Henry Kuttner - Piggy Bank

Ballards’s diamonds were being stolen as fast as he could make new ones. Insurance companies had long since given him up as a bad risk. Detective agencies were glad to offer their services, at a high fee, but, since the diamonds were invariably stolen, anyhow, this was simply more money down the drain. It couldn’t keep up. Ballard’s fortune was founded on diamonds, and the value of gems increases in inverse proportion to their quantity and availability. In ten years or so, at the present rate of theft, unfiawed blue-whites would be almost worthless.

“So what I need is a perfect safe,” Ballard said, sipping a liqueur. He stared across the table at Joe Gunther, who only smiled.

“Sure,” Gunther said. “Well?”

“You’re a technician. Figure it out. What do I pay you for?”

“You pay me for making diamonds and not telling anybody I can make ‘em.”

“I hate lazy people,” Ballard remarked. “You graduated top man at the Institute in 1990. What have you done since then?”

“Practiced hedonism,” Gunther said. “Why should I work my head off when I can get everything I want just by making diamonds for you? What does any man want? Security, freedom, a chance to indulge his whims. I got that. Just by finding a formula for the Philosopher’s Stone. Too bad Cain never guessed the potentialities of his patent. Too bad for him; lucky for me.”

“Shut up,” Ballard said with soft intensity.

Gunther grinned and glanced around the gigantic dining hail. “Nobody can hear us.” He was a little drunk. A lock of lank dark hair fell over his forehead; his thin face looked sharp and mocking. “Besides, I like to talk. It makes me realize I’m as much of a big shot as you are. Swell stuff for my soul.”.

“Then talk. When you’re quite finished, I’ll get on with what I’ve got to say.”

Gunther drank brandy. “I’m a hedonist, and I’ve got a high I.Q. ‘When I graduated, I looked around for the best way of supporting Joe Gunther without working. Building something new from scratch wastes time. The best system is to find a structure already built, and add something more. Ergo, the Patent Office. I spent two years going through the files, looking for pay dirt. I found it in Cain’s formula. He didn’t know what it was. A theory about thermodynamics-he thought. Never realized he could make diamonds simply by developing the idea a bit. So,” Gunther finished, “for twenty years that formula has been buried in the Patent Office, and I found it. And sold it to you, on condition that I keep my mouth shut and let the world believe your diamonds were real.”

“Finished?” Ballard asked.

“Sure.”

“Why do you recapitulate the obvious on an average of once a month?”

“To keep you reminded,” Gunther said. “You’d kill me if you dared. Then your secret would be quite safe. The way I figure it, ever so often you work out a method of getting rid of me, and it biases your judgment. You’re apt to go off half-cocked, get me killed, and then realize your mistake. When I’m dead, the formula will be made public, and everybody can make diamonds. Where’ll you be, then?”

Ballard shifted his bulky body, half closing his eyes and clasping large, well-shaped hands behind his neck. He regarded Gunther coolly.

“Symbiosis,” he said. “You’ll keep your mouth shut, because diamonds are your security, too. Credits, currency, bonds-they’re all apt to become worthless under current economic conditions. But diamonds are rare. I want to keep ‘em that way. I’ve got to stop these thefts.”

“If one man builds a safe, another man can crack it. You know the history of that. In the old days, somebody invented a combination lock. Right away, somebody else figured out the answer-listening to the fall of the tumblers. Tumblers were made noiseless; then a crook used a stethoscope. The answer to that was a time lock. Nitroglycerin canceled that. Stronger metals were used, and precision jointures. O.K.-thermite. One guy used to take off the dial, slip a piece of carbon paper under it, replace it-and come back a day later, after the combination had been scratched on the carbon. Today it’s X rays, and so forth.”

“A perfect safe can be made,” Ballard said.

“How?”

“There are two methods. One, lock the diamonds in an absolutely uncrackable safe.”

“No such thing.”

“Two, leave the diamonds in plain sight, guarded by men who never take their eyes from them.”

“You tried that, too. It didn’t work. The men were gassed once. The second time, a ringer got in, disguised as one of the detectives.”

Ballard ate an olive. “When I was a kid, I had a piggy bank made of glass. I could see the coins, but I couldn’t get ‘em out without breaking the pig. That’s what I want. Only-I want a pig who can run.”

Gunther looked up, his eyes suddenly sharp. “Eh?”

“A pig who’s conditioned to flight-self-preservation. One who specializes in the art of running away. Animals do it-herbivores chiefly. There’s an African deer that reacts to movement before it’s made. Better than split-second reaction. A fox is another example. Can a man catch a fox?”

“He’d use dogs and horses.”

“Uh-huh. So foxes run through herds of sheep, and cross water, to spoil the scent. My pig must do that, too.”

“You’re talking about a robot,” Gunther said.

“The Metalman people will make us one to order, with the radioatomic type of brain. A seven-foot robot, studded with diamonds, conditioned to running away. An intelligent robot.”

Gunther rubbed his jaw. “Lovely. Except for one thing. The intelligence must be limited. Metalman have made robots of human mind-power, but each one covers a city block. Mobility’s lost as intelligence increases. They haven’t yet found a substitute for the colloid brain. However-” He stared at his fingernails. “Yeah. It could be done. The robot must be conditioned in one line only, self-preservation. It must be able to build logically from that motivation, and that’s all it needs.”

“Would that be enough?”

“Yes, because a robot’s logical. You can drive a seal or a deer into a trap. Or a tiger. The tiger hears the beaters behind him, and runs from them. To him, that’s the only danger he knows, till he falls in the pit that’s been dug for him. A fox might be smarter. He might think of both the menace behind him and the one in front. A robot-he wouldn’t stampede blindly. If he was driven toward a cul-de-sac, he’d use logic and wonder what was up that blind alley.”

“And escape?”

“He’d have split-second-in fact, instantaneous reaction. Radioatomic brains think fast. You’ve set me a beautiful problem, Bruce, but I think it can be done. A diamond-studded robot, parading around here-psychologically, it’s right up your alley.”

Ballard shrugged. “I like ostentation. As a kid I had a hell of an inferiority complex. I’m compensating for that now. Why do you suppose I built the castle? It’s a showplace. I need an army of servants to keep it going. The worst thing I can imagine is being a nonentity.”

“Which in your mind is synonymous with poverty,” Gunther murmured. “You’re essentially imitative, Bruce. You built your economic empire through imitation. I don’t think you’ve ever had an original thought in your life.”

“What about this robot?”

“Induction-simple addition. You figured out your requirements and added them up. The result is a diamond-studded robot conditioned to flight.” Gunther hesitated. “Flight isn’t enough. It’s got to be escape-self-preservation. Sometimes offense is the best defense. The robot should run as long as that’s feasible and logical-and then try escape in other ways.”