Nearly Complete Short Fiction, page 57
“Type a companion script for me based on each speech in the original that I’ve underlined, a gag variation on the statement. That’s what I memorize to give the famous ad-lib effect—but you don’t have to know that. Start typing.”
Without a word, the robot flipped through the sheaf of papers handed to him, instantly “memorizing” on his microwire files every word in them.
Then he dropped the script on the floor again and walked over to the electric typewriter. He pushed the chair in front of it aside. His torso slid down his metallic legs until he was just at the right height for typing. He went to work. Paper boiled up out of the machine.
Lester watched admiringly. “If only his ideas are half as funny as they are fast—hello!” He picked the sheaf of typescript off the floor to which Rupert had returned it and set it on a table. “Never did that before. Used to be the neatest piece of machinery on the planet, always picking up after me. But—well, genius has the right to be temperamental!” The phone buzzed almost affirmatively.
He grinned and caught the phone as it bounded into his hands. “Radio Central,” said the mouthpiece. “Miss Josephine Lissy calling. Will you take it on your scrambler or on hers?”
“Mine. LY—one hundred thirty-four—YJ. Check.”
“Double-check. Here’s your party.”
The radio phone sputtered as it adjusted to Lester’s personal scrambling system that meant privacy for a conversation on a wavelength shared by millions. A girl with hair as brightly carrotty as Lester’s appeared in the tiny screen above the mouthpiece.
“Hi, Red,” she smiled. “Know something? Jo loves Lester.”
“Smart girl—smart. Wait a minute while I get you transferred. Looking at you on this thing strains my eyes—besides, there isn’t enough of you.”
He twirled a dial, translated the phone’s vibrations into the frequency of the doorscreen. Then, while the instrument whizzed back into place on the ceiling, he made a similar adjustment on the doorscreen manual dials, setting it for interior reception.
JOSEPHINE LISSY’S image was radiant above the imitation radiator as he sighed down into the couch.
“Look, funnyman, this is no love-call. I’ll get right down to the killing and booing. Green and Anderson have blabbed to Haskell.”
“What!” He leaped to his feet. “I’ll sue them! I can too—the mutual release they signed specified that my use of gag-writers was not to be made public.” She shrugged. “A lot that’ll help you. Besides, they didn’t publicize it—just told it to Haskell. You couldn’t even prove that. All I got was grapevine to the effect that Haskell is screaming over to see you.
“Green and Anderson have convinced him that without memorizing their gag copy on the straight part of the show you won’t even be able to ad-lib a burp. Haskell doesn’t give an over-worked flash whether or not it is ad-lib—he’s just scared that the first program under his sponsorship will be a flop.”
Lester grinned. “Don’t worry, Jo. With any luck—”
“My sacred aunt’s favorite space-opera!” she squealed. “What’s that?” That was an ear-splitting series of clanks, bumps, singing metal and sirenlike shrieks. Lester whirled.
Rupert had finished typing. He held the long sheet of completed copy between purple fingers and shook over it. Whirr, he went. Glongety-glonk. Pingle, pingle, pingle. Ka-zam! He sounded like a cement-mixer inside a cement-mixer.
“Oh, that’s Rupert. He’s got a kink in his exhaust—makes like a mindless sense of humor. Of course he isn’t human but does he seem to go for his own stuff! Come here, Rupert!”
The robot stopped clattering and slid up his legs to his full height. He walked to the doorscreen.
“When did they bring him back?” Jo asked. “Did they put all the stuff in him that you—why, they’ve ruined him! He looks like a case of dropsy—as if he has an abdominal ruff! And that beautiful expression on his face I designed—it’s all gone! He doesn’t look superior anymore, just sad—very sad. Poor Rupert!”
“Your imagination,” Lester told her. “Rupert can’t change his expression even if he wanted to. It’s all automatic, built in at the factory. Just because we call him by a name instead of the number cues we use on the rest of the household machinery doesn’t mean he has feelings. Outside of his duties as a valet, which he performs as imaginatively as a watch tells time, he’s just a glorified filing system with a wadjacallit—a variable modifier to select—”
“Oh, that isn’t so. Rupert has feelings, don’t you, Rupert?” she cooed at him in a small voice. “You remember me, Rupert? Jo. How are you, Rupert?” The robot stared silently at the screen.
