"Run the first one again," said Garrick. "I think maybe I'll find something there."
Garrick made out a quick requisition slip and handed it to Kadiryn Pender, who looked at it, raised her eyebrows, shrugged and went off to have it filled.
By the time she came back, Roosenburg had escorted Garrick to the room where the captured Trumie robot lay chained.
"He's cut off from Robot Central," Roosenburg was saying. "I suppose you figured that out. Imagine! Not only has Trumie built a whole city for himself—but even his own Robot Central!"
Garrick looked at the robot. It was a fisherman, or so Roosenburg has said. It was small, dark, black-haired; possibly the hair would have been curly, if the sea water hadn't plastered the curls to the scalp. It was still damp from the tussle that had landed it in the water and eventually into Roosenburg's hands.
Roosenburg was already a work. Garrick tried to think of the robot as a machine, but it wasn't easy. The thing looked very nearly human—except for the crystal and copper that showed where the back of its head had been removed.
"It's as bad as a brain operation," said Roosenburg, working rapidly without looking up. "I've got to short out the input leads without disturbing the electronic balance—"
Snip, snip. A curl of copper fell free, to be grabbed by Roosenburg's tweezers. The fisherman's arms and legs kicked sharply like a dissected, galvanized frog's.
Kathryn Pender said: "They found him this morning, casting nets into the bay and singing 'O Sole Mio.' He's from North Guardian, all right."
Abruptly the lights flickered and turned yellow, then slowly returned to normal brightness. Roger Garrick got up and walked over to the window. North Guardian was a haze of light in the sky, across the water.
Click, snap. The fisherman robot began to sing:
Tutte le serre, dopo quel fanal, Dietro la caserma, ti staro ed— Click.
Roosenburg muttered under his breath and probed further. Kathryn Pender joined Garrick at the window.
"Now you see," she said.
Garrick shrugged. "You can't blame him."
"I blame him!" she said hotly. "I've lived here all my life. Fisherman's Island used to be a tourist spot—why, it was lovely here. And look at it now. The elevators don't work. The lights don't work. Practically all of our robots are gone. Spare parts, construction material, everything—it's all gone to North Guardian! There isn't a day that passes, Garrick, when half a dozen bargeloads of stuff don't go north, because he requisitioned them. Blame him? I'd like to kill him!"
Snap. Sputters-nap. The fisherman lifted its head and caroled:
Forse dommani, piangerai, E dopo tu, sorriderai—
Roosenburg's probe uncovered a flat black disc. "Kathryn, look this up, will you?" He read the serial number from the disc and then put down the probe. He stood flexing his fingers, looking irritably at the motionless figure.
Garrick joined him. Roosenburg jerked his head at the fisherman.
"That's robot repair work, trying to tinker with their in-sides. Trumie has his own Robot Central, as I told you. What I have to do is recontrol this one from the substation on the mainland, but keep its receptor circuits open to North Guardian on the symbolic level. You understand what I'm talking about? It'll think from North Guardian, but act from the mainland."
"Sure," said Garrick.
"And it's damned close work. There isn't much room inside one of those things—" He stared at the figure and picked up the probe again.
Kathryn Pender came back with a punchcard in her hand. "It was one of ours, all right. Used to be a busboy in the cafeteria at the beach club." She scowled. "That Trumie!"
"You can't blame him," Garrick said reasonably. "He's only trying to be good."
She looked at him queerly. "He's only—"
Roosenburg interrupted with an exultant cry. "Got it! Okay, you—sit up and start telling us what Trumie's up to now!"
The fisherman figure said obligingly, "Yes, Boss. What you wanna know?"
What they wanted to know, they asked; and what they asked, it told diem, volunteering nothing, concealing nothing.
There was Anderson Trumie, king of his island, the compulsive consumer.
It was like an echo of the bad old days of the Age of Plenty, when the world was smothering under the endless, pounding flow of goods from the robot factories and the desperate race between consumption and production strained the whole society. But Trumie's orders came not from society, but from within. Consume! commanded something inside him, and Use! it cried, and Devour! it ordered. And Trumie obeyed, heroically.
They listened to what the fisherman robot had to say, and the picture was dark. Armies had sprung up on North Guardian; navies floated in its waters. Anderson Trumie stalked among his creations like a blubbery god, wrecking and ruling. Garrick could see the pattern in what the fisherman had to say. In Trumie's mind, he was dictator, building a war machine. He was supreme engineer, constructing a mighty state. He was warrior.
"He was playing tin soldiers," said Roger Garrick, and Roosenburg and the girl nodded.
"The trouble is," Roosenburg said, "he has stopped playing. Invasion fleets, Garrick! He isn't content with Nordi Guardian any more. He wants the rest of the country, too!"
"You can't blame him," said Roger Garrick for the third time, and stood up. "The question is, what do we do about it?"
"That's what you're here for," Kathryn told him.
"All right. We can forget about the soldiers—as soldiers, that is. They won't hurt anyone. Robots can't."
"I know that," Kathryn snapped.
"The problem is what to do about Trumie's drain on the world's resources." Garrick pursed his lips. "According to my directive from Area Control, the first plan was to let him alone—there is still plenty of everything for anyone, so why not let Trumie enjoy himself? But that didn't work out too well."
"Didn't work out too well," repeated Kathryn Pender bitterly.
"No, no—not on your local level," Garrick explained quickly. "After all, what are a few thousand robots, a few hundred million dollars' worth of equipment? We could re-supply this area in a week."
"And in a week," said Roosenburg, "Trumie would have us cleaned out again!"
"That's the trouble," Garrick declared. "He doesn't seem to have a stopping point. Yet we can't refuse his orders. Speaking as a psychist, that would set a very bad precedent. It would put ideas in the minds of a lot of persons—minds that, in some cases, might not prove stable in the absence of a completely reliable source of everything they need, on request. If we say no to Trumie, we open the door on some mighty dark corners of the human mind. Covetousness. Greed. Pride of possession—"
"So what are you going to do?" demanded Kathryn Pender.
Garrick said resentfully: "The only thing there is to do. I'm going to look over Trumie's folder again. And then I'm going to North Guardian Island."
V
Roger Garrick was all too aware of the fact that he was only 24. But his age couldn't make a great deal of difference. The oldest and wisest psychist in Area Control's wide sphere might have been doubtful of success in as thorny a job as the one ahead.
He and Kathryn Pender warily started out at daybreak. Vapor was rising from the sea about them, and the little battery-motor of their launch whined softly beneath the keelson. Garrick sat patting the little box that contained their invasion equipment, while the girl steered.
The workshops of Fisherman's Island had been all night making some of the things in that box—not because they were so difficult to make, but because it had been a bad night. Big things were going on at North Guardian; twice, the power had been out entirely for an hour, while the demand on the lines from North Guardian took all the power the system could deliver.