The Tunnel Under The World Read online

listening. He was kneeling beside the girl. She layflat on her back, arms helter-skelter. There was no blood, hardly anysign of the wound; but the position in which she lay was one that noliving human being could have held.

  Yet she wasn't dead.

  She wasn't dead--and Burckhardt, frozen beside her, thought: _Sheisn't alive, either._

  There was no pulse, but there was a rhythmic ticking of theoutstretched fingers of one hand.

  There was no sound of breathing, but there was a hissing, sizzlingnoise.

  The eyes were open and they were looking at Burckhardt. There wasneither fear nor pain in them, only a pity deeper than the Pit.

  She said, through lips that writhed erratically, "Don't--worry, Mr.Burckhardt. I'm--all right."

  Burckhardt rocked back on his haunches, staring. Where there shouldhave been blood, there was a clean break of a substance that was notflesh; and a curl of thin golden-copper wire.

  Burckhardt moistened his lips.

  "You're a robot," he said.

  The girl tried to nod. The twitching lips said, "I am. And so areyou."

  V

  Swanson, after a single inarticulate sound, walked over to the deskand sat staring at the wall. Burckhardt rocked back and forth besidethe shattered puppet on the floor. He had no words.

  The girl managed to say, "I'm--sorry all this happened." The lovelylips twisted into a rictus sneer, frightening on that smooth youngface, until she got them under control. "Sorry," she said again."The--nerve center was right about where the bullet hit. Makes itdifficult to--control this body."

  Burckhardt nodded automatically, accepting the apology. Robots. It wasobvious, now that he knew it. In hindsight, it was inevitable. Hethought of his mystic notions of hypnosis or Martians or somethingstranger still--idiotic, for the simple fact of created robots fittedthe facts better and more economically.

  All the evidence had been before him. The automatized factory, withits transplanted minds--why not transplant a mind into a humanoidrobot, give it its original owner's features and form?

  Could it know that it was a robot?

  "All of us," Burckhardt said, hardly aware that he spoke out loud. "Mywife and my secretary and you and the neighbors. All of us the same."

  "No." The voice was stronger. "Not exactly the same, all of us. I choseit, you see. I--" this time the convulsed lips were not a randomcontortion of the nerves--"I was an ugly woman, Mr. Burckhardt, and nearlysixty years old. Life had passed me. And when Mr. Dorchin offered me thechance to live again as a beautiful girl, I jumped at the opportunity.Believe me, I _jumped_, in spite of its disadvantages. My flesh body isstill alive--it is sleeping, while I am here. I could go back to it. But Inever do."

  "And the rest of us?"

  "Different, Mr. Burckhardt. I work here. I'm carrying out Mr.Dorchin's orders, mapping the results of the advertising tests,watching you and the others live as he makes you live. I do it bychoice, but you have no choice. Because, you see, you are dead."

  "Dead?" cried Burckhardt; it was almost a scream.

  The blue eyes looked at him unwinkingly and he knew that it was nolie. He swallowed, marveling at the intricate mechanisms that let himswallow, and sweat, and eat.

  He said: "Oh. The explosion in my dream."

  "It was no dream. You are right--the explosion. That was real and thisplant was the cause of it. The storage tanks let go and what the blastdidn't get, the fumes killed a little later. But almost everyone diedin the blast, twenty-one thousand persons. You died with them and thatwas Dorchin's chance."

  "The damned ghoul!" said Burckhardt.

  * * * * *

  The twisted shoulders shrugged with an odd grace. "Why? You were gone.And you and all the others were what Dorchin wanted--a whole town, aperfect slice of America. It's as easy to transfer a pattern from adead brain as a living one. Easier--the dead can't say no. Oh, it tookwork and money--the town was a wreck--but it was possible to rebuildit entirely, especially because it wasn't necessary to have all thedetails exact.

  "There were the homes where even the brains had been utterlydestroyed, and those are empty inside, and the cellars that needn't betoo perfect, and the streets that hardly matter. And anyway, it onlyhas to last for one day. The same day--June 15th--over and overagain; and if someone finds something a little wrong, somehow, thediscovery won't have time to snowball, wreck the validity of thetests, because all errors are canceled out at midnight."

