“Can’t, or won’t?” Parric said before Jessica could stop him, but Coates ignored him.

  “Listen,” Coates said, leaning closer, “you’ll all have to stay there for the time being. As far as I can tell, it won’t be for very long. Just keep the channel open. In case.” He glanced to one side, nodded, and looked back. “Frankie, watch out for those children of mine. I wouldn’t want them getting hurt.”

  And he was gone, fading into a starpoint before Parric could snap back.

  Silence, then, that cloaked in ritual fashion the fear and accentuated the relief. Only minor outbreaks. They would not die. Riots. They will not die.

  Ike pushed aside his armchair and began experiment­ing with the barcab, trying to circumvent the preset liquors that barely had time to settle in a glass before they sheathed his throat. He offered one first to Jessica, who refused, and then to Parric, who took the glass, emptied it, and handed it back for another. Ike nodded in surprise, but Parric would not stay with him, walking instead to the front door.

  “Join me?” he asked no one in particular and stepped outside without hearing an answer.

  The street was deserted, lights glaring like lanterns across the cityless black night. He looked up and out from under the overhang of the porch roof and stared at the stars slightly blurred by the barrier that closed him out, protected him in. He pushed, probing, grasping with what he had for something he could not have. Alpha could not hear him when he whispered, “They’ve done it. Oh, my God, they’ve done it.”

  Wrenching from a place he had not known was so deep within him, a sob shattered the still evening and there was a coolness and warmth on his cheeks that he wiped away quickly in unreasoning shame.

  On alternate blocks streetlamps popped on to com­plement the charade.

  “You know, there’ve been times when I’ve forgot­ten you’re really human,” Jessica said quietly. Then, “I’m sorry. I’ve known you less than a day and I had to say that of all things. I’m sorry.”

  Though knowing he should have been angered, he could only lift a weak hand in silent absolution. “You said you were married once.”

  She said nothing, clucked her tongue as if to dismiss it.

  “Contract, was it, or were you a lifer?”

  “Lifer,” she said after they’d listened to a glass break inside, and another. “He gets violent when he’s depressed.”

  “Nice guy.”

  “He died. My husband, that is. During the Arabian Wars.”

  “I … I missed it,” he said in an odd, token apology. “Too young, they said.”

  “So was he, but he wanted a ribbon.”

  Motionless, then, they danced around each other’s sorrow without scaling the walls that separated them. In silence.

  Lights, like torches thrust into caverns, glared from the lower floors of most of the houses along the street. A door slammed, and another. Parric shuddered away the tension that had cocooned him and watched as old man Dix shambled across the road away from him. Invisible, visible, he moved from black to the serrated pools of streetlamp glow.

  Now where? Parric took a step down, remembered Jessica, and asked if she wanted to go with him.

  “Where?”

  “Funny,” he said. “I was just asking myself that same thing. A walk, I guess, to see how the children are doing with this their first real crisis.”

  “I don’t know. No. I think I’ll stick around and wait for Floyd to call back.”

  “If he does, that is,” Parric said, walking away. “I wouldn’t stay up all night if I were you. It’s not like we were in the middle of all that red, you know.”

  “You really don’t care all that much, do you?”

  He didn’t answer, less interested in himself than he was in the sight of Dix skipping from curb to curb. What he didn’t need now, he thought as he lengthened his stride, was a senile android without any replace­ment parts.

  He caught up two blocks from the clinic and leaned against a tree while Dix, the lenses of his glasses shining, sat down in the center of the road and began humming to himself.

  “You all right, Mr. Dix?” Parric said, not leaving his spot. There was one thing that had been dunned into him a thousand times during his orientation, and it was simply that an android, when programming skittered, could be uncomfortably strong and unpredictable. The odds of that happening, he had also been told, were infinitesimally small.

  “Just passing time, doc,” the old one said. “Passing the time and looking at the moon. Nice day, isn’t it?”

  “Sure is,” Parric said. “A little chilly, though. Don’t you think you ought to get inside before you come down with something?”

  “A man my age doesn’t have to worry about those things, youngster. I’m going to die sooner or later, and it might as well be now as then.”

  “Bad attitude,” Parric said, deciding Dix was harm­less and stepping down off the curb. “You’re needed, you know.”

  “By whom?”

  “By me, for one. Who would I fight with if you get away from me?”

  “Then why are you always talking about sending me to that McLeod fella somewhere over the hill?”

  “Because you’re impossible.”

  Dix rocked slowly, began humming again, and did not protest when Parric took hold of an arm and lifted. Cautiously. Unlimbering, like a balloon filling, Dix stood, swaying until his balance returned. They walked, slowly, until they reached Dix’s house and Parric bade him goodnight.

  “Sorry for the trouble, doc.”

  “Forget it,” Parric said. “That’s what I’m here for, remember?”

  Watching as the front door closed and the light was shut off, Parric discovered he was cutting into his palms with his nails, and his upper arms were shaking. Care­fully measuring his tread, he blew out a deep breath and decided to deactivate the old man as soon as he could get him to the clinic. There was something seriously wrong within the system that he could not figure out, and he was not about to let the android stick around long enough to become murderous.

