Henson was finally forced to agree. He and Lita had both given their immobilization commands to the surrogates, and they were placed in their metal cabinets ready to be filed away—"Just like corpses!" Lita had shuddered. "We’re looking at ourselves after we’re dead."
And that had ended the episode. For a while, Henson made suggestions about using the surrogates—there were occasions he’d have liked to take advantage of a substitute for token public appearances—but Lita continued to object. And so, for two years now, the robots had been on file. Henson paid his taxes and fees on them annually and that was all.
That was all, until lately. Until Lita’s unexplained silences and still more inexplicable absences had started Henson thinking. Thinking and worrying. Worrying and watching. Watching and waiting. Waiting to catch her, waiting to kill her—
So he’d remembered psychotherapy, and had gone to his Adjustor. Lucky the man was a friend of his; a friend of both of them, rather. Actually, Lita had known him longer than her husband. But they’d been very close, the three of them, and he knew the Adjustor would understand.
He could trust the Adjustor not to tell Lita. He could trust the Adjustor to have everything ready and waiting for him now.
Henson went up to the office. The papers were ready for him to sign. The two metal boxes containing the surrogates were already placed on the loaders ready for transport to wherever he designated. But the Adjustor wasn’t on hand to greet him.
"Special assignment in Manila," the Second explained to him. "But he left instructions about your case, Mr. Henson. All you have to do is sign the responsibility slips. And of course, you’ll be in Monday for the official report."
Henson nodded. Now that the moment was so near at hand he was impatient of details. He could scarcely wait until the micro-dupes were completed and the Register Board signalled clearance. Two common robots were requisitioned to carry the metal cases down to the gyro and load them in. Henson whizzed back home with them and they brought the cases up to his living-level. Then he dismissed them, and he was alone.
He was alone. He could open the cases now. First, his own. He slid back the cover, gazed down at the perfect duplicate of his own body, sleeping peacefully for two serene years since its creation. Henson stared curiously at his pseudo-countenance. He’d aged a bit in two years, but the surrogate was ageless. It could survive the ravage of centuries, and it was always at peace. Always at peace. He almost envied it. The surrogate didn’t love, couldn’t hate, wouldn’t know the gnawing torture of suspicion that led to this shaking, quaking, aching lust to kill—
Henson shoved the lid back and lifted the metal case upright, then dragged it along the wall to a storage cabinet. A domestic-model could have done it for him, but Lita didn’t like domestic-models. She wouldn’t permit even a common robot in her home.
Lita and her likes and dislikes! Damn her and them too!
Henson ripped the lid down on the second file.
There she was; the beautiful, harlot-eyed, blonde, lying, adorable, dirty, gorgeous, loathsome, heavenly, filthy little goddess of a slut!
He remembered the command word to awake her. It almost choked him now but he said it.
"Beloved!"
Nothing happened. Then he realized why. He’d been almost snarling. He had to change the pitch of his voice. He tried again, softly. "Beloved!"
She moved. Her breasts rose and fell, rose and fell. She opened her eyes. She held out her arms and smiled. She stood up and came close to him, without a word.
Henson stared at her. She was newly-born and innocent, she had no secrets, she wouldn’t betray him. How could he harm her? How could he harm her when she lifted her face in expectation of a kiss?
But she was Lita. He had to remember that. She was Lita, and Lita was hiding something from him and she must be punished, would be punished.
Suddenly, Henson became conscious of his hands. There was a tingling in his wrists and it ran down through the strong muscles and sinews to the fingers, and the fingers flexed and unflexed with exultant vigor, and then they rose and curled around the surrogate’s throat, around Lita’s throat, and they were squeezing and squeezing and the surrogate, Lita, tried to move away and the scream was almost real and the popping eyes were almost real and the purpling face was almost real, only nothing was real any more except the hands and the choking and the surging sensation of strength.
And then it was over. He dragged the limp, dangling mechanism (it was only a mechanism now, just as the hate was only a memory) to the waste-jet and fed the surrogate to the flame. He turned the aperture wide and thrust the metal case in, too.
Then Henson slept, and he did not dream. For the first time in months he did not dream, because it was over and he was himself again. The therapy was complete.
"So that’s how it was." Henson sat in the Adjustor’s office, and the Monday morning sun was strong on his face.
"Good." The Adjustor smiled and ran a hand across the top of his curly head. "And how did you and Lita enjoy your weekend? Fish biting?"
"We didn’t fish," said Henson. "We talked."
"Oh?"
"I figured I’d have to tell her what happened, sooner or later. So I did."
"How did she take it?"
"Very well, at first."
"And then—?"
"I asked her some questions."
"Yes."
"She answered them."
"You mean she told you what she’d been hiding?"
"Not willingly. But she told me. After I told her about my own little check-up."
"What was that?"
"I did some calling Friday night. She wasn’t in Saigon with her mother."
"No?"
"And you weren’t in Manila on a special case, either." Henson leaned forward. "The two of you were together, in New Singapore! I checked it and she admitted it."
The Adjustor sighed. "So now you know," he said.
"Yes. Now I know. Now I know what she’s been concealing from me. What you’ve both been concealing."
"Surely you’re not jealous about that?" the Adjustor asked. "Not in this modern day and age when—"
"She says she wants to have a child by you," Henson said. "She refused to bear one for me. But she wants yours. She told me so."
"What do you want to do about it?" the Adjustor asked.
"You tell me," Henson murmured. "That’s why I’ve come to you. You’re my Adjustor."
"What would you like to do?"
"I’d like to kill you," Henson said. "I’d like to blow off the top of your head with a pocket-blast."
"Not a bad idea." The Adjustor nodded. "I’ll have my robot ready whenever you say."
"At my place," said Henson. "Tonight."
"Good enough. I’ll send it there to you."
"One thing more." Henson gulped for a moment. "In order for it to do any good, Lita must watch."
It was the Adjustor’s turn to gulp, now. "You mean you’re going to force her to see you go through with this?"
"I told her and she agreed," Henson said.
"But, think of the effect on her, man!"
"Think of the effect on me. Do you want me to go mad?"
"No," said the Adjustor. "You’re right. It’s therapy. I’ll send the robot around at eight. Do you need a pocket-blast requisition?"
"I have one," said Henson.
"What instructions shall I give my surrogate?" the Adjustor asked.
Henson told him. He was brutally explicit, and midway in his statement the Adjustor looked away, coloring. "So the two of you will be together, just as if you were real, and then I’ll come in and—"
The Adjustor shuddered a little, then managed a smile. "Sound therapy," he said. "If that’s the way you want it, that’s the way it will be."