People Minus X

by Raymond Z. Gallun

"... They look like us but aren't. Their disguise and their powers hold a warning. No wonder so many of us think of them as something like medieval demons. Can we trust what they say? Or is it a trick to disarm us? How can we know? Yet they intrigue us. Man has always sought to borrow strength and permanence from the rocks and hills. Are they that achievement? And we ourselves have wanted the stars."

Crouched over the small receiver in Freeman's restored shelter during that still-ominous afternoon, Ed and Barbara listened and waited. Around them they found both humor and pathos. In another shelter, dug into the rocks and soil, they located Les Payten, whose misfortunes with the Phonies had been many. His bitter frankness had won him dislike here. He had been put under restraint. There was the bearish tenderness and nursing of the gorgeous and powerful Nancy, Freeman's daughter, who stood beside him now, her big blue eyes expressing a mixture of soulful devotion and hunger about as rapacious as that of a starved hound-dog six inches from a fat rabbit. Les didn't seem to appreciate it at all. But he still tried to be a friend to his companions of a lost youth. "Babs! Ed!" he exclaimed at sight of them. "So you got back—to size, anyhow! But you could go back to where you began, as natural creatures! Damn, once we were young idiots, dazzled by a sense of wonder into too much tolerance. I don't want to be something synthetic! Can't you two realize the fundamental truth of that—for yourselves? Good Glory! Wake up!"

Ed's grin was one-sided. "For one thing, I suspect that going back all the way wouldn't quite work, Les," he said mildly. "We are what we are now, that's all. There's a cloudy sort of limit on switching bodies. There can never truly be two of anyone. Besides, we like being what we are. And should I remind you that, in common with all animals, man is a natural machine? As for being synthetic, I assure you that both love and poetry are there as well. So what do you imagine that we lack that the old timers always had? A taste for turkey or cake? Just lead us to it! We're human, Les—our forms and ideals and feelings are as they always were. We're not devils. We're not truly separated from the old race in any part of sympathy. We're just people gone on—I hope!—a little further."

Ed spoke gently, as he must to a tired, confused friend. Or was it to a whole, vast section of humanity, dumfounded by hurtling technology, proud and stubborn about what had seemed its eternal self, and dreading any change which could seem so darkly drastic?

Barbara tried, too. "Why don't you join us, Les?" she urged. "If you became like us, you would know! Besides, even if all the androids leave the Earth, the knowledge of how to mold vitaplasm won't be taken away with us. People here will continue to be destroyed in accidents, as has always happened. So that knowledge will be needed and used. Besides, some persons will change willingly. Some people may want to shut themselves away from such realities. But I don't think that they can. They'll have to learn to accept facts."

Les Payten looked at his old companions oddly, as if tempted by an old soaring of the fancy. Then the light died in his eyes. "Nice logic," he said coldly. "I could almost trust it if I didn't remind myself. A mechanical treachery. My Ed Dukas and Barbara Day are dead."

His tone was calm, yet there was a quiver in it—perhaps of revulsion for these imponderable likenesses before him, whose hearts he thought he could not—or did not—want to see.

Ed was exasperated before a stubbornness of thought habit which was partly fear, though Les Payten was no coward. Some human minds were quick to adjust, taking even the radical newness of the last half century in their stride. But there had always been many others who were slow. Perhaps it was a childish taint, a resisting of maturity. And how could they keep pace now? But right there, Ed had to remind himself not to be too sure of himself. The next day or minute might trip him up.

There seemed no further way to argue with Les. Ed could only express his sincere thanks for a favor, offer good wishes, and shrug lightly and in some mockery, for one who refused what seemed a simple truth. If that shrug was superficially unkind, perhaps it was also a goad in the right direction. A favor to a pal.

An hour later, when Ed told Freeman of Les Payten's reactions, the colorful android leader had a similar comment: "There's maybe billions like that—one reason why we got to leave. They'll change. But right now, who cares to take the ornery kid brothers fishing? Give 'em time to grow up a little more, first. It won't be so long. Just now we got our own problems and jobs. They ain't small, and nothing's certain. There's no hole to jump into that's as deep as deep space! I thought once that it couldn't happen. But now it looks as if we're gonna get the chance to try!"