Robert Sheckley - Carhunters of the Concrete Prairie

Hellman awoke when the door to the prison was opened. At first he thought they had come to tell him what they had decided. But they had brought him food instead. It consisted entirely of fruit and nuts.

None of them was familiar to him, but none were strange, either. They also brought him water. It was arried in quart oil cans which had been scrupulously cleansed and bore not even a trace of oil. Hellman learned later that these cans had never held oil, even though “oil” was stamped into the metal of their sides. He had no idea then that the carhunters had a ceremonial side to their nature, and were able to use certain utilitarian objects for their symbolic value alone.

The two carhunters who brought the food and water would answer no questions. They waited silently while Hellman ate. He thought they watched him with curiosity. He couldn’t figure that out, but he was hungry enough so that he ate anyway. They took away the hammered tin plates on which they had brought the food, but they left him two water cans.

Time passed. Hellman had no watch, and was unable to reach the ship’s computer to get a time check. But he figured that hours must have passed. He grew irritated with the robot who was locked in with him, who sat in a corner of the room and seemed to be in a cataleptic fit.

At last Hellman had had enough. Boredom can drive a man to outrageous deeds. He walked over to the robot and said, “Say something.”

The robot opened its red and green eyes and looked at him. It slowly shook its head, left to right, meaning no.

“Because they can hear us, right?”

The robot nodded, affirmative.

“What does it matter if they can hear us or not?”

The robot made a complex and intricate gesture with its hands, which Hellman took to mean, ‘You just don’t understand.’

“I just don’t understand, is that it?” Hellman asked.

The robot nodded, affirmative.

“But I can’t understand unless you tell me.”

The robot shrugged. Universal gesture meaning, what can I do about it?

“I’ll tell you what you can do,” Hellman said, his voice low but resonant with suppressed anger.

“You listening?”

The robot nodded.

“If you don’t start talking at once, I’m going to put out one of your eyes. The green one. Then ask you again. If you refuse again, I’ll put out the red one. Got it?”

The robot stared at him. Only now did Hellman see what a mobile face it had. It was not made up of a single piece of metal. Instead there were many little planes sculptured into the face, and each plane was about an inch square and seemed capable of movement. This was a face designed to reveal its thoughts, feelings, and moods through its face. And sure enough, the robot’s face registered horror, disbelief, outrage,, as Hellman screwed up his own face into a ferocious frown and advanced.

“There’s no need for violence,” the robot said.

“Fine. There’s no reason for silence either, is there?”

“I suppose not,” the robot said. “I just thought it best that we didn’t talk together so that the carhunters wouldn’t get the idea we were plotting against them.”

“Why would they think that?”

“You must know as well as I do that it’s every sentient being for itself here on this planet of Newstart. And the carhunters are a very suspicious group of people.”

“They’re not people,” Hellman said. “They’re robots.”

“Since intelligent robots have the same faculties as humans, we no longer differentiate between them in terms of ’robot’ and ‘human.’ It’s superfluous and racist to talk that way. “

“All right,” Hellman said. “I stand corrected. You say they are suspicious people?”

“Stands to reason, doesn’t it? They have separated themselves from the mainstream of Newstart life and development. Isolated groups tend toward xenophobia.”

“You know a lot of big words,” Hellman said.

“I ought to. I’m a librarian.”

These carhunters don’t look like they have much use for reading.”

“I’m not a librarian here,” the robot said with a low laugh. “I don’t belong to this tribe! I work at the Central Lending Library in downtown Robotsville. “

“Robotsville? Is that a city?”

“The largest city on Newstart. Surely you’ve heard of it?”

“I’m not from here,” Hellman said. “I’m from the planet Earth. “

“You ‘re from another planet?” The robot sat up and looked at Hellman more attentively. “How did you get here?”

“In the usual way. By spaceship.”

“Uhuu,” the robot said.

“Beg pardon?”

“‘Uhuu’ is an expression peculiar to Robotsville. It means ‘that really opens up a lot of possibilities.’

“Can you explain that?” Hellman asked.

“It’s just that quite a lot is happening on Newstart right now. Your arrival could have incalculable consequences.”

“What are you talking about? What’s going on?”

Just then there was the sound of a key in the lock.

“I’m afraid I’m not going to have time to tell you,” the robot said. “God knows what these barbarians have in store for us. My name is Jorge.” He gave it the Spanish pronunciation, Hor-hay.

“Jorge? As in Jorge Luis Borges?” asked Hellman, a literate man when it came to very short stories.

“Yes. He is the saint of librarians.”

The door opened. Two carhunters lumbered in. Around buildings they seemed clumsy and ill at ease. The fluid grace that a carhunter possessed in the countryside seemed to have deserted them in these restricting surroundings.

“Come with us,” one of them said. “The council has discussed you and now will speak with you.”

“What about my buddy Jorge here?”

“He will be dealt with in due time.”

“Be careful what you say to them,” the librarian said. “The carhunters do not like...prevarication.”

The librarian’s pause was long enough to convince Hellman that there was something he was being advised not to say to the carhunters. He wished he knew what it was. But now the carhunters were moving, and Hellman had to move quickly to prevent being run over.

They led him to the meeting area. It was a flat circular rock face that had been roughly smoothed. It stood about three feet above the ground, and there were ramps of packed earth leading up to it. The carhunters had already assembled. They were moving around the rock, which greatly resembled a large parking lot. In the center was a raised cube. On it there were five or so carhunters. These looked more like a bunch of politicians than anything else.

Hellman was led to a large pedestal with a spiral roadway leading up to it. It put him on eye level with the five top carhunters.

Even if they had not been apart from the others, Hellman would have had no difficulty telling that these were the important ones. They were somewhat larger than the others, and their bodies had more ornamentation, mostly of the chromium variety. Several of them wore necklaces of shiny objects which Hellman recognized as hood designs from automobiles of Earth ‘s past.

The leading carhunter was easy to spot, too. He sat in the center of the others on the raised rectangle. He was almost a third larger than his fellow judges, and he was painted a midnight blue with silver accents.

The blue and silver judge said, “I am Car Eater, Chief Elder of the Carhunters tribe. These are my fellow judges. Why have you come here, Tom Hellman? We already know that you came in a spaceship. hy did you come to Newstart?”

“It was a mistake,” Hellman said. “I had a malfunction.”

“That is not an acceptable answer. Where humans are concerned, there are no mistakes.”

“Maybe you don’t know people very well,” Hellman said. “This was definitely a mistake. If you don’t believe me, ask my ship’s computer.”