Tales Of Known Space Part 14

"Look at that metal idiot. He's still waiting for our order. You! Get us two Vurguuz martinis." The pop-art barber pole rose an inch from the floor and slid off. "Where was I?

"Oh, yeah. The place wasn't crowded, which was a break. We picked a table, and I showed Dreamer how to punch the summons b.u.t.ton to call a waiter. We already called them waiters, but they didn't look anything like the ones here. They were nothing but double-decker serving trays on wheels, with senses and motors and a typewriter all packed into one end."

"Ran on wheels, too, I'll bet."

"Yah. Noisy. But in those days it was impressive. Dreamer was bug-eyed. When that animated tray came for our orders he just stared. I ordered for both of us.

"We downed our drinks and had another round. Dreamer told me about the Advertisers'

Club that somehow got formed in his cell block. The cigarette men could have controlled it to the eyes, there were so many of them, but they couldn't agree on anything. What they really wanted to do was form a convicts lobby in Was.h.i.+ngton."

The waiter appeared with the martinis.

"Anyway, we had our drinks and ordered. Identical meals, because Dreamer still wasn't capable of making a decision. He kept staring around, grinning.

"The waiter brought us shrimp c.o.c.ktails. While we were eating, Dreamer tried to pump me on who might have the advertising concession on the robots. Not on the restaurant, but on all the automatic machinery. There he was, knowing nothing about computers, but all ready to go out and sell them. I tried to tell him he'd picked a good way to get back in Quentin, but he wouldn't listen.

"We finished the shrimp, and the waiter brought us two more shrimp c.o.c.ktails. Dreamer said, 'What's this?'

" 'I must have typed wrong,' I told him.

'I wanted two lunches, but the d.a.m.n thing is bringing us two lunches each."

"Dreamer laughed.

'I'll eat them both,' he said, and did.

'Ten years is a long time between shrimp c.o.c.ktails,' he said.

"The waiter took our empty cups away and brought us two more shrimp c.o.c.ktails.

"'This is too much of a good thing,' said Dreamer. 'Where do I go to talk to the manager?'

"'I told you, it's all automatic. The manager's a computer in the bas.e.m.e.nt.'

"'Does it have an audio circuit for complaints?'

" 'I think so.'

" 'Where do I find it?'

"I looked around, trying to remember.

'Over there. Past the payment counter. But I don't--"

"Dreamer got up. 'I'll be right back.' he said.

"He was, too. He came back within seconds, and he was shaking.

'I couldn't get out of the dining room,' he told me.

'The payment counter wouldn't let me by. There was a barrier. I tried to give it some money, but nothing happened. When I tried to go over the barrier, I got an electric shock!'

"'That's for deadbeats. It won't let you by until you pay for your lunch. You can't pay until you get a bill from the waiter.'

"'Well, let's pay and get out. This place scares me.'

"So I pushed the summons b.u.t.ton, and the waiter came. Before I could reach the typer it had given us two more shrimp c.o.c.ktails and moved away.

"'This is ridiculous,' said Dreamer.

'Look, suppose I get up and stand around at the other side of the table. That way you can reach the typer when it delivers the next round, because I'll be blocking it from leaving.'

"We tried it. The thing wouldn't come to our table until Dreamer sat down. Didn't recognize him standing up, maybe. Then it served two more shrimp c.o.c.ktails, and Dreamer got up quick and moved behind it. I had my hands on the typer when it backed off and knocked Dreamer flat.

"He got so mad, he stood up and kicked the first, waiter that came by. The waiter shocked him good, and while he was getting up the thing tossed him a printed message to the effect that robot waiters were expensive and delicate and he shouldn't do that."

"That's true," Masney said, deadpan.

"He shouldn't."

"I'd have been helping him do it, but I wasn't sure what those machines would do next.

So I stayed in my seat and planned what I'd do to the guy who invented robot waiters, if I ever got out of there to track him down.

"Dreamer got up shaking his head. Then he started trying to get help from the other diners. I could have told him that wouldn't work. n.o.body wanted to get involved. In the big cities they never do. Finally one of the waiters shot a slip at him that told him to stop bothering the other diners, only it was more polite than that.

"He came back to our table, but this time he didn't sit down. He looked scared.

'Listen, Garner,' he said, 'I'm going to try the kitchen. You stay here. I'll bring help.' And he turned and started away.

"I yelled, 'Come back here! We'll be all right if--" But by that time he was out of earshot, heading for the kitchen door. I know he heard me shout. He just didn't want to be stopped.

"The door was only four feet tall, because it was built for robots. Dreamer ducked under it and was gone. I didn't dare go after him. If he made it, fine, I'd have help. I didn't think he would.

"There was one more thing I wanted to try. I pushed the summons b.u.t.ton, and when the waiter came with two more shrimp c.o.c.ktails I typed 'Phone' before it could get away."

"To phone Headquarters? You should have tried that earlier."

"Sure. But it didn't work. The waiter scooted off and brought me another shrimp c.o.c.ktail.

"So I waited. By and by everyone disappeared, and I was alone in the Herr Ober.

Whenever I got hungry enough I'd eat some crackers or a shrimp c.o.c.ktail. The waiter kept bringing me more water and more shrimp c.o.c.ktails, so that was all right.

"I left notes on some tables, so that when the dinner- time crowd showed up they'd be warned. But the waiters removed the notes as fast as I wrote them. Keeping things neat.

I quit that and waited for rescue.

"n.o.body came to rescue me. Dreamer never came back.

