“Heaven forfend,” Kelvin said, still sweating a little.
“Consider the opportunities. Suppose a troglodyte of the far past had access to your brain? He could achieve anything he wanted.”
It had become important, somehow, to find a logical rebuttal to the robot’s arguments. “Like St. Anthony—or was it Luther?—arguing with the devil?” Kelvin thought dizzily. His headache was worse, and he suspected he had drunk more than was good for him. But he merely said:
“How could a troglodyte understand what’s in my brain? He couldn’t apply the knowledge without the same conditioning I’ve had.”
“Have you ever had sudden and apparently illogical ideas? Compulsions? So that you seem forced to think of certain things, count up to certain numbers, work out particular problems? Well, the man in the future on whom my device is focused doesn’t know he’s en rapport with you, Kelvin. But he’s vulnerable to compulsions. All you have to do is concentrate on a problem and then press the button. Your rapport will be compelled—illogically, from his viewpoint—to solve that problem. And you’ll be reading his brain. You’ll find out how it works. There are limitations, you’ll learn those too. And the device will ensure health, wealth and fame for you.”
“It would ensure anything, if it really worked that way. I could do anything. That’s why I’m not buying!”
“I said there were limitations. As soon as you’ve successfully achieved health, fame, and fortune, the device will become useless. I’ve taken care of that. But meanwhile you can use it to solve all your problems by tapping the brain of the more intelligent specimen in the future. The important point is to concentrate on your problems before you press the button. Otherwise you may get more than Tharn on your track.”
“Tharn? What—”
“I think an—an android,” the robot said, looking at nothing. “An artificial human … However, let us consider my own problem. I need a small amount of gold.”
“So that’s the kicker,” Kelvin said, feeling oddly relieved. He said, “I haven’t got any.”
“Your watch.”
Kelvin jerked his arm so that his wristwatch showed. “Oh, no. That watch cost plenty.”
“All I need is the gold-plating,” the robot said, shooting out a reddish ray from its eye. “Thank you.” The watch was now dull gray metal.
“Hey!” Kelvin cried.
“If you use the rapport device, your health, fame and fortune will be assured,” the robot said rapidly. “You will be as happy as any man of this era can be. It will solve all your problems—including Tharn. Wait a minute.” The creature took a backward step and disappeared behind a hanging Oriental rug that had never been east of Peoria.
There was silence.
Kelvin looked from his altered watch to the flat, enigmatic object in his palm. It was about two inches by two inches, and no thicker than a woman’s vanity-case, and there was a sunken push-button on its side.
He dropped it into his pocket and took a few steps forward. He looked behind the pseudo-Oriental rug, to find nothing except emptiness and a flapping slit cut in the canvas wall of the booth. The robot, it seemed, had taken a powder. Kelvin peered out through the slit. There was the light and sound of Ocean Park amusement pier, that was all. And the silvered, moving blackness of the Pacific Ocean, stretching to where small lights showed Malibu far up the invisible curve of the coastal cliffs.
So he came back inside the booth and looked around. A fat man in a swami’s costume was unconscious behind the carved chest the robot had indicated. His breath, plus a process of deduction, told Kelvin that the man had been drinking.
Not knowing what else to do, Kelvin called on the Deity again. He found suddenly that he was thinking about someone or something called Tharn, who was an android.
Horomancy … time … rapport … no! Protective disbelief slid like plate armor around his mind. A practical robot couldn’t be made. He knew that. He’d have heard—he was a reporter, wasn’t he?
Sure he was.
Desiring noise and company, he went along to the shooting gallery and knocked down a few ducks. The flat case burned in his pocket. The dully burnished metal of his wristwatch burned in his memory. The remembrance of that drainage from his brain, and the immediate replacement burned in his mind. Presently bar whiskey burned in his stomach.
He’d left Chicago because of sinusitis, recurrent and annoying. Ordinary sinusitis. Not schizophrenia or hallucinations or accusing voices coming from the walls. Not because he had been seeing bats or robots. That thing hadn’t really been a robot. It all had a perfectly natural explanation. Oh, sure.
Health, fame and fortune. And if—
Tharn!
The thought crashed with thunderbolt impact into his head.
And then another thought: I am going nuts!
A silent voice began to mutter insistently, over and over. “Tharn—Tharn—Tharn—Tharn—”
And another voice, the voice of sanity and safety, answered it and drowned it out. Half aloud, Kelvin muttered:
“I’m James Noel Kelvin. I’m a reporter—special features, leg work, rewrite. I’m thirty years old, unmarried, and I came to Los Angeles today and lost my baggage checks and—and I’m going to have another drink and find a hotel. Anyhow, the climate seems to be curing my sinusitis.”
Tharn, the muffled drumbeat said almost below the threshold of realization. Tharn, Tharn.
Tharn.
He ordered another drink and reached in his pocket for a coin. His hand touched the metal case. And simultaneously he felt a light pressure on his shoulder.
Instinctively he glanced around. It was a seven-fingered, spidery hand tightening—hairless, without nails—and white as smooth ivory.
The one, overwhelming necessity that sprang into Kelvin’s mind was a simple longing to place as much space as possible between himself and the owner of that disgusting hand. It was a vital requirement, but one difficult of fulfilment, a problem that excluded everything else from Kelvin’s thoughts. He knew, vaguely, that he was gripping the flat case in his
