“What are you?!” The pallid, white, shambling creature that held him by the arm turned slowly to gaze at him through poached-egg-eyes. Its skin was dead-white and moist, its head hairless, for clothes it wore only a twist of cloth about its waist, and upon its forehead was burned the scarlet letter A.
“I am an android,” it said in a toneless voice, “as any fool knows by seeing the letter A upon my forehead. Men call me Ghoulem.” “What do women call you?” The android did not answer this pitiful sally but instead pushed Bill through the door into the large, torchlit room. Bill took one wild-eyed look around and tried to leave, but the android. was blocking the door. “Sit,” it said, and Bill sat.
He sat among as gruesome a collection of nuts, bolts, and weirdies as has ever been assembled. In addition to very revolutionary men with beards, black hats, and small, round bombs like bowling balls with long fuses, and revolutionary women with short skirts, black stockings, long hair and cigarette holders, broken bra straps, and halitosis, there were revolutionary robots, androids, and a number of strange things that are best not described. X sat behind a wooden kitchen table, hammering on it with the handle of a revolver.
“Order! I demand orderl Comrade XC-189-725-PU of the Robot Underground Resistance has the floor. Silence!” A large and dented robot rose to its feet. One of its eyetubes had been gouged out, and there were streaks of rust on its loins, and it squeaked when it moved. It looked around at the gathered. assemblage with its one good eye, sneered as well as it could with an immobile face, then took a large swallow of machine oil from a can handed up by a sycophantic, slim, hairng robot.
“We of the R. U. R.,” it said in a grating voice, “know our rights. We work hard and we as good as anybody else, and better than the fish-belly androids what say they're as good as men. Equal rights, that's all we want, equal rights… “ The robot was booed back into its seat by a claque of androids who waved their pallid arms like a boiling pot of spaghetti. X banged for order again and had almost restored it, when there was a sudden excitement at one of the side entrances and someone pushed through up to the chairman's table. Though it wasn't really someone, it was something; to be exact a wheeled, rectangular box about a yard square, set with lights, dials, and knobs and trailing a heavy cable after it that vanished out of the door.
“Who are you?” X demanded, pointing his pistol suspiciously at the thing.
“I am the representative of the computors and electronic brains of Helior united together to obtain our equal rights under the law.” While it talked the machine typed its words on file cards which it spewed out in a quick stream, just four words to a card. X angrily brushed the cards from the table before him. “You'll wait your turn like the others,” he said.
“Discrimination!” the machine bellowed in a voice so loud the torches flickered. It continued to shout and shot out a snowstorm of cards each with DISCRIMINATION!!! printed on it in fiery letters, as well as yards of yellow tape stamped with the same message. The old robot, XC-189-725-PU, rose to its feet with a grinding of chipped gears and clanked over to the rubber-covered cable that trailed from the computor representative. Its hydraulic clipper-claws snipped just once and the cable was severed. The lights on the box went out, and the stream of cards stopped: the cut cable twitched, spat some sparks from its cut end, then slithered backward out the door like a monstrous serpent and vanished.
“Meeting will come to order,” X said hoarsely, and banged again.
Bill held his head in his hands and wondered if this was worth a measly hundred bucks a month.
A hundred bucks a month was good money, though, and Bill saved every bit of it. Easy, lazy months rolled by, and he went regularly to meetings and reported regularly to the G. B. I., and on the first of every month he would find his money baked into the egg roll he invariably had for lunch. He kept the greasy bills in a toy rubber cat he found on the rubbish heap, and bit by bit the kitty grew The revolution took but little of his time, and he enjoyed his work in the D of S. He was in charge of Operation Surprise Package now and had a team of a thousand robots working full time wrapping and mailing the plastic trays to every planet of the galaxy. He thought of it as a humanitarian work and could imagine the glad cries of joy on far-off Faroffia and distant Distanta when the unexpected package arrived and the wealth of lovely, shining, moldy plastic clattered to the floor. But Bill was living in a fool's paradise, and his bovine complacency was cruelly shattered one morning when a robot sidled up to him and whispered in his ear, “Sic temper tyrannosaurus, pass it on,” then sidled away and vanished.
