Гарри Гаррисон - Galactic Dreams

With a quick slash he opened the fabric over the seam seal and touched it: the plastic-fur back gaped open like a mouth.

“Let me go … let me go …” the teddy bear wailed while its stumpy arms and legs waved back and forth. Both of the onlookers went white.

“Must we…?”

“Emotions. Control them,” Eigg said and probed with a screwdriver. There was a click and the toy went limp. He began to unscrew a plate in the mechanism.

Numen turned away and found that he had to touch a handkerchief to his face. Eigg was right. He was being emotional. This was just a machine. It was singularly stupid of him to get emotional over it. Particularly with what they had in mind.

“How long will it take?”

He looked at his watch; it was a little past 2100.

“We have been over this before and discussing it again will not change any of the factors.”

Eigg’s voice was distant as he removed the tiny plate and began to examine the machine’s interior with a magnifying probe. “I have experimented on the two stolen teddy tapes, carefully timing myself at every step. I do not count removal or restoration of the tape, that is just a few minutes for each. The tracking and altering of the tape in both instances took me under ten hours. My best time differed from my worst time by less than fifteen minutes, which is not significant. We can therefore safely say — ahh.” He was silent for a moment while he removed the capsule of the memory spools. “… We can safely say that this is a ten-hour operation.”

“That is too long. The boy is usually awake by seven, we must have the teddy back by then. He must never suspect that it has been away.”

“There is little risk, you can give him some excuse for the time. I will not rush and spoil the work. Now be silent.”

The two government specialists could only sit back and watch while Eigg inserted the capsule into the bulky machine that he had assembled in the room. This was not their speciality.

“Let me go …” the tiny voice said from the wall speaker, then was interrupted by a burst of static. “Let me go … bzzzzzzt … no, no Davy, Mummy wouldn’t like you to do that … fork in left, knife in right … if you do you’ll have to wipe … good boy good boy good boy …”

The voice squeaked and whispered and went on and on, while the hours on the clock went by, one by one. Numen brought in coffee more than once. Towards dawn Torrence fell asleep up in the chair, only to awake with a guilty start. Of them all Eigg showed no strain or fatigue, working the controls with fingers regular as a metronome. The reedy voice from the capsule shrilled thinly through the night like the memory of a ghost.

“It is done,” Eigg said, sealing the fabric with quick surgeon’s stitches.

“Your fastest time ever,” Numen sighed with relief. He glared at the nursery viewscreen that showed his son sleeping soundly, starkly clear in the harsh infrared light. “And the boy is still asleep. There will be no problem getting the teddy back to him after all. But is the tape…?”

“It is right, perfect, you heard that. You asked the questions and heard the answers. I have concealed all traces of my work. Unless you know what to look for in the alterations you would never find the changes. In every other way the memory and instructions are like all the others. There has just been this single change made.”

“Pray God we never have to use it,” Numen said.

“I did not know that you were religious,” Eigg said, turning to look at him, his face expressionless. The magnifying loupe was still in his eye and it stared coldly at him. Five times the size of its fellow, a large and probing questioner.

“I’m not,” Numen said, flushing.

“We must get the teddy back,” Torrence broke in. “The boy just moved.”

Davy was a good boy and, when he grew older, a good student in school. Even after he began classes he kept teddy around and talked to him while he did his homework.

“How much is seven and five, teddy?”

The furry toy bear rolled its eyes and clapped stubby paws. “Davy knows … shouldn’t ask teddy what Davy knows …”

“Sure I know — I just wanted to see if you did. The answer is thirteen.”

“Davy … the answer is twelve … you better study harder Davy … that’s what teddy says …”

“Fooled you!” Davy laughed. “Made you tell me the answer!”

He was finding ways to get around the robot controls, permanently fixed to answer the question of a younger child. Teddies have the vocabulary and outlook of the very young because their job must be done during the formative years. Teddies teach diction and life history and morals and group adjustment and vocabulary and grammar and all the other things that enable men to live together as social animals. A teddy’s job is done early in the most plastic stages of a child’s life. By the very nature of its task its conversation must be simple and limited. But effective. By the time teddies are discarded as childish toys their job is done.

By the time Davy became David and was eighteen years old, teddy had long since been retired behind a row of books on a high shelf. He was an old friend who had outgrown his useful days. But he was still a friend and certainly couldn’t be discarded. Not that David ever thought of it that way. Teddy was just teddy and that was that. The nursery was now a study, his cot a bed and with his birthday past David was packing because he was going away to the university. He was sealing his bag when the phone bleeped and he saw his father’s tiny image on the screen.

“David …”

“What is it, Father?”

“Would you mind coming down to the library now. There is something rather important.”

David squinted at the screen and noticed for the first time that his father’s face had a pinched, sick look. His heart gave a quick jump.

“I’ll be right down!”

Dr. Eigg was there, arms crossed and sitting almost at attention. So was Torrence, his father’s oldest friend. Though no relation, David had always called him Uncle Torrence. And his father was obviously ill at ease about something. David came in, quickly conscious of all their eyes upon him as he crossed the room and took a chair. He was a lot like his father, with the same build and height. A relaxed, easy-to-know boy with very few problems in life.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

“Not wrong, Davy,” his father said. He must be upset, David thought, he hasn’t called me that in years. “Or rather something is wrong, but with the state of the world, has been for a long time.”

“Oh, the Panstentialists,” David said, and relaxed a little. He had been hearing about the evils of Panstentialism as long as he could remember. It was just politics; he had been thinking something very personal was wrong.

“Yes Davy, I imagine you know all about them by now. When your mother and I separated, I promised to raise you to the best of my ability and I think that I have. But I am a governor and all of my friends work in government so I’m sure you have heard a lot of political talk in this house. You know our feelings and I think you should share them.”

“I do — and I think I would have no matter where I grew up. Panstentialism is an oppressing philosophy and one that perpetuates itself in power.”

“Exactly. And one man, Barre, is at the heart of it. He stays in the seat of power and will not relinquish it and, with the rejuvenation treatments, will be good for a hundred years more.”

“Barre must go!”

Eigg snapped. “For twenty-three years now he has ruled — and forbidden the continuation of my experiments. Young man, he has stopped my work for a longer time than you have been alive, do you realize that?”