  The face tried to smile. "That's the dream, Mr. Burckhardt, that dayof June 15th, because you never really lived it. It's a present fromMr. Dorchin, a dream that he gives you and then takes back at the endof the day, when he has all his figures on how many of you respondedto what variation of which appeal, and the maintenance crews go downthe tunnel to go through the whole city, washing out the new dreamwith their little electronic drains, and then the dream starts allover again. On June 15th.

  "Always June 15th, because June 14th is the last day any of you canremember alive. Sometimes the crews miss someone--as they missed you,because you were under your boat. But it doesn't matter. The ones whoare missed give themselves away if they show it--and if they don't, itdoesn't affect the test. But they don't drain us, the ones of us whowork for Dorchin. We sleep when the power is turned off, just as youdo. When we wake up, though, we remember." The face contorted wildly."If I could only forget!"

  Burckhardt said unbelievingly, "All this to sell merchandise! It musthave cost millions!"

  The robot called April Horn said, "It did. But it has made millionsfor Dorchin, too. And that's not the end of it. Once he finds themaster words that make people act, do you suppose he will stop withthat? Do you suppose--"

  The door opened, interrupting her. Burckhardt whirled. Belatedlyremembering Dorchin's flight, he raised the gun.

  "Don't shoot," ordered the voice calmly. It was not Dorchin; it wasanother robot, this one not disguised with the clever plastics andcosmetics, but shining plain. It said metallically: "Forget it,Burckhardt. You're not accomplishing anything. Give me that gun beforeyou do any more damage. Give it to me _now_."

  * * * * *

  Burckhardt bellowed angrily. The gleam on this robot torso was steel;Burckhardt was not at all sure that his bullets would pierce it, or domuch harm if they did. He would have put it to the test--

  But from behind him came a whimpering, scurrying whirlwind; its namewas Swanson, hysterical with fear. He catapulted into Burckhardt andsent him sprawling, the gun flying free.

  "Please!" begged Swanson incoherently, prostrate before the steelrobot. "He would have shot you--please don't hurt me! Let me work foryou, like that girl. I'll do anything, anything you tell me--"

  The robot voice said. "We don't need your help." It took two precisesteps and stood over the gun--and spurned it, left it lying on thefloor.

  The wrecked blonde robot said, without emotion, "I doubt that I canhold out much longer, Mr. Dorchin."

  "Disconnect if you have to," replied the steel robot.

  Burckhardt blinked. "But you're not Dorchin!"

  The steel robot turned deep eyes on him. "I am," it said. "Not in theflesh--but this is the body I am using at the moment. I doubt that youcan damage this one with the gun. The other robot body was morevulnerable. Now will you stop this nonsense? I don't want to have todamage you; you're too expensive for that. Will you just sit down andlet the maintenance crews adjust you?"

  Swanson groveled. "You--you won't punish us?"

  The steel robot had no expression, but its voice was almost surprised."Punish you?" it repeated on a rising note. "How?"

  Swanson quivered as though the word had been a whip; but Burckhardtflared: "Adjust _him_, if he'll let you--but not me! You're going tohave to do me a lot of damage, Dorchin. I don't care what I cost orhow much trouble it's going to be to put me back together again. ButI'm going out of that door! If you want to stop me, you'll have tokill me. You won't stop me any other way!"

  Th
e steel robot took a half-step toward him, and Burckhardtinvoluntarily checked his stride. He stood poised and shaking, readyfor death, ready for attack, ready for anything that might happen.

  Ready for anything except what did happen. For Dorchin's steel bodymerely stepped aside, between Burckhardt and the gun, but leaving thedoor free.

  "Go ahead," invited the steel robot. "Nobody's stopping you."

  * * * * *

  Outside the door, Burckhardt brought up sharp. It was insane ofDorchin to let him go! Robot or flesh, victim or beneficiary, therewas nothing to stop him from going to the FBI or