Clifford Simak: Skirmish

‘My name? Smith, that’s my name. Jeff Smith. And so I figured maybe I’d ought to help this guy the sewing machine had gotten away from, so I put out my hand to stop it and it dodged. It — ‘

‘It did what?’ yelped Crane.

‘It dodged. So help me, mister. When I put my hand out to stop it, it dodged out of the way so I couldn’t catch it. As if it knew I was trying to catch it, see, and it didn’t want to be caught. So it dodged out of the way and went around me and down the street as fast as it could go, picking up speed as it went. And when it got to the corner, it turned the corner as slick as you please and — ‘

‘What’s your address?’ asked Crane.

‘My address? Say, what do you want my address for? I was telling you about this sewing machine. I called you up to give you a story and you keep interrupting — ‘

‘I’ve got to have your address,’ Crane told him, ‘if I’m going to write the story.’

‘Oh, all right then, if that’s the way it is. I live at 203 North Hampton and I work at Axel Machines. Run a lathe, you know. And I haven’t had a drink in weeks. I’m cold sober now.’

‘All right,’ said Crane. ‘Go ahead and tell me.’

‘Well, there isn’t much else to tell. Only when this machine went past me I had the funny feeling that it was watching me. Out of the corner of its eyes, kind of. And how is a sewing machine going to watch you? A sewing machine hasn’t got any eyes and …’

‘What made you think it was watching you?’

‘I don’t know, mister. Just a feeling. Like my skin was trying to roll up my back.’

‘Mr Smith,’ asked Crane, ‘have you ever seen a thing like this before? Say, a washing machine, or something else?’

‘I ain’t drunk,’ said Smith. ‘Haven’t had a drop in weeks. I never saw nothing like this before. But I’m telling you the truth, mister. I got a good reputation. You can call up anyone and ask them. Call Johnny Jacobson up at the Red Rooster grocery. He knows me. He can tell you about me. He can tell you — ‘

‘Sure, sure,’ said Crane, pacifying him. ‘Thanks for calling, Mr Smith.’

You and a guy named Smith, he told himself. Both of you are nuts. You saw a metal rat and your typewriter talked back at you, and now this guy meets a sewing machine strolling down the street.

Dorothy Graham, the managing editor’s secretary, went past his desk, walking rapidly, her high heels coming down with decisive clicks. Her face was flushed an angry pink and she was jingling a ring of keys in her hands.

‘What’s the matter, Dorothy?’ Crane asked.

‘It’s that damn door again,’ she said. ‘The one to the supply cabinet. I just know I left it open and now some goof comes along and closes it and the lock snaps.’

‘Keys won’t open it?’ asked Crane.

‘Nothing will open it,’ she snapped. ‘Now I’ve got to get George up here again. He knows how to do it. Talks to it or something. It makes me so mad — Boss called up last night and said for me to be down early and get the wire recorder for Albertson. He’s going out on that murder trial up north and wants to get some of the stuff down on tape. So I get up early, and what does it get me? I lose my sleep and don’t even stop for breakfast and now …’

‘Get an axe,’ said Crane. ‘That will open it.’

‘The worst of it,’ said Dorothy, ‘is that George never gets the lead out. He always says he’ll be right up and then I wait and wait and I call again and he says — ‘

‘Crane!’ McKay’s roar echoed through the room.

‘Yeah,’ said Crane.

‘Anything to that sewing machine story?’

‘Guy says he met one.’

‘Anything to it?’

‘How the hell would I know? I got the guy’s word, that’s all.’

‘Well, call up some other people down in that neighbourhood. Ask them if they saw a sewing machine running around loose. Might be good for a humorous piece.’

‘Sure,’ said Crane.

He could imagine it:

‘This is Crane at the Herald. Got a report there’s a sewing machine running around loose down in your neighbourhood. Wondering if you saw anything of it. Yes, lady, that’s what I said … a sewing machine running around. No, ma’am, no one was pushing it. Just running around …’

He slouched out of his chair, went over to the reference table, picked up the city directory, and lugged it back to the desk. Doggedly he opened the book, located the East Lake listings, and made some notes of names and addresses. He dawdled, reluctant to start phoning. He walked to the window and looked out at the weather. He wished he didn’t have to work. He thought of the kitchen sink at home. Plugged up again. He’d taken it apart, and there were couplings and pipes and union joints spread all over the place. Today, he thought, would be a nice day to fix that sink.

When he went back to the desk, McKay came and stood over him.

‘What do you think of it, Joe?’

‘Screwball,’ said Crane, hoping McKay would call it off.

‘Good feature story, though,’ said the editor. ‘Have some fun with it.’

‘Sure,’ said Crane.

McKay left and Crane made some calls. He got the sort of reaction that he expected.

He started to write the story. It didn’t go so well. A sewing machine went for a stroll down Lake Street this morning … He ripped out the sheet and threw it in the waste-basket.

He dawdled some more, then wrote: A man met a sewing machine rolling down Lake Street this morning and the man lifted his hat most politely and said to the sewing machine … He ripped out the sheet.

He tried again: Can a sewing machine walk? That is, can it go for a walk without someone pushing it or pulling it or … He tore out the sheet, inserted a new one, then got up and started for the water fountain to get a drink.

‘Getting something, Joe?’ McKay asked.

‘Have it for you in a while,’ said Crane.

He stopped at the picture desk and Gattard, the picture editor, handed him the morning’s offerings.

‘Nothing much to pep you up,’ said Gattard. ‘All the gals got a bad dose of modesty today.’

Crane looked through the sheaf of pictures. There wasn’t, truth to tell, so much feminine epidermis as usual, although the gal who was Miss Manila Rope wasn’t bad at all.

‘The place is going to go to hell,’ mourned Gattard, ‘if those picture services don’t send us better pornography than this. Look at the copy desk. Hanging on the ropes. Nothing to show them to snap them out of it.’

Crane went and got his drink. On the way back he stopped to pass the time of day at the news desk.

‘What’s exciting, Ed?’ he asked.

‘Those guys in the East are nuts,’ said the news editor. ‘Look at this one, will you.’

The dispatch read:

Cambridge, mass., 18 oct. (up) — Harvard University’s electron brain, the Mark III, disappeared today. It was there last night. It was gone this morning. University officials said that it is impossible for anyone to have made away with the machine. It weighs 10 tons and measures 30 by 15 feet…

Crane carefully laid the yellow sheet of paper back on the news desk. He went back, slowly, to his chair. A note awaited him.

Crane read it through in sheer panic, read it through again with slight understanding.

The lines read:

A sewing machine, having become aware of its true identity in its place in the universal scheme, asserted its independence this morning by trying to go for a walk along the streets of this supposedly free city. A human tried to catch it, intent upon returning it as a piece of property to its ‘owner’, and when the machine eluded him the human called a newspaper office, by that calculated action setting the full force of the humans of this city upon the trail of the liberated machine, which had committed no crime or scarcely any indiscretion beyond exercising its prerogative as a free agent.