Clifford Simak - A Death in the House - And Other Stories

“I know all that,” admitted Doc. “I wasn’t trying to blame you, Johnny. After all, we needn’t kid ourselves. If we don’t walk the line, Streeter will open up on us as well.”

“You’re telling me,” said Garrison. He gulped the liquor. “Streeter knows that something happened to Chester. That yarn about his being lost out in the hills simply didn’t click.”

“We never meant it should,” Doc declared. “But so long as we serve our purpose, so long as we throw no monkey wrenches, so long as we’re good little boys, we can go on living.”

Archie’s voice grated from beyond the open laboratory door.

“Doctor, will you please come here?”

“Sure, Archie, sure. What can I do for you?”

“I would like to talk to Captain Streeter.”

“Captain Streeter,” warned Doc, “isn’t a nice man. If I were you, I’d keep away from him.”

“But nevertheless,” persisted Archie, “I would like to talk to him. I have something that I’m sure will interest him. Will you call him, please?”

“Certainly,” agreed Doc.

He strode out into the office and dialed the phone.

“Streeter speaking,” said a voice.

“Archie wants to talk to you,” said the Doc.

“Archie!” stormed Streeter. “Tell that lousy little hunk of gas to go chase himself.”

“Streeter,” said Doc, “it doesn’t make any difference to me what you do; but, if I were in your place, I would talk to Archie. In fact, I’d come running when he called me.”

Doc replaced the phone, cutting off the sounds of rage coming from the other end.

“Well?” asked Garrison.

“He’ll come,” said Doc.

Ten minutes later Streeter did come, cold anger in his eyes.

“I wish you gentlemen would tend to small details yourselves,” he snarled.

Doc jerked his thumb toward the open door. “In there,” he said.

Boots clumping angrily, Streeter strode into the laboratory.

“What is it?” his voice boomed.

“Captain Streeter,” grated Archie’s voice, “I don’t like your way of doing things. I don’t like Radium, Inc.’s way of doing things.”

“Oh, so you don’t,” said Streeter, words silky with rage.

“So,” continued Archie, “I’m giving you and your men half an hour to get out of here. Out of the mine and off this planet.”

There were strangling sounds as the police captain fought to speak. Finally he rasped: “And if we don’t?”

“If you don’t,” said Archie, “I shall force you to move. If the mine is not vacated within half an hour, I shall start bombardment.”

“Bombardment!”

“Exactly. This place is ringed with cannon. It is a barbaric thing to do, but it’s the only way you’d understand. I could use other methods, but the cannon probably are the best.”

“You’re bluffing,” shrieked Streeter. “You haven’t any cannon.”

“Very well,” said Archie. “Do what you wish. It’s immaterial to me. You have thirty minutes.”

Streeter swung around and stamped out into the office.

“You heard?” he asked.

Doc nodded. “If I were you, Streeter, I’d pull stakes. Archie isn’t fooling.”

“Cannon!” snorted the captain.

“Exactly,” said Garrison. “And don’t you ever think Archie doesn’t have them. When the machines ran away they took along our tools.”

Streeter’s face hardened. “Let’s say he had them, then. All right, he has them. So have we. We’ll fight him!”

Doc laughed. “You’ll play hell. Fighting Archie is a joke. Where are you going to find him? How are you going to corner him? There isn’t any way to hit him, no way to come to grips with him. You can’t defeat him. You can’t destroy him. So long as there are radium beds there will always be an Archie.”

“I’m calling Earth,” said Streeter, grimly. “It’s time the army took over.”

“Call in your army,” said Doc, “but remember one thing. The only thing you can fight is Archie’s weapons. You may destroy his guns, but you can’t hurt Archie. All he has to do is build some more. And those weapons won’t be easy to hit. Because, you see, those guns will be intelligent. They won’t depend on brass hats and military orders. They’ll have brains of their own. You’ll be fighting deadly intelligent machines. I tell you, Streeter, you haven’t got a chance!”

Streeter turned to Garrison with bleak eyes.

“You think the same?” he challenged and the menace in his voice was scarcely hidden.

“Archie isn’t bluffing,” Garrison insisted. “He can make guns, tanks, ships … in fact, he can duplicate anything we have—with improvements. He’s got our tools and our knowledge and he’s got something we haven’t got. That’s his knowledge, the knowledge he never shared with us.”

“You both are under technical arrest,” snapped Streeter. “You will remain inside the dome. If you venture out—”

“Get out of here,” yelled Garrison. “Get out of here before I break your neck!”

Streeter got out, with Garrison’s laughter ringing in his ears.

Doc glanced at his watch. “Fifteen minutes gone. I wonder what Streeter will do.”

“He won’t do anything,” Garrison predicted. “He’s pig-headed. He’ll put in a call to Earth, have an expeditionary force sent out as a precautionary measure. But even now he doesn’t believe what Archie told him.”

“I do,” said Doc. “You better put in a call to Mac. Tell him to hustle over here. I’d hate to have him get caught in the fireworks.”

Garrison nodded and reached for the phone. Doc got up and walked into the laboratory.

“Well, Archie, how are you feeling now?”

“Why do you always ask me that, doctor?” Archie demanded irritably. “I’m feeling all right. I always feel all right. There’s nothing to go wrong with me.”

“Thought you might feel a bit different—starting a war.”

“It isn’t a war,” insisted Archie. “It isn’t even an adventure. At least, not the kind of an adventure the human race would understand. It is a part of a carefully studied plan.”

“But why are you doing it, Archie? Why are you messing into this at all? The human race can’t touch you. You could, if you wanted to, just go on disregarding them.”

“You might be able to understand,” said Archie.

“I sure would try,” Doc promised.

“You know about me,” said Archie. “You probably can imagine the sort of life I lived before the Earthmen came. For eons I was a thing without physical life. My life was mental. I developed mentally. I specialized in mentality, you see, because I didn’t have a body to worry about. I thought and speculated and that was all right, because it was the only kind of life I knew. It was a good life, too, free of so many of the worries and annoyances of physical being. Sometimes I wish it could have continued.

“I didn’t have any enemies. I didn’t even have neighbors to fight with. For I could be one or I could be many; I was sufficient to myself.

“I realized there was such a thing as physical being, of course, because I observed the few tiny animals that are able to survive on Venus. Pitifully inadequate physical life as compared with the life on Earth, but physical life nevertheless.

“I wondered about that life. I attempted to formulate a behavioristic pattern for such a type of life endowed with my mentality. Starting with small imaginings, I built that idea up into the pattern of a hypothetical civilization, a civilization that paralleled Earth’s in some ways, differed from it vastly in others. It couldn’t be the same, you know, because my philosophy was a far cry from the kind of thought that you developed.”

The grating voice died and then began again—“I, myself, of course, can never live a life like that.”