“Of all the unquaint feminine conceits—”
There was a definite clang as Rupert’s heels smote together. He bowed stiffly from the hips. “Gins—” he began to say. His head went down majestically, kept on going down. It hit the floor with a terrific zok.
Jo became almost hysterical. Lester flapped his arms against his sides. Rupert, the back of his paunch peak-high in the air, rested stolidly respectful, his body making a right-angled triangle with the floor.
“—berg,” Rupert finished from where his face angled against the floor. He made no move to rise. He whurgled softly, reminiscently.
“Well?” Lester glowered at him. “Are you going to lie there and look silly all day? Get up!”
“H-he c-can’t,” Jo shrieked. “Th-they’ve shifted h-his center of gra-gravity and he can’t get up. If you ever do anything as funny as that bow over the teledar you’ll kill two hundred million innocent people!”
Lester the Jester grimaced and bent over his robot. He caught it round the shoulders and tugged. Very slowly, very reluctantly, Rupert straightened. He pointed at Jo’s image on the screen.
“That ain’t no lady,” he enunciated metallically. “That’s gonna be your wife. Or—it may not be Hades but brother it’s gonna be life! Or—she’s not shady, she’s only—”
“Can it!” Lester yelled. “And I do mean can it!”
He brooded while the robot went into another gear-clashing paroxysm. “My fine tile floor! The best mid-twentieth century floor in the whole tower and look at it! A dent the size of—”
Jo clucked at him. “I’ve told you a dozen times that they only used tiled floors in bathrooms in the forties and fifties. Mostly in bathrooms, anyway. And that imitation radiator and roll-top desk are from two widely separated periods—you just don’t have a sense of the antique, Lester me lad. Wait till we’ve thrown our handful of rice at each other—I’ll show you what a Roosevelt-era home really looks like. How are Rupert’s gags—on paper, I mean?”
“Don’t know yet. He’s just finished the script.” The screen fluoresced along an edge. “Better get off, Jo. Someone’s at the door. Call for me before the ’cast at the usual time. Bye.”
AT A signal from his master, the robot scuttled to the door and twenty-three’d at it. Two things happened simultaneously—the service mechanic from Rholg’s Custom-Built Robots walked in and Rupert’s head zokked against the floor.
Lester sighed and pulled Rupert straight again. “I hope he isn’t going to repeat that courtly gesture anytime someone comes here. I’ll have shell-holes all over the living room.”
“Has he done that before? That’s not good. Remember, all of his basic control units are in his head and a lot of them have just started meshing the new service patterns. He’s liable to fracture a bearing and go choo-choo. Like me to take him back to the plant for recalibration?”
“No, I don’t have time. I start ‘casting in two hours. That reminds me—did your techs build that word-scanner into his forehead?”
The mechanic nodded. “Sure. See that narrow green plate over his eyes? Just flip that to one side or have him do it whenever you want silent written transmission. The words will flow across like on a regular news sign. I came back for the key. Left it stuck in his neck and I’d be in one sweet fix if I got back to the factory without it.”
“Take it. I thought you were somebody else.” Lester turned to face the dumpy little man in a striped tunic who had just barged in through the open door. “Hello, Mr. Haskell. Would you have a seat? I’ll be with you in a moment.”
“Give me the key,” the mechanic commanded. Rupert pulled the Official Robot Master Key out of the back of his neck and held it out. The mechanic reached for it. Rupert dropped it.
“Well, I’ll be—” the man from Rholg’s started. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he did it on purpose.” He bent down to retrieve the key.
As his fingers closed over it, Rupert’s right hand flicked forward slightly. The man jumped to his feet and sprang backwards through the doorway.
“No you don’t!” he snarled. “Did you see what he was trying to do? Why—”
“Three-and-twenty,” said Rupert. The door slid shut, cutting off the service mechanic’s last statement. The robot came back into the apartment, clacking ever so slightly. His facial expression seemed even sadder than before—somehow disappointed.
