12
A TARGET IS MISSED

She laughed.

The laughter grew and fed on itself till she was gasping for breath and her plump face had reddened almost to purple. She leaned against the wall and gasped for breath.

“No, don’t come—closer,” she begged. “I’m all right.”

Baley said gravely, “Is the possibility that humorous?”

She tried to answer and laughed again. Then, in a whisper, she said, “Oh, you are an Earthman! How could it ever be me?”

“You knew him well,” said Baley. “You knew his habits. You could have planned it.”

“And you think I would see him? That I would get close enough to bash him over the head with something? You just don’t know anything at all about it, Baley.”

Baley felt himself redden. “Why couldn’t you get close enough to him, ma’am? You’ve had practice—uh—mingling.”

“With the children.”

“One thing leads to another. You seem to be able to stand my presence.”

“At twenty feet,” she said contemptuously.

“I’ve just visited a man who nearly collapsed because he had to endure my presence for a while.”

Klorissa sobered and said, “A difference in degree.”

“I suggest that a difference in degree is all that is necessary. The habit of seeing children makes it possible to endure seeing Delmarre just long enough.”

“I would like to point out, Mr. Baley,” said Klorissa, no longer appearing the least amused, “that it doesn’t matter a speck what I can endure. Dr. Delmarre was the finicky one. He was almost as bad as Leebig himself. Almost. Even if I could endure seeing him, he would never endure seeing me. Mrs. Delmarre is the only one he could possibly have allowed within seeing distance.”

Baley said, “Who’s this Leebig you mentioned?”

Klorissa shrugged. “One of these odd-genius types, if you know what I mean. He’d done work with the boss on robots.”

Baley checked that off mentally and returned to the matter at hand. He said, “It could also be said you had a motive.”

“What motive?”

“His death put you in charge of this establishment, gave you position.”

“You call that a motive? Skies above, who could want this position? Who on Solaria? This is a motive for keeping him alive. It’s a motive for hovering over him and protecting him. You’ll have to do better than that, Earthman.”

Baley scratched his neck uncertainly with one finger. He saw the justice of that.

Klorissa said, “Did you notice my ring, Mr. Baley?”

For a moment it seemed she was about to strip the glove from her right hand, but she refrained.

“I noticed it,” said Baley.

“You don’t know its significance, I suppose?”

“I don’t.” (He would never have done with ignorance, he thought bitterly.)

“Do you mind a small lecture, then?”

“If it will help me make sense of this damned world,” blurted out Baley, “by all means.”

“Skies above!” Klorissa smiled. “I suppose we seem to you as Earth would seem to us. Imagine. Say, here’s an empty chamber. Come in here and we’ll sit down—no, the room’s not big enough. Tell you what, though. You take a seat in there and I’ll stand out here.”

She stepped farther down the corridor, giving him space to enter the room, then returned, taking up her stand against the opposite wall at a point where she could see him.

Baley took his seat with only the slightest quiver of chivalry countering it. He thought rebelliously: Why not? Let the Spacer woman stand.

Klorissa folded her muscular arms across her chest and said, “Gene analysis is the key to our society. We don’t analyze for genes directly, of course. Each gene, however, governs one enzyme, and we can analyze for enzymes. Know the enzymes, know the body chemistry. Know the body chemistry, know the human being. You see all that?”

“I understand the theory,” said Baley. “I don’t know how it’s applied.”

“That part’s done here. Blood samples are taken while the infant is still in the late fetal stage. That gives us our rough first approximation. Ideally, we should catch all mutations at that point and judge whether birth can be risked. In actual fact, we still don’t quite know enough to eliminate all possibility of mistake. Someday, maybe. Anyway, we continue testing after birth; biopsies as well as body fluids. In any case, long before adulthood, we know exactly what our little boys and girls are made of.”

(Sugar and spice … A nonsense phrase went unbidden through Baley’s mind.)

“We wear coded rings to indicate our gene constitution,” said Klorissa. “It’s an old custom, a bit of the primitive left behind from the days when Solarians had not yet been weeded eugenically. Nowadays, we’re all healthy.”

