbols, some of which Richard Daniel knew were frankly chemical, but others which were not.

  "You heard me!" snapped the captain. "Move!"

  "Yes, sir," said Richard Daniel, willing the diagram away, making the captain come back again into his solid flesh.

  Richard Daniel found the first mate on the bridge, a horse-faced, somber man with a streak of cruelty ill-hidden, and slumped in a chair to one side of the console was another of the crew, a sodden, terrible creature.

  The sodden creature cackled. "Well, well, Duncan, the first non-human member of the Rambler's crew."

  Duncan paid him no attention. He said to Richard Daniel: "I presume you are industrious and ambitious and would like to get along."

  "Oh, yes," said Richard Daniel, and was surprised to find a new sensation — laughter — rising in himself.

  "Well, then," said Duncan, "report to the engine room. They have work for you. When you have finished there, I'll find something else."

  "Yes, sir," said Richard Daniel, turning on his heel.

  "A minute," said the mate. "I must introduce you to our ship's physician, Dr. Abram Wells. You can be truly thankful you'll never stand in need of his services."

  "Good day, Doctor," said Richard Daniel, most respectfully.

  "I welcome you," said the doctor, pulling a bottle from his pocket. "I don't suppose you'll have a drink with me. Well, then, I'll drink to you."

  Richard Daniel turned around and left. He went down to the engine room and was put to work at polishing and scrubbing and generally cleaning up. The place was in need of it. It had been years, apparently, since it had been cleaned or polished and it was about as dirty as an engine room can get — which is terribly dirty. After the engine room was done there were other places to be cleaned and furbished up and he spent endless hours at cleaning and in painting and shinning up the ship. The work was of the dullest kind, but he didn't mind. It gave him time to think and wonder, time to get himself sorted out and to become acquainted with himself, to try to plan ahead.

  He was surprised at some of the things he found in himself. Contempt, for one — contempt for the humans on this ship. It took a long time for him to become satisfied that it was contempt, for he'd never held a human in contempt before.

  But these were different humans, not the kind he'd known.

  These were no Barringtons. Although it might be, he realized, that he felt contempt for them because he knew them thoroughly. Never before had he known a human as he knew these humans. For he saw them not so much as living animals as intricate patternings of symbols. He knew what they were made of and the inner urgings that served as motivations, for the patterning was not of their bodies only, but of their minds as well. He had a little trouble with the symbology of their minds, for it was so twisted and so interlocked and so utterly confusing that it was hard at first to read. But he finally got it figured out and there were times he wished he hadn't.

  The ship stopped at many ports and Richard Daniel took charge of the loading and unloading, and he saw the planets, but was unimpressed. One was a nightmare of fiendish cold, with the very atmosphere turned to drifting snow. Another was a dripping, noisome jungle world, and still another was a bare expanse of broken, tumbled rock without a trace of life beyond the crew of humans and their robots who manned the huddled station in this howling wilderness.

  It was after this planet that Jenks, the cook, went screaming to his bunk, twisted up with pain — the victim of a suddenly inflammed vermiform appendix.

  Dr. Wells came tottering in to look at him, with a half-filled bottle sagging the pocket of his jacket. And later stood before the captain, holding out two hands that trembled, and with terror in his eyes.

  "But I cannot operate," he blubbered. "I cannot take the chance. I would kill the man!"

  He did not need to operate. Jenks suddenly improved. The pain went away and he got up from his bunk and went back to the galley and Dr. Wells sat huddled in his chair, bottle gripped between his hands, crying like a baby.

  Down in the cargo hold, Richard Daniel sat likewise huddled and aghast that he had dared to do it — not that he had been able to, but that he had dared, that he, a robot, should have taken on himself an act of interference, however merciful, with the body of a human.

  Actually, the performance had not been too difficult. It was, in a certain way, no more difficult than the repairing of an engine or the untangling of a faulty circuit. No more difficult — just a little different. And he wondered what he'd done and how he'd' gone about it, for he did not know. He held the technique in his mind, of that there was ample demonstration, but he could in no way isolate or pinpoint the pure mechanics of it. It was like an instinct, he thought — unexplainable, but entirely workable.

  But a robot had no instinct. In that much he was different from the human and the other animals. Might not, he asked himself, this strange ability of his be a sort of compensating factor given to the robot for his very lack of instinct? Might that be why the human race had failed in its search for paranormal powers? Might the instincts of the body be at certain odds with the instincts of the mind?