“Two of those Lunar Landing specials,” his master told him. He waddled off to prepare them.
“Now look here, Lester,” John Haskell boomed in a voice surprising for his size. “I’ll come right to the point. I didn’t know you were using writers until Green and Anderson told me you’d fired them because they wouldn’t take a cut in salary. I go with them when they say they’ve made you the highest paid comedian in United Americas. Now this show tonight is only an option of a—”
“Wait up, sir. I wrote my own stuff before they came to work for me and they operated entirely from my personal gag files. I fired them because they demanded a higher percentage of my earnings than I got. I can still ad-lib with the best—”
“I don’t care whether you ad-lib or whether the stuff comes to you in a dream! I just want laughs on my program to get people in a proper frame of mind to hear my commercials. No, that’s not, what I mean—oh!” He reached out and grabbed one of the convoluted masses that Rupert had brought in and drained it rapidly. His face didn’t even change color. “Not strong enough. Tasteless. Needs stuff.”
The robot held the returned and empty receptacle for a moment and studied it. Then he bow-legged it back to the kitchen.
Lester decided that he didn’t agree with the president of Star-Gazers, Inc. This drink had wowie in every alcoholic drop. But the drinks at the Planet-masters Club where Haskell lived were reputedly powerful.
“All I care about is this,” Haskell was saying. “Can you work up a funny program tonight without Green and Anderson or can’t you? You may have a high comic rating but you’re only as good as your last ’casting—as they say in the industry. If Star-Gazers fail to pick up your thirteen-week option tonight after the trial ‘cast for our product, you’ll have to go back to daytime dope operas.”
“Sure, Mr. Haskell, sure. But take a look at this script and then make your comments.” Lester plucked the long sheet of copy out of the electric typewriter and handed it to the little man.
Dangerous, that. It might stink seven ways from Monday. But he hadn’t had time to read it himself. Rupert had better be good!
HE WAS, to judge from Haskell’s reaction. The president of Star-Gazers had roared himself into the antique swivel-chair and sat there shaking. “Wonderful!” he wiped the tears from his eyes. “Terrific! Almost but not quite, colossal! I apologize, Lester. You don’t need any gag-writers, you really do write comedy. Think you can memorize this before the program?”
“Shouldn’t be any trouble. I always have to use a little infra-scopolamine for a rush job anyway. And in case I need an ad-lib suddenly I’ve got my robot.”
“Robot? You mean him?” Mr. Haskell gestured to where Rupert stood whirring over his shoulder as he stared at the script. He pulled a dark spiral of tubing out of the purple hand, sucked at it.
“Yes, he has a gag file in his mid-section. He’ll stand out of camera range and anytime I need a gag I just look at him and the words are spelled out on the forehead scanner. Had it all inserted in my butler-valet combo by the Rholg—Mr. Haskell! What’s the matter?”
Haskell had dropped the tube. It lay on the floor, a thin wisp of black smoke steaming out of the open end. “Th-the drink,” Haskell said hoarsely. His face, after experimenting with red, green and lavender for a while, compromised and settled on all three in a sort of alternated mottled arrangement. “Where’s your—your—”
“In there! Second door to the left!” The little man scurried off, his body low. He seemed to have lost all of his bones.
“Now what can—” Lester sniffed at the spiral drinking tube. “A-aargh!” He was abruptly aware that Rupert was going whirretty-whirretty-klonk. “Rupert, what did you put in that drink?”
“He asked for something stronger, more tasty—”
“What did you put in that drink?”
The robot considered. “Five parts—(whizz-clang)—castor oil to three parts—(bing-bong)—Worcestershire sauce to—(Unkle-tinkle-burr-r-r)—four parts essence of red pepper—(g-r-rang)—to one part Cro—”
Lester whistled and the phone leaped into his hand. “Radio Central? Hospital emergency and I mean emerge! Lester the Jester, Artist’s Tower, apartment one thousand and six. Hurry!” He ran down the hall to help his guest sit on his stomach.
When the interne saw the brightly-colored mess Haskell was becoming, he shook his head. “Let’s get him in the stretcher and out!”
