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

But far down underneath he had a jumpy feeling, for it all had gone too smoothly, more smoothly than it should.

He tried to analyze himself, tried to pull himself in focus, tried to assess himself for what he had become.

He had abilities that Man had never won or developed or achieved, whichever it might be. He was a certain step ahead of not only other robots, but of Man as well. He had a thing, or the beginning of a thing, that Man had sought and studied and had tried to grasp for centuries and had failed.

A solemn and a deadly thought: was it possible that it was the robots, after all, for whom this great heritage had been meant? Would it be the robots who would achieve the paranormal powers that Man had sought so long, while Man, perforce, must remain content with the materialistic and the merely scientific? Was he, Richard Daniel, perhaps, only the first of many? Or was it all explained by no more than the fact that he alone had been exposed to hyperspace? Could this ability of his belong to anyone who would subject himself to the full, uninsulated mysteries of that mad universe unconstrained by time? Could Man have this, and more, if he too should expose himself to the utter randomness of unreality?

He huddled in his corner, with the thought and speculation stirring in his mind and he sought the answers, but there was no solid answer.

His mind went reaching out, almost on its own, and there was a diagram inside his brain, a portion of a blueprint, and bit by bit was added to it until it all was there, until the entire ship on which he rode was there, laid out for him to see.

He took his time and went over the diagram resting in his brain and he found little things—a fitting that was working loose and he tightened it, a printed circuit that was breaking down and getting mushy and he strengthened it and sharpened it and made it almost new, a pump that was leaking just a bit and he stopped its leaking.

Some hundreds of hours later one of the crewmen found him and took him to the captain.

The captain glowered at him.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“A stowaway,” Richard Daniel told him.

“Your name,” said the captain, drawing a sheet of paper before him and picking up a pencil, “your planet of residence and owner.”

“I refuse to answer you,” said Richard Daniel sharply and knew that the answer wasn’t right, for it was not right and proper that a robot should refuse a human’s direct command.

But the captain did not seem to mind. He laid down the pencil and stroked his black beard slyly.

“In that case,” he said, “I can’t exactly see how I can force the information from you. Although there might be some who’d try. You are very lucky that you stowed away on a ship whose captain is a most kind-hearted man.”

He didn’t look kind-hearted. He did look foxy.

Richard Daniel stood there, saying nothing.

“Of course,” the captain said, “there’s a serial number somewhere on your body and another on your brain. But I suppose that you’d resist if we tried to look for them.”

“I am afraid I would.”

“In that case,” said the captain, “I don’t think for the moment we’ll concern ourselves with them.”

Richard Daniel still said nothing, for he realized that there was no need to.

This crafty captain had it all worked out and he’d let it go at that.

“For a long time,” said the captain, “my crew and I have been considering the acquiring of a robot, but it seems we never got around to it. For one thing, robots are expensive and our profits are not large.”

He sighed and got up from his chair and looked Richard Daniel up and down.

“A splendid specimen,” he said. “We welcome you aboard. You’ll find us congenial.”

“I am sure I will,” said Richard Daniel. “I thank you for your courtesy.”

“And now,” the captain said, “you’ll go up on the bridge and report to Mr. Duncan. I’ll let him know you’re coming. He’ll find some light and pleasant duty for you.”

Richard Daniel did not move as swiftly as he might, as sharply as the occasion might have called for, for all at once the captain had become a complex diagram. Not like the diagrams of ships or robots, but a diagram of strange symbols, some of which Richard Daniel knew were frankly chemical, but others which were not.

“You heard me!” snapped the captain. “Move!”

“Yes, sir,” said Richard Daniel, willing the diagram away, making the captain come back again into his solid flesh.

Richard Daniel found the first mate on the bridge, a horse-faced, somber man with a streak of cruelty ill-hidden, and slumped in a chair to one side of the console was another of the crew, a sodden, terrible creature.

The sodden creature cackled. “Well, well, Duncan, the first non-human member of the Rambler’s crew.”

Duncan paid him no attention. He said to Richard Daniel: “I presume you are industrious and ambitious and would like to get along.”

“Oh, yes,” said Richard Daniel, and was surprised to find a new sensation—laughter—rising in himself.

“Well, then,” said Duncan, “report to the engine room. They have work for you. When you have finished there, I’ll find something else.”

“Yes, sir,” said Richard Daniel, turning on his heel.

“A minute,” said the mate. “I must introduce you to our ship’s physician, Dr. Abram Wells. You can be truly thankful you’ll never stand in need of his services.”

“Good day, Doctor,” said Richard Daniel, most respectfully.

“I welcome you,” said the doctor, pulling a bottle from his pocket. “I don’t suppose you’ll have a drink with me. Well, then, I’ll drink to you.”

Richard Daniel turned around and left. He went down to the engine room and was put to work at polishing and scrubbing and generally cleaning up. The place was in need of it. It had been years, apparently, since it had been cleaned or polished and it was about as dirty as an engine room can get—which is terribly dirty. After the engine room was done there were other places to be cleaned and furbished up and he spent endless hours at cleaning and in painting and shinning up the ship. The work was of the dullest kind, but he didn’t mind. It gave him time to think and wonder, time to get himself sorted out and to become acquainted with himself, to try to plan ahead.

He was surprised at some of the things he found in himself. Contempt, for one—contempt for the humans on this ship. It took a long time for him to become satisfied that it was contempt, for he’d never held a human in contempt before.

But these were different humans, not the kind he’d known. These were no Barringtons. Although it might be, he realized, that he felt contempt for them because he knew them thoroughly. Never before had he known a human as he knew these humans. For he saw them not so much as living animals as intricate patternings of symbols. He knew what they were made of and the inner urgings that served as motivations, for the patterning was not of their bodies only, but of their minds as well. He had a little trouble with the symbology of their minds, for it was twisted and so interlocked and so utterly confusing that it was hard at first to read. But he finally got it figured out and there were times he wished he hadn’t.

The ship stopped at many ports and Richard Daniel took charge of the loading and unloading, and he saw the planets, but was unimpressed. One was a nightmare of fiendish cold, with the very atmosphere turned to drifting snow. Another was a dripping, noisome jungle world, and still another was a bare expanse of broken, tumbled rock without a trace of life beyond the crew of humans and their robots who manned the huddled station in this howling wilderness.