  Meanwhile, there was the war to worry about. Brother, he thought, it’s going to be a hell of a day.

  “Doctor!”

  This time he was prepared when Mrs. Keller raced toward him. He held out his hands and caught her by her shoulders, grasping them and spinning around until her energy was spent.

  “Now what?”

  “Is that any way to talk to a patient, Doctor Parric? I’m in trouble and I need your assistance.”

  Code. Parric immediately guided her to the nearest light and stared into her face, looking for the telltale squint that indicated a lens malfunction, the one posi­tive sign of a deeper disturbance. Oddly, there was nothing, but she continued to repeat the encoded call for help.

  “Mrs. Keller, there doesn’t seem to be anything seriously wrong, but perhaps we ought to go to the clinic.”

  After she readily agreed, he checked his pocket to see if he still had the key, then hurried to the office, tore back her dress, and opened the skin. The diagunit had already proceeded with the cursory, daily check when he rerouted to comprehensive and listened as the android recited the minutely detailed report of what it had done during the day. Except for an unaccountable stammering and a half dozen breaks in the narrative for the emergency signal, he could tell nothing, and after glancing through the test results before sending them to the Central, was still ignorant of her condition.

  “I don’t get it, Mrs. Keller. Nothing at all seems to be the matter with you.”

  “That’s strange,” she said, straightening her clothes. “I feel just fine.”

  Parric only looked at her.

  “But thanks anyway. I hope you’re feeling better,” she said, and left him standing in the office, the diagunit patiently waiting behind him.

  “Yes,” he said finally, “I definitely need a vaca­tion.”

  Outside, he saw Ike striding toward him, leaning forward as if combating a hurricane wind.

  “Coates wants you,” Ike said, grabbing his arm and tugging. “He won’t say why, but when he takes those damned glasses off, he’s either planning to fire you or run you for President.”

  True enough, Parric thought, having seen that gesture many times empty a desk at Everlasting, but he had the feeling that his previous life as a nobody in a nothing business was not the type of material Lupozny was searching for in his preparation of the android documentary.

  And in the living room he saw Jessica step quickly back from the screen, and Coates nervously rubbing his glasses against his chest.

  “About time,” the supervisor said. “You always run off like that in the middle of the night?”

  “Trouble,” Parric said, expecting the matter to drop, surprised to see Coates replace his eyepieces and stare.

  “What kind? Those androids?”

  “You win,” Parric said, looking to the others for explanations and receiving only shrugs in return. Care­fully, then, he explained what had happened to Mrs. Keller and Dix.

  “Thought as much,” Coates said brusquely. “Now listen carefully because there’s no time for questions. Pretty soon now I’ll be leaving for another office. I doubt very much that I’ll be talking to you again; at least not soon. There’s been a spillover from that damnable war on both our coasts. It’s bad and getting worse. We don’t expect casualties to climb as high as the immediate war zones, but we’ve got massive panic on our hands in most urban areas and the most important thing right now is to try to regain some sane stability. That won’t be easy, nor will it happen soon.”

  “We’ll pack,” Ike said.

  “Don’t bother. You’re staying right where you are. The dangerous infection period is something less than forty-eight hours—though that’s plenty long enough for efficiency—and your particular area should be brushed by the plague winds in less than … damn it, you should have been told before! The winds should have passed over you just after 2400 yesterday. Since you’re all still alive and show no symptoms, I’m assuming the Town’s protection at least spared you that unpleasantness. I wish I could say the same for the others.”

  “McLeod!” Parric said, unable to refrain from inter­rupting.

  “Relax. At last word he was fine. Some of the others, however, lost their pin-sized heads and ran off. Which brings us to our children.”

  Parric groped behind him and sat on the arm of a chair already occupied by Jessica. She touched him once, left him alone, and Coates took time out to smile.

  “Nice,” he said. “At least you’re friends.”

  “Not exactly,” Jessica said. “But we get along. You might say we understand each other.”

  “I thought you would.”

  “Meaning?” Parric said.

  “Forget it for now. I haven’t much time. Wait a minute …” and the screen blanked as Coates’ face disappeared. There seemed to be a partition of sorts blocking a clear view of the room the supervisor was in, and the implication did not settle well in Parric’s already protesting nerve centers. Ike, meanwhile, had run into the back room and had returned with several cases of recorders which he arranged in a semicircle in front of the wall.

  “Blackmail?” Parric said.

  “History,” Ike snapped. “You gotta have faith, brother Parric.”

  “Forget it,” Jessica said. “You’re talking to the—“

  “Okay,” Coates said, reappearing, this time wearing a bulky outergarment. “Time’s almost up. You’re the last Town to know so listen and learn. The Town’s barriers are not completely plague preventative. They can’t be or you wouldn’t have any air to breathe at all. What it boils down to is that one strain of this plague can have an effect on the androids’ biomechanism filaments. Frankie, you’ve already seen what it can do, generally nothing more than a temporary upset. There have been reported cases, however, when the androids get downright nasty. Obviously, the human synthidotes are useless here, but we’re working on that as fast as we can. Which, I know, doesn’t do you a hell of a lot of good, but it’s all we’ve got at the moment. You have to be careful, Frank. You are ordered to deactivate as many of them as you can before the night is over. Don’t take chances, of course, but try not to abandon the Town for another twenty-four hours, should that move become necessary. Your biggest problems will most likely come from the outlying towns still functioning with human populations.”