Baley said, “But you still wear yours. Why?”

“Because I’m exceptional,” she said with an unembarrassed, unblunted pride. “Dr. Delmarre spent a long time searching for an assistant. He needed someone exceptional. Brains, ingenuity, industry, stability. Most of all, stability. Someone who could learn to mingle with children and not break down.”

“He couldn’t, could he? Was that a measure of his instability?”

Klorissa said, “In a way, it was, but at least it was a desirable type of instability under most circumstances. You wash your hands, don’t you?”

Baley’s eyes dropped to his hands. They were as clean as need be. “Yes,” he said.

“All right. I suppose it’s a measure of instability to feel such revulsion at dirty hands as to be unable to clean an oily mechanism by hand even in an emergency. Still, in the ordinary course of living, the revulsion keeps you clean, which is good.”

“I see. Go ahead.”

“There’s nothing more. My genic health is the third-highest ever recorded on Solaria, so I wear my ring. It’s a record I enjoy carrying with me.”

“I congratulate you.”

“You needn’t sneer. It may not be my doing. It may be the blind permutation of parental genes, but it’s a proud thing to own, anyway. And no one would believe me capable of so seriously psychotic an act as murder. Not with my gene makeup. So don’t waste accusations on me.”

Baley shrugged and said nothing. The woman seemed to confuse gene makeup and evidence and presumably the rest of Solaria would do the same.

Klorissa said, “Do you want to see the youngsters now?”

“Thank you. Yes.”

The corridors seemed to go on forever. The building was obviously a tremendous one. Nothing like the huge banks of apartments in the Cities of Earth, of course, but for a single building clinging to the outside skin of a planet it must be a mountainous structure.

There were hundreds of cribs, with pink babies squalling, or sleeping, or feeding. Then there were playrooms for the crawlers.

“They’re not too bad even at this age,” said Klorissa grudgingly, “though they take up a tremendous sum of robots. It’s practically a robot per baby till walking age.”

“Why is that?”

“They sicken if they don’t get individual attention.”

Baley nodded. “Yes, I suppose the requirement for affection is something that can’t be done away with.”

Klorissa frowned and said brusquely, “Babies require attention.”

Baley said, “I am a little surprised that robots can fulfill the need for affection.”

She whirled toward him, the distance between them not sufficing to hide her displeasure. “See here, Baley, if you’re trying to shock me by using unpleasant terms, you won’t succeed. Skies above, don’t be childish.”

“Shock you?”

“I can use the word too. Affection! Do you want a short word, a good four-letter word? I can say that, too. Love! Love! Now if it’s out of your system, behave yourself.”

Baley did not trouble to dispute the matter of obscenity. He said, “Can robots really give the necessary attention, then?”

“Obviously, or this farm would not be the success it is. They fool with the child. They nuzzle it and snuggle it. The child doesn’t care that it’s only a robot. But then, things grow more difficult between three and ten.”

“Oh?”

“During that interval, the children insist on playing with one another. Quite indiscriminately.”

“I take it you let them.”

“We have to, but we never forget our obligation to teach them the requirements of adulthood. Each has a separate room that can be closed off. Even from the first, they must sleep alone. We insist on that. And then we have an isolation time every day and that increases with the years. By the time a child reaches ten, he is able to restrict himself to viewing for a week at a time. Of course, the viewing arrangements are elaborate. They can view outdoors, under mobile conditions, and can keep it up all day.”

Baley said, “I’m surprised you can counter an instinct so thoroughly. You do counter it; I see that. Still, it surprises me.”

“What instinct?” demanded Klorissa.

“The instinct of gregariousness. There is one. You say yourself that as children they insist on playing with each other.”

Klorissa shrugged. “Do you call that instinct? But then, what if it is? Skies above, a child has an instinctive fear of falling, but adults can be trained to work in high places even where there is constant danger of falling. Haven’t you ever seen gymnastic exhibitions on high wires? There are some worlds where people live in tall buildings. And children have instinctive fear of loud noises, too, but are you afraid of them?”