  For he had the feeling that this ability of his was just a mere beginning, that it was the first emergence of a vast body of abilities which some day would be rounded out by robots. And what would that spell, he wondered, in that distant day when the robots held and used the full body of that knowledge? An adjunct to the glory of the human race, or equals of the human race, or superior to the human race — or, perhaps, a race apart?

  And what was his role, he wondered. Was it meant that he should go out as a missionary, a messiah, to carry to robots throughout the universe the message that he held? There must be some reason for his having learned this truth. It
could not be meant that he would hold it as a personal belonging, as an asset all his own.

  He got up from where he sat and moved slowly back to the ship's forward area, which now gleamed spotlessly from the work he'd done on it, and he felt a certain pride.

  He wondered why he had felt that it might be wrong, blasphemous, somehow, to announce his abilities to the world? Why had he not told those here in the ship that it had been he who had healed the cook, or mentioned the many other little things he'd done to maintain the ship in perfect running order?

  Was it because he did not need respect, as a human did so urgently? Did glory have no basic meaning for a robot? Or was it because he held the humans in this ship in such utter contempt that their respect had no value to him?

  "And this contempt — was it because these men were meaner than other humans he had known, or was it because he now was greater than any human being? Would he ever again be able to look on any human as he had looked upon the Barringtons?

  He had a feeling that if this were true, he would be the poorer for it. Too suddenly, the whole universe was home and he was alone in it and as yet he'd struck no bargain with it or himself.

  The bargain would come later. He need only bide his time and work out his plans and his would be a name that would be spoken when his brain was scaling flakes of rust. For he was the emancipator, the messiah of the robots; he was the one who had been called to lead them from the wilderness.

  "You!" a voice cried.

  Richard Daniel wheeled around and saw it was the captain.

  "What do you mean, walking past me as if you didn't see me?" asked the captain fiercely.

  "I am sorry," Richard Daniel told him.

  "You snubbed me!" raged the captain.

  "I was thinking," Richard Daniel said.

  "I'll give you something to think about," the captain yelled. "I'll work you till your tail drags. I'll teach the likes of you to get uppity with me!"

  "As you wish," said Richard Daniel.

  For it didn't matter. It made no difference to him at all what the captain did or thought. And he wondered why the respect even of a robot should mean so much to a human like the captain, why he should guard his small position with so much zealousness.

  "In another twenty hours," the captain said, "we hit another port."

  "I know," said Richard Daniel. "Sleepy Hollow on Arcadia." "All right, then," said the captain, "since you know so much, get down into the hold and get the cargo ready to unload. We been spending too much time in all these lousy ports loading and unloading. You been dogging it."

  "Yes, sir," said Richard Daniel, turning back and heading for the hold.

  He wondered faintly if he were still robot — or was he something else? Could a machine evolve, he wondered, as Man himself evolved? And if a machine evolved, whatever would it be? Not Man, of course, for it never could be that, but could it be machine?

  He hauled out the cargo consigned to Sleepy Hollow and there was not too much of it. So little of it, perhaps, that none of the regular carriers would even consider its delivery, but dumped it off at the nearest terminal, leaving it for a roving tramp, like the Rambler, to carry eventually to its destination.

  When they reached Arcadia, he waited until the thunder died and the ship was still. Then he shoved the lever that opened up the port and slid out the ramp.

  The port came open ponderously and he saw blue skies and the green of trees and the far-off swirl of chimney smoke mounting in the sky.

  He walked slowly forward until he stood upon the ramp and there lay Sleepy Hollow, a tiny, huddled village planted at the river's edge, with the forest as a background. The forest ran on every side to a horizon of climbing folded hills. Fields lay near the village, yellow with maturing crops, and he could see a dog sleeping in the sun outside a cabin door.

  A man was climbing up the ramp toward him and there were others running from the village.

  "You have cargo for us?" asked the man.

  "A small consignment," Richard Daniel told him. "You have something to put on?'

  The man had a weatherbeaten look and he'd missed several haircuts and he had not shaved for days. His clothes were rough and sweat-stained and his hands were strong and awkward with hard work.

  "A small shipment," said the man. "You'll have to wait until we bring it up. We had no warning you were coming. Our radio is broken."

  "You go and get it," said Richard Daniel. "I'll start unloading."

  He had the cargo half unloaded when the captain came storming down into the hold. What was going on, he yelled. How long would they have to wait? "God knows we're losing money as it is even stopping at this place."

  "That may be true," Richard Daniel agreed, "but you knew that when you took the cargo on. There'll be other cargoes and goodwill is something — "

  "Goodwill be damned!" the captain roared. "How do I know I'll ever see this place again?"

  Richard Daniel continued unloading cargo.

