He began explaining time travel to little Ernie, knowing the kid wasn’t getting half of it, but going on the way big Ernie had explained it to him: Carl Conn, posing as Wilbur, had grown old. Finally he’d decided it was time to rejuvenate and go back in time. Fierce old Ralphie, still lurking in the corridors of time, had attacked him, and there’d been quite an accident. One part of Carl had returned to 1905, to become Orville Grafton. Another part of him got rejuved, along with the dog, and had fallen out in 1937.
‘That Carl-part, my boy, was you. The rejuvenator wiped out most of your memory – except for dreams – and it made you look all ugly and fat.
‘You see, your job and mine, everybody’s job, is to weave back and forth in time—’ he wove his clumsy hands in the air ‘—being people. My next job is to be a butler, and yours is to pretend to be a robot pretending to be you. Then probably you’ll be my dad, and I’ll be his dad, and then you’ll be me. Get it?’
He moved the dog’s tail like a lever, and the casing opened. ‘Would you like some ice-cream? It’s okay with me, only nobody else gets none.’
The boy nodded. The upstairs maid, pretty as ever, came in with a Presidential sundae. The boy looked at her and his scowl almost turned to a smile.
‘Mom?’
(1972)
COMFORT ME, MY ROBOT
Robert Bloch
Though best known to the public for writing the grisly novel on which Alfred Hitchcock’s shocker Psycho was based, Robert Bloch enjoyed a cheery reputation among his peers. Born in 1917 in Chicago, he’d received little formal education but his writerly apprenticeship had included a warm correspondence with H. P. Lovecraft, who did him the singular honour of killing him off in a short story, "The Haunter of the Dark" (1936). Bloch in his turn lent a helpful hand to young writers including Ray Bradbury and Stephen King. In addition to his horror output (he used to hang out with Boris Karloff and Basil Rathbone) Bloch was also an accomplished essayist and comic writer, who by his death in 1994 had clocked up more than twenty novels and dozens of film and television scripts (including three episodes of Star Trek).
When Henson came in, the Adjustor was sitting inside his desk, telescreening a case. At the sound of the doortone he flicked a switch. The posturchair rose from the center of the desk until the Adjustor’s face peered at the visitor from an equal level.
"Oh, it’s you," said the Adjustor.
"Didn’t the girl tell you? I’m here to see you professionally."
If the Adjustor was surprised, he didn’t show it. He cocked a thumb at a posturchair. "Sit down and tell me all about it, Henson," he said.
"Nothing to tell." Henson stared out of the window at the plains of Upper Mongolia. "It’s just a routine matter. I’m here to make a request and you’re the Adjustor."
"And your request is—?"
"Simple," said Henson. "I want to kill my wife."
The Adjustor nodded. "That can be arranged," he murmured. "Of course, it will take a few days."
"I can wait."
"Would Friday be convenient?"
"Good enough. That way it won’t cut into my weekend. Lita and I were planning a fishing trip, up New Zealand way. Care to join us?"
"Sorry, but I’m tied up until Monday." The Adjustor stifled a yawn. "Why do you want to kill Lita?" he asked.
"She’s hiding something from me."
"What do you suspect?"
"That’s just it—I don’t know what to suspect. And it keeps bothering me."
"Why don’t you question her?"
"Violation of privacy. Surely you, as a certified public Adjustor, wouldn’t advocate that?"
"Not professionally." The Adjustor grinned. "But since we’re personal friends, I don’t mind telling you that there are times when I think privacy should be violated. This notion of individual rights can become a fetish."
"Fetish?"
"Just an archaism." The Adjustor waved a casual dismissal to the word. He leaned forward. "Then, as I understand it, your wife’s attitude troubles you. Rather than embarrass her with questions, you propose to solve the problem delicately, by killing her."
"Right."
"A very chivalrous attitude. I admire it."
"I’m not sure whether I do or not," Henson mused. "You see, it really wasn’t my idea. But the worry was beginning to affect my work, and my Administrator—Loring, you know him, I believe—took me aside for a talk. He suggested I see you and arrange for a murder."
"Then it’s to be murder." The Adjustor frowned. "You know, actually, we are supposed to be the arbiters when it comes to method. In some cases a suicide works just as well. Or an accident."
"I want a murder," Henson said. "Premeditated, and in the first degree." Now it was his turn to grin. "You see, I know a few archaisms myself."
The Adjustor made a note. "As long as we’re dealing in archaic terminology, might I characterize your attitude towards your wife as one of—jealousy?"
Henson controlled his blush at the sound of the word. He nodded slowly. "I guess you’re right," he admitted. "I can’t bear the idea of her having any secrets. I know it’s immature and absurd, and that’s why I’m seeking an immature solution."
"Let me correct you," said the Adjustor. "Your solution is far from immature. A good murder probably is the most adult approach to your problem. After all, man, this is the twenty-second century, not the twentieth. Although even way back then they were beginning to learn some of the answers."
"Don’t tell me they had Adjustors," Henson murmured.
"No, of course not. In those days this field was only a small, neglected part of physical medicine. Practitioners were called psychiatrists, psychologists, auditors, analysts—and a lot of other things. That was their chief stock in trade, by the way: name-calling and labelling."
The Adjustor gestured toward the slide-files. "I must have five hundred spools transcribed there," he calculated. "All of it from books—nineteenth, twentieth, even early twenty-first century material. And it’s largely terminology, not technique. Psychotherapy was just like alchemy in those days. Everything was named and defined. Inability to cope with environment was minutely broken down into hundreds of categories, thousands of terms. There were ‘schools’ of therapy, with widely divergent theories and applications. And the crude attempts at technique they used—you wouldn’t believe it unless you studied what I have here! Everything from trying to ‘cure’ a disorder in one session by means of brain-surgery or electric shock to the other extreme of letting the ‘patient’ talk about his problems for thousands of hours over a period of years."
He smiled. "I’m afraid I’m letting my personal enthusiasm run away with me. After all, Henson, you aren’t interested in the historical aspects. But I did have a point I wanted to make. About the maturity of murder as a solution-concept."
Henson adjusted the posturchair as he listened.
"As I said, even back in the twentieth century, they were beginning to get a hint of the answer. It was painfully apparent that some of the techniques I mention weren’t working at all. ‘Sublimation’ and ‘catharsis’ helped but did not cure in a majority of cases. Physical therapy altered and warped the personality. And all the while, the answer lay right before their eyes.
"Let’s take your twentieth-century counterpart for an example. Man named Henson, who was jealous of his wife. He might go to an analyst for years without relief. Whereas if he did the sensible thing, he’d take an axe to her and kill her.