“Not within reason,” said Baley.

“I’m willing to bet that Earth people couldn’t sleep if things were really quiet. Skies above, there isn’t an instinct around that can’t give way to a good, persistent education. Not in human beings, where instincts are weak anyway. In fact, if you go about it right, education gets easier with each generation. It’s a matter of evolution.”

Baley said, “How is that?”

“Don’t you see? Each individual repeats his own evolutionary history as he develops. Those fetuses back there have gills and a tail for a time. Can’t skip those steps. The youngster has to go through the social-animal stage in the same way. But just as a fetus can get through in one month a stage that evolution took a hundred million years to get through, so our children can hurry through the social-animal stage. Dr. Delmarre was of the opinion that with the generations, we’d get through that stage faster and faster.”

“Is that so?”

“In three thousand years, he estimated, at the present rate of progress, we’d have children who’d take to viewing at once. The boss had other notions, too. He was interested in improving robots to the point of making them capable of disciplining children without becoming mentally unstable. Why not? Discipline today for a better life tomorrow is a true expression of First Law if robots could only be made to see it.”

“Have such robots been developed yet?”

Klorissa shook her head. “I’m afraid not. Dr. Delmarre and Leebig had been working hard on some experimental models.”

“Did Dr. Delmarre have some of the models sent out to his estate? Was he a good enough roboticist to conduct tests himself?”

“Oh yes. He tested robots frequently.”

“Do you know that he had a robot with him when he was murdered?”

“I’ve been told so.”

“Do you know what kind of a model it was?”

“You’ll have to ask Leebig. As I told you, he’s the roboticist who worked with Dr. Delmarre.”

“You know nothing about it?”

“Not a thing.”

“If you think of anything, let me know.”

“I will. And don’t think new robot models are all that Dr. Delmarre was interested in. Dr. Delmarre used to say the time would come when unfertilized ova would be stored in banks at liquid-air temperatures and utilized for artificial insemination. In that way, eugenic principles could be truly applied and we could get rid of the last vestige of any need for seeing. I’m not sure that I quite go along with him so far, but he was a man of advanced notions; a very good Solarian.”

She added quickly, “Do you want to go outside? The five-through-eight group are encouraged to take part in outdoor play and you could see them in action.”

Baley said cautiously, “I’ll try that. I may have to come back inside on rather short notice.”

“Oh yes, I forgot. Maybe you’d rather not go out at all?”

“No.” Baley forced a smile. “I’m trying to grow accustomed to the outdoors.”

The wind was hard to bear. It made breathing difficult. It wasn’t cold, in a direct physical sense, but the feel of it, the feel of his clothes moving against his body, gave Baley a kind of chill.

His teeth chattered when he tried to talk and he had to force his words out in little bits. It hurt his eyes to look so far at a horizon so hazy green and blue and there was only limited relief when he looked at the pathway immediately before his toes. Above all, he avoided looking up at the empty blue, empty, that is, but for the piled-up white of occasional clouds and the glare of the naked sun.

And yet he could fight off the urge to run, to return to enclosure.

He passed a tree, following Klorissa by some ten paces, and he reached out a cautious hand to touch it. It was rough and hard to the touch. Frondy leaves moved and rustled overhead, but he did not raise his eyes to look at them. A living tree!

Klorissa called out. “How do you feel?”

“All right.”

“You can see a group of youngsters from here,” she said. “They’re involved in some kind of game. The robots organize the games and see to it that the little animals don’t kick each other’s eyes out. With personal presence you can do just that, you know.”

Baley raised his eyes slowly, running his glance along the cement of the pathway out to the grass and down the slope, farther and farther out—very carefully—ready to snap back to his toes if he grew frightened—feeling with his eyes …

There were the small figures of boys and girls racing madly about, uncaring that they raced at the very outer rim of a world with nothing but air and space above them. The glitter of an occasional robot moved nimbly among them. The noise of the children was a far-off incoherent squeaking in the air.

“They love it,” said Klorissa. “Pushing and pulling and squabbling and falling down and getting up and just generally contacting. Skies above! How do children ever manage to grow up?”

