The Ego Machine

'Did I? But you're not Mammoth-Slayer,' ENIAC said confusedly. 'Mammoth-Slayer was the son of the Great Hairy One. What's your mother's name?'

'The Great Hairy One,' Martin replied, at which the robot grated its hand across its gleaming forehead.

'Have one more jolt,' Martin suggested. 'Now take out the ecologizer and put it on my head.'

'Like this?' ENIAC asked, obeying. 'I keep feeling I've forgotten something important. F (t).'

Martin adjusted the crystal helmet on his skull. 'Now,' he commanded. 'Give me the character-matrix of Mammoth-Slayer, son of the Great Hairy One.'

'Well—all right,' ENIAC said dizzily. The red ribbons swirled. There was a flash from the helmet. 'There,' the robot said. 'It's done. It may take a few minutes to begin functioning, but then for twelve hours you'll—wait! Where are you going?'

But Martin had already departed.

The robot stuffed the helmet and the quarter-mile of red ribbon back for the last time. He lurched to the floor-lamp, muttering something about one for the road. Afterward, the room lay empty. A fading murmur said, 'F(t).'

* * *

'Nick!' Erika gasped, staring at the figure in the doorway. 'Don't stand like that! You frighten me!'

Everyone in the room looked up abruptly at her cry, and so were just in time to see a horrifying change take place in Martin's shape. It was an illusion, of course, but an alarming one. His knees slowly bent until he was half- crouching, his shoulders slumped as though bowed by the weight of enormous back and shoulder muscles, and his arms swung forward until their knuckles hung perilously near the floor.

Nicholas Martin had at last achieved a personality whose ecological norm would put him on a level with Raoul St. Cyr.

'Nick!' Erika quavered.

Slowly Martin's jaw protruded till his lower teeth were hideously visible. Gradually his eyelids dropped until he was peering up out of tiny, wicked sockets. Then, slowly, a perfectly shocking grin broadened Mr. Martin's mouth.

'Erika,' he said throatily. 'Mine!'

And with that, he shambled forward, seized the horrified girl in his arms, and bit her on the ear.

'Oh, Nick,' Erika murmured, closing her eyes. 'Why didn't you ever—no, no, no! Nick! Stop it! The contract release. We've got to—Nick, what are you doing?' She snatched at Martin's departing form, but too late.

For all his ungainly and unpleasant gait, Martin covered ground fast. Almost instantly he was clambering over Watt's desk as the most direct route to that startled tycoon. DeeDee looked on, a little surprised. St. Cyr lunged forward.

'In Mixo-Lydia—' he began. 'Ha! So!' He picked up Martin and threw him across the room.

'Oh, you beast,' Erika cried, and flung herself upon the director, beating at his brawny chest. On second thought, she used her shoes on his shins with more effect. St. Cyr, no gentleman, turned her around, pinioned her arms behind her, and glanced up at Watt's alarmed cry.

'Martin! What are you doing?'

There was reason for his inquiry. Apparently unhurt by St. Cyr's toss, Martin had hit the floor, rolled over and over like a ball, knocked down a floor-lamp with a crash, and uncurled, with an unpleasant expression on his face. He rose crouching, bandy-legged, his arms swinging low, a snarl curling his lips.

'You take my mate?' the pithecanthropic Mr. Martin inquired throatily, rapidly losing all touch with the twentieth century. It was a rhetorical question. He picked up the lamp-standard—he did not have to bend to do it— tore off the silk shade as he would have peeled foliage from a tree-limb, and balanced the weapon in his hand. Then he moved forward, carrying the lamp-standard like a spear.

'I,' said Martin, 'kill.'

He then endeavored, with the most admirable single-heartedness, to carry out his expressed intention. The first thrust of the blunt, improvised spear rammed into St. Cyr's solar plexus and drove him back against the wall with a booming thud. This seemed to be what Martin wanted. Keeping one end of his spear pressed into the director's belly, he crouched lower, dug his toes into the rug, and did his very best to drill a hole in St. Cyr.

'Stop it!' cried Watt, flinging himself into the conflict. Ancient reflexes took over. Martin's arm shot out. Watt shot off in the opposite direction.

The lamp broke.

Martin looked pensively at the pieces, tentatively began to bite one, changed his mind, and looked at St. Cyr instead. The gasping director, mouthing threats, curses and objections, drew himself up, and shook a huge fist at Martin.

'I,' he announced, 'shall kill you with my bare hands. Then I go over to MGM with DeeDee. In Mixo-Lydia —'

Martin lifted his own fists toward his face. He regarded them. He unclenched them slowly, while a terrible grin spread across his face. And then, with every tooth showing, and with the hungry gleam of a mad tiger in his tiny little eyes, he lifted his gaze to St. Cyr's throat.

Mammoth-Slayer was not the son of the Great Hairy One for nothing.

* * *

Martin sprang.

So did St. Cyr—in another direction, screaming with sudden terror. For, after all, he was only a medievalist. The feudal man is far more civilized than the so-called man of Mammoth-Slayer's primordially direct era, and as a man recoils from a small but murderous wildcat, so St. Cyr fled in sudden civilized horror from an attacker who was, literally, afraid of nothing.

He sprang through the window and, shrieking, vanished into the night.

Martin was taken by surprise. When Mammoth-Slayer leaped at an enemy, the enemy leaped at him too, and so Martin's head slammed against the wall with disconcerting force. Dimly he heard diminishing, terrified cries. Laboriously he crawled to his feet and set back against the wall, snarling, quite ready….

'Nick!' Erika's voice called. 'Nick, it's me! Stop it! Stop it! DeeDee—'

'Ugh?' Martin said thickly, shaking his head. 'Kill.' He growled softly, blinking through red-rimmed little eyes at the scene around him. It swam back slowly into focus. Erika was struggling with DeeDee near the window.

'You let me go,' DeeDee cried. 'Where Raoul goes, I go.'

'DeeDee!' pleaded a new voice. Martin glanced aside to see Tolliver Watt crumpled in a corner, a crushed lamp-shade half obscuring his face.

With a violent effort Martin straightened up. Walking upright seemed unnatural, somehow, but it helped submerge Mammoth-Slayer's worst instincts. Besides, with St. Cyr gone, stresses were slowly subsiding, so that Mammoth-Slayer's dominant trait was receding from the active foreground.

Martin tested his tongue cautiously, relieved to find he was still capable of human speech.

'Uh,' he said. 'Arrgh… ah. Watt.'

Watt blinked at him anxiously through the lamp-shade.

'Urgh… Ur—release,' Martin said, with a violent effort. 'Contract release. Gimme.'

Watt had courage. He crawled to his feet, removing the lamp-shade.

'Contract release!' he snapped. 'You madman! Don't you realize what you've done? DeeDee's walking out on me. DeeDee, don't go. We will bring Raoul back—'

'Raoul told me to quit if he quit,' DeeDee said stubbornly.

'You don't have to do what St. Cyr tells you,' Erika said, hanging onto the struggling star.

'Don't I?' DeeDee asked, astonished. 'Yes, I do. I always have.'

'DeeDee,' Watt said frantically, 'I'll give you the finest contract on earth—a ten-year contract—look, here it is.' He tore out a well-creased document. 'All you have to do is sign, and you can have anything you want. Wouldn't you like that?'

'Oh, yes,' DeeDee said. 'But Raoul wouldn't like it.' She broke free from Erika.

'Martin!' Watt told the playwright frantically, 'Get St. Cyr back. Apologize to him. I don't care how, but get him back! If you don't, I—I'll never give you your release.'