home.
Earth was home, he thought. And not all of Earth, but just a certain street and that one part of it was barred to him forever. It had been barred to him by the dying of a sweet old lady who had outlived her time; it had been barred to him by his running from it.
He did not belong on this planet, he admitted to himself, nor on any other planet. He belonged on Earth, with the Barringtons, and it was impossible for him to be there.
Perhaps, he thought, he should have stayed and let them reorient him. He remembered what the lawyer had said about memories that could become a burden and a torment. After all, it might have been wiser to have started over once again.
For what kind of future did he have, with his old outdated body, his old outdated brain? The kind of body that they put a robot into on this planet by way of punishment. And the kind of brain — but the brain was different, for he had something now that made up for any lack of more modern mental tools.
He sat and listened, and he heard the house — calling all across the light years of space for him to come back to it again. And he saw the faded living room with all its vanished glory that made a record of the years. He remembered, with a twinge of hurt, the little room back of the kitchen that had been his very own.
He arose and paced up and down the cubicle — three steps and turn, and then three more steps and turn for another three.
The sights and sounds and smells of home grew close and wrapped themselves about him and he wondered wildly if he might not have the power, a power accorded him by the universe of hyperspace, to will himself to that familiar street again.
He shuddered at the thought of it, afraid of another power, afraid that it might happen. Afraid of himself, perhaps, of the snarled and tangled being he was — no longer the faithful, shining servant, but a sort of mad thing that rode outside a spaceship, that was ready to kill another being, that could face up to the appalling sweep of hyperspace, yet cowered before the impact of a memory.
What he needed was a walk, he thought. Look over the town and maybe go out into the country. Besides, he remembered, trying to become practical, he'd need to get that plastication job he had been warned to get.
He went out into the corridor and strode briskly down it and was crossing the lobby when someone spoke to him.
'Hubert,' said the voice, 'just where have you been? I've been waiting hours for you.'
Richard Daniel spun around and a robot sat behind the desk. There was another robot leaning in a corner and there was a naked robot brain lying on the desk.
'You are Hubert, aren't you', asked the one behind the desk.
Richard Daniel opened up his mouth to speak, but the words refused to come.
'I thought so,' said the robot. 'You may not recognize me, but my name is Andy. The regular man was busy, so the judge sent me. He thought it was only fair we make the switch as quickly as possible. He said you'd served a longer term than you really should. Figures you'd be glad to know they'd convicted someone else.'
Richard Daniel stared in horror at the naked brain lying on the desk.
The robot gestured at the metal body propped into the corner.
'Better than when we took you out of it,' he said with a throaty chuckle. 'Fixed it up and polished it and got out all the dents. Even modernized it some. Brought it strictly up to date. You'll have a better body than you had when they stuck you into that monstrosity.'
'I don't know what to say,' said Richard Daniel, stammering. 'You see, I'm not…'
'Oh, that's all right,' said the other happily. 'No need for gratitude. Your sentence worked out longer than the judge expected. This just makes up for it.'
'I thank you, then,' said Richard Daniel. 'I thank you very much.'
And was astounded at himself, astonished at the ease with which he said it, confounded at his sly duplicity.
But if they forced it on him, why should he refuse? There was nothing that he needed more than a modern body!
It was still working out, he told himself. He was still riding luck. For this was the last thing that he needed to cover up his tracks.
'All newly plasticated and everything,' said Andy. 'Hans did an extra special job.'
'Well, then,' said Richard Daniel, 'let's get on with it.'
The other robot grinned. 'I don't blame you for being anxious to get out of there. It must be pretty terrible to live in a pile of junk like that.'
He came around from behind the desk and advanced on Richard Danie1.
'Over in the corner,' he said, 'and kind of prop yourself. I don't want you tipping over when I disconnect you. One good fall and that body'd come apart.'
'All right,' said Richard Daniel. He went into the corner and leaned back against it and planted his feet solid so that he was propped.
He had a rather awful moment when Andy disconnected the optic nerve and he lost his eyes and there was considerable queasiness in having his skull lifted off his shoulders and he was in sheer funk as the final disconnections were being swiftly made.
Then he was a blob of greyness without a body or a head or eyes or anything at all. He was no more than a bundle of thoughts all wrapped around themselves like a pail of worms and this pail of worms was suspended in pure nothingness.
Fear came to him, a taunting, terrible fear. What if this were just a sort of ghastly gag? What if they'd found out who he really was and what he'd done to Hubert? What if they took his brain and tucked it away somewhere for a year or two — or for a hundred years? It might be, he told himself, nothing more than their simple way of justice.
He hung onto himself and tried to fight the fear away, but the fear ebbed back and forth like a restless tide.
Time stretched out and out — far too long a time, far more time than one would need to switch a brain from one body to another. Although, he told himself, that might not be true at all. For in his present state he had no way in which to measure time. He had no external reference points by which to determine time.
Then suddenly he had eyes.
And he knew everything was all right.
One by one his senses were restored to him and he was back inside a body and he felt awkward in the body, for he was unaccustomed to it.
The first thing that he saw was his old and battered body propped into its corner and he felt a sharp regret at the sight of it and it seemed to him that he had played a dirty trick upon it. It deserved, he told himself, a better fate than this — a better fate than being left behind to serve as a shabby jailhouse on this outlandish planet. It had served him well for six hundred years and he should not be deserting it. But he was deserting it. He was, he told himself in contempt, becoming very expert at deserting his old friends. First the house back home and now his faithful body.
Then he remembered something else — all that money in the body!
'What's the matter, Hubert?' Andy asked.
He couldn't leave it there, Richard Daniel told himself, for he needed it. And besides, if he left it there, someone would surely find it later and it would be a give-away. He couldn't leave it there and it might not be safe to forthrightly claim it. If he did, this other robot, this Andy, would think he'd been stealing on the job or running some side racket. He might try to bribe the other, but one could never tell how a move like that might go. Andy might be full of righteousness and then there'd be hell to pay. And, besides, he didn't want to part with any of the money.
All at once he had it — he knew just what to do. And even as he thought it, he made Andy into a diagram.
That connection there, thought Richard Daniel, reaching out his arm to catch the falling diagram that turned into a robot. He eased it to the floor and sprang across the room to the side of his old body. In seconds he had the chest safe open and the money safely out of it and locked inside his present body.
Then he made the robot on the floor become a diagram again and got the connection back the way that it
