He who served

by Ray Cummings

There was really little for Toory to do but assist and watch over Babs. The Doret home was a many-roomed, spacious house set in a grove of trees on a heavily wooded hillside a mile from the village. There were several human servants, and on the day of his arrival they had come in a little group to gaze at him curiously.

Babs told him their names and their general duties. There was Annie, the maid, and Higgins and his wife who served as steward and cook. There were also Tom, the chauffeur, Nerina, who was Miss Babs' personal maid, and old Jacques, the gardener.

Mrs. Higgins, that first day, had seemed alarmed. Her whisper to her husband had been very faint, but Toory's electronic hearing-grids had picked it up clearly. "Sure gives you the creeps, that thing lookin' at you with them red eye-beams."

All the other human servants had warmed to Toory, but Mrs. Higgins had remained hostile. "It's because we ain't never worked in a house with one of those machines, Miss Babs," her husband had murmured, apologetically. "Not even a little one."

"She'll get used to it," Miss Babs assured him. "None of you will ever have to give him an order. He'll stand here in the foyer under wait-command when I don't need him."

There was little confusion in Toory's new life. During the nights the foyer and the rooms adjoining it were dim and silent, so that Toory's eye-beams remained motionless while he waited. But by day his gaze roamed a bit, because there was more sound and movement.

Annie the parlour maid would be cleaning and dusting, or the thin, sharp-faced Gil Higgins would be moving about, swiftly, deftly at his duties. And there also was Nerina—she who was Miss Babs' personal maid—who quite often darted to and fro. Of them all, only Nerina ever spoke to him. She would say "Morning, Toory." And Miss Babs had taught him to respond with a cheery "Hello!"

It was all very comfortable to Toory as his memory-tapes etched down the many little incidents of the passing days. There was never any bewilderment. He made no mistakes, and he rejoiced in the warmth of his memories. All the things going on around him here in a house that had been new at first, but that now seemed completely homelike. Mostly Toory liked going out with Babs, which they did nearly every afternoon when the weather was right.

Generally they stayed out quite a long time. But there was one afternoon when they started, and came quickly back. Feeling unusually tired, Miss Babs went at once upstairs to her room and Toory resumed his silent, motionless wait-command in the foyer recess.

For a while there was nothing for his eye-beams to follow. Then he heard the soft tread of Higgins moving about in the library. In the quiet, somber dimness, Toory's eye-beams shifted. Through the foyer archway he could see Higgins clearly.