Chapter IX

Jan and I went to Doc's house, inside a police cordon, for a discussion. We risked radiation by bringing Scharber along. We wanted to make sure that he wouldn't do anything vindictive, which might well have happened had we left him by himself.

Irma met us at the door. "Shane almost wishes now that the android process had remained just the property of the micro-Xians," she said. "That's how bad matters seem to him at this point."

Doc jumped to his feet as we entered his study. "Cope means to speak again tonight," he announced. "Cope, and about a hundred others of his crowd, from scattered radio and television stations. We know about what they'll say, more or less. Yeah--'Get rid of these mechanical demons while there are still less than thirty-thousand of them. Before it's too late! Kill the serpent! Return to simplicity! Do you know that even their radioactive metabolism is poisonous to us?'"

Doc paused and groaned. "The latter isn't even true," he went on. "At least not while an android is on Earth, breathing oxygen and living by chemical energy. Then the radiation of a subatomic tissue-process is suppressed almost to zero. But that's the way most of Cope's arguments go--they leap thinly to conclusions, without thinking matters out to any depth. But many people don't want to think deeply, or else they're too frightened. And tonight I suspect that Cope and his bunch will give the order to attack. Charlie, what are we going to do?"

I was in a cold sweat. "You know what we can try as a temporary relief measure, Doc," I said. "We can silence Cope and a few of the others--you know how. The only trouble is that there are so many of those loudmouths, and only you and I and maybe Jan who are in a position to do the only thing that can be done. We may not be able to shut up anywhere near enough of them to get over this danger spot, but we have to try."

Jan came over to me and pressed my hand, and it helped. She was always courageous and cool.

As it turned out, there were few speeches of Cope's kind made that night. Cope collapsed before the television lenses and the microphones. No, he didn't die; he had what looked very like an epileptic fit. He dropped before he uttered a word. He frothed at the mouth, he snored. He looked ridiculous, even mad.

Why all this happened was simple. It was an old Xian trick. A micro-android--Doc had transmigrated briefly again--was inside Cope's skull, tampering with his brain. The tiniest flash at lowest power from a jet rod directed against the proper nerve center, was how it was done.

Doc silenced another character called Minton. I gagged another pair of flannel-mouths named Trefford and Donalds the same way. Jan managed to fix one called Parkhurst. That made five of the worst who had been operating around Chicago. But it still left over ninety others. It worried us badly, until we got back home, and into normal-sized bodies, once more. Scharber had been a good boy, staying out of trouble beside Doc's television, with Irma.

"Not one of the others said much either," he announced quietly. "They all fell on their faces the same way." He paused for just a second before he added, "I wonder why?" his eyes oddly aglow.

"There could be only one answer to that, couldn't there?" Irma hinted.

Doc grinned reminiscently.

Jan smiled. "The elves of legend, the helpful ones," she chuckled. "Well, who knows but what there's a connection with those old folk tales? Legends frequently have a basis in fact. It seems that I remember a strange, deep little guy who lives way out in space, and down near the limit of smallness. His name was Kobolah, and lots of his people didn't believe that Earthians should be trusted. He almost got into trouble over that. But it appears that he still has lots of friends among his own kind who'd like to see the android become successful among us. It seems, further, that if Kobolah's particular asteroid world took off for the stars, already, as appeared to be intended, he and some pals have so far stayed behind. Or else it was just some pals of his who helped us. But who knows? Maybe we'll see him again. Anyway, his world was as wonderful a place as you could imagine. I wonder if there's anything more strange in the whole universe?"

As Jan's musing words ended, I saw a strange, speculative look in Scharber's face. Doc's eyes were soft for a second.

"I guess that miniature things still intrigue me," he said. "But we're tied up with bigger facts now. I think we've won a temporary peace, but I'll bet that that's all it will be--temporary. Even if Cope and the rest of the same crop stop shouting, now, there'll be others to do just as they did. In a day or two we'll know for sure."

* * * * *

Doc was right. On the very next evening Armand Cope was on the air again, frightened, but determined. "This treachery of last night, even though I do not understand its method, makes me even better aware that this is a fight to the finish," he growled. "A fight against a hideous thing, to which there can be no end except victory or death. As long as I am a man, I shall be proud...."

Doc shrugged mildly. "I'd almost say 'Blah, tiresome fool!'" he remarked. "But it wouldn't be fair. Cope stubbornly believes what he says, I'm sure. It's etched into his nature. To a lesser degree with most, it's the same with many others. So, this is it."

The following evening, Doc made his suggestions over the air, speaking from his house:

"I am addressing those, who, in the eyes of some, have ceased to be human. But perhaps the term, 'android' should be dropped entirely. We are men in form, mind, emotion, aim, and pleasure--let there be no instinctive, sullen, backward doubt of that! Our shape and our organs are human. We have sprung from man's aspirations, and his quest for more knowledge and better living. Though the knowhow of our living was borrowed from another people, it would have come to men on Earth in time, and by their own efforts. We are thus, simply, a far hardier variety of what humans have always been. To those who are weaker, troubled by fear, less understanding, we should be generous, until more time lets them realize these truths. Therefore, I suggest that we leave the Earth to them, going outward where our powers permit us to go freely."

That is how it has been. Among the androids, as if the interstellar regions was their natural habitat, Dr. Lanvin's hint took hold at once. On Earth, tension eased gradually, until even Armand Cope's voice sounded puzzled, and then sank to silence.

But let me tell about a side-event. Doc found a toy-sized craft in his workshop, a ship with tapered bow and stern, and retractable airfoils. It was less than an inch long. Need I say how we boarded it--Doc, Jan, and I? Or how later, we and one Kobolah, conversed under the scope of a micro-manipulator, while Scharber and Doc's Irma took turns watching us through the lenses?

We thanked the tiny Xian for all his help. We saw his electronic visual filaments blink over his eyes when Jan suggested:

"Kobolah, you could be cast in a larger form like the old Xians. You could go with Dr. Lanvin in the first ship to leave for the solar system of Sirius."

"Maybe--someday," he buzzed in answer. "Not now. To Sirius? I'm going there, anyway with my own people soon. Time? There is plenty--for everything. May you make few errors."

Then, with his jet rod he blasted off into the air. Within a minute, his ship, aboard which were hundreds of his kind that we had seen, spat blue fire, and darted out of the open window.

Scharber chuckled almost wistfully. "Micro-androids," he said. "Strangest thing I ever saw. Why didn't he take me with him? Got to start seeing the outer-universe somewhere. Why not in miniature? Darn, androids can go anywhere."