Ida squatted down. ‘We’ll do it, that’s all. You read me the instructions, I’ll do the business.’
Two hours later, when they stopped for coffee, Roderick had taken shape. He sat on the floor leaning back against an armchair, head lolled back, hands dangling at his sides, legs splayed out and one foot still not in place. Except for the flickering eye, he was still inert.
‘I never realized,’ Luke said. ‘Never saw him naked before, it make you realize: he really is a dummy. Look, you can see all his joints.’
‘He looks helpless. Like a stiff.’
‘Yeah but at the same time — free, you know? The dead are free. No worries. No Mission Control breathing down their necks, telling them what to do. The dead have got it made.’
‘The dead haven’t got shit, Luke. I nearly croaked not long ago myself, and to me, the dead are just — just nothing. Just dumb dummies like Rod here. So let’s get him alive again.’
When they had connected batteries and made a few adjustments, the robot sat up straight.
‘Rickwood, can you hear me?’
‘Yes… master…’ The single eye stared straight ahead. ‘Yes, master…’
‘Rickwood, for Christ’s sake! Doesn’t sound like him at all, sounds like some damn toy. Rickwood!’
‘Rod, snap out of it!’
‘Yes mistress…’ The figure got slowly to its one foot and balanced. ‘I obey…’ Rigid, it fell across the studio couch. ‘Oh, and thanks, gang.’
Then the three of them were up) and hugging, slapping backs, dancing or hopping around the room, shouting and laughing until Ida went pale and had to sit down for a moment.
‘Whew. New ticker. Not broke in proper yet, boys. Excuse me. Moment.’
‘New ticker?’ Roderick asked.
‘That’s what I came by to tell you. Artificial heart, got it put in a coupla months ago, they finally let me go home last week. Here, look.’ She opened her jacket to show a thick money-belt. ‘Batteries and a microcomputer in here, see?’ She opened her blouse to show where a wire ran into her sternum. ‘Neat, huh?’
Luke said, ‘Christ, Ida, you really got a magnificent pair, kid.’
Her colour improved slightly. ‘You’re not built so bad yourself. But what do you think of the hardware?’
‘Ingenious.’
‘Rod?’
Roderick said, ‘Looks great, Ida. But why didn’t you tell me you were going into the hospital? Maybe I could have visited.’
‘Well no, see, this was out of town.’
‘Where out of town?’
‘Geneva.’ She passed Roderick his foot and a screwdriver. ‘There’s this wonderful surgeon there, Dr Cnef, I guess some people call him a quack just because he’s a little unorthodox, but all his patients seem happy.’
‘Unorthodox? I don’t like the sound of this,’ said Roderick. ‘How unorthodox?’
‘Well, while other surgeons use hearts made out of silicone rubber he uses gold, and—’
‘But has he tested these gold hearts?’
‘Just put your foot on and drop the subject, okay? I feel fine, fine. If I waited for these other guys to finish their fiddly tests I wouldn’t need a rubber heart because I’d be dead. I thought you’d be pleased I got a new heart, that’s why I came to see you.’
‘I am pleased,’ said Roderick. ‘Forget my little quibbles, I’m not myself today.’
Ida watched him for a moment. ‘You look great, Rod. You remind me of a statue I saw once, the way you got your leg crossed over and digging that screwdriver in your foot — only it was a knife and the boy was taking out a splinter — I liked that statue. Oh, here’s your other eye, I found it behind the leg of the couch.’
‘You never did tell us how you got dismantled like this,’ Luke said. ‘And nothing stolen.’
‘It was a woman named Shirl, very interested in machines. She was just going to adjust my legs so I could run better. One adjustment led to another, I guess, so finally she just got carried away. After my arms and legs were off, I couldn’t really stop her.’
Ida said, ‘I know Johns just like that. They talk you into getting tied up and then they turn mean.’
‘So then she just walked out on you,’ Luke said. ‘Like all women!’
‘Well no, what happened was she was just going to put me back together when she got paged to the phone. Some kind of emergency research work at the U, I guess NASA stuff or — anyway an emergency.’
Luke nodded. ‘Don’t tell me about NASA emergencies, I’ve been up that road all the way. Bomb trouble.’
‘What bombs?’ asked the other two.
‘Okay, it’s top secret but I’m tired of not talking about it. What do you think NASA is all about, anyway? The exploration of space? The last frontier? Flags on the Moon and Mars? Orbiting labs? Messages of hope from Nixon to the Universe? No, bombs. NASA is all about bombs. We had bombs to blow up cities, bombs to spray neutrons over large areas, bombs to sift radioactive dust into the world’s atmosphere, bombs to be focused as death rays to kill other satellites, bombs to spread satellite targets and decoy killer satellite death rays — and of course bombs to blow us up if we make any mistakes.
‘Why does anybody think Russia and America would spend trillions on space programs? You gotta be naive to think bombs aren’t in the picture at all. And that’s why astronauts, like cosmonauts, had to be military personnel. They could take orders, and they didn’t mind bombing the shit out of anybody.
‘Everything we said was in code, you know. Like if we said, “Gosh, earth sure looks beautiful guys,” that meant Bomb armed and locked into targeting module. Confirm targeting start. But if we said. “Be advised, you guys, that earth is one heck of a beautiful sight” that meant Bomb away. The wording was real important…’
Luke blinked. ‘I never told anybody all that before. Better forget I said it, there’s such a thing as a need to know and you two don’t need to know anything about the bombs. Bombs? Did I say bombs? I meant, uh, orbiting labs and communications satellites. I wouldn’t want to be in trouble with Mission Control about erp!’ He leapt to his feet as though pulled up by a wire. ‘Affirmative’. Sorry fellas, it won’t happen again. I’m what? I’m not looking good? Negative. Affirmative, I’ll go.’ He tried waving goodbye to Roderick and Ida, but his hand was quickly jerked back to his side, as he pivoted smartly and marched out the door. They heard him down the halclass="underline" ‘…won’t happen again, fellas, won’t happen again—’
Ida jumped up. ‘Yes, well, I guess I better mosey along too. See you, Rod.’
‘Oh I thought maybe we could see a movie’
But she was gone already.
Roderick fitted his eyeball and lid. Then he phoned Shirl. ‘Mad? No, I… oh a couple of friends helped me. I’m fine… Well I thought maybe we could go to the movies… I’ll see.’ He turned on the TV and found the right teletext pages. ‘There’s a new flick at the Roxy, The Box of Doc Caligari… I don’t know but the ad says it cost two billion to make, it must be good… by the box office, then? Eight-thirty.’
‘Point nine two two, they said.’ Tortured curls of smoke from different pipes fought their way up to join the slice of smog near the ceiling, slipped off into the air system, and were dispersed elsewhere, outside. ‘Point nine two two my eye. What’s the point of having probability estimates that have no relation to probability? The fact is, they’ve tried for this Entity, once again, and once again they have failed.’