Rupert stood in the corner of the living room as the stretcher, secure in the grip of the interne’s beamlock, floated through the door. “Musta been something he et,” he clacked.
The interne glared back. “A comedian!”
Lester hurriedly drank three Lunar Landings. He mixed them himself. He had just finished memorizing the so-called ad-lib script with the aid of a heavy dose of infra-scopolamine when Jo breezed in. Rupert opened the door for her. Clang. Zok.
“You know, he’s been doing this all day,” Lester told her as he tugged the robot upright again. “And not only is he adding an original design to my floor but I suspect that he’s not helping his bedamned mental processes any. Of course, he’s obeyed me completely so far and all of his practical jokes have been aimed at others. . . .”
Rupert rolled something around in his mouth. Then he pursed his lips. Multi-linked wrinkles appeared in his cheeks. He spat.
A brass hexagonal nut bounced against the floor. The three of them stared at it. Finally, Jo raised her head.
“What practical jokes?”
Lester told her.
“Whew! You’re lucky your contract has a personal immunity clause. Otherwise Haskell could sue you from Patagonia to Nome. But he still won’t feel any affection for you, any real affection. He’ll probably live, though. Get into your costume.”
AS LESTER hustled into his spangled red suit in the next room, he called at her, “What’re you singing tonight?”
“Why don’t you come to a rehearsal sometime and find out?”
“Have to keep up my impromptu reputation. What is it?”
“Oh, ‘Subjective Me, Objective You from Googy Garcia’s latest hit—Love Among the Asteroids. This robot of yours may write good comedy but he sure is a bust as a butler. The junk he leaves scattered around. Paper, cigarettes, drink-tubes! When I enter your life on a permanent basis, young feller . . .” Her voice died as she bent and began picking up the litter from the floor of the living room. Behind her Rupert meditated at her back. “Whirr?” he went.
His right hand flashed up. He came at her fast. He reached her.
“Yeeee-eeee!” Jo screamed as she climbed halfway up the opposite wall. She turned as she came down. Her eyes literally crackled.
“Who—what—” she began menacingly. Then she noticed Rupert standing, his hand still out, all of his machinery going whistle-clong-ka-bankle all at once.
“Why, he’s laughing at me! Think it funny do you, you mechanical masher?” She sped at him in fury, her right hand going far back for a terrific slap.
Lester had torn out of the kitchen when she screamed. Now he saw her hand whistling around in a great arc, almost at Rupert’s face.
“Jo!” he yelled. “Not in the head!” Moing-g-g-g-g-g!
* * * * *
“Think you’ll be all right, Miss Lissy,” the doctor said. “Just keep your hand in this cast for two weeks. Then we’ll X-ray again.”
“Let’s get started for the studio, Jo,” Lester said nervously. “We’ll be late. Shame this had to happen.”
“Isn’t it though? But before I let you accompany me anywhere I want to get one thing straight. You get rid of Rupert.”
“But, Jo darling, honey, sweet, do you know what a writer he is?”
“I don’t care. I wouldn’t think of bringing children up in a home that he infested. According to the Robot Laws you have to keep him at home. I frankly think he’s gone dotty in a humorous way. But I don’t like it. So—you’ll have to choose between me and that gear-happy gagman.” She smoothed the cast on her arm as she waited for his reply.
Now Rupert, in his present condition—for all of his eccentricities—meant that Lester’s career as a comedian was assured, that never again would he have to worry about material, that he was set for life. On the other hand, he doubted he’d ever meet a woman who was as close to what he wanted in a wife as Jo. She was—well, Lester’s ideal—she alone among the girls he knew met his requirements for a successful marriage.
It was a clear choice between money and the woman he loved.
“Well,” Lester told Jo at last. “We can still be good friends?”
Jo was finishing her song by the time he arrived at the studio. She didn’t even glower at him as she walked away from the camera-mikes. The commercial began.
Lester stationed Rupert against the wall of the control booth where no camera could pick up a view of his purple body. Then he joined the other actors under the dead camera who were waiting for the end of the commercial before starting their combination drama and comedy.