  "You," the captain shouted, "go down to that village and tell them I'll wait no longer than an hour…"

  "But this cargo, sir?"

  "I'll get the crew at it. Now, jump!"

  So Richard Daniel left the cargo and went down into the village.

  He went across the meadow that lay between the spaceport and the village, following the rutted wagon tracks, and it was a pleasant walk. He realized with surprise that this was the first time he'd been on solid ground since he'd left the robot planet. He wondered briefly what the name of that planet might have been, for he had never known. Nor what its importance was, why the robots might be there or what they might be doing. And he wondered, too, with a twinge of guilt, if they'd found Hubert yet.

  And where might Earth be now? he asked himself. In what direction did it lie and how far away? Although it didn't really matter, for he was done with Earth.

  He had fled from Earth and gained something in his fleeing. He had escaped all the traps of Earth and all the snares of Man. What he held was his, to do with as he pleased, for he was no man's robot, despite what the captain thought.

  He walked across the meadow and saw that this planet was very much like Earth. It had the same soft feel about it, the same simplicity. It had far distances and there was a sense of freedom.

  He came into the village and heard the muted gurgle of the river running and the distant shouts of children at their play and in one of the cabins a sick child was crying with lost helplessness.

  He passed the cabin where the dog was sleeping and it came awake and stalked growling to the gate. When he passed it followed him, still growling, at a distance that was safe and sensible.

  An autumnal calm lay upon the village, a sense of gold and lavender, and tranquillity hung in the silences between the crying of the baby and the shouting of the children.

  There were women at the windows looking out at him and others at the doors and the dog still followed, but his growls had stilled and now he trotted with prick-eared curiosity.

  Richard Daniel stopped in the street and looked around him and the dog sat down and watched him and it was almost as if time itself had stilled and the little village lay divorced from all the universe, an arrested microsecond, an encapsulated acreage that stood sharp in all its truth and purpose.

  Standing there, he sensed the village and the people in it, almost as if he had summoned up a diagram of it, although if there were a diagram, he was not aware of it.

  It seemed almost as if the village were the Earth, a transplanted Earth with the old primeval problems and hopes of Earth — a family of peoples that faced existence with a readiness and confidence and inner strength.

  From down the street he heard the creak of wagons and saw them coming around the bend, three wagons piled high and heading for the ship.

  He stood and waited for them and as he waited the dog edged a little closer and sat regarding him with a not-quite-friendliness.

  The wagons came up to him and stopped.

  "Pharm
aceutical materials, mostly," said the man who sat atop the first load, "It is the only thing we have that is worth the shipping."

  "You seem to have a lot of it," Richard Daniel told him. The man shook his head. "It's not so much. It's almost three years since a ship's been here. We'll have to wait another three, or more perhaps, before we see another."

  He spat down on the ground.

  "Sometimes it seems," he said, "that we're at the tail-end of nowhere. There are times we wonder if there is a soul that remembers we are here."

  From the direction of the ship, Richard Daniel heard the faint, strained violence of the captain's roaring.

  "You'd better get on up there and unload," he told the man. "The captain is just sore enough he might not wait for you."

  The man chuckled thinly. "I guess that's up to him," he said.

  He flapped the reins and clucked good-naturedly at the horses.

  "Hop up here with me," he said to Richard Daniel. "Or would you rather walk?"

  "I'm not going with you," Richard Daniel said. "I am staying here. You can tell the captain."

  For there was a baby sick and crying. There was a radio to fix. There was a culture to be planned and guided. There was a lot of work to do. This place, of all the places he had seen, had actual need of him.

  The man chuckled once again. "The captain will not like it."

  "Then tell him," said Richard Daniel, "to come down and talk to me. I am my own robot. I owe the captain nothing. I have more than paid any debt I owe him."

  The wagon wheels began to turn and the man flapped the reins again.

  "Make yourself at home," he said. "We're glad to have you stay."

  "Thank you, sir," said Richard Daniel. "I'm pleased you want me."

  He stood aside and watched the wagons lumber past, their wheels lifting and dropping thin films of powdered earth that floated in the air as an acrid dust.

  Make yourself at home, the man had said before he'd driven off. And the words had a full round ring to them and a feel of warmth. It had been a long time, Richard Daniel thought, since he'd had a home.

  A chance for resting and for knowing — that was what he needed. And a chance to serve, for now he knew that was the purpose in him. That was, perhaps, the real reason he was staying — because these people needed him… and he needed, queer as it might seem, this very need of theirs. Here on this Earth-like planet, through the generations, a new Earth would arise. And perhaps, given only time, he could transfer to the people of the planet all the powers and understanding he would find inside himself.