  “Why?” Jessica asked unnecessarily.

  “You insist on interrupting me.”

  “My prerogative,” she said.

  “Would you mind?” Parric said, his annoyance carrying him to his feet as if getting closer to Coates’ image would allow him to hear better.

  “Thank you, Frank,” Coates said. “Simply, Jess, the smaller towns have taken advantage of the situa­tion, and not surprisingly either. Local small fry have made themselves big, that sort of thing. They’ve also been fed a lot of half-truths through the trivid about the Towns. Don’t,” he said, louder, “tell me the project was supposed to be a big dark secret. You know it, I know it, but a Cabinet member, rest his plague-pocked soul, decided it wasn’t worth the bother with the world going to hell. Now there are a lot of people who believe you’ve been testing these strains and have accidentally let them loose. Neither you nor the children are very popular.”

  “Fools,” Patric said.

  “You’re interrupting,” Jessica said.

  “No matter,” Coates said, “I have to go now.”

  Instantly, the three were arrayed in front of the comunit. But there was nothing they could say. Coates surveyed them, nodded a rueful smile, and his hand grew as he reached out to break the connection. Parric was the first at the barcab.

  “Anyone want to listen to the news?” Jessica said.

  “Forget it,” Ike said as he collected his equipment.

  “No need right now,” Parric agreed. “We know all we have to. What we’ve got to do is stay put until we’re told otherwise. Obviously, Floyd places high values on this Town.”

  Jessica worried at her hair, then crossed the room and pulled an armless lounge in front of the windows. She pushed at the cushioned curves top and bottom, then stretched out, slapping at its sides until she realized it was static.

  “You frightened?” Parric said.

  “Her?” Ike’s hand grabbed an offered glass as he returned from the back room. “Listen, doc, we’ve been in riots from Fairbanks to Managua, and she hasn’t lost a hair once. Whenever the ContiGuard has to move in somewhere, she’s usually right behind the first man. She has this compulsion about suicide, you see. I just wish she’d leave me out of it.”

  “How real are they?” she asked, pointing out the window before closing her eyes and folding her hands beneath her head.

  Parric watched her settling, unwillingly comparing her finely soft features to his own distorted ones: a nose too large, a chin too small, eyes that burrowed away from the world beneath brows that were thick and overhanging. He blinked and caught Ike smiling, watching him as he unconsciously traced a finger along the short road of his jaw. The photographer must have seen this reaction to his partner in a hundred men, and the thought made Parric angry.

  “Real enough,” he said when she repeated her ques­tion. “They have the same outward emotional re­sponses and reactions that we do, though the popular notion of a continuously running recording tape is to­tally erroneous. There is, if I understand it correctly, a patch of filaments with microdotted impulse centers connected to the android’s so-called brain which interact in such a way as to make near perfect charlatans of them. It’s those filament brushes that Floyd is wor­ried about. Partly metallic, partially a synthetic cellular structure, they’re ordinarily immune to diseases of our flesh.”

  “Ordinarily,” Ike said sourly.

  “Their only fault, that I’ve been able to see, is that because they’re also delicate mechanisms, their physi­cal reactions are slightly faster than ours, to protect them from getting badly damaged. Normal falls, as I told you before, are one thing, but if you sneak up on one and club him over the head as hard as you can, this time he won’t go down. Unless, that is, he’s been programmed otherwise, which most of the ones we’re using haven’t been.”

  “Well, why not?”

  “Protection, m’dear,” Ike said with a look to Parric. “Clout a man over the head and you’ll usually bash in a fair chunk of his skull. Do the same to one of these … things, and he has to know he’s in danger in order to protect himself.”

  “Right,” Parric said. “If an android drops to the ground because he’s been attacked, the odds are he’ll be hit again, and maybe destroyed.”

  “But why?”

  “Because, for one thing, androids don’t bleed. And if he doesn’t bleed, the attacker thinks he hasn’t done the job properly, and he strikes again. And if he sees that what he has is an android, he’ll make damned sure he does it right. This is all hypothetical, of course, and statistically improbable, but you can be sure that if you hit an android hard enough he’ll protect himself just as hard, and believe me, he can do a fine job on a man’s arm.”

  “Ask a simple question, I get a lecture,” Jessica said.

  “He’s programmed that way,” Ike said, laughing until he realized Parric had not taken the joke well. “Sorry,” he said, but his grin remained long enough to prove he hadn’t meant it.

  “I’ve got to get to the clinic,” Parric said suddenly. “Anyone want to go with me?”

  “Kind of late, isn’t it, doc?” Ike said.

  “You have a short memory,” Jessica said as she uncoiled from the lounge to follow Parric. “Those sweet little children of Floyd’s have to be put to sleep.”

  “Tuck them in for me,” Ike said, making himself comfortable on the floor near the barcab. “I’ve changed my mind. I want to keep an eye on the news in case something comes up we should know about.

 

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