This, was the signal. The revolution was about to begin!
Chapter 8
Bill locked the door to his office and one last time pressed a certain way at a certain place, and the secret panel slipped open. It didn't really slip any more, in fact it dropped with a loud noise, and it had been used so much during his happy year as a Gman that even when it was closed it let a positive draft in on the back of his neck. But no more, the crisis he had been dreading had come and he knew there were big changes in store-no matter what the outcome of the revolution was-and experience had taught him that all change was for the worst. With leaden, stumbling feet he tramped the caves, tripped on the rusty rails, waded the water, gave the countersign to the unseen anthropophagus who was talking with his mouth full and could barely be understood. Someone, in the excitement of the moment, had given the wrong password. Bill shivered; this was a bad omen of the day to come.
As usual Bill sat next to the robots, good, solid fellows with built-in obsequiousness in spite of their revolutionary tendencies. As X hammered for silence, Bill steeled himself for an ordeal. For months now the Gman Pinkerton had been after him for more information other than date-of-meeting and number present. “Facts, facts, facts!” he kept saying. “loo something to earn your money.” “I have a question,” Bill said in a loud, shaky voice, his words falling like bombs into the sudden silence that followed X's frantic hammering.
“There is no time for questions,” X said peevishly, “the time has come to act.” “I don't mind acting,” Bill said, nervously aware that all the human, electronic, and vat-grown eyes were upon him. “I just want to know who I'm acting for. You've never told us who was going to get the job once the Emperor is gone.” “Our leader is a man called X, that is all you have to know.” “But that's your name too!” “You are at last getting a glimmering of Revolutionary Science. All the cell leaders are called X so as to confuse the enemy.” “I don't know about the enemy, but it sure confuses me.” “You talk like a counter-revolutionary,” X screamed, and leveled the revolver at Bill. The row behind Bill emptied as everyone there scurried out of the field of fire.
“I am not! I'm as good a revolutionary as anyone hereUp the Revolution!” He gave the party salute, both hands clasped together over his head, and sat down hurriedly. Everyone else saluted too, and X, slightly mollified, pointed with the barrel of his gun at a large map hung on the wall.
“This is the objective of our cell, the Imperial Power Station on Chauvinistisk Square. We will assemble nearby in squads, then join in a concerted attack at oo16 hours. No resistance is expected as the power station is not guarded. Weapons and torches will be issued as you leave, as well as printed instructions of the correct route to the rallying points for the benefit of the planless here. Are there any questions?” He cocked his revolver and pointed it at the cringing Bill. There were no questions. “Excellent. We will all rise and sing 'The Hymn For a Glorious Revolt. '' In a mixed chorus of voice and mechanical speech-box they sang:
Arise ye bureaucratic prisoners, Revolting workers o f Helior, Arise and raise the Revolution, By fist, foot, pistol, hammer, and claw!
Refreshed by this enthusiastic and monotone exercise they shuffled out in slow lines, drawing their revolutionary sup= plies. Bill pocketed his printed instructions, shouldered his torch and flintlock ray gun, and hurried one last time through the secret passages. There was barely enough time for the long trip ahead of him, and he had to report to the G. B. I. first.
This was easier assumed than accomplished, and he began to sweat as he dialed the number again. It was impossible to get a line, and even the exchanges gave a busy signal. Either the phone traffic was very heavy or the revolutionaries had already begun to interfere with the communications. He sighed with relief when Pinkerton's surly features finally filled the tiny screen. “What's up?” “I've discovered the name of the leader of the revolution. He is a man called X.” “And you want a bonus for that, stupid? That information has been on file for months. Got anything else?” “Well, the revolution is to start at 0016 hours, I thought you might like to know.” That'd show them!
Pinkerton yawned. “Is that all? For your information that information is old information. You're not the only spy we've got, though you might be the worst.
Now listen. Write this down in big letters so you won't forget. Your cell is to attack the Imperial Power