"Six o'clock, and the place filled up again. Along about nine, three couples at a nearby table started getting an endless supply of canapes Lorenzo. I watched them. Eventually they got so mad that the six of them circled the waiter and picked it up. The waiter spun its wheels madly, and then it shocked them and they dropped it. It fell on one man's foot.

Everyone in the place panicked. When the dust cleared there were only the seven of us left.

"The others were trying to decide what to do about the guy with his foot under the waiter. They were afraid to touch the waiter, of course. It wouldn't have taken my order, because I wasn't at one of its tables, but I got one of the others to type an order for aspirin, and off it went.

"So I got the six of them back to their table and told them not to move. One of the girls had sleeping pills. I fed three to the guy with the smashed foot.

"And so we waited."

"I hate to ask," said Masney, "but what were you waiting for?"

"Closing time!"

"Oh, of course. Then what?"

"At two o'clock our waiters stopped bringing us shrimp c.o.c.ktails and canapes Lorenzo and brought us our bills. You wouldn't believe what they charged me for all those shrimp c.o.c.ktails... We paid our bills and left, carrying the guy with the smashed foot.

"We took him to a hospital, and then we got to a phone and called everybody in sight.

Next day the Herr Ober was closed for repairs. It never reopened."

"What about Dreamer?"

"He's one reason the place never reopened. Never found him."

"He couldn't just disappear."

"Couldn't he?"

"Could he?"

"Sometimes I think he must have taken advantage of the publicity. Started life over somewhere else, with no prison record. And then I remember that he went into a fully automated kitchen, through a door that wasn't built for humans. That kitchen machinery could handle full- sized sides of beef. Dreamer obviously wasn't a robot. What would the kitchen machinery take him for'?"

Masney thought about it.

It came to Masney as they were finis.h.i.+ng desert.

"Mmb!" he said.

"Mmmb!" And he swallowed frantically.

"You fink! You were sent straight from Homicide branch to Superintendent. You never had anything to do with the Intent to Deceive Branch!"

"I thought you'd catch that."

"But why would you lie?"

"You kept bugging me about why I hated robot waiters. I had to say something."

"All right. You conned me. Now, why do you hate robot waiters?"

"I don't. You just happened to look up at the wrong time. I was thinking how silly our waiter looked in his ground-effect miniskirt."

Cloak oF Anarchy SQUARE TN THE middle of what used to be the San Diego Freeway, I leaned back against a huge, twisted oak. The old bark was rough and powdery against my bare back.

There was dark green shade shot with tight parallel beams of white gold. Long gra.s.s tickled my legs.

Forty yards away across a wide strip of lawn was a clump of elms, and a small grandmotherly woman sitting on a green towel. She looked like she'd grown there. A stalk of gra.s.s protruded between her teeth. I felt we were kindred spirits, and once when I caught her eye I wiggled a forefinger at her, and she waved back.

In a minute now I'd have to be getting up. Jill was metting me at the Wils.h.i.+re exits in half an hour. But I'd started walking at the Sunset Boulevard ramps, and I was tired. A minute more...

It was a good place to watch the world rotate.

A good day for it, too. No clouds at all. On this hot blue summer afternoon, King's Free Park was as crowded as it ever gets.

Someone at police headquarters had expected that. Twice the usual number of copseyes floated overhead, waiting. Gold dots against blue, basketball-sized, twelve feet up. Each a television eye and a sonic stunner, each a hookup to police headquarters, they were there to enforce the law of the Park.

No violence.

No hand to be raised against another--and no other laws whatever. Life was often entertaining in a Free Park.

North toward Sunset, a man carried a white rectangular sign, blank on both sides. He was parading back and forth in front of a square-jawed youth on a plastic box, who was trying to lecture him on the subject of fusion power and the heat pollution problem. Even this far away I could hear the conviction and the dedication in his voice.

South, a handful of yelling marksmen were throwing rocks at a copseye, directed by a gesticulating man with wild black hair. The golden basketball was dodging the rocks, but barely. Some cop was baiting them. I wondered where they had got the rocks. Rocks were scarce in King's Free Park.

The black-haired man looked familiar. I watched him and his horde chasing the copseye... then forgot them when a girl walked out of a clump of elms.

She was lovely. Long, perfect legs, deep red hair worn longer than shoulder length, the face of an arrogant angel, and a body so perfect that it seemed unreal, like an adolescent's daydream. Her walk showed training; possibly she was a model, or dancer. Her only garment was a cloak of glowing blue velvet.

It was fifteen yards long, that cloak. It trailed backfrom two big gold disks that were stuck somehow to the skin of her shoulders. It trailed back and back, floating at a height of five feet all the way, twisting and turning to trace her path through the trees. She seemed like the ill.u.s.tration in a book of fairy tales, bearing in mind that the original fairy tales were not intended for children.

Neither was she. You could hear neck vertebrae popping all over the Park. Even the rock-throwers had stopped to watch.

She could sense the attention, or hear it in a whisper of sighs. It was what she was here for. She strolled along with a condescending angel's smile on her angel's face, not overdoing the walk, but letting it flow. She turned, regardless of whether there were obstacles to avoid, so that fifteen yards of flowing cloak could follow the curve.

I smiled, watching her go. She was lovely from the back, with dimples.

The man who stepped up to her a little farther on was the same one who had led the rock-throwers. Wild black hair and beard, hollow cheeks and deep-set eyes, a diffident smile and a diffident walk... Ron Cole. Of course.

I didn't hear what he said to the girl in the cloak, but I saw the result. He flinched, then turned abruptly and walked away with his eyes on his feet.

I got up and moved to intercept him.

"Don't take it personal," I said.

He looked up, startled. His voice, when it came, was bitter.