The Final Circle of Paradise

He heard my voice and raising his stern legs, pronounced: "Our temperature is two meters, twelve inches, there is no humidity, and what there isn't is not there."

"Repeat your orders," I said, approaching him.

He let the air out of his suction cups with a loud whistle, twitched his legs mindlessly, and ran up on the ceiling.

"Come down," I said sternly, "and answer my question."

He hung over my head, this poor long-obsolete cyber, intended for work an the asteroids, pitiable and out of place, covered with flakes of corrosion and blobs of black underground dirt.

"Get down," I barked.

He flung the dead rat at me and sped off into the dark.

"Basalts! Granites!" he yelled in different voices. "Pseudo-metamorphic types! I am over Berlin! Do you copy! Time to get to bed!"

I threw away the rod and followed him. He ran as far as the next lamp, came down, and began to dig the concrete rapidly, like a dog, with his heavy work manipulators. Poor chap, even in better times his brain was capable of performing properly only in less than one one-hundredth of a G, and now he was altogether out of his mind. I bent over him and began to search for the control center under his armor. "The rotters," I said aloud. The controls were peened over as though battered with a sledge. He stopped digging and grabbed me by the leg.

"Stop!" I shouted. "Desist!"

He desisted, lay down on his side, and informed me in a basso voice, "I am deathly tired of him, Eli. Now would be the time for a shot of brandy."

Contacts clicked inside him and music poured forth.

Hissing and whistling, he gave a rendition of the "Hunters' March." I was looking at him and thinking how stupid and repulsive it all was, how ridiculous and at the same time frightening. If I had not been a spaceman, if I had been frightened and run, he would almost certainly have killed me.

But nobody here knew I had been in space. Nobody. Not one person. Even Rimeyer didn't know.

"Get up," I said.

He buzzed and started to dig the wall, and I turned around and went back. All the time while I was returning to my turn-off I could hear him rattling and clanging in the pile of contorted rails, hissing with the electrowelder and ranting nonsense in two voices.

The anti-atomic door was already open, and I stepped over the sill, swinging it shut behind me.

"Well, how was it?" asked round-head.

"Dumb," I replied.

"I had no idea you were a spaceman. You have worked out on the planets?"

"I have. But it's still dumb. For fools. For illiterate keyed-up boobs."

"What kind?"

"Keyed-up."

"Well – there you got it wrong. Lots of people like it. Anyway, I told you to come at night. We don't have much amusement for singles." He poured some whiskey and added some soda from the siphon. "Would you like some?"

I took the glass and leaned on the railing. Eli gloomily regarded the screen, a cigarette sticking to his lip. On the screen careened shifting views of the glistening tunnel walls, twisted rails, black puddles, and flying sparks from the welder.

"That's not for me," I announced. "Let barbers and accountants enjoy it. Of course, I have nothing against them, but what I need is something the likes of which I have not seen in my entire life."

"So you don't know yourself what you want," said roundhead. "It's a hard case. Excuse me, you aren't an Intel?"

"Why?"

"Well, don't take offense – we are all equal before the grim reaper, you understand. What am I trying to say? That Intels are the most difficult clients, that's all. Isn't that right, Eli? If one of your barbers or bookkeepers comes here, he knows very well what it is he needs. He needs to get his blood going, to show off and be proud of himself, to get the girls squealing, and exhibit the punctures in his side. These fellows are simple, each one wants to consider himself a man.