And the three of them went babbling off while he let himself be vacuumed upstairs through the air flue and set about dressing himself. A minute later Lydia appeared.
"I’ll be glad when we get away," she sighed.
"Did you leave them in the nursery?"
"I wanted to dress too. Oh, that horrid Africa. What can they see in it?"
"Well, in five minutes we’ll be on our way to Iowa. Lord, how did we ever get in this house? What prompted us to buy a nightmare?"
"Pride, money, foolishness."
"I think we’d better get downstairs before those kids get engrossed with those damned beasts again."
Just then they heard the children calling, "Daddy, Mommy, come quick—quick!"
They went downstairs in the air flue and ran down the hall. The children were nowhere in sight. "Wendy? Peter!"
They ran into the nursery. The veldtland was empty save for the lions waiting, looking at them. "Peter, Wendy?"
The door slammed.
"Wendy, Peter!"
George Hadley and his wife whirled and ran back to the door.
"Open the door!" cried George Hadley, trying the knob. "Why, they’ve locked it from the outside! Peter!" He beat at the door. "Open up!"
He heard Peter’s voice outside, against the door.
"Don’t let them switch off the nursery and the house," he was saying.
Mr. and Mrs. George Hadley beat at the door. "Now, don’t be ridiculous, children. It’s time to go. Mr. McClean’ll be here in a minute and…"
And then they heard the sounds.
The lions on three sides of them, in the yellow veldt grass, padding through the dry straw, rumbling and roaring in their throats.
The lions.
Mr. Hadley looked at his wife and they turned and looked back at the beasts edging slowly forward crouching, tails stiff.
Mr. and Mrs. Hadley screamed.
And suddenly they realized why those other screams had sounded familiar.
"Well, here I am," said David McClean in the nursery doorway, "Oh, hello." He stared at the two children seated in the center of the open glade eating a little picnic lunch. Beyond them was the water hole and the yellow veldtland; above was the hot sun. He began to perspire. "Where are your father and mother?"
The children looked up and smiled. "Oh, they’ll be here directly."
"Good, we must get going." At a distance Mr. McClean saw the lions fighting and clawing and then quieting down to feed in silence under the shady trees.
He squinted at the lions with his hand tip to his eyes.
Now the lions were done feeding. They moved to the water hole to drink.
A shadow flickered over Mr. McClean’s hot face. Many shadows flickered. The vultures were dropping down the blazing sky.
"A cup of tea?" asked Wendy in the silence.
The Illustrated Man shifted in his sleep. He turned, and each time he turned another picture came to view, coloring his back, his arm, his wrist. He flung a hand over the dry night grass. The fingers uncurled and there upon his palm another Illustration stirred to life. He twisted, and on his chest was an empty space of stars and blackness, deep, deep, and something moving among those stars, something falling in the blackness, falling while I watched…
(1950)
THERE WILL BE SCHOOL TOMORROW
V. E. Thiessen
Nothing is known of V. E. Thiessen, beyond the handful of stories he wrote for the pulps between 1946 and 1956. "There Will Be School Tomorrow" was the last of them.
Evening had begun to fall. In the cities the clamor softened along the streets, and the women made small, comfortable, rattling noises in the kitchens. Out in the country the cicadas started their singing, and the cool smell began to rise out of the earth. But everywhere, in the cities and in the country, the children were late from school.
There were a few calls, but the robotic telephone devices at the schools gave back the standard answer: "The schools are closed for the day. If you will leave a message it will be recorded for tomorrow."
The telephones between houses began to ring. "Is Johnny home from school yet?"
"No. Is Jane?"
"Not yet. I wonder what can be keeping them?"
"Something new, I guess. Oh, well, the roboteachers know best. They will be home soon."
"Yes, of course. It’s foolish to worry."
The children did not come.
After a time a few cars were driven to the schools. They were met by the robots. The worried parents were escorted inside. But the children did not come home.
And then, just as alarm was beginning to stir all over the land, the robots came walking, all of the robots from the grade schools, and the high schools, and the colleges. All of the school system walking, with the roboteachers saying, "Let us go into the house where you can sit down." All over the streets of the cities and the walks in the country the robots were entering houses.
"What’s happened to my children?"
"If you will go inside and sit down—"
"What’s happened to my children? Tell me now!"
"If you will go inside and sit down—"
Steel and electrons and wires and robotic brains were inflexible. How can you force steel to speak? All over the land the people went inside and sat nervously waiting an explanation.
There was no one out on the streets. From inside the houses came the sound of surprise and agony. After a time there was silence. The robots came out of the houses and went walking back to the schools. In the cities and in the country there was the strange and sudden silence of tragedy.
The children did not come home.
The morning before the robots walked, Johnny Malone, the Mayor’s son, bounced out of bed with a burst of energy. Skinning out of his pajamas and into a pair of trousers, he hurried, barefooted, into his mother’s bedroom. She was sleeping soundly, and he touched one shoulder hesitantly.
"Mother!"
The sleeping figure stirred. His mother’s face, still faintly shiny with hormone cream, turned toward him. She opened her eyes. Her voice was irritated.
"What is it, Johnny?"
"Today’s the day, mommy. Remember?"
"The day?" Eyebrows raised.
"The new school opens. Now we’ll have roboteachers like everyone else. Will you fix my breakfast, mother?"
"Amelia will fix you something."
"Aw, mother. Amelia’s just a robot. This is a special day. And I want my daddy to help me with my arithmetic before I go. I don’t want the roboteacher to think I’m dumb."
His mother frowned in deepening irritation. "Now, there’s no reason why Amelia can’t get your breakfast like she always does. And I doubt if it would be wise to wake your father. You know he likes to sleep in the morning. Now, you go on out of here and let me sleep."
Johnny Malone turned away, fighting himself for a moment, for he knew he was too big to cry. He walked more slowly now and entered his father’s room. He had to shake his father to awaken him.
"Daddy! Wake up, daddy!"
"What in the devil? Oh, Johnny." His father’s eyes were sleepily bleak. "What in thunder do you want?"
"Today’s the first day of roboteachers. I can’t work my arithmetic. Will you help me before I go to school?"
His father stared at him in amazement. "Just what in the devil do you think roboteachers are for? They’re supposed to teach you. If you knew arithmetic we wouldn’t need roboteachers."
"But the roboteachers may be angry if I don’t have my lesson."
Johnny Malone’s father turned on one elbow. "Listen, son," he said. "If those roboteachers give you any trouble you just tell them you’re the Mayor’s son, see. Now get the devil out of here. What’s her name—that servorobot—Amelia will get your breakfast and get you off to school. Now suppose you beat it out of here and let me go back to sleep."