Clifford Simak - I Am Crying All Inside - And Other Stories

Beside him, Gideon asked: “What did you run into, Steve?”

“Huh?”

“Your face is bloody.”

Sheridan put up his hand. His face was wet and sticky. “A piece of gravel must have hit me.”

“Better have Hezekiah fix it.”

“After Max is out,” said Sheridan, going back to work.

They found Maximilian fifteen minutes later, at the bottom of the heap. His body was a total wreck, but he still could talk.

“It sure took you guys long enough,” he said.

“Ah, dry up,” Reuben said. “I think you engineered this so you could get a new body.”

They hauled him out and skidded him along the ground. Bits of broken arms and legs kept dropping off him. They plunked him on the ground and ran toward the radio shack.

Maximilian squalled after them: “Hey, come back! You can’t just dump me here!”

Sheridan squatted down beside him. “Take it easy, Max. The floater hit the radio shack and there’s trouble over there.”

“Lemuel? How is Lemuel?”

“Not too good. The boys are working on him.”

“I don’t know what happened, Steve. We were going all right and all at once the floater bucked us off.”

“Two of the motors failed,” said Sheridan. “Just why, we’ll probably never know, now that the floater’s smashed. You sure you feel all right?”

“Positive. But don’t let the fellows fool around. It would be just like them to hold out on a body. Just for laughs. Don’t let them.”

“You’ll have one as soon as we can manage. I imagine Hezekiah is out running down spare bodies.”

“It does beat all,” said Maximilian. “Here we had all the cargo down—a billion dollars’ worth of cargo and we hadn’t broken—”

“That’s the way it is, Max. You can’t beat the averages.”

Maximilian chuckled. “You human guys,” he said. “You always figure averages and have hunches and …”

Gideon came running out of the darkness. “Steve, we got to get those floater motors stopped. They’re running wild. One of them might blow.”

“But I thought you fellows—”

“Steve, it’s more than a spacehand job. It needs a nuclear technician.”

“Come with me.”

“Hey!” yelled Maximilian.

“I’ll be back,” said Sheridan.

At the tent, there was no sign of Hezekiah. Sheridan dug wildly through the transmog chest. He finally located a nuclear technician transmog.

“I guess you’re elected,” he said to Gideon.

“Okay,” the robot said. “But make it fast. One of those motors can blow and soak the entire area with radiation. It wouldn’t bother us much, but it would be tough on you.”

Sheridan clicked out the spacehand transmog, shoved the other in.

“Be seeing you,” said Gideon, dashing from the tent.

Sheridan stood staring at the scattered transmogs.

Hezekiah will give me hell, he thought.

Napoleon walked into the tent. He had his white apron tucked into the belt. His white cook’s hat was canted on his head.

“Steve,” he asked, “how would you like a cold supper for tonight?”

“I guess it would be all right.”

“That floater didn’t only hit the shack. It also flattened the stove.”

“A cold supper is fine. Will you do something for me?”

“What is it?”

“Max is out there, scared and busted up and lonely. He’ll feel better in the tent.”

Napoleon went out, grumbling: “Me, a chef, lugging a guy …”

Sheridan began picking up the transmogs, trying to get them racked back in order once again.

Hezekiah returned. He helped pick up the transmogs, began rearranging them.

“Lemuel will be all right, sir,” he assured Sheridan. “His nervous system was all tangled up and short-circuiting. They had to cut out great hunks of wiring. About all they have at the moment, sir, is a naked brain. It will take a while to get him back into a body and all hooked up correctly.”

“We came out lucky, Hezekiah.”

“I suppose you are right, sir. I imagine Napoleon told you about the stove.”

Napoleon came in, dragging the wreckage that was Maximilian, and propped it against the desk.

“Anything else?” he asked with withering sarcasm.

“No, thank you, Nappy. That is all.”

“Well,” demanded Maximilian, “how about my body?”

“It will take a while,” Sheridan told him. “The boys have their hands full with Lemuel. But he’s going to be all right.”

“That’s fine,” said Maximilian. “Lem is a damn good robot. It would be a shame to lose him.”

“We don’t lose many of you,” Sheridan observed.

“No,” said Maximilian. “We’re plenty tough. It takes a lot to destroy us.”

“Sir,” Hezekiah said, “you seem to be somewhat injured. Perhaps I should call in someone and put a medic transmog in him …”

“It’s all right,” said Sheridan. “Just a scratch. If you could find some water, so I could wash my face?”

“Certainly, sir. If it is only minor damage, perhaps I can patch you up.”

He went to find the water.

“That Hezekiah is a good guy, too,” said Maximilian, in an expansive mood. “Some of the boys think at times that he’s a sort of sissy, but he comes through in an emergency.”

“I couldn’t get along without Hezekiah,” Sheridan answered evenly. “We humans aren’t rough and tough like you. We need someone to look after us. Hezekiah’s job is in the very best tradition.”

“Well, what’s eating you?” asked Maximilian. “I said he was a good guy.”

Hezekiah came back with a can of water and a towel. “Here’s the water, sir. Gideon said to tell you the motors are okay. They have them all shut off.”

“I guess that just about buttons it all up—if they’re sure of Lemuel,” Sheridan said.

“Sir, they seemed very sure.”

“Well, fine,” said Maximilian, with robotic confidence. “Tomorrow morning we can start on the selling job.”

“I imagine so,” Sheridan said, standing over the can of water and taking off his jacket.

“This will be an easy one. We’ll be all cleaned up and out of here in ninety days or less.”

Sheridan shook his head. “No, Max. There’s no such thing as an easy one.”

He bent above the can and sloshed water on his face and head.

And that was true, he insisted to himself. An alien planet was an alien planet, no matter how you approached it. No matter how thorough the preliminary survey, no matter how astute the planning, there still would always be that lurking factor one could not foresee.

Maybe if a crew could stick to just one sort of job, he thought, it eventually might be possible to work out what amounted to a foolproof routine. But that was not the way it went when one worked for Central Trading.

Central Trading’s interests ran to many different things. Garson IV was sales. Next time it could just as well be a diplomatic mission or a health-engineering job. A man never knew what he and his crew of robots might be in for until he was handed his assignment.

He reached for the towel.

“You remember Carver VII?” he asked Maximilian.

“Sure, Steve. But that was just hard luck. It wasn’t Ebenezer’s fault he made that small mistake.”

“Moving the wrong mountain is not a small mistake,” Sheridan observed with pointed patience.

“That one goes right back to Central,” Maximilian declared, with a show of outrage. “They had the blueprints labeled wrong …”

“Now let’s hold it down,” Sheridan advised. “It is past and done with. There’s no sense in getting all riled up.”

“Maybe so,” said Maximilian, “but it burns me. Here we go and make ourselves a record no other team can touch. Then Central pulls this boner and pins the blame on us. I tell you, Central’s got too big and clumsy.”