Dean Koontz - Strange Highways

The younger robot solved the problem by suggesting that he, too, needed time in a nook. When Steffan was safely shut away, Curanov went to the fourth of the five wall slots, slid into it, pulled the hatch shut, and felt all of his senses drain away from him, so that he was only a mind, floating in darkness, contemplating the wealth of ideas in his data vault.

Adrift in nothingness, Curanov considers the superstition that has begun to be the center of this adventure: the human being, the man:

1. Though of flesh, the man thinks and knows.

2. He sleeps by night, like an animal.

3. He devours other flesh, as does the beast.

4. He defecates.

5. He dies and rots, is susceptible to disease and corruption.

6. He spawns his young in a terrifyingly unmechanical way, and yet his young are also sentient.

7. He kills.

8. He can overpower a robot.

9. He dismantles robots, though none but other men know what he does with their parts.

10. He is the antithesis of the robot. If the robot represents the proper way of life, man is the improper.

11. Man stalks in safety, registering to the robot's senses, unless clearly seen, as only another harmless animal — until it is too late.

12. He can be permanently killed only with a wooden implement. Wood is the product of an organic lifeform, yet it lasts as metal does; halfway between flesh and metal, it can destroy human flesh.

13. If killed in any other way, by any means other than wood, the man will only appear to be dead. In reality, the moment that he drops before his assailant, he at once springs to life elsewhere, unharmed, in a new body.

Although the list goes on, Curanov abandons that avenue of thought, for it disturbs him deeply. Tuttle's fantasy can be nothing more than that — conjecture, supposition, imagination. If the human being actually existed, how could one believe the Central Agency's prime rule: that the universe is, in every way, entirely logical and rational?

"The rifles are gone," Tuttle said when Curanov slid out of the deactivation nook and got to his feet. "Gone. All of them. That's why I recalled you."

"Gone?" Curanov asked, looking at the shelf where the weapons had been. "Gone where?"

"Leeke's taken them," Steffan said. He stood by the window, his long, bluish arms beaded with cold droplets of water precipitated out of the air.

"Is Leeke gone too?" Curanov asked.

"Yes."

He thought about this, then said, "But where would he go in the storm? And why would he need all the rifles?"

"I'm sure it's nothing to be concerned about," Steffan said. "He must have had a good reason, and he can tell us all about it when he comes back."

Tuttle said, "If he comes back."

Curanov said, "Tuttle, you sound as if you think he might be in danger."

"In light of what's happened recently — those prints we found — I'd say that could be a possibility."

Steffan scoffed at this.

"Whatever's happening," Tuttle said, "you must admit it's odd." He turned to Curanov. "I wish we hadn't submitted to the operations before we came out here. I'd do anything to have my full senses again." He hesitated. "I think we have to find Leeke."

"He'll be back," Steffan argued. "He'll return when he wants to return."

"I'm still in favor of initiating a search," Tuttle said.

Curanov went to the window and stood next to Steffan, gazing out at the driving snow. The ground was covered with at least twelve inches of new powder; the proud trees had been bowed under the white weight; and snow continued to fall faster than Curanov had ever seen it in all his many journeys.

"Well?" Tuttle asked again.

"I concur," Curanov said. "We should look for him, but we should do it together. With our lessened perceptions, we might easily get separated and lost out there. If one of us became damaged in a fall, he might experience a complete battery depletion before anyone found him."

"You're right." Tuttle said. He turned to Steffan. "And you?"

"Oh, all right," Steffan said crossly. "I'll come along."

Their torches cut bright wounds in the darkness but did little to melt through the curtain of wind-driven snow. They walked abreast around the lodge, continuing a circle search. Each time that they completed another turn about the building, they widened their search pattern. They decided to cover all the open land, but they would not enter the forest even if they hadn't located Leeke elsewhere. They agreed to this limitation, though none — not even Steffan — admitted that half the reason for ignoring the woods was a purely irrational fear of what might live among the trees.

In the end, however, it was not necessary to enter the woods, for they found Leeke less than twenty yards away from the lodge. He was lying on his side in the snow.

"He's been terminated," Steffan said.

The others didn't need to be told.

Both of Leeke's legs were missing.

"Who could have done something like this?" Steffan asked.

Neither Tuttle nor Curanov answered him.

Leeke's head hung limply on his neck, because several of the links in his ring cable had been bent out of alignment. His visual receptors had been smashed, and the mechanism behind them ripped out through the shattered sockets.

When Curanov bent closer, he saw that someone had poked a sharp object into Leeke's data vaults, through his eye tubes, and scrambled his tapes into a useless mess. He hoped that poor Leeke had been dead by then.

"Horrible," Steffan said. He turned away from the grisly scene, began to walk back to the lodge, but stopped abruptly as he realized that he should not be out of the other robots' company. He shuddered mentally.

"What should we do with him?" Tuttle asked.

"Leave him," Curanov said.

"Here to rust?"

"He'll sense nothing more."

"Still—"

We should be getting back," Curanov said, shining his light around the snowy scene. "We shouldn't expose ourselves."

Keeping close to one another, they returned to the lodge.

As they walked, Curanov reviewed certain disturbing data: 9. He dismantles robots, though none but other men know what he does with their parts….

"As I see it," Curanov told them when they were once again in the lodge, "Leeke did not take the rifles. Someone — or something — entered the lodge to steal them. Leeke must have come out of his inactivation nook just as the culprits were leaving. Without pausing to wake us, he gave chase."

"Or was forced to go with them," Tuttle said.

"I doubt that he was taken out by force," Curanov said. "In the lodge, with enough light to see by and enough space to maneuver in, even with lessened perceptions, Leeke could have kept himself from being hurt or forced to leave. However, once he was outside, in the storm, he was at their mercy."

The wind screamed across the peaked roof of the lodge, rattled the windows in their metal frames.

The three remaining robots stood still, listening until the gust died away, as though the noise were made not by the wind but by some enormous beast that had reared up over the building and was intent on tearing it to pieces.

Curanov went on: "When I examined Leeke, I found that he was felled by a sharp blow to the ring cable, just under the head — the kind of blow that would have had to come suddenly from behind and without warning. In a room as well lighted as this, nothing could have gotten behind Leeke without his knowing it was there."

Steffan turned away from the window and said, "Do you think that Leeke was already terminated when…" His voice trailed away, but in a moment he had found the discipline to go on: "Was he terminated when they dismantled his legs?"