It was early afternoon, and the swamp was very quiet. A long-legged wood stork passed overhead. A cat’s-paw of wind ruffled the shallow surface of the swamp, and then it was gone. Something long and gray was floating toward him. Alligator? No, it was just a waterlogged tree trunk.
Gaston was sweating heavily in the humid air, but his tongue was dry, and his throat felt like sandpaper.
A hermit crab, carrying its conch shell home, came up from the water to look him over. Gaston waved violently at it, sending a shock of pain through his leg. The crab scuttled away a few feet, then stopped and regarded him steadily. It occurred to Gaston that the crabs might get him before the alligators got a chance.
Then he heard the small, thin sound of a motor. He grinned, ashamed of his own fears. The Rescue Squad probably had him on radar all the time. He should have realized that a person can’t just vanish like that in this day and age.
The engine sound grew louder. The vehicle was skimming just above the surface of the water, coming straight toward him.
But it turned out that it wasn’t the Rescue Squad. It was a scaled- down copy of an old-time chuck wagon. Its driver was a humanoid robot dressed in white jeans and an open-neck sports shirt.
“Howdy there, partner,” Gaston said, faint from relief. “What are you selling?”
“I am a multipurpose roving vending machine,” the robot said. “I work for Greater Miami Enterprises. Our motto is, ‘Enterprise makes its sales in unusual places.’ We find our customers in the backwoods, on mountaintops, and in the middle of swamps like this one. We’re robotvendors, and my name is Rex. What would you like, sir? Cigarettes? Hot dog? Soft drink? Sorry, but we’re not licensed to sell alcoholic beverages.”
“I’m sure glad to see you, Rex,” said Gaston. “I’ve had an accident.”
“Thank you for sharing that with me, sir,” said Rex. “Would you like a hot dog?”
“I don’t need a hot dog,” Gaston said. “I’ve got a broken leg. What I need is help.”
“I hope you find it,” the robot said. “Goodbye, sir, and good luck.”
“Wait a minute!” Gaston said. “Where are you going?”
“I must get back to work, sir,” the robotvendor said.
“Will you report my accident to the Rescue Squad?”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, sir. We are not permitted to report on the activities of humans.”
“But I’m asking you to!”
“I must go by the Code. It’s been nice talking to you, sir, but now I really must—”
“Wait!” Gaston cried, as the robotvendor started to back away from him. “I want to buy something!”
The robotvendor returned cautiously. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure! Give me a hot dog and a large lemon soda.”
“I thought you had said that you didn’t need a hot dog.”
“I need one now! And the soda!”
Gaston greedily gulped down the soda and ordered another.
“That’ll be eight dollars even,” Rex said.
“I can’t get at my wallet,” Gaston said. “It’s under me and I can’t move.”
“No need to disturb yourself, sir,” Rex said. “I am programmed by the state to assist old people, cripples, and invalids who sometimes have similar problems.” Before Gaston could protest, the robotvendor had extruded a long, skinny tentacle, snaked out his wallet, taken the right change, and returned the wallet.
“Will there be anything else, sir?” the robot asked, backing his vending craft away from Gaston’s island.
“If you don’t help me,” Gaston said, “I could die out here.”
“No disrespect intended, sir,” the robotvendor said, “but death, for a robot, is not a particularly big deal. We call it being turned off. It’s just one of those things. Eventually somebody comes along and turns you back on again. Or if no one does, you don’t even know about it.”
“It’s different for people,” Gaston said.
“I didn’t know that, sir,” the robot said. “What is it like for people?”
“Never mind. Don’t go away! I’m going to buy something else!”
“I’m really spending too much time on these small orders,” Rex said.
Gaston had a sudden idea. “Then this one ought to please you. I want your entire stock.”
“An expensive decision, sir.”
“My credit card has an unlimited rating. You better start writing up that order.”
“I’ve already done it, sir,” Rex said. He got Gaston’s card out of the wallet, stamped it, returned it for signature. Gaston scrawled with the ballpoint pen.
“Where shall I put the goods?” the robotvendor asked.
“Just pile them anywhere, then get me the whole thing again.”
“Everything?”
“The works. How long will it take you?”
“I’ll have to return to the warehouse first. Then take care of my preorders. Then I’ll get back here as quick as I can. It should take about three days, four at the most, assuming my owners don’t re- program me to do something else first.”
“That long?” Gaston said sadly.
He had had a vision of the robotvendor shuttling back and forth between Gaston and the warehouse, maybe a dozen times a day, piling up all kinds of goods until somebody finally noticed and came out to see what was going on.
But three or four days, that was different.
“Forget the reorder,” Gaston said. “And don’t unload that stuff. What I want you to do is take it all to a friend of mine. It’s a gift. His name is Marty Fenn.”
The robot recorded Marty’s address, then asked, “Did you want to include a message with your gift?”
“I thought you didn’t take messages.”
“A message included with a gift is not the same thing as a purposeful communication. Of course, the contents must be innocuous.”
“Of course,” Gaston said, his mind alight with the hope of a last- minute reprieve. “Just tell Marty that the miniflier disintegrated over the Everglades, just as we planned, but that I got only one broken leg rather than the two we had expected.”
“Is that all, sir?”
“You could add that I’m planning on dying out here in the next couple of days, if that won’t inconvenience him too much.”
“I’ve got it. Now if it just passes the Ethics Committee, I’ll send it along.”
“What Ethics Committee?”
“It’s an informal organization that we intelligent robots maintain to make sure that we’re not tricked into carrying important or sensitive messages in spite of our protocols. Goodbye, sir, and the best of luck.”
The robotvendor left. Gaston’s leg was hurting badly. He wondered if his message would get past the Ethics Committee. And even if it did, would Marty, never the quickest of fellows, realize that it was a call for help, not just a joke? And if Marty did catch on, how long would it take him to verify that Gaston was indeed missing, alert the Rescue Squad, get some help to him? The more Gaston thought about it, the more pessimistic he became.
He tried to move a little, to ease the pain in his back. His leg kicked in with a burst of unexpected agony.
Gaston passed out.
When Gaston recovered consciousness he was in a bed in a hospital. He had an intravenous drip in his arm.
A doctor looked him over and asked whether he felt able to speak to someone. Gaston nodded.
The man who came to his bedside was tall, potbellied, and dressed in the brown uniform of a park ranger. “I’m Fletcher,” he said. “You’re a lucky man, Mr. Gaston. The crabs were just starting to get at you when we pulled you out. The alligators wouldn’t have been far behind.”
“How did you find me? Did Marty get the message?”
“No, Mr. Gaston,” said a familiar voice.