“What are those older children doing?” asked Baley. He pointed at a group of isolated youngsters standing to one side.

“They’re viewing. They’re not in a state of personal presence. By viewing, they can walk together, talk together, race together, play together. Anything except physical contact.”

“Where do children go when they leave here?”

“To estates of their own. The number of deaths is, on the average, equal to the number of graduations.”

“To their parents’ estates?”

“Skies above, no! It would be an amazing coincidence, wouldn’t it, to have a parent die just as a child is of age. No, the children take any one that falls vacant. I don’t know that any of them would be particularly happy, anyway, living in a mansion that once belonged to their parents, supposing, of course, they knew who their parents were.”

“Don’t they?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Why should they?”

“Don’t parents visit their children here?”

“What a mind you have. Why should they want to?”

Baley said, “Do you mind if I clear up a point for myself? Is it bad manners to ask a person if they have had children?”

“It’s an intimate question, wouldn’t you say?”

“In a way.”

“I’m hardened. Children are my business. Other people aren’t.”

Baley said, “Have you any children?”

Klorissa’s Adam’s apple made a soft but clearly visible motion in her throat as she swallowed. “I deserve that, I suppose. And you deserve an answer. I haven’t.”

“Are you married?”

“Yes, and I have an estate of my own and I would be there but for the emergency here. I’m just not confident of being able to control all the robots if I’m not here in person.”

She turned away unhappily, and then pointed. “Now there’s one of them gone tumbling and of course he’s crying.”

A robot was running with great space-devouring strides.

Klorissa said, “He’ll be picked up and cuddled and if there’s any real damage, I’ll be called in.” She added nervously, “I hope I don’t have to be.”

Baley took a deep breath. He noted three trees forming a small triangle fifty feet to the left. He walked in that direction, the grass soft and loathsome under his shoes, disgusting in its softness (like walking through corrupting flesh, and he nearly retched at the thought).

He was among them, his back against one trunk. It was almost like being surrounded by imperfect walls. The sun was only a wavering series of flitters through the leaves, so disconnected as almost to be robbed of horror.

Klorissa faced him from the path, then slowly shortened the distance by half.

“Mind if I stay here awhile?” asked Baley.

“Go ahead,” said Klorissa.

Baley said, “Once the youngsters graduate out of the farm, how do you get them to court one another?”

“Court?”

“Get to know one another,” said Baley, vaguely wondering how the thought could be expressed safely, “so they can marry.”

“That’s not their problem,” said Klorissa. “They’re matched by gene analysis, usually when they are quite young. That’s the sensible way, isn’t it?”

“Are they always willing?”

“To be married? They never are! It’s a very traumatic process. At first they have to grow accustomed to one another, and a little bit of seeing each day, once the initial queasiness is gone, can do wonders.”

“What if they don’t like their partner?”

“What? If the gene analysis indicates a partnership what difference does it—-”

“I understand,” said Baley hastily. He thought of Earth and sighed.

Klorissa said, “Is there anything else you would like to know?”

Baley wondered if there were anything to be gained from a longer stay. He would not be sorry to be done with Klorissa and fetal engineering so that he might pass on to the next stage.

He had opened his mouth to say as much, when Klorissa called out at some object far off, “You, child, you there! What are you doing?” Then, over her shoulder: “Earthman! Baley! Watch out! Watch out!”

Baley scarcely heard her. He responded to the note of urgency in her voice. The nervous effort that held his emotions taut snapped wide and he flamed into panic. All the terror of the open air and the endless vault of heaven broke in upon him.

Baley gibbered. He heard himself mouth meaningless sounds and felt himself fall to his knees and slowly roll over to his side as though he were watching the process from a distance.

Also from a distance he heard the sighing hum piercing the air above him and ending with a sharp thwack.

Baley closed his eyes and his fingers clutched a thin tree root that skimmed the surface of the ground and his nails burrowed into dirt.

