Robert Silverberg - The Android Kill

I was crazy to leave Laura here alone for a minute, I was thinking, as the space-liner roared through the atmosphere toward the spaceport at Rigel City. Even though the mighty ship was travelling at a thousand miles an hour, I kept urging it onward, down toward the port. I had to get there on time. Had to.

I kept picturing the way the riot-torn city must look, now that the long-festering hatred for synthetic android men had burst loose into a full-scale android kill. Clay Armistead had finally stirred up the riot his sick mind craved. And I had picked this week to make a business trip and leave my wife alone—alone, in the heart of the riot.

I counted the seconds until the spaceship would land. I had cut short my business trip the second I had heard of the riots, had caught the first liner back to Rigel City to find Laura and get her out of danger’s path.

The ship landed. “Unfasten deceleration cradles,” came the impersonal order from the loudspeakers, but I had already done that. I raced down the companionway, past a startled stewardess, shoved my way through a little knot of uniformed baggage-androids and grabbed my suitcase. There wasn’t any time to waste.

Quickly, the moment the catwalk for passengers was open, I dashed through the hatch and out into the bright, warm air of Rigel City. The giant sun was high above; it was a pleasant spring day.

And then all the pleasantness vanished. I saw the mob, pushing and shouting and shoving, at the far end of the landing field. It was an ugly sight. They looked like so many buzzing bees, each of them inflamed with killing-lust and brutality.

I passed through the checkout-desk in record time and on through the Administration Building, listening to the sounds of the mob. Somehow, they had smelled out the fact that there were androids aboard the starship that had just arrived, and they were determined to get them.

Well, that wasn’t my worry. I was concerned only with Laura.

A sleek taxi pulled up in front of me and waited, its turboelectric engine throbbing quietly. The driver was a human; I was startled not to see the familiar red star on his forehead. He looked at me coldly, without the politeness of the android cabby.

“Where to, fellow?”

“Twenty-fourth and Coolidge,” I said, and started to get in. “On the double.”

“Sorry, Mac. Coolidge is out of bounds. I’d be crazy to take my hack through there. I’ll drop you at Winchester. Okay?”

I frowned, then nodded. It meant a ten-minute walk, but it was better than nothing. “Good enough,” I said, and started for a second time to enter.

I got one leg inside the cab. Then a hand grabbed me from behind, pulled me out, and I was swung around.

“Where the hell you think you’re going—you damned android?”

For a second, I was too startled even to get angry. There were three men facing me—cold-eyed, hard-faced men with hatred naked in their features. I recognized them, contorted though their faces were.

Clay Armistead—the chief rabble-rouser, a burly, squat, ugly man who had been spreading lies about the synthetic men for years.

Roger Dubrow, tall, athletic, Armistead’s partner in their food-store business and his partner in villainy as well, it seemed.

Dave Hawks, a local tough just riding along for the fun.

“Android?” I said. “Is this a game, Armistead? You’ve known me for ten years. I’m no more of an android than you are. Let go of me!”

I wrenched my arm free and turned to my taxi—but the driver shook his head nervously and stepped on the accelerator. He wasn’t looking for trouble.

“Come here, android,” Hawks said. “C’mere and lemme rough you up.” He snatched at my suitcase, grabbed it away, tossed it to one side.

“Hold it, Hawks.” I looked from one face to the next. They looked alike—cold, menacing, ugly: “You know as well as I do that androids have red stars on their foreheads. Stop this nonsense, and go play your games elsewhere.”

I still couldn’t take them seriously. It was impossible for an android to masquerade as a human, and they knew it. Why were they accusing me, then? It was fantastic.

“Those red stars can be obliterated, Preston,” Armistead said, in a cold, tight voice. “It’s a secret the androids have kept for years. But now we know. We know you’re synthetic, Preston. And we’re going to get you!”

It was incredible. It was unbelievable. But it was happening, here in my own city, on the world where I’d lived all my thirty years. And suddenly, I was fighting for my life against three of my neighbors who were positive I was a synthetic man!

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dave Hawks moving on me. The sounds of the mob were chillingly close, and I knew I’d be in for trouble for sure if the entire swarm got here while the three ringleaders were working someone over. I’d be ripped to pieces before I knew what was happening.

Hawks closed and swung. His punch landed above my eye. I blinked away the pain and crashed a fist into his midsection. At the same time, Dubrow joined in. Armistead held back and watched.

An open-handed blow from Dubrow knocked me sprawling.

“Look at the android,” Dubrow gloated. “Look at him flat on his back!”

I kicked upward viciously and sent Dubrow over backward screaming in pain. Hawks dove savagely, and we went rolling over and over. I was getting numb from the fighting; all I wanted to do was find Laura and get out of this madhouse, and instead—

“Finish him off!” Armistead hissed. “The cops are coming!”

Sirens wailed. The Rigel City police—badly outnumbered, unable to handle the rioting in its full intensity—had heard of the outbreak at the spaceport and were on their way. Dubrow and Hawks clung to me, their fists pounding into me. I struck back, blindly, clawing, scratching, kicking. Blood trickled down my face— real blood. Human blood. But they didn’t care.

“Come on, android! Fight!” A palm crashed into my cheek; another into my throat. Choking, gasping, I rose to my feet with desperate determination. My clothes were in tatters, my suitcase gone.

I grabbed Hawks, swung the burly man around, sent him crashing into Dubrow and Armistead. Without waiting to see what would happen, I began to run. Just run, blindly, without direction. Running away. I was running for my life, and I still didn’t quite believe it was all happening.

I ran. I ran through the tangled mob of people, through the screaming, yelling, hysterical android-hating people of Rigel City. Bullets whined overhead, and here and there I could see the bright flash of a disruptor-pistol warning the outraged crowd back. There was no stopping them.

I kept running. I reached the fence that bordered the spaceport, ran until I found an exit gate. There was a guard patrolling it, but I went by so fast he didn’t know what had happened.

My heart was pounding and my lungs seemed to be quivering under the strain. And right down in my stomach was a cold hard knot of fear. Not so much for myself directly—I was too numb for that. But I was afraid for Laura.

“Do you have to go to Trantor, darling?” she had asked. “I”ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too, darling,” and it had been the truth. “But we can’t afford both to go—and I can’t afford not to go. You know that.”

“I know, all right. But still—”

I had left her behind, and had been gone eight days. Only eight days—but in that time, Clay Armistead had fanned the smouldering human-android antagonism into a full-scale android kill.

The streets were nearly deserted as I raced into the heart of Rigel City. Up ahead, I could see fires burning—fires, no doubt, coming from shops of android shopkeepers. We had tried to live side by side, androids and men, identical in everything except birth, but it seemed doomed to failure.