The Night of the Storm

‘And I suppose that you’re eager to mature enough to gain a promotion from the Agency,’ Tuttle said.

‘Of course,’ Steffan said. ‘We’re only alloted two hundred years. And, besides, what else is the purpose of life?’

Perhaps to have an opportunity to mull over his strange ‘supposings,’ Tuttle soon retired to an inactivation nook in the wall beneath the metal shelf where the guns lay. He slid in feet first, pulled the hatch shut behind his head, leaving the others to their own devices.

Fifteen minutes later, Leeke said, ‘I believe I’ll follow Tuttle’s example. I need time to consider my responses to this afternoon’s hunt.’

Suranov knew that Leeke was only making excuses to be gone; he was not a particularly gregarious robot and seemed most comfortable when he was unaddressed and left to himself.

Alone with Steffan in the lodge, Suranov was in an unpleasantly delicate position. He felt that he, too, needed time to think inside a deactivation nook. However, he did not want to hurt Steffan’s feelings, did not want to give him the impression that they were all anxious to be away from him. For the most part, Suranov liked the young robot; Steffan was fresh, energetic, obviously a first-line mentality. The only thing he found grating about the youth was his innocence, his undisciplined drive to be accepted and to achieve. Time, of course, would mellow and richen Steffan; he did not, therefore, deserve to be hurt. How, then, to excuse oneself without slighting Steffan in any way?

The younger robot solved the problem, by suggesting that he, too, needed time in a nook. When he was safely shut away, Suranov went to the fourth of the five wall slots, slid into it, pulled the hatch shut, and felt all of his senses drained away from him, so that he was only a mind, floating in darkness, contemplating the wealth of ideas in his data vault…

* * *

Adrift in nothingness, Suranov considers the superstition which has begun to be the center of this adventure: the human being, the man:

1. Though of flesh, the man thinks and knows.

2. He sleeps by night, like an animal.

3. He devours other flesh, as does the beast.

4. He defecates.

5. He dies and rots, is susceptible to disease and corruption.

6. He spawns his young in a terrifyingly unmechanical way, and yet his young are also sentient.

7. He kills.

8. He can overpower a robot.

9. He dismantles robots, though none but other men know what he does with their parts.

10. He is the antithesis of the robot. If the robot represents the proper way of life, man is the improper.

11. Man stalks in safety, registering to the robot’s senses, unless seen, as only another harmless animal — until it is too late.

12. He can be permanently killed only with a wooden implement. Wood is the product of an organic lifeform, yet lasts as metal does; halfway between flesh and metal, it can destroy human flesh.

13. If killed in any other way, by any means other than wood, the man will only appear to be dead. In reality, the moment he drops before his assailant, he springs to life elsewhere, unharmed, in a new body.

Although the list goes on, Suranov abandons that avenue of thought, for it disturbs him deeply. Tuttle’s fantasy can be nothing more than that — conjecture, supposing, imagination. If the human being actually existed, how could one believe the Central Agency’s prime rule: that the universe is, in every way, entirely logical and rational?

* * *

‘The rifles are gone,’ Tuttle said, when Suranov slid out of the deactivation nook and got to his feet. ‘That’s why I recalled you.’

‘Gone?’ Suranov asked, looking at the shelf. ‘Gone where?’

‘Leeke’s taken them,’ Steffan said. He stood by the window, his long, bluish arms beaded with cold droplets of water which had been precipitated out of the air.

‘Is Leeke gone too?’ Suranov asked.

‘Yes.’

He thought about this for a moment, then said, ‘But where would he go in the storm? And why would he need all the rifles?’

‘I’m sure that it’s nothing to be concerned about,’ Steffan said. ‘He must have had a good reason, and he can tell us all about it when he comes back.’

Tuttle said, ‘If he comes back.’

Suranov said, ‘Tuttle, you sound as if you think he might be in danger.’

‘In light of what’s happened recently — those prints we found — I’d say that could be a possibility.’

Steffan scoffed at this.

‘Whatever’s happening,’ Tuttle said, ‘you must admit it’s odd.’ He turned to Suranov. ‘I wish we hadn’t submitted to the operations before we came out here. I’d do anything to have my full senses again.’ He hesitated, then said, ‘I think we have to go find Leeke.’

‘He’ll be back,’ Steffan argued. ‘He’ll return when he wants to.’

‘I’m still for initiating a search,’ Tuttle said.

Suranov went to the window and stood next to Steffan, looked out at the driving snow. It had covered the ground with at least twelve new inches of white, had bowed the proud trees, and still it fell faster than Suranov had ever seen it fall in all his many journies.

‘Well?’ Tuttle asked again.

‘I concur,’ Suranov said. ‘We should look for him, but we should do it together. With our lessened perceptions, we might easily get separated and lost out there. If one of us became damaged in a fall, he would most likely experience a complete battery depletion before anyone found him.’

‘You’re right,’ Tuttle said. He turned to Steffan ‘And you?’

‘Oh, all right,’ Steffan said. ‘I’ll come along.’

* * *

Their torches cut bright wounds in the darkness but did little to melt through the curtain of wind-driven snow. They walked abreast around the lodge, making a circle search. Each time they completed another turn about the building, they widened their search pattern. They had decided to cover all of the open land, but they would not enter the trees, even if they had not located Leeke by then. They all agreed to this limitation, though none — not even Steffan — admitted that half the reason for ignoring the woods was based on a purely irrational fear of them…

In the end, however, it was not necessary to enter the woods, for they found Leeke less than twenty yards away from the lodge. He was lying on his side in the snow.

‘He’s been terminated,’ Steffan said.

The others didn’t need to be told.

Both of Leeke’s legs were missing.

‘Who could have done something like this?’ Steffan asked.

Neither Tuttle nor Suranov answered him.

Leeke’s head hung limply on his neck, because several of the links in his ring cable had been bent out of alignment. His visual perceptors had been smashed, and the mechanism behind them ripped out through the shattered sockets. When Suranov bent closer, he saw that someone had poked a sharp object into Leeke’s data vaults, through his eye tubes, and had scrambled his tapes into a useless mess; he hoped Leeke had been dead by then.

‘Horrible,’ Steffan said. He turned away from the scene and began to walk back toward the lodge, stopped