He opened his eyes (it must only have been moments after). Klorissa was scolding sharply at a youngster who remained at a distance. A robot, silent, stood closer to Klorissa. Baley had only time to notice the youngster held a stringed object in his hand before his eyes sheered away.

Breathing heavily, Baley struggled to his feet. He stared at the shaft of glistening metal that remained in the trunk of the tree against which he had been standing. He pulled at it and it came out readily. It had not penetrated far. He looked at the point but did not touch it. It was blunted, but it would have sufficed to tear his skin had he not dropped when he did.

It took him two tries to get his legs moving. He took a step toward Klorissa and called. “You. Youngster.”

Klorissa turned, her face flushed. She said, “It was an accident. Are you hurt?”

“No! What is this thing?”

“It’s an arrow. It is fired by a bow, which makes a taut string do the work.”

“Like this,” called the youngster impudently, and he shot another arrow into the air, then burst out laughing. He had light hair and a lithe body.

Klorissa said, “You will be disciplined. Now leave!”

“Wait, wait,” cried Baley. He rubbed his knee where a rock had caught and bruised him as he had fallen. “I have some questions. What is your name?”

“Bik,” he said carelessly.

“Did you shoot that arrow at me, Bik?”

“That’s right,” said the boy.

“Do you realize you would have hit me if I hadn’t been warned in time to duck?”

Bik shrugged. “I was aiming to hit.”

Klorissa spoke hurriedly. “You must let me explain. Archery is an encouraged sport. It is competitive without requiring contact. We have contests among the boys using viewing only. Now I’m afraid some of the boys will aim at robots. It amuses them and it doesn’t hurt the robots. I’m the only adult human on the estate and when the boy saw you, he must have assumed you were a robot.”

Baley listened. His mind was clearing, and the natural dourness of his long face intensified. He said, “Bik, did you think I was a robot?”

“No,” said the youngster. “You’re an Earthman.”

“All right. Go now.”

Bik turned and raced off whistling. Baley turned to the robot. “You! How did the youngster know I was an Earthman, or weren’t you with him when he shot?”

“I was with him, master. I told him you were an Earthman.”

“Did you tell him what an Earthman was?”

“Yes, master.”

“What is an Earthman?”

“An inferior sort of human that ought not to be allowed on Solaria because he breeds disease, master.”

“And who told you that, boy?”

The robot maintained silence.

Baley said, “Do you know who told you?”

“I do not, master. It is in my memory store.”

“So you told the boy I was a disease-breeding inferior and he immediately shot at me. Why didn’t you stop him?”

“I would have, master. I would not have allowed harm to come to a human, even an Earthman. He moved too quickly and I was not fast enough.”

“Perhaps you thought I was just an Earthman, not completely a human, and hesitated a bit.”

“No, master.”

It was said with quiet calm, but Baley’s lips quirked grimly. The robot might deny it in all faith, but Baley felt that was exactly the factor involved.

Baley said, “What were you doing with the boy?”

“I was carrying his arrows, master.”

“May I see them?”

He held out his hand. The robot approached and delivered a dozen of them. Baley put the original arrow, the one that had hit the tree, carefully at his feet, and looked the others over one by one. He handed them back and lifted the original arrow again.

He said, “Why did you give this particular arrow to the boy?”

“No reason, master. He had asked for an arrow some time earlier and this was the one my hand touched first. He looked about for a target, then noticed you and asked who the strange human was. I explained——”

“I know what you explained. This arrow you handed him is the only one with gray vanes at the rear. The others have black vanes.”

The robot simply stared.

Baley said, “Did you guide the youngster here?”

“We walked randomly, master.”

The Earthman looked through the gap between two trees through which the arrow had hurled itself toward its mark. He said, “Would it happen, by any chance, that this youngster, Bik, was the best archer you have here?”

The robot bent his head. “He is the best, master.”

Klorissa gaped. “How did you ever come to guess that?”

“It follows,” said Baley dryly. “Now please observe this gray-vaned arrow and the others. The gray-vaned arrow is the only one that seems oily at the point. I’ll risk melodrama, ma’am, by saying that your warning saved my life. This arrow that missed me is poisoned.”