People Minus X

by Raymond Z. Gallun

"You still haven't told me why you came here, Granger," he said coldly. "Why have you passed up a chance for public shouting to come and talk to me?"

Granger smiled. "You're clever enough, Dukas, to know that to win the nephew of Mitchell Prell over to my way of thinking could be to my advantage before that public. Or that, if I can't make friends with him, at least knowing him better might help. Even the latter circumstance could be like having a finger on a whole set of advantages when the showdown between human beings and androids finally comes. Oh, I admire Prell! A great man—if he was a man when last seen! But his kind of greatness is poison, Dukas—though millions with short memories have foolishly forgiven him. But if he ever turns up again, you'll know it, and so, perhaps, will I—before he can do any further damage. You surely must realize that he bears a double guilt: for the blowup and for the development of vitaplasm!"

Granger's smile was savage and hopeful.

Ed laughed in his face. "You think that secretly I might hate Mitchell Prell, eh, Granger? But he was the idol of my childhood, a whimsical, friendly little man. So I'm stuck with loyalty. But even if I hated him blackly, I wouldn't come over to your side. I don't like the way you think. Until the blowup happened, it was bravo for science and empire. Afterward, your hysterical soul was free from blame and white as snow, and he was guilty. Maybe I judge you wrongly. I hope I do. But the way I add it up, it's not the androids or any other new and inevitable development that is the big danger; it's people like you, though maybe you don't realize it. Loudmouths who stir up confusion, animosity, hatred. Maybe I ought to kill you. Then there'd be one less spark in the powder barrel!"

"Why don't you?" Granger mocked. "There'd still be others. And I'd be brought back."

Ed nodded. "The benefits of our civilization," he said. "How would you like to be an android? Does the idea scare you? You know, Granger, some people say that, regardless of how you're returned to the living, you're not the same person you were but only a superficially exact duplicate."

"You know I'd always choose to be human, Dukas," Granger muttered, looking almost terrified.

"Sure, Granger," Ed taunted. "You're not afraid of death—the knowledge that science can restore you gives you courage. You can take the benefits of scientific advancement, can't you? But assuming its responsibilities is another thing."

"I'm not dodging responsibility! I'm grabbing it, Dukas! I'm striking out for sane control. I've done things already! While I worked in the vaults, where personal recordings are kept, certain of those little cylinders disappeared. They won't be found again! Some men don't deserve that much protection against mishap—among them your uncle! I'm proud of this, and I boast of it! No, don't accuse me! Even an official complaint would be challenged by many people and then buried in a heap of red tape. I can be a dirty fighter, Dukas; and I'll bite and kill and kick and holler my lungs out to keep this planet from going to the machines!"

The wild look in Granger's face was the thing that prompted Ed to action. The admission of the theft only emphasized the ghoulish determination that was there. The only hope seemed in smashing that ego out of existence—for a while at least.