The robot looked at him impassively out of its faceted eye.
“On reading your mind,” it continued in the pedantic voice, “I find this is the year . My plans will have to be revised. I had meant to arrive in the year . I will ask you to assist me.”
Kelvin put his hands in his pockets and grinned.
“With money, naturally,” he said. “You had me going for a minute. How do you do it, anyhow? Mirrors? Or like Maelzel’s chess player?”
“I am not a machine operated by a dwarf, nor am I an optical illusion,” the robot assured him. “I am an artificially created living organism, originating at a period far in your future.”
“And I’m not the sucker you take me for,” Kelvin remarked pleasantly. “I came in here to—”
“You lost your baggage checks,” the robot said. “While wondering what to do about it, you had a few drinks and took the Wilshire bus at exactly—exactly .”
“Lay off the mind-reading,” Kelvin said. “And don’t tell me you’ve been running this joint very long with a line like that. The cops would be after you. If you’re a real robot, ha, ha.”
“I have been running this joint,” the robot said, “for approximately five minutes. My predecessor is unconscious behind that chest in the corner. Your arrival here was sheer coincidence.” It paused very briefly, and Kelvin had the curious impression that it was watching to see if the story so far had gone over well.
The impression was curious because Kelvin had no feeling at all that there was a man in the large, jointed figure before him. If such a thing as a robot were possible, he would have believed implicitly that he confronted a genuine specimen. Such things being impossible, he waited to see what the gimmick would be.
“My arrival here was also accidental,” the robot informed him. “This being the case, my equipment will have to be altered slightly. I will require certain substitute mechanisms. For that, I gather as I read your mind, I will have to engage in your peculiar barter system of economics. In a word, coinage or gold or silver certificates will be necessary. Thus I am—temporarily—a horomancer.”
“Sure, sure,” Kelvin said. “Why not a simple mugging? If you’re a robot, you could do a super-mugging job with a quick twist of the gears.”
“It would attract attention. Above all, I require secrecy. As a matter of fact, I am—” The robot paused, searched Kelvin’s brain for the right phrase, and said, “—on the lam. In my era, time-traveling is strictly forbidden, even by accident, unless government-sponsored.”
There was a fallacy there somewhere, Kelvin thought, but he couldn’t quite spot it. He blinked at the robot intently. It looked pretty unconvincing.
“What proof do you need?” the creature asked. “I read your brain the minute you came in, didn’t I? You must have felt the temporary amnesia as I drew out the knowledge and then replaced it.”
“So that’s what happened,” Kelvin said. He took a cautious step backward. “Well, I think I’ll be getting along.”
“Wait,” the robot commanded. “I see you have begun to distrust me. Apparently you now regret having suggested a mugging job. You fear I may act on the suggestion. Allow me to reassure you. It is true that I could take your money and assure secrecy by killing you, but I am not permitted to kill humans. The alternative is to engage in the barter system. I can offer you something valuable in return for a small amount of gold. Let me see.” The faceted gaze swept around the tent, dwelt piercingly for a moment on Kelvin. “A horoscope,” the robot said. “It is supposed to help you achieve health, fame and fortune. Astrology, however, is out of my line. I can merely offer a logical scientific method of attaining the same results.”
“Uh-huh,” Kelvin said skeptically. “How much? And why haven’t you used that method?”
“I have other ambitions,” the robot said in a cryptic manner. “Take this.” There was a brief clicking. A panel opened in the metallic chest. The robot extracted a small, flat case and handed it to Kelvin, who automatically closed his fingers on the cold metal.
“Be careful. Don’t push that button until—”
But Kelvin had pushed it. …
He was driving a figurative car that had got out of control. There was somebody else inside his head. There was a schizophrenic, double-tracked locomotive that was running wild and his hand on the throttle couldn’t slow it down an instant. His mental steering-wheel had snapped.
Somebody else was thinking for him!
Not quite a human being. Not quite sane, probably, from Kelvin’s standards. But awfully sane from his own. Sane enough to have mastered the most intricate principles of non-Euclidean geometry in the nursery.
The senses get synthesized in the brain into a sort of common language, a master-tongue. Part of it was auditory, part pictorial, and there were smells and tastes and tactile sensations that were sometimes familiar and sometimes spiced with the absolutely alien. And it was chaotic.
Something like this, perhaps. …
“—Big Lizards getting too numerous this season—tame threvvars have the same eyes not on Callisto though—vacation soon—preferably galactic—solar system claustrophobic—byanding tomorrow if square rootola and upsliding three—”
But that was merely the word-symbolism. Subjectively, it was far more detailed and very frightening. Luckily, reflex had lifted Kelvin’s finger from the button almost instantly, and he stood there motionless, shivering slightly.
He was afraid now.
The robot said, “You should not have begun the rapport until I instructed you. Now there will be danger. Wait.” His eye changed color. “Yes … there is … Tharn, yes. Beware of Tharn.”
“I don’t want any part of it,” Kelvin said quickly. “Here, take this thing back.”
“Then you will be unprotected against Tharn. Keep the device. It will, as I promised, ensure your health, fame and fortune, far more effectively than a—a horoscope.”
“No, thanks. I don’t know how you managed that trick—sub-sonics, maybe, but I don’t—”
“Wait,” the robot said. “When you pressed that button,
