starved so long. And it was coming back to him, coining back again…the remembrance of life on Earth, of early morning sun and flaming sunsets, of deep blue sky and dew upon the grass, the swift blur of human talk and the lilt of human music, the friendliness of the birds and squirrels, and the peace and comfort.
'The car is waiting, sir,' the android said. 'I will take you to a human.'
'I'd rather walk,' said Sutton.
The android shook his head. 'The human is waiting and he is most impatient.'
'Oh, all right,' said Sutton.
The seat was soft and he sank into it gradually, cradling the attache case carefully in his lap.
The car was moving and he stared out of the window, fascinated by the green of Earth. 'The green fields of Earth,' he said. Or was it 'the green vales'? No matter now. It was a song written long ago. In the time when there had been fields on Earth, fields instead of parks, when Man had turned the soil for more important things than flower beds. In the day, thousands of years before, when Man had just begun to feel the stir of space within his soul. Long years before Earth had become the capital and the center of galactic empire.
A great star ship was taking off at the far end of the field, sliding down the ice-smooth plastic skidway with the red-hot flare of booster jets frothing in its tubes. Its nose slammed into the upward curve of the take-off ramp and it was away, a rumbling streak of silver that shot into the blue. For a moment it flickered a golden red in the morning sunlight and then was swallowed in the azure mist of sky.
Sutton brought his gaze back to Earth again, sat soaking in the sight of it as a man soaks in the first strong sun of spring after months of winter.
Far to the north towered the twin spires of the Justice Bureau, Alien Branch. And to the east the pile of gleaming plastics and glass that was the University of North America. And other buildings that he had forgotten… buildings for which he found he had no name. But buildings that were miles apart, with parks and homesites in between. The homes were masked by trees and shrubbery — none sat in barren loneliness — and through the green of the curving hills, Sutton caught the glints of color that betrayed where people lived.
The car slid to a stop before the administration building and the android opened the door.
'This way, sir,' he said.
Only a few chairs in the lobby were occupied and most of those by humans. Humans or androids, thought Sutton. You can't tell the difference until you see their foreheads.
The sign upon the forehead, the brand of manufacture. The telltale mark that said, 'This man is not a human, although he looks like one.'
These are the ones who will listen to me. These are the ones who will pay attention. These are the ones who will save me against any future enmity that Man may raise against me.
For they are worse than the disinherited. They are not the has-beens, they are the never-weres.
They were not born of woman but of the laboratory. Their mother is a bin of chemicals and their father the ingenuity and technology of the normal race.
Android: An artificial human. A human made in the laboratory out of Man's own deep knowledge of chemicals and atomic and molecular structure and the strange reaction that is known as life.
Human in all but two respects — the mark upon the forehead and the inability to reproduce biologically.
Artificial humans to help the real humans, the biological humans, carry the load of galactic empire, to make the thin line of humanity the thicker. But kept in their place. Oh, yes, most definitely kept in their right place.
The corridor was empty, and Sutton, his bare feet slapping on the floor, followed the android.
The door before which they stopped said:
THOMAS H. DAVIS
(Human)
Operations Chief
'In there,' the android said.
Sutton walked in and the man behind the desk looked up and gulped.
'I'm a human,' Sutton told him. 'I may not look it, but I am.'
The man jerked his thumb toward a chair. 'Sit down,' he said.
Sutton sat.
'Why didn't you answer our signals?' Davis asked.
'My set was broken,' Sutton told him.
'Your ship has no identity.'
'The rains washed it off,' said Sutton, 'and I had no paint.'
'Rain doesn't wash off paint.'
'Not Earth rain,' said Sutton. 'Where I was, it does.'
'Your motors?' asked Davis. 'We could pick up nothing from them.'
'They weren't working,' Sutton told him.
Davis' Adam's apple bobbed up and down. 'Weren't working. How did you navigate?'
'With energy,' said Sutton.
'Energy…' Davis choked.
Sutton stared at him icily.
'Anything else?' he asked.
Davis was confused. The red tape had gotten tangled. The answers were all wrong. He fiddled with a pencil.
'Just the usual things, I guess.' He drew a pad of forms before him.
'Name?'
'Asher Sutton.'
'Origin of fli…Say, wait a minute! Asher Sutton!'
Davis flung the pencil on the pad, pushed away the pad.
'That's right.'
'Why didn't you tell me that at first?'
'I didn't have a chance.'
Davis was flustered.
'If I had known…' he said.
'It's the beard,' said Sutton.
'My father talked about you often. Jim Davis. Maybe you remember him.'
Sutton shook his head.
'Great friend of your father's. That is…they knew one another.'
'How is my father?' asked Sutton.
'Great,' said Davis, enthusiastically. 'Keeping well. Getting along in years, but standing up…'
'My father and mother,' Sutton told him, coldly, 'died fifty years ago. In the Argus pandemic.'
He heaved himself to his feet, faced Davis squarely.
'If you're through,' he said, 'I'd like to go to my hotel. They'll find some room for me.'
'Certainly, Mr. Sutton, certainly. Which hotel?'
'The Orion Arms.'
Davis reached into a drawer, took out a directory, flipped the pages, ran a shaking finger down a column.
'Cherry 26-3489,' he said. 'The teleport is over there.'
He pointed to a booth set flush into the wall.
'Thanks,' said Sutton.
'About your father, Mr. Sutton…'
'I know,' said Sutton. 'I'm glad you tipped me off.'
He swung around and walked to the teleport. Before he closed the door, he looked back.
Davis was on the visaphone, talking rapidly.
